Work Text:
Doomsday Shenanigans: Dating Adventure of Two Humans and their Zombie
Today was a great day.
To Kim Rok Soo’s left was a pile of questionable body parts, no doubt leftovers from a zombie lunch break. The stench didn’t bother him much. He just walked past with a critical eye, feeling that zombies were getting more and more unskilled in properly eating the flesh off the bones.
A whole arm was lying around with not a single bite on it. What a waste of resources.
Shaking his head, Kim Rok Soo walked around a corner, spotting a wayward zombie stumbling around. He gave him some leeway simply because walking on one and a half legs was rather challenging. The zombie stared at him, his half-rotten crevice of a mouth gaping at him with an expression fish were masters of.
Groans and grumbles accompanied the zombie's movement as it tumbled closer. Hands with surprisingly all fingers attached, stretched out in Kim Rok Soo’s direction, yet he just calmly gazed at the walking safety hazard.
The poor zombie even fell directly in front of Kim Rok Soo. One pitiful tooth rolled on the floor before reaching his clean shoes with a soft touch. Slightly grumpy, Kim Rok Soo kicked the tooth back. It rolled perfectly into the zombie’s mouth.
The zombie was rather flabbergasted. If it had the capacity to think, giant question marks would be floating over its head. Instead, it just worked hard to stand up again and return to his admirable goal of hitting his daily steps.
It naturally walked right past Kim Rok Soo since he wasn’t anything interesting to a zombie.
Being one of them, they just stared at him with the same amount of distaste he projected.
Kim Rok Soo was a zombie. It was a sad but undeniable truth. His already pale skin turned almost translucent once his body stopped working properly. The warm brown of his eyes had been mixed with red, giving him a weird combination of reddish-brown. It wasn’t as noticeable as the flaming red normal zombies were equipped with, but looking in the mirror after transforming had been hard for the first few months.
He would have screamed if his hair fell out.
Luckily, Kim Rok Soo was some kind of mutation. He kept his brain not only attached but also functioning. He was a zombie, and sometimes thought like a zombie, but his humanity wasn’t as fleeting as with other zombies.
Humming a merry tune that contradicted his mood, Kim Rok Soo walked into the center of the city where a previously luxurious and prestigious hotel stood. It was one of the main attractions of the rich before the apocalypse hit, and now it became Kim Rok Soo’s home.
He shuffled up the stairs and into the highest penthouse. His beautiful treasures greeted him at the door.
The door was opened before he reached it, hand already held out, when he spotted piles of pretty gold jewelry, some bundles of bank notes, and even a jewel-crusted Buddha statue.
Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo were also there.
It never occurred to Kim Rok Soo, a single dog who hadn’t seen the need to have other people intrude in his daily life, that he would get not one but two boyfriends after losing part of his humanity.
The two just randomly collected him like a lost puppy and kind of kept him.
Seeing his hesitation and lost in thought expression, Lee Soo Hyuk grinned in amusement. Fearlessly, he walked forward and stole a kiss from a still-dazed Kim Rok Soo. His cold lips meshed greatly with the warm ones of Lee Soo Hyuk.
Feeling left out, Choi Jung Soo threw aside his sword, which landed with a loud clank on the floor, before throwing his arms around Kim Rok Soo. He gripped the zombie’s shoulders with care before he also collected a reward, one he deserved for waiting patiently and not dismantling the nearest building in his boredom.
The two of them pushed their cute zombie boyfriend into their shared home, gently closing the door. It had come as a relief that Kim Rok Soo was not contagious. They could do all things normal partners did, with the additional advantage of not having to worry about losing their partner in a pile of zombies.
Well, the permanent kind. It happened once or twice that Kim Rok Soo tripped and ended up dog-piled by zombies, who also tripped. Getting him out of the pile had been a struggle.
Boxes of pizza, brought from the human base, were piled onto the living room table. The three of them claimed a seat each and started munching on the treats. Kim Rok Soo didn’t have to eat, but liked doing it since his sense of smell was gone completely, yet surprisingly, his taste was still intact.
Choi Jung Soo was merrily munching on his second slice when Lee Soo Hyuk started chatting about their day. As the leader and members of the top attack team of the base, they were sent out almost daily into remote parts to secure additional resources. Once a struggle, now it has become a daily chore.
Zombies weren’t smart, with the exception of their adorable boyfriend, who preferred to loot rather than to eat people. Fighting them only became challenging when one had gained an ability and randomly used it, kind of like throwing rocks.
Choi Jung Soo recalled the zombie during their last mission, who realized in the middle of the fight that it could grow to the size of a multiple-story building. Having a rotten pile of meat almost stomp on them left Choi Jung Soo feeling dirty. Slicing off the offending leg was reward enough.
“I missed you,” he blurted out after seeing the adorable frown on Kim Rok Soo’s face as he seriously listened to Lee Soo Hyuk. The latter raised a brow in his direction for the interruption, yet it was quickly replaced by an indulgent smile.
The greatest offense Kim Rok Soo’s zombie status presented was that he couldn’t blush anymore. A travesty in Choi Jung Soo’s eyes.
To keep him from interrupting his grand tale, Lee Soo Hyuk leaned over, snatching a bite out of Choi Jung Soo’s pizza with a cheeky grin. He swallowed the bite with a happy hum, watching how Choi Jung Soo’s expression fell. A quick kiss later that kept the sword-user occupied, Lee Soo Hyuk went back to telling his tale.
Their relationship was weird, but none of them would have it any other way.
“I love you,” Lee Soo Hyuk said casually, offering Kim Rok Soo another slice of pizza as if he hadn’t just dropped an emotional bomb on the poor man. Not wanting to be outdone, Choi Jung Soo also declared, a bit more loudly, “I love you both!”
He even laughed merrily, sounding extremely happy at the knowledge.
Lee Soo Hyuk patted Choi Jung Soo’s cheek with one hand, while his other hand dropped a piece of pizza into Choi Jung Soo’s waiting ones as well. “I love you as well.”
Having said their parts, two expectant pairs of eyes gazed at Kim Rok Soo. He took a mocking bite out of his pizza, letting them steam a bit before he said, almost shyly, “I love you two idiots as well.”
One slice of pizza suffered in the following cuddle pile, yet it was a needed sacrifice.
They weren’t the most conventional relationship with one lone zombie and two human ability users, but they worked like a well-oiled machine.
***
“You are walking a hole into my carpet,” Lee Soo Hyuk complained without much heat.
He had watched Choi Jung Soo drag his tired feet, muddy and probably drenched in zombie intestines, in a circle across the carpet in his office for the last twenty minutes. They had been gone from home, where Kim Rok Soo was, for the last five days because a large-scale mission took them across the country.
Their boyfriend had to remain behind since the full team had been employed, leaving no space for a zombie to tag along. Each day that passed, they got more anxious. What if Kim Rok Soo encountered people from the base, accidentally revealing his state, and getting killed in the process? What if a zombie fell in love with their zombie, making advancements while they were stuck dismantling brethren of theirs?
Oh god, what if Kim Rok Soo got lured away by a pile of treasures and he lost his way home?
“We have to save him!” Choi Jung Soo wailed, miserably imagining the unspoken horrors their partner could be currently experiencing. Each additional image got worse and worse.
Would another size-changing zombie appear, and Kim Rok Soo would be so impressed, the other zombie could just take him in the palm of his hand before walking off with his newest prize?
While Lee Soo Hyuk was equally worried, his thoughts were straighter and more factual than the fantasies Choi Jung Soo created.
Five patrol teams passed the area Kim Rok Soo liked to venture across, seeking piles of treasures and basically anything that was shiny and valuable. Turning into a zombie, his looting instinct got pushed up a few dozen notches. It was adorable, but also not good for their sanity.
They vowed to get their work done as fast as possible before sprinting out of the building to go to their boyfriend.
Their thoughts were probably far too dramatic since Kim Rok Soo knew how to avoid getting into trouble, but they shall worry anyway.
Meanwhile, Kim Rok Soo happily organized his newest pile of treasures he got.
Some random larger-than-average zombie had picked him up only to accidentally dump him near a patrol team, who confused him for a normal person. He talked his way out, but got lost on the way home, finding a jewelry store that still had items on display. His pockets were comfortably heavy as he tracked back home.
So much loot.
What a great day.
***
Jealousy was a great motivator.
It was also a great way to end up in jail, but Choi Jung Soo digressed.
The three of them – two humans, one zombie – were patrolling on the west side of the city when a group of survivors stumbled into them. Three girls and two boys. They were looking pretty great, which wasn’t that surprising since they had hit the road only three days ago, traveling from base three to theirs.
Humanity was quickly recovering; it would take years, maybe decades even, for normalcy to set in, but Choi Jung Soo was sure they had survived the worst of it.
Unfortunately, this meant people had the time and energy to go back to annoying habits, such as chasing obviously taken men.
The steel of his blade shone ominously in the blazing sun, mirroring the fiercely burning fire in his eyes. A permanent twitch of his right eye almost sent his normally rather friendly face into the abyss of external grumpiness – which was not allowed since Kim Rok Soo told him he looked cute when he smiled. He may also have told him he looked like he didn’t have a single thought on his mind. Choi Jung Soo took that as another compliment.
One girl had started chatting up Lee Soo Hyuk. She had draped her hair over her shoulders, showing off a clean shoulder. Pale and without a single scar. A quick look to his right confirmed that Kim Rok Soo was currently a bit self-conscious about himself, which was not allowed in their household.
Pushing aside the issue of man-snatching girls, Choi Jung Soo sheathed his blade before dragging Kim Rok Soo behind a pillar. Gripping the other’s shoulder in a comforting and gentle grip, he stared into his adorable zombie’s eyes. Such a beautiful reddish-brown, surrounded by raw emotions that always made Choi Jung Soo giddy.
He chased the other’s lips, stealing a kiss in the process. The taste was exquisite as always. Even the forbidden fruit would pale in comparison to the addictive taste Choi Jung Soo was currently claiming. It distracted him suitably for a second from his grievances, before recalling the expression Kim Rok Soo had on his face.
Adorable zombies weren’t allowed to be sad, otherwise their humans would be sad as well.
(And then things tend to explode, but that is another story.)
“You are so pretty, I can’t hold myself back,” he admitted with a whisper, his lips gliding over Kim Rok Soo’s cheeks as he playfully nibbled on one of them. The blank expression he got in return would turn normal people off, but Choi Jung Soo knew this was Kim Rok Soo’s flabbergasted and surprised face.
So adorable.
“What are you two doing without me?” A voice interrupted from behind Choi Jung Soo. With his hands on his hips, Lee Soo Hyuk looked at them with a raised brow and barely hidden envy. He just stood there, looking unfairly handsome and quite delicious, but Choi Jung Soo had to be strict.
That’s what you get for letting yourself get approached and flirted with. He didn’t make the rules, just enforced them. Adding salt to the injury, Choi Jung Soo merrily continued his one-man-one-zombie show.
“Kissing, can’t you see that?” Choi Jung Soo cheekily replied, even blowing the playfully fuming man a kiss. Lee Soo Hyuk took the short display of Choi Jung Soo’s tongue as an invitation and joined the two of them.
The three of them spent some quality time behind a pillar, before walking out of their hiding spots with grins – Choi Jung Soo-, the look of a satisfied cat – Lee Soo Hyuk-, and a stoic expression – Kim Rok Soo.
The survivors met them with cheers, asking if their team could be taken back to the base. As they were already on their way back, they couldn’t disagree.
At first, Choi Jung Soo was contemplating throwing his sword at the lady as she stuck to Lee Soo Hyuk like a leech, but the world seemingly had the same thought. So far, she tripped twice over randomly spawning zombie limbs, had seven unfortunate encounters with zombies that acted dead but weren’t, and her shoelaces untied themselves a marvelous nine times.
The most amusing part was that Choi Jung Soo was only responsible for about half of it. Kim Rok Soo was sneakier with his actions, messing up her hair and clothes multiple times with his wind power. She huffed in frustration when her face was slapped once again by her hair, messing up the pretty ponytail she had made to impress the handsome man.
They reached the base – finally, in some cases – around two hours later.
Collecting her courage, the girl tried one last time to gain the attention of Lee Soo Hyuk. She didn’t notice the two jealous lovers clutching the nearby wall with enough strength to crack the cement.
“Sorry, can I talk with you for a moment?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at Lee Soo Hyuk.
He nodded and waited for her to speak. Flustered that he wasn’t giving her a hand, she blurted out, „I like you! Do you want to try dating?”
A gentle smile was directed at her, making her heart flutter with glee, only to crash and burn at his next words.
“Sorry, I have two cute boyfriends who are currently taking apart the nearby wall if I don’t stop them soon. Adorable, aren’t they?”
His dark eyes wandered, openly staring at the steaming duo. Waving merrily, he watched amused as they vanished behind the wall.
The girl stood there stunned. She blinked her pretty eyes in disbelief as the stunningly handsome man left her standing behind without a look back, as if she were a muddy blanket that wasn’t worth a second look.
“Good luck next time,” her friend said, patting her shoulder before dragging her into the base.
Meanwhile, Lee Soo Hyuk caught up to his boyfriends. They had retreated back into the abandoned city once the base gates were opened. Kim Rok Soo was a zombie, after all, and should catch the eyes of the higher-ups.
An amused laugh left his lips as he sprinted to catch up with them. Squeezing himself between the two of them, he grabbed both of their hands, tightly intertwining their fingers together.
The whole zombie apocalypse was weird, yet Lee Soo Hyuk adored the life he was leading now. Two cute boyfriends, a somewhat stable job, hope on the horizon, and a roof over his head when he slept.
Lee Soo Hyuk wasn’t just content; he was happy.
***
Choi Jung Soo had a plan.
It was a simple one. Really simple.
Grab his boyfriends and give them the cake he bought.
Problem: he had the cake, but his boyfriends were nowhere to be seen.
Solution: gotta find his boyfriends.
But where should he start? At his wit’s end, he scratched his head with one hand while the other was tightly secured around the prettily packed package. A red bow around the box finished the whole present look. It took him seven tries to get the bow wrapped the right way, as the shop didn’t include such service.
With his box in hand, he wandered the outer city, which was filled with stumbling zombies, inelegant corpses sprawled on the floors, and no cute boyfriends. One zombie was crawling towards him, yet Choi Jung Soo just stepped on it to get past the hurdle.
“Wuuuah!” The zombie complained.
Choi Jung Soo leaned down and patted his head. He regretted it a second later when some unknown, sticky liquid clung to his free hand. Wiping it off on the zombie’s surprisingly clean shirt, Choi Jung Soo walked further down the street.
The zombie valiantly tried to follow him, yet their interactions weren’t meant to be. With overwhelming sadness, the zombie watched Choi Jung Soo cross the street and leave its view forever. Or – however short its technically second life was, as not even thirty minutes later, a patrolling team ran it over with a jeep.
RIP zombie.
Choi Jung Soo was still actively hunting down his missing boyfriends. He had reached a new point of desperation, stopping near a pile of zombies, who looked like they had forgotten how to detangle their limbs.
“Seen a cute zombie and an equally cute human around?”
The groaning he received in return sounded negative, so he walked ahead. Naturally, as a good citizen, he helpfully removed their small problems by cleanly cleaving them in half. Now, a pile of zombies was still lying around, but nobody was twitching. Problem solved.
This situation got a few repeats. Zombies came, had no idea where his cuties were, and got skillfully dismantled.
“Wuaaaahh!”
“Buddy, I can’t help you find your wife. Do I look like I know where my husbands are? I lost them. No, wait. They lost me.”
“Wuaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Having searched high and low for a few hours, he gave up. Plopping down on a nearby pillar, Choi Jung Soo idly chatted with a nearby zombie. The good dead-but-still-moving was woefully sharing his life story.
One-step-from-roadkill looked at him with his glassy eyes and an aggrieved expression. His fists were hitting the pillar with squishy sounds.
“Let me tell you a secret, lose any more body parts and your wife will throw you out anyway.”
The zombie stopped his pounding. A confused, “Wuah?” left his half-open mouth.
“Care for your body parts. Especially your legs. They come in handy.”
“Wuah.”
“What are you doing?” Lee Soo Hyuk’s utterly exasperated voice reached Choi Jung Soo from behind. Happily whirling around, he saw his two missing partners walking side by side in his direction. Choi Jung Soo jumped up and abandoned his zombie buddy in favor of hugging his zombie boyfriend.
Hoes before bros, you know?
Kim Rok Soo heaved a sigh, his chest moving with the action even though he didn’t need a steady supply of air, which came in rather handy as Choi Jung Soo squeezed strongly. His cold cheeks were pushed against the shirt of Choi Jung Soo, who happily rubbed his cheek on Kim Rok Soo’s head.
Lee Soo Hyuk spread the blanket he had taken along, and the three of them sat down soon after. As it got rather late, the night sky shone brightly with hundreds of stars creating a mesmerizing display above. The vision on Earth was just as beautiful.
Kim Rok Soo and Choi Jung Soo shared a birthday, while Lee Soo Hyuk celebrated with them since he didn’t feel like celebrating on his actual birthday. They created a small tradition in which they ate cake and various delicious snacks on November 8 th , celebrating another year of not turning into zombie fuel.
So far, they are great at it.
“You left me behind,” Choi Jung Soo complained, his voice practically drenched in complaints to the point Lee Soo Hyuk had raised a challenging brow.
“You just didn’t read the message we left you.”
“What?”
Below their perch, Choi Jung Soo’s zombie friend also voiced his confusion. “Wuah?”
“What he said!” Choi Jung Soo said, pointing with his thumb at his buddy below.
Kim Rok Soo eyed him with his usual deadpan face. It was always a mystery if Kim Rok Soo had been this expressionless as a human or if it was a consequence of joining the ranks of the undead on a technicality.
“We left you a note with a location and waited there for six hours.”
“Oh, I didn’t see that.”
The expression on Lee Soo Hyuk’s face said, “No shit, Sherlock.”
Instead of being angry, the three of them smiled amusedly. It was great that the only problem today was Choi Jung Soo’s inability to read a letter, instead of something more dire.
Chatting and eating to their hearts’ content, they soon lay down on the blanket, hands connected and stomachs filled.
“I love you,” Choi Jung Soo shouted into the darkness. He had to laugh at the “Wuaaaah!” that came from below. “Not you, dummy.”
Lee Soo Hyuk gripped his hand tighter, idly tracing the calluses inside of Choi Jung Soo’s hands while marveling at the strength he knew those hands could show. “Me too, I love you both far too much to be healthy.”
Kim Rok Soo, the most emotionally vulnerable and at the same time least expressive, didn’t voice his love with any words. He just gripped both of their hands with care, feeling the warmth and the blood pulsating through their bodies.
The other two closed their eyes contentedly.
“Let us enjoy many more years like this!”
***
Lounging idly on a couch meant for two people, the three of them squeezed onto the piece of furniture with no airspace and lots of cuddle room.
Draping one arm over Lee Soo Hyuk’s knee while his other hand stole a handful of popcorn from the bowl seated on Choi Jung Soo’s lap, Kim Rok Soo enjoyed the moment of peace. It hasn’t always been this way.
His childhood wasn’t great, with no emotional connection that fueled any desire to aim for a better life. Money was his only motivator, only to collapse once the apocalypse hit the world and the worth of money evaporated faster than Kim Rok Soo’s desire to see another sunrise.
Getting bitten by a zombie soon after, he accepted his fate with a shallow smile. The wound throbbed painfully. It started with a sickly green glow that slowly traveled up his nerves, infiltrating the rest of his body. Blue and purple bruises followed the green. His body looked and felt like a minefield that had already exploded, leaving the aftermath for him to deal with.
Somehow, dragging his tired and dying body into a small side room of a collapsed building, he didn’t flinch when, a day later, delirious with a high fever, his surroundings collapsed completely. Kim Rok Soo was sealed in the room.
He recalled laughing. His voice sounded like a broken motor, hoarse and raspy, yet he was just glad his soon-to-be zombified body wouldn’t be able to wobble across the streets and doom another person to the same fate.
It could have been a few minutes, a bothersome hour, a laborious day, or even a harrowing week; Kim Rok Soo wouldn’t know. His body was weak, fighting the inevitable and predictably losing the battle.
He could feel the change. His blood was running dry, and his tears evaporated as they left his eyes. Miserably, he realized even crying had become useless.
Yet, as the pain subsided, Kim Rok Soo felt his mind clear up. A gnawing need to eat was bothering him, yet it honestly wasn’t as bad as when he was a child and got locked out without food. Bearable if annoying.
Inspecting his body, he noticed subtle changes. Pale skin, void of blood. Using a nearby shard of broken glass, he cut his skin. No blood seeped out. The wound looked dry, almost cracked. It knitted itself together, leaving behind a permanent scar that looked weeks old instead of the mere seconds it was.
His eyes were the next change. He could see the dust flying around, annoying particles that bothered him immensely once he noticed them. They bled red, Kim Rok Soo thought at first, only to realize that they gained a red tint. The remaining blood beneath his pupil seeped through, creating a menacing eye color.
How ugly.
Throwing aside the shard, Kim Rok Soo gazed at the sealed entrance. Having survived – somewhat – the transformation, a situation he didn’t think was possible, Kim Rok Soo had to think about what he wanted to do now. Waste away in this building in fear of turning into a monster or try to leave, risking the chance he would lose his senses once he encountered humans?
Logically, he should choose option one. Emotionally, he didn’t want to roll over and give up just yet.
In the end, Kim Rok Soo didn’t have to choose. Before he could properly fight his consciousness, the ceiling above him shook. Large tremors almost sent him sprawling onto the floor. A small hole appeared in one corner. Just for a short second, the sunlight embraced him with a gentle glow before someone shoved their head into the hole, creating an effective sunblock.
His obvious zombie-ness wasn’t missed by the man above him, considering he shouted, “Since when are zombies this cute?” Sounding utterly affronted at the fact. With nothing better to do, Kim Rok Soo took it as a compliment.
“Thanks,” he said, putting enough sarcasm into the word to drown a full-grown man.
Instead of being angry, the man removed his head from the hole to shout to his companion, “He also talks!”
“…wait, he talks?”
Flabbergasted, the man leaned down again. With healthy amounts of suspicion, he asked, “Are you human or a zombie?”
Kim Rok Soo saw no point in lying, so he admitted with a shrug of his shoulder,” Zombie.”
“Ah, so he’s a hu-what? Zombie? Like flesh-eating, moaning atrociously, and normally rotting away zombie? Are you sure because you look fine as heck to me?”
“I got bitten, transformed, and I don’t bleed anymore. So yeah.”
Instead of deciding that the only proper action was to exterminate him, the man grinned down at Cale with boyish charm.
“That’s interesting.”
I think you have the wrong script , Kim Rok Soo thought.
The man got pushed away, and another person, also male, even though his long hair could confuse people for a second before they saw the rest of his body, appeared.
This time, he will die. Kim Rok Soo was sure of that. Closing his eyes, he expected to hear the sound of a gunshot before facing oblivion, and once more, he was surprised when the long-haired man whistled.
“Really pretty, I agree.”
Why was he, the zombie, more worried about the zombie than the two humans?
“I am a zombie?” Kim Rok Soo pointed out.
“A pretty one,” Lee Soo Hyuk agreed.
“Cute and pretty, what an amazing combination,” Choi Jung Soo praised from the depths of his heart.
Good sirs, I think your brains are broken.
The weird situation got even weirder when they rescued him from his pitiful hole and dragged him onto the roof. Getting a face full of sunlight after weeks of darkness, Kim Rok Soo enjoyed the breeze and the rays of the sun. This was luckily a zombie apocalypse and not a vampire apocalypse.
“What now?” He asked.
Getting their names, Kim Rok Soo found each one suited the person. Lee Soo Hyuk shrugged.
“Wanna take a bite?” He pulled up his sleeve, showing off scarred skin. His bare arm, muscled and definitely strong enough to break Kim Rok Soo in two without much effort, looked so damn handsome. Kim Rok Soo gulped.
He wanted to eat them, but not in the zombie way.
Following suit, Choi Jung Soo also pulled up his sleeves, once again displaying some very delicious muscles. The whole package was unfairly good-looking.
Maybe just one bite?
A face was suddenly far too close for an introvert like Kim Rok Soo. Leaning back, he avoided the knowing gaze on Lee Soo Hyuk’s face, instead staring at the ruined city around them. Most of the fires had been put out with rain or simply because there was nothing else to burn. Broken cars littered the streets, highways wasted away with debris crumbling away, and even the suburbs were abandoned.
Wonky, uncoordinated zombies were manning the streets. Like a planless horde, they wandered, seeking out noises that were made most of the time by their brethren.
“Feel like joining your buddies below in drunkenly stumbling about or do you want to join us? We aren’t a part of a small group, planning on building a base on the nearby hills. Of course, we can’t take you with us into the base, since unlike us – connoisseurs of beauty that transcends human limits – they would shoot first, ask questions later.”
Of course, Kim Rok Soo took the logical approach and joined them.
He never once regretted meeting them, instead seeing it as the greatest fortune he had ever experienced. Finding a home with not one but two people, the bits and pieces of his heart that had broken off all those years ago were finally reunited.
One zombie, non-venomous as they found out later, and two humans.
Odd, but for them, they were perfect.
***
Years into the apocalypse, Kim Rok Soo knew there would come a day when humanity picked up its proud existence once again. They suffered setbacks, almost lost hope during multiple large zombie sieges, yet as always, they prevailed.
A vaccine or something similar hadn’t been found, but it wasn’t necessary anymore. The bases around the world gained strength, each day reinforcing their borders, making them impenetrable. As the dire state was reversed, zombies became rarer. Their weak bodies, rotting in the summers and freezing into ugly icicles during winter, couldn’t handle wobbling about for long.
Most were dead or as close to dead as they got.
Kim Rok Soo was still fine, his body looked as fresh as a human’s, but with humans changing their focus to regaining their territories, he knew it was a matter of time before they found him and with it his status as a zombie.
Standing in front of a large group of people, he lamented that he had to die. Luckily, both Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk were out of town. They wouldn’t have to watch him get shot.
Getting caught near the gates of the old city, a patrolling unit quickly surrounded him. Officers and spectators alike braved the outside of the gates to witness his end. It had been years since he saw such a large group of humans.
Slightly proud that humanity would survive another day, Kim Rok Soo stared straight ahead into the eyes of the commanding officer. The man hadn’t drawn his pistol yet, letting it hang on his belt, mockingly.
With furrowed brows and a stoic face, the man looked close to delivering the final verdict. Suddenly, someone pushed aside the people in the front row to boldly throw herself between Kim Rok Soo and the officer.
It was the old flower lady Choi Jung Soo always got his flowers from. She was a kind, old lady with a big heart. Her job was hard and dangerous at times, Kim Rok Soo would sneakily accompany her and drop off pretty flowers near her when she wasn’t looking. She reminded him of his grandma, which was why he decided to help.
Weeping, she voiced her complaints, begging the officer to show mercy.
“He isn’t bad! Please, don’t kill him! It has been years, and he never once bit anyone or lost his reason.”
That wasn’t quite true. Kim Rok Soo took great joy in biting his boyfriends, but since he wasn’t venomous, it didn’t matter much. As for his reason, that was true. Never once did he lose his human mindset.
Before the officer could open his mouth, another citizen joined in.
“He helped me before! I would have died at the teeth of zombies if he hadn’t saved me!”
Oh, it was the young boy and his family. Kim Rok Soo indeed saved them. He met the fleeing group when he was taking his midnight walk, stumbling across their injured bodies. A nearby zombie horde hadn’t discovered them yet, but it was only a matter of time. Dragging them to the gates and making noises so that the patrolling officers saw them was quite the challenge.
More and more people started speaking up. With an open mouth, Kim Rok Soo concluded that he was shit at being sneaky. How did they all see him?!
Fed up with the noise the people were making, the officer held up his hand, immediately silencing the crowd. The old lady and many more remained standing in front of Kim Rok Soo, daringly opposing the officer.
With a deadpan face, the man said, “I know, calm down.”
He knew. What did he know?
That Kim Rok Soo was a zombie?
“I won’t shoot him, so cease your complaints and let me speak, damn it.”
Oh, he was grumpy.
“He helped my wife arrive safely as well. Not just us, he and his two boyfriends served the base greatly. How could I dare to mistreat someone responsible for saving so many lives? Instead, we want to offer you a place, a home, in the base.”
…the officer spoke the same language as Kim Rok Soo, so why did he understand the words separately, yet they made no sense combined?
“He isn’t infectious anyway, so why don’t we let him join us?”
…how did they know?!
“Also, he is the only reason Team Leader Lee Soo Hyuk and Officer Choi Jung Soo haven’t broken the base yet. Leaving those two alone is the easiest way to create another world-ending disaster.”
…true, but also, what the fuck? What were his two idiots doing while he wasn’t with them?
The crowd welcomed him happily, retreating once they confirmed that Kim Rok Soo wasn’t in danger. The officer walked down to him, and once they were left alone, he gave him a meaningful gaze.
“They aren’t subtle with their affection for you. Also, do you know how many times my fellow officers and I had to act like we didn’t see the obvious bite marks on their necks? It was damn painful. They also chatted about you every other break, I swear, I know far too much about your private activities than I ever wanted to find out.”
Right, where was the nearest hole Kim Rok Soo could bury himself in? His body had expired anyway, and his will to life had evaporated. Goodbye, cruel world.
Naturally, the chaos duo in question chose that moment to come back. Their backs were drenched in sweat as clear panic was etched onto their faces.
The officer just patted their shoulders before walking off, leaving Choi Jung Soo and Lee Soo Hyuk behind with a mortified Kim Rok Soo.
And they lived happily ever after…
…if they survive Kim Rok Soo’s wrath.