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Day One: The Salt in His Sleep
The first time Jeonghan dreams of the sea, it doesn’t feel like a dream at all.
It starts with the taste of salt. Not the kind that lingers after sweat or tears, but brine. Wind. The tang of ocean mist clinging to skin that has known sun and storm alike.
He wakes with the phantom weight of ropes in his hands, calluses on palms that should be smooth. There’s a rhythm in his chest that doesn’t match his own heartbeat. Something older. Wilder. A pull that coils low in his belly, dragging him back even as he stares at the pale ceiling of his bedroom.
He blinks. His sheets are tangled around his legs like kelp.
A fan clicks quietly overhead. No waves. No wind. Only the buzz of his phone charging on the side table, and the faint rustle of leaves from the street below. Seoul. City life. Cement and routine.
But his throat still burns from shouting against a storm that never happened.
The next night, it returns. Stronger.
He’s barefoot on slick planks of a deck, moonlight reflecting on the water like a trail meant for him to follow. There are footsteps behind him—steady, deliberate. Someone murmurs, “You always come to me in the quiet.” And Jeonghan knows that voice. He knows it. But when he turns, the face is shadowed, half-obscured by the broad brim of a hat, a glint of gold at the corner of a smile too fond for a stranger.
The man doesn’t speak again, but holds out his hand like he’s done this before. Like Jeonghan should remember.
He wakes with sand under his fingernails.
No beach nearby. No explanation. Just a handful of fine, white grains in his sheets and a scent of smoke and salt clinging to his hair like someone buried their hands in it just hours ago.
The days start bleeding. He nearly forgets the exact lyrics to a song he’s sung for years. Pauses too long before replying to messages from the others. There’s something loud in his silence, like the echoes of cannons in his ears.
By the fifth dream, he whispers the name.
“Captain.”
The word tastes like reunion.
And from somewhere just outside the dream, just beyond waking, he hears a low chuckle.
“Took you long enough, angel.”
Jeonghan bolts upright. The window’s wide open. The curtains flutter like sails in a wind that doesn’t exist.
And on the edge of his mirror, just for a moment, is a feathered tricorn hat.
Then it’s gone.
But the sea?
The sea remains.
Day Six: Storm-Slick Smiles
No one notices at first.
Jeonghan has always been good at hiding things; sickness, sadness, and secrets. He wears his tiredness like he wears fashion; lightly, deliberately, with an artful twist that makes it seem intentional. The circles under his eyes are smudged with shimmer during music shows, his faint unsteadiness played off as a joke about 'getting old.'
He laughs when Seungkwan teases him for spacing out. Tugs Jisoo’s sleeve when he forgets choreography and shrugs with a grin.
“I was improvising. Don’t limit my genius.”
The others laugh. The moment passes.
But the dreams don’t.
Tonight, the sea is violent.
Thunder splits the sky like a promise and the wind screams around the sails, monstrous and alive. Jeonghan stands at the bow of a ship that rocks and groans like it’s breathing. Below him, the dark ocean rises, hungry.
And behind him, always behind, he comes.
The pirate.
The captain.
This time, Jeonghan sees him clearly.
The stormlight catching the sharp lines of his face, dark hair pulled back with a scrap of red cloth, gold threaded into the braid at his temple. A long coat, rain-slick, heavy with embroidered scars of past battles. Rings flash at his fingers as he grips the rail beside Jeonghan, knuckles white.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Jeonghan says, though his voice trembles more from yearning than fear.
The captain’s eyes, dark as the water, familiar as his own reflection, soften. “And yet, you keep finding your way back.”
He touches Jeonghan’s hand. Callused palm to trembling wrist. It’s the gentlest thing in a storm like this.
“You said you’d wait.” Jeonghan breathes.
“I did. I am.” A pause. A whisper like thunder just beyond the mast. “But you forgot me.”
He wakes with a gasp.
Not in bed.
On the floor.
The windows are closed, but the floor beneath him is damp, and there’s a bruise blooming purple on his shoulder like he’s been thrown.
He wipes at his face, unsure if it’s sweat or tears or seawater.
Then, as footsteps approach down the hall, he pulls himself up and smooths down his sleep shirt, wraps the worn cardigan around himself, and pastes on his favorite weapon: a sleepy, lazy smile.
“Jeonghan, you okay?” Seungcheol’s voice, muffled through the door.
“Yeah.” Jeonghan calls back, voice even. “Just dropped something. Go back to sleep.”
“Okay. Don’t break your other leg.” Seungcheol jokes, footsteps retreating.
Jeonghan chuckles just loud enough to be heard.
Then leans against the wall, breath shaking.
Because when he looks in the mirror, salt stains his collarbone like a kiss.
And he remembers the captain’s eyes, how they softened.
Like they’d done this before.
Day Eleven: The Map Beneath His Skin
The dreams don’t stop.
If anything, they sharpen with colors too vivid, sensations too tactile. Rope burn ghosts across his wrists. Salt clings to his lashes even after long showers. Jeonghan keeps finding sand in the folds of his clothing, in shoes he hasn’t worn in weeks.
He starts writing them down.
At first, it’s just a few lines on his Notes app. Then full entries. Dates. Landmarks. The shape of a crescent moon over unfamiliar constellations. A name he almost remembers on the tip of his tongue. A compass etched into someone’s chest, over a heartbeat that once counted down the seconds until Jeonghan returned.
He starts researching.
Not idols or trends, not fashion or fan events, but maritime records. Old ship logs. 17th-century privateers. He browses pirate folklore under incognito tabs, half out of shame, half out of disbelief at himself.
There’s nothing solid, just legends. Tales of a ghost ship with black sails and a captain who never aged, always searching for something... someone, he lost to time.
But it stirs something. Something familiar. He stares at an old sketch of the captain’s mark, inked in a faded book on maritime tattoos. The same sigil that burns against the inside of his dreamt wrist.
And Jeonghan wonders: Was I the one who left? Or the one left behind?
The change doesn’t go completely unnoticed.
Minghao watches him from the couch one lazy afternoon while the others sprawl across the dorm in a post-rehearsal haze. Jeonghan is curled in a hoodie far too warm for July, notebook pressed open on his lap, eyes distant.
“You haven’t teased me in three days.” Minghao says lightly.
Jeonghan looks up, startled. “Haven’t I?”
But his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Minghao watches him a second longer, then drops it with a shrug. “Guess I’m just harder to rattle these days.”
“Impossible. I'll have to try harder next time.” Jeonghan says, and yet… he flips the page of his notebook the moment Minghao looks away.
That night, the captain finds him again.
Jeonghan is standing in a candle-lit cabin, maps spread across the table like a puzzle only they can solve. Outside, thunder growls... not yet a storm, but close. The man across from him traces a trail with ink-stained fingers. The same sigil marks his hand. A scar bisects one brow, his expression intense and unreadable.
“You still don’t remember, do you?” he asks quietly.
Jeonghan hesitates. “I’m trying.”
The captain steps closer. “I crossed every sea to return to you. I waited, lifetimes. But if you don’t remember...”
“I want to.” Jeonghan breathes.
Something flickers behind the captain’s eyes. Hope. Hurt. Love. The kind too heavy to carry for more than one lifetime.
“You will,” he says. “And when you do… follow the compass.”
He presses something into Jeonghan’s hand, cool, heavy. A compass.
Jeonghan looks down.
It spins wildly. Then stills, needle pointing not north, but toward him.
He wakes gasping. His hand is clenched tight around air.
But on his palm, faint in the skin’s crease, is the outline of a compass. Inked in salt and memory.
He doesn’t know what it means yet.
But someone once promised to sail the world to find him.
And someone still might be looking.
Day Thirteen: The Shape of a Memory
It happens on a Tuesday.
He’s barely slept, again. The dreams had pulled him under like a tide, and when he woke, he found the notebook open on his chest, a half-finished sketch of a face he shouldn’t know, eyes dark and mouth smiling like it never forgot him.
Jeonghan drags himself through the day, caffeine barely touching the fog. He tells the others he’s just been reading too much. That he’s bingeing some new fantasy show with a pirate arc. Seungkwan rolls his eyes and tells him to “watch something that doesn’t rewire your brain for once.”
He laughs it off.
He always does.
They’re at a studio downtown, some variety taping with a long break between segments. The staff call for a meal run, and the members scatter. Jeonghan steps outside, needing air more than food.
The city hums around him. Buses blur past, neon flickering over puddles from last night’s rain. It’s normal. Mundane. Grounding.
He stands at the edge of the sidewalk, sipping iced coffee and tapping his foot to no rhythm at all.
And then he sees him.
Across the street, half-obscured by a van, someone steps out of a convenience store. Short dark hair tucked under a black cap. Sharp jaw. Small frame. The cut of his coat, long and sweeping. A flash of red tied loosely around his wrist as he tugs at a drink straw.
It’s the shape of him. The walk.
It’s him.
Jeonghan’s breath catches. His hand tightens around the cup. Ice crackles.
Time slows.
The world noise fades into ocean hush.
The man looks up and for a second, the city disappears. Jeonghan sees moonlight reflected in water, hears the echo of cannonfire and the shout of his name across a storm-tossed deck.
Then...
A car honks.
A breeze kicks up.
Jeonghan blinks.
The stranger’s eyes are brown. Warm. Curious, but confused. Just a guy. Just someone living his life.
Not a pirate.
Not his captain.
Not the man who once kissed him with blood on his lips and salt on his tongue.
Jeonghan looks away, heart hammering like it’s trying to escape.
Later, back in the dressing room, he’s quiet.
He stares into the mirror, fingers brushing over his collarbone where something still aches. Seungcheol is talking beside him, telling a story about a weird fan gift. Jeonghan laughs on cue.
No one notices how long he takes to change.
No one sees the faint red thread he’s tied around his own wrist.
He doesn’t know why.
Only that it felt right.
Like something promised.
Something remembered.
Day Fifteen: What Was Lost to the Deep
The dream tonight is not like the others.
It doesn’t start with a storm. Or waves. Or the press of familiar fingers wrapped around his wrist.
It begins in silence.
No wind. No ship. Just moonlight on black sand. The smell of burnt wood and salt-heavy smoke.
Jeonghan stands barefoot on a shoreline he doesn’t recognize, but feels; in his bones, in his blood. The air is thick with memory, and ahead, just past the dunes, he sees fire.
He moves toward it.
He doesn’t remember walking, only that suddenly he’s standing at the edge of what once was a harbor. Torn flags hang limp. Boats shattered against rocks. Ash drifting through the air like snow.
And there, kneeling in the wreckage, is him.
The captain.
Hat gone. Hair loose, tangled with soot. His coat torn, red scarf blackened at the edges. One hand grips the edge of a broken mast like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
Jeonghan doesn’t speak. He can’t.
The captain lifts his head slowly, as if he’s heard a sound no one else can hear. And when his eyes meet Jeonghan’s, he isn’t surprised.
He’s relieved.
“You’re here.” he says, voice rough and tired. “Finally.”
Jeonghan tries to step forward, but the sand shifts, dragging at his feet like memory.
The captain rises. Limping. Bleeding. Still beautiful.
“I looked for you.” he says. “They told me you were taken. Sold. Gone. But I didn’t believe them.”
The wind picks up, scattering ash between them.
“I crossed every sea.” the captain continues, voice breaking. “I searched every island. Every cursed cove. I gave up my name, my crew, my soul; just to find you.”
Jeonghan’s chest aches. The compass in his hand spins uselessly.
“But I was too late.”
The captain takes another step forward, close now. Closer than he’s ever been in these dreams. Jeonghan can see the pain carved into his face. The hollow beneath his cheekbones where hope once lived.
“They buried your name.” he whispers. “Burned the records. Erased you from the world. But I remembered.”
Jeonghan’s breath shudders out. “Who… who was I?”
The captain lifts a trembling hand, fingers brushing Jeonghan’s cheek like he’s scared it’s not real.
“You were mine,” he says. “Before the world stole you.”
The pain in Jeonghan’s chest explodes like a cannonshot.
And all at once, he remembers.
The stolen nights on a rocking deck. The laughter under stars. A kiss in the eye of a storm. Hands held under a vow not made in temples but on blood and seafoam.
He remembers being taken. Dragged from the ship. Locked away on an island without a name. Calling out for a voice that never came.
Until now.
Tears slip down his face. “You never stopped looking.”
“I never will.” the captain says, voice steady now. Fierce. “Not until you come back to me.”
The dream shifts. Crashes.
And Jeonghan wakes in his bed, heart breaking and whole all at once.
In the silence of his room, Jeonghan whispers the truth to the dark.
“I knew you.”
And now…
He’s going to find him again.
Day Seventeen: The Pull of Tides Unseen
It starts the way most things do in the idol world; quietly, professionally, like fate disguised as coincidence.
A joint recording. Nothing flashy. A panel-style interview with a dozen artists packed onto a sleek soundstage in Gangnam.
Jeonghan doesn’t even remember agreeing to it until his manager reminds him in the van. He nods, distracted. The dream still hums beneath his skin like a song he forgot how to hum.
The name ATEEZ doesn’t register at first. Not until he’s backstage, mic in hand, brushing lint off his jacket, when he hears someone laugh.
Not just any laugh.
His laugh.
That low, amused chuckle. The one that used to echo over waves. The one that held the weight of storms and longing.
Jeonghan freezes.
His gaze snaps to the far end of the greenroom, and there he is.
Hongjoong.
Short dark hair tucked under a beanie. Wide, knowing eyes. A loose black button-up and rings on both hands, casually balanced against the arm of the couch as he listens to someone talk. The tilt of his jaw. The calm, confident stillness.
And around his wrist, barely visible under the sleeve, a red thread.
Jeonghan stares.
Not because Hongjoong is famous. Not because he’s an idol or because their paths have finally, formally crossed.
But because he knows that shape.
He remembers the way that man’s hands once cradled a compass.
And Jeonghan’s legs nearly give out.
He looks away so fast it makes his head spin. Suddenly the room feels too bright. Too loud. Like he’s dreaming with his eyes open.
“Jeonghan?” Mingyu’s voice cuts in. “You good?”
Jeonghan nods quickly, a little too quickly. “Yeah. Just tired.”
But his eyes flick back. Just once.
Hongjoong isn’t looking at him. Not yet. He’s talking, smiling, laughing easily.
But... for one brief moment, Hongjoong stills.
Turns his head.
And their eyes meet.
It’s nothing, Jeonghan tells himself. Just a glance. Just a stranger.
But Hongjoong’s smile fades. His eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, like he’s trying to place something.
Then someone calls him, and he looks away.
On stage, Jeonghan keeps his smile in place like armor. He answers questions, nudges jokes toward the camera, makes the hosts laugh. Across the panel, Hongjoong is doing the same.
They never speak.
They never even sit beside each other.
But when the segment ends and everyone filters out into the hallway, Jeonghan feels something brush past him.
Not a hand.
A pull.
Like gravity. Or destiny.
Like the memory of an anchor that once held him steady through a hundred storms.
He doesn’t turn.
He doesn’t have to.
But from behind him, a low voice murmurs, barely a breath.
“…Found you.”
And Jeonghan stops breathing.
Jeonghan doesn’t speak in the van ride back.
He doesn’t nap, doesn’t tease, doesn’t even scroll through his phone. He just stares out the window like he’s watching something no one else can see.
A coastline where there should be city.
A storm cloud where only neon flickers.
Jisoo nudges his arm. “You good?”
Jeonghan blinks. Turns, smiles. “Yeah. Just zoning out.”
Too smooth.
Too fast.
Jisoo doesn’t believe it, but he lets it go.
For now.
Back at the dorm, Jeonghan heads straight for his room. The door clicks shut behind him before anyone can ask questions. He doesn’t even bother turning the light on. The shadows feel kinder.
He sinks onto the bed like something’s collapsed inside him.
And maybe it has.
Because that wasn’t just some moment of déjà vu. That wasn’t just his dreams bleeding into real life. That was him.
The captain.
In another skin. In a modern world. Wearing silver rings and laughing like the sea never carved grief into his lungs.
Hongjoong.
Jeonghan whispers the name aloud and something in his chest responds. Like a compass spinning true north.
But how can it be?
How is he here?
Is he dreaming awake now?
Or has reality finally caught up to the memory?
He pulls the drawer open. Takes out the notebook. His hands tremble as he flips to the most recent sketches; the ship, the compass, the sigil. The face he drew from his dreams, over and over again.
He hadn’t realized until now how accurate it was.
He traces the lines of the jaw. The mouth. The eyes.
Hongjoong’s eyes.
He presses his thumb over the drawing, trying to feel if it pulses with the same impossible truth buzzing through his veins.
Found you, the voice echoes.
It hadn’t been a hallucination.
It had been recognition.
Jeonghan leans back against the wall, notebook pressed to his chest, and closes his eyes.
He remembers the pain of being torn away. The years—centuries—of silence. The dreams that were never dreams. The life stolen before it could be fulfilled.
And he remembers the promise.
“I will find you. No matter what shore you wake on.”
Outside his door, the dorm breathes around him.
Minghao walks past, pauses. Listens.
Soonyoung whispers to Seokmin in the kitchen, “Jeonghan's been… weird lately, right?”
“He’s always weird,” Seungkwan counters, but it’s automatic now. Defensive. Tired.
“He’s quieter.” Jun murmurs. “I don’t think he even noticed when I forgot my lines today. Usually he’d tease me for it.”
“Maybe he’s just tired,” Seungcheol offers.
But even he doesn’t believe it.
Because Jeonghan’s silences used to be full of intent. Now, they’re empty. Hollow like he’s standing in a room no one else can see.
In the dark, Jeonghan finally speaks, to no one.
“I remember you.”
And somewhere, deep beneath his ribs, something ancient and fragile dares to hope.
Day Eighteen: The Name He Forgot to Forget
The first time Hongjoong ever saw Jeonghan was years ago, backstage at a year-end award show.
ATEEZ was new. Nervous. Running on adrenaline and half a meal.
SEVENTEEN stood just ahead of them in the hallway, sunlight in human form. Jeonghan laughed at something Jisoo said, and it turned heads. Even Hongjoong’s.
But it was just that. A moment.
Beautiful people pass you all the time in this industry. You don’t let it shake you.
Except, he did.
He forgot the joke San had told him mid-sentence.
He remembered Jeonghan’s profile long after the event was over.
Still, he told himself it was admiration. Stage presence. That effortless, untouchable kind of magnetism.
And then the dreams started.
Not often. Not like nightmares. More like fragments.
Salt in his mouth when he hadn’t been near the coast in weeks.
The ache of rope-burned palms in the middle of choreo rehearsals.
A flicker of a voice—soft, teasing. Calling him Captain. Never his name.
He never told the others. Not even Seonghwa, who always noticed too much. What could he even say?
Hey, I think I’m remembering someone I never met in a life I never lived.
So he buried it. Let it become background noise. Let it fade.
And for years it worked.
Until today.
Until that recording.
He didn’t know SEVENTEEN would be on the same schedule, didn’t expect to share a greenroom.
And when they walked in, just a blur of stylists and laughter and familiar faces, he didn’t expect anything.
Until Jeonghan looked at him.
And something inside Hongjoong tilted.
Not recognition.
Something older. Weight.
Like the gravity of a thousand nights at sea pulling him forward again.
Their eyes met.
And Hongjoong forgot what planet he was on.
He didn’t even know he’d said it aloud until he saw the way Jeonghan froze. Just slightly. But it was there.
“Found you.”
Just a whisper.
Just enough.
He turned away before he could see what it did to him.
Now, a day later, Hongjoong lies awake in his studio chair, staring at a file that’s been looping for thirty minutes without progress. Music bleeds through his headphones, but he’s not hearing any of it.
He sees Jeonghan instead.
In a dark hallway, bathed in moonlight that doesn’t belong to this world.
In dreams that weren’t dreams.
In memories that ache when he breathes too deep.
He rubs his wrist absentmindedly. Where the red thread once was.
No. Still is.
He tied it again last year. No reason. Just instinct.
He glances at the corner of the desk.
There, half-buried under lyrics and notebooks, is a sketch he once drew. He hadn’t meant to.
He barely even remembered doing it.
But now he stares at it and feels dizzy.
The boy in the drawing has soft eyes. A crooked smile.
He looks just like Jeonghan.
Hongjoong leans forward slowly, fingers brushing the edge of the paper.
“I’ve seen you before.” he murmurs.
And somewhere, something stirs.
Not quite memory.
Not yet.
But soon.
Day Twenty-Nine: The Space Between
They don’t see each other again for ten days.
Not in person.
Not officially.
But everything lingers.
For Jeonghan, the air tastes different. He wakes from dreams not of storms or shipwrecks, but of waiting... alone on a shore, wind brushing his skin, a compass in his hand that spins whenever he calls out a name he still hasn’t said aloud.
He checks his phone like it might offer coordinates. A message. A sign.
None come.
So he waits.
And lies.
He tells Seungkwan he’s just been reading a lot.
Tells Jisoo he’s been journaling again. That it’s therapeutic.
He smiles when Minghao offers him tea, brushes off the gentle comment, “You’ve been very quiet lately.”
“Don’t I deserve some peace?” Jeonghan says, lighthearted.
But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes anymore. And the tea goes cold in his hands.
Hongjoong stops drawing.
Every time he picks up a pen, it turns into him. Jeonghan.
Not the idol.
The memory.
The dream.
He tries writing lyrics instead, but the metaphors slip: salt, storms, stolen names, red threads pulled taut across centuries.
Yeosang watches him one night in the studio and says carefully, “You’re pacing again.”
“I’m fine.” Hongjoong lies. “Just stuck on a melody.”
He hasn’t written a note in four days.
When San drapes himself across the couch and flips through one of Hongjoong’s old notebooks, he pauses halfway.
“Hongjoong,” he says. “Who’s this?”
It’s the sketch. The one with Jeonghan’s face.
Hongjoong doesn’t even look. “No one.”
San lifts an eyebrow but says nothing more.
Still, that night, Hongjoong tucks the notebook into a drawer and locks it.
He doesn’t know what’s worse... seeing the face he can’t stop dreaming of, or remembering how long he’s been drawing it before he knew who it was.
The dorms of both groups grow restless.
In Seventeen's, the atmosphere shifts like barometric pressure.
“He’s not just tired." Wonwoo says one night, quiet in the kitchen. “He’s elsewhere.”
“He’s eating.” Chan says, but even he sounds uncertain. “He’s showing up.”
“Is he?” Jihoon asks.
And no one answers.
In ATEEZ’s dorm, Wooyoung corners Hongjoong before a late-night meeting.
“You’re spiraling again.” he says bluntly.
Hongjoong blinks. “What?”
“You’re floating through things. Like your body’s here, but your head’s stuck in some... I don’t know. Other lifetime.”
For a split second, Hongjoong thinks he knows.
Thinks he knows exactly where his head has been.
But he just shrugs. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
“You’re lying badly.” Wooyoung says. “If this is about someone... just tell us. We can handle it.”
Hongjoong opens his mouth. Closes it.
Because what would he even say?
I think I loved someone before I had this face. And I think I found him again.
Instead, he says: “It’s nothing.”
And that, more than anything, is what worries Wooyoung.
And still, the compass turns.
Still, the dreams come.
Not violent now, but quiet. Expectant.
Like the world is holding its breath.
Like the sea is about to speak.
Day Thirty-Three: The Night the World Forgot Us
It begins with fire.
Not the comforting kind. Not the glow of lanterns rocking in the ship’s hold or candles lit between lazy grins and salt-kissed promises.
This fire devours.
Smoke blackens the sky. Screams rise from the shore. The air splits with the sound of musket fire and the crash of sails collapsing in the harbor wind.
And Jeonghan is running.
Barefoot. Bloodied. The sand beneath his feet scorched from cannon blasts. His hands are bound behind his back with coarse rope, wrists rubbed raw. He can barely breathe through the gag, but his eyes are wild, searching.
he’s close, he has to be close.
“JEONGHAN!”
The shout cuts through the chaos like a blade.
He whips around just in time to see him, the captain.
No, not just the captain.
Hongjoong.
But it isn’t Hongjoong as he knows him now.
It’s him, in that other life; soaked in rain and blood and desperation, sword drawn and coat flaring like wings as he cuts down the last of the guards holding Jeonghan prisoner.
Their eyes meet through the haze.
And Jeonghan remembers everything.
The first time he stepped aboard the ship.
The first time he stole a kiss under starlight.
The whispered vow: “If they take you from me, I’ll tear the sea apart to find you.”
And this... this was that moment. The moment it all went wrong.
“Go!” Hongjoong shouts. “RUN! I’ll hold them off!”
But Jeonghan doesn’t move.
Because behind them, more are coming.
He sees the blade a second too late.
“NO!”
Hongjoong turns just in time for it to pierce his shoulder. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. Jeonghan screams into the gag, thrashing, as two more men grab him from behind, dragging him backward, into the water, into the waiting rowboat that came not for rescue, but removal.
“Let me GO!” he cries, he can speak now, but no one hears. No one but him.
Hongjoong throws himself forward. Drenched in blood and fury. But he’s slowed. Wounded. Powerless.
“I’ll find you!” he roars, voice breaking. “I swear! Jeonghan, I swear! I’ll find you!”
And Jeonghan watches the captain disappear beneath the chaos, waves swallowing his figure, the smoke pulling a veil between them.
“Don’t forget me.” Jeonghan whispers.
Everything goes black.
They wake at the same time.
Miles apart.
Breathless.
Eyes wide.
And this time, they both remember.
Day Thirty-Four: The Shape of Grief, Carried Alone
The dream ends in silence.
Not peaceful.
Empty.
Jeonghan sits upright in bed, drenched in sweat, pulse thrumming like he just survived a shipwreck, and maybe he did. His hands shake as he reaches for the edge of the mattress, grounding himself in the grain of real wood, not the creaking deck that gave way beneath him in another century.
His body is here. Now.
But his heart is still back there, on that dock, on that night.
Watching the only person who’s ever truly belonged to him disappear into smoke.
Across the city, Hongjoong gasps awake in the studio, hunched over the desk, cheek pressed to unfinished lyrics. His jaw aches from how tightly he must’ve clenched it in his sleep. His chest heaves. The tears come before he can stop them, silent and hot.
He grips the edge of the table until his knuckles go white.
It wasn’t just a dream.
It wasn’t.
He remembers the night they took Jeonghan. Remembers the helplessness. The scream he never got to finish. The wound that scarred deeper than the blade that pierced his side.
He remembers loving him.
Not with the shiny, surface-level sweetness the world puts on postcards, but in the bones of himself. In the rage of a storm, in the stillness after a kiss. In every letter he never sent, written with ink and longing.
He loved Jeonghan until the sea claimed them both.
And now he remembers everything.
The next morning, neither of them speaks.
Jeonghan floats through the SEVENTEEN dorm like a ghost in soft socks. He smiles when he’s spoken to. He eats when food is handed to him. He laughs when Soonyoung begs him to explain what a 'romantic existential crisis aura' looks like.
But no one hears him close the bathroom door, lean over the sink, and whisper to his reflection: “I remember dying for you.”
And worse: “I remember being forgotten.”
Hongjoong says nothing, either.
He buries himself in production notes. He offers the others a tired smile. He even teases Wooyoung for snoring through their practice setlist.
But his hands are clenched beneath the table.
And when San asks him what his next concept idea might be, he almost says Rebirth.
He almost says Time travel.
He almost says What if you remembered the person you loved centuries too late?
Instead, he says, “Pirates. Maybe.”
And no one asks.
They both try to write it down.
Jeonghan, in his worn notebook. Hongjoong, in a blank Word doc titled Unnamed Song. They try to explain it, to themselves, at least.
But the words fall short.
How do you describe a love that spans lifetimes?
How do you prove you once died for someone who now lives in the apartment two floors above you on a music show lineup?
You don’t.
So they hide it.
Because to say it out loud would sound insane.
And yet… the ache in their chest doesn’t lie.
The dreams don’t lie.
The compass still points.
And something inside them knows, they’re not finished.
Not yet.
Day Thirty-Seven: A Message in the Bottle
Jeonghan stares at his screen like it’s breathing.
His fingers hover over the keyboard, shaking just slightly, barely enough to notice, unless you’ve lived in his skin the way he has lately. Dreams clinging to his throat. A memory of a hand that once reached for him through smoke.
It’s just a DM.
He’s sent thousands before.
To sunbaes. To juniors. For collabs. For birthdays. For laughs.
But this?
This isn’t that.
This is the most mundane thing he’s ever done.
And the most terrifying.
The message thread is empty. Just his name and Hongjoong’s at the top. Two verified accounts in the vast digital ocean of the idol world.
He could say anything.
He could say, Do you remember too?
He could say, You said you'd find me.
He could say, I dream about you every night and it feels like a life I never got to live.
But instead, he types a 'hi'.
And stares at it.
Wonders if it’s too much.
Wonders if it’s not enough.
Then hits send.
And immediately turns his phone face down like it might burn him.
His palms are slick. His whole body tight.
And his lips?
Taste like salt.
Not tears.
Not now.
But the sea.
As if somewhere, out in the night, the tide just shifted.
Hongjoong feels it before he hears it.
His phone buzzes once against the edge of his studio desk. He barely glances up until he sees the name on the lockscreen.
jeonghan_seventeen
His fingers still on the keyboard. Music fades into background noise.
He doesn’t open it right away.
He doesn’t have to.
Because just seeing that Jeonghan messaged him, and that’s enough to make his chest go tight, to make his throat close.
He’s here.
He remembers.
The message is just one word.
hi
That’s it.
No punctuation. No explanation. Nothing to grab onto.
But Hongjoong feels it.
He reads it once.
Twice.
And each time, the memory surfaces again; Jeonghan on the deck of his ship, wind in his hair, grinning like he belonged to the sea and to no one else but him.
The Jeonghan who once kissed him and whispered, We’ll find each other again.
And now, in the year 2025, across tangled dreams and lost centuries, Jeonghan is here.
And he’s saying hi.
The message glows softly on Hongjoong’s screen.
A whisper of a word. An opening.
But to him, it feels like a floodgate cracking open.
He reads it again.
And again.
Then locks his phone and sets it aside.
Only to unlock it thirty seconds later, heart in his throat.
Because what if it’s nothing?
What if Jeonghan doesn’t remember the dream, the harbor, the vow? What if he just wanted to say hi? Maybe it’s for a collab. Maybe he just… finally decided to be friendly.
Or maybe this is everything.
Maybe Jeonghan remembers burning.
Maybe he remembers being taken.
Maybe he remembers him.
Hongjoong paces his studio, fingers curled in the hem of his sweatshirt.
He’s not afraid of confrontation. Not of crowds. Not of being vulnerable in lyrics or standing center stage with his heart bleeding into a mic.
But this?
This is different.
This is lifetimes wrapped in a two-letter message.
This is being seen.
He opens the DM.
Stares at the blinking cursor.
Types:
hey
Then deletes it.
Types:
do you remember
Deletes that too.
Swipes back to the profile.
Sees Jeonghan’s latest post. A candid photo of a tree-lined alleyway with no caption.
He wonders when it was taken, wonders if it was after that night, wonders if Jeonghan stood there and thought of him.
His hands shake.
He types again.
I wasn’t sure if I should message you first.
Then stares at it.
Leaves it.
Reads it again.
Still too much?
Or maybe not enough.
He adds:
But I haven’t stopped thinking about that day.
Deletes that day.
Replaces it with:
the dream
His heart is pounding now.
Still too risky?
Still too vague?
He hits send.
Immediately wants to snatch the phone out of the air and throw it into the sea.
But it’s done.
The message sits there on the screen.
Seen.
Unseen.
It doesn’t matter.
He closes his eyes, leans back in his chair, and whispers aloud to the quiet.
“If you remember me... just say so.”
He shouldn’t have checked his phone again.
He’d already done it five times in the last hour, each time pretending he was just checking the time, or the group chat, or that one plant shop page he liked. Nothing more.
But this time... this time there’s a notification.
hongjoong_ateez replied to your message.
No preview.
Just the name.
Jeonghan sits up too fast, heart suddenly jackhammering. His notebook tumbles off his bed and lands open on the floor, pages full of half-remembered maps and dream-scrawled words.
He stares at the screen.
He doesn’t open it.
Not yet.
Not because he’s afraid Hongjoong didn’t reply.
But because he’s afraid that he did.
That everything he’s remembered… was real.
His breath comes shallow. Slow.
And then, carefully, like peeling back something sacred he opens the message.
I wasn’t sure if I should message you first.
But I haven’t stopped thinking about the dream.
He chokes.
Literally chokes.
On air.
Because he said it. The dream.
The one Jeonghan had convinced himself might’ve been some shared delusion. The one he feared he couldn’t explain without sounding like someone who needed to be gently sedated.
But Hongjoong remembers it too.
Not a dream.
The dream.
The night it all ended.
The vow.
The smoke.
The fire.
The pain of being torn away by hands that never cared who they were—just what they were worth.
And now… centuries later…
Hongjoong remembers.
Jeonghan clutches the phone like it’s a lifeline. His other hand covers his mouth as if to hold something in—his heartbeat, his scream, his past.
His eyes blur.
He wants to respond.
He wants to say yes. I remember everything. I’ve missed you across lifetimes. I dream about you like it’s muscle memory.
But all he can do right now is stare.
The message sits on the screen like a flare in the dark.
He doesn’t feel alone anymore.
Just scared.
Because what happens next?
Outside his door, there’s movement—Mingyu yelling down the hall, someone’s music playing too loud.
Life goes on.
But inside his room, time holds its breath.
Jeonghan scrolls up.
Reads his own message.
hi
And below it, Hongjoong’s reply, the truth now sitting between them like a compass needle that finally stopped spinning.
Jeonghan wants to reply.
He needs to.
The words live on the tip of his tongue like a tide barely held back. His fingers twitch toward his phone again and again, each time meaning to say yes or me too or you remembered me.
But life has a cruel habit of calling at the worst time.
Knocking on his door.
“Jeonghan! We need to be out the door in ten!”
He curses under his breath, tucks the phone under his pillow, and grabs his mic pack with a shaky hand.
It’s just a music show, he thinks to himself on the way there.
He’s done it a thousand times.
But now the lights feel brighter. The noise louder. The schedule faster than his heartbeat.
Someone hands him water. Someone else adjusts his collar. He nods, smiles, floats through it all like a ghost in pressed linen.
But inside... inside, he’s standing barefoot on the deck again. Wind in his hair. That voice in his ear saying You were mine.
He doesn’t remember how he got into position.
He just remembers looking into the stage camera, and for one brief second, he sees the sea instead of the crowd.
Still in his studio, Hongjoong stares at his phone screen long after it’s gone dark.
No reply.
And that’s okay.
He tells himself it’s okay.
He tells himself maybe Jeonghan doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe he’s not ready. Or maybe I said too much.
Or worse.
Maybe it wasn’t real for him.
But then he remembers the look in Jeonghan’s eyes when they met backstage.
The way he froze.
Like he’d seen a ghost that didn’t scare him, just wrecked him.
Like he remembered too.
Hongjoong taps the screen once, wakes it up again.
Still no reply.
The others are chatting around him, the usual noise. Yunho trying to stretch in too little space. Jongho humming softly under his breath. Seonghwa offering quiet corrections to the group chat’s typo-laden memes.
And Hongjoong is just… still.
Anchored in silence.
Smiling when they look his way.
But his thoughts are oceans away.
When Jeonghan finally gets back to the dorm, it’s late.
He steps out of the van and the night hits him full in the face; humid, heavy, real.
Not a dream. Not memory.
But the line between them is thinning.
He walks through the front door, hears Seungkwan yelling about ramen and someone already using the bathroom.
Normal.
Safe.
But he moves through it all like a ghost returning to a home that doesn’t know it’s haunted.
Back in his room, he reaches under the pillow, pulls out his phone.
The message still waits.
Still glowing.
Still true.
He exhales.
And though he’s tired, though his day is heavy, he finally types:
I remember too.
But he doesn’t hit send.
Not yet.
He presses the words to his chest.
Just for a moment longer.
Day Thirty-Eight: The Words That Finally Found Him
It’s nearly 2 a.m.
The dorm is quiet. His members are scattered across rooms, half-asleep, half-scrolling, half-mumbling jokes that don’t land because no one’s fully awake.
Jeonghan lies in bed, arms folded over his chest, phone screen dimmed but glowing softly against the ceiling.
The message sits in the box like it has weight.
I remember too.
It’s not poetic. Not clever. Not even dramatic.
But it’s real.
It’s the truth he’s been sitting on since that night—the truth that’s cracked open his dreams, his bones, his whole sense of self.
He’s tired of waiting.
Of pretending.
Of pretending this, whatever this thing between them is, isn’t real.
So with a breath that feels like bracing for cold water, he hits send.
And the world doesn’t end.
But maybe it starts over.
Hongjoong’s phone buzzes once.
He’s brushing his teeth, half-asleep in ATEEZ’s shared bathroom, sleepy playlist humming on the counter beside him.
He glances down mid-rinse, eyes half-lidded.
Until he sees the name.
jeonghan_seventeen
And below it:
I remember too.
He freezes.
Literally freezes.
Toothbrush in mouth. Foam on lip.
Staring at the screen like it just said,You’re not alone anymore.
“Hh—!” He chokes, nearly drops the phone into the sink, flailing to catch it with one hand while not accidentally swallowing a mouthful of mint and destiny.
He manages, barely. Stares again.
The message hasn’t changed.
I remember too.
He leans against the sink, breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, doesn’t even realize the water’s still running.
For a second, he just lets himself feel it.
Not confusion.
Not panic.
But relief.
Like something in the universe just locked back into place.
Down the hall, Yunho blinks at the sound of the faucet still running.
“Hongjoong?”
No answer.
“Hongjoong, are you crying because you used the spicy toothpaste again?”
“Go to sleep.” Hongjoong calls, voice low but shaking.
Yunho pauses and shares a glance with Mingi before they shrug and does just that.
Back in the bathroom, Hongjoong reads the message again.
Just to be sure.
Just to be sure it’s real.
And whispers, barely audible, “You came back to me.”
Day Thirty-Nine: Where No One Can Take Us
This time, there is no fire.
No smoke.
No running.
Just a horizon.
And wind.
Soft, constant, familiar.
The sea stretches out in every direction. Calm. Endless. Painted in the gold-blue light of a sky that never darkens, never burns.
A ship sways gently on the tide, anchored, resting. Its sails are down. Its deck is quiet.
And Jeonghan stands at the bow, barefoot, robe tugged gently by the wind. His hair is longer here, the way it was back then; braided loosely at the sides, salt-kissed and free.
He closes his eyes.
He doesn’t call out.
He doesn’t have to.
The dream brought him here with intent. And it brought both of them.
Footsteps echo behind him, familiar. Unhurried. Certain.
He turns.
And there he is.
The captain.
Hongjoong walks toward him, not in boots or blood or desperation, but barefoot too. Shirt open at the collar, red thread still knotted around his wrist like a promise kept through time.
They stop in front of each other.
Say nothing.
Because what’s left to say?
You found me?
I never stopped looking.
I missed you?
You’re here now.
Instead, Jeonghan reaches out.
Not fast.
Not shaking.
Just real.
And Hongjoong’s hand rises to meet his.
Fingertips to fingertips.
When they touch, the dream ripples; not like a glitch, but like a breath, like the dream itself exhales in relief.
“Is this... ours?” Jeonghan asks quietly.
Hongjoong nods. “Feels like it.”
“No one screaming. No one chasing us.”
“No fire.”
“No goodbye.”
“Not this time.”
Jeonghan steps closer. Their foreheads touch.
And for the first time since that night centuries ago, the silence is peaceful.
Not forced.
Not stolen.
Earned.
They sit side by side at the edge of the ship, feet dangling above calm water, as stars begin to blink alive above them.
No words. Just presence.
The soft creak of wood. The tide kissing the hull. Their shoulders brushing, like a memory rewritten by a better hand.
In the waking world, their bodies lie still in separate dorms.
But for a few precious hours…
They are together.
Where no one can take them.
Day Forty: As If the Sea Brought Us Here
The hallway isn’t on any schedule.
It connects nothing important; just one dusty emergency stairwell to a forgotten side entrance, half-blocked by folded chairs and old signboards from past promotions. A quiet place in a building made of noise.
Which is exactly why they both end up there.
Jeonghan isn’t hiding.
He just needs a moment.
A breath.
The show’s already started. A few performances ahead of SEVENTEEN’s. Just enough time to not think, but of course, that never works anymore.
Not when his heart feels like a compass constantly pulling east.
Not when he can still feel dream-wind in his hair.
Not when he knows.
He leans back against the wall, arms crossed, breathing steady. Waiting for the panic to settle.
It doesn’t.
Because footsteps echo down the hallway.
And before he even looks up, he knows.
Hongjoong rounds the corner, earbuds half-out, hoodie up, lanyard swaying with each step.
He’s holding a bottle of water.
But the moment he sees Jeonghan, he forgets to drink it.
They stop, maybe four paces apart.
The silence crackles.
Not tense.
Not awkward.
Just full. With everything they never got to say.
And both of them know, this isn’t coincidence.
Not anymore.
Hongjoong is the first to speak, voice soft, almost reverent.
“…You’re real.”
Jeonghan huffs a breath; half a laugh, half a sob held in check by willpower alone. “So are you.”
They both smile. Small. Disbelieving.
Then Jeonghan looks down at his hands. “I didn’t know what I’d say, when we finally… met.”
“Same.”
“I thought I’d cry.”
“You still can.” Hongjoong offers gently. “I probably will after this.”
That makes Jeonghan laugh for real, just briefly.
Then the air quiets again.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Hongjoong says, thumb grazing the side of his water bottle like it might help him stay grounded. “Not after… that night.”
“I didn’t think I’d remember.” Jeonghan whispers. “I thought my dreams were just…”
“Lonely?”
Jeonghan nods.
“Mine were, too.” Hongjoong murmurs.
They move at the same time.
No choreography.
No camera.
No audience.
Just two people stepping toward each other because they always were meant to.
When Jeonghan reaches out, Hongjoong meets him halfway; his hand warm, grounding, and familiar.
And in that empty hallway no one uses, the past slips its arms gently around the present and settles.
There’s no kiss. Not yet.
Just their foreheads touching, again.
Eyes closed.
Breathing as one.
And finally...
Home.
They don’t speak for a while.
Not right away.
In that hallway, with soft overhead lights humming and the world a few doors away, Jeonghan and Hongjoong stand close; hands brushing, hearts steadying.
Then slowly, gently, they sit.
Side by side. Shoulders pressed together against the wall, like they used to on the ship’s rail, watching the stars blink awake.
Jeonghan is the first to break the silence.
“You said you’d find me.” he whispers, voice almost childlike.
Hongjoong’s breath catches.
“I did.” he says. “Even when I didn’t know where to look.”
Jeonghan leans his head against Hongjoong’s shoulder. “I thought I was losing my mind. Every time I dreamed of you… I’d wake up and think I made it all up.”
“I started sketching you before I even knew your name.” Hongjoong admits. “Years ago. Before we ever spoke. I thought I was just… inspired.”
“By a face that shouldn’t exist in this lifetime.” Jeonghan murmurs.
“But does.”
Jeonghan exhales, long and deep. The knot in his chest, the one he didn’t know how to name, loosens.
“I’m so tired of hiding it.” he says.
“You don’t have to anymore.”
“Then promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t disappear again.”
Hongjoong reaches over, their pinkies brushing.
“I’d cross every sea again if I had to.”
They don’t need more words.
They just stay there, together.
Unrushed.
Unhidden.
Untangled.
In Seventeen's dressing room, Seungcheol narrows his eyes.
“You notice something’s… different about Jeonghan today?”
Seungkwan immediately sits upright. “Different how? Like concerning-different or healing-crystal-different?”
“Neither. He just looks... lighter.”
Minghao, flipping through his book, glances up. “Like something unburdened.”
“Right?” Jisoo adds. “He was humming during hair and makeup. Real humming, not the evil-plot kind.”
Jun pauses mid-sip. “He finished his whole cup of coffee and didn’t forget where he put it.”
“Is this our Jeonghan or a clone?”
But the joking falls away quickly.
Because deep down, they know.
He’s not pretending.
Not this time.
He’s simply okay.
And for the first time in weeks… so are they.
Meanwhile, in ATEEZ’s van, Yunho says what they’ve all been thinking.
Hongjoong needed to fix something at the studio, so he took a different route.
“Hongjoong's… been smiling again.”
“Not fake-smiling." San clarifies. “Not leader-smiling. Actual-smiling.”
“He answered me the first time I asked about dinner.” Wooyoung adds. “No brooding. No dramatic sighing. No poetic monologue about fate and the cruelty of deadlines.”
Mingi blinks. “He called me kiddo again.”
They all pause.
Then Seonghwa says softly, “He’s been carrying something alone for a long time. Whatever it was… I think he finally set it down.”
No one says more after that.
They don’t have to.
Because they all feel it.
Whatever haunted Hongjoong’s steps...
Whatever he lost, long before he knew it was missing.
It’s returned.
And neither group knows the full story.
Not yet.
But they know this, that their brother has come back to them lighter.
Day Forty-Five: As We Are Now
They don’t plan it like a grand event.
There’s no dramatic reveal. No disguises. No public statements or schedules exchanged through managers.
Just a quiet decision, passed between them in brief messages.
A time.
A place.
Let’s meet.
No cameras.
No dreams.
No ghosts.
Just them.
They choose a park on the edge of the city.
It’s not famous. No fountains or statues. Just worn footpaths, lazy trees, and a pond that reflects the sky like it’s trying to remember what flying felt like.
Jeonghan arrives first.
No makeup. Hair tied loosely. Sunglasses tucked into the collar of his hoodie. He sits on a bench overlooking the water, hands folded in his lap.
When he hears footsteps behind him, his heart stutters.
But he doesn’t turn.
He knows.
The bench dips as Hongjoong sits beside him, careful, like the moment might break.
They don’t speak right away.
Not because there’s nothing to say, but because the quiet feels good now.
For the first time in weeks, they’re not holding their breath.
Because the dreams have finally stopped.
No storms.
No screams.
No parting.
Only silence.
Peaceful, deep silence.
The kind you get after you’re found.
“Hi.” Jeonghan says finally, glancing sideways with a soft smile.
Hongjoong grins. “Hi.”
It feels like the beginning of something; not a return, not a recovery.
But a choice.
They talk.
About little things first.
Favorite coffee shops. Stupid childhood injuries. Who cries at dog commercials. They both do.
They trade stories of messy dorm kitchens and forgotten choreography and how no one ever tells you how weird it is to live in a house with multiple other men and three rice cookers.
Jeonghan’s laugh comes easy now. Hongjoong watches it light across his face like dawn.
Then the conversation turns.
Naturally.
Gently.
Into deeper things.
“What scared you the most?” Hongjoong asks.
“In the dreams?” Jeonghan looks down, picks at a thread on his sleeve. “That I was remembering something no one else ever would. That it would just live in me, and fester.”
Hongjoong nods.
“I was afraid I made you up.” he admits. “That I loved someone who never existed. Or worse... who existed and forgot me.”
Jeonghan turns to him. “I never forgot you. Even when I thought I did.”
Their fingers brush between them on the bench, then intertwine.
They sit until the sun shifts, golden and soft, brushing across their joined hands like the world is blessing this reunion.
Neither of them rushes it.
They’re not racing to be what they were.
They’re learning what it means to be who they are now; what remains after all the storms, all the silence, all the centuries.
And the most surprising part?
It’s easy.
Like their hearts remembered how to beat beside one another without needing to be told.
When Jeonghan finally stands, Hongjoong follows.
They don’t say goodbye.
“Text me when you get home.”
“Let’s do this again.”
And the smallest, quietest promise:
“I want to know you.”
All over again.
That night, they both sleep through the night for the first time in weeks.
No dreams.
No ocean.
Just peace.
Day Fifty-Five: The Softness That Grows Between
Time doesn’t stop.
But it slows, just a little, when they’re together.
Not enough to break reality. Just enough to catch their breath.
There are no official dates.
Just moments that feel like they belong to no one else.
Late night walks with masks and hoodies and one set of footsteps always falling slightly behind, then beside.
Studio visits 'for inspiration' that turn into silent companionship, Jeonghan curled on the couch sketching flowers in a notebook while Hongjoong mixes vocals, glancing back every so often, just to make sure he’s still there.
Phone calls with no pressure to talk. The sound of the other person breathing is enough.
A text from Jeonghan:
Can’t sleep. The city’s too loud tonight.A reply from Hongjoong:
I’m here.
And somehow… that’s enough.
Sometimes, Jeonghan watches Hongjoong when he isn’t looking; fingers dancing across the MIDI controller, brows furrowed in focus, and thinks: You’ve always been like this. Even when we lived on the water, you made music out of silence.
And Hongjoong?
He watches Jeonghan laugh with his members, soft and real now, the weight behind his smile gone; and thinks: This is what you look like when the grief doesn’t own you anymore.
They’re still learning each other.
Still fumbling with this new shape.
But the beauty is in the trying.
Because neither of them is running anymore.
And still... they don’t tell anyone.
Not because they’re afraid.
But because it’s theirs.
A world made of whispered moments and brushed hands, rebuilt quietly from the remnants of a past no one else remembers.
But love, even the quiet kind, always leaks light.
And eventually… someone sees.
It starts small.
A missed group meal. An excuse too casually made.
“Jeonghan's with friends.” Seungkwan parrots, unconvinced, eyes narrowing.
The second time it happens, Jisoo watches Jeonghan unlock his phone with a smile so private, so unguarded, it startles him.
He doesn’t ask.
But he notes it.
Then there’s Hongjoong.
San finds him humming a melody that sounds strangely familiar.
When he asks, Hongjoong shrugs. “Old idea.”
But he smiles, just barely, at nothing.
The moment it clicks is quieter than it should be.
Seonghwa walks past the open door to the studio, sees a flash of long sleeves and long hair.
Jeonghan.
He's seated on the couch, head tilted back, asleep.
Hongjoong sits across from him, laptop in his lap, the room filled with soft ambient loops and dim light.
He’s not working.
He’s watching.
Not with urgency.
Not with hunger.
But with the gentle awe of someone who once lost the stars and found them again in human form.
Seonghwa doesn’t interrupt.
Doesn’t tease.
He just smiles, quiet, and warm.
And walks on.
Because whatever this is, whatever they’re building, it’s healing them.
And that’s enough.
Day Sixty-Eight: Keep What Heals You
It happens on separate days.
Different cities. Different hours.
But somehow, the feeling is the same.
Jeonghan’s sitting with his members in the living room after a long shoot. Not many words pass between them—just snacks passed around, the hum of the air conditioner, someone half-singing along to the TV.
And still, it feels different.
Lighter.
Peaceful.
There’s no tension in Jeonghan’s shoulders. No guarded glances at his phone, no sharp retorts just to deflect affection. He laughs softly when Chan kicks his foot. Refills Mingyu’s drink without being asked. Sinks into the cushions like someone who trusts the ground not to disappear.
It’s noticeable.
Finally, Seungcheol clears his throat.
He doesn’t look at Jeonghan when he says it.
He just says it out loud, like he’s been holding it for days.
“You seem… okay lately.”
Jeonghan blinks. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Not ‘fine.’ Not ‘surviving.’ Actually okay.”
Jeonghan doesn’t answer right away. Just breathes in, then out.
“Yeah.” he says quietly. “I think I am.”
He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t need to.
Because Minghao, who’s watching him carefully, just nods.
And Seungkwan adds, “I don’t know what changed. But… it suits you.”
Jun grins. “If it’s a secret, don’t tell us. We’ll ruin it.”
And Jisoo, leaning back with arms folded, “Whatever it is… keep it.”
Jeonghan’s smile starts slow. Small.
But it doesn’t stop.
“Okay.” he says, voice barely a whisper. “I will.”
The van is quiet.
They're on the road after a long day, city lights spilling over windows in hazy reflections.
Hongjoong sits in the back corner seat, earbuds in but no music playing. Just staring out the window, a small smile tugging at the edge of his mouth like something sacred lives in the memory he’s holding.
It’s Wooyoung who says it first.
“You’ve been glowing lately.”
Hongjoong turns his head, one brow raised.
“Glowing?”
“Like… sunshine from the inside.” San mutters, flipping through photos. “Don’t make it weird.”
Yunho grins. “Seriously. You seem less tired. More… like yourself.”
There’s a pause.
Hongjoong doesn’t deny it.
He could joke, could deflect, but instead he lets out a breath and says, “Yeah. I think I’ve been carrying less.”
The van goes quiet again, but it’s comfortable.
Then Seonghwa turns slightly in his seat and glances back.
“Whatever’s helping you… it feels like peace.”
Hongjoong looks at him.
And for once, doesn’t look away.
Seonghwa adds, with a soft smile, “Don’t let it go.”
Hongjoong holds their gazes, one by one.
And nods.
“I won’t.”
Later, when he gets home, his phone lights up with a message.
jeonghan:
I told them I’m okay. They didn’t even ask who. Just said to keep it.
hongjoong:
Mine said the same.hongjoong:
We must really be that obvious.jeonghan:
Not obvious. Just free.
Day Seventy-Two: The Compass Never Lied
It arrives without a name.
Wrapped in soft cloth, slipped inside a padded envelope that looks like a thousand other packages ATEEZ receives weekly; gifts from fans, props from stylists, lyric scribbles from producers.
But this one… this one feels different.
Hongjoong nearly tosses it onto the studio table without a second thought.
Until he sees what’s scrawled in small, deliberate handwriting on the corner of the label:
“This felt like it wasn’t mine to keep.”
No signature, just that.
His hands still.
He sets everything else aside, carefully opens the wrapping and beneath the folds of cloth is the compass.
The compass.
The one from the dreams.
The one he wore around his neck for years in another lifetime, stained with salt and soot and promise.
It’s aged now, weathered even more than memory allowed. A small crack through the brass casing. Faded engravings around the edges. But the needle still spins once… then stops.
Fixed.
Unmoving.
Pointing east.
Except... it’s not pointing to magnetic north. Never did.
It’s pointing to Jeonghan.
Always has.
Hongjoong stares at it in his palm, breath caught in his throat.
He turns in a slow circle.
The needle doesn’t follow.
It remains fixed, as if the compass has no interest in pretending it's normal.
Just like him.
He sinks slowly into his studio chair, elbows on his knees, compass tight in his hands.
And smiles.
Wide.
Soft.
Like coming home again.
Later, he sends one message.
Just one.
hongjoong:
It still points to you.
Jeonghan sees it and replies:
jeonghan:
Back then… when they tore us apart—
I kept it.
Because it was the only piece of you I couldn’t bear to lose.
Another beat.
jeonghan:
Even when I forgot everything else… I think my heart still remembered what it meant.
That night, they don’t meet in dreams.
They don’t have to.
The compass has done its job.
Day Seventy-Four: You Always Said It Was Broken
They meet again, this time somewhere new.
A corner café that smells like cinnamon and fresh bread, tucked into a quiet side street where no one looks too closely and the noise of the world doesn’t quite reach.
They sit at a window table, drinks forgotten, fingers curled around warm mugs.
Their conversation is soft. Full of long pauses and careful looks.
They talk about art. About how Hongjoong’s been sampling ocean sounds again. About how Jeonghan tried to grow thyme on his windowsill and forgot to water it twice, then apologized to the plant.
They laugh, gently.
Hongjoong reaches into his jacket and places the compass on the table between them.
It lands with a soft clink of brass against ceramic woodgrain.
Jeonghan goes still.
His eyes lock onto it like it’s a ghost made solid.
The compass.
Their compass.
The one from the ship, from the cabin drawe, from the day they promised, “If we ever lose each other, follow this. It’ll lead you home.”
He doesn’t speak.
Not at first.
Just reaches out slowly.
Thumb brushes over the casing, the small crack, the faded etchings time couldn’t erase.
And the needle, just like always, spins once.
Then stops.
Pointing directly at him.
He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“Back then, you always said it was broken.”
Hongjoong smiles.
A little sad. A little awed.
“Maybe it never was.” he murmurs. “Maybe we just didn’t know where we were, yet.”
Jeonghan swallows hard.
His fingers curl protectively around the compass, like muscle memory.
“I used to hold it like this.” he says. “Every night after you were gone. Like I thought it might pulse or heat up or whisper something. It never did.”
“It didn’t know how to find me.” Hongjoong whispers.
“No.” Jeonghan says, voice trembling now. “It was always pointing to you. I just didn’t remember how to look.”
They sit there a long while, hands touching the compass together.
And for the first time, the object between them is no longer a memory.
It’s a proof.
That they weren’t wrong. That the dreams weren’t madness. That love, real love, can outlive time and fire and forgetting.
That something so small could survive everything.
And lead them back.
Day Seventy-Eight: What You Carry
Hongjoong doesn’t usually leave it out.
The compass, ever since it returned, has stayed close; slipped into jacket pockets, tucked beneath shirts, resting on his studio desk only when the door is locked and the lights are low.
But tonight, he forgets.
Just for a moment.
A rush between rehearsals, his hoodie flung onto the couch as he swaps shirts and towels sweat from his face.
He doesn’t notice that the chain catches. That it slides free.
That it lands in the open.
“Well, that’s new.”
Hongjoong turns.
Yeosang stands just inside the dressing room, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the small, gleaming object sitting next to Hongjoong’s phone.
The compass.
Yeosang steps closer, not touching it, just tilting his head slightly.
“You really leaning into the pirate thing now?” he says, one brow raised, half-amused. “Should we start calling you Captain Joong?”
Hongjoong snorts under his breath.
Grabs the compass gently, tucking it back beneath his shirt like it’s fragile.
“Maybe I always was.” he replies. “Just… didn’t have the ship yet or everything else.”
Yeosang eyes him for a second longer.
Not suspicious.
Not judgmental.
Just curious. Familiar.
“You’ve seemed more… anchored lately.”
That one hits, not hard but deep.
Hongjoong doesn’t answer right away.
Just finishes drying his face, shrugs back into his clean shirt, runs a hand through his damp hair.
“You’re not gonna ask?” he finally murmurs.
Yeosang shrugs. “If it’s something you needed to lose before you could find it again, then it’s not mine to question.”
He’s already turning to leave when he adds, almost as an afterthought, “Just… maybe don’t let anyone take it from you this time.”
The door clicks behind him.
And Hongjoong just stands there for a while.
Fingers brushing the warm outline beneath his shirt.
Heart beating steady.
Anchored.
Day Eighty: That Song Was Never on the Charts
It starts the way most things do with Jeonghan; casually, unassuming, and in between takes.
They’re filming a segment and the members are scattered around the set in varying degrees of rest, snack-hunting, or mild chaos.
Jeonghan’s sitting cross-legged on a prop barrel, sipping iced tea, idly scrolling through his phone when he starts humming.
Not loud.
Just a soft, looping thread of melody under his breath.
Happy.
Playful.
With something vaguely… seafaring in it. A lilt, a swing, like it belongs with creaking wood beneath boots and a horizon stretching out ahead.
It winds and turns, repeating and then shifting just slightly, as if he’s rediscovering it note by note.
He doesn’t realize he’s doing it, but the others do.
“Hey.” Seungkwan says, brows furrowed. “What song is that?”
Jeonghan blinks up. “Hm?”
“That thing you’re humming. What is it? Sounds familiar but… not.”
Jeonghan pauses, listens to himself and then shrugs, nonchalant. “Just something stuck in my head, I think.”
Mingyu squints. “It’s not ours, right? It’s not a Seventeen thing?”
“Definitely not." Jihoon mutters, arms crossed. “I’d know if I wrote that.”
“You sure?” Hansol asks. “Kinda sounds like… I don’t know, like a musical theme? A soundtrack or something?”
“No.” Jisoo says slowly. “It feels older.”
He doesn’t elaborate but he watches Jeonghan for a moment longer than necessary.
Because it’s the first time in weeks Jeonghan’s looked this easy. This light. Humming something like a heartbeat unburdened.
And whatever it is, it doesn’t feel borrowed.
It feels like his.
Later that night, Jeonghan walks the long way home. Hoodie pulled up, mask on. City lights stretched across puddles on the pavement.
He hums again.
Just to himself.
That tune.
He doesn’t know where it came from.
Not in this life, anyway.
But it feels like something from the ship.
From laughter on deck. From stolen moments in the captain’s quarters. From dancing barefoot after storms because they were still alive.
It feels like home.
He pulls out his phone.
Opens his messages.
Types:
jeonghan:
Did you ever used to sing on the ship?
A moment passes.
Then:
hongjoong:
Only for you. Why?
Jeonghan grins.
jeonghan:
I think I remember a song.hongjoong:
Hum it next time we meet.jeonghan:
Already did.
Day Eighty-Three: We Were Always Writing the Same Song
It happens on a studio night like any other.
Quiet.
Late.
The kind of hour where the city thins out and even the traffic sounds drowsy. Hongjoong sits at the mixing board, one earbud in, half-scrolling through folders, half-tapping notes into his phone.
He almost doesn’t hear the door open.
But he doesn’t flinch when it does.
Because it’s him.
Jeonghan slips in without a word. Hoodie loose, hair tied back, a drink in each hand.
Hongjoong takes one gratefully.
“Bribery now?” he teases.
Jeonghan smirks. “You’re easier to talk to when you’re caffeinated.”
They sit.
No rush.
No scripts.
Just them.
At some point, Jeonghan glances at the keyboard.
Then at Hongjoong.
Then asks, “Can I…?”
“Always.” Hongjoong says.
So Jeonghan stands, crosses to the keys, and doesn’t sit. Just hovers his fingers for a second, like asking permission from something older than the room.
And then he hums it.
That same tune.
Winding. Warm. Sea-salted.
Like it’s been echoing in his ribs since long before this life began.
Hongjoong freezes, not because it’s unfamiliar, but because it’s the same.
The same melody he’s been chasing in his head for weeks. The same one that showed up in his dreams once, faint as a whisper, before the dreams fell silent.
And worse, he knows the words.
He’s already written them.
Without realizing what they were.
Without knowing who they were for.
He stands slowly, walks to the drawer near the mixing desk, and pulls out a small black notebook.
He flips it open, and hands it to Jeonghan, heart in his throat.
Jeonghan reads.
Eyes scan over soft, unpolished verses.
Gentle lines.
A promise disguised as a lullaby.
When the sea forgets my name,
sing me home again.
When the stars drift out of reach,
you’ll be my north, my east.
He looks up.
“You wrote this?”
“I thought it was just a poem.” Hongjoong says, voice quiet. “Or something my hands remembered without telling me.”
Jeonghan hums again, softer now, under his breath.
And this time, Hongjoong joins him.
The harmony slides in effortlessly, like muscle memory, like the echo finally finding its source.
Their voices aren’t perfect. The melody shifts. The pitch wavers.
But the song?
The song is whole.
The room holds its breath around them.
Two past selves becoming present.
Two hearts that once shouted across oceans, now in tune.
They stop singing.
Silence settles.
And then Jeonghan says, blinking quickly, “I think we just finished a song that never got to exist.”
“It existed,” Hongjoong says softly, “just not in this world.”
Day Eighty-Five: Just for Us
They don’t plan to record it, not at first.
It’s just meant to be a moment; a shared breath in music, a memory dressed in melody.
But after the second time they sing it together, and the harmony slides in smoother than it should, Hongjoong looks up from the keyboard and says, voice low,
“Do you want to keep it?”
Jeonghan blinks.
“I thought I already did.”
Hongjoong huffs a soft laugh, nodding once.
“Let’s make it real.”
The setup is fast.
No big mic rigs. No full booth.
Just Hongjoong’s studio, dim-lit and warm.
Two chairs, one mic.
An instrumental looped softly from the laptop, half-built but good enough to hold their voices.
They sit close, not out of necessity, but because it feels right.
Because this isn’t about precision.
It’s about truth.
And when Jeonghan hums the opening again, Hongjoong comes in right on cue, voice gentler than any verse he's ever written for broadcast.
They take it slow.
Line by line.
Repeating when their laughter gets in the way, or when the harmony slips because Jeonghan raises an eyebrow at the wrong time.
But it never feels wrong.
Not once.
It feels like stitching something back together that never should’ve been torn.
Like giving shape to something that always wanted to be heard.
The chorus, soft and salt-kissed, hangs in the air like mist over water.
When the sea forgets my name,
sing me home again.
When the stars drift out of reach,
you’ll be my north, my east.
When they finish, neither of them moves for a long time.
The last notes fade.
The city outside keeps moving but inside the studio, the only sound is their breathing; slow and steady and together.
Jeonghan’s the one who finally speaks.
“Are you going to mix it?”
Hongjoong shakes his head.
“No.”
Jeonghan tilts his head. “No?”
“No edits. No mastering. No posting.”
He leans back in his chair, glancing at the screen where the waveform waits.
“This… is just for us.”
Jeonghan smiles.
Slow and sure.
“Good.”
Later, Hongjoong names the file “The Compass Song.”
He drags it into a locked folder no one else can access.
And backs it up in three places.
Just in case.
Because some songs aren’t meant to be heard.
Some are just meant to be kept.
Day Eighty-Six: The Ring That Waited
He hadn’t meant to go in.
The antique store was barely noticeable; wedged between a stationery shop and a closed café, its windows fogged and cluttered with chipped porcelain and time-worn books.
But something tugged at him.
Not a voice. Not a dream.
Just a pull.
Like the compass, but gentler.
So he stepped inside.
The air inside smelled like dust and sandalwood.
Quiet, warm, a little like the past was holding its breath.
No music. No chime on the door.
Just rows of glass cases and wooden shelves, each carrying someone else’s story.
Jeonghan wandered.
Let his fingers drift along the backs of old chairs, over rows of faded postcards and watch faces too delicate to tick anymore.
And then he saw it.
In a low velvet tray near the back of the shop, under dim amber lighting.
A ring.
Simple.
Gold band.
One red jewel, oval-cut.
Topaz maybe. Maybe garnet. It flickered in the light like fire caught in wine.
Jeonghan went still.
His breath left him all at once.
Because this wasn’t recognition like “Oh, I’ve seen something like this.”
This was “I’ve worn this. I held it. Someone gave it.”
His fingers trembled when he reached for it.
He slipped it on.
It fit perfectly.
Like it never left.
He bought it without thinking, didn’t ask where it came from, and didn’t haggle.
Just pressed the bills into the shopkeeper’s hand and walked out into the soft drizzle like he was sleepwalking.
That night, he didn’t message Hongjoong right away.
He just sat with it, stared at the way the ring caught the lamplight in his room.
Then, slowly, he opened their message thread.
jeonghan:
Does this look familiar?
He attached a photo.
His hand. The ring. Nothing posed, just honest.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then three.
hongjoong:
That’s mine.
Another pause.
hongjoong:
I gave it to you the night before we left the last harbor.jeonghan:
And you said...hongjoong:
“If the sea takes me first, bury it on shore. But if I come back, wear it again.”
Jeonghan swallowed hard.
jeonghan:
You came back.
Day Eighty-Eight: Something About That Ring
The members don’t pry, not really.
They’re older now.
They’ve learned that Jeonghan shares what he wants to when he’s ready, but even so, they notice.
Because Jeonghan’s always preferred bracelets. Anklets, sometimes. Thin chains with delicate charms, things that drape and dangle.
That move.
Rings?
Not really his thing.
Too stiff. Too fussy. Too obvious.
But lately…
There’s a ring on his finger.
Gold.
Set with a deep red stone that seems to shimmer differently depending on the light; sometimes bright like fire, sometimes wine-dark like a sunset slipping beneath the sea.
He wears it on his right hand.
Third finger.
Always.
It shows up during rehearsal first.
He’s stretching, leaning into the mirror when Chan squints and says, “Is that new?”
Jeonghan glances down at his hand. “Hmm?”
“The ring.”
“Oh.” He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Yeah. Picked it up a while ago.”
Wonwoo tilts his head. “You don’t usually wear rings.”
“I know.” Jeonghan rolls his wrist, letting the light catch on it. “This one feels… different.”
No one says anything for a moment.
Then Seungkwan, folding his towel, says carefully:
“Well. It suits you.”
Later, during hair and makeup, Jisoo studies the ring again.
He doesn’t ask.
He just watches Jeonghan absently turn it around his finger like a ritual.
The motion is slow. Familiar.
Like he’s done it before, centuries ago.
He smiles to himself and says gently, “Looks like it’s been yours a long time.”
Jeonghan meets his gaze in the mirror.
Doesn’t confirm. Doesn’t deny.
Just smiles.
“I think it has.”
They don’t bring it up again but they start giving him more room, somehow. Softer wake-up calls. Quieter nights.
Lingering glances that say whatever changed you, it’s okay. We’re just glad you’re here.
Because sometimes love doesn’t need explanation.
Sometimes it just is.
And Jeonghan?
He doesn’t take the ring off.
Not once.
Day Ninety: The Ring Still Fits
They meet again in the city, same quiet rhythm as before.
No big plans.
Just a slow walk after dusk, the kind where conversation isn't necessary and silence feels like music.
They stop at a small rooftop café. Private. Hidden. All string lights and ivy and warm wood.
Jeonghan orders for both of them, he remembers what Hongjoong likes now.
Hongjoong watches him, watches the way his hand lifts the menu.
The way his fingers rest against the edge of the table.
And there it is.
Not just imagined. Not just in a photo.
The ring.
Worn like it was never taken off.
He stares a second longer than he means to and Jeonghan catches him.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he raises his hand and turns it palm-up between them. like an offering. Like a memory placed gently back into the hands that gave it.
“You always said it looked better on me.” he murmurs.
Hongjoong swallows.
His voice is softer than he meant it to be: “I did.”
His fingers brush over Jeonghan’s.
Not grabbing.
Just tracing the curve of the gold, the warm glint of the stone in the candlelight.
“It was supposed to be temporary.” he says after a pause. “I gave it to you because I didn’t think we’d have time.”
“We didn’t.”
They both go still.
The weight of that truth sits between them.
And then Jeonghan lifts his gaze and says, “But we have it now.”
Hongjoong nods.
He doesn’t ask where Jeonghan found it, doesn’t ask how.
Because the sea has its ways of returning what it owes.
And Jeonghan, wearing this old promise like it never broke, feels more like home than anything ever has.
Later, when they’re walking again, Hongjoong reaches over and takes Jeonghan’s hand.
Not for the first time in this life.
But maybe for the first time without any weight between them.
No more dreams clawing for attention.
No more memories too sharp to touch.
Just skin against skin.
Ring against pulse.
And Hongjoong, smiling quietly to himself, thinking:
It still fits.
Day Ninety-One: A Life Made Whole
The dream comes again but this time, it’s not storm or silence or pain.
It’s sunlight.
Warm, golden, stretching across worn wood and salt-washed sails.
The ship is exactly as they remember her; majestic, creaking gently beneath them, the sea calm and endless.
Jeonghan leans against the railing, wind tugging at his hair, that red-gold ring catching the sun.
Across the deck, the captain watches him.
Not just watches, grins.
One hand on the helm, the other lazily tipping his hat, pirate Captain Hongjoong looks far too smug for someone steering with one eye on his love.
Then, he winks.
A full, shameless wink.
Jeonghan laughs. Wide, radiant, eyes crinkling in delight.
“You’re not as charming as you think you are, you know.”
Captain Hongjoong saunters over. “You’re still wearing the ring. I think I’m exactly as charming as I think I am.”
They stand together at the bow.
Below them, the waves stretch into forever.
And for the first time in this dream, there is no goodbye hanging in the air.
Just presence. Just peace.
Jeonghan leans against him.
“I think we made it.” he whispers.
Captain Hongjoong brushes a kiss to his temple and answers, “We never sank. Just… took the long way back.”
The next day, they’re walking down a quiet hallway after a recording session.
No disguises.
No crowds.
Just dim lights and the hush of studio after-hours.
Jeonghan’s hand finds Hongjoong’s without thought.
Their fingers intertwine.
Easy. Familiar. Right.
It’s then that someone rounds the corner.
Yunho freezes, wide-eyed for a moment, halfway through a sentence meant for Hongjoong.
And from behind him, Jisoo appears, blinking at the same scene.
No one panics.
Jeonghan doesn’t pull away.
Hongjoong doesn’t hide.
Yunho’s lips twitch upward. Just a little.
Jisoo lets out a soft exhale, like he’d been waiting for something to settle.
“Well,” Jisoo says, “that explains the songs.”
Yunho grins. “And the smiling. And the humming. And the disappearing during breaks.”
They say nothing else.
No teasing.
No questions.
Just two people who care, recognizing something good when they see it.
As they walk ahead, Yunho glances back over his shoulder and calls:
“Whatever this is, keep it.”
Hongjoong and Jeonghan share a look.
Something ancient and brand-new shining in their eyes.
And behind them, their joined hands swing gently.
A quiet promise.
Made once on the sea.
Kept now on land.
Day Ninety-Four: Just Us, This Time
They debated.
A group trip, maybe.
Seventeen and ATEEZ together; chaotic, loud, joyful. Jeonghan could already hear Seungkwan’s screaming over sunblock and see San dragging four surfboards no one asked for. It would’ve been fun. Beautiful, even.
But when Hongjoong asked, soft and almost shy,
“Should we go first? Just us?”
Jeonghan didn’t hesitate, he just smiled, and nodded.
“Yeah. Just us.”
They leave early.
Before the city wakes.
The car ride is filled with half-asleep humming and old playlists, their hands tangled between them on the center console. No rush. No schedule.
The beach they choose is small, tucked far down the coast. Not touristy. The kind of place the sea still claims for itself.
When they arrive, they don’t speak for a moment.
Just take it in.
The ocean stretching wide before them, waves rolling in like breath, the sand still cool under their shoes.
Jeonghan’s the first to move.
He kicks off his sandals, steps forward, and lets the tide rush over his feet.
The cold makes him gasp.
And laugh.
Hongjoong joins him.
They walk along the shore for a while, not saying much. Just the soft squelch of sand and the ocean murmuring at their sides.
Eventually, they sit on a washed-up log, facing the sea.
Hongjoong pulls out his sketchpad. Jeonghan tugs out a half-eaten bag of dried mango.
It’s quiet.
But not empty.
It’s full.
Of shared glances.
Of wind tangling through their hair.
Of Jeonghan’s ring catching the light and Hongjoong’s notebook fluttering in the breeze.
At some point, Jeonghan leans into him, resting his head on Hongjoong’s shoulder.
“You know.” he says, “I don’t remember the shore ever being this quiet. Back then, it was always filled with shouting and sails and shouting about sails.”
Hongjoong chuckles. “You used to curse every time you got sand in your boots.”
“I still do.”
He nudges Hongjoong playfully.
Then adds, softer, “But I like this. No boots. No ship. Just this.”
Hongjoong nods, eyes still on the sea.
“Feels like we’ve earned the quiet.”
Jeonghan hums. “We drowned once for this.”
“And came back.”
Their hands find each other again.
No fanfare.
No need for proof.
Just skin against skin, pulse against pulse.
And the sea before them, eternal.
That evening, they watch the sun melt into the horizon.
No one else around.
Jeonghan reaches into the sand, picks up a small, rounded piece of sea glass.
He holds it up to the light.
It glows red.
Hongjoong glances over.
“Looks like your ring,” he says.
Jeonghan smiles, places it gently in Hongjoong’s palm.
“Then keep it. You should have something from this life, too.”
They stay until the stars come out.
Two souls who once braved the sea and lost everything.
Now returned.
Not to finish the story, but to start a new one.
Together.
Day Ninety-Eight: Over Dinner, Finally
It takes three weeks, two label coordinators, and more than one Google Sheet to make it happen, but it happens.
A private room in a lowkey traditional restaurant, booked out just for them. No press. No stylists. No staff.
Just Seventeen and ATEEZ.
Twenty-one chairs. Two long tables. Steaming dishes passed around. A clatter of chopsticks. The warm scent of grilled meat and sesame oil thick in the air.
The energy is loud, as expected.
The moment they’re all in the room, it’s chaos in the best way. Minghao trading barbs with Wooyoung, San dramatically praising Seungkwan’s skin routine, Jihoon and Hongjoong caught in quiet but deadly conversation about tempo layering like it’s a duel.
Jeonghan watches it all unfold with his chin propped in one hand.
There’s so much laughter, and so much love.
But also... glances.
More than once, a member from either side looks between him and Hongjoong.
Nothing suspicious. Nothing invasive.
Just… noticing.
It’s Seungcheol who says it; not blunt, or dramatic.
Just a low murmur, when the table’s paused long enough for the grill to be refilled.
“You two.” he says, glancing between Jeonghan and Hongjoong. “You look different lately.”
Not accusatory. Just… curious.
And next to him, Yunho adds quietly, “Not a bad different.”
It’s enough.
Jeonghan doesn’t shift.
He just reaches over, slow and deliberate, and rests his hand on Hongjoong’s knee beneath the table.
Their eyes meet for half a second.
And then Jeonghan says, clearly, “We’re together.”
A small silence follows.
Not heavy.
Just surprised.
Hongjoong adds, a little sheepishly, “We’ve… always kind of been.”
“Not publicly,” Jeonghan clarifies, “but... real.”
So real that time couldn’t undo it.
So real that their dreams couldn’t stop reminding them.
So real that the world had to bend a little to make room for them again.
Someone exhales softly.
Then Mingyu says, “I mean… yeah. That tracks.”
Yeosang nods, smiling faintly. “It explains the compass.”
“What compass?” Hansol whispers.
“Nothing,” Jeonghan and Hongjoong say in perfect unison.
And that breaks the tension completely.
Everyone laughs—real laughter, the kind that slips into old breathless wheezing and “oh my god stop” hand-waving.
No drama. No questions.
Just congratulations. Support. Some good-natured teasing from Wooyoung, of course.
”So when’s the pirate-themed comeback, huh?”
And Seungkwan murmuring later, over dessert, “I’m happy for you, Jeonghan. You… you seem lighter.”
Jeonghan smiles at him.
Soft.
Grateful.
“I am.”
Later that night, as everyone filters out into the cool street air, Hongjoong catches Jeonghan’s hand and laces their fingers together.
This time, he doesn’t let go.
And neither of their groups even blink at it.
Because sometimes family doesn’t need the whole story.
Sometimes, they just need to see you happy—so they can say:
Keep it.
Day One Hundred and One: Magnetic
Dinner is loud.
Which means Wooyoung is thriving.
He’s been bouncing between Minghao and Seungkwan for the past half hour, arguing over nothing, stealing bites off other people’s plates, and somehow managing to have a full side conversation with Yeosang over eye contact alone.
But he’s also observant.
Always has been.
So when Hongjoong shifts in his seat, hoodie riding up slightly, and something shiny and familiar peeks out from the pocket—
Wooyoung pauses.
It’s a compass.
Not just a decorative one. Not a cheap keychain souvenir. It’s old—brass and worn, with a thin crack down the face like it’s been through something.
And the needle?
Isn’t drifting.
It’s pointing directly at the other end of the table.
Straight at Jeonghan.
Wooyoung squints.
Tilts his head.
Watches as Hongjoong sets the compass briefly on the edge of the table without thinking, distracted by something San is saying.
The needle doesn’t waver.
Not even a twitch.
Still pointing straight.
Right.
At.
Jeonghan.
Wooyoung blurts, “Okay, is that thing broken or does it just like him more than the rest of us?”
Jeonghan, mouth full of rice, glances up.
Hongjoong freezes.
The table goes still for half a beat.
And Jeonghan, without missing a beat, swallows, grins, and says, “I must be magnetic.”
It lands perfectly.
The whole table bursts into laughter.
Mingyu nearly chokes on his drink.
Yeosang claps his hand over his mouth.
Even Jihoon chuckles, shaking his head.
“Jeonghan,” Wooyoung wheezes, pointing accusingly, “you can’t say that like it’s nothing. I’m never Hongjoong'sjewelry again.”
“It’s not jewelry,” Hongjoong says under his breath, too low for most to hear.
But Jeonghan hears.
And his fingers curl just slightly in his lap—his ring catching the light, as if in quiet agreement.
Wooyoung drops it after that.
He doesn’t need the story.
But later, while tossing wrappers into a trash bag, he catches Hongjoong’s eye and mouths:
"So it really only points at him?"
Hongjoong just nods.
Once.
Wooyoung nods back, dramatically solemn.
Then, just as dramatically, he salutes.
“Captain.”
Day One Hundred and Five: Where the Water Finds Them
It starts like all chaotic plans do with someone yelling in the group chat at 1 a.m.
mingyu:
beach trip.
no excuses.
we all need vitamin sea. 😎🌊
There’s resistance.
There’s scheduling chaos.
There’s Wooyoung threatening to bring a megaphone and Chan asking if anyone remembered sunscreen.
But somehow, miraculously, it happens.
A chartered bus.
Ten coolers full of snacks.
Loud playlists, even louder people.
Twenty-one idols tumbling out onto sand like schoolkids on a field trip.
Jeonghan laughs more in the first hour than he has in weeks.
Yeosang and Jisoo manage to build a lopsided sandcastle before Soonyoung and Wooyoung tackles it with a battle cry. Minghao walks the shoreline collecting smooth pebbles. Jongho sunbathes like he’s training for a solar-powered comeback.
It’s loud.
Messy.
Wonderful.
But still, every now and then, someone looks around and realizes something.
Jeonghan and Hongjoong?
Gone again.
Not far.
Just at the edge of the sea.
Their footprints side by side in the wet sand, the occasional splash from a teasing wave licking at their ankles.
Neither of them say much.
They don’t have to.
They simply gravitate, again and again, to the waterline. Drawn to the ocean like something sacred.
Yeosang sees it from under a beach umbrella and murmurs to Jisoo, “It’s like they’re being pulled.”
Jisoo nods.
“They’ve always been ocean people.” he says, sipping from his drink.
Yeosang raises a brow. “Reincarnated mermaids?”
Jisoo laughs. “Something like that.”
Later, when everyone gathers for lunch under the shade, Jeonghan shows up with his hair damp and his cheeks sun-warmed.
Hongjoong’s hoodie is tied around his waist, and there's salt drying at the tips of his lashes.
They don't say where they went, and no one asks, but the two of them sit shoulder to shoulder, legs kicked out, eyes drifting back to the waves whenever conversation pauses.
The others watch, and instead of teasing, they smile.
Because love looks different on everyone.
And for these two?
It looks like salt on skin and sand between toes and the sea always within reach.
That afternoon, as the sky tilts toward orange, San points out, “They’ve walked off again.”
Seungkwan squints. “Again?”
“They’re gonna turn into driftwood at this rate.”
But none of them move to stop it.
Because some people don’t just walk toward the sea.
They belong to it.
And this time, they’re not drowning.
They’re free.
The sun slips low.
Dinner’s done; grilled skewers and shared bowls, paper plates scattered like sails across the sand.
The fire pit glows in the center of the circle, crackling softly. Someone’s playlist hums from a speaker half-buried under towels. Mingi is making an earnest but terrible argument for seaweed being a dessert, while Jun nearly falls into the fire laughing.
And then Yeosang, seated beside Jongho and nursing a can of something citrusy, glances toward Hongjoong and asks, almost offhand,
“Hey, Hongjoong. You still carry that compass?”
The world stutters.
Not dramatically.
Just slightly.
Hongjoong’s hand, previously tucked under his knee, pauses.
Eyes shift toward him.
Jeonghan glances up from where he’s tracing something in the sand and Hongjoong… hesitates.
Only for a breath, but it’s long enough.
Long enough for someone, probably Jihoon, to register it as important.
Long enough for Mingi to blink.
“Wait, what compass?”
“The one Wooyoung saw,” Yeosang says casually, waving a hand. “The one that...”
“That only points at Jeonghan.” Wooyoung finishes, leaning forward with a grin. “Unless it was just broken. In which case, I demand a refund.”
There’s a round of soft laughter, but not from Jeonghan or Hongjoong.
All eyes drift back to them and Hongjoong, reluctantly, quietly, pulls it from his jacket pocket.
The compass.
Brass, timeworn, familiar.
Still slightly cracked.
He turns it over in his hand once.
Then hesitates again.
This time, visibly.
And suddenly, no one’s laughing.
The circle quiets.
Not out of fear.
But because there’s something sacred about the way Hongjoong holds it. Like it’s fragile. Like it’s a memory that might slip through the night.
He almost tucks it away again.
Almost shrugs it off.
But beside him, Jeonghan reaches over.
Not forcefully.
Just… gently.
Fingers brushing his wrist.
A small, sure nudge.
It’s okay.
So Hongjoong offers it out.
Wooyoung takes it first.
Cautious. Curious.
He turns in place, compass balanced in his palm.
The needle spins.
Slows.
Settles.
Points across the fire.
Right at Jeonghan.
Yeosang whistles low. “Okay, not broken.”
“Let me try.” says Seonghwa.
He tests it too.
So does Jisoo.
And each time, no matter who holds it, no matter how they turn.
The needle finds him.
Jeonghan.
Calmly watching.
Still.
Silent.
The same quiet curve to his mouth, like he knew this would happen.
Because he did.
He always did.
Someone, maybe Hansol, says softly, “That’s kind of… wild.”
Hongjoong offers no defense.
He just watches Jeonghan through the firelight, the flickering gold casting soft shadows on his face.
And Jeonghan?
Just smiles.
“I told you.” he says, eyes sparkling. “I’m magnetic.”
This time, no one laughs.
Not because it’s not funny.
But because it’s true.
And somehow, that truth feels holy.
The fire has burned low.
Only embers now, red and breathing softly, like the last pulse of a good day.
Most of the others have retreated to blankets and tents, or curled up in half-zipped sleeping bags beneath the stars.
Somewhere, someone is still humming. Maybe Seokmin. Maybe Jihoon. Maybe the sea itself.
But the beach is quiet.
And Jeonghan is still awake.
He sits at the shoreline with his arms around his knees, toes buried in the sand, hoodie pulled over his head against the breeze.
Behind him, he hears soft footsteps.
Then, a body settles beside his.
Close, but not too close.
Jeonghan turns his head slightly, already smiling.
“You sleepwalking, captain?”
Hongjoong huffs a soft breath of laughter. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He draws his knees up too, resting his chin on them.
They sit like that for a while.
Just being.
The ocean hushes in and out in front of them. The stars above feel wide and endless, but not heavy.
Not tonight.
Tonight, everything feels… held.
“Do you think they know?” Jeonghan murmurs.
“Who?”
“The stars.”
Hongjoong tilts his head. “Know what?”
“That we made it. That we came back.”
There’s a pause.
Then Hongjoong says softly, “I think they waited.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
He doesn’t need to.
Because Jeonghan reaches over without looking, and Hongjoong’s hand is already there.
Their fingers link, easy. Familiar. Home.
After a while, Jeonghan says, “Do you still have it?”
He doesn’t specify.
But Hongjoong knows.
He reaches into his hoodie pocket.
Pulls out the compass.
Opens it.
The needle doesn’t waver.
Still pointing at Jeonghan.
Even here.
Even now.
Jeonghan watches it.
Then turns to Hongjoong, voice barely a whisper.
“You’re not afraid anymore.”
“No.” Hongjoong replies. “Not when you’re right here.”
Jeonghan leans against him.
Their shoulders touch. Foreheads nearly bump. The sea stretches out before them, endless and calm.
And for the first time in many, many lifetimes, they don’t look back.
They just breathe.
Day One Hundred and Six: Morning Light and Quiet Questions
The sun peeks over the water like it’s shy.
Waves lap against the shore, soft and silver, the kind of morning where the world takes a deep breath and holds it in stillness.
Yunho wakes first.
He always does, even on his days off, body too used to early rehearsals and quiet call times.
He sits up slowly, brushing sleep from his eyes, the corners of his hoodie damp with dew.
Most of the group is still curled under thin blankets and jackets thrown over legs.
But Jeonghan and Hongjoong, aren’t there.
Yunho glances around once.
Twice.
Then sees them.
Down by the water’s edge.
Still asleep.
Jeonghan’s head rests on Hongjoong’s shoulder, their fingers loosely laced between them, knees drawn up toward their chests like kids falling asleep on a long ferry ride.
The compass rests between them in the sand, its lid cracked open like it, too, forgot to close its eyes.
Yunho smiles.
Quietly.
He walks over without a sound and sits a respectful distance away, watching the waves for a while. Letting the morning settle into his bones.
Eventually, Jeonghan stirs.
He doesn’t jump.
Just blinks, adjusts his hoodie, and peers over at him.
“Morning." Yunho says softly.
“Hey.” Jeonghan murmurs, voice still full of sleep.
Hongjoong blinks next, a soft exhale escaping him before he rests his cheek against Jeonghan’s shoulder again. He doesn’t speak yet.
Yunho watches them for a moment.
Then, after a pause, he asks; not teasing, not pressing.
Just curious, and kind.
“How did it start? You two.”
Jeonghan doesn’t answer right away.
He looks down at the compass.
Then at Hongjoong’s hand in his.
Then out at the sea.
And says, with a half-smile, “A long time ago.”
Yunho tilts his head. “Like… before you debuted?”
Jeonghan laughs, soft and surprised. “No. Longer than that.”
“Years?”
“Centuries.”
Yunho blinks.
Jeonghan meets his gaze, eyes still sleep-warm but glowing with something steadier. Something older.
“I don’t expect you to believe me.” he says gently. “But the truth is… I think we’ve been finding each other for a long time.”
Yunho looks at the two of them; still tangled, still quiet, still grounded.
And says simply, “I believe you.”
Then he stands, brushing sand from his legs, and adds with a smirk, “But I am telling Wooyoung you two stole the best sleeping spot.”
Jeonghan groans, flopping backward into the sand. “Worth it.”
Hongjoong finally speaks, barely a whisper: “Every time.”
Day One Hundred and Twenty: We Remember Together
It begins the same way it always has.
With wind, and salt, and sails that stretch across the sky like wings.
But there’s no fear this time. No distant cannon fire. No scream of separation.
Just the warm creak of wood beneath their feet.
And music; faint, lilting, a melody that dances across the waves like a memory.
Jeonghan opens his eyes to lantern light.
He’s standing barefoot on the deck of their ship, the Vireon, the boards worn smooth from years of travel. Around him, the crew moves with laughter in their bones. Someone is pouring drinks. Someone else is stringing up more lanterns between the masts.
It’s a celebration.
A festival.
Their festival.
The one they held once a year, no matter where they were, when the seas calmed and the moon burned gold.
He turns slowly.
And finds Hongjoong at the helm.
Wearing a white shirt open at the collar, boots unlaced, hair swept back by the wind, eyes bright and so very young.
Except… not quite.
There’s something older behind his gaze now.
Something that remembers.
He steps down from the wheel, slow and sure, never breaking eye contact.
And when he reaches Jeonghan, he says softly, “You came.”
Jeonghan smiles.
“I never left.”
They lean into each other like they’ve done it a thousand times. Like their bodies already know.
They sway gently with the motion of the ship, the music rising in waves around them.
And the rest of the crew, past and present, seen and unseen, dances on the edges of the dream.
When they wake, they’re back in Jeonghan’s room.
The morning light is just starting to warm the window.
Their fingers are still tangled.
Their foreheads close.
Neither says anything at first.
Until Jeonghan murmurs, “I remember now.”
Hongjoong, eyes still closed, says, “Me too.”
Not pain.
Not longing.
Just memory.
And peace.
Like a final piece of a song settling into place.
Day One Hundred and Twenty-One: What Comes Next
The next morning, Jeonghan waters his plants like usual.
Nothing extraordinary.
The sun is gentle through the window. His slippers are a bit lopsided. A mug of tea steams quietly on the kitchen counter.
Hongjoong is sitting cross-legged on the floor, flipping through one of his worn notebooks. His hair’s still damp from the shower. He smells like the sea again—even here, landlocked, in a borrowed apartment.
And Jeonghan?
Feels calm.
Utterly, entirely calm.
For the first time in months, maybe centuries.
“You know.” Hongjoong says after a while, not looking up, “I used to think the compass was cursed.”
Jeonghan blinks. Lowers the watering can. “Cursed?”
“Yeah.” He closes the notebook. “It never pointed north. I thought it was broken. Then I realized it always led me to you. Which—” he pauses, smiling faintly, “—was terrifying. Because I didn’t know if I’d ever find you. Just that I’d never stop looking.”
Jeonghan crosses the room, barefoot.
Sits beside him.
Quiet for a while.
“So what now?”
Hongjoong tilts his head, eyes thoughtful. “Now?”
“Yeah. We’ve remembered. We’ve… returned.” He gestures vaguely, a crooked grin on his lips. “No storms. No tragic shipwrecks. No dying declarations this time.”
“Just two tired idols with studio backlogs.” Hongjoong jokes.
Jeonghan laughs; loud, delighted, and full of something brand new.
He leans his head on Hongjoong’s shoulder.
“Do we tell more people?” he asks. “Do we make something? Leave something behind this time that isn’t just a cracked compass?”
Hongjoong thinks for a moment.
“What if we wrote it down? Not just in a song. A whole story. The full arc. The sea, the loss, the memory, the reunion. Not for clout. Not for fans. Just… for us.”
Jeonghan hums. “So we’re writing a legend.”
“No. We’re writing us.”
Their hands find each other again.
Fingers interlace.
And in the space between words and breath and skin, a decision settles.
Not about endings.
But about what comes after.
That night, Jeonghan opens a blank journal.
He writes the first line carefully, in neat script.
I met him before I remembered him.
And on the second page, Hongjoong scribbles underneath:
And I’d been looking for him ever since.
Day One Hundred and Thirty: Studio Night
It’s not announced.
There’s no schedule, no cameras, no behind-the-scenes footage lined up for content.
It’s just a text from Jihoon to Hongjoong, sent late at night:
studio’s open tomorrow.
bring whoever you need.
we’ll keep it quiet.
They trickle in over the course of the afternoon.
Jeonghan and Hongjoong arrive first. Not holding hands, but close enough that anyone watching can see the thread between them.
Then Jihoon. Jongho. Jisoo. Yeosang. San.
Eventually the room is full; not of noise, but of intention.
The air hums with something unspoken.
The piano is already warm.
Jeonghan hums the melody first.
The same one he once sang at the edge of the waves.
It’s lighter now. Still wistful, still old, but no longer aching. It’s become something new.
Hongjoong adds chords. Jihoon adjusts the key. Jongho starts layering vocals in soft harmony.
No one directs.
No one commands.
It builds like memory. Slowly. Patiently.
A violin line, ghosting behind the chorus. A soft rhythmic pulse like a ship’s creak. Barefoot drum taps. Wind chimes.
The lyrics come slowly.
Fragments first.
Whispers, traded glances, pages of scribbles crumpled and rewritten.
But the ones they keep?
They speak of salt and stars.
Of lighthouses and rings.
Of waiting.
Of finding.
Of never needing to search again.
By nightfall, they’re all seated on the floor, backs against the walls, listening to the rough cut echo through the studio speakers.
No one speaks during playback.
When it ends, no one claps.
No one has to.
They just sit in it, together.
Not as performers.
Not as groups.
But as people who now carry a story that only makes sense in the space between music and memory.
Later, as they’re packing up, Seonghwa quietly says, “It sounds like something from long ago.”
“Like a message in a bottle.” Jihoon adds, locking the console.
“Or a prayer.” says Jongho.
Jeonghan just smiles.
“It’s both.” he says, glancing toward Hongjoong, who nods just once.
“And neither of us will ever forget it,” Hongjoong replies.
The file never gets posted.
Never gets leaked.
It lives on a shared drive labeled “For Us.”
And that’s enough.
It always has been.
Day One Hundred and Fourty: One Last Dream
They fall asleep the same night the studio track is finalized.
No words exchanged. No fanfare.
Just the two of them, curled under soft blankets in Jeonghan’s room, windows cracked open to let the summer air in. The scent of salt lingers faintly in their clothes.
As if the sea still clings to them.
As if it always will.
The dream comes easy this time.
No storm. No fog. No separation.
Just open sea.
And the ship.
Their ship.
The Vireon.
Moored gently against the dock, sails furled, lanterns glowing with a soft, eternal light. The deck is empty, but not abandoned. It feels cared for. Honored.
Waiting.
They walk aboard side by side.
Their past selves are already there.
The pirate captain with windswept hair, boots creaking against the wood, smile sharp but tired. The quiet scholar-turned-siren, feet bare, holding a journal to his chest like it contains all the stars.
They don’t speak.
They don’t need to.
But just before they fade, the pirate captain catches Jeonghan’s gaze, and winks.
A knowing one. A bit of bravado. A tease softened by love.
And past Jeonghan?
He looks at the idol Hongjoong standing in the dream beside him, and smiles. Wide. Grateful. Like he always knew this was how their story was meant to end.
The younger versions bow their heads gently, as if in thanks.
Then they step back.
Fade softly into the morning light pouring down from the crow’s nest.
What remains now are only them.
Just Jeonghan and Hongjoong.
Standing on the deck of their old life.
And finally, letting it go.
Jeonghan turns to him, voice low. “We’ve seen it all.”
Hongjoong nods. “And we remember.”
A beat.
Then Jeonghan asks, “So what do we do now?”
Hongjoong smiles.
Takes his hand.
And says, “We wake up.”
They do.
The morning light is spilling across the sheets.
The birds outside are loud.
Jeonghan rolls over and finds Hongjoong already watching him, sleepy but present.
They don’t say anything for a while.
Until Jeonghan whispers, “That was the last one.”
And Hongjoong says, “Yeah.”
And neither of them feel sad.
Because it means they’ve arrived.
Later, Jeonghan tucks the old compass into the drawer beside his bed.
Not hidden.
Just resting.
Its purpose fulfilled.
Its story told.
And now?
Now, it’s time for a new one.
Day ∞ The Legacy
It begins again; not with waves, not with dreams, but with music.
A young trainee at a small company finds a melody tucked in the back of an old hard drive; unlabeled, raw, and glowing with something ancient.
There are no names.
No artist tags.
No metadata.
Just a track called: "for us."
It starts with wind.
Then piano.
Then the sound of two voices humming in harmony; one soft like laughter, the other steady as a promise.
The melody doesn’t sound new.
It sounds remembered.
The trainee listens to it over and over.
They don’t know why, but it makes them want to write.
To draw maps.
To fall in love.
To chase something impossible across the sea.
In a dusty market by the coast, someone else finds a compass.
Its brass edges are worn. The glass cracked just slightly.
The needle, strangely, does not point north.
It points elsewhere.
Always in the same direction.
No matter where they stand.
They pick it up. Turn it. Try to shake it.
It won’t change.
There’s a note tucked behind the lining in faint, fading ink:
You’ll understand when you find them.
They don't understand.
Not yet.
But someday?
Maybe.
Far from the city, on a quieter shore, two men sit beneath a red umbrella and watch the tide.
Their hair has turned silver.
Their laughter still comes easy.
Matching rings glint in the sun.
Jeonghan sips his tea slowly, one hand curled under his chin.
Hongjoong reads beside him, thumb keeping his place in a worn novel, journal open on the table.
Neither of them speaks for a long while.
Until Jeonghan says softly, “Would you find me again?”
Hongjoong doesn’t even look up.
“Even if the compass breaks.”
Jeonghan smiles.
The tide rolls in.
The sun climbs higher.
And the story that once began with a storm, ends in peace.
But only for now.
Because love like this never truly ends.
It sails on.