In an Alternate Universe where there is no zombie apocalypse, Jang Woojin is outed as gay and subject to vicious bullying. Ultimately, he decides to leave South Korea all together and start anew in Chicago, Illinois, where he discovers more about himself than he thought he'd know. Meanwhile, Oh Joonyeong grapples with growing feelings for Woojin as he continues life in South Korea without one of his best friends.
Us, Withering Under the Sun is an All of Us Are Dead fanfic by Glowstar826. It can be read here
on Archive of Our Own.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Woo-jin's mother made him feel like he was undeserving of every accomplish he had, despite him being smarter than his sister. She didn't even care about him leaving. At one point, she even hits him. Dal-hoon wasn't great either, though did try to be a good parent, just wasn't good at communicating.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Most of Woo-jin's classmates bully him for being gay, though his friends stick by him. He has to eat lunch with his teacher to avoid the bullying.
- Berserk Button:
- Joon-yeong notes that he was never able to keep his cool when it came to Woo-jin, especially after he was outed and bullied. Na-yeon will know this better than anyone else.
- Woo-jin is shown to easily get upset when he thinks about his past, going so far as to tell Joon-yeong he's a 'shitty friend' for telling him to pretend that the painful stuff never happened for an evening with the rest of their friends.
- Bond Breaker: Woo-jin moves to Seoul right before senior year of high school and only (and very rarely at that) speaks to Joon-yeong afterwards, not speaking to the rest of the friend group for years on end.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Eun-sook, the Abusive Parent, who was traumatized by her own mother and her first child's birth, and then traumatized her kids in turn by ignoring and insulting her least favorite child and smothering her daughter. Dal-hoon, The Stoic, who adored his entire family but was distant and uninvolved until it was too late, and his kids hated him as much as their mother. Woo-jin, the victim of the Trauma Conga Line, who went through one traumatic incident after the other, and decided it was best to cut his losses and stop talking to his friends and family. And Ha-ri, who suffered from being the favorite child of bad parents, and was cut off by her brother despite always being there for him to the point that she might as well have received a Promotion to Parent.
- Cool Big Sis: Ha-ri fights her father for Woo-jin's right to leave the family and the country. Later, she easily forgives him for not calling in the six years he was away and agrees to arrange a ride for him when he visits South Korea again. Woo-jin notes that she was always there for him despite their differences.
- Cool Teacher: Ms. Park tried to be as helpful as she could when Woo-jin was outed, letting him eat lunch in the classroom and trying to find the anonymous poster who outed him, but it didn't do much. Mr. Kim as well, going so far as to agree with Joon-yeong tackling Na-yeon and telling him to take a day off from school.
- Cope by Creating: The story behind The Living Dead, Woo-jin and Sam’s favorite show, is that the creator put in a gay storyline as a way of creating positive representation after his son suffered from homophobia and committed suicide.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Woo-jin's first boyfriend, David, suffered from alcoholism as a result of his mother's death.
- Forced Out of the Closet: Woo-jin suffered from this, as a compromising picture of him and another boy was anonymously posted online.
- Foil: Joon-yeong's highly functional family does well to highlight the more dysfunctional family Woo-jin is stuck with.
- For Want Of A Nail: No zombie apocalypse, the students' lives go on as normal and they continue to attend high school with no one dying... which unfortunately leads to Nayeon anonymously posting a compromising picture of Woojin with another boy, causing him to be bullied and leading to him leaving the city and country entirely.
- Good Parents: Joonyeong's parents, Seongmin and Taehyun. Seongmin especially is very in tune with Joonyeong's life and comforts him over all things involving Woojin.
- Hate Sink: Lee Na-yeon takes glee in messing with the members of the friend group. She takes the first chance she gets to accuse On-jo of cheating on Cheong-san, hates Gyeong-su for being on welfare, and worst of all, was the one to out Woo-jin, which completely upended his life. She calls him a slur as she reveals this. It's quite telling that neither their teacher, Mr. Kim, nor Joon-yeong's mother blame him for attacking her, as well as the fact that their classmates, who care little about what she did to Woo-jin, are still impressed by him doing that to her.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Woo-Jin and Ha-ri are both gay.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Woo-jin's classmates immediately turned on him for being gay, calling him sinful and abnormal.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even without the zombie apocalypse, On-jo and Cheong-san still have feelings for one another, Nam-ra still gets together with Su-hyeok and befriends the other kids as a result, and Ji-min and Hyo-ryung become close to the other kids.
- Lovable Coward: Played for Drama. At first, Joonyeong hates Jisung for how he handled things with Woojin as he was the older one, blaming him for Woojin's absence. However, he does realize that Jisung did care for the other boy a lot and also suffered from getting outed.
- Love Hurts: A lot. The first time Woo-jin is with a boy, it ends in him getting outed. He is later left heartbroken after his first boyfriend becomes an alcoholic and he's forced to end the relationship. Additionally, Joon-yeong feels incredibly hurt and abandoned when Woo-jin leaves the country and cuts contact.
- Love Will Lead You Back: Woo-jin leaves Hyosan and eventually the country, pushing away all his allies in the process. He eventually does rekindle a friendship with Joon-yeong and it's clear that old, unrealized feelings are set to resurface.
- Parental Favoritism: The beginning of the first chapter goes into detail about how Woo-jin and Ha-ri's parents favored her over him.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Despite vehemently defending Woo-jin after he's outed, no one thought to tell him that they didn't have a problem with him being gay. Everyone was too worried about offending him (to be fair, his experiences with homophobia are clearly a Berserk Button for him) and even as adults, everyone except for Dae-su refrains from asking about his love life, not knowing if that'd be sensitive for him or not. Likewise, Woo-jin also keeps his worries that they may be homophobic to himself and doesn't articulate well what he does and doesn't want to talk about.
- Dal-hoon also fails at communicating that he loves Woo-jin and Ha-ri and does not approve of Eun-sook's treatment of them. After Woo-jin's hospitalization, he takes care of Woo-jin, but is harsh in asking what led to him getting hurt. He brings up the hospital bill multiple times as something to scapegoat and clearly does not know how to get his kids to properly talk things out with him. As a result, Woo-jin successfully manages to hide his plans to leave from him and they no longer speak. It's likely Ha-ri doesn't talk to him either.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Woo-jin's life in South Korea gets so bad that he decides to leave the country all together.
- Show Within a Show: In this universe, the popular show The Living Dead serves as a parallel of the original All of Us Are Dead series. It focuses on a group of economics majors who survive a zombie apocalypse that ravages Seoul National University.
- Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: Ha-ri, as revealed in the prequel.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: When hanging out with all his friends from high school, all of whom have stayed in touch, Woo-jin is dismayed to hear just how much he missed after he left and can contribute little to the conversation.
- Will They or Won't They?: Despite it being clear that Woo-jin and Joon-yeong both harbor romantic feelings for one another, just how they can be together is difficult given that they live in different countries and their lives go in quite different directions.
