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Later Ji-U would not be able to recall what the man had said to evoke such blinding anger. After all, he had forgotten the man's name even quicker, long before their shared journey had come to this conclusion. It didn't matter, maybe. Or maybe Ji-U hoped it didn't.

What he did remember was his own overgrown nails sinking into the soft skin on either side of the man's jugular, sinking before snapping, the heat of flesh and blood crawling up his cold fingers in a static shock. He felt himself grasp the mass of cartilage and muscle and pull. Pull, with strength that no one would attribute him capable of, as his other thin arm braced on the man's chest. Blood sprayed, up his arms and stinging his eyes, warm for a moment before turning into a conductor for the cold of the wind. The man's body stumbled before hitting the frostbitten grass, the white of his eyes reflecting the moon and a last word bleeding out his lips, his throat trapped in Ji-Us locked fingers as flesh and sinew pulled before slipping and landing on his chest with a soft wet plop, a sound almost comedic in the near silence.

Ji-U realized his face was contorted in a painful grimace from effort and avoidance of blood spray, and thought that it was a good thing that the only eyes who had seen what surely was a frightening ugliness were now rapidly growing dull and useless. With some effort he relaxed his features and stood for a moment, feeling the wind shape around him and prick his cheeks before assessing the change in circumstances and the steps to follow.

It was just as well that they had veered so far off course into near desolation, as the frozen ground would not give easily to a grave. The nearby stream would work to weather the flesh, the small bridge of the empty road providing cramped cover for the necessary time to pass unchallenged.

Ji-U clenched his jaw as he remembered that both he and his companion wore the only clothes they had. As appealing as isolation was, he would have to encounter humanity sooner or later and blood splattered clothing usually made such meetings even more unpleasant than normal. Wearing a wet jacket or no jacket at all was likely suicide, but at the moment the fire required for drying it seemed an equal risk to him, as his rising anxiety clenched his throat and split his skull as if with a cleaver.

No, he decided as he rifled the pockets and bag of the corpse, he'd wash himself and his jacket in the dark. If it killed him perhaps that's the way it was meant to be. This thought was met with a long mental string of “stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid” from a different part of his brain, perhaps a more logical one, and despite Ji-U's agreement with it he disregarded it and used the last of his adrenaline to pull the body toward the bridge some twenty yards away, watching the dark blood trail with anxious resignation. Growing exhaustion jumbled his mind and flooded it with fog. Trying to focus his thoughts on this blood factor to find a solution felt like trying to gain friction on ice so he let it go.

The wind made his bones ache as he undressed himself and the corpse, leaving it with only its stained coat. The cold of the partially frozen water cut like knives but the streams bed yielded enough rocks to pin and weigh down the corpse. Ji-U almost dropped his coat several times as he washed it, shivering dreadfully and watching downstream, where the dead man's hair floated and reflected the meager moonlight, half expecting the rest of the head to arise gasping from its resting place.