Warm Water and an Old Album

We split a paper cup of soju between us, making it last as we traded old stories back and forth.

Jinbeom's face had already gone red from barely half a bottle.

"Hahaha! So you know what I said to Young-ran back then?"

At his question, I shot one back of my own.

"What'd you say?"

"That I fell for her at first sight!"

"You lunatic."

"Hey, who wouldn't have, back then? In the whole fifth grade she had the fairest skin of anyone. Hyeong-woo, come on, you liked her too, didn't you? Tell me the truth!"

"I didn't like her."

"Ugh, you stubborn little raccoon!"

Through the kitchen window, I could see the sun sinking low.

Jinbeom finally set down his empty soju glass and spoke up.

"Ah geez, look at the time. I should head home."

"Get home safe. Don't run into any zombies on the way."

"I still can't believe that's not a joke but an actual serious warning. Haha..."

He rose to his feet with a bitter smile.

I walked him out to the front gate.

The snowfall had stopped, and a full moon slipped out from behind the clouds.

"Don't slip on the snow."

"You lock up tight too. And don't come crying on the phone if a zombie wanders into your house."

Shuffle, shuffle—

Jinbeom took a few steps, then glanced back over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his shoulder.

I asked him.

"What?"

He hesitated a moment, then spoke slowly.

"My dad, you see... no, never mind. I really gotta go!"

He turned away again and started down the valley at a brisk pace.

I watched until he'd disappeared completely from view, then stepped back into the yard and bolted the gate.

Now, time to do what I'd been planning.

As intended, I was going to wash myself in hot water.

I hauled the big rubber tub out from the storage shed. It was a very old thing—Grandmother had bathed me in it when I was little, and from what I'd heard later, my father had been washed in that very same tub before me.

Grandmother had lost her husband early and raised her children alone. And in the end, she'd gone on to raise me, her grandchild, all by herself as well. Maybe that was why, on the days she came back from a village celebration with a good few cups of makgeolli in her, she would sit on the porch gazing up at the night sky and always say the same thing:

'Aigoo... my poor, hapless lot in life...'

First things first, the rubber tub needed a good scrubbing. Dust had caked onto it from years of disuse.

There was plenty of water in the yard, drawn up from the stream. The hundred-liter ceramic water jar had been here at the country house longer than I had. The two two-hundred-liter plastic drums were things I'd set up when I left for university in Seoul, so Grandmother could use water more conveniently. Over the past few days I'd been filling every last one of them to the brim whenever I had a spare moment.

I splashed cold water into the tub and scrubbed it down hard with a sponge. Even wearing two pairs of cotton gloves under a pair of rubber ones, my hands felt like they might freeze off.

Once the tub was rinsed clean, I brought over water boiling madly from the cauldron and sterilized it, then carried it into the kitchen and filled it with hot water ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠again, mixing in just enough cold to bring it to a comfortable bathing temperature.

'No one's around to see, anyway.'

I closed the kitchen door, stripped down to nothing, and lowered myself into the tub.

'Ho—hot!'

It was scalding at first, but after gritting through it for a moment, my body adjusted. I hadn't been suffering badly from the cold since I'd arrived here. Still, it was only after sinking into the steaming water that I understood—I'd been frozen to the bone. It felt as though the chill stored deep inside me was slowly thawing out, melting away into the warmth.

'Cheongsaan—'

I nearly found myself letting out one of those long, rapturous howls the old folks bellow in public bathhouses.

Whoooiing—

Cold winter wind whistled through the gap in the kitchen door. But with the stove roaring and steam billowing up from the cauldron, it didn't feel cold in the least. Through the kitchen window I could see tree branches dusted with snowflakes, and above them hung the full moon.

Last winter I'd been sent on a business trip to Hokkaido, Japan. I'd soaked in an open-air hot spring there, savoring the winter scenery—and somehow the atmosphere now was eerily similar.

'This is the life!'

It was pure heaven. But I didn't let myself luxuriate for long. Zombie apocalypse or not, this was still no time to drop my guard completely. I washed my hair and scrubbed every corner of my body with quick, efficient movements, rinsed off with clean water, and toweled dry.

Pulling on the fresh, warm underwear I'd set aside felt incredible. In that state, I darted straight into the main room.

The ondol floor had filled the room with gentle warmth. It felt like... like the old house had come back to life.

'The house has been resurrected!'

The floor was already spotless from when I'd wiped it down. I spread out my sleeping bag and lay flat on my back. The heat of the ondol soon had my back and backside toasting.

'Toasting? More like roasting. My butt's going to be cooked through!'

The stove fire had been burning so fiercely that the floor slabs had overheated, and I had to shift to a cooler spot. I found a place that was neither too hot nor too cold—and it was the very spot I'd always slept in as a child. A smile crept across my face at the long-lost coziness of it.

'Man, this is nice!'

Dawn broke, and a new day began.

I looked into the mirror hanging on the wall. After a wash in hot water and a night's sleep on the heated floor, my face had gone wonderfully smooth. Now that I could use the stove, my quality of life had shot up overnight.

'Like they say—humans were meant to use fire.'

With a reliable heat source, the winter cold hardly frightened me anymore. I could shiver my way through digging up arrowroot or catching mountain trout, but the moment I came home, I could thaw out on a warm ondol floor. What a comfort that was.

'Today, I'll start with organizing the storage shed.'

It was time to move all the food I'd gathered into the shed. But it was such a hopeless mess in there that I'd have to make room first.

I dragged all the tools out of the shed. Then all the boxes. And I opened them one by one to check the contents.

"Huh? So this is where the old album was."

Out of a box came the photo album full of memories of Grandmother and me. The thing I'd searched for endlessly when packing up to move to Seoul, only now deciding to appear!

I paused my organizing and spread the album open.

'I look exactly like a kid from one of those rural documentary shows.'

The buzz-cut little boy with the bright red cheeks was me. Beside me, a kid in a dorky little "children's formal suit" was Jinbeom. And behind us, draped in a traditional two-piece hanbok coat, stood our grandmother. It was from my elementary school entrance ceremony.

I flipped through a few more photos, then closed the album. I'd save it for a slow, lazy read this evening, belly warmed against the ondol.

Next, I opened the other boxes.

'What's this?'

Inside, carefully wrapped items were lined up in a neat row. I picked one and unwrapped it. Barley seeds.

'So that's what these were.'

They were the assorted seeds Grandmother had collected, intending to plant crops. It had been three years since she passed, so the seeds were even older than that.

'Could they still sprout?'

I remembered something Grandmother used to say—that seeds grew stronger with age. And it was true that stored seeds sometimes germinated better than freshly harvested ones. Not for every variety, of course.

'But would I ever even have a reason to plant these?'

When spring came and temperatures began to rise, the zombies would rot away and containment would get easier. And someday, everything might return to the way it was before.

'And by then, I'll be back at the office, grinding away as usual?'

Memories of my first days at the company came flooding back. Fresh out of new-hire training, I'd felt like my shoulders could pierce the sky. I'd become a "Hyunsung Man" everyone envied—I smiled in my sleep just thinking about it.

But in less than a month, forget three, I'd learned a bitter lesson: it was the organization called Hyunsung Group that was mighty, not the individuals within it. Even the high-and-mighty executives, the kind who could pluck stars from the sky, got shown the door the moment they stumbled. Someone like me was, truly, nothing at all.

'Still, I fought tooth and nail to get in. I should stay as long as they'll have me.'

On a whim, I opened the employees-only mobile app. Up until yesterday it had displayed nothing but a "Service Unavailable" notice—but not anymore.

The app hadn't actually been restored to working order. I still couldn't post to the bulletin boards—I couldn't even view the old posts. The approval system was dead too. The only thing I could do was open a message posted by Chairman Ko Young-joon, Ko Geon-hyuk's son.

Tap—

I opened the document.

Summed up, the whole message amounted to this: figure out how to survive the zombie crisis on your own, and if you happen to make it, we'll reinstate you—so come back and work like dogs.

Right about now, the chairman and the entire founding family were no doubt furiously crunching numbers on how to minimize losses and maximize profits amid the international order so violently upended by the outbreak. In any case, none of that grand business had anything to do with me, a disposable part of the corporate machine.

'So we can go back to work starting in May?'

Out of nowhere, Team Leader Park, who'd been killed by a zombie, crossed my mind.

'But with Team Leader Park gone, who runs our team now? Don't tell me... me?'

In an instant, a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠delusion every bit as childish as a toilet-humor webtoon seized my brain.

'Team Leader Kim Hyeong-woo, excellent work on this project!'

'It's all thanks to you, Executive Director!'

'You know what I've been thinking lately? If this zombie outbreak hadn't happened, the company would have suffered a catastrophic loss.'

'I'm sorry, sir—what do you mean?'

'Thanks to the outbreak, we discovered an exceptional talent like you early! Team Leader Park worked hard, sure, but you're on a completely different level. I'd call you a tailor-made hire for our company. The Chairman himself has enormous expectations for you!'

'I will work this body to pieces for the company, sir!'

I wore a stupid grin for a moment before slapping a hand against my forehead.

'God, what a dimwit.'

***

Three days flew past like an arrow.

The snow kept falling until the whole world had turned white. I kept busy digging arrowroot and catching mountain trout to dry, over and over. The area was still marked "green" on the map. I felt so at ease that sometimes I genuinely forgot a zombie apocalypse had even happened. It was like slipping out of a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠suffocating city for a while to enjoy the pastoral life.

Vrrrm—

I was drying arrowroot starch out in the sun when my phone buzzed. A text message from Jinbeom.

Instead of pressing him for details, I checked the app. Inje-eup had turned red—and this area had turned yellow. This was no longer a safe zone.

"So it finally came."

I put out the stove fire.