Magic on the Dead Chapter 124

The two of them were silent for a moment. It felt as if an eternity was passing. Just then, a resounding chant broke the silence between them.

“Move it, move it! Forward! One! Two! One!”

The civilian military employees were using rails laid on the floor to pull the helicopter out of the hangar. Next to them, the waiting passengers gathered in a small group, surrounding the person in charge.

Some were smiling as if relieved, while others were busy restlessly shaking their legs with crumpled expressions, seemingly dissatisfied with the light luggage in their hands.

It was Eden who broke the silence first.

“Why did you come out?”

Hajin’s gaze, which had been idly watching the noisy scenery, turned back to Eden. He took a step closer.

“It was a bit noisy inside. Jeffrey and Byeol took Pie and went to the restroom for a moment.”

“I see.”

“…Is that all you have to say?”

The maintenance depot, brilliantly bathed in the sunset, was in a constant state of disarray with the excitement and busyness of those who were leaving.

Eden changed the subject instead of answering.

“Why has your face been so red since earlier?”

An affectionate hand lightly tapped his flushed cheek. Tap. With a frown, Hajin took a step back.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why not.”

“I said don’t do it because it’s pissing me off.”

“What is it that’s pissing you off so much.”

Hah, really…. Hajin, who had been pressing his forehead, suddenly glared at Eden.

“Why did you bow your head over there, Mr. Jung Taegeon?”

“……”

“I heard everything from Jeffrey. He said we can get out of here just fine if we assemble the remaining transport aircraft. Then we can just take that and go to that aircraft carrier or whatever it is in the West Sea.”

“Mr. Do Hajin.”

“You’re better off when you’re looking down on and ignoring people, Mr. Jung Taegeon, so stop doing things that don’t suit you.”

“That’s quite a harsh confession.”

For a moment, Hajin let out a small, breathless sound as if he had lost his words. Eden, who had taken a step closer, gently wrapped his hand around his round forehead. As the hand soothed his heated skin with a stroking touch, Hajin suppressed his irritation and took a calm, deep breath.

“Still, how could you even think of sending Byeol and Jeffrey into a crowd of people like that? He even said there was one seat short.”

“You have sharp ears in the midst of all that.”

Hajin removed the hand that was clinging to him and made serious eye contact with Eden.

“You know it too, Mr. Jung Taegeon. That it’s become completely impossible for us to go together, situationally.”

“It is not impossible.”

The sound of the helicopter’s engine starting up pierced their eardrums. As the propellers began to turn powerfully, a gust of hot wind blew in. Whoosh.

Hajin held onto his arm, trying to calm his surging emotions.

“Jeffrey said so. That assembling a helicopter is absolutely impossible to do alone. He said that Mason guy also barely finished the maintenance in a month with the help of the civilian military employees. So you absolutely have to stay here, Mr. Jung Taegeon.”

“Can you not wait for me?”

Eden asked in a low, sunken voice.

“It won’t take long. I’ll try to finish as quickly as possible.”

Hajin felt a sudden, inexplicable pressure in his chest and furrowed his eyebrows. After hesitating for a long time, he roughly rubbed the tip of his tingling nose with the back of his hand.

“Mr. Jung Taegeon. I’m already late enough as it is.”

“……”

“My younger brother must be waiting for a long time. If I had my way, I feel like I’d want to leave for Neverland right this instant.”

It was not that he was not afraid. When he thought about the reality he would face after choosing to part with Eden and stepping outside this safe wire fence, his vision already turned dark and it felt as if his airway was being completely blocked.

Even just today, Hajin had gone back and forth on his decision to part with him thousands of times. If he were to insist on following him with nothing, he had even considered pretending to give in and accept it.

After all, seeing the survivors rushing in recklessly and the zombies gradually evolving, he was amazed that he had managed to survive all this time.

But from the moment he witnessed the back of Eden, who had bowed his head for him,

“I’m planning to leave tomorrow morning at the latest.”

Hajin now found that nothing else mattered.

“So don’t try so hard anymore.”

He just wants Jung Taegeon to be alive. He wants him to escape this hellish land and live peacefully in a safe place without pain or sacrifice. It did not matter if he could never meet him again.

‘I want to rest a bit.’

He wanted to grant him the wish he had once uttered like a sigh, as soon as possible. If that could happen, then he could console himself that this long and painful journey had some meaning after all.

“Can you really not wait?”

Eden’s voice, as he asked with difficulty, was hoarse. Hajin nodded his head without hesitation. The words that he could not wait were not an excuse, but his true feelings.

It was a reality where life and death were decided by a difference of a day or two, no, a minute or a second. He had never for a single moment forgotten that this whole journey had started solely to meet his younger brother. Now, it was really time to go meet his younger brother.

Hajin, still holding onto Eden’s arm, rested his forehead against his shoulder. Thud.

“I’m sorry I can’t see you off. Finish the maintenance well, and go back safely.”

He was worried that his voice might tremble, but thankfully, the voice that came out was plain. The helicopter soared into the sky, cutting through the air. Amidst the loud noise of the propellers, the voices of Jeffrey and Byeol calling for them could be heard faintly.

🃏

Unlike the deep, dark situation outside, the inside of the hangar was as bright as a new day. A lighting fixture hanging from a wire cable brightly illuminated the top of the helicopter. Lights on the ceiling. Hajin blinked his eyes rapidly as they stung from the artificial light he was seeing for the first time in a long while.

Civilian military employees in uniform could be seen sitting around the hangar, taking a break. They were taking turns to guard the main and back gates of the maintenance depot. He heard that they were quietly waiting for the transport aircraft that the Ministry of National Defense was supposed to send in a month.

Unfortunately, Jeffrey cast his vote for the fact that the low-ranking civilian military employees had just been used and abandoned. Hajin also agreed with him, but he did not bother to add his opinion.

Eden and Jeffrey were tapping on the landing gear, the helicopter’s legs, and had been in a serious conversation for an hour already. It seemed there was a difference of opinion on the maintenance method and procedure. Jeffrey would occasionally run his hands through his hair as if frustrated, and Eden was trying to persuade him by scribbling with a pen on a piece of paper he had gotten from somewhere.

They were spouting difficult technical terms in English, so he could not understand a word of what they were saying. Hajin sat nearby and stared at them blankly, then turned his gaze to Pie and Jung Byeol, who were lying with their heads on his thighs.

Byeol’s eyelids were swollen like macarons. When he playfully pinched his closed eyes with his thumb and forefinger, poke, his small brow furrowed deeply.

“Are you still angry?”

He had been in this state ever since he heard Hajin’s words that they would have to part tomorrow morning. Although he had carefully braided the child’s hair to soothe him, Byeol just cried his heart out and refused to talk to Hajin at all.

He did not seem this angry even when he parted with Miso…

“Byeol. If we part on such awkward terms, I think Uncle will be very upset.”

As he spoke in a deliberately hurt tone, the child’s eyebrows twitched faintly.

“Uncle’s arm is bruised because Byeol pinched and hit me earlier. Take a look.”

At those words, the lips that had been pouting sullenly all along were drawn in. Hajin barely held back the laughter that was about to escape and gently stroked the child’s cheek. The once chubby cheeks had become gaunt from the hardships of the past.

Byeol, who had been stubbornly keeping his mouth shut, finally opened his lips.

“Why you not going wid Eden Uncle?”

A nasal sound flowed from his small mouth. Hajin wiped Byeol’s clear runny nose with the back of his hand and replied.

“Family is supposed to be together. It’s right for Eden Uncle to go with Byeol.”

“Then how is Hajini Uncle going to come to America alone? You’re scared of zombies, Uncle. You’re scared of water too.”

“Uhm…”

He was at a loss for words at the pointed remark and was sighing, when Byeol’s eyes, which had been closed all along, flew open.

“I’m only going to wait for exactly one hundred nights.”

The child warned sternly. Even so, it was still a nasal voice, so there was no sense of threat at all.

“If you don’t come to see me by then…!”

Byeol’s eyes, looking up at Hajin, were getting wet again. A cute little dimple, like a walnut, appeared on his chin as if he was sad.

“If you don’t come to see me… I will be sad every day thinking about Uncle.”

I’ll hate you. I’ll curse you. I’ll never see you again. There were many words of curse, but Byeol never uttered such ugly words.

But to be sad every day. Is that not a more frightening warning than any curse word? Hajin, who was staring at the child, slowly nodded his head as if he had lost.

“If Byeol is sad, Uncle is sad too…”

He could not hide the tingling at the tip of his nose.