He inhaled the smoke while recalling that feeling. Cicadas cried noisily, piercing through midday. Joo Seonghan exhaled smoke long and pressed firmly on his heavily throbbing temples.
There were many days he woke up sweating coldly. Joo Seonghan, who slept a lot, slept deeply once he fell asleep and was the type who couldn’t wake up well in the morning. But recently, he sometimes woke up suddenly at dawn, and sometimes he woke up because his heart was beating fast for no reason and couldn’t fall back asleep. Not only the quality of sleep but even the sleep time had noticeably decreased. It was probably because of what happened beyond Guimun.
It was the first time in his life he had seen so much blood. Even just seeing an animal corpse fleetingly on the highway was enough to dampen his mood, but Joo Seonghan had seen several dying semi-humans right before his eyes. They even died writhing in agony. They vomited blood, dragged severed body parts while shedding tears of resentment, and spilled intestines between torn belly skin. Some had their entire necks blown off or died with their bodies bursting.
Joo Seonghan had also killed them like that. He fired guns recklessly, threw grenades, and pierced necks. He was at such a scene for several days without mental preparation. It was hard to be okay. It would have been good if he had lost his memory. Joo Seonghan sincerely thought so. And the man who forcibly kept such a Joo Seonghan’s memory alive had had no contact until now.
He removed his hand from his head. He shook off cigarette ash into the ashtray on the table prepared on one side. Bluish smoke scattered among the summer wind. What am I waiting for? Questions that couldn’t be answered were meaningless. Joo Seonghan stood under the shade for a long time.
* * *
Flap. A page turned. Some time passed, and one more page turned.
“Team Leader Yeon.”
The Semi-Human Department Head, holding the report Yeon Dogyeong had written in his hand, spoke in a soft voice. Yeon Dogyeong, who had been resting his chin on the conference room table while looking out the window, looked back at him with a smiling face.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you curious? What you wrote doesn’t even amount to one line, yet why am I staring at this report for so long?”
The Semi-Human Department Head removed his gaze from the report. His raised chin and lowered eyes were unkind.
“Did you get presbyopia?”
At Yeon Dogyeong’s quietly muttered words, the Semi-Human Department Head slammed a week’s worth of reports onto the table. Yeon Dogyeong turned his head following the reports sliding smoothly across the table. The Semi-Human Department Head sighed.
“Why. Why on earth. What’s the problem! Why is only Team 3’s report always like this with no content!”
“Did I leave something out?”
He reached out and brought the report over. There were many blank spaces.
“Even just today! Huh? Look at what you wrote today.”
The way of addressing changed from Team Leader Yeon to “you” in an instant. Yeon Dogyeong laughed “haha” and opened the very first page of the report.
“Ah, that’s right. I forgot to write the name. Do you have a pen?”
At Yeon Dogyeong’s attitude of being at peace alone, the Semi-Human Department Head pressed his own forehead with a thud. And he threw the ballpoint pen that was nicely placed on the table to Yeon Dogyeong. Yeon Dogyeong said “thank you” as a greeting and wrote the name of the person he went to see today on the report.
Semi-Human Department members don’t have set work hours. Their main job was to wait armed in their jurisdictional area from when the sun set until it rose, and their next job was to visit witnesses whose memories had been erased. The former did rotation work with times and days set by team, and the latter was similar.
However, the latter had a deadline. Every Monday, a list of witnesses organized by the Semi-Human Department management team was assigned to each team, and they had to check the witnesses’ condition within that week. It was a simple task of checking whether they were living well having forgotten their memories, and whether their memories hadn’t returned. Other than that, they irregularly performed odd jobs related to the convenience and safety of the state or citizens as much as they received taxes to work.
“Yeon Dogyeong.”
“Yes.”
He closed the pen cap and put it back in its original place. He gathered the scattered reports together, tapped the bottom to align them, clipped them with a binder clip, and nicely placed them in front of the Semi-Human Department Head.
“Do you really not remember?”
“What memory?”
Yeon Dogyeong knew what the Semi-Human Department Head was talking about, but he drew a habitual smile on his lips and pretended not to know. It wasn’t hard to act, but there were times when the conversation unintentionally got long and became tiresome.
“The book that had how to open Guimun written in it. Don’t you remember exactly where in the hallway you picked it up and whose it was?”
“Ah, that. I don’t remember.”
“……”
“I had just started working back then. 10 years ago.”
“…Fuck, you were cute back then.”
Laughter flowed out at the words that flowed out like a sigh. The Semi-Human Department Head shook his head finely and picked up the neatly placed report.
“Gyeongjae worked hard alone while you guys were gone. I know Jaejun hasn’t been discharged yet, but still, don’t make the youngest do hard work.”
“Ey, why would I make Gyeongjae do hard work?”
The Semi-Human Department Head made an annoyed expression. Then he soon waved his hand as if saying whatever. Get lost. Right now, get lost. His hand was saying.
“I really won’t make him do it.”
“Yeah, you won’t. You guys decide work by drawing lots, you ignorant bastards! Hurry up and get lost!”
The Semi-Human Department Head tried to flip the table over. Yeon Dogyeong laughed “haha” and leisurely stood up from his seat. He left the conference room listening to the Semi-Human Department Head’s angry voice.
The Semi-Human Department headquarters, which housed the situation room and management team, was on the same site as the research institute. Semi-Human Department members scattered across the country mainly stayed in dormitories in their respective jurisdictions, and only team leaders occasionally stopped by headquarters to check on the situation and report. Team leaders who lived far away even finished things via video chat, but since Yeon Dogyeong was in the metropolitan area, he couldn’t avoid visiting. Honestly, it was a bit annoying.
“Team Leader! Are you done with your report!”
As he exited the building and headed for his car, Cha Gyeongjae, the youngest of Team 3, ran quickly and asked. Yeon Dogyeong looked at him and tilted his head.
“Gyeongjae, why are you here?”
“I came because I have something to return! I kept forgetting…”
Cha Gyeongjae took out Team 2’s radio and wristwatch from his pocket and let out an embarrassed laugh.
When Yeon Dogyeong went beyond Guimun to rescue Han Jaejun and Kang Hyeonjoo, there were only two remaining Team 3 members. Moreover, one of them was a backup team member who sat in front of a computer to support the field, so strictly speaking, there was only Cha Gyeongjae alone to guard Team 3’s jurisdiction. To ease his burden, the Semi-Human Department Head assigned one Team 2 member to Team 3’s jurisdiction, and Team 2’s team leader took over and handled Yeon Dogyeong’s work. Thanks to that, Yeon Dogyeong could comfortably go beyond Guimun and return.
“If I knew you were coming, I didn’t need to come.”
He should have sent the report with Cha Gyeongjae. Of course, if he did that, the Semi-Human Department Head would call Yeon Dogyeong right away, but letting nagging flow in one ear and out the other was better than visiting headquarters.
“Ah, the Department Head heard I was coming and told me to absolutely not let Team Leader Yeon find out.”
He was smart in strange ways. Yeon Dogyeong smiled and tapped Cha Gyeongjae’s round head a couple times.
“Gyeongjae’s lips are tight.”
“Ey, of course! But are you going to work right away?”
“I’ll play around a bit before going.”
He answered while looking down at his wristwatch. The sun hadn’t even set yet. He had about three hours of free time before work.
“Are you going to a hotel again?”
Cha Gyeongjae, who tilted his upper body slightly, asked while looking around. He seemed to be asking carefully in his own way, but his voice was loud, making it useless. Yeon Dogyeong looked at him silently with a smiling face. Cha Gyeongjae pointed at Yeon Dogyeong’s crotch with a serious expression.
“Use protection well.”
“Yes, I understand.”
When he teasingly imitated his way of speaking, Cha Gyeongjae giggled. He said he’d contact him later and entered the building. Yeon Dogyeong looked at his retreating figure and headed for his car.
When he returned from Guimun and reunited with Cha Gyeongjae, he hugged Yeon Dogyeong and cried hard. He freely expressed his joy, saying he had been waiting while living hard, that he hadn’t given up even when everyone told him to. He was emotionally rich. Yet he was diligent, full of passion, and sometimes ruthless. He was a good guy. Both to live with and to make the protagonist in plans to be carried out in the future. Anyway, Yeon Dogyeong was fond of Cha Gyeongjae.
Yeon Dogyeong, who started the car, departed without even setting a destination. The car that left the well-maintained parking lot made a rattling sound and entered a short forest path. The place he was going from now wasn’t a hotel but a secret research lab. The various samples he had secretly handed over there had already finished testing, but he was only now visiting because he had been busy handling piled-up work and being called here and there.
For the past week, Yeon Dogyeong had written a report about what happened beyond Guimun, finished Team 3’s backed-up work, and went around creating alibis here and there while handling personal matters while pretending to live an ordinary daily life. In addition, researchers belonging to the semi-human research institute whom he didn’t even know well came looking for Yeon Dogyeong almost every day, making him busier than usual. Kang Hyeonjoo, who had also been beyond Guimun, was likewise subjected to interrogation. Han Jaejun was hospitalized, so he naturally avoided that commotion.
Although it was somewhat troublesome to lie subtly and appropriately hide the truth, Yeon Dogyeong didn’t dislike their visits. The researchers bombarding him with questions were cute in their own way, and he had been curious about how much each of them knew and how much they didn’t know, so it wasn’t without benefit to be able to find out this time. He wasn’t trying to compete, but he felt refreshed knowing more than them.
