Humans Are Insidious
Humans are insidious.
There is something vicious and sinister in them that never fully shows on the surface. They hide what they really are. They hide it, and hide it again, and just when someone finally lets their guard down, they draw out what they have been keeping in reserve and drag that person under.
Especially now, with the world in ruins, when everything ties directly to their own survival — even more so. That high intelligence, supposedly humanity's unique advantage, had a bitter way of distinguishing itself mostly in the ugliest places.
The day begins.
These days the radio broadcasts of the Republic of Korea Provisional Government arrived without fail every morning, noon, and evening, which meant you could tell the hour even in the dark.
"We'll now bring you today's top stories."
"The government has at last succeeded in restoring public order throughout the Yongsan area of Seoul. We intend to continue expanding the safe zone, and we will strive to ensure that you, our citizens, can live in safety before long."
They were always spouting things you could never quite sort into truth or lies. The stories sounded about half genuine, which was exactly why they always left you tilting your head.
"We are still in the process of assessing conditions in each city; however, progress has been delayed by terrorist acts carried out by illegal armed groups in various locations. Civil servants and soldiers of the Provisional Government are gradually visiting areas starting from Yongsan and Gangnam to compile status reports, so we ask that you wait a little longer."
"And now, some good news. Last night, Acting President Kim Jung-sik ordered an additional Hangul Day special ration of baekseolgi and garaetteok. Visit a distribution center on Hangul Day, and you will receive white rice cakes and cylinder rice cakes on top of your regular rations."
Still, if you knew how to filter what you heard, some fairly useful information did trickle through. It was better than nothing, anyway.
Harin, who had been asleep in my arms, began to stir as the government broadcast I'd switched on washed over her. I shook out a body that felt like it had been left in a heap overnight and drove the last of the sleep from my head.
"Mmhmm… good morning…"
"Yeah. Morning."
These days Harin had gotten pretty natural about offering her lips first thing. I still thought it was a cringeworthy little ritual, but I played along for her anyway.
"Hehe."
"You're awake, so get up. We've got a lot to do today."
"Okaaay~"
It was just another day, and somehow we had been grinding our way through survival for nearly seven months now. We crawled out of the blankets and started the morning.
And so, while she was servicing the wind generator, Harin struck up a conversation.
"Oppa. Oppa."
"What."
"Come on, 'what' is way too cold. I'd prefer something more like, 'What is it, my love~'"
What a load of fucking nonsense. I looked at her with a face like something had gone sour. Even if she was someone I liked, that kind of horseshit made my expression scrunch up on its own.
"The hell are you on about. Spit it out."
"Hmm. Why won't this awful way of talking ever get corrected?"
That was a given, obviously. My creed and my mouth, both overflowing with profanity, were not going to get fixed in a handful of months. I was the guy who had absorbed every last curse that Motherless Cha — that great Marine and my eternal senior — had ever poured on me. Starting from the very handle he had for me, Lee Byeongshin, by the time he was done I had walked away with a completely unfounded sense of confidence and a repertoire of thick, filthy swearing that was all but impossible to unlearn. What I'm saying is, in two years that fucking bastard had taken a way of talking that already screamed I'd never been properly raised, and "corrected" it straight into the ground.
"Trying to overwrite thirty years with a mere six months. How green. How foolish."
"Fucking hell."
"Mm. Yeah. Your correction went great."
"Ah."
It is an undeniable fact that people get contaminated toward the bad far more easily than toward the good. There are papers on it by the stack. For all I knew, it was even in the textbook A Guide to Human Psychology by Dr. M. Cheng, an authority in the field.
Anyway. Harin shook her head as if that had not been the conversation she wanted, then started over.
"No, wait, that isn't what I meant. This is kind of out of nowhere, but… do you think the people on the radio are actually the Korean government?"
"That really is out of nowhere."
Not that I hadn't been thinking the same thing.
"The old president and all the National Assembly members just vanish, and then suddenly this Kim Jung-sik person is Acting President. It feels weird."
"Hmm."
"Then again, I never really followed politics, so it's not like I'd know what those people have been through."
It wasn't the former president. It wasn't the prime minister. It wasn't even the party bosses who'd represented the Reds and the Blues, and it wasn't any of the ministers who'd headed the various departments. Some guy named Kim Jung-sik had simply stepped forward and declared himself Acting President.
"Yeah, well. It creeps me out a little too, which is why I don't go anywhere near anything those Provisional Government people have their hands on."
"Right? At first I just thought, oh, the government's back at work. But the more I listen to the broadcasts, the more I can't help wondering."
Of course, they could mobilize civil servants and soldiers, and they were running shelters and distribution centers, so they didn't seem entirely rotten or suspicious. Still, you couldn't help wondering where the hell the old government people had gone.
"If you're that curious, try getting in touch with that security guard. They're pretty close to the Provisional Government zoneGovernment zone."
"Oh. That's true. I'll try later, then."
"Yeah."
And honestly, it didn't matter that much what the government people were doing. Whether they were restoring public order or running distribution centers, they were twenty kilometers away. Even if a few more months went by, it would still have nothing to do with us.
Besides, new information didn't only come in over the government's radio. These days we visited the officetel often enough that we didn't even need the wireless, and fresh news drifted in there plenty.
"Kiddo, you make it here okay?"
"Uh… that's sudden."
The moment we showed up, Assistant Manager Kim Min-seo asked the question as if it were the most natural thing in the world, already setting out teacups.
"No, it's just — there've been some weird people hanging around the subway lately. Wanted to make sure you didn't run into them."
"I don't think we saw anyone weird. Why?"
"Last time I looked, there were these pretty-looking girls wandering around. They kept walking the tracks in a loop, asking for help over and over."
Harin and I both tilted our heads. We hadn't seen anyone like that on the way over through the subway.
"Hmm. They weren't there when we came through."
"No? That's a relief, then. We hid and watched them, and I don't know how to put it. Yeah. The vibe was exactly like a flower snake."
A flower snake, in a frozen, ruined world.
"Yeah, I know the type. Bait, basically. Or a way to sniff out other people's hideouts."
"That's what I figured too. So be careful on the way in and out."
It was a pretty ridiculous name. If you thought of it as the job of picking who got killed, it wasn't ridiculous at all — but that was how it sounded to my ear.
We were sipping tea and trading small talk when it happened. I was taking my time, picking snacks out of the dish, when Kim Min-seo looked from me to Harin and back again.
"Hey. So."
"What."
"Did you two do it?"
"Pff—!"
"Kh— cough — are you out of your mind…?"
Kim Min-seo dropped it like a straight fastball, and Harin sprayed the tea she'd been drinking. I choked on a snack so hard I started hacking.
"You two's whole vibe has changed. I figured there wasn't any other explanation. So? Did you?"
"I am not even a little sorry to say this, but please do not ask that."
A goddamn sex radar. The fact that she could read it off a slightly shifted atmosphere in a single glance was a little chilling.
"Look, if you're going to do it, at least be careful not to make a baby. In a world like this, raising a kid would be one thing, but honestly even giving birth is a problem, right?"
"Shut up, would you…"
Harin was still coughing, her face bright red, like the tea had gone down the wrong way. I patted her on the back and answered for both of us.
She really was a lunatic, when you thought about it. Even with the world in this state, asking people about their sex life without the slightest hesitation was a fresh reminder that she was a crazy bitch.
No, wait. She hadn't been the type to ask this kind of thing before, so I guess the end of the world had actually made her weirder.
"Oh, want some condoms? We've got a pretty big stack in the warehouse."
"…You haven't even opened the condoms?"
"Nope. I haven't done it even once since the world ended. The others seem to get up to it now and then, though. But why the condoms?"
And on top of everything, she announces she hasn't done it herself. Fuck. I didn't even want to know that. Thanks for sharing.
"That's enough. Just close your mouth."
"What, what's the big deal? Two grown adults living together, of course they're gonna have some sex."
"Just shut up."
"I get it, so I'd appreciate it if you'd respect our privacy — and your group members' privacy while you're at it."
Not that I felt even remotely sorry about saying it.