Retire 536
by Cristae536 (Hunter Academy Side Story 3) Cafeteria_2
……
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……
Ji Yu-geon felt an unspoken pressure.
He couldn’t say he hadn’t thought about transferring jobs. But he’d never actually said it out loud, so why did he now feel like a job applicant sitting for an interview? He’d never even been to an interview before.
Come to think of it, neither the Academy nor Guild Mimi were particularly great jobs…
Still, anywhere would be better than cleaning up after the Association’s secret affairs.
……
There was only one customer in the Academy cafeteria. Whether you could really call him a customer was debatable, but if he’d come to eat something, that made him a customer, didn’t it? Even if he didn’t pay. This wasn’t a place that charged money anyway.
……
Another sigh drifted through the air.
Remembering how Yoo Ji-eun had sat in that same seat just the other day, sighing deeply, Ji Yu-geon thought, like student, like teacher.
Still, as a teacher, at least he sat more properly than the student who’d been rolling around on the table.
After a moment’s hesitation, Ji Yu-geon brewed another cup of coffee and sat down across from Woo Hee-jae. Woo Hee-jae nodded in thanks and took the cup.
……
He stubbornly refused to speak.
Was it that Yoo Ji-eun was taking after Woo Hee-jae, or had Woo Hee-jae picked up the habit from her? In any case, faced with that troubled expression and yet another overt sigh, Ji Yu-geon finally broke the silence.
There had to be a reason why the usually self-controlled Woo Hee-jae had come all the way here wearing such a worried look. After all, the Academy was a place where people lived, and rumors always passed through the cafeteria. Since Woo Hee-jae often brought up matters directly tied to Ji Yu-geon’s own workload, if there was something to know, even if he couldn’t avoid it, he could at least be prepared.
“So… is something on your mind?”
“Not really.”
Woo Hee-jae replied immediately, with a face that looked very much like something was on his mind.
“The new school term is about to start, isn’t it.”
A furrow appeared between Woo Hee-jae’s brows. Hearing “new term,” Ji Yu-geon could guess the reason for his concern.
“Is it about the number of students? Still, there are quite a few who’ve expressed interest in enrolling, so if you really wanted to…”
“We could keep the school going, but can we trust the kids we bring in? Security is still a top priority.”
There were always some things about Woo Hee-jae that even Ji Yu-geon didn’t fully understand. Last year, there’d been that mysterious magic or whatever it was that had chased after Woo I-rok.
Hong Seok-young and Lee Mi-seon had both avoided giving details. That was proof enough that nothing good would come of digging deeper.
Even aside from that, security had been the highest priority since the school’s pilot days. Come to think of it, that too had started with Alex Hope.
“Aren’t you in talks with the French side as well?”
“Progress has been slow because of the US trip. For now, we’ll have to make do with just three students for a while…”
“The new student is going to be bored. When is she supposed to arrive? Isn’t it about time?”
……
Woo Hee-jae let out another sigh.
Ji Yu-geon couldn’t tell exactly what had touched a nerve.
Woo Hee-jae sipped his coffee as if trying to soothe his nerves.
“Do you remember how we got introduced to that new student?”
“Hunter Jean Robinson, right? She’s his niece.”
Thinking of how the connection with the French Hunter had gotten so tangled in Okinawa, it was impossible to forget. The aftermath still wasn’t over. With three countries involved in a single dungeon, it would be more surprising if it had wrapped up already.
Despite Ji Yu-geon’s straightforward answer, Woo Hee-jae’s expression only grew more complicated.
“Before that.”
“…Before that?”
“You must have forgotten, Hunter Ji. It was Teacher Han who first brought up the new student.”
“…Was it?”
Woo Hee-jae, with a lukewarm smile tugging at his lips, kindly reminded him.
“He said it was a friend of his father’s. There was a recommendation from Hunter Robinson, but…”
Woo Hee-jae still looked as if he couldn’t quite put it into words. Ji Yu-geon, though he’d done nothing wrong, felt a bit self-conscious.
“The first time I heard about a Hunter training institution was through Teacher Han’s father, and after that, I asked Teacher Han for help.”
……
Hearing that, Ji Yu-geon’s memory returned. That was right. That’s how it had happened.
Only then did he understand the meaning behind Woo Hee-jae’s deep sigh. It was the expression everyone at Guild Mimi wore whenever Han Tae-kyung’s name came up.
But that made one thing even more puzzling. There was a reason Ji Yu-geon had forgotten about Han Tae-kyung in relation to the new student.
Partly it was because he’d been busy with the Robinsons and the Okinawa incident, but after that, Lee Mi-seon and the Daseon Hunters had taken over everything on that front. There was no reason for Han Tae-kyung’s name to come up again.
Woo Hee-jae, with another deep sigh, explained further.
“It seems I’ve become a familiar face to the new student’s guardian.”
“So…?”
“Teacher Han went to meet the new student.”
“Ah.”
“…I wanted to make a good impression on her.”
Woo Hee-jae let out yet another sigh, the count of which he’d surely lost track. This time, Ji Yu-geon sighed along with him.
For someone from a secretive cult, Woo Hee-jae had adapted to modern society without much trouble, but fundamentally, he was not a “Hunter.”
In fact, whenever there was work that required collaboration with Hunters, domestic or foreign, Woo Hee-jae would always take a step back. He’d put Hong Seok-young or Lee Mi-seon out front, or else call in Kim Chae-min. Since the trip to France, those situations had become less frequent, but he still often looked to Hong Seok-young or Kim Chae-min for confirmation, head tilted in uncertainty.
So Woo Hee-jae probably didn’t know what sort of reputation Han Tae-kyung had among Korean Hunters.
Not that it was a bad thing. Even now, having seen Han Tae-kyung up close, Ji Yu-geon still found himself curious about the man.
“Come on. If he’s a friend of your father’s, Teacher Han will behave himself.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“You know Teacher Han gets things done when it counts. In fact, you should know that better than anyone…”
“What do you think the student will think, seeing someone who seemed so normal suddenly act like that at school?”
“…If they can’t handle that, they shouldn’t be a Hunter!”
……
“Haha. Am I wrong?”
Woo Hee-jae’s eyes widened. He searched for something to say, but finally nodded slowly.
“That’s… true. It’s not as if Teacher Han is the only odd Hunter out there. At least you can talk to him. He gets things done when it matters, even if he is infuriating sometimes.”
Woo Hee-jae’s face gradually twisted in frustration.
“In Las Vegas… and before that, too. He always manages to slip out of anything troublesome… Just trying to keep him pinned down and working is a job in itself.”
Woo Hee-jae’s complaints began to flow.
Half-listening, Ji Yu-geon found himself thinking about what had happened at the graduation ceremony. Han Tae-kyung’s cryptic words. That had sparked a long discussion among the Daseon Hunters afterward.
Among Korean Hunters, Han Tae-kyung was something of a rumor, almost a legend. What happened that day only fanned the flames.
The first time Ji Yu-geon had heard Han Tae-kyung’s name, he’d still been a junior Hunter at Daseon, balancing his work with the Association.
One day, rumors began to spread about a Korean Hunter making waves in the Middle East. Someone so young, you’d wonder if he’d even graduated school.
Ji Yu-geon had watched as Lee Mi-seon pulled every string she had to gather information about Han Tae-kyung.
Most countries on the Arabian Peninsula ran state-run Hunter guilds. The Hunters in those guilds were mostly foreigners, but they all had to sign strict non-disclosure agreements. Since there were so many rare dungeon byproducts monopolized in those regions, Lee Mi-seon was desperate to make contact with that Korean Hunter. Hong Seok-young sometimes did business with those countries, but he couldn’t help as much as Lee Mi-seon wanted.
That made Han Tae-kyung stand out even more. He wasn’t part of a state-run guild, yet he wasn’t treated as a complete outsider.
If they could recruit Han Tae-kyung, maybe they could finally do business with those closed-off countries!
That interest vanished almost instantly, to Ji Yu-geon’s surprise. He later found out it was because Hong Seok-young had flatly declared it would never happen.
“Han Tae-kyung is… Han Tae-kyung.”
That was the only explanation.
But it carried a lot of meaning, and once Ji Yu-geon got to know Han Tae-kyung, he realized how accurate it was. He was a much more solid young man than anyone had feared.
The fact that he liked the silly cat character from children’s cartoons was pretty normal, even wholesome. And Han Tae-kyung worked hard to buy the copyright with money he’d earned himself.
Of course, that wasn’t what Hong Seok-young had meant. The real reason Han Tae-kyung could operate as he did was his father’s business connections. He’d lived in that country since childhood, and when he awakened, his father’s close friend—who happened to be royalty—had helped him.
That kind of network was something no outsider could ever use.
“Ah, by the way, teacher.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not sure if I should ask this… I wanted to ask Teacher Han, but honestly, I was scared of what he might say.”
Right after the graduation ceremony, Han Tae-kyung had taken his sister home, so there hadn’t even been time to ask.
Ji Yu-geon considered trying to probe Woo Hee-jae indirectly, but gave up. Maybe it was from teaching teenagers, or maybe it was from his past, battered by a cult, but Woo Hee-jae always seemed to prefer direct questions to roundabout tricks. And this wasn’t even that strange a question.
“At the graduation, what Teacher Han said to the kids…”
“…Ah. That.”
“Yes. He told them not to mention him. Um, Teacher Han—he didn’t do something and run off to Korea, did he? Honestly, even if Hunter Hong called him, it was all pretty sudden.”
……
The sigh that had just stopped escaped Woo Hee-jae again.
But even though his face was full of fatigue, it wasn’t dark.
“I asked him, too.”
“So…?”
“I told him, if there’s anything troublesome in your past, you’d better come clean. Now that we have our first graduates, we can’t have anything blocking their path.”
“Right.”
“I have a guess as to what it’s about, but honestly, neither I nor Teacher Hong know the details.”
It was unnerving to know there was something, even if they didn’t know what.
Woo Hee-jae took a slow sip of coffee.
“He said he can’t say more because of a non-disclosure agreement. He said there’s no real problem. Just that there are people who’d be a nuisance if they got involved.”
“People who’d be a nuisance…?”
“He said it wouldn’t be any help, and if you can avoid a headache, why not do so…”
Woo Hee-jae muttered in a complicated tone.
“If it’s what I’m guessing, that’s probably for the best. Honestly, even if it’s a non-disclosure agreement, he’d tell me—or at least, he’d tell Teacher Hong. But even Teacher Hong hasn’t asked.”
Gulp.
Ji Yu-geon swallowed without meaning to.
“I’m curious, but I was scared of what he might say.”
……
“Still, he’s not the type to make things up, so if he says it’s not a problem, it probably isn’t. There’s nothing to worry about.”
He wasn’t thick-skinned enough not to worry after hearing that.
In the end, Han Tae-kyung remained as much an enigma as ever.