Chapter Text
Yoongi's phone rings. He startles so badly he slams his knee into his desk and swears as he fumbles through papers and mugs and detritus looking for it. His is probably the only phone in Seoul still charged and with the volume turned up, but he obviously hasn't actually used it in days.
He pulls it from underneath some sheet music.
미니미니지미니
"Jimin-ah?" he says as soon as he accepts the call. "Jimin-ah, are you okay?"
"Hyungnim!"
The line is bad. Significantly worse than the last time Yoongi'd been on a phonecall, not that he exactly remembered when that was. Few weeks ago anyway.
"I don't have much time, hyungnim,” Jimin says, his voice tinny and terrifyingly distant. "We lost power here, mine's the last phone still working but it won't work for long. I climbed up here to get signal, the others are guarding the cars and my exit. I was gonna just text but I was scared you wouldn't text back in time, and we wouldn't know if you got it. And I wanted to hear your voice."
"I'm glad you called, kid," Yoongi says. His leg is bouncing so fast the desk is rattling and he stands abruptly to stop himself. It's hard enough to hear Jimin as it is.
"Yoongi-hyung, you're out of time, you have to get out,” Jimin says, his tiny, distant voice vehement with terror. "Hyung, we're hearing the roads out of Seoul are closing for good, seems like only the south roads are still open and not for long. You and Namjoon-hyung have to get out now. "
Yoongi's stomach freezes and his heart starts pounding, like he just downed an entire ice coffee in one go.
"Okay," he says, his voice a little raspy with fear. "Okay, don't worry, Min-ah, hyung's gonna get Namjoonie out of here. We're gonna leave right now, okay? You trust hyung, right?"
"I trust hyungnim," Jimin agrees shakily. "Shit, my phone is almost dead. Listen, we know a place we can go, but it's hard to get to. Meet us at sunset at Chuncheon Dam, okay?"
"Sunset, Chuncheon Dam," Yoongi echoes, already dragging his go bag out from under the desk. "We'll be there."
"You have to make it there on time, hyung, we can't stay there overnight and this is the last phonecall any of us can make, probably ever," Jimin says anxiously.
"We'll make it, kid, I promise," Yoongi answers, gripping the phone painfully tight and keeping an even tighter grip on his voice. "I promise, Jimin-ah."
"Good," Jimin sighs. He always believes Yoongi. "We miss you both, hyungnim, we love--"
The line goes dead.
Yoongi looks at the screen automatically. One bar of service, thanks to whatever pylon and/or satellite is still operational. 17% battery. Minimum screen brightness, low volume, no WiFi, no data, no location service.
Cause Seoul is a dead zone.
Yoongi shudders.
He packs up the last few useful things left in his studio, which is almost nothing. Everything's in his go bag. He sticks the phone and charger in the bag, just in case. He dumps the remaining ground coffee into a little plastic bag and packs that too. He would've liked to have brewed one last cup since he can't take the coffee machine, but there's no time. There's a couple of protein bars and a bag of sweets in his desk, he brings them too. And he sticks his favourite pen in his trouser pocket.
He gives himself ten seconds to touch the piano keys and close the fallboard for the last time. Five seconds to brush his fingers across the strings of his guitar and slip a pick into his pocket with the pen.
He shoulders his bag, flings the door of the studio open and leaves.
Then catches the door before it swings closed, darts back in, grabs the guitar off the wall, sprints back out.
He has to get Namjoon.
He instinctively walks down the corridor very quietly. It's been weeks since they had any dead get inside the building, but the image of a grey figure shambling along inside his home still gives him cold sweats. Sometimes he feels grateful he was here instead of at the dorm when the dead overran their neighbourhood. Okay it means he lost all his possessions except what was in his studio, but that's just stuff. The last time he saw their dorm, the morning before Seoul went to hell, it was warm and softly chaotic and he could hear Jungkook singing and he tripped over Taehyung's shoes on the way out. That's how he wants to remember it.
Namjoon's not in his own studio but before Yoongi can panic too much, he finds him asleep on the couch in Hoseok's.
"Joonie, wake up!" Yoongi hisses, closing the door carefully behind him before he grabs Namjoon by the shoulder to wake him.
"Hyung?" Namjoon mumbles, stretching, then he sits up so abruptly that Yoongi only barely manages to jerk back out of the way of his head. "What's happened, hyung? Breach?"
"Phonecall."
"Phonecall?!" Namjoon echoes, his face opening in shock. "Jin-hyung and the others?"
"Jiminie, yeah," Yoongi says, rifling through Hoseok's desk for anything he should take with him. "Joonie, they heard the roads are closing, we're out of time."
"But we're not finished," Namjoon says, a little helplessly, clutching one of Hoseok's cushions on his lap.
"I know, Joon, but we can't risk ourselves any longer," Yoongi answers. He finds a little packet of floral patterned sticking plasters in the back of a drawer and tucks it into his bag "We'll take the rest of the Ritalin and Ambien with us, maybe we'll get a chance to trade outside of Seoul. We did well, Joonie, we got a lot. Those antibiotics you scored could save our lives, and we've got enough painkillers to euthanise an elephant or two."
Yoongi was still mildly embarrassed at just how huge his accidental stockpile of Ritalin was - the pharmacy sent the prescription every month, but the dose he was prescribed was the maximum, just in case he needed it. He didn't, really. Not when food appeared a couple of times a day and someone looked after all his paperwork and all the difficult parts of his job were collaborative. He took maybe a quarter of the pills, stored the rest carefully in his medicine cabinet, made a note to talk to the pharmacy about it, and forgot to. Every month. For a couple of years. Meanwhile, half the group was prescribed sleeping pills on and off, but seemed like no one ever finished a bottle. Half the time, didn't even open it.
The banks were gone, their cards were just strips of plastic, people laughed at cash. But in dying Seoul, their sizeable pool of prescription meds - uppers and downers - made them reasonably wealthy.
Namjoon vanishes into his own studio to grab his bag. Yoongi keeps telling him to keep the bag within arm's reach, but he doesn't. One of the many squabbles - affectionate bickering laced with genuine, bleeding edge terror - he and Namjoon have been indulging in since they stayed behind here.
Two minutes later, Yoongi picks up their baseball bat (a prop he was fucking overjoyed to learn Hobi had, for some reason, kept) and steps out of Hobi's studio for the last time. He meets Namjoon in the corridor. Namjoon's got his go bag on his back, and he's also got a sizable tote bag full of books on his arm.
Yoongi points to the bag of books.
"No, Joonie, leave the fucking books," he hisses softly. "Essentials only."
Namjoon, the bastard, points at Yoongi's guitar. Yoongi's go bag is a cross-body, his guitar is on his back. Yoongi glares.
"...Fine!" he snaps under his breath. "But if it comes to it, I'm using the damn books as projectile weapons!"
"Only after you've exhausted the possibility of using the guitar as a bludgeoning weapon, I hope," Namjoon retorts. He tosses his head. "Come on, down the back way. There's been way too much movement on the front street recently, especially during the middle of the day."
"People, or dead?" Yoongi asks, following Namjoon down the corridor.
"People, at least."
"I was hoping for dead this time," Yoongi says darkly. "Well, actually I was hoping we'd be able to make our break for it right at dawn someday. But... the dead just vaguely want to infect us. The living will tear us to shreds if they figure out the amount of medical supplies and shit we've got in the car."
"Should we wait for dawn?" Namjoon asks, hesitating at the entrance to the back stairs. For all his intelligence and for all his hard-earned apocalypse experience, he could still be so innocent.
"No, Joonie," Yoongi answers, pushing past him and elbowing him to follow. "We have to meet Jiminie and the others at sunset today. We have no way to contact each other anymore. If we miss this rendezvous, we might never see them again."
They go down the back stairs, trying to move as quietly as possible at speed. The dead don't have particularly acute senses, but the fuckers are tenacious once they notice someone. Better to avoid notice.
Bottom of the stairs, through a service corridor, down to the basement carpark. The route is familiar; they've been coming here every couple of days to add to their precious supplies or get more pill bottles from the safe in the boot of the car.
The carpark is mostly empty. A few cars are left. They've got keys for three of them: a producer's Hyundai sedan, a choreographer's compact Kia, and their own car.
The sedan is right across the carpark; Yoongi parked it blocking the driveway entrance, in case the shutter door doesn't hold. It wouldn't do much against looters, but it would slow dead down, at least, and make it harder for the living to steal a car.
The little Kia is jammed against the doorway from the stairwell. They climb over the bonnet to get into the carpark.
And their own car - their storehouse and lifeline - is parked in the centre of the mostly-empty carpark. It's third of their three Hyundai SUVs with the bulletproof glass and reinforced tyres.
Seokjin had driven the first one, the white one, straight out of Seoul the very first day, before the roads got too blocked, and thank fuck Yoongi and Seokjin had managed to convince Jungkook to go with him.
A couple of days later, Hoseok had driven the second one, the grey one, out through burning Seoul at dawn. He brought Jimin and Taehyung, after considerable debate and a lot of tears. They headed for Busan to meet up with the other two. There were phone and electricity outages by then, they were worried. Or rather, fucking terrified.
Yoongi and Namjoon stayed behind. To trade, and to keep their foothold here until they had somewhere specific to go. They hadn't been sure if Busan, or anywhere else, would be better, and if Seoul turned out to be the least shit option, they needed to protect their corridor of studios. The studios weren't ideal, but they were comfortable and easy to keep secure. Yoongi didn't like being the only driver left behind, but he and Namjoon were best at trading, and Namjoon was the tallest and most physically intimidating, and that counted for a lot in Seoul these days.
"I'll move the sedan," Yoongi calls softly to Namjoon. "You get our stuff packed."
"I want to check the safe," Namjoon answers, opening the back door of the SUV as Yoongi sets down his bag and his guitar, but not his baseball bat.
"No time, Joonie, I'm gonna start driving the instant I sit into the car," Yoongi says.
Namjoon looks unhappy. But he'll be unhappier if they miss the rendezvous. They've got over four hours to make a three hour drive. But fuck knows what's between them and Chuncheon Dam...
Less than five minutes later Yoongi has the sedan blocking the Kia and has the SUV, engine running and doors open, ready for them. He and Namjoon take their positions at the main vehicle door to the carpark and grab the metal shutter.
"Hana... dul... set!"
They lift. The metal resists, but Yoongi had physically dismantled the lock mechanisms after the rolling power outages stopped rolling and the power just stayed out. Well, not immediately; he'd waited until the worst of the looting died down. Their shutter had been defaced but not breached.
Now it slowly opens. Yoongi mentally winces at every chattering jolt, but there's nothing they can do but hope there's no one - living or dead - near enough to hear and curious enough to investigate...
"Okay let's go!" he calls when he judges it's sufficiently open.
They sprint for the SUV, Namjoon in the passenger seat and Yoongi in the driver's seat. Yoongi has his baseball bat tucked in beside him. Namjoon has a big physical roadmap of Korea, and he unfolds it to the detail page of central Seoul as Yoongi takes off, driving cautiously out through the gate. Part of Yoongi really wants to stop and close the shutter, but getting out of the SUV is out of the question.
And as they pass through the doorway, into the dull afternoon sunlight, Yoongi catches sight of a lone dead figure shuffling around the corner of the building, drawn by the noise of the shutter.
"Shit," Yoongi mutters.
"Shit," Namjoon agrees. "Too early in the day for these bastards."
"It's the weather," Yoongi answers, picking up speed as fast as he can on the ramp to the main driveway. The Hyundai is heavy, full of supplies including drums of water and fuel. "Dark clouds, humid. Suits them. Hold on."
Yoongi hits the accelerator and their car snaps clean through the no-longer-automatic security barrier. Yoongi brakes, turning hard, and they take off onto the main road, dodging the abandoned vehicles still scattered here and there.
"I'm so glad I've got a hyung who can drive like this," Namjoon says, looking up from his map.
"You'd be in trouble without this hyung, huh?" Yoongi teases. "Hold on again."
He's caught sight of another dead, ambling across the road, and changes lanes to hit the damn thing. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see its dead, grey face looking at him as the car knocks it down and runs over it, but the thunk-thunk of the car slamming into its skull still makes his stomach turn and his skin prickle.
"You okay, hyung?" Namjoon asks, quiet but neutral.
"One less dead is a good thing," Yoongi answers tightly, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"Yes it is."
They tear through Seoul. They see a handful more lone, early dead. They catch glimpses of the living here and there; faces looking out upper story windows at the relatively unusual sound of a car, a gang of kids running into an alley, another car here or there, a few duos or trios out scavenging or trading like Namjoon and Yoongi have been doing. The living always move at least in pairs. It's too easy for even a single dead to kill or infect a lone living.
They get through the city alright, just a couple of simple detours here and there to get around streets that have been blocked, usually by stubborn residents keeping the dead out by any means.
The first road out of Seoul they try is fully blockaded; someone has built a barrier of cement trucks and barbed wire.
"The next closest option to go south is the tunnel," Namjoon says, tracing a line on the map as Yoongi backs the car up and turns. "But the tunnel would be even easier to block."
"And tunnels are dark," Yoongi says direly. "Breeding ground for dead."
"Do we try it?" Namjoon asks. "It's by far the fastest option, if it works. The next big road south will take at least twenty minutes to get to. It's only about one kilometre of tunnel..."
"One kilometre is gonna feel like a long fucking way if we're ambushed or blocked in the middle," Yoongi answers, tapping his fingers on the wheel as he takes the car through an empty intersection. "But there's no guarantee the next road will be open and saving twenty minutes might be the difference between making it to the dam on time or missing the others. Okay. Okay. Let's try."
They're silent as they drive the five minutes to the tunnel, Namjoon only speaking to confirm directions. Yoongi knows this area reasonably well, and probably doesn't need him to, but Namjoon's deep voice confirming his decisions is comforting.
"Tunnel," Yoongi says unnecessarily, as they approach the dark maw, lightless bulbs on the ceiling of the tunnel vanishing quickly into the pitch darkness. "I'm scared."
"Me too, hyung."
Yoongi slows and flicks the headlights up to full beams. He half-expects to see the dull reflection of dead eyes when he does, but the tunnel stretches ahead, empty.
As they drive, though, they see the evidence of the dead - fingernail marks on concrete, maintenance doors torn to shreds, an abandoned car with a weeks-old bloodstain on the tarmac beside it.
"This place is creepy as shit," Namjoon whispers.
Yoongi just nods. The tunnel curves gently ahead, they can't see the end, but they'll be able to any minute and every muscle in Yoongi's body is clenched with fear that the tunnel will be blocked.
They round the curve, onto the straight shot out, the faint promise of daylight ahead.
"Fuck!" Yoongi barks.
Another abandoned car, but this one is crashed in the tunnel entrance, and a steel support beam has fallen, the wall of the tunnel destabilised by the crash.
"It might be okay...?" Namjoon asks hesitantly.
"I'm not gonna fit," Yoongi says, slowing to a crawl. He doesn't like the idea of stopping in case it's an ambush point, but he's gonna have to either stop or execute a very tight turn. "If I bump that beam, the tunnel could collapse on us."
He reluctantly stops the car, but he doesn't put the handbrake on.
"We're so close," Namjoon says, gesturing to the daylight, the clear road beyond. "Do we have to go back? Or can we figure this out?"
"Maybe..." Yoongi says slowly. "Maybe if I push that car very carefully out of the way with ours."
"Try it."
"I might knock a few tons of concrete down onto our car," Yoongi points out.
"Try it, hyung," Namjoon answers firmly. "I trust you."
Yoongi lets out a long breath and slowly inches their car forward again. Their Hyundai is bigger than the crashed car, at least, and considerably heavier. Their front bumper touches the other car and Yoongi eases pressure onto the gas, forcing them forward. There's a moment of stillness... and then the other car shifts...
"You've got this, Yoongi-hyung," Namjoon murmurs.
Yoongi presses the car forward, millimetre by painful millimetre. They've moved maybe two paces forward when there's an alarming grinding, screeching sound of shifting infrastructure and Yoongi stops, taking the pressure off and holding his breath.
"...I think you've got two choices, hyung," Namjoon whispers. "Keep going gently, or make a break for it."
"Which do you think has a lower chance of crushing us under a pile of tunnel?"
"I'd like to say your guess is as good as mine. But given your skillset, your guess is probably better than mine, hyung."
"Fuck."
Yoongi takes a slow breath ... and stamps on the gas. The car shoves forward, sending the other car scraping out of the way, as the tunnel above creaks and cracks ... and crashes down. Something hits the car with a terrifyingly loud bang, and they stop, the engine's growl shifting towards a whine as the wheels spin.
"Shit!" Yoongi brakes, twisting to try see behind the car cause what he can see in the mirrors doesn't help. "What hit us? We're stuck!"
"It's... it looks like a beam is leaning on the car," Namjoon says, craning over his shoulder. "It looks like it's just clipped the very edge of the car, it's just caught us. A good shove would probably get it loose, honestly."
Yoongi knocks his head back on the headrest with a stream of hissed curses.
Namjoon unbuckles his belt.
"What are you doing?" Yoongi snaps, grabbing his arm before he can open the door of the car.
"Hyung, I'll just jump out for two seconds and shove the beam off the car," Namjoon says in a tone of voice he probably thinks makes him sound reasonable and not fucking insane. "You keep ready to drive."
"What if there's someone out there?" Yoongi gestures violently towards the horrible world outside the car. "What if there's dead?"
"Then I'll get back in the car as fast as I can!" Namjoon says.
They argue for another minute or two, but Yoongi can't think of any better plans. He could keep trying to inch the car forward, but they're both scared of damaging it. Namjoon convinces him. The sooner they go, the better, for a thousand reasons.
So Yoongi watches reluctantly as Namjoon carefully opens his door and steps out of the car. He closes the door over but not completely, so he can get back in quickly. He goes to the beam wedged on the back of the car and braces himself to push, concentrating.
And that's when Yoongi sees the dead - two of them - eyes glinting a dull red in the Hyundai's rear lights. They're on the other side of the car to Namjoon, he hasn't seen them.
Maybe he would've seen them in time. Maybe he would've gotten the beam loose and gotten back in the car before the dead got to him. They'll never know.
Cause Yoongi immediately throws himself out of the car, gripping Hobi's baseball bat, and runs to put himself between the dead and Namjoon. The dead fix on him. The beam slips. Namjoon shouts in shock as he looks up.
And something hits Yoongi very very hard and everything goes black.