ICYM Ch 51

Episode 51

After confirming that I had fallen, the culprit leisurely disappeared straight ahead.

“Hey!”

I shouted at his back, but if yelling had made that person stop, he would not have staged a chase like this in the pouring rain to begin with.

One of my indoor slippers, which had flown far away when I fell, was lying abandoned on the grass.

Overcome with a deep sense of emptiness, I just lay flat on my back.

The torrential rain mercilessly beat against my face, but instead of getting up, I covered my eyes with my arm and stayed that way for a moment.

Anyway, since I had fallen with a splash and muddy water had even seeped into my underwear around my hips, I figured it didn’t matter if my back got wet too.

“Ha…”

Putting the pain aside, I felt so pathetic and irritated with myself that I thought I might cry.

If I had caught him just now, everything would have been resolved.

At the very least, I should have thought to change my shoes. I had acted rationally in my own way, but I had been far too worked up.

Slowly, I retraced what had just happened.

All I had seen was his back. He was wearing a hood, and underneath it, a cap pulled low. On top of that, he had a mask on, so it was practically the same as not seeing his face at all. It would have helped if I had at least seen his eyes, but the cap cast a shadow, so I could not see anything.

That meant the only thing I could infer was his physical build, and even that was hard to judge since I had not seen him up close, and it was dark.

Was he a bit smaller than Kendrick?

It had been too dark, and I had been too agitated, so I was not sure if what I remembered was accurate.

Still, I had only been sprawled on the ground for a very brief moment. I quickly brushed off my knees and stood up.

There’s a reason I came this way in the first place.

Even in the chaos, that thought crossed my mind. The door I had come out of was one that people rarely used. If I had come out through the back door, the culprit would have gone that way.

Which meant that if there had been a dorm supervisor or another student in the office, they might know who the culprit was.

I wiped the water off my face briskly with the back of my hand. I knew I needed to head straight for the back door, but there was something I had to check first.

I hurried over to where Coco and Nabi were.

“Guys!”

At my voice, I heard the two of them from inside the box. It seemed that while I was in the chase, both Coco and Nabi had run over here.

Coco and Nabi were inside the same shelter. Lately, they had been sharing one shelter constantly, so I had placed the food and water in the other one.

And in front of the shelter where the food was, something had fallen onto the ground.

“…A container?”

Had trash been blown all the way here by the wind and rain? It was a white container with a green lid, and at a glance, it looked like an ordinary drink bottle.

But when I checked the writing on the front of the bottle, I froze in place.

…I hadn’t heard that he’d go this far.

Unless there were two culprits, this explained why the culprit had come out in this horrible weather.

So earlier, he had not been trying to hit the animals, but to drive them away. Drive them away so he could mix in the drug.

These little ones had been wary because they thought of this shelter as their home.

It seemed he had tried to be cautious, but his desire to torment them had only grown stronger, eventually leading to this kind of behavior.

“Creepy bastard. I should have caught him and ripped all his hair out.”

My anger surged all the way to the top of my head. He went this far? I never thought the culprit had any moral line to begin with, but this was beyond excessive.

I knew he was a terrible person, but witnessing the escalating cruelty firsthand made my body tremble uncontrollably. My eyes stung.

If the abuser was not caught, it would definitely get worse.

I have to catch him as soon as possible, even a day sooner.

Luckily, because I had come out right away, Coco and Nabi had not eaten the food yet. But what if something like this happened again?

I quickly grabbed the bowl filled with food and threw it into the large trash bin.

Since they were wary of people, I thought I should tell Kendrick not to leave food piled up anymore unless giving it directly from now on, and I turned on my phone’s flashlight to check on the two of them.

They seemed extremely tense, too, probably badly startled.

“Guys.”

But Coco, who was in front, sniffed the scent of my hand. As if relaxing, Coco nudged its wet nose against me and gave it a quick lick.

Whimper.

Coco seemed fine, and Nabi behind it also looked okay.

I should check again tomorrow morning, when it’s bright.

If I had arrived even a little later… Just the thought gave me chills.

After finishing the check in a hurry, I was finally able to go inside the dormitory.

Whether it was fortunate or not, the moment I opened the back door, I ran straight into the dorm supervisor, who was holding a mug and about to enter the office.

The dorm supervisor saw my disheveled state and hurried over with a shocked expression.

“My goodness, Hayden. Why are you so soaked? And when did you even go outside?”

“Sir, did you see anyone come in through the back door just now?”

“Hm?”

“About five minutes ago.”

At my urgent tone, the dorm supervisor looked at me suspiciously, but after realizing that I was not going to back down without an answer, responded calmly.

“Well. Augustine said he was sick, so I brought him some medicine, and after that, I stepped out to make some tea, so I’ve been away for quite a while.”

“So you didn’t see anyone?”

Of all times, the dorm supervisor had been gone then. My threadlike hope vanished in an instant, leaving me hollow.

If it were not for that damn tea, he might have seen something.

Seeing my fierce expression, the dorm supervisor rubbed his chest in relief and asked, “Alright, what’s going on? Did you get into a fight with someone outside?”

I had to answer carefully here. I looked at the dorm supervisor as if gauging him. Mr. Higgins was by no means a bad person, but he was not someone I could trust with something like this either.

“It’s not that…. I dropped something under the window and went to get it, then I fell.”

Thankfully, I remembered the potato squad being loudly rowdy in the dorm library earlier.

“…Is that so?”

I turned around and deliberately showed my back, now caked in mud. Throwing things out the window was something the potato squad frequently did as a prank, so the dorm supervisor’s suspicion faded easily. After checking my back and the sorry state of my shoes, the dorm supervisor clicked his tongue and scolded me. 

“Yes, well.”

“Then why did you ask if I saw someone come in earlier?”

Even as I stood here being held up, time was still passing. If I kept answering, this conversation was bound to drag on endlessly.

“I’ll explain it later, sir.”

Instead of explaining the situation to the dorm supervisor right away, I lowered my head slightly, cutting the conversation short.

“Yes, it looks like washing up should come first.”

Honestly, it might have been best to confess everything to the dorm supervisor. But even knowing how foolish it was, I wanted to confirm it with my own eyes first.

As soon as the dorm supervisor finished speaking, I hastened my steps, opened the inner door, and strode up the stairs.

Instead of heading straight to my room, I stopped in front of the door where I had secretly hung donuts in the early morning before.

Knock knock.

“Yes.”

The moment permission came from inside, I opened the door. As it swung open, Owen, who had been sprawled on the bed reading a book, jolted upright.

“My god, Hayden? What happened to you? Why do you look like that?”

Owen hurried over to stand in front of me and checked my condition.

“Where’s Kendrick?”

When I threw a question back instead of answering, Owen must have sensed something urgent, because his expression turned tense as well.

“Kendrick? He’s not in the room right now.”

“How long has he been out?”

“About fifteen minutes?”

I looked at the clock on the wall. I had gone downstairs after hearing the noise at 8:35, and now it was 9:05.

If I counted five minutes for being stopped by the dorm supervisor and five minutes for checking on Coco and Nabi, that put it at 8:45.

The timing did not match. Only then did it feel like warmth returned to my hands and feet. I did not rush and asked again, “Are you sure?”

At my question, Owen fell into thought with a careful expression.

“It could be a little longer than that. I didn’t check the time when he left. But the margin of error shouldn’t be big. Not long after Ken went out, I got a text from my sister.”

It felt like something that had been pressing on my chest for days was finally lifted.

“Do you happen to know where… Ken went?”

“It looked like he was ordering some food. I think he went to pick it up.”

“So other than going out fifteen minutes ago, he was in the room the whole time, right?”

“…Yeah. But why are you asking—no, more importantly, your condition right now…!”

“I’m fine.”

I gently pushed away Owen’s hand from my shoulder as I spoke. It was true. I felt better than I had in a long time.

If the time Owen mentioned was accurate, then it clearly did not overlap with when I went out and saw the culprit, which would mean I could be sure it was not Kendrick. But Owen had said there could be a few minutes of discrepancy.

“You’re fine?”

“Yeah. I look like this, but I’m actually okay.”

“…Even if you brought a hundred people here, they’d all say you don’t look okay.”

Even though he must have been curious about what was going on, Owen worried about me first instead of showing his curiosity. He was such a genuinely good guy that I almost regretted pushing him away at first because he was the female lead’s younger brother.

“Thanks for worrying about me.”

That was why an uncharacteristic, embarrassingly earnest expression of gratitude slipped out.