Chapter 24 – The Feeling of Loss
“…”
I am sitting in a daze in a funeral hall filled with the quiet noise and smell of incense made by mourners.
I’m not tired even though I haven’t slept and it’s past dawn. I didn’t eat anything, but I wasn’t hungry either.
Instead of the bright shirt I was wearing until a few hours ago, I’m wearing a black suit that’s a little too big for me, and I’m sitting there blankly.
“Choi Woo-joo, Dad will be in first with Mom… Well, um… Come in when you calm down.”
“…”
Likewise, I nodded to my dad in a black suit and my crying mom in his wide arms.
Jaehyuk is dead.
After receiving a call from her mother that she was ‘hit by a bus’, she rushed to the hospital at her address, but,
All I could see was Jaehyuk, who was wearing a reddish cloth over his head. His face could not be identified.
It is said that the face was the most severely damaged, so no one except Jaehyeok’s parents saw his face.
“Uhhhhh…! Hhhhh…!”
From the inside, I can hear the sound of my mother crying bitterly.
At the hospital, her mother, who hadn’t cried even after being told by the doctor that she was dead, hangs her head at the sound of crying.
Even yesterday, the guy I saw face to face and drank coffee with died. On the way back from meeting me.
My head is dizzy. Why? Why am I doing this…
“…Are you okay?”
“…No, it’s not okay.”
Someone’s footsteps cause ripples on the surface of the soju in the glass,
When the footsteps stop by my side, a calm and quiet voice, unlike usual, puts a hand on my shoulder.
“…Did you go into the house? Your hair is messed up… Don’t just sit around like that, go in and take a rest.”
“I’ll take care of it. For now… I’m just going to sit like this.”
Choi Choi Eun who played with Jaehyuk since childhood. My eyes were a little red from where I was crying.
Go Eun, who carefully removes his hand from his shoulder and sits next to me without saying a word, holds her legs in his arms.
Then he gave a small ‘sniff’ and blew his nose, then quietly trembled.
I hate it, it’s boring, why the hell is Jaehyuk? I thought today would be the same as any other day, but why?
I don’t even remember who put it in front of me, I move the glass to my mouth and take out a pack of cigarettes from my arms.
“…All opened.”
I can’t remember when I finished smoking.
I crumpled an empty cigarette pack and patted my head in memory of vague memories from yesterday.
“…Where are you going?”
“I’ll just buy a cigarette and be right back. Wait.”
I stand up with the jacket in my hand without looking back at Go-eun who catches me with a trembling voice.
There must have been a convenience store on the first floor… Maybe I was drunk before I knew it, and I put on my shoes with my legs moving freely.
Leaning my swaying body against the wall and walking down the cold hallway, I saw an unfamiliar yet familiar silhouette walking this way from far away.
“…You…”
The dark shadows getting closer to me, echoing the clear sound of shoes hitting the floor in the hallway.
A black suit and skirt, and darker black hair than the suit, and a woman with slightly open eyes.
“…I’m sorry to see you here. Really.”
“…I see.”
It was Noah Kwon.
* *
“I’ll have a little fire… Oh, thank you.”
“…Does it look like you smoke?”
Her smoking area, which was prepared in the corner of her funeral, lights her up as she stands with her cigarette lit before she knows it.
Noah, who was spitting out thick smoke, smoked a cigarette in silence once more and looked straight ahead.
Sitting side by side on her bench, looking up at the sky, whether it is late at night or dawn, quietly spit out smoke.
“…”
“…”
As much as her performance, her suffocating silence, in the end I decided to ask her first.
“…It’s a question that could be rude, but I think I should ask.”
“What is it?”
“Why do I think you’re here for some other reason?
No, should I ask how you came to know about the funeral?”
It was a situation that was too unnatural to pass on in sadness.
I was the last person Jaehyuk met who passed away in a sudden accident, but there were two others.
They were two suspicious women who were talking at the same cafe, Kwon Noah and Isabelle Kang.
I thought it might be just a deep suspicion, a hasty suspicion containing personal feelings, but I couldn’t wash away the uncomfortable feeling at all.
I vomited out a word while enduring the feeling of contempt that had built up in me, like a piece of trash trying to make someone else responsible for my friend’s death.
“I have to ask you guys this time, what did you do to Jaehyuk…?”
“…Jaehyuk’s death was not our intention.”
A single word from Noah removed the disgust and sorrow towards me that had been holding her in her heart.
“…What?”
“I’ll apologize first. I’m really sorry. Jaehyuk’s death was not part of our plans.
Jaehyuk, who learned of the mask and our existence, was scheduled to be amnesticized for about 48 hours.
In the process, due to Agent Isabelle Kang’s dogma, Jae-hyeok-san arrived earlier than planned…”
Tinnitus rings in the ears.
“The amnesia drug was administered, and Jae-hyeok, who was in a state of confusion due to the side effects of the drug, got into a moving bus…”
“…Why? What did that bastard do wrong…? I was the one who picked up the mask, but why Jaehyuk…?”
“It’s our negligence. We didn’t properly consider civilian casualties during the operation.
Regarding the damage compensation, don’t worry because the headquarters will come directly after the operation is over—”
The cigarette in his hand went out in no time.
Noah is talking about compensation to me who is standing in a daze.
That voice doesn’t come into my head. My heart is beating like crazy.
“And with things like this, we need to move the plan forward.”
“…”
Click–
My eyes drop at the cold touch of my hand on the bench.
Black, steel cooled in the night air. A pistol that feels heavy when you hold it in your hand.
It was not a model or toy, but a real pistol with a silencer attached.
Noah said, looking straight into my eyes, where tears began to fall, and smiling with sympathy.
“Universe, don’t you sacrifice for many lives you can still get?”
“… What did you say now?”
“There was one more thing to apologize to the universe, in fact, there is no way to save a man or a woman who is a master.
The owner is taken away from the mask and becomes a slave, and the saint is just a monster who lost humanity.
If the owner dies with his energy, the mask will find a new man with a recovery power and forcibly sign a contract.
The new owner creates a new saint, dies, and the new master, the vicious cycle of creating a new master. “
Noah smiled with a gently wrapped in my hand with his pistol.
“The only way to destroy the contract of the mask and the owner is the death of the owner.
Perhaps the only opportunity you can die as a human being, the opportunity to keep your loved one.
I’ll promise. Those who will die and leave the universe will be responsible for, and we will keep our masks so that the owner of the mask does not come out. “
“…”
Noah moves my hand slowly and puts a muzzle under my chin.
And put my fingers on the trigger.
“If you need to be ready, you can give you any time.
If you have any questions, I can answer anything. “
“… Do you answer anything?”
“Yes, it’s a natural consideration for those who are ready to sacrifice.”
Sighs with trembling hands, tears flowing on the cheeks, and smoke.
And it’s ridiculous and leaks out of this situation.
“If you need my sacrifice, why didn’t you say yesterday? Why did you say that you can get me.”
Noah’s eyebrows, who had a gentle smile, wrote a bit.
“That’s … Yesterday, Jaehyuk was in his seat, and I can’t understand the sacrifice of the universe …”
“Ha, haha … It doesn’t make sense … I’m not going to give up if I don’t understand my sacrifice.
Even if Jaehyuk is not convinced, why do you have a memory?
I’m asking you why you’re lying now. Answer, fuck. “
Put the muzzle under the chin on the forehead of Noah.
“…”
Noah, who looked at my eyes with thin eyes, seemed to have a small tongue because of her mood.
Noah sighed and showed a cold eyes.
“… Izabel’s sister couldn’t even handle it.
The civilians who were caught in the operation died, it doesn’t end to the disciplinary level. Do you know what you mean?
The universe, the owner of anomaly who passed the life line, if you only die, I will bury this event naturally.
I haven’t reported it to the headquarters yet, so it’s neat to report that the owner who passed the life line murdered his friend and was forced to kill it. “
Noah, who confesses so cool, falls to the floor.
These guys manage masks? Protect people? Jaehyuk died because of these guys?
“… You should have said ‘I’m sorry’ first.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry. To Jaehyuk and for the universe.
But what I said earlier is true. If Mr. Wu makes a sacrifice, maybe he can save others.
It’s easy to retrieve a mask whose contract was forcibly broken. So-“
Clap-
The same coolness in your hand that you feel under your chin. I rolled my eyes down and saw a small pistol aimed at my chin.
“The one Mr. Woojoo has now is an empty gun. It was tested on you once.
Whether you really make a reasonable judgment for humanity or whether you will eventually reveal your true colors, in the end it’s the latter.
Oh… How nice it would have been if he had just died with the confidence that he was a hero who sacrificed himself for humanity. It’s just dog death…”
“…Maybe so. It’s all my fault…”
With a sense of loss as if his heart had been pierced, he threw the gun he had pointed at Noah’s forehead to the floor.
It was all my fault It was my fault that I picked up the mask and that Jaehyuk died because of it.
If one day I lose my humanity and become a slave to the mask, if I make more saints and sacrifice people,
It might have been better to sacrifice for everyone, as Noah said.
“But you gave me confidence, thank you…”
“Eh…? What are you talking about… Ugh?!”
A small hand grabbed Noah’s wrist as he was startled and pointed the gun behind him.
The eyes of someone who held that wrist were sparkling in the color of jade, and the letters meaning ‘slave’ remained like a stigma on their foreheads.
“Sir, the saintess…?! No, there was definitely no reaction…! Ah, ah…!!”
“…”
Go-eun twists Noah’s wrist with an emotionless face.
The pistol fell from Noah’s hand and hit the floor.
I remember the question Isabelle asked me yesterday.
‘There are a total of 2 saints I have detected.’
Said Isabelle. It must mean that they either have something to detect a saint, or know how to do it.
That’s why there’s no way they’ll be able to detect the existence of Go Eun. Because Ko Eun is only a ‘slave’, she is not a saint.
“Uh, Mr. Woojoo…! This is, what the hell…! A new being whose mask isn’t a saint… Are you crazy?!”
“I used to think I was crazy too. Maybe I’m going crazy right now.
But I just found out thanks to you and a woman named Isabelle. I’m more sane now than ever.”
At the point where Noah handed me the pistol earlier, I shouted Go-eun’s name in my mind.
Whether it would be possible was another matter, but she anxiously called Go Eun’s name 10, 20, 50, and 100 times.
I had no intention of letting go of the year I confessed to killing Jaehyuk.
It was the first attempt with that desperate effort, but I never thought it would work.
“Mr. Woo, Mr. Woo… Think carefully again. Who do you think you will be after you die?
When you die, the women you made into saints also die! And after that? A new owner of the mask appears.
The precious people that Mr. Woo-Joo-san left behind… It could make your mother or other family members into saints!!”
“…I’m not dying.”
“Yes…?”
“I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to sacrifice myself to be nice to a girl like you.
Thanks to you guys, I have a strange confidence. Maybe I’ll never die.”
Wiping the tear marks with her sleeve, she reaches out to Go Eun, who is holding Noah.
Then, Go-eun took out the mask she had brought from her bosom and put it in my hand.
I stare blankly at the mask for a moment.
“…”
“Hey…! Now, wait a minute Mr. Woojoo…! Are you listening?! I’m not!
It wasn’t me who killed Jaehyuk…! Isabelle is that woman! No, no…!!
I can help if you want…! She helps catch her?! Go, don’t come any closer!!”
Looking at the mask in my hand, I quietly watch Noah, who spews out an outburst, probably guessing what will happen to him.
“…I didn’t know I was like this either.”
The surprise of myself who has changed, perhaps I have already crossed over the ‘lifeline’ they talked about.
“Wait, wait, wait…! No, please…! No…!”
Although Noah started to struggle as much as he could, it was impossible to escape from the power of Go Eun, who was in a ‘slave’ state.
I slowly covered the face of Noah, who shook his head in fear, with a mask.
“No…! No!! Please, help me!! No—— …”
The mask completely covered Noah’s face, and Noah’s voice, which had been crying like a lie, cut off.
When Go Eun is ordered to let go of what she is holding on to, Noah stands in a daze in an awkward position.
She was turning into a saint.
“…Ha, fuck…”
For the first time she put her mask on with her own hands.
But she didn’t regret it. Her guilt weighed no more than dust.
* *
