“Can’t sleep?”
“I think it’s because I slept too much earlier. You must be tired too, so don’t worry about me and go to sleep.”
As I said that and raised my upper body, Baek Hyeonwoo replied, “I can’t sleep either,” and turned the mood lamp back on. Perhaps because it ran on batteries, even at its brightest, it could barely illuminate the area around the bed.
Still, it was bright enough for us to recognize each other’s faces, so it was not uncomfortable. No, rather, this amount of light was just right.
Bathed in the faint orange glow, Baek Hyeonwoo’s face was as beautiful as ever. Even when he was standing beneath the sunlight, I often grumbled that the world was unfair, but right now, I could not even bring myself to utter that kind of complaint.
His shadowed face looked like a work of art someone had delicately painted in oils. The light of the mood lamp reflected in his black eyes was a fragment of the sun, and the deep dimples that appeared whenever he smiled were small wells holding shadows. Even if Baek Hyeonwoo suddenly confessed one day that he was not human but actually an angel or a fairy, I felt as though I could accept it by saying, ‘I thought so.’
“Is there something you want to say?”
“……No.”
No matter how many times I thought about it, Baek Hyeonwoo should not have been working at a company. He should have become an actor or a model. Whether it was a film or a photo shoot, if he had done even a few, he would undoubtedly have become a popular star in an instant.
Rumble…….
Though now that the world had ended, it was a regret I had no reason to hold on to.
“From what I can see, it looks like our youngest has something he wants to say?”
“……I was just thinking that you’re really handsome. No, pretty?”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
It was something he must have heard his entire life, from the moment he was born until now, yet Baek Hyeonwoo answered with a gentle smile as though he were genuinely delighted.
I was glad I had been born a man. If I had been a woman, I might have fallen completely for that face, thrown family and everything else aside, and chased after him asking him to date me. I might even have insisted that it did not matter because we were not related by blood.
Was that comparison too extreme? In any case, Baek Hyeonwoo was that beautiful. I had said he looked pretty, but honestly, it was different from that. Very different. How could someone with that height and body be more beautiful than most celebrities?
“Our Sihyeon is pretty too.”
For the record, I did not particularly like being called pretty. The word beautiful suited Baek Hyeonwoo well, but when people used it for me, they were usually just indirectly saying that I looked like a woman.
Of course, Baek Hyeonwoo knew that too. Yet every time, he acted as though there was nothing he could do because it was simply true, so instead of protesting, I only glared at him.
Swoooooosh-
“It’s really pouring.”
“It is.”
“The others will be all right, won’t they?”
At those words, Baek Hyeonwoo gave a faint smile. Whenever I worried about Baek Beomho and Baek Itae, he always wore an expression as though he were watching a rabbit worry about a tiger, and this time was no different.
“They’ll take care of themselves. You know that.”
“Still…… neither of them is the type to take care of his own body.”
They might be so sturdy that neither of them had ever even caught a cold, but did not every illness strike at an unexpected moment? As I worriedly imagined the two of them soaked to the skin and groaning in pain, Baek Hyeonwoo brushed my hair back and soothed me by saying, “They’ll be fine.”
We continued talking about this and that for quite a while afterward, but the rain showed no sign of stopping. It really feels as though a hole has opened in the sky, I thought as I needlessly gripped the blanket tightly. The sound of raindrops violently striking the window sounded exactly like someone knocking, so I could not relax.
Tap.
……No, something really was knocking. And it seemed I was not the only one who had heard it. Baek Hyeonwoo rose from his seat without hesitation and turned as though he were about to head toward the window, so I hurriedly reached out and grabbed his clothes.
“Don’t go.”
“We should at least check.”
“No……. No, don’t go.”
It was already frightening enough when sounds came from the corridor, and now he wanted to check a sound coming from outside the window? We were not on the first or second floor, but the third. Whatever it was, it could not be ordinary. First he had gone outside alone, and now this. Just what kind of sense of responsibility did someone need to act like that? Besides, in situations like this, curious people were always the first to die or get hurt.
“It’s nothing.”
“How do you know that?”
When I snapped irritably without daring to raise my voice, Baek Hyeonwoo smiled awkwardly. Even while his lips merely moved as though he did not know what to say, the same sound continued coming from the window.
Tap, tap…….
The intervals were uneven, which made me even more nervous. It felt as though he would use the slightest relaxation in my grip as an opportunity to go to the window, so I gritted my teeth and pulled Baek Hyeonwoo toward me. That was when it happened.
Scrrrraaaape-
Damn it, I barely managed to swallow the curse that nearly burst from my mouth. Along with a rough sound like something sharp scratching the window, lightning flashed and brazenly thrust a grotesquely shaped shadow before my eyes.
Its shape looked similar to the figure I had seen earlier beyond the corridor. Unable even to make a sound, I urgently tugged at Baek Hyeonwoo’s clothes. He stared silently at the window, then whispered into my ear.
“It could be a tree branch.”
“……Say something that makes sense. We’re on the third floor.”
“I’ll just take a quick look and come back, hm?”
“Brother, please.”
Craaaash!
My plea was drowned out by thunder loud enough to tear through my eardrums, but Baek Hyeonwoo nodded as though he had no choice and gently stroked down my back.
“I won’t go.”
“Come here and lie down with me.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, I’m not all right, so lie down.”
He was still looking toward the window with concern in his eyes, and he expected me to trust him? Only an idiot would believe that.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back…….”
“That’s why I’m telling you to come here. Is your curiosity important right now?”
“Mm, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? Don’t make me keep talking. Lie down, quickly.”
With a firm expression, I patted the space beside me. Baek Hyeonwoo rubbed the back of his neck and said, “It’ll be too cramped if I lie down too,” but that was not particularly important, and it had nothing to do with me.
“Hurry.”
Only after I repeatedly urged him did he take off his shoes and climb onto the bed. When he tried to sit on the outer edge, I personally pulled him inward, made him lie down, and even covered him with the blanket. Worried that he might climb out of bed while I briefly fell asleep, I lay down with my head on his arm as well, and the faint sound of laughter poured down from above my head.
“Still, tell me if it gets cramped.”
“That won’t happen.”
When I warned him that I would remain like this even if I could not sleep because it was uncomfortable, Baek Hyeonwoo smiled as though he had received an unexpected gift and suddenly pulled me into a tight embrace.
“Ugh……!”
“Shh, be quiet. The thing outside might hear you.”
A moment ago, he said it was nothing!
When I glared at him, my eldest brother rubbed his cheek against mine with an innocent expression, then eventually opened his mouth and even bit my cheek. It hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I could neither scream nor get angry, so all I could do was jab his stomach with my elbow.
The rain finally stopped only after two more days had passed. The sky was completely cloudless as though nothing had happened, but the air was considerably colder. It seemed that had been autumn rain after all.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m fine with this much.”
A thick hoodie was just right. Avoiding my brother’s hands as he tried to make me wear a scarf too, I stepped outside the building. Naturally, the first place my gaze turned was toward the hospital room where we had been staying.
“…….”
Clear marks, as though someone had struck the white walls with a pickaxe, remained all over them. I still did not know what had knocked on the window before dawn two days ago, but what would have happened if we had pulled back the curtains or opened the window then……. I did not even want to imagine it.
“Let’s go this way.”
“Ah, okay.”
As I shuddered from the chills running over my body, Baek Hyeonwoo approached and gently pulled my hand. What on earth had that been? Had it really been a monster? Or a mutated zombie? Thinking that I hoped I would never find out, I turned my head away.
Beneath the vivid blue sky, the collapsed buildings, the filthy tangled webs, and the cocoons whose contents were impossible to identify looked extremely alien. They had even increased in number since before the rain, so I could not shake the feeling that the monster was connected to the cocoons.
……It wasn’t born from one of those, was it?
“What are you staring at so intently? The cocoons?”
“Yeah, I was wondering what might be inside them…….”
At my words, Baek Hyeonwoo stopped walking and stared intently at the nearest cocoon. Unlike the others attached to the walls, that one was stuck to a streetlight and looked close enough to touch if one merely reached out.
“Should we open it?”
As he said that and pointed at the cocoon, Baek Hyeonwoo’s expression was as cheerful as though he were talking about a package that had just been delivered. I reflexively started to nod, then hurriedly shook my head.
“What if something jumps out?”
“Well……. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything alive inside.”
I struggled between fear and uneasiness, then ultimately chose fear. Right, I did not know what might be inside, but it would still be better than knowing nothing at all. After hesitating, I nodded, and Baek Hyeonwoo stroked my head once before approaching the cocoon. I had planned to tell him we should simply leave if he showed even the slightest sign of hesitation, but without so much as taking a deep breath, he split the cocoon open in a single stroke with a jackknife I had no idea he had been carrying.