With the exception of Jae Suk and his family, all the couples left the main floor space to sleep elsewhere. Thunder and Gary sat near the back door with Caesar, watching them all leave, and then turned their attention to Jae Suk at the other side of the room, who had just taken off his glasses and now lay beside his wife and boy.

Gary, with a heavy heart, breathed in deeply and began petting Caesar.

“I’m never going to get the chance to have a girlfriend,” Thunder quietly said.

Gary had just been thinking about his lonliness, too. But these thoughts were not new to him, as they were to Thunder. He had long ago realized that he was doomed to be alone in this new world. He had made peace with it somewhat, but it was a daily struggle, particularly when love abounded all around him. He knew exactly what Thunder was feeling, but he didn’t want that poor idol to lose hope, like he already had. And so he told Thunder that they’d find other survivors eventually, even though he didn’t quite believe that himself.

Thunder nodded and looked down.

Gary looked at him, hoping that it would take Thunder a while before he realized what Gary had long since known – that a life without love was no life at all.

Daesung and Minzy were lying on the open dining room floor, both staring up at the ceiling, not quite knowing what to say to each other.

“Are you comfortable?” Daesung asked.

“No,” Minzy said. “Are you?”

“No,” Daesung said.

Minzy rolled onto her side and looked at Daesung. “Can I… rest my head on you?” she asked.

Whenever Daesung felt shy or embarrassed, he tended to either clam up completely or ramble incoherently. Seeing Minzy rest her head on his chest, he found himself now saying whatever came to mind, cringing as he heard the words leave his mouth. “Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever makes you comfortable. I have a soft chest, like a pillow, so, erm, I mean, actually, no, it’s hard, hard as a rock, yeah because I’m always at the gym, you know, trying to take care of my body and look good and all, so in fact it may not be comfortable for you to use my chest as a pillow because of, erm, how hard it is…”

“Daesunggie,” Minzy said, looking up from his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up,” she said, smiling.

Daesung nervously laughed and reached around her, his arm shaking as he held her. They had slept next to each other before, even held each close like they were now, but that was when they were out there on the road with the others in their group sleeping right next to them. To be alone now was different. It was intimate.

Minzy could feel Daesung’s heart beating fast inside his chest. She smiled and closed her eyes.

Seungri and CL returned to the edge of the pier, where they sat watching T.O.P. and Bom walk along the shoreline. CL smiled as she stared at the couple, thinking that T.O.P. and Bom looked like stars in some romantic drama.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Seungri asked.

CL shrugged. “They just look cute together,” she said.

Seungri dangled his legs off the pier, mindlessly swinging them. “You never told me what you thought about my letter,” he said.

CL reached into her pocket and pulled out his letter. Because it had been in her pocket all this time – soaked during their swim to the boat, and later dried during their journey to the island – the words had bled across the worn paper, the message now faded as if years had passed since it was first delivered. “I kept it,” she said. “I’ll always keep it.”

“Do you feel the same way?” he asked. “About me, I mean?”

CL breathed in deeply and looked at him. “I feel something for you, Seungri-yah. But I think our relationship will grow slowly. It’s better that way, isn’t it?”

Seungri didn’t think so. If he had learned anything at all from his experiences in this new world, where anything could happen at any moment, it was that nothing should be wasted – particularly not time. He wanted to tell her this, to explain how they needed to live a full life in each moment they were still alive, but instead he just nodded in agreement with her, not wanting to rush her feelings.  

He looked back over at T.O.P. and Bom now, seeing that they had stopped walking and were now sitting in the sand, the waves rolling up over their feet. Seungri couldn’t hear their conversation, only the echo of a word or two like faint whispers in the air.

T.O.P. and Bom had no idea that CL and Seungri had been watching them. They were completely absorbed in each other.

Bom was leaning back, her hands pressed in the sand to support her weight as she arched her back and stared at the stars bright in that night sky.

“It could be really great here,” T.O.P. said. “I know you’re worried, but it’s been quiet so far. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about.”

Bom smiled and looked over at him. “I hope so,” she said. “My heart can’t take anymore.”

T.O.P. stared ahead at the sea, not knowing what to say.

“Do you think Gary-ah was right?” she asked. “About how we’re not the same people now?”

T.O.P. shrugged and then lay on his side, resting his head against his arm. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think anything can truly change who we are deep inside. But we’re different now in a lot of ways. Our priorities are different.” He breathed in deeply and rolled onto his back, now looking up at the stars with her. “Life was so easy before all of this. It was all about making good music and wearing cool suits and… I don’t know. Those were my priorities back then. It all sounds so stupid now.” He shook his head.

“Those were my priorities, too,” Bom said. “I was obsessed with singing… and with how I looked.” She leaned down to lay next to him, resting her head on his chest.

T.O.P. put his arm around her and smiled. “My only priority now is keeping you safe,” he said, pulling her in closer. He breathed in the salty air and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I really thought I lost you after the stadium. You don’t know how much I suffered.”

She looked up from his chest. “You don’t have to suffer anymore, Toppie,” she said, brushing her windswept hair from her face. “Nothing will ever separate us again.”

Back at the pier, CL caught sight of T.O.P. and Bom kissing now and quickly nudged Seungri. “We should let them have some privacy,” she said.

Seungri glanced over at the couple in the sand and then nodded, following CL inside.

As G-Dragon and Dara climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor, he thought back on the dream he’d had of her. He tried not to think about the second part of the dream, about the zombies that stood all around Dara as he was reaching for her hand, his fingers brushing against hers but not connecting. That part of the dream didn’t matter anymore. Back at the Seoul Marina, he had reached for her in much the same way, but unlike in the dream, their hands had connected at the marina – he had pulled her out of the water and onto the boat, saving her.

Instead of thinking about that, G-Dragon thought about the first part of the dream, about the two of them standing in that shower room, their bodies facing each other. He could feel himself getting excited now and hoped that she felt the same way. She had agreed, after all, to sleep in a private room with him. Did she want him like he wanted her?

After reaching the second floor, they stopped outside the first bedroom, hearing Jong Kook and Ji Hyo talking inside behind the closed door, and then turned to the empty room just across the hall, both staring at the nothingness inside. Streaks of moonlight shone in from the window, highlighting a section of the bare wooden floor.

“We should find something to put on the floor, like a sheet or something,” Dara said, now entering the room and opening the closet door on the far wall to search for linens.

While Dara’s back was turned, G-Dragon took off his shirt and laid it down on the highlighted section of the wood.

Dara was disappointed to see that the closet was empty and now turned around, seeing G-Dragon standing there topless, his shirt spread out on the floor. “Ai, Ji Yong-ah, what are you doing?”

G-Dragon stood close to her now, staring into her eyes. “I want to make love to you, Dara-yah,” he said in a near whisper.

“Ji Yong-ah, I…”

He didn’t let her finish. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips softly against hers, but unable to control his excitement he now pressed harder, his tongue entering and his kisses then everywhere – her lips, her neck, her collarbone…

Dara tilted her head back and closed her eyes, breathing heavily as G-Dragon’s mouth traveled down her neckline and across her shoulders, his hands now pulling at the bottom of her shirt. He kissed her earlobe and whispered to her. “Do you remember the electricity we felt when we first kissed?” he asked.

“Mmm,” Dara mumbled, her eyes still closed as G-Dragon continued kissing her neck.

His lips returned to her ear now. “I’m going to make you feel that again,” he said. “Over and over again.”

Across the hall, Jong Kook sat silently, thinking about what Ji Hyo had just said to him. He’d had no idea that she had been feeling that way. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he asked.

Ji Hyo looked down at her lap. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the group,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t love taking care of the baby. It’s just that this responsibility was just handed to me without any decision on my part.”

“I made a promise to take care of Dong Hoon’s family,” Jong Kook said. “I wasn’t able to keep my promise to Suk Jin-ah. I think about that every day and it hurts, but the least I can do is keep my promise to Dong Hoon-ah. I know you didn’t make that same promise, but–”

“Jong Kook-ah, it’s not that,” Ji Hyo said. She looked over at the baby sleeping on the floor beside them. “I accepted the responsibility because I love you, and because I cared so deeply for Dong Hoon and Byul. I want to love and raise Dream as if he was my own, but…” She shook her head and then looked up at him, staring into his small eyes. “But I should be doing more for this group than just staying home with Kyung Eun-ssi and taking care of the children. It’s like you only think of me as a mother now.”

“Ji Hyo-yah, how can you say that?”

“Dream is as much your responsibility as he is mine, and yet you’re still going out tomorrow on that dangerous mission–”

“I don’t understand, jagiya. What do you want me to do?”

Ji Hyo breathed in deeply. “Why don’t you stay home and look after Dream while I lead the scavenging mission?” she asked. She bit her lip, awaiting his reaction. She didn’t even really want to go in his place. She just wanted to see what he’d say, how he’d respond.

Jong Kook shook his head. “If you want to come, that’s fine, but not without me.”

She sighed. He had responded exactly as she knew he would. “Because you feel you need to protect me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Of course,” he said. “I love you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She knew that his way of thinking about women was old-fashioned, and while she didn’t expect him to suddenly embrace the idea of her leading a mission while he stayed home, she had hoped… well, she didn’t really know what she had hoped. She just didn’t want to feel marginalized anymore. She wanted to feel like his equal. She wanted to say, I love you, too, and I don’t want anything to happen to you either, and that’s why your argument makes no sense. It could just as easily be used as support for why I should go in your place, or for why neither of us – or both of us – should go.

But she didn’t say anything. They both lay on that hard wooden floor now, no longer talking, just listening to the silence of that empty house. After a while, they began hearing sounds of pleasure echoing from the room across the hall. Neither knew which couple had claimed that room. They tried not to listen, not only for the sake of that couple’s privacy, but also so that they didn’t have to be reminded of the fact that although they were lying on that floor together, they each felt very much alone at that moment.