PAX 11

After other family members came down and I finally managed to break free from the younger family members, I took down the paper stuck to the wall at the entrance to the first-floor stairs and went up to my room. It was the paper where Mom and Dad had written down the record of calls they received throughout the day yesterday. It contained brief details about what time to send a pigeon and where. While opening the window to ventilate, I checked the addresses and time slots for the places I needed to visit today and mapped out my route.

Looking out into the front yard from the window, I thought it was excessively quiet. Not just quiet because there were few sounds, but how should I put it—it was as if the flow of air had stopped for some unknown reason. Something was off.

It must be my imagination. It was because of the uneasy, restless feeling I had due to Ahn Yutan and that unidentified 24-hour deadline. That must be why the air, which was the same as usual, felt strangely off.

Ahn Yutan was definitely aiming for that. For me to let my imagination run wild and feel anxious while waiting. And then he would just pop up again and brush it off lightly, as if to say, “Never mind.” A conclusion where I just ended up being the person who deluded myself and trembled with anxiety.

He looked like the kind of guy who could do such things intentionally.

Or not? Was I just projecting too many images onto a guy who was nothing special?

Regardless, I went out to work. I visited the places I had to, listened to the requests, made my judgments, and either received my fee or picked and packed items offered in place of money.

I also stopped for a while to watch a public trial being held in the square. A second generation caught stealing items from a store was tied up and standing there, and one of the jailers hit the back of his hand with a switch. Then, as public opinion added that his feet, which had walked into the store, were also guilty, they hit the top of his feet as well.

For cases that attract many onlookers, such as major fights or adultery, Ahn Juik participates as a judge, but for petty cases like this, the jailers conduct it among themselves. The public trial itself is like a circus, but when the jailers do it among themselves without Ahn Juik, it looks even more like a chaotic circus.

This public trial, which is sometimes a quite interesting spectacle, is held almost every day except for the one day a week when there are tours. It is surprising how so many incidents and accidents occur every day to justify holding trials in a place that is not even that large.

After coming out and looking around along the wire fence, I ran into someone from the Nagon District Discrimination Abolition Alliance who was inserting flyers inside. They wanted to talk to me, but I acted according to the rules. No reaction. And I moved away, then collected the flyers after they had left.

People from the Nagon District Discrimination Abolition Alliance always try to talk when they see Pachulso people. Sometimes they ask if we can help make the Nagon District a better place, and sometimes they ask about the well-being of the family members inside. Since they are unconditionally berated by the jailers and unconditionally shunned by the residents, we are all they have left. Although I follow the rule of consistently showing no reaction, sometimes I feel a sense of pity.

Because today was a day when my head was particularly more complicated, I was busy with my own thoughts, not even having room for pity.

Thinking about when exactly that 24 hours from “I’ll give you 24 hours” would end, I came up with three options in my own way. Around 2:30 PM when the Porsche was tailing me, around 3:00 PM when Ahn Yutan appeared on a bicycle, and around 7:30 PM when I woke up after fainting.

As 2:00 approached, I kept scanning my surroundings for no reason, and when it hit 3:00, my wariness soared a bit, but as it passed 4:00 and 5:00, I sometimes even forgot about Ahn Yutan’s existence.

I also thought that maybe he would suddenly appear with the purple Porsche at a time of his choosing, but I didn’t hear the sound of a hornet all day, and no jailer approached me secretly. I went to the intersection where the Porsche had been tailing me, but it was quiet.

I wandered around the ruin village and returned to the Pachulso. I helped the younger family members with their studies and cleaned the stairs. Even after 7:30 PM had long passed, nothing happened.

I began to lean toward the certainty that the psycho bastard might have really just intended to give me anxiety. The request to kill Kim Junik was likely something Ahn Yutan himself had long forgotten, and he was probably just obsessed with something else now. While occasionally imagining, with amusement, how anxious I must be.

He was just a guy who found fun in things like that. In controlling other people.

Together with Nari, I washed, dried, and dressed the younger family members and tucked them into bed. After reading them a fairy tale and putting effort into acting like a monster, I went to my room’s bathroom to change my bandages.

As I finished and came out to the room to lie down, the door opened with a clatter. Gayoung, with her mouth pressed shut, just made a short gesture for me to come out and then disappeared. It wasn’t like she didn’t usually knock, and even her expression was ominous, so something felt wrong.

I ran out immediately and saw Gayoung standing at the end of the hallway. I quickly caught up as she gestured for me to follow and went down the stairs.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just get to the yard first.”

Gayoung said in a low voice. Her profile was stiff.

Coming out to the yard, I saw Dad crouching and Mom standing next to him. As I went closer, I also saw someone lying on the ground.

Mom saw me, tapped my shoulder lightly, and went to the side of the yard.

“I’ll go get the car.”

The person lying down was covered in blood, not just their body but also their face, so I couldn’t tell who it was, and they were completely naked, wearing only shoes. Looking at the shoes, I realized it was Yonghee.

“What happened?”

“Gayoung found him while she was coming in from a walk. He was like this in front of here. He wasn’t conscious, but he’s breathing.”

Dad said while peering at Yonghee’s face here and there.

“You don’t know how long he’s been here?”

“Well, if I retrace the times people went out to the yard, I think it might be at most about 30 minutes.”

The Avante that Mom was driving came toward us. The moment the headlights lit up the ground, I saw the messy footprints in the dirt floor. Footprints of the Pachulso family.

Among those, were there footprints of the person who brought Yonghee? Since there were no signs of dragging, there was a high possibility that someone had carried the unconscious Yonghee on their back, walked here, dumped him, and left. If not, perhaps a battered Yonghee had limped here himself and eventually collapsed.

What would the footprints of a person walking with a limp or dragging their feet look like?

Or, the footprints of a person whose right leg was a prosthetic leg.

Dad took a blanket from the back seat of the car and wrapped Yonghee in it. As I helped Dad load Yonghee into the back of the car, I felt Yonghee’s hand, which had come out from the blanket, grab my hand with a slight squeeze. Even though his eyes were closed, it seemed he was conscious. I tucked Yonghee’s wounded hand back into the blanket.

“I’ll follow right away.”

I went toward the bike, but Dad grabbed my arm.

“No, you stay here and watch the kids.”

“Gayoung and the others are here too…”

“You know. You’re the one I can trust to leave them with.”

Dad looked into my eyes and put a little more strength into his hand holding my arm.

“I’m counting on you.”

I looked at Dad, then lowered my eyes. Eventually, I nodded and stepped back.

“Don’t wait, as we don’t know what will happen.”

“We’ll be back.”

Dad and Mom said one after the other. As I stepped back another pace, I saw blood smeared on various parts of the car door. Looking at the arm Dad had grabbed, I saw blood there too. And on my hand that Yonghee had grabbed.

Wiping my arm and hand with my T-shirt, I watched the car move away. It was quite a long way from here to the hospital emergency room.

Yonghee is going to die.

Not because the emergency room is far or because he was too badly injured, but because he went with Mom and Dad.

In several similar situations in the past, no one ever came back. When the cars that left with sick family members returned, it was always just Mom and Dad. A family member who went to the hospital for the flu, was diagnosed with severe pneumonia, and died. A family member who went to the hospital for a stomachache, died of acute peritonitis, and died. A family member who went to give birth, the baby was stillborn, and she died herself… All of them had gone with Mom and Dad. Because Mom and Dad, who returned alone, delivered the news, none of us ever saw the bodies.

So, naturally, Yonghee won’t be coming back either.

If someone else like me or Gayoung had taken him to the emergency room by car, he might have lived no matter how far away it was, but because Mom and Dad took him, Yonghee too…

I forced myself to stop the thoughts and caught my breath.