Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Yoon Taehee carefully bandaged Jaegyeom’s knee, just like he had that day with the sunflower bandage.

Then he gently smoothed the skin around the wound to make sure the bandage stayed in place.

As memories of their first meeting surfaced one by one, Jaegyeom’s gaze slowly lowered.

He stared blankly at Yoon Taehee crouched in front of him, then let his eyes drift to the long, clean fingers resting against his knee.

At some point, he quietly folded his leg away.

“That’s enough.”

Jaegyeom sat cross-legged as he spoke.

Yoon Taehee obediently withdrew his hands and backed away. Then he began tidying up the first-aid kit, putting the ointment and bandages back where they belonged.

Watching him organize the medicine box, Jaegyeom suddenly blurted out,

“Hey. Back then... what was that black bug thing?”

“Hm?”

Though the question came out of nowhere, Yoon Taehee quickly let out an understanding “Ah.”

He immediately realized Jaegyeom meant the black silkworms from the day they first met in the library.

“That came from a device. Something used to detect whether the person entering the space is gifted or not.”

Yoon Taehee answered while organizing the kit.

“The black silkworms react to people with spiritual force. Only people who can handle spiritual force are able to see them.”

“So you were using that to figure out who was gifted?”

“Yeah.”

Yoon Taehee nodded easily.

At the time, he had infiltrated the school in search of a gifted person to turn into his successor.

When Jaegyeom found out later, he had felt deeply betrayed.

Yoon Taehee had turned out to be a Naja, and there had been a reason behind all that kindness.

Learning that the warmth and goodwill had been deliberate—that Yoon Taehee had intentionally approached him—had made Jaegyeom so furious he felt his hair standing on end.

He had been angry at himself too, for foolishly falling for it.

At the time, Myojeong and Yoon Taehee had overlapped in his mind.

But now it felt strangely refreshing that the memory no longer bothered him.

He understood now that Myojeong and Yoon Taehee were completely different.

“So how many gifted people were there at our school?”

“Three, including you.”

One of them must have been Jo Youngwoo.

At the thought, Youngwoo’s face suddenly crossed Jaegyeom’s mind.

I wonder how he’s doing.

It had been quite a while since Jaegyeom had thought about him.

“If I’d kept refusing you back then, were you planning to take Jo Youngwoo instead?”

“Hm. Maybe. Maybe not.”

At the ambiguous answer, Jaegyeom narrowed his eyes slightly.

“But I would’ve regretted it for the rest of my life.”

“What?”

Still organizing the first-aid kit, Yoon Taehee answered quietly.

“Not being able to keep hold of you.”

Jaegyeom’s sharp gaze softened slightly.

“...”

Suddenly, a lonely voice from long ago echoed through his mind.

Why do I keep failing you?

Jaegyeom could not think of any response to the confession that Yoon Taehee would have regretted losing him for the rest of his life.

“But were there really only three gifted people?”

After a brief silence, Jaegyeom changed the subject.

“I thought there’d be more, but we only found three.”

At Yoon Taehee’s answer, Jaegyeom looked puzzled.

Daeryung High was a large school with hundreds of students.

Surely there should have been more than three gifted people.

“Why only three?”

“Well...”

Yoon Taehee casually rubbed his chin.

“Maybe some cute little friend went around killing all the bugs.”

Realizing the comment was directed at him, Jaegyeom flinched.

“...”

How did he know?

Caught off guard, Jaegyeom unconsciously shut his mouth.

Pretending not to care, he scratched absentmindedly at the black scorch marks on the floor with his fingertips.

“...How did you know?”

At the casual question, Yoon Taehee raised one eyebrow.

“That’s what I want to ask. What exactly did you do?”

This time Jaegyeom pretended to fuss with the bandage while trailing off vaguely.

“Huh? Well...”

He had almost admitted that he tore pages out of a book to make a talisman.

But then he remembered the shelves overflowing with books in Yoon Taehee’s house.

Yoon Taehee even brought books with him to the island.

He had always been reading back when he worked as a librarian too.

So somehow, Jaegyeom suddenly felt guilty confessing the truth.

“...”

After a moment of silence, Jaegyeom awkwardly changed the subject instead.

“Hey. So...”

“Mhm.”

“You knew I was gifted from the very beginning?”

“Mhm.”

Fortunately, Yoon Taehee nodded without pressing further.

So he had known from the moment they first met.

No wonder he had kept hovering around him, saying embarrassing things like wanting to be friends.

“You really are cunning.”

At Jaegyeom’s accusation, Yoon Taehee calmly continued organizing the kit.

“I even asked the student affairs teacher to assign you volunteer work in the library.”

“What?”

Jaegyeom stared at him in disbelief.

Back then he had thought Yoon Taehee hovered around him suspiciously often, but he had never imagined even the library volunteer work had been arranged on purpose.

“So making me read books and write reports was all part of your scheme too?”

“Of course. Every bit of it was part of the scheme.”

Yoon Taehee deliberately dragged out the last word playfully.

“You’re a complete scumbag.”

Jaegyeom glared at him with narrowed eyes.

Yoon Taehee only smiled quietly despite the insult.

Back then, reading books and writing reports had felt hard enough to make Jaegyeom’s brain explode.

And all of it had been part of Yoon Taehee’s calculations.

Jaegyeom knew Yoon Taehee was meticulous, but he had not realized it was to this extent.

Still, separately from all that, it was astonishing.

Coming all the way to that tiny town to find a successor.

Disguising himself as a librarian.

Watching every detail so closely.

The thought alone sounded exhausting.

“You must’ve lived a really tiring life.”

Jaegyeom muttered it almost to himself.

“You think so?”

Yoon Taehee chuckled softly.

“But I liked that time.”

“What?”

“Just... those days when I was working as a librarian.”

Even though he had infiltrated the school to search for a successor, Yoon Taehee had genuinely enjoyed the job.

He liked organizing the shelves.

Attaching labels.

Choosing the book of the day.

Quietly reading.

Then lifting his eyes to look out the window as evening settled over the world.

“If I’d lived a normal life, I think I might’ve become a librarian.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Yoon Taehee, who had been focused on the first-aid kit, suddenly lifted his head.

“Oh, right. And...”

Their eyes met.

He smiled silently, then scrunched his nose slightly.

“I also liked when a certain cute friend secretly kept sneaking looks at me.”

Pretending to stare at the monitor, he would secretly glance sideways at the boy sitting nearby.

Sometimes Jaegyeom would be leaning his cheek against the desk with a bored expression while flipping through pages.

Sometimes he would be asleep with his arms folded beneath his head.

And sometimes he would look completely absorbed in a book held upright in front of his face—

but Yoon Taehee could still feel eyes peeking at him over the top of it.

It was from the time when they secretly watched each other.

“...”

Jaegyeom’s eyebrows twitched violently after being hit squarely where it hurt.

“When did I ever do that? I wasn’t staring at you.”

“Liar.”

“I only looked at books. I was busy reading.”

The tips of Jaegyeom’s ears had turned slightly red as he stubbornly pretended innocence.

“Oh really?”

Yoon Taehee nodded calmly.

“Then I guess you remember the titles of all the books you read back then?”

Having exaggerated too much, Jaegyeom immediately found himself cornered.

“...”

Speechless for a moment, he quickly launched a counterattack instead.

“Y-you were ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) always sneaking looks at me too.”

At the sharp accusation, Yoon Taehee laughed quietly.

“If you were only reading books, how did you know I was looking at you?”

It was a devastatingly sharp point, but Jaegyeom refused to back down.

“Hey, that was months ago. How am I supposed to remember what books I read back then?”

“Why not? I remember every book you read.”

At the gentle voice laced with laughter, Jaegyeom slowly looked up.

“I remember all of it.”

As he said that, Yoon Taehee slowly stood.

“What books you read each day. Everything...”

After finishing with the first-aid kit, he walked over to the TV stand.

Crouching down, he opened the cabinet and returned the kit to its original place.

Through the thin white T-shirt, the lines of his tightly toned back muscles showed clearly.

The protruding shoulder blades.

The broad, solid shoulders.

That wide back.

At that moment, Jaegyeom suddenly felt a strange urge.

He wanted to hit Yoon Taehee.

He wanted to grab his hair while he sat there hunched over and claw at that broad chest with everything he had.

He wanted to rake his nails over those sharp shoulder blades, those arms, that wide back.

And after that—

“Hey.”

Jaegyeom’s lips moved quietly.

“You know...”

“Yeah.”

Still staring at Yoon Taehee’s back, Jaegyeom spoke in a low voice.

“Do you want to kiss...?”

At that moment, Yoon Taehee’s shoulders froze.