Chapter 70
I quietly watched the struggling man. The man who had been so obedient when Jang Jae-gyeong was around was now thrashing his entire body as if he wanted to kill me after Jae-gyeong left. His bloodshot eyes glaring at me were frighteningly vivid, but I wasn’t scared. I swung the wooden club I had been holding down toward him.
“Mmph! Mmph mmph!”
With just that simple action, the man cowered in fear. Despite that, his glaring eyes remained fixed on me. He hadn’t even looked at Jang Jae-gyeong when he was causing trouble, so he must have thought I was quite laughable.
I stared at the wooden club in my hand for a moment before throwing it far away. I didn’t feel like having a battle of wills with someone like him. Not because I felt sorry for him, but because I didn’t want to waste my energy on someone like this.
“I wonder when they’ll come…”
I approached the window that the man had been standing by and looking out of. I scanned the surroundings but soon gave up. I had expected that we wouldn’t be able to see the building when going back and forth from the pit, but I truly couldn’t see anything. All that was visible were the green leaves of enormous trees and the sky.
I sighed, looking at the onion net I was holding in one hand. Just as Seungwoo had said, after searching the kitchen for a long time, I was able to find a plastic bag inside an onion net. If I hadn’t heard about it, I would have mistaken it for an onion net used to collect plastic bags. The men must have thought the same and left it untouched, considering it useless. That was fortunate.
Seungwoo’s home was a mess, as expected. I didn’t think it would be in good condition with four men occupying it… Blankets, clothes were strewn all over the floor, and they had thrown down and trampled on family albums. It seemed they had taken out their frustration on the photos since they couldn’t find the children.
I tried to salvage the photos by brushing off the glass fragments, thinking Seungwoo would be sad to see them like that, but it was impossible due to the many torn parts. The only fortunate thing was that the faces in the photos were still intact.
I examined the photo I was holding along with the onion net once more.
“Seungwoo takes after his mother.”
In the photo, a man and woman with slightly upturned eyes were smiling while embracing their two children. Perhaps it was because they were a couple, but the two looked somewhat similar. I touched my own eye corners and thought I understood a bit why Junwoo thought I was his father. I also had slightly upturned eyes.
“Mmph mmph mmph! Mmph!”
But my thoughts couldn’t continue for long, thanks to the man behind me who was making a fuss without staying still for even a moment. I let out a deep sigh before examining the man. Jang Jae-gyeong had tied him up so securely that it seemed impossible for him to get free unless someone untied him. After confirming there was no problem, I kicked the man once. Watching him writhe while making whimpering noises, I went down to the first floor.
As Jang Jae-gyeong had instructed, I lowered the shutter and locked all the doors the moment he left. Except for one second-floor window where there was no way to climb up. But seeing the man’s struggles suddenly made me anxious, and I felt I needed to check again.
While checking by shaking each one, I heard a clanging sound. It seemed like something was shaking the shutter from outside. Had the two brought the children? I smiled briefly, but it slowly faded.
– “Ah, what the hell is this guy doing? Why is everything closed?”
– “Hey hey hey, what are you doing! Are you sleeping? Open the door quickly!”
– “Did a monster come and go or something?”
The men were making a commotion outside. I checked the door one last time and hurriedly went up to the second floor. The man sprawled in the corner saw me come up and snickered. He seemed emboldened by the arrival of his comrades. I kicked him again and then pressed myself against the wall by the window to look outside. The men were huddled together in front of the shutter, rubbing their arms and making a fuss.
– “Why is this taking so long?”
– “Damn, this is making me nervous… What’s wrong today?”
– “The sky looks ominous too, this is driving me crazy.”
– “Hey! What are you doing! Open up already! Shit, stop messing around!”
– “This bastard has no sense. Can’t he read the atmosphere!”
The men were shouting angrily. I had been worried about encountering Jae-gyeong’s group, but hearing the men yelling made me feel a little relieved. With them making such a commotion, I thought Jae-gyeong’s group would hear them from a distance and avoid them. I turned my gaze toward the forest I couldn’t see, and suddenly looked at the sky. It was because the men kept talking about how the sky felt ominous and how they had a bad feeling.
“Shit.”
Before I knew it, a curse was about to escape my lips. The weather, which had been good when I set out with Jang Jae-gyeong, was now turning dark. It would be a big problem if the weather darkened before they arrived. Once the sun disappeared, it was only natural that monsters would appear and cause havoc. Still, I thought it might be okay since Jang Jae-gyeong would notice if monsters were coming, and I was trying to suppress my anxiety when something strange caught my eye.
The clouds starting to fill the sky were a bit different from the usual dark clouds. Dense clouds fixed on one side. They were swelling up in an instant. I knew well what would happen when those clouds filled the sky. Before the world turned into this state, the day when the meteor shower fell had a sky that looked just like this.
The moment I recalled that, my breathing quickened involuntarily.
“Shit. No, this can’t be happening.”
I frantically searched outside, though I could barely see anything. But no matter where I looked, I couldn’t see Jang Jae-gyeong, Kim Doyun, or the children. The men were shouting and pounding on the shutter furiously as they watched the sky rapidly darkening. They gathered stones from a distance or furiously pounded with the wooden clubs they were carrying. But the shutter didn’t budge at all.
– “Open up! Open up quickly!”
Bang bang bang.
I quickly went up to the third floor and gathered a couple of usable blankets and kitchen knives. I put the medicine and knives inside the blankets, rolled them up, and wrapped them around my body. I felt anxious, as if I had indigestion, and pounded my chest with my fist.
The children would probably be fine with the two adults. More than that, I was worried about the earthquake that might occur after the meteor shower. Perhaps it would be fine since there was no earthquake after the second meteor shower, but if by chance an earthquake were to come…
– “Open up!”
The voices of the shouting men shook the building. I carefully poked my head out the window. I could see the men, who had been frantically thrashing about, running madly to find shelter, unable to wait any longer. As they fled, they didn’t forget to curse at the man inside the building.
It was quite a laughable scene, but I had no time to pay attention to that. Once I confirmed the men were out of sight, I needed to run down to the first floor and open the doors and shutter. So we could escape if an earthquake came.
As I was catching my breath while staring intently at the forest, a low voice touched my back from behind.
“What are you doing wrapped in blankets?”
“Waaah!”
“Whoa, you scared me.”
As I turned and screamed, the other person pushed my head down. Familiar hands and clothes. When I looked up, Jang Jae-gyeong was looking at me as if he were looking at something strange. My chest, which had been tight with anxiety, suddenly opened up.
“Jae-gyeong!”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
But the joy was brief, as questions popped up in my head.
“How did you get up here? I closed the door on the first floor and the second floor too. Where are the kids? Where is Doyun? Where is everyone?”
“Ask one at a time, one at a time.”
Jang Jae-gyeong covered my mouth as I frantically asked questions in my surprise. With my mouth suddenly blocked, I couldn’t ask more and just panted. When I seemed to have calmed down a little, Jang Jae-gyeong nodded toward the third floor and turned around.
“The kids are at home. Let’s go up.”
“The third floor? How did you get to the third floor already? I didn’t hear any sound. And how did you open the door? There wouldn’t be a key for this.”
“It’s nothing. I just climbed up the wall.”
Jang Jae-gyeong said casually, shrugging his shoulders. Climbing the wall, and up to the third floor? I was shocked and my mouth fell open, but thinking this wasn’t the time to be surprised, I hurriedly moved toward the third floor. Seungwoo, who had been lingering at the entrance of the third floor, saw me and ran toward me with a bright smile.
“Uncle!”
“Seungwoo, are you okay?”
When he said he climbed the wall to the third floor, all sorts of worries came to mind. I held Seungwoo and carefully examined him for any injuries. Seungwoo spun around in front of me, saying he wasn’t hurt anywhere, and then smiled brightly.
“It was really scary, but I’m okay! Uncle, this is our house! We came to our house!”
Seungwoo jumped up and down with tears glistening in his eyes. I smiled and patted Seungwoo’s back, then looked inside. Knowing I was looking for the other two, Seungwoo grabbed my arm and led me to a small room. Like the other rooms, it was a mess due to the men’s destruction, but the bed seemed to be intact. There, wrapped in blankets, Junwoo was sleeping with his face covered in fever spots.
I carefully approached and touched Junwoo’s forehead. Hot fever clung to my palm. It seemed his fever had risen a bit since we left. I unwrapped the blanket and took out the medicine from the onion net. Ointment, anti-inflammatory, digestive medicine, hydrogen peroxide, alcohol… I searched through the well-stocked emergency medicine for a fever reducer. But then I realized there was no water and stamped my feet in frustration. Liquid medicine would have been good, but the emergency medicine only had pills.
At that moment, the quick-witted Seungwoo grabbed my arm, shaking it as he shouted:
“Uncle, Uncle! Fourth floor! There’s a water tank on the fourth floor! There should be water there!”
Upon hearing this, Jang Jae-gyeong quickly fetched water. I woke up the sleeping Junwoo and put half a pill in his mouth. Perhaps because he had been woken from sleep, the sobbing Junwoo couldn’t easily swallow the medicine despite being given water.
“I don’t want to, I won’t take it. Daddyyyy.”
He spat it out once and refused, but I managed to coax him into taking the medicine. Junwoo continued to be fussy because of the fever but soon fell fast asleep. I hoped it wouldn’t get worse here… While holding and comforting Junwoo, I realized there was an empty space I hadn’t noticed because of him. I turned my head this way and that, looking for the owner of that empty space. But he was nowhere to be seen. In confusion, I grabbed Jang Jae-gyeong and asked:
“Where’s Doyun?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
