Sawon’s tone was as usual. There was no anger in it, and it didn’t sink heavy. Even so, Ji Hayeon trembled in place like someone being interrogated.“No need for you to know.”Even the calm Sawon couldn’t help reacting to that one.“No need to know? I’m the one it’s about.”Sawon’s grip tightened around Ji’s wrist.“It’s my story. How am I not supposed to know it.”“Nh……”“Or do you want to tell me yours instead?”“Let go.”“Answer. Then I’ll let go.”Instead of answering, Ji Hayeon began pushing Metena into the hand holding him. As if trying to shove it off with repulsive force, he put his strength into forcing down the fingers wrapped around his wrist. What was so hard about just saying it. Irritation sparked in Sawon’s chest. Sawon, too, started loading Metena into his fingers. A sharp sting spread where their skin touched. Like magnets repelling, tension stretched tight between their two Metenas. It didn’t take long for the winner to be decided.Tap.A red drop slid out of Ji Hayeon’s nose.“Ah, damn.”Startled, Sawon pulled his Metena back at once and let go. Only then did Ji release his force as well. The backlash made Ji’s body sway. Sawon quickly reached out and braced his back.“Ha…… Hey. Why do you get a nosebleed every time something happens.”“Get your hand off.”Ji grimaced and pushed Sawon away. But his strength was nowhere near enough to shove off a tier-1 hunter. The more he repeated the motion, the more he ended up collapsing into Sawon’s arms. Sawon burst out.“Just! Stay still for a second! It keeps getting worse.”“Don’t mind it!”“How am I not supposed to mind it. Stop being stubborn and sit still.”Sawon set the wobbling Ji back down on the bed and hurried off to grab tissues. He sat with one knee up and slowly wiped Ji’s nose.“Hey. You know the side effects last for a week, right? You know that better than me. Why’d you use Metena?”“You’re the one who grabbed me.”“You didn’t answer properly.”“I did. I said you don’t need to know.”“How do I not need to know. You say you’re my friend. That we’ve known each other since middle school. How am I not supposed to know.”Ji Hayeon fidgeted like someone whose secret had been exposed. Annoyance plastered all over his face. Sawon knew this kind of Ji. More accurately, he knew how to coax a creature that was this anxious. Forcing him by strength wasn’t a good idea. Threats weren’t a good choice either.This time, Sawon brought his hand to Ji’s face more carefully. Slow and steady, he wiped away the streaked blood.“Can’t you just tell me?”There were other ways to find out. He could go confront Director Kwon, or he could threaten the Institute staff by force. But that wouldn’t be easy. Soothing one person would be faster. And since they apparently knew each other, he might even appeal to sympathy. Sometimes the messy words that fall out of someone’s mouth give better information than anything else.“Why don’t you want to tell me. Were we not on good terms?”“……”“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to Director Kwon.”Ji Hayeon bit down hard on his lip.“Just tell me. Then I won’t say anything about what I saw.”This time Ji glared at him with sharp eyes.“You’re the one who snooped. So that’s your fault. If a thief gets caught, you’re the one at a disadvantage, so how is this a bargaining chip?”“Of course it is. Hiding it this long without telling me means you didn’t want me to know.”“……”“I don’t know why you hid it, but I’ll pretend I didn’t see it for now. So talk to me.”Ji clenched the hem of his clothes tight. Then, glancing at ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) Sawon, he kept chewing at his lip like he was hesitating. Sawon lightly pressed up Ji’s lower jaw with his thumb.“Don’t chew your lip. You want it bleeding too?”“……What do you want to hear.”As if he’d made up his mind, Ji opened his mouth.“Do you want to know what we were? Or what we were like when we were kids? If I tell you that, you’ll pretend you didn’t see anything?”“Yeah.”Sawon nodded. That was the only way he’d get any information at all. Ji hesitated for a long time before finally letting out a long breath.“……What exactly are you curious about.”“Were you and I really friends? Were we close?”“Just……”“Just?”“……We just knew each other by face.”“What do you mean just by face. We supposedly went to the same school.”“We weren’t that close. Just…… passed each other here and there…… that’s all.”Sawon wiped away a fresh trickle of blood and sat beside Ji. Ji shifted his shoulder to reject him, but Sawon pretended not to see and kept his hand there. Even when Ji’s face was clean and the bleeding stopped, Sawon didn’t stop staring. Under the persistent gaze, Ji rubbed his cheek. For no reason, the spot tingled.“What. Why…… are you looking at me like that.”“You’re the first person who’s ever said they knew me privately.”The S9 district stretched across the old administrative regions from Seongnam and Gwacheon up through Seoul’s Gangnam and Yongsan. Since it had every facility imaginable, most residents rarely left the district. Because of that, most S9 natives died along with the otherworldized land. Everyone who remembered Gu Sawon from before he became a hunter disappeared as well. Some people did return thanks to Nine’s Miracle, but they were only a tiny handful.“Tell me in detail.”“……It’s already been more than ten years. What’s the point of knowing it now.”“I still want to hear it. Do you know anything about my family too?”Ji, who had avoided eye contact all this time, reacted at the word family. With every slow blink of his long lashes, the corners of his eyes reddened.……What. Is he crying?Trying to gather himself, he rolled his eyes away, focusing on the opposite direction, and there was something almost miserable in the motion. Sawon couldn’t help being flustered.“What, what is it. Huh?”Sawon stuck his head forward, checking him from every angle.“Hey. What’s wrong.”“Just……! Go away.”“You’re about to cry again.”“I’m not crying. My eyes sting.”But Sawon didn’t back off.“Did I say something wrong?”Ji shook his head silently. Then he abruptly stood up, took a bottle of water from the fridge, and drank. The cold water clearly went into his stomach, but he drank it slowly, like he was pouring cold over his red eyes to calm himself. Ji sat back down on the bed with a deep exhale.“This is the first and last time. I’ll tell you, so don’t ask anything like this again.”“Uh…… yeah……”“And don’t tell anyone you opened that somewhere else. I have to take responsibility.”“If I promise that, you’ll tell me about our past, right?”Sawon scooted in close and called the two of them “we” like they were familiar.And so Ji let himself get reeled in and spilled a few pieces of information from the past. The whole time Sawon listened, he rubbed at his own chest to quiet the ticklish feeling blooming there. Nine sat on Sawon’s lap, sucking his thumb as he looked up at Ji.***Hayeon, who had been lying facing the wall, slowly turned his body. He saw Gu Sawon lying on the bed far across the room. A face he hadn’t forgotten even a single day in years. The face he saw in hallucinations every day was now lying within arm’s reach. He couldn’t believe it. Hayeon pulled the blanket up over his nose and mouth. He barely held down the trembling in his breath.He’d only told Sawon fragmented pieces of the past. That his family consisted only of his parents, that he’d had an unremarkable school life, that compared to his frail body Sawon had been pretty active. Just that much. The one who wanted Sawon to remember him more than anyone was Ji Hayeon himself. But he hid everything. The day Deaters attacked and Hayeon almost died— that was the day Gu Sawon awakened to save him. The only reason Hayeon survived being crushed under the collapsing building was because of Sawon.Saving him hadn’t been a one-time thing. Sawon had also protected him from the group who used to torment him. They’d spent every day of summer break together.For intellect-types, every time Metena overload hits, hallucinations come. To endure the crushing pain, they relive their happiest moments on an endless loop. In Hayeon’s case, the “happiness” was always Gu Sawon. Sometimes he even pushed himself on purpose just to see the Sawon from those days. Wishing more than anyone to go back to that time—yet still, he had to hide the real secret between “us.” The reason was in another file, the one Sawon hadn’t seen.Hayeon clenched the blanket covering his nose and recalled the file’s contents.Phase 1 Recovery ExperimentㅁLink Progress2.21 10:27 Chamber opened10:40 CODE16 placed in chamber10:46 Link ON10:58 Central data circuit linking started11:02 CODE16 memory data linked11:11 Metena rejection response. Data access impossible.ㅁLink Results–At the moment memory data linking completed, seizure symptoms occurred. Subject CODE16 weaponized Metena and attacked researchers.–1 researcher unconscious, 6 seriously injured, 4 lightly injured.–Seizure halted upon link release and intervention of CODE LP102. Subject lost consciousness.–No memory of events afterward....[Remarks]–Across five total experiments, seizures consistently occurred when linking to memory data related to the intersection of “S9 district” and “Awakening.”–Until a definite cause and solution for the seizures is found, all S9-related information is to be completely blocked from CODE16.Report Date: July 3Report Submitted By: CODE LP102 (Chief Researcher Ji Hayeon)

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