Collective despair washed through the clearing.
Seungho made a sound like dying.
Sunwoo sat directly on the dirt.
Yuhyun turned toward me, eyes wide with betrayal.
I had nothing to offer him.
Trainer Song smiled and pointed farther up the trail.
"Production set something up. Just a two-minute walk."
My legs refused the concept of two more minutes.
Yuhyun leaned heavily against his stone marker. Sunwoo had already sat down. Sejin pressed both hands against his lower back.
But we dragged ourselves forward.
The trail curved around a cluster of pines, and the clearing opened into a wide, flat mountaintop overlook bathed in late afternoon gold.
I stopped.
Everyone stopped.
Below us stretched the valley in layers of green and shadow. Mountains rolled toward the horizon, distant peaks painted lavender by atmospheric haze.
But nobody was looking at the view.
Production had assembled a spread across two long wooden tables covered in white linen.
