By Zephyria 
Though I vowed not to give my heart again, fearing the impending farewell, it wasn’t easy. Ha-jin, who had been gently embracing Hee-sung, with whom he had overcome the most difficult time of Jun-seok’s death, pulled away. Ha-jin rubbed the tip of his reddened nose with the back of his hand and said,
“Tell Lee Hee-soo and Lee Hee-joon I said hello. Tell them I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye.”
“Hng… Yes.”
The twin siblings, who had left before sunrise to find food, had not yet returned to the botanical garden. They waited for about 30 minutes to say goodbye, but they could no longer ignore the gradually thinning rain.
“Take care, Hee-sung.”
He couldn’t easily say, “Let’s meet again.” Everyone knew too well that the possibility of never meeting again was significantly higher than the possibility of meeting again.
It was uncertain whether Ha-jin and Eden would safely make it to the United States, and even if they sent a helicopter back here, they didn’t know if the botanical garden would still be safe by then. Ha-jin thought that perhaps a farewell without a promise was more cruel than a permanent farewell.
“Be careful! You have to survive!”
“Take care!”
Voices cheering them on rang out. Ha-jin shook off the tears clinging to the corners of his eyes and followed Eden.
As if it had never rained, the sky was excessively clear and bright. Under the hot sun, it felt as if his body would dry up like dried fish at any moment, but fortunately, the humidity was not high even after the rain, so the discomfort was less.
Ha-jin, who was looking at the fragmented clouds floating like cotton candy, quickened his pace again. Eden cut down the lush grass and turned around.
“Be careful of your feet. Some of them have thorns.”
“Yes. You too, Jeong Tae-geon.”
The road, which had lost its original function, was yielding its land to plants that had grown lawlessly. Because of this, the pace was slow, but it was not a bad environment to hide from the eyes of the Zombies. Ha-jin, taking care of Pie, who was following with a bright face, was wary of his surroundings.
Regret crept over Ha-jin’s face as he looked at the stopped traffic lights, the children’s protection vehicle with peeling paint, and the building that had been burned down. Everything was corroding and collapsing simply because human hands had not touched it.
After Eden was injured, he only thought about leaving Korea with him as soon as possible, but as the day approached, he was filled with unknown emotions.
Perhaps because his steps had slowed down due to useless sentimentality, he saw Eden reaching out his hand behind him. Ha-jin, as if waiting for it, quickly grabbed his hand and cheerfully moved his feet again.
“That Tune radio system. It wouldn’t have been burned down or anything, would it?”
“It doesn’t matter if the lab burns down. Tune is a special explosion-proof radio, so it won’t explode or melt.”
“Really…?”
Eden added to Ha-jin, who still couldn’t erase his worried expression.
“What are you worried about? If we can’t go to the United States, we can just live here together.”
The corner of Ha-jin’s heart, which had been tightly packed with tension, melted warmly at the too-easygoing answer. When he smiled faintly, he felt Eden squeeze and release the hand he was holding tightly.
“By the way, I’m sorry I just came without saying goodbye to Lee Hee-soo and Lee Hee-joon. I hope they understand?”
“If you waited for 30 minutes in this disaster situation, you’ve shown enough sincerity.”
“Um, that’s true, but I’m just saying I’m sad that I couldn’t say goodbye.”
“It can’t be helped even if you’re sad. It’s too late to go back.”
Ha-jin wiggled the hand he was holding and sighed.
“Do you ever think Jeong Tae-geon is like a robot?”
Even after hearing the nagging, Eden only shrugged his shoulders as if it were nothing.
The two continued on their way, joking around with trivial things. Based on the corroded road signs and the government offices they had looked at in advance, they calculated the shortest distance and chose a safe route.
The march was generally peaceful, but there were many times when they had to stop because of the lurking threats in various places. They encountered a group of Zombies clinging to traffic lights, and they argued with several people begging for food in the underground shopping district that had been hidden to avoid the heat.
Half a day had already passed since they left. A little after 2 p.m., Ha-jin hid in a tightly closed neighborhood bar with Eden and had a late lunch. Large drops of sweat ran down the foreheads of the two people eating the rice balls they had brought.
“If you’re too tired, shall we rest for 30 minutes?”
“Can we?”
“We’re almost at the lab anyway, and we’ll have to deal with Zombies if we’re not careful, so it’s best to replenish our strength in advance.”
Zombies…. Ha-jin shuddered as if he was sick of just imagining it. While Pie and Ha-jin were sprawled out on the floor, Eden, who had reorganized his weapons and luggage, held Chun-beom’s Employee ID hanging around his neck in his hand. He stared blankly at the card, then took out a notepad from his bag and began to write something down.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m going to write down the rescue codes and the emergency situation room number that we mainly used. Just in case, keep it with you.”
“Ah, Jeffrey gave me the card and wrote down a number. I think it’s Hugo’s number. I memorized it all, but….”
Eden’s hand, which had been writing down the number for a while, stopped for a moment. He looked down at Ha-jin lying on the floor.
“Did you happen to see a memo when you came out of the camper?”
“A memo? I came out in a hurry, so I didn’t see it, but why? Is it important?”
“…No, it’s nothing.”
He now remembered that he had left a memo with rescue codes and personal numbers on the sofa in the trailer. It was an important memo to be delivered to Ha-jin in case something happened to him.
He hadn’t remembered the existence of the memo because he had left the campsite in a hurry and had even injured his head in the meantime. Tsk, Eden clicked his tongue briefly as if he had made a mistake.
Then Ha-jin looked up at him sitting at the table and muttered like a complaint.
“We can do it, right?”
“…….”
“We really have to go to America… I’d feel sorry to Jeong Tae-geon if we didn’t.”
Eden chuckled as if he was being cheeky at the impudent language. He came down and lay down next to Ha-jin, humming briefly. An incongruous cheap chandelier was hanging above the black-painted ceiling.
“…….”
“…….”
In the middle of an excessively quiet city, inside a dilapidated old bar, the two simultaneously recalled the past few months. Moments that were so dangerous that it seemed miraculous that they had survived until now flashed through their minds.
The small theater and motel, the mart, the police station, the rest area and the night of the stream, the Jeongmang Mountain cave and the murderous Misan Ranch, the old-fashioned apartment where they had their first kiss, the outlet, the temple and industrial complex on the bizarre cliffs, the Hanok bookstore, the Maintenance Depot that was a scene of carnage….
Not to mention after Ha-jin and Eden’s reunion. After passing through countless repeated farewells and tunnels of death, the lab, the last stop of the long journey, was finally right in front of them.
“Are you nervous too, Jeong Tae-geon?”
Ha-jin asked. Eden, who had been silent for a while, turned his head and looked at him.
“Well, I don’t know. I think I’m more excited than nervous.”
Ha-jin’s eyes narrowed at the always calm answer.
“Do you perhaps enjoy pain… or something like that?”
“To be exact, I prefer watching people suffer.”
It was a statement full of sexual implications. Ha-jin raised the corners of his lips as if he couldn’t handle it. He rested quietly for a while and then muttered.
“There’s always a bus I take home from the Magic troupe. Around autumn… I’m going home late at night, and the bus windows fog up because of people’s body temperature and breath.”
Looking at the foggy windows made him feel dazed, as if he were dreaming. At times like that, he could barely distinguish the headlights of cars or the streetlights. Ha-jin quite cherished those small moments of everyday life.
“The voice guidance doesn’t work well, and the bus’s internal electronic display board is turned off, so I can’t tell where I am, but strangely, I feel like the front becomes clear just as I’m about to get off.”
Eden nodded silently without asking anything. He somehow knew what Ha-jin was trying to say.
Like the windows of a foggy bus in the middle of the night, they had passed through times when they couldn’t see an inch ahead, and finally, the destination was within reach. The end of the journey, clearer than ever, was waiting for the two of them.
“I think it’s now.”
Ha-jin raised his hand and pretended to press the bell.
“Driver, I’ll get off here.”
Eden burst into a bland laugh at the ensuing trivial joke.