I distinctly remembered hearing one of the two survivors say it.
“It must be overwhelming for you students to survive on your own, just among yourselves.”
So even if we ever needed help, we should come to the address written on the note, and they would welcome us.
Let’s say, giving them a hundred concessions, that they could have deduced we were still minors and students. It was true that we hadn’t completely shed our youthful appearance, and if someone had good insight or instincts, they might be able to determine our age range just by looking at us in our outdoor clothes.
But even so, their speculation should have stopped there.
“No matter how sharp their eyes or good their instincts, they couldn’t possibly deduce and figure out the correct answer about things they can’t see right in front of them.”
Cha Jeoh had also withdrawn his attention from the gas burner at some point and was now staring at me.
“So they knew about us from the beginning.”
Then from where to where?
The two survivors had said that the twins and I—all three of us—were incredibly skilled. That might have just been flattery said to please us, but somehow it didn’t seem that way. They clearly knew something more.
They hadn’t seen Cha Woodan’s ability, yet they praised “all three” as having great skills. On the other hand, they said they had witnessed Cha Jeoh’s ability with their own eyes, so they must have also seen me use mine, yet they didn’t say a word about me.
On top of that, they committed an act that ordinary survivors would never do. Giving the address of their residence to strangers they’d just met today, with whom they’d only exchanged a few words.
“…What was their purpose?”
Was the address they gave us a trap after all? If we went there, we’d somehow fall victim to something bad, something like that…
“Are they allies of those bastards who came to our schoolyard?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think that’s it.”
Cha Woodan immediately denied Cha Jeoh’s muttering.
“If those survivors’ allies were moving for revenge, they wouldn’t need to bother pretending to be friendly to us. Seeing how they knew that the survivors in our faction were only students, they must have already scouted Hanul High. If they were going to attack, they would have done it already.”
“True. If they confirmed that all the survivors at Hanul High were students, they would have figured out how chaotic Hanul High was at that time and that there were only a few combat personnel who could fight right away—so there’d be no reason to hold back from attacking.”
The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I was falling into a labyrinth. It seemed like there was some clear reason for their actions, but the problem couldn’t be solved because I had no idea what that reason was.
Cha Jeoh, who had been staring intently at me with furrowed brows, picked up the butane gas he had placed on the dining table. Then he skillfully fitted it into the gas burner and attempted to light the fire.
“Ah, it works.”
The living room, which had been relying only on the sunset glow from outside the window due to lack of lighting, suddenly brightened. At its center, flames flickered brilliantly from the dining table in front of the kitchen.
“Let’s eat dinner first. Hayoung, it’s time for you to eat.”
It seemed the time for me to be fed had inevitably come around again. Without protest, I went to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down obediently. Meanwhile, Cha Woodan lightly washed a pot he’d taken from the kitchen cupboard using the drinking water they’d brought, and Cha Jeoh pulled out several cans of tuna and instant rice from the backpack—instant rice I didn’t even know we had.
Until now, we hadn’t been able to use the microwave, and it was difficult to boil water in a pot, so it seemed we hadn’t been able to eat the instant rice. But how did they know there would be a gas burner at the place we’d stay tonight and bring the instant rice?
I leaned against the table, rested my chin in my hand, and stared blankly at them bustling about with their assigned roles. The two people, same yet different, harmoniously filled my languid field of vision.
‘…Am I a bit hungry?’
Was my body adapting because we ate at this time every day? Having unfamiliar thoughts I never expected to have in my lifetime, I silently observed them.
***
Inside the one room was a single bed. Even considering it was a single, it was quite narrow in width, but it was sufficient for me to lie down on, as I wasn’t particularly tall or large.
The twins took turns shaking out the bed sheets, blanket, and pillow to remove dust, then led me to the room.
“Hayoung, you sleep on the bed.”
Cha Woodan gently pushed my back. Pushed by that touch, I took another step toward the bed and looked back at the two of them.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“We’ll sleep on the floor.”
Cha Jeoh replied as if I was asking something obvious. I had no desire to deliberately subject myself to discomfort, and I knew full well that even if I said something unnecessary like there was no need for that, the twins would refuse, so I obediently accepted the bed. But now that I actually heard them say they’d sleep on the floor, it bothered me in a subtle way.
After mulling it over, I slowly opened my mouth.
“There’s a sofa in the living room. One of you can sleep there.”
Cha Woodan immediately curved the corners of his eyes, deeply coloring his smile.
“Then Cha Jeoh can sleep on the sofa. I want to sleep on the floor today.”
“What? Why me? I like sleeping on the floor originally too.”
“…You mean the living room floor, right?”
“What are you talking about, Hayoung?”
Cha Woodan shifted his gaze to face me.
“Of course the floor of this room. We can’t leave you alone, Hayoung.”
What I’d hoped wouldn’t happen became reality. Of course, whether the two of them crammed onto the living room sofa or lay on this room’s floor didn’t matter to me, but…
“…Do you have. Blankets?”
“I saw some inside the closet earlier.”
I looked at the two of them, whose expressions showed absolutely no problem with this, then sat on the edge of the bed. Since they said it themselves, I figured they’d take care of it.
Soon I lay down on the bed and pulled up the blanket to cover myself. I coughed a little because of the dust that hadn’t completely disappeared just from shaking it out, but fortunately it stopped before long.
“Hayoung.”
I only raised my eyelids slightly and looked. While Cha Woodan was busily moving about taking spare blankets from the closet, Cha Jeoh had quietly approached the bedside. He knelt at the foot of the bed to match eye level with me and whispered softly.
“Going to sleep?”
“Yeah.”
I answered briefly and blinked. Then Cha Jeoh quietly lowered his eyes.
I couldn’t help but know that his guilt toward me still hadn’t completely disappeared. He hadn’t seemed like it, but Cha Jeoh appeared to be a much more emotional person than I thought.
I silently watched Cha Jeoh’s deflated face, then slowly lowered my eyelids.
“…Cha Jeoh.”
“Yeah, Hayoung.”
“I can’t do without you.”
I felt Cha Jeoh’s body flinch. At the persistent gaze that returned to me again, I spoke belatedly.
“Because without you, there’s no one to keep a leash on Lee Gojun.”
“…Ah.”
Cha Jeoh, who let out an exclamation a beat late, drooped even more than before. His appearance was clear enough to be fully drawn inside my eyelids.
“That said… it’s not like I think of you or Cha Woodan as tools.”
The pronunciation of my small mumbling was completely slurred. I didn’t know whether that sentence reached Cha Jeoh or not. And instead of confirming the result, I turned over and showed my back to Cha Jeoh.
“Ha, Hayoung? Going to sleep?”
Without answering, I let out a shallow breath. The soft bed, the soft blanket, and… the two familiar presences I felt behind my back. Together they offered a warmth and comfort different from when we were all embracing each other.
Without answering Cha Jeoh’s voice that echoed around me until the end, I surrendered myself to a distant dream.
***
I was originally a person who didn’t pay attention to my surroundings. During class, I quietly kept to my seat, and when the bell rang ending class, I headed to the library where students rarely visited and blankly stared out the window.
Then an opportunity arose that changed my school life just a little bit. Kwon Woojoo, a middle schooler from the same orphanage who had come all the way to Hanul High, and two male students who stood up for me against students who unnecessarily picked a fight.
It’s not that I paid special attention to them after that. I didn’t try to find out who those two people were, and I didn’t become a champion of justice with newfound justice and self-sacrifice burning up, nor did I suddenly broaden my personal relationships to become popular. Just a little—my life at Hanul High underwent just a small change.
Among those changes, the biggest one I felt was the sensation of a persistent gaze piercing me. Since I’d never paid attention to my surroundings, I hadn’t known until now, but once I started becoming aware of it, that gaze coming from who knows where increasingly exuded a strong presence.
It was the same in the library, in the hallways, when walking along the schoolyard, or just sitting in the classroom. Seeing how that mysterious gaze didn’t cling to me on the way to and from school or even at the orphanage, it seemed the cause was at school, but I couldn’t find out what it was at all.
But if you asked whether I disliked or was bothered by that gaze, that wasn’t the case either. I just wasn’t comfortable adapting to it because it was unfamiliar, but I didn’t harbor any particular ill feelings.
Then one day at the school library, I discovered that a book I used to take out and read once a month had disappeared.
