By Zephyria 
“…How long did I sleep?”
“About 10 minutes.”
“Nothing happened in the meantime?”
“No.”
Eden’s voice was somewhat listless.
Ha-jin squeezed his eyes shut, swollen from crying, and then opened them. It was absurd enough to be kidnapped, but the thugs who had locked them in the warehouse hadn’t even shown their faces late into the night.
“What is this, really….”
It was a more difficult situation for a magician for whom untying rope knots was a piece of cake.
He wanted to break free from his restraints and walk right out of the warehouse, but no matter how hard he racked his brain, there was no way to beat someone with a gun.
Eden seemed to be thinking the same thing, as he just stared at his cuffed hands with indifferent eyes, sitting quietly without taking any action.
From time to time, busy footsteps and muffled conversations could be heard from outside.
“Haa….”
Ha-jin’s resentful sigh echoed through the silent space. The rough fibers of what seemed to be a funeral rope were mercilessly scratching his skin. His screaming thigh muscles, stretched taut because his knees were bent, his extremely twisted ankles, and his wrists tied tightly behind his back were all in pain.
It was the worst in many ways, but compared to Chun-beom’s sudden death, this physical pain was nothing.
His last face, unable to close his eyes, stirred his mind in confusion. Ha-jin’s chest heaved with anger.
Who on earth were the thugs who had suddenly appeared, not only firing guns but also kidnapping them without hesitation? Were they police, soldiers, or looters falsely luring people? If it was the former, they might have mistaken them for zombies and carried out an accidental shooting.
But even if he knew the reason, he would never be able to understand Chun-beom’s death. The more he thought about why he, who was more kind and brave than anyone else, had to face such a meaningless death, the more frustrated and angry he became.
Ha-jin slowly blinked his eyes, which were sore because he had already shed tears several times.
“I wonder what happened to Chun-beom. The dirt floor must be very cold after the rain….”
A nonchalant reply came to his soliloquy, which was close to a lament.
“If we get out of here, we’ll find him and bury him.”
Darkness hung heavily in the warehouse. Ha-jin looked at Eden, whose form was now blurred, and muttered weakly.
“I hope the others escaped safely. They should have made it to the cave.”
“Finding a way for us to survive is more important than worrying about others right now.”
Ha-jin’s eyebrows shot up at the unexpected, cold-hearted answer. Who knew the day would come when he would welcome Eden’s unique, picky replies….
He had thought that Jeong Tae-geon would also be out of his mind with Chun-beom’s death, just like him, but it seemed that was not the case.
Ha-jin, who had been struggling to change his position, leaned his exhausted body against the haystack. The dry grass pricked the back of his neck painfully.
He was unable to move his body because, in addition to the rope, a handcuff on one ankle was connected to an iron pillar. Eden was also tied to the opposite pillar by his ankle.
He was frustrated and anxious because they could not get close to each other.
“As expected, Jeong Tae-geon is so calm. I think he was exactly like this when the zombie outbreak first happened.”
On the day the zombie outbreak occurred, and even in the extreme situations of a colleague’s death and kidnapping, he was as calm as ever. The fact that I, who am so easily frightened, was able to take a nap for a while must have been thanks to his nonchalant appearance.
When there was no reply, Ha-jin babbled whatever came to mind.
“Sniff…. Did you not learn how to pick handcuffs in Delta Force?”
He thought he had cried enough, but even now, as he tried to stop thinking about Chun-beom, a stream of tears flowed down his right cheek. It was as if his tear glands had broken down.
Eden somehow noticed Ha-jin’s tears even in the dark surroundings and coldly scolded him.
“Stop crying.”
Embarrassed, Ha-jin bit the inside of his cheek.
“Do Ha-jin will only lose out if you lose moisture. If you run out of energy, you won’t be able to escape from here even if you want to.”
“It’s not my will that I’m crying now.”
Eden rebuked him for his timid retort.
“Save your tears for Park Chun-beom. If you want to collect his body and build him a grave, you better get your act together.”
His drooping back straightened at the last sharp words. It was indeed a sobering piece of advice.
Sniffling embarrassedly, Ha-jin tried to calm his noisy heart. He had become quite close to Chun-beom recently, so his emotions kept welling up.
He shook off the tears that were welling up in his eyes for the last time and put his grief away. He had been crying for a whole day, and as Eden said, he felt like all the moisture had been drained from his body.
Then, a much softer voice awkwardly comforted Ha-jin.
“If you’re done crying, get some sleep. You must be tired.”
“What if someone comes in and hurts us in the meantime?”
“They won’t kill us right now.”
Ha-jin’s swollen eyes widened to their maximum.
“How do you know that, Jeong Tae-geon?”
“Usually, the hands of hostages who are worth negotiating with are tied in front of them. It means that they don’t intend to threaten or kill us recklessly right now, so rest assured. Besides, they’ve been leaving us alone for half a day.”
When there was no reply, he continued his explanation indifferently.
“It means there’s no need to give time and place to hostages they’re going to kill anyway. Unless it’s some kind of intimidation game.”
Ha-jin’s face took on different colors from moment to moment. He felt a hopeful yet ominous premonition, unsure whether it was good news or bad news.
“If what Jeong Tae-geon says is true, then it means I’m not worth negotiating with. My hands are tied tightly behind my back…? Only Jeong Tae-geon’s hands are tied in front of his chest.”
At the disgruntled remark, Eden let out his unique, monotonous laugh. It was a shallow laugh that didn’t suit the situation.
I’m serious to death, but he’s laughing…. Ha-jin glared at the opponent, whose outline was barely visible, with dissatisfaction. Even in the darkness, his deeply dimpled right cheek seemed to be clearly drawn in his mind.
Then, a small commotion was heard outside.
―No, I’m checking now… I’m going to!
―Little Jong… I haven’t heard anything from Lord. Please go back now.
―If you keep doing this… I won’t stand still either….
Ha-jin tensed up and listened carefully. The conversation did not last long.
―Stop it and go back…. There will be time to check tomorrow too… I’m sorry.
―Damn it! If you keep doing this….
With a short shout, the commotion quickly subsided. Although faint noises had been heard occasionally during the day, this was the first time voices had been heard so close.
As expected, a gatekeeper was standing outside the warehouse. Ha-jin lowered his voice.
“Jeong Tae-geon. Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“It sounded like they were talking about checking tomorrow or not, so it seems like they’re not going to kill us today and just let it go.”
Eden snorted in response, as if he had discovered something very surprising. Ha-jin’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I know, so stop chattering and get some sleep. You need to replenish your energy to even try to escape or do anything.”
“If I sleep, who will protect Jeong Tae-geon? Or do you want to sleep together?”
“……”
…Somehow, the last remark seemed to have a strange nuance. Suddenly, an ambiguous silence pressed down on the air. Ha-jin flapped his body like someone who had been hit by a cold shower and hurriedly corrected himself.
“I’m just kidding.”
“It’s not funny, but it’s much better than whining.”
An unexpectedly normal answer came back as if he had been waiting for it. Ha-jin glared at Eden’s usual obnoxious tension, but on the other hand, he let out a faint sigh of relief.
This was because the sight of him losing his mind for a moment after witnessing Park Chun-beom’s death still remained a shock. Of course, I wasn’t in my right mind at the time either, but Jeong Tae-geon was out of it like someone possessed by something.
Now, maybe he could get an honest answer from him.
“Can I ask you something?”
Ha-jin hesitated for a moment before finally blurting out the question he had been burying. Eden’s head, which had been looking at the ceiling, tilted down. Ha-jin’s voice still contained a damp moisture.
“You said last time that since we’ve become colleagues, our lives are now in each other’s hands.”
His nasal voice tickled his eardrums, as if his nose was blocked from crying. Eden, leaning his back against the wooden wall, closed his eyes for a moment, using the sound as a lullaby.
“It seems like the meaning of ‘colleague’ is a little different for Jeong Tae-geon. Honestly, your usual actions and beliefs don’t really match, oh, I mean….”
Recently, Do Ha-jin had become increasingly interested in him. He would ask silly questions and roll his eyes, or he would stare blankly at his hands at unexpected moments.
“Like when you came all the way to the underpass to find me last time, and what happened to Chun-beom earlier….”
That interest wasn’t bad. Rather, every situation in which he questioned him or felt interested in him was even satisfying. Just looking at how he faithfully answered questions that he would never have bothered to answer in the past showed that.
Is that why?
“Why do you go so far?”
An impulse to freely take out and dismantle the trite story of the past that he had never told anyone swirled in his heart.
But the impulse was only temporary.
“……”
Eden saved his words as always. It was too trite to drag out in detail, and it wasn’t a story that was so light that it could be easily summarized.
After a long period of heavy silence, Ha-jin added with a hesitant look.
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to put any pressure on you.”
Deep fatigue hung in the silence.
While he continued to make excuses, Eden was recalling the night of the past battlefield and the face of his old friend, Leo.
It was a peace like a time bomb that he had felt in a long time.