A Mere Thread
"Ghk. Ghk."
At first I thought it might be the store owner and nearly jumped, but the familiar sound of a ruined throat put me at ease.
No—thinking about it, that's nothing to feel easy about.
Coming back to my senses, I sighed inwardly at the reality that my own brain was clearly going soft. What was this, Stockholm syndrome? Feeling relieved that something was a zombie was not normal.
"Um, oppa? Are you okay?"
Ye-jin looked at me worriedly as I stood there staring into the storage room. Maybe she thought I was just too tired to check and was watching from a distance.
"It's nothing. Just keep packing the side dishes."
I licked my lips at the thought of the instant rice I'd scraped from the convenience store and the spicy tuna combo I'd be eating soon, then shoved the storage door open.
And the moment the scene beyond entered my vision, I had no choice but to freeze the club I'd been about to swing without mercy.
"Ah..."
Ye-jin, who'd been diligently packing tuna cans just as I'd told her, looked into the storage room at the sound of the door and clapped both hands over her mouth in horror.
Crunch— crunch—
Crack— smacking—
A tiny girl who looked no older than an elementary schooler—a child, really—had her face buried in a corpse's belly, her mouth working hard.
Then she noticed me standing in the open doorway, cocked her head this way and that, and slowly rose from her place. Blood and scraps of organ were smeared all over her.
I stared into the little girl's unfocused eyes, then dropped my gaze further to the old man lying dead in ruin. Tears still clung to his bulging eyes. Fluid mixed with blood ran down his face and pooled on the floor, soaking his white hair.
Whether those tears came from the pain of the body or the pain of the mind, I didn't know. Or maybe both.
"Gyaaaaaah!"
I stopped the little zombie with one hand as she lunged at me. She snapped her teeth desperately, trying to bite, and I held her forehead flat against my palm to pin her in place. I tapped her shoulder lightly with the club, thinking, then turned my head to look at Ye-jin.
She still had both hands clamped over her mouth, eyes brimming with tears like a corpse herself.
"...What do I do. Seriously."
I spoke while the zombie flailed its arms, straining to grab me.
"I'm starting to feel like we need to revise what we call that mummy bastard."
"......"
Ye-jin just wiped at her eyes without a word, but I hadn't said it expecting an answer.
"Look away, or watch straight on. Your call."
I slowly raised the club, then lowered the hand that had been holding her forehead and covered the little girl's eyes—nothing but whites.
No particular reason. I just thought that was what I should do.
Whoosh—
I swung with everything I had, wanting it finished in one blow, and in the end I couldn't keep looking at Ye-jin. I turned my head away.
Thud—!
When we left the supermarket, heavy bags hung from both our arms. Two medium bags and one small one bulged and swayed from Ye-jin's arms, making their weight obvious; one regular bag and one small one hung from mine.
I'd brushed aside her hands when she tried to carry everything herself. I was already using the club one-handed, and if anything happened I could just set the bags down.
A moment ago I'd almost told her to take them all if she wanted, but looking at her still hiccuping, I changed my mind.
"Still not calmed down?"
"...I'm sorry. Hic."
She adjusted her grip on the bags, desperately swallowing her sobs, and spoke in a trembling voice.
"I know I shouldn't make noise, but the tears just won't stop... Hhk."
"I'm not scolding you. Just breathe slow."
I understood that women tended to be more sensitive. But after what she'd already been through on the bus, breaking down like this now struck me as a little strange. Had she been holding it in the whole time until it finally burst?
She must have caught my questioning look, because Ye-jin wiped at eyes that had swollen completely shut and said,
"I have... little siblings around that age..."
"Ah. Right."
Late babies, then. But "siblings," plural?
"They're twins. About to start middle school. Seeing that just now... I got so worried..."
"Well, your parents will look after them."
"They're gone. Both of them. I'm the head of the household..."
Huh?
I stopped walking in the middle of the street and had no choice but to stand there thinking. Originally I'd planned to hit a few more shops for water and drinks, then head straight to my place.
"Grrraaaaah..."
I glanced at a few zombies shambling out of an alley and asked Ye-jin,
"Where's your place?"
"Over there—past the department store, in the apartment complex. But it's a bit far..."
Thud— thwack—
I cracked the zombies across the head while I thought, then opened my mouth.
"Then we stop by my place first, spend just tonight there, and head to yours tomorrow. We have to check the department store on the way anyway."
As I said it, a sudden feel through my hands made me look down at a fallen zombie. I hadn't even hit it that many times, and already its skull was caved in, the body convulsing.
Curious, I kicked the remaining zombies over and turned my hands and arms this way and that, inspecting them.
"Ah—no, oppa. You don't have to do that. Anyway—"
"Hold on."
I cut her off without even listening. Then I stared hard at the tattoo sitting square on the back of my right hand.
What the hell is this?
In my entire life I'd never so much as stuck on a sticker, let alone gotten a tattoo this high-quality. A skull rendered in black with detail so fine it was almost admirable was staring right back at me from the back of my hand.
Son of a bitch.
My eyebrows twitched before I could stop them. I swallowed the surge of anger that rose for a second.
From the moment I'd been meant to die in that horrific accident and instead had my life-string reconnected—my perfectly fine body had left humanity behind and started brawling with corpses. And now this tattoo of unknown meaning and unknown origin had forced itself onto me without even the body's owner knowing.
This body I'm moving around in right now...
Was it even really mine?
Every single thing that had happened had been outside my will.
The filthy, unresolved unease finally made me scrub irritably at the tattoo on my hand. I lifted the club, eyed the zombies ahead, and swung with everything I had.
We made it home. For now.
I shoved the rising irritation and questions deep down where they belonged. For Ye-jin's sake—she was reading my rigid face and watching her step—I needed to calm down a little.
"...Are you okay?"
"Yeah. No—honestly I'm not okay, but I'm okay anyway."
Even I didn't know what I was saying.
Ye-jin looked at me with red, swollen eyes as I stood there confused, then spoke carefully.
"...I'll get the food ready. You rest a bit, oppa."
She walked to the table and started pulling out things to eat. Her already pale, thin frame looked even more fragile with the shirt stuck to her by blood and sweat.
I was staring at her back when a drip-drip of liquid made me look down at the floor. Streams of fluid were running off my clothes, soaking the rough linoleum. Blood and brain matter I'd restocked while cleaning up everything loitering in front of the villa were dirtying the floor.
"I'm gonna change and come out."
"Ah—okay."
I grabbed the doorknob to go into the room, then registered the state I was in, turned around, and walked to the living-room window instead. I stripped off the hoodie and pants and just chucked them out past the glass.
Can't wash them anyway—better to just throw them. Leave them and they'll stink the place up.
Standing there in my underwear, I was about to slip into the room as naturally as possible so she wouldn't notice—when footsteps suddenly crossed the living room and Ye-jin turned her head exactly toward me.
"Oppa, other than the spicy tuna, is there any other side dish you want to—?"
Our eyes met dead-on. Then she took in my state and went blank for a second.
Thanks to the muscle I'd built through all that army hell, I could look at Ye-jin without a shred of shame—but the problem wasn't my body. The problem was Ye-jin, face flushed deep red, slowly backing away.
I learned that not explaining something because it was annoying could still create this kind of misunderstanding, and opened my mouth to clear it up.
"It's not like that. I just took them off because I was changing and wanted to throw the clothes out. So—"
I stopped mid-sentence.
Because Ye-jin, tensed up and pressed against the wall, looked far too appealing. How to put it—something about her blood-spattered state stirred a raw sexual hunger. Her makeup was all gone, but the base underneath was already more than fine enough—
I cut myself off right there.
I'd always been pretty good at self-control. But after dying and coming back, it felt like those instincts had been goaded—appetite, lust, everything seemed much denser than before.
Which meant looking at a girl who'd already faced death several times and, instead of lamenting her own situation, was fretting over her little siblings—and feeling desire instead of pity.
I shook my head hard and grabbed the doorknob.
"I'll put clothes on and come out. If you're hungry, eat first."
Click—
Thud—
I leaned back against the bedroom door and let out a long breath.
I'd known for a while that it wasn't just the body—there was something wrong with my mind, too. Even if they were zombies, they still looked human on the outside, and I'd smashed dozens of their skulls and worn the wreckage without feeling a thing. In a way it was the same as murder.
And with that little zombie, too.
What I felt inside wasn't exactly pity. I recognized that the situation called for feeling that way, and under Ye-jin's eyes I acted accordingly. That was all.
Just now was the same.
Objectively speaking, Ye-jin's condition right now was not a look that should make anyone think of anything else. Exhausted face, swollen eyes and tear tracks. A big cut on her forehead still bleeding, bloodstains all over her clothes.
Feeling the urge to jump someone who looked like that—that was necrophilia. At the very least it was nowhere near ordinary common sense.
...I should tell her while we eat.
I opened the wardrobe and picked out clothes that would be easy to move in and still tough, thinking about how to explain my current state so she wouldn't misunderstand.