A gunshot sounded in the distance. It was a dull, heavy noise, the sort you wouldn’t recognize for what it was unless you’d heard it several times before. At first, I hadn’t known it was a gunshot either. I would have thought it was the sound of something like a lump of metal crashing down onto a hard floor.
The moment Sin Haeryang, who was beside me, heard it, he turned his head toward the direction of the sound. Seo Jihyeok and Baek Aeyeong, who had been lying lazily on the floor, sprang up at the same time like coils.
The two of them quickly sat up, but perhaps because the others had never heard gunfire before, they were still lying down or half-propped against the floor. Since they had already experienced the Central Wing shaking several times, along with all sorts of faint noises, they seemed to think the sound just now was nothing much either.
Avoiding Lee Jihyeon’s arms and legs, Seo Jihyeok slowly crawled from the wall toward the others and spoke to Baek Aeyeong in a small whisper.
“······Honestly, I only half believed it.”
“Fine. Then keep lying in the corner.”
Baek Aeyeong, who had been listening toward the empty air where the gunshots had come from, snapped sharply at Seo Jihyeok. Seo Jihyeok sighed and said,
“Ah, just forget about that damn box already.”
“How am I supposed to forget that so easily!”
The two of them whispered as softly as breathing, then Seo Jihyeok looked at me and said,
“Teacher, you were the last one out of the dormitory, right? Please tell Great White Shark properly that she can’t go back into the dorm.”
Looks like she left something behind in the dorm. A long time ago, Baek Aeyeong had asked me whether the dorm had been completely submerged.
“It’s too dangerous. You can’t go back into the Baekho Wing dormitory. The entire dorm is completely underwater, and no one knows what kind of danger there might be.”
There was no telling what might be drifting in the water and hit someone. I remembered how my calf and knee had been smashed up in the Jujak Wing dormitory. On top of that, the Jujak Wing dorm had been blacked out, but the lights had still been on in Baekho until I left. If you were unlucky, you could go into the water and get electrocuted.
Baek Aeyeong furrowed her brows, then nodded weakly. I very slowly recalled the fact that Baek Aeyeong couldn’t swim. What did she leave in her room? Was it important?
“What did you leave in your room?”
Baek Aeyeong had unconsciously turned her head toward the gunfire as she spoke.
“There’s a small box on my vanity. I’d collected some expensive accessories in it······ a lot of them, actually.”
I suddenly remembered the box with [Touch this and lose your wrist] written on it in all kinds of languages. So that was what she meant. Seo Jihyeok heard Baek Aeyeong’s words and replied quietly.
“It wasn’t just ‘a lot.’ I saw it once before, and you’d practically set up a whole jewelry shop in your room.”
Baek Aeyeong’s sanpaku eyes immediately turned toward Seo Jihyeok. Her gaze seemed to say, How do you know that? If Baek Aeyeong had been able to attack with her eyes, Seo Jihyeok would already have been torn to shreds. Kang Sujeong, who was nearby, lay sprawled on the floor and lightly smacked Seo Jihyeok on the back with her palm.
“Don’t pick on her when she’s upset.”
“I wasn’t picking on her. Not that box, and not her either.”
Baek Aeyeong rubbed her tired-looking eyes with one hand and said with a sigh,
“······Anyway, a lot of it is gold. To be honest, that’s everything I own. Everything in that room is my entire fortune. Even if I go back to Korea, I have nothing.”
I recalled Baek Aeyeong’s room, overflowing with all sorts of things. Then I thought of my own room back in Korea. If I moved all the books and clothes in my room into that tiny room in the undersea base, there would probably be even less space to stand than in Baek Aeyeong’s room.
If I had opened that box then, would it have been full of gold earrings and rings? Listening to Baek Aeyeong’s hollow voice as she talked about her entire fortune being submerged, I asked what I was most curious about.
“Don’t you use a bank? Savings deposits, installment savings, funds, insurance, things like that.”
Surely she hadn’t only bought gold. Interest rates were rock bottom, but still, she must have saved at least a little money in a bank, right? Baek Aeyeong answered in a soulless voice.
“I don’t trust things like banks or guardians. I only put enough from my salary into my account for living expenses. When I save up money, I buy gold. Then I save up again and buy more gold.”
Should I have brought it with me when I searched the room? Should I have grabbed it the moment I saw it and shoved it into my bag? ······No. I was only regretting it now because I knew what that object in her room was. In a situation where I had entered someone else’s room without permission, I would have felt an intense aversion to taking another person’s belongings. I had only brought Sin Haeryang’s pad because he had told me earlier that he’d left it in his room; otherwise, I wouldn’t have touched anything in that room either. ······I guess I’ll never be able to live as a thief.
Lee Jihyeon, who had been lying down, wriggled over to the gloomy-looking Baek Aeyeong and hugged her from behind. Under Lee Jihyeon’s weight, Baek Aeyeong toppled backward as she was, then collapsed weakly onto her side. Lee Jihyeon stroked Baek Aeyeong’s shoulder and spoke softly, as if comforting her.
“The Lord will leave your treasures right there for you. So you can go find them later.”
“······I think it’d be better if that Lord put my treasure directly into my arms.”
Beside them, Seo Jihyeok struggled to hold back the laughter that burst up when he heard Baek Aeyeong mutter to herself. Sin Haeryang spoke to Baek Aeyeong, who was sprawled on the floor with Lee Jihyeon.
“Your safety comes first. There’s nothing more important than that.”
“······That’s true.”
“Hey. Don’t worry too much. Later, if we get enough leeway to enter the dorm, I’ll salvage it for you.”
“······I won’t get my hopes up.”
The gunshots that had been sounding intermittently were getting louder and louder. The noise that had been like low rain now sounded like hail. Even Yugeum and Tumanako, who had been lying still, rose from their places with anxious expressions.
“I guess that’s gunfire.”
“Looks like it.”
The two of them exchanged whispers, then looked around with frightened faces. But perhaps Sin Haeryang had explained something to them in advance, because they didn’t become greatly agitated.
The longer the gunfire continued, the more everyone’s faces became colored with tension and anxiety. I took out two towels and covered the ears of the sleeping Henry. I didn’t think it would help much, but at least it would reduce the sound a little. I opened my bag and handed out candy or towels to those who needed them.
Yugeum received a towel from me, put it over her head, and lay flat on the floor with both hands over her ears, towel included. It seemed she had decided not to listen to the gunfire at all. Tumanako put on the headset that had been hanging around his neck and closed his eyes, maybe playing music. Then, every now and then, his body swayed slightly.
Kang Sujeong crunched down on a sugar-free orange candy and anxiously shook her foot, while Lee Jihyeon closed her eyes and clasped both hands together. The only people who didn’t look particularly tense were Sin Haeryang, Seo Jihyeok, and Baek Aeyeong.
Every time a gunshot rang out, I flinched in surprise. I didn’t want to be afraid, but whenever I heard the gunfire, fear simply surged up wildly. In my head, I tried to stay calm, thinking things like, It’s just a loud noise, that’s all, it’s nothing, but my body stiffened, and the tension made my lower abdomen ache terribly.
Inside, I was so scared I wondered whether I had always been this much of a coward. Why? I had shot someone with a gun myself, and I had been in the middle of a gunfight before. Right now, I was only listening to the sound from a safe place, so why was I this scared? It wasn’t as if I’d never been shot either. Calm down. My body was trembling with tension, but I took long, slow, deep breaths and struggled to shake off the emotions washing over me.
As time passed, the gunshots drew closer, and screams and shouts began to sound around us. More frightening than hearing the voice of someone screaming as they ran past was the moment that voice abruptly stopped.
The thought crossed my mind that it might be less frightening if I couldn’t hear anything at all, but covering my ears was more frightening than not covering them, so I had no choice but to keep listening. If I covered my ears, when gunfire sounded right nearby, I might not know. That seemed even scarier. Even though knowing wouldn’t exactly let me do anything.
In the middle of that contradictory conflict, my eyes met Yugeum’s as she lay facedown. Tears were welling in both of her eyes. It seemed that covering her ears with a towel and her hands couldn’t completely shut out the gunfire. Yugeum barely managed to say one thing to me.
“I’m so scared.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t look that scared.”
“······No. I’m extremely scared.”
Does it not show on the outside that I’m terrified? Then that’s a relief. The truth is, I’m incredibly scared.
I licked my dry lips and took another deep breath. I wanted to burst into tears right away, cling to anyone, and say I wanted to go home, but I was a fully grown adult. Baek Aeyeong, who looked much younger than me, was holding out without being shaken at all, and Henry was sleeping too. I couldn’t say anything weak.
“Even if something horrible and painful comes.”
I held Yugeum’s trembling hand and said,
“I’m going to think that no one can hurt me without my permission.”
The gunfire ringing in the distance cannot frighten me. Holding someone’s hand made the fear fade just a tiny bit. I hoped Yugeum would feel less scared too.
As I listened to the gunshots, worry for the others came flooding in. We were hidden here, so what would happen to the people out there? Since we had announced it over the broadcast in advance, had they fled to some other safe place? If those people didn’t go as far as the Jujak Wing, then at least there might be no damage there. If they could block the entrance with something, like at the research center.
I asked Sin Haeryang in a small voice.
“Can we physically block or separate them before they get into the Jujak Wing?”
“We can lower the cutoff walls, but then the people in the Jujak Wing will be isolated inside the Jujak Wing.”
Would it be scarier to encounter people going around shooting, or to be trapped without any means of escape in a building wing where water was leaking in? I thought both would be terrifying. I couldn’t tell which one would be more frightening to the others. I also wasn’t sure which one had the higher chance of survival.
Thinking back on what had happened before, if they were people you knew, you might be able to survive even if you ran into armed people. But it was impossible to talk to rushing seawater. ······It could be the opposite, though. They might try even harder to kill you because they knew you.
I really was lucky I hadn’t been at the undersea base for long enough to get on bad terms with people.