“Huh? Absolutely not.”
Seo Jihyeok answered Jeong Sanghyeon as if deliberately needling him. Then, as he walked over toward Team Leader Shin Haeryang, he said,
“You remember what I said earlier, right?”
“See you later.”
Seo Jihyeok slapped Shin Haeryang’s outstretched right hand once with his own, making a sharp smack, then came over beside me. Then, as if he felt awkward that I had called his name, he strode over and said,
“Thank you, Doctor. Thanks to you, I’m getting on an escape pod. I figured I’d be one of the later ones to get out among my team members.”
“The people you’re looking for should be on Daehan Island. Go to the place where you hid the boat.”
When I whispered that to him, Seo Jihyeok’s eyes widened greatly. He stared at me with an expression that seemed to have a lot to say, then gave a slight nod. I opened my mouth to call the person after Seo Jihyeok.
“The person to go after Jihyeok is…”
At that, both Seo Jihyeok, who had been about to pass by me, and Shin Haeryang, who was standing a little ways off to the side, stopped me.
“Aaaagh! Doctor! Wait a second!”
“Please call the next person after Jihyeok has boarded the escape pod and left.”
Seo Jihyeok spoke in a hurried, low voice.
“Give hope to the guys who are stuck here until the very end. Hope that they might be able to leave too! It doesn’t matter whether it’s false hope or actually possible. Plant the thought in their heads that maybe they can get out too! Look at me. I’m a healthy grown-ass man, but I’m the first one getting on an escape pod! Make those bastards start running calculations in their heads.”
I remembered how, before coming in here, Seo Jihyeok had forced me to choose between Engineer Team Ga and Team Na if a fight broke out.
“You think a fight will break out even with someone holding a gun here?”
I said it with Tamaki in mind, but Seo Jihyeok answered in a low voice as if it were obvious.
“Yes. Though I’m not too worried, since our team leader is good at things like this.”
“I’m planning to send Team Leader Shin Haeryang out quickly too.”
“Uh. Then what about you, Doctor?”
“I’m not planning to take this escape pod. I’ll go next time.”
Shin Haeryang, who had been telling his team members to get ready to board the escape pod immediately, must have heard his name, because he turned his head this way.
“What are you trusting to do that? If you don’t get on now, you may not get another chance to board an escape pod.”
As Seo Jihyeok said that, he lightly tapped my chest with the back of his hand.
“Is your heart made of steel? Take care of yourself. You look like someone with plenty of fears.”
Seo Jihyeok lowered his voice until it was as faint as a breath.
“I’m asking because I’m curious, but is Aeyeong getting on the escape pod this time too?”
“Yes. I said I’d side with Engineer Team Ga, didn’t I?”
That isn’t the only reason, but right now Engineer Team Ga has people with disabilities and women as well. There are quite a few people who should leave first. More than half of the Engineer Team Ga people here will probably get out.
“I did ask you to side with our team, but I didn’t think you’d go this far for us.”
Seo Jihyeok looked at me with a slightly apologetic expression, then flung both arms open in an overly dramatic way and pulled me into a tight hug. At Seo Jihyeok’s sudden action, I froze like a stone. These cold engineer bastards never engaged in skinship like this.
Seo Jihyeok hugged me and spun once in place, lifting my feet several centimeters off the ground. He whispered quickly.
“Remember that you absolutely have to get out, Doctor.”
“…Is the order I call people to board the escape pods that important?”
“It’s important. I definitely told you.”
Then he set me back down on the floor. This is dizzying. The moment Seo Jihyeok put me down, he spread a smile across his entire face. Then he made a victorious V with his index and middle fingers, thrust it above his head, and began hopping around while waving his arm obnoxiously so that Engineer Team Ga, Team Na, and Team Ma could all see.
“I’m leaving the undersea base! You shitty bastards! Jealous, huh! Jealous, aren’t you! So jealous you could die, right! That’s why you should’ve been nicer to people who were coming to the base for the first time! Look! This is what it means to reap what you sow! Karma! Your own damn fault! You sinful, evil bastards! If you live kindly in your everyday life, it comes back to you like this! Just how uprightly must I have lived for a dentist I’ve only met twice down here under the sea to tell me to be the first one to get on an escape pod! You unrecyclable pieces of trash! You live like absolute garbage all the time and do nothing but produce food waste and shit around you!”
“Hurry up and leave! Mr. Seo!”
Mark, who had been listening, shouted in irritation. Seo Jihyeok, who had been hopping up and down with an infuriating smile, had at some point folded down his index finger from the V and was now wildly flipping off the engineers.
Then he avoided the corpses sprawled on the floor and the pools of blood as he walked to the boarding entrance of the escape pod. The people inside the escape pod port watched Seo Jihyeok’s actions in disbelief, some laughing, some frowning, some staring blankly. They were watching as if they were curious about what would become of the first person to leave with the opportunity for escape that Tamaki had given us.
Tamaki did point his gun at Seo Jihyeok when he realized he was approaching, but he did not shoot, and Seo Jihyeok saw Tamaki standing about two meters away from him but did not recklessly charge at him.
Without any obstruction, Seo Jihyeok strode over and pressed the escape pod activation button. For the final three seconds, he raised his middle finger toward Engineer Team Na. Then, the moment he hurriedly stood straight, the escape pod enveloped him and shot out into the dark seabed. Yamashita seemed to be cursing at Seo Jihyeok, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying.
I thought Tamaki would ask why I had chosen Seo Jihyeok as the first priority. Considering the guilt Seo Jihyeok had shown toward Tamaki during our conversations on the way here, he judged that Seo Jihyeok was allowed to be the first to leave with the opportunity Tamaki had given.
Of course, I hadn’t spoken with every single person in this escape pod port, so I don’t really know how each of them feels about the current situation. If Tamaki asked why Seo Jihyeok specifically had to survive and leave, I had prepared an answer to defend him. However, even after I called Seo Jihyeok’s name and after he left, Tamaki did not ask me for the reason.
I felt a little relieved inside. There had been a lot of personal reasons behind choosing Seo Jihyeok. Sometimes, in my eyes, Seo Jihyeok still looked like the injured man who had been shot in the knee. Ever since he had been groaning from his injured leg, I had wanted to get Seo Jihyeok out of this undersea base.
Even sending him away now on an escape pod felt far too late. I’m never taking you, while you’re hurt, up that insanely huge number of stairs again. You probably don’t want to climb them either, right?
So hurry up and get out while your body is still intact, so that something like that never repeats itself forever. You bastard. We have no idea what might happen this time either.
…To be honest, I also strongly wanted to wander around the undersea base with Seo Jihyeok, asking him every single thing I was curious about and satisfying my curiosity. Seo Jihyeok is an excellent guide, after all.
But most of the people who went up to Daehan Island were women or children. If he escapes this time, Seo Jihyeok no longer has to search for Kang Sujeong and Lee Jihyeon, who no longer exist in this undersea base, collecting clues that aren’t there and wandering around in desperation. Rather than staying under the sea while secretly fretting over finding people, it would be better for both Kang Sujeong and Lee Jihyeon, and for Seo Jihyeok personally, if he helped the people of Daehan Island with a peaceful heart. I sent him first in order to throw away at least a little of my own greed.
By escaping now in good health, I hope Seo Jihyeok has broken, to some extent, that unpleasant and unsettling ghost story he told me. …No matter how I think about it, I shouldn’t have listened.
Normally, I would have called Kim Jaehee, Baek Aeyeong, or Takahashi first, but after hearing that terrifying, madness-filled story, I couldn’t think of anything except that I had to get Seo Jihyeok out of this undersea base and send him away as quickly as possible.
Seeing him calmly pass by even though Michelle, whose corpse was beside him, had been someone he’d drunk with, made it impossible for me to let him stay here even a little longer. That is not the kind of courage or mental fortitude someone in their twenties should have. If it had been my younger sibling, they would have been sobbing and making a scene.
Shin Haeryang silently watched Seo Jihyeok leave, then asked me,
“I did send him off quickly because I couldn’t let my team member miss the chance to board an escape pod, but is there a separate reason you chose Jihyeok?”
There are far too many reasons. I filtered out only the things that had happened in this round and said,
“Jihyeok told me a ghost story on the way here about a painting from the past.”
“Was it the story about the portrait hanging in the abandoned house where he went to sleep outdoors? Or the story about getting caught drinking at the hospital?”
“The latter.”
I’m too scared to even ask what the former is. Sleeping outdoors? Why did he sleep outside when there were perfectly good houses? Why had a guy who was only in his twenties lived such a turbulent life? I asked Shin Haeryang carefully,
“Does the curse of that painting actually exist?”
“…As far as I know, it was a simple accident.”
Shin Haeryang answered briefly. Right. I won’t ask these engineer bastards. I explained the reason I had let Seo Jihyeok escape simply.
“I felt uneasy after hearing that story, so I sent him off quickly.”
“Then I’ll tell you one scary story each for the remaining members of my team. Would you choose the other three as well?”
Jeong Sanghyeon, Baek Aeyeong, and Kim Jaehee were left. If it meant he could get his team members onto escape pods, he looked like he would make up three scary stories if he had to. Shin Haeryang asked me that in a tone utterly devoid of humor, which flustered me.
“Uh, uh? No. That’s all right.”
I looked around the inside of the escape pod port once more, then asked Tamaki,
“May I call the name of someone from Engineer Team Na?”
If Tamaki said no, there was nothing I could do. Tamaki looked at Sato, Takahashi, and Yamashita, then nodded at me. Sato said something to me, but no one around translated it for me.
“Then I’ll choose Takahashi.”
Takahashi stared at me blankly. He looked as if he had absolutely no idea why I had called his name. Everyone was looking at Takahashi.
When Takahashi’s eyes met mine, he bowed his upper body deeply toward me. Then he straightened. After that, he covered his mouth with both hands and slowly began walking toward the escape pod. Watching Takahashi walk made me realize just how long Seo Jihyeok’s stride was. And how much he had been bouncing as he went.
When Takahashi passed beside Ichita’s corpse, his gait was so unsteady I wondered if he might fall from trembling so badly. And when he passed in front of Tamaki, he trembled like an aspen leaf and lowered his head deeply. It almost looked as if he was walking while staring only at the floor.
Takahashi barely reached the escape pod boarding area and pressed the button two, three times with shaking hands. Once the escape pod wrapped around Takahashi and launched, everyone in the escape pod port turned to look at me again.
After looking at the people one by one, I turned toward Kim Jaehee and Baek Aeyeong, and my eyes met both of theirs in turn. Kim Jaehee looked at me and shook her head. Does that mean she doesn’t want to leave?