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“Got anything good today?”
Do Eunho shrugged, roughly placing the plastic bag packed with food and beverages onto the kitchen counter. “Couldn't find anything edible from the usual stores anymore today, so I had to go a bit further away.”
Chae Bamby hummed, his hands began to rummage inside the bag. “As long as we still have rice, it should be alright.” He grabbed a bottled drink, examining the expiration date. “...Almost a year since it expired.”
“Sorry, hyung. Most of the stuff here is like that, the other stuff in the store are even worse.” Eunho smiled sheepishly before a sly smirk appeared on his lips. “Especially the dairy products, guess you can't drink milk every morning to boost that height of yours anymore, hyung.”
Bamby huffed out a curse directed to the younger man before whacking the man’s head with the bottle in his hand. “Stop joking around, idiot.” He opened the drink cap, before guzzling down the tea inside it.
Eunho glared at the older man, rubbing the spot the other had hit him on. “...No, but seriously, I don't think there's any dairy products left that doesn't already have a whole ecosystem in it. Sooner or later, we won't be able to find anything that we can consume anymore.”
“And what do you suggest we do about that?” The pink haired man’s expression turned sour, scrunching his nose as he checked out the bottled tea he had just drunk. “Ah, shit, this is so fucking sour. I’m gonna have to be stuck in the toilet for awhile again…”
Eunho snatched the tea from the older man, sniffing it. “Ugh… see? We’re going to run out of food at this point if we don't do something about it.” He stood up from the kitchen stool, before walking over to the sink, pouring all the tea to the drain. “And… I’ve been thinking. How about we make some kind of farm?”
Bamby raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Sure, we live in the middle of the city with not much nature around, but there's still that one park near that one mall!”
Then, out of nowhere, the younger man pointed at one of Bamby’s potted plants in the living room. “Since you're already good at taking care of plants, I’m sure you can grow food with ease, no?”
The older man looked at him, disbelief written all over his face. “...Are you serious?” Standing up from his own stool, he rushed over to Eunho before smacking the man’s nape. “I grow decorative plants, not edible ones, idiot. And before you say anything about it, it is not similar.”
Eunho pouted, staring back at the older man with an expression filled with injustice. “Hyung, you think I haven’t done some research of my own?! I searched it up, and it said that it’s not too much different. If you can grow these plants, then planting vegetables or fruits or whatever won’t be too hard for you compared to if I were to try it!”
“Yeah, it’s not too much different, but it’s still different! How am I supposed to know how to do those different things I need to do?!”
“Well…” Eunho rubbed his nape, suddenly avoiding eye contact with the older man. “You can just… search it up on Youtube…”
Bamby’s eyes widened, body tensing up as he glared at the man in front of him in incredulity. “You…” He snapped his neck to face away from Eunho’s figure, scoffing. “Don’t be a lazy bum, just do your part and keep searching for food twice a month, don’t throw your chore at me. I’m already doing the things we’ve both agreed for me to do, so don’t add shit into my workload.”
“Hyung…!” Eunho called in frustration. “I know you’re… it’s still hard to accept what’s happening right now. But, denying it does nothing but makes things worse—I told you, in just a few months, or maybe even this month, we’d finally be out of stock for anything that could be consumed by us! If we don’t step up to do anything, we’ll both end up dying out of starvation!”
“Then you do it!” Bamby yelled, anger lacing his tone. “Why do I have to be the one… I don’t want to fucking open Youtube or anything similar ever again, I told you this, Eunho! All those people… everyone… they’re just—I can’t…”
Eunho watched as the older man’s body began to tremble, guilt creeping up his spine. He was fully aware of how much of a sensitive topic it was, to bring up any sorts of social media, a place filled with people from all around the world—the only place Eunho could ever see any living human being ever again, other than himself and his ex-detective partner, Chae Bamby.
And to say he was able to ‘see’ all those people would be an overstatement, as they now only live as pictures and videos of people who had been erased from this world. Missing, nowhere to be seen anywhere in the real world anymore.
A few months ago, the Joint Police Agency had received some reports of missing persons, and Do Eunho had been assigned to work on some of them. He suspected nothing big, missing person cases—although tragic—were not anything too uncommon, and Eunho himself had solved many of them in the past.
But, his worries rammed up when he wasn’t able to find any leads on any of the cases, so much that the Joint Police Agency even had to ask for help from the Maracaya Central Investigation Bureau. There, Eunho had reunited with one of the Veteran Maracaya detectives, Chae Bamby, who he had worked with before to solve the illegal Chroma potion distributions.
From their previous time working together, it was already known that they had absolutely no chemistry, putting them together was like putting water and oil together, and so the investigation ended up being a complete chaos—but, the two did end up becoming closer as they shared their worries over the ever-growing numbers of missing person cases.
And even after the involvement of the Marcaya Central Investigation, none of the investigations were successful. This was when it became a public threat to everyone, as people began to speculate the reasoning for the missing cases.
Was it human trafficking? Serial murders? Or maybe even something more sinister?
Well, the answer didn’t take too long to reveal itself, when multiple people suddenly reported seeing their family and friends disappear in front of their eyes, leaving not even a single trace of their existence. Many couldn’t believe these reports, deeming them as absurd lies omitted by attention seekers.
Do Eunho and Chae Bamby shared the same sentiments as those netizens, only feeling frustrated over the fact that the only ‘lead’ the two had gotten since the start of the investigation were from these liars who couldn’t even come up with a believable story.
Until, it happened. The purge of humanity has come, hundreds of humans disappeared into thin air, as if they had never even existed before.
Eunho saw with his own two eyes, his friends, strangers, and even enemies vanished in a blink of an eye. Watched as the population of the world lessened by the day, until there was no one other than himself and—in a surprising turn of events—Chae Bamby.
Of course, just like Eunho, Bamby had also experienced seeing his friends and families dissipate from existence. He even took the realization worse than Eunho, the realization that the people in his life, the ones that had been with him since forever, have disappeared and will most likely never come back.
The grief over it all had overtaken the man strongly, as he now only stays inside his and Eunho’s apartment all day, taking care of the house almost sluggishly as more days went on, as the reminder of his oncoming death slowly overpowers his will to live.
Meanwhile, Eunho had grieved his friends himself, too. Although he had no family, he did consider his close friends at the agency as one. But, he needed to move on, there was no time for him to mope around—because for some reason, even after months of waiting, both Do Eunho or Chae Bamby were yet to disappear.
It had given him hope, and he was brave enough to dream that maybe, maybe if he and Bamby survived long enough, they could save the others, they could save everyone. Maybe, it was a test of perseverance, from some other worldly being. Perhaps, if they passed this test, humanity might return back to normal.
Yet, there was no real way to prove the truth of this theory of his, and he had never thought of even sharing it with Bamby, afraid of how the other might react to his—albeit, ‘childish’ dream.
Either way, that dream of his kept him motivated in life, motivated enough to leave their apartment at least twice a month to gather food and resources for both men. But, stocks were running low, many products still stood in many stores yet most, if not all, were already way past their expiration date.
At first, it was fine, gathering food had been easy as he could just grab whatever and go home without any worries. Around this time, Bamby often even requested specific food or drinks. But, as time passed and nothing ever lasts forever, expiration dates became closer and closer until many finally passed them.
And as time went on, Do Eunho could no longer care of whether the food had gone past the time or not, as he focused more on which of them were not that far away from the expiration date compared to the even further ones. But, this had landed them in some negative consequences, of course.
Food poisoning passes every Friday at that point, and there could only be enough medicine for the both of them before they run out.
“Hyung… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you…” Eunho muttered, slowly stepping closer to the older man until he was close enough to engulf the man in a hug. “I’m just… I want us to keep going, to not give up… I’m scared that if we miscalculate even the smallest thing, it might turn fatal in the future…”
Bamby’s breath hitched, face still buried into the younger man’s chest.
“The food stocks… we can’t rely on those anymore, we’re going to need to make our own source of food,” The younger man carefully explained, gently rubbing the other man’s back. “I didn’t mean to force you to handle it yourself… I want us to do it together. Not because I’m too lazy to do it myself, it’s just… how long has it been since you’ve gone outside, hyung? I know you’ve been avoiding leaving ever since… but, it’s not healthy for you to stay cooped up inside for this long.”
Still as quiet as before, Bamby gave no response to the younger man’s words.
“A little bit of fresh air won’t be too bad, I promise, hyung. I’ll be there with you—we can leave once we’re ready to start the farm. We don’t have to do it today or tomorrow, I’m not going to rush you. I’ll have to learn how to do it first, anyways. Yeah, how about I do that, hyung? I’ll learn for both of us, then I’ll teach you later. I’ll search for seeds by myself too, you don’t have to stay outside for too long. Just long enough to plant some seeds together.”
Suddenly, Bamby stepped away from the hug, escaping from the younger man’s grip. “...Did you get cigarettes?”
Eunho’s eyebrows furrowed, taken aback by the question. “...Uh, yeah. Did we run out of it already?”
Bamby answered with a single hum as he walked over to the kitchen counter, rummaging inside the plastic bag. Upon finding the shape of a box, he swiftly snatched his hand out of the bag, the cigarettes in his hand.
“Hyung… if you want to smoke, you have to do it outside—”
“Shut up, I know. Follow me,” Bamby interrupted, before stepping towards the living room and to the door of the balcony. He pulled the handle, and trudged outside, the younger man still closely behind him.
“Hyung…” Eunho whispered in awe, examining the older man’s relaxed demeanor. It was a bit shocking to see the man gaze around the empty town as calmly as now, considering the last time he went outside was months ago.
The pink haired man ripped open the box, grabbing one of the sticks before holding it to his lips. Then, he leaned his face close to Eunho’s own face. “Hey, light it up for me.”
Eunho nodded a bit stiffly, still shocked by the other man’s behavior. Placing the tip of his index finger onto the stick, a small sparkle of fire spawned from it before lighting the end of the stick on fire.
Bamby gave a small nod of thanks, before leaning onto the handrails, watching over the bright lights of the dead city around them with blank eyes, not uttering even a single word as he stood there accompanied by the slightly confused younger man.
“...I’ll go with you. To search for seeds.”
“Hm…?” Eunho’s neck snapped swiftly to face the older man, wondering if his ears had heard wrong. “Did you…?”
Bamby clicked his tongue, side-eyeing the silver haired man. “I said I’ll go search for the seeds with you. If we’re growing a farm, then I at least want to choose what stuff we’re going to grow.”
Eunho’s face brightened, a huge grin plastered onto his face. “Hyung!” Without any warning, he lunged at the older man and latched his arms around the man’s figure, trapping him in his hold.
Bamby grumbled in protest, yet made no move to escape from the man’s hold. “Don’t do too much.” Then, his expression changed as he remembered something. “Oh, also, did you get condoms? I saw them while searching for the cigarettes.”
The younger man’s flushed red before he hid his face in the crook of Bamby’s neck. “...We’re almost done with the current pack. Just wanted to stock up, just in case…”
Bamby snickered, switching his cigarette stick to his left hand, stroking the younger man’s silver hair with his other hand. “Wait with me here until I finish this. Let’s get rid of the remaining leftovers in the pack after this.”
“...There’s like, four left though…”
“...Okay, and?”
“...Let’s go find the seeds tomorrow afternoon, hyung!”
“You said you didn’t want to rush me? You told me we don’t have to go tomorrow.”
“Oh… well, if you’re still not ready yet, then you can just choose when we can go, hyung…”
“Hey, why do you sound so beat up? I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t think… I can sit on your motorcycle too comfortably if we go immediately tomorrow. Give me time to recover, alright?”
“Ah… sorry, hyung. I forgot… I’ll give you a massage tomorrow, then...”
“Hmn, you better.”
The two of them weren’t lovers, yet to call them just ‘friends’ wouldn’t be accurate, either. They were two men, left alone by the population of humans, isolated together in the empty world, their empty home. Perhaps it was only natural for them to seek the other person’s warmth, it is only human nature, searching for comfort in this cold and endless world, afterall.
Is putting a label to their relationship, their dynamic, the sparks blooming inside their chests, is it all really necessary?
Maybe, without a label, then their relationship would last forever, through the end of humanity, with no expiration date.