11 Virtues A Hero's Civilian Friend Must Uphold - Chapter 21

I recognized who that person was and remembered them clearly as they saved my parents’ lives and were involved in various incidents.

However, they didn’t become that important in my life, so I must not have remembered their name properly.

Soo Hyun seemed to already know Hee Won, her friend’s son, as she had encountered him a few times before.

She remembered him as her friend’s son and the older brother of the student her daughter was tutoring, but she was actually a little flustered by his sudden visit to their home.

Moreover, it was even more incomprehensible to her that this situation was the opposite of how her friend Mrs. Kim had cut off contact like a knife after the company’s management rights were handed over to someone else.

Judging from how her daughter wasn’t very surprised to see Hee Won, there must have been another connection.

Since they said they attended the same school, it wouldn’t have been strange for them to be close as senior and junior.

Soo Hyun, who had been worried about her daughter not interacting with her close friends or even her beloved boyfriend after a series of unfortunate events in their family, thought it was rather fortunate.

Because it would be a thankful thing if anyone came to her side during these difficult times.

Soo Hyun, who believed that her husband’s death and her daughter’s accident were all coincidental misfortunes, only thought that way.

Still, feeling uneasy about a grown man visiting her daughter’s room, she left the door slightly open as she stepped aside.

After confirming that Soo Hyun had gone downstairs, Na Eun walked over and closed the door again.

It was because he wasn’t someone she could have a conversation with that everyone else could hear.

Has it been a month? No, it seemed like it had been even longer since they last saw each other face to face.

Na Eun looked up at the man who was standing right in front of her but somehow not speaking first, lost in thought.

Then, she suddenly opened the mini-fridge in the room.

Since most of the appliances and furniture were going to be left behind anyway, there were still things to serve guests even the day before moving.

Na Eun asked while looking inside the fridge.

“Is juice okay? I only have orange flavor though.”

Hee Won was the one who was rather flustered by her flat tone as if she was just treating a guest who happened to visit.

He hesitated for a moment before answering that it was fine. His voice, devoid of the uncharacteristic lightheartedness, was a little lower than she remembered.

Thinking that it didn’t suit him, she had him sit on the vanity chair that was far away.

The guest mini table had been put away before, so that was the only place for him to sit.

Hee Won sat on the small chair, hunching his body as if shrinking.

The backless vanity chair looked like a toy to his tall figure, making her laugh.

It doesn’t suit you. Hee Won looked at Na Eun, who said that and laughed, feeling a little awkward.

For the first time in his life, he was at a loss as to how to treat someone.

It was Na Eun who reached out first to him who was like that.

With Hee Won sitting on the chair by the vanity and herself sitting far away at the edge of the bed, she spoke first.

“Thank you for saving me.”

Even if she cursed at him or ran to him crying that she would kill him, he had to bear it.

He had come to her with that determination for the first time, dealing with a civilian he got involved with through his work, but his body stiffened at her completely unexpected words.

His shoulders tensed up, and his tongue, which had always rolled smoothly like a snake, couldn’t utter a single word as if tied up somewhere.

Hee Won didn’t know how to explain this feeling.

Even if he could explain it, there was nothing he could do right now.

The repercussion of feeling helplessness for the first time in front of a civilian, instead of irritation or tediousness, was severe.

While he was looking at her, unable to say anything, Na Eun continued.

“I’m too late in greeting you. I’m sorry.”

“……”

“Are Seung Joo and Sun Jin not hurt anywhere?”

Judging from the fact that they held a funeral right after their father passed away, it seems like they weren’t seriously injured, but she asked anyway.

Although she doesn’t remember because she fainted right away, Na Eun didn’t fall from the high floor of that abandoned building in the end.

She remembers throwing herself off with the determination to die, but that was the last thing.

If she had succeeded in falling, she wouldn’t be alive like this.

As proof, when she regained consciousness in the hospital, she only had a few scratches and no major injuries except for her fingers.

Her smart mind remembered the conversation between Jae Kyung and Hee Won over the phone even in that terrible memory, so she figured out that the reason Seoul and the whole country were still safe was because the heroes won.

Although she doesn’t know well, the code Na Eun memorized and gave to them seemed to be a necessary condition for using some kind of weapon, and fortunately, it didn’t fall into the hands of the villains.

Everything was resolved safely. In movie terms, it was a happy ending.

Of course, no matter what she, an extra, lost in the process, the movie wouldn’t treat it as important.

Just like how the lives of countless civilians who died in hero movies are not greatly highlighted.

“…Yeah. They’re safe.”

Hee Won, who was sitting on the chair with his broad shoulders narrowed like a sinner, answered cautiously.

He was startled by himself for being so careful to utter each word in front of someone for the first time.

Na Eun felt once again that the quiet answer, devoid of his usual playfulness, didn’t suit him.

In the meantime, a brief silence passed, and Hee Won, rarely averting his gaze, finally spoke.

Words he had never said before since starting this job.

“I’m sorry.”

“……”

“For not keeping my promise.”

The room was filled with silence again.

Na Eun, upon hearing Hee Won’s apology, remained still as if lost in thought for a moment. Eventually, she blinked slowly as if sleepy and smiled slightly.

“In the end, you heroes are still heroes.”

At the unexpected words, Hee Won’s head turned.

Na Eun was sitting at the edge of the bed, smiling brightly. Without even a shred of resentment.

“You’re kind.”

“……”

“What happened to my dad, it’s all because of me. I had told Jae Kyung where my dad went on his business trip.”

Na Eun remembered Hee Won’s voice telling her to hold on a little longer and that he would save her father.

But it was out of order to resent Hee Won for not being able to keep that promise.

If she were to choose who to blame first, it would be herself for not properly seeing people and getting close to them, and her foolishness for thoughtlessly leaking her father’s business trip location.

Mom.

Dad passed away because of me.

Not long after the funeral, she entered her mother’s room and confessed like that.

Although she couldn’t tell her the full details of the incident, she knew she had to be honest with her mother at least.

But as soon as her mother heard that, her face looked as if the sky was falling.

And holding Na Eun’s hands tightly, she urged her. If she doesn’t want to make her father in the afterlife cry, she should never say such things again.

The media, which loves to tear things apart, had already packaged her father’s death together with his suddenly injured daughter as a mentally ill person who fell from an abandoned building while staggering on drugs.

Of course, it was just a rumor circulating as a tabloid, but people always look for sensational and tragic articles.

Na Eun knew that her scandal had contributed a very small part to her mother losing her father’s company.

“Even if you hadn’t told him, the result would have been the same. That bastard already knew everything about you.”

When she blamed herself, Hee Won cut her off coldly.

His tone was sharp, but in summary, it was ‘It’s not your fault.’ Thinking that he was indeed kind, Na Eun smiled.

“Thanks for the comfort. I’m moving tomorrow. Tell Seung Joo and Sun Jin not to feel guilty about me and to contact me soon. I’ve lost too much now, so if I lose them too, I’ll have nothing left.”

The content was too heavy for the lighthearted tone.

Hee Won stared blankly at the white face smiling at him, saying she had little left.

Whether he was born that way or it was the influence of his superhuman abilities, Hee Won was quite weak at empathizing with other people’s emotions.

Sometimes it wasn’t far off when his teammates pointed fingers at him, calling him a psychopath.

To him, this job was nothing more than the difference between his main job and side job.

Even if he acknowledged that this was his main job now that he had the team leader title and his public image was his side job, it was the same.

What does it matter if it’s the main job? It’s all the same kind of livelihood anyway.

Like an office worker who smokes a cigarette on the rooftop during lunchtime and eventually returns to the office with a sigh, Hee Won always had a similar mindset.

A sense of mission to protect the weak?

A sense of justice that he should use his power rightly because he has it?

He always listened to the values that the center he belonged to preached with one ear and let it flow out the other.

He just felt that this ‘night job’ was not bad because it was good for relieving stress as he could fully use his abilities without any problems, and on top of that, it paid well.

For several years since he started the job, his values had always been the same.

Without any sense of obligation to protect civilians, the casualty rate was high, but the success rate of the job was always higher than others.

Sometimes when he faced those who clung to him crying, asking why he didn’t save their family, lovers, or friends, and eventually poured out their resentment when things didn’t go their way, he expressed his irritation as it was.

Civilians who praised him as a hero when he brought them benefits and didn’t hesitate to show anger when he couldn’t protect them were always just an annoying existence to Hee Won.

That’s why he had already planned to abandon Na Eun this time as well.

As soon as he received the news about Han Jae Kyung’s identity and that Na Eun had been kidnapped, he thought that in the worst-case scenario, he would kill her with as little pain as possible.

Dragging her into the job arbitrarily and disposing of her when she becomes a hindrance was something only villains would do, but Hee Won judged that it was better that way.

Wasn’t it a much better sacrifice than having that weapon fall into their hands and making the entire city of Seoul disappear?

But it was also true that he wanted to protect her if possible. Yoon Na Eun, the unilateral victim of this incident, was largely Hee Won’s responsibility.

Moreover, Yoon Na Eun was too intelligent, quick-witted, and had a righteous personality to just disappear meaninglessly.

Unlike him.

It was difficult even for him to watch a civilian being tortured in front of his eyes, and Seung Joo and Sun Jin, who were younger and less experienced than him, were almost out of their minds at that time.

Through the screen, he saw the pitiful eyes that were betrayed by him, whimpering in pain, and eventually abandoned by the other person.

When they threatened her with her father’s safety, she eventually gave in and said she would give them everything she knew, and he quickly moved when he noticed that the hand writing on the paper was strangely slow.

He and his two team members were already rushing to the scene as soon as they started the video call, and he sent separate personnel to save Na Eun’s father.

He noticed that Na Eun was deliberately buying time and pretended to be even more agitated.

Seung Joo and Sun Jin tried their best to respond calmly to Hee Won’s instructions, and they finally succeeded in arriving at the scene on time.

However, there was one thing Hee Won didn’t expect.

“Did you really intend to die?”

After staring at her silently for a while, Hee Won asked in a low voice.

Realizing what those words meant, Na Eun blinked.

Hee Won still vividly recalled the scene from that time.

The voice that screamed like a scream while being driven to the edge of a cliff. The resolute expression as if scolding someone.

The eyes of the girl he saw in person at the scene, not through the screen, were too determined for someone facing death.

She said. If I die, it’s not because you couldn’t protect me, but because they killed me.

He felt that he would never be able to forget the back of Na Eun as she threw those cold words, whether it was her last words or comfort, and really jumped off the high-rise building.

“I was like that then, but I’m alive now. Because you saved me. That’s all that matters.”

She laughed as if she was embarrassed to recall what happened then.

But Hee Won couldn’t laugh back, as he had been doing since he entered this room.

She believed that it was either him or her friends who saved her when she nearly fell to her death.

Hee Won, for the first time, considered the other person’s position and held back his words, wondering if telling the truth would be the right thing to do for this kid.

At the same time, he vividly recalled the memory of that day.

Arriving at the scene, the sight he saw as soon as he arrived at the opposite side of the building to rescue the hostage.

It wasn’t him or his team members who ran to Yoon Na Eun as soon as they saw her unhesitatingly throwing her body over the exterior wall of the building.

The one who threw away the cell phone he was holding and caught the falling Yoon Na Eun with a face that had turned pale, unlike the leisurely expression he had just moments ago,

was Han Jae Kyung, with desperate eyes that he had never seen before.