The snowmobile pulled up to Shore Residence 3 for the second time that day, and Jae-min killed the engine.
The cold was worse now. The sun had given up entirely, and the frozen darkness of the Makati skyline pressed in from every direction. The temperature gauge read minus sixty-nine. Dropping. The permanent seventy was reasserting itself.
He pulled off his balaclava and headed inside.
...
The hallway on the fourteenth floor was dim and quiet. The same emergency lighting. The same hum of the generator behind the walls.
Jae-min opened the door of Unit 1418.
Uncle was sitting at the small dining table in the kitchen nook, his compact frame hunched over a cup of instant coffee. His silver-white hair caught the dim light, and his weathered face looked older than it had this morning.
Yue was sitting on the floor against the far wall of the living room. Her long black hair was loose, falling in a dark curtain over her shoulders, and her sword lay across her lap. Her sharp, cool features were unreadable, but her dark eyes tracked Jae-min the moment he walked through the door.
Jennifer was beside her, cross-legged, her long ice-blue hair pulled back in a loose braid. Her icy blue eyes were closed, her fingers pressed to her temples. The mental link hummed at the back of Jae-min's mind.
"They made it?" Uncle asked. "Alessia and Ji-yoo?"
"They're at the mansion. Warm. Ji-yoo is resting. Alessia is..." He paused. "Adjusting."
Uncle nodded. He did not ask what that meant.
"What's the plan?" Uncle asked instead.
"Two trips. Snowmobile holds two passengers. I take Yue and Jennifer first, come back for you."
"Me last?"
"Someone needs to keep the generator running until everyone is out."
Uncle's mouth twitched. "Flattery."
"Logistics."
"It's the same thing in the army." Uncle drained his coffee and stood up.
"Pack light," Jae-min said. "Warm clothes, essentials only."
Yue was already moving. She rose from the floor in one smooth motion, sheathing her sword across her back, and headed to the second guest room.
Jennifer opened her eyes. The mental link pulsed once and she stood up.
"I felt them arrive," Jennifer said quietly. "Alessia's emotional state is..." She tilted her head. "Complicated."
"Should I ask?"
"No."
She headed to the guest room to pack.
Jae-min grabbed a duffel bag and filled it with the last of the canned goods, medical supplies, and wool blankets.
When he walked back, Yue and Jennifer were ready.
Uncle was standing by the door.
"See you in an hour," Jae-min said.
"I'll be here."
Jae-min clapped him on the shoulder and stepped out.
...
Fourteen flights of stairs in the dark.
Jae-min went first, flashlight in hand. Yue moved behind him with silent precision. Jennifer followed.
They reached the ground floor and pushed through the emergency exit into the frozen night.
The cold hit like a wall. Minus sixty-nine and dropping.
The snowmobile was where he had left it.
"Jennifer — behind me. Yue — cargo seat," Jae-min said.
Jennifer climbed on behind Jae-min and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her grip was efficient, practical — the hold of someone who understood that a snowmobile at speed was not a place for casual contact.
Yue unclipped the cargo harness and settled into the modified seat. She strapped herself in, her sword across her back, her long black hair tucked under her collar to keep it from whipping in the wind.
"Ready," Jennifer said.
Jae-min started the engine. The snowmobile lurched forward, cutting through the frozen streets of Pasay, heading east toward Makati.
The headlight carved a narrow tunnel of visibility through the darkness. The world beyond it was absolute black.
...
They were ten minutes into the trip when Jennifer spoke.
"Stop."
The word cut through the engine noise. Jae-min's hand moved to the throttle, and the snowmobile slowed to a halt in the middle of an empty intersection.
"What is it?" he asked.
Jennifer's eyes were closed. Her fingers were pressed to her temples.
"Someone is here," she said. Her voice had changed — tighter, more focused. "It's faint. Very faint. Like a heartbeat that's skipping." She opened her icy blue eyes. "It's an Enhanced."
Jae-min went still.
"Where?"
"Northeast. Maybe two hundred meters. Apartment building. Fifth floor. The signal is weak. They're weak."
"Dying?" Yue's voice came from the cargo seat behind them.
"Maybe. The signal keeps fading in and out."
Jae-min revved the engine and turned northeast.
...
The apartment building was a mid-rise — maybe eight stories, concrete and glass. The front entrance was buried under two meters of snow. The lobby was dark.
But the building was standing.
Jae-min killed the engine. The cold rushed in.
"Stay with the snowmobile," he said.
Both women dismounted.
"I need to stay close to the signal," Jennifer said. "I'll lose it if I get too far."
The three of them dug through the snow at the entrance and found the stairwell.
Fifth floor. Unit 5C.
Jennifer stopped at the door.
"Here," she said.
Yue drove her sword pommel into the lock. It shattered. The door swung inward.
The apartment was dark.
Jae-min's flashlight swept across the interior. Small unit — one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchenette and a living area.
The beam moved across the living room.
And stopped.
Three flashlights converged on the same point.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
"What the—"
Yue's voice was the first to break the silence. It came out flat, dead, the voice of a woman who had seen combat, survived the Freeze, fought Enhanced monstrosities, and was now standing in a doorway looking at something that her brain could not process.
Jennifer said nothing. Her mouth was open. The mental link at the back of Jae-min's mind flickered — a sharp spike of disbelief that cut through the usual hum like a knife.
Jae-min lowered his flashlight. Raised it again. The image did not change.
The apartment was a hoard.
No — hoard was too generous a word. This was a shrine. A temple. A fortified bunker dedicated to the single most obsessive anime collection any of them had ever seen, crammed into a one-bedroom apartment in the middle of the apocalypse.
Shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling, crammed with figurines — rows and rows of them in glass display cases and open racks, organized by series, by character, by release date. Sailor Moon. One Piece. Attack on Titan. Demon Slayer. Chainsaw Man. Jujutsu Kaisen. Racks of manga volumes filled what should have been a bookshelf, each one perfectly aligned. Trading cards in protective sleeves pinned to the walls in neat grids between the posters.
A gaming setup in the corner — high-end PC, multiple monitors, all dead. Collectible figurines in display cases.
And in the middle of it all, on the floor, surrounded by empty ramen cups and candy wrappers and manga volumes stacked in towers that reached waist height, was a young man.
He was thin — starvation had stripped him down, his round face hollowed at the cheeks, his brown hair greasy and unwashed, falling across his forehead in messy strands. He wore a t-shirt with a faded anime print and sweatpants hanging off his hips. His glasses were askew on his face, one lens cracked. He looked like he had been a soft, chubby kid a few weeks ago — and he had been. But the world had taken that from him.
He was not cold.
That was the first abnormal thing. The second abnormal thing was that he was hugging a life-size Sailor Moon doll.
It was one of those high-end figures — silicon and PVC, detailed features, realistic fabric clothing. The doll was blonde and cheerful in its iconic sailor suit, its permanent smile beaming at the frozen world.
The young man's arms were locked around the doll's waist. His face was pressed against its stomach. His body was curled around it like a child clinging to a stuffed animal.
The silence stretched for a very long time.
Jae-min looked at Yue. Yue looked at Jennifer. Jennifer looked at Jae-min.
The Sailor Moon doll looked at all of them with its eternal, radiant optimism.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't see this," Yue said.
"I wish I could pretend," Jennifer said.
The apartment was a museum of otaku culture. Posters covered every wall. Bookshelves packed with manga volumes by series. Empty ramen cups everywhere. And a Sailor Moon body pillow taped to the ceiling directly above the unconscious man's head.
Taped to the ceiling.
With duct tape.
Jae-min stared at it.
He stared at it for a very long time.
"That's on the ceiling," he said.
"Yes," Jennifer said.
"That's a body pillow."
"Yes."
"On the ceiling."
"Jae-min."
"Taped with duct tape."
"Focus."
He focused.
The man had been living in here, surrounded by his collection, while the world died outside.
Jae-min crouched beside him. Pressed two fingers to his neck.
A pulse. Faint. Thready. But there.
"He's alive," Jae-min said. "Starvation. He hasn't eaten in days."
"He's not cold," Jennifer said. "No hypothermia. No frostbite. At minus seventy. In an unheated apartment. His ability has to be temperature-related."
"A cold-resistant Enhanced dying of starvation," Jae-min said.
"The universe has a sense of humor," Jennifer said.
He pressed a protein bar against the man's lips. No response.
"Unconscious. We need to get him to the mansion."
Yue was standing near the doorway with her arms crossed, deliberately looking at the manga shelf instead of the doll.
"Please tell me we're not bringing the doll," she said.
"He won't let go."
"Then make him let go."
"His grip is locked. His hands have frozen in that position. If I force it, I might break his fingers."
Yue stared at him.
"So we're bringing the doll," she said.
"We're bringing the doll."
"This is the worst day of my life."
"You fought the Archbishop two days ago."
"This is still the worst day of my life."
...
Getting the young man down five flights of stairs while he clutched a life-size anime doll was exactly as dignified as it sounds.
Jae-min carried him over his shoulder. The doll bounced against his hip with every step, its blonde hair swaying, its smile somehow growing more cheerful with each bounce.
They reached the snowmobile.
"Okay," Jae-min said. "New plan. He goes in the cargo seat."
He positioned the unconscious young man in the cargo seat and clipped the harness. The Sailor Moon doll came along, wedged between the man's chest and the harness straps, its permanent grin aimed directly at the front of the snowmobile.
Where everyone would be sitting.
"Jennifer — behind me," Jae-min said.
Jennifer climbed on and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Jae-min turned to Yue. She was standing beside the snowmobile, her arms crossed, her long black hair blowing gently in the freezing wind.
"Yue. Front seat. Facing me."
Yue looked at the front seat. Then at Jae-min. Then at the Sailor Moon doll, whose smile seemed to be directed specifically at her.
"You want me to sit on you," she said flatly.
"Sit on the seat. Face backward. Hold on."
"For twenty minutes?"
"The road is rough. You need to hold on to something."
Yue stared at him. Her expression was its usual mask of cool composure, but something flickered underneath it — something that looked almost like reluctance. As if sitting face-to-face with Jae-min on a snowmobile was not something she had mentally prepared for.
She climbed on.
The seat was narrow. Barely enough room for one person, let alone two facing each other. Yue straddled the seat backward, her knees bracketing Jae-min's hips, her long black hair falling over her shoulders. She was close — very close. Close enough that he could see the faint color in her pale cheeks.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself flush against him.
"This is uncomfortable," she said.
"Twenty minutes."
"This is very uncomfortable."
"Hold on tight."
"I am holding on tight."
"Hold on tighter."
Their eyes met. Yue's dark eyes were wide. The tips of her ears were pink.
Jae-min could feel the heat rising in his own face.
He started the engine.
...
The road between Pasay and Forbes Park was a minefield of snowdrifts and frozen debris. The snowmobile bucked and lurched with every meter, its tracks fighting through terrain that wanted to kill them.
The first bump caught them off guard.
A small ridge of compacted ice that the tracks hit at an angle. The snowmobile tilted left, then right, and the physics of two bodies pressed face-to-face on a narrow seat did what physics always does.
Yue's face slammed into Jae-min's.
Their lips met.
It was brief — half a second, maybe less. A flash of contact, soft and warm and completely accidental. Yue's eyes went wide. Jae-min's eyes went wide. The next jolt separated them, pulling their faces apart by maybe three inches.
They stared at each other.
Yue's face was red. Not pink — red. The blush had spread from her ears to her cheeks to the bridge of her nose, turning her pale complexion into a canvas of mortification. Her dark eyes were huge, her lips slightly parted, and for one devastating moment she looked less like a deadly swordswoman and more like a flustered teenager.
Jae-min's face was no better. He could feel the heat radiating from his own skin, could feel the blush crawling up his neck.
"Sorry," Yue said. Her voice cracked.
"Road's bumpy," Jae-min said.
His voice came out approximately two octaves higher than normal.
They did not discuss it further.
The snowmobile rumbled on.
...
The second time was worse.
They had maybe five minutes of relatively smooth road. Jae-min was beginning to think they might make it to Forbes Park without further incident.
Then they hit the crater.
A collapsed section of road where the ice had buckled. The impact was violent. The machine nose-dived, the suspension bottomed out, and the bounce launched both of them upward. They came back down together. Yue's momentum carried her forward, her arms tightening around his neck as a reflex, and her face collided with his again.
This time, the contact lasted longer.
One second. Two. Their lips were pressed together, soft and warm, and neither of them pulled away. Not because they chose not to. Because the road, for one brief moment, was smooth.
Jae-min could feel her breath against his skin. Could feel the slight parting of her lips. Could feel the racing of her pulse through her fingertips where they gripped the back of his neck.
The next bump snapped them apart.
Yue's face was crimson. Her dark eyes were shining with something raw and exposed that she was desperately trying to hide. Her mask was failing. Catastrophically.
"That was —" she started.
"Bumpy road," Jae-min said quickly.
His voice was still too high.
"Right. Bumpy. Road."
"Very bumpy."
"Extremely."
They stared at each other. The Sailor Moon doll in the cargo seat grinned at them both with relentless cheerfulness.
Behind Jae-min, Jennifer was very, very quiet.
...
The third time was not an accident.
They were on the final stretch — the approach to Forbes Park, where the roads were wider and the snow was shallower. The ride had smoothed out. The bumps were smaller. The snowmobile was gliding.
Yue's arms were still around his neck. Her face was still close — closer than it needed to be, closer than any sensible person would maintain. The blush had faded slightly from her cheeks, but her ears were still pink, and her breathing was not quite steady.
Jae-min was not doing any better. His heart was hammering. His hands on the handlebars were trembling — not from the cold, not from exhaustion, but from the overwhelming awareness of how close she was. How warm she was. How good she smelled, even through layers of winter clothing.
The snowmobile crested a small rise in the road.
And dropped.
A tiny dip — barely a meter. The kind of undulation that a car would absorb without noticing. But on a snowmobile, with two people pressed face-to-face, the physics were different. The drop shifted Jae-min's weight backward. Yue's weight shifted forward. Her body rolled toward him. His head tilted up.
Their mouths met.
This time, neither of them pulled away.
The kiss was soft. Slow. Not a collision, not an accident, but something that happened because neither of them stopped it. Yue's lips moved against his, tentative at first, then less tentative. Her fingers curled into the hair at the back of his neck. His hand left the handlebar, rising to touch her jaw, his thumb brushing the curve of her cheek.
She was warm. So warm. Her lips were soft and her breath was sweet and her body was pressed against his in a way that made the cold and the darkness and the frozen apocalypse seem very, very far away.
The snowmobile cruised over a smooth patch of road.
The kiss lasted four seconds. Maybe five. Long enough for Jae-min to feel the exact moment when Yue stopped thinking and started feeling — when the tension in her shoulders dissolved, when her fingers stopped clenching and started caressing, when a small, involuntary sound escaped from the back of her throat.
Then the front tracks hit a snowdrift.
The jolt snapped them apart. Yue pulled back as if she had been burned, her dark eyes wide, her face absolutely incandescent with blush. Her lips were slightly swollen. Her breathing was ragged.
Jae-min stared at her.
She stared back.
"That —" Yue started.
"Third time," Jae-min finished.
They looked at each other.
"The road is very bumpy," Yue said. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"The road is extremely bumpy," Jae-min agreed.
His voice cracked on "extremely."
Neither of them mentioned that the last stretch had been the smoothest section of the entire trip.
Behind them, Jennifer cleared her throat.
Very quietly.
Neither Jae-min nor Yue acknowledged her.
The Peacock mansion appeared out of the darkness. Jae-min pulled up to the gate, pressed his thumb to the lock, and the gate swung open.
He killed the engine.
Nobody moved.
Yue's arms were still around his neck. Her face was still inches from his. The blush had not faded.
"We should," Jae-min said.
"Yes."
"Inside."
"Right."
Neither of them moved.
Jennifer unclipped herself from behind and climbed off the snowmobile with the calm stride of someone who had just witnessed something very interesting.
She did not look back.
At the door, she paused.
"I'm going to tell Ji-yoo," she said.
"Jennifer—"
"Both of them. Ji-yoo and Alessia."
"That's not—"
"The lip-lock. All three of them." Jennifer turned her head just enough to show the edge of her smile. "Especially the third one."
She opened the front door and took one step inside.
Jae-min moved.
He was off the snowmobile and across the distance between them before Jennifer could take a second step. His hand caught her wrist — gently, not pulling, just stopping her. Jennifer turned.
And Jae-min kissed her.
It was not gentle.
His other hand came up to the side of her face, tilting her jaw toward his, and he pressed his mouth to hers with a force that knocked the air out of both of them. Jennifer's eyes flew wide — wide and shocked and for one instant completely, totally blindsided — and then they fluttered closed.
Her lips parted.
His tongue found hers.
It was not a peck. It was not a brush. It was a long, deep, deliberate kiss — the kind that left no room for misinterpretation. Jennifer's free hand grabbed the front of his jacket, twisting the fabric, pulling him closer rather than pushing him away. Her back hit the doorframe. The cold metal pressed into her shoulder blades. She didn't seem to notice.
The mental link exploded.
Warmth — sudden, overwhelming warmth — flooded through the connection like a tidal wave. Not just physical. Emotional. Jennifer's feelings, always so measured and controlled behind her empathic walls, came crashing through in a single, unguarded moment. Surprise. Heat. Want. A fierce, bright thing that burned through the link like sunlight through frosted glass.
The kiss lasted seven seconds.
Eight.
Nine.
When Jae-min finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard.
Jennifer's icy blue eyes were wide. Her lips were swollen. The braid of her ice-blue hair had come loose on one side, strands falling across her flushed face. She looked like she had been hit by a truck.
A very specific kind of truck.
Her fingers were still twisted in the front of his jacket.
Her chest was heaving.
"You—" she started.
Her voice was hoarse.
Broken.
Nothing like the calm, measured tone she always used.
"That was—"
"Insurance," Jae-min said.
His voice was steady.
His face was not.
"If you tell them about Yue, I tell them about this."
Jennifer stared at him.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
"You're blackmailing me," she said.
"I'm negotiating."
"With a kiss."
"A very good kiss."
Jennifer's face went through about six emotions in two seconds. Indignation. Shock. Something that looked like reluctant respect. A flicker of heat that she stomped on immediately. And finally — settling into her expression like sediment at the bottom of a river — amusement.
A slow, dangerous, knowing amusement.
"You're assuming I didn't enjoy that," she said quietly.
Jae-min's face burned hotter.
"That's not—"
"Because I did."
She smoothed the front of his jacket where her fingers had crumpled it. Slowly. Deliberately. Her icy blue eyes held his.
"I enjoyed that very much, Jae-min."
She let go.
Turned.
Walked inside without another word.
The door stayed open behind her.
Jae-min stood in the doorway, his face on fire, his lips still tingling, his brain short-circuiting for the second time in ten minutes.
Through the mental link, he felt Jennifer's presence settle back into its usual rhythm — calm, warm, steady.
But underneath it, like an undertow, there was something new.
Something that hummed with satisfaction.
And something that tasted, impossibly, like a promise.
...
Yue and Jae-min sat on the snowmobile in the frozen dark.
The Sailor Moon doll grinned at them from the cargo seat.
Neither of them spoke.
"I'm going to kill her," Yue said quietly.
"She'd see it coming," Jae-min said.
"Through the mental link."
"Through the mental link."
Yue finally let go of his neck. She climbed off with controlled, deliberate movements, her long black hair swaying. She did not look at him.
Her face was still red.
Jae-min unstrapped the unconscious young man from the cargo seat and lifted him over his shoulder. The Sailor Moon doll came along, still clutched in a death grip, its smile somehow even more insufferable.
They headed inside.
The warmth of the mansion hit them like a blessing. Jae-min carried the young man to the living room and set him down on the floor, the doll arranged beside him.
Hua appeared in the doorway, her crimson hair tied back in a practical knot, a dish towel in one hand. She looked at Jae-min. At the unconscious man. At the life-size Sailor Moon doll.
She looked at Jae-min again.
"I'm going to need an explanation," she said.
"You'll get one," Jae-min said. "After he eats."
"Rice porridge. Ten minutes."
She disappeared into the kitchen.
Jae-min turned to find Yue standing by the window on the far side of the room — as far from him as the room would allow. Her arms were crossed. Her back was to him. Her posture was military-perfect.
Her ears were still pink.
From the bedroom down the hall, he could hear Ji-yoo's voice — animated, delighted, clearly being told something very interesting by Jennifer — and Alessia's sharp, incredulous response.
The mental link hummed at the back of his mind, carrying with it a distinct sense of amusement that Jae-min did not appreciate.
He pulled on his balaclava.
"I'll be back for Uncle," he said.
Yue did not turn around.
He stepped out into the frozen dark and drove away, trying very hard not to think about the warmth of Yue's lips, the taste of Jennifer's mouth, and the very real possibility that he had just made everything significantly more complicated.
He failed.