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The Mist Vol 4 Chapter 46
🕑 Added 2024-10-30 11:53:45 +0000 UTCVol 4 Chapter 46
However, he didn't want to go downstairs and spend time elsewhere, or go back home. He wasn't in the mood for that either. He was thinking about whether he should try to get some sleep here for a while when it happened.
'Beep.'
Suddenly, a mechanical sound came from the direction of the front door. Surprised, he raised his head and saw the intercom lamp blinking red.
'That's...!'
Was there someone inside after all? As he quickly stood up, grabbing the railing, a low voice came from inside the intercom right on cue.
[ ...If it's a delivery, I should have been contacted to just leave it in front. ]
'...Ah...'
It was the same voice as Caesar's from the game, still vivid in his memory. He immediately approached the intercom, dragging his leg.
"...Is this Jeong Seung-jo?"
[ ... ]
After his awkward and stiff question came out, there was no sound from the other side of the intercom for a while. In the breathtaking silence where no words were exchanged from either inside or outside, except for the faint vibration indicating that the machine was still operating, he felt an unusually strong certainty.
It was Jeong Seung-jo. Seung-jo was inside, listening to his voice.
He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and spoke again.
"...It's me, Kang Mu-heon."
He wanted to say something more, but his throat felt blocked, and he couldn't make any more sound. After finishing his words slowly and forcefully, albeit awkwardly, the intercom light suddenly went out with a click, perhaps because it had been on for too long. At the same time, the crackling sound that had indicated the connection to the inside disappeared, but he stubbornly stood there for a long time, waiting.
Although he had spoken, the words he had just uttered were swirling in his head without any sense of reality, to the extent that he had even forgotten that he was standing there now, having thrown aside his cane.
After a long while, a voice finally came through in the red light of the intercom that had suddenly turned on again.
[ Who, did you say? ]
Actually hearing the voice while standing here in reality suddenly made him feel like something was about to burst out, but he gritted his teeth and squeezed out his voice.
"...Kang Mu-heon."
And again, a long time passed. As he was enduring this explosive tension, putting strength into his fingertips and toes in the continuing silence, it happened.
[ ... ]
Just as he was about to raise his head, which had been bowed with his hand on the door, at the rough exhale that suddenly leaked from the intercom, a chillingly cracked voice rang out before he could say he had misheard.
[ Is this a dream? ]
What?
[ It seems I've really lost my mind now... ]
While he was just staring blankly, Seung-jo inside the intercom, who had spoken in a tired and cracked voice, soon cut off the intercom and disappeared.
"..."
And after standing there blankly for a long time, he too felt something in his mind grow icy cold to the extreme and snap. He changed his coldly stretched and stiffened hand into a fist, clenching it tightly, and pressed the intercom again.
As soon as the red light flickered again, without waiting for the other's response, he shouted.
"Open the door."
At the same time, he banged on the door with a thud, and a loud sound echoed through the corridor. Not caring that the sound might be heard by the neighbors, he raised his voice, gritting his teeth and speaking as it came from within.
"You're talking nonsense about dreams. Come out right now!"
Bang!
Unable to control his emotions, he kicked the door and staggered. Barely avoiding falling by leaning against the wall, he realized he hadn't been standing directly in front of the intercom until now, but had been turned sideways. He positioned himself so that his face was fully visible to the lens, glaring with intensity.
"You can't avoid this by acting like this anymore. What, a dream? Are you trying to make me laugh?"
[ ... ]
"Open up!"
Bang! Bang!
It was fortunate that there were hardly any people in the officetel as it was daytime. He had been pounding on the door to the point where it was strange that security hadn't come running. Just as he paused briefly, exhausted, and was about to turn away from the intercom lens to pick up his cane that he had noticed lying on the floor, it happened.
'Click.'
His body stiffened. If he hadn't misheard, that was definitely the sound of the lock opening. He quickly picked up his cane, approached the door, grabbed the handle and turned it, and the handle turned smoothly. He hesitated for a moment whether to pull it or not, but the hesitation didn't last long. Gritting his teeth, he put strength into his arm and pulled the door open, and from inside the opening door came an unfamiliar scent.
And just inside the fully opened front door, his eyes met directly with those of a tall man standing like a ghost, looking outward.
The man standing in the dark house without a single light on was wearing a crumpled shirt with buttons not properly fastened, jeans, and bare feet, casting a dark shadow. For a moment, Mu-heon lost his words at the sight of the imposing tall figure with carelessly hanging arms and a sharply gaunt face that didn't look like a living person. The sunken, dark eyes that were only looking in his direction blinked very slowly a few times, then suddenly widened.
"Ah..."
Neither of them could say anything more. They scanned each other, comparing what had changed and what hadn't changed over the short yet long time with the images in their memories. Seung-jo must have been doing the same.
Meeting him as Jeong Seung-jo, not as Caesar, his face had certainly become much more adult-like in the few years, and his height, which was already taller than his peers, had grown even more, but his overall outline remained unchanged. The distorted face from his memories, which felt as if they had parted just yesterday despite not having seen each other for years, overlapped with that face, making his chest feel tight.
However, it was Mu-heon who first turned his head away with awkward discomfort under the gaze that didn't even turn away once, looking as if it would suck him in.
"...I'm sorry for coming suddenly."
This should be the right thing to say first.
"If you don't remember who I am..."
