By Zephyria Pararak-!
Mu-hae didn’t even have the mind to consider that Joo-oh was sitting across from him with his eyes wide open.
As soon as Jin Mu-hae pressed the ‘Connect’ button, the Watch vibrated slightly and projected a hologram in front of him.
Instead of someone’s face, a sound wave graph occupied the square window where the other party’s video should have been.
[Connected.]
Even after the notification appeared, there was no signal or voice for a long time.
Joo-oh, who had been frozen for a moment, only made a very small sound of biting into a sandwich on the other side of the hologram.
Rustle, rustle. Mumble, mumble.
Gulp. Mumble, mumble.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
Even the one who broke the silence was Joo-oh again.
He finished the palm-sized sandwich in three or four bites, swallowed the food in his mouth cleanly, and spoke into the air.
Then the sound wave graph jumped a little. As if someone on the other side of the connected signal had made a rustling sound.
“Isn’t that Gu-reum?”
“Be quiet.”
“Jin Mu-hae was waiting.”
“You… ! Go into the room.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
Without even confirming whether the other party was really Gu-reum, or just a Central employee or some nobody who had somehow obtained a signal device, Joo-oh suddenly said Mu-hae’s name.
Mu-hae, chilled to the bone, glared at Joo-oh with a fierce expression.
“There’s security. It wouldn’t be someone else…”
Joo-oh protested softly, then pretended to shut his mouth.
He was annoying enough to want to punch, but he was also right. According to Director Gil, not just any Link Watch could be connected to the Return flight’s communication network just by plugging in a signal device.
The data that his father had arbitrarily implanted into Jin Mu-hae’s Watch. There must have been a function in there that activated the signal device.
The user was registered in the Link Watch’s verification system, which was updated every week, the Watch had been rooted without Central’s knowledge, and the function only possessed by Return flight participants was also in there.
Although he kept his mouth shut, the other party was highly likely to be Gu-reum.
More than twenty years after the failed coup, they were just showing caution at the sudden signal.
-Jin Mu-hae, you say.
Sure enough. Not long after Joo-oh blurted it out, a distorted voice vibrated and buzzed from the Watch.
The sound wave graph finally started to move properly.
-What is your relationship with General Jin?
Even though she instinctively sensed the relationship, she asked to confirm.
“He is my deceased father.”
-Haa… Oh dear.
After hearing the expected answer, Gu-reum sighed deeply. It was an ambiguous lament mixed with all sorts of emotions.
For a moment, there was more rustling noise, then Gu-reum’s voice was heard.
-I don’t have much time. It’s hard to talk for long.
“It doesn’t matter. But if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to meet you once.”
-It can’t not be a burden. But… alright. I need to see you in person once.
Gu-reum, who seemed to hesitate for a moment, made a decision after much deliberation.
-In two days, you will board a short-distance mobility for a request.
“At the simple station.”
-Yes. That would be a good place.
-…nim, …on …Geon’s matter, I kno…
-11 a.m. Thank you for your understanding.
Beep.
The connection with Gu-reum, which had started so suddenly, was cut off abruptly again.
Even after the hologram and sound wave graph disappeared from in front of him, Jin Mu-hae was still staring at the empty air.
“Jin Mu-hae, aren’t you going to eat?”
Whether he didn’t know the atmosphere or was pretending not to know, Joo-oh picked up one pea at a time and spoke.
Only then did Mu-hae slowly lower his eyes and look at the sandwich, which still had more than half left.
“I’m not giving you any.”
“I wasn’t going to steal it!”
His bewildered mood was somewhat relieved by the aggrieved protest.
11 a.m. two days later. A meeting with Gu-reum was set.
Finally, there was real progress in the Return flight’s affairs, which had been at a standstill.
The simple station was fortunately deserted. But since there weren’t no people at all, Jin Mu-hae was standing there armed as usual.
He couldn’t help but be nervous, so his face was a bit stiff, but he was originally someone who couldn’t make a friendly expression, so this was more natural.
“I won’t say anything.”
“You better not.”
Next to him, Joo-oh tugged at the sleeves of his newly tailored jacket with a solemn face.
For him to make such a serious expression. Even the way he covered his eyes with a hat suited him surprisingly well, and there was something funny about it, but he didn’t have enough mental space to actually laugh.
Shiiiiiing-.
Before long, a black mobility approached them.
It was the same moderately small model that the Company used to send.
As soon as the door opened, Joo-oh entered without a moment’s hesitation. Mu-hae, who had been beaten to the punch, made a strange expression, then sighed and followed him inside.
Thud. As the door closed, the light inside turned on. Someone was sitting in the opposite seat.
It was a middle-aged woman with neat short hair. Her clothes, which seemed to be deliberately simple, were so luxurious that she looked like someone with a certain status.
Soft clothes that fit her body well, and clean skin without any scars or skin diseases. At first glance, she had an atmosphere that was more likely to be seen in Central than Mu-hae or his father.
“I wondered if it was possible.”
In the slowly moving mobility, Gu-reum spoke first.
“You really do resemble that woman.”
She, who he thought would just throw out a light greeting, started the conversation with an unexpected story.
Mu-hae frowned slightly and looked at Gu-reum. The things he had thought about how to greet Gu-reum almost scattered in his head in an instant.
“I am Jin Mu-hae. I received the Return flight’s records from my father.”
“…Gu-reum. I’ll just say that. I dabbled in the Return flight in the past.”
Fortunately, he managed to finish the greeting somehow, but Gu-reum’s first greeting was too impressive.
The story of his mother, which was not in any prediction or assumption. In the first place, the word ‘mother’ itself was so unfamiliar that Mu-hae felt like he was listening to someone else’s story.
Of course, unless Jin Seong-jo created Jin Mu-hae by asexual reproduction and cut open his own stomach to give birth, he would naturally have a mother.
However, Mu-hae had never deeply contemplated her existence. Since the age of five, when his memories began, there was no room for even something similar to a mother in Jin Mu-hae’s life.
The environment in which he grew up was a bit tough to have questions like ‘everyone else has a mother’. It was more common in his neighborhood for one or both parents to be missing.
Mu-hae was not given the opportunity to grow up comfortably and immaturely enough to look for a mother who was not mentioned as if she had never existed in the pit of those who might have been better off without parents.
So Jin Mu-hae is not interested in his mother. But if her existence is mentioned by a Return flight participant, that’s another matter.
If his mother was a Return flight participant, she would have been closer than Mr. Jin or Director Gil. He couldn’t just brush it off.
“Do you know my mother?”
The title he had never uttered in his life was disgustingly unfamiliar. Gu-reum, who confirmed Mu-hae’s gaze, suddenly closed her mouth.
A face that doesn’t show emotions well, as if she is good at dealing with people. Nevertheless, he could feel a sense of ‘oops’.
That complex and subtle silence made her seem like someone who held secrets that she couldn’t tell Mu-hae.
At that moment, Gu-reum’s Watch vibrated. She checked the Watch familiarly and then returned her arm to its original position.
It seemed that it was not an empty word that she didn’t have much time. Mu-hae felt that Gu-reum was someone who would have to leave soon for business.
Gu-reum stared at Joo-oh.
“Who is this person?”
“You don’t have to worry about him. He’s not someone who will leak anything or cause an accident.”
In fact, the latter could not be certain. But he couldn’t honestly say in this place, ‘He’s a bit erratic and reckless, but he’s helpful at work and has a good heart,’ could he?
Anyway, Joo-oh was in the same boat. He became a member of the Return flight without even knowing it.
Perhaps sensing in a short time that it would be difficult to separate Joo-oh, Gu-reum cleared her throat and asked the main point.
“What do you want?”
“I am currently collecting the Return flight’s data scattered in various places. If I can get help from those who participated in the past, I can find the direction of the work more easily.”
“Hmm… Well, it would have been difficult for General Jin to run away with all of it alone.”
Gu-reum quietly agreed, as if she knew the situation at the time. As if she understood how Jin Mu-hae was now turning on the signal device and poking around in all directions.
But she didn’t readily answer that she would help.
“Actually, I was a little surprised. That the thing that would never work again is ringing now.”
“Was it rude of me?”
“Well. Not to that extent, but I’ll point out one thing for your sake.”
Gu-reum continued in a voice without much emotion.
“Responding to this call is only due to simple curiosity. There’s no reason for me to take risks and help you now.”
“…”
“I’m advising you out of old ties. Don’t expect that a member of the past will agree with the ambitions that have flowed to this day. Now there will be more people who are uneasy about their past than those who are friendly.”
It was advice that hit the nail on the head. Mu-hae clearly remembered the anxious face that Shin Dae-soo showed when he went to the Taeul District.
“I’m already guessing that. But…”
Mu-hae stopped talking, glancing out the window. Gu-reum’s eyes moved slightly at the intentional silence.
“Isn’t it a bit long for that?”
“What?”
“Knowing that it would never work again and having no regrets, what were you expecting that you left the dangerous device on the Link Watch for over 20 years?”