By Zephyria Yoon Seung-ryong quickly pressed the keypad to open the door. Lee Hyeon-myeong stumbled inside, leaning on his sibling’s embrace. Seeing him pour out the grief he had held back as if sobbing, Yohan felt tears well up again and quickly wiped them away. The rest of the group made space for the two of them. Seo Yakrin hugged Yohan, who was teary-eyed, and said,
“Our Yohan must miss his family too, not being able to go. How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay…! It’s not like I’m the only one who can’t see them.”
Yohan replied bravely. They had said it wouldn’t take too long for the embargo to be lifted, so he could endure a few more days.
“My sister probably got permission because she’s the director of a hospital cooperating with the Rift Management Agency. She’s always handled a lot of official duties that require security.”
As if reading Yohan’s mind, Seo Yakrin answered his unspoken questions. As they listened to stories about Hyeonsan Hospital, which Lee Hyeon-myeong now ran as the family business, the sound of conversation and crying gradually subsided. The bathroom door, where Lee Hyeon-myeong had gone, closed, and the sound of water was heard before stopping, perhaps for him to wipe his tears. As footsteps approached from the opening door, Yohan’s ears perked up.
Lee Hyeon-myeong approached with a smile. She had tidied her appearance neatly, and if not for her reddened eyes, one wouldn’t have known she had been crying.
“It’s such a relief that everyone returned without a single person missing. How much you all must have suffered. My goodness. Look how much weight Seung-ryong has lost…”
She continued to check on each team member one by one, then hesitated in front of Yohan. She then looked back at her sibling with a gaze that seemed to ask, “Who is this stranger?”
“Hello, my name is Yang Yohan.”
Yohan, who had been waiting for an opportunity to introduce himself, quickly bowed and said,
“Yohan is the savior of our team. The fact that I’m here safe and sound, that I could get out of the Abyss, is all thanks to Yohan. If it weren’t for Yohan, we would have been trapped in the Abyss forever.”
“Oh, no, no, it’s not like that… I did help a bit, but… I definitely didn’t do it all by myself!”
How could he claim surviving and escaping the Abyss was solely his own doing? Just as Yohan was about to flusteredly say that he himself was saved by meeting Lee Hyun-muk in the Abyss and that they all helped each other until the very end, allowing them to escape, Lee Hyeon-myeong, with tears welling up, clasped Yohan’s hand tightly. His palm was warm and damp with sweat.
“Yang Yohan, thank you so much. I truly don’t know how to express my gratitude… I thought I had lost my only remaining family member forever, but thanks to you, I was able to meet Hyun-mook again.”
“No, it’s not like that. Hyun-mook Hyung is saying that because he’s like that, but we all did it together. Please, speak casually to me. Really…”
Yohan was flustered by Lee Hyeon-myeong’s profound gratitude, given she was much older, almost of parental age. While looking at Yohan with affection, a question lingered in Lee Hyeon-myeong’s eyes. She was clearly curious about what Yohan’s abilities were that a High-level Awakened like Lee Hyun-muk would say he escaped the Abyss thanks to him. However, suppressing her curiosity, Lee Hyeon-myeong stood up.
“Yohan, I will repay this debt of gratitude many times over.”
Even though she had told him to speak casually, Lee Hyeon-myeong, who spoke with persistent endearment, wiped away tears that had formed and smiled.
“You must all be tired. I’ll be going now. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me.”
“Wait a moment. Let me see you out.”
Lee Hyeon-myeong smiled as if to frown, looking at her sibling with an affectionate gaze. Although Awakeneds aged slowly, she showed no surprising changes except for her hair color.
“Why see me out?”
“There are still many reporters nearby. And I have something to say to you separately.”
Lee Hyun-muk, who had first given Yohan a friendly nod, opened the front door and said to his teammates,
“I’ll buy dinner on the way back, so rest while I’m gone.”
“Yes, have a good trip! And you too, sister, please go home safely!”
The teammates, who had bid them farewell heartily, stood frozen, staring blankly at the closed front door. Yoon Seung-ryong scratched his head and muttered.
“It’s been so long since I last saw my sister. I thought I’d forgotten her face, but I haven’t forgotten anything. …I remember it all.”
“I know. Now I’ve become much older than her.”
A conversation filled with complex emotions that Yohan couldn’t possibly fathom ensued. Because they had spent an excessively long time in the Abyss, they had now become people twice the age of Lee Hyeon-myeong. To break the strangely listless atmosphere, Yohan, feigning ignorance, asked,
“By the way, you seem to have a big age gap with Hyun-mook Hyung.”
“Ah, the Team leader is the youngest of five siblings. He was a late bloomer, so there was a big age difference, and his sister practically raised him. But then… only the two of them were left after the 1st Great Rift.”
“Ah…”
Great Rift. This was a phenomenon where Rifts, which occurred locally, suddenly began to occur on a massive scale. Furthermore, when a Great Rift appeared, the Abyss inevitably followed in a short period. So far, there had been a total of three Great Rifts in Korea, and each time, there were an enormous number of deaths and disappearances. Lee Hyun-muk was a case of Awakening during the 1st Great Rift.
“So, how difficult it must have been for his sister all this time?”
Yohan nodded at Yoon Seung-ryong’s words. Losing all her family and having her precious youngest sibling disappear into the Abyss must have been unbearable. Seo Yakrin sighed and muttered,
“I should go meet my family too. It’s a bit embarrassing that I don’t think I’ll cry.”
“Uh… me too.”
Yoon Seung-ryong chimed in with Seo Yakrin’s remark. Just like Lee Hyun-muk, who had been quite composed after meeting Lee Hyeon-myeong, they too seemed to have somewhat faded emotions. It was an inevitable consequence of spending so long in the Abyss, but Yohan felt inexplicably upset. Joo Ho-young, who had no reason to feel embarrassed as his entire family died during the Great Rift, asked indifferently,
“What about Chan-ha Hyung’s lover? What happened to them? And his sibling?”
“Well, I haven’t really looked into it, so I’ll only know if I can get in touch. He wasn’t on good terms with his sibling to begin with, so I assume they’re doing fine on their own.”
As they chatted about this and that, the front door opened. Yohan, who had been fidgeting amidst the dry, barren conversation, darted out like a bullet. Yoon Seung-ryong also quickly ran out. Lee Hyun-muk was holding a large amount of food.
“Ch… Chicken! Pizza! Jokbal!”
“Coke! Tteokbokki! Jeyuk! Jjajangmyeon!”
Yoon Seung-ryong and Seo Yakrin, who had been utterly indifferent to the talk about family, knelt down and cried out upon seeing the food. Yohan felt the same surge of emotion. The spread of food on the table was dazzling. Although the meals provided in the quarantine room were delicious, the sight of delivery food, packed with MSG, made them pale in comparison. Joo Ho-young was already busily tearing into spicy chicken feet.
However, Lee Hyun-muk and Lee Chan-ha were having a serious conversation, paying no mind to the team members engrossed in the food. As Yohan watched with curiosity, Lee Hyun-muk met his gaze and smiled.
“Eat up, Yohan-ah.”
“Hyun-mook Hyung and Chan-ha Hyung too! Let’s eat first, then talk.”
At Yohan’s urging, the two finally started eating. For a long while afterward, only the sounds of eating and drinking could be heard from the house. The amount of food Lee Hyun-muk had bought was immense, yet it seemed to disappear endlessly, requiring another order in the middle.
After ordering dessert, everyone’s feast finally ended. Yoon Seung-ryong, whose appetite had become voracious due to the Corruption, lay sprawled out, extremely satisfied. Yohan, despite eating the least among them, was panting, full. He had felt it in the Abyss too; they all seemed to have black holes for stomachs.
“By the way, I have a question…”
Groaning, Yohan adjusted his posture from his sprawled position and asked his team members, who were looking at him kindly.
“Why do I have to hide that I’m a Purifier?”
As soon as he escaped the Abyss, Yohan felt a stream-like energy flowing from his body. He instinctively knew that if he released this energy, just as he had awakened the Eternal Stones in Black Mountain, tens or hundreds of Purifiers would awaken. Following the impulse, which was akin to a High-level Awakened’s instinct, he wanted to do so. However, following Lee Hyun-muk’s instruction to hide his identity as a Purifier, he had held back and was keeping it tightly contained.
“Hmm… There are several reasons. The biggest one is that we can’t trust the government.”
At Lee Hyun-muk’s words, Yohan put down his half-finished cola. He asked cautiously, without showing much surprise,
“Did the government do something to the Sunrise Team?”
While staying in the Rift Management Agency’s quarantine room, Yohan had made his own conjectures. Why was he told to hide being a Purifier? Why was he told to refuse the Rift Management Agency’s recruitment offer? He wasn’t a fool; he knew his companions were wary of the government, or rather, the Rift Management Agency.
“You know that the current government’s policy is to suppress Awakeneds, right?”
“It seemed that way.”
Yohan nodded. In its early days, the government forcibly conscripted Awakeneds, and now it apprehended and detained corrupted Awakeneds. Moreover, many laws disadvantageous to Awakeneds had been proposed. For example, Awakeneds faced extremely strict exit procedures, and depending on the time and situation, their residential areas could be restricted for national defense. They faced aggravated penalties if they harmed civilians and were required to undergo humiliating corruption tests regularly at designated institutions.
While these were indispensable laws in the crisis situation of Rifts, it was also true that they were being used as a pretext to suppress Awakeneds beyond what was necessary. This was something that had no direct relation to Yohan in the past, but it had now become a personal matter.
“Yohan, I believe the government was involved in our disappearance into the Abyss.”