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Junhong waits.
He stands sternly in the middle of the crowd going past him a blur of messy motions as the sun downs and rises again. He looks around in case he can spot others of his kind above the thick mass of humans, but notices he is still on his own, and chooses to adjust his suit’s blazer to pass the time. When he lifts his head anew, a dozen of his counterparts are standing all around the packed street, waiting.
They all ignore each other’s presence, among other few people passing through them as they walk down the — at this time, relatively empty — place. And as the morning starts again and humans flow in for another new day, nothing changes. Now, around thirty of them are planted all around the area, staring into nil, and Junhong decides to mimic them. And he waits, steely.
If Junhong could get bored he would, because the waiting feels like it will never end. He looks around again and spots Himchan’s familiar figure on top of a building; he greets him with a smile. The elder returns the gesture unenthusiastically — it’s not like Junhong had hoped for anything more, though, and he simply satisfies himself of the almost-friendly nod.
He wonders where Youngjae is. All hand men needed are already set and ready to go; perhaps the elder had other events to attend. Or perhaps he hadn’t been summoned on this job to begin with.
The sun rises and the morning fog gets thicker around the Ambassador Bridge. It’s a matter of seconds before he hears the loud clash of metal, feels the earth shake, sees humans run away in panicked jogs. There’s the screech of wheels on bitumen, and the fall of heavy matters. He slowly looks around, watches his co-workers fade out one after the other, and soon, it’s his own time to work.
He finds himself in front of a car that fell off the Bridge, hood first. Its size diminished by over half due to the force of the impact with the ground. A middle-aged woman creeps out from behind the vehicle, shaken up, scared, yet looking unharmed.
“Where is my daughter?” Is the first thing she asks him.
“I am sorry, Mary. I don’t know where your daughter is.”
She takes a step back, her legs bumping against the hollow metal that hangs from the car’s sides. Junhong lets her look around at their surroundings — he knows humans always need a little time to let what his presence mean sink in. And time he has, plenty.
Understanding seems to fill her progressively, though she still doesn’t talk or move. She eyes him warily, as though he was a beast that could attack her at any moment, and ends up boring holes through his neatly folded tie.
“Am I dead?”
He offers her a sad smile. Well, as sad as a Reaper’s smile could get, anyway.
“Very certainly.”
“How about Diane?”
“As I said, I don’t know about your daughter.”
The poor woman looks around the place once again, in the desperate hope she could find her dear offspring — but of course, she meets no success, and Junhong clearly discerns something shatter in her.
“This plane of reality has been made up for your soul only, and is therefore not existing anywhere else but now.”
She sends him a confused glance. Her teary eyes seem to reflect his own orbs, and he finds himself taken aback by how deep, and yet how empty they look.
“What I mean is, you won’t find your daughter here, be it dead or alive.” He wonders if his simplification of realms is actually easy enough for her to understand. “You need to let go.”
He sees her bite her lips, her eyes slowly falling to the ground.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
Junhong smiles at that, because she is a very reasonable and clever woman, and this kind of people makes the job so much easier. He opens the portal with a snap of his fingers — for the effect, must he confess, as he doesn’t need anything to summon it — and stands proudly beside its entrance.
For her, the light emanating from it is all in shades of greenish blue, a pale turquoise with threads and speaks of gold circling the door’s frame.
“Do I have to pass through?”
“Yes, Mary.”
“What…” She lets out a shaky breath. “What is behind?”
And here goes the question he dreads, every time. He should be accustomed to it by now, as he can’t even recall one person that crossed the portal without asking.
“I don’t know. Rumours say it depends on the person going through.”
She looks at him as if he was mocking her for an instant, wary and doubtful. But soon, she realises he is not playing fool and genuinely doesn’t know — her expression morphs into a small smile. She laughs a little.
She takes a step closer to him, though she seems hesitant, and glances around the place with wonder. The edges of her realm are already whitening away.
Junhong extends his hand for her to take, and once she does, he brings her to his chest in a slow motion.
“Do not fear Death.” He smiles down to her, his eyes staring into her glassy ones. “You have been a wonderful woman, and you will be remembered as such.”
She nods, visibly moved, and he concludes she doesn’t need his hand anymore so he lets her go. Her skin shines as the blue light slithers around her body and wraps her figure progressively, and one step is all it takes for her to disappear completely in a flash.
Junhong closes the portal and goes on with the job.
As a Grim Reaper, Junhong has come to meet a lot of various people, all with different tempers and characters. Souls behave very differently when facing their own death, though questions are a constant.
The young man makes a point of honour to answer them all as best he can, with honesty and warmth. Though his goal has always been bringing a last ounce of peace and reassurance before making his charges pass through the portal, he is aware that some others have grown bitter and impatient, and sadly do not hesitate to mistreat humans.
And he can understand why they do. Forcing souls past the door indeed sounds appealing at times, considering some of them put up terrible fights and go to ridiculously great extents to avoid reapers. They tend to think they could trick Death’s hand men, or bargain for a miraculous resurrection, which can turn pretty annoying as centuries go on.
Junhong is glad Youngjae has been his mentor — the elder is infamous for his wisdom and politeness, and he thankfully passed on his love for clean jobs to his junior.
“Are you God?”
The girl is twelve at the most. She looks mildly scared, but she doesn’t cry, and Junhong can’t even begin to explain how much of a relief that is — he keeps his guard up, though, because children are scarily unpredictable. He tries his best to offer her a friendly smile.
“How do you define ‘God’?”
She looks shocked — eyes widening, mouth agape, eyebrows up to her hairline — but takes a moment to consider thoroughly what to answer.
“God is the entity that takes care of all living things.”
“Then I’m not.” Junhong laughs, and for the first time in a while, it doesn’t feel forced. “My craft rather concerns dead things.”
Junhong passes around five days in her company, but finally manages to coax her into passing the portal after a very eventful game of hide and seek. Kids really aren’t his favourite.
He doesn’t remember how he became one of Death’s hands. Truth be told, he doesn’t remember anything.
Reapers all have human appearances, though they’re unrealistic ones. Their skins look like marble, even for the most tanned ones, and their tints seem grainy. Their figures look too thin, and over all, empty; their eyes have unnatural shades of colours, their bodies are hairless. And they feel cold, so cold.
Junhong can’t shake the thought away, that maybe a heart had once been beating in their ribcages. Maybe had they all been humans, and when their time had come, they refused to pass through the portal — so the hands that were in charge of them proposed them a deal, and turned them into the next generation of Reapers. When he explained this theory to Youngjae, the latter replied it was probably the most absurd thing he had ever heard.
And absurd things, Youngjae had heard a lot through the years they have spent together. Junhong wondered about an impossibly broad amount of things, from human feelings to the portal and what laid beyond, to the morality or even the point of their job. All he could do was assume as his reasoning could be proven neither wrong nor right, but sometimes the elder joined him in his delirium and pondered about crazy topics with him. Never in all seriousness, of course, as it felt like he was just addressing a fantasizing child; but the small rhetorics were enough to Junhong.
“What do you think is beyond the portal?”
“Junhong, c’m’on!” Youngjae heaves a desperate sigh. “Not you too.”
“Aren’t you curious? If humans ask us this a billion time a day, there must be a reason.”
“Which is none of our concern. Why would you care about what’s behind the door?” He cups the taller man’s face with his hands, forcing his eyes to focus on him. “We will never know, so stop tormenting yourself.”
And Junhong never stops tormenting himself.
He hates not knowing the answer, especially since he is remembered of his incompetence an incalculable amount of times a day.
Of course, the job isn’t always easy. Junhong understood that many, many decades ago, but the overwhelming roughness of it all still surprises him at times. Like at this precise moment.
Daehyun looks at him with fury veiling his eyes, which are still red from the overdose that killed him about two years ago.
“We have been going through this a countless amount of times.” Junhong starts, jaw clenched tight. “Just pass through the damn portal already.”
He feels annoyance punching through him with a regular beat, yet still tries his best to look professional and composed — his hands are kept neatly crossed on his front, his shoulders are high.
“I won’t.” The man is panting, rage trying to choke him. “I won’t leave.”
“Look around you, see you have absolutely nowhere to stay. Your realm has expired, they’re not made to be kept up so long.”
Daehyun’s breath get caught in his throat as he starts coughing and gasp for air — it is awful to see a soul reach such a level of decay, wasting away in a realm of nothingness. Junhong looks away, trying to avoid the grim scene laying before him.
“What have you done to me, you monster?!” The man shouts, surprisingly loudly for he is completely bent on himself.
“I didn’t do anything to you, Daehyun.” Junhong tries to temper calmly.
He starts intoning a mantra of “I won’t leave. I won’t leave. I won’t leave.”, all reason lost to Madness as an intense pain seems to fill him. The man breaks into a run all of a sudden, dashing left and right and hurting himself on the walls of his realm like a scared animal.
Junhong sighs again. “They are closing in.”
The soul pointlessly scratches at the white in front of him with rage and fear. It all seems to have no beginning nor end.
“Let me go, let me go!”
Junhong’s clenches his jaw even tighter, so much he wonders if he will eventually manage to bite through his teeth; he then proceeds to unfold his fingers and slowly passes a hand through his hair to calm himself down — to little avail, as he can’t even feel the limb.
“You do know I can’t bring you back to life, right?”
“I will find a way by myself, just let me go!”
The young Reaper lets out a quiet grunt, feeling patience ebb out his body in significant waves as frustration mixes with the stress of not being able to finalise the job. “Other souls require my guidance. I can’t afford to lose any more time in your realm, so just quit whining and pass through the portal.”
Daehyun stops punching at the realm’s borders, turning around with his head tilted to the side. He looks like a wild animal eyeing a prey, and it all feels too new and too disturbing for Junhong to keep the composed act up.
“How hard must it be to maintain the whole universe balanced.” The decayed soul spits out bitterly. “In your shoes, man, I wouldn’t have borne it two days before trying to kill myself. Oh, no, wait… That’s right, you’re immortal.”
Junhong feels a hot sting of something he can’t name under his skin. It sparks and burns, and though he can’t pinpoint what it is exactly, he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to feel this.
“You’re not making any sense.”
“And so does your existence, you sad piece of shit.”
The Reaper feels something clenches inside of him, and suddenly doesn’t know how he is supposed to react anymore. So he does nothing but stare, for a very long while, as he thoroughly examines the other’s words without really catching any of their meaning. Eventually, he decides it is probably panic that made the man speak, and chooses to leave the insult unanswered.
He is so tired of fighting.
“Fine. Since I can’t seem to make you change your mind, I give up on your soul.”
Daehyun’s eyes grow impossibly wide at that, aura shining with hope and a sort of dread. It is all so overwhelming, and Junhong feels a little sick as he shouts Youngjae’s name in the air.
The Reaper appears beside Daehyun, making him jump to the other side of the confined realm and yell in surprise — again, he tries to scratch at the incorporeal walls surrounding them to escape, but a twitch of the brunet’s fingers is enough to freeze him in his tracks and make him fall to the ground.
“Daehyun, let me introduce you to Youngjae.”
The soul’s face is held unmoving, distorted in an expression of horror as the eldest Reaper seizes him by the throat and forces him on his legs. He visibly tries to kick and scream, but the death grip on his neck effortlessly stops each one of his attempts.
Junhong’s nausea can only get worse as Youngjae pushes the soul toward the doors, looking bizarrely unaffected — he wonders if he should intervene and protest his friend’s manner, but stops himself. After all, he had called him to the rescue for this, hadn’t he?
He stares at Daehyun trying to put up a fight, not giving up on his thrashing around even though he knows he is no match against one of Death’s hand. It all seems wrong on every aspects, and Junhong can feel it bone deep.
Youngjae approaches the portal, Daehyun’s body still brandished high in front of him, and lets the soul bath in the dark glow coming out from the door. It seems to get excited by its presence; the ray of light twirls around both of their bodies, making Junhong even more dizzy — and before Youngjae can be fully wrapped by the black haze covering the ground, he drops the other man in the emptiness behind the gate.
A gurgle bounces through the realm, followed by a loud buzz and quiet whispers. Junhong hurries and makes the portal disappear in a gust of air, too scared to keep it open. He heaves out a sigh, eyes slowly finding their way to Youngjae’s own ones, mercilessly glued on him.
“This job was nasty.” He states after a long silence, eyebrows furrowing. “Take a little break, Junhong. Go have a walk up the Serra do Mar or something.”
“I’m fine. It’s all right.”
The younger Reaper tries his best to offer his mentor a convincing smile, but something on his face must have betrayed his weakness — Youngjae keeps staring unblinkingly at him, his scowl deepening. And Junhong finds himself at a loss for words, unable to understand what his friend is expecting from him, so he flees.
Maybe was he not as fine as he had pretended to be in front of Youngjae.
The jobs keep going on, and on, in the same old routine they have always been. People cry, bargain, ask questions, try to run away, or just want to have a last chat before crossing the portal. It’s the usual, nothing more and nothing less, so Junhong isn’t sure why he feels a change.
He doesn’t know if it’s a good or bad change. It simply feels different.
And after a while, he realises he has stopped trying to smile.
He might have avoided Youngjae a little bit these past months (or decades, whatever), but jobs rarely involve team work so Reapers never contact each other, nor do they spend bonding time together.
Come to think of it, Junhong isn’t sure how he ended up befriending some of his kind — most of them are cold, harsh, and sort of scary, even for him. Youngjae is different though.
Youngjae can smile, and when he does, the skin around his eyes crinkles in the most adorable fashion. He feels strangely warm — not in the physical sense of the term, but his attitude is friendly and seems genuine. To Junhong, he means family, friendship, and protection altogether.
So why did it become so difficult to look him in the eyes, then?
Things take a turn for the worst when Junhong ends up in a hospital room on a snowy Christmas night.
A little boy is sitting on the only bed of the room, staring at him with astonishment inlaid on his face. All of a sudden, he straightens his back, raises his chin high, and offers the Reaper the most beautiful grin he has seen in a long, long time.
“Are you here to bring me a gift, Santa?”
Junhong feels raw pain swirls in his chest, crashing in waves against his ribcage, and containing all of his illegitimate emotions becomes harder by the second. His knees grow weak.
“I am sorry, Jongup. I am not Santa Claus.”
“How do you know my name, then? I promise I’ve been good this year.”
“I believe you have been, indeed.” Junhong’s face stretch into a crooked grimace, which probably doesn’t even look close to a grin. “I am not here to bring you a present though.”
“Then why are you here?” The boy eyes him suspiciously, as though he is expecting the joke to end soon.
Junhong feels trapped — and for the first time since the beginning of times, he doesn’t know how to explain himself. So he doesn’t.
“You’ve had this tumour for a very long time, haven’t you?” He sits near the boy’s legs, on the end of the bed, and smoothly turns his torso around so that he can face him properly.
Jongup pinches his lips together, visibly displeased by the turn their conversation is taking.
“Yes.”
“You have been through a lot of pain…” The Reaper can’t help but reaches out for the boy’s hair, lazily ruffling them — the latter lets out a little laugh that sets a fire in the pit of his stomach.
“Yes, but true warriors never surrender to pain!”
“That’s correct.”
For the first time in a while, Junhong lets his body go limp. His shoulders relax, the awfully tight cramp that distorts his features leaves his face, and his smile doesn’t feel forced anymore. He finds himself not wanting this moment to end, ever.
“Hey, do you want to see something cool?”
Jongup’s bright orbs snap up to him, staring back with a marvelous mix of curiosity and admiration. The little boy nods vigorously, and Junhong shakes his head, amused.
He brings his palm up to eye-level with the kid, and makes sure he has his full attention before letting it swing in front of him. A trail of golden powder follows his movement, along with a dim crimson light and a black smoke. A twirl of his fingers brings them all together, colliding beautifully, and in an instant their shapeless state morphs into the blurry silhouette of a unicorn.
Jongup lets out an amazed whoop, jaw hanging open, while his eyes follow the cloud gallop around him.
“How did you do this!”
“A little magic.” Junhong laughs, endeared.
“This is like, the best Christmas present, ever!”
The young Reaper wishes for time to stop running, for this moment to last forever. He swears to himself he will never forget Jongup’s shining eyes, his mellifluous laughter, and his adorable twitches of excitement.
He finds beauty in the littlest things the child does, and the glee blossoming in his mind efficiently whips out all of his past worries. What’s beyond the portal does not matter as long as Jongup doesn’t pass through it.
He loses tracks of time, playing around with the meager magic he owns as an angel of Death, and doesn’t notice the realm falling into pieces around them. Jongup is the first one to see the white walls that trap them into nothingness, and though he does not make any comment at first, Junhong feels his drastic change of behaviour. The unicorn, now a messy hamster sitting in his palm, goes forgotten as Jongup’s focus is dragged away to more serious matters.
“Where are we?” He asks, voice wavering.
Junhong isn’t sure what the lump forming in his throat means.
“It’s okay, we’re somewhere safe.”
“Where though?”
“In an alternative plane of reality. Just for you.”
Jongup’s eyes fall on his hands, rendered as pale as a sheet of paper due to the time they spent in his realm — the hamster he was holding vanishes into thin air when he closes his fingers on it. He doesn’t start screaming, nor does he let himself cry, but when he looks back up to the Reaper, his eyes are filled with tears.
“Where is my mom?”
“I don’t know, Jongup.” He whispers, a new kind of sorrow slowly crushing the quietness that was set in his chest.
“Bring me back to the hospital, please.”
“I can’t…”
The boy’s shoulders tremble under the strength of his sobs, and once again, Junhong doesn’t know what to do — he tries to gather him in his arms, only to be violently pushed away. And when he desperately tries to hush his outcries down, other louder ones echo through the room, making uneasiness grow in his chest.
Junhong feels a gust of air pass behind him and whips his head around, only to find the gate standing on the other side of the white cage, its door wide open letting pink light stream out of its pit. When he understands, it’s already too late.
Yongguk holds the kid in his arms, pressing his head against the crook of his neck, and slowly rocks him up and down to soothe his cries. He throws a glance at Junhong that sends chill run down his spine before settling all of his attention on the scared child.
The young Reaper is about to launch himself at the elder, ready to wrench the fragile soul away from him — but right as he tries to stand up from the hospital bed, a firm grip on his shoulder pushes him back down. Youngjae sits on the bed beside him, his hand never once leaving the other.
“What do you think you’re doing, Junhong?” He asks, voice not rising above a whisper, yet reprimanding enough.
“Don’t send him away, please. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Youngjae’s eyes slide to Yongguk and the boy in his arm. For an instant, Junhong believes he sees sadness pass through them, and seizes his chance — in a quick motion, he grabs the hand still resting on his shoulder with his own, knits their fingers together, and begs.
“Please, Youngjae. Please.”
Something seems to break inside of the elder, but Junhong isn’t able to pinpoint what it is before he tears his gaze away, avoiding.
The child’s sobs die down somewhere near, and he feels Yongguk move closer to them, past the hospital bed and toward the portal. He sets Jongup on the floor, careful not to be too quick, and holds his hand as the child tries to peers at what’s behind the foggy light.
“Jongup, don’t!”
Junhong attempts to stand up to take him away from the portal, only to be grabbed by Youngjae once again — and he watches, helpless, the kid wave him goodbye with a cheerful smile.
Yongguk closes the gate behind him and turns to face both of his counterparts.
“What the hell was that about?”
Though the elder is shorter than Junhong, his aura feels like it is towering over him, menacing.
“He didn’t deserve to die.”
“And who are you to judge?” Yongguk snickers.
Junhong brings a hand to his face, trying to wipe the cold sweat slithering down his forehead away. But nothing helps his feverish state — he doesn’t understand why his body is acting up so violently all of a sudden. It feels like his legs are failing him, and an overwhelming sensation of emptiness sits heavily in his chest and stomach.
“Whatever, Yongguk.” Youngjae quietly mutters, taking Junhong’s hand back in his. “He made a mistake, and so what; it happens even to the best of us.”
The eldest doesn’t reply to this, only sending them a last annoyed glance before exciting the empty realm, a cold breeze following him promptly. Youngjae turns to his friend then, bringing his free hand to the other’s cheek.
They stare into each other’s eyes for a while, their even breathing merging together on their cold skins, and Junhong can’t be sure what made him lean in and catch the other’s lips with his own, but he did. Probably the weirdest experience he ever had, yet it still felt sweet while it lasted — and now he just wishes he could forget everything about it.
He agrees to take a little time off the job, and tries to keep his free time organised. He visits the world's most beautiful places — sits on top of them, even. He sees the beauty of the universe around him, tries to keep in mind every little details.
Junhong scrams every time he spots one of his kind in the crowds around him, not wanting to be remembered of the job waiting for him once he gets back.
He takes time to think — it’s all he can do, anyway. He lays around in the greenest patches of grass the world has ever grown, and stares at the infinity of the skies above him in awe. Something is wrong with him.
As far as he knows, no Reaper had ever been as interested in humans as he was, and none ever wondered about what was beyond the gate.
Yongguk is right — he also doesn't have the right to judge the souls that he is leading to the portal, it is not his role. However, he has to confess, Daehyun’s disappearance felt like a relief, whereas Jongup’s tore apart the last remaining bits of his composure.
And the worst, he thinks, is that he isn't supposed to feel things like anguish, sadness, heartbreak, stress, anger. He isn’t supposed to feel desire either, and yet here he is.
From his head to his toes, everything about his existence feels broken and just wrong. He realises he can't be fixed — he is doomed to remain the piece that doesn't quite fit in the universe’s Grand Scheme, the one man who will never know his place.
Junhong ends up being sick of beautiful, popular touristic places, and finds himself rather enjoying loneliness on mountain’s peaks, and quiet stroll through deserts. But soon, the earth only feels like a homogeneous flat surface, the sights and people turning into the same mess of tiresome ugliness, and he knows it’s time for him to return home.
Youngjae finds him sitting on a public bench in the middle of Adilabad, India, and settles down on the empty spot beside him, faintly slouching.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
They let time flee unnoticed, solely focused on each other’s presence.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Youngjae asks, still staring at an unknown point straight in front of him.
“I need to be.”
“Junhong, look… You don’t have to come back now if you don’t feel like it.”
“I am fine, quit worrying.” The addressee orders softly, slowly turning around to glance at his friend. He knows he shouldn’t, but still reaches out to take Youngjae’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers — as expected, the other doesn’t fight him.
“I just want you to stay fine.” He whispers, eyes leisurely sliding to meet the younger’s own pair. “I want you to stay with me.”
“I will.”
And Junhong tries. He goes back to the job with a renewed professionalism, hoping the fake rules he set to limit himself will be enough — unfortunately though, souls are always so whimsical and unpredictable. Children ask him to play, fathers worry about their families, teenagers are just generally hateful. Elders, at least, know where they stand and usually don’t put up fights — may their souls be blessed for this.
Usually, because of course, there are always exceptions to generalities. Junhong knows this like no one else does, as it seems these rare special cases all fall under his care, every time.
Kyunghee keeps talking and talking, hoping the casual chat would delay her passage through the door, and Junhong can feel himself losing patience. She is way too energetic for a ninety-three year old.
“And you know what he told me? ‘Marry me.’ He confessed, just like that! So this is how I met my husband.”
Junhong heaves a sigh, trying to turn down her incessant rambling while waiting for her to run out of topics to discuss. Which turns out to take longer than what he had expected.
He ends up pushing her through the gate.
He can’t stand it anymore.
He realises he hates all that he is and all that he does, and the thought of doing it until the end of times makes him sick — he comes to this conclusion as he stands on top of the Loudoun Hill, watching the vast nature sprawled out in front of him with disgust. He screams, thumps his feet on the ground, punches the rock and simply lets go; he is done pretending to be fine.
Junhong ends up summoning the portal next to him, just like he normally does for the souls he is in charge of, and is surprised that he has to manually push the door open. No light comes out of it for him, it doesn’t feel like the gate is even here to begin with — hesitant, he first passes one of his hand through the entrance, and is amazed to see it become blurry, fading away.
The usual blinding light around its rim never let him actually see what was beyond, and he therefore takes a lot of time to admire the emptiness facing him. He hears a whisper, a quiet buzz, but nothing else matters.
“Junhong!” He hears Youngjae before he becomes conscious of his presence; of his arms wrapped tightly around his waist, of the force desperately trying to pull him back and away from the gate.
The elder flings him around, making them both lose their balance and fall to their knees in front of each other. Junhong tries to smile at the elder.
“Hi, Youngjae.”
The latter bites his lips, pitiful and distressed, tears filling his eyes. Had Junhong still cared, he would have called him out for looking so impossibly human.
“What are you doing, huh?” He whispers, breath winding between both their faces. “What are you doing, Junhong?”
“I can’t take it.”
“What is it?” Youngjae’s hand finds its way to the younger’s hair, tenderly gripping at his locks, before sliding down to rest on his cheek.
“Being a Reaper. I can’t take it anymore.”
Both of Youngjae’s palms wrap his face in a strangely warm embrace, thumbs stroking Junhong’s tears away — and since when do Reapers cry. Since when does Youngjae cry, too.
“It’s all right.” He murmurs, eyes locking with Junhong’s own pair. “It’s okay, you can let go. We will let go together.”
Junhong nods, a wave of exhaustion crashing on him — he tilts his head, burying it deeper in the elder’s palm, and takes the time to take in all of Youngjae’s features. He doesn’t look like a Reaper anymore, his skin lost its grainy marble appearance, and his irises only reflect natural shades of brown and black.
He looks beautiful.
Youngjae blinks his tears away, lids leisurely closing under the scrutinising stare of the younger Reaper; but even by being so close, being so focused on his every move and every breath, the other still manages to do something Junhong hadn’t expected — he drags his face closer to his, bringing their lips together, and slides his arms around his neck.
Junhong doesn’t delay in responding to the kiss, seizing the elder’s waist and pressing their chests together. Their exchange is slow and messy, and probably lasts a whole century.
When they pull away from each other, Youngjae is smiling — their tears have dried, and a new sun seems to light the area around them. Junhong is the first one to stand up, offering his hand to the elder, who gladly accepts it; and it’s together that they turn around to face the gate, hand still in hand.
“Do you still want to know what’s my guess about beyond?” Youngjae asks, squeezing the younger’s fingers with his own.
Junhong lets out a shaky laugh. “Yes, why not?”
“All I can see past this door…” Youngjae starts, then cuts himself. Junhong elbows him playfully, blaming him for being a tease; and eventually, he pursues, “All I can see past this door is you.”
They laugh at how stupidly cheesy it sounds. The younger finally takes a step forward, his lover following in his tracks.
