SOG CH 157

Jae-chan, washing his hands at the sink in the autopsy room, raised his head at the sound of gunfire in the distance.

Bang! Bang bang! The relentless gunshots echoed ominously in his ears. It was a barrage, reminiscent of machine-gun fire, filled with a cruel intent to turn the target into a bullet-riddled mess.

The thin stream of water endlessly drained into the sink. Seon Jae-chan, after listening to the unceasing gunfire, turned off the faucet and turned around. Struggling to suppress his rising anxiety, he headed toward the medicine storage room.

“Ms. Seo Hye-in, aren’t you going to wash up?”

Gyeong Hye-in, who had shut herself in the storage room alone, didn’t budge. With his ear pressed against the iron door, he could hear a voice as if she were communicating with someone. As he grew increasingly suspicious, Yu-ram approached.

“Hmm… is she watching some entertainment show?”

Yu-ram, also listening at the door, whispered. Seon Jae-chan furrowed his brow in thought, then shared his inner thoughts in a low voice.

“She could be exchanging coded messages with the terrorists.”

“What?”

Yu-ram’s eyes widened. Jae-chan explicitly shared his distrust of Gyeong Hye-in.

While Yu-ram thought Jae-chan was being overly suspicious, she knocked on the storage room door. There was no time to stop her. Yu-ram flung the door open, casually saying, “Hye-in-ssi, are you really not coming out?” She returned a moment later after seeing with her own eyes what Hye-in was doing on her phone.

Leaving the storage room door slightly ajar, Yu-ram whispered to Jae-chan with a strange expression.

“Do terrorists these days use ‘Let’s eat chicken in bed later’ as a code…?”

“…?”

“I mean Seo Hye-in. Sounds like she’s listening to her boyfriend’s voice. Like a recorded phone call.”

Park Yu-ram shrugged. Right on cue, the sound of Gyeong Hye-in sniffling could be heard through the door crack. She was crying while listening to her boyfriend’s voice.

Seon Jae-chan was dumbfounded. Of course, it was possible that the terrorists had designated words like ‘bed’ and ‘chicken’ as code, and that Gyeong Hye-in was putting on an elaborate act of crying while being extremely wary of them.

Still unable to shake his suspicions, he leaned in to listen, only to hear a very low, husky voice saying, “Outside the bed you might be my boss, but in bed…” Seon Jae-chan nearly jumped back as if he’d touched a hot pot lid. He suddenly felt the urge to scrub his ears clean.

“It really does sound like her boyfriend, doesn’t it?”

Park Yu-ram whispered again. Jae-chan, rubbing his goosebump-covered ears, reluctantly nodded.

“…To think she even recorded it… that’s real dedication.”

“Huh? Don’t you have any voice recordings?”

Park Yu-ram asked. Seon Jae-chan gave her a look that said ‘why would I do such a thing?’ and this time it was Yu-ram’s turn to look incredulous.

“Go Woo-jin has a nice voice too, doesn’t he? Are you two really dating?”

Jae-chan wondered how she knew about that, but Yu-ram continued her passionate speech regardless.

“When a lover says things like ‘I like you’ or ‘I miss you’, I always ask them to say it one more time so I can keep it. It’s nice to see them being shy, and you want to hear those words multiple times, right? It’s really happiness to listen to it in bed before going to sleep.”

Hearing this, it made sense. How nice it would be to have a recording of Woo-jin’s voice right now. Listening to that low, warm voice would surely give him strength he didn’t know he had.

Why hadn’t he thought of doing this before?

After blinking his dazed eyes for a moment, Jae-chan soon found the answer.

It was because he subconsciously kept his distance from Woo-jin. Unable to shake the thought that Woo-jin wasn’t truly his and that this was a love he would have to let go of, he had habitually avoided opportunities for his feelings to deepen.

“…Chan. Jae-chan?”

Snapping back to reality, he found Yu-ram furrowing her brows.

“Ah, sorry.”

Jae-chan suppressed a bitter laugh. He had been lost in thoughts of Woo-jin again.

No matter how hard he tried, maybe it was because he had already given too much of his heart away. Even in a life-or-death situation, he had let his guard down for just a moment, and there he was, thinking of Woo-jin again.

“You should rest too.”

After sending Yu-ram away, Jae-chan remained where he could somewhat overhear Gyeong Hye-in’s movements. He occasionally listened to the unceasing gunfire.

Hopefully, the gunshots had nothing to do with Woo-jin.

The gunfire, which would normally be a welcome sign of rescue at this point, had become a source of anxiety due to the unexpected phenomenon of the Windless Zone. Of course, if the military pushed with overwhelming firepower and tactics, the odds would be in their favor, but according to Gyeong Hye-in, the President didn’t seem likely to make a wise choice.

Please be safe. Just follow orders from above safely, no matter what.

He cast an aimless gaze out the blinded window. Only a faint streetlight glow shone through from an indeterminable source.

*

“It’s fine. Really, I’m fine!”

Jung Hana, resting on the autopsy table, emphasized repeatedly. She was declining Gu Ji-young’s attempt to cover her ears to block out the gunshots.

“I’m used to it… I watch a lot of crime shows, so these kinds of noises don’t bother me.”

She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself as a dull, throbbing pain persisted. Gu Ji-young, with a faint crease between her brows, made another offbeat comment.

“Wouldn’t it be better to watch something like ‘Jungle Family’ instead of a crime show?”

Jung Hana’s face soured as if she’d bitten into an unripe persimmon. Inwardly muttering about how similar this was to what her husband said, she again said, “I’m really fine.” Regardless, Esper Gu was a lifesaver who hadn’t abandoned her in this cursed situation.

The group had just finished washing up briefly. They had taken turns using the restroom, accompanied by Chae Seong-hwan. When Gu Ji-young and Park Yu-ram were helping Jung Hana, the men briefly went into the storage room. Gyeong Hye-in, though irritated, remained in the autopsy room and helped Gu Ji-young and Park Yu-ram a little.

“Anyone want coffee?”

Park Yu-ram had found an electric kettle and paper cups in the corner and made coffee for everyone. A thin layer of tranquility, like coffee foam, settled over the group as they moistened their throats. Except for incidents where Gu Ji-young advised “If it’s too painful to sleep, it’s real labor” far too many times, or when she repeatedly lifted Jung Hana’s dress to check if her water had broken, earning curses from her, the coffee-scented air was quiet.

It had been a day of too many events. Well past midnight, one by one they dozed off knowingly or unknowingly. It seemed Jung Hana’s contractions were false labor, as she too fell asleep.

Only Seon Jae-chan and Chae Seong-hwan remained awake. They agreed to take turns keeping watch. However, while Chae Seong-hwan took the first watch, Jae-chan couldn’t sleep and revisited the Center’s floor plan.

“Can’t sleep?”

Chae Seong-hwan leaned in and whispered. The floor plan was marked with potential hiding spots and escape routes in case they needed to move. Seon Jae-chan circled the nearest hideout, the Esper Runaway Prevention Room in the Esper Bureau, as he replied.

“I usually don’t sleep well away from home.”

“Ah, so you’re the type to stay up all night protecting the country too.”

It was a middle-aged attempt at humor, but Seon Jae-chan smiled slightly.

Thinking his joke had landed, Chae Seong-hwan smiled back and took a fresh look at Seon Jae-chan. The softened curve of his lips when he smiled, the line of his cheeks… The once pretty boy had grown into a man with even more delicate features as his baby fat melted away.

It seemed like just yesterday that Woo-jin had been so coldly turning away, but was this face really so much to his taste?

…No, that’s not it.

He had said it wasn’t because of looks. Chae Seong-hwan suddenly recalled a conversation he’d had with Go Woo-jin about a month ago.

‘What’s so great about that Guide Seon?’

This was what Chae Seong-hwan had asked when he briefly managed to meet Woo-jin at the center’s pub after returning to Central Management Headquarters in January. It was because it had become so difficult to see his face lately.

Woo-jin, who used to attend various gatherings so often that he was gently called ‘Meeting Woo-jin’ among them, had suddenly stopped showing up. It was bad enough that even Ahn Suk-young, who was usually very reticent, had asked, ‘Is something wrong with Go Woo-jin these days?’

It wasn’t that he wasn’t meeting acquaintances at all, but when he did meet up, it was only occasionally with Hwang Guk-hyeon or Kim Geun-won, who worked as a creator. It seemed those two were the only ones he was still in touch with, probably because both of them were also in relationships. Woo-jin, supposedly, was seeking relationship advice from them, which Chae Seong-hwan found absurd.

Anyway, with Woo-jin so engrossed in this love affair, one couldn’t help but wonder about the driving force behind it.

‘Well… why do I like him…’

At Chae Seong-hwan’s question, Woo-jin had pondered for a long time, lowering his long-lashed gaze. After such serious deliberation, one would expect some profound answer.

‘Just…’

Finally, what flowed out, in his own detailed and lengthy way, was this:

‘He’s warm, and he moves, and he laughs, and when he breathes it tickles…’

‘…’

‘I like those things.’

What kind of answer is that?

Chae Seong-hwan had blinked in confusion. So he liked Seon Jae-chan because he was warm, moved, laughed, and his breath tickled?

Aren’t those qualities possessed by all living humans?

However, it was impossible to honestly question the guy who was smiling with a rare look of certainty, as if he had given a clear reason. He could only tilt his bewildered beer mug and swallow his astonishment along with it.

Would this young master also find Go Woo-jin’s mere breathing delightful? Such curiosity suddenly crossed his mind.

“Why do you like Woo-jin?”

At Chae Seong-hwan’s question that burst out suddenly, Seon Jae-chan choked. Chae Seong-hwan roughly patted his back and urged him.

“Come on, say something quickly.”

Jae-chan gently waved off the patting hand and lowered his gaze with a troubled look. It wasn’t easy to answer.