Yun was holding Akira's mother's hand when he suddenly realized she had stopped breathing. Though she remained standing, it was only with the support of Yun and Akira.
He checked her pulse to be sure, but there was nothing, she was already dead.
Yun looked at Akira. He was watching his brother with a smile on his face, unaware of the situation, while his brother was looking at the village curiously. How could he tell them?
"I didn't expect this at all! Time is running while we haven't even found a place to hide. But first, I need to tell them." Yun's face was covered in sweat. He wouldn't have been this surprised if it was someone else, but it was Akira's mother.
The thing Yun was scared of was—what if it triggers Akira's power? Even a tiny bit will expose their location.
As he was staring at Akira, thinking of how to tell them, their eyes met. Akira looked confused, likely thinking about why Yun was sweating so much, then his eyes turned to his mother. Sweat ran down his face, his eyes widened as he realized.
Akira began to shake his mother's shoulder in panic. He was trying to speak something, but no sound was coming out from his throat.
"Akira, hey! Calm down." Yun first placed Akira's mother down, but Akira was not letting go of her shoulder. Tears were running down from his eyes, while his younger brother seemed confused. He also started crying.
"Hey, Akira, look at me," Yun said, but Akira didn't seem to hear anything at all. His condition was getting worse, his breathing was hard.
His younger brother's cries were louder. He kept calling his mother, "Mom! Mom! Wake up!"
Yun didn't know what to do. He was just sitting there hopelessly, seeing them breaking down.
But he couldn't let this keep going and let it trigger Akira's awakening, making it expose their location to Nexis.
Yun grabbed Akira's face with both of his hands and forced him to look at him. "Listen to me. You need to calm down for your brother. Your mother is no longer in pain, I promise you that. But right now, your brother needs you."
Still, the tears weren't stopping from his eyes, but he was now starting to breathe normally again. Seeing that, Yun was now relieved.
Yun let go of Akira's face, but Akira's brother's cries were getting louder, and it was not good for a child to cry this much.
Yun gently pulled Akira's brother into a hug. He patted his head.
"You shouldn't cry this much! Only girls cry this much. Aren't you a strong man? And your mother will be hurt seeing you like this. Are you going to hurt your mother?" Yun gently talked with him, even knowing it wouldn't help.
But strangely, Akira's brother nodded and stopped crying. When Yun looked at him, he was asleep while crying.
"How much did these little children suffer?" Yun muttered.
Yun stood up with Akira's sleeping brother in his arms and looked around the village, thinking if they could get a shelter. But the night was deep, every house door was locked, probably no one was awake. He couldn't just ask anyone to help with a dead body with them; it would waste their time to explain, and no one would have helped them anyway.
So they went back, where Akira was with his mother. They had placed her on a bench near the village.
"What are you children doing at this hour?"
Yun looked behind him. It was an elderly woman, hands on her back. She was wearing casual clothes, so she probably lived in this village and was likely on her late-night walk.
"We are not from here. Do you know if we can get a shelter in this village?" Yun asked. He hoped that there would be at least one; Akira and his brother were exhausted and hadn't eaten anything either.
"Looking at your situation, I don't think shelter is the first thing you need," the elderly woman said, looking at Akira's mother.
"You're right about that. We were travelling when this tragedy happened, but we don't know what to do."
"Come with me, I'm the head of this village." With that, the elderly woman turned around.
The help came to them when they needed it.
Yun shook Akira's shoulder. "Akira, we need to leave."
Akira looked up at Yun, his eyes were red from crying non-stop. He nodded. Akira stood up and lifted his mother while his brother was still sleeping in Yun's arms.
They followed the elderly woman to her house. Her house was bigger than the other houses in the village. The elderly woman arranged a clean room in her house for them and asked them to stay there for tonight.
They would begin the ceremony in the morning. She even arranged food for them, but no one ate anything.
On the way to her house, Yun told the elderly woman about their situation, that they had nowhere to go and needed a place to stay for the time being.
The whole night Yun and Akira didn't sleep. Yun put Akira's brother next to him. The whole night Akira didn't let go of his mother's hand.
In the early morning, Grandmother Chen came and washed Akira's mother and put white clothes on her. Some villagers came and helped with arranging the coffin.
Akira's brother started crying again as soon as he woke up in the morning, while Akira was now silently staring at the sky, his eyes were all red, probably no tears were left in his body.
"I honestly don't know how to thank you, even though, thank you so much, Grandmother Chen," Yun said.
"No need, son. I asked them to dig beneath the cherry blossom tree in the forest to bury her as you requested."
"I really appreciate your kindness."
Grandmother Chen gave black clothes to the three of them. While it fit perfectly on Yun and Akira, it was a bit big for Akira's brother. He even refused to wear it, but Yun somehow managed and folded the sleeves and pant legs of his oversized clothes to make them fit.
At the cherry blossom tree in the forest, they placed the coffin down that was carried by Akira and three villagers, while Yun was holding Akira's brother's arm, because he kept getting in the way and stopping them from taking his mother.
Before burying Akira's mother, Akira and his brother sat near the coffin and said their last goodbye to their mother.
Soon after, Akira's brother fell asleep from exhaustion. Only three of them were there, standing in front of Akira's mother. Yun told Grandmother Chen that they would stay there for some time as Akira didn't want to leave his mother.
"We need to move now, there's not much time left," Yun said.
Twelve hours passed, remaining next twelve hours unit the Hunting Game began.