“For now, this house has become too filthy — shall we head outside?”
Saying that, he scooped me up into his arms and carried me downstairs, and the whole sequence of it flowed as naturally as water. Even when my oldest hyung gathered supplies and asked, “You haven’t had lunch yet, right? Is there anything you want to eat?” — all I could do was stare blankly and answer like an idiot: “No, I don’t really have an appetite……”
His response, of course, was: “Even so, you shouldn’t skip meals.”
I reflexively went to nod at my hyung’s words — and then the pool of blood sitting in the middle of the living room floor snapped me back to my senses.
“H-how can you think about eating in a situation like this?”
At that, Baek Hyunwoo tilted his head and furrowed his brow. He looked like he was asking why I couldn’t eat — and somehow it was me who ended up at a loss for words. Had common sense in this world been flipped upside down along with the zombies’ arrival? I couldn’t sort through the chaos in my head and opened and closed my mouth uselessly, until he finally nodded and answered:
“Right, you have a weak stomach.”
That’s not the issue — but he said it so calmly that I had nothing to say back. Zombies have appeared, you know? The people who worked in our home all died in an instant — and you’re summing it up with “weak stomach”? Even as much as I hated going without food, it was hard to just go along with it so easily.
Amid the mounting confusion, my oldest hyung peered intently into the refrigerator, pulled out sandwich bread, lettuce, tomatoes, and the like, and began making sandwiches with practiced ease.
“The nutrition’s a bit lacking, but it can’t be helped. Right now, getting out of here comes first.”
Saying that, he glanced back at the living room and his expression darkened. The moment our eyes met, he quickly smiled at me — but I’d already caught the shadow that had passed over his face.
Ah……
Only now did I notice that Baek Hyunwoo’s hands, slicing the tomato, were trembling. Right — of course he wasn’t unafraid. He was doing everything he could to put his younger brother at ease, and I was ashamed of myself for not seeing that and thinking something was off about him.
And here I’d been grumbling all this time about him treating me like a child…… If not for this situation, I’d have wanted to lock myself in my room and not come out for two days.
“Should I put cheese in?”
“Oh — yeah.”
Listening to Baek Hyunwoo ask with a small smile, now back to his usual self, left me with complicated feelings. Part of me wanted to tell him he didn’t have to pretend everything was fine — but I hesitated, not wanting to hurt his pride. And even if he accepted those words graciously, I knew that right now, I was absolutely no help to him at all.
So in the end, the only thing I could do was pretend not to notice the fear he’d let slip through for just a moment, and not voice my questions out loud — so that his effort wouldn’t be for nothing.
“There — all done.”
It didn’t take long before the sandwiches were arranged neatly on a plate and set on the table. I couldn’t bring myself to say they’d probably get stuck in my throat, and just sat quietly, turning the glass of orange juice in my hands.
“That said, don’t force yourself too hard either.”
“……”
“What’s wrong? Is it not good? Should I make something else?”
“No, no.”
I had no desire to be a child fussing over food in a situation like this. I answered quickly and picked up a sandwich — and Baek Hyunwoo reached out and stroked my hair once, then said “Eat up. I’ll go grab the rest of the supplies,” and slipped out of the kitchen.
The sandwich I ate with some hesitation was still delicious, and surprisingly enough, once food was actually in my stomach, it was clamoring loudly about why it had been kept waiting so long.
I’d asked how anyone could eat in a situation like this — and yet I finished the sandwich so completely that question felt like a distant memory. I sniffled and drank down every last drop of the juice too. Come to think of it, even in my past life, when everyone else said things tasted like they were chewing sand or like flavorless plastic, my sense of taste had always stayed intact.
Right. Better than starving to death.
Dying of hunger was something I never wanted to experience again. I stood up to clear the plate, then thought, why bother, and left the kitchen as well.
“Did you finish eating?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. In about thirty minutes, let’s take your medicine too.”
When I came back to the living room, the entire floor was covered with blankets. I turned away from the reddish-stained fabric and walked toward the bathroom, which stood wide open. I’d wondered what other supplies he was gathering — he was collecting toiletries, towels, things like that.
“……Is there anything I can help with?”
“It’s fine, go sit and rest.”
“But still……”
“Hmm…… Then could you grab some clothes for Beomho and Yitae? As thin as possible, and a few of each.”
I’d been hovering at the bathroom doorway, and my oldest hyung relented and tossed me a task — but I couldn’t bring myself to move right away, and asked with drooping eyebrows:
“……Do you think those two are okay?”
“They’ll be fine. You know what those two are like.”
“Or, couldn’t we wait until the hyungs come back? Going out seems more dangerous……”
At that, Baek Hyunwoo paused briefly and turned to look at me. I instinctively flinched and averted my gaze, and he came over and carefully pulled me into a hug, slowly patting my back.
“Are you very scared?”
“……A little.”
“Sihyeon, look at me.”
“……Okay.”
Reluctantly, I lifted my head — and Baek Hyunwoo’s deep black eyes curved softly.
“Hyung is fine, isn’t he?”
“……”
“No blood on me, no bite marks either.”
That’s……
“I mean, that’s true, but……”
He’d come in from outside, so there should have been at least a speck of dust on him — yet my oldest hyung looked as clean as someone who had just finished getting ready for work. And somehow, despite having killed a zombie in my room — he didn’t have a single drop of blood on him.
“This place isn’t safe either.”
His always-cool hands gently smoothed through my hair. As if to prove his point, unknown screams and the sound of things shattering rang out one after another from outside. I flinched and hunched my shoulders, and Baek Hyunwoo covered my ears as if telling me not to listen — but that only made me more anxious.
“But outside is more dangerous.”
“Sihyeon.”
He bent down slightly to meet my eye level, and swept his thumb across the corner of my eye as he spoke.
“I’m not talking about going out aimlessly without a destination.”
“……”
“The place we’re going is safe. Security is thorough, there’s food, and there are no other people.”
“……A place like that exists?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
No.
He might choose to stay silent rather than speak — but Baek Hyunwoo had always, without exception, told only the truth. I slowly shook my head, and he straightened up as if to say see?, pressing another bag into my hands.
“Beomho and Yitae — the moment things broke out, they would’ve known I’d take care of you, so they went straight there.”
“Do the other hyungs also know where that place is?”
“Of course.”
“Is it far from here?”
“A little. But if you think of it as taking a trip, it’ll be fine.”
Deliberately not naming the region told me it was quite a distance away. I stared down at the bag for a moment, then said:
“Or…… would you rather just go alone?”
“What?”
For the first time, the smile vanished from Baek Hyunwoo’s face. His expression stiffened and then fractured slightly — and I had no choice but to quickly explain myself:
“You know I can’t run, and I can’t walk for long either. Even if we’re really lucky and make it to that safe place without anything happening…… I only have a week’s worth of medication.”
“So you’re telling me to abandon you?”
“It’s not abandoning — I’m saying let’s just make a calm, rational decision……”
The more I spoke, the narrower his eyes grew. I knew — I was saying something even I found hard to believe. But I disliked suffering; I wasn’t afraid of death. The ones who can survive should survive.
“If we’re lucky, it might be resolved within a week……”
“How?”
“I mean, well…… like, the government sweeping out the zombies or something……”
“If it could be contained by controlling a single region, maybe. But what’s happening right now isn’t that simple or straightforward.”
“But——”
“Sihyeon.”
Baek Hyunwoo cut off my halting words and gripped my shoulders. He wasn’t trying to persuade me — he looked me in the eye and spoke in a firm, unwavering voice, the way you’d gently correct a child throwing a tantrum:
“It’s not spreading outward from one specific location. It’s erupting simultaneously, all across the country.”
“……What?”
The words that reached my ears were so shocking they were impossible to believe.
How could that be? In the usual zombie stories, wasn’t the standard formula some kind of experiment gone wrong, or a virus spreading person to person? Could it be that Baek Hyunwoo had gotten it wrong?
“The world you knew no longer exists.”
“……”
“It’s completely over. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
As if my thoughts had shown plainly on my face, he added in a slightly cooler tone — as if telling me to get a grip.
Baek Hyunwoo was saying it as my hyung, meaning we could never return to our everyday lives — but strangely, to me, it sounded like he was telling me to step outside the novel I knew, to clearly recognize exactly where I was.
……
Right. This is my reality……
I’d been sure I was facing it squarely — but apparently, without realizing it, I’d been standing one step removed, watching from a distance. That realization hit me hard enough to leave me standing there in a daze, and Baek Hyunwoo pressed on quickly:
