By Zephyria 
The moment Ha-jin realized that Eden had fallen off the cliff with a Zombie, his legs gave way and he collapsed. He tried to stand up again, but his damn body wouldn’t listen.
At some point, he was crawling on the ground without realizing it. He didn’t even notice his knees scraping against the ground and bleeding as he quickly crawled towards the slope. Pie was still biting Ha-jin’s top and wouldn’t let go.
“Kkeuing…!”
Pie’s restless whimpers grew louder and louder.
“Ha-jin Hyung!”
“Do Ha-jin!”
Just in time, the siblings who had arrived at the transmission tower called Ha-jin’s name and ran over. Ha-jin, as if he couldn’t hear anything, made a groaning sound like a person pinned down by a ghost and reached out towards the bottom. He was just about to fall off the cliff.
The three siblings who approached grabbed Ha-jin’s calves and ankles with difficulty.
“Do Ha-jin, are you crazy?! What are you doing!”
“Ha-jin Hyung, why are you doing this…!”
The siblings, who were frantically trying to stop Ha-jin, turned their gazes to one place at the same time. At the end of Ha-jin’s gaze, reaching out pitifully, was a familiar figure.
“Isn’t that Jeong Tae-geon?!”
Hee-soo’s loud scream echoed through the mountain. Hee-joon and Hee-sung, who belatedly grasped the situation, desperately pulled Ha-jin, who was struggling.
“Shit, let’s get him out of here first!”
The three siblings worked together to pull Ha-jin up. As Ha-jin, who had been thrown to the ground, gasped and tried to get up again, Hee-soo slapped his left cheek. Smack─!
“Just stay still since you’re not going to be any help anyway! We’ll bring Jeong Tae-geon back!”
Then, she grabbed Ha-jin’s collar and pressed her forehead close to his.
“Don’t move an inch from here. If we waste time trying to stop you, Jeong Tae-geon might be in more danger.”
At the quiet warning, the pupils that had been black and dead instantly regained their light. While he was regaining his senses with Hee-soo’s help, the two brothers untied the rope hanging behind the motorcycle.
As if they were experts in survival skills, the three siblings’ movements to rescue Eden were quick and efficient. While Hee-joon and Hee-soo worked together to tie the rope around each other’s waists, Hee-sung, holding the end of the rope, limped towards the transmission tower.
As soon as the rope was firmly fixed on the iron tower leg, Hee-joon and Hee-soo moved towards the cliff as if they had been waiting. Short, thick tears poured down Ha-jin’s dry cheeks as he struggled to get up.
Ha-jin, who quickly wiped away his tears, slapped his cheeks roughly as if trying to come to his senses. While slapping his cheeks several times to prevent the terrible imaginations flooding his mind, Hee-sung stopped him with a dumbfounded voice.
“Ha-jin Hyung! Stop it!”
It was then. Hee-joon’s voice, which had gone down below, echoed faintly.
“Pull up more!”
Instinctively, a red light turned on in his head. Ha-jin, who had been panting, ran to Hee-soo, who was standing on the edge of the cliff. Hee-soo turned to look at him, who had come running in a mess, and shouted.
“Have you come to your senses?!”
Instead of answering, Ha-jin quickly nodded his head. If he lost Eden too, he would have nothing left. The desperate and urgent thought that everything would be over if he didn’t pull himself together here began to dig into his head like a snake.
Ha-jin, who was standing close behind her, pulled the rope with all his might. His palms were torn by the thick rope, but he didn’t feel any pain at this moment.
“Hee-joon! How’s Jeong Tae-geon doing?!”
Hee-soo shouted, and an answer came back from below.
“He’s unconscious! I think he hurt his head!”
“Is he still breathing?!”
“He’s not dead!”
At those words, he almost dropped the rope he was holding. Ha-jin desperately bit his trembling lips and pulled the rope towards him with all his might, as if he were playing tug-of-war.
“One! Two! One…!”
“A little more!”
While the difficult shouts continued, Pie circled around in place anxiously. Before long, Hee-joon, carrying Eden on his back, appeared. As the two safely reached the top, the three people holding the rope fell to the ground one after another.
Ha-jin caught his breath and crawled towards Eden. As soon as he saw his face with his eyes closed, he felt like tears would pour out again.
Eden’s condition, who had fainted, was not good. The blood that soaked his head flowed down to his chin, and his complexion was as pale as if he had been covered in flour. At a glance, the amount of blood gushing out was considerable.
His trembling fingertips quickly groped his body. Fortunately, there were no traces of being bitten by a Zombie anywhere.
While Ha-jin was carefully checking Eden’s condition, Hee-sung, who had approached him, carefully shook his shoulder.
“Hyung, there’s a hospital nearby. Even if there’s no doctor, we should at least get some medicine.”
Hee-sung, who said that, tore the short-sleeved T-shirt he had taken out of his bag and carefully wrapped it around Eden’s head.
“Hyung, do you know how to ride a motorcycle?”
When Ha-jin quickly nodded his head, Hee-soo, who was watching the two from the side, suggested.
“I’ll lend it to you, so why don’t you take Jeong Tae-geon there first? We’ll just squeeze into the remaining one and follow slowly with Pie.”
Hee-sung agreed as if making a promise.
“That’s right. I’ll take care of Pie.”
Ha-jin, who got up from his seat without even having time to think, put Eden’s arm over his shoulder. The three siblings helped him as if it were natural. Subsequently, Ha-jin’s waist and Eden’s body, who took the wheel, were tightly tied with a rope.
Hee-sung, who carefully checked the knots connecting the two, began to explain the location of the hospital.
“It’ll take 15 minutes by motorcycle from here to Ajung Hospital. It’s not that far, and the location is….”
“Wait a minute.”
Ha-jin snatched his words at a name that sounded familiar.
“Ajung Hospital?”
His voice trembled slightly as he asked.
“Yes, Ajung Hospital. It’s the place before Neverland….”
At that moment, the blue sign he had seen fleetingly flashed through Ha-jin’s mind as clearly as a photograph.
↑ Neverland 4km
↖ Ajung hospital 2km
← Dragon Cloud Botanical Garden 500m
And at the same time, the smell of that day tickled the tip of his nose. The drizzling rain, the sweet scent of flowers, and the woman wandering the streets with medical tools in her arms.
Flower…. The excessively sweet smell of flowers.
Come to think of it, she disappeared near the Dragon Cloud Botanical Garden, not Ajung Hospital.
“No.”
“Yes?”
“We have to go to the botanical garden.”
Ha-jin said, turning the front of the motorcycle.
“There’s a doctor at the Dragon Cloud Botanical Garden. Everyone come that way.”
Hee-sung opened his mouth in bewilderment at the somewhat absurd words. Ha-jin left him alone and immediately increased his speed towards the bottom of the entrance road. Hee-soo and Hee-joon shouted at him to be careful as he ran out.
Vroom─
Ha-jin narrowed his eyes at the chilling wind, but desperately held back his tears. A faint breath fell on his shoulder. Ha-jin’s heart beat so hard that it hurt as he listened to Eden’s breathing.
Before he knew it, he had escaped the vast forest and entered the road.
Ha-jin was not unfamiliar with this situation of fully enduring Eden’s weight. When he recalled Eden from that day when he leaned on him as if collapsing in the cylindrical underpass, a dry smile flowed from his lips, out of place with the situation.
‘Then, are you saying I should just leave him to die?’
He often spat out such kind words in a fierce tone. It was an unchangingly rough and sweet attitude even before the relationship developed. Ha-jin tried not to cry, but before he could stop it, silent tears flowed down his cheeks.
The past days, when he had run only for survival, flashed by like a revolving lantern. It was only now, when he was in danger of losing Eden, that he began to realize more clearly how fortunate he was to have Eden by his side.
“Jeong Tae-geon, can you hear me?”
He asked in a trembling voice, but as expected, there was no answer. The back of his body, which was in contact with Eden, was wet with the tension and worry that rushed in like a flood.
His sense of smell was paralyzed by the fishy smell of blood emanating from him. A different kind of fear than when he lost Jun-seok slowly began to consume his mind, but he couldn’t collapse here.
“Just hang in there a little longer. I’ll… I’ll treat you soon.”
He muttered as if making a promise. Eden had always protected him all the way here. And now it was his turn to protect Eden. He vowed never to waste time worrying about him going wrong.
The pain of the past few days when he lost Jun-seok was enough.
‘I have nothing more to lose.’
So he will do what he can. Anything to save Eden.
Ha-jin sped towards the Dragon Cloud Botanical Garden, cutting through the Zombies that popped out like roe deer.