1.

Johnny used to think that he was no one special.

As young as five years old, Johnny was somehow already aware of the limits of a human being. And as he got older he would realize that he was really just a tiny speck of dirt in the universe trying to figure out his way in the gigantic, planet-sized mess of a war-torn colony in an outer system of the Milky Way that somehow had been a favorite hideaway for Federation soldiers needing to resupply or recover from their crash landing.

Johnny's people had been living by taking scraps from them and setting up medical bays near residential areas, teaching themselves how to mend gashes and singed flesh from burning spacecrafts. They did it more to survive than because of a real sense of loyalty towards a capital solar system some million light years away who gave them just enough attention to guarantee no resistance. 

And it wasn't like Johnny's colony had what was needed for a rebellion. They were behind with technology, and their soils weren't generous and full of life. They were just there, trying to carry on with the life their ancestors built them. It was like they lived in a different reality, if it wasn't for the explosions in the atmosphere or the falling pieces of burning metal bouncing off the stone roofs of their houses. Johnny remembered how his parents were always on standby near their front windows when they could hear something enter their atmosphere. A medical kit in his father's hand, and assorted tools in his mother's. Johnny knew it was his dream to be like his mom, even though no one had really asked.

When Johnny was five, the Earthian government launched their first generation of android troops to assist the human soldiers with combat. They were highly effective and cut the mortality rates by more than half, bringing a sense of hope with their glimmering hands and helmeted heads. But being non-organic meant that they took most of the brunt of war, becoming a second set of shields for the human soldiers. Replaceable, yet invaluable. Their programmed AIs provided the kind of emotional support for despairing soldiers nobody had ever imagined possible.

But there was only so much resources for the construction of new units, and soon Johnny's mom learned how to laser-fix bent metals and reboot AIs. Johnny spent years standing by her elbow, watching in fascination as a dead piece of junk whirred to life once the right wires were connected, finding the glow of the androids' eyes beautiful.

Words of the services of a small no-name colony saving both humans and androids alike eventually reached the Federation leaders in the Capital, and then suddenly Johnny's humble neighborhood was turned into a military base in just under six months, with high level security and satellites that hid their location and camouflaged their tiny planet as a lost asteroid. Johnny's parents and most of the experienced adults were hired and given proper training, and things seemed to be looking up for Johnny's tiny corner of the galaxy.

They looked like they were on the brink of victory, and there was hope, people literally on the edge of their seats every time war reports were broadcasted and more and more of their enemy's capital ships destroyed, waiting for the end of the war to be official. But then, just as Johnny turned six, their enemy hijacked a travel ship and took the passengers hostage, and among them was the son of the President of the Federation, out with his class on a school trip.

Johnny was alone in his house, his parents caught up in the chaos that ensued and always home late, when he watched the news from the projector on the coffee table. On the screen was a replay of the rescue mission just hours ago, the screen split up into multiple panels showing multiple views recorded from cameras in the helmets of the special squad. It cut off halfway through to censor the bloody part of the mission in a weak attempt to preserve children's innocence, but it was soon known to the public that a brave, young corporal was severely injured in the operation.

Johnny only remembered that the young corporal had blond hair and black eyes that sparkle in the portrait. But soon Johnny learned his name, learned to remember it along with the rest of the galaxy.

His name was Corporal Mark Lee, the first human-cyborg soldier in the ranks, and humanity's new hope.

(Later Johnny would find out that he, too, was Johnny's new hope.)

2.

As a 19 year-old young man, Johnny still used to think that he was no one special in the grand scheme of things. He was the love of his mother's life, her brilliant apprentice, and Johnny liked that, tried to be content with that and accept it as his reality. But as a young adult, he wondered why to be among the stars was still a luxury in this day and age. Just like how peace wasn't so easy to achieve.

Johnny thought that he would never leave this place without some kind of miracle. And he was right.

It turned out the Federation wasn’t interested in building a public library or bettering education in the colony. A high-functioning and extra secure military base was the maximum extent they were willing to go for Johnny's homeplanet. And since Johnny had found out that he was close to achieving his dream and even surpassing his mother, he had picked up a new dream along the way. 

Johnny wanted to be up there in space. Johnny wanted to do great things, experience new things, feel new thrills and emotions greater than what he had ever experienced. Johnny wanted to work more with cyborgs and AIs and androids and perhaps, perhaps become a part of the generation that would finally realize the centuries-old dream of peace. Perhaps not a special dream, but Johnny's nonetheless.

Johnny's mom once read him stories of old, and Johnny remembered how they said miracles often came from the sky. It was of course hard to relate to this, since all Johnny had ever known were burning spaceships and the occasional acid rain. 

So when Johnny saw another ship breaking the dark purple clouds above him in an unnatural speed, Johnny predicted its trajectory, grabbed his own set of tools, and jumped on his hoverboard to approach the oncoming wreck. It was a smaller shooter ship falling out of the range of the military patrol, and usually Johnny and his peers were left to deal with them unless it was something they couldn't handle.

Johnny slowed down as the ship crashed into the shore of the saline pool two kilometers away from the center of the colony neighborhood to avoid being knocked back and become deaf from the force of the impact. He then sped up as fast as he could, accepting Yeri's offer for medical help through his comm as he spied a seat being automatically ejected from the ship’s cockpit. Only one came out from the two-person ship.

Johnny still wouldn't call the event that transpired that day a miracle. How could he, when he had to witness death first for his whole life to change (for the better or worse, Johnny couldn't tell).

When Johnny finally landed his board near the ejected seat, his head was a panicked mess. Secure in the seat but leaking hydro-gel was a limp android with an androgynous humanoid design. Johnny knew he had to do something quick before their main systems were fried beyond repair, but in the seat that was stuck was a profusely bleeding female soldier. Johnny was frozen with horror as she coughed up more blood onto the front of her uniform and the crisscrossing seatbelt that suspended her mid-air in the side-turned shipwreck. With great difficulty, she looked up and said to Johnny to open the latch in her partner's chest compartment.

Johnny had stuttered, but her pleas got him moving and retrieving a circular device the size of a knuckle with trembling hands. It felt solid—about the weight of the smallest wrench in Johnny’s toolbox—and hummed with a strange energy.

The soldier told Johnny to please, push the green button, and in his panic Johnny did, and suddenly the device crawled up under his sleeve with spider-like legs and then there was pain so sharp directly on top of Johnny's heart.

As Johnny fell onto the sand, gripping his left chest and crying out in pain, he could hear the soldier murmur weakly with her last breath, "… to Mark Lee…"

Yeri found him still kneeling and trying to tear out the black device that pierced his chest and planted itself there. And then there was the deafening whirr of military spacecrafts and a spotlight on Johnny's face, the closest thing to a miracle that finally brought Johnny out of the colony and into space.

3.

So Johnny's life took a sudden turn. 

In a flurry of events, he suddenly ended up in one of the biggest capital ships of the Federation fleet, and reality seemed to crash down on him as he was escorted out of his room and through the white, winding hallways of Empathy. Johnny still hadn't figured out if there was an ironic backstory to the name. 

The young corporals assigned to escort him every time he exited his room were probably told to keep their mouths shut and discourage any attempt of conversation from Johnny's side. Normally Johnny would be persistent, but the clean and cold interiors of the ship felt oppressive to Johnny's eyes which were used to the dark browns and purples of his homeplanet.

Johnny's slightly oversized standard issue grey uniform made him blend seamlessly to the perfectly lined up new initiates. For once he wasn't sticking out like a sore thumb because of his height, but he still felt as if he didn't belong here even after his 'adjustment' period. He knew no one, and no one but the higher-ups knew him or how he got here. Johnny wanted to be among the stars, but maybe not this way.

Three weeks had passed since Johnny pressed the green button of a strange device at the request of a dying soldier. Three weeks had passed since Johnny was forced to bid a hasty goodbye to his parents and half lied to them that the Android Development and Research Agency had come to scout him for they saw his extraordinary skills. Johnny didn't question it when the government officials that briefed him on his situation ordered him not to tell anyone about what happened at the shore. They even took Yeri and manipulated her memory to make her forget about the device.

It was half a lie, because Johnny made them aware of what he could do with his tools. Johnny refused to go and be kept hostage, up in space without a clear direction and purpose. It wasn't even one hundred percent Johnny's fault–and perhaps it really was Johnny's lucky day because the official listened and promised to try to do something about it after they made sure that Johnny wasn't a literal walking time bomb.

Johnny didn't dare let his hopes go high. Having a strange, unknown device stuck on his chest, Johnny focused on how to use his predicament to his advantage instead of letting a new form of hope to settle in his being. Johnny focused on the courses the department arranged for him, tried to absorb as much knowledge as he could from the holograms and databases and friendly AIs and the occasional wary instructor. When Johnny was told he was going to intern at the Robotics Department whenever he was not needed for the mandatory investigation of the device, Johnny tried very hard not to feel ecstatic.

But Johnny was, in a sense, kind of naive. At the end of the day he was just a colony child who finally got to leave for a bigger world, and the anticipation of what was to come whirled and ran wild in his head. Johnny was too caught up in trying to calm himself down fruitlessly that it didn't occur to him about who he could be meeting at the orientation.

Johnny saw him stepping onto the low, retractable platform at the front of the assembly hall, and Johnny's thoughts came to a halt.

Johnny was overwhelmed by too many different emotions from what he was used to feeling when he first laid eyes on Commander Mark Lee. 

And that said a lot, because Johnny was someone who welcomed all kinds of feelings to sort them out slowly within himself. With Commander Mark Lee, Johnny didn't know where to start.

Johnny remembered seeing him on TV thirteen years ago, then occasionally on holographic billboards, on newer textbooks on history, on the current war reports. Johnny had first seen him when he was only six years old, and it was easy to disregard the fact that the man looked the same in all his public appearances, easy to think that it was all, of course, photographic manipulation and not question it or develop further interest in him. After all everything that surrounded Johnny now used to be some faraway dream.

But then Johnny saw him standing there against the very white walls of the assembly hall, clad in a standard grey and black two-piece uniform made for the newer androids and it's jarring to see that his chest underneath it moved–alive with a set of lungs processing recycled air. His blond hair looked soft on his slightly tilted head.

But then Johnny stared and stared at his youthful face and it was like his faint portrait in Johnny’s head was being rebuilt and filled with missing details and–and Commander Mark Lee had not once blinked. His big black eyes stayed open the whole time Johnny stared at him, looking on respectfully at the Head of the Department. Commander Mark Lee seemed as if he was genuinely interested in and listening to the speech even though he could always record it and store it away for later, or just run it through his systems to filter out the unimportant things. Commander Mark Lee gave small nods from time to time, the only movement his perfect posture allowed.

It was a story everyone knew–a young, altruistic brilliant corporal with a dedication that surpassed life itself, agreeing to be the first human-android hybrid soldier in his dying breath.

"Please, I want to see a peaceful world. I want to be there when this is all over. I want to make it happen," was his most monumental quote. A genuine, dying 20-year-old Corporal Mark Lee perhaps did not know how those desperate words would be one of the greatest things to ever be said in history.

And the universe had welcomed him back with wonder and cheers and admiration, but at the same time with unending questions and hesitation, confusion and halting remarks. They question his humanity–constantly, as the media always ate up news of his new robotic enhancements, speculating on how many percent of his body was already replaced by artificial limbs. Mark Lee was a hero, a wonder, a peculiarity. A scientific innovation from one point of view, a morally doubtful and jarring phenomenon from another.

Commander Mark Lee's head turned to the crowd as he clapped with the rest of the room. And then his dark, dark eyes fell on Johnny, and did not leave until it was his turn to deliver a remark.

Johnny stood there at the very back of the line, breath caught in his throat. Commander Mark Lee addressed the room at large, his eyes sweeping the room and never seemed to fall on Johnny for the second time. He was, of course, the only person Johnny looked at. 

When all the official proceedings were finished and the orientation dismissed, a corporal discreetly steered Johnny to a hallway none of the recruits milled into. And then Johnny was almost face to face with Commander Mark Lee himself. It felt wrong to slightly look down to meet his gaze. Commander Mark Lee stared up at him with a neutral expression. Johnny felt like he might disintegrate. Johnny thought he should probably stop so blatantly staring back at his superior. But it was hard when Commander Mark Lee turned out to be even more otherworldly than he looked like in the military campaign posters.

The corporal that took Johnny there saluted–a hand to his heart, tapping twice with an open palm. Johnny sprang into action and did a salute himself, but his hand hit the device on his chest and he froze.

"Intern Seo, it's rude to stare and not finish your salute," the Head of the Department scolded, and Johnny hadn't even registered his presence until he spoke.

Johnny was about to apologize and tear his eyes away, but then Commander Mark Lee's small mouth quirked in a tiny smile, and he said, in a pleasant youthful voice, "It's alright, Dongyoung, I'm used to it. We’ll be working together a lot from now on, Johnny Seo."

And Johnny's heart ached something fierce and intense.  At that moment Johnny realized that Commander Mark Lee had a hold on his heart, both literally and figuratively.

4.

Being able to work alongside Commander Mark Lee felt like a dream come true, even if that dream had never once occurred to Johnny. Even with having a potentially deadly puzzle on his chest, Johnny still woke up every day with more vigor than he had ever felt in his nineteen years of life.

Johnny would see Commander Mark Lee, Department Head Dongyoung Kim and the team of scientists and doctors (who were all involved in the commander’s body enhancement process thirteen years ago) four times a week, or more, if their sessions were particularly unfruitful. Johnny obviously liked those better than being in the workshop and being ignored by his fellow interns.

Johnny would sit in the lab and help dig the databases for clues, stealing glances at Commander Mark Lee in the next room through the glass wall, laid down on an examination table and plugged up with cables as his team went over the charts Johnny tried not to scrutinize. A third year Junior Researcher called Yuta patted Johnny on the back in solidarity one day, catching him red-handedly staring at the lean back muscles of Commander Mark Lee’s bare upper body visible from where Johnny was hunched over an ancient textbook.

By the second week, they figured out that the device was a hybrid alien technology they were still unsure about how to handle. There were only records of encountering a similar element in an already destroyed device. Commander Mark Lee swore he’d never seen anything like it before. It remained a mystery to Johnny if the dead soldier was his friend.

“Maybe Commander Lee should just try pressing the green button,” one of the government officials whose face was displayed on a hologram at the meeting held to report their progress off-handedly quipped. Johnny, because he had been blankly staring at the back of Commander Mark Lee’s head, saw the way his shoulders tensed as all other pairs of eyes land on him.

“No. I refuse to do anything until John–until we can guarantee everyone’s safety,” the Commander’s voice rang loud and clear in the huge circular room. People shifted in their seats. Johnny swallowed the lump in his throat. Commander Mark Lee’s shoulders did not relax, and soon the meeting was adjourned.

It was pure bravado and perhaps Johnny’s silly crush that made him follow Commander Mark Lee’s quick steps out of the room. Johnny wanted to call out to him, a million different things he wanted to say before the man in front of him disappear into the restricted floors in the residential wing of the ship. Johnny grabbed the loudest words in his head and said out loud, “Are you okay, Commander?”

Commander Mark Lee stopped in his tracks and turned to Johnny, a rueful expression on his face, and asked if Johnny had ever been to the docks instead. Johnny shook his head no.

That was how Johnny found his favorite place in the ship. It was easy to say so, because the dock took a whole wing and half of it was just glass, and if Johnny stood right in front of the curved, three meters thick reinforced glass, it almost felt like he was floating between the stars. And it was easy to say so, because it was Commander Mark Lee’s favorite place, too.

Before Johnny knew it, he found himself making up excuses during lunch time when Yuta and Commander Mark Lee’s team invited him. It was easier to just slip out unnoticed from the cyborg workshop where the only ones paying attention to Johnny was the passive android instructors. Johnny never failed to show up to eat his lunch together with Commander Mark Lee at the dock. 

Time was a strange thing then. Sometimes there were moments where Johnny felt like it passed too quickly, and he still had jokes he hadn’t told the commander. Sometimes it felt like it didn’t exist, when they talked about nothing yet everything. Sometimes it felt as if it had stopped, and Johnny felt like they were just two people drifting aimlessly in the universe. Like they were just Johnny Seo and Mark Lee, like the uniforms on their bodies were just fabric on skin, without any other meaning.

It was easy to fall because Mark opened up to Johnny like no one else. But falling for Mark Lee hurt, not just because Johnny’s feelings would probably remain  unreciprocated, but also because Mark Lee apologized for sharing his pain with Johnny.  Nobody ever bothered to ask Mark if he was lonely. Nobody ever really bothered to sincerely listen to Mark’s insecurities, the dark thoughts that crush his chest, the phantom pains where his flesh met artificial limbs. Nobody ever looked at Mark and put forward the fact that he was, in the end, still human. And Johnny often found himself in tears at night, missing his parents, his mother’s scarred hands, and felt so small compared to what the world had made Mark Lee into.

5.

On his twentieth birthday, five months after he was first brought to board Empathy, Johnny headed out to the dock for lunch a bit later than usual. They finally figured out that the device would most certainly unlatch itself upon contact with Commander Mark Lee’s blood and fingerprint at the same time. And Johnny walked quickly to the dock with a giddy feeling, and a heart that felt light, and a body that thrummed and sang with happiness he needed to share with others lest he burst.

Johnny wanted to surprise Commander Mark Lee, because somehow the older man still got adorably surprised when people sneaked up on him, and Johnny would jump on every chance to make him laugh. But from their usual spot came an unfamiliar voice, and Johnny slowed his pace.

“You… you’re like this because of me! Why won’t you let me fix it for you!” the unfamiliar voice echoed in an exasperated shout, and Johnny could hear the beginning of tears in the voice. Its unique tenor color was broken by the anguish in his words.

“Hyuck,” came the commander’s voice, and Johnny had never heard him use that tone before, equally soft and regretful, the tone Johnny’s mom used when she knew she couldn’t give him what he wanted. “You know it wasn’t your fault. I never blamed you. I did what I had to do, and it was to save you.”

“How do you expect me to just carry on living and pretend like it wasn’t at the cost of your life?”

Johnny’s breath caught in his throat as he recalled a soldier covered in blood.

“But I’m here, Hyuck, I’m alive–” the laugh that cut him off was loaded with disbelief and regret.

“I’ll find a way. Just you wait. It won’t be long. I won’t forgive you if you lose hope, because I never do. I never will."

And Johnny was too dumbstruck to hide himself better when footsteps approached. He didn’t think of pressing himself into the shadows of the unlit dock, and the stranger–Hyuck–paused in his steps to look at Johnny through the silent tears rolling down his cheeks. He was beautiful in his anger, with dark silver bangs hiding his glassy eyes, then he wiped his tears roughly with the back of one hand and continued walking, his lab coat with the symbol of an intergalactic research center swishing behind his legs.

Johnny waited until the square of light spilling in from the door to the dock disappeared before he moved. Against the backdrop of the thousands of blinking stars was Commander Mark Lee, unmoving, with an expression hidden in the shadows. Johnny took slow steps, thought about what to say, what to do. How could he put an end to this pain, his and Mark Lee’s both? Johnny didn’t stop walking until they were toe-to-toe, and even then Johnny still walked closer, slotting himself between the spaces left to stand as close as possible without them touching.

And in front of Johnny, just a breath away, was just Mark Lee, a boy who gave up his humanity for humanity itself.

And Johnny's heart ached for him, for the entire history of Mark Lee. He couldn't even begin to imagine the pain of living on while your friends and family passed, still unable to show them a sky clear of smoke and let them live a life without fear. Couldn't imagine losing parts of himself, knowing there was an expiration date to his own body but having to keep on living as they got their metal replacement. Couldn't imagine the weight on his shoulders. Couldn't imagine how hard it was to carry the expectations of a whole galaxy.

Johnny's heart ached for a selfless, dedicated, 20-year-old Mark Lee and his brave words in the brink of death. Johnny's heart ached, too, for the almost immortal being that was Commander Mark Lee, the lonely and tired but still so, so selfless and passionate man.

Mark Lee's cheek was warm and soft to the touch. Flawless, a beautiful arch of bone in a facial structure that held the fine balance of masculine and delicate. Johnny marveled at the feeling, and it grounded him, how human he was under his palm.

It was just Mark Lee who met his eyes dead on just moments after. It was just Mark Lee who exhaled a shaky breath that fanned over Johnny's open lips through his small mouth, hovering there, unsure. It was just Mark Lee who grabbed the collar of Johnny's jumpsuit and pulled him forward into a kiss that set both of their bodies alight.

Johnny was too mesmerized by the sight of Mark closing his eyes, his lashes tickling Johnny's cheeks. When Mark pulled back–too quickly, come back –Johnny still hadn't blinked, perhaps also in fear of everything just being a dream.

Johnny registered the beginning of panic-confusion-embarrassment blooming in Mark's eyes, and he was quick to pull Mark back into another kiss with a hand on his neck, gripping the short blond hair there. Mark's hand fisted on the front of his uniform tightened before sliding down to loop around Johnny's ribs, and soon they were flush against each other.

Mark's lips tasted like sweet and fresh apple candies. Johnny licked the seam of his soft, soft lips and Mark opened up to him like he had been waiting for Johnny to do that. There was a lingering sweetness on Mark's tongue and the roof of his mouth, and Johnny chased after it greedily, spurred by how Mark clung to him, moaned for him.

Johnny's legs were becoming wobbly, but they were loath to part, even as they stumbled until Mark’s back hit the glass separating them from the void of space. And Johnny’s tightened his embrace, because for a split second he could see Mark slipping from his hold and floating away and never coming back.

Then they had to break apart for air, Johnny panting like he went to space without a suit, Mark breathing hard and resting his forehead on Johnny's, stealing little wet pecks in-between lungfuls of air.

Behind them the stars continued to burn in the distance, but Johnny only saw twinkles in Mark's dark, dark eyes which were no longer just an empty, bottomless void. Johnny found hope in there–his own reflected and shining just as bright as Mark's smile for him. It started out small, but then Johnny couldn’t stop himself from smiling as wide as his mouth would allow, and Mark mirrored him.

“You’re here,” Mark said. “You’re here, aren’t you, Johnny Seo?”

Johnny knew what it was that Mark asked. Knew the reason behind the slight tremble in his voice, the glassiness in his eyes. Because Johnny knew what Mark was trying to say, knew that Mark always tried his best even if he wasn’t good with words, Johnny nodded and said, “Always.”