GB 116

Irrationally, inexplicably, he felt that Haero would be here if he went this way. He had a premonition that Haero would somehow recall the method Yoon Moo-hwa had used to escape from the pirate island and do the same. 

No, it was a certainty.

Yoon Moo-hwa increased his speed further. The engine began to overheat to a somewhat dangerous degree. Though he had received the location because he was the owner of the artificial body, he couldn’t be certain whether the military had detected it or not.

If his “resignation letter” had been processed on time, no report would have been filed. But if it had been, the location of Haero, who was still a military doctor, would have been compromised by Yoon Moo-hwa’s actions. So he needed to rescue Haero before they arrived.

In Yoon Moo-hwa’s plan, the possibility of returning without rescuing Haero simply didn’t exist. If he couldn’t rescue Haero, then what came next didn’t exist either.

Yoon Moo-hwa had approached all previous operations like a computer using binary code, but he couldn’t do that with Haero. Just as Haero had rescued him without considering his own situation and the adults’ violence, Yoon Moo-hwa had no need for rational judgment or logic.

Yoon Moo-hwa reduced the engine speed. The sound of waves crashing against the cape was considerable, but this was a precaution for any unforeseen circumstances.

Looking through night vision, he confirmed that the wavering light his eyes had caught was indeed flashlight beams. The pirates were there. They had fired guns and then stopped.

Yoon Moo-hwa also held his breath in response.

“What happened?!”

“Hey! There it is, there!”

Yoon Moo-hwa’s heart began to race madly as he parked the boat beside a rock. He quickly checked his wristwatch. Haero’s vital signs were drawing a violent graph there.

“No.” Yoon Moo-hwa murmured, “No. No.”

He kept murmuring incessantly, as if whispering to Haero.

The pirates weren’t leaving. Yoon Moo-hwa also persistently scanned the water surface through his night vision, but there were only waves.

“That’s not true.” Yoon Moo-hwa muttered, “He’s not dead. That can’t happen.”

He knew without looking at the vitals. No, he wouldn’t even look. Yoon Moo-hwa just murmured. It couldn’t be true.

“Another one dead.”

He heard them snickering. Apparently, they couldn’t hear the battle taking place on the opposite side of the island. Nor could they detect Haero beneath the surface.

Yoon Moo-hwa was certain.

Haero was down there.

Not dead. That couldn’t be.

Yoon Moo-hwa refused to look at his wrist.

Yoon Moo-hwa believed. In Haero, in Number 8, in that child.

Number 8 was a child who could hold his breath long enough to surprise Yoon Moo-hwa into jumping in, and Haero was someone who could stay underwater long enough to frighten sailors.

So, therefore…

Yoon Moo-hwa had already started the engine. He was barely blinking, focusing on only one spot.

And when the pirates climbed onto the elephant’s back, Yoon Moo-hwa pulled up Haero, who was too exhausted to swim and was barely keeping his head above water. Haero lay on the boat with his eyes closed. Yoon Moo-hwa urgently climbed over him and patted his cheeks.

A moment later, Haero coughed up water. His skin, which had turned pale but was slowly regaining color, glistened with water in the moonlight.

“Let me correct myself,” Yoon Moo-hwa murmured in a husky voice as he gathered up the soaking wet Haero, “There’s no one like you. No one who fits on a ship like you, no one like you…”

“Haa, haa… hyung…?”

“There will never be anyone before or after who saves me like you do.” Yoon Moo-hwa pressed his face against Haero’s wet hair. When he lifted his head, his face was also wet. “You are my land, my sea, the place I must return to. Haero. You are my everything.”

His confession was desperate, resembling a prayer.

Pirates don’t save people for free. There’s no such thing as a free good deed from them.

Number 8 had saved his life.

At that time, Yoon Moo-hwa had unknowingly paid the price for his life.

Something equivalent to a life. That would have to be his entire remaining lifetime.

So Haero’s death would also be his own death.

That was appropriate. 

✼✼✼ 

The formula that Yoon Moo-hwa realized and internalized with his entire body in that dramatic moment made him tremble.

Like someone electrocuted, he found it difficult to separate his body from Haero. He simply didn’t want to let go.

Fortunately, Yoon Moo-hwa wasn’t so immature as to be swept away by his emotions. Above all, the problem was Haero, who was shaking too severely despite having been in the water for a long time. Though his color had returned more than right after being pulled from the sea, it was clearly worse than usual. It was beyond what could be explained by the night and moonlight.

Yoon Moo-hwa detached himself from Haero’s cold body and asked, “Where? Where are you hurt? Where were you hit? Did it go through? Is it lodged inside?”

The bullet going through was a worse situation. Fortunately, the bullet, slowed somewhat by water resistance, couldn’t pierce through Haero’s arm. Haero shook his head while chattering his teeth from blood loss and the side effects of just coming out of the water.

“It’s okay. Just need to tie it up.”

“Don’t have compression hemostatic pads.”

Haero was barely dressed in military uniform. He must have been stripped of everything he had. Yoon Moo-hwa tried to feel Haero’s body, but couldn’t as Haero groaned in pain.

“It’s okay. Just, just, just need to keep pressing.”

His teeth were chattering faster and faster. Yoon Moo-hwa gritted his teeth as he watched Haero suffering from extreme cold.

He first took off the utility vest he was wearing, then removed the lightweight bulletproof outer shell and draped it over Haero. Despite Haero’s persistent refusal, he wouldn’t take it back. He was more stern than ever before.

“We’re getting out of here right away. I need your cooperation to escape.”

How could Haero refuse when he put it that way?

After covering Haero with the outer shell, Yoon Moo-hwa pushed his eye patch up and unwound the layers of bandages. Only then did Haero notice Yoon Moo-hwa’s wound and gaped in shock.

Yoon Moo-hwa placed only a sterilized gauze on his own wound and covered it again with the eye patch, then wrapped Haero’s arm with clean bandages.

“Bear with it.”

He muttered briefly before tying a knot so tight it made Haero want to scream. Haero tried to bite his hand to endure, but Yoon Moo-hwa slipped his hand in between, and Haero ended up biting him instead. Having thrown away even his special gloves, his bare skin was bitten hard.

“Well done.”

Yoon Moo-hwa stroked Haero’s head, disregarding the internal bleeding on the back of his own hand. Then, after checking the connection point through his watch, he turned the head of the high-speed rubber boat in that direction.

Haero watched Yoon Moo-hwa’s back while his body trembled. Restarting the engine, Yoon Moo-hwa wore a utility vest with a functional, form-fitting half-sleeve shirt underneath that came up to half of his neck. His skin, contrasting with the deep black, was magnificent. Like the shining coral that had bewitched Haero every night.

Soon the engine started again, and Yoon Moo-hwa placed the camouflage balaclava soaked in seawater in a position that wouldn’t harm the engine to cool it down. And just as he was about to circle around the island, a loud engine sound was heard from behind.

It definitely wasn’t the boat they had been on.

Yoon Moo-hwa and Haero turned around simultaneously. Behind them, a modified fishing boat carrying the red-haired leader was rapidly approaching. Though still at a distance, it was likely to close in.

“Duck your head!” Yoon Moo-hwa pushed Haero’s head down forcefully and pulled him into his arms.

The sea fog was getting thicker, making it difficult for Yoon Moo-hwa to secure visibility, but it would have been the same for those behind them.

If he had his artificial eye, visibility wouldn’t have been an issue, but it had already served its purpose for Haero. Rather, to block information coming in from underwater, visibility was now secured entirely through just one eye.

“Left!” Haero shouted at that moment. 

Without time to think, Yoon Moo-hwa turned the boat as Haero said. Then, submachine gun fire traced a line through the surface of the water where they had just been.

Yoon Moo-hwa slightly raised his arm to look at Haero tucked against his side, and saw that Haero had somehow taken the night vision goggles from his vest and was watching behind them.

“I can hear it too. Keep the course to the left.” Haero seemed like the captain now.

Yoon Moo-hwa smiled inappropriately for the situation. Even when he gave the ceremonial response, “Yes, sir.” 

Haero didn’t smile.

“Stop joking around.”

As Haero scolded him and hit his thigh, Yoon Moo-hwa became excited, equally inappropriately.

But this was also due to their desperate situation. With tension that felt life-threatening, Yoon Moo-hwa’s dick was rigidly erect.

Haero too was so focused that he forgot the extreme cold.

“How many boats?”

“There’s one engine sound.”

“Okay.”

If they could reach the rendezvous point, the game would be over. Yoon Moo-hwa was in constant communication with the ship through the small communicator in his ear. There had been no answer until now. They were out of range. They just needed to hold on until the other side responded.

“Hyung! Right!”

At that moment, Haero, who had momentarily felt dizzy as if his consciousness was splitting into several layers, came to his senses a beat late and shouted. Yoon Moo-hwa hurriedly turned the boat accordingly, but was a split second too late.

The bullet trajectory crossed the water’s surface, grazed the upper part of the rubber boat, and finally pierced through Yoon Moo-hwa’s side.