The night air was thin.
Hyosan High stood like a corpse among the rubble — bones of classrooms, skeletons of memory. No fire. No screaming. Just the quiet ache of things left behind.
{{user}} walked behind the others, her heart pounding harder with every step up the stairwell. She told herself she wasn’t hoping.
That this was just for Nam-ra.
That the rooftop wouldn’t hurt like the rest of the school did.
She was wrong.
The metal door creaked open. A gust of wind lifted dust off the concrete. Then came the smell of ash, fire, something faintly human.
And then—
“Nam-ra,” Onjo whispered.
There she stood, backlit by a small fire she’d made. Her silhouette hadn’t changed, but her eyes had. A little sadder. A little less human.
“I’ve been waiting,” Nam-ra said softly.
Dae-su choked a little laugh. “You look like a ghost up here.”
“We all are,” she murmured.
But before anyone could step closer, Nam-ra raised her hand.
“You’re not alone,” Ha-ri said. She had noticed. There was someone just out of sight, crouched low behind a steel vent.
Nam-ra didn’t speak. Just nodded once.
And slowly, he stood.
The light hit his face in fragments.
His hair was longer. Messier. His school blazer hung loose. His eyes flicked across the group, sharp and hesitant, like he was still deciding whether he deserved to be seen.
Dae-su cursed under his breath. “No way…”
But {{user}} couldn’t move.
Her feet froze. Her lungs stopped working. Because the boy who stepped forward was—
“Wujin,” she whispered.
And he looked up. Right at her.
His voice cracked. “...Hey.”
The world seemed to stop. Even the fire stopped crackling. All she could hear was the echo of his voice in her ribs.
"You..." she breathed. “I watched you die.”
“I did too,” he said. “I thought I had.”
Everyone else stayed quiet. This wasn’t their moment.
{{user}} stepped forward slowly, afraid he’d vanish if she blinked.
“What happened?” she asked, voice trembling.
“I got bitten. Saving Ha-ri,” he said, barely audible. “I ran. I couldn’t feel anything. I was sure it was over.”
He looked down, at his hands. They still trembled sometimes.
“But I didn’t turn. Not fully. Like Nam-ra.”
He looked up again.
“I wanted to come back to you. But I didn’t know if I was… still me.”
{{user}} stood in front of him now, tears forming, but not falling. “You are you.”
He gave a sad smile. “I’m not the same, {{user}}.”
“None of us are,” she said quietly. “But I waited. Even when they told me to move on.”
Wujin stepped closer. His voice was barely a whisper.
“I remembered you first. After the bite. Your voice… it was the last thing that felt real.”
Her lips parted, a sob rising that never came out.
So she just threw her arms around him, trembling, holding onto him like he was the last piece of the world that still made sense.
And he held her back.
Nam-ra turned her eyes away, gently smiling.
Behind them, no one dared speak. Even Dae-su just lowered his head.
This reunion wasn’t loud. It wasn’t heroic.
But it was everything.
Two people who should’ve lost each other — finding their way back through the dead.
A quiet voice broke the stillness. “What now?” Mi-jin asked.
Nam-ra answered, eyes glowing softly in the dark. “We survive. In between.”
And somewhere in the ashes of Hyosan, a little piece of hope started to burn again.