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Jet chattered cheerfully.
“Because there are many creatures in this forest that approach silently, like ghosts?”
“I’m often disappointed by your naming, but the name Ghost Hoof Forest is satisfactory. Do you see those trees? The ones whose leaves shimmer with a faint silver light at night.”
Indeed, where he pointed, trees with leaves like draped cobwebs stood tall. Their rounded, drooping branches looked bizarre, and from a distance, one might mistake them for beasts with silvery fur.
“I was quite surprised to see the seeds of trees from my homeland take root and grow strong here.”
“Do you feel a sense of kinship? With creatures that have crossed dimensions together.”
“That’s what I think about them. Hmm.”
He turned around and quirked the corner of his mouth mischievously. The lamp’s light entered his sky-blue eyes, changing them to a subtle color like the evening sky. It was a mysterious shade, yet somehow unsettling.
“Shall we calculate the results?”
He stopped and hung the lamp on a low tree branch nearby. She checked if her rings were properly on. After touching them to confirm both were in place, Yoon Tae-ha put on a feigned apologetic expression and lied.
“Unfortunately, there weren’t many significant results. Even after visiting the location Mr. Baek Sang-ho told me about, and the suspicious coordinates Jet gave me.”
“Disappointing.”
“I only found out that necklaces made from green feather residue are in short supply in Cocytus.”
“Has their popularity increased?”
“Rather, I heard the supply has significantly decreased recently.”
“I thought I could meet my brother by tracking that side, but it seems I’m late.”
Still calling him ‘brother’ to the end.
Even she, who had spoken directly with Nox, was confused. Couldn’t he make a mistake just once? How strongly did he self-hypnotize?
“You’ll join the team searching for the green feathers, won’t you?”
“I’m considering it. Finding my brother is important too.”
“You can leave that to me. I can’t control such powerful substances, so wouldn’t it be better for Raphael to join the team searching for the green feathers?”
He shook his head half-heartedly.
“How would you find my brother without me? He’s skilled in stealth and has eyes planted in all sorts of forests.”
He subtly refused to join the team going to find the green substance. If he doesn’t want to go find it, how is he researching it? Is he just keeping it in a safe box and observing it from afar? Yoon Tae-ha purposely smiled with her eyes to avoid looking at him suspiciously.
Just then, the lamp precariously hanging on the branch was about to fall. Raphael reflexively stretched out his arm. A glimpse of skin, appearing as if flesh had melted and fused together, was revealed beneath his sleeve.
In that fleeting moment, Yoon Tae-ha saw it and used telekinesis to float the lamp in the air. Then, as if she had seen nothing, she smiled nonchalantly.
“I’ll hold it. It must have been too heavy for the branch to bear.”
Raphael quickly pulled down his sleeve and scratched himself, pretending to have an itch where he was hurt. But he couldn’t completely hide the embarrassment on his face.
Why was he hurt? If he got hurt during a mission, he could easily show his wound to the medical team and get it treated perfectly.
Then, Nox’s words suddenly came to mind: Raphael would suffer more pain the more he tried to control the green feathers. He expressed his desire to end the conversation by saying it was getting late.
“I’ll just take a short walk and then head back.”
“Be careful not to be eaten by ghosts.”
Raphael, hastily clutching his arm, disappeared from her sight.
Holding the lamp that emitted a soft yellow light, she walked slowly. She wanted to clear her thoughts. How many trees, veiled in silvery-gray, had she passed? Suddenly, feeling a human presence, Yoon Tae-ha lowered the lamp’s brightness.
Footsteps drew closer. Yoon Tae-ha silently summoned an entity.
A moment later, a man appeared from the darkness, holding a lamp identical to hers.
As soon as he recognized her, Cheon Geon-young extinguished his lamp. Too much light could cause problems. Yoon Tae-ha’s entity also flickered like a broken traffic light before splitting into small particles of light.
He approached her in the dark. Her feet felt glued to the ground. Yoon Tae-ha stood rigid, watching him close the distance.
Too close.
Seeing her patience run out, she moved to retreat, but Cheon Geon-young’s hand was faster. Her left hand was caught. The light flickered on the man’s handsome face, unsettling her heart.
Was it because of her agitated mind? She dropped the lamp from her hand. The silence of the forest was broken by a dull thud.
“Who were you with?”
“Raphael, just for a moment.”
“Did you threaten him to bring the substance?”
“I just asked how much progress had been made. He said he hadn’t found anything separate.”
A strange smile played on Cheon Geon-young’s lips.
“You found nothing?”
“No. Did you forget we’ve been traveling in the same car until now?”
She could see his emotions rising and falling.
“If you’re still lying here...”
Her heart stopped. No, on the contrary, it raced wildly. Yoon Tae-ha’s mind was in such disarray that she couldn’t even properly describe the state of the components within her own body.
What should I do? Should I pretend not to know again?
Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth. Yoon Tae-ha struggled weakly to free herself from Cheon Geon-young’s grasp. But she couldn’t break free. Her strength bounced back as if blocked by an opaque membrane. She was flustered.
As a last resort, she stepped backward, but after only a few steps, she was blocked by a tree. The distance to the man remained close. Cheon Geon-young released her wrist. Instead, his hand moved up and gripped Yoon Tae-ha’s cheek. His touch, fixing her gaze on him, was firm.
“How do other espers react if their guide secretly keeps secrets? Do they just let it go since they only work together? Work is separate, private life is separate.”
“...”
“But we’re not like that. Because I am your private life.”
Cheon Geon-young acted as if his entire attention was focused on her every movement. Her body, almost touching his, became acutely conscious, and the longing that brushed her lips with every breath was an unbearable sting.
“I always tried to tell you everything you needed to know.”
“When you say it with that face, it’s not convincing. You’ve been trained. Do it again.”
He gently stroked her chin with his thumb.
“Breathe.”
If Cheon Geon-young hadn’t spoken, she might not have realized her habit of holding her breath had resurfaced. Her chest rose and fell lightly. The man’s dark black hair was longer than when they arrived at Acheron.
When did I feel this way again? Was it when I hid behind your back and peeked at someone else? He stopped her thoughts from constantly drifting back to the past.
“You.”
“...”
“Don’t you want anything from me?”
Cheon Geon-young, stripped of his characteristic composure, seemed like a different person.
“I want too much.”
“Enough to trap me between trees and talk?”
“If I tell you everything, you might handcuff me.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Then I won’t do that either.”
She knew what Cheon Geon-young would say next. He was going to expose their lies. The sandcastle, so fragile that one touch could collapse it entirely, was precarious.
“I even begged you to come back safely, no matter what you did.”
He slowly removed his hand from her face and bent down, burying his face in her neck. It was similar to how he would habitually press his wet lips against her after intimacy. Her breath hitched at the sensation, reminiscent of scenes in a bed.
“If I were greedy, I wouldn’t have let you go. I wouldn’t have let you go to a dangerous place alone. Don’t be cruel, imagining how I feel every time you get hurt.”
She couldn’t bring herself to push him away or pull him into an embrace. As Yoon Tae-ha hesitated, Cheon Geon-young straightened up. His downcast eyes burned with cold intensity.
“You’re good at reading other people’s minds. Why not mine? Do you think there’s no need because I’m a guide to be used and discarded?”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Yoon Tae-ha raised her voice.
“Don’t talk about ‘using and discarding’ me like that.”
“Then what’s the problem? I’m asking you why you’re going around creating secrets behind my back.”
Very clearly, he was angry. Yet we’ve both lived with secrets. A half-formed hostility flared up.
“There are things in the world you don’t need to hear. You understood that, which is why you approached me talking about my grandfather’s secrets.”
“What?”
“You were the one who pushed the contract first.”
Yoon Tae-ha, unable to suppress her negative emotions, pushed against his chest. Contrary to her expectation that he would resist, Cheon Geon-young readily stepped back.
“We were both just as dishonest.”
The man, his face drained of all color, looked at her with eyes tangled with despair and self-loathing. Unfortunately, Yoon Tae-ha knew the optimal path to hurt him.
You probably know it too. They shared similar vulnerabilities. That’s why they were drawn to each other, and why they were bound to be frustrated. The clumsiness of only building emotions by projecting their own pain onto each other’s wounds was finally shattering.
“The plan you talked about wasn’t real either. You didn’t introduce the people you were working with either. You’re talking as if I’m the only one who went astray, I don’t know what you want to gain, but...”
Cheon Geon-young, who had been listening to her silently, approached.
“Move somewhere else.”
He grabbed her wrist, then gathered all the lamps with his free hand and walked deeper into the forest. Yoon Tae-ha lightly shook her wrist in resistance, but Cheon Geon-young didn’t look back.
“It’s time for the people the Director-General sent to patrol. We need to get away from the camp.”
As if he had already memorized the terrain, Cheon Geon-young moved through the dense forest path without hesitation. Soon, the two arrived at a place with slightly taller, more tightly packed trees. The leaves that fluttered like ghosts were no longer visible.
He released her wrist first.
“Grand Fissure Special Operations Unit.”
Yoon Tae-ha blinked, hearing an unfamiliar name.
“There’s a newly formed organization, created when a portion of the Special Operations Unit and Kwon Hyuk broke off together.”
Ah. She realized then. This was a confession. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized this was the moment he would explain the moments she had secretly observed.
“Changcheon. The official name doesn’t really matter. Everyone calls it by its nicknames. Sentinel, Airfield 72, Beetle Rock. I don’t know all of them either. People who work together usually call it Sentinel.”
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