Even Zombies Have Fandoms

Chapter 63

She couldn’t explain it specifically, but she was instinctively certain that something terribly frightening would happen. Wanting to quickly escape to a safe place, she hastily bid farewell to Muyoung.

“I’ve said everything I wanted to say, so I’ll go in now.”

“Ah, should I help you?”

As she struggled to take out the key from her pocket with one arm while supporting the child, Muyoung asked, but the woman firmly refused.

“It’s fine. How could I survive if I can’t even open a door by myself? I’m okay.”

Then, supporting the child’s weight with one arm, she inserted the key into the hole and turned it to unlock. After that, she lifted the seemingly heavy iron door and looked at Muyoung as if to prove herself.

Though her face was red with effort even in the darkness, Muyoung pretended not to notice and gave a thumbs up, saying “Wow.”

‘If I had known this would happen, I should have said goodbye to Hayun earlier.’

She carefully descended the ladder leading into the bomb shelter, one step at a time. Muyoung suddenly felt regret for not being able to say goodbye to the child.

‘Maybe I can see her face one last time.’

As Muyoung turned his gaze, he discovered eyes staring at him intently.

‘Goodbye, oppa.’

How long had she been awake? The child, as if she had been waiting for him to look at her, didn’t seem surprised by the sudden eye contact and mouthed a greeting.

‘Goodbye to you too, Hayun. Take care.’

Momentarily stunned to realize the child had been pretending to sleep, Muyoung quickly returned a silent greeting. Thus, while the woman descended into the bomb shelter, the two were able to exchange brief farewells.

“I might come out again to pack things, but I think it’s better to say goodbye now. Thank you for everything. Take care.”

The woman spoke while holding the iron door handle, having safely laid the child and luggage on the bomb shelter bed and coming out to close the door.

“You take care too, Hyunyoung-ssi.”

“I hope you survive.”

“Yes. I will.”

After exchanging well-wishes with smiling faces, the bomb shelter door closed with a heavy thud. Muyoung returned to the house with mixed feelings of relief and sadness.

Meanwhile, as the woman climbed back down the ladder, she pondered what the strange sensation she felt from Muyoung’s last smile was.

‘Come to think of it, even though the feeling is completely different, their expressions are very similar?’

And not long after, she realized that Seokjae’s mechanical, mask-like kind smile was strangely similar to Muyoung’s smiling expression. As if one had copied the other.

* * *

With the worrying situation of the two resolved favorably, Muyoung walked towards his room with a lightened heart. Past the kitchen to the living room, past the living room to the hallway. Then he suddenly stopped upon seeing a huge figure standing in front of his door.

“Gasp, wh-who’s there.”

Caught off guard, Muyoung stammered, his heart leaping then plummeting at the unfamiliar presence. But he soon recognized the impressive figure in front of his door and relaxed.

“H-hyung?”

“…”

Seokjae’s head, which had been facing forward, turned sideways at Muyoung’s call without answering. The slow gaze. Seokjae looking at Muyoung in the hallway with just the two of them, combined with the soft lighting and quiet early morning air, gave off an atmosphere like a serial killer from a thriller movie.

‘What should I do…’

However, to Muyoung, whose danger perception ability in front of Seokjae was lower than a sloth’s reflexes, the scene looked completely different.

‘Judging by his expression, it seems he had a hard time with nightmares again today.’

He thought Seokjae’s fierce demeanor was just due to being sensitive from lack of sleep for two days because of nightmares.

“Did you have a bad dream again today?”

Muyoung asked with concern. As he approached with quick steps, he suddenly realized.

‘I was really cutting it close!’

Seeing him standing in front of the door, he felt relieved that he hadn’t kept him waiting long, but then he realized:

‘I could have been in danger if I had come just a little later…’

If Seokjae had barged in like yesterday, and if he had noticed his absence and gone looking for him, it would have been very troublesome.

“I knocked but there was no answer, so I thought you were sleeping…”

Seokjae, who had been silently staring at Muyoung standing still, finally spoke.

“What?”

“You went somewhere, I guess?”

To Seokjae, who was obviously curious about where he had gone, Muyoung tried to make an appropriate excuse since he had passed through the kitchen.

“Ah, I was a bit thirsty so-“

“You’re covered in dust.”

However, before he could finish speaking, Seokjae cut him off.

‘Dust?’

Muyoung looked bewildered at where Seokjae’s gaze was directed. And he saw it. The black dust marks smeared on his top. Unfortunately, he was wearing a white short-sleeved T-shirt, making the stains stand out.

‘No, where did this… Ah, the platform!’

When he moved the large platform, his upper body must have briefly touched it. He had noticed the black dust on his hands and brushed it off, but hadn’t realized at all that his clothes had been dirtied from rubbing against it.

‘He definitely won’t believe I just went to drink water.’

It didn’t make sense unless he had gotten water from some kind of storage area. While he was fortunate to realize this before making an unbelievable lie, he was also at a loss, having lost his most usable excuse.

“Sorry for interrupting. So, where did you go because you were thirsty?”

As Muyoung’s already pale complexion lost even more color, Seokjae, showing no intention of letting him off the hook, gently brushed the dust off his shoulder while asking again.

“I-I woke up thirsty, and then…”

As Muyoung struggled to think of what could have dirtied his clothes like this, Seokjae raised one eyebrow.

‘I deliberately set it up for him to lie, but this doesn’t feel good at all.’

The secret meeting between Muyoung and the child this morning. It was true that no one had seen it. But if asked if no one knew about it… that wasn’t the case. Seokjae smiled crookedly as he recalled the secret activities of that day.

‘What could that promise with that woman be.’

In fact, Seokjae had been listening to their entire conversation from inside his room from beginning to end.

Seokjae was someone who never let even small things related to Muyoung slide. From the moment they had a conversation in front of his door, it would be fair to say he had no intention of keeping it secret.

However, Muyoung and the child didn’t know this obvious fact, and their careless secret meeting was bound to be caught in Seokjae’s radar as he was packing in his room to avoid delaying tomorrow’s move even for a moment.

He was already on edge because of the question and glances Park Hyunyoung, that woman, had given Muyoung behind his back. And then to hear the name of her closest confidant, the child, in the hallway.

At the time, Seokjae judged that the child wouldn’t have come down alone for no reason, so soon after discussing future plans. So he approached the door silently, suppressing his presence.

When he learned that Muyoung had received something presumed to be a note from the child, and that it was a message sent by the woman through the child, he was about to burst out of the room.

But hearing Muyoung’s permission saying “I understand,” Seokjae chose to take a step back. He thought he might be able to use this situation to his advantage if he played it right.

‘A good child doesn’t often betray intentionally.’

It might be hasty to label it as betrayal just for exchanging one note, but there was nothing stopping him from pushing it that way. In a situation where one choice could mean life or death, it was only natural to be suspicious if they were secretly plotting something together.

Seokjae was the type of person who thought it more productive to sleep an hour more than to doubt Muyoung’s ill intentions, but he could certainly pretend to do so for later.

‘I’m planning to let it slide anyway, saying I’ll keep it secret from the others.’

It was a decision made solely by his own will, not because of any unavoidable circumstances like urgency. So he would inevitably feel more guilty than at other times. And he would become more attached to Seokjae for keeping his secret.

Seokjae decided to search the room, expecting that by gradually increasing his value in Muyoung’s eyes like this, even if it was petty, he would soon become a special person to him. He needed more information than just their conversation.

Judging from how easily Muyoung had agreed, he suspected it was a request for a personal meeting, not touching food or medicine.

To confirm his suspicion, he invaded Muyoung’s empty room while he was in the shower. It took some time since he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he eventually found the note hidden under the pillow.

‘I didn’t think he’d put it in such an obvious place, like a dog hiding snacks under a cushion.’

It was an incredibly careless hiding spot. Not knowing this, it took twice as long to put the rummaged bag and furniture back in place. Thanks to this, he ran into Muyoung on his way back to his room, but Muyoung didn’t seem to notice that Seokjae had been in his room.

After that, Seokjae waited for the appointed time with as much anticipation as Muyoung, albeit with a slight unease.

‘I thought he might actually switch sides if I let them talk…’

He couldn’t trust Muyoung, who lacked loyalty when it came to the weak. So Seokjae eavesdropped on their entire conversation from behind the back door, ready to intervene at any dangerous moment.

And he heard Muyoung’s answer rejecting her manipulations. Amusingly, he found himself overjoyed to the point of laughter.

‘He said, “I still think it’s better for me to go with hyung”… Looks like he likes me more than I thought.’

Muyoung had actually said, “I still think it’s right for me to go with hyung and the kids,” but Seokjae interpreted it in a way that suited him.