Archive of Our Own

Huening Kai has had a crush on Kang Taehyun for as long as he’s known him.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.
Kai isn’t one to believe in love at first sight. Which means he’s also not one to develop a crush on a boy he’s never spoken with, either.
But the first day that Kai saw Taehyun, he was enthralled. Taehyun is beautiful, and confident in a way that Kai can only ever dream of. Sure, Kai isn’t exactly unpopular, but he knows that the fascination his classmates have for him is due mostly to his mixed parentage, and less because they really care about who he is as a person.
Taehyun’s popularity isn’t like that, though. He’s liked because of the person he is - the girls talk about how kind he is, and the boys talk about his physical strength with voices of envy. Kai loves it all, though he would never voice the thoughts aloud. His family knows that he’s gay, but he doesn’t want to come out to his classmates. He doesn’t need one more thing to make him stand out from the rest of the class, thank you.

Kai and Taehyun take the same bus to school in the morning. Every morning as he gets ready for school, Kai tells himself this will be the day, he will sit next to Taehyun, he will become Taehyun’s friend, instead of admiring from afar the way he has all year.
But, every morning, Kai’s nerves get the better of him, and he takes a seat at the back of the bus by himself, staring longingly at the back of Taehyun’s head. Tomorrow, he always tells himself, tomorrow I’ll do it.

It’s a morning like any other, by all accounts, until it isn’t.
The bus is driving down the street, a twisty-turvy road lined on both sides with a thick forest. Kai loves the drive, if he’s honest, being surrounded by nature is a calming start to the school day.
He doesn’t notice, at first, that it’s different. The trees look the same, and even if they didn’t, Kai’s too busy watching Taehyun to notice.
But when he tenses for the big curve, only to feel the bus continue chugging straight ahead, Kai realises something’s up. He drags his gaze away from Taehyun to stare out the window, but pitch black is all that meets him.
And that - that’s odd. It’s the middle of March - it’s not dark at 7:30 in the morning. Certainly not pitch black. Kai looks around the bus to see if anyone else has noticed the weirdness happening outside, but nobody blinks an eye. He stands up, walking toward the bus driver. His heart beats a million miles a minute and his palms sweat. He can’t explain why - he’s just terrified.
He makes it up to the driver’s seat after a moment that feels like forever.
“Excuse me?” He asks, his voice shaky.
The bus driver glances over at him before focusing ahead of him once again. When Kai looks out the window, he can’t even see the road. “Is there anything I can help you with, young man?” The driver asks.
“Um,” Kai clears his throat. “I’m sorry, where is this bus going? I usually take it every day, but it looks different today, I’m worried I might have gotten on the wrong one.”
The bus driver chuckles. “You haven’t gotten on the wrong bus, son. You’ll see when we get there. Go on, sit back down.”
It’s weird, Kai thinks as he stumbles back to his seat. The driver didn’t answer his question.
Kai looks around the bus. The typical crowd is all there: the elderly man with the fancy copper cane; the middle-aged woman wearing grey scrubs; the tired twenty-something in a convenience store uniform. Choi Beomgyu, the boy one grade above Kai and Taehyun; Choi Soobin, the boy a grade above Beomgyu; and Choi Yeonjun, the boy who apparently graduated from their high school just last year, leaving a big enough impact that students still talk about him today. Kai can’t say he’s friends with any of them, but he knows enough about them to put a name to their faces, and that’s more than he can say about anyone else on their little rural bus route. There are others, of course, the bus is at least half full, but the eight of them are the consistent ones, the Monday-to-Friday-seven-thirty-on-the-dot regulars.
Kai is watching a woman in a bright pink tracksuit pull curlers out of her hair. She reaches for the final curler, and Kai blinks, and the woman disappears.
Kai’s stomach drops, the feeling of dread in his stomach increases tenfold, and he glances around the bus to see if anyone else is seeing what he just saw. But if anyone else saw it, they don’t care. They continue to stare down at their cellphones, or read their book, or watch outside the window as if they can see past the pitch blackness covering everything. It’s so dark in the bus.
The elderly man disappears, and then the twenty-something in the uniform, and Kai kind of wants to cry. His heart is pounding so hard he swears he can see his shirt jumping with his pulse. The people around him continue to disappear until the bus comes to a stop, and the only people left are Kai, Taehyun, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, and the woman in scrubs. Taehyun is the first to step off the bus, and Kai wants nothing more than to ask him where in the world he’s going, but he can’t find his voice. Yeonjun follows close behind Taehyun, Beomgyu and the woman in scrubs behind him, and Kai notices with discomfort that the three of them all act as if nothing weird is happening. As if this is all normal.
“This is your stop, son,” The bus driver says, and Kai freezes in his seat. The bus driver places a hand on Kai’s shoulder. “Off you go now. You’ll understand when you get out there.”
Numb with fear, Kai steps off the bus. As soon as his feet touch the ground, the doors close behind him, and the bus speeds off.

Kai has no idea where he is. He doesn’t think he’s in town anymore - he’s never seen anything that looks like this before. The sky is a bright, searing red. The trees are white and waxy, and everything around him smells like rot. The ground feels like it could fall out from under him at any moment, with any wrong step.
“What’s going on?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper. The others don’t answer him, don’t even acknowledge his question, and he wonders if they can even hear him. They’re all acting weird, as if their bodies don’t belong to them. A disturbing calm washes over their faces, a stark contrast to the pure terror that Kai feels.
Movement behind one of the trees draws Kai’s attention. He takes cautious steps towards the tree, stopping a few metres away when he hears the crunch of gravel.
Something pokes its head out from behind the tree, and Kai’s heart stops.
“What-” he whispers, cutting himself off when the creature reacts to his voice. What the everloving fuck is that thing? It has a head similar to that of a human, but it doesn’t have eyes. Large antlers extend from its hairless head, and even from so far away, Kai can see that its antlers end in sharp points. Its skin is a sickly grey, stretched thin enough that Kai can see bright blue veins and deep red arteries webbing underneath.
The creature steps further out from the tree, revealing a bald body shaped like a deer, or maybe a goat. The same sick, thin grey skin covers the creature’s body.
Kai hears a gasp behind him, and turns around to see Beomgyu’s fearful eyes. “What the fuck is that thing?”
As if spurred by his voice, the creature charges toward Beomgyu. It bows its head, and before Kai can find the courage to shout, the creature spears Beomgyu on its antler. Beomgyu cries out in pain as the creature throws its head back and lets out an ungodly shriek, throwing Beomgyu off its antler and into a nearby tree. Kai rushes to where Beomgyu lands on the ground, but the creature’s antlers pierced through the centre of his chest, and by the time Kai reaches him, Beomgyu’s eyes are slipping shut.
There’s another shout of pain behind him, and Kai turns around to see the woman in scrubs skewered on the creature’s antlers. The creature doesn’t even slow as it continues on to attack Taehyun, who looks wholly resigned to his fate. When he’s pierced by the creature, on the same antler as the woman in the scrubs, as if they’re some kind of fucked up barbecue kabob, Taehyun only whimpers quietly. Kai watches as tears of pain or maybe of fear or maybe a bit of both trail down Taehyun’s cheeks, the colour in his face draining quicker than should be possible. The creature bows its head, dropping the two bodies on the ground as if they were garbage, useless weight.
“Why?” Kai cries. The creature’s head swivels to face him, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s going to die here, in some unfamiliar forest, speared by some sort of Eldritch horror. There’s no getting out of it - he doesn’t know where he is, or how to get home, or if it’s even possible to escape the creature in front of him that reacts to every sound.
A hand clasps his. He turns to see Yeonjun, the college student he’s never spoken to, standing beside him.
“We’ll go together,” Yeonjun says. “I don’t think we can get out of here.”
Kai squeezes Yeonjun’s hand, nodding once. He looks forward just in time to see the creature bow its head, just in time to see the antler enter his chest.
He screams. It hurts. Oh, God, he’s never felt pain like this before.
Just as soon as it starts, Kai’s head feels light, and his eyes slip closed.

Kai opens his eyes on the bus.
He looks around, but nobody else seems to be aware of the absolute shitshow they’ve all just lived through. Kai feels his palms begin to sweat - what the hell was that? Why isn’t anybody reacting to it? Taehyun is playing on his phone as usual, Beomgyu staring out the window and Yeonjun reading one of his text books. The woman in scrubs is filing her nails. The woman in the tracksuit still has the roller in her hair, although it looks like she’s rummaging through her bag to pull out her mirror, ready to take them out.
Maybe it was a dream, Kai figures. Maybe he conked out for a minute and had a small nightmare on the bus.
But it felt real.
The sky darkens, and Kai’s stomach drops. He watches out the window as blue turns to navy turns to black. He looks around the bus, but just like before, nobody notices.
And just like before, people begin to disappear.
The first to vanish this time is Choi Soobin, the boy two years above him.
Kai looks around, and notices that Beomgyu’s eyes are fixed on the space where Soobin disappeared from. Around them, people continue to disappear: the woman in scrubs, the girl in the uniform, the man at the very front of the bus in the high-vis vest.
The bus is moving, but once again, the road is straight ahead. It pulls to a stop in front of a field, and just like before, Taehyun is the first to step off. Yeonjun follows behind him, the elderly man behind Yeonjun, and the woman in the tracksuit close behind him, all moving in a neat, single-file line. With a sigh, Kai stands up and exits the bus. Beomgyu watches him carefully, before he slowly stands and follows him off the bus.

The first thing Kai notices once the bus speeds off is the stench of decay. He doesn’t see any dead animals - or any creatures at all, for that matter - but the scent of death is overpowering.
“What’s happening?” Beomgyu asks behind him. Kai tenses, ready for one of the creatures to jump out from a bush and charge for them, but nothing comes.
“I don’t know,” Kai whispers. He watches as Taehyun steps into the field. The field is covered in flowers, four petals in a colour he’s never seen before. Kai takes a few steps toward the field and retches. It’s clear that the flowers are the things producing the stench, somehow.
The others walk toward the flowers, as if drawn forward by an invisible rope. Kai watches as the elderly man takes a few steps into the flowers and then lies down on the ground. He watches as the man closes his eyes, takes a breath, and is promptly consumed by vines and roots.
“Holy shit!” Beomgyu exclaims.
Flowers bloom from where the man’s body is covered, their centres dripping with fresh blood.
The woman in the tracksuit, having seen everything from only a few steps away, shrieks. She tries to run, to escape the field, but vines wrap around her legs. They pull her down, kicking and screaming, and Kai sees as they bury into her skin. Flowers bloom around her as she struggles, dripping blood everywhere. For every drop of blood that hits the ground, another flower blooms. Finally, the woman’s screams quiet as she is covered head to toe in vines and dragged to the ground.
When Kai can finally tear his eyes away, Taehyun is gone. He feels tears gather in his eyes. What’s the fucking point? It will hurt, and then he’ll wake up and Taehyun will be back.
He takes a step into the field, but Beomgyu grabs his wrist, stopping him. He can feel the flowers nipping at his ankles, but he allows Beomgyu to stop him in his tracks.
“What are you doing?” Beomgyu asks, eyes wide and crazed.
Kai shrugs. “We can’t stop it. Do you know how to get home from here? I don’t. May as well allow it to take us willingly, right? I don’t want to go out in pain the way she did.”
Beomgyu’s eyes go misty. Kai wishes he could help, but he’s never been good at feelings, that way. He’s good at acting cute, and sometimes he can cheer people up when they’re stressed, but this isn’t stress. Kai doesn’t know how to find the good in this. Especially not to someone who doesn’t know that this is all fake, that they’ll close their eyes and wake up back on the bus again. He could try to explain it, but - why? Why bother? Why risk the rejection, why chance Beomgyu not believing him, when he can just die again and get it all over with?
“I’m scared,” Beomgyu says.
Kai nods. “I am too.” It’s the truth - the old man may have gone silently, but Kai doesn’t think it was without pain. The way that the flowers are nibbling at his ankles is killing him, he wants to pull his feet out, but he doesn’t want to be covered in vines the way the woman was.
“We can do it together,” Kai says. “Take my hand.”
In the corner of his eye, Kai sees Yeonjun lay down silently in the flowers.
Beomgyu grasps Kai’s hand. Beomgyu’s palm is sweaty, but Kai doesn’t mind - his is too.
The two of them walk into the field. They make it almost to the centre before the vines begin to wrap around Kai’s ankles.
“I think this is supposed to be my spot,” Kai says, motioning down to the vines.
Beomgyu nods, “Me too.” Kai spots vines crawling up Beomgyu’s legs beside him.
The two of them lie down together, their hands never separating.
“Since we’re going to die here,” Beomgyu says, “can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course,” Kai replies, aware of the vines slowly making their way up his legs.
Beomgyu takes a deep breath beside him. The vines are up to Kai’s torso when Beomgyu speaks again.
“I’ve been in love with Soobin since middle school. You know Soobin, right? The one who disappeared first?”
“I’ve never spoken to him, but I know of him,” Kai replies quietly. “You went to middle school together?”
“Yes,” Beomgyu whispers. The vines are up to Kai’s chest now, and it’s getting hard to breathe. “When I saw him disappear like that, I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I hoped I would disappear with him. That would’ve been better than… Than whatever this is.”
“Yeah,” Kai gasps out. The vines cover his mouth. This sucks.
It burns. He can’t breathe, and the asphyxiation burns his lungs from the inside, but the vines are burning his skin from the outside. It hurts so bad. He wants to scream, but he can’t. He feels it as his jaw decays away, as a flower grows where his foot used to be.
He closes his eyes, and it burns.

He wakes up on the bus.
Just like last time, Kai looks around the bus. He’s not exactly expecting anyone to react this time, nobody did last time, after all.
He’s proven wrong, however, when he sees Beomgyu staring at him, eyes wide.
Kai raises his eyebrows, and it’s confirmation enough for Beomgyu, who stands up and walks towards the back of the bus.
Beomgyu drops into the seat beside him, grasping Kai’s hand.
“Please tell me you remember that.”
Kai nods. “I remember.”
Beomgyu drops his head on Kai’s shoulder, and Kai feels a couple tears stain his shirt. He chooses not to comment on it.
“Why is everyone else acting like everything is normal?”
Kai sighs. “I think we’re the only ones who know. You didn’t remember the last time, either.”
Beomgyu’s head shoots up. “What do you mean, last time?”
“This is the third time I’ve been through this,” Kai says, motioning to the darkening sky outside the bus. “The first time was different, though. There was some disgusting sort of creature. It had this horrible grey skin and huge antlers, and it skewered us. You were the first one to die, that time. It was awful.”
Beomgyu raises his eyebrows. “So you’re saying we’re in some sort of fucked-up time loop? And we die every time?”
Kai shrugs. “Seems like it. Like I said, this is only my third loop. Maybe the first two were just especially bad.”

It’s not just the first two, Kai quickly learns.
Just like before, passengers on the bus disappear. Everything outside the bus is pitch black. Beomgyu holds Kai’s hand in a death grip as the two of them deboard the bus, and as soon as the bus speeds away, the ground falls from under them.
They’re free-falling until they’re not. They, along with Taehyun, Yeonjun, Soobin, and the man in the high-vis vest are caught in a web of some sort.
All around them are rock walls, and Kai can see nothing but a vast darkness below the web holding them. There’s a cave opening in one of the walls, but before Kai can urge Beomgyu to follow him to the cave opening, the biggest spider Kai has seen in his entire life crawls out.
“Holy fuck,” Beomgyu says. “That spider is the size of fucking King Kong!”
“I know,” Kai whispers, frozen in fear.
“We have to get the fuck out of here,” Beomgyu says, wriggling in the sticky webs.
“And go where?” Kai asks.
The man in the high-vis jacket yelps as the spider approaches him, slowly pulling him from the web. Kai watches in horror as the skin of the man’s body is torn from his body, too well-stuck to the web they’re caught in.
Beomgyu must be watching it as well, because he lets out a mangled sob. “Anywhere but here, Kai! Please! We have to go!”
The spider eats the man, and Kai feels numb. It takes its sweet time, and the man’s screams echo in the rock chamber before he falls unconscious.
“I didn’t realise you knew my name,” Kai says instead. He watches as the spider continues toward Yeonjun.
“What?” Beomgyu shouts. “That’s what you’re focused on right now?”
“The web took that guy’s skin off, Beomgyu. I don’t think we can get out of here.”
He turns his head, the only part of his body that isn’t attached to a web, and looks at Beomgyu. He watches as Beomgyu’s face crumples.
“You’re right,” Beomgyu says. “Of course we can’t get out of here.”
Kai winces as he hears Yeonjun’s shout of pain. Beomgyu’s eyes widen as he watches over Kai’s shoulder, where he knows the spider is eating Yeonjun.
“The spider got him head-first, at least. Didn’t have to feel that pain.” Beomgyu says.
“How do you know my name?” Kai asks. It’s not that it’s very important, but it’s a distraction. Based on the spider’s path, Taehyun is next. Kai doesn’t want to see that - doesn’t want to hear it, honestly.
Beomgyu chuckles, as if he knows what Kai’s doing. Soobin and Taehyun are right beside each other, after all. Maybe he does know what Kai’s doing.
“How wouldn’t I know your name? Everyone in school knows you, Huening Kai. The kid with the long name and the exotic features. You can’t honestly say you don’t know that, right?”
Kai sighs. “I had hoped it was just the kids in my year.” He looks up towards the sky as Taehyun and Soobin shout. The spider must have chosen to take them both at the same time.
The sky is the colour of jade, and if it were any other situation, Kai might think it was beautiful. As it is, Kai doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to look at jade the same.
“I hate being reduced to just the mixed kid. Nobody cares about who I really am.”
His weight shifts as the web bows with the spider’s weight. It’s close now.
“I care,” Beomgyu says.
Kai smiles. The spider appears above them. Even its head alone is massive. The spider grabs him around the torso and pulls.
Kai’s never felt particularly grateful for school uniforms until today. His jacket and pants protect his skin from the stickiness of the web.
“See you in a couple minutes,” Kai says.
The inside of a spider’s mouth is horrifying, Kai thinks.

When Beomgyu comes to sit beside him the next time, he’s shaking. Kai can’t blame him, of course, he’s shaking too. They sit together, hands clasped so tightly Kai’s fingers turn white, but he doesn’t care. He glances toward Taehyun just in time to see Taehyun’s head swerve back down to his phone.
“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Beomgyu says.
“Yeah,” Kai agrees. “I’ll never look at a spider the same.”
The sky blackens and the bus barrels down a straight road. Passengers disappear, starting with the girl in the uniform, and finishing with Soobin.

The bus eventually comes to a stop, and as usual, Taehyun is the first one to stand up. He takes a couple steps towards the back door before the bus driver speaks up.
“Not your stop, sonny.”
Taehyun mumbles an apology, moving back to his seat.
“This has never happened before,” Kai mutters to Beomgyu.
The front doors open and someone new boards the bus. Kai has no idea where they could possibly be boarding from, he can’t see any houses or other roads outside the bus. To be fair, he thinks, can’t see much at all outside the bus.
The person pays their bus fare, sits down on the seat that is usually occupied by the man in the high-vis vest, and pulls his hood off.
Now, Kai doesn’t consider himself a judgemental person. He’s not the type to form an opinion on someone based off their looks.
But his guy - there’s something off about him. He’s scary.
Anxiety broils in Kai’s gut at the sight of the man, and if the way Beomgyu’s grip on his hand tells him anything, Kai thinks Beomgyu feels it too.
He looks human, but… not. His skin is waxy, his eyes far off. His movements are sharp and calculated.
He’s staring directly at Taehyun.
Before anyone can react, the man pulls a gun.
“No!” Kai shouts, but it’s too late.
The man pulls the trigger, and Taehyun goes down.
The man looks at him, an uncomfortable grin on his face. It’s wide - too wide. It’s inhuman. He points the gun at Kai, and pulls the trigger.

“Don’t you ever do that shit again, Kai, I swear to fucking god.”
Kai shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
Beomgyu wipes a tear from his eye. “I had to watch as he shot every last fucking person on that bus before he finally got to me and I didn’t even have you to talk to. Fuck!”
Kai wraps Beomgyu in a hug, one that Beomgyu melts into as the sky around the bus darkens.
Before people can even begin to disappear, the bus makes a sharp turn. Too sharp, too fast. Kai’s head crashes against the window. He hears a crack, and wonders if it was the window or his skull. Maybe both.
“We’re going down, folks,” the bus driver says, seconds before the bus begins to fall.
There’s a crash, and then the bus is filling with water. Must have been a cliff, Kai reasons, above a lake or something. His sight begins to blur.
“I think I cracked my skull,” he rasps.
“Yeah,” Beomgyu says. “I think you did. There’s a lot of blood, Kai.”
“We’re going to drown.”
“Yeah,” Beomgyu says again. “Just go to sleep, Kai. It’s okay.”
Kai nods. “‘Kay.”
He closes his eyes to the sound of rushing water.

They continue to go through the horrific loops. Each one is different, but they’re no less scary, Kai thinks. Sometimes they die right away, other times their death is slow and painful. The feeling of fear and dread is something Kai feels like he’s never going to escape anymore. It’s second nature now, he thinks.

It’s Kai’s eighth and Beomgyu’s seventh loop when Kai notices Beomgyu’s cheeks blushing a bright red.
“What’s up?” Kai asks.
“Do you remember when I told you I’ve been in love with Soobin since middle school?” Beomgyu whispers.
Kai nods. “Of course.”
“He’s staring at us right now.” Kai looks up, and sure enough, Soobin is watching them with curious eyes.
Kai elbows Beomgyu in the ribs. “Maybe he likes you and he’s jealous that you’re over here with me,” he teases.
Beomgyu punches him in the thigh. “As if! Don’t say such silly things.”
Kai tutts. “I don’t think it’s that far-fetched, but alright.” He looks again, but Soobin has stopped watching them. Instead he stares out the window at the once-again pitch black sky.
“Do you think he knows it’s a loop?” Kai asks.
Beomgyu looks at Soobin, tilting his head. “I’m not sure. The way he’s looking outside… He could, I think.”
Kai hums. “We could watch him, this time around, if he doesn’t disappear.”

He doesn’t disappear.
When they deboard the bus, to Kai’s horror, they’re confronted by a hoard of the creatures from his first loop.
“Those are the creatures I told you about,” he whispers. “From my first loop.”
They watch as Soobin, as if resigned to his fate, kicks at the gravel at his feet. The creatures turn at once to the sound, and Soobin freezes.
“Didn’t you say they’re drawn to sound?” Beomgyu asks in a whisper. Kai nods.
“I’m not watching him die again,” Beomgyu says. “Sorry.”
Then he takes a couple steps away, and screams.
The hoard of creatures charge, and Kai can’t do it again. He can’t be the last one again. He shouts at the top of his lungs, and stares at the strawberry sky as one of the creature’s antlers skewers him.

Soobin is staring at them again when they wake up on the bus, so Kai decides to take matters into his own hands.
He marches over to Soobin, sitting in the seat beside him. Beomgyu trails quietly behind him.
“Are you looping too?” Kai asks bluntly. The sky darkens around them, and the anxiety that comes with it feels almost natural at this point.
“Oh my god,” Soobin says. “Yeah. This is like, my fourth loop already.”
“What?” Beomgyu exclaims. “Soobin! Why didn’t you say anything?”
Soobin furrows his eyebrows. “You two seemed close,” he says, and Kai almost feels like his voice is bitter. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“We just met properly for the first time today,” Kai says. Soobin visibly deflates at that. Interesting.
“Oh,” Soobin says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry. Uh - How many loops have you guys gone through?”
“It’s my ninth and Beomgyu’s eighth,” Kai tells him. Soobin nods.
“Any chance you know what’s causing this?” Beomgyu asks.
Soobin shakes his head. “Not a clue. I think the bus driver is kind of weird, though. What do you guys think?”
Kai studies the bus driver. It’s true that he’s been odd, not speaking unless it’s to say something ominous. But, for some reason, Kai doesn’t think he’s involved.
“I dunno,” he says. “I think he’s just under the control of whatever is really doing this to us.”
Beomgyu nods, and Soobin shrugs.
“What was the worst loop for you guys?” Soobin asks.
“The spider,” Kai replies without hesitation.
Beomgyu nods. “Definitely the spider. Fuck. You’re lucky you can’t remember that one.”
Soobin looks between them, eyes wide. “I’m not even going to ask,” he mutters.
“It’s better that way,” Beomgyu agrees. “What about you? What was your worst?”
Soobin hums. “Probably my first. The pit? It might not have been the scariest, but the fact that I didn’t know it was a time loop? The fact that I thought I was dying for real? That made it the worst for me.”
“My first was pretty scary too,” Kai agrees. “Not realising you’re coming back from it definitely makes it feel worse, yeah.”
“My first wasn’t too bad,” Beomgyu says. “Maybe it’s because I had Kai to help me calm down, but even though it was painful and scary, it wasn’t awful.”

Whatever is doing this to them has a cruel sense of humour, Kai thinks as they step off the bus. The only person who disappeared this time was the elderly man. When the bus speeds away, they’re faced with the field once again.
The smell is worse. He’s never smelled something so strong - it sticks to his nostrils.
“What is that smell?” Soobin asks, plugging his nose with his fingers.
Kai sighs. “It’s the field.”
“How do you know?”
Beomgyu takes a small step forward. “This was my first loop. I can’t believe it actually took us back here - clearly it’s listening to us. Fuck!”
Resigned, Kai steps into the field. As soon as he touches the first flower, pain shoots up his leg.
“It’s worse this time,” he says. “It’s a lot worse.”
Beomgyu runs beside him, clasping his hand. Soobin joins Beomgyu, and Beomgyu grabs his hand, too.
“You’re right,” Beomgyu says through gritted teeth. “It hurts a lot more this time. C’mon, let’s find our spots.”
They trek forward, and they’re almost at the opposite edge of the field before the vines finally wrap around their ankles. Kai’s legs feel raw. It’s a pain that lingers, he thinks.
He prepares to lay down, but before he can, the vines pull him down.
“What the-” he cuts himself off as he looks back at the field. All over, people are sticking partially out from the dirt. They’re dragged down, slowly but steadily, into the dirt.
“Fuck,” Beomgyu says. “We’re going to be buried alive.”
“Is this not what happened last time?” Soobin asks.
“No,” Beomgyu replies. “Last time the vines suffocated us. I would take that over this any time. This soil feels like acid.”
It’s really, really bad.
They’re pulled down slowly, talking about nonsense the entire time in a vain attempt to distract themselves from the pain of the burning soil. By the time the soil reaches Kai’s lungs, he’s too tired to fight anymore, and his eyes slip closed.

Before Kai can even meet Beomgyu and Soobin at Soobin’s row of seats, Choi Yeonjun, the college student, is standing at the front of the bus.
“Is anyone else sick and fucking tired of dying?”
Kai’s jaw drops. The others on the bus share concerned glances and furrowed eyebrows.
“Am I the only one who knows about this shit?” Yeonjun asks again.
“No,” Beomgyu says. Kai nods, sitting next to Beomgyu and Soobin. Beomgyu waves Yeonjun over.
“Hi!” Yeonjun says. “I’m Choi Yeonjun. I’m glad I’m not alone in this shit - this is my fourth loop already and I’m sick of it.”
Beomgyu barks out a laugh. “Only your fourth? Poor thing.” He points to Kai. “It’s his tenth and my ninth.”
Soobin elbows Beomgyu in the ribs.
“I’m sorry about him,” Soobin says. “No manners. I’m Choi Soobin, it’s only my fifth loop. It sucks.” He gestures to Kai. “That’s Huening Kai, and the one with no manners is Choi Beomgyu.” Kai waves meekly, but Beomgyu just massages his ribs, grumbling to himself.
Yeonjun waves his hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. He continues to talk, but Kai filters out his voice, glancing around the bus at the other riders staring at them.
They watch the four of them like they’re freaks, caged animals to be stared at. To be fair, Kai figures, he would think the same about someone who claimed to have died multiple times.
When he makes eye contact with Taehyun, the look Taehyun gives him just about breaks his heart. A look of pure disbelief, like he can’t believe Kai is going along with the crazy guy.
It feels like rejection, and it aches.

The bus drops them off on an iceberg. He’s stopped asking himself how it’s possible, just like he’s stopped acknowledging the anxiety and fear running through his veins. It’s never going to stop, and questioning things is just wasting his energy. God, he’s exhausted. Dying is taking a lot out of him.
The iceberg breaks into pieces, and the pieces dissolve one-by-one, until the last piece remaining holds himself and Soobin.
“I couldn’t help but notice you looked pretty sad on the bus today,” Soobin says.
Kai shrugs. “I guess.”
Soobin inches closer as the iceberg melts around them. “Wanna talk about it before we die and end up on the bus again?”
He thinks about it for a moment before he sighs. “Yeah, I may as well.” He rolls onto his stomach. It’s colder this way, but he can’t find it in himself to care. “Do you know Kang Taehyun?”
Soobin moves closer still, wrapping an arm around Kai’s shoulders. “Sure. He’s in your class, right?”
“Yeah,” Kai says. “I’ve got a massive crush on him. Have all year. And when he saw me sitting with you guys and Yeonjun, he looked so… betrayed. Like he couldn’t believe I would agree with the crazy guy who thinks we’re all dying and coming back to life. And, I dunno. It just felt a lot like rejection, somehow. It just hurt.”
Soobin hums. “Gotcha. I’m sorry, that’s awful.”
Kai shrugs again. “Not like it’s your fault. It’s fine. It’s not like he’s going to remember it in five minutes when we wake up again.”
Their feet are already in the water. It’s boiling. His skin is aching - his skin is always aching, now. Even when he’s just sitting on the bus, he feels the phantom pains of all the past deaths.
The ice below their heads melts, and Kai knows they only have seconds left.
He never thought boiling water could hurt like this.

The four of them go through four more loops together. Some end quicker than others - sometimes, they die before people can begin to disappear, other times it’s slow, drawn out, people dying one at a time. Kai thinks he can identify everyone on the bus by the sound of their scream. The creatures come back on their fourth loop together. There’s only two of them, this time, and they stack people on their antlers without care.

During their fifth loop together, Yeonjun stands at the front of the bus again.
“Any chance any more of you have remembered dying and looping yet?”
The passengers mutter to themselves, but nobody comes forward. Suddenly, the bus screeches to a stop. The bus driver stomps down the hall, staring at the four of them angrily.
“Get off my bus! Get off now you fucking freaks!” He pushes them down the walk and out the door, shutting it in their faces and speeding off. They watch in horror as, only seconds later, the bus crashes into a tree. The bus catches on fire, a fire that quickly spreads to the tree and eats the forest around them.
The forest, which is composed solely of oil-slick trees, goes up in seconds. There’s nowhere for the four of them to escape. They sit in a circle, join their hands, and accept their fate.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Beomgyu says. “Burning to death or boiling to death.”
Soobin shushes him. “You’ve gotta stop saying shit like that. You have to have realised at this point that whatever is doing this is listening, right? It’s going to hear you say that!”

Soobin’s right, of course.

As soon as the sky darkens, passengers are screaming. The air in the bus is hazy, a vile green-tinted grey. It chokes them slowly as the bus chugs along the road at break-neck speed.
The elderly man is the first to go, coughing and gasping as poison fills his lungs. Kai watches in horror as he coughs up blood before toppling out of his seat, letting out a final whiny exhale.
The rest of the passengers follow his fate slowly. The air burns Kai’s lungs and he fears when it will be his turn to go. It feels like the air is eating his lungs from the inside. He can feel something bubbling up in his airway.
Before he knows what’s happening, Soobin is coughing. And he’s coughing, and he’s coughing, and it doesn’t stop. His face is pale as a sheet and he doesn’t stop fucking coughing and there’s blood pouring from his mouth and his inhales are a sickening whoop and then before Kai can do anything other than stare, Soobin coughs up something solid. His hand clutches his chest and tears roll from his eyes and he stops coughing just long enough to whisper out two words: “It hurts.”
To Kai’s left, Beomgyu lets out an anguished cry and drops to Soobin’s side, clutching his free hand in what can only be described as a death grip. Yeonjun, who had been on Beomgyu’s other side until just a second ago, watches the two of them with raised eyebrows. Beomgyu cries as he pulls Soobin to his chest, uncaring of the blood spilling from Soobin’s lips and staining his shirt.
As much as the sight in front of him makes Kai feel paralyzed in fear, his body works against his mind, and he, too, coughs up a mouthful of blood. He spits it on the floor at his feet. Soobin’s right - it hurts. It feels like he’s coughing up half a lung. He sees Taehyun staring at him with furrowed brows, but it’s the last thing he can think about as he continues fighting to keep the coughs at bay. Kai isn’t sure why he’s doing it - it’s not like stopping the coughing will stop him from dying, he’s not naive enough to believe that the loops are going to magically stop now if he survives this. But, somehow, the thought of coughing while his friend whoops his last breaths in front of him feels wrong, so Kai continues to fight his body to keep them down.
Finally, Soobin’s breathing progresses from coughing and whooping to a slow, quiet wheeze. Kai watches as Soobin squeezes Beomgyu’s hand and then loses all strength, his eyes slipping shut and his head rolling onto his shoulder.
“No!” Beomgyu shouts, tears rolling down his cheeks. Blood stains his teeth, and it’s then that Kai realises that Beomgyu, too, has been holding back his coughs. “No, no!” Beomgyu shakes Soobin’s shoulders, as if he could somehow wake Soobin up. Kai watches as Beomgyu coughs, spitting mouthful after mouthful of blood and chunks of tissue onto the ground beside him. His face is stained with tears and spitty streaks of blood.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Beomgyu says, his voice barely above a whisper as he gasps for breath. Kai moves to join him in sitting on the floor of the bus, Yeonjun close behind them. Yeonjun has only just barely started coughing, not yet showing any signs of blood, but Kai knows it’s close.
“I know,” Kai says, placing a reassuring hand on Beomgyu’s shoulder. “It’s hard, watching everyone die over and over. I want these stupid loops to end, too.”
Beomgyu rests his head on Kai’s shoulder with a muffled sob. “I just want it to be over.”

When they wake up on the bus again, before the four of them even have a chance to regroup at their designated bench, Beomgyu is running to stand in front of Soobin.
“I can’t fucking take it anymore,” Beomgyu says.
Soobin raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. Kai slowly makes his way forward, watching with curious eyes as Beomgyu grabs Soobin’s hand once again, so similar and yet so different from just thirty minutes before.
“Choi Soobin,” Beomgyu says, looking into Soobin’s eyes without an ounce of fear. That’s when it hits Kai - Beomgyu is confessing. He stops his trek when he’s halfway reached the bench, choosing instead to give the two of them this moment.
“Choi Soobin,” Beomgyu says again after a deep breath. His eyes sparkle as he stares at Soobin. “I have been in love with you since middle school. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same, but I couldn’t watch you die again and again without saying anything.”
Soobin’s eyes widen, and then the brightest smile Kai has ever seen crosses his face.
“Oh, thank god,” he says. “I’ve liked you for years, Beomgyu. You have no idea how great it feels to hear you say that. It’s been torture, watching you die and knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop it or make it hurt less.”
Beomgyu breaks into a huge, wide smile, before he wraps his arms around Soobin’s neck and drags him in for a searing kiss. Kai, embarrassed, draws his attention away from the new-found couple. His gaze instead settles on Taehyun, who is watching Beomgyu and Soobin with wide, confused eyes. It’s an odd reaction, Kai thinks, but then again, maybe he’s just confused after hearing Soobin and Beomgyu talk about watching each other die. That would surely be weird and confusing to someone who doesn’t know about the loops.

The bus drops them off at the field again. After everything they’ve been through already, the field feels like a piece of cake. The four of them don’t bother to dawdle before they step into the flowers. Just like every time before, of course, the flowers nip at their ankles. The difference, Kai thinks, is that this time it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly. It stings, but it’s similar to the sting of a wasp, rather than the flesh-melting pain of last time. Of course, having long-since learned his lesson, Kai doesn’t voice his thoughts aloud.
The four of them sit down in the field together, allowing the plants to consume their bodies slowly. It’s terrible, and it’s painful and Kai wants it to be over already, but there’s something almost comforting in the familiarity of it all. He finds himself feeling significantly less scared than he has every time before.
When the vines cover his face and squeeze his ribs, he almost feels content.

As usual, Kai makes his way from the very back of the bus up to the bench where he usually meets the others.
However, when he reaches the stairs beside Taehyun’s seat, Taehyun reaches a hand out to catch Kai’s wrist, effectively stopping him in his tracks.
Kai looks at Taehyun, eyebrows raised.
“I thought you and Beomgyu were dating?” Taehyun says.
Kai feels his heart stop. His veins turn to ice and he stares at Taehyun in silence for a moment.
“What?” He finally chokes out.
“Beomgyu? You and him have been so close, always holding hands and leaning on each other, I thought you started dating. But then I saw him confess to Soobin? And now I’m confused.”
Kai’s heart kickstarts at that statement, racing so fast in his chest he swears he can hear his pulse in his ear. “You remember that? You remember all of that? How many loops have you been through?”
Taehyun looks down, embarrassed. He finally releases his hold on Kai’s wrist as he rubs at the back of his neck. “Well, uh-”
“Nevermind,” Kai interrupts, shaking his head. “Come with me.” He tugs Taehyun with him to the bench where the other three are waiting for him, staring.
Kai reaches the bench a second later and sits down, dragging Taehyun to sit beside him. “Guess who’s been looping for ages and decided not to speak up when we asked?” He said, keeping his voice cheeky.
Soobin raises his eyebrows, staring pointedly at where Kai and Taehyun’s hands are still interlocked from Kai dragging him down the bus. Kai pulls his hand out of Taehyun’s grasp, stomping on Soobin’s toes while he does it. If it means teasing like this, Kai regrets ever saying a thing about his silly little crush.
Nobody else seems to notice, however, too busy watching Beomgyu as he shouts. “Really? Oh my god! I’m so happy to have someone else to talk about this shit with. These other guys are great and whatever, but after so many loops I’m starting to get sick of them. What’s your name? I’m Beomgyu.”
Taehyun smiles. “I know who you are. I know who all of you are, actually. I’m Kang Taehyun.”
“Oh,” Beomgyu says. “Cool. I actually knew your name too, I was just trying to be polite because someone says I have no manners.” He elbows Soobin in the ribs as he says it.
They all notice as the sky outside the bus darkens, but they choose not to comment on it.
“Pretty sure you just proved my point there, Beomgyu,” Soobin says, massaging his ribs.
Yeonjun rolls his eyes at their antics, ignoring them in favour of looking at Kai. “So, Kai, how did you figure out that Taehyun knows, too?”
Kai laughs as Taehyun’s cheeks colour. “He thought Beomgyu and I were dating and was very confused about those two’s little makeout sesh.”
Beomgyu cackles as Soobin blushes a deep scarlet.
“Sorry Kai,” Beomgyu says through giggles. “But Soobinnie is my one and only. Maybe in another life.”
Kai pretends to gag. “In your dreams!”
The five of them laugh together, only calming down when the bus rolls to a stop. When they look around, they realise the five of them are the only ones who haven’t disappeared
They pile off the bus together, hands intertwined, and step onto loose gravel outside. The bus speeds off, as always, and they look around in confusion.
“This is like the pit,” Soobin says slowly. “Just… Just, without the actual pit.”
Taehyun nods. “I remember that one. It was slow. Can’t say it was my favourite.”
“Jesus,” Beomgyu says. “How many loops have you done?”
They all watch as Taehyun shrugs. “Dunno,” he says. “I kinda lost count. Probably around fifty?”
Kai’s jaw hits the floor.
“Fifty?” He exclaims. “But these loops are, like, half an hour! That’s longer than a day!”
“Yeah,” Taehyun nods. “I’m sick of it.” He kicks at the gravel with the toe of his shoe, and a bit of the gravel dislodges from its place.
Below it, in the space where the gravel once was, is… Nothing. Blank, empty nothingness.
“Oh my god,” Soobin whispers. “Oh my god.”
“We have to be careful,” Taehyun says. His grip on Kai’s left hand grows tighter, not that Kai is complaining. Any excuse to hold Taehyun’s hand is welcome in Kai’s opinion, even if it’s a fearful death grip.
Beomgyu sighs. “What’s the point?” He kicks at the gravel next to where Taehyun had kicked, making the hole bigger. “We fall through and it ends and we wake up on the bus again. I just don’t see the point in dragging it out, I would rather just get it over with.”
They exchange glances. Yeonjun shrugs, and Kai feels himself echoing the sentiment. Beomgyu is right, really. The sooner they get it over with, the sooner they can be back on the bus and try to figure out how to make it stop.
Without another word amongst the five of them, they all begin to kick at the gravel around the hole. Finally, the hole is big enough for one person to fit through.
“One at a time?” Yeonjun asks, staring down at the hole to nowhere.
Kai feels his gut twist. “I guess so,” he says. “Unless you guys want to spend more time digging to make it bigger.”
There’s a round of shrugs. Nobody makes a move to make the hole any bigger, though, and Kai figures there’s no point in delaying the inevitable.
“I’ll go first,” he says. He drops Taehyun and Beomgyu’s hands, stepping up to the hole.
Without even taking a second to second-guess, Kai steps into the hole.

It’s not bad, really. It hurts, of course. He’s come to realise that it’s always going to hurt, he’s never going to be able to truly go peacefully.
But it’s not too bad.

“We need to figure out how to stop this,” Beomgyu says when they meet again. “I can’t believe you’ve already done fifty loops! Did you piss off a witch or something?”
Taehyun scoffs. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a witch, let alone made any of them angry.”
“Those last two loops weren’t as bad,” Yeonjun interrupts. “Clearly we must be doing something right.”
Soobin nods. “You’re right. There must be something connecting them, something that we did before the bad part of the loop started.”
The five of them think in silence for a moment, before something occurs to Kai.
“Confessions,” he says. “In the last one, Taehyun confessed to me that he’s done this before. And before that, Beomgyu and Soobin confessed their feelings to each other. That must be it, right? Whatever it is that’s doing this doesn’t want us to keep secrets?” When he looks around at the others, Kai sees mixed reactions. Yeonjun seems to agree, while Beomgyu and Soobin look unsure. Taehyun, however, has a look on his face that Kai can’t decipher. Reluctance, maybe? Disagreement?
Yeonjun clears his throat. “If a confession is what it wants, a confession is what it’s going to get.” His cheeks colour even as his eyes harden. “I’m bi. I’ve known it for years, but I’ve stayed in the closet because I’m scared. I don’t know how my family would react, and I don’t think I could handle them reacting poorly. But, fuck it! Soobin and Beomgyu are dating, I can trust you guys. So, there. That’s my confession.”
Kai, reacting without a second thought, wraps his arms around Yeonjun. “I’m proud of you. Don’t worry about your family, tell them when you feel safe. If that’s tomorrow or five years from now, it doesn’t matter.” He feels more arms wrap around him and Yeonjun, and although he can’t see for sure who they are with his face buried into Yeonjun’s neck, the hug is warm and feels like love.
When they finally separate, Taehyun is looking at Yeonjun with a smile. “I’m happy for you,” he says. It’s not much, but the smile on Yeonjun’s face makes Kai think it’s enough.
“Well,” Kai says. “I guess it’s my turn. I’m gay. I came out to my family a few months ago, but I haven’t told anyone at school. The last thing I need is one more thing to make me different from all the other kids, y’know?”
When he looks around at his friends, Yeonjun, Soobin, and Beomgyu all have happy, supportive smiles. Beomgyu wraps his arms around Kai in a supportive hug.
But when he looks at Taehyun, all he gets is wide, surprised eyes. Taehyun looks as if he’s seeing a completely new side of Kai - as if he weren’t the one to suggest that Beomgyu and Kai were dating just an hour ago. Maybe, Kai thinks, when he denied dating Beomgyu, Taehyun took that as confirmation that Kai was straight. Maybe, Kai worries, Taehyun was relieved.
Kai has never had much hope of his crush becoming reciprocated. But the past couple of loops, actually talking comfortably with Taehyun and becoming closer with him thanks to their unfortunate situation, Kai had been hoping… He’s not sure what he was hoping. But whatever it was, it’s crushed now. He’s going to be pining forever, he thinks. And god, isn’t that just pathetic?
“Does anyone else have anything they want to say?” Yeonjun’s voice interrupts Kai’s thoughts. It’s for the best, Kai figures. He doesn’t need to be falling into useless thoughts of self-deprecation right now.
The five of them look around at each other, shrugging.
“I don’t think so,” Taehyun says.
Yeonjun nods, and the bus comes to a stop.
“This is the last stop.” The bus driver waves from his seat at the front of the bus, and the other passengers step off the bus one-by-one.
“I didn’t even notice the sky darken,” Soobin mutters as he leads them off the bus. Beomgyu is behind him, Taehyun and Kai behind Beomgyu with Yeonjun bringing up the rear.
Kai didn’t either. The feeling of terror that usually accompanies the blackening of the sky, whether they watch it or not, wasn’t there this time.
“Look at that mountain,” the girl in the convenience store uniform says, pointing ahead of them. Kai looks at the mountain in wonder. “That’s my name, on the bottom right,” she says.
Kai quickly finds his own name on the mountain, just above a coffin-shaped cut-out in the mountain side. All the other cut-outs are labelled with names, too, and Kai sees that he’s in between Yeonjun and Taehyun. He walks toward the mountain, ignoring the calls of his friends.
“We may as well make it quick, right?” He asks, turning around to face them and walking backwards. “Just like last time. Maybe we can just go to sleep.” He turns back around before he can see his friends’ reactions, climbing up to his hole in the mountain. When he steps into the coffin cut-out, stone wraps around his waist like a belt, holding him in place. It’s just a little too tight, a little too restrictive and uncomfortable, but Kai thinks if this is it, then this is easily the best.
A stone door locks him in his coffin, and his eyes flutter shut.

When Kai wakes up on the bus, Beomgyu is already yelling over the heads of the other passengers.
“So clearly someone didn’t confess everything! If we had all confessed our secrets like we were supposed to, the loop would have ended! So who’s keeping secrets?”
Soobin holds onto Beomgyu’s arm, holding him back, but doesn’t seem to disagree.
“Maybe whatever cosmic energy is doing this to us doesn’t have a reason? Hm?” Taehyun says, walking up to Beomgyu and pushing a finger into his chest. “Besides, how do we know you’re not the one keeping secrets?”
Beomgyu glares at him, shaking in Soobin’s grasp. “Of course it has a reason! If confessions weren’t the trigger for it, the loops wouldn’t have gotten so much better! It’s you, isn’t it, Taehyun? I don’t believe that your only secret was that you were looping with us. Or maybe it’s you, Kai? You said you’re already out to your family. If they already know, does it even still count as a secret? Fuck!” Beomgyu thrashes around angrily, and Soobin wraps him in a tight hug, burying his face in Beomgyu’s neck and whispering things too soft for Kai to hear.
Kai’s stomach ties itself into knots. It is him, he thinks. Of course it’s him. His real secret is his feelings for Taehyun. But like hell he’s going to be confessing that after the way Taehyun looked at him last time. He’s taking this secret to his grave, cosmic entity be damned.
“I don’t think arguing is good for us,” Yeonjun says, eyebrows furrowed. “C’mon. Someone has to have a secret they want to reveal.”
Everyone remains silent, and glares are passed between Taehyun and Beomgyu.
“I think we should take some time apart,” Soobin says slowly. “Beomgyu and I can go one way and you guys go the other.”
Yeonjun’s eyes widen. “I don’t know if that’s a gr-”
“Fine!” Taehyun interrupts. “C’mon, Kai. We don’t need these guys.”
“Guys, hold on,” Yeonjun says, but his pleas are in vain as Taehyun drags Kai off to the back of the bus. Kai turns around to see Beomgyu and Soobin walk to the seats at the very front of the bus, leaving Yeonjun by himself in the centre. He feels bad for a moment, but then decides that if Yeonjun really wanted to, he would join one of their groups. Instead, Yeonjun sits down by himself with a loud sigh.

The sky darkens, and it’s bad. The first thing Kai notices when he steps off the bus is the overwhelming smell of smoke. The forest is on fire, and he can see the flames in the distance, moving fast. He can hear the footfall of animals. It sounds like a stampede.
And then the first of the stampede approaches, and of course, it’s the creatures with the sickly skin and the humanoid faces.
They’re moving fast, trying to avoid the fire, and Kai thinks that if he were to stay perfectly still, they would probably move right past him. But if they move right past him, all that will follow is the fire, and he knows that’s not something he can escape.
“I don’t want to burn again,” he whispers, grasping Taehyun’s hand.
Taehyun shakes his head. “Neither do I.”
They exchange a glance, and with a nod, the two of them step in front of the stampede.
It hurts, but it’s easier this way. Faster.

As if punishing them for daring to take the easy way out, the next loop is the boiling lake. The water boils and bubbles, splashing water hot enough to melt Kai’s skin onto his hand. He hisses in pain, and Taehyun grasps his hand once again.
“It’s okay,” Taehyun says, his voice soft and comforting. “It’ll be over soon.”

Soobin is the one to approach them on the next loop, Beomgyu sulking behind him. Yeonjun’s face brightens when Soobin passes him, following behind Beomgyu.
“So,” Soobin says slowly. “Clearly us splitting up just pissed off the cosmic entity more. It obviously wants us to do this together.”
“I’m sorry for accusing you both of keeping secrets,” Beomgyu says. “Even if you are, confessing is scary. Especially when you’re not ready. It’s not fucking fair for this cosmic entity to expect us to spill everything that we’ve kept to ourselves for so many years.”
“You’re right,” Taehyun says, staring down at his fingers. “It’s not fair. And I’m sorry for accusing and getting mad at you, too. We can figure this out, cosmic entity be damned.”
They sit down together on the bench at the back of the bus, watching out the window. The air around them is tense as they wait for the sky to darken, but it’s surrounded by a friendly energy and that makes Kai happy. He still feels guilty, underneath the happiness, for not confessing, for selfishly drawing his new friends into his shit, but he just can’t.
The speakers crackle to life. It’s the first time in any of Kai’s loops that he’s heard something over the speakers. The other passengers, of course, don’t react to the crackling of the speakers, but his friends all tense beside him.
“I will release you for now.” The voice in the speakers is not human. It’s deep, rumbling so much that Kai almost struggles to hear the words. But he does, and his hope grows with every second. “To the person with the last confession: you know who you are. I know you can feel the way your nerves are eating away at your stomach. If you don’t confess soon, we will do this all over again. Consider this your warning. And know that the way you split up was not a coincidence.”
The speakers cut out, and the bus continues down the road. The sky doesn’t darken, and the road twists and turns in all the ways Kai remembers.
“Oh my god,” Kai whispers, staring out the window at the tree-lined road. “It’s really over.”
“Thank god,” Beomgyu says.

Kai, Taehyun, Beomgyu, and Soobin get off at the high school. Yeonjun waves them goodbye as they depart, telling them he’ll see them after school on the bus ride home.
The four of them make their separate ways to class. Even though Kai and Taehyun are in the same class, they don’t walk together, and Kai takes the time to think.
He’s the one who was supposed to confess. But he can’t - because Taehyun isn’t interested in men. And he knows Taehyun isn’t, because Taehyun is brave and strong and not afraid of anything. If Taehyun was supposed to come out to end the loop, he would’ve done it. So it has to be Kai.
The warning from the voice in the speakers rings in his head. He’ll have to do it again. He only hopes that next time, the stupid fucking cosmic entity won’t drag all his new friends into it with him. Their confessions have to be enough - it’s not fair to them to make them do it again. Because next time, it’s not going to end. Kai can be stubborn when he wants to, and this is one of those situations. He’s taking this secret to the grave, whether the cosmic entity likes it or not.

Kai spends the entire day at school distracted. He barely remembers to take notes, and almost misses his name being called by his math teacher. By the time school ends, Kai is exhausted, and he just wants to go home and go to sleep.
Before he can do that, though, he has to take the bus. The idea of boarding the bus once again fills his gut with dread. Kai can’t imagine the cosmic entity would choose to loop again already, but even just the memory of the horror they went through is enough to make Kai never want to ride the bus again. Distantly, he wonders how long it would take to ride a bicycle from his house to school.
Before he can truly contemplate if he has the energy to bike to school every day, Kai feels himself being dragged to the side of the sidewalk. He looks up to see Taehyun watching him nervously.
“Hi,” Kai says with a smile. “Did you want to walk to the bus stop together?”
“Oh,” Taehyun startles. “Uh- Yeah. But first… I wanted to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
Taehyun kicks at a loose pebble on the ground, and Kai is reminded of the loop with the gravel and the never-ending nothingness below it.
“I like you,” Taehyun says. His voice is hardly above a whisper, and Kai has to stop for a moment to make sure he heard him correctly.
“What?”
Taehyun’s face is beet red. “I like you,” he repeats, a little louder. “Like, like like you. A lot. I think you’re really cute.”
Kai is shocked, truly. “I thought you were straight. I had assumed that if you liked men, you would’ve come out when the rest of us did. To stop the loop, y’know?”
Taehyun, still not looking Kai in the eye, nods. “I know. I should have. I almost did, actually. But I was just- I was scared. I don’t know. It’s silly, because I know that you guys would be the last people to judge me for it. But I was scared. I’m sorry. I’m the reason we all went through those horrid loops.”
Kai shakes his head. “It’s okay. It is scary. It’s not fair that we were all forced to reveal our secrets that way. It’s not your fault that you wanted to keep your secret a little longer.”
Taehyun nods. He looks up, finally. “I know that you don’t like me back. It’s okay. I just had to tell you because I couldn’t handle going through all that again.”
And- what? Taehyun thinks Kai doesn’t like him?
Kai runs the conversation through his head again and realises, fuck, he’s a dumbass.
“I like you too,” he says. “I thought I was the one continuing the loops, because I’ve had a crush on you all year long, but I never thought I would ever tell you about it. Sorry. I should’ve said it as soon as you told me, but… I dunno. I was too surprised, I guess.”
“Oh,” Taehyun says. His eyes sparkle excitedly, and it might just be the cutest thing Kai’s ever seen.
“Yeah,” Kai replies with a nod. “So, like… do you want to be my boyfriend?”
The question feels childish, coming from his lips that way, but Taehyun brightens even further, and Kai doesn’t regret it for a second.
“Yeah,” Taehyun nods. “I would like that.”
Taehyun reaches for Kai’s hand, interlocking their fingers, and it’s so incredibly heartwarming that Kai feels like he could explode into a million pieces, right here right now, and he would still be happy.
The two of them walk the last couple minutes to the bus stop together, hands still interlocked. When they reach the bus stop, Soobin notices their hands and shoots Kai a wink, which Kai steadfastly ignores.
The bus arrives on time, as usual, and when they board, Yeonjun is waiting for them at their regular loop bench. When Yeonjun spots Taehyun and Kai’s hands, his face breaks into a wide smile.
“So you two finally did it, hey?”
Kai furrows his eyebrows. “What- how did you know? I never told you that I liked Taehyun.” He looks at Taehyun for clarification, but Taehyun shakes his head, his brows similarly furrowed.
“You didn’t have to,” Yeonjun says, motioning for them to sit down beside him. “I have eyes, after all.”
Soobin snorts, and Kai kicks him in the shin, his cheeks flushing.
“Was it really that obvious?” Taehyun asks.
“Yes.” Beomgyu replies, voice flat.
Yeonjun shakes his head fondly. “At least we won’t have to do that loop shit anymore. God, that was exhausting.”
“But what if that wasn’t the confession the cosmic entity had in mind?” Kai asks, worried. Taehyun rubs his thumb in comforting circles on Kai’s hand.
“Nah, don’t worry,” Yeonjun says. “That was it. Congrats, you two.”
Kai’s not convinced, but he can cross that bridge when he gets to it. For now, he has the best boyfriend in the world to think about.