Chapter 16

In truth, closing his eyes felt like torture.

Anxiety gnawed at him without mercy, conjuring one gruesome possibility after another. He imagined the door to the sleeping quarters being smashed apart while they slept, allowing a zombie to stagger inside. He pictured the corpses they had carried into the lounge suddenly lurching back to life. More than anything, he dreaded being forced to confront that vivid, merciless death all over again.

Even so, Yu-su forced his eyes shut.

He never sank completely into sleep, but when Muwon’s phone began to vibrate, he rose feeling lighter than he had before.

Muwon stretched both arms above his head and rolled his neck.

Crack, crack.

The popping of his joints echoed through the room.

“Did you manage to sleep?”

“Yeah.” Yu-su smoothed down his tousled light brown hair and climbed to his feet. “I’m going to wash up too.”

“Sure.”

Once they had washed and cleared their heads, the remaining preparations moved quickly. Muwon reinforced the rope fashioned from blankets and sheets, testing the knots and tightening each one, while Yu-su gathered the supplies stored in the lounge: snacks and candy from the drawers, along with drinks from the refrigerator, which had long since lost its ability to keep anything cold.

As they sat across from each other and packed, Muwon glanced through the window and frowned. “I’ll be fine, but you might freeze to death once you get up there.”

“I’ll unfold a blanket and wrap it around myself when we reach the top. I’ll be fine.”

“It’ll still be fucking cold.”

Yu-su nodded calmly. “I know, but I think it’s better to leave now than wait until something happens and forces us to move in a panic, like we did in the division head’s office.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Behind him, Muwon muttered, “We’ll be fucked if it rains, though…”

Yu-su continued arranging the makeshift rope, completing the last of the preparations before wrapping it around his waist.

“Jeong Yu-su.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll go first.”

Yu-su froze.

Muwon reached out and snatched the rope from his hands. After staring blankly at his empty palms for a moment, Yu-su hurried closer.

“Will you be okay?”

“Yeah. I’m better at this than you are. Once I’m above you, I’ll haul you up when it’s your turn.”

Yu-su said nothing.

Catching the look in his eyes, Muwon grinned wide enough to reveal his sharp canines. “What? Are you actually worried about me?”

“Do Muwon, stop joking around.”

“I’m serious. It hasn’t even been six months since I got out of the military.”

Yu-su had worried that the fabric might tear if either of them ended up dangling from it, so he had twisted several layers of blankets and sheets together into a thick cable. Muwon deftly wound the rope around his waist several times, secured it with a sturdy knot, and rubbed hand sanitizer over his palms.

Yu-su moved ahead of him and threw the window wide open, his brows drawn tight as he watched Muwon.

“Be really, really careful.”

“I told you I would. Just watch from here.”

Muwon ruffled Yu-su’s hair several times, unwrapped a small piece of chocolate, and popped it into his mouth before climbing over the windowsill. For a moment, his long shadow stretched across the frame. Then, with a brief grunt of exertion, he vanished from sight as though something above had seized him and pulled him upward.

Yu-su leaned his upper body out of the window. When he tilted his head back, Muwon was little more than a silhouette against the blinding glare of the sun. Just as the man had promised with such confidence, Muwon began climbing the three-dimensional lettering. He moved cautiously but with impressive speed, testing each character for stability before gripping it firmly and hauling himself upward with the ease of a chin-up. Then he pivoted, shifting his body until he found a secure perch.

At times, he had to support his entire weight with one arm while stretching the other toward a section of the sign just beyond his reach.

“Do Muwon…”

Yu-su could not help staring in awe. On level ground, anyone could lift one arm because the earth remained solid beneath their feet. At this height, however, where a single fall would leave a body shattered on the ground below, it took far more than courage. It demanded raw, unadulterated nerve.

Could I do that?

Yu-su studied every handhold and foothold Muwon used, committing each one carefully to memory, though he had little confidence that he could follow. Back in high school, he might have volunteered to climb first, but now…

It’s too high.

He looked down and immediately tightened his grip on the window frame. Vertigo surged through him, and he squeezed his eyes nearly shut against the dizzying drop.

Meanwhile, Muwon reached the roof. With one hand wrapped around the railing, he unfastened the vase strapped to his body and hurled it toward the far side.

CRASH!

The vase swept through the air in a broad arc before shattering against the rooftop with a deafening clamor.

Kieeeek! Hraaah!

The milling zombies stampeded toward the noise. Seizing the brief opening, Muwon vaulted over the railing and leaped toward the penthouse structure, disappearing from Yu-su’s sight. The rope made from connected quilts and sheets jerked several times before snapping taut. A massive silhouette rose against the sun.

“Jeong Yu-su!”

“Yeah!”

“I tied the quilts around the pillar, so all you have to do is hang on! I’ll pull you up!”

Still clinging to the window below, Yu-su hesitated, but Muwon’s voice cut through his uncertainty.

“Listen to me. This way will be a hell of a lot safer.”

Yu-su remained silent, staring into the abyss beneath him as the dizzying height sent his head spinning all over again. Drawing a deep breath, he shouted toward the roof.

“Okay! Pull me up slowly when I give you the signal! And… thanks!”

“Got it!”

With the rope running between the sleeping quarters and the roof, Yu-su’s ascent proved far easier than he had feared. Muwon hauled him upward from above, helping him clear the most dangerous stretches without incident.

The moment Yu-su’s feet reached the roof railing, Muwon seized his hand and dragged him onto the penthouse roof. Yu-su stumbled as he tried to regain his balance, while Muwon flashed him a grin and spread his arms wide.

“Welcome to the concert.”

“…Are you serious?”

“Of course. We’ve got the rabid fans and the superstar.”

It was not entirely inaccurate. The setting sun burned crimson, bathing the world in blood-red light, while the zombies below thrust their arms toward the sky, desperate to tear the two figures from the penthouse roof. Their shrieks never ceased.

Aaargh! Aah!

Keeaaah!

The screams triggered a chain reaction, drawing more of the undead until the vast rooftop below was packed with them. Had the railing not stood in their way, several would undoubtedly have hurled themselves over the edge.

Yu-su covered his ears as best he could, his brows drawing together. “My ears hurt.”

“Let’s move farther back. They might calm down if they can’t see us.”

“Okay.”

Muwon reached for Yu-su’s wrist as naturally as though he had done it a hundred times, although his own brow remained furrowed. Without another word, he backed away from the edge, hauled up the makeshift backpack fashioned from a shower gown, which remained tied to the quilts, and retrieved the hiking backpack. Then he guided Yu-su down to sit.

“Jeong Yu-su.”

“What?”

Before Yu-su could close his mouth, Muwon popped a piece of chocolate between his parted lips. Yu-su frowned in mild surprise, but Muwon merely shrugged and began loosening the quilt rope knotted around his waist.

“Wait. I’ll do it.”

“Just stay still. And damn it, you’re freezing again.”

He had no intention of waking beside a frozen corpse the next morning. Still grumbling, Muwon spread one of the quilts over Yu-su’s back and shoulders like a cape, then began unrolling the rest of the connected bedding layer by layer. First came a sheet around his shoulders, followed by a blanket, then another, and another.

“Stop, Do Muwon. I’m going to turn into a ball.”

“Hmm?”

Muwon blinked, finally snapping out of his frenzy. Yu-su sat before him wrapped from head to toe in white bedding, round as a human-sized snowball, with only his eyes visible as he shook his head from side to side.

Muwon rubbed his chin, a wicked glint entering his eyes. “You’re damn cute, you know that? Jeong ‘Softie.’”

“Cut the crap…”

“Crap?”

Muwon’s expression turned stone-cold in less than two seconds. Lifting his chin with an air of pompous authority, he declared, “Assistant Manager Jeong, that sounds dangerously close to insubordination.”

“Who taught you to talk like that, Manager Do?”

“Couldn’t have been me.”

Yu-su finally managed to force one fist through a gap in the bedding and struck Muwon’s calf. There was no real strength behind the blow, perhaps because he feared that hitting Muwon too hard might cause him to lose his balance.

Muwon burst into loud, irrepressible laughter. Yu-su sighed and pulled apart the bundled quilts like the sides of a cape.

“Stop laughing and get over here. It’s not as though the freezing wind is politely avoiding you.”

“I left one blanket over there for myself…” Muwon glanced behind him. “Oh. It’s gone.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Apparently, Muwon had piled every last piece of bedding onto Yu-su. He looked behind him once more, released a hollow breath, and sat pressed against Yu-su’s side. The two grown men squirmed and shuffled until one large white bundle and one smaller bundle sat side by side.

At last, the sun disappeared completely, and the brilliant red sky faded into an inky black.

Just hold out until tomorrow night.

Whatever relief the thought brought was short-lived. The night wind swept across the rooftop with a piercing edge. Yu-su winced and hunched his shoulders as Muwon leaned his head toward him.

“Should we have waited until tomorrow to come up here?”

“I already told you. I didn’t know what might happen.”

“If the weather stays like this, aren’t we going to freeze to death before tomorrow gets here?”

“There’s an umbrella in the hiking backpack.”

At the tail end of winter, the wind striking them atop the high-rise felt like a sharpened weapon with physical weight behind it. Each gust hit hard enough to rock their bodies, while the only exposed parts of them, their faces, stung viciously in the cold.

“Hey. Get closer.”

“…This is as close as I can get.”

Tsk.

Muwon considered the problem for a moment, then shifted as though preparing to stand. The instant the body supporting him pulled away, Yu-su instinctively grabbed his forearm.

“Why are you moving?”

“This position is inefficient.”

“Inefficient?”

“Yeah. Jeong Yu-su, come here.”

Muwon turned halfway toward him, parted his legs slightly, and opened his arms.

It took Yu-su nearly three full seconds to understand what the gesture meant. “…You want me to sit there?”

“Yeah. It’ll be better this way, both for keeping warm and for making it through the night.”

Yu-su’s temples throbbed as he listened to Do Muwon ramble about the efficiency of his solution. The greatest problem was that the bastard was actually right.

“Hey. You’re letting the cold air in. Hurry up and get over here.”

“Ugh…”

Unable to withstand Muwon’s relentless prodding, Yu-su shifted his hips and turned around. A moment later, he settled with his back tucked against Muwon’s chest. Almost immediately, a thick forearm slid around his side. Muwon wrapped an arm firmly around Yu-su’s waist and pulled him closer until their bodies were pressed tightly together. His low voice flowed directly into Yu-su’s ear, accompanied by a wash of hot breath.

“See? This works, doesn’t it?”

For one startled moment, Yu-su could have sworn Muwon’s lips had brushed his ear. His spine stiffened, and one eye twitched before he gave a curt, silent nod.

Muwon loosened his grip slightly and rested his cheek against the back of Yu-su’s head.

The solid pressure and weight of his body gradually settled around Yu-su, sinking into his awareness. The position felt unexpectedly secure and, more importantly, astonishingly warm.

The desolate wind continued to howl around them, but the sensation of being battered and tossed by the gale had vanished. The anxiety receded with it.

Yu-su murmured softly, “…It really is warm.”

“Told you. You’re not falling asleep, are you?”

“I’m not sleepy. Just a little tired. What about you?”

“Same.”

Clutching the blanket, Yu-su moved his arms with furtive care, adjusting the fabric until none of the wind could reach Muwon’s face.

“…Do Muwon.”

“Yeah?”

“Even if we’re rescued, we probably won’t be able to go straight home, right?”

“Probably not. They’ll most likely herd us into some building and tell us to wait.”

Yu-su’s pale fingers tightened around the blanket, then began to fidget. Three times, his reddened lips parted as though he meant to speak, only to press firmly together again. At last, a small voice slipped free.

“Do you think… maybe you could find out how my family is doing? Through your connections at Cheonsan Group or something?”

The cautious wariness in Yu-su’s voice made Muwon’s brow furrow before he could stop it. He pressed his chin firmly against Yu-su’s shoulder.

“Of course I can. Who the hell do you think I am?”

“…Thanks.”

Yu-su lowered his head. Muwon patted the back of his hand in wordless dismissal, then deliberately lightened his tone.

“The kids are all at home, right?”

“Yeah. I confirmed that all three of them were there. They still have plenty of side dishes and ramen too.”

“Three…?” Muwon paused as the realization caught up with him. “Come to think of it, what about your parents?”

Yu-su opened his mouth, but his throat constricted, allowing only a short, choked sound to escape.

It was a question, a single word, that he had not heard in far too long.

Perhaps he had buried it so deeply that dragging it into the open now felt both distant and overwhelming. When he tried again, his voice emerged strained, its tremor held back through sheer force.

“They… they passed away.”

Those few, paltry words were agonizingly difficult to force out. The moment Muwon heard them, his entire body went rigid.

For once, he failed to conceal his agitation.

“How? No, wait. Damn it, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, but let’s not talk about it anymore.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

So they’re my responsibility now.

The quiet thought scattered into the wind before it could ever reach Muwon.

***