Sumire glanced at Seo Jihyeok’s expression, then spoke to me.
“Aren’t you curious who these people will put on the three escape pods?”
Hearing that, Baek Ayeong pointed at John’s head and said.
“If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll make you just like him.”
“Mmph! Mmmph! Mmmph!”
When John started mumbling as if begging to be untied, Sumire clamped her mouth shut entirely. Tumanako watched the scene, then asked the people walking ahead.
“Right. There are three escape pods, so who gets on them?”
Kang Soojeong pointed at Lee Jihyeon and Yu Geumi, then answered with a sigh that Henry should get on. It seemed like Kang Soojeong had compromised as much as she could. She probably wanted to load all three Koreans. Seo Jihyeok eagerly agreed with her words.
“As expected of the Deputy Team Leader. Your opinion matches mine perfectly.”
Kang Soojeong spoke as if uneasy at those words.
“Since you agree with me, I feel like I’m making the wrong choice.”
Shuran chose Baek Ayeong and Henry, then alternated between Tumanako and Yu Geumi before choosing Yu Geumi. Baek Ayeong studied everyone quietly, then chose three: Henry, Yu Geumi, and Shuran. Shuran, her eyelashes still wet, gazed at Baek Ayeong with a moved expression, but the other calmly added her reason.
“You have a weak heart; you can’t even kill a bug.”
Shuran retorted immediately, seemingly dumbfounded.
“It’s possible to not be able to catch one!”
“You lack fighting spirit. When a bug comes into your house, you should think, ‘How dare you crawl into my house?’ and blast it with a flamethrower!”
“What if you burn the whole house down?”
“An amateur only burns the house down clumsily, but an expert like me burns the house, the bug, and myself all at once.”
“...If a bug shows up, I won’t call you. I’ll just leave the house.”
The reason Baek Ayeong excluded Lee Jihyeon was because she knew how to shoot.
“Jihyeon is my top disciple.”
Lee Jihyeon nodded, then spoke to me proudly.
“I went to a shooting range in Hawaii with Ayeong and Jihyeok. Ayeong taught me everything in detail. I still remember the grip techniques and gun names. MP5, AR50, AK47, Sig Sauer P320....”
After hearing that, I realized I didn’t even know the name of the gun I’d held and fired. The moment I thought that, it occurred to me that I knew the names of the people I’d shot with my gun even less. I wished I would never have to shoot a gun again. I remembered Baek Ayeong saying once that I just had to live my whole life without needing to do so. It was true. Before actually experiencing it, I hadn’t known.
For Lee Jihyeon, it must have been quite a worthwhile experience, as her voice had risen a tone. Seo Jihyeok, who had been quietly listening to her shooting review, began to refute her words one by one.
“Shooting like that is no different from playing a shooting game at an arcade. You were terrible. Watching you, I thought even if someone brought an elephant right to your nose, you couldn’t hit it. And is shooting tin cans the same as our current situation? When you can’t even hold the gun properly because of its weight.”
“You were the one who told me to go. You said I shot really well? That I could be a sniper?!”
Lee Jihyeon glared at Seo Jihyeok, then said that Yu Geumi, Henry, and Tumanako should go. Hearing that, Tumanako raised his thumb and said.
“Thanks for putting me on the candidate list for the first time. I wish it could be me, Henry, and Park Muhyeon. ...Sorry, Geumi.”
Tumanako whispered to Yu Geumi. I was surprised that I’d been included among the escape pod candidates.
“Thank you. But is there a reason I was chosen as a candidate?”
“It’s partly because you helped me at first. And because I’d like people to go in last-in-first-out order.”
“What about you, Mr. Muhyeon?”
I answered Yu Geumi’s question simply.
“As long as Henry is included, I’m fine with whoever the other two are.”
That’s what I said, but truthfully, I wanted to go. Me. Me! I want to go! Right now! I swallowed those words along with a sigh. The others probably felt the same.
Shin Haeryang, who had been leading the way, gave a hand signal to stop. Everyone came to a halt; they were beside the laundry room. Unlike before, there were no bloodstains in the hallway. Last time, someone had died inside. Shin Haeryang and Seo Jihyeok went into the laundry room to search, then came out after signaling that no one was there. Then they started walking again.
Seo Jihyeok, who until just now had been getting chewed out by Baek Ayeong, looked at his team leader earnestly and asked.
“What do you think, Team Leader?”
Shin Haeryang answered without even looking at Seo Jihyeok.
“I share the Deputy Team Leader’s opinion.”
Seo Jihyeok smiled broadly at those words and looked at Baek Ayeong with a see-that? expression. Just as Baek Ayeong looked back at him as if he were pathetic, Kang Soojeong nudged Shin Haeryang’s side with her elbow and said.
“You should do that more often normally, too. ...I want to record it and play it back every time opinions differ. Really.”
Baek Ayeong pointed at Shuran and vented her dissatisfaction to the two of them.
“Give her a spot. She came looking for me instead of getting on her own escape pod.”
Shuran, who was beside her, started in surprise and said.
“I’m not getting on alone. I don’t want to go unless we go together.”
“Now’s not the time to be stubborn.”
“You did the same thing!”
Baek Ayeong’s lips clamped shut, at a loss for words. Only after a few seconds did she add.
“...This and that are different.”
Seo Jihyeok made a remark like, “Are you two having a lover’s quarrel?” and got smacked on the back by both Kang Soojeong and Baek Ayeong. I looked at Shuran and Baek Ayeong with a warm gaze and asked.
“Did the two of you become friends here at this underwater base?”
“Yes.”
That was somewhat hopeful. Making friends even here.
After meeting dental patients from assaults, pseudo-religious cultists, terrorists, drug criminals, child abusers, pet neglecters, sociopaths, psychopaths, and so on, seeing two people of different nationalities and personalities becoming friends warmed my heart. Even if my body was a little cold. Somehow, the temperature in Cheongnyongdong only seemed to keep dropping. Shuran asked me.
“Ayeong and I became close while scuba diving. Have you ever tried scuba diving, sir?”
“No.”
“That was my first time in the ocean, too. It was surprisingly manageable.”
Baek Ayeong spoke to Shuran while keeping watch behind them.
“Just thinking about that time gives me chills.”
“It wasn’t bad for me.”
“I think it’s even more amazing that it didn’t become a bad memory for you.”
“It didn’t become a bad memory because you were there.”
“...I’ll tell our team leader for you, so you should immigrate too.”
“My whole family is in Hong Kong. How could I go?”
Baek Ayeong walked about three meters, then asked Shuran’s permission before speaking to everyone.
“It was early after I joined, when I went scuba diving with Engineer Latim (China), me, and Soojeong. Nothing happened until we dived to 40 meters, then Shuran sent me a distress signal from the very back. She said she couldn’t breathe, very urgently. She was practically suffocating, so I immediately lent her my secondary regulator (octopus).”
I’d never tried scuba diving before, but accidents like that scared me enough that I didn’t want to. Wasn’t the reason humans don’t have gills precisely to tell us not to go down under the sea and do things?
“We ended up sharing my one air tank, the two of us taking turns breathing. It was her first time in the ocean, so she didn’t even have an Open Water certification. I’m practically a creature that drinks seawater on a regular basis, so I was at the very back, but beginners like Shuran are supposed to move in the middle of the group, you know? But while unable to breathe, she sent distress signals to everyone beside her, yet nobody helped her, so she came all the way to me at the very back. I lent her my regulator when she was on the verge of death.”
Wasn’t it an accident? Didn’t the others all have two regulators each? Why didn’t they lend her one? Why not?
“Did the others only have one regulator each?”
“Some have two, some have one. But even if you have one, you learn how to share your primary regulator with the other person and breathe. Because accidents can happen to anyone. My buddy was Soojeong. She signaled to abort the dive and ascend.”
“I really thought I was dying back then.”
Shuran spoke as if it were no big deal, but it sounded incredibly frightening to me. If you dive and can’t breathe, you die, right?
“The three of us—me, Soojeong, and Shuran—stopped at a safety zone and waited 15 minutes. Then we ascended to the surface. She was crying ceaselessly even on the boat. She kept talking in Chinese. I don’t know Chinese. I didn’t have a translator with me since we were going into the water. But Soojeong seemed to get the gist. That I was the only one who helped her. We checked what was wrong with Shuran’s regulator. The air tank was completely locked. You’re not supposed to lock it all the way. You have to open it slightly. That’s how the air from the tank flows through the hose to the mouthpiece. But it was locked tight. As if telling her to drop dead. Someone had approached from behind Shuran and locked it. Plus, there was a small hole in the hose.”
“Who would do something like that?”
Shuran smiled bitterly and said.
“Then I understood why the Hong Kongers before me had accidents or committed suicide. A new recruit had arrived, so they said they’d teach her scuba diving, and kept doing things like that. Like, ‘If you don’t want to die this absurdly, behave well.’”
“What made me angriest was that all of your teammates on the boat acted like they couldn’t understand why you suddenly came up to the surface with us. And they brushed it off like it was nothing.”
“What could I do? I’d signed a two-year contract to work at the underwater base a month before that happened, and I’d just joined. Even if I pressed my teammates about it, who would admit they did it? And even if I talked about it, I’d just be treated like a crazy person and gradually isolated.”
“If it were me, I’d have slit all their throats and thrown them into the ocean. The reason there wasn’t a knife fight is because of you and our Deputy Team Leader.”
Kang Soojeong sighed as if the ground might cave in. Then, glancing at the people around her, she said.
“Ayeong. I told you to use proper, polite language when you’re with others.”
“I’m sorry. But what can I do when I get mad every time I think about it?”
“Think of something else pleasant. Imagine something happy.”
“Imagining slicing that bastard Li Wei in half from his uvula to his navel and making sashimi out of him...”