Chapter Text
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Yeji pulled back her headset and eyed the broken glass bottles some meters ahead of her.
“Maybe you should just stick to swords.” She made a disgruntled noise as Lia snuck up behind her, but allowed the other girl to shift her body around to guide her. “But you are better than Yuna.”
Yeji scoffed at that. “Definitely not the compliment you think it is. She literally just joined the task force last week.” In a new position, she cocked the gun and took the shot. The rest of the bottles flew with none standing at the end of her firing.
“Huh. Would you look at that?” Lia sent Yeji a lopsided smile, impressed at what she just witnessed.
“You’re acting like I don’t know how to shoot a gun.” Yeji shook her head exasperatedly. “Never mind that. I told you not to bother me unless it was important.”
The smile on Lia’s face faded, warping into a look of… nervousness?
~
The metal door to the Pluto building burst open, Yeji making her way inside with Lia in tow, and by the looks of it, Yeji was not happy. But when was she ever?
Lia quickly shot Ryujin an apologetic look, who only looked back at her with confusion, eyes darting between Lia and Yeji who was barreling towards her.
Chaeryoung appeared in front of Ryujin the exact moment Yeji reached her. “Now, what did we say about communicating our feelings?” She hesitantly took a hold of Yeji’s shoulders, nodding slowly and hoping she was getting through to her. “With our words.”
Yeji let out a huff and closed her eyes, clearly trying her absolute best not to blow the roof off of their base building. She almost has before. “Good, good!” Chaeryoung coaxed encouragingly.
Lia slid past the two and patted Ryujin’s shoulder. “I told her you took the last cup ramen. Sorry.” She managed to escape into the armory before Ryujin could grab her. Lia locked the doors and heaved a sigh of relief.
“We’re you stirring shit up again?”
She jumped at the voice. “Holy crap. Didn’t notice you were in here, Yuna.” The older girl shrugged. “Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t.” She grinned mischievously.
“You think they would have noticed by now.” Yuna set down the folder in her hands onto Lia’s desk. She stared up at the older girl, curiosity gleaming in her eyes. “You’ve been at it for years. What makes you think it’ll happen?”
Lia thought back to their earlier years as a team, when she first joined the task force, when they found Yuna on one of their missions and took her in, the first time she met Chaeryoung and Ryujin and mistaking them for a couple. She wasn’t far off, they were exes before the outbreak. But as far as the others know, those two have made amends and are the best of friends.
Coming here with Yeji was a miracle she had prayed and prayed for since the day their dorm building was ravaged by zombies. It was their first semester of college, paired to live together briefly before the world went up in flames.
The Yeji she knew then versus the Yeji she knows now, two complete opposites. Lia wonders at what point was it that Yeji managed to switch off something within her, something that brought out emotion besides anger or displeasure.
Lia has always assumed it was just some facade of Yeji’s anyway. And judging by the little glimpses she’s witnessed here and there of the other girl, a hint of a smile, or a shy chuckle, she knows that to be true.
Not to mention that brief, but very odd and out of character fling Yeji once had.
She took a seat in her chair and swiveled around dramatically. “Let me tell you something, Yuna.” The younger girl was all ears. “There are unexplainable forces amongst us, ones who push us towards the people we need to be with. Belong with. Whether it be for a short time, or a life time—“
“God, this is so cheesy.” Yuna couldn’t help but mutter to herself. She grinned evilly after seeing the hurt look on Lia’s face. “Is this your roundabout way of saying you think they belong together? Like soulmates?”
Lia dramatically spun in her chair again. “I don’t think so. I know so.”
~
“Chae.” Ryujin rolled her eyes at the pout the other girl was giving her. “Don’t start.”
“I’m very disappointed in you! You know not to mess with Yeji’s food.”
Ryujin threw her hands up theatrically. “What else was I supposed to do, starve?” Chaeryoung shook her head.
They were coincidentally making their way over to the cafeteria for an early dinner, the others opting to stay back. Chaeryoung managed to diffuse the situation with Yeji before it could get ugly. What would they do without her?
A curious thought crossed Chaeryoung’s mind. “You two have been getting quite close recently.”
“If by close, you mean, she wants to murder me every other day. Then, yeah.” Ryujin scoffed out. “I have no idea how to read her.” She mused to herself.
Pushing open the entry doors, Chaeryoung pretends like she didn’t hear the last words Ryujin uttered.
It started out as a tease, but Chaeryoung could quickly tell the shift in Ryujin’s demeanor when she brought the topic up. She kept her questions to herself and shifted the conversation to something else.
“How have Hyunjin and the others been? I know you spoke to them once they arrived back home.”
The two grab some trays and start plopping food onto their plates. Chaeryoung chooses oatmeal with apple slices while Ryujin goes for the burger and fries.
“As fine as can be, you know. After everything.” Chaeryoung solemnly nods her head, knowing all too well what those girls have been through. “They said they’ll visit from time to time.”
“Maybe we should visit them out there! While we do our bi-yearly rounds to check on what’s been happening outside the camp.”
Ryujin agrees before gleefully taking a bite out of her burger. It had been a while since the last time things were shaken up. Almost like the zombies died off, but they were too cautious to leave the base, and not naive enough to believe they were truly gone.
~
Peering through a telescope, Chaeryoung slowly scanned the terrain outside of the camp. Lia added night vision filters a while back to help enhance visuals they couldn’t really see in the dark.
“Do you ever get tired of staying here?” She mumbled to no one in particular, but Yeji was a few steps away, peering through a telescope of her own. Chaeryoung acted and spoke freely around Yeji, despite the other girl’s lack of responses.
“We’re safer in here than out there.”
Chaeryoung really couldn’t read the room. “Hyunjin and her friends managed to make it work.” Yeji stiffened. Chaeryoung belatedly realized her slip. “Whatever. You’re right.”
The rest of their time up there was quiet and Chaeryoung was left to her own thoughts.
It was nearing the fourth year since the outbreak. In comparison to others, for her, not much had changed Chaeryoung. She was still the same girl she was before. Sometimes she would lay awake at night unsettled by that very fact.
Something so drastic had happened to the world, yet she couldn’t feel it within her to kill the hope and optimism that coursed through her. Lia would always joke that Chaeryoung was their light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.
Cheesy, she mused to herself. She was just a normal girl.
“Chae.” She hummed absentmindedly at Yeji’s sudden call, still stuck in her head. “What do you see over there? By the mountains?”
She snapped back into reality and brought the telescope up to her eyes. She could only make out a vague and odd shaped body by the foot of the mountains that surrounded their camp.
“Could that be a human?” Yeji shook her head. Chaeryoung didn’t believe it to be either. “A zombie?”
A silence fell over the two.
Not a zombie.
Yeji’s walkie talkie crackled to life. “Yuna, are you in the office? We need information on a suspicious looking figure.”
“What do you see? I’ll try to dig into my folders to see if we have anything to match the description.”
Chaeryoung pulled out a small notepad and a pen and started sketching from memory as Yeji listed the descriptive factors to Yuna.
“Long limbs, hunched back… it looks kind of.. furry?”
Chaeryoung stared down at her drawing, exclaiming, “Oh my god, it’s Bigfoot!” Yeji scoffed, glancing over just to send her a look that told her to be serious.
“Actually…” Yuna’s voice sounded over the speaker. “You’re right, Chae. It is Bigfoot!” Yeji and Chaeryoung exchanged incredulous looks. “Sort of.”
They waited for the younger girl to elaborate. “People used to report sightings of a strange and beastly figure that used to roam these mountains, but that was before everything. Why would it emerge now?”
Chaeryoung peeped through her telescope once more, examining the way it lazily swung its arms and walked around in a heavy manner. “I have a wild guess.”
“It’s been infected.”
~
“Are you being serious? We’ve got to deal with a zombiefied Bigfoot?!”
“At least it gives us something to do. It’s been way too boring around here lately.” Ryujin shrugged indifferently while Lia gaped incredulously at the mere idea of it all. “Count me in.”
Lia held her hands up. “And count me out. I’ll be in the armory if anyone needs me.” She stepped away and beckoned Yuna to follow her, which the younger girl did. Those two have been working on something huge for the past month or so.
Chaeryoung’s eyes darted between Ryujin and Yeji, feeling a sense of awkwardness looming over their heads. She couldn’t let it settle. She swung her arms around their shoulders. “I guess its a mission for the three of us!”
Ryujin grumbled petulantly, but at least Yeji stayed quiet. They headed over to the office to map out a plan when Chaeryoung’s walkie talkie beeped. She was needed elsewhere. She shot the two of them an apologetic look and dashed out of the Pluto building.
Then there was two.
“We don’t have to do anything until Chae gets back.” Ryujin offers, only because Yeji hasn’t made a move to open the office door. “Let’s just chill.”
This caught Yeji’s attention. “Chill?”
“Yes, chill.”
“Are you telling me to be chill or asking me if I wanted to chill? Because I’m saying no to both.”
Ryujin threw her hands up, like there was no point in extending an olive branch to Yeji. The girl was incredibly stubborn. “Whatever! In the meantime, I’ll be on the rooftop. Let me know when Chae gets back.”
Yeji didn’t even look up from examining her nails. “Not guaranteed.” Ryujin rolled her eyes this time, but said nothing else as she walked off towards the staircase. Absolutely no point in trying to be nice.
Ryujin doesn’t know why or how it started, this underlying tension with Yeji, but it wasn’t good. She hated it actually. She stomped up the stairs and pushed open the heavy metal door that led to the roof.
This was her go-to place whenever things felt a little too real. She was starting to come here more often lately, no thanks to Yeji.
She rested against the edge and sighed, head in her hands. Ryujin lied. She knows exactly how it all started.
Getting stranded in an abandoned Bed Bath and Beyond wasn’t on their to do list nor their bucket list, yet here Ryujin was, all alone with Yeji. Stuck for however long until it was safe to make an escape.
It was just another routine mission, but it had gone awry the moment the team split up. Chaeryoung and Lia took Yuna towards the lake to lead the zombies astray, which worked until another flood of zombies surrounded the massive department building, caging Yeji and Ryujin in.
So here the two were, lounging on a queen size bed, side by side, in total silence (minus the faint groans of zombies outside).
The pair got along fairly well, considering they talk the least to each other within the team. It never became a problem, but Ryujin had this itch to get closer to the other girl. This was her opportunity.
“Yeji.” The girl in question cocked her head to let Ryujin know she had her attention. “Truth or dare?”
“What are we, fourteen? How about we hash a plan to get out of here by sunrise.”
“Truth or dare!”
“Fine. Truth.”
Ryujin combed through the endless questions floating around her head and picked one she’s been (lowkey) dying to ask. “Did you ever have a crush on Lia?”
Yeji spluttered, absolutely horrified by the mere idea. “Why the hell would you ask something like that?!”
“Damn. No need to be so defensive! It was just a question, no judgement.” Ryujin held her hands up in surrender. Yeji looked ready to strangle her. “I’ll admit… I had a crush on her in the beginning.”
Something unreadable flickered in Yeji’s eyes but Ryujin was too caught up in the conversation to notice it. “Never did.” Yeji curtly answered, sitting up and glaring down at her. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
Yeji leaned in closer, dangerously close, unwavering glare. Ryujin stood her ground, staring back into pools of dark brown. “I dare you to kiss me.”
Ryujin jerked backwards, totally taken aback. Did she hear that right? “Why the hell would you ask something like that?!” She echoed Yeji’s previous words. How ironic.
“Now you realize how silly this entire thing is.” Yeji slid off the bed and dusted herself off. She checked her weapons and around the aisle for any immediate danger. She was making herself look busy so Ryujin couldn’t tell how terrifyingly nervous she was.
Yeji had no idea what came over her. (She did, though, but didn’t want to confront it then and there).
Ryujin quietly slipped off the bed too, the strange look she was giving Yeji very obvious, but she said nothing.
Sunrise came and they were still stuck. Ryujin could tell Yeji was worried about the others and if they were alright. She wondered why they haven’t rescued them by now.
~
The girls “slayed” Bigfoot and found a way to drag it back to base without drawing unnecessary attention. Lia suggested they examine it for future notes and references.
“I’m done exercising for the rest of the year!” Ryujin plopped onto the couch, limbs feeling like jelly. Chaeryoung was the same on the other couch. Her eyes wandered over to Yeji, deep in conversation with Lia across the room.
Ryujin pouted. She was hopeless, they were hopeless. Whatever she thought about Yeji, she had to try and shove down before something catastrophic could happen, like falling in love with her.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.” Her answer was automatic. She couldn’t even lift her head to look Chaeryoung in the eye. “I’m just exhausted.”
The other girl sighed, rubbing at her eyes tiredly. “Of all people, I should be the last person you lie to.”
Ryujin thinks about it. Would it be weird to talk to Chaeryoung about this? Or were they way past that part of their unique friendship? She decides against it.
“People probably talk about what they’d do if the zombie apocalypse never happened.” It was sort of off topic, but not really if she thought hard about it. “But what I truly wonder is, what life would be like after it’s happened.”
“I’m sorry, but whatever you just said is not clicking in my head.”
Ryujin huffed exasperatedly. She was never good at forming the right words to her endless thoughts. “If we woke up someday and all the zombies were completely gone, what do you think we’ll be like?”
Chaeryoung finally hums in understanding. She shifts her position on the couch to look up at the ceiling. “I think I would be the exact same.” She muses more to herself. Ryujin left it alone.
She lets her eyes flutter shut and imagine a scenario in which the world was rid of zombies. Ryujin thinks the first thing she’d do is go to the beach. Watching waves crash down onto sand was one of her favorite pastimes, but now she can’t even recall the last time she’s seen the ocean.
Sitting on the beach, feet buried in the sand, smelling the salty air. Ryujin squeezes her eyes even tighter when a figure appears next to her in her mind scape.
Her moment was abruptly interrupted when she felt a pat on her shoulder. “Come help move Bigfoot into the basement.” It was Yuna. The others were gone, even Chaeryoung. When did she leave? She checked her surroundings, some time had passed since she first fell onto the couch.
“How long was I out for?”
“An hour.”
Ryujin’s eyes widen at that and she quickly rushes to stand up. “Why didn’t you guys wake me up earlier?!” There was no way time had moved that quickly, she thinks.
Yuna shrugged. “We didn’t want to bother you, you looked peaceful! Must have been a nice dream.”
Yeah, that’s what it was.
She ran a hand through her tousled hair, a question on the tip of her tongue, but Yuna beat her to it, reading her mind. “Everyone’s out back with the beast and I would have let you sleep some more but we literally cannot move it without you.”
They both make it outside the building and the scene in front of Ryujin makes her burst out into laughter. Chaeryoung buried under the large monster and the others trying to heave it off of her, a sight she never could have thought up even in her crazy mind.
~
Ryujin thinks about the time Hyunjin spent with them before she moved back with Heejin and the others. She thinks about how she watched Yeji’s hard shell start to crack because of Hyunjin.
Wow. That was a moment.
But she knew it wasn’t going to last. She saw the way Hyunjin would get whenever Heejin was mentioned, or how her eyes never lit up as much as Yeji’s did whenever they were around each other.
In hindsight, she felt bad.
She wanted Yeji to know that she deserved better, someone who would whole heartedly feel the same way she did. And she hoped Yeji would catch on.
The others never found out, but Ryujin slipped up and made a mistake, in the form of sleeping with Chaeryoung one drunken night. Usually she would say old habits die hard, but it wasn’t even that.
She just felt incredibly… numb.
Her and Chaeryoung swore to each other to pretend it never happened, and they did as such, but it admittedly plagued her thoughts more than once.
Ryujin never thought she would try to seek comfort this way, to try to disguise her feelings, to use someone who was so familiar to cover up how she felt about Yeji.
It all just wasn’t fair.
She regretted it for a multitude of reasons.
But it also made her realize a lot.
Ryujin lets the joint drop from her fingers onto the concrete rooftop and smears the fire out with her shoe. It was a chill day with nothing on her agenda. She chose to spend some time alone.
The sun was setting over the horizon and it hit her how fast time moves when she isn’t in the moment.
Maybe that should be her new year’s resolution, to live more in the moment. It was only six months into the year, she still had some time to work on it. The thought made her chuckle. Constantly late to things.
There was also one thing she wanted to do. Visit home. On her own. A seemingly impossible task, but she was going to do it. The others would never allow her…
The sun’s rays peeped through her blinds and she knew it was time to get up and make rounds around the camp. Her partner today was Lia. And as timely as ever, she heard the door to her room creak open.
“Rise and shine, sunshine!” Ryujin was graced with the sight of Lia’s silly smile first thing in the morning.
“Do you ever sleep?” It was a rhetorical question they both knew the answer to, but it was just Ryujin’s reflex to tease.
The two make their way around the campus, checking on each building and conversing with some of the guards while they were at it. It was still so very quiet.
They headed to the cafeteria for breakfast and coffee. Ryujin eyed the oatmeal before opting to eat an apple instead. Lia went with some cereal.
“Want to know what I’ve been working on?” Ryujin’s ears perked up at that and Lia continued. “A pager system!”
Ryujin squinted, slightly confused. “A pager system?”
Lia gasped. “You do know what a pager is, right?” Ryujin scoffed and crossed her arms, offended that she would even ask.
“I’m just confused on why you’re making something that’s already been made.” She took a bite out of her apple.
“You dumbo. These systems have been out of service for years! Once I get these to go online, we can send messages from further distances.” Lia scooped a spoonful of cereal into her mouth and chomped. “No more walkie talkies.”
Ryujin gave her friend an impressed look. “Sounds like a game changer.”
~
Wearing a shoulder holster that carried two guns along with Lia’s new and improved pager in hand, an MP3 player in her back pocket, and a small knife strapped to her ankle, Ryujin set off on her journey.
Lia also managed to sneak her an old motorcycle that had been sitting in their garage for a few years.
Where she was heading too wasn’t out of state, but it sure was far to walk on foot. Ryujin was heading north, to what used to be the town of San Francisco.
She frowned as she heard a beep coming from the pager already. Ryujin hadn’t even gotten on her bike yet. She quickly checked the message.
LOOK UP
The sun was in her eyes so she squinted up towards the tall barrier, where the guards usually walked on. There was a figure frantically waving at her to get her attention.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going all alone?!” The voice yelled out towards her.
Ryujin grimaced. The person was Yeji.
“Stay right where you are! I’m coming with you!”
Wait. What the hell?
Ryujin gaped as she watched Yeji disappear and reappear at the gates, a bag already ready and slung over her shoulder. She, too, had a shoulder holster on. Lia must have told her about plan. Damn.
Yeji pointed accusingly at Ryujin, a scowl adorning her face. “You’re crazy if you thought going out alone was a good idea.”
“Things have been quiet this past year.”
“That’s what we think every single time and then something insane happens!” Yeji snapped. It was true, though. Some wild stuff has happened over the years.
Ryujin glanced down at the motorcycle and then back up to Yeji. A sudden realization seemed to struck them at the same time. “I only have one helmet.”
That wasn’t the only realization that struck Ryujin. They would have to ride together.
“You take it.” She offered it up to Yeji, who took it with slight hesitation.
“Are you sure? We can take turns.”
“Good idea.”
Yeji didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle, a fact that the others have teased her about on a few occasions. So she slid onto the bike behind Ryujin and carefully wrapped her arms around her.
She gulped, hoping Ryujin didn’t hear it or feel it against her back. “So where were you headed to anyway?”
Ryujin kicked up her feet and revved the engine. “Home.”
With nothing but Highway 101 ahead of them, Ryujin brought the motorcycle to a small stop and fished out her MP3. She offered an ear bud to Yeji, who just took it quietly. The other girl was being rather odd, Ryujin thought to herself.
She pressed play, a classic 80’s song crackling through the old earphones.
I can’t fight this feeling any longer
Ryujin’s eyes widened at the lyrics. She swiftly clicked on the engine again to distract from the lyrics pouring into their ears.
What started out as friendship has grown stronger
I only wish I had the strength to let it show
Ryujin allowed the cool breeze to blow past her face and through her hair. It had been a long time since she’s felt this. This peacefulness.
And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might
And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
The chorus hit and Ryujin felt almost euphoric, nearly forgetting that she was on a bike with Yeji’s arms wrapped around her. Again, the other girl was being oddly quiet.
“You can change the song if you don’t like it!” Ryujin voiced over the noise of the engine. “It’s in my jacket pocket.”
Yeji wordlessly reached into her pocket, pressing skip and allowing another song to play its intro before skipping it and repeating this five times before settling onto a song for longer than ten seconds.
“Damn, tough crowd.”
A while later, the sun was setting and Ryujin knew just the place to hide out for the night. They reached the coastline, smiling as she heard the waves and smelled the ocean air.
“Where are we?”
“Sand Dollar Beach.”
~
There were many things Ryujin didn’t understand about the world. Why some things had to happen or why some things never happened.
And she realizes she never truly will understand as she opens her eyes from a deep slumber, expecting to hear ocean waves, smell that salt air. But instead, her eyes see a blinding hospital light.