Say it Again

Chapter 3: cracks in ivory

“You monster! How could you just feed him to the monster!? I don’t know how did two of you break up, but I swear–”Yoo Sangah feels like she is going to snap at this self centered asshole who just threw Kim Dokja off the bridge, and then came to tell them to move to the station like nothing happened.

Ex-boyfriend or not, that just was not something any normal person would do. And there he is.

“He’ll hunt it.” Emo bastard doesn’t look like he is joking, simply moving forward by himself and Sangah ends up going after him, if just to try and… well, maybe not take vengeance, Dokja-ssi probably wouldn’t want that, but something.

“What?”

“Dokja will kill that monster. He’ll be back.”

He must be delusional. Or in denial of what he just did. Or something. Probably that was the reason why he did what he did. Maybe some kind of schizophrenia? Either way this guy just can’t be normal.

“He WILL. He’s fine. He needs to do this. He’ll be back. Just 4 days. He will be back.”

The guy just keeps muttering, repeating the same reassurances over and over, seemingly unseeing as he leads the entire group to the station.

And yet, when Lee Hyunsung tries to attack him, he moves smoothly, perfectly measured and quick. Just a movement to intercept an attack and then he is holding the soldier down expertly. Without change to his expression. Eyes still cold and distant.

“Don't be a waste.” he orders, and then, without much change, still holding other man pressed face down into concrete, rattling in short sentences names and ranks of creatures they'll find on the surface if they go.

She can barely keep up with distilled information about how going to the surface they should talk to their sponsors about shop and Ellain monkey lungs, how there are weaker monsters in tunnels but they still might be too dangerous without proper weapons.

And then he lets go of Lee Hyunsung. Without looking back he walks up to Kim Namwoon and grabs him by the lapel of his school jacket.

“I will be back in four days,” he tells the rest of them, before he leaves for the surface, dragging the teen with him and ignoring how Kim Namwoon is cussing him out.

Yoo Sangah is watching as he roughs up people from the station who try to stop him and then forces his way out, bleached teen half-heartedly helping along, looking irritated at getting involved, but he still follows.

It might be better if this emo guy gets killed out there and never comes back. Maybe Namwoon-ssi can get rid of him and find a way to safety that way.

It could be really dangerous if somehow this crazy guy comes back expecting to meet Dokja-ssi just to be forced to face reality in which he threw him into a maw of a monster.

There are monsters around, and the poison mist covering the surface also are undeniable.

As she looks around at the people gathered on the station, and then she brings up again the notification of the scenario… there really doesn’t seem to be a better way of getting around than just following the instructions, doing the best to survive. For whatever slim chance is that this crazy man is not completely wrong.

Day later that Cheon Inho guy with his group start sending people both down the tunnels and up to the surface, and Yoo Sangah is convinced they will try to do the same to their little group. But for some reason they do not. Maybe there was something good about how it went so far.

But Dokja-ssi isn't with them, and he could be if that insane guy didn't throw him to monsters.

Who were they to each other? She is replaying the hints of what she saw, this little exchange "not man you knew" so there had been past between them. Dokja-ssi insisting that the guy is great at cooking suggests that this guy had cooked for him in the past. The way he stopped Kim Namwoon from attacking Dokja-ssi. Oh. Is the teen going to get killed for that?

How could she overlook the possible grudge when he picked the teen from their group to drag him along?

But there wasn't a solution. They weren't strong enough to fight against that insane man.

She wasn't responsible for letting psycho kill more people because she couldn't possibly have stopped it.

There wasn't anything she could have done.

Right?