Garlic.
It didn't season. It assaulted.
Roasted garlic sizzling in hot oil. Exhaust fumes from a rusted jeepney. The sharp, acidic tang of open sewers baking under 37°C heat. Diesel. Coconut oil. The sour-sting of a thousand sweating bodies compressed into a single wall of scent that clung to the skin like a second hide. Manila was breathing. Loud. Suffocating. Alive.
Jae-min stood on the sidewalk outside Shore Residence 3. The sun hammered the asphalt, blurring the air into rippling waves. Sweat traced down his spine the second he stepped out of the lobby.
He closed his eyes and let it bake his skin. Let it seep into his pores. A deliberate, grinding gratitude for warmth that wouldn't last.
"Twenty-one days," Jae-min thought, a cold, anchoring dread.
He opened his eyes. The world was too bright. Too loud. A street vendor was hacking a coconut with a machete. Kids in flip-flops were playing basketball in the narrow alley across the street. A stray dog panted under a rusted tricycle.
"In three weeks, that stray dog will be a block of ice. Those kids will shatter like glass, their bones snapping like frozen twigs the moment they hit the ground. The jeepney will be a frozen tomb on EDSA, buried under ten meters of hard-packed snow dense as concrete, its roof barely visible as a pale ridge against the white plain. The Makati skyline will be reduced to dark stumps poking from the ice, only rooftops breaking the white plain, everything below the tenth floor entombed in blue-white ice," Jae-min thought, a clinical, surgical recall of the dead world.
"Oppa," Ji-yoo snapped, stepping out of the lobby behind him.
She wore a white tank top and denim shorts. Her black hair was tied in a messy bun, loose strands sticking to the sweat on her neck. Dark circles under her eyes.
She looped her arm through his, pressing her shoulder into his bicep, her hip bumping against his side. Automatic. Clinging. A fierce, territorial closeness.
"You're staring," Ji-yoo snapped, tilting her head up at him.
"I'm memorizing," Jae-min whispered, quiet.
Ji-yoo looked at the street. The vendor. The kids. The dog, a slow, assessing sweep.
"It looks the same," Ji-yoo snapped, scanning the street.
"It won't," Jae-min breathed, the certainty in his voice like a death sentence.
They walked. No destination. Just movement. The sidewalk was crowded. Workers in hard hats. Women carrying umbrellas against the sun. A man pushing a cart of bottled water.
Jae-min brushed past them. Ghosts. All of them, a cold, methodical detachment.
"Where are we going?" Ji-yoo said, her fingers tightening on his arm, pressing.
"Hardware store," Jae-min whispered, already walking.
"We have contractors for that," Ji-yoo whispered, falling into step.
"I need specific things. Things I can't put on a receipt," Jae-min whispered, his voice lowering.
They turned onto a side street. Narrower. Darker. The buildings leaned close, blocking out the sky. The smell of diesel and damp concrete replaced the garlic.
Ji-yoo's shoulder brushed against a man passing in the opposite direction. She mumbled an apology. The man didn't look up. Just kept walking.
But Jae-min noticed the man's hands. They were shaking. Trembling. Not from cold. From hunger. The man's collarbones jutted out sharply against his dirty shirt. His ribs were visible through the fabric. His skin had a grayish, waxy sheen, the look of a body that had started consuming itself, a cold, clinical recognition.
"He's starving," Jae-min thought, a grim, knowing certainty.
Day 15. The hallway of Shore Residence. A neighbor biting into another man's neck because he hadn't eaten in a week. The blood was black, frozen the moment it hit the air, crystallizing into dark red snow that crunched underfoot. The victim's eyes were wide, glassy, already frosting over. His mouth was still moving. Still screaming. But the sound was fading, the cold stealing the vibration from his vocal cords before the words could form.
Jae-min looked away. Swallowed the bile, a rigid, controlled revulsion.
"Oppa?" Ji-yoo said, her grip on his arm tightening, concern edging her voice.
"I'm fine," Jae-min said, but the words came out rougher than intended, his jaw tight.
— • • • —
The hardware store. A cramped shop with rusted corrugated doors. Inside, a labyrinth of steel, wire, and dust. 35°C. The air was thick. Metallic. It coated the back of Jae-min's throat.
He moved through the aisles with precision. A logistics manager in his natural habitat, a methodical, surgical focus.
"Two rolls of quarter-inch steel cable. Fifty meters each," Jae-min said, not looking up from the shelf.
"Heavy stuff. What you building?" the owner said, squinting at him, a fat man in a stained white shirt looking up from a tiny TV.
"A jungle gym," Jae-min drawled, deadpan.
The man grunted. Waddled to the back, a dismissive, unbothered shuffle.
Jae-min moved to the next aisle. Duct tape. Zip ties. Industrial adhesive. He grabbed handfuls. Stuffed them into a plastic basket, a rapid, mechanical procurement.
Ji-yoo followed. Silent. Watching. Her dark eyes tracking his every move, a sharp, analytical attention.
"Oppa," Ji-yoo snapped, tugging his sleeve.
"Yeah?" Jae-min said, glancing down.
"The man outside. The skinny one," Ji-yoo snapped, her voice dropping.
"What about him?" Jae-min said, his guard rising.
"He looked like the people in your face when you look at them," Ji-yoo whispered, her voice quiet.
Jae-min stopped. Looked at her, a sharp, caught-off-guard stillness.
"I thought you said you couldn't see my memories," Jae-min declared, caught off guard.
"I can't. But I see your face," Ji-yoo declared, her dark eyes meeting his, steady. "You look at them like they're already dead."
Jae-min didn't answer. He picked up a heavy-duty hacksaw. Tested the weight in his hand. Cold. Solid. Real, a deliberate, grounding grip.
"I'm not mourning them," Jae-min breathed, finally. "I'm preparing them for what's coming. In my head, I'm already digging their graves."
Ji-yoo didn't respond. She just picked up a box of heavy-duty nails. Added it to the basket, a quiet, deliberate solidarity.
They paid in cash. Ten thousand pesos. The owner didn't ask questions. He just took the money and turned back to his TV, a transactional, incurious efficiency.
— • • • —
They walked three blocks to a large supermarket. The automatic doors slid open. A blast of artificial cold hit them. 20°C. Maybe 18°C.
Jae-min froze, a rigid, paralyzing recoil.
The cold air from the AC vents brushed his face. A kiss from a dead lover, a paralyzing, haunting chill.
"In my first life, by Day 3, the temperature outside had dropped to minus twenty. I crawled into the freezer section of a ransacked grocery store just to feel a fraction of warmth. I died in a freezer aisle," Jae-min thought, a cold, visceral recall.
"Oppa?" Ji-yoo snapped, her voice cutting through the memory, her hand squeezing his arm.
He blinked. The supermarket came back into focus. Fluorescent lights. Muzak playing softly. A stock boy stacking cereal boxes, a deliberate, grounding reorientation.
"I'm fine," Jae-min rasped, and this time he took a breath, steadied himself, met her eyes, a small, deliberate effort to ground himself in the present.
He moved fast. Jae-min didn't use a cart. He used the void. He walked down the aisles. Touched a box of salt. It vanished into the black rift behind his ribs. Touched a bottle of iodine. Vanished. A crate of instant coffee. Vanished. Bag after bag. Box after box. Each touch leaving a faint, inky ripple in the air that dissolved before anyone could see it, a mechanical, methodical consumption.
Ji-yoo walked beside him. Carrying a hand basket. She loaded it with the physical items. Peanut butter. Crackers. Bottled water. Things they needed to use now, before the apocalypse, so the bunker staff didn't get suspicious, a practical, steady cooperation. She didn't comment on the vanishing items. Just walked beside him, her shoulder pressed against his arm.
— • • • —
They turned a corner. And Jae-min stopped.
End of the aisle. Pharmacy section.
A woman stood there. Indigo hair pulled into a loose ponytail that fell past her waist, catching the fluorescent light with a deep, violet sheen. Blue eyes focused on a bottle of painkillers. She wore a simple white blouse and black slacks. A stethoscope hung around her neck like a second spine.
Dr. Alessia Romano Santos. Dark circles under her blue eyes. Shoulders back. Spine aligned. Straight-backed despite the exhaustion carved into the angles of her face.
Jae-min's chest tightened, a profound, suffocating compression.
Seven days ago, Alessia had opened her door and found Jae-min standing in the hallway at six in the morning like a man who had just returned from war. Alessia had touched his forehead. Jae-min had flinched. Alessia had gone back inside. Jae-min had called her Alessia instead of Dr. Santos. That was the last time he had seen her.
The hallway conversations at 11 PM. Alessia's back against the opposite wall, two meters of cold tile between them. The sinigang Alessia left at his door, Mondays, Wednesdays, sometimes just cut mangoes with no note. The night Kiara left, when Alessia sat outside his door for twenty minutes without saying a word, then slipped away.
The sticky note on the lid of the sinigang container. You're not too much. Alessia's note. Three words. Blue ink. Neat doctor handwriting.
The night Alessia collapsed at Jae-min's door at midnight and Jae-min carried her to Unit 1419 and Alessia grabbed his wrist and "Stay," Alessia whispered and Jae-min stayed until dawn and Alessia fell asleep with her fingers tracing through his hair.
The terrible pancakes Jae-min made her the next morning. Alessia ate four. Her thumb on his wrist, checking his pulse.
"Your heart rate is elevated," Alessia said, quiet clinical concern.
"I know," Jae-min said, raw vulnerability.
The last conversation, two days before the freeze, Alessia's voice steady but her hands shaking, telling Jae-min about the seven-year-old.
"Do you ever feel like you're waiting for something? Like everything up to now has just been practice?" Alessia said, a quiet, aching hope.
"Yeah. Every day," Jae-min said, a bitter, honest weight.
Alessia smiled. Small. Sad. Real. Jae-min should have said the words then. He didn't. Two days later, the world froze.
And then, teeth. Hands. The neighbor from 1412 burying his face into Alessia's stomach. His thumbs sinking into Alessia's eye sockets, popping them, sending thick gelatinous fluid running down her cheeks like black tears. The wet crunch of her skull cracking open like a boiled egg. Alessia's hand finding Jae-min's in the freezing dark. Holding on. Even when there was nothing left to hold. Alessia's broken fingers interlaced with Jae-min's. Alessia's mangled lips moving. Her thumb tracing a slow circle against his cheekbone. One last touch of warmth.
"I never said the words. And now she's three aisles away, alive, and I still can't say them," Jae-min thought, a bitter, suffocating grief.
— • • • —
"Oppa?" Ji-yoo said, noticing his pause, then following his gaze. Her face lit up.
"Ate Alessia!" Ji-yoo cried, explosive joy.
Jae-min flinched, a rigid, involuntary recoil.
"Don't," Jae-min whispered, sharp.
But Ji-yoo was already moving. Fast. Her sandals slapping against the linoleum as she practically sprinted down the aisle, her arm disentangling from Jae-min's so she could throw both arms around Alessia from behind, a fierce, explosive enthusiasm.
"Ate! I'm back from South Korea!" Ji-yoo cried, squeezing Alessia in a hug that was far too aggressive for a pharmacy aisle.
Alessia laughed, startled, warm, turning in Ji-yoo's grip to return the hug with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with Ji-yoo's enthusiasm, a quiet, genuine affection.
"Ji-yoo! I didn't know you were back!" Alessia said, her blue eyes softening, warm surprise. "When did you land?"
"Today! Like two hours ago!" Ji-yoo snapped, pulling back, still holding Alessia's hands, bouncing slightly on her heels. "I missed you. Did you miss me? Tell me you missed me."
"I missed you," Alessia said, smiling, genuine affection.
"See?" Ji-yoo snapped, turning to Jae-min, pointing at Alessia like she was presenting evidence. "She missed me. That's because I'm lovable. Unlike some people."
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min whispered, a gentle warning.
"Oppa, stop being rude. Say hi to Ate Alessia," Ji-yoo snapped, waving him forward. Her eyes flicked between Jae-min and Alessia with the sharp, assessing gleam of a matchmaker who had been waiting for this exact moment.
Jae-min walked over. His face was calm, the careful, rigid composure of a man holding too much behind his teeth.
"Dr. Santos," Jae-min murmured, formal, but his eyes lingered on her face a beat too long.
"Jae-min," Alessia murmured, tilting her head, her blue eyes searching, assessing, but warmer now. "Still calling me Dr. Santos? I've told you a hundred times to call me Alessia."
"Dr. Santos," Jae-min said, unchanged, but there was something almost apologetic in the way he held the word.
Alessia sighed. But the corner of her mouth twitched, a faint, reluctant amusement.
"Oh my God," Ji-yoo whispered, her voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "You're doing the thing again."
"What thing?" Jae-min said, playing dumb.
"The thing where you pretend to be emotionally constipated whenever Ate Alessia is around," Ji-yoo snapped, folding her arms, her ponytail swishing.
"I'm/He's not pretending," Jae-min and Alessia murmured at the same time.
They looked at each other. Alessia's blue eyes met Jae-min's black ones for a fraction of a second. Something flickered there, small, warm, quickly buried. She looked away first, a brief, electric connection.
Ji-yoo caught it. Of course she caught it, a sharp, triumphant detection.
"I swear to God," Ji-yoo snapped, throwing her hands up. "You two are unbearable. You're both smart. You're both single. You're both obviously—" Ji-yoo groaned, making a vague, frustrated gesture that encompassed the entire awkward space between them.
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min said, a warning, but there was a faint warmth in it.
"What? I'm just saying," Ji-yoo hissed, grinning. "Ate Alessia, did you know oppa bought me samgyeopsal for a whole year because I helped him move into our building? He's secretly soft. He just pretends to be a robot."
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min hissed, through gritted teeth.
"He also cried during that movie about the old man and the floating house. The cartoon one. Full tears. I have pictures," Ji-yoo snapped, pulling out her phone, absolutely lying but committing to the bit with terrifying conviction.
"Ji-yoo, I will put you in the void," Jae-min said, the threat utterly sincere.
"You can't. You love me," Ji-yoo snapped, pocketing her phone with a triumphant smirk.
Alessia laughed. A real laugh. Light. Musical. The sound of warmth in a cold room, a bright, unguarded joy.
The laugh hit Jae-min like a fist to the sternum, a profound, aching impact.
"That laugh doesn't exist anymore. Not in the world I came from," Jae-min thought, a devastating, suffocating grief.
— • • • —
"Jae-min," Alessia murmured, shifting the painkillers in her hand, her voice settling into something more serious. "I wanted to thank you. For the other morning. When you had that… episode. You scared me, but you also woke me up. I was so exhausted I almost collapsed on the way to my car."
"You don't have to thank me for that," Jae-min said, shaking his head slightly, genuine. "I should be the one apologizing. I scared you."
"You did scare me," Alessia declared, her voice firming, not harsh, but grounded. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost."
She tilted her head. Those piercing blue eyes searching his face, a clinical, assessing gaze. "Are you feeling better?" Alessia said, quiet concern.
"Better," Jae-min declared, and he meant it, or tried to. "Getting there."
"Good," Alessia declared, a pause. "Are you sure? You look a little pale. And you're sweating. It's freezing in here."
"I run hot," Jae-min rasped, a faint attempt at lightness.
Alessia studied him for a moment longer. Then she looked at Ji-yoo, a quiet, weighted exchange.
"Take care of your brother, Ji-yoo," Alessia whispered, a gentle instruction.
"I always do," Ji-yoo whispered, her voice softer, the teasing dropping. "He's just bad at taking care of himself. Always has been."
"I heard that," Jae-min said, glancing at her with a raised eyebrow, mild reproach.
"You were meant to," Ji-yoo snapped, a grin in her voice.
Alessia tucked a strand of indigo hair behind her ear, a quiet, self-conscious gesture.
"I should get going. Long shift tomorrow," Alessia said, gathering her bag, quiet regret.
"Wait," Jae-min said, the word escaping before he could stop it. Sharp. Almost desperate.
Alessia paused. Looked at him. Those blue eyes waiting, a quiet, attentive stillness.
"Yes?" Alessia said, turning back.
Jae-min opened his mouth. Closed it, a rigid, suffocating paralysis.
"Tell her. Tell her to stock up on food. Tell her to buy blankets. Tell her the world is ending. Tell her that in twenty-one days neighbors will tear her apart and eat her alive while I hold her broken hand and watch the light leave her eyes," Jae-min thought, a desperate, crushing urge warring against reason.
"But I can't. Not here. Not now. If I tell her, she'll think I'm crazy. Just like Mom and Dad. Just like everyone else," Jae-min thought, a bitter, grinding restraint.
"Please be careful," Jae-min said, the words coming out quieter than he intended, rough with concern he couldn't hide. "The streets are getting rough at night. I don't want anything happening to you."
Alessia blinked. Surprised by the warning, and by the raw earnestness behind it, a quiet, thoughtful attention. Something flickered in her blue eyes. Not suspicion. A quiet, deliberate filing-away.
"Thank you, Jae-min. I will," Alessia said, a small smile, warm, but curious.
She turned to Ji-yoo. Squeezed her shoulder, a gentle, affectionate farewell.
"It's good to have you back, Ji-yoo," Alessia whispered, squeezing her shoulder.
"It's good to be back," Ji-yoo whispered, and then, dropping her voice to a stage whisper, "I'll come by your unit later this week, okay? We need to catch up. Properly."
Alessia smiled. Nodded. Walked away, a quiet, measured departure.
Jae-min watched her go. The sway of her indigo hair. The curve of her shoulders. The rhythm of her steps, measured, confident, alive. A raw, aching fixation.
Ji-yoo stepped up beside him. Elbowed him hard in the ribs, sharp, deliberate, painful.
"'Please be careful. I don't want anything happening to you.' That's what you've got? That was the most pathetic thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth, and I once watched you try to flirt with a barista by ordering black coffee and staring at her for forty-five seconds," Ji-yoo stated, mimicking his voice, low, flat, deadpan.
"I wasn't flirting," Jae-min said, stiff.
"You ordered five black coffees," Ji-yoo snapped, the accusation dripping with glee.
"I was tired," Jae-min whispered, weak.
"You went back the next day," Ji-yoo snapped, and then, quieter, almost to herself, "She's pretty, oppa. Really pretty. Don't mess this up."
"Let's go," Jae-min rasped, turning toward the exit, but his ears had gone warm at her words.
"Oppa, you're so obvious it hurts," Ji-yoo snapped, falling into step beside him, her arm relooping through his. "She's perfect for you. Pretty. Smart. Patient. She puts up with your weird stoic thing. God knows she's the only one who can."
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min whispered, a warning, but his voice had softened despite himself.
"I'm just saying," Ji-yoo snapped, grinning, but the grin was softer than usual. Less predatory. Almost gentle. "When the world doesn't end, I'm locking you two in a room until you figure it out."
"There is no room," Jae-min said, desperate.
"There's my room," Ji-yoo said, smirking.
"I will put you in the void," Jae-min said, the second time more desperate than threatening.
"You won't," Ji-yoo snapped, squeezing his arm, confident, warm, certain. "You love me too much."
Jae-min didn't answer. He just turned and walked toward the exit, his jaw tight, his eyes forward. But his ears were still warm, a stubborn, unadmitted softening.
— • • • —
But as he passed the large glass windows at the front of the store, he stopped. 37°C outside. The sun hammering the asphalt.
Outside. Across the street. A black SUV. Tinted windows. Engine running.
And sitting on a bench across from it, pretending to read a newspaper, was a man in a gray jacket.
He wasn't reading. The newspaper was held at the wrong angle, too high, too stiff, like a prop. His eyes were fixed directly on the supermarket entrance. On Jae-min.
Jae-min's blood turned to ice. Not the phantom cold of his memories. Real cold. The cold of recognition. The cold of being hunted, a paralyzing, predator-aware dread.
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min seethed, his voice dropping, low, controlled.
"Yeah?" Ji-yoo said, her voice shifting instantly, the teasing gone, replaced by the sharp, alert edge of a fighter. Her body shifted subtly, weight dropping to her back foot, center of gravity settling.
"Don't look. But there's a man outside. Gray jacket. Newspaper. Across the street," Jae-min said, his voice barely above a murmur.
Ji-yoo didn't turn her head. Didn't flinch. Her grip on his arm tightened, just slightly. The only tell, a controlled, combat-ready stillness.
"I see him," Ji-yoo snapped, her voice calm. Too calm.
"He wasn't there when we walked in," Jae-min said, his jaw tight.
"I know," Ji-yoo snapped, her grip turning iron.
They stood in the frozen food aisle. Surrounded by ice cream and frozen pizzas. Artificial cold blowing on their faces from the open freezer cases.
"Who is he?" Ji-yoo said, whispering.
"I don't know," Jae-min breathed, and for the first time in this life, that answer terrified him.
"Is he one of Kiara's people?" Ji-yoo said, a flicker of contempt, not fear.
"No. Kiara's people are amateurs. This guy is different," Jae-min declared, his eyes locked on the man through the glass. "Professionals don't hold newspapers wrong."
Jae-min stared at the man. The man didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched, his eyes steady, patient, unhurried.
Then, slowly, the man lowered the newspaper. And smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile. It wasn't even a human smile. It was the smile of a predator who knew its prey was cornered and was savoring the knowledge, slow, deliberate, and utterly devoid of warmth, a cold, deliberate mockery.
The man folded the newspaper. Stood up. Walked away. Disappeared into the crowd without looking back.
Jae-min's hand trembled. Not from fear. From rage, a cold, savage fury coiling in his chest.
"He smiled because he wanted me to see him. He wanted me to know. Someone is hunting me. And they're getting closer," Jae-min thought, a cold, predatory awareness.
He turned from the window. His face was calm. His eyes were not, a rigid, controlled fury beneath the stillness.
"We're done here. Let's go," Jae-min declared, flat.
Ji-yoo matched his pace without a word. Her hand found his arm. Her fingers dug in. Not fear. Fury, a fierce, lethal solidarity.
They walked out of the supermarket. Into the heat. Into the light. Into a city that didn't know it had twenty-one days left.