Work Text:
Min-jae slid down the cool interior wall of the archery range, dropping his head into his hands with a heavy, exhausted exhale. His shoulders were shaking, the adrenaline that had fueled their frantic sprint across the exposed courtyard finally draining away and leaving behind a hollow, bone-deep fatigue.
"We made it," he muttered, his voice barely a rasp as he looked up at the high, vaulted ceiling of the practice hall. "I can't believe we actually made it."
"Keep your voice down," Ha-ri instructed quietly, though there was no real heat behind her command. She stood near the heavy double doors, her bow already strung and an arrow held loosely against the grip. She leaned her forehead against the reinforced glass panel, peering out into the fog and rain that blanketed the deserted running track. "Locks hold until something heavy hits them. We aren't safe just because there's a roof over our heads."
"Can you give it a rest for two minutes?" Mi-jin groaned, flopping backward onto a thick foam landing pad meant for high jumpers. She stretched her legs out with a dramatic wince, rubbing at a nasty purple bruise forming on her shin. "My legs feel like lead, my lungs are on fire, and I'm ninety percent sure I swallowed half a gallon of contaminated rainwater. Let us have five seconds of denial."
"Denial gets you killed," Ha-ri replied coolly, not turning around.
"Yeah, well, so does stress, Captain," Mi-jin shot back, though she lacked her usual fiery bite. She rolled her head to the side, looking over at Na-yeon, who was sitting isolated in the corner, clutching her knees tightly against her chest and staring at the rows of paper targets lined up along the far wall. "Hey. Princess. You still breathing over there?"
Na-yeon didn't answer right away. Her knuckles were white, her eyes wide and unblinking. "It's too quiet," she whispered, her voice trembling so hard her teeth clicked together. "It was quiet right before the cafeteria windows shattered, too. It doesn't mean anything."
"It means we have a door with a heavy bolt," Gyeong-su said softly, dragging himself over to sit on the floor a few feet away from her, careful to give her space. He winced as he adjusted his arm, the makeshift bandage tight against his skin. "That's more than we had twenty minutes ago."
Na-yeon flicked her eyes toward him, a brief, flicker of guilt crossing her face before she swallowed hard and looked back at her shoes. "We can't stay here forever. We don't have food. We barely have water."
"We stay until the rain stops and we figure out where the military is setting up camp," Ha-ri said firmly, finally stepping away from the glass doors and lowering her bow. She walked over to the supply racks, checking the quiver straps with practiced, methodical precision. "Then we move again."
Mi-jin let out a dry, bitter laugh, resting her arm over her eyes to block out the dim overhead emergency lights. "Right. Simple plan. Easy as pie. Just a casual stroll through a school full of bloodthirsty lunatics." She paused, the room falling into a heavy, lingering silence save for the steady patter of rain on the metal roof. "Anyone got a light? I'd sell my left kidney for a cigarette right now."
"No smoking in the athletic facility," Min-jae muttered from the wall, a tiny, reluctant smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Shut up, Min-jae," Mi-jin grunted, though a faint breath of amusement escaped her, too.
For the first time in what felt like days, the immediate panic receded just enough for them to catch their breath—even if they all knew the peace wouldn't last.
Ha-ri marched into the narrow equipment supply room at the back of the archery range, dragging the heavy sliding door shut behind her until the faint chatter of the others was muffled into near-silence.
The moment she was alone in the shadow of the metal shelving racks, her rigid composure violently cracked.
Her bow arm was trembling so hard the wooden grip rattled against her thigh. She squeezed her eyes shut, slamming her knuckles back against the cold steel of a storage shelf with enough force to rattle the spare target pins overhead. A sharp, stinging pain shot through her hand, but it was nothing compared to the sickening, clawing panic threatening to tear open her chest.
Where are you, Wu-jin? Why aren't you here?
She gripped the edge of a metal shelf, her chest heaving as she fought to draw a single, clean breath. Everyone outside that door was looking at her like she was some invincible, unshakeable soldier—the cold varsity archer who always had a plan, who didn't flinch when those... things came rushing down the halls. They were leaning on her. Mi-jin’s sharp mouth, Min-jae’s quiet compliance, Na-yeon’s barely restrained hysteria, Gyeong-su’s pale, feverish quiet—they were all tethered to her survival instincts like a lifeline.
If she broke, if she showed even a fraction of the sheer, suffocating terror consuming her mind, the whole fragile structure would collapse into sheer panic.
She pulled her bow up to eye level, her fingers tracing the smooth, familiar curve of the riser. The leather wrap was damp with rainwater and dark, sticky streaks that weren't hers. Her mind raced back to the main building—to the quiet second-floor classrooms where Wu-jin’s homeroom was supposed to be. When the first wave of screaming had echoed down the corridors, her very first instinct had been to drop everything and sprint straight toward his wing. But the stairwells had filled with a frantic, crushing tide of terrified students and snarling monsters within minutes, cutting off the path entirely.
Had he made it out? Was he hiding in one of those cramped classrooms with his friends, shivering in the dark, listening to the glass break? Or was he...
"No," she whispered, her voice rough and terrifyingly small in the cramped supply closet. "Don't go there. Do not go there."
A sudden wave of burning anger flared up behind her ribs—hot, sharp, and desperate. She was furious. She was angry at the school, angry at the useless emergency landlines, angry at the rain pounding relentlessly on the metal roof, and angrier than anything at her own powerlessness. All those years of relentless training, the endless hours spent standing in the freezing wind holding her draw until her shoulders bled, the brutal pressure from her parents to be perfect, to be untouchable—what was any of it worth if she couldn't even walk two hundred yards across campus to protect her own younger brother?
Her vision blurred with hot, angry tears, but she furiously swiped them away with the back of her sleeve, refusing to let a single drop fall.
Leaders don't cry, her father's stern voice echoed in the back of her mind. Leaders don't falter when people are watching.
She squeezed her eyes shut, resting her forehead against the cool metal of the bow riser until her breathing gradually slowed from ragged gasps to low, deliberate inhales. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Just like aiming down the range before releasing the arrow. Focus on the target. Ignore the wind. Ignore the noise.
Wu-jin was tough. He was fast, he was quiet, and despite how much he complained about her fussing, he wasn't stupid. He knew the layout of the school just as well as she did. He was alive. He had to be.
With a final, sharp exhale, Ha-ri straightened her back. She rolled her shoulders, forcefully locking the terror back down into the dark, silent corner of her chest where it couldn't touch her hands. She checked her quiver—three arrows left—and adjusted the strap across her chest.
She rolled back the sliding door, stepping back out into the main range with her head held high and her face set back into an unyielding mask of stone.
Ha-ri stepped back through the sliding door into the wide, shadowy hall of the archery range, her face once again an unreadable mask of stone. She slid her bow into the rack by the entrance, her movements precise and deliberate, though her knuckles were still white from the pressure of her grip.
In the corner, Jun-seong let out a low, ragged groan that made everyone in the room freeze.
He was propped up against a stack of thick foam landing mats, his jacket pulled open to reveal a blood-soaked gym shirt tightly bound with strip after strip of torn athletic tape. The puncture wound in his abdomen was bad—deep, messy, and agonizingly slow to bleed out despite Min-jae’s frantic attempts to keep pressure on it. Every breath Jun-seong took was shallow and rasping, his face pale and slick with a cold sweat that glistened under the faint emergency lights.
Min-jae sat right beside him, his own hands stained rust-red, refusing to let go of the makeshift bandage.
"How's he holding up?" Ha-ri asked softly, walking over and dropping to one knee beside them.
"He's burning up, Ha-ri," Min-jae whispered, his voice cracking with an exhaustion he couldn't hide anymore. "The bleeding slowed down, but he needs actual stitches. He needs antibiotics. If we just sit here..."
"We can't move him," Gyeong-su said quietly from a few feet away, leaning his back against the wall. His forearm was heavily wrapped where he'd scraped it raw against the rusted metal doorframe during their sprint, but unlike Jun-seong, his injury was clean. "If we drag him out into that rain, or try to carry him across the courtyard while those things are out there, the movement will just open the wound right back up."
"He's right," Mi-jin said, leaning against an equipment rack with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her sharp eyes flicked to Jun-seong’s pale face, her usual abrasive shell softening into something raw and worried. "We go out there now, carrying dead weight? We're just delivering a warm meal to the front gate."
Na-yeon, who had been sitting in total isolation near the back target boards, quietly pulled herself up and walked over. Without saying a word, she reached into her pocket, pulled out her small, pristine hand towel, and dipped it into the shallow bowl of clean rainwater they'd managed to catch near the window sill. She knelt beside Jun-seong and gently pressed the cool, damp cloth to his forehead.
Jun-seong’s eyelids fluttered open, his dark eyes unfocused for a second before settling on Min-jae’s face. A weak, faint smile touched the corner of his lips.
"You look terrible, Min-jae," Jun-seong choked out, his voice barely louder than the patter of rain outside.
"Me?" Min-jae let out a breathless, wet laugh, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "You're the one lying on a jumping mat looking like a corpse, man. Don't worry about how I look."
"I'm serious," Jun-seong muttered, leaning his head back with a heavy sigh. "You've been holding that cloth there for two hours. Your legs are gonna cramp up."
"Then let them cramp," Min-jae said stubbornly, pressing down just a little firmer on the tape. "I'm not moving until you stop bleeding."
"You're an idiot," Jun-seong whispered fondly, closing his eyes again as Na-yeon gently dabbed at his temples. "A total idiot."
"Yeah, well, I'm your idiot, so save your energy," Min-jae replied, his voice thick with unshed tears.
A heavy, quiet warmth settled over the small circle, cutting through the freezing draft of the unheated gymnasium. For a long time, no one spoke. The only sounds were the steady rhythmic fall of rain against the high metal roof and the quiet, shallow rise and fall of Jun-seong’s chest.
Mi-jin slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor across from them, pulling her knees up to her chin. "You know... before all this happened yesterday morning, I was planning on skipping seventh period to go buy a pack of smokes behind the cafeteria."
Gyeong-su looked over at her with a faint, tired smirk. "You skip seventh period every Tuesday, Mi-jin."
"That's not the point," she shot back, though there was no real bite to it. "The point is, I was complaining the whole morning about how much I hated this place. Hated the teachers, hated the uniform, hated sitting in those cramped wooden desks waiting for the bell to ring." She paused, tracing a pattern in the dust on the floorboards with her shoe. "Now I'd give anything to be sitting in a boring-ass math lecture listening to Mr. Park drone on about equations."
"Mr. Park's lectures were the absolute worst," Gyeong-su agreed softly, a wistful look settling into his eyes. "Cheong-san and I used to play rock-paper-scissors under the desk to see who had to stay awake and take notes."
"Did Cheong-san ever actually take notes?" Na-yeon asked quietly, not looking up from her task.
"Never," Gyeong-su laughed, the sound warm and genuine. "He'd draw stupid doodles of gophers on the margins of his textbook and hand them to On-jo just to get her to kick his chair."
Na-yeon’s hands stilled for a fraction of a second at the mention of their classmates' names, a quiet, reflective shadow passing over her face. "I used to think all of you were so noisy," she confessed, her voice dropping into a small, fragile murmur. "In class... I thought everyone was just wasting time, not taking anything seriously. I thought if I just focused on my own grades and kept my head down, I'd get out of this school and start a real life."
She rinsed the cloth in the water again, wringing it out with trembling fingers.
"I was so wrong," Na-yeon whispered, staring down at her wet hands. "A real life isn't just marks on a paper. It's... it's sitting with people. It's having someone kick your chair because they're being dumb. I didn't realize how lonely I was until the halls went completely empty."
Mi-jin looked at Na-yeon for a long moment, the usual sharp judgment in her eyes replaced by a quiet, unspoken understanding. "Well," Mi-jin said, shifting her weight against the wall, "you're stuck with us now, Princess. Noise and all."
Ha-ri watched the exchange from a few paces back, her arms crossed over her chest. The heavy, suffocating knot of panic in her throat hadn't disappeared—the constant, gnawing dread about Wu-jin was still clawing at her ribs—but listening to them talk, seeing the way they were holding each other together in the dark, eased the sharpest edges of her fear.
"We aren't going anywhere right now," Ha-ri finally announced, her voice soft but steady as she stepped closer to the group. "The rain is too heavy, and Jun-seong needs rest. We keep watch in shifts. Two hours each."
"I'll take the first shift," Min-jae offered immediately, his hand still anchored firmly to Jun-seong’s side.
"No, you won't," Ha-ri said gently, placing a hand on Min-jae’s shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "You've been on your feet since we broke into the hall. You sleep first. I'll take the doors."
"Ha-ri..." Min-jae started, looking up at her with bloodshot, exhausted eyes.
"That's an order, Min-jae," she said, offering him the smallest, rarest trace of a genuine smile. "Save your strength. We're going to need you tomorrow when we figure out our next move."
Min-jae swallowed hard, looking down at Jun-seong, who gave him a tiny, slow nod of approval.
"Fine," Min-jae muttered, finally letting his hands drop from the bandage and pulling a spare equipment jacket over his shoulders. "But wake me up if he so much as twitches."
"I will," Ha-ri promised.
She walked over to the reinforced glass doors at the front of the range, leaning her shoulder against the frame as she looked out into the stormy night. The school grounds were shrouded in heavy mist and darkness, but inside the quiet archery sanctuary, surrounded by the soft murmurs of her teammates settling down on the mats, the suffocating weight of the world felt just a little bit lighter.
The glass of the double doors was cold against Ha-ri’s forehead, sending a dull chill straight to her temples. Outside, the rain was relentless, pounding against the track and turning the soil near the bleachers into a thick, black slurry.
Every few minutes, the faint, distorted shape of an infected would drift through the curtain of fog near the perimeter fence—stumbling, blind to the rain, moving like a puppet with cut strings.
Ha-ri’s hand rested on the riser of her bow, her thumb tracing the worn leather grip. Three arrows. That was all she had left in her quiver. Three chances to protect five people.
Her mind kept drifting back to the athletic director’s office from two days ago. Before the screaming started, before the blood stained the linoleum, Coach had stood over her in his reeking track jacket, his jaw set in that familiar, ugly sneer.
“You blew the regional qualifier, Ha-ri,” his voice echoed in her head, sharp and spiteful. “All those resources the school threw at you, all the extra practice hours I wasted, and you choke on the final end? Your parents are paying good money for you to represent this school, not to embarrass us.”
He had stood so close she could smell the stale coffee on his breath, tapping his clipboard against her shoulder—hard enough to leave a bruise she was still hiding under her sleeve. He hadn't asked if her shoulder was hurting. He hadn't cared that her target bow had a cracked sight. To him, to the school, to her family, she wasn't a teenager—she was an investment that had failed to yield a return.
Ha-ri closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest against the glass again.
And then there were her parents. Just thinking about them made her spine stiffen, her shoulders locking into a rigid, defensive posture. One wrong look, one score below ninety-five, one off-key remark, and the cold silence would set in for weeks, punctuated only by sharp, cutting remarks about her worthlessness. They controlled every hour of her day, every meal, every relationship. They had mapped out her entire life down to the exact university she would attend on an athletic scholarship.
And she had failed the qualifier. She had been terrifyingly aware, all morning before the outbreak, of what waiting for her at home would be like once the official results were mailed.
A quiet rustle behind her made Ha-ri’s hand instantly fly to the string of her bow. She spun around, her eyes slicing through the dim light of the archery hall.
Mi-jin was sitting up on her gym mat, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fist, her hair a wild, messy mop.
Mi-jin blinked against the shadows, her gaze settling on Ha-ri standing by the doors. The archer looked like a statue carved out of ice—completely motionless, posture ridiculously straight, bow held like an extension of her own arm.
Does this girl ever actually relax? Mi-jin thought, shaking her head as she swung her legs over the side of the mat and stretched her aching back.
She checked on Jun-seong first, placing a gentle hand near his forehead. His skin was still hot, but his breathing had evened out into a deep, heavy sleep. Beside him, Min-jae was curled up on the floor, snoring faintly.
Mi-jin pushed herself up, her knees popping in the quiet room. She grabbed her heavy wooden stick from where it leaned against the wall and padded quietly across the floor, stopping a few feet behind Ha-ri.
"You know, staring at the rain isn't gonna make those things vanish," Mi-jin said, her voice a low, raspy whisper. "You've been standing there for over two hours. Take a seat before your legs lock up, Captain."
Ha-ri didn't turn around immediately, but the intense tension in her shoulders dropped just a fraction. "I'm fine. Someone needs to watch the perimeter."
"I'm awake now. Shift's over," Mi-jin said, stepping up beside her and leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, looking out into the storm. "Besides, you look like you're about to snap in half."
Ha-ri swallowed hard, lowering her bow. She didn't want to sit. Sitting meant letting her guard down, and letting her guard down was something she hadn't allowed herself to do in years. But looking at Mi-jin—leaning casually against the door with a cigarette stub unlit between her fingers, completely unbothered by Ha-ri's cold exterior—something inside her chest cracked just a little.
"It's just quiet," Ha-ri murmured, her voice lower than usual.
"Quiet's good," Mi-jin replied, sliding down the doorframe until she was sitting on the floor, crossing her legs. She patted the spot next to her. "Come on. I won't bite. And if a zombie breaks through the glass, you can use me as a shield."
Ha-ri hesitated for a long moment before finally letting out a quiet exhale. She slid down the wall, sitting a foot away from Mi-jin, resting her bow across her knees.
"You're really bad at taking orders," Ha-ri noted quietly.
"And you're really bad at being a human being," Mi-jin shot back with a faint, crooked grin. "Seriously, do you ever stop acting like you're on national television? The archery squad stuff... you act like if you make one mistake, the world ends."
Ha-ri’s fingers tightened on the leather grip of her bow. "In my house... it kind of does."
Mi-jin went still, her sharp eyes shifting to study Ha-ri’s profile. "Your parents?"
The moment the word parents left Mi-jin’s lips, Ha-ri visibly tensed. Her jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in her cheek, and her shoulders pulled up, shrinking inward almost defensively. She looked away, staring fixedly at the dark target mats across the room.
"They're... particular," Ha-ri said, her voice dropping into an icy, guarded whisper. "Everything has to be perfect. My grades, my form, my posture. Coach was bad enough—screaming at me for choking on the final end yesterday, telling me I wasted everyone's time—but my parents..." She stopped, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths. "If I don't get the scholarship... I don't really have a home to go back to."
Mi-jin watched the subtle shift in the girl beside her. Ha-ri had faced down three infected in a dark hallway without her hand shaking once, but just talking about her own family had her looking like a cornered animal.
Mi-jin felt a sudden, heavy pang of sympathy cut straight through her usual cynical defense mechanisms. She knew what bad adults looked like—she’d dealt with enough useless teachers and overbearing authority figures to last a lifetime—but seeing the deep, invisible bruises on someone as strong as Ha-ri made her chest ache.
"Sounds like your coach is an absolute jackass," Mi-jin said bluntly, her tone dead serious. "And your parents sound like they don't deserve you."
Ha-ri didn't confirm or deny it; she just stayed rigid, her eyes fixed on the floor.
"What about your brother?" Mi-jin asked softly, remembering how frantically Ha-ri had searched the lower halls earlier. "Wu-jin, right? The kid in class 2-5?"
The moment Wu-jin’s name was mentioned, the icy, defensive wall around Ha-ri instantly dissolved, replaced by a warmth so fierce and tender it caught even her off guard.
Her shoulders relaxed from that terrified, rigid stance, but her lower lip trembled slightly.
"Wu-jin..." Ha-ri whispered, a tiny, genuine smile touching her lips despite the tears that suddenly burned behind her eyes. "He's... he's so stupid sometimes. He complains about everything. He acts like he hates it when I check on him or bring him extra food, but he always saves a seat for me on the bus."
She swallowed around the thick knot in her throat, her voice cracking.
"When our parents were... being tough on me, Wu-jin would hide in my room," she continued, her eyes shining in the dim light. "He'd bring me these terrible, crushed snacks he bought with his own allowance, or he'd play his video games on silent just so I wouldn't have to sit in the dark alone. He's so much better than me, Mi-jin. He doesn't hold grudges. He's kind. He's... he's the only real reason I care about going home."
She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with quiet, desperate sobs that she had been holding back for two straight days.
"I left him," Ha-ri wept softly into her palms, her voice broken and raw. "When the alarms went off, I was stuck in the sports wing. I couldn't get to the second floor. He's out there somewhere in that main building, probably terrified, wondering why I haven't come for him."
Mi-jin didn't hesitate. She leaned over, wrapping a strong arm around Ha-ri’s trembling shoulders, pulling the older girl against her side.
Ha-ri didn't pull away. She leaned into the contact, clinging to Mi-jin’s sleeve like a lifeline while she let the silent tears spill over.
"Listen to me, Ha-ri," Mi-jin said firmly, her voice steady and absolute as she looked out at the storm. "Your brother is not stupid, and he knows damn well you'd tear this entire school apart to get to him. If he's anything like you, he's hunkered down somewhere safe, waiting for his scary, badass sister to show up."
Ha-ri let out a wet, breathless laugh through her tears, wiping her face with the back of her jacket sleeve. "He thinks I'm annoying."
"All younger brothers think their older sisters are annoying," Mi-jin snorted softly, giving her shoulder a firm squeeze. "It's in the job description. But tomorrow morning, when the rain stops, we're going to cross that courtyard, we're going to break into that main building, and we're going to find Wu-jin. All of us. Together."
Ha-ri looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted, but the cold, isolated despair that had clouded her gaze all night was finally gone.
"Thank you, Mi-jin," Ha-ri whispered.
"Don't mention it," Mi-jin said, leaning her head back against the wall with a faint smile. "Literally, don't mention it to anyone. If Min-jae finds out I have a soft side, I'll never hear the end of it."
The rain outside the sports complex in Seoul hadn't been like the torrential downpour flooding the school courtyard today. It had been a miserable, gray drizzle that turned the gravel lot into slick, black mud.
Inside the private indoor range, the air smelled of floor wax, leather, and stale sweat. Ha-ri stood dead center in lane four, her bow string pulled taut against the tip of her nose, her anchor point locked tight under her jaw. Her breath was steady, five seconds in, five seconds out, just like her father had drilled into her head since she was ten years old.
Release.
The arrow whistled through the quiet room, thudding into the outer ring of the target—a seven.
Before the arrow had even stopped vibrating, a heavy, hand-stitched leather target quiver struck Ha-ri hard across the upper back.
The force staggered her forward, her knees buckling as her shoulder clipped the wooden partition. Pain flared, hot and sharp, radiating down her arm, but Ha-ri didn't make a sound. She didn't gasp; she didn't cry. She simply stood up straight, drew her shoulders back, and fixed her eyes on the floorboards.
"Look at me when I'm speaking to you," her father's voice cut through the silence, low, smooth, and utterly devoid of warmth. He stepped into her lane, his leather dress shoes clicking against the polished wood. He didn't look angry—that was the scariest part. His face was a calm, elegant mask.
Ha-ri forced her chin up, meeting his cold, dark eyes.
"Seven," he said softly, as if stating a minor inconvenience. "A seven on a forty-meter draw. Your mother spent two million won on your private coaching this semester, Ha-ri. Is this the return on our investment?"
"No, Father," she murmured, her voice steady despite the deep, dull throb blossoming between her shoulder blades.
"You're soft," he said, stepping closer until he was towering over her. He reached out, his thumb catching her chin in a tight, bruising grip, forcing her head higher. "You waste time daydreaming. You let your attention wander. You think because you're the eldest, you have room to slack off? You think we built this family's reputation so you could embarrass us in front of the athletic association?"
He let go of her chin with a sharp flick of his hand, sending her head snapping back.
"Wu-jin is weak," her father continued coldly, turning his back on her as he adjusted his coat. "He takes after your mother's side—distracted, lazy, useless. You were supposed to be the one who carried the family name. If you fail the regional selection, don't bother coming back to the house for the summer. I won't have a disgraced athlete sitting at my table."
He walked out, the heavy glass door closing behind him with a soft, airtight hiss.
Ha-ri stood alone in the empty range for five long minutes, her breathing shallow, her fists clenched so tightly her nails drew blood against her palms. She carefully unstrung her bow, slid it into its padded case, and zipped her thick team jacket up to her chin—ensuring the high collar completely hid the red, welted skin on the back of her neck.
When she walked out into the lobby, Wu-jin was sitting on a plastic bench near the vending machines, swinging his legs.
The moment he saw her, his face lit up.
"Ha-ri!" he called out, scrambling off the bench and running over to her. He held out the squished candy bar, offering her a wide, gap-toothed grin. "I saved this for you. Coach said you were almost done. Did you hit the ten?"
Ha-ri looked down at her little brother—at his bright, innocent eyes, completely untainted by the suffocating darkness waiting for them at home.
The sharp, agonizing pain in her back suddenly didn't matter. The dread pooling in her stomach vanished.
She reached out, ruffling his messy hair with her good hand, and forced a small, warm smile onto her face.
"Yeah, Wu-jin," she lied softly, taking the melted chocolate from his hand. "I hit the ten."
The target sat thirty paces away, towering like a painted mountain in the backyard. The sun beat down on the manicured lawn, but Ha-ri wasn't allowed to wipe the sweat from her eyes. Her fingers, small and already calloused at the tips, bled slightly against the heavy leather guard of the youth recurve bow.
"Hold the draw, Ha-ri," her father’s voice rang out from the shadow of the patio overhang. He wasn't looking at her face; his eyes were glued to a digital stopwatch. "Your shoulder is dipping. Keep it level. If you drop your arm before sixty seconds, we start the set over."
Her young muscles trembled violently. Her lungs burned. Three feet to her left, sitting in the grass with a plastic toy truck, giggled and rolled the truck toward her shoe.
"Wu-jin, quiet," their father snapped coldly, not even turning his head.
Wu-jin froze, his little shoulders flinching at the sharp tone. Ha-ri’s heart leaped into her throat. She didn't drop her draw. Instead, she locked her jaw, forced her trembling left arm straight, and deliberately shifted her body just an inch to block her father's line of sight to Wu-jin.
"Time," her father finally said, clicking the watch. "Release."
The arrow thudded into the outer blue ring. Her father let out a quiet, disappointed click of his tongue and turned to walk inside. The moment the heavy glass door shut, Ha-ri dropped the bow, dropped to her knees in the grass, and pulled Wu-jin into a tight hug, burying her face in his soft hair so he wouldn't see the tears of frustration spilling over her cheeks.
The house was suffocatingly quiet on a rainy Tuesday evening. Her mother had locked herself in the master bedroom after a bitter, low-voiced argument with her father over business finances, leaving an icy, lethal tension hanging over the hallways.
Ha-ri sat on her bed, nursing a purple bruise on her ribs from where her mother’s heavy silver hairbrush had caught her earlier for leaving her muddy practice shoes near the front door. She kept her breathing shallow; deep breaths made her chest ache.
A soft, rhythmic tapping sounded at her door.
"Ha-ri?" a small voice whispered through the crack.
Wu-jin slipped inside, clutching a small wooden box under his arm. At eight years old, he had already learned the unspoken rule of their household: walk on your tiptoes, never raise your voice, and keep your bedroom door cracked so you can hear footsteps on the stairs.
"They're both downstairs in the study," Wu-jin whispered, crawling onto her bed with meticulous care so as not to bump her. He opened the wooden box, revealing a mess of colorful, plastic game cartridges and two broken handheld consoles tied together with rubber bands. "I brought the ones with the volume wheels broken off so they won't hear the music."
Ha-ri looked at the silly, bright cartoon characters on the plastic screens, then at her little brother's earnest, hopeful eyes.
"You're not supposed to have these in the house," she murmured softly, though the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Father said video games ruin hand-eye coordination."
"Father isn't up here," Wu-jin said stubbornly, handing her a worn yellow console. "And you're the best archer in the city, so he's wrong anyway."
They sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark corner of her room, playing pixelated races in complete silence, passing a single strawberry milk box back and forth until the rain outside finally stopped.
Middle school graduation was supposed to be a celebration, but sitting in the back of her father's black sedan on the ride home felt like being driven to an execution.
Ha-ri sat in the middle seat, staring straight ahead at the headrest. On her left, her father flipped through her final academic transcript with a scowl. On her right, her mother stared out the tinted window, her arms crossed tight against her chest.
"A ninety-two in language arts, Ha-ri," her father said, his voice flat, emotionless, and heavy. "Your cousin Min-ah received a ninety-eight. How do you expect to secure an athletic recommendation from the Seoul board if your academic standing looks like an afterthought?"
"I'll bring it up next term, Father," she said softly, her hands folded tightly in her lap.
"There is no 'next term,'" her mother cut in, her tone dripping with quiet venom without even turning her head. "You are entering high school. Every mark, every tournament, every public appearance reflects on this family. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to stand near the other parents today while they discussed their children's university placements?"
Beside her father, Wu-jin shifted uncomfortably in his uniform, his small hands gripping his knees. He opened his mouth, his eyes wide with a sudden, desperate urge to defend her. "She won first place in the regional 30-meter draw last week—"
"Quiet, Wu-jin," her father commanded sharply, not looking up from the paper. "Adults are speaking."
Ha-ri’s hand instantly shot out in the shadows between the seats, gripping Wu-jin’s wrist tight. She squeezed once—hard—a silent signal that meant: Stop. Don't draw their attention. Let them focus on me.
Wu-jin looked at her, his jaw trembling with a mix of anger and helplessness. Ha-ri held his gaze, giving him a slow, almost imperceptible nod. She took the weight, like she always did, letting her parents' disappointment roll over her while keeping her brother safe behind the shield of her silence.
It was three months before the zombie outbreak, in the cramped, brightly lit bathroom of her high school.
Ha-ri stood over the sink, locking the main door from the inside. She leaned against the porcelain, staring at her reflection in the harsh fluorescent lights. She wore her thick archery team jacket zip-locked to the throat. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she unzipped the collar and pulled down the right side of her shirt.
A dark, yellow-green bruise stretched from her collarbone down toward her shoulder blade—she placed third in a local qualification match.
She stared at the mark, her face devoid of tears, completely hollow. But it wasn't just the bruise that made her chest feel like lead.
It was the memory from the night before—a quiet, terrifying realization that had settled over her while watching a group of girls from the volleyball team laughing together near the school gates. One of the girls had laughed, leaning her head on another girl's shoulder, and Ha-ri’s heart had hammered so violently against her ribs she had been forced to walk away in a cold sweat.
If they ever knew, she thought, her eyes fixated on her reflection. If he ever found out...
Her father's voice, full of disgusted words during news broadcasts or casual dinner conversations, echoed in her head like a death sentence. She wasn't just a failing athlete in his eyes—she was carrying a truth that would make him completely erase her existence. She couldn't tell her friends. She couldn't tell her coach. And above all, she couldn't tell Wu-jin, terrified that if her secret ever broke out, the scandal would destroy her brother's life, too.
Ha-ri zipped her jacket back up, pulling the high collar tight around her neck until every inch of her skin was hidden away. She adjusted her posture, smoothed down her hair, and unlocked the bathroom door—stepping back out into the crowded hallway as the unbreakable, unshakeable varsity captain everyone expected her to be.