Chapter 21

“Who do you think I am?”

His broad shadow passed over the windowsill before vanishing from sight.

“…”

Yu-su remained beside the window, peering downward with his heart lodged in his throat. Below him, Muwon descended with remarkable stability.

Gripping the rope, Muwon lowered himself one careful step at a time, bracing his feet against the window frames and protruding bricks. He passed the thirty-ninth floor, and once he appeared to have grown accustomed to the descent, he quickened his pace toward the thirty-eighth. Moments after his large frame disappeared through an open window, his head emerged again.

“It’s safe,” he called. “It isn’t difficult, so take your time coming down.”

“…Yeah.”

After fastening the bedding rope securely around his body, Yu-su stood before the open window and drew a deep breath.

He had braced himself for this, but the instant he looked outside, a violent wave of dizziness swept through him. During the previous loop, he had only needed to climb upward, which meant he had never been forced to look down. This time, however, he would have to glance beneath him again and again, and the thought alone terrified him.

Yu-su swallowed the nausea rising relentlessly from the pit of his stomach.

I can do this.

The rope was secure. Even if his hands slipped, he would not fall.

He spent a long moment steadying himself before finally climbing over the windowsill.

“…Ugh.”

Despite everything he had told himself, his vision immediately began to spin. A single glimpse of the dizzying drop drained every trace of strength from his body, leaving him unable to move so much as one finger the way he wanted. Desperate to escape the terror, Yu-su squeezed his eyes shut. The instant darkness swallowed him, however, his fear only intensified. Besides, he could hardly climb down with his eyes closed.

“Hah… huff…”

He eventually forced his eyes open, but his breathing only grew more ragged as he fixed his gaze on the gray wall before him.

A shout rose from below.

“Jeong Yu-su!”

Muwon still had his head poking out through the window beneath him.

“If you can’t handle it, close your eyes!” Muwon shouted. “I’ll talk you down!”

What did he just say?

Yu-su wondered whether he had misheard, but Muwon repeated himself, louder and faster this time.

“I said close your eyes! I’ll tell you what to do, and you just do it!”

“Are you out of your mind…?”

It was an utterly insane suggestion. They were forty floors above the ground, hanging from a rope made of knotted bedding, and Muwon wanted him to climb down with his eyes closed?

And yet…

“Jeong Yu-su.” Muwon’s voice rose steadily through the wind. “You trust me, don’t you?”

How could I not?

Yu-su understood it all over again. The only reason he was willing to follow such a mad suggestion was because it had come from Do Muwon. Just as Muwon had not hesitated for even a second to abandon the building after hearing Yu-su’s warning, Yu-su could now place his life in Muwon’s hands without hesitation.

“I trust you.” Yu-su tightened his grip on the rope. “…Help me.”

“Yeah.”

Yu-su finally closed his eyes.

The moment his vision disappeared, the terror of that pitch-black darkness returned, but the dizziness and nausea slowly began to recede. Amid the wind whipping around the building, Yu-su concentrated with all his strength on Muwon’s clear voice.

“Move your left foot a little farther to the side. There’s a foothold there.” Muwon paused while Yu-su felt blindly along the wall. “Yeah, that’s it. Lower yourself slowly. When I tell you, brace your hands against the wall and slide down.”

It almost felt unreal.

Somehow, following Muwon’s instructions made the descent less frightening.

Whenever Yu-su became conscious of where he was, panic surged through him again, but Muwon’s firm, commanding voice cut through it before it could swallow him.

“Not there. Reach farther left. Yeah. Lean inward a little more.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah.” Muwon’s voice was suddenly much closer. “…Open your eyes. You’re here.”

At some point, the distance between them had vanished. Yu-su slowly opened his eyes.

Beneath the dazzling sunlight, Muwon waited with one hand extended toward him.

“What are you doing?” Muwon demanded. “Take my hand.”

Yu-su struggled to reach out. The instant their hands met, Muwon locked his fingers around Yu-su’s wrist and hauled him halfway through the window. He then caught Yu-su against his chest and held his chilled, violently trembling body until he began to calm.

“…”

Surrounded by the thunderous pounding of Muwon’s heart, Yu-su allowed the arm he had instinctively raised to push him away to fall limp.

The embrace lasted for quite some time.

Once Yu-su’s breathing had finally settled, Muwon released his now-warmed body and prodded him in the cheek.

“See?” A hint of satisfaction entered his voice. “You did it.”

“… Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Muwon’s voice remained calm and matter-of-fact. “You’ve done it once now, so it’ll only get easier.”

He was right. By the time they descended to the thirty-sixth floor, Yu-su was no longer quite as frightened. On the way to the thirty-fourth, he even managed to open his eyes occasionally and check his position. He still needed the steady guidance of Muwon’s voice, but by the time they reached the thirty-second floor, Yu-su could navigate the building’s outer wall with his eyes fully open.

Their preparations on the thirty-second floor took considerably longer. They could not reach the thirtieth floor in a single descent, which meant they had to aim for the twenty-ninth instead, and the endless work of tying, securing, and testing their makeshift ropes had taken a heavy toll on both their bodies and minds.

It was already 5:00 p.m. Sunset was approaching quickly, and they needed to pick up the pace.

Muwon gave the newly fashioned bedding rope a hard tug, testing each knot to make certain it was tight and properly secured. “So, how did you know about it?”

“About what… the loop?”

“Yeah. That.”

Muwon finally seemed to have digested the fact that Yu-su was trapped in a time loop.

“I already told you.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

Yu-su hesitated. He took a slow drink from the lukewarm can of sports drink before setting it down beside him. “I don’t know. I… died, and then I woke up the day before. Why are you asking?”

“Just because.”

“I’m still confused myself. I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

Silence settled between them. After a moment, Muwon picked up the can Yu-su had set down and slowly turned it between his fingers.

The can crumpled in Do Muwon’s fist with a sharp crunch.

Jeong Yu-su struggled to steady his heart as it hammered against his ribs like a drum. Memories of his death had dragged the pain back with them, leaving phantom traces of agony throughout his body.

How desperately he wished he could forget.

After drawing a long, ragged breath, Yu-su forced himself to speak. “Let’s go. We’re running out of time.”

“Right.” Muwon glanced over at him. “Need me to keep talking you down?”

“No. I think I can manage on my own now.”

They resumed their descent, first to the twenty-ninth floor and then to the twenty-seventh. Each time, Do Muwon climbed down first to inspect the surroundings, and once he gave the signal, Yu-su followed him through the window.

After repeating the process so many times, Yu-su could now descend without relying on Muwon’s voice, but the terror had not disappeared. It remained a relentless tide, occasionally surging through his entire body and leaving him shivering in its wake.

Just a little farther…

Sometimes, the waves of fear rose higher than usual. Yu-su drew a deep breath and prepared to lift his foot from the ledge when a sudden, ferocious gust slammed into both him and the rope.

“…!”

His body swung sideways in an instant, and the world spun violently around him. The deep blue sky, the distant ground, and the neighboring building he had deliberately kept behind his back flooded into view all at once.

Then his eyes met those of someone standing inside the building across from him.

“Jeong Yu-su!” Muwon shouted from below. “Are you okay?”

“No, wait… Just give me a second…”

Yu-su could not force out a proper answer. Paralyzed by a chaotic swirl of panic and confusion, he clung to the rope as though it were his only lifeline. The instant he saw another living person, his entire body froze, leaving him as helpless as an animal seized by the scruff of its neck.

The people across the way stared at him in bewilderment, clearly unable to understand why a man was climbing down the outside of the building. Yu-su turned his head to escape their gazes, only to notice several human silhouettes gathered on the roof of the adjacent tower.

That building collapsed too.

By tomorrow night, the entire area would be reduced to scorched ruins. The helicopters would crash and explode. Buildings would topple like dominoes, flames would leap from one structure to the next, and zombies would shriek in a frenzy while countless people vanished amid the agony.

The experience from only a few hours ago remained far too vivid. He remembered the searing heat of his entrails burning, the sensation of his flesh being mangled, and his bones shattering into jagged fragments.

It felt as though ash-laden smoke still fouled every breath. Yu-su clenched his teeth, and the veins stood out sharply across the back of the hand gripping the rope.

Everyone here is going to die. Every single person.

Throughout the descent, he had kept his face turned toward the wall and deliberately left the surrounding city behind him. Perhaps he had been pretending not to know. Perhaps keeping it out of sight had allowed him to avoid confronting the sheer scale of the death that would soon sweep through this place.

The world seemed to warp around him. Although the rope fastened around his waist kept him from falling, his body continued to sway precariously, prompting Muwon to roar from below.

“Jeong Yu-su! What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m coming… right now…”

Yu-su had no idea how he managed to climb down. It felt less like a controlled descent than a blind, desperate struggle for survival. He poured every ounce of strength into reaching the window frame, but his trembling body refused to obey him. As he tried to pull himself inside, his balance faltered once more.

“Ah…!”

“Hey!”

Fortunately, Do Muwon lunged forward and seized Yu-su by the arm, wrenching his teetering body away from the open window as though plucking him from the edge of a cliff.

Crash!

When Yu-su finally came to his senses, he was sprawled across Muwon’s body.

“Ugh, goddamn it. My head…” Muwon grimaced beneath him. “Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I… Sorry, Do Muwon.”

Yu-su tried to push himself upright, but his legs had lost all their strength. He immediately collapsed onto Muwon again, earning a derisive scoff before one broad palm settled against his trembling back.

“What’s wrong?”

Yu-su had no room left in his mind to worry about avoiding physical contact. Every muscle in his body had gone limp, so he pressed his forehead into the hollow at the base of Muwon’s neck and closed his eyes.

Silence stretched between them. Their hearts pounded at different tempos where their chests were pressed together, but the longer they remained that way, the more those separate rhythms seemed to fall into step.

Yu-su’s whisper was barely audible. “Do Muwon.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re all going to die, aren’t they? Everyone around here.”

Because their bodies were pressed so closely together, Yu-su felt Muwon, who had been relaxed only moments before, turn slightly rigid.

At that instant, the cramped bedroom seemed to sink to the bottom of a deep ocean. Even the sunlight filtering into the silent room appeared to dissolve into the murk. Muwon’s husky voice resonated beside Yu-su’s ear.

“If everything collapses the way you said it will, then yeah. Most of them are going to die.”

Yu-su said nothing.

“But we can’t save them, can we?”

He was right.

They could not save them.

It was just like the screams they had heard on the first day of the zombie outbreak. Even when they knew perfectly well that someone was about to die, there was nothing they could do, and perhaps nothing they should do.

Yu-su knew no one else in the world would trust him as completely as Do Muwon did. If some complete stranger announced, “I’m trapped in a time loop, and the rescue helicopter arriving tomorrow is going to crash. The surrounding buildings will collapse, so get off the roof and run as far away as you can,” no one would believe a word of it.

They would assume he was some crazy bastard.

Or perhaps some lunatic exploiting the chaos to start a cult.

Yu-su’s long, broken breaths continued to spill against Muwon’s neck. When he still could not breathe properly, Muwon finally began patting his stiff back with an open palm.

“I thought you’d changed a lot, but you’re still exactly the same.”

Yu-su remained silent.

“You still can’t let things like this go.” Muwon’s hand continued its slow rhythm against his back. “Remember when you nearly got hit by a car trying to save that kid?”

Do Muwon’s words filled Yu-su with shame.

He was not the same.

He had done nothing. He had run away like a coward because he wanted to keep the loop hidden for as long as possible.

Even now, although he desperately wanted to save them, part of him kept searching for ways to avoid getting involved. He was terrified of the enormous backlash that would come crashing down on him if he began making prophecies in front of other people.

It was shameful.

“Jeong Yu-su.”

“… Yeah.”

Perhaps the silence had lasted too long. Do Muwon flicked Yu-su’s cheek, then caught him by the chin and forced him to raise his head. Their eyes met from only inches apart.

“Whatever happens, none of this is your fault.”