BCGWR Chapter 52 Part 1

051.

Thinking that Toto might have trouble entering later if the door was completely closed, Han Ji-su left it slightly ajar. As he lay on the bed, the gloomy sky was still visible through the full-length window.

Rumble- Grumble-

From the ash-gray sky, heavy with dark clouds, a sound like giant rocks rolling echoed. Neither snow nor rain was falling, but he knew one of them would soon pour down.

‘During the early days of The Cataclysm, the sky was like that almost every day…’

He didn’t know why the time of The Cataclysm came to mind so often lately, but the sky now resembled the sky back then, making him feel restless.

After The Cataclysm occurred in January five years ago, clear days were strangely rare until March. For four or five days a week, the weather was mostly gloomy and dark, with skies full of black clouds, and this dismal weather continued.

There were days when, unable to find a suitable shelter after escaping the chaotic city center, they huddled together in an overturned tour bus, blocking the broken windows, trembling as they fell asleep.

That day, Han Ji-su was so cold and hungry that he blankly stared at the heavily falling snow outside the stained car window, worrying if he would open his eyes the next day.

“……”

In the brief moment he recalled old memories, snowflakes began to flutter one by one.

Han Ji-su, gazing with unfocused eyes at the snowflakes scattering like dandelion seeds, got up from bed and lay down in front of the full-length window.

When he slightly opened the glass door, a cold wind rushed in. The room temperature instantly plummeted as if he had entered an Ice Palace Dungeon.

Covering himself with a blanket and curling into a ball, Han Ji-su blinked, staring blankly out the window.

At first, a few snowflakes drifted down, countable one by one, but soon heavy snow began to fall, covering his vision.

Han Ji-su, blankly watching the capricious weather that had turned from pouring snow to an instant blizzard, closed his eyes, recalling the embrace of the person who had held him tightly from behind.

All he had done after waking up from sleeping all day was eat porridge, but he felt so tired that sleep overwhelmed him again.

Like the day he had just recalled, snowflakes drifted through the window, touching Han Ji-su’s drowsy forehead and the bridge of his nose.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he left them, as they would soon melt anyway, but Kang Jae-yoon always made sure to brush off every snowflake.

It wasn’t just snowflakes. Whatever clung to his body, Kang Jae-yoon would painstakingly pick it off and brush it away, piece by piece. Recalling those gentle, patting hands, Han Ji-su unconsciously let out a weak laugh.

Another snowflake flew in and landed on his cheek. Han Ji-su, just like before, left it untouched and slowly began to fall asleep.

Just as he was almost asleep, on the verge of completely losing consciousness, a very gentle and careful hand caressed his cheek.

“……!!”

Startled, Han Ji-su sat up and looked behind him.

He had thought Jung Ha-jin had come in unnoticed, but there was no one in the room. Faint sounds of Toto and Jung Ha-jin could be heard through the not-quite-closed door.

“……”

Han Ji-su, with a bewildered expression, touched his cheek and looked around the room, then unconsciously called out to him in a small voice.

“……Jae-yoon Hyung?”

The moment he uttered that name aloud, the faint noise from the living room abruptly ceased. Unaware of this, Han Ji-su shakily got up and looked around the room as if possessed.

He knew it wasn’t true.

He knew perfectly well in his mind that it couldn’t be.

Yet, he couldn’t help but call his name because it was a tender touch that could never be mistaken for anyone else’s.

Han Ji-su, who had shakily gotten up, stood there blankly, feeling his cheek, and looked around the room.

The slightly open door and window.

The blanket and slippers left haphazardly on the floor.

The bed, only slightly disheveled in one corner.

No matter how carefully he looked, nothing had changed.

Han Ji-su, trying to calm his confusion, whispered his name again.

“……Hyung?”

For a brief moment, all sorts of absurd thoughts flashed through his mind.

Could it be a phenomenon like in those old sci-fi movies, where a message was conveyed by dropping books from a shelf, transcending space-time?

Since there had never been a case of a dungeon disappearing naturally without being cleared, perhaps Kang Jae-yoon had been swept up in a supernatural phenomenon of the vast universe that humans couldn’t yet comprehend?

What if Kang Jae-yoon was sending him a signal?

What if he had been so consumed by sorrow and wallowing in self-pity that he hadn’t noticed the signal?

Thump-

Thump-

Each time his heart pounded so hard his chest ached, a pulsation echoed in his eardrums.

Unlike his wildly beating heart, there was no breath entering or leaving Han Ji-su’s body. In his terrible confusion, Han Ji-su, unaware that he was holding his breath, pressed down on his chest.

Rolling only his eyes to scan the room again, he saw the slightly open window. Han Ji-su, with a blank face, walked towards the wall-sized window and flung it open.

Even as the blizzard rushed in and obscured his vision, Han Ji-su’s gaze was fixed outside the window.

He knew there was a transparent protective barrier installed outside the window, but since it was invisible, it felt as though one step forward would send him plummeting down.

Han Ji-su leaned his upper body forward.

With a soft thud, his forehead hit the transparent wall.

The moment the invisible protective barrier activated, the rushing blizzard was blocked by the transparent wall and began to form frost on it.

Thump-

Thump-

His heart was still pounding furiously, as if it would burst,

“Ugh……”

He was gasping for breath, having unconsciously held it in all along.

Unable to grasp why he was suffocating so much, he squeezed his eyes shut when a soft touch landed on his shoulder.

He was sure he’d felt a caress on his cheek, but had he been mistaken in his sleep?

Was this touch on his shoulder a mistake too?

Before his doubts could fully bloom, another soft hand, this time, slipped between the transparent wall and Han Ji-su’s forehead, tilting his head back.

“……”

His body, devoid of strength, almost collapsed, but it met the solid body standing firm behind him, preventing him from falling backward.

“……Hmph! H-huh!”