Black Badger

I dragged myself to my seat and sat down.

It was a bit far from the circuit. Once I sat, I felt a little more alive.

Frowning from dizziness, I blankly stared ahead.

When I get home I should order more clothes.

As I shivered, the start time of the event arrived quickly.

I straightened my bent body to see the drivers entering the circuit. I worried that in my foggy state I might miss Kairos’s entrance, but that was a completely needless worry.

As soon as he appeared, the fans let out a heavy roar.

“Blackjack! Blackjack!”

Several people jumped up from their seats.

Perhaps because the male fan ratio was high, heavy shouts rose together as fists pumped in the air.

“Blackjack! Blackjack!”

He’s popular.

He still has that power to make people go wild.

Sighing, I got up from my seat. I couldn’t see his face because the audience in front stood up.

Being tall, thankfully, I stretched my neck upward.

Then I saw the sight I wanted. The drivers walking into the circuit with their helmets tucked at their sides.

Ah.

There he is.

“Jack!”

The person sitting beside me, whose gender I couldn’t clearly tell, cupped both hands around their mouth and shouted.

“Jack! Look here! Jack!”

Kairos did not look this way.

I blankly looked down at Kairos, who was waving toward the stands. A man waving a gloved hand while holding a helmet under his left arm. The sparsely shaved jaw and the orange-tinted red hair fluttering in the wind were familiar. The nicely curved orange eyes were the same as before.

But he did not give a single glance toward where I was.

There are few who are as sensitive in instinct as he is.

“Jaaack!”

The cries of fans losing their minds pounded painfully in my ears.

“Jack! You’re the best today too! Jack!”

So he doesn’t want to face me.

Kairos, who had been smiling and waving to the crowd, turned his head.

He ended up not giving even one look toward where I was. With a faint smile, he walked and greeted staff members and shook hands, then prepared for the race.

One by one, the people who had stood and cheered sat down.

People getting ready to watch the race.

I alone remained standing for a long while.

Until the audience behind me tapped my back and grumbled.

“How long are you planning to stand, man.”

I bowed my head in apology and sat down.

After sitting down in a daze, I blankly looked down at the circuit. I let the voices of the commentators ringing across the stadium pass through one ear. I couldn’t really make out anything they were saying.

I thought I’d prepared myself.

But it seems I’d been expecting something without realizing it.

The reason I hadn’t sorted out the longing, the expectation, or the small sadness was because of that. But even though he certainly must have sensed my feelings, Kairos didn’t so much as blink.

Humans wouldn’t understand, but this is essentially rejection.

It means he has nothing to say in reply.

I didn’t even properly see how the event ended.

Unable to even think of leaving the stadium, I sat stupidly in my seat.

***

“You’re a Jack Black fan, aren’t you?”

After the event ended and the drivers circling the circuit began heading back inside.

The person beside me, the one whose gender I couldn’t tell, tapped my shoulder.

I blinked and turned my head.

“Sorry? Ah... yes.”

“I knew it. I thought you were my type too. You didn’t look interested in the race content at all.”

True.

After receiving that huge shock earlier, I’d been out of it the whole time.

The race was over. People were now getting up one by one and filing out of the stadium. Since it was a sponsor event, they just casually circled the track a few laps and wrapped up.

A sound of dispersing.

I should go too.

As I thought gloomily, the person next to me tapped my arm.

“Blackjack will be coming out soon, let’s go see!”

“Sorry?”

“Look! He’s coming out now!”

He grabbed my arm and pulled.

“Let’s get closer!”

I got up awkwardly and followed him.

I shouldn’t go, I thought, but I couldn’t shake his hand away. I couldn’t even use the excuse that I was sick. I felt a faint gratitude toward the person dragging me along without warning.

Maybe he has forgotten how to use instinct the way I did when I lost my memory.

Living inside might mean he no longer needs instinct, and that’s why he can’t sense my presence.

Dragged by his strong grip, I was pulled into the mass of fans packed tightly against the fence.

It was really cold.

“Jack Black!”

Kairos had his cap pulled low and was slowly heading out of the stadium.

People stretched phones, hands, autograph sheets toward him.

“Blackjack!!”

“Be careful.”

Kairos said, seeing a fan half-hanging over the fence.

When he saw a child waving at him, he gave a gentle smile.

“If you stay too close to the fence, it’s dangerous.”

The distance gradually shrank.

The person beside me dragged me closer to the fence. He had amazing physical skill. I didn’t know how, but I ended up gripping the fence, and because of that I was wedged among people and able to see Kairos much closer.

Just a few steps away.

Close enough to catch his scent.

He would pass right by in front of me.

“Kairos.”

I couldn’t hold back.

“Handler.”

Jack Black walked past me.

With a bright smile, he calmly greeted the fans. And he passed right in front of me.

Red hair fluttering in the wind.

In that moment, I was nothing but one anonymous fan.

The man who passed by did not look back. The distance grew quickly. Wordless, I watched the back of Kairos heading into the locker room.

The person who had dragged me there slapped my arm excitedly saying, ‘Isn’t even his back unbelievably cool?’

Ah.

My headache was unbearable.

I turned away without answering him. I let go of the fence and pushed through people to walk away.

Then I slumped into the nearest spectator seat.

When I lifted my head, the clear sky came into view.

The crisp and cool late-autumn air.

Breathing in the cold air all the way to my lungs, I didn’t move for a long time.

After the dizziness fades, I’ll leave after everyone is gone.

Thinking that, I closed my heavy eyelids.

After the drivers and staff all leave.

After everyone is gone....

***

Today is the last day of her off-duty break.

Thinking that days off always felt too short no matter how long they were, Ami knocked on the cabin door.

No answer came. But she simply opened the door and walked in. Hilde had long ago casually told the neighbors across the way his passcode. So Ami could freely enter and exit the cabin.

He must be sleeping like the dead, so I should make abalone porridge for him.

Thinking so, she went in — and faced an empty cabin.

“Huh?”

Ami blinked.

“Hilde? Where are you?”

No answer came.

She could feel that nobody was inside the building. She could tell from the air.

But just in case, Ami searched the entire cabin.

As expected, Hilde was not there.

Looks like he stepped out.

“He must still have a fever!”

She gasped and hurriedly called him on the phone.

“If you needed something, you should’ve told us to buy it for you!”

But Hilde did not pick up the call.

He didn’t answer the phone even after more than ten calls.

By this point, Ami began to feel truly anxious.

Even though he was old, she knew well that the newbie didn’t take care of his body at all, so her anxiety compounded. Ami gave up on trying to call Hilde. Instead, she started calling people who might know where Hilde had gone.

Hesh, Tom, Ricardo, Kudo, Yun, Yehyeon, Ska, Ju, Samuel, Shu, Bobby, Leeho, Asil, Kai, Sophia.

She called every acquaintance of Hilde within the Core.

But no one knew where Hildebert was.

Instead, after receiving Ami’s call asking about Hilde’s whereabouts, they each reacted in their own panicked way.

[Ah, senior! No? Haven’t heard from him in a while.... Sorry? He’s sick? A cold? But he’s not at home?]

[Senior. Uh.... No. I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was sick. He should have told us....]

[What the fuck, I told him to stay quietly holed up in the damn cabin~.]

[I’ll look for him. Can you send me the cabin address?]

[His car. Is it there? Then he can’t have gone far. Wait a little longer.]

[He’s not in the cabin? Did you ask Yun? I haven’t been there since I brought the chicken soup....]

[I heard Commander talking on the phone. I don’t know either. Let’s wait a bit.]

[I don’t know. Maybe he just stepped out to buy something? By the way, it’s really been a long time since I talked to you, Ami. How have you been? Nice hearing your voice.]

[Where the hell is that brat wandering around when the doctor told him to rest? When he comes back, give him an earful!]

[Senior. ...I don’t know. I’m still on the outskirts.... Yes. I return to HQ during the event period. Is Hilde very sick?]

[Senior~? No, I don’t know? Maybe he stepped out for a stroll? He’s not a kid, don’t worry too much!]

[Huh? Haven’t seen him lately.... Maybe he went to the pharmacy nearby?]

[I haven’t seen him.... Is the cold very bad? I don’t think you need to worry too much, but if he still doesn’t come back, I’ll contact a former colleague.]

[Didn’t you say he was bedridden because of the Blue Disease? I’ll ask those who should be at HQ.]

[Haven’t seen him.]

After making one round of calls, she collapsed in the cabin and waited, but no news came.

She tried calling him again several more times, but he didn’t answer.

To the messages asking what happened, Ami replied, ‘He won’t answerㅠㅠ’.

The Badgers gradually became alarmed.

Thus, without Hildebert knowing, among the Badgers, a search began: “Finding the Missing Hildebert.”

***

“Black!”

The manager urgently shouted the name of the driver returning to the stadium.

“Jack Black! Where are you suddenly going!”

The redhead didn’t reply.

As usual, he moved his feet however he pleased. He didn’t look back, didn’t answer. He was still the same—stubborn in strange places. As long as something mysterious didn’t trigger him, he was a model celebrity normally.

Once he fixated on something, though, there was no answer.

Today he seemed even worse than usual. So the manager gave up asking questions and followed Jack Black diligently.

The Center Core’s No.1 driver stepped into the empty stadium. Strangely, he walked not through the drivers’ passage but through the spectator corridor.

He quickly greeted the startled staff with a wave and kept walking.

Entering the vacant stands, he strode down the steps two at a time.

Only the cleaners picking up trash remained.

Crossing the area quickly, he stopped in front of a seat near the fence.

In front of a man sitting in a daze.

“Who is he?”

Panting, the manager looked /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ down at the man and asked.

Jack Black didn’t answer. With his cap pulled low and head bowed, his face wasn’t visible.

The manager wiped sweat running down his chin with the back of his hand and looked into the driver’s face, hidden under the brim of the black baseball cap.

“You know him?”

It was the first thing he said upon seeing Jack Black’s face.

“A friend? Then why is he like this here.... Oh? Is he sick?”

After looking closely at the unconscious man, the manager jolted back in shock.

He urgently called an ambulance. He also approached a cleaner nearby to ask for help.

Even while all this was happening, Jack Black didn’t move for a long time.

Without a word, he stared down at the man for a long time.

Until the paramedics arrived to transport the burning-hot man.

***

When I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar ceiling.

An ominous development.

Thinking that, I still couldn’t bring myself to get up for a while. Maybe my fever had returned, because my senses were dull. My head hurt and my body felt heavy.

It hadn’t been this bad before.

Maybe the emotional shock had been big.

I let out a self-mocking laugh.

And I thought I had prepared myself. I thought it didn’t matter as long as he was living happily.

In reality, not at all.

How is it that even when I age, I never mature.

I let out a bitter laugh. And then I sorted my thoughts. Now I should accept it. If he’s happy, that alone is enough reward — I should be glad and go back.

Thinking that, I blankly stared at the ivory-colored ceiling.

But then I heard a strange sound.

Piuuu.

Hm?

Piuu. Piuuu.

I turned my head toward the sound.

I found a cute and nostalgic creature. A small furry creature that cried often. It walked on four legs and looked very much like a baby cat on Earth, but its ears weren’t pointy; they were round.

It was a monster that had been very popular as a pet.

That creature was looking up at me from the floor.

I even knew this little one’s name, the one that cried all the time.

A creature that looks like a baby but is actually fully grown. It seems to have no combat ability, but when it gathers all its strength, it displays tremendous power.

It crawled toward the bed, crying piuuu piuuu.

“Milk.”

I laughed low and reached out my hand.

“Have you been well?”

I tried to pet its head.

The hand I stretched out to pet it was caught by someone. It was a large, strong hand.

My eyes widened as I rolled my gaze upward.

Because of the fever, my senses had dulled and I hadn’t noticed someone approaching.

I hadn’t expected it, either. I didn’t think he’d be here in this space. So I had planned to gather myself, get up quietly, and slip out.

I meant to disappear politely for the sake of the doctor. I thought I understood him well enough for that. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

But clearly I’d misjudged entirely.

The one who held my hand slowly went down on one knee.

Kneeling before the bed, he pressed his lips to the back of my hand.

Flawless etiquette.

“Captain.”

Kairos lifted his head and met my eyes.

“My Captain.”

Sun-bright, dazzling orange eyes.