Save Me, Scrapper!

Ji Hayeon stared up at him without blinking.
“I just thought of a good idea.”
At the words good idea, spoken with emphasis by Sawon, Ji Hayeon frowned.
“What are you planning to do.”
“You know there’s a hunter treatment called memory substitution, right?”
Memory substitution, applied only to hunters who had suffered severe trauma in combat, referred to a treatment that replaced the traumatic memory with another mental shock of comparable intensity, weakening or canceling out the trauma symptoms. Even so, it was a last-resort method considered only for the most severe cases. The side effects were that serious.
“You’re not saying we should do that, are you? You know what the side effects are.”
In the worst case, memories could become scrambled, or even other intact memories could be erased entirely. A fatal drawback. Sawon narrowed his eyes and smiled.
“I know. I’m not saying we do it. I’m saying we try imitating it.”
“…How are we supposed to imitate it?”
“I’m suggesting this for your sake, Chief, not /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ for mine, so listen without misunderstanding.”
“Then what is it, dragging it out like this.”
“What about giving you a mental shock every time you ride an elevator?”
“Mental shock…?”
“Last time, when we infiltrated the Institute, you said you were fine in the elevator then. So.”
As if realizing what Sawon was about to say, Ji Hayeon yanked at the arm that had hold of him. But Sawon pulled harder, drawing him closer, and Ji Hayeon’s upper body tilted toward him. Sawon caught him and continued.
“How about you kiss me every time we ride an elevator?”
“Ar, are you crazy? No.”
Ji Hayeon’s cheeks reddened instantly. But Sawon tightened his grip, his tone completely devoid of playfulness.
“Even better. If you hate it, the shock effect will be stronger.”
“Are you seriously out of your mind? Why would I k-, kiss you.”
A scuffle broke out between Ji Hayeon trying to escape and the arm holding him fast. Sawon went on.
“No, listen to me. Maybe rubbing lips with me affected your Metena. That’s why it worked. You know how they say when Awakened have sex, their Metena mixes temporarily.”
When Awakened intertwined their bodies and their arousal rose, they sometimes absorbed and blended each other’s Metena. The principle was similar to swallowing each other’s saliva while kissing. When Metena mixed this way, influenced by hormones, there was no rejection response to each other’s Metena.
By the time he finished, Ji Hayeon’s face had turned red all the way to the tips of his ears.
“Why would I ever do that with you.”
“Because it worked when you did it with me?”
“Stop talking nonsense and let go.”
But Sawon, as if seized by some strange sense of duty, kept hold of Ji Hayeon and slowly descended the stairs. After stepping all the way down one stair, he dragged Ji Hayeon toward the corner of the landing. Ji Hayeon was pinned into the corner.
“Honestly, last time I couldn’t think of any other shock therapy, so I just went for it. But thinking about it now, there might’ve been a scientific reason after all.”
“…Gu Sawon. Let go of my hands.”

Sawon had both of Ji Hayeon’s hands bound together, held forward. He looked down at the hands he was holding, then back up at Ji Hayeon.
“Nothing to lose. Lips won’t wear out just from rubbing together, and it’s not like I was your first time or anything.”
“With you—!”
Ji Hayeon, about to snap back, bit down on his lip in frustration.
Huh…?
This time, it was Sawon who froze.
Is it possible I really was his first?
Sawon asked with an incredulous expression.
“Wait, you’re not telling me that with me was your first kiss. Right?”
“N-no. Let go.”
But Ji Hayeon couldn’t look him in the eye as he said it.
“Uh…”
Ji Hayeon, no way. Was I seriously, actually… your first kiss? He looks perfectly normal—has this face, this body—what the hell has he been doing all this time?
“…I see. So that’s how it is.”
Sawon nodded with exaggerated motions.
They said dreams were always the opposite of reality, and apparently that was true. The Ji Hayeon who had appeared in one of his dreams had sucked his fingers and even pulled his cock out to masturbate in front of him. Meanwhile, the real Ji Hayeon was someone who had never properly kissed even once.
As he imagined Ji Hayeon’s past, Sawon reflected on his own dating history. He couldn’t remember how things had been before the missing years, but in the five years he did remember, he too had lived completely divorced from anything resembling romance.
Guess I’m not really one to talk.
Not knowing the sensation of mixing Metena made him no different from Ji Hayeon. Looking back on what an Awakened life actually entailed, Sawon found himself deeply empathizing with Ji Hayeon’s situation.
“Yeah. That could happen. Mm. Right.”
Ji Hayeon scowled in visible irritation at Sawon’s reaction. Thump—at the shove, this time Sawon let himself be pushed back without resistance. Grabbing the stair railing, Ji Hayeon started going down again with irritated steps.
Still, that’s that, and this is this.
Sawon wanted to do something—anything—to fix Ji Hayeon’s condition, the one that caused him constant discomfort. He followed after him and drove the point home.
“We’re trying it next time.”
***
By the time they reached the spacious hospital room, the atmosphere was tense. Researcher Lee Seorim and the medical staff were speaking with serious expressions, and Seo Hansu sat by the bed with a dark look on his face. On the bed, Hunter Jin Jeonghae lay asleep in a patient gown. Sawon glanced around and asked,
“Where’s Mok Geonho.”
“He got called out.”
Even with mutated Deaters and mutated fissures erupting one after another, Heukgu continued to appear without pause. With hunters already in short supply, there was no leeway to have three key personnel sitting idle. And yet, the atmosphere felt off.
“What’s with the mood.”
“Did something happen?”
To the two of them, Jin Jeonghae looked like nothing more than someone sleeping quietly. On top of that, they had confirmed just yesterday that he had been fully alert, which made the situation even harder to understand. Lee Seorim gestured to the medical staff, then approached Ji Hayeon.
“Chief. Please look at this first.”
She sent a hologram chart to Ji Hayeon.
“As you instructed yesterday, we analyzed his Metena and ran other tests. For now, nothing stood out as a major issue. I also talked with him yesterday to see how far his memory went—he remembered everything up to the moment he was deployed. After that, he said he dreamed about carrying out the mission.”
It was similar to Sawon’s case. Just as his dreams had connected to reality through death, Jin Jeonghae continued fighting even in his dreams, using the Heukgu as a medium.
“But… after falling asleep like that yesterday, he hasn’t regained consciousness. His temperature keeps rising and falling, and no matter how much we try to wake him, he won’t open his eyes.”
Ji Hayeon quickly moved to Jin Jeonghae’s side. He checked the hologram document he’d received. The Metena numbers were stable. The other test records showed no major problems.
“Why didn’t you contact me.”
“Director Kim came by this morning. He personally conducted the Metena analysis. And more than anything, you overdid it yourself, Chief. I thought it would be okay to tell you when you came in…”
“Why can’t he wake up.”
Seo Hansu asked. Ji Hayeon, his face hard, looked back and forth between Sawon and Jin Jeonghae.
Sawon had experienced no changes at all after severing his bond with the mutated Deater. But Jin Jeonghae, who had been separated from the mutated Deater by the same method, was suffering delayed effects.
That meant there was something still lingering in Jin Jeonghae’s body—something Ji Hayeon had been unable to fully resolve—that could still exert influence on him. Ji Hayeon bit his lip, staring down at the bed.
Click.
The door opened. Director Kwon entered. Everyone greeted him respectfully, but Sawon kept his hands in his pockets, lazily swaying his upper body.
“Director, you must not be very busy these days. I see you all the time.”
“I’m carving out time from my schedule to deal with extra work, so cut the crap. Where’s Director Kim.”
He answered.
“He came by this morning.”
Director Kwon’s face was plastered with exhaustion. He was a first-rate hunter himself, an Awakened who didn’t lag behind in stamina, but even someone like him was feeling the strain from the sheer volume of work piling up.
It seemed he had already been briefed. Director Kwon walked straight over to Jin Jeonghae. Seo Hansu stood up from his seat.
“How was his condition yesterday.”
“He was fine. He kept whining about going straight back to duty, so I chewed him out and barely got him to lie down.”
Director Kwon hummed lowly, then turned his gaze to Sawon.
“Gu Sawon. What about you. Any abnormalities?”
Sawon answered with a shrug. He then looked at Ji Hayeon and Lee Seorim and asked,
“What did Director Kim say.”
“He said we need to observe for now. Symptom-wise, it looks just like a common cold, and his Metena is stable, but he’s unconscious… He said he’s never seen a case like this before.”
“If I’d let him go back out just because he asked, this would’ve turned into a disaster.”
Seo Hansu said, sounding as if he were blaming himself. Director Kwon checked his wristwatch, then spoke to Lee Seorim.
“Could you take charge of Hunter Jin Jeonghae.”
“I was already told by Director Kim to handle him myself.”
Director Kwon nodded heavily.
“If there’s even a slight change, contact me immediately.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Seo Hansu, go back to your post. Finish preparing the testing grounds today.”
“What?”
Seo Hansu, who had been sitting with a rigid face, let out a rebuttal filled with resistance.
“Testing grounds? You’re not saying you’re going to push ahead with the entry exams even in this situation, are you?”