“…Do you know the first thing I thought when I heard that story?”
Yoo Seongwoon raised both thumbs.
“Wow, that’s incredible. How did you do it?”
“You flatter me.”
“That wasn’t flattery. I really did think exactly that.”
Their midnight corridor meeting was convened again just before Yoo Seongwoon could work himself to death. As always, they held their not-quite-a-meeting over Gio’s special tea and an assortment of snacks.
Juhyeon looked pityingly at Yoo Seongwoon’s haggard state, cleared his throat, and said,
“Ahem. Mr. Gio turned out to be more sociable than I expected.”
“If he’s so sociable, why is he ordinarily desperate to terrify everyone?”
To Yoo Seongwoon’s question, innocent as white snow, Black Cloak answered from inside the portrait.
“I did not frighten them. They helped themselves to fear.”
“Your vocabulary has expanded while I wasn’t looking. What country says people ‘help themselves to fear’?”
“It means I am innocent.”
“No matter how I think about it, I still don’t understand.”
Massaging his stiff neck, Yoo Seongwoon asked,
“How did you create such a warm, friendly atmosphere?”
By common sense, it should have been impossible.
Gio possessed an inherent stature. No matter how tightly he contained it, humans instinctively sensed the difference in their stature and felt pressure from it. And Gio had accumulated an especially chilling kind of stature.
“They must have been very afraid of you.”
“They were, so I made a great effort.”