A Mere Thread
Jiyoon slowly opened her eyes to a noise that seemed to drift around her ears.
"...you! Really... this kindness...."
Her own brother — the one she'd only ever grown to resent — was bobbing his head up and down as if ready to prostrate himself before a man she'd never seen, accepting something from him. Her vision was too blurred to make it out clearly.
...What is this. Is that bastard finally selling me off.
But if that were the case, the way the man looked at her was far too dry. Or rather, it wasn't any different from the way he looked at her brother.
He said a few words to her brother, then glanced her way, raised a hand in a casual greeting, and walked straight out the door.
Jiyoon watched his retreating back in silence, listening to her brother's sobs ringing through a brain dizzy from lack of oxygen.
"We made it... we actually made it. Jiyoon. From now on, I'll protect you for the rest of my life. I'm so sorry..."
In the haze where she couldn't tell dream from reality, her brother's words to her made one thing certain.
It's a dream. Definitely. That bastard saying empty crap like that.
With that thought, Jiyoon reflexively drew a deep breath at the familiar feel of a respirator pressed to her lips.
Huuuup—
And slowly, her brain began to come back to life.
I took a quick look at the little sister that guy Jonghun had been fretting over so hard, and it made sense.
She really almost died there. Jumping down from the second floor back then really was a stroke of genius.
Her breathing was so faint that even though she was clearly alive, she looked corpse-pale — I could imagine what would've happened if I'd delayed even a moment longer.
Well, I'd saved her, so that was that. Time to go eat some ramen.
The second the tension left me, an appetite slammed into my brain so hard it was almost violent.
I punched in the password on my front door and opened it — but Yeojin, who I'd expected to find in the living room, was nowhere in sight.
...?
I was rolling my eyes around in mild confusion when the door to the storage room, where we kept miscellaneous junk, creaked open a crack.
"You're back, Oppa!"
Yeojin poked just her head out, met my eyes, and came out with a bashful little smile.
I stared at her blankly and asked,
"What were you doing in there?"
"Hiding. Just in case."
I got it the second I heard that, and let out a small, dry laugh.
In that short time I'd been gone, she'd been crouched waiting inside that cramped little room.
I'd told her to be careful, sure — but not to this degree.
"Still, being careful's a good look on you. Though maybe a little too careful."
"I can't get grabbed by some stranger and turned into a hostage while you're gone, can I?"
Stranger, what stranger.
I wanted to tease her for it, but I'd been the one who told her that in the first place, so I had nothing to say.
"You said you'd be right back."
Yeojin took the gas burner and the ramen from my arms, set them on the table, and muttered under her breath.
"It didn't even take twenty minutes."
"I thought you were just going up for a quick look."
And before leaving, he'd scared the hell out of her, too.
She glanced up at me like that — not quite able to complain outright, working off the anxiety of waiting through little asides to herself.
"I wasn't scaring you. I just said it in case."
"Then you could've just told me to keep the windows shut. Who says someone might suddenly drop down from the upstairs window and jump me? What is this, a thriller flag?"
"....."
Honestly, half of it had been me messing with her.
"Still, a thriller with people in it beats a horror with zombies, right?"
"I have no idea which part of that is supposed to be better."
She shook her head and pointed at the ramen, asking if I wanted it now. I nodded obediently.
"From your point of view the difference might be huge, Oppa, but from mine, zombies and people are equally terrifying."
"Got it. Just stick close to me, then."
"....."
This time she was the one who lost her words.
Yeojin suddenly clamped her mouth shut, lit the gas burner, and got up to rummage through the kitchen for a pot.
Anyone watching would think this was her place, not my bachelor pad.
She pulled out an aluminum pot like it was the most natural thing in the world, poured in bottled water, and set it to boil.
A brief silence as we stood side by side watching the pot bubble.
"...Oppa, where are your parents?"
"Hm?"
"You must have a mountain of things to worry about too."
"Mm... not really."
"What?"
Her eyes went wide, looking shocked that I could be that kind of person. I shrugged.
"They'll eat well and live well on their own. They're not the type I need to waste worry on."
"...??"
Even under her gaze full of questions, I didn't say anything more and just focused on cooking the ramen.
Time spent fretting over those people is better spent looking after you or me even a little more. Way more productive.
Yeojin's eyes got very complicated watching me whistle while I stirred the noodles with chopsticks.
I'd already eaten dinner early. Leaning my arms on the veranda railing, I was peacefully watching the sun start to sink when the screams that had been drifting in from outside gradually died away.
With a final death cry from the alley outside the villa — whether it came from a person or a zombie, I couldn't tell — the city sank into a foul, heavy quiet along with the dark.
...If that man hadn't been there, I'd already have ended up like that.
Yeojin looked down gloomily at a woman's corpse dead with a broken arm at the mouth of the alley, and the man's corpse still tearing into it.
Then the woman's mouth snapped shut, and the body slowly began to rise.
It groaned, head lolling at an angle — then suddenly whipped around and stared straight at Yeojin.
"KRAAAAAAAAH!"
Yeojin flinched hard at the thing howling at her and scrambled back from the railing.
And matching that cry, a chorus of zombie howls rose from every direction outside.
I listened to that harmony without much expression, and unfolded a scrap of paper that had quietly come down from upstairs.
Thank you for saving me.
The handwriting was completely different from the note I'd gotten earlier — small, neat, careful. I lifted my head, and my eyes met a woman's looking down from above.
I gave a rough nod to her startled flinch, left Yeojin glancing between the railing below and me, and walked into the living room.
"Oppa... what do we do. One of the zombies down there spotted me. If it comes this way..."
"It'll bang on the front door a few times and give up. You worry too much."
I dug two Hershey bars out of my bag, pressed one into Yeojin's hand, shoved the other into my own mouth, and set my hands on the pull-up bar mounted over my bedroom door.
Alright. Let's try this.
I spoke to Yeojin, who was chewing her chocolate the same way and watching me.
"I'm going to do pull-ups without stopping. Count them with me."
"Okay. I will."
Her small nod was the trigger. I started the experiment.
First I hung from the bar and let the tension out of my body, relaxing the muscles.
Then, drawing a little breath, I pulled myself up — and down.
Around twenty reps — that had been my limit just yesterday. Now there was no limit at all. I couldn't even feel a load on the muscles.
Since it's come to this, might as well wring every last drop out of it.
Whether all of this was that mummy bastard's plan or pure coincidence —
Even if this ability vanished as soon as tomorrow, I wasn't going to have any regrets.
I'm going to squeeze every bit of efficiency out of this.
While eating ramen earlier, I'd formed a hypothesis.
What was happening to my body broke down into two big things.
Regeneration that healed injuries in an instant, and stamina that never ran out.
So what if I applied those to training.
Huff—
Huff—
Past thirty reps, arms still not stopping, I stared up at the ceiling and thought.
Muscle tears. Heals instantly. Grows.
And through the whole process, no rest required.
Which meant this body of mine —
Was capable of truly infinite physical growth.
Huuup—
Past forty. Past fifty.
"...Oh my god."
At some point Yeojin had forgotten to count and was just staring at me blankly. I left her behind and kept going, not stopping until I finally broke a hundred pull-ups — and came down from the bar slowly, certain the hypothesis was right.
In under two minutes, after more than a hundred pull-ups, my arms writhed and screamed the second they left the bar.
And my eyes, watching that spectacle without a shred of pain, saw it clearly.
The forearm muscles wrapping my arms had become, ever so slightly, more defined.
I crooked a grin into a crooked smirk and climbed back onto the pull-up bar.
Mummy bastard. The day I meet you, I'm smashing that jaw of yours for sure.
Whether that was even possible didn't concern me in the slightest.
I just took it as a goal and hammered out pull-ups in a trance — and watching me, Yeojin couldn't help worrying that this man had been hurt so much he'd finally reached the point of enjoying the pain.
Thud thud—
Then a sudden knock from the front door made Yeojin jump and look at the back of my head — but I didn't even glance over, savoring the pure pleasure of real-time muscle growth flooding through my whole body.
At that smile, pure as a child's, Yeojin finally shook her head and carefully walked toward the front door, whispering,
"...Um, hello? Who is it?"
The voice on the other side was rough and hoarse from all the running, but still clearly a woman's. There was a hesitant pause beyond the door, as if that had thrown them.
"Ah, uh — I'm the one from upstairs who owes you a huge favor from a little while ago."
Jonghun, murmuring so any corpses that might be nearby wouldn't hear.
"My sister — the one Sijun-ssi saved — she wanted to thank you in person, not just with a note..."
"Ah..."
Yeojin blinked and looked at me.
Like she was asking why I hadn't even mentioned something like that had happened. That accusing look was probably just my imagination.