Give a Doe, Take a Horse
We sat across from each other on a broad sofa. After a stretch of silence, Do Wangu finally spoke.
"Coffee? Or is plain water fine?"
"Got any cola? Been a while since I had a real drink."
At my words, one of the hangers-on behind Do Wangu — the one who'd been glaring at me like he wanted me dead — twitched his mouth, glanced at Wangu, and swallowed his anger.
"There's a bottle of cider I set aside by the front entrance. Go get it."
"Hyung-nim, come on, seriously—"
"Shut your mouth and bring it when I tell you to."
Under Do Wangu's heavy presence, the hanger-on vanished without another peep. Around the sofa, survivors started murmuring among themselves, wondering what was going on.
"Who the hell are those people? Where'd they come from?"
"Think they're planning to take on more people here? No way..."
"Food's already getting tight as it is."
As they talked, the grimy men stared at Chaeyeon and Soeun on either side of me with naked hunger in their eyes. Fair enough — looks aside, these two washed every single day, which put them in a completely different league from the people here. Under normal circumstances, I might've understood the staring.
But the girls were still minors. That was the problem.
"Tell them to keep their eyes to themselves. The kids are still in high school."
"...What? You saying they're underage?"
"Both of them could outdo most adults in every way that counts, but age-wise they're eighteen."
"You have got to be fucking kidding me— Hey, you bastards! Get those eyes off them right now or I'll rip them out of your skulls!"
Do Wangu shot to his feet and bellowed. The men scrambled away in a panic. He glared after them, scratched roughly at his sports cut, and sat back down. Chaeyeon, still hanging on my arm as she looked around, tossed out a playful remark.
"Honestly, neither Kang Soeun nor I really care. We're used to looks like that."
"Easy for you to say... I'm not."
"Hey, just because I said that doesn't mean I like it. Who are you calling a pervert?"
"You are a pervert. A fight-obsessed pervert."
Do Wangu watched the two of them bicker with me stuck in the middle, his face full of confusion, then turned his head.
"...Even if they are high schoolers, they're clearly no ordinary kids. And you three seem pretty close."
His eyes settled on my arm, the one Chaeyeon had linked hers through, with a look that was a little too pointed. Before I could flip the table over that insolent stare, Chaeyeon giggled and spoke up.
"We're not exactly ordinary, no. I owe this oppa a mountain of debt. Let's just say I'll be spending my whole life by his side paying it back."
"...You a loan shark or something?"
"Keep talking nonsense and I'm leaving. Just get to the point."
When I said that, he waved a hand like I couldn't take a joke and opened his mouth.
"There's no 'point.' I'm not so spineless that I'd come begging just because you showed up first. I'm just grateful."
"Grateful for what?"
"For sparing me. Honestly, back then — the moment I realized none of my attacks were doing a damn thing — I figured I was dead for sure. Not that I would've regretted it."
I already knew how suspicious I'd looked that day, so I wasn't about to start picking at it now.
Do Wangu looked at me once, then dropped his gaze and pulled something out from under the sofa.
"I want to at least make a gesture of repayment with this. Take it."
A large cardboard box landed on the table. The packaging had a bold brand logo stamped across it: Spam.
I cracked it open on a hunch — and sure enough, it was packed solid with cans.
"If it were up to me I'd hand over prime Korean beef tenderloin instead of processed meat, but all of it went bad. Chicken for pheasant, as they say."
"...You're just giving this to me? No strings attached?"
"I told you. It's repayment. Back then you could've finished off my friends and put me down for good, but you didn't. This is my way of saying thanks."
"Hmm."
I stood up expressionlessly and lifted the box. It weighed about as much as a sack of rice — if we were taking it with us, I'd be the one carrying it, no question — but that was a price well worth paying. Strictly speaking, a single can of Spam in this world was a hundred times more valuable than its weight in gold. I might as well have just been handed dozens of gold bars.
I only let him go because it was a hassle, and it comes back like this. You never know how these things turn out.
I nodded and spoke.
"If you put it that way, I'll take it. But this doesn't seem like a very good deal for you."
"...What?"
Watching Do Wangu's face freeze, I glanced toward the escalators leading to the upper floors of the department store.
"Have you cleared all the corpses inside the building?"
"Uh... no. Third floor's as far as we've gotten. Fourth is in progress, but safety comes first, so..."
"We'll clear a path on the way up to the roof. Check it out once we come back down. That way it's a win-win."
"What? No, you don't have to do that. No matter how strong you are, if those bastards bite you even once, the loss would— Ah."
Do Wangu trailed off with a quiet sound of realization, remembering the version of me that had looked more like a zombie than the zombies themselves.
I picked up my iron pipe, shot Chaeyeon and Soeun a look, and added one last thing.
"While we're at it, we'll look around and grab anything useful. That work for you?"
Far from being flustered by my sudden offer, Do Wangu could only let out a hollow laugh as he watched the two high schoolers gather up their weapons.
"...Heh. Of course. If you're lending a hand, a few items are nothing. Take whatever you want free of charge."
And with that, we had the department store manager's blessing.
Time to go shopping.
A short while later.
I smashed an oncoming corpse across the neck with the iron pipe, snapping it, then stomped the fallen thing's head into paste while scanning the surroundings.
Now I get why they still haven't cleared the fourth floor. Mannequins and clothes everywhere like trees in a forest — hard as hell to tell what's what.
Behind Soeun, who was swinging her bat nearby, a corpse closed in. I grabbed the back of its skull and drove it straight into the floor.
Crack!
It hit the marble and went limp. Still bent over, I swept the iron pipe low and shattered the shins of two more corpses coming at me in one swing.
Crrrack—
I finished the thrashing things under my boots, then checked on Chaeyeon. She was handling herself just fine, as always.
Her face was nothing like the one she wore around me — cold, murderous — as she drove her blade into zombie eyes and dropped every one that came near. When two corpses attacked in overlapping timing and threw her off for a beat, she stabbed once, slipped aside, and swept her sword in a clean arc. A rotting wrist caught in the path was sheared clean off. The blade flowed back into a thrusting stance as if it had never left.
Thwip!
The tip shot forward with a force that almost seemed to crack the air, punching up through a zombie's tongue and the roof of its mouth instead of its pupil. Rotten blood gurgled back up its throat.
"Ghhhk... ghhk!"
In its death rattle, just before the brain was pierced through, blood sprayed across Chaeyeon's face. She flinched and squinted one eye shut.
Around the three of us, the heap of corpses finally stopped moving.
"Nice work. You're getting better every time."
"Hah... thank you, Oppa."
I gave Soeun's small back a light pat as she caught her breath beside me, then walked over to Chaeyeon, who was fretting and wiping her face with the back of her hand.
"Ugh... this is so gross. If this gets in my eyes, am I going to go blind?"
"It's decomposed, so maybe. Hold still."
I caught her head with one hand to keep her from squirming, pulled a rabbit-patterned handkerchief from my pocket, and wiped the blood off her face. She stared up at me blankly, then spoke.
"A cute handkerchief like this? It really doesn't suit you, Oppa."
"It's not mine. It's Yejin's. She packed my lunch this morning and gave it to me — said to use it when I wipe my mouth."
"And you're using it to wipe off zombie blood? That's disgusting."
"Doesn't matter. Im Chaeyeon's eyes are more important than a scrap of cloth."
"....."
Chaeyeon closed her mouth and stood quietly while I finished cleaning her face. Something about the moment felt awkward; she fidgeted with the hilt of her still-unsheathed sword. Her eyes met Soeun's. Soeun just stared without a word, and Chaeyeon mumbled something with her lips.
What? What do you want me to do about it.
Soeun snorted and covered her mouth, laughing — and Chaeyeon bristled instantly.
"That little—!"
"Hey, hold still. Acting like you're not the one still chewing on iron."
The blood along her eyebrow wouldn't come off cleanly. Annoyed, I pulled that small head into my chest and kept wiping with the handkerchief. The position had somehow turned thoroughly strange, and both Chaeyeon — the one being held — and Soeun watching from the side went wide-eyed.
Why'd she go stiff all of a sudden? Is she cold?
I let go of her once she was standing quietly, half-frozen, and picked my iron pipe back up off the floor.
"Corpse cleanup's roughly done, so look around. Grab any clothes you want. Im Chaeyeon, if you're cold, pick up a padded jacket."
"...Okay. Well. I'm not really cold, but. Got it."
"....."
Something about the delayed answer made me shrug. I started browsing the clothes first. Behind me, Chaeyeon and Soeun traded awkward looks.
...Did you like being treated like a little kid?
Like? Who said I liked it.
Chaeyeon brushed it off like it was nothing and sheathed her blade.