4DAS Chapter 2 (Part 2)
by BrieEven so, Young-il felt his body stiffen before he realized it. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t anticipated this kind of situation at all. Unless someone was unusually well-off, they were bound to come for supplies, and there were only two or three distribution centers in the area.
“You came alone. So did I, actually.”
“I lost my family and companions a long time ago. But you… didn’t you have friends?”
“If you mean them, they’re busy and said they’d join me later. Maybe they’ll collect supplies from another center.”
So in other words, it wasn’t all that strange to run into Baek Seonghyeon in a place like this. Still, what could those ‘friends’ possibly be busy with? Already drenched in sweat, Young-il felt a cold trickle run down his back and silently stared at the man.
“It’s fate that we met like this, so why not wait together? I wasn’t looking forward to sitting alone for the next five hours, but this works out nicely.”
Before he knew it, Baek Seonghyeon had taken a seat beside him, smiling calmly as if he didn’t know a thing.
Works out nicely, huh? It felt more like sitting on a bed of nails. Of course, he couldn’t let that show.
“Do as you please. It’s not like sitting together is going to get you any scraps. I’m not looking to trade supplies or anything.”
He figured the other man probably wasn’t intending any sort of barter, but he said it anyway. After all, there were people who made deals to trade unneeded goods even before getting their supplies. Some would exchange rare items like batteries for food or hygiene products, and others tried to trade cigarettes looted from convenience stores or homemade alcohol for rations.
Still, the other guy didn’t seem all that interested in that kind of exchange. If he really wanted supplies, he would’ve joined the other bikers. They’d been camping out since the night before and were already near the front of the line. Coming to a spot this ambiguous meant he had his reasons.
That guy looked like he’d live comfortably even without rations. Just from how he carried himself, you’d think he had people bringing him offerings.
Sure enough, Baek Seonghyeon only gave a slight smile, as if to say he didn’t need any of that. Young-il looked off into the distance, pretending to be indifferent. No need to be intimidated by that guy. On the surface, Young-il hadn’t done anything wrong. All he’d done was claim ignorance when the man came looking for revenge. All he could do now was sit tight and pretend he didn’t know a thing.
Come at me if you want, bastard. No way Rowon’s been found already… right?
It wasn’t the boldest resolve, but still, Young-il steeled himself. Unfortunately, that resolve didn’t do much good. Not because the man hit him with some sharp or threatening line—
In fact, he didn’t say anything at all.
If he’d said even one thing, Young-il might’ve been able to latch onto it, twist it into something. But instead, the man simply gazed up at the sky, acting like lining up for rations was all he cared about.
What, is he trying to say we’ve got plenty of time? We’re stuck here for five hours anyway.
If that was his strategy, it was a clever one. It definitely got under Young-il’s skin. While that guy just sat there holding the line, what was happening back at the apartment? Had Rowon already been caught? Bad thoughts kept creeping into his mind.
Of course, there wasn’t any clever move he could make right now.
Opening his mouth first out of unease would only put him at a disadvantage, and it wasn’t like he could run home without even collecting his supplies.
All he could do was hope Rowon was hiding well. The guy had an oddly persistent life force—surely he wasn’t dead yet.
Maybe three or four hours had passed.
By morning, the sun had risen high, and the distribution point was swarming with people.
Nearly a thousand had crammed into the relatively narrow intersection.
That would probably be the limit. The supply vehicle was pretty large, but not enough to hand out provisions to more than that.
It was a relief to think he might be able to receive his share without issue, but there was another problem.
The sunlight was already intense enough to make his eyes ache.
Ever since the catastrophe, the sun had shone down with a vengeance, as if mocking them for still being alive.
In another hour or two, the asphalt would probably start to sizzle.
Young-il pulled a small umbrella from his pants pocket.
It was a cheap thing, the kind you might buy from a place like Daiso. It was so small it couldn’t even cover his whole body, but it had one advantage.
The outer fabric was white, and the inside was lined with black cloth, making it suitable to use as a sunshade.
That made it incredibly useful in a situation like this, since it could block out the sun.
People around him glanced at Young-il’s umbrella.
It looked pretty ridiculous for a middle-aged man to be carrying something so tiny, but instead of laughing, they each pulled out their own sunshades from bags or pockets.
Even Baek Seonghyeon did the same.
His parasol looked far more decent—made of sturdy fabric and quite large.
But a few others stared at them in confusion.
Is it supposed to rain today? Did they hear something in the forecast?
They whispered among themselves and asked the people nearby.
Those questioned simply glared back with sour expressions, offering no answer.
Ah.
By this point, Young-il was certain.
Those people—judging by how unfamiliar they were with survival—were most likely former “infected.”
Being that obvious about it wasn’t going to earn them any kind looks.
While watching them with quiet concern, Young-il’s gaze unintentionally drifted to Baek Seonghyeon’s face.
“…!”
That face was twisted in open disgust.
A faint hatred and blatant contempt flooded his expression with no attempt to hide it.
Young-il flinched, his face hardening in surprise. But the moment their eyes met, the man smiled shamelessly, as if nothing had happened, and spoke up.
“Looks like it’s their first time coming for supplies. Maybe someone else’s been picking them up for them until now. Or maybe they never needed any.”
“It’s not our business, so why do you care so much? Anyway, where the hell are your friends? What could be more important than getting supplies?”
“There are plenty of things more important than supplies. For example… tracking down that zombie I mentioned yesterday.”
It seemed he was finally starting to reveal his true intentions.
Narrowing his eyes, Young-il glared at the man, while Baek Seonghyeon went on without a hint of hesitation.
“There are a few locations we’re checking. But we’re not just looking for that one zombie. We’ve been working on maintaining public safety for a while now. It’s our job to find and eliminate zombies who’ve killed a lot of people.”
You’re not police. You’re not even a government official.
Young-il wanted to snap back like that, but he held his tongue.
Even though they all knew by now that anyone infected could return to being human with the treatment gas, Baek Seonghyeon spoke so casually about killing them.
“If you leave them alone, they’ll turn back into humans. Why go through the trouble of killing them?”
“Does turning human again erase their crimes?”
“What?”
“Just because they become human again… does it erase the fact that they killed people while they were zombies?”
Baek Seonghyeon was still glaring at the people he seemed to suspect were former infected.
They looked a bit clueless, perhaps, but there was no visible difference from anyone else.
They didn’t seem likely to suddenly lash out or try to kill anyone.
Maybe things had been different back when they were zombies, but now, there was absolutely no reason to treat them as enemies.
“…It doesn’t go away. But so what? It’s not like the survivors didn’t kill anyone.”
“Of course they did. Or someone else did the killing for them.
But at least those people, they know what they’ve done.
Unlike the infected, who forgot everything.”
Young-il had to force himself not to let his expression harden.
As soon as the man spoke, Rowon’s face came to mind.
The face of the young man likely still hiding alone in the built-in closet, with no way of knowing whether he had really killed people, or if it was all someone else’s misunderstanding or deceit.
“The infected act like those things never happened.
Like they didn’t do anything, like they just blinked and woke up to a world that had gone to hell.
I really don’t like that.”
“You say that like they wanted to forget.
Come on, they didn’t do it out of their own will, and it’s not like they chose to forget.
How is that their fault?”
“…They even avoid taking responsibility.
Sure, a lot of people probably think like you—that it’s not their fault.
Legally speaking, they’re probably innocent too.
If it was done under a state of involuntary mental incapacity, then it’s not punishable.
Even if they were put on trial, they wouldn’t be judged for it.”
Ah, of course, I’m not saying you’re wrong.
The man added that belatedly, but somehow the mutter came off as mockery.
Young-il wanted to say something back, but held it tightly in his throat on purpose.
In a situation like this, the one who keeps their mouth shut wins.
Getting emotional and saying too much would only reveal weak spots. There was nothing to gain from it.
Was the man hoping Young-il would say something in return?
Or was he simply overcome with emotion and spoke up knowing it might cost him?
It was hard to tell.
But one thing was certain.
“That’s why we have to take care of them.”
“……”
“It’s not fair that they don’t have to take any responsibility just because they had no will or memory.
Someone has to take responsibility for this tragedy.”
Yep, that bastard’s insane.
Young-il didn’t know if he was religious, but his behavior screamed fanatic.
If he was serious, he was someone to avoid at all costs. If he was bluffing, then it was just a low-grade provocation. Either way, there was no point in taking anything he said seriously.
Young-il stretched into an exaggerated yawn and adjusted his tone as if he were bored.
He didn’t feel like spouting cliché lines like, Do you have the right to enforce that responsibility? or Then who takes responsibility for all the infected you’ve killed?
He just said—
“Bullshit.”
“……”
“Not knowing what you did… isn’t that the worst kind of nightmare?
People like you would pounce and pin every sin in the world on them.”
The man said nothing.
Young-il gave a light shrug and turned his eyes to his watch.
From that moment on, no more words passed between them.
Even as people gathered in the intersection, chatting and negotiating supply trades, even as some kind folks shared survival tips with the clueless newcomers—
Still, silence between the two of them.
By the time the sun had grown so intense that they were practically buried under their parasols, the sound of cheers echoed from far off.
Looked like the supplies were finally arriving.
It would still take some time before the real distribution began and they could actually receive anything, but the sight alone was reason enough for excitement.
Young-il hoped—truly hoped—that would be the end of the conversation with that man.
But then, as if something had just occurred to him, the man casually spoke again.
“About the house you live in now.”
The topic shifted abruptly.
It wasn’t a welcome one—but at the same time, Young-il was just a little curious.
As he turned his gaze, the man whispered with a slight smile.
“A four-person family used to live in that house.”
Young-il frowned at the cryptic statement.
A family of four?
But he’d only ever seen signs of three people.
The room near the entrance had been used as a storage space, clearly uninhabited.
The dishes and shoes didn’t match a four-person household either.
Rowon had talked about his parents, but never mentioned any other family.
If he really had a sibling, wouldn’t he have expressed concern at least once?
And more importantly…
“They say the zombie named Lee Rowon was the youngest in that family.”
“How do you know that?”
“I knew his older brother.
That’s how I even found that house in the first place—because I already knew Lee Rowon lived there.”
So he was an acquaintance of the brother?
Then it made sense why Rowon had reacted like he was hearing Baek Seonghyeon’s name for the first time.
Maybe he and the brother had been fairly close, while Rowon had only ever heard about him secondhand.
That kind of one-sided connection.
But apart from the mystery being cleared up, a new question began to gnaw at Young-il.
“Someday, if Lee Rowon gets cured of the zombie infection…
He might go back to that house you’re living in now.
If that happens, be sure to ask him.
Ask him where his brother is now.”
Where is Lee Rowon’s older brother?
And why doesn’t Rowon ever mention him?
Young-il could feel his curiosity building, but the man didn’t answer. He turned his gaze away.
Several trucks filled with supplies were approaching from a distance.
No one told him, but Young-il was certain—
That man wouldn’t speak another word.
While Young-il endured his discomfort outside, Rowon was curled up in a narrow built-in closet that let in no light, enduring a different kind of unease in his own way.
Hiding wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
When the light was off, it was too dark, and when it was on, it was too bright to bear.
The flashlight the man had left him was far too intense.
It didn’t just light up the cramped closet—it was harsh enough to claw at his retinas.
It got a little better when he covered the bulb with his palm or his sleeve, but that only made him feel guilty for wasting battery.
There was nothing worth seeing in the first place.
Only the shabby inside wall of the old wardrobe filled his view.
He wished he had at least brought a watch, but even that was missing now.
Curling up in the darkness, holding his breath, felt like the better option.
Like being wrapped in amniotic fluid again—when he balled himself up and covered his ears, an all-encompassing silence swallowed the world, as though he were the only one left.
Five hours.
He would have to wait at least five hours.
No—thinking about it more carefully, the five hours only marked the beginning of the supply distribution.
That didn’t mean the man would return exactly then.
It might take even longer.
Maybe the line was too long, and he’d have to wait.
Maybe something unexpected would go wrong.
Or maybe… the man would just leave the apartment and never come back.
“……”
Rowon slammed his forehead against the wall.
Thunk.
It made a loud noise, and he instinctively shrank back.
What if someone heard it from outside?
He held his breath for a long while in fear, but fortunately, no one came storming in.
The dull, stinging pain didn’t fade easily, but it did help him snap out of it a bit.
Why did his thoughts keep spiraling into the worst-case scenarios?
No—he knew the reason.
It was the darkness.
Staring blankly into a space that most resembled the inside of his eyelids allowed the murk buried deep in his heart to rise to the surface without him realizing it.
Things he didn’t want to see. Things he usually just wanted to forget. Those kinds of feelings spilled out in the dark.
What are you afraid of?
The question rose up suddenly. If he wanted an answer, it wouldn’t be hard to find. He just had to remember why he was hiding here. Someone knew about Rowon’s crime—and wanted revenge. If that didn’t scare him, he wouldn’t be curled up in this closet.
But is that really what you’re afraid of?
Another question surfaced right behind it. Was he really afraid of that? Didn’t feel like it.
It was like realizing that the itch didn’t come from where you’d been scratching. The realization that you had to dig into the flesh to find the root of it all—it sent chills through him.
Of course, he knew it logically. There was someone out there trying to get revenge. If left unchecked, they might kill Rowon.
But…
Are you afraid of being killed?
He began to dissect his thoughts, piece by piece. When left in a bundle, they seemed convincing. But breaking them apart showed all the contradictions.
Sure, being killed isn’t pleasant. Given a choice between life and death, anyone would pick life.
But…
Or are you afraid your crimes will be exposed?
Fear resembles coldness. It felt like the temperature inside the stifling closet dropped a few degrees.
Maybe so. Come to think of it, sometimes there are things that feel more important than life itself.
Of course, the instinct to live is always there. That’s why he had fought back so desperately when Young-il had tried to strangle him the day before.
But still, it was different.
Disgust and fear were not on the same level.
Being killed in revenge, or even being killed because of something falling apart between him and Young-il—he didn’t want that, but it was something he could accept.
But having something he didn’t want to face dragged into the light—having something he’d intentionally turned away from exposed to the world—
No.
He didn’t want to think about it. Rowon deliberately forced his thoughts in another direction. Not to anything good, but at least the attempt itself was successful.
He thought of the man. The way he had gently pushed Rowon into the built-in closet, as if hiding something precious. Not like he was dealing with a stranger, but like he was protecting his own dignity.
Do you not want that man to leave?
In truth, it shouldn’t matter whether the man left or not. He had no real connection to Rowon.
Sure, he had killed Rowon’s parents—but Rowon’s parents had also killed his wife.
Their connection was a tangled knot of revenge. So tangled, in fact, that cutting it might actually be the most efficient choice.
Still… you don’t want him to leave?
That, at least, was easy to admit. He didn’t want that man to go. That was why, on the first day, he’d clumsily tied him up. And only untied him on the second day, once he was sure the man wouldn’t leave. Even though, when you looked at it rationally, he was just a middle-aged man with no real connection to Rowon.
It wasn’t hard to come up with a surface-level excuse.
Right now, Rowon was in danger. He knew nothing about survival, and someone was actively hunting him down to make him pay for crimes he didn’t even remember.
So he needed someone to rely on. Anyone would do—but if he had to choose, he’d prefer that man. A man with survival experience—sometimes irrational, but strangely skilled. Someone who once tried to kill him, yet now treated him like a clueless child.
…What a pathetic reason.
Rowon let out a bitter smile without realizing it.
When they’d first met, he hadn’t even known if the man would help him or not. The guy had openly said he’d killed Rowon’s beloved parents—so it would’ve made sense to be cautious, not trusting.
And yet, when you really looked at it, that man’s first impression hadn’t been much different from Baek Seonghyeon’s—the stranger with the unknown intentions.
But he couldn’t bring himself to face that reason. For some reason, he just didn’t want to think about it. Because—
—You know, I’ve always thought this, but you have a bad habit, Rowon.
……
—Rowon. Listen to me. The worst habit in the world is lying to yourself. It might actually be better to lie to a complete stranger. Not that that’s a good thing either, but everyone lies at some point in life.
……
—But lying to yourself is never okay. If the person who told the lie ends up believing it, then no one can ever tell what the truth really was…
There’s a knot—one impossibly tangled thread. Every time things seemed disadvantageous, he’d messed with it again, until he couldn’t even remember where it had all begun. But one thing stood out clearly.
In this wrecked world that still hasn’t fully recovered, sometimes it might be better to just pretend you don’t know.
His breathing grew ragged.
It felt like he was trapped in a nailed-shut coffin, as if there were no oxygen, even though it was all just in his head.
Rowon clamped both hands over his mouth to keep from gasping.
Some irrational part of him feared that if anyone heard him breathing, they might also discover his guilt.
No—was that irrational?
That was when Rowon realized maybe it wasn’t so unrealistic after all.
It wasn’t that he had fully succumbed to paranoia.
Breathing wouldn’t reveal his crimes—but it could reveal his presence.
“Hey, even the fourth floor’s open. Honestly, I was hoping it’d be locked.”
“Right? This door lock’s supposed to be hard to open, but the guy left it wide open—no excuse for turning back now.”
Grumbling voices of the bikers reached him faintly from a distance.
They were really here.
He recognized one of the voices—he’d heard it briefly the day before.
The broken door lock rattled loudly as it opened, and several halfhearted footsteps stomped inside.
Still covering his mouth, Rowon focused all his attention on listening.
The built-in closet was completely closed, not a sliver of light came through.
If the man had done his part and properly covered the entrance, then it should be well concealed.
As long as he didn’t make any unnecessary noise or the bikers didn’t get overly meticulous, everything should be fine.
Trying to calm himself with that thought, Rowon listened closely to their conversation.
“Honestly, this place doesn’t look like it has much either… You gonna check the fifth floor too?”
“Guess we should. But seriously, what’s the point? If the guy really wanted to hide, why would he climb all the way up? Wouldn’t he just stay in his own apartment?”
“Yeah, you’ve got a point. We’re just checking because Seonghyeon told us to, but… this feels like a waste of time.”
“Let’s do a quick sweep and then head to the distribution center nearby. They’re giving out good stuff today. If we’re lucky, we could trade the extras for a couple packs of cigarettes.”
Thankfully, it looked like neither of the worst-case scenarios was happening.
The bikers were rummaging through the house, but without much interest, and they didn’t seem to be checking the room Rowon was hiding in all that carefully.
He heard a shuffling sound, like someone crawling to check under the bed, but the closet door remained unopened.
If they just gave the house a quick once-over and left, that would be the best outcome.
He hoped they would say something like, Let’s head out already.
Rowon held his breath, praying silently for exactly that.
But then, the bikers started talking about something completely different—yet it seized Rowon’s mind.
“Oh right. I saw that old guy yesterday, too. Looked like he used to be in some other group.”
“Really? You only got a glimpse through the door crack and still noticed that?”
“He’s huge and has a scary face. Kinda hard to miss even with a glance. Anyway, is he not killing zombies anymore?”
“What do you mean?”
They didn’t bother lowering their voices. With nothing to hide, they spoke loudly and clearly, and thanks to that, Rowon could hear them perfectly even from inside the closet.
“The group he was with—they weren’t bikers, but man, they killed tons of zombies. In the end, they all ended up fighting among themselves and fell apart.”
“Yeah?”
“If someone in the group turned into a zombie, they didn’t even hesitate to kill them. I heard one guy even killed his own kid after they got infected.”
It wasn’t an important story, and it really didn’t concern Rowon, but somehow, he couldn’t help but focus on it.
“How many were in that group?”
“Not exactly sure, maybe fifteen or sixteen? Anyway, definitely more than ten.”
“That’s pretty big. Most biker groups don’t even have ten members.”
It didn’t sound like a critical piece of information. One thing was certain—it had nothing to do with Rowon.
He wasn’t sure what exactly they meant by “group,” but probably just survivors banding together. It made sense to stay in a group to fend off zombies.
So what?
Whatever kind of people Young-il had run with before, what difference did it make now?
It wasn’t like he had some deep bond with those ten-plus people.
If he had, he wouldn’t be living alone in this apartment after losing his wife to Rowon’s parents.
Besides, Young-il would talk about his wife now and then, but he almost never mentioned the people he used to be with.
Maybe he just didn’t feel the need to tell Rowon.
Or maybe… maybe those relationships weren’t good ones to begin with.
Didn’t they say the group fell apart after fighting among themselves?
Then, as he kept listening to the ongoing conversation, Rowon realized that those people were a very different kind from Young-il.
“If that group killed a lot of zombies, aren’t they basically on our side? What’s the difference between them and us bikers?”
“There’s not much difference, really. But they insisted there was. They claimed they didn’t just go around causing chaos and killing zombies like us, but only killed the ones that posed a threat to them. But when you actually count the number of zombies they killed, it’s the same—or even more.”
“So what? Just self-justification, then?”
“You know how it is. Once a group gets big, people start hesitating less with that kind of thing. Their teammates egg them on, tell them it’s fine, that they’re doing the right thing. But even though they’ve got this cheap pride left in them, they still want to believe that killing zombies is wrong, and that the ones who do it are bastards. So they make it sound like they had no choice, and that makes them not bastards, somehow.”
“Yeah, those kinds of guys. Think they’re so clean, when they’re no different from us.”
The bikers chuckled and wandered through the house. Judging from the sounds of them rummaging through the fridge and drawers in the kitchen, it seemed they were starting to care more about loot than anything else.
The phrase “think they’re so clean” suddenly stirred something in Rowon’s memory.
It was what the man had shouted at him once while strangling him.
Did you think you were clean? Just because you have no memories, do you think you didn’t do anything wrong? Everyone lived like that.
If you looked at the words themselves, it sounded like classic self-justification.
But the man shouting until his throat tore didn’t seem to believe his own words.
If anything, he had looked like he couldn’t stand himself for lying—like he was cursing himself for it.
At the very least, he hadn’t looked like someone who thought he was clean.
Maybe even when he was part of that group, the man had never found any comfort in it.
Only a few might have felt peace from the support of those around them, and maybe that man had been one of those who remained in pain, even back then.
What if he found no comfort in their sympathy, but rather it made him feel worse?
Of course, that was just Rowon’s own speculation.
The information the bikers were sharing was shallow and questionable.
They knew even less about Park Young-il than Rowon did—they only had a vague idea of the group he’d once belonged to.
“So then, isn’t it pretty much impossible that guy’s hiding that Lee Rowon bastard? I mean, if he hates zombies that much, he’d find a reason to kill him instead. This is totally a waste of time.”
“Right? Sometimes even Seonghyeon gets it wrong…”
Still, Rowon decided to gather up these tiny puzzle pieces and use them to understand the man called Park Young-il.
Despite once belonging to such a group, Young-il had protected Rowon at a crucial moment.
He had murmured that Rowon was still human, broken but human nonetheless.
His understanding leaned clearly in one direction, but Rowon didn’t care about such trivial imbalances.
That man might have something Rowon himself lacked.
The coward in him wanted to forget everything and be left alone in peace, but even so, he envied the uprightness someone else had gained through pain.
It felt like he had finally discovered the most straightforward reason he wanted to stay with Park Young-il.
Rowon felt a strange sense of wonder at that unexpected realization.
But the next moment, he was struck by an entirely different kind of unexpected situation.
“Oh? Hey, look at this. I found some leftover cigarettes in the pocket of this padded jacket. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Cigarettes? No way, that’s gold. Grab that and let’s get going. Doesn’t look like there’s anything else in this place.”
“Don’t rush. If we keep searching, we might find another cig or two. I don’t think this place was completely cleaned out. If we check unused clothes or wardrobes, maybe we’ll even find some emergency cash someone stuffed into a pocket.”
A voice filled with excitement came closer.
The biker who had only checked under the bed earlier was now rummaging through the clothes hangers.
To be exact, he was going through the rack right in front of the built-in closet—
The very one where Rowon was hiding.
‘Thank goodness nothing happened over there.’
Unaware of the situation back at the apartment, Young-il waited calmly for his turn.
When the supply trucks arrived and several government officials got out, people lined up in an orderly fashion and followed instructions to receive their rations.
The area in front of the supply trucks was one of the few remaining places where survivors could preserve the dignity of the former world. People maintained distance as instructed, stood in line, received their share, and stepped back without complaint.
Even those who had no issue stealing, looting, or cheating elsewhere behaved like upstanding, law-abiding citizens here. Even the biker gang members, who were openly hostile to government authority.
“As always, even if some of you may have heard this before, we’ll say it again for everyone gathered here today. We are getting better. It may feel slow, but we are all moving away from the disaster. The world will return to the way it was.”
Perhaps it was because of those words, repeated like a catchphrase by the officials every time.
The world is returning to normal.
We are going back to how it was before the catastrophe.
The disorder and chaos people fell into—those were only temporary.
No one could say for sure if it was true, but the officials’ words carried a certain weight. Supplies never ran out, and the amount only increased day by day. Thanks to the treatment gas, the number of infected wandering the streets was steadily decreasing.
The world was improving.
Or rather, people wanted to believe it was. That collective hope, little by little, created a semblance of order, however limited it may have been.
‘Of course, there are plenty of people who can’t see themselves surviving in a better world.’
Isn’t that what they called ambivalence?
A longing for the old world governed by law and order, while simultaneously fearing they can never return to it because their hands are already stained with blood.
Young-il glanced sideways at Baek Seonghyeon.
The man clearly wouldn’t agree with the officials’ words, but at least he didn’t let it show on his face.
But what about me?
I want the world to go back to normal—but would I be able to survive in that world?