Chapter Text
Martin strips and walks to his bathroom, where the bath is still hot. The room drowns in cyan-green, the sickly light of a malfunctioning bulb.
A scream comes from next door.
He sinks lower and lower until his nose is just above the water. The neighbor lady again, screaming at her husband, her TV, her phone calls. The walls are paper-thin and her emotional life bleeds through constantly. He stopped caring a month or two ago.
His hair, grown out into soft curls, floats at the edges of his vision as he stares at the ceiling. After a while he props himself against the tub, reaches a dry hand for his phone on the folded towel, and opens YouTube. The recommended feed is the usual: study vlogs, convenience store reviews, but there's something new, a video titled WHAT IF THE DEAD STARTED WALKING? A cartoon zombie, twelve million views.
He taps it, why not, and props the phone against his knee.
The narrator is three minutes into decomposition rates- all it will take is a year, but depending on the type of virus-
His screen lights up. Unknown Number.
Probably spam. Or his useless teammate calling from a burner to fuck with him- he hates his teammates, hates the professor more for saddling him with a bunch of weirdos. He picks up, already thinking of a brush-off, but there's just breathing on the other end. Heavy, uneven, like someone running, or crying, or both.
He leans his head back against the tile. The paperclips shift against his collarbone, five of them twisted into a ring, hanging from a chain he bought at Daiso for ₩2,000. He doesn't remember when he stopped taking it off, even in the bath.
"Sorry if you thought this was a girl's number," he says. "You can't goon- "
"Hi. You still have this number."
Martin goes still.
What the hell ?
He's spent five years not thinking about that voice, and it turns out avoidance is its own kind of memorization, because he recognizes it immediately, the way you'd know a song from its first two notes after years of not hearing it. Why. Why now. Why the hell-
Anger rises in his chest before anything else. The nerve, to call like nothing-
"I killed my dad."
Martin doesn't say anything for a long moment. His eyes sting, and he's crying before he understands why.
"And I- " A sharp inhale, then the sound shifts, footsteps, running, something hitting something. Then quieter: "Hi. Martin hyung."
Keonho.
This call could mean so much trouble. But every scrambled thought Martin has arrives at the same place: if this is a confession, it might be their last conversation, and he can't let that be true. He sniffles, and the voice on the other end lets out a small, wet laugh.
"I just- if I ever- okay, fuck-" A sharp exhale, like he's fighting something.
"Keonho-" Martin tries. "Just- hold on. Don't do anything yet."
A long breath. "I just-"
Silence. Martin waits, his hand wrapped around the paperclips without realizing it.
"I still love you. I-"
The line goes dead.
He keeps the phone pressed to his ear. The YouTube video plays on, something about what would happen to cities, and Martin checks the screen. Unknown Number. Call ended. 00:47.
Forty-seven seconds.
He sets the phone on the tub's edge. The water has gone still around him, and his heart is doing the opposite. He covers his mouth as it all comes back - Keonho's laugh, the persimmon tree yard, the sting of a slap across Martin's cheek that wasn't even meant for him, and the way Keonho had looked at him afterward, like he wanted to burn the whole house down. His fucking dad. Who is now dead.
Martin is out of the bath before he's decided to move, water tracking across the tile and into the bedroom, soaking through his socks as he yanks them on. He's already calculating while he pulls his shirt over his head - Seoul to Suwon via KTX, half an hour, an hour at most, if Keonho still lives in that narrow two-story house with the persimmon tree that used to drop fruit on the step-
His phone buzzes. KakaoTalk, a teammate: Hey are you coming today or what, we have to finish the slides by-
Then another: Yo someone is fighting outside my apartment, it's bloody-
Martin shoves the phone in his pocket. Wallet, jacket, keys.
A group project. Keonho a killer. Five years of silence. None of it mattered.
Suwon station. Don't be gone.
The neighbor screams again, and Martin pauses in the doorway with his key in his hand, then locks the door and runs.
The street feels wrong before he can name why. Too many people moving too fast, a woman shoves past him with three cases of bottled water stacked in her arms, the plastic crinkling with each step. Outside the GS25, a man stands with his phone pressed to his ear, saying I don't know, I don't know, just stay inside, on a loop. Martin keeps walking.
Inside, the ticket machines have long lines, people clutching printed tickets as they peel away. Martin joins the queue at the KTX counter, shouldering past a couple arguing in low, urgent voices about whether to leave now or wait until morning.
The ticket agent is young, his eyes glassy. He's got the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, fingers still tapping the keyboard, trying to help the woman ahead of Martin at the same time. Behind him, a muted TV runs a chyron that scrolls past too fast, UNUSUAL INCIDENTS REPORTED IN GANGNAM, AUTHORITIES ADVISE-
The phone on the counter rings again. The agent picks up, says something Martin can't hear, hangs up. It rings again immediately.
When the woman in front of him finally steps away, Martin says, "Suwon. Next train. Anything."
The agent doesn't look up. The phone starts ringing again, and his hand drifts toward it.
"Suwon," Martin says, louder.
The phone stops. Starts again. The agent reaches for it.
"Hey." Martin slaps his palm on the counter. The agent flinches, hand freezing halfway to the receiver. "Suwon. Next train. Tickets."
The guy blinks at him, for a second Martin thinks he might actually cry, but he just nods and turns back to the keyboard. Something flashes red on the screen. The agent looks at it, then at Martin.
"S-Sold out."
"Check again."
"I said-"
"Check again." A beat. "Please," because Martin feels bad about it.
The agent sighs, props the No Ticket sign on the counter, and looks up. "There's... one seat. Leaves in eight minutes."
"I'll take it."
It takes Martin a moment to identify what he's seeing, because it's so backwards from how train platforms are supposed to feel. KTX platforms are never empty, there's always rolling luggage, phone conversations, the screech of trains pulling in, but the crowd is silent now, a hundred or more people standing with their suitcases and backpacks and shopping bags, all of them staring at their phones. Nobody talking. Nobody making eye contact. Martin feels like holding his breath along with everyone else.
The train pulls in right on schedule. He boards.
His seat is across from a middle-aged woman, a businessman beside her. Behind him, a college kid with headphones in, except the cord isn't plugged into anything.
The doors close with a soft chime and the train moves. Martin pulls out his phone, opens KakaoTalk, and scrolls to the conversation he hasn't opened in five years. The chat history he's never deleted, even though keeping it feels like pressing on a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.
The last message is his own, sent at 3:47 AM on April 16th, 2020: okay. Just that. The read receipt shows Keonho saw it at 4:12 AM and never responded.
Martin types: where are you
The sending animation spins, and spins, is the signal bad? Then: Sent.
He knows this route, taken it a dozen times visiting his grandparents before they died, every station, every tunnel, every stretch of countryside. He used to walk some of it with Keonho-
The train slows.
No station, no announcement. Just slowing, and then the overhead lights flicker and die with an audible click, and the emergency lights take over half a second later, washing everything green. A red warning light starts flashing above the door at the front of the car, its rhythm cutting through the green.
Martin's heart kicks against his ribs.
The businessman stands. "What's- "
The train lurches like something massive hit them from behind, and he stumbles sideways into the aisle, catching himself on the seat edge, looking around in alarm as a scream cuts through from somewhere.
"What the hell-" the businessman starts again.
The train jerks forward for the second time, a metallic shriek running through the floor, and Martin looks around the car at everyone looking back at him with the same expression. What is happening. He checks his phone. No signal. The train is still barely moving, not gaining any speed, and he sits there for another moment before deciding he needs to do something, even if that something is just walking through the cars.
The college kid glances up when Martin stands, headphones hanging around his neck now. "Where are you going?"
"Bathroom," Martin says, and doesn't know why he answered at all.
He moves toward the front of the car, through the door, heavy glass in a metal frame, a faint green button on the wall, the rubber floor shifting under his feet. The next car is the same: rows of seats, green emergency light, people frozen in various states of confusion. He keeps moving through the third car, the fourth, not sure what he's looking for. A conductor. An announcement. Some explanation for why the fastest train in Korea is barely moving, if Martin goes out and jogs, he can keep up with the train.
He reaches the fifth car door and stops.
There's an old woman on the other side of the glass, standing in the narrow space between carriages and facing him. Perfectly still, head tilted slightly to the left. Her eyes are open and fixed on him, and she doesn't blink, not once, while Martin blinks several times just watching her. The green light makes her look ashen, if that's the right word. She looks inhuman.
His hand hovers near the button, finger an inch from the green circle. Every instinct he has tells him not to press it. The train jolts, making Martin stumble and his shoulder slams into the metal frame, but the woman doesn't move, doesn't reach for the handrail or shift her weight, just stands there while the ground moves beneath her, and then her mouth opens and she walks forward into the glass. Again and again.
"Sir."
Martin spins. A train attendant, young, standing behind him. "You need to return to your seat."
"What's happening?" He points back at the glass. "That woman- doesn't she look weird to you?"
She doesn't answer immediately, her eyes tracking past him to the old woman still bumping softly against the door. "Sir, please return to your seat. I'll check on her."
Her hand moves to the radio at her belt, fingers fumbling with the clip. Martin is already heading back when he hears the door open behind him.
Outside the windows the landscape has shifted, no more city, just the space between places, mountains and tree-lines and wet grey sky. He finds his seat. Sits. Gets maybe two minutes of something that isn't quite... quiet before the attendant crashes back through the door.
The door swings open and she comes through shoulder-first, catching the frame. Her hair has come loose. There's something red on her collar, spreading down into the fabric.
"Get out," she gasps. "Everyone- get OUT-"
The student stands. "What's- "
"GET OUT!"
Everyone moves at once. Martin is up, and then he's in the aisle, following the attendant, people surging out of seats around him. An elbow catches his ribs. His shin finds the corner of a seat. The emergency lighting turns everything flat and hard to read.
The space between compartments is already packed, people pressed in from both sides, and Martin gets shoved forward into it.
"Open the door!" someone shouts.
"We're still moving- "
"I don't care, OPEN IT- "
"She fainted- someone- help- "
"Open the door!"
The attendant reaches the exterior door and gets her hands on the emergency release. Wind tears in when it opens, along with rain drops. Martin hadn't noticed it was raining.
The ground slides past below. No one jumps. They stand packed together in the gap between cars, staring down at the moving ground, and nobody moves-
A scream from behind them, and the back of the crowd lurches forward.
Martin doesn't choose to jump. The man behind him pitches forward, hands hitting Martin's shoulders, his back, and then the ground is gone. Just air.
He lands hard, rolls on the grass and mud and rain, and comes to a stop flat on his back with the sky above him and rain falling straight into his eyes. The train slides past, still moving, and people come out of the open door in twos and threes, hitting the ground, rolling, some getting up, some not, and the screaming from inside is getting louder.
Martin sits up. His palms are scrapped raw, his jeans torn at the knee. He brushes at it without thinking.
Through the windows, there's movement. His brain keeps reaching for something ordinary, a packed car, people standing in the aisle, all normal, but then a hand drags down the glass and leaves a dark streak behind and he stops trying to see it as normal.
The middle-aged woman from his car sprints past him toward the treeline. Someone runs after her.
Nearby, a man in a suit rolls to his feet and tackles the woman who'd jumped right behind him, hands going for her throat, his mouth open, Martin scrambles back, gasping, his palms slipping in the mud. Then a scream, and he turns towards it, the woman is down, someone on top of her, a few meters from the trees.
Martin gets to his feet.
The YouTube video surfaces somewhere in the back of his mind, watching the man in the suit put his teeth into the woman's shoulder, watching the college kid from his car stumble over and sit down beside him, headphones still around his neck, and bite into her too.
Martin runs.
Not toward Seoul, nothing there for him. Not toward the tracks. He runs away from both, toward the mountains, toward where Suwon is.
He runs until the trees close around him. The rain is different here, muffled by leaves, the ground going soft underfoot. The metallic smell from the tracks is gone. Just wet earth now.
He grabs a branch to haul himself uphill, oak, thick as his forearm, a few twigs still on it. He pulls it free and is testing the weight when his phone buzzes.
Martin stops. There's signal?
One bar. One bar. And there's a KakaoTalk notification from Keonho, and for a second he almost smiles-
don't come.
That's it. That's what Keonho sent.
Martin stares at the screen. The bar flickers and disappears. He's standing on a muddy hillside in the rain with a branch in his hand and three words on his phone.
He looks back the way he came. Looks toward where Suwon should be, past the trees, past the rain.
"Fuck that," he says, to no one. "Who does he think he is." He wipes his face, pockets the phone, and keeps walking. Because, for some reason, Martin thinks he might not get another chance to see Keonho.
Keonho is already at Suwon station when the train crawls in. Barely forty minutes since he'd called. Maybe less.
He'd walked to the police station with his father's blood still wet on his hands, ready to get arrested, but the cops were too busy tearing each other apart to notice him. So he ran, grabbed an abandoned baseball bat off the station floor.
Because, fuck, Martin.
Keonho had called him, which means Martin is coming here, to this place where people are eating people, guts spilled across pavement. It takes him three full blocks of running before that actually registers.
The street is empty. His footsteps echo too loud. A car sits stopped in the middle of the intersection, driver's door hanging open, engine still running. There's a purse on the passenger seat. Somewhere nearby, a phone is ringing.
He passes a restaurant with all its lights on, chairs pulled back from tables, food still on the plates and steam still rising from the soup bowls.
The train pulls in too slow, and it doesn't stop before hitting the one already there. Then it does, and Keonho can't make out anything through the dirt-smeared windows. Just shadows moving.
He approaches anyway. He has a weapon. If he runs into those things again, he can fight.
He slows when the movement inside becomes clearer, people swaying, back and forth. Why aren't they grabbing their stuff? Why aren't they getting off?
It's okay, he tells himself. Keep going. Check for Martin.
He pulls the door open and the smell hits him first, a smell he knows now. They all turn toward the sound at once, mouths open and dark with blood, and the businessman in the suit still has his tie knotted perfectly. That's what Keonho's eyes keep getting stuck on, the tie, perfectly knotted.
He backs up and slams the door, hunches over with one hand on his knee and the other white-knuckled around the bat. He doesn't let himself stay long. What if Martin is stuck inside with those things?
Next car. More of them, packed in tight. Next car. Same. His chest is getting tight, breath coming in short gasps. Where is he-
Something lunges from a door he forgot to close. Keonho dodges, barely, bat connecting with its skull. It drops. He looks away from the floor with brain and moves, checking two more cars, faster now, yanking doors open and slamming them shut.
No Martin. No Martin. No Martin. No-
Maybe Martin didn't get on the train. Maybe he's still in Seoul, safe in his apartment with his phone off, because Keonho doesn't matter to him that much. Maybe Martin thought meh and went back to sleep. Though is Seoul even safe now?
Or maybe Martin is dead.
Maybe he died trying to get here. In a pile of bodies at Seoul Station, or on another train, or in a taxi with a driver who turned while he was in the back seat.
Keonho doesn't know which is worse, Martin dead, or Martin alive and indifferent, choosing not to come.
He backs away from the train, the bat hanging loose and half-forgotten in his hand. His other hand goes to his throat, to the chain, to the paperclips twisted into a ring. He runs his thumb over the metal, over the thing Martin made him, then drops his hand. Touching it with his father's blood still on his fingers feels wrong.
"Idiot," he whispers to the empty platform, to the train full of corpses. "You fucking idiot."
He doesn't know if Martin is alive. He stands there watching bodies trickle out from the train, then tucks the ring inside his shirt and runs.