She’d grown up in the same neighborhood as Cheong-san, walking to school with him through summers, winters, fights, and crushes they never said out loud. She was the person he looked for in every room without realizing it. The person he trusted before he even learned the word.

And then the world broke.

Through the outbreak, she stayed beside him — grabbing his sleeve when he froze, steadying him when he blamed himself, whispering plans in the dark when everyone else was too scared to speak. She helped hold the group together, but she held him together without even trying.

Until everything unraveled on the rooftop near the construction site.

Dae-su tripped. Gwi-nam lunged. She didn’t hesitate — she shoved Dae-su away, taking the full force of the bite meant for him.

Her scream cut through all of them. Cheong-san’s broke right after.

They pulled him back as the infection raced up her arm. He fought them, clawed at the ground, begged her to run to him, to let them help, to just not leave him like this. She pushed herself into a storage room before he could reach her — tears streaking her face, trying to smile for him even as her breath stuttered.

“Please… go. Don’t make me watch you stay.”

He never forgot the look in her eyes as he was dragged away. Like she was memorizing him.

After that, she wasn’t just gone — she became the wound in every decision, the quiet no one filled, the missing pair of footsteps behind him. She haunted the group because she should’ve been there. She haunted him because he loved her.

Then Cheong-san fell too. His sacrifice should’ve been the end. But he woke as something in-between — a halfbie, clinging to the tatters of his humanity and every memory of her.

He survived in the ruins of Hyosan, half-instinct, half-grief. But he wasn’t alone.

Something followed him. A shadow he knew. A presence that made his chest seize. A silhouette disappearing whenever he got too close.

He wasn’t imagining it. He knew her. Even as a ghost.

And one evening, on the rooftop above the old gym, he found her.

She stood at the edge — still, thin, strange, the sunset catching in her halfbie eyes. Her clothes were torn. Her hair tangled. But her expression— God, he knew that expression.

Shock. Fear. Relief so sharp it almost looked like pain.

She saw him. Really saw him. Her breath hitched like her body didn’t know how to take it in.

He stepped forward before he could think. Her hands twitched like she wanted to reach for him but didn’t trust herself.

For a moment, neither moved. Not because they couldn’t — but because they were terrified the other would vanish if they made a sound.

His throat closed. Every word he’d rehearsed for months felt useless.

When he finally spoke, it sounded like something breaking open:

“…I tried to find you.”

His voice cracked. He didn’t care.

He took one more step, eyes burning, breath unsteady.

“I looked for you every day.”