Maybe it would have been a better idea to cock his gun and shoot the stranger at first sight. It would have spared him the hassle of having to deal with the undead outside. It would have spared him sharing information. It would have spared him a conversation. It would have spared him from having to feel what felt like he had lost long ago: his humanity.
Here he has a man basically begging him to come along with him. After all, power rests in numbers, and two can cover more ground than one. For the first time, he doesn’t worry about supplies, or how he would even feed two people to begin with. Subconsciously, perhaps, he’s calculating how he could make it work.
A silence rests between them after the last pleading word spoken by Chanyeol. Jongin looks at the cabin he stands in front of and refuses to face him.
In his mind, he tries to think of it differently, how he’s thought all along, but his brain is only asking him the same question. How has tragedy stripped away the world of its humanity? Every man for himself once the ship goes down and not only has the ship gone down, but everyone has drowned. The earth is a wasteland. (As far as he knows.)
He opens a cabinet, stares at the items in them without actually registering them in his brain and shuts it again. With a deep breath, he turns around and faces the taller of the two. “Fine.” His response is short, and cold, and like he doesn’t actually want to say it–he doesn’t. The guy is just so sad, so meek, so insecure in his position in a world that would tear him to shreds and literally eat his brain, that he figures that if he leaves him be, he’ll end up dead. Bearing that on his conscience feels like a burden which might doom him to face the same end along the line. If he can’t keep his spirits high, he will certainly die.
“Fine. You can come along.” He begins again, setting rules and boundaries as a condition. “But if you rob me, you can count on it that I will hunt you down. I will find you, and I will cook you into a giant zombie snack.” The warning spat like venom, he frowns again. Upon reopening the cabinet he had mindlessly shut again, he finds the disinfectant (bingo!) and shoves it into his bag. It’s getting a bit heavy, but it’s enough for now. “You can come with me, until I figure out what we’re going to do next. But we have to go, soon. It won’t be safe for long, and my bag is full. We can come back another day.”
He’s actually bringing along a skinny and tall idiot with him. Jongin is actually going along with this. Breathing in slowly, he exhales softly after. “Check if it’s still okay outside. I have a bicycle. Are you by foot?”
it’s almost sad, that chanyeol feels like this stranger --- jongin --- is going to leave him here to die, all on his own. he could leave him here to be eaten by the undeads while he got away, like some kind of distraction or decoy. that fact alone has his stomach in his throat and he feels sick, like he might vomit any moment, but he knows that would be too weak of him and the last thing he wants jongin to think is that he is weak, when he’s not. he’s strong and he’s been surviving on his own this entire time. doesn’t that say something about him? something good?
the seconds that tick by while jongin is silent feels like years going by. slow, painful years by the time that he finally hears the ‘fine’ from him. relief floods him and he swears he might actually want to hug the guy, but he reminds himself quickly that it’s wrong. bad. this is no time to be happy, but chanyeol can’t help it.
finally, he won’t be alone anymore.
‘i’m not going to rob you! i swear, i’m helpful.. i’ll help you. i want to survive and help.’ chanyeol wants to keep going on, to keep reassuring jongin that he would be helpful but he knows that it’s the wrong time to do that. he doesn’t want to annoy the boy more than he already has at this point --- he doesn’t want him to change his mind. he doesn’t even hear him say that it would be only until jongin figures out what they’re going to do next, he doesn’t care. who said he couldn’t convince jongin to keep him around forever? --- or rather, until they find more people. or they finally escape the undeads. or when this nightmare is finally over.
god, he wants it to be over. he prays for it to be over.
when he’s told to check if it’s still okay outside, chanyeol swallows thickly with a nervous glance to the door. he does not want to go back out there but he knows they have to. so he nods slowly and starts towards it, but he pauses when he’s asked if he’s by foot. the whole time, he had been wandering by foot, and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. ‘y-yeah. by foot. i don’t have anything. all the bicycles i came across were busted..’ he has to shove away the thought of how disappointed and annoyed jongin would be by hearing it as he moves to one of the broken windows, peering out through the wooden boards up against it.
so far, it seems clear. so far, they’re alone. he’s relieved again, but then he hears something --- something in the distance.
his face pales, and he quickly moves away from the window and over to jongin, grabbing his arm and tugging on it. ‘i think we need to go, now. not soon, now. i think more undeads are coming back --- i heard something. i don’t know what it was,’ he’s speaking quickly, stumbling over his own words, ‘we need to go.’
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