The Ruined Family Vacation (2)
Had the immediate crisis been put out?
He scanned their surroundings. Once it seemed no further danger remained, the exhaustion that had been strangling every nerve in his body crashed over him all at once.
"Haa... haa... ha... ah, fuck... What the hell is this bullshit situation all of a sudden..."
Hyunwoo exhaled in ragged gasps and collapsed onto the cold concrete floor. His finger joints trembled as if he had just finished hundreds of pull-ups—the aftermath of something being ruthlessly wrung out from deep in his chest. In his mind, the alien concept of Binding that had surfaced moments earlier still flickered hazily.
"Kang Hyunwoo! Are you okay?!"
His older sister Hyunjin was the first to snap back to her senses and worry about him. With a face stained by tears and dirt, she staggered over, seized his shoulders, and dropped to her knees. The trembling in Hyunjin's hands transferred fully through to Hyunwoo's shoulders.
"Snap out of it, Kang Hyunwoo! Your body... you're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
"Ha... I'm fine, Noona... Just a bit drained of energy..."
Hyunwoo clung to consciousness and managed a reply. He had bitten down so hard that a metallic taste filled his mouth, yet the coppery tang only made him feel more vividly alive.
Hyunjin hurriedly checked his limbs and face, then slapped her own cheek with a sharp crack of her palm. A desperate measure to hold herself together—her eyes sharpened at once.
"Get a grip. Kang Hyunjin, pull yourself together..."
Even as a child, when their parents had died, this same older sister had slapped her own cheeks just like that and swallowed her tears in front of her little siblings. If the eldest collapsed, what would the younger ones have left to lean on? Hyunjin clenched her teeth, shoved down the fear of the unknown and every bleak thought about their situation, and forced herself to her feet.
"Hyunwoo, stay still... Don't push yourself."
Soyul hurried over next. Her face was deathly pale, her hands shaking. She carefully lifted Hyunwoo's upper body and settled him at an angle against her lap, cradling him. The warmth of her full, soft skin supported his back and head.
Ah... so warm... I just want to fall asleep right here in Soyul Noona's arms...
"Hyunwoo, you did well. Thank you for catching Noona, okay?"
Soyul pulled a handkerchief from the small pocket at the back of her pants and carefully wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and the smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. A faint apricot scent brushed his nose.
"Breathe slowly. Easy now..."
With trembling fingers she laid a hand over his chest. It was the practiced, almost automatic touch of a nurse, stroking in a rhythm meant to steady his breathing.
In that moment Hyunwoo felt something strange. From the place where Soyul's palm rested against his chest, a gentle, quiet warmth began to seep through his entire body. It was as if the nerves that had been screaming on the edge of snapping and the muscles burned raw with fatigue were being rinsed clean by warm water.
What is this...?
Hyunwoo closed his eyes. The pain eased rapidly with every pass of her hand. Soyul herself seemed completely unaware of what she was doing—she simply stared at his face with worried eyes, biting her lip. Yet thanks to that unknown power of hers, Hyunwoo was able to settle his ragged breathing and recover his strength far more quickly.
"Kang Hyuna! Yun Iseo! Stop sitting there in a daze and get up already!"
Hyunjin's thunderous shout rang through the now-quiet air. Hyuna and Iseo, who had been clinging to each other and trembling, flinched and lifted their heads.
"There's no time for crying! We're not dead yet!"
Even as she staggered, Hyunjin swept a sharp gaze around the pension terrace. Half the building had already crumbled away into the void from the impact of the fall, yet the concrete floor and terrace still held their shape firmly.
"Iseo, you're strong, right? Gather all those grill scraps and broken wooden boards over here!"
"Y-Yes!"
"Noona... don't make Iseo do that... I'll handle it in a bit..."
"No! Oppa, you rest! I can do it..."
Iseo wiped her tears and answered stoutly. Without hesitation she walked over, lightly hoisted the still-hot charcoal grill Hyunwoo had kicked earlier, and set it down on the unbroken concrete.
"Hyuna, you clean this place up! We need to scrape together every scrap of food and anything useful."
"Okay, Unnie..."
Hyuna began quickly gathering the drinks, canned beer, paper cups, and camping gear scattered across the floor. Hyunjin herself stepped into the half-collapsed, creaking pension.
"This is a real stroke of luck..."
She opened a large icebox that had survived intact and let out a long breath. The ice inside had melted somewhat, but the thick pork neck and sausages they hadn't finished grilling, the lettuce, the ssamjang, and the two bottles of bokbunja wine Hyuna had bought were all still perfectly fine. Packing so much food for a rare family vacation meant to last a full week had been pure fortune. Maybe the situation wasn't quite as hopeless as it seemed, Hyunjin told herself, trying to stay steady.
They also recovered two portable burners and three canisters of butane gas from a corner of the pension, four folding camping chairs from the terrace, plus the tent and blankets they had set out for the valley. The bottled water, kimchi, rice, and instant noodles left in the refrigerator had survived as well.
With just this we can eat for a week... Will a week be enough? Will rescue even come here?
No... Kang Hyunjin, we can survive. Don't think negative thoughts...
Constantly steadying herself, Hyunjin headed back outside to where the others waited.
"The upper floors and the rooms are all wrecked. Luckily our bags were near the terrace so they made it... The problem is all the bedding got blown away."
Hyunjin arranged the salvaged supplies neatly and muttered with a bitter edge. Hyunwoo, who had recovered somewhat, rose with Soyul's support.
"Hyunwoo, you still shouldn't move!"
"I'm fine, Noona. I can breathe properly now."
He walked to the edge of the terrace—the boundary where whatever he had manifested still wrapped the concrete floor. Beyond the smoothly glowing blue threads that encircled the concrete, murky purple fog swirled. Hyunwoo swallowed hard and carefully stretched a hand out into the empty air past the blue threads.
Zzzt!
"Ugh!"
The instant his fingertips crossed the line, the same searing pain as before—like his skin melting—scorched his fingers. He yanked his hand back on reflex.
"Are you insane?! Why would you stick your hand out there!"
Hyunjin, who had been watching from behind, struck him hard across the back in pure alarm.
"Ow! That hurts! I was just checking..."
Hyunwoo rubbed his fingertips and stared at the reddened skin.
"It's confirmed. Only the inside of this concrete floor I did something to is safe. Step outside it and your body melts."
"So... we can't go past this line...? Not that there's anywhere to go but a cliff anyway..."
Soyul asked in a trembling voice.
"Yeah. These threads are like a fence protecting us."
The group unfolded the camping chairs in the middle of the concrete floor and sat in a circle. Hyunjin insisted she was fine and simply sat on the ground.
"Unnie... please sit here..."
Iseo, reading the mood, offered her seat, but Hyunjin refused again and again, looking as if she were deep in thought.
Noona's smart, so she's probably figuring out what we should do next...
Only then did the group slowly take in their surroundings. No mountains, no clear sky, no valley—nothing familiar remained. Only the purple fog filling every direction, and far-off fragments of land drifting sparsely through the mist.
"I'm not actually dreaming, right...?"
Hyuna hugged her knees and murmured quietly.
"If it were a dream I'd have woken up already. My back still stings."
Hyunwoo answered with a short laugh, earning a glare from Hyunjin.
"You can still joke at a time like this?"
"But Unnie, Oppa... we're not dead."
Iseo smiled shyly through the sweat and dirt on her face and scooted right up beside Hyunwoo.
"Hyunwoo Oppa caught us with those blue threads, right? I really thought I was going to die earlier... I was so scared..."
"Well... I still don't really know how I did it."
Soyul handed him a bottle of ice water with a gentle smile.
"Drink some water first. You sweated a lot, Hyunwoo."
"We never even finished eating. If I'd known this was coming I would've put the phone down and stuffed my face properly... Ah, right! My phone!"
Hyuna hurriedly pulled out her phone and checked the top of the screen. As expected—no service.
"Tch, figured as much..."
"What were you hoping for? Obviously there's no cell tower out here."
"Shut up, Oppa! There could be!"
"Hyuna! Don't talk to Hyunwoo like that."
"Ah... okay, Unnie..."
Watching their absurd bickering, Hyunwoo let out a quiet snort of laughter, took a sip of the ice water, and stared steadily past the fog. Far away, countless chunks of land just like the one they stood on drifted through the darkness.
"Hyuna, light the burner. Let's finish eating first. It's not like there's anything else we can do right now..."
"Oh, okay!"
"Yeah... even if the world turns upside down, you've still got to eat."
Were their nerves simply that thick, or were they just that hungry? In a situation where most ordinary people wouldn't even be able to form words, let alone think about food, they calmly decided on the next thing to do.
And so the five of them began preparing their second meal atop the tiny remnant of a pension floating in the void—without knowing what consequences that decision might bring...
