Episode 10: In Search of a Home
It was two days after the awakening.
Lee Jae-in quickly settled in. The first day, his body felt unfamiliar.
Even though he knew he wasn’t hungry, his stomach occasionally sent signals. Like a reflex. A habit of over fifty years couldn’t be completely erased overnight.
But those signals weren’t as insistent as before. They came and went. Like the wind.
On the morning of the second day, Lee Jae-in took out a sheet of blueprint paper from the table in his studio.
Hoon saw him while boiling water for tea in the kitchen.
“Already drawing something?”
“I’m organizing the requirements.”
Lee Jae-in was writing something with a pencil. Hoon brought the tea and sat down beside him. He looked at the paper. It was a list.
— Terrain beyond the reach of satellite surveillance
— Inland areas outside the path of typhoons
— Must have a water source — Hydropower
— Must have flat land — At least 500,000 pyeong
— Only one access route
— A country where foreigners coming and going wouldn’t raise suspicion
Hoon read the list. Then he looked at Lee Jae-in.
“Have you thought this all through?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
It meant he had been thinking about these things the night after his awakening. Hoon remained silent for a moment. Lee Jae-in kept writing as he spoke.
"It’s the Philippines, right?"
Hoon set down his teacup.
“Did I say that?”
“No, you didn’t. But you’re right.”
Hoon laughed. Lee Jae-in looked up.
"Was I wrong?"
“You’re not wrong.”
Lee Jae-in looked back down at the paper.
“Northern Luzon. The mountains east of Pangasinan. I think we’ll find it there.”
Hoon looked at Lee Jae-in. He almost asked how this man knew so much about Philippine geography, but held back.
Lee Jae-in was an architect. Reading terrain was fundamental to his profession. He must have spent a long time studying the map last night.
"It’s near Kayapa in Nueva Vizcaya. Inside the Caraballo Mountains."
Hoon said.
Lee Jae-in nodded.
“That sounds about right. We’ll have to go and see, though.”
“Are you coming with me?”
Lee Jae-in put down his pencil. He looked at Hoon.
“Of course.”
* * *
That afternoon, the two of them talked for a long time.
It was a conversation unlike any they’d had before.
Hoon would propose an idea, and Lee Jae-in would assess its practicality. When Hoon explained why he thought a certain way, Lee Jae-in would question whether it was actually feasible.
Lee Jae-in naturally took on the role of ensuring their discussion didn’t devolve into mere armchair theorizing.
“How many people should we start with?”
"Just the two of us at first. Then a small core group. We’ll expand as we secure the space."
“And in the end?”
Hoon hesitated for a moment. He didn’t know how Lee Jae-in would react if he mentioned that number.
“One hundred thousand.”
Lee Jae-in didn’t react. His expression didn’t change. He picked up a pencil and wrote the number on a piece of paper. 100,000. Then he began calculating something below it.
"If we don’t eat, what do we need? Clothing, shelter, and energy."
"Right."
“We can be self-sufficient in energy with solar and hydro power—if there’s a watershed in the Caraballo Mountains. We can produce our own clothing. Construction can use local materials. With a hundred thousand…”
Lee Jae-in continued his calculations. Hoon watched him. There are those who hear the number 100,000 and question whether it’s possible, and those who shake their heads, saying it’s nonsense. Lee Jae-in was the former.
"We can do it."
Lee Jae-in said as he put down his pencil.
"As long as we don’t have to worry about food, 100,000 people is simpler than you’d think. Space is the problem, energy is the problem, and then people are the problem."
“People?”
“The people who will build it. We can’t do everything ourselves at first. We need to bring in skilled people from among the awakened first.”
Hoon nodded.
“That’s our next task.”
Lee Jae-in folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
"When are we leaving?"
"The sooner, the better. We don’t have time."
Lee Jae-in nodded.
"In a week. After I clean up here."
“What about this place?”
Lee Jae-in looked out the window. The vegetable garden, the persimmon tree, the old abandoned school.
"Just leave it. No one comes here anyway."
A brief silence fell. As Lee Jae-in spoke those words, his expression shifted slightly. Hoon noticed it. It was a place he had spent three years fixing up on his own. Leaving it behind couldn’t have been an easy thing to say, yet he said it so casually.
Hoon asked.
"What about Dol?"
Lee Jae-in paused for a moment. He looked at the yard. Dol was sitting next to the vegetable garden.
"I guess I'll have to ask the old lady next door."
Those words felt a little heavy. But Lee Jae-in said no more.
Hoon didn’t say anything either.
Outside the window, Dol wagged his tail. He didn’t realize they were talking about him.
* * *
A week passed quickly.
Lee Jae-in tidied up Hadong-ri. He entrusted the vegetable garden to a neighbor. He stored the building materials in the shed. He rolled up the unfinished blueprints, put them in a box, and sealed it.
He organized his tools. On the last day, he swept every corner of the yard. Hoon watched him do this without saying a word.
The night before they left, Lee Jae-in said,
“I came here because I wanted to build something.”
Hoon listened.
“After that project in Gyeonggi-do fell apart. I thought I could just start over on my own. Small. With my own hands. On a scale that wouldn’t fall apart.”
Lee Jae-in said, looking up at the ceiling.
“But doing it alone turned out to be nothing in the end. Small doesn’t mean safe. It’s just small.”
Hoon said.
“Where you’re going now won’t be small.”
Lee Jae-in turned his head to look at Hoon.
“I know. That’s why I’m going.”
A brief silence.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
Lee Jae-in looked up at the ceiling again.
“I am scared. But I’ve seen scarier things over the past 72 hours.”
Hoon smiled.
Lee Jae-in smiled too.
That was their last conversation that night.
* * *
The next morning, Lee Jae-in came out wearing his backpack.
He put the truck keys in the mailbox by the neighbor’s gate. He placed his hand on Dol one last time. Dol licked Lee Jae-in’s hand. As he stood up, Lee Jae-in looked away.
The two set off on foot. It was a ten-minute walk to the bus stop.
Hoon asked.
“Is it okay if I look back one last time?”
Lee Jae-in said.
“No need.”
And they walked, looking only ahead.
It was a spring morning on the road. A breeze blew down from the mountains. The trees along the road swayed their pale green leaves. The sound of a bus came from the distance.
Walking beside Lee Jae-in, Hoon thought to himself.
This person is right. Not looking back. Not stopping his steps even though he knows leaving is sad. That was true courage.
The bus arrived. The two of them got on.
The bus left Hadong-ri. The village receded outside the window. The roof of the abandoned school building appeared briefly between the trees, then vanished.
Lee Jae-in didn’t look out the window.
He was looking straight ahead.
Author's Note:
New episode drops daily at 7 AM (Philippine Time, UTC+8) until Part 1 concludes (Ep. 55) on July 25th.
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