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The first few times he has to watch Sunoo die in front of him are excruciating.
In their first life together (or at least the first life Jungwon remembers — he’s lost count at this point), they’re teenage boys in Seoul. Best friends, though Jungwon wishes for something more. He thinks Sunoo does too, but neither of them have broached the topic yet. Jungwon is afraid of what will happen if he does. For now, he’s content with this: Sunoo’s smile hidden in his shoulder, shared glances at the back of a classroom, playing footsie underneath the lunch table.
As it turns out, they never get a chance to become something more.
A scream, the squeal of tyres, a heavy thud, and then a rush of noise.
“I’m sorry,” the woman gasps. Her hands flutter uselessly over Sunoo’s body. “I’m sorry I’m so sorry I didn’t even see—Eunji, call an ambulance!”
Jungwon’s not listening to her and he’s not paying attention to her daughter either, Yoon Eunji from class 2A. She goes to the same hagwon as Jungwon and Sunoo. Jungwon will never look at her the same again.
“No no no,” he’s whispering. He feels like he’s gonna be sick; he never wanted to see what Sunoo looks like with blood pouring from his head. It encircles him like a halo. “Please please please no no no—”
Then he starts to cry. Jungwon thinks he must stay perpetually crying for the fifty-six years that he has to endure without Sunoo afterwards, as he doesn’t remember a single thing that happens after that.
The next life is even worse. They’re new boyfriends here, on the way back to campus from their third date. Sunoo’s hand is warm in his, slightly sweaty from the oppressive heat of the London underground, and he’s resting his head on Jungwon’s shoulder.
Jungwon’s so ecstatic that he has to bite the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from smiling like a maniac, which is why the universe gives him something to wipe the smile off his face permanently.
A fault in the braking system is what the newspapers announce the next morning. Sunoo dies in his arms while the fire blazes around them. Jungwon only lives for a few more years, which is something he’s grateful for.
(After many years, they come to realise that Sunoo has a natural affinity for dying via modes of transport. Jungwon’s deaths are a bit more varied, but the universe seems to love drowning him.)
Jungwon wishes for something less…messy. More clinical. Something where he’s not left shaking by the side of the road with his hands covered in Sunoo’s blood.
Of course, he wishes for Sunoo to not die at all — or at least not be the first one to die out of the two of them — but that doesn’t work. So the universe at least grants him this, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner.
In this life they’re married and living in Seattle. It’s the first time they’ve gotten married, actually, and Jungwon is flying high. What makes it more special is the fact that it’s the real Sunoo with him here. A real marriage.
He’s so, so happy. They’re happy.
Sunoo only complains about miniscule things like the weather and how it’s always raining and why does Jungwon even like living somewhere so wet, at which point Jungwon always grins and says because you’re my sunshine and Sunoo groans and covers his face and calls him cheesy. But he doesn’t stop bringing up the weather and Jungwon is sure it’s because he likes hearing that same response, so.
He should have known it was too good to be true.
He also should have known the universe would find a loophole. Well, not a loophole, but it's not exactly what Jungwon wanted. Stage four brain cancer is surely cleaner and more detached than a car crash, but it also means that death doesn’t come quickly.
“How long?” Sunoo asks after a prolonged silence, voice steady. He squeezes Jungwon’s hand. It should probably be Jungwon’s job to ask that question, but he’s afraid that if he opens his mouth he might vomit.
“A year,” the doctor says apologetically. “Give or take. I’m sorry.” She looks between the two of them, at the way Jungwon is shaking in his seat, and gentles her voice even further. “Do you wish to discuss treatment now?”
Sunoo is quiet next to him, rubbing his thumb back and forth on Jungwon’s hand in comfort. Jungwon refuses to let him down so he nods, and the doctor nods back and turns to her computer.
Even with all the overtime Jungwon picks up, it’s still not enough to pay for scans and chemotherapy and radiation so he finds a second job. His world narrows down to going to work and briefly coming home to Sunoo for a few hours of sleep, before starting the cycle again. When Sunoo begins to deteriorate and forget who Jungwon is, Jungwon only goes home to shower and spends the rest of his limited free time sleeping on the uncomfortable plastic chair by Sunoo’s hospital bed.
That was the worst death. It still sticks out in Jungwon’s mind even now, a clear visualisation of the white of the hospital walls and bed and Sunoo’s face. The colours in his memory are uncomfortably saturated.
The silver lining is that once you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. Watching Sunoo die becomes easier after that.
They tried working it out once. If Jungwon had his way then they would talk about it more, but once was enough for Sunoo. In all their years together, it’s the only time they’ve ever shouted at each other.
Here’s what they’ve inferred so far: parallel universes, soulmates, reincarnation, bending the rules of time. Throw all of that into a blender and you'll be greeted with Sunoo and Jungwon.
The concept of soulmates wasn't a hard sell. Jungwon doesn't meet Sunoo in every one of his lives, and vice versa, but it's too many times to be a simple coincidence. The universe must be pushing them together for a reason and, well, soulmates makes as much sense as anything else.
Rarely, the two of them are reborn into the same life in the same universe at the same time. At the start, Jungwon had dubbed that phenomenon as meeting the real Sunoo and now the term has stuck. It doesn't mean that the other Sunoos he meets and loves along the way are fake, they're just not his Sunoo. The Sunoo that knows about soulmates and reincarnation and time.
When he finds Sunoo, it’s always immediately obvious if it’s the real Sunoo or not. The eyes always give him away, Jungwon thinks fondly. A flare of recognition lights up Sunoo’s eyes as soon as he spots Jungwon, and then a giddy smile stretches across his face as if he can’t control it. Jungwon probably looks equally deranged in these moments.
Then they’ll barge across the room, or field or courtyard or bridge, to meet in the middle and continue grinning at each other. Hi, stranger, Sunoo will whisper to him and Jungwon will reply Hi yourself and he can breathe a little easier.
He never explains the whole concept of soulmates and everything else to the other Sunoos. He came close, once, outside a bar in Buenos Aires. The alcohol was an oversight on his part. It's easier to blame the alcohol when he remembers Sunoo's strained smile and the furtive, almost scared glance he'd shot at Jungwon over his shoulder.
Jungwon never did manage to get him back in that life, so now he never mentions his theory to any non-real Sunoo he meets. It's enough — Jungwon will always be happy with Sunoo in any capacity.
Another important thing to remember is that time isn’t linear. Sometimes the ferry spits them out in eras Jungwon remembers learning about in school — it had been fascinating at first, but the novelty had quickly worn off after the third time he’d died of smallpox. Immersive education, indeed. He passes every exam about the Ottoman Empire or World War One with flying colours. It would be amusing, if there weren’t any instances of locking eyes with a terrified Sunoo across a battlefield. Then Jungwon suddenly finds everything less funny.
He envisions time as a squiggle, lines criss-crossing at random in various shapes. As if the universe was a child being commanded to devise her signature and time is what flows from her pencil.
But a squiggle, an intentional one with the right number of swoops and curves, is harder to draw.
One night when Jungwon is alone (he seems to always be alone, in this world) and there’s nothing to distract himself with, he takes a sheet of paper and sits down at the kitchen table. He draws two horizontal, near-parallel lines across the page that only intersect periodically, and only for a short time. He also draws two dots, one on each line. One dot is labelled Jungwon and one dot, on the second line and directly below the dot symbolising Jungwon, is labelled Sunoo.
(Jungwon does this every so often, just to remind himself of the fact that Sunoo is out there somewhere and it won’t be long before Jungwon sees him again. It’s an inane exercise but it at least keeps him from going crazy.)
When he wakes up the next morning with the paper sticking to his cheek, the lines are smudged.
Jungwon always arrives at the port first. He doesn't know why; that's just the way it's always been.
He thinks it's in Singapore but he can't be sure. Or a replica of Singapore — recently he's started to think that the port isn't anywhere at all. A floating island in space which only serves as a rest point before they get ferried to their next destination.
The port is always completely devoid of life — no people, no seagulls, not even any insects. It seems to be exclusive to only him and Sunoo, which is why Jungwon doesn't mind spending time here. After fragmenting into all the countries of the world, it's nice to have a place that no one else has touched.
After a few goes of this, Jungwon surmised that they’re taken to the port after every century spent living. A celebration of one hundred years, of death and rebirth and death and rebirth.
(He used to think, incorrectly, that the port must mark the turn of the century but that theory had been dashed when he’d immediately been reborn into the Korean War. So, for the sake of accuracy: every century spent living, not necessarily the transition of one linear century to another. Sunoo always tells him that he thinks about this too deeply.)
Once he realised this, he began to keep count. It’s quite useful, in a way, as it means he’s able to count down the years to seeing Sunoo again. It’s especially helpful when he’s at the end of his tether, like in his most recent life. Just ten more years, Jungwon used to repeat to himself as his sergeant held his head underwater and shouted muffled curses at him. Just ten more years and I can see Sunoo again. Ten years is nothing.
Jungwon leans against the sea wall to stare down into the water below, and waits. He doesn’t have to wait long.
“The Ming dynasty was fun,” Sunoo tells him cheerfully once he’s come to a stop next to Jungwon. “You look very handsome with long hair, you know.”
Jungwon smiles. "I could say the same about you." He turns away from the water to face Sunoo and their shoulders bump into each other; Jungwon's blood sings with the contact. "I missed you."
Sunoo's smile softens into something reserved only for Jungwon. "Was I gone for that long?"
“Long enough. It always feels long without you.” There’s a pebble on the top of the wall, polished smooth, and Jungwon skips it across the water. It only bounces twice before sinking. “I couldn’t find you at all in my previous life. But the one before that was fine.”
Sunoo tuts and nudges Jungwon’s shoulder playfully. “Only fine? Wow, and here I was thinking that you—”
“Good,” Jungwon amends. “It was good.” Then again, quieter this time: “It was good.”
“Good,” Sunoo says decisively, and grins at his own joke. “For what it’s worth, I missed you too. You were such a stickler for rules in that life, it was borderline painful. Oh we shouldn’t do this or we’ll be in trouble if we get caught doing that. So boring! But I wore you down eventually.”
Jungwon can’t help but laugh. “Oh yeah? And how long did that take?”
“Three days,” Sunoo says in a sing-song voice. He sounds awfully proud of himself. “Not long at all. I think you may be losing your touch.”
“Probably,” Jungwon concedes. “Not surprising at all when it comes to you, though. All the other Jungwons of the galaxy must hold a soft spot for you, it’s built into our DNA.”
Sunoo’s face goes momentarily slack, like it always does when Jungwon says something romantic, before Jungwon suddenly finds himself with an armful of warm boy.
“You know I never know what to do when you say things like that,” Sunoo mumbles into his ear. They’re of a height, a small thing which makes Jungwon immensely pleased. Twin flames in every sense of the term.
Jungwon huffs out a laugh. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m just saying.”
“No,” Sunoo says seriously, “I want to.” He pulls his head away from Jungwon so they can make eye contact, and his face breaks into a grin. “I think I should kiss you.”
“That’s always a nice idea,” Jungwon admits, feeling his own mouth curve into a grin involuntarily.
Sunoo’s kisses are like syrup, slow and sweet and addictive. Even after so many different realities lived and experiences tried and people met, Jungwon has never found anything like it. Anything like Sunoo. That’s why they’re soulmates, he supposes.
Their mouths make a wet sound as they separate and they lean their foreheads together to recuperate, breath mingling. This, to Jungwon, is the apex of humanity. The very reason he’s alive and on Earth and cycling through as many lives as he does. It all comes down to Sunoo.
“Ferry’s here,” Sunoo observes as he turns his head a millimetre to the right. Jungwon follows suit and spots the beacon of white on the horizon, disrupting the monochrome embrace between the night sky and sea.
It’s moving towards them at a quick pace. Too quick to be real, Jungwon has started to think. Another point to support his hypothesis.
“I love you,” Jungwon blurts out before the ferry reaches the docks. “I know you know—obviously you know, but I just wanted to say it.”
Sunoo grins down at their joint hands before bringing them up so he can kiss the back of Jungwon’s hand. “I love you. See, I wanted to say it too.”
“What a gentleman,” Jungwon teases. The effect is somewhat offset by the way his voice cracks.
The ferry has pulled in and it looms over them now; Sunoo’s face is thrown into shadow but Jungwon catches the white of his grin.
They never linger at the port long. Once, Jungwon had convinced Sunoo to not get on the ferry just yet. They stayed a little longer than usual, attempting to wile away the time, but it didn’t accomplish anything. It really was only a port and both of them get bored easily.
“Ready?” Sunoo asks.
At Jungwon’s nod, they walk up the ramp stretching down to greet them. Sunoo doesn’t let go of his hand and Jungwon sets his mind on memorising the sensation of it. He doesn’t know how long it will be before their next meeting.
“Until next time,” Sunoo promises as the inside of the ferry swallows them up. Then they shatter.
Next time turns out to be a long way away. Perhaps the longest period of time Jungwon has endured without seeing Sunoo, actually. Four lives spread over eighty-six years. At this point Jungwon’s resigned himself to not meeting Sunoo again until their obligatory reunion at the port.
Even for someone like Jungwon, eighty-six years is a long time. Doubly so when he doesn’t have a Sunoo to keep him company.
All this to say that he’s pissed off and tired and already dreading the next fourteen years. Each year seems to go by more slowly than the last.
His work sends him to Dresden in Germany, a promotion that he’s been seeking. He’s twenty-nine, alone and wanting, and if there’s nothing else going on in his life he might as well work hard. His flight touches down in the early evening, when the sky is that hue of burnt orange, and he wheels his suitcase behind him as he exits the airport.
The buses are delayed, so Jungwon decides to hail a taxi to his new apartment instead. After he drops off his suitcase and takes a look around (it’s small but he’s lived in far worse places), he decides he feels too antsy to hole up here for the rest of the night. And he’s mildly hungry, but not enough to eat an actual dinner.
There’s a coffee shop a few streets away, so Jungwon pockets his phone and leaves without preamble.
It’s a short walk and he thinks of nothing at all, right up until he opens the door to the cafe and sees Sunoo sitting inside. Relief shudders through Jungwon, almost violently. His fingernails scratch at the wood of the door and he forces himself to unfreeze, to move forward into the inviting warmth.
Sunoo is hunched over a book so he hasn’t noticed Jungwon yet, which is why Jungwon goes up to the counter first and orders one of the pastries on display. He’s not even paying attention to the ingredients or the price. He hopes it’s not obvious how much his legs are shaking.
He grabs his to-go pastry and, without saying anything, slides into the empty chair opposite Sunoo. Sunoo’s gasp is like music to his ears; Jungwon physically feels his shoulders relax. The real Sunoo this time around. Thank the heavens.
Sunoo’s hair is cropped short, one of those hairstyles that fell out of fashion decades ago. Perhaps Dresden has been having a vintage resurgence, or Jungwon has lost track of what’s stylish nowadays. Either one is possible.
The smile he’s giving Jungwon is blinding and too much too much too much after eighty-six years without him, why did he have to be gone for so long, so Jungwon finds his gaze dropping to the table.
“Back so soon,” Sunoo remarks with a smile in his voice. There’s no hint of sarcasm or irony there, and Jungwon looks up sharply.
“I haven’t seen you,” he says somewhat resentfully, “in eighty-six years.”
Sunoo blinks at the admission. “Oh.” His tone switches to one of sympathy. “I’m sorry, it’s not usually so long.” No, it’s not. Jungwon thought he must have been doing something wrong, stumbling into life after life after life with no sign of Sunoo anywhere. “You’ve been in all of my lives since the port, you know.”
Jungwon stares at the table and tries not to let the envy show on his face. “What happened in the last one?”
Sunoo smiles faintly and begins to toy with his teaspoon, placing it on the dish and then picking it up again for no apparent reason. “That one wasn’t so good. You died of tuberculosis when you were nine. The previous one was better, I think. We lived to a ripe old age.”
“Good,” Jungwon exhales. “That’s good.”
"Those ones are always the best ones." His face is lost in thought, eyes far away from this newly-established oasis in Dresden. "The mundane ones. I don't like the lives with a lot of drama."
Jungwon raises his eyebrows. "Drama?"
"Death. Pain. Grieving. I feel like we get too many of those." Sunoo leans his cheek on the palm of his hand and stares glumly down into the remnants of his latte. "It's unfair."
At least I'm there with you, Jungwon thinks. I didn't even get to have that. Eighty-six years crawl by so slowly without you.
He doesn’t say that, obviously. Instead: "That's how life is. There has to be a balance between the good and the bad. It would probably be boring if we were completely happy all the time for hundreds of years."
Sunoo's mouth draws into a half-sneer before he remembers himself. His face smooths out into an impenetrable mask. "Do you honestly believe that?"
Annoyance is in every line of his body. He was difficult to read at first, charming facade forever obscuring his true feelings, but Jungwon's got the hang of it now. Or maybe Sunoo has done away with his facade over time.
"No," Jungwon says honestly. "I'm just trying to make us both feel better. Of course it sucks."
Sunoo nods and Jungwon watches as the frustration drains out of him. He pushes his dish aside and stands up, grabbing his jacket from where it's been hanging over the back of his chair. "Come on, then. I don't think you've ever been to Dresden, right?"
"I haven't." Jungwon stands up too and grabs Sunoo's hand to lock their fingers together. A teenage girl at the table next to them sneaks a few glances at their joint hands, but none of the other patrons bat an eye. He decides to go one step further and kisses Sunoo's cheek. "I'd love to see your apartment first."
The smile he gets from Sunoo is worth it.
In contrast to the eighty-six years spent without Sunoo, the fourteen years they have left together go by in the blink of an eye. Jungwon wholeheartedly concurs with Sunoo's earlier assessment of life being unfair.
After three years they grow bored of Germany and decide to relocate to Kyoto. Between the two of them they have enough money saved up for a small house sitting right by Lake Biwa, and Jungwon spends a lot of his mornings swimming as he waits for Sunoo to wake up. Sunoo has always been a habitual late riser, no matter what life they’re in.
Eleven years after moving to Kyoto, anticipation takes root and permeates into the fine grains of their wooden walls. It used to feel odd, contemplating their imminent deaths, but Jungwon’s long past that now — in fact, the familiarity of it is quite soothing. He has a funny feeling what it will be this time around, anyway.
The warning comes on a Friday. Jungwon’s making his way back from work when he hears it, a clean interruption of the radio broadcast. The woman speaks slowly and clearly with no panic underlying her words. It's a simple order for evacuation.
Sunoo is waiting for him in the driveway, arms crossed. They both know it will be pointless to evacuate.
"Good life?" Sunoo checks as they lay in bed together. He asks this right at the end of every life they share together, right before they know death is coming to retrieve their souls. As if Jungwon's answer will ever be negative.
Any life with Sunoo is a good life. Sunoo should know that by now.
"The best," Jungwon answers. Sunoo has crow's feet now, skin around his eyes crinkling when he smiles, and Jungwon traces them unthinkingly. "It's always the best when it's with you."
"Good," Sunoo says, as he always does. "That's good." And then, as he always does: "I love you."
It never gets old. It never will.
They die in each other's arms a few hours later, together in the comfort of their home. Death plucks them easily as they draw their last breaths, their souls ensconced in a slimy coldness, but it's only temporary.
“A tsunami is always fun,” Jungwon professes as an afterthought once they’re back at the port, and Sunoo laughs into his mouth.
Sometimes Sunoo doesn’t look like Sunoo at all.
Jungwon has met him on the narrow streets of Nairobi, the winding rivers of Bangladesh, the beaches of Brazil. All of those times had been with a face Jungwon hadn’t expected and a new name to match. But it never matters to him — it’s still Sunoo, still the same effervescent smile and buoyant laugh and warm kindness.
Jungwon always knows when he meets Sunoo. Sure, his physical appearance changes, but a soul is innate. A soul remains the same no matter what, no matter how many lives they go through, and Jungwon can instinctively detect when he's meeting Sunoo. He has his own distinctive aura, something which welcomes Jungwon in.
It feels like coming home.
Once, they’d both been reborn as two women in nineteen-eighties Busan. It was definitely one of the more memorable worlds, and one of Jungwon’s favourites too. It wasn’t the real Sunoo, and both of them were married to men they didn’t love and mothers to children they had to try hard to love, but it’s still a life he cherishes.
He remembers it so vividly. And this is Kim Sunhee, Jungwon’s mother had introduced and Sunoo had looked up from the stack of dishes with a tired smile on her face. Such a nice girl and married to Kim Yoosung — you remember that lawyer I was telling you about, Jungsook-ah? What a shame that he’s always in Japan but I suppose—
Jungwon had taken one look at Sunoo, at the tendrils of hair curling around her ears and the stains on her apron and the redness of her mouth, and thought oh. Like coming home. It always feels like coming home.
Jungwon isn’t a fan of solitude. When he doesn’t find Sunoo, he tries to seek someone else out either as a friend or lover. It makes life more bearable. Naturally, he’s not always able to fulfil this goal of his but it happens more often than expected.
A lot of the time, he manages to encounter Jay. Jay’s soul, Jungwon comes to learn, has its own unique signature. He never experiences that instinctive feeling like he does with Sunoo, but Jay carries a certain brand of sincerity with him which Jungwon establishes as something that only belongs to Jay.
Jay must be experiencing the same thing as Sunoo and Jungwon, reincarnation and time and fated meetings, but he never gives any indication of knowing this. Perhaps there is a Jay out there who is aware of soulmates and reincarnation and time, but Jungwon never meets him. As far as he knows, anyway.
Jungwon supposes it doesn’t really matter — he’s grateful for Jay’s presence regardless. If finding Sunoo’s soul is like coming home, then finding Jay’s soul is like hopping off a boat onto solid ground for the first time in months. Steady, unyielding. The two of them are different in the levels of comfort they offer.
He likes Jay. He’s just not Sunoo.
“How was your day?” Jungwon asks him while they’re preparing dinner. There’s a contentment to be found in small talk. He’s come to appreciate it after all these years.
“The usual. One of our clients, the finance corp I told you about on Monday, is adding on even more demands and just generally being annoying. But we’re dealing with it.” Jungwon hums and it harmonises with the sound of Jay’s knife hitting the chopping board. “And then my mom called and asked me to send her some of your baby photos because she doesn’t have any to show to her friends.”
“They’re in the box underneath the bed,” Jungwon reminds him absently.
“Yeah, I know. I found them.” Then he says, too casually: “I found your letters to Kim Sunoo as well. The actor.”
Jungwon’s hand pauses for a moment and he forces a laugh, brittle and loud. “Oh. Well, that’s embarrassing.” He resumes slicing the chicken. “Teenage obsession and all that. I always forget to throw those letters out.”
Jay is quiet and unmoving behind him; Jungwon can feel his eyes on his back. He should turn around and make eye contact, think up some more excuses, but something keeps him rooted to the spot. He’s never been ashamed of his love for Sunoo, but he’s scared that he will be if he sees the expression on Jay’s face.
“You’ve never once spoken about me that way,” Jay continues, so soft Jungwon almost doesn’t hear him. “The things you were saying about him, to him…”
Jungwon shrugs, a jumpy movement because of how tense his shoulders are. Sweat is starting to gather in the lines of his palms now, but he still can’t find it in himself to face Jay. “First loves are always more intense, everyone knows that. It doesn’t mean I love you any less than I loved him.”
“It’s a shame, then,” Jay says in a low voice, “that you were my first love. But Kim Sunoo seems to have gotten there first, huh?"
You have no idea, Jungwon thinks.
Croatia this time, with the real Sunoo. He’s forgotten what year it is. Keeping track of years is unimportant when he has the real Sunoo here with him. He prefers to ignore the passage of time as it means that he doesn’t have to worry about how quickly they’ll be moving onto the next life.
“Do you think we’ll always be like this?” Jungwon asks. He sprays dirt onto Sunoo’s jeans when he pulls out a clump of grass, and Sunoo eyes it without comment. “Just two souls reborn over and over again, doomed to an eternal cycle until the world ends or something. Who knows when that will be.”
Sunoo snorts. “It sounds less romantic when you say it like that. Think of it as getting a second chance after we weren't able to be happy the first time around."
"And a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth," Jungwon mumbles. "A lot of extra chances given, even after we got our happy ending."
"So?" He's unhappy, mouth drawn in a tight line. "What, you would prefer that we only have one life together? I die when we're teenagers and that's it? And we never see each other again?"
"No. I don't know." Jungwon scrubs a hand over his face and leans his head on Sunoo’s shoulder in placation. "Sometimes."
Sunoo softens his voice. "Sometimes you wish we were like everyone else?" He winds a lock of Jungwon's hair around his index finger; it's a habit he's never been able to get rid of, no matter what body he’s in. "For all we know, they could be going through the same thing as us."
Unbidden, Jungwon thinks of Jay. But Jay is a mere drop in the ocean of people that Jungwon has swam through in all of his lifetimes. "Not everyone. It can't be everyone. Some people are just…"
"Normal," Sunoo fills in. "And you wanna be normal."
It's not a question.
Jungwon nods in confirmation, cheek brushing Sunoo’s jacket. Horrifyingly, he feels himself start to cry. His throat closes up first, and then the tears prick at the corner of his eyelids. Jungwon hates it when Sunoo sees him cry so he turns his head further into Sunoo’s shoulder. There's nothing he can do about the physical evidence.
"Why are you crying?" Sunoo asks, alarmed. He tries to pull Jungwon's head up but Jungwon clings to him, unwilling to show his face, so Sunoo gives up and strokes a soothing hand through his hair instead. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad. I thought that—”
“I know,” Jungwon says miserably into the leather. There’s a sound of something unsticking as Jungwon peels his face off of the jacket. He quickly draws an arm across his face, wiping the tears off his cheeks, then clears his throat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise.” Sunoo’s own voice wavers — this is why Jungwon doesn’t like crying in front of him. Being alarmingly in tune with each other has its downsides. “Let me just get my own thoughts in order.”
Jungwon finds Sunoo’s hand and squeezes. The tuft of grass is lying on the ground a couple of inches in front of them, so with his other hand Jungwon begins to arrange the blades on his knee while he waits.
"Look," Sunoo starts once Jungwon has finished a neat, vertical line, "the way I see it is different. And I don't know if this will change your mind but I think it's worth hearing it from my point of view anyway. I believe we're lucky."
"Lucky," Jungwon echoes.
"Yes," Sunoo continues emphatically, "because I get the privilege to see you in all of these different lifetimes. I get to experience meeting you and being in love with you over and over again and somehow it never gets boring. I’m always so happy whenever I find you, sometimes I can’t even believe it. Even when you die or I die or we die together, I’m just glad that I was able to be by your side no matter how short of a time it was. Sure, the dying itself may not be enjoyable, but a part of me looks forward to it because I know that we’ll have another life together soon and I can familiarise myself with you once more. How many people can say that about the love of their life?"
"Oh," Jungwon exhales. He's starting to understand Sunoo's viewpoint now.
Sunoo's not done. "Because you are. You're the love of my life, in all of my lives." He smiles at Jungwon, tears spiking his eyelashes. He’s so pretty. "Don't you think there's something poetic in that?"
It's fascinating how quickly Jungwon attunes himself to Sunoo. His body always remembers before his brain — Sunoo's soul draws him in, as if Jungwon is a planet orbiting the sun.
At the age of six, Jungwon isn't quite articulate enough yet to conceptualise what exactly coming home feels like but he senses it just the same. It lodges deep into his bones and all of his mechanisms whir to life, propelling him towards the boy with a radiance in his face.
At six years old though, possession is a feeling he's well acquainted with. Looking at Sunoo unlocks a litany of that's mine that's mine that's mine and he follows Sunoo around like a puppy all day, until Sunoo grows tired of this and thrusts a puzzle piece into Jungwon's hand.
"Do you like puzzles?' Sunoo asks him, voice serious. He makes it sound like it's a matter of life and death.
Jungwon nods eagerly and clutches the puzzle piece, even when the edges of it start to hurt his palm. "I like puzzles."
Sunoo accepts his answer with a gracious nod. "'Kay." He plops down onto the carpet and pulls Jungwon down next to him. Sunoo holds a discarded piece up and squints at it. "Where does this bird go?"
From that point onward, they're friends. Best friends, and not only in that way young children are best friends with everyone. There’s something steadfast there too, something that keeps them revolving around each other while their parents organise play dates and shake their heads fondly.
Both of them are too young to understand this yet, but they will.
Even their teacher finds them cute. For the final term of the school year she sits them on the same table facing each other. Jungwon likes pulling funny faces during class because it always makes Sunoo giggle, despite the way their teacher shoots them a reprimanding look.
Today, though, Jungwon’s paying attention to the task they’ve been set. His tongue pokes out in concentration as he draws. The teacher leaves their table for last during her walk around the classroom. Jungwon is finished by the time she reaches them.
"Oh!" She taps the two stick figures he's drawn, helpfully labelled Sunoo and Jungwon. "I said draw your family, Jungwon, not your friends."
Jungwon frowns and points to the top of the page. My family is written there in spidery, barely legible handwriting.
"Oh," the teacher says again, quieter this time.
Sunoo beams at him from across the table and the sun shines through the gaps between his teeth. Jungwon smiles back at him.
The smile is accompanied with an unfamiliar feeling. Later, he comes to identify it as satisfaction.
Jungwon usually remembers everything at fifteen years old. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later — there’s no rules or guidelines to follow when it comes to something like this, after all. He gets flashes of things before that, recollections where he’s right on the brink of being aware but can’t quite chip through the wall of ice. But fifteen is usually when he spends his nights staring at the ceiling or frantically searching up kings and generals of the Joseon era in an attempt at verifying the details provided in his memory.
More than anything, it’s lonely. He wishes he could tell his Sunoo about everything; Jungwon doesn’t want to be burdened with this alone. It’s crushing. Surely Sunoo would understand — they’ve been best friends for nine years now, boyfriends for two. They’ve been at each other’s sides for all that time, so surely Sunoo would believe him. Sunoo would know that Jungwon wouldn’t lie or prank him with something like this.
His brain flicks through its newfound memories and presents him with one washed in a cool, muted grey. A bar in Buenos Aires. Hey, I know this is going to sound strange but—we’re soulmates. The streetlight throwing Sunoo’s face in sharp relief; it accentuates his brow, makes him look angrier. Shrugging Jungwon’s hand off of his shoulder and a sorry but I think you’ve got the wrong person. As if, as if Jungwon would never not know him. He’d shouted as much to Sunoo’s back.
Jungwon, the Jungwon light years away from Buenos Aires, forces his fingers to uncurl. The stress of recalling that memory has rewarded him with pale crescents in his palms. The sight of Sunoo walking away from him—no, no, no, not that. Anything but that.
He’ll make do. If he’s managed it in all of his previous lives, then he can manage it in this one. It’s just a matter of time. Still, a part of him misses the real Sunoo something fierce.
“You’ve been kinda distracted lately,” Sunoo announces a few days later, not looking up from his biology textbook. “Is everything okay?”
Jungwon ignores the voice in his head ordering him to tell Sunoo. Just this one time. Things will turn out differently now. In all of the different combinations they’ve cycled through, all of the lives they’ve lived and will live together, surely Sunoo has to believe him in one of them.
He doesn’t look up from his own textbook; his brain hisses coward. So be it. “I’m good. I think I just really hate biology.”
Sunoo looks up at this, mouth twisted into a smirk. “Should we take a break and do something more exciting?”
Jungwon doesn’t need any convincing. He needs a distraction from his thoughts, something to make his mind go blank. Something that isn’t Buenos Aires and a hospital bed and hands covered in blood and do you think we’ll always be like this? and private grieving as an undisclosed widow.
“I love you,” Jungwon murmurs into Sunoo’s clavicle, and presses a kiss there. He never has his top button fastened, even when they’re at school. Easy access, Sunoo told him once, and Jungwon sees his point. He presses light kisses all over Sunoo’s face, smiling at the sound of his giggles. “I’ve loved you since we met, you know.”
“Since we were six? That’s kinda early, isn’t it?”
Sunoo’s voice carries a touch of fond amusement as he plays with one of Jungwon’s rings. Now that Jungwon’s seen him at every stage of his life, he’s struck by how young Sunoo looks. It’s somewhat a shock to the system, only because Jungwon knows what Sunoo looks like at thirty, forty, fifty, all the way up to old age and beyond. At death.
Jungwon shakes his head, both as an answer to Sunoo’s questions and to dispel his own thoughts. “Longer,” he whispers, then kisses the confusion off Sunoo’s face.
With teenagehood comes embarrassment. And it’s the worst kind of embarrassment: the retroactive kind.
See, when he has Sunoo nearby then it’s at least manageable. That yearning still persists in him, the desire to tell Sunoo everything, but Jungwon has become adept enough at ignoring it. It’s not easy, per se, but Sunoo’s presence downgrades it somewhere from violent compulsion to faint buzz in the back of his mind.
When he doesn’t have Sunoo then all of a sudden teenage Jungwon has all of these feelings about soulmates and fate and a love spanning centuries. He's being inundated with memories about how much he loves Sunoo and how much Sunoo loves him and Sunoo Sunoo Sunoo, so it's only natural for him to go a little bit crazy.
A low point is when he’s reborn somewhere in the twenty-first century. It’s the heyday of K-pop, that period of time where legions of adoring fans are primed to make their idols as happy and rich as possible, and Jungwon falls prey to it as easily as everyone else. Being in love with Kim Sunoo, reigning it boy for three years now, no doubt helps.
Incheon Airport is always busy and today is even worse. Jungwon studies a crack in the floor tile as he waits for Sunoo to arrive from his international flight. He’s been in France for the past three days, networking with the top socialites and fashion designers, and Jungwon has felt his absence sorely.
He’d seen Sunoo off from Seoul then too, following him around the airport at the crack of dawn. Sunoo had looked tired but he’d nodded to Jungwon’s have you eaten? and even thrown a peace sign up for one of Jungwon’s pictures.
Jungwon had decided not to post that one. It was a private moment between the two of them and he didn’t want to share it with anyone else. He’s sure his followers would say that was selfish, if they knew, but Jungwon doesn’t care. He does this for Sunoo and Sunoo only.
He flicks through those pictures in his camera now, admiring the slant of Sunoo’s cheekbones even underneath his mask. Sometimes Jungwon still can’t believe how beautiful Sunoo is. He has the kind of face Jungwon never tires of looking at.
He’s about to examine some older pictures when a commotion rises up around him and the girls he’s sandwiched between move forward as one. Jungwon is caught up in the flow of the crowd and he fumbles with his bag as the other fansites alternate between getting their own cameras ready and shouting out Sunoo’s name.
Sunoo suddenly appears in Jungwon’s line of sight, flanked by security guards and his manager, and Jungwon ignores the jostling he’s receiving as he continues to dig through his bag. He thought he put it right at the top of the bag, where is—
“Sunoo-hyung!” he shouts, waving his letter. His camera bounces on his chest as he breaks through the row of fans in front of him.
Inexplicably, Sunoo stops walking and turns around. Maybe it’s the novelty of hearing a male voice cry out for him, or because he remembers Jungwon’s voice. Jungwon hopes it’s the latter.
A burst of adrenaline propels him so he’s directly in front of Sunoo, dodging the security guard’s attempted grab for him. His company never splashes out on security, a fact which usually annoys Jungwon. But it works out to his advantage this time.
Just for a moment, one single moment, Jungwon thinks he sees a flicker of recognition pass through Sunoo’s eyes. Not the usual recognition of Jungwon as his most dedicated fansite, but something part of a wider awareness. Then it dies, like embers being snuffed out, and Sunoo turns away. He tucks the letter into his coat pocket, though, so Jungwon counts it as a win.
He never does receive a reply to his letter but that ultimately doesn’t matter. Some years later in the same life, their circumstances push them together again: disgraced idol Sunoo and reclusive music producer Jungwon. This time around, they make it work.
Sunoo has always suited the sea. Jungwon has thought so ever since he watched that drama which catapulted Sunoo to becoming an overnight sensation, adored by teenagers and old ladies alike. Jungwon had been a teenager himself then, fresh into his military service and trying not to stare too obviously whenever Sunoo came on screen during lunch.
It was obvious. After a month, one of the men he was serving with sneered at Jungwon’s lovelorn expression and made a crude joke about Sunoo. Jungwon had punched him, a straight hit into the face of a man much bigger and stronger than him, and knocked him flat onto the ground. He wasn’t punished for it and, somewhat unsurprisingly, he felt the incident afforded him more respect from the others.
The drama had been set in Busan and Jungwon had the privilege of seeing Sunoo’s silhouette glow against the backdrop of sparkling waters and the setting sun, the cackle of his laugh carried away in the wind, the way he seemed so much more vibrant with water soaking into the legs of his pants. He just shone. Even through a screen, Jungwon could see that much.
Then Busan with the both of them this time: Kim Sunhee and Yang Jungsook and their children running amok on the expanse of beach all around them while they walked and talked about nothing in particular. Then pensioners in Jeju, then children in Costa Rica, then a hundred other lives with a giggling Sunoo crouching down in the sand.
(In a way, it makes sense for the two of them. Sunoo with the sea’s penchant for him, Jungwon with his penchant for drowning. It makes for an interesting combination. Drowning is a painful way to go yet when he’s side by side with Sunoo, experiencing that burning sensation as water fills their lungs in tandem, he doesn’t even mind. The sea is simply reclaiming two of its own, really.)
The universe must enjoy watching the water act as their guardian too, as it places them in a city Jungwon has become achingly familiar with over the years.
Sunoo peels open the lid of his yoghurt, taking care not to splatter it onto his dark wash jeans. "Busan again."
"I like Busan," Jungwon offers absently, thinking of giggles shared in a kitchen and rosy cheeks and high-pitched whines.
Sunoo hums. "I know. Didn't you say it's your favourite city?"
"One of them," Jungwon corrects. He heaves himself up onto the wall next to Sunoo. Their legs dangle there together, not quite long enough to reach the ground. "Maybe Seoul wins out. It's where we met, after all."
Sunoo smiles, almost to himself, and tips the contents of the yoghurt pot back into his mouth. Jungwon tries not to stare. Tries being the key word.
Sunoo swallows and shoots a wry grin at him. "I think we've met in more places than that."
"You know what I mean," Jungwon says around a sheepish laugh, and leans in to kiss him. He tastes of mango and happiness.
“I think the world might end,” Sunoo whispers into the darkness. “For real this time.”
“You’ve said that to me in thirteen different lives,” Jungwon replies quietly. He can feel himself nodding off; it’s always so easy for him to fall asleep when Sunoo is next to him. It’s both a blessing and a curse, as sometimes he just wants to be comforted with the sight and sound of a sleeping Sunoo.
“But for real this time,” Sunoo insists. He won’t let this go until Jungwon either agrees or comforts him. “I have a feeling.”
“So the world will end,” Jungwon mumbles. “Why does it matter?”
Sunoo scoffs. “If those are the last words you ever say to me, you’re really gonna regret it.”
Jungwon can’t help but smile into the pillow. “If the world ends, the world ends. I think we’ve had enough goes at life to really be sad about it, to be honest. We’ll just be stars floating in space.” When Sunoo remains silent, he adds: “Maybe we’ll meet again on Mars, who knows.”
“Mars sounds cool,” Sunoo muses. He smooths out the fine hairs of Jungwon’s eyebrow with his finger before cupping Jungwon’s cheek in his palm and touching their foreheads together. “I think the universe will find a way to put us on Mars.”
“I’m sure it will.” Jungwon nudges their noses together and is rewarded with Sunoo’s answering smile. “If we’re supposed to meet, then we’ll meet. That’s how it’s always worked, right?”
“Yes,” Sunoo sounds out. “It’s fate. Soulmates and reincarnation and time.”
Jungwon falls asleep before he can chime in with his agreement but that’s okay. They both know it’s true — soulmates and reincarnation and time. Everything always works out as it should.