As they journeyed away from the island, Ji Hyo continued to look back the way they had come even though Sido had long since faded within the fog.

“We should have stayed,” she quietly said, still gazing off into the distance, her face blank.

“Ji Hyo-yah, please,” Jong Kook said. He tried to shift in his seat so that he could turn to her but was unable to move with how cramped the deck seating was. G-Dragon and Dara were up front at the helm, but everyone else was jammed together on each side of that open deck, facing each other. The floor space between was piled with supplies, leaving little legroom.

“I mean just for a few days,” Ji Hyo said. “Just to make sure that they’d be okay there.”

Bom, sitting across from them, said, “They’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” Ji Hyo said. “Not for sure.”

T.O.P. glanced at Ji Hyo and then at the others, seeing how resigned everyone seemed. Not wanting them to think that they made a mistake, he said, “We had no choice. We don’t know when that transport is leaving the base. For all we know, it could be today. The sooner we get there, the better.”

Jong Kook reached for Ji Hyo’s hand. “They’ll be safe back there. Hyun Suk-ssi has all that military training–”

“He’s an expert shot, Ji Hyo-yah,” Jessica said.

“And you know how smart he is,” Gary said, cutting in. “I’m sure the first thing he’ll do is to secure those barricades. And don’t forget, he has Se7en and Rina there to help. Out of all of us, they’re the most trained.”

Ji Hyo breathed in deeply and slowly nodded. She needed to believe them. She had no choice. There was no way to move forward if she was ridden with doubt.

The conversation ceased for a few minutes after that with all of them sitting there quietly, listening to the hum of the motor and the few seagulls flying ahead as the boat rocked atop the waves.

But then G-Dragon called out to them from the helm. “Maknae!” he yelled.

Seungri, Minzy, and Krystal all turned to look up front.

G-Dragon glanced back, seeing the three maknaes looking his way. He laughed and then gestured for Dara to take over as he left his seat and made his way toward the deck where he stood for a moment, looking down at all of their miserable faces. “Maknae One, Two, and Three,” he said, pointing first to Minzy, then to Krystal, and finally to Seungri.

“Why am I Maknae Three?” Seungri asked.

“Because you’re always last, Seungri-yah,” G-Dragon said, smirking. Looking at the three of them now, he said, “You three will be my slaves– erm, first mates, I mean.”

Minzy rolled her eyes. “Don’t start this again,” she said.

Krystal, who wasn’t with them when they first left Seoul on this same boat, had no idea what was happening. “First mates?” she asked.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Seungri said. “He gets on this power trip whenever he’s on this boat. It’s like he thinks he’s some sort of pirate captain.”

Ignoring Seungri, G-Dragon said, “From now on, you’ll address me as Captain Kwon. No, wait– Captain Kwon Leader.” He smiled. “Yeah, that has a nice ring to it.”

Seungri shook his head. “Whatever,” he mumbled.

G-Dragon pointed at Seungri and flashed him an accusatory look. “Do you dare defy Captain Kwon Leader?” he asked.

Seungri inched out of his seat and stood up, nearly falling over then as the boat rocked hard to the left. After regaining his footing, he began impersonating G-Dragon, using the whiniest voice he could muster. “Oh, look at me,” he said, wagging his finger around. “I pretend I’m a pirate captain but really I’m just an attention hog.” He began chuckling then, as did a few others watching his performance.

G-Dragon breathed in deeply and puffed out his chest. “Oh, Maknae Three. You have no idea the punishment that awaits you.”

Seungri, actually looking a bit worried, glanced down at CL.

“Don’t look at me,” CL said, looking up at him. “You got yourself into this mess.”

“You’re so lucky this boat doesn’t have a plank, Maknae Three,” G-Dragon said. “For now, your punishment is to sit beside me up front and navigate while I constantly berate you.”

“Isn’t Dara-yah navigating?” Seungri asked.

“Do not dare question me, Maknae Three! Plus, she’s, erm, drunk.”

“What?” CL asked, open. “She’s drunk?”

“Ah, yeah,” G-Dragon said. Turning to Krystal, he said, “Speaking of which, I need you, Maknae Two, to get me another bottle of soju.” He looked down at the supplies piled atop the deck floor. “It’s in my backpack somewhere in this… mess.”

“You packed soju?” T.O.P. asked, his eyebrows arched in disbelief. “Seriously, Jiyong-ah, what’s wrong with you?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, we each have one backpack. When I packed mine, I was thinking carefully about every little thing, only packing what was absolutely essential… and you go and pack soju? Did you even bother bringing anything useful?”

“Yeah, I brought the soju,” G-Dragon said, smiling. Looking around at the others, he said, “I bet none of you thought to bring that.”

“Aish,” T.O.P. said, dropping his head into his hands.

G-Dragon looked back at Krystal. “Maknae Two, get a move on,” he said.

Krystal looked at Thunder beside her, but Thunder just shrugged and looked away. Glancing back at G-Dragon and believing that he was serious, she stood from her seat and began sorting through the bags.

“Maknae One!” G-Dragon said, looking at Minzy.

Minzy flashed him an evil look.

G-Dragon smiled. “I order you to… to kiss Daesunggie,” he said. “You two are just too cute. I can’t stand it.”

Just then, the boat careened hard to the right. “Yah!” G-Dragon yelled, as he fell over onto those seated on the starboard side.

“Oops!” Dara yelled from up front.

“You drunken sailor, you!” G-Dragon yelled back, now returning to the helm.

Jong Kook stood up then, grabbing G-Dragon just as he was entering the cabin. “No more messing around,” he said.

G-Dragon looked back at the others and, seeing that they were all preoccupied with uncovering Krystal from the backpacks that had fallen atop her when the boat careened, whispered into Jong Kook’s ear. “We’re not really drunk,” he said. “I just thought we could all use a laugh.”

“Ah,” Jong Kook said. “So, you didn’t bring soju?”

“Of course I really brought soju. Someone had to.” He smiled then and made his way forward to reclaim his captain’s seat from Dara.

Jong Kook shook his head and squeezed back into his seat. “Don’t bother with that,” he told Krystal, who had just been helped up from the deck and had G-Dragon’s bag in her hand, the bottles inside clanking against each other.

She shrugged and then sat back down next to Thunder.

Dara, meanwhile, entered the deck and gestured for Seungri to get up.

“Are you really drunk?” CL asked, as Dara sat beside her.

“No,” she quietly said. “But I wish I was.”

They entered the route between the mainland on the right and Ganghwado on the left, and saw the marina to which Jong Kook, T.O.P., Thunder, and CL had rowed two months earlier when the cruiser had run out of gas on their way to Sido. CL shuddered at the sight of that marina, remembering the zombie that she had stabbed repeatedly in its head with the trekking pole after it had fallen into their canoe.

The water was relatively calm and they continued north without incident. Seungri had been sitting beside G-Dragon up front, studying the yellowing map that Hyun Suk had ripped from the wall of the old Full House Mart. He looked now out to the mainland on the right. There was nothing to see at this point, as there was only the tree-covered shoreline with some sections of farmland beyond. “We should see the river split soon, like left and right,” Seungri said. “We need to go right and then head south around the other side.”

“Yah, I know which way to go, Maknae Three!”

“Then why do you even need me here?” Seungri asked.

G-Dragon shrugged. “Because you’re my maknae and I need someone to amuse me while I play the hero and get us all safely to that base.”

“You think we’ll really get there?” Seungri asked.

“Of course,” G-Dragon said. “We wouldn’t be here otherwise. Now amuse me, maknae!”

“Will you stop with that?” Seungri asked. “Aish.” He looked ahead then and saw the second of the two bridges that connected Ganghwado to the mainland. “Should be right after that bridge,” Seungri said, looking down at the map again.

The water soon opened out in the shape of a T, where they then turned right and headed around that northwestern tip of the mainland. The trees now gave way to more farmland and some housing developments as they headed inland on the Han.

As they followed the Han south for another hour or so and passed under the first of many more bridges connecting the two halves of land, Seungri noticed a thin blue line on the map that cut right through that tip of land they had traveled around, practically connecting Sido to where they were now.

“Oh my god,” he said. “There was a much shorter way. Look at this.” He pointed out the shortcut to G-Dragon on the map and then saw that very shortcut just to their right as they passed under the second bridge. “We didn’t have to go all the way up Ganghwado like that wasting all that gas. We could’ve just taken that over there, see?” He pointed to the narrow inlet at their right that cut through Gimpo.

G-Dragon punched Seungri’s shoulder. “You’re a ty navigator, Maknae Three,” he said.

“What? What did I do?”

“It’s what you didn’t do, Seungri-yah! You should’ve seen that route earlier!”

Seungri rolled his eyes and looked out over the land ahead. They were moving closer to the city now, away from Gimpo at their right and Goyang at their left. The bridges they passed under came in close succession and they could begin to see the outline of tall buildings on either side of the horizon all enveloped in billowing clouds of smoke.

“Oh my god,” Seungri said, as he pointed toward Seoul in the distance. The blue sky above them grew slowly darker all the way east until above the city, where it was completely black. Through the thick black clouds, the city was glowing red with short explosive bursts of orange. Nothing seemed to be left of Seoul but for skeletal frames of once prominent skyscrapers jutting out harshly into the blackness. “It’s just like Kyung Eun-ssi said,” Seungri whispered, his eyes wide. “It’s… hell.”