Chapter 63
Chapter 63
At first, I thought it was just a button, something hard and bumpy that caught on my fingertip. But when I picked it up and held it close to my eyes, it was a flashy artificial nail.
“What is this?!”
Jae-gyu, who was pulling out of the station parking lot and onto the road, glanced at it when Bom spoke, and his lower lip twitched.
“...Why is that trash there?”
Jae-gyu took it from Bom's hand and quickly shoved it into the tall trash can mounted in the cup holder.
Bom immediately noticed the awkwardness in Jae-gyu's actions.
Jae-gyu wasn't one to hide his true feelings. If there was something he didn't want to talk about, he'd cast his eyes down and mumble. That's exactly what he was doing now.
‘It was a woman's nail. It looks like it fell off while someone was fumbling around here...’
Does someone rummage through the console box in a car they've only briefly hitched a ride in?! Bom unconsciously frowned. Her strength drained away, and her heart sank to the bottom.
As if sensing Bom's mood, Jae-gyu kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. But that was all; he never opened his mouth.
The car was quiet. Han-gyeol, sitting in the back, had only the quiet glow of his phone screen reflecting on his face in the darkness, seemingly talking with Se-jin.
After a long while, Jae-gyu abruptly asked Han-gyeol, who had finally looked up from his phone.
“Seon Han-gyeol. Wanna go to the valley next week?”
Han-gyeol, whose face had been a mess all day, let out a deflated laugh and leaned close behind Jae-gyu to ask.
“With who?!”
“Well, you and me, and... Bom-Bom Teacher, you said you’ve never been to a valley before, right? Is that correct?”
“That's true, but...”
Bom, knowing why the question had suddenly turned to her, felt troubled. She had promised to go out with Jae-gyu and had even looked up a few travel destinations on her laptop, but...
“Then let's go to the valley while we're at it.”
“I’m okay.”
She had been looking forward to it so much, so why did such an answer come out without hesitation?
Bom didn't understand her own actions. But it was also true that she didn't want to go to the valley feeling like this.
“Why not?”
“...”
If it were just her and Jae-gyu, her words might have been a little different, but since Han-gyeol was with them now, Bom spoke cautiously.
“Because I can't swim...”
“Oh, then a valley is perfect for you. You're scared of water, aren't you?”
“Yes, that's right. How did you know...?”
“You should know how to swim. It's directly linked to survival, so it's essential.”
Essential?! Since when was swimming essential? She thought he was going to say something strange again, but Jae-gyu's voice was quite serious.
“Swimming and driving are basic, and you should know survival skills for emergencies, and first aid tips. Right?”
She didn't know how to do any of the things Jae-gyu mentioned properly. Listening to him, it didn't seem like a bad idea to know them. When she belatedly nodded at Jae-gyu's words, he glanced at Han-gyeol and said.
“Teacher is going too.”
“What?!”
He knew she hadn't nodded to say she'd go to the valley, but this was his usual habit. As Bom jumped up, Han-gyeol sealed the deal from behind.
“That's great. I would have been disappointed if you didn't go.”
With the two of them teaming up like this, she couldn't win. Bom silently closed her mouth and thought.
She had vowed to go somewhere fun during vacation, but she wouldn't be going to the valley with Jae-gyu.
⋆★⋆
“Bom-sik, it's okay. Come here.”
Bom crouched under the sofa and called out to Bom-sik, who was hiding beneath it. His round eyes were wide, his mouth was tightly shut, and his body trembled. It was pitiful, so she kept calling him, but he didn't budge.
CRASH—!
Then the sky flashed, and thunder and lightning struck. The dim living room briefly lit up with a yellow glow before darkening again.
Whimpering, the startled Bom-sik crawled under Bom's ankle, and Bom picked him up and stood. On the TV, a local news special report was broadcasting the weather forecast.
<Typhoon Mongoose is moving northward with very strong force. Currently, the typhoon's path has turned right towards Japan like this, but its wide radius of strong winds is bringing heavy rain and wind accompanied by thunder and lightning to Jeju Island and the Yeongnam region...>
Bom looked out the living room window with a worried expression. The rain was heavy, and the wind howled. In the distance, trees swayed as if they would be uprooted.
“It's okay. They said it turned towards Japan.”
She stroked the trembling Bom-sik, reassuring him, but in truth, Bom was scared too. She knew a typhoon was coming, but this was the first time she had felt such fear.
The unstable rattling of the window frames, and the fact that the landlord wasn't downstairs, amplified her anxiety. Bom sat on the sofa, watched the weather forecast, and opened a message from Jae-gyu.
Bom-Bom, Cheongseol-eup is a mess too. The sky has a hole in it right now.
When she clicked on the attached video, the situation was similar to here. But there was a difference.
Both were looking out from their living rooms, but Jae-gyu's house's window frames were sturdy, without a single tremor, and the loud noise didn't even penetrate inside the house.
He had said he built it himself with care, and it was certainly different.
It's absolutely no joke here either.
Bom took a video just like Jae-gyu and attached it. And while she was at it, she added another message.
Going to the valley tomorrow will probably be impossible. The water must have risen too.
It had been a few days since she found the artificial nail in the car, and that day, with a heavy heart, Bom had agreed to go to the valley together and returned home.
Then, lying in bed, she sighed and suddenly searched for Jae-gyu's SNS.
She only had an account and didn't really use it, so she wasn't familiar with how to use it, but searching for a person wasn't difficult. Besides, it wasn't a common surname, so it popped right up when she searched.
<JK_1228 Seon Jae-gyu Posts 722 Followers 56>
56k followers? Bom's eyes widened in surprise, then calmed down again when she realized it was just 56 people. It was even fewer than her own ghost account, which had 221 followers.
He liked taking pictures, so he had many posts. Bom suddenly realized why, and her heart ached.
When his house caught fire, Jae-gyu had tried to break down the door, saying his mother's photos would all burn, even getting burned himself. He said he'd considered photos important ever since.
That night, Bom clicked through several of Jae-gyu's SNS posts. There were various photos: company pictures, reservoir fishing, hiking activities, but no women he was dating seemed to be present. Neither in the photos nor in the comments.
Thinking her worries were unfounded, Bom opened her heart again and prepared for the valley trip with Jae-gyu. She ordered clothes online and bought new slippers, as her old ones were tattered.
But then...
CRASH—!
A louder lightning strike than before made Bom's shoulders flinch. She took the whimpering Bom-sik, who had started to cry, into the bedroom and covered them with a blanket.
‘I need to do something.’
That was the first thought that came to her mind. A typhoon preparedness measure—taping windows in an X-shape—briefly crossed Bom's mind, and she started searching for videos.
When she searched for how to tape windows in an X-shape, a video appeared telling her not to do that, but instead to wedge newspapers into the window frames, followed by a related video about attaching bubble wrap.
Confused about what was correct, Bom rummaged through a few more. That's when it happened.
WEEEE-OOO, WEEEE-OOO, WEEEE-OOO—!
A loud siren, big enough to cover the entire village, blared. Bom-sik started to cry out as if he would faint, and Bom frantically searched for the Village Head's number.
-The customer you are calling is currently on another line. Please try again later...
This was the first time a siren had ever sounded in the village, so Bom couldn't precisely understand its meaning. But she could feel that the situation was urgent.
After wrapping Bom-sik tightly in the blanket, Bom went out to the living room alone and almost screamed at the window frames, which were rattling violently as if they would fall off at any moment.
At this moment, only one person came to mind: Seon Jae-gyu.
-Riiing, riiing, riiing...
Had the waiting tone ever been this long when calling Jae-gyu before?
No, it hadn't. When Jae-gyu didn't answer, Bom's heart felt like it dropped to the floor with a thud. Eventually, the front door also rattled.
‘I have to stop it.’
Bom ran to the entrance, tried to slide the bolt, and lower the lock at the bottom. But the rattling was too severe, and listening closely, it sounded like someone knocking on the door.
“Is anyone out there?”
She asked, but in this chaos, her voice couldn't possibly be heard outside. Bom finally mustered her courage and opened the door.
“Bom!”
It was Jae-gyu who had been knocking on the door, completely drenched. Jae-gyu quickly came inside and closed the door.
Even in that brief moment, fierce winds rushed into the house, and heavy rain poured into the entryway.
Bom's face turned pale, having indirectly experienced how brutal it was outside. But at the sight of Jae-gyu before her, she quickly snapped back to reality.
“Are you okay? How did you get here?”
Jae-gyu's body was completely soaked, water dripping onto the entryway floor. Amidst the chaos of the still blaring siren, Jae-gyu shouted loudly.
“Those window frames are about to fall off.”
“How did you know...? Oh, the video!”
Jae-gyu, who had opened the video Bom sent, seemed to have realized the seriousness of the situation. Jae-gyu craned his neck, looked at the wildly shaking living room window, and frowned.
“Please understand if the floor gets a little wet.”
Then he strode inside, examined the window, clicked his tongue, and asked her to bring an unused shopping bag.
Bom quickly brought out a thick, coated shopping bag. Jae-gyu folded it neatly, secured it firmly in the gap, and closed the blackout curtains.
“Even if it breaks, glass shards won't come in. Let's get out of here quickly, Bom.”
“Get out? Where to?”
Jae-gyu said he'd explain on the way and looked for Bom-sik. Amidst the utter chaos, Bom decided to follow Jae-gyu's words.
To Bom, who was holding Bom-sik wrapped in the blanket, Jae-gyu frowned, saying his car was right below, but the rain was too heavy.
“I'm, I'm okay!”
“Found it.”
Jae-gyu, who had briefly rummaged through the veranda, came back with a box he had used to carry groceries from Hanaro Cheongseol Mart before.
“Use this.”
“...Huh?”