Please Shoot Me - 27

The door rattled as if the zombie was trying to open it. When Yuyeon didn’t open it, the zombie shook the door harder, as if it were angry. It was a plea to be let in. The room was already full with two people and a dog. Yuyeon knocked on the door and turned around, indicating that someone was already inside.

“Hey, first of all… Ah!”

At that moment, Yuyeon was startled to see the golden eyes reflected in a pale beam of light.

‘I have to correct myself. It was one human, one dog, and one zombie.’

“Aren’t you being a little too blatantly surprised?”

She quickly calmed herself down and tried to come up with an excuse.

“I was frightened because you’re so close. It wasn’t because of your eyes.”

“Oh, so I frightened you with my eyes.”

“…”

“Ah… I should just gouge my eyes out.”

Ryung muttered, clenching his fists right in front of his eyes. His clenched hands shook as he squeezed them tightly together. Blood seemed to trickle from them, even though Yuyeon knew there was nothing there.

Dropping her gun to the floor, Yuyeon hastily wrapped her hands around his first. She stretched out his clenched fists, noticing the fingernail marks.

“No. Don’t.”

“…”

“It’s smaller here than I thought.”

Quickly turning her attention elsewhere so Ryung wouldn’t be more depressed, she carefully scanned the room. Behind the space they were standing in was a knee-high bed, with a leather mattress on top. In other words, there was only one bed in this room.

Suddenly, she realized why Ryung was standing so close to the door. There was no room for him unless he climbed up on the bed behind them. At first glance,  he didn’t dare climb onto the mattress covered in a fine layer of dust. Only the dog, unaware of the concept of dirty, could escape the narrow shoe box and climb onto the mattress. It left paw prints in the dust.

“First, let’s turn on the lights.”

“The lights are already on, yours and mine.”

Ryung gestured to the tactical light on their guns. Yuyeon rummaged through her pockets and pulled out a few items from the cashier’s drawer and laid them on the mattress. A candle, matches, and wipes.

“How’s that? Why those?”

“Oh, I was afraid we would run out of batteries, so these will do for now.”

“I’ll light it, so you use this to clean the mattress. We can’t stand here all night.”

Ryung laughed as he pulled out a flimsy tissue, dried out from the last decade or so.

“These are just tissues.”

“We’re just trying to get the dust off. It’s better than nothing.”

While he coughed as he dutifully wiped away the dust, Yuyeon struck a match and lit the candle. The candle was brand new, probably in case of a power outage. As the flame settled into the wick and began to burn, the room quickly became like a golden tent. The light was wider and even distributed, which made it easier on the eyes. The flame was the size of a fingernail, but it was enough to illuminate the entire room.

“Hey, get out of the way.”

Ryung growled at the dog, who was curled up in a ball in the corner of the bed. Whether it was pouting because Ryung didn’t eat the food he brought, or because he was spoken to in its own language, the dog stayed put.

“Leave it, that’s his spot.”

“Why did you bring him? Let him sleep outside. It’s cramped enough as it is.”

“I just thought… he wanted to be with us.”

“You give him food here and there without me knowing, so don’t make me jealous and give him a belly rub, too.”

He poked the dog’s belly with his fingertips to show his displeasure. The dog stretched out on its side, used to human touch.

“Wait, let’s see if he’s comfortable.”

“Never mind. Stop wiping, we’re already dirty.”

Yuyeon put a candle on a shelf against the wall. As she climbed onto the mattress, she noticed Ryung’s shoeless feet.

“You took your shoes off.”

“Oh, out of habit. We have to share the space… You should take them off. They’re dirtier than you think.”

Ryung wiped the spot where Yuyeon would sit, twice and then three times. Soon there was a pile of dust and tangled tissues in the corner of the mattress. Yuyeon took off her army boots and placed them next to Ryung’s shoes and carefully climbed on the mattress.

The bed, which seemed to be a little bigger than a single, was narrower than she expected, so her and Ryung’s knees touched when she sat down. Of course, they could have gotten more distance by sitting vertically, end to end, but with a large dog stretched out of their heads, it wasn’t easy.

“It’s narrower than I thought.”

“Hmmm, yeah. I see.”

“Is this how you watch a movie? It must be a one-person room. It’s barely big enough for two.”

Yuyeon curiously looked at the projector on the ceiling. She had never been in a DVD room before, so everything was new to her.

“It’s probably a two-person room, but they made it this way on purpose. Tight.”

“Why?”

Her eyes scanned the room, and when they landed on Ryung, he stroked the back of his head with a somewhat stiff gesture.

“Because a lot of couples will come here for dates…”

“Who wants to go on a date like this? Is this the cheapest room?”

When she tilted her head, not seeing the point, Ryung coughed again and explained.

“It’s dark, we’re alone in the room, we can’t help that we’re touching…”

He gestured to their overlapping knees. Suddenly, Ryung felt a tickle when they were pressed together and continued to explain.

“Because you want to touch someone you like…”

Ryung felt like he was explaining to a child and thought Yuyeon was completely ignorant of s*x. Nodding her head in understanding, Yuyeon began to shift, but realized that if she changed positions she would fall off and it would be even more awkward.

“So… I kind of like this position now.”

The inaudible whisper drew her averted gaze back to him. The candlelight flickered, casting waves of yellow across Ryung’s white face, creating a somber mood.

Their gazes locked, and she felt as though she couldn’t breath. His leg subtly shifted, and her knee was rubbed and crushed. Startled by what felt like a flirtatious gesture, Yuyeon quickly pulled her knees up and hugged them close.

“Are you cold?”

“Huh? Um…”

Ryung rolled his eyes as he watched Yuyeon try to divert to a different topic.

“Do you want to come closer? I think you’d be less cold if we were touching.”

‘Closer? That sounds dangerous.’

Yuyeon dropped her head and pressed her back against the wall, knowing she can’t go any further.

“Your body isn’t even warm.”

Ryung was speechless for a moment, as if the words had stabbed him in the lungs, but when she raised her head again, he shook his head and reached out to her.

“No, touch me.”

His eyes were shining like he was trying to convince her. As gullible as she is, she cautiously took his hand, and it was indeed warm. Zombies tend to have a lower body temperature than humans, but he was almost as warm as her. After passing her hand over his and touching his wrist, she politely asked him.

“How many times did you rub it?”

“…. 128 times?”

It was friction heat. The area around his wrist was still cold.

“Do you want to keep playing around?”

“Do you want me to hold you like I did earlier? You’re cold, but my clothes are warm.”

“No, I’m not cold.”

If anything, she was hot now, and her face was flushed with heat. Her chest heaved as if she was drunk, and every inch of her body burned.

“So you’ve been avoiding me because you don’t want to touch me?”

“….”

This time, he hit the nail on the head. She had a good reason, but she hated to admit it. It meant that she was aware of him right in front of her, and he knew that she was still tense.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

Yes, she was scared of the s*xual tension she was feeling in her mind. Yuyeon buried her face in her arms, suddenly furious at the way he was cornering her.

“You…”

When Yuyeon looked up, she saw a face she hadn’t expected to see: Ryung’s eyes weren’t showing, even in the warm yellow light. He was curled up in a ball on his knees, just like her. She deliberately shrunk in size, pressing her back against the wall, so that even in this small space, there was only an inch of distance between them.

“No wonder you’re scared.”

“…”

“That’s what you were talking about earlier, isn’t it?”

At the moment when she felt the flow of the conversation was strange, Ryung spoke with a bitter smile.

“That’s right, my appetite…”

It wasn’t until she realized that he was referring to the fear of being eaten that her eyes flickered to the image of the severed arm in front of them.

“That arm, for a moment, I wanted to eat it,” he said.

And then, Yuyeon saw it again.

Golden eyes filled with anxiety and softness.

Kofi