GHLL Ch 6

The ash did not cease the next day. It continued to fall the next day, and the day after that. Because of that, we had to postpone the task of finding the ones we needed to get revenge on. Instead, we hid in a residential complex buried in the ash and waited for it to stop.

The residential complex was situated in a sunken area like the bottom of a frying pan, and most of the buildings were low, single-story or two or three stories high. As a result, it was covered in layers of ash, as if a blanket had been thrown over it. We shoveled away the ash, peered inside through a window, and after picking a place that seemed relatively good to stay in, we shattered the window and went inside. Then, we blocked the broken window with furniture and wandered around the interior, which was similarly covered in a fine layer of ash.

“Looks like this was a billiard hall.”

Several wide shelves were lined up, and sticks and small, hard, colorful balls were rolling around here and there. We decided to stay here for a few days until the ash stopped, so we pushed the billiard tables around to make some space. Then, to soothe the fatigue from walking all night without rest, we collapsed and lay down wherever we could. I, too, used a billiard table as a bed, used my backpack as a pillow, and tried to sleep.

After I dozed off for a bit and got up, I couldn’t see Kim Daesik. I checked on Lee Seokhyeon and Park Chankyu, who were sleeping on the billiard tables, and then stepped out of the billiard hall to find him. When I went out into the building’s hallway, I saw that the tiles covering the floor were all shattered and split apart. I went down the stairs, which had railings missing here and there, and saw Kim Daesik lighting a fire on the first floor.

“What are you doing here?”

The stairs were blocked by a heaping pile of junk, so I couldn’t get to his side and had to call out to him while hanging onto the railing. Kim Daesik was sitting on the edge of a flowerbed in front of the fire, poking the inside of the lit fire with a wooden stick, before he looked up at me.

“You’re up early?”

“I asked what you’re doing there.”

“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m cooking.”

“Cooking?”

I thought he might be grilling some meat and looked at the fire, but I couldn’t see anything. Kim Daesik smiled, put down the wooden stick he was using as a poker, and gestured for me to come.

“Come on down.”

I tried to climb over the obstacle blocking the stairs but gave up and squeezed my body through a gap in the railing. It was quite high, so when I lowered my legs first to jump down, Kim Daesik, who had gotten up from his seat, came closer. He then caught me as I slid down, my ankles and calves in his hands.

In the first-floor lobby where Kim Daesik had been, there was an indoor flowerbed, but its edges were all broken, and soil was spilling out. Kim Daesik returned to the fire he had lit on top of the flowerbed, picked up the wooden stick he had put down, and poked inside the fire again. I brushed the ash off my body, plopped down beside him, and asked.

“What are you cooking?”

“I buried some meat under here.”

“Meat?”

“Yeah, in the dirt.”

Kim Daesik, who had poked the ground with the wooden stick, sat on a pile of bricks that must have been the flowerbed’s railing and explained.

“I covered the meat with stones and dirt and then lit a fire on top. Then the meat in the dirt cooks slowly from the heat of the fire. This way, it doesn’t smell, and the meat doesn’t burn.”

There was no need to ask what kind of meat he was grilling. It was Wang Iseop’s meat. It seemed he couldn’t process the blood-dripping meat any other way and was planning to grill and eat it like this.

After hearing the explanation, it seemed like the smell of cooking meat was faintly mingling with the smell of the fire. Thinking that I was hungry, I sat down beside him and asked.

“You have a strange way of grilling meat.”

“I have a lot of interest in cooking.”

“Is there anything to call cooking when you’re eating people?”

“Why not. There are many ways… you can boil it, grill it, dry it.”

“How are you going to cook and eat me?”

He closed his mouth at the words that had slipped out unintentionally. The seat was high, so my toes didn’t reach the ground. I raised one knee, hugged it, and rested my chin on it.

“If it’s all the same, I’d like it if you ate every last bit of me without wasting anything.”

Wang Iseop had shown no regret about dying, but he would have been disappointed if he had known so much of his meat would be wasted. He was a man of sturdy build, so if he had been carefully butchered by section and painstakingly cooked, he would have become a long-lasting supply of food. But because we had left in a hurry, we had only roughly carved out the flesh, leaving most of it behind. It felt like a waste to think it would be discovered and eaten by ghouls, or else crushed under the collapsed rubble, unable to bear the weight of the swarming ghouls, and simply rot. I was worried I would end up the same way, so Kim Daesik pinched my cheek and said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll eat you so clean not a single drop of your blood will be left.”

“How are you going to eat me without leaving a single drop of flowing blood?”

“You saw how I hung that guy upside down at the general store before, right? You just have to drain the blood that way and let it set.”

“Set?”

“Yeah. If you add saltwater, the blood sets like jelly. Then it becomes so soft and chewy you could bite into it with your gums, and it’s delicious.”

“What’s jelly?”

“It refers to something soft and firm, like these lips of yours.”

Saying that, he swallowed my lips. He alternately sucked on my upper and lower lips and slipped his hand inside my clothes, fumbling around. At the finger that pinched my nipple, I flinched my shoulders with an “Eut,” and he chuckled deep in his throat.

“Just sucking on your lips is this delicious, imagine how delicious it will be to eat you up.”

“Am I that delicious?”

“Yeah. Especially your tongue has such a savory taste… it’s absolutely amazing.”

His tongue, which had pushed into my mouth, bit and sucked on my tongue for a long while. He even brought it into his own mouth, nibbled it with the tips of his teeth, and sucked on it greedily. While he was doing that, the root of my tongue started to hurt, so I pulled his tongue back into my mouth. I imitated what he had done, chewing and sucking on his tongue, and the thick tongue that completely filled my mouth seemed to be as delicious as he had said. As I mumbled on his tongue, which reminded me of the taste of chocolate, I sank my teeth in without realizing it.

“…!”

His tongue, bitten by me, twitched and trembled inside my mouth. I could feel him gripping my shoulder forcefully, but I became engrossed in the new taste seeping from his tongue. A tangy, fishy, somewhat metallic taste emerged, and I sucked on his tongue frantically as if I were suckling. Kim Daesik, who barely managed to pull his tongue out of my mouth, frowned and tucked his lips in.

“You said you don’t eat human flesh, so why did you bite me?”

I stared at his tongue, which was darting in and out between his teeth, with a dazed look.

“Because it was delicious… it tasted like chocolate….”

“That must be the taste of blood.”

“Is this what blood tastes like?”

Seeing me lick the inside of my mouth as if recalling the taste, he snorted.

“At this rate, you’ll become a full-fledged cannibal. You’ll eat me alive.”

“…I am hungry.”

I sulkily stroked my flat stomach. I hadn’t eaten anything since that one packet of ramen the day before yesterday. As I licked my lips, thinking I was starving to death, he got up from his seat and scattered the half-burnt firewood and ash in the dying fire with a wooden stick. He put out the fire like that and then dug through the ground from which smoke and steam were rising. When he scraped away the ash and dirt, a pile of blackened stones was revealed underneath. Once he cleared that away too, a chunk of meat giving off a greasy smell appeared.

Kim Daesik rolled it out with the wooden stick, took a knife out from his clothes, and cut off a small piece of the meat. Then he speared it with the tip of his knife and blew on it with a “hoo.” After brushing off the debris stuck to the piece of meat, he held out the entire knife to me.

“Have a bite.”

I asked, puzzled.

“Aren’t you not supposed to feed me this? You said meat that hasn’t eaten human flesh tastes better.”

At my words, he shrugged and pouted his lips.

“That’s true, but what can I do when you’re about to die of hunger? If I leave you be, you look like you’re about to eat me.”

He treated me like a cannibal and made a joke, but I couldn’t laugh. Because the meat thrust right in front of my nose exuded a greasy smell. Saliva pooled in my mouth, and I gasped for breath from extreme hunger. I was so terribly hungry that an overwhelming thought surged through me—that I wanted to eat the meat before my eyes, regardless of whether it was human flesh or not.

My brother’s warning that I must never eat human flesh, or I would become a ghoul, echoed in my mind, but those words felt faint now. Everyone except me was eating human flesh, so why did I alone have to treat cannibalism as a taboo?

Seeing me unable to take my eyes off the meat while continuously gulping down saliva, he pushed the meat so close it almost touched my lips.

“Don’t resist, just eat it.”

I almost opened my mouth. But then I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. Kim Daesik, as if frustrated by my behavior, sighed and put the meat on the tip of his knife into his own mouth. Then, as if to show me, he chewed it thoroughly, swallowed, and licked the grease from the corner of his mouth before asking.

“Are you that scared of becoming a ghoul?”

“…It’s not like that.”

“You won’t even live long enough to become a ghoul anyway. You’ll die by my hand before you become a ghoul. Do you think I’d let you become a ghoul when I’m this determined to eat you?”

“I said it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

I pulled up both my knees and mumbled. Unable to understand my words, Kim Daesik said, “What was that?” and brought his ear closer. I suppressed the thought of wanting to bite his ear off and said.

“I just don’t want to become tasteless.”

“You don’t want to be tasteless? Is it because I said bald people are tasteless?”

“No, that’s not it. I don’t want me to become tasteless.”

Kim Daesik, who had been talking nonsense, unable to immediately grasp my meaning, asked back in a tone of disbelief.

“…What?”

“When you eat me, I don’t want you to think I’m tasteless. I want to be more delicious than anything. Out of all the people you’ve eaten so far, I want to be the most delicious, I said.”

At the words I was spouting, Kim Daesik showed a hint of bewilderment. He stared at me for a while with wide eyes as if he didn’t know what I was talking about, then let out a strange breath, “…Ha.” Then he pulled down my propped-up knees and stood between my legs. And with narrowed, shining eyes, he raised a hand and caressed my cheek.

“Why are you thinking that?”

“Just because? If I’m going to be eaten anyway, it’s better to be delicious, isn’t it?”

“You’re not the one eating, I am, so does it matter if you’re delicious or not?”

He’s right. Why does that matter? Seeing me lost in thought, not knowing the reason, he smiled, his lips stretching wide. Soon, he leaned his forehead on my shoulder and chuckled, then kissed me under my chin.

“What am I going to do with you.”

He rubbed the spot where my pulse was thumping with the tip of his nose, then gently bit down on it. The spot where he set his teeth stung, so I cried out, “Aya,” and hit his chest. He then rubbed his face all over my chest and groaned.

“I’m going crazy, I’m going crazy wanting to eat you right now.”

“Keep your promise before you eat me.”

“Ah, the chocolate… you mean that.”

“Yeah. You have to keep that promise.”

When I grabbed his head with both hands and gave him a warning, his eyes shone as if he was pleased. Then he pulled my clothes up and buried his lips on my exposed chest.

“But, chocolate is incredibly hard to find.”

“Ah, that tickles… Heut. Heu-eut….”

“Was it about ten years since I last had chocolate?”

“Aaah… eu-eung….”

“I haven’t had it at all since leaving Pyeongseong Prison….”

“Ah-heu-eung….”

“Never mind eating it, I haven’t even seen it….”

I once again grabbed the head of the man who was flicking my nipple with the tip of his tongue and sucking on it with puckered lips. And facing him, who was looking at me as if to ask why I kept interrupting, I frowned and interrogated him.

“What, you said you were twelve when you left that place?”

“Huh? Uh-uh. That’s right…?”

“If it’s been ten years since then, aren’t you only one or two years older than me?”

Kim Daesik was definitely startled. His eyes darted to the left as he lied, “Ah, no. It’s been well over ten years.” I hit him repeatedly, shouting, “Tell me the truth!” but he easily overpowered me. He knocked me backward, pulled my legs up to rest on his shoulders, and unfastened the front of my pants. Then he tucked my flailing legs under his arms and took my penis into his mouth in one go.

“Ah…! N-no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to!”

I thrashed my head from side to side and tore at his hair. At that, he—who had been mumbling with not just my penis but my scrotum as well in his mouth—lifted his head, spilling a puddle of saliva.

“You don’t want to?”

I whimpered.

“I’m hungry… There’s nothing left to squeeze out.”

He chuckled at those words, climbed on top of me, and his pants buckle clinked.

“Then do you want to eat mine?”

I nodded my head and we switched positions. He lay down on a spot where the earth was sloped over the concrete, and I mounted him in reverse. I sat on his chest and hurriedly unfastened the button and pulled down the zipper.

Thump, and a magnificent, thick penis sprang out, making my mouth water instinctively. I hastily grabbed it with both hands and began to suck and peck at the tip of his penis. Clear fluid leaked out drop by drop, wetting the tip of my tongue with a salty taste. That taste stimulated my hunger, so I opened my mouth as wide as possible and swallowed his thing.

But then, he, whom I thought was just kneading my ass, pulled my pants down to my thighs and then drew my lower body toward his face. I flinched, but I was too preoccupied with sucking his thing to pay attention to what he was doing. I let him have my lower half, leaving him to lick my hole and groin with his tongue. Then, I felt him stiffen the tip of his tongue to circle the entrance and poke at the hole, and I swayed my hips.

“Uuum, oom… Hooo-eum…”

I moaned through my nose, being sucked from below and sucking his thing at the same time. My mouth was too small to take all of him in, so I cupped my hands as much as possible and pulled at the base of his shaft. Each time I did, his tongue tip would protest by digging into my inner walls. Because of that, the tender flesh inside repeatedly clenched and parted, stretching the opening. As I was doing that, he opened his mouth wide and shoved his tongue deep into my hole, all the way to its root.

“Hnnggh, hmmm, hnnngg… hooo-ooom…!”

Unable to endure the pleasure, I rocked my hips on his face. At the same time, I bared my teeth and bit and sucked his thing wildly. It must have hurt, but he showed no sign of it and instead held my ass cheeks apart and pleasured my underside with his entire face. The soft, pliable tongue creating a mess inside was persistent and sticky, but it couldn’t provide the same stimulation as his penis, which was like an iron rod. Rather, the ambiguous stimulation made me even more desperate, and I soon forgot my hunger. No, I was seized by a hunger more intense than starvation.

“Hnng, hht, haah, haah, haah…!”

Eventually, I stopped sucking his thing, raised my body, and ground myself wantonly against his face. Every time his tongue swirled inside me, drenching me with saliva, it felt like embers were crackling in my crotch. I couldn’t stand it anymore and raised my body to turn around. Then, I faced him, whose entire face was soaked with my fluid and saliva, and mounted his penis. At that, he licked his obscenely wet lips and grinned.

“What? I thought you said you wanted to eat mine?”

I shook my head from side to side and aligned my hole, which was utterly undone, with the tip of his penis. Then, I slowly lowered my hips, my fingers tensing on the hand that braced his chest.

“Hah… ngh… I-I’m going to eat it… I am, but…”

He lightly grabbed my quivering hips and grinned.

“You’re going to eat it with your lower mouth?”

“Hah-!”

In one motion, he yanked my hips down. A path was blasted open as if a blocked hole was unclogged, and the penis entered me. At that moment, the tip of the penis poked something somewhere inside. A thrilling pleasure shot straight up my spine and tightened the nape of my neck. Then, my vision turned stark white before sinking into blackness, repeating and flashing, sparking like fire.

“Hahk! Haht! Haah! Ah! Ahh!”

He growled as he lifted and dropped my hips, which were crying out in ecstasy, thrusting into me fiercely, thwack thwack.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fuck you full and feed you until you burst.”

“Hnnh! Hah! Ahhhh!”

He bolted up from his lying position and grabbed the back of my head. Then our lips crashed together. Our tongues tangled messily, and saliva dribbled out past our lips. Moans I couldn’t hold back also streamed out, and as I sobbed, with both my upper and lower mouths wide open for him, I saw something that caught my eye.

There was someone on the stairs. It had to be either Lee Seokhyun or Park Chankyu, but the figure was obscured by darkness and not clearly visible. However, the exposed lower half was clearly visible. He had his cock out of his pants and was jerking it in his hand. He was jacking off while watching us have sex.

“Hnng, haah…! Ah-nng, haaah…!”

Even knowing that someone was watching, I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t particularly shameful. I let out my sounds without restraint and messed up Kim Daesik’s hair. And I clung to his neck, squeezing my lower mouth with all my might.

“Kkh… haah, hnnh!”

Slap, slap, the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed dizzyingly, mixing with my cries of pleasure and Kim Daesik’s groans. Soon, he reached his climax, his muscles tensing all over, and I felt hot semen pouring into my belly. Twitch, twitch, as his throbbing penis smeared it inside me, it felt like all of it was being absorbed into my stomach. I looked down at my slightly swollen lower belly and let out a pleasant moan of satisfaction. Then I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and let out a soft sigh.

“Hah, hah… I’m full…”

“Was it good?”

Cackling, he said that and thrust his still-erect penis inside me a few more times. I grunted and strained my lower belly, trying not to lose a single drop of his semen. In the meantime, his penis, which I thought had softened after ejaculating, swelled up again inside me and became hard. Soon, he pushed me back down onto the floor, spread my legs wide, and put his weight into deepening our connection. Then he pecked and sucked at my lips, and not stopping there, licked under my chin, my neck, and my armpits, before biting my nipple.

“Ah…!”

I arched my back and wrapped my arms around his head, which was bent low as he sucked my nipple while still inside me. I stared dreamily up at the stairs as he bit my nipple with his teeth and cupped my flat chest with his hands to suck on it. The person who had been masturbating was gone, but for some reason, a chilling anxiety crept into my chest.

To soothe that feeling, I didn’t push away the man who was practically tearing at my nipple. Instead, I wrapped both my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, deeper into me.

🖤

After three days, the ash that had been pouring down relentlessly stopped.

When we came out of the billiard hall where we had been staying, the ash, which had piled up high enough to bury an entire neighborhood, was even higher. The ash particles that had not fully settled were floating in the air like fog, so it was difficult to breathe without a bandana.

Walking through the hazy, floating ash felt just like walking on clouds. I caught up to Kim Daesik, who was walking ahead, cutting a path through the ash that had covered all traces of the world, and asked.

“Where are we going?”

“We have to go find those bastards.”

“Are you going for revenge?”

“Yeah.”

He answered curtly and walked persistently through the ash that was kicked up by his toes with every step, creating clouds of dust. It was very difficult to walk because the piled-up ash made it impossible to see what was underfoot. One wrong step could lead to a foot getting stuck in a crevice of building debris or stepping on a rusty rebar or nail and getting seriously injured, so our walking pace was slow.

At least Lee Seokhyun, Park Chankyu, and Kim Daesik were safe since they were wearing military boots with thick soles. Only I was wearing sneakers with thin soles, so Kim Daesik instructed me to step only where he had stepped. I answered that I understood and followed his large footprints. Walking like that, constantly looking at my feet, made my neck hurt. When I lifted my head, the clouds in the sky were gradually getting higher.

After walking for a few hours, I was quickly exhausted. I hadn’t eaten properly for days, so I had no energy at all. Kim Daesik gave me a spoonful each of coffee grounds, salt, and the sugar I had found with him before. I tried to walk somehow with that strength, but my legs were trembling.

“I can’t go any further.”

Seeing me collapse on the spot, Kim Daesik clicked his tongue. We had to find the clan he was targeting before they found us. To do that, we had to hurry, but truly, the sky was turning yellow and my vision was spinning. Kim Daesik sighed and looked back and forth between Lee Seokhyun and Park Chankyu, who had been gloomy ever since Wang Yiseop died. Then he motioned to Park Chankyu with his chin to get up and said.

“Chankyu, you come with me, and Seokhyun, you stay here and protect this guy.”

I recalled the sight of someone watching him and me having sex, and my expression clouded over. I hoped it was a needless thought, but being with someone else without Kim Daesik did not feel safe. I was even more anxious because Kim Daesik had warned me to be careful in such situations. But it was my fault for not being able to keep up, so I couldn’t throw a tantrum and ask Kim Daesik to stay with me.

“I said to protect him, not to eat him.”

At Kim Daesik’s joke-like addition, Lee Seokhyun glanced at me and replied, “I got it.” Kim Daesik didn’t bother with useless warnings or threats to him either. Instead, he patted his shoulder and urged him.

“I’ll be back soon, so if those bastards show up, hide quickly, and if you get caught, don’t resist. Getting injured by fighting recklessly is a bigger problem.”

Kim Daesik, who said that even if they were caught, he could follow their tracks and catch up quickly, sent me a look as if to say it would be okay and turned his body. Park Chankyu followed behind him, and the two figures soon disappeared into the shimmering haze of ash.

Left alone with Lee Seokhyun, I sat down on a sloped wall where ash had lightly piled up. There, I took out the snow globe from my backpack and shook it. I watched the powder that rose in a rush and then settled again, thinking that no matter how I looked at it, it looked like ash. But this is supposed to be snow? What’s the difference, I wondered, when Lee Seokhyun, who had been loitering and looking around for no reason, saw my snow globe and struck up a conversation.

“What’s that?”

“A snow globe. It’s also a music box.”

“A music box?”

When I was about to wind the key, he quickly stopped me.

“Don’t, stop. We don’t know who might be nearby.”

Having given up on listening to the carol, I shook the snow globe once more and asked him.

“Have you ever seen snow?”

He scoffed and kicked at the ash with his foot.

“You think I would have?”

“Then you wouldn’t know what the difference is between snow and ash, huh?”

“They say snow is pure white and melts quickly. It’s rain that froze and became ice.”

“If it’s frozen rain, shouldn’t snow be black too?”

“The rain is black because ash is mixed in. Originally, it’s clear.”

“Then snow should be clear too…”

“Ah, I don’t know. I’ve never seen snow either, how would I know?”

Lee Seokhyun got irritated, so I shut my mouth. But Lee Seokhyun didn’t stop talking. He muttered that he didn’t know about snow, but rain was the worst. He said that when the black rain mixed with ash fell, everything got wet and dirty. Muttering that it had been a long time since even that kind of rain had fallen, he came over and sat down beside me. Then he took the snow globe from my hand without permission and shook it.

“Give it here.”

When I glared at him, worried he might break the snow globe, he let out a scoffing laugh and returned the snow globe. And watching me put it back in my backpack, he spoke as if he found it absurd.

“Why do you carry around something you can’t even eat?”

“It’s my business.”

“Well, at least that doesn’t eat up our rations.”

Lee Seokhyun said that and started poking me. He pushed my head with his fingertips and then tried to touch my ear. When I twisted my shoulder to avoid his hand, he pulled on the backpack slung over my shoulder and sneered.

“You’re just called a lunchbox, but you’re just as inedible. Kim Daesik at least gets some fun out of it, but this is like a pie in the sky… do you even know what a pie in the sky means?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know, so let go of this!”

“Give me the bag. You’ve hidden something to eat from us, haven’t you?”

He finally snatched my backpack away, opened the zipper, held it upside down, and shook it out. The heavy snow globe fell out first, followed by a fire steel, a piece of cotton I kept as tinder for emergencies, spare socks and underwear, and things like a towel. Then, last of all, the birthday card my brother had given me fell out.

Perhaps because the red card was conspicuous, Lee Seokhyun picked it up. And after reading the short message written there, he scoffed and crumpled it in his hand for me to see. I let out a yell, “Aargh,” and lunged at Lee Seokhyun. As if he had been waiting for it, Lee Seokhyun snatched my body and held me in a tight embrace, panting.

“You bastard, if Daesik hadn’t been so obsessed with you, Yiseop wouldn’t have died. If Daesik hadn’t been away fooling around with you, those bastards wouldn’t have been able to treat us like prey.”

“D-don’t! I don’t want to!”

“Just how good is your damn hole that Kim Daesik dotes on you like that?”

“I don’t want to, get off me! I said get off!”

I kicked his shin with the tip of my foot. Lee Seokhyun, who let out a grunt, euk, let me go as if he’d lost his grip. I staggered back, and Lee Seokhyun bent over to rub his sore shin. Then, with eyes glittering with a desire—be it appetite or lust, I couldn’t tell which—he glared at me as I backed away.

I debated whether I should run away from Lee Seokhyun right now or not. But I didn’t know where to run to, and I was worried that if I left my spot rashly, I might be separated from Kim Daesik forever.

Fortunately, Lee Seokhyun didn’t try to do anything more. He just straightened his back and sneered with a scoff.

“You’re all bones with no flesh on your body, what’s so good about something like that.”

Lee Seokhyun turned and sat back down where he had been before. Soon, he clasped his hands behind his head and lay down completely. I watched him cautiously as I carefully approached and gathered my backpack and the spilled items. I also picked up the crumpled birthday card and pressed it flat with my hands. But the creases didn’t disappear, and the card’s color had turned grimy from the smudges.

I glared at Lee Seokhyun and settled down at a spot far away from him. I waited for Kim Daesik to return, enduring the tedious time. But contrary to his words that he would be back soon, he didn’t come for a long time. He didn’t come even by the time Lee Seokhyun had chewed on the dried meat he had given him, rinsed his mouth with water, went to relieve himself, and came back to lie down again.

Eventually, as it began to get dark, I slowly started to feel anxious. The thought that Kim Daesik might not come back at all occurred to me. I kept glancing at Lee Seokhyun, and Lee Seokhyun, sensing my gaze, opened his mouth.

“What.”

“…Isn’t Kim Daesik taking too long?”

“He’ll be back before the sun sets.”

“What if he doesn’t come back before the sun sets…?”

“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“What do we do if he doesn’t come back by tomorrow morning either…?”

Lee Seokhyun suddenly lifted his head, looked at me, and smiled, baring his teeth. It meant that if Kim Daesik didn’t come back, he would play with me to his heart’s content, take out his anger, and then eat me. I clenched my jaw and moved my hand behind my back, fumbling the ground with my fingertips. And I placed a rock that my hand found behind me. I decided that if it came to it, I would swing that at least, smash Lee Seokhyun’s forehead, and run away. Lee Seokhyun, who noticed my fidgeting, scoffed.

“If you can hit me and run, go ahead and try. You won’t get far before you’re snatched up and eaten by other bastards lurking nearby.”

I glared at him with wide eyes.

“If I get caught, do you think you’ll be safe?”

When I threatened that I wouldn’t die alone, Lee Seokhyun gestured with his chin towards a certain direction.

“Don’t worry. Kim Daesik is coming.”

“How can you….”

I unfolded my crouched body and stretched my neck. Then I saw two human figures walking through the bluish ash where dusk was settling. One of the figures was extremely familiar, and I jumped up from my spot in delight. And I waved my hand and ran towards them.

“Kim Daesik!”

As I shouted his name and kicked off the ground, Kim Daesik’s figure was revealed in the dim ash. When he pulled down his bandana and smiled at me, looking both surprised and pleased, my chest felt like it would burst. I ran at full speed and threw myself into his arms as if crashing into him. He caught me with both arms and lifted me up by the waist. I wrapped my arms around his head and hung on, my legs wrapped around his side.

“Kim Daesik, Kim Daesik.”

As I repeated his name and rubbed my face in his hair, Kim Daesik chuckled loudly and hugged me tight enough to crush me. Then he put me back down on the ground, studied my face, and said.

“Anyone who saw us would think we’d been apart for a long time. Why are you so happy to see me? It makes a man feel good.”

“It was a long time. You said you’d be back soon, why did it take so long?”

“I was late looking for a map.”

“A map?”

Kim Daesik looked over at Park Chankyu beside him. Tucked under the arm of Park Chankyu, who was looking this way with a sour expression that said, ‘look at them,’ was something. It looked like a rolled-up paper, but it was coated and shiny, and quite large.

“Every neighborhood has at least one real estate office…”

Kim Daesik, who said he had taken it from there, walked with me tucked under his arm. I clung to him, and naturally, Kim Daesik’s walking speed slowed. When Park Chankyu moved his feet first and got further away, Kim Daesik glanced down at me and asked.

“Did Lee Seokhyun do something to you?”

I said, crestfallen.

“He crumpled the birthday card my brother gave me.”

“Did he bully you?”

“…Ah.”

Suddenly, Kim Daesik reached down and squeezed one of my butt cheeks tightly, baring his teeth. At a glance, his expression seemed to be smiling, but his eyes were not smiling at all, so he looked angry.

“Don’t tell me, he didn’t bully you here too, did he?”

“N-no, he didn’t.”

I took his hand off my butt and stepped back. And I rubbed my butt, which had been held in his grip as if it would burst. Kim Daesik watched me and grinned.

“You just dare give your ass to anyone, I won’t let you off the hook.”

“What are you talking about. Why would I give my ass away.”

“You give your ass to me just fine now, don’t you.”

“That’s because it’s you.”

At my words, spoken with a frown, Kim Daesik’s lips twisted up as if he were vexed, and then he grinned.

“Yeah? What’s so different about me?”

Seeing his seemingly playful smile, for some reason my face grew hot. I felt a strange tickle in my stomach and a feeling of my chest shrinking, and I hunched my shoulders. Then I turned my hands behind my back and repeatedly wiped my palms, which for some reason were damp with cold sweat, with the back of my hands.

“Who else would I do that kind of thing with besides you?”

“Right, so what’s the reason you only do that kind of thing with me.”

“That’s because…”

I rolled my eyes and hemmed and hawed, then barely managed to think of an answer.

“Because you’re the one who’s going to eat me?”

“Hm?”

Kim Daesik raised an eyebrow as if to ask what kind of nonsense this was. I was convinced by my own answer and nodded my head as I spoke.

“You’re going to eat me anyway, so it doesn’t matter what I do, right?”

“You’re going to spread your legs for anyone who says they’ll eat you?”

His voice grew rough as he exhaled through his nose. He was the one threatening to eat me right now, so I didn’t understand why he was talking as if he were referring to someone else.

“You’re not going to let someone else eat me, are you?”

“That’s true.”

“You’re going to eat me, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the problem?”

At my question, he exhaled a sharp breath through his nose and said, as if frustrated, “That’s not it,” but he couldn’t properly explain what he wanted. He just moved his lips a few times and ruffled his hair, searching for the right words, then scowled as if his head ached and grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me in. He then roughly pressed his lips against mine and mixed our tongues.

He sucked on my tongue and then licked his lips, which were quickly glistening with saliva. Then he let go of my neck and grumbled like someone whose mood had been soured.

“…Damn, you’re so fucking delicious.”

I wiped my wet lips with the back of my hand and thought I didn’t understand why he was swearing when he said I was delicious. Kim Daesik walked past me with big strides and gestured to Lee Seokhyun and Park Chankyu with his chin, saying.

“Let’s find a place to build a fire before the sun sets. And let’s think about where those bastards might be.”

🖤

The map Kim Daesik said he had taken from the real estate office showed the area that was now buried in ash, making it impossible to tell where was where. Kim Daesik pointed to the main roads leading into the city and roughly estimated where the clan might have set up their camp.

“They have a large number of people, so they’ll be moving by car, which means they wouldn’t have set up camp far from the road. It would be a location that’s a step away from the ghoul-infested city center, but good for scouting the city. The only place like that is here.”

Kim Daesik scratched a point on the faded map, where the crumbling vinyl was peeling off like shed skin, with a stone. Lee Seokhyun and Park Chankyu, who were also looking at the map, nodded as if it were a plausible argument, but in my view, they had no thoughts of their own. They were just agreeing because Kim Daesik said it was here.

“Let’s move to this vicinity at dawn tomorrow and observe their movements. When the day breaks and the search party leaves and the camp is empty, Seokhyun, you secure a car for us to escape in and puncture all the other cars. In the meantime, I’ll find the one who seems to be the leader, capture him, and stage a standoff, so Chankyu, you secure as many supplies as possible.”

After saying that, Kim Daesik pulled my head towards him and said.

“You, for your part, find food you can eat. Whether it’s canned food, dried rat meat, or fried insects, I’m telling you to find your own food. Got it?”

I nodded my head. Seeing Kim Daesik stroking the back of my head as if I were praiseworthy, Lee Seokhyun pointed out discontentedly.

“Is it okay to leave that kid alone? What if he runs away or betrays us?”

At those words, Kim Daesik looked at me and asked a new question.

“Are you going to run away?”

“No.”

“Or, are you going to betray us?”

“I said no.”

Kim Daesik grinned as he gently pinched my cheek, which was shaking from side to side, and let go.

“See, he says no.”

Seeing that scene, Lee Seokhyun made an incredulous face. Park Chankyu also clicked his tongue, but Kim Daesik did not interrogate or doubt me any further. Since he trusted me, the others couldn’t object to his words either. Besides, we had too few people to leave me behind anyway.

“Then let’s get some shut-eye before we leave.”

We, who had settled in a place that could block the wind between buildings and hide the light of the fire, lay down with the dying bonfire between us. As soon as I lay down, a loud rumbling sound came from my stomach. It was so loud that Lee Seokhyun turned over with a look of disgust and pulled the blanket over his head.

Feeling embarrassed, I clutched my hungry stomach and turned over. But perhaps because I was so hungry, I couldn’t fall asleep at all. I lay with my eyes wide open, watching the flickering firelight, and when only embers remained and the surroundings grew dark, I got up from my spot without a sound. And I slipped out of the gap between the buildings and climbed up the collapsed debris.

When I reached a high place and looked around, I could see the ghouls that had crawled out under the cover of darkness loitering around. They let out groaning, pained moans, grrrr, and shambled about, rummaging through their empty stomachs. And when they realized there were no more entrails to pull out, they suffered in pain, and when they bumped into another ghoul, they fought viciously. In the process, their rotten limbs fell off and collapsed, just like everything else.

As I was watching that scene blankly, Kim Daesik had come to my side at some point. He sat down next to me and whispered in a low voice so as not to attract the attention of the pack of ghouls.

“What are you looking at?”

“I’m watching the ghouls.”

“What’s so new about that?”

“Lately, it seems the ghouls have been starving for a long time too, so there aren’t many healthy ones.”

“There are no people for humans to eat, so there are even fewer people for ghouls to eat.”

“Later, when all the people are dead and only ghouls are left, will all the ghouls die off too?”

“Wouldn’t that be the case? Everything that is alive will die and disappear.”

Kim Daesik spoke matter-of-factly, and I nodded my head. Having been born into a world that was perishing, the scheduled end was not scary or terrible. It just felt like a natural thing. I just wondered how long it would take for that to happen.

“Will it take about ten years? Twenty years?”

“Why, you wish it would end quickly?”

“No, I was thinking I hope it takes a long time.”

“As if there’s anything good in this world.”

Kim Daesik, who had muttered that, slid both his feet downwards. He let his legs hang out and swung them like a child. At that, clumps of ash and dust fell down with a rustling sound, hududuk. I saw the ghouls turn their heads sharply in this direction at the sound.

I held my breath, and Kim Daesik also stopped swinging his legs. A few ghouls staggered towards us but found nothing and stopped in their tracks, swaying. We couldn’t move because of them, so Kim Daesik silently picked up a pebble and threw it. When it flew far away and landed over there, the ghouls staggered towards that direction again.

Once the ghouls under our feet were gone, Kim Daesik looked up at the sky. The night sky, full of ash clouds, looked reddish-black today. I heard that at night, the moon rises instead of the sun, and it seemed its light was red.

“…I met Yiseop in the first clan I joined after getting out of Pyeongseong Prison. He was the weather forecaster back then, you see?”

“Weather forecaster?”

“Yeah. His role was to observe the sky every day and report the state of the clouds to the clan leader. Back then, there were still a lot of guys who believed that one day the ash clouds would clear and the sun would shine. They believed in all sorts of nonsense rumors like, ‘I heard the sun is shining somewhere,’ or ‘I heard grass is growing.’”

“Why do you think they’re nonsense rumors? They might be true.”

Kim Daesik, who let out a scoffing sound, psst, muttered as if to himself.

“If even a handful of sunlight had shone, the world wouldn’t have become like this. It’s too late now, even if the clouds clear and the sun shines, the only survivors are people who have eaten other people. It would be better if everything just died and disappeared.”

Hearing those words, I unintentionally said.

“I don’t eat people.”

Kim Daesik stared at me intently and continued.

“Yeah. That’s why you can’t live long. If I hadn’t found you, you would have been eaten by some other bastard long ago. You can never survive without me.”

When I nodded my head without resistance, acknowledging that was true, he smiled faintly.

“In that case, it’s better if I just eat you. It’d be a waste to give you to another bastard.”

Having said that, as if savoring his own words, he pulled my head closer and muttered once more.

“I’ll never give you away.”

He rubbed the tip of his nose against my temple, then pressed a kiss there, jjok, before lifting his head and frowning. Then he said something completely absurd.

“But don’t seduce me, I have to conserve my energy to go on a rampage tomorrow.”

I frowned in turn and pushed his side with my elbow.

“I wasn’t seducing you. You’re the one who shouldn’t seduce me.”

“What are you talking about, I wasn’t seducing you either.”

We bickered, telling each other not to seduce the other, until we heard the ghouls making a scraping sound, geu-geu-geu-geuk, and shut our mouths. When I suddenly lifted my head, I saw a horde of ghouls moving sluggishly along a road that stretched somewhere under the reddish-black sky. I couldn’t tell where they were going as they moved in a mass, but their destination was clearly visible. They must have smelled blood from somewhere, but the sight of them moving in unison seemed to hold some kind of answer.

As I was watching that scene blankly, I nodded at his words, “Let’s go back in and sleep now.” And with his help, I crawled down the steep path.

🖤

The next day, we set out before dawn. When we stamped out the embers with the ash and came out from between the buildings, it was so dark that it was impossible to tell whether it was night or dawn. Since we didn’t have a clock, it was difficult to gauge the exact time, but a kind of biological clock sensitively detected the hint of dawn mixed with the smell of ash in the air.

In the strangely colder, bluer, and quieter feeling than daytime, we each ate a spoonful of sugar that Kim Daesik handed out. Eating sugar without having eaten anything else made the inside of my mouth throb painfully, and saliva pooled at the root of my tongue. Swallowing it down, kkolkak kkolkak, I earnestly hoped that there would be something to eat at the clan’s camp.

If I starve today without finding anything to eat, I don’t know how long I can last. I might have to tell Kim Daesik to eat me before I lose any more weight. I wanted to hold out at least until I could eat chocolate again, but if I was going to be eaten anyway, I wanted to be eaten when I had as much flesh as possible. Thinking that it would depend on the outcome of today’s events, I clutched my hungry stomach and squeezed out what little energy I had left, silently following Kim Daesik who was walking ahead.