“Who was it?” “…My team leader.” “Ugh, they really can’t leave you alone when you’re on a business trip. Team leaders are always calling.” “Right?”
Good thing it’s the team leader, Eunseo thought quietly, deleting his call history while thinking of Jaeheon’s call, which hadn’t contained a single word about work except the talk of personal interviews. Ever since the moment he’d once opened his call log and seen it full of Han Jaeheon’s name, he’d grown afraid of anyone seeing it.
The ABS production building came into view at the far end. At least the ABS production people were the most easygoing, so thinking the afternoon would be easier, Eunseo let out a relieved breath. Then he faltered and stopped his moving feet.
“What’s wrong?” “Doesn’t it smell… a little strange?” “Huh?” “Like a chemical smell…” “Really? I can’t tell.”
No matter how he sniffed, it smelled like something flammable. Remembering the smells of things that had to be handled inside a lab fume hood, Eunseo looked around anxiously.
Just as he stopped his steps, a little scared, something burst nearby. Then, with sporadic bang, bang, pop explosions, sparks even flew. With no time to think deeply, Eunseo raised his arms to shield his face and upper body, and in that instant he was struck by something huge and slammed into a wall. Darkness.
***
Voices murmured by his head, then disappeared, then quieted, then got a little noisy again, repeating. Trying to open his eyes, Eunseo couldn’t lift his eyelids at all, his head hurt so much. The back of his head throbbed and his arm ached to the point tears welled up. He tried somehow to fall asleep, and fortunately the darkness before his eyes returned.
After spending several more hours like that, when Eunseo barely managed to open his eyes, the surroundings were already quiet, and outside the half-open curtain a black darkness had settled. It was so dark for a moment that he panicked, wondering if his eyes weren’t seeing well. Only when he sensed the streetlight seeping in did he let out a relieved breath.
Not knowing well what had happened, Eunseo just rolled his eyes blankly for a long time, and at the edge of his vision caught a sleek shoe tip. His vision, accustomed to the dark, caught a little more shape, and past the long legs wrapped in suit trousers, a familiar watch reflected a very faint light. Why is he here? He can’t be here. Eunseo thought he was seeing things because he’d hit his head.
“Why stop your eyes there.”
As never before, a hand with very little strength came and gripped his chin. Eunseo started violently and tried to pull back, but pain rose here and there in his body and he couldn’t move properly.
Jaeheon, having let go of his chin, raised the bed a little. The fully automatic bed was fascinating, but he couldn’t show it. Sitting in an uncomfortable-looking small chair, Jaeheon’s face was terrifying.
“What’s fine about any of this.”
“You’ve got a concussion, of course, and your whole body is covered in bruises and cuts. Nothing’s broken, but other than that you’re a complete mess.”
With nothing to say in reply, Eunseo just bit his lips a little hard. He had no proper memory. He couldn’t tell what had hurt him or what had happened, so that was all he could answer to the question of whether he was all right. It had been a long time since he’d hurt this much, but it wasn’t as if he’d never hurt at all. Meanwhile Jaeheon called the doctor, and he began asking Eunseo a few questions.
“Can you tell me what happened, from the morning, as you remember?”
The doctor and Jaeheon didn’t press Eunseo, who couldn’t answer easily. Rolling his eyes, Eunseo groped through his memory for a long time. He could see Jaeheon, arms crossed, tapping near his elbow with his finger. Watching it quietly, Eunseo soon opened his mouth.
“In the morning I took the train to the Yeosu factory, and during the morning I did the handover with the PVC production team. And with Senior Park I went to the cafeteria for lunch…” Saying that much, Eunseo slowly stopped his lips. He clearly remembered up to going to the cafeteria, but nothing came to mind after that. He must have eaten lunch, having gone to the cafeteria, but he couldn’t remember at all what he’d eaten.
“You don’t remember after that?” “Yes… it’s strange. I think I ate lunch, but…”
“It looks like memory loss from the concussion. There don’t appear to be fractures or internal bleeding, but we’ll run the tests once more in the morning just in case.” The doctor, having said something serious so casually, gave him some painkillers and left the room again. Eunseo was flustered — he’d expected to be told what had happened, but nothing was said. Watching Eunseo, confused by his incomplete memory, Jaeheon asked again with a sigh mixed in.
“Do you remember calling me?” “…No.” “Hah…”
Jaeheon lowered his head and raked his hair. Wondering if he was frustrated at not remembering, Eunseo flinched in fear.
“There was an explosion at the factory.” “…Pardon?” “We’re still figuring out the cause… anyway, that’s not what’s important — because of it you were hit by an iron plate from a blown raw-material tower, so your head’s got a concussion and your whole body’s bruised. Your forehead and the backs of your hands got cut in a few places too.” “Ah, is Senior Park…” “Is this the time to worry about that person?”
How could he not worry about someone who’d been in the same place. Eunseo couldn’t help being startled by Jaeheon’s burning eyes and agitated voice. This was the first time he’d gotten angry or worked up emotionally since the matter of his father.
A very unfamiliar ambivalence rose in him. Joy that he was worried about him, and fear of him blazing with anger like this. Two feelings seethed inside Eunseo, enough to make him forget the pain in the back of his head for a moment.
For a moment, in the silence, Han Jaeheon, who had been looking down at Eunseo, stood up and answered his phone.
“This is Han Jaeheon.”
It was a voice as cold as red-hot metal plunged into cold water. While he listened to some report, Eunseo checked his own body. Bandages were stuck here and there on the backs of his hands, as Jaeheon had said, as if they’d been cut, and his arms were full of bruises. The kind where you could clearly see internal bleeding had occurred inside — blood bruises.
“So, your conclusion is that this was an accident caused by outsourced personnel who were inspecting the equipment?” Eunseo, who had raised his hand to touch the back of his head, could only manage to flick his fingertips once. He was so reluctant to move, with Jaeheon’s mood so bad.
“No matter that it’s lunchtime, does it make sense for the staff in charge to leave their post with only outsourced contractors there? And turning off the emergency alarm because it was annoying while they inspected?”
Eunseo gasped without realizing it. It was an absurd thing to do. When handling chemicals, an accident happened in the moment you thought “it’ll be fine,” and an explosion in the moment you thought “oops.” There had once been an accident at Eunseo’s school too, to the point that for a while undergraduate theses were replaced with organizing existing papers, no experiments. Even now at the company lab, no matter how many dozens of times the alarm rang for equipment inspections or new equipment arrivals, no one had even thought of turning it off.
“Do you think the factory manager can escape this responsibility on the grounds that equipment inspection was outsourced? Could you say that even if someone had died? At this rate it wouldn’t be strange if the whole factory exploded tomorrow.”
Jaeheon’s fingertips tapped the plastic bed frame. The sound was so unsettling that Eunseo held even his breath.
“I’ll be conducting an audit on factory safety first thing tomorrow.” Ignoring the voice coming from the phone, Jaeheon hung up and immediately started a call with someone else. Just as he’d told the factory manager, he ordered the audit to proceed from tomorrow.
“Start the internal audit first thing tomorrow morning. Do it immediately so they can’t fabricate materials. The factory manager is openly saying that turning off the emergency alarm during equipment inspection is frequent, and that the equipment-team staff went off to eat lunch leaving only outsourced personnel — so there must be more than a hole or two.” Giving the clearest order to dig out every detail, Jaeheon hung up. When Eunseo looked at him with puzzled eyes, he covered his face with both hands as if to hide a momentarily tired expression, then sank back down into the chair by the bed with a thud.
“…Are you all right?” “…It’s you who’s not all right, Senior.”
Why did he look so tormented. Eunseo bit his lip hard. Compared to what Jaeheon had called a complete mess, his own body wasn’t that bad. He was a little afraid of the partial memory loss from before the incident and the continuing headache, but it wasn’t unbearable. But why… why was he suffering like this. Was it a delusion from the concussion?
“…Where did you take my call?” “Pardon?” “The call… ah, you said you don’t remember…”
It wasn’t a delusion. He really was suffering. Eunseo couldn’t hide his bewilderment. Every word Jaeheon uttered reeked of pain. What kind of call had it been, to make him like this?
“Was there a problem… with the call?” “…” “I can’t remember…” “I called you and the explosion happened almost right after.” “Ah…” “You don’t usually talk on the phone while walking.” “…” “If you hadn’t been on the phone with me, you wouldn’t have gotten caught up in the explosion like that.”
That wasn’t Jaeheon’s fault, was it — it was just bad timing. Thinking rationally, Eunseo could still fully understand Jaeheon’s words. If their situations were reversed, he would probably have been wracked with enormous guilt. But why was Jaeheon like this? He and Eunseo were nothing to each other, so why?
Eunseo felt himself swept up in the raw emotion Jaeheon was showing. It seemed he could no longer rationalize it away — he had neither the confidence nor the reason to affirm this nothing of a relationship.
“Does anything hurt?” “I’—…” “Don’t say you’re fine.” “…Only my head aches a little.” “Be grateful you were hit by the iron plate and thrown. If you hadn’t been, you could have died.” “Senior Park…”
Jaeheon looked at him as if he were pathetic for a moment, but Eunseo had to ask.
“That Park senior of yours is perfectly fine except for minor bruises, thanks to burying his head in your body, so don’t bring him up anymore.” “…That’s a relief.” “Yes, and thanks to him you slammed your head into the concrete quite spectacularly.” “Does your forehead hurt? That bastard tore it open before, and now it’s torn open again.” That bastard… For a moment Eunseo was blank, not knowing who the bastard Jaeheon meant was, then he realized it meant the man who had been his father, and was slightly dumbfounded. It was very strange that he remembered that violence from back then so casually, when even Eunseo had forgotten it.
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