Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 6

The person, wearing a hooded raincoat that reached their ankles, took a step into the church and then stopped abruptly upon seeing Jeong Taeui. They must have thought no one would be there.

Soon, muttering something, he came further inside and took off his hood. Raindrops dripped down his clothes with a patter.

The next moment, Jeong Taeui was speechless.

In the dim church, the platinum blonde hair, subtly gleaming, with a few drops of rain being shaken off, and the young man clicking his tongue, seemed to have stepped right out of the stained-glass window that shimmered dimly like a backdrop behind him.

Beautiful as a painting. Like a sculpture. Just his presence made the space feel different.

All those words existed for that young man.

Jeong Taeui, who had been momentarily stunned, snapped back to reality when the young man glanced at him, seemingly sensing his gaze. Even though he knew staring was rude, he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Are you alone?”

However, as if accustomed to such gazes, the young man abruptly asked Jeong Taeui. Thinking even his voice sounded like beautifully fired white porcelain, Jeong Taeui foolishly repeated, “Huh?” Immediately after, he stammered, “Oh, no, yes, yeah.”

‘Calm down. Just because you unexpectedly saw an excessively beautiful face, there’s no need to be this flustered.’

He patted his chest two, three times, a little harder. Thump, thump. After patting his chest, his mind cleared a bit.

The young man looked at Jeong Taeui, who was suddenly patting his chest, with puzzled eyes, then looked around. After that, he turned his gaze back to Jeong Taeui.

“So.”

“……?”

“Were you here by coincidence, or were you waiting for me?”

“……I don’t even know who you are……”

Jeong Taeui replied, thinking that this young man with an extraordinary appearance also spoke in an extraordinary way.

“Alright, then that’s fine.”

The young man replied indifferently.

‘What can I say, he’s a really out-of-the-blue, incomprehensible guy.’

Jeong Taeui tilted his head and rolled his eyes. He wondered why he heard so many conversations he found hard to follow these days.

But with looks like that, he could easily pass for a movie star or a famous model, and if so, it wouldn’t be strange if overly enthusiastic fans were waiting for him wherever he went. Yes, maybe he was that kind of person.

Jeong Taeui concluded this on his own and nodded his head. Thinking that, and looking at the young man’s appearance again, his conclusion felt very reasonable, even making him feel pleased.

“You don’t look devout enough to come here to pray even when it’s pouring like this.”

The young man, who had been quietly looking around the church for a while, suddenly spoke again. It was a remark that could sound incredibly rude, but Jeong Taeui, who was indeed not devout at all, nodded indifferently.

“I came this morning, dozed off for a bit, and when I woke up, it was raining. So I’ve just been waiting for the rain to stop.”

“Why do you come to a place like this at the crack of dawn?”

‘That’s not something someone who came through the rain should say…’ Jeong Taeui muttered to himself, quite troubled, then glanced at him. The young man, who had been distractedly looking around, met his gaze when he felt it.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. Even if I can’t do a full confession, maybe I can at least pour out my burning heart to someone. And who knows? Maybe some divine being above, pitying me, sent an emissary.’

“To think about what sin I committed in my past life to make my present life so hard… Like, there’s a guy who just sticks around and makes my life miserable…”

“That’s because you committed sins foolishly. There are plenty of smart sinners who live very well without hardship.”

At the instant reply, which showed no hesitation, Jeong Taeui was momentarily speechless.

‘What can I say, this guy, his face is like an angel from a painting or a sculpture, but somehow he’s a bit…’

“……Why did you come here through this rain?”

Jeong Taeui asked, scratching his head. The young man was looking up at the colorful, beautifully glowing stained-glass window in the dim light. Inside the stained-glass, the Virgin Mary was embracing baby Jesus. Very lovingly. The young man mumbled, not tearing his gaze away from it.

“Someone was chasing me.”

“Huh?”

“I was walking, and someone kept following and bothering me. So I just came in anywhere to shake them off and escape the rain.”

Jeong Taeui nodded at the young man’s words. Even without hearing the exact circumstances, he roughly understood. It led to a similar conclusion as before.

They say too much is bad, but he felt that with such exceptionally outstanding looks, it was unavoidable to have such troublesome struggles follow.

“Your life must be tough in its own way too.”

As he mumbled with a sigh, the young man glanced at Jeong Taeui. But he soon returned his gaze to the stained-glass. He seemed to be very fond of the image of the Virgin Mary.

It was then.

The church door burst open.

Chilly rain sounds and damp air rushed in all at once.

‘Another person is coming in this rain,’ Jeong Taeui thought, turning around. The moment he saw the person standing there, he felt an unpleasant premonition.

A large man stood there, panting heavily. The man, who was roughly heaving his shoulders and gasping for breath, spotted the young man who had been silently looking up at the stained glass a few steps away from Jeong Taeui, and roared like thunder.

“Y-you bastard, you were here!”

A prelude to trouble seemed to be brewing.

Jeong Taeui subtly eyed the young man. There was no way he hadn’t heard that booming shout, yet the young man didn’t spare him a glance, only looking at the stained glass. As if he were captivated by it.

The man strode towards them. His heavy, rough footsteps echoed on the floor, getting closer.

Now that he looked closely, the man’s one eye was bloodshot. Not just bloodshot, but the whites of his eyes were entirely crimson, as if all the tiny blood vessels had burst. It was questionable whether that eye could even see properly.

The man, who was rather good-looking, seemed to have lost his reason, enraged to his core. His clenched fists looked like they could smash someone’s face at any moment.

‘Could this be the man who was annoyingly following him? The atmosphere is extremely unusual, should I leave? No, if I leave them, it feels like someone might get killed. I can’t just stand by and watch this beautiful young man die…’

Just as Jeong Taeui was about to step forward to intervene between them, the young man spoke quietly.

“Today, I finally got what I’ve always wanted, so I’m in an incredibly good mood… That’s why I was just going to pretend not to notice and let it go… I think it would be better for you to just turn back, but you wouldn’t listen, would you?”

‘Should I first mention that the young man’s eyes looked excessively weary and gloomy for someone who was supposedly in an incredibly good mood? Or should I point out that his muttering to himself made him seem like he’d lost his mind? Or should I prioritize saying that the content of his words was somewhat difficult to understand?’ Such thoughts rushed through Jeong Taeui’s mind in a few short seconds.

“What nonsense is the guy who suddenly punched someone and ran off spouting? You’re being cheeky, so I’ll put you in your place today.”

The man scoffed at the young man’s words, striding closer, and rolled up his rain-soaked sleeves. A strong forearm was revealed. If that beautiful, statue-like young man were to be brushed by that forearm, he would surely shatter.

‘This won’t do. Before determining who’s right or wrong, I need to prevent this artistic face from being bloodied right before my eyes.’

As the man quickly closed the distance by a few steps, Jeong Taeui, in his urgency, had no time to think and just blindly stepped between them.

Almost simultaneously, the man reached the young man’s front, and only then did the young man turn his gaze to the man with an annoyed look.

It was then. Something bright blue flashed before his eyes.

Jeong Taeui almost impulsively, with a speed that sent a chill down his spine, swiftly seized the most threatening hand, which flowed like water. Just barely, right before that hand, which had slipped on a knuckle duster, was about to shatter a bone in the opponent’s torso.

“……!”

“Oh……?”

Jeong Taeui, who had reflexively stepped between them without time to think, blocking the most threatening move, realized something was wrong the next moment.

The slender wrist he was holding was not the thick, powerful, hairy forearm he had seen a moment ago.

“Oh? ……Oh?”

But on the beautiful hand at the end of that slender wrist, there was unmistakably a dull, shining metal knuckle duster, and before Jeong Taeui’s eyes was a sculpted face staring intently at him, its eyes slightly widened.

Jeong Taeui again mumbled “Oh…” and slowly turned his head, and behind where he had shielded the assailant, the man from before was looking down at him with bloodshot eyes.

The man, who didn’t seem to have realized yet that he had almost been smashed by an iron fist, looked down at Jeong Taeui with bewildered eyes. And he saw the young man’s hand that Jeong Taeui was holding, and the knuckle duster perfectly fitted in that hand.

Jeong Taeui mumbled “Oh…” blankly one last time and looked back at the young man with an astonished expression.

Then the young man vigorously shook off his hand. As if flicking off an insect, he roughly threw off Jeong Taeui’s hand, then flicked his wrist and glared at Jeong Taeui with cold eyes. He heard a click of the tongue. However, before the young man could open his mouth to Jeong Taeui, the man, who had finally looked at the knuckle duster on the young man’s hand, seemed to have somewhat grasped the situation. His face turned crimson with rage.

“This insolent brat…! Who are you, get out of the way!”

The man casually struck Jeong Taeui, who was blocking the way between him and the young man. Thwack, a flash of fire erupted from the side of his head.

“Ow!” Jeong Taeui reflexively exclaimed, looking back at the man indignantly. ‘This guy, he doesn’t even appreciate help…!’

But the man didn’t even glance at Jeong Taeui, who had stepped aside, and tried to rush at the young man. Seeing the young man calmly re-clench his fist, a subtle sense of incongruity combined with a clear sense of danger prompted Jeong Taeui to intervene again without a second thought.

This time, not by accident but with a clear intention, he blocked the man, placing him behind him, and faced the young man.

The real danger wasn’t this burly man.

The young man, who had just taken a step, saw Jeong Taeui blocking him again and frowned almost imperceptibly. His eyes instantly turned chilling.

“If you don’t want to end up like him, don’t interfere and just stay quietly in the corner, you yellow Eastern monkey. I won’t go easy on you again.”

It had been a very long time since he’d heard such discriminatory remarks. However, before he even realized those words came from those beautiful lips, Jeong Taeui’s vision turned white from the dizzying impact that struck him under the jaw.

For a very brief moment, a few seconds, Jeong Taeui seemed to have lost consciousness without even realizing it.

When he came to, the situation was already over.

He clearly remembered blocking the young man, but why was he suddenly lying down? Jeong Taeui blinked his eyes and sat up, blankly staring at the scene before him.

The man was stretched out on the floor. Lying on the church floor with his limbs sprawled out, the man had rolled his eyes back and was unconscious. A little foam was bubbling from his mouth.

Seeing blood mixed in the foam, Jeong Taeui hastily stood up.

The young man had just taken off his knuckle duster and put it in his pocket, pulling out a spotless white handkerchief to wipe his hands. Then, as if nothing had happened, he indifferently looked up at the stained glass again.

Jeong Taeui stared at the young man with horrified eyes, then examined the man. He carefully parted the unconscious man’s clothes.

“Where did you hit him……”

“Right next to the solar plexus. He won’t die. Only one rib.”

The young man said indifferently without looking back.

Jeong Taeui looked at the young man with a startled expression, then examined the man’s exposed stomach. A clear mark remained, making it instantly obvious where he had been hit.

“An ambulance, I need to call an ambulance… Damn it, I don’t have my phone. Hey, give me your phone.”

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and held out his hand to the young man. The young man merely stared blankly at his hand, then said coldly.

“Why call an ambulance?”

“Why call? The man’s dying!”

“So what?”

“……”

“Ah, that’s not it. He won’t die from that.”

He corrected himself, saying he wouldn’t die from that, but before that, the young man’s “So what?” had sounded genuinely heartfelt.

‘Whether he lives or dies, so what?’

Jeong Taeui stared blankly at the young man. The throbbing pain in his jaw, where he had been hit, was completely forgotten.

“……”

‘Is the water bad in this neighborhood? Ilay was gone for a moment, and now some slightly crazy guy appears out of nowhere.’

Jeong Taeui thought of running out into the rain to call an ambulance, but first he checked the man. He carefully stroked the skin around the mark, which was so bruised it was almost black. He glanced at the unconscious man and slowly pressed around the area. He thought he heard some bizarre groans escaping the man’s mouth, but they were almost inaudible. So he decided to ignore them.

As the young man said, it seemed about one rib was broken. He had carefully stroked the area for a while, but there was nothing else particularly unusual.

“Hmm,” the young man, who had been looking down at Jeong Taeui from a few steps away, obliquely, suddenly asked.

“Are you a doctor?”

‘No, his touch is too clumsy for a doctor,’ the young man answered his own question and shook his head.

‘I’ve lived a life hanging by a thread, so I’ve unintentionally become an all-around multi-talented person,’ Jeong Taeui muttered to himself, taking his hand off the man’s stomach and chest.

Having confirmed that the man’s life wasn’t in urgent danger, Jeong Taeui stared down at him for a moment, then suddenly rolled up his sleeves and placed his hand on the man’s forehead. With a very serious expression, he aimed for the center of the man’s forehead and flicked his middle finger.

Thwack, a harsh sound echoed from the man’s forehead. Even in his unconscious state, the man mumbled groans. His instantly reddened forehead would soon be bruised purple.

“You just hit me when I was trying to help?”

Jeong Taeui grumbled, rubbing the side of his head where the man had inadvertently struck him earlier.

But as he mumbled, he suddenly realized.

The person who had delivered a more powerful uppercut than the man was standing right next to him, looking down.

“……”

“……”

Jeong Taeui very slowly turned his head to look up at the young man. The young man was also quietly looking down at Jeong Taeui. Their eyes met.

“……Do you want to hit my forehead too?”

The young man finally asked. Jeong Taeui looked at the young man with a troubled expression.

Setting aside whether he could actually flick this unknown young man’s forehead, he was more worried about whether it would be alright to bruise that elegant forehead.

However he interpreted Jeong Taeui’s glaring, frowning gaze at his forehead, the young man’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. His closed lips also relaxed faintly.

Ah. He was smiling.

There was no discernible smile on the young man’s face, but that subtle change made Jeong Taeui suddenly think that. As if he had never smiled and didn’t know how to smile, the young man smiled that kind of smile.

“If you can hit me without touching my body, I’ll allow one hit.”

But at the young man’s words, spoken as if he were being incredibly generous, Jeong Taeui looked at him again with a bewildered expression.

‘That premise itself doesn’t even make sense… So, you’re saying I shouldn’t even think about hitting you?’

Jeong Taeui muttered to himself and got up.

But even if his life wasn’t in immediate danger, he should probably still call an ambulance. Thinking this, Jeong Taeui looked down at the man at his feet and then out the window, wondering if he should run home and call the emergency room. The rain was still pouring, but this was no time to care about that.

“It’s really raining cats and dogs. Like the whole world is submerged in water.”

Jeong Taeui grumbled to himself, and rolled up the cuffs of his trousers to make it easier to run through the flooded streets. A quiet voice from beside him responded.

“It feels like we’re under the sea.”

Jeong Taeui stopped folding his pants and looked sideways. The young man mumbled, his gaze fixed on the window.

“I like days like this. I can’t hear any sounds.”

“Sounds…?”

“Hmm… Like it’s blocked by the rain, I can’t hear anything. So I feel less suffocated.”

Jeong Taeui looked at the young man with a strange expression. The young man didn’t seem to be talking to Jeong Taeui. He spoke as if to himself, his gaze fixed on the window.

Jeong Taeui looked at the young man with an ambiguous frown, then scratched his head. Something was truly complex and multifaceted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but just let unpleasant sounds go in one ear and out the other… Why bother listening to every little thing?”

‘That’s the shortcut to living a complicated life,’ Jeong Taeui blurted out, and then re-tied his shoelaces. Fully prepared for a short sprint in the rain, he walked towards the door.

It was then.

“Do you want help?”

A cold voice stopped Jeong Taeui.

‘Help? Like making the rain stop?’ Jeong Taeui thought foolishly for a moment, then turned to face the young man who was looking at him with an expressionless face.

“Do you want the person who made your life miserable to disappear?”

The young man, still expressionless, spoke in a petulant tone, almost like a sulking child. Jeong Taeui was momentarily speechless.

“No… well, of course it would be good if he disappeared… not really.”

Jeong Taeui scratched his head and stammered.

He thought as he spoke.

Would it be good if the person who made his life miserable disappeared?

If he were to name the person who made his life miserable, the first one that came to mind would undoubtedly be him. Ilay Ligrow.

If he removed him from his life… removed him?

It didn’t feel like it would be refreshing. Maybe it would be a bit of a relief, but he wouldn’t feel light and refreshed. Rather, vaguely…

“……No. It’s better if he’s around. Anyway, I chose him.”

Jeong Taeui shook his head. Only then did a thought suddenly occur to him.

‘But “Do you want help to make that person disappear”?’

Mulling over those words, which sent a chill down his spine if he thought about their meaning even a little, Jeong Taeui looked at the young man.

Upon hearing Jeong Taeui’s answer, the young man mumbled “Oh, really?” and shrugged. His lips curled slightly, as if his gesture of goodwill had met with an unsatisfactory response.

“Your name?”

The voice stopped Jeong Taeui, who was about to turn away, once again.

“……Taeui. Jeong Taeui.”

He spoke slowly and clearly to make it easy to understand, but the young man showed no reaction. Jeong Taeui wondered if he hadn’t understood and was about to repeat himself, but decided against it, seeing as he wasn’t asked again.