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∅
Hyukjae doesn't know what's chasing them.
It's hard sometimes, the not knowing. It isn't that he wants to see what it is, exactly, but—
Maybe it is, a little. Maybe that would assuage the fear just enough for the ground to feel more solid under his feet, less like he and Donghae are trapped on the crumbling edge of a cliff. Maybe knowing what face their pursuer wore would sow a seed of confidence in his heart, would bring him, even momentarily, back to the time Before, when the most he'd had to be afraid of was getting caught in the rain with his groceries.
(That's not true. He'd had so many more things to be afraid of Before. Now, at least, he doesn't have to worry about money, or about maintaining social relationships with people he can't stand, or about his crumbling love life. He doesn't have to fear losing his job because his opinions are too strong for the section chief's taste, and he can be who he is without the fear that that person is unpalatable to everyone else around him.
But sometimes he thinks he'd trade anything to go back to that time, and those places, with those fears, as terrible as they were at the time.
Anything would be better than now.)
"What does it look like?" Hyukjae asks Donghae once—and only once—as they settle into a single bed in a cheap hotel room, the other bed shoved up against the door like a barricade they know won't hold for very long if they're found. "The— The thing. What does it look like?"
Donghae's lips press together and his eyes go very far away. It takes him a moment to come back, but Hyukjae patiently waits for him.
(He'll always wait for Donghae. It's a point of contention.)
"I don't want to tell you," Donghae says in a voice that quavers. "I can't describe it even if I did."
"Try," Hyukjae presses. "In case. What if one day we wake up and I can see what you see? And you can only see what I see now? How will I know what to run from?"
"You'll just know," Donghae says, but he wets his lip nervously and inhales. "It's... It doesn't look like anything. It's like... a wisp of smoke, or wool, or static, but it's a shape like something alive, except you don't know what because it's broken. Everything is broken." He shakes his head like he's trying to dislodge whatever image he's seeing in his mind's eye. "It's just broken."
"I don't get it," Hyukjae says, and Donghae gives this strangled, despairing laugh.
"Good," Donghae breathes. "Just... If that ever happened, you'd know. I promise. You'd feel it." He reaches out and presses his palm to the middle of Hyukjae's chest. "Here."
"Okay," Hyukjae says after a beat, and tries to clear the ringing in his ears.
He doesn't ask again after that. It's not because he doesn't think Donghae's answer will be any clearer, and it's not because his chest aches with a horrible phantom echo under Donghae's hand, either. It's because the look in Donghae's eyes is haunted, and Hyukjae put that there when he didn't have to.
∅
There's a mark like a zero on Hyukjae's chest, this thin, ugly, angry circle of scar tissue with a slash through it. These days Hyukjae rarely even notices it on his body. It's just there, the way that his birthmarks are just there, and the way that the scar from getting his elbow busted open when he was twelve is just there.
Donghae has a mark too, of course. He minds it a little more than Hyukjae does, brushing his fingertips over the raised edges when he changes into and out of shirts. He rubs his palm over it when he thinks, and studies it in the mirror when he thinks Hyukjae isn't looking.
They're fairly certain that the mark is what the thing follows.
"Do you think it means something?" Donghae asks one early morning while they're clearing out of the abandoned apartment they've been using for the past handful of nights. Hyukjae glances over and finds him staring out the cracked window at the sunrise.
"What?"
"The—" Donghae, eyes fixed on the sky, puts his hand over the mark. "This thing."
Hyukjae pauses in his packing, hands hovering over their clothes bag. They're going to have to find somewhere to wash them today. "It means we're a target," he says slowly. "No?"
Now Donghae looks over at him, faint exasperation in the quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Not like that. Is it— I meant the shape. Is it a symbol for something? From wherever that thing came from?"
Hyukjae's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh. Well. I'd... Maybe? Maybe. Probably." He shakes his head. and says, a little sheepishly, "I just figured it was a zero."
"Ah," Donghae says, but it's bright and delighted instead of disappointed. "Right? That's what I thought, too. Then let's just keep thinking about it like that."
And then he laughs, and Hyukjae is quietly dazzled.
∅
They're four months in when Hyukjae does, in fact, feel it.
It's like a vibration in his sternum, thrumming under his skin where the mark lies, a little like the sensation of standing right in front of a giant concert speaker, except amplified by a thousand. Hyukjae stops dead in the middle of the closed grocery store they're picking through and clutches his chest where it feels like it's about to shatter. He gasps out a breath that feels like it ought to be accompanied by dry, cracked blood, though nothing fills his mouth, not even a phantom copper taste. Donghae turns at the noise he makes, as overhead the lights flicker wildly. Hyukjae watches Donghae's eyes go wide and panicked as he looks past him, where Hyukjae is sure the thing is.
Hyukjae doesn't know who reaches out first, but they clasp hands and bolt. The aisles are crowded and short and hard to maneuver around. Boxes fly off the shelves behind them, freestanding racks slam into their path, bags of chips crunch under their feet. Donghae leads—because he has to—and Hyukjae follows as best he can when his lungs feel crushed. Now the taste of blood fills their mouths, heavy and metallic on the tongue. They trip and stumble their way to the exit, breaths heaving, legs aching, and Donghae shoves his shoulder into the door in a way that he'll regret in a few hours, but it doesn't matter right now. Nothing matters right now but the escape.
They keep going, running down streets, through alleyways, cutting across carless streets, hands so tightly clasped that Hyukjae almost can't feel his fingers. They can't let go. They won't. They have to get out together, or they won't get out at all.
Hyukjae doesn't know how long or far they run before the pressure in his chest lifts. It happens so suddenly that his knees give out and he falls, dragging Donghae down with him. Their palms and knees skid across the pavement, the sting bright and burning. Donghae looks up wildly before he scrambles to his feet, grabbing Hyukjae's elbow to haul him up too.
"Not yet," Donghae says. "Let's go further. We have to go a little further."
"It's gone," Hyukjae wheezes. He feels lightheaded, but follows where Donghae pulls him. "Right? It's gone?"
"Further," Donghae insists. "I mean, yes. But— Just in case. Let's keep going. Please."
Hyukjae trusts him. They walk and run and walk and run for the rest of the night, and in the morning they take turns sleeping in a park.
∅
Hyukjae doesn't know if he'd have lasted a week with someone else as his eyes. He doesn't think so. But there's just something about Donghae—
There's always been something about Donghae. It's not that they've known each other for so long, though they've been in the same circles since high school. It's not that they went to the same university, because they were in different departments, or that they enlisted at the same time, because they weren't in the same unit. It's not even that they joined the same company in the same year and ended up in the same department. It's not any of that.
It's the way Donghae's laugh sounded from across the university cafeteria. It's the way his shoulder felt as it knocked against Hyukjae's at a company party. It's the way his name sounds in Donghae's mouth. It's his smile and the way it burrowed into Hyukjae's skin and made a home in his bones from the first time he saw it, because it says trust me, I'll keep you safe, and Hyukjae, against all odds, believes that wholly and completely.
It's not about love. Hyukjae hasn't trusted everyone he's loved, and he hasn't loved everyone he's trusted. Love isn't enough to put his life into someone else's hands the way he does with Donghae, day in and day out; likewise, trust isn't enough to spark something that burns quietly and steadfastly in his heart.
But...
He does love Donghae these days, nearly as much as he trusts him.
∅
The day before it all starts, they stand in the copy room at the office, their heads bent over the flashing error display. Hyukjae's pulse skitters as Donghae shifts his weight onto the foot nearer to Hyukjae, bringing him close enough for their elbows to brush.
"You look tired," Donghae says quietly as he pokes idly at a button. "You should take a nap at lunch."
Hyukjae's been having weird dreams for the last month or so, these twisted, difficult things that he jolts awake from feeling like there's an oil slick over his eyes, coating his tongue, filling his throat. They're not quite nightmares, but he doesn't know what else to call them. It doesn't matter, really. Whatever they are, they make him reluctant to nap, let alone sleep.
"Ah," he says belatedly. "Well. Maybe. I've..." He hesitates, but Donghae's face is so inviting, so curious. They're almost friends these days. "I've been having dreams. Not bad ones, really, just—" He cuts himself off and shakes his head ruefully. "It's silly, right? But I almost don't want to close my eyes because every time I do..."
Donghae makes a little noise of surprise. "Oh? Really? That's funny, I— Me, too. I can't remember what the dreams were, but..." He laughs softly and shakes his head. "Anyway. What if we take lunch together? You can nap and I'll eat and keep watch. Maybe you just need somebody around while you sleep."
Hyukjae doesn't think that's the case; he'd started having the dreams back when he still had someone else in his bed at night, before his girlfriend moved out. He'd wondered if maybe the dreams and the not-sleeping were the last straw for her, actually.
But Donghae smiles, and Hyukjae wants so badly for him to be right.
"Okay, sure," he says. "Why not."
And it doesn't work, exactly—Hyukjae lays his head down on a table in the break area and the moment he closes his eyes, the dreams come—but Donghae wakes him before... something. The dream slips away before he can even try to grasp it, to hold onto the image of whatever it was that Donghae interrupted. All he's left with, as he lifts his head from his crossed arms and blinks blearily at the man across the table, is a sense of wrongness. And even that dissolves in the sunlight that slants through the window beside their table.
"You really slept," Donghae says, amused. "How'd it go? Did I chase the dreams away?"
Hyukjae rakes his hand through his hair and tries to get his thoughts in order.
"A little," he says eventually. "Sorry, that really... I'm not awake yet. Anyway. How much time do we have?"
"Ten minutes or so. Enough time to eat." Donghae smiles. "I'm glad it worked even a little bit. Better than nothing, right?"
"Right." Hyukjae hums as he gets started on his lunch. "You should've woken me up earlier. We could've split the time evenly, and you'd get to sleep a little, too."
"It's fine," Donghae says, leaning his head on his hand and watching Hyukjae intently. "Maybe— Do you want to do it again tomorrow? Same time?"
For a moment, the blood pumps loud and frantic and pleasant in Hyukjae's ears. He ducks his head to hide the wide grin that tugs at his mouth. "Deal. Same time tomorrow."
∅
(There's no tomorrow.
Or— There is, but it's not the tomorrow Hyukjae expects.
It's a tomorrow where he watches as a coworker's body melts to dust before his eyes in the middle of a meeting; where he feels an invisible force knead a scar into his skin; where Donghae sees Hyukjae run from a thing no one else can see and takes his arm to pull him along when he nearly hurtles back into it; where they tear through the office, past people who cease to be people between one moment and the next.
It's a tomorrow like the start of an end.)
∅
Hyukjae jolts awake one night to that same feeling from the grocery store, the one like his chest is about to cave in. It's all he can do to grab at Donghae on the mattress beside him and shake insistently. Donghae wakes up immediately, inhaling sharply. Hyukjae makes himself sit up, wheezing through lungs that won't inflate right, while Donghae looks around wildly.
"It's here," Hyukjae says, and Donghae doesn't question it. He's up off the mattress in the next moment, dragging Hyukjae along with him. There's a noise out in the front of the apartment they're squatting in for the night, a boom like something's burst, and Donghae's movements become more frantic.
"Window," Donghae says. "Let's— C'mon, we can fit."
Hyukjae knows they can fit. It's one of the criteria they have for finding a place to hole up in: Is there another way out that they can fit through? They don't stay anywhere without a second exit. So he knows the size of the window isn't a problem.
The problem is that they're on the second floor.
Hyukjae stumbles to the window anyway. Donghae's already shoved it open, though his eyes are glued to the door on the opposite end of the room. Hyukjae climbs through as quickly as he can, plastering himself against the building as he carefully shuffles along the little ledge, making space for Donghae.
"Just go!" Donghae yells, but Hyukjae shakes his head.
"Together," Hyukjae replies through his teeth, and Donghae makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat.
"Why won't you just—" Donghae says, a little wet and despairing, but starts climbing out.
It feels like it takes hours for Donghae to make it through, but it can't be more than a handful of seconds. He makes it onto the ledge and takes Hyukjae's hand, and then—
Donghae freezes. His face drains of color and his breaths go shallow as he stares down at the ground, so far from where they're perched. The hand in Hyukjae's starts to tremble.
"Donghae," Hyukjae says urgently but calmly, because he'd known this would happen; Donghae had warned him once that it might. The dried blood sensation is back in his throat, and it makes his voice thin. He clears his throat and it doesn't go away, so he ignores it. "Donghae-yah. Listen to me. Ready? Together."
Donghae shudders, but his hand tightens weakly in Hyukjae's, and as the door of the bedroom explodes behind them, they fall together.
It's a fraction of a second before they hit and then roll off of the gaudily lush decorative bushes along the perimeter of the building, but it's a fraction that feels like forever. Hyukjae lands on his side, and he's sure that if he had any breath in his body, it'd be knocked out of him from the impact. As it is, he can feel that his ankle isn't quite right, and the bright pain in his arm says something in the bushes got him good.
But he's alive, and as he turns his head, he can see Donghae moving too. He's close enough that Hyukjae can reach over and close his trembling hand around Donghae's wrist.
"Gotta go," Hyukjae croaks as he heaves himself upright. everything protests. "Donghae, a little further. right?"
"Right," Donghae says shakily, dazedly, and follows Hyukjae up.
They run.
It's not the hardest thing they've ever done, but it comes close. Hyukjae's ankle feels so terribly wrong, so loose and wobbly that he's not sure how he manages to stay upright, and Donghae occasionally clutches his back in a way that means trouble. Blood seeps through rips and tears in their clothes, and later, when they're safe, Hyukjae will lament the loss of another clothes bag, left sitting in that undoubtedly destroyed apartment. At least there's no pain yet, though there will be later, once the adrenaline fades.
So they run and run until eventually, the pressure in Hyukjae's sternum lifts, and then they keep going a while longer.
"I can feel it now, I think," Hyukjae says later. It's been a long, long day, but they've gotten themselves patched up—at a sketchy but clean clinic that asked no questions and let them leave immediately—and found a new place to hole up. The building is only half-finished, but it's good enough and will keep them out of the rain. They rest in the corner of a vast, open, concrete space, Donghae's head pillowed on Hyukjae's thigh, Hyukjae's fingers carefully carding through Donghae's hair. He has to avoid the tender, bandaged area at the back of Donghae's head where a few thorns tore their way into his skin.
"Hm?"
"The thing. I can feel when it's close." He lays his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. "I didn't used to."
Donghae hums softly. "Oh. Yeah, I guess you can. I wonder why. Why now?"
"Who knows," Hyukjae says. He's so tired, not just from the day but from the painkillers the clinic doctor gave him. His ankle is sprained, not broken, but the sprain is bad enough that he's supposed to keep off of his feet for a while. It was all he could do not to laugh in the doctor's face when he'd heard that. "Maybe we just got lucky."
"Maybe." Donghae shifts a little against his thigh. "What's it feel like?"
"It's like you said." Hyukjae splays the palm of his free hand over the scar, over the zero. "You told me that when you see it, you can feel it right here."
"Ah. Fear."
"Huh?'
"Fear. Isn't that what...?" Donghae makes a confused noise. "I didn't mean... It's a feeling, an emotion, not— I don't feel it in my body. You feel it in your body? Physically?"
Hyukjae thinks about denying or sugarcoating it, about making something up that won't worry Donghae, but he's sure he wouldn't be able to get away with it. They know each other too well now.
"You know when you crush a can and it kind of... The way it crumples? The can is my chest."
Donghae audibly winces. "Does it still hurt now?"
"No," Hyukjae says. He looks down at Donghae, offering a small smile. "It stops when the thing leaves."
"Ah," says Donghae, brow still pinched. Hyukjae rubs his thumb at the little wrinkle, trying to smooth it away, but it's stubborn.
"It's fine," he says. "Now I can keep watch better while you sleep. Pay you back for all the times you had to stay awake. It's lucky, right?"
"Mmhm. Lucky," Donghae echoes, but doesn't sound like he believes it.
∅
Early on, in the first month or so, they talk about heading out into the countryside.
"There'd be fewer people around," Donghae says, pulling up a map on his phone. "Maybe..."
Maybe no one else will get caught in between it and us, he doesn't say. Maybe no one else will die.
Hyukjae doesn't think they're the only ones the thing is after. He also doesn't think there's only one of it. He thinks—
"Okay," he says anyway, because even if that's what he thinks, it's not what he wants. What he wants is for Donghae to be right. "Why don't we go for a few days at first? Just to try?"
Donghae gives him an odd look, but nods. Hyukjae doesn't realize until later that it doesn't matter whether they plan to go for a day or for a week. All they have are each other and the bags on their backs.
They choose a place at random and head out the next day. Donghae still has a car at this point, but Hyukjae is the one who drives it; they need Donghae to be on the lookout. It's difficult to drive for hours and hours on end, but they get there eventually, and Hyukjae is glad to see the little village they'd chosen. They eat a small meal in their car and then go explore.
It doesn't take long for them to realize that staying here won't work, even setting aside how cautious the residents are of them, and how difficult it would be to afford a place to live and food to eat when they can't keep regular hours for a job.
No, what drives it all home is that nights this deep in the countryside are much darker than the ones in the city. There are no streetlights, no stores open late, no cars in the streets. The thing comes for them, and Donghae loses sight of it in the shadows, only to find it nearly on top of them. As they run through a field and into the forest, their feet catch on uneven ground and they stumble over stones slick with moss and the misty evening drizzle. As they try to find their way back to their car, Donghae loses a shoe and Hyukjae trips over a tree root, sending them both tumbling down the riverbank.
They escape, but they both know how close it really was.
"It was a good idea," Hyukjae offers softly as they drive back to Seoul a few hours later. They've mostly dried off in the interim, but Hyukjae doesn't think he'll ever get the mud and muck out of the treads of his shoes. "Maybe if we'd grown up somewhere like that..."
"No," Donghae says. He leans his head against the window and stares out at the slowly lightening sky. "I don't think... No. I grew up in a place like that. It didn't help. Obviously."
Hyukjae grips the steering wheel tightly and wishes he knew what to say. Wishes he knew the sort of comforting words to make Donghae smile.
"Maybe we're both city people now," he tries. "Maybe you've become a Seoul man through and through, instead of a man from...?"
And it does startle a laugh out of Donghae. "Mokpo. A Mokpo man. Ah, do you think so? I don't know if I like that. You Seoul people are so cold."
"You're right," Hyukjae says. He glances over and finds Donghae already looking at him, a smile on his lips. It's not as bright as Hyukjae had hoped, but it's something, and that's good enough. "Yeah. We are, and you aren't, and I suppose that means you're not a Seoul man just yet. Even if you talk like one."
Donghae laughs again, a little louder, a little happier, and reaches across the console between them to take the hand resting on Hyukjae's thigh. He leans over and lifts it to his lips and presses a kiss there, against Hyukjae's knuckles. It's a sweet little thing, an impulsive moment of joy.
"Good," Donghae says, and lets go. His smile is wide and genuine now, and Hyukjae feels...
Hyukjae feels.
∅
Hyukjae isn't the type of person who can stand to be around other people constantly. He needs time to be alone, to lay down and watch something on his phone and forget about the world. He's been like that since Before.
He knows Donghae is different. Donghae doesn't mind sitting side-by-side for hours and hours, doesn't get prickly and irritable if he has to spend an entire week glued to Hyukjae's side. Donghae gets lonely; Hyukjae rarely does.
It's something they argue about early on, but not so much now that they're used to each other. It helps when they can find an empty apartment with multiple rooms, but when they can't, they take turns going out for supplies. It's risky to separate—especially before Hyukjae could sense the thing—but it's necessary to keep them from splitting apart.
Today is Hyukjae's turn to go out, and as he stands at a crosswalk with a bag of groceries in his arm and a backpack of clean laundry over his shoulder, he finds himself totally and utterly disconnected from the world around him. And it's terrifying.
The traffic lights flicker, as do the crosswalk signs. There's a groan of metal, and an explosion off to his left, as a glass storefront blows out.
No one looks up.
Cars drive along. Pedestrians cross the street. A woman shoulder-checks Hyukjae as she moves past him, muttering something about getting out of the way, but he can't be bothered to respond.
And then his chest caves in, but it—
It feels different. It's painful as it always is, but the sense of it is dulled, and his lungs still inflate, and the blood in his mouth is more of a faint aftertaste than something thick on his tongue.
Somehow, Hyukjae knows not to move. He breathes shallowly and does his best not to so much as blink.
The woman who shoulder-checked him is steps away when she begins to melt. It starts at her shoulder and spreads slowly. Hyukjae can't see her face, but he knows that she becomes aware of what's happening by the time it gets to her neck. She stumbles, and her other hand flails, and then she's gone.
No matter how many times Hyukjae sees it happen, it's still horrifyingly strange to watch viscous liquid turn to dust on the wind.
A man walks through the dust, smiling at the partner on his arm. They're both gone in moments.
The front of an oncoming car crumples against an invisible force, and then it and its passengers dissolve into acid and sand and nothing.
Another woman. An elderly man. A child. Another. Another.
And no one but Hyukjae sees it. No one but him notices. No one screams; no one runs.
The world keeps spinning.
Hyukjae waits and watches. He cannot scream; he cannot run. He knows, deep in the pit of his stomach, that this is a show especially for him. And he knows what will happen if he runs.
Another one. Another. Another another anotheranotheranotheranotheranother—
And then he's alone. The crosswalk is empty. No one pushes past. No one rushes by. The street is pristine. The silence rings in his ears.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees something like a curl of hair glitch away into nothing, and the pressure in his chest lifts. The lights go back to their steady patterns, cars drive along, new people fill the crosswalk. Hyukjae stands there, still and quiet, until someone puts a hand on his shoulder, their blurry face creased with concern—
And then he runs.
The world keeps spinning.
He runs until his lungs ache and his legs burn. He takes the longest route back to his and Donghae's hideaway possible, purely on instinct. It doesn't matter if he loses some of the groceries in the process. It doesn't matter who he knocks into when he rounds a corner. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter.
Nothing matters except getting home.
(There is no home. Not anymore. There is only Donghae.)
He bursts into the little one-room basement apartment where Donghae sits and reads a book they took from a condo three weeks ago. They'd figured out that no one had been there in at least two weeks before that, and they'd known it'd been because the owner had vanished into thin air. They hadn't seen it, but they'd known. Another person just gone, not just dead, but forgotten, even though the traces of their life were right there and
and the world
kept
spinning
so Donghae had taken the book.
They take things from the places they stay, because no one else will know. No one else will remember. No one else will claim the remnants of the lives that that fucking thing dissolves.
(They'd figured it out the day after they ran from the carnage in the office. The administrative assistant for their department had called and asked where they were, and if they were coming in. And they'd gone in because perhaps it'd been a hallucination, perhaps they'd just had the same dream, perhaps it hadn't actually happened at all, perhaps—
But so many desks were empty and no one had called any attention to it. There were no missing persons reports, no funerals, no distraught relatives or significant others or friends or acquaintances. There'd been nothing, not that day, and not four days later, when the thing returned for them and they'd started running in earnest.)
Hyukjae is on his knees. The bag of groceries is toppled over on the floor beside him, food scattered over the cold linoleum, but the laundry is still on his back. His clothes are damp with sweat from fear and exhaustion and fearfearfear, and his bad ankle twinges, and he's screaming his throat raw. He ought to stop, he knows, but he can't.
(The world spins on and on and on beneath their feet. Life keeps going until it doesn't.)
"Shh," Donghae says, hands frantic, hovering over Hyukjae's knees, his shoulders, his face. "Hyukjae-yah, you have to stop, someone will— Shh, come here. Come here, it's okay, it's—"
It's not okay. But Donghae pulls him into his arms and tucks Hyukjae's face into his shoulder, and the screaming stops. It turns to heaving sobs, and that's okay; that's better. That's quieter. That won't get them noticed by the upstairs neighbor, if the upstairs neighbor still exists.
(Maybe the upstairs neighbor was one of the people at the crosswalk. Maybe she'd been the woman whose shoulder had brushed Hyukjae before it disappeared. Maybe he'd been the grandfather with the cane and the hat slightly askew on his head. Maybe he'd been the boy around university age, maybe they'd been the couple, maybe they'd been—)
Hyukjae doesn't pass out, but he does stop being present for a while. It's easier like that, though he's sure it's a burden on Donghae. He'll make up for it some other time. For now, he watches from a safe distance.
When he returns, the groceries have been put away and the laundry is back in their larger backpack. He's laying on the low bed in the corner of the room, a blanket draped over him. Donghae is beside him, not touching but within arm's reach. He's reading again, though Hyukjae can tell from the nervous way his fingers fidget with the page corners that he's not really into it.
Hyukjae turns onto his side to face him fully. Donghae flinches, startled by the movement, but quickly bookmarks the page he was on and looks down at Hyukjae.
"I don't want to talk about it," he says when Donghae opens his mouth to ask. His voice cracks a little with desperation. "Not yet. Not... Later, maybe. Or tomorrow. Just not right now."
Donghae's lips purse. Hyukjae knows he doesn't like it; waiting to talk about things isn't Donghae's style. But he's learned to leave well enough alone over the days, weeks, months they've been together, and nods slowly. There's only one thing it could be about, anyway.
"Okay," he says eventually. "Can I hold you?"
Hyukjae thinks he'd fall apart again if he did.
"Read to me instead," he says, and Donghae does.
∅
("I don't want to die," Hyukjae says after he tells Donghae the whole awful story. It's been four days, and they're in a shitty motel room halfway across the city from the crosswalk. "Is that selfish?"
Donghae's hand is like a warm weight along Hyukjae's ribs, under his shirt. He blinks rapidly but can't quite keep the tears at bay. Hyukjae has to reach up and wipe Donghae's eyes with his thumb, and somehow that makes him feel less like falling apart himself.
"Sorry," Donghae says thickly. "That's. It's not. It's not selfish. You want to be alive. What's selfish about that?"
"People keep dying." Hyukjae sucks in a breath and says the thing that's haunted him the last four days, but also the last eight months: "Those people— It was because of me, wasn't it? I should've run. I should've done something. I could've. And maybe it would've been done."
"Yah, what're you even— Why would you say that? Were you the one who did all—that?" Donghae shakes him a little. "You did it yourself? No. So. It wasn't your fault."
It was a little bit, Hyukjae thinks, but he understands the point Donghae is trying to make. Perhaps he'll even believe it one day.
"Yeah," Hyukjae says, and scoots forward enough to tuck himself under Donghae's chin.
"Don't say that again," Donghae mutters, and wraps himself around Hyukjae as tightly as he can. "Don't talk like that. You can't leave me alone."
Hyukjae breathes out something like a laugh. They fall asleep tangled together.)
∅
As autumn turns to winter, Hyukjae eventually starts going out on errands alone again. He still flinches when traffic lights flicker in a particular way, but he supposes that's only to be expected; it's been months since Donghae could stand to look at smoke without his breaths getting short and panicked. Neither of them is whole and unscathed anymore.
But things are... Well, not easier. Hyukjae doesn't think it'll ever be easier. Life is more manageable, though. He might even say that there are good days once in a while. Good weeks, even, where it's not all running and terror.
Today is a good day.
They wake up tangled together and take their time getting out of the warm bed. At breakfast, Donghae tries to get Hyukjae to eat a slice of avocado for the millionth time, and Hyukjae makes him laugh by making exaggerated noises as he absolutely does not eat the avocado. They pack up their belongings side-by-side, elbows jostling, before they leave the little house they had all to themselves. There are no urgent errands to run today, so they spend the time wandering into shops and cafés as they slowly meander their way to the next hideaway.
They eat lunch at one such café, passing the time before their order arrives by nudging each other under the table. When Hyukjae's foot comes to rest high on his calf, Donghae smiles around the straw of his iced americano, then winks mischievously. Hyukjae bursts into too-loud laughter that he has to work to stifle before the proprietor turns his disapproving stare their way.
They make their way through the streets, occasionally stopping to look at Christmas decorations that haven't been put away yet, or ducking into random shops when they get too cold to keep walking. The atmosphere is lively and festive and only becomes more so as the afternoon wanes, even when it turns colder and snow begins to fall.
They pick up dinner from a cluttered, dingy chicken place run by an older woman who gives them a discount because she finds Donghae handsome and Hyukjae charming. They thank her profusely and tell her they'll be back again in the new year, and it isn't even a lie.
They bring their food up to the little rooftop apartment they scouted out a few weeks ago, and eat leaning against one another, Hyukjae's phone set in front of them as they watch a movie in companionable silence. When it finishes, they clean up and go back out to pick up the groceries they'll need for the next two days.
The snow is slushy and slippery under their feet as they wander back, bags tucked into their elbows. Donghae's feet hit a particularly treacherous patch of sidewalk and he skids, yelping and holding tightly to his groceries before he finds his footing again. Hyukjae cackles delightedly and gets a handful of slush down the back of his coat for it.
"You could've helped me!" Donghae whines, and Hyukjae gives him an unrepentant smile.
"Where's the fun in that? Besides, I told you to watch your step!"
"Wow. Wow, you're so... Wowww." Donghae shakes his head, mock-disappointed, and forcibly links their free arms for the rest of the way back. "Now you'll have to help me next time."
It's a little past 9 by the time they get back to the apartment, and their coats are wet from the time they actually did slip and fall together. Donghae is cheerful about it, and Hyukjae, while annoyed, can't bring himself to do much but sigh and scowl as they put away the groceries and set about making the space a little more habitable. They dust and sweep, then water the dying plants on the windowsill. The bed gets stripped down and the old sheets tossed into the half-full hamper by the bathroom, swapped out for a fresh set from the closet.
Hyukjae is in a better mood by the time they've finished tidying up. It's a nice space. He has a fleeting thought that one day he'd like a place like this: A little apartment with green walls and a bed tucked up under a window and a sunroof to let in light so it's never completely dark. There'd be a couch that comfortably seats two and a soft chair that comfortably seats one (or two, if the two are willing to press together shoulder to hip, cozy and slightly squished) and a coffee table that sees more meals than the actual dining table by the kitchen. There'd be a surprisingly large bathroom with a tub and a shower and enough space at the sink for two people to brush their teeth at the same time. And—
"Are you ready?" Donghae asks, cutting into Hyukjae's impossible daydream. "Yah, you don't even have your coat on! It's almost 11:50, what're you doing?"
"We have plenty of time," Hyukjae says, but hurries to shrug on his coat and wrap a scarf around his neck. Donghae waits impatiently at the door, hand outstretched for Hyukjae to clasp as soon as he finishes.
They go out onto the roof and brush snow off of the chairs the previous tenant left out on the makeshift patio. The moon is bright and nearly full, and Hyukjae tips his head back to really soak it in. Donghae laughs softly but gives him a few moments to himself.
"How long do you think we'll have to run?" Hyukjae asks after a minute. He says it idly, without the fear or urgency that usually accompanies those sorts of questions, and Donghae hums.
"I dunno," he says. "Not forever, hopefully. Maybe one day everything will go back to how it was."
Hyukjae nods. "Yeah." He gives Donghae a smile and receives one in return. Neither of them think about the what ifs: What if it never goes back to how it was? What if today is the last time they're together like this? What if they have to keep running until they can't anymore? What if the lights in the skyline keep going out, one by one? What if they end up the only ones left?
It's too good a day to dwell on any of that.
Out in the city below, there's a muffled cheer, and then the fireworks start, the shapes like blossoming flowers made of stars. They're far enough away that they get only the lights and not the smoke, and Donghae watches the display with unbridled delight on his face.
"Happy New Year, Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says, and Donghae turns. The joy in his face turns to something softer, something affectionate and warm that Hyukjae thinks is probably love.
"Happy New Year," Donghae replies, and leans in to kiss him.
Maybe this year, Hyukjae thinks as he kisses Donghae back, careful and sweet, reaching out to lace their fingers in the space between them. He loves kissing Donghae. (He loves Donghae even more than he trusts him.) Maybe this year will be better.
He thinks it will be.
∅
(Above Seoul, the fireworks burst in the sky. Smoke like a wisp of wool hangs in the air, resisting the pull of the wind, before it slowly drifts down with the snow, down to earth, down and down and down.
It will be a good night.)