To Hell and Back
Chapter One

“Hey, Jiho, get out of bed.”

“ you, it’s my birthday.”

“No, seriously, get out of bed.”

“Seriously, you.”

Their mornings often went something like this, bring Park Kyung to question why he had agreed to move in with his friend in the first place. Neither the Woo parents nor the Park family had approved of the decision, and Kyung was beginning to regret not listening. Jiho was rich and spoiled and hardly knew how to lift a finger—not that he would do so anyway—turning the older college student into a live-in maid. He thought about complaining, but Jiho would throw his money in his face; as much as Kyung hated to admit it, he needed his friend to pay the bills at the end of each month, and the lazy boy was graciously picking up his tuition fees without batting a lash.

As much as Kyung would like to kick his best friend’s , he was still just that. He had been there for nearly eight years, always going along beside him, and he was certain Jiho would stick around for eight more, and eight after that. But, this morning was unlike the others, and Kyung didn’t just leave him be. Crawling into the bed beside the grouchy blonde he smacked his shoulder several times. “Seriously dude, something weird is going on!” Cracking a single narrow eye, Jiho scoffed.

“Can’t it wait?”

Kyung groaned.

“Just watch the news for a second,” Kyung pleaded, finally managing to Jiho at least sitting up. Grumbling, the younger boy flipped on the TV, surfing channels for the first news broadcast he could find. To his surprise, the news was already playing on the music channel he had fallen asleep watching the night before. Brushing it off, Jiho listened with bored eyes.

“A current evacuation of Seoul is in progress. All citizens must make their way to the streets, there the local police forces will be giving further instructions. This is not a drill. We repeat, this is not a drill.” Jiho scoffed and shook his head.

“Bull. This is total bull,” he said decidedly, pushing himself out of bed with an eye roll. That’s the sort of person Jiho was:  if he couldn’t see it with his two eyes then it didn’t matter. He had no religious beliefs, which had caused disputes between the boys in their youth. The devout catholic followed him to the bathroom where he attempted to tame his bed head. Kyung had been unnerved by the announcement for nearly an hour before even bothering to get Jiho, fearing just this reaction. The younger man brushed his teeth without a care, scratching his side.

“What if it’s not bull? Dude, I think it has to do with the North. Why else would the evacuate everyone? It’s not normal,” Kyung persisted, getting a narrow eyed glare in response. Jiho spit into the sink, grabbing a towel to wipe his mouth. He strode past Kyung straight to the window where the curtains had yet to be drawn. Grabbing a fist full of mauve (which Jiho had been against entirely when decorating their apartment) he threw them open, turning to Kyung straight away.

“See? Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Kyung’s face seemed to grow pale as he stared past the blonde, eyes focused on the streets. “Um, Jiho,” he grabbed him by the shoulders, spinning him around, “that’s nothing.” And such was true. The streets were packed with people on feet moving down the highways with direction in mind. People were literally spilling out of buildings and pressed shoulder to shoulder. From their vantage point they looked like frantic ants.

“What the hell is going on…” It wasn’t a question, so Kyung didn’t try to answer, not that he would have been able to in the first place. Jiho remained staring at the human traffic for about thirty seconds while Kyung went to grab him a sweatshirt to throw on. Jiho stripped off his pants and Kyung tossed him some jeans. “Grab my wallet,” Jiho commanded, and obediently Kyung did just that. On a normal day, the two often bantered and he would never bend so easily to the newly-turned-twenty-year-old, but Jiho was better under stress than he was. Calmly he went through a checklist, remembering things he would have forgotten, like to pack water and food in a bag just in case.

“Don’t get separated from me,” Jiho said as the descended the stairs of their apartment building which had since been vacated. Kyung nodded, a shiver running down his spine at the eerie feeling of a living space being completely empty. Jiho looked objectively ahead, pulling the Catholic out into the streets and feeding into the sea of people. Everyone was shouting about this or that, and police officers stood on the sidelines with megaphones attempting to restore some sense of order to it all.

Jiho’s arm slipped around Kyung’s waist, holding him close through the turbulent crowd. On any normal day Kyung would slap him away and tell him to stop being gay, but Kyung couldn’t have welcomed his arm anymore. In fact, he even grabbed a fist full of his sweatshirt to calm himself down. There was panic wide spread through the people bordering them on all sides. Jiho’s face was stoic and calm, but the anxiety was thick in the air, bearing down on their shoulders.

Kyung had a lot on his mind. He thought of his sister and little brother a few neighborhoods away and wondered if they were together. His parents would have been separated and at work as well, meaning none of them had each other. “Chen must be so scared,” he murmured to himself. Jiho gave him a tiny squeeze.

“The little brat will be just fine,” he assured in his abrasive tendency. Kyung frowned at him, less than comforted by the words. “Saehim lives right next to the school, she probably has him. Your mom’s tough, and your dad will be just fine, you know that. Give them some credit, they’re more self-sufficient than you.” Kyung didn’t understand his best friend at all. Try as he might, he knew he’d never understand how he could be so calm collected in the face of unknown danger. Surely, he was worried about his own parents who had been flying in for his birthday, and his brother who was toiling away at some college in Hongdae; but Jiho didn’t let off any sign of that, he simply followed along with the marching feet of the other citizens and talked down the shorter man.

As time went on, the panic started to turn into quiet conversations. Normality settled, but it was as fake as a -job. It was painfully obvious that everyone was simply trying to displace their fear, but the quite obviously hung over blonde welcomed the decrease in screaming. He and Kyung didn’t talk much more, while the shorter of the two chewed his lips in worry, and Jiho opened his ears for the gossip around him. Everyone had pretty much come to the same conclusion as Kyung in that they assumed the North had finally lost it and were planning an attack on the capitol. Jiho, on the other hand, didn’t buy that for a second.

It just didn’t make any sense to get everyone into the streets if they were in danger of a nuclear or military assault. No, that couldn’t be it. They would have had relief and bomb shelters set up at smaller intervals, considering the fact they had been walking for nearly an hour now. Whatever this was, it was internal. He was sure of that, but he didn’t speak up, not wanting to panic Kyung or any of the others. He kept as calm as they did, placing a fictitious trust in their government, following along like a sheep to the slaughter.

If only he had known how accurate that analogy was.

As they neared the center of the city, the police started talking again. “There will be two groups going to two different sets of busses,” bellowed an officer, “Those on the right will be going to Seoul National hospital. That is a relief center set up by the government. Those on the left will be transported to Ansan. Those who don’t fit there will go to Daegu, and Busan and so on and so forth.” Jiho’s arm instinctively grew tighter around his best friend, who, in turn, clung to his for dear life. Even a bit of nervousness showed on Jiho’s grim face as they were pulled off to the right and toward a green bus. 

Filing in behind a group of people, Jiho pulled Kyung behind him into the central aisle only to have an arm wedge between them.

“There’s only one more seat.”

Two hearts dropped into the pits of two stomach as the blonde and red-head exchanged a glance. “He can sit on me, really, it’s fine,” Jiho told the officer, attempting to push his arm away. The look he was met with was unimpressed, but Jiho threw that back ten-fold, glowering at him as he dug his fingers into his arm.

“There’s only one seat. No doubles,” the man asserted. Jiho’s small eyes grew smaller as he leaned in, a grimace on his face.

“Then let me off. I’d rather die,” he growled. Perhaps it was his tenacity that got the man worked up, he would never know; but what he did know was that the man pushed Kyung back down the stairs, tearing him from Jiho’s grasp. Rocketing after him, Jiho was barred in between a thick body and a dazed looking Kyung who stood just outside the door.

“No ing way!” Jiho shouted, clawing and kicking, attempting to get past. The officer twisted his arms back, restraining him as the doors swung shut. There was no second chance. The engine roared and the wheels began turning and Jiho thrashed twice as much. He threw his body left and right, frightening some mothers with children but he couldn’t think about that. If he didn’t get to Kyung who knew where he’d end up, and he couldn’t accept that. From what he had heard, his best friend could be toted all over Korea, and he wouldn’t let that happen.

“Sir, sit down,” growled the officer who was met with an upper cut. The events after that happened a little too quickly for Jiho to understand entirely, but somewhere between standing and crashing to the ground he had gotten a pretty harsh punch to the face. His head struck the floor of the bus with a crack, and someone next to him let out a shriek. The officer stepped over him to calm her down and Jiho pushed himself up, rushing to the back of the bus. He watched from the window as Kyung stood staring back with a shocked expression.

Gritting his teeth, he slammed a fist against the glass as he watched Kyung recede from his line of sight. The normality was gone and the panic was setting in. Being in charge of Kyung, having to comfort and guide the anxious man gave Jiho a sense of control. It had kept him calm, like it always had in the past. But now Kyung was gone, going to god knows where, to wait out whatever the hell was going on. If he was to believe the words of the various officers throughout the morning, Kyung would surely be safe in Ansan, or Daegu, or Busan; but Jiho had a lurching feeling in his stomach. Something wasn’t right and he could feel it.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” came a deep voice beside him. Jiho whipped around with a glare, but the person who smiled apologetically back was just a kid—a giant kid, but a kid nonetheless. He was clearly quite tall and his limbs were thick, practically busting out of the middle school uniform he wore. He patted the available seat next to him and the glare from the presiding officer told him that he should probably take it. Jiho begrudgingly sat down.

“I’ve got to get off,” Jiho stated mostly to himself. The stranger laughed a bit and shrugged his shoulders.

“Unless you plan to jump out a window or something I don’t think that’ll happen.” He shot a glare at the student, who only shrugged his shoulders.

“The rumors are that we’re going somewhere bad, so your friend is probably better off. I went instead of my mom and sister because everyone was saying that the other lane is better, that they’re going somewhere actually safe,” the boy explained. Jiho furrowed his eyebrows confused and displeased with the developments.

“That’s a load of bull. This whole thing is nothing but bull,” Jiho groaned.

“My name’s Pyo Jihoon,” the boy said, ignoring the pessimism. “I’m not sure if we’re going to live through this, but I hope you find your friend.”

Truthfully, Jiho didn’t see what the big deal was. He was beginning to regret not having waited it out at their apartment. At least then they would have been together and they would have been able to come with a plan. Wherever they were going now, which this Jihoon kid seemed wary of, clearly wasn’t any safer. He pulled out his cellphone, hoping Kyung had remembered his but the boy beside him shook his head.

“The phone lines went down this. None of the television shows are broadcasting anything but the warning,” Jihoon elaborated. To his dismay, Jiho found truth in the school boy’s words as his phone wouldn’t connect.

“All this because of the North?” Jiho let out an exasperated sigh.

“The North?” Jihoon shook his head. “It’s way worse.”

Jiho glanced over, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a virus. I heard one of the police officers whispering about it. Some crazy virus is breaking out.” Jiho scoffed.

“What is this, the sci-fi channel?”

Jihoon shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess we’ll find out, we’re going to the hospital after all.”