WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 417: Wind from High Places (15)
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After making love three times, with pauses in between, a pleasant languor settled over them. A light fatigue, like the kind one felt just after waking. Anne’s body, which had grown so warm, still had not fully cooled. Gyeoul kissed her shoulder, kissed her neck, then kissed her cheek and forehead too. Wherever he looked, she was beautiful. Wherever his hand touched, she was soft. Anne rubbed her forehead against Gyeoul’s shoulder and giggled. Her damp hair gave off a scent even more alluring than before. Emotion probably made it feel stronger than it really was.
“Ah, this is a problem after all.”
Anne whispered with a smile, deliberately sounding troubled.
“Just lying here like this feels so good... At this rate, we’ll be doing this until morning. That’s nothing like the plan. We really should get up now...”
Gyeoul understood how she felt. His schedule was the same as the Independent Battalion’s. In other words, this was very likely their last meeting before the Ground Zero Vacuum. Of course they wanted to spend more of their waking hours together.
And yet it was another thirty minutes before the two of them shook off the temptation of each other’s warmth, their whispers, and the bed. Showering together also took a surprising amount of time. Even getting dressed was slow. They kept adding unnecessary hands to the process. Why did something as simple as buttoning a shirt make them laugh so much? In between, there were several tender kisses too. Then there was the time Anne spent lightly fixing herself up.
Once they stepped outside, Anne linked arms with him and said, “When we start living together someday, I think it’ll be hard to get to work on time for a while.”
Gyeoul answered with a half-formed smile.
Their first destination was a cafe that also served as a restaurant. Anne had wanted to come as quickly as possible, so even after leaving work early, she had made do with a poor in-flight meal. On top of that, she had burned no small amount of calories just now. With a body trained as an investigator, she must have been very hungry.
Thankfully, Denver had excellent nighttime public safety for an American city, and even close to midnight, quite a few people were still walking the downtown streets. Naturally, there were plenty of businesses open late. The streets, already lit up in celebration of tomorrow’s parade, were beautiful. Because of the altitude, a cold wind blew even on an early summer night, making it feel like Christmas Eve.
At a table with a good view of the scene, Gyeoul ordered an omelet stuffed with cheese, onion, button mushrooms, and bacon, along with a sharp, fragrant nonalcoholic cider. Anne chose soup served with soft bread and a panini baked with tomato, basil, and cheese as her main dish, with a coconut cream soda for her drink.
Gyeoul moved his gaze from outside to inside, then glanced sidelong at the other tables through his sunglasses. In the room, where jazz flowed at an easy tempo, the people at each table laughed and chatted over small things as if they had no worries at all.
“Does it feel strange?”
Anne smiled at Gyeoul when he turned his head.
“It’s written all over your face.”
Gyeoul nodded honestly.
“It’s not my first time experiencing peace in a safe zone, but yes. I haven’t had many chances to see ordinary people’s daily lives. It feels strange somehow...”
When he thought of this as a scene from a world entering its third year with the end drawing closer, it gave him a fresh surge of feeling, just as Anne had said. Some foods with unstable supply, cacao for example, had risen sharply in price, but far more foods were still priced about the same as before.
Anne gazed at Gyeoul warmly.
“Take pride in it. Without your devotion, half of this scene wouldn’t exist. Maybe all of it.”
“All of it is much too big an exaggeration.”
“I don’t know. At least for me, it’s true. I’m alive because of you. I was able to keep doing my job because of you too. How many people like me do you think there are?”
“...”
Gyeoul started to say something, then closed his mouth. It was a difficult question to ask out loud. There was a good chance he would not get another opportunity, if not today.
Anne’s hand came up onto the table. She did not need to say what she wanted. He laid his hand over hers and enjoyed the cotton-soft touch. It did not feel like much time had passed, but their food arrived. When he checked the clock in slight surprise, twenty minutes had gone by.
“Hurry and try it. This place had really good reviews.”
She must have been the hungrier one, but Anne was watching Gyeoul with her fingers interlaced and an expectant look in her eyes. Gyeoul brought his knife to the omelet. The golden surface gave slightly under the blade, then split open with a soft pop and slid apart without resistance. Warm steam rose. The cheese-coated filling slowly spilled out. Gyeoul gathered it neatly onto his fork and put a large bite into his mouth. Hoo. Freshly melted cheese filled his mouth beyond the thin layer of egg, while the saltiness of the cheese and bacon was balanced by crisp roasted onion and mild, tender button mushrooms. The mushrooms had been cut into large slices on their sides, giving them a satisfying bite. The more he chewed, the better it tasted.
“How is it?”
At Anne’s question, Gyeoul let out a sigh.
“It’s delicious. Really.”
Because of the childhood he had spent in the outside world, Gyeoul rarely found food bad. But he could tell the difference between good food and better food. This omelet was far better than combat rations. He might even have to say it was better than Mrs. Brennan’s cooking.
Anne looked deeply satisfied and began her own meal. This time, Gyeoul watched her eat. Even that looked pretty to him. Aware of his gaze, Anne tried hard to hold back a shy smile. That smile appeared again and again until both their plates were empty. If they had not occasionally reminded each other to stop staring, the meal alone might have taken hours.
After finishing their meal, they went to a riverside park. During the day, it was a place where citizens enjoyed playing in the water and rafting, but at night, when the temperature dropped sharply, it became a walking path with few people. True to Colorado, the smell of burning marijuana drifted from somewhere, and sometimes they saw places where homeless people gathered around fires, but overall, it was a quiet and secluded path. Since the plague had landed in North America, citizen patrols had been organized and begun making rounds, so in some ways it had become safer than before the plague.
Anne sounded regretful.
“If it were just a little warmer, we could sit side by side and dip our feet in.”
“We’ll have another chance later.”
“Yes, later.”
Anne made the promise as she looked at the flowing river.
“Gyeoul, have you ever tried fly fishing?”
“Mm... No.”
He paused before denying it because he had quite a bit of fishing experience itself. But all of it had been an effort to obtain food, so it was far from fly fishing done purely for enjoyment.
“Then are you interested?”
At Anne’s question, Gyeoul nodded as if it were obvious.
“If I’m doing it with you, what could I hate? I’d probably enjoy farming too.”
That was no lie. Lately, one scene of the future he dreamed of was exactly like that. Just as a Rangers officer had said, he would buy a farm or a ranch and build a life for just the two of them.
Anne chuckled softly and rubbed her cheek against Gyeoul’s shoulder.
“That sounds nice. When we go to my hometown someday, let’s try it together. I’ll teach you.”
“You must be good at it.”
“Rather than being good, I enjoy the time itself. In June, like today, you pick a clear day without a single cloud, put on boots, and walk into water with plenty of tree shade. Can you picture it? The sound of running water. The sound of branches rustling whenever the wind blows. Birds chirping now and then. And in a place without any other noise, there are just the two of us, you and me. Mm, I wouldn’t mind one dog being there too.”
Because they were walking with the smell of water around them, the image came to him even more clearly. Given the work she did, Anne seemed to long for quiet, peaceful rest just as much as Gyeoul did.
Though whether that day would really come was uncertain.
Gyeoul decided to ask the question he had been putting off.
“Anne.”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“...?”
At the serious mood, her steps stopped.
“Anne, do you ever dislike that I take risks?”
Anne’s mouth stiffened slightly, but soon softened into a gentle smile.
“Why ask that now? It can’t be helped, can it? Even if it’s not as much as you, I’m also exposed to danger often as an investigator. You and I both have to accept a certain level of anxiety, don’t we? If we’re going to keep loving each other.”
“That’s true, but.”
She took pride in maintaining order, helping people, and contributing to national security. That was why Gyeoul had never asked whether she should withdraw to the rear or find different work.
After a pause, Gyeoul spoke again.
“I was worried that my going to China might be a much bigger burden for you than usual. I wanted to make sure before I was deployed.”
Anne was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath and asked, “If I said I didn’t want you to leave... If I said I wanted you to stay by my side no matter what, what would you do then? Would it end with you just checking?”
“No.”
Gyeoul shook his head.
“Anne, if you truly wanted that, I’d make it happen no matter what it took.”
“Really?”
When Anne asked again, Gyeoul answered with firm certainty.
“Yes. I have a reason to go to Ground Zero. A reason strong enough for me to decide to go even knowing there’s a chance I might never see you again. But that only considers my side of things. I think it’s a one-sided and self-centered decision.”
Setting aside Gyeoul’s personal circumstances, there was no rule saying it absolutely had to be Gyeoul who went to Ground Zero. It would take quite a lot to pull out now, but it was not impossible. If he had to, he could even injure himself and disguise it as an accident.
“That’s why I want to know how you really feel. From the moment I put the ring on your finger, my life stopped being only mine.”
Gyeoul spoke gently.
“Anyway, when making an important decision, I should listen to the opinion of the person who’s going to be my wife. Right?”
Anne quietly gazed at Gyeoul, then softly pressed her lips to his.
“Go and come back.”
After parting her lips from his, Anne smiled.
“Don’t worry about me. Go and come back. I’ll believe that you’ll return, no matter what.”
Then she pulled Gyeoul into her arms.
“There’s a dream I’ve had often over the past half year.”
“What kind of dream?”
“A dream where you’re looking at the stars.”
After a brief pause, Anne continued in a whisper.
“I’m watching you from behind. It felt somehow distant and beautiful. You did, and so did the stars you were looking at. And it felt quite symbolic too.”
“Why?”
“Because I wondered if what Gyeoul wants is in such a high place.”
“...”
“You’ve always been that way. The things you want have always been beyond human limits. Not trusting people but wanting to believe in them, never sparing yourself for others, they’re all part of the same thing in the end. At least, that’s how I see it.”
The part about belief was something he had told her while they were aboard the Pequod. He had thought back on it often since then.
Anne said, “You just need to protect your heart. Because that’s the Han Gyeoul I love.”
Gyeoul felt like he might cry a little.
Footnotes:
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