#lowqualityseventeen

character intros!

1. that i’m not telling the truth

2. they just don't have any proof

3. embrace the deception

4. learn how to bend

5. your worst inhibitions tend to

6. psych you out in the end

Sunwoo used to pride himself for being able to keep his cool, in even the most unimaginable situations. He kept his exterior when Haknyeon turned out to be double crossing their agency, Creker, and secretly sending information to a rivaling one the whole time. Sunwoo didn’t crack when his entire mission in Sydney blew up right in his fucking face, never even flinched when his gear malfunctioned dumping him in a hospital for a week. But all those instances seem to fall flat now. All the times where Sunwoo stayed strong seem to disappear the moment he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around only to come face to face with you. “What are you-“ he falters, grasping at the last bits of crumbling pride and hanging on to the dip in his voice. “What are you doing here?” 

“You forgot this,” you continue, ignoring him entirely, “forgot it in Vienna specifically.” You dangle a watch in front of his face. The same watch he lost somewhere in Austria three months ago, at the same time that he was in the middle of the most intense and longest mission the agency had ever given him, and more notably, around the same time he met you. “Don’t look so shocked.” You scoff when he fails to respond. “You told me you were gonna be here.” 

Sunwoo laughs, except it’s less of a laugh and more of an exhale of pure disbelief. “I know what I said, but you’re…” his voice trails off, some part of him unable to finish the sentence and another part of him still too disturbed to believe it. 

You tilt your head with faux confusion. “I’m what?”

Sunwoo gulps. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

VIENNA, AUSTRIA  THREE MONTHS AGO 

Sunwoo remembers, with a starling amount of clarity, all that happened three months ago. He can recall every day he spent roaming the streets of Vienna with you despite the way he’s been trying to drown out the memories and douse his lingering feelings. 

When he met you at a pub on one of his first nights there, he told himself he entertained your conversation because, well, to put it bluntly, he thought you were cute. Although the small tug in his gut doesn’t help justify why he found himself stumbling back to his hotel room with you by his side. And there’s really no good excuse for the tiny sting of disappointment Sunwoo feels when he wakes up alone the next morning. 

It’s two days after that night when Sunwoo sees you again, sitting on a bench with a book in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other. It’s an odd coincidence that he should see you in Vienna again, but the small pang of doubt is quickly replaced with a more promising burst of elation. Sunwoo can’t tell if it’s exhilarating or terrifying.

“Ah,” you mutter when you notice him approaching, “Sunwoo right?” It’s a facade, Sunwoo thinks to himself, he knows you remember his name, knows you only pretend to forget. But he doesn’t mention that, instead he nods rather lamely, shoving his fists into his pockets and burying away the voice of reason in the back of his head telling him this is a mistake. “Sit.” You say, moving your things to the other side of the bench and patting the now empty spot next to you. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

And in retrospect, it’s quite obvious that Sunwoo should have found the words alarming. Really, he should have begun to put his guard up the second he spotted you in Vienna again. But at that moment in time, the only thing Sunwoo can think to ask is if he was worth the wait. 

Your tongue darts out, swiping at your bottom lip in thought for the smallest of seconds, before disappearing into your mouth again. “Yeah,” you say, lips turning up into an intrigued smile, “you were.” 

—

Sunwoo doesn’t think much of the way he comes to trust you so easily, telling you the truth about his job in the darkness of the hotel room. He doesn’t think anything of the way you hang onto his every word without ever sharing much about yourself. And when one day, you sit down at the cafe booth across from him and ask, “what’s your current mission,” Sunwoo doesn’t think twice before telling you everything about his objective to infiltrate Pegasus. He also doesn’t notice the phone call you make soon after. 

—

When the truth does come out, it comes fast, like water rushing off a cliff and crashing into Sunwoo sitting unsuspecting at the bottom. It comes in the form of a charity event that he only attends as part of the mission which sent him to Vienna to begin with. The truth arrives, like a rock in his gut, at the same second that Sunwoo sees you across the hall. You, who he last saw at the hotel, and you, who’s supposed to be on a train to Paris right now. And when your eyes finally catch his, there’s something unmistakable swimming in them. You’ve been caught, Sunwoo thinks, finally placing a name to the familiar way you swallow and dart your eyes around the room. Sunwoo recognizes the feeling, vaguely remembers the rush he felt once in Santiago and again in New York. 

“I can explain,” you hiss, quiet and breathless, finding him outside the hall after a few minutes. 

And Sunwoo knows he should be dying for an explanation of what you’re doing here or who you’re really working with. Some small part of Sunwoo knows that he should already be replaying every conversation and trying to determine how much information he’s given you to use against him. But another, larger part of him, that’s poking at his heart and prodding at his brain, chooses to stare at your lying eyes, study the face he’s come to memorize, and lamely ask, “how much of…” his voice tapers off, gesturing to the empty space in between you two, “of this was a lie?”

You don’t respond, but in the silence Sunwoo finds the answer anyways. 

All of it.

—

It’s not long after that night that a new message from the case officer shows up for him.  

You’re on thin ice. New mission: get rid of that Pegasus agent. 

PRESENT TIME  THREE MONTHS AFTER VIENNA

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here?” Sunwoo asks you again, shifting in his plastic red chair and keeping his gaze focused on the street you’re both seated beside. He hadn’t planned on hanging out after crossing paths with you earlier today. In fact, the only thing he wanted to do was put as much distance between the two of you as possible, but when you offer him a meal in exchange for a conversation, his rumbling stomach agrees before he can even consider the offer. The scene you lead him to is a busy one, filled with people rushing down the road and bustling behind each of the food stalls. It’s a mosh-posh of neon signs, kicked up dust, and the aroma of food being fried. More importantly, it’s a loud area, one where you and Sunwoo can talk freely without the worry of being heard by someone seated nearby. He takes a bite into his skewer, waiting for your response. 

“And you still haven’t told me why you didn’t follow through with the mission,” you counter, twirling your lime green straw with the tip of your finger. “The one where you were supposed to kill me.” 

You say it plainly, but something in Sunwoo’s stomach turns hard at the reminder anyways. “We’re spies,” he mutters behind clenched teeth, “not assassins.” 

“I don’t know,” you shrug, taking a sip from your coke, “the job description is pretty vague.” 

The words are met with a taut silence, a snap of Sunwoo’s eyes towards yours, and a search for any implication of murder behind the sentence. 

“It’s a joke,” you choke, wiping the coke that slips from your mouth and quickly shaking your head, “I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Well anyways,” Sunwoo continues, “I tried to finish the mission. Even hired someone to find you.” And as soon as the words leave his mouth, Sunwoo realizes he’s told you too much, realizes he’s let the truth slip too easily--again. Biting his lip, he thinks this must be what people mean when they say ‘old habits die hard’. 

“He didn’t follow through.” You tell him as if to fill him in on how exactly you’re still alive and sitting across from him right here, right now, miles away from Vienna and months after Sunwoo’s hire took his money and ran. “But you knew he wouldn’t, didn’t you?”

And this you say with a taunting smile, catching his eyes like there’s a private joke concealed behind them. Sunwoo only gulps and pulls his focus back to the busy street.

“So what do you want with me?”

“I left Pegasus.” You answer, clearing your throat.

Sunwoo waits. He waits for you to take it back, for you to laugh at his widened eyes and say it’s a joke. The punchline never comes. “You’re an idiot.” He settles on.

“And I’ve got two agencies who’d prefer me to be dead right about now.” You grimace. “But despite the bounty on my head, I’m still here which means you’re probably not on great terms with Creker either.”

“Get to the point.”

“We both have people who want us dead. We both have next to nothing to lose at this point. So let’s team up.” You pause, checking Sunwoo’s reaction. He watches you intently, body pushing against the creaking plastic table in an attempt to hear you better. With an almost mischievous glint in your eyes and a satisfied quirk, you continue: “Let’s take back what we stole for them.”

There’s a long moment where Sunwoo just stares at you, deciphering what to make of the proposition. You appear genuine, Sunwoo decides leaning away from the table until his back hits the chair, but Sunwoo isn’t exactly sure how much he trusts his own judgement considering the last time he decided you were sincere you had been lying to him left and right.

Sunwoo lifts his hand to the vendor of the food stall you’re sitting by. The previous glint in your eyes is gone, overshadowed by a darker shade of doubt. “What are you doing?” you finally ask, voice lower and less excited than it had been a second ago.

With a tired sigh, he replies, “I’m gonna need more food while you explain your plan.”

Sunwoo has to swallow back the smile that nearly emerges at how happy you get.

--

It’s a simple enough idea. Clear our names, you had explained, wipe ourselves entirely from both agencies. And it’ll work too, Sunwoo realizes when you begin the second explanation on the logistics of the whole operation. The only downside to your plan is you. Because the last person Sunwoo wants to start a new mission with is the same person who broke his heart three months ago. And it’s bothersome, almost, how calm you are and how collected you appear, especially compared to how scattered Sunwoo feels just to be around you again.

“What do you think?” You ask once you’ve explained your plan completely, tapping anxiously on the table.

“I think,” Sunwoo starts, inhaling deeply, “you’ve thought about this way too much.”

“Well, yeah,” you scoff, gulping down some more coke, “three months is kind of a long time.”

And yeah, he thinks, it is. But despite the time that’s passed since you’ve last seen each other and despite the way Sunwoo thought he was over you, his stomach still flips each time you look his way. He just prays that the past three months have at least somewhat watered down how he used to feel about you.

“How do I know you won’t ditch me after we clear you?” Sunwoo asks, pushing away the thoughts of lingering heartache to a corner of his mind.

“We’ll do you first.” You state simply. “Steal your file off Creker and get the bounty off your head first. Then we’ll do me.”

“And then how do you know that I won’t ditch you?”

You falter at that, frowning for the smallest of seconds, then say, “I don’t.”

Sunwoo nods, pretending to contemplate your offer. But in all transparency, Sunwoo knew he’d agree to your plan despite the bile that turns up at your name because with the way he’s been hiding in a crappy motel and eating instant ramen every night, it’s kind of hard to refuse any proposition that gives him the slightest chance at an out from Creker. 

“Okay,” he finally utters, wiping the crumbs of his second skewer off his hands, “let’s do it.” You meet his eyes expectantly. Nodding, he says,

“Let’s team up.”

//

You and Sunwoo clash more than anything else on the first day of prepping for the mission, crammed in a corner of Sunwoo’s dingy motel with two half finished cans of red bull sitting forgotten on the table, fighting about even the smallest details.

“I know the building,” Sunwoo argues, pointing to the floor plan you have pulled up on your laptop, “and this is the entrance we should use.”

“But using this entrance,” you refute, dragging your finger across the screen to show him exactly what you mean, “will give us better access to security and admin. And trust me, I know the building better than you do.”

“How do you—” Sunwoo stills. Something seems to register in your eyes at that moment as well, a small recognition of the tiny slip up, a barely audible acknowledgement that comes in the form of a cough. And all at once, Sunwoo’s reminded of the time he spent spilling his heart to you in Vienna under more covers than he was aware of. Sunwoo’s harshly thrown against the realization that you must’ve been watching him, surveying him long before you ever found him in that Austrian pub.

“See, I knew this wouldn’t work.” He grumbles, shaking his head. “You know too much about me. No, actually, you know everything about me. And I--” there’s a dip in his tone, “I know nothing about you.”

“Fine then, ask.”

“What?”

“Whatever it is you think will even the playing field between us. Whatever it is you want to know about me,” you shut the laptop and turn your body to face him completely, an action that exudes largely frustration but more faintly, guilt, “just ask.”

--

Sunwoo learns more about you than he had intended to. He learns about the origin of the scar that runs along your spine. A fucked up operation in Shanghai, you tell him, writing over the lie you told him three months ago about it being from your childhood. He learns about your old partner Younghoon and about the shadow falling over your forehead at the sound of his name. He’s told about how you got involved with Pegasus to begin with, a similar story to Sunwoo’s beginning with Creker: an unlucky concoction of desperation and coincidence. You tell him, with reluctance, your most embarrassing story, followed by a long list of firsts and favorites. So by the time night falls, with two empty red bulls at the foot of the bed and the building’s floor plan now forgotten behind the black screen of your laptop, Sunwoo learns enough to rebuild a fraction of the trust he lost.

//

Everything goes smoother after that. You and Sunwoo seem to fall into a rhythm, meeting at a café in the morning and at the motel in the afternoon, planning out the missions with far less difficulty than before. A rather quick adjustment, from both of your ends, and an even faster allocation of responsibilities. He finds himself looking forward to sitting in front of your open laptop each day and conjuring new ways to distract you every hour. 

And it’s after meeting up with you one night, not as partners but—perhaps more cruelly—as friends, that a dangerously familiar warmth blooms in his chest and refuses to wilt away when he sees you again the next day. Sunwoo knows that he should be doing something, anything to blow out the flame, but instead he feeds the fire and prays that this time it spreads from his heart to yours.

//

“Where’d you get all of this?” Sunwoo questions one day when you show up at the motel with a suitcase full of equipment. An assortment of laptops, earpieces, weapons, and randomly picked gadgets.

“Took it from Pegasus before I left,” you smirk, pulling out an earpiece and holding it out in front of his ear. “You’re usually on the field, right? The one in action?” He nods. “Good, you can be the agent for this mission then,” you mumble, setting down the earpiece and holding up another. “I’m usually the person behind the computer anyways. Was even a handler for a mission in Seoul once.” You place the earpiece in his palm and begin to pull out the other pieces of equipment from the suitcase.

“What about Vienna?” Sunwoo says, inspecting a certain gadget from the case. “You were on the field then.” And it’s a question that would’ve been asked with malice if it had come up a couple weeks ago, but right now, there’s nothing but curiosity behind Sunwoo’s words.

“Oh,” you hesitate, a small smile appearing briefly, “I guess I do both.”

Sunwoo doesn’t ponder over your answer for long.

It’s later that day, right as you’re about to leave, that you frown at Sunwoo’s head, matter-of-factly saying, “you should change your hair before the mission.” Then, with a laugh bubbling behind your teeth, you add, “again.”

(Sunwoo changed his appearance a lot. One of the tactics that had stuck from his training days. Never really in big ways, but small changes here and there every couple of months. Sometimes it was a new piercing that he’d wear for a year and let close up in the next, and other times the change came in the form of a temporary tattoo imprinted on his neck whilst in Vancouver with Kevin. When Sunwoo met you in Vienna his hair was a light brown that he had gotten done in Tokyo and hadn’t bothered to touch up since. So when the time had come to change something again, he headed to the hair salon.

“When’d you do this?” you asked him that night, running a hand through the new red hair. 

“Just today.” He answered, hoping you wouldn’t ask for a reason. 

“I like it.” 

“More than the brown?”

“Way more.” You whispered, leaning in until he felt the breath of your words on his lips. 

And in the moment before you closed the distance, Sunwoo had made a silent vow to never change his hair again.)

Sunwoo gets his hair done the day after you suggest it, and when he returns to the motel from the salon, he finds you already there.

“Oh good, you’re back.” You mumble, arms full and an extra key card to his room that he had given you out of convenience a while back held between your teeth. “I just came to drop these off because I have to go to—" you stop, straightening yourself and eyes fixated on him. “You got your hair done.”

It’s an observation, a small, stupid thing really. A comment made in passing that should feel routine with as much time as you and Sunwoo spend together and one that should feel even more mundane considering you were the one to suggest it. But there’s something about the way you say the words that makes Sunwoo feel slightly breathless anyways. “Yeah,” he finally affirms, running a hand through his now black hair, “I did.”

You nod in acknowledgement, setting the things in your hands down, then turn to leave. 

“Wait,” he calls out. You do, pausing three paces away from the door and give a long look to the hand he’s placed on your arm to stop you before turning around to face him. And the next words seem to fall off the edge of Sunwoo’s mouth at that moment, tumbling back down his throat and landing heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Do you still…” he hesitates, attempting to smooth over the nervousness folding up in the corners of his mind. 

“What?” 

“Do you still like my hair?”

You consider it for a moment, bringing a hand up to tug at the new black fringe. And there’s something unmistakably domestic about the way you tilt your head in concentration, eyes fixed on Sunwoo’s hair as if there’s nothing more important for you to be doing in this moment. He watches you evaluate his hair closely. 

“Yeah,” you finally say, eyes meeting his and something like a double meaning swimming in them, “I still like it.”

//

The first mission goes smoothly thanks to you sitting back at the motel instructing Sunwoo which turns to take and what files to download. So with a flash drive containing all the information he needs to free himself from the agency stuffed in his pocket, he turns to leave, whispering into his earpiece, “is the exit path clear?”

“Shit.”

He stops walking. “What?”

“It’s blocked. I think I can get you out another way, but you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay, go one story below. Take two rights and then a left.” He does as you say, feet hitting the ground as quietly and as quickly as possible. The less time he spends in the building the better. “At the end of the hall, there’s a window.” You say once he’s near the place you directed him too. His stomach drops. “Jump from it.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He breathes, studying the drop with grimace. “I really hate heights.”

“I know.” And there’s a misplaced softness when Sunwoo hears you mutter, “I remember.” You wait a beat. “Do you trust me?” 

“Do I trust you?” He echoes, dread and disbelief coating his words. “I don’t even—”

“Just answer the question, Sunwoo. Do you?”

“I—” he studies the drop again, thinks and overthinks the newfound steadiness in your voice. Quietly, he mumbles, “yeah.”

“Then jump.” You tell him how exactly to do it as well, where to find the rope you packed and which hook is best to use. He does as you say, preparing for a jump he hasn’t decided to take yet. And once everything is prepared, the only thing that passes between you and Sunwoo on the intercom is silence. “Hey,” you mutter after a long while, something like a joke audible in your voice, “you jump; I jump, jack.”

“Except you aren’t jumping.”

“Technically, yes, that’s true but—”

“Okay, okay, okay. Shut up.” Sunwoo inhales deeply, closing his eyes and letting silence fill the intercom again. The silence, however, is interrupted the second he hears a group of voices travelling from somewhere down the hall. His eyes snap open.

“Sunwoo—”

“Fuck it.”

He jumps.

— 

“You’re bleeding.” Is the first thing Sunwoo hears when he walks through the motel room’s door, quickly followed by you rushing to him, tilting his head with a finger against his chin, and inspecting the cut above his eyebrow. 

“Yeah well your little jump stunt didn’t make for the smoothest of landings.” 

He means it as a joke. A bad one he realizes when you pull your hand away, eyes dropping from his face and guilt hanging over your head. “Sorry about that.” 

He shrugs. “It didn’t kill me.” 

“Come on,” you beckon, grabbing the first aid kit and heading to the bathroom, “I’ll help you bandage them.” 

Sunwoo sits on top of the closed toilet lid, folding up his pant leg to examine the gash running across his shin. The cut, he realizes, isn’t nearly as bad as it feels, but you make a small face at the sight of it anyways. It doesn’t take you very long to clean the cut on his leg, quickly finishing it while kneeling on the cold bathroom tile and asking him questions about the mission.

“No stitches?” He wonders when you pat a bandage in place.

You shake your head. “You should be fine. Nothing more than a gloried scrape really.” You add teasingly while rearranging the objects in the first aid kit. And when you laugh at the look he gives you for the comment, Sunwoo does his best to ignore the fluttering that appears in his gut at the sound. 

You move on from the cut on his leg, placing the first aid kid on top of the counter and poking the bruise that’s forming above his knee before getting up yourself. He smacks your hand away.

“How’d you know about my fear of heights by the way?”

“You told me one night in Vienna.” You answer, tearing open an alcohol wipe packet. “Do you not remember?”

He shakes his head.

Frowning, you let out a small, “oh.”

Neither of you say anything after that. And Sunwoo’s so focused on the frown that’s yet to leave your face that he barely registers the way you lean towards him for better access, propping your knee on top of the toilet and between his legs for balance. Although he does notice the warmth that radiates off your body. And a minute after that, he notices how much longer it takes you to clean this, smaller cut than it took to clean the one on his leg.

“Sorry.” You quickly apologize when you press against the cut too harshly. Sunwoo waves you off. “I am sorry though.” You repeat, seriously, lips still turned down in a frown and brows knit together.

“It’s really fine.” He chuckles, amused by the amount of gravity in the apology. 

“No. For Vienna.” The amusement dies in the back of his throat. “I never apologized for…” you falter there, fingers paused against his forehead, “for that. But I am sorry.”

“It was your mission.” Sunwoo gulps. “You were being a good agent.”

“And a shitty person.” You say, no hint of a joke laced in the statement. “In fact, the mission was just to observe you. Make sure you didn’t find out anything too important about Pegasus. Meeting you was mostly on accident. And everything that followed,” you bite your lip, and Sunwoo can’t tell if you’re biting back a smile or a frown, “all those other parts just sort of came naturally.”

The flame in his chest from before bursts into a bonfire, filling his lungs with a hopeful smoke. “Naturally?” He echoes.

“Yeah,” you repeat, tongue darting out in concentration while you complete the last step of smoothing out the bandage. You don’t lean away when you finish. You don’t remove your knee from between his legs. Don’t pull away the hand you have holding back his hair or the one resting against the side of his face. Nothing but your eyes move, trailing down until they find his, visibly gulping, then wandering further below. “Naturally.”

And the word is like a spell, lifting his chin and drawing him towards you until his lips are brushing against yours. It’s barely a kiss, a small hesitant press of lips that lasts no longer than a second, but one that has Sunwoo’s heart pounding wildly in a way it never did three months ago. He pauses there, lips unmoving and hovering just below yours, waiting for you.

You don’t move. Neither leaning in nor away. His gaze flickers up to your eyes, finds them half open, focused on the upper curve of his lip. He captures your lips between his again, a second attempt that is met with response when you lean into it, inhaling him in for a tiny blissful moment and exhaling him out in the next, pushing him back by the shoulders and stepping away yourself.

“I should…”

“Fuck.”

“I should go.”

And you’re gone before he can say anything else. 

// 

The kiss is ignored by both of you while prepping for the second half of the mission. A silent agreement to act like it never even happened and another one to not discuss whatever misplaced feelings led to it. It’s almost sickening how easily you and Sunwoo fall back into being just partners. Especially considering the fact that Sunwoo’s feelings haven’t faded, the bonfire in his chest still burning with the same brightness. So Sunwoo spends his days with you, attempting to put out the fire between his lungs, and he spends his nights alone, replaying the kiss you both pretend to ignore.

“Tomorrow’s the big day.” You mutter on the last night, a trail of anxiousness slipping off your tongue. “And then we’ll be done.” 

Sunwoo only nods, watching how your tongue pokes the inside of your cheek and mulling over whether you mean done with the mission or done with him.

--

The Pegasus mission doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as the Creker one, complications toppling around Sunwoo from the moment he begins. They start small first: a locked door resulting in a change of entry and a janitor straggling in a hallway that should have been clear. He makes it to his first destination eventually, quickly shuffling through the room of file cabinets until he finds your physical files, slipping them into his bag, and heading to the next room with you whispering directions into his ear. The next room is empty when Sunwoo arrives. He works quick, bypassing the security system and fingers flying across to find your information.

“Faster.” He hears you mutter over the earpiece. A hasty reminder of what you had told him earlier that week: the room never stays empty for long.

“Got it.” He exhales, finally pinpointing your files and beginning the process of downloading and deleting them.

“Sunwoo,” he hears an elevator ding from somewhere outside the room at the same time he hears you, “someone’s coming.”

He doesn’t move. Keeping one eye on the closed door and the other on the still-pending status of your files. “I’m almost done.”

“If you leave now, they won’t see you.” Voices fill the hall. “But you have to leave now.”

“I’m not done yet.”

The voices move closer, louder. “It’s not worth it. Please, just go!”

He hears them behind the door. “It’s you.”

There’s a jingle of keys. “How will you—”

“Hey,” the door unlocks with a click, “you jump; I jump, right?”

“Sunwoo—”

He pulls the earpiece out at the exact moment that the door swings open.

-- 

The rooftop is obscenely pretty at this hour, with the golden sun partly hidden by a high-rise building but still growing in the distance, scattering its light across the sky, and casting a golden shadow on everything it touches. It’s a gorgeous sight, and yet, there’s no one but Sunwoo here to appreciate it.

“You’re okay.”

He whips around only to find you standing on the rooftop with him, body trembling and hands clasped over your mouth. Behind you, the door to the roof is still falling closed. Your eyes are red, dark circles hanging under them that make it look as if you haven’t slept days. Silently, Sunwoo wonders how he’s just now noticing your sudden restlessness, and a small part of him hopes—no prays that whatever’s chasing your sleep away is the same thing chasing his.

“I got it.” He says, pulling out the flash drive he stayed to retrieve. Your eyes never flicker off his. “How’d you find me?”

“How’d you get out?”

Neither of you answer. Instead, you begin to walk towards him, asking if he’s hurt with a voice that’s too soft and too concerned for Sunwoo to make out an answer. You ask it again.

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

You stop in front of him. Close enough for Sunwoo to see the tears welled up in your eyes. “You’re okay.” You repeat, voice wavering with a sudden gust of wind.

“I am, but I—” he hesitates; you take a step towards him, “I miss you.” He succumbs to the fire in his chest; lets it fill his lungs, burn up his throat, and throw the sentence, “I just miss you so much,” out of his mouth without bothering to hide the crack in it.

He meets your eyes and finds a starling amount of clarity in them. “I missed you too.”

“Really?”

You laugh at that, nodding your head and stepping closer to him again. “I missed you before we ever met.”

He stares at you. For too long probably. Watches a smile grace your features, spreading like a fire. The flame feels familiar. And for the first time since seeing you after Vienna, Sunwoo doesn’t have to hold back the urge to ask, “Can I kiss you now?”

“Please.”

He does. Lips crashing into yours, and you meeting the motion halfway, leaning into his lips, his body, him. A fervent want present in the way you pull at his neck and grab onto the collar of his shirt that would’ve probably been surprising if it wasn’t matched completely by him. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling your body flush against his and deepening the kiss for a second more.

You both pull away, just barely, faces still close and bodies pressed against each other.

“Hey,” you begin, breath hot against his lips and a knowing smirk appearing briefly, “was I worth the wait?”

And suddenly Sunwoo’s in Vienna again, sitting on a bench, and asking you the same question.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, smiling, “you were.”

//

but then again, time isn't always so unbearably still. other times it's quick, like a bullet. like disaster. it's knocking your door down and pushing you against the wall, gun to your head and knife to your throat. time can be faster than any car or ship or aircraft. it's faster than you can run. faster than anyone. but the funny thing about time is that once it does finally start, it doesn't know how to stop.

time re-started, a year after seungcheol and five days after meeting jeonghan through a close call with a rekshi that you just barely saved him from. near-death experiences do that to people. bind them together like red threads of fate. "it's a good thing we don't meet a lot of people then," you had told jeonghan, five days on the road with him and the soulmate metaphor still falling off his lips.

"why's that?"

"everyday is near death."

he had laughed. and you swear that alone made time start again. a distant ticking of a clock buried under the sound of his giggle.

and time hasn't really slowed down since. it didn't slow when you told him about seungcheol nor did it when he told you about joshua. time doesn't even hesitate when you kiss jeonghan for the first time, doesn't stop to breathe when he kisses you back. it doesn't pause when you and jeonghan meet seokmin. and when the rekshi take seokmin, the same sickening way as seungcheol, time only seems to speed up.

"no one else." you whisper against jeonghan's neck one night, a month after seokmin. a vow to yourself between the lines of your request to him. a vow to never make yourself feel that pain again. "only us two from now on."

"okay." he whispered back, just as solemnly, just as heartbroken, just as lost. "only us."

the mutual promise is broken by you and him five months after that night. but neither of you could turn away when the little girl asked for help, neither of you could walk away when it was so obvious that she had nowhere else to go.

but even then, time doesn't slow down. time doesn't stop or break or pause when the rekshi get her too, a year after you both found her. time doesn't wait for you to catch up. you want to take your fist and shatter the entire concept. you want to take the entire idea of time in your arms and throw it off the tallest cliff in the farthest corner of the world. you want to be something else altogether, something beyond time. unaffected by it.

things change after the little girl goes. a gut-wrenching realization that lands like a rock in the pit of your stomach when jeonghan's laugh no longer manages to bury the ticking clock. jeonghan laughs, and you can only wonder how much longer you have with him. it's been three years now, almost as long as you had seungcheol before the rekshi came.

you remember what he said to you all those years ago, when you were both still strangers, before you knew his heart like your childhood home, before his name sounded like prayer slipping off your tongue. you remember how he said near-death experiences bind people together like the mythical red threads of fate. is that what it means to be bound to someone? is a soulmate, for all its nuance, simply just the person by your side in the face of death? to stare death in the eyes like an old friend with his hand in yours?

you remember what you said after. how everyday was near-death. and when you said that, you thought you had no more than a year left in you. that even if you had managed to survive past the rekshi, you wouldn't have survived your own head. give it a year, you had told yourself a week before meeting jeonghan, a year before grief wraps me like a blanket and suffocates me with its falsely warm arms. it had been a dramatic sentiment, you were dramatic back then and sometimes you still are. but you believed it. and you kept on believing it until a year had passed. seokmin still alive and you still alive too. grief hadn't encompassed like you thought it would. instead, it slithered away the way the cold does between february and march. a surprisingly warm day. and then another. and then it's may and you're laying in the sand with jeonghan under the sun. seokmin gone, but still not cold. not the way you were after seungcheol at least. you lay beside jeonghan, eyes closed and relishing in the light of the sun, and wondering when grief stopped being a weighted blanket that sat on your chest and threatened to crush your lungs. you wonder when grief became a small presence that sits at your feet, unbothered, until you decide to take it your arms and hold the freezing thing against your cheek and heart. you wonder when grief stopped being the default. when it became a choice, not one made to feel sad, but rather, one made to remember.

that day, in the sand and under the may sun, you remember turning to jeonghan and saying it was more than soulmates. he was more than just bound to you and especially not by some wavering red thread. he was your air. your water. the sound of laughter. a reason to keep on running after time. someone to hand the cold weight of grief to, passing it back and forth like kids playing catch, someone to hug when you held it for too long. someone to remind you to set grief back down and that it's okay to occasionally forget about the lives that were. about seokmin and seungcheol. someone to catch you when you spend too long staring at the grief by your feet, someone to push your chin up and tell you to look at the sun. look ahead. look at me. someone to say don't go. someone to stay for.

but that was nearly two years ago. that was before the little girl. before he looked at her and saw what you see in him. things change after the little girl, but it's less to do with you and more to do with jeonghan. more to do with the fact that the girl is gone and you aren't enough to stick around for.

"stop the car." you say one day, abruptly, the words coming out like a confession. he does. as suddenly as you said it.

you're out of the car immediately. running through a field of tall grass and white flowers. you run and run and run. it's been five years since rekshi appeared, not much less since they took seungcheol. four years since you met jeonghan. three since seokmin died. a little over one since the girl. you run past those memories, collecting them in your arms, carrying each of them, their burdening weight slowing you down because you can't breathe anymore. so you do the next most reasonable thing. you grab the grief at your feet and swallow it, let it inflate your lungs. then you keep running. the field is infinite like time. but you run, never faltering, ripping out the grass accidently, tearing every moment of the past five years apart. and then you stop. at the edge of the cliff. at the rim of the word. you stand in the face of death and beside time itself. finally you've caught up to it. finally you gather it in your arms, fit the seconds between the memories and throw them all off the edge of the world.

you remember a documentary you watched once. you don't remember when you watched it, but you remember it now, at the edge of the world while watching time fall. the documentary was about buffaloes, how they travel in herds and fall off cliffs together. how they must not know what they're doing. how they must be blindly following the buffalo in front. you wish to be like that now. to run and throw yourself off the side of this cliff and have it not be a choice. you've spent so long chasing after time, that now, it almost feels natural to run off the edge of the world behind it. it feels like the only thing left to do. to follow the one before you and fall.

"don't jump!" you hear jeonghan scream from behind you.

you turn and he's already running towards you, through the field you just tore through, the same one you just stripped bear. he runs to you like he could hear how much you were thinking about the jump--or more accurately--thinking about the fall.

"don't jump." he repeats, breathlessly, coming to a stop ten paces away from you. too far away. he looks scared. hesitant. as if he knows that if he comes any closer you just might. "please. don't jump."

neither of you say anything after that. you stand facing jeonghan and your back turned to the edge of the world. you both stand in a field beyond the rest of the world and beyond time. you both stand like you're the only two people who matter. and maybe that's not just a stupid simile. maybe that's the truth.

you step towards him once. twice. a third time. he doesn't move. he stands seven paces away from you now, but it feels like worlds apart. like he's at one end and you're at the other.

finally, you ask, "would you?"

and a timeless silence follows.

despite the world between him and you, you still hear every break in his voice when he chokes out, "it's just been so long."

he falls to his knees.

and you cross the world to get to him. you've always been willing to.

he cries next to the flowers. face half covered by the grass. you stand above him. wondering whether he wishes he was like a buffalo too. wondering if he's waiting for you to fall so that he can follow. for how long have you both been standing at the edge and refusing to fall off for each other?

"jeonghan," you kneel down in front of him, "where did you go?"

"i knew her." he sobs. you stare at him. "the girl. she was from my hometown. she didn't remember me. she was so young, but i remembered her. and i knew her mother and her sister. i knew. and it felt like she was untouched by this world, that they couldn't touch her. she gave me hope. like we weren't just sitting and waiting for death, like maybe there's an end to all this. but she's gone. in my head she was invincible. but still, the rekshi got her. and they got seokmin and joshua and everyone. and i don't want to wait for them to get you too."

you don't say anything. you sit in front of him silently. waiting for the flowers to soak up his sobs. you wait for him. long enough for your memories to have crawled back up from the edge of the world and take their place beside you. the girl was his seungcheol, a tether to life before. you're beyond time. have spent the past four or so years chasing after it, and finally today you caught up and threw it away. all this time, you thought jeonghan was right behind you, running after time, after you. but you were wrong. he's been stuck in time since the rekshi got her. and before he could catch up to it, you threw it off the ends of earth. you look behind you. you wait for the time you flung past the cliff to crash. and then you wait for a new clock to start clicking. you laugh, for a number of reasons, but mainly to drown the sound of it.

time is a funny thing. you always thought it waxed and waned, slowed down and sped up. but really, time is a circle with you in the center. and time is the only thing standing between you and jeonghan.

you take the grief at his feet and place it next to the memories beside you. you hold his frozen grief in your hands the same way he's done before with yours.

"deja vu." he mutters, like he can see what you're doing. but he can't. there is no tangible grief for you to hold. it's a metaphor.

"are you happy?"

he sighs. "i was. i am. it's just--"

"no. jeonghan." you take his face in your hands, holding him in your palms. this isn't a metaphor. in a world of things that are, this is real. "are you happy?"

he must hear the clock ticking. he frowns. "are you?"

(6. Bang On The Hood Of A Car And Say ‘Hey, I’m Walking Here!’)

Your first day before the end of the world begins with you and Jeonghan searching for a car. 

“This one is...” Jeonghan frowns, rereading the sixth item on the bucket list. Looking up, he says, “it was your idea wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Now, get in the car and pretend to almost run me over.” 

Jeonghan complies, starting the car and driving towards you all too slowly. Still, when he gets close enough, you bang on the hood of the car, half-laughing and half-yelling “hey, I’m walking here!” He only laughs at you incredulously. 

You switch after that, you in the car and Jeonghan walking across the street. And this time, when you get close to his figure instead of banging on the hood, you hear a small thud and watch him fall to the floor. You run out of the car shrieking his name only to find him on the ground laughing. 

“I thought-” you exhale, breath hot with a mix of shock and relief, “I thought I actually hit you.” 

Jeonghan doesn’t say a word too busy literally rolling on the floor, clutching his stomach in laughter. And when you shove him, kneeling on the ground and smacking his arm for freaking you out, he only laughs harder. 

(3. Steal Something)

Unsurprisingly, number three on the list is Jeonghan’s idea. You don’t argue, not at first at least. But when you step into the convenience store and begin shoving bags of chips under your shirt and bottles of soda into your bag, you start to feel the small push of your consciousness. 

“Is this a good idea?” You say to Jeonghan who’s deciding which kinds of candy he wants to hide in his pockets. 

“There’s no one even here.” He waves you off pointing at the empty cash register. “So honestly I’m not even convinced if this counts as completing number three.” Deciding on a chocolate bar, he turns on his heel, grabs an extra bottle of juice, and exits the store casually. 

(11. Perform Three Acts Of Kindness) 

You leave some money at the unmanned cash register anyways. “Number eleven,” you say to him when he gives you a look, “it can be our first act of kindness.” He stares at you for a long moment, as if deciding how he should react to your inability to shoplift. You half expect him to walk back into the empty store and take your money from the counter. He doesn’t though. Instead, he smiles, a lopsided one that makes some part of your stomach twist uncomfortably, and laughs towards the ground, his head hanging in a way that makes his bangs fall in front of his eyes. You feel suddenly, almost foolishly, warm. 

“Come,” he beckons, pulling at your sleeve, “let’s eat.”

(10. Eat The Perfect Meal) 

The perfect meal isn’t actually perfect, an odd mix of convenience store snacks and whatever you both had left in your dorms. 

“We should have cooked something ourselves,” Jeonghan mumbles, between a mouthful of chips, “the perfect meal has to be made with love.” 

“It also has to be edible,” you retort, sipping your coffee and recalling your earlier realization that neither you or Jeonghan can cook. 

And it’s after a few more moments of eating away the tenth item on your shared bucket list that he asks, “how do you think it’ll happen?” You look up from your fruit cup. “How do you think the world is gonna end?”

“I don’t know,” you answer, “something big perhaps. An explosion?”

“Or Zombies?” he continues for you, light-heartedly. “Aliens, maybe?” 

And perhaps two days ago, you would’ve laughed at the possibility of the world coming to an end thanks to an alien invasion, but right now, sitting next to Jeonghan with yesterday’s headlines bouncing back and forth in your head, you don’t feel anything but melancholic. And like feet sinking into sand, you realize for the second time since the news came out that you have less than a week left to live. With a hopeless sigh, you say, “I hope that when the world ends, it’s painless.”

And unlike his previous suggestions, there’s nothing light-hearted about the way Jeonghan adds, “something quick.”

(4. Sing A Song Loudly In Public) 

You had wrongly assumed that this particular bucket list item was meant to be a fun and embarrassing karaoke in public sort of thing. But when Jeonghan stands on the ledge of the fountain in the center of the plaza and begins singing, you realize you've created a bucket list with an angel. Or at least, a boy with the voice of one. The plaza isn’t very busy this afternoon, but the few passersby that happen to catch his mini concert erupt in a well-earned applause when the song finishes. 

“You can sing?” You question in disbelief of just how good his voice sounds. 

He shrugs at that, jumping off the ledge in a shy sort of way that doesn’t at all match the kind of guy you pegged Jeonghan to be. “Your turn.” He pushes you towards the ledge. 

You almost fight against the nudge, almost turn around and tell Jeonghan just how tone deaf you are. But when he smiles your way and cheers your name encouragingly, you decide the embarrassment might be worth it. 

It’s not, it turns out. The entire plaza seems to murmur ‘why is she singing?’ the second you open your mouth. And it’s before you even reach the second verse that Jeonghan starts clapping and whooping for you. “Wow!” He exclaims cheerfully. “You suck.” 

You burst into laughter at that, cut your song short, and jump off the ledge grabbing Jeonghan’s hand and running away from the embarrassment with him close behind. 

—

“Where’d you learn how to sing like that?” You finally ask, later than afternoon as you and Jeonghan aimlessly walk along the street. 

He shrugs again, a familiar timidness overwhelming his body, then tells you about the singing lessons he used to take. “It used to be my dream. To become a singer.” 

“Used to?” 

He sucks in his bottom lip. “Things changed I guess.” 

You decide not to prod further. “If you could do anything right now, right before the world ends, what would you do?” 

“Anything?” 

“Anything.” 

He thinks it over for a moment, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek. “Hold a concert.” He answers finally. And when you give him a look, a reminder of what he said about things changing, he just smiles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and mutters something about how dreams die hard. And for the third time today, you’re surprised by how shy Jeonghan gets about his singing and how endearing you find it when he does. 

“What about you?” He returns this question, pushing the attention away from himself. “What would you do?” 

“I’d go home.” You say quietly, hoping the press of sadness that comes with thinking about home doesn’t show in your voice. “See my family once more before the world ends.” And when Jeonghan doesn’t respond or meet your eyes, you laugh, unable to procure a more creative reaction. “It’s kinda lame, isn’t it?” 

“‘No, no.” He says quickly, waving away the suggestion before the words can even settle in the air. “It’s not lame; it’s…” his voice trails off, fingers reaching out in front of him as if he’ll find the right words in the last remaining rays from the sun. His hand drops to the side. Seemingly, giving up on the previous sentence, he says, “Tell me about them. Your family.” 

You’re about to say no. About to change the topic to something a bit lighter. Something that doesn’t force you to think about home and the people that you miss so fiercely and long to see once more. But it’s as the word ‘no’ bubbles in the back of your throat, that you meet Jeonghan’s eyes and find a starling amount of sincerity in them. And when you go looking for your intent to reject the request, you find it’s disappeared altogether. “Okay.” You exhale. “Where should I begin?” 

And so you spend the rest of the day telling Jeonghan about your family, and by the time the sun begins to set, he tells you about his. 

(12. Say Goodbye To Your Family) 

You both decide it’s better to get this part of the list over with. Pulling out your phones and dialing home soon after the sun sets. It’s an odd sort of arrangement, you think to yourself listening to the phone ring, you and Jeonghan sitting on opposite sides of this empty street. “Privacy,” he had told you, walking away from you and taking a seat on the curb, “this way you can cry in private.” 

It’s… bearable at first. You talk to your family, update them on what you’ve been doing since your last call home as if everything is normal, as if they’re expecting another update soon, as if the world isn’t ending in a few days. But the facade that everything is fine comes crashing down the second you hear a noise come from the other side of the road, a mangled sound that rushes all the way from Jeonghan’s mouth to you, banging at your heart and creating a dent between your lungs. And you suppose that if you were a little bit closer and if Jeonghan hadn’t turned around to put his back between him and you, you would’ve heard him sobbing. The thought alone ignites a flame of sadness that emerges from your lips, travels through the phone lines, and ripples across the ocean separating you and your family.

Saying goodbye to your family does not stay bearable for long. 

He finishes the call before you. And when you do finally hang up, it takes ten minutes of calming down before you're in any state to walk across the road and greet Jeonghan for what feels like the first time that night. 

“Can we, uh,” you stop, sniffle, then laugh at the absurdity of this moment, “can we stop here for today.” 

“Yeah,” he mutters, finally standing from the floor. He doesn’t look your way, keeps his eyes trained to the ground while bringing a hand up to wipe at his nose and eyes. “I’ll walk you home.” 

(5. Wish Upon A Star) 

Sleep doesn’t come that night. You spend it tossing and turning in bed, replaying every bit of what was probably your last conversation with your family. At 2 am there’s a knock on your door. Jeonghan stands in the doorway, eyes drooping and blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

“Yeah,” you say, opening the door and letting him in, “I can’t sleep either.” 

After another moment, he finally says, “have you ever been to the roof?” 

You let him lead the way. 

— 

The night air feels cool against your skin, brushing through your hair and sending a shiver across your skin. You pull your hoodie closer around you before laying down on the roof next to Jeonghan who throws his blanket so that it drapes over both of you. 

“Which one for number five?” He says gesturing to the starry night sky. 

“Number five?” 

“Wish upon a star.” He reminds you. 

You lift your hand and point to one off the center, a bright one that flickers more than the others. “That one.” 

“Okay,” he exhales. You watch the breath leave from his lips. “Make a wish.” 

You do.

“Which star do you think is gonna blow up and cause the end of the world?” He asks, shifting his body and ending up a fraction closer to you. 

“Give me a crash course on all of them and I’ll let you know.”

He does, making up constellations and creating fake names for each one. 

And at some point in his explanation of the origin of each star, his hand finds yours. The cold seems to wither away after that. 

(1. Ride A Motorcycle) 

“Are you sure you know how to ride this thing.” You question for the fifth time that morning, pacing around the moped and Jeonghan who’s sitting impatiently on it. 

“Just get on would you?” He huffs, dropping the extra helmet on your head and pulling you towards the moped. You settle behind him, fixing your helmet and clasping it in place. “You know how to get to the beach right?”

“Yeah, but we just need to make a pit stop somewhere first.” 

“That’s fine. Grab on.”

Ignoring the unevenness of your breath, you wrap your arms around his torso. You try not to think too hard about the way he momentarily tenses up when you do. 

“Ready?”

“Please, don’t kill me on this thing. We’re all dying in a few days-” He doesn’t let you finish, revving the motorcycle and laughing when you scream into his shoulder. 

(11. Perform Three Acts of Kindness) 

“What are we here for?” Jeonghan wonders aloud, his voice echoing in the auditorium. 

“Number 11. Our second act of kindness.” He looks at your quizzingly. “Yesterday you said that if you could do anything before the end of the world, you’d have your own concert. So here,” you hand him a mic and point at the empty stage, “go sing.”

You’ve never seen him run so excitedly. 

(3. Steal Something)

When Jeonghan wrote down ‘steal something’, you definitely hadn’t expected him to coerce you into stealing a house. “This isn’t even stealing. This is trespassing.” You hiss under your breath, looking over your shoulder. “Plus, we already stole from the convenience store.”

“Firstly,” Jeonghan begins, finding an unlocked window to the beach house and cracking the adjacent door open, “you paid the store so that definitely didn’t count. Secondly, trespassing is basically just stealing space. And lastly,” he announces turning around and waving to the open beach house, “this place is gorgeous and free.” 

You peer inside the house and--shit, it is gorgeous. “Fine.” You relent taking a step inside the house. He smiles triumphantly. 

“Come on,” he grabs your hand as soon as you set your things down and starts pulling you towards the beach, “time for number two.”

(2. Send A Message In A Bottle) 

“Who should we write to?”

“A friend?”

“An ex?” He grimaces at the suggestion.

“How about ourselves 10 years ago.”

You consider it. “Or what about,” you start tapping a finger against your chin, “ourselves 10 years from now.” He gives you a wary look. “Just in case this whole thing turns out to be a hoax.”

“Do you believe that?” he asks quietly. 

You bite your lip. “Not really, no.”

“To myself,” Jeonghan scribbles on the paper, “ten years from now.” 

And when you're both done with the letters, you fit them inside empty beer bottles and let the waves take them. 

Inhaling the salty ocean scent, you watch the bottles float.

“This moment would feel a lot better if I didn’t feel like we just made marine pollution worse.”

(9. Go Skinny Dipping) 

The water is freezing, cold against your bare skin and lapping by your shivering mouth. 

“It’s not that cold.” Jeonghan laughs, splashing sea water in your face. 

You splash him back. “For you maybe.” 

“Tell me a secret.” He says suddenly, stopping and treading the water in front of you. 

You think for a minute before answering. “I really like it when you sing.”

“That’s not a secret; it’s a confession.” He complains, flapping his hands in the water. With a teasing smirk, he adds, “next you’ll confess your undying love for me as well.” 

You laugh, sort of, swallowing salt water in the movement and choking on the sudden intake. 

Clearing your throat, you say, “give me an example of a good secret then.” 

“Okay,” he hums, biting his lip and swimming closer towards you until your knees awkwardly bump into each other. You swallow at the proximity. “I’ve never been in love.”

“Never?”

He shakes his head. “Have you?”

“Once.” Something in your stomach turns. “Or at least I thought I was in love.”

“And what do you think now?”

You meet his eyes. They look strangely hopeful. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

His hand comes up, fingers trailing over your shoulder blade and lingering right above your collarbone. You shiver. 

“Still cold?” He whispers. 

No, you think, but your head nods ‘yes’ before the word comes out. 

He swims back to shore. And soon after, you follow. 

(13. Fall In Love) 

You finish showering before Jeonghan, coming down the stairs of your stolen beach house and taking a seat on the stolen (but comfortable) couch. You look for the bucket list to cross out skinny dipping for him. And when you find the folded list in a pocket of Jeonghan’s bag, you realize that this is your first time seeing it since the night of its creation. You read over it carefully. 

1. ride a motorcycle 2. send a message in a bottle 3. steal something  4. sing a song loudly in public 5. wish upon a star 6. bang on the hood of a car and say ‘hey, i’m walking here!’ 7. watch the sunrise  8. watch the sunset 9. go skinny dipping 10. eat the perfect meal 11. perform three acts of kindness 12. say goodbye to our families 

And under the twelve that you and Jeonghan made together is another, additional bucket list item. Written in a different color pen and in his messy handwriting is:

13. get her to fall in love with me

“That shower felt so good.” Jeonghan’s voice comes traveling down the stairs. “I found sand in-” he stops, halts at the end of the banister upon seeing the paper between your hands. 

“What do you mean ‘get her to fall in love with me’?” You gulp, holding up the list. 

“Oh, that,” he laughs, awkwardly, slowly walking towards you, then stopping halfway as if he’s made a mistake, “I added it after you left that night. And, well, yeah.”

You stand up and go to him, meeting him halfway across the living room. “Jeonghan I-” you lose grasp of what you’re going to say next and elect to stare at him instead, studying the drop of water that falls from a strand of hair to his face. Decide instead to study the flutter of his lashes and the way his gaze darts between your eyes and your lips. He inhales. “Oh, fuck it.” you mutter finally, grabbing the collar of his tshirt and kissing him. 

It takes a second for Jeonghan to react, too long your brain convinces you already beginning to pull your face away. But it’s as your lips leave his, that they crash together again, him pulling at your hips stumbling backwards until you knock your head against the wall, bodies flush. You wrap your arms around his neck, tangle your fingers through his wet hair. There’s a moan, you can’t be sure which one of you it comes from, but the sound of it has you feeling weak somewhere, everywhere. 

“Upstairs,” you pant, when he pulls away for the smallest of seconds.

“Are you,” he pauses, lips hovering in front of yours and breath heavy against your skin, “are you sure?” 

“Yeah,” you smile, noticing the flush in his face, glad he's just as affected, “I mean it’s on the bucket list.” 

Jeonghan happily complies. 

(7. Watch The Sunrise) 

You both watch it in bed, from a window that seems to capture it perfectly. 

“It’s pretty,” he states, holding a hand up in a straggling ray and watching it turn gold in the light. 

“Only a few more left.” 

(8. Watch The Sunset) 

You watch it on the beach with a stolen towel from the stolen house under you. It’s beautiful really. A mesh of blues, pinks, orange, and purple. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sunset like this one,” you say inhaling the salty scent of the sea that lingers on your arms and legs and hands. 

Jeonghan hums, absentmindedly enough for you to turn around to look at him laying on his back and playing with a loose strand from your hoodie instead. 

“We can’t cross it off if you don’t actually watch it.” You tell him, finding his hand in yours and pressing a kiss to the back of it. 

He shrugs. “I’ve seen enough sunsets.” 

(11. Perform Three Acts Of Kindness) 

“Last item,” Jeonghan murmurs one day, settling into bed next to you, “one final act of kindness.” 

You poke at his chest. “What do you have planned for it?” 

“This.” He says, pulling out a small slip of paper. You sit up. “I bought you a ticket.” 

It takes you longer than it should to realize it’s a plane ticket home. 

“How and when did you…” your voice drops away, the logical questions slipping off your tongue when you make a new realization. “There’s only one ticket.” 

“Listen,” he starts, turning to face you properly. “I think you should take it.”

“No,” you refuse, shaking your head. He takes your face between your palms forcing you to stop and pay attention. 

“Go home and see your family. That’s what you told me you’d do before the world ends.” He hesitates, releasing your face and taking your hands in his. Something feels entirely wrong when he starts to rub small circles into the back of them. “You only have a few days left. So go home. Say goodbye to me instead.” 

“Things change,” you say a little too harshly, regurgitating what he told you earlier this week. “And I don’t know if I can go anymore.” You sputter out just barely, voice feeling suddenly course against your vocal chords, but what you mean to say is: I don’t know if I can go without you. “And besides,” you stress, putting the ticket back in his lap, “you can’t make me go.” 

--

juyeon remembers the day you died. remembers it too well, almost. he remembers the ringing in his ears and a hollowness inside his chest. he remembers the way he couldn’t cry. the way he couldn’t feel sad. he remembers hearing that you had died and thinking there was no way in hell he’d let it stay like that. juyeon knew, from the moment he heard, that he’d come and find you.

juyeon hasn’t cried. but right now, staring at the face of someone who’s been dead for too long, he feels like he just might.

--

“you made a deal with a demon.” you repeat, voice still void of anything sounding remotely like you.

“yeah.” he says, picking at a spot below his chin, faking nonchalance in the same way he would’ve when he first met you. the same nonchalance that you used to poke his side and tease him for. but when he does it right now, you barely seem to register the words let alone the tone of them. “for you. i made a deal for you.”

you nod. “what is it?”

“you get to come with me back to the real world...”

“...but?”

“but you have to walk behind me the entire time. and I can’t look back. not once, not until we’re back up above.”

“and what happens if you do?”

“you die.” he waits a beat. “again.” 

you utter something incomprehensible, a small croak that sounds faintly like a scoff. “kind of like eurydice.”

juyeon leans forward. “what?”

you meet his eyes suddenly, as if only now realizing he’s been next to you this entire time. you blink. “nevermind.”

you don’t make a sound after that, don’t even move a muscle. juyeon didn’t expect you to be elated, but he did expect you to at least be surprised. and your lack of shock, your lack of… you, creates a knee-deep river of doubt in his mind. “you don’t have to come with me.” he says with what he hopes is reassurance. “i didn’t come here to force you back. i came here to ask.” 

and the silence that comes after he says it stretches into eternity. an infinite eternity that ends the second your mouth twitches, just barely, into what juyeon swears is a smile. “you came.” 

he inhales, and the air tastes faintly like hope. “i couldn’t let you go.”

“okay.” you accept, fiddling with something juyeon can’t make out in your hand. and the admission, makes him release a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. juyeon knew coming down here was a shot in the dark. literally. his friends had made sure he knew. even the guide had made it clear: sometimes the dead don’t want to return. so, yeah, juyeon knew there was no guarantee you’d want to follow him back to the real world and no guarantee you’d agree to the demon’s terms. but all that doubt, all those voices telling him no seem so insignificant when he hears you say: “i’ll come with you.” 

you meet his eyes again, and this time they look a little more like yours.

--

throughout his relationship with you, juyeon grew fond of the way you cracked your knuckles and joints. it’s stress relief you’d tell him popping your neck for the fifth time that morning. he’d found it odd at first, concerning even. but now days, juyeon can’t seem to find the way you crack your back every time you get up as anything but endearing. 

even now, as you sit on the tattered, green couch you bought off the old apothecary owner, juyeon feels nothing more than a small pang of affection for the way you crack your knuckles while reading a book.  

“hey,” juyeon begins, sitting next to you on the couch, “eric gave this to me today.”

he hands you the folded ad for a ticket to center circle. the once-in-a-lifetime tickets that were only offered once every few years. 

you study the ad for a while, running your finger against the crease in the paper. juyeon shifts uncomfortably in his seat while you do. 

“i don’t want it,” you shrug, folding the paper back up and tossing it on the coffee table.

“but,” juyeon refutes, eyes trained on the discarded paper and brows furrowed, “it’s your dream.”

“you dummy,” you tease with a numbingly sweet smile. and for a moment, you don’t say anything else. instead you capture his hand and pull on each of his fingers, cracking his knuckles like you do with yours. and it’s while staring at his hands that you mutter, “dreams change, you know.”  

--

the walk to the real world begins quietly. 

“do you remember the myth of orpheus and eurydice?” you say from somewhere behind juyeon, voice quiet and yet far. and yes, it must be far because the words sound like they’ve been echoing off the rocks and stones for years. 

“remind me.” 

“from what i can remember, they were in love.” you wait a moment, and juyeon could bet that if he turned around right now, he’d find you somewhere far behind him, cracking your knuckles. “and when eurydice died, orpheus convinced hades to let her go on the same terms as your deal with the demon. or something like that.” 

“i see,” juyeon whispers. “so what happened when they made it back to earth?” 

“that’s the thing,” you say, this time nearly yelling the words, “they didn’t. orpheus looked back at the last second.” 

juyeon stops walking. “well, that’s not going to be us.” 

he hears you sigh. “i know.” 

juyeon starts walking again, holding up the lantern that emits just enough light to see his feet and nothing else. “so why’d he look back?” 

“i don’t think the myth really says. some say he got impatient. others say orpheus began to doubt that eurydice was actually behind him and then also doubt that hades would ever let her go. but I think they’re all wrong. maybe he looked back because eurydice asked him to.” 

the implication makes juyeon gulp. “why would she do that?” 

you don’t answer the question. “why do you think orpheus turned?”

“i don’t know.” 

“turn around and you will.”

“that’s not funny.”

quietly, you say: “it wasn’t a joke.” 

juyeon pretends to not hear. 

--

when juyeon realized he loved you, it wasn’t something big or spectacular. it wasn’t a tidal wave of emotion that crashed and dragged him below the tide. rather, it was a small wave of adoration that lapped by his feet, a cool and calm sensation that made him want to dig his heels in the sand and wade further into the water. 

when juyeon realizes he loves you, you’re sitting on his kitchen counter, complaining about work. 

“i love you.” he admits, walking towards where you sit. he doesn’t miss the way you still and the way you refuse to look anywhere but at your own hands. and juyeon knows it’s too soon, too fast. it’s only been two months since he’s known you. one month since you started dating. he knows it’s too soon to have fallen in love. but that doesn’t really change the fact that he has. he repeats it, feeling a deep need to cement this moment further into his memory and another to memorize the image of you sitting on his kitchen counter smiling at your hands.

“you don’t have to say it back or anything,” he tells you, wrapping his arms around your waist, “i  didn’t say it so that you would-” silently, you cut him off, leaning forward until your forehead is pressed against his. “i just wanted you to know cause i do,” he continues softly, “i love you.”

your eyes flit up to his, lashes brushing against his brow bone. “i know.” it’s then that you take his face between his palms and press your lips to his. 

it’s three weeks after that moment in his kitchen, that you return the statement, although you don’t return it with the words themself. 

he meets you on one of the benches outside the warehouse after work. when you see him approaching, something seems to visibly soften throughout your entire body. you pull him down to sit next to you on the bench, wrap your arms around his torso under his heavy coat, and bury your face into the space between his shoulder and his chest. 

juyeon places a kiss on your temple. “you okay?” 

“i had the worst day at the plant.” you mumble into his coat. 

“do you wanna talk about it?” 

“no,” you hesitate as if deciding what it is that you do want. after a moment you answer: “i just want you near.”

--

“do you feel that?” juyeon hears you ask. 

“feel what?” 

“the rain?” 

he holds out his palm and stares at the darkness above. how could it possibly rain in a place like this, juyeon wonders to himself. 

“no.” he finally answers. “i don’t feel anything.” 

“it’s pouring!” he can’t tell. he doesn’t hear the rain, doesn’t hear the thunder you claim to have heard. but he hears your voice, and it sounds warbled as if coming from behind curtains and curtains of pounding rain. he can tell you’re yelling to be heard over it. “you still don’t feel it?”

“no!” he yells back.

“i’m tired.” 

“we’re almost there.” he says to the darkness that stretches before him, praying that it bounces off the emptiness of this world and finds you. “we just have to make it through the night.”

“no, juyeon, i’m tired.” you repeat frustrated. and with the way you say it, juyeon isn’t sure what exactly you’re tired of.

“do you remember your first storm in ironport?” he asks, a desperate attempt to take your mind off the current storm, and another, more hopeless effort to make you miss home. 

“yeah,” you murmur, voice no longer a desperate yell. and yet somehow, juyeon hears you better now than he did before. “of course i remember.”

--

the day of your first ironport strom is also the day you kiss juyeon.

in all transparency, juyeon hadn’t noticed the dark clouds gathering above and the distant rumbling coming from the farmlands in the west. he’d been too distracted with watching you nod off during the trolley ride back from the warehouse, too distracted trying to make sure your head stayed perfectly balanced on his shoulder. 

but by the time the trolley does squeak and stutter to your stop, it’s pouring. you slowly get up and hover by the exit, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. “i bet you hadn’t insisted on taking me home now.” you say between a yawn.

juyeon shakes his head and joins you by the exit, wearing a smile that feels too bright against the weather outside. “make a run for it?” he suggests. 

you scrunch your nose and crack your knuckles. “yeah, okay.” you find his hand, and fit it against your own. “ready?” 

juyeon swallows the fluttering in his stomach. “ready.” 

despite the running and shocked yelps, you’re drenched before you even make it to the end of the street. and it’s sometime after the second turn that you both give up entirely, jumping into puddles at the corner of rosebud and kicking water at each other. 

“look,” you exclaim, pointing at the sky, “there’s a break in the clouds.” juyeon looks up at where you point. ironport is known for its ferocious storms with dark grey and angry clouds that tumble across the sky and linger there for days on end. juyeon, living in ironport his whole life, has seen his fair share of the town’s storms, but this, juyeon has never seen. over the farmlands, the clouds part across the sky and a golden light comes pouring over the grassy hills. your voice comes out low. “it’s beautiful isn’t it?”

his eyes land on you. “yeah, it is.”

and juyeon’s so lost, mindlessly staring at you that he almost doesn’t register the way you stare back at him with a lopsided smile, grab his color, and pull him towards you until his lips meet yours. 

almost.

--

“still raining?” juyeon asks, just to check if you’re still behind.

“yeah.” 

“you must be drenched.” 

“i am.” you pause. “and cold.” it must be a test, juyeon thinks. or a trial of some sort, because how is he supposed to not turn around right at this moment and give you something to make you warm.

after some time, you ask: “how do you know you’ve made a mistake?” 

he tilts his head at the question. it’s an odd question, yes. but something to pass the time he assumes. “you know the sensation you get on the air lift right before the drop by the watchtower.” he waits for some affirmation that you’ve heard. it never comes. “it feels like that for me. like a rock in my gut. i know i’ve made a mistake because i feel the wrongness of it.” 

you let out a small cough. “do you feel that right now?”

“no.” something akin to fear settles underneath his tongue. “do you?”

--

when eric asks if you and juyeon are friends, juyeon doesn’t think to mention the way you two have been hanging out at the warehouse every day after work or how much he enjoys talking with you. it doesn’t phase juyeon to describe the lack of air in his lungs each time you’re so much as mentioned or the smile that appears whenever you’re near. instead, he shrugs, and says, “yeah, i guess we’ve gotten close.”

--

“it stopped raining,” you murmur softly, sounding close. so close juyeon thinks he can smell the rainwater dripping from your clothes and hear your arms flailing in the darkness. it takes a moment for him to realize, you actually are. 

“when did you get so close?” 

“oh, juyeon,” you smile, or at least he imagines you do, “i’ve never been far.” 

--

the second time juyeon sees you is not a coincidence. he’s been spending every evening at the warehouse since your first conversation together, hoping at some point you’ll walk in with the other plant workers. until finally one night you do. 

“small world.” he begins, meeting you at the bar. 

“yeah,” you reply, and a sudden warmth fills juyeon when you purse your lips, as if there’s a private joke waiting on your tongue, “we’re all closer than we assume.”

--

the first thing juyeon thinks when a sort of warmth fills his body, is that there’s a fire growing in the dark abyss that is the road between the underworld and the real one. 

it’s only when he hears you say, “juyeon is that the…?” does he realize that the warmth lingering in his fingertips is from the sun. the world around him is still entirely dark, the only light being from the lantern still. but before juyeon sees the light of the sun, he can feel the sunlight and taste it on his tongue. 

“it’s almost over,” he says to the new warmth in his knees and to you who’s now so close behind him.

you don’t respond. and some small part of juyeon that’s buried under oceans of grief and love, knows what the silence means. a miniscule, almost negligible, part of juyeon knows how to interpret your lack of response. 

but the larger, more intruding part of juyeon that can’t bear the idea of letting you go, selfishly asks, “what about your dream? what about center circle?”

you sigh, and it’s the first sound you’ve made since noticing the sun. “oh juyeon, i stopped caring about center circle the day i met you.”

--

the first time juyeon sees you is at the warehouse. and as soon as you enter with the other plant workers, juyeon knows you’re new. he can tell by the way you talk, with an accent that sounds too western to be from around here, and from the way your face is the only one he doesn’t know. curiosity is what he tells himself and eric when asked later that week. juyeon approaches you at the warehouse bar because he’s curious. although, curiosity doesn’t begin to explain the churning in his gut and the chill running down his spine as he does. 

“hey,” he greets, resting his elbows against the bar. “i’m juyeon.” 

you study him before answering, as if determining whether you should even bother with giving him your name. lucky for him, you do. 

“you new around here?” he asks, despite knowing you are. the polite thing to do, he figures. 

“what gave me away?” you snort.

“ironport’s a small town.” he shrugs, with a degree of nonchalance that doesn’t at all match the current pace of his heart. “the people that are born here tend to die here as well.” 

“not me.” you mutter, shaking your head. “i’m certainly not dying in ironport.” 

juyeon seats himself on the barstool next to you. “is there a preferred place of death then?”

“center circle.” you tell him, as the barkeep slides you your drink. “it’s been my dream since forever. i’ve worked my way up from the wallows. if i die before getting to the center circle, i’ll walk there from hell myself.”

“that’s insane.” he responds half-teasing, half-not.

you take a long sip from your drink. “i know.” 

“and yet?”

you meet his eyes steadily. “and yet i can’t let it go.” 

at the bottom of his gut juyeon again feels curiosity tug.

--

“juyeon,” you breathe, so close he can feel it on his shoulder. “come back to me.” he doesn’t respond, acts like he doesn’t even hear the words. instead, he steps forward, feels the warmth of the sun on his cheek, and then sinks back into the cool sensation of your forehead knocking against his neck. 

“come back to me, okay?” you repeat into his back. “but don’t come back too soon.” 

“and you’ll wait for me?” he asks, yearning for nothing more than to turn around and kiss your eyelids and nose and cheeks and lips. wanting nothing more than to turn around and memorize your face in all the ways he forgot to do while you were alive and on earth. 

“well yeah,” you smile against his shirt, “what else is a dead person supposed to do?”

and for a small second, relishing in the sensation of your chest shaking with laughter against his back, juyeon feels at peace.

“so have you figured it out yet?” you start, lifting your chin from his shoulder, and interlocking your fingers with his. “have you figured out why orpheus turned?” 

“no.” he returns, with a squeeze.