seoul
daryl/glenn
"So you delivered pizzas?"
Glenn grinned. "Yeah."
They were in the truck, on their way to who-knows-where. At least, Daryl wasn't really sure. Glenn and Rick seemed to have it down. Daryl was driving. Glenn was stretched out along the passenger seat, arm dangling out the window.
Daryl remembered when he had been so amazed by Glenn's quick thinking around a place Daryl barely knew. He'd asked what he did before the world came crashing down, and Glenn had said "delivered pizzas" like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
"I had to make it to their houses in twenty minutes or less," Glenn said, playing with his baseball cap. "So I kinda had to find shortcuts and figure my way out of places."
Daryl tilted his head, eyes on the RV ahead. "Why?" He chanced a side glance at Glenn. Glenn was wrinkling his nose, like a rabbit sniffing the air, and be damned if that wasn't the cutest thing ever. Daryl cleared his throat and refocused. No, he couldn't really think like that right now.
"Or else it'd be free! Jeez, Daryl, you never ordered a pizza before?" Glenn replied with a hint of laughter in his voice. Well, Glenn's voice always had laughter.
Daryl resisted a smile. Of course.
Of all the people in their dysfunctional "family", their group, Glenn was the person Daryl liked best. Sure, there was Rick, with his high values and determination to save his family and the rest of them and shit, and Dale, who was kinda like a big dad, and T-Dog, whose name Daryl would never figure out, but Glenn…
Glenn grinned at Daryl every time he saw him. Like Daryl's presence made him happy. Daryl had decided some time ago that he could never have that effect on a person, but Glenn kinda proved him different. Or at least, Daryl hoped that was what Glenn's grins meant.
Glenn was still going on about his pizza business. "Man, my boss, he'd cuss me off in Korean if I didn't get there in time…"
Korean.
Daryl recalled when he'd called Glenn a Chinaman and Glenn had firmly said, I'm Korean back. Was there really a difference? But Daryl knew how irritated he got when somebody called him a redneck or hillbilly or white American trash. The latter his parents always called him, which was kinda ironic, but long story short he knew Glenn was proud of his culture.
Daryl had grown up in a white area, for sure. Went to school with all white people. He didn't remember a single Indian or Chinese or Korean person. Maybe a couple Latinos and Jamaicans, but other than that, nope. He never paid attention in classes, never really learned much about other cultures.
He wondered if, in Korea, they were all suffering like America was.
"What's Korea like?" Daryl found himself asking.
Glenn stopped and stared at him. Obviously, Daryl thought, Glenn wasn't used to him starting a conversation, much less about Korea.
A smile started to grow on Glenn's face. Daryl guessed he never got much chance to talk about it.
"I was born in America, actually, and grew up here, but I went back to South Korea if my parents could afford it," he said.
South Korea? That's right, there's North and South Korea. Daryl suddenly felt extremely dumb. He wished he'd paid more attention in school.
In his head, Merle laughed harshly at him.
Glenn continued. "South Korea's full of lights, of what I remember. My relatives lived in Seoul, the capital. They'd have light shows on holidays near the water, oh, it was so beautiful…"
Daryl soaked in Glenn's upbeat voice, letting it raise his own spirits, his own hopes and dreams to live without seeing a walker again. He painted a picture of Seoul in Daryl's head with his words, with all of its brightness and happiness, framed with its perfections and imperfections, its people. He went off on the food, on Korean delicacies, on weird-but-tasty-sounding stuff like kimchi or bibimbap, making Daryl honestly wonder what it was like. To live in another world.
"The festivals, they were so nice. We'd have fireworks. On Lunar New Year—that's like the Asian version of January first, I guess—we'd explode stuff in the sky, way better than Las Vegas sometimes. They'd light up the whole place, make it feel like daytime. Heck, all these neon signs at night made it feel like daytime!" Glenn's grin could be heard in his voice. Daryl felt good, surrounded by the warmth Glenn's stories were emitting.
"My family was Christian, we all were, and we went to church—I kinda stopped going in America though—and we'd praise God, we'd thank him for South Korea, because it was just that awesome." Daryl laughed at this, an actual laugh.
"The local stuff was great too. Street stands of food, walking through the heat during the summer. Watching the giant TV in the square, like New York. You'd make friends with the old lady selling vegetables on the corner. She'd smile up to you. One time, I went to the house we were staying at, got all the money my mom was willing to give me, and bought all the vegetables I could from the old lady so she'd have all my money, brought it all home. My mom was so shocked but she laughed and ruffled my hair…"
Daryl was busy imagining all this, as he drove, and he could visualise Glenn's mother. He'd seen her before, in a tiny photograph when he'd picked up Glenn's dropped wallet. He felt a lump rise in his throat as Glenn's voice started to waver.
Daryl turned his head to look at Glenn again. Tears were streaming down Glenn's face. He had stopped playing with his hat, his fingers still twitching, and his eyes were closed. He kept talking, voice breaking.
"South Korea's so beautiful, honestly, when I was nineteen and done with high school, I wanted to visit again. I did, but we didn't have enough money, so I got a job at the pizza place, and just when we worked up enough money altogether…"
Glenn didn't have to finish, because Daryl knew what had stopped them from flying to Seoul again. The world had ended, and Glenn could never see the old lady with the vegetables again.
Amid his tears, Glenn laughed, a sharp sound full of longing, bitterness, and grief. He'd noticed Daryl looking at him.
"I miss home."
Daryl forced his eyes back on the road. It was getting really hard to not cry.
But Glenn had opened up to him. Right there, in this truck, he'd just spilled out something that Daryl wouldn't have shared even with a machete at his neck. Daryl's never had anyone do that to him before. Nobody trusted him enough.
"I'm sorry," Glenn's voice broke into Daryl's frenzied thoughts.
He whipped around, shocked that Glenn would say that. "Why? You ain't need ta be sorry," Daryl rushed gruffly.
"For telling you this, for crying, I mean—"
Daryl was stunned he'd think this. Glenn had just done to him something that woke a feeling up in Daryl, that'd ignited a passion in him. How does one exactly put that in words? He was never good at words. Oh shit.
"Glenn, shut up. Don't be sorry. Tell me more 'bout South Korea. Tell me more… 'bout your mother. 'Bout the old lady with the vegetables."
Daryl averted Glenn's gaze, but felt his eyes on him, so he reluctantly met them.
Glenn's stare was strong, strangely intense. Daryl returned it, a bit confused, and Glenn had leaped forward and landed a kiss on him.
Glenn tasted like what he'd imagine bimbibap or bapbibim or whatever would taste like—sweet, so good, so beautiful, like the image of South Korea Glenn had given him, all mixed with his tears. A salty reminder of their reality and Glenn's heartbreak. He kept whispering daryl daryl daryl I do I do miss South Korea I miss Seoul I miss my family I miss home oh my god daryl like a prayer to God against Daryl's lips, against his cheek, against his neck.
Daryl didn't care about walkers, Daryl didn't care about the line of cars he was following, Daryl didn't care that the world had ended, Daryl didn't care about anything else, Daryl just kissed Glenn back with all the fervour and all the pent up affection he'd felt from Glenn's stories. He stomped on the brake, skidding the truck to a halt, and turned his body fully so he could have more access to Glenn.
At this moment Daryl didn't even care what the ghost of Merle in his brain was saying about boys kissing boys or shit, Daryl just wanted to kiss Glenn, what was so wrong about that? Glenn was hurt, just like he was, probably more, because Glenn had something good going for him, a loving family, unlike Daryl, when it was taken away by their world.
The CB radio went on, static filling the truck, with Rick's annoyed voice asking why they were stopping, but Daryl and Glenn ignored it.
Glenn was doing a strange thing of weeping and kissing him at the same time, but Daryl wasn't bothered. He pulled away to rest his forehead against his and let Glenn take a few deep breaths.
Lips wet with Glenn's tears, Daryl mumbled, "If we ever get outta this, we gon' see South Korea one day."
Glenn smiled and said, "Not possible, Daryl, you know that."
Outside the truck window, Rick could be heard getting out of his car and heading to them.
"You believe in God, right?" Daryl asked, and Glenn nodded, wide eyes fixed on him, still holding on to him. "In our next life, then. We gon' see Seoul, and see your mother. But 'til then, it's you an' me, Chinaman."