By Zephyria 
Ha-jin was sitting on the sofa with Pie, having finished his morning swim and munching on homemade cookies. It wasn’t long after Eden had left for work.
Without a lover, the already spacious house felt even emptier. He soothed his emptiness with sweet cookies, picked up the remote, and switched to a familiar channel. Soon, a female anchor in a blue suit appeared on the screen. This channel, which broadcasted only 24-hour headline news, mainly covered stories about the virus, so he habitually left it on.
Ha-jin kept stuffing oatmeal cookies into his hungry stomach, his mouth moving busily. He watched the news whenever he had time, hoping to hear news about Korea, but the anchor’s comments were the same as the previous evening.
―The UN investigation team has officially announced that the unprecedented Zombie virus currently spreading around the world originated in Sudan, Africa… Sudan, where the Sahara Desert occupies most of the country… The Sahara’s yellow dust is considered a major cause of severe air pollution in the United States and Europe. Based on this, experts are newly suggesting that ‘someone’ who created the deadly virus deliberately spread it in Africa, aiming for airborne infection… However, since the Zombie virus is only transmitted through bodily fluids, this is just another hypothesis…
Half a year had already passed since the epidemic began to spread in earnest.
It was no exaggeration to say that the whole world was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of those who were lucky enough to survive were trapped in the shadow of death, feeling deep depression. Because there was not enough land to bury the bodies, black smoke rose from the crematoriums where flesh and bones were burned 24 hours a day, and psychiatric clinics and counseling centers were overflowing with people waiting.
The cause of the virus was still unknown, and the world was desperately trying to put out the fire by focusing all its efforts on developing a vaccine and eradicating Zombies.
Although the days were mostly dark, humanity did not stop its efforts to survive. The state shared its resources generously with the people, and the people with the state, uniting their spirits for each other.
Ha-jin, who had been staring blankly at the large TV screen, leaned back on the sofa with a bitter look. It seemed that the rumor that East Asia was almost completely wiped out was true, as he couldn’t hear any news about Korea even after several hours.
He slowly got up from his seat, left Pie sleeping on the sofa, and moved to the Office room Eden had prepared for him. To avoid being consumed by overflowing thoughts, he planned to practice Magic all day until Eden came home from work.
He had occasionally performed small-scale Magic shows, but his fingers were stiff because he had neglected basic practice for several months, and the incantations didn’t come out easily.
He felt awkward practicing while looking in the mirror, so he set up a tripod across from him and started recording with a camera. Ha-jin devoted himself to practice for hours, sweating profusely, until he was exhausted and collapsed on the floor.
He couldn’t bring himself to watch the recorded video.
‘Ha-jin. Isn’t it a little awkward to raise your elbow here? It would be much better to distract the audience by turning.’
Without Mi-so, who was always by his side as his eyes, he couldn’t even practice properly. Ha-jin distorted his face at the sudden surge of extreme isolation.
He remembered organizing Magic tools with the assistants behind the dark Magic troupe stage. The laughter of the children in the audience, who happily laughed at a large soap bubble, was vividly replayed in his ears. He listlessly stretched out his body.
He thought he wouldn’t want anything more if he just survived, but now the ordinary daily life that had become the past became another source of depression, cluttering his mind noisily.
He lay there as if dead for about an hour. Thinking that he couldn’t go on like this, he got up and turned on the laptop Eden had given him. Ha-jin, who was rummaging through design references to create a custom deck, suddenly remembered the YouTube channel he had run with Mi-so and entered the channel name in the search bar.
Fortunately, the site opened normally, but it was difficult to log in because the ID didn’t match. He tried to find the account by email, but the registered Korean email site had already been destroyed long ago.
‘Ah, Mi-so would know…’
Once again, the name of the person he missed came to mind, and Ha-jin sighed deeply and lay down on his desk. He spent time aimlessly like that until Byeol came with a sandwich and they had a late lunch together. After seeing the child off, he played tag with Pie to clear his mind.
Eden had been incredibly busy for about a month after his sick leave ended. As it was no different from a state of war, he left the house early in the morning before the sun rose and didn’t return until late in the evening.
Hugo and Jeffrey, and Byeol’s family occasionally came to keep Ha-jin company, but Ha-jin felt an unbearable loneliness that went beyond emptiness. It felt like the roots that made him who he was, something fundamental, had completely left him.
Whenever that happened, he would practice Magic or exhaust his body with exercise, like today. While enduring the loneliness of living in a foreign land in his own way, time passed meaninglessly.
❖ ❖ ❖
Ha-jin, who woke up as early as usual, finished showering with Eden and went outside. He reached for the hair dryer to dry his hair when a black suit was suddenly thrust in front of him. He accepted the suit Eden handed him with a bewildered look.
“What is this?”
“Wear it. There’s somewhere I want to take you today.”
Eden said concisely, snatched the hair dryer, and dried Ha-jin’s soaking wet hair himself. Curious eyes turned to Eden at the sudden news of the outing. The two of them, ready, immediately got into Eden’s car.
In the dim dawn, the sky dyed navy was breaking. Ha-jin gazed at the lush land and the picturesque sky exuding a mysterious vitality, feeling a pleasant excitement for the first time in a while. After looking out the car window for a while, he turned his head and asked Eden.
“Where are we really going?”
Instead of answering, Eden wore a satisfied smile on his face. Like Ha-jin, he was dressed in a dress shirt and suit pants. He looked a little more formal than his usual work attire.
Ha-jin narrowed his eyes suspiciously and leaned back in his seat.
“Come to think of it, isn’t Jeong Tae-geon going to work?”
“He can go in the afternoon.”
In the meantime, the car entered a quiet park. Ha-jin, looking around with a bewildered face, caught sight of tombstones erected at regular intervals. What, a cemetery…?
Then, the car stopped in the corner of the parking lot. Eden, who got out of the driver’s seat first, opened the passenger seat door. Eden gently placed his hand on Ha-jin’s stiff shoulder and calmly led him.
“Let’s go quickly. There are quite a few people I want to introduce you to today.”
Then, he handed Ha-jin one of the two bouquets he had put in the trunk.
The two of them passed through an area that looked like a family cemetery and walked among the graves decorated with various fresh and artificial flowers.
The graveyard maintained a calm atmosphere at all times amidst the minor commotion. There were several people visiting the cemetery from the morning, and a long limousine that looked like a hearse slowly moved along the paved road beside them.
The pungent smell of freshly cut grass stimulated the mucous membrane of his nose, and Ha-jin felt a strange sense of stability. Throughout facing numerous tombstones, he naturally thought of his missing Jun-seok’s face.
The place where the two stopped was in front of a granite headstone. Ha-jin, bending down, carefully examined the name engraved on the stone.
‘Leo Gregory’
His eyes widened as he confirmed a name he had never expected, but somehow familiar.
“Is this the person who was Jeong Tae-geon’s friend…”
“That’s right. He should have been in the national cemetery, but he was moved nearby according to Leo’s family’s wishes. I stopped by to say hello while we were here.”
Ha-jin, staring blankly at the tombstone, knelt down on one knee and placed the bouquet. Eden pulled out the weeds on the grave with his hands, introducing Ha-jin to Leo with an indifferent face. Ha-jin somehow became more nervous than when he met Eden’s family. His voice trembled as he said, “Hello.”
After briefly greeting Leo, the two moved again. They passed excavating equipment and a discolored white statue and stopped in front of a grave without a headstone. Judging by the fact that the grass had not yet grown, it seemed to be a grave that had not been moved long ago. At some premonition that flashed through his mind, Ha-jin’s heart began to pound.
Eden placed the white bouquet he was holding on the ground and said.
“The situation wasn’t good, so the relocation was a bit delayed. Do Jun-seok came to the United States this morning. From now on, you can come here whenever you want to see him.”
He added that he would have a tombstone made as soon as he was given the inscription. Ha-jin stared blankly at the graveyard, then suddenly turned around and hugged Eden. Then, he felt a firm hand gently stroking his slightly trembling back.
‘I will put a clean tombstone in front of Do Jun-seok’s grave and prepare it so you can go see him whenever you want. So, if you care about your brother, come with me.’
He remembered Eden’s voice, giving him a calm promise when he had lost the will to live. He had finally kept his promise and breathed life into the dying embers of life.
Ha-jin couldn’t express his gratitude in any words and groaned for a long time.
“…Thank you… so much.”
He barely conveyed his greetings with a choked sigh and pulled Eden’s body even tighter.