By Zephyria 
“…No magician likes their cards getting dirty. That’s why they always use a pad.”
“Mm.”
Ha-jin replied quietly, and Eden stroked his chin meaningfully instead of answering. Ha-jin, who had vigorously wrung out the laundry, hurriedly changed the subject.
“Byeol was crying a lot earlier. I guess he was surprised we were fighting.”
The moment the tightly wrung laundry was hung on the bathroom stall, Eden suddenly burst into laughter.
“Surprised we were fighting? Haha. I’d sooner believe Jeong Byeol is an adult.”
He shook his head and glanced out the glass door. The heavy rain had long since turned back into a drizzle.
“By the way, do you smoke?”
Ha-jin tilted his head, seemingly puzzled by the sudden mention of cigarettes.
“There were cigarettes?”
“I saw them at the convenience store and brought one to lift my spirits.”
After all the pretense about being considerate or not, about taking convenience store food or not, he was holding a pack of cigarettes with a familiar logo.
“Did you get permission to take them?”
“From those people? Why? They’re not the owners here.”
He answered nonchalantly, shaking the cigarette pack down, down.
“I’m planning to take a lot of food, within reason. They have quite a bit of retort food, so we should be fine for a while.”
“…Do you think they’ll give us that much? Those cult members need to keep some reserves for themselves. We should talk to them,”
Eden, who was rummaging through his pockets for a disposable lighter, suddenly looked up.
“After being humiliated like that, you’re still thinking about getting permission from that bastard? Are you serious?”
That was all he said, but Ha-jin somehow felt like he could read another meaning in Eden’s expression. Was he an idiot, or just naive…? That was the look on his face.
“W-Well, not really, but if that cult bastard tries to harm us while we’re taking it…!”
“If he harms us, I’ll just kill him.”
“……”
“Just kidding.”
It didn’t sound like a joke. Eden’s lips had hardened menacingly for a moment.
“…When Jeong Tae-geon says something, it all sounds like the truth. Don’t make jokes like that. You did it last time too.”
“Why? Do Ha-jin can do it, but I can’t? I clearly heard you warning me that you were going to kill me.”
Ha-jin’s ears burned. He was ashamed that a new dark chapter had been created, and a hot sigh escaped his lips.
“…That was just something I said because I was angry.”
“It did sound pretty sincere.”
Eden laughed and threw open the bathroom door. Startled, Ha-jin followed closely behind him.
He handed the hatchet to Ha-jin and looked around for a place to smoke. Behind the building, two benches were set up side by side under a tent amidst overgrown weeds.
“Sit down for a bit.”
After hesitating, Ha-jin sat down next to him. In the meantime, Eden took out a cigarette.
“What if zombies come because of the cigarette smell?”
“Hmm. If there’s an entity like that, I think it’s more appropriate to call it a New Human, not a zombie.”
Eden checked his wristwatch habitually and shook his head.
“They probably won’t show up because of the smell. If they were going to show up, they would have shown up when Jeong Byeol was screaming his head off.”
“Ah.”
“If you’re really worried, Do Ha-jin, you can protect me.”
…Who’s protecting who. Nonsense.
Ignoring Eden’s words, Ha-jin carefully placed the hatchet he was holding on the bench. He looked up and saw a cluster of stars shining brightly between the dark clouds, as if they were about to fall. It was a night that reminded him of the observatory he had visited with his Hyung Jun-seok a long time ago.
“Wow…”
It was ironic. All thanks to the shutdown of the factory, they were able to enjoy the clean sky and fresh air without a speck of dust, and they were able to see the Milky Way in the middle of downtown Korea.
Click, hiss. While he was enjoying the night sky, he heard the sound of a cigarette being lit.
“I saw you sitting right next to me, so I figured you could smoke.”
Eden took a puff of the lit cigarette and immediately handed it to Ha-jin. Ha-jin carefully took the cigarette, which was burning like a red dot.
Soon after, Eden took out a new cigarette and put it in his mouth. Sss, whoosh— a sigh-like smoke spread from his lips.
“You seem sensitive to hand hygiene, but do you usually smoke?”
Ha-jin shook his head, drawing in the stale smoke.
“No. I used to smoke a little when I did cigarette magic, whoosh— but I don’t smoke now.”
“Cigarette magic?”
“It’s simple. Something like this.”
Ha-jin made eye contact with Eden and blew out a cloud of smoke. Eden narrowed his brow slightly at the smoke that blocked his vision like fog. When his vision cleared again, the cigarette that Ha-jin had been holding in his mouth was gone.
“Huh? Where did my cigarette go?”
With his characteristic playful voice, Ha-jin’s head turned in the opposite direction.
“Ah, here it is.”
The cigarette that he had been smoking was on Ha-jin’s lips as he turned back to Eden. He hadn’t touched it, and it hadn’t even been two seconds. Eden frowned at Ha-jin, who was doing magic with everything, as if he couldn’t help it.
“Aren’t you amazed? It’s been a while since I did a magic trick for adults. Give me some applause.”
Ha-jin threw the shortened cigarette on the ground and rubbed it out.
“Well, even if it’s not my taste, Byeol will like it.”
“Are you crazy? What kind of cigarette magic is that in front of a Baby.”
Eden blew smoke at Ha-jin, who was cringing, as if to retaliate. Cough, cough! Ha-jin quickly fanned himself and was about to get up to avoid the smoke.
Thud. Ha-jin turned his head in an awkward posture at the clear pressure that gripped his wrist.
“I’ve finished smoking too, so there’s no need to move.”
“……”
Ha-jin’s head drooped. Beyond the dark gray field of vision, he could see Eden’s white back of his hand and neat knuckles holding his wrist. His body temperature, which was in contact with the artery below the back of his hand and palm, felt particularly hot. It was definitely the most perfect and flawless hand he had ever seen.
The hand that had been holding him tightly was released as soon as he sat back down on the bench. He felt a strange sense of regret when the body temperature that had been holding him back disappeared.
‘I wanted to look at his hand more.’
Ha-jin thought that he wasn’t quite right in the head today.
“…By the way, what was that about Byeol earlier? If he didn’t cry because he thought we were fighting, then why did the Baby cry?”
“The reason is obvious, isn’t it? Jeong Byeol is a huge fan of yours. I’m sure you already know that.”
Ha-jin laughed blandly and leaned back against the bench. Eden added, looking at Ha-jin, who was looking at the distant sky with a languid air.
“To be honest, it’s not that simple. He feels like any insult towards Do Ha-jin is an insult towards himself… the Baby’s condition is quite severe.”
Ha-jin’s head, which had been tilted back, turned to the side this time. As if responding to his questioning expression, Eden continued to speak.
“Byeol immigrated to the United States less than a year ago.”
Ha-jin’s ears perked up when the story he had been curious about came out of his mouth.
“My Hyung used to run a small restaurant in Korea, and he seemed to be quite tired, so he suddenly asked me if it was good to live in the United States. Ah, by the way, Byeol’s father is my Hyung.”
Ha-jin nodded slowly as if to say he was listening.
“It’s obvious how I’m living just by searching the internet, but he wanted me to tell him myself. He seemed to want to come here, so I told him to come to the United States without much thought. I could provide him with a job, and the child’s education expenses weren’t a big problem for me.”
Eden continued to speak neither slowly nor quickly.
“I thought he was settling in well, but then a problem arose.”
Byeol, who was usually cheerful and quick to adapt to unfamiliar environments, soon began to cry every night and beg to go back to Korea.
The child’s depression worsened day by day, and some days he refused to eat and just stared at his phone all day. This continued for about half a year, and even his parents were losing their vitality.
“One day, I left work early and went to my Hyung’s house next door, and the child was laughing.”
Eden’s gaze turned to the end of the tent where the rain was falling, as if he was recalling the scene from that day.
“I wondered what he was watching, and it was your magic video.”
“…Ah.”
“That was the first time I saw the child laugh. He hadn’t smiled once since coming to the United States.”
Ha-jin was dumbfounded by the unexpected story. He had only asked a simple question, but an unexpected heavy story poured out of his mouth.
“The reason I brought Jeong Byeol on the business trip wasn’t really because of homesickness, but because of Do Ha-jin’s magic show. About half a year ago, after you said in a video that you were going to hold a magic show, Jeong Byeol kept insisting on going to Korea, which was quite a hassle.”
He said that Jeong Byeol had been holding the children’s magic show tools that Ha-jin had sold online even on the long-distance flight.
Eden added, looking at Ha-jin’s somewhat dazed face with a mischievous look.
“Do you understand now why Jeong Byeol made such a fuss?”