My palm was pitch-black, so what did she mean, fine? As if she couldn’t even be bothered to answer, Baek Aeyoung said to Jeong Sanghyeon,
“How would I know? Don’t talk to me.”
“You only get annoyed at me.”
Baek Aeyoung ignored Jeong Sanghyeon entirely and kept walking ahead, then called Nikita over. She pointed at Shin Haeryang’s pad and was saying something. Kim Jaehee studied my palm closely and said,
“It’s in better shape than I expected.”
“I wrapped a towel around my hand before grabbing it.”
“Oh. I see. Aeyoung had that jewelry box set up so that a current of 60 mA (milliamperes) would run through it and cause a heart attack.”
“Pardon?”
I really had almost died. How did Baek Aeyoung live with something like that installed in her room? If she forgot even once and touched the jewelry box, she’d be off to the hospital. ……No. Not the hospital. Straight to the afterlife, probably. Kim Jaehee whispered to me,
“You’re smarter than Sanghyeon. Sanghyeon touched Aeyoung’s jewelry box and got carried into the Daehan-do ER in cardiac arrest.”
“Ah, hyung! Why are you bringing that up! That’s an invasion of privacy!”
“You even know the word privacy! I’m impressed, hey.”
Kim Jaehee laughed exaggeratedly and patted Jeong Sanghyeon on the shoulder.
“If I hadn’t kicked it with my leg and knocked your hand away from the jewelry box, you’d have returned to a handful of ash back then. ……See, this is why prosthetic legs shouldn’t be made of silicone. My magnificent kick is what’s kept you alive until now.”
“Ah, seriously! Stop milking it!”
“I’m going to keep milking it as long as you’re in the undersea base.”
“The crazy one is the person who installs something like that in her own room. She’s definitely not sane.”
Jeong Sanghyeon was cursing while gauging the mood of Baek Aeyoung, who was some distance away.
“What kind of crazy woman installs something like that in her own jewelry box? I bet she’s killed several people that way.”
“Maybe. ……Isn’t it kind of cool? I think things like that look cool. How does a woman even come up with the idea to cause a heart attack like that? You won’t meet people like this at other companies.”
When Kim Jaehee showed absolutely no agreement with him, Jeong Sanghyeon grew angry and huffed.
“Hyung, are you even listening to me? Aren’t you supposed to be on my side? I got taken to the ER, I’m telling you! Don’t you remember I couldn’t use my right hand for a month?!”
“Our Sanghyeon wasn’t fated to die then, so he got carried by a medic. Got to the hospital in less than ten minutes. Got kicked by my magnificent leg. ……You really do live life on easy mode. Back when I dropped a mine I was holding, you know. Hospital in ten minutes, my foot. There wasn’t a medic anywhere in sight. I passed out, woke up, and my leg was gone. Our Sanghyeon passed out and woke up with his hand still perfectly attached.”
“Aaaaaaagh! I can’t talk to you, hyung. Seriously!”
Jeong Sanghyeon ran off ahead, still holding the pad. Kim Jaehee chuckled as he watched Jeong Sanghyeon’s back and said to me,
“His height and brain haven’t grown with his age. Give it about sixty years and he’ll be fully grown.”
Then Jeong Sanghyeon would be well over eighty years old. I clenched and opened my left hand, checking its condition. Moving it didn’t seem to be much of a problem. Kim Jaehee, who had been watching my hand, said,
“You just need to get to the hospital quickly. Don’t worry too much. These days, as long as you have plenty of money, almost anything can be fixed.”
Slightly reassured by that, I confessed to Kim Jaehee the anxiety that felt like it was driving me insane.
“What I’m worried about right now is Ms. Gayoung in the Jujak-dong dormitory.”
On the path from the escape pod port into Jungang-dong, Kevin Wilson was still dead in the exact same spot, his head smashed against it. How did he keep dying so consistently by hitting his head on the metal handle? Couldn’t he dodge it just once?
I realized that repeatedly seeing a corpse appear in the same place had a serious effect on one’s mental state. The same went for accidents that kept happening over and over. Kim Jaehee stretched both arms up toward the sky and said in a carefree tone,
“Team Leader Shin said he’s going to Jujak-dong, so don’t worry.”
“I’m worried he won’t make it in time. What if Ms. Gayoung’s room fills completely with water? What if the rescue happens too late? I’m worried.”
I had come out of my room too late because I was asleep. Wasn’t there some other way? Was there a better method and I just didn’t know it? People only had one life. Kim Jaehee answered with a huge yawn.
“Then she dies.”
My breath caught in my throat. This was hardly the first time I’d faced people dying or possibly dying, so why couldn’t I get used to it?
“Why think about it so hard? It’s not like you’re the one killing her.”
“……Because I can’t take it lightly.”
“Well. Team Leader Shin is going, so we just need to find a way to survive ourselves.”
“Still, if I went with him…… maybe it might be a little less dangerous, or maybe there was a better way. That’s what I keep thinking.”
“People live according to their fate. Let’s not worry too much.”
Kim Jaehee was extremely relaxed. The undersea base was flooding, people were carrying guns and saying they’d kill each other, and we hadn’t managed to get on an escape pod, but he didn’t seem all that troubled. I had no idea where that composure came from. And I was just a little envious of it.
Even after living through a life where I died and came back again, only to be shoved into a leaking room several times, I never developed that kind of ease.
I was always anxious, pressed for time, and living while blaming myself for my own incompetence. It was the same now. Until I saw Kim Gayoung rescued and safe, the unease would coil in my stomach like a huge snake and refuse to disappear, tormenting me.
If Kim Gayoung was rescued, then next I would be hoping that Tumanako or Kim Gayoung got out of this undersea base. ……Just how did one live with that kind of leisure? I let out a sigh and slowly took a deep breath.
Just as we were about to enter Jungang-dong, Vladimir and Shin Haeryang made the people stop almost at the same time. Carlos, who had suddenly planted his face into Viktor’s back when he stopped, groaned and clutched his nose.
Kim Jaehee and I also stopped. The people walking near the very end had no idea why the people in front had stopped. But then the people ahead began scattering through the corridor, slowly disappearing. Seo Jihyeok tore open the ceiling, climbed up deftly, pulled Sofiya up with one hand, and closed the ceiling panel. People also went behind the vending machines, or even inside them.
“—Huh!”
“What?”
“Hide!”
Baek Aeyoung sharply shouted at the people. Where? There wasn’t any place nearby where the twelve people around us could immediately hide. Was she telling us to hide around here? As I watched, Vladimir and Shin Haeryang seemed to be speaking quickly while assigning hiding places to the people closest to them. Starting from the front, people were slipping away to hide here and there.
What? What’s going on?
Following Kim Jaehee beside me, I ended up going around behind a beverage vending machine where Carlos and Viktor were hiding. It was the first time in my life I’d hidden in the narrow gap between a beverage vending machine and the wall, but it was barely enough room for two adult men to hide.
Then someone kicked me, and I went flying out into the corridor connecting Jungang-dong and Baekho-dong. I was momentarily flustered to find myself rolling on the floor, but even if I tried to go back behind the beverage vending machine, there was practically no place for me to hide.
And whether Vladimir and Shin Haeryang had also hidden themselves somewhere at the last moment, there was already no one in the corridor adjacent to Jungang-dong.
……Where did everyone hide? Why is there no one here?
This area was practically the corridor leading into Jungang-dong. On the surface, there seemed to be nothing but a few vending machines. Looking now, it seemed everyone had hidden behind or beside the vending machines. As I headed toward the snack vending machine beside the beverage vending machine, I heard a whistle. Tumanako was beckoning to me from what looked like a crack in the wall.
When I quickly approached, Nikita, Baek Aeyoung, and Tumanako were inside that narrow space, but the place itself was recessed into the wall and extremely cramped.
It was a narrow space, like a small storage cabinet, just big enough for supplies, and when I looked closely, cleaning robots were going in and out of it. The round cleaning robots glowed red as they confusedly circled around my feet, the sudden obstacle in their path.
The cleaning robots that entered the narrow space moved around and spat out the dust and trash they had eaten so far toward a palm-sized hole in the floor. Then the robots that had emptied all their trash were moved by small robotic arms, clicked into empty charging terminals, and began charging.
The cleaning robots that had finished charging left the place with green lights on. I had assumed cleaning robots charged somewhere and emptied their trash on their own, but I hadn’t known there was a charging cabinet like this tucked into the corner of the wall.
I also understood why I hadn’t known about this place. It was set into the corner of the wall as if stored there, and the color of the wall and this place were exactly the same. If you glanced over it, it was so unnoticeable that it might as well not have existed.
It was almost the size of a single-person wardrobe. Even with three women inside, it looked cramped. It was so narrow that the three women were practically compressed together in an embrace, and no matter how I looked at it, there was no way another adult man could fit inside. There wasn’t even space to put a foot. The cleaning robots that had been driven out by the humans trespassing in their charging cabinet hurriedly moved away from it.
On top of that, since human bodies were blocking even the places where the cleaning robots were supposed to arrive to charge, the robots that couldn’t find a charging spot lit up red and whirred back out in search of another charging cabinet.
Hmm…… no. This wasn’t it. I didn’t know what was going on, but I’d rather face the danger head-on than this. I’m not hiding here.
This was a place where an adult man couldn’t hide unless he was alone. No, in the first place, it wasn’t a place made for people to hide. When I froze there like a stone statue, startled at the sight of that cramped space, Tumanako grabbed me and pulled me in without warning.
Baek Aeyoung clicked her tongue, stepped on a shelf-like part of the wall and Nikita’s shoulder, and rose into the air. Then she clung to the corner like a spider spinning a web on the ceiling. Nikita grabbed the door of the charging cabinet and shut it completely.
With no light coming in from outside, the inside of the charging cabinet was dark and smelled of dust and trash. Cleaning robots emitting mechanical hums were charging, glowing red.
I shoved my face into the innermost corner and almost stopped breathing. Every time I swallowed a breath and let it out, my back touched Nikita’s behind me. And Tumanako’s shoulder was pressed against mine, crushing it. How on earth was Baek Aeyoung hanging in the air like that? I was grateful she had called me over, but half of me felt sorry, and the other half wanted to get out of here immediately.
We squirmed to find a slightly more comfortable posture in that cramped space. To be precise, Nikita made Tumanako sit down outright on the floor, while Nikita and I braced our limbs against the wall and corner with our backs pressed together, in an ambiguous posture that was neither standing nor sitting.
I was startled when something suddenly began pressing down on my shoulder, but when I turned my head just slightly, I saw that one of Baek Aeyoung’s feet had come down and was stepping on my shoulder. It seemed it wasn’t easy to cling to the charging cabinet that reached all the way to the ceiling with only the strength of her arms. What on earth was happening out there to make them do this?
Nikita twisted her shoulder and, in an uncomfortable posture, pressed her eye to a tiny gap and looked outside. I heard people talking. I too looked out through a gap in the somewhat shoddily made charging cabinet, and saw people with guns coming from afar. A familiar face appeared through that tiny crack. It was Team Leader Sato.
Just then, Tumanako, who had accidentally inhaled dust from the floor through her nose while breathing, panicked and coughed.
Achoo!