Humans Yearn

It was just another day, drifting by like all the rest.

"What."

"Why."

I'd gotten so used to our daily calls that it had never occurred to me there might be days she couldn't get on the air.

"What a pointless load of crap."

It was true enough. The calendar had rolled into September, and the dubious achievement of surviving a full six months was nearly in the bag. But the temperature wouldn't climb enough to actually feel it for another two or three years, and the urge to beat the shit out of people wasting food and supplies was every bit as real.

"Must be because even for a rich neighborhood, you've only packed in the richest assholes. Reality still hasn't sunk in. Hurry up and work your fox-charms on that security guard."

Any day now.

According to Harin, she'd already come clean about the radio calls. Against the rules, strictly speaking — but the security guard was choosing to look the other way. She still hadn't found the internal power cutoff, though given that it was nowhere to be seen on B3 or B4, both of us ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠figured it had to be down on B5.

"Anyway, eat plenty of good stuff. Bring me a tuna mayo kimbap when you come."

"Don't wanna."

That was the last of the transmission. I packed my gear and got to my feet. I was already out farming past Jeungmi Station, after all.

Lately, even while roaming around and scavenging, I never let the tension slack. Five months since the catastrophe hit, and I was starting to feel it — a fair number of people had survived, the early despair notwithstanding. Of course, looking at Seoul's population, not even a tenth had made it. But with production a dead letter, there were more than enough mouths left to make generously sharing supplies an unaffordable luxury.

So now, wherever I went, the K2 came up first.

I kept the noise down as much as I could, checking my angles in small increments, advancing slowly.

"..."

Invincible Marine or not, I'd never received proper CQB training. Everything I knew was a greatest-hits compilation of the shit I hadn't let go in one ear and out the other during Motherless Cha's ten-minute smoke breaks — and he hadn't received that training either.

I think about it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sometimes — maybe Corporal Cha had been busting his ass trying to whip a hopeless wreck like me into shape.

That son of a bitch. Makes me miss him for no damn reason.

Anyway.

According to what Corporal Cha had taught me, the most important thing was to approach in secret so the enemy wouldn't see it coming, then strike with precision and speed, going for the vitals without hesitation to crush any will to fight back.

I kicked the door in—

"..."

But here's the thing.

What if you throw a door open, shove a gun in someone's face, and find a person who has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no intention of fighting back — no will to resist at all.

"If there's something you want, take it."

"..."

Someone muttering like that with a face that said they'd lost every last scrap of will to live, the way I used to look — like they wouldn't last much longer.

"I don't need any of it anymore anyway."

"..."

I wondered if Corporal Cha knew whether the tactic still meant anything in a situation like that.

"If you want to kill me... that's fine too."

"Sorry, but it's neither. I didn't come here to loot."

That was how it was. There was a person.

A man sat alone, staring at nothing, his beard grown out into a rough, unkempt thicket. I lowered the rifle.

Of all days for Harin's radio to go dark, I had to walk into something this bleak. Same as always.

How to put it. He looked about mid-forties, maybe early fifties. As I'd already noted, he had the coarse look of a man who hadn't shaved in a long time, and he was just sitting there inside a tent pitched in the middle of the living room, staring at nothing. There was no will to live left in his eyes. They'd gone hollow, the way a person looks when they've given up on everything — like he wouldn't last much longer.

I pulled two thermoses from my pack and held one out to him. Strong instant coffee, brewed thick.

"Have some coffee."

"..."

I unscrewed my own cap first, took a sip, and looked past the man at the room beyond. A sofa sat right beside the tent, and on the wall behind it hung a large picture frame.

A family photo. A woman who must have been his wife, a child who must have been his daughter, and the man sitting in front of me — all of them smiling brightly.

I turned my head. There was nothing to be gained by asking a man who'd so obviously been left alone about something like that.

"She was a good person... Someone like me meeting her was more luck than I ever deserved..."

"...I see."

He must have followed my gaze to the frame without my noticing. The words came out of him on their own, as naturally as breathing.

"She froze to death five months ago. She kept saying she was cold, and I told her it was all right, just held her tight and went to sleep... and she left first. Left me and our daughter behind..."

"..."

As if he wanted to leave a trace with someone. As if I, having shown up at just the right moment, were the right person to receive it. In a voice that was quiet and melancholy, he carefully broke off a piece of himself and held it out to me.

"I watched her shivering, crying that she was so cold, and I still thought... if I just held her, it'd be fine. Haha."

"..."

It was uncomfortable. A squeezing ache in my chest, my breath catching a little, a sigh slipping out before I knew it. And I could already tell where the rest of this story was going.

"I buried my wife in the ice. I wanted to put her in warm ground, someone who'd died of the cold — but I couldn't even dig through the dirt."

He would have shaken the frozen tears off her and laid her in the ice.

"I wanted to follow her. Couldn't. Our daughter was still here... this kid shivering just like her mother, clinging to me, saying she was cold..."

He would have held on, wrapping his arms around the daughter he still had to protect, grief be damned.

"...So I held on. We scraped by together, and somehow almost five months went by. I believed I could at least keep her safe. My daughter, at least."

I'd known a story like this was coming — the kind where someone refuses to let go of hope all the way to the five-month mark, all the way to the edge of half a year.

The coffee caught in my throat and stopped. My stomach turned.

"But... my daughter died too... That tiny, fragile kid, she died after all... hhk. hup... kkh..."

"..."

I felt like I might throw up. Buried under all the gloom and negation pouring off the man in front of me, I felt like I might die right there with him.

And I knew exactly why I was like this.

"I wanted to save that child, at least, kkh... I really tried... I wanted to be a father I wouldn't be ashamed of, I..."

"I'm sorry."

This was guilt, probably.

If the ruined world had been left with nothing but trash — if everyone had become a murderer, if goodness itself had been forgotten — I could've gone on cursing it as a world that had always been full of garbage. If there hadn't been a single decent person left standing.

"Hup, kkh... What did you do wrong that you'd need to be sorry? Thanks for the coffee, though..."

"..."

Then I wouldn't have had any guilt left in me at all. But there were still good people in this world, and they turned my guts inside out.

Every time I ran into one of the few who were left, it was maddeningly uncomfortable, a twisting in my chest — like dropping a boulder onto the still water I'd barely managed to keep calm.

"I want it to be over. And yet. I'm scared to die, I hate the cold, and when I'm hungry it just hurts... so even with everyone gone, I sit in this tent and put off dying until the food runs out. It's ridiculous."

"Come with me. There are still plenty of survivors."

And that was why I kept doing this pointless shit, over and over, like an idiot. There was nothing in it for me.

"..."

"I'll help you."

These were the same complicated feelings I'd had looking at those siblings. I'd known it was insane, and I'd still used the excuse of a passing acquaintance to go find the cultists' hideout, to drag them out, to thrash and fight for them — hypocrisy born of guilt, nothing more.

So this, too, was nothing more than that. Ever since I'd gone and spread that enormous fucking blight that ruined the world, I'd been reaching out a helping hand to a handful of people like it was some kind of medicine. What a fucked-up thing to do.

Except.

"I'm all right."

"...Even so, surviving is..."

The man lifted his bearded face, looked at me, and smiled.

"..."

"Everything I am is already stuck in the past. I just... I want to become the past too. It's only funny because I'm too much of a coward to actually do it."

Of course.

The smile of a man who'd let go of everything was a chilling thing to look at. It pressed down on my chest like a weight, leaving me tight and hollow.