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There’s a rumor that the forest behind the commune is haunted; all sorts of strange sounds and jarring lights emanating from depths at night, despite the density of the growth beyond the treeline. Another rumor claims that the first group to try and explore the foliage had had their trip cut short by the discovery of bones. Perhaps belonging to the family that had once owned the husk at the front of the commune property; a burned-out farmhouse the new occupants of the vast fields had dismantled board by board. Scattered things, mauled to bits by time and the hungry jaws of wild animals outliving them all.
But Hyunjin was a part of the team that set out to scout between the trees as the commune first began to settle. Chan had arranged for a handful of his most trusted friends to accompany him in making sure that the territory hadn’t already been claimed. They’d gone early, so the setting sun wouldn’t threaten their path back, and stopped when Felix twisted an ankle on an overgrown root. There had been no bodies. No ghosts, no great beasts sent from the mouth of hell, with glowing eyes and bottomless maws. Nothing infected, nothing cursed upon the land but a lack of useful soil.
He knew firsthand that the rumors weren’t true. Which was exactly why he was the first to perpetuate them.
“No, you don’t get it,” Hyunjin hands waved in a flurry. “I felt those awful eyes on me the entire time. When I turned around, I knew exactly what I’d see!”
Shade, birds in the canopy, the subtle stirring of the breeze.
But the baker was a gullible man, mouth hung open and hands quivering in the dough he’d been kneading. “You saw the beasts?”
“One of them!” Hyunjin liked to think if there was one, there would be many. “But it was so big it might as well have been three itself.”
“How lucky that you got away in one piece,” Jeongin hummed, shouldering into the cooking hut. ‘The Kitchens,’ if you asked Chan. But they were hardly that. Infrastructure was still lacking.
In’s hands were laden with vegetables and herbs, gathered from the first harvest of spring. The younger man was useful like that; developing muscles calling him to work the crops day in and day out as necessity dictated. At the commune, everyone contributed as they could. That was how they’d survived for years. Hyunjin patched scavenged fabric into clothing and accompanied scouts out into the wilds to keep up to date on the world beyond. Jeongin planted mint and celery, rambled over dinner about the growth of each bud and then laid the groundwork to plant seasonal flowers outside of their makeshift house too.
“Because they’re pretty, like you,” he’d explained when Hyunjin had asked why their wonky shared little shack needed its own garden. “You remind me why we need beauty in the world.”
Hyunjin hadn’t been able to argue with that. Hadn’t wanted to either.
“Isn’t it?” he pried at the newcomer to aid in his white lie. “Those teeth were scary.”
The baker chuckled, worn and flour-covered hands taking over the organic bounty. “You shouldn’t go out there alone. Next time, take Jeongin with you. I can’t imagine there’s anything he wouldn’t fight for you.”
And though they both knew it to be true, Jeongin beamed like the sentiment had real footing. Hyunjin knew better of that too, and loved him just the same.
Neither of them were fighters.
The needs of self defense had taught them both how to tussle. How to be quick, dodge a blow, escape a fight. But these days, hitting often meant swinging for blood. With life constantly on the line to begin with, it was rare to encounter people unwilling to fight to the death over resources. To most, Hyunjin suspected, murder now felt like a security measure. Jeongin had decided within the first year that he didn’t want to be a killer. Hyunjin loved that about him, though he himself had more blood on his hands.
Scouting trips called for a certain amount of preparedness. Not enough to constitute monster-fighting-readiness, but a fair bit of know-how was needed to not end up the dead one. Hyunjin had learned a number of things he’d never wanted to in the ruins of fallen suburbs, looking for cans and work tools to bring back. Bodies, it turned out, smelled distinctly awful when forgotten about. A stench that could never be accurately described, in part because each corpse carried an individual twist. Rot had no one shape or name, and for all it stayed consistent to, it claimed everything differently. He also suspected it centered in the gut. The first time he’d tried to move a body, the stomach had split open. An old gouge giving in at the prodding, and spilling that heinous smell into the air tenfold. Hyunjin had puked on the spot.
Which was to say that though he trusted his hands when enabled with a knife, he hated what death could do. Given the option, he chose to stick to less dangerous routes. Hyunjin kept his hands clean for the both of them; not willing to place Jeongin in the position of washing them clean, whether the blood was literal or a vicious memory.
Self preservation, for both halves of himself. The individual, and the lover. He continued in spite of the horrors because scouting had gifted him something as well. Hidden at the far end of that cursed forest was a cabin. Or rather, the remains of one.
At one point, it had probably been well lived in. He and Jeongin had swept the place for supplies when they’d gone back to it together. But what remained on the cracked counters and molded carpets had largely been of little use. Hyunjin had brought back a ladle and pair of scissors, then lied about their origins. It was decided quickly that the collapsing walls of that cabin were the perfect getaway for the couple. Too wasted to be of envy, but private enough to quiet the world around them. If they pretended hard enough, they were an old married couple. Living in a house in the woods; secluded by choice, because the damn trains back in the city stayed too damn loud.
Or something like that. They’d never discussed a backstory. They’d simply understood the need for escape reflected back in each other when they saw it.
When they stepped foot through the dilapidated entryway, they were no longer scouts of Chan’s commune. No longer survivors at all. They were Yeobo, Honey, Darling. Whatever sounded best that week, sharing pre-packed sweets over a dining room table they’d had to lift from somewhere else and haul out there. It was a big secret, a hard one to keep, but it hurt no one and felt like marital bliss. And Jeongin owed him a night in for the way he’d been out of bed before sunrise for the past week straight.
“Does that mean he’d also be able to convince you to spare me an extra bun tonight?” Hyunjin smirked at the baker. There weren’t many animals with them yet, but they had cows enough to make butter.
Jeongin groaned. “I asked him earlier. He’s so set on that one per customer thing.”
The elderly man laughed as Hyunjin batted his lashes. “But I’m not a customer. I’m your favorite.” It was a title he’d earned after many afternoons of getting in the way trying to help out. Eventually, he was permanently relegated to commentary duty.
“The rules don’t change for my favorites.” He shook his head as he went back to his dough, veggies sorted and stored away for a later meal.
“I have a surprise for you anyway. Something to discuss.”
Hyunjin’s gaze whipped over to his partner, never one to do well with the suspense of surprises. “What?”
“You’ll find out later.” Jeongin grinned, smug and entirely aware of the fact.
“Over dinner?”
“Over dinner.”
Dinner was a cabin affair. Not every night, but every one that mattered. Most traditions had been lost to the End. Gone were the days of Tteokguk and Songpyeon, but every passing birthday Hyunjin made Jeongin some kind of gift. Handed it to him in the hollowed out, wall-less ‘living room’ they’d peeled the totalled carpet out of months ago. They kept time on a makeshift calendar in the ‘City Hall’ at the front of their property. An arduous task, but one someone had happily taken up for the sake of having that certainly – the knowledge everything had changed, but not that. Time still passed, things could still heal. And Hyunjin could still watch his other half light up, peeling old fabric off his mystery gift in place of wrapping paper. Jeongin sticking around for the night wasn’t a festive or spiritual occasion. Nights together, as simple as they were, felt like a miracle all the same. If time had taught them anything, it was to cherish what they had. Hours passed and death came for all living things. Dinner together was a moment of perfect calm. It was worth keeping private, sacred.
Hyunjin packed the backpack full of treats from around the kitchens. Jeongin would have been chased out on sight; his eyes and mouth large alike in the shadow of the cupboards. Two servings of the night’s meal, as they were promised, and a handful of little things were shoved into baggies. The baker would notice them missing when he returned to clean up, but he wouldn’t mention the disappearance to anyone. The next morning, Hyunjin would get a knowing look as he picked at his breakfast. But it wasn’t like they took more than they could eat. Everyone was fed, and everyone was starving. Life was a mixed bag of just-enoughs. The two had an understanding, where it came to making the now that much more bearable.
Twigs and slushed-leaves crackled underfoot as they breached the treeline. Winter hadn’t been kind to their habit of sneaking out. With no roof, the cabin had grown muddy, stayed cold. With no tarp to spare, all of their gathered furniture suffered beneath the weight of snowfall. Now that spring had begun to awaken the critters and bloom leaves once more, a cover they’d been missing was granted. All the same, on approach, it looked soggier than they left it last.
“I’ll set up the food if you hunt down a dry spot with structural integrity.”
Hyunjin had to snort at Jeongin’s wry tone. “Deal.”
When all was settled, Hyunjin sat across from his partner criss-cross on a patch of wooden flooring.
The table was dry, but spiders had moved in. They’d resolved to address that another time. Hyunjin twisted his legs beneath himself, getting comfortable as he tore a piece from his designated dinner roll. The bit was offered up, slipped between the soft lips of his lover. The heat of Jeongin’s tongue was jarring where it brushed Hyunjin’s fingers on the drag back out. Accidental and hungry simultaneously.
“Did you have a good week at work, dear?”
“I’m not sure we’ll make the quarterly goals.” Jeongin hummed. Every time, he worked somewhere new. Hyunjin never questioned the shift. His partner was a roamer, a jack of all trades. “The paperwork’s been piling up. More than I can get done in a day, and Mingyu-”
Another member of the commune, though here, his role shifts too. “He’s always handing off his projects to me.”
Hyunjin made a noise of sympathy, proffering more bread. “Let me at him. He’ll never slack off again.”
Jeongin’s face lit up as he giggled; empty threat blanketing the pair in warmth. Within seconds, though, his face was morphing in concern. Focus drowning the illusion they’d built themselves. Something was wrong.
“Remember I wanted to tell you something?”
Hyunjin was apprehensive. “You said you had a surprise. Is it a bad one?”
“It doesn’t have to be?” But the nervous shuffling of his hands told the other all he needed to know. Reaching out, he closed a gentle hand around Jeongin’s wrist. The erratic wringing of his fingers stopped.
“What is it?”
The two had agreed to follow a handful of rules when they ate at the cabin, though most had been broken a time or two before. They weren’t strict, but they helped settle a routine into place, back when routine had been something sorely lacking.
The first was to disregard the hand they’d been given and respect the spirit of make-believe for an hour or two. It could be childish and necessary in the same breath. A celebration of what the heart needed, while the real world got put on hold. The second was never to bring a friend. The solace was what made the place special, important, vital. One person might tell another, who told a fourth. The third was simpler. Neither could use the word ‘husband,’ even in their other lives. Because there was no benefit in reminding themselves what they had both wanted. What they now could never truly have; ceremony and taxes a thing of the past. The closest anyone at the commune had come to it was an announcement over lunch, followed two months later by a break up. Both men knew what they were, what they were playing at. But didn’t speak it, lest the void grow larger between all their words and reality; believability stolen away on a breath.
The first was probably the most important. And yet, it was being enthusiastically bashed against the rocks as Jeongin’s brow furrowed. Hyunjn couldn’t bring himself to mind, caught on the hook. Peering over a cliff’s edge that had just crumbled into being before him, once stable land giving way.
“I talked to Chan this morning.” Jeongin began to pick at his own roll. “He wants us to go back to the city.”
“Wha- Why? Minho?”
His lover nodded, “Minho.”
Minho had been firm in his refusal to join them when the group at the core of Chan’s commune had first left the city. A decision Hyunjin had always found difficult to understand. They’d all grown up in the city, and perhaps that had formed an innate loyalty in the other that he’d never found himself. But for him, watching the streets he’d once trudged down daily begin to crumble and fade had been a sad thing. There were memories tucked around every corner and doorway that Hyunjin would rather preserve as they were; back when life was simple and his neighbors were still alive. He mourned the city like he mourned the rest of the world - trying his hardest to put it aside, and survive the weight of it all.
Minho had thought the unknown sounded riskier. There was no changing his mind on that. Not when Jisung was settled at his heels. Hyunjin had judged that too, at the time. Jisung’s inability to go on without Minho by his side seemed silly; a connection he was destined to lose if they stayed. The carcass of the city was far more violent than the rural lands they were headed towards. Now, the thought of being anywhere without Jeongin makes his heart ache, his bones feel hollow. It’s just wrong. Not how things are meant to be. The end of the world had taken a lot of things, but they didn’t have to let it steal away their love for one another too.
Feeling as he did now, the one question they had to return to seemed pointless to ask. “He won’t agree. We know he won’t. Why does Chan want us to try again?”
Chan was a good leader, always had been. He had a way of connecting with people that had made him a voice of guidance in the community quite naturally. His moves were often altruistic and kinder than they needed to be. That didn’t mean he wasn’t calculated. Chan had been the one to collect them all and shuffle them north. The first to show up in their lives even before the great disease began to spread, and gather them all one-by-one in his tiny downtown apartment. If he had to guess, the point of the trip was to inquire about Jisung, not Minho. Chan had known Jisung longer than any of them. Maybe he was hoping the other man would have found an independent voice by now.
Though not in those words; Chan believed in the best of them all.
Jeongin shrugged. “He says he heard winter was much harsher in other parts of the country. More people were forced to leave the big cities after this year’s snowfall ruined what was left of their supplies. We know those two have themselves pretty well set up, but he’s betting they’re finding their resources strained the longer they stay put.”
“They were the first places to be scavenged.” Hyunjin agreed, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would push Minho of all people outwards. If there was anything he was good at, it was setting a perimeter and keeping it sturdy, his boyfriend safe inside. “But it’s a lot harder to protect yourself as two people wandering in the open.”
Commentary both on the couple’s chances and theirs. The walk back to the city wasn’t a short one. He and Jeongin would have to spend days passing over forgotten highways and old suburbs; places far from guaranteed to be empty just because they remained as ghosts of their former glory. What they considered a week’s worth of food and clothes to make the trip might be someone else’s first glimpse of good materials in months. In seconds, what seemed at first a friendly face could turn dangerous. Chan knew it, and that was why his scouts were always armed. Minho knew it, and that was why he kept Jisung to himself.
Jeongin fussed with the small spread of food before them, unwrapping the canister of soup they’d left for last. When one lived off mostly vegetables, stock was easy enough to make. Veggie soups were on the one hand, a meal of convenience. On the other, cuisine remained one of their last bridges to past normalcy. Carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, onions, peppers; most cultures had found ways to put them to use. When the season was right, the citizens of their small community would share the recipes they grew up on. Or go scavenging for the niche materials that the fall of international production chains had deprived them of. Make sure everyone around could try a piece of the life they’d once lived. The soup of the day wasn’t anything special, but it was hearty all the same. It was the labor of In’s tender gardening brought to life in a tin they’d found years ago; only large enough for one portion, but insulated.
Their shared serving was still warm. A luxury for these dinners in (or, out) .
“We have enough supplies to support two more.” Jeongin unearthed the spoons they’d packed with a sigh, passing one to him. “He wants us to try one more time. Said we could tell him it was the last, if he still says no.”
“But the door’s always open?” Understanding for the odd pair living at the bounds of the city or none, they were still friends. Always would be, where his heart was concerned. Hyunjin worried for them. Loved them. Missed them, even. When a joke would have gone better with Jisung’s infectious laughter alongside it. Or a meal he tried to cobble together on an anniversary was screaming for Minho’s culinary know-how to help it.
“The door’s always open,” In affirmed, mouth full of soft eggplant. “He also says we can think about it. He’s noticed you going scouting less often.”
Hyunjin pressed his lips firmly shut around his own spoon; the swift chew and swallow saving him from any scrutiny of his expression. His face, more often than not, was a traitor. In February, he’d lost two friends on a scouting trip. Death had been a vivid poltergeist in their first few years of survival; now it was a dull and constant ache at the base of his skull. An inescapable knowing that any day, he or the ones he loved could be next. Of course he’d been going out less. He had a lover at home and a future to build; he didn’t want to see his friend’s lifeless eyes over and over in his dreams. He’d lived with them long enough to care how they got on.
Now whenever he breached the fences they’d built around their farm, he began to smell the rot. Feel its greasy fingers inch over his body, limb by too-exposed limb. There was always a knife in his belt and rifle on his back for absolute necessity. Ammunition was rare, and guns too violent to merit his consideration often. Yet neither weapon had saved the men they lost; overwhelmed by other survivors while Hyunjin was busy in another room of the house. It was an odd feeling, to hate someone so vividly and still be entirely unable to place meaningful blame. In their position, Hyunjin knows he’d have done the same. It was a blessing that he wasn’t the one getting by day to day in a rotting suburban split-level. Surviving only off fist fights and ambushes. But it was a curse all the same to remember how the stench of fresh death and blood-loss had curled around his tongue. Clung to it, as he gasped meaningless reassurances to their cooling bodies. Ghosted around his nose, mouth, lungs the whole walk back, alone and terrified of the attackers who simply hadn’t noticed he was left to kill.
Productivity had forced him back out on a handful of supply runs by mid-March. He’d been the least helpful he ever had been on them all. He hadn’t mentioned to anyone what they reminded him of. It was easier not to. Hyunjin had figured when he came back alone, the puzzle pieces would have connected themselves for most. It was a blow to the competent image he’d tried to keep for himself, but he no longer felt able to do better.
This was different, though. A specific request from Chan to approach two men who would be a danger to anyone else. Anyone they hadn’t known before fight or flight had consumed them too. Felix was an option, but as good of a leader as Chan was, he had his own very human flaws when it came to Lix. Hyunjin could go because Jeongin would protect him, and vice versa. But Chan couldn’t leave at the turn of the farming season, busy with his many town errands as prime elected official of the decade (not a title he’d chosen) . And sending Felix meant sending his lover out with someone else with human flaws. At least if Felix came to harm by his side, Chan could blame himself for that.
Some felt his protective streak was hypocritical, selfish. Hyunjin had simply never wanted to see a hair on Felix’s head harmed either.
Despite the tight discomfort in his chest and the empty promise of time, he knew there was no real choice to be had. Something, Hyunjin suspected, their leader knew too when he offered them a day or two of peace. There would be no consideration, only time to brace themselves for the horrors beyond.
“You want to go?” Hyunjin asked, eyes glued to the slope of Jeongin’s lips as he dipped his bread into the soup, pressed it soggy and flavorful between the soft-pink flesh. If they fucked up, he might never see his lover savor the flavor of a shared dinner again. Even their bubble of cabin-safety would pop, forever shattered.
“I think we should. I don’t think Minho would ask for help, even if he needed it. Jisung might, though. If something was wrong, he’d put their actual safety first.”
“And you want to know nothing’s wrong?”
“As much as I can. I like to picture them doing well, just living somewhere else.”
“And if they’re not?” Hyunjin reached to curl his fingers around Jeongin’s. The other wasn’t naive, or unprepared. He also wasn’t alone.
“Then we help how they allow us to and we go home.”
“Okay.” Just like that, it was settled. Trust in one another rendered further discussion of the risks pointless for the moment. “We’ll go.”
They didn’t finish eating in silence, but it was something close to it. A quiet and mutual understanding that the atmosphere to pretend the night was something better than it was was gone. Real life had butted into their sanctuary, and so the walls morphed as they were called to. Tonight, they weren’t long-time lovers working office jobs, or jetting off to marketing conferences. Weren’t anyone but themselves. Two people who needed a moment of peace in a place where the world couldn’t see them think; safest around each other, seen and understood best in that shared presence.
And when they stood to leave, it was hand in hand. They packed their bobs and bits standing close, and snuck back to the commune pressed shoulder to shoulder. Inseparable, resolute.
“We should actually sleep tonight if we’ll be packing tomorrow.” Hyunjin sighed against Jeongin’s lips; arms wound around his shoulders. Their bags had been dropped in the doorway - unpacking and cleaning the dishes a task for the morning.
“Yeah.” Jeongin groaned, the want in his voice making it obvious they wouldn’t be doing so.
Their lodgings were small and rickety; pieced together by found wood and sheer, collective will power. But they were private. And though there were merely feet between the doorway and the bed, they’d had each other on every single inch of their small space. No table, no chair, no patch of floor was safe from the affections they paid one another. Most nights, they made it to bed without getting lost in each other. Most nights weren’t a worryingly vivid potential last chance to. What composure Hyunjin had worked up for the walk back slid from his shoulders the moment their door latched shut.
“One for the road?” He laughed, voice husky and low.
“Shut up,” In chided, biting at his lower lip. “We’ll be okay. Get in bed.”
Hyunjin listened, even if he didn’t tuck himself in. Even if he only laid himself back across the sheets once he’d shed every layer of clothing that could stand between them. He had it on good authority his lover found the smug smirk painted across his face deeply attractive. Jeongin liked it when he felt loved, and confident in the fact of it. “Ok? I’m waitiiiing.”
The man’s boxers landed half across his face, and Hyunjin spluttered. Shrieked his laughter as he swept them aside. In the moment it took, his partner was hovering over him. Stripped of his own burdens, and descending to bite tender trails across his collar. There wasn’t much thinking or waiting after that. When his lover’s warm, wet lips wrapped around his cock, Hyunjin was gone. Heady and happy and removed from the world.
At times, all of life felt like an effort to escape it. Whether wrapped in the bliss of their escapism in a rotted out ruin of a home, or curling in on himself at the overwhelming pleasure of a building orgasm, Hyunjin was a runner. Body in one place, mind in another. He still believed the world could be better than it was behaving, humanity just hadn’t gotten itself back there yet. For every bad day came a good one. Hope in all things; even the sweet caress of his Innie’s fingers at his hips. The tender, slicked-up bid for entry between his legs. And yet, respite was always so mockingly brief.
Hyunjin fell asleep holding his lover close, spent and too exhausted to move. Jeongin stayed buried inside of him until his eyelids fluttered shut for good. In the morning, Hyunjin bent him over the table. The remains of their breakfast knocked aside in the flurry of movement; their love sleepy and slow, but no less devoted. The two were as at home as they might ever be. But his heart was a frightened rabbit, ducking through the thick underbrush beyond the property.
He was there, and he was running, and he was nowhere, all at once.
“ That one’s for the road.” Hyunjin laughed, proud of how debauched the younger man looked in the wake of him; hair messed up and eyes glossy with contentment.
“I’m destroying you on Minho’s couch.” The threat was empty; or at least, hardly scary. “I don’t care if I have to kick them out of their own apartment to do it.”
“I think they’d be understanding.”
Their bags, contrarily, were not.
It took over an hour of wrangling supplies into pocket after pocket of their backpacks before Jeongin was satisfied with their load. The task was a tedious game of tetris; stacking containers over cloth and slipping dying Zippos into any crevice left in the folds. The result being two hulking packs they’d have to shoulder the better part of 70 miles. And when they were done, they were left to lug the bags up to the farmhouse. Chan waited on the rickety porch for their arrival; weapons in hand.
What hadn’t been burned to ash of the place had been renovated into somewhat of a home base. They’d all spent the first few months curled up on the ground floor while their own lodgings were constructed. Chan and Felix lived there still, in a small bedroom that was only crispy on the north wall. Everyone who left the commune did so under the eye of one or both. Everyone who arrived was checked too. Sometimes that scrutiny was a welcome safety blanket. Others, times like now, Chan’s observant nature left Hyunjin feeling stripped of his skin and distinctly raw. Muscle and sinew kissed by the breeze, exposed for evaluation – even if he knew their leader would never deem him lacking.
So he let himself shiver on the shorter man’s doorstep; taking the knives he was offered with care. Chan was kind. Too kind to pry where he knew it would do no good. They were let through the fence with a simple, “Come home safe.”
And they would. Hyunjin would make sure that they would.
It wasn’t his fault he was jumpy. The habit of looking over their shoulders every couple of feet had been ingrained into them both long ago. Hyunjin just tried harder to hide that sparking unease beneath his skin when Jeongin was around; always the one with quicker reflexes, more experience, more knowledge of the route. If anyone ought to be composed headed out into the wilds, it was a scout who’d done it a couple dozen times. Right? And yet, he didn’t seem to need to show his displeasure for his lover to pick up on it; Jeongin’s fingers twisting themselves tightly around his. A silent comfort, even if it was also a flare. A blatant show to any hidden onlooker that one could be used against the other, if needed.
Hyunjin didn’t protest. Didn’t want to plant that paranoia in the other’s head, not when their affections were so desperately needed.
Pacing themselves, it would take three to four days to reach the city. He wanted to aim for three; the expended effort was well worth the shortened window of risk. The route wasn’t particularly complicated; they’d follow an old highway, letting the remaining signs signal the tail end of the route. If Minho and Jisung still lived where they first set up camp, their complex could be found easily by following the right series of exits. To their luck, Chan had led them down a fairly rural route when they’d left the city to begin with. Walking the remains of that path would only lead them through two smaller country towns and the smattering of businesses parked around any highway exit.
Which was perhaps why Chan had felt safe going back for them himself; once a year after the fall of society, then again when the commune had finally settled into its new skeleton. He’d trusted the pair would be right where he left them, and had been rewarded for it. He’d trusted he had a future to offer them better than what they’d cobbled together on their own. And yet, Hyunjin thinks, no one’s heard from them in years. Not in any direct, provable way. For all they know, they’re walking into a trap. Or a grave, as homely as the pair might have tried to make it feel. Corpses rotting entangled on a withering couch, forgotten in time. Holes in the fabric, holes in their flesh.
He shook the picture from his mind. His own paranoia was an unkind entity. Always assuming the worst of the ones he loved, twisting its vitriol into false rationality. It was an ache living at the base of his throat, waiting for the moment to begin to squeeze the last of the air from his lungs. The city could be thriving too; experiencing the birth of a new age they’d missed out on the signs of from their safe distance. People were always more resourceful in numbers, better suited to survive together than alone. Maybe they’d find rows of markets intact once more. Streets blocked off by survivors happy to share amongst one another rather than hoarding every and any semblance of home. In another life, he and Jeongin frequent those markets. They spend their weekends shopping in season, and their Sunday nights eating meals they made together. They wake up and go to work, but only after kissing in the doorway, long and slow and warm. Hyunjin had always considered himself a city boy until the world had gone to shit. A fan of the bustle and how easy it was to get lost in it; to see and observe without interrupting its flow.
People were an art of their own, in all their fussy nuance and wild, fleeting enamourment.
Now, as he walked, and feared even the barest hint of humanity, he saw in perfect clarity how far he’d fallen. Felt like he’d fallen. He was no longer sure of a distinction between the two, if no one was judging him against what he could have been but himself. He couldn’t think of connection without seeing what he’d lost. Couldn’t think of dinner parties with friends over good wine and small talk without opening a jagged chasm in his chest he’d been trying for years to pretend didn’t exist. Even their daydreams existed in a world mostly to themselves.
If Jeongin was haunted the same, he showed it differently.
As the sun set over their first day walking, the younger man had cleared out a van they’d found abandoned at the side of the road. It had been gutted for parts long ago, but the interior was dry and had escaped molding in its stripping. A flame by the side of the road was always a flare risk, but they built a small one between the cover of the vehicle’s rear doors. Just big enough to place a pot over, the only one they’d brought. Jeongin poured in oats while Hyunjin uncapped the water bottle. It wouldn’t make much, but paired with a can of beans, they’d live.
It felt impossible to try to sleep on the stiff back seat, but Jeongin insisted on taking the first watch while Hyunjin tried. When he failed, his lover was a calm voice at his side. A hand tangled in his, rubbing sweet circles into his palm.
“If you look up there,” Jeongin pointed out the window of the van with his free hand; up towards the stars, no longer stifled by human pollution. “Just to the left– That’s Cassiopeia.”
“Where?” Hyunjin’s voice was little more than a murmur, despite his wired nerves.
“See that zigzag?”
“Yeah. Have you always known the constellations? Why hasn’t that come up?”
Jeongin snorted. “Because I haven’t. Mark went on a scouting trip two months ago. Brought back a book on astronomy he thought might help with the farming. I’ve been reading it in passing.”
“It is?”
“Helping with the farming?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s helping someone , I’m sure. I was just trying to impress you.”
Hyunjin huffed, amused and gentled by the thought. “Well, you have.”
His lover waved a hand dismissively. “It was going to be like, a whole date night. I was going to have you swooning over my big brain.”
“Well,” Hyunjin hummed, settling his head more comfortably against the crook of his arm. Jeongin’s fingers were squeezed in reassurance. “Don’t let me rob you of the chance to show off.
“If you insist. ” The man spent a long moment scouring the sky before pointing at another lump of tiny lights. “That bunch there, that’s Romulus.”
“What shape is that supposed to be?”
“I don’t know, I was lying.” The van echoed the sound of Hyunjin’s breathy laughter; the smack of skin as he shifted, threatening to flatten Jeongin into the footwell he sat in.
“It could exist!” Jeongin defended himself between giggles. “It’s a planet in Star Trek, it could be real!”
“I trusted you, Yang Jeongin!”
Hyunjin didn’t sleep so much as slipped out of consciousness somewhere between constellations seven and eight, the wear of the day catching up to him. Smothering his concerns right alongside the love he’d been blanketed in. Jeongin wouldn’t let a thing touch him.
The second day passed much like the first, exhausting the pair in its nature more than its content. Though they were drawing closer to past civilization, only a handful of rest stops had greeted them on their travels. Hollowed out the way their cabin home was, though bearing the marks of passing life. Crumpled up cans and charred logs left hints of whoever had passed through last; a fan of years old, luke-warm Dr. Pepper, pried from the vending machine at the front of the restrooms. They’d made use of the amenities, and spared themselves a moment out of the beating sun. Spring was mild, but days on the road would be unforgiving to anyone.
Jeongin kissed Hyunjin splayed out over a picnic table at the second stop; hands in his long hair, tugging and teasing. He was kind enough to ignore the way Hyunjin flinched at every errant noise, soothing him through the worry with the tip of his tongue.
‘Do you think things will ever go back to normal?’ Hyunjin was tempted to ask, but didn’t. He knew better – knew that normal meant something else now. Still, the picture of what once was lived on in his memory. Somewhere online, he’d read that memories rotted too. That each time he recalled something, the truth behind the details would slip further and further away; shaped more by what he wanted than what was. It had sounded possible, likely even. But Hyunjin was nothing if not stubborn, and desperate to be sure of himself. When he thought of the soft glow of his old bedroom at dawn, or the exact umber hue of the wood countertop in Chan’s apartment, he was certain that the glimmer of them both was real. Not a figment of fondness come too late, a retrospect ghost – but an aspect he’d failed to notice in real time. If he had, he’d have felt warm in the same way he did now. If he had, he’d have thought it just as pretty then.
That was the whole point of their escapist dates, reaching for the hazy glow of home. Whatever that could mean to them now. Hyunjin liked to hope that one day, they’d have hanging baskets for their windows. That Jeongin could plant the same flowers he’d claimed reminded him of him there, while Hyunjin cluttered the walls in picture frames. Oh how he’d kill to have a photo album of their years together; the one he would have made if life had gone to plan.
His tongue curled around a kinder question; idyllic, but a little more within reach. “Do you think we’ll ever get these places up and running again? The way they used to be, I mean.”
Jeongin was quiet a long moment; squinting at the scenery as they walked. They’d passed a quickie mart a mile back; upended and emptied, and still the most intact building they’d encountered all day. Even the restrooms had been down a sink or two. It was amazing how much more quickly things fell to shit when people were helping nature scrape the marrow from the bone. Plant life wasn’t strong enough to shatter the ceiling tiles of a CVS. A frustrated 20-something with a baseball bat was, all alone in a new world with new fears. Hyunjin knew Jeongin had been that kid once.
“Well, we won’t,” he huffed at last, obvious in his deflection from the discomfort of wanting something impossible so badly. “But I think some of the simpler things could be rebuilt. Like the rest stop. Or a neighborhood. We kind of have a neighborhood.”
“I don’t think it counts as a neighborhood if we all live on the same piece of land.”
“Do plots even matter anymore?”
“No.” Hyunjin shrugged, knowledgeable in fuck-all about the purpose of land zoning. “I just want a house. Or like, our own apartment. I’m tired of constantly hearing everyone in the community through our walls.”
Jeongin reached to tangle their hands together; fingers twining, clasped palms swinging idly between them. “I can offer you a curtain to hang between our bed and the front door. Although you’ll probably have to find the fabric for the curtain.”
“Can’t. You’d miss the view of my ass when I lounge around.”
The other man snorted, and shifted back to squeeze said ass with his spare hand, haphazard. “Damn right I would.”
Hyunjin loved him for that certainty. For the way he made the dregs of living feel like a gift. Yes, in another life they had a real house. They had rings exchanged on their fingers and the money to spare for decorations. In this one, the press of Jeongin’s warm flesh against his was enough to keep Hyunjin sane. Besides, it wasn’t the house that he was really craving. The lot, or the walls, or the quiet. It never had been, he was simply a world-builder by nature.
The remaining suburbs had their own problems. Actual neighborhoods: the homes of wasting houses and people alike. Not daydream tinted and golden in person. Camp for the night was another abandoned car, left at the edges of development. It seemed smarter to approach the potentially inhabited areas by the light of morning. With a fire too risky closer to other life, the beans they ate stayed cold.
This was the part Hyunjin hated.
Pavement had a way of echoing that dirt didn’t. Sure, someone stomping through the grasses had its own audibility, but it wasn’t the bouncing patter of shoes against cement. He didn’t worry about dragging his feet on the commune, but here, where every sound mattered, he picked up his pace. Made sure each step was light, balanced. They didn’t speak. In place of words were small gestures; both men keeping their eyes peeled on every passing window and doorway. There were vantage points surrounding them, and they’d be immensely lucky if every single one came up empty. While most people had moved outwards by now, low chances weren’t certain negatives.
Anxiety alight beneath his skin, it felt less like an ‘if’ they ran into someone, and more like a ‘when.’ When they came face to face with another survivor, would they be friendly or hostile? When they ran into trouble, would they both make it back out of it? Hyunjin kept his hand on the hilt of his knife; preparation as a lifeline – his last hope of clinging to perfect awareness.
When it finally happened, it happened fast.
There was a shout out of nowhere, and then that pounding, bouncing sound. One pair of shoes, two, three, not distant enough for comfort. Hyunjin whirled around in time to see two man leaving a driveway behind them, sprinting in their direction.
“Drop the bags! Drop the bags and we’ll let you go!”
But they’d both played this game before. Jeongin’s hand was grasping his in an instant, pulling Hyunjin stumbling in another direction. A third man had tried to cut them off, but the veer in their course had put him a hair out of range of grabbing Jeongin’s arm. They ran like their lives depended on it. Another snag saw Hyunjin lashing back. He felt his blade hit home rather than seeing it. There was a scream; knife tearing recklessly through soft flesh of a reaching palm, no doubt. But looking back was a delay they couldn’t afford. Jeongin led them three streets to the left, and up a few blocks; a curve in the road taking them further off course. Each passing house could be another trap, course correction could wait.
Hyunjin kept his knife close, arms poised defensive around his ribs. The man in their dust must have gotten it bad for a side swipe; more blood still clinging to the blade than he’d have expected to see from a passing wound. The hue of it made his guts squeeze and churn; sickness threatening to crawl up his throat and out. He felt tired, breathless, and hollow. Emptied out and refilled by a live wire; some spark jittering around inside of him, bouncing off his bones. Each noisy pat, pat, pat against the road was a firework going off in his chest, his throat, his stomach.
The two slowed to a stop blocks later. Jeongin turned to wrap Hyunjin up in his arms – kiss his forehead and soothe his ragged breathing. A favor returned in needy little touches. A brush of his arms, his waist, his chest to make sure everything was still intact. They’d made it out alive. For the first time in weeks, Hyunjin felt entirely present. Real throughout every inch of his body. He hated it. He knew the feeling would take hours to fade.
The last time he’d had to run for his life, he’d felt numb. Emotion carved out by the visage of his friend’s bodies, bloodied and abandoned. An invisible hand had reached inside of him to turn off all the lights. There was a memory of the run back to the commune, blurry and unreliable. In the moment, Hyunjin knew he’d been hyper aware of every little detail he passed. Months later, there was only a void; the knowledge it had happened slamming up against the will to forget.
Now every ounce of that first fear was being fed back into his body; dripping into his every thought and filtering down his limbs, a hum of electricity. What had first been paranoia had ramped into active dread even as his breathing slowed once more. And yet, they were close.
They had to keep going.
Their absolute silence stayed with them into the outskirts of the city. Jeongin’s hand had never left Hyunjin’s, and they used it to communicate in a series of tugs and gentle clenches. Something was off, that much was obvious by the way their own quiet had mingled with the calm that greeted them. While cities were no longer bustling things, they were still dense. The last time Chan had returned from Minho’s, he’d complained that he’d been able to hear it every time a rat shuffled through the litter in the streets. The sounds of tiny feet bouncing off the numerous walls to reach him wherever he was. Something that might have soothed Hyunjin’s nerves had the weaving streets not been absolutely barren of life. A living quiet was different from a dead silence.
People had been known to take the risk of disease by eating rats. A devoured population could account for the shift. It just hadn’t sounded like their friends were in a place to need to. If they were worse off than Chan remembered them to be, then there was a very real chance they were already gone. Hyunjin wasn’t sure he could handle another corpse right now, or that he wanted Jeongin to carry the weight of what two people he loved so dearly looked like deep into decomposition. Not that he was given very long to ponder it at all, or even a choice in the matter.
The quiet was broken again by screams. This time blood curdling, terrified. Another two things carrying a stark difference; the sound of anger and the sound of wailing desperation and pain. Every instinct he’d ever had was telling him to run in the opposite direction of that agony, but Jeongin – his love, his partner, his other half – took off towards it. It was only when Hyunjin focused in on the noise that he understood why. Drowned out beneath the pounding of his heart and feet alike was a strain of something familiar in the sound. A grunt he knew, just simply knew, was Jisung’s.
Time had failed to erase the sound of the other’s voice from his memory. And yet, when they arrived at the source they found a different man entirely.
The man was Jisung. There was no mistaking that. His cheeks had kept their roundness, and his stature was similar to how he’d carried himself back when Hyunjin still felt close to him. But this… He couldn’t make heads or tails of the sight.
Jisung was hunched over a body; fresh from the looks of it. Likely the guy who’d been letting out that awful, haunting howl. He’d been scared his friend would be the one being ripped into. Instead, Jisung was the predator. He had one of the man’s arms tucked against his hip; hacking into the ridge of his shoulder. The limb was half detached already, but it seemed like Jisung had hit a rough spot. Something too muscley or tense to sever. Something he was blatantly struggling to maim his way through when he finally noticed his company. Or rather, that his company was not who he’d expected. There’d been no shock at the approach, only a flash of realization across his features when he processed exactly who was gaping back at him.
“Hey guys!” He spoke, tone bright. Like this was normal. Like he saw nothing wrong with the gore he’d drenched their arrival in. “Sorry-” The body squelched as the arm was finally freed; torso smacking back into the ground. “Time sensitive.”
“Time sensitive?” Hyunjin was glad Jeongin had found his voice, because he still felt tongue-tied. A glance around reaffirmed Minho’s absence, but surely he wouldn’t be far behind. There was no world where Jisung was killing and Minho didn’t know. Didn’t do the same, maybe even. It felt like another thing they ought to run from, but Jisung showed no sign of turning on them next.
“You have to break them down before rigor mortis sets in. Or it just gets–” Jisung wiped his brow with his elbow, accidentally smearing blood across his forehead. “Well, to be honest it gets annoying.”
Who was he?
What had happened to make him that way?
“I guess I can leave it.” Their beloved stranger tossed the second arm beside the first once he’d pried it off as well. “Minho’s better at the rest of it than I am.”
“The rest of it?” Hyunjin’s voice sounded foreign. Someone else’s mouth dictating his thoughts as they clamored around in circles. What had happened? What had happened? What had happened?
But Jisung only waved him off. “I didn’t realize you two were coming. I guess it’s hard to send messages these days, but know that we would have prepared better for this if we could have.”
Hyunjin’s shiny, new, freshly grown second head processed the information for him. They hadn’t been expecting a dinner-party welcome. Jisung spoke like he still lived in terms of domestics, even as he tried and failed to sweep the bloodstains from his pants with equally soaked hands.
“That’s fine.” Came his stifled response. Because really, what the hell was he meant to say to that? To all of it?
“How many days are you staying for?”
Jeongin slid his fingers around Hyunjin’s wrist and pulled him up against his side as they fell into step behind Jisung. They had no idea if he was leading them back to his apartment or not, but resting for the night meant trusting him. The same screaming horror telling him to put himself between the other and his lover had compelled Jeongin too. Though his version of protection was to sling his arm around Hyunjin’s waist. Clinging and possessive, close enough to manhandle.
“A night, if you’ll have us.” Chan had asked they spend a good three, but Jeongin cut it short. A decision Hyunjin wholeheartedly supported.
“Of course! Minho’s the best, but I’ve missed you guys a lot. All of you.”
‘Where is Minho?’ Hyunjin wanted to ask, but he was afraid of the answer.
Typically, Hyunjin appreciated the little dwelling he shared with Jeongin. He’d thought the space was homey, for as small as it was. Had fooled himself into believing that having a stand-alone building would be better, even still, than apartment life would have once been to him. Jisung and Minho’s place sent that confidence crashing down. A mishmash of found trinkets and makeshift utilities gave the main room a warmth his own space hadn’t yet reached. It felt like stepping onto the set of a tv show; a snippet in a magazine, a moment in time he’d thought had passed for good. In a way, it had, even here in the heart of the image of it. But Jisung and Minho had held onto the previous standard of living a lot better.
Upon entry, Jisung had offered them a shower. “-Ish. Like, the shower head doesn’t work. But we’ve got a jug we can give you.” Like he wasn’t the one covered in blood; generous with his guests to a fault. Jeongin had insisted the other man take the first one, encouraging him not to stain his flooring. Hyunjin knew his lover simply didn’t trust a killer not to lay a trap while they were indisposed. It took an hour to convince him to take Jisung up on the offer anyway.
Pouring water over Jeongin’s head in increments in a cramped little stall felt almost normal. Massaging cheap shampoo through his hair and watching as the man’s eyes slipped closed in contentment was a gift of sorts. A trip down memory lane. The commune had access to water; a network of creeks and streams running alongside the farmlands, letting out into some bigger river they’d traced back to once or twice. It made bathing convenient and cooking doable; once they’d boiled enough of it. It was likely much harder for those living in the city to obtain, and their once friend had shared it anyway.
It was nearly impossible to pair his memories of Jisung with the wild-eyed and drenched being they’d encountered earlier. The Jisung they’d left behind years ago was less… Less. Not that Hyunjin had thought less of him, but he’d known the man to be a little more selective in where he chose to spend his energy. Jisung had grown out of his urge to fight, and fallen into a comfortable lull of work, school, gaming, banter, bar nights. Hyunjin knew that Minho had had a talent of prying more out of him, dragging Jisung into a more prime state of being – living at the peak of his happiness. But the feral way he’d torn into that arm had spoken of a boisterous ferocity that hadn’t existed back then. It was an ugly, twisted muchness ripping upwards and spilling out of him.
And yet, when they were all clean and crowded into the kitchen, Hyunjin was able to imagine nothing much had changed at all.
“Is this a social visit, or is Chan pushing again?” Jisung asked, prying into his cabinets for canned goods. Holding a can of peaches aloft like the rare prize it was, he almost seemed content. With himself, or the situation. Hyunjin wasn’t sure which, but it didn’t matter as long as that glow was real.
“Chan misses you.” In hummed, but the other let the topic fall away.
“When Minho’s home, we can work it out.” Dismissive, but not unkind. “I’m dying to know how you two have been!”
Dying to know. Well, someone had been.
Jisung looked like he had in their last days of school; hunched over and battling a can opener. His tongue stuck out between his teeth as he focused too hard on a simple task. Any minute now, he’d run a hand through his floppy hair. Laugh a little too hard at a shitty joke, and rock his entire body into the side of whoever was closest. Hyunjin would be laughing with him; smacking his open palms loudly against Changbin’s thighs and writhing in delight. They’d be kids again. The world would be simple, and life would feel so much less heavy.
Except, Jisung pried the lid off of the peaches and tossed it aside with an eager look back at the pair intruding on his daily routine. Expectant of a story, a collection of them, something to answer the questions he hadn’t quite asked. And that made pretending impossible. If Hyunjin wanted to continue to play-doh mold the world into a kinder version of itself, he’d have to lie. Jeongin would let him, no doubt. Play along with the storyline he painted – but if they really wanted the couple to return with them, they’d be caught out in the end.
And that was the thing, really. The question Hyunjin and Jeongin weren’t asking themselves either. Did the invitation still exist? Should it?
Chan had sent them to collect two survivors down on their resources and craving stability. What they’d found had created a risk for everyone. What if the couple liked their new ways? Brought that violence back with them? Hyunjin tried to remind himself that they’d all killed before. Their reasons likely differed, but the results were the same. Survival was survival, and it was ugly too.
“Married yet?” Jisung joked into the lingering quiet, well aware every chapel in town was permanently closed, and at least that got Hyunjin laughing. Settling back into his seat at the dinner table and shaking the lingering tension from his shoulders.
He and Jisung had fantasized about their weddings together once, a long, long time ago. They’d also discussed at lengths the careers they’d wanted, but, well. Those were impossible now. The last time they’d spoken face to face, Hyunjin had made a jab at the other for staying with Minho. Something about knowing he was a lost cause, picking his husband over everything else. It hadn’t felt as mean then as it sounded now, with the knowledge their outlook had remained bleak. Knowing how badly a dead tradition could feel like a warm welcome home, simply in its inaccessibility, in a world where home no longer existed.
They’d always been romantics.
“Are you?” He shot back, exaggerated in the way he squinted at Jisung’s bare fingers. The little digits lifting peach after peach to his grinning mouth.
“And what if I said yes?”
“Where’s the rock?” In chipped in, though there was an edge to his tone that even Hyunjin couldn’t place.
“It’s more of a… spiritual life bond.” Jisung’s words were accompanied by a fluid tumble of his hands, though the gesticulation helped little to paint his picture. “I’m his, he’s mine. We had a nice dinner and did a little… ceremony about it. Together. Now it’s a fact.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, who’s going to tell us we’re not?”
Jisung had a point. Hyunjin and Jeongin had entangled themselves in a web of melancholy, anchored by ghosts at points of outdated purpose. They mourned weddings, and so they didn’t speak of marriage. They mourned classic domesticity, and so they let themselves believe those stark, rain-rotten cabin walls were something more. There were contradictions in their boundaries alone; gaps in their reasonings that they’d been content to look past in favor of silent processing.
Because they weren’t craving the lot, the house, or the chapel. Hyunjin was a black hole. A world-builder in search of a purpose to swallow. Reviving what humanity once was was grueling and slow work. He’d only wanted to be content in his life; then and now. To fill the void eating away at the core of his being, once and for all. His love for Jeongin had done a good job of filling him up part way, but the perpetual dangers of their lifestyle kept him too paranoid to feel real comfort.
Something was missing. Stayed missing. Dangling just out of reach. And examining what meant examining his perpetual discontent. Hyunjin preferred daydreaming and mourning the past. That was a stomachable sadness. Real grief would unravel him whole.
“We have our own place.” It wasn’t really untrue. It was a good enough place to start.
They talked for what felt like hours, about anything and everything they’d missed of each other. It wasn’t an age of memorabilia, so Jisung’s walls were barren of the usual landmarks of a well-lived in home. Which led to a brief moment of panic around hour two that Jisung might be worse off than they imagined. Living amongst the echoes of a long-dead man who still hadn’t walked through the door. But Jeongin had slipped his arm around Hyunjin’s shoulders in the same moment he started to worry; eyes playing a manic game of ‘ Connect the Dots’ with Jisung’s furniture in search of life. And he’d let the worry lay to rest for an hour longer, ate the peaches he was offered and tried his best to feel normal .
Minho arrived as evening began to fall; just as bloodied as Jisung had been, carrying a bag over his shoulder. He made no attempt to hide the state of his dishevelment, nor did he show any surprise at the presence of two extra bodies in his home. Instead, Minho moved to greet his lover with a kiss; sweet and brief, neither minding the dried viscera on his jaw. Hyunjin watched in vague horror as he then unloaded tub after tub of tupperware into the ice box. There was no need to ask what it was; animals of that size wouldn’t have been around to hunt.
Reality eclipsed itself in the second the truth hit Hyunjin. Splintered off into something half real, half impossible. He knew, in his heart, that the situation was exactly as it seemed. His head, however, was tumbling. A jammed reel of film, tripping over the same thought again, and again, and again. He wouldn’t- He wouldn’t- He wouldn’t.
He would.
Anything Jisung needed, Minho would do. That had always been a fact of life, rigid and absolute. The day they’d met they’d fallen into a permanent orbit; one which had led them to this.
Eating human flesh to get by.
Maybe they would want to return to the commune after all. Moreso now than ever, the questions of could, should, would lingered. Hyunjin no longer wanted to ask about their return at all. Assessing a new risk in their friends, Jeongin’s arm tightened around him. Lingered close and tense even as Minho said his greetings and excused himself to clean up.
“That’s normal.” Jisung reassured. Was it?
Were other people doing this too? Had they been too sheltered back with Chan? He’d need to hear about this, but there was no hope of calling. Ever attentive, Jeongin took over their conversation. Replied on behalf of the both of them as Hyuniin inhaled, exhaled, internally collapsed in on himself for the better part of the hour. It was a lot of pressure to make the right call; the consequences were bloody, caught in the gaps of Minho’s teeth. Facing down a freshly washed cannibal, he knew they’d have to make the call on their own. Here, now, in hopes of the best.
Chan’s offer of salvation was but a toothpick for the couple to pry away the remnants of their action with.
Shuffled from the kitchen to the main room, they sat across from their hosts. Less cozy than they had been when it was just Sung and the small talk. Minho had one arm wrapped around Jisung’s waist; clinging like he thought there was a real risk of Hyunjin stealing him away. A thought almost funny with Jeongin itching to do the same beside him.
No, Hyunjin had to try and steal them both.
“I know you wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t asked you to be.” Minho began, tone not unkind. They all knew it was simply true.
“He did.” In hummed, fingers fidgeting nervously atop Hyunjin’s upper thigh. “But he won’t send us again if we’re unwelcome. It looks like… we came at a bad time.”
“You’re always welcome, don’t be ridiculous.” Jisung’s mouth had curved aggressively downwards at the mere thought. Hyunjin inched closer to Jeongin’s warmth on instinct; not entirely positive that wasn’t the kind of thing Minho drew blood over these days. “Minho will even cook us all dinner tonight, won’t he?”
It took a nudge of the elbow, but the man in question nodded. “Vegetarian.” The offer the only verbal acknowledgement of the body in the freezer they'd get.
It was casual, the way the word slipped from his lips. Like he’d long ago given up on second guessing what they’d been doing; instead embracing the nature of his appetite for exactly what it was. Hyunjin wasn’t sure if the matter-of-factness scared or angered him. It was hard to fault someone for decisions made out of necessity, but had it really been a necessity when they’d always kept their doors open to the pair? If Hyunjin had felt this isolated, would he have done the same?
It was a question he couldn’t answer yet. A thought he vehemently rejected.
“There’s lots of veggies back at the commune.” It was a meek offering neither of them would take seriously, Hyunjin’s voice small as he finally began to speak again. “There’s always something in season, too. Winters aren’t hard anymore.”
“Do you want us there?” Minho cut right to the chase, eyes boring right into the pair.
“Of course we do.” Jeongin hummed in the same moment Hyunjin failed to force noise between his lips. It was telling, no matter how quickly he tried to play it off.
“We’re good where we are,” Minho spoke directly to him, bare of judgment. Filled to the brim with only the same selfish desires Hyunjin liked to pretend he wasn’t ruled by. But everything he put his energy into was self-serving to some degree, his love life included. Even if being with Jeongin had awoken something selfless and reckless in his chest, he too felt the desire to swallow him whole. Keep him safe, where no one else could reach, or appreciate the beauty of his features – the parts of him that belonged to Hyunjin. “The couch is yours for the night. If you stay for the morning, we’ll help you find city goods to take home.”
Jeongin nodded, and neither of them had to speak to agree their original plans were out the window.
The meal was good. Minho’s cooking always had been, but even now, he had a way of drawing the flavors out of simple ingredients. Each lovingly cut vegetable settled in Hyunjin’s stomach for a time, allowing him a teasing moment of contentment. Then they roiled all at once. Or rather, the everything else caught up to him. Tightened its association with the food in his stomach as a spectral hand, twisting and tugging at his insides. It was the knowledge that the tools they ate with could only be washed so well these days. The thought of what else might have been clinging to that blade as Minho chopped, chopped, chopped. Hyunjin kept his meal down for exactly as long as it took their hosts to clear the table and slip off to the other room.
"We'll let you guys get an early night.” Minho had smiled, something too close to understanding. Like he knew exactly how to make sense of the sweat collecting on Hyunjin’s brow.
“Sleep in as late as you want,” Jisung had added, eyes alight with fondness even as they closed their bedroom door. “You must be exhausted.”
It didn’t sound like a threat, but it felt like one all the same.
He knew he hadn’t imagined the click of a lock as the couple disappeared, eyes meeting Jeongin’s in the wake of the sound. It seemed Minho didn’t fully trust them either, and it was that exact tension that pushed his insides out. There was no time to say anything, the first heave violent. He rushed out of the apartment and into the next unit, hoping the extra few walls would lend some privacy to the emptying of his stomach, his reserve, his composure.
Everything was so very wrong; the whole world turned on its side. For the first time in months, Hyunjin cried. Loud, ugly, sweaty, and wild. With each sob, his stomach clenched in on itself. Emptied of its stressors and still upset with him anyway. Jeongin was cooing at his side; one hand pulling back his hair and the other stroking gently down his spine. It was grounding in all the same ways it wasn’t. Calming, sacred, sweet but also something too dear to lose. At risk because Hyunjin couldn’t handle this alone; couldn’t be the scout he’d wanted to be when they were still settling in. Couldn’t handle providing for his own lover in the way Minho had proven in blood he could, would, would always .
When he’d found his friends’ bodies back in that emptied out house, there had been nothing appetizing about the sight. The thought of sustenance hadn’t crossed his mind at all. Jisung had torn into the man he’d killed with a purpose; like every slice mattered and the pieces they kept were according to a plan. If he’d brought his friend’s bodies home, they could have buried them. Their community would have been able to mourn the way he’d been refusing to; could have had a closure he’d robbed them of. Or maybe Chan would have been able to make the call he couldn’t; out of place as it seemed for the normally sweet man. He’d always been better at doing what needed to be done.
Maybe if he’d been a little braver, a little more adjusted to the state of the world, a little less interested in running, he’d be used to the taste of flesh by now. They’d all be fuller, stronger, round in the cheeks like Jisung had stayed. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To want to take a bite? No matter how hungry they’d all gotten, not one of them had tried.
Minho was wrong to lead Jisung to a poisoned spring.
So why did he envy it?
Why was that tiny, guilty, nagging at the back of his mind telling him he should have done better? Done more? It was hard to stay horrified by the violence, and horrified by himself, and scared of change all at once. Hyunjin had worked himself into knot upon knot, no hope of separating the moral fibers rupturing beneath the friction of that entanglement.
“Drink this.” Jeongin held a cup of water up, eye level. Hyunjin hadn’t noticed him move, leave, return. Even now, he was failing to look out for him, too trapped in his own head.
Perfectionism was a curse; he’d known that even before the world ended. It just hadn’t sunk so deep into the marrow of his bones yet. He’d thought back then he could work around it; appease the constant criticism of his internal monologue. Now he knew better; wrestling a life-long companion. Jeongin had been starry-eyed when he’d first met Hyunjin. He hadn’t known how to see the cracks in his porcelain, he’d thought him perfect just as he was. And though Hyunjin had spent years learning to find that constant admiration comforting, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was finally starting to falter.
Here, shaking violently, hollowed out and distraught, balanced over the rim of a toilet seat – was his boyfriend finally seeing him for what he really was? Needy and bottomless? Full up of false confidence and lofty ideals? Hyunjin had once thought he could reach them; work hard and become whatever he wanted to be. Prove to the world he was worth its belief in him. Now the tiny bathroom reeked of sickness, and it felt like a rot he’d been carrying inside him all along. Hot and putrid like rotting flesh, distinct in that same, inexplicable way. Almost like he’d choked up chunks of the corpses he’d left to decay after all; dislodged them from his throat and sweat them out only now that the guilt was too vivid to repress.
“You need to drink the water, baby.” Jeongin didn’t sound repulsed by him. There was a hand back in his hair; sweet and insistent. “Your stomach’s going to keep heaving until you do. Drink this and breathe for me, deep and slow.”
Hyunjin didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of this loss of composure. He wanted to pretend everything was fine again.
“It’s okay.” His lover hummed, almost like he’d read his mind. Hell, maybe he had. Jeongin was good at reading the rest of him. “This is normal.”
Was it? The universe had just slid an inch to the left, for a second time in less than three decades. Everything was in ruins, he was failing himself, and their friends were eating people.
“Nothing about this is normal.” Hyunjin’s throat burned with the effort to speak.
“I meant the grief.” It was a slap to the face, the way the younger man had laid the heart of him bare all at once. Oddly, one he’d needed. His breathing started to calm.
“I didn’t know the guy.” The one Minho had stacked up in his fridge.
“Don’t deflect with me.” In’s tone was still soft. “I live with you. I know you never really processed… Most of it.”
“And you did?” Hyunjin didn’t mean it to sound like a jab, but the sentiment was harsh all the same.
“I’ve been running right beside you. Of course I haven’t.”
“Then why isn’t this getting to you?”
“It is. But don’t beat yourself up for breaking down first.” It was annoying how well he knew Hyunjin. Immediately, the guilt had begun to flare again. “I’m going to make you hold me for at least an hour when I work myself back down from fight or flight.”
That got a snort out of him, and Jeongin beamed like that sound alone was the parting of the clouds. An errant beam of sunlight after a long season of rain.
“Minho and Jisung are giving us privacy to process. Let’s head back to the couch and work through it.”
“Can’t we stay here?” Hyunjin hadn’t picked up many details on his dash into the unit, but he knew it was built much the same. It was unlikely both that Minho hadn’t cleared out anything dangerous with its proximity to Jisung, and that anyone would be coming back to it.
“Jinnie.” Jeongin eyed the void beyond the bathroom wearily. “There’s no door. Nothing that locks.”
“No one’s coming.” It was odd how confident he felt in that statement. He felt almost light-hearted now that the tears were dried. “They probably ate their neighbors.”
“Hey-.” Jeongin shook his head, but didn’t disagree. “Let me take a lap, find us some blankets. The couch might have bugs.”
“The whole world has bugs.”
“You’re picky about the wrong things, you know that?” In brushed Hyunjin’s hair back a final time; tucked the sweaty strands behind his ears. “You won’t eat eggplant, even when it's one of the only things in season, but the whole world has bugs. And that? That’s fine.”
“It’s inevitable.” His defense was soft, worn out more than calm. “Eggplant isn’t inevitable.”
And yet, set up on the towel covered couch, Hyunjin doubted he’d get any sleep. His boyfriend seemed unable to settle either; eyes constantly cast towards the doorless entryway. They chatted until they couldn’t anymore, big topics and little topics weaving themselves down to the simplest of conclusions
“I think I’d do it too.” Hyunjin confessed as his eyelids grew unbearably heavy. “If we didn’t have our friends. I’d-”
Jeongin cut him off. “I know. But you don’t have to-”
“I need you to know.” A game of interruption. “You need to hear it. Need to know that about me. I’d kill for you too, Jeongin. I’d do awful things to keep you alive.”
He expected silence, if not judgment. Instead, the other man laid a kiss on his temple. “And I'd make sure you never went through any of it alone.”
Jeongin was right. When his time came, Hyunjin would hold together each and every one of his tiny little pieces too. He’d mend them in affection and patience; help Jeongin to make his skin feel like home once more. They’d go home and see their lives anew, if they just survived this first.
There was no segue between consciousness and sleep, only the coming of the dawn hours later. Though by the way Hyunjin awoke to an empty room, he suspected the other hadn't slept at all. Curtains torn away, likely for repurposing, the pale sunlight washing the room was an effective alarm clock. He had no hope of closing his eyes to catch another hour or two. Instead, he pulled himself up in search of life.
Voices came muffled from Minho’s apartment, and the kitchen just beyond the front door. There was a clinking of dishware too, that he tried hard not to read into. Where he’d initially intended to join the conversation, his footsteps fell short just outside the door. Closed, but the wood not thick enough to prevent his comprehension up close. The urge to maintain his secrecy a moment longer won out.
“- not the taste. Ew. The killing, the- the ruthlessness.” Jeongin sounded incensed, voice strained with anger in a way Hyunjin had never heard before. In any other situation, it might have been hot.
“Of course we don’t like the killing.” Jisung scolded back. “It just has to happen.”
“Does it? Make it make sense to me, because this doesn't seem better than coming with us. Or more sustainable.”
“We grow things too.” But the way his tone shrunk, almost inaudible to Hyunjin, made it seem like he wasn’t so sure of his own answer.
“I don’t like the variables.” Of course Minho was there too, terse. They knew that much, but it seemed to be the answer he was sticking to. “You live amongst friends because you haven’t been given a reason to turn on each other. No one is stable enough right now to guarantee another wave of disease won’t take the rest of us out. Then you’ll be left scrambling too. The difference is that Jisung and I will have food long after you do.”
“You’ll have victims, that’s what you’ll have. Why doesn't that bother you?”
“You can’t change what we’ve already done, Jeongin. And it doesn’t sound like you want us coming with you as we are, so why are you pushing? What are you really trying to understand?”
It was a fair enough question, though Hyunjin understood better than Minho why his lover would need that last assurance. A reason so cemented he could never look back and doubt the foundations of it. Jeongin went quiet, though. Stayed quiet so long he heard the dishes begin to shuffle again, and Hyunjin decided the time for listening in had passed.
“Good morning.” He pushed into the kitchen with a soft smile; ignoring the way they all must have known he was there from his footsteps. Hyunjin didn’t mind being a shift in focus.
Coffee was pressed between his hands in a small mug, still warm and fresh. Jeongin watched him take his first careful sip with the same all-consuming gaze Hyunjin stared back with. His empty stomach would probably protest the choice in an hour or two, but for now, it tasted good. Like the fondest of memories and the slowest of mornings.
“Jeongin can come out with me today.” Minho didn’t really sound like he was asking. “There’s a market a few blocks from here that’ll be good for you two. It’s not totally empty yet.”
“And I can help you pack up the food!” Jisung grinned in his direction, and Hyunjin wanted to protest. To tell them he was better at putting himself in danger, and Jeongin’s stomach was stronger. But he had a feeling the change of pace would help them both, and Minho was a man of reason. Even if those reasons were often obscured or ridiculous.
“I’ll be safe.” Jeongin reassured him with a kiss to the nose as the two slipped from the apartment an hour later.
Jisung didn’t rush to get the packing done in their absence. Quite the opposite, he pulled out a stack of board games and egged Hyunjin into round after vicious round of Mancala and Connect Four. It was funny how well adjusted the couple seemed in spite of the obvious setbacks. The morning after he’d collapsed in on himself, his head was clear. The cobwebs of envy reaching from their bookshelves to the lobby downstairs had begun to make sense to Hyunjin; not cleared away, but visible in their entirety. Minho and Jisung had strayed the furthest from the future Hyunjin wanted, and yet they were also the closest to living it. It was hard to make sense of how the one could be a result of the other, or if it even was.
Maybe the real difference was simply that they’d chosen to stay and fight. Jisung wasn’t a runner, reserved though he could be. Hyunjin was learning that he was afraid he always would be.
They played a round of Hoola before Jisung decided to poke at the elephant in the room.
“I know you think less of us now,” he hummed over his hand of cards, “But I still love you. We still love you both.”
“I don’t think less of you.” Hyunjin caught the look of disbelief aimed his way immediately. “I really don’t. I don’t think that’s what this feeling is.”
“So what is it then?”
“We love you too.” Hyunjin needed it said, before he tried to fumble through the rest.
“And?”
“And it scares me that I envy you. You scare me, and I still envy you.”
“Is the commune… not doing well?” There was an edge to his tone, like Jisung needed to believe it had been. Curious for a man so set on staying put, but Hyunjin knew it wasn’t the right time to examine that any closer.
“It’s good, it’s just–” His eyes cast about for anything else to land on. Anything but the man he was letting see him entirely too raw – a man with a habit of literally sinking his teeth into people’s softest parts. “When we got here, I didn’t know if I’d still know you. You know?”
“No.” Jisung was blinking open, honest, and entirely confused.
“It’s been years, and the way you live is really different. There’s no one holding either of you to being something other than yourselves, except yourselves.” The answer was working its way up his throat, slow and steady. He didn’t want the lot, the chapel, the big city lifestyle he’d left behind. “I love you, and I love the people we live with. I love Chan, and Felix, and Changbin, for making surviving that much easier for us all.”
“But?”
But Hyunjin had been chasing a change in himself; one he’d thought someone else would be able to make for him. He’d thought he’d see it manifested through efforts to settle, and to build a new sense of normality to blossom in. He’d spent months willing every bad feeling and ounce of stress to sit dormant at his feet, and lost sight of his actual needs in the process. Community was important, after all.
If he closed his eyes and made believe, everything was perfect just the way it was. He and Jeongin had a house, had neighbors, had enough memories of the 9-to-5 grind to laugh about it facetiously, and a rigorous routine in its place. But he came home every day with his legs sore, and his body tired. He left his home and let the people around him shape him, a form made up of communal perception more than a living being.
Hyunjin didn’t want to have to feel perfect anymore.
“You two got a fresh start. I don't want to be known by who I was in another life, or the way I struggled when we were living off of scraps. I want the room to be someone new.”
“You feel too seen?”
“Or not seen enough. Or both.”
“Everybody’s so complicated these days.” Jisung groaned, but he caught Hyunjin’s eyes with a fond smirk even as he did so. And the levity was appreciated; acknowledgement buried under the silliness of it. The unadorned truth was ugly, but hardly an attack.
“Says you. You’re even worse than me.”
“I’d still love you though.” Jisung huffed, and abandoned the cards to reach sappily for Hyunjin’s hands. The taller resisted the urge to pull his back, nose wrinkling in faux disdain instead. “I’d love any version of you.”
The sentiment of it felt real.
“If you came back in another two years, and you were completely different? That Hyunjin would be welcome too. Fresh start and all.”
“Thanks, Sung.” He doubted it would happen, but having someone else carry the feeling with him was enough.
Hyunjin didn’t want to run from the commune too, from the family he’d built in place of the one he’d lost. He just needed to find a way to marry new goals with the life he’d wrapped himself a little too tightly in. Grief had allowed his routine to act as a shock blanket, then suffocated him with it. He had to allow changes to take place where he was already standing and learn how not to view them as losses too. Unwind the many layers of numbness he’d cocooned himself in in forgiveness of his blistering, burning, guilt. In trying to keep a death grip on the few comforts he had, he’d held dear all of the wounds they massaged too.
There was a way out, if only he unclenched his fist. Hyunjin, too, in all his faults and failures, was allowed to rest.
“Now,” Jisung collected his cards back up. “Admit defeat and we’ll go get you stocked up.”
Snorting, he shook his head. “That’s my line, actually.”
“Actually.”
Minho and Jeongin returned right as the two shoved the last cans of soup out of the zipper’s path. It felt timed, or maybe Jisung just had a really good sense of how long Minho spent away each day. Whatever the case, he was somewhat glad the other couple wasn’t begging them to linger. They led Hyunjin and Jeongin, well packed and semi-rested, back to the mouth of the highway just as the sun hit its midday peak.
“It’s not a no forever.” Minho pulled Hyunjin back as their partners fell into step ahead of them. If he minded that Hyunjin had been the one most opposed to their company, he didn’t show it. “Right now, this is what’s best for us. For Jisung. But honestly, I don’t know how long it will stay that way. You can tell Chan we’re coming. Someday, eventually, if you’re still out there. But not today, and he won’t need to send for us.”
“Did Innie change your mind?”
Minho huffed, amused and fond. “No. But Jisung liked the way you described it to him.”
“You can’t keep this up there.”
“Isn’t the point of all of this to get out of survival mode?” The elder shrugged; watching his lover, his ceremony certified soulmate, his Jisung pinch at Jeongin’s cheeks. “We’ll join you when we no longer need to. When the world no longer requires us to. I don’t want us to lose our safety, but I don’t want us to lose our humanity either.”
Hyunjin chose not to argue that they’d survived as many years without resorting to cannibalism. It’s different for Minho. And different for him. And neither of them quite fit into the flow of things as they are. Clinging to humanity seems like a good way to put it, though maybe Hyunjin is closer to drowning beneath the weight of his own.
“Okay. We’ll see you then.” He shifted from one foot to the other, satisfied for once with his answer. ”Minho?”
“Hm?”
“We’ll miss you two.”
“We’ll miss you too, Hyunjinnie.”
As they left the couple waving behind them, a peace washed over him. He knew they’d be okay; Jisung throwing himself into life with the same determination he always had and Minho twisted in on his morals in the presence of someone who’d hold him through each shift and shake. Love every new version of him just as hard, just as deep, just the same . They might never sweat out the violence they’d chosen to soak in, but Hyunjin knew his own guilt better now. Felt lucky he wasn’t them, but held no pity either. They’d split and they’d all focus on themselves; moving forward without leaving the others behind. It wasn't abandonment, didn’t feel like it anymore either.
Halfway down the highway exit, Jeongin tugged Hyunjin to a stop. They’d managed to bypass the suburbs, only the open road before them. Carefully, one big hand clasped at Hyunjin’s jaw, his lover pulled him into a kiss. Then another, and another. Each one tasted like relief.
“I found something.” He confessed, sighing into the hair’s width between their lips.
“I hope you found a lot of things.” Hyunjin teased, resisting the urge to lick into his other half’s mouth. They could revel in each other once they were home again. He had to be strong, focused.
“Shh, I found something important. And it made me realize something.”
“What’s that?”
Jeongin wrestled the straps of his backpack to open the side pocket; digging around until something small surfaced, hidden by the curl of his fingers. “I want us to stop focusing on what we’ve missed out on, and I want us to just start going for what we can still have.”
“Okay.” Hyunjin was sure he was the picture of gentle confusion until Jeongin sunk to one knee.
“Will you have a, um. Spiritual life-bond with me?” His expression was hopeful, but tight. Immediately, it needed fixing. He had to know there was no way Hyunjin would ever turn him down.
“Yes, of course.” He rushed to cup his lover’s face in turn, kissing every inch of exposed skin. “I’ll marry you, even.”
“Really?”
Using the word seemed to strip the grief right out of it, now that Jeongin was holding a little silver ring in his hands. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so unattainable anymore; the mental blockage having fallen away somewhere between wailing his heart out the night before and waking up resolved. The paperwork and architecture of it all hardly mattered. They had an entire community they could force to recognize it for them.
“We can ask Chan to throw a ceremony. I bet he’d find a way to get pseudo-ordained.”
“Oh my god.” Jeongin was breathless. “Fuck, he’d like that way too much.”
“Felix would like that way too much.”
“You’re right.” Hyunjin crushed their lips together between every third word Jeongin managed. “But like, it’s–” A kiss. “Our idea, so–” Another. “We get first dibs right?”
“Right.” The only thing that forced him to part from his lips was the necessity of getting home to feel him up any further. Hyunjin watched Jeongin slide the ring over his finger in pure glee, and willed himself to accept the rush of emotion. Rest was allowed, progress too, and happiness most of all. He was in no debt to keep himself the same man he’d always been; not to his community, his friends, or the ghosts he carried. And ironically, this was as close to perfect as he’d felt in a long, long time.
Denying himself, or pushing himself, life would go on either way. It was as good a time as any to step back into his bones, start living for himself again.