Suzy was staring at him too.
The shape of his brows and eyes, that delicate jawline, even the small beauty mark near the corner of his lips... the longer she looked, the more familiar he seed.
"S-Suzy? It’s you!"
After a long mont of silence, the young man spoke first, his tone cautious and tentative. His voice was hoarse, rough as though his throat had been scraped raw, but the familiarity in it made Suzy freeze.
"Jason... Hunter?" she blurted out instinctively.
Jason’s eyes widened instantly. His lips parted as if he wanted to say sothing, but emotion clogged his throat, leaving him only able to nod desperately.
Thomas and Leonard exchanged glances before looking back at the two of them.
"You know him?" Leonard asked.
"Yeah." Suzy nodded. "He’s...the junior I ntioned earlier."
Leonard’s eyes widened too.
"What are the odds?"
Jason had been Suzy’s junior in the sa university club. He had a gentle personality, spoke little, but was incredibly kind and had helped Suzy many tis in the past.
Aside from Derek, he had been the junior she was closest to.
But this sester, Jason had taken a leave of absence from school, and Suzy hadn’t seen him in a very long ti.
Compared to the last ti they t, he had beco much thinner. Suzy had nearly failed to recognize him.
"Co over here first," Thomas reminded quietly.
He helped Jason onto their inflatable boat before turning back to deal with the remaining n.
Suzy sat Jason beside her and took out a bottle of mineral water from her space. After unscrewing the cap, she handed it to him.
"How did you end up here?" she asked. "Weren’t you supposed to be back ho after taking leave?"
She clearly rembered Jason’s family didn’t even live in A City.
"I ca to A City a while ago for sothing," Jason said after taking a sip of water, his expression bitter. "Then...the apocalypse happened."
Suzy paused. "I sent you ssages. Didn’t you see them?"
Back then, besides Derek, she had also warned Jason, but he had never replied.
"ssages? What ssages?" Jason looked confused before suddenly rembering sothing. "Oh, right. Suzy, my old ssenger account got frozen."
Suzy fell silent. No wonder she had waited forever without receiving a reply from him.
Mystery solved.
"Forget it, that’s not important anymore." She frowned. "How did those people catch you?"
At the ntion of it, Jason imdiately turned furious.
"They ambushed !"
He gulped down a huge mouthful of water as though trying to swallow his anger along with it, only to choke violently a second later, coughing until his face turned red.
Suzy quickly patted his back, laughing helplessly. "Slow down. No one’s stealing it from you."
Jason coughed for quite a while before finally recovering.
Wiping away the tears forced from the coughing fit, he said hoarsely, "Suzy, you have no idea how unlucky I’ve been."
Leaning weakly against the side of the boat, he took a breath and began explaining in fragnts.
Apparently, he and his companions had gone out searching for supplies when this group ambushed them halfway through.
The next thing he knew, he woke up tied up inside the inflatable boat.
After the group realized he was awake, they had knocked him unconscious again, and this current mont was the second ti he had woken up.
"So they only captured you?" Suzy asked.
Jason nodded awkwardly.
"Why?"
He went quiet for a mont before finally muttering, "...They said I could sell for a good price."
"PFFT!"
Leonard completely lost it and burst out laughing before quickly covering his mouth, shooting Jason a sympathetic look.
Even Suzy nearly failed to hold back. She pressed her lips together hard, desperately suppressing her smile.
To be fair, those people really did have good taste. Jason genuinely was good-looking.
Fair skin, delicate features...and with so many twisted people running around in the apocalypse, there were definitely plenty willing to pay for that kind of face.
"Suzy, stop looking at like that..." Jason’s cheeks burned bright red with embarrassnt.
When he had overheard those n discussing how much money they could get from selling him, he had almost coughed up blood from sheer humiliation.
At the ti, though, he had been nothing more than a lamb waiting for slaughter.
It wasn’t as if Jason hadn’t tried to save himself.
He had.
But they discovered it almost imdiately and knocked him unconscious again.
If he hadn’t run into Suzy by sheer luck, if she hadn’t happened to rescue him, he didn’t even dare imagine where he would be now.
He might already have been ruined by soone.
From the very beginning, the way that bald man had looked at him had made his skin crawl.
The more Jason thought about it, the more horrified he beca.
Suzy noticed his expression darkening by the second and imdiately changed the subject before he spiraled further.
"Then where are your teammates now? Where did you get separated from them?"
Jason lifted his head and thought carefully for a mont before pointing ahead.
"We got separated near Ocean Plaza. It’s a big shopping mall up ahead. Suzy, do you know it?"
"I know the place." Suzy nodded.
Of course she did. Ocean Plaza was very close to the building materials market. And the market happened to be directly on the way there.
Once they finished gathering supplies, they could drop Jason off at the plaza without wasting much extra ti. Whether his teammates were still there by then was another matter entirely.
"That works out pretty well," Suzy said. "It’s on the way. We can take you there later."
Jason’s eyes lit up instantly. He looked at Suzy with pure gratitude shining across his face.
"Thank you, Suzy. You’re seriously the best!"
He nearly burst into tears. After not seeing her for so long, Suzy was still exactly the sa as before. Beautiful, kind-hearted...and now she had even saved his life.
Jason felt like he had stumbled into absurdly good luck.
Just as their conversation ended, Thomas finished dealing with the remaining n and stepped back onto their inflatable boat.
Jason imdiately turned toward him and flashed a bright smile.
"Hey, man, thanks for earlier."
He still rembered clearly that Thomas had been the one to untie him and wake him up.
This guy was definitely a good person too.
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