Projection Novel (Completed) - Chapter 74 (End)

Having returned from the charnel house, Sejin fell asleep exhausted immediately after eating. Looking down at Sejin breathing softly on his bed, Cheon Sejoo soon covered him with a blanket and left the bedroom. The dark living room was lit only by the damp moonlight seeping in through the window. He quietly gazed at the city, tinged by the last winter rain, before picking up his phone.

“…Section Chief.”

Seonhyuk answered the call before it could even properly ring. Cheon Sejoo listened to his somehow restless breathing, then opened his mouth.

“Come down to the first floor.”

He relayed his purpose and hung up. Instead of his bedroom where Sejin was sleeping, Cheon Sejoo entered the room at the end of the hallway, retrieved Sejin’s outerwear, put it on, and left the house. As the elevator descended to the first floor, he saw Moon Seonhyuk waiting for him at the entrance.

Moon Seonhyuk’s face was a mess from the brawl he had with Haeung, who had pressed the button in the basement. However, Cheon Sejoo paid no attention to his split lip and continued walking. Seonhyuk followed Cheon Sejoo, who walked silently towards the garden.

Stepping among the skeletal trees, enduring the chilling, drizzling rain, Cheon Sejoo soon stopped in front of a small pavilion. The smoking area, provided for residents, was open on all sides and chilly, but at least it offered shelter from the rain.

He walked under the wooden roof, silently sat on the bench, and pulled out a cigarette. Pushing away Seonhyuk, who held a lighter, he lit it himself and slowly inhaled the smoke. Moon Seonhyuk stood before him, hands clasped, like a guilty man.

“Moon Seonhyuk.”

“Yes.”

Cheon Sejoo, who had been silently watching him, asked.

“What did you say to the kid?”

“……”

At the question, Seonhyuk lifted his head, his eyes sharp. Moon Seonhyuk gritted his teeth, like someone with much to say, staring at Cheon Sejoo, then soon lowered his head again and explained what had happened earlier that day.

From meeting Sejin in front of the workshop to taking him down to the basement. What Sejin had said to him, and what he had said to Sejin, he confessed everything, without hiding a single detail.

“…That’s all.”

Finally, the story ended, and as Seonhyuk gazed at Cheon Sejoo, a light of longing still permeated his eyes. Moon Seonhyuk had not given up on Cheon Sejoo. He clung to the hope that if Kwon Sejin left, he would return to being the perfect person he was before.

Everything that brat had said was baseless speculation. He didn’t want to be swayed by words uttered by someone who didn’t even know Cheon Sejoo. Cheon Sejoo had always to be the one to show Seonhyuk the way, his back always facing him. He had to be the one Seonhyuk could trust and entrust his life to.

“I was wrong. It was a mistake.”

Seonhyuk bowed, apologizing. Regardless, it was clearly wrong to touch the kid Cheon Sejoo cherished. He had been told countless times not to touch the kids, but from the moment he couldn’t control his temper and took an outsider to the workshop, Moon Seonhyuk felt he deserved whatever Cheon Sejoo would do.

Cheon Sejoo would slap him. With a cool, composed face, he would deliver a fair judgment to let him know it was his fault. But contrary to Seonhyuk’s expectation, there was no pain. Cheon Sejoo extinguished the cigarette, burnt down to the filter, by grinding it on the sand, and merely looked up at Seonhyuk, apologizing.

“I’m sorry.”

“Section Chief…!”

That apology was, instead, despair-inducing. Moon Seonhyuk looked at Cheon Sejoo with a choked expression. Cheon Sejoo silently met his eyes, which seemed to plead, ‘Don’t do this, don’t admit what that brat said!’ However, it seemed the time had come to speak frankly with Seonhyuk.

Cheon Sejoo knew that from their first meeting, Seonhyuk had regarded him as the person he had dreamed of. He knew that Seonhyuk expected him to be perfect.

The reason he hadn’t ignored that expectation was that the desire not to disappoint Seonhyuk acted as a kind of driving force in an organizational life that was already difficult to endure. Cheon Sejoo had endured that difficult time, using the excuse of living up to Seonhyuk’s expectations, believing that he would truly collapse otherwise. But now, there was no need for that. Even without Moon Seonhyuk’s expectations, Cheon Sejoo could now be true to his own life.

Seonhyuk had to know that truth. Hesitantly, Cheon Sejoo finally confessed the truth he had never been able to tell him, after six years.

“I’m not as great a person as you think.”

“Don’t say that! You don’t mean it!”

At Seonhyuk’s intense rejection, Cheon Sejoo shook his head.

“No, what Kwon Sejin said is right. There wasn’t a single moment… when I wasn’t struggling in the workshop.”

“……”

Seonhyuk bit his lip, watching Cheon Sejoo with resentful eyes. He couldn’t believe Cheon Sejoo was admitting his own weakness with his own mouth. Even that change seemed to stem from Kwon Sejin, that young brat. Seonhyuk resented Sejin for making the man who was once the most perfect in the world so weak.

“…I worked hard to take responsibility for you and the team. What you saw was the result. From the first time we met until now, I’ve only endured to keep from collapsing; I’ve never truly been at ease.”

However, looking at Cheon Sejoo’s expression as he spoke, Moon Seonhyuk realized he had been mistaken all along.

Cheon Sejoo, revealing the truth, had a look of relief he had never shown before. That expression was something only seen in someone genuinely exhausted. It was only seen in someone who had poured out all their strength and was now saying they would stop.

The hatred and resentment that had constricted his entire being seemed to scatter in an instant.

“……”

His strength drained away. Seonhyuk could say nothing and only looked down at Cheon Sejoo. Many moments flashed before his eyes. The countless times over six years when he had lied to himself, telling himself that Cheon Sejoo’s vulnerability was just fatigue, or when he had deliberately ignored his condition of getting a headache every time he killed someone.

He couldn’t believe that what he had been chasing all this time was merely an ideal. He couldn’t believe that Cheon Sejoo hadn’t been perfect, but that he had simply fit him into what he wanted to see. Seonhyuk clenched his fists, denying reality.

It couldn’t be. Cheon Sejoo, that man, couldn’t be such a weak, ordinary human.

“I’m sorry.”

But there was no lie in his expression. His weak smile and apology, as if sorry for not living up to expectations, told him that all of this was sincere.

Moon Seonhyuk gritted his teeth and lowered his head. He was angry, but he couldn’t express it. He couldn’t ask Cheon Sejoo why he had lied to him. Regardless of whether what he saw was his true nature, Cheon Sejoo’s dedication, giving his all for them and the organization, had all truly happened. That was a fruit that would never fade.

The trust and respect Seonhyuk had developed based on that fruit were not such light emotions that they would diminish just because Cheon Sejoo wasn’t the person he had wanted him to be. His mind was in turmoil. So, if you’re not that kind of person, what do you want me to do now? As that thought crossed his mind, anxiety surged at the thought that Cheon Sejoo, having revealed the truth, might leave them. Clenching his fists, Seonhyuk asked Cheon Sejoo, his eyes full of contemplation.

“Will you… quit?”

He didn’t want to let him go, but if it was hard for him now, if the end of his efforts was approaching, there was nothing more he could demand of Cheon Sejoo. If he said he would quit, the processing team would have to let him go. Cheon Sejoo quietly shook his head at Seonhyuk’s despondent question.

“You might not like it, but I don’t have the authority.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I just…!”

Seonhyuk shook his head and shouted at Cheon Sejoo’s additional remark, which sounded like a premise. But he couldn’t finish his sentence and lowered his gaze. Cheon Sejoo silently watched Moon Seonhyuk. He must have a lot on his mind. It must be an issue that couldn’t be resolved at once.

Cheon Sejoo, similarly feeling complex emotions, rose from his seat. He patted Moon Seonhyuk’s wet shoulder, still bowed, and told him,

“If you really don’t want me, I’ll talk to the CEO, so think it over carefully.”

The authority to quit the job rested not with him, but with Shin Gyoyeon. Even if Cheon Sejoo had forgiven himself, the deal between them didn’t become meaningless. He had simply become able to accept his situation more objectively.

So, things would not be the same as before. In the midst of such changes, he had decided to talk to Seonhyuk, who was closest to him in the organization, believing he had to know the truth. Because he didn’t want to struggle anymore.

“Section Chief…”

“I’m going.”

Leaving Seonhyuk, who was looking at him with confused eyes, Cheon Sejoo turned and walked towards his home.

Cheon Sejoo also had a lot on his mind. Through Sejin, he could now look forward instead of to the past, but he still had an unresolved task. The answer to the question of what kind of person he had become was still elusive.

But it didn’t matter. Cheon Sejoo’s life was no longer precarious. As long as the person who supported his life was by his side, Cheon Sejoo would be able to continue his journey of finding answers in a peaceful daily life.

Plop, plop, the winter rain fell on his head. Cheon Sejoo stood at the building entrance and looked up at the cloud-covered sky. The sky, devoid of even moonlight, was gray, but the siren no longer wailed.

-End-