SBB 2016 ENTRY #18: For a While, She Just Bled (2/2)
Title: For a While, She Just Bled
Pairing: Taeyeon/Minjung, Taeyeon/Gwiboon
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Post-Apocalyptic, Comedy, Angst
Warnings: Some graphic content
Final Word Count: 12,149w
It did take Minjung a few more weeks to remember to mention to Taeyeon that she heard her mumble in her sleep sometimes. In the beginning, it was because she kept forgetting to note the mindless unintelligibles. Later, she was just worried that she might say something that Taeyeon didn’t want to hear.
There were rare occasions where they would speak calmly to one another or try their best to not invade each other’s personal bubbles. She hadn’t even realized that she was editing Taeyeon’s meals - taking her honey to pour on her own pancakes because Taeyeon despised anything sweet - until Eunsook pointed it out. Certainly, there were still limits that were just understandably there. But as much as those were just meant to be understood, would it be so crazy for Minjung to believe that certain lines were drawn more on sand than they were dented in hardened cement?
So she did try to mention it once while she had Taeyeon pinned to the mat of the studio during one particular Judo session.
“Who’s Gwiboon?” Minjung asked it as quickly as you would rip off a bandaid.
And while she thought she was familiar with a lot of Taeyeon’s strategies in combat, she didn’t see it coming when she was flipped over and Taeyeon was sitting on her chest, her hands locked overhead. “Say that name again and I will slit your throat open in your sleep.”
Taeyeon had surely said worse to her and vice versa, but those were always at the tail end of a smirk or a laugh stifled in the crooks of each other’s arms. There was venom in her voice and the way that she stared at Minjung like she was a target rather than a person, let alone her friend. Minjung could have yanked her down or broke her arm, but they were meant to protect each other.
“I didn’t mean to…”
Taeyeon got up. She looked as though she had previously blacked out and was just coming to, returning the curious looks of the other cadets and sergeants around them who had paused their activities. Eunsook was part of the crowd, confused and maybe a little disappointed. The girls parted where Taeyeon made her exit, leaving Minjung on the ground to stare at her wake.
Δ
That was when the theory of their friendship shifted back to something beneath casual. Taeyeon stopped talking to her altogether and barely slept in their room unless she was sneaking in late at night when Minjung was either too sleepy or too tired to say anything. Minjung was almost never either of those things ever since they stopped talking, but once she felt Taeyeon there, it was better than having her leave again.
Minjung was sleeping at irregular hours or not at all, which was not advisable for someone whose purpose was to serve what little of the human race remained after the great wipe out of a virus. To be the vessel of a cure that was funded by governments and organizations alike was enough of an undertaking for a teen to bear, but to do it on little to no sleep was just an innovative brand of societal pressure that, as far as Minjung could recall, she did not fucking sign up for.
She had trained for this and she was ready. She was going to change the world, not focus on her puberty and the grossness that was teenage angst and emotion. To fall under such circumstances would be typical of her. And she was not a typical girl. Right?
She played her cards close to the chest and fought for a cause to the far right of nations that had no choice but to band together to save themselves - she chose to be at the vanguard of chemical warfare, not at the crossfire of some scrappy, pessimistic, asshole of a girl who wore a bowl cut bob like that haircut was solely meant for her and her alone, to be attempted by no one else. Who the fuck did she think she was?
“What?”
“What?” Minjung’s gaze shot up to the source of the voice, only to find out that it was Eunsook.
“Did you say something?”
Did she just say that out loud? “No?”
Eunsook considered her for a second before taking a seat on the grass in front of her. “When everything has gone to shit, a jog usually helps me clear my mind.”
Minjung blinked as a response.
“I could pretend to be one of the undead chasing you? It’s good motivation to pick up the pace.”
“No, I…” Minjung smiled. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“She’s you’re very clearly not.” Eunsook offered her a sandwich that she snuck out of their lunch. Minjung shook her head and Eunsook didn’t have to be convinced a second time that she should just consume the sandwich herself. “If it’s any consolation, Taeyeon’s kind of a wreck too.”
Minjung’s posture straightened. “Really?”
Eunsook nodded. “You sound pleased.”
“Not pleased. Never pleased.” She was kind of pleased. “I just… could you let her know that I’m sorry?”
Eunsook smiled. “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”
“Yeah, but that’s because she won’t talk to me.”
“No, I mean,” Eunsook said as she chewed, “you have no idea what you did. And you really shouldn’t butt in on that side of her life. You don’t know her like that. You don’t know what she’s been through.”
Minjung, speechless, just sighed. She pinched the grass, turning her head away when her eyes started to hurt. “I just want her to talk to me again.”
Eunsook had no sage advice stored beneath her tongue unfortunately. She did still have half of the sandwich to offer and thankfully that time, Minjung tore a small piece for her to nibble on.
Δ
Taeyeon heard things sometimes that she quickly chalked up to her imaginative mind. It was easier to dismiss the voices, the hallucinations, especially now that she was dreaming regularly again. The excuses of he dreams bleeding into her reality, ironically enough were what kept her even remotely sane. And to further that purpose, she had taken more shifts on radio duty so that she wouldn’t have to explain to Minjung that no, she wasn’t angry with anyone but herself. It was a complicated sentiment to breakdown, most especially to someone like Minjung who tended to blame herself a lot.
No, instead, Taeyeon decided that she would stay up all night, alone in a tower, to listen to the radio and take note of survivors trying to reach out to them. Every hour, she would talk into different stations, stating her name, her camp, their coordinates. Responses were nil during the hours that she’d man the radio tower, but the sound of the static, at a certain point, drowned out all the bad.
Somewhere between her comfortable little purgatory of asleep and awake, she heard a voice come through the static. She blinked until all her senses came into focus and for a few beats, she wasn’t quite sure if she was still dreaming. She pats her fringe down gently, staring at the radio nobs, and surely enough the voice comes through again. It’s speaking in code - letters - degrees - wait, it was a location. Taeyeon knocked over her glass of water, a chair, anything that came between her and her pad and pen. She answered the call, took down the coordinates, and negotiated a middle ground for their pick up.
Δ
For maybe a month, it was Minjung, Taeyeon, and silence, the new third character living together. Turns out that the reset button of their chemistry was pretty fucking temperamental. And if Minjung were being honest, she was close to not caring, but also dangerously closer to an unfamiliar path of desperation that she’d rather not consider. Between the two of them, she couldn’t help but think that she would be the first to do the dumbest thing ever, whatever that meant.
Taeyeon was preoccupied. If it looked like she didn’t give a fuck anymore, then good. Maybe she didn’t. She liked cigarettes and cheap beer much better anyways. Instead of sitting for hours with nothing but the hazardous voices in her heard, she had a role to fulfill for the betterment of human kind and all that shit. It did feel good to know that she could still act childish. Even something as simple as being in one room with Minjung but refusing to speak or be the one to apologize first, she valued those little pieces of herself because it was proof that she cared, despite looking like she didn’t.
The new area they moved to was south of where their previous camp was. Taeyeon enjoyed the warmth; although a little less when she was sweating through 600 layers of her uniform’s fabric. Before they headed out to, Taeyeon and the rest of her platoon was gathered around the common room of their cabin.
“Have you communicated with the survivors since, Taeyeon?”
Taeyeon was sat by the window ledge, behind the rest of her platoon members. “No.”
Eunsook, which seated on the couch ahead of her, twisted her around enough to look at Taeyeon as she asked, “How do know how many boats to send out? How much room we need to make? How much ammo we need?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, man.”
Minjung, who had been sat on the couch, right arm pressed to the side of Eunsook’s left leg, kept her attention on her hands.
“The less people we bring out there, the better.” The leader of their platoon, the name of which Taeyeon had forgotten since day one, continued, “But that’ll be dangerous.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Taeyeon provided. “Just send a couple of your best shots, some drones for eyes in the sky and satellite surveillance - sounds pretty solid to me.”
“Okay, calm down, Rambo,” she said. “Two people in an area that’s uncharted abandoned is still risky. You don’t know what you’re after there, who your enemies are or what.”
Taeyeon shrugged. “I’ll go. I don’t care.”
Eunsook raised her hand. “I’ll go with her.”
“Well -“
Minjung mirrored the action, “I can go, too.”
Their platoon leader scoffed, pointing at Minjung, “Absolutely not. No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can fight,” Minjung argued.
“You’ve barely been here for a year.”
Minjung got on her feet, stretching her limbs until they cracked. “Fight me.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I keep you down for ten seconds, I get to go.”
Apart from the obvious drama caused by the threat of dying of an epidemic that’s still prevalent, there wasn’t much that happened in the camps. They were invaded once by a bunch of bandits, but the managed to slay them easily. Even when they went out to find survivors or undead to put to the ground, the result was usually just a stroll along a deteriorating city or town or park or whatever. It was calming, but they were a bored bunch of teenage girls.
So something like Minjung getting up, fists in front of her as she readied herself to fight their platoon leader just so she could risk her life outside of the camp was quite a sight. The rest of the platoon circled the two, eyes wide. One of the girls began to slowly chant Fight, fight, fight, to which Eunsook helped pull her fist back down to her side, a disproving look on her face.
Their platoon leader took her jacket off and kept her stance wide. “Fine. If you win, you get to go. If I win, you stay here and do graveyard radio duty for the next week.”
Minjung grinned.
Δ
Taeyeon didn’t really understand much about the environment, only that it was beautiful for the most part and worth restoring. So even when they travelled to areas that could easily be described as the Devil’s shit stain, she could still find something fascinating throughout the chaos. The area, as the two of them - and Minjung - would discover was a suburban neighborhood.
Drones buzzed overhead, higher that the roofs of the house, loud enough that they echoed throughout the streets. “Keep your mouth closed, Taeyeon,” came Jane’s voice into Taeyeon’s earpiece.
To no one in particular, Taeyeon replied, “I love uniform houses pushed together like this,” while staring down the line of houses.
After an hour of scoping the area with no survivors or even infected in sight, the three of them meet up by what Eunsook described as a dated Cadillac that looked like it was trying to consume the fire hydrant in front of it. Minjung was the last to show up, jogging lightly toward them.
Taeyeon looked her up and down.
“You okay?” Eunsook asked.
The younger nodded, panting slightly. “That was just a longer distance than I expected.”
“Then why’d you run?”
“You told me to hurry,” Minjung replied calmly.
Eunsook accepted that reason right away, turning her attention to Taeyeon. “Did you find anything?”
“No.”
Eunsook looked around, sweat dripping down the sides of her face. “Well, we could try again? Switch positions?”
Both Taeyeon and Minjung agreed. They moved once to their right to rotate their designated sectors of the neighborhood. “Let’s meet back here in another hour.” And then they were off to in opposite directions.
Δ
“Fuck.”
Taeyeon was 20 minutes into the search and there was barely any shade for her to hide behind while she caught her breath. She used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe her forehead clean.
“You must smell awful right now,” Jane said.
Taeyeon was waiting the sting of her sweat to leave her eyes, much too busy with that to really comment. She didn’t have anything interesting to say anyway, except that she agreed.
“Your pants are falling off too.”
“Jane, none of that is really helping. Could you just tell me where I can find my next line of shade? Basically do your job, you know what I mean?”
“Catty,” Jane giggled. “Well, maybe that’s why Minjung’s over you.”
“What?”
“Hit a nerve, did I?”
“I could seriously report you for this.” Taeyeon crouched before leaving the side of the house, now back on the street and very much exposed to the sunlight. She squinted as she progressed, rifle up, Jane nagging her constantly.
“You have enough ammo to kill a platoon , but god forbid if they ever let you use sunglasses.”
Taeyeon was still walking slowly, nodding in agreement.
“Oh.”
“What?”
Taeyeon heard Jane typing. “I see activity.”
“Where?”
“It’s close.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Taeyeon waved her gun about as though she were talking to someone right in front of her. “Could you be a little less shitty at your job and be more specific?”
After Jane was done laughing, like the troll that she was, she replied, “house up ahead to your right, second floor, first room on the left. Careful.”
“Going there now.”
“I have two drones overseeing, and I’ve alerted the two. They have your location pinned and will reach you in approximately five minutes.”
“Copy that.”
Everything in the house made the slightest bit of noise. The entrance of the house had a carpet torn to shreds, toy cars haphazardly placed wherever. “Monsters…” She whispered under her breath.
“I know,” said Jane. “What kind of people would cover hardwood floors with a carpet?”
“A bunch of fucking idiots that shouldn’t have had kids, that’s who.” Taeyeon made her way up the stairs, stepping over dried blood, avoiding loose pipes and decorative wall paper left flapping along the walls.
The door in question was slightly ajar. It was quiet save for the sound of Jane breathing in her ear. Or maybe that was her. She took a deep breath. Yes, it was her. She lowered her rifle, staring at the door, taking long, deep breaths. “You can wait for back up.”
Or not. Taeyeon kicked the door open, rifle raised and ready to shoot at absolutely nothing. There was a window left open, a bed frame with no mattress, a closet that was resting on the floor - but no threats, no survivors. “What the fuck, Jane?”
“Oh fuck. “ Jane hissed.
“What.” Taeyeon used her index finger to press her ear piece slightly.
“Wrong fucking door.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“It’s in the other room! Get the fuck out!”
Before her reflexes could catch up, she was tackled to the floor. Her eyes were closed for the snarling and the smell of flesh rotting and the need for her to push this thing off of her. It was when she was bit that her eyes shot open and she was screaming, “I’m bit! I’m bit!” over and over.
“Shit!” She could hear Jane, but it was mostly a string of words that didn’t make sense to her as a whole. She heard her call out to Minjung and Eunsook, heard her say she would take the drones inside - wait - heard her say that she just needed to hang on - that face - Jane was sorry, she said. She was so fucking sorry.
“Gwiboon?” Taeyeon said weakly. The virus was working fast.
This was Gwiboon. It was her and it wasn’t at the same time. But Taeyeon could fix that.
A lot of it from then on was just impulse; from the point where she flipped them over so that she could straddle the corpse and keep them on the ground, careful not to cause any more damage to her, to the when she pulled one of her syringes from the straps under her pant leg, ignoring all of her training, all of the times she had been warned to never administer the cure to someone who was beyond regaining a pulse, someone who had been reduced to something and had lived that way for a while. As soon as she stabbed the corpse in the neck she fell back to her side and lost all consciousness.
Δ
She must’ve dreamt it.
Except when she finally came to, she had a scar on her arm that wouldn’t heal properly, a fever, and the collective stink eye of every high ranking officer in the camp.
Eunsook came to see her one day with a basket of fruits, swearing the whole clinic down when she realized that Taeyeon was awake. Judging by how tightly she held her friend, Taeyeon could have sworn she was trying to kill her again.
She wasn’t hungry, but Eunsook vowed to only feed her details of what had happened if it were served with a side of actual food since she had been out for days.
“Three days,” Eunsook clarified. “I couldn’t see you in the beginning because the officers had a lot of questions about what happened that day. They talked to Jane and me, so for the first two days it was Minjung in here. She said you were out like a light.”
“How’s -“ Taeyeon cleared her throat, “uh, Jane?”
“She’s a fucking wreck.” Eunsook said, folding one leg up on the foot of the bed where she sat and watched Taeyeon fight down an orange slice. “Like, more so than usual. For a second, I really thought you were gone.”
As Taeyeon proceeded with water and antibiotics, Eunsook went on to talk about no survivors being found in the area. There were hints of a life, and there was a radio, but they had long gone by the time the three of them arrived. “And the... the corpse?”
“Minjung shot it dead.”
Taeyeon’s heart dropped. She didn’t even think she was expecting much out of that until she was told that it amounted to nothing. “Oh.”
“You’re lucky she was there.”
“Yeah.” Taeyeon scratched the small patch of skin under her right eye. “So, I’m in a lot of trouble, eh?”
“About that,” Eunsook scooted closer, as though they were being listened. Maybe they were. At that point, Taeyeon couldn’t blame them. “Why did you do it?”
Do what? Eunsook would have probably injected air into her dextrose tube if she asked that. “I thought she was someone I knew.”
She hated the truth more though. Because that earned her the pity of her friend. “You know that isn’t right. You can’t play God.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You probably don’t realize it now - and honestly, this wouldn’t be the right time to have this discussion anyway. You’re disoriented and tired. But as your friend -“ Eunsook whispered, “- as your fucking family, I need you to know that if I were infected at Level Zero, and you did that to me? I would never forgive you.”
Taeyeon had never seen Eunsook so serious. She locked with Taeyeon’s stare long and hard enough to hopefully emboss that promise in the back of her head.
“You can’t do that again, Taeyeon. Do you understand?”
Taeyeon caught the tears that were rolling down her cheeks with her thumb, nodding silently, too embarrassed by her own loneliness to look her friend in the eyes.
“Hey,” Eunsook tipped her chin up gently with her index finger and thumb, just enough so that their eyes met. “I love you okay?”
Taeyeon began to cry then, head on Eunsook’s shoulder, while she could feel that she was still too weak to do even that. “I’m sorry. I just wanted her back.”
“Yeah...” Eunsook rubbed her back. Taeyeon had lost so much weight that the knobs of her spines were pushing through her skin enough for Eunsook’s fingers to trace its heights and valleys. “I know.”
Δ
It was a bigger deal than Taeyeon had imagined when the trial began. If she didn’t plead guilty, she would be expelled from Haneul to serve a five year sentence in prison for the unlawful use of government funded, A grade property, set to a bail that her mother could and would not afford. So she stood in front of the jury, her mother, her friends, and Minjung to apologize.
It lasted two days in total, and half of that time, Taeyeon spent with Eunsook to practice her appeal. “Jane’s in on it because she owes you. And it’s not like we’re lying anyway when we appeal to self-defense.”
“I had a gun with me.” Taeyeon rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “What if they ask me why I didn’t use my gun?”
“Because it was out of your reach. It was an act of desperation and pure confusion.”
Taeyeon squinted. “Let me get this straight; you want me to appeal that my brain was too slow to comprehend that the difference between a weapon that could kill it and medicine that could bring it back to life?”
“If you do this,” Eunsook said instead of straight up just saying yes, “you can stay on campus and with the tours. You’ll be suspended from missions for six months, but you won’t have to go prison, you won’t have to be exiled. Just plead the stupid card.”
“That’s humiliating.”
“More so than trying to revive a corpse that you thought was your ex?”
“Fuck, both of those are awful.” Taeyeon threw her hands in the air.
“Yet only one of them will send you to prison.” Eunsook tapped her temple. “Think about it.”
Δ
“I was stupid.” This is what Taeyeon had decided on. And as she continued to speak, she could see Eunsook being a stage mom and mouthing the words with her. “I never intended to put anyone in harm’s way. It was an honest, fucked up - sorry.”
“Go on,” The Corps Commander was amoth the panel of judges, looking almost as worse as Taeyeon. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the Reaping.
“I’m human. I was confused and scared for my life. I thought that I’d never get to see my friends again or my mom or...” her eyes met Minjung’s who was standing at the back of the courthouse, observing her quietly. “I acted out of complete ignorance. And that is the only broken rule that I will admit to. Nothing else.”
Δ
“That was definitely a win.” Eunsook opened up a bottle of beer, offering one to Taeyeo. Once she takes the bottle, Eunsook clinks the glass necks together. “What did I tell you?”
“Except people think I’m an idiot.”
Eunsook supplied, “better that they think you’re an idiot than better than everyone else, trust me. The bigger of an idiot you are, the smaller the target on your back.”
They both pause when there was a knock on the door. Eunsook flung it open, thinking that it was Jane without another Sorry-I-Nearly-Got-You-Killed six pack of beer, only to find out that it was Minjung with her empty hands stuffed down her pajama pockets. She looked at Taeyeon almost immediately, like Eunsook wasn’t even there. “Hi.”
Taeyeon sniffed, looking down at her beer then back up at Minjung. “Hey.”
“Can I talk to you?” Minjung after a solid 20 seconds, finally acknowledged Eunsook with a small smile. It was weak and fake and Eunsook could see right through it.
“I’ll give you guys some privacy.” Eunsook showed herself out. Just as she closed the door behind her, Minjung heard her say, “I was gonna take a shit anyways.”
“She’s charming.”
Taeyeon couldn’t keep herself from smiling at that. But she did roll her lips inward to prevent it from becoming too noticeable. “Do you want a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Taeyeon had already stood up and as she did, Minjung walked over to her and wrapped her arms around her. Taeyeon’s bad arm was in a sling, caught between their chests. Though it was slightly painful, it was nice. So she thought she would enjoy the hug a bit more instead of complaining about every single little thing.
“I didn’t think you were gonna make it.”
Taeyeon’s voice was muffled by the fabric of Minjung’s clothes, lips pressed to her shoulder conveniently. “Gee, thanks.”
“No,” Minjung pulled back, fixing Taeyeon’s hair. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Taeyeon hadn’t realized how long it had been since they were this locked in in each other’s space until she refused to let go of Minjung’s waist with her good hand. Minjung didn’t seem to mind. She reciprocated the gesture with a peck to the tip of Taeyeon’s nose.
Before she could properly take a deep breath or lick her lips a little or do whatever it was that Minjung read in books that pertained to the pre-kiss routine, Taeyeon had pushed her against the back of the door, leaning up on her toes enough that they were flush against each other.
Taeyeon’s thigh had slipped between both of Minjung’s, muffling a moan in the crook of her neck, fingers tightening against her collar. Taeyeon rubbed her thigh up against her again, encouragingly, until Minjung’s hips were moving on her own accord, panting against Taeyeon’s skin until she was soaked. Taeyeon locked the door, taking Minjung’s hand to lead her to one of the beds. Minjung was trying to walk straight, cheeks flushed. “What about Eunsook?”
“Don’t worry about it. She takes hour long shifts. Her digestion is super fucked.”
Δ
“Just last year,” Minjung answered when Taeyeon asked her when she lost her virginity. “I don’t wanna continue that story.”
“You don’t have to,” She placed a small kiss on Minjung’s shoulder. Eunsook’s blanket was too short for Minjung so half her legs popped through the ends as she lied on her stomach.
Taeyeon was on her side, head on the pillow, her good hand tracing the Minjung’s shoulder blades. “Your skin is so pretty.”
Minjung placed a chaste kiss on Taeyeon’s hand when it neared her lips. If Taeyeon were a bystander watching them, she’d be one, really pissed at the sugary sweet disgustungness, and two, a pervert. So it worked out really well that she was part of the picture with Minjung, touching her at a leisurely pace. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Taeyeon repeated.
“When did you first have sex?”
“The same as you. I don’t want to talk about that either.” Taeyeon smiled. “I could tell you about when I first made love to girl?”
Minjung nodded slowly, eyes locked on Taeyeon. “okay.”
“It was two years ago. I’d met her a month before getting into Haneul.” Taeyeon continued, “She was beautiful. But she loved to hurt herself. And as a result, everyone around her. When I first met her, I kind of always knew that she was going to kill herself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Whether she had grown up before or after the Reaping, there was a sadness in her - a really deep one that just - you just felt it. I felt it.”
Minjung rested her head on the pillow too, so that they were at each other’s eye level. “Did you want to save her?”
“Yeah,” Taeyeon admitted quietly.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “you won’t have to save me.”
“I know,” came Taeyeon’s response instantly. She was tired finally, the good kind where she knew she was about to sleep well. “You’re tough as rocks.”
Δ
Minjung shot four of the cans in a row one Monday morning, and Taeyeon howled like she could not be prouder.
“You’re getting so fucking good at that,” she commented.
Minjung did a little spin, leaning forward with her lips pouted.
Instead of a kiss, Taeyeon did the next grossest thing which was suck both of Minjung’s upper and lower lips. As expected, Minjung pushed her off and wipes her mouth.
“Watch the arm, Lurch!” Taeyeon raised her bandaged arm, now released from the sling.
“You are the fucking worst.”
“Hey!” Taeyeon laughed.
“What?”
“You’re starting to sound like me.”
Minjung looked surprised. “You mean, like I didn’t grow up with people that loved me?”
“Okay, calm down.” Taeyeon shoved her lightly. “Jesus. Oh shit,” she said when she saw the time. She took her jacket and began to shrug it on.
“Janitorial duties?”
“For three hours.” Taeyeon said. “This community service thing is having me clean more shit than I expected.”
“Punishment fits the crime.” Minjung grinned.
“Whatever, Meanie. I’ll see you later.”
“Later.” Minjung left her with a kiss on the cheek and quick butt slap before sending her off.
Δ
Nurse Junghee had made Minjung a copy of the key to the basement of the clinic weeks ago. Much like the first time she used it, she had some trouble turning it to unlock , especially with just one hand while other carried a tray of food.
When she did manage to get through the door, she locked it behind her immediately, looking around the ill-lit basement until she found her. “Hey, Gwiboon. Still staring at that light, huh?”
She didn’t respond. She never did. All she did so far was sit in a corner of the basement and stare at the bulb at the center of it. She was wearing a clean hospital gown and her skin was pale, only responsive to the presence of raw meat. That day was no different. Her left nostril flared as she sniffed.
“It’s cow today.” Minjung placed the plate under the light bulb. As soon as she stepped back, Gwiboon had leaped to the tray, kicking it away as soon as she had the meat in her hands. She dug her teeth deep enough into the flesh that it would bleed down her chin and pain half of her face in red as though she had bobbed for that steak inside a cow’s open stomach.
Minjung sat on the floor, but at a distance, watching her eat. “Taeyeon told me something about you.”
At the mentioned of her name, Gwiboon looked up, chewing.
“She said you were anorexic when you were alive. Like, alive alive.” Minjung used air quotes. “No offense. If only she could see you now, eh?”
Gwiboon’s head was tilted down slightly, and her eyes looked like twin black holes just peering into Minjung.
“Maybe when I’ve taught you how to talk, I’ll re-introduce you two. You can have long conversations.”
Gwiboon took another bite of the flesh, yanking it from the rest of the meat that she gripped in her hands.
Minjung smiled. “Can you say Taeyeon?” Aside from the sound of meat squishing around in Gwiboon’s mouth, there was no response at all. “Tae-yeon? No?”
Her resting face, Minjung realized, was just a menacing one. Like Minjung could make one wrong move and Gwiboon would take that slight to turn her into a puree.
“Not today then.” She said. “Alright. Well... I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Do you like liver? Nevermind.” Minjung disappeared behind the door, making sure to lock it before she returned to the cabins.
Between teeth that grinded together, Gwiboon hissed, “fuck you,” under her breath, then proceeded to finish her food while staring at the light bulb. She was right. If only Taeyeon could see her now.
Pairing: Taeyeon/Minjung, Taeyeon/Gwiboon
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Post-Apocalyptic, Comedy, Angst
Warnings: Some graphic content
Final Word Count: 12,149w
It did take Minjung a few more weeks to remember to mention to Taeyeon that she heard her mumble in her sleep sometimes. In the beginning, it was because she kept forgetting to note the mindless unintelligibles. Later, she was just worried that she might say something that Taeyeon didn’t want to hear.
There were rare occasions where they would speak calmly to one another or try their best to not invade each other’s personal bubbles. She hadn’t even realized that she was editing Taeyeon’s meals - taking her honey to pour on her own pancakes because Taeyeon despised anything sweet - until Eunsook pointed it out. Certainly, there were still limits that were just understandably there. But as much as those were just meant to be understood, would it be so crazy for Minjung to believe that certain lines were drawn more on sand than they were dented in hardened cement?
So she did try to mention it once while she had Taeyeon pinned to the mat of the studio during one particular Judo session.
“Who’s Gwiboon?” Minjung asked it as quickly as you would rip off a bandaid.
And while she thought she was familiar with a lot of Taeyeon’s strategies in combat, she didn’t see it coming when she was flipped over and Taeyeon was sitting on her chest, her hands locked overhead. “Say that name again and I will slit your throat open in your sleep.”
Taeyeon had surely said worse to her and vice versa, but those were always at the tail end of a smirk or a laugh stifled in the crooks of each other’s arms. There was venom in her voice and the way that she stared at Minjung like she was a target rather than a person, let alone her friend. Minjung could have yanked her down or broke her arm, but they were meant to protect each other.
“I didn’t mean to…”
Taeyeon got up. She looked as though she had previously blacked out and was just coming to, returning the curious looks of the other cadets and sergeants around them who had paused their activities. Eunsook was part of the crowd, confused and maybe a little disappointed. The girls parted where Taeyeon made her exit, leaving Minjung on the ground to stare at her wake.
Δ
That was when the theory of their friendship shifted back to something beneath casual. Taeyeon stopped talking to her altogether and barely slept in their room unless she was sneaking in late at night when Minjung was either too sleepy or too tired to say anything. Minjung was almost never either of those things ever since they stopped talking, but once she felt Taeyeon there, it was better than having her leave again.
Minjung was sleeping at irregular hours or not at all, which was not advisable for someone whose purpose was to serve what little of the human race remained after the great wipe out of a virus. To be the vessel of a cure that was funded by governments and organizations alike was enough of an undertaking for a teen to bear, but to do it on little to no sleep was just an innovative brand of societal pressure that, as far as Minjung could recall, she did not fucking sign up for.
She had trained for this and she was ready. She was going to change the world, not focus on her puberty and the grossness that was teenage angst and emotion. To fall under such circumstances would be typical of her. And she was not a typical girl. Right?
She played her cards close to the chest and fought for a cause to the far right of nations that had no choice but to band together to save themselves - she chose to be at the vanguard of chemical warfare, not at the crossfire of some scrappy, pessimistic, asshole of a girl who wore a bowl cut bob like that haircut was solely meant for her and her alone, to be attempted by no one else. Who the fuck did she think she was?
“What?”
“What?” Minjung’s gaze shot up to the source of the voice, only to find out that it was Eunsook.
“Did you say something?”
Did she just say that out loud? “No?”
Eunsook considered her for a second before taking a seat on the grass in front of her. “When everything has gone to shit, a jog usually helps me clear my mind.”
Minjung blinked as a response.
“I could pretend to be one of the undead chasing you? It’s good motivation to pick up the pace.”
“No, I…” Minjung smiled. “I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“She’s you’re very clearly not.” Eunsook offered her a sandwich that she snuck out of their lunch. Minjung shook her head and Eunsook didn’t have to be convinced a second time that she should just consume the sandwich herself. “If it’s any consolation, Taeyeon’s kind of a wreck too.”
Minjung’s posture straightened. “Really?”
Eunsook nodded. “You sound pleased.”
“Not pleased. Never pleased.” She was kind of pleased. “I just… could you let her know that I’m sorry?”
Eunsook smiled. “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”
“Yeah, but that’s because she won’t talk to me.”
“No, I mean,” Eunsook said as she chewed, “you have no idea what you did. And you really shouldn’t butt in on that side of her life. You don’t know her like that. You don’t know what she’s been through.”
Minjung, speechless, just sighed. She pinched the grass, turning her head away when her eyes started to hurt. “I just want her to talk to me again.”
Eunsook had no sage advice stored beneath her tongue unfortunately. She did still have half of the sandwich to offer and thankfully that time, Minjung tore a small piece for her to nibble on.
Δ
Taeyeon heard things sometimes that she quickly chalked up to her imaginative mind. It was easier to dismiss the voices, the hallucinations, especially now that she was dreaming regularly again. The excuses of he dreams bleeding into her reality, ironically enough were what kept her even remotely sane. And to further that purpose, she had taken more shifts on radio duty so that she wouldn’t have to explain to Minjung that no, she wasn’t angry with anyone but herself. It was a complicated sentiment to breakdown, most especially to someone like Minjung who tended to blame herself a lot.
No, instead, Taeyeon decided that she would stay up all night, alone in a tower, to listen to the radio and take note of survivors trying to reach out to them. Every hour, she would talk into different stations, stating her name, her camp, their coordinates. Responses were nil during the hours that she’d man the radio tower, but the sound of the static, at a certain point, drowned out all the bad.
Somewhere between her comfortable little purgatory of asleep and awake, she heard a voice come through the static. She blinked until all her senses came into focus and for a few beats, she wasn’t quite sure if she was still dreaming. She pats her fringe down gently, staring at the radio nobs, and surely enough the voice comes through again. It’s speaking in code - letters - degrees - wait, it was a location. Taeyeon knocked over her glass of water, a chair, anything that came between her and her pad and pen. She answered the call, took down the coordinates, and negotiated a middle ground for their pick up.
Δ
For maybe a month, it was Minjung, Taeyeon, and silence, the new third character living together. Turns out that the reset button of their chemistry was pretty fucking temperamental. And if Minjung were being honest, she was close to not caring, but also dangerously closer to an unfamiliar path of desperation that she’d rather not consider. Between the two of them, she couldn’t help but think that she would be the first to do the dumbest thing ever, whatever that meant.
Taeyeon was preoccupied. If it looked like she didn’t give a fuck anymore, then good. Maybe she didn’t. She liked cigarettes and cheap beer much better anyways. Instead of sitting for hours with nothing but the hazardous voices in her heard, she had a role to fulfill for the betterment of human kind and all that shit. It did feel good to know that she could still act childish. Even something as simple as being in one room with Minjung but refusing to speak or be the one to apologize first, she valued those little pieces of herself because it was proof that she cared, despite looking like she didn’t.
The new area they moved to was south of where their previous camp was. Taeyeon enjoyed the warmth; although a little less when she was sweating through 600 layers of her uniform’s fabric. Before they headed out to, Taeyeon and the rest of her platoon was gathered around the common room of their cabin.
“Have you communicated with the survivors since, Taeyeon?”
Taeyeon was sat by the window ledge, behind the rest of her platoon members. “No.”
Eunsook, which seated on the couch ahead of her, twisted her around enough to look at Taeyeon as she asked, “How do know how many boats to send out? How much room we need to make? How much ammo we need?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, man.”
Minjung, who had been sat on the couch, right arm pressed to the side of Eunsook’s left leg, kept her attention on her hands.
“The less people we bring out there, the better.” The leader of their platoon, the name of which Taeyeon had forgotten since day one, continued, “But that’ll be dangerous.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Taeyeon provided. “Just send a couple of your best shots, some drones for eyes in the sky and satellite surveillance - sounds pretty solid to me.”
“Okay, calm down, Rambo,” she said. “Two people in an area that’s uncharted abandoned is still risky. You don’t know what you’re after there, who your enemies are or what.”
Taeyeon shrugged. “I’ll go. I don’t care.”
Eunsook raised her hand. “I’ll go with her.”
“Well -“
Minjung mirrored the action, “I can go, too.”
Their platoon leader scoffed, pointing at Minjung, “Absolutely not. No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can fight,” Minjung argued.
“You’ve barely been here for a year.”
Minjung got on her feet, stretching her limbs until they cracked. “Fight me.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I keep you down for ten seconds, I get to go.”
Apart from the obvious drama caused by the threat of dying of an epidemic that’s still prevalent, there wasn’t much that happened in the camps. They were invaded once by a bunch of bandits, but the managed to slay them easily. Even when they went out to find survivors or undead to put to the ground, the result was usually just a stroll along a deteriorating city or town or park or whatever. It was calming, but they were a bored bunch of teenage girls.
So something like Minjung getting up, fists in front of her as she readied herself to fight their platoon leader just so she could risk her life outside of the camp was quite a sight. The rest of the platoon circled the two, eyes wide. One of the girls began to slowly chant Fight, fight, fight, to which Eunsook helped pull her fist back down to her side, a disproving look on her face.
Their platoon leader took her jacket off and kept her stance wide. “Fine. If you win, you get to go. If I win, you stay here and do graveyard radio duty for the next week.”
Minjung grinned.
Δ
Taeyeon didn’t really understand much about the environment, only that it was beautiful for the most part and worth restoring. So even when they travelled to areas that could easily be described as the Devil’s shit stain, she could still find something fascinating throughout the chaos. The area, as the two of them - and Minjung - would discover was a suburban neighborhood.
Drones buzzed overhead, higher that the roofs of the house, loud enough that they echoed throughout the streets. “Keep your mouth closed, Taeyeon,” came Jane’s voice into Taeyeon’s earpiece.
To no one in particular, Taeyeon replied, “I love uniform houses pushed together like this,” while staring down the line of houses.
After an hour of scoping the area with no survivors or even infected in sight, the three of them meet up by what Eunsook described as a dated Cadillac that looked like it was trying to consume the fire hydrant in front of it. Minjung was the last to show up, jogging lightly toward them.
Taeyeon looked her up and down.
“You okay?” Eunsook asked.
The younger nodded, panting slightly. “That was just a longer distance than I expected.”
“Then why’d you run?”
“You told me to hurry,” Minjung replied calmly.
Eunsook accepted that reason right away, turning her attention to Taeyeon. “Did you find anything?”
“No.”
Eunsook looked around, sweat dripping down the sides of her face. “Well, we could try again? Switch positions?”
Both Taeyeon and Minjung agreed. They moved once to their right to rotate their designated sectors of the neighborhood. “Let’s meet back here in another hour.” And then they were off to in opposite directions.
Δ
“Fuck.”
Taeyeon was 20 minutes into the search and there was barely any shade for her to hide behind while she caught her breath. She used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe her forehead clean.
“You must smell awful right now,” Jane said.
Taeyeon was waiting the sting of her sweat to leave her eyes, much too busy with that to really comment. She didn’t have anything interesting to say anyway, except that she agreed.
“Your pants are falling off too.”
“Jane, none of that is really helping. Could you just tell me where I can find my next line of shade? Basically do your job, you know what I mean?”
“Catty,” Jane giggled. “Well, maybe that’s why Minjung’s over you.”
“What?”
“Hit a nerve, did I?”
“I could seriously report you for this.” Taeyeon crouched before leaving the side of the house, now back on the street and very much exposed to the sunlight. She squinted as she progressed, rifle up, Jane nagging her constantly.
“You have enough ammo to kill a platoon , but god forbid if they ever let you use sunglasses.”
Taeyeon was still walking slowly, nodding in agreement.
“Oh.”
“What?”
Taeyeon heard Jane typing. “I see activity.”
“Where?”
“It’s close.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Taeyeon waved her gun about as though she were talking to someone right in front of her. “Could you be a little less shitty at your job and be more specific?”
After Jane was done laughing, like the troll that she was, she replied, “house up ahead to your right, second floor, first room on the left. Careful.”
“Going there now.”
“I have two drones overseeing, and I’ve alerted the two. They have your location pinned and will reach you in approximately five minutes.”
“Copy that.”
Everything in the house made the slightest bit of noise. The entrance of the house had a carpet torn to shreds, toy cars haphazardly placed wherever. “Monsters…” She whispered under her breath.
“I know,” said Jane. “What kind of people would cover hardwood floors with a carpet?”
“A bunch of fucking idiots that shouldn’t have had kids, that’s who.” Taeyeon made her way up the stairs, stepping over dried blood, avoiding loose pipes and decorative wall paper left flapping along the walls.
The door in question was slightly ajar. It was quiet save for the sound of Jane breathing in her ear. Or maybe that was her. She took a deep breath. Yes, it was her. She lowered her rifle, staring at the door, taking long, deep breaths. “You can wait for back up.”
Or not. Taeyeon kicked the door open, rifle raised and ready to shoot at absolutely nothing. There was a window left open, a bed frame with no mattress, a closet that was resting on the floor - but no threats, no survivors. “What the fuck, Jane?”
“Oh fuck. “ Jane hissed.
“What.” Taeyeon used her index finger to press her ear piece slightly.
“Wrong fucking door.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“It’s in the other room! Get the fuck out!”
Before her reflexes could catch up, she was tackled to the floor. Her eyes were closed for the snarling and the smell of flesh rotting and the need for her to push this thing off of her. It was when she was bit that her eyes shot open and she was screaming, “I’m bit! I’m bit!” over and over.
“Shit!” She could hear Jane, but it was mostly a string of words that didn’t make sense to her as a whole. She heard her call out to Minjung and Eunsook, heard her say she would take the drones inside - wait - heard her say that she just needed to hang on - that face - Jane was sorry, she said. She was so fucking sorry.
“Gwiboon?” Taeyeon said weakly. The virus was working fast.
This was Gwiboon. It was her and it wasn’t at the same time. But Taeyeon could fix that.
A lot of it from then on was just impulse; from the point where she flipped them over so that she could straddle the corpse and keep them on the ground, careful not to cause any more damage to her, to the when she pulled one of her syringes from the straps under her pant leg, ignoring all of her training, all of the times she had been warned to never administer the cure to someone who was beyond regaining a pulse, someone who had been reduced to something and had lived that way for a while. As soon as she stabbed the corpse in the neck she fell back to her side and lost all consciousness.
Δ
She must’ve dreamt it.
Except when she finally came to, she had a scar on her arm that wouldn’t heal properly, a fever, and the collective stink eye of every high ranking officer in the camp.
Eunsook came to see her one day with a basket of fruits, swearing the whole clinic down when she realized that Taeyeon was awake. Judging by how tightly she held her friend, Taeyeon could have sworn she was trying to kill her again.
She wasn’t hungry, but Eunsook vowed to only feed her details of what had happened if it were served with a side of actual food since she had been out for days.
“Three days,” Eunsook clarified. “I couldn’t see you in the beginning because the officers had a lot of questions about what happened that day. They talked to Jane and me, so for the first two days it was Minjung in here. She said you were out like a light.”
“How’s -“ Taeyeon cleared her throat, “uh, Jane?”
“She’s a fucking wreck.” Eunsook said, folding one leg up on the foot of the bed where she sat and watched Taeyeon fight down an orange slice. “Like, more so than usual. For a second, I really thought you were gone.”
As Taeyeon proceeded with water and antibiotics, Eunsook went on to talk about no survivors being found in the area. There were hints of a life, and there was a radio, but they had long gone by the time the three of them arrived. “And the... the corpse?”
“Minjung shot it dead.”
Taeyeon’s heart dropped. She didn’t even think she was expecting much out of that until she was told that it amounted to nothing. “Oh.”
“You’re lucky she was there.”
“Yeah.” Taeyeon scratched the small patch of skin under her right eye. “So, I’m in a lot of trouble, eh?”
“About that,” Eunsook scooted closer, as though they were being listened. Maybe they were. At that point, Taeyeon couldn’t blame them. “Why did you do it?”
Do what? Eunsook would have probably injected air into her dextrose tube if she asked that. “I thought she was someone I knew.”
She hated the truth more though. Because that earned her the pity of her friend. “You know that isn’t right. You can’t play God.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You probably don’t realize it now - and honestly, this wouldn’t be the right time to have this discussion anyway. You’re disoriented and tired. But as your friend -“ Eunsook whispered, “- as your fucking family, I need you to know that if I were infected at Level Zero, and you did that to me? I would never forgive you.”
Taeyeon had never seen Eunsook so serious. She locked with Taeyeon’s stare long and hard enough to hopefully emboss that promise in the back of her head.
“You can’t do that again, Taeyeon. Do you understand?”
Taeyeon caught the tears that were rolling down her cheeks with her thumb, nodding silently, too embarrassed by her own loneliness to look her friend in the eyes.
“Hey,” Eunsook tipped her chin up gently with her index finger and thumb, just enough so that their eyes met. “I love you okay?”
Taeyeon began to cry then, head on Eunsook’s shoulder, while she could feel that she was still too weak to do even that. “I’m sorry. I just wanted her back.”
“Yeah...” Eunsook rubbed her back. Taeyeon had lost so much weight that the knobs of her spines were pushing through her skin enough for Eunsook’s fingers to trace its heights and valleys. “I know.”
Δ
It was a bigger deal than Taeyeon had imagined when the trial began. If she didn’t plead guilty, she would be expelled from Haneul to serve a five year sentence in prison for the unlawful use of government funded, A grade property, set to a bail that her mother could and would not afford. So she stood in front of the jury, her mother, her friends, and Minjung to apologize.
It lasted two days in total, and half of that time, Taeyeon spent with Eunsook to practice her appeal. “Jane’s in on it because she owes you. And it’s not like we’re lying anyway when we appeal to self-defense.”
“I had a gun with me.” Taeyeon rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “What if they ask me why I didn’t use my gun?”
“Because it was out of your reach. It was an act of desperation and pure confusion.”
Taeyeon squinted. “Let me get this straight; you want me to appeal that my brain was too slow to comprehend that the difference between a weapon that could kill it and medicine that could bring it back to life?”
“If you do this,” Eunsook said instead of straight up just saying yes, “you can stay on campus and with the tours. You’ll be suspended from missions for six months, but you won’t have to go prison, you won’t have to be exiled. Just plead the stupid card.”
“That’s humiliating.”
“More so than trying to revive a corpse that you thought was your ex?”
“Fuck, both of those are awful.” Taeyeon threw her hands in the air.
“Yet only one of them will send you to prison.” Eunsook tapped her temple. “Think about it.”
Δ
“I was stupid.” This is what Taeyeon had decided on. And as she continued to speak, she could see Eunsook being a stage mom and mouthing the words with her. “I never intended to put anyone in harm’s way. It was an honest, fucked up - sorry.”
“Go on,” The Corps Commander was amoth the panel of judges, looking almost as worse as Taeyeon. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the Reaping.
“I’m human. I was confused and scared for my life. I thought that I’d never get to see my friends again or my mom or...” her eyes met Minjung’s who was standing at the back of the courthouse, observing her quietly. “I acted out of complete ignorance. And that is the only broken rule that I will admit to. Nothing else.”
Δ
“That was definitely a win.” Eunsook opened up a bottle of beer, offering one to Taeyeo. Once she takes the bottle, Eunsook clinks the glass necks together. “What did I tell you?”
“Except people think I’m an idiot.”
Eunsook supplied, “better that they think you’re an idiot than better than everyone else, trust me. The bigger of an idiot you are, the smaller the target on your back.”
They both pause when there was a knock on the door. Eunsook flung it open, thinking that it was Jane without another Sorry-I-Nearly-Got-You-Killed six pack of beer, only to find out that it was Minjung with her empty hands stuffed down her pajama pockets. She looked at Taeyeon almost immediately, like Eunsook wasn’t even there. “Hi.”
Taeyeon sniffed, looking down at her beer then back up at Minjung. “Hey.”
“Can I talk to you?” Minjung after a solid 20 seconds, finally acknowledged Eunsook with a small smile. It was weak and fake and Eunsook could see right through it.
“I’ll give you guys some privacy.” Eunsook showed herself out. Just as she closed the door behind her, Minjung heard her say, “I was gonna take a shit anyways.”
“She’s charming.”
Taeyeon couldn’t keep herself from smiling at that. But she did roll her lips inward to prevent it from becoming too noticeable. “Do you want a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
Taeyeon had already stood up and as she did, Minjung walked over to her and wrapped her arms around her. Taeyeon’s bad arm was in a sling, caught between their chests. Though it was slightly painful, it was nice. So she thought she would enjoy the hug a bit more instead of complaining about every single little thing.
“I didn’t think you were gonna make it.”
Taeyeon’s voice was muffled by the fabric of Minjung’s clothes, lips pressed to her shoulder conveniently. “Gee, thanks.”
“No,” Minjung pulled back, fixing Taeyeon’s hair. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Taeyeon hadn’t realized how long it had been since they were this locked in in each other’s space until she refused to let go of Minjung’s waist with her good hand. Minjung didn’t seem to mind. She reciprocated the gesture with a peck to the tip of Taeyeon’s nose.
Before she could properly take a deep breath or lick her lips a little or do whatever it was that Minjung read in books that pertained to the pre-kiss routine, Taeyeon had pushed her against the back of the door, leaning up on her toes enough that they were flush against each other.
Taeyeon’s thigh had slipped between both of Minjung’s, muffling a moan in the crook of her neck, fingers tightening against her collar. Taeyeon rubbed her thigh up against her again, encouragingly, until Minjung’s hips were moving on her own accord, panting against Taeyeon’s skin until she was soaked. Taeyeon locked the door, taking Minjung’s hand to lead her to one of the beds. Minjung was trying to walk straight, cheeks flushed. “What about Eunsook?”
“Don’t worry about it. She takes hour long shifts. Her digestion is super fucked.”
Δ
“Just last year,” Minjung answered when Taeyeon asked her when she lost her virginity. “I don’t wanna continue that story.”
“You don’t have to,” She placed a small kiss on Minjung’s shoulder. Eunsook’s blanket was too short for Minjung so half her legs popped through the ends as she lied on her stomach.
Taeyeon was on her side, head on the pillow, her good hand tracing the Minjung’s shoulder blades. “Your skin is so pretty.”
Minjung placed a chaste kiss on Taeyeon’s hand when it neared her lips. If Taeyeon were a bystander watching them, she’d be one, really pissed at the sugary sweet disgustungness, and two, a pervert. So it worked out really well that she was part of the picture with Minjung, touching her at a leisurely pace. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Taeyeon repeated.
“When did you first have sex?”
“The same as you. I don’t want to talk about that either.” Taeyeon smiled. “I could tell you about when I first made love to girl?”
Minjung nodded slowly, eyes locked on Taeyeon. “okay.”
“It was two years ago. I’d met her a month before getting into Haneul.” Taeyeon continued, “She was beautiful. But she loved to hurt herself. And as a result, everyone around her. When I first met her, I kind of always knew that she was going to kill herself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Whether she had grown up before or after the Reaping, there was a sadness in her - a really deep one that just - you just felt it. I felt it.”
Minjung rested her head on the pillow too, so that they were at each other’s eye level. “Did you want to save her?”
“Yeah,” Taeyeon admitted quietly.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “you won’t have to save me.”
“I know,” came Taeyeon’s response instantly. She was tired finally, the good kind where she knew she was about to sleep well. “You’re tough as rocks.”
Δ
Minjung shot four of the cans in a row one Monday morning, and Taeyeon howled like she could not be prouder.
“You’re getting so fucking good at that,” she commented.
Minjung did a little spin, leaning forward with her lips pouted.
Instead of a kiss, Taeyeon did the next grossest thing which was suck both of Minjung’s upper and lower lips. As expected, Minjung pushed her off and wipes her mouth.
“Watch the arm, Lurch!” Taeyeon raised her bandaged arm, now released from the sling.
“You are the fucking worst.”
“Hey!” Taeyeon laughed.
“What?”
“You’re starting to sound like me.”
Minjung looked surprised. “You mean, like I didn’t grow up with people that loved me?”
“Okay, calm down.” Taeyeon shoved her lightly. “Jesus. Oh shit,” she said when she saw the time. She took her jacket and began to shrug it on.
“Janitorial duties?”
“For three hours.” Taeyeon said. “This community service thing is having me clean more shit than I expected.”
“Punishment fits the crime.” Minjung grinned.
“Whatever, Meanie. I’ll see you later.”
“Later.” Minjung left her with a kiss on the cheek and quick butt slap before sending her off.
Δ
Nurse Junghee had made Minjung a copy of the key to the basement of the clinic weeks ago. Much like the first time she used it, she had some trouble turning it to unlock , especially with just one hand while other carried a tray of food.
When she did manage to get through the door, she locked it behind her immediately, looking around the ill-lit basement until she found her. “Hey, Gwiboon. Still staring at that light, huh?”
She didn’t respond. She never did. All she did so far was sit in a corner of the basement and stare at the bulb at the center of it. She was wearing a clean hospital gown and her skin was pale, only responsive to the presence of raw meat. That day was no different. Her left nostril flared as she sniffed.
“It’s cow today.” Minjung placed the plate under the light bulb. As soon as she stepped back, Gwiboon had leaped to the tray, kicking it away as soon as she had the meat in her hands. She dug her teeth deep enough into the flesh that it would bleed down her chin and pain half of her face in red as though she had bobbed for that steak inside a cow’s open stomach.
Minjung sat on the floor, but at a distance, watching her eat. “Taeyeon told me something about you.”
At the mentioned of her name, Gwiboon looked up, chewing.
“She said you were anorexic when you were alive. Like, alive alive.” Minjung used air quotes. “No offense. If only she could see you now, eh?”
Gwiboon’s head was tilted down slightly, and her eyes looked like twin black holes just peering into Minjung.
“Maybe when I’ve taught you how to talk, I’ll re-introduce you two. You can have long conversations.”
Gwiboon took another bite of the flesh, yanking it from the rest of the meat that she gripped in her hands.
Minjung smiled. “Can you say Taeyeon?” Aside from the sound of meat squishing around in Gwiboon’s mouth, there was no response at all. “Tae-yeon? No?”
Her resting face, Minjung realized, was just a menacing one. Like Minjung could make one wrong move and Gwiboon would take that slight to turn her into a puree.
“Not today then.” She said. “Alright. Well... I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Do you like liver? Nevermind.” Minjung disappeared behind the door, making sure to lock it before she returned to the cabins.
Between teeth that grinded together, Gwiboon hissed, “fuck you,” under her breath, then proceeded to finish her food while staring at the light bulb. She was right. If only Taeyeon could see her now.