GHLL Ch 5

We stayed by the water for one more day to do laundry. We kept our fishing rods in the water the whole time, but we didn’t catch a single fish.

The next day, we were terribly hungry when we left early in the morning. It was a relief that we could at least fill our stomachs with water, but that was a problem in its own way. I kept having to pee.

“Stop the car.”

Wang Yiseob snapped at me as I made my request, twisting my legs together.

“You have to piss again? You just went a little while ago!”

“What do you want me to do if I have to go again?”

As I argued back, getting angry myself, Lee Seokhyeon threw a plastic bottle at me.

“If you really can’t hold it, piss in there.”

I caught the plastic bottle that hit my head and fell, my face crumpling. The plastic bottle was so old and worn out it was on the verge of crumbling to pieces. I couldn’t pee in something like this. It was even more so because Kim Daesik was watching from the side with an expression of interest. I squeezed the plastic bottle in my hand, crushing it. I threw it out the window as if to make a point, and with my legs crossed, I shoved both hands into my crotch. I held my crotch like that and endured the urge to urinate.

After driving like that for a few more minutes, my legs started to go numb. I switched legs, crossing them the other way. I similarly shoved my hands into my crotch and bit and sucked on my lower lip. As time went on, the urge to urinate grew stronger and became harder to bear. But then Kim Daesik reached out and lightly scratched the nape of my neck with his fingertips. I flinched, my body trembling in surprise.

“What, what are you doing?”

Kim Daesik’s droopy eyes stretched long as he smiled silently.

“You got goosebumps.”

It was only natural, since I was forcing myself to hold in my pee. Goosebumps had broken out, and the fine hairs on my skin were standing on end. Kim Daesik stroked my shivering nape, the back of my ear, and my earlobe, before his fingertips flipped open the collar of my flannel shirt. Since I didn’t have an outer jacket, when the collar was flipped open, the t-shirt I was wearing underneath was revealed.

The t-shirt was worn and threadbare, making it thin. Because of that, my nipples, which were erect just like the goosebumps all over my body, were visible through it. Kim Daesik poked one of them with his fingertip, and I irritably pushed his hand away.

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“It makes it hard to hold it in.”

“What’s hard to hold in?”

Kim Daesik dodged my hand this way and that, then pinched my nipple hard. I cried out, shuddering.

“Aheuk……!”

I had almost let a little out. I tightened my grip on my crotch and slapped Kim Daesik’s hand away to make him stop. Finding it amusing, Kim Daesik was grinning. It was so annoying I could die, so I glared at him with narrowed eyes.

“Stop it! It makes me want to piss!”

“You’re the one who shouldn’t be saying lewd things while glaring at me. It makes me want to cum too.”

Kim Daesik laughed slyly and pulled my hand, bringing it to the front of his own pants. His penis, which had grown hard in that short time, could be felt through his thick jeans. He made me rub it with my palm where it was pressed tightly against the fabric on his thigh.

If I had my way, I wanted to grab it and tear it off, but the need to pee was more urgent. I kept my hand pressed against his penis, my legs trembling and shaking, and sucked and chewed on my lower lip. As I was holding it in like that, Wang Yiseob clicked his tongue, tsk, and stopped the car.

“I can’t watch this. Go take care of it and come back.”

As soon as the car stopped, I opened the door and jumped out. I ran off the cracked asphalt road to a place where ash was piled high and frantically undid my buckle. Then I undid the button and tried to pull the zipper down, but something was wrong and the zipper got stuck halfway and wouldn’t move. I stomped my feet and yanked at the zipper recklessly, then tried to pull my pants down altogether.

Just then, Kim Daesik, who must have followed me at some point, stood close behind me and brought his hands around to my front. He then pulled my waistband upwards to make the zipper taut, then pulled it down, opening it.

Due to the urge to urinate, my penis was erect as if I were aroused. As soon as the zipper opened, it pushed aside my loose trunk boxers and popped out. The pressure was instantly gone and I almost pissed myself, but I clenched my teeth and held it in because Kim Daesik caught it with his hand and pulled it out. Only after he pressed down on the taut tip with his fingertip to aim it downwards could I finally relax.

“Ah…….”

In the feeling of release that comes with excretion, I unknowingly tilted my head back and leaned it against Kim Daesik’s chest. Seeing me with my mouth open, reveling in the relief, Kim Daesik jeered.

“Anyone who saw you would think you were cumming, not pissing.”

I didn’t even answer and just did my business while leaning against him. During that time, I could feel Kim Daesik staring intently at the sight. Normally, people wouldn’t want to watch someone else pee, so he really had a strong stomach. I could feel his penis, trapped in his pants, twitching, and I wondered what he was thinking.

When I finished, Kim Daesik kneaded my now-soft penis and then shook it out. He then put it back inside my boxers and straightened the front of my pants. After fastening my belt all the way, he let go of his hands, walked over to my side, and this time, undid his own pants.

The penis that popped out as if it had been waiting was enormous. It was so big and heavy that it hung limply, and he held it and did his business as well, the stream of piss that poured out like a waterfall. The thought that something like that was going to be put inside me was horrifying, and I quickly turned my body away.

After getting back in the car and driving for a while, we saw an apartment complex covered in ash. The endlessly continuing, featureless ruins soon changed into a city district with a station. The glass covering the outer walls of the commercial buildings was broken, revealing the insides. Most of them had been looted long ago and were empty.

Since the city district was quite large, there were several places that seemed worth checking for food, like a mart, a grocery store, a convenience store, and restaurants. We hid the car in a suitable spot and decided to split into pairs, like before, to look for anything edible.

“Why do I always have to go with you?”

I glared at Kim Daesik, who was taking me with him as if it were a matter of course. Kim Daesik walked ahead and answered casually.

“Who else do you want to go with if not me?”

“Anyone but you.”

“You want to go with some random person whose name you don’t even know?”

Muttering, “Who knows what those guys would do,” Kim Daesik suddenly stopped walking. He then turned to look back at me, grabbed my shoulders, and earnestly warned me.

“Don’t you be alone with those guys when I’m not around.”

“Which of those guys?”

“All of them. Don’t trust any of them.”

Kim Daesik had such a serious expression that I nodded my head before I knew it. Turning away from me, Kim Daesik let out a whole slew of nagging that even my brother had never done.

“The world is a dangerous place these days, so pretty kids like you are in danger just by existing. Especially kids like you who don’t practice cannibalism, they have a reputation for being delicious. I told you, didn’t I? At Pyeongseong Women’s Prison, when a boy is born, they deliberately don’t make him practice cannibalism? They breastfeed him for as long as possible and then butcher and eat him before the meat starts to smell gamey, and that meat is so soft and tender…….”

“Have you ever eaten it?”

To my thoughtless question, he was silent for a while. Did I ask such a difficult question? I didn’t think so, and just when I was feeling puzzled, he opened his mouth.

“No, I haven’t.”

“If you haven’t eaten it, how do you know if it’s delicious or not?”

“Do you have to eat it to know?”

Answering like that, Kim Daesik reached out and pulled me by the shoulder. He then slung his arm around my neck as if to put his arm around my shoulders and brought his face close.

“You can tell just by the smell. You can tell just by making a cut. Those who have habitually practiced cannibalism, I mean. When you cut open their belly, the smell is awful. The meat is tough, so the knife doesn’t go in easily either. They eat it reluctantly because they don’t want to starve to death, but it has no taste to speak of.”

After a torrent of complaints, he suddenly buried his nose in the side of my neck. He sniffed, scraping his nose against my neck, then stuck out his tongue and gave my cheek a long lick.

“On the other hand, kids like you smell different from the very skin. It’s so sweet that just smelling it makes saliva pool at the root of my tongue.”

Muttering that, he let me go and hitched up his pants.

“Although it’s a problem that my dick gets hard and stands up too.”

I saw the bulge in the front of his pants, shuddered, and pushed him away. I stood at a distance from him and started walking again, asking.

“Then shouldn’t you not give me human flesh to eat?”

“Huh?”

“Whether I starve to death or not, shouldn’t you not tell me to practice cannibalism?”

He seemed to think about my question for a moment, then nodded his head.

“That’s true.”

Relieved that he wouldn’t tell me to eat human flesh from now on, I started walking again. As the distance between us grew, Kim Daesik started walking again to follow, and I heard him mutter to himself belatedly.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

We entered a shopping street covered in ash. It was a place that seemed to jut out from a large building, and the building’s structure was unusual, with the ceiling of the corridor open from the 3rd floor all the way down to the 1st basement level. A bridge in the middle connected the path that had been severed by the opening in the ceiling.

Thanks to that, light came in well, so it wasn’t dark. We moved around every nook and cranny without worrying about ghouls. But just as there were no ghouls, there was also nothing worth scavenging. We found some wearable clothes in a place that once sold them, but we couldn’t find any food.

Growwwl.

My hungry stomach pleaded its hunger, and I gulped down the water I had brought in my backpack. As I kept filling my stomach with water, it sloshed around inside me. Sometimes, it would even come back up my throat. Eventually, I felt so nauseous that I stopped walking and threw up a whole lot of water.

Seeing me spew out clear liquid, Kim Daesik clicked his tongue. He rubbed my back as I wiped my mouth, then sighed and said.

“It’s no use searching the ground level anymore, no matter how much we look. We have to go underground.”

“But there are ghouls in the basement.”

“You have to take risks to gain anything.”

We gave up on searching the ground level and went down to the basement. Thanks to the open ceiling, it was bright all the way down to the first basement level.

“Looks like this used to be a restaurant area.”

Just as Kim Daesik said while looking around, we could see signs with food names or pictures drawn on them. Most of the faded food items were things I had never seen or heard of.

We searched the restaurant area thoroughly. We even encountered a few ghouls while searching through the warehouses and freezers behind the restaurants. Kim Daesik handled that many without much difficulty. But we still couldn’t find any food.

Grrrrooooowwwl!

The sound of my empty stomach rumbling was loud. Feeling embarrassed, I clutched my solar plexus several times.

“I don’t think there’s anything to eat here. Let’s just go back now.”

I had no energy left after throwing up even water, so I wanted to quit the fruitless search and go back to the car. I thought that maybe the others had found something, but Kim Daesik’s thoughts were different.

“Those bastards aren’t looking for food like us. They’re looking for people. Prey, I mean. So even if those guys bring back food, you can’t eat it.”

Is that so, I thought, disheartened, as Kim Daesik changed his direction of walking. He began to leave the shopping area and head toward a secluded place, and I asked anxiously.

“Where are you going? Don’t tell me you’re going to the basement?”

“No, we’re going up.”

“Up?”

“This is a mixed-use residential and commercial facility, so there are apartments upstairs. There seem to be quite a few units, so if we search each one, we’ll probably find something.”

Since Kim Daesik didn’t seem to have any intention of giving up, I followed him silently. To be honest, it wasn’t that it wasn’t dangerous just because we were going above ground instead of underground. Usually, these tall buildings had what felt like endless staircases, and those passages often had no windows. Naturally, even if it was above ground, it was as dark as the basement, so it was just as likely to be teeming with ghouls.

But contrary to my thoughts, he didn’t look for the emergency stairs. What he found was an elevator.

Kim Daesik passed through a corridor with ‘Classic Forewon Building A’ written on it and found a firmly shut elevator. He then used the hatchet he had as a lever and forced the doors open. When the elevator shaft, caked with fine ash like grime, was revealed, Kim Daesik stuck his head inside.

The shaft was extremely dark. I couldn’t see anything, neither up nor down. For me, I had no idea where the elevator car was, but Kim Daesik somehow managed to discern it.

“Fortunately, the elevator car is in the basement.”

If the elevator was stuck in the middle of a high floor, the path would be blocked, making it impossible to climb the shaft. Because the elevator had descended deep into the basement, we also couldn’t see the swarm of ghouls that would be swarming there.

Kim Daesik opened the backpack he was wearing and took out a rope and some other equipment. I had no idea what those things were used for, but Kim Daesik put them on skillfully. He wove the rope in a complex pattern, looping it around his waist and legs and connecting it to the equipment. Then he took out a small flashlight.

The moment Kim Daesik clicked it on, I let out a small gasp, “Waaah…….” Seeing my fascination, Kim Daesik placed it in my hand.

“You’ve never seen a lantern before?”

“A lantern? Not a flashlight?”

“They’re the same thing.”

A long time ago, we had a flashlight like this at my house. My brother said he brought it when he left the shelter with our parents, but we never got to use it properly because there were no batteries. I had always only heard that it produced light, but this was the first time I was seeing it actually lit up.

As I clicked it, turning the light on and off repeatedly, Kim Daesik’s expression turned serious and he took the flashlight away.

“Don’t do that. The batteries are already dying.”

“You don’t have any more batteries?”

“This is the only one, so it’s for emergencies.”

Kim Daesik said he had to go up before the batteries died and the light went out, and put the flashlight in his mouth. He then leaned his body into the shaft. As his figure disappeared into the shaft, I stretched my neck out and stuck my head in. And I watched Kim Daesik climb up, using the structures on the shaft wall.

Although Kim Daesik was equipped with safety gear, he didn’t seem to use it much. Perhaps because he was strong, he pulled himself up easily just by hooking his fingertips. He went up several floors in an instant, to the point where it was hard to see him without craning my neck all the way back. Before long, the light from the flashlight he held in his mouth became distant.

Was it because of the distance, or because the batteries were dying? The light grew dimmer and dimmer. For some reason, I looked up at it with a feeling of anxiety, then my neck hurt so much that I briefly looked down. Below was a pitch-black darkness where you couldn’t see an inch ahead. It was so dark that for a moment, my body lurched forward.

I grabbed the edge of the shaft and hastily pulled my body back. Thump, I plopped down on the spot and soothed my startled heart as a cold sweat broke out. Even though I was standing on safe ground, the dizzying feeling didn’t easily go away. But how scared must Kim Daesik be, having climbed all the way up to that high place? The thought that he would fall to his death if he made just one misstep came to mind, so I crawled on all fours and stuck my head into the shaft. Just doing that made the backs of my knees tingle and my shoulders tremble. I endured the feeling, clenched my teeth, and raised my head.

Just how far up had he gone? I couldn’t see Kim Daesik just by craning my neck. I laid down flat on the floor. In that position, I tried to find Kim Daesik by sticking only my head into the shaft.

But no matter how much I looked up, I couldn’t see Kim Daesik. It was just pitch dark, as if the flashlight he held in his mouth had gone out. Because of that, I was at the point of being confused whether I was looking up or down.

“Ki…… Kim Daesik?”

There was no answer, and a chill went down my spine.

“Kim Daesik? Kim Daesik! Kim Daesik! Kim Daesik-!”

I was yelling at the top of my lungs, making the shaft echo, when a small light shone from far above. Soon, with a clatter, a whole scoop of ash poured down. Having gotten a mouthful of it, I hastily got up and coughed.

“Ptew, ptew! Ptui! Cough cough, cough cough!”

As I was scraping the ash stuck to my tongue with my teeth and spitting it out, I heard a faint voice from inside the shaft.

“……You were so loud I almost fell.”

“Kim Daesik?”

“Yeah, it’s Kim Daesik. Who else would it be?”

After saying that, he was quiet for a moment. I grew impatient and stuck my head out this way and that. As I was doing so, something fell from above my head and hit me on the back of the head. I pulled my head back in and looked, and I saw a rope with a carabiner attached.

“You think you can climb up on that?”

“This……. How do I ride it?”

“See the knots there? Pull them open, put one leg in each, and wrap it around your waist.”

I wrapped the rope around my body as he explained, but I wasn’t confident that I had done it right. Noticing this, Kim Daesik said, “This isn’t going to work, you just stay there,” but I didn’t want to. I shouted, “I did what you said!” and stood at the very edge of the elevator entrance. It was terrifying, but when I pulled on the rope tied to my body, it felt sturdy.

“Then lean on the rope and slowly move out to the side. I’ll pull you, but it’s hard for me alone, so you have to push off the wall as you climb. Hold the rope with both hands and move as if you’re kicking the wall with your feet.”

Terrified, I pressed myself flat against the wall. Amidst the ash caked on the wall falling in a shower, I held on with all my strength, and I felt the rope being pulled. It began to pull my body upwards, so I did as I was told, held the rope tightly, and kicked off the wall little by little with my feet. Every time I did, my body was pulled up with a swoosh, swoosh.

I soon reached the floor where Kim Daesik was. Looking up from below, it had seemed like Kim Daesik had climbed very high, but it wasn’t really the case. It seemed to be because of the limited length of the rope. Before long, I was able to meet Kim Daesik, who was standing with his feet braced on either side of the entrance, pulling the rope.

As I threw myself onto the floor, almost collapsing, Kim Daesik relaxed his body and let go of the rope. He was wearing leather gloves, but it seemed his hands ached from pulling me up. He took off the leather gloves and kneaded his reddened hands as he gathered the rope.

“First, we’ll search here, and then we’ll go down one floor at a time using the emergency stairs and search again.”

“We’re taking the emergency stairs?”

“We can’t go from the bottom up while fighting ghouls, but we can go from the top down. From the looks of it, there don’t seem to be that many ghouls.”

In the old days, all the survivors lived in groups in the city centers or nearby suburbs, so there were many ghouls in the cities too. But as the number of living people drastically decreased and they scattered to deserted places to avoid the ghouls, it seemed the ghouls had scattered here and there as well.

“Anyway, the ones that have starved for a long time are all rotten and easy to knock down, so it’s fine. There’s no need to get scared beforehand.”

Kim Daesik casually stroked my head, then grimaced at the thick cloud of ash that rose up. He complained that I had been shiny and pretty for a few days, but just going into the shaft once had made me all blackened. I pouted my lips while rubbing my probably-smudged face with my sleeve. Kim Daesik grabbed me, dusted the ash off, stuffed the gathered rope into his backpack, picked up his hatchet, and started walking.

***

We were on the 8th floor. Since the residential area started from the 4th floor due to the commercial area, we had come up about five floors. There were three apartments on each floor; two were open, and one was firmly locked.

The open apartments showed clear signs of looting, and there was nothing left. There were only collapsing furniture, miscellaneous items covered in dust, and useless clothes or dishes left. The refrigerators were also full of food that had rotted beyond recognition.

The next apartment was the same, so we had to forcibly open the locked one. Kim Daesik broke the lock with his hatchet and opened the door. As we pulled open the creaking metal door and went inside, the yellowish afternoon light was faintly shining in.

“Wow.”

I was surprised by how intact the apartment was. It was clear that after the owner had locked the door and left, it had never once been broken into. If it weren’t for the thin layer of dust, I would have believed the owner had just left, as everything was just as it had been.

I couldn’t rashly step into the apartment and stood frozen in the entryway. Only after seeing Kim Daesik cross the hallway and stride inside did I follow him.

Kim Daesik walked down the hallway leading to the living room, flinging open the closed doors one by one. One of the two rooms on the right seemed to be a bedroom. There was a bed, a vanity, a wardrobe, and so on, all of which were pure white. The bedding on the bed, laid out without a single wrinkle, was also white, and the rug on the floor was also white. Only the cosmetics on the vanity were colorful.

Among them, there was one with a very pretty shape, and as if mesmerized, I walked over to it and picked it up. After blowing off the fine layer of dust that had settled on it, a shape resembling a butterfly was revealed. The palm-sized glass bottle was purple and the cap was gold, and there was still something inside. I opened the cap and unconsciously pressed the nozzle, and a liquid sprayed out with a psst.

The scent that spread in all directions was incredibly fragrant. I felt a sense of ecstasy as my sense of smell was paralyzed.

“What are you doing?”

Kim Daesik, who had gone out to the living room, came back when he didn’t see me and saw what I was doing. He had clearly smelled the fragrance as well, but he didn’t seem to like it very much. He wrinkled his nose, scowled, and waved his hand back and forth.

“What is this smell? It’s really foul.”

“Foul? It’s nice.”

“What’s so nice about the smell of perfume?”

He took the thing called perfume from my hand and put it down. He then told me to look for food and started opening closed drawers and rummaging through them. I turned around, went to the wardrobe, and opened the wardrobe door. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt like there was some kind of scent coming from inside the wardrobe too.

I buried my face in the light, airy, colorful clothes. The clothes were extremely thin and soft. I lifted my head and held up one piece of clothing, and I saw that it had a floral pattern and was covered in tiny, sparkling decorations. I admired the delicate craftsmanship and looked at them for a long time.

In the meantime, Kim Daesik, who had turned the entire room upside down, clicked his tongue and slammed a drawer shut with a bang. Then he moved to the room next door. I was curious what the next room was like, so I quickly ran over to see it before Kim Daesik made a mess of it.

The next room had a lot of books. One entire wall of the room was a bookshelf, and it was packed tightly with books. It was probably full of amazing content, but I was slow at reading. It took me a long time to read even a single simple sentence, so it was difficult for me to read the titles of all those books and figure out what they were about.

Besides the bookshelf, there was a desk. It had many drawers, but there wasn’t much inside. There were only a few writing utensils, so Kim Daesik checked each one and took a ballpoint pen whose ink hadn’t dried yet.

Across from those rooms was a bathroom. Although dust had accumulated, the mirror and tiles were clean without any cracks. I wiped the dust off the mirror with my sleeve and was greatly surprised. It was fascinating to see my own face so clearly. We didn’t have a mirror at my house, so the only things I could use to see my reflection were broken shards of glass or puddles of still water. Since the sky was always overcast, my reflection in them also looked blurry.

I touched my face with my hands, examining myself. Kim Daesik, who was flinging open the wall cabinet in the bathroom, saw the sight and let out a smirk.

“What are you staring at so intently?”

My eyes met Kim Daesik’s through the mirror, and I felt a sensation I hadn’t known before. My face suddenly felt hot, so I lowered my gaze and turned my head to the side. Perhaps my behavior seemed strange, because Kim Daesik blocked my way as I tried to leave the bathroom.

“Why are you suddenly getting shy?”

“……Getting shy? Me?”

“Your face is red.”

“No, it’s just hot in here.”

“You’re hot? Let’s see.”

Kim Daesik tried to feel my forehead, but I dodged his hand and practically shoved him aside to get out. Then I pressed the cool backs of my hands to my cheeks alternately, trying somehow to cool my heated face.

“You’re not sick, are you?”

I shook my head from side to side at Kim Daesik’s question and tried to think about why I was feeling embarrassed. I supposed it was because my reflection in the mirror wasn’t very pretty. Kim Daesik had called me pretty so often that I thought I actually was, but I wasn’t. I looked grimy and ugly.

I felt bad and lost interest in the scenery of the house. The living room had a large sofa, a table, a TV, a display cabinet, and so on, but nothing interested me. In contrast, Kim Daesik’s face lit up when he saw the liquor bottles in the display cabinet. There were many liquor bottles in it, and although most of them seemed to be just for decoration and were empty, a couple still had their seals intact.

Kim Daesik stuffed the liquor bottles into his backpack and went to the kitchen. Having grown tired of looking around the house, I focused on searching for food with him. But the food in the refrigerator was all rotten, turned into clumps of mold and dust. Still, there was something left in the cupboards. Most of it was seasoning and inedible, but the salt and sugar were usable. Kim Daesik took those in their jars as well, and he poured the leftover cooking oil into a smaller bottle to take.

In the meantime, I found ramen in a cupboard. Seeing it, Kim Daesik let out a sharp whistle.

“We’ve hit the jackpot.”

I had only ever seen the ramen package; I had never actually eaten it. All I had ever done was try to imagine its taste while looking at the cooking instructions written on the package. Because of that, the thought of actually eating ramen made my mouth water. I hugged my hungry stomach and asked.

“We can’t eat it now, can we?”

At that, Kim Daesik shrugged his shoulders.

“There’s no reason we can’t.”

He went to the room we had just been in and brought out several books. Then he tore open a cushion from the sofa, took out the cotton stuffing, and made tinder. Then he lit it with a fire stick.

He stacked the books on the living room table and started a fire. While he did that, I read the cooking instructions on the ramen package again. I read it carefully, word by word, but there were many things I didn’t know.

“500 milliliters…… how much is that?”

“Just fill the pot you brought out about a third of the way with water.”

I did as Kim Daesik said, filled the pot with water, and placed it on the fire. The water boiled quickly over the roaring flames, and I reverently tore open the package. Inside were one packet of powdered soup, one packet of dried garnish, and one block of noodles.

The powdered soup was a solid rock and the noodles smelled of oil, but this was no time to be picky about the taste or condition of the food. I put everything in and waited for it to boil. It said to boil for 4 minutes, but I didn’t know how long 4 minutes was, so I had to rely on Kim Daesik’s sense.

“Is it done yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I think it’s done. It smells delicious.”

“That’s just the soup smell.”

After pestering him several times, I was finally able to take the pot off the fire. Kim Daesik stopped me as I tried to take the whole pot without a bowl.

“You’ll burn your hands like that. Put some in a bowl to eat.”

He used chopsticks to portion out some noodles and broth into a bowl he had taken from the cupboard and wiped clean. Not caring that the roof of my mouth was getting completely scalded, I shoveled the ramen into my mouth greedily. As soon as I did, a spicy taste hit the tip of my nose and snot ran right out.

“Ugh, spi, spicy.”

“It’s spicy?”

“Spicy, spicy.”

I had never eaten anything spicy before, so that darn ramen was incredibly spicy. My tongue tingled and my nose stung, and I alternated between coughing and having a runny nose. Yet, strangely, it was delicious, so I couldn’t stop and ate like crazy. Seeing that, Kim Daesik gave up on portioning the ramen into my bowl. He just let me drink the ramen broth straight from the pot.

My reason returned when there were only a few strands of noodles left. Only then did I think of Kim Daesik. No matter how much he only ate human flesh, if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have been able to come all this way and find ramen. I thought that I should have, of course, offered him some to try, so I glanced at him cautiously, put the pot down, and asked a belated question.

“Do you want some?”

Kim Daesik smirked with an expression that said, ‘Only now?’

“It’s okay. You eat it all.”

“No, there’s still a little left……. Eat at least this.”

“I said it’s okay. I don’t eat stuff like that.”

“Why? You don’t like ramen?”

Is it because it’s spicy, I wondered, but Kim Daesik reached out his hand. He wiped the ramen bits from my lips with his thumb and said.

“Yeah, I don’t like it.”

Because he said he disliked it, I knew he didn’t dislike it. The ramen had the stale, rancid smell of old oil and a strange taste that might have been mold or something, but it was delicious nonetheless. Even I, who was eating something spicy for the first time in my life, was devouring it without thinking. I was sure Kim Daesik wanted to eat it too, so I asked him.

“Is it because of me?”

“What?”

“Are you forcing yourself not to eat something you want to, just to feed me?”

Before, too, he had refused the biscuit I offered him. He had insisted that him eating the biscuit was a waste. That’s why he had also stopped the other men from eating the biscuits. He probably wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been there. He had a can of tuna when I met him. If he only ate human flesh and not regular food, there’s no way he would have had something like that.

He, too, surely knew and liked the oily taste of canned tuna, the savory taste of biscuits, and the spicy taste of ramen. But because I couldn’t, no, wouldn’t eat human flesh, he seemed to be yielding for my sake. I hurriedly added.

“I’ve eaten my fill. I’m full now. I feel like my stomach’s going to burst.”

“How can you be full from one packet of ramen. Just finish it.”

At his repeated refusal, I shook my head vigorously.

“No, it’s too spicy, I don’t want to eat anymore.”

I was even telling lies to try to make him eat the rest, when he said something completely surprising.

“Then throw it away.”

“What?”

“If you can’t eat it, you have to throw it away.”

“Are you crazy?”

When I reacted like someone who had just heard the sky was falling, Kim Daesik gestured with his chin as if he had known I would.

“That’s why I’m telling you to just eat it all.”

I had no choice but to pull the pot towards me. And I ate the few remaining strands of noodles and drank the broth sparingly. While doing so, I kept glancing at Kim Daesik, but he really seemed completely unfazed. I just couldn’t understand it, so I poured out questions.

“You didn’t eat the biscuit last time, and you’re doing it again this time. Have you decided to only eat human flesh for the rest of your life?”

“Yeah, I have.”

Kim Daesik pinched my nose, where beads of sweat had formed from drinking the spicy broth. I sneezed, achoo, achoo, a few times and sniffled.

“But why? It’s not like you enjoy cannibalism.”

“You’re right, I do enjoy it. I have to enjoy it, what am I supposed to do if I hate eating to live?”

It sounded like a sarcastic remark, so I narrowed my eyes. At that expression, Kim Daesik shrugged.

“It’s true. I’m from Pyeongseong Women’s Prison.”

“Pyeongseong Women’s Prison…… isn’t that the place where there are only women?”

I had never heard of a place called Pyeongseong Women’s Prison before. The number of people my brother and I had met could be counted on one hand, and we didn’t talk much with them either. We only had the minimum necessary conversation for bartering.

Probably, the person I had exchanged the most words with in my entire life was Kim Daesik. Through him, I was practically learning anew about this world covered in ash. I listened to his words with a newfound feeling.

“I was born there.”

Pyeongseong Women’s Prison was a community of women, a place maintained under strict rules, he said. And for good reason, because in a world where people ate people, women were the easiest prey of all.

“Pyeongseong Women’s Prison is the only clan made up entirely of women. Among women, it’s sometimes called a sanctuary. There was a time when women were treated not just as prey, but as livestock.”

Women could constantly produce food through pregnancy and childbirth. The warden of Pyeongseong Women’s Prison, who now held absolute power, had once been livestock herself, he said. She joined forces with other women who were livestock like her and crushed one of the largest clans in the land. Then, with the resources and the all-female workforce left there, she established Pyeongseong Women’s Prison.

“The reason Pyeongseong Women’s Prison has been able to survive until now is because everyone follows the rules. Among them, the most absolute rule is that men are not allowed.”

There were only two reasons for a man to exist in Pyeongseong Women’s Prison. One was as a sex toy, the other was as food.

“Most men who are taken to Pyeongseong Women’s Prison are treated as meat and get butchered, but if they are handsome, have a good physique, or are exceptionally intelligent, they get to live for a few days or months and become the women’s playthings. Women with the qualifications receive their seed and have children, and if the child is a girl, she can become a member of the clan, but if it’s a boy, there’s no mercy.”

“They eat them?”

“They eat them. I told you, they’re a delicacy.”

Newborn baby boys were raised only until they were weaned, and then they were eaten. Kim Daesik said he was a child born in that way.

“I was supposed to be eaten too, but around that time, the warden was apparently sick. It was natural aging that came with age, but the warden had never seen anyone older than herself.”

In a world where people ate people, no one died of old age. Most were eaten before they got old, or they couldn’t hunt and starved, which led to the cannibalism disease breaking out and turning them into ghouls. Since growing old was not a natural thing, the warden became seized by an irrational fear and began to believe in superstitions.

“People in the old days…… I mean, in the distant past, they apparently believed that eating peaches would grant them immortality.”

“Peaches?”

“There’s a fruit that’s pinkish and looks just like you.”

The warden believed that if she practiced asceticism while eating only peaches, which were the food of the celestial world, she would become an immortal who would neither age nor die. So she sought out canned peaches indiscriminately. Among canned goods, canned fruit was extremely rare and hard to find, but he said it was still possible to get them about twenty years ago.

“The warden ate only peaches for a while, but it wasn’t long before she became afraid of the cannibalism disease. So she decided to eat a child raised on peaches as a substitute food.”

Kim Daesik survived on breast milk and peaches until he was about 6 years old, keeping himself alive. He didn’t know since when, but around that time, he was aware of the purpose for which he was being raised.

“When you’re on the verge of being eaten, you have to eat only peaches for a while. I had watched the children who were with me disappear in that way. So I realized I couldn’t just sit still and accept only what I was given.”

Kim Daesik bared his sharp, pale canines and grinned.

“More than anything, I was sick and tired of those damn peaches.”

He conspired with the other children and attacked the woman who came to bring them peaches. When they all rushed at her like a swarm of ghouls, she couldn’t move a muscle. Kim Daesik indulged in the flesh and blood of another that he had been so curious about, and contaminated himself.

Their rebellion was discovered immediately. The greatly enraged warden ordered them all to be slaughtered, but someone stepped forward to persuade her.

‘It’s just like watching you, Warden.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Did not these young children follow the great feat you yourself performed?’

The warden saw herself in the children who had tried to escape their fate as livestock. Impressed by that, she decided to give the children a new chance.

“We were able to stay there until before puberty. But around the time secondary sex characteristics began to appear, we had to choose one of two things.”

“What was that?”

“Be castrated, or be exiled.”

I didn’t know what the word castration meant, so I was puzzled, and he made a gesture of chopping off his lower body. Thanks to that, I was able to easily realize what he had chosen.

“You chose to be exiled.”

“Because I saw a few die during castration. One out of two would die, unable to overcome the pain of castration. I thought it was better to just leave that place than to go through that.”

Kim Daesik let out a hearty laugh as if he found his past self absurd, and continued.

“At that time, I didn’t know that a 12-year-old going out into the world alone was more dangerous than being castrated. I had never been outside the prison before I was 12.”

“But you managed to survive?”

At my words, he looked back on his past with a look of renewed wonder. As if he couldn’t believe it himself, he even seemed to be marveling at it. At the same time, he looked bitter and slightly angry. All of that combined to make his expression terrifying.

“Right. Somehow, I managed to survive.”

He quickly broke that expression and rubbed my head with his large palm.

“Anyway, the reason I’m still alive to this day is thanks to cannibalism. At the crossroads of life and death, the blood and flesh of the living always saved me. So, even if I get the cannibalism disease because of it, it can’t be helped. I just have to think of it as just deserts, a matter of karma.”

His tone was not so much calm or composed as it was simply nonchalant. He seemed to accept it as a matter of course that he would one day develop the disease and become a ghoul.

“It’s strange for people to eat people and not receive any punishment.”

I felt the urge to argue against his words. On second thought, there was nothing wrong with what he said. To survive, one had to practice cannibalism, and once started, it couldn’t be stopped, so one had to continue. It was only natural that one would develop the disease and become a ghoul as a result. But why was I so reluctant to agree?

Perhaps it was because Kim Daesik would eat me sooner or later. I didn’t want the person who ate me to become a ghoul just like everyone else. It was terrifying to be unable to live or die, unable to think of anything other than hunger.

Rather than that happening, I wished he would continue to live as he was now. Eating something other than human flesh sometimes, and even if it was a world full of only ash, I wished he would live a long, long time, my share included.

Thinking such thoughts made me sleepy. I patted my full stomach and yawned until my mouth felt like it would tear. Seeing that, Kim Daesik told me to go into the bedroom and get some sleep.

“Shouldn’t we be heading back now?”

At my question, asked while rubbing my sleepy eyes, Kim Daesik shook his head.

“When else will you get to sleep in a bed if not at a time like this. You have to eat well and sleep well to put on some flesh.”

Kim Daesik went into the master bedroom and thoroughly dusted off the duvet on the bed. He also flipped over the pillowcases and sheets and laid them out fresh, so I took off my clothes and crawled under the covers in just my t-shirt and underwear.

The covers, like everything else, smelled of ash and dust. It was the smell of ruin. It wasn’t fragrant like the perfume, but it was familiar to me and therefore comfortable. I closed my eyes, buried in the soft and fluffy covers.

🖤

When I finally opened my eyes, I felt as if I had woken up after falling into deep water. It felt like I had slept for a very long time, yet the time I had been asleep didn’t feel long, so it also felt like I had just dozed off. Despite that, my body felt so refreshed that I wanted to lie here like this forever.

The sun had set and it had gotten dark, and I realized that Kim Daesik was lying asleep beside me. When I shifted and turned over, Kim Daesik, who had been lying behind me, came into full view. I blinked slowly, staring at him.

A world without light was dark, so even things right in front of my nose looked indistinct. Perhaps because of that, I wanted to touch the face of the person I was facing. His appearance, shrouded in the dead of night, was as unfamiliar as a stranger’s, yet more familiar than my own face.

I pulled my hand out from under the covers and fumbled for his face. I toyed with his somewhat long bangs and stroked his eyelashes, which were pressed firmly shut. Those eyelashes trembled faintly, as if my touch tickled.

He let out an indistinct sound and, as if annoyed, brushed my hand away and pulled me closer. Pulled into his embrace, I bumped my nose against his bare chest. He, too, had entrusted his bare body to the soft and smooth bedding.

As I pressed my nose against his skin, I could smell his scent. It was a subtle and soft smell that I couldn’t quite describe. Perhaps because the memory of sharing chocolate with him was so strong, it seemed to resemble the smell of chocolate.

Becoming aware of a desire akin to appetite, I pushed against his chest. I pushed him onto his back like that, climbed on top of him, and stuck out my tongue to lick his nape, just as he usually did. The taste of his skin was dry, yet slightly salty. I savored that taste, licking his neck, then crawled down under the covers. And I left marks on his chest, sucking and kissing it.

Finally, I reached his nipple and bit it lightly, and a voice, groggy as if drunk on sleep, was heard.

“……What are you doing?”

A large hand messed up the back of my head as I was licking his nipple.

“If you’re going to do it, why not go further down than there?”

As the rough yet low, husky voice instructed, I followed his distinct abs downwards. My body became completely buried under the covers, and a heat that was almost stifling enveloped me.

I pulled down his underwear and took out his penis, which was already as hard as it could get. The penis popped out from within the coarse, wiry pubic hair, seeming to spring up. It stood up, slapping against my cheek, and although I grabbed it with both hands, I didn’t know what I should do. Seeing the beads of transparent liquid forming on the tip that stuck out even when I held it with both hands, I stuck out my tongue.

Lick, sluurp…… Lick, lick.

I stuck out my tongue and licked the bodily fluid to taste it. The slightly salty, subtle taste wasn’t bad. So I pursed my lips and sucked on it. I took the soft, rounded head into my mouth and kissed and licked it. While I did that, the strength in Kim Daesik’s hand, which was resting on the crown of my head, would come and go.

Kim Daesik would let out intermittent groans, and the low, growling moans were strange. It was quite enjoyable, feeling like I was the one controlling the man who usually controlled me.

“……Are you just going to keep teasing me like that?”

“…….”

When I didn’t answer because I was busy tasting him, he lowered his hand and pushed his fingers between my lips.

“Come on, open your mouth. Open it and take a bite.”

I deliberately bared my teeth and opened my mouth wide. I tried to swallow his penis in one bite as if I were going to tear it off, but my mouth was nowhere near big enough. I couldn’t even get half of it in and was just moving my tongue around, when he muttered, “This is driving me crazy,” and threw the covers back. He then grabbed my head with both hands and pulled me up.

“That’s not going to work.”

Kim Daesik sat me on top of him and grabbed my hips.

“This should work, though……?”

Made to sit on his erect penis, I hesitated. When I tried to put it in suddenly, it didn’t go in easily. I was holding myself up in an awkward position, my hands braced against his chest.