Chapter 3 Part 17

Thinking that, Jeong Tae-ui randomly picked a ball from the box, and its number was 62. Following that, the remaining members all drew balls with numbers from 1 to 96, and then an instructor came out and picked a ball from another small box. The number on that ball was 2. It was an even number.

While Jeong Tae-ui bitterly twirled the number 62 ball in his hand, those who would stay and those who would leave were decided. Those who drew even numbers would remain at the branch, and those who drew odd numbers would depart for the airport on Saturday, the next morning.

After the lottery concluded and they dispersed, a restless atmosphere spread among the members.

As Jeong Tae-ui exited the main Lecture Hall with his colleagues, who wore complex expressions, he clicked his tongue. Since things had turned out this way, there was nothing he could do, but for the sake of his safety, he had wanted to go to the South America Branch.

It seemed Jeong Tae-ui wasn’t the only one thinking this way; most felt the same. Even among those who had complained about the Europe Branch, those who were now staying here didn’t look particularly happy. Nor did those who were going to the South America Branch wear entirely joyful expressions.

Either way, fifteen days of hellish hardship would begin three days later.

Jeong Tae-ui slowly walked behind his murmuring colleagues, but not wanting to go downstairs with them in their subtle atmosphere, he changed direction at the stairs.

Even if he went into his room and closed the door, he would still clearly hear his colleagues coming and going and chatting in the hallway outside. Right now, he wanted to be in a quiet place.

For that, his uncle’s room was still the best. First, there were almost no people on that floor, and his uncle hadn’t been seen for several days, seemingly busy.

“At least for this, I’m grateful, Uncle,” Jeong Tae-ui thought, fumbling with the key in his pocket as he reached his uncle’s room. Today, too, the room’s owner was absent.

Jeong Tae-ui, who had collapsed onto the bed without even taking off his outer clothes, burying his face in the blanket and remaining there for a while, suddenly got up with a heavy body. If he stayed lying down, he felt he would fall asleep. Training and education had been so tightly scheduled during regular hours for the past few days, and even his free time was plagued by his colleagues, so he must have been tired.

“What are they going to do if they exhaust people like this in the preliminary stages before the actual training even begins…? My stamina will drop, and I’ll die first.”

Jeong Tae-ui murmured to himself with a sigh and pulled a book from the bookshelf. He came every day, reading dozens of pages before leaving. It was a book he could easily finish if he put his mind to it, but his body felt as heavy as water-soaked cotton, making even that difficult.

Jeong Tae-ui took the book, went back to the bed, and lay face down, glancing at the phone. The silently still phone showed no signs of ringing.

While it was more comfortable when the phone didn’t ring when he was alone in someone else’s room, very occasionally, a call from that white hand was quite enjoyable. Though it wasn’t only enjoyable.

Jeong Tae-ui turned to the page where he had stopped reading. Here and there in the book, he saw notes his uncle had scribbled in the margins. It was his uncle’s reading habit to jot down thoughts in the blank spaces if something came to mind while reading. Looking at the words his uncle had written, he could trace what his uncle had been thinking as he read the book, and that was also a pleasure.

Before coming here, meeting his uncle wasn’t actually that common. Given their personalities—Jeong Tae-ui’s, his older brother’s, and his uncle’s—even if they only managed to see each other once or twice a year, they didn’t feel awkward or distant. Even if they met after several years, they would treat each other as if they had just seen each other yesterday.

However, when his uncle occasionally visited their home, he primarily spent time with Jeong Tae-ui’s father. After his father passed away, he would talk with Jeong Jae-ui, so Jeong Tae-ui hadn’t actually had many conversations with his uncle.

Thinking back, his uncle was quite a distinguished figure in their family in his own way. It surely wasn’t easy for someone born and raised in an ordinary household to secure a position as an instructor at UNHRDO.

‘What I ultimately yearn for is no different from what people yearned for hundreds of years ago, and what they will yearn for hundreds of years from now. But will that be the reason for humanity to remain human?’

Jeong Tae-ui traced the sentence added in his uncle’s handwriting at the bottom of the page with his fingertip.

The first time Jeong Tae-ui opened this book, a faint smell of dust rose from it. His uncle must have read this book a long time ago and then closed it. So this passage was a fragment of his uncle’s thoughts from years ago, when he was younger or even a child.

Tracing the buried thoughts of another person had its own unique flavor.

What I ultimately yearn for. Jeong Tae-ui felt as if he understood it, yet couldn’t grasp it. He had never remembered craving anything. He always went with the flow, taking things as they came.

‘Is it that Jeong Jae-ui will suffer more anxiety and anguish than you? That’s what it means to be human-like.’

Suddenly, a remark Ilay had made flashed through his mind.

Perhaps his older brother had yearned for something. How could Jeong Tae-ui know if there was such a thing, something his brother, who got everything he desired and had no obstacles, might have craved without his knowledge?

“But if that’s the case, then that word ‘human-like’ is extremely negative.”

Jeong Tae-ui smiled bitterly.

Reading sentence by sentence, tracing the pages, he seemed to have dozed off.

His mind became a black void, and countless miscellaneous thoughts, unrelated to his will, crossed his mind, then mixed, separated, and mixed again.

There was someone who woke him from that unconscious chaos.

Jeong Tae-ui, who had fallen asleep with the light on, and apparently finding the light bothersome, had covered his face with the open book in his sleep. He woke to a hand removing the book. Before his eyes was his uncle’s face, staring down at him.

“I can’t even sleep with my glasses on, but you can sleep with something this heavy on your face?”