Now Seo Ji-hyeok seemed to have shifted his interest from the two women climbing the stairs ahead like fairies with lights to the sweating men distributing their weight with their arms and shoulders. But the problem was that Seo Ji-hyeok only had two people he could talk to, and he seemed to find me more comfortable than Shin Hae-ryang, who walked without a word, since I at least answered properly. Well, there are no subordinates who find their superiors comfortable. Seo Ji-hyeok asked me.
“So you have a younger brother, Teacher?”
I flinched because I knew where this information had come from, but it wasn’t something I particularly needed to hide, so I answered.
“Yes. He’s in college now.”
“I have one younger sister and one younger brother. One is in college and one is in high school, but neither of them listens to a word I say.”
“That’s how younger siblings are. What about you, Shin Hae-ryang?”
“······I have one above me.”
“An older brother?”
“An older sister.”
I tried to imagine the older sister from a family of beautiful men and women who had produced Shin Hae-ryang’s face, then, unable to contain my curiosity, asked Shin Hae-ryang honestly.
“Is your sister married, by any chance?”
I heard Seo Ji-hyeok laughing beside my ear. Hahahahaha! Everyone’s the same.
“I asked the team leader the same thing a long time ago.”
Shin Hae-ryang didn’t say anything like, “Why are you asking about my sister’s marriage?” He just spoke as if he was thoroughly fed up from being asked so many times.
“She’s already married and has two kids.”
“Oh. I see. When we get out of here later, please show me photos of your nephews and nieces and brag about how cute they are.”
“Team Leader, do you have photos of your nephews and nieces?”
“No idea.”
For a few seconds, only the sound of climbing the stairs in the darkness was heard. Seo Ji-hyeok spoke after a pause.
“Hey... that bastard earlier rattled off our personal information too. He said Team Leader Shin and I aren’t recruitment targets. Said we were eliminated. Or whatever.”
“I see.”
“Earlier, did anything come to mind regarding religion?”
The Infinite Church that follows the immortal shark. Nothing came to mind. I don’t even eat shark meat.
“······My family is free when it comes to religion. My mother is Buddhist, but she only hangs a lantern on Buddha’s Birthday once a year. I don’t have a religion. My younger brother is the same.”
Seo Ji-hyeok repeated “I see” for a while, then asked.
“Do you remember the skull in front of the dentist’s office?”
“The shark skull?”
“I suddenly wondered if that might be a Greenland shark skull.”
As soon as I heard that, I exclaimed, “Ah!” I had completely forgotten about it.
“The sign said it was a great white shark skull, but that’s possible I suppose. It’s not like I have the ability to tell anyway.”
“······What’s a great white shark skull?”
Shin Hae-ryang had never visited the dentist’s office. Seo Ji-hyeok and I began to explain. In front of Deep Blue Dental there is a huge shark skull, and it’s labeled as a great white shark. But seeing what that cult has been up to, wouldn’t that probably be a Greenland shark?
“If you just leave a shark skull there, who can tell what kind of shark it is?”
Seo Ji-hyeok shook his head vigorously at my question.
“The researchers here are freaks who study whether deep-sea jellyfish use their right leg or left leg better, what they eat, and when they shit. But there must be people who can tell the difference just by looking at a shark skull, right? Geum-i!”
When Seo Ji-hyeok threw the freak’s name into the darkness, the darkness screamed back.
“You startled me!”
“Sorry. Hey... let me ask you something. Can a Greenland shark skull be mistaken for a great white shark skull? If a marine biologist passed by the dentist’s office in their right mind and saw it, would they think, ‘This is a Greenland shark, so why is it labeled as a great white shark?’ Like that.”
“Of course, if you’re interested in sharks, you’d know. They look different! They’re as different as horses and cows.”
That probably looks different only to marine biologists’ eyes. If someone gave me horse and cow bones right now and asked me to tell them apart, I doubt I could get it right in one try. I’m not an osteologist. Even if they brought me a cat skull and a dog skull and asked me to distinguish them, I probably couldn’t.
“Then what was that shark skull in front of the dentist’s office where I work? It said it was a great white shark.”
From the darkness, an answer flew back.
“It’s obviously a great white shark. You saw how wide its mouth was open. A Greenland shark should have a narrower mouth.”
Ooh! I let out a sigh of relief.
“That’s a relief. I had put up photos of sharks with parasites in their eyes on the wall, but I took them all down because they felt unpleasant. Hearing that at least puts my mind at ease.”
“Whew... that’s a relief.”
Relieved that the cult’s evil hand hadn’t reached the dentist’s office, Seo Ji-hyeok patted my shoulder. From afar, the sound of footsteps walking in the opposite direction on the stairs was heard. Baek Ae-young noticed Yu Geum-i descending and shone her flashlight around Yu Geum-i’s feet so she wouldn’t fall.
“There were parasites?”
Yu Geum-i pushed her sweat-soaked hair back from her forehead and asked. Bathed in the flashlight beam from well above us thanks to Baek Ae-young, Yu Geum-i looked as if she wore the halo around Jesus’ head or the ushnisha of Shakyamuni Buddha.
“Yes. ...Why?”
“Greenland sharks can’t see in front of them. They’re blind. Parasites eat Greenland sharks’ eye tissue and blind them. Instead, the parasites’ bodies emit light, and when prey approaches that light, the Greenland shark catches and eats them. Those guys chose meals in exchange for sacrificing their eyeballs.”
Sharks are crazy bastards too, huh?
“······What about great white sharks? Don’t they have parasites?”
“Of course, great whites are overflowing with parasites too. But with their personality, would they put up with someone gnawing on their eyeballs?!”
Yu Geum-i growled like a great white shark. Come to think of it, the shark snouts in the photos on the wall didn’t seem as big as the great white shark snout that had been outside. Shin Hae-ryang’s voice came from the darkness.
“During the past five days, has anyone shown you kindness without expecting anything in return, or approached you to build connections with specific people?”
As soon as I heard Shin Hae-ryang’s question, threads thrown all at once began to tangle in my head. No, I’m a new recruit here. If someone shows me kindness or goodwill, isn’t it natural for me to return it in order to join a new community? That’s how human beings live.
But I was already listing names in my head. First, Kang Su-jeong and Elliot. Yu Geum-i, and Wang Wei from the next room who had watched me unpack my luggage with a big grin? Zi Xuan and Lily. And who else? Emily the barista who had welcomed me with a free cup of coffee when I first arrived? If we count just drinking coffee together, Baek Ae-young too? Or should I include everyone I treated?
While recalling all sorts of people, I missed my footing on the stairs, and my misstep nearly caused both Seo Ji-hyeok and Shin Hae-ryang to fall, snapping me back to reality. To think I had to suspect everyone I had met in the light in this place where I had to climb stairs in darkness with only a single point of light. I barely managed to speak.
“······I don’t know.”
It felt like my ankle was caught in a trap ready to sever it. I felt repeated urges to vomit up the candy, chocolate bars, and water in my stomach. Whether it was because climbing the stairs was difficult or because of the slowly creeping sense of disgust, I couldn’t tell. Clenching my teeth, I reviewed the past five days.
Was someone among them a cult member who had approached me with the intention of pulling me into their religion? There was one person who could most easily dig up other people’s weaknesses. I marked that person as a priority suspect and placed everyone else on the suspect list as well.
An investigation had begun in my mind into all the suspicious individuals who had shown me even the slightest kindness. Come to think of it, could I even trust the people here right now?
Seo Ji-hyeok was the one who strongly insisted on taking the elevator that the Infinite Church bastards were guarding. Baek Ae-young was on Shin Hae-ryang’s side, hiding her opinions as much as possible, but she could kill me in an instant if things went wrong. Yu Geum-i was the first person to visit the dentist’s office. Shin Hae-ryang kept avoiding using the elevator. He directly opposed Jennifer’s opinion and Seo Ji-hyeok’s opinion to use the central elevator. Couldn’t he have acted that way because he already knew where the Infinite Church people were?
Could the cult members be waiting for me at the end of these stairs? With each flight of stairs climbed came another suspicion, and by the time I rested for the second time, I was already suspecting everyone I had met at the underwater base. At this point, the cat moving up the stairs like a feather and the snake in the bag were the least suspicious.
I was even suspecting Henry, who had been sleeping in the Baekhodong dormitory, and Kim Ga-yeong, whom I had gone to rescue with my own hands. Then, my head aching, I lay down on the stairwell landing and gasped as I spoke to Shin Hae-ryang.
“Elliot Brown! Now that I think about it, he’s the most suspicious!”
I couldn’t bring myself to mention Kang Su-jeong—someone I had just met and a fellow team member—in front of Shin Hae-ryang, Seo Ji-hyeok, and Baek Ae-young. The sound of Shin Hae-ryang drinking water came from the darkness. Seo Ji-hyeok spoke while lying sprawled on the floor.
“That psychologist? To me, he looked more like another kind of fraud than a cult member.”
“A fraud?”
“Like... I don’t think he has a license, stuff like that. You know what I mean. I heard him giving counseling, and apparently my mental state was like being hospitalized with fractures all over my body.”
At that sound, Baek Ae-young giggled from afar.
“Wow... Mr. Elliot. That’s totally crazy. Accurate, though? But it wasn’t him for me. My counselor was Ivan Something-ski.”
“It wasn’t him for me either. Do researchers get separate psychological counseling?”
“Not for me either.”
At those words, I now placed Kang Su-jeong, the second person, as a suspect and began interrogating her in my mind. Why did you carry my suitcase for me? Why did you drink coffee with me? Was it because you believe in a cult? Ah, because of your kind heart? I see. I’m sorry. Please understand. Those cult bastards are all like that. They’re perfect for tearing people’s hearts apart. They’re like cancerous tumors that can’t sustain themselves without somehow extracting something from people. Those guys are crazy bastards after money. Or labor.
“Doon!”
“Gah!”
When I suddenly shouted in the darkness, Seo Ji-hyeok, who was closest, flinched and half-raised his upper body with a flutter. Shin Hae-ryang did the same, but realizing it was me shouting, he lay back down on the floor.