Black Badger

Did this person originally call me Hildebert?

I thought he called me Talev...

I decided not to worry about such trivial matters. I hid my surprise and expressed my gratitude.

"Thank you."

I politely accepted the latest model smartphone.

I still couldn't quite grasp the situation...

But I never expected him to come all the way here in person to give it to me. Today was my off-duty day, so it must have been his too. In fact, he wasn't wearing the Black Badger uniform but a purple shirt instead.

The senior, to whom the purple suited strikingly well, looked straight at me.

"I've transferred your SIM card too. Check if everything transferred properly."

"Ah! Thank you. It seems like it did."

"Do you like the color and model?"

Kudo asked in a low voice.

I just gaped.

...Why was he acting like this all of a sudden?

My eyes darted in confusion. I was so thrilled that I should have been saying something like, "Thank you, Senior! I love it so much, it's the best!" but my surprise left me frozen for a moment.

I finally pulled myself together.

"Yes. The color and model are great. I even wonder if I deserve something this nice..."

"Take it."

The firm response came back.

I pressed my lips into a straight line and forced a smile.

I had no idea how to react. I couldn't fathom what had gotten into him.

But refusing after he'd gone this far would have been rude...

I let out a small laugh and nodded.

"Thank you. I'll take good care of it. Tomorrow's patrol duty, so I'll see you then. Oh, if you're not busy, would you like to come in?"

Fortunately, he didn't come inside.

After seeing off the senior, I returned home feeling half grateful and half astonished. It seemed he'd gone back to where my phone had been lost, picked up the SIM card, and brought it over.

A functioning phone.

I stared at the screen, and as soon as activation was complete, I dove into messaging.

Sitting on the beanbag, I contacted Shu, Ami, Ye-hyeon, and Yoon. As I typed, I thought that Jonathan Kudo might have softened a bit because of the Ashen Cloak incident.

That was a miscalculation.

*

It wasn't just "a bit" softer.

On patrol duty day, I was continually startled by the senior's drastically changed demeanor.

Things started feeling off from lunchtime.

After finishing the morning shift without incident, lunchtime arrived.

I naturally assumed we'd go to that neat place he liked again.

But instead of staying silent or heading to a place he knew, Kudo turned to look at me.

"What do you want to eat?"

Pardon?

It was the first time he'd asked something like that, so I was caught off guard.

I blinked a couple of times.

"Uh, is there nothing you feel like eating, Senior?"

"Tell me what you want to eat."

Why was this guy acting like this?

I stopped in the middle of the street under the scorching sunlight. The senior stood beside me, unmoving until I spoke.

The humid summer air.

I opened and closed my mouth before saying,

"How about kaisendon?"

We ate kaisendon.

And that wasn't the end of it. For one, his gaze that had treated me like a rock had changed. It was like he was finally seeing me as a person instead of a stone.

On top of that, we even had a conversation.

When I brought up some trivial topic, the senior responded properly. When I mentioned swords, surprisingly, the talk continued, and not just that.

"Oil for sword maintenance? If you need it, I'll buy some and send it over."

At this point, it was scary.

Why had he changed so suddenly?

These wouldn't have been so surprising if it were anyone else.

...No. Even if it were someone else, I would have been shocked. He was suddenly being excessively nice to me.

Wrapped in astonishment, I started the afternoon shift, but even more incomprehensible things happened later.

A creature appeared in our patrol zone.

It was between tier 2 and tier 3, not particularly dangerous. But the location was bad. The massive green moss-like thing was wriggling right on the kids' path home from school.

It spat poisonous spit if you got close.

Kudo disposed of the creature without issue.

I took on the role of guiding the curious kids away, but a small problem arose.

Some boys who looked about 13 ignored the warnings and came rushing over.

"It's a creature!"

Pfft!

"Ugh!"

The kid with the fastest legs let out a short scream.

The following kids froze in fear and stopped. A couple of them screamed too.

I lowered my right hand, which had blocked the boy's face, and smiled.

"You didn't get hit."

"...Huh?"

The boy, who had reflexively scrunched his face, slowly opened his eyes.

"I didn't get hit?"

"Yeah. And I told you it was dangerous and to stay back. Why don't you listen?"

I nodded toward the terrified, stiff kids and the one wiping his face.

The kids turned away one by one, gradually moving away from the creature's corpse.

I picked up the troublesome kid who was still wiping his face and set him down next to his friend.

"You too. Go on. Don't do anything this dangerous from now on."

After sending the kids off, I cleaned up the area.

Until Jonathan Kudo suddenly grabbed my right arm.

"Ah."

I gave an awkward smile as I looked at Kudo, who was staring intently at the back of my hand where I'd been burned.

"It'll heal quickly. My recovery is a bit slow... Sorry for always causing trouble."

"You should head back early."

"Pardon?"

It was still a long way until quitting time.

He couldn't mean to send me home for such a minor injury.

But he did.

Kudo insisted on making me leave early despite my reluctance. He even added that I should go to the hospital right after clocking out.

I protested strongly that a healthy badger would heal this in less than a minute, and if we went home early every time for something like this, we'd never get any work done, but it didn't sway him. As expected, he was renowned for his stubbornness.

Well...

He was probably overreacting because of that incident. Maybe it would ease up with time.

That thought, too, was my grand delusion.

*

One week later.

I went to Ricardo and asked for help.

I wanted to know what on earth was up with Jonathan Kudo.

"The guy's acting weird!"

He was being too nice.

The excessive favors kept coming, to the point where I felt like I might burst. It wasn't just my imagination. I'd already messaged Ami several times about it.

Ami was surprised every time I explained the situation.

Just last night, I even sent her an SOS like this.

[Me: Help! Today, Senior Kudo invited me to his place.]

[Ami: ?]

A few minutes later, another message.

[Ami: ??]

[Me: Come with me!]

[Ami: Uh...]

I could almost hear her voice in the reply.

[Ami: Uh???]

That's how things were going.

I grabbed Ricardo, who was trying to go smoke, and explained everything. He didn't just buy me the latest phone; he was overprotecting a perfectly fine junior; if I mentioned wanting something, he'd buy it; if I said something tasted good, he'd offer to get it...

Ricardo, who had been annoyed at his junior tugging his clothes, broke into a grin.

He listened with a smirk, and as soon as I finished, he leaned against the building wall.

He chuckled for a while before looking up.

"You really don't know why~?"

How would I know?

I answered with my expression, and Ricardo looked like he was dying of amusement.

"You're denser than I thought~."

Pardon?

Me?

"It's fun, so I'll just watch~."

"Ah, Senior. Don't do that."

"Didn't he check your clothes after the fight?"

I dropped my jaw in surprise.

I stared at the smirking guy across from me and asked back.

"How did you know?"

"Yeah, that's his habit~. He does it to us all the time, like a grandma~."

Grandma...

I mulled over the word blankly, then a good idea struck me.

I thanked him for the entertaining story and grabbed the clothes of the senior who was stretching to go smoke.

"Come home with me!"

"No~."

I was rejected immediately.

"Go with Ami~."

"Ami said she'd love to, but what if Kudo feels uncomfortable..."

"Even so, if you bring her, he won't refuse~?"

Ricardo grinned.

"Why not give it a try~?"

*

I visited Jonathan Kudo's house with Ami.

Ricardo's words were spot on. When I asked if it was okay to bring Ami, Kudo didn't show any displeasure. According to Ricardo, even if I'd said I was bringing Ye-hyeon or Yoon, he probably wouldn't have minded.

That was scary in its own way.

Why had he changed like this?

In any case, thanks to the light and salt of my life, I was escaping this predicament again.

"Wow."

The senior with the round eyes muttered as she looked around Kudo's place.

"It looks like a hotel."

Tell me about it.

We were inside Kudo's house now. We set down the housewarming gifts we'd brought and surveyed the space. It was modern and tidy, fitting for the owner.

A simple, clean space. Spacious, without a speck of dust.

The furniture...

...was too pristine.

There were hardly any items.

What little there was were mostly achromatic colors. Unlike Ricardo's or Ami's places, it lacked any sense of lived-in comfort.

Did he actually live here?

"I hate it most when guests do work."

Kudo, who had taken an Evian water bottle from the gray refrigerator, said to me as he handed it over.

I accepted the Evian bottle hesitantly.

"Make yourself at home."

How could I relax in a place like this...

And how was even the water...

My thoughts stalled for a moment, but I decided not to dwell on it.

I smiled brightly.

"Yes! Thank you!"

"Hilde! Don't lose your mind!"

Ami grabbed me and shook me side to side.

"Regain your senses!"

I couldn't regain them.

We drank the coffee Kudo personally brewed, the tea he personally made, and ate the cute snacks arranged with obsessive neatness. I kept feeling uncomfortable, but Ami seemed to be enjoying it.

Thank goodness. Just having Ami with me was a huge comfort.

If I'd come alone, the awkwardness would have suffocated me to death by now.

Kudo was still inscrutable in his thoughts, but he continued being nice to me...

Was he going to keep being this nice from now on?

No way?

That "no way" turned out to be true. It took some time, but I gradually accepted that I had to get used to this senior, that I had entered his "circle of people."

*

By the way, the apples had ripened.

On an off-duty day, I picked apples in Samuel's yard, where no one was around.

It was separated from Yoon's house by a low fence. The apple tree in the yard, maintained regularly by a gardener hired by the doctor, was laden with plump fruit. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Newton's apple.

I selected the ripest ones to make apple wine for the doctor.

I wanted to call Yoon, but he'd been stuck outside the core for a while lately. I heard he was being worked to the bone on the groundwork for territory expansion.

The last time we'd talked was nearly ten days ago.

Even then, he was too busy to analyze the "From K" I'd asked about.

[Me: 《A gift arrived!》 -'Lexick Basic Noodles delivery coupon']

[Choi Yoon: Has your tongue rotted while I wasn't looking?]

[Me: You don't know the greatness of this taste. Poor Senior's tongue.]

That was our last conversation.

The Black Badger headquarters was buzzing too. As Closed Heaven Festival approached, everyone grew busier. Those going out beyond the core stayed longer, reporters swarmed the headquarters, and general staff ran around with dark circles under their eyes.

The high command was hard to spot.

I wasn't that busy, though.

To be precise, my movements were restricted.

They couldn't let out someone who might be a bomb in such a sensitive time.

'Just relax and wait until orders come down!'

That's what the HR Director told me.

So now I was apple-picking. Even if guilt kept me awake and anxiety made my body tense often, I had to maintain some normalcy and handle what needed doing.

And right now, that was selecting good apples.

How long had it been since I last made apple wine...

As I thought that, I felt a gaze flying toward me and landing.

Who was it?

Without thinking, I looked up toward the source of the gaze.

And I froze in that position.

Because I saw Ye-hyeon, sitting on the sofa, watching me through the transparent glass door.

Ye-hyeon looked like he'd woken up from sleeping on the sofa again.

"...Commander?"

"Hilde."

The man staggered up from the sofa and opened the glass door, calling me casually.

The humid summer breeze ruffled his hair and T-shirt.

"Hello."

"...Hello, sir."

This felt strangely familiar.

Thinking that, I stood there awkwardly for a while, holding the apple and looking at my boss.