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The sun is relentless as it burns a bright orange through the back of Jihoon’s eyelids, rays piercing through the beat-up blinds that hang above his head. A hand is on his shoulder trying to shake him up. He’s awake, has been for the past four hours, but maybe if he pretends he’s still asleep he won’t have to wake up and face reality. The hand is as persistent as the sun, still shaking him even as a few minutes of Jihoon fake-sleeping had passed.
“Jihoon-ah.” A shake. “I know you’re awake.” Jihoon tries to ignore it. “Come on, get up. Jisoo wants to talk.” Another shake, this one much harder than the ones before. “You can’t run away from this forever.”
Jihoon cracks opens his eyes and comes face-to-face with Wonwoo hovering over him. “I can try.”
Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “You’re so dramatic.” He lets Wonwoo pull him up and out of bed, grip on his shoulder tight as he leads the way outside and into their makeshift conference room as if Jihoon would run away (he isn’t wrong; he had done it a few times). Every pair of eyes turn to them when they enter and all the attention makes Jihoon’s skin burn.
“Ah, you’re awake!” Jisoo says, too cheerful this early in the morning. Too cheerful for anytime of the day, actually. “And just in time too. We’re about to finalise the plans and would like everyone to be present, in case there are some doubts or concerns.”
Jihoon thinks about walking out -- the door is right there -- but Wonwoo’s gaze is as hard as the grip on his arm, so he begrudgingly pulls out a chair and sits down. Once he’s sure that Jihoon won’t run away, Wonwoo walks to the other side of the room and takes his place beside Junhui. Jisoo claps his hands before unrolling a map and placing it on the table in front of him. “Alright then, let’s get started.”
Jihoon tunes out the discussion as soon as it started. In the past few months he had grown wearier and wearier, an implacable burden on his shoulders that seems to weigh him down more and more each day. It doesn’t seem worth it anymore -- nothing does. He doesn’t want a part in anything that they’re planning, no matter how much convincing the group had done and he’ll make sure to tell Jisoo later.
“Jihoon? What do you think?” someone -- Seungcheol -- calls out god knows how many minutes into their discussion. Jihoon meets his eyes across the room. There’s something in them, questions glistening in his pupils. It’s not a matter of What do you think?, but more of Have you been paying attention? Are you okay? Please tell me if you’re not.
There’s one word that describes all the emotions and unspoken words in Seungcheol’s -- hell, in everyone’s -- eyes when they look at him. Pity.
And Jihoon fucking hates it.
“Does it matter?” Jihoon answers. His voice is a bit too rigid and everyone picks up on it; worried looks are thrown at him and it makes him even angrier. He swallows his emotions down and tries his best to keep his tone even. “I’m not joining.”
“But we really need you --”
“I said I’m not joining. I don’t want any part of whatever you’re doing.” He stands up quickly, chair toppling down to the floor. Jisoo cringes. “What good am I anyway? You’re all probably going to be too busy pitying me rather than be focusing on the mission at hand, then we’re all going to be fucking dead.” Someone calls out for him, probably Seungcheol, but he’s already out the door and doesn’t get the chance to find out who it was.
////
Wonwoo finds him around half an hour later on the roof. His feet are dangling off the ledge of where he’s sitting, fingers picking at the gravel beneath his hands. He doesn’t acknowledge Wonwoo when he sits down next to him.
“You know,” he starts, voice low and quiet, “we understand that you’re still grieving, but that isn’t an excuse for you to act like an asshole all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” Jihoon says. It sounds fake even in his own ears, but he swears it’s not. It’s hard to put in any sincerity in what he says or does anymore. It’s as if he’s lost all feeling and he’s just a robot going through the motions of everyday life.
Silence settles between them for a few minutes. Jihoon watches as pieces of gravel fall off the roof and is acutely aware of Wonwoo’s steady breathing beside him. With how long they’ve known each other, he could sense that something was off about Wonwoo, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. That is, until Wonwoo finally speaks up.
“Jun’s infected.”
It’s as if a boulder had fallen and shattered Jihoon’s rib cage, crushing his lungs and heart in the process. An icy numbness spreads all over his body and suddenly the sun wasn’t enough to warm him up. He turns to look at Wonwoo, but Wonwoo’s eyes are focused on the ruined buildings in the distance, face straight as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on Jihoon. He must have heard wrongly, right?
Wonwoo doesn’t give Jihoon the chance to say anything as he starts to explain. “The only ones who know are me, Jisoo, Seungcheol and now you. You know how Jun is. He didn’t want to burden anyone with his own problem.” His voice is strangely watery and Jihoon’s heart is breaking all over again. “That selfish bastard.”
“How long?” Jihoon manages to ask, to swallow the rock that had formed in his throat, but his voice doesn’t seem like it belongs to him.
“Two weeks now,” Wonwoo answers. “Ever since that last mission. We’ve been delaying the virus with a serum that Jisoo had stolen a few months ago, but we’re running out. This mission has been in the making for a long time and isn’t supposed to happen until next month, but we had to speed it up.”
“How? I thought… I thought we were all immune.”
A hollow, broken laugh escapes from Wonwoo’s mouth. “Exactly. That’s fucked up, isn’t it? Lying to him, putting a non-immune together with a group of immunes, just to see whether or not he’d behave differently.”
Jihoon clenches his fists. How detached from the world had he been that he doesn’t even know one of his best friends had been infected? Maybe if he had gone to that mission. Maybe he could have helped Junhui.
As if having read his thoughts, Wonwoo says, “Don’t blame yourself. It isn’t your fault. No one could have predicted this.”
Jihoon grits his teeth. “I’ve lost Soonyoung. I can’t lose Junhui too.” Wonwoo takes in a sharp breath and turns his head to look at Jihoon, and Jihoon realizes it’s the first time in months that he has said his name. It feels foreign on his tongue, but it also feels like it belongs there and in a way, it does. He feels tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and resists the urge to wipe them away because then Wonwoo would definitely know he’s crying.
“Which is why we desperately need your help,” Wonwoo says after a while. “It’s such a sensitive situation that we need everyone’s help.” A pause, as if he’s debating whether or not he should say what he wants to next. “Soonyoung would have wanted you to move on.”
What do you know about Soonyoung? What do you know about what he wants? Jihoon wants to scream out, to rip out his hair, but that’s the grief talking. Wonwoo’s right, and Jihoon hates it.
“I know,” Jihoon says, feeling strangely defeated, as if finally acknowledging Soonyoung after all this time has drained everything out of him. “He would have made fun of me for being so hung up over him.”
Wonwoo laughs and this time it’s genuine, no broken glass and shattered concrete. This is what it’s supposed to be like when people think of Soonyoung. He would have wanted to be remembered for his stupid antics and his jokes and his warm heart. He would have wanted people to think about him with a smile on their face, something that Jihoon hasn’t been doing.
“I miss him.”
Jihoon belatedly realizes that he had said it out loud. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged his own feelings so openly in front of Wonwoo, who takes his hand and squeezes it gently. “Me too.”
////
It happened a week after they had escaped the Maze.
If asked, Jihoon would say he doesn’t remember much, but it’s a lie and everyone knows it. Jihoon remembers everything; every scream and every gunshot play in his head like a broken record.
They should have known. It was too quiet and it had felt too safe, but after everything they’ve been through quiet and safe were the two things they desperately needed. What was supposed to be a secure place for them to hide in turned into a disaster as WICKED stormed the building with guns ablaze. Whoever survived the massacre escaped to one of The Right Arm’s bases further up north. Soonyoung was not one of them.
His injuries were too severe for him to continue. He had known and had instructed the others to leave him but Jihoon wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Jihoon remembers Soonyoung’s smile, so bright and so beautiful that even death itself couldn’t put it out, as he says to Jihoon, “Go. I’ll find you.” There’s something in his voice that doesn’t fit the situation at all. It’s hopeful, it’s reassuring, it’s a promise.
And Soonyoung should have known better than to make promises he couldn’t keep.
Jihoon remembers crying, remembers screaming and kicking as a pair of arms (Wonwoo? Junhui? Seungcheol?) drag him out of the burning building. He remembers his entire world falling apart, the ground caving in beneath his feet, the blood on his hands and clothes and shoes.
He remembers watching Soonyoung die.
They couldn’t even retrieve his body, no matter how much Jihoon had cried and yelled and begged. It’s too dangerous, they said. We have to move, now.
That night Jihoon buried nothing but his memories of Soonyoung. That night he cried over an empty grave.
They all grieved in their own way and some were better at hiding it than others. Wonwoo is one of them. He’s devastated but he doesn’t let his emotions get in the way of his thinking and actions. Jihoon’s kind of jealous of how Wonwoo had always drawn a distinct line between emotions and logic, something Jihoon’s never been able to do. He doesn’t show his vulnerability very often so he bottles it all inside, sadness and anger and grief festering inside him until he’s become something bitter and unrecognisable.
It’s not like he wanted to forget about Soonyoung, that’s his one fear -- that he’ll forget the sound of his voice and his laughter and his quirks. Jihoon just wants to remember without hurting, but that’s not possible, so he tries his hardest to not think or talk about Soonyoung, as if not acknowledging him will make his death something that never happened. You can’t die if you never existed in the first place.
But it’s hard to when Soonyoung had become an omnipresent permanent fixture in Jihoon’s life. Days could past where he could block out all of his thoughts out but when the memories and emotions hit, they hit hard; it’s like a vicious tidal wave and Jihoon’s unable to get his head above. When Soonyoung died that day, a part of Jihoon had too.
////
Jihoon tries not to sleep, because with sleep comes the dreams. Sometimes they’re less dreams and more nightmares: screaming, gunshot, crimson on his hands. Dirt and rubble, fire and ash. A faint whisper of a promise that he knows is never going to be fulfilled. He’ll wake up with tears streaming down his face and an aching in his chest that he knows he’ll never able to get rid of.
But tonight it’s different. Tonight, there’s no destruction or sorrow.
He’s in the Glade, the grass soft and lush where he’s lying down on it. It’s quiet, the tall walls of the Maze offering a strange sort of protection. He turns his head and Soonyoung’s beside him, their faces so close that their noses are barely touching. The rays of the setting sun washes Soonyoung’s features in an orange glow, warm and comforting and so fitting, because that’s what Soonyoung had been to Jihoon ever since he stepped out of the Box and into the Maze -- warm, comforting, radiant. Being with Soonyoung was probably the closest thing to falling in love Jihoon would ever experience.
In his dream, Soonyoung says nothing, only smiles when his eyes catches Jihoon’s. His arm is warm where it’s wrapped around Jihoon’s shoulders, lips soft as he presses a kiss against his temples.
Soonyoung says nothing. He doesn’t have to, because Jihoon knows.
I’ll find you.
Jihoon wakes up crying harder than ever.
////
The mission goes relatively smoothly. Break in the facility, steal the serums and get out as quickly as they can. Jihoon stands guard with Wonwoo in front the lab doors while Jisoo’s inside collecting everything that’s needed. The smell of the lab -- strong disinfectant and chemicals -- mixed with the too bright lights makes Jihoon’s head spin.
“You okay there?” Wonwoo whispers from the other end of the door.
Jihoon wrinkles his nose. “I’ve never liked labs.”
“Neither have I,” Wonwoo says. “Hang in there, we’ll be out soon.”
Jihoon nods and turns back to look back out at the corridor. Everything’s quiet and still but the grip he has on his gun doesn’t loosen. A few moments of silence pass until Jihoon feels that something is off; his suspicions are confirmed when Wonwoo whispers frantically, “Jihoon, we’ve got company.”
Jihoon presses his back flush against the walls when he hears the unmistakable sound of footsteps and Wonwoo does the same. His heartbeat is starting to pick up speed, hand starting to get clammy. Unless they got their intel wrong, no one was supposed to be here tonight. It was supposed to be smooth sailing, but the universe just loves to watch Jihoon suffer.
“Jisoo, we have to go now,” Jihoon says into his walkie talkie. There’s a crackle before Jisoo’s staticky voice replies, “Give me a few.”
“Hey!” a voice yells out, booming through the empty corridors. Jihoon’s heart drops when he spots a man in a lab coat standing across the hall. Suddenly, a cacophony of deafening sirens fills the lab, warning lights drowning the white walls in red.
He speaks into his walkie talkie again, frantic. “Jisoo, now.”
The doors hiss open and Jisoo finally walks out, the bag on his shoulder bulky and large against his thin frame. He looks at them with wide eyes, panic settling deep in them even though his face shows no sign of it. Jisoo’s the best at being calm and composed, even in the most chaotic moments. It’s clear he hasn’t been expecting this. None of them had.
There are footfalls getting louder and nearer, alerting them of the guards coming their way. Jisoo gestures for them to follow him and they run as fast their legs could carry them through the many corridors on the floor.
“Cheol, standby,” Jisoo pants into his walkie talkie. They round a corner to head to where the elevators are. A clean escape was too much to ask for and basically unavoidable as a group of guards were already waiting for them by the doors. Jihoon pulls out his gun and stars shooting, bullets ricocheting off the walls. His ears are ringing when they finally get into the elevator and descend down onto the ground floor. The exit is just right before their eyes, the pathway to it clear and easy and Jihoon sprints towards it, the air cool against his hot skin when they’re finally out of the building. Cheol is waiting for them in the rusty old Jeep, head popping out of the window as he gestures for them to hurry up. Only a few feet left and they’ll be —
“Freeze! We’ve got you surrounded!”
Jisoo stops in his tracks so suddenly that Jihoon almost crashes into him. Jihoon raises his arms slowly, staring into the barrels of at least a dozen guns. He sees Seungcheol being forcibly removed from the car and thrown to his knees, sees the tenseness in Wonwoo’s shoulders and the shake in Jisoo’s hands as he lowers his gun.
Mingyu and the rest were waiting a few miles south of the facility but calling for backup now is too late. They’re terribly outnumbered and there’s no way they could escape without sustaining any injuries. Jihoon’s stomach recoils as he thinks about what will happen if WICKED gets ahold of him again. He’d rather die than let that happen.
“Get on your knees!” one of the guards yelled, gun cocked directly at Jisoo. They comply, slowly lowering themselves onto the ground. Jihoon says nothing as a guard knees Jisoo in the back, causing the older boy to collapse face first into the ground. Jisoo coughs as he tries to get up but the guard has his foot on his back, forcing him down.
“How pathetic,” he says. “You go to all this trouble and yet you’ve failed.”
“I mean, we’ve succeeded the last, what? Fourteen times? You incompetent just dickbags got lucky tonight,” Jisoo says. He’s knocked back down when the guard hits the back of his head with the handle of his rifle.
“A smartass, huh? Can’t wait to see what WICKED’s got in store for you.”
Jisoo spits. “Fuck you.”
The guard’s face darkens, gun cocked and aimed against Jisoo’s temple. “Why I oughta —”
A gunshot rings across the empty field.
Jihoon’s stomach sinks and he feels as if he’s suffocating. He was about to cry out until he ses the guard’s body crashes onto the ground beside him, lifeless eyes staring up at nothing.
It all happened so quick — suddenly there were more gunshots, the guards shooting blindly as they fight an enemy they couldn’t see. Jihoon grabs his gun and helps Jisoo up, doing his best to avoid the crossfire. A swarm of people started appearing out of nowhere, face hidden behind cruddy masks and goggles.
“Follow me!” one of the masked men shouted as another grabs Jihoon’s hand and pulls him away. They are forced inside a van which immediately starts driving off when they’re all inside. Jihoon’s breathing is heavy and ragged, grip deathly tight on the handle above his head, the car rocking violently as it zooms past stretches of empty land until they reach a dilapidated building.
They’re herded inside — it’s dark and smells of dust and mildew. One of the men takes off his mask and goggles, the dim light of the oil lamps illuminating his attractive features. Jisoo inhales sharply when he sees his face. “Minhyun.”
Minhyun smiles, wiping sweat off his brow. “It’s been a while, Jisoo.”
“Never thought I’d see you again,” Jisoo says, the smile mirroring his face matching Minhyun’s. Jihoon, Wonwoo and Seungcheol watches the interaction in mild curiosity. If Jisoo knows Minhyun, then they’re most likely in safe hands. “How did you find us?”
“A little bird told me,” he grins, wide and handsome. He jerks his head to the direction of the person standing to his right. “Someone wants to see you.”
The man beside him tears off his own mask and goggles, throwing them to the ground. At first Jihoon thinks it was the trick of the light, his mind playing games with him, but the longer he looks the more he’s sure he’s not imagining things. It feels as if all the air has been knocked out of his lungs, his hands shaking uncontrollably. He’s aware that he’s starting to lose the strength in his legs but he makes no move to try to stand steady, letting himself fall onto his knees with a thump.
He’s starting to cough, starting to hyperventilate, and Wonwoo’s beside him in a heartbeat, patting his back.
“Jihoon — Jihoon, breathe,” Wonwoo reminds him. He takes a deep breath in, counts to three, and breathes out, repeating it over and over again until he stops feeling like he’s going to pass out. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands shakily. Jihoon’s aware that everyone is looking at him in concern, but he ignores them, attention only focused on the boy standing in front of him — the boy he thought he had lost forever.
Soonyoung.
He’s just as Jihoon remembers, albeit a bit thinner and wearier. He looks at Jihoon as if he’s afraid to speak, afraid to approach him, and the dam that had been holding back Jihoon’s emotions these past few months have broken all too quickly and all too suddenly.
He has his hands on the collar of Soonyoung’s jacket before he knows it and he’s screaming, incomprehensible and irrational. Soonyoung holds him tightly, never letting go even when Jihoon starts slamming his fists against his chest, rubbing circles on his back as he coaxes Jihoon out whatever surge of emotions he’s going through.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, broken and hollowed out. “I’m sorry.”
Jihoon doesn’t realise that he’s been crying until Soonyoung uses the sleeve of his jacket to wipe away his tears. He doesn’t know what to feel — he’s overwhelmed and mostly exhausted, drowning deeper in the familiar warmth of Soonyoung’s arms.
“I watched you die,” Jihoon sobs. “I buried you, Soonyoung.”
“I’m sorry,” Soonyoung says again, and Jihoon’s already tired of it. The last thing he wanted was for Soonyoung to pity him.
“How?”
“Minhyun found me,” Soonyoung explains, eyes flitting over to said boy before he looks back at Jihoon. “They patched me up well. I wanted to look for you… I tried to, but Minhyun told me it was too dangerous since we’ve all got targets on our backs.”
Jihoon hiccups, voice shaky and watery. “You bastard.”
Soonyoung chuckles and offers him a sad smile. “I said I’ll find you, didn’t I?”
////
The next few hours, in Jihoon’s part, were spent in silence. He requested for some time alone as he tried to gather his thoughts and emotions. He feels so, so drained, like he could collapse and sleep for a whole week. He’s happy of course, elated even, to find that Soonyoung is still alive and perfectly fine, but there’s a part of him that’s scared; scared that whatever they have between them has changed over the past few months, scared of losing Soonyoung all over again.
Seungcheol approaches him when it’s almost two in the morning. The skin under his eyes are dark and bruised but he looks happy. “Feeling better?”
Jihoon nods, shifting to the other side of the bench so Seungcheol could sit down.
“We just made contact with the base,” Seungcheol starts explaining even though Jihoon didn’t ask. It’s nice, though. Seungcheol’s voice is a much needed distraction and Jihoon clings to every last word. “Mingyu was panicking real bad. We assured him we’re fine and that we’ll probably be back by dawn.” He sighs once, short and shallow, before continuing. “Wonwoo talked to Junhui too… Told him about the Soonyoung situation so he won’t, like, die of a heart attack when he sees him.”
Jihoon feels a ghost of a smile making its way onto his lips. “I wish Wonwoo hadn’t told him, though. We could all pretend that nothing’s changed just to freak Jun out.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“I’ve been told.”
Seungcheol snorts. “Anyway, apparently Minhyun found a way to cure someone who’s infected. Something about Soonyoung’s blood being able to kill off the virus? The details are still a bit hazy to me, I was never the science guy. It all feels so surreal… Have you talked to him yet?” He looks at Jihoon, gauging for his reaction. Jihoon just shakes his head. “Well, you should. He’s getting, uh, antsy.”
Seungcheol leaves him to go find Jisoo after that. Jihoon spots Soonyoung sitting in a corner, hands hovering over a makeshift fire pit. He looks much younger from afar, Jihoon thinks, unaffected by the cruelness of the universe. If Jihoon had his way, he would put Soonyoung far, far away from this hellhole. He deserves something infinitely better than what he’s getting and it breaks Jihoon’s heart every passing second.
Their eyes meet for a split second when Soonyoung looks up before the older boy hastily averts his gaze somewhere else. In that split second though, it feels as if all of Jihoon’s fears had been quelled, a sudden douse of cold water shaking him out of whatever doubts he has about him and Soonyoung. His heart still feels so, so full whenever he looks at Soonyoung and this, this is the boy he would die for and Jihoon realises that nothing’s ever going to change that.
It takes him a few more minutes until he finally walks over to Soonyoung. Soonyoung seems startled when Jihoon sits next to him but says nothing, eyes fixed on the flame in front of him.
Jihoon clears his throat. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Soonyoung squeaks out.
“So, uh,” Jihoon wipes his hands on his pants. “You’re alive.” This is more awkward than he had intended it to be, but who could blame him? He’s talking with someone who, up until four hours ago, he thought was dead. There isn’t exactly a correct way to start that conversation.
“Good thing I am,” Soonyoung says. “Being dead isn’t exactly on my bucket list.”
Jihoon laughs, something he hasn’t done these past few months. He misses it, he realizes, that feeling of pure joy.
“I missed you,” there’s a burning at the back of Jihoon’s eyes as he tries to blink the tears away, “so goddamn much.”
Soonyoung’s arm his around his waist, tugging Jihoon closer so he’s pressed flush against his warm body. Jihoon leans against him limply, melting into the familiar touch that he’s been deprived off.
“I missed you too, Jihoon-ah,” Soonyoung says. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
Jihoon looks up and meets Soonyoung’s eyes, pupils reflecting the orange glow of the fire, warm and comforting just like in Jihoon’s dream; only this wasn’t a dream, it’s real and palpable and Jihoon might be the luckiest person in the world. The universe has given Soonyoung back to him and he thinks that the universe might not hate him so much after all.
He pulls Soonyoung down and captures his lips in a kiss; awkward at first due to the position of their heads and from being so out of practice, but they soon caught momentum and it turned into something sweet and slow. Soonyoung feels of sunshine on dewy grass in the mornings, of newly blossomed flowers, of love in its purest, unadulterated form. He feels of home -- something Jihoon’s never known but, with Soonyoung right beside him, will always have.
Jihoon rests his forehead against Soonyoung’s when they finally pull apart, a content sigh escaping from his lips. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” Soonyoung replies. When he looks at Jihoon, he smiles like Jihoon’s everything he had ever asked for and more, as if Jihoon’s the only beacon of hope in this terrible Earth, and Jihoon knows he looks at Soonyoung the same way.
Three words are left unspoken that night, but neither of them had to say it because they have always known.