Had the research center been underwater the very first time I came here, too? Had last time been the unusual state, which was why I’d been able to get to the research center? I stopped the thoughts from chasing their own tails.
In any case, we were planning to find Kim Gayeong and return to the sports center, so we had no intention of going to the Jujak-dong research center. The decision we had to make right now was whether or not to go to the Jujak-dong dormitory. I asked Gang Sujeong and Seo Jihyeok.
“……If Gayeong was trapped in her room, but someone rescued her, what do you think she’d be doing by now?”
Seo Jihyeok gave a light shrug. Then he asked me slowly.
“‘Originally,’ Kim Gayeong was supposed to write a post around now asking to be rescued, is that it? But she didn’t write one?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Gang Sujeong spread all five fingers wide, then folded down her thumb.
“One. Kim Gayeong got lucky and somehow escaped her room, but she’s still in the flooded dormitory.”
Seo Jihyeok folded down Gang Sujeong’s index finger and said,
“Two. She got unlucky and is still inside the room.”
Ah. That was the worst option. I made the most positive statement and folded down Gang Sujeong’s third finger.
“Three. Kim Gayeong left her room and headed somewhere other than the dormitory. ……That seems like the best option for Gayeong.”
If Kim Gayeong had been rescued, she would already have left the dormitory. Please let that be the case. Gang Sujeong scratched around her mouth and said,
“Assuming the doctor is right, let’s go to the escape pod port. The people who escaped from Baekho-dong all gathered there too, so if any Jujak-dong people escaped from the dormitory, they might all be there.”
Seo Jihyeok quickly agreed and added,
“Actually, the architectural design here is set up so that once you come out of the dormitory, your feet naturally head toward the corridor with the escape pod port. The Jujak-dong escape pod port is closest from here, so let’s check there first.”
“Yes. ……If Gayeong isn’t at the escape pod port, what do you plan to do?”
Were we going to enter the flooding dormitory? Gang Sujeong hesitated for a few seconds before answering.
“I think we’ll have to decide that when the time comes.”
When I looked at Seo Jihyeok, he caught my gaze and put on an expression as if to say he had no idea, then went, Ah! and said one thing.
“As a rule, I follow the vice team leader’s opinion. Unless it’s a time when I’m opening my mouth, you can assume I’ve entrusted my opinion to Vice Team Leader Gang.”
Gang Sujeong spoke toward Seo Jihyeok, who was walking behind her, as if dumbfounded.
“You always open your mouth.”
“That’s true. My opinions are precious, after all.”
I was so taken aback I laughed. Gang Sujeong shook her head. The three of us quickly walked down the corridor toward the escape pod port. Seo Jihyeok checked behind us from the rear of the group, then took the lead again and said to me,
“Doctor. Our vice team leader already knows this well, so I’ll just ask one thing of you. When I say we’re going, you need to go at once.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you know, ‘How beautiful is the back of one who clearly knows when it is time to leave and leaves’?”
What was he talking about? ……I’d heard that somewhere before. Since I never imagined Seo Jihyeok would suddenly quote a line of poetry in this situation, I had to replay the sentence several times in my head before I realized where I’d heard it.
“Isn’t that a classic poem we learned a long time ago?”
“Oh. Our Jihyeok knows things like that too.”
“It’s about getting the timing right to hit and run before you’re ruined.”
I was sure the poem had flower petals falling, and it was sad and poignant and all that. Did it have that kind of meaning Seo Jihyeok mentioned? Maybe it had been too long since I learned it, because I couldn’t remember. Gang Sujeong also rubbed her chin with an uncertain expression.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“In life, hit and run is very important. I’ll tell you the perfect timing for when we need to pull out, so when that happens, you need to go—quickly. Without looking back. Understood?”
Seo Jihyeok’s tone was playful, but only his eyes as he looked at me were serious. How would he know timing like that? I wouldn’t be able to remember, but because of what the Seo Jihyeok of the past had done before my eyes, the back of my head went faintly cold. ……I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to see it again either. As if bewitched by a slight sense of tension, I looked at Seo Jihyeok and nodded.
“Yees.”
“Good.”
And then, with none of the seriousness from just now anywhere to be found, Seo Jihyeok, who had stood for a moment in the corridor in front of the escape pod port, slipped inside first. A few seconds later, a frivolous hand gesture came out through the port door, beckoning us in, and when we entered, there were about twenty people gathered inside the escape pod port. ……That was far more than I’d expected.
The people all turned their heads at once and looked at us as we newly entered the port area. A few stared hard at me while talking with the people beside them, and they were looking so intently that my face felt like it was on fire. I…… hadn’t been the subject of this much attention very often. It was probably even more so because, unlike Seo Jihyeok and Gang Sujeong, I was the only one wearing ordinary clothes.
Inside the escape pod port, there were three groups: people standing with their arms crossed and watching, people in front of the escape pods trying to board them, and people trying to stop them. In particular, over a dozen people from the latter two groups were arguing, but by now it was closer to a brawl than an argument.
Let go of my arm. If I can’t get on the escape pod and miss it, it’s all your fault. What makes you think you’re some kind of professor? Aren’t you doing this so you can take this escape pod instead of me? You bastards. I never liked you from the start. How dare you cheat on me? You think I liked you lot? You stupid bastards with nothing but vanity in your heads. Didn’t you hear the broadcast? What are you going to do if, just like the broadcast said, someone already sabotaged the escape pods? If you get on, you’ll just die. You believe that crap, you idiot? You pathetic fools! Are you going to take responsibility if I die?! It’s a misunderstanding, sweetie. Why would I look at anyone else when I have you? And do you really have to argue about that right now? Aren’t you embarrassed to go around presenting that as a paper? If it were me, I’d have shoved a cranberry up my nostril and killed myself. How can we trust some Asian dentist who’s only been here a few days? Honestly, watching you Asians work, I wonder if they even verify qualifications before hiring you. Don’t you just stick needles in people’s mouths, burn incense, and massage them? Have you ever done anything except breathe? Your very existence is air pollution. I’m British! You insane racist! My family’s been living in Britain since my grandfather’s generation—how many years have to pass before I stop hearing this kind of crap? What? Do you know how many Asian friends I have? How dare you call me a racist?! Hey. If you let go of my arm, I’ll smash your head first. You bought your degree with money, so what are you bragging about? Have a taste of this big Asian head! Do we really have to argue about this now? Yeah. We have to argue about it now. Make your excuses in hell, you piece of trash. ……Die! Die!
An Asian man with his hair dyed dark blue was headbutting a Black man in a tank top, while next to them, four middle-aged white men were rolling around on the floor, hurling curses and punches and kicks at one another over whatever they were unhappy about. And a woman with bronze skin was beating up a white man while forcibly shoving him into an escape pod.
Several researchers were either standing slightly back from the spectacle, or pretending to stop it while shoving or hitting their opponents. When I saw Kim Gayeong, healthy and well, beside that chaos, I felt all the tension drain from my body.
“Gayeong!”
When I called her name in delight, Kim Gayeong pounded her fists down hard on the back and back of the head of a white man who had rolled up beside her, then quickly backed away as if she hadn’t done anything. Then Kim Gayeong looked at me and the people around me and said,
“Oh. Jihyeok. Sujeong unni.”
Gang Sujeong waved. Kim Gayeong came toward us, then looked awkwardly at me beside them and gave a slight nod.
“Hello. I’m Kim Gayeong. I believe this is our first time meeting?”
“I’m Park Muhyeon. It’s nice to meet you.”
I thought I would never forget, no matter how much time passed, the strange feeling I had each time I newly introduced myself to people I already knew.
At that one greeting, I felt several people nearby turn their heads and look at me. Kim Gayeong nodded and asked,
“Ah. I heard the broadcast. You told us not to get on the escape pods, right?”
“Yes. Fortunately, many people haven’t boarded.”
“Some didn’t board because they believed the broadcast, some because they were stopped, some because they were too busy fighting, and some because they wanted to watch a fight before dying. Something like that.”
Gang Sujeong took Kim Gayeong’s hand and said,
“It’s been weeks since I saw your face. I heard you’ve been really busy? Yugeum is gathered with our team right now too. Gayeong, come with us.”
“Uh…… what about the others?”
“Just you. Only you come with us.”
When Gang Sujeong said it flatly, Kim Gayeong looked a little flustered. Gang Sujeong held Kim Gayeong’s hand as she spoke.
“For now, let’s think only about getting you out of here.”
Kim Gayeong was thinking with her brows furrowed. After about thirty seconds passed, she turned her eyes toward several researchers, and with a troubled expression, answered somewhat slowly.
“……I’ll stay with our researchers. My junior is here, and my two friends are over there clapping, and there’s also a crazy doctor who’s currently rolling around on the floor and cleaning it diligently, and I have to write a paper with him too.”
The words, You came with me before, hovered on the tip of my tongue. This time was different. To Kim Gayeong, I was someone she was seeing for the first time, and nothing more than the person who had made a broadcast full of suspicious information I shouldn’t have been able to know. Of course I desperately wanted to escape with her.
“If everyone here were to go to Ophion with us, would that place be able to accommodate them?”
Of course, whether the people would follow me was the problem, but they were people who had heard my broadcast and not boarded the escape pods. Wouldn’t they at least listen to some extent? Besides, if that sports center was designed to avoid bullets, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea for as many people as possible to take shelter there. Gang Sujeong looked at me as if slightly surprised, then shook her head.
“Doctor, you really haven’t been to the sports center, have you? That place is tiny. If we take everyone here, it’ll be over thirty people, and then about five people will have to float in midair.”
……I understood why Gang Sujeong had said those things to me on the way here.