## Chapter 48 – Leisure Time (16)
I arrived home after school.
The time was roughly around 4 PM.
To go to the gym, I took off my clothes and entered the bathroom,
soaking my hair under the water from the showerhead.
It’s been almost a week since I started going to the gym,
and if I go further back, it’s been almost two weeks since I shook off the pursuers.
There were no interruptions, and the clear, dull sound of the water gushing from the showerhead hitting my body, flowing down, and falling to the floor created a space where I could concentrate.
“…”
While spending this week, I was briefly distracted by the variable called Hong Su-ah, but
after eating that blue apple, I never stopped thinking about the pursuers for even a moment.
The sudden attack by the pursuers.
And after that attack, I couldn’t help but be concerned about the drastically quiet movements of those groups.
Even with my now quite proficient danger sense, I can easily detect nearby CCTVs or the presence of people,
but I don’t feel any signs that those guys are watching us at all.
There are only two or three of them at most, so should I just leave them alone?
There’s no way I would have such a naive thought.
Since there’s no way to know what they’re thinking now,
or what they’re plotting.
Somehow, I feel trapped in a never-ending riddle, so I wash my face with water once
and run my hands over my face.
“…This is driving me crazy.”
Anyway, these thoughts are premature worries.
It hasn’t happened yet, and there’s no way to know, so it’s frustrating, but.
I turned off the water that kept pouring on my head and wiped the water off my body with a towel.
After roughly wiping off the water and opening the bathroom door,
the hot, humid air inside rushed out at once, and a pleasant, cool air enveloped my body.
“Oh, Oppa. Perfect timing.
Sit here.”
“I’m home.”
I finished showering feeling good and came out to find three women sitting and chatting in the living room.
No one seems to care that I’m naked.
Chae-yoon is gesturing for me to come over,
Seo-hee is waving and saying hello.
And there’s a woman I don’t think I’ve ever seen before sitting behind Seo-hee, hiding her body.
I roughly put on underwear and pants and sat down among the gathered women, turning my head from side to side, wondering why they were all gathered.
“What’s going on, all of a sudden?”
“Seo-hee Unni has some business to take care of.”
From behind Seo-hee, who is waving and giving a half-hearted greeting again, a woman says ‘Hello…’ in a voice as quiet as a mouse, and I bow my head to greet her too.
“So, is it all done?”
“Yes, Unni. It’s all done.”
“What’s all done? What did you do without me again?”
Why are they talking about things only they know?
I look back and forth between Seo-hee and Chae-yoon’s faces, but Seo-hee has a very serious expression,
and Chae-yoon is smiling while subtly watching my reaction.
Then she opens her laptop and turns on an internet site I’ve never seen before.
What is this?
“Here, this is the drug sales site I made.”
“What the fuck?”
“Ooh.”
Chae-yoon straightens her back triumphantly,
Seo-hee is amazed and applauding,
and I’m surprised in a different way and swearing.
I’m so flustered that I’m about to laugh.
“Wait a minute, what did you guys just do?”
“It’s nothing much, just a site to buy and sell things, so you don’t have to worry so much.”
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
“That ‘thing’ is what’s making me worry.”
“Okay, don’t mind it.”
As if my opinion doesn’t matter, Chae-yoon ignores my words and continues her explanation.
“It’s only called a drug, but it’s just a name.
In reality, it’s like a mild enhancer.
Seo-hee Unni makes it, and we sell it on this site.”
“Wow, you made this so fast? This is fucked up?”
“I know, it seems fucked up.”
I watch Seo-hee scrolling through the site from the side, and it has a dark background, a complicated interface, and even virtual currency.
The smell of crime wafting through my small studio apartment makes my head spin.
“Don’t worry too much, Oppa.
I studied hard and made it, so even the president won’t be able to catch us.”
“Ah, no, why would you do something like this without telling me…”
I’m so shocked that I can’t speak properly.
What on earth did they do together while I wasn’t home?
I had forgotten for a moment as the time I spent with them grew longer.
I had completely forgotten that they weren’t ordinary humans, but today they reminded me again.
In an extraordinary way that most people couldn’t even imagine.
“Why didn’t we tell you?
I thought it was okay for me to do the same since you do things without telling us and handle them on your own.”
“…Are you sulking?”
“Anyway, if an order comes in…”
Chae-yoon ignores my words as if she’s showing off and continues explaining to the two of them.
She’s sulking, what am I going to do about this now.
“Unni can just make the drug as usual,
and it would be best for Nabi, who can’t be identified, to make the contact.”
“…Why can’t she be identified?”
“Oppa, look closely. Haven’t you seen her somewhere before?”
What can I do about the problem that has already happened,
I naturally join in and ask a question.
She can’t be identified?
With that question in mind, I stare intently at the woman with the unique name Nabi, who is hiding behind Seo-hee, as Chae-yoon says, and I realize that she is one of the women who put me in the hospital a few days ago.
“…Ah.”
“They probably wouldn’t have used someone with a record if they had any sense.
Maybe Nabi has become a person who doesn’t exist in society.”
…She’s more thorough than I thought.
I don’t know much about computers or things like that, but
does Seo-hee understand?
“…”
The same expression as before, as if she’s somewhat confident.
Fortunately, it seems I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand.
“…I’m asking because I think you’ll do it anyway even if I try to stop you.
Are you really confident that you won’t get caught?”
It’s obvious, but it’s not because I’m afraid of the police or getting a criminal record.
I’m worried that they might catch the eye or ear of that organization.
That’s what I’m worried about.
I wonder if I should trust Chae-yoon, who is smiling and nodding at my question.
Because the scale of the work is big.
“…Okay, well, I guess you’ll do well on your own.
You’re smarter than me and you’ve been doing well so far.”
I put my hands on my knees, stand up, and stroke Chae-yoon’s hair with my hand.
“Then I’m going to the gym now,
and Lee Chae-yoon.”
“Yes?”
“…Sorry for not being able to pay attention to you.
It seems like it’ll be over soon, so let’s go out and play together when this is over.”
I say something embarrassing that’s not like me, lower my head, and go out.
What did I just say.
————————
“…Ooh, your face is red.”
“Huh?! No, it’s not?”
Seo-hee Unni, who is taking the lead for the first time in a while and starting to tease me, waited until Oppa, who was running to the front door, went outside,
and as soon as he left, she pointed at my face with her finger and started teasing me.
“Okay, anyway.”
I cleared my throat once and pointed at the laptop, continuing my explanation.
“…You’re changing the subject.”
“I won’t help you if you tease me one more time.”
I warned Unni, who interrupted me again, firmly, and she looked at the laptop without saying anything.
“…Okay. First of all, no one will buy it if we just leave it hanging like this suspiciously.
It’ll feel like a child’s play.”
“…Then what should we do?”
“First, we’ll just provide it for free.”
“What?”
Unni was surprised and moved her gaze from the laptop to my eyes.
“Don’t be like that, just listen carefully.
Would anyone buy something they’ve never seen before for a lot of money?
First, we need to build trust.
That this drug is amazing.”
“…Okay.”
“Anyway, we don’t lose anything even if we provide it for free.
We don’t need a lot of ingredients to make it, do we?”
The poison that Seo-hee Unni makes is made by consuming the calories in the host’s body.
So, there are almost no material costs.
Unni just needs to eat a good meal.
“How addictive is it?”
“Oh, to the point where you can’t quit once you try it.”
“What did you two make together?
Anyway, that’s enough.
People don’t refuse things that are given for free.
To put it simply, people who are addicted to the drug that has been spread will inevitably look for it again.
Even if the price goes up several hundred times.”
I took out a blue vial from the bag that Unni brought,
shook the shimmering liquid, and finished the explanation.
Unni, who heard my explanation, nodded and let out a sigh of admiration.
“So, is it safe like you said before?”
“Would humans be able to catch up with what we made?”
It might be something that is noticeable to human eyes.
But the internet is a convenient space that provides ‘anonymity,’ which hides our existence that is already hidden, to everyone.
Unless I make a mistake,
there is absolutely no way for human technology to know me.
“So, rest assured.
There’s something Unni needs to do.”
“What is it?”
“No matter how free it is,
the characteristic of humans who do this kind of shady work is that they are very cautious.
They doubt everything and don’t believe anything.
So, at first, we’ll have to rely on the situation of ‘coincidence.’”
“Coincidence, you mean…”
Unni, who seemed to understand my words at once for the first time, straightened her posture.
I licked my lips and asked Unni.
“Even if it’s a coincidence, since we’re the ones making it.
Can you kidnap a few people?”
