The World Ends In 27 Days

Zeyu regretted the question as soon as Hanchuan sat back in his chair.

They had just eaten a full meal. There was clean water on the table, and the room was cool enough that he had forgotten the heat outside. Asking when they could leave made it sound as though none of that was enough.

He picked up his spoon, then put it down again.

"I’m not asking to leave tonight," Zeyu explained. "And I don’t mean taking Zhiyi out when moving down the corridor still wears her out."

"I heard you," Hanchuan replied. "Give me a minute to think."

Zeyu glanced toward the kitchen. Jingwei had finished drying the dishes and hung the towel beside the sink. There was nothing left to wash or put away, and Zeyu knew he would end up in the garage if he stayed awake much longer.

Before the Heat, he would have welcomed an evening with nothing to do. Now he kept finding things to check, even when he had checked them that morning.

"The vehicle needs a test," Hanchuan said at last. "Once you’ve finished checking it, we’ll do that. Then we can talk about going farther."

Zeyu turned back to him. "You’d consider it?"

"Yes," Hanchuan replied. "Once we know where we’re going and whether we can get there."

"I’d just like to see something without looking through a camera," Zeyu admitted.

Hanchuan glanced toward the bedrooms. "So would I."

Zeyu had been ready to explain himself again. Instead, he sat quietly while Hanchuan stood and picked up Zhiyi’s glass. It hadn’t occurred to him that Hanchuan might be tired of the same walls, too.

"Tomorrow morning," Hanchuan reminded him before leaving. "Don’t stay up working on the vehicle. You need to be awake."

"I’ll be there," Zeyu promised.

He went to bed, although he spent too much of the night turning over and looking at the time. By morning, he almost wished he had stayed in the garage.

Shichen was clearing the workbench when Zeyu arrived. Jingwei opened a case on the table, and Hanchuan came in a few minutes later carrying two coffees. He handed one to Zeyu without mentioning how tired he looked.

Once they started practicing, Zeyu understood why Hanchuan had wanted him rested. There was more to remember than he had expected, and Jingwei noticed every time his attention slipped.

At first, having Hanchuan watch made it worse.

Zeyu kept wondering whether his friend was comparing him to the man he remembered from their first life. Then Jingwei questioned something Hanchuan had done during the attack at the gate, and Hanchuan listened just as carefully as he expected the others to.

They spent most of the morning talking through what had happened and what each of them could have done differently. By the time Jingwei closed the case, Zeyu’s coffee was cold.

He drank it anyway and followed Shichen into the garage.

The mobile base filled most of the space beyond the workroom window.

Zeyu used to enjoy seeing how much room it took up. Now he found himself checking the repaired sections before he looked at anything else.

He opened the door and climbed inside. It smelled familiar: upholstery, the cleaner they had used, and a little grease from his clothes. He ran his hand along the back of the driver’s seat before reaching for the list.

"Where do you want to start?" Shichen asked from the doorway.

"With this," Zeyu replied, unfolding the paper he had promised Zhiyi. "We finish what’s on it before I find something else to take apart."

Shichen came inside, and they worked until Qinghe appeared to call them for lunch.

Zeyu was about to ask for another few minutes when he saw Shichen putting his tools away. He set down his own and followed.

At the table, Zhiyi asked to see the list while Zeyu told her what they had finished. She listened to his explanation of one repair, then pointed to two entries farther down the page.

"You’ve written this twice," Zhiyi said.

Zeyu leaned over to look. "One is before we drive it. The other is afterward."

"Write that beside them," Zhiyi replied. "Otherwise, you’ll look at it later and think you missed one."

He borrowed her pencil and added the words. That afternoon, he left the list on the dashboard instead of folding it into his pocket, where he would forget to look at it.

Over the next three weeks, he crossed off more entries than he added.

Other things began to change, too.

Zhiyi stayed at the table after meals instead of going straight back to bed. She still needed the wheelchair, and Qinghe kept an eye on her when she moved, but Zeyu grew used to finding her in the shared rooms again.

Sometimes she watched him work from the garage doorway. Sometimes she sat with Shichen while he looked over a drawing, asking him to turn it so she could see.

Hanchuan was usually nearby, though he no longer got up every time he heard something from their bedroom. Zhiyi still called him back when she wanted him. She also told him to move when his shoulders blocked her view.

One morning, Zeyu passed their room and heard her asking why Hanchuan had put her hairbrush in a drawer when she had left it on the table so she could reach it.

Hanchuan’s answer was too quiet to hear, but Zhiyi’s reply followed clearly.

"Then tidy your side," Zhiyi told him.

Zeyu was still smiling when he reached the garage.

Outside, there was less things to mark the passing days.

The road looked pale beneath the sun, and the trees beside it barely moved. Ash collected against the repaired barrier until a gust scattered it across the approach.

Zeyu checked the cameras every morning.

By the third week, he knew which scraps beside the road had been there yesterday and which had blown in overnight.

He wanted something new to look at badly enough that he had to remind himself an empty road was good.

That evening, he brought the finished list to dinner.

"We’ve done everything we can while it’s parked," Zeyu said, placing it beside Hanchuan’s plate. "It’s ready for a test outside."

Hanchuan set down his chopsticks and read the page. Jingwei leaned closer to see, while Shichen kept eating. He and Zeyu had gone through the last of it together that afternoon.

Zhiyi waited until Hanchuan reached the bottom.

"You said we could discuss a destination after the test," Zhiyi reminded him.

Zeyu glanced at her. He hadn’t mentioned that conversation, so Hanchuan must have told her himself.

"For a longer trip," Hanchuan replied. "We’ll stay close the first time."

"I understand," Zhiyi said. "But it would help to know where we intend to go afterward."

She reached for a folded map beside her chair. Zeyu moved a serving dish out of the way so she could spread it across the end of the table.

He had seen her looking at maps over the past few days and assumed she was checking the Flood shelters. But he recognized the road beneath her finger before he read the name.

Luming Mountain Hotel.

"You want to go back?" Zeyu asked, leaning closer.

"The fire stopped us from reaching it," Zhiyi replied. "We still don’t know what’s left."

Hanchuan lowered the repair list. Jingwei drew the map toward him, tracing the road to the place where they had been forced to turn away.

Zeyu looked from the map to Zhiyi, then reached for the pencil beside Hanchuan’s plate.

"Show me where we turned around," Zeyu said.