Five Shots of Opportunity 2
In the end, the reckless plan for all four of them to dive straight into the middle of that hellish sea was decided—and failure would mean total annihilation.
"Don't wear yourselves out during the day. Everyone get a proper night's sleep tonight."
The operation was set to begin at dawn the next day. They would strike in that window when the darkness still hadn't fully lifted and the creatures' movements were at their dullest. That left them with only about half a day to prepare.
With Yang Jin-ju's order to rest and conserve their strength, the atmosphere in the machine room shifted completely. There was no more tense scouting, no more awkward silence.
"Yeong-ju."
I led her over to a corner of the machine room where there was relatively more space. A K-2 rifle sat in her hands, but she was just an ordinary college girl who had never so much as touched a firearm. Throwing her into actual combat with a gun like this would be no different from suicide.
"Here. Give it to me."
I took the rifle from her hands and, with practiced ease, checked the safety and pulled the magazine free. Something I'd handled to death for two years in the military. It had already been several years since I was discharged, but my body still remembered the feel of it. For any Korean man who'd finished his service, that wasn't a memory that faded easily…
"From now on, engrave every single word I say into your head without missing a syllable. This could decide whether you live or die."
"Got it. Start."
I kept my voice as serious and stern as I could manage. Yeong-ju, for her part, set aside her usual brusqueness and nodded with a sharp, focused look in her eyes.
"First—this is the safety. It always stays in this position. Only right before you fire do you push it down with your thumb like this. Understand?"
I demonstrated the motion. She watched every flicker of my fingers as if determined not to miss a single one.
"This is the selector. Single shot, burst, full auto. You keep it on single shot only—no exceptions. Burst and full auto burn through ammo and the recoil is a nightmare to control. For a non-expert like you, single shots—one careful round at a time—is the best you've got."
I walked her through each part of the weapon, naming them and explaining what they did. How to align the rear sight with the front post, the proper shouldering stance, and—most critical of all—the moment of the trigger pull.
"Load… selector on single… shoulder and fire. Recoil's bad, so no full auto?"
Yeong-ju soaked up every word with a concentration that was almost startling, absorbing it all like a sponge.
"And finally—the most important thing."
I finished the rundown and looked her straight in the eyes.
"This gun is louder than you can possibly imagine. The things we're about to face—you know how they go completely insane over sound, right? One wrong shot, and the whole area getting buried under zombies is just a matter of time. So you do not fire this thing unless it is truly, absolutely the last possible moment—when your life is hanging by a thread, or mine is about to be snuffed out. This is our last insurance policy. Got it? Forget this and we're done."
"Don't worry… I heard you. Big noise, so be careful."
Yeong-ju answered in a low voice. She took the rifle back and tried the aiming stance the way I'd shown her. Awkward, but she managed something that almost looked right.
Looking at her now and then, it was strange how much she'd changed—the same Yeong-ju who'd just been a little rough around the edges back in college.
"Careful. Don't spill any of it."
While we were buried in firearms training, over in the opposite corner Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju were locked on another critical job.
Dozens of rounds pulled from the ammo cans lay spread out in front of them. With pliers and a small awl-like tool, they were carefully separating the bullets from their casings.
"Careful… careful. Gently with your mouth—with your mouth. That's it… hah…"
Nam Jin-ju poured the gunpowder out onto a scrap of paper, muttering to herself without realizing it. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead like she was defusing a bomb.
Yang Jin-ju held her breath and worked without a single error. The way the two of them looked was proof of just how desperately they were clinging to this reckless plan.
"Good. That makes thirteen. Next round."
After the firearms drill had gone on for a long stretch, we finally took a short break. I lifted the canteen, took a sip of lukewarm water, and drifted over to Yeong-ju, who was still turning the rifle over in her hands. I asked her in a near-whisper,
"But earlier… why did you do that?"
"Do what."
"Why did you say all four of us should go. Honestly—Nam Jin-ju… I don't see her being much help in a fight. She might just end up as dead weight we have to protect. Coldly speaking."
At my question, Yeong-ju briefly took her eyes off the muzzle and looked at me. Her gaze was as sharp as always, but something deeper sat behind it—something I couldn't quite read.
"Hey."
"What."
"Think about how we've survived these past five months."
The question came out of nowhere.
"Think about it? About what. We just busted our asses crawling around, running, fighting… that's how we made it."
"No. Not that. More specifically."
Yeong-ju set the rifle on the floor and leaned her back against the wall. Her eyes settled on a point in empty air, as if she were projecting old memories onto a screen and watching them play out.
"Those cannibal bastards we ran into first. The third group of them, I mean. After we got away from those fuckers, we were terrified of other people for a while, right? Then in some abandoned building we met a guy and two girls who were wandering around just like us—you remember?"
"…I remember. The ones who begged us to let them come along."
"Yeah. We didn't trust them. We just left them behind.
A few days later, when we passed that building again, you saw what happened to them too, didn't you? Hanging from the window by their necks… dead.
Not killed by zombies. They took their own lives out of pure despair. Those eyes—I never said anything, but I still can't forget them."
Yeong-ju's voice trembled, just slightly.
"And when we went to that big supermarket for food. The first floor was packed solid with them, so we crawled through the ceiling vents.
Dust and darkness. Hundreds of them howling right underneath us… the old vents creaking like they were about to give way any second.
If you hadn't kept whispering from right behind me that it was okay, that we were almost there, that I could reach it if I just stretched out my hand—I probably would've just lost it right there. Frozen solid with terror."
"…"
"In the middle of the night, when a few of them got into the hideout we'd barely managed to secure. One scream and it was over. What did we do?
We signaled each other with nothing but our eyes. Minimum noise. Took them out one by one. And when it was finished, we looked at each other's blood-smeared faces and just collapsed without a word and fell asleep…. Think about all those moments, Yeong-chan."
She lifted her eyes and looked at me. In them, the hellscapes we'd walked through together were still burning.
"Imagine going through all of that alone. Not a single person left in this world you can trust. Not a single person to watch your back… having to carry every scrap of that terror and despair by yourself. You think you could stay sane through that?"
I had no answer for her.
"I… if you hadn't been there…"
Yeong-ju stopped. She swallowed hard.
"I would've just bitten my tongue and died a long time ago.
I just… I understood a little of how terrifying it is to be left alone. That's why I said it.
Watching Nam Jin-ju cry—it was like looking at myself from a few months ago… Do you get what I'm trying to say?"
It was the deepest, most fragile part of her I had never once heard before. The fear that lived inside someone who was always strong, always cynical, always ruthlessly practical—and the dependence and trust she placed in me.
"Yeah. I get it. I wouldn't be standing here either if it weren't for you."
"…What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about empathizing with the fear of being left alone and you're off on some other tangent… What? What are you two looking at!"
We'd been so locked into our whispered exchange that we hadn't noticed. Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju, who'd been collecting the gunpowder, had at some point stopped working entirely and were staring blankly our way—and they'd heard every word of the conversation, including everything Yeong-ju had said.
"Huh?"
Nam Jin-ju's eyes in particular had gone round as a rabbit's. She was staring at Yeong-ju like she'd just discovered some strange new creature.
After a brief silence, Nam Jin-ju carefully stood up. She rummaged through her pocket, came over to us, and firmly pressed a small piece of candy into Yeong-ju's hand. That precious candy we'd received yesterday.
"…You're a good person."
Nam Jin-ju said it with complete sincerity.
At those few words, the face of the woman who was always confident and shameless no matter the situation flushed red as a ripe tomato in an instant.
Yeong-ju, completely at a loss in a situation she'd never experienced in her life, averted her gaze and cleared her throat awkwardly.
"W-what! All of a sudden! I just… I'm just saying that's what I think, okay! It's not like I said it because I was thinking of you or anything, so don't get the wrong idea!"
She snapped back with her usual prickliness, but her voice lacked its usual force, and the end of it trembled slightly. She hastily popped the candy into her mouth like a hot potato. Then, fidgeting, she added in a very small voice,
"…Th-thanks. I'll enjoy it."
Watching this, a faint, warm smile touched the corners of Yang Jin-ju's mouth. I didn't miss the opening.
"Wow, Seo Yeong-ju. What a touching scene. Then let me get a little moved too—how about splitting that candy in half and giving me some?"
The second the words left my mouth, Yeong-ju's bright-red face snapped straight back to her usual sullen expression. She glared at me like I was the most pathetic insect on earth and shot back,
"…Are you seriously trash?"
Yeong-ju's concise, devastating one-liner. In that instant, every scrap of tension in the machine room vanished as if it had never existed.
"Pffft!"
Nam Jin-ju was the first to break. She covered her mouth as she laughed, then finally just collapsed onto the floor. Yang Jin-ju turned her head and shook her shoulders, fighting it, and eventually even I—and Yeong-ju herself—couldn't help but snicker.