Work Text:
Anything that can happen, will happen.
(Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Anything can go right, will go right.)
[ LOG #10: Clouds caused by the collision have cleared. Visibility is good. I can actually get visual of faint light like this. ]
Aimless and unmoving, a defunct escape pod is caught in the heart of a starless galaxy.
Vast blackness stretches on, neverending, covering all of Wonwoo’s line of sight. He could turn, peer through each window, but be greeted by the same empty, consuming darkness nonetheless.
Tartarus was infamous. Many spacecrafts before Wonwoo’s have come here after grueling journeys through its fiery outer rim (that some of which don’t even survive), only to never return.
It makes sense. It makes perfect sense that the galaxy was named after the mythological pit in the underworld into which a river of fire flows —
— and the abyss that sucked souls into its perpetual depths to hold onto forever.
Tartarus was also a name for a deity, though. The first to have existed in the cosmos, according to legend. It follows, then, that the galaxy is also the oldest in Sector 7, having emerged hundreds of billions of years ahead of its neighbors.
Wonwoo would know. He named it.
Still, he could never brace himself for how different being there would be from studying it on ground. He’d been treated like an inventor of some sort back on Atlas for locating Tartarus’ coordinates. But the thing is, he didn’t make anything new. He had just found it. It had already been there and it doesn’t necessarily change — we just learn more about it.
We can’t create the universe.
With a finger, Wonwoo traces the “river of Hades” burning dimly on the edges and coiling in what seems to be the center.
And we can much less control it.
In his youth, Wonwoo had entertained the thought of becoming a writer.
As a child, he liked to read everything: mythology, history, romance, mystery, tragedy, poetry. He didn’t gravitate towards any topic or genre in particular. If a piece of writing was lying around, he was likely to read it and probe the worlds contained within the text. When he grew a bit older, he learned he liked to explore words and worlds of his own, too.
He doesn’t become a writer.
Instead, he enters a prestigious academy on Earth — the same one his childhood best friend, Soonyoung, was gunning for.
Applications were problematic. Wonwoo could qualify with his own exam score easily, but Soonyoung wouldn’t have the same experience. They never had similar experiences with most things, even in their childhood and even if they spent every little moment attached at the hip. For one, Wonwoo was just naturally better at academics and Soonyoung at most everything else: making friends, speaking in front of crowds, leadership. Unfortunately, only academics mattered to enter this school, and while Wonwoo’s slot was secured by the sheer impossibility of his percentile rank, Soonyoung fought his way in tooth and nail through the bureaucracy and politicking of it all to even just get waitlisted.
He makes it, of course, because he’s Soonyoung and Soonyoung can do anything if he puts his mind to it.
And Soonyoung’s mind and heart were in entering flight school and enlisting in a space exploration program on Atlas after college.
Soonyoung has dreamed of it ever since. Wonwoo remembers Soonyoung climbing one of what would be the last living natural trees on Earth when they were nine, beckoning Wonwoo to come up with him when he reached the highest branch. Wonwoo had warily eyed Soonyoung’s bruised knees from his vantage point on the ground but joined him regardless.
When they’re shoulder to shoulder all the way up there (Wonwoo had not grown past Soonyoung’s height at this time yet), Soonyoung pointed to the night sky, confidently declaring how there would come a time he wouldn’t know what walking felt like anymore because all he’ll be doing is soaring.
Wonwoo distinctly recalls being sincerely astounded by that assertion; he thinks it has something to do with the fact that Soonyoung perfectly paralleled all those heroes in the tales he grew up on. The ones with epic dreams. Whose presence was bigger than themselves. Who would someday save another. Who was destined for something.
Soonyoung was undoubtedly the hero of the story. And Wonwoo had looked upon the kid with a twinkle in his own eye because Wonwoo knew he himself was no hero.
The image Wonwoo holds from that night is of Soonyoung, framed by the stars, cheeks all rounded by his childish little smile. It’s familiar to him, even now. Soonyoung still smiles the same way.
Soonyoung and Wonwoo were always going to be lifelong friends, but it’s in university that Wonwoo’s social circle widens a bit beyond Soonyoung.
Soonyoung and Wonwoo were not assigned the same dorm room. Soonyoung had expressed outward disappointment at that; Wonwoo less so. In truth, that’s only because Soonyoung had his own brand of natural charm and was always going to be better off, anyway. Wonwoo (correctly) predicted that he’d be fine.
Wonwoo, on the other hand, wasn’t ever the type to warm up to people easily. He hates unfamiliarity. (Even a toddler Soonyoung took years of weathering his neighbor, Wonwoo, down with his insistent invitations to play before Wonwoo finally called him his friend.) Wonwoo was more anxious than disappointed, if anything.
His roommate was named Jihoon, he soon learned, and was Wonwoo’s age, was easy to talk to, and read the same ancient comic books he did. He was also a pretty quiet person. Or at least it seemed that way, if you’d been used to Soonyoung all your life.
It was unassuming and unintentional, how Wonwoo and Jihoon end up making the dorm a safe, comfortable space for each other. They eventually became good friends, too, likely to neither’s expectations.
In any case, it made no difference whatsoever that Soonyoung and Wonwoo were in different degree programs and separate dorms because the former essentially lived in Wonwoo and Jihoon’s. He’d achieved real freeloader status, taking naps on Wonwoo’s bed and eating away at Jihoon’s snacks stock. He was there almost every day. He and Jun were.
Jun — now he’s the piece that completes this odd combination of personalities. He’s another person Wonwoo meets in university. He was in a couple of Soonyoung and Jihoon’s classes and none of Wonwoo’s.
Truth be told, there isn’t any conceivable reason he and Wonwoo should become so close: Jun was taking up linguistics and Wonwoo astrophysics.
Jun’s family moved to another planet when he was young. Wonwoo was born and raised on Earth.
Jun was planning on entering flight school after college. Wonwoo had already been guaranteed a spot at a research institute on Earth for when he’d already graduated.
There was no reason they should have become each other’s constant, but they did. In fact, many things would be different if they had never met. A lot different.
For one thing, Jun was why Wonwoo decided to go to Atlas, too.
(Dusk had come, coloring in the horizons mauve and offering respite from the punishingly humid daytime. Jun sighed, thankful. “There are no summers where I grew up.”
Wonwoo had never been out of the planet before. “So it’s never warm?”
Jun seemed to think about it, as if to try to remember. “Well, it’s usually drizzling.”
Wonwoo hummed, imagining it. It wasn’t hard to imagine it per se; it rained on Earth, too. Once every few years. But he once read that it used to rain a lot more during the era before the Celestial City was built in the stratosphere. He shifted against Jun, tucking his arms into the blanket. Jun took notice.
“Sorry, am I taking up too much space?” He asked, already trying to draw his shoulders in to accommodate him. Wonwoo shook his head. They were squeezing to fit on Jihoon’s bed, even though Wonwoo’s was right next to it, completely empty. Jihoon’d been out to work on a project the whole day and would probably be working until the next day, sleep be damned. Jihoon tended to do that.
Jun smiled at Wonwoo, his sharp features all softened and childlike. “Don’t you wanna go to your own bed?”
I like it here. “I’m already comfortable. Too much work,” Wonwoo replied.
“Okay, but I’m a clingy sleeper. Hope it won’t be an issue.”
Wonwoo scrunched his nose in a muted chuckle. “Don’t worry, it won’t be an issue.”
It was finals season. Jun came over, equipped with the “goal” of productivity. His intention was allegedly to ask for opinions on his paper. That was clearly just the front because soon enough, they were just laughing themselves stupid — Jihoon swore these two’s sense of humor was of a whole other universe entirely — and idly lying around.
The absolute nerve of them to be so relaxed when Soonyoung, on the other hand, had been scarily hyper-focused lately, what with the early Atlas application period drawing near. Yes, Soonyoung kept the stress to himself and painstakingly made sure not to concern anyone else when the pressure was at its worst, but Wonwoo could always tell.
He wondered about Jun, who was also chasing after the same application deadline. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you taking your degree? I mean—” Wonwoo backtracked. He had always been better with written word. “All I mean is that — it’s rare? Just in general. Not many take it. There are more people with business degrees who apply for space exploration, for example.”
“Very good question.” Jun took Wonwoo’s hand from under the sheet, jokingly speaking into it like it was a recorder.
Like a dork, Wonwoo played along, perfectly emulating the tone and disposition of a Terran journalist. “Mr. Junhui, is that all you have to say?”
“Well, I think communication is the overlooked aspect of all these expeditions,” Jun answered seriously this time, but Wonwoo’s hand remained in his. “We go to all these places and study them and then what? What about the other lifeforms there, if there are any? Their ‘languages’ could be way different from ours. They could be unknown to us.”
Jun was a lot like Wonwoo, in that he usually kept to himself. Wonwoo wasn’t prepared for just how much it would mean to him that Jun could tell him all these things. Wonwoo held onto every candid thought, every passionate shift in tone that most would miss, every slight crinkle of his excited eyes.
This was Jun’s world, and he was welcome in it.
“I don’t study how means of expression are structured for the sake of studying them. I study them to… apply them, I guess.” Jun smiled at Wonwoo again, but this time his smile is small. Shy. Wonwoo’s heart swelled.
“Yeah, that’s it. Sorry, I don’t know if that made sense. Sounds kinda dumb aloud.”
Wonwoo furrowed his brows. “No, it doesn’t.”
Even with all Jun’s contradictions and hard-to-understand quirks, sometimes Jun was the only thing that made sense to Wonwoo.
It was at this moment Wonwoo unknowingly began to form this urge to take his work closer to its source. It was cushy being confined to the lab and Wonwoo by no means minded that—liked it, even—but maybe, maybe he could learn up close and firsthand.
In a way, he still ended up with the same old quest to learn about the unknown. Remnants from his childhood, perhaps. Swap the mysteries of fiction and man’s imagination with... the puzzles of outer space. It wasn’t similar at all — it couldn’t be any more different — but at the same time, it was the exact same thing. The universe, after all, was something like a story.
“It makes sense. You’re right.” Wonwoo squeezed Jun’s hand, almost absentmindedly. He blinked slowly. “By the way, I fall asleep easily. Hope it won’t be an issue.”
Jun laughed. It was a nice, far-off sound from where Wonwoo lay. “I already knew that.”
Wonwoo felt himself slipping comfortably into slumber when Jun’s sudden “wait, Wonwoo” pulled him right back.
“What is it,” yawned Wonwoo.
“Nothing,” Jun said. He then added softly, in a sort of singsong voice, “just let me be the last thing you think of before you sleep.”
To which Wonwoo had scoffed — and it was impossible to interpret the fond action as anything but. He fell asleep not much later, to the sound of Jun’s steady heartbeat.)
[ LOG #5: Running low on reserve energy. Shutting down the temperature control unit saves me a lot of energy, though. ]
After the click, a long-suffering sigh wrenches its way out of his darkening lips. His breath comes out, stuttering, a white plume against the dark canvas that is the galaxy that subsumes him. He squeezes his eyes shut, grits his chattering teeth.
It hasn’t been that long. Or maybe it has, he’s not so sure right now, it’s too cold to think.
His fingers start going numb. He’d been clenching his fist so tight that his nails have made tiny indents on his palm.
Wonwoo shudders, rubbing together frigid hands that have seemingly lost sensation — a desperate attempt at getting any semblance of warmth.
Atlas didn’t look too different from Earth. It wasn’t a planet like Earth or a ship that of the High Court’s. It was more of a station, really, with ships docking in and out along its farthest circle. Or a base, what with explorers having a whole living quarters area nearer to the ground.
It was bare, with no fringes or embellishments whatsoever — Atlas is as utilitarian as they come. It could even be considered the antithesis to the Celestial City back on Earth. Well, Wonwoo’s only been to the city once or twice in his life: the first time with his dad on his 7th birthday, and the second with Soonyoung, Jihoon, and Jun in what was typical senior uni student shenanigans.
Despite having only visited Celestial City twice, he could definitely say Atlas was less shiny and flamboyant a place. Celestial City was ornate, all ivory pillars and crystal shards cascading overhead. The smooth marble-like ground carried elaborate buildings, the whole city floating not so far up, but still seeming so unreachable. Atlas, on the other hand, was stripped — metal beams, strong foundations, rigid walls.
Most of it hung out in space, annexed to the training facilities on ground. The “ground” was bigger than most natural satellites but was a sixth of Earth’s size, so it only really had space to accommodate the training facility.
Wonwoo bit his lower lip as a strong gust of icy air kissed the skin on his face.
That’s another thing. There were no seasons on Atlas. It only knew the cold.
And Wonwoo had never been good with the cold.
It had been a year or so since they started living here, but Wonwoo hadn’t gotten used to it one bit. He was on break currently, spending his free time alone lounging on the deck — a sturdy platform that cuts into a looming outcrop that houses a concealed lab complex. He ought to go back inside where it was way warmer.
It wasn’t long until Jun emerged from the complex. The doors closed behind him automatically with a whir, its sound making Wonwoo turn. He nodded at Jun in soundless acknowledgment and Jun joined him by the railing.
Perched over the square, they watched explorers and trainees alike crowd in the center. The new recruits and their seniors look small from where they were. Soonyoung and Jihoon were down there, too: Soonyoung had already taken to their juniors, assuming a guiding sort of brotherly role — he’d been teaching them well and seriously, but he’d also throw his arms over their shoulders and loudly laugh along with them every now and then. Jihoon, on the other hand, had already naturally made a place for himself with the superiors without his meaning to. He easily positioned himself within their circle and they listened to him intently, as if he wasn’t half their age. It was interesting to see in action.
The breeze was persistent. Wonwoo’s body was racked with a shiver not nearly small enough to go unnoticed.
“Cold?”
Wonwoo nodded stiffly. “So fucking cold.”
Jun couldn’t help but chuckle at the grim look on his face. He brought his hands out from his pockets, draping them over Wonwoo’s clenched, paling fists. Upon his touch, Wonwoo had loosened his grip without thinking, his hands permissive as Jun laced their fingers together. Wonwoo sighed in relief. He was warm.
From the deck, the sight of stellar wind painting the sky in wisps of green and purple light seemed much, much closer. Jun played with Wonwoo’s hands; mindlessly rubbed soft circles on the skin there. Wonwoo let him.
For a moment, he only looked on at the phenomenon above them in silence. Wonwoo had only ever seen it in pictures and had only ever understood it in terms of magnetic fields and charged particles. To see it was altogether different. Indeed, it was both awe-inducing and frightening, how beyond us the universe seems to be.
“Do you get scared?” Wonwoo asked, seemingly out of nowhere.
It was an odd question from Wonwoo — the kind Wonwoo always kept to himself for precisely the reason that it could tip anyone off-balance. Anyone but Jun. “Sure,” he said, a bit confused, yes, but not surprised and not questioning. “Often.”
“The universe is too big, isn’t it? Too important,” clarified Wonwoo. The too big, too important to care about us, was implied. Now, he was looking down, reducing the universe he’d been talking about to the point where their hands were joined. (Perhaps as a defense mechanism.)
“Oh. Well, no, I’m not scared of that.”
The breezy response was… perplexing to Wonwoo. And it wasn’t a front; Wonwoo knew Jun so well he knew what was real and what wasn’t. He snuck a peek at Jun, just to check, and yes, he’d said it easily; fearlessly, even. No hitch. He was also framed by the aurora — he had become a familiar foreground against the boundless unknown that scared Wonwoo so much.
Not to retort, per se — rather, in contemplation, Wonwoo hummed, “but we’re so insignificant.”
The universe doesn’t care.
It doesn’t take, but it doesn’t give, and nothing about us amounts to anything against the infinite.
“Yeah, true,” answered Jun, “we don’t matter.”
Wonwoo raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing we do matters,” Jun continued, his unbothered delivery betraying the words until— “but that’s exactly why we can do anything, right?”
Nothing is too big — too ridiculous — in the face of the universe.
“That’s why I’m going to fly to the farthest discovered galaxies one day,” Jun said, his expression both aspiring yet assured as he now gazed upon the same great sky that — in contrast — had Wonwoo anxious. He brought his eyes back down to Wonwoo, and just as assured, he added, “that’s why you’re going to discover them in the first place.”
A smile crept onto Wonwoo’s face as Jun told him this. It didn’t necessarily align with his philosophies personally, but Jun was convincing. Has always been. At the very least to Wonwoo.
“Oh, your hair’s grown,” Jun observed. He allowed his own hand to tuck a clump of Wonwoo’s hair, curling at the ends now, behind Wonwoo’s ear. His eyes crinkled, fond, and—
And.
And Wonwoo just wanted to kiss him. There wasn’t much to it. It was simple; there are just some things you find you want to do in moments, and right that moment — to Wonwoo — it was to kiss Jun. Jun seemed to have the same impulse, independent of Wonwoo, because he let his hand linger on the side of Wonwoo’s face and he appeared to be leaning in. Wonwoo was more than prepared to meet him halfway.
He was prepared, is the key phrase.
The doors slid open behind them, the very thrum of it sounding suddenly so offensive and intrusive. They both startled and Wonwoo grabbed Jun’s hand, pulled it down to their sides.
“Wonwoo, about that report—”
Seungcheol looked up from his papers and paused.
“—oh,” He uttered. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”
Jun’s immediate response was to smile down at his feet. The tips of his ears began to redden.
“No,” Wonwoo replied for both of them, with a mastered kind of composedness.
But Seungcheol’s gaze drifted to their linked hands. He didn’t even have to make any sort of face for Wonwoo to let go hurriedly (and sadly, mind you.)
And there it was — ‘Wonwoo, the unflustered’ no longer.
“The report,” he tried to steer the attention away. If he stuttered, then it shouldn’t have been obvious. “The updates on Sectors 3 to 6?”
Seungcheol turned to Jun first. “Oh, Soonyoung’s looking for you, by the way. To show Minghao the ropes, he said. Better head on down there.”
Jun nodded, deferent and professional to Seungcheol. With Wonwoo, however, there was a discreet fleeting look they shared — a little smile, you could call it; maybe shy around the edges, or even apologetic — before Jun’s back disappeared into the interior of the complex.
Wonwoo awkwardly coughed to dispel whatever mood they were left with once Jun was gone. “Is there a deficiency in the assessments of Sectors 3 thru 6 that I submitted?”
Seungcheol pulled something akin to a pout, Wonwoo assumed, at this. “You don’t have to be so formal with me,” he said, feigning hurt.
“I’m— I’m not,” Wonwoo denied.
Though it might not seem like it, the two hadn’t been strangers for some time now. In fact, they’d started dorming together. They were roomies. By this time, Seungcheol already knew Wonwoo’s napping habits. Wonwoo knew that Seungcheol liked to watch interplanetary reality shows before sleeping. Seungcheol knew to eat the fishy-slash-tentacled stuff reminiscent of seafood of off Wonwoo’s rationed lunch and trade it for his own dessert. And so on.
It was all because all senior recruits had moved into bigger living quarters with their actual teams 3 Atlas revolutions ago (almost 2 months in Earth time), which meant now, Wonwoo’s bed was next to Seungcheol’s instead of Jun’s, and in the next room over weren’t Soonyoung and Jihoon, but Mingyu and the new recruit.
Seungcheol was Wonwoo’s leader.
He will be the captain when the time comes. Seungcheol had been chosen by the board first as a captain-in-training and Wonwoo was the first one to be selected for Seungcheol’s roster. Frankly, there should have been some sense of pride in the fact that he was “first pick” so to speak. Wonwoo didn’t feel that, though.
Perhaps it was the apprehension that came with these ‘impossibilities’ coming to fruition seemingly too fast. That, or it was the burden of his reputation.
Or perhaps it was just that Wonwoo had hoped, deep inside (and though he will say to himself and to other people that these kinds of things weren’t of relevance to him) that he would somehow end up on Soonyoung and Jun’s team.
Not Seungcheol’s. Not with a group of strangers. Not anything that could mean he loses his reference points — the childhood shared; the perfect summers. Soonyoung. Jun.
He had no say in the matter, of course, and it isn’t even anything against Seungcheol in particular. Seungcheol was probably the most considerate person Wonwoo had ever met. It wasn’t on Seungcheol, but neither was it a detriment to Wonwoo’s character.
All people are simply built differently.
(And Wonwoo was built with higher, stronger walls that took the longest time to weather.)
Seungcheol quirked a smile that dimpled his cheek. It was the kind of thing that reminded Wonwoo how young Seungcheol really is — that they were only a year apart.
“And you can relax, I won’t penalize you for… what, engaging in smooches on the premises, Jeon?”
“God.” Wonwoo was unable to hold it in. He flushed, letting his head fall bowed.
This earned him a laugh from Seungcheol, not that Wonwoo intended for his embarrassment to be comedic. But Wonwoo also mostly wasn’t dense and he knew it was from a good place: Seungcheol just seemed to be fond of him, for whatever reason. See, Wonwoo hadn’t done anything spectacularly agreeable or friendly in all their time spent together so far, hence he felt the fondness is misplaced. It might’ve also just been born out of obligation, though — a “leader thing.” Wonwoo didn’t rule that out.
“Don’t worry, I just wanted to clarify a few things,” Seungcheol said, draping a comfortable arm over Wonwoo’s shoulder. “And I think Mingyu thinks he has to work on everything down there. I don’t want him to think that. Let’s go.”
I just don’t want him to be alone, was close to what Seungcheol probably meant. And really, he always told Wonwoo that, too. I don’t want you to be alone. He invited him to his table in the cafeteria when Wonwoo couldn’t spot anyone he knew. He relayed Wonwoo’s concerns to and negotiated them with the higher-ups. He kept Wonwoo company in their room and they just read even though Seungcheol could be out with his batchmates. Seungcheol was going to be a great captain, Wonwoo knew. And he already was.
The two took the lift to the basement to meet with Mingyu, as promised, and much later into the day, they surfaced on the Atlas field, waiting for the second round of their simulation.
Seungcheol had almost emptied his beverage by now, but Wonwoo held the warm ceramic between his hands, keeping his face near the steam of his untouched drink. Atlas temperature never improves, but the hot cocoa did help.
“Do you ever miss Earth, Wonwoo?” Seungcheol asked, out of nowhere. They had been silently sitting side by side on a bench, Mingyu and Hansol having retreated back into the warmth of the underground a little earlier to wait there instead.
Wonwoo paused. He took a tiny sip from his mug. “From time to time,” he admitted.
Seungcheol hummed. “I miss it all the time. And for the weirdest reasons sometimes. For things I didn’t even care about like…”
Seungcheol squinted at the sky. Wonwoo looked up at it, too. There wasn’t anything there at that moment, really.
“Atlas has no moon,” Wonwoo said.
“Yeah.” Seungcheol smiled at the space where the moon should be hanging. “It doesn’t.”
“I like the moon,” Wonwoo muttered, his breath materializing in a smoke-like puff. It sounded like a non-sequitur, but he did have a point. Seungcheol realized this; waited for Wonwoo to complete the thought.
“And I like knowing it’s around, too.”
Seungcheol agreed, though it didn’t need to be said. He leaned back with a sigh, and together, they imagined the edges of a crest, the off-white glow — a reference point.
With perfect timing, they were called back in for the second round. Outside, the winds began to rage.
“Alright, that should be it,” Jihoon’s voice faintly sounded out through static when it all ended. Wonwoo adjusted his headset to hear better. “Good work, everyone,” added Jeonghan’s voice.
Mingyu was giddy with the smooth outcome of their run if his toothy grin was any indication, and he didn’t neglect to mention it. “We did even better this time.”
It wasn’t long until someone is quick to dampen his victorious mood, though. “Yeah, no thanks to you,” Seungkwan scoffed over the communication lines, recalling the tiny clumsy error Mingyu had committed prior.
If it was Seungkwan, you better bet Mingyu was inclined to retort. “Hey, wait a minute—”
“Okay, that’s it,” Seungcheol intercepted, reaching for the control panel. “Thanks, Jihoon, Jeonghan, Seungkwan. Good job.” He said. The ground control unit thanked the team too, and then Seungcheol disconnected.
The lights in the chamber flickered open and a vibrating, droning sound bounced off of its walls as the system ultimately came to a halt. A quiet hiss, and then the security straps on their seats released them automatically. Mingyu put his headset down and faced Wonwoo and Hansol, as Seungcheol busied himself logging in their stats.
“Black hole would’ve sucked us in, huh? If we were less careful.”
Wonwoo had thinned his lips, pausing to contemplate whether or not it warranted his response specifically.
“Technically, black holes don’t ‘suck’ anything,” Wonwoo corrected him anyway. “They have a strong gravitational field, but the effect would be the same as any other object depending on distance. Nothing gets ‘pulled’ into it and nothing would happen if it weren’t close enough."
Mingyu opened his mouth to say something but immediately closed it, since he had nothing to say. It wounded his pride — it wasn’t hard to tell from his face and his posture. He resembled a really bummed out big dog, Wonwoo thought, with the slumped shoulders and drawn eyebrows.
“Okay, but—just saying—they don’t really tell you to remember the difference in a botany course or flight school,” huffed Mingyu.
Wonwoo wasn’t being mean-spirited at all; that much wasn’t his goal. He was merely stating things.
“Well, maybe they should,” Wonwoo replied. “Especially if they’ll be sending their students—you, for example—to space.”
Kim Mingyu, intentionally or otherwise, had been demolished.
And the other two burst in laughter because of it. Hansol was a physical kind of laugher, turns out; he clutched onto Wonwoo’s arm mid-wheeze, the force of his laugh sending Wonwoo’s scrawny frame swaying, too. Wonwoo couldn’t help that his mouth curled into this triumphant smile — one that, in turn, made Mingyu shake his head in dejection.
“Nice to see you speak a word to each other for once,” Seungcheol got up, having finished his task. He rested an elbow atop Mingyu’s seat. “Was beginning to think you hated each other.”
“Oh, this guy? How can I?” Mingyu answered. “He spends the whole day in the archives. Can’t hate him if I don’t even see him.”
Seungcheol looked to Wonwoo. “What do you say?”
“About Mingyu?” Wonwoo shrugged. “He’s alright. Intelligent guy. Diligent worker.”
Mingyu blinked, taken aback. He absolutely could not fathom how these words could have possibly come from Wonwoo’s mouth. “Well, wow, thanks? Now I look bad.” He pouted.
Beside Wonwoo, Hansol was fiddling with one of his devices and snickering. At this, Mingyu shot him a petulant frown. “I swear he usually has a smarter mouth than this.”
“You seem to say that about everyone who shuts you down,” Hansol commented, teasing.
“You’re telling me Seungkwan isn’t like that?”
Hansol shrugged. “Not to me.”
“That guy! I’m still his senior, you know.”
This propelled Mingyu to engage in an overdue exasperated rant, where he was dramatic, yes, but probably only about as dramatic as said rant’s subject, Boo Seungkwan. Wonwoo and Hansol were his captive—but also to his credit—amused audience.
Amidst this, Seungcheol spared a glance at Wonwoo. This unnamed tension in Wonwoo had already bled out since first hearing Hansol’s chuckle; yet Seungcheol had, in a way, checked on him still. Wonwoo might not seem like the type, but he appreciated it. Shyly and reassuringly, he smiled back at Seungcheol. I’m not alone. And it’s okay. I’m okay.
After a while, Seungcheol barked, “y’know what, we’re looking really good. What about topping the other team’s accumulative stats?” He followed it up with a sheepish remark, “sorry, I’m kinda competitive.”
“Kinda,” Hansol jokingly repeated.
“So is Soonyoung, actually,” Seungcheol went on to amend. “Oh, no, he definitely is. But we’ll beat ‘em.” It was nothing but a friendly little competition between the two teams and no one ever took it to heart. Honestly, Soonyoung probably did at times, but that fact was more endearing than it was off-putting.
“Of course we will,” Mingyu declared, assured. He and Seungcheol, at least in this respect, were cut from the same cloth.
“But I think they’re all pretty driven, aren’t they,” said Hansol of the other team. Of course, there was their leader, Soonyoung. However, there were also the new guys, Minghao and Chan, who both didn’t seem to like to lose. And there was Jun who, Wonwoo knew (but not many others knew), also had a competitive streak at times. Hansol was a perceptive kid. He might not look like it, what with him seemingly never listening — but he was. And he was quickly growing on Wonwoo. “It might be close, is all I’m saying,” Hansol added.
“We’ll still come out on top,” Wonwoo said.
It was unexpected, at least from Wonwoo. Seungcheol cocked an eyebrow. “And why so confident?”
Wonwoo grinned. “Because we have me.”
The chamber erupted in laughter again; Seungcheol was shoving at Wonwoo’s shoulder, Hansol drawling a wow of disbelief, Mingyu doubling over in laughter.
“No way you just said that,” cried Mingyu. “Look at me, I’m Jeon Wonwoo, my undergraduate thesis disproved lifeworks of physics legends living and dead — I’m so amazing. Dude, get off it.”
As they loudly moved onto other dumb topics — like the time Seungcheol fell for Jeonghan’s rigged solo simulation prank during their earlier trainee days and the time Mingyu accidentally dropped their former team director’s prototype accelerator, shattering it into useless pieces — Wonwoo’s nose crinkled ever so often and his hand eventually stopped trying to hide the curve of his grin.
The chamber was grey with disuse and nothing was really happening. It was merely a mundane scene of four boys after something out of their routine —
— yet the space was vibrant and eventful with noise all the same.
[ LOG #20: It really is so quiet. ]
It’s true what they say. The quiet is deafening.
Wonwoo has never known himself to be a fan of noise.
(But you miss things for the strangest reasons sometimes, and only find you care about them when they’re not around.)
His finger slips off the recording button, and for a moment, he’s just breathing, as if letting whoever isn’t there and isn’t listening hear the same silence.
(Technically, Wonwoo wasn’t allowed in there. And Wonwoo did raise this concern.
He had slipped into the room, albeit warily. “I shouldn’t be here, right? Like it’s a rule.”
Jihoon sat by the mainframe, not even looking at him. “Not a rule, just a suggestion,” he had nonchalantly replied.
Of course it didn’t make sense, but Jihoon didn’t mean for it to in the first place. His word is law. Still cautiously, Wonwoo made his way to Jihoon. “Hm, I don’t know. Pretty sure it’s a rule.”
“Well, I’m the highest ranking person here currently so why don’t you just sit your ass down?”
Wonwoo had taken a seat almost immediately, but not without having another annoying thing to say. “Have I mentioned that I love it when you use your boss voice?” He swooned.
Jihoon shook his head, sheathing his amusement in manufactured irritation that did little to thin the quiet smile.
“How’s it looking?” Jihoon spoke, but into his mic this time. Wonwoo watched curiously, Jihoon’s fingers quick and busy on the computer keys. “Jun, I’m gonna need you to slow down, alright?”
“Recalibrating,” Jihoon said, after a beat. “Yes, you’re good.”
Jihoon faced Wonwoo. “Wanna talk to him?”
Wonwoo blinked in mild surprise. To what extent can Jihoon bend protocol, he wondered. “Can— can I?”
Jihoon wordlessly motioned to the headset in front of Wonwoo. Wonwoo reached for it and put it snug on his ears.
“Wonwoo’s here, I’m gonna patch him in.”
Wonwoo heard nothing at first, and then he heard a fizzling sound like static that clicked and switched to the steady hum of a craft’s interior. “Jun?”
“Wonwoo!”
It was Jun’s voice, high but fuzzy. “My heart’s going crazy,” he said. No matter how tainted the sound was by his ear at the moment, Wonwoo detected the slight tremble in Jun’s voice. In fact, and despite being on ground, Wonwoo could almost feel what might be the very same jitters being carried over to him.
Jun sighed. “Your voice helps.”
Wonwoo saw Jihoon scowl at this, and Jihoon deemed it necessary to put his own headset away for the time being. Wonwoo laughed at his disgust.
“Wonwoo? Still there?”
“Yeah.”
Jun didn’t say anything for a while. Wonwoo imagined he had been skillfully maneuvering his craft, all gliding flourishes and tight turns, which required a whole lot of focus. When Jun’s voice came again, Wonwoo realized what was happening might have been a bit different.
“Wonwoo,” he called. “Wish you could see this right now.”
It painted a different image in Wonwoo’s head. One of stillness. One of Jun cruising, enraptured by the world that is separated from him by nothing but a window.
Wonwoo didn’t see anything. The technology here hadn’t caught up to the ones the official facilities used, so he couldn’t view it from screens. Instead, he “viewed” it from Jun’s stunned silence.
“Describe it for me,” Wonwoo requested.
“It’s like…” Jun searched for words.
“...if I spilled black paint on a gilded tarmac,” he said, “so that only some flashes peeked out at the edges.”
Wonwoo felt like he could see the same thing. It was so vivid. The sight. The feeling. “That’s beautiful,” he said.
Wonwoo listened to Jun sigh again — a good kind of sigh — and sat with a wordless Jun by his ear, one with him in this experience.
“Thanks,” said Jun, after a while.
Wonwoo chuckled. “For?”
“Being here.”
Here, he said. Not ‘there.’ Here.
Here. With him.)
Atlas was in the process of enduring its first storm in years. A meteorological anomaly.
It looked odd, to say the least; the sky was muddled with it. The storm, thankfully, was on its last gasps.
By this time, Jun was now a pilot. And Wonwoo was shaping up to be the youngest navigator to have ever come out of the program.
Wonwoo had been sitting cross-legged, Hansol’s blueprints spread across his lap, stress worrying his lip and furrowing his brows. His concentration had been past its peak when Jun had broken into the same locked hangar. He’d swiftly wrestled the papers from his hands, declaring that it was “officially” break time.
That was some time ago. Now, Jun hovered over Wonwoo, grinning, and Wonwoo beneath him, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose.
Delicate fingers took the glasses from his face, folding them and putting them aside. Now slightly squinting through the blur, Wonwoo took note of how the dim light grazed the planes of Jun’s face — how Jun seemed to diffuse the darkness. More importantly, Wonwoo noted how the years have tamed this glint in his eyes; how maturity had forced his shyness into manageability.
“Have you ever wanted to ride into The Great Viridian?” Jun had asked.
It was ridiculous, of course. Wonwoo snorted. Jun laughed into Wonwoo’s neck.
Jun hadn’t changed, Wonwoo concluded. Not really. He was always going to be inherently Jun.
Still, Wonwoo turned thoughtful. Jun peeked at Wonwoo, who was now looking up vaguely at the high ceiling of the hangar. “No, technically, we can’t ride into it. There isn’t anything to ride into. We’d be lost forever,” said Wonwoo.
It was downright smartassery, alright, and yet it made Jun smile softly. It didn’t make any sense that he should, but Jun looked more in love than ever. ”You’ve ruined this.”
“Mm,” Wonwoo hummed. He craned his neck to kiss Jun on the lips. “Yeah, I did,” he agreed, in between kisses.
With much hesitance, however, Jun had to force himself to carefully pull away, leaving Wonwoo’s lips with this feather-like tingle that was nowhere near enough for him. Wonwoo slowly sat up, confused pout and all.
“Wonwoo,” Jun started, “I’ve been thinking...”
Innocent confusion was replaced by this blunt coldness crawling up Wonwoo’s skin at the words.
The sudden distance between them made him unbelievably anxious. Jun was rarely ever this serious. His hushed tone was turning Wonwoo’s mind into, in contrast, a noisy chamber of possibilities. What did he do wrong? Was there something he missed all this time? Is this a break-up?
But he took a look at Jun, too; saw how he fretted, how he struggled to continue as a result of a similar kind of nervousness.
Therefore, Wonwoo didn’t dare freeze; he swallowed his own nerves and reached for Jun’s hand to soothe him. “What is it?” He asked calmly.
Jun eyed the papers they had discarded on the side, a reminder of the seemingly never-ending pile of work they both had to attend to. “I know it’s a bad time.”
Wonwoo understood what he meant. They were both incredibly busy lately. Often, Wonwoo more than Jun.
“But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For some time now.”
With that, it had become crystal clear to Wonwoo what this was really about.
Wonwoo hated that about himself sometimes. He hated that his overactive mind came up with conclusions ten steps prior — theoreticals that never even did anything to ease his apprehensions, and only worsened them in advance.
Wonwoo didn’t have to worry about what might be a fight or god forbid, a break-up; that much was certain. The fear now stemmed from something else.
“I’m not good at this. Sorry,” Jun laughed sheepishly.
“It’s fine,” reassured Wonwoo.
“Can I ask you a question instead?”
Wonwoo tried to smile. “Sure.”
“Would you ever wanna get married?"
The following silence was paralyzing.
Wonwoo’s voice and his limbs could not hope to catch up to his thoughts. Wonwoo swallowed. He was at a loss. He broke eye contact and took his hand back cautiously.
“Jun…” Wonwoo only said, weakly.
“I want to spend my life with you.”
Jun was not so desperate as much as he had sparked this new-found confidence at that moment — one he failed to transfer or share with Wonwoo. Evidently so, as Wonwoo was still not meeting Jun’s gaze.
“I—” Wonwoo sighed. “Jun, you know I can’t do this. Not right now.” The honesty made him quake inside.
“Maybe later. Maybe after all this… We can talk about it then.” His hand searched for his glasses in the dark, putting them back on with an out-of-place clumsiness.
Jun’s shoulders visibly sagged. Guilt ate away at Wonwoo to see it. At once, he couldn’t stand the distance any longer. Mounted by their brief exchange was this tense air — so heavy it felt tangible; as if it was, in actuality, separating them like a closed gate. And he sought to hurdle past it.
He sat himself next to Jun. “I’m sorry,” Wonwoo whispered, sincere.
“No, it’s fine.” Jun tilted his head, his lip quirked on one side in a tiny smile that tried hard not to look sad. But his next words were genuine, “when you’re ready.” He pressed his forehead against Wonwoo’s.
“I’ll wait,” Jun promised. “We have time.”
We have time.
Wonwoo reassured himself, too. We have time.
The nebulous “later” Wonwoo spoke of had yet to come. A couple of months or so after, Seungcheol’s team was selected as the exploration program’s first official venture.
Upon the announcement, Wonwoo found himself happily hugging Seungcheol, who, on the other hand, looked like he was a word or two away from crying. Wonwoo felt weightless. He didn’t even notice how Mingyu’d used his freakishly long arms to gather all four of them into a crowded embrace until it was too late and he was already swept up in it. Peeking between Hansol and Seungcheol, Wonwoo met Jihoon’s gaze. Jihoon simply nodded and smiled at him — which wasn’t anything compared to all the commotion, but meant everything in so few actions.
All this bled into an intimate (but still louder than usual) celebration, with Soonyoung taking the shots Wonwoo rejected and Wonwoo having to steady him after the fact. Soonyoung’s mouth had been running feigned, hilarious regrets over Wonwoo being picked first. But his eyes communicated, instead, a kind of pride. The feeling that softened the way Soonyoung looked at Wonwoo said: my best friend did it.
After entrusting a tipsy Soonyoung to Minghao, Wonwoo weaved through several people (most of whom he had barely uttered a word to before), awkwardly collecting their congratulations.
“Congrats!” Jun had cried. Meeting him in the heart of it all, Jun swooped in, seizing Wonwoo by the waist. Wonwoo let him sway them both, hands clutching Jun’s to keep them where they were. This was the congratulations that meant the most to Wonwoo, admittedly. The Atlas Head’s short speech nor his declared trust in Wonwoo’s mind had nothing on how happy Jun was for Wonwoo. And Wonwoo was happy, too — no underlying anxieties — at the time.
“Later” didn’t come even after that, however. Immediately, they plunged headfirst into immersive training regimens, scouting trips to areas near the sector, and even tediously thorough board meetings. Wonwoo himself had a spectacular amount of work to do; plotting their course and heeding Hansol’s consultations ate up most of his downtime.
There was no breathing space. No allowance. A whirlwind of preparations, pressure, projects, with events unfolding one after the other, and before they knew it —
There they were.
There they were; suited up, bracing themselves a platform away from the exterior of the ship, finally about to board.
The massive ship sat in a wide chasm down the hangar’s center, breaching where it opened into space. The engineering staff was done with final assessments; the ground control unit on standby. People awaited, gathered around the cusp of a voyage, the air severe— almost even reverent.
They received a final briefing before they were to go on with their mission. The other team who they’d trained with all these years were there to send them off as well. The whole affair was, in a way, marked. They were to cross something — something grand — and the goodbyes shared acknowledged the gravity of their crossing. This was it.
Finally, Jun went up to Wonwoo. There was a time, perhaps back in university and their rookie years, when they thought they would be embarking on their first voyage together.
But there they stood, mere moments away from parting on a cosmic level. Jun kissed him, chaste — simple — but definitely not out of haste. Pretending like they were wealthy with it or perhaps just ignoring that they were not, they allowed themselves some time — to linger, to be together for a spare minute. Wonwoo wouldn’t forget the way Jun’s eyes looked that day. His eyes expressed a flurry of sentiments all at once before he could will himself to even speak.
Jun didn’t say bye.
He said, “I’ll wait."
And Wonwoo had nodded, solemn. Jun then watched Wonwoo climb the steps and ultimately disappear into the ship. He watched the ship, eyes trained on it, until it erupted and first took off —
until it became a mere glint in the Atlas sky —
and until it became nothing.
It happens quickly: first, the crash. Then, the burst of sweltering heat. From there, it grows. Yellow licks of fire rise seemingly at every turn; so bright it obscures. Golden death peeks from black edges — a spontaneous stellar flare.
Wonwoo is losing consciousness, his mind drifting, acutely, to the flames. What his muddled mind can register flits from the imposing blaze, to Seungcheol’s distant and urgent voice calling, to the moonless Atlas sky, and —
— to Jun’s eyes the day he disappeared into the cosmos.
“We don’t have time,” Mingyu strains to yell from afar.
We don’t have time. Wonwoo repeats it in his head, gradually being pulled back to his senses.
A flurry of events flashes, so fevered in their rapid succession that nobody could process what was happening. Hansol lags behind, stumbling on his way back from having attempted to fix things at the posterior of the ship in order to suppress the storm.
Warnings continue to echo; Wonwoo had to make a decision.
The grueling seconds spark action, with Wonwoo surging to save Hansol. Heart hammering in his chest, he struggles to support Hansol each step back to the entryway. There, Mingyu hauls Hansol, now out cold, up on his back.
Safe.
Complete.
For now.
But a blink of an eye and the entrance clamps shut automatically, cutting between them — wrenching Wonwoo away from his team.
Seungcheol and Mingyu move according to this undeniable impulse then, characterized by the need to get Wonwoo back. In vain, they yell and they slam at the barrier in a frantic, uncoordinated rhythm.
At a loss, Wonwoo can only stare. His heart has fallen to the pit of his stomach, watching them try to get to him when they can’t. He knows they can’t.
Wonwoo grits his teeth. He makes another decision then. He goes close to the glass, a hard line of determination gracing his face, and mouths words with finality. (He’s sure he said them aloud, but he can’t hear himself through the violent ringing of his own ears.)
These, however, were not words the other side of the glass could accept. Wonwoo could even see how Seungcheol rises in this forlorn, hopeless anger at the very prospect of it.
They negotiate Wonwoo’s terms: with their eyes, with how they claw at the glass, with their pleas, with how their hands fumble, driven by the desperation to chance upon an impossibility — a miracle. But Wonwoo was firm. So Mingyu shares a final glance with Wonwoo, the former’s cheeks now wet. His face crumples at the onset of more tears — and that’s the last Wonwoo sees of him before he takes Hansol to safety deeper into the main ship.
They cry for him, but Wonwoo doesn’t cry.
Seungcheol regards Wonwoo, now in resignation. Wonwoo has not once disobeyed him, unless necessary, and Seungcheol has always trusted him. Thus, with an indescribable pain painting his expression, Seungcheol touches his hand to the glass.
Wonwoo wavers. But he swallows it down to appear strong for him, and lays his hand on the glass over Seungcheol’s, too.
A goodbye of sorts. An apology. A thank you.
He nods, eyes not leaving Seungcheol’s, and Seungcheol steps back. Wonwoo presses a button on the frame to eject his pod. Then, everything ripples; everything from his surroundings to his very bones appears and feels like liquid. He is caught in the movement of the vessel, suspended within its blur. The sheer force of it all propels the main ship back to retrace their course.
By the time the pod is shot backward, he, himself, is weak in the knees. He falls back, the whole pod turbulent still. His lungs are burning.
The wide window grants him a view of their ship. His eyes follow it, as it first propels —
until it becomes tiny spec in the Tartarus galaxy —
and until it becomes nothing.
He lets out the breath he was holding only when he sees that it was really, unmistakably gone.
Later, when the initial panic subsides somewhat (or at least just enough to get him to stand), Wonwoo spies a recorder of some sort.
[ LOG #1: This is Jeon Wonwoo of the Atlas Exploration Program. I have been separated from my spaceship and my shipmates, Captain Choi Seungcheol, Kim Mingyu, and Choi Hansol. They were, however, able to exit Tartarus safely. Unfortunately, direct communication lines are not accessible here. The ship is running on limited energy. ]
The device beeps, having successfully recorded his message. He sits cross-legged in front of the recorder, just looking around. The pod is taking some time to flicker on; it had sustained some damage in the flare.
Initializing, the automated voice says like it has been repeatedly for some time now.
The machinery is glitchy, to say the least. Wonwoo takes a look at the control panel and the commands that blink on its screen. He tinkers with it for a bit, albeit blindly. This kind of thing was more Hansol’s forte, after all.
The voice resonates. Reboot system?
Wonwoo presses Yes.
He runs it. Tries once. And then twice. Over and over, he runs it.
And over and over, the voice speaks. The command restarts. The voice plays again.
It replays.
> Reboot system?
It replays: the twinkling avenues of Celestial City, paths lit from end to end.
The world seemed bright, even at night. He remembers getting lost in the crowd of better-dressed people. The music. His childhood town looking so small and almost like nothing from so high up.
It’d have been remembered as any drunken excursion, had anyone else besides Soonyoung also been drunk. Soonyoung engaged in a futile competition against Jihoon, the latter meeting his challenges with the loudest laughs. They had downed quite a number of drinks — Jihoon more than Soonyoung — and Soonyoung’s face had gotten hopelessly red and splotchy by the time Wonwoo dragged Jun to climb up the tower.
Up there, alone for the first time that night, the moment compelled them. It was something they had been skirting around this whole time.
Jun had hesitated, afraid of overstepping with Wonwoo. If it clearly wasn’t the alcohol, then the dizzying height must have given him some momentary courage because it was Wonwoo who closed the gap between them.
He remembers that when they pulled back, they kind of just stood there, astounded by the prospect of never having done that, and by the time took for them to. They get drunk off of laughter after, feeling so fucking silly, and effectively prolonging their return to Soonyoung and Jihoon.
They had always felt it, at this point, and had always been at least a little aware. Yet at the same time, they always just were too wary and too careful so as not break something that was already so good and so familiar.
(But Wonwoo hadn’t — and perhaps still hasn’t — become aware that if it was for Jun, he would be always willing to dive into the unfamiliar.)
> Reboot system?
It replays: the tense, make-or-break atmosphere, and the fanfare that followed.
The trainee pilots packed the hall and the praying mood had him wondering if he had stepped into a pious church instead. Wonwoo squeezed his way in, he recalls, and had awaited the announcements, too, repeating Jun’s name under his breath like a litany.
When the name Wen Junhui echoed in the hall, Wonwoo could not contain his cheer. Applause had come, and Wonwoo was swallowed up in it.
For a moment and from where he was, he could see a sliver of Jun. Though his view was obscured, he could see him leap in triumph and he could see him maybe even successfully stave off tears of joy.
Yet Jun’s eyes were searching.
He remembers that Jun had locked eyes with him, somehow spotting him in the hidden corners far from the center. Jun beamed. It was instantaneous; he was already seeking him in the crowd. A little startled, Wonwoo looked around, mindful of their company. But Jun had already rushed to him with an elated shout. He wrapped his arms around Wonwoo’s waist and hoisted him up, like he tended to do when he was ecstatic. I’m a pilot!
Jun spun them around. Wonwoo laughed. He braced his arms loosely around Jun’s neck.
Yes, you are, Wonwoo exclaimed right back, feet dangling, eyes crinkling at the edges, grin the widest it had ever been.
> Reboot system?
It replays: eager hands feeling in the dark, and the light filtering in to adorn skin come morning.
He remembers Jun’s sweat-slicked hair sticking to his forehead and him reaching to brush it away with a gentle finger. He had felt his chest swell with emotion, immediately prickling with self-consciousness that it did, and Jun had kissed at his fingers to soothe the tiny shaking.
He remembers sensations — the soft press of Jun’s lips on his nape, the touch of their foreheads, the breath on his collarbone, the feeling of Jun’s warmth blooming in every part of his body.
Jun’s eyes looked different.
Wonwoo had never felt so vulnerable under someone’s gaze before. It knocked the breath right out of him — and he indulged in it.
> Reboot system?
It replays: the vessel briefly shining across the sky like a shooting star, and its rocky plunge to the ground.
He doesn’t want to remember how it felt, but he does, and vividly so. There isn’t a way to describe it. He had been paralyzed, and the world seemed — just not there.
But he’s fine, they told him much later. He’s fine. Wonwoo still couldn’t find peace with that.
Back inside, Jun was stripped of his shirt, and wiped down so that no blood remained. There was a bumpy line running down his side, sewn shut. He had the nerve to smile when he met Wonwoo’s eyes. Wonwoo didn’t smile. He couldn’t.
They were waiting for Soonyoung to come. Wonwoo didn’t talk to him. To his credit, neither did Jun, at first. But only because he could tell how much Wonwoo didn’t want to. And so Wonwoo quietly tended to Jun’s split lip while Jun sat there.
He isn’t even sure what Jun said that got him to speak anymore. All he knows is that it degenerated quick. It was a back and forth of loaded words; for a while, it was nothing more than the beginnings of what might have been their first and only fight.
But soon, Wonwoo was — for once — answering irrationally. The logic he normally held onto like a lifeline was thrown right out the window. It was Jun who snapped at the other first.
Wonwoo went silent.
He let his hands fall to his side. Jun was looking straight at him, but Wonwoo looked anywhere else.
I’m scared, Wonwoo admitted.
His voice was so thin, making it apparent that he didn’t want it to come out. Jun’s eyes softened. He reached for Wonwoo’s hand.
I know, he said, I’m sorry. He said he wouldn’t be so careless anymore. Nothing’s gonna happen to me, he promised. Jun didn’t break promises.
But Jun was also a quiet flame. A person whose presence was vaster and louder than he himself was. A dreamer.
Jun was self-sacrificing. He was inclined to notice and to act; he thought of other people before he thought of himself. Wonwoo had always thought that Jun had the makings of a hero. A more unassuming, unorthodox type, perhaps, but a hero. A hero, who sought great heights —
— and could fall from just as high.
The thought that confronted Wonwoo and scared him to his core was this: some heroes crash.
Some heroes bleed.
Some heroes die.
> Reboot system?
It replays: the heft of his hand. The moles scattered on his face; on his cheek, by his lip — the ones Wonwoo liked to peck. How he never seemed to be not warm. The way he talked about his home planet. His invitations for late-night snacks, his rare quiet anger, his laugh —
Jun.
Always Jun.
> REBOOTED.
[ LOG #30: This is Jeon Wonwoo of the Atlas Exploration Program. I have been separated from my spaceship and my shipmates, Captain Choi Seungcheol, Kim Mingyu, and Choi Hansol. They were, however, able to exit Tartarus safely. Unfortunately, direct communication lines are not accessible here. The ship is running on limited energy...
“...And this is my final log, if my estimates are correct. I’m going to turn this off to extend the power I have left a little. Maybe for two hours. Enough for a good day’s nap, if I’m being optimistic…”
Wonwoo trails off. His eyes strain to see in the darkness of the now-powerless pod, the interiors dulled by the sheer time he’s spent staring at them.
For some reason, and in all the stillness, he thinks about what Jun might be doing right now. Maybe playing with their cat. The thought makes the corners of his lips turn up a little.
“I don’t think you’ll forget, but we have to restock on Sherlock’s food soon.”
Before he knows it, he’s referring to Jun.
(Maybe all this time he has been.)
“And tell Seungcheol and the team that I keep my all files in my external drive. They’ll definitely need them. It’s in my room; they’ll know where,” continues Wonwoo.
There was a little cabinet by Wonwoo’s bed in his room with Seungcheol. Mingyu and Hansol would often ask about it, and Wonwoo would brush it off. In it were his lifework neatly compressed into a tiny cylinder, two of his dad’s old, browning books he brought all the way from Earth, and a pretty, glowing rock from planets away that Jun had asked Minghao to fashion into a pendant.
“You know, Jihoon might stress about it,” he adds. Seungcheol would know exactly what to say to him, though, Wonwoo thinks. It makes him smile.
“And tell Soonyoung…” And then Wonwoo’s smile falters.
It remains, but it trembles and it’s all wrong now. “Tell him fine, the veggie crackers are his. The ones I’ve been saving in the lounge. It’d—” There’s a hard lump in Wonwoo’s throat. He breathes out a laugh, but it sounds kind of odd. “It’d just go bad now, so.”
Wonwoo exhales. He lingers in his own silence.
“Jun.”
He looks out the window.
“Wish you could see this right now.” Wonwoo still hasn’t gotten used to the view. “Shining ribbons enough to illuminate the whole galaxy… It’s beautiful.”
He doesn’t forget, though it’s easy to, that this place enchants him as much as it treats him with terrifying coldness. How could something so beautiful be so unforgiving?
It’s true — Wonwoo is afraid.
Has been, the whole time. Of everything, probably, and ever since even way before he got on the ship and took off.
“I do want to spend my life with you. Of course I do,” Wonwoo finally says softly, and it takes the breath out of him like he always thought it would. He thinks his eyes are stinging. They might just be sore, but who knows?
“I wish could have told you that face to face. I think you’d look dumb. Goofy grin and all.” He can just picture it. He chuckles. “Maybe you’d cry.”
His smile falls when he says that.
He tears his eyes away from the view of Tartarus, looking back down at the desolate space he finds himself in.
“I love you,” he says, quietly.
The words were spoken, as if he was saying them to Jun, instead of the nothingness of Tartarus. He never said it enough, he thinks. At least not in words.
He wrings his cold, empty hands.
“You’re the last thing I’m going to think of.”
He curls into himself, and turns the recorder off.