Chapter 5: Twelve Minutes?

Beep-beep-beep-beep. Beeeep.

“Hyung, I’m back.”

“Yeah. Come here.”

“Okay. Let me hit the bathroom first.”

After washing his hands, Junhyeok sat down on the sofa.

“How’s school?”

“I checked. Since I haven’t even filed the return-from-leave paperwork yet, I can probably just not go.”

“Good. Then what about your part-time job?”

“I told the manager I’d work through the end of this month. But, hyung.”

“Yeah?”

Watching Junho’s face, Junhyeok spoke carefully.

“So... I’ve been thinking. No matter what, shouldn’t we tell Hyunwoo? At least give some kind of hint so he can prepare a little... I mean, if you say no, obviously I won’t.”

“Hyunwoo?”

Junho pictured Choi Hyunwoo, his little brother’s closest friend.

Last year, even though he’d been on leave, the guy had stayed through the send-off at their father’s funeral—solid as his build, and something Junhyeok had been grateful for.

Every time he saw Junho, he bowed at a perfect ninety degrees and called him “hyung” like some gangster. It was honestly a little uncomfortable. Still, the kid was loyal and decent—no doubt about that.

“Hyunwoo was a Marine, right?”

“Yeah. Marines, but he had it easy on Jeju.”

“Really?”

Even so, it was probably still rougher than most Army units.

“Hyunwoo... Hyunwoo...”

“Yeah...”

Seeing the mix of hope and guilt on Junhyeok’s face, Junho felt a bitter taste rise up.

His brother didn’t know what the apocalypse really looked like. He couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

So of course he wanted to save his closest, most loyal friend from the scheduled end, somehow.

You could call it childish, but Junho didn’t think it was wrong.

Junho had friends too, and there was one person he intended to help, at least to a certain extent, before the world collapsed.

He had a clear reason for that.

After the apocalypse hit, Junho hadn’t seen many cases where someone who swore they’d survive alone—or “just me and my family”—actually lasted a long time, or where the group kept functioning properly.

Sure, there were people who survived completely alone for a long stretch.

But nine times out of ten, those people were basically out of their minds.

A few weeks, a few months—they might be fine. But once it stretched into years, most of them cracked.

Monsters that bit, tore, and ate people roamed outside, and their howls echoed day and night without stopping.

In a hell like that, with no real sleep or proper meals for a long time, it would be stranger if a person’s mind stayed intact.

In the apocalypse, keeping your head healthy mattered just as much as keeping your body intact.

To do that, it helped to have several trustworthy companions you could actually talk to. And having at least a minimum of “humanity,” like Junhyeok did, was far better than not having it at all.

At least, that was true in the shelter Junho was planning.

If all they wanted was to eat, sleep, and fight in a barren environment—if the goal was simply not dying—there was no reason to spend astronomical money building a shelter in the first place.

“As for Hyunwoo... let’s think about it slowly. Don’t say anything.”

“Yeah. Got it, hyung.”

Junho gave a short, amused exhale at the way Junhyeok’s face brightened a little.

“Besides Hyunwoo, do you have any other friends? A girlfriend, maybe.”

“A girl? No, no. I mean, I’ve got a few people I kinda know, but...”

Junhyeok’s expression dimmed again, and then he let out a bitter little laugh.

“It’s not like I can do something for everyone, right? Like you said—we come first.”

“Yeah. Oh, right.”

“Hm?”

“You’re off work tomorrow, right? We have to go look at a place. And someone’s coming to see this apartment too.”

“Already? That’s fast as hell.”

“I listed it cheap. Anyway, tomorrow we move together all day. And...”

Junho pointed at the tablet on the living room table and continued.

“You and me—we both need to learn this.”

“Huh? What is th— a drone?”

“Yeah. A drone pilot license. We need to get either the Level 2 or Level 3 one.”

“Holy shit...”

At Junhyeok’s stunned look, Junho said in a serious tone.

“You don’t know this, but drones are insanely important in an apocalypse.”

“Because of scouting?”

“That’s the basics. Bigger industrial drones can haul everything—food, weapons, gear. And...”

Junho explained the ways drones were used in the apocalypse—things he’d seen and lived through himself—and before long Junhyeok’s mouth was hanging open.

“Seriously? People mod drones so they can shoot guns and stuff?”

“If you tie it into computer software, you can separate zombies from humans. It’s not as hard as you’d think. I’m not an expert, so I can’t build it myself, but it can be done. People stripped chips and motors out of broken drones and built other drones. I even saw people using drone parts to mod RC cars and small electric carts.”

“Damn. That’s insane.”

“But there’s a problem.”

“A problem?”

“Yeah. What do drones run on?”

“Batteries... right? Oh—!”

Junho nodded at the moment Junhyeok realized.

“Exactly. Without electricity, drones are useless. That’s why, more than anything, our shelter has to prioritize power.”

“Then solar, right?”

“Yeah. At minimum, we need something in the hundred-kilowatt range.”

Even with that, Junhyeok just blinked.

A normal twenty-two-year-old college student had no way of grasping how much power a hundred kilowatts really was, or what kind of scale a solar system that produced that much per hour would require.

“That part’s on me. Anyway, just remember—we need to get the drone license.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“There’s more. This.”

When Junho tapped the tablet, Junhyeok’s eyes followed—and then went wide.

“For real? A gun?”

“Yeah. A Type 1 hunting license and a firearms possession permit are non-negotiable. That’s the only way we can legally buy a gun and get hands-on with it.”

“Right... yeah. But even if you buy one, don’t you have to leave it at the police station?”

“Yeah. You can report it and take it out during the hunting season.”

“Then once the apocalypse hits, it’s pointless. It’s sitting at the police station.”

“No. There’s a way.”

“...?”

Junhyeok stared, curious, but Junho didn’t say anything.

Because the plan he had in mind was straight-up illegal.

Someday Junhyeok would probably find out too, but for now, it was better if he didn’t know.

“I’ve got something planned. Anyway, you just need to get the licenses with me.”

“Uh... okay. Is that it? Or is there more?”

“You kidding? There’s a ton.”

“Ah...”

Junhyeok looked sick of it. Junho smiled.

“But the other stuff can wait. For now, we do the things I just said. Oh—and I need to work out with you.”

“What? Seriously? You’re joining me?”

Like a switch flipped, Junhyeok brightened and raised his voice.

“You mean you’re going to train at our gym with me? Yeah—if we’re surviving an apocalypse, it’s gotta be MMA, right?”

That was true. Junhyeok had started as a hobby after getting discharged, but now he was training mixed martial arts more seriously.

Apparently he had some talent—he’d been at it less than six months, but the gym already treated him like a prospect.

So rather than learning stand-up striking somewhere else, Junho decided he’d go to Junhyeok’s gym and train together.

“Don’t get it twisted. I’m focusing on stand-up.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Why do you think, dumbass.”

Junho’s expression hardened.

“In the apocalypse, there are no rules, and nobody walks around empty-handed.”

“...!”

“At the very least, people carry kitchen knives or screwdrivers. You get tangled up and go down? You’re fucked. If there’s a zombie nearby, you’re really fucked. So you end it while you’re still standing. Fast and certain.”

“Th-that... yeah...”

Junhyeok swallowed without meaning to.

The way his brother spoke, low and flat, felt suddenly unfamiliar.

It was hard to describe...

Chilling. Wrong. Like his skin prickled.

'No way...'

The thought that flashed through Junhyeok’s head made him flinch.

In that “prophetic dream,” had his brother really survived just by hiding and running?

Looking at the heavy set of Junho’s eyes and face, Junhyeok instinctively knew that couldn’t be true.

Yeah—prophetic dream. It had been a dream, but even so, his brother had definitely killed someone. Zombie or human.

Probably a lot of them.

“First I’m going to build my body up hard for a few weeks. Then I’ll sign up at your gym.”

“Huh? O-okay. I’ll tell the coach.”

Junhyeok snapped back and nodded quickly.

“Good. It’s already this late. Let’s eat dinner.”

“Huh? Already?”

It was only five in the afternoon.

“From now on, whenever possible, we eat dinner by around five or six. And we need to get used to sleeping early and waking up at dawn.”

“It’s like the military. No—worse than the military.”

“We have to adapt.”

“If you say so, hyung. Okay.”

Junhyeok shrugged.

There wasn’t any sarcasm in it.

He’d decided to believe his brother now—and if that was true, then the person in the world who knew the most about an apocalypse was Junho.

“So what do we eat? Or delivery?”

“Delivery. Anything.”

“Seriously? Just order whatever?”

“Yeah. No matter what it is, for me it’s basically the first time in years.”

“Ah... yeah.”

He still wasn’t used to the look on his brother’s face when he said things like that, but Junhyeok nodded anyway.

Even joking back felt wrong. Junho’s eyes and expression looked too pitiful.

“Alright. Then like real Koreans, we start with fermented-cabbage stew—”

“I had that for lunch. Something else.”

“...Fine. Chinese delivery.”

Junhyeok’s stare went cold as he watched Junho switch gears in a single second.

***

At five in the morning, Junho opened Junhyeok’s bedroom door.

His brother was dead asleep, blanket kicked halfway off like he didn’t have a care in the world.

They’d agreed to work out at dawn together, but Junho let out a small, amused breath and pulled the blanket back over him.

Junho had regressed. He knew everything that was coming.

Junhyeok didn’t.

No matter how much he believed Junho’s words, it couldn’t feel real yet.

And they still had more than two years left. Even if it was slower, they could change things steadily and for sure.

Junhyeok had always listened well since he was a kid and almost never caused trouble. He’d follow.

“Haah...”

In the cold November dawn air, Junho ran lightly.

Today he wasn’t at the neighborhood park from yesterday. He was at Simgok Stream, cutting across Bucheon.

Restored as a natural stream, Simgok Stream was about two kilometers round trip—perfect for jogging.

If he started from home and came back, it would be a little over three kilometers.

Tap. Tap.

Cutting through the wind, Junho ran.

For some reason, his body felt lighter than yesterday.

It was early enough that even the garbage trucks weren’t out yet, and there were barely any people on the street, so Junho decided to push the speed a little.

'How fast can I run a hundred meters right now? Maybe seventeen seconds?'

Back in the military, his hundred-meter time had been in the high fifteens.

In true Junho fashion, even that had only been around the company average.

Anyway, it was obvious he’d be slower now, but he figured seventeen or eighteen seconds felt realistic.

Junho immediately sprinted all-out.

But then—

'Isn’t this too fast?'

By feel alone, it didn’t seem like eighteen seconds.

And even sprinting at full speed, he wasn’t that out of breath.

Junho slowed back down to a normal jog.

'Did I run like... two hundred meters?'

His heart was beating a little faster, but it wasn’t that hard.

Same as yesterday.

'This is way too weird...'

Even after he ran out and back along Simgok Stream and returned home, the doubt didn’t go away.

“Oh. The timer.”

Opening the front door, Junho hurriedly pulled out his phone.

Just in case, he’d set a timer right before he started running.

“Twelve minutes...?”

Junho’s eyes went wide with even bigger shock than yesterday.