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Gwinam wakes up with the stench of burnt flesh searing his nostrils. Overbearing, all-encompassing, and gag-inducing – he can’t get away from it, heightened senses picking up on the unique scents of charred hair, fried fat, broiled skin. Even the burnt clothes are rank, so much blood and sweat and ash.
He coughs, painfully dry. Thick, though, with all the fucking dust clinging inside his throat. Fuck, he craves the easy glide of blood more than ever as he chokes on grainy particles, trying to ignore the smell (and taste) of char-grilled death in favor of anything else.
Wrenching his eyes open would help with that.
…Or, well. Wrenching his eye open. The left one never fucking healed after Cheongsan smashed it.
His right eye sees the world as murky red and fuzzed-dark at the edges, when he gets especially hungry. And that’s all he sees now, at first. Blinking ash out of his eye and staring up at a yawning cavern. A hole.
More like a pit. That he’s at the bottom of. Surrounded by fucking…stinking corpses…
Shoving hard at the body on top of his legs, Gwinam wrestles himself free. Squirms around, too many broken bones to count grinding in protest. His skin pulls painful and odd; glancing down at his arms finds them glossy pink with only the scorched remains of fabric here and there – fucking – what the hell happened to him, again? Where is he?
The last thing he remembers is the satisfying pop of Cheongsan’s eyeball puncturing under his thumb, prying free of a stubborn skull. Coppery tang of fresh living blood on his tongue.
Much better flavor than all this stifling dust. Pathetic dead zombies everywhere.
Ugh – think. After he got Cheongsan’s eye, there was – well. Cheongsan refused to run away, just stayed defiant, like the tenacious bastard he is, so Gwinam faced him down, and then…? Heat? Yeah, lots of that. A loud bang that damn near blew Gwinam’s eardrums to hell, accompanied by fire. An explosion, in that case, which…right. He did hear something about bombing Hyosan High, from the helicopters that’d been buzzing around…whining drones rattling his skull…
That announcement hadn’t fazed him, at the time. Turns out he was right not to be concerned. He’s fucking immortal, now. On top of the goddamned world!
Even down here, spine cracking together as he digs his way past the litter of bodies. It’s too damn dark to see properly as he works, but if he strains, he can catch other scents, sounds. A deafening silence in place of all the snarling that was there before and the distant crackle of dying flames. The faint smell of crisp night air tainted by something sharp-hot. Explosives, gotta be.
Fuck, shit, he’s coughing again. Heaving lungfuls of garbage. He spits a mouthful of dust off to the side while dragging his battered body to lean against the wall. Uncomfortably warm concrete at his burnt back. This fucking sucks.
Waiting to heal is the worst damn part of this whole deal – but at least he does, in fact, heal. More than he can say for these other unlucky bastards, scattered around all crispy and gone. Piled up and smashed.
Kicking out with a foot, he catches one on the leg. Puff of ashes from the miserable thing. His mouth twitches on a wry grin.
The soles of his shoes are melted, his clothes are full of burnt holes, his skin is blistered and blood-smeared, one of his shinbones is poking through his pants, his hands are mangled with grime collected beneath their nails – but he’s awake. Sucking leftover gore from between his teeth, snorting on half a laugh as he settles atop this pile of corpses. Leans his head back. Doesn’t bother pondering where to go from here just yet.
“Fuck, I’m starving…” he mutters toward the distant roof. His stomach is twisting, and –
Movement. From the pile.
A familiar scent –
Head snapping forward, Gwinam sits up and alert, gaze instantly fixed on the disturbance. Insides going alight with something, because fuck if it isn’t Cheongsan, there. Alive. Rolling over, ashy dust falling off of him in clouds as he coughs. His clothes are all stained and torn, both eyes squeezed shut, white teeth bared as he hisses. In pain, probably. Just because they can heal doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt.
Good. Gwinam snarls, kicks out with his unbroken leg and connects with a burnt piece of Cheongsan’s arm. Fuck him. He deserves to hurt.
Cheongsan mumbles out some shit that doesn’t even resemble words. Idiot. Groaning there, with a trickle of blood down his cheek from the corner of his missing eye. Scorched skin slowly reforming, even as that hole leaks red.
It’s the only piece of this that’s satisfying. Gwinam focuses on it, his fingers inching toward a nearby length of pipe, because he’s not about to face this bastard unarmed.
Everything floods back, now. The very end. Cheongsan grabbing him. Throwing both of them down here as flames licked at their heels, threatening to devour them, and goddammit why did Gwinam bite him? Cheongsan doesn’t deserve to be waking up. To reach the status of elevated lifeform.
Why the hell couldn’t he just die like the others?
Shit. Gwinam is so hungry. Maybe Cheongsan is fresh enough for tearing his throat out to be satisfying…
Gwinam stares, vitriol building up in his chest, while Cheongsan gets his bearings. Sitting up and looking himself over all shocked, like he hadn’t been secretly hoping to survive his little murder-suicide trick. His gaze lingers on the raw bitemark on his forearm, another gaping red hole – hah, Gwinam can still feel the give of flesh between his jaws. Grinds his teeth and rolls his tongue against the roof of his mouth, recalling the taste. Too bad he spit that first mouthful of Cheongsan out. Maybe it would’ve stayed in his belly. Helped him heal faster. If he’d eaten it.
After taking stock of their dismal surroundings, Cheongsan’s remaining eye lands squarely on Gwinam, whose fingers tighten around the pipe on reflex. Ready to swing at a moment’s notice.
But he doesn’t move yet. Just waits, staring Cheongsan down.
Chapped lips part, then close, then part again, and Cheongsan says, “We survived.”
Tch. We, he says.
As if they were allies in this survival. As if he didn’t try to kill them both even as certain death rushed through gaping windows in the form of an inescapable fireball loaded with shrapnel. That scrap of wonder glistening in Cheongsan’s remaining eye makes Gwinam want to gouge that one out, too, and he hefts his length of pipe off the floor. Holding it just barely aloft.
Cheongsan, that son of a bitch, doesn’t flinch. Just glances from Gwinam to the pole and back. Like he’s searching for something in the rough, healing skin of Gwinam’s face. (Healing except for the deep cut on his eye that never did go the fuck away, fuck.)
If Gwinam’s leg wasn’t broken beyond use, he’d be outta here so damn fast. Bashing Cheongsan’s skull in on his way, just to ensure he won’t be followed right away – but. That bone is still poking out.
It’ll take forever to mend itself, with all of him so fucking battered. He should probably try putting it back into –
Cheongsan darts forward, and Gwinam swings out with the pipe. It clangs satisfying against Cheongsan’s shoulder, and he sprawls sideways, Gwinam sitting up straighter and gripping the pipe with both hands, ready to beat Cheongsan back down the second he gets himself up, because like hell is he going down here after everything –
“Hey, hey!” Cheongsan shouts, from his spot lying there atop a pile of burnt corpses. He raises both hands, scrambling onto his side to do so. That gaping hole where his eye should be glistens in the dark. “What the hell?”
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Gwinam snarls, keeping the pipe raised in threat. “If you start shit, I’ll take your other eye!”
All of Cheongsan twitches at that. Satisfying. Hah – and he says he’s not scared of Gwinam…
“I don’t want to start shit,” is what Cheongsan says, next. Infuriatingly slow and deliberately calm. His clothes are charred to nothing in places, too, showing off white blisters and blackened skin and new pink flesh. He’s all that Gwinam can smell, now. Fucker. “I was only going to fix your leg, asshole.”
Yeah fucking right. “There’s nothing wrong with my leg.”
Cheongsan’s nostrils flare. Something flashes through his eye, and Gwinam’s spine goes rigid at the sight of it. Last time he saw a glare that intense, he was thrown off a bookshelf…building…out the goddamned window…
(How many times has he been dashed to pieces on the ground?)
“You need to set it, or I don’t think it’ll go back together right.”
Scowling in the face of that steely gaze, Gwinam spits, “The hell do you know about it?” His body always sews itself back together just fucking fine. Has done every single time he’s been hurt so far. Bones always snap right back into place, skin sews itself up, bruises fade to nothing. He’s lost count of how many injuries he’s sustained and lost since coming back, and here’s Cheongsan, freshly undead for the first time in his life, pretending he knows better.
As per usual, Cheongsan remains unfazed. Just stares that horrible half-empty stare of his. Gwinam fights the urge to whack it away with this length of pipe.
Instead, he starts the arduous task of bending his ankle, because that’ll be enough to force his broken shinbone back into place. Much as it sucks, the movement pulling on sore muscles and patchy skin and wrought tendons and all the rest of that shit – he’s gritting his teeth on a low growl of pain –
A noise that evolves into a sharp cry, when Cheongsan reaches out, grabs Gwinam’s foot, and yanks hard.
The broken bone slips through torn skin, snapping back into place with a loud crack.
“Bastard.” Gwinam swings the pipe with all his strength now. Gets Cheongsan right in the side of his face, where the empty eye hole is, and his neck audibly wrenches with the force of it. He hits the ground again. Gwinam watches him. Breathes heavy through his nose. Hates how good Cheongsan smells, now that they’re the same.
Back to rolling on top of the pile of corpses, Cheongsan wipes a fresh smear of blood from his mouth. He drags himself to the wall opposite the one where Gwinam sits, and sets about hauling to his feet. Stumbling around on injured legs. Leaning heavy against scorched concrete.
Then he just fucking…stares, again. Looking down on Gwinam, who’s got no choice but to glare right back.
His pipe hits the ground, echoing through hollow silence, and he braces himself on it. Fights his own way up to get eye to eye with Cheongsan, again, because he’s had enough of being beneath others. Put more than his allotted time in. Standing free of his own wall, he only sways a little bit. Lifts his chin and challenges Cheongsan’s stare.
It’s faraway, that gaze. Like Cheongsan doesn’t even see Gwinam, despite looking right at him. Lost in thought, maybe. Contemplating his mortality or morality or maybe even both of those, now that he’s got the gift of undeath.
That gets Gwinam scowling again. He doesn’t know what outcome he wanted aside from claiming Cheongsan’s eye, but it sure as shit wasn’t this. Stuck with Cheongsan’s existence for eternity.
Absently, Cheongsan puts dirt-smeared hands in his pockets – and then his eye goes wide, expression rushing back to the present as he drops to his hands and knees. Starts rifling around among the corpses like he’s looking for something, and Gwinam curls his lip at the display. All the disturbed ash and a resurgence of that shitty burnt flesh smell.
Ugh.
He throws his pipe down. It lands with a soft, unsatisfying thump. Cushioned by bodies.
Still, Cheongsan searches. Lifting dead zombies with energy that’s bordering on frantic. Mumbling under his breath. Something like, “It has to be here. It didn’t burn. It can’t be burnt…”
Shit that’s none of Gwinam’s business. He scoffs at the sight, scuffs one half-molten shoe against the ground, and then turns toward the open wall. A gap that leads to what must be the basement of this unfinished building.
Now that he’s settled things with Cheongsan, Gwinam is more than content to follow his whims and urges from here on out. See how strong he can become. Figure out life at the top of the food chain.
“I’m out of here,” he says, for nobody’s benefit but his own. Those fuckers that blew this place to hell might come through looking for survivors, and he’s achingly hungry, needs some kind of fuel to help him recover faster. Something warm and wet and fresh to get all these ashes out of his throat, and then some good solid sleep. He spares one last glance for Cheongsan, muttering a dark, “I’m done with you.”
And then he leaves.
-
“Hey!”
Fuck. If it’s another fight Cheongsan wants, running after Gwinam like a lost puppy, then that’s exactly what he’s going to get. The sound of his voice still sets the hairs at the back of Gwinam’s neck on edge, even if his scent is much less grating.
Gwinam keeps walking, eyeing the destruction around him with disinterest. It’s going to be hard finding a meal like this…
“Hey!”
Alright. Fuck it.
This time, Gwinam really will kill Cheongsan, never mind if he’s joined the ranks of unkillable beings or not, Gwinam will find a way – and why the hell should he get to exist like that, anyway? Only if Gwinam allows it. It’s been all of five minutes, and he’s fed the fuck up with sharing this type of power with the likes of Cheongsan. The least he could’ve done is leave Gwinam the hell alone, now that their business is settled, but here he is:
Rushing up fast like an idiot, poised so that Gwinam’s fist will meet that ruined face when he turns around like so –
Gwinam’s knuckles smack into a palm hard enough that it leaves a stinging in his bones.
“Where are you going?” Cheongsan asks, before Gwinam can retract his fist and set up another attack. That remaining brown eye is wide. (Satisfyingly enough, the other still hasn’t grown back. If it ever does, Gwinam will have to rip it out again.)
Lips twitching on a wry not-smile, Gwinam grabs hold of the hand that caught his punch and swings out with a kick at the same time, knocking Cheongsan’s feet out from under him. Sending him tumbling to the ground and tossing him away. “To get something to eat,” Gwinam snarls out, kicking once more for good measure.
…Only for his ankle to be caught and yanked until he falls and god fucking dammit why is it always fucking Cheongsan. Matching him blow for blow even when he was a pathetic fucking human.
Cheongsan crawls forward, his weight on Gwinam’s feet and his grip moving up Gwinam’s legs, squeezing tight over the spot where the bone was snapped mere minutes ago –
“I can’t let you –”
Teeth bared on a growl, Gwinam lurches to sitting, shoves his thumb into that empty eye socket with a wet squelch. It gives so easy and Cheongsan howls in pain so loud that Gwinam has to laugh. Can’t help the delighted giggle that bubbles up in his chest as he digs his thumb in. Bends it at the first joint. Relishing in soft broken flesh, wet and gory; it feels just as good as the first time. He grips the side of Cheongsan’s face with the rest of this hand, hauls him in close until they’re nose to nose and there are fingernails digging into his wrist, clawing at his face, but he pays them no mind.
“You don’t control me,” he hisses. Inhales deep through his mouth, sucking down the scent-taste combination of blood-pain-Cheongsan. “You can’t stop me from doing anything.”
With that, Gwinam shoves Cheongsan away from himself. His thumb pops free of the eye socket, and he licks the blood from it. Salty and inhuman, now. Not as sweet as before – and, shit, fuck, here’s Cheongsan, coming back with a heavy hit while Gwinam is trying to stand, here.
They both tumble to the ground. Wrestling over grass that’s gone black from fire. Rough stone and broken bits of metal bite at Gwinam’s skin as he fights to get Cheongsan away. Hates that he’s struggling in this –
Cheongsan’s hand drives into Gwinam’s throat, and he chokes on this next breath, kicking out. Rolls them until he’s on top. Pinning Cheongsan to a previously even sidewalk. It’s all cracked now.
Like Cheongsan’s skull will be when Gwinam is done with him. Grabbing dark hair and –
A fist slams into Gwinam’s stomach. Where there’s still a dent from one of many zombie bites that made him what he is. He grunts through the pain when he’s hit there again, limbs going traitorously weak, fingers slipping free from Cheongsan’s hair. He reforms the motion into a punch to one sweaty, filthy temple. Relishing in the resulting yelp, he slams Cheongsan’s head to pavement twice and then lurches up-and-away from him.
“Don’t you feel it?” Gwinam can’t fucking take it. Who the hell does Cheongsan think he is, after everything? “Aren’t you fucking starving, too?”
Cheongsan swallows hard, still on the ground. Gwinam tracks the bob of his throat.
There’s silence, for a heavy heartbeat or two.
“…I’m not going to eat anyone,” Cheongsan says at length, pushing up onto his elbows. “I’m not like you.” It figures that he’d be holier than thou about this, too. As if he’s got any fucking choice but to be what he is, now that it’s what he’s been saddled with. (That alone is worth turning him.)
It’s rich. Real fucking rich. Gwinam steps in close, crouching in front of this bastard that maintains defiant posture even while sprawled on the ground, fresh blood leaking from a destroyed eye. He gets right up in that face that’s staring him down. Determined not to let it get under his skin. No matter how brave Cheongsan acts.
“You’re exactly like me.” Gwinam inhales another deep lungful of that strangely pleasant tang that Cheongsan now sports. “I can smell it on you. Can’t you? We’re the same.”
Cheongsan sniffs curtly. Short and pointed and he wrinkles his smug nose on it, too.
Lip curling, Gwinam shoves Cheongsan hard in the chest. “Get used to it,” he says, because even if Cheongsan won’t fucking admit it, he knows. Can tell that they’re the same, now. Part of that fortunate minority that’s neither living nor dead. They can’t die. They get to eat without fear of being eaten.
When there’s no response, Gwinam rocks back up onto his feet, stepping away from Cheongsan. Doesn’t matter what Cheongsan is willing to admit to; it’s got nothing to do with Gwinam anymore. He’s fucking leaving.
“…If you have to eat something…”
The voice is a bit of a shock. Gets Gwinam to pause in place. Cock his head to listen to the rest.
“Why not eat the fucking zombies?” Cheongsan finishes, words spat out venomous.
Snarling – downright fucking offended, alright? – Gwinam turns on his heel, his glare clashing with a savage one from Cheongsan right away. As if that bastard was waiting for this, but like hell can Gwinam let that shit slide. “Are you insane?” he snaps. “They’re fucking spoiled and rotting and shit.” And though there’s not much that Gwinam wouldn’t do to survive, even he wouldn’t get enjoyment out of consuming someone unaware and past their expiration date. So to fucking speak.
Cheongsan stands back up at last. Dusts himself off with two firm passes of his palms down his front, as if that’s going to do anything to budge the filth coating him. Or disguise the holes in his clothes. Wipe away the blood. “Well,” he says, chin held infuriatingly high yet again, “I’m not going to let you eat anyone.”
That shit again –
“I told you that you don’t fucking tell me what to do, asshole!” He speaks while stalking toward Cheongsan, who stands tall and meets him. Eye to eye socket on both their parts.
“I’ll muzzle you, if I have to.”
Gwinam snatches handfuls of Cheongsan’s destroyed school uniform, yanking him in so close that their noses bump. The thick flavor of his breath is on Gwinam’s tongue, and that blazing brown eye bores through his skull with an unfazed vengeance that makes him want to gouge it. “I fucking dare you to try it,” he says. Low and threatening.
That horrible, defiant jaw juts out. Cheongsan straightening his spine along with it. Toes nudging over cracked concrete until their noses press together proper and Gwinam’s grip goes white-knuckled around scorched fabric.
“I’m not scared of you,” Cheongsan says, just like his words back then, but it’s colder than he’s ever sounded before. “You’re a coward.”
Heat rises in Gwinam’s chest, and he shoves as hard as he can. Feels fucking worse when all it does is send Cheongsan stumbling – bastard doesn’t even have the decency to fall, so Gwinam pushes him again. Punches him right in the empty eye and doesn’t turn around to stalk away until Cheongsan hits the broken fucking sidewalk and stays there.
Shame Gwinam doesn’t make it more than ten paces before he hears familiar footfalls. Catches the rich, appetizing scent of Cheongsan getting closer. Closing in.
He expects an attack, but contact never comes.
Instead, Cheongsan follows him through the rubble, off school grounds and toward the rest of their smashed-up city. Barely bothering to keep his distance, a constant presence at Gwinam’s back while he sniffs out survivors –
At this rate, he’ll have to leave Hyosan to find a decent meal. And Cheongsan will be right on his heels the whole way, he gets the feeling.
…
Fine, then. If that bastard wants to be a fucking tag along, let him.
Gwinam looks forward to being there the day Cheongsan finally snaps, and caves to the monstrous hunger within.