Chapter 134
Hearing the ringing sound in his eardrums, Muyoung blankly blinked his eyes. Seeing this reaction, Seokjae caressed the thin waist in his arms while quietly waiting for an answer.
Shuddering at the touch that tickled his ribs, Muyoung took a rough breath after holding it and asked with difficulty:
“H-how, no, then you knew! W-when did you find out…!”
But because there was so much he wanted to ask, only disorganized words came out.
Watching Muyoung ramble incoherently, Seokjae chuckled softly, pulled him closer with force, and comforted him.
“I’m not going anywhere, so ask slowly.”
Perhaps thanks to his calm voice and warmth, Muyoung’s dizzy mind became somewhat clearer, and among the many questions, he was able to ask what he wanted to know most.
“Since when… have you known?”
“I’ve known since we first met.”
“So you knew and still drank my blood? W-why?”
Unable to hide his confused face at this unbelievable fact, Muyoung looked at Seokjae. In response, Seokjae furrowed his brow and moved his lips.
“…If I hadn’t done that, you would have left me behind somehow.”
‘Somehow.’ Suddenly remembering how he had agonized over finding a way to knock Seokjae unconscious, Muyoung’s eyes trembled slightly.
“L-leave? I was just worried you might die because of me. I wasn’t leaving or—”
“That is leaving. I clearly told you I would follow you. Don’t you remember that? You completely ignored my words about dying together.”
Interrupting to refute as if he didn’t want to hear excuses, Seokjae muttered in a resentful voice:
“You said you trusted me. Then you try to make decisions on your own again and leave me behind… You’re always like that.”
Though they had just confessed their feelings to each other today, words that seemed more fitting for a couple who had been dating for years came out, which was bewildering. But what truly perplexed Muyoung was something else.
‘Again?’
When had he ever left him behind? Seokjae’s words at school about following Muyoung if he died were so shocking that the memory was vivid, but no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t recall ever going somewhere alone without Seokjae.
‘But somehow it feels familiar. Like I’ve heard these words before…’
Unable to remember immediately, Muyoung frowned. Seokjae, as if knowing why he was making such an expression, didn’t ask what was wrong and simply waited patiently for him to speak.
After a little while, Muyoung let out a voice tinged with a sigh.
“Ah.”
It was because he remembered their conversation that night when Seokjae had come to him saying he’d had a nightmare.
‘That person also said they were sorry and left. Without asking for help. I wonder why.’
The person who had given Seokjae trauma. The person who had created his compulsion to act sacrificially to give trust.
‘Could it be…?’
The recent conversation. The blank in his memory from just before becoming a zombie. And the look in Seokjae’s eyes as he gazed at him.
‘Could that…?’
Muyoung’s heart beat fiercely at the newly formed hypothesis.
He wasn’t sure if it was anticipation about recovering his memories, shock at the possibility that he might be the person who had made Seokjae ready to rush toward death at any moment, or some other reason. But he knew that having come this far, he couldn’t pretend not to know and run away.
Muyoung moved his lips and asked:
“Hyung, were we acquainted before?”
Seokjae’s eyes, which had been calm like a quiet lake, trembled slightly, revealing fear. Though it was his own decision, he wasn’t completely free from anxiety about whether Muyoung, knowing everything, might come to dislike him.
But just as Muyoung hadn’t run away, Seokjae didn’t avoid the question either. Taking a small breath, he slowly nodded.
“That’s right. For some reason, you seem to have completely forgotten.”
* * *
“Uwah, a-are you okay? Quickly hide behind me.”
The first time Seokjae saw Muyoung, he was covered in dirt after rolling on the ground to snatch a child who was about to be bitten by a zombie.
Seokjae, who happened to witness the scene from inside a building, somehow couldn’t easily look away. Normally he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but the face smiling innocently to reassure the child strangely caught his attention.
From the top of his head to his eyes, nose, mouth—all his features drew gentle curves. He had an appearance that looked so insignificant that even if he got angry, he’d be no more threatening than a small dog yapping.
“…He looks stupid.”
Muttering this, Seokjae continued to watch, thinking he must be bored enough to have his attention caught by someone like that.
The man somehow managed to deal with the zombie using a baseball bat, then carried the child on his back and disappeared somewhere. It was obvious to anyone that he intended to keep taking care of the child, which made Seokjae involuntarily sneer.
“Isn’t he an idiot?”
With such a skinny body, he looked like he’d barely survive even if he only worried about himself, yet he voluntarily took on a troublesome burden. It was obvious what would happen to him in the future.
‘He’ll die soon. Or become one of these fucking monsters.’
While stomping on a zombie’s head with a crunch and imagining those round eyes turning dull, Seokjae soon forgot about Muyoung’s existence as he sensed a new presence nearby.
And it didn’t take long for him to meet Muyoung again. Moreover, he found himself in danger of dying before the man he had mockingly predicted wouldn’t last long.
“Murderer…!”
A high-pitched voice echoed through the jewelry store, threatening to pierce eardrums. Everyone nearby backed away from Seokjae, who stood frozen, as if they didn’t want to be involved.
They were people who had coincidentally taken shelter in the same place. Also, coincidentally, they were all able-bodied adults, so they naturally lived together calculating efficiency without helping each other or showing camaraderie.
So this reaction wasn’t surprising, and Seokjae wasn’t disappointed or angry about it. No, it would be more accurate to say he had no leisure for such emotions. He was too busy trying to calm his trembling heart while observing the impact sensation that remained on his foot and the man who had collapsed without movement.
“How could you kill a person…!”
“Damn it, how is someone bitten by a zombie a person?!”
Seokjae’s shouting appearance seemed full of confusion, but the gazes looking at him were all thoroughly dry.
Despite the individualistic nature of the group, Seokjae had established a position due to his abilities. The circumstances that put him at risk of being expelled from the group in an instant were as follows:
The evening of the day he spotted Muyoung, Seokjae’s group gathered after finishing their individual tasks. Up to that point, it was no different from their usual routine, but Lim Sangjin noticed that one of them had a bandage on his hand that hadn’t been there before and alerted the others.
The group, who had been about to rest, immediately surrounded the man, and despite his resistance, they grabbed his hand and removed the bandage.
There was a small wound at the tip of his finger, as if something blunt had dug into it.
“…!”
The strangely compressed crescent-shaped mark above and below the finger was obviously a bite mark from a zombie. As people’s gazes grew cold, the man immediately denied it vehemently.
“No! I pulled away as soon as I was bitten! There was no bleeding, just a bruise! I-I’m fine! Look. I’m perfectly normal!”
He insisted on his innocence with a pale face, but everyone had already moved away from him, weapons in hand. No one spoke, but their sharp gazes were saying it: Get out of here.
As the man backed away, he spotted Lim Sangjin standing in the corner, and with a shriek, he charged at him.
“Aaaargh!”
Whether it was anger rising because he faced the cause of his bite being discovered by the group, or a determination not to die alone—the dead don’t speak, so we’ll never know—but at that moment, the man rushed at Lim Sangjin, looking no different from a zombie.
“Eeeek!”
Lim Sangjin, who yielded to no one in survival instinct and cowardice, immediately hid behind the person standing closest to him. As if it no longer mattered who his target was, the man screamed and lunged at the next noticeable person—that is, the one Lim Sangjin was using as a shield…
And that unlucky person was none other than Tae Seokjae.
He tried to pull Lim Sangjin away by grabbing his hair, but it seemed that fear overcame pain. Despite the cracking sound and the injury to his scalp severe enough to need stitches, Lim Sangjin wouldn’t let go from behind.
In the end, thinking there wasn’t enough time to shake him off, Seokjae had no choice but to respond somehow to the wild-eyed man charging toward him.
‘Shit, is that a person or a zombie?’
Blood vessels were standing out, but his pupils weren’t cloudy, and his face was flushed red with anger. Despite being bitten by a zombie, he still looked too human.
For Seokjae, who had only recently become able to kill zombies with an expressionless face, it was too much to point a blade at such a man.
Thud!
“Kuhak!”
Seokjae created distance by kicking the charging man, who took a direct hit to the stomach and released a groan along with his breath, half-floating in the air as he was pushed back. At the same time, he lost his balance and…
Boom-!
He hit his head on the corner of the display stand behind him and collapsed sideways with a thud.
In truth, even up to this point, it wasn’t a problem. Everyone was busier preparing for the moment the man would rise again as a zombie than worrying about him lying there bleeding from his head.
But even as time passed, the man remained motionless, like an ordinary corpse rather than a zombie.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
