Yoon Ayoung (2)
Breakfast, after a short rest, was filled with conversation. One of the topics raised was the idea of temporarily thinning out the combat teams and focusing our strength on camp defense, in case a similar situation to yesterday's ever happened again. As part of that plan, only two people headed out for today's "farming" run: Kang San and Kim Eunbyeol.
The rest of us were busy repeating the same task over and over — hauling the bookshelves that overflowed the second floor down and arranging them in a zigzag pattern across the first-floor lobby. Seong Gaeul's idea: if the main entrance ever got breached, the maze would cut off the paths of zombies, which were hopeless at cornering.
It was a rather charming little defense strategy. Not that I'd call it a waste of time, either — for people who couldn't set foot outside, time was the one thing we had in surplus.
Seo Taesan and I were descending the stairs at that very moment, a bookshelf gripped between us on either side.
"Hoooh―"
Seo Taesan let out a short, concentrated breath. Apparently he hadn't washed after all that exercise yesterday, because a rank odor came radiating off him in waves.
Fuck— so becoming a superhuman had expanded my senses too, huh? Because now smells I never wanted to know about kept assaulting me without mercy.
Noticing my grimace, Seo Taesan spoke up.
"You look all wobbly, but you're putting out some real strength there, huh?"
"Well, I did train nothing but the most efficient muscles."
The hulking man flexed his arm once with a twitch.
"If something like that exists, I'd appreciate you sharing it with me too, hyung-ssi?"
"Nope. I'm keeping the good stuff all to myself."
"Muscles that move a bookshelf even when you're visibly slacking off…."
Across the shelf, Seo Taesan's eyes glinted. I answered with a sly grin.
"Here I thought we were doing some good old 'teamwork.' Turns out somebody was busy 'observing.'"
"Well, I believe the precise term you're looking for is 'suspicion.'"
Even in the middle of that thinly veiled battle of nerves, our footsteps never slowed, and we set the bookshelf down in the first-floor lobby.
Thud―
Watching the weight of it stir up a little cloud of dust, Seo Taesan picked the conversation back up.
"So what exactly are you playing at?"
"Playing at?"
"Why do you keep shielding Yoon Ayoung like that? Or was it no joke after all — love at first sight?"
"And what might our Mr. Taesan be so angry about, I wonder? That I saved Yoon Ayoung? Or…"
I let the sentence trail off deliberately, leaving a beat of silence. Seo Taesan and I stared at each other, each probing the other's depths.
"Or maybe… because it meant defying Seong Gaeul?"
Even at the light jab, his gaze didn't so much as flicker. He snorted.
"To Gaeul, there's only ever been Kang San, hyung-ssi."
"I know, I know. And honestly, I'm not exactly passionate about your little romance projects over there. So then — I take it Seo Taesan, as an individual, has decided Seong Gaeul's argument is the more correct one?"
Seo Taesan gave a small nod of affirmation. I watched him do it and asked, letting my doubt show.
"Then why — you said it back then, so what's the reason you're doing this to me now, of all times?"
"No idea why the conversation jumped like that, but what I asked was what kind of scheme you're hiding up your sleeve, hyung-ssi."
"Well, I'm not hiding anything, of course — but if you ask a schemer what he's scheming, do you honestly expect him to answer?"
"He won't. I know that."
Seo Taesan fixed me with a warning look.
"But once I've said my piece, I'll at least be watching my back from now on."
Ooh, shit.
So this was the presence of a hyung who'd been around the block a time or two.
Now I finally understood. Why Seo Taesan — plainly the library camp's single greatest fighter — was stuck hauling bookshelves like some errand boy. Why Kang San had no choice but to take the comparatively weaker Kim Eunbyeol out farming with him.
Seong Gaeul had been forced to keep Seo Taesan here, gritting her teeth through the bitterness of it. To keep watch on me.
I watched him start up the stairs, having said everything he came to say.
"Tired, are we? All that babysitting of the worthless leader?"
Seo Taesan turned, contorting his face at me. I kept talking before he could even open his mouth.
"Aw, come on, let's be honest with each other. They say you can badmouth the king where there's no king, so what's the harm? It's just… a little frustrating, that's all. Am I wrong? How do I put it… he's just too nice?"
"That's a funny thing to say to the man whose life that kindness saved, hyung-ssi."
"…Aha!"
That was it. The thing I'd always wondered about, watching Kang San and Seo Taesan together. Why had Seo Taesan appointed himself to stand behind Kang San?
So that's how it is.
You owed Kang San a massive debt. A debt of your life.
Climbing the stairs after him, I gave Seo Taesan's shoulder a pat.
"Our Taesan nearly died, huh. That must've been so scary."
At my coddling expression, his face flushed red as if he'd been insulted — and I cast Lack Identification on him.
A safe place to belong. A tomorrow with no fear of death.
Death is an abstraction. We all know it's the most terrifying thing there is, and yet — truthfully — it never quite lands. It doesn't reach us. But the people who have walked to death's door and come back learn something. They learn: maybe I really could die. And that this — this — is a fear that nothing else in the world can compare to.
Grrrrk―
The strength pouring out of my grip bore down on Seo Taesan.
"Khh— kuuek―"
Unable to draw on a single ounce of his trained strength, Seo Taesan's knees began, slowly, to fold. I leaned my face in close to that expression brimming with pain and humiliation.
"Just how scared were you?"
Back then, and now. Once a person has been exposed to the terror of death, even the smallest threat triggers the trauma all over again. Seo Taesan's pupils shook violently. He tried, somehow, to rise back up — but of course, no strength of his could beat a superhuman's.
Rage collapsed into shock, shock into resignation. Resignation into fear. Every raw fragment of that storm of emotion played across his face. The skin that had been red enough to burst gradually drained pale, and I just kept pressing down on his shoulders, smiling — smiling until Seo Taesan stared back at me with a face stripped of every last drop of blood.
When I was satisfied with the sight, I let go and flashed him a bright, sunny grin.
"I'm the hyung here, you know. A younger punk going around calling me hyung-ssi this, hyung-ssi that, acting all cocky — that makes his hyung mad, doesn't it? Or doesn't it?"
"……."
"Why no answer?"
I tapped his cheek lightly in front of the kneeling man, and his whole body shuddered. Was he angry? Or was he afraid? Either way, it made no difference to me.
"Well? You're not going to go scurrying off to anyone like some tattling little girl just because your senior did a bit of middle-school-style, peppy rank-sorting… right?"
"……."
"Our little brother is being so quiet. His hyung's about to get a little upset, you know?"
"…No. I won't."
"Fuck, why are your answers so short? Were we ever even close?"
"…No, sir."
"There we go, there we go. Our Taesan is such a good boy."
When I thumped his shoulder with a smiling face, Seo Taesan flinched and dropped his head.
"You can talk. If you really want to die, that is."
"……."
"Go on. Your shoulder must hurt."
Seo Taesan, who had been biting down on his lip, fled up the stairs.
Under any other circumstances, our positions would have been the exact reverse. There would have been a me who had to listen to his warning and let him go. And when I failed to comply, the same physical punishment I'd just dished out would have come down on my head instead.
But now, without even invoking my main skill — telekinesis — I could casually knead a man of his bulk like dough.
Truly, human beings were inferior to the Awakened. The thought crossed my mind that maybe the things I'd told Yoon Ayoung, like brainwashing, weren't fabrications at all — maybe they were a truth engraved deep in my own heart.
Inferior humans cannot survive in a world like this without someone's help.
"Finished already? Where's Taesan?"
"He said he pushed himself carrying the bookshelf, so he's resting for a bit?"
"…Taesan did?"
"Well, even monkeys fall out of trees eventually, right?"
I ignored the suspicion dripping from Seong Gaeul's eyes and took a seat. The third-floor table was buried under a mountain of printed pages. Printed maps and survival tips, instructions for improvising simple weapons and administering emergency care — page after page crammed with the things that had become most precious in this world.
Looks like they printed everything they could while the printers still worked, huh?
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Seong Gaeul's fingers refusing to release one particular sheet: a map of Incheon City, scribbled over and marked up in blue and red.
"Mind if I ask what that is?"
"No. Please go away."
As if to make sure I noticed her brushing me off, she kept her eyes glued to the map. Her reaction was even more naked than Seo Taesan's had been, but staring at that haughty face of hers, all I could do was laugh.
Well, fair enough, I suppose.
Talking almost to myself, I addressed her.
"Hmm… so the blue ones are good defensive positions, and the red ones are maybe places where you can scrounge up food?"
"……."
"There's some genuinely important information here, though. Should I tell her? Shouldn't I? Decisions, decisions."
"…Haah."
With Seong Gaeul's long sigh, those clear eyes of hers finally turned to me.
"What is it?"
"Now it's turned into me begging you to listen. Ah… and now I've kind of lost the urge to share."
"Then don't."
She turned her head away again, prim and petulant, and I waved a hand dismissively.
"Whoa there, someone's impatient. Gaeul-ssi, you're the one who said it — the library was peaceful, right up until I showed up."
Looking at that face of hers, which somehow never got old no matter how many times I saw it, I kept going. My finger pointed at the library itself.
"This place is famous for its foot traffic, isn't it? So why were there no zombies?"
"…I'd assume they had other business."
It sounded like a stupid answer, but there was bone hidden in the meat of it. My eyes gleamed. She couldn't be certain yet, but she had her suspicions. I could tell.
"Loud noises — the kind that hit zombies like a violent stimulus. The deafening blasts and gunfire that once shook all of Incheon City. And now, the silence where all those sounds used to be."
It all converged on a single conclusion. Seong Gaeul's reluctant answer drifted over.
"…The shelter must have collapsed."
"Bingo!"
I remembered the annihilation of the army that had been holding back the zombie wave. It should have been far easier to hold the line bunched together — so why had they kept darting out, standing exposed against the horde? As if they were buying time. I remembered the commander's screams not to spare a single bullet, the whole scene drowning in the roar of rifles firing nonstop.
"And here's one more question! The zombies from the collapsed shelter — where do you think they're headed now?"
"…Do you know?"
"Nope, not a clue!"
"……Excuse me?"
I smiled at the look of sheer stupidity spreading across her face.
"I'd love it if they just sat tight right where they are, but honestly…"
I could have bet everything I had on the answer being no.