The convenience store wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan.

The boys had only stopped because the road home was blocked. A small herd had wandered through the highway earlier that afternoon, forcing all eight of them farther out than usual while the sun slowly started sinking lower behind the trees.

The place looked dead from the outside.

Old gas pumps sat crooked beneath a faded sign. Half the windows were shattered. Vines had started crawling up the walls after nearly a year of neglect.

But the front entrance had been boarded from the inside.

Not professionally. Carefully.

Recently.

Hongjoong noticed it first, immediately raising a hand for everyone to stay quiet.

Human survivors were unpredictable now. Some were harmless. Most weren’t.

Still, food was food.

So they went inside.

The store smelled stale and damp, thick with dust and old rainwater. Their footsteps echoed softly against the tile as they spread through the aisles automatically, weapons drawn out of habit more than fear.

Signs of life sat everywhere once they looked closely enough.

Empty cans stacked neatly near the counter. A flashlight resting beside a backpack. Blankets folded in the corner instead of abandoned messily.

Someone had been living there.

Alone, judging by the amount of supplies.

Yunho crouched near one of the blankets, expression tightening slightly. “They can’t be older than us,” he muttered quietly.

Before anyone could answer, Wooyoung suddenly stopped walking.

“…Wait.”

Everyone turned.

You stood near the back hallway completely frozen, staring at them like you weren’t sure if they were real or not.

And for a second, none of them recognized you either.

A year had changed everyone too much.

You looked thinner than you used to at school. Exhaustion sat beneath your eyes, clothes hanging looser than they should’ve. There were cuts along your arms, bruises half-hidden beneath dirt and long sleeves.

But then realization hit all at once.

The American exchange student.

The girl from school.

You.

Shock spread through the group immediately.

Wooyoung stared openly while Yunho blinked hard like he genuinely thought he was imagining things. Even Hongjoong looked caught off guard for once, eyes narrowing slightly as he tried piecing your face together with old memories from before everything collapsed.

Before the outbreak, everyone knew who you were.

Not necessarily because you were close with them, but because you stood out naturally. Different accent. Different slang. Different from everyone else in school.

Tiny memories surfaced immediately.

Hearing you argue with Wooyoung during lunch because he kept mocking your pronunciation on purpose.

Watching teachers struggle through attendance whenever they got to your name.

Passing you asleep in class near the windows after staying up too late studying Korean.

Back then, those things felt important.

Now they felt like another lifetime entirely.

The silence stretched awkwardly inside the store.

Because seeing someone from before the world ended felt almost unreal now.

Not a stranger. Not quite a friend either.

Just… someone familiar. Someone connected to the version of themselves that existed before survival became the only thing that mattered.