bite me | markhyuck

24

— Chapter Twenty Four —

The morning was quiet. Neither Donghyuck nor Mark spoke much. Mark, who had done the guard for the second part of the night, seemed even more sleepy than Donghyuck so the younger took it upon himself to pack up and prepare for the leave as Mark continued to just sit and stare into nothingness. Donghyuck caught him catching glances into the direction of Akira's corpse once or twice but he felt that it was inappropriate to mention it so he just let Mark. The man must be grieving in a way that he, Donghyuck, had never experienced and so the young man didn't want to intervene even when the time came to leave.

As it turned out, Donghyuck didn't have to intervene. He had just softly cleared his throat and Mark was already up and standing, stretching a little before looking at Donghyuck.

"Let's check upstairs?"

Donghyuck nodded, finding a little hope somewhere in him but as it turned out that hope was useless. In the upper apartment they didn't find anything useful besides an unopened bottle of water, a sealed box of tissues and a baseball bat. Donghyuck took all those items and Mark pulled out his gun as they walked the stairs back down.

"Are we ready?", Mark asked and Donghyuck nodded, observing the way Mark's nose cutely scrunched up. The latter just hummed to himself before taking one of the bags from Donghyuck's hand. It was the one with the food and the map. In Donghyuck's other hand was just his phone, the guns and a bottle of water.

"Our next destination?"

"A hotel a few kilometres from here," Donghyuck told Mark, "It might have Wifi or other methods of communication so we will be hopefully able to contact my friends."

"And even if not, we still have somewhere to eat and sleep," Mark noted. Donghyuck agreed and the two walked towards the door. Mark took an investigating look outside before testing the waters by slightly pushing the door open.

The cool air hit the two men in the face. It was refreshing after the hot and stuffy air inside. A shiver ran down Donghyuck's spine as he stepped outside after Mark. It was still pretty dark, the sun's rising only being announced by a distant shimmer of purple and orange behind the towering buildings of Seoul.

In the distance a few growls and sounds of breaking glass could be heard, zombies were around but none of them were in sight. Donghyuck was glad. He had absolutely no energy nor the will to be running for his life right now.

The two men silently made their way over to the next block. Neither of them felt the need to speak, it was only when they heard another breaking sound much closer that Donghyuck opened his mouth.

"Do you think they are after us?" he asked, turning his head to Mark. The other man shook his head, pointing towards the grocery store that they had just exited a few minutes ago.

"I'm guessing they are getting Akira. I don't know what for though. Maybe they want to eat her."

That thought made Donghyuck feel disgusted. His guts, it felt like, were turning upside down in his body and he held back a choke of vomit.

"This will end. I promise," he told Mark who only nodded before turning away to throw up. Donghyuck ignored the stench, trying to softly rub Mark's neck, mumbling "Shh, it's alright."

After a minute or so, Mark was done. He wiped his mouth on a tissue Donghyuck gave him. The younger man turned Mark around so he wouldn't have to see his own vomit before doing his best to conceal Mark's accident by putting a near trash can in front. Ignoring the fact you could tell Mark had Pizza for dinner yesterday, Donghyuck moved the trash can so most of the vomit wasn't visible anymore. They didn't need an even clearer trail to leave for the zombies.