The World Ends In 27 Days

"No, you’re trying to leave before she wakes up and tells you that you’re still part of the core unit," said Hanchuan as he glared at Zeyu. "She was willing to write herself out of our survival plan just so all five of us were together. Do you really think she’ll let you leave easily?"

The accusation struck harder than either punch, and Zeyu was forced to look away.

He had known Zhiyi would survive just fine without him when he began packing.

At least, he had needed to believe she would. The puzzle box required her hands, her concentration and the tiny crease between her eyebrows that appeared whenever something refused to make sense.

He had imagined all of it while planning to ensure he wasn’t there to see it.

"She’ll be safer without me," he insisted.

Hanchuan moved closer until Zeyu had no choice but to meet his eyes.

"If you leave, she won’t accept it." His voice had lost its anger, but the quiet certainty beneath it was worse. "She’ll calculate every route you could’ve taken. She’ll check the cameras, ration her sleep and waste resources trying to determine where you went."

Zeyu’s hand closed around the compass through his pocket.

Hanchuan noticed the movement but didn’t ask what he was holding.

"When she can walk, she’ll come after you," he continued. "If she can’t walk, she’ll find another way. She won’t stop because you decided she should."

The picture Hanchuan was painting formed too easily in Zeyu’s mind.

Zhiyi would sit upright before Qinghe permitted it and reopen every file connected to Xiling’s exterior security. She would compare the time he disappeared against the camera records, the outdoor temperature and the supplies missing from storage.

She would calculate how far he could have traveled, eliminate the routes he couldn’t have survived and assign probabilities to the rest.

If Qinghe prevented her from leaving, she would send one of the others.

If they refused, she would wait until they slept and attempt it herself.

Zeyu could almost hear her explaining that the risk was acceptable because the core had been reduced from six people to five.

She would approach his disappearance as a problem.

Then, like every problem she was confronted with, she would solve it.

Zeyu swallowed against the pressure building in his throat. "Why?"

"Because she chose you."

The answer left nowhere for him to hide.

His family could celebrate without noticing the space he had left behind. His friends could be furious with him. Zeyu could believe himself useless, dangerous and undeserving of every resource keeping him alive.

But none of that would alter Zhiyi’s decision.

"She chose the person she thought I was," Zeyu argued, although his voice lacked its earlier certainty. "The man who could build her vehicle, retrieve it without dropping a ceiling on her and make himself useful when it mattered."

"She chose the man who gave her a panic attack in a boutique," snapped back Hanchuan.

Zeyu flinched.

Hanchuan didn’t allow him to hide behind another smile.

"She knew what happened," he continued. "She knew you asked questions faster than she could answer them. She knew you needed me to tell you how to help her breathe. She still trusted you to build the mobile base."

"That doesn’t mean she should have."

"It means your failure to put her first didn’t change her calculation."

Zeyu hated that Hanchuan had chosen those words. They sounded like Zhiyi. They stripped away every excuse he might have used to dismiss her trust as kindness, confusion or a moment of poor judgment.

Zhiyi didn’t make decisions based on kindness.

She had known Zeyu could fail her because he had already done it once.

But she had chosen him anyway.

Hanchuan bent to retrieve the fallen bag. When he straightened, his attention settled on its size and the small amount Zeyu had considered himself entitled to take.

"You weren’t planning to survive for long."

It wasn’t a question.

Zeyu attempted to shrug, but the movement pressed Hanchuan’s forearm more firmly against his chest. "I thought packing four years of food might make my graceful departure slightly less convincing."

Hanchuan’s face became still.

The anger had been easier to endure. Zeyu knew how to withstand fury, and he knew how to provoke more of it whenever a conversation moved too close to something that mattered.

He didn’t know what to do with the understanding that replaced it.

"You were going to walk into that heat carrying a few bottles of water and ration bars," Hanchuan concluded.

"When you describe it that way, it does sound poorly planned."

"It sounds like you didn’t care whether you lived or not," countered Hanchuan.

Zeyu looked past him toward the medical room door. "I cared whether she did," he admitted.

"That isn’t an answer."

"It’s the only one I have."

Hanchuan watched him for several seconds before lowering his arm.

The freedom didn’t feel like permission. Zeyu remained against the wall, uncertain whether moving toward the exit would earn him a third punch.

"You think dying outside would erase what happened?" Hanchuan demanded. "It wouldn’t. She would wake up injured and discover that you were gone because of her."

"I wouldn’t leave a note blaming her."

"You wouldn’t need to. She would find the sequence. It’s how her mind works."

Of course she would.

Zhiyi would begin with the collapse, continue through her injuries and end with Zeyu’s departure. She would identify the connection before anyone found a lie convincing enough to prevent it.

Worse, she might believe she had failed to account for him.

Zeyu had wanted to remove one danger from her life. Instead, he would leave her with a question no one else could answer because the only person who knew exactly why he had gone would be somewhere beyond her reach.

Hanchuan drove the bag into Zeyu’s chest.

"I’m already angry enough that you nearly got her killed," he warned. "Don’t make me explain that I let you disappear while she couldn’t stop you."

Zeyu wrapped one arm around the bag. "You could tell her I left voluntarily."

Hanchuan shook his head. "Then she’d want to know why."

She would ask questions until every answer fit.

For once, Zeyu couldn’t resent her inability to leave one unanswered.

"You could tell her I decided five was a nicer number," he suggested. "It has symmetry."

"She would tell me five is prime and ask again."

Despite everything, a weak laugh escaped him. It hurt both sides of his face, but the pain felt deserved.

Hanchuan didn’t smile. "If you want to protect her, don’t give her another problem to solve while she’s recovering."

Zeyu stared at the bag in his arms.

Leaving had appeared simple while he was alone. One less person consuming food. One less mistake waiting to happen. One less man Zhiyi needed to include in plans meant to preserve lives more valuable than his.

He hadn’t considered that she might refuse the subtraction.

Hanchuan pointed toward Zeyu’s bedroom. "Go unpack."

Zeyu remained against the wall for several seconds after Hanchuan returned to the medical room. Both sides of his face hurt, and the bag felt heavier than it had when he packed it.

He touched the compass hidden near his heart.

Zhiyi didn’t know it existed. She had no way to know that it matched the compass waiting inside the puzzle box, and Zeyu intended to keep that connection entirely to himself.

The compasses wouldn’t bring her after him.

She would come because one person was missing from her core.

Zeyu had nearly hurt her by making a decision too quickly once before. Leaving without allowing her to answer would only repeat the mistake in a different form.

He carried his bag back to his room.