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‘’Are you sure about this? We’ve talked about it for months, Kyungsoo.’’ Jongin’s voice is soothing and professional. He does a flick of his wrist to look at the back of the pill case in his palm, its content rustling.
’’I’m well aware that your race is affected by rumors and stereotypes surrounding it and judged in a harsher degree, but...,’’ he throws a sharp look over the edge of his glasses, changing attitude.
Kyungsoo nods nonetheless, a slow rocking back and forth motion of his head.
Jongin has asked for the prescription of these pills for months on Kyungsoo’s request.
Finally, the vampire has gotten allowance due to enough persistence showing.
The problem with the pills is that they either have a bad backlash or a good outcome. It’s a fifty-
fifty case. You either win or lose.
Human – that’s what the pills will make the patient become. Not entirely, but they give the supernatural creature the resemblance of it. They’re made for undead creatures who’ve got problems with dull instincts and range of emotions solely.
They’ll trigger a heart and blood fusion and make the bones stronger. They’ll especially affect the neurological system and make undead creatures experience humane emotions and sensory.
Undead creatures, ranging from individual to individual, already have a certain scale of emotions among other factors.
However, they’re based on different values and functions, although the worldwide and dimensional community representing supernatural creatures have fabricated a general moral that everyone’s ought to follow. These are identical to human laws as can be. The branches of this moral can change from district to district and sometimes race to race, but they’re all ought to follow the same core.
‘’I… want… to try,’’ Kyungsoo’s voice is muffled through the pollution mask.
‘’You might risk experiencing the side effects only. They can make you very ill and heighten your disintegration progress or something far worse,’’ Jongin warns.
Kyungsoo twiddles his thumbs over his lap, eyes downcast. ‘’Please,’’ he whispers, coming out formed as a timid growl.
‘’You don’t need to change yourself,’’ Jongin continues, persistent.
‘’I want… I want… to try,’’ Kyungsoo bids another tiny noise.
The nurse sighs, defeated.
He plops the pill case onto the desk in front of Kyungsoo, switching its direction so that the zombie can read the front.
‘’Two pills each day. One when you wake up and one before you go to sleep.’’ ‘’I only sleep… every third day,’’ Kyungsoo says.
‘’7 AM every morning,’’ Jongin corrects, ‘’and 10 PM every evening.’’
Kyungsoo takes the pill case and turns it in his hand, inspecting it in silence for a minute.
‘’Thank… you,’’ the mask moves higher over his nose, a small smile proving itself present.
‘’If you dissolve faster, especially around your torso and face, and if your skin itches, don’t hesitate to contact me. You’ve got my number,’’ Jongin reminds him instead of answering, a dubious air around him.
‘’I will,’’ Kyungsoo raises his gaze and prompts eye contact despite the display of his white eye that he usually keeps hidden with fringes that’ve currently been brushed aside.
Jongin holds his face in an uptight way, the line on each cheek prominent from him sucking his teeth.
‘’Lunch is over in five minutes. You should go to your class,’’ he looks out of the window, absentmindedly toying with the ring on his finger.
‘’In a week’s time, come to the hospital establishment – aside from the usual meetings at lunch. I’ll have to go through some testing to see how the transition goes for every checkmark.’’
He turns his head Kyungsoo’s way, gaze steady. ‘’Remember that, in case it’s a success, it’ll come gradually seeing as you’ll go through chronological stages, but the full effect will occur from one day to another when your body has acknowledged the new magic as a co-existing form of energy.’’
Kyungsoo nods.
As he’s about to leave, he stops with his hand hovering over the door handle, a familiar routine.
‘’Jongin,’’ he faces the nurse.
Jongin twirls in his chair, in the middle of looking through files in one of the drawers.
‘’Yes, Kyungsoo?’’ back to the professionalism.
‘’Thank you… for caring.’’ Jongin doesn’t answer.
His gaze flounders from hard to soft as it’s prone to do when matters come to exactly this zombie boy.
Kyungsoo doesn’t visit the hospital establishment as much as he used to.
Throughout his first year at the college, his eating disorder has gotten better. It’s taken a generous amount of time, but actual therapy and care has caused him to learn to eat small bites in-between classes. Sometimes even in his room instead of in the bathroom when he’s sure his roommate is out. It’s still accompanied by the anxiety that convinces him that people are looking at him weird, no matter if they’ve seen him eat or not.
He used to eat at the nursery every day at lunch and, if he was really hungry and the dorm was occupied by others, outside in the park somewhere behind the bushes where a lone and likewise rotten bench stood.
Not being pestered by jitter has left his drowsy head with more peace than the usual, but the price for daring more means, exactly, visiting Jongin less.
Kyungsoo blinks his dreary eyes slowly and stares at the pill case in his hand with mixed feelings blending in his chest.
He’s eaten the pills accordingly and followed the schedule neatly for seven weeks now, but nothing extreme has happened yet.
Secretly, he’s not remarkably disappointed, because due to this treatment, he gets a new way to speak more with Jongin, do phone calls with him and get checkups in the weekend where Jongin actually isn’t supposed to work unless he takes weekend shifts.
During those times, they’re alone in his office with no one around to disturb them. It pleases Kyungsoo for reasons unknown, even if all they do is to go through some questions and tests.
However, few circumstances have changed.
One of the differences from when Kyungsoo started taking the pills to now is that he gets fatigued.
Sleeping every third day isn’t a possibility – he needs to sleep every second day, and as of recently almost four hours every night with the occasional side naps.
Secondarily, he’s losing his appetite for meat, which causes him confusion when he occasionally eyes his werewolf friend’s daily salad closely as if he’s tempted to get one too.
Much to his luck, his disintegration process hasn’t changed, meaning he hasn’t been hit by any dangerous risks yet.
Despite his eating disorder not taking as much space as it used to, his head starts feeling disarrayed at times – his thoughts are more complex, quicker and bound with triggers in his body that make him either feel up or down instead of mostly neutral, and more anxious the times he’s upset when he can’t make himself eat.
He’s never used his supernatural strength much before, but he notices by accident that this factor has been weakened as well.
That he can’t help the teacher lifting books, parchments or orbuculums that he could’ve easily carried from one place to another seven weeks ago; that he runs out of breath and has to straighten his spine and focus on his balance now.
And it might not be much at first, but it actually is.
Jongin summarizes it in a simple way: ‘’you’re becoming human.’’
It’s in the fourteenth week that it becomes visible to the naked eye.
Kyungsoo wakes up (he’s officially started needing to sleep at least six hours every day) and nearly stops breathing when his gaze strays over himself in the mirror.
His hair is no longer flat but has simple and slight volume, its color chestnut brown. His skin is less gray and looks living with minor blemishes. His white eye’s iris has become a dark brown, while the other looks the same except it’s got a shine and a depth, no longer merely coal black.
His fingers dart up to touch his cheek, and he freezes on the spot, shocked.
His skin is warm.
Nothing extravagant.
A light temperature, the buzz of what Kyungsoo has never been able to feel before.
Warmth.
He stands for several of silent minutes, running his fingers up and down his arms, prodding at his flat stomach, touching his nape where a sheen of sweat has gathered from the coziness of the room where his roommate, the mage Yixing, hasn’t awoken yet.
Kyungsoo’s staring fixatedly at his hands when it happens –
A droplet of transparent liquid splatters soundlessly onto the middle of his palm.
A second joins, then a third.
Small ones that create patterns on his skin.
He tastes salt on his tongue, looking up to see that his eyes have become red in the white of it, his irises a richer brown and that there are tears tracking down his cheeks.
His breath comes out short, and he stops entirely when his hand slides over the front of his shirt, up to the spot where his dead heart is supposed to be.
Thump, thump – Thump thump.
He skips his classes that day.
He hides in the bathroom until the others have left the dorm, and then lies on his bed and stares up at the ceiling while holding two fingers over his wrist to feel the pulse.
He rests until his stomach grumbles and he’s forced to go get something to eat.
For the first time ever since he came into existence, the taste of raw meat is entirely foul in his mouth.
He coughs it up and has to sit in front of the toilet for ten minutes because it feels like his stomach is about to wretch itself to pieces and pour out of his mouth.
He feels guilty about snatching Yixing’s magenta pixie yoghurt, but that’s all that looks somewhat friendly in the refrigerator. He quickly fetches his wallet and lays out the exchange plus some extra cash on Yixing’s bed to make up for it.
However, when he plops a spoon with a dollop of yoghurt into his mouth, he forgets all about it.
His shoulders turn tense and he savors the strange imaginary explosion on his tongue.
A taste of sweetness, of what’s called sugar –
Making him emit a groan that sounds far more human than the growl of a zombie, rendering himself speechless.
In the span of a transition from day to night, it feels like Kyungsoo’s life has been turned upside
down.
He’s continuously diligent in class, but he gets distracted far more easily.
Feels curious all the time about the noises around him, what people are talking about and what’s going on outside.
He can eat salad with Minseok and slushies of all flavors, even the troll booger or tundra peak flavored ones, with Chanyeol.
He can sit in the cafeteria, although with shaking hands and the scary foreign feeling of a heart that pumps fast of anxiety inside his chest, and order a cup of coffee or a crystal spider pretzel.
He doesn’t need to sanitize himself endlessly or feel worried about his breath, and therefore not wear the pollution mask.
The few friends he’s got are surprised as much as his teachers are. Faces he doesn’t know the names of scrunch in scrutiny when they meet him in the halls.
Back in time, he held himself in the background and was skillful in imitating the walls too.
He hasn’t changed his behavior much, yet the life in his eyes and his uncovered face are what give the impression that he has.
Nonetheless, there are downsides too.
Resembling a human and having a neurological system alike means that Kyungsoo acquires the responsibility to take care of himself, not that he already did before. He finds himself constantly hungry, this going hand in hand with being tired, although he’s not keen on eating much.
The methods are strange and his body has other demands.
Occasionally, he’ll still disintegrate, because he’ll remain a zombie till the possible end of his immortality, however that event will occur. The only thing keeping the resemblance of a corpse away from his body are the pills, making his body think it’s alive.
The truth is that a zombie is a human’s corpse that’s been overtaken by a lone spirit wandering in the third dimension, at least in modern time.
These spirits can vary and therefore the zombies have nuances too, although zombies have become tame over time compared to what they used to be – they’ve become humanoid; socially apt creatures that show a form of self-awareness and intelligence.
There’s been less war and zombies are no longer minions of magic wielders who forced demons from the fourth dimension into either dead or alive human bodies, controlled them and made them savages.
Kyungsoo is the modern definition of a zombie.
He used to be a spirit without any memory of its past, and travelled in the right place at the right time when a then nineteen-year old boy was run over by a bus in a small city in South Korea in the first dimension whose closest parallel is to the third and spiritual one.
Kyungsoo felt drawn to the space where his spirit could occupy itself. He merged with the body and was transported to the second dimension ruled by supernatural beings where he became a conscious being in an actual vessel. These vessels can only exist in either the first or the second dimensions that’re physical.
He’ll never become a real human no matter what he does though he can connect better with his body over time, but he won’t be able to power a new generation of zombies since zombies have no known origin and can’t reproduce.
They’re said to be the products of the collisions between the first dimension and either the third or fourth.
If a spirit, and likewise a demon, possesses an already living human being, they’ll be haunted by the government and condemned to be abolished or to suffer permanent isolation. So will the magic wielders be who courage this action.
Demons are, however, prohibited from possessing anything, not even a corpse, unless they’re developed enough to see past savage urges; unless they’ve become humanoids before getting a vessel.
Neither are supernatural creatures with a demonic origin allowed to turn humans to their own kin, though it hasn’t stopped those who’ve been able to diminish from sight or those who’ve got enough fervor in the attempt of raising an army and overthrowing the government – with a few successes in history so far, but not any in the past millennium.
And Kyungsoo, who can suddenly spend hours staring at the blue sky that he’s never noticed is that blue, is so taken with his new lack and boost of abilities that he forgets something, or someone, in the process.
‘’Kyungsoo, where have you been?’’ Jongin’s voice is clear over the line the moment Kyungsoo answers his phone.
It surprises Kyungsoo for three reasons.
The first being that he realizes he’s repressed he was ought to meet up with Jongin in the weekend before; that Kyungsoo hasn’t visited the hospital establishment for nearly two weeks (he hasn’t eaten at the nursery), nor has he contacted Jongin like he usually does with a call every third or fourth day, and Jongin has never been the type to call first.
Secondarily, Kyungsoo hasn’t had his phone on him during this time since he only uses it to talk to Jongin, so no one’s been able to get in contact with him unless it’s been face to face. He only caught it ringing half a minute ago because it’s quiet in the dorm and the barely audible vibration from his drawer distracted him.
Thirdly, Kyungsoo’s in the middle of going through his notes, but drops his pencil at the tremor running down his spine from hearing Jongin’s voice through the speaker, a voice that he recognizes instantly. The tremor is only there for a tiny second but with enough power to have him out of words at the peculiar jab, as if he’s really hearing Jongin for the first time, like there’s no brick wall separating them aside from the phone and actual distance.
‘’Kyungsoo?’’ Jongin repeats. His voice is nasal but husky in a very distinct way. Kyungsoo has always liked Jongin’s voice. This time it’s as if he can enjoy it in a new light.
‘’Yes- sorry, I was just going through my notes,’’ the zombie’s answer is hurried, no grunt, growl, drawl or stutter provided.
This is the first clue for Jongin to know that something has changed.
‘’You don’t slur,’’ he remarks, suspicious.
Kyungsoo ‘uhhhh’s, where he’d usually say nothing and have long breaks in-between answering.
‘’It’s the pills,’’ he replies.
‘’Have they done something to you? Are you bedridden? How’s the disintegration process? Any rash? How about lunch – do you get something to eat – do you get enough sleep? If things are going the right way, you need to know that the average human needs-’’ Kyungsoo is bombarded with a ton of questions.
He heaves to get some air and says, ‘’Jongin – I’m okay. I’m doing goo- great, actually. I’m doing really well.’’
‘’Your voice… you’ve transformed, haven’t you?’’ Jongin sounds strangely relieved.
‘’Is it a transformation?’’ Kyungsoo’s never heard of this wording before.
Jongin becomes bitter.
‘’Not directly,’’ he says. ‘’We call it a transformation because if it’s done right, zombies will look and work like they’ve never been a corpse in the first place, even if they still are, in fact, a corpse harboring a spirit.’’
‘’Yeah?’’ Kyungsoo’s curiosity is piqued.
Jongin elaborates – ‘’What’s happened is that your body has become synthetically human-like alive, though it’s still run by magic, of course, albeit the source of this magic is supplied by the pills,’’ he explains, ‘’and is therefore not permanent, unless you keep a check on the treatment.’’
‘’Not every zombie can accommodate to this magic well, which is why they turn ill. The rotting process will heighten as a side effect since the core holding the true magic that runs their being will get weakened by the additional magic that’s meant to co-exist with the core,’’ he adds. ‘’The pill method is still a brand new discovery and it’s only recently been accepted by the medics.’’
Kyungsoo’s never wondered what would happen if the treatment went wrong. So he asks, and understands Jongin’s attitude when he hears the answer –
‘’Worst case scenario is that the core of the fusion would reject your spirit, seeing as it’d be unable to let you occupy it. Simply said, this means your spirit would be catapulted out of the human corpse, where there’s a risk you’d lose your memories and become an unconscious being again if you’re not given a new body soon enough. The corpse would wither in seconds because there’s no longer any magic keeping it intact, and it’s been in the rotting state for likely many years, so true time would catch up on it.’’
‘’You never told me this,’’ Kyungsoo holds a hand over his chest, a habit he’s recently gained, feeling like a dollop of ice has been dropped in his stomach.
‘’You knew that there was a possibility that you could die. You signed the contract too where all of this stood on the papers.’’
‘’I don’t remember…’’Kyungsoo’s been so careless, so insistent on the change that he hasn’t seen the possible consequences.
‘’I’m aware I only told you the basic knowledge I had of the pills. I didn’t think further than that.
I’m sorry,’’ Jongin amends the begrudging edge, sincerity seeping through.
‘’I was frustrated with you but I knew I was your nurse and I had to listen to your demands outside... my emotions, so I let you do it.’’ There’s a pause.
A deep, shaken breath is inhaled;
‘’I was worried,’’ Jongin whispers. ‘’You didn’t come for lunch any of the days and you didn’t come for the checkup. I tried to call you several times, but you never answered. Where were you?’’
‘’I don’t know,’’ Kyungsoo says, and it’s the truth. Time has passed in the blink of an eye now that he’s got so much to do, so much to feel, touch, taste, smell and see.
He blinks when he sees those droplets land before him again, wetting his notepad.
Tears that slide down his cheeks, a sniffle accompanying them and gargled words.
As much as the pill treatment has caused him joy, it also comes with this hyper-active scale of emotions.
He experiences a sticky and heavy lump in his throat, weighing him down. He’s had remnants of it before, all linked towards Jongin for some reason.
Jongin, who can both make him feel light like a feather and heavy as a boulder, whether Kyungsoo’s been his zombie self or on the pills.
This is not amplified in the core, but in the outward radiance in manners Kyungsoo doesn’t know how to deal with, because they force him to act on what he’s felt all along but kept low or felt as a restrained continuous vibe.
‘’I woke up one day and I looked human. I forgot everything. It’s like… everything was pow, and – and woosh and bam,’’ he tries to phrase it the best he can, settling with sound effects because his otherwise extensive vocabulary lacks all of sudden, ‘’colors- and, and slushies… and the skyJongin, the sky is so blue.’’
He sits clumsily and tries to look around for anything to dry his eyes and nose with. Earlier, he’d let it stay because he had the idea it’d go away by itself without leaving stains.
His reflexes are still somewhat slow, and not everything’s going to change since a lot of his mannerism will be pulled by how he’s lived since he came to.
He can almost hear Jongin nod along.
‘’Do you get enough to eat?’’ Jongin settles to asks softly nonetheless, sensing the mood.
Kyungsoo means to say yes, but he doesn’t know what’s healthy for a human.
Everything has changed, and at the same time, nothing has.
He can eat things in public, but he still finds himself on the rotten bench in the park or by himself in his room to eat thin yoghurt, constantly nagged by the hunger tugging in his bones because a human requires nutrients much more than a zombie, and Kyungsoo isn’t used to eating much and he doesn’t feel comfortable with it.
The habits of cleaning himself persistently haven’t disappeared either. His skin turns pink and starts hurting when he scrubs himself too hard in the shower or prickles when he puts on too much cologne. Feeling pain is a factor he can’t get used to.
‘’I don’t know,’’ he says. ‘’I’m… overwhelmed by the change, but I’m also. I’m also…’’ ‘’Kyungsoo. You’re still you,’’ Jongin says, firmly.
‘’Becoming a synthetic human isn’t going to change that. If anything, what I can imagine has happened to you has been the first stage of wonder, then a boost of confidence, but then reality will eventually crash when you realize that by becoming less a zombie and shedding its pros and cons, you’ll meet new ups and downs with the system of a human.’’
''Some things have changed. Some haven't; meaning your spirit and mind, your Do Kyungsoo, or as humans like to call it, soul: you’re everything you’re supposed to be. What’s changed hasn’t been your worth. Psychologically, it might be your level of confidence to shine on your own. And of course, biologically, the boosted nature of your neurological system in some aspects.''
‘’I’ve been there too, but… not in the same way.’’
‘’What’s going to help me then?’’ Kyungsoo sniffs.
He rips off a blank paper from his notepad and pads his eyes with it, though it’s too hard to do it properly. He feels exhausted, and his stomach is growling at him again.
Being a human is exciting, but apparently also tiring for both his head and body. Perhaps spirit too.
‘’Therapy. And acknowledging yourself and what you deal with. Nothing is easy; it takes time, but you’ll be fine. I know you will. Come to the hospital establishment tomorrow, then I’ll go through the tests with you, all right? We’ll do things my way – at your pace.’’
Kyungsoo settles with drying his eyes with the back of his arm, his nose snotty and face swollen.
It’s starting to get annoying. He’s never been this sensitive.
Regardless, an all-consuming warmth spreads in his chest, from limb to limb.
He feels alive.
‘’Okay,’’ he whispers. ‘’I’ll be there.’’ ‘’Good,’’ Jongin acknowledges.
‘’Get some rest. You need it.’’
‘’Jongin…’’ Kyungsoo says out of line.
‘’Yes?’’
‘’Thank you.’’
‘’For what?’’
‘’For being here.’’
Jongin’s answer is delayed.
‘’I’ll see you tomorrow, Kyungsoo,’’ his voice is soft around the edges.
There’s a small laugh, then a sigh, albeit fond. ‘’8 AM in my office.’’