Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall.”

All it takes for the world to collapse in on itself is one breath.

Like a butterfly smashed against the windshield, a honeybee with pins through its wings, framed in glass, Hyunjin stood in an alleyway on River Street, smoking gun in hand.

How did it all go south so quickly?

This is a question that will haunt him until the end of days.

It was a scavenged, well-worn map that led them down to the waterfront, where they searched for bare pickings before leaving the city altogether. The street narrowed into an alley before widening out again onto the remains of a riverside market, littered with torn and collapsed stands and garbage strewn about. Capsized boats lined the water, far out into the misty haze on the far side of the channel.

Felix and Chan were leading the small group, farther ahead and out of earshot, only barely in sight, as they made sure the coast was clear. Keeping their gazes and gun barrels trained on the nearby bridge, which went over the channel, for movement, living or otherwise. This was the plan. To not shoot unless necessary, to loot any scraps they could find from the stores and buildings marked on the map, to be out before sundown, and meet the rest of their friends at the train tracks on the outskirts of the city.

Hyunjin walked shoulder to shoulder with Jisu and Jeongin, eyes drowsy from the early hours they had traveled. Jisu was humming a quiet tune to herself, nothing recognizable, while fidgeting with her bat, when she slowed and jutted her chin out. “Straggler, there. Others must’ve missed him.”

Sure as day, the smell hit Hyunjin first, a swirl of rotted, burnt meat, frothing vomit, and black bile, curdling in the heat. From the shadows, under a green, overflowing garbage can, a zombie dragged itself across the pavement, broken nails peeling off fingertips and stained with black, dried blood. It gurgled and choked, something viscous and semi-solid blubbering out of its mouth. Some small animal it got its hands on, undigested and half chewed. The zombie slowly wriggled towards them, like the maggots that filled the gaping maw where its eyes used to be.

Hyunjin gagged, then swallowed it back and walked forward. The poor thing was practically begging to be put out of its misery, and Hyunjin intended to oblige.

Rule number one: Never underestimate the dead.

The moment you think you’re faster than them, the moment you get complacent and leave strays to roam, that’s when they gather, that’s when they get you. Even one long starved, crippled and baking on the sidewalk can latch onto you with a strength uncharacteristic of its appearance and sink its teeth into your tender flesh, and then boom, dead.

From Hyunjin's waistband, he pulled his hatchet and brought it down dead-center on the zombie's head in one smooth, clean swing. It split in twain, blood and sinew spackling the rusted blade's surface and splattering on Hyunjin's boots. There was a twitch in the dead’s fingers, a hollow churning from its vocal cords as congealed blood trickled lazily from the wound, and then nothing.

Hyunjin shuddered.

It took a little effort to get the hatchet loose, it being old and worn and caught between the now-cracked, jagged crevice in the frontal lobe, and when he finally shook it free, his arm swung back harshly, and he let out a small gasp.

Silence, relative silence, followed for a second, and Hyunjin had no idea how much time passed while he caught his breath and stared down at the marred corpse before Jisu drew his attention away.

“You alright there?”

Hyunjin turned back, grimacing. “You never get used to the smell, do you?”

Tension relieved, somewhat. She laughed and shook her head. “Desensitized, maybe, but not when the things a foot from you, huh?"

No, definitely not. Hyunjin swallowed hard and ran the hatchet blade on his cargo pants, both sides, to get it as clean as possible, and then returned it to its sheath. Rolling his shoulders, he glanced around at the alley, empty save for the two of them, and frowned. “Where’d Jeongin go?”

Jisu languidly pointed behind him. “Went ahead to check out the marketplace while you were, uh—” she gestured to the body, “—handling things. S’probably just a whole bunch of rotted food, but eh. Worth a shot.”

A cold breeze blew through the alley, making a low, eerie whistling sound. 

“Should we go with him?” Jisu continued. It was never wise to split up, and their group was already scattered three ways to nowhere across the city in a very hesitant, fuck it, we’re all starving and are gonna die anyways, last ditch effort to find some food before getting the fuck out of dodge, but Hyunjin shook his head.

“He can handle himself. And I’m missing out on my beauty sleep to do this, so I wanna get out as soon as possible, thank you very much.”

The backpack slung over his shoulder already sent aches through his muscles, heavy to the point he swore it would dislocate his shoulder with any more strain. He shifted it uncomfortably to his other arm, rubbing at the shoulder in question with a pout while Jisu let out something caught between a snort and a chortle. “Beauty sleep? Is that why you look like a drowned rat right now?”

Hyunjin held her gaze for a solid thirty seconds in seething silence while she basked with a shit eating grin. “Kill yourself.”

Jisu stuck out her tongue and then turned to the nearest building to them, a large, touristy store called Simply Savannah. A turn of the back door's handle showed it to be opened without resistance, the lock having been shot off at some point in the past three years. The hallway of the employee room, what they could see from outside, was dark and smelt of mildew. Jisu clicked her tongue and jerked her head towards it. “Waddya think?”

“I think,” Hyunjin said, stepping into the doorway carefully, one hand resting on the wood-rotted door frame, the other slowly reaching down to his waist to turn on the flashlight affixed to his belt, and then pull out his hatchet again, “that we probably won’t find much, but it’s worth a look.” He glanced back towards Jisu, pale-faced and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “And you need to sit down, anyways. You look faint.”

Jisu didn’t argue with that.

This brings us to rule number two: Make sure you are the only thing, living or dead, in the building before you loot.

The gift shop was surprisingly, and thankfully, empty. Well, except for a corpse in a back office with a gunshot wound to the head and a bite on its arm, but that’s nothing for them to worry themselves with. Checking every corner, every bathroom stall, and finally being sure there was no way for them to be snuck up on, they decided it was safe enough to scavenge.

Broken glass cracked and crinkled under the two's feet as they walked into the main area of the shop. Yellow-gray light spilled in from the front windows and over the trashed and knocked-over stands, broken snowglobes on the wooden floors stained with murky, glittery water, and shattered bottles of sand. Trash littered the ground, as well as squished candy bars and empty beer cans, and discarded pamphlets and books. Wooden pillars like shaved driftwood accompanied faux-rustic overhangs in some parts of the shop, with windchimes and beaded seaglass on frayed rope hanging down in an eclectic cluster. The shelves they could see were full of mugs, baseball caps, seashells, and cute glass figurines of sea animals, ships, and mermaids.

Most noticeable was a big, center shelf with a large, striking plastic shark statue atop it, the bottommost shelves covered in larger shells and starfish, and a few dirty, crusty stuffed animals. A cute, worn sign held up by rope hung from the shark's open mouth, in the shape of a cartoony shark mascot holding a surfboard.

Jisu slipped her baseball bat off her back and lightly tapped the shark's head. It made a hollow, echoey sound. She turned back to Hyunjin with a wide smile. “So, place your bets. What are we gonna find of use in here?”

Reaching towards a nearby stack of shirts without having to take a step, Hyunjin pulled one off the top of the pile and held it out in front of him. It was a black t-shirt with palm trees and beach balls on it. “Gimicky clothes!” He shook the shirt lightly for emphasis. “Good to wear, and you can rip them up to make bandages.”

Jisu snapped. “Genius.”

Hyunjin chuckled and put the shirt back—that one was moth-pocked, but the others under it were just fine. Fit for bandages or spare cloth to sew up their current clothes, so he grabbed a few and rolled them up neatly, putting them in a white tote bag he’d gotten from a wall hook.

For himself, he grabbed a soft but thin, light blue hoodie that read Savannah EST. 1733 Georgia and shoved it into his backpack.

Moving through at a leisurely pace, fingers idly tracing racks of clothing, Hyunjin could hear Jisu’s movement at a different half of the store. Without turning back, he called, “What about you?”

“Hmm, what?” She said.

“Like, your bet, about what’ll be in here. You find anything?”

“Oh—!” He cast a quick glance at her, now, to see her silently laughing at a small shot glass she’d picked up, tracing her thumb over the peeling design. She slid it into her pocket and then grabbed something else on the counter. A bottle of hand sanitizer. “There’s a few gems in here. Like, soaps, toothpaste. Towels. We could use those.”

“Preach,” Hyunjin said, attention back on his own search, staring down at the small, locally made glass figurines, less kitsch than most of the shit in here. Mostly sea animals, like dolphins and turtles, but also some of deer, foxes, cats. A wolf.

He hummed mournfully.

God, he missed warm showers. Soap.

“But, ah, otherwise? Just some silly gifts for our friends. Gotta keep morale up!”

Hyunjin took this as an affirmation that Jisu would approve of his decision and grabbed the wolf sculpture gently, wrapping it in cloth, where it then found home in one of his buttonable pockets.

There were coolers and fridges on one of the back walls. Power long since lost, obviously, the ice would be all melted and the sodas stale, but there could be water bottles still full up. “You wanna go check those out, see if there’s anything useful?” Hyunjin said, gesturing to the fridges. “I think I still see some bottles from here.”

On a nearby shelf were a few bags of chips and candy, and the like. Not a lot, but maybe there will be something worth taking. “And I’ll see if any of these snacks are still good.”

Jisu nodded.

“But sit down first, alright?”

With a snort and an eyeroll at Hyunjin bossing her around, she waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, I will. I can feel the blood pooling in my feet already.”

“Seriously, man, I don’t need you passing out on me.”

“Like I’d want to pass out. Calm down.” Jisu hopped over the checkout counter and picked up the tipped-over chair. Sitting in it, she absentmindedly tapped at the keys of the cash register.

“Sorry.” Jisu waved off his apology, knowing Hyunjin meant well, even if it could get annoying. He does this with everyone, like a hover-parent. It’s one of his many love languages.

Satisfied, worry lessened, Hyunjin traced his eyes over some suncatchers that refracted beams of light into rainbows. Yes, he’s getting distracted, he knows, but it couldn’t hurt to grab something like that, right? Stickers, glow stars, lights, suncatchers, fake plants. He and some of the others had been slowly sprucing up their cars to be less bleak and depressing. Cuter. So maybe they could pretend to be a bunch of teenagers on a road trip instead of depressed adults fleeing from ghosts.

Hyunjin frowned.

Yeah. Yeah, a suncatcher will do nicely.

“Jisu, look over here! I need your opinion on something.”

She’d been looking through a pre-apocalypse pamphlet and glanced up with a sideways smile. “What’s up?—”

A crash outside. A loud one.

There was no hesitation from the pair as they sprang up, weapons in hand. Jisu bounded over the counter again, noisily knocking things over as she stumbled to her feet. Hyunjin was already in the back and half out the door. Chest heavy but eyes focused, ears keen.

Scanning for his friends, for a sign of life. All three that were with them were nowhere in sight. The hairs on his neck stood on end as Jisu skidded to a stop behind him, white knuckled grip on the doorway.

Nothing immediately caught Hyunjin’s eye, but after a beat, the sounds continued: the raw and ragged gurgling of a zombie, a shuffle of feet, and— oh, god. Jeongin’s voice called out for help, not nearly as loud as it should’ve been. Minding his volume, trying not to draw more.

It was coming from the alley they had entered from, leading down and away from River Street.

Hyunjin ran and slid into a turn, darting around the corner, his boots searching for grip on the asphalt. There was a sharp pang in his right leg, where the brunt of his weight was being put, but he ignored it, launching himself up and forward to find Jeongin.

Back against the wall in the narrow space, bat in hand, pushed up against the chest of a rather determined zombie. Feet sliding and struggling to keep steady on the uneven slope.

Much too close for comfort.

This roamer's skin, whilst pale, was less rotted, fresher, thick blood splattered across its cracked lips, rouge-stained yellow teeth gnashing and chomping a hairsbreadth away from Jeongin’s neck as the boy's arms shook and strained in the effort to keep death at bay. Long hair hung down in rivulets, and its eyes had yet to rot out, less cloudy than those who’d been turned for weeks or months. Long tear tracks ran down its face, some fresh, glistening on shallow, gaunt cheekbones.

A viral—that’s what they called those who had recently turned. Not even rigor mortis had touched them yet, able to run and launch themselves with the ferocity of a starved tiger. They could still see and even manage to sound human as the fungus had not yet fully killed its host. A human, still alive and suffering, slowly dying and submitting.

Hyunjin’s stomach churned.

A gurgle, a splutter, as black bile shot from the viral's mouth, streaks of deep red blood slashed across Jeongin's face. His eyes and mouth were screwed shut, spitting some that got into his mouth. Eyes opening unevenly, in a sliver, he spotted Hyunjin and Jisu, and his gaze said everything.

Please. Save me.

“ Try to push her off you!” Hyunjin shouted, running forward, and, god, he was further away than he thought. Jeongin shouldered the bat, pushing the viral off somewhat. It didn’t go fully down, grabbing onto his waist as he fell with a scream.

Fuck.

Echoing groans and screeches in the distance said that more would be coming, and they wouldn’t all be slow.

Hyunjin seemed to freeze, all the breath leaving him in one foul swoop. Visions of old friends and allies dying in front of him. The mental image of Jeongin with his throat ripped out, vocal cords and veins torn as his screams degrade into one last pitiful splutter. Blood on Hyunjins hands, his fault, his—

Jeongin curled around, knee scrunched up to his chest as much as possible. Hard, he kicked out, kneeing the viral in the chest. It stumbled. The sickening crack of broken bone filled the alley, and Hyunjin fumbled for his gun.

He tried to look around for Jisu for help, only to see her dealing with her own host of problems, the aforementioned sounds proving his fears true as her bat swung and hit the skull of another viral. Its head collapsed in on itself, grey matter and coagulated blood streaking across the brick walls. They must’ve been drawn to the sounds of their voices.

Hyunjin had tested it before to see how far they could hear.

It’s pretty fucking far.

Onto his back, Jeongin flipped, trying to back up. It grabbed him again, by the legs, and crawled up his body. Its bones shifted quickly under its malnourished skin. Jeongin pushed his arms against either of the viral's shoulders, eyes screwed shut. Its jaw clicked as it snapped its teeth at Jeongin again, ravenous.

More entered from the alley on the opposing end. Only a handful. Manageable, slow ones, long decayed. But closer to Jeongin. Jeongin, on the floor, at the mercy of the dead.

Jeongin screeched, “Just fucking shoot it! ”

They knew the plan; they knew to avoid guns, but Hyunjin panicked. He froze.

And Hyunjin isn’t an idiot. He knew, if he had just kept running, if he hadn’t stopped, it would have been fine.

Too late.

Pistol in hand, safety off, emergencies only, squeezing the trigger slowly, emergencies only, exhaling softly, bang!

Copper-plated rain.

The sound echoed and reverberated off the walls, Hyunjin’s ears ringing at the noise and muffled like they’d been stuffed full of cotton. The viral collapsed into a bloodied heap on Jeongin. It took only seconds for Jeongin to throw it off of him, kicking and coughing and wiping at his face, his eyes, his mouth, furiously, not wanting to risk infection.

Chan will understand.

Jeongin, ever the spritely little shit, was up in seconds, turning and hitting a roamer that got close with an impact worthy of a homerun. At that same time, Hyunjin was back at Jisu’s side, who’d just gotten grabbed. One slice of the hatchet took off the zombie's hand, and another to the side of its head.

Chan has to.

Another swift hit, and Hyunjin’s hatchet got stuck in the side of a roamer's head, again, the dead weight pulling him to the ground as he tried to get it unstuck.

“Goddamn— fucking— piece of shit— ”

Jisu leaned down and over Hyunjin. Her back was positioned to take any impact for him—he didn’t have time to complain—and she reached down, fast, grabbing his gun from its holster. Heads popped left and right: Her aim always was better than her swing. Hyunjin put a foot onto the zombie's chest and, with a final, harsh pull, got it unstuck, nearly hitting Jisu in the process. The force made him stumble back onto the ground, winded.

Helping him stand and passing his gun back, Jisu’s expression was unreadable. “One of these days, that thing's gonna get us killed.”

“Bitch at me later.”

She nodded, and Hyunjin knew she would.

Every gunshot had brought more dead down on them, drawing to them like turkey vultures to road kill, flies to sap. Virals and roamers, shambling and running, overtaking them, and it wasn’t until the sound of Felix shrieking from up ahead that Hyunjin snapped out of his crazed spree and back to reality's cold, harsh embrace. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jeongin beat him to it.

“Felix?!” Jeongin was but a blur when he charged past Hyunjin, and Hyunjin barely had the chance to grab the boy by the wrist before he fully barreled through the growing horde in a blind panic. A strangled sound of pain escaped his throat as he was tugged back, his shoulder shifting uncomfortably in its socket. Fuck, Hyunjin didn’t mean to grab him that hard, but it was either that or letting him get himself killed for nothing. “Chan! ”

Gunshots, so, so many, loud and echoing, spun the world in dizzying circles. Hyunjin saw them again, for a second, at the brunt of the alley, a ways away in the street. Chan locked eyes with him and, over the din, yelled, “We’re fine! We’ll meet you at the tracks!”

“But— Hyung— ”

“ No time. Go.” He fired a few more shots, dropping at least four zombies, before grabbing Felix by the arm. They were out of sight as soon as they appeared.

The diversion worked; many of the dead were quick to change course after the newer, shinier, and much louder prey. Chan fired off more shots and yelled as he ran, and between that and Jisu’s persistent long arm, they had a chance to head back the way they came. A chance to maybe make it out by the deadline, before they were a deadline.

Jeongin struggled against Hyunjin's arm. “Let me go— Hyunjin, Hyunjin, they’re in danger, we can’t just—” He cut himself off, exasperated, and looked at Hyunjin with frustrated, pleading eyes. “Hyung.”

Hyunjin opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Jeongin could just about sob. “ Please.”

Across the way, Hyunjin and Jisu locked eyes. A silent conversation was had. To chase after them now would just put everyone in danger, wouldn’t it? And Jisu looked rough, hair slicked to her forehead with sweat glistening on her brow, breathing labored. She really would faint if they weren’t careful.

The silence made Jeongin let out a choked, frustrated scream, yanking his wrist forward and out of Hyunjin's grasp. The shock only lasted a second before the two set to chase him, Jeongin running as far as he could before barely being caught by Hyunjin again, who, this time, wrapped his arms tightly around the boy's waist. He writhed against Hyunjin's grip. Desperate. Crazed with adrenaline.

“Don’t make me drag you back, Innie. We need to go, we need to, please. Don’t make this harder for me,” Hyunjin pleaded, only one thread snap away from saying fuck it and going after them anyway.

The clamor drew a few back, gaping, lifeless maws hungrily clicking and twitching.

Jeongin relented, face red with anger and tears, going limp in Hyunjin's arms and against his chest, seeking comfort, warmth, and familiarity, staring motionless down the road their friends had gone down. Hyunjin tightened his arms comfortingly, frowning at Jisu when she threw him a sympathetic glance.

Briefly, only briefly.

“We have to go, now,” Jisu said, finally, “or we’ll get trapped again.”

There was never enough time, was there?

A huff. Jeongin pushed Hyunjin away and turned back down the alley.

Hyunjin opened his mouth to speak but stopped when Jisu tugged his arm. “It’s no use, he just needs space, okay? Don’t push him when we barely got him to listen.”

She’s right. She usually is. That didn’t make this any easier.

With one last glance back, Hyunjin and Jisu ran to catch up, a large group of roamers already on their tail, and the whole time, Hyunjin couldn’t stop repeating the same thing to himself, over and over, like a mantra.

The train tracks. They’ll be at the train tracks.

They have to be.

✦

An hour was run, walked, and hidden behind the corners of buildings in near silence. Not a word spoken by their youngest, always ten paces ahead, never looking back or showing his face, and only minimal said by Jisu and Hyunjin, to each other or called out to Jeongin, without ever getting a response.

Through path-trodden fields and up a mountainous hill just out of Savannah, the one leading to the dilapidated train they entered the city on, stopped at the outskirts, for safety. Hyunjin walked in a thick sauna stupor, his surroundings a haze until they reunited with one-third of their group. When prying eyes trailed the trio, when two were missing, that is when he broke, crumbling in sobs. If not for Minho’s quick reflexes catching the boy, his knees would have scraped against the loose gravel and rocks.

“Baby, baby, hey, what happened?” Minho held Hyunjin close to his chest, curling around him like a climbing plant. Fiercely protective of his brood, his hands clutched onto the soft fabric of Hyunjin’s shirt, bunching it up between his fingers. He maintained an icy cool tone when he spoke again. “Was there someone, someone not one of us?”

Jisu spoke up timidly, like she feared feedback from the mic echoing in the proverbial hall as all eyes landed on her. Jeongin was silent, arms crossed. “No- god, no, nothing at all like that. It-”

“My fault.” His fault. His fault. His fault. “The alley ,” Hyunjin wailed, piteous, keening filling the empty air, a guilt so heavy it left cracks in the earth, splitting in two. A canyon so wide it would swallow him up, up, up, leaving nothing. God, please leave nothing. Take it all and make it stop, take Hyunjin and bring them back safe. Amen. “The alley, I- I shot the gun.”

The voice that flooded from his body did not sound nor feel like his own. It was a stranger in his own throat. But the worry, deep-etched and burning, that was his, all his, true to form. His fault.

Minho pulled away from the hug, hands firmly on either side of Hyunjin’s face. He wiped uselessly at the broken dam in Hyunjin’s eyes, capillaries bursting cherry-red from the overuse. “Shhh, shh, shh, breathe for me, baby,” he said, “I need you to breathe. Deep breaths.”

Quivering ones were all he could muster. “Everything was fine, but then Innie got grabbed , and I- I didn’t know what to-” he nearly choked, coughing under the stress the sobs put his already exhausted body through. He clawed at his chest like that would make it go away, like that would make the hurt stop. Like he could tear out the burn, rip it from his lungs, his throat, make it all stop, make it all empty. So hard his nails scratched against his skin. “And now they’re gone and-”

Minho rested his hand on Hyunjin’s chest, replacing Hyunjin’s own, which sought to rip out his own heart to make it stop fucking hurting . Then, gently, ever so gently, Minho took that very hand to put on his own chest, right over his heart. “Just keep breathing. In and out, slow breaths, just like me, okay? Feel how I do it. Just like that. That’s good,” he cooed in a resolute calm, unshakable, “you are safe. It’s okay.”

Whispered words were shared from the others, not so quiet that Hyunjin couldn’t hear, but that didn’t matter. He knew what was being said, and he blocked it out, focusing on Minho’s instead, dampening his shirt collar with tears instead.

All he could do.

✦

Light crystalized on dew drops clinging to the rusted metal overhang of the small station, water collected in the rivets falling discordantly into the puddles on the concrete below. The sky, blushing, wasn't a sunset particularly remarkable or memorable in any right, but still cast a soft, comforting glow on the world, a gentle purple-red sinking into the distant horizon, a halo around the city.

They’d been there for hours. Resting, waiting.

Yeji laid a careful hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder.

It said everything words couldn't.

“I'm not ready.” Hyunjin's breath shook, his throat still sore from him tearing it to shreds hours earlier.

Sunrays glistened off a soft sheen of tears in Yeji’s eyes. They didn't spill, merely resting on the surface. “And you think I am?”

Right at the tree line, their group sat sprawled out, exhausted and worried. Jisung and Chaeryeong were playing gonggi in the open trunk of one of their vehicles—the van, Yuna curled up and asleep in a mess of blankets right behind them, pressed against the back seat. They couldn’t light a fire (wouldn’t, so as not to make their position known, just in case), so anyone else resting was doing so in their other, closed car, to try and keep warm, while Minho and Seungmin kept watch at the forest.

 They'd been taking turns sitting out where they could see the road leading to the small station, overlooking the city, in the hopes they'd spot their friends. Right now, it was Hyunjin's turn. Most of the turns had been Hyunjin's turn, because his guilt-stricken heart would stop beating if he just sat around and did nothing. Not when his friends—his family were still out there. Not when Jeongin refused to meet his eye.

“We— we can't just—” Hyunjin huffed, running his fingers through his hair. “What if they show up, and we're not here? What if they need our help?”

Being a leader is about making tough decisions no one else wants to, about being the bad guy. This was now Yeji’s burden to bear, a sinking stone of dread nestled in the pit of her stomach, right over her courage and under her despair. “I have to put the people I have here first, Hyunjin. You know that. I can't go risking all of our friends' lives to go back for people who might not—”

“Don't.”

Yeji narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then continued, her voice firmer. “Who might not even still be alive .” She shook her head. “And waiting here— We can't know, and more and more strays have been wandering up. How long before someone gets hurt, or bitten? Can we afford to risk it?”

Hyunjin turned on his heel to face her. “So, what, you’d just abandon them, after everything?! after—”

“No. Don’t you fucking start with me, don’t you dare,” she said, a dangerous lilt to her voice. A warning, that there was a line and he was about to let his stress push him over it. Hyunjin’s eyes widened, then closed, and he deflated, stepping back.

“I’m sorry.”

The wind hummed a melancholious tune, the leaves shivering as they tried to find meaning in the dawning cold, decaying ones scattered sparsely on the deep, rich soil as a forewarning of an early autumn. The stars are not yet visible, but they are there, an ever-present omniscient force, watching, waiting.

“I know.”

A sigh is buried in Hyunjin’s chest, and he doesn’t know how to get rid of it. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets—the new one, the blue one—and walked away, boots splashing in the shallow puddles and through the moisture breathed into the world this morning. To the edge of the platform and overlooking Savannah. Near the green-blue water were row after row of cozy houses and rustic brownstones, an offshoot of River Street. That must be where they ran off to. If luck favored them, Hyunjin would walk right back into the city all by his lonesome and find them himself or die trying.

But as it stands, the tides of late afternoon have receded into dusk, and Hyunjin sat at the bottom of an hourglass, unaware of the sand building up around him.

Yeji joined him at the edge. “I'm not trying to be cruel. You . . . you have no idea how hard this is for me, how I hate having to do it. But I have to, Hyun. You know that.” The sky drew darker as the sunset dissipated into clouds of deep grey and blue. “They’re my family too.”

Family.

Lost and scattered to the wind like dancing particles of dust.

The game of gonggi was won, Chaeryeong reigning victorious as she loudly, proudly, claimed the winner's pot (a can of sweetened peaches and some candy). Jisung argued vehemently before a sniffling Jeongin approached the van and wordlessly took Chaeryeong's place, crawling into Jisung’s arms. He held the poor boy close to his chest, rubbing circles on his back and sharing silent looks of worry with Chaeryeong.

Family, shattered.

Hyunjin grabbed the cloth-encased sculpture from his pocket, free hand over his mouth to stifle the sobs bubbling up his throat. “Oh, god,” he said, impossibly quiet and broken, “I grabbed this for Chan.” It all seems so stupid in retrospect. Time spent goofing around that could’ve been spent instead on keeping all this from happening.

Oh, poor thing. Yeji squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “Keep it,” she said. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Her hand lingered for but a moment longer before she dragged it off his arm and walked back to the group, her voice carrying through the station. Start packing up and preparing the vans. It’s time to move.

Hyunjin stood still for a moment longer. Thumb running over the thin, jagged cloth, drowning in the cool summer air, he wept.

Chapter Text

“Bang.”

The gunshot rang out from miles around, less of a bang and more of a crack! as the bullet tore through the air and sky. Birds sprang up in droves from the thick clusters of trees at the road's edge, boisterous, fleeing flocks from the sound as yet another zombie crumbled into a lifeless heap. Truly lifeless, this time.

Jisung lifted the bolt handle of his rifle to check the magazine. Seven rounds left. Not bad. From his green messenger bag, covered in band and fandom patches, he produced three rounds and pushed them against the floorplate, the quiet sound of them snapping into place now being all that was heard in the gale. Now that he scared away all the birds, that is. He pushed the bolt forward, locking it in place, and lowered the rifle with a pleased hum, flashing a cocky grin and wink to the man beside him.

“That’s twenty-seven to twenty-three, I believe.”

Changbin scoffed. “No fuckin’ way. I took out three scavenging the other day.”

“Ah, but I wasn’t there!” With the barrel of the rifle resting on the curb before him, Jisung raised his finger in defiance, up for a second and then down, pointing at Changbin. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”

It had been three months since Savannah. The group held true to avoiding cities, so now they mostly hugged highways and woods, hunting for food and filling the gaps with pickings from abandoned houses or gas stations. Like the one they found themselves at now. In the past, say, week or so? Jisung had finished reading the Lord of the Rings books (finally), and, deeply bored and hiding a thinly veiled depression, decided to adopt the kill-counting rivalry Legolas and Gimli keep.

Whether it was amusing or annoying varied from moment to moment. Right now, it was equal parts both as Hyunjin watched the two from a few paces back, eyes rolling in irritation-laced affection.

“I was there, Han,” Hyunjin called out to the two, the ghost of a smile hugging his face, “and he isn’t lying.”

Jisung whipped around at mach speeds, face contorted in what can only be described as complete and utter betrayal, while Changbin jovially threw his head back in an open-mouthed laugh, his form shaking with the effort.

Christ, it’s good to see him laugh, good to hear it. Really good.

“You dare? You dare take his side?”

Some birds had returned, perturbed by the noise but thankful to have one less predator in their midst, melodic and distant birdsong serving as a good omen for the day. A crow hopped around a few paces away, head tilting, while Hyunjin raised his hands, palms out, in surrender. “Hey, hey! I am but an impartial judge! I can’t have your dumbass game being unfair.” He sighed and rested a hand on his forehead. “That would be just abysmal.”

“Don’t listen to him, ‘Sung, he’s just being modest. Look in his eyes— those are the eyes of someone who is taking my side.” Changbin grinned, leaning in for effect before lowering his voice. “Because he loves me more than you."

There was a quick, solid punch to Changbin's arm. He yelled out in defiance and looked primed to strike back before Hyunjin cleared his throat. Twice.

“I don’t mean to be the world's biggest dick or anything, but we shouldn’t waste bullets like this,” Hyunjin said, looking down at his hands. “And Yeji has a huge headache, so just, keep it down, yeah?”

Not to mention how every viral within a few miles of them probably heard every shot.

Jisung frowned slightly, taking out one of his knives to fidget with. Small, sharp, deadly. He’s got killer rejection-sensitive dysphoria, but he also isn’t a prick. “Oh, god, yeah. Tell her I said sorry, please?” He glanced at Changbin, who had turned back around, watching the trees for movement that would betray a threat. Changbin wordlessly nodded. “Both of us.”

“Can do.”

Yeji was leaning over the hood of their van, chewing her lip as she looked down over a map of routes covered in sprawling notes and colorful lines. Her hair was haphazardly tied back into a small claw-clip ponytail, short, choppy strands that couldn’t be pinned back hanging loosely in front of her face (she’d cut a few inches off her hair two weeks ago, to be safe). She looked tired. No, not tired—exhausted, and older for it, the brunt of leadership balancing solely on her shoulders in Chan's absence. At Hyunjin's arrival, she smiled in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“They said they’re sorry.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, tone light, countering her heavy eyes. “Thanks for that. Didn’t want to be the bad guy again, and I think I’d probably have just snapped at them.”

“Oh, please, it was my pleasure. I love being mean to those two. I’d do it for free.”

She rolled her eyes at that before turning back to the map. Hyunjin craned his neck over her shoulder. “Something the matter?”

“Other than everything?” She laughed humorlessly and rested an elbow on the car hood, supporting her chin. “I have no idea where to go. And gas is degrading by the minute, so, I don’t know, I dunno how much longer we’re gonna have transportation other than our feet.” Strands of hair blew up as she let out a huff of breath and looked to where some of their friends were syphoning as much gasoline from the gas pumps and tanks of abandoned cars in the station as they could. Every sullied drop counted. “Especially when our cars are old as dirt and one stall away from never turning back on again.”

In the best conditions, gasoline lasts about two years, give or take. Otherwise? It only takes around three to six months before it becomes unstable. Oxidization, evaporation, what have you. And they’re three years and some months into this bullshit by now, so every day is a gamble.

Degrade doesn’t mean useless, just . . .

Well, unless they find a car with a modern EFI engine—in a group full of theatre nerds that don’t know shit about fuck about cars—they need to start looking at other options.

“I was talkin’ about it with Seungmin the other day. He said we need to invest in horses. Horses,” Yeji deadpanned. “Do you see any horses around here? Do I look like I know how to ride a fucking horse?”

That put a funny picture in Hyunjin’s head of her getting bucked off into a puddle of mud. And then a less funny picture of the same thing happening to him. He’s a city boy, through and through, and he won’t shy away from admitting that fault. Still, he shrugged and crossed his arms. “That’s, like, not the worst idea ever, actually. Georgia’s got tons a ranches n’ shit. 'Sure we could find something.”

“And take care of them how?”

Ahh. Fair.

Oh! Hyunjin grinned and rested his arms on the hood, an idea flooding his mind. “Bicycles, then! We could be like a biker gang, but just, like, not motorcycles, but cute bikes. We’d just need to make sure we had a spanner, and it’d be way easier to scavenge parts for a bike than a car. Easier than feeding a one thousand pound animal, too.”

Yeji snorted. “We’d look like the nerd patrol.”

“Well, yeah, but a cool nerd patrol.”

“That’s a misnomer. And it’s a better plan than Seungmin’s, but it also doesn’t help me right now.”

At Hyunjin’s helpless shrug, she turned back to the map, eyebrows furrowed. Then up again, towards some of the others in the distance. “Hey, Jeongin, can you and Hyunjin check out the gas station? Make sure it’s safe, see if there’s anything we can use.”

Jeongin had been sitting cross-legged on the ground, against a gas pump they’d already sucked dry for any drop of fuel. Black hair in smooth strands hung in front of his eyes. He was fitted in one of the stupid t-shirts Hyunjin found at the gift shop. Hyunjin’s gut tied itself into knots and ribbons when Jeongin stood up, stretched amorphously, and walked away bat in hand, without halting, without waiting.

“He still barely speaks to me,” Hyunjin stated, obviously, glaring at the woman who had essentially just signed his death warrant. “Or Jisu.”

“Well, I guess you'd better get on that, huh?”

Oh, cool. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. No free will. Hyunjin held her glare for a moment before puffing out his cheeks. There’d be no way to argue this, would there? Yeji smiling genuinely for the first time in a hot minute, a crooked, cocky grin, pleased with herself for this masterful plan, was proof enough of that.

Hyunjin walked over to the van door, slid it open, and rummaged through the mess of the backseat until he found his bag. His hunting knife was already on his hip—yes, Jisu made him throw away the hatchet at their earliest convenience, and yes, he’s still a little salty about it—so he just grabbed a flashlight and a gun. Emergencies only.

Ow. That made him flinch.

It was still a sore subject for, well, everyone involved. Fearing the what-ifs, the realities. People treaded on eggshells around the trio, scared that saying the wrong thing might make them break down, or fight, or something that they were all already too stressed to deal with. It isn’t even them being bad friends, it’s just . . . Well, everyone's depressed as shit, and the dead are walking, and therapy is out the window, so you need to pick your battles. And with Jeongin being, uh, the way he is at the moment, and survival's fast-paced and unforgiving nature, it isn’t a battle anyone wants to face. Or has the time to handle.

We all deal with our grief in our own ways. Denial, bargaining. . . Anger. Hyunjin flip-flops between them all without any rhythm or pace and chokes it back into the pit of his throat where it burns and tears and singes away any feeling left, and then he gets up and does his fucking best to grin and bear it. And that’s all he really can do right now.

Removing the blade from the sheath, Hyunjin pointed it at Yeji. “If he kills me, it’s your fault.”

“He won’t,” Yeji said, not bothering to look up.

Yeah. Okay.

Whatever.

On the way to the gas station doors, Hyunjin passed by Chaeryeong and slowed his gait for long enough to tell her to bully the map from Yeji’s iron-clad grip and make her nap or at least rest. She nodded quietly and peeled herself away from her doting girlfriend, Ryujin.

They’re cute. They also make Hyunjin’s heart warp into the green-eyed serpent of sickening envy, but that’s a story for another day. No, now's for facing his mistakes head-on. For making sure he only lost two friends that day, not three.

And into the station he went.

✦

Gas stations are a forgotten hallmark of liminal spaces, overshadowed by hotels and vacant parking lots, empty airports and playgrounds after dark.

They are eerie, aren’t they? In their own right. Honey traps dotted across long stretches of roads. Open 24 hours. Not often a place you seek out—only for gas, not to go inside—but where you end up after a seven-hour car ride cross-country. Tired and disheveled, disoriented and looking for the restroom, you walk in and leave with four souvenirs you don’t need and a bag full of snacks you won’t finish. Capitalism at its finest.

This effect has only worsened as the world has decayed.

Hyunjin had been standing in the candy aisle for three minutes, staring at the peeling paint and trashed shelves. Long enough, his eyes have gone out of focus, and all words and numbers are muddying together. He had no idea where Jeongin wandered off to or what he was doing, and he’s too busy remembering how to be a person to give it much thought.

How do you cope?

When the worst thing that could possibly happen happens. With the prolific loss of the universe. Can you really move on from that, just stand up and keep going? When less traumatic moments still sent those pre-apocalypse tumbling over the edge, now, with the worst of it all, you are left teetering, too jaded to fully feel.

It sticks with you, like a leech.

Or a tumor.

With time, you learn to live with it, or it will consume you whole.

Jeongin’s voice startled him out of his stupor as he left a back storage room with his arms quite literally full up. “Found some instant ramen that should still be good,” he said, clumsily trying to set down the mountain he’d amassed onto the checkout counter. Multiple shin ramen bowls and some bags of dried nuts, boiled peanuts, and dried fruits tumbled off either side, one bowl rolling a good seven feet away and under an upturned shelf. Jeongin watched it all unfold with a blank, defeated expression.

Hyunjin stifled a laugh.

With a long, long, deep sigh, exhaling every last drop of air from his lungs, Jeongin continued. “Granola bars, crackers, a fuckton of jerky. Pretzels.”

The toppled shelf wasn’t all that heavy, surprisingly, and Hyunjin could move it enough to grab the ramen bowl that rolled under it. He set it back on the counter and helped Jeongin pick the rest up, whistling low, impressed.

It wasn’t a lot, in retrospect. Just an armsful for thirteen- Hyunjin’s breath hitched. Eleven people, but they’d gotten used to less, shrunken stomachs and appetites, so this was a banquet in comparison.

“How was all this still here? This is, like, a capital h Haul.”

“No one ever checks the storage rooms; they just loot the main store and then hit the road.” Jeongin managed the smallest little smile in the whole entire world. “I mean, it’s so easy! Keys were on a dead guy back there, and it wasn’t full full, but not bad either, right?”

“Right.”

A thick, awkward silence settled between the two as they gathered up the food, hung heavy with words unsaid and thoughts churning in the whirlpools of their minds. When Hyunjin's bag was full, he thought about just turning and leaving when Jeongin broke the silence first. “I take it you found nothing?”

A shiver. Whether it be from cold or nerves, Hyunjin didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. “Nah, no, I was just, sorta . . . standing, in the candy section for a while.”

“. . .The candy section.”

“Yeah.”

Hyunjin sighed wistfully.

“I want garbage candy.”

Jeongin blinked. “Garbage candy?”

“Garbage candy,” Hyunjin affirmed. “You know, the shitty candy everyone avoids on Halloween. Twizzlers. Candy corn. Paydays. God, I would kill for a payday right now.”

A beat of silence. And then Jeongin broke out into laughter, eyes scrunched and mouth wide, foxlike, and Hyunjin’s heart swelled. “Oh, you’re so— hold on.” Jeongin ran off, back through the employees-only door, and a few loud crashes followed. “I’m fine! Just— ow! Hold on!”

O—kay?

Coming back, he pushed a small wrapper into Hyunjin’s hand.

“What.”

“I saw it back there when I searched, but it’s probably stale and dusty. Old chocolate.” Hyunjin stared down in awe at the payday, then back up at Jeongin, who barely tried to hide the look of judgment in his eyes.

“I love you.”

Jeongin scrunched his face. “Shut up and eat your gross candy.”

The wrapper fought back against Hyunjin’s fingers, him awkwardly fumbling with the pointed edges in such a way that anyone with a thing for losers would immediately be immensely turned on by him. Jeongin watched, smiling and enthralled, leaning up against the counter with his forearms crossed over each other and internally refusing to offer help unless Hyunjin submitted to the humiliating task of asking. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to, and his pride would be spared another day.

Eagerly, Hyunjin took a bite.

Woah.

That’s tough.

Is this what zombies feel like when they’re gnawing on bone? Hyunjin chewed, and chewed, and chewed, and chewed, and chewed, for ten millennia. Swallow. Processing. Processing.

“It’s. Not good.”

“Told you—”

“But it’s also not bad,” Hyunjin said, taking another bite. “Best candy I’ve had in years.”

“Only candy you’ve had in years,” Jeongin pointed out.

“Same thing.”

Two more bites into the Payday of Emotional Revelations and Maturity™ and Hyunjin stared at Jeongin thoughtfully, frowning. “Do you hate me?”

The air churned and shifted, distress calls flaring in Hyunjin’s nerves, pins and needles of flames blooming in his chest as Jeongin stared blankly, confusion and trepidation swirling in his wide eyes. A stutter, a stumble, stalled breath in the marrow of Jeongin’s soul. He looked away. “No, I don’t hate you.” It was said with such finality that it made Hyunjin’s blood chill. No, that’s not enough. Hyunjin needed more. Deserved it.

“You’ve been avoiding me, though. Me and Jisu.”

Jeongin huffed, covered his face with his hands, dragged them down over it, and then spoke again. “I have not been avoiding you—”

“Hiding, then?”

“No- what? I just, had to take time, time without you guys around, and—” Jeongin groaned loudly. “Well, fine, okay, I never thought of it as hiding from you, per se, but now that I am describing it out loud, it does bear all the hallmarks of hiding.”

Hyunjin waited with bated breath. That still wasn’t enough of a confession, and Jeongin knew it, as he waited on the stand, hand on the bible, whilst the jury loomed far above him, harsh shadows and dulled eyes prying, preying.

Jeongin avoided his friend's heavy gaze and began again.

“Hyunjin, I don’t blame you for firing the gun, not for that. I told you to, so we’re both culpable, and I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I pinned it all on you.” Jeongin turned his head fully away, looking behind the counter with his jittery, jumping eyes, unable to land on a single thing for long. When he spoke again, it was quieter this time, more to himself than anyone else. “I’m the one who found that stupid fucking map, anyways.”

Not for that. “So there is something, then?”

“I— look, you stopped me from going after them, you and Jisu both did, and now they’re gone.” He swallowed hard, running his sweater sleeve along his arm like that could fight back any oncoming tears. “And that’s not your fault, and maybe nothing would have changed, and maybe they aren’t dead at all.” A deep, uneven breath. Arms crossed over his chest. “But it still happened, and I needed space. Space to be mad.”

To grieve. Without watchful gazes or criticisms. Critiques on how he does. To be angry without lashing out, hurting anyone. But he should’ve told them. “You could’ve said that, you know. Instead of just shutting me out.”

Jeongin said nothing.

Shutdown felt imminent.

Hyunjin can admit, he isn’t always the best at handling things like this. He gets stubborn and scorned and bitter. That doesn’t tend to go over too well with people in serious conversations, apparently.

Unfortunately, being self aware doesn’t actually change or fix anything. It just makes you feel like an even bigger asshole without any respite. Hyunjin’s mouth dried.

Later, then.

“At least talk to someone, for my sake, or I’ll worry myself to death,” Hyunjin said, with a breathy laugh and small, trepid smile. An offering extended out across the fence line, an open hand, a peace treaty.

The air hung heavy. The sun glared through the foggy windows.

With a half smile back, Jeongin accepted.

Baby steps.

“That’s why I can’t talk to you. You worry too much.”

Jeongin wiped at his eyes again, and Hyunjin, for the boy's sake, chose to ignore the few tears that pricked in his corners. He wouldn’t want it pointed out, or a hug or anything right now, Hyunjin knew, and Jeongin appreciated the gesture, even if it wasn’t spoken out loud.

The bags were quickly looped onto Hyunjin’s arms, him making a big show of carrying as many as physically possible to get a laugh out of Jeongin. It worked, though it was laced thick with incredulity.

“Let’s go wow them with your scavenging prowess,” Hyunjin said, and then, as Jeongin opened the door for him, “Friends again?”

“You say that like we stopped,” Jeongin replied, guilt evident. “I . . . am sorry about that. Yeah, we’re friends.”

Success.

Hyunjin's mission to be friends with everyone ever at all times continues to be both possible to achieve and normal to want.

✦

Sitting on the concrete curb step of the grocery store, staring down the barrel of the hot sun, Hyunjin paid close attention to how it felt. The warmth, the peace, the solidity under his feet, the lukewarm water on his tongue. Their group had settled in small gatherings across the clearing to eat a little and drink a little more before setting off on the road again in search of salvation and freedom and nothing at all. It was more than welcome. Hyunjin had never been a conscriber of the nomadic lifestyle. Sitting still, basking, that suited him much more, he thought.

“Y’know,” he began, setting the plastic water bottle back down and leaning back on the palms of his hands, a catlike stretch in the light, “I’m not from the south, but my mom was, and growing up, I have, like, such vivid memories of her putting peanuts in Coke. Apparently it’s a whole thing here.” His head fell back limply, eyes closed as he basked in the sun, glowing yellow-orange liquidity spilling down his neck.

Chaeryeong smiled in a mouse-like manner, down on the road, cross-legged in front of a small, blue camping stove, eating instant noodles straight out of the pot. Her mouth was full, cheeks puffed out. “Oh, yeah, a homebaked southern tradition, that’s for sure. Salted peanuts and glass bottles—”

“It had to be glass bottles! No point otherwise,” Ryujin chuckled, arm around Chaeryeong's waist tightening lovingly, a back hug of sorts. She took another sip from her canteen and put the other arm around Chaeryeong to make her drink, too.

The two of them were among some of those in their friend group who were actually originally from the south, not just moving for the sights or traveling there for college. (Hyunjin was among the latter, going to the Savannah College of Art and Design with Felix, Seungmin, and Chan). Hailing from Mississippi, they grew up together, meeting in elementary school, and had been inseparable since.

Hyunjin looked over at Jeongin, fondly, who was quietly observing. Whose heat-flushed gaze averted quickly when Hyunjin met his.

Odd.

“Yeah, I, uh—” he looked away, gathering his thoughts back up with a clear of his throat, “I didn’t do it often, only as an occasional treat or whatever, but, like, I like doing it with paydays, the candy bar. Picking the peanuts out of the nougat—” he mimed the motion with his hands, “—and plop! Into the coke bottle. It gets, like, salty from the peanuts and kinda sweet from the nougat. And then, at the end, you can eat any left out of the bottle, all soaked in the cola. Delicious.”

“Sounds like it would rot your teeth out,” Chaeryeong said, eyes wide.

Jeongin snorted at that, rolling his eyes and shifting in his seat to face the gathering more head-on. “It would. It’s disgusting.”

“What, the whole tradition, or just my payday special?”

“All of it. You disgust me,” Jeongin replied, a playful grin pulling at his lips.

A pause. Chaeryeong, eyes still wide, in her own world, spoke softly. 

“I want it.”

Hospitable laughter echoed through the cluster, and a van rumbled to life with it, smoke from the exhaust pummeling up into the sky. Minho let out a whistle so sharp and loud Hyunjin flinched. “Leaving in five. Pack up your little gay parade and get over here,” he said, pointing. He was far enough away that it was impossible to tell who he was pointing to. “Ryujin, it’s your turn to drive the hatchback.”

Ryujin's eyes were squinted closed from the glare of the sun overhead, a hand over her head to shield them. Others were already talking amongst themselves as they clambered into the vehicles, supplies in hand. “Couldn’t have given us more warning?”

“To grab your noodles and the camp stove?”

She glared. As did Hyunjin.

“I mean, what are you, five?”

Ryujin scoffed. “Yeah. Five inches deep into your mom.”

Minho laughed with a shake of his head, climbing into the driver's seat. “Just hurry up. I don’t want to be still on driving shift when night comes.”

The three sprang to life—which is to say they stood up with tired groans and complaints and stretches and savored the last few moments of standing before being condemned to sitting in an ass-numbing car ride for god knows how long. And Hyunjin sat still for a moment longer, letting the sun flow into his stiff fingers.

✦

There came a moment, not 24 hours into the drive, when drivers had to be swapped, and thank the lord for that. One more swerve and Hyunjin would have had an honest-to-god heart attack.

While they did so, some others got out to stretch their legs. Hyunjin was not among them; he was far too tired to move.

Instead, he watched out the window as Ryujin and Chaeryeong took the time to stand and chat for a beat. They were separated across oceans during the first portion of the trip, not having enough seats to sit in the same car. A fate so tragic to befall two lovers. Chaeryeong had her arms lazily slung around Ryujin's waist, and they shared wide smiled, giggle-laced kisses passed back and forth like notes in the back of class, whispers only they understood. When Seungmin called for them to board up before he left their gay asses behind, Ryujin grabbed either side of Chaeryeong's face, squishing her cheeks, and covered her in ten million quick, silly kisses, until Chaeryeong had to physically push her off.

It’s not like they’d be separated this time. Ryujin bribed Yuna with a bag of ranch-flavored corn nuts to swap cars with her now that she was off driver duty. And yet, they still spent every moment together like they might never see each other again, which in this world, they might. But it was not mournful, not with hands held out of fear, but something else. Love, maybe. Happiness too.

Something about those two always filled Hyunjin with a feeling now as foreign to him as that of a full stomach.

Hope.

That maybe not everything was lost.

That maybe, someday, he could have what they have.

Chapter Text

Hyunjin couldn’t remember the last time he had a peaceful night of rest. Or, for that matter, the last time he slept on something that wasn’t the floor or against a car door.

In moments of scattered consciousness, he leaned his cheek against the cold glass and stared heavy-lidded at the scenery. Long stretches of rolling fields and sky-scraping forest dotted with the occasional fallow farmland or dairy ranch, grass a yellow-green and leaves growing orange, red, and yellow as the sun sleeps for longer and longer and chlorophyll breaks down. Much like road trips in his youth to visit extended family. But instead of seeing horses or cows outside or a herd of deer, now all that grazes in the fields of asphodel are lost, hungry spirits forever damned, their emancipated bodies and peeling skin sheen in the moon's glow.

At the sight of three tearing into what was left of some poor animal, half-hidden in the tall bluegrass and hay, Hyunjin screwed his eyes shut again, the granola bar from this morning curdling in his stomach.

You’d think his constitution would be stronger by now, after all this time around death and decay, but it really, really wasn’t.

Reaching down into the backpack below his seat, in the large front pocket, Hyunjin grabbed one of two paintbrushes. It didn’t matter which he got; it mattered only what they represented. He ran his calloused thumb over the hardened bristles, the smooth mahogany handle, a memory of a time when his hands were softer, gentler, careful and precise in each motion. The memory wrapped around Hyunjin like steam from a hot spring. His head felt hollow and airy and empty and light in all ways wrong and right as he exhaled deeply.

Sleep came quickly after that, though it’d leave just as fast.

It always does.

At least now, with paintbrush in hand, a weapon brandished against every night terror and cold sweat, he might be lucky enough to have no dreams.

Because no dreams are better than nightmares.

✦

“Fuck!”

Hyunjin awoke abruptly to the noise of Minho’s voice from the front seat, sitting up stiff as a corpse and knocking Jisu off his shoulder. He leaned back when he saw no roamers or strangers, though the tension never left, icy tendrils up his back like cold, damp river snakes coiling around the rivets in his spine.

There was a wet spot on his arm. He stared at it, then Jisu, in disgust, while the car chugged to an unsteady, unsettling stop on the side of the road, engine smoking.

“You drooled on me,” he said, drolly.

Jisu yawned, much less awake or alert than he, and rubbed at her eyes harshly until black staticy spots popped up in her vision. Minho slammed the van door behind him as he stormed to the front and popped the hood. The other car parked behind them, and a very concerned Ryujin stepped out from the driver's seat, shouting something incoherently at Minho.

Hyunjin continued to glare, despite the now-fading adrenaline in his system, not comprehending much of what was happening around him as more people awoke, more doors opened, more conversations commenced. Jisu managed a half-shrug-half-wave as she used her other arm to stretch out, bones popping and cracking at a sickening volume. She gave Hyunjin a nonchalant look up and down.

“When’s th— mmmhm, when’s th’ last time y’even washed that?” She jabbed a finger in between his 9th and 10th rib, at a brownish-red stain, to which he replied with a very composed, very elegant sound much alike to that of a strangled goose. “There’s worse, uh,” Jisu trailed off, blinking out of time like a frog, searching for the right words, or perhaps just losing her train of thought altogether.

“Worse. . . Liquids? On you.”

Hyunjin gagged. “That’s foul. Take that back.”

“No.”

A hand reached up and grabbed at the back of Hyunjin’s seat, and an even more disheveled-looking passenger appeared. Jisung. Eyes red rimmed and puffy; whole face puffy, for that matter, and hair fluffed up and pointing every which way. “Ughhh. Why are we stopped?”

Ah, good question. Finally, someone is asking the right ones. Jisu and Hyunjin looked at each other and made uniquely vague gestures that roughly translated to I don’t know, I just got here.

Jisung grumbled and disappeared back into the void of the farthest back seat.

Okay, this clearly isn’t a piss stop, Hyunjin realized as the grasp of dread climbed further up his neck, barely processing the smoke, the frantic talking, the rage. He unbuckled, opened the sliding door, and walked out to the front of the van, squinting his sleep-filled eyes at the breaking dawn over the horizon. God, it’s far too early for this—whatever this is.

“A whole party, and you didn’t invite me? What’s the occasion?” Hyunjin said, sounding much less humorous and much more groggy than he intended.

Minho didn’t speak, staring into the smoking engine with furrowed brows and his mouth drawn into a thin, straight line that said I’m not mad, just disappointed. This left the bad news to Ryujin to deliver, who smiled sympathetically at Hyunjin (and Jisu, who just appeared behind him, a blanket wrapped tightly around her frame like a wizard's cape) and said, “We’re walking from here on out. Sorry, guys.”

Groans amassed at once from those who’d just found out, already mulling over every car ride they’d taken for granted. “Fuckin, stupid piece of shit. . .” Minho sneered and ran a stressed hand through his hair. “Give me a minute. I swear I can figure this out.”

His words did not make waves so much as a ripple or splash as everyone was already pulling open doors and trunks to get out all their supplies or informing those who’d barely awoken of the solemn news (Jisung had never looked so crushed. Yuna, too). Seungmin gave him a pat on the back as he passed. “Try not to think too hard, old man. You’ll get gray hairs.”

Minho could not find it in himself to retort.

Walking was no glamorous affair, as it never is unless you’re on America’s Top Model. They walked and walked and walked and piked any stragglers they found half-eaten on the road, and then they walked some more, as the mellowing heat ripped at their skin and bore down deep into their bones. Oh, yes, it was autumn now, and winter not far behind as the uneven and uprooted dirt lay covered with decaying leaves. Many trees still stood tall and unwhithered, resilient pines. But the heat, that heat, never ceased.

Dead grew more frequent, or perhaps they were just more noticeable when not mere blurs flying past moving cars. Not enough to be concerned about. Enough to cause a hassle when Yeji insisted on piking everyone. It was for good reason—they didn’t want to be followed, didn’t want a horde to build, but still, Hyunjin’s muscles ached with every swing.

Blood and brain splattered on the pavement. Hyunjin swallowed hard.

A haunted forest won’t haunt itself.

“You gotta stop doing that.”

Hyunjin yelped, drawing the amused stares of more than one of his friends, walking past him, ahead of him. Jisu raised an eyebrow at him. He turned to her, heart racing. “Doing what?”

“Dissociating while staring at dead bodies.”

Hyunjin’s lip twitched. “Do I. . . do that a lot?”

Jisu gently tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, dragging him along with her. They were falling behind the others, thanks to his little moment. Any longer, and they’d get yelled at. “Enough that everyone knows it’s, like, a Thing with you.” She was still sporting her wizardly cape, i.e., a soft throw blanket with astronaut cats on it.

“Oh.” That’s utterly mortifying, to be frank. Embarrassing enough that Hyunjin wanted to run away into the woods and start a new life. The zombies would be kinder to him. They wouldn’t bully him while they picked the flesh off his bones. That’s because they have respect, unlike some people.

Hyunjin frowned.

He really does do that a lot, huh?

He’d bring it up with his therapist if his therapist weren’t dead.

“Hey, rocket man,” Jisu said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Are y’gonna stay up in space all day?”

“I think space is probably more hospitable than Earth right now, honestly.”

Man, why couldn’t he be in a sci-fi novel? Hyunjin could find romance in that. Being cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years before awakening in the arms of a tall, handsome stranger, with rippling muscles and tattoos and scars outside and in, who pulled him from the icy pod and showed him how to navigate the new world. They could go on adventures together, cybernetic hand in hand. Hyunjin could teach him the meaning of Christmas.

But, no, he got stuck with a shitty straight-to-DVD early 2000s zombie movie. Perfect.

“At least people can hear you scream down here.”

Hyunjin nearly stopped walking again at that one. This look of disgust was even harsher than the one this morning, hands held up in front of him, clenching as he cringed away from her. “Why you always gotta bring it to a weird place? Fuckin’ freak.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You are twice the freak I am.” Jisu bumped her shoulder against his, winking.

Hyunjin thought back on his cyborg dream man, bridal carrying him into the neon sunset. “Touché.”

Up ahead, raucous discussion broke out.

Arguments, more like.

Guess they’re all in the trenches today.

When a walker broke through the treeline ahead, the group's youngest, Yuna, was on it in two seconds flat, practically pushing Jisung to the ground to get to it before him. “Dibs!" She shouted gleefully, weapon in hand. She had a crowbar—and, yeah, Hyunjin was jealous of it—and nearly took the dead's jaw clean off with her first swing, the second introducing its forehead to its chin as it crumbled to the ground. She turned on a heel cockily, crowbar resting on her shoulders, her wrists on either end of it, and smiled at Jisung. “Thirty-two.”

Jisung (second place at forty-eight, Changbin leading with a clean even fifty) tried to look like he wasn’t threatened by how quickly Yuna jumped up the ranks once she joined in on their game. Oh, rest assured, she was pissed to find out this had been happening for weeks without her, and intended to wipe the floor with the two. “Please. That was easy pickings.”

Yuna tilted her head at him, walking backwards. “Oh yeah? Then how did I get it, and you didn’t? Are you that bad?”

“Nah, just goin’ easy on you.”

“What does that make Changbin, then?” She pointed to him with a jerk of her head, a few paces back, one headphone pushed off of his ear to make sure he didn’t miss anything important. Yes, this was another thing Hyunjin, and the entire group, for that matter, were intensely jealous of. Changbin’s Walkman. And, no, he would not share it, no matter how much you bribed him. He was fiercely protective of it. Territorial, too. Hyunjin would also be, if it were his, but that doesn’t make him any less annoyed at Changbin.

What?

He’s allowed to be a hypocrite sometimes, okay? He earned it.

“It makes me the only one here without a fragile ego,” Changbin said, snapping the headphones back over both ears to make a point.

The fragile egos in question made a series of very colorful gestures and remarks towards him in response.

“Ouch! Why’s everyone so catty today?” Jisu asked, laughing to herself. They were far enough back that she hadn’t been heard, or else she’d be dragged into their (continuing) squabbling.

“Walking,” Hyunjin said plainly.

“Ahh. That’ll do it.”

Speaking of which. “You okay, all this walking? We’ve been at it for hours,” Hyunjin said, concern now alight in his eyes. “I don’t think Ryujin or Changbin would mind carrying you, if you needed it.”

“No, no, I’m alright. We’ll just take a break soon.” She smiled. “I’ll be kind and gracious and let everyone use me as an excuse to sit down.”

Smart.

Hyunjin would appreciate it. He’s been overdue for a sit-down for two hours now.

✦

River water rushed swiftly down the jaded, weathered rocks of the strait. Bubbling, clear, and pearlescent. The scent of wet rocks and soil, fresh and mineral, rose in the air. It spun through the rosy light, a crisp, cold burn in the lungs of Hyunjin, on his knees, scrubbing dirt and blood stains from handmade, reusable bandages made from old shirts and jeans.

The wire sponge rubbed Hyunjin’s hands raw, red, and sore. Soapy runoff joined the frothing foam on the river's surface, cascading down jagged stones. Up, at an incline, Hyunjin huffed and hunched over the bank, letting his hands rest in the cool water for a second, the soothing waves lapping at his calluses.

Calluses were not a thing Hyunjin was used to. He’d been one for softer work. Drawing, painting. Tapping away sprawling lines and run-on sentences of half-formed poetry. Now, his fingers are rough, sharpened into weapons of survival, and it makes him sigh. Many a time ago, he would pick them off whenever they formed, unused to the feeling, but things did not go back to normal. Now he has to live with it.

Another sigh.

Back to scrubbing, with the vigor of an Amish boy with a washboard. It’s nice to have busy work, he’ll say. Nothing dangerous and not just walking for miles idly chatting. This gives him something productive to do with his hands, a repetitive motion allowing his brain to wander freely. About how, as much as he missed, say, doing laundry in a washing machine, maybe this wasn’t all that bad.

He complained about it back then, too. The effort of having to Uber to the laundromat and sit on his phone while everything he and his roommates owned was washed. And how he complains about this—sure, objectively worse, but the environment is nicer, isn’t it? The air is not polluted with constant traffic, the sky clear. He can ignore it all, if not for the dead. It puts him to work, keeps him busy, and Hyunjin needs more of that.

Again, he abandoned the wire sponge and the denim sash to the flat stone beside him, which he used as a staging area. There was a rather determined stain in the denim that refused to get out, and being hunched over the water for so long was killing his back. He stretched out, body wide up into the sky, cracking every finger and rolling his back to try and untangle the knots aching him to his core. Then he put his hands back into the water and splashed his face, running wet fingers through his tangled, long hair.

A system reset of sorts.

In the south, autumn takes longer to shake off the summer heat, and Georgia is no different in that respect. This made the cooling water running down in droplets on Hyunjin’s back a welcome change. He shifted his sitting position so that his legs were no longer folded beneath him, and took off his shoes and socks, abandoning them nearby while he rolled up his pants and lowered his feet into the cool stream. Something he learned, way back when, is that if you want to cool off fast, focus on your circulatory system, like veins and major arteries. An ice pack on your neck or a soda can straight from the fridge clutched in between your wrists. Ankle deep in an icy river. Works wonders every time.

Autumns in his youth were something he’d always miss. Up in Washington, when it got grey and drizzly, the rolling fog and mists settled on the forests, carrying up off the water. Then, it was cool, the air full of moisture and the sweet smell of rain's aftereffects, always there but never in a downpour. Just a constant sprinkle, and he’d walk down the sidewalks and stare at the wet patches in the shape of leaves that fell from the few deciduous trees lining the streets. That has always, in his mind and in his heart, been what autumn is, at its core. He missed that chill now more than ever.

Alas.

What surrounded him now would do, he supposed. At least the noises were soothing where the heat wasn’t. There were so many sounds around him, in fact, he found it hard to focus on one. The chirrup of birds, the babble of the creek. Two squirrels chasing each other back and forth across the bank. The snap of a twig behind him. Laughter in the distance. Wait, what?

Hyunjin squealed and scrambled awkwardly for a weapon before realizing it was just Jeongin. The boy furrowed his brows, bag over his shoulder. “You didn’t hear me walking up?”

He stood, framed by the still-standing foliage and bare tree branches, with visible tree roots at his feet. His head was tilted to the side, craned awkwardly below a branch, near smacking into his face before he pushed it out of the way. “No, yeah, I totally did. That’s why I just made a fool of myself,” Hyunjin said, face blank, before turning back to the river, closing his eyes and focusing on the feeling of the running water around his ankles, breathing deep.

That’d been happening more and more recently. Gaps in hearing. Hyunjin was decidedly not a fan, and even less so of the assumptions everyone came to that he was just zoning out. Jeongin walked forward, stifling a cough, and dropped the bag limply behind him. He took two seconds to shake off his shoes and socks before wading confidently into the shallower part of the bank. “Well, you’re lucky I wasn’t a walker.”

Duh, Hyunjin thought.

He decided to keep it an inside thought.

Instead, he quietly opened his eyes and watched Jeongin curiously. He was wearing a loose, white tank top and camo pants he’d cut into shorts, ending just above his knees. The water rose up calf-high, and he leaned down to wet his hands and run them over his neck and face, rolling his neck so he faced the sky. Nimble fingers ran through his hair, down his scalp, and then rested on his neck. Hyunjin suppressed a snort. “What’d you come down here for? To give me a show?”

Jeongin pulled a face, some sort of pained cringe. “Don’t be weird.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s really not,” Jeongin said, smiling.

Hyunjin leaned forward, forearms on each of his thighs, returning the smile and squinting against the glare of the sun. “Not even a little?  Teensy, tiny bit?”

Kicking out his leg, Jeongin sent a stream of water flying towards Hyunjin. It did not reach him, but the intent did, and Hyunjin threw his head back with a loud laugh like bells. Then Jeongin stretched again, less arrogantly than before, and sighed before bending back down to wet his hair. “They were giving me a headache. Bickering and yapping, just going on and on. Swear their words would give me heatstroke fore’ the sun did.”

“Guess we aren’t all adapting to walking well.”

Jeongin laughed to himself, trudging through the water and only barely catching himself when he slipped on a rock. Arms out to either side, teetering wildly before he straightened himself out. He looked at the pile of cloth by Hyunjin. “Do you need any help?”

“No,” Hyunjin said, having already made peace with the fact that there was only so much he could do to get them sorted. “They’re clean. They just are also going to look gross forever.”

That pulled another chuckle from Jeongin, who continued wandering aimlessly through the creekbed, clumsily tumbling over rocks here and there. Wow. He really must not have anything better to do. “Do you need any help?” Hyunjin tilted his head to the side coyly, shoulder up against his cheek, wispy strands of hair falling over his eyes. 

Jeongin huffed. “What?”

“You’re about to fall in ass first.” Hyunjin bit his bottom lip, shielding his smile. “I just can’t get how you’re fully walking in there.”

“What, scared the crawdads are gonna getcha?”

Hyunjin kicked water back at Jeongin. “I am not scared of no damn crawfish!” A lie. His mom used to tell him they’d get him if he stayed up past his bedtime. The day Hyunjin found out they were real and not just a mythical creature conceived to scare children was one for the history books, that’s for sure. That fear has chased him to this very day. Yes, even though the dead are walking. Leave him be, won’t you? “I’m just not in the mood to get bitten or stung or-”

“Pussy.”

Another arc of water as Hyunjin grabbed the most nonthreatening, but hefty, rock near him and chucked it at Jeongin. It splashed in the river beside him, flecking pearls of water over his legs. A vengeful, mischievous spirit lit up in Jeongin’s narrow eyes, and he walked over to Hyunjin, smiled, then reached down to grab his wrists and pull him into the river.

Hyunjin stumbled into standing, spluttering out complaints. He recovered fast, zeroing in on Jeongin, form shaking with laughter, and lunged. Arms against his chest, Hyunjin pushed him down, only to again be caught by the wrist and tugged down along with him, immediately learning the consequences of his actions as the two unceremoniously fell into the river.

Well, that’s one way to cool off!

Jeongin had not stopped cackling. He sat with his palms resting on the uneven ground, straight, water lapping up to his chest, hardly able to see through his laughter. Laughter so hard he broke into a coughing fit after.

Hyunjin, on the other hand, was not satisfied and splashed Jeongin directly in the face. His hair flattened to his head, damply sticking to his forehead and over his eyes, and he spat water that got into his mouth before resuming coughing and painfully clearing his throat. Better.

“Are you pleased with yourself?” Jeongin asked, eyes open different amounts, squinting from the water and the sun.

Let’s see. Hyunjin’s clothes had been transformed through the power of water into sensory hell traps of his own making, sticking heavy to his skin. Sopping wet, and no matter where he sat his hands they’d touch something unsavoury, like algae, for example. Hyunjin hummed to himself in thought, then fixed his eyes back on Jeongin and smiled. “Very.”

Jeongin kicked more water into Hyunjin’s face.

He sputtered and flinched away so hard he almost fell back into the water. A million complaints, curses, and insults tumbled from his mouth while Jeongin fought every argument with an annoying grin, despite his struggle to pull himself up.

“Fucks wrong with you two?” A new voice from across the river where they came. Minho, who’d just walked through the brush to get some water, barely caught the tail end of their altercation.

Hyunjin pointed at the now-standing Jeongin. “He started it.”

“Oh, my god,” Minho groaned to himself. Not today. He refused to entertain this today. He chuckled to himself and shook his head while he pushed through the tangled tree branches and leaves, deciding to just ignore the pair while he headed up the river more, to small waterfalls and divots in the rocks.

Jeongin offered a hand down to Hyunjin. It was accepted with much hesitation and suspicion, but accepted nonetheless, and he was shakily pulled to his feet. Jeongin took a moment to pick a few small twigs out of Hyunjin’s hair, still clearing his throat.

“You alright?”

“Laughed too much,” Jeongin replied.

Minho readily filled his canteen higher up in the stream until it overfilled. They were taking enough time here, at this grove, to purify a few bottles' worth of water. It could never be said when they’d find more, fresh or otherwise, and you could never really have too much. Dehydration will kill you quicker than the walkers.

Jeongin shook some of the water out of his hair like a wet dog, huffing. Hyunjin pulled away from him with a childish expression, tongue stuck out, while he returned to his seat at the river's edge. This left Jeongin to turn his curious gaze towards Minho. “You know, I heard you could just drink water from a river or whatever if it was running.”

Closing the lid tight and returning it to his waistband, Minho chuckled.

Oh, here we go.

Jeongin had opened the floodgates.

“This one time,” he began, walking to the bank by Hyunjin and crouching down, “I was out hiking with a couple of guys from school. Not on a trail or nothing, just through the woods behind my house. For a few hours, I think? We stopped by a little stream like this and one of them, big burly guy, he was,” Minho said, gesturing with his hands to really get across the size of the man, “cups a handful of water to drink.”

Minho grabbed a twig and started poking at small, loose rocks in the river. They’d dislodge from the murky brown mud, swirling the water a disavory color. “He’s bragging like you wouldn’t believe, too. It’s clear he thinks he’s the smartest person there, and he wants everyone to know it. I tried telling him not to, but at a certain point, y’gotta let dumb people do dumb shit. Only way they’ll learn.”

With the water now disturbed, he lowered his hand gently into the bank, letting an emerging spawn of tadpoles wiggle through his fingers and dart over his palm while he watched it with a gentle smile.

Over Minho’s bowed head, Hyunjin and Jeongin exchanged a bemused glance. There was always joy to be brought at Minho’s stories of youth. Anything from life lessons to ones that brought up genuine ethical concerns about his upbringing and what he got up to. He was like a dad, randomly dropping tales of trauma while driving you to school and then never elaborating further, no matter how much you prodded.

He doesn’t tell when you ask, so these lore drops, they had to be savored.

The corners of his lips curled into an impish grin. “We walked on up further the trail,” Minho said, barely hiding the beginnings of laughter tinged with the twang that always emerged when he talked about home, “and there, bout a mile from where he drank, was a full-grown buck, dead and rotting in the water.”

Oh!

Hyunjin gagged, scrambling away from the water and shaking as much off of him as he could. “Dude, what the fuck?!”

Inversely, Jeongin stared, silent and eyes wide, a smile of befuddlement and horror hugging his high cheekbones. It only served to make Minho laugh louder, continuing unperturbed, “Lord, have mercy, I wish y’all could’ve seen his face! Only time I saw someone throw up faster was when Hyunjin had the flu, and I said one of my favorite foods is venison heart.”

Uurp!

“Sorry!” Minho wheezed out, standing. “I really wish you’d let me make it for you sometime, though, it’s a delicacy-”

“Oh, dude, you gotta shut up, or I’m aiming at you,” Hyunjin groaned, arms braced on a tree as he stared intently at a beetle scuttling between his firmly planted feet. Eugh. He’d have to wash himself off in the stream again. If his stomach would allow him.

Jeongin let out his own chuckle as he waddled back to shore, crouching on a rock and drying himself off as best as possible. “Hey, I don’t mean to torture you,” Minho said, patting Hyunjin reassuringly on the back and trying in vain to stifle his laughter. “I’d walked up and down this river when we stopped, didn’t see nothin’ unseemly. Still better to be safe.” Minho’s eyes flickered between the two of them. “If rotten corpses don’t get you, the brain-eatin’ amoebas will.”

“Thanks, dad,” Jeongin replied, shooting Hyunjin a mirthful, yet sympathetic, glance. Then he crinkled his eyes. “Hey. Hyunjin.”

If history proves anything, it’s that he is about to say something awful.

“Mmm- Mhm?”

“You’re my favorite brain-eating amoeba.”

Bastard. “Why must you always be so cruel to me when all I do is love you unconditionally."

Minho slung his crossbow and bag back over his shoulders, muttering to himself and counting on his hands. A smile bloomed across his face at the sound of their laughter and bickering.

Music to his ears.

Chapter Text

Parents tend to have an even bigger impact on their children than they realize. This is because, even when they are not directly interacting with or parenting their children, they are still being watched and subsequently copied. Every little action they make, every movement, is harshly scrutinized, analyzed under a microscope. For any sign of hypocrisy, but also for anything to be followed. Mimicry, done subconsciously. Now, while this phenomenon is most common in familiar relations, it is not exclusive to it. Any situation with, say, a leader, is bound to follow a similar trend with the younger members of their pack.

That is how Yeji and Jeongin, independently, suppressed shared illnesses they’d picked up in the elements from days and days of travel until they fainted within a mere twenty minutes of each other.

Camp was set up in the woods, far enough from the road that it could no longer be seen. The one tent they had became the designated Sick Tent, and everyone else made do with sleeping bags and makeshift beds on the cold, hard ground.

It took forever to get a fire going; most of the wood they found was damp, and by the time they had, the stress was so high it caused Chaeryeong to have a full meltdown. Sensory overload. Hardly able to speak, she hit herself in the head twice and declared that she needed to be alone before disappearing into the dark of the trees, not even letting Ryujin follow.

Jisung left, too. Ahead, to the town they found nearby, to scout. For medicine, for water, for shelter. For anything. It would be too dangerous for them to all go, anyway, carrying the sick on their shoulders, unknowing of what threats may lurk in the shadows. This was something Jisung excelled at. Getting in and out of places undetected, even when without the cover of night.

He could be very, very quiet when he wanted to be. Like when they first met him, walking away with half of their food supply.

Good times.

Better times, in many ways.

Maybe things were worse then, technically, but at least they were all together, right?

Hyunjin sat so close to the campfire that it nearly singed him, and he pushed back, drawing his knees up to his chest. Into the flame, like a kaleidoscope, Hyunjin stared. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for in the shifting colors and shapes. Maybe for something that made sense. Something science could explain.

He only saw embers.

“I got them both to drink water,” Yuna murmured, ducking her head under the tent flap and zipping it half closed behind her, “but they still aren’t keeping down food. Jeongin won’t even try to eat.”

“Are they conscious?” Hyunjin picked his head up, resting it on his knees.

“Kinda? Yeji more than Innie, but it’s, like, fleeting.”

Ah. Hyunjin put his head back down. The sounds of the world enveloped him; everyone was so quiet and tired, it made everything else loud. Ryujin’s frantic pacing to the right of him, respecting her girlfriend's wishes and trying to pretend like it wasn’t driving her mad with fear to do so. Yuna, who sat near to Hyunjin by the fire, poking at burning embers with a metal rod, was gearing up to find more viable firewood at Seungmin’s request. To stop the already low flames from dying out.

“Well, since everyone else is afraid to say it for some reason,” Minho began, moving from his spot against a tree, where he’d been sharpening his hunting knife, to join the others by the fire, “I will.” He crouched down by Seungmin on the tips of his feet, palms outstretched to try and capture any warmth he could. ”I miss Chan and Felix.”

A somber mist fell over all those present and awake. Some muttered quiet agreement; others remained silent. Hyunjin was among the latter, lifting his head and staring into the crackling flames, eyes unfocused.

The topic flowed along with Minho’s words, people sharing stories about the two, pre- and post-apocalypse. The void of their presence was felt like rot in a wound, like an exposed nerve in the hollow gap where your tooth used to be that you can’t stop bothering. You can see it in how they tell it. The wide smiles of those licking their wounds like a beaten dog, nursing themselves to health and walking forward, naught but a limp left behind, and the soft breaths of those picking at the scab over and over and over until the wound festered and grew and scarred so that they might never forget how much it once hurt.

They sit across the table from each other and judge each other for their ways to cope. But it is all the same in the end. Blood, tears, grief. Haunting and hoping they never stop being haunted. In fondness and in agony. In embracing grief with a lung-crushing hug or running from it until it finds you on a sunny day.

Love tender like a bruise.

As his head grew sore, Hyunjin could feel the weight of Minho’s gaze on him.

“You know that isn’t a dig at you, right?”

Hyunjin blinked slowly, the afterimage of the fire remaining even when he closed his eyes. “I—” He looked up at Minho and then away again, intimidated by his unwavering stare. “What?”

“I can miss them without holding anyone responsible. I don’t have to blame you to be sad they’re gone. You do know that, right? It’s important to me that you know that.” He narrowed his eyes further. “That no one blames you. None of you who were with them that day.”

Hyunjin isn’t so sure of that. Minho can’t speak for everyone. But he still agreed, a quick nod of his head and the implication of a thank you. Only an implication. Nothing uttered, nothing breathed. He won’t thank someone for something he doesn’t believe. Can’t, rather.

All he could truthfully thank him for was speaking softly enough that no one other than Seungmin seemed to hear.

Minho didn’t look away. Just stared, unblinking, unbelieving. An argument ensued within himself about whether it would be productive to continue this right now. It was decided that, no, it wouldn’t be, and he stood quick, his knees cracking. “I’ll go find Chaeryeong, make sure she’s okay.”

Ryujin made move to follow immediately, but Minho stopped her. “Oh, so you can go, but I can’t? After my girlfriend? ”

“I know what she’s going through firsthand. It’ll be better if I go alone.” Though often, Minho’s demeanor can come off as cold or even rude if you don’t know him, expressions never giving much away, it couldn’t be further from the truth. He cared more than anyone. Cared so much it hurt like a gaping wound in his chest. That’s how the love got in and how it gets out, too. “Trust me.”

In typical Minho fashion, he was gone before anyone could say another word.

Ryujin groaned exasperatedly, sitting down hard and resting her head in her hands. Then, after a moment of thought, decided she didn’t give two fucks if she trusted Minho, and was after him the next.

This left Hyunjin with Seungmin. And for some reason, Hyunjin felt afraid of what he could say, so as soon as Yuna returned with a bountiful harvest (two logs and a couple of twigs), he escaped away to salvation.

Salvation, in this instance, being the Sick Tent.

Jeongin and Yeji were close together, the girl half awake and half sat up, staring dull-eyed at nothing with one hand folded neatly in her lap and the other resting on Jeongin affectionately, fingers running over the folds in his clothes. She regarded Hyunjin with mild interest, hardly moving when he crawled into the tent and sat down on the other side of Jeongin.

“Everyone alright out there?” She croaked, her voice hoarse. Slow, heavy-lidded blinking.

Hyunjin responded by softly tilting her head back with one hand and making her drink some water. “They’re fine. Don’t worry yourself right now.”

“Impossible.”

“Let someone else take care of things for a change.” Hyunjin situated himself diagonally, legs crossed, lifting Jeongin’s head as though he were a fragile glass bird and resting it on his lap. “Look, I can watch him, okay? Please try to get some sleep.”

“And if I don’t?” Yeji said, already sliding down to a lying position, eyes fluttering closed.

“I’ll, I don’t know, hold a pillow over your face until you stop kicking.”

“Mmm. That’s nice.”

She fell asleep fast after that.

✦

“Minho’s right, you know. About what he said earlier.”

Hyunjin didn’t turn to look at Seungmin as he entered the tent. He probably needed to grab something, food to heat up, or spare water, or. . . Something. That did not warrant a turn.

When no response was made, Seungmin sighed, loud and heavy, and after a few seconds of rifling through bags, stood to leave again. That’s when Hyunjin spoke. Like sharing something heavy right at the end of your therapy appointment, so you don’t have to face it. (Hyunjin was a professional at doing this.)

“If I hadn’t froze, I wouldn’t have had to shoot. And they’d still be here.” Hyunjin ran his fingers through Jeongin’s hair, now, soft despite the tangles, which he worked out with his fingers. “But I got scared .” He spat it like the word was venom on his tongue.

Seungmin paused at the doorway for so long that Hyunjin couldn’t even be sure he was still there.

Finally, finally, something. “Fear is not a weakness, it’s strength. It’s what keeps us all alive.” Another sigh. “Don’t allow your guilt to discount that.”

And then he left.

That’s what no one seemed to get, Hyunjin realized, cradling the sickly head of his friend in his lap, bound by the same sin.

He wants it to be his fault. Needs it to be.

How is he supposed to fix it otherwise?

✦

“Hey. Loser. Get up.”

The past few hours of rising sun, Hyunjin had been on and off awake, ignoring the brightening sky shining in through the mesh skylight and red clothed roof. It was only fitting that Jisung would be the final nail in the coffin, crashing his pleasant dreams—a literal rude wake-up call. Hyunjin groaned, eyes screwed shut so that all he could see was a staticky deep-red, and curled further around the small boy clung to his abdomen, protectively. Jeongin had his head pressed just below his chest, arms loosely around him. Hyunjin mumbled a quiet no and tried to grasp onto the fleeting sleep clouding his brain.

Jisung, arrogantly, had other plans for him, and shook his shoulder until he finally sat half up, hair pressed to his face and eyes barely open. “Fuck you.”

“Please, I’m just flattered, really, but you gotta come with me.”

Hyunjin pouted and looked down at Jeongin, face scrunched and forehead gleaming with a fever's sweat. “I don’t wanna leave my baby.”

“Baby will be fine! I scrounged up some medicine.”

Thank the fucking lord for that. Any longer without medicine, and they could take a turn for the worse, and Hyunjin wasn’t ready to write an eulogy. This woke him up, and he carefully, very carefully, peeled Jeongin off of him, returning him to his pillow. “What kinds?”

“Oh, dude, I don’t fucking know. I just grabbed anything that looked useful and threw it in a bag. Seungmin seemed pleased, so that’s good enough for me.” It would be too much to ask for everyone and their mothers to tell the difference between antibiotics. Not even Hyunjin knew that (hey, the least you can do is act surprised.) “Now, c’mon, get up, I am recruiting you for a super-secret-top-secret mission.”

“And this mission is?”

“I told you! Top secret.”

“Well, yeah, no, I got that, but—”

Yep. He already left the tent.

Bitch.

Never a moment of rest these days, is there? Hyunjin complained internally and even out loud in moments, clipped and muttered through gritted teeth while he gathered his things. He was pulling a semi-clean shirt over his head as Changbin entered, plastic bag in hand. “Medicine?” Hyunjin asked, buttoning up a pink flannel over a bare, white shirt.

“Medicine,” Changbin confirmed, shaking the bag, the rattling of various assorted pill bottles filling the air to back him up.

Good. One less thing to worry about, hopefully.

Outside, the crisp morning cold snapped at Hyunjin. The south's winters weren’t as bad as where he grew up, so this was bright and sunny to him. A fire crackled low, eggs popping on the camp pan, burning dangerously hot overhead, Minho tending to it diligently. Some slept soundly, others, hardly awake, brushed at their hair or washed their faces and clothes in the small stream nearby while cold-friendly birds chirped and fluttered overhead, joyful songs of courtship carrying across the vast woods. If one didn’t know any better, it looked like a college friend group's spring break camping trip. Peaceful for once in a long time.

Minho regarded the pair with little interest, not looking away from the fire. “Not gonna wait for breakfast?”

“Nope! Sorry, babe, we’re in a bit of a hurry. Got a full day ahead of us!”

This was news to Hyunjin, of course.

Speaking of Hyunjin, he was mouthwateringly close to already abandoning his post for the promise of sweet, sweet food. “Breakfast?” he said wistfully, over-exaguratedly reaching his hand out, like a war widow for her long lost love, while Jisung grabbed his other hand and pulled him with him out of camp.

“Nope, no time, you can have jerky or somethin’.”

Minho snorted at the sight, turning back to the pan with a shake of his head. “Suit yourselves.”

“Wait, wait, wait, Minho! Guess what?!”

Minho looked up again, his face expressionless. “Hmm?”

Before letting himself be swept away, fully, Hyunjin pointed two finger hearts in his direction with a wink and a cute smile, posing ostentatiously. “I love you!”

This made Minho scrunch up into a closed-mouth smile that was equal parts flummoxed and delighted, and bark out a quiet, confused laugh. “Pff— I— I love you more, dork.”

Satisfied, Hyunjin finally, semi-willingly, let Jisung lead him off to. . . somewhere.

Chapter Text

“So?”

Jisung blinked himself back into reality. “Wuh?”

“So, what’s this mission you got me waking up at the ass crack of dawn for?”

“Terrible imagery aside,” Jisung said, “I found a place, a really good place, I think.” He was always a very animated talker, hands moving faster than his mouth, which moved faster than his brain, not even bothering to look where he was going. “It’s big, plenty of room, big fences. But, like, I didn’t want to go in alone and get chomped, y’know?”

Hyunjin carefully took his arm as they walked and guided him back onto the path, nodding knowingly. “You’re too pretty to be a zombie.”

“It’s true!”

“Such a ruggishly handsome face would just be wasted on a corpse.”

“Careful! Compliment me too much and I’m gonna think you’re fucking with me. Or I’ll kiss you. Which ever comes first.”

Hyunjin batted his eyelashes at Jisung. “Promise?”

The trees thinned out, giving way for a more real dirt path, the beginning (end, for them) of a hiking trail. Ahead, through the trees, they could see the dawn-darkened residential streets past a line of unkempt parks. Worn houses with blue shingled roofs. Most single-story, many trailers here and there, collapsing inward and ripping apart at the seams. Jisung pushed Hyunjin away from him with some sort of amalgamated screech-cackle. They play fought under the rising light filtered through the bare-bone tree leaves still holding on, and then quieted down when the tree line stopped short. They climbed over a backyard fence and crouched down for cover behind it. The sound of mulling dead filled the air as they stumbled down the road. 

“For real, though. That’s why I had to recruit you, the only other person stupid enough to do this.” Voice hushed, waiting for the flash flood to pass. “You and Minho.”

“Oh, so I was your second choice?”

“Nooo! I wanted y’all both, but Minho was busy!”

It was really, very hard not to giggle at Jisung's passionate defense, finger held out in typical Han fashion. In fact, he did, some, but then covered his mouth and shushed Jisung. An emanciated straggler, lagging behind, turned its head to look at the fence. Unblinking, cloudy eyes, cobwebbed cataracts crawling across its pupil. Its bottom jaw was fully torn off, the tattered remains of a tongue hanging down, dangling right above its Adam's apple.

The vacant stare never landed, and eventually the zombie bored of waiting for a noise, and stumbled around, back after its pack. They’d found a stray dog to eat, and it wouldn’t want to miss out on its share of the feast.

“Eugh,” Hyunjin groaned, covering his face.

“Poor pup. . .”

Though it was a few feet out, the sound of their feasting still echoed in the early morning air. Reverberated in Hyunjin’s chest. The crack of bones, the squelch of flesh pulled thin through patchy fur. Hyunjin could almost feel the grit like gravel between his molars, tendons caught on his canine teeth, between them. The blood, the rotted flesh, filling his mouth, his throat. He watched through his fingers, the need to expel the nothing in his stomach growing more and more, when Jisung came to the rescue, linking their arms together and dragging him to the other side of the yard.

“We need to go this way,” he said, pushing open the gate painfully slow, afraid of it creaking on its rusted hinges, “further into town. That’s where the mall is.”

Eternally grateful for the distraction, to be moving on, Hyunjin took deep, slow breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth. This is fine. I am NOT eating rotted dog meat. I am Perfectly Fine. He scrunched his nose, still staving off the waxing and waning nausea in his stomach. “A mall?”

“Eyup!”

“And you think this is a good idea, why?”

There was a phenomenon that, over the years, had been dubbed High Impact Zones, or, alternatively, Dead Zones by survivors. These were the places that were hit the hardest on D-Day. Anything involving first responders, for example. Hospitals the most. Before total collapse, they were overflowing with people, bodies in bags, the sick on the floor being tended to by volunteers because staff were either swamped or infected themselves, supplies running low, and space even lower.

And when they started turning? It was a bloodbath, and most have never been cleared out, dead clogging the arteries of their hallways and basements so heavily that to try and enter would be a death wish. Better to avoid, unless in emergencies, and at all costs, never engage with the infected.

You don’t want to wake up a horde.

Other High Impact Zones are any areas with dense populations, either in general (i.e., cities) or ones that tend to have high traffic.

Malls, for instance.

“When I was scouting it out, I didn’t see that many vagrants. Only a few, I think, but like, I want to be smart about this. Just in case. That’s why you’re with me.”

They were following along Magnolia Street, away from the downtown area (downtown was a no-go, Jisung said, and that’s all he said.) It’s closer to the suburbs, with some other businesses that wouldn’t fare as well elsewhere—larger than what you’d expect for a town, but this town was not small by any means, and it was probably the same mall used by citylivers an hour's drive out. 

It took an hour or so for Hyunjin and Jisung, the sun now well in the sky, to get there by walking.

Skyscrapers of a city nearby dotted the skyline just before a series of deeply forested mountains. Through a freeway littered with parked and crashed cars, trucks, and semis, garbage blowing in the light breeze. Hyunjin piked any walkers he came across, slow-moving and starved to the point they no longer knew how to be alive, how to hunt, and ducked his head into every open car window they passed (despite Jisung’s complaints). He never found much, but years of survival burned into him like a hot iron taught him that nothing searchable should be passed up.

When they reached a sort of crossroads, instead of following the billboards and road signs pointing right into the large, offshoot plaza cluster of businesses and buildings, the in-between of where they came from and the city, Jisung silently motioned for him to follow off into the unkempt bushes going in an upward slope.

Didn’t want to be seen by any undesirables.

Call Hyunjin a diva, a princess, but he did not feel comfortable this close to a metropolis area, the threat of a wandering horde always looming over his head. And he was getting pretty fucking tired of clawing his way through the wilderness like some sort of animal. It always ended the same way: goatheads in his boots, stickers in his pants, and scratches all over.

At least they weren’t in Texas anymore. If he tripped into one more goddamned yucca, he would’ve ended up killing everyone he knew and then himself.

Hyunjin had been distracted swatting bugs out of his hair when Jisung held out an arm, stopping him where the path rolled down into an endlessly stretching parking lot, nearly as full of cars as the freeway. Jisung whistled to himself, proud. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

With Jisung’s penchant for overdramatizing things, taking even the smallest stuff and blowing it to larger-than-life proportions (a trait Hyunjin actually loved about him), Hyunjin was shocked to behold the spectacle that was the Pineridge Mall.

The colors, which once must’ve been bright and eye-catching to those driving by, were now dull and muted, browns and stark bone white and pale yellow crosses adorning the curved entrance sign on the main doors. Many of the windows were shattered and shoddily patched up with corrugated steel sheets, and from their far view, Hyunjin could get a glimpse of hanging fluorescent lights, teetering from the ceiling over broken glass and trashed furniture and rubble. More distinct than this, though, Hyunjin’s eyes were drawn to the sheer size of it. It was no outlet mall, that’s for sure.

The bigger the place, the more death, Hyunjin had found.

The dead did lumber, only a few, crawling between and under cars. Hyunjin watched them with growing unease, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “And you are sure there’s no infestation?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally. I’m positive. Like, seventy-two percent positive.”

“Mmm. Gotta be honest, man, that is not reassuring to hear.”

Jisung smiled at Hyunjin with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and then armed himself and took a step forward. He slid down the hill and immediately took cover behind the nearest car. One blink, and the closest zombie to him dropped, a knife embedded in its skull. Then he cast a lazed glance back to Hyunjin, waiting expectantly, impatiently.

What in the world Hyunjin was gonna do with him, he had no idea.

With much less grace than Jisung, taking more care in going down the slope, Hyunjin joined him at the mouth of the parking lot, pistol in hand. The mall loomed over them with imposing stature, curdling Hyunjin’s blood. He worried with the loose skin on his lip, still feeling bad about this whole endeavor, despite Jisung’s assurances that they’d be fine.

Hyunjin stared at the silent, calculating Jisung. There’s a reason he always ended up being the one sent out scavenging and scouting. He took it deathly serious. Enough so to scare half of them senseless. “What now?” Hyunjin asked, not wanting to lose the boy to his thoughts and machinations before he set a plan in action without running it by him first.

“No guns,” Jisung said, eyes not leaving the mall.

Emergencies only. Hyunjin swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, both to agree and to shake away the storm clouds forming in his head. He slid his pistol back into its holster and took out his knife. “No guns.”

Jisung pointed with his head. “You go right, take out the two there, I’ll go left. We can curve up to the side of the building,” he said, gesturing with two fingers to where the chain-link fence connected to another on a side yard. “Meet at that hole in the wire and sneak through. One of those doors has to be unlocked.” Less obvious than entering through the main doors. Quieter, too, so if there were a slumbering horde in its breadth, they wouldn’t wake it up being clumsy.

“Got it?” Jisung regarded Hyunjin with a crooked smile. Of course, this is fun for him. Freak. Usually, Hyunjin would be right there with him, but recent. . . escapades sucked dry his ability to turn things into games. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt because he was goofing around. Not again. Everything, even the most simple of ideas, had to be treated like they were life and death. Because they were.

“Got it,” Hyunjin replied, not waiting for the firing of the starting pistol to start towards the nearest straggler, sunbaked and waving in the stale air.

It turned its neck painfully slow, the low click, click, click of its weathered bones filling the air with sickening certainty while it stumbled around to face the approaching survivor. Living and dead, staring each other down. What it used to be, what he will someday be. Hyunjin kicked out its leg, bringing it down to its knees, and stabbed it dead center on the crown of its skull. Easy.

The next was a little fresher, a little faster, with thicker skin on its arms and legs, which were visible under its short, frayed clothing. It stumbled determinedly towards Hyunjin, who side-stepped it with ease, his blade finding home in the bony spot right behind the zombie's ear. It crumbled to the ground only a few paces from the other. Hyunjin looked at them with pity.

“I give you mercy,” he said.

Hyunjin turned back towards Jisung, a couple of cars away, picking his blades out of the skulls of the dead. He opened his mouth to give the all clear when Jisung fell to the ground, out of sight, with a scream. Loud, surprised, panicked.

Fuck.

“Ji?!” Hyunjin called out, sliding through the thin space between two cars. A standstill, stalled breath, as another scream resounded. The sound of something being kicked? No easy path revealed itself to Hyunjin in his fright, none that would lead to the fallen boy quickly, so he made a calculated decision, spur of the moment.

Which is to say, a stupid one.

He threw himself onto the roof of a car, praying that no car alarm would go off from his weight, and scrambled to stand before jumping to the next, then sliding down into the gap where Jisung disappeared. Deja vu electric shocked his system at the sight of him on the ground, kicking off a very fresh, very aggressive viral that had latched onto his leg. It scraped and gnawed at his tough, black boots, trying to climb up him, snapping its unharmed jaw, spilling the bile of freshly-turned innards over his pant leg.

Jisung kicked at its hands to little avail as it twisted and crawled with frightening speed.

Not again. Hyunjin won’t make the same mistake twice.

He charged forward, yelling at the viral, which snapped its head up in an instant, twisting, cracking body moving unnaturally as it released its grip, having seen new, easier prey to catch. Black fluid, chunky and viscous, bubbled from its mouth as it let out a pained gurgle, almost sounding like calling for help. These were Hyunjin’s least favorites. The fresh ones. It must’ve been a girl, once, straight, sleek brown hair falling to its waist, and skin unharmed save for a bite on its wrist and knife slashes around it. Trying to cut it out, probably. Rid itself of the virus.

Jisung scrambled away, catching his breath and scrambling for a weapon.

The viral turned its head to the side. It seemed to be frowning, eyes blue but clouded, watery. It croaked again. This time, an s and a y, a sorry from the locked-in spirit still present but trapped, too beyond saving.

Before Jisung could stand, it lunged.

Frightening speed and strength from a mind no longer inhibited and muscles not yet rotted or torn. Hyunjin threw himself out of the way. He slammed into the crushed trunk of a Honda Civic. Pain shot up his side, but he had no time to process that or the whiplash. The viral had skidded to the side, swiveling on its bare feet and charging toward Hyunjin again with a guttural scream.

Jisung yelled from somewhere. Hyunjin paid it no mind.

Right when the infected grappled onto him, it stopped with a shuddering choke as Hyunjin’s blade sank into the neck between the jawbones, upwards towards its brain.

One last death rattle as Hyunjin kicked at its chest and dislodged his knife, and then it lay on the ground, motionless.

Silence gathered thick in the air like fog between the two as they caught their breath, Hyunjin leaning his ass against the hood of a car, hands braced on his thighs and eyes to the ground. Jisung sat back down, sprawled on the concrete. Hyunjin closed his eyes, waiting for the static to clear from his light head, when he heard quiet snickering from Jisung’s direction. He looked up at the boy and his bright smile. Utterly confused. What the fuck is this guy's problem?

Jisung met his gaze. “That was kinda fun.”

Unbelievable. “No?” But Hyunjin was smiling, too, and his smile soon bloomed into laughter as well, shaking his head in disbelief. “Maybe. Just a little.” He stood up and placed his hands on the back of his hips, and stretched his back.

Hyunjin walked over to Jisung and helped him stand. The boy looked at him, his expression coated with gratitude. “Thanks for saving my ass.”

“No problem, man. You alright?”

“I didn’t get bit,” Jisung said. “Got its teeth on my boots, but that’s it. No broken skin.” He looked down at his ankle and gagged, shaking it frantically until a single, yellow tooth fell out of the leather and onto the asphalt. He stared up at Hyunjin miserably. “New problem: I will never be able to forget this.”

That made Hyunjin bark out another laugh. This was good. This was what he sorely missed. Being able to laugh at these things, like he did with Jisu, like their whole group did, before that summer when everything went south. First being trapped at. . . ugh, and then Savannah. And now, lost in the woods, sick and cold, two souls less than when they started.

There were times he found Jisung’s optimism a naivety, but he used to be that way, too, and he was happy then. That’s why he figured none of those thoughts really mattered right now, because right now, Hyunjin could honestly say he was happy. Maybe not pre-apocalypse happy, but could he ever be? Perhaps this was what he had to strive for nowadays, a temporary joy in a sea of woe. Maybe.

Hyunjin rested his hips against the car hood again, eyes closed, just basking in the sun's glow as it climbed higher in the sky.

His eyes fluttered open to see Jisung, standing closer, staring at him in deep thought.

“You gonna kiss me or what?”

Jisung snorted and shook his head. Then he sobered up, staring at him again with that same strange expression. Hyunjin hated it when people looked at him like that. Like they were mentally putting him on a mortuary table and tearing him open, dissecting him. Jisung tilted his head to the side. “Are you alright?”

Huh. “I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.”

Jisung nodded, then tapped his temple. Of course, that wasn’t what he meant. Things could never be so simple for Hyunjin. “What about up here?”

Ah. Hyunjin shrugged and started walking in the direction of the fence, not bothering to look behind him. He knew he’d be followed. “Minho and Seungmin accosted me last night.” Maybe it’d be nice to tell someone, just a little.

“They’re good at that.”

“Yeah. They made me Think. I don’t like thinking.”

It didn’t take a genius to know what he was forced to think about. Jisung hummed knowingly. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Please, no.”

“That’s fine. We can stab out our feelings instead,” he said, offering up the wire-wrung walker tangled in the fence, skin pulled taut on exposed metal, and legs useless. Hyunjin took him up on this offer gladly and piked the zombie without resistance, dragging it out from the hole so they could crawl through. Guilty as it made him feel, killing the dead was awfully cathartic.

Maybe because he could get out all those pent-up emotions and know he was doing good with them. Ridding the world of an infection, one zombie at a time. Giving their souls the peace they deserved. It’s a win-win.

“Thanks,” Hyunjin said, dipping under the hole cut into the wire fence, “for forcing me out here. It’s. . . probably good for me.”

“Course it is. Which I already knew, in all my illicit wisdom,” he replied, slipping through the fence like a natural and dragging Hyunjin with him, out of sight of the open parking lot and towards the nearest door, metal and cold. “Jisung knows best.”

Asshole.

Hyunjin watched as he helplessly rattled the doorknob a few times, pushing against it with all his strength, and then gave up with a sigh. It was locked and seemed intent on not budging. They couldn’t exactly force it open, nor could they shoot the lock off. Too noisy, too risky. A door like that gives way for ricochet, if Hyunjin knew any better.

So, what, then? The main doors were probably unlocked, or at the very least easier to jimmy, but that would be so in the open, wouldn’t it? They’d have to duck off into one of the side stores quick. If there was a horde there, up at the front, they would have already seen it, so it either was clear as Jisung assumed or it’d be tucked away into one of the many dark corners of the expansive building.

Maybe. . . the roof? Buildings like this usually had access hatches on the outside, up to the roof, and from there maybe they could find a way in, but. . .

Hyunjin had just been about to suggest throwing in the towel when Jisung crouched down in front of the door and pulled a paperclip out of one of his pockets, interrupting his prattling thoughts. “Got a bobby pin?”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna pick the lock.”

Call him what you will, but Hyunjin couldn’t help himself. He immediately burst into laughter, snorting when he inhaled sharply, trying to shut up. “No the fuck you aren’t.”

“Yes, I am? Dick. Give me your bobby pin, I know you have one.”

Stereotypes, stereotypes. Who cares if they are justified and true, Hyunjin thought as he scoffed and fished a bobby pin out of the messy bottom of his bag, passing it down to Jisung. He set to work fast and instructed Hyunjin to keep watch, for whatever reason. So he leaned against the wall, one leg up on it, arms crossed, and kept his eyes trained on the horizon, the parking lot behind him, only occasionally stealing disbelieving glances Jisung’s way.

Okay, that’s it. Hyunjin is nosy at heart, and can’t help speculating to himself any longer. “Where on earth did you learn that?”

“If I said it was because I grew up poor, would you believe me?”

“Not for a second, no.” Jisung did grow up impoverished, in a shitty neighborhood and a shittier school system. He fought for his life every second he lived, and that’s why he knew half the weird shit he did. Why he, to put it politely, was as scrappy as they came. But no practical situation called for lockpicking. That’s just dumb. 

“Figured.”

Hyunjin raised an eyebrow at him, forgetting his job of being the lookout. “Are you seriously not going to tell me? Your best friend?” The fact that he’d gone three years knowing this man, never hearing about his lock-picking prowess, came as a shock to him. That meant it must be embarrassing. Which meant Hyunjin had to find out why, or he would literally die.

“You’ll laugh at me.”

“What if I promise not to laugh?”

“Then you’d be lying,” he sighed, biting his lip in concentration. He cursed when he fumbled and dropped the bobby pin, and when he picked it back up from the floor, he stalled in his movements, twirling it around in his fingers. Eyes closed tight, bracing for impact.

“I wanted to impress a boy.”

Gasp.

“No fucking way.”

“Yeah. I know.” Jisung blushed a bashful rouge, ignoring Hyunjin’s scandalized gaze and gaping mouth full of shock and delight. “I was a freshman in high school,” he said, returning to the lock, “and he was a super senior. Got held back a year. Rode a motorcycle. Sold weed to middle schoolers. Like, straight stereotypical bad boy.”

Hyunjin covered his mouth to stifle his growing laughter. “Oh, my god.”

“And I was like, whoa, this dude is so hot, I have to kiss him. It was my life's goal.” Jisung sighed dreamily. “I figured, cool guy like him, he’ll never even look my way unless I impress him.”

“Good, because that would be a crime? I- Please tell me this story doesn’t end with you getting the guy. I am begging you to tell me-”

“No guy was got, don’t worry,” he said, shaking his head and wiping a mock tear from his eye. How dare Hyunjin rightfully and accurately assume that he had no game when he was a child? What a cruel, cruel world they lived in. “But yeah, anyway, I spent hours watching YouTube tutorials on how to pick locks. Hours. Days. Fully hyperfixating. This was before I got diagnosed with ADHD, mind you, so my mom was off with her head trying to figure out why I stopped turning anything in.

“So, like, there’s no way I’d ever be in a situation where I’d be able to, I don’t know, swoop in like Superman and rescue this dude with my lock-picking prowess. That just doesn’t happen. But I was betting on it. I was, like, so sure I’d get my chance to save the day.”

Hyunjin waited with bated breath. He was invested now. “And?”

“And,” Jisung said, again stopping his endeavors to hide his face in his hands, “he talked to me, one day, just in passing when I bumped into him in the hallway, to say sorry.”

“And?”

A heavy sigh, carrying the weight of a thousand regrets. “I blurted out, I know how to pick locks, and ran away.”

To say that Hyunjin’s lungs ached from how hard he was laughing would be a vast understatement. His abs burned, and he held himself up with one hand on the wall, the other across his stomach, nearly to tears just at the sheer thought of little baby Jisung staring wide-eyed through his thick-rimmed glasses at that grown ass man, thinking he was so suave. That’s not to say Hyunjin was any better when he was fourteen. But this isn’t about him. It’s about bullying his friend. Jisung muttered a curse and something like knew you’d laugh at me, asshole. “All that work, and I bet he wasn’t even that attractive.”

“Oh, trust, he wasn’t.” Jisung paused and looked up, recalling the man. A scrawny white boy with black box-dye hair, straightened painfully flat. Trying so hard to be nonchalant and cool that he was actually incredibly chalant and profoundly uncool. Jisung shrugged. “Still would, though.”

“You are awful.”

“I am a simple man, Hyun. I’ll get it where I can. Eheh, that rhymed. Nice.”

“Oh my god, stop talking, I beg of you,” Hyunjin said through giggles that he tried hopelessly to suffocate. “Get back to work.”

Jisung sighed. “You’re no fun.” But he obliged Hyunjin’s request, working diligently on the lock (that Hyunjin still wasn’t 100% convinced he knew how to unlock) and, god, no one ever tells you how long this shit takes. The movies make it look way simpler. Yet another unrealistic expectation placed on the youth by Hollywood.

While not as tiring as laboring away at a lock, Hyunjin did grow exhausted the longer he stood there, the southern sun breaking through the cold winter air and right into his clothes, weighing heavily on his bones. He leaned his head against the concrete wall, eyes closed, letting it seep deep into his skin. Warmth can be limiting, at times. Too comforting, too safe, slowing your movements. Hyunjin knew he was supposed to be on high alert, but it couldn’t be much longer, right?

Thoughts drifted back to camp. They hadn’t stayed long into the morning, and Hyunjin only got to say bye to Changbin and Minho, so he couldn’t help but wonder how they were doing. Most pressingly, if Yeji and Jeongin were okay. If the medicine worked.

He’d forgotten to thank Jisung for finding all that. He really should thank him.

“Hah, got it!”

A click, and the door swung open, Jisung holding out his hands above him in celebration. Hyunjin’s eyes shot open to attention, and he pushed himself off the wall and grinned ear to ear. Did he still think this was a bad idea? Yes. Did that make him less susceptible to the short-term serotonin release from this success? Not at all.

Chk-chk.

“Don't move, or I'll shoot.”

Fuck.

Because there always has to be something, doesn’t there?

Hyunjin and Jisung froze, muscles taunt, Jisung's hand falling and ghosting one of the blades at his side. The two made eye contact and had a silent conversation as Jisung slowly rose to his feet. Hyunjin shook his head as lightly as possible, and Jisung narrowed his eyes in retort. A question was tossed between the two. How the fuck did someone get that close?

Hyunjin shivered. How did I not hear them?

The voice cleared its throat.

“What are you two doing? Turn around.”

“You told us not to move,” Hyunjin said before thinking, immediately cringing at himself. Jisung mouthed dude, really?

“Turn. Around.”

Hyunjin took two careful steps back, slowly turning on his heel to face their assailant. It was a woman with warm brown skin and long black hair tied back into a low ponytail. She wielded a sawed-off shotgun, pointed straight at the two men, and more than angry—and trust, she did look angry—she looked scared.

“What are you doing here?”

Hyunjin spoke fast, arms held up chest-level in surrender. “Just scouting, looking for a place to wait out the cold.” Truthful without betraying their whole story.

The girl narrowed her eyes. The shotgun was hoisted up more, finger off the trigger, but close. “You work for anyone?”

It was Jisung’s turn to speak, a stutter out of confusion. “Wh— no? Didn’t know there were people to work for nowadays.”

An awkward, tense silence stretched out between them. The girl scrutinized their every detail, eyes trailing up and down their bodies, their weapons, studying their faces with a trained gaze. She hummed. “Well, you don’t look like. . .” She trailed off, choosing her words very carefully, Hyunjin noticed. “You don’t look like assholes. Are you assholes?”

“I’m not!” Jisung said.

Hyunjin looked at him sideways. “Are you saying I’m an asshole?”

“You have your moments.”

“Shut up, both of you,” the girl said, nearly betraying a smile. Still, her eyes shone with hesitance and unease. “Y’all are still breaking into my place, and I don’t like that.”

“How was I supposed to know this is your mall?”

She glared. “We’ve lost a lot of people recently, and I have no idea what your intentions are or if you’re good guys. So I won’t put my people at risk, you got that?”

Hyunjin opened his mouth, but Jisung cut him off, clearly sensing the tell-tale signs of Hyunjin's annoyance, which isn’t needed nor wanted when you have the barrel of a gun pointed at your face. “I get that, I’m sorry we bothered you. We just— our friends are sick, and we’ve. . . lost some good people, too, just before.” He frowned. Her glare lessened, if only slightly. “We’re trying to find someplace warm for them to maybe heal up. Some water- We had no idea you were here, honest,” Jisung said earnestly. “Just— let us go, and we’ll be on our way, out of your hair.”

She stared at them for a hot minute.

“You’re not lying,” she said. Not a question, but a statement. The two looked at each other, confused, when she cursed to herself and took a few steps back. “You, fuckin— wait here, alright? Give me a minute,” she said, slinging her bag off her shoulder and rummaging through it until she pulled out a walkie-talkie and walked a little further off, shotgun still pointed at the pair.

A hushed conversation commenced that neither could interpret, spare a few words, never taking her eyes off of them.

Finally, she walked back, and frankly, she looked pissed.

“So this is what’s gonna happen,” she said, pointing at the two of them with her gun. “I’m gonna go back with you to your friends, see if you’re lying. And if either of you tries anything, I shoot you.”

What was she getting at here?

“If you aren't. . . You and your group can stay here with mine, but only until those who are sick recover.”

Hyunjin stayed silent while Jisung broke into a relieved smile. “Oh my— really? Fuck, man, that’s huge, thank you—”

“Just until they get better,” she repeated, wanting to get across fully that this wasn’t a permanent stay of residence. Once Jeongin and Yeji recovered, it would be back on the road. That didn’t change that this was a huge kindness to be bestowed, and they’d not take it for granted, assuming she wasn’t lying.

Yeah, fine, Hyunjin has trust issues, too. How could he not?

Jisung nodded. “Yes, understood. Just until they get better. Thank you.”

The girl looked away. “It’s no problem.”

Hyunjin spoke again, finally, eyebrows furrowed, introducing the two of them before asking, “And you?”

She looked back, unable to offer a smile, but her eyes were no longer angry. Only distrustful.

“Lara.”

Chapter Text

It's funny, almost, how quickly people can get attached to others, especially in times of great crisis or fallout. Perhaps it is an inevitable part of being human; social creatures down to their very core, seen in how we crave community and family, companionship, love, safety. “Just until they get better” became “just until winter ends” until the phrase just until was no longer a part of their lexicon, scratched out of the margins, a red underline in a word document.

Soon, as weeks grew to months grew to longer, it had been two years since Chan and Felix were lost to the hoard.

The year was 05 A.Z., and the mall had grown into a staple of the indomitable human spirit, something the pair would be proud of.

Hyunjin wished they’d lived to see what their little family had built.

Cleaning up ended up being the biggest pain in the ass. There was moldy food, bags, and trash left behind from D-Day, when hundreds, thousands of people toppled over each other to try and escape. Flies clung to the air in swaths so thick you couldn’t see a foot in front of you. Corpses lay piled in back rooms, both of infected and not, and large parts of the mall had been sealed off by Lara’s group, filled with those still walking. It took months to dispose of them safely and to air out the rooms to be rid of any corpse sickness still lingering.

From then on, more survivors, wanderers, would find their way to the tall chain-link fences surrounding the backside of the building and ask for entry. Some stayed while others only passed through, looking for sanctuary to weather storms or spare food and water. Generators were fixed up to give them power (which is rationed, of course. Gasoline isn’t easy to come by), walls and fences were built and fortified, and the small open-air park in the center of the mall, along with the dirt plots on the roof, were used to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. Recently, they’d even found some chickens and a rooster to bring back for eggs, fresh meat. Plants had long since invaded the indoors, vines crawling down walls through skylights, and grass and weeds poked up through cracks in the ground.

And, god, it was beautiful.

They’d strung up lights and streamers along railings and set up rooms for their people, numbers growing from a small group to a small settlement, different shops serving as barracks and others as storage. There was this one bookstore downstairs that still had mostly full shelves, and some would actively seek out more books on scavenging trips to keep things fresh and people happy. There were even children—a fact that came as a shock to Hyunjin, who’d not seen a living one since pre-outbreak—and a small daycare slash playroom was set up for them. Chaeryeong was there now, playing with the youngest of them, reading a small, textile book to siblings, twin girls, aged 4.

The mother died in childbirth, they were told, not having the medicine she needed fresh into the outbreak. Their father had been taking care of them this whole time, trying to find a safe place for them amidst the ruins.

It made Hyunjin cry.

They had systems set up, too, ones other than cooking, farming, maintenance, etc, to keep everyone safe. Scavenging, scouting, patrols. Sign in papers to keep track, make sure they never lose anyone. Lookout stations throughout town, checkpoints, where they’d go to check for infected or trespassers. Some people’s posts were along the fence and wall lines to make sure there was no buildup of the dead, and if there was, they’d be dealt with, quickly, and burned.

And it worked. Like a well-oiled machine, every cog snugly in place, small mistakes no longer meant death. A misstep no longer spelled disaster for everyone. It was okay. They could be semi-normal. Read books and have board game nights, watch old VHS movies on boxy TVs (even CDs, if they were lucky), and on special occasions, they’d project films onto the old movie theater screen. They could almost pretend.

Hyunjin had never felt this safe in. . . in as long as he could remember.

And, to be honest?

It made him feel guilty.

Like this luxury they’ve been awarded is supposed to go to someone else, like he doesn’t deserve it. The weight of the souls of his past tugged down on either shoulder, whispering, praying, asking him what he did to get this, who he left behind. Hyunjin shook his head and pretended like they weren’t there.

His shop-turned-bedroom was an old art supplies store. It had a cozy, bookstore-adjacent feel, wooden floors, and soft, warm lighting. A year ago, he’d done his best to pick up and dust off the shelves, and return all the paints, canvases, sketch books, and what have you to their proper places. A bed was set up behind the L-shaped check-out desk, flush between it and the opposing wall, with curtains, faux vines, and string lights strung up around it for privacy. Comfort. Whimsy. That’s the vibe he tried to capture throughout the whole place, to make it feel inviting and safe, relaxing, with eclectic decor and small plants scattered throughout. Roommates came and went, those passing through or those new and needing a floor to crash on, whilst sleeping arrangements were managed, and Hyunjin welcomed them with open arms.

None ever stayed, and it made him feel a little lonely. He wouldn’t mind sharing the space with someone else. But it didn’t feel right to complain, so he didn’t.

In the low light, power off during the later hours, Hyunjin was reading one of his favorite books,  a paintbrush tucked behind his ear (the blue-crusted one). Pride and Prejudice, paperback. The pages and cover on this copy were worn and faded, frayed at the edges.

Just how he liked it.

Well loved.

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” he read aloud with a joyful hum. Yes, this was the good part, the confession, and it always made Hyunjin giddy, no matter how many times he’d read it before. Something about the slow burn love, all that tension without ever having an explicit kiss. . .

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Call Hyunjin a hopeless romantic. He doesn’t care.

A jerry-rigged bell rang on the right side of his bed, and he perked up.

Oh, yeah. There was that.

All the gunshots and explosions in close, closed quarters over the past five years had finally caught up with Hyunjin. Hearing in his left ear had begun to fade. It started with tinnitus, worse and worse until, one day, the world to the left of him fell into silence, and now there’s nothing. Nothing and nothing and more nothing.

It’s. . . a learning process, that’s for sure. A grieving one, too.

As a makeshift doorbell, Hyunjin set up a bell pulley system at the entrance to the store. Just pull the string, and he should (hopefully) hear you. That, or you could just page him on his walkie-talkie, which was ancient and ridiculously fucking loud.

Hyunjin set his book down open, pages down, on the counter (what he used as a bedside table) to save his space, and peeked out through the curtains towards the entrance, which was a large, glass door surrounded by big windows (which he also curtained, of course). Seungmin leaned against the frame and waved casually. “Whatcha up to, weasel?”

“Reading, dickweed.” Hyunjin pushed the curtains towards the edge of his bedframe, tying them out of the way. Then he rested back on his palms, crossed his ankles, and tilted his head to his shoulder. “Why the visit? You don’t gotta linger like a weirdo in the doorway. You can come in, y’know.”

“Would,” Seungmin said, “but I’m actually here to get you out.”

“Hmm?”

“D-Day anniversary is today.”

Yeah. Hyunjin knew. That’s why he’s hiding in his room, obviously. “There’s some sorta party, up on the roof. To raise spirits? Drinks and stuff with a bunch a’ people here, our friends. And others. I don’t know. I was gonna ask, but I feel like you’ve been depressed recently, so I don’t care what you want anymore.” Seungmin stepped in. Long-legged strides to the closest line of shelves and drawers. “Because you’re gonna want the wrong thing.”

There was a certain grief about this day. Especially for Seungmin and Hyunjin, who were with Chan there at the beginning, watching it all unfold on the news like an explosion in slow motion, and now have to go on without him.

Didn’t make Hyunjin any less annoyed at his quiet reading time being intruded upon like this.

“Wow, thanks. And— yeah, okay, go through my clothes. That’s fine.”

Hyunjin ran his fingers through his hair with an exasperated, near-bewildered groan while his dear, darling friend paid no respect to his personal space. And, sure, he watched amused for a moment, because it was borderline hilarious.

Only for a moment. Once two (two!) of his nicest shirts were thrown onto the ground, and Seungmin then held up a pair of his boxers with a wide, annoying smirk, Hyunjin shot up and snatched them back, pushing on Seungmin's chest. “Okay, babe, I love you—” he grunted, forcing Seungmin out the door, “—but you gotta get the fuck out of my room.”

Seungmin laughed. He had a very pretty laugh, matching his glowing smile. That did not pardon his sins. “Isn’t your room technically a communal space—”

“Goodbye!!!” Hyunjin slammed the door shut, latched the lock he had a friend install, and huffed loudly. All this just to make him feel like a teen girl in an early 2000s Disney movie. Now he’s just gotta loudly proclaim that no one understands him and throw himself into a sobbing heap on his bed, and he’ll be holding a Grammy before you can say “We’ve got company”.

Candy-sweet laughter echoed out over the balcony outside.

The corners of Hyunjin’s lips twitched up affectionately.

✦

The mall’s roof was a maze of peaked pyramid skylights, small rooms for controlling gas and power, and stretches of flat ground close to the edge, overlooking the courtyard and the empty streets out front. The roof hatch stairs lead up to an old, brick bulkhead with fogged, double-hung windows, right by the park overhang. There were paths between some of the other bulkheads and skylights, which led to the agriculture area, where they cultivated seeds. Here, right where the door opened to the sky, they had turned into a small hangout spot.

Wide enough to fit a decent number of people without being cramped, they’d brought up ottomans, cushions, and mattresses and scattered them about, some stacked on top of each other, flush with soft blankets and plush pillows. Camp tables and chairs were moved this way and that, however one saw fit in the moment. Lazily strung up over hooks and pinned down on the corners of peaked roofs were open-bulb string lights and Christmas lights. Most were burnt out. It didn’t harm the feng shui, and what they lacked in shedding light was made up for in delicately crafted candle-lit lanterns that hung down off the wire strands, and red kerosene lanterns sat on the ground.

After much struggle (that Hyunjin was, thankfully, spared from) weeks ago, they’d painstakingly dragged an iron wood-burning fire pit up the stairs. By it, Hyunjin sat now, nursing a cup full of soju while celebration unfolded around him.

Celebration for what, you find yourself asking?

Why, for living to see another day, of course.

Stories dating pre- and post-D-Day were tossed around the fire like they happened just yesterday. Drinks, both alcoholic and not, that were found from raiding liquor stores or carted along with them for five years sat scattered on tables and the ground, first-come, first-served. Dancing, singing, a guitar passed back and forth between friends, old and new. (Jisung hogged it a lot of the time, surprise surprise). Down in Leisure Park, which was the large swath of open land the mall had once been built around, similar celebrations took place, with people of all shapes and colors spread out across the grass and under the tall trees and pavilions. Just an hour before, a drunk pair had tumbled fully clothed into the pond and had to be fished out.

Hyunjin played with Jeongin’s hair, the younger lying his head in his lap (Hyunjin pulled him into it, as he usually does with Jeongin), face up to look at him. As of late, he’d been growing it out, trying something new. Raven black and shaggy soft down the back of his neck and falling in long, feather-light strands over his eyes. Said eyes stared up full of a thousand scattered stars and fireflies, twinkling in the reflected glow of the space around them and shining back onto Hyunjin. He smiled like nothing bad had ever happened to him. Wide and all-encompassing.

There is so much pain in the world, but not here. Not on this roof, this mall.

It reminded Hyunjin of the parties he went to in his sophomore year of college (the year of outbreak day, 20xx). Memories of him and Felix, lazily sipping sweet on the fire escape, fire licking through their chests and igniting their fingers and the places they touched, shoulder to shoulder, legs dangling. Eyes dancing across the distant skyline of the ever-spinning downtown life, into the indigo, souls diverging, spilling out inkblot over the white parchment paper, impossibly full of something undefinable.

Hyunjin took another sip, savoring the burn.

It’s been a while since he felt safe enough to drink. He always found it irresponsible when people from past groups they’d mingled with embraced inebriation with open arms while the dead were just around the corner. Hyunjin got it, obviously, but he wanted to keep his senses sharp, his instincts intact, especially now, with his single-sided deafness making everything all the more muddled.

Right here, though, in the mirrorball of time he’s found himself in, he knows he’s safe. No harm will come to him. And, if something did happen, he would be protected. Supported.

It’s the safety of community, of camaraderie.

There was a tingling, floaty buzz in his limbs whenever they moved, that same floating feeling dosing his brain and making every turn of his head feel fuzzy and light, slow motion, the world a neon blur. He was all giggles and smiles, boisterous flirting with everyone he knew and a few he didn’t before he settled down here at the fire. Those first few hours were all dancing and singing and laughter echoing through the vast night sky.

A round of mellow cheers resounded as an older married couple, in their late sixties, took to the floor. They spun each other around in circles, the woman's flowy, fairy-esque dress poofing out around her bare calves, locs spinning around her. Joy and love overflowed from every pore in the man's face as he took in her form. It didn’t matter if it was good; their dancing. They weren’t dancing for show, but just to dance, for each other. Under the dim lantern light and quarter moon, the universe was only them and the sky above.

What a privilege it was to grow old in this new day and age. Each wrinkle a testament of life, of love.

The couple shared a chaste kiss.

Hyunjin stalled in his movements, frowning. The tendons in his heart pulled and fought against each other, mirroring an ache he’s been carrying for years. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Eleanor and Chidi, Achilles and Patroclus, Idgie and Ruth. The couple went to sit back down, the woman helping her husband, whose cane was set aside, get into the chair safely, and the threads snapped. He can only hope he’ll live long enough to look like them someday, share in a love that pure someday.

“You stopped petting me.”

The words were paired with a tap on the bottom of his chin, just to make sure he noticed. Caught off guard, Hyunjin looked down at Jeongin, who was watching him with amusement and a small pout. The last thing he wanted to do was drunkenly spill his relationship (or lack thereof) woes onto his friend, who would probably, deservedly, bully him. So instead he opted for the much better alternative of, “What are you, a fuckin’ cat boy? I have no obligation to you.”

Nice. Real smooth, Hyunjin.

Jeongin raised an eyebrow and then rolled his eyes playfully, sitting up and leaving disappointment in his place, somewhere between Hyunjin’s third and fourth rib. “I was just pointing it out. No need to get hiss-terical.”

Ugh. “Was that a pun?”

“I dunno,” Jeongin shrugged, sharp smile lines and dimple indents already darkening as he perked up. “Was it?”

Hyunjin laughed, a lilted, bell-like sound, and covered his face with his hands. “Oh. Oh, Ayen, that was awful.”

“And yet, you’re laughing.” Jeongin popped up, into a squat, and then stood with a horrendous crack in his knees. Old ass man. He glanced over his shoulder, leaned back down to grab his glass, and tilted his head at Hyunjin. “I’m gonna get a refill. Want more?”

“Pass. I think I’m just gonna finish this off,” Hyunjin said, raising his hand in a half toast and swirling the clear liquid in his cup. “You handle your alcohol better than me, anyways.”

“That’s because you weigh two pounds wet.”

The fire crackled loudly, winds changing directions and blowing the smoke towards Changbin now, who spluttered and coughed, hands swatting against the viscous assault. Hyunjin frowned, glowering. “Low blow, man.”

Jeongin stuck his tongue out at Hyunjin, clutched between his grin-stuck teeth as he took a few steps backwards. Then, as he walked away, he turned around and yelled to Changbin, “Hyung?”

Changbin and Minho both perked their heads up. A point of clarification, and Changbin cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the smoke clinging to his lungs, and finally managed to cough out, “Yes?”

“Be quiet.”

Laughter tumbled from the mouths of those around the fire, turning from their own conversations in amusement to spare a glance Changbin's way. “Yah! Hell's wrong with you?”

 “Nothing! In fact, actually? Wait.” Jeongin held up a finger matter-of-factly in front of him. Fucking nerd. “I changed my mind. Keep coughing. It’s funny.”

“Scuse me?”

“Your suffering, Binnie, it’s- it’s like. Hmm. A bonsai tree, to me,” Jeongin said, giggling as he worked up to the punchline. Oh, wow, he’s really laughing at himself. So much so that every time he tried to get out the words, he’d look at Changbin’s face and crack up again. That’s amazing. “Soothing.”

Hah! Hyunjin nearly spit out his soju, choking it back with a fist to the chest. Exasperation flashed across Changbin’s features. He whipped his head around to Minho, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb at the cackling fox a few paces away. “Remind me again why we let this kid drink?”

Minho took a sip from his glass, bemused. With a contented sigh, he set his drink down and rested his head on Changbin, arms wrapped tightly and possessively around his bicep. “Because he’d throw a bitch fit otherwise.”

At the far side table, a white camp table covered in cups, alcohol, and water bottles, Jeongin stood, and he leaned up against it with an all-encompassing grin that scrunched his eyes fully closed. “You two love me. Admit it.”

“I do,” Minho said, sincerity coating his voice heavenly-sweet like angel food cake, sugary, syrupy strawberries dancing around the edges. Not a byproduct of intoxication, because Minho is no lightweight. His cheek, flushed red from the liquor, was smushed against Changbin’s muscles, eyes closed in joy. “You know I’d die for you, Innie.”

“No one is asking you to do that-”

Changbin jovially raised his drink. “And I’d kill for you!”

“Oh my god.”

Face flushed red with sudden embarrassment from his hyungs, Jeongin spent a whole five minutes telling them that wasn’t necessary while they brushed him off with laughter, cups raised in a cheer. Eventually, he gave up and sighed dramatically, turning back towards the table and accepting a shot from someone whose name was lost in the haze.

He dressed up nice, Hyunjin noticed, eyes drifting like a speck of dust to the boy, over his frame, before his brain could catch up. Not fancy, but nice. Low-cut, dark grey baggy jeans with rips along the thighs and knees, black boots, and an oversized black and grey striped sweater. The fabric was thin around the collar and his shoulders, over his muscles, lightly transparent, and showed the tight black tank top he wore underneath.

Jeongin drew slow from what was left of his cup, finishing it off before the refill, a thin line of spillage dripping down his throat, golden ichor shimmering in the limelight, and, oh fuck, Hyunjin is definitely getting buzzed now, because the flip in his gut was far from platonic. The rim of the glass resting on Jeongin’s cracked lips sent green-scaled envy flashing through his chest, shining in his irises. As did his tongue, dragging across his alcohol-sheen lips with a confident grin, his sleeve being pulled over his hand, and wiping his mouth and neck clean. Feelings Hyunjin couldn’t, or wouldn’t, place.

Hyunjin sucked in a sharp, unnatural breath and downed his drink. It hit clearer this time. Sweet with an underlying bitter note, crisp and smooth on the way down.

He decided he should stray from soju for the rest of the night.

Other liquors would suffice.

Hyunjin turned his whole body away, crawl-scooting to the mattress closest by. It wasn’t comfy by any means, old and a little ratty, but the loose blankets and pillows over it made up for the damage. Better than the concrete ground, that’s for sure. Hyunjin’s ass would thank him for the pressure taken off his tailbone.

And his heart and mind for the distance gained between him and Jeongin.

The new seat put the firepit between them, large, popping flames and soft billowing smoke like a sheer curtain covering the sky, making the boy a blur behind it. He got distracted, talking to Megan and Manon (friends of Lara’s). A relief to Hyunjin, who was trying to look anywhere but him.

It’s not like it was a revelation to him, his feelings for Jeongin, nor would it come as a shock to most of his friends. He always found the maknae cute. Always vied for his attention, his affections, gluing himself to the younger's side even in the face of loud, aggravated complaints. There had always been that twist, that compulsion, to take care of him, to make him laugh, to float around him like a balloon on a string, but that’s not odd, is it?

Hyunjin had always been under the belief that everyone is always at least a little bit in love with all of their friends.

This right now was different, though. Not a fleeting crush like always that came and went with the seasons, not a passing thought of, yeah, I wouldn’t mind kissing him, like he’d had about most of the men in his life. No, no, this was different. This was bad.

This was- the alcohol talking. That’s it. He doesn’t get drunk often, so when he does, it’s. . . a mess. He wouldn’t trust himself not to be all over his friends at this state.

The wind changed again, the smoke growing less, and Jeongin less of a blur and more of a golden light-washed haze, something out of a dream. And that’s where the problem grew. To say Hyunjin’s gaze came from only pure adoration would be a lie, and to lie is to sin. No, his eyes were hungry, and his breath short, something longing, something desperate, thoughts popping up that he’d not dare utter even under confessional. Like how his lips might feel, or his long, slender fingers, trailing over his body, neck and chest and stomach, skin to skin.

Craving just to crave, wanting just to want. Not like an animal, but like the dead that roamed outside their gates.

Hyunjin shook his head, appalled. What the fuck was that?! What the fuck was he thinking? This is dumb and alcohol is dumb and his stupid hot friends are dumb and Hyunjin wanted to drown himself in an ice bath and cease to exist.

Fuck. He needed to stop looking at his lips.

What the hell is happening to him?

Hyunjin set his empty glass down with a clink and wiped at his face in ablution. To be clean before God, to show his Sunday best. Now, when his filter had crumbled and his confidence (or ego, rather) was through the roof, Hyunjin still retained enough sensibility to know to stay away lest he forget to keep his stupid, gay mouth shut.

Ugh. Purge.

A distraction, a distracion—

Ah, yes.

There.

A group of younger boys, in their late teens or early twenties, had joined the gathering and revitalized it with fervor. Around the fire, talking loudly back and forth, tossing quips and inside jokes Hyunjin didn’t have the time or energy to decipher over a bottle of wine one had brought up with him.

They were new, a few months so, and seemed to mostly stay to themselves. At least, that’s what it looked like from where Hyunjin sat. Fair. As their community grew in numbers, you couldn’t be expected to know everyone, let alone be friends with them. In the sunbleached, overexposed film reel recesses of Hyunjin’s mind, he managed to pull two names: Gunil, who did not seem to be present at this occasion, and Jiseok, the boy-genius who helped design and set up their irrigation system, amongst a whole bunch of other clerical improvements to their quality of life—like getting the canal water valves to be operable again, or fixing up a ham radio with spare parts and a dream.

Said boy genius sat a few paces away from him, drinking alcohol like it was water.

There were a few things Hyunjin wanted to say. An introduction wasn’t needed: He’d spoken to Jiseok once or twice, exchanged names, and liked him well enough from what he saw. It was more a matter of how to insert himself into the conversation without seeming. . . weird.

Hyunjin is weird. Terrible, even.

They don’t need to know that yet.

“Hey- Jiseok, yeah?” The boy’s large eyes widened in surprise, his body jolting in shock or fear. He regained his composure fast and nodded his head. “I’ve been meaning to ask, actually, how old were you? When all of this started.”

Jiseok took another swig, choke-laughing at a joke his friend (whose name, Hyunjin learned, was Jooyeon) told, and let his head loll limply to the side. “Fifteen.”

Fifteen.

The thought of someone so young going through something like this, growing up in the end of the motherfucking world. . . Hyunjin’s stomach twisted, curdled, but maybe that was just the alcohol not sitting well with him. Cotton mouth, foggy brain. Hyunjin stared blankly into the dancing flames for what felt like no time at all and also four days simultaneously while conversation milled and turned this way and that, far removed from where he last tuned in. Thinking. Mental math.

Hyunjin refilled and nursed his drink. Tequila, this time. Agave coating his lips sickly sweet.

Five years. . .

Eyes narrowed. “You’re twenty, then,” he stated plainly, pointing accusingly with the hand holding his glass. “Not old enough to drink.”

A cup was set down, raucous laughter echoing over the rooftops. Jiseok gave Hyunjin a funny look, the corners of his lips quirking up, and a disbelieving chuckle sneaking through. “Tell me you aren’t going to lecture me about the legal drinking age when the dead are walking.”

“No, no, ah— I won’t.” It’s not like he even knows this kid, not really, so how is that his place? A pause. Reconsidering. Hyunjin sat up straighter, determined, gesticulating overexaggerately. “No, I, actually? I will, because I am a responsible adult and we— we as a— a society should have standards.”

From behind Hyunjin, Jooyeon snorted and sat down between the two. “Society! What are you, the Joker?” He tossed a lopsided grin to Hyunjin, who caught it with a sigh. “I saw my algebra teacher get her throat ripped out. I’m allowed to drink.”

So they’re the same age.

“Not to mention!” Jiseok chimed in, bumping his forehead into Jooyeon's shoulder and staring up at him with wide, adoring eyes. “I’ve— hic! Always found it weird that the drinking age is higher than when you can enlist or be drafted. If I am old enough to die for my country, I am old enough to drink.”

Jooyeon held out his glass and tinked it against Jiseok's clumsily, liquor splashing out over the edges. “Cheers to that!” Bottoms up. They shot down the rest of their drinks together.

Oh. Oof. Fair point.

Hyunjin held out his hands in surrender (they found that deeply amusing, perhaps even the funniest thing anyone has ever done, ever, in the history of ever) and, when talk once again left him behind, decided maybe he’d been enough of a social butterfly for one day. Yes, he is sociable, good at talking to people, but he’s still an introvert. If it wasn’t rude, he’d go back to his room right now.

Even if logically, there’d be nothing wrong with turning in after spending literal hours up here, his anxiety told him otherwise.

Alas.

Another drink of tequila. Spicy. And he was lying back on the mattress, adjusting against the sharp jutting springs until he found a position that didn’t fill him with suicidal ideation. A smooth slowness overtook his body, sense of time distorted, returning to the sandy dunes of the hourglass he knew all too well. God, he could fall asleep right here, right now, looking up at the beautiful star-spattered sky, each blink slower, heavier than the last. There were more stars than there used to be. Maybe that was a perk, a bright side to it all.

Hyunjin allowed them to flutter closed fully, the soft strumming of Jisung’s guitar sending light waves through his nerves. Safe. Relaxed. Not even flinching when the weight on the mattress shifted on either side of him—someone sitting to his left, on the far edge, and another to his right, hip to hip with him. A hand patted his thigh lightly, giving it a reassuring squeeze (long, slender fingers), and then the sensation disappeared.

Somewhere else, very else, Jisung began to sing.

It was slower than the songs from earlier in the night. Something sad, something mournful. Haunting. The ghost cries of a coyote that lived only in the bends and forks of tree roots, behind the sun, in the shadows, reaching through Jisung to call out its grief. To speak, to sing on its behalf. Hyunjin doesn’t know the name of this song. He can’t even catch most of the lyrics. But he knows it’s bone-aching, deep, deep into his marrow.

There are more animals than before the walls fell. Loose dogs and stray cats gone feral, hunting for scraps in the streets, flocks of birds coating the skies black, a harmony no longer silenced. They couldn’t handle human colonization, but they adapted, evolved quickly, to the swarms of undead. Silence was dangerous, everyone learned. To fear when no birds called, when no elk wailed. To yearn for the staccato howls of coyotes.

The world progresses and heals while humanity bleeds.

The coyotes are free, now.

Hyunjin shuddered, unnoticed, keeping the waterworks shut as the guitar faded out, and so did Jisung’s melodic voice. Christ. He might actually end up falling asleep on this roof. It wouldn’t be the weirdest place he’d conked out, mind you. Not by any stretch of the phrase. It. . . felt familiar, though. Falling asleep amongst joyful noise, like he was a kid again, carried back into his room on the holidays, laughter echoing from the next room over. He’d like that. He’d like that a lot.

Hyunjin kept his eyes shut, one thought away from yawning, and let the night wash over him, the—

Ow?

What the— fuckin— did a fucking mosquito just bite him?

Hyunjin sat up and smacked his arm. It died, naturally, no match for his brute strength, but the damage was done. Not one, but three small red bumps already formed on his skin, and by jove did they itch and burn like mad.

By his side, the left side, Seungmin stared at Hyunjin, then his arm, then back at Hyunjin. A pause.

“You’re going to get malaria now.”

Full flat affect, straight-faced.

Hyunjin was standing in two seconds, and nearly down again in another two, wobbling something awful as the blood and alcohol rushed to his feet. A shrill yell escaped his throat as he glared at Seungmin, mentally declaring him the antichrist and wiping at his arm like he could wash the bites away. “Dude! What the fuck!” Jeongin stood quick with Hyunjin, grabbing him by the shoulders to try and steady the man, and also to hold him back, but it was too late. Hypochondria had already taken the wheel. Rage was a backseat driver. “Why would you say that?!”

Seungmin shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, man. Nothin’ I can do. You’re gonna get malaria and die,” he said, shit-eating grin plastered to his face. “That’s embarrassing. To die from a little itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny mosquito in a zombie apocalypse—”

“Seungmin, stop torturing him,” Jeongin tutted, steering Hyunjin away from the group and towards the bulkhead. That’s enough for one night.

The smoke had been getting to be a bit much, and the drinks too sweet, anyway. And he’d been looking for an excuse to go to bed this entire time, so why look a gift horse in the mouth? Hyunjin threw his head back and drunkenly called out over the din, right before the door closed behind him, “You know, Kim Seungmin, I hope I get infected and die so I can kill you guilt-free—”

Chapter Text

“I didn’t finish my drink,” Hyunjin whined, sleep-filled gait lagging behind Jeongin.

“Ah, you’ve had plenty today.” He was kind enough to take Hyunjin down a route with fewer people, only bumping into a man named Sangyeop on the way, and it didn’t take long at all to get back to his room. Jeongin pushed the door open for Hyunjin and closed it behind the two of them once he stumbled in, groaning. “I don’t need you getting white girl wasted on me.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes and kicked off his shoes, bracing himself on a line of shelves covered in unopened tubes of matte finish acrylic paint. A few of the bottles wobbled and tumbled off the shelf, with him leaning his entire weight onto it. He stared at them in disappointment and then turned his gaze up to the bemused, swaying Jeongin. “Boring.”

He started to try and pull his button-up off, over his head with a stumble over his feet (hey, who put those there?), and Jeongin, roughly the same amount of drunk as him but maybe a little better at masking it, quickly appeared at the man's side. “You should be sitting down,” he chastised softly, delicate fingers unbuttoning the sleek top and sliding it off Hyunjin’s shoulders and arms, occasional fleeting touches leaving lasting imprints. Imprints that prickled strangely with the phantom feeling. “You’ll fall over at this rate.”

Hyunjin hummed with a pout, looking down over his now bare arms, only wearing a white t-shirt. “I am not an infant. I can stand,” he protested, ignoring how the world did, in fact, swim and swirl around him. Like he was looking into a kaleidoscope. An array of colors swishing in the low light, an orange glow from the lanterns outside in the hall casting itself onto Jeongin’s face, the other half blocked in shadow.

Such an angular face. He really is quite foxlike. The slant of his eyes and his sharp, cutting cheekbones curving down into his narrow jawline. Wow, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Yes, yes, he is, matter of fact. It’s startling how beautiful he’s grown to be over the past few years, even in the rugged, cut-edge of the apocalypse. He—

“You’re pretty,” Hyunjin blurted.

Huh. Why did he feel that on his tongue, not in his head? His tongue is so heavy, also, Hyunjin noted with distaste. Very Heavy. Wait, did he say that? Out loud? Hyunjin was ninety-eight percent positive that was supposed to be an inside thought.

Jeongin flinched back, staring at Hyunjin with a face awash in confusion. Then, it shifted into amusement, lightening up with a quiet chuckle. “Go sit down and change into some pajama pants,” he said, patting him lightly on the arm, “and I’m gonna clean up a bit. Your room is trashed.”

“Judgy. . .” Hyunjin mumbled, side-eyeing the boy as he walked away, but he did not argue. No point in it.

Things had gotten messy the past few days, and it drove Hyunjin crazy. A consequence of hardly being in there as of late. He’d go out, distract himself with busy work and friends, and then come back late and toss his clothes this way and that and mostly-empty notebooks just as far before crashing. And with no energy to clean the next morning, he’d dip as soon as he could.

So if Jeongin wishes to hide from his own intoxication by fixing the problem for Hyunjin, who’s to stop him?

Hyunjin grabbed the first pair of soft pajama pants he saw on the floor and sat down on the bed, tugging off his jeans and pulling them on instead. And then he lay there for a while, back on the bed, legs hanging limply off the edge.

The layered sheets that made up Hyunjin’s canopy were glittering in the dark, each stray strand of light catching in the silver bulbs and white sheer curtain. It danced across his pupils. 

Hmm.

Bored.

Suddenly, very painfully, excruciatingly bored, sitting on the bed, sobering up while his blood leveled out. That wouldn’t do, not at all. Was he expected to just sit still while Jeongin went through his shit? Nonsense. Hyunjin stood up and immediately felt all the lightness, the fuzzy, buzzy feeling in his head return with strength. He had to stand there with his arms out on either side of him like a penguin to make things stop spinning.

“Whatcha doing, Innie?” Hyunjin said, dragging out the ing sound while he wobbled over to the boy, to the immediate right of his bed, by the wall. He was neatly stacking various books on the countertop. “It’s been hours.”

“More like five minutes, barely.” Jeongin glanced up languidly, setting down the last of the papers and notebooks carefully. He leaned against the shelf, breathing slowly and deliberately, like he was gathering his thoughts, clinging to sobriety. Finally, he looked up, slowly, and narrowed his eyes, quirking an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you lying down?”

Something, something, distant and unexplainable, drew Hyunjin closer. Not with the most graceful of steps, but sure and determined ones, until he was close enough to Jeongin to admire his face again. Woah. Things spin worse when you move, Hyunjin realized, resting a hand on the surface beside him.

“Why aren’t you?”

“I am! helping you! And I had to make sure you didn’t, like, choke on your own vomit or something.” Jeongin was swaying a little now, too, and the feeling in his eyes did not quite match the conviction behind his words.

“Mm- hic!- I didn’t ask you to do that—” Hyunjin moved closer and put his arms on either side of Jeongin, grasping his biceps— oh, woah, he is strong. Where the fuck did all that muscle come from? Jeongin stared back, confused again, if not endeared. No longer swaying.

What? He can’t have him falling over, now, can he?

“Besides, I just think you want to be around me,” Hyunjin said, taking his left hand and poking Jeongin’s chest.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself.”

“So you don’t?” Closer, closer, still. Hyunjin is cold, and he can tell Jeongin isn’t, with his flushed skin and big, cozy sweater. Seems like an obvious solution is at hand. Heat transference. Like when you need to warm up someone with hypothermia. 

Something like that.

“What? No—”

“You can tell me, it’s okay,” he dragged out, eyes trailing up, along the burnt-out twinkle lights across the ceiling of the room, and back down to Jeongin, over him. “Or. . . Hmm. I think I just lied to you, eheh, I don’t know why I did that.” Hyunjin barely got his words out through high, fairyish giggles, shaking his head. It was full of bubbles. Very light and airy. Like champagne.

Champagne is a funny word. The French make funny words. Cham. Pagne. Hyunjin mumbled it aloud, mispronounced, releasing from his mouth with the airy bubbles that were making his thoughts float away, and then spoke again, a little more rational. The bubbly wine sloshing in his brain must’ve been dumbing him down. He’s much smarter now. “I think I’d cry if you- if you really told me that.”

Hyunjin ran his hands up and down Jeongin’s arms. Jeongin looked at him with something buried deep in his gaze, and then down, laughing scatteredly. “You get cute when you’re drunk.” It could be easier to skirt around truths than tell them in full. Paint around the edges and leave it to others to fill in the blanks. And to do so with eyes averted. “Cute and ridiculous.”

“You’re cute always,” Hyunjin replied, bopping him on the nose. The contact made Jeongin reflexively scrunch up his face. Painfully cute. And then, he looked at Hyunjin again, eyes fractured and distant while they took in the man before him. Was the distance between the two always so small? Was it always this quiet? When Hyunjin’s hands somehow ended up on Jeongin’s waist instead of his arms, his eyes widened like dinner plates, pupils dilating.

“You—” Jeongin stopped, caught his breath. “You’re so close to me,” he said haltingly, curling bashfully into his chest.

So that must mean he was right. Jeongin was just finding an excuse to hang around. He’d gloat, but he isn’t sober enough to do so and is too gay to care. Just gay enough to make things worse, though. It’s a specialty of his. Especially when events from earlier in the night still swung like a pendulum in his mind. Back and forth, back and forth. The ichor down his throat, most prominently. Oh, lord, that really wouldn’t ever leave his mind. Idiot man.

Hyunjin giggled and closed the thin distance between them. “Mmm, yeah, I am.” His fingers were lazily trailing along Jeongin’s waist, humming to himself all the while. Little hummingbird. Can’t stop moving. Soft skin, smooth and warm. Soft like his hair.

“You, ah,” Jeongin swallowed hard, “you’re close to me a lot.”

Footsteps distantly echoed, up the hall and past the door without halt. Hyunjin leaned forward and bumped his nose against Jeongin’s. He could feel his eyelashes flutter nervously against his skin. “I am,” he drawled, drawing his head back but leaning his body closer, Jeongin’s back to the wall, head tilting to the side.

He curved around Jeongin, curled like a question mark, his hands snaking under the hem of his sweater. Pulling up his tank top, which was tucked into his jeans, and pressing his hands against his warm skin. All the sensations were so nice, Hyunjin couldn’t help but giggle. That warmth was good, yes? Very good. Hyunjin was so awfully cold, down to his bones, Jeongin wouldn’t mind sharing.

Muscles in Jeongin's side tensed up, quivered at the sensation, a sigh escaping his lips. A hitch in breath. Labored rising of the chest. “Touch me a lot, too,” he whispered, barely audible. “But you, you’re like that with everyone.”

“Am I, though?” Arms moving up, fingers tangled in hair, a thumb running over his cheek. Jeongin’s own hands went down to Hyunjin’s waist. “Mmm. Maybe. Maybe I am,” he said, “but not everyone is you, Yeni.”

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“What do you think?”

Each fingertip has its own pulse, twitching, nervous. Muscles pulled taut. “Okay, you- you’re drunk.” Jeongin’s face was flushed red, chest rising and falling steeply, shallowly. Composure broken under the limelight of inebriation. “And absolutely out of your mind.”

“M’just buzzed,” Hyunjin whined as he pulled away, dropping his head to Jeongin’s shoulder. Too heavy. It needed to rest on something. He breathed in deeply, the smell of spilt whisky and a splash of vanilla. Out, onto Jeongin’s neck, unaware of the way he shuddered under the sensation. 

“You are, too. I saw you. Drunk little Innie, you drank more than me, didn’t you? I saw you,” he mumbled, returning his hands to Jeongin’s waist, his hips—he has good bone structure. Such good structure. Like the— what’s that one, that church? Cologne. Hyunjin nuzzled into the crook of Jeongin’s neck, lips dragging across his skin when he spoke again. “You! are like Cologne. Germany.” Hyunjin giggled to himself, the vibrations traveling through Jeongin’s throat.

A sound that a sober Hyunjin would read as a whimper or a whine, but a drunk Hyunjin read as nothing at all, tumbled clumsily from Jeongin, who tilted his head back and rested it against the wall. “Fucking crazy, I swear.”

Hyunjin giggled again, head swimming, and then pulled away. The world seemed to be getting smaller, or perhaps that was just the heaviness of his eyelids, fluttering closed for longer and longer. Hands found their way to his arms firmly, steadying him, now. A gesture repaid. The sensation made his nerves tingle. His eyes fluttered open and found their way to Jeongin’s, staring at him with an unreadable expression.

It was now that Hyunjin realized he did want to kiss Jeongin. Not how he wants to kiss all of his friends, but for real.

Waves, pulling, pushing, up and down the shore.

Jeongin took a deep breath and fixed his gaze on Hyunjin firmly. Senses returned, waves crashing. He brushed a strand of hair behind Hyunjin’s ear. “You. . . You’re tired, aren’t you? You need to sleep.”

And maybe now wasn’t the time.

The tide receded. Hyunjin hummed. Reluctantly, a nod. “I don’t want to.”

“I know. Here- Hyunie, let me help you.”

A guiding arm on his waist, a solidifying force for his uneven gait. Hyunjin drew to Jeongin like a moth to flame, and Jeongin drew him further until, without him even realizing, he was buried under blankets and barely conscious. Soft, fluffy, thick blankets, the fur being rubbed between his tingly fingers. A warm chill dancing through his nerves and spine. Hyunjin hummed again, pleasantly bundled and brain a twisting mist of colors, but the sensation was already missed. Of Jeongin, his hands, his face inches from Hyunjin’s own. It was like Jeongin just. . . disappeared? One moment, at his side, and the next he was alone in his bed, confused and tired.

Silence, weighty, carried over the room.

After fourteen consecutive arguments inside himself, Jeongin huffed and climbed back onto the bed before he could change his mind or come to his senses and pressed the world's quickest kiss to the still-awake Hyunjin’s temple, muttering to him a rushed, “Sleep well.”

And then, he was gone.

Chapter Text

Hyunjin didn’t drink nearly enough the night prior to have a blackout, but he did have a greyout, foggy smudges of memory melding together like molten hot glass. There was a shape there in the oppressive fog, yes, but it would burn him if he tried to touch it, sending volts of lightning through his throbbing brain.

Unfortunately, he did remember enough to be embarrassed.

And embarrassed, he was.

“No, oh no, I’m fine,” Hyunjin protested, groaning drearily against the palms of his hands. He’s sitting in the cafeteria with Jisu at their usual table (one tucked away in a far corner where things weren’t too noisy), eating a bowl of stew (?) that Minho had made from a few scavenged cans of Dinty Moore and fresh potatoes and carrots from the gardens. And, fuck, it was good. He could eat a million servings of this if he were allowed. “Perfect, even. I’m just so humiliated I wish everyone around me was dead.”

Jisu giggled quietly, hiding her mouth with her hand. She’d spent the better half of an hour desperately, frustratedly, trying to convince him that if last night's sordid events show anything, it’s that Jeongin clearly feels something for him. This, naturally, did nothing to stop Hyunjin’s mental breakdown. “Have you even talked to him today?”

It was more like putting a Band-Aid over a dislocated shoulder.

“No!” Hyunjin dragged his hands down his face, pulling at his under eyelids. “No, obviously not, because if I had, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, now, would I?”

A small group of people Jeongin knew walked past their table, a confused stare reaching his agonized expression. He removed his hands from his face and offered a wave with a sheepish smile, a strained greeting called out to cleanse their worries and keep them from lingering at their table. Jisu chuckled, though it wasn’t without pity, a feeling not missed by Hyunjin. “You’re gonna have to eventually.”

Once in the clear, the cluster passing through, he let his expression drop back into the permanent scowl he carried like a cross on his chest since the moment he opened his eyes this morning. “Yeah, Jisu,” he said, fingers running through his hair, nails scratching against his scalp just a little bit harder than they needed to, “I get that. I am not a child.”

“You drink like one.”

“Pardon me?”

“I saw teenagers on that roof handling their liquor better than you.”

“Yeah well maybe that’s because they’re all borderline alcoholics and I am actually responsible and don’t use alcohol to cope so just jot that down, okay. Bet you never considered that one, huh?”

Jisu stuck out her tongue in a Stu Macher smile, clenched between her teeth. “Never have I seen someone so proud of the teenage alcoholism epidemic.”

Hyunjin shrugged. “Better them than me!”

“Hyunjin, that’s awful.”

“I stand by it.” Swishing the water in the glass he held, Hyunjin took a small sip, letting the tasteless, hardly cold liquid stall in his mouth before swallowing. Even that felt like a chore right now, another groan escaping him as the pain in his head spiked. Yikes. Pain meds aren't allotted out for hangovers, because that’s your own damn fault, so he’d have to find Seungmin later for one of his nasty home remedies.

He’d prefer hangover soup, but beggars can’t be choosers

“I’m serious, Hy-”

“I know, I know.” He fixed her with a glare across the table. “I’ll talk to him later, okay? After eating. And maybe getting some tea from Seungmin. That work for you?”

“As long as you mean it,” she said, pointing her spoon at him before returning to her meal. Of course, he meant it. Hyunjin wasn’t one to shy away from these things. Better to tackle it as soon as possible. Even if it made him violently anxious to think about.

Hyunjin bit the inside of his cheek. Here’s to hoping he’d survive this day.

Jisu stared into her bowl and frowned, then sighed and took a bite. Mouth full, she said, “The people on farm duty gotta get that wheat growing faster.”

“Why?”

“Because what’s the point in eating a hearty stew if you don’t have a Hawaiian roll to dip into it?”

There was such deep, genuine sorrow in her voice that Hyunjin had to laugh, a sound that echoed across the large hall, causing some other survivors to throw him a glare. Oh, god forbid he feels joy, huh?

Endlessly thankful for the subject change, Hyunjin grinned still, wide. “Yeah, yeah, fair,” he said, tilting his bowl to drain it of its contents. He set it down and wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. “I miss bread.”

“Me too,” came a voice from behind Hyunjin, strong arms being thrown affectionately around his shoulders. “Milk bread. . . I’d kill for milk bread.”

Hyunjin laughed and flung his head back to rest on the boy behind him. “Hey, Binnie!”

Jisu gave him a small wave and a sweet smile to match. “I thought you were patrolling right now?”

“Was. This isn’t a social visit, unfortunately.” Luckily, the boy was speaking into his good ear, something he was thankful for. Changbin leaned into Hyunjin flirtatiously, as he does with his friends. Hyunjin, never one to back down from a fight, turned his head quickly, hands grasping Changbin in a death grip and planting a wet, lingering smooch on his cheek, which he batted away with at least a billion complaints.  

“You,” he said finally after wiping off his cheek, bopping Hyunjin on the nose, “have been requested by Yeji. She’s up in the radio room.”

Ahh, fuck. Hyunjin left his walkie-talkie in his bunk, so he wouldn’t have heard if she called him directly. He ran his fingers through his hair sheepishly, grown out so that it’s curling off his shoulders now. “Is she mad at me?”

“Nah, Yeji doesn’t really get mad. I think she’s just stressed,” Changbin frowned, “though she, uh, wouldn’t tell me why. You make sure she’s okay, alright? She trusts you.”

Lightly, and selfishly, happy that he’d no longer have to be berated about his current emotional turmoil, Hyunjin stood up and brushed off his pants, nodding his head to the two of them. “You make it sound like she doesn’t trust y’all. She’s known you longer than me,” he said, gesturing to Jisu incredulously, who shrugged in response.

It was true; in the void that Chan’s absence left, Hyunjin helped fill it, bridge the gap. He and Ryujin both took care of Yeji the most, while she nearly killed herself with the stress she placed on her shoulders, the burden of keeping everyone alive, of doing right by them. She’d been doing a lot better now, mind you. Less depressed, more hopeful, but that didn’t make him any less worried. “I’m sure she just doesn’t want to cause a panic. I’ll keep you two updated, okay?”

They seemed thankful.

On the edges of broken escalator steps and in between the iron bars of upper-floor railings were potted plants, flowers, and cascading leaves, a pastime of those who couldn’t leave the mall due to age, disability, or being immunocompromised. Hyunjin noted them fondly as he went up towards the radio room, humming to himself. Yes, anything can survive and even flourish in the dark times. Yes, they can still dance, and they can still grow.

He bumped into Lara on the way, who regarded him with a quick smile and cordial apology before hurrying on. Well, she must be busy. Hyunjin was grateful they managed to become friends despite their rocky start, the weeks of distrust between them. Hyunjin often teases her about her almost shooting him on their first meeting. She always responds by saying some version of, “I stand by it.” Or “And I’d do it again.” Always defended herself with, “Like, how was I supposed to know you were cool? I won’t put my friends in danger for some man.”

Yeaaah.

That’s fair.

Into what used to be a technology store for iPhones and laptops and the like, Hyunjin saw Yeji sitting at a table with a ham radio on it, walkie-talkie in hand, eyes scrunched in the most stressed he’s seen her in since—well, since trying to escape Savannah. There were a lot of still working cameras here, some older than the others. Some people at Pineridge had taken a few to make video diaries or just record silly shit, like Minho, who’d take one with him on patrols and record stray cats, or Yuna, who did daily vlogs about life around the mall.

“Yeji?” Hyunjin said softly, pushing the door open and then closing it behind him. She made no move to respond, and at first, Hyunjin couldn’t even tell if she heard him before she waved him over to sit.

He sat across from her, and she slid a clipboard over the tabletop to him. It was the checklist for those who’d been out of the mall recently. At first glance, one might think it unfair, such regulations, but it’s just to keep people safe, to know if someone is lost or hurt. The most recent sign-out was a few hours old. Ryujin and Sangyeop had gone out to run routine upkeep on the outskirts of town, a few miles away, to make sure all the buildings were clear of dead and to see if anyone needed help. They should have been back just about two hours ago, but sign in they did not.

“You were the last to see them, right?”

“I— I mean,” Hyunjin began, racking his brain, “I don’t know if I was the last person to see them, but yeah, I said bye before they left.”

“And?”

“And, uh? I haven’t seen them back, if that’s what you’re asking.”

The weight of that sentence settled on the room like a thick blanket, snuffing out the light and pushing against Hyunjin’s lungs in a way he found uncomfortable and almost painful. Hyunjin sucked in sharply through his teeth. “They. . . maybe they decided to stay the night somewhere, for safety. It’s happened before. Doesn’t mean they’re hurt.”

Yeji looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed, and both of them knew not even Hyunjin believed that statement. Not when it was only midday. Over the past few days, there’d been signs of what they can only assume are bandits—that’s the closest name for them—both out and about and on clipped radio frequencies they’ve picked up. Nowhere near enough to do damage or threaten the mall itself, but that doesn’t make them harmless.

And even if they were just holing up somewhere for the day, they would have radioed in, given reason why. But Hyunjin wouldn’t be up here if there was anything but radio silence on their end.

“So, what do we do?”

“We go out,” Yeji said, firmly and without room for argument (not that Hyunjin would have argued), standing up with both her arms pinned straight on the table. “I already got two groups lined up, getting ready to go. I was hoping you’d come with me.”

There was never any doubt that he would.

Hyunjin would go into the flames for anyone in this building, even if he didn’t know their name.

That’s just the kind of person he is.

✦

The sun was well into setting when Hyunjin’s group made it to where the missing patrol was supposed to be, a night’s chill settling early into their bones. Those with him were Yeji, Minho, and Yuna. Minho was far ahead, still in sight but already trying to find anything he could use to track them, crossbow up and loaded.

It felt just a little too familiar for Hyunjin’s liking.

He swallowed back every attempt at hyperventilation from his body. It was fine. This was fine.

It wouldn’t happen again.

Yeji was further ahead, too, axe in hand and out of earshot for Hyunjin, so that left him and Yuna arm in arm down the well-trodden path. She had a sniper over her back, and her sharp eyes were always looking on either side of them, just in case. She started walking backward, both to make sure no side was uncovered and to face Hyunjin head-on.

She said something, but he couldn’t make it out.

“Sorry, what?”

“——Sorry!” The beginning of the sentence cut out, too, but then Yuna started signing as she spoke. She was a bit rusty, would miss some words or misspell things, but even just the fact that she knew and she tried meant a lot. Not a lot of people did that for him. Not even before he lost partial hearing, when he just struggled with auditory processing issues.

Now he tended to be double fucked. Especially when things were noisy. Like when they were outside, and the sounds of birds and zombies muddled everything up until all remaining noises were nothing but TV static to him.

“I said, are you alright? You’re uncharacteristically quiet.”

Hyunjin wrung his hands. “Worried, I guess.”

She slowed down and reached out to Hyunjin, giving his arm a comforting squeeze. “I’m sure they’re alright, we just gotta find them!” She said, with spritely endurance and a playful wink, before turning back around. How she managed to do that would always amaze Hyunjin. Be so energetic and optimistic all the time. He wanted to be more like her, helpful and positive and uncrippled by self-doubt. He tried. He really, really did. “And— if something is wrong, we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

He just couldn’t always stop the spiral.

“I hope you’re right.”

The streets were desolate, other than the fallen bodies of zombies dotting parts of the roads, some fresher than others. Doors creaked open ambiently with soft wind, and the windows were cherry-tinted with the light of sunset's tail-end. It fractured out onto the cracked cement stained with black blood and bile, and Hyunjin quickly trained his gaze up, at the horizon, to keep from being sick.

They followed the loose trail of bodies and blood to the end of the patrol route, at a cookie-cutter suburban house with a blue roof that they’d transformed into a safehouse, the first of many throughout the town. It was used as a settling point, in the middle of the neighborhood by the woods and a little creek that dashed through the treeline. After clearing out any stragglers that had wandered in or those newly turned, those on duty would post up on the upper story and keep watch for a few hours before heading back and relieving their shift.

The door was hanging wide open.

Bikes abandoned outside, knocked over.

It’s no surprise how everyone's gaits picked up, how their rule of staying quiet went out the window as Yeji yelled out the names of their friends and followed closely after Minho, bursting through the door. Yuna and Hyunjin were a decent distance back and had to break into full runs to catch up; by the time they got there, Minho was already out the back door, running through the yards of other houses, Yeji close behind.

“Wait, what—?”

“Hyunjin.”

Yuna’s voice shook, echoing through the empty house from where she stood in the doorway. Hyunjin whipped around to look at her, not at her voice, but at her hand on his shoulder. She stared at him, more serious now, and it was this moment and this moment alone that Hyunjin took in their surroundings.

Pre-outbreak furniture they’d set up nicely when making this safehouse had been thrown about, the glass coffee table shattered across the hardwood floor, dotted with streaks of spilt blood. Yuna ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and Hyunjin walked too slow into the kitchen, feet dragging. There was no note, no bodies. Some cans of food had been taken from the boxes on the counter, but that was it. The scuffle was centralized in the living and dining room and the still-open door. There were not-so-little drops of blood leading out the back door where the others ran.

Hyunjin stood and then leaned against the kitchen counter, eyes shut tight, breathing uneven. A tingling, pins and needles sensation crawled through his nerves like cold chills, up his arms and neck, and to his scalp. Breathe. Breathe. Count to ten and breathe. In for four seconds, hold for seven, out for eight. Breathe. Breathe.

His eyes fluttered open, and he saw Yuna standing in the archway from the kitchen to the dining room. She had her arms crossed over her midsection in a partial hug and stared at him, eyes wide with worry.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied.

Silence drew back into the room like smoke from a cigarette into aching lungs.

“There was,” she held a thumb out behind her, “nothing upstairs. Nothing, really. We should probably go catch up with the others, if you feel ready to move.”

Her voice was almost as stiff as her body language. Uneasy. Hyunjin offered a curt nod and moved past her, out the back door and in the vague direction of the blood, not feeling ready to talk yet. Yuna respected this and followed him quietly. When he’s ready, he knows she’ll listen.

Off on the yellow brick road they went, after blood and chatter, death and fear.

The house at the end of the block was an old, quaint two-story house, much like all the others in the neighborhood, the backyard sporting a treehouse without a ladder and an empty, decaying, plant-filled pool. The windows had shoddy boards across them, and the white plaster was peeling. They pushed through the iron rod gate into the backyard and immediately knew something terrible had happened.

Minho was crouched down at the large wooden fence running along the back of the yard, bordering the woods, in front of what looked like a zombie. Hyunjin and Yuna exchanged a glance as Yeji looked up from her walkie at the creaking sound of the gate and then ran up to them before they could walk any further.

“Look,” she said, eyes hazy, “look, you need to take a deep breath, okay? Just—” She took a breath herself, talking too fast, and then slowed down. She stared at them both earnestly, worry etched into her very being. “I. . . am not sure how to tell you this. But it’s not good. So, just, brace yourselves, okay?”

Hyunjin wanted to tell her to just rip off the band-aid and get it over with, to tell the sinking boulder in his chest that his growing fears were true, but he worried it might come off as rude. So he stayed silent.

Yeji looked at the grass and sighed.

“It’s Yeop. We, uh. Found him.”

Fuck.

Not again.

Hyunjin was down by Minho in five seconds flat, despite Yeji trying to grab his arm, slow him down. There, limp in the grass against the fence, was Sangyeop, the stench of fresh death clinging to the air and flattened, maroon-dyed grass. His eyes were open, cloudy, and scared, a deep purple bite on his wrist and a gunshot wound in his lower abdomen. There was a stab wound in his head—one of the two piked him, most likely, mercy’d him—and deep red blood soaking into his clothes.

Even though Hyunjin never knew him well, he knew that he was a good man. He knew those he’d arrived with would be crushed. And so he shed tears, anyway, because he shouldn’t be desensitized. None of them should be. A loss is tragic, prolific, no matter if you were close or not.

He reached forward and, gently, hand trembling something awful, closed Sangyeop's eyes and murmured a breathless apology.

Minho rubbed circles into Hyunjin’s back, reassuringly, saying nothing when nothing could be said. He took Hyunjin’s hand and squeezed it tightly, pulling it away from where it lingered right at Sangyeop, and then rested his chin on Hyunjin’s shoulder.

Hyunjin’s eyes trailed the corpse in morbid curiosity. “The gunshot wound. . .”

“Ante-mortem,” Yeji said, voice jutting in between the two of them as she stood right behind, sighing. “You can tell. There's coagulated blood around the wound, just tons of blood loss in general, and it's a bit swollen. So whether he was shot before or after he got bit is irrelevant, though I’m pretty sure it was before. What matters is it was before his heart stopped beating, or else it wouldn’t have bled.” She was smart about these things, studied it some in college. Pretty sure she wanted to be a profiler or crime scene investigator. “It's a gut wound, too. Slow. Painful. No coming back from that.”

“So, you're saying it was purposeful?” That was Yuna, whose throat sounded clogged with tears. She cleared it painfully.

“It would’ve been either way. But I get what you mean.” Yeji paused in thought for maybe a minute before speaking again. “Maybe. If we're dealing with sadists? Definitely. That would make it a murder. Best case scenario, it was a panic shot in self-defense.”

“Doubtful,” Minho chimed in optimistically, staring at the wooden fence like it held all the answers to the universe. “He was probably trying to follow them. Which means they’re in the woods.” He stood up, took a few steps back, far back, all the way to the edge of the pool, before breaking into a full sprint. He launched himself up at the wall, hands grabbing the edge, and hoisted himself up and over effortlessly.

Ah, yes. No nonsense, straight to business, as always.

Yuna pulled herself together and took off in a run as well, following after Minho without problem, and giving Hyunjin cause for concern. He. . . probably can’t do that. Not without blacking out after. Yeji yelled instantly, and Hyunjin turned to see the way protectiveness for Yuna flashed in her eyes like a lit flare.

“What on earth are you two doing?!”

“Finding Ryujin! We have to assume she’s still alive, or we would have found her body already. Darks growing fast, so we need to split up again, to cover more ground,” Minho shouted from the other side of the wall, much to Yeji’s chagrin (When will people learn that splitting up is never a good idea? Does history have to repeat itself to get the point across?) “Me and Yuna can take the southwest, you two take southeast.”

Yeah. Hyunjin has no fucking clue what that means. He can’t even tell his lefts from his rights without looking at his hands.

“Fine,” Yeji called back. “Just give me a second to radio this in, and don’t get lost. If I lose anyone else today I’m gonna flip my fucking shit.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n! You can count on us,” Yuna said, raising her voice a few octaves to sound chipper and reassure her dear friend. It only partially worked. Hyunjin could tell from how Yeji smiled and then rolled her eyes afterward.

Hyunjin tuned out the world for a moment after that.

Staring at Sangyeop's corpse, head empty but chest heavy, heavy with guilt and dread and stomach acid rising and rising and rising in his throat.

Yeji speaking again shook him out of it, though he only caught the end of her sentence. Something about the call. He turned to face her and focused on her lips so he wouldn’t miss anything else. “Chaeryeong’s freaking the fuck out.”

“I’d be surprised if she wasn’t.”

Yeji came and sat by Hyunjin with her head resting in her hands. “I don’t know what she’ll do if she loses her.”

I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her. If anyone else dies on my watch.

That’s what Yeji was thinking, Hyunjin could tell, and since she didn’t say it, he pretended he didn’t know. He rested his hand on her thigh and gave her a minute to breathe.

When she seemed a little more grounded, Hyunjin offered a smile. “Let’s not let that happen, then.” He looked up at the fence. “I’m. . . gonna need your help getting over this.”

That made Yeji barely repress a snort. “Course you are.”

Chapter Text

Hyunjin didn’t know for sure how long they’d been walking through the woods, but he had a pretty good idea when he could only see a few feet in front of him. It was dark and damp and suffocating, the too-close trees that formed a canopy above them snuffing out all visibility, moonlight only lightly peaking through. And where conversation had started in the beginning, stupid jokes to cheer each other up, it had tapered off into a tense silence.

An hour, Hyunjin thought. Had to be an hour.

He looked at Yeji, a little ahead of him, and could sense it radiating off of her in waves. Strong enough to give him whiplash. He spent ten minutes working up the nerve to speak.

“It won’t be like Savannah.”

Yeji’s shoulders tensed up so bad it looked painful, and she sucked in a harsh breath through her teeth. “I know it won’t. Because I won’t let it be.”

Oh, ouch. That one hurt, hurt bad, even though Hyunjin knew she didn’t mean it like that. She’s just stressed, worried sick, and he can’t blame her when he’d been stabbing crescent moons into his palms the whole walk.

It still hurt like she’d ripped off a scab he’d thought healed a long time ago, and it shut him up good for another few minutes before he opened his mouth to speak again. Maybe to apologise. Maybe something else he shouldn’t say. It didn’t matter, anyway. No sound left his mouth when she grabbed his arm and tugged him down into the thorny underbrush.

She leaned in to whisper to him. She was on his left side, so he had to turn his head to hear her. Her breath was hot on his skin, and she was barely audible. Straining made his head hurt.

“Voices, up ahead. Light.”

Oh, fuck, there was.

The voices were disjointed and distant like figments of his imagination, barely there even when he could pinpoint them and only for a second or so. But that light was unmissable. A beacon in the woods, the distant flickering of a campfire. Yeji crawled nearly prone towards it, and Hyunjin followed suit, moving like a many-limbed beetle through the upturned roots and damp soil, breathing life into the air. Yeji held out an arm to stop him from moving any further as she peered through bush leaves down onto a small camp, with only a dozen or so people there.

There were a few big tents and a few tapestries hung over low-hanging tree branches to form makeshift ones. Two campfires were in the small clearing, with lanterns on the ground here and there. Some people were sleeping down by the fires wrapped up in blue sleeping bags, and others were up patrolling, clothes dirty and stained with blood. It reminded Hyunjin of him and his friends before they found the mall. Worse for wear.

Why, if these weren’t so clearly the bandits passing through town, they’d try to make room for them in their humble home.

But that was impossible when they had Ryujin tied up to a tree, cloth in her mouth to keep her quiet.

Yeji’s face was narrowed and unburdened with panic. She thrives in environments like this. The panic won’t hit her til later, after the matter, but now she has a hunger and rage in her eyes, flickering like the embers from the fire below. Ryujin looked a little roughed up, but not eminently injured, and was more annoyed than anything. Maybe even bored. Her head lolled back as she stared into the dark abyss above, probably thinking something like, Really?

Yeji started to whisper something, and Hyunjin quickly turned his head to try and make out her words. “. . .That’s the best way. If one of us causes a distraction, lures some away from the camp, then—”

The cold barrel of a gun pressed to the back of Hyunjin's skull. Yeji’s silence told him she’d met the same fate.

“Go ‘on, then.”

The gun pushed against Hyunjin’s head harshly, and then a fist grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him up and forward, down the hill.

His memory gets a bit blurry after that.

He knew things got loud and quiet all at the same time. A cacophony of voices sliced through the din with a dull blade, hacking and sawing at the space between Hyunjin’s eyes as he tried desperately to focus, to pick out anything important. Movement, more sounds, around him in places he couldn’t process. Yeji was standing next to him, hands up in surrender as she was frisked for weapons, a look on her face aged with so much rage that Hyunjin was relieved he wasn’t on the receiving end. He got frisked next, and Ryujin was untied, her gag removed—she spat in the man's face as soon as he did—as they brought her to stand, too. The man wiped at his face in disdain, dragging his hand across his lips, and then hoisted up his large gun to point at her more aggressively, to warn her not to try anything. The big, ugly bruise on his left eye said she already had.

Someone was looking at him. Fuck. Did they say something? Their mouth moved, but so did others, and the fire crackled, and the blood rushed in Hyunjin’s ears, and he stared blankly, helplessly, trying to read their lips.

Then he was on the ground.

Pain?

Was this pain?

There was the overwhelming feeling of nothing that told him there was something, somewhere, in a missing spot of code his brain hadn’t processed yet. Yes. Yes, that was nothing, and it was bad. Very bad. He knew that.

Was he breathing?

Not for a minute, no. And then all the wind flew back into his body so forcefully he gasped for air, and then coughed and spluttered. There was this intense pressure in his chest, and— ahh, yes, there’s the pain. The Something in the Nothing. Every time he breathed, it burned, burned like hellfire, and tears stung the corners of his eyes.

Someone grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him up to look them in the eye. It was the person who’d been talking to him. At least, Hyunjin assumed he’d been talking to him. Why else would he look so angry? “Didn’t anyone tell you to speak when you’re spoken to?” His eyes crawled up and down Hyunjin's skin like spiders, nipping and biting at his nerves. “All beauty, no brains, I suppose.”

Hyunjin got a head rush, a high, whining noise filling his ear. Somewhere else, Very Else, Hyunjin realized, oh, yeah, this motherfucker punched me, kicked me in the ribs. Multiple times. Wow. What a dick. Hyunjin reminded himself to get angry when he was done suffering.

Noises loud and louder continued to push against him, shapes gathering around in the corners of his vision, black spots budding as the man tightened his grip in Hyunjin’s hair, pulling an agonized whine from his parted lips. Blood pooled in an open cut on his forehead, dripping down into his eyes.

It came to Hyunjin’s attention that he had no idea just how hurt he was.

“Leave him alone, you bitch!”

Yeji was struggling against a woman a foot taller than her, holding her back, and lord, was she putting up a hell of a fight. Mr. Rib Kicker looked at her the way a dad looks at his son who’s choosing to join drama club instead of the football team, and released his grip on Hyunjin. He walked over to her with a yawn before slamming the butt of his gun into her stomach. She let out a harsh wheeze as she fell to her knees.

The man tutted. “So you’re the little leader, I assume?”

Yeji glared up at him, clutching her stomach in pain.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He crouched down at her level, looking her in the eye. “I’m assuming if I ask you what I asked your feisty little friend right here,” he pointed at Ryujin, who was only a couple of paces away from Yeji and just as angry. Hyunjin, lying on his right side, craned his neck to look at them. To hear them. “You’ll give me the same answer, huh?”

“That depends, doesn’t it?”

He didn’t seem to like that answer, but Hyunjin was beginning to get the impression that he wouldn’t like any answer they gave him. He stood back up, cleared his throat, and said, “You tell us where your base is, and we won’t kill you.”

That made sense. There was nowhere near enough of them to pose a threat from the outside. Not really, not with their guns. But with hostages? Boy, they’d walk pretty through the gates, no problem. Hyunjin distantly wondered how they didn’t know where it was. Maybe that was a bluff. Or maybe they were that stupid.

Well. . . patrols said they’d never ventured far into town. Probably too scared of getting killed, not knowing where they were. The mall was an hour out of town on foot, and they weren’t obvious when moving back and forth from their posts. These douchebags have probably been waiting for a chance to grab someone this whole time.

“Hmm.” Yeji pretended to ponder this. Really put on a show of it, holding her hand up to her chin and looking up like the thinker. Then she shrugged helplessly. “Sorry. No dice. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“I really wish you didn’t say that,” he said, sighing with avarice, excitement.  “Now we have to do things the fun way.” The person behind Hyunjin pulled him up to be resting on his knees, and fuck, it hurt. He couldn’t hold back a loud yelp that echoed through the trees as pain shot through his ribs again.

“How about, you lead us to your home, or we kill one of your friends here?”

Yeji let her jaw hang limply open, her gaze fluttering between Hyunjin and Ryujin frantically. “You—” She stopped, then tilted her head, almost in amusement. “Are you trolly-probleming me?”

“Am I what?”

The woman with her hand on Ryujin's shoulder, shotgun to her back, said, “It’s an ethical dilemma. There’s one person tied to one side of these tracks, and five people on the other, and—”

“Okay, fuckin, shut up,” the man said, staring at her like she just committed a cardinal sin. “I don’t really care.” Then, to Yeji. “But sure, yeah, I am trolly-probleming you or whatever. I don’t got all night, so?”

Yeji just stared. Wide-eyed.

She understood, now, why deer died so often to cars.

The world crumbled around her, the lives of so many resting on this decision, impossible it be, and there she sat, staring. Oh, yes, those who knew her likened her to a wolf, protecting those around her with claws and teeth most vicious, but here she was just a doe. Staring into God’s headlights while she did not but shiver.

If not for a flicker of movement up at the far treeline that caught her attention, she might have let it hit her.

But all at once, Hyunjin saw her demeanor shift like a chameleon. She shrank in on herself, hunched over her chest, staring up at the man with those same big doe eyes, a hard look for her to pull off, as she let her breath quicken, let tears form.

It was a last-ditch effort. She was desperate, goddamnit, but maybe she could buy them some time. Minho and Yuna were still out there, somewhere. Chaeryeong's group was still out there. Not all was lost yet.

“Please don’t,” she sobbed out, shaking. “Please don’t kill them, okay? We can— we can, figure something out, a deal—” Yeji knew how to act when she had to. Hyunjin was impressed.

The man seemed to buy it.

Of course he did.

“Oh, hon, shh, shhh, don’t cry,” he said, leaning down to her again. Yeji could barely hold back her disgust as he wiped a hand across her crocodile tears. “You’re making the right decision, sweetheart.”

Stomach curdling.

Oh, no. Something was wrong. Hyunjin could tell. Yeji could tell. It got loud again, like arguments were starting amongst the bandits.  This was no organized crime family, after all. This was a gang. And in gangs, there would be disagreements. Hyunjin was again out of the loop.

Finally, the leader-who-no-one-wanted made a motion with his hands, and those flanking Ryujin and Hyunjin dispersed, giving them a wide berth. “Unfortunately, I guess we were all expecting something more. . . Exciting?”

Definitely not good.

“Please, we’ve been out here for days, and I’m so bored,” called out another man, who’d been sleepily sitting by one of the fires this whole time.

Like killing Sangyeop wasn’t enough for them.

He shot a glare at the man on the ground, who flipped him off in reply. Then, he looked at each one of the hostages, eyes lingering hungrily. It was interesting, the mix of faces amongst the small crowd. Some were excited. Some were. . . scared? Apprehensive. Maybe not everyone’s cut out for the gang life. Can’t judge a book by its cover.

“Ever heard of kneecapping?”

He gripped the wrist of his right hand, rolling it around, ball in socket. “It’s a type of torture in Ireland,” he continued, walking around behind Yeji and Ryujin. Yeji turned to look at him, and Ryujin stood still, seething. “Where you shoot the pit of someone's knees.”

Hyunjin froze.

“Now, traditionally, it is done to both knees,” he said, aiming a fake gun and mouthing pew! under his breath, “but since you’re a lady—” he didn’t move from his spot, and Ryujin and Yeji’s breathing hitched as his face spread into a grin. Yeji was pulled up to be standing as well, face directed to look straight ahead. Unknowingly, the man’s eyes flickered between the two. “—I’ll do just the one.”

And before anyone could blink or breathe, a handgun was pulled out, a .45 automatic, and then shot from only a few feet away.

The bullet tore through Ryujin’s right leg before she could think to scream.

Her kneecap shattered instantly, ligaments practically melting away like butter, joints disintegrating. A large, grotesque hole was left, all torn up and twisted, disfigured. Gore and sinew. Blood flooded out, sticky and slick, viscous and runny like a veiny egg yolk, leg bending backwards. Parts of her patella hung limply off her leg, thin slices of jagged-cut skin peeling around it like too-rare meat from a grocery store clerk, specks of blood littering the flesh. A sour, coppery smell tinged the damp air almost instantly, cooking and melting on the tongues of all near.

The sight made vomit rise in Hyunjin’s throat.

The gunshot made his ears ring so bad he did vomit, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the screams.

None came from Ryujin, whose eyes merely widened in shock, breath stalling as she stumbled back on her mutilated leg, froze in the stagnant air, and then collapsed.

Yeji’s wail echoed louder than anyone else's, guttural and raw, vocal-chord tearing, like a black hole forming in the clearing as she lunged to grab the girl. The man seemed to laugh at the sight, uncaring of the chaos, saying something that went forever unheard in the calamity, as unimportant as his appearance or name.

All oxygen sucked back into the open forest air, back into the ocean like swirling, churning eddies in receding reefs. And then all hell broke loose when another shot, a crack! whizzing through the air from the trees this time, struck the perpetrator right between his grinning, cocky eyes, and his head exploded, brains splattering the already ruby red grass.

Hyunjin was up and running to Ryujin before the man's lifeless body even hit the ground.

That’s when everything went from slow motion to much, much too fast.

No words were shared between him and Yeji as gunfire erupted at the camp. Their thoughts and motions were completely in sync. Hyunjin pulled his soft, blue hoodie over his head to clump it around her wound as best as possible and stave off the bleeding. The two of them clumsily carried her into cover behind a few trees and bushes, far enough away from everything they could focus.

Far is a word used lightly. The war still went on in their backyard, a whirlpool churning never-endingly.

It can’t be said when Yeji left Hyunjin alone with Ryujin. One second she was there, while Hyunjin checked his friend's pulse to find it thankfully still beating away, albeit weakly, and the next, she was gone.

All sound faded into nothing as he stared down at her pale face, her fluttering half-open eyes. Silent tears streaked down his face and soaked into his pores, and he was too deep in shock to make a single sound. Only fade into nothing alongside it, the only thing tethering him to this world being the white-knuckled grip on Ryujin’s leg.

His spatial awareness was clearly out of whack as, just as he didn’t see Yeji leave, Hyunjin didn’t know when Minho arrived, his eyes never leaving Ryujin. His presence filled the empty space in the fretful air, crouched down in the bushes by the barely conscious girl. Minho cursed slowly under his breath when he saw her, long and drawn out as his shock-shaken voice took in the scene and surveyed the damage.

“Is?”

Woah. What. Hyunjin blinked numbly, fully unable to hear or process what Minho just said. He opened his mouth a little, staring up at the boy, helpless.

“I—sorry? I didn’t—”

“I— s—e de—d?”

Minho spoke slower and louder this time, a slight clarity cutting through the heavy foam, and what Hyunjin missed, he could parse from his lips.

“No, no, I—” Hyunjin stumbled over his words. “Not since I last checked, but— I have to hold— I need to keep her from, from bleeding out.”

Minho’s eyes were wide and wild, but otherwise, his expression did not betray the fear or the panic he felt. He leaned further, fingers pressed firmly to the side of her neck, and upon finding a weak but present heartbeat, went into emergency mode. His posture straightened, face deathly serious, and in a quick motion, he unbuckled his belt, pulled it off, and looked at Hyunjin. He said something that seemed like, Have to, her leg, me.

Hyunjin’s breath shuddered. “Her leg— uh, lift—? Her leg?”

“Please.”

It was hard, his stomach in knots as he gently anchored up her mangled leg, Ryujin whimpering in her fleeting moments of consciousness, eyes slightly opened and rolled back. Minho, as carefully as he could, took his belt and tied it tightly, very tightly around Ryujin’s thigh. As close to the knee as he could.

“We have to amputate it.”

Hyunjin’s hands were stained with the still-flowing blood blooming from her wound, coverage less since Yeji left his side (it isn’t enough to cover it; you have to apply pressure). His eyes didn’t leave her wound. The blood-stained hoodie, the loose skin, and cartilage. “I— Minho, you—”

Minho’s voice was there again, pressing against the foam. Hyunjin concentrated really, really, really hard, head throbbing.

“Hyunjin. Hyunjin, I need you to look at me.” Hyunjin finally tore his shell-shocked gaze away from Ryujin and to Minho, meeting his eyes. He cupped Hyunjin’s face, firmly. “I need you here. I need you to hear me. She’ll never have movement in this leg again, and without doctors, leaving it on will kill her. Do you hear me? It will kill her.”

Hyunjin nodded, eyes foggy and far, far away.

Somewhere else, very, very else, Minho spoke again.

“Hey.” Minho snapped his fingers. “Hey, are you here? I need you, Hyunjin. I— Fucking—” His voice nearly broke. Nearly. But he held it back. “I need you with me, okay? I don’t want to have to slap you, but I will. Ryujin needs us both to even have a chance at living. Are you here?”

Hyunjin nodded again, firmer this time. Okay. Minho needs me. Ryujin needs me. I can’t fuck this up, I can’t. “I’m here. I’m here.”

He glanced behind him, at the carnage ensuing in the clearing a few feet away. There must’ve been more of their people here, fighting. Had to be. “That man—” He looked back at Minho. “Who—?”

“Yuna,” Minho finished quickly, pulling the hoodie off of Ryujin’s leg. He watched as blood flow slowed to a near stop from the tourniquet, her leg growing pale and sickly yellow around the wound from lack of circulation. “Girl's got a dead eye.”

Thank god for deus ex machina Yuna.

(Deus ex machyuna. Hyunjin would have to take the time to laugh at that later. If there even was a later.)

Minho must have said something because he was suddenly taking Hyujin's hands and placing them firmly on either side of Ryujin's calf, just under the hole in her knee. Hyunjin looked up at him. Hold firm; do not move. Oh. Oh, okay. He’s standing up and back now, and he has Yeji’s axe, and this is really happening. Ryujin stirred with a groan.

“Wait, wait—”

“There’s no time—”

Hyunjin didn’t even hear Minho, not that he’d have cared, and let his hands drop off of Ryujin, her leg falling limply to the side, as he climbed over her and leaned down to her ear. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” he started, shaking, “but you should know, we— your leg, it— it isn’t saveable. So, just. We might need to cut it off, if you’ll let us.”

It was from stress, but Minho huffed above him, glaring down. “Hyunjin, I appreciate the sentiment, but she might not even be able to hear you, and this has to happen now—”

“Do it.”

It was the last thing Ryujin said before fully blacking out, a whisper barely audible, more breath than voice, but it was all Hyunjin needed to clear his troubled conscience. He moved back, held her leg firm, and gave Minho an affirmative nod.

Then he screwed his eyes shut so tight all he saw was static.

No turning back, now.

Chapter Text

How did they get here?

At this, the far edge of the universe, teetering off into oblivion? Staring the crumblings of their faith square in the eyes with gore and filth caked under their fingernails?

Hyunjin knelt at the altar, bathed in broken red moonlight spilling through the stained glass windows of the church where they found sanctuary. He knelt, and he prayed. Not to God, but to Ghosts. Those whose holiness withered with their bodies as they were ravaged by disease and picked apart flesh to flesh by crows and vultures. The Angels of the New World Order.

Ryujin was still breathing, but she had yet to regain consciousness. Not for real. Not for long.

Things went awry in more ways than one. One minute, Minho was swinging the axe, and the next, they were running through the woods, Ryujin cradled in Minho’s arms, fleeing from the roaring bullets and the walkers that had descended onto everything like divine intervention. Ran and ran and ran until they found a small, rundown church tucked away deep in the woods. Far from civilization or anything they recognized, closer to a neighboring town than anything they knew. Far from any signs of life.

Minho had started a fire long enough to heat Hyunjin’s knife red hot and use it to cauterize Ryujin’s wound—the best they could do considering the circumstances—and now he was already out again, the fire doused to keep smoke to a minimum. Searching, Hyunjin supposed. He didn’t think to ask.

Minho cried before he left, right at the door. Softly. Lightly.

Hyunjin saw and looked away. He didn’t think to comment.

It didn’t feel right. Like he bore witness to something he shouldn’t have.

Wine-dark divinity stained his palms deep. Clotted his arteries. It asked him if his acts were holy. If they were pure. He doesn’t know. Cold rasps caressed his flesh and said, Confess, Confess, Confess, and Hyunjin sobbed. He doesn’t know how to. He was never taught. Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not his, and it hurt too much to tear them from his chest for nothing. To know salvation was not made for him, to know forgiveness is not his to own, but to ask anyway.

Hyunjin would do anything to be forgiven. He would rip out his aching ribs and suck from them the marrow; he would kneel and bleed if it fixed it all. If it brought everyone back. But the sky is empty, and God is not looking at him.

God will not listen.

He curled up, in on himself like a supernova collapsing, and reached out a timid hand to Ryujin’s cold one.

✦

When Ryujin finally woke up long enough to process, to feel, to fear, she cried for two hours straight into Hyunjin’s shoulder, and his eyes burned from the effort of trying. He’d already wasted all his tears, but it wasn’t about him, anyway. It was her turn, and he knew this. So he let her sob into the stiff silence of the church until she fell asleep again, and he kept watch, holding her. He couldn’t really do anything else.

He’d have offered her a drink of the sacramental wine he found in the back room, unopened, but alcohol is a blood thinner, and this is holy ground.

He decided not to tell anyone he found it.

✦

“Took him a million years.”

Their first full day there, after the night of the incident, had begun to wind into afternoon, and only now did Ryujin awake. She was sitting behind the pulpit at the far end of the church, back against the wall and propped up with anything even lightly comfortable Hyunjin could find, with a vestment draped over her as a blanket.

“How long has he been back?” She said with a groan, her voice a rasp. Hyunjin was quick to go over to Minho’s pack, which sat discarded against the wall. He grabbed a canteen, mostly full, and some painkillers Minho was lucky to have had already stashed away. For emergencies. 

Emergencies only.

This qualified.

He pushed them into Ryujin’s hands, and she nodded thankfully. She’s an adult, she can decide how much she needs. “An hour. We thought you needed the sleep, to heal.”

Hyunjin could probably serve to take a painkiller or two, with how badly he hurt all over, but he abstained. He, along with the others, had no clue just how bad his wounds were, and only ever thought of it when pain shot through him or when his hand graced the sticky dampness at his side. All this stress, he couldn’t think about himself. Couldn’t bear to.

“Got food, too,” Minho called out from the side door of the church, where he sat just outside, tending to a fire. He was referring to the rodent kababs he spun over the small fire, nearly done. Naturally.

Ryujin craned her head up, inhaled deeply, and then sighed. You never forget that smell. “Squirrel. Yippee,” she said, her voice broken and harsh, still. She coughed and took another sip of water. “I missed that.”

“Hey.” Minho frowned. He walked back in, kebabs in hand, and passed one to each of his friends. “You said my squirrel was delicious.”

“It is,” she said, “for squirrel.”

“Doesn’t mean we missed it,” Hyunjin chimed in, managing a small smile at how Minho huffed and began muttering under his breath. Something about them both being ungrateful. It did smell good, though, and how he managed that, Hyunjin had no idea.

Minho has always been vague about his upbringing. This makes Hyunjin never want to ask, to make him uncomfortable, but he assumes the boy has good reason. What is known is he grew up in Appalachia, some town called Harpers Ferry that had, like, only a couple hundred people. His dad taught him all the practical survival skills Hyunjin knew shit fuck about, like skinning an animal and how to make a shelter from nothing. None of their friends would have survived this long without him.

God, he loved that man.

He voiced this out, and Ryujin echoed the sentiment, except for saying she loved him more. Naturally, these were fighting words, because no one could love Minho more than Hwang Hyunjin, and they bickered for a full minute until Minho, face beetroot red, made them stop and assured them he had enough love to go around.

It took another minute for Hyunjin to dampen his manic giggles enough to eat.

It was so tender that it practically fell off the bone. Hyunjin had never been the biggest fan of dark meat, but it was mild enough, and he was starving, so it didn’t bother him much. In fact, in this moment, it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, and he had been tearing into it like a ravenous beast before stopping halfway through to stare at Minho. “Are you not gonna eat?”

“Probably gonna head out again soon,” he said, looking through his pack to make sure everything was accounted for. “I just wanted to be sure you two were fed. We have to find the others, get y’back somewhere safe.” He nodded his head at Ryujin as he spoke. “Or a radio to contact them with, since mine disappeared into the ethos, apparently,” he added softly at the end, repremanding himself.

Oh, fuck, does he blame himself? Guilt pooled in his glossy eyes while he kept his face stony, calm.

Hyunjin forced the kebab into Minho’s hands. “Eat the squirrel.”

“What? No, I—”

“Eat the squirrel.”

Minho glared with a glare that could kill, and the pair returned it.

Silence stretched out.

Minho took the squirrel.

After a long period of eating and soft conversation, he managed a thank you.

✦

Minho left an hour ago.

Hyunjin wished he could go with him and untie the knots tangling his stomach. 

He understood why he had to stay. Someone had to keep watch over Ryujin, make sure she was safe, that no stragglers or any still-alive bandits found them. Not to mention how it hurt every time he breathed, every time he twisted in a way his ribs took offense to. This didn’t make him any less stir crazy. Any less afraid. Before letting Minho walk out the door, Hyunjin hugged him tight, tight like he wished he had with Felix and Chan way back when, body curled into him, around him, and face pressed tight into the crook of his neck.

Minho had asked him to take care of the others when he saw them, and it made Hyunjin angry. He wished people would stop saying such ominous shit to him, like they were pre-writing their suicide note.

He made Minho promise to be safe, and he did.

Hyunjin tried to pretend like he believed him.

“Awh, man, tonight was Matrix and Alien night,” Hyunjin pouted, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them with a sigh, arms wrapped around the underside of his thighs. Even that motion hurt, his face twinged with regret, but he made no move to change his position.

“Oh, I am so sorry that my amputation is such an inconvenience to you,” Ryujin said. When Hyunjin opened his mouth to apologise again, she waved him off with a lighthearted, I was, like, half joking, you’re fine. “Yeah, no, that does suck. I was excited as hell. I wonder if the theatre does reruns,” she added sarcastically.

“Between my ear and your leg, I’m sure we could get a disability discount.”

Ryujin nodded. She stared down at her leg in deep thought for a while, eyes glazed, and then suddenly she smiled. Like in those minutes of silence, she had reached an epiphany. “If you think about it,” she began, “this is pretty typical of an apocalypse, isn’t it? You either die able-bodied or live long enough to see yourself become disabled.”

That’s. . . an interesting way to put it. Hyunin’s fingers ghosted his left ear. “Dude, that’s just life. Like, life in general.”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right.” She hummed a little, drowsily, as the painkillers began to kick in. Then smiled up at the high, peaked roof. “I’m glad I lived long enough to be the second and not the first. If not for me, then for Chaer.”

Maybe that’s the beauty in it. Maybe that’s how you keep going, even when you lose parts of yourself you can’t get back, even when hopes or dreams for your future narrow further and further down until it is but a pinprick of a road, the only one you can follow. Others may see it as a failure on your part, as you giving up the ability to ‘overcome’. When every step you take is a gamble with the devil, and to set down your dice is settling for a life of pain and matter over mind and something less than human. 

But is it, really?  Do you need to overcome it, or do you just need to live with it? Learn to accept that maybe life is different now, but you’re still here, and so are those you love, and maybe at the end of the day, that’s enough. That can always be enough. You will step a little differently, hear a little differently, and you will carry that mourning in every cell you possess for the rest of your days, but you will still be alive at the end of it.

And that’s enough.

Hyunjin didn’t realize he’d started crying, but he had, thick, ugly tears rolling down his face again, the stress and strain of the past few days running him ragged. The emotions flowing freely. He breathed, and breathed, and tried to regain his melting, abstracting surroundings for what felt like a millennium before he caught a glimpse of Ryujin, waving her hand to get his attention.

When the blood roaring in his head slowed down enough for him to hear again, she smiled sideways, in a way that could only be described as silly, and spoke. “Hey. What if they exist in the same universe?”

Hyunjin croaked. “Beg pardon?”

“The Matrix and Alien.”

Before Hyunjin got a chance to respond, Ryujin continued.

“Like, what if a xenomorph— like, face-fucked an agent from the Matrix?”

Hyunjin opened his mouth and then closed it like a fish in a fishbowl, face scrunched in confusion and abject horror. Confusion so intense that he nearly stopped crying entirely. He sniffled and wiped at his nose. “That was not a string of words God would be pleased with.”

Ryujin pointed to the crucified savior above them. “Take it up with him, then.”

“No. No, I don’t think I will.” Hyunjin was giggling now. Weak, tear-clogged ones, but giggles nonetheless. Ryujin was laughing, too. Maybe it wasn't even that funny in retrospect, but they laughed anyway.

When the world is ending, sometimes all you need to get through it is absurdity with a friend.

“God,” Hyunjin said, squishing the palms of his hands into his eyes so hard it made him dizzy, “I am never going to get that image out of my head. I hate you.”

“You love me,” Ryujin replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

Yeah. He does.

He really does.

✦

“You get one.”

“What?”

“One inappropriate question. One question about. . . this, and I won’t get mad at you, whatever it is. I’ll answer honestly. Only one.”

Hyunjin wanted to protest, to say he had no inappropriate questions to ask, but the words died in his throat. Of course, he did. It was one of the only things he’d thought about, sitting here, in this desecrated house of God. It was one of the things he tried hardest to push away.

It had been too long to respond, but Ryujin never expected him to. Hyunjin sat there, staring at the ground like it was the most interesting thing in the world, and thought.

Only one.

✦

Dusk descended on their prison. Hyunjin was lying down a few feet from Ryujin, curling up on his side. She was on her back, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn’t tell if she was awake.

When he spoke, it was just above a whisper.

“What does it feel like?”

The concept of time mattered not in a place like this. Who knows how long the suffocating silence stretched out between them until Hyunjin rolled over onto his other side, back facing her, assuming she was asleep.

She stirred a few minutes later, shifting in her bed.

Hyunjin turned back and waited, eyes wide.

Her words echoed in the night.

“Not everything feels like something else.”