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So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.
— CORMAC MCCARTHY
but you had to go, I know, I know, I know
like a wave that crashed and melted on the shore
not even the burnouts are out here anymore
and you had to go, I know, I know, I know
— I KNOW THE END, Phoebe Bridgers
*
Johnny’s apartment is always too quiet these days.
There are remnants of a life once lived here: folded clothes in drawers, shoes tucked into the hall closet. Mismatched dish sets and cutlery, things that must have been bought separately and eventually brought together. But the evidence does not extend beyond the surface level. Because the life is no longer being lived anymore.
Now, it is only Johnny, and his half-empty apartment filled with more things than he could ever need.
“Johnny,” Doyoung sighs, one night when he’s visiting. He comes to cook dinner for Johnny twice a week. Partly because he’s nice, and he cares, but more so because he’s worried. Worried about how many times Johnny forgets to eat when Doyoung is not there watching him, worried how many more times it would happen if Doyoung suddenly stopped making his weekly visits. “Johnny. Have you thought about what we talked about on Monday?”
Monday. Monday. Johnny wracks his brain. It had rained on Monday, and Johnny had still felt like the man stranded in the desert without food or water. He doesn’t mean to pull away, doesn’t mean to circle himself with an acidic maw of a psychic moat, it’s just — it’s just what’s the point anymore? What does it matter? What will it do? Who will it benefit, for him to crack himself open and spill and spill and spill?
It’ll only make a mess.
Every day Johnny thinks his friends just want him to stop being sad so they can stop paying attention to him.
But, back to Monday: on Monday, Doyoung had called Johnny and said, I’ve been talking to this therapist about you. That’s what Doyoung means. That’s what they talked about on Monday.
“I don’t want to go see anyone,” is Johnny’s answer.
Doyoung sighs. “Johnny,” he admonishes, voice more disappointed than anything else. “It doesn’t make you weak — just so you know — to need to talk to someone. I think it would help. I think it would help you a lot. After everything.”
The worst part about loving someone who is dead is that no one ever wants to be upfront about it. All they ever use is vague language, words that don’t mean anything when you attempt to unpack them. Doyoung doesn’t say I want you to go see a grief counselor, he says, I found someone for you to talk to. Other people say things like I’m sorry for your loss. I heard about what happened. Are you okay after everything? Everyone always wants to ask those questions but avoid the truth of it. But when you stand looking down the barrel of it every day, like Johnny does, it’s inescapable. And to hear anyone else talk about it feels disingenuous.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone, Doyoung.”
“Okay,” Doyoung relents. “We’ll talk about this again another day.”
*
Here’s another one of the worst things about being in love with a dead person: the moments where you wish things had been different, so you’d be spared your pain.
At first, it’s simple. You wish the accident never happened. You wished you had stopped them from leaving that night. You wish you had come down with the flu and needed them to take care of you. You wish you would have paused, just a little bit longer, to hold them in the doorway for an extra beat.
Then, it gets worse. Then, you wish you had never known them. You wish they had never occupied a space in your heart so woven into the fabric of it that it felt like dying of blood loss when they left you. You wish you hadn’t texted them back. You wish you hadn’t ran into them that day, gone to that party. You wish you hadn’t kissed them enough times to memorize the shape of their mouth, so that you wouldn’t miss it like a phantom limb.
You wish the person you love never existed.
And then you lapse into guilt at even the thought of it, and the cycle repeats itself.
*
On weekends, it’s Mark whose the one stuck babysitting.
Mark is easier to deal with than Doyoung. It’s Doyoung who quietly scrutinizes Johnny with a down-turned mouth, Doyoung who pushes Johnny out of his comfort zone. He’s trying to be what Johnny needs, and Johnny can understand that, but his presence can sometimes feel like being shut in an iron maiden of his own heavy grief and sorrow. In comparison, Mark is much more easy-going, and offers more in the way of distraction. He’s all pizza and beer and video games.
It’s easier to hide from Mark how bad things have gotten. It’s easier to convince Mark things are getting better.
Tonight, Mark puts on Jurassic Park (“Did you watch this when you were a kid? I did it. It freaked me out. I like dinosaurs, though.”) and he and Johnny split a pizza and an order of Korean fried chicken with it.
Maybe it’s easier for Johnny to hide from himself when Mark is around. Maybe it’s easier for Johnny to convince himself that when he’s around Mark, that mourning doesn’t line his stomach like lead, slowly tainting his entire bloodstream.
They’re sitting on Johnny’s couch. Mark takes a sip of his beer.
“Did you see there’s one of those Time Travel Therapy clinics going up downtown?” He asks.
Johnny’s brows furrow. “What?”
“Y’know,” Mark gestures vaguely with his hand, swallowing another mouthful of beer. “That new therapy that everyone’s been talking about? They, uh, send you back in time. To see your loved one. It’s supposed to help with — y’know.”
Johnny clenches and unclenches his jaw. The taste of his beer turns sour in his mouth and throat. “They’re opening a clinic around here?”
Mark nods. “Yeah. Not far from here. I saw it on my way here tonight, actually.”
“Right.” Johnny says. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
*
Here at Hourglass Scientifics we understand the ways mourning, grief and bereavement can hinder your daily life, and we are committed to finding new and innovative ways to help our clients cope with the loss of a loved one.
Our newest treatment comes in the form of TTGC (Time Travel Grief Counselling). In this newly developed form of therapy, you will first be matched with a counsellor to determine if this kind of treatment is right for you. If you are selected, you will be afforded the chance to travel back to a moment with your loved one. Please note: our service does not allow for you to interact with your loved one. We simply facilitate an observational moment.
Our treatment has shown great promise in clinical trial, with 88% of our clients reporting that they benefited from TTGC, and that it helped relieve symptoms of grief.
If you think you or someone you know might benefit from this service, please contact us at the email or phone number below.
*
Johnny snatches at pieces of sleep like a thief, and any time he manages to gather up enough of it, he always dreams.
In his dreams, Johnny and Taeyong live near a hospital, and the sirens wake them up every night. Every night, hour after hour, the shriek of them tears them both from blissful slumber to startled wakefulness. In Johnny’s dreams, they never consider moving. In Johnny’s dreams, they are resigned to their fate.
In his dreams, the red and blue of the sirens spills in through the window, and despite all the blankets and Taeyong sleeping beside him, Johnny is freezing cold. He feels the chill deeply, like ice shards in his bone marrow.
And when Johnny turns over to ask Taeyong if he’s cold, the sirens haven’t woken Taeyong up this time. No, this time he’s still asleep, and dread grows in Johnny’s stomach like a tree with gnarled branches. Johnny presses his hands flush against the mattress, an attempt to ground himself, only it is no longer a mattress below him. It is pavement, hard and cold and slick, and Johnny is not in bed, he’s in the middle of the street. Beside him, Taeyong’s eyes are open, but he’s not awake.
In his dreams, Johnny ends up in a hospital, rushing down corridors that never end, opening doors to staircases that lead to more hallways, and more doors. And he’s rushing, and someone is shouting things over the intercom, but Johnny doesn’t understand any of it. If only he could get to where he was going —
Johnny ends up on the side of the road. The dream is fuzzier when this happens, like a picture in a book with the edges torn. It’s raining. There is no room, only the blue and red flash of lights from an ambulance that Johnny can’t see. Taeyong is at his feet and blood pools out of him from too many places. Johnny drops to his knees, and his clothes get covered in blood when he lifts Taeyong into his arms.
He kisses Taeyong’s wounds — immeasurable in quantity, more appearing at every moment, leaking more blood than could have ever been inside Taeyong — and he kisses every single one until Johnny’s own mouth is filled with blood. The blood fills his lungs, until Johnny is choking on it, until the blood is a tidal wave pulling him under its surface, thick and viscous and warm.
And then, Johnny wakes up, gasping on his own breath. Taeyong’s been gone for a year and a half, he thinks, and tonight, he wonders if there is a single thing he wouldn’t do just to see Taeyong again.
One last time.
*
It takes six months of saving up for Johnny to be able to afford it.
It doesn’t feel stupid. Maybe it is stupid, to blow all this money so fast on the one thing. But it doesn’t feel stupid. Not to Johnny.
(Mark is not-so much excited for the whole thing, but more so excited that Johnny has found something he’s willing to try that might help him. Doyoung objects, and he does so to Johnny’s face twice, before it becomes apparent that nothing will change Johnny’s mind, and Doyoung confines his opinions on the matter to silence.)
He doesn’t even see the counsellor who clears him for the service in person. All they do is send him over some forms to fill out (What is your loved ones name? What is their date of birth? What is their date of death? If applicable, in what year did you meet your loved one? Have you received any other therapy, counselling or other form of treatment? If yes, elaborate.) and a waiver to sign, and Johnny has an appointment for the service faster than he can process being approved.
The technician who’s assigned to him for his appointment takes his money without question. She clicks her pen. “So,” she clicks her pen again, and again, and again. “There are a few rules I need to go over with you before your appointment.”
Johnny nods. The technician is wearing a lab coat, and she looks young. Johnny wonders what kind of qualifications you need to do this kind of thing.
“Alright,” more clicks, shuffling of pages. “So, I’m gonna paraphrase here, because these papers are way too long and full of jargon. Biggest one is: not affecting anything in the past. No changing anything. Can’t even interact with it beyond the very basic act of you being there. Butterfly effect applies, in all situations.”
Johnny nods.
“You’ll have roughly an hour. Again, more jargon here, but with the info you’ve given and our own technology, we will be dropping you relatively close to your loved one. I’ve never personally had a client miss seeing a loved one but,” she clears her throat. “But if you do there’s no refunds. Just so you now.”
*
The past feels like a dream at first.
There is a split second where Johnny swears he can feel the very fabric of the universe, all the millions of threads that tangle together to tether us to specific moments. There is a split second where time feels like it is living and breathing, with its own veins and muscles and sinew, and Johnny is caught within the mess of it.
But then it passes, and the past begins to feel exactly like the present. Johnny’s brain and body catch up with the temporal displacement, and everything comes into better focus. Everything is almost the same. Except —
Johnny is standing in front of a cafe. It’s cold outside. He’s not sure what month it is, but the weather feels like November, maybe. He recognizes this cafe. He recognizes it in a way that twists in his gut. He knows what this is. He knows why he’s here. Everything is the same except —
Except. Except, Johnny realizes, everything is not the same, because in the past Taeyong is alive. In this little piece of time, Taeyong is breathing in and out, and his veins are pumping blood, and he is warm and safe and existing, and that’s the only thing that needs to be different. That’s why Johnny’s done all of this, isn’t it? For this one, specific, all-important difference.
To have Taeyong occupy space in his world one more time.
*
Johnny doesn’t know what possesses him to do it.
No, that’s a lie. He knows exactly what possesses him to do it. In the present he lives in, Taeyong no longer exists. Or, maybe he exists in some form, Johnny’s never given much thought to all that, but Taeyong does not exist in a form that offers Johnny any comfort. In this past, in this world yet untouched by tragedy and grief and sadness, Taeyong stands amongst the people in line in the coffee shop, blissful and unaware. Today is just any other day for Taeyong.
Today is the only day that has mattered for over a year for Johnny.
So Johnny taps him on the shoulder.
It takes Taeyong a second to realize what’s happening; he had been looking at his phone, headphones in, when Johnny touched him. Now, he lifts his head, and he looks younger than Johnny remembers him. Of course he does. This is years ago. This is a part of Taeyong’s life Johnny is not familiar with, an anomaly. They have not met yet, in this present. Taeyong doesn’t know who Johnny is.
Taeyong’s hair is longer. His eyes are bright, and he is beautiful, and it’s the most awful thing Johnny has ever had to look at.
Taeyong gingerly removes an earphone. Johnny is just staring. “Do I know you?” Taeyong asks.
“No,” Johnny shakes his head. “No. Not yet. But you will. One day.” Taeyong’s face folds in confusion. Johnny doesn’t know why he’s saying this. He must sound insane. But he can’t help it, can’t help the words spill from his mouth like the steady current of a river. “Listen,” Johnny should shut up, he should stop talking, but he can’t, not when, when —
“Listen. One day, in seven years, you’re going to drive in a rainstorm. It’s going to be the worst rainstorm you’ve ever seen. That’s what you tell me: that you’ve never seen a storm like this. And you’re going to get hit by someone else, and it’s going to kill you, and it’s going to be the worst thing that ever happens to me. So, please. Please don’t do that. Not this time.”
Taeyong’s mouth is hanging open in shock. But it’s not a shock because he believes Johnny’s words, it’s the shock of being unable to comprehend a man he doesn’t know coming up to him and saying these things. It’s okay. He doesn’t have to believe Johnny. It just has to be a little nagging at the back of Taeyong’s skull, one day in the future, that keeps him from doing exactly what Johnny said. That’s all it needs to be. A gut feeling, a wash of dread that gives you chills.
And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.
*
Johnny tries to not let himself hope for it. Tries to not overly focus on a future he thinks he may have changed but he has no way of knowing in what way. Would Taeyong even listen to him? Would any of this even matter? Would Johnny return to the heavy blanket of loneliness and sorrow of his own life?
He tries not to be disappointed when he returns home after his appointment and not a single thing seems different at all.
He had not allowed himself to hope for it, not consciously, but there are pieces of your heart that operate without the consent of your head. So it had been enough for Johnny to even consider it: the possibility that maybe he would come home and Taeyong would be waiting for him, a Taeyong a few years older than the Taeyong that had slipped away from Johnny. He had only needed to consider the possibility of it, and the yearning in his heart did the rest.
The reality dawns on him slowly, as he paces around his home, and yet part of him knew the truth as soon as he stepped through the door. Still, he walks from room to room. Maybe he missed something.
Butterfly effect and all that, the technician had said.
He expects himself to feel sadder when he finds no evidence of anything. But all Johnny feels is numb.
*
It’s a month after Johnny’s appointment that he notices it.
There was a photo of the two of them that Johnny kept on his desk; the kind of photo that made Johnny wish they had more, that they didn’t take for granted the time they spent together. That they were motivated to document everything. In the photo, Taeyong’s smile is small, but it is warm, and Johnny’s smile matches. Johnny thinks he remembers that they took it on a day that didn’t feel particularly special — but that was the thing, wasn’t it? Being with Taeyong made everything in Johnny’s life special. That’s why it’s been so dark since he left it.
The problem with the photo, you see, is that Taeyong is no longer in it.
It’s just a picture of Johnny now. It takes Johnny a month after his appointment he’s got a picture of just himself sitting on his desk. And it’s not even as if there is a space where Taeyong used to be in the photo — no. Taeyong never existed in this photo. That's what it looks like. Only he did and Johnny knows he did.
“This isn’t funny,” Johnny says on the phone with Doyoung. “I know you — I know you think I need to move on and that I’m living in the past but this — this isn’t okay, Doyoung. You can’t just do that.”
“Johnny?” Doyoung’s voice is puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Johnny.”
Afterwards, Johnny will think that this whole phone call was stupid. Why did he think Doyoung would, or could, do anything like this? What would be the purpose? But this is afterwards, because before that, Johnny says: “The photo of me and Taeyong on my desk, Doyoung. What did you do with it?”
And Doyoung’s reply drops like a rock into Johnny’s stomach, a cold and heavy stone. “Johnny,” Doyoung says. “Who’s Taeyong?”
*
Johnny isn’t sure how to feel after he figures it all out.
Johnny tears through his apartment and finds no evidence of another life lived inside of it: no amalgamation of separately collected cutlery, no extra shoes in the hall closet, no folded clothes tucked into the back of drawers, untouched. He goes through his phone; he hadn’t deleted Taeyong from his contacts, could never find the stomach for it, only now Taeyong’s name is not there, as if it never existed there in the first place.
Doyoung doesn’t know who Taeyong is
The first thing Johnny does is have a mild panic attack, afraid he’s erased Taeyong from all of existence. But no — no, that can’t be true. He visited a past that already had a space for Taeyong, had not touched anything before it, so that’s impossible.
Taeyong exists. But in this version of the story, he does not exist as a part of Johnny’s life.
Johnny sits on it for a while. He knows it’s hard for him to live without Taeyong; he’s suffered through years without him, wrestled with the reality of it over and over again. He wouldn’t be in this position at all, honestly, if he understood how to cope with Taeyong’s absence from his life. And the truth is Johnny has always been inherently selfish when it comes to Taeyong. It had been okay, when Taeyong was around; Johnny wanted every part of him, and Taeyong would give it willingly. But as soon as Taeyong was gone? It tore something out of Johnny, with gnashing sharp teeth and no regard for the parts of him that it hurt along the way.
But the longer Johnny thinks about it, the more he considers the fact that it was directly the lack of his presence in Taeyong’s life that means he could still be — still exist in this world, still breathing and living and being a presence in other people’s lives. Maybe Johnny was the wrong piece of the puzzle to fit inside Taeyong’s life the whole time.
It kind of makes Johnny want to cry. It kind of does make him cry, a little bit. Because maybe, maybe that means Taeyong is still out there, living his life. Maybe that means Johnny saved him from tragedy, saved his family from the pain of knowing they had outlived him. Maybe Johnny did something good.
All he had to do was sacrifice his space in Taeyong’s life.
So maybe things are exactly the same for Johnny. But maybe, just maybe, things are different — better and happier — for someone somewhere else.
So maybe Johnny should leave well enough alone.
*
The funny thing about the past is it’s never really done with you.
The funny thing about history is it has this nasty, nasty habit of repeating itself.
*
In a reality that no longer exists, Johnny first met Taeyong at a party that Mark invited him too. In a reality that no longer exists, Johnny had just moved to Korea after he had finished college in the States. Mark knew this guy throwing the party, Yuta, because they had worked at this music store together. And so: Mark took Johnny to this party, and Taeyong was there, because he was friends with Yuta, and this is where they met for the first time.
In a space and time that Johnny could never get back too, no matter how hard he tried, he remembers thinking that he had never met anyone who looked quite like Taeyong. It was hard to describe him; he seemed to transcend all lame descriptors afforded to Johnny through language. Or maybe that was just him, ascribing this otherworldliness to Taeyong from the moment he met him, that would follow Johnny through the entire rest of their relationship.
All this to say: Johnny met Taeyong at a party, one night, and then could never fathom the thought of leaving him ever again.
Things progressed easily for them after that, in the ways relationships between adults who are looking for big, broad concepts like forever tend to do. Johnny loved him so much, and Taeyong loved him in return, and Johnny often found himself unable to believe sometimes really just could be that simple.
Johnny had never believed in fate, in predestination, in the path meant to be followed. And then he met Taeyong.
In the reality that exists now — in the reality that fractured itself from the familiar one, the one that Johnny knew, when he tapped Taeyong on the shoulder in a coffee shop, in the reality Johnny lives right now — Johnny believes in fate, and in predestination, and in the path meant to be followed and —
And at a party that he gets invited to by Mark, four months after his appointment for TTGC, Mark says, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”
And Johnny follows him through the crowd as Mark explains this person to him. Tells Johnny he’s a mutual friend, that they’d get along great.
In the reality that exists now, Johnny knows what’s happening before it even happens. He slips into a role he’s familiar with, a spot carved for him in any reality, it would seem.
In the reality that is Johnny’s new reality, Mark says to him, “Johnny, this is Taeyong.”
And Taeyong, who looks only half-familiar to Johnny, at an age where Johnny has never seen him, and living a life thoroughly untouched by Johnny, says to Johnny:
“Hey,” and then Taeyong’s eyebrows furrows, and he continues. “Have we met before?”
Johnny is stunned at first. He had known, of course, that the Taeyong in this future broken off from a past Johnny changed, lived somewhere in the city. But there is a very, very stark difference in knowing someone exists on the fringes of your life, and then being presented with them face to face.
Eventually, Johnny’s brain catches up. “Oh, um,” he clears his throat. “No. I don’t think so. I’m Johnny.”
Taeyong is still looking at Johnny with this vaguely confused look. Johnny wonders if Taeyong remembers that day in the coffee shop, when Johnny approached him — a moment just a few months ago for Johnny, where years and years have passed for Taeyong.
Nervous, Johnny changes the subject. “Um — how do you — how do you know Mark?”
Taeyong answers. It’s the answer Johnny had been expecting, the answer he had already sort of known.
It’s been hard, living in a world where his friends and family only understood half of his life. Johnny is the one who changed it, and so he bears the burden of knowing this future did not always exist alone. It’s weird, and it’s even weirder now, as he and Taeyong dance a pantomime of an original meeting Johnny remembers and Taeyong doesn’t, only with slight changes.
But Johnny has always been so, so selfish when it comes to Taeyong, so he let’s it happen. And as Taeyong starts to become more comfortable, it’s easier for Johnny to pretend this is just a memory playing over in his head, and not something closer to deja-vu. The record of life skipping, over and over again.
“I swear,” Taeyong says to Johnny. It’s later now, and Taeyong has barely extracted himself from Johnny all evening. He’s been drinking beer, too. He never liked beer when Johnny knew him before. “You look so familiar.”
Johnny shrugs, playing dumb. “Maybe I just have one of those faces.”
“No,” Taeyong shakes his head. “I would remember a face like yours,” he says over the lip of his glass, and there’s a certain shine in his eye when he says it, something mischievous.
Johnny bites his bottom lip.
The end of the night comes. Despite his better judgement, Johnny lets Taeyong kiss him.
See, this is new. This didn’t happen the first time. The Johnny and Taeyong that existed previously didn’t kiss until their second date. But this Taeyong is older, and maybe more confident, or maybe he just understands what he wants better. So as the party winds down to an end, Taeyong gently places his hand on Johnny’s shoulder, and kisses him. It is more than a press of lips, that’s for sure, but Taeyong doesn’t let it get too uninhibited either. He pulls away after a moment, smirk tilting up the corner of his mouth.
Johnny almost tells him he loves him, right then and there.
(That night, Johnny spends twenty minutes lying in bed, staring at Taeyong’s contact information in his phone. He had put it there that night, before Johnny left the party. It had felt surreal; it had felt like Johnny was watching it from outside his body. And so he stares at Taeyong’s contact information, occupying a spot in Johnny’s phone that is familiar, but is not from this version of his life. And he feels weird, and he feels happy, and he feels so, so selfish.)
*
Johnny tries to stay away at first.
He is not actively rude towards Taeyong. He does not ignore his text messages or phone calls. He does not tell Taeyong he is not interested. He does not lie.
But he tries at first, he really does. Johnny’s afraid it might be dangerous to get this close to Taeyong again. This is what happened the first time. And the first time ended in tragedy. But Johnny loves him, and Taeyong, at the very least, has the capacity to one day love Johnny back.
Johnny can’t possibly explain to anyone what it would be like to bring someone you love back from the dead, and attempt to wrench yourself from them. It’s impossible.
He tries. He really does.
But then Taeyong does things like send him pictures throughout his day, sometimes photos of what he’s doing, or where he is, or a photo of Taeyong of himself. And he starts texting Johnny good morning and goodnight. And it’s so easy to fall back on old habits, of slipping back into a space made entirely for Johnny.
So when Taeyong asks him, do you want to go get drinks, Johnny’s instincts answer yes for him. And when Taeyong kisses him, Johnny’s instincts reciprocate. Because the same way Johnny has a space in Taeyong’s life, in every reality, it would seem, there is always a space for Taeyong. Only, the space for Taeyong isn’t a symptom of the universe. It is something Johnny carved into his own heart.
So it was never going to matter how hard Johnny tried to stay away. It was always going to be Taeyong that would be able to bring him back, because no matter what life they’ve lived, Johnny will know how to deny Taeyong anything.
*
In the fluorescent glow of the moonlight streaming in through Taeyong’s bedroom window, cut into ribbons by his blinds, Taeyong touches Johnny’s face with gentle care. Johnny watches him.
“I’m so glad I met you,” Taeyong says. He had one bare leg between both of Johnny’s.
Johnny kisses the tips of Taeyong’s fingers as they brush across his lips. “Me too. I’m so glad you met me too.”
(“You’ll still be here when I wake up, right?” Taeyong mutters into the skin of Johnny’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Johnny replies. “Of course I will be.”)
*
It’s when Johnny is getting dressed the next morning when it happens.
His wallet must have been off of where Johnny had placed it on the bedside table last night, because it lays face down on Taeyong’s bedroom floor. When Johnny picks it up, something slips out of it, delicately falling onto the edge of Taeyong’s bed, face down.
It’s Taeyong who picks it up, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. His brow creases. Johnny still can’t see what it is.
“Where did you get this?” Taeyong asks suddenly, looking at Johnny with hostile confusion.
“What?” Johnny replies. “Taeyong, what is it?”
Taeyong turns the small, glossy rectangle-shaped paper towards Johnny. Johnny’s breath catches in his throat.
It’s a photo of Taeyong from when Johnny first met him. But not really, not in this reality. It’s a photo from when a version of Taeyong and Johnny that no longer exist met for the first time. Taeyong is visibly younger, he’s laughing into his own hand, his hair a shade of cotton candy pink. Johnny remembers taking the photo; it had been when he went through a very brief phase where he was obsessed with polaroids, when he was more serious about photography in general. That dream had faded, eventually, but that picture that Johnny took of Taeyong?
That picture had been in Johnny’s wallet when he went back. The wallet that Johnny had kept in his pocket.
It, just like Johnny, had carried a piece of a lost timeline back into a new one.
And now Taeyong is holding it, reasonably confused at its existence, and probably a little bit upset.
“Where did you get this?” Taeyong asks again, harsher this time.
“Taeyong, I —”
“Did you go through my things? I don’t — I didn’t even know you when this picture was taken. I — I barely even remember who took this. And — why do you have it? Have you been lying to me about us not knowing each other?”
Yes. Yes, I have been lying to you, Taeyong. But how could you possibly understand. How could I ever make you understand.
Taeyong’s questions won’t let up, and he keeps getting more and more upset. Johnny can’t blame him. There’s probably something very scary to Taeyong about what’s happening right now. He is terrified by how much he doesn’t understand, and how worried he is about the discrepancy between who Johnny says he is and who he might really be.
So Johnny makes a decision.
“Taeyong,” Johnny calls his name, gentle and quiet. “You’re right. You’re right, I lied to you. I’m sorry.”
Taeyong’s eyes are wet. “What do you mean? Explain to me what you mean.”
So Johnny says, “you died.”
The same confusion paints Taeyong’s face, but he is quiet. He waits for Johnny to continue. “We were in love. I loved you and you loved me and one night — one night you drove in the middle of a rainstorm — I can’t even remember why but — but you did. And someone hit you and you died. And it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Johnny expects Taeyong to look unconvinced but — but that’s not quite the expression he wears. His mouth is pursed, and he keeps looking down at the photo in his hands and then back up at Johnny. But it looks like he’s listening.
So Johnny continues. “And I tried for so long,” he hears the way the emotion makes his voice quiver and winces. “I tried for so long to be okay without you. But I just — I couldn’t do it. I would do anything for you to come back. So I went to — I went to TTGC and they sent me back to see you and I was. I was just supposed to see you, to look at you and, I don’t know, feel some kind of closure. But I couldn’t look at you and imagine you on a path to a universe where you didn’t exist anymore so I — I said something to you. I changed it.”
Taeyong mumbles something, still looking at the photo. Johnny can’t hear him, so he leans forward, and Taeyong’s eyes flick up to him. This time, he speaks louder. “I remember you,” Taeyong repeats himself. “I remember this weird fucking guy who came up to me while I was getting coffee one day. I must have been eighteen and — and he said some really weird stuff to me and I thought he was crazy but I — I always thought about what he said to me. It was always in the back of my head.”
Johnny swallows. “Yeah. I — I didn’t really know what to say. I just wanted to save you.”
They are quiet for a moment. Every so often, Taeyong sniffles and wipes at his eyes. He’s still holding the photo.
“You must have really loved me,” he says, finally.
“Oh, Taeyong,” Johnny approaches him slowly. Taeyong does not back away. He lets Johnny touch his cheek, cup it so he can run his thumb back and forth across Taeyong’s cheekbone. “I — I never stopped loving you. I still lived that life. There isn’t a moment you’ve known me that I haven’t loved you.”
“I —” Taeyong chokes on his own words. Johnny lets him clear his throat and try again. “This is unbelievable. I can’t — I knew about TTGC but I never thought —” Taeyong cuts himself off on purpose this time, as if there is something more important he wants to say. “I always sort of felt — I always sort of felt like I loved you. From the very beginning. I thought I was crazy.”
There is an odd sort of calm that comes over Johnny when Taeyong kisses him, then. Like finding the right key for the right lock. The Johnny that exists right now, the Johnny that believes in fate, in predestination, wonders if this was always how it was supposed to be. If he was always meant to break apart and sew the universe back together for Taeyong.
He’d do it again if he needed to. Over and over again.
He just hopes that's enough.
fin.