VSP 21

What on earth was inside that head?

Ha. This was really ridiculous.

It was just one kiss, Dogyeong didn’t care about him at all, but he himself was showing with his whole body that it was driving him crazy, and he was conscious of it. Did Seo Sejun even realize how funny that looked?

Dogyeong really, truly, didn’t feel anything about Seo Sejun. Really, really.

Dogyeong scoffed, he crossed his legs and folded his arms. Then he closed his eyes.

It was about an hour later when Lee Dohun came out. It was when Seo Sejun, pretending not to make it obvious, slid his chair about a meter further away from Dogyeong.

Lee Dohun barely managed to crawl out of the dungeon entrance looking completely filthy.

“Fuuuuuck.”

He cursed.

When he saw the two who had already come out fine and were waiting, he realized he was the only one who had gone into the Antlion Hell. He shook his sweat-soaked hair with even more irritation.

“Ha, I was the only one who went to the Antlion Hell?”

“What did you get?”

“A quiz.”

It seemed he had gotten a quiz. And since he couldn’t answer it, he went straight into the Antlion Hell.

“How the hell am I supposed to know what the longest river in the world is?!”

When he shouted angrily, Dogyeong and Seo Sejun answered at the same time.

“The Nile.”

“The Nile.”

“……”

Lee Dohun shut his mouth.

“Fuck, it wasn’t the Han River?”

He grumbled to himself, but if it had at least been the Amazon River, which has some debate about being longer than the Nile, that would be one thing. But the Han River? No matter how good our own things are, whatever he answered he was destined for the Antlion Hell anyway.

“What did you two get that let you finish so easily and come out?”

He asked with a resentful face, thinking they had gotten something easy. At that, Seo Sejun glanced nervously at Dogyeong.

“Ah. Just…”

When Dogyeong drew out his words under that gaze, thinking he might tease Sejun a bit, Sejun looked at him with a desperate face.

Please, don’t say it, never, never ever say it.

Dogyeong wasn’t an idiot. If he said it, the one who lost more would be himself. Sejun didn’t seem to realize that.

After spending the whole hour trying not to make eye contact, trying desperately to move even a little further away, now here he was.

“It was a bit easy.”

But despite his mean thought, Dogyeong ended up brushing it off that way.

Seeing Seo Sejun openly show relief twisted his insides a little, but he didn’t take the words back.

When the dungeon closed, the three naturally split up.

Just as he was about to get into his car, Dogyeong turned his head and his eyes met Seo Sejun’s, who happened to be looking his way.

Right after coming out of the dungeon, Sejun had been restless, unable to stand being even 1cm close to Dogyeong, but once they had some distance, maybe he finally felt relieved. He flinched, but he didn’t immediately avoid his gaze.

“……”

By now, saying goodbye or see you was out of the question. They had never done that before, so there was no need to start now.

He wasn’t so emotional that just one kiss, that felt like a punishment, would suddenly make him act friendly.

Instead, at that moment, for some reason Dogyeong silently mouthed words so only Sejun could see.

Sejun frowned, trying to figure out what his mouth was forming, then his face instantly flushed red like a radish. “@%$^^$$$%%%~!” He mumbled something incoherent, unable to hide his burning face, then hurried into his car.

The door of his car, which he usually cherished, slammed shut. Then with a loud exhaust note, the PoXsche sped away.

“Ha.”

Dogyeong slowly savored the scene as then got into his own car.

The corner of his mouth seemed to lift, but after seeing something that funny, there was nothing he could do about it.

•••

“Crazy, that crazy bastard.”

Sejun floored the accelerator. The luxury import car raced down the road, and the surrounding cars naturally moved aside.

“Cha Dogyeong, crazy bastard.”

He had managed to cool down his boiling insides during the awkward hour of waiting, but Dogyeong had cast a spell that would keep him awake that night.

There was no way he had seen wrong. The moment their eyes met, Dogyeong had mouthed clearly to him.

Le. Mon. Taste.

Dogyeong hadn’t spoken it out loud, only mouthed it. But Sejun read it naturally, and it was as if it came with voice support, Dogyeong’s voice echoing in his ears.

A voice that seemed to whisper, lemon taste.

•••

For several days, Sejun kicked his blanket whenever he thought of that day.

When he suddenly thought of that day even while sleeping, he sat up in bed, grabbed his head and lay back down, then when he thought of it again, he sat up once more, and this time he had to grab his head again because it reminded him of what had happened in the previous A-rank dungeon.

Borrowing the system’s words, he stayed for days in the state of [If you keep grabbing your head like that, you will go bald before you even get a penalty]. But Sejun overcame the crisis well with his usual positive mindset.

In truth, what really helped was that he had earned 10 mana again by succeeding in a sub-mission.

It was a bit sad for Sejun, but the system completely understood the kiss incident as a romance situation, so the sub-mission succeeded.

Thanks to that, his mana now reached 140, and even after summoning Hoya, he still had 40 left.

It was still meager mana for an S-rank, but if he considered drinking a mana potion, it had become enough mana for Hoya to actually act.

Of course, his absolute mana was still lacking, so drinking potions didn’t suddenly fix everything. But what mattered was that he had already gained 20 mana, something priceless.

With about two days left until the sub-mission’s cooldown, Sejun got a message.

“Sejun, if you have time today, could you come by the Association?”

It was Association President Ryu Sehyun. Sejun quickly sat up, thinking something had happened, then realized it wasn’t a group message but was addressed specifically to ‘Seo Sejun.’ He tilted his head.

He had been lying around bored with nothing to do, and since he usually listened well to Ryu Sehyun, it was natural that he answered yes and immediately picked up his car key.

When he arrived at the Association building, he passed through the first floor as usual, then stopped when he noticed the franchise cafe in the corner.

It was a place that gave hunters belonging to the Association a 30% discount, but he had hardly ever visited it.

‘My coffee?’

His thoughts suddenly turned toward Cha Dogyeong, who was always looking for his coffee.

“…Will Cha Dogyeong be at the Association today?”

[I don’t know either.]

He didn’t know if Dogyeong was inside or not, but somehow he felt that if they ran into each other, Dogyeong would demand coffee from him.

He hoped he wouldn’t be there, but Sejun naturally walked toward the cafe anyway.

Thinking of Dogyeong also reminded him of the words he left, ‘Your lips tasted like lemon.’ Sejun shook his head to drive away the thought.

Damn it, I wasn’t even thinking about it. So annoying. Isn’t that bastard crazy even when I think about it again?

Even so, he didn’t stop heading to the cafe.

Since he was buying something anyway, he could pick up something for Ryu Sehyun, and if Dogyeong wasn’t there, he could just drink it himself. With that thought, he went inside.

The moment Sejun entered, most of the customers in the hall turned their eyes toward him. Hunters usually carried a strong presence, so they drew attention wherever they went. Naturally, Sejun, being S-rank, drew even more of that attention.

He straightened his shoulders proudly. Who was he? He was S-rank Hunter Seo Sejun. A celebrity had to stand tall under these gazes.

“It’s Seo Sejun.”

“He’s been showing up a lot lately.”

“They say it’s some special management period.”

“He must be exhausted, then.”

Of course, being the official villain, there weren’t many friendly gazes. But Sejun was too used to those stares.

He stood in front of the menu board and thought. What should he order? Naturally, he had no idea what kind of coffee Cha Dogyeong liked. Even though he had known him a long time, they had never been personally close.

“One lemonade, and one iced vanilla latte.”

He chose vanilla latte for Ryu Sehyun as something safe, and lemonade for Dogyeong since he seemed to like it, though of course he wouldn’t be drinking it as sour as that crazy guy did.

While looking, he also picked a cake that looked good. A carrot cake topped with a cute carrot chocolate. That one was purely Sejun’s taste.

With his arms full of things, Sejun once again went up to the second floor by stairs instead of the elevator. There, he happened to run straight into a man coming down.

It was Jeong Siwoo, also an S-rank hunter. Right now, he was probably paired with Choi Hangyeol in Team 2.