Everyone Saw, Everyone Talked

They couldn’t even hang out properly, and Jaeyoung parted ways with his classmates at the valley.

After immediately taking an ambulance from there to the hospital for a thorough examination, Jaeyoung didn’t go to his own house but to Haewoon’s house.

After showering at someone else’s house and finishing a bowl of ramen cooked in an earthenware pot, Jaeyoung lay down with his head on Haewoon’s lap and watched the raid on TV.

He couldn’t watch the live broadcast because he spent time doing this and that.

“But the broadcasting station is amazing.
They even follow them underwater.”

Minta opened his mouth wide and marveled at the cameraman inside the air bubble.

He heard that the cameramen accompanying the dungeon were also Espers, though of a lower grade.

“That bubble is Saheon hyung’s ability? I experienced it earlier.”

Jaeyoung bragged about his experience like a child.

It’s not common for ordinary people to experience an Esper’s power.

If it was Jin Saheon, South Korea’s only S-class Esper, it was worth writing in his diary.

“You’re bragging about falling into the water and being saved, tsk tsk!”

But his audience was his childhood friends of over ten years.

Haewoon flicked Jaeyoung’s forehead as if he were pathetic.

“Ouch, imitating my mom is crossing the line!”

Jaeyoung grumbled as he jumped up from where he was lying.

“I can’t hear anything!
Be quiet!”

Dongjun, a member of the ‘Esper Loving Association’, shouted as he shoved a peach into Jaeyoung’s mouth.

“Your voice is louder.”

Unlike Jaeyoung, Haewoon, who had a free mouth, said sarcastically, and Dongjun started shouting again.

They say men are always kids, and they were still acting like this even with their twenties just around the corner.

Jaeyoung, shaking his head, sat cross-legged on the sofa and stared at the television as if the quarrel had nothing to do with him.

The camera slowly scanned the inside of the dungeon.

Deeper underwater, where Jaeyoung couldn’t reach, sharp rocks were everywhere in the cave-shaped dungeon, making it threatening enough.

Someone stretched out their arm from outside the screen and pointed somewhere.

The director pointed the camera at where the Esper was pointing and zoomed in.

On a flat rock among the jagged rocks was the creature Jaeyoung had seen.

“That’s it.
It followed me thinking I was Minta.”

Jaeyoung chewed on the peach in his mouth and pointed at the TV screen.

The kids who were chattering about whether they were watching the raid or not became quiet.

“……Shouldn’t you go see an eye doctor?”

Haewoon turned to Jaeyoung with a serious expression and asked.
From the length of his hair to his build, there was a world of difference between him and Minta.

“But are you okay?”

Dongjun, who put down the peach and knife he was holding in both hands, asked with a worried face.

“About what?”

“You almost died from the creature. Don’t you have any trauma or anything?”

Jaeyoung opened his eyes wide and thought hard.

The blurry vision in the cold water.

And the shadow of someone who appeared.

The warm temperature he felt on his lips……

Jaeyoung’s face contorted.

‘Ugh, my first kiss……’

Again.

Gently flowing black hair and slender fingers.

The softness covering his lips……

‘I’m doomed!’

Jaeyoung cried inwardly.

The memory of his first dungeon experience was completely covered in a kiss with someone.

Jaeyoung, who had been recalling the encounter with the creature in a gloomy mood, perked up.

Dongjun wasn’t asking about the ‘accident’ with Saheon.

Jaeyoung glared at the creature on the screen with wide eyes.

He didn’t feel particularly scared even looking at the creature captured by the camera.

“……Seems like he’s okay?”

Dongjun patted Jaeyoung’s shoulder at the belated answer.

It was because Jaeyoung’s face was tearful even as he said he was okay.

Instead of shaking off his hand, Jaeyoung buried his face in his shoulder and sobbed.

“Since it looks like a human-like fish, are they going to call it a mermaid?”

“Ugh, totally ruins the fantasy.”

The humanoid creature, which shattered the fantasies of growing teenagers, was thrown by Saheon and impaled on a rock.
Red blood spurted out like a fountain.

“Ew!
Shouldn’t that be rated 19+?”

Jaeyoung screamed and covered his eyes with both hands.

A scuffle broke out as Haewoon, with a playful smile, tried to take his hands away.

“Hey. A new monster appeared.”

Dongjun tapped the two people entangled on the sofa, telling them to look at this.

On the screen, a giant octopus-like monster swung its long legs.

An Esper couldn’t avoid it and was thrown straight into a rock.

It was where Saheon had been standing just a moment ago.

“Huh? He disappeared.”

The camera spun around chaotically, searching for Saheon, who had disappeared in an instant.

Finally, the cameraman found Saheon in the air.

Saheon, who had easily floated up to avoid the incoming Esper, brought his palms together and gradually narrowed the gap between them.

The octopus’s head, which looked like a taut balloon, was pressed vertically.

The octopus, whose cheeks were pressed in by Saheon, looked as if it was pouting and acting cute.

Soon, when Saheon released his hands, the octopus’s head became taut again.

“He’s playing with the creature.”

“It looks a bit pitiful.”

But it didn’t end there.

The octopus’s head grew bigger and bigger like a balloon.

Just when it seemed dangerous, the round head burst.

The Espers screamed and hid behind the rocks as the flesh flew around indiscriminately.

Only Saheon stood proudly in place, because the air bubble surrounding him was doing its job as a shield.

“Wow, hyung-nim is carrying again this time.”

Dongjun, who was scared of human Jin Saheon but respected Esper Jin Saheon, raised his clenched fist upwards.

He was always amazing, but was it because the other people were struggling in the water?

He seemed to be flying around exceptionally.

“Donggeuri, ah.”

Jaeyoung, who turned his head from the screen, called Dongjun, who was cutting a peach, and opened his mouth.

Unlike his clumsy hand shape, his skill in cutting fruit was neat.

“If we made takoyaki with that, we could eat it very full.”

Jaeyoung, with his mouth full of peach, licked his lips as he looked at the octopus legs wriggling on the floor.

“You want to eat that monster? Just imagining it makes me want to throw up.”

Haewoon said with a disgusted face.

“Why? It looks exactly like an octopus.”

Jaeyoung looked at Haewoon as if he were the strange one.

The only differences between that monster and an octopus were that it had colorful dots on its white body and it spewed out a dark purple liquid.

Judging by the fact that the skin of the Espers who were hit by the water that the octopus spat out was boiling, it seemed to have acidity as well.

“If you want to eat it that much, ask hyung-nim to bring you a piece.

That alone would be enough to fill your stomach.”

Minta said tentatively, with a look of expectation.

Haewoon, remembering something he had forgotten at his words, jumped up from his seat.

As a result, Jaeyoung, who had been resting his legs, was thrown into the air and hit his head on the sofa.

“That’s right. Are you really dating Jin Saheon?”

Whether Jaeyoung was in pain and holding his head or not, Haewoon shouted with an excited, flushed face.

“What nonsense are you saying so scarily?”

Jaeyoung crouched down and rubbed the painful area before suddenly raising his upper body.
His round eyes were full of resentment.

“That’s right, when did you two become like that?”

“It’s not!”

“Amazing, really……”

Dongjun, who was a fan of Saheon, was saying amazing with his mouth, but was showing shock with his eyes.

At that reaction, Jaeyoung felt somehow as if he had become something less than human.

“I respect you, mochi!”

“Ah, it’s not like that!”

Jaeyoung shouted in an aggrieved voice.

“If that’s not it, then why would hyung hold you so, so preciously when he came out?”

When Minta held out his arms, Dongjun readily put his arms around his neck.

He had certainly been held in that way when he was rescued from the water.

“It’s not, really.”

Jaeyoung couldn’t know why Saheon had done that either.

But what was clear was that Saheon’s gaze towards him was far from romantic.

If he had to put a name to it, it was the gaze of a lion looking at a grass-eating rabbit?

Whatever it was, it was clear that it wouldn’t be good for him.

“No wonder he calls only that guy by his nickname. It was actually a pet name.”

There was no way Jaeyoung couldn’t read the playfulness in his friends’ eyes.

What was important to them wasn’t the truth, but teasing Jaeyoung.

Even knowing that, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

“Hyung-nim will need to receive guiding after the raid, will you be okay?”

Minta poked him in the side with a face expecting a reaction.

Jaeyoung, who was grinding his teeth, soon let out a deep sigh.

“What does hyung-nim receiving guiding have to do with me……”

It was the resentful muttering of someone who didn’t know what would happen just a few hours later.

After being tormented for so long, what awaited Jaeyoung when he went home was his mom’s scolding.

“Jaeyoung, you should have told me right away if something like that happened!”

A loving smack on the back was a bonus.

Jaeyoung, smiling pleasantly at the stinging contact, hugged his mom’s waist tightly.

“I didn’t want Mom to worry.”

Jaeyoung stretched out his words and rubbed his cheek against his mom, Sukhee’s, back.

“Still, you should thank Saheon for saving you.”

“That’s true. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Mom’s words are always right.

Jaeyoung nodded obediently with an unconditional gaze.

“Should we send him a gift?

What should we do?

Would hyung-nim like something like chicken?”

Jaeyoung listed the gift certificate items that his peers liked in his head one by one.

“You’re replacing your life with chicken?”

Sukhee pulled her body forward and separated Jaeyoung.

Her glaring gaze was stinging.

“I’ll do whatever Mom tells me to do.”

Jaeyoung quickly groveled.
He had learned from past history that no amount of cuteness would work in these situations.

“I’ll write down what you need, so go buy it right away.”

It was only for a moment that he breathed a sigh of relief at his mom’s voice becoming much softer.

“Right away?”

“There’s not enough time to prepare.

I would have prepared it a long time ago if you had told me right away.”

Jaeyoung’s eyes widened at the sudden progress.

Even as she was talking, Sukhee’s hand was busily writing down the ingredients Jaeyoung had to buy.

“Then we can do it tomorrow. It’s not like we’re strangers……”

He felt sorry for making his mom go through so much trouble for nothing.
He thought he could just reserve a nice restaurant for tomorrow.

“The closer you are, the more you have to do things properly! Don’t make me nervous and go quickly!”

But his mom didn’t budge.

Her eyes, which were urging Jaeyoung, contained a determination to repay him with her own hands no matter what.

“Saheon hyung might be busy and not come……”

Saheon was such a busy person that he only visited his own parents’ house on their birthdays.

Even then, he would only join them for dinner and disappear without a trace.

Jaeyoung pouted and took the memo, worried that what his mom had prepared with such care would be in vain.

“Yes, honey.”

Behind him, he heard a stiff tone that had no warmth to be found even if you washed your eyes and looked for it.

It seemed that she had something to ask his dad to do as well.

“Stop by Noryangjin on your way home and get some sashimi.”

Noryangjin wouldn’t be on his way home from work.

Jaeyoung thought as he squeezed his feet into his shoes.

“No, get something precious since we’re going to eat with the neighbours.

Today, well……”

He could hear his mom’s voice getting smaller beyond the closed door.