Destruction — Chapter 38

8. Others

The gas station they arrived at was old and worn down, which made every movement feel more cautious. A city abandoned by people. What could be described in a simple sentence was, in reality, devastating. In the dark corners of the ceiling, multi-legged insects crawled back and forth. Considering the corpses scattered around, it was an expected sight.

‘This place isn’t going to collapse… right?’

Saejin touched one of the pillars connected to the ceiling and brushed the rust off his fingertips. The exterior was so severely aged that it made him uneasy.

Woobeom immediately checked the fuel pump. If there was no gasoline left, they would have to move somewhere else or drain fuel from an abandoned vehicle.

When he lightly pressed the handle of the fuel nozzle, gasoline poured out in a steady stream. Thankfully, it seemed there was enough to fill up at least a decent amount. Once he shoved the nozzle into the gas tank and began fueling, the smell of gasoline spread through the air. He wouldn’t know for sure until the engine was started, but judging by the weight, it seemed about half full.

‘I guess I’ll have to drain gasoline from another car.’

Woobeom took a siphon from the trunk and headed toward the employee break room. He needed to find a container to hold the fuel. Being a gas station, there should be at least one or two containers suitable for holding gasoline. As expected. Spotting an empty container, Woobeom picked it up and called out to Saejin, who was wandering around nearby.

“I guess I’ll have to drain gasoline from another car.”

Taking a siphon from the trunk, Woobeom walked toward the employee break room. He was looking for a container to store the fuel in. Since this was a gas station, there should be one or two containers meant for gasoline. And indeed, there were. Picking up an empty container, Woobeom called out to Saejin, who was idly wandering nearby.

“Yoon Saejin.”

He intended to give the bored-looking Saejin something to do. Woobeom had already checked the break room, and there were no monsters or corpses lurking inside. So sending him alone shouldn’t be a problem.

‘Maybe I should tell him to look for anything useful.’

Truthfully, it wasn’t anything important. But the reason he wanted to send him was simple: if left alone, Saejin would inevitably start overthinking. And Woobeom’s prediction was already proving true. While poking at the ground with his shoe, Saejin was in the middle of questioning his own usefulness.

‘Hyung carries the bags, hyung pumps the gas, hyung drives… why am I even here?’

The only thing he’d done so far was find a flashlight. At this point, he couldn’t help feeling he’d just become a burden.

“You called me?”

A drained-looking Saejin walked over, asking why he’d been summoned.

“Take a look around inside the break room.”

“You mean over there?”

When Woobeom purposely asked in a tone implying he needed help, Saejin’s shoulders straightened immediately, as if he’d never been sulking at all. What was he supposed to do with this kid? It was hard not to feel sympathetic toward Saejin, who always compared himself to baggage. It had been entirely Woobeom’s decision to bring him along. Since he was younger, he could whine, cling, and sometimes let go of responsibility. But Saejin didn’t stop at simply staying by Woobeom’s side; he tried to prove his worth in every little thing, as if trying to justify his existence.

Determined to complete the task perfectly, Saejin thumped his chest confidently and marched toward the break room with a serious expression. Worried he might cause trouble out of sheer determination, Woobeom watched his overly tense back for a moment before heading toward the abandoned cars. He treated him like a kid most of the time, but Saejin was still a full-grown adult. He needed to trust him.

Once inside the break room, the first thing Saejin did was look around for a light switch. Since the sun had already set, the deeper he went, the darker it grew. Click, click. He flipped the switch that looked like it belonged to the lights several times, but nothing came on. Saejin turned on the flashlight he had kept in his pocket.

The break room’s interior still showed signs of everyday use. It didn’t look like any survivors or monsters had passed through. Running his finger down the employee schedule, Saejin turned his head to look elsewhere. The cabinet, which seemed to be a storage locker, held notebooks and uniforms. As he rummaged around here and there, something caught his attention: a small flowerpot. The plant had probably frozen to death, leaving only brittle branches. Pointing the flashlight at the frozen soil, Saejin noticed there were many other pots scattered around. Perhaps an employee or the owner had enjoyed gardening.

Turning the flashlight toward the window, Saejin reached for the drawer beneath it. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked. He rummaged through the office supplies inside, looking for anything useful, when he found something unexpected. There were several packets of seeds prepared for planting in the nearby pots.

The packets were flat and thick on the outside, indicating a fairly large quantity. There were eight types of seeds in total. Except for one type of flower, the rest were all edible vegetables or fruits: lettuce, perilla leaves, carrots, young radish, beets, tomatoes, strawberries, and cosmos. Other than the final flower, Saejin stuffed all of them into his pockets.

Since they were staying in the mountains, it would be nice to plant them in the spring and eat them later. The back of the seed packets listed the planting method and timing. Following that should make things easy. If they gathered seeds in the proper season, they could even produce more indefinitely. Imagining himself gardening and harvesting vegetables in the spring, Saejin nodded in satisfaction.

“Hyung will probably like this.”

He shoved his hand deeper into his pocket, gripping the packets tightly in case any fell out.

Leaving the break room, Saejin ran toward Woobeom, eager to show off the seeds he found, not even noticing he was out of breath.

‘Where did he go?’

He reached the car, but the driver’s seat was empty. With his lips pressed tight, he scanned the surroundings and focused on a faint voice in the distance. Woobeom was nearby. But the strange thing was that he seemed to be talking to someone.

‘That shouldn’t be possible, right?’

Sensing something strange, he followed the sound. When he spotted Woobeom’s back behind the gas station and was about to raise his hand to get his attention, Saejin froze. There was a man standing in front of Woobeom, someone he had never seen before.

‘…Who is that?’

The man wearing a long black padded coat looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. Even with an outer layer reaching down to his shins, the bulge of his protruding stomach was impossible to miss.

Judging someone by their appearance wasn’t right, but the moment Saejin saw him, he couldn’t help thinking the man looked like a thug. On top of that, a tattoo peeked out from the side of his neck, visible just below his jawline. And for some reason, Woobeom didn’t show any caution toward him. It looked like someone he already knew.

He should probably go check. Standing blankly for a moment, Saejin stepped forward with the intention of asking directly. Sensing his presence, Woobeom slowly turned his head.

“…Who?”

Saejin stiffened like a startled woodland creature with its fur bristling. He clearly wasn’t welcoming the appearance of a stranger. Clinging tightly to Woobeom’s side in a way that should’ve felt suffocating, he showed no intention of letting go, but Woobeom didn’t push him away either. Instead, he gently placed a hand on Saejin’s waist, letting him lean closer if it helped him feel safe.

“What’s with this little booger?”

The man who had been grinning in front of Woobeom now looked just as displeased at Saejin’s appearance. He was showing plenty of hostility in return. Hearing the word “booger,” Saejin sucked in a sharp breath. Sure, he was smaller than Woobeom, but he wasn’t tiny enough to be called a booger. Unable to hide his irritation, he bared his teeth and snapped back sharply.

“Did you just call me a booger?!”

“Then who else would I be talking to?”

“I guess being a pig means you’re lacking in manners.”

“…What the hell did you just say?”

“At least I compared you to something alive. You called me a booger, didn’t you, mister?”

Even in terms of numbers, Saejin had the advantage over the man. After all, he had his hyung. Thinking this, Saejin refused to back down and lashed out at the rude stranger without hesitation. Just as he was about to raise his voice even louder in frustration, Woobeom placed a hand on his shoulder as if telling him to stop.

“Hyungnim, who is this cheeky brat?”

“Tae Kyungshik.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you picking a fight with a kid for no reason?”

“…What?”

Tae Kyungshik jolted as if wondering whether he’d heard correctly. He even slapped his palm against his ear a couple of times. Kyungshik wasn’t Woobeom’s direct subordinate, but he was among the people who had worked closely with him long before he became an executive director. Though Woobeom was eight years younger, Kyungshik had always addressed him with honorifics, showing his continued respect for his retired superior.

For Kyungshik, addressing Woobeom with anything other than “hyungnim” or “director” was unimaginable. Yet here Woobeom was, taking the side of some brat instead of him. The surge of emotion that shot up in that moment wasn’t disappointment, but something closer to betrayal.

“I’m sorry.”

Clenching his fist, Kyungshik pressed his massive stomach inward and bowed deeply. It was the kind of gangster greeting you’d only see in movies. Stunned, Saejin looked up at Woobeom, silently begging for an explanation.

“You… know this man?”

“We just worked together.”

They worked together. Woobeom had been a gangster, and this Tae Kyungshik called him hyungnim. A clear hierarchy. Obvious loyalty. It wasn’t hard for Saejin to guess the man had been one of Woobeom’s subordinates.

“Yoon Saejin, you too.”

“Me?”

“Even if you feel like shit, you shouldn’t talk to an adult like that.”

“…Okay.”

Maybe it was lucky he was wearing a mask, the way his lips were pressed forward in a sulky pout was far too obvious. His lower lip pushed out stubbornly, refusing to retreat no matter what. After all, he had been insulted first.

Even if Woobeom met an old subordinate, shouldn’t he at least be able to tell who was in the wrong? No matter how he tried to reinterpret it, the result stayed negative. His eyes began to sting with the mix of hurt and betrayal forming in his chest.

Then his pupils trembled. Woobeom had slapped Kyungshik across the face.

“Have some damn manners, Kyungshik.”

“Yes, I’ll correct myself.”

The man didn’t look upset about being hit, nor did he whine. He accepted it as if it were normal. Of course, in that brief moment, Saejin received a sharp glare in return. It seemed Kyungshik blamed him, the cause of the slap, rather than the one who delivered it.

‘…Still, running into someone he knows in a place like this really does make the world feel small.’

Trying to avoid Kyungshik’s stare, Saejin hid behind Woobeom’s back, unable to suppress the strange sense of awe. And just then, a flicker of dread crossed his mind. No way. It couldn’t be. But bad feelings were never wrong.

The moment Woobeom spoke again, Saejin’s mind went blank.

“Tae Kyungshik is coming with us.”

Woobeom didn’t need Saejin’s permission. The villa belonged to him, and the man in front of them was his colleague. What right did Saejin have to say no? Barely managing to nod, he felt as if acknowledging it took all his strength, despite no one forcing his head down at all.

‘…Well, he must have his reasons.’

Woobeom wasn’t someone who made decisions lightly. He wouldn’t bring Tae Kyungshik along just because he was an old colleague. There was definitely a convincing reason.

“What? You mean it won’t just be you and me going… that kid, no… Yoon Saejin is coming too?”

“They were already living together. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come. I’m not negotiating on this.”

“…That’s not what I meant.”

If it meant leaving Saejin behind, Woobeom would rather scrap the entire negotiation. Saejin glanced at Tae Kyungshik, who clearly hadn’t known the two were living together. Since Saejin had shown up in the middle of their conversation, it must have interrupted the flow. There were probably things left unsaid.

“Hyung… so we’re going to be living with that man from now on?”

“No. Just for a while.”

“For a while?”

It wasn’t a good place to talk things through. While they spoke, the surroundings kept getting darker until they needed the flashlight just to see nearby shapes. Following Woobeom’s suggestion, they agreed, hesitantly, to get in the car and continue the conversation there.