Ha-eun was at the building entrance when he got home.
She was supposed to be at school. She was in her uniform, backpack on, but she was standing at the bottom of the steps with her arms crossed and an expression that she had definitely inherited from their mother, the one that meant I have been worried and I am converting that worry into something more manageable, like anger.
"You didn't call," she said.
"My phone broke in the Gate."
"You could have called from the hospital."
"I didn't want you to worry."
"I'm worried anyway." She looked at him, the yellow bruising, the way he was holding his left side slightly. Her expression shifted into something she was trying to keep off her face. "How bad?"
"Cracked ribs. Nothing permanent."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she stepped forward and hugged him, carefully, her arms around his shoulders rather than his chin and she smelled like the cheap shampoo they both used.
Joon-ha stood very still and let her.
"Taeyang-oppa came by yesterday," she said into his shoulder. "He looked really scared."
"I'll call him."
"He left foos in the fridge. Three containers. He said you probably hadn't eaten properly in days." She pulled back and looked up at him. "Had you?"
"No."
"Come inside."
She went up the steps. Joon-ha followed. He did not look back at the street behind him, but he felt the three-paced footsteps stop at the building entrance, waiting, patient, like a soldier posted at a gate.
"...."
It seemed to understand that this space was not for it.
For now.
--
He called Taeyang that evening.
His best friend picked up on the first ting, which meant he had been staring at his phone.
"YA. SHIN JOON-HA."
Taeyang's voice came through loud enough that Joon-ha had to hold the phone away from his ear.
"Do you know how many times I called the Association? They wouldn't tell me anything! They just kept saying incident under investigation like you weren't—" A breath. "Are you okay?"
"Cracked ribs."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
A long pause.
Joon-ha could hear Taeyang processing this—the particular silence of someone who had prepared for worse news and didn't quite know what to do with the relief.
"Six people died, Jo," he said finally. Quiet now. "The news is calling it a Gate malfunction. Association put out a statement this morning."
"I know."
"You were the only who came out."
"I know."
Another pause.
"How?" Taeyang asked. Not suspicious. Just... genuinely asking. The way a friend asks. How did you survive when no one else did?
Joon-ha looked at the wall across from his bed. In the corner of the room just visible at the edge of his peripheral vision, the faint luminescence of the figure was present again. Still. Watching.
"I ran," Joon-ha said. "I was in the back of the formation when it reclassified. I just ran and didn't stop."
Silence.
Then Taeyang said, "Okay," and Joon-ha understand that his friend didn't entirely believe him and was choosing not to push, and loved him for it.
"Come over tomoe," Taeyang said. "I'll make actual food, not just the containers I left. You sound like you need it."
"Okay."
"And Jo." A beat. "I'm glad you're not dead."
"Yead. Me too."
Click
He hung up and lay back on his mattress and looked at the ceiling.
[Daily quest issued.]
Joon-ha closed his eyes.
[HOST. Daily quest has been issued.]
"I have cracked ribs."
[The system is aware. The quest accounts for this.]
He opened one eye.
--
[DAILY QUEST: FIRST STEPS]
Objective: Complete 100 push-ups. 100 sit-ups. 2km run.
Time limit: 24 hours.
Reward: +2 STR, +1 VIT
Failure penalty: Penalty Stage
[Note: Penalty Stage will be significantly less comfortable than cracked ribs.]
--
Joon-ha stared at the quest window for a very long time.
One hundred push-ups. With te cracked ribs. Two kilometers of running on legs that had given out twice in the last forty-eight hours.
He sat up.
The figure in the corner titled its head, almost imperceptibly. Watching.
Joon-ha looked at it. Then at the quest window. Then at the floor.
Don't slow us down, Park Hyun-soo had said, six days and a lifetime ago.
He got down on the floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
"Ngh—"
He kept counting. His arms shook on the fourth pus-up.
He stopped. Breathed. His ribs screamed at him like they had opinions about this. He ignored them and went back down.
Five. Six.
Crack
Not a bone. Just the apartment floor settling. Still, his whole body flinched and he bit down on a sound that was not going to come out. Not with Ha-eun in the next room.
Pathetic... doing push-ups at eleven at night with cracked ribs. If someone saw me now, they'd think I've gone crazy.
Seven. Eight.
Sweat dropped from his forehead onto the floor. The apartment was cold, the heater had been making a sound for two wreks6that meant it was dying, and he hadn't had the money to get it looked at.
He was doing push-ups at eleven at night on a cold floor with two cracked ribs like a person with absolutely nothing to lose.
Accurate.
Nine. Ten.
Ti-ring!
[Current count: 10/100]
[Time remaining: 22 hours, 47 minutes]
[You're doing fine. Relatively speaking.]
"Nobody asked."
[The system is only stating facts.]
"That wasn't encouragement."
[The system is a difference between encouragement and accurate data. You already learned this in the hospital. Continue.]
He almost smiled despite the pain.
Eleven. Twelve.
The f*ck...
He finished the push-ups at midnight.
Not at all once. He broke them into sets of ten with breaks in between that he refused to call breaks out loud. He called them strategic pauses. The system did not comment on this, which he appreciated.
The sit-ups were worse.
Every crunch pulled at his wrapped ribs in a way that made his vision go white at the edges. He did them anyway.
Slower. Gritting his teeth on the ones that really bit.
Eight-eight. Eighty-nine.
Just ten more... Just ten more and I'm done.
Ninety. Ninety-one.
The figure was in in the corner again. It had been there since started—standing the way it always stood, still and patient, like a soldier waiting for orders that hadn't come yet.
Every time Joon-ha looked up from the floor it was just there. Watching.
He had stopped finding it unsettling somewhere around push-up forty.
Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.
He stopped.
Looked at the ceiling.
One more.
One...hundred.
He dropped flat on the floor and stayed there. The cold seeped through his shirt. He didn't care. His whole body was one large complaint and he was not listening to any of it.
[Sit-ups: Complete.]
[Remaining: 2km run.]
[Tommorow is acceptable. The system is not unreasonable.]
"Tommorow," he agreed.
He peeled himself off the floor, drank half a glass of water in the kitchen, and went to bed.
He was asleep in approximately four seconds.
--
The next morning, his phone vibrated off the nightstand.
Tti-ring!
Thump
Joon-ha opened one eye.
The room was gray with early morning light. His whole body ached in the specific way that meant yesterday had been real and not a bad dream.
He reached down and picked up the phone from the floor.
Three missed calls from the Association's district office.
He stared at the screen for a moment.
[Do not answer.]
"Good morning to you too..."
[Answer will lead to additional questioning. The in investigation has escalated. They will send personnel if you pick up.]
Joon-ha flipped the phone face-down.
In the kitchen he could hear Ha-eun moving around, the sound of the kettle, a cabinet opening, the small domestic noise of someone making breakfast before school. Normal sounds.
The kind of sounds that meant the world outside his apartment was still running the wat it was supposed to.
He got up and went to the kitchen doorway.
Ha-eun was at the stove in her school uniform, Making egg rice. She had her earphones in, head moving slightly to whatever she was listening to. She hadn't noticed him yet.
Joon-ha watched her for a second.
I need to get stronger.
The thought came quietly, without any grand emotion.
Not because of the system or the figure in the corner or the Grade 0 Gate. Because of this...a fourteen year old making breakfast alone before school because her brother had cracked ribs and her mother was in a hospital across the city.
A lot stronger. Fast.
Ha-eun turned and saw him. She pulled one earphone out.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Thank you."
"Sit down. I made enough for two."
He sat down.
--
The 2km run happened at 7:15 am, right after Ha-eun left for school.
Joon-ha changed into the least destroyed pair of athletic clothes he owned, which was a low bar, and went downstairs. Outside the building the morning air hit him like a damp cloth to the face.
"Hah."
He stretched. His ribs registered their ongoing objections. He noted them and started running anyway.