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Chapter 48

In the original story, the description of Mad Hatter’s past was described with the simple word “abuse.” But the truth had been what he told SoYoon. She remembered each of the days she had spent at the research facility. Because she was in pain, was miserable, was lonely, she had wanted to die. But not even able to take her own life, she had cried until she just surrendered.

Had he gone through this also? Did that mean those trembling fingers were the same as the times she had woken up in a cold sweat from the nightmare of her time at the research facility?

“Mad Hatter.”

She reached out her hand and held his fingers. She had done it without even realizing it. Mad Hatter looked at her hand over his and chuckled. Then he intertwined his fingers with hers.

“This is when you call a person by his name.”

“How would I know what that is?”

“Really? Interesting. I thought you would have known.”

What did he mean by that?

She felt slightly nervous, as he added, “I know you have an informant you are friendly with. It would be easy to find out my real name. That’s okay. I won’t get mad if you ran a background check on me.”

“No. I really don’t know.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

He leaned his lips close to her ear and whispered his name.

“Yochanan.”

When she didn’t say anything, he prodded her annoyingly.

“Aren’t you going to say it? When this is a request?”

She sighed and said his name.

“....Yochanan.”

“One more time.”

“Yochanan.”

That in itself was enough. His ears were full of the sound of it, and his senses felt like they were melting into it. Mad Hatter, absorbing her voice with his whole body, closed his eyes.

Time had passed and the night turned into dawn. Mad Hatter looked down at SoYoon, who had fallen into a deep sleep, and smiled. In the grayish blue of darkness, he moved his mouth without making a sound.

“I don’t know what it is you know, but don’t think that is what is actually going to happen.”

The name she had not known: Yochanan. It was also the name of a saint who was decapitated by a lovestruck princess. The girl had placed his head on a silver platter and kissed him.

Mad Hatter laughed quietly and kissed SoYoon. He didn’t need the Dance of the Seven Veils. If he was able to kiss her, he would be willing to have his head atop a silver platter.

***

The next morning, Mad Hatter placed his shirt on the handle of the door and turned on the water. As he did this, cold water flowed out of the faucet.

“What is wrong with this girl...?”

Wagging his tongue, he finished washing up in the cold and looked in the mirror. His shoulders were wrapped in bandages. He poked at it to check the pain. The place where he had taken the brunt of Heart’s ax was healing nicely.

His girl—when he wasn’t even in such a relationship with her, snorted Mad Hatter—Heart had assumed that Mad Hatter had stolen his first night with SoYoon and had come to find him. Mad Hatter didn’t reveal the truth, so it escalated to a fight.

Even though Heart came at him as if wanting to kill him, in actuality, Heart held himself back from using his full strength. He had told Mad Hatter that he was letting him off easy because Mad Hatter was a pivotal person in Wonderland, but Mad Hatter knew the truth. Heart couldn’t kill him because of SoYoon.

“My reason is the same as yours.”

Heart was not the only one who didn’t use his entire strength.

When he came out after washing, SoYoon was sitting up on the bed. Her tousled hair looked translucent under the morning sunlight. Mad Hatter brushed her hair back with care.

“Do you have any requests to fulfill today?”

“Not yet.”

“How about your patch?”

“I changed it.”

“Then you should sleep a bit more.”

Lacking sleep because Mad Hatter had barged into her home last night, SoYoon readily agreed and lay back down. He neatly swept her hair into place as she lay on the pillow, and he put on his head a sleeping cap with a penguin drawn on it.

“I’ll be back soon, so go back to sleep.”

He walked to the door, continuously glancing over at SoYoon as her eyes drooped closed. Each time he looked over, the penguin above his head watched her with a saddened face.

He looked at her one final time as his hands hovered over the doorknob. The door was locked with magic. He smiled as he opened the door and locked it on his way out.

“You did say you had a lot of intruders in the middle of the night.”

He already knew who the previous intruder had been: Twins. They weren’t as annoying as Heart, but the thought of them lingering wasn’t a pleasant thought. If SoYoon wasn’t so unconcerned about locking her door, I would have created a lock that couldn’t be opened by even the most powerful man. He sighed in disappointment.

Three hours later, Mad Hatter returned to SoYoon’s house. He checked to make sure the door was still securely locked and smiled. When he opened the door and entered, he found SoYoon lying on the bed with her eyes thinly opened. His presence must have woken her up.

“You should get up now.”

Mad Hatter raised SoYoon up then went to wander around every corner of the house. After finding the old rusty boiler, he removed it and replaced it with the new electronic boiler he brought with him. SoYoon came to check out what he was doing.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m changing out your boiler. You’re too lazy to do it on your own, so I’ll just have to do it for you.”

“I don’t really need it.”

“You might not.”

After uttering this confusing statement, he finished the installation. The first customer to receive a new boiler was SoYoon. After showering with warm water, she walked out of the bathroom to find the smell of food in the air. She turned her head and found a plate of fried eggs on the living room table.

“What do you eat on a daily basis? There are only water and eggs in your fridge.”

“I was going to go to the mart tomorrow...,” SoYoon answered Mad Hatter.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

He asked her as he sank deeper into the sofa. His action made it seem as if this was his house. She put the fried eggs into her mouth as she said.

“How much do I owe you for the boiler?”

“Hmm, how should I do it? Should I just call it even with yesterday’s request?”

Mad Hatter smiled. As he did, his sharp jaw and shadowed cheeks became softer. The face looked as if it contained all the light of the world. His smile was quite beautiful.

She turned away from him and finished the last bite of egg. She had only received things from him today, but she felt strangely as if she had suffered a loss.

***

One spring morning, Dee strutted into Central. Because the people of Central knew him for his violence, they looked on nervously, with bated breath.

He wandered around Central without a specific destination and happened to see SoYoon. Seeing her was the luck of timing. When he had stepped into a small alleyway from the busy street, she had been turning into another alley from the opposite side.

“Hey!”

Dee walked toward her. On his second step, however, his feet, as if rooted to the spot, stopped moving.

What, Dum? I’m kind of in a hurry, Dee insisted, but Dum continued to resist. Eventually, they lost sight of her.

“What are you doing? You want a bite of her too!” Dee interrogated in hushed tones.

“That girl is dangerous,” Dum answered. Dee thought it was ridiculous.

He already knew she was capable of killing them before his one week together was up. To be cautious about it now seemed ludicrous. It’s not as if they had been ones to take the safe path. Dee snorted, but Dum shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“F*ck, yeah, right. Just stay quiet and go to sleep. I’m going to go find her...”

Their body moved. When the movement stopped, the body was no longer occupied by Dee but by Dum. After forcing his brother to sleep, Dum, who had mixed feelings, rubbed his face.

“It’s not that, Dee.”

The reason she was dangerous was not her strength. Dum remembered the first time he’d run into her. He had felt a strange nervousness about her. That feeling was strong enough to detain them in their most dangerous lust-filled state.

“We may not be able to kill that girl,” he muttered to his sleeping brother.

Dum stopped by a nearby clothing store and after buying a jacket, went into an empty alley to switch out of Dee’s rider jacket. He neatly swept back his dark golden hair and relaxed his eyes so that he transformed into the facade of Tweedle Dum.

He stepped out into Central as if nothing had happened. It was then that he saw the ends of her white hair and her thin stature.

His brother was right. Dee was not the only one who wanted to take a bite out of her. Dum relaxed his chin and turned his head toward her. Even though they were quite far from each other, and thick bangs covered her eyes, he knew that their eyes had made contact.

Walking toward her, he whispered to Dee, “I’m only trying to find out the reason for the nervousness.” The still-asleep Dee did not answer.

Dum greeted SoYoon with a smile.

“It’s been a while.”

It had been a couple of weeks since SoYoon had met Twins with Dum’s persona. He had to pretend to be oblivious to what had happened to Dee that night at her house. Dum hid his embarrassment.

“You have a lot of stuff there. If you’re on your way home, would you like some help?”

SoYoon had her hands full of bags—groceries and household items—which she handed over without much thought.

As they walked through Central, he talked to SoYoon about this and that—about the weather, about how she was doing these days, about how the passersby looked. No subject lasted very long, however.

It might have been because SoYoon was not the type to react to such a conversation, but the main reason was that Dum felt nervous around her. He concluded that such a feeling was due to his thoughts of his inability to kill her. If it wasn’t that, why else would he feel anxious, or would his mouth go dry, or would his heart beat erratically?

They soon arrived at SoYoon’s house. She reached out her hand to receive her belongings back when Dum spoke.

“I can take them inside....”

“What are you doing there?”

Mad Hatter popped out of the old door with the faded color sheet. Dum had known there was someone inside, but hadn’t expected it to be Mad Hatter. Dum put up his guard. Mad Hatter, on the other hand, didn’t even give him a second glance.

“Are you on your way back from the market? I was one step too late.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s not like we only see each other if there’s something specific going on.”

The conversation between the two people felt natural. Dum felt a sense of deprivation. Mad Hatter took the bags from Dum’s hand and pulled SoYoon inside.

“Wait.”

SoYoon turned around to face Dum.

“Thank you for helping me carry the bags.”

“What? Oh...It was nothing.”