Ωmegadawn

the end of the beginning

[0megadawn]

Conflict of Interest | BBH OneShot

↳ summary: She woke up with a headache, a missing shoe, and the sinking feeling that she'd done something irreversible. The office knows. They keep looking at her with badly hidden smiles. He walks in looking perfect, coffee in hand, and smiles like he knows exactly what she's trying to forget. Three months of arguments that felt like something else. Three months of almosts and not-quites and pretending not to notice. She told herself it was hate. She told herself it was rivalry. She told herself a lot of things. Then she remembered what actually happened at the party. And now he won't stop smiling.

↳ wc: 18K

↳ baekhyun x f!reader, explicit sexual content, smut, fingering, semi-public sex, risk of discovery, unprotected sex, alcohol use, profanity, mild power dynamics, sexual tension, enemies to lovers, workplace romance, hate-to-love, mutual pining, slow burn

The light in the elevator was brighter than any light had a right to be at eight-fifteen on a Tuesday. It bounced off the metal walls and found the tender places behind her eyes with the precision of a dentist’s drill. She stared at her reflection in the polished door and almost didn’t recognize herself. Almost. The dark smudges beneath her eyes, the hair that had surrendered to gravity and something that might have been styling product or might have been tequila—those were familiar. The woman in the reflection held a coffee like it was both a weapon and a prayer.

The doors slid open, and she stepped into the office.

The quiet hit her first. Her department was never quiet. The marketing team operated at a frequency just below dog whistle, a constant hum of phones and keyboards and people interrupting each other. Today, the hum had been replaced by something that sounded like deliberate restraint. Someone coughed. A keyboard clicked twice and stopped. She walked toward her desk and felt the weight of eyes following her, then darting away when she turned her head.

Ji-eun from accounting, standing by the printer with a stack of papers that she’d been pretending to organize for at least three minutes, glanced up. Their eyes met. Ji-eun’s mouth twitched. She looked down at her papers and pressed her lips together hard.

Two desks over, Min-seok and Yuna were leaning toward each other, whispering. They stopped when she passed. Min-seok smiled at the ceiling. Yuna bit the inside of her cheek.

“What?” she said. Her voice came out rougher than she intended, scraped raw by smoke and shouting and whatever else she’d done last night that her memory was currently refusing to catalogue.

“Nothing,” Yuna said brightly. Too brightly. “Just talking about the quarterly report.”

“The quarterly report,” she repeated. “Right.”

She reached her desk and set her coffee down with enough force that it sloshed over the rim. A brown droplet landed on a Post-it note and spread like a bloodstain. She sank into her chair and closed her eyes.

The flash came without warning: Baekhyun’s hand around her wrist, his fingers warm and too tight. Not painful. Just definite. The kind of grip that said he wasn’t asking.

Another flash: his voice, low and close to her ear, words she couldn’t quite reconstruct but could feel the shape of. The heat of his breath on her neck. The smell of his cologne, something woody and expensive that she’d never admit she’d noticed.

Another: the two of them, somewhere away from the music and the crowd, standing in a corridor or an empty room—the setting was blurry but the tension was crystalline. His face above hers. Her hands braced against his chest, or maybe his shoulders. Arguing. She remembered the arguing. About what, exactly, remained mercifully out of reach.

She opened her eyes. The office had resumed its performance of normalcy, but the quality of the silence had changed. It was the silence of people who knew something you didn’t, or worse, people who knew something you should.

She pulled her keyboard closer and stared at the login screen. Password. She typed the first three letters and stopped. Her fingers felt unreliable. She tried again.

The office doors swung open.

Baekhyun walked in.

He was wearing a fresh white shirt, the collar crisp and unyielding. His hair was neat, falling across his forehead in a way that suggested effort rather than accident. He had a coffee in one hand and his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and he moved through the office with the easy confidence of a man who had slept exactly as much as he needed to and woken up without regretting anything.

She hated him.

He spotted her immediately. His eyes found hers across the room like he’d been expecting to, like he’d been counting on it. And then he smiled.

Not his usual smile. Not the one he deployed during meetings when he was about to dismantle someone’s argument with surgical precision, or the one he used when he wanted to irritate her specifically. This was quieter. Softer at the edges. It reached his eyes and stayed there, warming them into something that looked almost gentle if you didn’t know him, and if you did know him, looked like trouble.

She froze. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Her coffee cooled untouched beside her mousepad.

He walked straight toward her desk. Not pausing to chat with Min-seok, not stopping at the break room, not veering toward his own workstation first. A straight line, like he’d plotted the coordinates and was following them without deviation.

“Morning,” he said. He stopped beside her desk, close enough that she could smell that cologne again, faint but unmistakable. Up close, his shirt was even more offensive. It looked like it had been ironed by someone who took ironing personally.

She managed a sound. It was technically a word. “Morning.”

He leaned slightly closer. Not enough for anyone watching to notice—just a shift of weight, a tilt of his head that brought his mouth nearer to her ear. His voice dropped to a murmur, the kind that was meant for her and only her, the kind that traveled no farther than the space between them.

“So you remember, then.”

It wasn’t a question. The way he said it—quiet, certain, with that undercurrent of amusement—made it clear that he already knew the answer. That he’d known it before he walked through the door. That the coffee in his hand and the clean shirt and the perfectly arranged hair were all part of a performance he’d rehearsed specifically for this moment, for the look on her face right now.

She remembered.

She remembered everything.

Three months was nothing in the life of an office. Three months was a single quarterly cycle, a performance review period, the shelf life of the motivational poster in the break room that nobody read, but everyone pretended to find inspiring. Three months was also, as it turned out, exactly enough time for two people who hated each other professionally to develop something that wasn’t hate at all but couldn’t, for the life of them, be called anything else.

She first noticed it in meetings. Or rather, she first noticed other people noticing it in meetings.

The quarterly client presentation. A conference room with too many chairs and not enough windows. Baekhyun standing at the head of the table with his sleeves rolled up and his pointer clicking through slides with the confidence of a man who had never once doubted his own intelligence. She sat three seats down, arms crossed, waiting.

He got to slide twelve.

“That’s not what the data shows,” she said.

The entire room went still. Not the uncomfortable still of someone being publicly corrected. The anticipatory still of an audience settling in for the main event.

Baekhyun didn’t flinch. He clicked to the appendix. “Page forty-two, third paragraph. Customer engagement metrics.”

“Page forty-two is qualitative. I’m talking about the quantitative follow-up from the Seoul focus groups.” She reached for her tablet, pulled up the document, and turned it so everyone could see. “Seventy-three percent reported decreased satisfaction when we implemented the changes you’re proposing.”

“I’m proposing we test it in a controlled segment before full rollout.”

“You’re proposing we waste three weeks and two hundred thousand won on a test we already know will fail.”

He looked at her. She looked back. The air between them developed a charge, the kind that made the intern beside her inch his chair slightly away from the table.

Someone in the back—Yuna, probably—muffled a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Later, in the hallway: “You enjoy that?” Baekhyun asked, falling into step beside her. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were doing something complicated that approximated it.

“Enjoy what?”

“Making me look incompetent in front of the executive team.”

“You did that yourself. I just provided the evidence.”

He laughed. The sound was low and genuine, and it did something to her stomach that she refused to examine. “Fair,” he said. “Next time I’ll bring better evidence.”

“There won’t be a next time if you’d just read the reports before presenting.”

“I read them. I disagreed with your conclusions.”

“Your disagreement is noted and dismissed.”

He grinned. “Noted and dismissed. You’ve been spending too much time with legal.”

The coffee machine incident happened on a Thursday afternoon. The kind of afternoon where the light through the windows had gone flat and gray and everyone in the office had the glazed expression of people counting minutes until freedom. She’d been at her desk for six hours straight, revising the same paragraph of copy until the words stopped making sense. Coffee was the only solution.

She walked to the break room and found Baekhyun already there, leaning against the counter with his phone in one hand and the last coffee pod pinched between the fingers of the other.

She stared at the pod. He followed her gaze, looked down at his hand, and then back at her face. Something flickered across his expression—amusement, challenge, the particular pleasure of having caught her at exactly the wrong moment.

“That’s mine,” she said.

“Is it?” He held it up, examining it like a rare artifact. “I don’t see your name on it.”

“I was coming to get it.”

“And yet.” He shrugged, a single economical movement of one shoulder. “Here I am. With the pod.”

She took a step toward him. He didn’t move. They were standing close enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the small scar near his temple that she’d never asked about because asking would imply she’d been looking.

“You’re going to hell,” she said.

He smiled. Not the meeting smile. Something slower, more private, aimed at her like a spotlight. “I’ll save you a seat.”

The problem wasn’t the coffee. The problem was what happened after.

The problem was that they kept finding reasons to stand this close. In the supply closet reaching for the same box of paper clips. Outside the conference room waiting for a meeting to start, shoulders almost touching against the wall. During client calls where they sat side by side, and she could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of her blouse and had to concentrate twice as hard on whatever the client was saying.

The problem was that she’d started noticing things. The way his mouth moved when he was formulating an argument, the slight crease between his eyebrows when he was thinking, the particular angle of his wrist when he gestured toward a graph. She noticed that he had a habit of tapping his pen against his notebook in a rhythm that matched whatever music was playing in the background, and that he only did it when he thought no one was watching.

She noticed that he’d started noticing her too. She caught him once, mid-meeting, his eyes on her mouth while she was explaining something about market penetration, and he didn’t look away when she caught him. He just held her gaze for one beat too long and then turned back to his notes as if nothing had happened.

The worst one was last Tuesday. They were arguing about the campaign timeline—again—and she was in the middle of a sentence about resource allocation when she realized he was looking at her mouth. Not glancing. Looking. With the focused attention of someone studying a difficult text. She paused. The sentence died halfway through its life cycle. He didn’t fill the silence. He just kept looking, and she kept letting him, and the moment stretched until it became something else entirely, something neither of them had a name for.

Then Min-seok cleared his throat from the doorway and the spell broke.

Neither of them mentioned it. They finished the meeting. They allocated the resources. They went back to their desks and pretended the air between them hadn’t changed composition, becoming something thicker and less breathable.

That was the problem, really. They were very good at pretending.

The office at night was a different country. The overhead lights were dialed down to something that approximated gloom, and the windows became mirrors, reflecting the empty desks and abandoned chairs back at themselves in ghostly duplication. The heating system sighed at irregular intervals. Someone had left a half-empty water bottle on the conference table, and the condensation had formed a perfect ring on the wood, a tiny eclipse.

She had three folders spread across the desk and a pen between her teeth. The documents were starting to blur. She’d been reading the same paragraph about demographic targeting for twelve minutes and the words had lost their meaning, becoming shapes rather than language. Behind her, the coffee machine gurgled its last productive breath of the day.

Baekhyun was lounging in the chair across from her, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee, his laptop balanced precariously on his thighs. He hadn’t typed anything in twenty minutes. She knew this because she’d been counting, not because she was paying attention to him. Definitely not.

“You’re staring at the same page,” he said.

She didn’t look up. “I’m reading thoroughly.”

“Thoroughly. For fifteen minutes.”

“Some of us care about details.”

“Some of us care about going home before midnight.”

She glanced at him then. Bad move.

He was already looking at her. Not at her screen, not at the documents, not at the pen between her teeth. At her. His eyes were dark in the low light, the shadows carving his face into something sharper than it looked in the fluorescent glare of daytime. He was relaxed in a way he never was during meetings—shoulders loose, one arm draped over the back of his chair, his collar undone at the throat. He looked like he belonged exactly where he was, like the empty office and the late hour and the woman across the desk were all part of a scenario he’d arranged for himself.

She held his gaze for three seconds. Four. Five.

“You’re doing it again,” he said. His voice was quiet, almost conversational, but something in it had changed texture. Gone rough at the edges.

She frowned. The pen slipped from between her teeth and she caught it against her chest. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you want to say something.”

The accusation landed with the precision of a thrown dart. She felt it stick somewhere beneath her ribs.

She laughed. The sound came out brittle, practiced, the laugh she used when clients suggested something stupid and she needed to dismiss it without sounding dismissive. “I’m looking at you because you’re talking to me.”

“No.” He didn’t smile. That was the thing that caught her—he was completely serious. His eyes never left hers. “You’ve been doing it for weeks. You look at me like you’re working up to something and then you decide against it. Every time.”

The air in the room seemed to compress. The heating system went silent. The water bottle sat untouched in its ring of condensation, and beyond the windows, the city lights blurred into streaks of gold and white, indifferent to whatever was happening in this particular rectangle of space twenty floors up.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. The words she might have said—defensive, dismissive, the familiar arsenal—dissolved before they reached her tongue.

Baekhyun leaned forward.

It was a small movement. He didn’t stand, didn’t reach across the desk. He just shifted his weight, bringing his torso a few inches closer, and suddenly the distance between them felt mathematical rather than social. She could count the individual creases at the corners of his eyes. She could see the faint pulse in his throat. She could smell that cologne again, or maybe it was just the particular warmth of his skin after a long day, something human and specific that her brain had filed away without her permission.

His hand was on the desk now, fingers resting near the edge of her folder. Not touching her. Not quite.

“You can say it,” he said. His voice had dropped lower. “Whatever it is. I’m listening.”

She was aware, with a clarity that felt almost supernatural, of every point of contact between her body and the chair. The press of the lumbar support against her spine. The weight of her feet on the floor. The rapid, unreliable rhythm of her pulse in her wrists and throat and temples. She was aware of the way the low light caught the curve of his lower lip. She was aware that she had stopped breathing.

Her phone rang.

The sound was obscene. It erupted from her bag beside the desk with the urgency of a fire alarm, shattering whatever had been building between them into bright, sharp fragments. She jerked backward. Baekhyun didn’t move, but something passed across his face—a flicker, there and gone—before his expression settled back into its usual configuration of mild amusement.

She fumbled for her phone, glanced at the screen. Unknown number. She declined the call and set the phone facedown on the desk with more force than necessary.

The silence that followed had a different quality. Thinner. Embarrassed, almost.

“Probably a recruiter,” she said. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears, too high, too deliberate. “They always call at the worst possible—” She stopped. The worst possible moment. She didn’t finish the sentence.

Baekhyun was already gathering his things. He closed his laptop with a soft click and stood, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder. He looked tired suddenly, or maybe that was just the light.

“Get some sleep,” he said. “The demographic report will still be catastrophically boring in the morning.”

She nodded. Didn’t trust herself to speak.

He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the frame. For a second she thought he might turn around, might say something that would resurrect the moment the phone had murdered. But he didn’t. He just raised his hand in a casual half-wave without looking back and disappeared into the hallway.

She sat at the desk for a long time after he left. The documents waited. The pen waited. The empty office held its breath around her.

She did not think about how close he had been. She did not think about the look in his eyes. She did not think about the things she might have said if the phone had stayed silent.

She thought about the demographic report. Thoroughly. For twenty more minutes.

Then she went home.

Office gossip was supposed to have a short lifespan. A rumor would surface, circulate through the break room with the efficiency of a virus, and then die quietly when something more interesting emerged—someone’s promotion, someone’s resignation, the mysterious disappearance of the good cookies from the vending machine. That was the natural order.

This particular piece of gossip refused to die. It mutated instead, growing new limbs and developing a respiratory system, and by the third week of its existence, it had achieved a kind of sentience. She could feel it watching her from across the room. She could hear it breathing in the pauses between sentences.

It started small. A raised eyebrow from the woman in graphic design when Baekhyun lingered at her desk a beat too long after dropping off a revised brief. A knowing glance exchanged between two junior associates when she and Baekhyun emerged from a conference room together, both of them flushed and talking over each other in the particular way that suggested an argument had reached its thermal maximum.

Then the comments began.

“You two have the same energy as my parents before they got divorced,” said the intern one Tuesday, apropos of absolutely nothing, while refilling his water bottle at the cooler beside her desk. He said it cheerfully, like he was offering a weather report, and then walked away before she could formulate a response that wouldn’t get him fired.

The project manager caught her in the hallway after a particularly vicious budget meeting. “Have you and Byun always hated each other this much?” he asked, his tone casual in a way that suggested it was anything but. “Because I’ve been here three years and I don’t remember it being quite this... theatrical.”

“We don’t hate each other,” she said automatically. “We have professional disagreements.”

“Professional disagreements.” He repeated the phrase like he was tasting it for poison. “Right. That’s what I had with my ex-wife. Professional disagreements about which Netflix show to watch.”

“That’s not—”

“Just saying.” He patted her shoulder and continued down the hall.

The worst was Yuna. Yuna, who had a degree in psychology and the moral restraint of a tabloid journalist, cornered her in the women’s bathroom and said, without preamble, “Your arguments with Baekhyun sound suspiciously like flirting.”

She was washing her hands. The water ran over her fingers and she stared at her own reflection in the mirror, at the woman who looked increasingly like someone living in a sitcom she hadn’t agreed to star in. “We’re not flirting. We’re arguing. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” Yuna leaned against the sink, arms crossed. “Because from where I’m standing, the difference is semantic. You argue with him the way some people have sex. It’s all tension and buildup and then someone wins and you both look weirdly satisfied afterward.”

“That’s—” She turned off the faucet with more force than necessary. “That’s literally the most disturbing analogy I’ve ever heard, and I once heard Min-seok compare a spreadsheet to his grandmother’s funeral.”

Yuna shrugged. “Deny it all you want. The entire floor has a betting pool.”

“A betting—” She didn’t finish. She dried her hands and walked out, leaving Yuna grinning at the mirror like she’d just solved a particularly satisfying equation.

The comments continued. They accreted. They became background radiation, a constant low-level hum of implication that she learned to tune out the way she learned to tune out the ventilation system or the guy in accounting who hummed show tunes under his breath.

Then came the day in the break room.

She was standing by the window, stirring honey into her tea and trying to mentally prepare for an afternoon of performance reviews, when the conversation behind her took a turn.

“…just saying, the way they look at each other…”

“…every meeting, I swear to god…”

She turned around. Three of her coworkers were clustered around the table, and they did not bother to look guilty when she caught them mid-gossip. The woman from HR—short hair, perpetual cardigan—smiled at her with the serene confidence of someone who knew too much and enjoyed knowing it.

“We’re not discussing you,” said the cardigan woman. “We’re discussing the weather.”

“In February.” She raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

“Some of us find meteorology stimulating.”

She was about to respond when Baekhyun walked in. He went straight to the coffee machine, his back to the room, and she could tell from the set of his shoulders that he’d heard at least part of the conversation. He always carried tension in his shoulders when he was pretending not to listen.

One of the men at the table—tall, perpetually amused, the kind of person who treated the workplace as his personal improv stage—leaned forward. “Hey, Byun. Settle a debate for us. You and—” he gestured vaguely in her direction, “—are you two actually capable of having a conversation that doesn’t sound like foreplay, or is that just your natural dynamic?”

The room went quiet. Not the quiet of people being discreet. The quiet of people realizing that someone had just thrown a lit match into a room full of something flammable.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Heat climbed her neck.

Baekhyun didn’t turn around. His hand paused on the coffee machine button. For a long second, he stood perfectly still, and she could almost see the calculation happening behind his profile—weighing responses, measuring risk, deciding how much of himself to reveal.

What he decided on was apparently: everything.

He turned. Leaned against the counter. Crossed his arms and looked directly at the man who had asked the question, and then, very deliberately, shifted his gaze to her.

“She couldn’t handle me if I flirted with her,” he said.

The words landed in the center of the room like something physical. Heavy. Precise. Delivered with the easy confidence of a man who had not, until approximately two seconds after the sentence left his mouth, realized what he had just done.

The silence that followed had texture. It had weight and temperature and a specific acoustic quality, like the air after a thunderclap.

She turned toward him. Slowly. The way you might turn toward a car accident you couldn’t look away from.

Baekhyun was staring at her. His expression had transformed. The confidence had evaporated, replaced by something that looked remarkably like panic, the particular wide-eyed, slightly parted-lips panic of a man watching his own words circle back to destroy him in real time.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Someone in the background—she couldn’t tell who, and it didn’t matter—whispered, “Oh my God.”

The whisper might as well have been a scream. It echoed. It multiplied. It became the only sound in the room.

Baekhyun looked at the floor. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at the coffee machine like it might offer him an escape route. Then he picked up his mug—he hadn’t even finished making the coffee—and walked out of the break room without another word, his ears visibly red beneath the careful arrangement of his hair.

She stood by the window with her tea going cold in her hands and watched him go.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a peculiar haze. Baekhyun did not make eye contact with anyone. He worked from the conference room instead of his desk. He sent emails instead of walking over to discuss things in person. When their paths crossed in the hallway near the printers, he nodded once, tightly, and continued walking with the focused determination of a man navigating a minefield.

She should have been mortified. She was mortified. But beneath the mortification, beneath the heat in her face and the urge to relocate to a different continent, there was something else. Something small and warm and treacherous, unfurling in the space between her ribs where his words had landed.

She couldn’t handle him.

The worst part was that he might be right.

She almost didn’t recognize him when he walked into the venue.

Not because he looked different, exactly. The same face, the same height, the same way of moving through a room like he’d mapped it in advance. But the clothes—the clothes changed everything. He was wearing a navy suit that fit him the way good suits are supposed to fit, which is to say, like a second skin that had been tailored by someone who understood the mathematics of shoulders. No tie. The collar of his shirt open, revealing the stark line of his throat above the first button.

She was aware, with a clarity that felt almost clinical, that she was staring. She adjusted her grip on her wineglass and looked at the ceiling instead.

The client event was being held at some rooftop bar in Gangnam that cost more per square meter than her monthly rent. Glass walls, low lighting, servers circulating with trays of things that had been arranged to look like art rather than food. Everyone was dressed like they were auditioning for a magazine spread about successful people who enjoyed successful things. She had worn the only dress in her closet that didn’t make her look like she was attending a funeral or a kindergarten graduation, a black thing that hit just above the knee and had cost more than she wanted to remember.

They’d been orbiting each other all evening. Circling the same conversations, appearing at the periphery of the same groups, exchanging glances across the room that contained too much information to decode in the half-second before one of them looked away. It was exhausting. It was also, somehow, the most interesting part of the night.

She found the balcony by accident. Or not by accident—by necessity, really. The room had gotten too warm, too loud, too full of people performing enthusiasm for a client who had already signed the contract three weeks ago. She slipped through the glass doors and the cold hit her immediately, sharp and clarifying, carrying the particular scent of a Seoul winter—car exhaust and distant food vendors and the clean, metallic note of freezing air.

The balcony was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side without touching. The city spread below them in a constellation of light, buildings stacked against the darkness, neon signs bleeding color into the mist. She leaned against the railing and breathed.

The door opened behind her. She didn’t turn around. She knew who it was the way you know the weight of a familiar footstep on a staircase, the particular rhythm of a breath you’ve been listening to across conference tables for months.

Baekhyun came to stand beside her. Not close enough to touch. Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body in the cold air, could smell that cologne again, stronger now without the office fluorescents to dilute it.

“Client asked me where you went,” he said. His voice was lower than it usually was at work, relaxed at the edges. “I told him you were securing a better deal from a competitor on the balcony.”

She laughed despite herself. “He believed you?”

“He’s had three whiskeys. He’d believe anything right now.”

They stood in silence for a moment. The city hummed beneath them, cars moving through streets like cells through veins, light pulsing from windows and signs and the distant flash of an airplane moving across the lower atmosphere.

“I like your dress,” Baekhyun said.

The statement was so simple, so devoid of his usual performative irony, that it took her a second to process it as a compliment rather than the setup for a joke. She looked at him. He was staring out at the city, his profile cut against the darkness, his hands resting loose on the railing.

“Thank you,” she said. Then, because she couldn’t help herself: “I like that you’re not talking.”

He turned his head. His mouth curved. “I talk plenty.”

“You talk constantly. It’s your primary form of respiration.”

“Some of us use words for things other than dismantling other people’s arguments.”

“Some of us use silence as a tactical advantage.”

He laughed. The sound was warm and genuine, and it did something to her chest that she was becoming alarmingly familiar with—a quickening, a tightening, the sensation of something important recalibrating itself behind her ribs.

“You know what I like about you?” he said. The question came out casual, almost offhand, but there was nothing casual about the way he was looking at her now. His eyes had gone dark in the low light, reflective, holding the city’s glow in their surface like still water.

“What?”

“Your stubbornness.” He said it like it was a compliment. Like it was the highest form of praise he could offer. “The way you dig your heels in even when you’re wrong. The way you’d rather eat glass than admit someone else had a better idea. It’s—” He paused, searching for the word. “It’s consistent. I appreciate consistency.”

She should have been offended. She wasn’t. The warmth in his voice had stripped the statement of any possible insult, transforming it into something closer to affection, the particular affection reserved for flaws you’ve decided to love rather than tolerate.

“You’re less irritating when you’re not talking,” she said. “We should note that for future reference. More silence, fewer words.”

“Noted.” His smile deepened. “I’ll try to disappoint you less often.”

Something shifted between them. The air changed charge, or the distance changed measurement, or both—she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when standing beside him became standing near him became standing with him, their shoulders almost touching, the cold railing under her palms the only solid thing in a world that had gone suddenly, dangerously soft at the edges.

He turned toward her. Not all at once—a gradual reorientation, his body finding a new angle that brought him closer, his arm brushing against hers where they both leaned on the railing. She could feel the warmth of him through the thin material of her dress sleeve. She could see the individual lashes shadowing his lower lids, the small scar by his temple that she still hadn’t asked about.

His eyes dropped to her mouth. Held there. The way they had in that late-night office, but without the desk between them, without the documents and the deadlines and the careful architecture of professionalism that usually kept them at arm’s length.

She didn’t move away.

He leaned in. Or she leaned in. Later, trying to reconstruct the moment in the privacy of her own bedroom, she would not be able to determine which of them had initiated the movement. It felt simultaneous, inevitable, like gravity finding two objects that had been circling each other for too long.

His breath warmed her cheek. His hand was on the railing beside hers, close enough that their pinky fingers were almost touching. The city blurred below them, lights smearing into streaks of gold and white, and all she could focus on was the precise point where his lower lip met the corner of his mouth, the small dent there that she had never allowed herself to look at for this long.

The balcony door flew open.

A burst of laughter and music and warm air flooded the space. Someone—the event coordinator, maybe, or one of the junior account managers—stuck their head out and said, “There you are! The client wants photos. Everyone back inside for group shots!”

Baekhyun straightened. She straightened. The distance between them reasserted itself with the swift, merciless efficiency of a rubber band snapping back to shape.

“Coming,” Baekhyun said. His voice was perfectly normal. She had no idea how he managed it.

They went back inside. They stood for photos. They smiled at the client. They circulated. They performed the evening to its conclusion with the polished competence of people who had been pretending for so long that it had become its own kind of authenticity.

Neither of them mentioned the balcony. Not that night, not the next day, not in any of the meetings that followed. It sat between them like an object they’d agreed not to acknowledge, heavy and luminous and impossible to ignore.

She thought about it in the shower. She thought about it while brushing her teeth. She thought about it during a budget presentation when Baekhyun was speaking and she caught herself staring at his mouth and had to look down at her notes so quickly that she lost her place.

He thought about it too. She could tell. She could see it in the way his gaze found hers across rooms and held a beat too long, in the way he’d started leaving a slightly wider berth when they passed in the hallway, as if proximity had become dangerous in a way it hadn’t been before.

The almost-kiss became the thing neither of them could stop thinking about. Which was, of course, the problem with almosts—they were far more persistent than the real thing would have been.

The new guy started on a Monday. He was tall, which was the first thing everyone noticed because the office ceiling was low and he had to duck slightly under the doorframes. He had a laugh that carried, the kind that turned heads in the break room not because it was loud but because it was genuinely delighted, like he’d just remembered something wonderful. He wore cardigans. Not ironically. Actual cardigans, in colors that suggested he had opinions about seasonal palettes.

He was assigned to the desk across from hers.

This was not, technically, anyone’s fault. The office was configured in an open plan that had been designed by someone who believed collaboration happened best when everyone could hear everyone else’s phone calls, and her section had the only available workstation. Still. The timing felt pointed, as if the universe had looked at the particular configuration of her life and decided it needed one more variable.

He introduced himself with a handshake that was neither too firm nor too soft, the Goldilocks zone of professional physical contact. “I’ve heard great things about your work on the Hyundai campaign,” he said. “The tagline was brilliant.”

“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. Compliments about her work were the one form of flattery she had no defenses against.

He brought her coffee on his third day. Not as a gesture—as a question. “I’m going for coffee. Can I get you something?” Casual. Friendly. The kind of offer that existed in the neutral territory between courtesy and interest, impossible to decline without seeming rude and impossible to accept without opening a door she wasn’t sure she wanted open.

She said yes. He brought her an Americano with exactly the right amount of oat milk, which meant he’d been paying attention, which meant the door was now slightly ajar.

Baekhyun noticed.

Of course, he noticed. Baekhyun noticed everything—the particular tilt of her head when she was concentrating, the way she organized her Post-its by color rather than urgency, the fact that she took her coffee with oat milk and no sugar. He had the observational skills of a detective and the discretion of a fireworks display.

The first sign was subtle. She was talking to the new guy about a client brief, leaning toward his screen to point out a formatting issue, when Baekhyun materialized beside her desk with a folder that he definitely did not need to deliver in person.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “Need these signed by end of day.” He placed the folder directly between her and the new guy’s computer, effectively bisecting their conversation with the precision of a guillotine.

The second sign was less subtle. She was in the break room, listening to the new guy explain his previous company’s approach to social media analytics—he was actually quite good at explaining things, his hands moving in illustrative gestures that made dry concepts visually interesting—when Baekhyun walked in, made eye contact with her, and then proceeded to have an unusually loud phone call about a project that wasn’t due for three weeks, standing approximately two feet from where she was trying to concentrate.

The third sign was not subtle at all. It was a Tuesday afternoon. The new guy had brought her a second coffee—a peace offering after a morning of technical difficulties had delayed a client deliverable. Baekhyun, passing her desk on his way to the printer, stopped. Looked at the coffee cup. Looked at the new guy. Looked back at the coffee cup.

“Oat milk,” he said. “Interesting choice.”

The new guy smiled. “She prefers it. Less acidic.”

“Does she.” Baekhyun’s voice had gone flat, the particular flat that preceded something sharp. “Funny. I’ve never seen her drink oat milk.”

This was a lie. A bold, deliberate, completely fabricated lie. She had been drinking oat milk in her coffee for eight months. Baekhyun had watched her make coffee with oat milk approximately seventy times. He had once, during a particularly sleep-deprived week, gone to the convenience store at two in the morning specifically to buy oat milk because the office had run out and she had a presentation at nine.

She stared at him. He stared back, challenge in every line of his face.

The new guy, to his credit, handled it with grace. “Must be confusing her with someone else,” he said mildly, and went back to his desk.

That was the moment she decided enough was enough.

She cornered Baekhyun in the supply closet. Not the most romantic setting for a confrontation, but it had the advantage of privacy and the disadvantage of being approximately the size of a refrigerator, which meant they were standing close enough that she could see the pulse in his throat and he could probably count her eyelashes if he wanted to, which he very clearly did not want to at the moment, given that he was staring at a shelf of paper clips like they contained the meaning of life.

“Are you jealous?” she said.

The question landed between them like something dropped from a height. Heavy. Final.

Baekhyun’s head turned. Slowly. His expression cycled through several emotions in quick succession—surprise, dismissal, something that might have been offense, and finally, settling into the particular blankness he deployed when he was formulating a lie.

“Of him?” The laugh that followed was performance art. Three crisp notes, perfectly calibrated to communicate derision without crossing into outright meanness. “Please.”

“Then why are you acting weird?”

“Weird.” He repeated the word like he was tasting it for poison. “I’m not acting weird. I’m acting normally. This is how I always act.”

“You interrupted a conversation about social media analytics to have a fake phone call about a project that isn’t due for a month.”

“I was confirming timelines.”

“You told him I don’t drink oat milk. I drink oat milk every day. You know I drink oat milk. You bought me oat milk.”

“That was one time, and it was—” He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so genuinely frustrated that it caught her off guard. He was rarely anything but composed, even in anger. This was different. This was messy. “Look. I’m not jealous. I’m just—” Another stop. His jaw worked. “I’m just laughing at your poor choice in men, that’s all.”

The words hung in the cramped air of the supply closet. Fluorescent light buzzed overhead. A box of staples sat on the shelf between them, absurdly mundane.

She looked at him. Really looked at him—the tension in his shoulders, the way his mouth had tightened at the corners, the faint flush along his cheekbones that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. She saw it all, and something in her chest cracked open, warm and dangerous.

“Including yourself?” she said.

The silence that followed had weight. It had mass. It pressed against the walls of the supply closet and against her ribs and against the space between them where all the things they hadn’t said were accumulating like sediment.

Baekhyun went very still. His eyes widened, just slightly, and then something passed across his face—recognition, maybe, or resignation, or both—before his expression shuttered completely, retreating behind the professional mask he wore so well that sometimes she forgot it was a mask at all.

She had said too much. The words were out now, irrecoverable, hanging in the air between them with all the subtlety of a neon sign.

She stepped back. The door handle pressed against her spine. “I should get back to the brief,” she said, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears, too steady, too careful.

She walked out. Didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back.

The rest of the day passed in a peculiar haze. She worked. She answered emails. She revised the client presentation with the focused determination of someone trying to outrun her own thoughts. Across the room, Baekhyun sat at his desk and stared at his computer screen without touching his keyboard, without changing the document, without doing anything at all except sitting very still and looking at something he wasn’t reading.

The new guy brought her a third coffee at four-thirty. She thanked him and didn’t drink it.

Rules were supposed to create boundaries. Clear lines. Defined territories. This was their purpose in the natural order of things—to separate what was allowed from what was not, to provide structure to chaos, to give two people who could not be trusted with their own impulses something solid to hold onto.

The problem with rules, she was discovering, was that they created something else entirely: a game.

She established the rule on a Thursday morning, cornering Baekhyun by the printers before anyone else arrived. The office was quiet, still smelling of overnight cleaning products and yesterday’s coffee, and she delivered the sentence with the precision of someone reading a legal disclaimer.

“Whatever this is,” she said, gesturing between them in a way that encompassed approximately seven months of tension, glances, almost-kisses, and one supply closet confrontation that neither of them had referenced since, “it stays out of the office.”

Baekhyun considered this. He was holding a stack of printouts and wearing a gray sweater that made his shoulders look broader than they had any right to, and his expression cycled through several emotions before settling on something that approximated solemnity.

“Define ‘this,’” he said.

“Don’t.”

“Define ‘office.’ Does the building count? The parking lot? The coffee shop across the street where half the department gets lunch?”

“This building. These floors. The hours between nine and six, Monday through Friday.” She crossed her arms. “Everything else is... complicated. But here, we’re colleagues. Just colleagues.”

He nodded. Once. Serious. Committed. “Just colleagues. I can do that.”

“Good.”

“Absolutely.”

“Great.”

They shook on it. His hand was warm, and his grip was firm and the whole exchange had the surreal quality of two people signing a treaty they both knew would be violated within the hour.

The first violation happened at ten-fifteen, during the weekly status meeting. Baekhyun was presenting quarterly metrics, clicking through slides with the confident boredom of a man who had given this presentation twelve times already, when he paused on a graph and looked up.

Directly at her.

Not at the room. Not at the executives sitting at the head of the table. At her. His eyes found hers across the conference table with the unerring accuracy of a homing device, and he held her gaze for one beat, two beats, three—long enough that Min-seok, sitting to her left, cleared his throat pointedly.

She looked down at her notebook. Wrote nothing. The pen hovered above the paper, leaving a small dot of ink that spread slowly into a stain.

The second violation was more physical. She was handing him a revised client brief, their fingers brushed during the exchange, and neither of them pulled away. The contact lasted approximately one second. It felt significantly longer. His skin was warm and dry and the brush of his fingertips against hers sent a current up her arm that settled somewhere behind her sternum and refused to dissipate for the remainder of the afternoon.

She told herself it was static electricity. The office was dry. The carpet generated charge. There were scientific explanations for these things that had nothing to do with the particular way Baekhyun’s mouth had twitched at the corner when it happened, like he was suppressing a smile he hadn’t authorized.

The third violation was the coffee.

She arrived at her desk on a Tuesday morning to find a paper cup sitting precisely centered on her mousepad. No note. No explanation. Just coffee, still warm, the familiar logo of the shop across the street stamped on the side in faded green ink. Oat milk. No sugar.

She looked across the room. Baekhyun was at his desk, typing with focused intensity, his profile giving nothing away. He did not glance in her direction. He did not acknowledge the coffee’s existence. He typed as if the coffee had materialized through spontaneous generation rather than through his own hand, carried across the street at eight in the morning specifically for the purpose of being placed on her desk without comment.

She drank it. She did not thank him. The rules, technically, had not been broken—colleagues brought each other coffee sometimes. It was a workplace courtesy. A normal human interaction. The fact that her chest felt warm had everything to do with the coffee’s temperature and nothing to do with the man who had brought it.

The fourth violation was the snacks.

Baekhyun had a particular weakness for the honey butter chips that came in the blue package, the kind that sold out of the vending machine within twenty minutes of being restocked. She noticed this because she was observant, not because she paid attention to his eating habits. Definitely not.

One afternoon, passing the vending machine on her way back from a client call, she saw that the honey butter chips had been restocked. Three packages remaining. She bought two. Put one in her desk drawer. Did not eat it.

The next day, during a lull between meetings, she reached into her drawer, extracted the chip package, and placed it on the corner of her desk where Baekhyun would see it when he walked by. Then she went to the bathroom and washed her hands for longer than necessary, giving herself plausible deniability about the chip’s origins.

When she returned, the chip package was gone. Baekhyun was at his desk, chewing thoughtfully, and the look he gave her when she sat down contained so much amused comprehension that she had to stare at her computer screen for a full minute before her face cooled down.

The violations accumulated. They exchanged glances across conference tables with the regularity of commuters checking train schedules. Their hands found reasons to brush during document exchanges, during coffee refills, during the increasingly theatrical performance of reaching for the same pen at the same time. He left coffee on her desk every Tuesday and Thursday. She saved honey butter chips with the dedication of a historian preserving artifacts.

Neither of them called it flirting.

Everyone else did.

“It’s like watching a rom-com where both leads have brain damage,” said the woman from HR, stirring her tea at the break room sink while OC pretended to look for a spoon. “You know you can just talk to him, right? With words? Like adults?”

“We talk,” she said. “We talk constantly. We have meetings. We have emails. We have—”

“You have the emotional intelligence of sea sponges.” The HR woman shook her head. “And I’m being generous with the sponges.”

Yuna had given up entirely. She had started keeping a tally on a Post-it note stuck to her monitor, adding a mark every time she and Baekhyun exchanged what she called “a look,” which she defined broadly enough to include any eye contact lasting longer than two seconds or accompanied by any facial expression more complicated than neutral acknowledgment.

“The record is fourteen in one day,” Yuna announced at lunch, waving the Post-it like evidence in a courtroom. “Fourteen. That’s not professional disagreement. That’s a mating ritual.”

“It’s not—”

“It is. And it’s adorable. And it’s also driving the entire floor insane, so either date him or transfer to a different department, because I can’t take another week of you two making heart eyes at each other over a spreadsheet.”

She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed with more aggression than the sandwich deserved.

The rule, in the end, did exactly what rules were supposed to do: it created a framework. It gave structure to something that had been formless, turned ambiguity into pattern, provided a vocabulary for behaviors that had previously existed in the nebulous territory between friendship and whatever came after.

The only thing it didn’t do was keep anything out of the office. If anything, it brought everything in—every glance, every brush of fingers, every silent exchange of coffee and chips—and arranged it all in plain sight, where everyone could see it, where everyone could comment on it, where everyone could watch with the particular fascinated horror of bystanders witnessing a collision in slow motion.

Neither of them called it flirting.

But they didn’t stop doing it, either.

The annual company party was held at a hotel ballroom that had been decorated with exactly the amount of enthusiasm the budget would allow, which is to say: string lights, a sad-looking balloon arch, and a DJ booth manned by someone’s nephew who played music at a volume that ensured no one would be able to hear the CFO’s speech about fiscal responsibility, which everyone agreed was the party’s greatest achievement.

People arrived dressed like versions of themselves they thought existed but probably didn’t. The project manager wore a sequined jacket that caught the light every time he moved, transforming him into a human disco ball. Yuna had on a dress that was either very short or very long depending on which angle you viewed it from, creating an optical illusion that made several junior associates walk into walls. Min-seok, famously allergic to formal wear, had compromised by wearing a suit jacket over a t-shirt featuring a cartoon whale, which he claimed was “business casual adjacent.”

She wore black. Again. It was becoming a theme, or possibly a cry for help. The dress was different from the client event one—longer, with a neckline that dipped in a way that made her reconsider her posture every thirty seconds—but the color was the same. Safe. Invisible, or as invisible as a woman could be while standing in a room full of drunk colleagues under colored lights.

She’d had two glasses of champagne and one vodka soda that tasted mostly like soda, and the edges of the room had begun to acquire that pleasant softness that made everything slightly funnier than it deserved to be. She was laughing at something the graphic designer had said—a story about a client who’d requested a logo change because the original “didn’t speak to his soul,” which the designer had handled by adding a very small speech bubble—when she felt it.

The particular shift in the air that happened when someone was looking at her. Not a glance. A look. Sustained, deliberate, weighted.

She turned her head.

Baekhyun was across the room, leaning against the bar with a whiskey in one hand and his jacket slung over the back of a barstool. His shirt was rolled to the elbows, his collar open, his hair falling across his forehead in that way that suggested he’d been running his hands through it. He looked like he’d stepped out of an advertisement for something expensive and vaguely immoral.

Their eyes met. Held. The distance between them felt both infinite and nonexistent, crowded with bodies and music and the particular chaos of a party hitting its stride, and yet somehow reduced to a single point of contact: his gaze, steady and dark and aimed at her with the precision of something that had been calibrated for exactly this moment.

He raised his glass. A small gesture, barely more than a tilt of the wrist, but she read it perfectly—a toast, or a challenge, or both.

She rolled her eyes. Couldn’t help it. The response was automatic, encoded into her muscle memory by months of professional antagonism that had somehow evolved into whatever this was.

He smiled. The smile reached his eyes and stayed there, warming them into something that looked, from across a crowded ballroom under string lights, almost fond.

Then someone bumped into her from behind, sloshing beer onto her shoe, and the moment dissolved into the general noise of the evening.

The night progressed along its inevitable trajectory. The DJ’s nephew discovered that playing throwback hits from everyone’s university years was more effective than playing whatever was currently on the charts, and the dance floor filled with people who had no business dancing but were doing it anyway, with the particular abandon of adults briefly freed from the constraints of dignity. Someone started karaoke on the small stage in the corner—not official karaoke, just someone’s phone connected to a portable speaker, but it was enough. The head of legal, a woman in her fifties who normally spoke in the measured tones of someone reading a contract aloud, belted a trot song with such passionate conviction that the entire room stopped to watch.

Embarrassing secrets emerged. The CFO admitted he’d once accidentally sent a company-wide email meant for his wife. The junior designer confessed she had a spreadsheet tracking every time Min-seok used the word “synergy” in meetings (current count: forty-seven). Someone from accounting revealed that he’d been using the same password for eight years because he was afraid that changing it would make him forget it, and the entire security team visibly aged five years on the spot.

Even the senior management team, initially clustered near the bar in the defensive formation of people who believed fun was a quarterly metric rather than an experience, gradually succumbed. The COO was spotted doing a dance that involved a lot of elbow movement. The head of HR, a woman who had once sent a department-wide email about appropriate microwave etiquette, was laughing so hard she had to sit down.

Through it all, she and Baekhyun orbited.

They did not speak. Not once. They moved through the same rooms, stood in the same circles, existed in the same overheated, over-lit atmosphere charged with alcohol and the particular madness that descends when coworkers remember they are also people, and yet they maintained a distance that felt both deliberate and unsustainable.

She saw him talking to Min-seok by the appetizer table, gesturing with a spring roll to emphasize some point, his face animated in a way it rarely was during meetings. She saw him laughing at something Yuna said, his head thrown back, the line of his throat exposed in the low light. She saw him watching the karaoke with the amused tolerance of someone who found other people’s joy entertaining rather than embarrassing.

He saw her too. She could feel it. Every time she turned, his gaze was either just arriving or just departing, leaving behind the faint impression of having been observed, like the warmth on a seat recently vacated.

They passed within two feet of each other near the bar. Neither acknowledged it. She ordered water. He ordered another whiskey. Their shoulders did not touch. The air between them carried the faint scent of his cologne and the sharper note of whatever was in her glass, and for one suspended moment she thought he might say something—might break the silent agreement they’d been maintaining all night, might bridge the gap with words instead of looks.

He didn’t. He collected his drink and stepped aside, and she collected hers and walked away, and the distance between them reasserted itself with the stubborn persistence of a geographical feature.

It was almost midnight when the joke happened.

She was standing near the balloon arch, half-listening to the project manager describe his recent vacation in Jeju, when she heard it. The voice came from behind her, belonging to someone she couldn’t immediately identify—male, slightly slurred, the particular cadence of a man who had crossed the threshold from socially lubricated to verbally irresponsible.

“—like they’re already married and just pretending they’re not. You’ve seen them, right? The way they argue? That’s not arguing, that’s foreplay with PowerPoint slides.”

Laughter. Several people, overlapping.

Someone else: “I’m convinced they have a shared Google Doc where they schedule their fights. Tuesday, three PM, Conference Room C, subject: budget allocations, duration: forty-five minutes, outcome: sexual tension.”

More laughter. Louder now.

She turned. Baekhyun had turned too. They found each other across the room, and she saw the exact moment the joke landed on him—a tightening around his eyes, a slight stiffening of his posture, the particular expression of a man who had just been handed something he didn’t want but couldn’t refuse.

The joke shouldn’t have mattered. It was stupid. It was reductive. It was the kind of comment that emerged from the frothy bottom of a champagne flute at midnight, meaningless and ephemeral and designed to evaporate by morning.

It stuck.

She felt it lodge somewhere beneath her ribs, a small, hot point of irritation that spread outward until her skin felt too tight. She set her glass down on the nearest surface—a cocktail table that wobbled alarmingly—and walked toward the doors.

Behind her, she heard movement. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to.

The joke had done what seven months of tension, glances, almost-kisses, and one supply closet confrontation had failed to do: it had made them both angry enough to stop pretending.

The hallway was a reprieve. Empty, lit by the institutional fluorescence that hotels reserved for spaces no one was meant to admire, the kind of light that turned skin the color of something left too long in a refrigerator. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The bass from the ballroom reached her as a distant, dull thudding, like a headache given acoustic form. Her shoes pinched. The champagne had settled into a warm, inconvenient hum behind her sternum, and her face felt hot in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.

She heard the door open. Didn’t turn.

His footsteps were distinctive—confident even drunk, the particular rhythm of someone who carried his height without apology. They stopped a few feet behind her. She could feel him there the way you feel a change in barometric pressure, a shift in the composition of the air.

“You left your coat,” he said.

She opened her eyes. The wall was beige and textured and profoundly uninteresting. “I don’t want it.”

“You’ll want it when you’re standing outside waiting for a taxi at two in the morning.”

“I’ll survive.”

“I’m sure you will. You’d survive a nuclear winter on stubbornness alone.”

She turned then. Baekhyun was holding her coat draped over one arm, his jacket slung over the other, his shirt rumpled where he’d been leaning against things all evening. His hair had abandoned its earlier arrangement and now fell across his forehead in a way that suggested he’d given up caring, which was both alarming and, against her better judgment, appealing. His eyes were dark and focused and carrying more alcohol than sobriety, but not enough of either to excuse what happened next.

“That joke,” she said. “Was that funny to you?”

“Which part? The part where they compared us to a married couple or the part where they implied we schedule our arguments like dental appointments?”

“All of it. The whole... performance.” She gestured at the space between them, a vague, encompassing sweep of her hand that tried to contain seven months of tension and failed spectacularly. “Is that what everyone thinks? That we’re just... whatever that was. Foreplay with PowerPoint slides.”

He leaned against the opposite wall. The distance between them was approximately six feet, which was both too much and not enough. “People think what they want to think. They’ve been watching us argue since you started. They’ve had time to develop theories.”

“Theories.” She laughed. The sound bounced off the beige walls and came back hollow. “Right. Theories about how we argue. Not about how you look at my mouth during meetings. Not about how you bring me coffee every Tuesday like some kind of caffeinated courtship ritual. Not about how you nearly kissed me on a fucking balcony and then pretended it didn’t happen for three weeks.”

His expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes—a recalibration, like a camera adjusting its focus. “You remember that.”

“Of course I remember that. You were close enough that I could count your eyelashes. You don’t forget someone’s eyelashes when they’re that close to your mouth.”

“You counted my eyelashes.”

“I was making a point.”

“The point being that you remember. Good. Because I’ve been wondering.” He pushed off the wall, took one step toward her. The distance narrowed to five feet. “I’ve been wondering what exactly we’re doing. The coffee. The chips. The way you stare at me during budget meetings like you’re trying to solve a particularly frustrating equation. The way you cornered me in a supply closet to ask if I was jealous of a man who wears cardigans without irony.”

“He’s a good designer.”

“I don’t care if he’s Michelangelo. That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point, Baekhyun? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for months, and all I’ve got is a series of almosts that never become anything, and a department full of people who think we’re performing some kind of extended workplace mating ritual, and a rule that we both break every Tuesday when you leave coffee on my desk like you’re feeding a stray cat you’re too proud to admit you’ve adopted.”

He took another step. Four feet now. The fluorescent light caught the angles of his face and hardened them, turning the hollow of his throat into shadow. “The rule was your idea.”

“The rule was necessary.”

“The rule is bullshit. You know it’s bullshit. You’ve known it’s bullshit since the day you proposed it, which is why you’ve been breaking it with the dedication of someone committing performance art.”

She crossed her arms. Her dress felt suddenly too thin for the hallway’s aggressive air conditioning, or maybe it was the way he was looking at her—direct, unblinking, the particular focus he usually reserved for dismantling weak arguments in meetings, except now it was aimed at her and she was, regrettably, the weak argument. “So what are you saying? That we should just... what? Date? Sleep together? Hold hands in the break room while Yuna updates her tally sheet?”

“I’m saying that whatever this is—” he gestured between them, echoing her earlier movement but with more precision, his hand cutting through the air like he was drawing a line, “—it’s been going on long enough that the entire office has a betting pool, and neither of us has done a single thing to resolve it except stand in hallways and argue about how much we’re arguing.”

“And whose fault is that? You had me on a balcony. You were close enough to kiss me. And then—”

“And then someone opened a door. And instead of finding another balcony, or a closet, or literally any other horizontal surface in the greater Seoul metropolitan area, you decided the appropriate response was to avoid eye contact for three weeks and establish a rule that neither of us has any intention of following.”

“You could have said something.”

“So could you.”

The silence that followed had density. It pressed against the walls and against her lungs and against the space between them where all the things they hadn’t done were accumulating like interest on a debt neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

He took another step. Three feet now. Close enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the small crease at the corner of his mouth that appeared when he was working through something difficult. His cologne had faded through the evening, replaced by something warmer and more human—whiskey, sweat, the particular scent of skin that had been under suit fabric for too many hours.

“You know what your problem is?” he said.

She glared at him. The heat in her face had migrated to her chest, spreading outward until her fingers felt tight around her own arms. “What?”

“You keep acting like you don’t want me.”

The words landed between them with the weight of something that had been building for months. Heavy. Final. Unretractable.

She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead with the monotony of an insect trapped behind glass, and somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed, and the bass from the ballroom continued its distant, indifferent thudding.

She stepped forward. Two feet now. Close enough that the warmth of him reached her through the thin material of her dress, close enough that she could see the rapid pulse in his throat, the way his chest rose and fell with a rhythm that wasn’t steady anymore.

“Then what are you gon’a do about it, Byun?”

A challenge. Delivered low, almost quiet, the kind of sentence that existed in the territory between dare and invitation and left no room for misinterpretation.

He looked at her. His eyes were dark and wide and carrying something she hadn’t seen in them before—not amusement, not challenge, not the performative confidence he wore like armor. Something rawer. Something that matched whatever was happening behind her own ribs, the particular tightness that had nothing to do with champagne and everything to do with the man standing two feet away with her coat still draped over his arm like an afterthought.

The silence stretched. The hallway held its breath. The distance between them felt both infinite and nonexistent, a mathematical abstraction that neither of them had any interest in solving.

He dropped the coat.

The kiss wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that belonged in the movies she pretended not to watch, all choreographed angles and tender hesitation. This was collision. His mouth found hers with the precision of something aimed rather than offered, and she met him with equal force, her hands finding his shoulders through the thin cotton of his shirt, fingers digging into the muscle there like she was testing its reality. His back hit the wall—or maybe hers did; the orientation of the universe had become suddenly, gloriously irrelevant. His hands were at her waist, then her back, pulling her against him with a urgency that felt like the physical manifestation of seven months of accumulated restraint finally, catastrophically failing its structural integrity test.

She tasted whiskey. She tasted the particular warmth of his skin that no amount of cologne could disguise, something human and specific that her brain had catalogued without her permission and now recognized with the certainty of a homing signal. His stubble scraped her chin. One of his hands slid into her hair, fingers tangling in the strands at the base of her neck, and the slight pressure of his palm against her scalp sent a current down her spine that settled somewhere low in her abdomen and spread outward until her knees felt unreliable.

They broke apart. Not far—inches, barely enough to constitute separation. His breath was warm against her mouth. His eyes were wide and dark and carrying an expression she had never seen on him before, something stripped of its usual irony, raw in a way that made her chest tighten.

“Is this a mistake?” she asked. The words came out uneven, breathless, shaped by the particular urgency of someone who needed an answer more than she needed oxygen.

Baekhyun looked at her. His thumb traced the line of her jaw with a gentleness that contradicted everything about the previous thirty seconds, and his mouth curved into that half-smile she had spent months pretending not to find attractive.

“Depends on what you call a mistake,” he said.

The answer changed the air between them. It recalibrated something fundamental, shifting the axis of whatever had been building since the first argument in that conference room three months ago, or maybe since the coffee machine, or maybe since the moment she walked into the office and he looked at her across the room like he’d been waiting. The hallway narrowed. The fluorescent light acquired a quality that was almost, against all odds, flattering.

She kissed him again.

This time there was no anger. Or there was anger, but it had transformed, sublimated into something hotter and more purposeful. His mouth opened under hers, and she felt the low sound he made in the back of his throat, felt it vibrate against her lips and then against her palm when she pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the rapid, insistent rhythm of his heart through the thin barrier of his shirt. His hands moved down her back, over the dip of her waist, settling at the curve of her hips with a grip that was just shy of painful and exactly what she wanted.

He walked her backward until her shoulders met the wall. The cold plaster against her bare skin was a shock that she registered distantly, a minor counterpoint to the far more pressing sensation of Baekhyun’s body against hers, the solid heat of him from chest to thigh pinning her to the wall with a thoroughness that left no ambiguity about his intentions. One of his knees pressed between hers, and she hooked her leg around his, pulling him closer, and the sound he made this time was less restrained, more genuine, a rough exhale that warmed the side of her neck where his mouth had found the sensitive skin below her ear.

“Months,” he murmured against her throat. His voice was wrecked, lower than she’d ever heard it, stripped of its usual polish. “Months of you looking at me like that and saying absolutely nothing.”

“You talked enough for both of us,” she said, and then gasped because his teeth found the tendon where her neck met her shoulder and the sensation traveled downward with the efficiency of a live wire, pooling heat between her thighs. Her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling slightly, and he made that sound again, the one that vibrated against her skin and settled somewhere behind her ribs like a struck match.

“I hate you,” she whispered, and then kissed him harder, because the contradiction was the point, because the seven months of professional antagonism had been foreplay whether they’d intended it or not, because the particular way his hands moved over her body suggested he’d been thinking about this for significantly longer than was appropriate for a colleague, and the realization was so gratifying that she almost laughed.

He pulled back just enough to look at her. His face was flushed, his hair thoroughly disarranged by her fingers, his mouth swollen from kissing, and he looked so thoroughly, magnificently undone that she felt a surge of something that was dangerously close to affection beneath the more urgent heat of desire.

“You don’t hate me,” he said. His thumb brushed her lower lip, and the gentleness of the gesture against the backdrop of everything else… the wall at her back, his knee between her thighs, the distinct evidence of his arousal pressed against her hip—created a dissonance that made her breath catch. “You’ve never hated me. You’ve wanted to strangle me, which is different, and considerably more flattering.”

“I still might strangle you.”

“Noted. After.”

She did laugh then. The sound escaped before she could trap it, bright and surprised and entirely at odds with the particular configuration of their bodies against the hallway wall, and Baekhyun’s face transformed… his eyes crinkling at the corners, his mouth breaking into that grin she had spent months pretending irritated her, the one that revealed the small crease in his left cheek and made him look, briefly, like someone who had never attended a budget meeting in his life.

“Even now,” she said, shaking her head. “Even at the most—” She stopped, because there wasn’t a word for what this was, not yet, maybe not ever.

“Romantic moment of my life,” he supplied, and then he kissed her again before she could object to anything, and his hands found the hem of her dress and slid beneath it, palms flat against the outside of her thighs, pushing the fabric up. She felt the cool hallway air on her skin for one second before his hands replaced it, warm and deliberate, fingers curling around her inner thighs and spreading them apart with a patience that was entirely at odds with the pace of everything preceding it.

“Baekhyun—” His name came out unsteady.

“I know,” he said against her jaw. His fingers found the edge of her underwear and traced along it slowly, back and forth, not crossing it, just tracing, until she shifted her hips toward him with an involuntary urgency that made him exhale sharply against her cheek. “I know.”

He pulled the fabric aside. His fingers found her and she felt the immediate, specific shock of it—two fingers sliding through the slick heat of her, unhurried, parting her slowly before drawing upward to circle her clit with a light, deliberate pressure that made her hips jerk forward against his hand.

“Christ,” he breathed against her temple. The word came out fractured, reverent, stripped of any of the composure he’d managed to maintain until this moment. His fingers moved again, slower this time, tracing her with a thoroughness that suggested he intended to learn every detail before he was finished, spreading the slickness of her arousal in slow circles that tightened incrementally, pressure building and then easing, building and easing, until she dug her fingers into his shoulder hard enough to leave marks.

“Stop—” she started.

“No,” he said simply, and curled two fingers inside her.

The sound she made was embarrassing in its immediacy, a sharp, broken exhale that she felt in her sternum, her head falling back against the wall as he pressed deeper and then drew back, working her open with a steady, considered rhythm that made her thighs tremble against his hand. His thumb found her clit and pressed in slow, firm circles while his fingers moved inside her, and the dual sensation narrowed her world to the precise coordinates of his hand, the heel of his palm grinding against her with each stroke.

“Look at me,” he said.

She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes. She opened them. He was watching her face with an intensity that was almost unbearable, tracking every flicker of expression with the same focused attention he gave quarterly projections, except that his own face was entirely undone—jaw tight, eyes dark, a flush riding high across his cheekbones.

“You’ve been—” she started, and lost the sentence when his fingers curled upward, finding the place that made her vision white at the edges. “—you’ve been thinking about this.”

“Since March,” he said, and stroked that spot again, deliberately, watching her mouth fall open. “The conference call. You were arguing about the Hendricks account, and you had your hair—”

“Don’t tell me—” Her hips were moving against his hand now, chasing the rhythm he’d established, and the awareness of it—that she was grinding against his fingers against a hallway wall, that she had completely lost the thread of any self-possession she’d arrived with—should have been mortifying and was instead unbearably clarifying. “Don’t tell me it was a conference call.”

“You were magnificent,” he said against her cheek, and pressed his thumb harder against her clit, and she came apart with her face pressed into his neck and his name in her mouth and his fingers working her through it until her legs shook and she had to grip his shirt in both fists to stay upright.

He held her. His hand stilled but didn’t withdraw, fingers still inside her, letting her feel the aftershocks move through her in diminishing waves. His other arm was braced against the wall beside her head, taking her weight without comment.

When she could breathe again she became aware of several things in sequence: the dampness of his shirt collar against her cheek, the still-considerable evidence of his arousal pressed against her hip, and the fact that he was very carefully not moving, or speaking, or doing anything that might be interpreted as smugness, which was so unlike him that she pulled back to look at his face.

He looked destroyed. Not smug. Destroyed, and trying very hard to hold still, and watching her with an expression she didn’t have professional vocabulary for.

“Conference call,” she said.

“March fourteenth,” he confirmed, and his voice had dropped to something barely above a murmur. “You told Hendricks his projections were fantasy and that he should call you back when he had numbers that reflected reality rather than his own optimism. I had to mute myself.”

“To laugh.”

“Among other reasons.” His fingers shifted inside her, just slightly, a reminder, and she felt the movement in the base of her spine. “I’d like to take you to bed,” he said. “If that’s—I’d like to.”

She reached down and wrapped her hand around his wrist, not pulling his hand away, just holding it there, feeling the tendons shift against her palm.

“Down the hall,” she said. “Second door.”

She remembered everything.

The kiss against the wall. His hands under her dress. The way his breath had broken against her neck when she’d bitten his lower lip hard enough to leave a mark she could now see, faint but unmistakable, just below the corner of his mouth. The discarded room they’d eventually found when the hallway began to feel too exposed—some forgotten annex with an old drafting table pushed against the wall and blueprints curling at the edges. The way he’d pressed her against it, with one hand braced above her head and whispered something into her ear that she would not, under any circumstances, be repeating to herself at her desk on a Tuesday morning, though her body seemed determined to remind her of it every thirty seconds with a precision that bordered on cruelty.

She remembered his laugh, quiet and surprised, when she’d fumbled with his belt in the dark. She remembered the particular sound he’d made when her hand found him… low, strained, nothing like his meeting voice, nothing like any version of Baekhyun she had encountered in seven months of professional proximity. She remembered the weight of his body against hers, the heat of his skin through the thin barrier of his shirt, the way his hips had moved against her hand with an urgency that had stripped away every pretense either of them had been maintaining since approximately the first quarterly presentation.

She remembered it all, and the remembering sat in her chest like something too large for its container, warm and unwieldy and impossible to ignore.

The office was quiet in that particular way that suggested everyone had already discussed whatever needed discussing and had now moved on to the performance of not discussing it. Ji-eun was at the printer again, or possibly the same printer from yesterday, engaged in what appeared to be an elaborate pretense of document organization that had no purpose other than positioning herself within observational range of her desk. Min-seok and Yuna were leaning toward each other, whispering. They stopped when she glanced over. Min-seok smiled at the ceiling. Yuna bit the inside of her cheek.

She turned back to her screen. The login field blinked. Password. She typed it correctly on the first attempt, which felt like a small, personal victory against the general chaos of the morning.

The doors swung open.

Baekhyun walked in.

He was wearing a fresh white shirt. The collar was crisp. His hair fell across his forehead in that way that suggested careful arrangement rather than sleep, and he moved through the office with the easy confidence of a man who had not spent the previous night pressed against a woman in a supply closet with his belt unbuckled and his composure thoroughly, magnificently dismantled. He looked rested. He looked amused. He looked like someone who had rehearsed this entrance in front of a mirror and was now enjoying the payoff.

She hated him with an intensity that bordered on devotional.

He spotted her immediately. His eyes found hers across the room with the unerring accuracy she had come to expect, and then he smiled—that smile, the one from yesterday morning, the one that had reached his eyes and stayed there, warming them into something that looked, to anyone who didn’t know him, almost gentle.

She knew him now. She knew exactly what that smile cost.

He walked straight to her desk. Not pausing at the break room, not veering toward his own workstation. A direct line, coordinates plotted, no deviation.

“Morning,” he said. He pulled the chair from the empty desk beside hers—not his desk, someone else’s, he had no right to that chair—and sat down, leaning back with his legs extended, one ankle crossed over the other. Casual. Comfortable. As if sitting at her desk at eight-fifteen on a Wednesday was a normal feature of his routine rather than a deliberate provocation.

She stared at him. The mark on his lip was definitely visible. She could see it from here, a small darkened area just below the left corner of his mouth, and the sight of it sent a pulse of heat through her that settled somewhere low in her abdomen with the persistence of a recurring decimal.

“You’re enjoying this,” she said.

His mouth curved. “A little.”

“We work together.”

“I noticed.”

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Probably.”

The exchange had the rhythm of something rehearsed, though neither of them had rehearsed it. Each line landed with the weight of a stone dropped into still water, creating ripples that she could feel against her skin despite the two feet of carefully maintained desk between them.

She leaned forward. “People can see that.” She gestured vaguely at his mouth.

He touched the mark with his fingertip, a gesture so deliberately performative that she had to resist the urge to reach across the desk and strangle him with his own carefully arranged collar. “This? Barely visible. Besides, I told Min-seok I cut myself shaving. He believed me.”

“Min-seok has the critical thinking skills of a potted plant.”

“Which is why he believed me.”

She pressed her palms flat against the desk. The surface was cool beneath her hands, a counterpoint to the heat in her face. “We cannot do this. We work together. We see each other every day. We have performance reviews and budget meetings and a department full of people who have been taking bets on us since approximately the first quarterly presentation.”

“Which they won,” Baekhyun said thoughtfully. “Or lost. Depending on the terms of the bet. We should ask Yuna. I’m sure she has documentation.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s—” She stopped. Because it was, objectively, a little funny. The situation was absurd. Seven months of tension culminating in a supply closet hookup at a company party while their colleagues made jokes about their relationship within audible range. The narrative symmetry was almost elegant in its ridiculousness.

She closed her eyes. Opened them. Baekhyun was still there, still smiling, still looking at her with that particular focus that made her stomach perform gymnastics it had no business attempting before nine in the morning.

He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a paper cup. The familiar logo. The faded green stamp. Oat milk, no sugar, still warm from the shop across the street. He placed it on her desk, centered precisely on her mousepad, the way he had been doing for weeks. The gesture was identical to every previous Tuesday—the same careful placement, the same absence of commentary, the same performance of casual generosity that was neither casual nor generous but something far more deliberate.

Only now she knew why.

She looked at the coffee. Looked at him. The mark on his lip. The crease at the corner of his eye. The particular way his throat moved when he swallowed, a detail she had noticed months ago and filed away and now could not unsee.

“Thank you,” she said. The words came out quieter than she intended, almost soft, and she watched his expression change—the smile warming, deepening, reaching his eyes in a way that made her chest tighten.

“You’re welcome,” he said. Equally quiet. For her, and only her, in a room full of people pretending not to watch.

She picked up the coffee. Drank. The warmth traveled down her throat and settled somewhere behind her ribs, familiar and new all at once, like a language she had been studying for months and had only just begun to speak.

The absence of arguing was, somehow, more conspicuous than the arguing had been.

It created a vacuum. The office had structured itself around the particular acoustics of their disagreements—the raised voices during quarterly reviews, the sharp exchanges in the hallway, the charged silences that followed particularly vicious meetings. These things had a rhythm. They had become ambient, part of the department’s soundscape, as familiar and expected as the printer jamming or the ventilation system’s midday groan.

Their silence was deafening.

It started small. They passed in the hallway without the usual performance of deliberate avoidance. She nodded at him. He nodded back. No eye roll. No muttered comment. No theatrical sigh accompanied by an adjustment of his messenger bag strap that suggested he was physically burdened by her mere existence. Just a nod, civil and undramatic, and the woman from graphic design dropped a folder.

In meetings, when she presented her section of the campaign, Baekhyun did not interrupt. He did not lean back in his chair with that particular expression of amused skepticism. He did not tap his pen against his notebook in the rhythm that usually indicated he was formulating a counterargument. He listened. He nodded. Once, during her explanation of the revised timeline, he said, “That makes sense,” with such genuine agreement that Min-seok, who had been taking notes, looked up with the startled expression of someone who had just witnessed a cosmological anomaly.

Yuna noticed first. Of course she noticed. Yuna had the observational skills of a wildlife documentarian and the discretion of a carnival barker. She caught her at the water cooler on a Thursday afternoon, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses, her expression the particular blend of scientific curiosity and barely contained glee that she reserved for phenomena she found academically fascinating and personally entertaining.

“You’re not fighting,” Yuna said. Not a question. An accusation.

“I’m capable of professional civility.”

“You’re capable of many things. Professional civility has never been one of them. Especially not with him.” She jerked her chin toward Baekhyun’s desk, where he was typing with focused intensity, his profile giving nothing away. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened.” Yuna repeated the phrase like she was tasting it for poison. “Right. And the mark on his lip is from shaving, and the fact that you two sat together at lunch for forty-five minutes without a single argument about market penetration metrics is just a miraculous coincidence, and the way he looked at you during the budget meeting was definitely the look of a man thinking about fiscal responsibility and not, say, whatever happened in that room that everyone definitely heard about because hotel walls are approximately as soundproof as wet paper.”

OC took a long drink of water. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t.” Yuna smiled. It was the smile of a woman who had won a bet she was not supposed to know about. “Absolutely no idea. Completely in the dark. A perfect blank.”

The lunch thing had been Baekhyun’s idea. Or possibly hers. The origin was unclear, lost in the peculiar reorganization of their daily routines that had begun the morning after the party, a recalibration so gradual that neither of them had acknowledged it was happening until they found themselves sitting across from each other in the cafeteria with trays of something the kitchen had optimistically labeled “fusion bibimbap“ and was, in reality, rice with things on it.

They ate. They talked. Not about work, or not primarily about work—about a movie he’d seen, about a book she was reading, about the particular agony of the vending machine’s honey butter chip restocking schedule, which they both agreed was engineered by someone with a personal vendetta against human happiness. He stole a piece of kimchi from her plate. She didn’t object. She stole a piece of fish cake from his. He raised an eyebrow but allowed it.

Three tables over, the project manager watched this exchange with the focused attention of someone documenting evidence for a tribunal.

The presentation fix happened on a Tuesday. She was revising the client deck for the afternoon meeting, cursing quietly at a formatting issue that had appeared between slide twelve and slide thirteen like a digital poltergeist, when Baekhyun materialized beside her desk. He didn’t say anything. He reached over, clicked twice on her trackpad, adjusted a margin setting she hadn’t known existed, and the problem resolved itself with the obedient efficiency of something that had been waiting for the right hands.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

No argument. No performative reluctance. No “I told you the template was flawed” or “This is why you should have used the version I sent” or any of the familiar refrains that had previously accompanied any instance of him solving a problem she was having. Just the solution, delivered, accepted, followed by a moment of quiet that contained approximately seven months of accumulated tension transformed into something warmer and considerably less exhausting.

She stole his coffee the next morning. Walked straight to his desk while he was in a meeting, picked up the paper cup sitting beside his keyboard, took a long drink, and set it back down. He returned twenty minutes later, noticed the diminished liquid level, looked across the room at her, and smiled. Not the meeting smile. The other one. The one that made her stomach perform the particular acrobatic routine it had been practicing since approximately the first quarterly presentation, except now she didn’t have to pretend it was indigestion.

The chair thing happened during the weekly status meeting. She was presenting conversion metrics, clicking through slides with the focused boredom of someone who had given this presentation twelve times already, when she felt it—the light pressure of a hand on the back of her chair. Not grasping, not possessive, just resting there, warm through the thin fabric of her blouse, a point of contact so casual it could have been dismissed as accidental if not for the particular way Baekhyun’s thumb moved, a single slow stroke against the curve of her spine that she felt through every vertebra like a lit match dragged along a fuse.

She didn’t pause. Didn’t stumble. Continued through the conversion metrics with the steadiness of someone who had trained extensively for this specific form of torture. But she saw the room notice. She saw Min-seok’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. She saw the woman from HR, who had been taking notes, set her pen down very slowly and very deliberately, like someone documenting a historical event.

After the meeting, as people filed out, the project manager lingered by the door. He was a tall man with a perpetually amused expression and the moral restraint of a gossip columnist, and he looked at her, then at Baekhyun, then back at her, with the particular thoroughness of someone conducting a visual assessment.

“Are you two dating?” he asked.

The question landed in the center of the room with the weight of something that had been building since approximately the first quarterly presentation, or possibly since the coffee machine incident, or possibly since the moment Baekhyun walked into the office seven months ago and looked at her across the room like he’d been expecting to.

She looked at Baekhyun. He looked at her. His mouth was doing that thing—the half-smile, the crease at the corner, the expression that contained approximately seven different emotions simultaneously and communicated all of them with the efficiency of a well-aimed projectile.

“That’s classified,” Baekhyun said.

She kicked him under the table. Not hard. The particular kick reserved for moments when he was being himself with especially concentrated intensity, a physical punctuation mark that said I see what you’re doing and I’m allowing it, but don’t push it.

He grinned. The grin reached his eyes and stayed there, warming them into something that looked, to anyone watching, alarmingly like happiness.

The project manager shook his head. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Take it as whatever you want,” Baekhyun said. “Just know that if there’s a betting pool, I want my cut.”

“There is absolutely a betting pool,” the project manager said, “and you are very late to it.”

He walked out, leaving the door open behind him. Through the gap, she could see Yuna at her desk, making another mark on her Post-it with the solemn dedication of an archaeologist recording a significant find.

She looked at Baekhyun. He was still grinning, the particular grin that made the crease in his left cheek deepen and his eyes crinkle at the corners, and she thought, with a clarity that felt almost supernatural, that she had been looking at this man for seven months and had only just begun to see him.

“Classified,” she said. “Really.”

He shrugged. One shoulder. The gesture that had annoyed her approximately seventy times in conference rooms and now made something warm unfold behind her ribs. “What would you have said?”

She considered it. The truth sat between them, heavy and luminous and impossible to ignore, and she watched his face—the smile softening, the eyes holding hers with the particular focus she had come to recognize as his version of vulnerability—and she thought about supply closets and coffee cups and the weight of his hand on the small of her back during a meeting about conversion metrics.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing clever.”

“Liar.” He reached across the table and brushed his knuckles against the back of her hand, a touch so light it could have been dismissed as accidental, except that nothing between them had been accidental since approximately the first quarterly presentation, and they both knew it. “You’d have said something devastating. You always do.”

She turned her hand and caught his fingers. Held them for one beat, two, in the empty conference room with the door open and the office beyond it humming with the particular energy of a workplace that had just witnessed something it had been waiting seven months to see.

Then she let go, gathered her notebook, and walked out, leaving him sitting at the table with that smile still on his face, bright enough to power the overhead lights.

The office at night had become something different. Not the haunted, fluorescent purgatory of those late evenings before everything changed, but a quieter, warmer country, lit by desk lamps and the blue glow of computer screens, populated by two people who had stopped pretending they were working for the sake of work and had started staying because they liked the particular quality of silence that existed when everyone else had gone home.

She was proofreading the client deliverable for the third time. The words had begun to blur, sentences rearranging themselves into nonsense when she wasn’t looking, and she pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and exhaled through her teeth.

“Done,” Baekhyun said from the desk across from hers. He closed his laptop with a soft click and leaned back, stretching his arms above his head in a way that pulled his shirt taut across his shoulders. The motion was casual, unconscious, the particular physical vocabulary of a man comfortable in his own body, and she watched it with the focused attention she usually reserved for particularly difficult budget allocations.

“Done,” she agreed, though she wasn’t, not really. The document could use another pass. The client would never know the difference. Some perfections were worth pursuing and others were the territorial claims of a mind that needed to stop working at nine-thirty on a Thursday.

Baekhyun reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a folder. Not work-related. The folder was crisp, manila, the kind of thing that lived in HR departments and contained phrases like “policy compliance” and “appropriate workplace conduct.” He placed it on the desk between them with the deliberate care of someone laying down a card in a game where the stakes had just been raised.

“Speaking of done,” he said. “Technically, we should probably disclose this to HR.”

She looked at the folder. Looked at him. The overhead lights were off, leaving his face in the softer illumination of the desk lamp, which caught the angles of his jaw and the particular crease at the corner of his mouth and turned them into something she wanted to touch with more than just her eyes.

“I hate that you’re right,” she said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I did yesterday.”

“Yesterday we had sex.” He said it the way he might say “yesterday it rained,” casual and factual and utterly without the performative gravity the statement deserved. “Different emotional context.”

She stared at him. “Technically, you tricked me into it.”

“Technically, you were an enthusiastic participant.”

“Technically, you—” She stopped, because the word “technically” had lost all meaning and also because he was smiling at her in that way that made arguing functionally impossible, the particular smile that reached his eyes and warmed them into something that looked, under desk lamp light at nine-thirty on a Thursday, alarmingly like fondness.

“Technicalities,” he said, and stood up.

He stepped around the desk. Not quickly—a measured approach, each movement deliberate, the way he moved through presentations when he wanted the room’s full attention. She stayed seated, mostly because standing felt like conceding something she wasn’t ready to concede, and also because the particular angle allowed her to watch him approach with the focused appreciation of someone studying a subject that had become personally relevant.

He stopped beside her chair. Close enough that she could smell that cologne, faint now after a full day, layered beneath the warmer note of his skin. Close enough that the desk lamp caught the individual lashes shadowing his lower lids and turned them into something she wanted to count again, the way she had on the balcony, except this time she wouldn’t be interrupted by someone asking for photos.

She looked at the paperwork on his desk. The disclosure form, open to the section titled “Nature of Relationship.” The field was blank, waiting for a definition that no dropdown menu in any HR department in the country had been designed to contain.

“So what do we put here?” she asked, pointing. “Under ‘nature of relationship’?”

Baekhyun considered it. His expression cycled through several options—serious, thoughtful, the particular focused crease between his eyebrows that appeared when he was working through a problem he found genuinely interesting. Then his mouth curved.

“Complicated?” he suggested.

She laughed. The sound bounced off the empty desks and the darkened monitors and came back warmer than it had left, and she reached for him—one hand finding the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the cotton—and pulled him down until his mouth was within reach of hers.

“Conflict of interest,” she murmured against his lips, between one kiss and the next, the words half-formed and mostly breath, and she felt him smile against her mouth, felt the crease in his cheek press against hers, felt his hand slide into her hair with a gentleness that contradicted the urgency building between them.

“Worth the risk,” he said, and kissed her properly.

The supply closet was not romantic. It was approximately the size of a refrigerator laid on its side, smelled faintly of paper and industrial cleaner, and contained one shelf of office supplies that rattled alarmingly when Baekhyun backed her against it, his hands on her hips, his mouth on her throat, his breath warm against the sensitive skin below her ear in a way that made the shelf’s structural integrity the least of her concerns.

His belt buckle was cold against her stomach through the thin material of her blouse. She reached for it, fingers fumbling in the dark, and he caught her wrist—not stopping her, redirecting, guiding her hand to the button of his jeans instead, and the sound he made when her palm pressed against him through the denim was low and rough and traveled through her body like a current finding its circuit. He was already hard, the length of him straining against the fabric, and she curled her fingers around him and felt him exhale against her neck, slow and controlled, like a man working very hard to stay composed.

“Quiet,” he murmured against her mouth. “The security guard makes rounds at ten.”

“We should stop,” she whispered, and then gasped because his hand had found its way under her skirt, fingers tracing the inside of her thigh with a precision that suggested he had been thinking about this particular topography for significantly longer than was appropriate for a colleague. His fingertips reached the edge of her underwear and paused there, deliberate, tracing the elastic with a patience that was functionally indistinguishable from cruelty. The hypocrisy of the statement was so thorough that she almost laughed, except laughing required oxygen and oxygen was currently in short supply.

“Probably,” he agreed, and then he pushed the fabric aside and touched her, and the laugh dissolved into something else entirely.

He knew what he was doing. That was the worst part—or the best part, depending on the metric. Two fingers, slow, reading her the way he read a room before a presentation, cataloguing responses, adjusting his approach. His thumb found the specific point that made her hips jerk involuntarily forward and stayed there, circling, while his fingers moved inside her with a focused patience that she felt in the backs of her knees and the roof of her mouth and every nerve ending she had been pretending, for seven months, didn’t exist in his vicinity.

She got his jeans open. Got her hand around him properly this time, the warm weight of him in her palm, and the sound he made against her throat when she stroked him—slow, matching the rhythm he’d set—was low and fractured and nothing like his meeting voice.

“Months,” he said, the word fractured, pressed into the curve of her shoulder like a confession. “Months of this. Of you. Of wanting—”

She kissed him to shut him up, because if he kept talking she was going to say something she couldn’t take back, something that would exist outside the technical boundaries of whatever this was, something that would make the HR form’s “nature of relationship” field look even more inadequate than it already did.

He lifted her. Her legs went around his waist with a reflexive certainty that she would think about later, in the privacy of her own apartment, with something like embarrassment. Her back met the wall. He pushed her underwear to the side and pressed against her, and she felt the blunt heat of him there, just there, and her breath came out as something that wasn’t a word.

He pushed inside her slowly. All the way, one long deliberate stroke, and she felt every inch of it, felt her body adjust around him, felt his exhale break against her collarbone as he stilled, his forehead dropping to her shoulder.

“Fuck,” he said, very quietly, into the fabric of her blouse.

Not slowly. Not carefully. His hips set a rhythm that pressed her into the wall with each stroke, the shelf behind them rattling in intermittent percussion, his hands gripping her thighs hard enough that she would find the marks tomorrow and understand them. His mouth was at her throat, her jaw, the hinge of her ear, and the sounds he made were low and rough and continuous, a running commentary in breath and pressure and the specific cadence of his hips against hers that said everything the “nature of relationship” field had no vocabulary for.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders and held on.

The angle was specific. The angle was deliberate. The angle was the result, she understood now with absolute clarity, of a man who had been thinking about this for longer appropriate, and every stroke hit somewhere that made her vision fracture at the edges and her breath come out in small, stifled sounds that she pressed into his shoulder to muffle.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked at him. In the dark, his face was close enough that she could see the particular crease beside his mouth, the focused intensity in his expression, the way he watched her with the same attention he gave to problems he found genuinely interesting. He held her gaze and rolled his hips, slow and deep, and the sound that came out of her was nothing like her meeting voice.

His thumb found her again, between them, and the combination—his thumb circling, his hips moving, his eyes on hers in the dark—was not something she had defenses for. She had spent seven months building defenses and he had apparently been conducting a detailed structural analysis the entire time.

The crest came fast and broke faster. She buried her face against his neck and the sound she made into his skin was low and broken and entirely involuntary, and his name was in it somewhere—not intentional, not a choice, just the only solid piece of language left in the white noise of her own pulse—and she felt him respond to it, felt his rhythm stutter, felt his breath go rough against her hair.

He followed her over it. His hips drove forward once, twice, a third time with a force that rattled the shelf and knocked something off it, and the sound he made was low and rough and pressed into the curve of her shoulder and had nothing to do with quarterly metrics or the Baekhyun who owned every room he walked into. His whole body shuddered once, arms tightening around her, and then he went still.

They stayed like that. Her legs around his waist, his forehead resting against hers, their breath synchronizing in the close, warm dark of the closet. His shirt was damp where she’d gripped it. Her skirt was thoroughly rumpled. The shelf had stopped rattling. The box of staples sat forgotten on the floor.

“Well… HR is going to love this,” she said eventually, her voice wrecked, barely above a whisper.

Baekhyun laughed. The sound was warm and genuine and vibrated through his chest into hers, and she felt it where their bodies were still connected, intimate in a way that transcended the physical and entered territory she wasn’t prepared to map but was, apparently, willing to inhabit.

“Let them,” he said. “I have tenure.”

“You do not have tenure. This is a marketing firm. No one has tenure.”

“Then I have a very persuasive argument for why they should make an exception.”

She kissed him. Slow this time, unhurried, the particular kiss that existed in the territory between aftermath and beginning, and when she pulled back, his eyes were dark in the faint light leaking under the door, and his mouth was curved in that half-smile she had spent seven months pretending irritated her, and the warmth behind her ribs had expanded to something that felt dangerously like happiness, unqualified and specific and entirely his fault.

The quarterly report could wait. The disclosure form could wait. The entire architecture of professionalism they had been maintaining since approximately the first day she walked into this office could, she decided, wait indefinitely.

Some perfections were worth pursuing. This, against a supply closet wall at nine-forty-five on a Thursday, was already there.

[0megadawn]

Still Here: Chapter 4 - The Expendables

↳ summary: Amidst the crumbling walls of Sengnam military base, Ji-won and her elite team confront a stark new reality where survival means grappling with betrayal. While Ji-won searches for clarity, Seo-ah stumbles upon disturbing secrets that suggest a darker agenda at play. The last broadcast offers false hope, compelling the team to prepare for an escape. Their plans are shattered when they face a brutal onslaught of relentless runners. In the midst of the turmoil, they cross paths with Yoon Jae-hwan, a military logistics officer who presents them with a choice: flee the city before it faces annihilation.

↳ wc: 11K

↳ progress: Foreword, Chapter 1: The Message, Chapter 2: The Collapse, Chapter 3: Survival, Chapter 4: The Expendables

↳ a/n: oh the betrayal ↳ song recommendation: ► Oasis 

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦  ♦ ♦ ♦

The bus coughed, choked, but this time roared to life.

Ha-yoon floored the pedal. The engine screamed—so much louder than any engine had a right to—and the whole frame shook like it was about to shake itself loose from the world. Baekhyun’s teeth slammed together, and for a split second, everything vibrated: the seat, his skull, the bones in his knees. And then they were moving.

The city blurred past the scabbed windows. At first, it felt like maybe they’d get a head start—just a few yards of empty street, the busted crosswalk, the warped asphalt with its wriggling lane paint. Ha-yoon white-knuckled the steering wheel, her whole upper body hunched as if she could will the bus to bullet forward.

But there were so many of them.

From the pharmacy doors they erupted, from behind lamp posts, up and over the spines of crumpled cars, a body flinging itself from a fourth-story window. Baekhyun didn’t want to look, but his eyes were magnetized to the worst parts of the street: a man, hair matted in gluey ropes, running at double human speed on all fours, then slapping against the glass of the bus with a pop of cartilage; a woman in a nurse’s uniform, half her face caved in, sprinting with her arms windmilling behind her; a tangle of child-shapes in pajamas, crawling out from under a city bus they’d torn open from the inside.

And always, always, the sound—the bus’s engine a constant banshee wail, but behind it, the chorus of the things—their slick patter on the pavement, the dry scrape of fingernails against the windows, the stuttering shrieks that did not stop. It was more like an alarm than a scream. Baekhyun didn’t want to know how many could hear it.

A body hit the rear of the bus so hard the whole frame rocked. Ha-yoon swore. “Hold on to something!” She bellowed, and several of the EXO members instantly obeyed—Chanyeol and Jongin locking elbows, Suho and Kyungsoo bracing hands on the rails of the seats.

The next impact was worse. A shape—someone’s father, maybe, judging from the brown slacks and loafers—threw itself off a balcony, hit the roof, and bounced. Then came the avalanche. The first wave, maybe two dozen, all converged at once—the nurse, the man in pajama bottoms, a limping tangle of business suits and school uniforms. They slammed into the rolling bus and clung on, hands splayed, faces crushed against the windows like grotesque commuters. Some tried to claw their way in; some just let themselves be dragged, skin peeling away in strips on the sidewalk.

Ha-yoon swerved, barely missing a heap of twitching bodies on the cross street. The wheel nearly bucked from her hands. “I can’t see—” She slammed the brakes, hard enough that everybody in the bus launched forward, and the things on the hood skidded up and over, disappearing with a wet, spattering sound.

The side window exploded inwards.

Min-jae was on it, tackling Baekhyun’s shoulder down just before glass sprayed the aisle. Behind the sheet of glass, a thing—a teenage girl, school badge still pinned to the collar, was hurled by sheer inertia through the window, smashing face-first and pinning Baekhyun to the seat. Her jaw unhinged, lips shivering open, and Baekhyun nearly lost his mind at the sound that came out.

But then, Min-jae, cool as you like, gripped the thing by the hair, braced her chin with a hand, and drove a metal pen—where had he even gotten a pen—through her eye socket. The thing’s legs thrashed, heels cracking the seat backs, but Min-jae didn’t let go. He held it, watching it spasm and twitch, until it sagged, its weight collapsing. Only then did he let it drop to the sticky floor, dragging her by her heels and pushing her out the door.

Blood fanned across the aisle. For a moment, nothing moved. Then Baekhyun gasped, “Behind you—” and Min-jae wheeled, catching the next body with his forearm, wrestling it back through the window.

Screams. Real, this time. Chanyeol howled. Suho and Kyungsoo ducked, tangled together on the floor of the bus, faces cut with glass. But the worst was at the very back—Sehun, face pale, one eye split by a red line, blood streaming down his neck.

Ji-won saw it. She was already at the first aid kit, yanking the zip with her teeth. “Down! Hands on your head!” she barked, and Sehun, shock-drunk, let himself drop to the floor.

The blood didn’t stop. It pulsed, a bright arterial mess, and for a second, Baekhyun thought maybe Sehun would just bleed out right there, on the bloody aisle of the bus. Ji-won clamped a wadded t-shirt to the wound, pressing so hard her fingers went white. “Stay with me,” she hissed.

Sehun made a sound. It was a question—Why?—or maybe just air leaking from his lungs. His hands found the edge of the seat, and he gripped it like a drowning man.

“Is it bad?” Baekhyun said, stupidly. He could not look away from the red fountain, the broken-off glass embedded in Sehun’s cheek. “Is he—”

“He’s fine.” Ji-won didn’t look up. “He’s fine. Shut up.”

The bus kept rolling, but slower now. In the side mirrors, Baekhyun could see the things in pursuit—so many that it looked like the whole street was churning, a river of limbs and hunger. The bus stank of diesel and blood and fear. Every few seconds something else would hit the roof, or try the rear door, or run alongside and smash its fists into the glass.

After the third time, Ha-yoon screamed, “They’re going to tip us—” and the whole crew lurched left, bodies thrown against the windows. The wheels rode up on the curb, then down, slamming everyone to the right side.

Something on the roof gave way, a loud thump, and for a second, Baekhyun thought the metal would cave in.

Instead, there was a sudden, raw silence.

Bodies were hurled away, left and right, until there were no more bodies on the glass. No more screaming from outside. Only the engine, the click of Ji-won’s hands wrapping Sehun’s wound, and the raw, animal breathing of everyone still upright.

Ji-won could finally breathe. She looked around frantically, counting head, coming up one short. “Where’s Seo-ah?” she panicked.

For a second, nothing. Then a boot—Seo-ah’s—came through the opening of the broken window, followed by the rest of her. She rolled in, hit the floor hard, and lay there, panting, blood smeared across her face and arms.

Min-jae blinked. “You—where—”

Seo-ah coughed, spat a string of blood, and grinned. “On the roof,” she wheezed. “Had to make sure they weren’t going to break through.” She sat up, peeling a shard of glass from her palm with her teeth. “They’re everywhere. Not just here—up ahead, too. At the bridge.” She nodded at Ji-won. “If you want to make it across, next right. Full speed.”

Ji-won nodded once. “Copy that.”

Ha-yoon blinked twice, then slammed the pedal. The bus jerked, almost pitching the lot of them to the back again. The noise outside intensified—the chorus, the relentless slap of bodies against metal, but now it was angry, discordant, like a mob denied entry.

Baekhyun tasted iron. He wiped his mouth and realized it was blood from his own face. He didn’t remember getting cut.

The city peeled away in sheets—whole blocks of shattered glass, mangled cars fused together in the street, storefronts with all their mannequins torn out and replaced with faces, real faces, pressed to the glass and watching them go. Some of the things just stood there. Others tried to run alongside, but most simply clustered, as if waiting for some signal.

From above, the sky cut open with the sound of helicopter blades. It was a distant rhythm at first, then loud, so loud it drowned even the bus. The engine throbbed, the air whipped, and through the cracked windshield, a spotlight swept over the intersection, blinding everyone for half a heartbeat.

A voice, mechanical and godlike, roared over the city: “ALL CITIZENS—PROCEED TO DESIGNATED EMERGENCY SHELTER POINTS. REPEAT, ALL CIVILIANS—PROCEED TO DESIGNATED—” Static. Then: “DO NOT APPROACH MILITARY BARRICADES WITHOUT CLEARANCE. DO NOT—” Another snap of static, then nothing but the throb of the rotors overhead.

Ha-yoon gunned the wheel hard right. The bus nearly upended. For a moment, the whole world tilted. Baekhyun saw the floor of the bus, then the windows, then the sky, and then everything slammed down with a force that made his ears ring.

They made the turn. Up ahead, they could see the bridge, but before that—barricades, sandbags, a tangle of military vehicles with their lights still winking. Ha-yoon didn’t slow down. She aimed the bus straight at the gap in the barricade, ignoring the fact that there were two dozen of the things crawling over the wrecked cars in their path.

Baekhyun heard someone—Jongin, maybe—start to pray.

The bus hit the first car at full speed. Metal shrieked. Bodies were flung off the roof, off the hood, off the windows. The bus jerked again, then groaned, but somehow kept moving.

“GO GO GO—” Seo-ah shouted, and Ha-yoon did. She didn’t let up until they were halfway there to the bridge, the city behind them awash in the sound of the things in pursuit.

Then, and only then, did the noise start to fade.

Baekhyun stared out the shattered window. The horde had thinned, only a few of the things still followed, and those that did were losing ground, legs shredded and raw from the sprint. Beyond them, he could see the city already flooding with new shapes—mobs converging, always converging, toward whatever noise or movement offered itself next.

They hit the near end of the bridge, wheels screeching on torn concrete, and Ha-yoon yanked the bus into a stop, behind a half-collapsed parking ramp. The bus stilled. For the first time in minutes, maybe hours, there was a pocket of silence.

Ji-won held Sehun’s head steady, checking his pulse, then nodded at Min-jae. “Your turn.”

Min-jae moved in. He barely spoke, just poured antiseptic over the wound, then pressed butterfly strips across the wound, one after another, pulling the edges together with his thumbs before each one went down. Sehun didn’t flinch, or maybe he was already half gone. Either way, the bleeding slowed.

Suho sat next to Baekhyun, silent. His chest heaved, but he didn’t say a word.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo huddled near the rear exit, eyes on the open window as if waiting for another shoe, or body, to drop.

Seo-ah leaned her head back, eyes closed. “We made it,” she said, and it was almost a joke. “Surprise.”

No one laughed.

Outside, the helicopter beat the air to shreds. Its searchlight traced the blocks, sometimes swinging back over the bridge, sometimes just painting random shapes across the haze.

Then, for one moment, the voice returned.

“ATTENTION. ALL CIVILIANS—PROCEED TO THE MILITARY EMERGENCY SHELTERS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY SAFE HAVEN. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLEE. REMAIN IN PLACE. HELP IS ON THE WAY. REMAIN—IN—PLACE—”

The words repeated, less and less confident with every cycle.

Baekhyun let his head fall against the glass, the pain in his skull reminding him he was still alive. He looked at the faces in the bus—Min-jae’s bloodied hands, Ji-won’s tight jaw, Seo-ah’s crooked smile, Suho’s empty stare—and tried to remember if they’d ever been normal. He couldn’t remember if they had ever lived a day where the world wasn’t coming apart at the seams.

He thought about what it meant to be rescued, what it would even look like. He thought of the broadcast, the helicopter, the blinding searchlight, and the city’s endless chorus of monsters. He thought about the way the things seemed to freeze every time the siren went off, how they’d slow down, heads cocked as if waiting for permission.

He thought about how, for a second, it almost looked like hope.

But it wasn’t. Not really.

He pressed his hand to his face and felt the blood drying there, the cuts, the heat of it. He thought about the future, about what tomorrow would bring, and about the fact that every miracle so far had come with its own razor blade.

“Anyone still alive back there?” Seo-ah said, eyes open now, fixed on Baekhyun. “Roll call. Don’t make me count.”

Min-jae grunted. “Still here.”

Sehun mumbled something, but the sound was good enough.

Chanyeol managed a thumbs up, but didn’t look away from the window.

Suho nodded, once, slow.

Ji-won didn’t answer, just locked eyes with Seo-ah, and in that look, Baekhyun saw everything—the rage, the fear, the old wounds. And the refusal to let any of it kill them.

Even if the world wanted nothing more.

Outside, the city burned, and the helicopter was already gone.

They didn’t have long.

“Get ready to move,” Ji-won hissed, and Ha-yoon didn’t even ask where—she just jammed the bus into gear and rolled them out from the parking ramp, hugging the shadowed curb. The bridge, half a block away, looked like a junkyard—barricades, civilian cars caked in brown and black, upended steel barrels, and the flickering strobe of blue police lamps. It looked like safety, or at least the myth of it.

Then, a flare arced from behind the barricade and popped into burning daylight, painting the whole bus orange and ghosting every face in silhouette.

“Military,” said Min-jae. “I see movement on the left.”

Through the wipers, Baekhyun saw it too—a cluster of men in sand-colored camo, helmets askew, rifles raised and trembling. They were real. Human. Not monsters at all. He felt a stupid, hungry surge of relief—a raw hope that fizzed into terror the second a second flare hissed by the hood and bounced off the windshield in a splatter of red and orange.

Ha-yoon braked, half from surprise and half because Ji-won barked, “Stop. Now.”

The bus screeched, fishtailing to a halt. The street in front of the barricade emptied itself—soldiers fanned out, taking cover behind car doors and concrete dividers. One stepped forward, arms spread, rifle aimed but not yet braced to fire.

A second, more ragged voice, “DO NOT MOVE. IDENTIFY YOURSELF.”

Ji-won threw open the folding doors before the engine fully died. “Ji-won, Captain, Elite Special Missions. Five plus noncombatants. I repeat—five plus noncombatants. We have wounded.” Her words were too crisp, the syllables knifed short.

“Stay in the vehicle,” the soldier barked, but Ji-won ignored him.

She stepped out, boots slamming on the slick cement. “Requesting immediate passage. Situation behind us is Level Four. I have authorization from Command—”

Another soldier, a smaller man, face barely visible behind a riot visor, cut in. “No one crosses the bridge. Orders from the general. Everyone’s a possible vector. You want to help, you hold perimeter here. Or turn back.”

Seo-ah leaned out the window, voice dry. “Turn back? You seen what’s back there?” She jabbed a thumb at the street behind, where the first of the monsters had already rounded the block, their numbers multiplying by the second.

Ji-won strode closer, both hands raised, her whole body telegraphing I’m-not-a-threat-but-I-am-the-boss. “We’re not contaminated. I can show you our certs.”

The man didn’t move. “Doesn’t matter. Nobody’s letting you through. That’s what the barricade is for.”

Ji-won eyed the man behind him—barely out of college, gun shaking so bad it might rattle loose from his grip. “Even if you don’t let us through, you’re dead in five minutes. You see what’s coming?”

His mouth worked at the air, then settled on a script. “You’re a possible vector. We don’t have any more orders.”

He didn’t blink.

Another soldier, maybe the squad leader, judging from the color tabs on his vest, took over. “You get any closer, we shoot. Do not approach the barrier. Do not. Approach. The barrier.”

Ji-won’s jaw flexed. She said, voice almost pleasant, “You really think you can hold them off?”

The man looked back, eyes wide at the street behind Ji-won, at the horde that now pulsed and seethed at the other end of the block. “We’re not letting you pass.”

Inside the bus, the world had contracted. Every breath became a countdown. Baekhyun didn’t dare look at the others—the huddle of bruised and bleeding EXO, the blood still pooling on Sehun’s neck, Chanyeol’s white-knuckle grip on the window frame—but he heard every hitch and gasp.

Soo-jin, who hadn’t said a word since they’d stopped, whispered, “They’re stalling. They’re scared.”

Outside, Ji-won stood planted. The monsters were coming faster now. The closest ones were already picking up speed, arms pinwheeling, feet hitting the pavement in double-time. Some had no hands left. They slapped the ground with the stumps of their arms. The man in the nurse’s uniform ran bent-over, headfirst, a piston of bone and flesh. The school-uniform girl’s mouth never stopped moving—her teeth chattering, lips torn.

A third flare, closer this time, lit the world in orange and red. The military men crouched, weapons raised, and for a second it looked like the world might split open—monsters on one side, squad on the other, no one ready to move.

Then, from the edge of the river, two women in business suits sprinted at the barricade. They didn’t scream. They didn’t slow down. One of them was barefoot, her heel shredded to bone.

“Civilians,” someone muttered. “Coming in hot.”

The military man hesitated, weapon stuttering between Ji-won and the onrushing women. Ji-won didn’t. She grabbed the smaller soldier by the neck of his vest, jerked him off-balance, grabbed his rifle, and threw him to the pavement. She aimed the weapon at the squad leader. “Move.” That’s it. Just one word.

The rest of her team surged forward before the squad could even think of retaliating—Min-jae and Seo-ah vaulting the concrete divider, guns raised at eye level, Tae-ho pulling Ha-yoon from the driver’s seat and shoving her low under the wheel, Soo-jin aiming straight at the squad leader’s temple from within the bus.

The squad leader paused, arms raised, eyes fluttering between Ji-won and her team and the horde gushing in behind them, about to take the hit.

The next three seconds were a painting of chaos—one of the women hit the wire mesh at the front of the bus and bounced off, hands shredded. The other leapt the sandbags, Ji-won ducked at the exact moment, and it landed square on the squad leader’s back. Her jaw latched onto his shoulder, and he howled, twisting in a spray of blood and sweat. Another flare went off, illuminating the writhing pile—soldier, woman, and monster.

It was the signal for everything else to break.

Bodies tumbled over the barricade, the tide of monsters cresting behind them. Soldiers fired, and it made no difference; the bullets punched holes, but the things kept moving. The first line of defense collapsed, military men turning and sprinting for their lives, some leaving their rifles, others dropping even the pretense of a fight.

Ji-won saw the smaller soldier she’d thrown down scrambling backward on his elbows as a creature with half a face lunged for him. She hooked him under the arm, hauled him upright, and shoved him hard toward the open road. He stumbled once, then broke into a panicked run—rifle abandoned in the gutter, helmet askew—all dignity shed in the raw need to survive.

She and Seo-ah covered their retreat as the rest of their group swarmed through the gap he’d left behind.

“Go, now!” Ji-won screamed, and Ha-yoon scrambled back onto the wheel, jamming the key and flooring the pedal without even closing the door.

Baekhyun staggered, helping Sehun to his feet. Minseok and Jongdae grabbed the next nearest members, and all but flung themselves into the bus’s shadow as Ha-yoon throttled the engine.

A wave of bodies hit the back of the bus, this time not human at all—just a flood of broken limbs and hungry mouths. Through the rear window, Baekhyun saw the face of a monster pressed to the glass—empty eyes, skin gray and waxy, a slow bubble of blood forming at the nose. It snapped at the window, over and over, until the glass finally cracked.

The bus lurched onto the bridge, and through the open door Baekhyun could see Ji-won and Tae-ho still on the other side of the barricade—a man in a dress shirt, a woman with a child locked to her chest—and were running them hard toward the open door. They were close. Maybe ten meters. Then five. They were going to make it. Then a runner hit the woman from the side and all three of them went down together, the child still in her arms. Ji-won was already reversing course, one foot off the bridge, when Tae-ho caught her by the back of her vest with both fists and simply held. She didn’t scream. She made a sound that was worse than a scream. Tae-ho turned his face away and held on, and held on, until her body stopped pulling toward them and just shook instead. He walked her backward onto the bus. The door hissed shut. The monsters, the soldiers, the desperate civilians—they all collided in a single, ugly scrum behind the bus, the only thing separating them a dozen meters and the dying momentum of the battered city transport.

Somewhere in the fray, a gun went off, then another. The air was pure shriek, the sound of flesh giving up on itself. In the passenger bay, Chanyeol shivered, every muscle in his body rigid. “Did we leave them?” he said, voice tinny. “Did we just—”

Baekhyun didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He could only stare at the river of things boiling over the barricade, at the men who were supposed to save them now dogpiling over the concrete, at the two women in suits—still moving, even with bullet holes stitched up their spines. Up near the front of the bus, Ji-won had turned away from the window. She was looking at nothing—at the floor, at the middle distance, at whatever place people go when they can’t be where they are. Her jaw was set. Her hands were shaking. Chanyeol saw it too. He looked at Baekhyun. Neither of them said anything.

The bus shot forward, wheels fighting for grip. Ahead, nothing but bridge, and at the far end, the promise of another barricade, maybe another chance.

Inside, Min-jae checked Sehun’s pulse. Seo-ah ducked low, eyes scanning the windows for more threats. Tae-ho braced at the front, rifles up, watching for any obstacle that might end the flight.

The bus was a tomb for a full minute—no one breathed, no one moved except Ha-yoon, who hunched over the wheel and muttered to herself in a manic litany.

They broke free of the chaos. For the first time since morning, the city was behind them. Baekhyun thought he could hear the noise chasing them all the way down the bridge, but maybe that was just the inside of his own head.

Behind them, the city burned, and the only thing left alive were those lucky—or unlucky—enough to have been faster than death.

They hit the far side of the river. The barricade was unmanned; a single police car sat askew, lights dead, trunk open to the sky. Ha-yoon didn’t even bother with the brakes. She rammed the car out of the way, sending it skidding into the median. The bus shuddered, then stilled, and then there was nothing but the sound of the engine, idling. And, outside, the slow reassembly of bodies as the monsters picked themselves up and set off after the smell of survivors.

They waited, the whole group, watching the rearview as the mass of them regrouped at the foot of the bridge.

But the monsters did not cross. They simply clustered, pacing the edge, as if unsure what to do next. Some ran their hands along the railing, tracing the cold metal. Others stood and stared, unmoving, unblinking.

Soo-jin, finally breaking her silence, whispered, “They’re not following.”

Min-jae wiped his face, left a streak of red from chin to cheek. “Maybe they don’t like water.”

“No,” said Seo-ah, eyes narrowed. “They’re… afraid?”

No one wanted to know of what.

The city behind them was still on fire. The bodies at the barricade were already being eaten.

The future was up ahead, in the military shelters and whatever passed for safety in the new world.

Baekhyun slumped into the seat, and let the pain in his hands be proof that he was still breathing.

Seongnam Base sprawled at the edge of the city—barely more than a mesh of cyclone fence, prefab concrete, and watchtowers studded with floodlights. Compared to the world they’d just fled, it looked like a fortress. Compared to a real fortress, it looked like the last wish of a country that had forgotten how to survive.

They rolled up to the checkpoint with the engine still clattering, the bus’s hood venting steam like a dying animal. A pair of military police appeared, one with a palm scanner, the other with a bored glare that did not improve when he clocked the cargo. He was young—maybe Seo-ah’s age, but his face was already set in the mask of a man who had watched hope pop like a blister.

Ji-won stepped out first, showed her credentials, barked the sequence of codes that marked her as an insider. The guard’s face shifted, not to respect, but to a sort of tired resignation.

He gestured for the bus to roll forward. No inspection, no more questions.

They trundled past the checkpoint, the gates yawning open in slow, mechanized misery. Past the guardhouse, a tangle of camo-clad soldiers jogged from one warehouse to another, all of them clutching battered satchels, IV bags, or walkie-talkies that screamed with voices too fast and clipped for Baekhyun to understand.

There were people here—real people. And they were moving like the world was ending in five minutes, which it probably was.

Ha-yoon killed the engine outside what looked like a medical intake shed. The group lingered in the bus, unwilling to believe they had actually made it. Even as the air outside buzzed with floodlights and shouted orders, the inside of the bus hummed with nothing but a slow, throbbing disbelief.

Ji-won turned to the group. “Stay here,” she said. “If anyone tries to move you, show them this.” She flicked a dog tag from her vest, tossed it to Seo-ah, who snatched it from the air with a practiced ease. “We’re top priority. They’ll process us as a unit.”

Seo-ah twirled the tag on its chain, then cracked a smile. “Oh, captain. Thought you were sick of us.”

Ji-won’s mouth curled, but she was already halfway off the bus, boots hitting the tarmac with a wet slap.

Soo-jin followed, moving with the gait of someone who had memorized the shapes of every shadow. She circled the bus, eyes raking the perimeter, then nodded once and stalked after Ji-won. The rest of them waited—five, ten, twenty beats of silence broken only by the faint rattle of glass still clinging to the bus’s windows.

Min-jae set to work on Sehun immediately. He braced the boy’s head with one hand, then pulled a suture kit from his belt with the other. “You want a sedative?” he asked, like a bartender offering a double.

Sehun just stared at the floor, lips white and bloodless. “Just do it.”

Min-jae made a noise, then threaded the needle and went to work. The stitching was fast and clean, barely a wince. Sehun didn’t scream or flinch, just held his breath and counted the seconds between each pass of the needle.

Baekhyun watched it all with a strange detachment, as if it were happening behind a screen. Every so often, he’d catch the sound of the base outside—a woman crying, a man’s voice crackling over the PA, the metallic staccato of boots on the runways—and the memories would spike up, sharp and unwelcome.

Chanyeol was the first to speak. “Is this it?” His voice was too loud, weirdly clear in the silence. “Are we… safe?”

Ha-yoon, fingers still trembling, said, “Depends on what you mean by safe.” She stared out the window, at the parade of ambulances and gurneys shuttling back and forth from the intake center. “Nothing’s coming across that bridge, but…” She trailed off.

Suho finished for her: “But nothing’s stopping them from coming down the river. Or through the tunnels. Or…” He caught himself, squeezed his eyes shut, then laughed in a way that sounded like a cough. “Sorry. Morale duty.”

For a few moments, they all tried on the idea of safety. Baekhyun felt it like a fever—intense, delirious, and gone as soon as he recognized it.

Min-jae finished the last suture and wiped his hands on his vest. “You’re good,” he said to Sehun. “Scar’ll be brutal, but you’ll have something to talk about in interviews.”

Sehun didn’t answer, just pressed a finger to the stitched gash, then let his hand drop to his lap. The blood was already crusting black on his skin.

Jongdae, who had said nothing since the barricade, finally leaned forward. “They’re not going to let us leave, are they?” He kept his eyes on the floor. “The army. They’ll lock us down.”

No one corrected him.

Chanyeol started to say something—a joke, maybe, or a prayer—but Minseok interrupted with a flat, deadpan, “Better than being dinner.” He looked at Jongdae, then Baekhyun, and back to the window. “Or turning into… one of those.”

Sehun said, suddenly, “If it was you. If you were turning.” He didn’t look at anyone. “Would you want to know?”

There was a silence. Baekhyun felt it coil inside his stomach.

Then Seo-ah, who had been leaning against the rear exit, popped the door and slid onto the tarmac. She stretched, back arched, and let out a sound that was half-groan, half-laugh.

“Where are you going?” Chanyeol called after her.

“Air,” she said. “Unless you’d rather marinate in dead things all day.” She kicked a chunk of glass off the step, then sauntered off, hands in her pockets.

Ha-yoon stood, wavering for a second, then followed. “Wait up, Seo-ah—don’t get sniped by the snipers.”

Seo-ah’s laugh was sharp, like the crack of a whip.

Inside the bus, the rest of them sat in a kind of stunned inertia.

Min-jae started bandaging his own wrist, the cut from the girl’s teeth still oozing at the edges. Baekhyun stared at the web of bruises blooming under Min-jae’s sleeve and wanted to ask if it hurt, but he knew better. Instead, he found his phone, thumbed the camera to life, and snapped a photo of the base through the dirty window. Not a selfie, not even a shot of anyone in the squad—just the ragged edge of the wire fence, the upturned flag in the wind, the line of medics hosing blood off the concrete.

He didn’t know why he did it. Maybe so the world would remember. Maybe so he could.

Jongdae pressed his head to the glass, voice muffled: “Do you think they’ll let us call home?”

No one had an answer.

Across the tarmac, Ji-won was arguing with a man in a starched uniform. The man was taller than her, but he leaned back, eyes sliding away from her face, as if her words might be contagious. Soo-jin loomed over his shoulder, and every so often she would tilt her head, as if tracking something none of them could see.

The conversation was heated, Ji-won’s fists clenched at her side, and the man’s face grew redder with each exchange. In the end, Ji-won jabbed a finger at the intake building, then stormed off in that direction. The man watched her go, then turned to one of the guards and made a slashing gesture across his throat.

Minseok said, “She’s pissed,” as if anyone needed clarification.

Chanyeol shifted closer to Baekhyun, the movement almost childlike. “They’ll let us leave, right?” His voice pitched high, nearly lost in the noise outside.

Baekhyun wanted to say yes. Instead, he just watched Ji-won vanish into the base’s concrete heart.

For a while, there was nothing to do but watch. The sun was setting behind a haze of burning districts, and the base’s perimeter shimmered in the heat. Helicopters darted in and out, sometimes ferrying cargo, sometimes just hovering as if waiting for something to happen. Every now and then, the loudspeakers would bark a new order, a new evacuation, a new set of lies for whoever was left listening.

Jongdae whispered, “My wife’s in Busan. My children.” He turned the words over like stones, as if by naming them he could make them real again. A tremor ran through his voice. “I don’t even know if they’re still there.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, eyes fixed on the wavering horizon, as though he might spot them in the distance.

Minseok placed a hand on his shoulder, quick and awkward, then let go. Jongdae jolted as if woken from a dream.

They waited.

Night came. The base’s lights never went off, the world outside fell away into an urgency. The noise, the shouting, the endless pulse of emergency—none of it receded, leaving the squad with only the hum of the engine and the whisper of breath in the dark.

At some point, a new officer approached the bus—a woman this time, face hard as glass. She rapped the window and waited for someone to open up.

When no one moved, she barked, “You are to remain in your vehicle until further notice. Medical teams will be by to process and decontaminate. Is anyone exhibiting symptoms?”

Min-jae answered, “Negative. All injuries are field-treated. No fever, no neurological impairment, no sign of conversion.” His voice was clinical, automatic.

She checked a list, then said, “You’re lucky. If you’d come from the north, we’d be burning the bus right now.” She looked at them, face unreadable. “Stay put.”

She turned and disappeared into the glow of the intake tents.

Chanyeol watched her disappear into the glow of the intake tents. “Not even a ‘welcome to the end of the world’?” he joked, voice threadbare.

Baekhyun thought about it, and realized he preferred it that way.

Later, desperation overtook Jongdae. He squeezed through the bus door and flagged down a passing medic. “Please—can I call home? Just let me know they’re safe.” His voice cracked, eyes brimming with tears. “I want to go back. I need to see them.”

The medic didn’t look up, just shook his head and moved on.

“Are the comm lines down?” Jongdae called after him, louder now, panic rising in his chest.

The medic paused, met Jongdae’s gaze, then said quietly, “For civilians? Yeah.” He didn’t explain further and walked off.

Jongdae sank onto the step, head in his hands. “They’re not even pretending to care, are they?” he whispered, voice ragged.

Baekhyun watched the floodlights rake the empty sky, the flags trembling in the wind, the lines of vehicles all pointed in one direction—away from the city, away from anyone left behind.

He raised his phone again, and took another photo. This time, he left the flash off. He wanted the world to look as empty as it felt.

The air outside was colder than expected. It bit through Seo-ah’s jacket, stinging at the old blood still caked to her arm. She walked fast, as if the cold could burn out what adrenaline had left behind. Behind her, Ha-yoon trotted, hands stuffed in pockets, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow.

The base at night was a new kind of animal—awake, alert, every sense stretched to a snapping point. It should have been the safest place on earth. Instead, it felt like walking the deck of a ship that had already begun to sink.

“Seo-ah, you see that?” Ha-yoon whispered, jerking her chin at a cargo shed across the avenue.

Seo-ah squinted. Two men in grease-stained overalls were hauling drums of something flammable—no markings, just black tape—out to a barrel fire behind the warehouse. They rolled the drums into the flames, popped the lids, and stepped back as paper and plastic spat and curled. The smell was acrid, chemical, wrong.

A hundred meters further on, a line of men in suits hustled across the tarmac. They moved as a single file, like children on a field trip, but each wore a crisp lanyard badge—some with little blue flags, some with stars. None of them looked at the two women watching from the shadows. Each was shepherded by a soldier, a hand on the elbow, never slowing.

Ha-yoon said, “That’s a lot of politicians for a military base.”

“Not your average type of survivor,” Seo-ah said. She watched the group climb into a waiting helicopter, blades already spooling up to speed. There was no rush, no panic—just a bored precision, as if this had always been the plan.

Behind them, another group in orange jumpsuits dragged a pair of battered servers out of an office block. When they reached the pavement, one man took a sledgehammer and started beating the drives to powder, not pausing even as the metal shrieked. The others pried open the cases and scooped out the guts, dumping circuit boards and cables into a burn barrel.

The strobe of the fire painted their faces ghoulish, every swing of the hammer a death knell for something nobody would ever read again.

Ha-yoon’s mouth went dry. “They’re not even pretending, are they?”

Seo-ah shook her head. “They’re prepping for a blackout. Anything and everything that mattered goes up in smoke.”

They ducked behind a generator shed as a pair of MPs walked past, rifles slung lazy but eyes sharp. The guards didn’t look left or right—just straight ahead, as if their orders were to see nothing but the path.

Seo-ah pressed her back to the cold metal wall. Her boot kicked something half-buried in gravel— a battered wooden crate toppled over, its contents spilled: shattered glass, signed papers, and a black folder stamped “PROJECT HONGDAE – CLASSIFIED.” She snatched it up, heart hammering. The folder’s edges were frayed, pages within trembling. She flipped it open—blurry diagrams, redacted lines, a map of Seoul’s underground network labeled in English and Hangul.

A sudden blast from the riverside—low, heavy, then a chorus of three rapid shots. The perimeter towers didn’t flinch, but a cluster of soldiers ran that way, hands gripping flashlights and sidearms. One aimed a light at the water, then dropped the beam. Whatever had happened out there was either normal, or nobody’s problem. In her rush, the folder slipped from her fingers and skidded across the gravel, disappearing into the shadows near the fence. The wind gusted, carrying smoke and the faint rustle of pages fluttering away.

“Damn it,” Seo-ah whispered.

They moved out before the guards noticed, adrenaline pulsing. Through the wire fence, Seo-ah saw the line of waiting buses and vans. None were loading civilians. None even idled. Instead, cargo crates were stacked and re-strapped, red tape slapped across each container, soldiers barking inventory and scanning barcodes as if the real war was to keep the receipts straight.

“Think they’ll let us leave?” Ha-yoon said, voice flat.

Seo-ah smiled without humor. “Not until they’ve finished moving everything worth saving.” She pointed with her chin at the main airstrip. “Watch that.”

A line of armored cars rolled up, each one guarded by men with faces too pretty to be grunts. They stood at parade rest as the back doors opened and a single, ancient-looking man in civilian clothes was lifted out, shoulders hunched, flanked by four more in pressed suits. The MPs saluted, the man nodded, and the convoy moved on, heading straight for a bunker near the base’s heart.

Ha-yoon snorted. “I’ll bet five dollars that’s a gold bar in his briefcase.”

“Ten,” Seo-ah said. “He’s got the launch codes too.”

For a long minute, neither spoke. The wind lifted a fresh wave of smoke from the burning drums, and somewhere up the avenue a PA system bleated a new directive—sounded urgent, but nobody moved any faster.

They circled back toward the bus, moving low behind a row of fuel trucks. Halfway down, they passed a pair of soldiers kneeling at a drain, pouring bleach and a long trail of fluid into the gutter. The smell of rot was overwhelming.

“You see any ordinary people?” Ha-yoon asked, quietly.

“Not one,” said Seo-ah.

They waited at the edge of a prefab shed, watching the night play out. Helicopters spun up, ferried out diplomats and uniformed officers. Every half-hour another group in black coats jogged to a waiting truck, which rolled out the gates with headlights off, leaving only tire marks behind. And in all that time, not a single civilian in sight.

Ha-yoon glanced sideways. “What do you think Ji-won is gonna say?”

“Nothing good,” Seo-ah said, and meant it.

They didn’t go back to the bus right away. They lingered, watching the pattern repeat. Seo-ah’s eyes drifted once toward the fence line, toward the dark patch of gravel where the folder had skidded and vanished. Whatever PROJECT HONGDAE had been, the wind had it now. She looked away. There was no doubt at all, the base was not a sanctuary. It was the last act of a government that only believed in saving itself.

The briefing room was a bunker carved out of time—a dozen officers hunched over a map lit by the sickly glow of emergency lamps, the air so dense with smoke and old breath it felt like a grave. Ji-won entered, stood at the door until someone noticed her, and then moved forward, boots silent on the battered linoleum.

At the head of the table was Commander Park, his uniform pressed, but the face above it wilted by weeks of no sleep. He nodded to Ji-won, then gestured at the map: all of Korea rendered in grayscale, tiny dots for major cities, now blinking red or blacked out entirely. A few yellow pins remained, clustered in the south.

The conversation was as dead as the cities. Nobody talked about fighting back, or retaking ground. All the language was math—capacity, fuel, grid time, routes. Every sentence ended with “if we’re lucky.”

Park broke the lull. “You saw Seoul?”

“Yes, sir.” Ji-won didn’t elaborate. If you’d seen it, you knew.

“It’s worse further north,” someone muttered. “All comms dark. Units gone rogue, some helping with evacuation, some…just gone.”

Commander Park’s eyes swept the map. “All operational control is finished. Every division is acting independently. What you saw—” He nodded toward the door. “That’s the best any unit is managing.”

Ji-won took it in. None of this was a surprise, not after the last day, but the simplicity of it cut deeper than she expected.

He motioned to an aide, who produced a sheaf of papers. “These are the evacuation plans.” His voice was stripped to the chassis—nothing left but gears. “There are no more mass airlifts. There’s barely any fuel left for the command. The last helicopters leave in ninety minutes. I suggest you and your squad take the last one out.”

Ji-won thumbed the packet. It was lists—names, aircraft tail numbers, warehouses, VIP credentials, VIPs, VIPs, VIPs. She saw exactly three columns for civilians, and every one was redlined. There was no section for reunification. No section for survivors, or what to do with them.

She looked up. “Where are the civilian manifests?” The words fell flat.

Park’s mouth was a line. “We’re not told. The orders are just to preserve command.”

“Not a single shelter?”

Park shook his head. “The ones that lasted longer than a day—burned from the inside out. Incheon, Busan, Daegu…all report contact with infected.”

Ji-won stared at the map. Of all the lit pins, only one was still steady. “And the one in Suwon?”

“Private. VIP only.”

The room was silent. Nobody had to say it out loud—the government was gone, or worse, it had decided the rest of them weren’t worth saving.

A rustle at the door, then a shadow swept the room—a man in general’s stars, moving like he’d been carved out of granite. He didn’t sit. He didn’t need to.

He looked at Park, then at Ji-won, and with no preamble, said, “Your unit is off the hooks. From here on out, your orders are to preserve yourselves and your expertise.” He waited for her to object. She didn’t. “If you have a plan to survive, use it.”

Park looked away, almost flinched.

The general’s eyes were the color of old metal. “This is not an abandonment. It’s a prioritization. Command infrastructure is the only hope for the future. You are the future, if there’s to be one.”

Ji-won nodded, once. “Sir.”

The general left.

Park exhaled. His hands, which had been rock steady, now trembled as he reached for his own packet.

He flicked his fingers, stripping the Elite patch from his sleeve, and handed it to her. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re now the highest authority your people have.”

Ji-won took it, fingers closing around the stiff fabric. “What about you?”

“I’m on the next flight out.” He managed a hollow laugh. “If it makes you feel better, it’s only got six seats and four are going to politicians.”

Ji-won forced her own smile. “You think the people, the civilians, can make it out?”

“Not a chance in hell.” But then, quietly, “Maybe. If anyone does, it’ll be you.” He waited for a couple of morbid seconds before urging, voice barely a volume above a whisper, “Take the chopper, Captain.”

“Thanks for your consideration, Sir. But I’ll prefer to stay.” Ji-won stiffened her back. “And from how much, or how little, I know Seo-ah and my team, they’ll choose to stay as well.”

He nodded, checked his watch as he stood, and straightened his uniform for the last time.

“Ji-won,” he said, voice softer than the map could measure, “you can’t save everyone.”

“I know,” she said, dry. “But I have to try.”

He didn’t answer. Just nodded, and walked out, the patchwork of stars fading in the yellow light.

“Oh and…” he says, not fully facing her, “Leave the perimeter within an hour, not a second later. Letting you know ‘cause you were my favorite.” He leaves with a wink.

She waited until the last echo of his steps died, then swept the paperwork into a folder, jammed it under her arm, and left the bunker.

Outside, the base was already breaking itself down. The line of cars from earlier was now a ragged column, every bus and truck idling with engines hot, every window staring forward at nothing. In the distance, the first helicopter beat the sky to ribbons, its lights blinking away any last trace of hope.

Ji-won walked straight to her team’s bus. She climbed the steps in silence, didn’t look at anyone. Just held out the patch to Seo-ah, who took it, and didn’t say a word.

Ha-yoon watched her, all the shine gone from her face. “What did they say?” she asked, already knowing.

Ji-won set her jaw. “We’re on our own.”

No one was surprised.

But it hurt all the same.

She let that land, then, “There’s a helicopter on the pad. Leaves in under an hour. Enough room.” She kept her voice flat, clinical. “If you have someone to get back to—parents, a partner, anyone—now’s the time. No questions, no hard feelings.”

The bus absorbed the offer in silence.

Then Seo-ah tilted her head, as if working through a very simple equation. “Let me think.” She made a show of counting on her fingers. “Mom’s in Daejeon. Dad remarried, lives in Ulsan. My cat’s dead.” She looked up. “So basically my whole family is already on this bus.”

Ji-won’s mouth moved before she could stop it—barely a smile, but real.

She hadn’t needed to ask. She’d known the answer before she’d even climbed the steps. But she’d had to give them the door, had to watch each of them choose not to walk through it. That was the only way she could lead them into what came next.

One by one, the others settled back into their seats—not with resignation, but with the particular stillness of people who had already made up their minds before the question was asked. Even EXO—strangers, still, in almost every sense—had stayed in their seats.

Nobody moved for the chopper. Nobody even looked toward it.

“Alright,” Ji-won said quietly. “Then we have work to do.”

The speakers outside the bus squawked to life. A new voice, this one genderless and smooth as glass, repeated the same phrase: “Remain where you are. Emergency services are en route. Do not attempt to leave your assigned area.” It played on a loop, undiminished, as if the repetition alone might hold the base together.

No one inside the bus moved. Ji-won stood with her hands braced against the dashboard, eyes locked on the thirteen individuals, her team. Ahead of her, Seo-ah perched on the back of a seat, spinning the Elite patch around her finger like a coin she didn’t want to spend.

For a while, there was nothing but the voice, the distant rumble of engines, and the wind. Then Jongin said, quietly, “They’re coming.”

At first, no one answered. Then Chanyeol, voice hollowed out, said, “Who?”

Jongin shook his head, his gaze fixed on the rows of floodlights outlining the fence. “Them. The things. The Runners.”

Ha-yoon, from her perch at the end of the aisle, snapped to attention. “What makes you say that?”

Jongin’s voice stayed low. “It happened at the Yeongdeungpo base. Every time there was a siren, they stopped hunting. They just…listened. Then they all moved together. Like they knew where to go.” He looked at Ji-won. “The siren’s a magnet. They’ll come to it.”

Baekhyun’s skin went tight. Around him, no one shifted, no one scoffed—just the flat, absorbing quiet of people adding something up. He thought of the helicopter lifting off, the sirens, the moment the bus engine had turned over and every head outside the windows had swiveled toward the sound. Not randomly. All at once, in the same direction.

Ha-yoon chewed on her lip, thinking. “There was a bulletin on the old network,” she said. “Before it crashed. Said not to use sirens, not to attract noise, or attention.” She looked at the ceiling, searching for the words. “They’re blind. But maybe they don’t see like us.”

Chanyeol asked, “So why would the army do it? Use the sirens?”

No one answered that. Maybe the army didn’t know yet.

Or maybe they did?

A doubt formed in Ji-won’s mind. “Get ready. We’re leaving.” Ji-won’s voice cracked across the bus. “Tae-ho, shut her down. We’re leaving the bus behind. Snag that military truck out front.” She didn’t elaborate. The base had already decided what it was taking. She was just returning the favor.

Even now, in the last hour of the world, her voice could fill a room. The rest of the squad snapped to attention, muscle memory overriding fear. Min-jae threw open the med bag, checked the stocks, then made a circuit to patch up anyone leaking.

EXO moved slower, but they moved. Suho started handing out protein bars from the glove compartment. Kyungsoo grabbed bottled water from the stow bin. Jongin found himself tying down the first-aid kits with duct tape, even though he didn’t know why.

Tae-ho was already halfway off the step, wind whipping his jacket, eyes locked on the armored chariot idling beyond the burning barrels. He vanished into the gloom.

Only Seo-ah lingered. She watched the base through the cracked window, taking it in—the line of vans, the burning barrels, the ever-thinning trickle of people still moving with purpose. The voice kept repeating. The night kept getting darker.

Ha-yoon sidled up to her, eyes darting from the patch to Seo-ah’s face and back again. “Do you think anyone is left?”

“In this base?” Seo-ah shrugged. “Only the ones who have nowhere else to go.” She let the patch drop to the floor, then bent to retrieve it. “But who knows what happens after this.”

The words vibrated between them, the threat of empty future heavier than the news that had killed the world.

Min-jae finished bandaging Chanyeol’s cut, then braced a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t eat anything until we’re moving. If you get sick, we’re out of supplies.” He said it soft, almost gentle. It wasn’t a threat, just another fact in the list that would keep them alive.

Jongdae cleared his throat. “Do we even know where to go once we’re out?”

Baekhyun expected Ji-won to answer, but she only stared at the map on the dash, tracing the veins of highway running out from the base. None of them were labeled. None of them went anywhere that mattered.

Finally, Seo-ah said, “You said south was safer, right? I say we pick a direction and never look back. See what’s left.” Her voice was light, the joke underneath it was already dead.

Minseok pointed through the windshield. “If they really are coming for the sirens, shouldn’t we wait until they pass?”

Ji-won lifted her chin. “They’ll bring the next horde straight to that fence. We steal distance now, maybe shake them for good.” She folded the map with wary fingers. “Something tells me we shouldn’t wait to find out.”

Moments later Tae-ho reappeared, dust on his boots and a grin curling his lips. Behind him, the nine-ton truck’s engine growled like a beast waking. “It’s ours. No guards left awake to stop me.”

Ji-won nodded, and that was the end of it. “Everyone pack what you need. Nothing you can’t carry.” She looked at EXO, who seemed ready to protest, but then didn’t. “We go in ten.”

Ha-yoon, already halfway down the aisle, shot a glance at Seo-ah. “You want the patch?”

Seo-ah turned it over in her hand, then slipped it into her pocket. “It’ll look good in my eulogy.”

Even in the dark, Jongin’s mouth twitched. “Don’t say that.”

Seo-ah grinned, teeth bared. “It’s the only thing they can’t take from us. The punchlines.”

Min-jae zipped up the med kit, then slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Ji-won, waiting for the next step. She stared at her hands for a moment, the fingers shaking, then flexed them until the tremor vanished.

She said, “Let’s go.”

The squad lined up at the door, eyes on the horizon. In the distance, the sirens pulsed, calling out across the dark. None of them looked back. Not even once.

The first scream tore the night open. Not a siren, not a broadcast, but a real human noise—raw, jagged, the sound of skin tearing from a living throat.

Ji-won didn’t even flinch. She was already out the bus, rifle up, sweeping the lot as the second and third screams layered over the first. From the guard tower, a flare went up—blood-red, stuttering, urgent. The light painted the camp in stripes, shadows leaping and shrinking as shapes moved everywhere at once.

In the chaos, Seo-ah slammed open the rear hatch of the truck, her voice cutting through the panic, “Load everything! We’re out of time!” Ha-yoon and Min-jae fell into motion, hauling bags of rations, med kits, ammo, dragging them over the curb to a waiting flatbed truck. EXO followed, clumsy in their fear but moving anyway—Baekhyun shouldered three packs at once, Kyungsoo clutching the kit with both hands as if it might keep him safe.

Jongdae tripped at the ramp and nearly went down. Chanyeol caught him, then shoved him hard toward the truck. “Move!”

Then the runners hit the fence.

At first, it was just two—maybe three—hunched and faceless, wet with river slime. They ran straight at the barbed wire, hands clamping the metal and climbing in a blur, feet never stopping. When the first one reached the top, it flung itself over, landing on its face, rolling up with teeth snapping, and set off again.

The MPs guarding the checkpoint emptied their sidearms in its direction. The bullets barely slowed it. Another hit the pavement, jaw dangling, blood bubbling from the mouth. It screamed and kept coming.

Then came the second wave. Dozens, maybe more, popping out of the night like bubbles from black water. The screams doubled, then trebled. Civilians ran for the trucks, for the sheds, for anywhere that might feel like an escape.

Min-jae saw one man make the fatal mistake of calling out for his comrade. He was tackled before he finished the word, arms torn from the sockets, the body still shuddering as the runner went for his face.

Ji-won said, “Get on the truck,” but no one had to be told.

Tae-ho was the first one up. He hoisted himself onto the flatbed, then started yanking the others up after him—Baekhyun first, then Kyungsoo, then Minseok, each one thrown into the bed like cargo sacks. Seo-ah and Ha-yoon jammed themselves into the carriage, hands white on the dash.

The engine refused to start.

Ha-yoon slammed the key again. “Come on, come on—not again!”

From the shadows, a man in logistics camo appeared, hoisting a jerrycan in one hand, a battered shotgun in the other. He ducked behind the truck, breath fogging in the cold.

“Long time, Han Seo-ah,” he said, voice surprisingly calm. “Didn’t think I’d see you outside a war zone.”

She grinned. “You call this peace time, Jae-hwan?”

Yoon Jae-hwan, last seen floating black-market cigarettes to her old team in Hongdae, looked exactly as she remembered—face lined by stress and too much sun, eyes made for not sleeping. He offered her the can. “This truck’s dry. They drained every tank before lockdown.” He tossed her a key. “Use that. Or stay for dinner.”

She filled the tank with shaking hands, then cranked the engine. The truck snarled to life, exhaust coughing smoke. Jae-hwan ducked into the passenger seat, tipping his hat, and grinned through the window at Ji-won and the rest.

“Need an exit strategy, Captain?” he asked, not waiting for a response.

Ji-won nodded. “We head south. Avoid the main roads. You know any spots?”

He laughed. “I made the maps.” He handed her a folder—paper, not digital, because nothing digital lasted anymore. “Marked the hot zones, the dead ones, and places no one will come looking for a week.” He eyed her, the squad, and the EXO boys all huddled in the back. “You got anyone left?”

“Just us,” Ji-won said, and it was the truest thing she’d ever spoken.

Behind them, the runners tore through the last line of MPs. At least three broke off and sprinted for the truck, feet slapping, hands dragging along the ground for speed. In the back, Ha-yoon slammed the gas and twisted the wheel. The truck fishtailed, nearly threw Ha-yoon out of the seat, but it snapped straight and shot down the lane.

The runners followed, two flanking, one right behind. It hit the tailgate, scrambled up, and for a second, Min-jae thought it would make it into the bed. Tae-ho met it at the lip, booted it square in the chest. It dropped, but got up immediately, started after them again, face caved in but eyes burning.

Yoon Jae-hwan popped the window open and let loose a shell of buckshot. The first runner’s skull exploded. The second caught some in the throat, tumbled down and vanished. The third kept running, for a hundred meters, before finally collapsing, twitching in the road.

For a moment, the only sound was the engine and the wind.

Jae-hwan loaded another shell, eyes steady on the horizon. “So, you want to tell me what’s in Seoul?” he asked. “Heard it went Level Four, then nothing.”

Ji-won told him, in short, colorless sentences—what she’d seen, who was left, what wasn’t. He listened, but never looked away from the road.

When she finished, he said, “Heard they’re planning to bomb every major city before dawn. Seoul’s on the A-list, province-wide afterward.” He eyed Ji-won who looked back at him with a flicker of sadness in her eyes, “Starting with the Seongnam base. In exactly ten minutes.”

Ji-won looked ahead at the road but didn’t say anything. The bus went deathly silent. They understood now. The sirens, the helicopters, the baseless promises of shelter. If they had not driven out by now, then…

“You have a plan?” Seo-ah asked finally.

He shrugged. “Stick to the mountains. Avoid the highways. Don’t answer any more broadcasts. They’re no good.”

From the bed, Chanyeol spoke up. “What do you mean, ‘bomb the city’?”

Jae-hwan gave him a look that was almost kind. “It means what it means kid. Means don’t go back. Save yourselves.”

At the edge of the city, Ji-won twisted in her seat, faced the others. “Anyone not clear on what just happened?” Her voice was even, but her hands shook on the grip of her rifle.

No one spoke.

She said, “This is it. There’s no cavalry. No more next stops. From now on, we are the plan.” She looked at Jae-hwan. “Right?”

He hesitated. Then shook his head, eyes hard. “Actually, I’m staying.”

Panic crackled in Seo-ah’s gasp. “What? You can’t—”

Jae-hwan slipped the shotgun free. “Time’s up for me kid. But I’ll pin them down here. Give you enough head start.” He offered her a small, tired grin. “Go. Live to see the mountains.”

“You can’t ask us to—” Ji-won’s grip tightened on the folder.

He winked, cocked the shotgun. “It has been a pleasure working with you, Captain.”

They dropped him off a few meters ahead. As Ha-yoon kicked the truck into gear, Ji-won cast one last glance at Jae-hwan standing in the dust, offering a last salute. He let off a single round at the oncoming runners, the blast echoing like a challenge.

They drove through the outskirts, the base receding behind them. No one spoke. Then the horizon behind them went white—not the orange crawl of fire but a flat, total white, the kind that erases shadows. The shockwave hit the truck like a fist through the chassis, rattling teeth, and the sound came a half-second later, a single enormous syllable that swallowed everything. In the mirrors, a column of black smoke climbed where the base had been. Baekhyun’s lips were moving. Kyungsoo had his eyes shut, hands pressed together in his lap. Nobody said anything about it. There was nothing to say. They just watched, as the place they once called home came apart in pieces, then all at once.

The city behind them dissolved into roar and flame. They drove into the black, the map clutched in Ji-won’s hand—and a promise burning in her chest that they wouldn’t stop until they’d honored his sacrifice.

They took the back roads out of Seongnam, every kilometer jarring a new ache into the battered truck’s frame. Tae-ho drove with his eyes fixed on the white line, hands steady, never once looking back. Seo-ah rode shotgun, rifle resting in her lap. In the back, the others were packed shoulder to shoulder, limbs overlapping, every movement turning bruises into memories.

Outside, the world was empty—no headlights, no horns, not even the sound of dogs. Just the wind and the distant flicker of fire behind them, the afterglow of a city that had finally burned itself out.

Ji-won hadn’t said a word since the gates. She sat in the last row, hands laced, her head pressed against the window. Every so often, she would lift her eyes to the sky, following the arc of a distant helicopter as it made its lazy spiral toward the horizon. The rotor blades were silent at this distance, but the image was loud: a flock of politicians and VIPs, leaving everyone else behind.

Expendable. The word hammered at her with every bounce of the truck.

Ahead, Ha-yoon’s voice cut the silence, high and nervous, “Does anyone want coffee? There’s a thermal in the bag. Might be the last we see of it.”

Nobody answered. Not right away.

Seo-ah rolled her head, looked back at Ji-won. “Must sting, huh? Finding out Command’s not your fairy-tale daddy after all.” The words were flippant, but something raw buzzed underneath.

Ha-yoon whipped around, “Seo-ah, shh. Not now.” Her voice splintered the cold.

Seo-ah smiled, unkind. “Just saying. Maybe next time we can tattoo ‘Expendable’ across our foreheads. Save them the trouble.” She looked at Ji-won, eyes bright and mean, waiting for a fight.

Ji-won didn’t move.

Ha-yoon batted Seo-ah’s arm extravagantly. Turning towards Ji-won, she said, “Unnie, I’m sure they had their reasons,” voice as delicate as glass.

Seo-ah barked a laugh. “Yeah. To save their own asses.”

Finally, Minseok reached across the flatbed, clamped a hand over Seo-ah’s mouth. Not hard, but enough. She let him.

The truck sped on, lurching over potholes and dead animals, the engine’s rasp growing fainter as the city shrank behind them. They passed the wreck of an ambulance, doors still flapping, the word “HOPE” scrawled in red across the hood. Past it, nothing but darkness.

Overhead, the helicopter lights faded, then vanished completely.

In the back, Chanyeol closed his eyes. Jongdae rested his chin on his knees, hands trembling. Jongin didn’t even blink.

The world behind them was gone. The world ahead was blank.

Ji-won turned her face to the cold glass, let the word echo until it dulled to nothing.

Expendable.

They didn’t stop driving. Not even when the next round of screams started up, far behind, but catching fast.

[0megadawn]

Still Here: Chapter 3 - Survival

↳ summary: Inside the ominous Yeongdongpo police base, the elite team and EXO face a desperate situation as they attempt to escape. Tensions rise as Seo-ah presses Ji-won with difficult questions, forcing her to confront secrets that threaten their fragile trust. EXO is left wondering - what does Level Four really mean? Could they really trust any of them?

↳ wc: 12.5K

↳ progress: Foreword, Chapter 1: The Message, Chapter 2: The Collapse, Chapter 3: Survival

↳ a/n: mwahahahaha!!

Min-jae’s kit snapped open, the sound tiny but fatal in the dark. He braced a knee against the concrete and unrolled a sodden towel, laying out vials, wipes and a staple gun that glinted in the dark. The others—Ji-won, Ha-yoon, Tae-ho and EXO—huddled in a loose spiral, backs to the wall, faces bleached to a sickly turquoise by the glowstick wedged in a crack above them.

“Everyone. Sit,” he said, not a command, just gravity, and they did. No one argued—not even Ji-won, whose expression, somewhere between collapse and calculation, registered every micro-move in the room.

He started with Tae-ho, tilting the man’s head into the dim light. The cut above his eye was shallow but long, a ragged split that had clotted to a gummy black. Min-jae blotted it with the towel, the smell of blood and alcohol filling the air.

Ha-yoon watched, chewing her lip, then inched closer, hands hovering, useless. “You need stitches, Oppa. I can see the bone.”

“Barely a scratch.” Tae-ho’s smile was a quick flicker.

“Liar,” she whispered, but let it drop.

"It looks worse than it is."

She folded her arms into an exaggerated pout while Min-jae disinfected the wound, pinched it with butterfly strips. He worked in silence, methodical, the way his hands always did even when the rest of him vibrated with nerves.

"What are these things?" she muttered. "Where did they even come from?"

No one answered her. Her voice grew quieter. "… Where are all the people?"

Tae-ho finally spoke. "I don't think those were…things."

Everyone looked up. "They were wearing uniforms… like us. I think I saw a name tag on one of them."

Silence.

Min-jae finished him with a strip of gauze, then turned to Seo-ah.

Seo-ah was slumped against a breaker box, jacket and shirt both torn and stuck to her skin with dried blood. Her eyes didn’t quite focus, and the way her breathing hitched every few seconds told Min-jae more than she ever would.

“Your turn, Han.”

She didn’t move.

He crouched in front of her, pulled her arm out gently. The bite mark was ugly—a crescent of torn skin, the flesh around it mottled purple and yellow. The staples on her back had held, but the flesh under them wanted to give. He pressed around the wound, watched her flinch, gauged the reaction. Bad, but not fatal. He doused the pad with alcohol, then pressed it to the wound until she snarled and tried to pull away.

“Hold still.” His voice didn’t rise. “You want to keep the arm, or not?”

She bit down on something that might have been a laugh.

“So, if they were once people…” she rasped, head tilting to the bite on her arm, “does that mean I am getting the zombie expansion pack?”

Nothing. Not a single laugh.

“Too soon?” She chuckled.

She turned to Baekhyun. This whole time, Baekhyun had been staring, the muscles in his jaw trembling until he realized Seo-ah was watching back. She took a fresh pack of gauze from Min-jae’s kit and flung it at him. He flinched as it hit his face. “You’re next,” she said. She had noticed how he’s been grimacing at the slightest touch, how he kept wincing and holding his palm shut, until she noticed the makeshift napkin-bandage. Baekhyun had no idea she had noticed him.

No one spoke for a long time, just the clockwork of Min-jae’s patching and the low mechanical hum from the emergency lighting, which they found eventually, somewhere far above.

Ji-won unzipped one of the emergency packs she found with careful, deliberate movements. The sound was both too loud and not nearly enough. Inside: six protein bars, eight vacuum-packed bread rolls, a pocketful of bottled water. She counted them twice, as if she’d misread the first time, but the math refused to improve with repetition.

Min-jae’s eyes flicked over the spread. “… Maybe we should ration.” His voice was neutral, the sort of neutrality that only made the deficit seem sharper.

No one reached for the food. Even the EXO members, who sat huddled together like boys at the principal’s office, kept their hands tight in their laps. No one wanted to be the first to admit how bad hunger could get.

Seo-ah shifted against the wall, the breaker box digging into her spine, and reached for a bread roll. A dozen eyes tracked her, as if the simple act of taking food was an affront or a dare. She stood, walked to the far side of the room, and unceremoniously dropped the roll onto Soo-jin’s lap, who hadn’t moved from her post by the vent.

“Had mine already,” Seo-ah said. It was almost convincing.

Soo-jin’s gaze flicked up. “When?”

“Earlier,” Seo-ah said. “The gummies in my vest.”

Soo-jin’s mouth twitched. “They were expired.”

Seo-ah grinned. “Worth the risk.”

The air in the room warped around the exchange, tension stretching and then, impossibly, relaxing by a hair. Within EXO, Baekhyun watched her—the way her left hand trembled, the hollow under her eyes, the way she tried to pass off the pain as nothing.

Ha-yoon, who had been clutching her knees to her chest, tore her own bread roll in half and nudged a piece towards Seo-ah. Seo-ah nudged it right back, expression flat. Ha-yoon pushed it forward again, now with a pleading look. Seo-ah batted it back, the motion more stubborn than playful.

The loop repeated, two, three times, the world’s slowest ping-pong, until Tae-ho, quiet and steady, reached over and split his own roll, dropping half onto each of their laps.

“There,” he said.

Seo-ah stared at it, then at him, then at nothing. Her smile, when it came, was lopsided and a little sad. “You’re my favorite,” she said, voice raw.

“You say that every week.”

“Because it’s true every week.”

A beat. Even EXO smiled, just a little. The fragile peace held.

Min-jae broke it, as always, with practicality. “Eat. You need the calories. You especially,” he pointed at Seo-ah’s arm. “You’ll heal faster.” Baekhyun watched Seo-ah’s trembling fingers as she took the roll, his own hunger a dull ache beneath the sharper pain in his palm. He’d been quietly tearing his single bread roll into six tiny pieces, a nervous habit from years of group meals where you made sure everyone got something. “Someone should tell our manager we need a better per diem,” Baekhyun muttered, not looking up from his task. His voice was too quiet, meant only for the members circled around him, but it landed in the new silence anyway. He didn’t flinch when Sehun elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

Ji-won exhaled. She took the last roll, broke it in half, and gave the bigger piece to Ha-yoon, who looked like she might cry from gratitude or exhaustion or both. Across the circle, Chanyeol nudged his own half-eaten portion toward Kai, who shook his head once, sharply. A silent argument passed between them in glances until Suho reached over and split his roll three ways, pressing a piece into each of their hands. “Eat,” he said, his voice imitating Min-jae’s flat command, and they did.

They ate in silence, bread sticking to the roofs of their mouths. Every bite was a relief.

The introductions came only after everyone had eaten.

Ji-won set down the empty wrapper in her hand and straightened. The room came to attention without being asked. “We haven’t introduced ourselves properly.” No preamble, no softening. “Kim Ji-won. Captain of the Elite Special Missions Squad. We operate under a classified mandate—direct authorization from the highest level of national security. Standard chain of command doesn’t apply to us. We go where no one else is cleared to go.” She let that settle.

She gestured down the line. “You’ve already met Han Seo-ah, our point operative. Close-quarters, threat assessment, extraction.” Seo-ah was examining the gauze on her arm and didn’t look up. “Choi Tae-ho, tactical coordination and field command.” Tae-ho gave a nod that was almost imperceptible. “Kang Ha-yoon, intelligence and comms.” Ha-yoon offered a small, almost too cheerful, wave. “Yoo Min-jae, field medic.” Min-jae had already returned to cataloguing the kit. “Moon Soo-jin, recon and surveillance.” Soo-jin, still at her post by the vent, acknowledged this with nothing at all.

Across the supply room, EXO had gone very quiet. Chanyeol’s eyes moved over each of them in turn—the torn gear, the dried blood, the economy of movement that came from people who had done this before and expected to do it again. Something behind his expression did the math and settled on an answer.

“And you?” Ji-won asked.

Suho rose. He dusted his palms on his jeans out of habit, then seemed to realize how strange the gesture was, and shook her hand anyway. “Kim Junmyeon. Most people know me as Suho.” A brief pause. “We’re EXO.” He said it the way you’d say it to someone who might not know, which was the only honest way to say it right now. He introduced them left to right, each name landing in the silence. “Lay—Yixing—isn’t with us. He was in China when—” He stopped. Started again. “We haven’t heard from him…” The small fake laugh he attempted didn’t land anywhere.

The unfinished sentence sat in the room with everything else.

Chen, or Jongdae as he referred to himself, was the first to speak after. “When you say classified mandate—” He stopped, reformulated. “Is there a command structure still running somewhere? Does anyone above you know what’s happening?”

Ji-won looked at him steadily. “There was a command structure. We lost uplink contact within the first hour.”

Kai absorbed this with his eyes fixed on the middle distance. Beside him, Sehun’s hands had gone still in his lap.

“Other units,” Xiumin said. Not quite a question. He had the focused, unhurried quality of someone who had already prepared himself for the answer. “Are there others deployed right now?”

“There should be other units active in the city, however…” Ji-won said. “We haven’t been able to contact any of them either.”

Chen exhaled through his nose, a short, controlled sound. D.O just murmured, his gaze moved to Seo-ah’s arm, then back to the floor, and stayed there. Baekhyun turned his bread roll over in his fingers and said nothing, which was, for Baekhyun, its own kind of answer.

The silence that followed had a rough texture to it.

Ji-won was the one who dissolved it, without meaning to. “I know who you are, for what it’s worth,” she said, offhanded, the way you’d mention the weather.

The members blinked. A few of them exchanged glances—the particular glance that meant: do not make this weird.

“I liked your debut album,” she continued, with the flat certainty of someone stating a fact they had no reason to doubt.

A beat.

Baekhyun turned to look at her fully for the first time. “... Captain.” Something in his voice had gone fragile at the edges. “That was fourteen years ago.”

Seo-ah exhaled a laugh that clearly hurt her. She pressed her forearm to her ribs anyway. “She said it like she was complimenting their recent work.”

“Wasn’t it recent?” Ji-won said. The furrow in her brow was genuine.

Ha-yoon made a sound of pure suffering and pressed her face into Tae-ho’s shoulder. “Unnie, please…”

Seo-ah raised her good arm across the circle. Ha-yoon met it. The high-five echoed off the concrete walls, sharp and ridiculous.

Chanyeol laughed before he could stop himself—a short, involuntary thing. He pressed his fist to his mouth. It didn’t help. Across from him, even D.O’s expression had shifted by a fraction, the corner of his mouth doing something against his will.

Ji-won looked around at all of them, faintly wounded.

The room didn’t become lighter, exactly. But something that had been pulled very taut went slack by one degree, and for a moment the dark felt less total than it had.

As the minutes passed, the laughter faded away, wrung dry by the stale darkness. Silence settled, heavy as concrete, until the talk spun back to its origin: the Samsung tower.

Seo-ah pressed her back against the cool wall, knees drawn up, arms locked around them. In the low light she seemed even smaller, her edges blurring into shadow. “When I got there,” she said, voice flat, almost mechanical, “there were people. Everywhere.” She let the word hang like a stone.

“They were jumping,” she added, voice rough with memory. “From the fifteenth floor.” Each breath came with a soft grunt, as if pain had taken root in her chest. “I tried to shout, but they didn’t stop.”

Across the room, Ha-yoon’s jaw tightened. She touched her wrist, as if reading a pulse she couldn’t trust. “But there weren’t any bodies,” she said, slow and firm. “Not outside.”

Seo-ah’s head lifted. “What?”

“When we reached the site there were no bodies,” Ha-yoon repeated. Her voice wavered at the edges, as though she doubted her own words. She shot a glance to Soo-jin and the others for confirmation.

Silence answered. Even the boys—Tae-ho and Min-jae—hovering near the stacked crates, were frozen.

Seo-ah frowned, lines creasing her forehead. “That’s not—” She stared at her hands, searching them for answers. “I saw them hit the ground. I heard them hit the ground…”

Her voice trailed off. The only sound was Tae-ho shifting to brace himself, and the pulse of the emergency lights overhead.

Min-jae’s hand hovered in midair, then fell. “The sign came down from afar,” he muttered. “We watched it detach. But after—nothing.”

Tae-ho rubbed the back of his neck. “I walked the perimeter twice. No skid marks, no trails.” His voice wavered. “If they fell, where did they go?”

Questions spiraled in Seo-ah’s mind. Had her adrenaline been so high she hallucinated? Or did something unthinkable devour the bodies? Her heart hammered. “They landed like… like sacks of meat.”

A long beat.

Ha-yoon broke the tension. “Did anyone check the alley behind the east entrance?”

Soo-jin shook her head. “We searched. It was empty.”

Ji-won watched them all, chest tight with dread. In her head, a question burned-Did we see the same world? She tried to steady her voice. “We write exactly what we observed. No spin, no theories. Full report.”

The chill in the cramped supply room deepened. Seo-ah pulled her knees even tighter. Fear ricocheted through her veins, but she forced a nod. The others followed suit, though their eyes flicked around in confusion and disbelief.

She waited until the talk moved on—rations, batteries, a half-formed plan for morning—before she let herself press her forehead to her knees, feeling the bruise beneath the skin, the way her body still remembered the impact. She wondered if it would be like this, if the world would keep emptying itself out, taking bits of her with it.

Inside each of them, a storm raged—doubt, terror, guilt. They had witnessed something impossible. And now, alone in the shadows, they weren’t sure they could trust even themselves.

Ji-won couldn’t tell if ten minutes or an hour had passed. She pressed her palms into her temples, head bowed over the kit’s chaos of blood-soaked gauze and crumpled wrappers. The image of those stitched-shut eyes—eyes that might once have been human—kept replaying in her mind. And the dreaded question that lingered but no one dared ask yet.

She forced herself upright. The squad huddled in the flickering glow of the overhead lamp, silent. Finally, she broke it. “Min-jae,” her voice cracked, “the bite—could it be viral? Like those outbreak films?” She flinched at her own words. “Some kind of infection?”

Min-jae’s silence hit her chest like a bullet. He adjusted his glasses—knuckles black with dried ooze—then stared at Seo-ah’s arm, the ragged edges of the wound, the angry bite pattern again. For as long as she’d known him, the man had never admitted, not once, to not knowing the answer.

Twelve hours ago he’d have scoffed. Now he dared only whisper, “Honestly? I don’t know.” He admitted at last. “This isn’t in any papers I’ve read. Even if I analyze Ha-yoon’s sample, I need a full lab—days, minimum. And by then…” He let the thought hang.

Tae-ho’s voice trembled. “Days? Will it spread?”

Ha-yoon crossed her arms, defiant. “What if it doesn’t? I mean—maybe she’s fine.”

Baekhyun sat frozen, trying not to think what he’d do if she snapped. His mind immediately went to the worst-case scenarios from every zombie flick he’d ever seen, and cried out in his mind, Don’t let it be real. Could he pull the trigger? He didn’t know.

Seo-ah laughed—a brittle, hollow sound. “Great. So if I go rabid, someone’s gotta put me down, right?” She winked at Tae-ho. Her bravado was a shield. Baekhyun caught its tremor.

Ji-won shot her a flat look. “Let’s not joke.”

Seo-ah shrugged. “Just trying to keep us from panicking.” Her smile wavered. “Besides, I’d hate to miss dinner.”

Ha-yoon’s eyes darted to the hallway. “We should—”

Seo-ah cut her off, pushing to her feet. Her legs bowed, nearly giving out, but she masked it by stretching high above her head. Then she dropped her arms. “I’ll stay in the storeroom. Out of the way.”

Chanyeol, sitting at the back, paled. He pressed a hand to his mouth, focusing on not getting sick.

Seo-ah grabbed the only working flashlight, its beam flickered like a dying heartbeat.

Before she could step out, Ji-won caught her by the wrist. “Don’t be a hero,” she said, and the words landed heavier than any order.

“Never was one,” she replied, forcing a shrug, twisting her fingers free. She brushed hair from her face. “Just… Don't wake me if I start craving brains.” Her smile wavered. She tossed a wink over her shoulder and limped away.

Chanyeol shivered. “Is this actually happening?”

“I don’t know,” Baekhyun whispered to himself, but loud enough for Tae-ho to hear. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

Tae-ho’s jaw clenched.

Seo-ah clicked the storeroom door shut behind her. The lock snapped. The beam swung across their faces—Ji-won’s impassive, Min-jae’s haunted, Ha-yoon’s pinched, Tae-ho’s pale. Baekhyun’s chest tightened; he felt like the last living soul in a graveyard.

A hush smothered the group. Ji-won wanted to say something, anything, but the right words were a luxury she had never learned. She watched the closed door and counted her own pulse, slow and hard. If anyone self-isolated at the first sign of trouble, of course it would be Seo-ah. The impulse to protect, inverted into the instinct to quarantine.

“She’ll be fine,” Ha-yoon murmured, as if the volume of the thought might make it more true.

Min-jae slipped the kit into his pocket, eyes on the dark door. “We coordinate, quarantine, and do what we can,” he said. His voice was tight, brittle. “Unfortunately, time’s not on our side.”

Ji-won nodded once. No more words left. They turned away from the storeroom, each carrying their fear like a loaded gun—ready for whatever came next.

Several hours had slipped by, time turning slurry with exhaustion and the slow creep of dread. The painkillers thinned to a memory—Seo-ah felt the bite’s ache radiate, rhythmic as her pulse, a new center of gravity in her arm. She imagined the blackness inside her, slow as ink dispersing in water, and for a while she counted each breath just to prove she could.

Seo-ah sat against the storeroom wall, jaw clenched. She curled tighter, an animal trying to shield itself, trying to hide the voices coming from within, as another wave of pain rippled across her back.

Min-jae’s footsteps scuffed the concrete and found her.

“Come here,” he said through the door.

She groaned dramatically. Then clicked the door open.

He knelt beside her but didn’t bother with small talk, just swabbed her skin with icy disinfectant. She watched his hands, the steady way he handled the needle, the way he kept his own injury hidden from her. She wondered if he was afraid he’d catch whatever it was she had, or if he was just being a martyr in case she went feral.

His gaze flicked up. “Ready?”

She nodded, jaw locked. The syringe slid in—sharp pinch, burning blaze, then emptiness. She could handle the needle. What she couldn’t handle was the room’s slow tilt, the way everyone recoiled, eyes averted, hands hovering as if she might strike.

A brittle laugh tore out of her. “What now? You all scared of me?” She raised her uninjured hand. “Still here.”

Silence pressed in, thick and unyielding.

“If I turn into one of those things,” she said, voice thick and low, eyes sweeping their averted faces, “would any of you actually kill me?” She watched their jaws set but no one volunteered. “Don’t make me haunt you out of spite.”

Still nothing.

Her eyes found Soo-jin by the vent, rifle resting across her knees. “Soo-jin-ah,” she said, voice softening despite her trembling insides. “I can count on you, right?” She tried for a smile.

Soo-jin’s fingers tightened on the stock, brows knitting in conflict.

Seo-ah laughed again—this time the sound stuck in her chest. “Oh, come on.” She swallowed. “Don’t make me do it myself,” she finished, imagining the storeroom door barred from the outside, her body seized by something alien. “If it comes to that…”

Min-jae knelt by her leg, wrapping the wound. The antiseptic burned, but the sting was clean, a lucid anchor. She savored it.

When he withdrew, Seo-ah leaned her head against the cold cinderblock, letting the dull ache pool until it morphed into something she could name: rage, fear, doubt.

Footsteps skittered outside. Through the doorway, Ji-won appeared, silhouette sharp against the flickering light. Seo-ah stayed still, eyes flat.

Ji-won stepped in cautiously, as if facing a caged beast. She said nothing.

Seo-ah let the silence stretch. Then, voice thin and steady, “I just want to know one thing.”

Ji-won held her gaze, unblinking.

Seo-ah’s words slid out thin and even, a knife, not a plea. “What am I fighting?”

Seo-ah had suspected something was off the moment the mission briefing ended—her gut twisted like barbed wire, but there’d never been the right moment to voice it. Now, leaning against the chipped concrete wall, her doubts spilled out.

The words hung between them, brittle and precise. Ji-won’s face didn’t betray a flicker, yet Seo-ah saw the subtle tightening at her jaw, the sliver of hesitation in her eyes. She’d watched Ji-won construct lies before, and she knew the machinery of deception whirring just beneath the surface.

“You know me,” Seo-ah pressed, voice low but carrying. “If you asked me to walk through fire, I’d do it—ten times over. But I need something, too.” Her laugh was thin, almost a whisper. “I need to know why.”

Her eyes drilled into Ji-won’s, as though sheer will could crack open the truth.

“So tell me.” Pain flared up her arm, but Seo-ah curled her fingers white-knuckled around her sleeve. “What are we fighting?”

Ji-won inhaled slowly, as if every breath might betray her. Still—silence.

From the corner of her eye, Seo-ah caught Min-jae’s stiff shoulders and Ha-yoon’s bated breath. The rest of EXO had recoiled, folding inward, as if forcing themselves to disappear.

With a low timbre that rattled the empty space, Seo-ah filled the silence herself. “We’ve done some shit for this country. Stuff the brass would never admit. No questions asked. We did it together.” She counted the years, each scar a shared ghost. “We’ve seen things no one should ever see.”

She paused, letting the weight settle. “Now… I’m not scared of dying.” She spoke the truth. “But if I’m dying, I want to know why. Because I refuse to be someone’s lab rat— some rich fuck’s sanctified science project.”

The words struck home. Ji-won’s eyes glimmered; a tremor ran through her, but her face held.

Seo-ah slid back against the concrete wall, head resting heavy. She spoke softer now, cautious. “Is this like Hongdae?” Her voice was an almost-whisper.

Ji-won’s gaze snapped up— sharp as a pistol shot.

Seo-ah watched the ripple. The way every head twitched at the name, the place. Min-jae’s shoulders stiffened so hard his breath hitched, Ha-yoon’s fingers twisted the hem of her jacket, Soo-jin’s eyes darted between Seo-ah and Ji-won, lips parted. The Hongdae Incident—a sealed-off memory so grim no one dared discuss it at reunions. EXO’s faces went pale. Guilt and fear flickered in their eyes.

She felt cold satisfaction at having scored a hit, at seeing Ji-won's grip clench hard enough to blanch bone. She’d hit bullseye.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said, softer, then let her head thump back on the wall. “You knew this was Level Four before the call came in. Is that why you pulled in me and Soo-jin?”

Before Ji-won could answer, Tae-ho’s voice cracked out, “Seo-ah—” he said, half-plea, half-command.

She cut him off, tense. “They didn’t warn us then, did they? Sent us in blind— rats in a maze, no exit.” Her injured arm throbbed in sync with the memory. “Half our team never came out. And what did Command say?”

Her lip curled. “Operational loss.”

Ji-won’s glare could’ve sliced steel, but Seo-ah met it without flinching. “So,” she said, pushing herself upright on her good arm, “what are we now? Expendable?”

“HAN SEO-AH!” Tae-ho’s roar crashed through the corridor.

Everything snapped silent.

His voice cracked the tension like thunder. EXO shrank further into the corners, eyes cast downward, burdened by the truth finally spoken aloud. Minseok’s heartbeat thudded loud in his ears, Suho swallowed past his lumped throat, Sehun blinked back sudden tears. They exchanged hollow looks—none daring to breathe too loud, as if the sound might shatter the fragile web of trust. They felt guilty for intruding on this raw moment, yet their own minds raced: What does Level Four really mean? How many others have died without knowing why? Could they trust Ji-won—or any of them—ever again?

Seo-ah closed her eyes, inhaled one slow, steady breath. Then, quieter than before,“… Sorry.”

She tugged her cap low and let her body slide down the wall, the fight drained from her limbs. Around her, EXO sat in the aftermath, minds racing with the secret now laid bare—haunted by the question: if they’d been sent in blind, what else had they been kept from seeing?

Ji-won stood stone-silent, every muscle in her jaw locked tight. Around them, the low hum of the generator trembled against the walls—the only witness to the tension choking the room.

Min-jae bent over Seo-ah’s bite, swathing it in white gauze with the same gentle precision he always showed. When he finished, he met Ji-won’s eyes—no joke, no levity—just an unspoken question hanging between them.

“Min-jae, maybe just inject poison and save everyone the trouble,” Seo-ah said, loud enough to bounce off the dark walls. The words hung in the air, rancid and unwelcome.

Min-jae flicked her head and half-smiled—his version of comfort—and let the empty syringe clink into the kit. The sound echoed. He lingered, watching Seo-ah struggle to hold her anger in check, then reached for the next syringe.

They all waited. EXO sat against the walls, backs drooping. Chanyeol tapping his boot, eyes darting to the cracked windows, Kyungsoo fiddling with an empty gauze pack as if it might answer all their doubts, Jongdae’s fingers drumming, every beat a question: Why are we here? Could we even survive without each other? What had happened to their families outside this base? Would they ever get home?

Finally, Ji-won spoke.

“My knowledge is no better than yours.” Her voice was flat, like a floorboard creaking under a hundred pounds of guilt. “This morning— 03:12 a.m.— I got a call from Command. Level Four. We were ordered to report to Seongnam Base. That’s all I knew.”

No one moved. The squad waited for more truth.

She didn’t mention the stench of slaughter that had greeted her before the convoy even hit Myeong-dong. She scanned every face in the circle—Min-jae’s nervous knuckles, Ha-yoon’s trembling breath, the others’ silent dread— as if apologizing for not having answers she didn’t possess. But Ji-won said nothing else. Instead, she swept her gaze across the dark panes lining the wall, at Seo-ah’s hollow eyes, at the looming questions they all shared and dared not voice.

“Everything after that…” Her hand gestured vaguely at the pain, at the bite, at the fear pressing in on them. “…is as new to me as it is to all of you.”

Min-jae hovered over the next syringe, thumb poised on the plunger, ready anyone flinched the wrong way.

Seo-ah looked at Ji-won. Wanted to speak—wanted to tear a hole in this lie—but instead she met Ji-won’s steady gaze. Ji-won looked at Min-jae, then at Seo-ah, and gave a single nod. “Let her go.”

“But—” Min-jae said. He’d already wrapped the wound, but his hand lingered just above her shoulder.

“For now,” Ji-won cut in. “If she turns… I’ll do it myself.”

Something hot and animal flared behind Seo-ah’s eyes. She met Ji-won’s stare, nodded once, then forced herself to stand. Every movement seemed to shout she didn’t belong here anymore. She shrugged on her ruined jacket as if that one gesture proved she still had somewhere to be. “I’ll be out,” she said, glancing toward Ji-won, voice low and hollow. “Don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“Seo-ah-ya!” Ha-yoon scrambled to her knees, almost toppling a box of IV bags. “Wait—”

Ji-won caught Ha-yoon’s wrist with iron calm. “Leave her.” The single sentence was final as a gunshot.

Ha-yoon froze, mouth open, then slumped back against a crate. She stared at Ji-won, bewildered.

Ji-won pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose—someone who knew pain could be endured, if not erased.

“I’ll take first watch,” she told the silent circle. “The rest of you, sleep if you can.”

She turned and walked out without waiting for answers.

Once the hatch closed, the tension twisted tighter. In the gloom, EXO shifted, each lost in a private storm.

Ha-yoon exhaled dramatically at Tae-ho. “Oppa! Seriously… can you handle the lot?” Her tone strained between exasperation and humor, but everyone felt the edge of something darker. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips—soft, distracted—and slipped out to follow Ji-won, shoulders bunched as if bracing for the worst.

Sehun’s brow shot up. “Did she just—?” Tae-ho only nodded, but his eyes stayed fixed at the thin streak of blood Seo-ah left, dark red against the concrete floor under the emergency light’s flicker.

An uneasy hush settled. Min-jae exhaled, rubbing his temples. “She needed rest, but that attitude…” he said, but even as he spoke, his voice trembled with doubt. “She’s always pushing herself. What if this time she goes too far?” He glanced at the others, their tired faces mirroring his concern, then cleared his throat and clicked his medical kit shut. “Well, I’m the medic here. If anyone’s running a fever, can’t sleep, or suddenly decides to go full zombie…” He snapped his kit shut. “… please let me know.”

Minutes ticked by before Min-jae’s voice cracked again, sharper this time. “You know what scares me? Watching two people snap at each other like that— and knowing you’ll never have it. You can’t even tell if it’s love or hate.” He aimed a rueful half-smile at Tae-ho. “Whatever it is.”

Tae-ho stretched his shoulders and asked without heat, “You thinking about your ex again?” It sounded like a stale in-joke, but Baekhyun saw the flicker in Tae-ho’s eyes—he’d heard that tone before.

Baekhyun braced for Min-jae’s usual snark, but the medic only clenched his jaw, eyes fixed on the blood-stained gauze in his hand.

Baekhyun swallowed, voice low, “I honestly thought she’d get herself shot with that attitude.” He flinched at the bluntness of it, but the question hung in the air.

Tae-ho exhaled. “She probably thought that too. So did we.” He tilted his head toward the ceiling pipes, veins of metal overhead. “Without Ji-won watching her back, she’d be toast. They’ve been through worse—together.”

Baekhyun bit his lip. “Sounds like blind faith.”

“More like absolute certainty,” Tae-ho said softly. “Seo-ah only takes that tone with someone she knows will stay.”

He flicked a thumb toward Baekhyun’s shoulder—toward the door where Ji-won had gone. “Those two are all that’s left of their old unit. Them and Soo-jin over there.”

“They met as teens,” Tae-ho continued, voice low. “Survived missions that broke people. Buried friends together. Time and again, they pulled each other back from the edge.” He laced his fingers around his knee. “They spar like cats—stubborn, screeching. But if one vanished, the other would rip this place apart looking.”

Baekhyun stared at his knees, uneasy. “Then why let her go first?”

Tae-ho met his gaze. “Because forcing her would shatter that bond. They’ve nothing left if we mess with it—even for their own good.”

The words settled, heavy. Baekhyun imagined someone who’d tear the world apart for you. It felt impossible.

A soft cough at the door. Ha-yoon edged in, eyes wide with concern.

“Captain’s out in the hallway,” she whispered. “Just sitting there. And Seo-ah’s nowhere to be found.” Her voice trembled between humor and panic, and nobody dared guess which would come next.

The hours that followed had a hollow quality—even in the thin, blinding light of the emergency lantern. Baekhyun drifted on the edge of sleep, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his borrowed jacket, as if he could undo the day’s ugliness one loose thread at a time. The storeroom shrank to the sound of dull breathing and the distant click of Ha-yoon’s comms, punctuated every so often by Min-jae’s gentle, methodical rummaging through the med kit. D.O. loitered nearest Min-jae, shadowing his every move, his own hands busy with folding, organizing, cleaning—as if tidiness could banish what waited outside.

There was a hush to everything now, a kind of mutual agreement not to speak unless necessary. Xiumin, Suho, and Kai had claimed arranging makeshift beds for everyone, a fortress of shipping blankets and torn cardboard.

Baekhyun let his own head loll back, feeling every vertebra in his neck, and tried to imagine tomorrow. The notion felt obscene, like trying to forecast weather on a dead planet. He closed his eyes, but every time he drifted, he felt the soft jolt of Tae-ho jerking next to him—another nightmare, another return from the bloodier side of memory.

The first rays of sunlight crept through the broken ventilation shafts, turning the floating dust into ribbons of gold. For a fleeting moment the maintenance floor looked almost peaceful.

Outside the window, the city glowed as if the night had never happened. Neon crawled up the sides of buildings and died against the sky. Down below, the world was a hush of morning—Seoul before the day’s engines started, before the heat settled in, before anyone had a chance to remember what had been taken from them. In those first moments after dawn, even the monsters seemed to keep their distance.

Baekhyun woke shivering, not from cold but from the kind of dream that left teeth marks. At first, he couldn't tell what had woken him. The others were still arranged where they'd fallen: Min-jae with his chin on his chest, Ha-yoon curled fetal position, head on Tae-ho’s lap, D.O. propped against a crate like a marionette with cut strings.

He listened. Nothing. Not even the static from Ha-yoon’s comms, which had died with the night. He let his head thud back against the wall and waited for his heart to catch up. Through the dust, the morning rays painted stripes onto the floor, bright enough to blind if you stared long enough. He blinked, and the afterimage was a memory of hands gripping his shoulders, shaking him out of sleep.

At the far corner of the room, Baekhyun spotted the shape of Soo-jin slouched against a pillar, the battered stock of her rifle wedged beneath her chin. Her chest rose and fell in a slow, stubborn rhythm. He wasn't sure if she’d slept at all. Her eyes never really closed, not fully. Instead, she drifted on the edge of waking, a sentry in a world where staying awake meant staying alive. She looked really young for someone in her role.

The rest of them—EXO, the famous, the untouchable—had abandoned all pretenses of dignity. Seven grown men fused into one tangle of limbs, shoulders pressed tight, some cradling others, all of it desperate, childlike. Sehun had commandeered two jackets, rolled up as a makeshift pillow under his head. Chanyeol sprawled out full length, one leg thrown over Jongin, whose face was half-buried in the crook of Suho’s arm.

They looked less like survivors and more like a pile of casualties, resting in a heap until someone came to tag their toes. Baekhyun’s own body had become numb, first from exhaustion, then from the cold that seeped up through the concrete. He held onto the sensation just to prove he hadn’t slipped out of awareness. Not yet.

Only Ji-won moved, a slow pan of her rifle toward the door, as if expecting the next thing to arrive would be human-shaped and hungry.

Ji-won was already awake. Not that she'd slept. She remained seated against the cold concrete wall exactly where she'd taken first watch hours ago, rifle resting across her lap. The untouched bottle of water she'd left beside the door the previous night was gone. She didn't know whether that made her feel better or worse.

She stood up to watch out the window, the muzzle of her rifle just brushing the glass, eyes fixed on the skyline. The captain’s silhouette was sharp enough to cut, but even from across the room, Baekhyun saw her shoulders quiver, minutely. Yesterday, they'd been soldiers. The day before, legends. Now, they were a handful of strangers, failing to keep each other warm.

He watched Ji-won break her stare, gaze falling on the heap of idol bodies. She looked at them with something like awe, but stripped of all sweetness. If she blinked, it was to keep her eyes from burning. If she exhaled, it was to keep from making a sound.

Ji-won waited, letting the silence plaster over every crack in her armor. On the floor, Tae-ho’s breathing guttered and caught, the prelude to a speech.

“She’s not back yet,” he said.

Ji-won didn't look away from the doorway. "No."

Silence settled between them. After a while, Tae-ho rubbed a tired hand over his face. "You should've gone after her."

Ji-won's expression barely changed. "And said what?"

Tae-ho didn't answer immediately. The corners of his mouth lifted into a weary smile. "I don't know. You've always been better at that part."

Ji-won let out the smallest huff of air. "You've known Han Seo-ah almost as long as I have. You know exactly what would've happened."

A quiet chuckle escaped Tae-ho. "She would've yelled."

"Mhm."

"Probably walked away."

"Mhm."

"Then come back five minutes later pretending nothing happened."

For the first time that morning Ji-won smiled. "Mm-hmm"

Another silence.

Then Tae-ho looked toward the doorway again. "She'll be back."

Not because he believed it. It was because he knew her. Han Seo-ah always wandered off. But she never left them behind.

Never.

A faint shuffle sounded from the hall. Baekhyun’s breath snagged in his throat. Something in it was familiar, bone-deep. He saw Ji-won jerk her head up. The entire nest of bodies snapped awake, EXO’s famed choreography traded for graceless chaos—knees thudding, limbs tangling, several of them yelping as they collided in the scramble to get upright.

“What—?”

“Move—!”

“My leg—shit—”

“Who’s under me?”

Baekhyun reached for the wall, used it to lever himself up, only to be bowled over by a panicked Sehun. The barrel of Soo-jin’s rifle was already trained on the door, finger knuckle-white on the trigger.

He heard someone—Chanyeol, probably—bang his head and curse, muffled.

Then a shadow passed the frosted glass, lingering. A voice, hoarse but unmistakable, drifted through, "Morning."

The door opened a crack. Seo-ah’s face appeared, pale and smudged with something that looked like engine grease, lips parted around a mouthful of food. She let the door swing wide, stepped in with a nonchalance that bordered on contempt for her own mortality.

She stepped in, and the room went still. Every breath hitched. Eyes tracked her, waiting for a snarl, for her pupils to dilate into something not human. Her movements were too casual, too loose—the kind of ease that felt like a disguise. Was this still Seo-ah? Or had something else come back wearing her skin?

She wore that bloodstained jacket, the wrong size, sleeves rolled twice to show her wrists. Over one shoulder, a battered backpack sagged with the weight of things recently looted. She chewed, swallowed, and assessed the weapons aimed at her with only the faintest twitch of amusement.

No one lowered their guns.

"Well." She held up the half-eaten protein bar she'd found somewhere. "I was going to offer breakfast."

Baekhyun’s pulse stuttered in relief. He recognized the cadence, the way she spat the words like a challenge. He felt something like awe, but the raw kind—admiration cut with fear. Seo-ah was the kind of person who could make an entrance even as a corpse.

"Tough crowd." She took a last bite of her protein bar and tossed the rest at Soo-jin’s boots.

No one spoke. They just stared, the silence a vacuum. Across the room, Tae-ho caught Ji-won’s eye. The corner of her mouth moved, barely. His did too.

Seo-ah slung the backpack onto the nearest crate, where it thudded with the promise of salvage. She rummaged with one hand and, without looking, tossed a pack of batteries in Ha-yoon’s direction. “For your comms. Or your laser pointer. Whatever gets you through the night.”

Ha-yoon caught it, blinking, as if she’d forgotten how to move.

“Next,” Seo-ah announced. She fished out a tangle of cable ties—bright yellow, industrial strength—and lobbed them toward Min-jae. “Restraints. Or arts and crafts. No judgment.”

Min-jae let them hit the floor, face unreadable.

She produced a crowbar next, hefting it with an exaggerated grunt. Seo-ah’s knuckles whitened around the crowbar’s taped handle. She dropped it on the crate, where it landed with a satisfying metallic thunk. Finally, a tool worth the weight. Underneath, she placed a folded paper map, edges wrinkled, the kind only government offices still printed.

Ji-won unspooled the map, pressing it flat with her palm. The city grid shimmered in red and blue highlighter, dotted with Xs and frantic notations. Seo-ah caught Ji-won’s eye, then flicked her gaze to the map’s center. Neither apologized.

“I wouldn’t use the main staircase,” Seo-ah said. Her voice was casual, almost bored, as if she were suggesting a quicker route to the cafeteria. She could feel the doubt in the room, a cold draft at her back, but she pushed on. “It’s not worth it.”

Half the room looked up. She crouched beside the map, tracing a finger down the ghost-outline of the Police Command base. “There are maintenance tunnels. They run all the way from here to the next block. But—” She hesitated, jaw flexing. “They’re flooded. Knee, maybe thigh-high. Not worth the risk unless you like swimming in darkness.”

Ha-yoon stared, lips parted as if she might protest, but no sound came.

Ji-won tapped the sheet. “What about the elevator? Service lifts?”

“They’re out,” Seo-ah said. “Power’s cut on every upper floor. But if you’re desperate, the emergency ladders are still clear. Nobody’s posted up there yet.”

“Yet?” Suho echoed. His voice quivered.

“They’ve moved.” Seo-ah didn’t look at him, or at anyone. Just the map. “All of them. They’re on the lower floors now.”

Ji-won leaned in. “Moved?”

“Mostly in the lobby. Parking. Some outside. They’re not hunting. Just—” Seo-ah’s hand hovered over the building outline, as if feeling heat radiate from the paper. “Standing there. Kind of waiting. Like…” She groped for a word, then let it drop. “Like they’re saving their spot in line.”

Baekhyun felt a ripple move through the tangle of bodies behind him. A rustle of fear, or maybe anticipation.

Ha-yoon’s voice was small. “So they’re gone?”

Seo-ah finally looked up, and for a moment, Baekhyun saw nothing in her eyes but the memory of what she’d just returned from. “No,” she said. “More like…gathering.”

No one spoke. The sound of breathing went thin and sharp, as if the air had turned to glass.

“And the ones we dropped?” Seo-ah asked, but the question was rhetorical.

Baekhyun cleared his throat. “Dead?” he said, hopeful.

She turned to him, a slow, deliberate pivot. “No. Still there. Some are crawling now, but…” She shrugged, like it was a math equation nobody liked the answer to.

He swallowed, hard. “Alive.”

“Parts of them,” Seo-ah corrected. “Slower than before. Missing chunks. One was dragging a leg behind, grinding it into the floor.” A pause. “But it was moving.”

Min-jae let out a breath, a razor slice of sound. “So… the headshots didn’t work?”

Seo-ah shook her head. Ji-won watched Seo-ah as if the right angle might let her see beneath the skin. The question—how are you feeling?—came so softly that it half-missed its mark, ricocheting off the edge of a joke.

Seo-ah blinked, mouth already prepping a retort, then shrugged with one shoulder. “Still alive.”

It was supposed to land lighter than it did. Ji-won’s lips didn’t move. Her gaze flickered, despite herself, toward the sleeve where Seo-ah’s arm was exposed, the fabric just a shade too dark over the wound.

Seo-ah set her jaw. “It’s not worse.” She waited, a heartbeat. “Yet.”

Ji-won gave the barest nod, as if the word itself were a fragile thing she’d cradle, rather than test.

Seo-ah tapped the map, her fingertip making a new circle near the building’s edge. “We don’t have to go through the main floor. There’s an old sewage pipe along the west wall—bolted on.” She scanned the room, measuring how ready they looked for bad news. “It’s a drop though. Eighty feet, maybe more. But we can use the cable ties, and that broken ladder.”

Soo-jin pressed her mouth flat, eyes jumpy. “You sure it isn’t blocked?”

“Not unless mold counts,” Seo-ah said. She paused, then corrected herself, softer, “It’s clear.”

Baekhyun exhaled. “Eighty feet is… reassuring.”

Seo-ah ignored him, drawing a second line on the map. “Tae-ho can lower the group. I’ll go first. Soo-jin, you cover from up top. Ji-won comes down last.”

If there was a protest, no one voiced it, not even Ji-won. It was that kind of plan—brutal, simple, impossible to argue with.

Only when the logistics were splayed out like an autopsy did Seo-ah hesitate. Just a split second, but enough for even the sleepy ones to notice.

“My only concern,” she said, and her eyes flicked to the heap of EXO, “is them.”

The room followed her gaze.

Baekhyun felt the weight of her words settle with all the mercy of a slab dropped from a rooftop. It was not an accusation, but a diagnosis. He could sense every detail in his bones. They weren't trained. They didn't know how to move quietly. They had never climbed anything higher than a stage rig. If something went wrong, they'd slow the others down, or worse, get everyone killed.

The silence was so taut it could have been strung between their necks. Baekhyun clenched his jaw, the familiar heat of humiliation rising up. He heard Sehun’s breath hitch and saw Chanyeol’s head dip, a hand scrubbing the back of his neck like he could erase his own embarrassment. Baekhyun wanted to protest, to crack a joke that would break the tension, but found nothing good enough.

Then Xiumin moved. Not dramatically, not with a rallying shout, just levered himself upright and dusted drywall powder from his palms. He didn’t look at the others, only at Seo-ah, as if he could will her to see a layer deeper.

“We know,” Xiumin said. Not flinching. His voice was so deadpan it was almost reassuring. “We’re scared. We’re not trained enough. That’s obvious.”

Baekhyun hadn’t expected that. He’d expected some counterpoint, a defense, a plea for leniency. Instead, truth, stripped raw.

Seo-ah’s expression shifted, barely. There was a flicker of something Baekhyun almost recognized, a sort of challenge.

“But we’re not asking you to carry us,” Xiumin went on. “We’ll do whatever you say. We’ll learn it on the way down if we have to.”

He pointed at the map, the tunnel lines, the crude Xs and notations. “If you tell us to crawl, we crawl. If you tell us to run, we run. If you tell us to stay quiet, even Baekhyun will try his best.”

Baekhyun made a face. “Hey.”

A couple of tired smiles rippled around the circle, barely there, like static on a dead channel.

Xiumin folded his arms, looked back to Seo-ah. “We won’t be dead weight. Just…give us a chance.”

Seo-ah didn’t answer right away. She let the moment hang, as if waiting to see if the sincerity would evaporate. Instead, it held. Baekhyun found himself staring at the dirty floor, at the useless tangle of cable ties, at the crowbar, at anything except her face.

“… Just give us the chance,” Xiumin repeated, voice even, gaze unblinking.

The room shrank to nothing, time suspended on the aftertaste of those words. Seo-ah didn’t blink. She surveyed each of them—Sehun’s panicked set of jaw, Chanyeol’s knuckles blanching, the crowbar between Min-jae’s knees. She met Xiumin’s stare last, unwilling to yield even a centimeter, and she let the moment breathe until even Ji-won’s patience began to fray.

“Okay,” she said. The syllable dropped like a coin. “You got it.”

No celebration. Baekhyun didn’t dare look at the others. The relief was too raw. Instead, he stared at the grime under his nails and waited for the real test.

Seo-ah’s next words came lighter, almost joking. “Just, if any of you panic halfway down—” She pointed at the map, then at the window, and finally at Chanyeol. “I’m cutting the pipe. Clean break.”

Chanyeol’s mouth popped open. “You’re shitting me, right?”

Her smile surfaced, dark and thin. “Try me.”

He made a sound that was mostly vowels. Somewhere behind Baekhyun, Ha-yoon barked a laugh. The tension, for a fraction of a second, broke.

Plans materialized with terrifying speed after that. Cable ties looped into makeshift harnesses, crowbar lashed to a length of pipe for leverage, dry runs with the ladder against the wall. There wasn’t time to process, only to act.

Baekhyun was first. He felt Ji-won’s eyes on him, the silent command to get moving. The adrenaline threaded into Baekhyun’s muscles, hot and jumpy. Eighty feet of open air. A pipe, a ladder, cable ties as thick as his thumb. No harnesses. No safety. He tried to swallow but nearly gagged on the dry taste of the room. The apocalypse had a flavor—metal, sweat, and the lingering ghost of disinfectant.

Tae-ho said nothing, just braced his weight against the window frame and ran the cable ties through his hands. He gave the pipe a final, violent jerk. It held, vibrating with a sound that made Baekhyun’s teeth ache.

He was first. No argument in that, no time to negotiate. Baekhyun pressed his palm to the glass, feeling the chill leak into his skin. He looked down. The city, veiled in a new layer of fog, refused to reveal the ground. He couldn’t see the bottom. Maybe better that way. He forced his gaze upward, toward the horizon, and tried to pretend he was gearing up for a stadium stunt.

"We're seriously doing this?"

"No better option." Ji-won's answer was immediate.

He nodded once. Arguing wouldn't change anything.

He swallowed hard and reached for the pipe.

Just as he leaned over, hands pressed lightly on both his shoulders and jolted him.

His heart slammed against his ribs.

He spun around and saw Seo-ah standing there, that infuriating smile on her face.

"What is wrong with you?!"

Seo-ah shrugged and gave him a bright wink.

"See you downstairs."

And before anyone could stop her she swung over the ledge.

Baekhyun nearly lost his balance at the way she just launched herself. The clang of her boots on the pipe echoed up the concrete shaft, louder than gunfire in the hush. He waited for the scream, the sound of flesh and bone meeting the street, but all he heard was the rasp of hands, the metallic squeal of descent, and then that muffled hit. It was impressive, and in a way, he hated it. It left him with a hot shame in the pit of his stomach.

Chanyeol muttered behind him, “She’s insane. She’s actually insane.” His voice was pitched low, the joke already stale with terror.

He glanced back at Ji-won for the briefest second. She stared through him, rifle at her hip, a silent metronome ticking in the set of her jaw. No sign of approval. No sign of doubt. He felt like an insect pinned to a slide. She didn’t have to say anything. Her silence was a threat - if he didn’t go, she’d throw him herself.

Baekhyun wiped his palms on his pants. The damp made the cloth cling. The wind coming through the open window was a razor. He swung one leg over the sill and clamped a hesitant grip on the cable ties. The city below might as well have been the moon—cold, unfamiliar, promising worse things than gravity.

He tried to remember the steps: let your foot find a groove, hug the pipe with your knees, go slow. He didn’t trust his memory. He didn’t trust his arms. He trusted nothing, except maybe the bruises he’d earn if he hesitated.

“Come on, superstar,” Ji-won said, barely a whisper, but the words carried enough ice to sting. “She’s waiting.”

He went. It was less a climb than a controlled fall. His shoes slipped on slick metal and every instinct screamed to claw his way back up. His hands burned on the descent, shredded by microscopic grits of rust no one had bothered to sand down. At the third floor, his body started to shake from the effort. At the second, his vision tunnelled. He thought of the stage, the blinding lights, the way the crowd’s noise vibrated in his chest. He never thought he’d want that again.

He landed harder than Seo-ah had, nearly twisting his ankle, but she caught his elbow, steady and shockingly warm. The ground buckled in his knees and his teeth clacked. He tasted blood—maybe his, maybe not. He blinked against the tears in his eyes. Seo-ah grinned at him from the gloom, her breath plume-white in the cold.

“Not bad,” she said. “For a rookie.”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasp. He wanted to punch her, or hug her, or both at once.

Behind them, the next body dropped. Chanyeol’s shadow stretched huge and monstrous as he rappelled down, limbs too long for coordination. He landed like a sack of laundry, wheezing, but upright.

One by one they trickled down: Xiumin, then Suho, all of them evacuating the building like survivors abandoning a sinking ship. No one wanted to be above the eighth floor. Not anymore.

Only Ji-won, Tae-ho, and the others remained above, orchestrating the retreat with military precision. Baekhyun could still hear their voices, the clipped commands, the low hum of something dreadful approaching in the silence.

“Ha-yoon,” Ji-won said, and Ha-yoon straightened like she’d been summoned for execution. There was no tremor in Ji-won’s voice—just that dead calm that made it impossible to say no.

“Yes, Captain,” Ha-yoon answered, her own voice tight. She shuffled to the open window, peered down, and immediately went green around the edges.

Baekhyun, wiping blood from his palm, watched her shoulders hitch.

“It’s fine,” Seo-ah called up. Not quite a taunt, not quite comfort. “You got this!”

Ha-yoon pressed her lips together, then wiped both hands on the thighs of her jeans, leaving parallel stains. The city, eighty feet below, waited with all the patience of a predator. She took the pipe in both hands and closed her eyes.

Tae-ho stepped up behind her and clipped the cable tie around her waist, double-checking the buckle. He leaned in, voice low. “I’ve got you.”

She nodded, once, quick as a pulse, then swung her legs over the sill and vanished into the white cold. The only sound was a hiss, the friction of coat on pipe.

Baekhyun heard her boots scrape the lower ledge, then another grunt as she landed.

A hand shot out, Seo-ah’s, of course, steadying her with a grip that was almost gentle. “Nice landing,” Seo-ah said, and for a moment, Ha-yoon thought she might actually throw up on her.

She bent, hands on knees, and spat onto the concrete. “Hate this,” she muttered.

Another body dropped, Min-jae, landing catlike. His first move was to check Ha-yoon for blood, then check himself. “Nothing broken?” he asked.

Ha-yoon shook her head, already straightening. “I’m fine.” Her mouth buzzed with adrenaline, the aftertaste of fear.

Above, a silhouette moved to the window. Soo-jin. Rifle slung, hair tied back so tight it looked painful. She didn’t hesitate—just slithered out, touched down with barely a sound. By the time she reached the street, she’d already covered them, eyes hunting for anything that might move.

Ji-won and Tae-ho were the last to drop, the pipe almost giving away under Tae-ho’s weight.

As soon as he had landed, he snaked his way through the others and linked hands with Ha-yoon. “Sorry babe. I know this was tough for you.”

Ha-yoon just smiled and pecked his hand.

The streets remained unnervingly silent. Only the distant creak of metal somewhere far away. Ji-won raised a closed fist and nodded at Seo-ah.

Seo-ah led them away from the building, deeper into the fog. She didn’t look back.

Neither did they.

They moved through the city like old tectonics—steady, silent, shifting with every step. The route was ugly, but clear, up the vacant pedestrian mall, past the emptied designer stores with their rolling steel grilles punched in like a mouthful of broken teeth, through the glass atrium where the early sunlight fell in watery slabs.

Baekhyun followed, throat dry, ankle throbbing from the descent. He tried not to notice how every window reflected him a dozen different ways—dirtier, more haunted than before. He kept his eyes on the line of backs ahead, Tae-ho’s hunched bulk, Ji-won’s taut stride, Ha-yoon quick and low to the ground. He couldn’t see Seo-ah. She was already gone—through the threshold, barely a ripple in the air, as if she’d never existed at all.

“Where is she?” he whispered, mostly to himself.

Ha-yoon looked back, her voice barely a breath. “Scouting ahead. She’ll double back when she’s sure it’s empty.”

“And if it’s not?” Baekhyun said.

Ha-yoon shrugged, the movement fragile, almost apologetic. “Then we keep moving anyway.”

At each block, they waited, pressed against whatever felt solid—a concrete planter, a stairwell, the skeleton of a bus stop with its glass all atomized—and listened. Every sound was an event - the wind, tickling loose some banner that beat itself to death against a lamppost. A distant, irregular thud, like a body falling at the far end of a parking garage. The static on Ha-yoon’s comm, as she cycled through dead frequencies until she reached the same answer every time.

They moved, then stopped again. Each stretch felt longer, more exposed. Baekhyun’s palms ran with sweat, the cold air now spiked with a distant tang—oil, maybe, or the long-settled rot of something left too long in the sun.

Then, at the edge of a pharmacy, Seo-ah appeared. She didn’t materialize so much as step out from between two vending machines, as if she’d been waiting for them to catch up. Her face was flushed, hair matted to her forehead, but she grinned when she saw the group.

She waved. “Road’s blocked ahead. This path’s clear,” she said hinting back at the pharmacy. “But there’s… a thing.”

Ji-won moved up, quick. “How many?”

“Not sure. One in the stairwell, maybe few farther in. It’s—” Seo-ah hesitated, scratching at the gauze on her arm. “Yeah we need to keep an eye out.”

And then she was gone again. She didn’t even leave a footprint behind. Baekhyun watched the shadow where she’d been, his own pulse making the world stutter. She moved like physics didn’t apply—like her body had decided on a different set of rules and no one had the guts to stop her.

Ji-won checked the corners. She led them through the glass-raked lobby, her hand tight around the rifle. Baekhyun tried to map the space as they moved, pale marble tiles, shattered windows, posters hanging limp over nothing. He barely made out the words—DOREMI PHARMACY—before the next turn.

They waited in a small, choked vestibule for what felt like twenty minutes. Baekhyun tasted rust in the back of his mouth. Every second that Seo-ah didn’t return, the group’s silence thickened. He tried to distract himself, counting the beads of water on the shattered window, five, seven, twelve, before the next breath.

Inside, the shelves were mostly picked clean, but a few boxes still clung to the racks—painkillers, bottled water, some unfamiliar blister-packs labeled in Hangul. Min-jae took point, rifling through the counter for anything useful. Baekhyun watched him empty a drawer into his backpack, his movements fast and clean.

When Seo-ah materialized again she was crouched behind a cigarette vending machine, eyes dark and wild. She held up a hand—five fingers, then three, then a flat palm.

Ji-won nodded, then called over her shoulder: “Move.”

They cleared the landing and exit through a back door.

Five minutes later, she dropped from the second-floor fire escape of a karaoke bar and landed in a low crouch in front of the group. Baekhyun sucked in a breath he’d been holding and stared. He’d been watching the street, he’d been watching the windows, and yet somehow, she’d appeared exactly where he wasn’t looking.

“Clear,” Seo-ah said, voice raw. “Office tower. Eight floors checked. Elevators are down, but the stairwells are clear.” She rolled her neck, wiped a palm on her pants.

She barely paused for breath before she was gone again, vaulting a turnstile with her good arm and slipping into the lobby of a convenience store like a ghost in a bad dream. He counted—one, two, three—then saw her again, three shopfronts down, squatting behind a rolling steel gate. She waved them forward, a sharp flick of her hand, then was gone once more.

D.O. pressed his lips together. He glanced at the cluster of them shuffling into the shadow of a bus shelter, then at Ji-won. “Where are we going?” He tried to sound casual, but the words came out like a surrender.

Ji-won barely turned her head. “Seongnam Base. We were told to report there after sweep. It should be secure, if anywhere is.” Her voice carried a conviction that dared anyone to suggest a better idea.

D.O. kept quiet after that, but Baekhyun could feel the question hanging in the air, a silent dare. They all wanted to ask: What if the base is empty? What if they’re walking into another dead end?

But his attention couldn’t let go of Seo-ah, the way she’d reappeared, then vanished, as if she could step through walls. He watched her sprint the length of a block, leap a curb, duck beneath a caved-in shop awning, all without losing momentum. She gave nothing to the world around her—no fear, no hesitation. He wondered what it must be like, living in a body that moved because it wanted to, not because it had to.

Tae-ho caught his lingering stare. “She’s slow today,” he said, voice pitched so only Baekhyun would hear. Not scornful, just matter-of-fact. “Usually she makes the rest of us look like we’re standing still.”

Baekhyun couldn’t help it. “She’s not afraid?”

Tae-ho shrugged, the movement barely visible beneath his jacket. “She’s always afraid. That’s why she’s good at this.” Then, softer, “It’s the ones who stop being afraid that don’t make it out.”

Baekhyun watched the mouth of the alley where she’d vanished. “Doesn’t feel right,” he said. “Sending her out there alone.”

Tae-ho glanced at him sideways. Ji-won answered instead, without turning her head.

“Nobody sends her anywhere.” A beat. “We look at what’s ahead, and we send whoever’s most likely to return. That’s the whole calculation.” She shifted her grip on the rifle. “We wouldn’t put her somewhere she couldn’t survive. We can’t afford to.”

Tae-ho added, quieter: “And she knows that.”

Baekhyun looked at Ji-won’s profile—jaw set, eyes already on the next corner. He understood then that it wasn’t coldness, it was the opposite. It was the most careful thing they had left.

The group pressed on in staggered bursts, always waiting for Seo-ah’s return at each intersection. Sometimes she brought news—three on the next corner, one in the alley. Sometimes she just gave the all clear, and they jogged for it. She never led them into a trap. Baekhyun wondered if she was mapping the city in her head, plotting safe lines around horrors only she could see.

“There are dozens,” Seo-ah said. “Maybe hundreds. In the buildings—just standing there. Not moving.” She raked a hand through her hair, found a knot of blood, and laughed. “I almost walked straight into a crowd. Good news is, they’re not looking for us. Not yet. We stick to the alleys, and we can skirt them.”

Ji-won nodded, already plotting three moves ahead. “Did you see a way through the intersection?”

“Yeah. But we’ll have to go single file. And keep low—the glass is everywhere.” Seo-ah glanced at the group, then at EXO. “If anyone’s going to freak out, do it now.”

The city changed as they moved south—more glass, less neon. The storefronts grew taller. Whole banks and clinics loomed overhead, their lobbies lit by the hard white of emergency lights. The creatures stood inside, silhouettes against the glass, unmoving. They watched them against the window displays, in rows of two or three, never moving a muscle.

It was like running a gauntlet of mannequins. Occasionally one would turn its head, its creepy eyes sewn shut. The others didn’t move at all.

“Are they hibernating?” Chanyeol whispered, voice dry as static.

Jongin shook his head, eyes locked on a thing still in what looked like the aftermath of a suit, its body pressed flat to the glass. “Not hibernating. Just waiting. Dormant.” He tried to mask the terror with a low laugh, but the sound didn’t clear his throat.

In front, Seo-ah held up a closed fist. The group bunched up, breathing ragged, every eye tracking her as she pointed to a city bus tilted half-off the curb. “Next stop’s a ride,” she said. “It’s empty. We move, fast and quiet.”

The bus was an old city model, paint blistered to a dull blue, the windows bandaged with tape and plastic. At some point, someone had tried to torch the interior—char lines crossed the seats and dash, the air thick with the memory of melted vinyl and singed hair. There was no blood. That felt like a blessing. There was no driver either, not even a trace. Ghost bus, ready to be haunted by the next set of fools.

Seo-ah was first in, boots crunching on shattered glass. She swept the aisle with the muzzle of her pistol, every step bracing for the lurch of another not-quite-dead thing lurking behind a seat. Nothing. Just the dust and the silence, and the echo of her own ragged breath.

She slipped to the back, checked the emergency exit, found it jammed shut with a bent crowbar. Good sign, or terrible sign. She let her hand rest on the cold metal, then turned, watching the rest pile in.

Ha-yoon went straight for the driver’s seat, her hands already shaking out the comm wires and prying at the access panel beneath the dash. Min-jae followed, hauling Baekhyun and the others up the steps, herding them like a sheepdog with a limp. Tae-ho and Ji-won lingered outside, scanning the block, rifles at low ready, eyes stretched to the horizon and back.

Ha-yoon crouched under the driver’s dash, her voice muffled by the tangle of wires. Her hands flew over the dash, flicked switches, yanked the key. Nothing. The engine didn’t even cough. She checked the battery lights, saw the flatline, and spat a curse. “Battery’s dead,” she called out.

“What about the spare?” Seo-ah was already moving, rifling through the glove box, the overhead racks, anything dumber than hope.

Ha-yoon shook her head, fingers already probing the panels under the wheel. “It’s not just dead, it’s fried. Something shorted it.” She hit the main breaker, tried again, and got a thin, whistling whine, as if the machine was learning to beg for mercy. She yanked the service hatch, dove under the dash again.

She was already at work, popping the fuse box, stripping wires with her teeth when the clippers jammed. The rest of the group huddled in the aisle and under the windows, heads ducked, bodies pressed so close Baekhyun could feel the cold sweat of Sehun’s arm through both their jackets.

Chanyeol pressed his face to the glass, breath fogging the window. “Are we just gonna sit here?”

Seo-ah shot him a look. “Unless you want to jog to Seongnam, yes.” Her lips curled, but the joke tasted bitter. She eyed the row of buildings across the street, counting silhouettes, then counting again. It felt like each shadow moved a little closer every time she looked away.

Outside, the city’s hush frayed at the edges. Baekhyun looked through the grimy windows and saw the figures in the glass lobbies, their faces pressed to the cold, just as before. They weren’t moving. But it felt wrong now, like they were holding their breath.

Behind him, Soo-jin kept her rifle aimed through the rear doors, but her focus was pinched, eyes darting left to right. Ji-won hovered behind Ha-yoon, voice tight, “How long?”

“Fuck this,” Ha-yoon mumbled, wrenching a chunk of wire free. It sliced her thumb. She sucked at the blood and kept working. “If this doesn’t spark, we’re walking.”

“Don’t think about it,” Min-jae said. He wasn’t talking to Ha-yoon, or to anyone; just narrating the air. “In and out. We get it running, we’re gone.”

Baekhyun edged into a seat across from them, knees knocking. His hands wouldn’t stop moving—tapping, flexing, then fisting against his knees as if he could suffocate his own nerves. He watched her, waiting for some sign, some miracle, before it was too late.

Above them, a faint rotor sound pulsed through the buildings, so distant it could have been a memory. The new sound cut through the air—a low, distant chop, thicker than anything he was used to hearing in the city. The vibration built and built, a heavy thudding that made the bus windows buzz in their frames. It was a helicopter.

The sound grew into a presence, not just a noise but a judgment trembling the glass. Baekhyun’s first thought was: rescue. For a second, he let himself believe. He craned his neck, tried to catch a slice of sky through the bus’s crusted windows, but the angle was wrong, the city too tall and narrow. The sound became a scythe, slicing the air, and then the helicopter was overhead—so close the frame of the bus seemed to breathe with it.

Sehun grabbed his sleeve. “Can they see us?”

He wanted to say yes, but the beam of the searchlight swept the intersection and moved on, not pausing, not even slowing. It didn’t linger over the bus or its cargo. The light was clinical, uninterested in the ground, scanning for something bigger, or smaller, or not them at all. The sound expanded, then receded, and as abruptly as it had arrived, it was gone.

Baekhyun’s ears rang in the vacuum left behind. Then something worse filled it.

A new sound, one he’d only ever heard in nightmares and disaster drills—an emergency siren, the kind that flattens your insides, the kind that means missile, flood, catastrophe. It bellowed from every direction at once, a city-wide shriek pouring from hidden speakers in the concrete, a banshee wail that slammed into Baekhyun’s skull so hard he nearly hit the floor.

Ha-yoon shrieked, a curse or a prayer, he couldn’t tell. Her hands flashed, splicing a last wire, and the dash lights coughed to life. The engine didn’t start, but the faint blue glow of the display was an answer worth anything.

Outside, the mannequins in the glass lobbies began to move. Not fast, not all at once, but horribly in unison. Their heads turned together, like sunflowers seeking dawn, every face now pointed at the bus. The siren bored into Baekhyun’s teeth, made his tongue buzz. He felt the urge to move, to run, but there was nowhere to go. He thought of the old apocalypse movies—how the monsters always looked fake, how the real terror was the camera lingering on the faces of the terrified. He’d never understood it until now.

He saw Chanyeol’s jaw go slack. The others pressed lower, as if a few centimeters might save them from what was coming.

Ji-won’s voice was a wire through the panic. “Get it started.”

“Almost—” Ha-yoon gritted, she yanked the fuse with her teeth and jammed it into a new port. The bus’s engine whined, caught, then died. She tried again, and this time it stuttered and coughed, a sound like drowning. Baekhyun’s hand found the headrest in front of him, squeezed until the vinyl cut lines into his palm.

The figures from across the street broke from their window displays, moving with a violence that made Baekhyun’s stomach twist. The first ones hit the street, stumbled, adjusted, then began to sprint—full-tilt, all limbs, like wild dogs let out of an elevator. More joined. From every building, every alley, every shadow—dozens, then scores, then too many to count. They converged on the bus.

“Ha-yoon NOW!” Ji-won shouted, and Ha-yoon slammed her fist into the ignition, kicking the underside of the dash. The bus coughed, choked, but this time roared to life.

[0megadawn]

Still Here: Chapter 2 - The Collapse

↳ summary: In the eerie Samsung building, Seo-ah and her elite team search for missing civilians, hunted by something more terrifying. As they escape, they confront the blurred lines between creatures and the humanity as they once knew. Racing towards safety, they must survive in a city spiraling into chaos.

↳ wc: 10.8K

↳ progress: Foreword, Chapter 1: The Message, Chapter 2: The Collapse, Chapter 3: Survival

↳ a/n: sorry it's a bit longer T_T

Seo-ah’s legs burned, the breath caught raw in her lungs, but the image of the bodies tumbling past the glass floors kept her going. The stairs were a meat grinder: fluorescence flicked, then failed, debris gathered in corners like the detritus of abandoned lives. Every landing stank of burnt plastic and something else, something metal and rotten, like some kind of fruit left out to liquefy. Her boots slipped once on a sticky patch—she caught herself on the rail, teeth clacking shut. No time to check it.

Behind, Ji-won’s boots rasped up the stairs—always there, two floors below, the same measured breathing as in training runs. “Clear left,” Ji-won called at each landing. Seo-ah’s own voice locked up, whatever quip she meant to say cut off by the image of bodies tumbling from above, the split-second shape of a man’s face before it dissolved against the ground.

Behind her, she could hear the muffled percussive thuds of more bodies—she refused to look out the stairwell windows. Just run. Just one more floor. The pain in her thigh was an old friend, a warning that she was still alive.

At fifteen, she hit a door that wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the inside.

“Hey!” she bangs on the doors. “Open up! Let us help you!” All she could hear were screams from the inside. Men, women and even children. Incoherent screams. Seo-ah slammed her shoulder into it once. Twice. On the third hit, it gave.

The hallway beyond was dark.The emergency lights blinked red. Everything smelled wrong - metallic, rotten, warm. A big contrast to buildings at the start of their search.

Seo-ah stepped inside first, stopping when she heard the ding of the elevator, looking back. The elevator doors opened.

For a second her brain refused to understand what she was seeing.

Bodies. Stacked on top of each other. Crushed together. Arms bent the wrong way, their faces pressed into the metal. A woman’s hand still twitched near the edge.

The elevator had been packed full and then forced shut. Blood pooled beneath it, slowly leaking into the carpet. Seo-ah stared, unable to form any words, momentarily forgetting what she was here for.

Ji-won stepped beside her and froze.

“What the fuck…” Seo-ah whispered.

Ji-won crouched beside the body nearest the front, and checked the woman’s vitals. She was but a second too late. She let go of her hand, and it dropped with a thud.

Seo-ah swallowed. Apart from these few people that she saw today, she hasn’t yet found anyone alive.

A faint sound made her head snap up. A faint scratching sound coming from above. Somewhere in the walls.

It was slow and erratic. Like claws dragging on metal.

Both women looked up as the sound followed into another room.

It stopped and then there was a moment of silence. Followed by screaming coming from above them. It was high and panicked.

Seo-ah and Ji-won were already moving, when they heard another shrill, panicked scream coming from below. They looked at each other for a brief moment before nodding and taking off, Seo-ah headed above and Ji-won below.

Seo-ah took the next flight of stairs three at a time. The screams had come from above. Then below. Then both—somehow. Her eardrums still rang. She pressed on, boots hammering each step, lungs drawing in air that felt thinner the higher she climbed. The doors on sixteen and seventeen were chained shut, a hasty knot of computer cables looped through the battered handles. She barely slowed: one hard yank and the left door cracked open, the cables slithering to the ground, cold but wet against her fingers.

Eighteenth. Nineteenth. No more screams, just the unrelenting whine of emergency lights and, under that, the slow tick of a fluorescent dying somewhere out of sight. She cursed under her breath—where were they? What were they running from?

At the twenty-first floor, the stairwell hit a dead end. The door to the roof chained shut, padlocked. Not the fire code, but who cared now. The metal bit under her palm, still warm from a hundred panicked hands. She pressed an ear to the hollow and heard nothing but blood in her ears. The last scream had come from just above, but now there was only silence. That could mean anything.

She backtracked to the twentieth floor. A hallway, strip-lit and too long, glossy floor tiles smeared with streaks of something wet and uncanny. She stalked it, knives long forgotten, gun pointed high, muzzle leading her through the hush. Cubicles on either side, but no breathing, no shuffling. Even the computers were blacked out—no humming, no blue glow. The world was on pause.

Then, at the far end, a wall of frosted glass. Conference room. The glass was crazed with spiderweb cracks, but not broken through. Beyond it, the outlines of desks and shadows moving.

The glass meeting room dominated the entire hallway, its interior fogged by condensation and something else - soot, maybe, or some film left by air thick with rot. Through the glass cutouts along the top of the door, she could see movement. It was subtle, just a shadow shifting behind the frosting, but it was enough to freeze her in her tracks.

She peered in. Someone had dragged two conference tables in front of the doors, barricading them from the inside, then jammed a something long through the handles for good measure. The barricade was makeshift, desperate, all the furniture and refuse from the office floor thrown into a single choking wall. Somewhere behind it, the shadow moved again—a slumping, shuddering motion, then nothing.

Seo-ah banged on the glass, hard. “Open up! I’m with the Special Missions Unit!” Her voice came out high, thinner than she’d intended. She waited, pressed her ear to the glass. Nothing but the muffled hum from the building’s bones. She tried the door. It rattled but held.

A sudden thump from the hallway behind her startled her. Seo-ah spun, pulling out her gun leveling it to her face in one swift motion, but there was nothing there. She spent the next few cautious seconds waiting, observing. No sound now, not even the whir of the air system. She shivered, more from nerves than cold, and faced the glass again.

She banged again, harder. “I see you in there. Move the barricade!” Nothing.

Fine.

She kicked once, heel to the handle. The thing holding the door handles together gave in, cracked in half. She kicked again, harder. The glass spider webbed, coughed out a fine white powder with every impact. She gave herself two steps of runway and this time shoulder-checked the door just below the lock. The whole barricade shifted, metal legs scraping the floor tile, and came toppling inwards. She walked in, weapon up.

Seo-ah stepped through the wreckage of the door, shoes crunching on plastic shards and powdered glass. The barricade was nonsense—desk legs tangled with extension cords, a leather rolling chair wedged so optimistically against the handles she wanted to applaud. Four out of ten, and that’s if you ignored that the armrests were on backwards. She rolled her eyes, pulling away a broken slab of fake wood.

The conference room looked like someone had detonated a grenade packed with designer energy drinks and promotional notebooks. For a second Seo-ah wondered if she was hallucinating or if the sleep deprivation was finally staging a coup.

There, behind some upturned furniture and a fortress of office chairs, cowered eight men in sequined jackets and pastel hair.

EXO.

“You boys know your barricade is pathetic, right?” She said pointing back. Her voice barely carried, but it didn’t have to. They were already looking past her, faces draining even further of color.

At the sight of her, the room came apart in slow motion. One of them—silver hair, broad shoulders, a face she vaguely recognized from a cologne billboard near Gangnam station— pressed himself further into the wall, jaw locked, hands balled at his sides. Another had his face buried in the shoulder of the man next to him, fingers twisted into his jacket. A third sat completely rigid, knees drawn to his chest, staring at her with the wide, glassy look of someone whose brain had simply stopped processing. Two more were clutching each other by the forearm, neither seeming to notice. One had his eyes shut, lips moving without sound. The tallest of them had positioned himself slightly in front of the others, not quite brave, but not quite not.

Then the one she recognized—D.O., from the department store commercials, the ones that played on every screen in every elevator in Seoul—rose slowly, calm and calculated, unlike his team, from behind an overturned chair. He lifted one finger to his lips. Then pointed behind her.

The one beside him grabbed her sleeve before she could turn. She looked down. Baekhyun, she realized distantly, the name surfacing from some memory. His grip was surprisingly firm for someone whose entire body was shaking. His eyes said: don’t make a sound. His eyes also said: please, please, please.

She turned, expecting an office manager, maybe someone deranged or one of the survivors. Instead, there was nothing.

In her earpiece, Soo-jin’s voice crackled.

“Seo-ah… I see movement. I’m looking at something, but I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”

Seo-ah turned back slowly, the hair at the back of her neck tingling with a sensation she wasn’t sure of. She felt a dread in the atmosphere but couldn’t really put a finger on it. The air was thick with humidity and static, the hiss of Air Con fighting a losing battle. Seo-ah saw their eyes widen and the bodies cowering even further into oblivion. And then she heard it, a stuttered slashing sound just above and behind, like a cat’s claws raking drywall. Instinct took over. She stepped aside just as a long, jagged limb tore through the space where her head had been, close enough to shear a few strands of hair.

Behind her, the glass wall shattered inward.

She turned and froze. There it was, crouched in the hallway.

Too tall, too wide, head and limbs that bent in places that did not make sense, like an animal trying to imitate a human. It filled the hallway the wrong way—too much of it, joints reversed or doubled, the body a rough draft of something human that had never been corrected.

The skin across its shoulders had gone translucent with the strain of whatever was happening underneath, a web of fine movement rippling through it like something trying to get out.

Its jaw had come unhinged past any natural limit, the soft tissue at the corners of its mouth gone white and taut, and the dark behind its teeth went back further than it should have.

Seo-ah instinctively stepped back.

“What the fuck?”

Ji-won voice came through the earpiece, sharp and calculated. “Seo-ah, report.”

“I have eight civilians here.” She took a side glance at the men behind her. “And also something you should definitely take a look at.”

“Bring ‘em home.”

Seo-ah swallowed hard, forcing her brain to move.

She pointed toward the stairwell.

“Twenty floors down. Stairs to the left. Go. Now.”

EXO huddled.

“MOVE!” Seo-ah barked. “Stairwell, now!”

For a moment, nobody did. Baekhyun’s hand was still on her sleeve, and she could feel the tremor in it. His eyes moved from her to the thing in the hallway and back, jaw working like he was about to say something. She could see him doing the calculation and arriving somewhere he didn’t like. Behind him, two of the others had risen to their feet but hadn’t gone anywhere. The silver-haired one—Sehun—was looking at the thing with an expression that had moved past fear into something quieter.

She didn’t wait. She grabbed Baekhyun by the shoulder and shoved him hard toward the exit. He stumbled, caught himself, turned back. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second, Baekhyun’s eyes mimicking somewhat of a fear while Seo-ah was calm and steadfast.

“Go,” she said. Just that.

They moved. Not cleanly—feet catching on glass, someone going down on one knee and getting hauled up by the arm—but they moved, funneling toward the stairwell door in a tangle of sequins and ragged breathing. The tallest one was last. He held the door open a half-second longer than he needed to, looking at her like he might not see her tomorrow, and then he was gone. They moved like her word was gospel. One after the other. Fast.

But the thing moved faster. It lunged for Sehun.

Seo-ah grabbed her Glock and fired as she moved back. “Hey shitface! Eyes on me!”

Its neck snapped sideways, and it paused, slowly turned. Its eyes locked onto her, head tilting, like it was studying her, mimicking her movements.

Then it moved. Wrong.

It didn’t move like anything she’d ever seen—fluid, but somehow catching and stuttering in the air, like frames missing from a video. Too fast for something that size. It crossed the hallway in less than a second.

“Fuck!” Seo-ah bolted.

She moved on instinct - small, quick, weaving around broken desks, ducking under fallen beams, vaulting over debris.

Behind her, the monster crashed through everything. It was big, heavy, uncoordinated, but relentless.

Soo-jin tracked from the opposite building, rifle trained. Too fast, too close. One wrong shot and she’d hit Seo-ah.

“Cap,” Seo-ah panted, leaping over a collapsed pillar. “Now would be a great time for backup.”

Ji-won’s voice came through immediately. “Already on their way. Make it out alive, Han.”

“Very motivating.”

She rounded a dead end.

Broken windows. No exits.

The monster roared behind her. Seo-ah looked at the shattered glass, then looked at the monster, and then back at the glass.

“Oh, this is way above my paycheck.”

She jumped, both elbows barricading her face and her knees tucked, bracing for impact.

Bursting through the window, she crashed into a hanging billboard below but lost her grip, the metal groaning under her weight before snapping.

She slammed onto the pavement hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. “Fuck”

A shadow loomed above her. She opened her eyes just in time to see that the monster had come down after her. It crashed directly on top of her, its weight pinning her completely.

Seo-ah barely got her arm up before its teeth sank into her sleeve. Pain shot up her arm.

She gritted her teeth, shoving against it. Nothing. It was too strong.

With her free hand, she yanked a knife from her holster and drove it into the side of its neck. Once, twice. It did nothing. She watched the thing’s eyes stay fixed on her, unimpressed.

Above her, Soo-jin found the angle.

Breathe in.

Exhale.

Fire.

The shot rang out—a single, flat crack. Noise that bounced off the glass towers and died in the open air. A direct hit to the head.

EXO had made it to the far side of the street, clustered behind a concrete partition half a block down, that Ji-won had pointed them toward. They were still catching their breath, still shaking glass out of their hair. The sound hit them before they understood it. A few of them dropped instinctively, hands going to their ears. Then the silence rushed back in, and they straightened, heads turning toward the source.

Seo-ah was on the ground. The thing was on top of her. Few of them gasped, helpless. Baekhyun saw it—her arms straining upward against it. It didn't move in a way anything should move. He made a sound low in his throat and stepped forward without thinking, Jongdae reached out, caught his arm and held it. He didn’t pull away. He just stood there, fingers curled at his sides, watching something he had no framework for.

The monster jolted from the impact, skull snapping square, and Seo-ah wrenched herself free.

But it was still moving.

“You have got to be shitting me!”

Her shoulder seared with pain, but adrenaline made it a rumor more than a sensation. The monster’s silhouette shuddering above her as it tried to find its feet. The shot had cored through the thing’s temple - chunks of something dark and vital seeping from the hole in its skull. It swayed, then screamed, not a noise but a pressure, a warping of the air itself. The thing—whatever it was—shuddered and jerked to the side, then pivoted to face her again, the wet hole in its head steaming in the early morning. It looked more surprised than hurt, like it had never considered pain as a possibility.

She crab-crawled on her back, boots skidding on the broken glass, and forced herself upright, weight on her right arm near useless. She got her feet under her and ran, muscle memory shoved her towards the nearest cover, the world tilting at an angle as she blood-smeared the sidewalk. She heard the thing’s feet—no, hands?—slapping the ground behind her, a manic dog’s scramble.

She scanned for the rifle, blinking back the spots in her eyes, found it maybe five meters away, next to a toppled sign. She sprinted for it, wrenched it up. She circled left, trying to draw it away from the others, legs almost giving away under pain. The thing followed, its gait uneven now, but gaining speed with every step. Its eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t move. It was like being tracked by a camera lens that didn’t care if she was a person, just as a moving object to be deleted from the frame.

It swung wildly, closing the distance between them before Seo-ah could even react, its claws ripped across her back. Seo-ah screamed.

Another shot, this one clipping its shoulder. The round barely slowed it, but the impact spun it half around, long arms trailing after like it was underwater. Soo-jin’s aim was good, but this was not something you could kill by just being good. Seo-ah could feel the old Level 4 dread settling in her chest, a pressure from the past, compressing her lungs until it was hard to breathe.

She reeled. If she could get it out of the street, get it somewhere narrow, maybe it would have to slow down. She lured it toward the old market alley, the one lined with small glass front shops. She went through the glass doors of a side shop, dark inside but better than outside. She ducked behind the counter, pressed herself flat, breathing through teeth to keep it herself from crying or cursing. Her arm pulsed, back gushing, whole body on fire, but she kept her gun up, barrel shaking only a little.

The monster paused outside the door, head canted, listening. Seo-ah held her breath. The glass trembled as it ran a claw down the pane, an almost gentle test. Then it vanished from view: left, then right, then up, the pattern unpredictable, impossible to track. She risked a glance—empty street.

Seo-ah counted to five. Then ten.

A shadow rippled across the opposite wall.

She dove right as the monster tore through the doorway, exploding in a glass rain.

“Down!” She heard Ji-won’s voice then, not in her ear this time but echoing from the mouth of the alley. Seo-ah hit the ground, rolling over her shoulder.

A barrage of shots rang out from the street. The monster spasmed as rounds punched through its torso—Ji-won, coming in hot. She appeared at the alley mouth with the squad’s secondary rifle, a heavy-caliber monster. She braced it against her bicep and fired once, twice, no hesitation.

The first round punched through the monster’s chest, sending up a spray that smelled like burning hair. The second hit lower, dropping it to the ground. It stumbled, fell against a rack of cosmetics, scattering lip tints and mascaras everywhere.

Soo-jin, finally getting a clean shot fired again. Missed, or so she thought. The thing shifted right as the bullet was about to hit between its eyes, but missed and punched through its thigh. The creature let out a shrill, unnatural scream. For a moment, it just trembled, then the entire body seized, limbs folding inward until it compacted itself into something the size of a trash bag. It oozed across the ground for a meter, then stopped and shuddered. Its body convulsed, then collapsed.

Seo-ah blinked, barely believing the thing was dead, until she saw the black ooze pooling underneath, spreading slow and deliberate, as if gravity were too much effort.

Ji-won’s boots pounded up behind her, weapon raised. She swept the area, then looked at Seo-ah splayed out on the floor, gaze hollowed out.

Seo-ah lay on the ground, taking a peak at the sky, breath hitched. Their van screeched into view beside the Samsung building, Tae-ho manning the steering.

“You good?” Ji-won comes into view, upside-down.

Seo-ah sucked in a ragged breath. “Honestly? Been better.”

Ji-won nodded staring at her for the longest time, eyes almost reflecting pity, and then, for the first time, turned her attention down to the monster. It didn’t look right—not just the shape, but the texture, the way it seemed to ripple under the skin like a sack of hungry eels.

“Sample?” Ji-won said, not really asking.

“Seriously?” Ha-yoon entered, in all her glory, swinging a tool in her hand.

“Min-jae would want samples.”

Ha-yoon sighed but didn’t protest. She fished her gloves out of her vest and knelt. The thing seemed to have cooled rapidly, its surface already filmed over with a waxy crust. She dug into the wound at the neck, pulling out a chunk of tissue. It resisted, like pulling a stick of gum out from under a desk. She dropped it into a vial, capped it, and double-bagged the whole mess.

Above, Soo-jin’s voice crackled through, low and stripped of everything but the words. “Movement on the upper floors. Multiple signatures.”

Seo-ah blinked, then looked up.

The windows went dark floor by floor, a blackout climbing the building from the fifth story up. For one suspended second, nothing. And then came the glass. Not all at once—worse than that—not in a shower but in a wall, an avalanche, whole panes detonating outward and taking everything with them, and with the glass came the shapes. Suits. Skirts. A child’s pajama top, yellow, with something printed on it, she couldn’t make out before it hit the pavement.

“What—” Chanyeol started, and didn’t finish, mouth hanging open, unable to process any more words.

The first one hit the pavement close enough that Seo-ah felt the impact through her boots. It landed on its hands and knees, head down, and stayed that way for a moment—almost peaceful—before the neck rotated upward in a single mechanical arc, and it looked directly at her. Its legs straightened in stages, each joint popping into alignment, and it opened its mouth in a grin that used the whole lower half of its face.

“Oh god.” That was Jongdae, somewhere behind the concrete partition, his voice cracking clean in half.

More were coming down. A body caved the roof of a parked car to the chassis and bounced upright without pausing. Another dropped into a crowd of three and was standing before any of them had finished falling. Jongin had pressed himself against the wall of the shop behind them, one hand over his mouth, watching a thing in a business suit drag itself upright on knuckles that bent the wrong way. Kyungsoo had gone completely still himself, back against the wall, hands flat at his sides, staring with the focused vacancy of someone whose brain had simply stopped accepting new information.

“Van. Now.” Ji-won didn’t wait—she already had Seo-ah up by the collar, Ha-yoon taking her arm, and they were moving, Seo-ah’s boots dragging twin smears across the sidewalk as they hauled her forward. “Soo-jin, relocate!”

Ha-yoon hit the sliding door with both palms and muscled it open, the track shrieking. “Go, go, go—” The EXO members compressed themselves through the gap in a single panicked mass, Minseok pulling Jongdae by the sleeve, someone’s knee catching the door frame, someone else’s elbow cracking against another. Baekhyun went through last, twisting at the threshold, one hand braced the door frame and the other reaching back for Seo-ah, eyes locked on something over her shoulder that his face said she should not turn around to look at.

Ji-won and Ha-yoon shoved Seo-ah into the van, then dove in themselves. The door slammed shut just as something heavy thumped against its side, denting the steel. Inside, the air went thick with sweat, blood, and pure terror.

“Drive—now!” Ji-won barked. Tae-ho, white-knuckled, punched the accelerator. The van jolted forward, tires shrieking, weaving through bodies that were already getting up—bits of them dragging fingers across the asphalt, hissing inhuman. Two blocks on, they skidded to scoop up Soo-jin, her eyes glazed in shock as she jumped aboard.

Seo-ah pressed her face to the window, watching as Myeong-dong receded behind them. She spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor mat, then blinked grit out of her eyes. Min-jae was already kneeling beside her, hands working to peel up her sleeve. “Damn it, Seo-ah. Why is it always you?”

She offered him a shaky grin. “What can I say? I’m memorable.” She closed her eyes against the sting, trying not to wince.

The van fishtailed down an empty avenue lined with overturned carts and hollow hulls of taxis. Out there, the city had become one giant chase scene—twisted shapes sprinting, crawling, some even faster than the engine. In the rear window, the things that were once people launched themselves at the van, bodies slamming into cars, streetlights, each other, snarling in voices that weren’t voices.

A few hours ago, they’d have laughed at the idea of aliens or monsters. Now?

“Anyone else hurt?” Min-jae’s tone was flat, almost bored, even as his fingers flew over bandages and pulse checks. Just another Tuesday, he seemed to think—except none of them would ever see a Tuesday the same way again.

She shook her head, grit teeth as Min-jae cinched a rubber tourniquet above her elbow, the strap digging into tender flesh. The others in the van mirrored her motion— heads snapping side to side, the gesture so in-unison it might have been choreographed. Cold sweat beaded at their hairlines, even the fluorescent dome light seemed to flicker in shock.

Min-jae tugged up the hem of her shirt and sucked in a hiss of breath. His fingers, slick with antiseptic from the last packet, trembled slightly as he tossed the empty wrapper into the cupholder. Ripping open a fresh gauze pad with his teeth, he slapped it onto her raw side none too gentle. The faint rustle of fabric was drowned by their pounding hearts.

Seo-ah stifled a strangled noise—part yelp, part curse—and the coppery tang of blood hit her tongue. She stared at the van’s ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in Seoul.

Min-jae clicked open his micro surgical kit— the kind you’d stash in a blazer pocket. His breath caught as he peeled back ragged cloth, exposing raw tissue. A sudden, icy sting of alcohol washed over the lesion, and she gasped, “Fuck!”—the single word a raw, ragged edge in the silence.

He squinted, adjusting his glasses with meticulous care. “Nope. This won’t hold.” A split second of something like panic flickered in his eyes. “Take off your top.”

Seo-ah’s lips curved into a sly grin. “Dang, Min-jae, if you wanted me half-naked in your arms, you could’ve just asked.” Her voice cracked on the punch line, betraying the adrenaline that made her hands shake.

He leveled her with a flat stare. “Now.”

“Okay, okay—no sense of humor.” She shrugged off her jacket, then peeled away her t-shirt, wincing as fabric dragged over torn flesh. The van went deathly still: heads jerked up, breaths caught. Her lean, scarred torso was illuminated in the harsh morning light peering through the windows, a silent testament to every battle she’d waged.

Min-jae’s jaw clenched. “This is pretty bad.” He pressed a clean gauze square deeper against the wound, then fished out a tiny steel stapler. “Hold still.”

He flicked off the safety. The first staple punched through with a hollow, metallic thunk that ricocheted around their chests. “One down, four to go,” he said softly, voice almost soothing. Each subsequent staple landed in cold rhythm—thunk, thunk, thunk—sealing flesh with clinical efficiency. Seo-ah’s fists balled, nails gouging crescent wounds into her palms, but she forced herself to breathe, counting the metal bites in her mind.

By the third staple, her bravado crumpled. Her shoulders sagged; she slumped forward until her forehead pressed against the seat in front of her. The hot trickle of blood had slowed, but each staple’s shockwave of pain was a fresh brand. She drifted toward unconsciousness, just as Min-jae caught her chin and tipped her face back.

“You’re going into shock,” he said, voice steady. “Keep talking, or you’ll pass out.”

She blinked up at him, vision blurred. With a ragged breath she croaked, “Bet that thing back there didn’t get a fancy staple gun to the ass.” Her attempt at levity came out as a half-laugh, but the others exhaled, tension shattering into nervous relief.

Min-jae dabbed at the trickle with a gauze square. “You’ll need a tetanus booster,” he said, voice matter-of-fact.

“Ooh, sexy,” she rasped, voice muffled. Even in pain, she couldn’t resist one last barb.

Around them, hearts still thundered, minds still reeling from what they’d just witnessed, but for now, they were alive—and for that, even Seo-ah would admit, they were lucky.

Seo-ah fought the urge to close her eyes. Every breath tasted of metal and fear, pain lanced through her ribs, each breath a knife twisting in her side. Her heart fluttered, then settled into a slow, unsteady drumbeat. She thought of the creature that had chased her through the office, the way its hollow eyes had bored through her with a ravenous hunger.

She looked up. Chanyeol sat two seats away, body rigid, one hand digging into the headrest before him until his knuckles went bone-white. His other hand hovered at his throat, as if he couldn’t decide whether to swallow or scream. Every few seconds he stole another glance at the dark stain spreading across Seo-ah’s back, at the taut bandage wrapped around her forearm. His eyes flicked over the curve of her waist, the rise and fall of her chest—he couldn’t look away. She gave him a crooked grin, pain creasing her brow. Cute!

“You good?” she rasped, voice coarse as gravel.

“Uh… yeah.” Chanyeol’s words tumbled out quickly, breathless and raw. He averted his gaze, then risked another peek, then looked away again. “You—uh, are you okay?”

She lifted her chin. “Takes more than that to kill me.”

Chanyeol nodded. He had the shell-shocked stare of someone who had never seen blood outside a music video, and now there was some on his pants.

The van stank of sweat and fear. EXO, each broken out in panicked sweat, now sat as far from the windows as possible, flinching at every jolt of the road. Kyungsoo’s throat bobbed with every swallow. Jongin kept glancing over his shoulder, as if at any moment the things outside might decide to peel away the van’s skin. Baekhyun, who had seemed the type to crack a joke in any situation, now stared at the floor between his shoes, hands pressed into the seat so hard his knuckles looked necrotic.

“They’re following us, aren’t they?” Baekhyun said after a stretch of silence, not looking up. His voice had no rhythm, no lilt, just the flat note of defeat. “Those… things. From the building.”

“Negative,” Ji-won said, not unkindly, eyes never leaving the side mirror. “Far as I can tell, we lost them at the turn.” She didn’t sound convinced, and her hands never unclenched from the weapon in her lap.

“What were they?” Jongdae’s voice was shrill, still ringing with the echo of that shriek from the street. “What happened to everyone?”

Seo-ah didn’t answer right away. The staples in her back stung with every breath, but not as much as the memory of the creature’s smile, the way it had used a human face like a borrowed mask. She could see those teeth, every time she blinked.

“I don’t know,” Ji-won said, and the admission left her lips bitter. “That’s what we were sent to find out.”

“But you killed it,” Chanyeol said, voice almost apologetic, as if hoping the topic would evaporate if he put a polite period at the end. “Right?”

Seo-ah snorted. “We slowed it down. For all we know, it’s up and walking now. Might even be in this van with us.”

Jongin let out a strangled noise, eyes wide as headlights.

Seo-ah rolled her head against the window, watching the world blur by. Seoul was a mausoleum—all the lights were still on, but not a single living thing moved in any window, any street, except them and the monsters. Something about that, the absolute absence of witnesses, made her skin itch.

“So what now?” Kyungsoo asked, his voice the only one not quavering.

Min-jae finally looked up, mouth tight. “We regroup with the other units. Wait for Command to issue new instructions.”

“But Command’s not answering,” Baekhyun said, finally looking up. “Are they?”

Min-jae nodded, once.

“So we’re just… driving around until we die?”

Seo-ah couldn’t help herself. “Don’t take it personally. You’re celebrities—they’ll probably clone you or something. Make a whole new band.”

“Funny,” Baekhyun said. But he didn’t smile.

Baekhyun sat in the far back corner, wedged between two others, knees pressed to his chest, arms winding tighter around them as though to tether himself to the real world. He watched red beads roll down Seo-ah’s forearm, dripping onto the bandage, seeping through to stain the fabric. He saw the metal staples glint on her back, heard her chuckle through bloodless lips. He swallowed hard, torn between revulsion and awe. She was laughing—flirting, even—as blood slid down her skin and her eyes shone with mischief. It made no sense. The city outside lay in ruin, gunfire still stuttering through the canyon of skyscrapers, and here she was cracking jokes about Min-jae’s bedside manners. It was that smile—crooked, fearless— that froze him.

Baekhyun’s own adrenaline throbbed in his temples. He tried to recall what it felt like to vault through a window for someone you didn’t know, to risk a limb for a stranger. He couldn’t. Years of rehearsed smiles for cameras, of carefully crafted public faces, had left him speechless at this moment. He pressed his palms together—broken glass had shredded the skin—and hissed as stale napkin bandages tore against fresh cuts. The pain was shockingly real, a ground he understood better than any of this madness.

The van jumped a curb, jarring his shoulder into the ribbed plastic door frame. He barely registered it. His eyes kept drifting back to her. Seo-ah’s face was ashen, cheeks hollowed, but when she caught his gaze she winked as casually as if they were two passengers sharing a seat on a quiet train.

Baekhyun couldn’t look away.

She laughed again—this time joining Ha-yoon’s teasing about Min-jae’s overdramatic mannerisms. The van hurtled forward, lights flashing on broken asphalt, and Seo-ah’s laughter rang out sharper than any bullet.

Somehow, amid the chaos and blood and the pounding of his own pulse, Baekhyun felt a spark of something fierce: admiration, disbelief—and the faintest hope that maybe, just maybe, this impossible woman really would make it out alive.

The van rattled past blocks that should have been congested with taxis, descending into the wormhole of a city that hadn’t realized it was dead. The silence outside wasn’t the ordinary kind, not even the kind that falls after a summer rain. It was total, like the world had been lined with foam. Every kilometer, Soo-jin looked out, counting the shapes that weren’t moving, the hunched silhouettes of citizens who’d failed to get out, and the few that did move—too quickly, or in the wrong direction entirely.

Inside, the air was thick with the stink of blood, the cold burn of alcohol, and the sticky breath of panic. They drove in pulses - pedal down, then braking hard, then weaving around barricades that made no tactical sense. Maybe made by civilians, maybe by something else. The city’s own arteries clogged shut with its panic. A siren blipped in the distance, but it was just a recording, cycling through notifications. Police vans, ambulances, lay toppled. A sudden and drastic contrast against last night. Announcements echoing over themselves, layer upon layer, like someone had turned the city’s own lungs against it.

“It’s a mystery how we weren’t made aware of this sooner,” Ha-yoon said, her knuckles white where she gripped her rifle. “This level of structural collapse… it didn’t happen in an hour.”

She turned towards EXO. “How long were you guys stuck in there?”

Jongin adjusted his glasses. His hands trembled slightly. “Our meeting was at nine. Dinner. We heard shouting from the street—not normal shouting. More like… screaming.” He swallowed. “Our manager went to check. He never came back.”

Min-jae cut in, voice low but urgent. “Did you see or hear anything before he left? Movement? Shapes?”

Baekhyun shook his head, arms wrapped tight around his knees. “Just the lights flickering. And this… humming sound, like faulty wiring but… alive.”

“Alive how?” Ji-won asked from the front seat, her eyes still scanning the ruins outside.

“Like it was breathing,” Chanyeol said quietly. “The walls, the ceiling—they pulsed. Like there was something inside.”

“What made you think so?” Ji-won retorts. “Anything particular you remember?”

Kyungsoo nodded slowly. “No. Just felt like there was something in the walls. And, it smelt like rotten eggs.”

Ha-yoon and Seo-ah exchanged a look.

“We barricaded the door right after we heard the same screams coming from outside our door.”

“Do you think?” Ha-yoon asks Seo-ah, almost questioning herself.

Seo-ah sighed. “In any case, protocols didn’t mean shit. Not against something you have no clue about.” Seo-ah softened slightly at their shell-shocked expressions. “Your security saw threats coming from outside. Not from within. There was nothing they could have done.”

EXO drooped, looking like they had lost all reason for hope.

Then Sehun spoke up, voice barely above a whisper. “There was one thing. The delivery guy, early yesterday.” The others tried to hush him, like it was not significant enough. But he spoke anyway. “He looked sick. Stood there until security escorted him out.”

Silence settled again, thick and heavy.

Seo-ah snorted bitterly. “Our government is getting weak. Couldn’t even contain a Level 4 before it got escalated into a train wreck.”

Seo-ah busied herself counting the blocks to stay awake, but the pain was pulling her under, one anchor after another. She pressed her bare shoulder to the window, and the cold shocked through her, clearing her head. Through the glass, neon drifted past, all the colors strange and overripe. She caught her reflection, lip split and swelling. She liked the look. It made her look meaner, harder to kill.

Meanwhile, Ha-yoon was hunched over the dash, a tangle of wires blooming in her lap. She had pried the comms set from the dashboard and now dissected it with surgical aggression, strips of insulation flecking the cupholders and punched holes in her own palm from the slip of a flathead. The radio still hissed a flat line. She grunted, twisted a dial, and smacked the casing with the heel of her hand.

“Status?” Ji-won urged.

“Nothing,” she finally said. “It’s not the hardware. It’s dead air, like the whole net’s been bricked.”

Ji-won, at shotgun, barely blinked. She just stared at the blank LCD of her own walkie, thumb tracing the groove in the plastic. “Try the secure band. Again.”

A click, a pause, more static. “No signal,” Ha-yoon said. “Unless you want to order a pizza, because I think the only active repeater is a fucking Domino’s in Gangnam.”

The radio came alive, howled and spat. Not the familiar static, a mechanical voice, or the memory of one, chopped and looped by a failing transmitter. For a moment the van’s interior was nothing but noise—seo-ah’s own teeth vibrating in her jaw, the rattle of the chassis, then the wet tug of Min-jae’s gauze on her wound. Ha-yoon’s hand hovered, afraid to touch the dial again, afraid to lose transmission.

Then a voice, as if breaking the surface of water - “This is Central Precinct. Level Four shelter-in-place. All civilians, all units, shelter—repeat, shelter—dangerous armed elements in play—” The next words dissolved in a blizzard of static, but then the voice returned, more urgent, “All units, hostile presence now confirmed in perimeter. Use of force is authorized. All civilians who can hear this: lock doors. Do not attempt to evacuate until further notice.”

The message repeated, each time more warped, syllables swimming in and out like bodies in a current.

Seo-ah’s skin prickled. Nothing in the voice sounded like a drill. She watched EXO absorb it. Some stiffened, some flinched, one pressed his hands to his ears like a toddler at his first fireworks show. But they heard it. Everyone heard it. The threat wasn’t theoretical now. It was moving through the city. It was moving toward them.

Ha-yoon hunched over the radio, trying to pull more from the feed, but all she could do was punch buttons and pray. She made a look towards Ji-won.

Her fingers didn’t stop, even as the van jounced over a pothole and nearly shattered her front teeth. She tore out the radio head, bit the wires in her teeth, and twisted two of them together. Burnt plastic and solder stink. Ha-yoon hunched over it, face shadowed, muttering under her breath. “Come on, come on, don’t brick now, you goddamn fossil.”

She thumbed a button and spoke into the half-attached mic, voice as flat as a dial tone. “This is Unit One, Myeong-dong grid. We need an open channel. Anyone there?”

Static, curling and folding in on itself. The same, the same, but then—something. A ghost edge. Ha-yoon killed the van’s own radio system, cranked the gain up, and the static resolved into a slurry of voices, chopped and duplicated on three frequencies at once.

“...repeat, do not open the gates...”

“...last confirmed at Namdaemun...”

“...Level 4 perimeter breached...”

Another voice surfaced, a man’s this time. Calm, like he was reading lottery numbers. “—this is Yeongdeungpo Command. Central is down. If you are still in the city, get underground or get out. Armed elements are converging. I repeat, armed elements… do no attract… voice…” Static clawed the rest away.

Ha-yoon shouted to the front, “Got a Command post at Yeongdeungpo! They might be taking survivors.”

Ji-won clamped a hand over the radio and squeezed, as if it might yield more signal by force of will. “Who’s in perimeter?” Ji-won spoke low, almost to herself. “Last briefing, no other units deployed.” She waited through the static. “Who’s in command? Over.” Static.

Ji-won grit her teeth. “Tae-ho, pull us to the Yeongdeungpo Command base.”

The Yeongdeungpo Command base looked like an ultra-modern fortress, all titanium fins and triple-redundant fences, but as the van pulled up the perimeter was wrong. No guards at the post. The floodlights, meant to reduce night to theater stage brightness, barely flickered. The gate hung open, one hinge torqued so far the metal had torn.

Ji-won motioned Tae-ho to keep rolling, slow, windows up. No movement in the guardhouse. No movement anywhere. She radioed in, voice low and measured. No answer. The van crept through the lot, the tires crunching over something she did not want to identify. She caught a glimpse of it anyway—a matte black helmet, visor smashed, the inside painted with something dark.

Ji-won’s jaw flexed. “Tae-ho, park in the south loading bay. Everyone else, on my six.” She scanned the van—Ha-yoon’s jaw set, Min-jae already pulling on gloves, Tae-ho as steady as steel. Seo-ah slouched in the back, blood dried to rust at her hairline, weapon drawn out and aimed at the back entry of the van, slightly trembling. Soo-jin sighted her rifle out the windscreen, still and silent as stone.

They parked at an angle that kept the exit clear. Ji-won stepped out first, pistol high, eyes fixed on the main entrance. The others fanned out. The air outside was viscous with the smell of burnt rubber and whatever chemical cocktail had soaked through the street. Ha-yoon, Tae-ho and Min-jae swept the lot for movement, their boots crunching through debris that had once been someone’s desk, someone’s life.

Soo-jin, like every time, did not exit the van. Neither did Seo-ah, who’d slumped against the window, one hand pressed to her bad shoulder, the other clutching her Glock. Her vision tunneled, but she still caught the way Baekhyun’s knuckles whitened on the frame of the seat every time a shadow moved outside. She wanted to make a joke, or console, but did neither.

Tae-ho was the quietest of them all, but he kept his weapon up and his eyes wider than any of them. He did a quick recon of the loading bay and pointed to a service corridor, barely visible behind a stack of singed pallets and a burned-out freezer. “Side entrance,” Tae-ho announced, voice so soft it was half lost in the wind. “It must run between the admin offices and the main floor. Might be safer than going through the front.”

Ji-won weighed it in silence, then, “No. We go in together. Minimize exposure.”

Tae-ho hesitated, gaze flicking from Ji-won to the glass main door, then to the blank, unlit windows overhead. “If it’s a trap, we’re boxed in. Two teams, double our chance to get inside.”

Ji-won’s jaw knotted. She didn’t like splitting the group. Never did. She looked to Ha-yoon, who shrugged, then to Min-jae, whose hands were already shifting through his kit, ready for anything but not happy about it. The members in the van looked like they’d vote for “none of the above” if anyone asked.

Seo-ah, half-propped against the van floor, still bleeding but conscious, made the decision for her. “Let’s split. You’re wasting time, Captain.” Her lips were blue, her breathing shallow. “If something’s inside, give it more than one target.”

Ji-won hated that she was right, but nodded anyway. “Min-jae, Ha-yoon, with me. We take the main.” She pointed to Tae-ho and jerked her chin at Seo-ah. “You two, side entrance. Move fast. Stay in comms.”

Tae-ho nodded once, then glanced at Seo-ah. She’d hauled herself upright, blood now drying to a taut film at the corner of her mouth. Her right hand trembled faintly. “You good to move?” he asked, and meant it.

She showed him her teeth. “Like hell.” She holstered the Glock, steadied herself against the van’s door.

Tae-ho threw Seo-ah’s good arm over his shoulder and hauled her up. Seo-ah gritted her teeth but said nothing.

EXO—to Ji-won barely more than boys squared up in puffy jackets and designer sweats, faces wiped blank with terror—clustered behind the back seat.

“Stay,” said Ji-won, looking at each EXO member like she was nailing the word to their foreheads. “If anything comes through that door, you drive away. Don’t stop. Don’t look for us. Don’t look back. Drive. And keep driving.”

They nodded. One of them tried to speak, but the words kneecapped themselves before making it out.

Ji-won led her group out first, hugging the wall like old habit, eyes darting. The air was colder here, and every step forward made her skin crawl harder. The yard was littered with the detritus of a lost battle—loose riot shields, paper insignias, a single black boot.

She glanced back - Tae-ho was already half-carrying, half-dragging Seo-ah past the broken side doors.

Ji-won’s team crossed open ground, hugging the concrete like shadows. The others held at the door, Tae-ho’s breath a thin steam in the cold. He picked the lock with a twist of his Leatherman, then eased the door inward. The corridor was dark, the sort of dark that had muscle. He could smell old ammonia, something burnt, and the rot-sweet of dried blood.

Inside, footsteps rolled out ahead of them. Tae-ho braced for a trap—Seo-ah could see it in the cut of his chin, the way his hand flattened along the barrel of his gun. She swept left, every muscle screaming at her to slow down, but she didn’t. The first room off the corridor was an admin cubicle, walls stained with spilled coffee and panic. She clocked the abandoned glasses on a desk, the line of photos taped in a row—birthday, wedding, kid’s first day of school. The computer monitors were all dead. The next room, supply closet, door hanging open, nothing but mops and the stench of bleach.

They moved like that, leapfrogging through the guts of the building, until Tae-ho caught her shoulder and held her up short. She squinted past him, down the hallway. At the far end, under the flicker of a single failing light, something waited.

It was small, at first: the hunched curve of a child. Maybe eight, maybe ten, all knees and elbows and the black slick of hair glued to its head. It clung to the wall, face hidden. Seo-ah’s brain flickered, tried to find a category.

Tae-ho’s voice, low: “Stay behind me.”

She did not.

She stepped past him, gun raised, and called out, “Hey. You with us or trying to kill us?”

The hallway stuttered once, then the light gave out. The darkness was not gradual, not a slow dimming, but surgical—a single snap and the corridor became a cold, perfect dungeon.

Seo-ah’s eyes strained, pupils fighting to decide which was worse - what she could see, or what she could not.

A rustle. Soft, like the wind through plastic. Then a scrape, heel to linoleum, and another, much closer.

Tae-ho’s breath drew sharp and shallow. She felt the air move as he pivoted, rifle angled over her head. Nothing. The dark pressed in, thick as fog, swallowing sound and direction. She waited for her own thoughts to catch up, but there was only the afterimage of the child-thing, still burned on her retina, frozen halfway between the wall and the floor.

Something moved ahead. Something slow, deliberate. The sound of skin sliding over tile, then the wet click of knuckles—no, nails—on concrete.

Seo-ah killed her flashlight. A raw, reflexive decision. The blackness that followed was absolute. She let her other senses sharpen, ears wide for the telltale suck of breath in the dark.

It came instead as a shudder of air against her cheek, a break in temperature, alive and cold and wrong.

“Down,” Tae-ho whispered, and Seo-ah ducked without thinking. The bullet sang past her, a gunshot loud enough to deafen her in the tight corridor. Somewhere ahead, a noise, like meat hitting a butcher’s block, then the skitter of something heavy and fast retreating further into the dark.

She blinked hard, trying to clear the flash from her eyes. The corridor was a smear of afterimages. Seo-ah drew air through her teeth. It tasted like burnt ozone and old copper.

The child was gone.

What remained, as her vision returned in increments, was the glisten of something raw on the corridor floor. A trail that led away from them.

“Tae-ho,” she hissed. “Did you hit it?”

He shook his head. Once. “No body. No clue.” He reloaded, the action practiced and silent.

Seo-ah wanted to say something clever, but the words jammed up behind her tongue. She stepped forward, one inch at a time, gun aimed along her own trembling arm. She saw it then - the small figure, hunched against the wall, face still obscured by hair. It made no sound. Did not move.

She tiptoed forward, thinking of every horror movie she’d ever pretended not to be afraid of, and knelt down beside it.

“Hey,” she whispered, the word almost gentle.

The thing’s head snapped up. Not a child. Not anymore.

Its eyes were gone, or sewn shut, the lids puckered and raw. The mouth stitched into an almost-smile, slack and toothless. The skin was bubbled and puffy. It leapt forward.

Seo-ah fired on instinct, point-blank, into its chest. The child-like thing convulsed, writhed in pain it once harbored as a human, until it wasn’t moving anymore.

However, the gunshot, they realized, was probably not the best of ideas.

In the sixty seconds that followed, the corridor filled with things that lived in the space between memory and anatomy.

The first that came at them was not a child, not anymore, but a tangle of limbs that wanted only to be closer than skin. Tae-ho shot it kneecap to chin, and it still found the strength to gnaw at the webbing of Seo-ah’s vest with the stumps of its teeth. She stamped it flat and took inventory: her right shoulder was still attached, but the socket creaked, and the blood kept worming through the bandages.

The next that followed, some were on all fours, their bases scraping and rebounding against concrete with slick, purposeful slaps, others were too tall for the ceiling and ran on elongated wrists, skin sloughed raw from the effort. They came at the pair without sound, as if the air itself had been vacuumed out—no footfalls, no snarl, not even a click of jaw or tangle of nails. Only the wet stumble of flesh in a hallway built for fire drills and evacuation.

Tae-ho’s rifle chattered once, twice, but the rounds only slowed the first of them—a collapsed marionette shape with too many elbows, a face uncooked and shriveled, a child’s arms sprouting from an adult’s chest. Seo-ah, one-armed and vision warping at the edges, found herself pressed to the wall with her pistol braced in her left hand, right useless at her side. She emptied her magazine into the thing that was leading, feeling it buckle and tumble onto its own limbs, leaking something that clung to the floor with the sweet stink of rot. Seo-ah dropped the gun, her hand shaking hard enough to rattle the staples in her shoulder, and fumbled for a fresh magazine with her teeth.

She heard Tae-ho shout something clipped, but his voice was buried under the wet slap of bodies. He took the brunt—two of the things hit him at the chest and abdomen, pinning him to the door at the far end. She saw his feet leave the floor. The rest tried to wedge in, but there was only so much corridor. She caught a glimpse of his hand still on the trigger as the barrel pressed between an eyeless cavity. The blast at that range painted the wall and the one behind it, but the second one bit into his vest.

She didn’t waste the seconds. She loaded the fresh mag, racked the slide with her palm, and put three rounds into the soft spot where the thing’s head met its spine. It was just a guess, but it worked. For now.

The mass shuddered, and the jaws went slack. Tae-ho crushed forward, dragging two more bodies with him in a single, ugly heap.

The corridor was clear for now, but it wouldn’t hold. She knew that the gunfire had bought them two minutes, maybe less. Tae-ho, was on his knees and still bleeding from the mouth, gave her a look over his shoulder. He did not ask if she could run. They both knew the answer.

They moved, half-stumbling, down the corridor toward the green glow of the stairwell sign. The stairwell itself was a death trap—a single, winding chute with nowhere to go than up and no cover but the curve of the landing. Still, it was better than being meat in an unlit hallway. Seo-ah reached the door first and braced it open, waiting for a new ambush. None came.

They tumbled through and found the stairs already painted in streaks of dark at every other step. The handrails sticky. Seo-ah heard the pounding of bodies on the floor above, and a familiar voice: Ha-yoon, screaming for Min-jae, for Ji-won, for anyone. The voice fractured as it bounced down the stairwell, but it was familiar enough that Seo-ah found herself yelling back, throat raw, “Coming up! Hold!”

She started up, Tae-ho behind her, both hands on his Tavor. Every step jostled her arm and shoulder, and she could feel the wound weeping under the patch, the warmth leaking out and freezing to her skin. The third landing had a body, his head at a wrong angle, lips blue. Beside him, the stairwell wall had been punched through from the other side—rebar and concrete bent inward, as if a car had hit it. Past the hole, in the open office space, the gunfire was closer now, more erratic. They heard Ji-won’s voice, clear and clipped, giving orders in the between-breaths of the fight. Below them, the pounding grew louder. The stairwell was about to overflow again.

They had no choice but to push into the office. The smell hit first, like meat lockers after a blackout, or the lower decks of a ferry after a suicide. It was so thick she had to swallow three times before her stomach stopped trying to rebel. The office was a cubicle labyrinth, and the fluid ones had been here already—the desks were overturned, monitors blinded with handprints, carpet squelching underfoot. In the center of the room, Ji-won was standing on top of a filing cabinet, SKS pointed down at a ring of things that circled but wouldn’t ascend. Ha-yoon was with her, bleeding from the scalp, brandishing an empty pistol like a bat.

Ji-won saw them instantly. “To me,” she said, not yelling, just expecting them to obey. Her face was painted with blood and the glitter of shattered glass, but her eyes were steady. “Move.”

The things noticed too—they peeled off from the base of the cabinet and made to move towards Seo-ah, just as a van - their van - crashed through the wall and onto the things, crushing them between a wall lined with desks and the van itself. Complete coincidence, but one that worked for them. Behind the wheel, a panicked Xiumin and a steady Soo-jin, and remaining EXO members peering from the backseats, eyes wide but all safe for now. Lucky crash.

Down the hall, they see a figure sprinting toward them. At first, Seo-ah thought it was one of the fluid ones. Then she squinted and saw Min-jae’s face, white and shaking, covered in blood, but alive.

“Contact!” Min-jae hissed. “Two o’clock. Not human—”

Three of the fluid things were in pursuit - two in the remnants of uniforms, one in a shredded business suit. They moved fast, but not straight. Their bodies flailed in directions physics shouldn’t have allowed.

Seo-ah raised her left hand, drew a breath, and put three more holes in the business suit, dropping it momentarily. Tae-ho caught the first officer low and finished it with a heel to the neck. Ji-won and Min-jae took the third together, Min-jae sweeping the legs and Ji-won stamping the skull like she was crushing a cockroach.

They watched as the bodies sputtered, breaking and repairing themselves at a speed unknown to humans.

“Easy now,” Ji-won said, voice raw. “We’re clear for the next…thirty seconds. What’s the status?”

Seo-ah tried to answer, but all she could manage was a laugh—short, ugly, edged with sarcasm.

Ji-won nodded in understanding. “We have to get out. Rooftop?”

“Glass ceiling,” Tae-ho pointed. “We can cut up and cross over to the building in front. Or we make for the street. Either way, they’re coming.”

Ji-won scanned the atrium, then the corridor they’d come from. “What about the van?”

“Xiumin’s waiting, but the van’s totaled.” said Tae-ho, pointing back to the van, his breath fogging in the cold. “But if we take the front, we have to outrun them. If we go up, we get a view, maybe buy time.”

Ji-won made the call. “We go up. Ha-yoon, tail. Min-jae, you cover right. Tae-ho, left. Seo-ah, you—” Her eyes flicked to the wound blooming across Seo-ah’s arm. “You stay alive.”

The stairwell was a vertical coffin. Too many bodies packed into too little space, the air wet with breath and blood. Seo-ah took the first flight on a dead sprint, but every step was a small war. The bone-deep ache in her shoulder had gone sharp and spiking again, a pain that made the world pinwheel, but she forced her left hand up the rail and hauled. The others thundered behind. Above, the emergency lighting painted the landings in a sickly, institutional green.

At the next door, Ji-won shouldered through, gun up. The corridor was clear. Or as clear as anywhere in this building got. She waved them down the hall—go, move, don’t stop. Thirty meters of cubicles and toppled file cabinets. At the end, a battered “maintenance” sign, the only promise they had.

Behind them, the sound returned. Bodies tumbling up the stairs, not down—arms clawing, knees colliding, teeth scraping off concrete. The fluid ones moved with a violence that shouldn’t have fit anatomy. Seo-ah gritted her teeth, counted her own pulse: One, two. One, two. She jerked open the metal door at the end of the corridor.

The door yanked shut behind them with a punch of air so cold it felt like a slap. Seo-ah staggered, nearly lost her feet as the pain in her shoulder scraped new edges. The darkness in here was viscous—oily, heavy, swallowing the world in an instant. She blinked. Nothing. Her own movements sounded obscenely loud against the concrete: every stagger, every hissed breath, every heartbeat. The others were close—she could smell the copper and sweat, hear their feet skidding on dust and grit.

Ji-won’s voice: barely a whisper. “Flashlights and phones off.”

Seo-ah’s phone was already black, but she checked it anyway, thumb trembling against the hard glass. She drew another breath, slow, tried to get her bearings. The smell down here was different than downstairs—cold, but threaded with the tang of antifreeze, something sickly sweet and the ghost of a dead rat somewhere deep in the walls.

Ji-won moved without sound—Seo-ah tracked her by the scrape of boots and the quiet grunt as she rammed a filing cabinet into the frame. Wheels bucked, then locked. Ji-won braced her body against it, arm outspread, ready to catch the next breach. Soon, Tae-ho and Min-jae joined her, throwing their weight against the door, bracing it with a desperate urgency that spoke of a future they still intended to see.

The darkness was so total it made sound a weapon. Each breath a shout. Each heartbeat a countdown.

Behind them, the first slam hit the door. It buckled inward, the metal skin crumpling, then another, and another—wet, meaty impacts that bounced off the walls and seemed to multiply in the echo. Someone whimpered in the dark, maybe Ha-yoon, maybe one of EXO members, but Seo-ah couldn’t be sure.

Ha-yoon came next, then Chanyeol and Minseok, each one finding a shoulder’s width of door and pressing in, backs to the dark.

The noise built, a low animal chorus, bodies stacking against the other side of the door. Each impact was wetter than the last. Something slid down the metal door with a hiss, and she could smell the hot, coppery tang of it even through the gap.

Ji-won barked, “Down, down, now,” and they all ducked low, bodies pressed to the cold steel of the vent housing, knees jammed into chins. She could feel EXO vibrating behind her, their terror animal and contagious.

The thudding faded, but not completely. Sometimes it came in clusters, as if the pile was collapsing and being rebuilt. Sometimes something huge would strike, once, and the echoes would stagger through the walls. Every so often, Ji-won would hear a thin, high whine—maybe wind, maybe a voice, maybe something else.

Eventually, there was nothing but the white noise of the building breathing.

Ji-won risked a look at her watch. Dawn was hours away. She chinned toward the nearest electrical box, and everyone crab-crawled toward it under the next blackout. She fumbled in her vest for the schematic— blurry, creased— and spread it flat. The only light was the chemical green of a glow stick she cracked between her teeth.

“We wait for light,” she hissed, and the group collapsed into a pile behind a rusty HVAC box. Somewhere in the dark, someone retched—wet, helpless, the body finally saying what the mind had been holding. A hand found his shoulder and stayed there.

[0megadawn]

Still Here: Chapter 1 - The Message

↳ summary: Elite scout Han Seo-ah is deployed to an eerily empty Myeong-dong, uncovering a sinister entity orchestrating mass disappearances. As her team confronts unspeakable horrors, they realize the threat extends far beyond the present chaos. Seo-ah emerges forever altered, burdened with the knowledge of a lurking, invisible menace.

↳ wc: 3.4k

↳ progress: Foreword, Chapter 1: The Message, Chapter 2: The Collapse, Chapter 3: Survival

The phone rang, cutting through the oppressive silence of the night. Seo-ah stirred in her sleep, her hand fumbling across the nightstand in search of the source. She grabbed her phone and squinted at the screen.

3:14 AM.

Her stomach tightened. No one called at 3:14 AM with good news.

“Hello?” she groaned.

“Seo-ah. We’ve been called for duty. Report to Myeong-dong immediately. I’ll inform Soo-jin.”

The voice on the other end was clipped, all business, devoid of warmth.

“Myeong-dong? At this hour? What’s happening?”

“Civilian evacuation was already underway. It’s a Level 4.”

For a moment, Seo-ah forgot how to breathe. The sharp tapping of a keyboard echoed in the background.

“The details are being uploaded to the secure terminal now. You have twenty minutes to be on-site. Don’t be late.”

The line went dead.

Seo-ah remained frozen, the phone still pressed against her ear. The words settled in her mind like a stone. Level 4.

Two words she had prayed she would never hear again.

In ten years of service, Seo-ah had only heard them once before.

A memory flickered at the edge of her mind—a corridor stained with blood, a desperate scream, the sound of something scratching behind a locked door.

She forced it down.

Not now.

She threw aside the blanket and her feet hit the cold hardwood floor. The playful woman who had gone to sleep was gone; in her place stood a soldier, every movement sharp and focused. In the dim glow of her charging phone, the notification light blinked a frantic red. She crossed the room and pulled her tactical gear from the closet. No longer a precaution, her unit was the last line of defense. Her mind raced through the map of Myeong-dong—the narrow alleyways, the towering department stores, the maze of side streets, and the thousands of tourists who might still be trapped in late-night restaurants.

Unaware.

She tied her hair into a tight knot. In the reflection of the darkened window, a stranger stared back at her—not the woman who had fallen asleep a few hours ago, but the one who had survived Level 4. There was no time for coffee. No time for questions. Only twenty minutes.

Seo-ah grabbed her keys, zipped her jacket, and stepped into the hallway. Behind her, the apartment fell silent once again. Ahead of her, the city waited.

Twenty minutes later—Myeong-dong.

The streets should have been buzzing with life. They were not.

Seo-ah stepped out of the car, ran a hand through her hair, and pulled her baseball cap lower over her eyes. She jogged to the center of the street and took it all in. Neon signs still flashed. Advertisements continued to play on giant LED screens. A distant song drifted from a forgotten speaker somewhere down the block. But there were no footsteps. No chatter. No laughter. Myeong-dong had been stripped of the one thing that made it alive: people. The last time she had seen anything like this was during Covid.

She clicked her earpiece before announcing, “I’m here. What next? Why is everything so…quiet?”

“Let’s start with the first lane. Take the bar on your left; I’ll cover your back,” came the reply.

“Okay, boss,” Seo-ah said as she climbed the stairs to her first stop. “Soo-jin-ah, eyes on me?”

Behind her, a few buildings away, Soo-jin peered through a scope from the rooftop. “Copy. You’re clear,” she responded.

Seo-ah’s right hand curled around the cold metal of the door handle, her heart thumping its familiar rhythm as adrenaline surged at the slightest hint of action. A slight smile pulled at her lips—never a good sign, as the others would say. Left hand gripping the weapon at her hip, she pushed the door open.

Han Seo-ah. Scout. Elite Special Missions Unit. Specialty: infiltration and close-quarters combat. Always the first one in, last one out. Mission: Enter first. Eliminate threats. Bring everyone home.

Her smile dropped. The empty room swallowed her whole. What should have been a busy Saturday-night bar scene lay vacant—glass shattered, tables overturned, a chandelier hanging on for dear life. No sign of people. Shadows stretched long and jagged across the marble floor, distorted by flickering overhead lights that hummed with dying electricity. The air felt thick, almost stagnant, carrying a metallic tang that coated the back of her throat. She held her breath, her pulse drumming an unfamiliar rhythm against her ribs, but her hand remained steady on the handle.

“Report,” a voice buzzed in her ears.

“It’s empty. There’s nothing in there—just overturned furniture everywhere.”

Seo-ah exhaled a short, controlled breath. The static from her earpiece crackled against the heavy silence of the organized chaos before her. She stepped fully into the room, her boots crunching on shattered glass that glittered like diamonds in shafts of gray light piercing grime-streaked windows. The air was thick with the scent of mildew and stagnant dust, a smell that clung to the back of her throat.

She swept her flashlight in a slow, practiced arc. The beam cut through the gloom, illuminating a velvet sofa sliced open, its yellowed stuffing spilling across the hardwood floor like entrails. A glass table lay splintered in a corner, its legs pointing upward at awkward angles. Seo-ah kept her hand hovered near the holster at her hip. The stillness felt artificial, as if the room itself were holding its breath. Waiting for a sound. A movement. A scratch.

“It looks like a battlefield. What happened in here?” she whispered. She moved toward a fallen bookshelf, spotting a framed photograph face-down among the scattered debris. She turned it over and studied the cracked frame. The photograph showed a smiling family on vacation. “Pure panic,” she murmured.

“Let’s not get distracted, Seo-ah. Check the rooms. What else do you see?” the voice crackled.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, Capt. Looks like a fight broke out—or a stampede. Hard to tell,” she shrugged. “No civilians in sight, no bodies either, if that’s what you’re asking.” She sighed and set the photo down.

“What exactly are we looking for again?”

“Soo-jin, what about the perimeter? Anything?”

“None, Capt. I don’t see any life,” Soo-jin responded.

“Maybe if someone told us what we’re actually hunting, we’d have better luck…” Seo-ah fanned her hand dramatically but was cut off.

“Let’s search another area.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. “Aye aye!”

After a swift sweep of every floor to confirm no one was left behind, Seo-ah descended the exit staircase, dusted her hands on her uniform, and—after confirmation from Soo-jin—swept a dozen more buildings on either side of the road. From small eateries and cafés to larger storefronts, all were trashed inside: huge televisions still glowed in empty windows, blasting cheerful K-pop songs into streets with no one left to hear them. All upturned. All empty.

“AYO!” she called to the distant figure as she emerged from another ruined store.

Time elapsed: 2 hours.Buildings cleared: 27.Civilians rescued: 0.

“Where’s everybody? Who the fuck are we evacuating? There’s no one here!”

The figure sighed. Dressed all in black as well, she brought the walkie-talkie to her mouth and clicked.

“There are no civilians in the target area. Is evacuation completed? Over.”

Static.

“Command, do you require assistance? Awaiting further orders. Over.”

Nothing—not even the familiar hiss of a broken signal. Only silence.

Kim Ji-won. Captain. Elite Special Missions Unit. The one who made sure every member came home alive. The one who completed every mission. Master strategist. A woman capable of making impossible decisions under impossible pressure. A responsibility she had never failed. Until now.

She lowered the walkie-talkie slowly, her jaw tightening. For the first time in years, she had no next move.

Seo-ah jogged toward her, pulling her cap back slightly, a questioning look on her face. “What’s the situation, Cap?” she asked, breath coming in short gasps. Ji-won shook her head and glanced at the dead radio. “No confirmation. Command isn’t responding. I can’t get the stupid thing to work.” She smacked the walkie-talkie a few times and tried again, only to hear static.

“Either the equipment failed,” she said quietly, “or something happened to them.”

The joke died before Seo-ah could make one. The silence around them suddenly felt much larger. Radio silence from Command was unprecedented.

“Soo-jin, move closer,” Ji-won ordered into her earpiece.

“Copy.”

“What now?” Seo-ah asked, looking at the deserted street. The distant sirens that had once echoed through Myeong-dong were fading into nothing. “Don’t tell me some high-ranking officer dragged us out here because of a false alarm. I’d like to file a very angry complaint.”

Despite everything, the corner of Ji-won’s mouth almost twitched. Almost. “If this were a false alarm, they wouldn’t have called a Level 4.”

That wiped the smile from Seo-ah’s face. Ji-won pulled out her phone. The map of Myeong-dong glowed against the darkness, the blinking red marker standing out like a wound.

“Last known civilian location: Old market district.” She looked at Seo-ah. Seo-ah’s expression changed immediately—no jokes, no complaints—just the scout. She gave a small nod. “I’m on it.”

“Soo-jin, find a position overlooking the district.”

“Already moving.”

“Check your exits before settling in.”

Soo-jin didn’t answer—she didn’t have to. She was already gone, up a fire escape two buildings back, moving without sound, without hurry, the way she always did. Now she lay prone on a rooftop ledge, cheek pressed to her rifle’s stock, Myeong-dong spread beneath her like spilled liquid. Dawn arrived in the wrong colors: the sky bruised amber and pale where it met the glow of running signs still cycling advertisements to no one. Somewhere below, a speaker played a song she recognized.

Moon Soo-jin.Elite Special Missions Unit. Youngest, though you’d never know it from the stillness in her eyes. Occupation: professional people watcher. Official occupation: Sniper. Silent. Watchful. She noticed the slight tremble in a hand, the shift in a shadow that didn’t match the light. Mission: cover everyone’s flanks and trace the lines of their past mistakes through her crosshairs.

“Target area clear,” her voice came through the earpiece, cold and precise as always.

The old market district looked nothing like the place they remembered. No smell of sizzling street food. No vendors shouting over each other. No tourists crowding narrow paths. Only cold air. Only abandoned lives.

Seo-ah moved forward in a slow jog, her boots crunching on a discarded plastic cup. She kept her pace steady, eyes flicking from darkened storefronts to shadows beneath heavy canvas stalls. She slowed beside an overturned cart. Fresh strawberries spilled across the asphalt; green peppers rolled lazily in the wind. Untouched.

She knelt. The fruit was still cool. Still fresh. “This didn’t happen hours ago,” she murmured.

Ji-won stopped. “What?”

Seo-ah looked up. “It happened minutes ago.” Her eyes roved the stalls. “Everyone just…left.” No—disappeared.

“Something scared them,” Ji-won said. “Enough to run?”

“But there’s no blood,” Seo-ah replied. “No bodies. No signs of a fight.” She picked up a dropped shopping bag. Inside lay a child’s toy, still wrapped. “What exactly are we preparing for, Cap?”

Ji-won’s grip tightened on her rifle. “I was told there was an attack.”

Seo-ah raised an eyebrow. “An attack? By what—a mob? Aliens? Did the zoo suddenly want revenge?”

A second passed. Then Soo-jin’s voice sliced through the oppressive silence.

“Captain.” The air thickened; every muscle tensed at the subtle shift in her tone. “I’ve got movement.”

Seo-ah’s hand was already on her weapon. “Where?”

“Two o’clock—second floor of the pharmacy building.” A heartbeat pause. “The curtain moved.”

For a brief moment, the world held its breath. Just a curtain—perhaps shifting in a breeze? But there was no wind in this sealed, eerie district. Ji-won raised her hand sharply, signaling Seo-ah to halt. They slipped into the narrow alley beside them, backs pressed against rough, cold brick, melting into the shadows. The texture dug into Seo-ah’s shoulders as her eyes remained fixed on the second-floor window, where uncertainty flickered.

“Confirmed, Soo-jin. Thermal?”

“Negative,” Soo-jin replied, eye pressed to the scope. “The glass is treated—something’s interfering with the signal.”

Silence. Adjustments.

“Wait.”

Seo-ah’s grip tightened. “What?”

A pause.

“There’s movement again. It’s too…fluid.”

The hair on the back of Seo-ah’s neck rose. Fluid? Not a standard classification. But her instincts—the ones that had kept her alive for ten years—began screaming. Her thumb found the safety and checked it—it was already off. “Great,” she whispered. “So we’re not alone. Cap, what’s the play? We still have no orders.”

Ji-won glanced at the dead walkie-talkie on her vest, then back to the pharmacy. Minutes ago, she’d convinced herself that the lack of communication was a malfunction—a dead battery, a damaged tower. Now, in a city where thousands had vanished, it no longer felt plausible. The blackout was tactical. If Command was gone, no one was left to tell them what came next.

“We don’t wait for orders that aren’t coming,” she said. “Seo-ah, we breach.”

Seo-ah’s lips curled slightly. There she was—the captain she knew.

“Soo-jin.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“If anything leaves that building through a window, rooftop, or any exit that isn’t friendly—”

The unspoken words hung: take the shot.

“Copy.” Soo-jin settled her finger over the trigger, crosshairs centered on the swaying curtain. Watching. Waiting.

Ji-won tapped Seo-ah on the shoulder—a silent signal. They moved low and silent across the open street as dawn’s first light crept over the skyline. The rising sun should have brought warmth; instead, it only revealed how empty the city truly was. Their shadows stretched across the pavement, long and distorted, like reaching hands.

The pharmacy doors slid open with a soft mechanical hum. They froze. Nothing attacked. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. The place was untouched—every bottle neatly arranged on shelves, cabinets locked and clean, drawers organized. All doors and windows intact. A half-written prescription sat on the counter beside an uncapped pen, as if the pharmacist had stepped away for a moment…and never returned.

“Uh, Cap?” Seo-ah lowered her weapon. “That’s weird.” For the first time that night, there was no sarcasm in her voice. She entered in long strides, peering through each open door.

Clear.

Clear.

Clear.

Until something caught her eye. On the floor near the reception desk lay a pair of glasses—something small and ordinary, the only thing out of place. A faint reddish smear marked one lens. She knelt, expression shifting. Seo-ah lifted the glasses, thumb brushing the smear just as Ji-won’s warning came: “Don’t touch that.” Too late. The usual grin was gone.

Ji-won closed her eyes and dragged a hand down her face. “Seo-ah.”

“What?”

“Sometimes I wonder how you’ve survived all these years.”

“Talent.”

“Pure luck.”

“Rude.”

Despite herself, Ji-won almost smiled. Then Seo-ah’s thumb brushed the smear. Her smile vanished. Warm. It was still warm. Eyes snapped to Ji-won. “Cap…”

A deafening screech tore through their comms. Both recoiled, clutching headsets. The sound was wrong—too sharp, too jagged, like metal rasping on bone. Static flooded the channel: fragments of voices, broken words, half-heard cries. Then, through the chaos, a whisper: “Run.” It died. Seo-ah’s fingers slipped; the glasses clattered to the floor. Above them, something shifted.

“What was that?” Seo-ah’s voice trembled. She forced herself silent—any sound might draw attention.

Soo-jin stayed at her scope, breathing measured. She scanned every angle: the second-floor corridor, the rooftop, the alley beyond. All empty. No movement. No life.

“That’s…impossible,” she murmured.

Ji-won glanced up. “What is?”

“I thought I saw something beyond the window,” Soo-jin said, calm cracking. “A flicker.”

Ji-won said nothing, because she believed her. “Check the thermal,” she instructed.

Soo-jin switched lenses. The pharmacy bloomed in steely grayscale: cold walls, empty shelves, the street frozen in black and white. No heat sources but theirs. Then—a tiny glow pulsed at the far end of the hallway, just for an instant. The overhead speakers crackled to life: a soft voice said, “Help me…”

Seo-ah tensed. Someone was there. “I’m going.”

“Wait.” Soo-jin’s breath caught.

Seo-ah shifted forward—always the first toward danger—until a quiet, resolute voice echoed in her ear: “Don’t.”

Seo-ah froze, boot raised. A pause. Then another crackle from the speakers: a small, frightened voice, trembling, “Help me.”

Instinct screamed—they had to help—but the plea cut off abruptly. Seconds later, the speakers sputtered with the same tremor, the same heartbeat pause. Too perfect. A recording.

Fear coiled in Seo-ah’s chest. She glanced at the old speakers mounted in the corners. Tiny black boxes now felt more threatening than they had any right to be. Her expression hardened. “That wasn’t a person asking for help, was it?”

Ji-won finally stepped forward—the captain returned, cold and focused. Her fear was still there; she’d placed it somewhere she could deal with later. “We heard something above.”

“Third floor,” Soo-jin exclaimed.

“We move up.” Ji-won’s voice was quiet but absolute. “We heard movement. Soo-jin saw it. We investigate.”

She moved toward the staircase, passing Seo-ah, rifle raised. For once, Seo-ah did not rush ahead; she let her lead. The staircase to the second floor stretched upward. The corridor was untouched: doors open, lights flickering, empty rooms that looked as though someone had walked away moments before. They checked each room. Clear. Third floor: a storage room filled with unopened boxes. A break room with a coffee mug beside a computer. A chair toppled back, as if someone had stood in a hurry. Clear. Rooftop: clear. No signs of entry or escape. Just the cold morning wind brushing their necks.

Defeated, Ji-won huffed a strand of hair from her face and lowered her rifle. “Soo-jin, did you see anything exit the building?”

“No.”

That single word had barely left her mouth when the world shattered. A scream tore through the silence. Hours had passed since Myeong-dong became a graveyard. This was their first sign of life. Soo-jin pivoted with fluid speed, rifle up, scanning the empty streets—left to right, top to bottom—searching for any sign.

“East,” she said, calm fractioned. “Two blocks. Maybe three.”

“I’m on it.” Seo-ah exited first, even before the sentence finished. Her body responded faster than her thoughts. Years of training took over—4 AM runs, endless drills, twenty-five kilos strapped to her back while her muscles screamed to stop, instructors screaming: Move! Move! MOVE! Because someone out there needed her. A scream meant a survivor. It meant a purpose. Nothing else mattered.

She sprinted down the abandoned streets, Ji-won close behind. The massive blue letters came into view: SAMSUNG.

A department store. The source of the scream.

They were only a few steps away when a horrible groan echoed above them—metal screeching, glass cracking.

Seo-ah looked up—almost too late. The enormous front sign detached from the building. For one impossible second, it seemed to float. Then it fell.

“SEO-AH, WATCH OUT!” Ji-won’s scream cut the air.

Seo-ah threw her arms over her head and dove forward.

Glass exploded around her, metal slammed into the pavement. The impact shook the ground. Dust swallowed everything. For a moment, there was no city. No sound. Only ringing in Seo-ah’s ears. She remained frozen, waiting for pain, expecting something to be crushed. She felt nothing. Slowly, she lowered her arms.

Through the gray dust, she saw Ji-won standing a few meters away, eyes wide in a way Seo-ah had never seen.

“Seo-ah,” Ji-won’s voice was quiet now. “Are you okay?”

Seo-ah stared at her, then at the pile of twisted metal that had landed exactly where she’d stood a second before.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathed. No other words came.

Soo-jin’s voice crackled through the earpiece, stripped of its usual steadiness. “Captain. Fifteenth floor.”

Ji-won’s eyes snapped upward. “Talk to me.”

“Civilians. More than one.”

Relief lasted no time at all. Seo-ah heard a heavy impact against the pavement—close enough to feel in her boots.

THUD!

She looked down. Then away.

Another. Then another.

Above them, the fifteenth-floor windows gaped wide, silhouettes spilling out in a frantic wave—men, women, and small figures that could only be children. Each leapt from the ledge, terrified screams piercing dawn’s light as they plummeted into the void below. They fled something unseen, driven by sheer terror in their final moments.

Ji-won looked up and screamed, “Wait, stop!” But it was in vain.

Seo-ah’s body made the decision. She reached the entrance before thought finished forming, the staircase rising ahead in sharp concrete angles. Fifteen floors. She ran toward it, taking three, four steps at a time—fifteen floors. Of course, it was fifteen floors.

[0megadawn]

still here...

↳ summary:

The world didn't end with a bang.

It ended with silence.

When South Korea is consumed by an unexplained catastrophe, eight men find themselves trapped inside the Samsung Tower—cut off from the outside world, hunted by things that shouldn't exist.

Their only chance of survival arrives in the form of the Elite Special Missions Unit: six operatives trained for the impossible.

Seargent Han Seo-ah has spent her entire life running toward danger. Saving strangers is second nature. Trusting people is not.

As the city crumbles and the truth behind the outbreak begins to unravel, survival becomes more than outrunning monsters. Every answer uncovers another lie, every rescue comes at a cost, and every choice pushes them closer to a truth someone was willing to bury.

Because the monsters aren't the only things hiding in the dark.

And some stories should have stayed buried.

↳ genre : Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian, Action, Horror, Mystery

↳ progress: Foreword, Chapter 1: The Message, Chapter 2: The Collapse, Chapter 3: Survival

↳ foreword:

[CLASSIFIED]

[LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE REQUIRED]

Recovered Audio Transcript

Recording ID: S-0417

Timestamp: 09:43:12

Unknown Female: "...Captain, do you see that?" [Static] Unknown Female: "...Captain?" Unknown Male: "Everybody back!" [Unidentified sound] [Gunfire] Unknown Female: "...Those aren't people." [Static] Unknown Male: "There are too many!" Unknown Female: "...No..." [Glass shattering] [Recording terminated]

PROJECT STILL HERE

STATUS: ACTIVE

Hey guys!!! finally posting a story that i've been working on for a while now. It's my first fic on tumblr. Please show some love. Any constructive criticism is welcome ;)