Big Snow

by Lash

After the "Big Snow," humanity was severed into two factions: the Infected and the Immune. The infected suffered from a relentless symptom—a periodic, desperate craving for physical contact with the immune. In this brutal new world, they were doomed to be the absolute weak. Dyspnea, high fevers, and rashes shaped like crimson blossoms—this was the curse laid upon half of mankind. That the rash masked the excruciating agony of the sick, dressing it in sheer beauty, was the disease’s ultimate, cruelest deception. *** He held 3309 and pulled the blanket around them both. 3309 squirmed against his chest in his sleep. Jato jerked, throwing both arms up. He'd braced for his throat to be bitten this time—instead, a warm cheek settled against his chest. The smell of the crown of 3309's head brushed his nose. He wrapped his arms around 3309 clumsily, like a man who'd never embraced anyone before. Whether from the cold or from sleep, 3309's body was warm and pliant. And small. Like holding a young lamb. Jato bit the inside of his lip. He couldn't figure out why he got hard. *** "With you around, I don't think I'll lose my way." If they'd met in a world where nightfall meant no flight, could Haewan have confessed this feeling for K beneath the starlight? Love, and everything like it, had gone extinct when the world did. A handful of other emotions counted as luxuries now, too. The world had become a sinking ship, dragging all its dregs—humans included—down with it. On a sinking ship, you threw out whatever you didn't need. This pointlessly heavy emotion was nothing but ballast in a drowning world. No—worse than ballast. A harmful thing that wounded him. And still Haewan couldn't bring himself to throw it overboard. Stubbornly, he wanted only to carry it with him.

Officially licensed English translation