Even Zombies Have Fandoms

Chapter 13

“I’d rather fight zombies… it’s less stressful.”

While saying this and patting his chest, Muyoung discovered footprints dirtying the floor. The traces of someone rummaging through the entire house looked more like a murder scene than a peaceful home.

“Ah, I forgot about the shoes.”

It didn’t take long for him to realize they were his own footprints. He just noticed he hadn’t been wearing shoes all this time.

This was the problem with having no sense of touch. He couldn’t even remember when the shoes had disappeared from his hands. He probably put them down briefly when he had to use both hands to climb over the wall while tailing Seokjae, and then forgot about them.

“I’ll… borrow a few things,” Muyoung mumbled sheepishly. He had only intended to gather food and leave, but now he found himself in a situation where he needed to borrow shoes as well.

At this point, Muyoung had another thought.

“Should I wash up first?”

He didn’t want to touch the food Seokjae would eat with dirty hands. Muyoung entered the bathroom he had noted earlier.

In the mirror, he saw a beggar covered in blood and dirt. This was the result of running down the emergency stairs on all fours and rubbing his whole body against the walls. His hesitation about washing in someone else’s bathroom disappeared completely.

Muyoung scrubbed his entire body thoroughly and changed into the new clothes he had brought before he began rummaging through the kitchen, which was his original purpose.

In the refrigerator, he found a few bottles of water and chocolate bars. There were other side dishes, but they could spoil easily, and he couldn’t think of a way to give them to Seokjae without arousing suspicion, so he quickly gave up on those. In the cupboard, he found several packets of ramen, ham, and canned tuna.

He moved everything he could take onto the dining table. After taking everything out, it was quite a lot. He thought that raiding just one more house would be enough.

“But I don’t have space to put all of this.”

His bag was already more than half full with his own belongings, so he needed a new one.

Muyoung looked around and entered the room closest to the kitchen. Now he had no hesitation. He was already an excellent thief.

“I’ll borrow a bag too…”

It was the student’s room he had seen earlier. Clothes were strewn about on the bed, and a few workbooks were sticking out of a bag on the floor.

Muyoung quietly observed this peaceful scene and hoped that the owner of this room had evacuated safely. He emptied the bag, neatly placing the textbooks on the desk.

“Should I leave a note so they won’t be too shocked when they return?”

Since he was taking several items, he thought it might be good to leave a thank-you note, so he looked around for a pen and some scrap paper.

“Oh?”

Something caught Muyoung’s eye. It was an album and photos displayed on one shelf of the bookcase.

“Isn’t that Cheerful?”

Cheerful was a boy group that the major entertainment company JYM had ambitiously debuted three years ago. With their good looks and outstanding skills, they topped numerous music shows right after their debut and reached number one on the Elrom daily chart for 12 consecutive days, earning them the title of “monster rookies.”

Since then, they had grown steadily without major scandals, becoming so popular that even people uninterested in idols would recognize their songs.

Muyoung would have normally been one of those people who just recognized the songs. However, this group was different. He could proudly say he knew more about them than most people. This was because they were the favorite idol group of his college friend, Kim Gwanghun.

Of course, that wasn’t the reason Muyoung had taken an interest in them on his own.

When Gwanghun first mentioned them, Muyoung had no interest in the field and was planning to respond with something like, “Oh, so these are the idols you like? I think I’ve seen their faces before,” and move on. That is, if Gwanghun hadn’t started enthusiastically promoting them.

Looking back now, Muyoung wondered if his response had seemed like he had some interest in them. For reasons still unclear, from that day on, Gwanghun started lecturing Muyoung about Cheerful.

From their profiles to their charm points, even the chemistry between different member combinations. A vast amount of information was forcibly injected into his brain. If there had been other friends around, he might have tried to escape, but unfortunately, Gwanghun was the only fellow student who had returned from military service and resumed studies at the same time as him.

Of course, there were times when angelic juniors would reach out to him. They were kind enough to invite the uncomfortable returning student to meals, which must have been difficult for them.

But unlike Gwanghun, Muyoung had a sense of tact. It was clear they were just being polite because they felt bad seeing a returning student often alone, and he couldn’t just go along with it.

And Gwanghun wasn’t all bad as a friend. He always bought meals when Muyoung listened to him talk. Just sitting still and listening in exchange for free delicious food – it wasn’t a bad deal, even if his ears hurt a bit.

They say a temple dog can recite poetry after three years. Muyoung, being smarter than a dog, after just one year, came to remember even trivial information like the birthday, height, and alma mater of Gwanghun’s favorite member.

So it was natural for Muyoung to think of Gwanghun when he saw the album cover with five men smiling brightly.

“Kim Gwanghun, without me, there’d be no one to listen to him…”

Muyoung’s face was filled with genuine concern. His friend who tirelessly explained about his favorite idols to him every day was remarkable in many ways.

‘Our Songsong is pretty, kind, and takes good care of the members. He’s the most perfect hyung.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘And do you know how great of a singer our boy is? He looks like a visual member with no singing or dancing skills, but he’s good at both. Plus, he has a great body and is good at sports and cooking. He’s a jack of all trades.’

‘Mmm, sounds like an amazing person.’

As Muyoung reminisced about the past, he felt an inexplicable familiarity.

‘Right? And do you know how much he loves his fans? He comes to bubble almost every day, and at the last concert, he even sang a fan song he wrote himself!’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Ugh, but these days I wonder if the company is starving him. When I saw him on video call recently, he looked thinner. I’m worried sick that he might collapse. He’s already so delicate.’

At the time, Muyoung had been focusing on the free hamburgers, letting the conversations go in one ear and out the other.

“…Isn’t it a bit similar?”

But looking back now, the tone of Kim Gwanghun’s words and his own thoughts about Seokjae were strangely similar. Back then, he had wondered why Gwanghun was so worried about Songsong, who was a grown man capable of taking care of himself, but now he was doing the same thing.

Of course, unlike Gwanghun, his concerns were justified. No matter how good Seokjae was at fighting, you never knew when something serious might happen in their current situation.

However… compared to other people, it seemed he did think of Seokjae as special, wanting to protect him a bit more.

“So, did I… stan? Is that the right word? Did I stan him?”

Finally, Muyoung was able to put a name to the unfamiliar emotion he had been feeling every time he looked at Seokjae.

“I’ve stanned Seokjae hyung!”

In fact, he had never thought about someone this much every day, every hour, so it was confusing. He even wondered if he had started a late first love, remembering something he had read in a book for a summer vacation assignment as a child about what falling in love feels like.

“Ah, so that’s what it was. I thought I had fallen in love at first sight or something.”

In Muyoung’s understanding, the basis for being attracted to someone was either love or admiration.

But it felt strange to think of it as the kind of admiration one feels for an athlete, given that he couldn’t stop thinking about Seokjae and was desperate to give him just one more thing. So, Muyoung suspected he might have fallen for Seokjae in a different sense.

Come to think of it, when all his friends were interested in the opposite sex, he was more interested in how to score more goals in the lunchtime soccer games. It wasn’t because he was crazy about soccer, but it could have been due to his sexual orientation.

“Ah, no. I fell for him as a fan, so it is love at first sight.”

But now he knew. What he was feeling for Seokjae was nothing other than ‘fan love.’ Realizing the true nature of this emotion he had never felt before made him feel a sense of relief.