Chapter Text
It was warm and sunny the day the world ended.
They are filming a SKZ Code episode which has them divided into four teams. Each team is completing their five challenges separately, in solitude, with no knowledge of how well the other teams did. At the end, they'd reconvene and with a set amount of won based on their own placements in the challenges, bet on each team's placement on each challenge. The winning team, of course, being the richest team at the end.
Seungmin and Jisung had been paired up, and the challenges were far more physical than either of them had expected. And with them being the least athletic members of the group…
If Seungmin had to place his bets now, he thinks they're in last place.
They are currently on a beach on Jeju Island trying to move the tiniest tangerines with the biggest chopsticks Seungmin's ever seen from one side of a marked area to the other. The catch being they have to work together, with each of them only getting one (meter and a half long) chopstick each. It's ridiculous. They look ridiculous. Passersby are watching them and laughing at them. It's the worst. There are ten tangerines in the bowl and they've only successfully moved one of them.
"Have mercy!" Jisung drops to his knees dramatically and cries when their current tangerine falls once more to the sand.
"At the end, we should just bet that we came in last place for each challenge," Seungmin says, laughing. "We don't need to win the challenges, we just need to have the most money."
He kneels down and he and Jisung are in the middle of trying to pick their fallen tangerine back up. Jisung is a full body laugher, and he's laughing so hard that picking up the tangerine is impossible. Seungmin doesn't mind. It's the last challenge of the episode, and they just have to finish filming this challenge, then a bit of Jisung and Seungmin playing on the beach, and they'll head back to the mainland to reunite with the group. The food will be shared with everyone anyways after a few moments of gloating by the winning team, and Jisung's laughter is infectious. Regardless of whether they win or not, he's having a great time.
It's just as they've successfully gotten the tangerine back in their grasp and have stood up that the ground trembles.
The tangerine falls into the sand. Seungmin and Jisung look at each other.
"Was that an earthquake?" Jisung asks.
Seungmin shrugs. There hadn't been any weather warnings, or at least, he wasn't aware of any. Chan and Minho are both responsible enough, he thinks one of them would've warned the team if an earthquake had been predicted.
And then he startles as water rushes over their feet, the tide coming in suddenly, far enough inland that their entire gaming area for the episode is under water in seconds, soaking their socks and sneaker and leaving their feet wet and uncomfortable, and then just as quickly as it came in, the water is sucked back out, leaving the sea level lower than it was previously. Several meters lower, if Seungmin had to guess. Ocean debris and fish, flopping wildly, cover the sand where the water once was.
Warning bells sound in Seungmin's mind. Is this a tsunami? He thinks this is a sign of a tsunami. He's just about to suggest they get back into the cars, head towards the middle of the island, where the ground is higher than the beach, when far beyond the shoreline, the sea bulges upwards.
It is an unnatural sight. The sea moves in a way no body of water should ever be able to.
Run. They should run, Seungmin thinks. It's not a tsunami. For a moment, it looks like…he doesn't even know. A giant bubble in the sea? A frozen wave? But then the water parts, and it's a machine. A huge machine, on three massive legs, rising taller, taller, impossibly tall as it straightens to standing.
It towers above them, even though it's so far out to sea.
"Seungmin…." Jisung pulls on his sleeve, frantically. "Please Seungmin, we need to go."
Seungmin wants to leave too, but he can't tear his gaze away from whatever just came out of the ocean. He can hear Jisung's breathing quicken, he's close to panicking. He sees more machines rising from the ocean, and he can hear people behind him starting to scream. Jisung grabs his arms and shakes him hard, and finally Seungmin turns his head, breaking his gaze from the machine.
"Seungmin! We need to leave!"
He nods dumbly at Jisung, who starts to pull him backwards, and that's when the machine lets out a noise, some sort of horn or alarm. Both Seungmin and Jisung freeze at the noise; it's loud, so loud, and it activates some primal part of Seungmin's brain, screams danger danger! danger! danger! The noise reverberates through his body. His bones rattle under his skin, his legs tremble and threaten to give out, his lower half clenches as he feels the contents of his guts liquefy in a way that should be humiliating, but he's too scared to be embarrassed.
And then the first blast of energy shoots towards the island, the very beach they're on, and people start dying.
Staff members drop their cameras and race towards the vans, and Seungmin follows, gripping Jisung's hand tightly in his own. Normally Jisung is faster, but right now Jisung is tripping over his feet in his panic, and Seungmin is none too gently pulling him along.
"Oh my god, oh my god…" he repeats, under his breath as he runs.
He sees a laser beam (he doesn't know how else to describe the blasts of energy shooting towards the beach) strike their manager, and the man vaporizes into a blast of dust that gets into Seungmin's eyes. He blinks furiously as his eyes water, and he tries desperately to not think about what the dust used to be. Manager Song created the whole SKZ Code idea they'd been working on. He'd sat with them at breakfast this morning. They'd eaten together and talked about their plans for the rest of the day. Manager Song had been looking forward to dropping Seungmin and Jisung off at the ferry after their part of the episode was complete and taking his family out to dinner…
Seungmin forces himself to focus on Jisung's hand in his, the ground under his feet, and the vans parked on the road.
He sees some of the staff get in the vans, turn the ignition, and then…nothing. A staff member cries out that the vans won't start. More people around them are vaporized. So many people that it almost looks like there's a haze of smoke and ash in the air, like when wildfires get too close to the city. Seungmin's eyes burn with irritation, and he tries desperately to not think about the fact that there's cremated human remains in his eyeball, in his nose and mouth as he gasps desperately for air, in his hair, on his face, his arms, his hands…
They reach the vans and Seungmin pulls Jisung around so they can crouch behind the vehicle, where the machines hopefully can't see them. He glances around and sees that no cars are starting.
"What the fuck? What the fuck?" Jisung is repeating, his voice high pitched and strained. His chest is expanding and constricting quickly, too quickly, a panicked rhythm that Seungmin is far too familiar with.
Seungmin releases Jisung's hand briefly to grab his face with hands. "Sungie. Breathe. Please."
Seungmin is normally the calm one of the group. Jisung has told him that Seungmin's presence is a huge help when he starts having a panic attack. But right now he can't. He's too close to panicking himself, and he needs Jisung to hold it together too, because those laser beams are vaporizing people and he's scared that he and Jisung will be next.
Jisung does his deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, lips pursed as he exhales. Any other day it would look a little silly and Seungmin might tease him gently for it. Today it might keep them alive.
The van next to them explodes as a laser beam cuts through it. More staff are vaporized. Seungmin watches as the girl who styled his hair this morning is cremated right in front of him. She'd been telling him about how she was saving up to buy herself a new computer so she could play games with her friend in Japan. They'd discovered they both liked reading romances, and had exchanged book recommendations.
Now he's coated in her remains.
Most of the rest of the staff panic and run.
The ground shakes and Seungmin looks back towards the beach, where they came from, and sees one of the machines is on land. The ground quaking was a footstep. The machine looked big when it was in the ocean, but on land, towering above them…
Seungmin doesn't have words to describe how big the machine is, and how small he is in comparison.
He can hear the metal inside the machine rattling and scraping against itself as the other two legs start to move, as it walks further onto the island.
He whimpers.
"Run, please," Jisung whispers next to him.
He nods, and they do, hand in hand once again, and the machines chase them.
He and Jisung sprint through the streets of the little port town right next to Jeju Beach. They run, everyone on the beach runs, and people continue to die in obscene numbers. Seungmin sees two girls. They look like they could still be in high school. They are running down the street together, and then they are gone. Nothing but dust in the air. An elderly man holding his wife in his arms screams as she is vaporized. He is gone moments later too. A mother runs, carrying her child, and between one blink and next, they too disappear.
Seungmin feels sick. He gags, even as he runs, his hand reflexively squeezing Jisung's as he tries his best to swallow down the heaves. He wants to close his eyes, hide away from the horror he is witnessing, but he doesn't. He keeps his eyes wide open, keeps moving. If they want to live, they cannot stop running. They need to get away.
He can hear Jisung's sobs as people to the left and right of them die in quick succession. Seungmin has no idea how they've made it this far unscathed.
He sees an older man frozen in the middle of the road. I can save him, Seungmin thinks. He takes one step forward.
Another man running by sees the machine towering over them in the street, and grabs the man, holding him in front of him like a shield. The older man cries "No, please!" right before the laser rips through them both. The dust cloud is large enough Seungmin reflexively breathes it in.
Stupid, stupid, Seungmin thinks. Dead for nothing.
A laser tears through the building just in front of them, so close Seungmin almost walks into it. He flails backwards, right into Jisung, and they fall in a tangle of limbs to the concrete.
The skin of Seungmin's cheeks and forehead burns from the heat of the laser, but he pays it no mind. He pulls himself and then Jisung back up, and they continue to run.
They end up hiding in a storm sewer pipe until the machines pass, found by accident after Jisung had tripped and fallen, sliding down a small grassy knoll. They'd stopped sliding right at the entrance to the pipe. There's a rusted grate inside that prevents them from entering more than a couple meters, but they stand as far in the corner as they can, pressed against the pipe, holding each other tightly. Jisung's face is squashed against Seungmin's neck, and Seungmin can feel his ragged wet breathing against his skin. He's not panicking at least, just scared and trying to calm himself.
Seungmin is hiding his face in Jisung's hair, eyes squeezed shut. He doesn't want to see the monsters or people dying or anything anymore. He can taste the ash covering Jisung's hair every time he inhales, but he's finding he doesn't care.
Turns out, with enough fear, you can stop caring that you're covered in dead people.
He lifts his face slightly to peek at the opening to the pipe every now and then.
He remembers when he was a kid, sometimes thinking there was a monster in his room and hiding under his blanket, because monsters couldn't get to him there. If his whole body and head was under the blanket, he was safe. This feels the same. If he doesn't look at the monster, the monster can't get him. Not even with its big scary laser beam that tears through metal and buildings and…
They're in the pipe for hours, Seungmin thinks, pressed into that corner, holding each other tightly. They don't leave until they can no longer hear the grating metal sound of the machines walking, until the blaring alarms the machines make finally cease.
Filming for the SKZ Code episode had been taking place on the south side of the island. At first, they try to head towards Seogwipo, the closest city on the island to their filming locations, but they quickly learn the staying on the roads in a death trap. The big machines are there, and there's no place to hide on the road.
As soon as they step onto the road to Seogwipo, they start hearing the hum of the lasers. They've lived in this new hellscape for all of a few hours at this point, but his instincts already have him ducking and running for cover at the sound.
They are lucky - lucky, Seungmin thinks, with a wry laugh that comes out more like a sob - that most of the machine's destruction is happening further up on the road. They've come up on the road from behind the machines, and remain unnoticed for the moment. They stand there frozen in horror, watching the machines shoot lasers into the crowd of survivors that had been traveling north on the road, listening to the screams as people die.
Far too quickly, the noise of death and destruction grows quiet as the survivors are killed, and Seungmin and Jisung slip back into the cover of trees before they can be spotted.
But going through the wilderness was also a bad idea. Neither of them knew how to navigate without their maps app, and whatever had taken out all the vans had also taken out their phones. They wouldn't even power on. They almost get turned around, and it takes them a long time to find the road again to orient themselves.
They settled for a middle ground of going through the wilderness, trying to use the trees as cover, but sticking just close enough to the road that they could check in, so to speak, leave the cover of trees briefly to make sure they're still on course, and follow the road back to town.
It's an imprecise method of navigation, but it keeps them on track.
They must have waited long enough on the beach for most of the machines to move closer to the island. While they hear that dreadful horn frequently, it's far to the north of them. Walking towards the sound goes against every gut instinct Seungmin has, but north is the only direction they can travel. So they walk in the trees, keeping the main road to their left as best as possible.
Seungmin thinks the drive from Seogwipo to the beach this morning took about twenty minutes. Walking takes so much longer, and it's clear when they finally arrive that the machines had been there first.
Seogwipo is smoking. Burnt stripes of concrete litter the area and dust coats everything, evidence of the laser beams that had destroyed the city. They stare at the destruction for a moment.
"Come on," Seungmin whispers eventually, pulling Jisung close to him.
They were here earlier that morning and the city had been bustling and lively, even with it being just past eight in the morning. Seungmin walks past the shop they'd purchased coffee at on the way to the beach, and the gift shop they'd been trying to talk their manager into letting them stop at to buy their family souveniers before they returned to the mainland.
The thought of his family has his chest tightening. Are the machines everywhere? Is Seoul safe? Is his family safe? Are Changbin and-
"Do you think the others are okay?" Jisung asks, voicing Seungmin's own thoughts.
"I hope so," Seungmin says. "They were heading back to Seoul, right?"
Jisung nods. "Yeah, we were the only ones on Jeju."
He looks at the remains of Seogwipo, though, and doubts. "If those machines are everywhere though…"
Jisung's hand tightens around his own. "But Korea has a strong military, maybe they're okay?" His voice is small and unsure, so Seungmin squeezes his hand. An attempt at comfort.
Jisung isn't wrong. South Korea does have a powerful military, and the focus of its strength is in Seoul. If that's where their group is, if that's where their families are, they're likely in the safest possible place they could be.
"We should go to Seoul," Seungmin says. "Find them, make sure they're okay. I bet the military is keeping the city safe."
They decide to sleep in Seogwipo that night. It's still light out when they find a building, but neither of them want to try and navigate the wilderness of Jeju Island in the dark, with giant killer machines everywhere, and neither of them know how far it is until the next city or town.
They'd ducked into some sort of abandoned restaurant when they started hearing the machines calling to each other in the distance, the noise getting louder and the ground starting to tremble as the machines got closer. It wasn't ideal because it had too many windows in the main area, they'd have to be careful not to wander where they could be seen.
But the restaurant had a kitchen, and the kitchen had food and water.
In their terror, food or water hadn't been a thought that crossed their minds, but the tap still worked, and both took a long moment to drink directly from it, realizing suddenly just how thirsty they were.
The power at the restaurant was off, but the refrigerator and freezer were still cool, so they took a couple premade sandwiches. They eat them while huddled together under the sink, too scared from the a day spent on the run to risk sitting out in the open, even though the kitchen itself has no windows.
They'd worn hoodies and shorts to the beach, but stripped to just their t-shirts while being filmed since the weather had been so nice. Neither had thought to grab their hoodie off the sand while running, and now that the air is starting to cool…
They huddle together because they are scared, but also because they are cold.
At least they kept their sneakers on while filming, even if their shoes are still wet from the sudden flooding on the beach. He couldn't imagine if they were both barefoot as well…
"There's water bottles," Jisung says, pointing to a fridge with a clear glass front on the other side of the kitchen. Water meant for busy kitchen workers to help stay hydrated. "We should grab some before we leave."
Seungmin nods. "See if they have any shelf stable food too. Bread or something, I don't know."
Seungmin doubts he'll be able to sleep. He's too scared to relax properly. Jisung, at least, doesn't seem to have that issue. The panic and fear of the day have exhausted him thoroughly, and he falls asleep, leaning against Seungmin's side, in mere minutes.
Seungmin doesn't really sleep, but he thinks he dozes for an hour or two, dreaming (or remembering, perhaps, how can one dream if one isn't asleep?) of Changbin kissing him awake barely twenty-four hours ago - warm hands running teasingly up his side, sleepy smiles, the hint of a sunrise through curtains - before he's startled into full wakefulness by a machine roaring nearby, almost right on top of them, and a laser tearing through the middle of the kitchen.
Seungmin screams as the laser burns through linoleum less than a meter from where they hide. It is hot, so hot, he can feel the heat on his face and his legs, pulled up to chin and exposed as they are. He raises his arms to shield his face, and when the laser dissipates, he cries when his knees and forearms start blistering.
Jisung is no better off and he wails in pain when his skin turns red from the heat. They tuck themselves as far back under the sink as they can go. They're not safe, nowhere is safe when those lasers can tear through metal like paper, but if the machine above them can't see them, then hopefully they're not a direct target. If it's just shooting its lasers randomly, they have a chance to survive.
The ground shakes and metal grinds harshly against metal as the machine walks…somewhere. Away, Seungmin thinks, but he's not sure. If yesterday was anything to go by, the machine isn't alone. Are there more out there? Are they surrounded?
He doesn't dare peek out from under the sink.
"Should we run?" Jisung asks, high pitched and panicked. "Seungmin, should we run?"
Seungmin bites his lips, trying to calm himself. Fear and adrenaline make him want to be petty, make him want to say something like "Oh gee, I don't know Jisung, this is my first time being under attack by giant robots too", but he doesn't. Jisung is just scared. Like Seungmin himself is scared. He shakes his head instead.
"No, we should stay," he grits out through his chattering teeth.
"But what if they come back?" Jisung says, and he's openly crying now. Seungmin shifts a little, spreading his burned legs the tiniest bit, so scared that he might move too much and then the machine will see his leg under the sink and know where he is and then it'll fire that laser and then he and Jisung…
Stop thinking, he tells himself. Stay focused.
He has to keep his mind off the what ifs and just focus on surviving.
He pulls Jisung in between his legs, tight enough that their chests press together.
"I don't know, okay. I don't know. I just…if we leave, they can see us, but if we stay, I think we have a chance." He pulls Jisung even tighter and rests his cheek on the top of the older boy's head. Jisung's arms snake around his waist so they are holding each other. "I'm sorry, I don't know what else to do."
And now they're both crying, and shaking, and they can hear lasers going off, and screams, because Seogwipo was not completely deserted after all, but the sounds of destruction and death seem to be getting further and further away.
Neither sleep for the rest of the night. When they crawl out from under the sink the next morning, they find out that the laser burnt through the fridge of water bottles and most likely the water line, as nothing comes out of the tap anymore.
"We'll find water somewhere else, it's okay," Seungmin says. He hopes they'll find water, anyways. The adrenaline of the night is wearing off; he feels tired, hungry, and very, very thirsty.
They find little shelf stable food. A large bag of walnuts that was probably used in baking. There are some breadsticks in the freezer, still mostly frozen but they'll be edible (if unpleasant and soggy) when thawed. They grab a box. The main refrigerated area for food is still intact and the air inside is cool enough. They each eat another sandwich and some cheese. The sandwiches have meat and mayonnaise in them, so bringing extras along is pointless. They won't be able to run from the machines if they both have food poisoning.
They don't have bags for the food they did find, so they're carrying everything awkwardly in their arms. It's not ideal, but what other choice do they have?
"Keep an eye out for convenience stores, we might be able to find some more food and water there," Seungmin says as they head out, eyes cast upwards, looking for giant machines.
They orient themselves as much as they can by the sun and hope they are headed north. Seungmin tries not to think of the journey ahead of them. Crossing the island is one thing, crossing the ocean to get back to the Korean mainland is another. He doesn't have a plan for when they finally need to cross the 90 kilometers of water that is the Jeju Strait. They'll just have to figure it out when the time comes.
"This feels impossible," Jisung says. "I mean, we have to walk across this whole island because none of the cars will start and then what, cross a whole ocean? Do you think the boats are running?"
"I don't know, but I don't have a better idea. Staying on the island seems like a death trap, and everyone else…" Seungmin takes a shuddering breath. It hurts to think about their friends right now, about Changbin. "And everyone else is probably back in Seoul. Safe. Although I bet Chan lost it on someone when he realized where we were."
Jisung nods, lip curling up slightly at the image of Chan wondering what happened to them. "We're two city boys, we're not cut out for this kind of life." He says it lightly, an awkward attempt at humor.
Seungmin doesn't laugh though, because he agrees. It's incredulous they'd even think of attempting this. It's beyond impossible. They're going to die. They're going to die on this stupid island, blasted into dust, and Changbin and Minho and Felix and everyone…no one will even know. They'll spend the rest of their lives wondering if Seungmin and Jisung are dead, or if they're just lost, and Chan, the obsessive leader that he is, will tear himself apart searching and searching and searching for them until the stress probably kills him too, and-
He doesn't even realize he's stopped walking until he feels Jisung tugging at his sleeve.
"Seungmin, what's wrong?"
What's wrong? Seungmin wants to laugh at that. Everything is wrong. The apocalypse is here, he's unlucky enough to be at ground fucking zero, and he's woefully ill-equipped to deal with all of this.
They have Seoul. They have a destination, a goal to work towards. They've always been good at setting goals and meeting them. It's why Stray Kids became so successful. They will get to Seoul. There's no alternative.
He takes a shaky breath. "It's nothing."
Jisung looks at him doubtfully.
"I'm just…" scared, Seungmin thinks, but he doesn't say. "Let's just…head north, I guess. It's better than staying here," Seungmin says.
Seogwipo isn't a huge city by any means, nowhere near the size of Seoul. The damage dealt to the city though is…inconsistent.
Seungmin once watched a documentary about a deadly tornado that swept through part of the midwest of the United States. When people later described the state of the towns afterwards, the damage was described as random. Whole houses had been picked up off their foundations and reduced to rubble, whereas the house right next door remained undisturbed.
That's what Seogwipo feels like now. Some buildings are smoking ruins where lasers clearly burned through them, but then just down the street, a whole neighborhood of homes are standing still, as if nothing has happened.
In a couple of the houses, he thinks he sees people peering out from behind mostly closed curtains, but no one offers aid, and he doesn't feel like asking.
They manage to find a convenience store that is surprisingly untouched and fully stocked. They each grab a water bottle and chug the contents. The convenience store has bags for sale as well, thankfully - canvas backpacks for the numerous tourists who visit all year round. They take the opportunity to stock up. Instant ramen, jerky, canned meat, crackers, nuts, bottled water - they take everything they can carry. They keep the walnuts from the restaurant but leave the now thawed and soggy bread sticks on the counter in the convenience store on the off chance someone is hungry enough to want them.
Seungmin is a little concerned about the saltiness of the food they've chosen. They can't carry as much water as they'll need, it's too heavy, and they'll die of dehydration long before they die of starvation. But if they're too hungry, they won't have the energy to find water, or to run from those machines.
He slips one more water bottle into each of their backpacks, and makes a promise to himself that he'll be on the lookout for places to refill the bottles. Or maybe they'll be lucky and it'll rain, and they can collect the rain water.
The bags are heavy but they'll manage, and it's not like they won't lighten over time. As prepared as they can be, Seungmin and Jisung step out of the convenience store, scan the skies warily, and then begin the trek north.
Seungmin enjoys walking. Besides dance practice, a long walk in the evening, when the streets of Seoul are brimming with people going about their daily lives, leaving work, meeting friends and family for dinner, when the sun is starting to set and the streets are just beginning to glow gold from streetlights - it's his favorite time of day, and his favorite form of exercise.
Walking clears his head, and gives him space to think through interviews, lyrics, schedules.
He likes listening to music on his walks. Sometimes he listens to their performances and analyzes his parts while he walks, but more often than not, he uses his daily walks as the only time he ever really gets to listen to music from other artists.
Walking from the south side of Jeju Island to the north, with no clear walking trails, no maps, no directions, barely any food or water, all while civilization as they know it seems on the verge of collapse is a very different and deeply unpleasant experience.
But they quickly discover there are many survivors on Jeju Island. The machines tore through most of the cities on the island, but they did so haphazardly, carelessly. It seems more luck than anything who survived the initial onslaught. If you happened to have been standing on one side of the street, you were fine. If you were on the other side, you were now dust.
They find themselves, almost by accident, on the 1100 Road with hundreds of other survivors. They'd been trying to stick to the wilderness, too scared that roads would be obvious targets, but at some point they'd gotten turned around and were heading west instead of north, stumbling onto the road by happenstance.
"Can we join them?" Jisung asks.
Seungmin is getting tired of Jisung asking him questions, like he's supposed to know the best course of action. But he nods, because he's also tired of going this alone.
They fall in line with the rest of the group.
"Are we headed north? To Jeju City?" Seungmin asks a man to the left of them. He's also covered in dust, carrying nothing but a ragged orange cat wrapped up in what looks like a jacket.
Seungmin knows nothing about this man, but he chose to save his cat over everything else, and that makes him think highly of the stranger.
The man offers them a half smile as he nods, holding his cat close.
He tries to math the distance with Jisung.
"Jeju Island is what, thirty kilometers north to south?" Seungmin asks.
"Give or take, I think so."
"If it weren't….this," Seungmin says, gesturing vaguely at a burnt strip of concrete they are currently passing, "we could probably walk that distance in a day. But…"
"But giant machines could come from anywhere and start killing us," Jisung finishes.
Seungmin hums. That is the crux of it.
"So it takes us two or three days instead?" Jisung continues.
"And Jeju City is a port city. There will be boats. Ships. We'll be able to get off the island," Seungmin says.
"Do you think the boats will work?" Jisung asks.
Whatever the machines are, they've killed all the electricity on the island. Even battery operated technology, like their phones, are completely dead. They can't get their phones to turn on, let alone be usable for calls or text messages. Cars litter the 1100 Road. Most still have keys in the ignition, abandoned when the engines cut out and their owners fled in terror, but none will start.
"I don't know," he says, biting his lip. "I think…I don't know how much electricity boats use. Or if it's all gasoline. Or if gasoline even works, do cars need electricity to run? Maybe we could find some sort of canoe or something. But then we'd have to row the entire way, and not get turned around. And we already got turned around just trying to walk next to a road, how are we going to stay straight on the ocean wh- when there's no la- landmarks, and…and…an-"
Seungmin doesn't have panic attacks. He's helped Jisung through them, but he's never had one himself, so he doesn't immediately realize what's happening when his chest constricts and he can't get a proper lungful of air in. He just knows that he spiraled, that suddenly all he could think about was how incredibly hopeless their situation is, how stupid they were to ever think they could survive this.
"I-" he tries again. "May…maybe we-"
But then Jisung is there, pulling him to the side of the road. Both of his hands are in Seungmin's hair, scratching soothingly at the base of his scalp.
"Seungmin, breathe. It's a panic attack, you need to breathe through it," he says, surprisingly calm.
And Seungmin tries. He tries really hard but it doesn't seem to be working. His chest is still heaving in an erratic rhythm, his heart is racing faster than he thought possible, he's dizzy and light headed, and he can see his hands are trembling from where they're gripping Jisung's forearms tightly.
He wants Changbin. He wants Changbin to hold him, to kiss hair and to tell him everything will be okay, that hyung will protect him.
"I'm sor-" he begins, attempting to apologize, but he can't get the words out.
"Just breathe, sweetheart," Jisung says. Seungmin hears the endearment but he can't react in the moment, but…it helps, he thinks. The apocalypse feels a tiny bit less terrifying when his friends are calling him sweet names.
When it's clear Seungmin isn't going to be able to manage the panic attack on his own, Jisung moves one hand to Seungmin's chest and presses down firmly enough that Seungmin, weakened from panic, isn't able to even attempt a proper inhale.
And then Jisung lets go, and Seungmin breathes in deeply on reflex. Jisung lets him try to breathe normally for a moment, but he's not quite there yet, so Jisung repeats the process. After the sixth or seventh time, Seungmin's breaths have become less panicked and frenzied. He's still shaky, and at some point he started crying. His face is gross, and he thinks he's snotting but there's no tissues, so he wipes the back of his hand across his nose and tries not to think about it too much.
"Sorry. Thank you. Sorry," he says dumbly.
Jisung's hands are back in his hair. "I'm going to be really honest with you Seungminnie. If any situation warrants a panic attack, it's this one. I think your reaction is like…one hundred percent justified, no explanation or apology needed."
Seungmin huffs a half-hearted laugh.
"I know, I just…I don't even know where that came from. I was just thinking…" he pauses, bites his lip. He feels stupid.
"Yeah?" Jisung prompts. And Jisung isn't looking at him like he's stupid, he's looking at him like he's important, like he's Jisung's lifeline in this whole crazy apocalyptic mess they've found themselves in.
He shrugs. "I was thinking I don't know shit about boats and we're screwed," he says honestly.
It's Jisung's turn to let out a startled laugh.
"Yeah, probably, but hey," Jisung gestures at the road. "Look at all these people. Everyone's going to Jeju City, there have to be people here who know how a boat works."
Seungmin watches the line of people walk by them. Men and women, many who are older, deep lines etched across their faces and skin darkened by the sun. People who've spent their lives outside working, who live and breathe the island life.
Many of whom probably know some shit about a boat.
A small kernel of hope starts to bloom in Seungmin's chest. He nods. "Yeah. Definitely," he says.
Jisung helps Seungmin wipe up his face a bit more, using the edges of their tshirts, then grabs Seungmin's hand as they get back on the road and start walking north once more.
They don't encounter any machines that day. Tripods, as most people on the road are calling them. Maybe they left. Maybe the tripods thought they'd done enough damage, killed enough people on this one small island and have decided to go elsewhere.
He doesn't know and at this particular moment, he doesn't care. There's a general sense of melancholy and depression amongst the survivors walking on the road, but the longer they trek without any sign of a tripod, the more there's also a sense of hope. Of optimism. People are talking quietly amongst themselves more. Every now then, he hears a lovely stream of laughter coming from someone down the line.
He and Jisung walk until they physically cannot anymore. Seungmin thinks they've made it at least halfway to Jeju City. Jeju Island is known for being relatively flat with a small incline near the center of the island. They've trekked up the incline and have come back down, the road evening off perhaps an hour or two ago, Seungmin guesses. Which means…
"We need to sleep. We can probably just, I don't know, get in one of these cars or something," Seungmin says. "I think we can make it to Jeju City tomorrow, at this pace."
Jisung nods. He looks dead on his feet, Seungmin thinks. Jisung's feet scrape on the road, barely lifting as he takes each step. And they're not the first group to pull off the road. It's dark, and with no power anywhere on the island, they're walking by the light of the moon, and everyone is tired.
They choose a car that's near the edge of the road so people walking by won't disturb them and climb inside. It won't do much to shield them from a laser, but if a tripod shows up, they won't be seen. Jisung claims the front seat, and Seungmin climbs in the back, groaning as his legs and feet are finally given a chance to rest. They settle on opposite sides of the car so they can face each other, and each pull out a package of ramen and half empty bottles of water.
Seungmin sprinkles the spice packet on his noodles for some flavor, and even though the noodles are dry and crunchy, and the meal is objectively a subpar one, he's so incredibly hungry that it tastes gourmet.
Neither of them have any issue finishing off their food or water.
"I wish I had a toothbrush," Seungmin says woefully. He runs his tongue over his teeth. They feel filmy, like they're covered in slime. He hates it. "I feel disgusting."
Jisung hums. "I'm so hungry. I keep thinking about what I'm going to eat when I get back."
"Oh yeah? What?"
"You think it'd be fries or cake or something…I don't know, indulgent? But no. I really just want a chicken caesar salad. Like if you told me there was a chicken caesar salad waiting for me on the shore of the mainland, I bet I could swim across that ocean tonight, no issues whatsoever," Jisung says, wistfully.
Seungmin laughs.
Jisung's head lolls so he's looking at Seungmin. "What about you? What are you going to eat when we get back?"
When, not if, Seungmin thinks.
"I'm going to make your boyfriend make me a whole pot of kimchi-jjigae, and I'm going to eat it all. I'm not sharing any of it," Seungmin says, decidedly.
"Minho will do it in a heartbeat, he loves you," Jisung says. His hand has drifted to the sleeve of his t-shirt, where a Leebit and Han Quokka patch had been sewn on by Minho. With the SKZ Code taking place in multiple locations, it was unlikely the teams would have much contact for the two days of filming, and Minho is a sentimental tsundere.
"Not as much as he loves you."
"Yeah but like…that's the boyfriend contract. He's forced to love me most. It's like…a rule."
Seungmin smiles at that. His own boyfriend notwithstanding, Minho is his favorite hyung. They are alike in so many ways, and he feels like an older brother to Seungmin. They tease each other mercilessly, but they know when the other needs softness and a kind word too.
He thinks about what else he wants to do when he gets home.
"I'm also going to take the world's longest bath. And I'm going to make Changbin wash my hair for me," Seungmin says.
His face falls as his mind drifts. He's been careful to not think about Changbin too much. He loves his boyfriend. Loves, as in, would marry if it were legal. Would come out publicly just so they could hold hands on the street if he thought Chan wouldn't have cardiac arrest on the spot from the stress. But he's also so, so scared. He doesn't know if he'll survive, he doesn't know how any of the others are, if they made it back to Seoul, or if Seoul is safe. He's not used to not having any form of communication.
"Hey," Jisung says. "Where'd you go just now?"
Seungmin sighs. "I just…I miss Binnie," he says. Whines might be more accurate. "I just wish I knew they were all okay."
Jisung reaches through the two front seats, making a little grabby hand motion. Seungmin huffs and reaches up, holding Jisung's hand. It's awkward, but Jisung's hand is warm and dry in his, and the presence of another person is so reassuring.
"I think," Jisung says, "that if we can survive the hell of the last few days, just us two, that they're probably all fine. Freaking out, wondering where we are, but safe and alive and looking for us."
"We're going to surprise the shit out of them when we show up on their doorstep," Seungmin says.
Jisung grins fiercely, teeth white in the moonlight. "Hell yeah we will."
For the second day in a row, they are awoken by the tripods overhead. He is jolted awake by the earth itself shaking as the tripods walk directly over them. Seungmin's teeth rattle in his head with each step.
Jisung is motionless in the front seat, watching the tripod move through the front window.
The tripod will see him, Seungmin panics. He grabs the front of Jisung's t-shirt and starts trying to pull him towards the back seat of the car.
"Get back here, Jisung! They'll see you!" He wants to shout, but it comes off as a choked off whisper instead. He can't scream. The tripods might hear him.
Jisung is a frozen, dead weight at first, until he realizes what Seungmin is trying to do, and then he quickly moves into the back, his small size letting him easily maneuver his way around the seats. Seungmin doesn't bother to move so Jisung can sit next to him. Instead, he pulls Jisung until he's half laying on top of Seungmin, a warm, reassuring weight. He hugs Jisung tightly to him, and they both peek out the window closest to their heads to attempt to get a glimpse of the tripods.
They are tall. Incredibly, obscenely tall. Seungmin thinks they must rival the JYPE building itself. They are loud too. Thundering footsteps, and metal grinding against metal with each step. It's a grating, piercing sound, like someone took too many nails, shoved them inside a metal box, and shook it violently.
He has to muffle a scream into Jisung's shoulder when a tripod steps on a car far too close to them, crumpling it easily.
We're so small, what if it steps on us too?
His mind races frantically, and he burrows his face deeper into Jisung's shoulder. He doesn't want to see it coming, he decides.
Jisung is also shaking, but he manages to keep it together, to run his hands along Seungmin's flank, eventually coming up and curving over his shoulders, squeezing the back of his neck lightly. It's exactly what Changbin would do to soothe him. What Changbin has done to soothe him, in his anxious moments.
He wonders if this is how it's always going to be now. Are they going to wake up every morning to machines towering over them, trying to kill them? Are they going to hear people screaming as they're hunted every day?
Is this their new normal?
In the distance, he hears the tripod's horn sound. He feels a bittersweet pang of gratitude that, if people are screaming and dying, the sound of the horn is drowning out the sound of death.
They stay like that, burrowed into each other and shaking, until the sky starts to brighten.
In the morning, neither of them has an appetite, but they force themselves to eat another ramen packet and a bit of packaged meat. They've decided to ration their food to two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. The distance they've walked so far is small in comparison to how far they have to go, and he has no idea what shape the mainland will be in.
The skirt around the crushed car. Seungmin doesn't know if anyone is in it. They weren't the first people last night to decide to use an abandoned car as an impromptu shelter. Odds are, someone was in the car.
He doesn't look. He doesn't have it in him today. He averts his gaze. If there's a puddle of blood under the car, if there's a crushed body visible through the cracked glass of the window, he doesn't want to see it. Not today.
The 1100 Road is already full of survivors making their way north, to Jeju City, walking silently as if the tripods weren't here just hours ago. Maybe the tripods went somewhere else, not to Jeju City? Or maybe they're walking straight to the tripods, to their deaths. He has no way of knowing. So they do the only thing they can do. Jisung and Seungmin gather their things and join the march.
There's talk on the road today about the tripods. Most people seem to think they are aliens sent down to wipe out the humans. The reasons why are many - to take over the planet, because humans pose some sort of threat to the universe, some think it might just be for fun, or because the aliens think humans are easy targets. But almost everyone is in agreement. It's an alien invasion.
Which seems…ludicrous. It's something out of a story. But, well, they were all there when those machines rose out of the oceans and started vaporizing innocent people.
Seungmin thinks they might be aliens. It might actually be the most logical conclusion.
And if they're here to wipe out the humans, it doesn't make sense to focus on Jeju Island. It does, however, make sense to focus on the mainland.
He thinks the trek from the southern peninsula of Korea to Seoul is going to be so much more dangerous than what they've experienced so far.
They make it to Jeju City late in the afternoon, just on the cusp of dusk. The port is full of ships, boats of all sizes. He can see port authorities talking to people, directing foot traffic. The crowd is…large. Seungmin estimates there's easily a few hundred people milling about, waiting in line, but a quick scan of the skies doesn't reveal any tripods.
"Get in line!" A man near the center of the crowd is yelling, trying to direct people. "We'll get as many people on ships as we can, please be patient and wait your turn!"
Seungmin glances around and sees a port official walking by. "Excuse me?" he says.
"Get in line," the man all but barks at him. Seungmin jumps at the tone.
"Sorry, I just wanted to know if the boats were working. All the cars on the road are completely dead," he says.
The man sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks more exhausted than angry now. "Some are, some aren't. We're getting people off the island as fast as we can."
"Oh, okay," Seungmin says, nodding. "Sorry for bothering you." He feels dumb for even asking, and gives the man a low bow. He stayed during what is likely an alien invasion to help get people he doesn't know off Jeju Island. He deserves the respect.
"It's fine. Reserve your spot by getting in line," the man repeats. Seungmin just nods again and lets Jisung pull him away.
"He's probably as stressed and scared as the rest of us," Jisung says as they take their place in line.
"Yeah," Seungmin says.
Jisung slides a hand around his waist, interlocking his fingers just under Seungmin's navel and letting his head lean against Seungmin's shoulder. Seungmin lets his hands rest on Jisung's. They stand in line, holding each other, swaying a little bit as they wait.
Seungmin's sense of time is shot. He feels like they stand in line for hours, watching the sky darken. It's long enough that he's tempted to pull out a ramen packet and eat it, making Jisung do the same. Have them both drink some water. He doesn't. It's a selfish thing, because there's too many people with nothing, but they don't have anywhere near enough to share. They barely have enough for themselves at this point.
It's dark when they finally get to the front of the line. A smaller boat is being prepped. Seungmin thinks it's a fishing rig of some sort, but small enough it operates primarily on a pull to start motor and sails.
"We won't be able to leave until dawn," the man prepping the boat says. "It's first come, first serve, so I recommend staying in line if you can."
Seungmin grimaces, but nods, and they sit. Jisung pulls his backpack around to his front and moves to open it, but Seungmin stops him. "Is it safe?"
Jisung shrugs. "We need to at least drink some water," he says. He's right, Seungmin knows he's right, they've barely drank any water since they woke up that morning. But he eyes the strangers around him nervously. Most people nearby don't appear to be paying attention to them. They're zoning out, or engrossed in their own little groups. He sees a man and a woman trying to comfort two small children, two women leaning against each other, hands clasped, an elderly woman sitting off to the side, looking lost.
Very few people seem to have brought anything with them, and those that did, like the elderly woman, are holding photo albums, or memorial portraits. Things of sentimental value.
A man nearby watches Jisung when he takes a long drink from his water bottle. Seungmin shifts a bit, trying unsuccessfully to block the man's view of Jisung. The man doesn't say anything, doesn't move, doesn't give any hint of ill intentions. His face is blank and gives nothing away, but he also doesn't stop staring, and something about him makes Seungmin uncomfortable and wary.
Or perhaps he's becoming paranoid.
Jisung hands him the water next. "Drink," he says. When Seungmin hesitates, Jisung pushes the bottle insistently into his hands. "I mean it, Seungmin. You need to have some water. We walked all day out in the sun."
Seungmin licks him lips, grimacing at the dry feel of his tongue against his chapped lips. "You're right," he says as he takes the bottle and drinks deeply. "I'm sorry. I feel… out of sorts I guess."
Jisung puts the remaining water back into his backpack, slings the backpack onto his back once more. There's an unspoken agreement that this isn't the time to eat, even though they haven't eaten anything since they woke up that morning. They resume sitting there, knees pulled up to their chests.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" Jisung asks suddenly. "It's stupid, but those tangerines we left on the beach. I keep thinking we should've grabbed them."
Seungmin actually laughs at that. "I read somewhere that it only takes about a month of not getting enough vitamin C to get scurvy. What if we're the first idols in history to get scurvy?"
Jisung looks at him, horrified. "Don't your teeth fall out if you get scurvy? Absolutely not. I refuse."
"Think of the headlines. A new first for Stray Kids." Seungmin suggests, lightly.
"No," Jisung says, seriously.
"Think of them."
"Stop it."
It feels good to sit here and joke about the situation. They're still so far from being safe, but the humor almost serves as a defense, shielding their minds from the horror of what they've seen, the hunger tearing at their bellies, the tiredness in their limbs.
"I keep thinking about the book I was reading," Seungmin says, suddenly. He tries to keep it light-hearted, he doesn't want to bring down the mood. Jisung looks up at him curiously. "It's a thriller. I was fifty pages from the end, but I couldn't stay awake. Changbin took it away, made me sleep."
Jisung smiles at him, a little sadly.
Seungmin continues. "I don't even know who the villain is. I keep wondering if I'll ever know whether I guessed correctly or not. It's stupid, I know."
"No it's not."
"It's just a book."
"Yeah but, it's also…I don't know, our normal lives. I think missing it, wanting it back, is probably the least stupid thing right now."
They sit in silence for a bit, and then it's Seungmin, again, who breaks it. "Binnie was writing me a song." He hates that his voice wobbles a bit when he says it, but…
But Changbin had been writing him a song. About them. And now he might never get to hear it, might never get to sing it.
Jisung reaches out and takes his hand, squeezing. "We'll get back," he says. "We'll get back, and Minho and Changbin will be there. Everyone will be there. And eventually we'll make music again. Not right away, obviously, but you know. Things will go back to normal."
"You know what? This whole apocalypse thing? It sucks," Seungmin says, which makes Jisung snort.
"It really does."
"It looks so much easier to deal with in the movies."
Seungmin chances a glance back at the man who had watched Jisung earlier. He's still there, looking in their direction. Seungmin can't tell if the man is staring at him or Jisung, but he is staring, of that Seungmin is convinced.
He shifts a little bit closer to Jisung. He averts his gaze. He doesn't want to provoke the man if he is hostile for whatever reason, but more than that, he hopes he's just imagining things, that three days of constant stress is making him paranoid, making him see things.
Surely the man is just zoning out, and it's a coincidence that he seems to be staring at them.
He doesn't mention the man to Jisung. Instead, he vows to stay awake that night and keep an eye on the man. Tomorrow they'll leave Jeju and hopefully the man won't be a problem anymore.
It's almost too easy, getting onto the boat. The line is calm, and people board in an orderly fashion. Seungmin has seen the subway more chaotic during the morning commute.
Then again, perhaps people are just too numb, too tired, to do anything but put one foot in front of the other.
Several boats are setting off at once with as many survivors as they carry. It's a safety net, if one boat capsizes, survivors can be pulled onto another.
In the jostle of bodies moving around and boarding boats, Seungmin loses track of the man who had made him nervous the day before.
In the morning light, Seungmin can see that his assigned boat is indeed a fishing rig. Probably meant to hold a crew of no more than ten people, but at least fifty people cram themselves onto it. It's raining lightly - drizzling is probably a more accurate term - and Jisung and Seungmin aren't lucky enough to be one of the few people who get to shelter inside the cabin. They stand on the deck, squished against the railing, as the boat moves slowly into deeper waters.
The captain - Seungmin's not sure if that's his official title, but he's the one driving the boat - had warned everyone in advance that the mainland was bad. Seungmin's assumptions had been correct, it seemed. The tripods had moved to where there was a more dense human population. He guesses more people means more targets. It's simple math.
Despite the warnings, no one got off the boat. Jeju might be safer at the moment, but with no easy way off, it was also a potential death trap. And everyone, it seemed, had loved ones on the mainland they were trying to get back to.
So Seungmin stands there, hip digging into the railing, his arms wrapped around Jisung tightly in a sad attempt to share body heat. What he wouldn't do for a thick hoodie right now.
Jisung is wrapped around him, his small hands long since slipped under the back of Seungmin's wet t-shirt so he could press his warm palms against the small of Seungmin's back. It's not much, they're both still shivering, but it staves off the worst of the cold.
The person behind him moves into Seungmin harshly, causing Seungmin to stumble forward a bit. His grip tightens on Jisung as he works to regain his balance, and then he glances back, irritable at whoever pushed him.
He flinches when he sees it's the same man who was watching them the night before. Who was watching Jisung. They make eye contact briefly, before Seungmin turns back around. He doesn't know what the man wants, or if the man wants anything at all. Maybe it's all another coincidence. Everyone is on edge right now.
But something about the man doesn't sit right with him. Every instinct in him tells him to stay far, far away.
At most, though, he can shift just a few centimeters away.
"What's wrong," Jisung whispers.
Jisung might be a member of paboracha, but he's always been more perceptive than people give him credit for. It's one of the reasons he's such an amazing performer. Few people can read a crowd like Jisung can.
"The man behind me," Seungmin whispers back. Jisung's eyes flick to behind Seungmin quickly, then flick back. "I don't know, he was watching us yesterday too. I just have a bad feeling."
Jisung takes a half step back - it's about as far as he can move - and pulls Seungmin with him, turning both of them slightly so the man is to their side rather that at Seungmin's back, where Seungmin can't see him, where Seungmin is vulnerable to anything the man might try. It's not much, but it makes Seungmin feel immensely better.
"Thank you," he whispers to Jisung. Jisung nods back at him, offering him a tightlipped smile.
The trip is mostly silent. He can hear nothing from the other boats moving in the ocean adjacent to them. On his own boat, people murmur here and there, but Seungmin feels like….
He's seen movies about historical wartime moments. American films where the soldiers were en route to Normandy. D-Day. In every movie, soldiers sit in cramped ships, silent, contemplating the hell they're about to experience. Wondering if they'll survive, if their friends will survive, if they'll even win the war or if all the death and slaughter and horror will be for naught.
Their little pod of fishing boats reminds him of those movies. It's a somber feeling.
He stands, leaning against Jisung. He tries to think of good things, of Changbin and his laughter and his kisses and the way he wraps himself around Seungmin at night, determined to be the big spoon despite their height differences, but his mind keeps drifting to the things that make him uncomfortable - the headache pounding at the base of his skull because he hasn't had caffeine or enough water for too many days in a row now, the emptiness in his stomach that has replaced hunger, the ache in his legs from walking across Jeju Island.
The boat sits low in the water from all the weight it's carrying, and it moves slower than it probably would normally. They started close to dawn, and the sun is high in the sky when the coast of South Korea's southern peninsula comes into view.
The first thing Seungmin notices is the land is…red. And even though they are still several kilometers out to sea, there is a rotten, metallic scent that begins to permeate the air. It's faint enough that Seungmin wonders if he's imagining it, but he sees other passengers scrunching up their noses, and he knows he's not.
"What is that?" Jisung says.
Seungmin doesn't answer. He has no idea.
They're not far from shore, perhaps a kilometer or less, when the tripods stands up.
Seungmin doesn't know how they hid so well; they're massive even from a distance. Maybe they have camouflage technology, maybe the trees were just high enough to hide them, he's not sure it even matters.
They rise and face the boats sailing north to the mainland, and the screams start.
The first laser tears through the boat on their left, vaporizing three people near the front but not quite reaching the vessel Seungmin and Jisung are on. It eats through the wood and metal, and from where he's sitting, he can see the other boat taking on water and the front dips below sea level.
They're sitting ducks if they stay on the boat, but he's scared to jump. He can swim, and he knows Jisung can swim, but neither of them are strong swimmers, and they are both carrying heavy backpacks.
But do they have a choice?
"We need to jump," he hears himself say. The words sound like they come from far away, like his ears are stuffed with cotton, and he doesn't recall deciding to speak them, but they are out there now.
Jisung looks at him horrified. It's a long way to swim, and with lasers shooting at them…
Wasn't it just minutes ago he was thinking the distance between them and the mainland was so short?
Another laser beam fires. Another boat is cleaved in two.
"They're shooting at the boats. Get in the water," Seungmin says frantically. He's already starting to climb over the edge of the boat.
Jisung whimpers but does the same. They clasp hands and jump together.
Other bodies have already entered the water. He can hear splashes, screams, yells. It's chaos, but it's chaos he can't think about right now. He needs to focus on getting himself and Jisung out of the water, they need to find somewhere on shore that's safe and hidden until the tripods leave.
But it's hard because his backpack is so incredibly, unbelievably heavy. Heavier than he expected, now that he's in the water and fighting to stay above the surface. The weight of it drags him down, making it hard to swim. He can tell Jisung is struggling too.
"Go right!" he gasps out to Jisung. Most people who have jumped are heading directly to shore en masse. An easy target for lasers to sweep through. If they swim at an angle away from the tripods…
It's a longer swim, but they'll be harder to see, and hopefully less of a priority if they are spotted.
Jisung doesn't seem to hear him at first, he's swimming as best he can along with the rest of the people in the water. So Seungmin grabs the strap of his backpack and tugs it. Not hard, but he needs Jisung to hear him.
"Swim right," he says again. "Away from the tripods and the group. Don't clump up!"
And thankfully, Jisung hears him and nods. They start swimming. Jisung is slightly ahead of Seungmin, and therefore, understandably, doesn't notice when something catches on Seungmin's backpack, forcing him under the water.
He's caught off guard, the sudden tug backwards has him inhaling at the wrong moment, just as he goes under, and he immediately starts coughing. It's a vile, painful experience, because he's still underwater, trying desperately to not inhale the seawater, but his body convulses against his will, and it's a vicious circle. He flails, his arms hitting something hard behind him.
He doesn't know what he's stuck on, blindly kicks out, feels his foot make contact, and suddenly he's free.
He surfaces, coughing and retching violently on the water he's inhaled. He's gotten turned around though, and he can't find Jisung, doesn't know which direction Jisung was even swimming.
"Jisung!" he screams. His voice is hoarse and panicked, and he uses every ounce of breath control he's ever mastered to keep his tone stable while dancing and screams again, and again, projecting his voice as much as possible, being as loud as possible. "Jisung! Jisung! Jisung!"
And then the man - the man from the boat, the man he had a bad feeling about - is on him again, pushing him back under.
He's horrified. He's not stuck on anything, someone is attempting to murder him. He screams under the water and tries to fight back. He knows he makes contact, his fist hits something hard and bony, but it's not enough to get the man to let go of him. The water slows his movements too much, the man is too prepared for his struggles, and he's never been one for brute strength. The man is tugging on his backpack, jerking him back and forth, and he tries but he's not able to get his arms out of the straps with the way the man keeps jerking him around. The motion is keeping his arms bound tightly by the straps.
I don't want to drown, he thinks frantically. I don't want to drown. Please please please…
Something knocks the man off of him and he swims back to the surface again.
"Get off of him!" he hears someone yell next to him.
Jisung.
Seungmin barely has time to call for him before the man grabs him again.
"You have supplies, I know you do! Why do you need two bags, you greedy fucks?" he screams into Seungmin's ear, half drowning him again as he throws himself onto Seungmin's back, all while Seungmin is still coughing up water.
He's trying to get to the pack, Seungmin thinks hazily, before he's once again shoved underwater.
You can have it, he wants to say, but he can't. I'll give it to you, please don't kill me.
He can hear Jisung and the man yelling, can hear the tripods horn blaring even under the water and lasers ripping through people somewhere in the distance, can hear their screams. He thinks he gets an elbow or a knee to his temple - he's not sure if it's the man who hits him or if it's one of Jisung's flailing limbs. He's probably going to have his first real black eye, he thinks dumbly, like that's the important thing right now.
He's able to surface again, and he fumbles with the straps of the backpack while he can, tries desperately to get free of it.
"Let him go!" Jisung yells. His arms are under Seungmin's armpits, trying desperately to keep him up, but Jisung has his own heavy backpack as well. He can only do so much.
He has half of his right arm free from the strap when he's forced under again. But he wriggles, and he keeps wriggling, until his arm is finally free. After that, it's pitifully easy to extract his left arm and swim back to the surface.
He grabs Jisung. "Let's go!" he yells.
Jisung is stunned for a moment, too preoccupied with trying to get the man to let go of Seungmin to realize he'd given Seungmin the time he needed to break free on his own.
"But the supplies?"
"Fuck the supplies," Seungmin bites out between raggedy breaths and coughs. "Swim Jisung, please."
He doesn't glance back to see what happens to the man. He doesn't know if the man gets to shore safely, if the tripods get him with their lasers, if he manages to keep the backpack on him or if he loses it to the ocean floor. An angry, spiteful part of him hopes something happens to the man, hopes the tripods got him after all. The man tried to kill him! Would he have tried to kill Jisung too? His friend, dead, his talent and his dreams, dead, all for a bottle of water and a few packages of dried ramen?
The hate burns in his chest. He doesn't like it, but he uses it to power through the exhaustion of his near drowning and of the last two days to swim further away from the crowd of survivors. Maybe he'll die tomorrow, but today he'll live, if only to spite his would be murderer.
Swimming away from the group was a good idea, although it still feels like an impossible task. He's tired, so tired, from the fight with the man. He feels like he still hasn't been able to catch his breath properly, like he's swimming on pure adrenaline. He probably is. His vision is dimming in his right eye, the skin around it is hot and feels swollen already.
And the tripods are still there. Lasers continue to tear through the bodies in the water and….
Seungmin blinks, pauses swimming for a half second, because he swears he saw a tripod lift one of the bodies into the air.
What the-?
"Seungmin?" Jisung has slowed as well, and Seungmin can tell he's tired.
"Give me the bag," Seungmin says. "Let me carry it for a bit."
Jisung frowns. "I'm fine."
"Jisung-"
"I'm fine. You almost drowned. You can carry it when we get to land but I've got it the rest of the way."
Seungmin tries to sputter out a protest but Jisung is already swimming towards the shore. And he knows Jisung is right. He's struggling to breathe normally, he feels sluggish from his near drowning.
It feels like it takes hours to swim to shore, although Seungmin knows it probably takes less than one hour. They have to pause to tread water periodically to catch their breath. Seungmin is wishing they'd decided to eat something this morning regardless. It's not like attempting to be discreet and hiding the little bit of food they had saved from being stolen. Now they're out half their supplies and a morning meal.
He's bitter, and he feels shame when he realizes he's about to cry, the tell-tale burning in the corners of his eyes, and the blurring of his vision. But it's not fair that this is happening, that it had to happen when he and Jisung were so far from the rest of the members. They're not equipped to deal with this. They can barely even handle camping for SKZ Code episodes when the whole staff is there to make sure they're okay, and now they need to walk across the entire country just to get home, while trying not to be murdered by alien machines?
It's just…really, really unfair.
He wants to go home. He misses Changbin so, so much. He doesn't want to do this anymore.
His legs are shaky and weak as he finally crawls on the beach. He's gasping for breath, both because of the swimming but also because he still hasn't managed to stop crying, and when he looks over at Jisung finally, he sees Jisung is also crying. He's sitting in the sand with the backpack clutched in his lap, small hands reflexively opening and closing on the straps. He's staring into the distance and gasping as tears run down his face.
Seungmin crawls on all fours to him and collapses next to him in the sand. He reaches out and grabs one of Jisung's hands in his own and squeezes tightly.
There's red…something scattered over some of the beach. It's what they saw from the boat. He doesn't know what it is. It looks vaguely plant-like, with a root-like structure spreading out across the sand, but it feels viscous and warm, and it leaves red smears on him that look like blood. He brushes one of the roots accidentally, cringes at the fleshy feel of it, and tries to keep himself small to avoid touching anymore of it.
Jisung looks at him. "This sucks," he says. "This is literally the worst fucking thing ever."
Seungmin doesn't even have it in him to choke out a laugh. He just nods and keeps crying.
They sit there and they cry, and then they run out of tears but they continue to sit there until the sky begins to darken, just a bit.
Seungmin eventually reaches for the pack. "Let's see what's left," he says, dejectedly. He's scared to see how little they have left to survive on, but they need to take stock.
It's barely anything. Three and a half liters of water, a few jerky sticks, six cans of tuna, and four packages of instant ramen.
We're going to die out here, Seungmin thinks. Letting the tripods have us would be faster than starving to death.
He doesn't speak those thoughts out loud, though. He's not putting those thoughts out into the world because no matter how hopeless he currently feels, he still wants nothing more than to see Changbin one more time.
"We'll find more food somewhere," he says. "Until then…"
"We starve?" Jisung finishes for him.
"We'll ration what we have," Seungmin corrects. They haven't eaten since the previous morning, so he takes out a ramen packet and a can of tuna. Breaks the brick of dried ramen in half and sprinkles on the seasoning, tops it with tuna, and hands Jisung his half.
"Eat," he says. "And drink some water."
Seungmin studies Jisung while they eat their pitiful meal. The tripods attacked what? Four days ago? Five days ago? Fuck, he's not even sure. But Jisung looks thinner already, and they still have the bulk of their journey ahead of them. Seungmin isn't an expert on geography by any means, but thinks they probably have at least three, maybe four, hundred kilometers left to go. Seoul is at the northern end of Korea, and they are currently at the southern end.
They are going to have to walk across an entire goddamn country to get home.