4DAS Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Long chapter ahead

Intro

A young man was having a nightmare.

An unfamiliar world, a self he did not recognize.

He forced himself to forget the truth that it was now impossible to return to the past.

Even if he did return, he decided to ignore the fact that he would never be accepted.

Nothing came to mind. No—that was because he did not want to remember.

In the midst of deception, he moved his feet with restless diligence.

There was no place to hide from the changed world. He longed for somewhere he could hide his changed self.

The old apartment felt familiar. The home where he had lived all his life was still there, waiting.

The young man reached his hand toward the door.

A man woke from a nightmare.

A world that made him shudder, a pitiful self.

Even if everything were to return to the way it once was, he no longer had the will to live.

The dead would not come back to life, the ruined leg would never heal. The blood that stained his hands could not be wiped away.

He had spent his days and nights in the home of those he had killed. Whether his eyes were closed or open, the world remained like a nightmare.

He had thought that by now, there was no chance of waking from a bad dream.

Then he heard the sound of someone pressing the code into the front door lock.

The door opened.

While he had been away for a short while, the house Lee Rowon once lived in had turned into something like the middle of a jungle.

Of course, that was only a figure of speech. No matter what, an ordinary apartment could not possibly become covered in vines and leaves in just a few months. It was simply that the neglected flowerpots on the veranda had grown wild, giving off that impression. Torn curtains and ragged scraps of cloth resembled thick branches. Mold spreading through the house and the suffocating heat only heightened the sense of strangeness.

But the greatest cause was, without doubt, disorder. He had lived in this home for over ten years, yet had never seen it in such a state of ruin. Just leaving the place uncleaned and unattended could not possibly make it look like this. If anything, it resembled the inside of a shop right before demolition after a redevelopment decision. Clear traces of destruction and makeshift reconstruction were everywhere.

Rowon thought he ought to clean the house, but he had no idea where to even begin. The apartment that had once housed a family of four had long since been transformed into a makeshift fortress for survival and defense. Furniture was broken down to block windows or had been moved elsewhere he could not guess. Belongings were used for purposes far from their original, or else buried in piles of trash stacked into the corners.

This was not something that could be fixed with a bit of tidying up. First, he needed to secure a place to sleep or at least to sit down, then figure out the true state of the house, then draw up a plan and divide the space into sections to clean step by step.

“Mm, ngh….”

And besides, they needed to eat. Rowon headed to the kitchen, even as he listened to the groans drifting out of the bedroom. He worried whether there would be enough food to feed the two of them. He had been away from the house for so long that he had no idea of the refrigerator’s state.

‘Was there ever any food left to begin with?’

What if there was none at all? Would he have to go out and find some? His worries proved unfounded—fortunately, that was not the case. Food was stored in the fridge.

Though the electricity was still out, making the refrigerator nothing more than a giant metal box without temperature control, it was neatly packed with emergency rations—canned goods, snacks, energy bars. Their packaging was stained with blood, but the expiration dates seemed fine.

‘I’d rather have soup… No, wait. The gas isn’t working anyway. And with no electricity, I can’t use the microwave either.’

There was no gas flame to boil water, no microwave to heat food with the push of a button. Reminding himself of this unfamiliar reality again and again was not easy. With some regret, Rowon grabbed a box of energy bars and carried it into the bedroom. It was too much for one person, but just enough for two.

Faint groans still seeped out from within. Alongside them was the grating buzz of a portable radio.

“Nghh, khh, hh…”

[This is a message from the Disaster Management Headquarters. Today at 6 p.m., the third dispersal of treatment gas is scheduled. All non-infected and recovered individuals are advised to remain indoors whenever possible. If you encounter an infected person, do not attempt to attack them under any circumstances. Should you find yourself pursued by the infected, please lead them outside so they may be exposed to the treatment gas. Once again, we remind you that the third dispersal of treatment gas will…]

At 8 a.m., at 12 noon, and again at 6 p.m. According to the radio, the government carried out mass dispersals of the treatment gas three times a day to cure the infected. Just five to ten seconds of exposure was said to completely eradicate the [zombie bacteria] in the body—a marvel of over-technology. Released into the world eight months after the zombie outbreak, it had pulled a crumbling society back and yanked it toward hope like a miracle cure.

What on earth was that gas made of, to wipe out such a vicious pathogen? Could it really be scientifically possible? Rowon considered its very existence unrealistic, but he did not dwell on the question.

If there existed a pathogen that could turn a human into a zombie within one to three seconds of being bitten, then it was not strange that there also existed a gas that could neutralize that pathogen in ten. Reality had always been stranger than fiction—thinking too hard about it would only give him a headache.

Besides, Rowon had other matters to deal with. He swung the bedroom door wide open and stepped inside. Like the living room and kitchen, the bedroom too was cluttered and chaotic. With almost no ventilation, the air was stiflingly hot. Light filtering through the gaps of a crude barricade resembled sunlight trickling through leaves in a forest.

And in the middle of the room lay a middle-aged man, looking as shabby as a tree stump covered in moss. His arms and legs were tightly bound with rope, and a gag stuffed into his mouth. A gag which, in truth, was nothing more than a wad of cloth shoved in and tied down with a towel.

“Does the rope hurt, mister?”

“Ughk, ngh…!”

“I’m not really used to tying people up, so I might have done it a bit strangely. But you need to eat, so I’ll take out the gag for now.”

Rowon didn’t have much knowledge about how to restrain a person safely. Ignoring the bloodshot eyes that glared at him with tears welling up, Rowon removed the gag from the man’s mouth.

“Cough, cough, khhk…!”

From the way he burst into noisy coughs, it was clear he had been struggling to breathe. Yet the emotions on his face weren’t just physical suffering. In his eyes burned naked fury and fear.

“Are you alright?”

“D-don’t touch me. Get out of this house first, you bastard, after making me like this!”

“But this is my house. Well, to be exact, it’s my parents’ house. You killed my parents and squatted here for months as if it were your own.”

“You…!”

Unable to argue, the man only twisted his face in rage. Rowon seized the chance to shove an energy bar into his mouth. Like a baby bird fed by its mother, the man obediently chewed. He must have thought that resisting now would only mean starving without food.

Rowon looked down at him with a detached expression as he took a bite of his own energy bar. The sweet taste, after so long, was surprisingly pleasant. He had never liked energy bars much before, but maybe because it had been ages since he’d tasted sweetness, he found it strangely welcome.

But the man grimaced as if disgusted by it. Forcing the sweet bar down his throat, he finally opened his mouth again, the smell of sugar wafting from it.

“I didn’t start it.”

“I know. You’ve been saying that from the beginning.”

“Your mom and dad tore my wife apart first. If not for that, I’d never have had a reason to kill those zombies…!”

It was the same story, repeated like a broken recorder. Rowon let the man’s hoarse self-pity wash over him, listening with one ear and drifting into thought.

This man claimed to have killed two people. From his point of view, anyway. There was no reason to lie about something like this, so it was probably true.

Likewise, according to him, Rowon’s parents—after turning into zombies—had killed one person. That too was probably not a lie, though there was no proof.

It was said that killings between Morpheus-32 infected, so-called “zombies,” and the uninfected were so common that no one could even estimate the numbers. Victims rarely had proof, and perpetrators usually had hazy memories. Settling matters clearly, like in the old world, would never again be possible.

“So, what? Are you planning to take revenge on me now?”

Rowon pressed a second energy bar into the man’s mouth. The man glared at him in disbelief, but still chewed steadily. Rowon too tore open a second wrapper and kept eating.

At first it tasted good, but now the overwhelming sweetness made his tongue feel numb. At least there was water to rinse his mouth, but how long could a person survive on nothing but this?

When Rowon gave no reaction, the man swallowed another bite and bared his teeth.

“So in all this mess, you never killed anyone, you little shit?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t, fuck, you were a zombie! No memories, no clue! Don’t pretend you’re clean! If you survived for months and got hit with the treatment gas, you must’ve sent ten, twenty people to their deaths. And now you’re the one calling me a murderer?”

Phlegm rattled in his throat. Thinking he must be thirsty, Rowon lifted a PET bottle and poured water into his mouth. The man choked as if being tortured, but soon adjusted and drank. Rowon also rinsed his own mouth, though the cloying sweetness still clung stubbornly inside.

These past months, had his tongue and teeth also been coated with the metallic tang of blood or scraps of flesh? Rowon had no memory. He didn’t know how many people he had killed, or even if he had at all. All he knew was that after being exposed to the treatment gas for who knew how many times, he had regained his mind and staggered back home.

But one thing was certain. For the past seven months and twenty-three days, Lee Rowon the human had lived as a zombie infected with the Morpheus-32 virus.

His memories of that time were swallowed in pitch-black darkness. The days when a healthy twenty-year-old had become a murderous monster were left as a complete blank. Until some evidence was thrust before him, that veil of ignorance would never be lifted—just as this man now spat out the truth of his parents’ killings, perhaps one day someone else would come to expose Rowon’s own.

Murder. Murder… A word he had only ever heard in movies or detective novels still felt alien on his tongue. Rowon hesitated, rolling it around for a moment, then finally spoke.

“I never said you were a murderer.”

“…….”

“And I’m not thinking about revenge, either.”

“……!”

“It’s just that I need to live in this house. And you don’t seem very willing to leave it… That’s basically the only reason. Why I tied you up.”

He knew it was a halfhearted explanation. But there really was no deeper reason. A stranger barging into the house he had lived in for years was unsettling, but killing him was not an option.

After finishing his food, Rowon rummaged through piles of junk until he found two toothbrushes. No toothpaste, unfortunately, but even that was better than just rinsing with water. Before brushing his own teeth, he decided he’d tend to the man’s first.

The man glared at him, his face twisted in distrust. Not the look one would give someone feeding and cleaning him—but Rowon understood. Because…

“You’re lying through your teeth. Or you’re a psycho… But if you’re not, then answer me just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Then why the hell did you rape me?”

Rowon looked at him for a moment, then poured some water into his mouth and shoved the toothbrush in. Gghrk—the man groaned miserably, showing his dislike openly, but he endured it well enough. Better, at least, than when he had been forced to bite down on something else a few hours earlier.

‘Yeah… why did I do that?’

As he brushed the man’s teeth, Rowon struggled to grasp the impulse even he couldn’t understand.

Since becoming human again, the world had been nothing but incomprehensible. Streets without buses or subways, shops looted and empty, a home in ruins, a middle-aged man claiming to have killed his parents. Everything strange, everything overwhelming.

But the hardest thing to understand was himself. As he brushed, he noticed the red marks still left on the man’s neck. He remembered the groans the man had let out as those marks were made, faintly recalling the feel of flesh against his tongue and teeth. The one thing he couldn’t recall was why he had done it.

“Ngh, grrk.”

“Does it hurt? Ah, your lips are torn at the corners. I’ll be careful not to touch them.”

The cause of the tear wasn’t brushing, but something else entirely. Still, with the toothbrush rubbing against the wound, it must have stung. Rowon began to move his hand more gently. He truly had no desire to hurt the man—he really did not seek revenge. Not anymore.

Not that he had any right to say that, after what he had done earlier.

Focusing on the feel of soft flesh and hard teeth beneath the brush, Lee Rowon emptied his mind. If thinking couldn’t give him answers, then perhaps it was better to leave his confused head blank.

---

Since illegally occupying this house, there had hardly been a night without misery for Park Young-il. But summer nights, spent with his arms and legs bound, were the worst of all.

There was no air conditioner, no fan. The windows were boarded shut, and not a hint of cool air could get in. Sweat ran sticky and heavy down his forehead and spine, and he couldn’t even lift his hands to wipe it away, let alone fan himself. Even in the middle of the night it felt suffocating, as though he were about to collapse from heatstroke.

On top of that, pain hummed through his entire body. Tied in awkward positions, the blood circulation in his limbs was poor. Sometimes, when he complained, the bindings would be adjusted, but whoever tied them lacked skill. Each time a different part of his body went numb or ached in some new way.

The part that hurt the most was the abused inside of his backside, but he forced himself not to think about it. The pain there would not fade no matter what he did.

His pleas—to be untied, that he wouldn’t seek revenge or do anything strange—were neatly ignored. He begged, saying his back hurt, that his lower body throbbed so badly he could barely stand, that he was crippled with one ruined leg and couldn’t possibly run far even if he tried, that this was why he’d been subdued so easily in the first place. Perhaps he had sounded desperate, but the ropes stayed fastened.

He had thought his life had already hit rock bottom after the zombie disaster, but it turned out that falling meant tumbling deeper underground with no wings to stop the descent.

“Uhh…”

Groaning, Young-il looked around the room. It was dark at night, but his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and he could make out shapes without issue. The only thing he could not read was the heart of the youth sitting at the doorway opposite, watching him.

That alone made his body tremble like a quaking tree.

“Are you hot? You’re sweating a lot.”

“…….”

“I’m hot too. If I pulled down those boards on the windows, maybe some night breeze would come in… but at night it’s dangerous. Too noisy, and infected might break in.”

Young-il could make out the youth’s expression, but no emotions showed on that clear face. The young man, who had given his name as Lee Rowon, looked like a doll—flat, numb. So different from the zombies Young-il had killed, whose faces were twisted with raw outbursts of rage. Rage was all they had, but still.

Every zombie Young-il had ever faced wore its hatred openly, distorted to the extreme as it attacked survivors with unfiltered aggression. Why such strangers hated and loathed him so bitterly, he didn’t know. But for survivors, that was a relief—it made it easier to strike back, easier even to attack first without guilt.

Had the young man once been the same? By his own account, he had spent the past eight months as a zombie. Back then, had his face also twisted in hatred like that, baring his teeth at someone as if confronting his parents’ murderer?

“The… the heat’s not the problem. Aren’t you going to sleep?”

Young-il forced himself to sound casual. But the truth was, just looking at that young man’s expression had blown away his drowsiness like spotting a ghost in a summer horror tale.

The youth’s blank expression was, in some ways, even more chilling than a zombie’s twisted one. Whether it was because of the bizarre, inhuman calm or because of what Young-il had suffered at his hands, he couldn’t tell. Probably both.

“You should sleep first. I’m not sleepy.”

“What, insomnia’s one of the aftereffects of the zombie disease?”

“I don’t know about that. I just don’t feel like sleeping. I want to sort out my thoughts, and I want to keep watch over you.”

Such a diligent and honest young man. Diligent, because he still insisted on keeping watch even after binding Young-il so tightly he couldn’t lift a finger. Honest, because he stated his purpose openly.

Objectively, those might be virtues. But Young-il could not see them that way, not after what the youth had done to him.

“Aren’t you going to sleep? Is it the heat too?”

“……!”

When the youth suddenly stood and strode toward him, Young-il flinched, twisting his bound body in panic. He wanted to crawl backward, but tied as he was, it was useless.

At least, the youth didn’t seem intent on repeating “that” from earlier. His fingers only brushed across Young-il’s forehead, wiping away sweat.

Still, just remembering what those hands had done made gooseflesh rise. He raised his voice on purpose to hide his trembling.

“Forget the heat. I can’t sleep because I don’t know what you’ll do to me next. Isn’t that natural?”

“I’m not a zombie anymore. I won’t attack you.”

“Who knows? What if that so-called treatment gas fails and you turn back into a zombie? No one can say it’s impossible.”

“That’s true.”

“And let’s be blunt. Even if you don’t turn back, how can I possibly trust you?”

The youth gave no answer, simply retreating a little to sit down again. He seemed to have a habit of going silent whenever the topic turned against him.

Everyone had agreed during the outbreak: nothing was more terrifying than other people. And right now, the one who terrified Young-il wasn’t a mindless zombie with no memory of its own actions.

It was this young man.

This young man had every justification, every power to do anything to him. The right to drive out a trespasser squatting in his home. The right to bind and imprison the murderer of his parents. And also…

The right to rape him?

Why was it that putting it into plain words cooled his head so suddenly? Swallowing hard, Young-il looked at the youth. With a bit of distance between them, he didn’t seem quite so frightening.

At the time, fear had outweighed shame. The clumsy kiss, tongues forced together, had felt like being strangled. His body pinned down, something pried open that should not be opened—the sensation wasn’t so different from being held down to be killed.

Back then, Young-il thought the youth, still a zombie, was about to devour him. Even if the treatment gas had restored his reason, a zombie was still a zombie, driven by instinct.

If not that, then it must have been revenge. After all, Young-il had killed his parents. He had smashed their skulls with bricks, broken their necks, ground their faces against asphalt, beaten their limbs until they shattered—consumed by grief and fury at losing his wife.

During the disaster, such things were common. But now? By law it was murder, excessive vengeance even if the circumstances explained it. One life for two. The numbers didn’t match.

So he thought the youth had been balancing the scales, preparing to kill him in turn. That the vile act before it was nothing but a vent for grief and rage.

And yet—

“I won’t hurt you. I mean it. I know it’s hard to believe, but could you try to trust me?”

“…Why should I?”

“If you put it that way, I don’t have an answer.”

“Isn’t trusting you the most foolish thing I could do? I killed your parents, and you’ve tied me up and done those things to me. If we’re talking about trust here, that’s the strangest thing of all.”

“I’m sorry for tying you up, and for what I did. I don’t even know why I did it… so I really don’t have more to say.”

Even when Young-il’s accusations had no benefit to him, the youth answered sincerely. What gave him the gall to sit there so stiff and blank, as if it were nothing? Maybe that too was some aftereffect of the Morpheus virus. Young-il wanted to ask, but doubted he’d get an answer.

The youth seemed just as baffled as he was by the situation, behaving as if he were still a normal man from before the outbreak. As if all the strange things now—capturing Young-il, assaulting him, feeding him, brushing his teeth—were somehow separate from himself.

To Young-il, the youth was more grotesque than any zombie. Zombies, at least, were predictable. This one did incomprehensible things, then sat with that blank face as if he knew nothing.

What was he thinking? Should Young-il curse him, or beg forgiveness? He didn’t know. The same helpless confusion he had felt at the start of the outbreak crept over him again, when all his beliefs and common sense had collapsed.

“Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“…….”

“So, uh… do you have a fan in the house? Or maybe an old notebook? Anything at all, so I can fan you a little.”

“You’re insane.”

The youth rummaged through piles of junk as if searching for a fan, but found nothing. He pulled out a dusty electric fan and, when Young-il glared at him in disbelief, dropped it and sat back down with his usual blank face.

It felt like a dream. Everything hazy, everything confusing, so much that he couldn’t tell if it was a nightmare or not.

After finally passing out in the stifling heat, Young-il dreamed a real nightmare.

Or rather, it was closer to lingering regret. Like a cow chewing cud, he relived the horrors he had endured, over and over, in order to digest them. It was not peaceful, not comforting, often agonizing—but there was no choice. Dreams could not be stopped just because you wished them gone.

It began with the outbreak. To be exact, with the spread of the Morpheus-32 infection. From the start, when the first cases appeared, the government begged the public and the press not to use the word “zombie.” No matter how similar it looked, turning a human disease into the stuff of movies and games was irresponsible.

Few took it seriously. Some followed the guideline in the early days, when numbers were low. But when the infected climbed past 5%, 10%, then 30% of the world’s population, such niceties were tossed aside. Within three months, when over 70% of humanity was infected, survivors naturally began calling them zombies.

The moment an infected person’s fluids entered another’s bloodstream through a wound, the disease took hold. The infected displayed irrational aggression toward humans and animals, moved with impossible speed, and would not stop even with terrible injuries unless both brain and heart were destroyed.

What else could such creatures be called but zombies? “Morpheus-infected” was too mild to capture the revulsion and fear. Zombie was the only fitting word.

—They’re not human anymore. So this isn’t murder!
—I know it’s hard, but that’s not your child anymore! Better to kill them now, to spare them suffering!

He remembered shouting those words to his wife, who was weeping as she killed their only child with her own hands. The boy’s face was smashed beyond recognition, stripped of every trace of the child they had loved. She had struck him with a brick; Young-il had stabbed his heart with a kitchen knife. They had done it to end it cleanly.

Their companions, who had traveled with them then but were now scattered or dead, had praised them. They said it was the “right” choice. Not moral, not easy, but necessary. That thanks to them, the infection hadn’t spread further. That because of them, everyone else had lived. They too had killed countless infected to protect others, so the couple could only accept the words.

And above all, they had said, the child could never return to being human anyway.

Maybe it would have been better to tear those mouths open instead.

“You said he couldn’t come back. That he could never be human again. Why did you talk like you knew, when you didn’t?”

Choking back tears, Young-il wept bitterly, trying to ignore that he had once believed the same. If only they had never called them zombies. If they had kept saying “infected,” “sick,” maybe hope would have remained. If they had remembered that the infected were still sick humans, maybe they would not have killed him. Maybe they would have tied him down and cared for him instead.

But everyone had insisted—accept reality. Society had collapsed, order had crumbled, survival was all that mattered. The old world was gone forever, and they had to adapt.

So Young-il too had done it. He smashed skulls with iron pipes, kicked zombies from window ledges, cheered when a companion plowed through a horde with a truck.

He had thought it was right. Just like the heroes of zombie movies.

“But who knew this world would end like this?”

Those “zombies” had only been sick humans. And a single dispersal of treatment gas could cure them completely, returning them to themselves. No one had known.

If they had known—would they still have killed them? Would they have fought them off, left them alive, spared those who could be saved, restrained themselves from striking first? Would more people have survived in this new world?

“If I had kept hope alive… could my boy have lived too? Like that bastard?”

As he looked at the youth who claimed to have become a zombie seven months and twenty-three days ago, Young-il wondered what he felt. Whether it was thanks to his own abilities, or someone else’s goodwill, the fact that the youth had survived all that time without being killed by survivors felt unfair. Why had he lived, when his parents had died, when Young-il’s child had died—why was he the only one alive to see this new world? Rage and grief had driven Young-il to grab him by the collar, shouting, before being thrown to the floor.

It was fraud. All of it was fraud.

When his clothes were torn away, when flesh pressed against his skin, it had felt like nothing more than a dream. A nightmare he could never wake from.

---

The loud sound of wood planks being pried off woke Young-il.

“Uhh, ngh…”

When he opened his eyes, the sun was already high overhead. Bright sunlight streamed in through the now-unbarred window, glaring across his face. Who had removed the barricade, and why? Without it, this low-floor apartment was defenseless against a zombie attack.

He wanted to get up, but his arms and legs were still bound. Yet after repeated trial and error, the bindings had improved. His limbs no longer went numb, and the ropes didn’t bite or sting anymore. Wriggling across the floor like a caterpillar, he barely managed to turn his head toward the window. The youth was dismantling the barricade with a crowbar taken from a toolbox.

“You’re awake, mister?”

“What are you doing? If you take that down, the zombies will—”

“But they say there aren’t many infected left in this area. And since the gas is released steadily during the day, I don’t think the windows are that dangerous anymore.”

His tone was light, like someone announcing the day’s weather. One by one, he pulled the boards free. They fell with a clatter, dust puffing out, as though he were just airing out the room for the first time in ages.

Did that kid only fear zombies? If survivors saw the barricade suddenly gone, they might assume something had happened and storm in to scavenge. Young-il glared, but strangely, he had no will to stop him.

For some reason, it seemed that even if a group of survivors burst in through the window, the youth could drive them off without breaking a sweat. Unrealistic as it was, there was an aura about him. Slender and neat as a model, yet with eyes that hinted he could do unthinkable things if pushed.

And above all, it was hot. For years now, the news had thrown around the phrase “extreme climate.” Lately, anything below thirty-five degrees hardly counted as summer anymore—the world boiled.

At first, the barricade had blocked the direct sun, keeping it cooler. But after days, weeks of scorching heat, it had turned the blocked-up room into a steaming pot. Suffocating in dust and swelter was no way to die. So Young-il held his tongue.

“By the way, in this apartment, recycling was supposed to go out on Sundays.”

“Is your brain still rotting? You think a truck is still going to show up on Sunday to pick it up?”

“Oh… you’re right. Even if it’s Sunday, no one’s coming. Then what should we do with it? Could we burn it for firewood?”

“Idiot. It’s coated with chemicals—you’ll just make toxic smoke.”

Young-il sighed at the boy’s nonsense. Maybe because he had spent so long as a zombie, the kid didn’t even know basic survival methods. Must be nice, to forget all the dirty tricks needed to survive, to remember only the world as it had once been. While Young-il had scraped through, learning useless trivia just to stay alive, the boy had the luxury of ignorance.

The youth, oblivious, finally finished stripping the boards and looked around with satisfaction. But the room hadn’t grown much brighter. Instead, the sunlight only highlighted the piles of trash, making the place look filthier than before. And then—

Blood.

With the barricade gone, the dried stains became visible. The window frame and walls were streaked with dark, crusted blood.

It might have been his wife’s, or the middle-aged couple he’d killed. Infected or not, blood was all the same. What did it matter now, anyway?

Young-il wondered how the boy would react. But he didn’t react at all. Either he hadn’t noticed, too absorbed in carrying boards—or he had noticed, and was ignoring it on purpose. Pretending anything strange simply did not exist.

Young-il thought of saying something, but held his tongue. The youth spoke first, unbothered.

“Then I’ll move the trash to the veranda. I’d like to clean the other rooms too, but that’s a bit much, so for now I’ll focus on this bedroom. That should be fine, right?”

“Do whatever you want. It’s your house, not mine.”

Yesterday, he had insisted it was his house. Today, he had no strength for that. All he could do was watch the boy put his energy into cleaning.

Perhaps, if the youth wore himself out cleaning and fell asleep, that would be his chance to escape. Though with his battered body, escape was doubtful. And even if he made it out, the outside was hardly safer. If there were zombies, leaving was suicide. If not, then as a cripple, he’d be easy prey for survivors. His supplies would be stolen before he reached anywhere safe.

Maybe it was better to stay, to behave obediently, to accept this house.

But then the boy smiled.

“I’m glad you’re here, actually.”

“What?”

“It’s better to have someone with me than to be alone. Besides, unlike me, you know a lot. If I’d tried to handle this house on my own, I wouldn’t have managed at all. I’d have made so many mistakes.”

“…….”

“So I think I did the right thing, keeping you here.”

Living with this boy was clearly a bad choice. Young-il scowled. The bloodstains at the window gleamed unpleasantly in the sunlight.

---

Cleaning the bedroom took some time, but wasn’t too hard. Rowon sorted the piles of junk, swept with a broom and dustpan found in the bathroom, and wiped the floor with a rag washed as clean as he could manage.

“I’ll just clean the floor here. Could you move a bit?”

“Without untying me? Hey—hey!”

To get him out of the way, Rowon nudged and rolled the man with his foot. Groaning miserably, Young-il scraped across the floor, his dusty clothes practically mopping it as he went. He grumbled, but Rowon paid no attention, focused only on cleaning.

“You’re lighter than I expected, mister. I noticed that yesterday too, when I tied you up.”

“You damned brat! You said the same thing when you had me pinned down with my ass in the air and my legs spread!”

“I don’t remember much about that.”

It wasn’t a lie. He truly couldn’t remember clearly. Things done in a frenzy often blurred into fragments. Still, he thought, the man had been lighter than he expected.

Of course, “lighter than expected” still meant the weight of an adult male. Broad-shouldered, muscled, but lighter than he looked.

That was probably why the first fight had gone so smoothly. The crippled leg, twisted from a bad break, had little strength. Subduing him despite his desperate resistance had not been too hard.

Had that resistance annoyed him? Or had it excited him? It was only a short while ago, yet the memory was vague. He recalled the man foaming as he fought back, recalled forcing up the ruined leg to hold him down. But what had he been thinking then? He couldn’t remember at all.

It felt like it had happened to someone else. Had he really done such things? Or had he only watched as someone else did them? Nonsense, of course—but the thought still crossed his mind.

When Rowon fixed his gaze on the man to collect his thoughts, the man turned his head away in displeasure. He tried to put on a show of indifference, but it was clear he was afraid.

Not wanting to frighten him, Rowon shifted his eyes aside. No matter how calm he pretended to be, after what had happened the first time they met, there was no way the man wasn’t afraid—unless something inside him was broken.

“…Looks like I’ve cleaned up most of it now.”

He shoved the man aside with his foot and finished tidying the bedroom as best he could. The rag turned black from scrubbing the floor, but the room didn’t feel especially clean. He had organized the junk, but junk was messy by its very nature. Unless it was removed entirely, there were limits to how neat the room could get.

Still, Rowon felt a little better. At least within reach, he had managed to bring a fragment of normality back, and that gave him a sense of accomplishment. Sitting on the cleaner floor, he stared blankly around the room.

From the wide-open window, a soft breeze drifted in. The morning sun was warm but not yet oppressive. It felt like he had reclaimed, if only a little, the bedroom he remembered.

But as he sat there staring blankly, he realized something.

“It’s quiet.”

“Huh?”

“This room. It’s right next to the road, so I remember my parents always complained it was noisy, cars rushing by even at dawn.”

He remembered them grumbling about delivery bikes and trucks roaring past, how the noise was so bad that even in summer they kept the windows shut and relied on the air conditioner or fan.

But now the bedroom was utterly silent. That morning, cars had passed briefly during the dispersal of treatment gas, but other than that, not a sound.

No matter how much he pulled down barricades and cleaned, the scars of the world he could not remember would not vanish so easily. Even if he scrubbed the bedroom and the whole house, normal life would not return. For the sound of traffic and bustling people to return, it would take a very long time.

As he shivered at the futility of it, Rowon felt the man’s eyes on him.

“…….”

The discomfort in his gaze was obvious, but it wasn’t quite the same fear as before. This time there was confusion, a mix of emotions. He kept glancing from Rowon to the window. Or rather, to the window frame.

Following his eyes, Rowon noticed the stains on the wall and frame. Black, yet tinged faintly with red, shockingly vivid—how had he missed them until now?

In that instant, a crack ran through his chest. He understood immediately. Bloodstains. The suffocating heat. Parents who could no longer complain about the heat or the roar of bikes. The last traces of a family gone without a trace.

Guilt. Or maybe fear.

Ah.

Once he saw the stains, he couldn’t stop looking. Blood meant wounds. And judging by the man’s reaction, someone had died there. Was it from stabbing, spraying blood everywhere? Or had their head been slammed into the frame, bursting like a watermelon, just as in novels?

…Ah.

And where had the bodies gone? He had never disposed of a corpse, but he knew at least that they weren’t recyclables. And even if they were considered burnable waste, the trucks wouldn’t have come. The man had said so himself—did he still believe trucks came on schedule to pick up garbage?

Then where? Buried in the flowerbeds? He admitted his imagination was poor, but he couldn’t think of a better method. If he placed his hands on the stained frame and leaned out, maybe he would see the flowerbeds where the bodies lay. Maybe their outlines still faintly showed through the dirt, covered hastily by survivors too busy to bury them properly.

Did maggots eat zombie flesh? Did zombie corpses stink of rot? In this heat, decomposition would be fast—so why did Rowon smell nothing? Maybe that meant…

That he didn’t want to think about it.

“Should I clean this too?”

“What?”

The man glared at him, as if he had spoken nonsense. Even if their relationship was bad, was that look necessary? The barricades were gone; the stains would be seen anyway. Cleaning them off would hardly be wrong.

“It would look cleaner if I wiped it, wouldn’t it?”

“Uh, y-yes, but… well…?”

He stammered, though he’d done nothing wrong. Or maybe he had—but Rowon couldn’t feel it. It was like trying to recall a dream: he knew something had happened, but no emotion followed.

Like looking at a faded painting. He could tell what it showed, but felt neither anger nor grief. Even knowing what it meant, no sorrow or despair washed over him.

His heart felt empty. As if nothing had ever filled it.

Rowon turned the rag to its cleaner side and began scrubbing the window frame. The stain was old; it wouldn’t come out. He scrubbed harder, the rag turning red, but the hardened bloodstain remained.

“…Don’t.”

The crushed mutter came from behind him. He couldn’t understand why—he was only cleaning. Just before, the man had mocked him, saying it was his house, his business.

“Then at least throw another tantrum like yesterday. Don’t protest like this.”

That too, he didn’t understand. He wasn’t trying to provoke him. He just wanted to erase the stain that made him think such grim thoughts.

He admitted it. However much he cleaned, the world’s scars wouldn’t vanish. But he could erase the marks within his reach. If he erased them all, maybe the bad thoughts would stop, maybe the past not worth remembering would fade.

The world had collapsed, but all of it had happened beyond Rowon’s awareness. Survivors had fought their desperate battles for eight months in a place he couldn’t recall. All he had done was wake to the results. No good could come from dwelling on a finished story. Better to forget.

Was that wrong?