Work Text:
NOW
Hyunjin’s apartment really is too small to be hosting this many people. He should have invested in that purple armchair that he saw for sale three months ago and definitely could have squeezed into a corner somewhere. As it is, all he has in the loveseat that he purchased secondhand from a neighborhood ajumma last year and one sad floor cushion. Minho has taken one half of the couch and Jeongin the other. Seungmin has perched himself on the arm of the couch closest to Minho—a stupid move on his part because it means that Minho keeps elbowing him deliberately—and Jisung is sitting cross-legged on the floor cushion, leaving Hyunjin to pace back and forth in front of the coffee table.
Which is fine. This is a pacing kind of meeting. He’s in a pacing mood.
“Would you stop pacing?” Seungmin asks. “You’re giving me anxiety.”
Hyunjin glares at him. “My pacing is what’s giving you anxiety? Not stealing a dead body from a hospital?”
Seungmin shrugs, as unflappable as ever. “It’s not technically stealing.”
“No, it’s stealing,” Minho says, also sounding ridiculously unbothered. “By legal definition, it is stealing.”
“I don’t think we should get hung up on the technicalities,” Jisung offers helpfully.
Hyunjin is close enough that he contemplates kicking him in the thigh, then decides it wouldn’t be worth the resulting drama, and resumes his pacing.
“I didn’t want to be here,” Jeongin says, tucking his legs under himself. His knee bangs into Minho’s and he grimaces in apology but Minho just pats his arm in a gesture that is probably meant to be soothing. “Seungmin hyung kidnapped me.”
“I bribed you,” Seungmin clarifies.
“That’s worse.”
“You got free dinner out of it.” Seungmin points to the mostly-empty takeout containers scattered across the coffee table. “And you’re free to leave at any time.” He points to the door.
Jeongin doesn’t move. “I’m in it now,” he says. “You’ve implicated me.”
“I’ll up your pay,” Hyunjin says with a wave of his hand, wanting them to focus.
“You don’t pay me,” Jeongin huffs.
“I’ll start paying you,” Hyunjin amends and ignores Seungmin’s irritated frown. “Now please, can we get back to the whole stealing a body thing?”
Jisung claps his hands together. The sound echoes loudly even in the small space of Hyunjin’s living room. “Right! Yes. How are we gonna do this?”
“I don’t know,” Hyunjin says, irritated. “This is your fault and sorry, I’ve never stolen a body before.”
“Well neither have I,” Jisung protests. Hyunjin debates kicking him again, this time in the head.
“Let’s break it down step by step,” Seungmin says, mercifully deciding to step up as the voice of reason. “We have to get into the morgue first.”
“Could we pretend to be family?” Jisung asks. “Like say we’re coming to claim the body?”
Minho shakes his head. “We’d have to provide some proof of a familial connection and forging that paperwork would be time-consuming. And difficult.”
“Seungmin forges my signature all the time,” Hyunjin points out.
“That’s easy,” Seungmin says with a roll of his eyes. “I can’t forge official government documents.”
“Well, not with that attitude,” Hyunjin says just to get both Jeongin and Seungmin to look at him with nearly identical expressions of exasperation. It’s cute.
“We could just ask to see the body? Don’t they sometimes let relatives and friends view it?” Jisung pitches. He’s started to rock back and forth on the cushion, swaying like a piece of seaweed underwater. It's a familiar, comforting movement, and now Hyunjin’s chest just feels tight and weird.
“Okay, that’s a total long-shot but let’s say it works,” Seungmin says. “How do we get the body out of the morgue?”
“We could split up,” Minho offers. “Some of us steal uniforms and the rest of us take care of whoever accompanies us to the morgue.”
Jisung squints at him anxiously. “When you say ‘take care of’...”
“Kill them, obviously,” Minho says, deadpan. Jisung makes a squeaky choking noise and Minho reaches out to nudge him with one socked foot. “I’m kidding.”
“I know,” Jisung tries to insist.
“We could probably knock them out,” Seungmin says. “And stash them somewhere for a bit. But we still have to get the body out of the hospital itself. Even if we’re dressed as staff, we’d look suspicious just wheeling a body out the door.”
“We could just say it’s been claimed?” Jeongin suggests, meaning that they’ve truly hooked him now. “And it’s being transported to the family’s house?”
“Okay that might work,” Seungmin says. He has inexplicably produced a notebook from somewhere and is scribbling in it. “We still need a car too.”
They all turn to Minho, who blinks at them.
“Hyung…” Jisung prompts, expression hopeful.
“Wait … you want to use my car?”
“You’re the only one with a car,” Hyunjin says. He wishes Chan or Changbin were here except Chan and Changbin would never allow this to happen in the first place.
“But I don’t want to use it to transport a body.”
“We’ll lay tarps down,” Seungmin offers. Minho glares at him and Seungmin stares steadily back, a silent battle of wits that Hyunjin has witnessed thousands of iterations of. This time, it’s Minho who sighs in surrender and shoves Seungmin off the armrest.
“Fine,” he huffs, as Seungmin catches himself and yanks on Minho’s sleeve in retaliation. Minho doesn’t react. “And someone is paying to have it deep-cleaned after.”
“Jisung will cover that,” Hyunjin says before anyone can leave him with the responsibility. He might run a successful business, but he’s not swimming in cash and this is Jisung’s fault, anyway. Hyunjin refuses to be a martyr.
Jisung grimaces but nods. “Fair.”
“I still think this plan is shit,” Seungmin says, matter-of-fact. “We’re going to get thrown in prison.”
They definitely are. But prison and his parent’s everlasting disappointment and the end of his career can all be dealt with when they inevitably come. For now, he just doesn’t want to lose anyone.
Jeongin raises his hand, drawing all of their attention. “I have an idea.”
__________________
FOUR DAYS AGO
Hyunjin surreptitiously adjusts his hanbok, once again regretting his decision to go with traditional aesthetics for his business. Seungmin said it would add an air of gravitas but he should have remembered that Seungmin doesn’t actually know anything, he’s just good at sounding competent.
The woman across from him regards him with big, eager eyes. A designer bag sits on the floor next to her and gold jewelry sparkles in the late afternoon sun, looped around her neck and dangling from her ears. She arrived in a car driven by someone else and Hyunjin doesn’t need his ability to know she has a penthouse somewhere in Gangnam.
Hyunjin carefully turns over the necklace that the woman placed in his palm. It’s a delicate star pendant and it belongs to her daughter, whom Hyunjin suspects won’t be pleased to learn that her mother is seeing fortune tellers on her behalf. But whatever, the woman paid him up front and he’s pretty sure he can get a good tip out of her if he plays his cards right.
He closes his eyes, focusing on the pendant, letting his magic connect to it and the traces of the daughter’s energy it carries. Images flash through his mind, rapid, and difficult to discern. He takes a deep, grounding breath and picks up his pencil with his free hand, tracing it across the paper spread out on the table in front of him.
Unlike most traditional fortune tellers operating in Seoul, he doesn’t offer palm readings or Tarot readings or Saju or Gwansang. His ability is tied to images, which he learned to translate into sketches, sometimes even paintings. Now, his pencil traces the outline of a man’s face, a bouquet of lilies, and a pig—all hinting towards a marriage and good fortune in the daughter’s future. Hyunjin opens his eyes as the images fade and surreptitiously makes a few corrections to the man’s face, softening his features to make him a little more traditionally handsome because he doesn’t want to deal with an upset rich mother.
He smiles at her as he passes the paper over. “Your daughter has an amazing future ahead of her,” he says. “She’ll get married and achieve wealth and good fortune, either through her new husband’s connections or her own career.”
The woman’s eyes light up, face brightening beneath the layer of her makeup. “Oh that’s wonderful! When will she get married?”
Hyunjin shifts his smile into one of regret and sympathy. “Sorry, my ability can’t predict that.” He taps the man’s face. “Judging by his age, if it’s close to your daughter’s, I imagine it would be within the next five years. Maybe ten.”
He doesn’t tell her that the future is always fluid. That his visions might not come true at all, depending on the choices that this woman’s daughter will make. He has presented but one possibility in a sea of branching ones. No one wants to hear that and he wants his customers to tip.
The woman clasps his hands in thanks and does tip extremely well, as hoped. She’s also his last customer of the day so he can change out of the itchy hanbok into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and tie his hair up. Back to Regular Hyunjin instead of Semi-Instagram Famous Fortune Teller Hyunjin.
When Hyunjin steps out into the lobby, Seungmin is waiting for him, as usual. He’s also unstarched from his business persona, dorky glasses perched on his nose and damp bangs washed free of product, falling over his forehead.
“Hey,” he says. The small reception area looks immaculate as always and Hyunjin shakes his head.
“You can’t enlist.”
Seungmin rolls his eyes. “We’ve been over this, I haven’t decided anything yet.” A pause and then a grumbling admission. “Minho hyung just got out.”
And Seungmin has been quietly glowing about that, even as he verbally complains about Minho occupying his space again and how much he misses having the whole apartment to himself. The whining and bickering is their own little weird, queerplatonic mating ritual that Hyunjin mostly has been shaking his head affectionately at for years, glad that they somehow make it work even if Minho is aromantic and Seungmin is a chaos entity in human skin.
They exit the building together, into the sharp winter air. “Have you had any luck?” Hyunjin asks Seungmin as they head for the subway. “On the Jisung front?”
Seungmin shakes his head. “Nothing yet. Maybe nothing’s wrong? I mean, Jisung says there’s nothing wrong.”
“Jisung is lying,” Hyunjin hisses. “He doesn’t have a future, Seungmin-ah! He’s just a … a weird void. It’s wrong.”
Everyone has a future. Even when Hyunjin isn’t actively using his abilities, he can feel echoes from the people around him—vague little flickers to assure him that their lives are extending into the nebulous unknown of tomorrow. And until about a week ago, Jisung felt like everyone else.
Until he crashed on Hyunjin’s couch late one night and suddenly was a blank, terrifying void. But when asked, Jisung blinked at him in confusion and said that everything was fine, why wouldn’t it be? Why was Hyunjin freaking out?
“We keep looking,” Hyunjin says to Seungmin now. “There has to be something.”
Seungmin gives him an unreadable look, but nods in surrender. “Fine,” he says, zipping his collar up to his chin to combat the cold. It makes him look like a stupid penguin. “We keep looking.”
__________________
NOW
Severance Hospital stretches into the night sky in front of them, dwarfing its neighbors and glowing like a blue and yellow beacon. Hospitals have always felt ominous to Hyunjin, hovering on that thin, ever-blurring border between life and death and just as full of ghosts as the living. The magic here feels gritty, sticks between his teeth.
The five of them huddle on the sidewalk, heads bent against the wind, and Hyunjin thinks that too many of them are wearing black. They have to look suspicious.
“Are we sure about this?” Seungmin asks, their lone sort-of voice of reason.
“No going back now,” Minho says, even though that’s patently untrue.
“We’ll be fine,” Jeongin says with surprising confidence. “Though if I get arrested, I’m finding a way to kill all of you.”
It sounds like a promise, not a threat, and Hyunjin continues to readjust his assessment of Jeongin as the cute maknae that they all occasionally lovingly bully. Jeongin takes a deep breath and reaches for the circular pendant around his neck, lifting the chain over his head.
The pendant … ripples—like the disrupted surface of a pond—and dims in Jeongin’s palm, fading from its normal green to a dull gray. Hyunjin squints at the geometric circles carved into the surface.
“What do those mean?”
“Not important,” Jeongin says, pocketing the pendant and shaking out his arms like he’s preparing for a fight. He cracks his neck, one side and then the other, and blows out another steamy breath. “Let’s do this.”
“You’re sure, Jeongin-ah?” Jisung asks, sounding anxious.
Jeongin shrugs. “Technically, hyung, I’ve already broken like five magical laws just by taking my talisman off so yeah, I’m sure.” He gives Jisung a smile that turns his eyes into cute slits and highlights the sharp cut of his cheekbones. “Let’s go. We need to make this fast.”
“Okay,” Jisung says and doesn’t sound any less anxious, but he’s got a familiar stubborn set to his shoulders now. “Lead the way.”
Right before they cross the threshold into the plant-covered lobby, Jisung’s hand snags his own. Jisung’s palm is sweaty with nerves, but Hyunjin doesn’t pull away in a display of exaggerated disgust like he normally would.
He squeezes tight and the void of Jisung’s future yawns, consuming and horrible.
__________________
ONE WEEK AGO
“I told you,” Jisung says, irritation lacing the words, “I’m fine, Hyunjin.”
He’s sitting on Hyunjin’s sofa, legs tucked under his body, and balancing a bowl of kimchi fried rice on one knee. Hyunjin eyes the precarious tilt of it and thanks the universe for his inspired decision to buy a sofa cover so he doesn’t have to murder Jisung for inevitably ruining his couch. Jisung’s hair has been getting long again, hanging in his face, and the afternoon sun coats it with a golden sheen that Hyunjin itches to paint.
He looks the same as he always does, right down to the big blue light glasses perched on his nose because he keeps straining his eyes looking at too many screens and the rumpled sweatshirt he’s drowning in that was probably Hyunjin’s at some point in the distant past.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, right?” Hyunjin asks, more serious than he means to be.
Jisung squints at him, surprised at his tone. Hyunjin doesn’t know how to say “I wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything happened to you” without also confessing the embarrassing depth of his feelings in general. Which he refuses to do because again, embarrassing, and what if he ruins this friendship that they’ve finally built? What if Jisung stops coming over at least three times a week to hog his couch and eat his food and steal his clothes?
Life would be so empty and sad, and isn’t that pathetic? He doesn’t even know when he got so attached, when he fell this deep. It was a gradual slide, years of meandering descent, and now he’s down a well, being drowned by his stupid, messy heart, and he doesn’t know how to escape.
So he crosses his arms defensively over his chest and arches an imperious eyebrow, silently demanding Jisung’s answer.
“No,” Jisung huffs, stuffing more rice into his mouth. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Hyunjin’s chest pricks, a sharp pain.
Because Jisung is lying right now.
“Okay,” is all Hyunjin says. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Jisung smiles at him, cheeks puffed up with rice, and Hyunjin turns his head to hide the sudden, furious burn of tears.
__________________
NOW
Jeongin marches right up to the reception desk, sneakers squeaking on the pristine tile of the lobby.
“Hi,” he says in a bright, pleasant voice. The professional tone he uses when he’s annoyed with them and he doesn’t want them to know. “I’m hoping you can help me?”
The rest of them hang back. Jisung keeps clinging to Hyunjin’s hand. Minho and Seungmin inspect a giant fern together, heads tilted towards each other as they probably argue under their breath. Seungmin has been on a plant kick lately—much to Minho’s annoyance since his cats love to eat the plants that Seungmin brings home—and Hyunjin would bet money that Seungmin wants to try growing something like the giant fern and Minho is firmly shooting him down.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist says, drawing Hyunjin’s attention back to the front desk. “We can’t let any outsiders into the morgue. You would need to provide proof of relation.”
Jeongin folds both arms on the desk and smiles, all teeth, eyes slitted. “Sorry,” he says, maintaining that pleasant voice. “I think you misunderstood me.” He leans closer, still smiling, but his eyes have gone dark, nearly black and the receptionist freezes when they meet hers. “I wasn’t asking.”
“Oh my god,” Jisung whispers. “Jeongin is terrifying.”
Hyunjin can’t argue with that as the receptionist’s gaze goes hazy at the edges, like she’s been hypnotized. “My apologies,” she says and her voice is a little flat, completely emotionless. “Let me call someone to escort you.”
“Great,” Jeongin says, eyes an abyss. “Please tell them it’s urgent.”
The receptionist nods and picks up her desk phone, pressing a series of numbers. Hyunjin shudders at the icy feel of Jeongin’s magic trailing down his spine. Is this what the talisman was suppressing? He definitely shouldn’t annoy Jeongin so much in the future, should he?
A man in a white lab coat appears at the reception desk, looking harried. “What is it?” he asks.
The receptionist gestures to Jeongin. “This man needs to be taken to see a relative. In the morgue.”
“The morgue?” The presumed doctor says, sounding shocked. “That’s—has he provided all the paperwork—”
“I have,” Jeongin says, shifting into the doctor’s line of sight, pinning those terrible eyes on his face. The man freezes, just like the receptionist did before him. “So don’t worry about it, please, uisa-nim. Just take us, we’re kind of in a hurry.”
The doctor nods, a little too jerky to seem natural. Hyunjin finally gets a look at his name tag: Park Junseo. “Of course,” he says. “Follow me.”
Jeongin gestures for them and they all fall in behind him like ridiculous ducklings as Doctor Park leads them into a maze of fluorescent, white-walled hospital corridors. Hyunjin can feel his heart rabbiting in the back of his throat, like it’s going to beat right out of his mouth at any moment. Jisung grips his hand hard enough to bruise and even Seungmin and Minho seem on edge, glancing around them constantly and trying not to be obvious about it. Only Jeongin stays relaxed, checking to make sure they’re all keeping up the pace without actually making eye contact with any of them.
They turn another corner and stop in front of a nondescript, locked wooden door. It has a gray plaque next to it that reads 영안실 in bold black letters.
Holy shit, this is it.
Doctor Park lifts the ID badge clipped to his belt and presses it to the black pad next to the door. A beep echoes down the nearly empty corridor, and the light turns green. The doctor pulls open the door and beckons them inside.
Hyunjin squeezes his eyes shut as he crosses the threshold. The stale chill of the air catches in his lungs, and even though he can’t see them, the ghosts swarm. They rattle the insides of their metal coffins and crawl along the ceiling, and wail in rage and sorrow. Something pinches his arm hard and he startles, turning to meet Seungmin’s steady gaze.
“Stop freaking out,” Seungmin hisses under his breath, though he looks too pale. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“You only say that because you don’t have any magic,” Hyunjin hisses back.
“Children,” Minho admonishes in a very threatening impersonation of Chan.
“I found it,” Jeongin says, stopping by one of the cubicles on the wall. “Help me open it.”
Doctor Park stays by the door like an eerie, silent sentinel. Hyunjin takes a fortifying breath and forces himself to cross the room to stand next to Jeongin. The name plate simply says “unidentified male.”
Bile climbs up Hyunjin’s throat, he—
__________________
YESTERDAY
You need to look at this, Seungmin texts him at 2:23 p.m., just as he’s stepping out of a convenience store into the snowy afternoon, clutching a plastic bag full of ramyun and cider that he’s been promising he would buy Jisung for weeks.
A link comes through a moment later. Hyunjin pauses on the curb and clicks on it with suddenly unsteady fingers. It’s to an article from a local paper, dated a little over a week ago. The headline screams at him in bold font:
UNIDENTIFIED SINCHON-DONG MALE KILLED IN TRAGIC HIT-AND-RUN
The bag slips from his loose grasp, hitting the pavement with a clatter. The man seemed to be in his early twenties, small build, carrying no identification or phone. Hit by a drunk driver crossing an intersection near the edge of Changcheon Park. Pronounced dead on impact, police are still trying to identify him and find next of kin.
Bile climbs up Hyunjin’s throat, searing. He sucks in a heaving breath and—
__________________
NOW
—reaches for the latch, unhooking it and stepping back to allow Jeongin to pull the metal tray out, revealing the body that they’ve come here to steal.
Jisung whistles and steps forward, staring down at his own corpse with huge eyes. “Okay, this is super weird.”
Weird, seems like the understatement of the century. The Jisung on the table is several shades too pale—skin waxy and inhuman. His hair has been brushed back off his face and the strands feel brittle when Hyunjin touches them on blind instinct. Dark circles bloom beneath his closed eyes, making his sockets look sunken and strange. Hyunjin was half-worried that the body would be reeking, but only the strong, alcohol smell of disinfectant clings to the dead skin. The hospital must have been keeping it preserved as much as possible, because there are few signs of decay. A sheet covers most of it, hiding never-healed wounds and broken bones from view.
Hyunjin isn’t sure if he wants to throw up or cry. Thankfully, Minho remains completely unfazed by the body of their friend or the fact that said friend is also standing in between them.
“Right, we need to move,” he says. “Jeongin-ah, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jeongin says, only sounding a little strained. Can you get the body on the gurney, hyung?” He gestures to one resting against the far wall. “Seungmin hyung, come help me?”
Seungmin goes, and they take Doctor Park along, leaving the three of them to move a fucking body.
“Jisung-ah,” Minho says in a cheerful, threatening tone once the door clicks shut. “You are going to owe us so much after this.”
“Oh, I know,” Jisung says with a grimace. “Um, can you move it, hyung? I don’t think I can touch it.”
Minho sighs. “So much,” he grumbles. “Meals until we’re dead.”
But he carefully slides his arms under Jisung’s body and lifts it off the table. Jisung’s head lolls like a limp doll’s and he looks so small and fragile in Minho’s hold. The sheet and hospital gown slip enough to expose a faded, blacked gash on Jisung’s side from asphalt or the car itself and Hyunjin shakes.
Dead, his brain screams. Jisung’s dead.
__________________
YESTERDAY
Hyunjin throws open the door to Jisung’s apartment, not bothering to remove his shoes as he storms into Jisung’s living room. Jisung startles, glancing up from his laptop. He looks ridiculous in the giant noise-canceling headphones he always wears when he’s producing and his eyes are big and deer-like in his face.
Hyunjin wants to punch him.
Instead, he says, “are you fucking dead?”
Jisung blinks at him. “What?”
Hyunjin hurls his phone, still open to the article, into Jisung’s lap. He squawks as it connects with his laptop and hurries to move the device out of the way.
“That’s you, right?” Hyunjin demands. “There’s a convenience store you like near there and you went out that night and you were gone for too long and you told me that you got held up because of an accident but I thought you meant that streets were blocked off or something, not that you got hit by a fucking car and died."
He was half expecting Jisung to laugh it off, to assure Hyunjin that he’s being stupid and of course he isn’t dead because he’s sitting right here, isn’t he? Perfectly fine.
But Jisung does none of that. Jisung is wearing a guilty, defensive expression that turns Hyunjin’s veins to ice.
“Okay, so I’m technically dead,” he says.
“What?” Hyunjin shrieks. “How is that even possible?”
“Dude, you can see the future,” Jisung says. “Can’t I be technically dead?”
“No! Those are two very different things!”
And that’s when Jisung manages to get Hyunjin to sit down and explains to him, with far too much anxious rambling, that Jisung lied about not being able to do magic. He can, but it’s banned magic. It’s necromancy—Jisung can do fucking necromancy—and he’s had to wear a talisman since he was a child that suppresses his ability to practice magic because bringing things back from the dead is highly illegal. It turns out, though, that his magic apparently has an instinctive protective feature that he didn’t know about.
So when he got hit by a car during a routine trip to the convenience store, his magic somehow preserved a copy of him.
“What?” Hyunjin says, standing up to pace again.
Jisung tugs him down by the wrist. “I don’t know, okay? I can’t explain it. It’s like … this is a solid body? But it’s created by magic. I don’t need to breathe or technically eat or probably even sleep so it’s not a real body, it’s just a construct to house my soul or consciousness or whatever. Which is why I’m technically dead.”
Hyunjin stares at him. “You’re breathing right now.”
“I had to teach myself to breathe again, it was weird.”
Hyunjin blinks. His brain feels like it’s turned to mush and is leaking out of his ears. “And you didn’t tell us any of this because?”
Jisung winces, fidgets. The restless tap of his fingers against his thigh is so very Jisung that Hyunjin nearly starts crying. He’s back to wanting to punch Jisung in his stupid, magically-constructed face. Repeatedly.
“I didn’t want to worry any of you,” Jisung mutters under his breath. “You all spend too much time worrying about me, anyway. I thought I could figure this out on my own.”
“You idiot,” Hyunjin says, settling for hitting Jisung on the arm instead. Jisung yelps. “You stupid, colossal moron.” Another blow. “What happens when your magic runs out? Are you going to die for real?” A third punch and Jisung grimaces but doesn’t try to fight back. “And you wouldn’t have told us?”
“I’m sorry,” Jisung whines. “I’m sorry, okay? Yes, I’ll die if my magic runs out. I need to do this ritual thing to reconnect with my body but my body is in Severance Hospital and I have no idea how to get it out. So I’m stuck.”
Hyunjin sucks in a watery breath. “How long do we have?”
“I don’t know?” Jisung whispers and flinches when Hyunjin raises his fist again. “I don’t! Believe it or not, this is all new to me. A couple more days, at least. My magic is definitely depleting but I’m still okay for now.”
“Okay.” Another grounding breath. He really should take up meditation again. “Okay, then we should move fast, just in case.”
“Uh,” Jisung frowns at him. “Who is ‘we,’ in this scenario?”
“Me, obviously,” Hyunjin huffs. “Seungmin. Probably Minho hyung, who is gonna kill you, by the way. And I’m sure we can bribe Jeongin to help, too.”
“Do we need that many people to steal a body?”
“I don’t know! I’ve never stolen a fucking body before!” Hyunjin mixes things up by kicking Jisung in the shin, eliciting a fresh yelp and some grumbling about how he’s being way too violent, which he ignores. “But they’ll all be mad if we don’t include them. And that you kept this from them for so long.”
“Fine,” Jisung mutters, surrendering. “But … how did you find out?”
“You don’t have a future,” Hyunjin says and Jisung’s face freezes in an expression of shock. “You’re just a void. And that terrified me. So I got Seungmin to help me figure out what was wrong. Since you wouldn’t tell me.”
“Oh,” Jisung says in a very small voice. “I’m sorry, Hyunjin-ah.”
Hyunjin sniffs. “You’d better not die for real. You’re gonna owe me so much, after this.”
Jisung’s arms wrap around him and Jisung’s chin lands on his shoulder, a comforting weight. Jisung still smells like himself—traces of the flowery perfume he likes to wear, overlaid by the citrus shampoo he’s been using for the last month, even though he says he doesn’t like it. His skin feels warm and alive against Hyunjin’s and it’s almost as if this could be a bad dream. Except for the article on his phone, except for the screaming void of Jisung’s future, except for the fact that Jisung forgets to breathe for a full minute and Hyunjin can’t feel a heartbeat when he presses a palm to Jisung’s chest.
“I won’t die,” Jisung murmurs. “I’ll be okay, baby.”
Hyunjin desperately hopes that Jisung isn’t lying to him again.
__________________
NOW
They put Jisung’s body on the gurney and pull the lab coats that Jeongin and Seungmin inexplicably return with over their clothes. They probably look ridiculous but Jeongin promises that he can lace the air around them with just enough suggestion to avoid suspicion. Everyone will merely think that they’re staff moving a patient and when they discover a body is missing, they’ll think that family finally came to claim it and someone forgot to fill out the right paperwork.
“You’re terrifying,” Hyunjin declares.
Jeongin blinks his unnatural eyes. With a facemask on, Hyunjin can’t see his usual smile and he’s not sure if that’s better or worse.
“Only when I have to be,” Jeongin says with a shrug. “But you should be nicer to me, hyung.”
Hyunjin nods vigorously. “Of course.”
“Let’s go,” Minho says impatiently, also tugging a facemask up over his nose. “We need to get out of here before Jeongin runs out of energy.”
“Yeah and this place is fucking creepy,” Jisung says. He keeps shooting surreptitious glances at the sheet-covered body.
“Minho hyung,” Jeongin says. “Go ahead and bring your car around to the back entrance? We’ll meet you there.”
Minho nods and disappears with a wave. Jisung grips one side of the gurney while Seungmin takes the other. Hyunjin positions himself behind Jeongin, wondering when their maknae became a criminal mastermind. Doctor Park, still under Jeongin’s spell, opens the door for them and then they’re off, hurriedly wheeling the gurney down the corridor.
“Keep your heads down,” Seungmin hisses. “There are cameras.”
They all obey, keeping their heads bent and their faces shielded. Somehow, Seungmin seems to know where they’re going because he directs them easily through every turn. Hyunjn holds his breath the whole way but not a single person even looks at them. It helps that at nearly two a.m. a lot of the hallways are quiet and mostly dark.
So just like that, they make it to the exit doors and outside into the freezing night. Minho’s car is already idling at the curb and he gets out to help them carefully deposit Jisung’s body in the tarp-covered trunk.
“Holy shit,” Hyunjn says. “That was so easy?”
“You’re welcome,” Jeongin mutters. “Now give me the coats and the gurney.”
They all strip from their mediocre disguises and Jeongin takes them and the stretcher back to Doctor Park.
“Remember,” he says in that soothing voice, “the family came to take the body, but you forgot the release paperwork. It was a busy night. The family wanted to hold a home funeral.”
“Yes,” Doctor Park agrees. “The family came to take the body. I don’t remember what they looked like.”
“Exactly.” Jeongin bows. “Thank you for all your help, uisa-nim.”
He returns to where they’re all gaping at him and flicks his hand towards the car. “Get in? What are you waiting for?”
“Hey, we’re still older than you,” Jisung grumbles. “And my body’s in the fucking trunk, sorry if I’m having trouble processing stuff.”
But they all cram into Minho’s car and Minho eases into the stream of night traffic. “Where are we going?”
“Seodaemun Independence Park,” Jisung says. “It’s pretty close and I need somewhere secluded. Since I’m also about to break multiple magical laws.”
Minho nods and changes lanes.
Seungmin twists in the front seat to stare back at Jeongin, whose eyes have returned to normal. He also has his talisman around his neck again, glowing gently against his sweater. “Have you ever thought about robbing banks?”
Jeongin laughs. “Once or twice. But I like being a law-abiding citizen, hyung. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for someone I care about.”
“Aww,” Jisung says, sounding only a little strained. “You care about me?”
“Of course I do,” Jeongin grumbles. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”
“I can’t believe we stole a body,” Hyunjin whispers. He still feels like all of this has just been one of the strangest dreams he’s ever had.
“Hey, it’s my body so technically I was just taking it back,” Jisung insists, trying to sound cheerful and failing spectacularly.
Hyunjin shakes his head and focuses on the blur of lights beyond the foggy car windows.
__________________
Using Naver maps, Jisung guides them to a dense, wooded corner of the sprawling Seodaemun Independence Park. Ansan Peak fills the horizon, an imposing silhouette against the dark night sky.
“Okay,” Jisung says. “Lay the, uh, body over there.” He points to a small clearing in the middle of a copse of dead pines. Minho and Seungmin, both carrying the sheet-wrapped body, move to obey. They left Jeongin sleeping in the car, trying to recover from magical burnout.
Jisung squints at his phone. His hands are trembling violently, so Hyunijn steps forward and curls grounding fingers around his wrist. “What can I help with?”
“Um,” Jisung chews on his lip and angles his phone so that Hyunjin can see the complex geometric diagram he has pulled up. “Could you help me draw this in the dirt?”
“Sure,” Hyunjin says, then hesitates. “Jisung-ah, what happens if this doesn’t work.”
“Then I’ll die,” Jisung says and sounds too calm.
Hyunjin swallows a knot of preemptive grief. “And the odds of it being a success?”
“Not sure,” Jisung says. “Information is kinda scarce because banned magic and all that.”
“You can’t die on me,” Hyunjin blurts out, instinctively tightening his grip. “You hear me?”
Jisung shifts to face him fully. His face is cast mostly in shadow by the barren branches overhead, blocking the glow of the city, but his eyes gleam warm and almost gentle in the dim light.
“Then tell me my future, Hyunjin,” he says.
“What?”
Jisung pockets his phone and takes both of Hyunjin’s hands in his own. His skin is freezing, or maybe it’s Hyunjin that’s shivering in his thin jacket.
“Tell me my future,” Jisung repeats. “You’re always right about these things, aren’t you?”
__________________
ONE YEAR AGO
Hyunjin lied, there was a moment when he knew that he was in love with Jisung and it was this: Jisung on his couch on a Wednesday afternoon, drowning in a sweater stolen from Hyunjin’s closet. Jisung’s guitar in his lap, dexterous fingers light on the strings. Jisung humming the notes of a song he’s been composing for weeks with his stupid hair flopping in his eyes.
Hyunjin listens to the soft timbre of his voice and watches the flutter of his eyelashes against the smooth planes of his cheeks and falls in love between one sighing breath and the next.
He wants Jisung here forever, he realizes. Just like this.
He wants to reach out and cup Jisung’s face, delve into the future to confirm that Hyunjin will have him until they’re old and gray and decaying. But that would be a violation. Jisung explicitly said he doesn’t want to know about his future, not even little predictions that could keep him dry on a rainy day or save him having to wander to three different stores looking for a sold-out brand of ramyun.
So Hyunjin keeps his hands in his lap and lets the ache bloom slowly through his chest, like a plant breaking through soil.
__________________
NOW
“You’re gonna be okay,” Hyunjin hiccups, ignoring the emptiness of Jisung’s future. “You’re gonna survive this and get your real body back and then we’re going to go on a date.”
Jisung’s eyebrows jump up to his hairline. “A date?”
“A date,” Hyunjin confirms, refusing to be embarrassed when this could be the last time he talks to Jisung. “At some cheesy place like Seoul Tower. You’ll pay for everything. We’ll be happy.”
“Okay,” Jisung whispers, sounding a little teary himself. “We’ll be happy.”
Hyunjin nods. Tries to believe it, because manifestation, right?
Jisung gives his hands one last squeeze and steps back, blowing out a shaky breath. “Let’s do this, then. So we can go on that date.”
“Let’s do this,” Hyunjin echoes and lets Jisung guide him deeper into the trees, where Minho and Seungmin are waiting—the body laid out on the ground between them and matching expressions of both trepidation and determination on their faces.
It will work, Hyunjin tells himself as he starts to draw patterns in the dirt, carefully following Jisung’s diagram and the light provided by Seungmin’s phone.
He can’t accept any other future.
__________________
ONE WEEK LATER
“Jisung died?” Felix half-shouts over the phone.
Hyunjin winces, glancing around to make sure he isn’t getting stares from nearby passersby. Honestly, he was a fool for wanting to be romantic and meet on a pretty street corner instead of just going over to Jisung’s place.
“Technically died, we got his body back, so it was fine.”
A deafening pause. “How did you get his body back?”
“Oh, we stole it from the hospital.”
“You what?”
“Jeongin has like mind powers, so it was fine!”
“Jeongin has what?”
“He can explain it to you. But really, Lix, it’s fine. Just enjoy your time in Australia with Chan hyung.”
“But Jisung died and you stole his body from a hospital?”
“And it was fine. Jisung’s fine, we didn’t get caught, we’re all fine! Oh, but maybe don’t tell Changbin hyung? I don't want him to kill us when he’s done with his enlistment, you know?’
“Oh my god,” Felix says in English.
Mercifully, Hyunjin spots Jisung crossing the street. He actually dressed up in the one long, high-end coat he owns and a black turtleneck that Hyunjin thinks used to belong to Felix. Nice boots, hair styled off his face, earrings dangling from each ear—he looks pretty enough that Hyunjin’s stomach flips over.
The ritual and process of reconnecting his consciousness to his body knocked him out for a terrifying three days, but his magic healed all his wounds, got his organs working right again, and now it’s as if he was never a corpse on a metal slab in a morgue. But Hyunjin still has to feel his heartbeat at least once every time they see each other, just in case.
“I gotta go, Lix, my date’s here.”
“Your date?”
Hyunjin hangs up with a mental apology and grins as Jisung comes to a stop in front of him. “Hi, you look nice, I guess.”
“No,” Jisung whines. “Don’t be mean to me, I’m really trying, here.”
“Okay.” Hyunjin rolls his eyes, but can feel a smile tugging at his mouth. “You look very nice, jagiya.”
Jisung actually blushes at the endearment and oh, this is going to be fun. Maybe soft-of confessing was the right way to go, after all.
“Thanks, baby,” Jisung says. “Now come on, I have to sweep you off your feet.”
“Oh really?” Hyunjin arches an eyebrow but accepts the arm Jisung offers him.
“I mean, I’ve been wanting to do this for like a year, so yeah. Get ready for romance.”
A year, huh? Seems maybe they have a lot to talk about.
But for now, Hyunjin basks in the gathering warmth of the winter sun and Jisung’s steady presence at his side. At the beautiful flickers of Jisung’s future he can feel brushing faintly against his own mind before flitting away like fireflies.
“Okay,” he says, pulling Jisung closer as they start to walk. “Sweep me off my feet.”
The future looks bright. He can’t wait to experience it.