Hanging by a Thread
What the hell is with that guy?
Jonghun was stunned speechless. The man had cheerfully accepted his difficult request, cracked a joke about being back in five minutes when told to hurry — and then actually jumped from the third floor to make good on it.
The thud of the landing made Jonghun's heart drop right along with it. But watching the man wave casually and then sprint off, completely ignoring the zombies, was almost as absurd as seeing zombies for the first time.
...Maybe I should count myself lucky. Not just that someone like him lives in the same villa —
But that even in a situation like this, his character was still decent enough not to go completely off the rails.
Of course, he might have charged out so aggressively — excessively so — because of the reward Jonghun had offered. But still.
Honestly, if Jonghun had been that man, and if he'd been alone without a little sister, he might have told the request to go screw itself and just taken everything.
It's not selfishness. It's just natural. At least in a situation like this.
Jonghun looked toward the living room sofa with a dark expression.
Looking at his sister, wheezing out rough, feeble breaths, the guilt came flooding back again.
...If only I'd bought the medicine yesterday like I was supposed to. No — if I'd just gritted my teeth and gone this morning!
Why. Why couldn't he put up with that brief inconvenience.
If he'd bought it earlier, none of this would have happened!
In the end, Jonghun could only cover his face with both palms and sink down onto the living room floor.
The reality of staking his sister's life on a complete stranger. And the fact that this reality was ultimately something he'd brought on himself — it burrowed into his heart like maggots, greedily gnawing away at his mind.
"...Hey. Park... Jonghun."
At the voice that suddenly reached his ears, Jonghun's head snapped up.
In front of him, his sister called out through cracked, split lips, looking at him from the sofa with half-lidded eyes.
"Why...are you. Doing...that. Did you. Get the medicine?"
"......"
Pupils unfocused from critically insufficient breathing. But even so, she still looked at him with that same upturned gaze as always, and Jonghun couldn't say a word.
"...God. Why are you so...useless...as a brother."
Sssssss.
"Cough, cough."
She habitually used the inhaler to draw a deep breath, but with no medicine inside, it did nothing.
"Ha...I'm dizzy...my throat hurts too..."
It was asthma she'd lived with her whole life, and Jonghun had watched it from right beside her, so he knew exactly how dangerous she was right now.
"...I'm sorry. Jiyoon. Really...I..."
Unable to hold it in any longer, he looked at his sister through a blurring vision, and she looked back at him, forcing her mouth open with difficulty.
"If you're...sorry...then buy me...tteokbokki later..."
"I — I. I'm really sorry... I should've listened to you and bought it right away...really..."
Ever since his sister graduated high school, Jonghun had gotten used to her taking care of her own body, and last night he'd ultimately ignored her request when she said she was tired and asked him to buy her medicine.
You're being such a pain. Just buy it yourself like usual!
Ugh! That's what I'm saying, I'm tired! I can barely walk without getting short of breath — how am I supposed to go down the stairs to buy medicine!
Just go slowly! Go slowly! Can't you see I'm busy right now?!
What the hell is so important about some stupid game! Cough. Cough...
And then, cursing at her as she coughed with an exhausted expression, he'd queued up for a ranked game.
Jonghun genuinely wanted to kill that past version of himself.
"Mom...Dad..."
His sister, now calling for their parents in a voice so small it was hard to even hear, shifted on the sofa.
"Dad said...cough. He'd bring back...takeout from that Jeju restaurant..."
Muttering to herself like that, she finally closed her eyes, struggling to wheeze.
Jonghun half-knelt before her, bowing down and repeatedly slamming his head against the floor.
You stupid bastard. You stupid bastard. You stupid fucking bastard!
Ever since that mummy-cosplay piece of shit had appeared on screen and the outside world turned into hell. No matter how many hundreds of times he called their parents, the signal never even went through. And eventually his sister, already anxious with worry for their parents, collapsed from respiratory failure.
All his life, ever since elementary school, he'd only felt irritation whenever he looked at his little sister.
And now that sister was going to die, and he'd be left alone in this world?
I'd rather die myself. I can't let that happen.
I can't let that happen!
Screaming inside, Jonghun desperately waited for that man to return.
What is parkour?
Strictly speaking, this sport isn't about flashily leaping over difficult obstacles and pulling off stunts. Rather, centered on pure practicality, it's the art of running — reinforcing bare-handed mobility for escape, pursuit, and the like by overcoming the surrounding environment as fast and efficiently as possible.
Not that I ever properly learned it,
I was just a beginner who roughly knew the basics and had no idea about proper applications — but that didn't matter anymore.
Why?
Because if something went wrong and I got injured, I could just heal.
Tak! Tak!
I sprinted down the sidewalk, dodging the zombies that gathered at the sound of my footsteps, and quickly vaulted over a wall.
Doing each of these moves with pure brute force and no technique would normally tire you out fast. Of course, that didn't matter either. As long as I didn't get tired.
If you've never learned it, you just have to beat the technique into your body.
Still, I'd seen plenty of it in videos and games, so I roughly knew what the moves looked like. Like sliding over a car hood, for instance.
"Grrraaaagh!"
Or leaping from car roof to car roof to dodge the zombies charging head-on to bite me.
In the end, I pulled off both moves successfully — but the blood streaming from my knees and elbows, and the caved-in car roof, made my lack of skill painfully clear.
Of course, I didn't care at all. A car roof meant nothing when a human life was on the line. And my knees and elbows were already injuries of the past tense.
I'm here!
When the pharmacy finally came into view, I kept sprinting at full speed while quickly wiping the dust from both hands with the blood on my elbows. Then I rapidly spun up the rationality I'd briefly set aside while playing tag with the zombies, and made a plan.
Fifty-fifty chance there's a zombie inside. If there is, take it out fast and loot the pharmacy.
But what about the ones behind me right now?
The awkward reality of zombies still chasing me as I arrived at the pharmacy was because they were way more lively than I'd expected. The ones I'd dealt with on the bus had all been at walking speed, flailing their arms around. But the half-dozen chasing me were all running, and their grips were tenacious enough that if they caught me all at once, I had no idea what would happen.
"I'm fucked."
Since it had come to this, I decided on a frontal assault.
I quickly passed through the shattered pharmacy door, stepped inside, and rapidly scanned the surroundings. The moment I spotted a male zombie in a pharmacist's coat, I charged and drove a crossface into his neck.
It was a recklessly suicidal move that would have left any normal person speechless. But as I'd said any number of times — I didn't care!
As the zombie fell to the floor, it got a solid bite on my forearm, but I ignored it, sat my upper body on top of him to pin him with my weight so he couldn't move, then took one deep breath.
"Grrraaaaaah..."
Then I grabbed both of his eyeballs with both hands and pressed with everything I had.
The zombie's eyes burst with a moan that sounded almost human, juice streaming out, but I paid it no mind and pressed even harder, digging deeper inside.
No time. No time! Faster!
When I finally felt that disgusting sensation that made my senses scream, I mashed both thumbs into it and churned through the brain.
Good. Done!
Leaving the zombie dead with its brain destroyed, I shook the liquid off my hands once, then pulled the paper from my pocket and searched for the name.
Fuck. What a ridiculously hard name.
Fortunately, the guy had been thoughtful enough to also write down the color of the medicine packaging, so finding it didn't take too long.
"Grrraaaaaagh!"
"Grrgrgrgrgrk."
But just as I found it and was about to grab it, vicious sounds came from the pharmacy door. I didn't even have time for a glance that way — I immediately kicked off the ground, scooped up a whole armful of asthma medicine in both hands, and bolted straight up the stairs to the second floor.
I didn't have a weapon on me right now — I'd left it on the street while showing off with parkour — so if I mixed it up with those things, there was no telling how long it would take.
There was exactly one effective way to shake off the zombies thundering up the stairs behind me.
No, I wasn't going to find some brilliant weapon in the ordinary computer office on the second floor that was already a mess. At best I could throw a monitor or swing a keyboard — what else was there.
When in doubt, run like hell.
Tak-tak-tak-tak—
I kept running forward without losing the momentum from charging up the stairs. If I stopped even for a moment, a zombie might grab me by the hair and drag me down — and for another reason, too.
Only by sprinting full speed would the window glass shatter cleanly.
Crash—!
And so I smashed through the window and fell straight out of the second floor. But I'd prepared properly and set my posture, so like last time I landed feet-first.
Whether it was the height or my bone durability had already hardened, this time it wasn't a fracture — just my ankle bent at ninety degrees, and from the lost balance, a scraped knee that completely exposed the bone.
I stood up like it was nothing, dusted off the glass shards and dirt on my body, then glanced upward — and bolted again with a start.
Crunch—
Crrrunch—
Dodging the rain of corpses falling from the sky, my waistband bulged out, stuffed full of the medicine that would save one person's life.