I'm still alive

He handed us a cup of mixed coffee each for us, who had been sitting in the reception room for a long time. Although the coffee was bland enough to have hot contents on top of the paper cup, seeing him apologizing for having become a habit, even the bland coffee feels sweet.

The vivid testimony of the day and the watery coffee that we would have eaten to live, perhaps not taste, delivered a sense of reality as if our news team had been in a containment area that day. I decided to continue my interview with Mr. Yong-pal, who was quietly looking out the window, swallowing.

"The situation must have been very bad.”

"Yes. Well, of course. I'm speaking calmly now, but I had no dream or hope back then. People took their lives and brought us out of hell, and it was worse than this. I'm afraid of supplies, food, and when the soldiers will come in, and the wounded are dying because of the lack of medical supplies. But, but you know what was harder than that?"

The interview room was enveloped in silence by the question. The camera captured him looking at us with such sad eyes, and I had no choice but to look at Mr. Yong-pal without any answer.

"I cried all night because I didn't know how to tell them. I'm sure everyone knows that I'm coming a little late tomorrow, but how can I face the fact that I survived the cowardice? What's wrong with the kids? Children are not old enough to know the cruel and unjust truth."

Yongpal closed his eyes, frowning heavily, as if the painful memory of the day had passed before his eyes. The eyes, full of rough breathing and blackness. Although four long years had passed, the pain still lingered in memory, like the scar left on the skin.

"I couldn't go out. No, I just didn't go out. My grandfather and brother told me to get away from the blockades, but I couldn't get out of the area. You shiver with anxiety because you don't know when you're going to be caught, and you know how heavy this life is....... I was anxiously waiting for my brother and grandfather who might come out. And everybody else was looking at one place, just like me.”

"One day you told me something. A hope that doesn't move is a vain hope. But I forgot the advice you gave me back then. Like a drugged and drunk person, I forgot about hunger and fatigue and looked only at the blockade. Like a man of evil... ... Just like a floating buoy on a lake. But then there were people who came in for the first time with the tent door open, do you know who it was?"

Mr. Yong-pal began his interview with us and for the first time, smiled brightly and rummaged through his pockets. And I took out a small photo that was easy to reach from my shabby purse and showed it to our reporters. In the picture taken by the camera, the bright smiling children sat beautifully. The group photo, which seemed quite recent, I struggled to calm my trembling heart as I looked at the picture that I had never seen in the media. And soon asked him.

"This..."

"It's our kids. You've grown a lot, haven't you?"

Many readers who saw the publication wondered about the children's whereabouts. However, the people on the Eden list avoided areas where the media and attention were not available as if they were protecting the children, and the attention and attention that had been focused on the children slowly cooled down with rumors that they had immigrated.

However, the lack of interest and attention does not mean that there is no one who is not curious about the children's recent condition. And one of them, I slowly closed my eyes, accepting the picture with a heart of emotion. The number of children in the diary matched the number of children in the group photo exactly. Kwak Dong-yoon, a human who lived such a miserable life, did what others said was impossible. I grabbed the picture carefully and returned it to Mr. Yong-pal again.

"It was the children who opened the tent door that day. They all looked at me as if they were starting right away, carrying a heavy load in one hand. You know what I mean? The weak kids were getting ready to go through pain and pain. And I was so pathetic at that moment. No, maybe all the adults there thought like me. The legacy you and the people left behind is not sadness and pain, but we forgot for a moment."

"The kids knew everything. But even though I knew everything, I came here to comfort my elders. And the moment Chae-yeon quietly came to the side and held my hand, I felt so painful. These kids are so......, it's your brother's children."

"Pain and pain sometimes stop people, don't they? When darkness and night come, people wander because they can't see anything. But even if I blame someone, nothing has changed. The only thing that has changed is......I am. As Dawn always comes the next day when we open our eyes, we've always had the opportunity to get up.”

"Then who would have told me that? A book? A great man? A hero? No, no one tells me that. I just saw the lighthouse. And they followed the trail, as if it were too obvious."

"It was only when I could get rid of my fear."

He got up from the shabby chair where he was sitting and walked slowly toward the window. And I breathe out for someone while looking at the sky that I've been looking at for a while ago. Our news team kept silent for a while, quietly capturing his backside on camera. And Choi Yong-pal continued his monologue, which was mixed with recitations, to see if there was anything he wanted to tell us.

"I got myself together and ready to leave. And when I was organizing my luggage, I found a lot of things in the bag that you gave me for a favor. Gold, watch, jewelry......... He was collecting all the useless things in the containment area. Is it because of desire? No, everyone knew what they meant."

"I've been out of poverty-stricken areas and constantly crossing mountains and national roads. And I went to the area where the refugees were crowded as much as possible and bought what we needed in kind that you took care of. With the whole world in chaos, that's the only good thing. Because with money, we could buy food, goods, and even fake identities through brokers."

"And when everything was ready, we decided to scatter to live. But just because we broke up, we didn't lose our bond. And that night, people all gathered in one place before they broke up and began to write down their names and the names of those who left behind. One letter, one letter......... that's the source you told me about."

I raised my head at the thought of a flash of lightening my head. And we could see that the substance of what many readers and experts had guessed was just revealed by Choi Yong-pal's testimony. I spit out my mouth the blackness that clumped in my heart without filtration.

"Eden List...….”

Then he nodded.

"Yes, that's right. The Eden List. I had to bring a good paper and pen to write my brother's name, but I didn't have a penny in my pocket to buy his goods and identity. So I had no choice but to complete the Eden list with the old face paper and the Monami ballpoint pen that Detective Kang had. It's terrible, isn't it? But we held it in our hands with the heart of writing the Bible. It's proof that we're alive....... because it was a noble milestone to tell them they were there."

The camera frantically captured the first testimony on the screen, and I quickly scrawled the pen so as not to miss the story. However, Choi Yong-pal, who is quietly looking out the window, continued to talk as if he was reading his autobiography, whether we were looking at him or not.

"The day before we broke up, Chang-sik held my hand and cried a lot. It's been less than two months since I met him, and I cried without any hesitation. And the next morning, Changsik, who was the last to leave, said, I've been holding out, and I've been holding out......... Just one year, please, just one year. A year? I was able to live for 10 or 100 years until I met Dongyoon and my grandfather. That's too easy, right? So I promised myself I would be happy to.”

"I lived like a fugitive. He survived like a rat, protecting our group. And after a year, Changsik, who lost contact with me, finally kept his promise. People get up, change the regime......... The people who kept us in hell that day had to stand before the name of the law. And after work, a lot of people asked me. 'Now that everything's over, how do you feel?' Then I answer like this.'

"No, it's not over yet."

As he said, the struggle between Choi Yong-pal and his party is not over yet. It is the safest country in the world, isolating all sinkholes for the first time in history, and successfully blocking the bursts and strains of each time. And on that front line was them, called the Eden team. I asked him the last question for this grand finale and for the end of the interview that many readers would be waiting for.

A controversial and talkative bill passed the National Assembly today. There's a rumor that you've already joined hands with the government, and I think the operation you've been insisting on since the beginning will begin soon. A lot of experts are guessing it's in three months, right?"

He answered with a nod.

"I don't know who the experts you're talking about, but they're really accurate. That's right. When the warm spring comes and the snow melts, we slowly advance into the containment area. And I'm going to recapture that area and pull out all the guys that are crouching in hell."

It's a scoop. The reporters who came with him were busy moving their hands as soon as they heard his determined voice, and the cameraman and I couldn't take our eyes off him. And I felt a sense of duty to gulp down and ask some sensitive questions.

"There's a lot of controversy, right?”

Choi Yong-pal replied, "I don't know."

"Controversy?"

The youngest quickly shook his head and held my hand, but I got up from my seat, shaking my hand as if I had to ask this question. And slowly, I approached the window and asked him the ending of the story I really wanted to hear.

"On that day, military officials confessed that they had found several unidentified bodies. Of course, the bodies have been abandoned and evidence has disappeared, but many believe that the remains of Kwak Dong-yoon and Uhm Jae-hyung are among them. And even if you survived the siege, you know Choi Yong-pal, Choi Yong-pal? It's-- it's not a habitable environment."

All experts have concluded that the two deaths are certain. However, only Tim Eden has countered the experts' claims head-on and unilaterally notified them that the search will be carried out alone. And many fans and readers were stunned by the notification, and the usual impure ones accused Tim Eden of being crazy, still chasing the specter of the past. However, Choi Yong-pal, who leads Tim Eden, did not respond to any criticism. He was only grooming himself and comforting his team for the operation that would come three months later.

And I closed my eyes to this rude question, ready to be struck by him, but it was so clear a laugh that flew towards my face, not a fist and a painter. When I opened my trembling eyes and looked at the front, Choi Yong-pal was enjoying the wind blowing open the window.

"Sullyeon does that sometimes. The book that came out now is incomplete that he can't write. And so do I, and so do we. The last chapter of this long story, there are only two people who can write our endings."

"We still have people to meet for the end of this long and long journey. I really, really want to meet you two......... I'll wrap up the last episode that I couldn't fill."

A diary that has lost its owner since it went into a child's bag. While expecting the conclusion that many people were happy, they knew that Kwak Dong-yoon's next chapter did not exist. But only they knew that they had walked through that thorny path of life, like the hero in the fairy tale. The sequel to the story was in that distant, distant dawn they wanted to touch so much.

*

Choi Yong-pal asked me this question just before the interview was over.

"Did you read the book, too?" So you've seen the appendix behind it. My favorite quote from the appendix comes out. He wrote it for us himself.”

He took the noisy radio in one hand, and began to pack up the equipment he had taken off with the other. Traces of stitches and stains of equipment, but when he held the gun, it looked exactly like someone we had seen in the story. He went out the door and told us.

"Reporter, after a long winter, spring is coming."

He recited a really famous sentence. And our news team took a picture of him leaving for the last time.

"Spring is coming. I have to go see my brother."