Theo stopped beside Hajin, who was lying on the bench press, a little out of breath.
"You're really struggling, huh."
Hajin didn't answer immediately.
He just gave a thumbs-up, as if that were enough to prove he was still alive.
Theo crossed his arms and looked at the bar with a hundred kilograms on each side.
"Haha! It might not be much for you..."
Hajin grumbled between breaths.
"...After all, no one here is a monster capable of casually moving a star like you."
The memory of seeing him turn night into day was still too vivid in his mind to forget so quickly.
Letting out a long sigh, he forced himself up and walked to his backpack on the floor.
After taking something out from inside, he handed it to Theo.
"A contact card? Ah."
When he was about to ask Hajin why he had given him that, the golden name on the other side of the card made him understand everything.
"Yun Seung-Ah, she sent you to give this to me?"
"Yes. On Friday, to be more precise."
The vice-leader of the world's largest guild had sent him another business card, only this time, it was more special than the last one she had sent through Kim Suho.
"Since you had already left, she left this with me to give to you. This is her personal business card."
To be honest, she came to him when he decided to stop at a restaurant for lunch.
"Oh! She told me to tell you not to forget this time."
Theo gave a slight nod as he held Yun Seung-Ah's business card, running his fingers over the golden relief of the engraved name.
He had expected something ; after all, the vice-leader of the most powerful guild in the world wasn't one to give up easily. Not until she sufficiently satisfied her curiosity.
Theo casually put the card in his pocket, while his eyes returned to Hajin, who was staring at him in a strange way.
"What? What's with that face?"
"You two... You and Yun Seung-Ah, you seem to be getting along very well."
Theo laughed, shaking his head with an expression of someone who had just understood what he was talking about.
"Ah, that. It's just your impression; there's nothing more going on between us."
The two of them had barely interacted with each other, and Theo hadn't even used the card she had sent through Suho yet, so how could they have any kind of relationship other than being mere acquaintances? Hajin raised an eyebrow, clearly not entirely convinced, but decided not to press the matter. He leaned back on the bench press.
"Alright, alright. But, dude, a personal contact card from the vice-leader of Creator's Sacred Grace? That's no small thing."
Theo shrugged, though his thoughts were racing with the more obvious possibilities.
"She's probably interested in me. You know as well as I do what she's like. She won't rest until she finds out what she wants about me."
After hearing Theo's words, Hajin scratched his neck, a little embarrassed to have briefly forgotten this obvious detail.
"Yeah, I guess you're right..."
The description that Yun Seung-Ah was someone who treated others as nothing more than an object, whose value was only measured according to their talent and usefulness, was something he himself had detailed when he decided to add her to his novel.
"Ahem! Theo, I actually called you here because I wanted to talk about something else too."
After seeming to reconsider something with himself, Hajin took the opportunity to change the subject.
He didn't want to keep talking about something that had nothing to do with him, even when curiosity spoke louder.
With that in mind, Hajin looked around to see if anyone was nearby.
"...You must already know about the cadet who disappeared on Friday, right?"
Theo nodded positively. For him, who knew what was coming in these next events, it was easy to guess what Hajin was talking about.
"The world-class cadet, right?"
"And the cause of his disappearance is the academic club president, Yoon Hyun."
"Just as I thought, you already know too."
Theo didn't deny it, nor did he have any plans to. Hajin, still leaning on the bench, clenched his fist, while staring at the floor with a serious look.
"...Can we do something to stop this from continuing? I don't want to let people die when I know who the culprit is."
Hajin stopped, taking a deep breath, looking for more words.
"This incident will take the lives of many innocent people, and maybe even more than we know."
According to the settings he created while writing the novel, in this arc, six people would die in the disappearance incident, and what's worse, with the co-author's interference, Hajin had no idea if it would end with just six people...
With a firm and prepared expression on his face, Hajin got up from the bench, and prepared to do something he had already decided to do before.
The anguish in his voice was visible. He prepared to bow, a gesture of desperate pleading highlighted on his face.