novelraw Chapter 228 : Chapter 228
Chapter 228 : Chapter 228
Chapter 228: The Past (4)
Hope is something one gives up on if it's not seen at all, but having it flicker before one's eyes and then faintly grow distant was an even more horrific experience.
For Ho-cheol, who had always lived in the darkness as a part of it, the disappearance of the light that seemed almost within reach made him lose even the eyes he had that could see in the dark.
Betrayal by Smiley.
At least, the Ho-cheol of that time considered it a betrayal.
And after that, Ho-cheol changed into an even more ferocious and vicious villain.
Heroes, of course, and even villains, feared even daring to speak his name or his organization's name.
Something existing in the darkness.
Ho-cheol's existence had already transformed into a huge symbol.
Nevertheless, whether it was his last remaining conscience that made him hesitate until the end and ultimately refrain from murder, or if it was because of Smiley's tears he saw in the mirror just before leaving.
At least, the current Ho-cheol couldn't know.
Even after that, Ho-cheol naturally ran into Smiley several times.
But it wasn't for personal reasons; they were meetings as Hero Smiley and Villain Jeong Ho-cheol at the scenes of villain incidents.
Each time they met, he could feel that her condition was gradually worsening.
Despite this, Ho-cheol grit his teeth and ignored her.
Hero and villain.
That relationship, even if they were enemies, would at least not be hurt like in the past.
And Smiley, too, merely wore a sad expression beneath her mask, unable to bring herself to greet Ho-cheol warmly as she had in the past.
How much time had passed like that.
Ho-cheol, who was acting as a villain just like usual, spotted Smiley running and leaping between the rooftops of buildings in the distance and raised his body.
“It's Smiley. We're getting out of here.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see you at the rendezvous point.”
As soon as his order fell, his subordinates each grabbed a money bag and immediately jumped into the underground escape route.
Following them, Ho-cheol moved to escape through another, safer route.
No, he tried to leave.
Smiley instantly closed the distance and blocked the front of the passage.
Both of them were wearing masks, so they couldn't see each other's expressions, but for some reason, they could both guess that the other person was making a similar expression to their own.
However, contrary to his true feelings, Ho-cheol fiddled with the sword in his hand and spoke.
“If you're going to move, move. If you're going to fight, pick up your weapon. Don't tell me you think you can win even bare-handed?”
In recent times, Ho-cheol’s strength had risen dramatically.
Even for Smiley, he wasn't someone she could easily subdue like she had a few months ago.
Even more so if she was dying from an illness.
At his sarcasm, Smiley wordlessly stepped aside.
“Tsk. If you were going to move anyway, why block the path.”
Saying something completely different from his true feelings, Ho-cheol passed her.
But the moment Ho-cheol stood at the entrance of the passage, Smiley reached her hand out toward Ho-cheol’s back.
It wasn't an attack. Ho-cheol flinched at the hand that just lightly touched him.
“What?”
She slowly leaned her forehead against Ho-cheol’s back.
“……I'm going to die soon.”
At that short phrase, Ho-cheol’s body stiffened.
“If, just if, my true heart wasn't enough, I'll definitely repay it someday. So……”
She whispered in a fading voice.
A sniffling sound could be heard in between.
“Can't you just, be a little kinder to me?”
Ho-cheol squeezed his eyes shut.
Why, why on earth did things like this only happen to him.
He didn't have the courage to turn around and face her.
He slowly opened his mouth, still facing away from Smiley.
“If you were going to die this easily. If you were going to leave my side. You shouldn't have approached me from the beginning. You shouldn't have shown me kindness. You shouldn't have made me imagine a world without you.”
Ho-cheol turned his head back and took off his mask.
His expression was distorted more miserably than ever.
“What it means to have something precious, how miserable it is to lose it. Why do I have to go through that again.”
Smiley also slowly took off the mask covering her face, returning her Trait-altered face to its original state.
She apologized, her voice thick with tears.
“Sorry. I'm sorry. I was scared. That maybe you'd be disappointed. That everything we've built up would disappear. I ran away. It really wasn't because I wanted to hurt you or deceive you. Really. I'm sorry for being selfish.”
That rambling apology, rather, seemed to pour out her emotions and thoughts in a jumble of words.
The hand on Ho-cheol's back was, at some point, tightly gripping his clothes.
Ho-cheol’s true heart reached Smiley, and Smiley’s true heart reached Ho-cheol.
For a long time, there was no conversation between them.
But without a single word, they exchanged and shared countless emotions and meanings.
And the result.
Ho-cheol turned around.
And said briefly.
“Villain. I'll quit.”
It wasn't that different from the promise a few months ago, but there was a clear difference in the expression.
Until now, Ho-cheol had said he would wrap up his villain activities.
He hadn't clearly said he would quit like this.
A firm declaration of intent, it meant he had overcome the psychological resistance that came from the difference in that word.
“And after that……”
He paused for a moment and caught his breath.
“And after that?”
At Smiley repeating his inconclusive words back to him, he let out a small laugh and shook his head.
“Not now. I'll tell you later.”
“Huh?”
Smiley exclaimed, her eyes widening in surprise.
“You laughed! You just laughed, didn't you!”
“You saw wrong.”
Pushing away Smiley, who was clinging to him stubbornly telling him to laugh again, Ho-cheol let out another light laugh.
***
Ho-cheol recalled that this period was perhaps not the happiest, but the most spiritually fulfilling.
After that, Smiley continued as a hero, and Ho-cheol spent busy days liquidating his villain life.
Ho-cheol suggested hospitalization several times to Smiley, whose condition worsened daily due to her heart disease, but Smiley was immovable.
It would be different if hospitalization offered improvement.
It was an incurable disease from a Gate in the first place.
Even slowing the disease's progress was impossible with modern medicine.
Even at the hospital, all they could do was ease the pain with medicine, so if she was going to endure that pain to help others.
Ho-cheol had no way to stop her.
Smiley, growing exhausted day by day, but the citizens and other heroes had no idea of the real her hidden beneath that smiling mask.
I can't just stand by and watch Smiley die.
Having judged so, Ho-cheol grit his teeth slightly and got up from his seat.
And a few days later.
“Huh? Where’d he go.”
Ho-cheol's office, which she visited after a long time.
Ho-cheol, who should have been there at this time, was nowhere to be seen.
She scratched her cheek and plopped down in his chair.
The only rest time in her life, where even sleep time wasn't guaranteed.
How long had she waited with her eyes closed.
Kkiiik―
The door opened, and seeing Ho-cheol appear beyond it, Smiley smiled and greeted him.
No, she tried to greet him.
“Heoeok―!”
Seeing the blood-covered Ho-cheol, she barely swallowed a scream.
“Wha- what!”
“Just went to a Gate for a bit.”
Ho-cheol said, placing a single flower he held in his hand down on the table.
“Ah?”
Smiley, spotting the flower, instinctively marveled.
It was a flower with a color that seemed like layers of light stacked on top of each other, flowing down.
From the front, it was blue, but if you shifted your gaze just a little to the side, it shined red.
The stem was transparent like glass, yet its inside couldn't be seen through, It was as if a single flower contained a rainbow.
“This is?”
Ho-cheol flopped into his chair and let out a long sigh.
“It's called a Rainbow Cosmos. Heard it was effective for some guy who had symptoms similar to your illness.”
As if proving he had just plucked it, Ho-cheol brushed off the remaining dirt on the roots and added.
“Boil it and drink it, or chew it raw, whatever.”
Although it was just a rumor circulating on the villain network, it was at least better than just waiting blankly.
At those words, Smiley stared at Ho-cheol with a blank expression.
She was grateful enough for him just worrying about her condition sometimes, but this much?
She felt a deep sense of being moved, beyond just gratitude.
She carefully took the Rainbow Cosmos.
“Thank you.”
“Just take good care of yourself. Who knows, a cure might come out within a few years.”
The outside society was currently undergoing absurd development.
It wasn't a singularity, but it was changing at a fierce speed.
Maybe a complete cure would be possible.
“But……”
Smiley’s eyes as she looked at the Rainbow Cosmos held a faint worry.
The blood-covered Ho-cheol, even while thinking he wouldn't, she couldn't help but worry.
And Ho-cheol, who read her gaze, said curtly.
“I didn't kill them. Anyone.”
Only then did she relax her body, relieved.
“As expected, I believed in you.”
She gave him a thumbs up.
“You think I went through all that trouble just to hear empty compliments like that?”
“Then. What should I do for you.”
“Just get better quickly.”
That alone would be more than enough of a reward and thanks.
***
Finishing his day's work, Ho-cheol looked around the quiet room.
Just one person, Smiley, was gone, but a chill-inducing silence had settled.
Originally, Ho-cheol had thought of this spacious place as success, and silence as peace, but now it just felt uselessly large, and he even felt a strange loneliness.
“……Once I wrap everything up.”
Should I go down to the countryside and farm or something.
Although that too might take who knows how many more years.
Dreaming isn't a sin.
Actually, he used to think it was a sin, but that thought changed thanks to Smiley.
He habitually picked up the remote and turned on the television.
Normally, he only read the news via newspapers and his phone, but this was a gift she had forcibly bought him, saying the room was too desolate.
The only channels that came on were all public broadcasting, but it didn't matter since he only watched the news.
The news he turned on out of habit.
And the breaking news flowing from the screen was enough to fluster Ho-cheol.
A giant building with pitch-black smoke rising from it.
[The hostage situation that occurred here at the Golden Tower Building……. We will now report the damage situation compiled so far. Deceased…….]
A caster wearing a safety helmet urgently explained the situation.
A super-giant building about to open, hundreds of hostages trapped inside.
The villains' demand was the release of their boss who had been captured.
The scale was large, but the ones causing the incident were just a group of A-rank villains.
Up to this point, it was a common villain disaster that happened anywhere.
The reason Ho-cheol was flustered was separate.
[Ah, there! There, Hero Smiley has entered the building! We will deliver more detailed information as soon as it comes in……!]
Biip―
Ho-cheol turned off the television.
The Rainbow Cosmos he had gone through the trouble of backstabbing the Sword Demon to get was rendered useless as Smiley's illness had deepened.
But to the public, she was still the strongest hero, and she, too, was striving to live up to that.
Even in her current state, a few A-ranks should have been no problem.
But Ho-cheol’s instincts were telling him.
They're doing this, taking only that many hostages, just to cause trouble?
Moreover, in Smiley’s designated area?
It was clear they were plotting something much more absurd.
There was no way that would be good for Smiley.
He hurriedly threw on his coat and headed for the Golden Tower Building shown on the news.
***
The Golden Tower Building, which he infiltrated while avoiding the eyes of the media and other heroes.
And it was the top floor of the building where he found Smiley.
And the moment Ho-cheol arrived was already too late.
“Ah, what brings you here?”
Smiley, having spotted Ho-cheol, took off her mask and waved one hand lightly.
Around her, sitting with her back against one wall, unconscious villains were scattered about.
“It's sudden, but it's good to see you.”
But that hand soon lost its strength and fell to the floor.
Ho-cheol couldn't give any answer.
He slowly moved and stood next to her.
He knelt, reached out, and clasped the hand that had fallen to the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Well. Maybe?”
Smiley smiled good-naturedly and bobbed their clasped hands up and down.
Of course, both Ho-cheol, who asked, and Smiley, who answered, knew.
She was not okay at all.
A steel rebar, thicker than an arm, had pierced through her abdomen.
For the current Smiley, it was an absurdly fatal wound.
Drip― Drip― Drip―
Blood flowed down the rebar, forming drops and falling.