█ Chapter 3: Last Cigarette

"I saw two other guys a week ago, they were wearing the same uniforms."

No. It was impossible. Jongin and Sehun had been there when all hell broke loose. They had seen their own friends being mauled by a herd of biters, right before they had barely managed to escape an imminent death. Shortly after the accident, the school bus had burst into flames and carnage, leaving nothing but smithereens of Jongin's friends. It was impossible, and yet, he wondered if there really was a chance that Kyungsoo was telling the truth, that some of them had survived it all as he had said.

"What did they look like?" Jongin asked, a hand lazily perched on top of one bent knee. "I just want to know. They might be our friends."

Sehun slowly shook his head, because he knew for certain that his friends hadn't survived. He and his best friend had been sitting together when it all happened, and a biter had reached into the broken window to practically tear his friend's head clear off his shoulders. When Sehun thought about that, he sort of regretted not fighting a little longer for the window seat; maybe he could have saved his friend. Maybe not.

Sehun just liked thinking of the maybes and what ifs, because he liked to believe he still had options, that hope or even just the fleeting idea of it existed in the bleak world.

"I didn't stick around too long to find out," Kyungsoo said.

"Was..." Jongin massaged the center of his forehead and sighed slowly. "Was one of them wearing a navy blue snapback?" He motioned towards his head, demonstrating how his friend used to wear his hats backwards. Always.

"Yeah," Kyungsoo answered. "One of them."

"Holy ," Jongin's voice trembled and he buried his face into his hands as the realization that his best friend was still alive struck him harder than a two-ton truck knocking him out cold. All this time, he thought. All this time, he had been under the impression that his friends were dead, yet he was being told now that some of them were still alive. According to Kyungsoo, it had been a week since he had last seen them, but if they were traveling on foot, they couldn't be very far. Jongin had to find them.

Sehun pursed his lips, waiting for Jongin to recollect his thoughts before he suggested his idea again. "Tomorrow, we can all set out to Namsan, maybe we can find your friends, Jongin."

"I'm not going." Kyungsoo said. "That's a suicide mission."

Sehun glanced at Jongin, knowing he couldn't really convince Kyungsoo otherwise to join them since he had already asked for too much of the boy's hospitality. Kyungsoo seemed better off by himself anyway, with his whole treehouse set-up and trained dog to keep him a couple of steps ahead of the biters in the area. Sehun probably would have been even more surprised if Kyungsoo had agreed because what he had going on here was much better than what was out there. All he knew for sure was that Jongin would leave with him the following morning and it would be them against the world again.

Once the three settled to sleep on the treehouse floor, Sehun took the balcony with Jongin and laid in peace for once. The biters were circling the area below them, but the two were put at ease knowing they were out of their reach. What kept Sehun awake weren't the biters but the ravenous mosquitoes that kept buzzing around his ears and attacking his neck.

The little pests were even more aggressive than the biters and a hell of a lot more persistent, too. Sehun sighed after slapping at his neck at least ten times and sat up, finding Jongin who was doing the same to his neck across from him.

The two exchanged odd looks and started chuckling.

"Hey, Jongin," Sehun said, slipping his legs through the rivets in the balcony railing to dangle them. "Sorry for not... You know. I was scared." It had been nagging at him ever since the day he had failed to save Jongin from the biters, because he felt weak and useless on a day-to-day basis, on every opportunity he wasted in proving he was an asset to Jongin, not a burden. "When I look at those things... I just... I can't do it."

Jongin sighed and propped himself up on his arms, copying Sehun's position. "Don't worry about it. It's not easy, stabbing anything in the head," he rolled his tongue over his front row of teeth, briefly pondering when was the last time he had brushed his teeth or even gargled. Hyegeine was also something that wasn't easy to maintain; in fact, it was probably much harder than taking out a biter. "Those things aren't human, though. You don't have to feel any guilt for doing what you gotta do."

"Yeah, but they were people. What if they don't really die? What if a part of them is stuck in that body?"

"Hey, don't think about that. If it's hard for you, I'll do it," Jongin murmured.

"What if you're not here?"

Jongin gritted his teeth. "I will be."

The two faced the starlit sky for a long time without saying anything, merely admiring the world for what it was. Jongin had always thought the world had gone to , but without any smog to pollute the skies, there were thousands of stars dotting the black canvas, illuminating the heavens above their heads. It was a breathtaking sight to behold and surely a contrasting one to the scenery left behind on land.

It was in these moments of silence and self-reflection that Sehun daydreamed about days gone by and days to come. Sometimes, he would tell Jongin some stories and sometimes he wouldn't. Tonight was one of those nights he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself, so he said good night to Jongin and curled up to sleep.

Jongin stayed up and listened to the night coming alive around the treehouse. The crickets were chirping, frogs were croaking, and biters were... growling.

When Jongin was left alone with his thoughts, he thought mostly about his mother and how regretful he felt leaving her the way he had. She had always looked out for him despite being a single mother taking care of an irresponsibly foolish son. Jongin had thought of her as a pest at one time, mistaking her kindness and concern for nagging and bothering. Before all of this, he had lived so recklessly, and the day he had stormed out on his mother, Jongin hadn't been any better of a person than his abusive father. At least he was dead, though. He felt much more at ease knowing his mother was alone rather than surviving this cruel apocalypse with the son of a Jongin begrudgingly called his dad.

Nights Jongin thought of his mother were the worst.

He knew he wouldn't get much sleep with her haunting him, so he withdrew a crumpled pack of cigarettes he hadn't finished in a year and pulled out the last stick. His mother hadn't liked it when he smoked, too, but then again, she hadn't liked a lot of what Jongin did for a living.

Smoking was just one of those things.

Lighting the end of his last cigarette, Jongin pursed his dusky lips over it and inhaled the toxins into his lungs. The poison filled him up like euphoric smoke, numbing everything that had ever bothered Jongin within the past few hours. He felt mellowed, calm, and admittedly a little light-headed as he enjoyed the pleasures that one measly cigarette could provide in a world so full of . It was a shame it was his last one, though. Now, Jongin couldn't smoke even if he wanted to, because it wasn't like he could stop at the nearest 7-11 for one anymore.

He exhaled this time and watched the smoke curl between the leaves of the tree they were cooped up in, then looked beyond the branches to a small amber glow in the darkness.

The fire was undoubtedly a sign of a camp nearby, and where there was a controlled fire had to be people, possibly his friends whom Jongin wanted to meet so desperately. The fire looked close in the treehouse, but Jongin knew better than to judge by perspective alone, because the camp could very well be miles off on foot.

At least, he knew what direction to head towards in the morning.

Jongin sighed and tossed the stub of his cigarette to the forest floor, oblivious to the fact that the embers hadn't quite extinguished yet, and his last cigarette could soon become the last of him.

☣ ☣ ☣

"What are the chances Jongin could be alive right now?"

The male sharpening his machete on a rock snickered in amusement. "Probably the same chances as you getting laid in the next five years," he grinned, admiring the blade of his weapon in the moonlight.

" you. I saw him, Tao."

"It's been a year. Say you saw him, you still think he's gonna be alive?"

"He's tough."

"Bull, Minseok," Tao scoffed. "This world changes people."

Minseok pressed a hand over his forehead, tugging at the back of his snapback, or what was left of it. A chunk of the side had been taken out just a few days ago, but Minseok hadn't been able to leave the tattered cap behind because it was one of the few things he still had that reminded him of his best friend. Jongin had given the snapback to him on his eighteenth birthday and now... it had only been a year and it looked like a homeless man's fashion statement. Whenever Tao insisted that the cap would only make a good handle for a biter to grab a hold of his head, Minseok always replied that it helped keep his wily hair out of his face.

"You care about him, too. Otherwise, w-we wouldn't be here looking for him."

"Yeah, well, we're leaving the hell out of here and looking somewhere else," Tao spat. "I'm not wasting any more time looking for a damn corpse."

In a flash, Minseok's fists were in Tao's uniform, lifting him slightly from the boulder he was sitting on. He flung a punch across Tao's face and huffed angrily as the Chinese male wiped the blood from the corner of his lips. "How can you say that?" he snarled. "Jongin would look for you."

"Would he?" Tao hissed. "You said it yourself, he ran off with that... blondie. Left us as zombie bait."

Minseok clenched his jaws and pulled his fist back again.

"You know it's true," Tao sighed, tipping his head back as the blood dripped down his chin. "What the hell are we doing for a son of a who doesn't need us?"

"Doesn't matter," Minseok muttered. "Friends are there, whether you need them or not."