The day I woke up from my sleep. I met with all the team leaders including Esmeralda and Angelique, and even sent Luche and Siera back that day.
I couldn’t fall asleep because I had been sleeping for too long, so I spent the night with my eyes open.
Two weeks had passed since the bombing incident at the Olympic Bridge, and on the day of the bombing, I received an emergency signal and boarded a large cruiser that departed from the ship to come to the ship.
When I checked the treatment details given by the nurse, I realized that I had suffered injuries that could have cost me my life.
There were only a few things I remembered from that day. I only recalled the moment when I saw the faces of the HunterKiller members right before the explosion on the Olympic Bridge, and I had been sleeping through all the rest of the situation being sorted out.
To recover, I spent several days in a cell activation capsule, and as a result, my hair had grown quite long. I swept my falling bangs aside and thought about what to do next, but all that came to mind were the faces of my girlfriends, and I couldn’t come up with any plans.
As the sun rose and the first person to visit me in the ward was Siera.
“Where’s Luche?”
I asked this assuming that Luche, as the leader of Team 3, would come, and Siera approached me without any expression or words and sat down in the chair beside the bed.
“She went back to Seoul with the new team members. She had some work to do.”
It turned out later that Luche returning to Seoul was a pre-decided matter, and she had stayed by my side last night thinking I might wake up, but I hadn’t.
“New team members?”
Since Luche held the position of leader, I could understand that there would be tasks to perform due to the incident. However, it was puzzling why there would be new team members joining Team 3, which didn’t need additional personnel.
And I understood the meaning of these new team members right after that, when she handed me a hologram pad.
“!”
While checking the events that had occurred over the past two weeks on the pad, my eyes widened at one item and my hand holding the pad began to tremble.
Damage report status. It referred to the damage situation of Spacystro, not Earth, and I read the entries line by line from the top.
At the very top was my name, with various injury details listed alongside the letters “A,” and the result was written as “consciousness restored.”
“Klugger… unconscious.”
I had been in the car at the time and had suffered injuries severe enough to keep me unconscious for two weeks. After seeing the list of names, I realized that other team members must have also been injured.
Daniel, deceased. Rondo, deceased. Ban, deceased.
Half of the team members had minor injuries, and most of the other half had serious injuries. And there were those who had died.
Among those with serious injuries, there were also individuals whose future activities were deemed impossible, and my trembling hand wouldn’t stop.
Seeing that I was greatly agitated, Siera urgently grabbed my hand and slowly turned her head to look at me.
Looking at her tear-filled eyes, I realized that Siera must have been struggling a lot to deliver this news to me.
Gathering my thoughts, I looked again at the list detailing the current state of the team members. This was reality, and running away wouldn’t change anything.
Four people, including myself, had been in a state of unconsciousness, and one of them was Klugger. Although recovery was complete, he remained in a state where his consciousness was lost, and no one knew when he would wake up.
“Where is Klugger?”
Perhaps because we had worked together for a long time? The state of Klugger was the first thing I was curious about.
“He went to Seoul with Luche today. He has recovered, but he is still in a state of unconsciousness, so they will be admitted to a Spacystro hospital in Seoul. Since Klugger, like us, doesn’t have any relatives, we decided to admit him to a hospital in Seoul so that we, who know him, can easily find him.”
Spacystro had deeply integrated into Earth’s society and had established welfare facilities over the past 20 years.
Since it wasn’t possible to return to the ship every time a small illness or injury occurred, they had set up welfare facilities nearby for recovery. To avoid suspicion, these facilities were also operated for Earthlings.
Unconscious Klugger was taken to Seoul by Luche, and there was no immediate way to confirm his condition.
“Is there no danger to his life?”
“Yes, fortunately, there were no problems during the recovery process. Aside from being unconscious, there are no other issues.”
“…”
There was a brief silence. It seemed likely that the remaining team members who were also in a state of unconsciousness had gone to the hospital in Seoul with Klugger.
During a momentary pause in the conversation, I hesitated whether to bring up the topic of HunterKiller with Siera.
The cause of the bombing was Team Guerrilla, and they had planned the situation by stalking and confirming the identities of Spacystro members on their own.
Fortunately, the members of Team Guerrilla were so frightened by what happened that day that they refused to give statements, and Indigo, who led the event, had not regained consciousness, while Gainesboro, another leader, was still missing.
Based on the information released by the Earth Defense Union, the same statement was made at the meeting between high-ranking officials of the Earth Defense Union and the Spacystro Board of Directors.
While it may not be 100% reliable, based on the information currently available, neither the Earth Defense Union nor Spacystro knew about my relationship with HunterKiller.
Actually, there was one person who knew: I had told Luche about my fatigue and stress before the bombing incident, so as far as I knew, Luche was the only one who knew about my current situation.
However, I couldn’t tell if Luche had told Siera, Esmeralda, or Angelique.
“……Did Luchelord not say much while I was asleep?”
I looked at Siera hopefully, and when I suddenly asked her this question while staring intently at the hologram pad, Siera was startled.
“Luchelord? Oh… No, we had a lot to do with this incident, so we didn’t have much time to talk, and I didn’t really hear anything… Is something wrong?”
“Huh? No, I was just wondering.”
She hadn’t shared any information about me with others yet. This raised one odd point.
Siera, sitting in the chair beside the bed and looking at me, seemed to be scrutinizing me too closely. I wondered why Siera would look at me so closely.
Then I remembered an incident that occurred two weeks ago, before I confided the truth to Luchelord.
Feeling exhausted and stressed, I had lashed out at her after hearing Siera’s advice not to do anything.
“…Sorry.”
Siera said this without knowing my situation, but reflecting on it, I realized that I had acted without thinking more than once.
This incident was also caused by my attempt to solve everything alone, leading to an irreparable situation. Perhaps it was time to consider my situation, as Siera had suggested.
Siera, who always cleaned up the mess after my reckless actions, was naturally trying to control my behavior. Unintentionally, I had caused her trouble many times.
“Oh, oh?!”
Thinking about how this situation was my fault, I felt sorry for yelling at Siera that day.
After becoming a commander, I noticed that Siera’s tone towards me had become more formal, and subconsciously, I had distanced myself from her.
“You suddenly got mad at me. Sorry.”
“No, no! I didn’t realize you would be so stressed by what I say. Sorry.”
Controlling my reckless behavior was something Siera had always done. Thanks to her, I had avoided many dangerous situations.
I couldn’t remember our relationship before coming to Earth being like this, and I wondered where things had gone wrong.
We apologized to each other, and a heavy silence fell over the room. Our eyes met, and we both burst out laughing.
“It’s been a while since we argued.”
“That’s true. Ever since I became the team leader, there hasn’t been a reason to argue.”
Feeling lighter after reminiscing, I turned around to get off the bed and put on slippers placed on the floor.
“Where are you going? You just woke up today.”
“I’m not going to overdo it, but I have some things to check out while I’m here. Can you accompany me?”
“…Who would stop you? I’ll stop you if you do something strange.”
“Alright.”
Siera and I left the ward. It seemed like I would return to Seoul in about two weeks, so I wanted to resolve as many matters as possible before then.
One by one, the members entered the empty room where A was staying, and when everyone arrived, Red turned on the lights.
The room, filled with moonlight and light coming through the window, instantly brightened, and the familiar clothes hanging on the drying rack became more visible.
“Why are we here?”
Pink, who was touching one of A’s clothes hanging on the drying rack, turned her head and asked Red. Red, who hesitated for a moment, sat on the bed and looked around at the members before speaking.
“It won’t work this way.”
The members looked at each other. They all had the same thoughts and were troubled by the same problem.
Although I couldn’t tell exactly what each member was thinking about the incident, it was clear that everyone was suffering from it.
When we gathered for a meeting two weeks ago to discuss A, the atmosphere was so tense that we couldn’t continue the discussion. I postponed the idea of talking to the members.
But time had passed, and now it was necessary to talk to the members without delay. That’s why Red arranged this meeting.
The members quickly realized Red’s intention.
Yellow sighed deeply and sat on the sofa opposite the TV.
“So, what should we do? It’s true that A is a member of Spacystro, and we’ve all met.”
This didn’t need further proof. Yellow’s question seemed to be passing responsibility for the plan to Red, the leader.
But she asked because she had no idea what to do next, so she asked.
Red lowered her head, sighed, and then raised her head again.
“It’s true that Big Brother deceived us. What I’m curious about is whether he deceived us maliciously as a Spacystro soldier.”
Everyone fell silent. None of them could answer Red’s question. At least, according to what they knew, A was not someone who would deceive them with malice.
But since it was true that A had deceived them and met everyone, it was not something that could be overlooked simply because there was no malice involved. It was a matter that needed to be resolved directly by the parties involved, so the members couldn’t speak rashly.
“Should we talk a little about A?”
Blue, who had been silent until then, spoke softly while sitting on the floor. Pink and Green, who had been observing the atmosphere, also sat down, and the members started sharing their experiences with A one by one.
Red talked about how they first met A at a convenience store and started dating.
Pink shared how they became closer and started dating while working at the same cafe.
Green talked about how they met, helped resolve her family issues, and eventually confessed and started dating.
Blue recounted how they took care of children together and helped A realize her true feelings, leading to their relationship.
Yellow described how they met at an arcade, played games together, and grew close, eventually starting to date.
As they shared their stories, they realized the timing matched up. On certain days, different members met A, and on other days, A stayed at someone’s house.
As the story progressed, the members felt the tangled threads of the narrative unraveling, and their expressions gradually darkened.
The women, who had believed that A loved them exclusively, realized that his love was not directed solely toward them.
They were amazed by some stories and angry at others. Ironically, the clearer A’s romantic relationships became, the more they thought about him.
When their stories ended, the room was filled with silence. The golden sunset had already faded into the horizon, and the outside was dark.
“…Why did Big Brother meet all of us at once?”
Green broke the silence, asking a question that wasn’t directed at anyone in particular but to all the members present.
“I don’t know. If he approached to gather information as a Spacystro soldier, he would have tried to get information somehow.”
Pink looked at Red after hearing Yellow’s words and Red tilted her head in confusion upon seeing Pink.
“If he intended to split the team, he wouldn’t have encouraged reconciliation after fights.”
“He wouldn’t have tried to help us with our troubles either.”
Blue added another comment after hearing Pink’s words. There were plenty of reasons to criticize A for meeting five people at once.
But what they wanted to know was not that A met five people at once, but why he did so.
If he had approached with such obvious malice, they would have drawn a line from the beginning. However, A’s actions towards the members did not seem to carry any malice.
On the contrary, instead of splitting the team, he seemed to strengthen its unity and tried to resolve the issues each member was facing.
They couldn’t understand the intentions behind A’s countless actions until now.
“This is frustrating. When I think about it, before Yellow and Green started dating, we all cheered for each other’s boyfriends, saying they would do well, right?”
Everyone laughed at Pink’s sarcastic comment. It wasn’t a genuine laugh but a bitter one, realizing how absurd the situation was.
“That’s true. We didn’t even know we were talking about the same person.”
Reflecting on the situation, they realized that all their boyfriends had too many similarities.
Noticing other members and not mentioning their boyfriend’s background because they found them too kind was ridiculous, making them laugh.
With Red’s words, silence fell again in the room. Tired of the heavy silence, Yellow suddenly stood up.
“I’m thirsty. Got anything to drink?”
“There’s only water. If you want a drink, there’s a convenience store right here. Want to go together?”
Knowing the fridge’s contents, Red replied and got up from the bed to go out with Yellow, apparently intending to buy drinks.
“No, I’ll go alone and get some air.”
Waving her hand to indicate that Red didn’t need to follow, Yellow put on her shoes at the entrance and opened the door.
“Ah?”
Standing at the door, Yellow was surprised to see A.
He seemed to have been about to enter the code into the door lock, standing there with his hand raised, and was startled by the suddenly opened door. His low voice caught everyone’s attention.
A, standing there with his black hair grown longer than a month ago and a blank expression, was spotted.
Although his hair had grown significantly in a month, the members weren’t focused on the length of his hair.
His black hair and black eyes. Seeing his familiar face, everyone froze like stone.
“Han SuA?”
The moment Yeol’s name slipped out of A’s mouth, Yeol snapped out of it and grabbed A’s arm, throwing him into the room.
“Yaaah!!”
Startled by the sudden throw, A landed in the middle of the room, and at that moment, Yeol’s voice echoed through the room.
“Stop him!”
Yeol dashed toward A, pressing his body to the ground first. As soon as she gave the signal, the other members rushed to grab A’s arms and legs.
“Ah, ah! Just wait a minute! It hurts!”
Panicked, the members couldn’t control their strength and clung to A’s torso, arms, and legs with all their might to prevent him from escaping.
“Just let me go for a moment! Just a moment!”
Surprised by being thrown, A cried out in pain as he tried to calm the members, but his voice didn’t reach their ears, who were too shocked.
“Just wait a moment! You’ll be cut into pieces!”
It took five minutes for the HunterKiller members to calm A down, and during those five minutes, A felt as though his limbs were being torn apart.
