Chapter 216

It wasn’t a particularly big wound. The kind you could pass by without thinking if you didn’t look closely.

After pointing out the injured spot, Joo Seowon shut his mouth right away. The location was strange for a mark left by Dungeon combat. Of all places, it was near the neck—was he making wild assumptions because of that?

“You okay?”

He asked again. It wasn’t that he truly wanted to ask if he was okay. It was just the only thing he could say. Saying it was a wound someone deliberately bit into and made....

Do Yehyun kept his hand on his neck, stayed silent for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

“The wound is small, so it doesn’t matter.”

“...Yeah, right. It doesn’t really look like it hurts.”

“Yes. It doesn’t hurt.”

That was exactly where Do Yehyun’s words ended.

Joo Seowon nodded like it was nothing. Everything about this felt like odd circumstances, but there wasn’t really anyone he could interrogate.

‘What... am I supposed to think?’

It was like his thought process had stopped. The thoughts didn’t even keep going.

Calling it suspicion was laughable, but the logic in the flow of his thinking had been cut cleanly. Meaning, there was no reason that seeing one small wound should make it feel like evidence of something.

‘Seo Jehyun?’

Even though he’d only had sex with Seo Jehyun once, the Seo Jehyun he’d seen then would put his mouth to someone’s neck and suck, but he didn’t leave marks. For a guy who had sex like a fucking bastard, he had weirdly good manners in odd places.

But it was only one time. It wasn’t like he knew all of Seo Jehyun’s preferences....

Joo Seowon lowered ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) his gaze to Do Yehyun’s hand covering his neck, then checked the familiar communication device. A communication device and tracker disguised as an accessory, worn on his finger like a ring.

It had only changed form—he had the exact same kind plugged into his own ear.

Thinking about it, there was no reason Seo Jehyun would only have sex with Joo Seowon. Of course not. In the first place, they weren’t lovers or anything, and even that night of bodies mixing had been a kind of accident.

So afterward, even he couldn’t handle it, and he’d kept running away every time. Even though Seo Jehyun looked perfectly fine.

Yeah. In the first place, the other person was Seo Jehyun.

He was a bastard who treated people differently from normal people to begin with. Seo Jehyun had accepted it as if he wasn’t even flustered whenever Seowon impulsively pressed lips to him, but it wouldn’t be because the guy pressing his lips to him was “Joo Seowon.”

He was the kind of bastard who would use every trick in the book if he needed to seduce someone—there was no way he wouldn’t have found the method that worked best on someone as devoted to him as this.

No, in the first place, Seowon knew Do Yehyun liked Seo Jehyun, and in that state, Seowon was the one who’d rubbed lips and mixed bodies, so it was funny that he was even feeling emotions like this.

‘What even is this emotion?’

Jealousy? A sense of betrayal?

He knew emotions didn’t flow logically, but it was ridiculous that he was supposed to feel jealousy or betrayal here. The fact he was having thoughts like this was enough to make him want to go insane from how absurd it was.

If so, then when Seo Jehyun had been talking with Seowon about this and that until just now, what the hell had Seo Jehyun been thinking? No—had he even been thinking anything like this?

‘Feels like he wouldn’t have cared at all.’

It was hard to believe this strangely childish emotion was boiling up inside him. Joo Seowon licked his rough-dry lips once, then slowly nodded.

“Yeah, well....”

“.......”

He couldn’t even remember why he’d come here in the first place.

‘Why does this feel so fucking shitty?’

He didn’t have anything else to say, and even if he did talk, it felt like nothing good would come out, so he was about to roughly wrap up the conversation and leave. That was when Do Yehyun’s voice came.

“Hyung.”

“Huh?”

“I....”

“.......”

“I’m fine.”

After correcting himself once, Do Yehyun really did look “fine.”

Fine in what way? The wound? It didn’t look like a problem. It wasn’t like he’d been bitten and torn—there was just pooled blood and bruising. A wound that would heal even with a cheap potion, not a Skill.

But Seowon ended up snapping back anyway.

“What is?”

The moment he asked, he wanted to bite his tongue.

“.......”

“...No, sorry. Just rest.”

“I mean, you brought me to use me as a healer.”

“...Hyung? Seo Jehyun? Right.”

At Do Yehyun’s suddenly continued words, Seowon nodded once. The opening was so random it almost made him wonder if there was some other conversation context.

Whether he cared or not, Do Yehyun continued as if nothing was wrong.

“And after this Dungeon, I think I can... be better to hyung.”

“What... does that mean? Your Skill got better?”

“Yes, that too, and....”

Do Yehyun, who’d been vaguely staring at the floor, lifted his head and met Seowon’s eyes. His expression wasn’t twisted, but watching him made Seowon’s nerves grate in a strange way. Was it because he didn’t look like he was hesitating?

“I’m not going to stop hyung from doing what he does.”

“...What? Stop what?”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. If it gets dangerous, I can heal you, so it doesn’t matter.”

“It... doesn’t matter?”

At the excessively firm voice, for a moment Seowon had the illusion that Do Yehyun was insisting on something obvious.

“Didn’t you see him go into that Dungeon?”

“I did.”

“Because you can throw heals on him, you’re saying it doesn’t matter if he gets hurt or not... is that it? Or am I misunderstanding?”

“No. You’re right.”

This time too, there was no hesitation in the answer.

Joo Seowon tapped his opposite arm with one hand, then slowly nodded.

“You know what happened to him this time, right?”

“A fiend-merged Hunter?”

“.......”

“I already knew.”

‘What?’

At Do Yehyun’s unexpected words, Joo Seowon stopped dead.

‘You already knew?’

Whether Seowon was shocked or not, Do Yehyun looked calm.

“When we went into the Dungeon together, I saw it myself. I asked what was going on, and he answered me.”

“When?”

“Months ago. He told me not to tell you.”

“What? He told you not to tell me?”

What the hell is this?

Joo Seowon’s mouth shut for a moment at the betrayal that surged up—no....

It was a slightly more subtle emotion than that.

‘He told Do Yehyun?’

Whether he cared or not, Do Yehyun added on in the same calm voice, like Seowon’s reaction didn’t even register to him.

“Because he... worries about you.”

“Worries?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of worry is that?”

He’d gone as far as merging with a fiend beast, and he told him not to talk because he’d worry? Seowon’s throat went tight and he couldn’t speak for a moment because it was so ridiculous.

‘Worry?’

Seo Jehyun had said something similar with his own mouth, too. The problem was that it felt like he’d said it with the intention of scraping Seowon’s insides raw. No—he couldn’t even tell what he was supposed to be worrying about in the first place.

And if Do Yehyun already knew, then it was even harder to understand.

Knowing how bad the perception of fiend-merged Hunters was, and knowing how dangerous the shit Seo Jehyun ran around doing was, he was still saying he’d just let it be?

Just because he could heal him?

‘Does that make sense?’

Seowon opened his mouth to say something, but it felt like it would all come out as something absurd, so he closed it again. Do Yehyun stood there blankly in front of him, then added,

“Hyungnim... always worries about hyung.”

“.......”

“And you like him, too.”

“Me?”

This time, a hollow laugh slipped out. He didn’t want to do this in front of a twenty-one-year-old, but childish behavior kept leaking out in little bursts.

“Seo Jehyun does?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, that bastard? ...No, never mind.”

“There’s a lot of information he only shares with you. And you’re the first person he relies on.”

“That’s just because he wants to use me when he needs something, isn’t it?”

If, like Do Yehyun said, Do Yehyun was needed by Seo Jehyun as a healer, then Seowon was only needed by Seo Jehyun as an information source.

When Seowon shot it down right away, Do Yehyun silently stared at him.

“He and I....”

He was about to say they’d written a covenant, but then realized there was no reason to lay that out, and closed his mouth again.

“...Yeah. It’s a contract relationship.”

“.......”

“But I can’t think like you do.”

Throwing the words out, Seowon sighed.

Seo Jehyun? Yeah, he liked him. Even though everything Seo Jehyun did from one to ten pissed him off, and he often felt hurt and it felt fucking shitty.

He’d run away like this because he hated belonging anywhere, but it was fucking shitty that Seo Jehyun had immediately created belonging by taking the covenant as a hostage. It was fucking shitty that, before he knew it, he’d started to feel stable there. The way it felt like there was distance but then sometimes it vanished. The way, when Seowon was in danger, Seo Jehyun would come like it was nothing, but he didn’t exactly step up like he was going to save him. All of it was fucking shitty.

Maybe he thought about it more often because it was made of nothing but things he hated. Or maybe this was the shallow defense mechanism Seowon had put up....

Either way, right now Seowon still liked Seo Jehyun, who was still doing whatever he wanted and committing dangerous acts.

To the point he worried, even though he was sure it would be fine.

“I... hate it when he does dangerous things.”

“I don’t think it’s good either.”

“You said you’re fine with it. Because you can heal him.”

“Hyung will do what he wants anyway.”

That was something he already knew. If he was the type who could be stopped, Seowon wouldn’t even be having worries like this.

“And?”

But even if Seo Jehyun was that kind of bastard, wasn’t letting it just happen a completely different problem?