Scene 1. The Return
Bloodwater soaked the stairs.
The iron staircase that descended to the bunker. Narrow and steep. Lee Kang's bare foot met the first step. The blood caked on his sole left a mark on the iron plate. The second step. The third. With each step down, bloodwater dripped from the coat's hem. Drip. Drip. The sound of it falling on the iron plate amplified and echoed inside the narrow stairwell.
The coat was heavy.
From the blood it had drunk. The official's blood. The retainers' blood. The guards' blood. Lee Kang's own blood. The blood of many had soaked into the black coat, making the cloth heavy. The cloth clung to his flesh. To the burns. To the shoulder where the sutures had torn. To the side the blade had split. The clinging cloth pressed the wounds. It stung.
Lee Kang did not feel that sting.
The body filled with cannibalism was pushing out the pain. Since the official's blood went down his throat, the empty places inside his body had been filled. His muscles were taut. There was strength in his legs. For the first time in days, his body was light.
The lightness, again, was strange.
There were two kinds of lightness. The lightness of a body filled with cannibalism. And the lightness of an empty back. The first was good. The second was not. The lightness of his back kept making Lee Kang uneasy. A place that needed filling sitting empty. The weight that should have met that place not meeting it.
Lee Kang stepped off the last stair.
The bunker spread before him.
The kerosene lamp's yellow light. Earthen walls. Wooden beams. The cots. The wounded. Those who had been cleaning rifles. The same scene as before he left. Only the air was different. When Lee Kang entered, the air in the bunker hardened.
Every eye turned toward Lee Kang.
They saw his appearance. The blood-soaked coat. The dried blood at the corner of his mouth. The flesh caught between his teeth. The bloodwater dripping from the coat's hem printing black dots on the earthen floor. Those dots printing in a line, following Lee Kang's steps.
Silence filled the bunker.
Not even murmuring. Before Lee Kang left, there had been murmuring. Now there was not even that. Complete silence. Breath-held silence. A silence where no one could open their mouth. One of the wounded swallowed a groan. One who had been cleaning a rifle sat frozen, his hands stopped.
Lee Kang read that silence differently.
As quiet waiting. As holding their breath so as not to disturb him. Lee Kang's brain translated that silence of terror into harmless consideration. People being quiet for his sake. So that Yeonhwa could rest.
Lee Kang crossed the bunker.
Dripping bloodwater. One step at a time. People drew back from Lee Kang's path. Quietly. Pressing their backs to the walls. Widening the distance from Lee Kang. Lee Kang did not see that either. Because his eyes were fixed on one place only.
The cot.
The wooden cot in the corner. The place where Yeonhwa lay.
Lee Kang's steps headed there. He looked at nothing else. There was nothing else. The bunker, the people, the silence, the blood on his own body. All of it was background. Yeonhwa alone was foreground.
Lee Kang stood before the cot.
Yeonhwa was there.
In the same posture as when Lee Kang had left. Eyes closed. With a bloodless face. With the dried yellow medicine stain hanging at the corner of her mouth. The small body lay on the small cot.
Inside Lee Kang's chest, something loosened.
The unease of the empty back. The agitation. The drifting body. The moment he saw Yeonhwa, it settled. He had found the anchor. Lee Kang knelt beside the cot.
Scene 2. The Anchor
Lee Kang's hand went to Yeonhwa's face.
A blood-smeared hand. A hand with dried blood and hardened flesh clotted on its back. That hand stopped just before it touched Yeonhwa's cheek. Lee Kang looked at his own hand. A filthy hand. A hand that must not touch Yeonhwa.
Lee Kang wiped his hand on the coat's hem.
The coat too was blood-soaked. It did not wipe clean. Lee Kang searched for a cleaner part. The coat's inside. A place where the blood had soaked less. He rubbed his palm against it. Rubbed the back of his hand. Scraped out the flesh from beneath his nails.
It did not wipe fully clean.
Even so, Lee Kang laid that hand against Yeonhwa's cheek.
Cold. Yeonhwa's cheek. Beneath Lee Kang's palm. Like stone. Lee Kang's hand wiped the yellow medicine stain from Yeonhwa's cheek. The dried medicine crumbled at his fingertips. Lee Kang peeled it away carefully. One flake at a time. So that Yeonhwa's skin would not be hurt.
Lee Kang's other hand arranged Yeonhwa's hair.
Hair matted with dirt and ash and dried medicine. Lee Kang's fingers loosened it one strand at a time. Like combing. Slowly. Each time his fingers passed through the hair, the tangles came undone.
Lee Kang lifted Yeonhwa.
With both arms. Carefully. Supporting her head. Supporting beneath her knees. Yeonhwa's body was light in Lee Kang's arms. Too light. Like a feather. Lee Kang shifted that weight onto his own back. Carried Yeonhwa on his back. Bound her with the bag strap. To his shoulders. To his waist.
Yeonhwa's chin met Lee Kang's shoulder.
It was the burn. Yeonhwa's jawbone pressed against the festered flesh. A searing climbed up his shoulder. As if the flesh were tearing again.
The corner of Lee Kang's mouth lifted.
He liked that pain. Because the pain was proof that Yeonhwa was there. That his shoulder hurt meant Yeonhwa's chin was there. That Yeonhwa's weight was there. That the empty back was filled.
Lee Kang's back was filled.
The drifting body fastened to the ground. What had been light grew heavy again. A good weight. The weight of an anchor. Lee Kang's breathing deepened. For the first time in days, he drew a deep breath.
"We're here."
Lee Kang whispered.
Into Yeonhwa's ear. Toward Yeonhwa's face hanging over his shoulder. A sound from a mouth that had torn a man apart and eaten him. From a mouth where the blood at its corners had not yet dried. From that mouth came the tenderest sound in the world.
"The doctor's coming. A real doctor. One who knows how to make the medicine."
Lee Kang's hand reached back behind him and took Yeonhwa's hand. Yeonhwa's hand hanging before his chest. Cold fingers. Lee Kang squeezed those fingers once.
"Just wait a little."
The people of the bunker were watching the scene.
A blood-soaked monster carrying a dying girl on his back, whispering tenderly with a mouth that had eaten a man. No one understood the scene. No one could open their mouth.
Lee Kang did not look at them.
With Yeonhwa alone on his back. He sat beside the cot. Leaning his back against the wall. Bearing Yeonhwa's weight on his back. He waited for the doctor.
Scene 3. Leather Shoes
Footsteps came on the stairs.
Several. The sound of military boots. And among them, something else mixed in. Leather shoes. The sound of hard heels meeting the iron staircase. Lighter than boots. More hesitant than boots.
Lee Kang's ear caught that sound.
Lee Kang's head turned toward the stairs. The amber eyes glowed in the dark. Leather shoes. A Western doctor. The promised thing. The price of the transaction.
Lee Kang's heart beat hard once.
The search party leader came down first. He descended the last stair and stood on the bunker floor. The leader's face was rigid. The leader's eyes turned toward Lee Kang. Lee Kang with Yeonhwa on his back. Lee Kang in the blood-soaked coat. The leader swallowed once.
Behind the leader was a man.
A Westerner. Tall. A lean build. Wearing glasses. A leather bag in his hand. A black overcoat. Beneath the overcoat, a vest and a necktie showed. He was a doctor. A real doctor. The same sort as the doctor dragged from Severance. But clothes more worn than his. A more exhausted face.
A doctor who had come by smuggling. One the organization had secretly recruited.
The doctor's eyes swept the bunker. The wounded. The earthen walls. The kerosene lamp. And then he saw Lee Kang. The blood-soaked coat. The blood at the mouth. The girl on his back. The doctor's feet faltered. The blue eyes behind the doctor's glasses wavered once.
The leader pushed the doctor's back.
"...That's the man." The leader said in English. In trembling English. "That man—will see to the patient. Please."
The doctor stepped one step forward.
Lee Kang stood.
With Yeonhwa on his back. One step toward the doctor. At that one step the doctor stepped back. Reflexively. Because Lee Kang's appearance was visible up close. The blood at his mouth. The flesh between his teeth. The amber eyes.
Lee Kang stopped.
He must not frighten the doctor. Because if the doctor fled, the medicine could not be made. Lee Kang turned his back. Slowly. To show the doctor Yeonhwa. The face of Yeonhwa carried on his back.
Lee Kang's hand drew the medicine bottles from his chest.
Ether. Opium tincture. Catalyst. He set them on a cloth spread over the earthen floor. The softened packet too. One by one. Before the doctor. The glass bottles glinted yellow in the kerosene lamp's light.
"With these."
Lee Kang said.
In Korean. The doctor did not understand. The doctor's eyes turned toward the bottles. He read the labels. The doctor's expression began to change.
"Mix these and she gets better."
Lee Kang said. Toward the doctor. Whether the doctor understood or not.
"It's the medicine Doctor Jang used to make. The yellow medicine. You just mix these and make it. Then Yeonhwa—"
The leader tried to interpret from the side. Stammering. In English. The words asking him to mix the medicine. But the doctor did not wait for the interpretation. Because the doctor was already reading the labels of the bottles. The doctor's hand went to the ether bottle. Lifted it. Held it to the light. The opium tincture. The catalyst. The doctor's hands began to shake.
The doctor said something. In English. Low.
Lee Kang did not understand it.
But he knew the timbre. The timbre the Severance doctor had made. The timbre the partisan physician had made. The timbre of it cannot be done. The timbre of I cannot.
Lee Kang's eyes narrowed.
Scene 4. The Examination
The doctor approached Yeonhwa.
Because Lee Kang had turned his back to show Yeonhwa. The doctor opened his bag. Drew out a stethoscope. His hands shook. Lee Kang permitted it. The examination. Because for the doctor to make the medicine, he had to see the patient.
Lee Kang unbound Yeonhwa from his back.
Carefully. Laid her on the cot again. The doctor knelt beside the cot. Fitted the stethoscope into his ears. Pressed the metal disc to Yeonhwa's chest.
The bunker went quiet.
The doctor listened. The doctor's eyes closed. A furrow formed on his brow. He moved the disc. From left to right. The doctor's hand went to Yeonhwa's wrist. He felt for the pulse. The doctor's expression hardened.
The doctor lifted Yeonhwa's eyelid.
He looked at the pupil. The doctor's hand felt Yeonhwa's forehead. Felt her neck. The doctor raised his head. The doctor's blue eyes were wavering. The doctor looked at the leader. Looked at Lee Kang.
The doctor's mouth opened.
English tried to come. Low. In a heavy timbre. With one shake of the head. The same motion the Severance doctor had made. The same expression. The same despair.
Inside Lee Kang's chest, something tried to surge up.
It was the tinnitus. A high sound began to ring inside his ears. That sound he'd heard in Chapter 33. Beneath his sternum, something hot pushed up. Nausea. The moment he saw the doctor's head shaking. The moment that timbre tried to come from the doctor's mouth.
Inside Lee Kang's head, the circuit tried to snap.
The doctor tried to say something. In English. "I'm sorry, but—"
Lee Kang's hand moved.
Fast. It caught the doctor's shoulder. The doctor's words stopped. The doctor's blue eyes turned toward Lee Kang. Up close. Lee Kang's amber eyes looked into the doctor's eyes. The face with dried blood hanging at its mouth. The face with flesh caught between its teeth. It drew close before the doctor's face.
Lee Kang's mouth opened.
His voice was low. Close to a growl. But it was not a growl. It was something more frightening. A calm thing. A settled thing.
"Save her."
Lee Kang said.
In Korean. The doctor did not understand. But he understood. Not by the word but by the timbre. By the pressure of the hand. By the look in the eyes.
Lee Kang's hand rose slowly toward the doctor's neck.
From the shoulder to the neck. The fingers stopped near the doctor's nape. Without touching. They circled. Above the doctor's nape. Blood-streaked fingers.
"If you don't want to die."
Lee Kang said.
The doctor's breath stopped.
Every breath in the bunker stopped.
The kerosene lamp swayed once.