probably awake at night :)

“Easy.” A voice cuts through the haze, soft but firm. “Don’t try to sit up yet.” He forces his eyes open, squinting against the dim candlelight. The ceiling above him is canvas, stained and sagging. A medical tent, he realizes slowly. The smell hits him next— blood, infection, unwashed bodies, death. He’s in a field hospital.

The battle. Right. There was a battle. He remembers musket fire, smoke so thick he couldn’t see three feet ahead, the screaming of men and horses. He remembers pain exploding in his chest, the ground rushing up to meet him, thinking this is it as the world went dark. But he’s not dead. Apparently.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, soldier.” Jungwon turns his head— slowly, because even that hurts— and sees her for the first time.

She’s young, probably close to his age, with tired eyes and capable hands currently wringing out a cloth in a basin of water. Her dress is simple, stained with blood that he hopes isn’t all his, and her hair is pulled back in a practical bun with loose strands escaping around her face. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “How bad is it?” he manages, his voice rough and unfamiliar.

She glances at him, and something flickers in her expression— pity, maybe, or resignation. “You’ve been unconscious for two days. Musket ball to the chest, missed your heart by maybe an inch. Another in your leg. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“But I’ll live?” He tries for a smile. “You’re not just keeping me comfortable while I die, are you?”

“That depends entirely on whether infection sets in.” She wrings out the cloth and moves closer, pressing it gently to his forehead. It’s blessedly cool. “And on whether you follow my instructions and rest instead of trying to be charming.”

“I can’t help being charming,” Jungwon says. “It’s a curse.”

Despite herself, she almost smiles. Almost. “Save your energy. You’re going to need it.”

Over the next few days, Jungwon learns three things. One: Getting shot hurts significantly worse than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined it would be pretty terrible.

Two: Field hospitals are hell on earth— the sounds of men dying, the smell of rot and gunpowder, the constant stream of new wounded being carried in on stretchers.

Three: The nurse— he learns her name eventually, after asking three times because she keeps deflecting— is the only good thing about being here.

She tends to his wounds twice a day, changing bandages with gentle efficiency, checking for signs of infection. She brings him water when he asks, broth when he can stomach it, and occasionally reads to him from a battered copy of poetry she keeps in her apron pocket when the nights are long and he can’t sleep through the pain. “You don’t have to do that,” he says one night, when she’s been reading for nearly an hour.

She looks up from the book, candlelight catching in her eyes. “Do what?”

“Stay with me. I know you have other patients.”

“The others are sleeping.” She marks her place with one finger. “And you’re the only one who actually appreciates poetry. Most of the men just want me to write letters to their wives.”

“Do you do that?”

“When they ask.” Her voice softens. “When they can still speak clearly enough to dictate.” The implication hangs heavy between them. When they’re not too far gone.

“Will you write a letter for me?” Jungwon asks. “If it comes to that?”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “It won’t come to that. You’re going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually. I’ve been doing this for two years. I know who makes it and who doesn’t.” She meets his eyes, fierce and certain. “You’re going to make it.”

He wants to believe her. God, he wants to believe her. “When I do,” he says, emboldened by fever or stupidity or both, “I’m going to take you on a date. Dinner, dancing, the whole thing.”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now— a real smile that transforms her whole face. “You don’t even know me.”

“I’d like to.” He reaches for her hand, and after a brief hesitation, she lets him take it. Her fingers are cool and steady against his. “I’d like to know everything about you.”

“You’re delirious.”

“Maybe. But I still mean it.” She squeezes his hand gently before pulling away to return to her rounds. But the next night, she comes back. And the night after that.

They talk, in those stolen moments between her duties. He learns that she’s a farmer’s daughter, that she learned nursing from her mother, that she came to the war because her brother was fighting and she wanted to help. He tells her about his life before— the apprenticeship he left behind, the family he hasn’t seen in months, the future he’d planned that seems impossibly distant now. “What will you do?” she asks one night. “After the war?”

“If we win? I don’t know. Go home, I suppose. Try to remember what peace feels like.” He shifts carefully, trying to find a position that doesn’t hurt. “What about you?”

“The same, I think. Go home. Try to forget all of this.” She gestures vaguely at the tent, the rows of wounded men, the ever-present specter of death.

“I won’t forget you,” Jungwon says quietly.

She looks at him for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression. “You should. It would be easier.”

“I don’t want easier. I want—” He stops, unsure how to finish that sentence.

“What do you want?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

You, he thinks but doesn’t say. I want you. I want to survive this. I want to take you dancing like I promised. I want a future where we’re not surrounded by death and blood and the smell of gunpowder.

“I want to see you smile again,” he says instead. “Like you did the other night. A real smile, not the one you give the patients.”

She does smile then, soft and sad. “You’re a foolish man, soldier.”

“Jungwon,” he corrects. “My name is Jungwon.”

“I know.” She stands, smoothing her apron. “Get some rest, Jungwon. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“Close enough.”

The days blur together. Jungwon’s strength slowly returns— he can sit up without help now, can eat solid food, can even stand for a few minutes at a time with support. The wounds are healing, she tells him, better than expected. No infection. He’s lucky. He doesn’t feel lucky. He feels like he’s been given a second chance and doesn’t know what to do with it. “When can I leave?” he asks one morning.

She’s changing his bandages, her touch gentle but impersonal. “When you can walk unassisted. When the doctor clears you. When there’s somewhere for you to go.”

“Will you miss me?” He’s only half-joking.

“Terribly,” she says, but there’s something true underneath the sarcasm. “Who else will I read poetry to at midnight?”

“You could read to the other patients.”

“They don’t listen like you do.” She finishes with the bandage and sits back. “There. You’re healing well. Another week, maybe two, and you’ll be back to fighting shape.” The thought of going back to battle makes his stomach turn. Going back to the killing, the chaos, the constant fear. But what choice does he have? The war isn’t over. His unit will want him back.

“What if I don’t go back?” he asks quietly.

She looks at him sharply. “They’d call that desertion.”

“What if I don’t care?”

“Jungwon—”

“I could stay here. Help with the wounded. I’m no good as a soldier anyway— I got myself shot in the first real battle.”

“You’re talking nonsense.” But her voice is gentler now. “The fever—”

“I’m not feverish. I’m just…” He trails off, struggling to articulate the feeling. “I’m tired. I’m tired of war. I’m tired of watching boys die. I’m tired of pretending I’m brave when all I want is to go home.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she reaches out and takes his hand, holding it between both of hers. “You are brave,” she says firmly. “Being afraid doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you human.”

“I don’t feel brave.”

“No one ever does.” She squeezes his hand. “But you’re still here. You’re still fighting. That takes courage.”

He looks down at their joined hands, her fingers small and delicate against his calloused palms. He wants to tell her that she’s the reason he’s still fighting, that the thought of seeing her each day is the only thing that makes the pain bearable, that he’s started imagining a future that includes her in it. But before he can find the words, she pulls away and stands.

“Rest,” she says. “I’ll check on you later.” He watches her move through the tent, stopping at each bedside, offering water or adjusting bandages or simply sitting with the men who have no one else. She’s good at this, he realizes. Good at offering comfort in a place where there’s so little of it to be found. He wonders if she knows how extraordinary she is.

That night, she comes to his bedside with her book of poetry, like she has every night for the past two weeks. “Can’t sleep?” she asks, settling into the chair beside him.

“Hurts less when I’m distracted,” he admits. “And your voice helps.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“It got you to stay, didn’t it?”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling as she opens the book. “Where did we leave off?”

“The one about the soldier and his love,” Jungwon says. “The sad one.”

“They’re all sad.”

“Read it anyway.” She does, her voice low and melodic in the quiet tent. Around them, men sleep or moan in pain or whisper prayers to gods who seem very far away. But in this small circle of candlelight, it’s just the two of them.

When she finishes, Jungwon doesn’t want her to leave. “Stay,” he says. “Just a little longer.” She should say no. She should check on the other patients, get some sleep herself, maintain the professional distance she’s supposed to keep. Instead, she stays.

“Tell me something,” he says. “Something real. Not about the war or medicine or any of this. Tell me about you.”

She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Anything. What makes you happy?”

“Small things,” she says eventually. “The first warm day of spring. Fresh bread. The sound of rain on the roof.” She pauses. “My mother’s garden. She grows roses, and in summer the whole house smells like them.”

“That sounds beautiful.”

“It is. Was.” Her voice catches slightly. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.”

“You will,” Jungwon says with more confidence than he feels. “This war will end. You’ll go home to your mother’s roses. You’ll—” He stops, because he doesn’t know what her future holds. He barely knows what his own does.

“What about you?” she asks. “What makes you happy?”

He thinks about it. “Music. My sister plays the pianoforte, and sometimes in the evenings we’d sing together. And stargazing. There’s something about looking up at the stars that makes everything else feel smaller, more manageable.”

“I like that,” she murmurs. “The idea that we’re small. That all of this—” she gestures vaguely “—is small in the grand scheme of things.”

“Do you think the stars care about our little human wars?”

“I doubt it.” She tilts her head, considering. “But maybe the moon does. It’s closer, more personal. Maybe it watches us and remembers.”

Something about those words sends a shiver through him, though he couldn’t say why. “The moon remembers,” he repeats softly. “I like that.”

She stands then, and he feels the loss of her presence acutely. “Where are you going?”

“Just to the window,” she says. “I want to show you something.” She crosses to the side of the tent and opens the canvas flap that serves as a window, tying it back to let in the night air. Cool autumn wind rushes in, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and distant rain.

And there, hanging low in the sky, is the moon. Full and bright and impossibly beautiful. “Oh,” Jungwon breathes. She returns to his bedside, and together they look out at the moon in silence. “It’s lovely,” he says finally.

“It is.” She’s still gazing at it, her face soft in the silvery light. “When I was young, my mother used to tell me that the moon was a guardian. That it watched over travelers and lovers and anyone who needed guidance in the dark.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. But I like the idea of it. That something up there is watching. That we’re not alone.”

Jungwon reaches for her hand again, and this time she doesn’t pull away. They sit like that for a long moment, hands clasped, looking at the moon. “Do you think the moon remembers us?” he asks suddenly.

She turns to look at him, confused. “What?”

“The moon. Do you think it remembers us? All the people who have looked up at it, throughout all of history?”

“That’s…” She trails off, searching for words. “That’s a strange question.”

“I know. But do you think it does?”

She considers it seriously. “Maybe. Maybe it keeps track of all the stories. All the lovers and soldiers and lost souls who’ve ever gazed up at it.”

“Then it will remember this,” Jungwon says quietly. “Remember us. This moment.”

“Why would this moment matter?”

“Because I want it to.” He squeezes her hand gently. “Because someday, when this is all over, I want to believe that something in the universe will remember that we were here. That we mattered.”

She’s looking at him with such tenderness that his breath catches. “You matter,” she whispers. “To me, you matter.”

And then she leans down and kisses him. It’s soft, gentle, over almost before it begins. But when she pulls back, they’re both trembling. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

“I’m glad you did.”

“Jungwon—”

“When I’m better,” he interrupts, “I’m going to take you dancing. Like I promised. And I’m going to kiss you properly, somewhere that isn’t a hospital tent that smells like death.”

She laughs, and it sounds like tears. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m in love with you.” The words hang in the air between them, bold and terrifying and true. She doesn’t say it back. But she doesn’t let go of his hand either.

“Rest,” she says eventually, her voice unsteady. “You need to rest.”

“Will you stay?”

“For a little while.” She stays until he falls asleep, her hand in his, the moon watching through the open window.

For three more days, things are good. Better than good. She still maintains her professional distance during the day, but at night she comes to him with her book and her gentle hands and occasionally, when they’re alone, her lips.

He’s getting stronger. Can walk the length of the tent with only minimal pain. The doctor says another week, maybe two, and he’ll be fit enough to rejoin his unit. Neither of them talks about what happens then.

On the fourth night, something changes. Jungwon wakes in the middle of the night to find her beside him, like always. But something’s different. He feels… off. Feverish, maybe, though his skin is cool to the touch. “You should be sleeping,” she murmurs, noticing he’s awake.

“Couldn’t.” He shifts, and pain lances through his chest. “Feels different tonight.”

“Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere. Nowhere. I don’t know.” He tries to sit up and finds he can’t. “I think… I think I’m more tired than I realized.”

Concern flashes across her face. She places her hand on his forehead, checking for fever. “You’re not warm.”

“I know. I just…” He trails off, struggling to explain the feeling. Like something inside him is winding down. Like a clock running out of time. “Stay with me?”

“I’m here.” She takes his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good. That’s good.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “Can you open the window? I want to see the moon.” She does, and the silvery light spills across his bed.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Just like before.”

“Just like before,” she agrees, but her voice is strained.

“I want you to know,” Jungwon says slowly, each word taking effort, “that these past few weeks have been the happiest of my life.”

“Don’t.” Her voice breaks. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I mean it. Getting shot was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it brought me to you.”

Tears are streaming down her face now. “Jungwon, please—”

“Listen.” He squeezes her hand with what strength he has left. “If I don’t make it—”

“You’re going to make it. You have to make it. You promised me a dance, remember?”

“I remember.” He smiles, and it costs him. “But if I don’t… if something happens…”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“But if it does.” He’s fading, he can feel it, like sand slipping through fingers. “I need you to know that I’ll find you in the next life.”

She’s sobbing now. “What are you talking about? There is no next life, there’s only this one, and you’re going to be fine—”

“I’ll find you,” he says again, and he means it with every fiber of his being. “However long it takes. Whatever it costs. I’ll find you.”

“Jungwon—”

“Promise me you’ll remember. Promise me you’ll look for me too.”

“I promise,” she chokes out, even though she doesn’t understand, even though she thinks he’s delirious. “I promise.”

“Good.” His eyes are getting heavy. “That’s good. I’m just going to rest for a minute. Just… just a minute…”

“No, stay awake. Please stay awake. I need to get the doctor—“ But she can’t bring herself to let go of his hand. Can’t bring herself to leave him, even to get help.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not afraid.”

“I’m terrified,” she admits.

“Don’t be. I’ll see you again. I know I will.” He looks at her one more time, trying to memorize her face. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Did I tell you that?”

“No.”

“Well, you are. And I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too,” she sobs. “I love you, please don’t go—” But his eyes are already closing, his hand going slack in hers. “Jungwon? Jungwon!” She’s screaming for the doctor, for anyone, but she knows it’s too late. She can see it in the stillness of his chest, the absence of breath. He’s gone.

She collapses over him, sobbing, and outside the moon continues its silent vigil, remembering everything, bearing witness to yet another story of love and loss.

In the morning, they’ll take his body away. They’ll bury him in an unmarked grave with dozens of other soldiers whose names will be forgotten.

But she’ll remember. She’ll remember his smile, his promises, the way he looked at the moon and asked if it remembered them. She’ll remember for the rest of her life. And somewhere, somehow, the moon remembers too.

1850 — Your POV

The wedding is beautiful in the way that expensive things often are— beautiful and cold and utterly devoid of warmth.

You stand at the altar in a dress that cost more than most people earn in a year, ivory silk and French lace that weighs you down like chains. The church is full of people you barely know, friends of your father’s mostly, society figures who’ve come to witness the union of two respectable families. You don’t look at the man beside you. Your husband. The word feels foreign, wrong.

The ceremony passes in a blur. You say the words when prompted, mechanical and hollow. I do. I will. Till death do us part. Death seems very far away.

When it’s over, when you’ve signed the papers that make you his property in the eyes of God and the law, you’re ushered into a carriage for the journey to his— your— estate. And you still haven’t looked at him properly.

“Are you well?” he asks quietly as the carriage lurches into motion.It’s the first time he’s spoken directly to you all day. His voice is pleasant enough, polite, carefully neutral.

“Quite well, thank you.” Your own voice sounds distant to your ears. “And you?”

“Well enough.” Silence descends again. You stare out the window at the countryside rolling past, green and lush and utterly indifferent to your misery.

This is your life now. Mrs. Yang Jungwon. Wife to a man you’ve met exactly three times before today— once at the engagement announcement, once at a chaperoned dinner, and once in passing at a social function where you’d exchanged perhaps a dozen words.

You know almost nothing about him except what your father told you: good family, substantial fortune, respectable reputation. A suitable match. No one asked if you wanted to be suitably matched.

The estate, when you arrive, is massive and imposing. Gray stone, manicured gardens, the kind of old money grandeur that’s meant to intimidate. It works. “Welcome home,” Jungwon says as he helps you down from the carriage. Home. The word rings hollow.

The staff is assembled to greet you— housekeeper, butler, lady’s maid, cook, and various others whose names you immediately forget. They curtsy and bow, welcoming the new lady of the house, and you smile because it’s expected.

“Mrs. Choi will show you to your rooms,” Jungwon says. “I imagine you’ll want to rest after the journey.” Your rooms. Separate rooms. Of course.

“Thank you,” you murmur. Mrs. Choi, the housekeeper, is a stern-faced woman in her fifties who leads you up a grand staircase and down a long hallway to a suite of rooms that will be yours. Bedroom, dressing room, private sitting room. All decorated in shades of cream and gold, elegant and expensive and utterly impersonal.

“Dinner is at eight,” Mrs. Choi informs you. “Ring if you need anything.”

And then you’re alone. You sink onto the bed— your bed— and stare at the ceiling. This is it. This is your life now. You’ll live in this house with this stranger, produce heirs if you can manage it, and grow old in separate bedrooms. You don’t cry. You’re too numb for tears.

The first weeks of marriage establish a pattern. You see Jungwon at breakfast and dinner. The meals are formal, served in a dining room far too large for two people. Conversation is stilted and polite. He asks about your day. You ask about his. Neither of you says anything of substance.

At night, you retire to your separate rooms. He’s made no move to consummate the marriage, and you’re grateful for it. The thought of that kind of intimacy with a stranger makes your skin crawl.

You fill your days with the expected activities of a lady of the house— consulting with the cook about menus, reviewing household accounts, receiving calls from neighbors who want to inspect the new bride. It’s all terribly boring.

Jungwon seems equally miserable, though he’s better at hiding it. He spends most of his time in his study, managing the estate or whatever it is men do in their studies. Sometimes you hear him playing the pianoforte in the music room late at night, melancholy pieces that drift through the halls like ghosts. You don’t disturb him.

A month passes. Then two. You’re reading in the library one afternoon when he finds you there. “I’m sorry,” he says, hovering in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s your library.” You close the book. “You can hardly intrude.”

“I suppose.” But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves closer, looking at the spines on the shelves with genuine interest. “What are you reading?”

You show him the cover. “Byron.”

His eyebrows rise. “Not the usual choice for a lady.”

“I’m not the usual lady.”

“Clearly.” And for the first time since the wedding, he almost smiles. “I like Byron too. Though I prefer Wordsworth.”

“Wordsworth is lovely, but Byron has more passion.”

“Passion is overrated. Give me quiet reflection any day.”

“That sounds desperately boring.”

“Perhaps I am desperately boring.”You study him properly for the first time. He’s handsome, you suppose, in a classical way. Dark hair, serious eyes, the kind of refined features that look good in portraits. But there’s something sad about him too, a resigned quality that mirrors your own feelings.

“Why did you agree to this?” you ask suddenly. “The marriage. If you didn’t want it.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “How do you know I didn’t want it?”

“Because you’re as miserable as I am.”

He doesn’t deny it. “My father arranged it. Said it was time I settled down, secured the family line. I’m the only son, so…” He trails off with a shrug.

“So you had no more choice than I did.”

“No.” He meets your eyes. “I’m sorry. For both of us.” It’s the most honest conversation you’ve had.

“We’re rather pathetic, aren’t we?” you say. “Two people with everything anyone could want, absolutely miserable.”

“Quite pathetic,” he agrees. And then he does smile, small and wry. “But at least we have good taste in poetry.” It’s not much. But it’s something.

After that, things shift slightly. You start having breakfast together in the smaller morning room instead of the formal dining room. The conversation is still careful, but less strained. You discover he has a dry sense of humor that catches you off guard. He discovers you have opinions about things women aren’t supposed to have opinions about— politics, philosophy, the appalling state of labor conditions in the factories. “You’re very radical,” he observes one morning over tea.

“And you’re very traditional.”

“Not by choice.”

“None of us are anything by choice, apparently.” He laughs at that, and the sound surprises both of you.

You start spending time together outside of meals. Reading in the library simultaneously, taking walks around the grounds, playing cards in the evening. It’s not romance, but it’s companionship. Friendship, almost.

You learn things about him. That he wanted to be a physician but his father forbade it, said it was beneath their station. That he plays the pianoforte to calm his mind when he can’t sleep. That he has nightmares sometimes, though he won’t say about what.

He learns things about you too. That you wanted to attend university but of course that was impossible. That you’re terrified of thunderstorms. That you once punched a boy who tried to kiss you without permission, and your father was furious but your mother was secretly proud. “I would have liked to meet your mother,” Jungwon says one evening.

“She would have liked you.” You pause. “I think she would have been glad I ended up with someone kind, at least.”

“Kind seems like damning with faint praise.”

“It’s more than most women get.” He can’t argue with that.

Three months into the marriage, something changes. You’re coming back from a walk in the gardens when a thunderstorm rolls in suddenly, violent and loud. You make it to the house but you’re soaked through, trembling not from cold but from fear.

Jungwon finds you in the entrance hall, dripping water onto the marble. “Are you alright?” He’s at your side immediately, concerned.

“Fine. Just— the storm—” Thunder cracks overhead and you flinch badly. Without thinking, he pulls you against him, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “You’re safe. It’s just noise.” You bury your face against his shoulder, embarrassed by your fear but unable to help it. He’s warm and solid and he smells like sandalwood and old books.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble into his waistcoat.

“Don’t be.” His hand moves in soothing circles on your back. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”

You stay like that until the worst of the storm passes, wrapped in his arms, feeling his heartbeat steady against your cheek. When you finally pull back, you’re both acutely aware of how close you are. His hands are still on your waist. Your fingers are twisted in his shirt. “I should change,” you say quietly. “Before I catch cold.”

“Yes. Of course.” But he doesn’t let go immediately.

“Jungwon—”

“I know.” He steps back, dropping his hands. “I’ll have Mrs. Choi draw you a bath.”

That night, you can’t stop thinking about how it felt to be held by him. How natural it seemed. How much you didn’t want him to let go. This is dangerous territory even though you’re married to him. But you can feel yourself falling.

After the storm, you can’t seem to go back to polite distance. You start sitting closer together when you read. Hands brushing when you pass the teapot. Long looks across the dinner table that make your pulse race.

One evening, you’re playing the pianoforte— badly, you’re the first to admit— and he comes to sit beside you on the bench. “May I?” he asks.

You slide over to make room. He begins to play, something soft and lovely that you don’t recognize. His hands move over the keys with practiced ease. “That’s beautiful,” you murmur.

“It’s Chopin. Nocturne in E-flat major.”

“Play it again?” He does, and this time you watch his hands instead of the keys. Beautiful hands, long fingers, careful and precise.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move away. “You’re staring,” he says softly.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He turns to look at you, and his face is very close to yours. “I stare at you all the time.”

Your breath catches. “You do?”

“Constantly. I thought you’d noticed.”

“I… no. I didn’t.”

“Well. Now you know.”

The air between you feels electric. You’re very aware of his thigh pressed against yours on the bench, the warmth of his body, the way his eyes drop to your lips. “We should—” you start.

“Yes,” he agrees. Neither of you moves.

“This is madness,” you whisper.

“Probably.”

“We barely know each other.”

“I know.” His hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone. “But I’d like to. Know you, I mean. If you’ll let me.”

“Yes.” The word comes out breathless. “Yes, I—”

He kisses you. It’s soft at first, tentative, giving you every opportunity to pull away. But you don’t. Instead, you lean into him, your hand coming up to rest on his chest, and the kiss deepens. When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard.

“I should go,” you say, even though you don’t want to.

“Stay.” His forehead rests against yours. “Please stay. I know we didn’t choose this. I know we started as strangers. But I…” He pulls back to look at you. “I’m falling in love with you. Is that insane?”

Your heart is pounding. “If it is, then I’m insane too.”

He kisses you again, deeper this time, and you feel something unlock in your chest. Permission to feel this. Permission to want. “Come with me,” he murmurs against your lips.

“Where?”

“To my room. If you want. We don’t have to— I just want to be near you.” You should say no. This is too fast, too sudden, even though you’re married and have every right. But you take his hand.

His bedroom is larger than yours, decorated in deep greens and dark wood. Masculine and elegant. The bed is massive, four-poster, imposing. “Second thoughts?” he asks, seeing you hesitate.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” You laugh nervously. “I’ve never… that is, I don’t know what I’m supposed to…”

Understanding dawns on his face. “Ah. Your mother didn’t—”

“She died before we could have that conversation.”

“I see.” He moves closer, taking both your hands. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

“I want to.” And you do. God help you, you do. “I just… don’t know how.”

“Neither do I, really.” At your surprised look, he shrugs. “I’ve had opportunities, but I never… it didn’t feel right. With anyone else.”

“And this feels right? With me?”

“Everything feels right with you.” He kisses you again, slow and sweet, walking you backwards until your legs hit the bed. You sit, and he kneels in front of you, looking up with such tenderness it makes you ache. “We’ll figure it out together,” he promises. “And if you want to stop at any point—”

“I won’t.” You cup his face. “I trust you.”

What follows is gentle and awkward and lovely. He helps you out of your dress with shaking hands, fumbling with buttons and laces until you’re both laughing. You help him with his waistcoat, his shirt, until you’re both down to undergarments and the laughter has faded into something heavier. “You’re beautiful,” he breathes, looking at you in your chemise.

“So are you.” He’s all lean muscle and smooth skin when he strips off his undershirt. You reach out to touch his chest, feeling his heart racing under your palm.

“Nervous?” you ask.

“Terrified.” But he’s smiling. “You?”

“Same.”

He lays you back on the bed, covering your body with his, and for a moment you just look at each other. “I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you too.”

The first touch of his skin against yours makes you gasp. He’s warm and solid and careful, so careful with you. “Tell me what feels good,” he murmurs, pressing kisses along your jaw, your neck.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then we’ll find out.” His hands are gentle as they explore your body over the thin chemise. Learning the shape of you, the places that make you shiver. When he brushes over your breast, you arch into the touch.

“There?” he asks.

“Yes. There.” He does it again, more deliberately this time, and pleasure sparks through you. His mouth follows his hands, kissing across your collarbone, down to the swell of your breasts still covered by fabric.

“Can I…?” He tugs at the hem of your chemise. You sit up enough to let him pull it over your head, and then you’re bare before him. For a moment, he just looks.

“Stop staring,” you mumble, fighting the urge to cover yourself.

“Can’t help it.” His voice is rough. “You’re perfect.” His mouth finds your breast, tongue swirling around your nipple, and you cry out at the sensation. He takes his time, lavishing attention on both breasts until you’re squirming beneath him.

“Please,” you gasp, though you’re not sure what you’re asking for.

“I’ve got you.” His hand slides down your stomach, over the curve of your hip, coming to rest on your thigh. He pauses there, giving you time to object. You spread your legs instead. “God,” he breathes. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

His fingers find you, exploring carefully. You’re wet, embarrassingly so, and he makes a sound low in his throat. “Is this alright?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

He strokes through your folds, learning what makes you gasp and moan. When he finds that sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex, you nearly come off the bed. “There,” you pant. “Right there, please—”

He circles your clit with careful pressure, watching your face as pleasure builds. His other hand is braced beside your head, supporting his weight, and you can see how much this is affecting him too— the flush on his cheeks, the way his pupils have blown wide.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmurs. “So responsive.”

One finger slides inside you and you clench around the intrusion. It’s strange but not unpleasant, a fullness you’ve never felt before. “Okay?” he asks.

“More. Please, more.”

He adds a second finger, working them in and out while his thumb continues its maddening circles on your clit. The pleasure builds and builds, tension coiling low in your belly. “I think—” you gasp. “I think something’s happening—”

“Let it happen. I’ve got you.”

His fingers curl inside you, hitting some spot that makes stars burst behind your eyes, and you shatter. Your back arches, a cry torn from your throat as your cunt pulses around his fingers. He works you through it, gentle and steady, until you collapse back against the bed.

“That was—” You can’t find words. “What was that?”

“Pleasure.” He’s grinning now, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “Did you like it?”

“I think I might die if we never do that again.” He laughs and kisses you, and you can taste your own arousal on his lips.

“Your turn,” you say when you can speak again.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” You reach for the fastenings of his trousers. “Show me?” He helps you strip him of the last of his clothing, and then he’s bare before you. His cock is hard, flushed and leaking, and you’re struck by how vulnerable he looks like this. You wrap your hand around him experimentally, and he hisses. “Too much?”

“No. Perfect. You’re perfect.”

You stroke him slowly, learning the weight of him in your hand, the way his hips buck when you twist your wrist just so.

“I want—” He breaks off, breathing hard. “Can I be inside you?”

“Yes.” You’ve never wanted anything more. “Please.”

He positions himself between your thighs, the head of his cock nudging at your entrance. He’s shaking. “This might hurt,” he warns. “I’ll go slow.”

He pushes in gradually, giving you time to adjust. There’s a pinch of pain as he breaches you, and you grip his shoulders.

“Breathe,” he murmurs. “Just breathe.” He goes deeper, inch by careful inch, until he’s fully seated inside you. The fullness is overwhelming, bordering on too much, but underneath the discomfort is something else. Something that feels right.

“Okay?” he grits out, clearly struggling to hold still.

“Okay. You can move.”

He does, pulling out slowly before pushing back in. The pain fades with each stroke, replaced by a building pleasure. You wrap your legs around his waist, changing the angle, and he hits something inside you that makes you moan.

“There,” you gasp. “Just like that.”

He finds a rhythm, steady and deep, his hips rolling against yours. One hand slides between your bodies to find your clit again, and the combined sensations are almost too much. “You feel so good,” he pants. “So perfect. Like you were made for me.”

“Maybe I was.” You’re babbling now, lost in pleasure. “Maybe we were made for each other.”

“Yes. God, yes.” His thrusts become more urgent, less controlled. You can feel him getting close, his cock swelling inside you, and you clench down deliberately. “Fuck,” he gasps. “I’m—I’m going to—”

“Do it. Inside me.”

He does with a broken moan, his hips stuttering as he spills deep inside you. The feeling of his cock pulsing, the warmth flooding you, pushes you over the edge again. Your cunt clenches around him as you come, milking him through his orgasm. He collapses beside you, pulling out carefully, and gathers you into his arms.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there, sweaty and satisfied and stunned by what just happened. “That was—” he starts.

“Incredible,” you finish.

“I was going to say ‘better than I imagined’ but incredible works too.”

You laugh and press a kiss to his chest. “You imagined it?”

“Constantly. For weeks. I was going mad with wanting you.”

“You could have said something.”

“And risk you thinking I was some beast who only wanted you for that?” He strokes your hair. “I wanted you to choose me. To want me back.”

“I do.” You look up at him. “Want you, I mean. All of you. Not just the physical parts, though those are very nice.”

He grins. “Very nice?”

“Exceptional. Earth-shattering. Is that better?”

“Much.”

You settle against him, content in a way you’ve never been before. This wasn’t what you expected when you walked down that aisle three months ago. You thought you’d be trapped in a loveless marriage, going through the motions for the rest of your life. Instead, you’ve found this. Found him.

“I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you too.” He kisses the top of your head. “My wife.” The word doesn’t sound wrong anymore.

The next few months are the happiest of your life.

You and Jungwon are inseparable. You spend your days together— riding, reading, walking the grounds. The nights are for other things, learning each other’s bodies with increasing confidence and creativity. You make love in his bed, in your bed, once daringly in the library. He learns all the ways to make you fall apart, and you learn what makes him lose control. It’s intoxicating, this intimacy. This partnership.

“I can’t believe I thought I’d be miserable,” you tell him one morning, wrapped in his arms after a particularly energetic session.

“I can’t believe I almost let you sleep in separate bedrooms for the rest of our lives.”

“What changed your mind?”

“That storm. Holding you.” He pulls you closer. “I couldn’t pretend anymore that I didn’t want this. Want you.”

“I’m glad you stopped pretending.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you think we would have found this eventually? If not for the storm?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe we would have stayed strangers forever.” You trace patterns on his chest. “I’m grateful we didn’t have to find out.”

Winter arrives, bringing cold rain and early darkness. Jungwon has been coughing more lately, but you don’t think much of it. Everyone gets sick in winter. But it doesn’t get better.

One morning in late December, you wake to find blood on his handkerchief. “It’s nothing,” he insists when you confront him. “Just a cough.”

“That’s not just a cough.”

“I’ll see the physician if it makes you feel better.” It doesn’t make you feel better. Especially when the physician comes and takes one look at Jungwon and his face goes carefully blank.

“Tuberculosis,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.” The word hits like a physical blow.

“How long?” you ask, because Jungwon seems incapable of speech.

“Impossible to say. Months, perhaps. Maybe a year with rest and good care.” A year. Maybe.

After the physician leaves, you find Jungwon in the library, staring out the window at nothing. “We’ll get through this,” you say, taking his hand.

“Don’t.” His voice is hollow. “Don’t pretend this is something we can fix.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m fighting.”

“There’s nothing to fight.” He turns to look at you, and there are tears on his face. “I’m dying. And I finally—” His voice breaks. “I finally found something worth living for.” You pull him into your arms and let him cry.

The next months are a cruel inversion of your happiness. You care for him as he weakens, watching helplessly as the vibrant man you love fades into someone pale and frail.

He tries to stay strong for you. Jokes when he can manage it, reads to you when he has the breath, makes love to you when his body allows it though you tell him he doesn’t have to.

“I want to,” he insists. “While I still can. While I can still make you feel good.” Those moments are bittersweet. Tender and desperate, both of you trying to memorize every touch, every sound.

By spring, he’s confined to bed most days. You spend hours sitting with him, reading or just holding his hand. One night in April, you open the window to let in the fresh air. The moon is full and bright, hanging low in the sky. “Beautiful,” Jungwon murmurs from the bed.

You return to his side. “The moon?”

“Everything.” He’s looking at you, not the sky. “You’re beautiful. This life we built, however brief. Beautiful.” You take his hand, fighting back tears.

He turns his gaze to the moon, a small smile on his lips. “Do you think the moon remembers us?”

The question is strange, out of place. “What?”

“The moon. Do you think it remembers us? All the people who’ve looked up at it throughout time?”

You don’t understand why he’s asking this, but you answer honestly. “I’d like to think so. That all our stories, all our love, is remembered somewhere.”

“Good.” He squeezes your hand weakly. “Then it will remember this. Remember us. How much I love you.”

“Don’t.” Your voice breaks. “Don’t talk like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I have to.” He’s struggling to breathe now, each word an effort. “Have to tell you. In case… in case there’s something after this.”

“Jungwon—”

“I’ll find you.” He says it with utter conviction. “In the next life, if there is one. I’ll find you. However long it takes.”

Tears are streaming down your face. “Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t want to.” He lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles. “But I don’t think I have a choice.”

You climb into the bed beside him, careful of his fragile body, and hold him as gently as you can. “I love you,” you whisper. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” His breathing is getting shallower. “Thank you. For making me happy. For letting me love you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do.” He’s fading, you can feel it. “You saved me. From a life of duty and emptiness. You gave me joy.”

“You gave me the same.”

He smiles, peaceful despite the pain. “Then we’re even.” His eyes close.

“Jungwon?” Panic claws at your throat. “Jungwon, don’t—”

“Just resting,” he murmurs. “So tired.”

“I know. But stay with me. Please stay with me.”

“Always.” His grip on your hand is so weak now. “Every life. Every lifetime. I’ll find you.” Those are the last words he speaks.

He dies as the sun rises, the moon fading into daylight, and you’re left holding an empty shell of the man who taught you what love could be. You don’t leave his side for hours. Can’t bring yourself to let go.

When they finally take him away, you return to the window. The moon is gone now, but you look up at the sky anyway.

“Remember us,” you whisper. “Please remember us.” Somewhere in the vast indifference of the universe, maybe it does.

1912 — Jungwon’s POV

The ship is bigger than anything Jungwon has ever seen. He stands on the dock in Southampton, neck craned back to take in the sheer scale of the RMS Titanic, and feels impossibly small. Four massive funnels reach toward the sky, the hull gleaming white and black in the April sun. Unsinkable, they’re calling it. The ship that even God himself couldn’t sink.

Jungwon doesn’t believe in unsinkable ships, but he believes in new beginnings. America. That’s where this floating palace is headed, and Jungwon along with it. He’s got a third-class ticket, everything he owns in a single worn suitcase, and hopes for a job in New York that might actually pay enough to live on.

England has nothing left for him— no family, no prospects, no future worth staying for. So: America. And the Titanic to get him there.

The third-class gangway is crowded with people like him— immigrants, workers, dreamers. The smell of unwashed bodies and cheap tobacco mingles with salt air. Jungwon shoulders his suitcase and joins the queue, shuffling forward slowly.

“Papers,” the officer barks when Jungwon reaches the front. He hands them over— passport, ticket, health certificate. Everything in order. The officer barely glances at them before waving him through. And then he’s aboard.

The third-class accommodations are exactly what he expected— cramped quarters, narrow bunks stacked three high, thin blankets that smell of mothballs. He’s sharing the cabin with five other men, none of whom speak English. They communicate in gestures and broken phrases, sorting out who gets which bunk. Jungwon ends up with a middle one. It’ll do. It’s only four days to New York.

He leaves his suitcase on the bunk and goes exploring. Third-class passengers aren’t supposed to wander into the upper decks, but the ship is massive and the crew can’t be everywhere. Jungwon has never been good at following rules.

He climbs stairs, follows hallways, nods politely at stewards who eye him suspiciously but don’t actually stop him. The ship is a maze of opulence and machinery— plush carpets giving way to metal floors, crystal chandeliers to bare electric bulbs.

He finds his way to the Boat Deck, where the lifeboats hang in their davits and the ocean stretches endless in every direction. The ship has pulled away from port now, Southampton shrinking behind them. The coast of England is a gray line on the horizon. Goodbye, he thinks. Good riddance.

He’s leaning against the railing, breathing in cold salt air, when he sees her. She’s first class— that much is obvious from the dress alone. Pale blue silk, cinched waist, a hat that probably cost more than his ticket. She’s standing near the stern with a man in an expensive suit, and even from a distance Jungwon can tell she doesn’t want to be there.

Her posture is stiff, uncomfortable. The man— her husband? fiancé?— has his hand possessively on her elbow, gesturing at the horizon like he owns it. She nods along, dutiful and detached.

And then she turns her head, just slightly, and her eyes meet Jungwon’s across the deck. The world stops. It’s not love at first sight— Jungwon doesn’t believe in that. But it’s something. Recognition, maybe, though he’s never seen her before in his life. A pull, deep in his chest, like a hook catching and refusing to let go.

She holds his gaze for three heartbeats. Four. Five. Then the man says something and she looks away, the moment broken. Jungwon should leave. Should go back to third class where he belongs, forget about the beautiful woman in the blue dress. He doesn’t.

He sees her again that evening in the third-class general room. Which is impossible, because first-class passengers don’t come down to third class. Ever. It’s practically a law.

But there she is, hovering in the doorway, looking around with wide eyes at the crowded, noisy space. Someone’s playing an accordion, children are running underfoot, people are drinking and laughing and speaking in a dozen different languages. She looks completely out of place and utterly enchanted. Jungwon makes his way through the crowd toward her.

“Lost?” he asks. She startles, turning to look at him. Up close, she’s even more beautiful— dark eyes, delicate features, a strand of hair escaping from beneath her hat.

“I—” She glances behind her, nervous. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Probably not. Want to stay anyway?”

A smile tugs at her lips. “Maybe. Just for a moment.”

“Come on.” He offers his hand. “I’ll give you the grand tour. It’ll take about thirty seconds.” She laughs and takes his hand.

He shows her the general room, the modest dining area, the stairs leading down to the berths. She asks questions— where is he from, where is he going, what does he hope to find in America. He answers honestly, charmed by her genuine interest. “What about you?” he asks. “What brings you to third class?”

“Curiosity. And…” She hesitates. “Escape, I suppose.”

“From what?”

“A man with too much money and not enough imagination.” She says it lightly, but there’s bitterness underneath. “My fiancé. He thinks he owns me.”

“Does he?”

“Not yet. The wedding isn’t until we reach New York.”

Something cold settles in Jungwon’s stomach. “You don’t want to marry him.”

“No. But I don’t have much choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not for women like me.” She pulls her hand from his, wrapping her arms around herself. “I should go. He’ll notice I’m gone.”

“Wait.” Jungwon doesn’t know what he’s doing, only that he can’t let her leave yet. “What’s your name?” She shouldn’t tell him. It’s improper, dangerous even. But she does anyway. And Jungwon commits it to memory like a prayer.

They keep running into each other. Or rather, she keeps finding excuses to slip away from her fiancé and come find Jungwon. It’s reckless and stupid and neither of them can stop.

She comes down to third class when she can, staying for stolen minutes in hallways and quiet corners. They talk about everything— books, dreams, the lives they wish they could have. She tells him about growing up in a gilded cage, groomed from birth to marry well and look pretty. He tells her about growing up with nothing, fighting for every scrap.

“I envy you,” she says one night. They’re on the aft deck, hidden from view behind a lifeboat. It’s late, most passengers asleep. The stars are brilliant overhead.

“Envy me?” Jungwon laughs. “I have nothing.”

“You have freedom. You can go anywhere, be anyone. I’ve never had that.”

“You could. Come to America with me. Really with me, not with him.”

“Don’t.” But she doesn’t move away when he steps closer. “Don’t give me hope for things that can’t happen.”

“Why can’t they?”

“Because I’m engaged. Because he’d ruin you if he found out. Because—” Jungwon kisses her. It’s impulsive and foolish and she should push him away, should slap him, should run back to her fiancé and forget this ever happened. She kisses him back instead.

It’s desperate and messy and perfect. His hands in her hair, her fingers clutching his shirt. Four days they’ve been on this ship and it feels like a lifetime, feels like they’ve known each other forever.

When they break apart, they’re both breathing hard. “Come to my cabin,” he says. “Please.”

“I can’t—”

“I know. But please. Just tonight. Let me have tonight.”

She should say no. She should walk away while she still can. “Yes,” she whispers instead. “Yes.”

His cabin is empty— his bunkmates still in the general room, drinking and playing cards. Jungwon locks the door behind them, and for a moment they just stand there, looking at each other. “We don’t have to,” he says. “If you don’t want—”

“I want.” She’s already working at the buttons of her dress. “Help me?”

His hands shake as he helps her undress, revealing layers of silk and lace and finally, skin. She’s beautiful, all soft curves and pale flesh, and he can’t believe this is real.

She undresses him too, fingers fumbling with buttons and buckles until they’re both bare. The cabin is cramped and cold, but neither of them cares. “Have you—” he starts.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” They laugh, nervous and giddy, and then he’s guiding her to the narrow bunk, covering her body with his.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he murmurs, kissing her neck.

“You won’t.”

He takes his time, exploring her body with hands and mouth. Learning what makes her gasp, what makes her arch into his touch. When he slides his hand between her thighs and finds her wet, she moans. “Jungwon—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

He strokes her clit, watching her face as pleasure builds. She’s gorgeous like this— flushed and wanting, all artifice stripped away. When she comes apart under his fingers, he feels like he’s witnessing something holy.

“Inside me,” she pants. “Please, I need—”

He positions himself at her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against her wetness. “This might hurt,” he warns.

“I don’t care.” He pushes in slowly, feeling her stretch around him. She winces and he freezes.

“Don’t stop,” she grits out. “Keep going.” He does, inch by inch, until he’s fully inside her. The feeling is overwhelming— tight and hot and perfect. He has to hold still for a moment, fighting the urge to move.

“Okay?” he manages.

“Okay. More than okay. Move, please—” He does, pulling out slowly before pushing back in. Finding a rhythm, careful and deep. Her legs wrap around his waist, heels digging into his back.

“Yes,” she gasps. “Like that, just like that—”

The bunk creaks beneath them, the sound embarrassingly loud in the small cabin. But Jungwon can’t bring himself to care. All that matters is this— her body beneath his, the way she’s looking at him like he’s everything.

“I’m close,” he warns. “I need to—”

“Inside me. Don’t pull out.”

“But—”

“I don’t care. I want to feel you.” That’s all it takes. He buries himself deep and comes with a groan, spilling inside her. The feeling of his cock pulsing, of his release filling her, pushes her over the edge. She comes around him with a cry, her cunt clenching and fluttering. They collapse together in the narrow bunk, sweaty and satisfied and stunned by what just happened. “I love you,” she whispers against his chest.

“I love you too.” He kisses the top of her head. “Come with me. To New York. Leave him and come with me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. We’ll—”

“Shh.” She presses a finger to his lips. “Let’s not think about tomorrow yet. Let’s just have tonight.”

So they do. They make love again, slower this time. Learning each other, memorizing every touch. And afterward, they lie tangled together, talking in whispers about impossible futures.

Through the porthole, the moon hangs low over the water, full and bright. “Look,” she says, pointing. “The moon.”

Jungwon follows her gaze. “It’s beautiful.”

“Do you think the moon remembers us?” she asks suddenly. “All the people who’ve looked up at it throughout time?”

The question is strange, but somehow it doesn’t feel strange. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I just… I want something to remember this. Remember us. In case—” She stops, shaking her head. “Never mind. I’m being foolish.”

“You’re not.” He pulls her closer. “And yes. I think the moon remembers. I think it’s watched a million love stories just like ours.”

“This isn’t a love story. Love stories have happy endings.”

“Ours will too.” He says it with conviction he doesn’t quite feel. “We’ll make it work. We’ll—”

She kisses him, cutting off the words. They make love once more, desperate and clinging, like they’re trying to fight off the dawn.

When she finally leaves, slipping back to first class before sunrise, Jungwon lies in the bunk that still smells like her and tries not to think about losing her.

The next day, April 14th, dawns cold and clear. Jungwon doesn’t see her all morning, all afternoon. He walks the decks, hoping for a glimpse, but third class and first class might as well be different worlds.

By evening, he’s restless and frustrated. He shouldn’t have let her go. Should have convinced her to stay, to run away with him right then.

He’s in the general room after dinner, nursing a beer and trying not to think about her, when the ship shudders. It’s subtle— a grinding sensation, a slight lurch. Most people don’t even notice. But Jungwon feels it in his bones, a wrongness that makes his skin prickle. Around him, the conversation continues. The accordion plays. Children laugh. But something is wrong.

It’s another twenty minutes before the crew starts coming through, telling everyone to put on life belts and head to the Boat Deck. Their voices are calm, almost casual. Just a precaution. Nothing to worry about. Jungwon doesn’t believe them.

He grabs his coat and joins the stream of people heading upstairs. The corridors are crowded, confused. Why are they doing this? It’s freezing outside. The ship is fine. But when Jungwon reaches the deck, he sees the ice. Chunks of it, scattered across the forward deck like broken glass. And the ship— the unsinkable ship— is listing. Tilting forward, just barely, but

Crew members are uncovering lifeboats, their movements quick and efficient. Women and children are being loaded first, separating families, causing chaos. Jungwon scans the crowd frantically, looking for her. There are hundreds of people on deck now, maybe thousands. First class mixing with second and third, all the careful social hierarchies breaking down in the face of disaster.

He pushes through the crowd, searching. She has to be here somewhere. She has to— there. She’s near one of the lifeboats, her fiancé gripping her arm. She’s arguing with him, trying to pull away, and Jungwon’s heart seizes. He fights his way toward her.

“—not getting in without you!” she’s saying, tears streaming down her face.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her fiancé snaps. “The ship is sinking. Get in the boat.”

“I won’t leave you—”

“You will if I tell you to—”

“Let her go.” Jungwon doesn’t recognize his own voice. It’s hard, angry, nothing like the gentle tone he used with her last night.

The fiancé turns, sees him, and his face twists with contempt. “Who the hell are you?”

“Someone who actually cares about her. Let. Her. Go.”

“You’re that third-class rat she’s been sneaking off to see.” The fiancé’s grip tightens on her arm and she winces. “I should have known. Guards!”

“Stop it!” She wrenches free, stumbling toward Jungwon. “Stop it, both of you!”

Jungwon catches her, steadying her. Up close, he can see the terror in her eyes. “The ship,” she whispers. “It’s really sinking, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then we need to— we have to—“ She looks around wildly at the chaos, the lifeboats being lowered, the growing tilt of the deck.

“Get on a boat,” Jungwon says. “Now. While there’s still room.”

“Not without you.”

“There’s no room for me. Women and children only.” He cups her face, memorizing her features. “Please. Get on the boat.”

“No. No, I won’t—” Her fiancé grabs her again, and this time he’s stronger, more forceful. He drags her toward the lifeboat despite her struggles.

“Jungwon!” she screams. He tries to follow but a crew member blocks his way.

“Back, sir. Women and children only.”

“That’s my—” But what is she? Not his wife. Not even really his lover, except for one stolen night. “Please, she needs me—”

“Step back or I’ll have you removed.”

Through the crowd, Jungwon watches helplessly as her fiancé forces her into the lifeboat. She’s fighting, crying, calling Jungwon’s name. Their eyes meet across the distance. I love you, he mouths. The lifeboat starts to lower.

“NO!” She’s leaning over the edge, reaching for him. “Jungwon, please! PLEASE!” But the boat drops away, down toward the black water, and she’s gone.

Jungwon stands frozen, watching the lifeboat pull away from the dying ship. She’s safe. That’s what matters. She’s safe.

The Titanic groans beneath his feet, the bow sinking lower. Around him, people are screaming now, the reality of the situation setting in. Not enough boats. Not enough time. He’s going to die here. The thought is strangely calm.

He makes his way to the stern, which is rising now as the bow sinks. The deck is tilting at a dangerous angle, people clinging to railings, crying and praying. Jungwon finds a spot near the back and looks up at the sky. The stars are brilliant, the moon nearly full. Beautiful.

He thinks about last night. Her body beneath his, the way she said his name. The plans they made that will never happen now. “I’ll find you in the next life,” he whispers to the moon, to the stars, to whatever might be listening.

The ship shudders violently. Somewhere below, something breaks with a sound like thunder. The stern is rising higher now, nearly vertical.

People are jumping, falling, screaming as they plummet into the icy water. Jungwon holds on, watching it all with strange detachment.

This is how he dies. Not in a fight, not of old age, but here on a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable, thinking about a woman he knew for four days. The ship breaks. He feels it— the hull splitting, metal screaming as the bow tears away and sinks. The stern bobs for a moment, and Jungwon thinks maybe, maybe—

Then it goes down. The water is so cold it stops his heart. He tries to swim but his limbs won’t cooperate, the freezing temperature shutting down his body piece by piece. Around him, people are screaming, thrashing, dying. He stops fighting.

As the water closes over his head, his last thought is of her. Of dark eyes and soft skin and a single night that felt like forever. I’ll find you, he thinks again. I promise. I’ll find you. The moon watches as he drowns.

In the lifeboat, she’s still screaming his name. Her fiancé tries to restrain her, tries to calm her down, but she’s hysterical. She saw the ship break. Saw it go down. Saw hundreds of people disappear into the black water. Including Jungwon. “He’s gone,” her fiancé says, not unkindly. “I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”

“No.” She’s shaking her head, denial and grief warring in her chest. “No, he can’t be. He promised. He said—” But she can’t remember what he said. Only that it felt important. That it felt true.

They’re rescued hours later by the Carpathia. She and her fiancé are wrapped in blankets, given hot soup, processed like cargo. She goes through the motions, numb and hollow.

Her fiancé tries to comfort her, tries to pretend the last four days didn’t happen. They’ll still marry when they reach New York, he says. Put this tragedy behind them. Move forward. She nods because she doesn’t have the energy to argue. But she knows the truth. She died on that ship too. The woman she was, the woman Jungwon made her feel like she could be— that woman drowned in the Atlantic. What’s left is just a shell.

On the Carpathia’s deck that night, she looks up at the moon. The same moon that watched them make love, that heard her ask if it would remember.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please remember him. Remember us.” The moon offers no answer. But somewhere, somehow, she thinks it heard.

1969 — Your POV

June 15, 1969 Dear Diary, I hate that I’m starting this like some teenage girl, but Mom gave me this journal and said writing might help. Help with what, I’m not sure. The fear? The waiting? The bone-deep terror that comes with loving someone who’s about to go to war? Jungwon got his draft notice today. He came home from the post office with this look on his face— not surprised, exactly, but resigned. Like he’d been waiting for this moment and now it’s finally here. First son. That’s what the letter said, like that explains everything. Like being born first means you’re obligated to die first too. We’ve been together for two years. Two perfect, beautiful years. We met at a protest, of all places— both of us marching against this stupid war, and now he has to go fight in it. The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic. He leaves in eight weeks. Sixty days. That’s all we have left. I don’t know how to do this. How to count down the days until I lose him. How to smile and be strong when all I want to do is scream. But I’ll try. For him, I’ll try.

You remember the day you met him with perfect clarity. August 1967. Washington D.C. The March on the Pentagon. You’d gone with friends from college, piled into someone’s beat-up Volkswagen van with hand-painted peace signs on the sides. The whole drive down you’d sung protest songs and shared joints and felt like you were part of something important.

The crowd was massive— thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands. You’d never seen anything like it. Everyone young and angry and alive, waving signs and chanting. “Hell no, we won’t go!” “Make love, not war!” The energy was electric.

You’d lost your friends somewhere in the chaos. Didn’t matter— you were swept up in the crowd, moving with the mass of bodies toward the Pentagon. The police were there in riot gear, a wall of shields and batons, and the crowd pressed forward anyway.

That’s when you saw him. He was near the front, dark hair falling in his eyes, wearing a denim jacket covered in pins and patches. He was shouting something at the police line, passionate and fearless, and you thought: I want to know him.

When the police charged, everything descended into chaos. People running, screaming, tear gas filling the air. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Someone grabbed your arm and pulled you away from the worst of it. It was him.

“Come on!” he shouted over the noise, tugging you through the crowd. You ran together, lungs burning, until you were several blocks away. Safe. You collapsed against a building, coughing and laughing and high on adrenaline.

“You okay?” he asked, looking you over with genuine concern.

“I think so. Thank you. For—” You gestured vaguely back toward the chaos.

“Couldn’t leave a fellow revolutionary to get trampled.” He grinned, and it transformed his whole face. “I’m Jungwon.” You told him your name, and he repeated it like he was memorizing it.

You spent the rest of the day together. Found your respective friends eventually, but kept gravitating back to each other. Talking about the war, about politics, about music and books and dreams for a better world. He was smart and funny and so passionate about everything he believed in. By the time you had to leave, you’d given him your number. He called three days later.

Your first date was at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village, the kind of place with poetry readings and folk music and cigarette smoke thick in the air. You talked for six hours straight, until the owner kicked you out at closing.

Your second date was a concert in Central Park. Simon and Garfunkel. You sat on a blanket and he held your hand and you thought you might be falling in love.

Your third date ended in his tiny apartment in the East Village, with his hands in your hair and your legs wrapped around his waist and the certainty that this was it. This was everything.

Two years later, you’ve built a life together. It’s not much— a small apartment, mismatched furniture, more books than shelf space— but it’s yours. You work at a bookstore. He’s in his second year of college, studying literature because he loves it even though his parents think it’s impractical.

You go to protests together, make love to Motown records, cook dinners that are more ambition than skill. You talk about the future— maybe moving to San Francisco, maybe joining a commune, maybe just existing in this little bubble of happiness forever.

And then the draft notice came.

June 20, 1969. We went to the recruitment office today to see if there was any way out of this. Deferment, conscientious objector status, anything. There isn’t. The officer— this smug asshole with a crew cut and a flag pin— looked at Jungwon like he was dirt. Said being a first son means he has a duty to serve. Said if he tries to dodge, they’ll find him. Said a lot of boys would be grateful for the opportunity to serve their country. Jungwon didn’t say anything. Just nodded and took the papers and walked out. I wanted to scream at that officer. Wanted to tell him that this isn’t service, it’s murder. That we’re sending boys to die in a jungle halfway around the world for a war nobody even understands anymore. That Jungwon has already served— served the cause of peace, served humanity by refusing to hate people he’s never met. But I didn’t say anything either. On the way home, Jungwon finally spoke. He said he was scared. That’s all. Just those two words. And then he started crying, right there on the subway, and I held him while strangers pretended not to notice. I’m scared too. Terrified. But I can’t let him see that. Only fifty-two days left.

July 4, 1969 Independence Day. The irony isn’t lost on us. We went to a protest in the park instead of watching fireworks. Smaller crowd than usual— a lot of people are getting tired, I think. Tired of marching and shouting and nothing changing. The war keeps grinding on. Boys keep dying. But we went anyway. Held our signs. Chanted until our throats were raw. Afterward, we walked home through the city. It was late, past midnight, and the streets were mostly empty. Jungwon stopped suddenly and pulled me into an alley. He said he wants to remember this. Us. Me. Before everything changes. And then he kissed me, deep and desperate, and we made love right there against a brick wall. It was reckless and uncomfortable and perfect. When we got home, we stayed up until dawn making love again, slower this time. Memorizing each other. Thirty-eight days.

The countdown is torture. Every morning you wake up and think: one day less. One day closer to losing him.

You try to make the most of the time you have left. You go to all your favorite places— the coffee shop where you had your first date, the record store where you spent hours flipping through albums, the park where you’ve had a hundred picnics. You take pictures, filling up two whole rolls of film. You cook elaborate dinners and stay up late talking about everything and nothing.

And you make love constantly. In your bed, on the couch, in the shower. Sometimes slow and tender, sometimes urgent and desperate. Like you’re trying to fit a lifetime of intimacy into a handful of weeks.

Jungwon is quieter now. More withdrawn. You catch him staring at nothing sometimes, lost in thoughts he won’t share. “Talk to me,” you beg one night after he’s been silent through dinner.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Anything. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I keep thinking about all the things I’m going to miss. Stupid things, like… the way you hum when you’re cooking. Or how you always steal my coffee even though you have your own. Or the sound of rain on the window when we’re in bed.”

“You’ll come back.” You say it fiercely, like conviction can make it true. “You’ll come back and we’ll have all of that again.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Don’t say that—”

“We have to talk about it.” His voice is gentle but firm. “We have to acknowledge that I might not come home.”

“I can’t.” Tears are streaming down your face now. “I can’t think about that. If I think about that, I’ll fall apart.”

He pulls you into his arms, holding you while you sob. “Then don’t think about it. Just… remember that I love you. That I’ll always love you. No matter what happens.”

“I love you too. So much.” You make love that night with tears on both your faces, holding each other like you can physically stop time if you just hold tight enough.

July 28, 1969 Two weeks. That’s all we have left. Jungwon is trying to act normal. Going to classes, seeing friends, pretending like everything is fine. But I see the cracks. The way his hands shake sometimes. The nightmares that wake him up gasping. I asked him last night what he’s afraid of. He said dying but also coming back as someone else. If he comes back at all. I said you don’t die, you’ll come back and you’ll be exactly who you are now. But honestly, I don’t know if that’s true. How could anyone go through war and come back unchanged? We had sex three times today. I’m getting sore but I don’t care. Every time feels like it might be the last time, so we keep reaching for each other. This morning he went down on me for what felt like hours, making me come twice before he even took his cock out. Then he fucked me slow and deep, whispering how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, how he’s going to remember every second of this. I rode him after, taking my time, watching his face as he fell apart beneath me. He came inside me and I thought: let me get pregnant. Let there be some piece of him that stays even if he doesn’t come back. I didn’t say that out loud. It would terrify him. Fourteen days.

August 7, 1969 Five days. I can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t think about anything except the calendar counting down. We went to Woodstock yesterday. Or tried to— the traffic was so bad we only made it halfway before turning back. But we could hear the music in the distance, see the crowds. It felt important somehow. All these people gathering to celebrate peace and love while the world burns down around us. Tonight we’re staying in. Just the two of us. I don’t want to share him with anyone else. Not now.

You spend the last five days in bed. Not the whole time, obviously— you have to eat, use the bathroom, occasionally answer the door when friends come by to say goodbye. But mostly, you stay in bed. Making love. Talking. Sleeping tangled together. Trying to memorize the feeling of his body against yours.

“Tell me about after,” Jungwon says on the third-to-last night. “When I come back. What are we going to do?”

“Everything.” You trace patterns on his bare chest. “We’re going to do everything we’ve always talked about. Move to California. Live in a commune. Grow our own food. Make art and music and love every single day.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“We’ll get married. Nothing fancy— just us and a few friends and maybe some wildflowers. I’ll wear a white dress and you’ll wear your denim jacket with all the pins.”

He laughs. “Very traditional.”

“We’ll have kids someday. Two or three. We’ll teach them to question everything and fight for what’s right and love fiercely.”

“I want that.” His voice cracks. “I want all of that with you.”

“Then come back to me. Promise me you’ll come back.”

“I promise I’ll try.” It’s not the same as promising to come back, but it’s all he can give.

You make love again, slow and reverent. He worships your body with his hands and mouth, making you come on his tongue before sliding inside you. You move together in perfect rhythm, years of practice making you instinctively know what the other needs. When you both finish, you lie there in the afterglow, holding each other. “I love you,” he whispers. “More than anything in this world.”

“I love you too. Come back to me.”

“I will. I swear I will.”

August 11, 1969 Tomorrow. He leaves tomorrow. I don’t know how to write this. Don’t know what to say that won’t sound trite or desperate or completely inadequate. We spent today doing normal things. Had breakfast at our favorite diner. Walked through the park. Went to the record store and bought the new Dylan album even though we can’t really afford it. Tonight we went up to the roof of our building. It’s illegal but no one cares. We brought a blanket and a bottle of wine and lay there looking at the stars. The moon was almost full. So bright I could see every detail of his face. Do you think the moon remembers us? Is what he’d asked me. I didn’t fully understand the question. He continued with how all the people who’ve looked at it, do you think the moons remember them and their stories? I said I didn’t know. He said how he wants it to remember us, remember this moment incase he doesn’t come back. I told him that it will, and I will, how could I forget him? We made love on that roof under the moonlight. It was cold and uncomfortable and the most beautiful thing we’ve ever done. Afterward, lying in his arms, he said it: if he doesn’t make it back that I should know that he’ll find me in the next life, no matter how long it take, no matter the cost. I told him he’s coming back to me in this one. He kissed me instead of arguing. And we made love again, desperate and clinging. We didn’t sleep. Stayed up all night holding each other, watching the moon travel across the sky. He leaves in six hours. I don’t know how to let him go.

The morning is gray and cold, unseasonably cool for August. You help him pack, though there’s not much to take. A small duffel bag with some clothes, toiletries, a few photos. He tucks the pictures carefully into the side pocket— one of the two of you at that first protest, one from a party last year where you’re both laughing at something, one from last week where you’re just looking at each other. “So I don’t forget,” he says quietly.

“You won’t forget.”

“No. But just in case.”

The bus station is crowded with other boys shipping out, their families crying and saying goodbye. You see mothers clutching sons, girlfriends sobbing into boyfriends’ shoulders. Everyone trying to be brave and failing. Jungwon holds you until the very last second. “I love you,” he says into your hair. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too. Come back to me.”

“I will. I promise.” He pulls back to look at you, memorizing your face. “Wait for me?”

“Always. Forever. I’ll wait forever if I have to.” One last kiss. Deep and desperate and tasting of salt from tears— yours, his, both. And then he’s boarding the bus with all the other boys in their too-new uniforms, and you’re standing on the platform watching it pull away.

He’s at the window. You can see him pressed against the glass, one hand flat against it like he’s reaching for you. You raise your hand in a wave. And then the bus turns the corner and he’s gone. You stand there for a long time after, staring at the empty street.

Someone touches your shoulder— another girl who just said goodbye to her boyfriend. She’s crying too. “They’ll come back,” she says, like she’s trying to convince herself as much as you. “They have to come back.” You nod because you can’t speak. But you’re not sure you believe it.

August 15, 1969 I’m at Woodstock. Finally made it. I came alone. Couldn’t stand being in the apartment without him. Everything there reminds me of Jungwon— his books still on the shelf, his jacket hanging by the door, the sheets that still smell like him. The festival is chaos. Mud everywhere, people as far as I can see, music blasting from the stage. It’s overwhelming and beautiful and exactly what I need. I’m not really here, though. Part of me is still on that bus station platform. Part of me is wherever Jungwon is right now— boot camp, probably. Learning how to kill people. I hate this. I hate all of it. But I’m here, in the mud and the music, because he would want me to be. Because this is what we believe in— peace, love, community. All the things we’re trying to build while the government tears them down. I’m going to survive this. I’m going to wait for him, and when he comes home, we’re going to build the life we talked about. I have to believe that.

September 3, 1969 First letter from Jungwon arrived today. I was so excited I almost ripped it opening the envelope. ‘My love, Boot camp is hell. They wake us up at 4 AM and work us until we drop. Everything is shouting and pushups and running until I want to puke. They’re trying to break us down, turn us into soldiers. Turn us into killers. I don’t know if I can do this. But I think about you every night. About your smile, your laugh, the way you look when you first wake up. About making love on our roof under the moon. Those memories are the only thing keeping me sane. I miss you so much it physically hurts. Miss your voice, your touch, the way you steal my coffee. Miss everything. I’ll write as often as I can. Tell me about your life. What you’re reading, where you’re going, who you’re seeing. I need to know that the world I’m fighting for (even though I don’t believe in this war) still exists. I love you. More than words can say. Forever yours, Jungwon’ I read it five times. Then I went into the bedroom and cried into his pillow.

September 20, 1969 I’m writing letters every day. Sometimes twice a day. I tell him about everything— the bookstore, protests I go to, albums I buy, books I read. Stupid mundane things that probably bore him, but he asked for them so I write. His letters come sporadically. Sometimes I get three in one week, sometimes nothing for two weeks. When they arrive, I devour them. He’s trying to stay positive, I can tell. But I read between the lines. The exhaustion. The fear. The slow erosion of the person he was. He finishes boot camp next month. Then he ships out. To Vietnam. I can’t think about it. If I think about it, I’ll lose my mind.

October 12, 1969 He called today. Five minutes on a pay phone before shipping out. His voice sounded different. Harder. Older. He told me he loves me, and that no matter what happens I need to remember that. I said I love him too and to be safe, to please be safe. And then the line went dead. That was eight hours ago and I can’t stop crying.

October 30, 1969 Letter from Vietnam. ‘My love, I’m here. In the jungle. In the war. I can’t tell you where exactly (they censor that) or what we’re doing (they censor that too). I can tell you it’s hot and wet and everything smells like rot and fear. I can tell you I think about you constantly. That your letters are the only good thing in this place. That I keep your photo in my pocket over my heart. I can tell you I’m terrified. Not of dying— though I am scared of that— but of becoming someone you won’t recognize when I come home. If I come home. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t write things like that. You need hope, not my fear. I love you. I love you. I love you. Stay safe. Live your life. Don’t put it on hold waiting for me. All my love, Jungwon’ I wrote back immediately: My love, I will always wait for you. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what you’ve seen or done or become. You’re mine and I’m yours and nothing changes that. Come home to me. All my love, forever.

The letters continue. Back and forth across an ocean, across a war. Sometimes they’re full of mundane details— what he ate, what you did that day. Sometimes they’re deeper— fears, hopes, dreams for the future. You live for those letters. They’re proof he’s still alive, still him, still yours.

November 15, 1969 Haven’t heard from him in three weeks. I tell myself it’s fine. Mail is slow. He’s busy. He’s in the jungle where there’s no way to send letters. But the silence is deafening.

December 1, 1969 Five weeks now. I called his parents. They haven’t heard anything either. I’m trying not to panic.

December 10, 1969 Letter arrived today. Thank god. Thank god. ‘My love, I’m sorry for the silence. We were in the field— weeks in the jungle, no communication with the outside world. I wrote you letters every night but couldn’t send them. I’ll mail them all now so you’ll get a flood at once. I saw combat. Real combat. I can’t describe it. Won’t describe it. Just know that I’m okay. Physically okay, at least. The guys in my unit are good men. We take care of each other. That helps. I miss you so much I dream about you every night. Dream about being home, about holding you, about a life where there’s no war. Soon. I’ll be home soon. I love you endlessly, Jungwon’ Six more letters arrived over the next week. All written in the jungle, some barely legible, all filled with love and longing. I’m holding onto them like lifelines.

January 1, 1970 New year. New decade. I spent it alone in our apartment, drinking cheap wine and reading his letters. This year, he comes home. He has to.

The months blur together. Winter turns to spring. Letters arrive sporadically, sometimes cheerful, sometimes dark. You write back religiously, filling page after page with your life, your love, your hope.

You go to protests but your heart’s not in it anymore. You work at the bookstore. You see friends. You exist in a state of suspended animation, waiting.

The nightmares start in March. You dream of jungles and gunfire and blood. You dream of Jungwon dying in a thousand different ways. You wake up screaming, reaching for him, finding only empty sheets. You stop sleeping well.

April 20, 1970 Eight months since he left. I saw a news report today about casualties. The numbers are staggering. Thousands dead. Thousands more wounded. I couldn’t watch. His last letter said his unit was moving to a new position. He couldn’t say where. Couldn’t say what they’d be doing. I haven’t heard from him since. It’s been two weeks.

May 5, 1970 Three weeks. I’m trying not to think about what that might mean.

May 12, 1970 Four weeks. I called his parents again. Still nothing. I’m losing my mind.

May 20, 1970 Letter arrived today. But it’s not from him. It’s from his commanding officer. ‘Dear Miss, It is my duty to inform you that Private Yang Jungwon was killed in action on April 28, 1970, during combat operations in [REDACTED]. Private Yang died bravely, serving his country with honor. He was well-liked by his unit and will be deeply missed. Please accept my sincerest condolences for your loss. Respectfully, Captain Haruma, United States Army’ I don’t remember the rest of that day. I don’t remember screaming. Don’t remember collapsing. Don’t remember the neighbors breaking down the door because they heard me and thought someone was being murdered. I remember waking up in a hospital. Sedated. Numb. I remember his mother crying on the phone saying that he’s coming home. But he’s not coming home. Not really. Just a body in a box.

May 25, 1970 They buried him today. Military funeral. Flag-draped coffin. Gun salute. The whole terrible ceremony. I couldn’t look at the coffin. Couldn’t accept that he was in there. That the man I loved, love— vibrant and alive and so full of passion— was reduced to a body in a box in the ground. They gave me the flag. Folded into a perfect triangle. I wanted to scream at them. Wanted to throw the flag back in their faces and demand they give me Jungwon instead. But I just stood there, numb, while they lowered him into the ground. After, I went home and found a letter. Tucked into my mailbox. From him. Dated April 27. The day before he died. ‘My love, If you’re reading this, I’m gone. I wrote this just in case. Just in case the worst happens and I don’t get to say goodbye. First: I love you. I love you more than I knew it was possible to love another person. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. The brightest light in my life. Every moment with you was a gift. Second: This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. Don’t torture yourself with what-ifs. We had no control over this. Third: Live. Please, live your life. Don’t spend it mourning me. Find love again if you can. Be happy. Make art. Change the world. Do all the things we talked about doing together. And finally: I’ll find you in the next life. I don’t know if there is a next life, but if there is, I’ll find you. I’ll find you in every lifetime. This isn’t the end. It can’t be. I love you forever, Jungwon P.S. - Remember the moon? How I asked if it remembers us? I hope it does. I hope something in this universe remembers that we existed, that we loved each other. That our love was real and true and worth something, even if it was brief.’

I can’t write anymore. Can’t see through the tears. He’s gone. The love of my life is gone. And I don’t know how to survive this.

The journal entries stop after that. The pages remain blank for months, then years. You keep the journal, but you can’t bring yourself to write in it. Can’t put into words the emptiness, the grief that never quite fades.

You do what he asked. You live. You finish school, get a job, move to San Francisco like you always planned. You go to protests, make art, try to change the world in small ways. You even date again, eventually. Nice men who try to understand why you sometimes go quiet and distant, why you can’t quite let them all the way in. None of them are him.

On the anniversary of his death, you go to the cemetery. Place flowers on his grave. Tell him about your year. “I’m trying,” you whisper to the headstone. “I’m trying to live like you asked. But god, I miss you. Every single day, I miss you.”

The wind rustles the leaves overhead. The sun shines. The world keeps turning. And you keep living. Because that’s what he wanted.

But part of you— the best part— died in a jungle halfway around the world on April 28, 1970. And you’ll never get it back.

2001 — Your POV

September 11, 8:32 AM

Jungwon kisses you goodbye at the elevator, quick and chaste because you’re at work and even though everyone knows you’re married, PDA in the office is frowned upon. “See you at lunch?” you ask, adjusting his tie even though it’s perfectly straight. It’s just an excuse to touch him.

“Can’t. Meeting with the Lehman team goes until two.”

“Dinner then. I’ll cook.”

He grins. “You mean you’ll order takeout and pretend you cooked.”

“I resent that. I’m an excellent chef.”

“You burned water last week.”

“That was one time!” You swat his arm, laughing. “Okay, fine. I’ll order from that Thai place you like.”

“Perfect.” He kisses you again, properly this time, not caring who sees. “I love you.”

“Love you too. Don’t work too hard.” The elevator dings and you step inside, waving as the doors close. Jungwon watches you disappear, then heads back to his desk on the 101st floor of the North Tower.

You and Jungwon have been married for three years, together for five. You met at Cantor Fitzgerald— both of you ambitious young traders trying to make a name for yourselves in the cutthroat world of finance.

The attraction was immediate. The love took a bit longer, but not much. He proposed after a year and a half, on the roof of your apartment building under a full moon. You were married three months later in a small ceremony in Central Park, just family and close friends.

Working together has its challenges— you’re competitive by nature, and sometimes that bleeds into your relationship. But mostly it’s good. You understand the demands of each other’s jobs. You can decompress together about difficult clients. You commute together, have lunch together when schedules allow, go home together. Your entire lives are intertwined. You love it.

You step out of the elevator on the 96th floor— your department is a few floors below his— and head to your desk. The morning is already chaotic, phones ringing, traders shouting, the energy that makes you love this job. You’re reviewing overnight reports when your phone rings. “Trading desk.”

“Mrs. Yang, it’s David from IT. We’re having some issues with your workstation remotely. Would you mind coming down to the 78th floor so we can take a look?”

You glance at your computer. It seems fine, but IT knows better than you. “Sure. Give me five minutes?”

“Perfect. Thanks.” You grab your phone and ID badge, tell your supervisor you’ll be back in fifteen, and head for the elevators.

The elevator ride down takes less than a minute. You step out onto the 78th floor— it’s quieter here, mostly administrative offices and IT. David meets you in the lobby. “Thanks for coming down. This should only take a minute. Just need to check something in the server room.”

You follow him down the hall, chatting about weekend plans, completely unaware that you have eight minutes left in the world as you know it.

8:46 AM

Jungwon is on a conference call when the building shakes. No— not shakes. Lurches. Like the entire structure has been hit by something massive. The lights flicker. Someone screams. The windows on the north side explode inward in a spray of glass and fire.

The conference call drops. Alarms start blaring. People are shouting, running, diving under desks. Jungwon’s brain struggles to catch up. What the hell just happened?

“Everyone stay calm!” His manager is shouting to be heard over the chaos. “Proceed to the stairwells! Don’t use the elevators!”

Jungwon grabs his phone and jacket on autopilot, joining the stream of people heading for the stairs. The office is in chaos— papers everywhere, computers sparked and smoking, the smell of jet fuel and burning. Jet fuel. Oh god.

He dials your number as he’s moving, pressed against a hundred other bodies trying to evacuate. It rings once. Twice. Three times. “Jungwon?” You sound confused. “What’s happening? We felt something down here—”

“Where are you?” His voice is urgent. “What floor?”

“78th. I’m with IT, they needed to—”

“Get out. Right now. Don’t go back to your desk, don’t grab anything, just get to the stairs and get out of the building.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Something hit the building. High up. There’s fire and—” He’s being pushed into the stairwell now, the crowd surging around him. “Just get out. Please.”

“I will. Where are you?”

“101st floor. I’m in the stairwell. I’m coming down.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll meet you outside.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Be careful.” The line cuts out as he enters the stairwell. No signal.

The descent is a nightmare. Hundreds of people packed into a narrow concrete shaft, everyone trying to move at once. It’s hot and dark and the smoke is getting thicker with every floor.

Jungwon tries to stay calm. Tries to breathe through his shirt. Tries not to think about what happened, about the fire above him, about the fact that he’s 101 floors up and the only way out is down. He tries your number again when he hits the 95th floor and gets signal for a moment. No answer. Again at the 90th floor. No answer.

The stairwell is moving so slowly. People are crying, praying, helping those who can’t move as fast. The woman in front of Jungwon is heavily pregnant and struggling. He helps support her weight as they descend. “My baby,” she keeps saying. “I can’t—my baby—”

“You’re going to be fine,” Jungwon tells her. “We’re all going to be fine. Just keep moving.” He doesn’t know if he believes it.

At the 85th floor, his phone rings.“Jungwon!” You’re crying. “Oh god, Jungwon—”

“I’m here. I’m okay. Where are you?”

“I’m outside. I got out. But Jungwon, they’re saying—” Your voice breaks. “They’re saying a plane hit the building. A passenger plane. It flew right into the tower.”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

“It’s on the news. It’s everywhere. And—” You’re sobbing now. “Another plane just hit the South Tower. Jungwon, this isn’t an accident. This is—”

“I know. I know. Listen to me—I need you to get away from here. As far away as you can. Go to Brooklyn. Go to your sister’s. Just get away from Manhattan.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“You have to—”

“NO.” Your voice is fierce through the tears. “I’m not leaving you. I’m staying right here until you come out.”

“Baby, please—”

“Don’t. Don’t ask me to leave you. I won’t do it.” He wants to argue but he knows it’s pointless. You’re the most stubborn person he’s ever met. It’s one of the things he loves about you.

“Okay. Okay. I’m at the 85th floor. I’m coming down as fast as I can.”

“How fast is that?”

“Slow. There’s a lot of people. But I’m moving. I’m going to make it out.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.” He stays on the phone with you as he descends. 80th floor. 75th. 70th. You talk to him the whole time. Telling him about what you’re seeing outside— the smoke, the emergency responders, the crowds. Telling him you love him. Begging him to hurry.

“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying.”65th floor. The building shudders. Different from before. More structural. The stairwell sways and people scream.

“What was that?” You sound terrified. “Jungwon, what was that?”

“I don’t know. The building just— it felt wrong.”

“You need to move faster.”

“I am. We all are. It’s just— there’s so many people—” 60th floor. The smoke is getting worse. People are coughing, struggling to breathe. Some are collapsing. Other people are helping them, but it’s slowing everything down.

Jungwon’s legs are burning. His lungs hurt. But he keeps moving. “Talk to me,” he says to you. “Tell me about something good. Distract me.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. Our honeymoon. Our first date. Anything that isn’t this.”

You’re quiet for a moment, and when you speak, your voice is steadier. “Remember our honeymoon? In Italy, that night in Venice? We got lost trying to find the hotel and ended up at that little square with the fountain?” He does remember. The moon reflecting off the water. Your hand in his. The way the whole city felt like a dream.

“And you asked me if I thought the moon remembered us,” you continue. “All the lovers who’d stood in that square over the centuries.”

“Did I say that?”

“You did. You said you wanted the moon to remember us. To remember our love story.”

55th floor. Jungwon is crying now, though he’s not sure when that started. “I still want that.”

“It will. The moon will remember us. I know it will.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If I don’t make it—”

“Don’t say that—”

“Listen. Please. If I don’t make it, I need you to promise me you’ll keep living. You’ll find happiness again. You won’t spend the rest of your life mourning me.”

“Jungwon—”

“Promise me.”

“I can’t. I can’t promise that. You’re my whole life. You’re everything.”

“Then promise me you’ll try. That you’ll at least try.”

You’re sobbing. “Okay. Okay, I promise. But you ARE going to make it. You have to make it.”

50th floor. He’s halfway. He’s actually halfway. Maybe he will make it out. “I love you,” he says. “More than anything in this world. You know that, right?”

“I know. I love you too. So much. So much.”

45th floor. The woman in front of him collapses. Jungwon and another man help her up, support her weight between them. She’s gasping for air, barely conscious. “Keep going,” Jungwon tells her. “We’re almost there.” 40th floor.

“I’m at 40,” he tells you. “Less than halfway now.”

“You’re doing so good. You’re almost out.”

“How’s it look out there?”

“Bad. Both towers are burning. There’s debris everywhere. But the firefighters are here. They’re going in to help people.”

“Good. That’s good.” 35th floor.

His phone is dying. Battery at 15%. “My phone’s almost dead,” he tells you.

“No. No, you have to keep talking to me.”

“I will. As long as I can. But if we get cut off—”

“We won’t.”

“But if we do, I need you to know—”

“I already know. I know you love me. I know we’re going to grow old together. I know we’re going to have babies and a house in the suburbs and a dog. I know all of it because you promised me.”

“I did promise you that.”

“So you have to keep that promise. You have to get out of there and come home to me.”

30th floor. Battery at 10%. “Do you remember our wedding vows?” he asks. “I meant every word. Every promise. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

“Me too.”

25th floor. “I can see the end,” he says. “I can actually see the bottom of the stairwell. Maybe ten more floors.”

“Oh thank god. Thank god.”

20th floor. Battery at 5%. The building shudders again. Violently this time. The stairwell groans.

“Jungwon? JUNGWON?”

“I’m here. I’m still here. Something’s wrong. The building—it doesn’t feel stable.”

“You need to run. Right now. Run as fast as you can.”

“I am. We all are.”

15th floor. The lights go out. Emergency lighting kicks in, bathing everything in red. People are screaming, pushing, panicking.

“Stay calm!” Someone is shouting. “Everyone stay calm!” But no one is calm. Everyone can feel it— the building is dying. 10th floor.

“I’m at ten,” Jungwon gasps into the phone. “Almost there. Almost—” The building lurches. Metal screaming. Concrete cracking.

“JUNGWON!”

“I’m okay. I’m still moving. Five more floors.”

5th floor. “I can see the lobby. I can see the exit. I’m going to make it. I’m actually going to make it.”

“Run. Don’t stop. Just run.” He does. The last few floors are a blur— feet pounding stairs, people streaming into the lobby, firefighters directing everyone outside.

Jungwon bursts out onto the street and the sight is apocalyptic. Both towers burning. Debris everywhere. Ash falling like snow. But he’s out. He’s alive. “I’m outside,” he gasps into the phone. “I made it. I’m out.”

“Where? Where are you?”

“West side, I think. Near—” The sound drowns out everything else. A roar like the end of the world. Jungwon turns and looks up. The South Tower is collapsing. “Oh my god,” he breathes.

“What? What’s happening?”

“The South Tower. It’s— it’s coming down.”

And then the cloud hits. Debris and dust and smoke racing down the street like a tsunami. People screaming, running, diving into buildings. Jungwon runs.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, just away from the cloud, away from the collapse. His phone is still clutched in his hand, your voice tinny and distant.“Jungwon! JUNGWON!”

“I’m here! I’m still here!” He ducks into a building— a store, doors standing open. The cloud follows him in, filling the space with choking dust.

He can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything except hold the phone and hope. And then, gradually, the worst passes. He’s alive. Covered in dust, coughing up gray ash, but alive. “I’m okay,” he says into the phone. “I’m okay. The South Tower collapsed but I’m okay.”

“Oh thank god. Thank god. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Some store. I can’t see anything. There’s dust everywhere.”

“Stay there. Stay inside until the dust clears. I’m coming to find you.”

“No. Don’t. It’s not safe.”

“I don’t care. Tell me where you are.”

“I don’t KNOW where I am—” His phone dies. “No. No no no—” He tries to turn it back on but it’s dead. Completely dead. He has no way to reach you. No way to tell you he’s alive. All he can do is wait for the dust to clear and try to find you.

You’re running. Your phone went dead ten seconds after his did, and now you’re sprinting through the chaos toward where you last heard him— west side of the North Tower. The South Tower is gone. Just gone. A pile of rubble and smoke where a building used to be.

And the North Tower is still burning. Jungwon’s tower. He made it out. He told you he made it out. He’s alive somewhere in this nightmare and you’re going to find him.

You’re pushing through crowds, screaming his name, looking for his face in a sea of ash-covered people who all look the same. “JUNGWON!” No answer. “JUNGWON!” The dust is thick. You can barely see ten feet ahead. But you keep moving, keep searching.

You’re maybe three blocks from the tower when you hear it. That sound again. Metal and concrete and the world ending. You look up. The North Tower is collapsing. “No,” you whisper. And then you’re screaming. “JUNGWON! JUNGWON!”

The tower comes down in a cascade of destruction, floor after floor pancaking, the cloud of debris exploding outward. You’re too far away. The cloud won’t reach you here. You’re safe. But Jungwon. He said he was on the west side. Near the tower. He was right there.

“No. No no no no no—” You’re calling his phone but it’s going straight to voicemail. Again and again and again. “JUNGWON! PLEASE! JUNGWON!”

People are grabbing you, trying to pull you back, away from the disaster. You fight them. “My husband! My husband was there! I need to— I have to—”

But there’s nowhere to go. The entire area where the towers stood is gone. Just smoke and rubble and death. You collapse on the pavement, screaming into your dead phone. He was right there. He made it out and he was right there and now— now the building is gone. And so is he.

They find Jungwon’s body three days later. He’d made it out of the building. Made it almost two blocks away. But when the tower collapsed, the debris cloud caught him. A piece of falling concrete, the medical examiner says. He died instantly. You identify him at the morgue. His face is peaceful, covered in dust. Like he’s sleeping. You don’t cry. You can’t. You’re too empty.

At the funeral, they play the voicemail you left him after the towers fell. The one where you’re screaming into the phone, begging him to answer, telling him you love him. You don’t remember leaving it.

You don’t remember much of anything from those first few days. The city buries thousands. You bury your husband. And then you have to figure out how to keep living.

Ten years pass. You never remarry. Never even date. How could you? Jungwon was your whole life. Your whole heart. You move out of New York. Can’t stand to be in the city where you lost him. You end up in a small town in Vermont, working at a library, living a quiet life.

Every year on September 11th, you visit the memorial. Stand at the reflecting pool where the North Tower used to be, looking at his name etched in bronze. YANG JUNGWON. You trace the letters with your fingers and remember.

Remember his laugh. His smile. The way he kissed you goodbye that last morning. Remember the phone call. His voice getting weaker as he descended. The way he said “I love you” one last time before his phone died. Remember standing in the street, watching the tower collapse, knowing he was gone.

At night, you look at the moon and think about what he said. About the moon remembering love stories. “Do you remember us?” you whisper to the sky.

The moon doesn’t answer. But you hope it does. Hope that somewhere in the universe, someone remembers that you loved him. That he loved you. That what you had was real and beautiful and worth something, even though it ended too soon.

You survive twenty more years. Never stop missing him. Never stop loving him. When you die at 65— heart attack, quick and painless— your last thought is of him. I’m coming, you think. Finally, I’m coming to find you. And maybe, somewhere, the moon remembers.

2026 — split POV

Jungwons POV

Jungwon is running late. He overslept— stayed up too late studying for his anatomy exam, his alarm didn’t go off, and now he’s sprinting across campus with his backpack half-open and his shirt probably on inside out.

Pre-med is killing him. Everyone said it would be hard, but no one mentioned it would be “survive on three hours of sleep and questionable dining hall coffee” hard. He rounds the corner by the library at a full run, checking his phone to see just how late he is to his 9 AM lecture—

And crashes directly into someone. The impact is total. Books go flying. Papers scatter. And Jungwon’s coffee— his precious, desperately-needed coffee— explodes all over the person he just barreled into. “Oh my god,” he gasps, stumbling back. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry—” He looks up and his brain short-circuits.

It’s a girl. A beautiful girl in a white shirt that is now completely drenched in his coffee. Dark hair falling around her face, wide eyes, an expression of pure shock. And the second their eyes meet, something in Jungwon’s chest cracks open. He knows her.

He doesn’t know her— he’s never seen her before in his life— but he knows her. Knows her the way he knows his own heartbeat. Knows her in a way that makes no logical sense but feels more real than anything he’s ever experienced. “I—” His voice doesn’t work. He tries again. “I’m so sorry. Your shirt—”

She’s just staring at him. Not angry, not upset. Just staring like she’s seeing a ghost. “It’s okay,” she says finally, but her voice is shaky. “It’s fine. I just—”

They’re both still frozen, standing in the middle of the path while other students flow around them. Jungwon forces himself to move. He shrugs out of his hoodie— thankfully he’s wearing a t-shirt underneath— and holds it out to her. “Here. Please. I’m so sorry. Take this.”

She looks at the hoodie, then back at him. “I can’t—”

“Please. I ruined your shirt. It’s the least I can do.” Slowly, she takes it. Their fingers brush and Jungwon feels electricity shoot up his arm. What the hell is happening?

She pulls on the hoodie— it’s too big on her, sleeves hanging past her hands— and something about seeing her in his clothes makes his heart do a weird flip. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I’m— uh. I have a class. I should—”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” He’s already pulling out his phone. “Can I get your number? So I can pay for dry cleaning. Or replace the shirt. Or—”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. Please. I feel terrible.”She hesitates, then rattles off her number. He types it in with shaking hands. “I’m Jungwon, by the way.”

“I know.” Then her eyes widen. “I mean— I don’t know. You just— you look like a Jungwon.”

That doesn’t make any sense, but he smiles anyway. “And you are?”She tells him her name, and Jungwon commits it to memory like a prayer.

“I really am sorry,” he says again. “About the coffee.”

“It’s okay. Really.” She’s backing away now, but she keeps looking at him. Like she can’t quite make herself leave. “I should go. I’m late.”

“Me too. But—” He doesn’t want her to go. Can’t explain why, but the thought of her walking away makes him feel panicky. “Can I text you? About the shirt?”

“Sure. Yeah. That’s fine.”

“Okay. Good. I’ll— I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” She finally turns and walks away, and Jungwon stands there watching her go, his heart pounding for reasons he can’t explain. He’s never believed in love at first sight. Thought it was bullshit, something made up for movies and romance novels. But something just happened. Something big and important and completely inexplicable.

He doesn’t know what. But he knows, with absolute certainty, that he just met someone who’s going to change his life.

Your POV

You make it to class five minutes late, wearing a stranger’s hoodie, your heart racing. What the hell was that? You’ve never believed in fate or destiny or any of that romantic nonsense. You’re a history major, you deal in facts and evidence and things that can be proven.

But when you locked eyes with that boy— Jungwon— something shifted in the universe. You knew him. Know him. Even though you’ve never seen him before in your life. And the way he looked at you— like he knew you too. Like he’d been waiting for you.

You slide into your seat in the lecture hall and your best friend Mina immediately notices the hoodie. “Whose is that?” she whispers.

“Some guy’s. He spilled coffee on me.”

“And gave you his hoodie? That’s very chivalrous. Is he cute?”

You think about dark eyes and messy hair and the way his hands shook when he typed your number into his phone. “Yeah,” you admit. “Really cute.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Your phone buzzes. Unknown number: Hi, this is Jungwon. The coffee disaster guy. Just wanted to make sure I got your number right. And to apologize again. I really am sorry about your shirt.

You smile despite yourself and type back: It’s fine. Really. The hoodie is very comfortable.

Keep it. It looks better on you anyway.

Your heart does a stupid flutter: I should probably return it at some point.

How about tomorrow? I could buy you coffee. To replace the shirt.

You shouldn’t. You don’t know this guy. He could be anyone. But you’re already typing back: Tomorrow sounds good.

Perfect. I’ll text you details. And again— really sorry.

Stop apologizing. It was an accident.

Still feel bad.

Don’t. I’m fine. Great, even. I got a free hoodie out of it.

Ha. Fair point. See you tomorrow?

See you tomorrow.

You put your phone away and try to focus on the lecture. But all you can think about is tomorrow. About seeing him again. About why the thought of it makes you feel like you’re coming home.

Jungwon’s POV

Jungwon changes his outfit three times before leaving his dorm. “You’re being ridiculous,” his roommate Jake says, sprawled on his bed playing video games. “It’s just coffee.”

“It’s not just coffee.”

“It’s literally just coffee. You’re meeting a girl you spilled coffee on to buy her coffee to apologize for the coffee. It’s coffee inception.”

“Shut up.”

Jake grins. “You like her.”

“I don’t know her.”

“But you like her.”

Jungwon doesn’t answer because the truth is yes, he does like her. Has been thinking about her non-stop since yesterday. Can’t explain it, can’t rationalize it, but it’s true. He settles on jeans and a simple black shirt, checks his hair one more time, and heads out.

They agreed to meet at the campus coffee shop— ironic, given the circumstances— at 2 PM. Jungwon arrives ten minutes early and immediately regrets it because now he has to stand around looking awkward.

He’s checking his phone for the third time when he sees her walking up. She’s wearing casual clothes— jeans and a sweater— and she’s carrying his hoodie, neatly folded. Her hair is down today, falling past her shoulders, and Jungwon’s brain goes momentarily offline. “Hi,” she says, smiling.

“Hi.” He sounds like an idiot. “You came.”

“I said I would.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” Get it together, Yang. “Should we go in?”

They order coffee— she gets a vanilla latte, he gets an americano— and find a table by the window. For a moment, they just sit there, both suddenly shy. “So,” you say finally. “Pre-med, right? I saw your anatomy textbook when you dropped everything.”

“Yeah. First year. It’s brutal.”

“I can imagine. I’m history. Much less brutal.”

“History’s cool. What kind of history?”

“All kinds. But I’m focusing on American history right now. Specifically the 20th century.”

Something flickers in Jungwon’s chest at that. He doesn’t know why. “That’s really interesting,” he says. “Any particular reason?”

You shrug. “I like understanding how we got here. How the past shapes the present. Plus the 20th century was just… a lot. Wars, social movements, technological revolution. It’s fascinating.”

“Do you think the past matters? Like, do you think we’re shaped by history or do we shape ourselves?” The question comes out more philosophical than he intended, but you don’t seem to mind.

“Both, probably. We’re products of our time, but we also have agency. We can make choices that change the trajectory.” You pause. “Why? Do you think the past matters?”

“I think…” He’s not sure how to articulate this. “I think sometimes the past isn’t really past. I think sometimes it echoes forward. Into the present.”

You’re looking at him with this intense focus, like he’s said something profound instead of just vaguely poetic nonsense. “Yeah,” you say softly. “I think that too.”

The conversation flows easily after that. You talk about classes, about campus life, about your respective hometowns. Jungwon tells you about wanting to be a doctor since he was a kid, about the pressure from his parents but also his genuine love for medicine. You tell him about your love of research, about wanting to be a professor someday, maybe write books.

Two hours pass without either of you noticing. “I should probably go,” you say reluctantly, checking your phone. “I have a study group at five.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” Jungwon stands when you do, not ready for this to end. “Can I walk you?”

“Sure.” You walk across campus together, the conversation never stopping. It’s easy with you. Comfortable. Like you’ve done this a thousand times before.

When you reach your building, you turn to face him. “Thanks for the coffee. And for not being a serial killer.”

He laughs. “Thanks for giving a clumsy pre-med student a chance to apologize.”

“It was a good apology.” There’s a moment where you’re just looking at each other, and Jungwon feels that pull again. That inexplicable sense of knowing you.

“Can I see you again?” he asks. “Not as an apology. Just… because I want to.”

You smile. “I’d like that.”

“Friday? There’s a film festival on campus. Foreign films. Probably boring to most people but—”

“I love foreign films.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His heart is going to beat out of his chest. “It’s a date then?”

“It’s a date.”

He walks away grinning like an idiot, and when he checks his phone later, there’s a text from you: Had fun today. See you Friday :)

He stares at the smiley face for an embarrassingly long time before responding: Me too. Can’t wait. And he means it. He genuinely can’t wait to see you again. Which is crazy. He barely knows you. But it doesn’t feel like barely knowing you. It feels like coming home.

Your POV

You and Jungwon are dating. It’s not official-official— you haven’t had the “what are we” conversation— but you’re together constantly. Study dates that turn into actual dates. Late-night conversations that stretch until 3 AM. Stolen kisses between classes. It’s fast. You know it’s fast. Mina keeps asking if you’re sure about this, if you’re not rushing into things. But it doesn’t feel fast. It feels exactly right.

You learn things about him: that he’s terrible at cooking but makes excellent coffee. That he stress-cleans before exams. That he has nightmares sometimes and won’t talk about them. That he looks at the moon when he’s thinking.

He learns things about you: that you hum when you’re concentrating. That you steal his coffee even though you have your own. That you’re afraid of thunderstorms. That you’ve always felt like you’re searching for something you can’t name.

Tonight, you’re in his dorm room— Jake is conveniently gone for the weekend— sprawled on his bed while he attempts to study for biochemistry. “This is impossible,” he groans, throwing his highlighter at the textbook. “Why do I need to know the Krebs cycle? When will I ever use this as a doctor?”

“When you’re explaining cellular respiration to a patient, obviously.”

“That will definitely happen. Constantly.” You laugh and roll onto your stomach, watching him.

He’s wearing glasses tonight— he usually wears contacts but he ran out— and they make him look unfairly adorable. “You’re staring,” he says without looking up from his notes.

“You’re pretty.”

“I’m not pretty. I’m ruggedly handsome.”

“You’re pretty.”

He looks up, grinning, and tackles you onto the bed. You shriek with laughter as he pins you down, his weight warm and solid above you. “Take it back,” he demands.

“Never. You’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen.”

“Terrible. The worst.” But he’s smiling as he says it, and then he’s kissing you, and your brain shuts off. You’ve kissed before— many times over the past six weeks— but it still feels new every time. Still makes your heart race and your stomach flip.

His hand slides under your shirt, fingers skimming your ribs, and you arch into the touch. “Is this okay?” he murmurs against your lips.

“Yeah. Yes. More than okay.”

Things heat up quickly after that. Clothes coming off, hands exploring, breathless whispers in the dark. You’ve fooled around before— heavy petting, getting each other off— but you haven’t gone all the way yet. Tonight feels different. “Do you want to?” Jungwon asks, pulling back to look at you. “We don’t have to. There’s no pressure. I just—”

“I want to.” You cup his face. “I want you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He kisses you deeply and reaches for his nightstand, pulling out a condom. “I’ve, uh. I’ve never actually done this before.”

“Me neither.”

“So we’ll figure it out together?”

“Together,” you agree. What follows is awkward and sweet and perfect. He’s gentle, careful, constantly checking if you’re okay. There’s fumbling and nervous laughter and moments where you have to adjust and try again.

But when he finally slides inside you, when you’re joined completely, it feels right. It feels like coming home. “God,” he breathes, forehead pressed against yours. “You feel amazing.”

He moves slowly at first, finding a rhythm, and the pleasure builds gradually. It’s not earth-shattering— first times rarely are— but it’s intimate and meaningful and when you both finish (you first, then him shortly after), you feel closer to him than you’ve ever felt to anyone.

After, you lie tangled together, sweaty and satisfied and happy. “That was…” Jungwon trails off.

“Yeah.”

“We should probably do that again sometime.”

“Definitely.” He laughs and pulls you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead. You settle against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling utterly content.

“Hey,” he says after a while. “Can I ask you something weird?”

“Always.”

“Do you ever feel like… like we’ve done this before? Not the sex,” he clarifies quickly. “Just… this. Us. Being together. Like we’ve been here before.”

Your heart skips. “Yeah. All the time.”

“Really?”

“Really. I can’t explain it. But from the moment we met, I felt like I knew you. Like we were supposed to find each other.”

“Me too.” He’s quiet for a moment. “My roommate thinks I’m crazy.”

“My roommate thinks I’m rushing into things.”

“Are we? Rushing?”

You think about it. Six weeks is fast. But it doesn’t feel fast. It feels inevitable. “I don’t think so,” you say. “I think… I think sometimes you just know. When something’s right.”

“Yeah.” He tightens his arms around you. “I think you’re right.”

You fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, and you dream of things you can’t quite remember when you wake. Battles and hospitals and sinking ships. A jungle. A burning building. And through it all, his face. Always his face.

You’re officially together by December. Boyfriend and girlfriend. You changed your relationship status on social media and everything.

Mina has stopped asking if you’re sure and started asking when you’re getting married, which is ridiculous because you’re only twenty-one, but sometimes you look at Jungwon and think yes, that one, forever. Which is insane. You’ve only known him for three months. But it doesn’t feel like three months. It feels like always.

It’s winter break now. Most students have gone home, but you and Jungwon both stayed on campus— you have a research project, he has lab work. Which means you basically have the whole university to yourselves.

Tonight, you’re at his apartment (he moved off-campus this semester) cooking dinner together. Or rather, you’re cooking while he sits on the counter and provides commentary. “You’re going to burn the chicken,” he observes.

“I’m not going to burn the chicken.”

“The pan is smoking.”

“That’s just—” You check the pan. It’s definitely smoking. “Okay, fine. You do it.” He laughs and hops down, gently moving you aside to take over. Within minutes, he’s rescued the chicken and gotten everything under control.

“I thought you said you couldn’t cook,” you accuse.

“I said I’m terrible at cooking. Doesn’t mean I can’t do basic stuff. I just prefer not to.”

“So you’ve been letting me struggle this whole time?”

“I like watching you try.”

You swat him with a dish towel and he catches your wrist, pulling you against him. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi yourself.” He kisses you, slow and sweet, and you melt into him. Three months in and he still makes your knees weak.

Dinner is actually good— turns out Jungwon can cook when properly motivated. You eat on his tiny balcony despite the cold, wrapped in blankets, watching the city lights. “I have something for you,” Jungwon says when you’re both finished eating.

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“I know. But I saw this and thought of you and I couldn’t wait.” He pulls out a small wrapped box from his pocket.

“Jungwon—”

“Just open it.”

You unwrap it carefully. Inside is a delicate silver necklace with a tiny moon pendant. “Oh,” you breathe. “It’s beautiful.”

“I know you love looking at the moon. You always point it out when we’re walking at night. And I just… I wanted you to have something that reminded you of…” He trails off, looking embarrassed. “This is cheesy, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect.” You kiss him. “Help me put it on?” He fastens the necklace around your neck, his fingers gentle on your skin. The pendant rests just below your collarbone, catching the light.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, but he’s looking at you, not the necklace.

That night, you make love in his bed, slow and tender. You’ve gotten better at it over the past few months— learned what each other likes, how to move together, how to make it good for both of you. When you’re both satisfied and drowsy, you curl up against his chest.

“I love you,” you say. It’s the first time either of you have said it. You’ve been thinking it for weeks, but you weren’t sure if it was too soon, if it would scare him off.

Jungwon goes very still. Then he tips your chin up so he can see your face. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He says it like a revelation, like he’s just discovered something amazing. “I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Scared. Didn’t want to freak you out.”

“You could never freak me out.”

“Good to know.” He kisses you again. “I love you. So much. More than I knew was possible.” You fall asleep in his arms, the moon pendant warm against your skin, and everything feels perfect.

Your POV

Spring semester is brutal. You’re both drowning in work— your senior thesis is due in two months, Jungwon is applying to medical schools and studying for the MCAT. You still see each other every day, but it’s different now. Stressed. Tired. Neither of you sleeping enough.

One evening in late March, you’re both in the library, sitting at the same table but working on separate things. You’ve been here for six hours. Your eyes are burning, your back hurts, and you’re pretty sure you’ve read the same paragraph seventeen times without retaining any information.

You glance at Jungwon. He’s hunched over his biochemistry textbook, highlighter in hand, looking exhausted. “Break?” you suggest.

“Can’t. This exam is in two days and I’m nowhere near ready.”

“You’ve been studying for weeks. You’re ready.”

“I’m not. There’s still three chapters I haven’t reviewed and—”

“Jungwon.” You reach across the table to take his hand. “Take a break. Ten minutes. Please.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but then he sees your face and sighs. “Okay. Ten minutes.”

You both step outside into the cool spring air. The campus is quiet— it’s almost midnight, most people are asleep or partying. You find a bench and sit, and Jungwon immediately slumps against you. “I’m so tired,” he mumbles.

“I know. Me too.”

“When does it get easier?”

“I don’t think it does. I think we just get better at handling hard.”

He laughs weakly. “Philosophical.”

“I’m a history major. We’re all secretly philosophers.” You sit in comfortable silence for a while. The moon is visible through the trees, nearly full.

“Look,” you say, pointing. “The moon.”

Jungwon looks up, and something crosses his face. Something you can’t quite read. “It’s beautiful,” he says quietly.

“Makes me think of the necklace you gave me.” You touch the pendant, which you wear every day. “Do you ever wonder if the moon gets lonely? Just hanging up there, watching everyone?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s comforting. Being able to witness everything. All the love stories, all the lives, all the history.” There’s something strange in his voice. Something distant.

“You okay?” you ask.

“Yeah. Just… sometimes I get this feeling. Like I’m supposed to remember something important but I can’t quite grasp it.” He shakes his head. “Ignore me. I’m sleep-deprived and saying weird things.”

“I get that feeling too sometimes.”

He turns to look at you. “You do?”

“Yeah. Especially when I’m with you. Like there’s something just out of reach. Something I should know.” You’re both quiet, staring at each other, and the moment feels heavy with meaning you can’t articulate.

“Weird,” Jungwon says finally.

“Yeah. Weird.” You go back to studying, but the feeling lingers.

—

It happens on a Tuesday.

You’re driving back from the library— late night, you stayed to finish a research paper. You’re tired, ready to collapse into bed. The light is green. You’re sure it’s green. You start through the intersection and— impact.

The car hits yours from the side, metal crunching, glass shattering. The world spins. Your head slams against something. And then everything goes dark.

Jungwon’s POV

Jungwon is in his apartment, half-asleep on the couch with a textbook on his chest, when his phone rings. Unknown number. He almost doesn’t answer. “Hello?”

“Is this Yang Jungwon?” A woman’s voice, professional and careful.

“Yes?”

“This is Mercy General Hospital. You’re listed as the emergency contact for—”

His blood turns to ice. “What happened? Is she okay? What happened?”

“There’s been an accident. A car accident. She’s alive, but she’s unconscious. You should come to the hospital as soon as possible.”

Jungwon doesn’t remember the drive. One minute he’s in his apartment, the next he’s running through the hospital corridors, demanding to know where you are. They lead him to a room in the ICU. You’re there, lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines. Your face is pale, bruised. There’s a bandage around your head.

“Oh god,” he breathes.

A doctor intercepts him before he can reach you. “Mr. Yang?”

“How is she? What happened?”

“She was hit by another vehicle. Traumatic brain injury, some internal bleeding. We’ve stabilized her, but she’s in a coma.”

“A coma.”

“Her brain is swelling. We’re monitoring closely. The next 24-48 hours are critical.”

Jungwon sinks into a chair, his legs giving out. “Can I—can I sit with her?”

“Of course.”

He pulls a chair to your bedside and takes your hand. It’s cold. “I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m right here. You’re going to be okay. You have to be okay.”

The machines beep steadily. Your chest rises and falls. But you don’t respond. Jungwon sits there for hours. Days. He leaves only when forced, only for bathroom breaks and when the nurses make him eat something.

He talks to you. Tells you about his day, about stupid things happening in his classes, about how much he misses you. Begs you to wake up. On the third day, your eyes open.

Your POV

You wake up slowly, consciousness returning in pieces. White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. Beeping sounds. The smell of antiseptic. Hospital. You try to sit up and pain lances through your head.

“Hey, hey, don’t move.” A familiar voice. Warm hands gently pushing you back down. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital. You were in an accident.”

You turn your head— slowly, because it hurts— and see Jungwon. And suddenly, you remember everything. Not just this life. Not just Jungwon the pre-med student you’ve been dating for nine months. You remember everything.

1770. A field hospital, a dying soldier, promises whispered under candlelight. 1850s. An arranged marriage that became real love, tuberculosis stealing him away. 1912. The Titanic, stolen moments, his face disappearing into chaos. 1969. Vietnam, journal entries, a letter written the day before he died. 2001. September 11th, a phone call, watching towers fall.

Five lifetimes. Five times you’ve found each other. Five times you’ve lost each other. And now this. Now here. You gasp, tears streaming down your face. “You,” you sob. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”

He looks confused and worried. “What? Hey, it’s okay, you’re probably disoriented—”

“I remember,” you say desperately. “I remember all of it. The hospital in 1770. Our wedding in 1850. The ship. The war. The towers. I remember, Jungwon. I remember everything.”

He goes very still. “What did you just say?”

“I remember. All the lifetimes. All the times we found each other and lost each other. The moon— you always asked if the moon remembers us. And you always said you’d find me in the next life. And you did. You always did.”

Jungwon is staring at you, his face white. “How do you—” His voice breaks. “How do you know about that?”

“Because I was there. I was there every time. And so were you.”

“I thought I was crazy,” he whispers. “I’ve been having these dreams since I was a kid. Different times, different lives, but always you. Always the same person. I thought they were just dreams. Just my brain making up stories.”

“They weren’t dreams. They were memories.” You’re both crying now, holding onto each other like you’re drowning.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Jungwon says. “My whole life, I’ve been looking for you. And when I saw you that day on campus, I knew. I knew it was you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it sounded insane! How do you tell someone you just met that you’ve loved them for centuries? That you remember dying in their arms in a field hospital in 1770?”

“You remember that?”

“I remember all of it. Every lifetime. Every death. Every promise I made to find you again.” He cups your face. “And here you are. You’re finally here and you remember me.”

“I almost died,” you realize. “That’s why I remember now. Being so close to death triggered the memories.”

“I don’t care why. I’m just glad you do.” He kisses you desperately. “I love you. I’ve loved you for lifetimes. Literal lifetimes.”

“I love you too. In every life, I’ve loved you.” You hold each other, crying and laughing and trying to process the impossible truth: you’ve lived before. Multiple times. And every single time, you’ve found each other. And every single time, you’ve lost each other.

“Not this time,” Jungwon says fiercely, like he can read your thoughts. “This time we’re not losing each other. This time we get our happy ending.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’m not letting you go. Not for anything. We’ve waited too long. Suffered too much. This time, we’re keeping each other.” You want to believe him. God, you want to believe him. But you’ve believed before. And it’s never been enough.

Six Months Later - Your POV

You recover from the accident slowly but completely. The doctors call it a miracle— the brain injury should have had lasting effects, but somehow you’re fine. You know it’s not a miracle. It’s something else. Something to do with the lifetimes, with the universe giving you another chance.

You and Jungwon are inseparable now. Not in the cute couple way— in the “we’ve literally died and been reborn six times to find each other” way. You talk about the past lives constantly. Comparing memories, filling in gaps. He remembers things you don’t. You remember things he doesn’t. Together, you piece together the full story.

“In 1770, you promised me a dance,” you tell him one night.

“Did I?”

“You said when you were healed, you’d take me dancing. But you died before you could.”

“Then I owe you a dance.” He stands, offering his hand. “May I have this dance?”

There’s no music, but he pulls you into his arms anyway, swaying with you in the middle of his living room. You rest your head on his chest and close your eyes. “This is nice,” you murmur.

“Better late than never.”

“Only about 250 years late.”

He laughs. “I’m nothing if not punctual.”

You dance until you’re both tired, then collapse on the couch together. “Do you think it will happen again?” you ask quietly. “Do you think we’ll lose each other?”

“I don’t know.” His arm tightens around you. “But even if we do, I’ll find you again. I always do.”

“That’s not comforting. I don’t want to lose you again. I don’t want to go through that pain.”

“Me neither. But if I had to choose between loving you and losing you, or never loving you at all? I’d choose loving you every time.”

You know he means it. Across five lifetimes, through wars and sickness and disasters, he’s chosen to love you every single time. “Marry me,” you say suddenly. “We’ve wasted enough time across enough lifetimes. Let’s not waste any more.”

“Are you serious?”

“Completely serious. I love you. You love me. We’ve loved each other for centuries. Why wait?”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “Okay. Yes. Let’s get married. Let’s do it right this time. Let’s build the life we’ve never gotten to have.”

You kiss him, laughing and crying at the same time. “When?”

“Now. Tomorrow. Next week. I don’t care. Whenever you want.”

“Next month,” you decide. “Small ceremony. Just us and a few friends. Nothing fancy.”

“Perfect.”

You get married in October, in a small ceremony in Central Park. You wear a simple white dress. He wears a suit. Mina and Jake are there, along with a handful of other friends. The officiant asks if you have your own vows.

“I do,” Jungwon says, taking your hands. “I’ve loved you in more lifetimes than most people get to experience. I’ve died loving you. I’ve been reborn to find you. And every single time, choosing you has been the easiest decision I’ve ever made. This time, I’m choosing you for the rest of this life. However long that is. I’m choosing you every day, in every way. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.”

You’re crying. “I promise to love you for the rest of this life and whatever comes after. I promise to remember. I promise to choose you, just like you’ve chosen me, across time and space and whatever separates us. You’re my home. You always have been.”

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He kisses you, and it tastes like forever.

Fifteen Years Later

You’re both in your fifties now. Jungwon is a successful cardiologist. You’re a tenured professor with three published books. You never have kids. It’s a choice you make together— you’ve lost each other too many times, you can’t imagine bringing children into that uncertainty. 

Instead, you pour your love into each other, into your careers, into making the world a little bit better. Jungwon volunteers at free clinics. You mentor graduate students. You both donate to causes you believe in. Your lives are full and meaningful and happy.

One evening, you’re both at a gala for Jungwon’s hospital. Fancy clothes, fancy food, schmoozing with donors. It’s not your favorite thing, but you do it for him. During the dancing portion of the evening, he pulls you onto the floor. “Remember when I promised you a dance in 1770?” he says, one hand on your waist, the other holding yours.

“You mean the dance we had in your apartment about twenty years ago?”

“That was a down payment. This is the real thing.”

You laugh and let him lead you around the floor. He’s a good dancer— you both are, after years of these events. “Do you ever regret it?” you ask quietly. “Choosing me? Building a life with someone who carries all this history?”

“Never. Not for a single second.” He pulls you closer. “Do you?”

“No. But sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. If we’d been normal people. If we’d met in just this lifetime and didn’t carry all that weight.”

“We wouldn’t be us. All those lifetimes, all that loss— it made us who we are. It taught us to appreciate what we have. To not take a single moment for granted.”

“That’s true.” You rest your head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too. In this life and every other.” 

You’re not sure what the future holds. You’re not sure if the two of you broke the cycle. But right here, in 2026, is all that matters. You found eachother after seven lifetimes.

part one: how do i make you love me?

part two: my hands at risk i fold

part three: of stars and skies

part four: hate that i love you

part five: tba

The house is too quiet, the once lively sleepover party silenced. The remnants of your friends are scattered through the rooms, the air tinged with iron as you creep down the hallway to your room. Heart racing and constantly glancing over your shoulder, you slip through the door and close it with an almost silent click that sounds like a gunshot to your ears. The illusion of safety allows you a second to breathe, dizzy with cortisol and the lack of oxygen from holding your breath. Five seconds to calm down. That’s all you need, five seconds then you can… Find a phone, or escape out the window. Yeah, that’s an option, out the window.

The illusion is shattered by someone clearing their throat. You jump violently, whirling around to see Jeongin’s head peeking up from the side of your bed. He beckons you with a frantic hand and you stumble over, ducking down next to him.

“Where’s he gone?” you hiss, quiet as possible, so close your shoulder touches his.

He shakes his head, glancing over the edge of your bed again with wide eyes like the bogeyman is on the other side of the bedspread. “I don’t know, I’ve been here for, like, twenty minutes–” he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “Is everyone else…?”

“…yeah, I think so,” you whisper, voice thick and wavering. You force yourself to take a breath, steadying your lungs and your nerves. “We gotta get out of here, right now, we have to–”

The beginnings of a plan get cut short as something catches your eye. Jeongin had shifted where he’s kneeling, allowing the moonlight from the window to glint over silver steel. Is that…?

You’re reaching out before common sense even has a chance, fingers wrapping around a sticky black handle and withdrawing a knife from beneath your bed. The knife, the one with which almost every friend of yours has had an intimate experience. Silence throbs in your ears, senses narrowed to the way the plastic feels in your hand, slick and still warm.

“Oh my god–!” The knife thuds onto the carpet between the two of you and you rub your hand against your pyjamas in a panic. “What the fuck, what the fuck–”

Jeongin grabs your hands, shushing you quickly. “Shut up, calm down, okay?” He looks down at the knife and then back up, swallowing thickly. “It’s fine, it’s all fine, okay? If he doesn’t have the knife, he can’t hurt us, right?”

His logic is sound for all of ten seconds, but it’s long enough for your sharp panic to blunt at the edges. “What if he has another knife, or something else?” Your eyes flick to the closed bedroom door and back. “Why… why would he leave the knife?”

“I don’t know.” Jeongin’s response is just a little too quick, his grip on your hands a little too tight. “The guy’s crazy, who knows why he left the knife.”

Sure, the guy’s murdered at least six people in one night, he’s insane, but still…

Acting on some terrified instinct, you rip a hand from Jeongin’s hold and shove it back under the bed. Nails hit plastic. Fingers catch in eyeholes. Horror swells in your chest as you pull a white mask from the shadows. Empty eyes and a soundless, screaming mouth stare back at you, hollow and familiar and glowing in the moonlight.

“Innie?” Your voice is strangled, cradling a silent plea for you to be wrong. “Why is this here?”

There’s no response, not even when you tear your eyes away from the mask to meet his blank stare. The next question doesn’t quite sound like your voice.

“Jeongin… why are you still alive?”

With careful hands, Jeongin reaches out and takes the mask, something like reverence in his hands as he holds it. “The better question,” he murmurs, soft and even. “Is why are you still alive?”

Your heart stops, breathing suddenly an impossible task. Words form in your mouth and get stuck in your teeth, gluing your jaw shut as Jeongin slips the mask over his head.

“I’ll tell you,” he continues, picking up the knife and running a finger along the length of the blade. “It’s because you’re the one I wanted.”

This is a different Jeongin than the weird, funny sweetheart you’ve known since you were twelve. This Jeongin is calm, in control… frightening. He moves slowly, setting the knife down again but safely within reach.

“Everyone else always gets your attention.” His pout is audible through the mask, and it’s disconcerting to hear the familiar tone coming from the murder of your friends. “I have to work so hard, and you barely look at me.” One of his hands moves to rest on your thigh, warm through the stained fabric of your pyjamas. “And now,” he hums, thumb gently rubbing back and forth. “There’s no one else to steal your attention. It’s all mine, right?”

His fingers squeeze your thigh, spurring you to open your mouth and force out sounds. “…you didn’t have to kill them, Innie.” It comes out a whisper, raspy and choked with tears.

Jeongin shakes his head, mask shining in the silvery light. “They were in the way, baby, can’t you understand? None of them deserved your attention, your love, your tears…” His free hand raises to your cheek, fingers brushing away the watery glimmers escaping from your eyes. “Don’t cry, I’m here, aren’t I? I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

The hand on your cheek slides up to stroke your hair, gentle and loving until he curls his fingers tight and tugs. “Upsy-daisy, sweetheart,” he cooes, standing up from kneeling on the floor and pulling you with him. “On the bed, there we go–” He coaxes you to lay on the sheets, arranging your limbs to his liking. “You’re so tense, poor baby… let me help you relax, okay?”

Your heart pounds in your ears, so loud it’s hard to think, hard to focus on anything but the hollows of Jeongin’s mask boring into your soul. He runs his hands over your front, squeezing briefly at your chest before spreading your legs apart. There’s a moment of hesitation, like he expects you to protest, to fight back, to do… something.

When you don’t, he hooks his fingers into the waistband of your pyjama pants and slowly eases them down. “You look so cute in these,” he hums, fingers warm as they brush your bare skin. He tosses the pyjamas off the bed without a thought and crawls onto the bed with you, leaning over you. “You don’t want me to stop, do you?”

Your morals compel you to open your mouth, but Jeongin lifts the mask just enough to let you see his eyes. They’re dark, warm and utterly adoring.

There are too many feelings in your chest, a tangled ball of fear and confusion and something that feels too much like want to be comfortable. Yeah, he’s done horrible things, abhorrent things… but he’s still Jeongin, your Jeongin, and your all-consuming crush rears its head with the realisation that despite everything, you and him are alone in your bedroom with his wanting hands running up under your pyjama top.

Self-preservation has left the premises.

“No,” you breathe, shaky but certain. “No, I don’t want you to stop.”

You catch his grin just before he slips his mask back in place. “That’s my girl.”

Your pyjama top is yanked off unceremoniously and discarded in the same manner as your pyjama pants. Greedy hands grope over your newly exposed skin, warm and claiming as Jeongin squeezes and kneads at your flesh.

“God, look at you,” he moans, fingers groping at your tits and drawing a sharp gasp from your lips. He repeats the action to hear the sound again, thumbs grazing over your nipples until they stiffen. “Fucking gorgeous, I’m so lucky.”

One hand remains on your chest while the other drags down to dip between your legs, nails leaving goosebumps in their wake. His fingertips meet soft, warm cotton, and your breath hitches audibly as he brushes the damp patch blooming over the fabric. Your legs spread on instinct, and Jeongin moves to settle between your legs.

“Innie,” you moan, hips twitching as he begins to circle his fingers, mask angled down as if entranced by the way the wet spot grows under his coaxing.

“I know, sweetheart,” he whispers, slipping two fingers under your panties to tug them to the side. He groans, low and longing, as he reveals your glistening cunt. “Oh, baby, I’m gonna eat you out ‘til you scream one day, but right now I need to fuck you before I go even more insane.”

Your cheeks could not be more on fire as Jeongin slips off the bed just long enough to shove down his pants and underwear to his thighs, but a split second of clarity manages to break through. “…condom?”

Jeongin freezes, and your stomach drops. Fuck, what were you thinking? He’s mad, you’ve pissed him off–

“Smart girl,” he cooes, wrapping his hand around his cock as it springs free from his boxers. “Find one for me.”

You scramble up, breathless and trembling. Yanking open the top drawer of your bedside table, your fingers close around a foil packet, and there’s a flood of relief through your whole body. You climb back to Jeongin with your prize and he takes it like a sacrament, ripping it open.

“Lie down. Spread your legs.”

It’s impossible to feel like you can do anything but obey, your body falling back against the sheets with eyes glassy and wide, inner thighs already sticky. Jeongin rolls the condom onto his cock with one hand and casually reaches down to shove two fingers inside you, forcing a gasping moan from your throat. He fucks them into you, quick and curling, then pulls them out with just as much abruptness to coat his length with your wetness.

The white of the mask is shadowed in grey, his body moving over yours as he returns between your legs. You can feel his eyes fixed on yours as he guides his aching cock to your dripping hole, his other arm planted by your head to hold him up. He begins to ease inside you, and your jaw drops in a trembling cry. “Oh m-my god, Innie–!”

“That’s it,” he groans, letting go of his cock as he sinks all the way into your perfect heat, both arms now caging your head either side. “You feel so good, shit, so t-tight– can’t believe I waited so long to fuck this sweet little pussy–”

You barely have a chance to think before he starts to move, his hands curling into the sheets for leverage. His panting breaths rattle beneath the mask, hips snapping in a precise rhythm that rocks your body, tits bouncing beneath him. The rough fabric of his jeans drags against the inside of your thighs, harsher and harsher as he gains confidence, speed and power.

“I-Innie, too m-much!” Your voice is hoarse and almost sobbing as he pounds into you, shifting his angle just enough to fuck the head of his cock against that sweet spot inside you and sending a burst of electricity through your body. Your spine arches off the bed with a needy cry, and Jeongin doubles down, targeting that spot specifically.

“You can take it, gorgeous, dirty girl, feels so good around my cock–” He practically growls, shoving his head into your neck and mouthing roughly at your skin. “–squeezing me like crazy, you’re gonna come, aren’t you?”

Unable to form coherent words anymore, you jerk your head in a vague nod, pressure building in the heat of your stomach. Your toes curl, knees bending to hook over his hips, hands clawing uselessly at his shoulders and back.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he pants, hammering into you like it’s the only thing that matters in the whole world, like it’s his only purpose. “Come for me, come on your cock, you’re gonna give it to me, right?”

“–‘m gonna come,” you babble, words slurring together as you tip over the edge into bliss. “F-Fuck, fuck, c-coming!”

Eyes roll back so far in your head, you almost miss Jeongin ripping the mask off, not satisfied with looking through the eyeholes. He fucks you through your high, studying every twitch and moan like he’s gonna be tested.

“Prettiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he growls, his hips jerking out of rhythm almost absently to chase his own release. Ducking his head, he captures your open mouth in a kiss, all hot and messy and clashing teeth. He moans pathetically as you force yourself to kiss back through the fierce aftershocks of your orgasm and that’s all it takes. He shoves his cock as deep as he can, filling the condom with a dry sob muffled against your lips.

He shudders above you, pulling back to look down at you with glossy eyes and slick, puffy lips, sweat dripping from his bangs. “…are you okay, baby?”

Nodding slowly, you wince as Jeongin pulls out. He swiftly removes the condom, tying it off and dropping it on the bedside table to deal with later, and comes back to gather you up in his arms. His lips pepper your face, sweet and adoring, and he holds you tighter when you manage a tiny, tired giggle.

“Just let me hold you,” he whispers, lips pressing to your temple. “Then I’m gonna clean you up, and then you’re gonna help me hide the bodies.” Jeongin pecks you cutely on the lips as reality sobers you up quick as an ice bath. “Okay? Good girl.”

A dozen rotted faces turn to you, pausing for barely half a second before they're moving in your direction. Panic overtakes your body. This is your first close encounter with this many walkers, having spent the previous days simply running and hiding, too afraid to go after isolated ones in fear of attracting the rest.

You decide to turn your attention to the one at your feet before you even attempt to worry about the rest. Its bloodied fingers grip your jeans and dig into the rough fabric, using your legs to pull itself from beneath a smouldering car. The position is far from favourable, but you take advantage of your foot being close to its charred face and decide to kick it away. A sickening crack permeates the air and its neck snaps too far back for any normal person to survive, but it doesn't seem fazed. Its head rolls back into position and it continues to grab at you, making wet garbling sounds as it does. You swallow around the urge to puke and kick again, twice as hard. Half its face caves in, thick crimson blood seeping through the mushy skin.

"Let!"

Kick

"Me!"

Kick

"Go!"

You draw your leg back, ready to kick once more, but a bloodied boot beats you to it. The thick sole easily smashes the walker's head into the ground, spraying blood onto your jeans.

"Get up! Run!" A pair of strong arms wrap around your middle before they pull you up, swinging you to your feet like a rag doll. You stumble into a run, following after the dark-haired stranger, and barely noticing his hand gripping yours. You weave between walkers, narrowly missing their greedy grabs. The stranger takes a sharp turn, nearly pulling your arm from its socket as he leads you into a dead-end alleyway.

"Do you know where you're going?" He ignores your question and kicks away piles of trash blocking the entrance of a metal door.

"Sunoo! Open up!" He bangs a fist against the door. You flinch and immediately peer down the alleyway. Several walkers appear at the entrance and begin their clumsy journey towards you.

"Please tell me that door opens!" The walker in front trips over an empty box and falls to the floor. The others go tumbling after him, yet they still desperately scramble towards you, blinded by greed.

"Sunoo!" The stranger shoulders himself against the door. "Come on!" The distance between life and death is rapidly decreasing. You unconsciously tighten your grip on his hand. The lead walker manages to climb to its feet, so close that just a few more steps and it'll have you in its grasp.

The metal door screeches open and the stranger drags you past its solid frame before it slams shut behind you. You're met with darkness, a pitch black so suffocating and all-consuming that it feels as if the air has been sucked from your lungs. The back of your eyes tingle, struggling to adjust. You press into the stranger's side as you hear shuffling in the darkness. Has he just led you from one trap into another? The fear never seems to end.

Seconds pass before a blinding beam of light slices through the emptiness. You can't see any faces behind the light, only a set of hands holding onto the torches responsible for its source.

"What took you so long?"

"The torch wouldn't turn on." The voice behind the torch is sweet, contrasting the stranger's biting words. They don't seem to care for his somewhat angry tone. "It's a little difficult looking for the door in the dark."

"I told you to replace the batteries."

"And I told you we didn't have any."

"Let's not worry about that now," a second voice rings out across the room. "You have a friend."

Two torch lights swing towards you. You bring your hand up to shield your afflicted eyes. "Uh..."

"Let's head up, it's brighter there.”

The route they walk seems familiar to them, and you lag behind, catching yourself on every other step despite still clinging to your apparent saviour.

"Did you manage to get anything?" A tall, dark-haired boy directs the question to the stranger.

"No," A heavy sigh. "I was barely able to travel two blocks. The streets are crawling with those things."

Their voices fade into the background as you follow behind quietly. Exhaustion clings to your body and swims around thickly in your skull. Being out of the streets, in a presumably safe building, has quickly pushed you out of survival mode and given the chance, you'd be more than happy to sink to the cold, hard floor and sleep.

You let them lead you to an office-like room where four other boys are waiting. One of them, with the strong, sharp features, who had previously been pacing back and forth, lets out a loud sigh of relief, and immediately makes his way towards the stranger.

"You worry me," The boy pulls the stranger into a hug, causing your hand to slip free.

"I told you I would be fine." He returns the hug with a small, satisfied smile.

You turn away from the interaction, finding it far too personal for you to be witnessing it as an outsider, and let your gaze wander, taking in the sleeping bags lining the wall, half-burned candles, and flaccid backpacks strewn about. The room is mostly bare and you'd think it to be abandoned if it weren't for the several boys before you.

You feel a tap on your shoulder and when you turn, you're met with a kind face and a bright smile. "Hi, I'm Sunoo." Ah, so that's who the sweet voice belonged to.

"I'm Y/N." You try to muster a smile to match, though you're sure it doesn't compare. "Do you all live here?"

"We do." The dark-haired boy from earlier appears beside Sunoo. "I'm Jungwon, unofficial leader." His dimple peaks out when he offers you a gentle smile. "We were together when everything happened and managed to get into this building."

"Is it safe?" You query.

"This floor is. We sealed off the stairway and elevator to the upper levels just to be safe." You nod at his explanation. At the very least, this place is safe from walkers. Now you need to determine how safe you are with these boys.

"Who is that?" You point to the stranger who's still conversing with the others.

"Heeseung," Sunoo speaks up. "He went out earlier looking for supplies, but I suppose he brought you back instead."

The young boy's words are biting, but playful, and you can't resist the urge to smile. "I guess he did."

"Were you alone?" Jungwon's eyes seem so round and curious, and you feel an inexplicable urge to tell him everything, as if whatever spills out of your mouth will be kept safe with him, locked safely within his chocolate eyes.

"I, uh..." you stutter. Do you tell him the truth? Yes, I’m alone, I have been for days and I’m so happy to see other living people that I could cry. Do you lie? No, I'm not alone. I was out scavenging and got cornered. My group will be worried if I don't return before it gets dark.

You glance at Sunoo, who shares the same docile and curious expression as Jungwon. The softness of his features makes you feel comforted, and you're not sure if it's a mistake, but you decide to tell the truth. "Yes, I'm alone. I've been wandering the streets since it began."

"You've been out there this entire time? Alone?" Heeseung's voice cuts into the conversation, his surprise evident. He and the other boys must have overheard Jungwon’s inquiry.

"Yes. Most of the buildings are damaged and unprotected. The only place I could stay..." You feel heat creeping up your neck. "The only place I could stay was in the dumpsters. Walkers don't go looking in them if you're quiet."

You avert your gaze, feeling far too embarrassed and suddenly self-conscious. You hadn't thought about the fact that you probably smell of days-old garbage, not to mention all the walker blood staining your clothes.

"Incredible.” Sunoo exclaims. His choice of wording surprises you.

"Uhm...incredible?"

"It’s been almost a week since things really fell apart. That’s a long time to be out there, especially alone." A third dark-haired boy, who'd been silently watching everything unfold, speaks up. His voice is rich and smooth.

"Sunghoon's right," Sunoo's mouth remains parted in awe. "With the seven of us, everyone would know exactly where we would be hiding."

The comment pulls a chuckle from the group, and the tension in your shoulders eases slightly. Easy-going joksters who care for each other, that's what you've gathered so far.

"Listen," Jungwon grabs your attention with his tone. "I'm not sure what your plan is, if you have one that is, but if you'd like...you can stay. It's just the seven of us. Being alone out there seems like a disadvantage to you, but I'm sure you know that."

"You don't even know me."

"No,” the tall boy, whom Heeseung hugged earlier, speaks. "But I'm sure we can handle you if you end up being more troublesome than you look."

"Here," Heeseung holds out a set of clean clothes for you, as if offering you a welcoming gift. Where did he get those from?

You hesitate to take them, but you know Jungwon is right. The thought of being alone any longer scares you more than you’re willing to admit. You may not know them, but at the very least, you could give them a chance.

You reach for the clothes and offer Heeseung a shaky smile. “Thank you.”

The sun sinks lower on the horizon. A deep purple-red hue bleeds across the sky and pours into the room, casting Heeseung in a warm glow. You let your eyes fix on his for a moment, and something in your stomach flips.

That's how you meet Lee Heeseung, with his honey voice and warm eyes that seemed to burn brighter than the setting sun.