❝ 𝕗𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕟 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓻

          ETHEREAL SHE WAS, after all she was an idol before madness befell upon the world. he recalls meeting her the first time, how he mistook her to being another idol. danny never did pay too much attention to kpop while residing in america, but he did know very little due to classmates. all in all, the two became friends during their times in the wings, and he actually spent a lot of time with her thanks to her knowledge in english. she was very kind as well, so she was dear to him. but, when arriving to the kingdom, his attention was no longer mostly on her nor his best friend. a social guy, he was out befriending many. it has been a while since last talking to katherine. “you know i cannot dance,” he begins, a beer in hand as he was pulled closer to the smaller woman. he smiles down at her, then chuckling as she continued to insist on dancing. “you’re gonna make me look like a fool.” he already did look like a fool to many. 

Tae scrunched up his nose, letting himself be pulled by her without fighting back. The bottle of alcohol still on his hand as he did so. Taking a moment to finish its content before speaking, Tae dropped the now empty bottle on the ground, his hands moving to pull back the hair on his eyes. “You might as well be.” he countered, glancing around at all the people who would be seeing him dance if he did so. “You’re asking a lot of me.”

                 marvelous    ,    glorious   ,   astounding   ,    &.   untouchable. it feels like happiness is arching over them   &.   under them    ,   intoxications spirit runs through their veins like the needle   &. thread they used to stitch eyes to their clothes.        ❝   let me find my feet    ,     please ❞    the eyes are better to see them with. their head is foggy    &.    lost in the thoughts   ,   summertime haze in their nerves. a pleasant calm that rocks in   &.   out. there is a taste on their tongue   ,   like the dirt back home ivy covered town they try to forget.      ❝ can          can i lean on you? ❞    consume them   ,   illuminate them    ,   let them down gently. they are mercurial. they are potential energy. they could easily explode    ,   shatter into a thousand pieces that will never fit together back together in front of the other if they are not careful.  

                sumin mutters a quiet oh god before rolling her eyes lazily at the other female. she doesn’t like this situation. she has no problem with people getting drunk or having fun, but once she got dragged by these people to do something as stupid as dancing, now that is a problem to sumin. “how many times do i have to tell you that i don’t dance?” she tells kitty, another sigh leaving her lips. “i really don’t know how to and i don’t even want to, so there you go. i’m not gonna dance with you, kitty. just find another volunteer.” and just leave me alone.

For some reason hearing that from her made him feel good. Of course, he was sure that it would make him feel good regardless of who said it. It wasn’t as if he cared about her opinion in particular. “I guess it must have been our excellent team work.” he added, clearly making a joke out of it. He didn’t know how they got to this point. Maybe because he kept avoiding thinking too much about it. But he remembers the tension before it all happened and they started to sleep together. And then how neither of them stopped it from continuing on happening. Instead it almost feels like it has become part of their routine. Every once in a while they find each other and it just happens. And they never really discuss what it means. Because of course it doesn’t have a meaning. Why would it?

It was true, he had been so stressed and focused on everything going on with them all forming one group that he had mostly been either working or sleeping. Which meant not seeing her. There had been several times he would finish what he was doing in the middle of the night and felt tempted to go to where she had been staying. But he hadn’t. That could easily make anyone who saw him, think the wrong thing. Besides, it would make him seem needy and like he missed her. And he did, but not in the way it could be taken as. “I should make more time to relieve my stress.” he states, smiling at her. It clearly meant he should make more time for her, but he wouldn’t say that. “I don’t think I could sleep with all this stress.” he said, trying to sound serious but his smile betraying him. “I think that I need you.” his hand moved to shirt, tugging it lightly.

Jaehwa couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her in response to Katherine’s words. She knew it was false hope— the other would always go hard on her just as Jaehwa would do back. That was the reason they were progressing with these little training sessions of theirs, after all. If they could be formidable opponents to each other, then they’d be so much more prepared to face anyone or anything that dared cross them. “Fair enough, bring it,” she replied, a wide smile stretched across her lips. “Hm, hand to hand this time?” Jaehwa suggested. “We’ve been doing a lot of weapons training lately, which is understandable, but sometimes you gotta be ready to take a man down with your bare hands, y’know?”

Hanbin nodded in agreement, the grip on his shotgun tightening as they slowly stepped forward. Just because there wasn’t anyone around didn’t mean that they were safe, and letting their guard down would be the worst possible thing they could do in this situation. “Yeah— yeah, that sounds like a good idea, we’ll cover more ground that way,” he agreed, lifting one hand off of his weapon to hold up for a high five. “I’ll take back, you go front? We’ll grab anything we can on our way through and meet in the middle?” The few members of their group who didn’t say behind to guard the car already seemed to be splitting themselves between himself and Katherine, and Hanbin was grateful for the action, not particularly wanting to have to take on the leadership role himself to split the group. He probably would’ve let Katherine do it anyway, the supply runner much more used to raid parties than himself. 

          NIGHT FELL, and only the guards were expected to do much during such an hour. other civilians of the community lingered about to socialize, for there was not much to do within the homes. sitting before a fire, eunhyuk sat on a chair in order to extend his legs after a long day of standing about and walking miles. having heard his name, he glances up to witness katherine sitting nearby, his chocolate orbs studying her carefully. the question she posed was one too deep for his liking, but he understood some of the people needed to have such discussions in order to feel more prepared as well as to hear some positive response. or maybe they just needed the truth? he did not know the truth, though. “i hope we do.” he responds with a shrug, but he has thought of this before. how could they all make? how could the world recover from such an outbreak? eunhyuk has thought of the horror: the reality that just outside zombies are all around, and, slowly, each one of them will be with them. he has had positive thoughts as well. “i want to believe that we can build a stable community here, where everyone contributes, and this will be our safe haven. we’ll have food, water, and a network to get by for many years. that’s what i want to happen.”

He had never meant to lead, somehow it had just happened and sometimes it was fun but other times it was a big headache. But after so long, he felt responsible for these people so he wasn’t going to simply give up. He would just take some time to rest so he can be at the top of his game the next day and find a solution to the problem. “I’m not by myself. There’s other people leading us all. I’m only one of them.” he knew what she meant though, but he would rather act like it was fine. He couldn’t help but smile while raising his eyebrows at her, almost teasingly since she didn’t argue back. “You’ve been pretty good at taking away my stress.” he stated, obviously referring to the times they had slept together. His smile now growing into a cheeky smirk. His eyes focused on her, staring back as she watched him. He had to admit, he hadn’t got tired of looking at her. Even after years, he still thought she was attractive. And that’s why he kept sleeping with her. Not for any other reason. Tae chuckled as well, shaking his head at her comment. “You can just tell me that you want my hands all over your body.” he announced, turning to face her.

Stress relieving and distractions, that was all they had. It was easy, and it was fair, and no one was going to regret it that way. “ I see. But it wouldn’t be fair for me to take all the merit, you’ve been pretty good at it too ”. She still remembered how it all started. The first time they had blamed it on the alcohol, that very same day some supply runners had stomp with a cellar and the celebration that came afterwards -it was good that at least for a night the group could indulge a bit- ended so many weeks of tension. The second time they had blamed it on the despair, a raid had gone too wrong and cost them two lives, sadness and need of consolation had clouded their minds. The third time... that had been labeled an accident, a night too cold, a search for warmth. When the fourth time came, they simply stopped looking for excuses.

Jaehwa stretched her arms behind her head, loosening her limbs for the prospect of sparring with Katherine, tucked into an empty space near the back of the community. There wasn’t as much room here to use for the two girls’ training activities as there was out on the open road, but it would have to do for now. “Go easy on me, yeah? I stubbed my toe on one of the unfinished houses earlier, clearly I’m injured beyond repair,” she joked, punctuating the statement with a quiet chuckle. It was easy with Katherine, joking around as if they’d known each other their whole lives. Sometimes it sort of felt like it.