HMT Chapter 5 (Part 1)

Suspicion

“Heek.”

Jiwoo let out a startled gasp and twisted around. Yoon, who had definitely been lying neatly asleep just moments ago, was now leaning over him at a distance close enough for their noses to nearly touch.

There hadn’t been a single sign of him waking up.

Yoon’s gaze as he looked down at him was cold in a way Jiwoo wasn’t used to. As if the chill from outside had seeped into him. Jiwoo floundered, unable to speak, his lips trembling uselessly, and Yoon tilted his head slightly. Just as the strangely heavy air pressed in, Jiwoo clenched both fists.

“Who’s trying to leave the pension right now?”

Yoon murmured quietly as he glanced past Jiwoo’s shoulder. Jiwoo instinctively nodded as if to say he agreed. Yoon’s eyes returned to him. The blank expression on Yoon’s face felt unfamiliar, and Jiwoo blinked stupidly, stunned.

Then Yoon’s long, narrow eyes suddenly softened. That alone melted the cold impression on his face as quickly as sweet chocolate. The unease Jiwoo had felt moments ago vanished like fog under sunlight.

“Good job. You stayed awake keeping watch instead of sleeping? In case something dangerous happened?”

A warm hand settled on Jiwoo’s head along with the praise. Jiwoo completely forgot he had planned to go downstairs. As Yoon’s gentle smile filled his vision, both of Jiwoo’s cheeks flushed hot. Watching that reaction closely, Yoon pointed with his chin toward the window.

“Then want to go out together? We can ask them why they’re trying to leave the pension at this hour.”

Only then did Jiwoo remember what he’d been about to do. For a moment it felt like he had slipped into temporary amnesia. Yoon’s voice was gentle but carried a force Jiwoo couldn’t resist. He could only nod, almost entranced.

When they opened the door and stepped out, the faint snoring Jiwoo had heard earlier now rang clearly in his ears. After checking that the doors to the other rooms, where everyone else slept, were locked properly, the two headed downstairs.

Jiwoo grew nervous. While he and Yoon had been talking, what if those two people had already undone the chains and slipped out?

“This won’t open by our strength. It’s locked with a padlock.”

“…Who has the key again?”

“I don’t know either. Probably the owner or his wife. Or maybe the police.”

But thankfully, the two were still struggling with the chains. Yoon deliberately made his footsteps loud. Both figures jumped and whipped their heads around at the sound.

“W-what the hell?”

The man among the two raised his voice in panic before realizing he’d messed up. As Jiwoo expected, the source of the commotion was a man and woman in their twenties. Their padding jackets and hoodies were the same design, strongly giving off a couple vibe.

The man instinctively shielded the woman behind him. His eyes were overly tense as he stared at Yoon and Jiwoo.

“Why are you trying to run away?”

Yoon asked the core question immediately. The night was cold. Even someone who normally didn’t get cold would struggle walking around in just training clothes.

On top of that, Yoon wore the same sneakers still stained with blood, barefoot inside them, leaving him uncomfortable and irritated. He wanted to kick them off and wash his feet in warm water this instant. He wanted to take care of this quickly and return to his warm bedding.

“Run away? Who says we are!”

The man bristled at Yoon’s words. He wasn’t taller than Yoon, but he seemed to be over 180 centimeters, with broad shoulders that suggested he liked to boast he was strong wherever he went.

Jiwoo flinched at the man’s forceful tone. Yoon stepped forward a single step. Even though he was smiling, his face held a shadowy chill, and the man gritted his teeth.

“We’re just taking our car and going somewhere else. We’re going home.”

“Then why act like you’re sneaking away? And since you can’t even get the chains off, I’m guessing you didn’t tell the others staying here.”

“That’s…”

The man trailed off, as if unable to refute Yoon’s point.

“And there are monsters outside. Even if you drive, it’s only a matter of time before they surround you… so why take the risk? Do you have some reason you absolutely need to get home?”

His voice sounded genuinely confused, forcing the man into an even tighter corner.

“Whether we risk it or not, it’s none of your business, right? Just pretend you didn’t see anything. We just want to get out of here, that’s all.”

Yoon glanced at the man, then at the woman hiding behind him, and finally at the iron gate.

“It’s locked with a padlock. What exactly are you planning to do?”

The truth was, Yoon didn’t really care whether they ran away or not. Even if they didn’t make it far and were torn apart by monsters drawn by the sound of their car, he doubted he’d even blink.

But he was curious. Why were they so desperate to escape this place?

The pension was surrounded by high walls, it provided warm rooms, and the owners even cooked meals. The owners were generous people, and the husband was skilled at dealing with monsters.

They even had plenty of tools that could be used as weapons.

In a world where people were turning into monsters and eating other people, it would be hard to find a place safer than this. So what reason could possibly make these two risk everything to flee?

“We’ll just get some pliers and cut the chain. As long as you two pretend you saw nothing, we can do it right now.”

He glanced toward the truck. Yoon followed his gaze. On the truck bed were sacks and a box filled with tools. Now that he thought about it, he vaguely remembered seeing something plier-shaped inside.

“If you just answer one thing I’m curious about, we’ll quietly go back to our room.”

“What is it?”

The man seemed relieved by Yoon’s offer. But his eyes kept darting nervously past Yoon, afraid that more people might show up. It was painfully obvious he wanted to get rid of Yoon and Jiwoo as quickly as possible.

“The reason you’re running. You decided this place isn’t safe, right? So what exactly made you come to that conclusion? If we don’t know, we can’t decide whether to run like you or prepare for something else.”

The man blew out several breaths through his nose. But the answer didn’t come from him, it came from the woman hiding behind him.

“…Don’t trust the police too much.”

“What do you mean by that?”

A faint crease appeared between Yoon’s brows at the woman’s warning not to trust the police.

“We don’t know for sure either. It’s true we came out because, like Dongwoo said, we couldn’t reach our families and wanted to go home. But the reason we were moving secretly… it just didn’t feel right.”

Her voice was soft, but it had a strange pull that demanded attention. The woman stepped out from behind the man who had been called Dongwoo.

“Seon-ah.”

Dongwoo tried to stop her, but she shook her head. Her eyes, fixed on Yoon and Jiwoo, gleamed darkly even in the night.

“Do either of you believe in spirits?”

“…What?”

“…”

Yoon reflexively asked back, while Jiwoo took an uneasy half-step back, unable to hide his discomfort. Maybe it was his appearance, but Jiwoo often ran into people on the street who approached him with bright smiles, trying to speak to him about spiritual things. It was the only time he drew attention from strangers in daily life.

“We’re not talking about cults or fortune-telling, so don’t look at us like that. It’s just… if we don’t tell you the real reason, I don’t think you’ll let us go.”

Despite their reactions, Seon-ah continued calmly.

“My grandmother is a very strong shaman. A real one. I also struggled with spirit sickness a few years ago, but I didn’t go through with the full ritual. Still… after that, I sometimes feel people’s energy. Not always, but once in a while.”

After saying that, Seon-ah lifted her gaze and stared directly at Yoon. Slowly, her expression tightened.

“You’re dangerous too.”

At her quiet words, Dongwoo shot Yoon a sharper look than before.

“My intuition is telling me we shouldn’t stay here. Every time I see the police, that same bad feeling keeps hitting me. That’s why we want to leave. Does that make sense now?”

“Not really.”

Yoon rubbed his chin as if thinking deeply. In truth, nothing Seon-ah said made sense to him, it sounded like nonsense piled on nonsense.

He didn’t believe in spirits to begin with. His parents were devout Christians who went to church every Sunday and paid extravagant tithes, but he was skeptical of all religions, including theirs.

Maybe it was because his parents had dragged him to famous pastors and forced exorcism rituals on him when he was young, hoping to fix his attitude.

Even though the person before him came from a different spiritual background, Yoon lumped it all together the same. Still, she didn’t seem to be lying. Whether or not he believed her reason, she genuinely looked like someone who wanted to leave because of it.

“You’ve heard the reason, right? So let us go.”

Thinking the conversation was over, Dongwoo grabbed Seon-ah’s arm and pulled her back behind him. She obediently hid at his back again.

“What do you think, junior? Does their reason sound valid to you?”

Yoon asked Jiwoo, who had stayed silent the entire time. Suddenly receiving intense attention from both men, Jiwoo panicked and stuttered.

“Ah, um, I… I don’t know…”

Honestly, he didn’t. But he at least understood that they hadn’t been trying to harm anyone. He didn’t understand Seon-ah’s spiritual explanation, but it wasn’t his place to judge their motives.

“I’ll follow whatever you decide, sunbae.”

So Jiwoo handed the decision to Yoon. Seeing Jiwoo look up at him with blind trust, a faint smirk flickered over Yoon’s lips.

“And how do you know what kind of decision I’ll make?”

If he said these strangers seemed suspicious and that they should kill them together, Jiwoo would probably go pale and run.

Suppressing another curl of amusement at his mouth, Yoon shifted his gaze away from Jiwoo and looked directly at Dongwoo.

“Alright. We’ll go back to our room. I hope your escape goes well.”

“…Yeah. Thanks.”

Yoon smiled warmly as he offered the blessing, and though reluctant, Dongwoo bowed in gratitude. Yoon turned away without hesitation. Jiwoo bowed politely to the couple before following him.

“Hey, student.”

“…Me? Yes?”

Seon-ah suddenly called out to Jiwoo. He stopped walking and turned, pointing at himself. Seon-ah nodded. Yoon waited for him at the entrance of Building A.

“Be careful of that person.”

Leaving only that warning, Seon-ah walked toward the truck with Dongwoo. She didn’t look back even once, as if her business were completely finished. Jiwoo bit his lower lip. He felt a strange resistance rising inside him toward Seon-ah’s constant negative remarks about Yoon.

She told people they were dangerous to their face, now she told Jiwoo to be careful of him. It irritated him, she spoke as if she knew Yoon well when she didn’t know him at all.

“Jiwoo, let’s go up.”

Just as Jiwoo was wondering if he should tell Seon-ah not to say things like that, Yoon’s gentle voice called to him.

Seon-ah hadn’t been loud, but Yoon had certainly heard her warning. Yet the smile on Yoon’s lips was steady, unmoved. Jiwoo walked toward him reluctantly. When Jiwoo reached his side, Yoon joked lightly.

“Still okay sticking close to someone dangerous like me?”

“…Sunbae.”

So he did mind after all.

Jiwoo anxiously checked Yoon’s expression. Anyone would be upset hearing something like that said about them to their face. Yet Yoon still had a lingering smile, warm as cooling embers. His smile was like clothing he couldn’t take off even when he was displeased.

“I’m joking. Let’s go up and sleep. We’ll probably have to wake up early.”

Yoon brushed a hand over Jiwoo’s tense shoulder and started up the stairs. Jiwoo followed close behind.

He hadn’t noticed it, but his nose was running and his body was shivering. As he sniffled and reached the landing between the first and second floors, a low engine noise scratched quietly at his ears.

Through the window, he saw the black SUV passing through the now-wide-open front gate. A pile of chains lay on the ground beside where the car had driven off.

Jiwoo could almost hear the screams of people who had turned into monsters somewhere out there. Would they really make it home safely? Their family situation must have played a big part in their decision to leave. It made no sense to sneak out at night solely because the police felt suspicious.

For a moment, Jiwoo thought of his own family.

After moving out, whenever loneliness became unbearable, he would wander near his old home. He never had the courage to go inside. Most days he found nothing, but occasionally he’d catch sight of his parents or older brother from afar.

They always looked happy. Each time he saw their faces brighter than before, Jiwoo quietly turned away.

As time passed, his visits grew less and less frequent. Every time he went, the thought that he should never have been born spread through his mind like mold.

Even now, his family was probably gathered together, worrying about how to survive this crisis.

…They certainly weren’t thinking about Jiwoo.

He hadn’t called them, but they hadn’t called him either. His call log was still filled only with spam numbers. Each month on the first day, they sent him the same allowance.

300,000 won.

That amount appeared in his account like clockwork. Thanks to the rooftop room they’d paid for in advance, Jiwoo covered all his living expenses with that money.

Lost in those thoughts, Jiwoo’s steps came to a sudden halt. That was when Yoon, who had gone ahead of him, turned back and came down the stairs.

“Ah, before we go up, we should close that door first.”

Unlike Jiwoo, who had been lost in thought, Yoon clicked his tongue at the sight of the front gate wide open as if welcoming strangers.

Even as they left, the couple caused trouble. They knew why the gate had been locked and chained, yet they hadn’t bothered to close it. They had left it wide open, as if inviting anyone to walk right in.

“I’ll… I’ll help you.”

When Yoon headed toward the first floor, Jiwoo hurried after him. The two of them went to the gate and picked up the chains that lay abandoned on the ground. The cold metal stung Jiwoo’s fingers as though he were grabbing ice.

“Hold this for a moment.”

Yoon handed the entire chain to Jiwoo and stepped outside the pension to close the gate. Jiwoo hadn’t realized how heavy it was when they held it together. His upper body tipped forward under the weight, and he tightened his core to keep steady.

“Khhiii…”

A chilling sound drifted through the dawn air. Jiwoo and Yoon’s eyes met midair.

“Sunbae!”

Jiwoo cried out, face drained of color. Behind Yoon, something was moving.

That desperate voice became the trigger. Three monsters appeared, he didn’t know when they had gotten so close, but their faces were half-rotted and falling apart.

Two of them were slow, as if their legs were damaged, but one was different. Even with one missing arm, it charged at Yoon with frightening speed.

Clang.

Yoon slammed the door shut just in time. And no sooner had it closed than one monster threw its body at it.

“Kyahhh!”

The creature slammed its head toward the gap in the metal gate, trying to wedge its face through. Only then did the two understand why the pension owner had wrapped the gate with chains. Even closed, the hinges were loose, and whenever the monster rammed it, the gate shook as if it would burst open.

Yoon had no choice but to brace the door with his hands. The monster, driven mad by the scent of living flesh, pulled its head back and snapped its jaws, trying to bite Yoon’s hand.

Thankfully, the monster wasn’t even 170 centimeters tall. Yoon had lifted his arm high and was gripping the upper part of the door, putting it out of reach.

The fact that the monster lacked the intelligence to jump helped as well. But it never gave up. It screeched and hissed, endlessly trying to tear off human flesh.

“Junior, wrap the chain around the door! Hurry!”

“Y-yes!”

Jiwoo tried desperately to steady himself at Yoon’s shout. Cold sweat soaked his palms; his hands trembled uncontrollably.

The peaceful time after arriving at the pension, eating, washing, lying down briefly on warm bedding, shattered instantly.

Without a moment of preparation, he was dragged back into freezing, brutal reality. His mind flickered, threatening to black out, so Jiwoo bit down hard on his lower lip. He fed one end of the chain through the gap in the gate. Now he had to reach outside and grab the other end.

“Krrhaa!”

“Kyahhh!”

Before Jiwoo could finish, the other monsters reached the gate. They spotted Yoon and Jiwoo and began hurling themselves at the door like rabid dogs. The gate rattled even harder than before. Yoon clenched his teeth, blue veins bulging along his forearm where he held the door.

“Nam Jiwoo!”

Yoon shouted his name sharply to snap him back to reality. Jiwoo struggled to reach an arm through the door to grab the end of the chain, but the violent shaking made it impossible to keep steady. His whole body shook with the movement.

“Krrr… kak!”

To make things worse, one of the monsters outside spotted Jiwoo’s dangling arm. Its blood-red eyes gleamed with hunger. Though it couldn’t jump, instinct guided it to crouch low toward prey beneath its line of sight.

Thud.

Jiwoo yanked his arm out of the gap at the last second. The monster’s forehead slammed against the spot where his arm had been. Rotten blood splattered across the white gate.

Breathing hard, Jiwoo stared at the door and the monsters in shock, then scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the truck.

“Phew…”

With Jiwoo gone, Yoon barely managed to hold back the three monsters. It was thanks to having eaten earlier that he even had enough strength to do this much.

There were three monsters, all older and smaller than Yoon in build. But as monsters, they didn’t care if their bones cracked. They kept slamming their bodies into the gate.

Each time they hit it with their full weight, the metal bent outward, then snapped back. It felt like a car ramming the gate, then reversing.

He couldn’t hold the door like this forever. If his strength weakened even a little, the moment the door opened, he wouldn’t be able to dodge the monsters lunging at him, and one of his limbs would almost certainly be bitten off.

Yoon judged the timing to release his grip. If he opened the door the instant the monsters threw themselves against it, their own momentum would likely send them rolling across the ground. Then he could retreat briefly and deal with them one by one.

“Sunbae, here! A weapon!”

Jiwoo, whom Yoon thought had fled, appeared holding a hammer and an axe. Dark, dried blood clung to the hammerhead and the blade, staining them a deep black-red.

“When I count to three, hand me the weapon and run. Can you do that?”

“Y-yes…!”

Jiwoo tightened his grip on the handles and nodded. As Yoon began to count softly, the door burst open and all three monsters tumbled inside at once. Yoon sprinted toward Jiwoo and snatched the hammer from his hands. Then he swung it at the head of the monster that recovered first and lunged at him.

Thud.

The creature’s face smashed into the ground with a wet crack. Blood oozed across the floor as its limbs twitched. It soon stopped moving, as if it had drowned in its own flowing blood.

But there was no time to breathe. Yoon and Jiwoo each had a monster charging toward them.

“Aaah…!”

Jiwoo grabbed the axe with both hands and swung blindly. The creature, once just an ordinary middle-aged woman, dragged one leg as she lunged, baring her teeth viciously.

Her bright red hiking jacket was smeared with blood and dirt. Each time she moved, the phone dangling from her necklace strap swung wildly in front of her stomach. Jiwoo’s pale reflection flickered faintly on its cracked screen.

Thud.

The blind swing drove the axe deep into her shoulder. Jiwoo felt the vibration travel from the blade, through her flesh and bone, and straight up his arms to his entire body. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He let out a strained whimper and tried to wrench the axe free.

“Kyahhh!”

Even with the axe embedded in her, the monster didn’t fall; she only grew more frenzied. She reached toward Jiwoo, thrusting her face closer in a desperate attempt to bite him.

A rotten stench poured from her gaping mouth, stabbing at Jiwoo’s senses. Her cheek and jaw had been torn away, exposing her tongue writhing wetly inside.

Jiwoo pushed with all his strength. With the axe still in her body, he kept her from closing the distance, but if his arms weakened even slightly, he would end up looking just like her.

His arms trembled violently. Worst of all, the axe blade had lodged firmly in her bone. Even as the metal scraped and crushed through flesh, her bloodshot eyes ignored her own wounds and fixated solely on Jiwoo’s face and neck.

Jiwoo’s body tilted backward, unable to withstand her force. His breath grew ragged, fogging up his glasses. As his vision blurred, dealing with her became impossibly harder.

Just as his knees buckled and his body was about to collapse, a sound tore through the air. The top of the woman’s skull caved inward.

“Gggrrk…”

Her skull shattered gruesomely. As her glowing, feverish eyes rolled back, the hammer buried in her head burst outward, thrown free.

Sticky, half-rotten blood sprayed everywhere. Some splattered across Jiwoo’s glasses. The now-lifeless body toppled toward him.

Before she could crush him beneath her weight, Yoon grabbed the hood of her hiking jacket and yanked her backward. The half-caved skull hit the ground with a thud. The axe, which had slipped from Jiwoo’s hands, remained lodged in her collarbone.

“Are you okay?”

Still panting heavily, Yoon grabbed Jiwoo’s shoulder. His arm muscles throbbed painfully. The bodies of three monsters in such a short time had drained him completely. His hair, face, and clothes were drenched in blood despite having showered earlier.

Jiwoo lifted his dazed eyes. Yoon’s messy bangs and worried gaze filled his view. Jiwoo bit his lip. It stung from where he’d bitten it earlier, but he forced himself to do it anyway to avoid making a fool of himself in front of the person he liked.

“…Thank you, sunbae.”

He squeezed the words from his throat. He had pushed monsters away before, using a shovel on the truck, hitting them, but this was his first time slicing through flesh with a blade. The sensation of cutting through bone was nothing like a simple impact.

He knew logically that these monsters were no longer human.

How could one call something human when it felt no pain even as its bones shattered and flesh peeled away, and when it sought to devour living people whole?

Even if they screamed like living things, moved, and rolled their eyes, they were something entirely different now.

Jiwoo hadn’t attacked out of malice. He had swung the axe because something had tried to tear into his flesh and devour him. Even so, his trembling only worsened.

If Yoon hadn’t killed the woman for him, she would be alive and Jiwoo would be the one sprawled on the ground. Guilt gnawed at him for forcing Yoon to handle such a horrific task. He hadn’t even managed to properly block the door with the chains. He only brought the weapons and then struggled to deal with one monster.

“…I’m sorry.”

The apology that followed his gratitude made Yoon’s eyes narrow. Watching Jiwoo look so defeated irritated him.

He had expected Jiwoo to stare up at him like a frightened puppy, grateful again for saving his life.

Jiwoo’s unexpected reaction made Yoon’s grip on the hammer tighten. Blood dripped from the hammerhead, leaving scattered stains on the dirt. Yoon stared at Jiwoo’s bowed head with a blank expression.

“What on earth happened here…?”

The noise had woken the others. People began stumbling out of the pension one by one. Sangpil ran toward Yoon and Jiwoo, hair disheveled, eyes shaking at the sight of the bodies scattered on the ground and the wide-open gate.

“Let’s close the gate first.”

Hosan, who came out behind him, nodded to the police officers and headed toward the gate. The officers helped him rewrap the chains securely around it. The white metal door, chipped in places, was now smeared with streaks of dried, dark-red blood like a grim pattern.

While the gate was being secured, Sangpil inspected Yoon and Jiwoo up close.

“Why were you two out here at this hour? Why was the door open? And what are these zombie things?”

He had far too many questions. After assigning people to rooms earlier according to group size, he had checked the gate and the surroundings carefully for any sign of monsters. Only after confirming that everything was safe had he returned home and fallen asleep.

Even with the world collapsing, sleep was irresistible. But then a violent noise outside had jolted him awake like someone had thrown cold water over him.

He had calmed his terrified wife and stepped outside alone, gripping the sickle he kept by the door just in case.

“I’ll explain one thing at a time. But first let’s handle these bodies.”

It was Yoon who answered Sangpil’s barrage of questions. He gestured with the hammer toward the disfigured bodies around them. Every one of them lay with a crushed skull, eyes still wide open in death.

“You two wait quietly until we finish sorting things out. Lieutenant Hwang, please keep an eye on these students.”

“Understood.”

But Sangpil still didn’t trust Yoon and Jiwoo’s suspicious behavior. He was grateful they had dealt with the monsters, but the broken chain troubled him. After all, the key to the padlock was right here in his pocket.

A police officer in his mid-forties stepped toward Yoon and Jiwoo. His nametag read Hwang Doochan, and flecks of dried blood still clung to his uniform.

“You two, come here. Hand me your weapons.”

Doochan took the weapon from Yoon first. His skin was tanned like someone who worked at sea, and even with a neutral expression, his eyes seemed to smile.

He looked to be in his late 160s in height, and his build was solid like someone who exercised regularly. It seemed he had fallen asleep in his uniform, because his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Goosebumps covered his forearms, suggesting he was cold, yet he showed no intention of pulling his sleeves down.

Jiwoo sneaked glances at him and remembered Seon-ah’s words before she fled in the middle of the night.

‘…Don’t trust the police too much.’

From appearances alone, the police officers here, including the one helping Sangpil wrap the bodies in clear plastic and tie them up, seemed to be doing their jobs properly.

The fact that none of them had changed into comfortable clothes and were still wearing uniforms made their dedication feel sincere.

So why had Seon-ah insisted she couldn’t trust the police?

The question that had gone unanswered earlier remained just as puzzling now. No matter how Jiwoo studied the officers, nothing seemed strange enough to explain her fear.

While Yoon and Jiwoo stayed still under Doochan’s watch, Sangpil and a young patrol officer wrapped the three bodies in plastic and tied them securely, then pushed them toward the deeper end of the pool. Ideally, they should be buried deep underground or dumped far from the pension, but for now, this was enough.