175 Bystander
“…How? We’re gonna lose more people anyway if that bastard is left to his own devices out there…! This is our chance!” Yeong-Un clenched his teeth with tears welling up in his eyes.
The thirst for vengeance was almost palpable from him, but was truly palpable already was the sadness quaking in Yeong-Un’s words as he looked one.
Korain added in, “I get it, kid. I do.”
“Then why–!” Yeong-Un asked, but was interrupted.
“We’re not strong enough.”
Those words that spilled from Korain’s lips quenched even Yeong-Un’s words, whose eyes widened at such out of character words from the rowdy vice leader.
“Wha…?” Yeong-Un said quietly.
The one-armed man looked down, reaching over by his left side in remembrance of his lost limb while holding a melancholic expression in his eyes.
“Can you guarantee we’d be able to beat him? Do you have that knowledge, confidence, or strength to back that up?” Korain looked straight at Yeong-Un.
“–” Yeong-Un fell silent.
“So what if it would be better if he died now than later? What does it matter if we can’t accomplish that anyway?” Korain continued with his stern words, now standing over Yeong-Un as he spoke the thoughts of all that sat there, “…Even if we could, are you willing to sacrifice some of us here to reach that outcome? Are you, Yeong-Un?”
“I…” Yeong-Un gritted his teeth, clenching his pants.
“That’s enough.”
–It was Ma-Ri that put a stop to Korain’s reprimansive words towards the scar-covered adolescent.
Once again, the room fell silent as Korain sat back down. After a less than warm breakfast, he took the dishes back into the kitchen, hauling them over to the sink as he rolled his sleeves up in preparation of cleaning them off.
“Hey-o.”
Coming into the kitchen, to his surprise, was the silver-haired androgynous figure.
“Xiaodan,” he said out of slight surprise, “What’s up?”
“Ahh…Well, it’s a bit awkward out there, so I thought I’d lend a hand in here,” Xiaodan laughed a bit while ruffling his own lengthy locks of silver.
He nodded, stepping aside to give room for the smaller-of-stature young man to help, “Yeah, I feel that, too.”
Over the last two weeks, he had watched Xiaodan naturally shift into the group, but it was still apparent he wasn’t deeply ingrained with the rest of the group.
It’s not like anybody has really been in a jovial mood, I guess. After that night…I can’t blame them, he thought.
Rinsing the dishes, he scrubbed down the plate as he looked over at Xiaodan, who was vigorously wiping down another plate.
“How’s it coming along?” He asked.
Xiaodan stopped, looking at the plate then at him before smiling and continuing, “Oh…you mean into Gangcheori? Well, everybody is nice here. Eunji knows a lot about books, and Sol is easy to talk to.”
“Glad to hear it,” he smiled.
He felt partly responsible for giving Xiaodan a smooth transition into the group, but he was relieved to hear he was fitting in nicely.
“…You’re really something, you know that?”
Xiaodan’s words caught him off-guard as it was rare to hear genuine words like that from the cheeky new recruit.
“Huh?” He looked over at Xiaodan.
“Even if everybody is smiling and trying to act strong, it’s still easy to tell…everybody is hurting a lot. Still, you’ve been taking it in stride, Jeong-Hui. I didn’t know anybody who…you know, so I’m not doing badly, but…” Xiaodan told him.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said almost sternly.
“–” Xiaodan looked at him.
He continued wiping off one of the plates, placing the recently cleaned one in the rack as Xiaodan watched him, looking at his emerald eyes that were focused on his task.
“…Taking it in stride?” He said.
As he scrubbed the dish, a movement of his hand completely shattered it as it crumbled away, leaving the silver-haired young man perplexed.
Even as the vermilion-haired adolescent stood there with a calm expression, it looked like anything but that as something unseen burned within those emerald eyes. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“I’m barely holding on. I’ve never been so angry in my life. Before…I’d just be in anguish. That’s when I was weak–but now, I’m strong enough to instead feel angry. I know I have the strength to do it–to kill. I’d give so much just to get my hands on him,” he admitted, looking down at the sink with his emerald eyes.
It was clear just by one look from Xiaodan that “calm” was anything but Jeong-Hui. Perhaps “composed” was the better way to put it; he had control over himself, but that’s all it was.
“I’ve failed before. I failed again. It feels impossible to get it right, doesn’t it? When you try to hold onto everything…some things just end up slipping through your fingers,” he said quietly as he continued on with the dishes.
“Sorry…I didn’t know,” Xiaodan said quietly.
He smiled, “Don’t be.”
While finishing up the dishes, the thought crossed his mind that it felt almost pointless to do–keeping the place well-maintained. There was only a day or so left before the opening of the Tower, so keeping things tidy wasn’t necessary.
But, at the very least, he wanted to keep himself on his feet and doing something.
After finishing the dishes, he moved to the second floor of the bar-home, mostly wandering and looking for something to occupy himself with before he wound up near the balcony.
Going outside was simply not an option; there wasn’t any need and the risk made no sense when they were so close to the finish line, so he opted to simply sit by the window, taking his daggers out as he inspected and cleaned them.
“–“
Sitting there in silence near the hallway window, which was mostly boarded up, he watched between the spaces of the wooden planks while thinking to himself.
While sitting with nothing but his own thoughts, unwanted memories played on repeat in his mind.
“If I did this,”–it was the single most common thought in his head; continuously pondering if he took a different action during those pivotal moments, what could’ve happened differently.
Looking at his dagger, he looked at its black steel.
…When this all started, if I wasn’t such a scumbag, if I actually tried from the start–would I have been strong enough to create a different outcome? Would they still be here? He thought.
As he swam into such thoughts while sitting alone, he imagined it: sitting beside him, Myung-Hee would be there, laughing together with Yeong-Un. Kamou and Eunji would likely be great friends, sharing knowledge of their supportive magic together. Hyun and Sol would likely get along well, and Ara and Ma-Ri would hit it off.
He could see it–such a timeline; an impossibility crafted by what he promised himself was his own shortcomings.
As he let out a sigh, easing himself away from those dismal thoughts, he looked out of the window again, peering through the cracks at the prowling creatures from Hell.
Something caught his eye; a figure that stood out from the hellish, abhorrent fiends that traversed the hell-turned world.
“What’s that…?” He asked himself quietly.
It was unmistakably a human figure–now becoming clear to his eyes as they stepped past the crimson haze, coming into full view as they walked down the street with a limp.
A person…? He thought.
A youthful woman with long, curly hair of a blonde shade with teary, blue eyes. She was clearly dressed in the standard white uniform of an [Equip] but injured as her left leg was drenched in blood, hanging limp as she dragged it along.
“Help me…”
The young girl said with tears, speaking words aimed at nobody yet everybody, but–they felt aimed at him.
He instantly got up from his seat, but stopped himself before even taking the first step toward the unknown process.
What am I doing? He questioned.
It was only one day out from the opening of the Tower. Taking any sort of risk felt like the epitome of carelessness, yet–
…How am I supposed to just sit around and watch somebody die when I could help? He thought.
Rather than the epitome of carelessness, if he did nothing, he would recognize that as the epitome of hypocrisy.
The path he had carved for himself was made of similar decisions, and abandoning his own ways at this stage felt like a level of cowardice beyond anything he could ever imagine.
“Shit…!” He said quietly before storming down the hall.
He kept his daggers out, descending the stairs as he moved towards the door at the front of the bar, moving his hand towards the handle before being stopped.
“What’re you doing?”
Without looking back, he knew who it was that questioned him: Ma-Ri. He knew what he was doing was impractical to say the least, and Ma-Ri was somebody even more steel-like in her judgment than Dae-Seong.
“I saw a girl outside. She looked hurt…She was calling for help,” he said, telling the truth concisely.