What Happened at School
My head went blank. I couldn't even remember how I'd made it back.
People say heavy drinking makes the film cut out, and that was exactly what this felt like. Everything after I'd left the school was gone.
I'd just been dazed — if I had to put it into words, my mind had been floating a whole floor above my body.
And then… and then….
“Ugh…”
I didn't know when I'd fallen asleep. Hell, could you even call it sleep?
Passing out and coming to was probably more accurate. I'd lost a ton of blood, and I'd been thrashing around at the school all night long.
There wasn't a single part of my body that didn't hurt. Even my eyelids felt heavy.
“Ugh, krr… ha, shit.”
The iron taste I'd already gotten used to lingered in my mouth — thick, sticky, rough. I'd thrown up blood again in my sleep.
Squeeze—
Someone gripped my hand and yanked hard, trying to haul me upright. My eyes weren't even open yet, but I let myself be pulled and slowly sat up.
“…Damn, my head hurts.”
I forced my heavy eyelids open. A small lantern hanging from the ceiling, a dark tent — this wasn't any place I knew.
“Are you okay, oppa?”
With my head aching and still half-dazed, Jiyu's voice came from beside me — the one who'd been holding my hand.
So it was Jiyu.
I slowly turned my head to look at her.
“…You're making yourself pretty damn comfortable, aren't you?”
“Huh? What? It's my house. What's wrong with me dressing comfortably here?”
“No, ha…”
She looked puzzled under my gaze, like she couldn't figure out what the problem was. Honestly, though, I couldn't look anywhere except her face.
An off-shoulder shirt baring her shoulders, dolphin shorts that showed off her thighs completely — for someone who'd been living a restrained life like me, the stimulation was way too strong.
I kept wrestling my eyes back up and finally managed to speak.
“…So we made it back to the Rooftop Market. This is your place.”
“Do you know how scared I was when you blacked out halfway…? If Mom and Minwoo-oppa hadn't gone to the Church to bring a doctor…”
“Doctor?”
Only then did I actually register my own condition.
I pulled off the blanket covering me. My upper body was completely bare. Something red that looked like medicine had been smeared across my abdomen, bandages wrapped over the top.
“Disinfectant? You used antibiotics?”
A shocked voice burst out of me. Antibiotics? The thought that they'd used something that precious on me hit at the same time as the counter-argument that of course they would.
“Of course, oppa. You saved our people. The Church heard the story and sent a ton of support too.”
“Huh.”
This was a world short on resources — medical supplies most of all.
Knowing they'd spent them on me brought a strange kind of gratitude, though a part of me also felt it was a waste. My body wasn't normal. I could regenerate.
“Well, I did go through hell for it.”
“The raiders here too… that was you, right…?”
She must have seen the raiders I'd killed on the way in. I'd made quite a racket and left the bodies, so I had no intention of hiding it.
“Who else would it have been?”
I grinned openly and milked it for everything it was worth. This kind of thing, you had to take credit for.
That way you could squeeze more out of it later.
“But why do you keep calling me oppa?”
“Ah, well… I can, right? Why… do you hate being called that?”
“It's not that I hate it.”
The way Jiyu always used to call me was "hey," "you," "that guy."
Maybe because I'd stuck so close to Baek-ajumma, she'd always been especially wary of me.
I'd figured she'd be even more on guard after my arm turned into this, but… that didn't seem to be the case.
“Then I'll just call you oppa. Where else is Siwoo-oppa going to get called oppa?”
“….”
I couldn't argue with that. My only real worry was that her actual older brother Minwoo might show up and beat my ass.
That guy fought like a monster.
“…But how long are you going to hold my hand? I'm getting up.”
“You're a patient, oppa. You need someone next to you to help.”
As I tried to stand, Jiyu naturally came to my side and wrapped an arm around my waist to haul me up.
Her shoulder pressed against mine. She'd washed up, so surprisingly there wasn't much blood smell. Meanwhile I reeked of it from the inside out — was this really okay?
“Hey, I smell like blood. Don't stick so close.”
“You're the only one around here who cares about the smell of blood, oppa.”
With Jiyu's support I stepped out of the tent. Looking at the darkened sky, it seemed I'd been out cold from morning until now.
“Oh, he's up!”
“Axe-hand! You're finally awake!”
People still cleaning up and those recovering their strength waved at me cheerfully.
The older ones carefully approached to thank me.
“Thank you, young man. I heard they were going to sell us off somewhere?”
“If it weren't for you, Siwoo, we'd have been in real trouble. Thank you.”
Honestly, it felt a little surreal. It was true I'd wanted to show off. It was also true I'd vaguely wanted to save them and settle things with Lee Hyoseong once and for all.
But actually receiving this kind of gratitude was…
“Awkward, huh, oppa?”
“…Yeah. Awkward as hell.”
Jiyu, still tightly gripping my right hand, said it for me. Awkwardness… after the world went to shit, everyone had gone crazy for survival and done unspeakable things.
It was fair to say humanity had been shattered.
People's goodwill was something you learned to suspect. Selfless good deeds just got you called a sucker, and pure ones were rare as hell.
“…Is that him?”
“Is it okay to get close…?”
“What does he want from us…?”
Even now, a few people still eyed me with suspicion.
Whether they doubted my motives or were just conscious of my left arm. Maybe that was the average for this world now.
To avoid their stares I turned and leaned against the rooftop railing. The night sky after sunset came into view. The stars were still in their places.
“Sorry, oppa. You saved us and still have to hear that kind of talk…”
“That's how it should be. I didn't save you guys for free either. I'm going to take plenty in return.”
In reality, the resources of this Rooftop Market were pretty much mine as far as I was concerned. Even if they didn't think so, I did.
If they had a problem with that, they'd better prepare for a one-on-one with my Jompari.
“Yeah. Mom said she'll give you whatever you ask for and won't take any payment. She even said you can live here.”
“Ah, Baek-ajumma?”
As expected of the ajumma. She knew my personality better than anyone, so she knew exactly what kind of shit I'd pull if she didn't give.
“Yeah. But for a house… well, there's no space, so if it's okay… you could live with me… She already gave permission.”
…?
Hearing that, my thoughts froze for a second. When I turned my head, Jiyu's face was flushed red, but she was pretending nothing was wrong as she looked out at the view.
Score. Absolute score.
Shut the fuck up.
I crushed the part of myself that kept trying to stick its head out and carefully steadied my mind so I could respond as casually as possible.
“…Nah, I have my own base. I'll just settle for dropping by sometimes… yeah, like a vacation home I visit occasionally.”
Even I thought it was an awkward answer. But it was the best I could do.
The test results weren't fully out yet, my body condition wasn't confirmed, and I even had a pet zombie rabbit at my base.
At my answer her gaze fixed on me in silence. Whether she was figuring out my intention or planning how to kill me, I couldn't tell.
After staring for a long while, Jiyu finally held it in and let out a sigh full of meaning.
“Haa… Fine. But when you come here, make sure to stop by. I'll tell Mom if I'm out, so at least show your face.”
“Yeah, sure. I'll do that.”
After that, Jiyu and I silently looked out at the dark cityscape.
Her grip on my hand never loosened. Every so often it tightened, as if she refused to let go.
“Can I ask about the school?”
“….”
Jiyu asked carefully. She seemed more curious about what I'd gone through at the school than about my left arm. Wasn't the arm scary?
“I'll give you the rough version.”
“Not the detailed one?”
“Who in this world doesn't have a story? Me and Lee Hyoseong are tangled up in a lot, but I'm not upright enough to just spill it all.”
Slowly, as if melting into the darkness, my thoughts and words drifted into the past.
Some things were better left buried. For both me and that bastard.
So neither of us could talk about the really deep past.
Shining light on everything wasn't always a good thing.
“After the world went to shit, I was wandering.”
Back then I lived desperately — more viciously than now.
Avoiding zombies, shoving people aside, even begging if I had to.
“Then by chance I met some decent people…”
“Hey, you almost bought it just now?”
The person who saved me when the zombies jumped me.
“Siwoo, how about attaching something to your arm?”
The person who tried to fix my missing arm.
“This place might be the start of rebuilding civilization.”
And the one who tossed that out so lightly.
“Mohyang High School was occupied by gangsters at the time. We somehow drove them out and took over.”
I couldn't call those days good either. Gangsters who suppressed people with force and terror, forcing them to fight zombies so they could plunder supplies.
The ones now settled in the Gym.
“We gathered supplies, had a lot of people, could even farm.”
I hoped things would go well. That those empty words might actually come true.
“Once we had enough supplies and didn't have to fight, we got some breathing room… and disputes started.”
Complaints about how to fairly divide supplies. Complaints about the people who went out to fight and bring things back.
People like me who knew nothing about politics suffered headaches over it.
“In less than two months, the group collapsed.”
It started small. People broke rules, and the punishments were too light, maybe.
As more people broke them, the punishments got harsher, and eventually it blew up.
“…What the hell did you do! Talk! What did you do!!”
Someone else's hand grabbed that bastard by the collar. A bloody crowbar. A man collapsed on the ground.
“These bastards don't know how to be grateful. They have no idea what kind of hardship you and we go through, how much we're sacrificing, and they still bitch.”
At first we thought it was stress. We understood Lee Hyoseong's sensitivity to the voices criticizing us, and we covered up his murder.
The problem was that the frequency kept increasing.
Lee Hyoseong favored and protected the people he considered his own, and no matter what happened to the others — even though we were the same group — he created factions.
“I got into friction while trying to leave.”
We tried to persuade Lee Hyoseong. When that failed we tried to exile him, but neither he nor we could give up the school.
I gave up.
I told Lee Hyoseong I was leaving, and he had no intention of letting the people in his fold go.
“A lot of people died in the process.”
He threatened me by putting Yerim in front of the zombies. I believed he wouldn't actually do it, but.
Yerim got bitten, and I had no choice but to take her and run.
“And Lee Hyoseong became a complete psycho.”
I became one too.
I abandoned hope for groups and started searching for the shelters that had been nothing but ghost stories and rumors.
“…Um. So…”
“Ordinary, right?”
It was ordinary. It felt strange to say, but as reasons for a group to collapse went, it was extremely ordinary.
In this world where groups formed by gathering people and then collapsed all the time.
Faction fights, emotional fights leading to disputes — it happened constantly.
Even that fanatical cult had fallen that way, after all.
“Then… that arm?”
“Later. I'll tell you. Explaining it twice would be a hassle.”
At the word "twice," Jiyu tilted her head.
Thud thud
I looked at the sky, then turned my head to the people approaching me.
Baek-ajumma, Minwoo, and Yohan-hyung.
“…I heard you woke up, Siwoo.”
“Can we talk for a bit?”