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 seemed.

"S-Suzy? It’s you!"

After a long moment 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 something, 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 mentioned earlier."

Leonard’s eyes widened too.

"What are the odds?"

Jason had been Suzy’s junior in the same university club. He had a gentle personality, spoke little, but was incredibly kind and had helped Suzy many times in the past.

Aside from Derek, he had been the junior she was closest to.

But this semester, Jason had taken a leave of absence from school, and Suzy hadn’t seen him in a very long time.

Compared to the last time they met, he had become much thinner. Suzy had nearly failed to recognize him.

"Come over here first," Thomas reminded quietly.

He helped Jason onto their inflatable boat before turning back to deal with the remaining men.

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 home after taking leave?"

She clearly remembered Jason’s family didn’t even live in A City.

"I came to A City a while ago for something," Jason said after taking a sip of water, his expression bitter. "Then...the apocalypse happened."

Suzy paused. "I sent you messages. Didn’t you see them?"

Back then, besides Derek, she had also warned Jason, but he had never replied.

"Messages? What messages?" Jason looked confused before suddenly remembering something. "Oh, right. Suzy, my old Messenger 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 mention of it, Jason immediately turned furious.

"They ambushed me!"

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 fragments.

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 moment was the second time he had woken up.

"So they only captured you?" Suzy asked.

Jason nodded awkwardly.

"Why?"

He went quiet for a moment 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 me like that..." Jason’s cheeks burned bright red with embarrassment.

When he had overheard those men discussing how much money they could get from selling him, he had almost coughed up blood from sheer humiliation.

At the time, though, he had been nothing more than a lamb waiting for slaughter. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

It wasn’t as if Jason hadn’t tried to save himself.

He had.

But they discovered it almost immediately 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 someone.

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 became.

Suzy noticed his expression darkening by the second and immediately 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 moment 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 time. 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 same 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 men and stepped back onto their inflatable boat.

Jason immediately turned toward him and flashed a bright smile.

"Hey, man, thanks for earlier."

He still remembered clearly that Thomas had been the one to untie him and wake him up.

This guy was definitely a good person too.