You're A Gift | Bang Chan |

EP 2: A warm cup of friendship

She suddenly heard someone talking, then groaning, then shouting. What is happening?, she thought to herself. She tried to move, but her body was not responding. Even her eyes weren't willing to open to see what was happening.

'Hey, can you hear me? Guys, I think she's alive!' The guy's voice was soft but concerned. She felt his breath on her skin as he was checking for her pulse.

'Then get her down from there Chan!' Another voice said. This one was a bit raspier.

'On it!'

She felt her body being moved and her heart started to beat faster. She was scared. What was happening to her? What if they are one of those that knock people out and feed them to the zombies, just to stay alive themselves? She tried to move her body again but nothing happened. She heard the guy that was carrying her whisper something under his breath. It sounded a lot like 'You'll be fine, just keep breathing, please don't die on me'

She was so tired that she couldn't do anything other than relaxing, and she fell asleep. The next thing she was aware of was that it was warm. Am I dead?, she thought to herself. She opened her eyes slowly, it was almost like they were glued shut. She slowly moved her toes and finger to see if she had any cold damage, and after finding out that there was none, she looked around her surroundings.

What she could make out with her blurry vision, she was in a tiny hut, with a campfire in the middle. She tried to raise her head so that she could see better, she saw someone sitting by her feet. It seemed that he was napping. Wait who's that? What happened? She sat up and the guy flinched and opened his eyes. He looked at her and smiled

'You're awake, wait, don't sit up so fast, you could get sick'

She looked at him confused.

'Who are you?'

'Oh, sorry, the name's Chan. Do you remember anything?'

She looked around thinking.

'The last thing I remember is that I was sitting in a tree surrounded by zombies. Did you save me?'

Chan looked down smiling and nodded.

'I couldn't just let someone die, you know?'

She nodded while looking down and then looked up at him. Their eyes met and she smiled.

'Thank you'

Chan broke the eye contact looking down and smiled.

'Hey, do you want something warm to drink? You're probably hungry too. Wait here, I'll get you something.'

He stood up quickly and walked to another room. Chan leaned into the counter trying to hide his smile and then looked up. He took a deep breath, nodded and started to pour some water into a boiler. When it was full, he looked out of the window. It was snowing pretty hard and it was starting to darken outside. Jisung and Changbin still weren't back. They were supposed to get some food and water and left this morning. He looked at the boiler and smiled again. Chan took a deep breath and walked back to the main room of the hut.

'You'll soon have some warm tea. I still haven't asked you for your name though.'

He looked at her and she was watching him while he talked.

'Alexandra, but you can call me Alex'

She smiled at him answering and noticed that Chan once again looked away. He nodded while watching the fire.

'So how did you end up in that tree? And how long did you stay there before we found you?'

She looked a bit surprised at him. She didn't even think about what had happened to her before he mentioned it. Then she started to tell him what had happened at the abandoned store and how she wouldn't have survived any longer when it was that cold. Chan just watched her and listened quietly, nodding as she explained. When she was done she sighed and Chan nodded again.

'It must have been hard for you to survive all alone, huh?'

She nodded and thought a little.

'Wait, you said 'we found you', there are more of you?'

Chan nodded smiling while putting a teabag into a cup and pouring the boiling water into it.

'We are 8 in our group. And since the area where we have our home base is starting to get stripped of supplies, we need to scatter from time to time to get some more supplies. There was one from the group that didn't want to leave the area because of personal reasons, so we still hang around.'

He nodded as if to confirm with himself that what he said was right. As Alex looked at him while he was speaking, she started to notice the fine features on his face. How his eyes squint as he smiles, when he talked about the group, and how when he smiles, dimples appear.

Suddenly the door slammed open and Alex jumped a bit up as she got startled. Two guys came in dragging snow inside with their boots.

'Guys we talked about this! Don't bring so much snow inside when you come in!'

Said Chan annoyed while looking at the two guys. They took off their fur hoods and let out a tired sigh while looking at each other.

'Yes, mother.'

Said both in unison and Alex laughed a bit. The two guys noticed her sitting there and smiled.

'You're awake, how are you feeling?'

Asked the friendly-looking one. Alex nodded smiling and thanked him for asking. Chan then introduced them as Changbin and Jisung. Changbin walked over to the fire and started to warm his hands, while Jisung was packing out water bottles out of his bag. Then he dragged out a few rabbits and hung them up in the kitchen.

'You guys hunt?'

'No, not really. We set traps and then check them once in a while to see if any unfortunate soul got trapped.'

Alex looked down thinking and nodded. People nowadays needed to do whatever they could to survive and you knew that. She then looked at Chan without herself noticing, and he was looking at her. Their eyes met once again, and she started to wonder why he was looking at her in that way. Some weird way that she couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling. Then she suddenly heard Changbin and Jisung whispering and snickering.

She looked at them and they cleared their throats acting as if nothing had happened, but they just couldn't hide their smiles completely. Then Jisung looked at the ceiling as if thinking.

'Wait, you have an Australian accent too? Chan, seriously, they just keep coming!'

Jisung complained and all three laughed at him. Then you noticed that Chan also has Aussie accent. She couldn't wrap her head around the reason why she didn't notice it earlier, but she smiled anyway while sipping her now lukewarm tea. No wonder she felt safe with him immediately after she woke up.