Destruction — Chapter 33

While Saejin handled the dishes, Woobeom slipped quietly into the yard. He wanted to start clearing snow before Saejin noticed. And since the only dishes to wash were the pot, plates, and chopsticks, it wouldn’t take long. Wiping his wet hands with a dry towel, Saejin looked around for Woobeom but couldn’t find him. When he glanced out the window, he froze. As he had feared, Woobeom was outside shoveling snow despite his condition. Saejin immediately ran to the front door.

“Hyung! Why are you clearing it alone?”

“What am I supposed to make you do when you wheeze just from sitting down.”

“You do know you’re way worse off than me, right…? You can’t even use one hand.”

As expected, Saejin rolled up his sleeves, insisting he would help too, and looked around for a shovel.

Maybe it’s in the shed?

He searched every nearby corner, but when he didn’t find the spare shovel, he went straight for the storage shed. A shovel that wouldn’t appear no matter how long he searched. Just as Woobeom predicted, Saejin behaved exactly as expected. Imagining him fumbling around hunting for the shovel, Woobeom threw a quick glance his way before returning to clearing the snow. He wasn’t doing anything difficult anyway, just brushing off the top layer before spreading calcium chloride.

“…Hyung.”

A few minutes later, Saejin returned, covered in dust from the shed, speaking in a gloomy voice. Only his head poked out from the doorway, as if he didn’t want Woobeom to see how messy he’d become. His expression was thoroughly sulky as he dragged out his words.

“You hid the shovel, didn’t you? I know it… No matter how much I looked, it wasn’t there… The culprit is obviously you.”

“Stay inside. I’m almost done. I’ll go in soon.”

“Tch, you don’t understand how I feel. My limbs work fine, so I should be the one helping…”

He grumbled and muttered. If he couldn’t hide his feelings, he seemed to have decided to complain openly instead. After venting for quite a while, he finally folded under Woobeom’s firm stance. There was no point lingering in the yard without a shovel. Saejin pulled his head back inside.

Back in the living room, he watched Woobeom’s movements through the closed window. Even without using one hand, Woobeom handled the snow clearing skillfully. His claim that he didn’t need help apparently hadn’t been empty words.

Saejin then sat on the sofa and checked the news on TV. The same broadcast played as before, suggesting nothing new had been reported. Only the headline repeated over and over. It was like someone had put the table-of-contents page of a presentation on loop.

Does that ever change?

What if it wasn’t that they had no breaking news to announce, but rather that there weren’t enough staff left at the station to update the broadcast? That unsettling thought crept into Saejin and left him uneasy. Still, having it on was better than turning it off; at least he could confirm that society hadn’t collapsed entirely. Letting out a long sigh, he looked back out the window. Woobeom seemed to have finished his work and was now tidying up the supplies.

Before long, Woobeom returned to the villa. Instead of coming straight inside, he wiped away the slush that had melted and turned the entrance into a wet mess. Naturally, the moment he stepped in, Saejin rushed over to the doorway to nag him.

“You’re going to catch a cold doing that.”

“I won’t.”

“Liar… Who was the one burning up with a fever at dawn? That was definitely a different Jung Woobeom, huh.”

“Quit fooling around.”

With his nose crinkled, Saejin grabbed Woobeom’s reddened fingertips with both hands, rubbing them to warm them up. When Woobeom’s fingers flinched, even for a split second, Saejin tilted his head and looked up at him. It had been a tiny reaction, but Saejin didn’t miss it.

“Why’d your hand twitch like that.”

“…It didn’t.”

“Really.”

Maybe he imagined it. A finger twitch wasn’t exactly a crisis, so Saejin shrugged and guided Woobeom to the sofa. Leaning against the soft backrest, a wave of drowsiness washed over him.

Woobeom glanced at Saejin nodding off beside him. For someone with such a small build, he drained his stamina surprisingly fast. What a curious kid. Woobeom offered his shoulder as Saejin tilted toward him. Pale skin with no muscle, soft to the touch. That innocent nature with no wariness toward others. In every way, Saejin looked like a boy who had lived an ordinary life. Yoon Saejin, the normal student who grew up soft in contrast to him, who had spent his life fighting and bleeding through gang business for the sake of revenge.

Saejin let out steady, even breaths, as if in a light sleep. The world outside was falling apart, yet the two of them isolated in the villa were unusually peaceful.

Strange.

A world overrun with monsters would be hell for most people, but Woobeom felt different. If the virus outbreak hadn’t happened, he never would have met Yoon Saejin. He wondered what sort of life he would be living in that hypothetical world. It didn’t take long to find the answer. Probably wasting away, having lost any meaning in life. The name Yoon Saejin slowly engraved itself into his mind. Ironically, in the middle of disaster, Jung Woobeom had found peace only after meeting Saejin.

Get a hold of yourself.

Bringing a naïve kid to the villa and then having these thoughts felt absurd. Scoffing at himself, Woobeom rubbed his lips. He suddenly remembered the cigarettes he had forgotten about. He reached for the pack in his pocket, then lowered his hand again. He didn’t want to be the kind of inconsiderate adult who smoked around a kid sitting right next to him.

* * *

The training they had planned earlier was postponed for four more weeks because of Woobeom’s injury. But since stamina training didn’t require him to move much, they started as soon as Saejin’s abdominal wound had fully healed. For a full month, Saejin did cardio and strength exercises with the goal of improving his endurance. February arrived in an instant.

During the first stamina session, he had only run half a lap around the private property fence and back, but now he had gradually increased it to three laps. When doing long-distance runs, Woobeom never allowed breaks even when Saejin’s breath felt like it was scraping his throat, so he practically had near-death experiences. The training was harsh enough to be called torture, yet Saejin didn’t give up.

In a world where crime happened like daily routine, escaping mattered more than fighting. That was the first piece of advice Woobeom gave him. Unfortunately, Saejin’s running ability was pitiful. He’d been caught easily even the first time they met, and nothing had changed. If he couldn’t fight, then at least he needed to be fast when running away, so all the early training focused on running-related exercises.

After spending a month sprinting through uneven mountain terrain, he became quick enough to be compared to a flying squirrel on most slopes, and he got good at dodging obstacles too. Woobeom’s warning that the training would be unbearable had not been an empty threat.

Even after the basic stamina training ended, that thought didn’t change.

He’s definitely trying to kill me!

Breathing hard, Saejin wiped the sweat clinging to the tip of his chin and flopped backward. There was a mat spread on the floor, so the impact wasn’t bad. He simply wanted to show how exhausted he was and begged silently for a short break. His breathing was so unstable that dizziness began to swirl his vision.

“One more set left.”

“I’m… I’m seriously going to die. This can’t be real…”

He knew his stamina had improved after the four weeks of basic training, but Woobeom’s coaching always pushed him to the edge. Lying spread out on the floor, Saejin stared weakly up at the ceiling and tried to steady his breathing.

“Quit whining and get up.”

“If I get up right now, I might really die. I mean it…”

“Yoon Saejin, I said you have one more set.”

If cardio felt like glimpsing the afterlife, then strength training was plain hell. It was especially awful whenever Woobeom’s sharp eyes caught his posture slipping. Whenever he tried to sneak in a small rest, Woobeom noticed instantly and corrected him, which made him scream every time.

“My arms are actually tearing… No, they’re already torn. I can’t do it anymore!”

While struggling through his third set of push-ups, Saejin whined that he couldn’t go on. It had only been one month and seven days since he began training, so it was normal for his limbs to shake before completing the routines Woobeom assigned.

His chest rose and fell rapidly with no sign of calming down. It wasn’t even that warm, yet sweat poured down his face, and the spinning in his vision made him squeeze his eyes shut. He felt like dumping cold water over his head. Seeing him struggle, Woobeom opened the window to let in some cold air and then held out his hand for Saejin to grab so he could stand.

“…Hyung, you know I got bruised badly on my side yesterday, right?”

When Saejin dragged out his words, Woobeom showed a faint troubled expression.

“If you feel bad about it… then go easier on me today. Please.”

“You just have to dodge like I told you. Keep your head straight and focus.”

“Tch.”

After strength training, Woobeom taught him how to protect his body. Breakfalls and self-defense were the main lessons, though sometimes he learned how to throw a punch or restrain an opponent. But since Saejin still moved awkwardly, he ended up with a big bruise on his side while learning self-defense. Woobeom was well aware of the fist-shaped bruise on his own side too. Of course, that didn’t mean he planned on going easy on him.

Because of that, whenever Saejin asked if he could rest just a little, Woobeom only gave the strict reply that he shouldn’t tire so easily. Pouting at his firm tone, Saejin took the offered hand to stand up and instead let himself fall backward. As if he had no intention of falling for such tricks, Woobeom instantly changed his expression and released his hand without hesitation. Since Saejin had been leaning at an angle, he was about to topple backward.

“Huhk…!”

As he flailed on the verge of falling, he remembered the breakfall he learned yesterday. A backward breakfall, a technique used exactly for situations like this when falling backward. It was mainly to protect the back and the head.

Right now, failing would be harmless because of the mat underneath, but in a real situation, he could get a concussion. Saejin relaxed his body as he fell, pulled his chin tightly inward, and fixed his gaze on his lower abdomen, rolling down from his back.

The back of your head must never touch the ground during a backward breakfall.

Even in the chaos, Woobeom’s advice brushed past his mind.

The butt, the butt too…!

He had been scolded harshly the day before for lifting his hips during the breakfall, so all his attention went there. Keeping his hips on the floor and preventing the back of his head from touching, Saejin made his final move and slapped the mat. Both palms hit the mat with a sharp sound. It was awkward in several ways, but a breakfall was still a breakfall.

“Your shoulders lifted.”

“…I only learned it yesterday. I’m not used to it yet.”

He had used a brand-new technique in a split second, so couldn’t he have gotten at least a little praise? Feeling disappointed, Saejin scratched the back of his head and sat up. His shoulder did ache, which meant Woobeom was right about it lifting.

He tapped his shoulder lightly to loosen the tense muscles and wondered what today’s lesson would be. But predicting required having something to go on, and he didn’t. Scratching his forehead, he simply prayed he wouldn’t end up as a punching bag again. Woobeom tapped his shoulder a couple of times, signaling him to get ready.

“Your goal today is to land a single hit on me.”

“You want me to beat you up?”

“Listen to yourself talk…”

Woobeom handed him a wooden stick. Since he wouldn’t be able to touch him with bare hands anyway, it meant he should at least use a longer tool. But Saejin shook his head, thinking this didn’t seem right. Swinging a stick around could lead to serious injury.

“What if you get hurt.”

“That won’t happen.”

His quick answer was full of confidence.

Right… it’s training.

His bruised side still throbbed and stung from being hit yesterday. If he had a long stick in hand, maybe he could land at least one blow. Gripping the stick with that hopeful thought, he actually looked somewhat competent.

“Don’t just think about hitting me blindly. When you swing, pay attention to how I avoid it.”

“…I’ll try.”

Swinging it was hard enough, and now he had to analyze Woobeom’s movements too. It was an overwhelming request. Slapping his cheeks gently to focus, Saejin took a breath and swung the stick. The wooden tip cut sharply through the air toward Woobeom’s temple. It wasn’t a sloppy swing; he used his core and legs to keep balance and generate speed. All of it was technique taught by Woobeom.