Disclaimer: I do not own 'Train To Busan'
Note: I've only watched this movie once [my heart and nervous system cannot take another viewing] so if I've missed anything please notify me. Also, a big ALSO, if I've misappropriated the Korean language/culture notify me so I can fix it.
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Waking Up
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A month before they're supposed to die - bitten, bleeding, screaming and crying in ugly terror - they wake up in a cold sweat.
Wake up from a nightmare too real and too graphic for their simple-minded imagination.
They remember the milky-white eyes, bulging veins, and the sounds of people being torn into like Christmas paper.
They remember a day of horror.
And somehow, they know they're not alone.
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The first thing Seok Woo does after throwing up last night's meal is check on Soo An.
He stumbles out of his bathroom, red eyed and throat too raw to scream.
He feels like he's drunk on fear by the time the door to her bedroom opens and he peers inside.
It's as if somebody holding him up decides to let go. Seok Woo slips down the doorframe, not daring to look away or blink as his eyes soak on her peaceful expression. He's terrified that the moment he does, she'll be gone.
And he'll be back on that train cart.
.
Sang Hwa isn't a man who cries.
His father never granted him the privilege to.
But Sang Hwa's outlived his old man and so he allows himself to a heaving session of relentless emotion.
He ends up shaking and petrified to let go of his wife's much smaller stomach.
Hands of dead strangers lingering on his skin. Scratching and clawing and biting him.
"Sang Hwa, Sang Hwa what's wrong?"
.
Nobody's home when Yeong Guk wakes up.
For a moment he's almost thankful for having neglectful parents.
But after the shock dries off and memories repeat themselves over and over again on endless repeat –
Yeong Guk finds himself curled up in the corner of his dark bedroom wishing he had somebody there to hold him.
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Across town Jin Hee sits under a stream of scalding shower water clothed in nothing but a singlet and underpants.
Her expression is vacant, eyes distant and mind suspended in horror.
She hugs her knees closer to her chest.
Unable to find it in herself to cry.
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In a high-rise building apartment, Yong Seok equally stands under a showerhead and begins stripping. Tearing his clothes off in a frenxy and grabbing the soap bar and loofa.
That night he scrubs his skin until it turns raw.
"Clean clean clean clean why aren't I clean?"
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Four out of the five find each other in under a day.
It happens on instinct.
Out of a deep, burning hunger need to meet at Busan's train station.
[nobody mentions how they almost didn't go. How they almost didn't step into a train]
[nobody mentions their panic attacks in a secluded train station bathroom minutes before departure]
Seok Woo spots Sang Hwa across Busan's train platform as though they were the only people there.
Neither of them look as though they've slept, but the moment their eyes meet something in them relaxes. Their nerves dampen, but don't release.
They've been through too much to allow themselves to be caught unawares again.
"You look like shit." Sang Hwa grunts as he pulls Seok Woo down for a (though he'll argue) teary hug.
"Screw you," Seok Woo huffs, smile empty.
The air darkens when they part, both staring at each other in silent acknowledgement and agony – because this was their confirmation.
Then what they remember was real.
"What happened afterwards?" Sang Hwa asks as they sit at the end of the platform on a bench.
They're waiting for the others.
And it terrifies them how they know they'll come.
"Your wife," Seok Woo says slowly, memory of that day chewing at his soul, "she made it along with Soo An."
"You died for them," Sang Hwa nods intuitively, "didn't you?"
Seok Woo can't fight the shiver of that sensation.
Falling.
The slow displacement of gravity as he tips forwards into nothingness.
He closes his eyes, suddenly afraid.
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"I'm sorry."
They both know what for.
"Tch." Sang Hwa shifts uncomfortably at his sudden confession. "There's nothing to forgive." In an afterthought he mutters, "Asshole."
It brings a vacant, stunned chuckle out of him.
.
Neither of them noticed it before, they were too frenzied, too distracted and far too gone in fear to realize how young the kids were.
Jin Hee's skinner than a child and unnervingly small in comparison to Yeong Guk. The boy escorts her over to them. Arm wrapped securely around her tiny shoulders, protective and determined to not let her go.
As they get closer both adults come to notice how she's not all…there.
"Is she okay?"
Yeong Guk snorts. Face tired and eyes terribly old.
"Fuck, this is real then?" he asks instead of answers. Placing Jin Hee down next to Seok Woo and standing himself. "It really happened and Jin Hee and I aren't just – aren't just crazy?"
He's desperate.
"I'm sorry," Seok Woo says and watches.
Numb as the kid, a mere teenager leans against a post. Breath hitching and expression torn.
"What, why? No. No how is it possible?"
"Beats us,." Sang Hwa shrugs and stands. Looking awkward as he grabs the kid by the arm and drags him forwards. Yeong Guk allows it like it wasn't his own body. "Take my seat you look like you're about to keel over any second."
The kid giggles. And it makes Seok Woo wince at how unhinged it sounds
Nobody, he realizes, came out that day without consequence.
"It can't be – I – Hyung, then that means I died. I - "
Seok Woo and Sang Hwa glance at each other over Yeong Guk's hunched body. The boy was shakily fiddling with the hem of his school shirt. Breathes coming in, in shutters as though he were fighting back tears.
(It doesn't take a genius to figure out why he wasn't wearing the baseball jacket)
"Whoa hey, kid. You don't have to tell us anything," Sang Hwa says in gentle understanding. Hand cupping the back of the kid's neck.
Yeong Guk nods. Silent.
Sang Hwa tells him something with his eyes and Seok Woo feels suddenly out of reach.
He should be good at this, he tells himself - draping an arm around Yeong Guk.
He has a kid.
Yeong Guk leans into him.
Wet patches grow on his blue blazer.
Then why did this feel new to him?
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