GHLL Ch 13

The knife was large and not easy to handle. It seemed I had chosen the wrong tool after all.

I sighed, stood up from my spot, and went back to the garage. Then I found and took out the hand axe from the backpack I had propped against the wall. I checked if it was suitable for me to use by lightly gripping and releasing it, and then, for the last time, I looked at Kim Daesik, who was lying as if crumpled in the back seat of the car. I pushed my body deep into the car, reached out, and caressed him, whose color had completely drained. Then I pulled up my lips.

“I’ll get you something delicious to eat soon.”

Even though I knew Kim Daesik could not see, I showed him a smile, then I took my hand off him and straightened my body. Then I went out of the garage, returned to the spot I had prepared earlier, and crouched down. The crouching position felt somewhat unstable, so I put one knee on the ground and raised the other. After thus centering my body, I placed my left hand on the stone marker I had made into a table with a tablecloth. And I spread my five fingers.

With my hand spread, I briefly looked up at the sky. I remembered what Kim Daesik had said on the mountaintop, that he had seen sunlight falling through the thick clouds of ash. I had not believed him then, but now I wanted to believe.

After Kim Daesik came to his senses, I wanted to leave for somewhere, somewhere the sun shone. Whether it was a salt desert with not a drop of water or not, I wanted to feel the sunlight falling from the sky, even for just a single moment.

If I could see the heat from the sun, the feeling of squinting because it was so bright I could not open my eyes, the sunlight seeping through my eyelids even though they were closed, I might be able to feel the season I had never experienced but liked more than anything. It would be going on vacation with Kim Daesik, escaping the blue sky and hot weather. In the sea, so vast its end was unknown and so deep my feet could not touch the bottom, I wanted to fish for tuna with him.

It was a delusion close to madness, but just imagining it made me happy. In that mood, I opened my eyes, which I had closed at some point, and raised the axe. And I brought it down with all my might.

🖤

Tadaktadak, the sound of the firewood burning and sparks flying was loud. I had spent the whole day going in and out of the building gathering firewood, but the amount was not much, so the flame burning inside the tin can was small.

On top of it, I had placed an empty can, put in a spoonful of tomato solids from the last remaining can of preserves and a chunk of preserved food, and was boiling it with water.

When I opened the can after seeing the tomato picture on the outside, my expectations were high. Since it was something I had saved until the very last, I thought it would be the most delicious, but when I opened it, the contents were a mush that smelled sour, so I was very disappointed. But once I actually started cooking, it smelled amazingly good. I kept swallowing the saliva that was pooling in my mouth, then I touched the hot spoon to the tip of my tongue and had a little taste.

It was tart and sweet, and very delicious. I hummed, heung-heung, as I stirred it, and then I saw the eyelid of Kim Daesik, who had been lying as if dead, twitch. Since I had left the trunk open and laid the back seats all the way down to make Kim Daesik more comfortable, I could see him well.

Sucking on the spoon, I watched his eyelids go up. His long eyelashes blinked up and down several times, but even with his eyes open, he seemed unable to come to his senses and could not focus properly. Seeing him stare into the air and then close his eyes again, I took the spoon out of my mouth and thought, as expected, it will probably take more time for him to come to his senses.

But contrary to my thoughts, Kim Daesik opened his eyes again. This time, he opened his eyes with enough force in his eyelids to form a double eyelid, then slowly looked around, and his gaze narrowed upon seeing the flame rising unsteadily from the tin can and my reflection in it.

Seeing his eyes looking directly at me, I tilted my head. And I waved the spoon in front of him and tried talking to him.

“Are you awake?”

Surely, it’s not that the treatment was too late and he woke up as an agwi, right? Seeing him say nothing even after looking at me, I felt a flicker of doubt. But seeing the confusion in his eyes and the bewilderment quickly spreading across his face, I knew he was not an agwi, but still Kim Daesik.

“……”

He abruptly sat up his upper body, which had been lying at an angle. Then he held up his own hand and looked down at it, then with that hand, he touched his face, neck, and shoulders as if patting them. Then, with a look of disbelief, he turned his hands over and over again, looking at the backs and palms, then looked at me and opened his mouth.

“……What is this……”

At the half-formed question, I hardened my mouth to suppress the surging joy. Confirming that my choice was not wrong, that it was something worth doing, I felt a sense of relief and at the same time was extremely happy. On the other hand, I did not want to show that fact to Kim Daesik, so my expression became strange. My voice was about to jump out too, so I forced a couple of coughs, heum heum, and said as calmly as possible.

“That’s a relief, that you’ve come to your senses.”

“……How……?”

To Kim Daesik, who was still muttering in short phrases, unable to form a proper sentence, I shrugged my shoulders.

“How do you think.”

“……”

“I used my skills, my skills.”

“……”

My answer, mimicking Kim Daesik’s way of speaking, was probably not enough. Kim Daesik, not conscious of the fact that he himself spoke that way, frowned and rubbed his forehead and the area around his eyes several times with his hand.

“No, how…… how did the onset stop?”

“As long as it stopped somehow, that’s all that matters. You must be hungry since you haven’t eaten for a few days, so come here and eat this.”

“Where on earth did you get human flesh…… did you hunt or something……”

Kim Daesik’s gaze, as he continued to speak haltingly with a look of confusion, landed on me. He looked me up and down several times with a certain suspicion, so I tried to act as nonchalant as possible and placed my left hand between my legs. But Kim Daesik was as sharp as a ghost. He took one foot out of the car, bent his body, and snatched my forearm, lifting it up.

“Ugh.”

The pain had not yet subsided, so I could not resist the hand that was pulling my arm forcefully. To tell the truth, I was suffering from a throbbing, aching, and stinging pain, so I could not hide it.

Seeing my left hand wrapped in a bandage made from a torn T-shirt, Kim Daesik’s eyes widened. I had wanted to tie it as tightly as possible to stop the bleeding, but I could not do it well with only one hand. The knot was loose, so blood had soaked through the bandage, and I had applied ash to cover the smell.

But when Kim Daesik forcibly grabbed my hand, I felt blood gush out from it. It seeped out from under the bandage and stained Kim Daesik’s hand, which was gripping my wrist, red. Seeing that sight, Kim Daesik’s face contorted horribly.

“You did this?”

I twisted the arm he was holding and retorted bluntly.

“If it wasn’t me, who would have?”

I spoke as if making a joke, asking if a human hunter would have cut off only a pinky finger if they had met one. This too was Kim Daesik’s way of speaking, but Kim Daesik did not laugh at all. Veins bulged on his forehead, and he clenched his teeth, his jaw tightening. He looked like he was trying to hold back his anger, but it was clear he could not. No, it did not seem like he was even thinking about holding it back. He gripped my bleeding wrist as if to break it and shouted like a clap of thunder.

“Who told you to do this—!”

“Ah, it hurts.”

Even when I grimaced and said it hurt, Kim Daesik did not let me go and shook my arm fiercely, yelling at me.

“I never asked you to save me! I never asked you to save me by feeding me your own body!”

I did not expect a thank you for cutting off my pinky and feeding it to him. I did think he would be angry. But his attitude of pushing me away without a care, when I was in so much pain, did not sit well with me. It was not to see him get angry that I had saved him, so I did not back down and shouted back.

“What was I supposed to do when you were in that state right in front of my eyes?”

“You should have just let me become an agwi! If you couldn’t stand to see that, you should have just killed me!”

“It might be easy for you to kill people, but it’s not for me!”

“If you couldn’t do either, you should have just left!”

As he pushed me fiercely, I got angry too. Who was it that made me sit down and told me not to run away. Who was it that promised to let me eat chocolate, who was it that tempted me by saying he would feed me until I was full and then kill me in one go, and now he was so easily telling me to kill him or leave, I hated him. I hated and resented him.

“You want me to just leave? If you wanted that, why didn’t you just……!”

As I shouted back at him, I momentarily forgot what I was saying. Instead, a surprise that felt like my head was emptying came over me, and I froze with my mouth open.

Even though he was watching me become stupid from being so surprised, Kim Daesik did not seem to be aware of his own state. He did not know that thin, shallow streams of water were forming on his ash-stained, mottled cheeks. He was just shouting, his eyes burning with anger.

“Did you want to turn me into a monster that much?”

“……”

“Did you want to turn me into, into…… a monster that eats the person I love……!”

Only then did I see the great sadness that lay behind his anger. It was also an overwhelming fear that I, who had never eaten human flesh nor killed a person to eat, could not understand. As I gazed at it, for some reason, the tomb of the agwi I had seen on the underground tracks came to mind.

The sight of them eating each other, unable to bear the hunger, was in fact no different from humans. Kim Daesik was just one of them. Kim Daesik himself knew that fact better than anyone. I knew it too, but even so, that fact could not diminish my feelings for him.

I steeled my rising anger and shook off his hand that was gripping my wrist with all my might. Then with that hand, I grabbed him by the collar, and as he was pulled toward me, I shouted right in front of his nose.

“You were the same!”

Water clearer and cleaner than any water in the world filled his eyes. As his eyes widened, as if water overflowing from a dam that could not handle the water level, tears flowed down the paths the water had already made. Seeing that water made me thirsty. In a thirst as deep as my hunger, I stuck out my tongue and licked my lips, my face contorting.

“You also wanted me to survive, even if it meant eating you.”

As soon as the words were out, I opened my mouth wide and lunged at him. Because I was pulling at his collar, his neck was wide open, and I pressed my lips to it. Then I pressed down hard as if with my tongue and sank my teeth into his flesh.

“……Ugh!”

As I mercilessly bit his flesh, Kim Daesik’s body trembled as if in pain. Nevertheless, I bit down hard, kwak kwak, using the strength in my jaw, and finally pierced his skin. Then blood seeped out. It was a blood that tasted of all the flavors of the world: sour, sweet, bitter, and salty.

“Heut……!”

I clung to his neck and sucked the blood that seeped out of him. As if I had become a blood-sucking monster, as if I were a person who had not had a single sip of water for three days and nights and was finally moistening my throat, I drank his blood sweetly and desperately. I felt that blood go down my throat, moisten my stomach, and seep into the blood vessels of my whole body, mixing with my blood. That sensation brought an indescribable sense of fulfillment, and I was no longer thirsty or hungry.

But the more I drank of him, the more it seemed I craved him.

Even though I was clinging to him as if I would drink all his blood, Kim Daesik did not push me away or pull me off. Even as the fangs embedded in his flesh dug deeper, he only let out heated moans and panted, not resisting. He was in a state where he would have consented even if I were to bite his raw flesh and eat him whole.

His compliant attitude was so pitiful and endearing that I instinctively knew what the emotion he had tried to confess to me several times and then swallowed back was. And I knew that that emotion had changed me.

Just as I was the person he loved, he too was the person I loved. All of this was happening because of him.

I felt that eating him like this was a fitting tribute to his heart. Devouring him completely, leaving not a single drop of blood or a single strand of hair, would be a reward for him, but he was like chocolate. He was like the small chocolate wrapped in a plastic wrapper that my hyung had given me for my last birthday, and if I popped it in my mouth and swallowed it, it would melt and disappear in an instant.

He was too precious for that, so I managed, truly managed, to pull my mouth away from him. Then I rolled my lips, glistening with blood and saliva, into my mouth and, as if to show off, I swallowed the blood and flesh that filled my mouth. And I opened my mouth and declared.

“See? If you’re a monster, I’m a monster too.”

Kim Daesik’s face contorted. I had bitten his neck so hard that a piece of flesh had come off, so it must have been very painful. But he seemed to be suffering from a pain greater than that which stemmed from it.

“If I can save you, and if I can be with you because of that, I don’t mind becoming a monster.”

After saying that, I pressed my lips to his. I pushed my tongue in and mixed it, to let him taste the chocolate-scented taste of his blood. And I whispered to him as if confessing.

“Eat me.”

Kim Daesik no longer got angry. He did not cry or shout either. His expression clouded, and he smiled as if crumbling. As I smiled along, his smile brightened a little more.

Soon, he grabbed my wrist and licked the blood that was flowing from under the bandage. He untied the bandage and, as if caressing the place where my pinky finger was missing, held it in his lips and then licked it with his tongue. Every time he did that, the place where the blood vessels, muscles, and bones were severed hurt like death, but I willingly endured the pain.

After drinking all the blood that had flowed from me, Kim Daesik re-bandaged the wound with the remaining piece of T-shirt. Thanks to him tying it tightly, the bleeding stopped.

Around that time, the food that was cooking in the tin can, where the fire had gone out, had reduced. Realizing that it smelled slightly burnt, I clicked my tongue and stuck a spoon into it. Seeing me take a bite, Kim Daesik asked.

“Is it good?”

It did not taste burnt, so I smiled brightly and commented.

“Yes, it’s delicious.”

I scooped up some food with a spoon and offered it to him. He obediently opened his mouth and accepted it. He rolled it around on his tongue to taste it, worked his Adam’s apple, and swallowed it. Then he nodded his head.

“It’s good.”

“It’s good, right? It’s really delicious, right?”

“Yeah. It’s the most delicious thing in the world.”

In my joy, I laughed out loud, haha, and shared the food I had cooked with him amicably. Sometimes, small bones would get in the way in my mouth, but it was not something to worry about. I just thought, what if the dish I made was so delicious that I would not feel much when I ate other food.

As I muttered that I doubted even a chocolate cupcake would be more delicious than this, Kim Daesik snorted that I was worrying about unnecessary things. And, unlike him, he scraped the bottom of the can clean with a spoon so that not a single bit of food was left inside.

The amount of food was small, but it was enough to fill our shrunken stomachs. In a state of fullness I had never felt before, I lay in Kim Daesik’s arms. His body, which had been growing cold and stiff last night, was unbelievably warm. I brought my nose to the nape of his neck, where I had bitten him, and said.

“When the day breaks, let’s go find a place where the sun shines, just as you said.”

“Okay.”

“We might have to go to a very far place, but we won’t have to worry about starving to death.”

“Because we’re each other’s lunch boxes?”

At his reply, I burst out laughing, puhat. Kim Daesik chuckled too, and we planned our trip to the sea while holding each other. Kim Daesik’s summer vacation, who knew a lot, was much more specific than my hyung’s stories. He spoke as if he had already been on summer vacation several times, about how hot the white sandy beach was, what the cry of the seagulls flying in the sky was like, and how high the waves that crashed with foam were. Listening to his stories, I slowly fell asleep.

Perhaps because of his stories, I had a dream that night for the first time in a long time. It was a dream where Kim Daesik was being baked to a golden brown in an oven. I took his flesh, put it between slices of bread, and ate it with vegetables and cheese, and it was delicious. The juices that flowed in my mouth were salty and greasy, and when Kim Daesik put a knife to his own thigh and asked, ‘Want more?’, I nodded eagerly. Then, the thought that if I kept eating him, he might disappear, suddenly frightened me.

I woke up with a start. It was dark, so I could not see Kim Daesik’s form. But since I was in his arms, I could feel his presence. Knowing that I had woken up from sleep with a shudder, he hugged my waist tightly. And he gently rubbed my temple with his lips.

His survival, his real existence, was extremely welcome.

In a state of utter contentment, I sought sleep again.

🖤

Brrr-eung……!

“It worked!”

Seeing the car start, I tapped the steering wheel in joy. Then, hearing the blaring sound of the horn, paaang, I took my hands off in surprise. Kim Daesik, who was detaching the battery clips, chuckled at me cowering with my eyes wide open. Soon, he gestured with his chin at me, who was timidly pressing the horn, paang, paang, after putting away the jump starter we had managed to obtain with difficulty.

“Come out and pack the stuff.”

I got out of the driver’s seat and loaded various cables and a self-generator into the trunk. Thanks to running that generator, we were able to charge the battery and start the car, but to me, it felt like a nuisance, so I kicked it a few times with my foot. It was because as soon as Kim Daesik regained his strength, I had to go back into the subway station I had gone down to, to get that damn generator.

I did not want to go back into that pitch-black place, a tomb for a horde of agwi, but Kim Daesik’s eyes lit up when he heard the stories I told. He showed great interest, especially in the battle area where I had gotten the gasoline, and insisted that we had to go back there. For me, there was no other way but to follow his words, so I reluctantly volunteered to be the guide.

I got lost because I was confused about the way, and I had a hard time because there was no way to carry the supplies we had found with great difficulty to the surface, but it was worth going down. Kim Daesik had a much better eye than me, so not only did he find gasoline by the drum, but he also obtained various supplies such as a medical kit that was thought to have been carried by a military doctor, military emergency food, a tent, blankets, a shovel, a water container, weapons, and food.

The biggest gain among them was the self-generator from which I had only taken the oil. But it was a size that could not be called portable, so it was really, really hard to bring it out. Because of that, I held a grudge, and to vent my frustration, I slammed the trunk shut with a thud!

Meanwhile, Kim Daesik, who had raised the shutter all the way and cleared the path, took the wheel. And he waited for me to get into the passenger seat and then gestured lightly with his chin.

“Shall we go then?”

I nodded my head, and the car started. The day was dark because the ash clouds hung low, as if they would drop ash at any moment, but the feeling of starting was pleasant. Heedless of the flying dust, I opened the car window and enjoyed the feeling, facing the blowing wind.

But that did not last long. Just as Kim Daesik had warned, we did not drive far before we faced a road completely blocked by abandoned cars.

Most of the roads were like that, so we had to get out through narrow alleys. Of course, not all the alleys were clear, so we had a hard time, frequently getting out to clear the obstacles blocking the path. In the process, we sometimes ran into agwi that were hiding there, and we also had to turn back the way we came when we faced objects we could not clear with our own strength. Because of that, we went around in circles for a long time over a distance that would have been quick if we had walked. At that rate, we could not get out of the city in a day. It was only after wasting two more days that we were finally able to escape that massive ruin.

When we got out to the outskirts of the city, the roads were all cracked and crumbled. Still, the path was not blocked by cars, trash, or half-collapsed buildings. We drove on the bumpy road, which was practically unpaved, kicking up a thick cloud of ash dust. And then, a field covered in ash appeared. It was a good place to drive, so we drove there excitedly.

Then, suddenly, Kim Daesik stopped the car. And he unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the car, and told me to move over to the driver’s seat. When I sat in the driver’s seat as he told me to, he taught me how to drive the car. He told me one by one how to start the engine and what each gear was for, and then he went and sat in the passenger seat.

“Now you drive.”

While grabbing the steering wheel as he told me to, I shot him a sharp glance. It was because I thought he might be trying to teach me how to drive in preparation for a situation where he would be dead and gone. As if telling me not to think unnecessary thoughts, Kim Daesik pinched my cheek and gestured with his chin.

“If you’re thinking of making me your lunch box, you should at least pay for your meal, right?”

I grumbled but did not offer any particular rebuttal. To tell the truth, I wanted to learn how to drive too. I was planning to learn how to use a knife, how to tie knots in a rope, how to find water or food, and how to handle machinery. That way, I would become a real adult who could navigate this dying world and protect Kim Daesik.

As if to show off, I grabbed the steering wheel and alternately pressed the accelerator and brake as Kim Daesik told me to. At first, I had no knack for it, so the car kept making sudden stops and starts, but following Kim Daesik’s patient words, I relaxed and moved my feet slowly and calmly, and I got used to it quickly. Soon, I was turning the steering wheel this way and that, freely driving across the wide field.

“Yay—!”

Getting excited for no reason, I shouted, and Kim Daesik chuckled.

“In times like these, you should say yeehaw.”

“Yeehaw?”

“Yee-haw—!”

“Yee-haw—!”

Shouting words I did not even know the meaning of, I drove recklessly and almost plunged the car into a deep ditch. Thanks to Kim Daesik grabbing the steering wheel, I narrowly avoided a situation where I would have had to abandon the car we had brought with so much difficulty. I stopped messing around and handed the wheel back to him.

Thump, thump, sitting in the car that was shaking aimlessly, I could not stay still and lowered the car window. When I stuck my head out the window and looked at the sky, the low-hanging clouds seemed within reach. Soon, ash began to fall from those clouds. As the grayish ash hit the car window, tuk, tuk, Kim Daesik turned on the wipers. And he looked at me, still with my head out the window, and said.

“Close the window, ash is coming in.”

Even after hearing his words, I lingered and did not put my head back in. Looking up at the gloomily dark gray sky, I asked.

“Is that true?”

Kim Daesik glanced at me, turned his head forward, and gripped the steering wheel.

“What is?”

“What you said about seeing the sunlight.”

At my question, Kim Daesik snorted and said.

“Why would I say I saw something I didn’t see.”

Originally, he was a person who made empty promises well. Looking back, there was nothing he had said that he had kept. He could not keep his word about letting me eat chocolate or cola, nor about killing me without me even knowing. As if not even embarrassed by that fact, he began to make empty promises again this time.

“Just you wait, sooner or later, I’ll make you see the sunlight pouring down from a blue sky after those damned ash clouds have all cleared away.”

I pulled my head back into the car, closed the window, and looked at him. Through the narrowing gap of the car window, a strong wind blew in, and ash poured in with a rush. Stirring the ash powder fluttering like snowflakes with my hand, I asked.

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Keep your promise this time.”

He could have hesitated at my threat, but he never did. He raised his large hand, brushed the ash off my hair and shoulder, and then stroked my earlobe once as he answered.

“Of course.”

It seemed he would not be able to keep his promise this time either, but it did not matter. Actually, what was important to me was not whether Kim Daesik kept his promises or not. It felt good to hear him promise that he would listen to my wishes, even though I knew my wishes were ridiculous. That alone was enough.

Not satisfied with just touching my earlobe, I grabbed the hand that was starting to fiddle with the nape of my neck with my left hand and pulled it down. As our palms met, he intertwined his fingers with mine. His pinky finger, unable to find its partner and wandering, bothered me, so I ignored the pain that arose in the bandaged area and held his hand against my chest, staring ahead.

The falling ash was so thick that I could not see an inch ahead. It was a road that could not be illuminated even if we turned on the headlights. I could not even guess what was at the end of that road, but. I knew that as long as Kim Daesik was with me, it would be okay.

Perhaps it would even be enjoyable.

Maybe even a little happy.

In that sense of anticipation, we drove endlessly through the ash that was pouring down like heavy snow.

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