For the next two weeks, Yu Jitae spent the night with Bom. It was because they couldn’t leave Clone 2 and the witch by themselves when they were spending the night together.
The extreme mindset of Clone 2 that he would rather erase the exclamation mark between his legs than give his body to the witch, forced the witch to psychologically seduce the clone.
As long as Clone 2 could withstand that temptation, the witch would help Yu Jitae and the Association as they had planned.
At night,
After the kids fell asleep,
Yu Jitae walked into Bom’s room and indifferently placed one of his knees on the bed, but Bom was sitting in the middle of the bed without giving him space to sit.
“Move aside a bit.” He said.
“No. Don’t come please.”
Curiously, he asked.
“Why.”
“Just because.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“What does that even mean.”
When he continued pushing his body forward, Bom reached her feeble arms out and pushed his chest away.
“What now.”
“Nnn…”
She shook her head, with an afraid look on her face for some reason.
It wasn’t like he found it a shame that he couldn’t sit on the bed, but weren’t they both fine with the idea of sitting on the same bed till now? Since there was no reason to be conscious of that for both of them, it had been something natural but not today.
What was wrong with her?
He quietly pondered on her decision-making process but that seemed to have caused a misunderstanding.
Bom carefully asked.
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Do you, really have to come here…?”
“No. It’s alright.”
He couldn’t really understand what she was thinking. Besides, he didn’t need to be right next to Bom in the first place for what they were planning to do.
Walking away from the bed, he sat on the chair next to the bed and held her hand, before sharing the situation with Clone 2.
Sitting on the chair, he gazed at the bed. Her face being illuminated by the moonlight within the darkness pulled his gaze in. Strangely enough, his eyes kept going there.
It was fortunate that there was a gap between them. He fixed his gaze on the sky outside the window.
Thanks to that, Clone 2 – the young Yu Jitae was able to go through the night without a problem despite being with Valentine the witch.
*
“You will spend the night together but not lie down with me…?”
The witch frowned as Clone 2 nodded with a relaxed look on his face. She realised that this request was a continuation of their ‘two-way requests’.
“Then I will hug you to sleep on the last day.”
“Hug, to sleep?”
“Yes. With my skin touching yours.”
Touching skins – that blunt expression frightened Clone 2. Even Bom appeared slightly flustered but she quickly regained her composure and replied.
“Okay.”
Thus, the witch sat leaning on the backrest next to Clone 2 and spent the night with her hand holding his. She too was the cream of the crop among the superhumans and sitting still wasn’t at all uncomfortable.
But it was true that it was a little bit of a letdown.
Since there was no time limit for caressing his hair, the witch raised her hand and decided to caress the hair of the boy while he was lying down on the bed.
“Have you caressed someone else’s hair before?” Clone 2 asked.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because it feels nice.”
Hearing that, the witch suddenly gripped a little bit harder. Holding onto the short hair strands of Clone 2, she abruptly pushed her face forward.
“Those words are quite irritating to hear. Do you think I’m doing this to make you feel nice?”
Clone 2 suddenly turned stiff; even more so than when the witch was being aggressive with physical contact. ‘…?’ The witch often felt a small sense of doubt when seeing the small changes in the boy’s expression or actions.
“Ah… sorry. I was only trying to say that your hands were very natural.”
“Hnn… I will let it be. So, what do you think.”
“Sorry? Ahh, I think there would have been one.”
“…”
“There was, right? When was it, and who was it?”
“Hmm… it was a long time ago.”
Clone 2 spoke to the witch.
“About 40 years ago, I had a puppy.”
The witch started speaking as Clone 2 quietly listened.
“A puppy? A small and cute puppy?”
And sometimes, the clone added several questions so that the witch would continue with her speech.
“No. A human.”
“Oh…”
“He was small and cute though.”
Bom smoothly opened up the witch’s heart, and the lonely witch enjoyed talking about herself. For the next 2 weeks, Yu Jitae and Bom spent the night listening to the stories of the witch.
“Boy. What a very good listener you are.”
Thanks to that, they at last succeeded in opening the witch’s heart. Now, she would lend Yu Jitae a hand when he needs it, by using the dimensional magic that only she can manage.
They managed to pull it off.
They listened all night long to the chatters of the old lady, but there was no time for him to rest.
The next morning, while the floating island Haytling was floating above the Indian Ocean, Yu Jitae left early in the morning to go to the store before returning to Unit 301.
The breakfast menu for that day was steak; the reason being that Kaeul wanted to have some steaks. He cursorily sliced the meat and added salt, pepper and oil, before frying it on a pan of butter.
Beef was beef after all. He cooked it without much care and yet it still gave off a great smell. Once the delectable scent of the cooking meat spread across Unit 301, a door was swung wide open from the other side of the corridor. Standing behind it was Kaeul in her pyjamas.
“Uwah. The smell is crazyyy~~”
With sleep marks covering her face, Kaeul giggled, ‘Hehe’ while running towards the kitchen.
“Meat?” She asked.
“Meat.” He replied.
“Meat meat?”
“Beef.”
“Uhihihi–. Did you buy it because of my request?!”
“Yeah.”
“Ahjussi, you’re seriously so cool!”
Kaeul banged the table repeatedly with her two hands both holding folks. Hearing the fuss, Bom, Yeorum and Gyeoul all came towards the kitchen.
Seeing Bom, Kaeul widened her eyes into circles. It was her first time seeing her in 10 days.
“Nn? Nn? Unniiii!”
Kaeul ran to her with a bright smile on her face and threw her arms wide open. Bom smiled back as she hugged Kaeul.
“What! Unni, when did you come out?! Are you feeling better now?”
“Nn. Sorry. Were you worried?”
“Nn nn. Aht…”
Kaeul threw a furtive glance at Yeorum who was taking milk out from the fridge. Then, she placed her hand near her mouth like one of those middle-aged chatterboxes of the town before whispering to Bom.
“Did you make up…?”
“Nn.”
“Really…? How…?”
Bom caressed Kaeul’s hair and smiled.
“I begged. Saying sorry.”
“Ehng? Why?”
“Because it was my fault.”
“Ahh…”
Did they really make up? Since Unit 301 had felt as if it was full of thorns for the past few days, Kaeul nervously gazed at the two of them. She soon found Gyeoul doing the same thing. Gyeoul also appeared nervous as she looked at Bom and Yeorum staying in the same place.
That was when Yeorum used her fork to pick up a red piece of meat that was still uncooked.
“Hmm. Meat is best served rare.”
“But isn’t that too raw?” Bom asked.
“What do you mean. I eat raw meat in the first place,” replied Yeorum.
“Ah, right.”
“You sometimes forget you’re a dragon, don’t you.”
“I know right.”
“Oh yeah. I was always curious, but what does your race usually eat?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. Broccoli?”
Yeorum and Bom both giggled after that.
…So they really did make up!
Kaeul and Gyeoul both felt peace watching the two interact. Suddenly, Gyeoul became curious as she whispered a question into Kaeul’s ears.
“Unni.”
“Nn?”
“…What is, a broccoli?”
“Ahh. It’s circular, fluffy and tastes bad…!”
Gyeoul didn’t know what it was, so she imagined what it would look like.
Circular. Fluffy. Tastes bad.
The circular thing she thought of was a ball.
Fluffy would be a puppy.
Tasting bad, would have to be fermented skate.
Adding these together, she imagined a ball made by squeezing fermented skates together that had fur for some reason… Hmm, she didn’t know why, but it appeared disgusting. Thinking that, Gyeoul asked yet again.
“…What else?”
“It’s green.”
“…?”
The first thing that she thought of after hearing the colour was Bom. Staring at Bom’s hair colour, she curiously repeated tilting her head until Kaeul showed her a picture of a broccoli with her watch.
“…Ohh.”
Gyeoul started glancing at Bom after seeing the picture of a broccoli. That was when Bom suddenly turned and looked back at her.
“What’s wrong Gyeoul?”
“…Nothing, is wrong?”
“I don’t look anything like it. Don’t compare me with something like that.”
“…Aht.”
Kaeul bursted into laughter and chuckled out loud.
However, that didn’t mean that their dining table was fully harmonious.
There was a slightly bizarre atmosphere.
When Yu Jitae tried to stab a piece of meat with the fork, Yeorum snatched it before he could and threw it into her mouth. And when Yu Jitae tried to stab a different piece of meat, Yeorum again stole it before he could. After that continued several times, Yu Jitae was simply moving the fork back and forth, as if he was chanting a spell.
“What you doing?” He asked.
“What am I doing?”
Yu Jitae raised the fork and so did Yeorum. When he placed it down, she did too.
“Let me have some meat as well.”
Yeorum frowned in response.
Soon, after Yu Jitae successfully ate a piece of meat, Yeorum didn’t even spare a glance at the plate of meat that his fork had touched. She treated it as if the plate had been in the sewers.
“Hang…?”
“……?”
Even Kaeul with her slow mood-reading skills and Gyeoul were able to immediately tell that something was bizarre.
However, Yu Jitae didn’t say anything about it nor did Yeorum do anything else that was strange. Thus, their breakfast table looked quite harmonious on the outside.
That was more than enough for the time being for Kaeul and Gyeoul.
“…”
Yu Jitae looked at Yeorum several times but she did not return the gaze. It seemed that she was intentionally avoiding eye contact with him.
He was curious what the reason was, but decided to let it be for the time being since the red race always acted as they pleased. She would be back to normal when she was in a good mood, he thought.
Today was the 11th of September, the end of the Great War. It was a public holiday worldwide and all the facilities of Lair including Gyeoul’s elementary school were closed.
The kids sat next to each other in the dormitory and enjoyed board games with the protector, but when they were playing jenga, the protector felt slightly mortified.
Crumble—
“Wahh, Cleaner Ahjussi, you lost!”
“…Idiot.”
“Get down, you steel pot.”
Kwang kwang kwang!!
The protector had his back struck several times. Since the kids were all dragons, even the protector felt pain after having his back armour struck by them.
Gururuk…! The protector grumbled before opening its mouth.
“This is unfair, esteemed young ladies.”
“Why?”
“This is not fair. Aren’t my hands too blunt?”
The protector pushed his hands forward. He was 235 centimetres tall, and his hands were also large while metal gauntlets covered those large hands of his. Besides, there were spikes above the thick gauntlets so his physical body was extremely unsuited for jenga.
“Not fair my ass. Take your gloves off if you think it’s unfair.”
“Hooh? Right! Ahjussi, try taking your helmet off!”
“…Ohh.”
The red eyes of the protector blinked.
“Yes?”
Bored from all the jenga, the kids finally found a new board game.
Now that they thought about it, the protector had never taken its clothes off and its natural appearance was with the armour on. Suddenly, the kids were curious of what was inside the armour.
Before long, all the kids excluding Bom ran up and began pulling the helmet and armour out.
“Y, you cannot do that. Aahht… Please…”
It couldn’t hurt the kids nor take off its armour which was the same as its skin and flesh, so the protector had to shed cold sweats for a long time.
Meanwhile, Yu Jitae who wasn’t playing with the children was staring at the baby chicken.
Chirpy, the baby chicken, was dozing off but slowly opened its eyes due to all the fuss that was happening outside. After shaking its large head, it raised its heavy body and headed to a corner of Kaeul’s room.
Now, it could flutter its wings faintly and still float its body with mana. The large baby chicken stared off into the distance outside the window.
Yu Jitae confirmed the gaze of the baby chicken.
He also listened to the baby chicken murmur.
“Chirp chirp…”
*
That night.
“Unni unni. Do you know how tiring it was when you weren’t there?”
“Nn? Ahh. Sorry. Should I teach you today as well?”
Kaeul walked out of the dormitory with Bom to learn healing magic.
“Oi. Let’s go out and do ‘that’.”
“…That? Ah.”
Gyeoul and Yeorum also left for the training centre for the anger management training.
Left alone, Yu Jitae gazed at Kaeul’s room. When the baby chicken stealthily opened the door of her wardrobe, his gaze turned a level sharper.
After opening the wardrobe, the baby chicken carefully began using its beak to push the clothes that Kaeul casually threw inside it.
Under the pile of clothes was a freshman magic studies textbook which Kaeul hadn’t touched for months. This book was a very large one but after the baby chicken pushed it off to the side, a circular hole was revealed from behind it.
It was a hole made by the baby chicken who carefully bit through it with its beak. Even the Count of Monte Cristo would be dumbfounded by its skills.
Chirpy pushed its body through it and soon began rushing somewhere.
Yu Jitae raised his body.
That day, Chirpy’s murmurs were different from normal.
– Not much time left…
The time was slowly approaching.
Yu Jitae was aware of all that. He followed the unsteadily flying baby chicken from a distance.
After entering the ‘restricted entry district’, the baby chicken entered District C0-47 – the area where the old research institute had been. It also used to be the hideout of demons but was empty after Wei Yan’s death.
The baby chicken began walking whilst twitching its large butt. After crossing the building, the fence and following the underground corridor to somewhere below.
A scenery which would frighten the managers of the restricted entry district was waiting there for Yu Jitae.