“You don’t seem like someone who lies often.”
“……Then I suppose you must live by lying often.”
At my words, Shin Haeryang trailed off at the end of his sentence, as if uncharacteristically lacking confidence.
“There are times when it’s necessary for work.”
Then Shin Haeryang looked at the consultation room wall for a moment before turning his gaze toward the Deep Blue entrance, crossing his arms and falling silent. Even though he knew a transmission was coming through the radio, he didn’t answer it. Overcome with anxiety, I pointed at the radio.
“How about proposing to end this hostage situation peacefully, even now? Let me speak. The Muhan Church side might reluctantly agree, mightn’t they?”
I tried to persuade Shin Haeryang, but I couldn’t predict how the Muhan Church would act either. Jeong Sanghyeon was reportedly seen as having sold me out, and it didn’t seem like the Muhan Church would leave Shin Haeryang alone after he’d threatened them with a gun for so long. I felt like they’d pretend to listen to my opinion before dismissing it in the name of safety. ……But still, you never know.
After hearing my opinion, Shin Haeryang spoke calmly.
“That might have been possible in the early stages of the hostage situation, but not anymore.”
Shin Haeryang tapped the wooden consultation room desk and observed the people collapsed in the hallway and near the entrance. Among those screaming for help or shouting that they were in pain, about three had fallen silent as if they’d fainted, while two were still screaming to be saved and spitting curses.
My chest felt tight, as if a stone had been placed on it. I was overcome with the desire to get far away from these surroundings, like a fish that senses an approaching storm. It seemed as though Shin Haeryang was the only calm person in Deep Blue.
Shin Haeryang, who had been staring at the consultation room that looked like it had been hit by a bomb, grabbed Joseph by the collar as he leaned against the partition wall. Then he started dragging him along.
“Where are you going to lay him down?”
“I’ll lay him behind the desk. Sir, please lie down beside him too.”
Shin Haeryang tossed Joseph behind the desk as if he were a sack of barley, and I watched from the side in shock. Watch his spine and head! Joseph and I lay down side by side behind the desk, which had been placed parallel to the partition wall.
“Li-like this?”
“Yes. Don’t move.”
“Do we really have to lie down? Can’t I just sit in the corner?”
“Yes. You’ll be in the way.”
Right. Even if I can’t help, I shouldn’t get in the way. The consultation room is quite cramped. It feels like this place was originally made for one desk, two chairs, and only two people. Looking at it now, it’s suddenly quite crowded.
It wasn’t even my consultation room, but I couldn’t say a word and lay down right next to the unconscious Joseph as Shin Haeryang had ordered. The chill from the floor seeped up, making my back cold through my single layer of shirt. Shin Haeryang picked up an overturned chair from the hallway, sat in the corner of the consultation room, and spoke while inspecting an empty gun.
“Just as I know most of my team members’ affairs, my team members also know most of what I’ve done.”
Well, of course. Life here at the undersea base is like living in a dormitory. It might be terribly ill-suited for some people, but it might suit others just fine. Some people get stressed when they come home from work and their boss lives right next door, while others don’t. Just look at Yu Geumi. She changed rooms from Jujak-dong to Baekho-dong because a professor lived in the room next to hers. When the physical distance is this close, you can’t help but learn a lot about each other.
After looking at the consultation room wall and pondering briefly, Shin Haeryang took a deep breath and let it out as he spoke.
“If you really can’t trust me, ask me where I spent the six hundred million won.”
Me, a debtor…… but this guy’s scale is no joke either. Is his secret that nobody knows about a six-hundred-million-won shopping spree? Where do you even spend six hundred million won? Did he buy a house or a car? If it were Baek Aeyeong, I feel like she would’ve bought gold.
“Did you spend six hundred million won without others knowing?”
“……Only three people know, including myself. Neither my team members nor my family knows about it.”
Can you spend six hundred million won without your family knowing? If I bought something delicious for lunch, I’d tell my younger sibling about it. People might have different opinions about money, but still. Six hundred million won?
“Did you spend it because you could live comfortably even without that money?”
“Yes.”
Well, then I guess that’s fine. It’s a huge breach of etiquette to ask about someone else’s salary, but I suddenly want to ask how much an engineer team leader makes. Seo Jihyeok roughly explained it before. What was it again? Did he say they get paid double the salary? Do mercenaries earn a lot? Don’t freelancers have irregular income?
Six hundred million won is indeed an amount a dentist in Korea could earn working hard for two years. I had poured all the money I’d earned so far into my existing debt, surgery costs, and living expenses, leaving me with about three hundred million won in remaining debt. Since I’d gotten a job here, I’d thought I could pay it all off by around next summer.
Wait. Now that I think about it, if I die here, all that remains is debt? You can always file a limited acceptance for inheritance, but if my family makes even a small mistake and ends up accepting the inheritance, they’ll inherit three hundred million won in debt. The document I signed when joining said they’d give a certain amount if I died, but how much was it again? ……I can’t remember. Without me, the head of the household, my family would be left with a life of three hundred million won in debt. I’m definitely not going to die. No matter what happens, I’m getting out of this undersea base. I’ll survive somehow and put our family accounts in the black.
Then I suddenly remembered that Shin Haeryang was famous for poker at the undersea base. I was about to ask if he spent the six hundred million won on gambling, but since it would be an enormous breach of etiquette if I was wrong, I worded my question differently.
“Where did you spend the six hundred million won?”
Shin Haeryang looked toward the Deep Blue entrance, loaded the gun he’d been inspecting, and slung it across his chest with a parachute cord.
“……I treated my insomnia.”
I’d had insomnia too, but in my case, the traffic accident was largely to blame. When something shocking happens, the brain replays the same memory hundreds or thousands of times. The reason terrible memories linger longer in your head than good ones is because of one of the brain’s inherent survival instincts—it remembers them well so that you won’t experience such things again.
Since the brain doesn’t proceed with this self-recovery process by mutual agreement with the body’s owner, people go crazy going through it. The brain shows you scenes that are hard, unfair, annoying, painful, and that you don’t want to see right before you sleep. Because the brain knows damn well that that’s when you rest. When nights of staring at your phone around 3 a.m. repeat as you resist the memories you don’t want to recall, only then do you admit it. So this is insomnia.
No, but six hundred million won for insomnia? If we’re only talking about the money spent on my artificial eye and the implant in my waist, I don’t really have room to talk. Gang Sujeong too—why are there so many people who can’t sleep at the undersea base? Even people who go around punching others have insomnia? It’s a lie that the guy who got punched sleeps well with both legs stretched out. The guys who got punched come to the hospital enduring the pain. I thought the ones doing the punching slept well.
“Were you cured?”
If he wasn’t cured, I’m going to grab that doctor by the collar. Even pulling all the teeth and getting full implants wouldn’t cost six hundred million won. He wasn’t scammed, was he? Maybe Shin Haeryang didn’t tell his team members because if he said the insomnia wasn’t cured after spending six hundred million won, that doctor would die at the hands of his team members. ……Judging by the way he speaks, it probably wasn’t really insomnia, though.
“Yes.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I think so too.”
Shin Haeryang answered half-heartedly, as if it were someone else’s business, then uncoiled the parachute cord wrapped around his forearm and stretched it out long across the hallway. What was he planning to use that for? Shin Haeryang met eyes with me lying on the floor and spoke.
“You have to keep lying down even after the gunfire stops. It’ll be safe there.”
“Until when?”
“Don’t get up until someone helps you.”
“If it’s safe here, aren’t you going to lie down too, Mr. Haeryang?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
Shin Haeryang, who had been keeping watch over the consultation room’s partition wall and the Deep Blue entrance, spoke in a displeased tone.
“I wanted to increase the number of injured. It’s a shame.”
“Even more than this?”
“The more people who can’t move, the easier it will be for Jihyeok to move.”
If they move all the people collapsed in the hallway and entrance to the medic too, I feel like Daehan Island’s emergency room beds would be insufficient because of Shin Haeryang.
Without any signal, Shin Haeryang suddenly began firing in bursts toward the Deep Blue entrance. It didn’t seem like he was aiming at the collapsed people in the hallway, but rather shooting through the door. A long scream was heard from outside.
I reflexively tried to raise my upper body, but then I remembered what Shin Haeryang had said and lay back down. He told me not to get up.
Shin Haeryang, who had been firing in bursts at the entrance from the hallway, was now wildly shooting at the consultation room partition wall. Now I understood why he’d laid Joseph down here. If he hadn’t laid him here, I would have been hit by the bullets Shin Haeryang was firing.
The moment shouts and screams were heard from beyond the consultation room wall, loud footsteps came from the Deep Blue entrance. Since Shin Haeryang’s gun barrel was aimed at the partition wall, it seemed like someone was trying to enter. Without paying attention to the Deep Blue entrance, Shin Haeryang kept firing in bursts at the lower parts of the consultation room wall where people’s knees would be. If someone had been standing beyond the wall, they probably would’ve had holes in their knees or thighs.
Even while the opponent entering through the entrance was stepping over fallen or collapsed Muhan Church believers and firing, Shin Haeryang shot at the partition wall until he ran out of bullets, then threw the gun he’d been using toward the entrance. A sound of someone staggering after being hit by the gun Shin Haeryang threw came from the entrance. Then Shin Haeryang began walking forward, firing at those entering through the entrance with the other gun slung across his chest.
Because of the angle while lying down, I couldn’t see the hallway where Shin Haeryang was at all. Could I raise myself up a little? If I shifted the angle slightly, I felt like I could see outside the consultation room door. I tried to move my body slightly, but a bullet zipped past right in front of my nose as I lay there.
“Uwaaack!”
Bullets poured mercilessly from the partition wall side. I could feel the trajectories and wind of bullets passing by my face and body.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel bullets pouring from my left to my right, brushing against my hair and clothes. Are they shooting to kill everyone here, rescuers and all?!
Screams and gunshots were heard from around the hallway and entrance. That was when it happened. Three people burst out of the hallway, flying into the consultation room where bullets were pouring in. Shin Haeryang kicked some man and dashed into the consultation room together with a woman who had a parachute cord wrapped around her neck.
Wait! Before my body could stiffen with tension, I was buried under the three people.
I coughed several times as the shooting continued endlessly. Unless people beyond that partition wall were standing in a line holding guns and pouring bullets, it shouldn’t be possible for bullets to come from the entire wall like this. Shin Haeryang had told me to lie still, but I couldn’t move at all while lying down.
Now I understood why he’d told me to lie down next to Joseph. Joseph was taller than me, and had a larger build too. Damn it.
He hadn’t been trying to knock them down from the wall. He had simply intended to use people as shields. Bullets that first pierced the consultation room wall penetrated the wooden desk second, and then burrowed into Joseph’s body third.
I couldn’t even guess what Joseph, lying on my left, looked like. I felt my left shoulder growing damp with hot blood. I opened my eyes slightly and looked to the left to see Joseph vomiting blood in heaves. I closed my eyes again.