Chapter Text
The end of the world came in the form of an angry laceration on his arm and a notice stuck on the face of his door. The wound stretched just above the leather-bound watch on his wrist. It pulled at his every movement.
Yoo Joonghyuk first glared at the stinging on his forearm which magically materialized from his short walk from the store, then lifted his head and squinted his eyes to read the uniform lines of printed words on the official-looking piece of paper. He ignored how his skin raised in a boil from the sunlight’s burn.
Being the impatient man that he was, his eyes skimmed the message while his eyebrows twitched in annoyance at the too-frequent use of the words “under control.”
Frankly, he didn’t need the government or any political ass lurking around his doorstep, spreading warnings and bullshit, to see how the world was ending, cliché and bleak like a bad A24 movie.
It would take an idiot, or someone living under a literal rock, not to notice how the sun seemed to be expanding and taking up too much space for anyone to take so much as a breath.
As if there was no room here for a living planet, for breathing and dying things.
Yoo Joonghyuk honestly wasn’t fearless or brave in the face of it all. He just knew that no matter how violent or gentle the wind was as it carried the end to them, what would arrive would be the end, nonetheless.
In fact, he was expecting this. Yoo Joonghyuk had left the comfort of his home to prepare for the pending end of the world, after all. The weighty paper bags sagging with groceries in his hand, their rope handles cutting red bruises into skin, was evidence enough of that.
After wiping the running beads of sweat from his forehead with his good arm, Yoo Joonghyuk walked into his home and lugged the bags of supplies he had bought from the supermarket past his doorstep.
Having set the bags down on the creaky, wooden floors, he dropped to one knee and began untying his shoelaces. His knuckles brushed the deep scuffs on his leather boots as he made quick work of his laces, to then furrow his eyebrows and frown.
Many thoughts and doubts skipped around in his head as usual, getting tangled and intertwined messily with the wrinkles of his brain.
It all ended in a hot, pulsing headache as one thought pounded incessantly on the inside of his skull: If only I could die with a better pair of boots on, then maybe I’d go with less regrets.
Then, after a delighted squeal shot through his ears and musings, small arms wrapped around his neck and held him tight. “Oppa! What took you so long?”
Small fingers tugged at the hairs of his nape as his sister failed to accommodate to his height. Yoo Joonghyuk readily relinquished his laces and returned her hug whilst kicking himself internally. He tightened his hold to hopefully ebb his doubts. A consolation for them both, of sorts. Though, his cynicism only peaked to a tempest’s flow at her warmth.
He feared his greed was parasitical. It unfairly left a bitter taste in his own mouth as if he himself were at fault for bleeding himself dry. As unfair as a hungry by-product of his own person chewing at his insides, threatening to claw its way out, could get. Like always, Yoo Joonghyuk worked his mind to believe he lacked little so as to want none. Sister by his side. Enough to feed two. Clothes on Mia’s back. Roof over their heads.
He discretely rolled out the long sleeves of his shirt to conceal his worsening wound behind her back. Pulling away, he patted her head, covered in hair which so closely resembled his. She shook his hand off and attempted a glare, though, she only achieved a teary-eyed sulk in his direction. Realizing her effect, or rather, lack thereof, she turned away to fiddle grouchily with his black watch strap.
“I guess I should’ve come home earlier and left the slice of chocolate cake at the store then.”
Yoo Mia’s face brightened instantly at the mention. She released him and rushed to rummage in the bags until she found what she was looking for. Toward the kitchen, her giggles faded with her quick stomps. However, before completely disappearing from her brother’s sight, her face twisted in confusion, and she poked her head back into the hallway. “Who are you and what did you do to my brother?”
Yoo Joonghyuk chuckled, which, coming from him, was closer to a heavy exhale through his nose. Mia’s growing inclination to bluntness and sarcasm as she got older never failed to amuse him.
“I just mean,” His sister shuffled in place before continuing, “you hate buying sweets like this. Unless… Is something wrong? Is this the last cake slice I will ever see in my life again?”
“I was in a good mood.”
At this point, Mia had abandoned what Yoo Joonghyuk saw as ‘death by diabetes.’ The container sweat with alarming speed.
“I’m sorry, oppa. But if you brought me treats every time you were in a good mood, I’d never have chocolate.” She deadpanned. Still, sadness flickered in her eyes. The condensation dripped from the surface of the plastic packaging and pooled onto the kitchen counter. “If this is about school, you know nothing is your fault, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Oppa really worries about everything. Me. The house. Your job. Maybe even the sun exploding!” Mia worried her lip and looked away, “Which it looks like it’s about to…”
Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to respond but his train of thought following the conversation hit a roadblock.
What was he worried about this time? He didn’t know what to settle on. Maybe it was his worn combat boots, or guilt about the wrong things, or how this house was becoming more of a prison than a home.
“You shouldn’t worry too much about your brother. You’ll get wrinkles early.”
“No, I won’t.” She sounded incredulous but a hand that strayed to lightly trace the space by the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “It’s just… maybe if you knew more people… no, got closer to other people, then you’d be happier.”
“Mia-ya, just know that you’re enough for me.”
“No, I’m not. Just like you aren’t all there is for me. Like how,” Her eyebrow twitched like his did when dealing with any emotion – including a tight squeezing between his fourth and fifth rib, “my own friends are more for me.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes widened. He never expected her to ever mention the friends she hadn’t heard from in months. Much less, in present tense.
Somewhere along the way of the world going to shit, the blasts of radiation from the sun overloaded satellite systems, and short circuited them into dead, metal stars in the Earth’s orbit. The internet shut down and there was almost no way of international, or even local, communication. Goodbye, World Wide Web. Hello, Dark Ages.
There was no way to reach them. She didn’t even know for certain if they were alive.
If he could, he would swim seas to wherever they were to assure his sister – or to soften the loss, to ensure she never has to know what hope is and the gravity of it. Though, surprisingly, they didn’t know each other’s addresses. With how close they were, Yoo Joonghyuk still couldn’t make sense of that.
“Okay, promise me that as soon as the sun cools down, you’re joining a club. Something with people.” She tapped her chin in thought. Once. Twice. “Oh! How about… group gardening?”
She waved a pinkie finger in his face, easily diffusing the thickening atmosphere.
“No.”
Assuming his sister would put up more of a fight, he crossed his arms to avoid her eager onslaught. Her single response was, surprisingly, an accepting shrug. Then in typical sibling fashion, Mia settled on raising her other arm, stuck out a second pinkie finger in ridiculous triumph, and interlocked two of her own.
“Yoo Mia…”
“No takesies-backsies!”
Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head fondly, puppeteering his crossed arms in a way that the fabric of his sleeve wouldn’t rub against his wound.
He watched her finally disappear completely into the kitchen – most likely to grab a fork and then vanish into her room to do God-knows-what kids do in their free time during a Wi-Fi-less apocalypse.
Yoo Joonghyuk took a minute to push down the bile in his throat. All, as a result, from Mia’s overbearing optimism that congealed into a haze of delusion and pipe dreams that curdled the acid in his stomach. Its mist, and how he saw nothing beyond it, almost compelled him to think the same. Almost. Compulsion simply wasn’t enough.
The shame from these existing feelings nauseated him further.
Nevertheless, Yoo Joonghyuk shut his eyes and leaned his head against the cooler wood, chasing a break from the stickiness of heat drowning him. It was as easy as attempting to surface above the waves of their galaxy’s exploding star.
He refused to make promises to his sister to end up breaking them. Not like the government deceived the public, not like his parents lied to him. Entirely stony-faced and predatory, standing on an elaborate web of their deceit that clung to him.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth; his mind retreating to better times. The scent of red spider lilies filled his nose and incensed him.
From behind his eyelids, he could see her hand planted firmly in his, softer and smaller, as they walked on the path to her school lined with the blossoms like an insistent rash. Mia fell in love with them, and in turn, with their walks, but he only saw the dead man’s flower. Looking back, maybe it was a sign peeking from behind the stalks, desperate to communicate something.
The scent was heady and the sight of them only made his skin itch, like they were the blood coursing past his muscles, and the bleeding petals were a trail he’d left behind there himself. Whether it was unintentional or painfully deliberate, he wasn’t sure which was worse.
But Yoo Joonghyuk focused on Mia’s words as she prattled about her two friends. He had never met them but liked to think he knew them closely enough from her long rants on their antics. His sister would grin. Say how one of them ‘smelled like wet dirt’ and the other ‘had hair like honey.’
The fabric of his shirt-sleeve began to chafe his wound painfully.
On an exhale, Yoo Joonghyuk decided that his shoes and grocery bags were the least of his problems. He opened his eyes and made his way into the cramped, musty storage room, pushing off the wall. The room remained in a shadowy part of the house like an afterthought.
He didn’t care to bother, once gauze and safety pins littered the floor from the first aid kit, to follow all the steps for treating a second-degree burn. Or what he assumed was a second-degree burn.
Yoo Joonghyuk only sat back on the soles of his feet and crudely wrapped the non-stick gauze around his forearm.
Using his teeth to tighten the wrapping and secure it, Yoo Joonghyuk lifted his eyes to see bullet casings necklaced with dust hidden beneath the bottom-most shelf past a dark curtain of his hair.
Along with them, stuffed behind boxes, was his father’s shotgun, maw open and seemingly aiming for the space between his eyes.
-
No controlled temperatures or flowers dripping blood existed here, only dimness and a solitary kitchen light.
Yoo Joonghyuk vaguely registered that the kitchen he stood in was one of his house. Though, the room still felt foreign under his feet, in the way that a dark shroud draping this dream served as a suffocating cage, more than it did, a comfort.
“Do you even try?”
The voice crackled like radio feedback.
Mia looked up at him bitterly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the vicious clenching of her fists would have been more alarming if her hands were violent to begin with. Tears slid down her face unnaturally. They fell soundlessly, rapid the way an ocean moves, in large drops made of a greater weight than just water.
His mouth worked before his mind did, word vomit disguised as sound advice and explanation gushing from between his teeth. Something very unlike him. All the same, everything in this liminal space either coagulated or overflowed in spills.
Weirdly, he saw, outside the small window, students filing uniformly out of gates on a conveyer belt and retreating permanently into homes as he spoke. The school dean, formerly encased in gel, hairspray, pant-suits, and respect, distinguished no longer with little left in her name. He didn’t remember her before. He remembered her now.
Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to laugh at the sight of the woman clutching at multiple pairs of navy and beige capris, haunting the corner of his kitchen. A sallow pallor swathed her skin, her cheeks gaunt. His chest stayed empty and still.
Sentences with too many ‘sorry’s and ‘couldn’t be helped’s eventually caught in his throat. Coagulation. They meant nothing and he knew it well enough to pull away. They wouldn’t quell Mia’s tears or bring back her normalcy. At least, not in the same shape it had left in.
Then, even though Yoo Joonghyuk was sure home for her was in this house, he glimpsed his little sister sitting on the same conveyer belt that made children disappear and never come back. In the opposite direction, it carried her further and further away from his arms.
Yoo Joonghyuk awoke quietly. The night was as silent as him: for a moment, he thought he could hear the remnants of daytime’s heat sizzling dew on warm pavement.
Over time, he had grown accustomed to having nightmares. He assumes his body, at some point, had decided exerting energy on gasping and sweating from each one was too much of a waste. Though, his heart still pounded, and his hands gripped his sheets, vice-like.
Do you even try?
Yoo Joonghyuk grasped at his bandages in a need to hold something. He turned on his side. Then turned again. That night, he slept fitfully.
-
Yoo Joonghyuk opened his door with his gaze straight ahead. He squinted his eyes as they adjusted to the intense outside light. Little was out of place anywhere near his doorstep. The afternoon was as ordinary as the early days of an apocalypse could get: mirages dripped heavily down the pale horizon until it blurred and, a few paces ahead, the road was emptier than usual. Nothing but tumbleweeds for miles, save for a familiar grey Nissan Infiniti parked on his front yard.
Yoo Joonghyuk felt a tick in his temple.
“Excuse me?”
The voice that came from nowhere was unexpected as it was cavalier. Yoo Joonghyuk stared down in question at his neighbour. They might live next to each other, but what was between them couldn’t be described as “neighbourly.” It, at least, didn’t warrant friendly check-ins and sit-downs over coffee.
But surprisingly, Han Myungoh’s tone didn’t match his expression. Or behaviour. Or apparel. His salt and pepper hair stuck up in odd bends and angles as if he had mussed the strands with feverish, anxious hands. Yoo Joonghyuk would have sooner believed he was Sweeney Todd’s spawn. His clothes were creased as if picked and thrown on in a hurry with the buttons of his shirt looped through the wrong holes and his collar staunch but crooked. Even his glasses slipped unceremoniously down his noise, every now and again: from skittishness or the fitting of them alone, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t say.
Most importantly, Han Myungoh looked lost for words.
Yoo Joonghyuk had spoken with his neighbour once, their first and, unfortunately, not their last encounter, though never from this close. It was brief, but long enough for him to gauge that Han Myungoh was a man not easily tongue-tied.
I’m assuming you don’t have a girlfriend, but I have heard that women are more attracted to personality these days. Yoo Joonghyuk clenched his fists at the memory, bypassing discretion.
It was also made up of one-sided barbs and, after each one, a visceral need to harm – the former on his neighbour’s side, of course. The interaction happened during his early moving stages, over the old telephone, between him and a near-stranger. So, if Yoo Joonghyuk had learned one thing from the call, it was that Han Myungoh wore his image like a second skin.
I’m a trustworthy person, Joonghyuk-ssi. You see, I used to be like you, so I know your type well. A big fish in a small pond. I can show you an ocean, Joonghyuk-ssi.
He had envisioned the sleaze running a tongue over greedy lips from his end of the receiver.
I know a lot of influential women. Oh! Or men if you really insist. So, if you’re interested and things suddenly seem so much clearer in your life, just know I’m a call–
Yoo Joonghyuk had hung up the phone so fast his arm blurred.
Perturbed by the call, he eventually figured out that Han Myungoh must have kept the contact details of the aged thing that had remained. Maybe from before Yoo Joonghyuk had even gained complete ownership of his parents’ house. A day later, the telephone was beneath plastic wrapping and bottles in the garbage, and a new landline took its place by the olive-curtained window.
Nonetheless, men like Han Myungoh kept up appearances like a religion, coveting pride fiercer than scripture. Glib and silver-tongued: his words dripped mercury, venomous or useful depending on his target. Something must really be awry if he was dishevelled and reaching out. All at once, too.
Yoo Joonghyuk started closing his door in his neighbour’s face.
“Hold on!” A foot blocked his short-lived endeavour and Han Myungoh winced, keeping a mix of curses down his throat. Slightly acquiesced from the sound of his pain, Yoo Joonghyuk left the door ajar in silent assent. Han Myungoh snapped up the opportunity. “I need a favour.”
-
“So why did you beg me for a favour,” Yoo Joonghyuk turned to face his severely sunburnt neighbour, “and how bad is your situation to make you sit outside my house for three hours in some sorry one-man strike?”
Han Myungoh eyed the single cup of tea in Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand that he had brewed for himself only. His face screamed disappointment from his disregard for his guest, as unwelcome as that guest was.
“What I said is more of a warning than… that.”
Straight after Han Myungoh asked his neighbour for help, Yoo Joonghyuk shut the remaining gap of his doorway. Before, his eyes had seemingly glazed over in impatience and disinterest. His focus on the scruffy man on his doorstep mirrored the way the view blurred in the distance. That was all Han Myungoh became under his gaze. A mirage. Untimely mist. The scruffy man on his doorstep.
Naturally, he took a seat on the porch to save his pride. Naturally, his skin pealed and reddened under the sun until Yoo Joonghyuk finally let him in. Yoo Joonghyuk was hardly begrudging about it; even if, a rock could have shown more emotion than him. You’re scaring my sister was about the warmest invitation he could have given.
Yoo Joonghyuk drank his tea and leaned against the kitchen countertop. His neighbour seemed impossibly smaller from where he sat at his cheap, foldable table as his fingers trembled lightly. Han Myungoh’s gaze darted intermittently to the window and away from it. “About this warning. What will I owe you for it?”
Han Myungoh chuckled but didn’t sound at all amused. “Honestly? I don’t want anything from you, or anyone else these days.” He spread his fingers out on his table like fans. “This isn’t a trade-off. I’ve been greedy all my life and have failed the people closest to me all my life, partly from that and my ignorance. It’s too late but let me have this, will you? Think of my warnings as… an act of kindness or at least let me see it that way for now.”
“We’re not close though. We’re barely acquainted.”
“The Good Samaritan and the wounded man weren’t close either.”
His voice grated like it came from old vocal cords of a corpse as he continued, “How does that sound? Becoming the first person on that roster.”
It was strange for Yoo Joonghyuk to listen to his neighbour sound so human. As if he wasn’t actively trying to sell Yoo Joonghyuk his own shoes or talk a rock into producing milk. He thought about his neighbour’s daughter too, envisioned a larger list. “I’m no Good Samaritan.” He placed his mug aside and rubbed his palms against his thighs. “Make it quick.”
Han Myungoh straightened and spoke of both impossible things and things experienced by Yoo Joonghyuk firsthand. Of course, he spoke of the sun first. Then the Internet’s collapse and the lockdown on most communications. Advised him not to leave the house, and, if he really needed to, to only do so at night.
“This might be the last time I leave the house.” Han Myungoh said, rubbing his sunburnt cheek. “Same goes for you.”
“I won’t miss it.”
“So, you say…”
Han Myungoh hesitated before taking on an earnest look. “Yoo Joonghyuk. We– you could have bigger problems than just the heat. This is going to be hard to believe, but it’s said that there are people, or things that look like people, coming up from underground. Everyone’s calling them “Visitors.” God knows why they’re called that, but one thing is for sure. They’re dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
His eyes wandered to the window again. “Well, they break into people’s houses and those people are not seen again. Not even a body left to bury. Like they were both ghosts to start.”
“The “thing” doesn’t stay?”
“I should stick to the ghost analogy, shouldn’t I? Makes me sound like I know what the fuck I’m talking about.” Han Myungoh trembled less now. “It pretty much haunts the house like a volatile, territorial stink. It’s best not to remain alone in the house for the time being. And never give that fact away if someone asks you, and you are.”
Yoo Joonghyuk shifted minutely in the doorway’s direction. Han Myungoh caught it and said, “I don’t think kids count… or will you rely on a kid for safety?”
The disgust on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was withering. But also, the most expressive he had been the entire evening. Han Myungoh still recoiled beneath it. He cleared his throat, essentially putting himself on mute to allow Yoo Joonghyuk to divert or continue the topic as he pleased.
“You’re confident about your information. Who is your source and how much can they be trusted?”
“He keeps his promises.”
Yoo Joonghyuk scowled, wondering why he still considered kindness at all. “That’s an answer to neither of my questions.”
“Then answer one of mine.” Han Myungoh fished a cigarette pack from his pocket. “Mind if I smoke?”
Yoo Joonghyuk wondered what was in his expression that compelled him to drop the cigarette box onto the table faster than he would hot coals.
“My greed really has got me nowhere.” Han Myungoh finally stood. His neck ached less by a fraction, no longer having to look up at a rude, standing Yoo Joonghyuk from his seat at the table. Though, only by a fraction. Yoo Joonghyuk still towered over him. “To think I’ve ended up looking for redemption in someone like you.”
“As much as you talked, your information was barely new or useful. If you really want redemption, tell me where it came from.”
Han Myungoh picked up the cigarette box and weighed it in his hand like he weighed his options. His frown made it look like he didn’t like what he felt in that same palm. Or his corresponding thoughts. “Seriously. He is someone who would kill me if he knew I was here. Let alone mention the man himself.”
“So not even potential death can change a coward like you.”
“Ha. At least, you’re a decent judge of character.”
He then, he stood beyond the boundary of the kitchen doorway.
On his way out, his only goodbye was tossing Yoo Joonghyuk a pair of car keys – the keys to his car parked outside. He didn’t wait to take no for an answer. “You want “useful”? Here. Anyways, I have a feeling we’ll see each other soon.” He shrugged. “Call it a hunch.”
He started his journey home by foot and left Yoo Joonghyuk in unease and with a vintage Nissan Infiniti in his possession. His stomach was in knots. He nearly drowned in bile as the tea he drank earlier fought to make a reappearance. Why did Han Myungoh come to his house when there was next to nothing to gain from it? Hell, he gave away his only car. Why not use it to leave this rural wasteland?
“Oppa.” Light footsteps walked toward him from behind. Fingers tugged on his jacket sleeve. “That weird guy from outside that just left.” He watched Mia squeeze her cheeks together and shuddered. “Did you hit him? He was as red as a tomato just now!”
Yoo Joonghyuk chuckled. “Yeah. He’s gone home.”
“Okay. But did you hit him or not?”
Mia was relentless. But while blocking off the door from his sister, who decided to try and extract answers from the man himself, Yoo Joonghyuk realized that Han Myungoh never did come around to calling in that favour.