## Chapter 16 – Sparkle
The lecture ended more uneventfully than I had expected, and I was walking through the university campus with Chaeyun, whose string had been cut.
Even when I paid attention to my surroundings, the fact that I didn’t feel like anyone was watching us gave me goosebumps.
I don’t think they’ll give up just because they failed to catch us once.
That’s why I can’t hide this eerie feeling.
The thought that eyes to monitor everyone coming in and out of this school might be hidden everywhere made me tense up, and my gait became awkward.
“…..”
I envied Chaeyun, who was just following me like a doll without any thoughts.
“Let’s go quickly.”
I decided to take Chaeyun’s hand and go to my place. Originally, she lived in the school dormitory, but Chaeyun can’t stay there now.
Her roommate would be there, and Chaeyun’s friends might notice something strange about her doll-like state, or worse, they might catch their attention.
I praised myself for thinking well, but as expected, another problem quickly arose with the improvised plan.
What they can detect with this light is the ‘parasitic organism’ in the head.
It seems they don’t recognize the shell from which the parasitic organism has escaped, but the problem is Chaeyun’s residence. The fact that her residence exists in the university, which is the biggest problem right now…
“What should I do with you?”
“…….”
Chaeyun’s shell, staring at me with a blank face, unaware of my burning insides.
I thought about her staying at my place, but it seems the school issues a warning if she’s out of the dormitory for too long.
In the current situation, I definitely want to avoid doing anything that draws attention.
Let’s go to my place first and hear her opinion.
I looked back one more time at the gaze that couldn’t be seen or felt, and quickly left the dome of light.
“She says, ‘Welcome back?’”
Seohee greeted us as she opened the door, holding a plastic container filled with white liquid.
“It must be nice being unemployed.”
“I’m not unemployed, you’re the madam.”
I sat down in front of Seohee, waving my hand at the unexpected joke, and sat Chaeyun’s body shell, which was holding my hand, next to me.
“Okay, go over there now, I’m uncomfortable.”
Seohee said, looking down at the white, sticky liquid in the plastic container. As if it understood Seohee’s words, it came out of the container on its own, went down to the floor, and slowly crawled up Chaeyun’s body shell, slipping into her ear.
Just like the scene I saw when these things first parasitized a person, Chaeyun’s body began to twitch, and she groaned softly, ‘Ah… ah…’ as if her consciousness was slowly returning.
The only difference was the size.
The main body of these guys, which was as small as a flower petal when I first saw them, had grown to the size of a person’s two fists combined.
Is it thanks to the nutrition they were talking about? It has grown so much in such a short period of time that I couldn’t help but think that.
While I was lost in thought, Chaeyun, who had finally regained her body, said.
“…Ah, ah, I can speak well…
I’m okay, there don’t seem to be any side effects.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Oppa, you didn’t do anything weird with my body, did you?”
“………”
Her senseless joke to lighten the heavy atmosphere made the room even quieter.
“…Just kidding.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, nothing happened, right?”
“That’s why I came back safely.”
Fortunately, the hypothesis I made was correct twice in a row.
Hooray!
There’s no time to think like that, this problem can’t be solved by just running away like this.
I know that well, but I have no idea what to do.
They don’t show themselves.
Even the pursuers who chased us were covering their faces.
They definitely won’t reveal their identities first either.
It would have been nice if they had left even one clue…
“Because someone wiped them all out…”
“Then what the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Just kidding, just kidding.”
Seohee killed them all and melted the entire scene to erase the evidence.
I was a little surprised at the time that she could do that alone, but now that the situation has come to this, it wasn’t such a good thing after all.
“What the hell are they, what are they…”
“That’s because they don’t show us.”
“More than that, what are you going to do about the dormitory?
Isn’t that the most important thing right now?”
There are many headaches.
“Huh? Don’t worry about that.
I already told them I was moving out of the dorm.”
“Huh? To whom?”
“The proctor.”
“Wait a minute, then where are you going to live?”
“Oppa’s house.”
Both me and Seohee looked at Chaeyun with surprised expressions, but she was the only one looking at us as if there was a problem.
“Why?”
“…No, do that.”
Many objections came to mind, but I decided to think that she would have handled it well on her own and started thinking about the next problem.
“So, how do we find those things?”
“That’s the biggest problem…”
Seohee, who had been staring at me and Chaeyun with her chins on her hands, said to us as if we were pathetic.
“Don’t just think too hard, weren’t there any people you saw for the first time at your university?
There’s a high probability that that bastard is the culprit.”
“If it were that easy, we wouldn’t be like this, Unni.”
“…….”
That doesn’t make sense.
Even if they aren’t students, there are more than one or two people coming in and out of the school, is there a way to find them?
At that time, I really don’t know why, no matter how much I think about it, something flashed through my mind.
My head started to tingle as if I had been struck by lightning, and the pain stopped so quickly that I couldn’t even scream.
Like a phenomenon called a flashback, a word that really didn’t fit this situation came to mind.
“…Handkerchief?”
I got up from my seat and looked around on the table.
A handkerchief soaked in a red, fishy-smelling liquid.
I definitely picked this up at the school cafeteria.
‘I’m sorry, are you okay?’
‘Ah, yes, I’m sorry.
I should have been paying attention.’
Another short conversation flashed through my mind like an old photograph.
Who is this man?
“Oppa, why is that?”
She asks as if she is worried about me.
“The owner of this.”
“Yes?”
“Someone who can find out who the owner of this is?”
It’s an unreasonable request and I don’t know why I’m doing this.
But I can’t shake the feeling that this is important.
There’s something about this.
“…I don’t know who it is, but I can find the owner.”
“How?”
“By smell, the smell usually disappears quickly because of fabric fresheners and stuff like that, but if it’s blood, that person’s smell will be embedded in it.”
“Wow, that’s really dog-like.”
Chaeyun, who is explaining seriously, and Seohee, who is making fun of her.
“Please, can you find it for me?”
————————
“Oh, I wasn’t tired at this time of day when I was in my 20s.”
It’s already been two days since I’ve been stretching in the trailer and staring at the monitor.
As expected, once they notice, they won’t easily give up their tails.
“You’re still young, Senior.”
“What’s young about thirty-five years old…
I envy the youngest ones like Minjung.
When I turned 30, I got out of breath and tired even if I ran a little, so I had to quit regular cigarettes and switch to e-cigarettes…”
“But I’m still jealous of you, Senior.
I wonder if I can become a team leader even when I reach that age.”
“Hey, the juniors are the future.
I’m sure everyone here will do well.”
Even while playfully laughing and talking, he doesn’t take his eyes off the monitor.
That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the conversation.
Because that’s really what he thinks.
He thinks that working diligently and sincerely while taking care of his subordinates is the way a good senior should be.
Surely this is obvious.
Why do people find this difficult?
“Team Leader, I’ll monitor it now, so get some sleep. You’ve been watching all day today.”
“Oh, really? I thought I was a little tired, haha…”
A researcher who had suddenly appeared next to me took a seat in front of the monitor in my place.
After bowing to him with gratitude, I came out of the trailer and took out a cigarette while watching the sunset for a while.
Even during a short break, the machine on my wrist made a ‘beep’ sound and brought me information about ‘her’.
“…Vitals are normal, nutrition levels are normal. It’s going smoothly.”
Is this what it feels like to raise a daughter?
Looking at the creature growing up, a happy smile naturally appears.
“Senior.”
“Whoa! You scared me.”
I dropped the e-cigarette I was holding in my mouth at the sound of Minjung calling me in a soft tone from behind.
“I’m sorry, did I scare you a lot?”
“No! It’s okay, I was just a little surprised.”
“…Well, it’s your break time now, Senior, and you haven’t eaten all day, so would you like to go to dinner with me? I’ll pay.”
“No, I’ll pay!”
She is a subordinate who I keep by my side because I like her unchangingly passionate appearance, even though she has succeeded in getting a job at the research center at a young age and has seen both the good and the bad.
“..So, I analyzed the characteristics of these individuals, and they use the same poison as before…”
Even during this break, she’s talking about work.
Isn’t that a bit too much?
I was walking while listening to her story, smiling inwardly.
“..Senior, what if we don’t have any results this time?”
As the work talk continued, she suddenly expressed her anxiety about this matter.
“Ah, it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes? But I heard that the team leader was also held responsible…”
As expected, the sudden dismissal of the previous team leader continued to bother her.
“It’s okay, I’ve already achieved results.”
[All values of F-BW-003 are normal.]
-L. LUKE]
“Yes? What kind of results…?”
“I’m not going to tell you now~. To anyone.”
