"Hello?"

The young Yuseoa appeared in front of him.

"Sihoo."

She greeted young Han Sihoo.
It was a distant memory, faint but still there.
Both of them shared the tragic commonality of losing their parents in an accident, which had brought them together.

"Sihoo, what are we going to play today?"

Han Sihoo spent his time with Yuseoa playing trivial games.
There was nothing else for him to do either.
For children, playing is a job.

The crumbling houses of the slums,
A district that would never be redeveloped.
Yuseoa lived in such a place.

Han Sihoo hadn't always lived there.
He had once lived in a relatively wealthy area, in a financially stable household.
It was after his parents passed away that everything went wrong.
After all the adults who had been helping him left, it was only Yuseoa who remained by his side.

Could two children survive on their own?

Luckily, the world wasn’t entirely unforgiving.

There were kind factory owners who gave children easy tasks and paid them a steady wage.
They could also retrieve valuable items from areas where monsters had passed.
Sometimes, they earned money running errands.

Even though they were young, they could make enough money to survive.
Thankfully, even in the slums, there weren't many adults who were bad enough to take advantage of the children.

"We’ll keep playing together forever, right?"

The brown-haired girl smiled brightly.

"We’ll keep playing, right?"

Yes.
But it wasn’t always just playing.

Whenever the memory of his parents’ death overwhelmed him, leaving him trembling, Yuseoa would quietly come up to him and offer words of comfort, no matter how difficult it was for her.
Because they shared a similar fate, her words meant a lot to Han Sihoo.

"Don’t worry, everything will be okay. It’ll get better."

She would say such kind words.
Even though she must have been struggling too.
Seeing her smile, Han Sihoo made a decision.

He would protect that smile.

That’s how it began.

"What are you doing, Sihoo?"

"Training."

"Training?"

"They say I can use [swordsmanship]."

It was only later that he realized he had become an awakened one.

"Wow."

"Just a bit more practice."

He swung scrap metal and wooden planks, practicing.
He had to be able to protect Yuseoa with the power he had.

Fortunately, even in the slums, there weren’t many bad adults who bothered children.
But there were some.

"Sihoo, you’re amazing! So cool!"

He defeated one of the bad guys.
And he was able to protect Yuseoa.
It was also the moment he realized just how exceptional his abilities were.

"I’ll always be by your side."

"You’ll keep protecting me, right?"

"Yeah."

"...I really like you!"

Yuseoa said that as she jumped into his arms.
Back then, his heart raced like crazy.

It was a story from their childhood.
Long before his identity as an awakened one became known and he was sent to the academy.

The brown-haired girl was still with Sihoo.
And she was still smiling.
On the dirt floor.
The dirt floor?

"I'm sorry."

-Sorry. Sorry.
-Just let me die. I'm sorry.

Reality returned, cold and harsh.

Everything had come to an end.
Yuseoa had been sent to the academy's medical facility.

Han Sihoo couldn’t understand why this had happened.
He had no answers.

The Yuseoa he once knew seemed to have disappeared long ago.

He had barely stopped Yuseoa from trying to kill herself.
What seemed like an attack directed at him had quickly turned into an attempt to harm herself.
A shocking turn of events.

As he stood there, trying to collect his thoughts, someone came up beside him.

"I'm… I’m sorry, Sihoo. I’m really sorry."

"Yeah."

It was Rena Asilia.
She too was still reeling from the shock of having stabbed the wrong person.
The problem was that she had only just learned the rules for dealing with villains.

In society, awakened individuals who abused their powers for evil were labeled as villains.
One of the methods to safely deal with such villains, without causing harm to citizens, was to take advantage of their momentary vulnerability.
This aligned perfectly with what Han Sihoo had done.

He had made the enemy lower their weapon by earning their trust!
Even though something felt off, Rena hadn’t missed her chance to strike.

"I’m sorry."

Rena apologized to Han Sihoo again.
She wished she could also apologize to Yuseoa, his childhood friend.

"I didn’t realize she was your friend… your childhood friend."

"It’s fine."

Han Sihoo replied.

"It’s just that… I thought you said you didn’t have any old friends."

That was Rena’s confusion.
She hadn’t been able to hear the conversation properly while preparing her attack.
She hadn’t considered the possibility of a reunion with an old friend.

Rena only knew so much about Han Sihoo.
He had always been reluctant to talk about his past, and since she knew he lost his parents in an accident, she had been hesitant to ask.

-You didn’t have any friends?
-Not even one?

Han Sihoo hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
This was around the time Yuseoa had started to push him away.
He didn’t want the academy to know about Yuseoa.

Han Sihoo had always found Yuseoa’s behavior—her attempts to distance herself from him—strange.
But if that’s what she wanted…

As long as she didn’t come looking for him at the academy, he thought everything would be fine.
He had enough to deal with at the academy, and with the semester ending soon, he had been busy.
If they had stayed friends, none of this would have happened.

"Anyway, I’m sorry. If it’s hard to talk about, you don’t have to."

"…No."

Rena, seeing Han Sihoo lost in thought, hesitated before quietly leaving.

"Sorry."

She said one last time before disappearing.

Han Sihoo kept thinking.
It’s my fault.
The last time he saw Yuseoa at the academy, he wondered if they could ever reconcile.

When Yuseoa came to see him, her arm was wrapped in bandages.
Before Han Sihoo had entered the academy, she had been fine.
It was strange to see her bandaged like that.

-You know the medicine I’m taking?
-I don’t have enough money to buy it anymore. I came to borrow some.
-I’ll pay you back later.

She had asked for money, claiming the price of the medicine had gone up.
It didn’t make sense to him.
Maybe the bandages were just for show.

Han Sihoo knew about the medicine Yuseoa had been taking.
It was something she had started for a persistent cough.
There was no way it could be that expensive.
He had never seen such an expensive drug before.

Eventually, he came to a conclusion.
She had only approached him again because she needed money.
He couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong between them.

He gave her the money.
He didn’t lend it to her.

-But don’t come looking for me again. Let’s not get involved anymore.

-What?

-Eat and get lost.

-…Okay.

He had thrown her own words back at her.
How hard was it to control his emotions?
At the time, he couldn’t comprehend Yuseoa’s behavior.
Now, he finally understood.

The drugs.
The drugs had destroyed Yuseoa.
Someone had destroyed her with drugs.

-Um, Sihoo.
-Can you lend me some money for transportation?

The memories came back in bits and pieces.
At the end, she had asked to borrow money for transportation.
It was far from her home to the academy.

-I walked here.

Yuseoa wasn’t the type to lie.
Neither Han Sihoo nor Yuseoa had ever lied to each other.
That’s how it had always been.

Five million won for medicine.
Yuseoa had been paying that much for drugs.
So how had she been managing before she came to him for help?

There was no way Yuseoa, who lived in the slums, could afford that kind of money.
If she had sold off everything she owned, she wouldn’t even have enough left for transportation.

She had no one to borrow money from.
No one to contact.
Her only option was to rely on her only friend.
Han Sihoo was the only one who might have helped her.

And he did.
The last time, he had treated her similarly, frustrated after their falling out.
He had been deeply hurt by Yuseoa’s attempts to push him away.

She never apologized.
Her reasons for needing money seemed like lies.
He had never been so angry at her before.
Just this once, it seemed justified.
That’s what he told himself.

Yuseoa had acted as though she hated Han Sihoo more than anyone.
Yet she came back.
Her smile when they met was disturbingly familiar.
It didn’t feel right.
Looking back, it was all so strange.

“Damn it…”

Yuseoa was smiling.
No, she was crying.
Because of him.

Han Sihoo stood there, waiting, until someone came looking for him.

"...So, she was your childhood friend."

Lee Yuram spoke.

"Yes."

"Well, the academy does have a habit of dragging awakened people here pretty forcefully. But still… you should’ve taken better care of her."

Admission to the academy was often partially compulsory.
Han Sihoo hadn’t intended to leave Yuseoa behind.
There was a family protection system, but it didn’t apply to non-relatives.

With hundreds of awakened individuals gathered at the academy, it wasn’t possible to care about everyone’s personal circumstances.
But those who excelled always received benefits.
Had Han Sihoo shown exceptional abilities, he could have been of more help to Yuseoa.

"Sihoo? Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"You know we can’t really cure things like addiction or sickness."

They could reattach severed limbs, but they couldn’t cure a common cold.
That’s how it was for healing-type awakened people.
In certain areas, conventional medicine was still necessary.

"We’ve patched up the broken arm and the stab wound Rena caused. That’s not the problem."

If it was a fatal injury like a stab wound, they could heal it.
It was a strange system, but it was the reality.

"But there were some old wounds we couldn’t heal."

"Old wounds…?"

Han Sihoo recalled the bandages Yuseoa had wrapped around her arm.

"Yeah… she had bruises on her stomach too. It looked like someone had beaten her."

Bruises on her stomach?

Han Sihoo’s mind conjured an image of Yuseoa being beaten.
Had the doctor done this?
He didn’t know.
He didn’t want to imagine it.

-Are you going to keep protecting me?

The image of young Yuseoa overlapped with that of the present.
His younger self, promising to protect her, also came to mind.
In the end, he hadn’t protected her.
He had failed.

Why had he done that?
He knew how dangerous the slums were better than anyone.
The academy was comfortable.
But did he really hate spending time with Yuseoa that much?
Was he secretly thinking that Yuseoa was just a burden?

Why?

A crushing sense of guilt engulfed Han Sihoo.

 

TL NOTE: Please don't skimp on the stars for the translation - it inspires me and gives me the strength to write more. Thank you~!

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