#theday6

Rumour has it that Kang Younghyun is a bad boy.

Rumour has it that he owns several illegal weapons, including guns, knives and bombs.

Rumour has it that he has taken innocent lives.

He’s a murderer. A threat. A ticking bomb. A merciless monster. An unstoppable disease. A criminal who has escaped from prison after the virus. And he happens to live next door.

The first time I heard the news, I merely shrugged it off. It’s not like we didn’t have criminals in the neighbourhood, bad guys were everywhere. I wasn’t innocent either. Since the fatal virus spread through the world, everyone was trying to survive one way or another. Everyone tried to stay away from infected people and in case of emergency, it could mean that we had to get rid of them ourselves. Although the virus was still a mystery to even the best scientists in the world, no one wanted to risk their lives. Especially since there wasn’t any cure for the time being. One thing was for sure; even one touch could kill anyone.

Everything changed 4 months ago. The news of the first infected people who were found dead immediately changed our average, boring lives and our mind-set, too. Neighbours who used to be our friends turned into enemies. Teachers whom we had been seeing every day for years had disappeared. We didn’t even attend school anymore. In fact, schools didn’t even function as they should. Only hospitals could function properly. Even the remaining grocery shops were robbed or destroyed. Our daily goal wasn’t to survive the boring Physics classes and avoid failing a test but it was surviving a day without a fight, without getting infected and without starving to death.

For my family, everything changed 3 months ago when our parents caught the virus. Before we could even realise what it was going to mean for me and my sister, they wrote us a letter and killed themselves. I was left with my 15-year-old little sister who were just as terrified as I was. My mom asked me to take care of her as much as possible but how could I do that when I was only 23 years old and the whole world was going crazy around us? I had no choice but to do the opposite of what I had been learning for years; be kind, be gentle and don’t be greedy. People will pay you back for your kindness. Oh yes. Definitely not in a world like ours.

I have killed people. People who were threatening my little sister or me. People who were infected and wanted to use our house as a shelter. People who wanted to steal food from our basement. I managed to secure the house since our parents were wealthy and we had a fancy security system with the latest technological devices but people were trying to find a hole in the system. I couldn’t blame them though. I would do the same if I were them. However, they couldn’t blame me either. I was trying to survive, if not for myself, then for my sister.

So when Kang Younghyun appeared at the porch of our house, I had no intention of letting him in. Not until he managed to convince me otherwise.

“Look, I know you don’t trust me. However, we live very dangerous days and I need to find allies. I moved in with my brother – Dowoon − because we are the only ones who weren’t infected at the orphanage. We have weapons, that’s true, but we are starting to run out of food. So I thought we could share what we have and work out the rest,” he confessed from the other side of the door, not even knowing if I was still listening to him or preparing my guns for a possible attack.

His words made me feel something that I thought was already dead within me; sympathy. Yet, at times like this, I could never be sure who was an enemy and who was an ally.

“So why should I trust you?” I exclaimed to make sure that he heard my voice through the door that I didn’t want to open until I had a reason to do so.

“You shouldn’t but you have to if you don’t want anyone else to find out that you have a secret underground tunnel from your house to a grocery store,” he reasoned without a hint of amusement in his voice.

Even though it should have been a threat, it didn’t sound like one. He knew about the tunnel that my father had built for crucial times and which was connected to my mom’s grocery store. As soon as my parents heard the news of the virus, they secured the shop, so that’s how we still had food and avoided being robbed.

“That sounds very appealing,” I snorted at his words, trying to test out the waters. I was curious about his manners, I needed to see how an ally of mine reacts to provocation.

“I know, right? This is like the idea of the century,” he let out a small laugh, one that seemed so inappropriate in this rotten and dark world.

“Why us?” I asked out of the blue but I couldn’t help my suspicion these days. I immediately regretted my words when he started thinking out loud.

“So there’s someone else beside you.”

“Oh shit,” I cursed under my breath, mentally giving myself a huge slap for being so oblivious. If only my life was on the line, I wouldn’t be afraid. But my sister’s life mattered more to me than my own. Before the virus, she was supposed to have a bright future ahead of her with college applications, Asian road trips and that so-called first-love. Now, I wasn’t even sure either of us would survive this year.

“I want my little brother to be safe,” Younghyun continued. “I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t be able to see him dying. And you are our last chance. It’s a win-win after all. We have weapons and fighting skills and you have supplies,” his voice was so calm and confident. I had no idea how he stopped his voice from shaking because mine was getting weak and unsteady. Something I noticed after my parents’ death.

I didn’t have another choice, did I? He was right. We weren’t good at fighting or protecting ourselves. If we had to go out, I would be having panic attacks and we would have to turn back to make sure that I wouldn’t faint and turn us into easy targets. We couldn’t move, no matter how much we needed tools. Our security system was strong but it got weaker and weaker day by day.

Nonetheless, there was one question that needed to be answered before I could let him in.

“What are you afraid of?”

A long minute of silence filled the air. I couldn’t even see whether Younghyun had already left or he was still standing on the other side of the door but I had a feeling he was only pondering for a thought. If he was there for his brother (whom I had also seen, so he was speaking the truth), he wouldn’t leave without giving me an answer.

“You,” he admitted so quietly that I wasn’t even sure I heard it right.

“What?”

“I’m afraid of you,” he repeated louder, his voice suddenly laced with fear.

Even though I couldn’t see him, I could almost see his face in front of me. The way his slightly curly, black curls covered his forehead, that trademark bandana hiding the bruises on his wrist instead of his head, his lips turned into a worried flinch, his cheeks dirty from not taking a bath for day and from the dust in the air, not to mention the fire in his raven-black eyes. The fire that could never be put off. The fire that was only a scintilla but it was everything I needed; a fighting spirit, a never-ending spark.

“I’m afraid that you will betray me or send a bullet to my heart the moment I step into your house. I’m afraid that you will think of me as a liar, the notorious bad boy or the heartless monster and the first time we get into a dangerous situation, you will shoot me,” he confessed matter-of-factly, making me gasp in astonishment. The exact same words had been going through my head for the past few minutes, suspicion never leaving my side. “But I don’t have another choice. If I have even the slightest possibility that someone would help me, I will take it. You can kill me if you want but let my brother live. That’s why only I’m here. If you don’t trust me, you can kill me now that he’s not here.”

As soon as Younghyun stopped talking, I knew what I had to do. I didn’t have to think twice. I turned off the security system for a minute and opened the door.

“Come in! We need to talk this through,” I said swiftly, pointing to the living room of the house.