Later Never Comes | Lee Eun-Hyuk|

The Land Of The Living

"We're not leaving him like this." Ae-Cha said, immediately walking over and kneeling down to the possibly dead Hyun-Su. She linked her arm with his and tried to pull him into the lobby, but she wasn't strong enough.

"Ae-Cha–"

"No. I'm not leaving him." She looked at Eun-Hyuk, tears were filling her eyes as she tried to pull him again. Eun-Hyuk grabbed her shoulders.

"I wasn't going to tell you to stop. I was going to suggest we get people to help carry him." He said. Ae-Cha was shaking, she felt guilty about leaving him before and she wasn't going to do it again. She slowly nodded and waited as he left to explain to the others what had happened.

Soon enough, Byeong-Il and a few other guys, including Eun-Hyuk, had come to help carry him. One of them tried to move Ae-Cha away from him, grabbing her wrist.

"Let us take it from here." He said before feeling her snatch her wrist back. "Don't." She snapped before going back to holding Hyun-Su, helping the men carry him into the quarantine room.

Eun-Hyuk, Eun-Yu and Ae-Cha all stayed in the room with the unconscious Hyun-Su. Ae-Cha had faith that he was somehow still alive, Eun-Yu was expecting him to be dead, and Eun-Hyuk needed to be there in case Hyun-Su ended up being a monster.

"What was that earlier, Ae-Cha?" He asked.

"What was what?" She said, still looking at Hyun-Su.

"Don't." He said, imitating her from earlier. "Why were you so annoyed? Do you know him?" He asked.

"Would it bother you if I did?" She snapped, turning to look at him.

Before either of them could say anything else, they heard yelling from outside. It sounded like a couple people were calling out for Hyun-Su, but neither of them could be sure.

"Eun-Yu. Stay with him, we'll be back." Eun-Hyuk said, leaving the room with Ae-Cha.

Once they left the room, they saw two people come in from the stairs. One was a girl with pink streaks in her hair, tied up in a semi-messy bun wielding a baseball bat. And the other was a more well dressed man in glasses who wielded a traditional Korean sword. Both of them had blood stains in their clothes, and they were both looking for Hyun-Su.

"You know, Hyun-Su?" Ae-Cha asked, approaching them. The girl nodded. "Yes, he fell, is he okay?" She asked.

"He fell down several flights of stairs and cracked his skull open, is there any reason he could be okay?" Eun-Hyuk asked, keeping his distance.

The girl opened her mouth to say something but hesitated, she looked between Eun-Hyuk and Ae-Cha. Almost like she was trying to silently ask Ae-Cha if he could be trusted with information about Hyun-Su.

"We need to know." She said softly, the girl nodded in understanding.

"He's turning. He's been showing symptoms since we met him. And at one point, he had black eyes, like the monster had taken over him for a while." She explained before being cut off by Ae-Cha.

"A while? You mean he's not always a monster? People can fight against it?" She said, hopeful.

"I think so, he's fought it off well. He saved two kids' lives because of it." She explained, causing Ae-Cha to smile. "He saved kids?" She said, her comment made the girl smile.

"So, who are you? His girlfriend?" She asked. Ae-Cha's eyes widened and her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

"What? Oh, no, definitely not! We're just friends. I'm just happy to know he's alive. He must be healing thanks to that 'golden time' thing." She muttered. "So what do we do? Just leave him there until he wakes up?" The girl questioned.