I spoke as I waited for the people swimming toward the beach.
“I’ve prayed plenty of times for the world to end, but it doesn’t go down that easily. Since the world isn’t going to end anyway, let’s live while making it a little more decent, bit by bit.”
I poured another handful of sand onto Kim Jae-hui’s head, then walked toward the shore. Gang Su-jeong was the first to break through the waves and come out of the seawater. Then, as she slowly walked up the beach, she waved in our direction. Perhaps because she had just swum through the sea, she was gasping for breath. Watching Gang Su-jeong approach, I smiled in welcome and called out to her.
“It’s been a while. Su-jeong.”
“Muhyeon! It’s nice seeing you on the beach. You got out even earlier than I did, and I took an escape craft?”
Gang Su-jeong asked back in a puzzled tone, then noticed my wrapped-up left hand and spoke as if she felt sorry for me.
“Oh dear. Did you hurt your left hand?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been to a hospital?”
“I’m planning to go later.”
After exchanging a few words of greeting with me, Gang Su-jeong spoke to Kim Jae-hui, who was sprawled out flat on the beach. Even though his own team’s deputy leader had swum powerfully from the open sea all the way to the beach like a dolphin, Kim Jae-hui did not even look at her.
“Jae-hui. How did you survive? We heard you went out on a broken escape craft, so we were sure you were dead. Why do you look so drained? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“……I’m already dead. If the mind is dead and only the body survived, can you really call that being alive? I don’t want to do anything. I just want to become a squid.”
After observing her broken teammate for a few seconds, Gang Su-jeong looked at me and asked.
“Did Jae-hui maybe pick up and eat something strange? He’s even weirder than usual.”
“Hahaha. I’m not sure either.”
He was in a state where he had picked up and swallowed some strange religion and needed to spit it back out, though. I had a feeling that from now on, “I’m not sure” would become my standard greeting to everyone I met.
Listening to what Gang Su-jeong said, it seemed she only remembered the events that had happened in her own round. Then I was probably the only one who had memories of every round. If we gathered all the survivors’ eyewitness accounts and tried to reconstruct what had happened, it felt like it would turn into a complete mess. I was already starting to worry.
“What happened to the people who left on the escape craft with you, Su-jeong?”
“Ji-hyeon and the others are floating on the escape craft right now. You probably can’t see them well from here. We couldn’t tell whether Daehando was safe either, so I came alone, and the rest decided to stay on the escape craft.”
Gang Su-jeong pointed at several escape craft floating far away. She named the people floating around her escape craft, like I Ji-hyeon, Yu Geum-i, and Henry. As I listened to the survivors’ names, I felt deep relief in my heart.
“Do you happen to know where our team leader, Sin Hae-ryang, is?”
The moment I heard Gang Su-jeong’s question, I was flustered. The last Sin Hae-ryang I remembered had been scuba diving near the coast, protecting the injured from sharks. When I tried to explain that to Gang Su-jeong, I found myself at a loss for words.
“Uh…… well…… so……”
Did Sin Hae-ryang get away safely? I imagined a shark attacking Sin Hae-ryang’s side, and Sin Hae-ryang punching that shark in the nose. ……He’d probably fare much better than me. Please, let him bring Rico out of the water safely. I couldn’t be certain whether he was alive.
“……I’m not sure. He’s probably alive, isn’t he?”
“Do you remember our team leader talking nonsense to me about driving a boat?”
“Uh. Yes.”
In truth, I had completely forgotten until Gang Su-jeong mentioned it. He had said there was a boat and a satellite phone, hadn’t he? I did remember him telling Gang Su-jeong to drive the boat.
“We have to cross Daehando to get there, and it’s too far to swim from the escape craft. So I’m going to walk. If Team Leader Sin escaped safely, then I won’t have to drive the boat, right? Surely I won’t really have to drive it, will I? Do you know how to drive a boat, Muhyeon?”
“I don’t know how either.”
Gang Su-jeong seemed overwhelmed just by the thought that she might have to drive a boat, pick up the people on the escape craft, and escape Daehando. Crushed under a mountain of worry, Gang Su-jeong asked the only member of her team on the beach.
“Jae-hui. Do you maybe know how to drive a boat?”
“Why must people live? Why must boats live?”
“……Never mind. Forget it.”
Gang Su-jeong kicked sand at Kim Jae-hui. But to me, she asked very politely.
“Do you happen to know what happened to Aeyeong from our team?”
“Aeyeong escaped with me. We came to Daehando and split up partway, but she should be wandering around somewhere on the island.”
“Really? Jae-hui. Do you happen to know what happened to Sang-hyeon? In my memory, he went out on an escape craft around the same time as you.”
“I do not think, therefore I do not exist.”
“Are you not going to pull yourself together?”
Kim Jae-hui was hit twice on the back by Gang Su-jeong. She struck him with her palm, and smack! smack! rang out. It sounded like his internal organs were rupturing. As if he did not want to be hit anymore, Kim Jae-hui staggered to his feet and moved away, putting distance between himself and the deputy leader.
Far off, Seo Ji-hyeok arrived on the beach, but he did not come straight toward us. He bounced as he ran, waved his hand widely once, then went toward the end of the beach. Gang Su-jeong frowned, staring at the retreating figure, then asked.
“Is that Ji-hyeok? He’s far away, so I can’t see well.”
“Yes. That’s him.”
“Then I don’t know why he’s going over there instead of coming here.”
“Right.”
Most of the people who had escaped on escape craft stayed on the craft as they were. Only a few people confident in their swimming came to Daehando. As soon as Seo Ji-hyeok swam to Daehando, he made one wide circuit around the beach to check for danger, then came toward us. Seo Ji-hyeok was walking leisurely from far away with a bright smile on his face.
“You’re safe!”
“I’m glad you escaped safely.”
I patted Seo Ji-hyeok’s arm as he approached. Those of us gathered there briefly shared the joy of survival. Seo Ji-hyeok saw my hand and asked whether I was injured. When I said that a believer of the Muhan Church had cut off my fingers and taken them away, I could feel everyone around me recoil in shock.
After quickly exchanging information about survivors and injuries, Seo Ji-hyeok spoke to Gang Su-jeong, looking quite troubled.
“Well…… there’s a problem with Sang-hyeon. First, since I don’t know where our damn team leader went, I’m reporting to you, Deputy Leader. ……Ah. Seriously. He’s only gone when we actually need him.”
“Really? What’s the problem?”
“They said Sang-hyeon was messing around on the escape craft and fell into the sea, but we couldn’t find him.”
The moment she heard Seo Ji-hyeok’s lowered voice, Gang Su-jeong’s expression changed drastically. It seemed she had thought it was nothing serious, then was startled.
“What do you mean? Sang-hyeon fell from the escape craft into the seawater?”
What? Seo Ji-hyeok let out about three sighs, violently shook his leg, and looked up at the sky a couple of times. Then, so that Emma, who looked the youngest, would not hear, he spoke in a whisper.
“Takahashi’s escape craft was right next to Sang-hyeon’s escape craft.”
“Uh-huh. Takahashi Yurie? And? What does she have to do with Sang-hyeon falling into the water?”
Seo Ji-hyeok frowned, then used his left hand to represent the escape craft and his right hand to represent Jeong Sang-hyeon as he explained.
“I don’t know if Sang-hyeon suddenly lost his mind or what…… but while he was trying to climb over to Takahashi’s escape craft next to him, he slipped, slammed his face hard into the body of the escape craft, and slid down into the water.”
Seo Ji-hyeok’s right hand kept descending. Gang Su-jeong was horrified and lowered her voice as much as she could.
“……So? What happened? He fell in like that and you couldn’t find him?”
“We only recovered a few teeth that were embedded in the body of the escape craft.”
Seo Ji-hyeok seemed to have put the teeth and bits of flesh he had found into his clothes pocket and tried to show them. I stepped closer to look, but Gang Su-jeong shook her head hard, saying she did not want to see. Seo Ji-hyeok took his hand away from his pocket and said,
“Mark, who was next to them, apparently witnessed the whole thing from start to finish. That bastard Mark told me that the idiot from your team had fallen into the water. Their escape craft and mine were a bit far apart, so it took some time to swim over. I dove around Sang-hyeon’s escape craft and looked for him, but I couldn’t find him.”
Then he was dead……? Even as I overheard the story beside them, it did not feel real. Seo Ji-hyeok closed his mouth, and Gang Su-jeong, who had received the report, was silent as well. The sound of the waves was unusually loud. After the sea breeze passed by several times, Seo Ji-hyeok scratched the back of his head and said,
“I think the guys who watched it happen from beside him kept quiet, then told me late. Bart, who was another witness, didn’t say a word either. Mark was going on about how he was telling me ten minutes after Sang-hyeon fell in, saying, ‘Aren’t you grateful?’ and crap like that. What…… should we do about this?”
After hearing Seo Ji-hyeok’s report, Gang Su-jeong looked as if she had aged ten years. As the deputy leader of Engineer Team Ga, and the person who had to manage the team members in place of the missing team leader, Gang Su-jeong rubbed the corners of her eyes with a weary voice and said,
“……What do we do? Ah. This is driving me insane. Ah. What do we do!”
Having heard at work that one of her team members had died, Gang Su-jeong suddenly groaned as if a headache had struck her. Kim Jae-hui, who had been listening quietly, looked at the sea and grinned before saying one thing.
“That’s the most hopeful news I’ve heard lately. I guess the sea even accepts guys like Sang-hyeon. Even cults reject him.”
“Jae-hui. If you don’t have the confidence to say that in front of Sang-hyeon’s parents, keep quiet before I punch you. I took out my contacts, so I can’t see a thing.”
They said you were not supposed to wear contacts or glasses when boarding an escape craft, so Gang Su-jeong must have normally worn contacts because her eyesight was bad. How did she box if she had poor eyesight? Did she just swing her fists when she couldn’t see?
He had been given and allowed to ride out on an escape craft more precious than any jewel in the undersea base, so what was this nonsense after surfacing? Wasn’t what mattered for survival your usual conduct, not whether you had an escape craft? I quietly asked Seo Ji-hyeok,
“How is Takahashi? Is she all right?”
At my question, Gang Su-jeong started and hurriedly looked at Seo Ji-hyeok as she asked.
“Right. Yes! Is Takahashi okay? Did she maybe get hurt because of Sang-hyeon?”
“She seemed fine. She said she was relieved because Sang-hyeon didn’t come back up after falling into the water.”
Gang Su-jeong looked up at the sky and let out deep sighs.
“Aeyeong and our team leader had better be okay. I’m going to lose my mind.”
Seo Ji-hyeok patted Gang Su-jeong on the shoulder and said,
“Aeyeong is hiding over there in the corner, armed. She’s planning to snipe anyone armed who comes near. I solved one problem for you.”
“Thanks so much. My team members are moving me to tears.”