Kim Hana
Gulp!
I swallowed the hot Americano down my throat, and looked at the woman sitting across from me.
Kim Seo-yeon.
The long straight hair I remembered had, before I knew it, become a short bob.
Dressed up in a pink off-shoulder one-piece look, and dolled up to the max, her beauty had really come into bloom.
A beautiful woman, enough to make any man glance back at least once.
A baby face that was hard to believe belonged to a twenty-nine-year-old.
If she were your girlfriend your shoulders would rise on their own, and you'd feel proud, but.
—Oppa, you're a good person, but······ I'm sorry. I can't keep dating someone with no future. I'm at the age where I have to think about marriage now.
—All my friends are meeting and marrying guys who are doctors or lawyers, or who work at famous big corporations, but Oppa is······ haa. Forget it. Let's stop.
The words she'd said when we broke up kept circling in my ears.
Five years of time. The end of a relationship that was long if you say it's long, short if you say it's short.
Right after Kim Seo-yeon told me we were done, she even blocked my number on the spot.
So cold when she dumped me, and now.
"Why did you suddenly want to see me?"
"Just because. I was passing by and I saw Oppa's place. Have you been well?"
What reason would a girl who lives in Jamsil have to pass through Eunpyeong District.
Her job probably had nothing to do with this area either.
'Have you been well?'
No, I haven't been well.
But it was strange.
I thought if I saw her again I'd be shaking like crazy and miss her, but not at all.
Rather, my heart was calm beyond measure, like a paper boat floating on a quiet lakeside.
'Is it Randolph's influence······.'
Even without using the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule, everything I had done as Randolph was engraved in me.
Maybe that's why.
This sudden situation didn't feel all that flustering.
"More or less. What about you?"
"Me? I'm always the same. Work, home, work, home. I'm dying."
Saying she was sick of the hamster-wheel routine.
But I already knew she hadn't come to see me because her routine was boring.
I could pretty much guess the reason too.
The profile photo she changed to right after we broke up, that couple photo with some slick businessman, it was gone now.
Honestly, it was ridiculous.
She'd dumped me to transfer right away, and now that she had a problem, she came back to meet me.
Should I call this brazen, or does she really see me as that much of a pushover.
'Well, I was a pushover.'
It had been a relationship where I acted like I'd hand over my liver and gallbladder too.
I do think I did it because I loved her that much, but I had zero intention of repeating that past when we were nothing now.
When I stayed silent just to see what she'd say, Kim Seo-yeon opened her mouth.
"You know that big thing that happened recently, it was a total mess. You know who I worried about first? Oppa."
"That thing?"
"The 'Dimension War.' The day monsters from another dimension attacked Earth! I thought they were filming Marvel or something."
She was talking about the day the Giant Mantis appeared.
Monsters from Pangaenia showed up in reality, and the people summoned to Pangaenia used the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule to drive the monsters off in reality.
After that day, people began praising them, calling them "Dimension Warriors."
Warriors from another dimension.
They said those warriors possessed modern humans and exterminated the monsters.
The Dimension Warriors warned of the dangers that would come later, and shot up to stardom overnight.
Surprisingly, almost nobody mentioned Pangaenia directly.
'Well, I guess an attack from another dimension sounds more believable than a game becoming reality.'
People are more afraid of unknown monsters flowing in from the unknown than of an already-existing game turning real.
"You don't look interested?"
"Can I get up now?"
"··· Huh?"
Bewilderment settled on Kim Seo-yeon's once-relaxed face.
"I've seen your face, that's enough. It's not like we're close enough to sit here and chat."
Whether she liked it or not, I stood up.
If it were the old me, I might've clung to her again and begged to date once more.
For the past five years our relationship had clearly been one of haves and have-nots. I might've pleaded, saying I couldn't end it while still hung up on her.
But not anymore.
I had a mountain of things to do.
I didn't have time to be dragged around by someone else.
"······ Is this because of what I said at the end?"
"It's not that. Does your boyfriend know you're meeting me right now?"
Did she think if she just took down the profile photo I wouldn't know?
The photos on Kim Seo-yeon's SNS were still up.
Meaning, she was keeping me on the hook.
Either she was weighing me against that man, or she was meeting me to patch up her flimsy self-esteem after fighting with him.
Either way, it was the worst.
At my blunt words, Kim Seo-yeon's expression hardened like stone. She looked as if she hadn't expected me to say it outright.
"That's······."
"Ah! Seriously! Stop following me!"
"Miss Hana. I'm not that bad a person, I'm telling you."
At that moment.
The café door flew open, and a woman ran in screaming. A middle-aged man chased right after her.
"This is blatant stalking. I'm calling the police."
"Please! Please, just meet me once."
"I really hate it!"
Everyone in the café focused on the pair.
Me too. But for a different reason than the others.
A familiar face, like I'd seen her somewhere before.
Where had I seen her?
In an instant, the man's expression, the stalker's, twisted 180 degrees. The stalker who'd been pleading pitifully now scrunched up his face and started turning red.
"Fuck you, bitch, you're getting spoiled so······!"
"Ah!"
The stalker grabbed the woman by the hair.
When she screamed, he sneered.
"See, if you'd just accept me a little, it'd be nice, right? Do we really have to go this far?"
A look of rage making him lose all reason.
The stalker glanced around and yelled.
"What are you looking at, you bastards! Got yourself a show?"
Everyone he made eye contact with turned their heads away.
"Oppa. Don't get involved for no reason. Things are already tense these days······ the police will come."
Kim Seo-yeon was right.
Someone would've reported it. If we waited a few minutes the police would arrive and subdue the stalker, so there was no need to step in and make trouble.
Then the woman whose hair was being yanked met my eyes.
Eyes desperately pleading to be saved.
"Oppa?"
····· I couldn't just sit there.
Because I remembered who she was.
The woman who'd been trying to save a child when the Giant Mantis appeared.
"What, who are you?"
"Stop it."
"A punk barely out of diapers, what? Stop it? You not letting go?"
I grabbed his shoulder and spoke, and the stalker's face twisted further.
Like a madman, his eyes blazed as he sprayed killing intent.
"Are you laughing?"
But even that killing intent was adorable to me now.
Lately I'd crossed the line of death in battle more times than I could count.
I was someone who'd charged without a shred of fear through fields where swords and spears flew and corpses lay everywhere.
I survived insane difficulty, and even planted fear into soldiers.
How could I be scared of a stalker who was just glaring without even a weapon?
Squeeze!
"Aaagh!"
I put strength into the hand gripping his shoulder, and the stalker screamed.
Right now, it felt like I could crush that shoulder.
Even though I hadn't used the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.
"S-stop! Stop! Agh!"
The stalker thrashed his whole body.
'What kind of jaw strength does this bastard have······!'
The stalker's body trembled. He looked pathetically scrawny, but once caught, he couldn't even budge.
It was pain like his muscles were tearing and his bones were about to be ground to powder.
This really wasn't human strength.
"Stop, you say?"
"Y-yeah! Stop!"
I clicked my tongue softly. Seriously, maybe listen the first time someone tells you.
"Guhk!"
When I let go, the stalker lost his balance and collapsed on the floor in a sorry heap.
The woman who'd been watching the fallen stalker bowed to me.
"Th-thank you."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes······ Ah! Behind you!"
When I turned my head, the man had already flipped open a MacGyver knife, blade raised as he rushed at me.
"Die!"
But I already knew.
I lightly twisted my body and hooked the charging stalker's leg.
Thud!
The stalker slammed his head into the floor and immediately passed out without even a twitch.
Only after about five more minutes, once everything was over, did the police arrive.
"You'll need to come with us to the station as well."
When the officer who'd checked the situation tried to take me in, Kim Hana stepped forward.
"This person only helped purely out of goodwill. I'm the one who reported that man for stalking."
"Still, since an assault occurred, you need to come to the station for now."
"An assault? He pulled a knife, so are you saying we should've just watched?"
"By procedure, we can't help it."
"······ I'm CK Broadcasting Station reporter Kim Hana. Excuse me, but what's your name and badge number?"
When she handed over her business card, the police officers' eyes shifted, like they'd become annoyed.
CK is a major broadcasting network with some real size. If a reporter from a top-five domestic station wrote even a single line wrong, it could turn into a matter of their livelihoods.
"Then, as a witness······."
"As a witness, and what if he gets wrongly tangled up? Forget it. I'll go myself as the victim and handle it, so don't grab an innocent person."
The stalker was a well-known plastic-surgery clinic director.
In a world where an expensive lawyer could make a small thing into a big one, you couldn't risk it.
There was no way she could let someone who helped get harmed even a little.
The police blinked at Kim Hana's boldness.
'With that face, you'd believe she was an announcer more than a reporter······.'
'She's got a spine of steel.'
Usually after something like this, you'd be shaking and crying in fear, but Kim Hana was instead defending a man she'd never met.
Even for the police, it was a rare sight.
Soon, the area around Kim Hana started buzzing.
"Isn't she that person? From YouTube a while back······."
"Right. The one who saved a kid from a monster? I think she was on TV too."
"Didn't she get a commendation?"
"Kim Hana. The name's the same too. It's her!"
The incident that had shaken up YouTube and TV not long ago, the Dimension War.
When monsters from another dimension attacked places all over the world, it wasn't only Dimension Warriors who shone.
Righteous people who acted like warriors even though they weren't.
Kim Hana was one of them.
She'd been taken by a monster while trying to save a child, and even after that, she'd dashed back to save the child and the child's mother.
That video hit five million views in an instant, Kim Hana got officially hired at CK, and she even received a commendation as a righteous citizen.
"··· Understood. The reporter will go herself."
If trouble happened involving someone like her, it would blow up even bigger.
The police had no choice but to follow Kim Hana's opinion.
Before leaving, Kim Hana pulled out another business card.
"Thank you so much for today, really. Here's my card."
"It's fine."
"······ Ah, are you with her, by any chance, is she your girlfriend?"
She was asking if Kim Seo-yeon, who was with me, was my girlfriend.
Smiling, I shook my head immediately.
"Not at all, we're not in any kind of relationship. I don't have a card with me, so."
"Then could you write your number for me?"
Kim Hana took a pen and a sheet of paper out of her bag and handed them to me.
I wrote my number on the paper without hesitation.
And along with it, the name Park Hyun-myung······ not Randolph.
"Park Hyun-myung? That's a nice name. I'm Kim Hana."
"Yes. I know from your card."
"I'll contact you. If you have time tomorrow, let's have a cup of coffee. Of course, a meal is fine too. I'll pay."
"I won't say no."
"Great. Then!"
Kim Hana bowed again, then left the café with the police who were escorting the stalker.
····· She was a whirlwind of a woman.
"Wow, insane. She's a hundred times prettier in person."
"She could be a celebrity instead of a reporter."
"She kind of has that Sullyoon vibe. No wonder a stalker latched on."
Hearing people's admiring voices, I slowly turned around.
"······."
And there, Kim Seo-yeon, with a face colder than a north-wind blizzard, was quietly staring at me.