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She knows he’s there, long before she actually sees him. She smells his familiar scent in the wind, hears the telltale squeak of his feet inside his donated sneakers (still without socks, even in the freezing winter).
Nam-ra thinks On-jo must seriously regret telling the Hyosan High survivors of her jury-rigged escape route, because lately it’s been a revolving door of visitors from the compound. They seem to know that Nam-ra makes route to the desecrated high school most evenings, so they go out to see her. Sometimes they come individually, sometimes they come in pairs, or just all together.
She understands why. The quarantine camp is in a literal prison, and they hold no respect nor affection for the people who abandoned them. It’s funny to her all the same. They spent three days trying to escape the waking nightmare that was Hyosan High, and now that they’re safe at the compound, they’re chomping at the bit to leave. Nam-ra understands why they do it, and she wishes they wouldn’t.
He’s standing near the edge of the pavement outside the main building where the inner hallway used to meet the eastern stairwell of the school, tucked into the corner so he has full view of the grounds and nothing can sneak up on him from behind, just like she taught them. He’s got his hands deep in his pockets, head turning left and right, searching.
She takes a moment for herself to just observe him. It’s only been a handful of months, but he looks so much more grown-up now. Or maybe he’s just very, very tired, the way all adults look.
The crunch of gravel beneath her shoe lifts his attention, and he catches sight of her. The tension sloughs off his shoulders in waves.
“Hey, prez,” Su-hyeok says, with a crooked curve of his mouth.
When it’s On-jo, or Dae-su, or even Hyo-ryeong, she’ll usually meet them readily. Lets them know that she’s doing fine and she’s proud of them for making it this far and she’ll tell them more about what’s going on when she’s ready.
When it’s Su-hyeok, she doesn’t always come out to meet him, even when she knows he’s there. Most nights, she’ll stay hidden under the cover of darkness, tucked behind the charred remains of a tree or building, but she’ll watch as he stands there, hands in his pockets, looking up and down the street in search of her. She watches until he finally decides to leave for the night, and then she follows and watches some more, just to make sure he gets back to the camp compound safely.
Tonight, she approaches.
“You need to start wearing socks,” she says.
His eyes flicker down to his feet. “Does it smell bad?”
“No, but it’s below freezing temperatures, and I know those shoes aren’t waterproof. You could get frostbite if your feet are too cold and you’re out here for too long. Didn’t you learn anything in science class?”
“I had better things to do.”
“Like what?”
He exhales loudly and hums, pretending to mull it over. “Sleeping. Doodling. Trying to get you to notice me.”
Nam-ra ducks her head, too late to hide her smile, and he must have accomplished what he set out to do, because he lights up like an evening star.
It’s good to see him again.
“Ah— I brought you something.” He fumbles with withdrawing one hand from his pocket. “Hope you like chocolate.”
He hands her a box of Pepero, stowed away from his daily rations. The donations to the camp have been generous and plentiful lately, full of all their old favorites, a fancy distraction from the ire of a country that doesn’t want them back.
She traces the tip of her thumb along the glossy edges of the familiar logo.
They both know she won’t eat it.
“Thank you,” she says anyway.
It’s a little odd, coming all this way just to hand-deliver a box of biscuits she can’t eat (and she tried—dear Lord she tried—when Dae-su offered her a rice cracker, but it tasted and felt like sand in her mouth, and it took all her willpower not to retch right in front of him), but she can’t blame him either. It’s his attempt at normalcy. Like the near-entirety of their high school hadn’t been wiped out in the span of three days, and he just grabbed some treats from the after-school snack bar to share with his friends.
She appreciates the sentiment, nonetheless. Not like she had much opportunity for a normal high school life between day school and cram school, with her nose buried behind a practicum workbook and her mother hovering over her shoulder.
They never even got to be high school seniors together, did they?
Under different circumstances, she would’ve liked to have gone out for tteokbokki with everyone, or watched a movie together, or joined study groups at the library, or gone shopping with the girls, or watched the boys’ sports games.
(Or maybe— maybe— even gone on a date.)
“You’re one to talk about freezing, by the way,” Su-hyeok says, with an exaggerated curl of his lip. He jerks his chin towards her practically bare legs. “Are you really gonna keep wearing your school uniform all the time? Aren’t you cold?” He looks about ready to strip down to nothing just so she can have something warm to wear, so she shakes her head quickly.
“It’s fine. The cold doesn’t bother me in the same way anymore, and this still fits me well. I’m the classroom president, aren’t I? I should look the part.”
Su-hyeok chuckles, the points of his canines showing. It amuses them both that she’s suddenly accepted the title her mother essentially paid for. He’s played no small part in helping her reclaim it: one single last act of rebellion.
“Well, it looks good on you. Pretty.” He turns shy, a hand scratching the back of his head. “I always thought that when we were in class together.”
This time she lets the smile remain unhidden. There was a lot that was left unsaid in the classroom. Circumstances just lead them this way. She still remembers a time when she was thoroughly ignored, too smart and too well-connected to be a true outcast. She can’t think of any good reason why that would have changed. Maybe—probably—she still would’ve been that quiet overachiever at the back of the class, too cowardly, too afraid to try to talk to someone, or do anything even remotely uncomfortable. She supposes, out of everything that’s happened, she was fortunate to get to know him, all of them, and—
(Cheong-san— Gyeong-su— I-sak— Na-yeon— Ji-min— Joon-yeong— Wu-jin—)
Nam-ra folds her arms over her chest, has to keep herself from doubling over.
And what? Like the outbreak was a good thing? Like she should count herself lucky that everyone was forced into close quarters with her? Fortunate little Nam-ra who couldn’t make a friend to save her life until it was literally life-or-death. Lucky, lucky Nam-ra who got bit and still got to retain parts of her humanity. She thought she was done with this side of herself, but it just keeps coming back, no matter how far she runs, and on and on and and on and on and on—
“Namra-yah.”
She looks up, the snapback of her neck tossing her hair out of her face; she’s startled to realize she really had been doubled over after-all. Su-hyeok is looking at her with his brows furrowed. She wonders if he thinks she’s going to snap her jaws at him. “What?” she says, mortified to hear how raspy she sounds. The way he called her name— It sounded so much like the first time he ever said it. The first time she ever heard it from him.
He stares some more, swallows. He shrugs. “Nothing. Just wanted to say that.”
It puzzles her. She uncurls herself back to full height so she can properly study the way he looks at her. It’s Quite Like Him. He’s always had a habit of saying things off-the-cuff, just because, while it’s Quite Unlike Her, who has to sit back and ponder and analyze the reason for every little thing before she’ll act. They’ve always been very different, and she thinks that must be why she likes him so much.
She supposes in the end the reason didn’t matter. It still served as a sobering reminder of their reality.
Su-hyeok is Su-hyeok. And she’s… this.
For weeks, she was afraid of herself. Of what she had become, and what she didn’t know was happening to her. There was probably some twisted coming-of-age puberty metaphor hidden in the experience. But it’s comforting, at least, to have company now with the rest of the group, the (as Dae-su delicately puts it) hambies, even if they’re all still precariously perched in this rickety boat of what or why.
Su-hyeok clears his throat, steers away from awkward ground with, “Y’know, everyone misses having you around,” and adds on with a nervous laugh, “I miss you. A lot.”
Even when her heart clenches, she considers her words carefully. “I miss you all too.” And again she has to ponder every avenue of reasoning behind his words, because she doesn’t know if it’s true, genuine sentimentality he’s admitting, or if the stir-craziness has gotten to his head, and they’re all just lost buoys afloat in the vast ocean, reaching out for anything else still caught on the line.
She licks her dry lips and nods to herself. “I still have things to do out here, though.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Her answers satisfy him less and less, she’s discovering. It makes it more difficult for her to keep things from him.
Su-hyeok looks to his feet with a trepidatious smile.
She wonders if he’ll ask this time.
He’s said it before, without the question. The first time to prevent her from hurting herself, and the rest in a more roundabout way. He doesn’t know what she knows, though—and she hardly knows anything herself—but she knows she doesn’t want that for him. She can’t even be sure it’ll turn out okay.
Truthfully, she’s afraid of him.
Or, rather, she’s afraid of what he’ll do. Just one look at her and he throws all logic out the window. She’s seen it, in all the ways he hid, smooth-talked, even lied about her steadily worsening condition during those first few days. Even when it was staring him right in the face with bloodshot eyes. Even when she was milliseconds away from tearing through his jugular with her teeth. And there was never any hint of fear of her, just fear for her. He’d follow her off a rooftop if he had the chance. He’s capable of anything.
So when she sees that wavering smile and that nervous bob of his throat, she wonders if, this time, he’ll ask what she knows he’s been dying to say for months.
Can’t I be with you? I mean, can’t you turn me so I can become like you? Just one bite, and we can finally be together again.
He doesn’t know what she knows. He doesn’t know what it’s like to hold onto the frayed ends of your humanity. He doesn’t know how a once-bustling city can be so full of ghosts. He doesn’t know that it gets harder to steel her resolve each night he visits and even harder to watch him walk away.
Su-hyeok looks up, stares straight into her eyes, and her heart twists.
“Namra-yah,” he starts. “Can’t I—”
“—I heard you might get to leave quarantine soon,” she cuts in, quickly.
He stops, his mouth still half-open over an incomplete word. “Ah—… Yeah.” He nods, and keeps nodding, eyes far away and dazed. “Maybe.”
“We heard it on the news. They’ve been lessening restrictions lately. That’s good. It’s good. It means you’ll finally get to go home.”
“Yeah,” he says again, shoulders slouching like a balloon depleted of air. “… Home.”
She lets her gaze linger at the middle button of his coat, too afraid to meet his eyes. In the grand scheme of things, the zombie apocalypse wasn’t as entirely apocalyptic as they thought it to be. It was just big to them, the way everything seems so monumentally enormous when you’re a kid. The world still turned, even while they were scrimping and scrounging for their lives. Somewhere else, a family was having a good, warm meal, while her friends feasted on a single expired candy bar, and it wasn’t fair to them, and it isn’t fair now. Still, the majority of Hyosan made it out alive, and that’s something. Even though each of their worlds became so much smaller in the course of a few days.
Even though Su-hyeok has become so all-encompassing in her world, now.
And where does she fit into all of it, anyway?
There’s a rustling in the air. A pattering of quick feet in the distance and a distinct scent. She turns her head to that direction. “The others are back.”
He nods again, solemnly. He knows she doesn’t mean their others, but her others.
He attempts a smile, reaching out a hand for her. She allows him (and herself) that, tucking her fingers delicately into his palm. He gives a gentle squeeze. “I’ll see you again soon?” he says, undeniably like a question and not a statement.
She considers her answer.
Is it really okay to keep seeing him like this? Does she have the right? Would that really be best for him?
(But what would the world be, without a little hope?)
In the end, she nods and smiles too. “Soon.”
They part. She doesn’t get to watch him make it back to camp, but she keeps an ear open, listening to the squeak of his shoes as they grow fainter and fainter in the distance.
(Perhaps, in the end, it all came back to being afraid of herself once more.)