Archive of Our Own

14XX, ???

A book slammed loudly against the table.

The boy flinched.

“Kang Yo-han,” his father hissed, raising the book once more, pages rolled up like a baton. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?! He never talked back to me, always followed my instructions, and look at him --- he’s successful, so it’s obviously not something wrong with me.”

“I’m sorr---”

Another slam.

He took a tiny step back.

“How many times have I told you to stop spending time with that village kid?!” his father roared, voice booming around the room. The maids exchanged wary glances, fearing for the child, but none of them had the guts to say a word. “Almost a new year and you’re still being difficult. What will it take for you to listen?!”

His words harboured a threat, one that the boy was quick to detect. “I’m sorry, father,” he made a futile promise, “it won’t happen again.”

The man clicked his tongue, smacking the table once more before he tossed the book aside. If looks could kill, Yo-han would already be six feet under. “It better not,” he warned, glaring daggers at his son, “because if it does, I can promise you that you will regret it.”

Knowing the consequences of disrespecting his father, the boy only nodded meekly.

“Good,” the man said. “Now don’t be late for your meeting with the Jung’s daughter. If I hear anything bad from them, you will stay in your room for the rest of the month.”

“...Yes, father.”

But he didn’t keep his word.

As soon as midnight struck the next morning, on the first day of the new year, he snuck towards the forest near his house, travelling along the path that led to the village.

Tree trunks carved with engravings were the lights on his path, the way that he marked his route to their secret meeting spot. Not that he needed that --- he could practically remember the route by heart, after travelling it nearly a hundred times.

He turned at the third marking, walking carefully through the narrow path, stepping over rocks and making sure that he wouldn’t trip. His father would surely notice if he did, then it’d be hard to lie his way around that again. Leaves rustled at a light breeze that swept through the forest, causing tiny flowers to drift down from branches onto the dirt ground.

“Yo-han hyung!” he heard a familiar voice whisper loudly and spun around in its direction to see his friend running towards him. “You’re late.”

It’d been no more than a week since they’d last met, but it felt like way longer than that. Yo-han didn’t know how it’d happened, but somehow, ever since they’d first met by chance a year ago, he’d found comfort in Ga-in’s presence and started to hang out with him more often.

“Sorry, Ga-on-ah,” Yo-han replied, catching the other in a tight hug. “My father found out that I’ve been sneaking out and got mad.”

Ga-on’s eyes widened and he patted Yo-han’s shoulder down to his arms, looking worried. “Are you okay? Did he do anything to you?”

“I’m fine.” Yo-han gently pushed Ga-on’s hands away. “He just shouted and then told me to meet Jung Sun-ah-ssi later.”

“Jung Sun-ah-ssi?”

The two of them sat down on one of the rocks surrounding a waterfall. Yo-han could feel the faint splashes of water on his skin like a light mist in the air.

“One of his prospective business partners’ daughters. He probably wants me to get married like Hyung,” Yo-han lamented, kicking his feet against the soil. “Hyung is already expecting his first child.”

Plus an alliance with the Jungs would raise business profits onto another level, he added in his head, but kept it to himself knowing that those were matters that Ga-on was likely unfamiliar with, having grown up in a completely different environment.

“But we’re only seventeen,” Ga-on pointed out, leaning back with his arms supporting him. “Isn’t it too early for that?”

With a sigh, Yo-han shook his head. “My father got married at this age and so did Hyung,” he explained, looking dejected. “I don’t think I’ll be an exception.”

“Oh,” Ga-on said softly, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “Do you like her, though?”

“Jung Sun-ah-ssi?” Ga-on nodded and Yo-han frowned a little. “She’s nice,” he said hesitantly. “I guess I like her a bit.”

The other stared at his feet.

“...But not as much as you.”

Ga-on looked at him in surprise and laughed, bumping into his shoulder playfully. “Don’t let your father hear that,” he said. “He’ll probably kill me if he does.”

It was a joke, no doubt, but for some reason, it didn’t settle right with Yo-han. Maybe because he knew that his father wouldn’t hesitate to do exactly what Ga-on had said. He bit his lip, hiding his unease at the ominous words.

“I was kidding,” Ga-on clarified, taking note of his friend’s silence.

Yo-han snapped out of his thoughts but couldn’t seem to wear a smile. “I know.”

A tense pause.

“Ga-on-ah.”

The boy in mention looked at Yo-han.

“Do you think I could run away?”

At that question, Ga-on looked appalled. “Why would you want to?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Yo-han spoke relentlessly. “If I stay, I’ll always have to do what my father wants. I’ll never get to choose for myself. I’ll just have to marry Jung Sun-ah-ssi, start a family, and do whatever else he wants me to.”

“But you have such a bright future,” Ga-on argued. “Even if you have to sacrifice some parts, you’ll never have to worry about food or money, and eventually you’ll take over your father’s business. Why would you give it all up?”

“Because I don’t need any of that. He’s going to leave it all to Hyung anyway. He doesn’t care about me, Ga-on. He only cares about business prospects.” As he spoke, Yo-han looked more and more frustrated. “He doesn’t want me to spend time with anyone that isn’t one of his business partners’ children.” He doesn’t want me to spend time with you.

Ga-on was quiet for a while. “Where will you go if you run away?”

“I could stay with you.”

But the other boy looked conflicted. “My parents wouldn’t let you,” he said apologetically. “No one in the village would dare house the runaway child of a rich merchant.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Yo-han concurred, albeit disappointed. He knew that his father wouldn’t let something like that just slide. It wasn’t an issue of caring about his son --- it was an issue of pride. It would never end well for him if others found out that Yo-han had run away.

Ah, perhaps he’d just been ill-fated from the start, as the unwanted child of his father’s mistress. No matter how much he tried to deny it or find a new path for himself, he’d always been held back by his father’s clutches, never able to escape. If he had nothing to lose, then it wouldn’t feel so bad, but every day that he ventured back into the forest was a reminder that he did have something to lose. And the hardest part was not knowing when he’d lose him.

“We can still meet here every week,” Ga-on tried to comfort him. “Maybe more than that, if you’d like. We don’t have to stop being friends just because your father wants us to.”

“But that means that we can never be more than that,” Yo-han voiced his thoughts bluntly.

Ga-on’s expression turned a little dull. “It’s not like we could ever have been.”

He knew that. Yo-han already knew that. Yet, to hear it spoken out loud felt different from hearing it inside of his head. If they’d been born in a different time, in a different place, if they’d met under different circumstances, would things be different?

In the distance, the sun began to peek out of the clouds, welcoming the new year with its warm glow. Gold and faint scarlet painted the morning sky, as if the heavens had put a watercolour painting on display. Gentle rays of sunlight slipped through the gaps between leaves, making the surface of the river water sparkle.

“My mother once told me,” Ga-on said suddenly, staring at a patch of light on the ground, “that if you make a wish when the sun rises on the first day of the year, it’ll come true.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,” Ga-on hummed. “It’s a legend that everyone in the village has heard.”

Yo-han leaned back and tilted his head up, releasing a long exhale. “Then I wish that someday we’ll meet again in another life, one where we get to be happy.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught a smile on Ga-on’s face.

“Yeah,” the boy agreed. “I’d like that too.”

2026, Seoul

“Nice to meet you.”

The man by the window turned around, eyes meeting Ga-on’s. As he slowly walked over, Ga-on felt himself tense up a little. He didn’t know what to expect, other than whatever his mentor had already told him --- that Kang Yo-han was no ordinary judge, that he had to keep an eye on him.

The office was bigger than Ga-on had expected, with one side as glass overlooking the city. It was a little cluttered but was much different from his mentor’s office. There were countless books on the shelves, making Ga-on wonder if they were ever read or simply there for show. With the only sources of light being the dim ones on the ceiling and the fragments of sunlight through the blinds and the window, it was darker than Ga-on would’ve thought it’d be.

Arriving in front of Ga-on, his new chief stared at him for a while, some indescribable look in his eyes. He didn’t say a word.

“Is something wrong?” the new judge asked.

Immediately, the other responded, “Nothing, I apologise. Judge Kim Ga-on, right?” His words were slightly mumbled, as though he was trying to gather his thoughts.

It was unusual how it felt as if he was being scrutinised, but Ga-on dismissed it as his overthinking. “Yes, I look forward to---”

“Welcome,” Yo-han interrupted, holding out a hand, “to the battlefield.”

Ga-on cautiously shook his chief’s hand, feeling the latter’s grip tighten for a second before his hand was released.

With that, Yo-han walked away, returning to his desk by the window. Ga-on didn’t know what else there was to say, so he merely bowed and left the office.

It was odd, to put it at the very least. He was sure that Yo-han knew of his arrival --- he was sure that Yo-han would have some say in who was picked as his associate judge --- but for some reason, Yo-han had seemed surprised to see him. Maybe even a bit uncertain, like he’d been expecting something else.

Casting that thought aside for now, Ga-on went on with his work for the rest of the day. It didn’t resurface in his head till that evening, and then more questions flooded his head along with it as well.

Footsteps paced along the hallway.

“Chief,” Ga-on called, causing the man to turn around. “Thank you for saving me yesterday.”

Yo-han looked indifferent. “Don’t mention it,” he dismissed, like it’d been nothing to him.

“You didn’t even hesitate to shoot.”

It was then that Yo-han turned around, walking towards Ga-on. “I didn’t?” he threw the question back.

Of course, it wasn’t possible to tell when Ga-on had been busy trying to protect the young girl at that time. But by the time he’d managed to look up, all he’d seen was Yo-han holding a rifle and the bus swerving in a different direction. Which was certainly frightening, given that normal people did not just take rifles and shoot civilians like that.

“Were you going to kill that man?” Ga-on questioned, maintaining a steady eye contact.

“If I had to,” Yo-han replied in a heartbeat.

“If you had to?”

“But the bus would’ve gone straight even if I had killed that man.”

Ga-on had no idea how Yo-han could say that with a blank face but it definitely didn’t give him a good feeling. “So you wanted him to get scared and steer the wheel,” he deduced. “Even if he smashes his bus and dies.”

Yo-han’s straightforward response fuelled a growing horror within him. “Yes, that’s math,” the man said calmly. “Two is bigger than one.”

Just what kind of chief was he working for? Unable to find anything else to say, Ga-on could only reply, “I guess so.”

And as Yo-han started to turn to leave, he continued, “Well, I’m alive thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be the smaller number in front of you.” Where he’d gotten the courage to say that to his chief’s face was a mystery but Ga-on was starting to find that Yo-han was a whole enigma in himself.

“Whatever,” the man said, letting the door slam.

Ga-on stood there dumbly for a few seconds, wondering what the hell was going on anymore.

(“So you met Kang Yo-han,” his mentor asked him later that day. “What’s he like?”

Strange, Ga-on thought, but interesting.

“I don’t know,” he answered instead.)

Ga-on’s heart raced in his chest as he opened the door of his chief’s office, glancing around the dark room and heading straight for the desk once he’d made sure that there was no one else in sight. He could see the light from the windows shining into the office, making parts of it glow in shades of blue, purple, orange.

Sneaking around in Yo-han’s office made him feel like a criminal, although in hindsight, it wasn’t as if this was the first time. Not that that made things any better other than in his head. If he could retrieve his device and leave promptly afterwards, he could just sweep this under the rug and never speak of it again. Yo-han wouldn’t have to know about any of this.

His hand reached for the corner of the desk where he’d left the device, feeling for it on the surface underneath. All his fingertips met was an inexplicable smoothness, no traces of the bug he’d placed. Dread pooled within him as he found that there was nothing there and he crouched down, trying to find it with his eyes.

No, it couldn’t be.

He’d placed it there a few days ago --- he definitely had --- so why was it gone? There was only one explanation offered to him --- that someone had already taken it. And that would mean that he was in trouble. He’d bugged his chief’s office and now he was likely caught. Now what? If only he’d been more careful with where he’d hid the device...

“Are you looking for this?”

Ga-on scurried to look in the direction of the voice, not even bothering to stand up or pretend he’d been doing something else. What could he say? There were no excuses left that’d be able to weave him out of this mess.

Silence for a few seconds passed like eons and Ga-on only stood up when Yo-han began to walk over.

“You knew,” he said, as if it wasn’t already obvious enough.

Much to his surprise, Yo-han held the device to him, dropping it into Ga-on’s palm and turning to walk away.

“Why are you doing this?” Ga-on asked harshly.

It was one thing for Yo-han to have found the device, but it was another for him to be so nonchalant about it. How long had he known? Had all those calls that Ga-on had listened into been nothing more than a ploy on his chief’s part? He felt like a fool, yet he was burning with questions inside.

Yo-han was unlike anyone he’d met in his life. He had a mysterious sort of charisma radiating off him, yet there was a dangerous vibe that came along with it. And perhaps that was why Ga-on was drawn towards him, like a moth to a lamp. No matter if getting too close would destroy him, he kept pushing closer.

Why was his mentor so suspicious of Yo-han? There was definitely something that he wasn’t letting Ga-on know. He respected that --- one shouldn’t spread baseless rumours --- and it also made him more curious. The conversations he’d heard had raised an alarm in his mind. Were the trials just a plot staged by Yo-han? Or were they authentic, and all of this a mere misunderstanding?

“Why am I doing this?” Yo-han repeated the question coolly.

Ga-on looked into his eyes as he faced him again. “Yes.”

Yo-han looked unexpectedly pleased with himself. “Because I can,” he said.

“...What?” If Ga-on was trying to hide his shock, he failed miserably at it.

“Possibility is like a drug,” Yo-han continued, almost making Ga-on wonder if he was actually on drugs. And he waited for Yo-han to complete that sentence, only to realise that there was nothing more that the man intended to say.

Speechless, Ga-on just stared at him, conjuring his response in his head.

That was, until he heard a faint beeping and the two of them turned around, like two minds had connected in that instant.

The beeping got faster.

The cogs in Ga-on’s head stopped turning.

“Get down!” he shouted.

He jumped.

14XX, ???

Ga-on panted, pushing his way through the bushes, ignoring the fresh cuts that tainted his skin whenever one of the stray branches hit him. His hair was a mess, with strands falling over his eyes and covering part of his vision, but he had no time to keep his appearances up. He could hear the footsteps behind him, chasing him like a reaper to take him to the afterlife, and he wondered.

He wondered what he’d done wrong, why there was someone so bent on killing him when he didn’t even know who they were. He didn’t remember offending anyone. He got along with everyone in the village and it wasn’t as if anyone there would have the connections to hire an assassin, not that he knew of at least.

As he ran as fast as his legs would carry him, he nearly stumbled several times but caught himself. Escaping his tail was a matter of life and death and he wasn’t ready to die just yet. He passed the waterfall, the place he’d gone to during his last visit to the forest. He could hide there, except that if he failed, then he was bound to get caught. To keep running was probably the better option for him.

Where the forest got denser and light failed to creep through the gaps between tree branches and lush leaves, Ga-on slipped past the trees, hiding in the bushes. After running for the past few minutes, he’d lost track of where he was going. All he knew was that he had to run away, even if he had no idea where he was running to.

A quick glance back revealed that the assassin was getting closer with each passing second. He was still a good hundred metres or so ahead of the man, but that wasn’t very much when the terrain they were in threatened to slow him down if he picked the wrong path. Ga-on could feel himself losing steam as he shoved branches aside roughly and tumbled into a mess of bushes, blending into the leaves around.

He held his breath.

At least he was able to buy himself some time. He didn’t expect that anyone would come and rescue him when nobody knew that this was happening, but he could still hope for as long as he wasn’t found. A little bit of optimism was always better than plunging into despair so soon.

The forest was eerily quiet, more than it’d ever been before. Ga-on heard the assassin sigh in frustration, beginning to search the area. He started at the part opposite where Ga-on was, much to the boy’s relief, though it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

How had things gotten to this point? He was only seventeen, not nearly old enough to make an enemy who’d want him dead. He didn’t think that his parents had either. It’d been a normal day just minutes ago, when he’d walked into the forest to meet his friend in secret and---

Oh.

It dawned upon him all of a sudden and he began to piece together the puzzle. Maybe the joke he’d made several days ago was turning out to be a reality. He felt a shiver travel down his spine and he slowly started to inch away, making as little noise as possible. If he survived this, he swore that he’d never try to seize what wasn’t his again.

Was this his karma for trying to stay close to someone out of his world, someone that he should’ve never met again after a moment of chance? It was foolish of him to believe even for the slightest fraction of a second that he could defy fate. He knew that he couldn’t and he’d accepted it long ago --- he’d accepted that all he could do was resign to being the village boy that he was, admiring his first love from afar and eventually retreating to his own life.

But if he hadn’t overstepped his boundaries, then why was he still being hunted down? It wasn’t fair that he was in this situation. No, none of this was fair. Everyone had dictated what he and the other boy could be, what the two of them should be, but no one had even spared a fleeting moment of consideration to what they wanted to be.

“Ga-on-ah,” he heard a voice call from a good distance away and he flinched, trembling amidst the bushes. Someone had arrived, but it was the one person he didn’t want to see now.

Don’t come closer, he pleaded in his head. Stay away.

Because if the other boy came closer, then they’d both be in danger.

“Ga-on-ah, where are---”

The voice stopped abruptly and Ga-on peeked from behind the bushes, seeing his friend and the assassin facing each other. He felt his heart stop.

“Who are you?” his friend asked, looking warily at the man.

No response.

“I asked, who are you?” Ga-on heard his friend raise his voice with each question. “What are you doing here? Did you do something to Ga-on? Where is he? Did my father send you?”

The assassin raised his dagger.

“YO-HAN HYUNG!”

Ga-on was on his feet before he realised it, and then all eyes were on him. What happened next was a flurry, even if time seemed to pass half as quickly. One moment he was standing at the bushes and the next he was hugging his friend, feeling a blade plunging into his spine. Blood spurted out from between his lips, staining the soil beneath his feet as he felt his body go limp.

The assassin was gone within half a minute, leaving Ga-on bleeding out in Yo-han’s arms. He opened his mouth to speak, only to cough again. Another wave of pain surged through his body. He didn’t even dare look down at the growing wound at his abdomen.

“Ga-on-ah,” Yo-han mumbled, looking distraught as he glanced around, trying to find any assistance and realising that this was the end for them, that nobody was going to miraculously appear at the scene, that even if someone did, it’d be far too late by then. “Ga-on-ah, you have to stay with me,” he continued frantically, as if saying that would make things any better. “You can’t die, Ga-on-ah.”

And desperate pleas slowly morphed into Ga-on’s name, over and over like a prayer.

Ga-on wanted to console him, wanted to hug Yo-han and assure him that he would be alright. But he knew that he wouldn’t. He knew that he was barely hanging on to himself at this point. He knew that and he wanted to lie and yet he couldn’t.

With the little bit of strength he had left, as his soul began to crawl out of his heart, as his consciousness started to ricochet back and forth, Ga-on lifted his hand to his friend’s cheek, caressing it tenderly.

“Yo-han-ah,” he said quietly, wiping the boy’s tears away, “I will find you again.”

“No,” Yo-han rejected, shaking his head. “Stay with me now, please.”

While we still have each other.

While I still have you.

His voice was overwhelmed with pain and Ga-on hated to see him like that, hated to be the reason that he was like that. They may be living in the same country, he realised, but they were from two different worlds. Two worlds that should never have collided in the first place. Two worlds that would only fall to ruins if they remained intertwined.

If only, he thought. If only time would freeze in this moment, where he still had Yo-han and where Yo-han still had him.

But knowing that it wouldn’t, Ga-on forced a melancholic smile onto his face.

“I will find you again,” he whispered, feeling his hand fall as it lost its strength, “I promise.”

2026, Seoul

Ga-on woke up in cold sweat.

He could hear indistinct voices talking in the background but his mind was still hazy. What was that dream? Why did it feel so real? His body still throbbed with pain, as if there had really been a blade there. There had been a forest, there had been an assassin, and there had been...

“Where am I?” he questioned, noticing his chief standing at the end of his bed. (Correction: Not his bed, just the bed that he was in, which definitely wasn’t his.)

“It isn’t paradise,” Yo-han responded.

No shit, Ga-on grumbled internally, because if it was paradise, he wouldn’t be in pain whenever he moved. He groaned, trying to sit upright, only to give up moments later and relax his body again.

“I wouldn’t push it if I were you,” the other told him before walking away.

What the hell. Ga-on could still see the foggy images of the forest whenever he closed his eyes. It had definitely seemed like a different century and Ga-on had no idea when was the last time he’d had such a strange dream. He didn’t remember reading any historical books or watching any shows like that. And out of all the people that could’ve appeared, why Kang Yo-han?

Maybe Ga-on was spending too much time around him. Thank goodness that he wasn’t the kind to sleep talk. Gritting his teeth, he tried to sit up again, only to make it an inch off the mattress before he lost his energy and lay down once more. At least it was comfortable, even more so than his own bed.

He closed his eyes again, trying to forget the dream. Yet, the image printed itself clearly in his memory, like it was trying to rub itself in his face. Which was, frankly, very embarrassing because he was certain that people didn’t normally dream about being friends (or more?) with their superiors at work in another life some hundred of years ago.

He didn’t know how long he fell asleep for, but he didn’t wake up until the clattering of dishes against the ground startled him. He looked in the direction of the sound, eyes wide with surprise and confusion. There was an unfamiliar woman standing there, eyes darting everywhere but at him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The woman eyes him with scepticism clear in her gaze. “I apologise,” she said, not answering his question.

Ga-on felt mildly uneasy. “Why are you so surprised?”

“Did Master Yo-han not say anything?”

A subtle frown. “What do you mean?”

The woman cleared her throat. “Then I have nothing to tell you.”

Finally gathering enough strength to sit up, Ga-on only watched as the woman walked away. “What’s going on?” he muttered, shaking his head. “Rich people...”

The room was bigger than he’d realised. As he got out of bed and looked around, Ga-on clutched his middle, feeling it hurt when he exited the room and traversed the corridors. He had no doubt that he was in a mansion, judging from how many walkways there were and how it almost felt like he was in a labyrinth.

His body was begging him to return to bed but his curiosity ate at him like a parasite and he wanted to know where he was, especially since he didn’t have his phone or any way to contact someone outside the house.

He spent the rest of the day walking around, trying to find anything of interest, or more so anything that would give him a clue as to who Yo-han was. After all, what better way was there to investigate the man than to explore his house? He’d gotten a free ticket in, so he might as well make the best of the time that he was here.

But something kept bothering him. One of the doors had been locked and as normal as that was, he felt an urge to go in and find out what secret was hidden beyond the door. It definitely wasn’t a good idea, yet Ga-on found himself prying the lock open and entering the room a few hours later.

It was dark. Stairs led down, as if it was some hidden basement. Ga-on was careful as he descended, making sure that he wouldn’t trip. He was grateful when light shone in from some windows above, enough to light up a portion of the room so he’d be able to see where he was headed.

He flipped a light switch, though it was nevertheless dimmer than the rest of the house. He could sense the dust in the air, like this was an old part of the house that hardly anyone spent time in, one that hadn’t aged with time. There were books on a shelf, cluttered and disorganised unlike in Yo-han’s office.

Noticing a book on a small table, he picked it up, taking a look at its spine. “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” it read. Curiously, Ga-on opened the book and began to flip through it.

The pages were crisp, stained somewhat yellow from years of existence. Each page was filled with a wall of text, so much that Ga-on didn’t bother trying to read it. It was only when he found an old photograph between pages that he froze.

Ga-on snapped the book close with one hand, photograph in the other.

The man in the photograph stared back at him, his face looking identical to Ga-on’s own. Judging from the age of the photograph, he was definitely older than Ga-on, but at that moment that the photograph had been taken, he looked exactly like Ga-on did in the present time.

It sent a shudder through him. How could two people look so similar? If he didn’t know himself, he’d have thought that it was him in that photograph. First the dream and now this. He must surely be losing his mind.

“You are a very curious person.”

At the sudden intrusion, Ga-on spun around and placed the book back on the table. Since he was already caught, however, he might as well get some answers. He held up the photograph. “Who is this person?”

The woman’s expression darkened and Ga-on repeated his question.

“...It’s Master Issac,” she finally answered.

“Issac?”

“Master Yo-han’s older brother,” she elaborated, “Master Issac.”

Ga-on turned the photograph around again, looking at his uncanny doppelgänger, so deep in thought that he nearly missed the woman’s additional words.

“He’s the true heir to this mansion.”

His grip on the photograph was shaky. “He’s Kang Yo-han’s older brother?” he questioned, as if he was unable to believe it. Surely Yo-han had noticed how similar Ga-on appeared to that man in the photograph. Then all this...was no coincidence?

The woman looked away.

“Does this mean that he lived in this basement?” Ga-on continued to press for answers.

“No.”

“Then?”

“This place...” she started, averting her eyes, “this place was Master Yo-han’s bedroom.”

Ga-on couldn’t hide the shock written over his face. “Huh?”

He looked around the room again, seeing how stuffy and uncomfortable it was. Yo-han had lived here? But hadn’t he been the pampered child of a rich man?

As if she’d read his thoughts, the woman told him, “Master Yo-han...was an abandoned child.”

And once he’d heard the story behind the family, Ga-on knew that he’d never be able to think of Yo-han the same way again.

As starlight peeked through the translucent curtains, glistening on part of the bedroom’s floor, Ga-on lay on the bed and hugged a pillow to his chest. The moon hid amidst the clouds outside, stars twinkling in the dark night sky. It’d been more than a day since he’d woken up in this house but for some reason, he felt like something was missing. He didn’t know what it was, only that his mind kept drifting back to that dream he had several nights ago.

Well, if he didn’t remember it, then it couldn’t possibly be important. He didn’t understand why he was so hung up on that one dream when it wasn’t the first time he’d had a strange one. He still remembered that one time he’d dreamt of getting stranded on an island and being greeted by walking fish. (It had been traumatising.) So Ga-on decided to tuck his concerns away at the back of his mind, hoping that it’d stay there for as long as possible, at least until he could get satisfactory answers. Which he doubted would ever happen.

His reflection stared at him from the blank screen of his phone. How long had it been since he’d seen his best friend in person? He was sure that she’d chide him again when they met, for staying at the so-called enemy’s house. It was certainly dangerous if one saw Kang Yo-han as a devil, although the more he spent time in the mansion, the more that image had changed.

Ga-on sighed. It was too early to be jumping to conclusions, be it good ones or bad ones. He turned on his phone, navigating his way to a certain contact.

“...Kim Ga-on?” The person on the other side of the call picked up after three rings.

“Soo-hyun-ah,” he greeted his best friend, smiling a bit as he heard her voice. She was a source of comfort for him, as she had been ever since they were young. “How are you?”

The woman grumbled softly. “Busy, could be better. But what about you? Are you still in that house?”

“Mhm,” Ga-on replied.

“How long do you plan to stay there?” Soo-hyun asked, and Ga-on could tell that she was pouting. “It’s safer in your apartment than in his territory.”

Ga-on chuckled. “It’s fine, Soo-hyun-ah.” He fiddled with the corner of the bed’s covers with his other hand. “Do you want to have lunch together soon?”

“Of course,” Soo-hyun accepted without hesitation. “When are you free?”

“Maybe the day after tomorrow,” Ga-on replied. It wasn’t as if he had anything to do now, but he doubted that Yo-han would let him leave the house alone until his injury was much better. “Did you help me water the plants?”

“How could I not?” the woman laughed. “Don’t worry about that and focus on recovering quickly.” There was a quiet pause before she asked, “So how have you been?”

For a moment, Ga-on considered telling her about his peculiar dream. But surely it would only puzzle her and make her want him out of that house more than she already did. So he picked his words carefully and responded, “Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“How fine can I be after that explosion?” He shrugged, a faint smile on his face.

“True, true,” he heard Soo-hyun muse.

He let her ramble about work matters for a while, listening attentively but with half a mind on something else too. Finally, he was unable to hold it in any longer and said, “Soo-hyun-ah, can I ask you something?”

The woman hummed in agreement.

“The thing is,” Ga-on started, words measured with caution, “I had this weird dream---”

There was the sound of someone calling Soo-hyun’s name on the other side and Ga-on shut up. “Sorry, Ga-on-ah,” Soo-hyun apologised quickly. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Ga-on remained silent and waited.

A minute or two later, Soo-hyun returned. “So what were you saying?” she asked. “Something about a dream?”

The man opened his mouth to speak but then stopped himself. “Never mind,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?” Soo-hyun seemed doubtful.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”

They spoke for another half an hour before the call ended and Ga-on turned in to sleep.

Like the past few nights since that anomaly, he didn’t dream.

Ga-on walked into the study with a bitter look on his face. The punishment had shocked him the first time but to witness it for himself --- broadcasted on national television, no less --- hit completely different. It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. And what was even more wrong in his eyes was how nonchalant Yo-han seemed about everything when his influence was spreading like wildfire in the community.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked, not a question but a demand.

His answer came in a heartbeat. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

And Ga-on stared daggers at his senior, watching the man sip at his drink. Calmly, indifferently, as if the circumstances around him didn’t bother him one bit. Maybe it didn’t. Truth to be told, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to think so, but that didn’t mean it felt any better to Ga-on.

“What kind of cruel behaviour is this?”

The cup clinked against its saucer and for a moment so brief that Ga-on might’ve simply imagined it, Yo-han’s collected demeanour faltered. “Cruel?” he echoed, slowly looking up from his book and at Ga-on. “I just did what the majority of the nation wanted. Isn’t that what democracy is?”

“Don’t sound so righteous,” Ga-on retorted sharply. “You’re only doing this for fun.” He held back a breath, adding, “You’re nothing more than a cold-blooded monster.”

The words rang in his head and part of him wished he’d kept his mouth shut, but out in the open, there was no taking them back. There were so many secrets that Yo-han was hiding and with the information he’d gathered, it wasn’t such an absurd thing to say.

The emotions conveyed behind Yo-han’s eyes changed and the man looked down. And somehow, it spurred Ga-on to continue, because maybe if he pushed the right buttons, he could finally know the truth.

“You hunt for fun,” he said, “and you get rid of anyone who gets in your way.”

A short pause.

“Your brother, too.”

Slowly, Yo-han began to look up.

“Is that why you killed him?”

It was hard to read Yo-han’s expression for the next few seconds before the judge stood up, casting the book in his hand aside. He took steady steps towards Ga-on and an ominous feeling began to linger into the air. Yo-han was far from a predictable person and at times like this, that unfathomability only compounded.

Before Ga-on could realise it, Yo-han’s hand was on his throat, gripping him a chokehold and pushing him back, back, back, until he hit the wall behind him. Instinctively, Ga-on reached up to hold Yo-han’s wrists, trying to back away. But Yo-han’s hold on him was strong and Ga-on was no match for it.

“Say it again,” Yo-han said in an oddly calm tone, even if Ga-on could sense the instability behind it.

Instead of repeating the question, Ga-on changed his course. “Did you kill your brother?”

“Say it again.”

His words were harsher than before, each word punctuated strongly.

“Your brother, who treasured and loved you...” Ga-on’s voice drifted off, not just because he was in a suffocating position but because he couldn’t seem to bring himself to say it again.

Because he could tell.

Because when his eyes met Yo-han’s, he didn’t see aggression or resentment.

He saw pain and anguish instead.

Yo-han’s voice grew louder and Ga-on’s mind began to cloud, unsure what to say, unsure what to do, unsure what to even think. It was only when he felt his body hit the ground that he snapped out of his trance, watching as Yo-han lost his composure for the first time around him, as if something within him had finally broken.

“Cruel?” he hissed. “Cruel? Do you know what being cruel really means?!”

But he didn’t touch Ga-on again. He only turned away, letting out an ironic laugh before he went quiet and stood still. Pin drop silence enveloped the study and Yo-han exhaled deeply.

That night, Ga-on heard the story of the church fire from Yo-han’s perspective. It was strikingly different, contrasting everything he’d learnt previously. In that edition, Yo-han wasn’t the monster but the one who’d been surrounded by demons, the one who’d desperately tried to save his family until the very end of his ability.

It wasn’t the Kang Yo-han that everyone had told him about.

However, that didn’t make his story any less authentic.

He saw the scar that spread across Yo-han’s back, like a burden from the past weighing him down. A mark that he doubted anyone had seen, that he doubted Yo-han would let just anyone see. It’d been years, but the skin in that area was still purplish and dark. He’d never have imagined that Yo-han hid this sort of agony in secret, when in the limelight, he was that confident and merciless star judge, at least to everyone who saw him.

It must’ve hurt a lot, Ga-on deduced as he looked at the scale of the wound, which spanned from a little beneath his neck down his spine like a brace and branched out to the sides in the shape of a cross. Perhaps it was the lighting, but some parts of it appeared to harbour a red tint as well, the reminiscence of blood behind healing skin that would never quite be able to return to what it was before.

Ga-on realised, in that moment, that he was seeing a side of the older man that went unnoticed to nearly everyone else. In spite of the outrage that’d sparked earlier, it felt strangely intimate in some way. Some part of him wanted to reach out and run his fingers gently over the broken tissue, tender and careful with each movement. But he knew that it would be out of line to do so, and especially after all that’d happened before, he couldn’t. He shouldn’t even be letting his thoughts travel down this route.

And after what felt like too long, the first thing he could get out from the mess of his headspace was, “I’m sorry.”

15XX, ???

The commander’s son walked quietly into the campsite. When he’d first done so a few weeks ago, the soldiers had stopped him, giving him perplexed looks and telling him to stay out of the area for his own safety. But after he’d persisted and promised that he’d be quick --- and he had been, for the most part --- they’d started to allow him in.

He was, after all, not just any normal citizen. Though his older brother would be the one taking his father’s place in the future, he still would have an important role in the military. His father wouldn’t let it be any other way. Some of the soldiers around already knew his name, or knew him as that person who kept coming to see his former classmate and present best friend in camp.

Blowing a light puff of air to get some stray strands of hair away from his eyes, the young man stepped over puddles of mud from the rain earlier that night and followed his usual path to where he believed that the one he was looking for would be. Given that the sun had yet to rise, it was still dark and most soldiers who weren’t on shift were fast asleep.

Following rumours of an approaching invasion, the military had begun to set up tents near the border. Sometimes, the man entered in broad daylight to bring supplies, but he’d found that it left him with little time to interact with his best friend, compared to “visiting” at after-shift hours. So circumstances had called for plan B, leading to where he was now.

Truth to be told, worry had been eating him up from the day that the soldiers were dispatched to the border. His father had commanded the troops before and they’d fought some battles, coming back with less in numbers than they’d set out with. Needless to say, invasion and war came with fatalities and the young man didn’t want to consider that his friend could someday end up in one of those statistics.

“Ga-on hyung,” he called quietly once he’d reached the right tent.

As if he’d been waiting half-awake, one of the soldiers looked up, rubbing his eyes gently. He glanced around and then got out of the tent. “Yo-han-ah,” he mumbled, frowning a bit. “What are you doing here?”

Some of the soldiers had noticed, but none of them bothered to tell him to get back into the tent. The atmosphere had gotten relaxed compared to the initial news of the possible invasion (which seemed like ages ago and some had started to suspect that it’d been a false alarm) and knowing that Yo-han was the commander’s son, they let him have his way, for now at least.

“I missed you,” Yo-han answered honestly, taking Ga-on’s wrist and dragging him to a more hidden area when he’d made sure that nobody was staring. “I haven’t seen you in nearly a week.”

“Sorry,” the other apologised sincerely. “We’ve been busy trying to figure out what to do.”

“No news of the invasion?”

Ga-on shook his head. “Not since last week. But the silence in itself is...alarming.”

Yo-han kicked his feet against the soil. “Might be a false alarm,” he suggested, raising what he hoped was the outcome. He didn’t want a war, just like he didn’t want his best friend sent out onto the battlefield.

“I don’t know,” Ga-on admitted, looking unconvinced. He tugged his wrist out of Yo-han’s grip, the latter only then realising that he’d yet to let go. “You should go back, you know,” he continued, tilting his head up to look at the cloudy night sky. “If your father sees you talking to me, I’ll be in trouble.”

But Yo-han wasn’t a fool. Rather, he knew his friend well enough to tell that it wasn’t being in trouble that he was afraid of, but getting Yo-han into trouble. Few knew about it, but the commander’s relationship with his second son had never been a good one. It was hard to tell why, since even Yo-han didn’t know the reason, but his father had always seen him as inferior to his brother and thus unworthy of being treated the same.

“He won’t do anything,” Yo-han argued, though he averted his eyes when they met the other’s. “It’s not the first time I’ve come here. And...I don’t know how long I can still see you before anything starts.” His voice shrank, till it faded precisely at the last word.

“Yo-han-ah...”

“Please,” the commander’s son implored, looking earnestly at his companion, “you have to come back safely after all of this is over.”

In lieu of an answer, Ga-on pulled Yo-han into his embrace.

Promises were hard to make in a time like this, and neither wanted to count on ones that could end up broken, even if it was all the hope that they could possibly get.

“Go back,” the soldier said as he pulled away from Yo-han. “Don’t get in trouble.”

Yo-han didn’t know when he’d get to meet Ga-on again. But even with so much to say, it was impossible to even begin. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, not only a temporary farewell but also an urge to his friend to return in one piece.

“See you.” Catching his drift, Ga-on smiled faintly.

“Get out.”

Yo-han was shoved towards the exit of the commander’s tent.

“I don’t have the time to deal with trivial matters,” his father continued sternly, not once looking up from the map rolled out on his desk. “Go find someone else if you need something. And don’t, for crying out loud, disturb your brother.”

But the young man was persistent. He shook off a cautious hand on his shoulder from one of the soldiers around and strode to his father’s desk. “What is going on?” he questioned. “Why is he in the frontline?”

“Who? That bastard that you keep visiting despite my constant orders to stay out of the camp?!” Slamming his hands on the table, the commander glared at his son. “What, am I supposed to send your brother to the frontline?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Yo-han shot back, fighting a scowl at how his words had been twisted. “But you know that he’s only been in the military for less than a year! How experienced could he be? He’s just going to get killed!”

The commander clicked his tongue and his right palm collided loudly with the map. “Better than losing one of the stronger ones so early.”

Losing his control for a second, Yo-han hit his hand against the surface of the table. “You know that he’s important to me.”

“And since when did that matter?” His father’s voice was calm and collected, as if it was Yo-han who was being outrageous. “This is war. I don’t make exceptions based on personal bias.”

Personal bias? Yo-han scoffed, albeit taking a step back when his father stared intensely and threateningly into his eyes. You’re doing this on purpose.

“This is the last time I will be telling you this,” the commander said, a clear warning conveyed in his words. “I don’t want to see you in the camps again. Go back home and stay in your room. Stop letting measly distractions get in the way of your studies --- I still expect you to work alongside your brother eventually.”

With that, he snapped his fingers and two soldiers dragged Yo-han away, ignoring the young man’s fervent protests.

“For me?” Ga-on looked up at his team leader, who was holding a neatly sealed envelope.

“The commander’s son asked me to pass it to you. I don’t know what’s inside, but I’m only doing this because he looked desperate and I know that he isn’t a traitor.” The older man placed the envelope in Ga-on’s grip, enclosing his fingers over it before taking his leave.

It was a slightly tattered envelope, stamped close with a red seal. The edges were a little crumpled, but when Ga-on opened the flap, he found that the letter was in surprisingly good condition. The paper was crisp and the ink seeped into the pages in a neat cursive handwriting, one that he could recognise in a glance.

Ga-on hyung, the letter read, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to see you again.

Ga-on smiled, hearing his friend’s voice in his head as he kept reading.

I heard from the others that you’re in the frontline. I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose. I don’t know when I can visit a camp again because one of his soldiers is keeping an eye on me and I’m pretty sure he reports everything to the commander. I’ll keep this short because you probably don’t have much time to spare. Please come back safely; I’ll be waiting for you at our usual spot.

And before I end this, there’s one more thing I need to

The door burst open, causing Ga-on to hide the letter away on instinct. He looked up at the person who’d entered, confused at the sudden intrusion.

“The team leader called for a meeting,” the man explained, gesturing outside the tent. “We need to go.”

With a low sigh, Ga-on nodded. He kept the letter safely aside once the other had left the tent and then walked out. The future was uncertain from this point onwards, but all he hoped for was that he’d be able to see his friend again.

2026, Seoul

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

In the background, the clock continued to signal the passing of time. The sun had already risen by the time Ga-on woke up, feeling his neck aching slightly but much less than it had when he’d gone to sleep. Slowly, he sat upright and rubbed his eyes.

That’s two times now, he counted as the blurry impressions of his dream faded back into his mind. He picked up his phone, seeing several messages from his best friend, telling him about her day and complaining about the chief officer in her division. Should he ask her what she thought?

Part of him wanted the easy way of consulting the all-knowing internet, and yet he was pretty sure that his searches would only yield unhelpful results. He released a long, tired sigh and began to call Soo-hyun. However, much to his dismay, he only reached her voicemail instead, and he took that as a sign to delay his train of thought.

Unlike before, his dream had been rather peculiar. It was, again, eerily vivid, yet at the same time, it didn’t feel like a dream as much as it felt like he’d been the audience of a movie. Which wasn’t completely impossible since some dreams he’d gotten before had worked in the third-person perspective, but they were rare.

What were the odds that he’d have a dream like that and that Kang Yo-han would star in it? Internet forums seemed to suggest that dreaming about someone in a good light suggested an interest in them, but he was pretty sure that he didn’t see Yo-han that way, subconscious or not. Moreover, both dreams had seemed rather...tragic.

He frowned, shaking his head and getting out of bed. Speaking of Yo-han, he ought to check how the man was doing, particularly after what had happened the night before.

Walking down the quiet hallway, he was careful not to make too much noise, lest he end up waking somebody up. Ga-on opened the door to Yo-han’s room, only to see him staring into blank space with a petrified expression.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Yo-han’s head snapped in his direction and the man let out a sharp gasp as he noticed Ga-on at the door. His face was pale and his body was rigid, as though he’d just seen a ghost. And even when Ga-on began to walk over, all he did was stare at Ga-on with his eyes wide.

“You don’t look well,” Ga-on said, his voice laced with concern. He considered if this was his fault, if he’d triggered a traumatic memory that resulted in a nightmare. “Are you okay?”

He lifted a hand to Yo-han’s forehead. Yo-han slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered, eyeing Ga-on warily.

Ga-on didn’t take his eyes off the other man. “What’s wrong?”

But before Yo-han had the chance to respond, they were interrupted by Elijah, who’d wheeled herself to the entrance of the room. “What are you two doing?” she asked, appearing confused.

“What do you want?” Yo-han spoke harshly, while Ga-on looked between the two and didn’t say a word.

“Did I interrupt something?”

Yo-han blatantly ignored her question, turning to Ga-on instead. “What are you doing here?” His tone was harsh, but more defensive than upset.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Ga-on said candidly. “But I guess I should wait, since you don’t look too well.” He bowed his head slightly and briskly exited the room before he could hear anything else that came after.

(Elijah passed him in the hallway not long after. He wondered what had transpired after he’d left. He also wondered why the girl was so certain that her uncle had killed her parents. Maybe he’d ask her sometime. After all, she was bound to know more than he did.)

The dream kept returning in Ga-on’s mind for the next few days, coming at the most random moments. The more time passed, the less distinct it was, such that at some point, the faces had gotten blurry and unrecognisable. Except that he didn’t need faces to remember who’d been in it.

At least, he’d been able to clear his head enough to work properly. Nam Seok-hoon’s trial had gone smoothly and as usual, Yo-han had turned the tables when it seemed like he’d met a dead end. It was undeniably impressive and Ga-on found himself in high spirits as he sat on the study’s couch, cradling Kkomi in his arms.

The mansion felt extremely homely today, worlds more than it usually did. It was strange, in a good way that made Ga-on’s heart warm a little. From what had felt like a haunted house, the Kang’s mansion was gradually becoming a home and Ga-on was glad to be able to witness the change. A fraction of him craved to belong in a family again and perhaps that was why he’d decided not to coop himself up in his room and join Yo-han in the study instead, even if he didn’t need anything work-related from the older man.

“Are you in a good mood?” he asked, watching as Yo-han opened a package on his desk.

With the faintest smile, Yo-han looked at him. “It doesn’t feel too bad to be lenient sometimes.”

Ga-on huffed and placed Kkomi on the floor, letting the cat scurry off. “That was lenient?” he asked half-jokingly.

“By the way,” Yo-han casually continued, “I heard that you had a weird dream during the break.”

Dream. At the mention of that word, Ga-on’s body stiffened for the shortest second and he averted his eyes briefly. He had had a dream which had been somewhat disturbing, although it’d also been completely unrelated to all those other dreams he’d been having sporadically at night. He nodded, responding in a slightly awkward way, “Yeah.”

“What do you take me for?” Yo-han seemed amused as he fiddled with the small scissors in his hand. “How could I do something like that?” He snipped the air a few times and smiled at Ga-on, who looked away and chuckled.

“Sure, of course not.” He stood up, walking closer to stand in front of his senior’s desk. “Also, Elijah’s been sleeping the whole day.”

Yo-han leaned back on his chair. “It’s Saturday,” he said with a subtle shrug. “Let her sleep; she’ll need to catch up.”

Hands in his pockets, Ga-on tilted his head to the side. “Why?”

“Who do you think scoured the US to find an appropriate prison and altered her voice to negotiate with the Texas State?”

“What?”

The other looked at him with a proud smile.

Truly a family, Ga-on mused in his head, letting out a soft laugh. Maybe he really did miss this.

Ga-on couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried his heart out in front of someone else.

Everything had been going smoothly, falling into place like strokes of a painting. He’d begun to warm up to Yo-han, seeing him for who he was and not who the world saw him as. He’d begun to make a place for himself in the mansion, bringing family back together and mending the broken pieces of what had been. He’d begun to find himself, to know what he wanted to fight for, what he would stand for in this messed up world.

Then why was it that it’d all come crashing down again?

Yo-han put an arm on Ga-on’s back, guiding the younger judge forward, away from the prison that’d shattered his seemingly perfect image of justice. “The only thing that can be thoroughly manipulated is the system itself,” he said calmly. “This is the system. A system has no chance against power --- power can control the system however it likes.”

Unable to process what had just been dumped on him, Ga-on was silent as his footsteps slowed to a stop. The light from the guard tower scanned the area, casting Ga-on’s shadow onto the ground, highlighting murky darkness in the hope he’d once clung onto. As though it was searching for something that it wouldn’t find.

Ga-on turned around and met Yo-han’s gaze.

The man opened his arms out, as if to ask, “Do you see it now?”

And tears started to clog Ga-on’s vision. He didn’t want to cry, not in front of Yo-han, or anyone, for that matter. He tilted his head up, trying to get the tears to flow back in, to no avail. Pained cries escaped his lips and he started to lose his composure; surges of emotion --- helplessness, frustration, regret --- uncoiling within him and burning him from the inside out.

He didn’t want to believe it.

He didn’t want to believe that all this while, his parents’ killer had gotten off scot-free, while nobody had suspected any foul play. He didn’t want to believe that if not for Yo-han bringing him here, he’d have spent the rest of his life in ignorance of this deception.

And yet he wished that he hadn’t seen it for himself, because perhaps ignorance was truly bliss, especially when it strung impotence along with it. Years had passed and there was nothing he could do now --- it was far too late. It had been for a long, long time. He knew that all he could look to was the future, but he couldn’t gather enough strength to even lift his eyes to the road ahead.

He stole glances at Yo-han every once in a while, like he had something that he wanted to say and yet he didn’t know how, or didn’t know what. Several times and then he stopped, unwilling to look into the eyes of the person who’d just served him reality on a platter. And wounded cries turned into anguished screams, and Ga-on fell to his knees, head bowed and eyes welled up with overflowing tears.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, as if someone had ripped off a band-aid and left him to bleed, stinging pain consuming the reopened wound. No, this wasn’t what he wanted. If this was what they called justice, then to hell with it. Screw the system, screw justice, screw all of those assholes who thought that they could do whatever they wanted just because they had more power than everyone else.

Darkness loomed over the prison, a poignant curtain over every last ounce of tolerance that he had for the system that’d ruined his life more than just once. If everything he’d believed in, everything he’d used to comfort himself, had been nothing more than a monstrous lie, Ga-on decided that he didn’t want to blindly accept it anymore.

Yo-han said a lot to him after that, but what stuck the most was a single sentence: “If the devil really does exist among us, it would be the self-pity of the powerful.”

“Let’s go,” Yo-han called to Ga-on, seeing that he was broken enough. “Judge Kim, let’s go home.”

Home? Ga-on cried in his head. He wasn’t sure he knew where that was anymore. His mind had blanked out a while ago and now all that was left was a hollow feeling in his chest, making him feel like a sailor lost in a raging sea. He didn’t want to stay here anymore, yet he didn’t want to go anywhere; he didn’t want this moment to extend any further, yet he was afraid of what would happen next.

No matter what he tried to think, no matter what last bit of his hope he tried to salvage in the wildfire destroying his soul, he couldn’t get a grip of himself. His composure had crumbled, scattered all around but in many severed pieces. So he let Yo-han pull him to his feet and then collapsed into his arms --- not in an embrace but in a distraught attempt to cling onto whatever familiarity he could still find in the moment. (Even if that familiarity came in the form of Kang Yo-han.)

And when he looked at Yo-han again, the man appeared almost apologetic. “Ga-on-ah,” he said, voice significantly softer than before, “let’s go.”

Ga-on let go of him, mustering his strength to stand by himself. He hadn’t wanted Yo-han to see him in that moment of weakness. It made him feel strikingly inferior, nothing but just another person in front of someone who was respected by nearly the whole nation. He wondered how Yo-han saw him now. Ga-on didn’t respond to his words, only followed as Yo-han placed a hand on his back and led him away again.

He didn’t speak again on the journey home. He was glad that Yo-han respected his need for space, for the man didn’t say more than a few sentences. The car travelled along the relatively empty streets and Ga-on stared out the window, unable to see the world the same way as before. Tension hung in the atmosphere between them like a rubber band, waiting to snap.

Truth to be told, Ga-on wasn’t sure whether he ought to be upset with or grateful to Yo-han. Sure, a notable part of him would rather not have known about Doh Young-choon, but now that he did, he’d hate to return to oblivion. Not that he could even imagine doing so --- it shocked him that he’d lived the past few years convincing himself that things weren’t so bad when they were truly much worse.

When they finally reached the mansion, Ga-on got out of the car and headed straight to his room. He could feel a headache creeping up on him and he was pretty sure that he’d wake up with one the next morning. That was, if he could even sleep. Which he doubted he would, at least not until way past midnight. He wanted to tell someone about this and share his newfound burden, but who could he tell?

He didn’t want to add to Soo-hyun’s worries and he was certain that she’d unintentionally drag Yo-han into the conversation, which he didn’t need right now. His mentor was a far worse option --- that man held one of the highest positions in the judiciary system and Ga-on couldn’t help but wonder if he already knew about all of this long ago and had simply kept it a secret. Furthermore, he didn’t think that he had the emotional capacity to explain everything, not without breaking down midway.

He tossed and turned in bed, curling himself up and shutting his eyes. But every time that he did, the image replayed in his head --- Doh Young-choon’s sinister smile and that man in the visiting room who was obviously not him. Then where was the real one? Was he somewhere living to his fullest after ruining so many lives? It was terribly unfair and thinking about it only made Ga-on wish that Soo-hyun hadn’t stopped him from seeking revenge by himself.

Minutes ticked by on the clock but it felt like an eternity was passing far too slowly for Ga-on’s liking. He wanted the sunrise to come quicker, yet if it did, then he’d have to face the morning and a new day’s share of troubles. And he wasn’t sure that he was ready for that.

Time became a blur and only when he heard a few knocks on his door did Ga-on stop fidgeting. “Who is it?” he asked flatly, sniffling a bit and trying to tidy up his appearance just so that he wouldn’t look like an absolute mess. He didn’t actually need an answer to his question --- he already knew who it was.

“Are you asleep?” the response came regardless, and it became evident that his visitor was being incredibly cautious, not considering that if Ga-on wasn’t awake then it must’ve been a ghost who’d spoken.

“...I guess.” Ga-on pulled his covers over the lower half of his face, barely peeking out. “What do you want? Haven’t you seen me crying enough?” His words came out harsher than he’d intended, somewhat defensive as well.

Yo-han shut the door quietly. Ga-on heard footsteps approaching and then felt the edge of his mattress sink down a little. A fleeting touch to his forehead moments sent an electrifying sensation through his weary body. Ga-on almost flinched at the sudden contact, a warmth standing out from the numbness that had overtaken him. Almost.

It was dark in the room, albeit there was enough moonlight seeping in to make a portion of it glow. Even in that dim lighting, the younger man could see the instinct outline of features on Yo-han’s face, hiding traces of unbelievable concern.

“Are you feeling better now?” the latter mumbled, retracting his hand gradually. “Can I get anything for you?”

Ga-on scowled, turning onto his other side. “Why do you care?”

Yo-han hesitantly placed a hand on Ga-on’s shoulder over the blanket, only for the younger to shrug him off. “You deserved to know,” Yo-han said, the gravity of his words opposing his gentle tone. “I didn’t want you to be fooled anymore.”

“I was a fool for following you there,” Ga-on retorted sharply, gripping tighter onto his covers. He’d already cried enough, but tears were starting to cluster at his lashes again. He feared that if he kept talking for too long, he was only going to end up reliving that pain.

“Ga-on-ah---”

“I need to be alone now,” he continued, feeling his voice beginning to crack. “Please.”

He heard Yo-han sigh and felt the weight on the mattress lifting. “Don’t think about it too much,” the man told him, as if it wasn’t easier said than done. “Sleep well and call me if you need anything.”

There was silence, up until Yo-han was almost at the door, and then Ga-on found himself letting his thoughts slip without thinking. “Where is he?” he asked, not shifting in position at all. “Doh Young-choon...where is he?”

Yo-han paused in his tracks. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“You don’t?”

“I don’t,” Yo-han confirmed, “but we will find out.”

Ga-on closed his eyes. “I guess.”

The door clicked shut in a matter of seconds, but it wasn’t till an hour past midnight that sleep beckoned to Ga-on and he let it take him away, along with all the relentless thoughts that had been keeping him awake.

15XX, ???

The border was eerily calm as the troops stood on guard, having gotten news that the invasion was predicted to be near, possibly even this very day. Being at the frontline was somewhat an honour, but Ga-on couldn’t feel at ease with that, especially knowing that there was a high chance that he’d end up as a casualty.

Dark clouds covered the sky, shades of grey in dismal blends, as if the heavens were mourning before blood had even been shed. Soon, the battlefield would be nothing but a bloodstained terrain, forever telling the stories of those who’d given up their last breath to defend the ones that they wanted to protect. There was no thunder, no lightning, but the air remained thick and smelled of a storm. Ga-on tightened his grip on his rifle and stared into the distance.

The tranquility was alarming. Many wanted to believe that they’d been wrong about the invasion, but it was too huge a risk to take if they turned back now. At most, they’d just have to station themselves like this for as long as they could, rotating orders and whatnot until they were sure that they were safe.

After days of preparations and running around the camp to make sure everything was good, Ga-on could feel that his legs were already tired. Each night’s few hours of sleep were far from sufficient to carry him through a battle. But he didn’t have a choice, did he? If he wanted to survive, if he wanted to go back to his family and friends, if he wanted to see Yo-han again, then he had to push through this.

“Quiet,” one of the generals hissed and everyone shut up at the command. Smoke was beginning to cloud the horizon and noises got louder and louder, like an army coming at them, but steady and unrushed. “They’re here.” Ga-on cocked his rifle and started to advance with the rest of his allies.

A few minutes felt like seconds, and then the two sides clashed in a violent uproar.

Crimson red blood spilled like water over the ground, the smell tainting the air and making it reek of death. It was a chilling sight, albeit Ga-on had not a moment to spare in its torment. He fired his weapon at an enemy and flinched when a bullet scraped the side of his arm. A superficial wound, yet enough to that it hindered his movements.

“Kim Ga-on, pull yourself together,” one of his fellow soldiers urged him before being shot in the chest. Ga-on threw himself to the side in time to avoid a second shot, then retaliated and rid himself of one enemy. But that was far from enough. It wasn’t a fair fight --- it was a huge disarray with everyone attacking everyone who wasn’t on their side.

Ga-on held his breath when another bullet plunged through his body, though his abdomen this time. The wound throbbed with pain and he doubled over, barely getting himself to somewhere that he wouldn’t be trampled over before. And when he managed to, he collapsed onto the floor and released a low groan.

“Ga-on-ssi, are you---”

“Just go,” Ga-on dismissed someone who’d noticed and came to check on him. “I’ll be fine.” He didn’t want too much attention on him --- not only would it be dangerous, but it’d also hold back the others.

He tore out part of his shirt and wrapped it over the wound, exerting pressure on it so that it wouldn’t bleed excessively. Some of the medics had noticed and were coming over to take him away, which he let them, since he wouldn’t survive without intervention. Surges of pain shot through him with even the smallest movement and there wasn’t much he could do until he was tended to.

The battlefield was a stampede and the dust kept being flung in his direction, forcing him to shut his eyes. Nevertheless, his consciousness was starting to slip out of his grasp. Patches of black weaved in and out of his field of vision whenever he opened his eyes to ensure that no one was coming to finish him off. He doubted that either side had a clear strategy and it was more so a fight of who would be the last one standing. If he managed to walk out of here at all, he was never going to see life the same way.

A pair of arms hooked under his and dragged him off to get treated. Ga-on coughed out blood, shuddering each time a bullet shot past him and at another soldier, or every time he watched someone fall lifelessly to the ground. To think that all of them had been alive just minutes ago but only a part of them would be able to go home in one piece...

“GET DOWN!”

The sudden shout caused all eyes to turn in its direction, all watching as the ground began to burst in what seemed like slow motion. The explosion built up in intensity, like an enormous firecracker that’d been clogged with grey smoke. And it blew up, air gushing in Ga-on’s direction as if a boulder had head-on rammed into him. The people carrying him were knocked down and he was sent a distance back as well, body slamming hard into the ground.

Panic immediately spread, touching each and every soul that was still alive. Another explosion, and bodies were flung in all directions, one of them landing not far from where Ga-on was. He nearly yelped in surprise and had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself from doing so, though that caused his makeshift bandage to move out of place and blood started pouring out of him again. He backed away from the scene in staggered motions, less and less energy the more he moved.

He wasn’t going to make it. No matter if his wound was tended to or not, the chaos would catch up to him eventually, and then he’d be in trouble. Bits of sand and rocks on the ground scraped his skin and slowly but surely, he started to feel numb. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to leave so that he’d be alive when it ended. But how could he?

Perhaps this time, his life was meant to end this way. If he ran away now, he’d be selfish. He’d be picking his happiness over being a useful asset to the team. And at this point, there was barely a chance of him recovering soon. He might as well be strong to the end, then.

Ga-on gritted his teeth and willed himself to stand up, resting his rifle on his shoulder. He didn’t recognise anyone around him and he figured that most of his friends were already long gone or would be soon. Just like he would. The slicing echoes of shots fired became white noise to his ears. So he stabilised himself on his feet, then took aim, fired, took aim, fired, over and over until he caught a spark of fire at the corner of his eyes, and then the world turned white.

In the split second before his consciousness left him for good, Ga-on thought about a lot of things. He thought about his family that was praying for his safety, about the life that he’d spent years building up, and about Yo-han who was still waiting for him to return. It was remarkable how quickly his thoughts sped through his head, every hope tarnished, every promise broken.

And he remembered, as he’d sat in his tent a night ago and finished reading the letter that’d been delivered to him. In the stillness of the night, the realisation of a loss hit him like a cannon. If only he’d known sooner, if only he hadn’t realised when it was too late, would the emotions swirling within him be different now? Perhaps it’d hurt more, perhaps it’d hurt less, but in the end, he knew it’d hurt some way or another.

And before I end this, there’s one more thing I need to tell you. Ga-on hyung, I think I’m in love with you. Please don’t be mad, I thought that you deserved to know. I understand if you don’t want to be friends anymore, although I hope that we can still be, because you’re important to me. Stay safe and I hope we can talk again soon; I have a lot to tell you when you return.

Kang Yo-han

“Ah, dammit,” Ga-on exhaled, hot tears streaming down his face as the battlefield faded before his eyes. “Yo-han-ah, I’m in love with you too.”

Everything went black.

He smiled.

2026, Seoul

“--on! Kim Ga-on!”

The man jolted awake.

“Are you okay?” Elijah asked. She was beside his bed, with Yo-han a short distance behind her. “You’ve overslept.”

“I have?” Ga-on wiped a tear from his face and cast a glimpse at the clock. Indeed, it was thirty minutes later than his usual waking time. “I guess it happens sometimes.”

Unconvinced, Elijah frowned. “You also looked like you were having a nightmare.”

At the mention of that, Ga-on’s eyes darted in Yo-han’s direction. He met the older man’s gaze for a moment before he averted his eyes, memories from his dream resurfacing in his head. “It’s nothing,” he denied, running his fingers through his hair. “Thanks for waking me up. I’ll go get ready.”

Elijah shrugged, wheeling herself away. Though Yo-han shot him a sceptical look at first, he eventually left as well.

When they were gone, Ga-on collapsed back onto his bed and sighed loudly. What was that dream? At this stage, he wasn’t even shocked anymore. He was more confused than anything --- did they have some meaning? Surely it wasn’t normal that his dreams had their own plotline?

This time, it’d connected fluidly with the previous one he’d had about being in a camp. And each time he took a hit, the pain had felt so real, as if he’d actually been in that situation before. Which he hadn’t, for sure, because that dream seemed to be set in a much earlier decade. He hadn’t even studied history in that aspect so how had he come up with such intricate details? Dreams weren’t supposed to be that authentic. Even those set in his everyday life had anomalies here and there.

In retrospect, he didn’t know what had triggered this set of dreams, except that he’d met Kang Yo-han. Maybe his mentor’s fixation with the star judge being a bad guy had been taking up too much of Ga-on’s waking mind. Or maybe it was because they were living together now. He clicked his tongue lightly, getting out of bed and stretching his arms above his head. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t just that dream bothering him.

There was also what had happened in the prison a night ago. He could vaguely recall that Yo-han had visited his room before he’d fallen asleep, but they hadn’t spoken much beyond an agreement that they’d find the real Doh Young-choon. It bugged him that Yo-han was so nonchalant the entire time, as if he’d already known about the prisoner swap. Ga-on certainly had a lot that he still had to address with Yo-han.

He didn’t manage to bring anything up with Yo-han that day. He’d confided in Soo-hyun, who’d tried to comfort him, but he hadn’t managed to tell her about the strange dreams either. It took more than a whole day before he’d composed himself and collected his thoughts, confident of talking to Yo-han without letting his emotions get the better of his rationality.

Seated on his chief’s chair, staring out the window, Ga-on waited for him to arrive. The sky was an array of light blue and pale orange, contrasting yet complimentary colours that made a beautiful display. It was a pity that he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

Even as Yo-han walked over, Ga-on didn’t move at all. “What are you doing?” the former asked, sounding displeased.

“You knew it, didn’t you?” Ga-on cut straight to the chase. “The date when Doh Young-choon was suddenly transferred, the date when the computerised system was updated, and the date when the team tracking his criminal profits was stopped were all the same.”

He turned to Yo-han, standing up. “When Joongwon FNB, the company Cha Kyung Hee’s husband runs, was facing bankruptcy, Cha Kyung Hee became Minister of Justice and that’s when the fraud who conned people out of millions of dollars and kept his criminal profits a secret suddenly disappeared. I’m pretty sure you found out before I did. Why didn’t you tell me?” The more he spoke, the louder he got, but Yo-han’s expression didn’t change.

“If you didn’t find out yourself,” Yo-han responded, “you would’ve doubted me. You would’ve thought I did something.”

Ga-on knew that Yo-han had a point, but he wasn’t done yet. “Why did you go in the first place?” he questioned. “What led you to go see Doh Young-choon, which led you to find out that he’d been switched?”

“You already know the reason.”

“You wanted me to see Doh Young-choon living like a king in prison,” Ga-on deduced in a fierce tone, “and see how comfortable he was to make me lose my mind. So you went there before I did to check on him, right? You wanted to break me, someone who kept interfering with---.”

“I wanted,” Yo-han cut him off before he could say any more, “you to be on my side.”

Me? Ga-on opened his mouth to argue, only to shut it and keep silent. It’d always felt to him that Yo-han wouldn’t care which side he was on and would just treat him accordingly. Like any other person, essentially. His gaze locked with Yo-han’s, resolved but somehow hesitant nonetheless.

“Is it because I look like him?” he asked bluntly.

Immediately, Yo-han’s steady expression faltered. “You aren’t him,” he stated, as if it had been ridiculous for Ga-on to ask that. Neither had to mention a name for them to know who the subject of the conversation was.

The associate judge bit his lip gently. “Then who do you see me as?”

“As who you are,” Yo-han answered in a heartbeat, “Kim Ga-on.”

“And you want me on your side?”

A nod. “I do.”

It’d bugged him for quite some time, that he resembled Yo-han’s late brother. He didn’t want to be a replacement, but at the same time, he didn’t understand why the possibility of that bothered him that much. “So you have one less enemy,” he spoke in a statement rather than a question.

“No,” Yo-han corrected, “because it’s you.”

Ga-on scoffed, averting his eyes. “You say that like you’ve known me for ages.”

For a moment so brief that it might’ve just been his imagination, Ga-on saw a melancholic smile cross Yo-han’s face. “I have,” he said, so sincerely that it might as well be the truth.

“Less than a year.” Ga-on kept his retort simple.

“Why do you keep doubting me?”

As if someone had instantly erased all his thoughts, Ga-on felt his mind go blank. It was a question to accompany the absurd statement prior, but it was clear that Yo-han had asked it in a broader context. “What do you mean?” he asked tentatively, though he knew exactly what his chief was talking about.

It’d been a given for him, even without him realising it. With everyone around him seeing Yo-han as the enemy whom they had to investigate, it felt only normal that Ga-on thought twice whenever matters involved him. And regardless if he’d started to understand Yo-han, the suspicion always lingered at the back of his head.

He hadn’t realised that it was so obvious. In hindsight, however, he had decided for himself that Yo-han was guilty of whatever people said, only taking back that conclusion when Yo-han had proven otherwise. So many times that it was hard to pinpoint every occasion he’d betrayed Yo-han in his head, believing that he was hiding something.

“You know what I mean,” the older man asserted. “You know better than I do.”

Ga-on was about to refute him until he realised that he didn’t have any comeback to that. Because it was true. “I don’t mean to.” A shallow sigh escaping his lips.

“I don’t blame you.” Yo-han went around the desk to where Ga-on was, gesturing at his chair like he wanted to reclaim his seat. “Everyone does it.”

“I’m sorry,” Ga-on mumbled a half-hearted apology and then walked out from behind the desk. It wouldn’t mean anything if he still continued to doubt the other, but he did feel bad, aware that he was one of the people that Yo-han seemed to trust. “I’m going back to my office.”

Yo-han’s eyes followed him out, but the man said nothing.

And his words haunted Ga-on’s mind for the rest of the day, immersing his thoughts as he waited for his company to arrive that night. Ga-on picked up the tiny glass, downing its contents and staring at the table afterwards.

“I wanted you to be on my side.”

Ga-on couldn’t understand. He didn’t know what was so special about him that Yo-han would go that far to bring him to his side. As far as he knew, he was just someone who coincidentally looked like Kang Isaac, but he’d proven to be, in his opinion at least, a thorn on Yo-han’s side. He was shaky with his support and so easily lost trust in him. If he was Yo-han, he wouldn’t want someone like Ga-on on his side.

“Ga-on,” he heard someone say.

He looked up to see the person he’d arranged to meet. “Professor,” he greeted.

“I’m surprised you called me,” Min Jung-ho chuckled, taking a seat opposite him. But when he saw Ga-on’s solemn expression, he sighed. “Right, have you made your decision?”

Ga-on averted his eyes, evading the question and engaging in small talk instead. That was, until the President’s booming voice came from a phone a table away. His overenthusiastic and radical words were a huge irritation and Ga-on tried to shut the noise out. Looking just as exasperated, his mentor held out a glass and Ga-on poured a drink for him.

“We need to stop all this craziness,” the older man lamented. “Anger is contagious.”

But when Ga-on responded, his tone was sharp like a dagger, unlike how he usually spoke to his mentor. “Who created it?”

Stunned, Jung-ho looked at him. “What?”

“This craziness, the people’s anger.” Finally lifting his gaze from the table, Ga-on stared into his mentor’s eyes. “Who was the one who created it? Do you think people are angry because they’re fools and were instigated? It started someplace else --- it started with bad people, those who made good people shed tears. Wanting those people to be punished properly, is that too much to ask?”

“Ga-on-ah---”

“You guys should have done better,” Ga-on shot, unrelenting. “If people like you did better, if you did better as a chief justice, people wouldn’t need to do this.” Scenes of the prison began to flood his head again, a tsunami of memories that begged to be remembered. “If only people in charge of justice did their jobs well.”

His mentor hadn’t expected such an outburst. The man began to bow his head slowly, almost appearing ashamed. “Did you,” he asked warily, “make your decision?”

Ga-on’s glare didn’t waver. “You’re the one who forced me to choose. If there’s no justice in reality and it’s just a game, then I want to be on the winning team.” Once he’d finished, he stood up without another word.

A black car pulled up along the road shortly after, and Yo-han stepped out.

I guess, Ga-on thought as his eyes met the other man’s, I want to be on your side, too.

Ga-on watched the car drive away, growing smaller and smaller till it was barely noticeable anymore. A click of a handcuff and not long after, police cars arrived at the scene. There were shouts and curses and all sorts of foul language being thrown around, although none of it bothered Ga-on.

“Ga-on-ah,” his best friend said, finally catching her breath, “are you okay?”

Nodding, Ga-on had a rather frustrated look on his face. He was fine, but he couldn’t speak for everyone else. “Why did you leave her alone in the car?” he asked Soo-hyun, pressing his lips into a thin line after he’d spoken.

“I’m sorry,” Soo-hyun apologised genuinely, regret written all over her face. “It was an impulsive move; I didn’t think that anyone would attack her.”

“She could’ve gotten badly hurt,” Ga-on raised the point before exhaling softly. “Just...be more careful next time.” It’d reigned panic within him to see Elijah being harassed by one of Kim Choong-sik’s accomplices and he certainly didn’t want a repeat of that.

The woman forced a small smile. “I will,” she promised, then gestured to her car. “I can take you home.”

“To the mansion,” Ga-on requested.

Soo-hyun sighed. “You haven’t gone back to your apartment in a long time...do you plan to stay with him forever?”

Yes, a traitorous part of Ga-on answered, so naturally that it surprised him. But there was no way he could say that out loud, so he said, “I do go back to water my plants.”

“I meant staying overnight,” Soo-hyun clarified, although she could tell that he’d just been avoiding the question. “Fine, I’ll take you back to his house. That’s the least I can do after...what happened just now.” She looked reluctant but knowing that Ga-on was stubborn, there wasn’t much else she could do.

“Thanks, Soo-hyun-ah.” The associate judge followed her to her car, a tepid but grateful smile on his face.

It was the perfect chance to ask her for her opinion on some things that’d been bugging him, he realised as she started to drive. As if she could read his mind, Soo-hyun glimpsed at him and inquired, “Is something the matter?”

He was about to shake his head on instinct but he caught himself. “Soo-hyun-ah,” he said, picking his words carefully, “is it weird to have dreams about someone?”

The woman was quick to shake her head. “Not at all,” she laughed, thinking little of the random question. “I dream about my family and friends all the time. Last night, I dreamt that the two of us went on vacation to Jeju island.”

“...But as lovers?”

The car nearly swerved onto the pavement and it took a good few seconds for Soo-hyun to regain her composure. “Who did you dream about?” she questioned, sounding somewhat disheartened. Which was no surprise, since both of them were aware of her feelings towards him.

“I meant it hypothetically,” the man tried to cover up.

There was a beat of silence and Ga-on knew that he wasn’t fooling Soo-hyun of all people. “Was it him?” she asked.

No response.

“Was it Kang Yo-han?”

Ga-on turned to stare out the window.

“Shit,” Soo-hyun cursed under her breath, “don’t tell me you have a crush on him?”

“I don’t,” Ga-on immediately denied, but the possibility had begun to plant a seed at the back of his head. “I definitely don’t.”

“It sounds like you do,” his friend insisted, her voice mildly disappointed.

“I...don’t think I do.”

Soo-hyun sighed sharply. “At least tell me what the dreams were about.”

“The first one---”

“There’s more than one?!”

Ga-on frowned. “Is that bad?”

“No, no, carry on.” The woman’s expression tensed up a bit. “What were you saying?”

“The first one...I was in this forest, then this assassin came after me and chased me for a long time until I hid in the bushes. Then he appeared and the assassin tried to kill him so I tried to protect him...and died.”

Soo-hyun frowned. “And the second?”

“The country was at war and I was at the frontline. He sent me a letter before the fight and confessed to me, and then I died on the battlefield.”

“That’s awfully anti-climatic,” the woman remarked.

Ga-on shrugged, tilting his head back. “It’s not easy to explain,” he defended. “It felt...real.”

“How so?” Soo-hyun cocked her head to the side as they stopped at a traffic light.

“I could practically feel the wounds,” Ga-on explained. “And the second time, I woke up crying too. It was like...” His voice trailed off and his heart sank. It was like I really loved him.

The feelings came washing over him again and he relinquished his control, letting them drown him. It hadn’t dawned upon him earlier, but now that he said it out loud, it wasn’t just the pain that’d felt real in the dreams, but the yearning as well. It’d been nothing more than a dream, and yet the longing weighed him down like an anchor, and Ga-on was starting to think that there was more to it than just his wild imagination.

He didn’t realise that he’d spaced out, not until Soo-hyun pulled over by the roadside and nudged him with a hand on his shoulder. “Ga-on-ah,” she said worriedly, “are you okay?”

“Ah.” Ga-on looked at her. “I’m...fine.”

Soo-hyun was doubtful. “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?”

“I’m fine,” he repeated, more convincingly this time. “I just need to rest.”

“...If you insist.” His friend started the car again. “We’re almost there, anyway.”

Ga-on was quiet for the rest of the journey home.

Home.

Never would Ga-on have thought that he’d be walking away from the place that’d become his home. And yet, here he was, standing a few hundred metres and having every thought to turn around. He didn’t want to leave, not at all. He didn’t want to pick between the two of them, and if he had to, he most certainly couldn’t let go of the one constant in his life.

But it still hurt, and it didn’t hurt any less to have to pick one over the other. Why wasn’t there another way out? Why did it have to be between those two? The one that had been his family for years and that one that had become his family in a matter of months. And maybe if he’d thought before speaking, he might’ve kept the best of both worlds; maybe if he wasn’t so quick to run away, he might still have Yo-han by his side.

He wanted to go back, so badly that he almost turned around right there. Could he just ignore the choice, pretend that it was fine to keep sitting on the fence? Whatever it was, he was sure that he could work it out, he was sure that he and Yo-han would be able to work things out and--- Ga-on sighed. It was beginning to sound like a break-up in his head and he hated that.

Maybe part of him had really grown fond of Yo-han in the time that they spent together. The older man was bold and confident, yet at the same time, there was the softer side of him that only showed at home. He was strikingly different in private as compared to in public and Ga-on felt lucky to be a witness to it, reminiscing each time Yo-han had been there for him, even if he wasn’t exactly good at comforting others.

And there was something attractive about him, albeit Ga-on couldn’t pinpoint what it was. He wanted to spend more time with Yo-han, get to know him better and be closer to him. He’d seemed like an enigma at first, but gradually, Ga-on was starting to figure him out, and it only lured him in with every secret revealed and understood. Because in some way, Yo-han was like him --- trapped by a tragic past and trying to fix the world for that --- and it made Ga-on want to be there for him, to share his burdens and be a shoulder to lean on.

When Ga-on glanced at the mansion, he could still see the lights in the study turned on, shining out of the windows. He wondered if Yo-han would still accept him if he went back there now. However, it wouldn’t be fair to do so, no matter if every part of his head was screaming at him and calling him a fool for leaving in the first place.

Do you, he pondered, still want me on your side now?

The lights in the window flickered, as if on cue. Ga-on’s heart raced and he nearly turned around, nearly ignored his conscience and how shameless it would be to walk back in there after leaving with hurtful words. He knew that Yo-han would take him back and he was so ready to run back to him.

But then the lights went dark like a cold reminder, leaving no more than faint moonlight illuminating the sky around.

And when they did, Ga-on finally pulled himself together and walked away.

19XX, Busan

Pale pink petals drifted onto the river, floating away with the gentle current. The colour was a shade painted over the whole park, every tree filled with cherry blossoms blooming to welcome a new spring. The last traces of snow had long melted, leaving behind shallow puddles of water on the ground wherever they’d yet to evaporate. Different shades made a spectacular display, some lighter, some darker, some in the middle in-between. When the wind blew past, they fluttered off their branches, like offspring grown up and leaving for their own adventures.

Above all was the deep blue sky, with rays of sunlight that danced around on the ground below. Its glare reflected off the surface of the water, making it sparkle like a scene from an animated film. It glistened, serene and magical, giving the park its marvelous view. Clouds floated across the sky, so slowly that one wouldn’t notice their movements without looking closely enough. Like threaded cotton candy, they merged and separated sporadically, sometimes as if they were meant to fit seamlessly with one another.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Standing by the railings, Ga-on took in the view, admiring it in awe. “We see it every year, but it never fails to amaze me.”

Beside him, Yo-han smiled. “It is,” he agreed, holding his finger out as a stray petal landed on its tip. “It always reminds me of the first time we saw it.”

“Right?” Ga-on concurred. “I never understood why you approached me all of a sudden that day, but still...I’m glad that you did.”

“Instinct,” his lover repeated his constant answer, though Ga-on knew there was more to it than just that. “Just because.”

“You keep saying that.” Ga-on sighed contentedly, leaning his head on Yo-han’s shoulder. “It’s funny to look back at how far we’ve come. It’s been...twenty years?”

“Less than that.” Yo-han flicked the petal off his finger, letting it glide away. “We met here fifteen years ago.”

Fifteen years, Ga-on mused. They’d only known each other for less than half a lifetime and it felt like they’d been together for an eternity. After losing his parents, Ga-on had been lost, wandering around the park with a hiraeth burning his heart. But then out of nowhere, Yo-han had found him like a miracle, and then Ga-on had found his way back home.

(Because to him, home didn’t have to be just a place anymore. It was also a comforting arm around his shoulders, or a thumb gently wiping his tears away, or a quiet promise that he didn’t have to be alone. It was also the way Yo-han’s lips curved up in a soft smile when he thought Ga-on wasn’t looking, or the way that as sunlight glistened off his pupils while diaphanous hints of gold stained his lashes. It was also Kang Yo-han, and everything that he encompassed.)

“Ah,” Ga-on exhaled. “It feels longer than that.” He stretched his hands out, framing the view between his fingers like an imaginary camera. “We’ve seen the cherry blossoms so many times already, in so many different ways.”

“Oh?” Yo-han slipped their fingers together in a smooth motion.

“Mhm,” Ga-on hummed, a nostalgic smile on his face. “As strangers, then as friends, then as best friends, and now as boyfriends.”

Yo-han chuckled. “We could add one more to that.”

Feeling his cheeks heat up, Ga-on huffed. “Are you proposing to me?”

“Well,” the fresh graduate answered, “the plan was to do it once we’re out of college but you’re a year away.” He squeezed Ga-on’s hand lightly, adjusting their fingers to firm his grip.

“Hmph.” Ga-on pursed his lips slightly. “That’s a long time.”

“Why are you in a hurry?” Yo-han teased, pressing a chaste kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The latter snuggled closer. “Because I love you,” he said.

Yo-han smiled. “I love you more.”

“I’ve loved you for twenty years.”

“I’ve loved you for centuries.”

Ga-on rolled his eyes fondly. “That’s not possible.”

“I’m not kidding,” Yo-han replied, staring at their intertwined fingers. “I told you before, I’ve loved you in all my past lives.”

“Pfft,” Ga-on stifled a laugh. “Seriously.”

“I’m serious!” the other feigned an offended look on his face. “I missed you when you weren’t there the last time.”

It was hard to believe, yet Ga-on found it even harder to doubt the sincerity behind Yo-han’s words, which he’d learned to be able to tell. And true or not, he wanted it to believe it, wanted to believe that they were soulmates (and that they always had been).

“Then what happened in the lives before that?” he asked, poking Yo-han’s cheek with his other hand’s finger.

The man’s smile faded. “I lost you.”

Ga-on felt his heart clench, sensing the immense hurt that those three words contained. He let go of Yo-han’s hand and instead wrapped him in a hug. “It won’t happen this time,” he assured him, closing his eyes for an extended moment and basking in Yo-han’s presence. “You won’t lose me this time.”

“Promise?” his boyfriend asked hopefully.

Before he could answer, a phone ringing interrupted them. Ga-on pulled away as Yo-han answered the call, somewhat confused by the unknown number.

“Hello?”

Seconds later, Yo-han dropped the phone. His face had turned as pale as a sheet, eyes wide and tearing up. The phone hit the ground, but Yo-han didn’t flinch at all, only kept trembling as he stared into blank space as if something had possessed him.

“Yo-han?” Ga-on nudged him, concern growing with each passing moment. He hadn’t seen the other like this before. It was as if the whole world had burned before Yo-han’s eyes. “What happened? Who was that?”

“She’s...dead...” Yo-han’s response came unsteadily.

The cherry blossoms didn’t stop falling, but the beauty began to fade like a diamond to dust. It no longer felt peaceful, rather there was an ominous aura that was hard to overlook. Everything seemed darker and gloomier, even if nothing had actually changed. Each gust of wind resounded like a tormented cry, like wails from a prisoner that had long forgotten the light.

Ga-on furrowed his brows, body stiffened. “Who died?”

Yo-han’s shaky gaze met his. “Noona,” he said. “She was murdered.”

“What?!” Ga-on was shocked, countless emotions swarming into him. He knew that Yo-han’s only family left was his sister and now that she was gone, he was alone. And losing family was something that hit hard, especially since she and Yo-han had been close. Ga-on was furious, wanting to know who had done that to the woman. But now, what was more important was to make sure that Yo-han would be fine.

He embraced Yo-han again, running his fingers through his hair, stroking the back of his head soothingly. “They say that she was being stalked,” Yo-han started to explain, leaning into Ga-on’s arms. “I should’ve realised earlier...then maybe she would still be alive...”

“Yo-han-ah...”

“She was acting a little differently lately...I should’ve noticed...Ga-on-ah, what do I do...”

“It’s not your fault,” the other mumbled. “It’s that bastard who did it...have they caught them?”

Yo-han nodded meekly.

“That’s good,” Ga-on sighed, holding him close. “It’s gonna be okay...it’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

2026, Seoul

It was the second time that he’d gotten badly hurt since the bomb in Yo-han’s office. Ga-on had tasted death at the tip of his tongue, so clearly that he began to feel as if it wasn’t so far away. He was only in his late twenties, still far too young to be worrying about that on a constant basis. But he did so anyway.

And as Soo-hyun helped to tend to his wounds, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts slip. “I’ve been a nuisance to you since we were little,” he recalled, staring at the floor. “I don’t deserve you. Yet, and I know it’s shameless, but I can’t live without you. I think...I’ll really die.” You’re all I have now, he added in his mind, biting his lip gently. I lost him and if I lose you too, there’s nothing left for me.

“You’re such a fool.” Soo-hyun’s words came with mild spite, as though she was appalled that he would say that. “I’ve had enough,” she continued when he looked at her. “I can’t stand the stupid things you say anymore.”

“Soo-hyun-ah---”

“Can’t you see?” she interrupted. “I don’t care whether you deserve something or not, or what’s right or wrong or what’s happening to the world. But please...don’t make me see you in danger again.” She took his hand, looking at him sincerely. “Don’t cry, don’t become miserable. Stop ruining your life, please. That’s all I’ll ask from you, Ga-on-ah.”

And the comfort and familiarity overwhelmed him, sending his thoughts into disarray. She was the only person in his life that had been with him for longer than she hadn’t been, and now she’d come to his rescue like she always did, and how could he risk losing her too? Something took over him in that moment, perhaps desperation or a longing to return to a time before everything had been taken from him, and he leaned in to kiss her.

But Soo-hyun wouldn’t let him. She let go of his hand, putting it between them and keeping him from doing anything on impulse. “Ga-on-ah,” she said, her words genuine yet despondent, “don’t.”

Ga-on froze, slowly pulling back. “But I thought...” I thought this was what you wanted.

The smile on his best friend’s face was a melancholic one. “I want to accept this,” she admitted. “I really, really do, but...” She exhaled deeply, holding his hand again, resolution in her gaze that met his. “But I can’t.”

“Why would you say that?” Ga-on frowned a little.

“Because,” Soo-hyun said matter-of-factly, “your heart already lies with someone else.”

“It doesn’t,” the man argued, albeit her words shook his conviction gravely. “Soo-hyun-ah, I love you---”

“As a friend,” she finished his sentence, gradually releasing his hand. “I didn’t want to believe it at first but after you told me about the dreams...I just knew it. I love you, Ga-on, but I don’t want to accept your confession knowing that you don’t truly mean it.”

Ga-on’s voice shrank, like he was afraid to speak his next line. “Then...you mean...I like him?”

“Kang Yo-han?” Soo-hyun tilted her head back, a disbelieving and relenting smile on her face. “What do you think?”

There was no reply. Ga-on couldn’t answer that question. A part of him did know the answer, but he feared that it was too late, and he didn’t want to cling onto a feeling that would only lead him to a dead end. He’d let Yo-han go and it had been more than a day already. He didn’t deserve to still like him after that.

Prompting her friend, Soo-hyun asked, “How many times have you dreamt of him?”

“If you mean those that I told you about...four.”

Soo-hyun’s eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of her head. “Four?! I swear it was two or three the last time!”

“It was,” Ga-on confirmed sheepishly, “but it happened again.”

“Then that just strengthens my point.” The woman shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “What happened in the latest dream?”

As the memories re-emerged in his head, Ga-on clicked his tongue lightly. “Come to think of it,” he started, “it was weird.”

Soo-hyun looked curiously at him. “How so?”

“He seemed to know about the previous dreams,” Ga-on explained. “And he said something about past lives...I don’t know, it’s probably just something my imagination made up.” Or it means something, a voice piped up in his head, going blatantly ignored. He sighed sharply. “But dreams aside...I’ve messed up already.”

“Ga-on-ah...”

When Ga-on looked at her once more, tears brimmed at his lashes, tiny droplets that he failed to keep in. “What am I supposed to do now? Will he still want me back? Does he even---”

“He does.” It had been a long time since Ga-on had seen Soo-hyun look so confident of herself, like she would fight anyone who disagreed with her. “I’m sorry, Ga-on-ah, I lied,” she resumed her words. “When I found you in the slum...it was because he told me. Kang Yo-han told me to find you and to save you.”

Uncertainty. “He...did?”

Soo-hyun embraced him, patting his head gently. “Don’t worry about it,” she consoled him. “I’m sure it’ll turn out fine.”

Ga-on was hesitant to believe her, but with nothing else to believe, he let himself clutch onto that last bit of hope.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Ga-on entered Yo-han’s office and questioned, seeing the older man ending a phone call. He hadn’t been on good terms with the other judge lately, mainly due to his departure and the realisation that’d come with talking to Soo-hyun, but it made him upset to see that nothing was being done about the slum despite Yo-han clearly being conscious of the chaos there. “There are innocent people being dragged off and---”

“Judge Kim,” Yo-han stopped him midway. There was a pregnant pause before he spoke again. “Kim Ga-on,” he said the name firmly yet somehow warmly, “do you trust me?”

Ga-on went still as Yo-han stepped closer and he felt the man’s fingers under his chin, tilting it up. And where their skin met, warmth surged through him and sent a chill down his body, as if he’d been starving for that slightest contact between them. Ga-on stepped back abruptly. It wasn’t that he’d felt uncomfortable --- quite the contrary, in fact --- but it scared him to think of what Soo-hyun had said. He didn’t want to let Yo-han get too close, because if he did, Ga-on was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to suppress his feelings for much longer.

The said feelings were like a river behind a dam, waiting to break through and drown him. And Ga-on wanted to let them, wanted to fall back into Yo-han’s world and let it consume him wholly, wanted to be pulled deeper and deeper into the waters without resisting at all. From the moment he’d accepted his emotions, he’d started to crave what he’d lost. Even now, desire burned in him to reach out, to hold Yo-han close just like he’d done in his dream, to prove to him that he’d never let him hurt alone.

But Yo-han deserved better. He deserved someone who wouldn’t leave his side out of reckless fear, someone who would’ve trusted him from the start. He’d been called a monster and a devil by so many while he hid the scars of his past, taking all the rumours and blame directed to him. After all that he’d been through, he honestly deserved the world. And Ga-on knew that he could never give it to him.

“Ga-on?” As he fell into a daze, Yo-han snapped him out of it.

“I do,” Ga-on finally answered the question, gulping and averting his eyes. “I really do.”

“You don’t seem well,” Yo-han observed, and Ga-on wished that his chief wasn’t so attentive. “Are you feeling okay?”

A hand to his forehead and Ga-on flinched, his face heating up rapidly. He couldn’t take this anymore. The more he spent time around Yo-han again, the more his mind went back to the dreams and the more he realised that he wanted that. That he wanted what he’d had in them. (That he wanted Yo-han, and it was tormenting him to know that he couldn’t have him.)

Concern flashed across Yo-han’s expression. “Is something wrong?” he asked, retracting his hand. “Did something happen?”

Immediately, Ga-on shook his head profusely. “It’s nothing,” he lied, because telling the truth was far from a viable option.

“It’s not nothing if you’re on edge,” Yo-han replied simply, unconvinced. “What did I do to upset you?” The fact that Yo-han had already attributed the blame to himself, like it was something intuitive, was a blade plunged right into Ga-on’s soul.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated. “You didn’t do anything. I just need space.”

I just need you, his mind corrected, but he couldn’t voice those words.

What would Yo-han think if he did? Would he hate Ga-on? Call him selfish for daring to say that after he’d walked away? No matter what, Ga-on wasn’t willing to try. He’d rather remain unknowing than face rejection, knowing that it was no one’s fault but his own when that happened. At least now, there wasn’t any bitterness between them, only neutrality and one-sided longing.

Yo-han was quiet. However, for a fleeting moment, Ga-on saw a tinge of pain behind the man’s eyes and his heart clenched.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised, so fast that his words blended together. “I should leave---”

The door opened all of a sudden and a woman walked in with a determined look on her face. “Count me in,” Jin-joo said, arriving in front of the two men.

In an instant, all thoughts about himself and Yo-han saw themselves out.

“Judge Oh,” he said, surprised as he remembered that she’d disagreed with him a few days ago.

“Judge Kim,” she said, “I’ve seen what’s going on. I know I can’t be forgiven even if I say that I didn’t know.” As if she was worried that they wouldn’t accept her, she added, “But I’ll do anything. I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“Do you mean that?” Yo-han looked at her.

Jin-joo nodded. “Yes, Chief Kang.”

After sensing that Jin-joo had been influenced by Jung Sun-ah and the others a while back, Ga-on found it heartening to see that she’d become aware of what was really going on and had swallowed her guilt to instead fight the wrongs.

“Great,” Yo-han said with a faint smile, “then we can make things look more natural.”

The electricity went out, encasing the slum in a menacing darkness. Fire burning along the paths was the only source of light that there was, but despite that, they weren’t adequate to prevent the confusion and distress amidst the people. It was as if a shadow had been cast over the whole city, withholding the horrors, tight and unrelenting.

At a loss, Ga-on watched as Yo-han took out his phone, turning the flashlight on and holding it up without a word. A single glimmer caught everyone’s eyes. He didn’t understand what the older man was trying to do, but trusting him, Ga-on did the same. Not long after, so did Jin-joo, and like a chain reaction, light after light appeared in the dark, banishing it.

Chatters erupted in the crowd below, protests from Choong-sik and his gang being muffled, the tables turning in a stunning twist. From where Ga-on stood, the lights seemed almost like stars, descended from the heavens and twinkling in the situation that’d seemed despairing. Their glows merged, growing stronger as they backed each other up. People who’d been trapped in havoc began to unite, a joint force that quashed their common enemy.

It was a beautiful sight. The lights, even if artificial and created by the people themselves, burned stronger than any fire around. They stretched out far into the slum, a small message of hope passed further and further down till it wasn’t just small anymore. And Ga-on felt honoured to be standing above the sight, witnessing the strength of the oppressed as every aspiration, every story reigned above the darkness. The people raised their hands, shining the light with conviction. Unafraid, unyielding, no longer letting anyone walk over them.

“Darkness,” Yo-han declared as spotlights flashed behind him, “can’t beat the light.”

Ga-on turned around, then faced the crowd again. The city around them was still corralled in a daunting layer of black, but where the people stood together, light was set ablaze. Yo-han’s footsteps echoed as he made his declaration once more, and the people who’d been crushed now rose once more, surrounding their assailants and pushing them away, chasing them away.

It filled Ga-on with a visceral sensation, watching how the world didn’t always have to be pushed around. All they needed was one spark to ignite them and they’d begun to fight back, even against those who tried to trample them with unearned power. It was truly amazing how such a rebellion could be perfectly orchestrated with nothing but a single proclamation. How it took so much to blanket the city in darkness, yet one light alone was enough to reverse that.

Slowly, Yo-han lowered his phone as he stared at the scene, powerful luminescence radiating off him in the most ineffable and ethereal way. And when Ga-on turned to look at him, he found that in his eyes, Yo-han was shining the brightest.

It all crumbled apart for the utmost time.

Sometimes, Ga-on wondered why it still hit him so hard.

Soo-hyun had been in a coma for days and after he’d fervently denied the possibility of Yo-han’s involvement in her near-death, the evidence had turned on him. Everything pointed at Yo-han, from the church fire’s camera footage to the phone call that he’d picked up, and surely it couldn’t be a coincidence anymore.

Ga-on didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to believe that his best friend’s attempted murder had been organised by none other than the man he’d grown to love. But how could he refute all the proof that was directing him to Yo-han and Yo-han alone? With his emotions boiling in a furnace, smoke coating his mind and preventing him from thinking straight, he stormed into the Kang’s mansion, armed with a knife in his hand.

The police would be arriving shortly after, but not for Yo-han. They would be there to take him away, to lock him in a cell after he’d break the rest of his life’s tragedy into irreversible fragments. Irrationality was the only thing driving him forward. And maybe those dreams were right, after all --- he and Yo-han’s story wasn’t meant to end in a happy ever after.

Like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, they’d met for a while and Ga-on had fallen hard, ready to lose himself if it meant that he could keep Yo-han by his side, with him. But in the blink of an eye, everything had changed, leaving him mourning for everything he’d once thought that he could still hold within his grasp.

If only, he thought, if only I did something differently. Then maybe he wouldn’t be in this place. Then maybe he’d have both Yo-han and Soo-hyun, then maybe he wouldn’t be feeling this aching hollowness in his chest, then maybe he’d be happy. Just like he remembered once being. (Just like he’d forgotten how to be.) Why is it, he wondered, crying out to a lonely void, that everything is always against us?

Ga-on stepped foot into the study as thunder roared outside the mansion. The sky was weeping for his impending loss, for all his past and everything he’d had at some point and didn’t have anymore. Grey clouds hung low, sweeping the light away and enclosing the city under its spell. He’d finally reached the epilogue, the last chapter where the misfortune would also come to a close. And maybe once that was over, he’d feel free, and even if he didn’t, he’d be.

He shouted the man’s name, injecting every feeling that had been haunting him for longer than he could recall. Desperation, anger, fear, desire, but most of all, regret --- the one emotion that had built a fortress for itself in his soul. What if he’d thought carefully before he’d given his answer that day? What if he hadn’t left the house and had given himself a chance to create a third option? What if he’d turned back even just a moment earlier, before the lights had gone out?

As he saw Yo-han turn around, Ga-on tightened his fist over the handle of the knife, gathering all his strength and raising it. This was it --- this was the moment that would multiply his suffering and yet cease it at the same time. One more second, one more motion, and it would all be over.

But then he froze, shaking as his hand with the knife remained in the air, as if there was an invisible force preventing him from striking. He tried to move. His body wouldn’t let him.

And Ga-on stood there like a fool as memories began to resurface in his head.



“I wanted you to be on my side.”



“Why do you keep doubting me?”



“Kim Ga-on, do you trust me?”



Gradually, he lowered his hand, only to feel a grip on his blade. He stole a glance down to see Yo-han’s hand around the sharp edge, blood oozing out from his fist. Panic washed over Ga-on and he tried to pull the knife away, but it instead cut deeper into Yo-han’s flesh.

“Let go,” the younger man hissed anxiously, “it’s cutting you.”

“You wanted to kill me, didn’t you?” Yo-han said calmly, his eyes not leaving Ga-on’s for even a nanosecond. “I can let you kill me if you want, but are you sure you won’t regret it?”

Each droplet of blood against the ground resounded in the study, echoing like a fallen bead in a chamber. His lower lip trembled as he tried to speak, and no words came out. And then a warm tear rolled down his cheek, falling to the ground noiselessly.

Regret.

What use was regret, ever?

It was only the burden that fools carried, thinking that wishing they’d done things differently would somehow make the future any better. But all it did was give someone a guilty conscience, making them feel like at least they felt bad about it. It changed nothing, and no matter how much guilt one could harbour, it would never change anything that’d already taken place. Irreversible, sealed in stone, and reality didn’t shift that easily.

And if he didn’t want to be tormented by that futile emotion, then he ought to stop himself from making a mistake in the first place. If only...

...if only it wasn’t already too late.

“Yo-han,” Ga-on rasped, averting his gaze, “I...” I’m scared. I love you. I want to trust you. But I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to get hurt again. And I--- “I’m sorry.”

“Ga-on-ah.” Yo-han let go of the knife and it dropped to the floor. He reached out and cupped Ga-on’s face in his hand, wiping his tears away and leaving behind indistinct smears of blood on his face. “Ga-on-ah, look at me.”

Hesitantly, the younger did as he was told.

“It’s okay,” Yo-han said tenderly. “You’re gonna be okay. Can you tell me what---”

“Step away from him,” a loud voice demanded, accompanied by footsteps in the hallway.

The two of them turned around, seeing Min Jung-ho and a group of officers entering the study. The man looked stern, glaring at Yo-han and walking cautiously towards the pair.

“Step away from Ga-on now,” he ordered.

The look of betrayal on Yo-han’s face threaded a needle through Ga-on’s heart, weaving in and out and leaving behind an excruciating pain. Each string tugging on him, cutting into him, piercing through him. Ga-on choked back a sob and bit his lip till metallic blood tainted his taste buds.

“Kang Yo-han-ssi,” one of the officers came forward, locking handcuffs onto Yo-han’s hands. “You are under arrest for abetting in the attempted murder of Lieutanent Yoon Soo-hyun. You have the right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, and the right to submit a review of legality for arrest and confinement.”

Yo-han turned to Ga-on, looking him in the eye. “Do you really believe that?” he questioned. “Do you really believe that I killed my brother and tried to kill Soo-hyun, and that I used you?”

Ga-on quivered in silence, and Yo-han raised his voice slightly.

“Do you believe that everything I said to you was a lie?!”

I don’t, Ga-on thought as his eyes brimmed with tears. I don’t want to, I don’t---

“Kim Ga-on.” Yo-han’s voice softed minimally, as if it were a plea.

Before he could answer, Ga-on heard footsteps in the hallway behind him and obnoxiously loud claps. Dread overtook him and he felt his legs going weak. And as if on the worst possible cue, Jung Sun-ah strode into the room, like all of this had been part of the plan from the start.

It couldn’t be.

But the sight before his eyes was impossible to deny.

And even when the schemes revealed themselves, even though Yo-han was the one who’d been stabbed in the back, he called Ga-on’s name, gentle and solaceful. And it hurt, it hurt to see that after everything, Yo-han still cared about him and tried to comfort him when he should be looking out for himself instead.

Ga-on learned the truth about the fire that night. For years, to stop Elijah from finding out that she’d unintentionally caused her parents’ death, Yo-han had taken the blame and become the monster to protect her. He went to great lengths to make sure that no one would find out, raising suspicion on himself and letting Elijah accuse him too. Yet in the end, it’d all returned back to the start, almost as though all of it had been meaningless to begin with.

In the months that he’d known Yo-han, Ga-on had never once seen him so broken, completely uncomposed and unlike himself. It pained Ga-on to see him like that, and even more so knowing that it was because of him. Whether or not he’d been manipulated by his mentor and Sun-ah, it was still ultimately his fault. It was just like what the latter had said, he was Yo-han’s weakness, something that the man would be better off without.

Ga-on clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms until they bled.

And he began to regret.

(The storm ceased outside the window as Yo-han was taken away. The last embers of sunset in shades of warm amber and vermillion blended seamlessly in the evening sky, as if the heavens had painted a breathtaking image of the setting sun in a final piece of beauty that Ga-on was able to take in before he lost everything again.)

19XX, Busan

Fire danced around the mall, coating it in deadly flames. Thick smoke clogged the air and made it hard to breathe and even harder to see anything around. There were frantic cries coming from people everywhere, some trapped in shophouses and others trying to locate an escape route. The ceiling was starting to crumble and even if the mall only had three storeys in total, it was still a dangerous threat.

All one could see when they looked around was red, grey, black, and lights flickering before bursting into sparks. The hallway went dark ten minutes after the fire had spread out of control. Emergency sirens could be heard in the distance, but it would take a good amount of time before anyone would arrive. Seconds could be the difference between life and death and to stay still and wait for help was not an option for survival.

Nobody knew how the fire had started. A sudden scream had turned into a situation of turmoil and then everyone had begun to realise what was going on. It’d probably originated from an electrical fault but somehow, it’d spread so fast and undetected until much later and by the time it was clear that this was an emergency, there was wide disorder amidst the mall’s patrons. When Ga-on had dragged Yo-han shopping with him, this wasn’t what he’d expected would happen.

“Yo-han-ah,” he shouted, eyes scanning the area around him before he grabbed onto the other’s wrist. “We need to go now. Pull yourself together, please!” They were on the second storey and the emergency staircase was close by, but the building, which hadn’t been maintained well, wasn’t in decent condition at all.

“You need to go,” Yo-han replied behind gritted teeth as he shook Ga-on’s hand off. “Ga-on-ah, don’t wait for me. Just go.”

Clicking his tongue in frustration, Ga-on glanced around at the fire surrounding them, only leaving a small area of exit left. It wasn’t just the two of them trapped here, but there were also a few others who were at a loss. “Kang Yo-han, what the hell are you talking about?! I’m not letting you die here!”

“Ga-on-ah.” Yo-han’s voice was anything but hopeful. “I don’t want to hold you back. Noona is gone --- you have more to live for than I do.”

“Dammit, you---” Ga-on sighed sharply and pulled Yo-han into a brief but tight hug. Ever since his sister’s death a week ago, Yo-han had lost his will to do anything, but as much as it was hard to see him like that, there was no way that Ga-on would give up on him. “I don’t want to live without you, understand?” he said firmly. “You promised me that we would stay together this time. We can both survive, Yo-han. Just stay close to me and I’ll get us out of here.”

“Ga-on---”

“Please.”

Yo-han finally went quiet, nodding meekly.

Ga-on forced a strong smile onto his face. “Let’s go.” He took Yo-han’s hand again, hurrying towards the last exit that was about to collapse.

But before he could step out, he heard loud sobs and looked back to see a child no older than five, beside a woman who’d been crushed by a fallen chunk of the ceiling. Ga-on felt his throat tighten. Surely he couldn’t just...

“Ga-on-ah...” he heard Yo-han say, sounding confused and afraid.

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t turn a blind eye to a helpless child who’d just lost his mother and if Ga-on was fast enough, he was sure that he could still get out in time. There was no time to spare; he had to be hasty now. He just had to make sure that Yo-han would escape too, because that was what mattered the most to him.

So Ga-on shot a painful look at Yo-han, then pushed him out of the exit. “I’ll be back in a second,” he mumbled, turning and bolting towards the child a few metres away.

“KIM GA-ON!”

Yo-han’s cry was desperate and it hit Ga-on hard, nearly making him want to run back to his lover’s side and abandon everything and everyone else. Let the world be damned, as long as he still had Yo-han, and Yo-han still had him. But when he was ready to cast aside his conscience and be selfish this time, a loud and dreadful noise resonated in the area.

And when Ga-on’s eyes met Yo-han’s, his last hope came crashing down between them.

Three lives gone and till now, all that awaited them was constant disaster. Ga-on wondered if this was what it’d felt like in his past lives, each and every time he and Yo-han had lost each other. Was it this emptiness that pushed him to forget? He wondered how Yo-han had held on till this point, in spite of the tragic past that remained in his memories. He wondered why Yo-han still wanted to be with him, despite having lost him over and over again.

Perhaps it was courage, perhaps it was foolishness. Or if Ga-on dared to believe, maybe they had been soulmates once upon a time. (Maybe they still were.) Star-crossed lovers, fate bringing them together and then tearing them apart. Like a game or a play, as if they were nothing more than puppets for entertainment. What if they’d just been two strangers who’d met by accident, who’d never been supposed to meet in the first place?

And for the longest time, Ga-on had believed that they were meant to be. But after countless torturous failures, part of him was starting to believe that it had only been a cosmic mistake.

Maybe, Ga-on thought as the heat tore at his skin, blistering and scorching, we were written as a tragedy from the start.

2026, Seoul

Ga-on woke up crying.

It was too late.

Had this been this the fourth chance? Was this another life that had only turned into misfortune? It wasn’t only a dream to him anymore --- the pain felt so deep-seated, so personal, every loss taking a part of him away when he woke up. Dreams turned to nightmares, coated in fear and desire. He wanted Yo-han. He wanted him, he wanted him, he wanted him, and then he lost him again. Maybe his subconscious had been trying to tell him something all along, urging him not to let Yo-han go this time.

Yet in the end, Ga-on hadn’t heeded its advice. Who else could he blame but himself? Every doubt, every mistake, every moment that he’d turned his back to Yo-han --- all of it was on him. If regret was enough to bring someone back, the world wouldn’t be as miserable and forlorn as it was. Ga-on released a muffled sob, hugging his blanket to his chest, shutting his eyes and wishing that when he opened them, Yo-han would be there with him.

(He wasn’t.)

And Ga-on let himself cry until his eyes were red. He didn’t know if he’d ever see Yo-han again. He didn’t know if Yo-han would even want to see him again. He’d been the one that Yo-han had let into his life, the one that he’d grown to trust, and the one that had wrecked his plans over and over and then wrecked Yo-han himself. Even if Yo-han still wanted him, Ga-on didn’t think that he could look the man in the eyes anymore.

But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try to fix whatever was still salvageable. Yo-han was innocent and Ga-on knew that. He knew it better than anyone else and he was going to make sure that the rest of Korea would, too.

Ga-on had to expose the truth. He called Ko In-guk to meet him at the mansion, knowing that the man would be able to help him. He didn’t think that he’d still trust Ga-on after his betrayal, intentional or not, but if they both wanted to save Yo-han, then it was the only way they had left. He was willing to do anything, even if it meant sneaking into the medical facility with no escape plan just so that he could gather the evidence needed.

Because, as much as he hadn’t realised it before, even if it’d taken losing him for it to dawn upon Ga-on, Yo-han had become his world.

And that meant that Ga-on wasn’t going to leave him in the lurch alone. That meant that Ga-on would lose himself a thousand times over and over --- hell, he was already doing that --- before he would lose Yo-han once more.

He let go of his blanket and got out of bed, wiping his tears on his sleeves. He didn’t have time to cry, not until he’d made things right again. Tears could wait, for days, for months, or for an eternity if they had to. Weeping for what he’d lost would never bring it back, but at least, he could still fight for what he wanted to protect.



I’m sorry.



Ga-on opened his dresser, taking out the watch that Yo-han had given to him. A timeless memory, reminding him that from the very beginning, they’d been two hearts beating in sync.



I love you.



He fastened the metal clamp over his wrist, adjusting it in place and running his thumb over its face. Light glistened off the glass, reflected into his dark brown eyes.



And I’m not afraid to anymore.

Ga-on threw a punch to his former mentor’s gut, pushing the man onto the table and binding his hands together. He shoved the older man roughly onto a chair, gagging him with a cloth. He had no restraint left in him --- he’d lost all of it the moment that the news had hit him like a truck. There was no need to control himself anymore. He was ruined. He didn’t want to exist in a cruel, wicked world.

Yo-han was gone.

And Ga-on couldn’t save him.

One mistake had tumbled into more until it’d spiralled into an irreversible and unfixable mess. Now all that he wanted to do was to leave, to rid himself of his godforsaken life and all its suffering, and maybe the next time that Ga-on woke up in this world, he’d be able to start from scratch and search for Yo-han again.

And then maybe that time, he’d do it right.

Min Jung-ho looked at him fearfully and Ga-on stared right back at him, determination hidden behind years of anguish that shone vividly in his gaze. “Come with me, Professor,” he said, unzipping his jacket and revealing the bombs strapped to his chest, a countdown of a minute and half to their imminent fate.

Ga-on was scared, no doubt. Like almost any other person would be in his place, he was scared of dying and scared of the pain that it’d bring. But what daunted him even more than that was the thought of living the rest of his life without Kang Yo-han.

He flipped the switch to start the countdown, eyes emotionless as he stood, not moving even an inch. And when his mentor tried to stand up, Ga-on rammed his knee mercilessly into the man’s body, causing him to double over onto the ground. He walked over and stepped on him, pinning him down.

One minute.

“There’s no media outlet with the conscience to report the truth,” Ga-on stated, “but things might change if the news is tantalising and money-making.” He crouched down, hand dangerously close to Jung-ho’s neck. “How about, the new chief justice who died with his pupil on his first day of office?”

The older man made muffled shouts of protest, but Ga-on pushed him back down.

“Once the bomb goes off,” he continued, “the major media companies will receive an email in my name, exposing the truth of the Dream Home project. This time, they won’t be able to ignore it.”

Visibly trembling, Jung-ho pleaded, “Ga-on-ah, please...”

Twenty seconds.

But Ga-on simply glared at him. “Consider this,” he said flatly, “your atonement for what happened to Soo-hyun, if you have any conscience left.”

“Ga-on-ah.” The man shook his head profusely.

Ten seconds.

Ga-on closed his eyes.

Seven.

He held his breath.

Six.

And then he felt it.

Someone’s hand on him, pushing him to his feet and slamming him against the wall behind. When he opened his eyes, he saw Yo-han, and then the bomb stopped beeping. Yo-han’s bandaged hand ran tenderly over his chest where the device was, the other on his shoulder, as if to tell Ga-on that he was there. Ga-on had never wanted to freeze in a single moment so badly in his life.

“Was I a bit late?” Yo-han asked, and Ga-on’s eyes began to water.

“Yo-han,” Ga-on breathed, afraid to believe the sight in front of him and yet wanting to, all the same. Yo-han was alive and he was with Ga-on. It took every last ounce of self-control for Ga-on not to lean in and kiss him.

There was a small smile on Yo-han’s face and Ga-on nearly fell for him all over. The emotions he’d thought had deserted him with Yo-han’s supposed death came swarming back, the craving that he missed.

“Damn you,” he cursed, pushing Yo-han away and then enveloping him in a tight hug, as if he feared that Yo-han would slip away any moment. “I thought I lost you...”

Surprised at first, Yo-han slowly hugged him back. “Ga-on-ah...”

“Don’t,” Ga-on chided harshly, “don’t ever scare me like that again.”

Yo-han didn’t respond.

(Perhaps Ga-on should’ve paid more attention to that.)

Two times in a day and Ga-on felt like he was falling into an abyss, accelerating until he was unable to feel it anymore.

Maybe he should’ve known that Yo-han would be that reckless. Maybe he should’ve held him back from leaving for the show. Maybe he should’ve followed him there. If only he’d made a different choice, then he wouldn’t be running through the hallway worrying that by the time he got to Yo-han, he would’ve lost everything already.

Why do you keep leaving? he cried in his head. Why do you keep coming back? Why did you get my hopes up if you were only going to crush them again? Just when he thought that his nightmares would stay nightmares, they’d become an unforgiving reality to taunt him until his last moment. What about Elijah? What about me? Are we not enough reasons to stay? Am I not enough a reason to stay?

If this was his punishment for letting Yo-han down, if this was the outcome that he’d inadvertently drawn for himself, if this was the universe’s way of mocking him, then he didn’t deserve to fight it. And yet Ga-on loved Yo-han, more than he cared about the universe and what it thought of him or what he’d done.

He barged into the courtroom, coming to a stop by Yo-han’s side. He could see all the elites, all those who’d once had their heads in the clouds, now begging him to save them. It was ironic, how they’d once walked above everyone else and in a sudden turn of the tables, they were at Yo-han’s mercy, desperate and ready to do anything to survive. But Ga-on hadn’t come here for them.

He turned to Yo-han, calling his name apprehensively. If he asked Yo-han to put the trigger down and step away from the chaos, would he listen? If he asked Yo-han to stay by his side...would he?

Yo-han didn’t look at him. “Why are you here?” the man questioned.

Grabbing Yo-han’s arm, Ga-on faced him, and only then did the other’s gaze meet his. “Don’t do it,” he implored, casting a disdainful glance at the people struggling on the floor. “Will you leave Elijah behind and die with these bastards?” Will you leave me behind, too?

“I have no choice,” Yo-han told him, averting his eyes fleetingly. “Once the performance ends, the actor must disappear.”

Ga-on stared at him in disbelief, then resigned to nodding subtly. Perhaps it was far too late to change Yo-han’s mind. He looked at everyone who was begging for their lives, then back at Yo-han. “I’ll go with you,” he declared, because if he didn’t have Yo-han in this life, then he didn’t want it.

In an instant, Yo-han turned to him again. “You’ll be a hero,” he spoke in a low and gentle voice, a promise yet also a warning. “There need not be more than one devil.”

But Ga-on didn’t move. And seeing that, Yo-han grabbed the back of his clothes and dragged him to the door, shoving him out. “Let’s meet again in another life,” he whispered, so faintly that Ga-on almost didn’t hear him.

And then it finally sunk in.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be because if it was, then it meant that he was about to lose Yo-han again.

“KANG YO-HAN!” Ga-on shouted with all of the voice that he still had left.

But his protests went blatantly ignored, and before he could run back in, he was grabbed firmly from behind by the bomb disposal squad, pulled away from the scene. Pulled away from Yo-han. He thrashed around and tried to shake them off, but like captors of a prisoner, they refused to release him, instead hauling him further away.

All along, Yo-han knew. He knew and he’d been waiting for Ga-on to remember. But by the time Ga-on did, it was of no use. An untimely twist had played the two of them and soon they’d have to start from square one, letting the memories creep back in. And Ga-on wouldn’t mind, if only it meant that it didn’t hurt so much now. Ga-on-ah, he saw Yo-han mouth and his heart panged, I will see you again.

Ga-on’s strength began to leave him, as though it’d finally given up. The door gradually began to close and not even for an ephemeral second did Ga-on take his eyes off Yo-han. And Yo-han didn’t take his eyes off Ga-on either. Two souls separated by the adversities of the world, a millions uncrossable mountains in the few metres that kept them apart. And if he prayed to the heavens, would anyone listen? Would anyone take pity on him after his centuries of mischance?

With every inch that was put between him and the courtroom, Ga-on could feel a fraction of him being lost, bits and pieces decomposing and slowly compounding into a whole, and by the time this was all over, he was certain that there wouldn’t be any fragments left. That Kim Ga-on would be gone, and that he’d be nothing but an empty shell.

The door shut loudly, a perfectly imperfect conclusion to the fourth chance he’d forgone.

And Ga-on didn’t stop calling out Yo-han’s name until his throat was dry.

One month later

Ga-on didn’t know what would’ve hurt more --- to believe that Yo-han had died, or to know that he was alive but he’d decided to leave Ga-on behind.

Well, in some way, Ga-on thought that he deserved it. From the moment they’d met, Yo-han had been trying to gain his trust, trying to let him get close, and despite all of that, Ga-on had still harboured his doubts. Doubts that were unfair, unwarranted, and had put a barrier between him and Yo-han. If he was in Yo-han’s place, he’d want to walk away from Ga-on as well.

Ultimately, Yo-han was right. Everything was still the same, unchanging and unlikely to ever become otherwise. After his death, the country had mourned, and then in the flip of a page, they’d returned to what they were before. New politicians taking over Heo Joong-se and the others, pledging that they’d be different from their predecessors. But in one meeting alone, Ga-on was able to see through their lies.

Practicality? Solutions? As if they cared, as if they ever had. Those people, generations after generations, were the same. All they wanted was their control and power back so they could trample over their enemies and then bask in their riches and glory. The elite would always be one level above, superior to the ordinary. Reality was a sick image of inequality and no matter how hard one could try, they’d never be able to erase all of it.

Greed was inherent in people, after all. Those who had little would want more, and those who had much would want even more. And if they had the power to attain it, then there was nothing to stop them. Morality never stood a chance. Even Ga-on knew what it was to pine, to long for something out of his reach that he ought to have let go of. Should he treasure the memories he’d made with Yo-han instead of wishing that they could’ve made more?

At least he’s happy now, Ga-on lamented, touching the watch around his wrist. At least I can’t hurt him anymore.

The meeting came to an end and everyone walked out of the room, leaving Ga-on in hopeless silence. Of course he should’ve known that his opinion wouldn’t matter to them. He was just the statue behind which they plotted. But before Yo-han had left, he’d made Ga-on his successor to finish what he’d started --- to fix the world and to make it a better place, if that was possible at all. So it was the least that Ga-on could do for Yo-han and maybe, just maybe, once he’d achieved it, Yo-han would return.

What should I do now, Ga-on wondered, to make a world that doesn’t need Yo-han?

“Do it well,” he could practically hear Yo-han’s voice in his head. “If you don’t, I’ll come back.”

And Ga-on turned, just in time to see Yo-han walking out of the room.

In a heartbeat, he stood up, running after him. The building was enormous, but until he found Yo-han, Ga-on wasn’t going to stop searching. The crowds made it hard to spot someone and Ga-on’s eyes darted around, only to no avail. He sighed, growing disheartened until he looked up, seeing Yo-han standing a storey above him, looking at him.

“Yo-han,” Ga-on muttered, rushing up the stairs as the older man started to leave. When he reached the top, Yo-han was gone. Surely he couldn’t have gone far in that short span of time. Ga-on peered over the railing on one side, then the other side, and spotted Yo-han on the lower storey, walking briskly.

Ga-on didn’t hesitate to chase him, going down the stairs to where the other was. And when he finally found him a distance away, he called, “Kang Yo-han.”

Yo-han froze, then slowly faced him. He looked at Ga-on, then lowered his eyes when he saw the tearful look on the younger man’s face. But when Ga-on began to break into a smile, Yo-han looked at him again, returning a smile as well.

For century after century, Ga-on had been selfless. He’d put everything else before his own happiness to the point that he’d lost Yo-han multiple times. He’d been given so many chances and he kept screwing up regardless. First he cared too much about practically and what people wanted of him, then he went to fight a war that he knew would only kill him, and then in his last life, he tried to save somebody who was merely a stranger.

And after all of those sacrifices, Ga-on believed that, at least this once, he deserved to be selfish.

So as Yo-han began to turn away, Ga-on strode over and took his hand, stopping him. Then he felt it --- the scar serving as a reminder of the blade that he drove into the older man’s palm --- and his grip loosened a little. A part of his mind reprimanded him, compelling him to let go like he ought to. However, Ga-on wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Not this time, not anymore.

He didn’t deserve to want Yo-han, but if Yo-han still wanted him, then Ga-on would give him his everything and more.

“Ga-on-ah.” Yo-han sounded surprised.

“Will you,” Ga-on pleaded, “take me with you?”

There was a silent pause before Yo-han reached out, his hand settling comfortably behind Ga-on’s head. “I thought you wanted to fight corruption,” he said softly.

“I did,” Ga-on answered, calmly but with a detectable tinge of desperation in his voice, “but I made a promise too.”

“A promise?”

Ga-on’s expression was firm with resolution. “I remember,” he said. “That day in the forest, and everything after that.”

Yo-han’s expression changed, but he didn’t have a chance to respond.

“I know that you do too,” Ga-on continued, “and this time, I don’t want to let you go.” His thumb brushed against Yo-han’s scar and he added, significantly quieter, “If you’ll still have me, that is.”

“Ga-on-ah...”

“If you don’t want that,” the younger started to ramble in fear of rejection, “I’ll understand. I did a lot of bad things to you and I wish I didn’t but I did and...it’s my fault. I can’t change the past and I can’t take back anything I’ve said or done to hurt you and if you want, you can just walk away, and I promise that I won’t bother you---”

“Don’t,” Yo-han interrupted, pressing a finger to Ga-on’s lips. “Promises are meant to last, so don’t waste one like that.” He moved his fingers to entangle them in Ga-on’s hair, pulling him in as he took a step closer. “If I didn’t want this --- if I didn’t want you --- Ga-on-ah, I wouldn’t have come back.”

“Then,” Ga-on spoke, voice trembling ever so slightly, “you...”

Yo-han finished his sentence in a searing kiss.

The very moment their lips met, Ga-on fell back into Yo-han’s world. The longing of almost a thousand years compressed in his heart as he kissed Yo-han back, one arm around him and the other resting lightly on his chest. He held him tightly, for every time, every life that he’d let him go. Yo-han started out tender, and Ga-on careful, but as it went on, both of them let go of their reigns and let desire take over, consuming them wholly.

Stars aligned in the heavens above, the red string of fate threaded smoothly between them, every scripture of the universe marking the epilogue of their tale --- once a tragedy but alas a happy ever after. Maybe fate did have mercy, after all. If those hundred of years of suffering was what it took to bring him to where he was, then Ga-on decided that it had all been worth it. And even just for one more moment, he’d be willing to do it over again.

Destiny could try to separate them once more like it had for the longest time, but no matter what, Ga-on knew that in the end, he’d always find Yo-han and Yo-han would always find him. Because from the moment they’d laid their eyes on each other centuries ago, they’d become soulmates --- matched perfectly together regardless of what everyone else thought of them --- and that was something eternal, something that wasn’t ever going to change.

Even when they parted, after what seemed like both forever and too little, Ga-on kept Yo-han close to him, indulging in his presence. They still had a whole life ahead of them and perhaps more and yet for now, Ga-on would live not in the past or the future, but in the present. The present where he could hold Yo-han’s hand in his, where they could build a life together along with Elijah, where they could fall asleep in each other’s embrace.

“I’m sorry for taking so long,” Ga-on whispered as they remained, breaths mingling in the tiny gap between them and tempting him to close the distance again. “Kang Yo-han, will you let me stay by your side?”

And Yo-han smiled, the beauty of a thousand sunsets encompassed in his gentle gaze.



“Always.”