“I thought you might be here.”
As I opened the door and went in, Leah, who was leaning against the back of the chair in the central control room, nodded in greeting.
Not long after Ha-min broke up with Rae-ah yesterday, he realized that there was no way to contact them without meeting in person.
So after much thought, I decided to stop by my satellite or hideout from time to time.
And now, the next afternoon, I was able to meet Leah in the satellite's central control room.
"We should probably exchange contact information. We can't just wait around at the meeting place forever."
“I don’t have a smartphone.”
"Then I'll take one this time. I have a spare. You'll need it for your future stay at Asterum."
“…….”
Raea's eyebrows furrowed slightly, but Ha-min still had difficulty reading the meaning of her silence.
Was it just a pointless meddling?
"okay."
“I’ll bring it to you.”
Ha-min took out a box from the corner shelf, dusted it lightly, opened the lid, and looked inside.
Inside were several different types of smartphones.
He immediately took the box and went to Leah.
“You can choose here.”
But Raea glanced around the box for a bit, didn't pick anything, and quickly raised her head.
“I don’t really know what’s what. Just pick one that looks good to you.”
“Um... Then, I’d like a size that’s easy to hold in one hand. … Choose the color you like from these.”
Raea picked up a mint-colored smartphone from among the things that Ha-min had picked up.
Then he looked around silently with curious eyes.
"Foot.."
A smirk escaped Ha-min's lips as he watched the scene.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing. I just…”
When Raea heard the laughter and raised her head to look at me, Ha-min was quite flustered and quickly poured out an apology.
I wasn't the type to hold back laughter to begin with, but I should have been more careful with Raea.
But that didn't mean he could explain why he was laughing. After all, we hadn't known each other for very long...
When Ha-min, whose face was slightly red, could not continue speaking, Rae-ah waited and then opened her mouth.
“I never thought I was being laughed at, it’s okay.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
Instead of giving a second answer, Raea stared intently into Ha-min's eyes.
Feeling the awkward atmosphere, Ha Min quickly closed the lid and returned the box to its original location.
It was really strange. He definitely seemed blunt and even a little arrogant at first, but now…
Ha Min tried to shake off the short thought and returned to his seat.
Now is not the time to be thinking like that.
There was a more important story left to tell.
“How was Bambi?”
Ha-min felt a strange sense of relief when Raea brought up the main topic first without even trying to change the subject.
“I did seem to get the time mixed up sometimes, but nothing much happened.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“Have you figured out what’s going on already?”
“No, that’s… not yet.”
"then…."
Raea took a moment to catch her breath and continued speaking.
"It's certainly not a good sign. It's believed to have been influenced by some external source. The developers are still investigating the cause."
“Is it because of Caligo?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That mark, at first glance, just looked like a pretty, shiny little tattoo… Is it really that dangerous?”
Raea hesitated at Ha-min's question and avoided eye contact.
Ha-min couldn't figure out what it was about this question that made this person uncomfortable, so he just stared down at Ra-ah's closed eyelids in silence.
“The traces are… dangerous, but the deterioration is slow, so we can respond sufficiently. However….”
Her tightly shut lips and anxious gaze, unable to finish her words, seemed to make even Ha-min, who was waiting for an answer, anxious.
“I hope nothing bad happens this time.”
But the previous stories didn't really resonate with her compared to her attitude towards the incident.
This alone was not enough to gauge what, how, or how dangerous it was.