The young man didn't answer right away.
He lay flat on his back in the grass with the edge of the axe resting against his neck, breathing hard through his nose. His eyes moved from Jin's face to the axe and back again. Jin could feel his pulse jumping under the blade.
Behind them, footsteps came through the field.
Jin didn't look away from the man on the ground, but he knew without turning who it was. Four sets of feet. One lighter than the rest, one dragging a little from exhaustion, one heavy with a bag that was too big.
"I told you he'd be fine," Kyung-min's voice said. "I saw it."
"You said 'probably fine,'" Hyunwoo said.
"Probably fine is still fine."
Yuna came up beside Jin and looked down at the man. Then she looked over at the two others still wrapped up together in the rosary, lying in the grass like a pair of sacks.
"You left us running for nothing," she said. "We could have helped."
"You did help," Jin said. "They followed you. That's why I could get behind them."
