So Sweet! (5)
“What the hell? What’s with this bitch?”
The flustered Sheriff leaned back, scowling. Out of nowhere she was stroking his jawline and flashing him that coy, eye-crinkled smile… It felt downright creepy and sent a full-body shiver down his spine.
“You’re shy, huh? Well, that’s not bad.”
The Witch wagged her index finger and winked with one eye. The muscle-head had just called her a bitch again, but this time it didn’t sting. He’d only done it because he thought they were the same age—what was there to get mad about?
It was her own fault for having skin that looked far too young and an eternally youthful face. One hundred percent her bad. The Witch tapped the Sheriff’s wrist and spoke in a gentle tone.
“Hey! The nickname thing is fine now, so never mind. That guy? Hey? Bitch? Call me whatever—I don’t care! We’re all the same young generation anyway, and we could end up good friends. Take it easy.”
“Friends? Friends my ass. Fuck, who’d want to be friends with someone like you? Hey, hey—stop talking nonsense and just eat. It’s way past time to be hungry.”
The Sheriff answered gruffly and headed toward the bag that held the food. The sun had already sunk low; the only things they’d consumed since morning were a few bottles of drinks.
“Spam, instant rice… gochujang, tuna cans, kimchi cans. Let’s see, this is for Samsik, and this… damn it, I packed in a hurry. Thought it was sausage but it’s just canned beans.”
The Sheriff thumped a heavy pile of cans onto the six-person table. Yubin, who had been neatly folding the Witch’s lightweight puffer jacket that she’d tossed aside, asked worriedly.
“That’s a real feast. Crackers or jerky would’ve been enough. Did you really bring only heavy stuff…? Hey, Sheriff. You didn’t skip the water and just pack all this, did you?”
“Do I look stupid? Of course I brought water. There’s some bottled water in that bag, and plenty more in my car trunk. Couldn’t carry everything up at once… When you’re done, just throw the empty containers in here.”
The Sheriff pointed at another bag and answered casually, then proudly produced a garbage bag as well.
“You, grab a chair and pick whatever you want.”
The Sheriff looked at the Witch and rapped the opposite side of the table. On his right, Jinwoo was already opening two cans of dog food and dumping them onto a disposable plastic plate, while even the usually icy Mingu had claimed a seat and picked up chopsticks.
Chomp. Chomp. Slurp, crunch—!
While Samsik eagerly vacuumed and chewed the canned food with his huge tongue and teeth, the Witch remained standing awkwardly.
Sit… here? And I have to bring the chair myself?
Suddenly confronted with harsh reality again, the Witch stared at the table with a dazed look. Sitting among dirty men and a dog to share a meal was something she had never done before. No matter how good her mood was thanks to the muscle-head, she wasn’t some lowest-caste dweller by the Ganges River—this was a bit much…
Of course, lying bare-skinned among zombie corpses or sprinting through pouring bullets had also been completely new experiences, but those were fundamentally different. Those had been inevitable choices for survival.
“Why aren’t you sitting?”
The Sheriff, who had been busily tearing off pieces of Spam with his chopsticks and wolfing down cold rice, suddenly looked up at the Witch still standing there stiffly.
“If you’re feeling shy, just take some food somewhere else and eat by yourself. There are plenty of seats.”
True to the theater waiting-room setting, long benches were fixed to every wall, and there were several movable chairs and tables. If they went into the theater itself there were even more comfortable seats. It was a luxury screening room—each seat even had a small side table.
“The Sheriff’s right, so stop worrying about us and pick whatever you like. No one’s going to say anything about that.”
Yubin, who was eating rice with canned tuna in hot sauce as a side, chimed in. When Jinwoo’s gaze landed on her too, the Witch grew even more tense.
“Well…”
Glancing back and forth between an empty table in the corner and the empty space among the dirty men, the Witch drew out her words before finally making up her mind.
Scrape—!
She dragged over a chair and pulled it as close as possible to the Sheriff’s side. Then, as if making a monumental decision, she let out a deep sigh and sat down.
“Good choice. Eating alone would only make you feel more miserable.”
The Sheriff nodded and slid instant rice, chopsticks, and side-dish cans toward her.
“No thank you. This is enough for me.”
The Witch declined the food the Sheriff offered and picked up two calorie bars instead. She had never been a big eater to begin with, and she had zero confidence in cold instant rice or uncooked Spam. The bright-red gochujang-covered tuna or those kidney beans in sauce looked nauseating…
Chew… chew…
Nibbling the calorie bar slowly, the Witch made a conscious effort to keep her eyes on the Sheriff. It was uncomfortable to watch the others devour their food and listen to their noisy chewing, but more than that, she didn’t want to make eye contact with the knife-wielding man sitting across from her.
“Is it really okay for us to eat together like this?”
Jinwoo, who had been chewing thoughtfully, asked. The Sheriff snorted as if he’d heard something ridiculous.
“Of course it is. Why? Does sitting at the same table with someone so high and mighty make you feel unworthy?”
“Pfft!”
The Witch let out a light snort, amused by his words. Jinwoo, however, remained serious.
“That’s not what I mean. We didn’t meet to become friends, so why bother interacting? In movies, prisoners always eat separately. They deliberately avoid personal conversation. It’s all because they’re afraid they’ll start feeling human sympathy for the prisoner. You know what I’m saying?”
Jinwoo looked around at everyone as he posed the fundamental question. When you give someone clothes and shoes, then share the same table and the same food, affection naturally develops. And once affection forms, it becomes difficult to make cold judgments if negotiations fail.
“No… there’s no nece—necessary worry about that. My daddy…”
The flustered Witch was about to babble something when Mingu gave a crooked smile and spoke to Jinwoo.
“Don’t worry about getting soft-hearted. If there’s something that needs to be done, I’ll handle it.”
“Ugh…!”
The Witch clutched her chest in shock. The sudden gruesome remark had made the food in her mouth slide down all at once. He had only said “I’ll handle it,” yet why did such horrifying images flood her mind?
“Ah, I hadn’t thought of that…”
When the Sheriff muttered in agreement after hearing the two men, the Witch whipped around to stare at him in even greater alarm. If even the muscle-head took that attitude, she was in trouble.
“Wait, just a second… Sheriff, let’s talk.”
Yubin, who had been carefully watching the Witch’s reactions, signaled the Sheriff to follow and stood up.
“What now? We’re in the middle of eating—why’s everything so complicated?”
Grumbling, the Sheriff still set down his chopsticks and followed Yubin out to the rooftop.
“What is it? …Damn, I came out without my windbreaker. It’s raining and cold.”
The Sheriff closed the rooftop door, pulled up his hood, and frowned. Standing under the billboard kept most of the rain off, but the chilly evening air stabbed at the back of his neck.
“It’s nothing else… Sheriff, I need you to be nice to that woman.”
The Sheriff’s eyes widened at Yubin’s words.
“I am being nice! I knew she was a bad bitch and still gave her clothes and shoes! I even invited her to eat with us! How much nicer can I get? Should I start calling her ‘boss’?”
“That’s not what I mean, Sheriff. I mean… how should I put it? Be kind to her as if you’ve taken a liking to her, as if you’re smitten… You know, like when you want to look good in front of a girl you like…”
Yubin waved his hands, searching for the right words, when the Sheriff suddenly grabbed his wrist.
“Hey, what’s up with your hand?”
He hadn’t noticed before because the kid had kept his left hand stuffed in his jumper pocket, but the prosthetic fingers… weren’t moving at all. They were frozen at an awkward angle like a single piece of molded plastic.
“Oh, this…”
Yubin lifted the gloved prosthetic slightly and wrinkled his nose.
“I turned it off because I couldn’t charge it. We have to stay here for the next four days, and it’d be bad if the battery died right when I really needed it.”
“Ah… fuck, I see. Then we’ll have to find a generator. Somewhere around here that might have one…”
The Sheriff stroked his chin, already pondering the wrong thing. He looked ready to rush out again the moment he knew the location. Yubin waved him off with his rigid left hand.
“No, no. It’s fine. When I ran out of that riverside café earlier… I was in such a hurry I tossed the charger into the Han River. So even if you bring a generator it’d be useless.”
“No spare battery in your bag?”
“There’s one spare. But it’s better to save it for now.”
Yubin answered. Each large-capacity lithium-polymer battery gave roughly twenty-six hours of operation—if he was only doing simple everyday tasks. If he used all five fingers and the wrist motors at full power like this morning, it wouldn’t even last fifteen hours. Since he had to wait at least ninety hours in Seoul, he had no choice but to conserve battery for any dangerous moments that might arise.
“That must be inconvenient… Even just to piss, this thing…”
The Sheriff mimed various motions with his own hand frozen in the prosthetic shape and muttered with a bitter expression. Yubin simply smiled lightly as if it were nothing.
“It’s not stuck like that. I can grab it and adjust the joints to any shape I want, and… if I really need to I can turn it on for a moment. So don’t worry. I lived without it at all for a while before, remember?”
“It’s different now, you idiot. You’ve just gotten used to it.”
“My hand’s fine, so let’s get back to the topic of being nice to that woman…”
“Ah, right! That’s why we came out. But… what the hell are you talking about? Why do I have to be nice to that bitch? Hey! Don’t be fooled by her decent-looking face, Yubin! She fed people to zombies! She’s not kind like Jenny or Terra! I won’t deliberately torment or hit her because I don’t want to sink to their level, but fundamentally she’s an irredeemable piece of trash…”
The Sheriff jumped up as if Yubin’s sudden suggestion was completely incomprehensible.
“You’re right.”
Yubin nodded firmly and continued.
“She’s a bad person who’s committed a lot of sins—we all know that. But that same sinful woman is currently the key to saving thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of prisoners trapped in Busan. So even if you don’t feel like it, I need you to make an effort, Sheriff. We have to use her to save those people.”
“I get all that, but… can’t we just send Chairman Hwang a photo and a letter? ‘We have your daughter. If you don’t want her to die, release the people immediately.’ Something like that.”
“Who are we sending the letter to, and how? I tried several times today, but she kept lying. She hasn’t even admitted that civilians are being held in Busan on a large scale. She’ll probably keep stalling until we ask Mingu to torture her. But that gets complicated in all sorts of ways…”
Yubin spread both arms in a ‘you know what I mean?’ gesture.
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.”
The Sheriff answered, still looking reluctant. Killing her outright was one thing, but releasing a woman full of resentment from torture would obviously lead to her seeking revenge on ambiguous targets—especially General Kim and the people in Chungju… She firmly believed they were connected to the general. Besides, torturing a woman felt fundamentally different from beating a man. He really didn’t like the idea.
“Exactly. So I’m asking you to coax her gently and ask, Sheriff. She’s a compulsive liar and stubborn as hell, but it seems like she might actually talk to you.”
When Yubin tapped the back of his hand as if making a request, the Sheriff blinked and let out a sigh.
“Why the hell do I have to take on that role? I can barely understand half of what she says. She mixes in so much English. And you think I can communicate with her? Plus I’m terrible at buttering people up! You know that, you bastard!”
“Don’t worry. That woman likes you.”
At Yubin’s firm declaration, the Sheriff looked even more confused.
“Likes me my ass! Where do you see any liking? Because I gave her shoes and clothes?”
“No.”
Yubin shook his head and poked the Sheriff in the chest.
“She smiles when she looks at you… It’s the first time we’ve seen her smile like that since we met her. And earlier, when Mingu said he’d ‘handle it,’ she looked at you. It means she’s relying on you.”
“Bullshit! Fuck, since when did you become a high-school-grad day-laborer psychologist? That’s ridiculous…”
“Hey! Swallow your pride and just try! Thousands—tens of thousands—of lives are riding on those broad shoulders of yours! It won’t hurt to give it a shot!”
Yubin placed both hands on the Sheriff’s shoulders. After hearing all that, the Sheriff had no way to refuse.
“Ah… fuck. You keep saying weird shit. You really are a smooth talker…”
The Sheriff sighed with a troubled face, eventually giving in and asking.
“Fine. I’ll try, but if it doesn’t work it’s not my fault, got it? What exactly am I supposed to do?”
“Treat her the way you treat Jenny. The feeling that she’s precious, that you want to stay by her side, protect her, keep complimenting her, and speak nicely to her. Remember when you first met Jenny? You said you’d rip the iron door off for her.”
Yubin offered a very simple method, but the Sheriff felt like his insides would burst.
“How is that even possible, you crazy bastard! I did that because Jenny is genuinely pretty and lovable! She’s… not on that level!”
“Look, honestly—if it weren’t for the zombie world… we wouldn’t even be talking to a woman like her. The daughter of the Taeyang Group chairman with that kind of appearance isn’t just top few percent—she’s basically a celestial dragon.”
“…Well, that’s true.”
“Then why are you talking about levels, you idiot? Back then we were doing the sub-sub-sub-sub-subcontractor work on apartment construction for Taeyang Construction…”
Yubin counted on his five fingers, repeating “subcontractor” several times before clearly conveying the mission.
“As soon as we finish eating she’ll probably want to smoke. Follow her then and keep watching her. If she looks cold, offer her a drink. If she’s scared, tell her you’ll protect her! Even if you make empty promises, just find out who she can negotiate with!”
“Ugh, fuck… Jinwoo’s probably going to throw a fit… He’ll think I’m in heat for that bitch… And that guy’s eyes are scary too.”
“I’ll secretly tell the two of them, so don’t worry. Let’s head back down. We’ve been gone too long.”
When Yubin finished speaking and reached for the door, the Sheriff declared in a determined voice.
“Later if you run your mouth about this in front of Jenny, Terra, or Hyeju, you’re all dead! I’m not joking!”
Thud—!
Yubin answered by raising his thumb. Of course, that didn’t include a promise to keep Jinwoo’s mouth shut.
“…What kind of conversation did you have? It took quite a while… Was it something serious?”
When the Sheriff and Yubin returned to the fourteenth floor, the Witch—who had been sitting there looking deflated—asked in a clearly nervous voice.
“No, just… I said it’s better to eat together like this. That leaving a woman alone and feeding her separately felt wrong.”
The Sheriff gave an answer the Witch would like and sat back down. It must have been reassuring; she let out a short sigh and gave a faint smile.
How terrifying the time alone with Mingu and Jinwoo had been for her was clear from the calorie bar that remained exactly the same size it had been right before the Sheriff went up to the rooftop.
“I… want a cigarette too.”
After the meal, when Mingu returned from smoking on the roof, the Witch glanced back and forth between Yubin and the Sheriff before carefully opening her mouth.
“Then let’s go together. I’ll light it for you.”
The Sheriff, who had already put on his lightweight puffer jacket and was waiting, readily picked up cigarettes and a lighter and stood.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
The much-relieved Witch offered shallow flattery and followed the Sheriff up the stairs to the rooftop.
“You okay? Not cold?”
After lighting her cigarette, the Sheriff asked. The Witch, hugging her arms tightly while exhaling smoke, nodded.
“A little bit… But it’s bearable. Thanks to the training pants and feather jacket you gave me.”
“Hey… these are completely frozen. If you’re cold, you have to say so. If you keep your mouth shut I won’t know.”
The Sheriff touched her cheek with his palm, then immediately took off his own lightweight puffer jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“Heh…!”
Kindness arriving like rain in the middle of pressure wasn’t unpleasant; a smile spread across the Witch’s lips again. This muscle-head… now that they were alone away from the others, he seemed even sweeter. And wearing this oversized jacket made her backside feel warm too.
“If you want a drink as well, I can give you some Imperial.”
The Sheriff pulled a small bottle of liquor from his hoodie pocket.
“Haa…!”
The Witch bit her lip and stared intently at the bottle in the Sheriff’s hand. Was this… a trick to get her drunk on cheap booze and then have sex? Had this man been nothing but a horny gorilla after all? Were the compliments and current kindness all just preparation for sex?
“If you don’t want it, don’t drink. Why would you force yourself to drink something like this? I was just letting you know I had it.”
Seeing her hesitate, the Sheriff moved to put the bottle back in his pocket.
Ah, damn it… Seducing someone is fucking hard…
Just as the Sheriff lamented inwardly, the Witch—who had relaxed a little at his retreat—exhaled cigarette smoke and asked.
“Hey. If I drink, will you… drink with me?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
When the Sheriff shrugged, the Witch snapped her fingers.
“Good. Open it.”