Chapter 0

Snowbound Seoul, blanketed in frost, had been stained an unnatural red. The ruined city overflowed with the blood of countless dead, human and zombie alike, while a vicious wind carried acrid ash across the devastation, smudging the boundary between earth and sky.

At the heart of that living hell, where nothing remained but the fading gasps of those no longer able to beg for their lives, one place stood so silent that the stillness itself felt like a lie.

That was where Yu-su and Muwon stood.

Yu-su traced his fingertips over the cold, unyielding steel in his hand.

“I can’t believe I’m about to kill myself with a pistol in twenty-first-century Korea.”

His bitter laugh ended with the metallic click of the weapon being loaded. A thin plume of white breath slipped from his lips and vanished into the frozen air.

Muwon watched him for a moment before holding out his hand. “Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Your hand is shaking.”

Yu-su’s expression tightened. “Couldn’t you have pretended not to notice?”

He was still bristling when Muwon plucked the pistol effortlessly from his grasp.

A low, weighty voice came from above him.

“Jeong Yu-su.”

It was strange. The world around them roared with chaos, yet every breath Do Muwon drew reached him with perfect clarity.

“…Yeah?”

“Look up.”

Perhaps that was why Yu-su obeyed as though something unseen had taken hold of him. His light-brown eyes rose to meet Muwon’s pitch-black gaze, leaving him nowhere left to hide.

Bloodied and caked in dust, Muwon bared his teeth in a feral smile.

“Kiss me.”

“You…”

Yu-su’s eyes went still for a heartbeat, then began to tremble. His hand shot out, seized Muwon by the collar, and dragged him down.

Before their noses could brush, their parted lips crashed together. It was less a kiss than a collision, desperate and violent, as though each meant to devour what little life remained in the other.

Their final breaths tangled messily between them.

Then the cold weight of metal pressed against the back of Yu-su’s head.

Bang!

The gunshot tore through the frozen silence.

A single bullet shattered both their skulls.

***