Chapter 105

“…But it’s going to rescue me first. Because my priority rating is higher.”

The man’s voice sank heavy as rubble. The rescue cells were not piloted by humans; they were an automated system operated by an artificial intelligence. And strictly following its programmed protocol, that AI would weigh him against Geum Seoul to determine priority.

Gye Do-hyeop was certain the rescue cell would pick him. Even with Geum Seoul being pregnant, the outcome would be no different.

His mind had already calculated the outcome long ago. Slipping off his watch and tossing it to Geum Seoul wouldn’t change anything. Before the golden window elapsed, the sensors would seek out his living body heat first regardless. That was the grim gap between a Deputy Director of the Special Security Department and a common civilian like Geum Seoul.

“Ah…”

Piercing right through Gye Do-hyeop’s countless calculations, Geum Seoul’s voice struck home.

“What a relief.”

The sound that escaped him was unmistakably relief, raw and heartfelt. Then Gye Do-hyeop fell silent for one beat and let out a sharp, breathless laugh. There was no amusement in it. The feeling underneath was too hollow, too cold, too viciously fucked up to fit inside anger. It numbed his spine. His eyes felt dry enough to crack, like earth split apart after months without rain. A crushing sense of futility settled over his empty hands and climbed the back of his neck until breathing itself became difficult.

Just as Gye Do-hyeop had guessed, Geum Seoul truly felt relieved. From the bottom of his heart, he honestly believed it was for the best.

He recalled the tier rating projected on the windshield when he had ridden in a car with Yu Jeong-ham once. She had told him the artificial intelligence appraises the monetary value of human lives to decide who to save first. Back then, he had found it a bit strange, but looking at it now, it seemed only natural.

The thought that his life could carry the same value as the deputy director’s was absurd.

Whenever he tapped his smartwatch to clear the countless security checkpoints at headquarters, the code flashing on his screen had read TEMP-53. Fifty-third among the temps. The deputy director was likely second only to Noh Pil-gyu. Geum Seoul felt relieved.

“…I don’t know how long the gap will be between the first one and the second.”

“I can wait just fine.”

Geum Seoul answered cheerfully. But Gye Do-hyeop’s next words came only after a heavy silence.

“It has to blast its way up through the rubble piled on top, which makes it no different from an explosion. The tremor will be massive, and this ceiling might cave in even further.”

“Even so, I’ll wait patiently.”

His voice trembled slightly. It was proof of his excitement. He was genuinely thrilled that the deputy director would soon make it out of here. A very quiet, short sigh came from across the dark. Then, words followed—delivered in a tone impossible to tell if it was mockery or something else.

“Seoul.”

“Yes, Deputy Director.”

“If only one of us gets to walk out alive, it’s better that I survive, right?”

“Yes.”

Geum Seoul nodded.

“Because you’re just someone who ran errands for a few hundred won, and my job is locking away human scum.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

The man was telling the truth. Geum Seoul was not hurt by it. Even if the blast that launched the rescue cell buried the deputy director entirely beneath the rubble, he would not resent him. Even if the system had decided only one person could be saved, regardless of order, Seoul could send Do-hyeop ahead without a single lingering regret. Only one thought kept gnawing at the corner of his heart: the child inside him. If he could, he wanted at least the baby to survive. But that was impossible, and he knew it. The artificial intelligence would decide; there was nothing he could change. Seoul laid an open palm over his belly. I’m sorry. He formed the apology silently, careful that the deputy director would not hear it.

“Deputy Director.”

Ruuuuumble!

This time the roar of an explosion came from further away. Yet even the slight tremor it caused sent loose rocks clattering down somewhere nearby. Geum Seoul tightened his grip on the lever with all his strength.

“What.”

He wanted to see his face.

“I like you, Deputy Director.”

Staring down silently at the device on his wrist, Gye Do-hyeop let out a faint chuckle at the confession swallowed by the dark.

“You think you might die, so now you feel like confessing?”

“I want to say a little more.”

Wuuuuum. Wuuuuum.

Gye Do-hyeop lifted his head. Though he couldn’t tell the exact distance, a faint mechanical hum reached his ears. It was likely the sound of the rescue cell, having located a fissure, boring its way inside to position itself.

“Go ahead.”

With permission granted, he promptly chattered away.

“Under the sunlight, your hair looks a little blue. That’s what I thought when I saw you in our neighborhood before.”

That voice did not belong to someone on the verge of being crushed or buried alive. It was soft, lovely, and every word, every sentence that spilled forth felt like a confession under a midsummer sun. Gye Do-hyeop sifted through his memories. When he had first moved into that neighborhood, he recalled Geum Seoul standing on the rooftop, shading himself from the sun with hanging laundry.

From the days when he had hidden beneath layer after layer of clothing and sweated through summer heat to this moment underground, Geum Seoul had not changed at his core. He was a narrow beam of light aimed with impossible precision—frail in brightness, perhaps, but straight, unwavering, and clean in its trajectory. Refraction could bend the world around him and still fail to turn him aside. Looking at him for too long made Do-hyeop feel as if the light might burn straight through his eyes.

“That’s why blue became my favorite color.”

Such a Geum Seoul was likening him to blue. It was ridiculous. Yet he couldn’t laugh. If Geum Seoul believed it to be so, then that was the absolute definition.

“Deputy Director. Please live in blue, not black.”

He understood what Geum Seoul meant. It was about his gloomy existence, living behind drawn curtains day in and day out. Even though they had never properly talked about it, he had somehow perceived both Gye Do-hyeop’s end result and its root cause.

Huuuum. Huuuuuum.

Even as the mechanical hum drew louder, approaching right above his head, Gye Do-hyeop didn’t take his eyes off the darkness where Geum Seoul was. Geum Seoul’s scent drifted faintly through the dust-choked chamber. His pheromones smelled not of sorrow, but of love. Telling them apart was simple. Just as one knew clear air from murky haze, right now Geum Seoul was warm and refreshing.

“The sunlight coming through the window is truly beautiful.”

Sensing the end, Geum Seoul was reciting his love.

“So…”

No matter how hard he glared into the darkness that obstructed his view, Geum Seoul’s face remained hidden. The one who suited the sun more than anyone else wasn’t himself, but the boy.

“Please don’t live trapped under the dirt.”

Even after being told that Gye Do-hyeop would have to leave him behind and get out first, Geum Seoul was offering such earnest pleas. Lost for words, Gye Do-hyeop twitched his finger. Once again, the boy was planting an inexplicable emotion in him. Burying a dense, heavy seed near his heart and patting it smooth with pale hands. Just as he had once planted life into a ghost.

“You can step out now.”

Gye Do-hyeop didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled his gaze away from the darkness and fixed his eyes on the orange icon on his watch. Tick. Tick. Tick. The sound of a second hand ticked in his ears. Almost simultaneously, the machinery above his crown came to a halt. It meant the rescue cell had recognized him.

Tick.

His smartwatch flickered black once, then lit up with a green signal.

Now was the moment.

Gye Do-hyeop pressed the pinbug.

“Code Zeus. NSSD-TEMP-53.”

Kzzzt. Zzt.

A mechanical beep chimed in his ear, but overhead, silence still reigned. Only the faint cry of “Deputy Director?” echoed through the darkness from somewhere across the space. Gye Do-hyeop repeatedly pressed the pin bug.

“Repeat. Code Zeus. NSSD-TEMP-53. Grade A Jewel Omega secured.”

“…Deputy Director.”

Geum Seoul knew what that code meant. He had memorized it countless times while sitting in the office.

“Don’t do it. …No. Deputy Director!”

As his voice pitched higher, the vibration that had subsided above Gye Do-hyeop’s head began to hum faintly once more.

Vvvrrrrm—.

Vrrmmm.

The stillness lasted only a moment. As if finishing its calibration, the restarted engine began to crawl steadily along its trajectory—toward where Geum Seoul was.

“Ah…”

Only then did Gye Do-hyeop exhale a long breath and cover his forehead with an open palm. It worked. It wasn’t even hot, yet cold sweat beaded thick, drenching his palm—the price of having strung his nerves so taut while gauging the exact timing.

Vrrrm—.

Beep, beep—.

The machine finished its rescue preparations as Gye Do-hyeop gave his final command.

“You go live. In the sunlight.”

“Deputy Director!”

BOOM—!

The explosion tore right beside him, yet this time it was an immensely welcome sound. Amid the churning dust that clouded his vision even further, Gye Do-hyeop heard the grinding roar of everything collapsing downward.

Crash! Rrrrrrunch!

Whoooosh—.

In the gloom where the awning collapsed as Geum Seoul lost his grip on the lever, the mechanical joints bent and expanded with the rushing roar of air filling in fast.

“Deputy Director! Open this, please open this! No! I don’t want to! I—I don’t wanna go— Deputy— please——!”

Thud, thud.

He had never heard Geum Seoul wail like that before. Yet hearing the frantic pounding and that raw, tearing voice grow muffled brought Gye Do-hyeop profound relief. Vrrrrm. The engine thrummed louder and louder. And when a blaze of light flared bright as a burst of flame, his eyes narrowed by reflex. But he did not close them.

He wanted to look at Geum Seoul.

“No! Deputy Director, I… I don’t want to l-leave you behind! Please, please don’t do this! Let me stay… let me stay by your side. Please!”

Trapped inside the massive inflated tube amid the rubble of the fallen awning and concrete ceiling, Geum Seoul clawed frantically at the wall with both hands. His ragged, panting breaths were agonizing to hear, but Gye Do-hyeop had never intended to leave him here from the start.

“Don’t want to.”

No matter how one dressed it up, blue was still too close to darkness. What truly belonged in the light was Geum Seoul’s sun-colored hair, and those eyes of his. Gye Do-hyeop thought back to Seoul walking alone toward the pharmacy, though there was no need to search that far. Right now, bathed in the glow held by the machine, Geum Seoul’s eyes looked just like a sunrise.

He wished Seoul would never know a sunset for the rest of his life. Not the shroud, not the dark, not the drifting dust or the musty reek, nor the inside of a coffin. None of those suited him. He wanted Seoul to live raising a triumphant hand high in the center of the foam pad he had so bravely climbed upon—moving toward an even more radiant Seoul.

Fsssshhhh—.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Fully inflated with air, the rescue cell fell still. Gye Do-hyeop knew it from theory, and Geum Seoul sensed it by instinct: now came the turn to detonate in a massive blast and rocket skyward.

—”! — ——!”

On his knees inside the sealed cell, facing the man who watched from the other side, Geum Seoul cried out until his voice broke. He could not complete a single sentence, and none of the sound carried beyond the reinforced shell anyway. Cut off entirely from the outside world, his face turned scarlet as he stammered, screamed, pleaded—an outcry fierce enough to tear him apart, yet silent to everyone beyond the glass.

“Hey.”

Gye Do-hyeop broke into a radiant smile.

“Now you’ve got at least one reason to like me.”

Goodbye.

A farewell Geum Seoul would never hear.

BOOM—!

The rescue cell detonated upward in a magnificent blast. Ruuuuumble. Almost in the same instant, everything that had barely remained standing around Gye Do-hyeop collapsed over him.

Being a prototype, only one rescue cell had been loaded onto the transport craft. Gye Do-hyeop’s claim that two were coming back-to-back had been a lie. There was no next one.