Chapter 68

"Han..."

Flap. The blanket flew over Soram's face. Tae-un, who wrapped Soram tightly in the blanket, pressed him down firmly onto the bed.

"There. Sleep quietly."

"Mmph! Mmph!"

The lump that Soram had become wriggled. It was difficult to overpower Tae-un with strength. If he used his special ability, the result might be different, but just from the two 1st-grades struggling, the bed was already making strained sounds.

After wriggling in the blanket for a while and losing strength, Soram said one thing.

"Bleh."

"..."

Next, he played dead. It was still an attitude with not even a fingernail's worth of seriousness. Tae-un left that blanket lump alone, took one of the two pillows, and got off the bed. When Soram poked his head out, Tae-un was going to the living room, closing the bedroom door.

He grabbed the doorknob and turned it, following him, but the door didn't budge. White aura was floating around the tightly closed door. Tae-un was pushing the door with his ability.

"...Huh? Hey, open the door!"

"You're drunk. Sleep quietly there!"

Tae-un threw the pillow on the sofa behind the drinking table and roughly pulled the blanket from the floor to cover his body. Then, remembering that it had covered Soram's legs, he put it down on the floor with a flushed face. And he turned and lay down facing the corner of the sofa with his bare body. Anyway, since he could sleep well anywhere, there was no discomfort.

After grumbling for a while, Soram seemed to have gone to the bed, as the room became quiet again.

However, Tae-un couldn't fall asleep for a long time, not because of the discomfort or noise of the sleeping arrangement, but for another reason. Then, thanks to the alcohol spread by his intensely beating heart, he was barely able to fall asleep.

* * *

In the early morning, he vaguely heard footsteps passing under his feet. The sound-muffled steps stopped in front of the sofa for a moment, let out a low sigh, and returned to the bedroom he had just come out of. Then the approaching footsteps again had a slightly added weight.

Soon, a blanket fluttered over the person lying with his eyes closed on the sofa. The carelessly placed blanket didn't properly settle on his body. His legs were exposed from below the knees, and the top was covered up to his nose, making it stuffy. However, he didn't show the care to arrange the shape and returned to his own dormitory.

Tae-un opened his eyes a little after the footsteps had completely disappeared. The blanket that had the warmth of another person left rustled in his hand.

Jin Soram was a person with a soft heart even though he pretended to be brazen and uninterested. He was merciless to those outside the line, but he was quite affectionate to the few inside. ...And it seemed that Han Tae-un himself had not been cast out of his heart due to yesterday's incident.

Tae-un slowly got up and went to the bedroom with the door open, dragging the blanket. He roughly put down what he had brought on the bed and sat on the edge. When he turned his head and looked out the window, it was already bluish.

'...Han Tae-un. You like me?'

'After actually meeting you, I learned that you were a different person from what I imagined, but when you take care of Ayoung like an adult, you're cool, and... when you joke around, you're cute.'

"..."

Suddenly, yesterday's voice came over his dazed mind with the remaining alcohol. Tae-un's hand struck the innocent pillow. The sharply cut jawline above turned bright red. After releasing the pillow he was tormenting, he covered his face with both hands and felt the hot heat.

Fortunately, Soram's reaction wasn't terribly shocking. Rather, after the confession, he was more distracted than usual...

Soram didn't seem to take it seriously, and Tae-un expressed his intention to sort out his feelings. So now, as long as he doesn't show it himself, it'll be fine.

Tae-un swallowed something unjust that was trying to come in from inside for no reason.

This was the only way to continue being together as teammates. However, it was inevitable to feel the pain of having to ridiculously burst the feelings that had come heavily for the first time in his life and treat it as if nothing had happened in the future.

If he had ignored his interrogation until the end, he might have kept his pride instead of a pathetic confession. However, the Soram he faced a few hours ago in the heated situation resembled a certain image stuck in Tae-un's head. That expression when he pressed Soram, who was trying to kill Kim Jae-hyeok, asking what kind of person he thought he was.

'What the hell did you think of me!'

The look that had settled on Soram's face at that time seemed to appear again. It was the appearance of someone whose emotions had risen up to their throat but didn't know how to burst them out. Instead of his eyes and mouth crying, Soram replaced his sorrow with quickened breaths.

Tae-un also recalled what Soram had said after that.

'I don't really want to fight with Han Tae-un ssi.'

"...Me neither."

Rather than arguing and hurting each other with one-sided feelings, this would be a better ending.

Some more time passed as he lay with his legs out of the bed. The bluish window gradually brightened.

Finally, the sound he had hoped would come quickly, but also wished would be delayed a little longer, was heard. It was the alarm set to match the time to prepare for work.

Tae-un went into the bathroom, washed his body, and came out. Among the numerous liquor bottles scattered in the living room, the only empty ones were one large liquor bottle and two cans of mango beer. The other liquor would have to be returned to its original owner, Soram. Tae-un looked at the broken door. Today, it was particularly quiet beyond the door. As if Soram was absent.

He went to the office for work first today without waiting for Soram to call him from the next room.

* * *

At a time past 12 o'clock, there was only one person in Team 7's office.

Soram didn't come to work at all.

He was the type of person who would come to work on time even if he came down to the office, covered himself with a blanket, and lay down to sleep. Except for circumstances like being on the guard floor or hospitalized, this was the first time seeing him not come to work without notice.

Tae-un, sitting alone in the quiet office, became perplexed as he checked the time for the umpteenth time.

He thought he couldn't be completely unaffected, but had it become so uncomfortable and awkward that he couldn't even see his face?

Was Soram, who always seemed easygoing and unaffected at that moment, affected that much by his confession? In the midst of alternating regret and resignation, it was absurd that he himself, whose heart rate increased at that point, was pathetic.

Looking at the clock again, only 5 minutes had passed. He grabbed his cell phone, hesitated, and pressed Soram's number, which remained as an unanswered record.

―The customer you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

The signal that had been going for a while was not connected this time either. He got up, holding the cell phone that had abruptly disconnected after the guidance message ended.

If Soram was so uncomfortable that he couldn't bear it, it was right for him, not Soram, to avoid him.

"Haa..."

Tae-un buried his face in his palm once again as he retraced the previous day's conversation in the elevator.

The situation had already come out that he couldn't even cling to him, and what could he do with the water that had been greatly spilled? Tae-un went up to the dormitory to take care of the person who had received a bolt-from-the-blue confession overnight as a top priority.

Entering his own room, he called again. The ringtone was heard, and at the same time, a small vibration sound came from the next room. But Soram didn't answer again. The next room's living room was visible as it was because Soram hadn't covered the door when he crossed over the dormitory in the early morning. The living room was empty.

"Jin Soram ssi, are you in the office? I'll be outside."

But no answer was heard.

"Jin Soram."

Knock knock.

He knocked on the wall instead of the door that couldn't perform its role. Even after repeating that a couple of times, there was no sign of movement.

When he called again, he knew the vibration sound came from beyond the bedroom door.

The call was disconnected again without being answered. Tae-un suppressed his hesitation with a stiff expression and set foot in his dormitory.

"Jin Soram ssi."

Even after knocking on the closed bedroom door and calling his name several times, it remained silent. He finally turned the handle and opened it. The messy bedroom he had seen once before appeared.

His gaze moved past the mountain-like piles of books to the bed covered with a navy blue blanket.

On the bed surrounded by pillows, it was impossible to tell with the eyes whether there was a person or not. However, breathing leaked out from the middle of it.

Tae-un approached the bed a little more. There, a body was hiding, surrounded by pillows, cushions, books, etc., with only the forehead sticking out of the blanket. Even though the bed provided in the dormitory was a spacious queen size, he was sleeping in a gap not even the size of a single.

The shoulder area of the blanket rose and fell up and down with heavy breathing. He had no idea Tae-un had come close, showing no signs of waking up.

Was he still sleeping?

Some strength left his shoulders. Tae-un took a deep breath and said,

"...Jin Soram ssi, wake up."

Of course, just as he couldn't hear the phone ringing three times, he didn't wake up with this level of sound. It was the same even when he called out in a slightly louder volume than before. Tae-un reached out and lightly placed his hand on his shoulder. And shook it.

"Why..."

Eventually, Soram answered with an irritated expression.

"It's way past the time to go to work."

Soram's eyes finally opened narrowly. Even with the light seeping through the curtains, the room was already bright. The pupils that grasped the situation frowned heavily. Soon, he propped himself up on the bed. The sigh he let out as he dropped his shoulders was deep.

"...I'm screwed. I'm going to get scolded."

His bird's nest hair was still deeply bent. For now, the lingering sleepiness seemed to be greater than the sinking feeling of being late. Soram was still wearing the same pajamas he had worn when they watched TV together the day before. Tae-un averted his gaze when he saw the bare legs revealed under the lifted blanket.

"What are you going to do if you can't wake up until this hour?"

Soram washed his face and raised his head. Tae-un entered his pupils.

At that moment, Soram's expression crumpled. This was clearly for a different reason than being dazzled, as anyone could see.

"Han Tae-un."

The sound of teeth being clenched tightly came from between his lips. Tae-un staggered back a step. Soram's face became grim as if he was about to draw a knife at any moment.

Plop.

Soram fell back to the side with that expression.

"I'm hung, over..."

He curled up in the crevice of the pillow and let out a painful groan. He thought he was joking, but Soram's face and lips and everything else were pale white.

"Ah, my head, ah, my stomach, ugh, urgh..."

His groans were more painful than when he was stitching up his wounds and the anesthesia was wearing off after destroying the 1st-grade dungeon. Tae-un was dumbfounded. Because, yesterday, clearly.

"You only drank two cans of beer."

"What? Two cans? Are you crazy?"

The way he was pulling his hair and blaming himself was something that could only come out of Tae-un when he was still a non-awakener after mixing and drinking several bottles of soju and makgeolli (Korean rice wine).

Soram's body shriveled up like a worm. Then he got up, made a zombie-like moan, and staggered to the head of the bed and sat down leaning against it. When his stomach was churning, it was more painful to have his head down. It was better to sit up, but it wasn't like it wasn't painful.

"Ugh..."

"..."

"The world is spinning..."

"..."

"Save me..."

Soram, who looked like his soul had been sucked out all night, moved only his pale lips and said.