Chapter Text
There are times when the Sun paints the Moon red in scattered beams of sunlight stretched across a bridge called Earth.
These are the days when the Earth stills itself; when Jihoon can take steps across it, one-by-one, the soles of his feet light atop the surface.
It’s the only time that he can see the face of the Sun beyond just in passing. It’s the only time that he can see himself in the same plane of existence as Woojin—the only time that their light does not engage in a battle of day and night, but merely exists, softly, gently, together.
“Did you wait long?” Jihoon calls out in greeting when he finds Woojin where he always is, skipping rocks across a blue that he knows to be called a sea. The rock jumps, skittish atop the waters—once, twice, thrice, before sinking. “You can do better than that.”
“Don’t you mean, I missed you?” Woojin replies, raising a brow.
“I missed you,” Jihoon says with little hesitation. He has nightmares sometimes where he tries to take the last step necessary to cross his half of the Earth to meet Woojin in the middle—but the fear subsides every single time he sees Woojin waiting, warmth emanating from every inch of his body, the Sun personified. “Your turn.”
“Missed you too,” says Woojin, words curling off the top of his tongue like an all-too familiar prayer. “Hey. Remember when we first met? In this exact same spot. You were running across because you thought the world had grozen in its place. Idiot.”
“You were here too, you know.” The challenging expression on Jihoon’s face is taunting, teasing. “Crying, actually, because you thought it was your fault.”
“Shut up. I was a kid and I didn’t know that I was only one tiny piece of the entire galaxy.”
“Neither did I,” Jihoon concedes. “What do they call this again? When the Earth lets me remind myself of what you look like?”
As a child of the Moon, he’s only ever memorized a handful of things: the placement of the stars, a color darker than dark, and the curves of Woojin’s face—a smile that always seems to glow with a light unlike Jihoon’s.
“An eclipse?” Woojin hums, says nothing when Jihoon sidles up beside him, their shoulders barely touching. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I call it what it is.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
Woojin shrugs, lips stretched in a grin that feels like promise. He turns his head, looks Jihoon in the eye, unwavering, and his grin sobers into something softer, nondescript. “Coming home,” he says. “I call it coming home.”
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