PAX 32

And then I felt Mom’s body heat behind me. Mom hugged me and Dad at the same time. Mom is here, too. We’re both here. Mom’s voice brushed against the back of my head. I held onto Dad’s neck tightly, Dad held my body and head tightly, and Mom held Dad and me tightly; we, having become a single mass, stood tall on the ground while taking the pouring rain head-on.

After my crying stopped, Mom started to sing. I remember it being a children’s song about raindrops or something similar. When Dad followed along with an exaggerated, operatic bass, Mom sang in an exaggerated high pitch. The sound of their singing grew louder and louder. I was sandwiched tightly between them, laughing and laughing again.

There was a day like that. There is a memory like that between those two people and me.

We lived that way all along. Because those two people were my true guardians and nurturers, I never wondered who my real parents were, nor did I ever want to find out where or how my bloodline started. I was just satisfied living as things were.

Then, suddenly, when I discovered that no one in the Pachulso family was over thirty, when I learned the pattern that someone in the family dies too easily and the rest of the people never get to see the body, when the fact that only Mom and Dad read the letters left behind by family members who packed up and left saying they would live independently started to bother me, everything changed.

It became even more so because I was nearing thirty. Did Yonghee really go to the emergency room? Is it true that she suddenly took a turn for the worse while recovering and died? Must I keep living like this, doubting Mom and Dad? Am I going to be moved to a crematorium suddenly one day after living like this? We were a family who hugged each other tightly and sang songs while getting pelted by torrential rain.

Please tell me that the doubts I harbor are all delusions.

Another set of words pushed to the tip of my tongue.

Please tell me that you aren’t doing something strange by selling the bodies of family members.

Please, tell me, that I am not going to end up like that soon.

I put the tip of my tongue between my front teeth and bit down gently. Now is not the time.

No. I don’t even really know when the right time is.

🎈🤍

I went to the Nagun District and carried out my daily routine. I stopped by the addresses stored in my head one by one, spoke with the clients, and grasped the situation. Schedules for things like house repairs or taking care of someone were put together systematically.

Then, at some moment, I stopped and looked at the entrance of an alley. Along with a sign that read “Ahn Song-yeol’s House,” an arrow was pointing inside the alley.

It was a sign I had seen while passing by often, but I had never once followed that arrow inside, nor had I ever taken an interest in it. But today, I parked my bike on one side and followed the arrow into the alley.

While walking, the windows of all the houses on both sides were tightly shut and it was quiet. This is the district where people who work at the meat processing factory live, so it’s always empty during the day, which is why I never had a reason to come this way.

The house at the very end of the dead end was “Ahn Song-yeol’s House.” Next to the wide-open door was an information board with a photo of Ahn Song-yeol, the owner of the house, and a brief profile. I was slightly impressed after seeing the photo. The power of these strong genes. It wasn’t just Ahn Yutan and Ahn Juik who looked alike; Ahn Song-yeol, Ahn Yutan’s grandfather, also had a face that looked exactly like theirs.

Next to the photo with purple skin, there was also a photo from his youth, back when he was normal before being infected, so I could find Ahn Yutan’s face in it even more easily.

I read the text explaining Ahn Song-yeol’s profile. Ahn Song-yeol was quarantined in the Nagun District at the age of 48 along with his son, Ahn Juik, who was also an infected person. He lived in this house, then organized a civilian patrol, and shortly after, he built the patrol headquarters and moved in there. They say the name “Guardians” was attached and started to be used when Ahn Juik became the second leader.

Calculating based on the years specified, Ahn Juik was about 18 years old when he entered the Nagun District. It is a much younger age than me and Ahn Yutan now.

What would it feel like to be branded as a national disaster-like existence at such an age? A situation where you were bitten by a person with purple skin one day, lost consciousness, and when you came to your senses, people were accusing you of eating human flesh and locking you away in a place like this. When you don’t even know what you did yourself.

Well. I can’t really imagine it. What kind of heart the infected who were dragged to the Nagun District back then must have lived with.

I went inside the house. The interior was simple and ordinary, not much different from the houses of other residents. There were two rooms, as if the father and son each used one, and only Ahn Song-yeol’s room was open. Inside, there was a small wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a low desk, and bedding spread out on one side of the floor. There was an explanation that the items in the wardrobe and chest of drawers were all things he used at the time.

A notebook was left open on the low desk, and it was the part where he wrote a diary containing his thoughts on the civilian patrol. The explanatory text attached next to it was a bit longer than the text about Ahn Song-yeol’s profile.

They say that after forcing all the infected who suddenly returned to their senses into a place they named the Nagun District, the soldiers who monitored them only played the role of watching to see if anyone was secretly escaping or if the same thing was happening again, and did not interfere with whatever crimes occurred among the infected inside.

In the early days of quarantine, while living in a place that didn’t have anything properly equipped and being distributed food that was utterly shoddy, the stress of the infected reached its peak, and various problems occurred, from small arguments to accidental murders. That was when Ahn Song-yeol proposed to the residents that they form a civilian patrol. The patrol didn’t just crack down on crime; it also worked to make the residents’ living environment better, such as by repairing fixtures.

Order blooms in a life that sets rules straight and follows them. Although I have contracted a disease of unclear origin and committed acts without my will being mixed in, I have on the other hand recovered and gained another opportunity for life, so I will not let this flow away in vain.

I will become self-reliant. I will let the whole country know that even our lowly and terrible existence can create order by ourselves and stand upright.

Maybe it’s because he’s an old-timer, but Ahn Song-yeol’s diary had handwriting and content that was needlessly grand. Just like the excuses I impromptu cobbled together for Mom and Dad this morning.

It seems Ahn Song-yeol thought that the infected would be able to go back outside the Nagun District someday. That after order was established within the Nagun District, and as time passed like that, they would be able to leave the Nagun District and live just normally among “outsiders.”

What kind of atmosphere was the civilian patrol that Ahn Song-yeol created back then? Looking at the current Guardians and the Nagun District, I’m also curious about what Ahn Song-yeol would think.

It is safe to say that “order” was indeed established thanks to the Guardians. Now that there are even their own schools, markets, and hospitals inside the Nagun District, it seems “self-reliance” has also been achieved to some extent. However, contrary to the future Ahn Song-yeol had hoped for, the Nagun District has become a completely closed group.

I looked around the small kitchen and bathroom roughly and came out of the house. As expected, there was no “human flesh model” or anything that even makes one think of cannibalism. False rumors spread easily and fix firmly. On the other hand, correcting them is almost impossible. It seems the people of the Association for the Abolition of Discrimination in the Nagun District are trying their best here and there, but it doesn’t look like there’s much of an effect.

While finishing up my daily routine, I watched the guards passing by. Guards wearing black uniforms with police batons on their waists. Young guards wearing matching tracksuits of various colors.

The guards mostly wander around. Nominally, they are tasked with important duties such as crime prevention, accident handling, and fire suppression, but the thing they do most often is wander here and there. And holding public trials and public punishments. By doing so, they receive the money collected from the residents as a salary.

I understand why Ahn Yutan wants to become the number one. He must want to reign over people like the guards of the Nagun District. But does he really have to do that in a place like this, which is seriously backward? Life in Seoul would be much more comfortable and familiar.