Free Web Novel“I’m home. Huh? Dad?”
That evening, after finishing his part-time job and coming home, Baek Suho stopped short in surprise.
His father, Baek Hail, was sitting motionless on the sofa in the dark living room like some kind of ghost.
“Huh? My son’s home? What time is it?”
“It’s past six. Why are you sitting in the dark with the lights off? What about dinner? Huh? You didn’t eat?”
After turning on the light, Baek Suho looked around the living room and kitchen, both exactly the same as when he had left that morning, and asked the question.
“......”
Baek Hail simply looked at his son without answering.
No matter how he looked at him, the kid seemed perfectly fine and healthy.
But if, by some one-in-ten-thousand chance, what that lunatic from earlier had said was true...
“What?”
Sensing that his father’s gaze was somehow different from usual, Baek Suho blinked.
After silently gathering his thoughts for a moment, Baek Hail gestured for him to come sit in front of the sofa.
“Come here and sit down.”
“Oh, come on, what now...”
He sounded annoyed, but in truth, Baek Suho respected his father more than anyone else in the world, so he obediently dropped down onto the floor in the living room.
“What is it?”
“...You been feeling sick anywhere lately?”
“Sick? No. Oh, that rhymed. Nice. Lemme make a note of that.”
As Baek Suho, who liked hip-hop, muttered that to himself in admiration, Baek Hail forced down his irritation and said,
“Hey, you little punk, forget rhymes and oranges and think straight. Your stomach hurt lately or anything? You’ve lost some weight recently, haven’t you?”
“My stomach? It only hurts a little if I eat too much spicy or salty stuff. As for losing weight... I dunno.”
“Haaah...”
“But seriously, why?”
“Never mind that. Let’s go to the hospital tomorrow.”
“The hospital? Why all of a sudden? I’m really not sick anywhere.”
“Let’s just go. It’s about time I got a health checkup too. We’ll both go together and get checked.”
“Uh... okay. But tomorrow’s election day. Is anything even open?”
“It is. I already made the appointment.”
“Huh? You already booked it?”
At his son’s dumbfounded question, Baek Hail let out a deep sigh and answered in a strangely drained voice,
“Yeah. Tomorrow morning, you vote with me, then we go to the hospital. And drink some water now. They say you’ve gotta fast for more than eight hours.”
“Okaaay...”
Baek Suho felt like something was off, but he answered readily enough.
Ever since his mother died when he was in elementary school, he knew better than anyone how hard his father had worked for over ten years raising him and his older sister alone.
So aside from the fact that he was not very good at studying, he usually tried to listen when his dad told him something.
Besides, if he did not, his older sister Baek Sua, who was three years older than him, would lecture him for at least a week or beat the hell out of him.
***
Early the next morning, after voting, the father and son got into the old truck and headed for one of Busan’s biggest hospitals.
Inside his father’s truck, Baek Suho kept tilting his head to himself in confusion.
There was a pretty big hospital near their house too, so he could not figure out why they had to go all the way to a university hospital.
I’m starving too. Ah, whatever.
Like that, clutching his empty stomach, Baek Suho spent the entire morning going through tests with his father.
But he had no idea that he had undergone a PET-CT, a full-body CT, and even an endoscopic ultrasound, tests not included in a normal general checkup.
And he had no idea the test fees alone had run into the millions of won.
After finishing their tests in the afternoon, the father and son had a hearty meal at a Chinese restaurant near the hospital, then went back home.
“You worked hard. Go to bed early tonight. You’ve got school tomorrow, right?”
“I do, but already? I’m not sleepy. I wanna watch the vote count. Think Choi Hosoo’s gonna win?”
“What kind of presidential race is this to you? Since when did you care about politics? Watch a little, then go to bed.”
“Okay.”
So the two of them sat down in front of the TV in the living room and started watching the broadcast.
Before long, voting time came to an end, and the screen split between the two major-party candidates and their campaign staff as a countdown began.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
The photos and names of both candidates appeared at the same time, along with the numbers.
Choi Hosoo 48.12%
Too Close to Call
Yang Jincheol 48.75%
“Whoa! What the hell is that? Zero point six? Yang Jincheol’s winning? Is this for real?”
Baek Suho made a huge fuss.
But Baek Hail just sat there with wide eyes, his face stiff, staring at the screen.
Unlike legislative or local elections, presidential elections usually had almost no margin of error.
Which meant that even after the full count came in, those numbers were extremely unlikely to change much. At most, maybe 0.1 or 0.2 percent.
And that meant—
That crazy bastard... no way... was he really...?
Baek Hail shook his head violently.
No. No way. It was impossible.
Regression? Prophetic dreams? freēwēbηovel.c૦m
Even if he bent over backward a hundred times, prophetic dreams were at least somewhat understandable.
His late mother had been a shaman, so things like spirit descent or fortune-telling and seeing the future were, to some extent, something he could accept.
But not just one specific incident.
Seeing and going through everything that would happen over the course of years in a dream?
“That’s not even crazy...”
He muttered out loud without realizing it, and Baek Suho turned his head.
“You think so too, right, Dad? Seriously, this is insane. How’s the gap like that? Huh? Why’re you turning it off?”
Baek Hail had suddenly turned off the TV.
“What kind of presidential election is it to you? Get in your room and study.”
“Aw... okay.”
He could always just watch it on his phone anyway, so Baek Suho grabbed some snacks and headed to his room.
Left alone in the living room, Baek Hail leaned back into the sofa and sank into deep thought.
But the more he thought, the more tangled his head became, and no clear answer came.
All I need is for the test results to come out this week. Cancer, my ass. Prophetic dream? Crazy bastard...
That was how Baek Hail tried to steady himself.
But as the ticking of the second hand on the old pocket watch his late wife had chosen herself went on and on in his ear, his heart grew heavier and heavier.
***
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap...
178 centimeters, 78 kilograms.
Junho, his body muscular and solid like a warrior’s, was running fast on the treadmill.
The hotel fitness center had the basic equipment—treadmills, a bench press, cable machines, and the like.
But the only one using it was Junho.
It was already Saturday, but after meeting Baek Hail, Junho had not gone outside the hotel except for three or four hours total.
It was not as if he had wasted the time.
He worked out, studied various things on the tablet he had brought, and kept up his own routine.
Even those three or four hours outside had been spent parking in front of Suho Tool Center and trying to track Baek Hail’s movements.
Just as expected, on election day, Baek Hail had gone to the hospital with his son.
If it had been an ordinary cancer screening, getting the results would have taken time, but Junho was certain Baek Hail would have chosen whatever test would get the results fastest, no matter what it took.
Because no parent, when the issue was whether their own child might have cancer, would wait around patiently for the results.
After stepping off the treadmill, Junho returned to his room, finished showering, and sat there drinking a sports drink, lost in thought.
The doctor said the medical opinion would be out in three or four days at the latest.
If Baek Hail had gone with the fastest tests available, he would contact him or come see him today or tomorrow.
Back when Junho had worked under Baek Hail at the base of that cult, the man used to repeat the same thing every time he drank.
If only he had taken his son to the hospital just two years earlier, the kid could have had surgery and been completely cured.
— I was stupid. I’m the one who deserves to die. I should’ve taken him in before he enlisted, back when he kept having stomach pain...
Junho could still vividly remember the way Baek Hail would stare into empty space with bloodshot eyes, blaming himself in a grief-choked voice.
And Baek Suho, three months after Junho came to know Baek Hail, died one day a year and ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ five months after the apocalypse began.
It was not because of his illness.
Like patients and the elderly, anyone who did not help survival and only consumed resources and food was “disposed of.”
And the next day, Baek Hail beat one of the cult leader’s close attendants—a deacon who had carried out the disposal—to death, was captured, and ultimately lost his life too.
As for his daughter, Baek Sua...
Turned into a toy for the cult leader and his inner circle, she had stared blankly with unfocused eyes as her younger brother was disposed of and her father died.
But—
“That future isn’t coming anymore.”
Junho muttered it like a declaration.
Baek Hail was a mechanic in the fullest sense of the word, someone with broad expertise ranging from machines and electronics to construction.
A true all-rounder.
For the shelter Junho was planning, Baek Hail was one of the absolute key figures.
Not someone who could join halfway through, but an essential member who had to be with them from the construction stage itself.
Junho did not know much about construction.
He had ideas about how the shelter should be built, but he had almost none of the technical knowledge needed to actually make it real.
Of course, if he spent enough money, he could have it built.
But could he really trust the person in charge of construction?
If he had to entrust even the structure and functions of the shelter to them, the question of how much to tell them became tricky.
The conclusion was obvious.
From the beginning, the best answer was to entrust it to a teammate who would live in the shelter with him.
And the best possible man for that position was Baek Hail, whom Junho had personally known in the apocalypse.
Loyal, capable, diligent. freewebnøvel.coɱ
A man like that would never take lightly the fact that Junho had, for all intents and purposes, saved his son.
At the very least, he would no longer treat him like a crazy con artist the way he had at their first meeting.
“When’s he coming...”
Murmuring under his breath, Junho took his coat out of the clothes-care machine.
After several days of nothing but ordinary meals, he was getting a little tired of them.
Since he had come all the way to Busan, he thought maybe he should go have some sashimi for dinner.
Ding.
With a cheerful chime, the elevator doors opened.
“Excuse me, could I have a word?”
A heavy voice.
Walking across the lobby while searching on his phone for raw-fish restaurants near the hotel, Junho paused and looked up.
A middle-aged man stood there staring at him, his face stiff and awkward.
Junho quietly slipped his phone into his pocket and smiled.
“You like pork, don’t you? I was just thinking of having some grilled pork belly and a shot of soju. Come with me.”
Even though he had lived more than half his life in Busan, Baek Hail liked meat more than sashimi.
***
Sssizzle—
Long, thick strips of pork belly cooked on the grill.
Other customers enjoying the weekend laughed, talked, and tipped back shots of soju, but Baek Hail’s expression was so heavy it seemed to sag.
“Want a drink?”
Junho uncapped the soju bottle and offered it.
“Oh, yes. Thank you.”
Baek Hail quickly lifted his glass.
After the two of them poured soju for each other, they both opened their mouths at the same time.
“Uh...”
“By any chance...”
Junho let out a short laugh and spoke first.
“By any chance, did you get your son’s test results?”
“Yes. They found what they called a suspicious mass on his pancreas, and the doctor said he should be admitted and get more detailed testing... but he said he’s basically certain it’s pancreatic cancer. Still, it’s extremely early stage, there’s absolutely no metastasis, and they say if he just has surgery, he can be fully cured. I had him admitted right away.”
“That’s good.”
“The doctor... said we got unbelievably lucky. Said if we’d left it alone without knowing, it could’ve turned into something terrible...”
Holding his soju glass and watching Junho’s face, Baek Hail finally bowed his head deeply, as if he had made up his mind.
“Mr. Junho, thank you. Really. Before, I misjudged you and made a huge mistake. I want to apologize properly. I’m truly sorry. And... thank you so, so much.”
“It’s nothing. So how’s your son? Does he seem okay?”
“Don’t even ask. The moment he heard it was cancer, it was like the world had collapsed on him. The kid’s mind just went blank. But by the time I admitted him today, he was doing a little better.”
Baek Hail swallowed down a shot of soju and went on.
“They say the surgery’s not even that hard. And if he just gets the operation, he’ll be completely cured, so that calmed him down some. When he started asking whether getting cancer meant he wouldn’t have to go to the military, I figured he was probably gonna be okay.”
“Haha...”
Junho laughed lightly and poured him another shot.
Baek Hail, receiving the drink from the much younger Junho with both hands, spoke carefully.
“But, Mr. Junho. That... really... that, uh...”
“Yes. Whether you want to call it regression or a prophetic dream, call it whatever you like. I really did live with you for several months, Mr. Baek Hail—no, big brother.”
“...!!!”
Just like when he had first heard those words a few days earlier, Baek Hail’s fierce eyes widened into circles.
But this time was clearly different.
Because now, toward this young punk in front of him—no, this young man who had all but saved his son’s life—he felt nothing but immense gratitude and trust.
