At the looks Tumanako and I gave him, Seo Jihyeok said as if making an excuse.
“Hungry is hungry.”
Well, to maintain a body that size, he’d have to eat a lot. On top of that, the engineering team seemed to have been up and working since the crack of dawn. Baek Aeyeong and Sin Haeryang seemed used to Seo Jihyeok being like this. Maybe they were hungry too, and just not saying it.
Seeing so plainly that he was starving made him look strangely pitiful. When I took all the candies out of my pocket and handed them to Seo Jihyeok, he accepted them with the expression of a beggar receiving alms.
“Feels like I’m taking the liver out of a flea.”
“What kind of guide eats his customers?”
“I’ll eat you last, Teacher.”
Was that supposed to be considerate?
“I’m very grateful.”
Sin Haeryang, who had been keeping watch outside the shop, spoke to me.
“Please pick out the hats that look most similar to the ones used by the followers of the Infinite Church.”
At his request, I slowly looked around the hat shop. I grabbed as many dark, brimmed hats as I could and laid them out in the middle of the shop, but none of them looked exactly the same. I sorted out the ones that were too bright or had huge lettering printed across the front, then held out six plain, dark black and navy hats.
“They’re similar, but not identical.”
“That’s fine. As long as they can serve as a brief deception when seen from a distance.”
Even if they fooled someone at a distance, we’d be found out up close, so I wasn’t sure how he intended to use them.
Baek Aeyeong adjusted the size of a hat to fit her small head, then handed it to Seo Jihyeok. Distracted by unwrapping a candy and putting it in his mouth, Seo Jihyeok put on the hat he’d been handed and patted at his own head twice in vain. Then he glared at Baek Aeyeong, enlarged the brimmed hat, and put it on.
As everyone amicably divided up the dark-colored hats, I put one on John Doe’s head as well. Then I pulled one down firmly over my own head.
It felt childish and awkward, wearing something like this after so long. With the brimmed hat on, I looked around the shop and spotted yellow and white safety helmets sitting on the wall, gathering dust. Those looked like the ones used at construction sites, but they sold them here too.
“Can safety helmets stop bullets?”
If it were possible to stop bullets with safety helmets, wouldn’t it be safer for everyone to walk around wearing them? Baek Aeyeong, who was fiddling with the brim of her hat, answered my question.
“No. If it gets hit by a bullet, it’ll get a hole punched right through it. Even ballistic helmets can barely stop bullets, so what’s a safety helmet supposed to do?”
Hearing that answer made a question arise in me. If they could barely stop bullets, then why wear ballistic helmets at all? If the name was ballistic helmet, shouldn’t it work hard and do a good job stopping bullets?
“Then why wear ballistic helmets?”
Sin Haeryang, who was looking outside, answered simply.
“To block grenades and fragments.”
“Ah.”
At those words, the image of someone I knew flashed into my mind. I didn’t even have time to tell my brain not to do that. I tried to focus on the sights in front of me rather than the image that had surfaced in my head. Sin Haeryang added casually,
“If you’re worried about bullets, you’d be better off wearing a motorcycle helmet than a safety helmet.”
After hearing that, I began searching for a motorcycle helmet with my eyes. A few dark and crimson motorcycle helmets with bizarre patterns painted on them were hanging on the wall of the shop. Maybe they weren’t popular, because dust had settled on them. According to Sin Haeryang, motorcycle helmets seemed to be much sturdier than safety helmets. But when I looked at the people around me, no one was trying to wear one. Even Sin Haeryang, who had said that, merely put on the black hat I’d given him.
“Are the rest of you not going to wear motorcycle helmets?”
With a faint smile, Seo Jihyeok rolled a candy around on his tongue and said,
“Say some guy suddenly shows up on the street wearing a bike helmet? ……Teacher. If it were me, I wouldn’t aim for his head. I’d aim for his torso.”
Ah…… I see. Right. That was a stupid question. I too laughed emptily and touched the brim of my hat.
The place closest to the hat shop was an accessory shop, and if I’d read it right, the shop name said [Sea Snail]. I really had no idea what these shops were thinking when they named themselves. Then I realized that the dental clinic where I worked was named after the famous great white shark, and that the hair salon where Tumanako worked was a snake god with two heads, one male and one female, and gave up thinking about it.
Clothes, shoes, and hats I could understand, but did there really need to be a shop selling accessories at an undersea base? While I was alone in that question, the guide and the expert in trespassing seemed to judge that the accessory shop was highly likely to be locked too.
After a ten-second discussion, nearly an argument, over whether we really needed to go to the accessory shop or should pass by it, we concluded that we would go. This time too, Seo Jihyeok and Baek Aeyeong went first. Sin Haeryang remained beside Tumanako and me. While Baek Aeyeong picked the lock, Seo Jihyeok seemed to be covering her back.
As soon as Baek Aeyeong checked the door, the two of them went straight into the accessory shop and gestured toward us. Apparently, it hadn’t been locked. This time too, Sin Haeryang sent Tumanako and me ahead first. He came out of the hat shop last. Judging by his actions so far, it seemed he was erasing any traces that we had stayed there before following us.
When we entered the accessory shop, it looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Chairs had fallen here and there, and some of the display glass inside had been shattered. Whether necklaces and earrings made of gemstones had been stolen, there were quite a few places that looked as if something had originally been there but were now empty. On the wall hung dozens of cheap five-dollar earrings that people apparently hadn’t stolen.
“Looks like thieves came in before us. Watch out for the glass shards.”
Baek Aeyeong said as she looked around the accessory shop. I hadn’t noticed from outside, but several windows were broken too. The interior was quite a bit larger than I had expected. Baek Aeyeong swept aside the glass in front of her with sturdy-soled shoes and took the lead inside. Several mirrors had also broken, and sharp fragments were rolling across the floor.
Maybe people had come into the accessory shop before escaping on the escape boats and grabbed handfuls of things. ……I don’t understand. Hearing my impression, Seo Jihyeok nodded and said,
“These gemstones are all cheap. They’re not worth taking.”
“It’s not a matter of price, ……never mind.”
Tumanako walked off in a daze and was peering into one spot with an extremely serious expression. This was my first time here, but from Tumanako’s familiar steps, it seemed she had visited this place before. There was a necklace made of gemstones there, and judging by her expression, she seemed to be fighting with herself over whether to take it or not. She had probably seen that necklace before but hadn’t bought it.
In the meantime, Sin Haeryang nudged a CCTV camera that was in the way with the tip of his foot. It looked as if the CCTV had once hung from the ceiling, but whether someone had broken it, it was now rolling on the floor. Had the people who visited this place before destroyed it?
Sin Haeryang looked at a few clean handkerchiefs displayed in a corner, then casually put them in his pocket. He didn’t even glance at the earrings, necklaces, or bracelets scattered around. Then he kept watch.
He seemed to think this was the place most likely to be visited by other people. Among the three of them, Sin Haeryang had been the one who said we shouldn’t go, but Baek Aeyeong and Seo Jihyeok had insisted that we absolutely had to visit. Sin Haeryang kept lookout with an unwilling expression.
Baek Aeyeong went without hesitation to inspect the safe located in the innermost corner. She seemed to know very well what was placed there already. There was a small safe there. Whether someone had tried to steal it, it was a mess of knife marks and clumsy smears of graphite. It looked as if they had made several attempts, failed to steal it, and fled. Seeing the state of the safe, Baek Aeyeong snorted.
Expressionlessly, Baek Aeyeong pressed the safe’s combination one number at a time. I couldn’t tell whether she had known the numbers in advance or figured them out from the fingerprints left on it. When the safe opened, there seemed to be gold rings and necklaces inside, and Baek Aeyeong very naturally swept what was in there into her pants pocket.
She also took out all the cash beside them—there was money from all kinds of countries—and shoved it into another pants pocket. Neither Seo Jihyeok nor Sin Haeryang said anything about Baek Aeyeong’s actions. Tumanako was still agonizing over the necklace, and I let out a deep sigh.
Seo Jihyeok skillfully rummaged through a drawer and took out disinfectant and gauze, putting them in his pocket. I wondered why those were here, but judging by the shop, it seemed they also pierced flesh and sold piercings. Looking inside, I saw an enormous number of tattoo-related stickers, and beside them, there were also a tremendous variety of nail and toenail stickers and nail polish. It seemed they sold everything here except clothes.
I was a bit skeptical because I didn’t do things like this, but other people might decorate themselves with such items to pass the dull hours in the undersea base and find some fun. I asked the person who looked the most idle here, yet also seemed the busiest.
“Do they do tattoos here too?”
“No. They only sell stickers.”
After hearing Sin Haeryang’s words, I looked around for a place to put down John Doe, whom I had been carrying on my back. The floors in the other shops had been clean enough to put one person down and rest, but this place was a mess of footprints and glass shards.
I propped one fallen chair against the wall and tried to sit John Doe in it. I was carefully trying to lower the person on my back into the chair, but when his body leaned backward, the chair had no headrest, so John Doe smacked the back of his head straight into the wall.
“Urgh.”
At that sound, I was horrified and approached John as soon as I had set him down. John Doe had let out a groan, but he still hadn’t woken up. The back of his head might have a bump, but he didn’t seem badly hurt. I let out another deep sigh.