Mars. 25 years post the Great Destruction on Earth. 4 years since the second war began.

You have suffered too much damage. Breaking 40 km in altitude. Hull integrity at -23 and dropping fast, fuel cells at 10% and 12%, oxygen supply approaching dangerously low levels. Pilot, you must disengage. Pilot, you must disengage. Hellhound must turn back.

@voiures + this thing

A camera and a gun were nearly two-like things. The barrel likened to a sprawling lens, the bullets held captive and cozy within the magazine basically equivalent to a roll of film anyone could purchase from the filmlog machine erect around the corner. In this way they would’ve been entirely identical, only if it weren’t for their bittersweet almost; because as alike as they were, so keen to take something from the world, the purpose of which they could be wielded were entirely reigned polarities of one another. 

Midway through the recital, sitting amidst a plethora of straight-backed bodies dressed taut and proper for the show, Taeil wondered what it would’ve been like if it were a gun he were aiming at Jimin instead, rather than his digital film camera—loaded full with bullets that can’t hurt; about thirty-six exposures on a 35mm roll. He held his weapon and wondered if these people knew what it were like to strip one bare of his sound and soul without the assistance of a single bullet.

If Jimin only knew what he would do.

But none had paid him heed, not while Jimin, ethereal as divine revelation yet precise as a hot-red blade, swept the stage on nimble toes and in his wake, their breaths. The performance began to unravel and Taeil pointed his lens in earnest wherever he could see the dancer’s shimmering soul, welcomed in exposure and translated language of a succinct heart into precisely seventy exposures. Before the grand jeté’s ceased entirely and the curtains felled in silence, red as blood, Taeil had a story of scarlet to tell. Jimin disappeared backstage before he could empty his last two rounds, and after another moment of good measure, the entire theatre hall collectively drew in the very first, reinvigorating breath after what had felt like a lifetime of enchantment. No one moved, as if none could dare part so soon with whatever they’d just seen. Taeil drew his gaze back to his camera and emptied the last two monochrome shots between his feet.

It’s not congratulatory flowers and treats that he carries with him some days later, passing the hyung’s threshold like a phantom seeking a host; greeting the tasteful art on the walls, flicking at shiny medals and trophies neatly kept on display shelves. Jimin had asked for something worth keeping, a one thing that couldn’t ever slip from or pass in his grasp, or melt on his tongue. So Taeil had brought him his soul in seventy parts, tucked safely between two hundred and eight pages worth of an epistolary novel, as one would flower petals for preserving. 

Taeil presses the cold hardcover over the crest of Jimin’s forehead. On his face there’s a smile that tells mischief as it reaches endlessly towards the sharp, winged corners of his eyes. He jests, seeking quarrel. “Here’s your gift, my Lord. Like it? You can’t open or read it now though–”

Jimin swiftly swats him back, not without salvaging the book first. His small, deft palms skim across the cover and Taeil can see it clearly in the way he draws his eyebrows that he’s curious to nose his way towards the margins without his help. Under the bright cascade of his living room lights, Jimin looked nothing like someone who’d been shot seventy times.

Then Jimin does the perfectly expected and points up his chin at Taeil, tone a soft brushstroke against listening ears as he insists, “I like it. Now I command you to read it to me.”

“What? Right now?” Taeil blurts out, tone jumping an octave. Those eyes of brown, crystalline beauty beckon his disbelief, which arrests any trace of smugness remaining across Taeil’s refined profile and rips it off at once. 

He watches Jimin side-step around him and understands then, only after the other man rests on the arm of his sofa, that he should’ve expected this.

“Oh so we talked about it for nothing?” Jimin offers a humourless smirk, but shrugs as if conveying disappointment with Taeil’s idiocy. “You should have seen it coming.”

And Taeil blindly takes the bait in stride, but in his head he labels it as a mere challenge to test his ability to apply his word. He almost instantly clamours into the seat with a boyish huff, bun coming slightly loose during the impact of his plopping. He snatches the book back, cracking it open to the fresh first chapter. 

“Fine. But only the first chapter, not because you’re making me but because I want to be the first to show you how to read this.”

“Whatever you say, loser.”

Taeil clears his throat and begins to read. But the chapter comes and passes his throat so rapidly that it ends almost jarringly, with an abrupt slash of cruel red underlines. Designed to intrigue, much like the felled curtains in the theatre hall. This letter was only meant to be read once, then destroyed. In the moments before the world comes apart, she reads it again. 

Her name was the last he'd expected to cross his screen at this time of day, especially under the particular circumstances of their crumbling attachment to one another. In the midst of helping his parents pack up their belongings for a capacious, soon to come move, Taeil listens to the urgent buzz of his phone a few more times, measuring his options, turning over stones of the past in his head while removing his gloves in contemplation. What could she be calling about? Or why would she call instead of text? It's not like he wouldn't have responded later. But he wouldn't come to know the answer to these if he doesn't pick up. 

Clearing his throat, Taeil snatches up his phone from the edge of the dinner table and swipes the call into acceptance. For the first few beats, though, he remains silent as she offers him little turn to speak. “Taeil, is this you? I got your number right?”

She sounded jostled, her tone edgier than usual. A pang of fear for whatever news she were to bring rattles through his liver, rabbiting all the way up to his throat. “I’m in trouble Taeil, can you come pick me up?”

"Sera? What are you talking about? What sort of trouble—" 

Entirely flummoxed by this sudden call for help, Taeil grips his phone tight and, ignoring his mother's worried stare from where she’s stands across their scant living room, brings himself into a secluded space where he can hear better through the phone. "What's going on? Talk to me. Tell me what to do."

“I can’t tell you much on the phone but I need you.. ” She pauses here, for mere seconds, as though someone on the other end is mouthing something to her, or coercing her into saying what they need her to. Taeil has no inkling of what to make of such a deafening silence, or of the haste in her tone. All he knows is that it’s one of the most ominous and throttled ones he’s ever heard, and that it sinks within him in the most violent manner possible. 

Sera continue to talk all the while, ignorant of the flames she kindles in her former friend. “I need you to bail me out of jail… in Japan. I did an oopsie and I didn’t know who else to call.. I came here for the weekend to pick up some things and.. here I am, asking you to help me.” 

Her voice lowers at the end of her words, growing quiet. Hesitant. But her time was limited. “I am in Tokyo, if you decide to come. Or someone comes.” And then her voice sluices entirely away from the speaker, the receiver. Leaving Taeil flushing colourful in unending pinpricks of sheer confusion, shame and pure, bottomless anger.

"What? You've been fucking detained?”

A bordering outlandish series of unexpected escalations could come from just a few seconds of a meager phone call, and Taeil, inevitably caught within the whirlwind of it all finds himself holding his spinning head through this reality, lest it were to slip off his shoulders. 

This abrupt turn of events between them brings him this way and that in the now-barren room, heavy footfalls loud over the phone as he paces from wall to wall, “How the fuck did you manage to get arrested?!" Lowering the boom of his voice doesn't take away anything from the way he murmurs his words, with harsh delivery. He spits all over the floor with the effort of controlling his emotions, to no avail. "Listen, I'm not sending anyone. I'm coming myself. Just... What the fuck, Sera—"

Taeil is no novice to the grip of authority; the manhandling and the rude bastards that sometimes thought themselves more high and mighty than the rest, for carrying their useless badges. He knew well how this worked and in light of that perspective, he could understand why she were calling him in particular. 

But to imagine her in that situation? He could feel his anger surging, cutting through every rational thought and action with a visceral sort of tenacity. Like being gutted from the inside out. The line cuts off in his ear before she can say much else, and as if on cue, Taeil starts to move. 

As he moves through the boxes still laid around in their massive penthouse, Taeil finds those of his own to pack while simultaneously explaining to his alerted mother the stakes of this emergency. By the aggression he addresses her with, she quickly accepts that there's nothing she can do to deter her son from his abrupt leave of absence, so in the end, she lets him go. Tokyo is a two hour plane ride away and considering how late it was starting to get, Taeil gave her no room to argue. Thankfully, he makes it to Incheon on time and by what he could only consider as luck, manages to purchase a last minute flight ticket to Tokyo.

Two hours suspended in mid-air proved little help at quelling his richocetting nerves, however, the anger in particular only simmering into a dull, buzzing sensation at the back of Taeil's head. 

He flexed and relaxed his fists, tried closing his eyes a few times and practice deep breaths to stimulate his nervous system into tranquility, but was only met with images of Sera's face swimming under his eyelids. Knowing that if he'd allowed those to linger, he would've thought of her in worse conditions than normal and by extent driven himself into a hard wall, he kept them peeled open instead. Even on the train to the station, he held the nightmares back, given where she were and what he'd imagined she were arrested for. There was no use to it after all, since he hadn't even seen her yet. Only by the the strain in her voice could he tell that she meant what was said—that things weren't in the best conditions for her. And whether or not her life was in danger, she trusted him enough still, to reach out.

Crushing the coke can he'd bought on his way into the train, Taeil discards it nearby on his way out. At his destination and this awkward hour between light and dark, people going home and other going to work, Tokyo looks as bleak as ever. A trick of the light and his emotions it were, he were sure of it, but still, it made him a slight bit uneasy. 

The coming daft of night tickles the tips of his ears with strands of locks that fall loose from his messy bun as he labours through the crowd of smiles and joy, sometimes coming by loud high schoolers or the kind-hearted elderly. He smells dried up rain in between their bodies as he occasionally steps in puddles that'd been made maybe four hours prior. No one looks at him, or hardly do they ever spare him a glance that carry more than innocent curiosity despite his disheveled appearance.

Glad for that chance to blend in, Taeil finally finds the station with diligent determination. He checks his watch- it’s sometime past ten in the evening. After collecting a deep, gut-expanding breath and squaring broad shoulders, he bulldozes through the door. Bail here should work more or less the same as it does at home, he thinks, while explaining himself in sufficient Japanese. 

"My name is Yu Taeil, from Seoul. I'm here to pay for my friend, Moon Sera's bail to take her home. You arrested her recently, yes?"

Then come the technicals, a filled forum that Taeil deemed too long for his short fused patience. He reads until his eyes start to tire, and for a moment, he makes the mistake of discarding the officers currently on duty this late out of his sight. Unbeknownst of their intent; how his need for concentration on the kanji in contrast with the priceless value of his wallet would later pay a rather horrible price. 

At length when he's done, he asks to go check on Sera while the officer out front reviews the filled information, sorting through his identification. Before they comply, though, they share a suspicious glance which Taeil, jarred by so much Japanese all at once, doesn't bother questioning. A work thing, he thinks of it.

 Shortly enough, though, he'd regret that because once they're down the dark corridor that leads to the cells, the officer at his back starts to bark some nonsense. "Hey. You’re Taeil? We’ve have your name on record for a while. It’s for battery, you know. Are you really that guy? How'd you get away?"

He speaks over Taeil's shoulder, tone suddenly slipping towards indignance. He's smaller, slightly shorter, Taeil recalls. But he has a weapon—he's a cop. Maybe not the best or the highest in rank, even among his junior peers but Taeil isn’t in the mood. So he fails to entertain, "You've got the wrong guy, friend. I'm just here to post this girl's bail—" 

The cop says only, "Not anymore." And before Taeil could react in time, cuffs one of his wrists, then the other behind his back. He's surprisingly swift and strong for a lanky guy, knowing well when to strike an opponent too large for him to rival, as he then manages to corner a shocked Taeil up against the nearby wall. 

"What the fuck, man—" Taeil chokes on his words as his oxygen reserve runs out from the bottom of his ribs and up, tongue twisting violently around his mother tongue now. For a quick second, he's helpless. "Sera? Sera! Are you here!?" 

But speaking her name somehow, some way, brings him back to himself. A reminder that he’s her only way out of this wreckage. Putting his sheer size and strength to use against his perpetrator, Taeil starts to struggle as the other junior officer now enters the scene. They begin to yell at each other amidst the chaos–keys fall in a wild scatter across the floor and someone goes scrambling for them from one of the nearby cells. Still, Taeil protests, roughhousing them both despite being struck and slapped repeatedly, until he manages to knock back the hands that were holding him captive. "I don't know what the fuck you assholes think I did, but it wasn't me! Fucking let me go, NOW! I'm going to sue you sons of bitches to hell if you don't!"

In the end, though, like cornering a rabid wolf, they manage to get him in the same cell as Sera is. Battered in cuts and bruises, they walk away, leaving Taeil crawling for freedom and blood in his own palms. Locked behind a cell, once more.

Sera harrows him the second the door is slammed shut on the both of them. A bird and a wolf, trapped in a cage. She heaps a pile of concern by his feet. “What are you doing here–Why are you handcuffed? What?” She questions, looking genuinely dumbfounded at first by what became of whatever that was, which seemed like Taeil were winning. Then she frowns, and he can hear it in her voice. “You are supposed to take me out? Why are you here?”

Her gaze follows the solid lines that make him, soon becoming a spill over his injuries. Particularly the bruises around his wrists which he’d earned by struggling so much in the handcuffs binding him to himself.  “Does it hurt? What did I say about you hurting yourself?”

But notwithstanding Sera's expected concern and inspection for injuries sustained, full minutes pass him still motionless by the cell door. To others, including her, it must look as if he'd always been there. Eclipsed by a shock of such magnitude at his own failure it roots him silent, and holds his eyelids peeled until they're near drying, as he stares hard enough to burn a hole into the door’s lock. 

This wasn't how it were supposed to escalate—this was hardly part of the plan at all. He’d spent those two hours of his flight running it over and over and over in his head, embodying a broken record for Sera’s sake. Drop in, post her bail if needed and immediately take her home afterwards, without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Nothing more, yet here he were, the wrists cuffed behind his back adding to their misfortune rather than subtracting from it. 

Taeil starts to feel betrayed by fate for the umpteenth time this month alone.

This introduces boiled over frustration in quick, successive handfuls, as it flashes through Taeil as a hot-red sliver of light, escalating with clockwork’s precision. Realization snips a loosened cord in his head, and everything starts to fall apart.

He starts kicking the cell door so hard it sends the tiny room into a fit of loud shrieks and dull rattles, his sneakers creasing uglily with the sheer force of his rage. His palms actually begin to bleed from how vice-like his fists are clenched against his nails, albeit them being trimmed, but he doesn't care enough about cuts and bruises to let aggression go. "Fuuuck, why is this fucking happening..." If it weren’t for her counting on him here, he would’ve been more susceptible of crying tears of rage. Would’ve done worse. 

In the end, though, when finally, exhaustion trumps his fury, he limps away to find the bench. Cheeks dry as a desert and his fists intact. 

Battery. Taeil shoulders past Sera and settles on the bench, graceless and too large for this place. His arms fold uncomfortably behind his back to accommodate wrists that were still bound, but he ignores it in favour of raising his cutting gaze and training it on Sera’s face, like a target, for the first time since landing, “Do you know what they charged you with? God... I don’t even want to fuckin’ repeat it.” The words fall almost flat, yet his solemn tone still echoes clear as day off the walls. 

From here, she looked crowded, flabbergasted, taken aback almost beyond belief, though not by her regret but by his presence alone–after that. It’s not her he were angered by, she knows that, yet still, she has the audacity to look at him like she’d just witnessed something positively ungodly. Though she tries best to hide it, he knows well how to read her and does so like thumbing through the Holy bible on a Sunday. His rage made her acquiescent. 

“We don’t need another call. I’ll... fix it.” A pause, a sigh, “That’s why you called me, wasn’t it?” She believed she could still rely on his help regardless of any current circumstance of their relationship, which is something, at least, that feels like a silver lining.

In addition to her sentence, the guard had accused him of battery despite Taeil having had little recollection of taking part of any sort of physical altercations within those four or so weeks he’d stayed in Japan. He had gone out with a few co-workers at the start, and though it hadn’t gone anywhere there was honestly this one instance he could vouch for, but otherwise that was it. Had they other information about his possible whereabouts that he didn’t?

Had he finally reached that particular low his parents had warned him countless times about; a situation so inevitable that they couldn’t find a bandage large enough to cover it with this time?

“I’ll post your bail so you can get out while I sort mine. Since your things are sorted already, all you need to do is show up at your trial when they tell you to.” Taeil goes on, “Unless those assholes are just trolling, or scamming. Swear I’ll break their necks if they actually are trying to steal my money...”

Taeil recalls a sunny Saturday morning.

The butt of campus laid perpendicular to a long, narrow streetway that barely any student could name with success if ever asked to. People didn't like remembering ugly things, after all. The asphalt had somehow dried up so dark, walking on it felt like prowling across the kind of thick, bleak darkness you only encounter deeply wedged between the lightyears separating stars. Bald cherry blossom trees peppered the margins—they were always bald and gangly, and spitting sundried seedlings on car rooftops for the afternoon winds of summer to come whisk away. In winter when it snowed, they resembled white claws.

Many buildings for rent lined the side opposite, like rotting sets of teeth in a mouth, though no business could remain open for more than three months. Six at most if the freshmen were kind enough to explore and luck permitted it, given the fragile popularity of the area. Albeit subtle, this was a prime example of the silent refusal and neglect of what appealed little in a society moved only by what absurdities were deemed beautiful. Failed when time came for the inevitable misfortune of pulling, the businesses fell, one after the other.

All except for one.

Cornered at the far front where the pitch black street yawned into the main road was a laundromat. Wedged tightly between a tiny drugstore and an abandoned budongsan. Looking like it'd time traveled intact from a musical drama set of the seventies, it's yellow wallpaper could be spotted from miles away with the naked eye. If it weren't for the sometimes moody, frowning skies and the occasional torrential splatter of rainfall, the sun could've likely glared straight at it from six to six, all year round.

Outside, the awning stretched out in a cheeky slant to catch the rays, striped pink and flapping loud like leather wings of an oversized bat. The windows were the kinds expected of a showcase; tall, dense and broad, worn grey and dry by improper cleaning yet sustained by a frame so strong even the unforgiving heat couldn't separate them. The electronic bell at the entrance chirped a quirky tune that never ran flat. Children loved to play with it when no supervision stood nearby.

When in the mood for it, the girl who worked the counter on weekends—a twenty year old, feisty little spark of a girl—rolled out the miniature palm trees for the sun to bake the moisture from their soil until her shift was over. But she hardly bothered with anything at all beyond the basics of her job description. In short, the place was an eyesore and the service was poor.

Inside, almost every saturday morning since freshman year, sat Taeil.

This was one of his most favourite places to be, even if he could name a hundred different reasons why it shouldn't have been.

The washing machines would start their dour humming precisely at seven in the morning, and about an hour later, Taeil would come in, his laundry basket a dragged bulk behind him. Besides the girl at the counter who hardly ever had a glance to spare, let alone squint at his coins before returning to her drama, he was the only one there so early.

He liked the dizzying, humdrum sound of the machines whirring as they spun about, running regardless of what existed, or didn't, above hot running water and dried soap. It had the kind of meditative effect on him that singing bowls had on others, if he were to describe it in some way. The redolent smell of soap permeating the air lulled him almost asleep, and sloshing water made him think of the ocean.

The bench creaks under Taeil's weight when he settles across from the washer he'd chosen for loading, sigh on the tip of his tongue as he plucks his jacket for a cigarette. He'd only brought one with him, pocketed last minute on his way out the dorm. But it serves enough to quell the rising torrents of his curiosity as they swell for the day. Unpermitted to, he lights it, settles back from his bleary gaze in the door glass and presses his lids shut. Slowly, the unkempt choir of background noise draws him standing in a watercolour painting of a beach sunset, somewhere off the grid on Jeju Island.

The ocean mirrors the bright orange sky, still as a dreamy photograph. Bedazzled richly with diamonds falling from sunrays. The sun itself hangs in a drunken haze over the lazy folding waves, fuzzy, but clear and decisive about it's descent. The kind of sun that can be squinted at without blindness crawling under the eyelids.

Coming from the clouds, a melody Taeil hears every saturday morning pours. The smooth sand at his side sinks with a squeak of protest, and his blood leaps and blossoms with the warmth of a cup being pressed in his grip. Fragrant earl grey twists its way into the mix of scents dancing under his nose.

"Since when did you start smoking?"

Taeil peels back his lids, the beach blinked out of sight, and quickly straightens his back to peer towards the counter. What he finds is what he half-expects; a small back, shoulders as tightly packed as the flamboyant wallpapers, facing them with what feels like absolute abandon.

Only after the mirage of the setting sun fades completely from his lashes does Taeil turn to his friends, hissing, "Hey, don't be so fucking loud."

"What, you think she can't smell it?"

Every saturday morning Taeil came to tackle his week-old laundry, he brought with him two close friends with the same need. At first they came simply out of forced necessity, because the laundry rooms on campus were a nightmare for chance and the impatient. But quickly, sitting together in company of the battered machines and the funky pop music playing overhead became a routine they couldn't go without.

Hansol was the youngest of them, an engineer with a burning passion for music. Easy going, rational and tenderhearted he was when it mattered. Byeol was the eldest, but over the years Taeil learned that there wasn't much to expect from him when it came to decision making. He carried the same story as the youngest, except he was actually desperate to drop out. Taeil couldn't count on his fingers anymore how many times he had to convince him not to give studying up.

Taeil pinches the corner of his mouth around his cigarette, watching a column of ash burn down the length as he draws smoke again, then says, "I don't smoke."

The two boys narrow their eyes a fraction, looking downright unconvinced. Byeol waves–squirms the smoke away, then fixes his basket between his legs and starts sorting his clothes, "His girlfriend smokes. Maybe it's rubbing off on him."

She's not my girlfriend, Taeil argues, we just fuck. Regularly. "She always smokes afterwards, so I thought it'd be cool to see what it's all about myself. You guys don't get curious? C'mon!"

"Maybe she's just trying to tell you something."

"Right." Hansol offers an impish smile, nudging Taeil with his knee. "I nearly forgot about your weird way of seeing things. Maybe she's feeling it now and using the smoking to get rid of you. Like burning sage."

In front of them, as if equally slapped by the gentle attack, Taeil's washing machine cries out as it slows to a stop. On his left, Byeol cracks into a string of hiccupped laughter, cheeks burning hotred.

Taeil levels them both with a sneer and snuffs the smoke out on the bench before he gets up. "Fuck you guys. At least I get pussy. When was the last time you losers got to eat pussy, huh? I thought so!"

"Just yesterday!" responds Byeol amusedly, still red with laughter.

"Yeah, right!"

It's said that in a household with at least one smoking parent and one child, the child is four times likely to grow into a smoker themselves. Both of Taeil's parents smoked since he were young, though his mother cut back significantly when she were suddenly pregnant with the triplets. But even so, he'd never felt personally inclined to smoke. Not for stress, or out of habit. He just liked to experiment, and this was simply one of his studies. He'd bought a packful about a week ago, and so far he couldn't yet understand the hype that came from painting his lungs with nicotine.

After throwing his wet clothes into a dryer, Taeil comes to perch himself back down by Byeol–who's somehow still not finished with sorting despite his basket being a lot smaller. Fuzzily in the distance, from old ceiling speakers, Yerin Baek's eloquent voice coils around their fervent chatting. More and more as the sun rises further on the horizon and the world awakes, the laundromat comes to life. As evening accentuates city lights.

Regarding Hansol after a long sip of his tea, chasing away the bittersweet taste on his tongue, Taeil asks, "On the topic of girlfriends, though, how are things going with you and your girl? Give us updates."

"Oh shit, yeah. I forgot about that." Byeol jerks upright, interest flooding his eyes again. "Give us deets, young man. Don't be shy."

Hansol is standing by the washer Taeil had used, hoodie wet from standing too close to the dripping machine. His eyes, bright hazel, are even more radiant in the pretty morning shine. "It's not much going on yet."

He pauses his haphazard stuffing of laundry and turns to angle his gaze on the two earnest friends behind him, an obvious grin threatening to interrupt an expression Taeil assumes is supposed to intimidate. "Are you trying to get me to sell myself out? Don't worry, you'll figure it out yourself soon. I don't gotta tell you guys anything."

"Boo! C'mon, we won't tell. Whatever the hell we'll 'figure out' would probably be influenced by our own narrative. We need to hear from the man himself."

"Yeah, whatever he just said! Don't be a pussy."

Two weeks ago, Hansol fell in love. Taeil couldn't believe him until he'd met the girl himself. Not because she was a stunning, nor remarkable girl. Nothing suddenly 'clicked', or pinpointed where exactly love was tethered in between them.

Frankly, she hadn't the type of face Taeil could instantly recall at the sound of her name, like a summoning of sorts. Not even a name that gripped the memory tight. All that Taeil remembers about her is that she attended a different university, and that she'd met Hansol by chance; because she forgot her wallet somewhere, and he'd found it. To thank hansol for returning her pretty little elegant Chanel wallet, she'd invited him out for coffee and bought him an expensive dinner.

Little did she know, the first thing Hansol did was come to Taeil's dorm to flash him the wallet, and that Taeil egged him to take the money. To which the younger had refused, of course. Later after meeting her, Taeil regretted the jest as well. She was a really nice girl, and finally witnessing firsthand how Hansol looked at her, Taeil wholeheartedly believed that his friend truly was in love.

He'd come to this dulcet conclusion while laying in bed alone after meeting his partner for the night, arms barren of her warmth she never let him keep for long. His back was bleeding of scratches she left, possibly as a consolation prize for her absence. The realization had vexed Taeil a bit. They now posed as a reminder of how messy his love life really was.

But alternatively, it also made him curious, about how the happiness of love discovered could extend its gracious arms even amongst friends.

"Tell us how it feels at least?" Taeil insists.

At this, Hansol was quiet for a long time. In his stead, the electronic bell at the counter sang uncontrollably in tune with the radio statics, sounding close to a whisper. People came and went in a gaggle around the three young men, admitting or collecting their laundry all the same.

More distinct chatter like theirs bloomed around the ceaseless sounds of sloshing, foaming water and murmuring machines as the hour slowly cycled over. At some point, far to their left, after a too-long screech that seized Taeil's teeth and welled tears in his eyes, one of the dryers gave and sagged. Busted. The mechanic took too long to show up for a timely diagnosis.

By the time Hansol chooses to answer, the pooling sunlight has warmed up past that pleasant morning warmth into a scorching ardour, and like always, it's only the three of them left again. Taeil finishes folding his large batch of laundry while Byeol rushes through his, fingernails having gone frail under mercy of the heat lingering from the dryer on his towels. His stomach gives a grotesque growl as a beast would lurch at the sight of it's meal, ready for lunch.

Finally, the younger settles with a grunt between them, cusping their knees in his wet hands and says with newfound vehemence, "It feels like forever, assholes."

Come close the end of the month, Taeil quits smoking and never touches another cigarette again. Around the same time, the smoker he'd been seeing breaks up with him, for a guy she called her boyfriend.

(refs x, x) featuring @anthropocentrik & @nicadanis

It's saturday evening, and suspended between pale, late february skies and the humming earth below, was a momentary sprinkle of snow.

Taeil has been standing in the middle of his bedroom for as long as he can't bother to remember, statued on long legs as though the weather has frozen him in time. A steaming mug of tea silently counts the minutes–hours instead, and weighs his palms as flickering thoughts do his mind.

On the window frame, snow gathers into a soft ensemble. And through the thick glass, arms of moonshine lay outstretched in a chase after his bare back. He feels his nape flush and tingle at the feeling. But if he even registers that strange, brittle touch stroking icicles along his spine, he doesn't show it. He just clutches around the drink, blinks at the suit laid out on his bed and thinks.

Stuck on a page written since four years ago, Taeil wonders about his age and the expectations written between the lines of it. He counts with a dull nail rapping against the base of his mug, how many of the umpteenth times his mother had tried to coax from him any existence of a girl he could remember off the top of his head. I'm getting old, she would say gently, I want to brag about my son's beautiful wedding someday soon. Though he told it with his own mouth, the voice that always lied to her never sounded like his own. Like it rose from someone else's chest, whispered off in the far distance. I'm too busy for that.

He gulps down tea every time a thought passes, as though they were the wispy clouds chasing each other at witness of the moon slashed in the sky outside.

An unfair timeline, posing as an ideal no one human could possibly abide to. Love and it's complexities; of what they personally mean to him. The temperature of his tea drops a bit more, but that incredible degree of sureness Hansol might've felt as he proposed the idea of forever back then starts to bleed into the back of his lids. If he'd ever come across it with a lover himself, or missed the opportunity entirely, Taeil couldn't tell. Is it even as real as we make it?

Hansol had asked him to prepare a speech when they'd met some weeks back. Talk about us, he'd said, expectant. How so? Taeil asked. About their friendship, in relation to the way his friend loves was the final agreement. Taeil had agreed to it, while knowing that by the time he'd run out of words, part of his soul would be left agape. Torn from his roots by his own bare hands, laid out in exposure for the world to grasp at how it pleases. But for a friend as good as this, he'd always endure it.

With his last sip, Taeil finally settles at the foot of his bed, joints grinding in a crackle-pop. Comfort slips back under the bed as the mug falls cold and empty. Hansol and his fiancé had made him this mug for Christmas last year, in a pottery class somewhere in Yeonnam-dong. Hansol says you collect these without knowing you do. Taeil remembers tearing through the snowman flecked wrapping. We thought we'd make you another one for that collection. Thank you, Taeil had murmured. The girl smiled, plump with delight.

It's a heavy thing, the mug, since they made it large and thick to fit and protect the hands it were made for. It'd easily become a monthly favourite.

Taeil's eyebrows knit together at the charming memory, then slant downward as a hostile upwelling of what feels dangerously close to resentment surfaces from the depths. They're hardly in his life anymore, yet reminders like this still linger. Why is that? Were they solely a product of his imagination, or were they as tangible as a scalding mug? Dulcet as a lover's kiss?

Impulsively, he releases the dense cup from his fingers and hopes it does what he needs it to. It hangs in the air for an excruciating interval, though like sensing Taeil's intentions and how regret would wreck him later on, it disappoints with a soft thud as it hits the polished floor between his feet. A far cry from shattering.

As innocent as an object could get, it rolls clumsily until interrupted by the handle, stopping where the moon kisses a silver sliver on the floor. His puppy, who'd been lounging nearby, draws near on all fours for a sniff.

Anticlimactic, and a balm to his bitterness. It brings him back to earth, where he sighs with sudden exhaustion. Loneliness weighs his bed with its knees and pulls him back into his pillows, and Taeil simply obliges–settles for a dreamless sleep. But as rarely as they come, tonight, he dreams: of plunging his fingers into the earth and gripping an earthquake in his palms. Of never letting go.

—---—

Taeil never minded a freezing cold morning. He liked watching his breath smoke through the air, and tasting pinpricks on his tongue every time he spoke in and out of turn. The breeze catches in your lashes, flaps at the bill of a hat and ices tears across the cheeks of weeping children. It also intertwines between fingers like a lover not wanting to stray too far, and hides with coy intent underneath long, quivering coats and padded jackets. Coming along with it, illness. Or worse–that relentless sense of inner solace that can be bandaged only after the passing of snow.

Most, it drives where warmth can defrost the creeping numbness in their limbs, soothe the ache in their hearts; usually where the fragrant scent of grinded coffee beans and baked bread stirs harmoniously in the air, if not tucked further under the covers.

For today in particular, the cold morning brings with it love. Unconditionally, and forevermore.

The ceremony unravels around them like a peacock fluffing out its iridescent tail. Nothing short of ethereal, suave and composed. Taeil witnesses the beginning of a beautiful journey within the featherweight steps of a pianist as she graces her tiny side-stage, sweeps her black satin dress to the side with confidence and sits with her hands braced, ever so gently, over the polished keys.

The world withholds a breath, and a second of suspense shivers across the entirety of the wedding hall before the pianist begins to play. The band bracketed along the edge of the stage follows her lead shortly after, an elegant chorus of cellos and violins unraveling into a sonata Taeil can't name, but appreciates nonetheless.

Flanking the centered aisle are two elongated tables, stretching as far as the eyes can see, black tablecloth neatly draped over them for the obvious purpose of blending in with the meticulously lighted venue. Reserved for an explosion of brass candelabra that are flocked by fresh arrangements of flowers each. Parallel across the ceiling hang long strings of fairy lights that remind Taeil of the wispy arms of a wisteria tree. The air conditioned breeze pushes so subtly against them that their swaying goes easily unnoticed–as though rain had come to a pause in time overhead, curious of what becomes of the world before the initial splatter.

A brief introduction from the host delicately plucks the groom from backstage. Hansol ascends the back end of the aisle, achilles heels chased by a spotlight. As if purely drawn to him by nature, radiance accentuates his refined beauty and opulence of the tux enveloping his broadness, as smooth and black as a starless evening sky. The entire venue greets him with a vibrant, deafening tide of a round of applause, and with the regality only a prince could muster, Hansol drops into a humble bow.

Taeil claps his hands so hard he's almost surprised they don't kindle fire by the time he's finished cheering for the bride, who appears a few heartbeats later. More beautiful than Taeil ever could've admitted of her before, she's fitted in a dress that embodies the polar opposite of Hansol's suit. Taeil marvels in awe at how it shudders and pleats around itself as she clears the stage to her husband to-be; equivalent to a whirlwind of shimmering stars, or a condensed supernova. Rested on the stiff volume of her crown, a delicate tiara skewers the air, perfectly compatible and present as her star-dress.

Together, they're the beginning of an end, and the end of a beginning. A dark knight who'd swallowed an erupting star in his arms.

A searing kiss seals the enchanting promise of forever between the young lovers, and simultaneously deepens the fresh gap arching in Taeil's soul. Like twisting a knife in a fresh stab wound, it deepens and weeps. When the time to congratulate comes again, Taeil claps with every ounce of bittersweet bliss he'd gathered at home and brought with him within the reserve in his heart.

In his head, he pretends his hands are mallets and his pain hovers between them, and with each thunderous strike, he's being forged whole again. Even if he knows it's not so simple.

Ten minutes, the announcer says. He has ten minutes before reception to somehow turn the bitter film on his tongue around and stitch away the pit. To find a silver lining.

So ten minutes before reception officially begins, Taeil harrows a waiter for a shot of whiskey he thinks he desperately needs. I'm afraid we don't have whiskey, sir, the young man says politely, likely trying to avoid trouble for premature labour. What kind of wedding doesn't come with at least a single bottle of Jack Daniels, Taeil says with a quiet ferocity that wins him the discussion. The waiter folds himself in a curt, yet apologetic bow, and returns two minutes later with a proper whiskey on the rocks.

Unhesitating, Taeil downs it with his eyes hard-pressed on wisteria lights he'd been staring at for almost two hours. He blames the tears that cling to his lashes on the agonizing, knife-cut burning sliding down to the bottom of his throat.

Immediately after reception officially begins, Taeil briefly excuses himself from the table for three and goes to find Byeol. Framed in a barstool and the midst of gulping down free rosé wine, Byeol looks the same as he always did since Taeil had first met him in high school; clad in a sharp poise, his shoulders squared and his hair a stylish sprawl on his head. He's blonde now, but somehow, Taeil swears he could recognize that small head anywhere.

A pang of overwhelming nostalgia seizes Taeil's bleeding heart in a joyful interlude.

He goes for the shoulder, dropping a sudden, firm clap on the stern shaping of it. Squeezing hard. Startling, the hyung almost chokes around his next sip, if he doesn't spill it first. A humourless smirk climbs his plain, youthful features once recognition visibly settles in his consciousness–in those brown, tiger eyes of his. With a fox's mischief, Taeil responds with a cheeky smile.

"Doing drugs I see."

"Really?" Byeol starts, a rapid-fire string of blinking fanning out his blatant incredulity, "That's the first thing that comes to mind when you get to see me for the first time in almost two years?"

"For what reasons would you dye your hair blonde other than all that's suspicious?" Taeil considers him for a moment longer, then says, obnoxiously, "Even your fucking eyebrows. It suits you, though."

This earns him a flat grin, which dusts off another shelved memory in Taeil's head. Byeol's smiles, no matter the volume, always crescented his eyes. Taeil could never figure out if it were because of the swell in his rounded cheeks, or the broad grins he always had to offer. Like unsheathing a secret weapon from his sleeve, his boyish joy could slice a heart tender.

Finally, Byeol chastely elbows the younger in the ribs. "You were always such a pain in the ass."

"So were you... But I missed you, hyung. It's nice to finally see you again."

"Likewise. And great speech, man." Byeol says, "Didn't know you could talk like you have a girlfriend trapped some thousand miles away from you, and can only express your debilitating pining through writing her letters."

"Thanks." Fondness uncoils inside Taeil, tender as a bruise. As though following a sort of instinct, he slots an arm around Byeol's shoulders, "You were my inspiration, since that really does sound like us."

"Please, you might be huge but if anything, you'd be the girlfriend."

"I agree, actually. So tell me, boyfriend, about the kinda' drugs you've been doing."

This time when Byeol elbows him, he really makes it count.

Five more shots of hard whiskey and a glass of champagne are enough to introduce blinding disorientation. Byeol made drinking in excess dangerously easy, and Taeil was sure that if the hyung hadn't the need to drive himself home without an accident, they would've galloped into a rate that likely could result in them passing out at the bar. Or tag teaming the bartender if he were to start refusing them any more drinks.

With a feline's politesse, the latter eyeballs Taeil from below his curved eyelashes as he fills one last glass goblet with champagne, which Taeil had demanded be expensive. Emboldened by Byeol's splitting, Taeil saw the ten percent chance of his ability to carry six—one for each shot of whiskey he'd taken so far—by himself with an extra zero, poorly drawn at the end. So he'd ordered six of them for no one in particular, just to prove a point.

He sprawls out lengthy fingers and fits delicately carved stem necks up to the crevices and, with a considerable amount of faith in himself, lifts them off the bar counter. Gravity betrays him as they immediately stagger and spill some, costing the exasperated bartender his sanity, surely. But without a single care left to give, Taeil squares his shoulders and walks away with champagne a haphazard spill down his suit sleeve.

Like this he circles the guest area twice with an infinitesimal slowness that spares his head a spin, before he names himself confidently lost. With so much whiskey thickening his blood and the wetness now sticking to his arms, he would rather sit with a stranger anyway. One of them in particular, actually.

After having passed him once with a stunning girl hooked to his left, the second time Taeil circles back on burning heels, he finds him alone. Another blonde boy, jagged hair a shade darker than Byeol's and showing signs of overgrowth at the roots. In his head, Taeil convinces himself that this was fate's handiwork, if only to grant himself more courage to approach. Plus his wrists are starting to tire.

"Hey. Do you need some company? I do."

Sporting a coquettish grin, Taeil greets with the tone of a man who's already known the other for many years before. The champagne spills a lick one last time as he dismounts them on the table's surface. "Pardon my Italian, but if I don't drink all these, the bartender will probably find my address and come beat my ass. Help me out?"

Haru, he calls himself. And successfully pushes Taeil further into the clutch of his confusion about what it is with modern day musicians and dyeing their hairs in fifty shades of pasta.

They fall into each other with the ease of a biscuit being buttered, even if the conversation initially ranges on the typical side. Inevitably, Taeil understands, as there was no other way to break the ice between two strangers at a wedding but to introduce themselves, and talk about the tedious. But he's also well acquainted with the virtues of giving volume to flat things.

Haru smiles warmly, and soon after, Taeil discovers he has an equally rich laugh. In his blurry drunkenness, he reminds Taeil of pleasant summer days. The blazing sun baking his cheeks tan, pronouncing the freckles on his face and back. The smear of a soft-serve melting faster across his knuckles than he can eat it. Squeezing clammy palms together in midst of trapping a sunset within a kiss.

Most of these pleasantries would be lost by morning to plot holes in his memory, full pages torn in the middle of a long journal entry. Taeil almost considers mourning this fact as their absorption wears on in between pauses for breath, an excess of champagne and him meeting the lovely girl Haru had brought with him. Dani, a stunning young woman who makes a lot more sense at Haru's side than he ever would.

But then, spending the fraction of a second staring at Haru's hand with his jaded eyes, a brilliance occurs to Taeil. Epiphany wholly encouraged by intoxication alone, as he abandons all logic under-fire of alcohol. If the casuals will only be but a speck tomorrow, why not attach some extravagance to it, and while at that, a name? So it would be more memorable. Tangible, even.

After all, this was a wedding. Glorious and formal at every angle anyone could peer at it from. An event fit for the celebration of love, which was something to be found at any given second, if the illusion of free will ever allowed it to be. And just like Hansol and his wife invited them to share this moment, every other one of them should count as well.

In his chest, his heart begins to gallop as a mad horse at mercy of swelling adrenaline. While the world flocks and flails around them with indistinct chatter–less than a blot caused by spilled ink to Taeil, he turns his entirety to Haru and pins Haru's palm against the table with his own. Their pulses intertwine, and it sends the soft, fleeting hairs at the back of his neck into a bristling frenzy–a flash of lightning cutting through his veins.

Sitting straight, the corners of his mouth curl towards heaven. "I have a fine idea."

The chair almost flips over from him standing, and he wobbles on the way down to the knee that doesn't mysteriously ache every evening. All throughout, he awkwardly brings Haru's hand along, even when he rummages through the manpurse strapped across his chest for a sharpie.

"Earlier I circled this room twice, but every time I came back around, I could only look at you. I think that means something special, right? Sorry, Dani." Taeil's tongue lulls around his pronunciation, lisp thicker than usual, but his eyes hold a sort of obscure sincerity in them that he won't be able to explain by breakfast. He uncaps the sharpie, spits the cap itself at Haru's feet and draws a shaky circle around the circumference of his ring finger.

"For what it's worth, I'm asking your date to marry me. Will you, Haru?"

After Haru's earnest acceptance, the world starts to spin and transition much too quickly than he can keep up with, from a serene stillness to a jarring haste, like a running scene filmed handheld. The beautiful venue spirals out of his grasp, until Haru is the only thing left. The waxing moon their witness.

Next thing he knows, he wakes with morning knocking on his eyelids, a skull-splitting hangover that renders him completely useless, and a blanket hogger for a fiancé. If it weren't for him being right there, Taeil would've thought that the sun had hopped out of the sky and plummeted all the way into his bed.

For the first time since his first shot from yesterday, Taeil searches for the gap in his soul and finds it there still. Except no longer does it weep, or throb as much. Probably this guy's doing, he thinks, as he watches him wake with remnants of their night still whole on him.

Truth be told, Taeil disliked sharing arguments with Sera. At least not in a tone and context that morphed words into bullets and knives, and felt as though they were physically lodged in his chest with bare hands. Slowly tearing his fragile heart asunder. Though no discussion which came before had felt as hopeless as this.

The apartment had been warmer that evening. Quietude stirring in the air, yet bright in light of year's end. Her couch was warm on his back too, though her fingers a frigid contrast on his nape; a blanket for comfort pinched beneath tiny bites of frost. Yet Taeil sought and found no consolation in the heat hidden between his vertebrae, and even less in the weight pinning down his thighs. Instead an anxious gaze scanned the face of the woman framed in his lap. Fraught silence sitting on his lips while he searched for any sign at all of her being but a vivid fragment of dreamstate.

But much to his dismay, Sera stared right back. And blinked, talked—argued. Ebbed and flowed above him like stirred ocean shores with her tumultuous emotions. She balanced fear on his heartstrings with a tangible grin and asked him why it were there–why he wasn't holding her gaze for long, why he wouldn't touch her even with full consent. Suddenly self-aware, Taeil knew he couldn't lie to her. He could never lie to her even if he tried.

"You're just acting really weird, Sera. You're too pliant than what I'm used to. Too honest, and needy." He'd said, carefully. Both fists laid on each side of his thighs, clenching and relaxing–unwilling to embrace her as custom. Claim her as suggested.

"It's freaking me out. We were never like this."

Like this; a hushed cluster of limbs and entangled breaths, her knees nimble and blunt on hipbones that reached up for her own, as restlessness guided their grip across vast expanses of each other in all directions possible. Just like this, with their racing hearts tethered so tightly under the caging of their chests it was almost painful. Yet it felt safe all the same; safe enough to test their teeth in forbidden fruit uninterrupted–that their secret would remain only a murmur shared between them when the universe peered elsewhere.

But when Sera leveled her gestures and sought meaning in his gaze yet again, it became clear to Taeil that their murmurs hadn't once been shared at parallel since the very beginning of their agreement. Something was amiss still, and it was going to cost them.

"Are you telling me you don't want it?" Sera regarded Taeil quietly, facial expression softening until resting flat as she observed him with her nails on his pulse.

"It's not just about what you want now." Taeil attempted to argue, "It's about what we already had..."

Sera only considered this, then retracted herself entirely. Vacating the lap she'd probably hoped would keep her company into the new year. "It's funny how I feel like the rejected one now." She admitted. "Oh, well."

And then she was gone.

When Taeil first met Sera, he was plagued by an existential crisis and equally haunted by the mere existence of a fresh diploma in his hands. He remembers it a hot summer noon, specifically so because his balls had never seen as much sweat in twenty-something years as they did that day–and he was a college athlete. Standing amongst close to a thousand virgins in a tight campus hall felt as though he were in a rainforest from the waist down. Sweltering, and zoic. But his determination to win was stronger than his desire to strip down to his bones on spot.

Every year the school oversaw an annual robotics competition for any who were willing to participate, and rearranged a random hall into a bloodbath for nerds, gamers and freaks alike. Though despite their micro differences, what brought them all together was their religious belief in aliens and robots, like Christians saw God and angels. And money. In any case, an event Taeil himself couldn't bear missing.

The ink had mysteriously ran out midway through him signing up, and he had to wait through ten whole minutes before someone in the back line had remembered the spare pen buried at the bottom of their backpack. An omen of his misfortune, but he'd ignored it for the beckoning charm of the prize money he planned to buy premium Pokemon cards with. And the pretty girl he were up against, Sun Sera, or something like that.

He'd shouted dibs on her amongst his friends before they'd begun, and was damning his idiocy with every ounce of effort he could possibly muster by the end of the night. The second his robot went down with no chance of return, she'd ruined him; stripped him bare of his remaining pride rather than the clothes on his back. And knew it. Had thrown him a knowing feline smirk before walking off for her prize.

Little did she know that at that same moment, she'd unknowingly sealed some long years of childish rivalry to her name. If only both of them knew beforehand how it all would escalate–Taeil often wondered if he still would've chosen Sera then.

The fight me's and the fuck off's and leave me alone's had quickly become the backbone and essence of their friendship, something peculiar only they could understand. She wanted nothing to do with him while he wanted everything to do with her, but somehow it was mutual. He would've willingly nestled himself into the most unforgiving cracks of bleeding Hell's ends to find her, no matter how far she hid. If only to get the rematch he believed he deserved, Taeil sought her out to the point of blatant obsession. She let him do it.

But life often does only what it wills and before Taeil could notice, his passion gave chase for personal attachment to Sera. Then, like seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours, his heart had betrayed him–coaxed attachment into a degree of infatuation he could only keep hidden for the sake of preserving their unusual connection. Which was much more important to him than anything else, as it was all he knew. All he ever wanted.

To him they were already a layered puzzle that needn't get more complicated. Every time they met, it felt like walking into an empty room clad in an infinite maze, of which all ends yielded a door to a new, alien emotion to explore in a pair. But a pair had never equalled to anything beyond friendship for Taeil, even if for every time Sera smiled because of him, his heart had longed for more. The pain of self refusal was more bearable than that of accompanied solace and misunderstanding. He wanted only for her to accept him as much as possible, and that would've been enough.

Better necessary than love itself; an intimate understanding of the melancholy they individually experienced the same.

The flattery of a kiss could never compare nor plug the void for long. Why was that such a complicated intention for her to fathom?

The way down from her apartment was a steep and uncomfortable contrast against his long legs. Winter rising from chilled concrete to the ceiling gripping him like a second skin and stifling his lungs as a plastic bag would around the neck. Every exhale was tangible on his lips how a raging bull snorts steam through its nostrils.

But as if it were organically coded without room for error in his blood cells still, Taeil, cradled no longer by warmth or the need to be compliant, followed Sera's descent to the bottom of the stairwell. Almost tripping on the way down, and bellowing words that held no other purpose than for spite alone.

He'd confessed his honest confusion to Sera, pouring explanations and anxiety through gritted teeth only for Sera to believe none of it. Though he didn't doubt once that she knew it the truth. She owed him this much.

She was diligent and quick on her feet, petite shoulders squeezed tight with tension underneath the dark curtain of her hair. Timid snowfall caught at the luscious, curled ends as it did in his own lashes. He was chaste on frozen toes, but his strides were longer and stronger and as he always had, met her just before she’d completely escaped.

The argument unraveled at full force as the sun unleashed its rays upon having risen to the peak of the skies, and Taeil drowned hopelessly in the beat of all of it. Engaging in a knife fight without purchase of blades.

They were never supposed to end up like this either. Miserable knots of rage and regret a disarrayed twine of vines in his ribcage. A thick well of tears sticking in her throat, building as rainfall would in a dam, unable to escape from glossy eyes that pleaded for him to stop. It felt impossibly wrong for her to look at him like that–made his skin crawl with profound unease.

Yet at the same time, Taeil managed to find necessity in the havoc–possibly as a form of denial of the negativity that made him feel sick to his stomach. He'd heard opportunity and potential for something hopeful in the frail shriek of his name, coming from an exasperated Sera.

It felt close to an epiphany if he'd ever seen one; the sort of clarity that often surfaced only post climax. He suddenly understood why they had to have these moments—why change was important for the development of their friendship, and what other layers sat underneath the veil of that title shared between them.

It was curial for them to anger at each other and throw around words and emotions like children with toys in a sandbox, as this was what allowed them to dig deeper into their hearts and find the things they actively sought for within one another's company.

To complete the maze after long hours spent colliding headfirst to no avail. To find what they truly needed from this friendship, and for Taeil, it was simply a matter of being accepted by Sera. Of having access to more of her world he so badly wanted to be a part of.

To understand her better, so he could understand himself better, too.

Cold split at his dried lips, and her desperate cry forced him to yield from explosiveness entirely. An incoming draft of air swept away their petty argument as if it had never been; innocently stirring and rustling trees and tiny yard bells of neighbors nearby. He felt them watching from above, alongside the sun. But as Taeil basked in the terrifying enormity of his own realization, he had only heart for the erratic surges of Sera's breathing–the dry chafe of her small hands clenching more from frustration than the cold.

He pulled her into his arms and wondered if understanding equalled to immediate willingness to accept changes. But her pulse overlapped even his own with force full enough to dull the mourn of loss of what once was, for now. So he overlooked the thought in favour of the warmth she brought back to his spine, outperforming even that of the sun and her couch combined.

One: Heartburn.

There is a fire. 

It kindles from the breath of a flame, an effervescent candle, sighing to the destructive thundering of rumination. It catches first onto tablecloth, struggles for a minute of hesitation, then claws its way through across the surface and flooring. The room begins to burn.

Some frazzled edge of it leaps from its next mouthful of cloth and into the fireplace Taeil is perched in front of and, with what appears to be rapture, bristles into an abundance of life of its own, joining in on the festering inferno. Firewood logs tumble with the sheer force of it, and in the omnipotence of its heaved breaths, Taeil hears a steady chant of his name. Taeil, Taeil, Taeil. 

But he remains uprooted and adjacent, almost like a statue, even as the fire seeks further interest in growing far beyond wood and brick. It licks his knees, kisses his cheeks scorched, yet still, Taeil remains there, motionless, blending into the burning room as he believes fateful.

He stares into the promise written in the choir of baking embers, a bargain timed in the crackling of rapidly retrograding firewood, whispered in the dense smoke which chokes him to tears. Were you to give me that aching mess of a heart in your chest, I would take away all the pain you feel in exchange. Taeil hears it say, as life around him begins to collapse into sweltering decline. I would save you, and you would burn without all the things wrong about it. And in this desperate attempt to save himself, he thinks it true.

In an instant, all five of Taeil’s right fingertips come into contact with the left of his breast. He catches and holds each breath allowed by the smoke as he presses hard into the flesh underneath his shirt, palm eclipsing his heart. Dull nails drawing half moons like a footstep in the sand around the bulging flesh. The fire spits at his feet and chants his name much louder than before, and he begins to bleed. The chest, the nose. Fresh blood seeps underneath his nails, trickle into large drops of rouge on his wrists. He feels none of it, but clenches his jaw and cries out still as the embers give a grotesque groan and bring forth the sudden growth of his nails. They become claws, like those of a large beast. A mercy.

Taeil rips out his beating heart with ease, ploughing through flesh and bone and more blood, and the flames leap with unparalleled joy for it. For a split second they appear in the shape of a pair of hands he’d once adored. But it’s too late for him to turn back as there, in the arms of his supposed salvation, burns his entire epicentre. 

It shivers ceaselessly as it falls apart, as though a cornered animal at mercy of regret, in the otherwise jovial flames. The room itself seems to shudder alongside the burning arteries. The gap in Taeil’s chest does not tremble nor weep for the arbitrary loss of its only companion, however. And neither does Taeil, who just watches, for he’d always known he’d lose his heart to a burning room of his own making.

Somehow, though, everything else falls prey to the inferno save for himself. At length, once his heart is nothing but ashes, he raises the already bloodied palm to wipe his nose.

Two: Death sentence.

Here, the fire is no more, but there is still blood. In excess, there is blood.

And a silence of such omnificence as may would name the room silence itself. This time Taeil looks for his hand and finds a mix of dried and fresh blood traced on worn finger-pads. They tremble under his gaze, flowing about the present moment inconsistently like a mirage of himself. The only thing he can hear is the abysmal nothingness echoing in his chest, the drip-drop morse of the sink below and his own laboured breathing. On his tongue there’s an aftertaste of something he can’t quite describe, something akin to bloodthirst.

In front of him lays no fireplace, but a cracked mirror he can hardly recognize himself in. Jaded stare, jagged-cut fringes, a bruise dressed gash on his forehead, sapped cut on his lip; he’s entirely worse for wear if nothing else. But he’s clad in an ever sanguine suit—or is it just bloodied? The shade of it so strangely received by the dull bathroom bulb light, which flickers at the soft brush of ghosts in the room; it has the colour of how black would look in luminance of a space consumed by raging flames. A moth to a flame, but Taeil thinks it beautiful all the same.

He wipes his nose once more as he begins to come to, then reflexively looks for his hand to find a gun in lieu of a fresh coat of crimson. Below him, the sink holds its next breath. It fits perfectly in the cusp of his hand, digit curled around the trigger as if at ready for something nigh. A pause for inspection concludes that it’s loaded, warm and thus recently used. What for, Taeil rummages through his mind for a distant memory of his running amok for the life of another and finds a task in the form of cheap wisdom: The only route out of agony is by putting an end to the self which exists within that moment.

Something grabs at his pant leg and peels the ground raw from underneath his soles before he can register his shot. There is no subspace nor void, yet still is he enveloped in an ear-splinting crescendo of chaos and gunfire as the world turns completely on its axis. Slams Taeil with lightning speed into an atmosphere which contrasts the last room’s abyss entirely–a broad, open classroom with the podium spotlight on him.

This threading through time shatters his nose for good, a couple of ribs taking the brunt of it as well, but Taeil stands for the attendants as though nothing had happened. As though it were but a Monday morning and normal to bring a loaded gun to class. In this cascade, his suit matches the curdled red on his upper lip and he is an unparalleled star. On fire, as if the sun itself had leapt from the cosmos and came to play. The crowd claps soundlessly for him. For blood.

Another tug on the hem of his pant leg draws his eyes southward this time, and the limp body he finds suspended under his step is his own. He stares at his battered face, the heavy flow of his unrelenting nosebleed, the same cuts and bruises shared between the both of them, yet recognizes nothing about the other but the hole in his chest, and the soon-to-be hole between his brows. You’re your own death sentence. But don’t worry, for death is only a moment.

Taeil turns to the crowd with his chin upturned towards the deities, recognizing only familiar faces that produce a vapid sort of smile onto his face he doesn’t mean. It’s almost blasphemous, if he’d known worse. His teeth are stained thick in a ghastly ruby, and gathered on his cupid’s bow is a pool of blood which spills and spills and spills over. He spreads an arm, as though in demonstration, coaxing curious gazes towards the body underneath him.

This is how you save yourself.