Chapter 18: Better the Worst Situation
After enduring the night both inside and out in the RV, Kim Jun took several days to rest from the fatigue that had piled up.
“Oppa~ Wake up~”
“Hey Jun~ I’m here!”
One of them pounded on the door while the other scratched at it with her nails.
“Yaaawn~”
Kim Jun woke inside his room—the only space in the house that could be locked—stretched with a long yawn, and opened the door.
Two shadows immediately rushed at him.
He flinched at first, but the moment he felt the soft warmth of the two idols’ bodies, he decided to simply enjoy it.
“Mister Jun oppa~ Why are you sleeping in so late?”
“That’s right! You still need to eat breakfast, oppa.”
“Ah… yeah.”
Still half-lost in sleep, Kim Jun washed his face before stepping out.
Everyone was already waiting. When they saw him, Eun Ji spoke up.
“It’s amazing how he wakes right up when those two call him…”
“I was already awake.”
Eun Ji knew exactly what she wanted to say about the relationship between Kim Jun, Emily, and Rana, but she kept her expression neutral.
Having adapted to the unending apocalypse, the idols held a briefing while they ate breakfast.
“Oppa, I have something to say.”
“Yeah, In Ah. Go ahead.”
In Ah, who had somehow become the household’s food manager, looked toward the rooftop garden.
“You know those beans we planted last time? They turned out to be mung beans. What should we do?”
“We can just harvest them, can’t we? What’s the problem?”
“I mean… should we eat them as beans, or grow them into bean sprouts for namul?”
“Oh… we can make namul with them?”
“Yes.”
Watching In Ah discuss the food situation so earnestly, Kim Jun couldn’t help smiling.
Top-star idols asking about farming… This really does feel like a variety show.
Funny or not, it was necessary for survival, so Kim Jun made the decision.
“Let’s grow them into bean sprouts. And pick one of the dried fish to make into a stew. We can’t live on nothing but greens, right?”
“Yes~ I’ll take care of it.”
The other idols followed with their own questions.
“Oppa! The batteries on the exercise bike and treadmill have been charging really slowly lately… Are they broken?”
“Really? After we eat, I’ll check all the power equipment.”
“Right, the drain on the third floor is clogged again. What should we do?”
“Of course it keeps clogging if you keep washing your hair in the sink.”
“Hey, then where are we supposed to shower?”
Seeing them bickering over breakfast, Kim Jun told them he would handle it, so they should finish eating quickly.
Afterward, the top stars changed into fresh clothes and began their respective tasks.
As always, Eun Ji, Nanika, and Mari took care of cleaning and laundry.
In Ah brought the others outside to teach them how to grow bean sprouts, while Emily and Rana focused intently on learning.
Kim Jun started with the treadmill and, while he was at it, checked the batteries and solar collector panels as well.
“Do Kyung. Yatsuri.”
“Yes? What?!”
Do Kyung, who was assisting, looked confused by the word and turned to Gaya.
“Sister, what’s yatsuri?”
“Yatsuri? We don’t have any tool by that name.”
Kim Jun sighed, came down from the ladder, and pulled the tool out of the toolbox.
“This. This right here!”
“Last time you called it a hacksaw, didn’t you?”
“…Sorry. That’s why it got mixed up.”
Since he had brought it up, Kim Jun explained the homonyms that mixed Japanese and English terms.
Yatsuri meant hacksaw, megane was an offset wrench, and tagane was a chisel.
Do Kyung and Gaya studied the actual tools and memorized them.
After unclogging the third-floor drain and finishing the rest of the chores, it was already lunchtime.
Today’s lunch was a salad made with fresh vegetables and tomatoes from the rooftop garden. After eating a bowl, smoking a cigarette, and killing more time, it was already one in the afternoon.
….
A time of silence.
Kim Jun sometimes came out to smoke too, but the atmosphere remained quiet.
Emily, who could no longer stand it, flopped onto the floor.
“This is fucking boring!”
“I agree!”
Food was plentiful for the time being, so they had stopped looting and finished every remaining chore. Boredom had arrived with a vengeance.
Using electricity was difficult, and even when they could, nothing was broadcasting on the computer, TV, or smartphones.
“I’ve got it! Let’s watch a movie!”
Kim Jun suggested using the TV and VCR in the living room to pass the time.
Thanks to the solar panels, batteries, and exercise bike, they had more than enough power to watch a couple of films even after the grid went down.
Figuring it would kill at least two hours, he pressed the button.
The eight top stars waited with pounding hearts, glad to spend the day watching a movie instead of rolling around doing nothing.
The film from the DVD they had loaded last time began to play.
“Aah~ Aaah~ Oh my God!!”
“Trading two barrels of jet fuel for a night with Playboy girls! This is the best!”
“Ah, that scene…”
It was the moment from Apocalypse Now they had played before—the one that had instantly killed the mood. The stranded USO showgirls striking a deal for the night with jet fuel.
The only difference this time was that everyone watched the scene with far more attention.
“Hmm, watching it again… I heard it’s actually considered a huge masterpiece.”
“It feels a lot like our situation, doesn’t it?”
The ones who said it were Rana and Emily.
Emily nodded, then gave Rana a strange look and asked quietly.
“…You?”
“What?”
“Umm~ Never mind.”
Anyway, once the problematic scene passed, the others recalled the story and continued watching.
But Eun Ji quietly stood up and went to her room.
Kim Jun, who had seen the film several times already, stepped outside for a cigarette.
Eun Ji saw him leave and silently followed.
Outside was a road of death stretching hundreds of millions of miles. Inside, this house remained a sanctuary for humans who had not yet been bitten.
The only places people could still live were the RV and this house.
As Kim Jun lit his cigarette, Eun Ji approached carefully.
“Um… ajus— I mean, oppa?”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the clothes. Emily brought a lot, but we’re still short on underwear and everyday wear.”
“Clothes… how should we handle that…”
“The clothes in the sliding-door closet—can we alter the ones that fit our sizes?”
Eun Ji suggested taking the clothes Kim Jun didn’t wear and adjusting them with needlework, since the looted clothing wasn’t enough for all eight of them.
In truth, there were more than enough clothes and underwear stacked up that only he would wear, so he nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you. I’ll clear everything out of the sliding-door closet right now.”
Watching Eun Ji hurry away, countless thoughts crossed Kim Jun’s mind.
She was the only person among the eight who knew he had slept with some of them.
How she chose to spread that information would completely change the atmosphere.
On top of that, they had just watched that particular scene from Apocalypse Now. He had no idea how the other top stars would react.
Honestly, while looting they might have encountered other survivor groups by now. Or, following every zombie movie cliché, a helicopter and tanks should have appeared, with the military sweeping away the undead and coming to rescue them.
But none of that had happened. And in this situation, he had already been intimate with three of them. How the others would react would depend on their usual sense of chastity.
“If this were truly the worst situation… those thoughts wouldn’t even come up. The problem is that this place is just livable enough to make things awkward.”
Just as Kim Jun muttered, everything else in the world had been cut off, yet thanks to the house’s special properties, electricity and water still worked.
They had stockpiled food, and any nutritional gaps were filled through farming. What remained was simply human desire.
The sexual frustration of not being able to have sex.
The boredom of having nothing to do as time dragged on.
Tables without fresh meat no matter how hard they tried to cook.
And facing one another in silence in a situation with no visible end.
Movies and dramas only ever showed the search for food and shelter. They never captured this deeper human suffocation that came when there was nothing left to do but wait.
Kim Jun remembered the endless boredom of his final days in the military, rolling around with nothing to do. It didn’t feel like someone else’s story at all.
When he finally looked down, more than five cigarette butts lay at his feet. He slowly stood and went back inside.
The others were still watching the movie. He peeked in to see what they were on now.
Of course, he walked in at the worst possible moment.
“I said… I would give you women.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“These were my men who held back the rage-virus zombies in this place. To calm them down, we gathered people through radio broadcasts. We promised that if any women came, we would make them your sex slaves.”
“Then… what about me?”
“You are the one who brought the women here. I won’t kill you. But you must overlook what we do.”
Seven people—everyone except Eun Ji—were watching a zombie movie.
Among them was 28 Days Later, considered one of the greatest masterpieces in the zombie genre worldwide.
In the film, the protagonist wakes in a hospital, sees his first zombie, runs for his life, and eventually reaches a military base with two female survivors after hearing a radio broadcast. It turns out the soldiers, suffering from severe PTSD, had been using the radio to lure women in with the promise of turning them into sex slaves for the men.
“Why the hell are they watching a zombie movie inside too…”
Kim Jun tried to stop it, but everyone raised their hands.
Shh!
“….”
Even without that particular scene, it was a world-renowned masterpiece. Everyone was completely absorbed.
By the time they reached the ending, the seven female top stars wore strange expressions, but Kim Jun decided to ignore it completely.
Under normal circumstances, these would have been movies they simply called interesting and moved on from.
But this was an apocalypse. A world overrun by zombies. And in the middle of it stood one former soldier and multiple young women.
After the movie ended, Kim Jun went into his room and thought.
“Do I really need to make some separate entertainment?”