DD Volume 1 Part 5.1

5. Downpour (1)

He turned on the faucet in the bathroom. Cold water poured out. As he moved his blood-splattered hands toward the running water, Yeonsoo paused.

Then, he leaned in closer to inspect the area where the turquoise blood had dried. It had splattered when he shoved the camera into the scales. He could faintly smell the remaining sweet scent. The more he looked at it, the more his mouth began to water.

Maybe just a drop… Wouldn’t it be okay to taste just one drop?

Even as he entertained this thought, the tip of his tongue tingled with the urge to lick it immediately. He stared at it intently for a long time, but eventually, he turned his head away and plunged his hands into the cold water.

He vigorously rubbed his hands together, washing off the green spots entirely.

Bang!

At that moment, the bathroom door swung open violently.

Yeonsoo reflexively looked towards the door and frowned. It was a familiar face. Oh Inhwan from the Marine Biological Resource Excavation Department. The same person who had openly picked a fight with Jun in the canteen not long ago.

“Wow. Fancy meeting you here. Must be fate.”

The mocking tone of his voice sent a chill down Yeonsoo’s spine. He turned his head and tried to ignore him, but a sudden, cold sensation made him stop. His gaze lowered slightly, and his eyes widened in shock.

In Oh Inhwan’s hand was a person’s hair. It was a young man wearing a subcontractor worker’s uniform. Yeonsoo had seen him in passing a few times before, his youthful features strikingly similar to Jun’s.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh? Can’t you see? A little secret affair.”

Oh Inhwan snickered as he dragged the man across the floor. The man’s face was contorted in pain, drained of all color.

Bam!

With a kick, Oh Inhwan slammed open the door of one of the stalls and threw the man down next to the toilet.

Click.

With a quick and hasty movement, the sound of his unbuckling pants followed. Yeonsoo’s face turned pale as he realized what he was about to do.

“Stop it! What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is a crime!”

It was on a completely different level from pouring soup on a colleague’s head at the canteen. This was rape. Oh Inhwan paused for a moment and looked back at Yeonsoo, a grin spreading across his face.

“Scared sh!tless, huh? Then go ahead, report me. Or get lost unless you plan to take his place.”

Yeonsoo felt something off about him. Oh Inhwan was clearly a nasty scumbag, but he didn’t seem like the type to commit rape in a public restroom. Something was different this time.

His eyes were unnaturally dilated, and a strange gleam spread around his pupils. The corner of his lips was smeared with white stains of saliva that hadn’t fully dried.  Yeonsoo had seen such a sight before. In the recorded video, it was exactly how he had looked after licking Beresht’s blood.

No way….

“Please, save me… please…sob….”

Yeonsoo snapped back to his senses at the sobbing voice. The man who had been lying on the floor looked at him and pleaded. At that moment, Jun’s face, cowering under Kang Ki-joon’s violence, flashed in Yeonsoo’s mind. He grabbed Oh Inhwan’s arm and yanked it with all his strength. Caught off guard, Oh Inhwan lost his balance and stumbled. The two of them tumbled to the floor in a tangled mess.

“Run!”

Yeonsoo shouted.

He held onto Oh Inhwan’s arm tightly until the man managed to get up and leave the bathroom. Only after hearing the door open and close did Yeonsoo forcefully push Inhwan’s body off on top of him.

“Hahaha. D*mn, that was fun, wasn’t it?”

Oh Inhwan laughed.

Yeonsoo couldn’t understand what he found so funny. It just seemed like he had lost his mind.  He tried to shake him off and stand up.

Oh Inhwan’s arm suddenly shot out, pinning Yeonsoo’s shoulder to the floor with a crushing force.

Ugh.

Yeonsoo groaned in pain.

“Where do you think you’re going? Didn’t you send him away so you could take his place?”

“You crazy b*stard.”

Yeonsoo twisted his body, but the hand pressing on his shoulder didn’t budge. Oh Inhwan’s thigh pressed against Yeonsoo’s knee, forcing his legs apart. His erect pen1s rubbed against Yeonsoo’s lower body. It was disgusting.

“Let go! Let go of me!”

Yeonsoo struggled with all his might, using his arms and legs to thrash about, but he couldn’t break free. The realization of his own helplessness filled him with rage.  One of Oh Inhwan’s hands slid down to unbuckle Yeonsoo’s pants. Meanwhile, Yeonsoo frantically groped around the floor with his free hand.

Something brushed against his fingertips. He grabbed it and pulled it towards him.

Crash!

A loud noise erupted as torrent of water poured down on the two people who were entangled. Yeonsoo had knocked over a mop dryer that had been placed in the corner.

“You son of a b!tch! I’ll kill you!”

A foul stench filled the air. Oh Inhwan recoiled in disgust, shaking his body off. In that brief moment, Yeonsoo attempted to crawl away and escape.

“Argh!”

Before he could get far, a hand grabbed his ankle from behind.

His body was dragged across the floor, his chin slamming painfully against the hard surface.

Thud!

Oh Inhwan’s fist came down hard on the back of his head. Yeonsoo’s face was brutally smashed into the hard tiled floor. His vision went white. The blood seeping from his nose and mouth left his face damp.

“See, if you’d just stayed still, it would’ve been easier for both of us.”

Oh Inhwan’s voice was thick with excitement, his tone rising with exhilaration. His rough hands followed, pulling down Yeonsoo’s pants.

“Ugh, help me. Please, someone help me….”

Yeonsoo pleaded, scraping at the floor even though he knew it was useless. His strength was slowly draining away. With his face submerged in a pool of his own blood, breathing became nearly impossible.

Just as Oh Inhwan roughly grabbed his hips and spread them apart—

Bang!

A deafening noise echoed through the air. The ground shook violently and Oh Inhwan’s body swayed. Unable to keep his balance due to the tremor, he staggered and hit his head into the sink.

“D*mn it! What the hell was that? Was that a f*cking earthquake?!”

He grabbed his throbbing head and shouted.

Yeonsoo was in a daze. He slowly lifted his head. Oh Inhwan was right—it was indeed an earthquake just as he said. With bloodshot eyes filled with fatigue, he looked up at the ceiling. Clouds of cement dust fell down like rain.

Bang!

Another loud sound erupted. For a moment, he thought it was an explosion, but it wasn’t. It was the sound of thunder.

Rumble!

The sky tore open with a deafening roar as a flash of lightning lit outside the window before plunging it back into darkness.

Whoosh, whoosh.

Then came the torrential sound of rain.

It was a downpour.

However, it was supposed to be the heatwave season. It never rained during this period. Even during the cold season, it only drizzles a little. This kind of downpour hadn’t happened since the Great Shift. It was nothing short of a miracle.

“What on earth… what the f*ck is going on?!”

As the sound of rain poured down, all other noises vanished in an instant. Even Oh Inhwan’s shouts were also drowned out by the sound of the heavy rain.

Sssshhh.

The world was engulfed in the noise of the rain.

Yeonsoo slowly pushed himself up, his body trembling. He straightened out his disheveled clothes.

‘The greatest reason mermaids were worshiped as gods was because of the “powers” they possessed.’

A passage from a book floated into his mind, one that discussed the ‘divinity’ of mermaids.

‘Mermaids freely used seawater to reward or punish humans. They also controlled the weather, bringing rain to drought-stricken lands or sweeping away villages with torrential storms.’

Mermaids controlled the weather.

‘They could also show humans mysterious visions.’

Mermaids showed visions.

Yeonsoo, his face pale with realization, slowly walked towards the window. Blood dripped from him with every step.

He looked down. The rain, like a blessing, poured down on the parched land that had been desperately longing for it. The streets were packed with people. Everyone had rushed outside, letting the rain drench them. The sight of the heavy downpour and the countless people getting soaked under the rain without umbrellas was a surreal spectacle.

Leaving Oh Inhwan behind, who was still dazed from the blow to his head, Yeonsoo exited the bathroom.

As soon as he stepped out, he began to run. He ran frantically until he reached the office. He hurriedly disabled the security and entered. Passing through the empty office, he headed towards the laboratory. The moment the elevator doors opened, he rushed into the engulfing darkness.

“Was it you?”

He spoke into the darkness. It had always been this way. Conversations with Beresht felt like talking into an abyss-like darkness. There was no response. However, there was always something within there.

“It was you. You did this, didn’t you?”

A sob unexpectedly escaped his throat. He hastily wiped the tears streaming down the corner of his eyes with the back of his hand.

As the tears created a path down his cheeks, a dazzling white light drew closer. Drawn by the pull of that light, Yeonsoo moved toward it. He stared, as if mesmerized, at the figure bathed in light akin to a divine being.

“I want to believe that it was you who saved me just now, don’t I?”

But that can’t be.

There’s no way it could be true.

Something like that—something like that is just impossible to happen.

The tears followed the tracks left by the previous ones, creating new paths down his cheeks.

Even so, I want to believe it was you. I’ve been completely captivated by you, seeing visions in you, and desperately searching for meaning in you.

He raised his hand and touched the earpiece nestled in his ears. He confirmed that it was still in place. Even though he was clearly wearing the earpiece, and even though there was no way he could hear that being’s sound waves, he was going mad with the urge to dive into the water The impulse was so intense that his entire body ached.

I want to go in.

I want to go in.

 I want to go in.

I want to go in.

I want to go in.

I want to go in.

I want to be submerged in the water.

I want to hold you.

I… want to be your friend.

If I go in, will you break my body like you did to that man back then?

Will you devour my heart?

Or will you accept me as a friend?

Unable to hold back any longer, he walked towards the ladder. He placed his foot slowly on the solid metal stairs.

He gazed down at the still dark water before him. Beresht was nowhere to be seen. He pressed the button to release the iron bars of the tank.

Clank.

As the iron bars moved, he took off his gown. He placed it on the floor. He had to take off all his clothes since he didn’t have a spare. That way, if he managed to get out, he could return to the office—if he could come out again, that is.

He unbuttoned his shirt one by one, his trembling fingers constantly missing the buttons. He took off the shirt and laid it on top of the gown. Then, his hands moved to the buckle of his pants. He unfastened the metal buckle and yanked the belt out with a swift pull.

Just as he was about to drop his pants to the floor—

“Yeon, Yeonsoo.”

A familiar voice called out. Yeonsoo jumped in shock and turned around.

“What, what, what are you doing? What are you doing right now?”

It was Jun.

“Jun. Weren’t you still supposed to be in the hospital?”

Yeonsoo asked, his voice dazed with confusion.

“I got, got discharged earlier, earlier than scheduled.”

“Really? Then you should be resting at home. Why did you come to work…?”

He trailed off as he took in Jun’s appearance. His unfamiliar attire naturally caught Yeonsoo’s attention. Jun was dressed entirely in casual clothes. Even when he dressed casually, he usually donned a lab coat, but today, not only was he not wearing it, he also wore a long-brimmed cap pulled low over his face.

“Yeon, Yeonsoo. You were, you were about to go into the tank, weren’t you? R-Right?”

Yeonsoo tried to stay calm, but the words that hit the mark made his eyes shook involuntarily. He swallowed dryly, feeling cornered.

“Yeon, Yeonsoo, do you also, do you also want to go in… like me?”

“What?”

“I-I want, I want to go in. I want to go into the tank…”

T/N: Sorry for the long hiatus T-T I got busy in real life.