Side Story 9: Stories of Russia (9)

The Canadian researchers adapted quickly to their new environment.

𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Some admired the organization of the Russian research institute, while others were interested in its smooth power supply. Jack couldn’t contain his excitement after checking out all the facilities in the Russian laboratory.

“To be frank, we’ve been looking down on Russia from a technical perspective until now. However, having seen this facility, I think that we were the foolish ones.”

Tommy met his frankness with a smile.

“It’s really quite amazing. Honestly, though, if we’re just talking about technology... Do you think there’s any country that could surpass Korea? Dr. Jack, have you ever been to Korea?”

"I have not. But I’ve often heard that Korean technology is excellent. Do you think it’s better than what we have here, though?”

“You would be amazed if you saw it for yourself. If it weren’t for the vaccine research data, I would’ve continued my research in Korea.”

I eavesdropped on their conversation with my arms crossed. My expression soured, prompting Kim Hyeong-Jun to comment, “Ahjussi, why are you making that face again? What’s bothering you now?”

"What?"

“You look like you just swallowed a lemon. There’s got to be something bothering you right now.”

“It’s just awkward now that there are so many people here.”

“Oh ho, I definitely know that’s not why you have that face. Is it because of the cure?”

I smacked my lips and looked away. After being together every day for several years, it was impossible to hide our feelings or thoughts from each other. We could tell just by seeing the other’s facial expressions. He knew exactly what was on my mind. I wanted to know how far the Canadian researchers had progressed with the cure.

Kim Hyeong-Jun snorted and continued, “I mean, if you’re that curious, just go ask.”

"I’m good. Besides, what good would it be to act all uptight? I’m sure they won’t be happy if I ask them to share their research data right now when they just got here.”

“No, that’s not being uptight at all. You have to remember that we’re the ones who accepted them. I’d say that asking them about the cure is perfectly acceptable.”

"Well then, if you're that curious, you go ahead and ask.”

Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled at me. “Ahjussi, you know I can’t speak English.”

He caught me off-guard, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

This sly dude. He’d led me on, then dipped out at the last minute.

But he was right. It wouldn’t hurt to ask them directly. With that, I sighed and walked over to interpose myself between Tommy and Jack.

“My apologies for cutting you two off,” I said, cutting their conversation off, “but I wanted to know how far you’ve come with the cure.”

Jack flashed a puzzled look at my unexpected question, but his smile quickly returned.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“We know that the virus has something to do with serotonin. I want to know what you Canadians have discovered about the virus.”

Jack gently rubbed his chin after hearing me out, then gave me an answer a moment later. However, there was a lot of jargon that I couldn’t understand, and his rapid-fire English didn’t help at all. His answer merely left me speechless. Tommy stepped in, scratching his sideburns.

“Mr. Lee Hyun-Deok, do you understand everything Dr. Jack is saying?” he asked.

“Honestly… No.”

“Since I don’t know the details of the cure myself, I’ll go sit down with him, then translate what he tells me later on. Will that be okay?”

“Yes.”

With that, Tommy interrupted Jack and invited him inside to talk. Jack shrugged and smiled happily. He seemed to have the face of a warm-hearted next-door neighbor.

* * *

Tommy briefly explained what he’d learned from Jack. He told me that, in order to develop a cure, it was necessary to understand the cause of fibrosis.

Fibrosis.

I’d heard the terms lung fibrosis, liver fibrosis, and skin fibrosis quite often, so I knew what kind of disease it was, and the symptoms associated with them.

“So, are you saying that my body is undergoing fibrosis?” I asked Tommy as I massaged my temples.

"Exactly. He told me that the reason why developing the cure is difficult at the moment is because of fibrosis. And as you may know, there’s no cure for fibrosis.”

“Isn’t fibrosis… a disease that develops in people who smoke a lot?”

“Precisely speaking, most cases are caused by exposure to radiation, or when your lungs harden after getting filled with fluid. However, some ordinary people might get lung fibrosis as well.”

I sighed and scratched my head. I wasn’t sure how to deal with the bitterness in my heart. There wasn’t a cure for fibrosis before the world was irreversibly changed, which meant that, right now, a cure for the virus and for fibrosis had to be developed at the same time. I couldn’t help but resign myself to it being impossible.

“Is there a way?” I asked Tommy as I slicked my hair back. “No, let me ask it this way. Is this research worth doing?”

“In the case of the vaccine, we can utilize serotonin and endorphins to revert the body to the state before fibrosis sets in. But of course, it won’t be easy to treat those who are already infected with fibrosis.”

“Didn’t you say that I can be cured? You told me to believe in you,” I said, frowning at him.

Tommy looked back at me in confusion. "I’ll make it possible. No matter what happens, I will complete the cure before I die.”

“How much longer do we have to wait?”

“That…”

“My daughter is on Jeju Island. I came to Russia without even saying a proper goodbye to her. And it’s already been four years. How much longer do I have to wait?”

Before I knew it, I ended up confronting him emotionally, out of frustration. Tommy wet his parched lips and looked away, not knowing what to say.

The eight-year-old So-Yeon I’d left behind was already twelve now. The people I trusted were protecting So-Yeon and staying by her side… But the constant delay was too painful for me. The reason I’d started cleaning up the zombies was to get my mind off these gloomy thoughts.

I had to move around, or at least do something, so that I could get my mind off the thought of wanting to go back to Jeju Island. As I tugged at my hair silently, Tommy cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Fibrosis also occurs when one ingests poison. It also gets more serious with exposure to oxygen.”

“Oxygen accelerates the disease?”

"Yes, that's why some doctors stop giving oxygen to patients who are in the final stages of fibrosis."

“They cut off the oxygen supply? Are you saying that they euthanized them?”

“Well, they’ll die if they don’t breathe, but they’ll die even if they do. It’s as though they’re alive but not alive at the same time.”

I sighed and stared blankly at his face. I couldn’t understand why he was telling me this. Did he want me to die or something?

Tommy saw my face, waved a hand vigorously, and continued, “Of course, I’m not asking you to undergo euthanasia. My words weren’t clear. My apologies.”

“Then what were you trying to say?”

“What I was trying to say… The fibrosis we know and the fibrosis that you are suffering from may be different.”

“Could you elaborate? I don’t…”

“Fibrosis is accelerated by additional oxygen. But how about you and all the rest? You run better than anyone else, and have good lung capacity.”

His answer calmed my anxious mind little by little as I thought about it. The symptoms I had were very different from those caused by ordinary fibrosis. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of fibrosis Jack and Tommy were talking about.

I swallowed and looked at Tommy, who continued to speak.

“The black creature’s skin tissue turned black. That means that the virus that consumed serotonin can also ingest human skin tissue, which in turn means that the organs shouldn’t react differently.”

“And…?”

“Maybe the fibrosis that is happening to you and all the others could be due to the toxicity of the zombie virus. And that fibrosis is similar to the fibrosis we know so far, but is also distinctly different.”

“...”

“By examining you and the others, we might even be able to develop a cure for fibrosis that we’ve never been able to before.”

“Wait. So, it’s not like being punched then getting a kiss to remedy the situation, but more like getting punched twice, in order to come up with a cure? Two wrongs don’t make a right, no? What sort of situation is this?”

I looked at him with a puzzled expression, and Tommy nodded his head with a determined look on his face. If I was following what he was saying correctly, the zombie virus was taking on the role of a poison, which resulted in a fibrotic reaction. And because of that, it was now possible to come up with a cure for the virus and for fibrosis at the same time.

To an ordinary person like me, this all sounded like ridiculous nonsense. I put my face in my hands and asked another question.

"I've said this before… But how is this different from saying that you can treat AIDS with leukemia?”

“Well, that’s complete nonsense. However, based on that nonsense, we developed a sample that can take down black creatures.”

“...”

“There’s no right answer in this world. When research is conducted with the intention to find the answer, unintended viruses may emerge, while cures for other diseases might get developed.”

I closed my eyes. I reminded myself that he was someone who was trying to cure me somehow. The way Elena looked at me, as if she was looking at a research subject, creeped me out, but she was also trying to come up with a cure for the disease.

I let out a deep sigh.

“Then what do you want me to do?” I asked Tommy.

“Well, first things first. We should take an X-ray and examine the progress of fibrosis.”

“Can we take X-rays? We don’t have the equipment.”

"We can. There’s equipment in the general hospital in Vladivostok.”

“Then let’s go. Let's get it over and done with while we’re at it.”

When I got up ready to leave, Tommy nodded vigorously and started getting ready as well. Jack, who had been watching us conversing, looked back and forth between me and Tommy in bewilderment. It was only natural that he would be puzzled that we were suddenly getting ready, since Tommy and I had been speaking in Korean the entire time. Tommy calmed the Canadian researchers down and briefly explained why we were going to head outside.

Jack’s face lit up in understanding once he realized why we were getting ready, and told us to be careful. Elena and Alyosha offered to guide the Canadian researchers to their accommodations and show them the cafeteria.

"Ahjussi," Kim Hyeong-Jun’s voice came from behind me.

When I turned around, Kim Hyeong-Jun was walking toward me, rubbing his neck.

“Ahjussi, you’re missing some organs,” he whispered in my ear. “Do you think they already know that?”

“Let's talk about that later. My head’s already throbbing from everything Tommy just told me. And besides, once they take my X-ray, those people will know that I’m missing some organs.”

"Which ones are you missing again?”

“Everything between my stomach and small intestine.”

“Oh, then you still have your lungs, huh? No wonder you were good at running.”

“Oh man, did you really have to make a joke right now?”

I frowned at him, and Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled.

“Ahjussi, there’s no way things are going to get worse from here,” he said. “And besides, if you have to do it anyway, you might as well do it with a smile on your face.”

“...”

There was nothing I could say to that because he and I were in the same boat. Just as So-Yeon was on Jeju Island, his wife and son were also on Jeju Island. Now that four years had passed, his son, who had not learned to speak when Kim Hyeong-Jun had left, probably knew how to walk, run, and speak.

I couldn’t fathom just how much Kim Hyeong-Jun had to want to see his son. However, Kim Hyeong-Jun never seemed to show his weak side. He had always been a strong pillar of support, and took care of me so that I didn’t break down. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that he was more mature than me.

I calmed myself down and took a deep breath, then looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

“Oh man, I can’t believe you’re saying stuff like that without even flinching.”

“Whatever, man. Did you get any messages from the others?”

“I heard they just finished cleaning up North Korea a few days ago? They’re probably preparing to move down to South Korea soon.”

“Make sure to tell them to be careful of the landmines in the DMZ. And that they should send their underlings in first, before they do anything down there.” [1]

Up until the previous year, Kim Hyeong-Jun and I had been taking care of the zombies, but we decided to take turns, thinking of Do Han-Sol, Kim Dae-Young, and Jeong Jin-Young. While we’d been away, they had been focusing on defense. They needed to get some fresh air as well, and give their stiff bodies some work to do. We exchanged duties, and now Kim Hyeong-Jun and I were on defense, while the others were busy cleaning up the zombies on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Hyeong-Jun nodded.

“Once you get back from the general hospital, I’ll go check up on the others,” he said. “Don’t take too long, ahjussi.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. Check in on the scouts on the way to the peninsula. Check the border between North Korea and China again.”

“Alright, alright. Off you go, ahjussi.”

I chuckled and slapped his forearm lightly, then looked over at Tommy.

"Let's go. We have a cure to make.”

1. The DMZ stands for demilitarized zone. In this context, it refers to the one that divides South and North Korea, which was created due to the Korean War. ☜