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Chan adjusted his hood, trying to make it stay over his hair. Even when he slicked it back, some strands hung loose in his eyes. His manager was very adamant about work presence, so he sighed and tried to look presentable. He played his part, looking dismal as he stalked the halls of the hospital.
Chan was the Death. Well, not the Death, trademark, but a Death. He was a Death between many, more specifically the Death designated to this hospital. He huffed before adjusting his hood again. His shiny black shoes didn't make a sound as he looked through the door numbers.
303… 304…
At least the uniform had gotten modernized, and he didn't have to wear some black tunic and carry a scythe everywhere. But on theme, he was still wearing black head to toe.
305… 306…
Ah, there it was, room 307. He double-checked the file sent to his phone from the Assignments Office before entering the room.
He opened the door, even though he didn't need doors to enter a room. He had picked it up as a joke, to scare the night shift nurses.
Chan froze with his hand on the handle still. His assignment wasn't alone, as he thought. He knew he was incorporeal, and the human sitting beside the bed couldn't see him.
Even though he damn looked like he did. The guy furrowed his brows, looking at the door that, from his perspective, had opened on its own. Chan scurried to a corner when the guy stood up to close it, after checking the deserted hallway.
“Where was I?” he said, even though his only company was hooked up to what looked like a million beeping machines and wasn't able to answer, really. “Right,” the guy said before picking up a book and clearing his throat.
His cadence was steady as he read. He had a deep voice and every now and then he adjusted his glasses. Chan looked closer, now that the initial shock had passed, and noticed that the guy wasn't looking quite well. He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was messy, and it looked like he was constantly running his hands through it.
Chan looked at the file again, skimming the information to make sure he wasn't mistaken. It was indeed Kim Mingyu, age 27, with no family on record, who had been in a freaky car accident a few days back, scheduled to die that same night.
So who was that guy?
The door opened again, making him jump as he was focused on his file. It was Chan's favorite nurse, the one who never got scared when he messed around dropping stuff to the floor when he was bored, and instead treated him like he was a bored kid making a mess.
“Ah, Wonwoo-ssi, spending the night again?” she said amicably, like it wasn't ass o'clock in the middle of the night and she wasn't checking the vitals of a patient.
The guy, Wonwoo, Chan had just learned, just hummed as an answer. The nurse eyed him as she prepped a syringe with medicine.
“You know that we call if we need you here, right?” she asked, softly.
The smile that Wonwoo gave her was even softer, although tired around the edges. Chan felt wrong, like he was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Which he knew he was, but it never had bothered him before.
“I know.”
The nurse smiled and it was the saddest smile Chan had seen in a while, even as he had been on duty for quite some time. The woman left and the room was silent for a few beats until Wonwoo sighed and continued reading out loud.
Chan pressed his back against the wall and he felt himself sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. He spent the rest of the night in the same room, listening to Wonwoo read until he fell asleep. The first morning lights came through the window when Chan got up, grabbed the book from Wonwoo's hands, and placed it gently on the bedside table. He gave a look to Kim Mingyu, his assignment, before letting out a sigh. He left the room without opening the door, adjusting his hood again, and then he checked his phone for his next assignment of the night.
Chan liked to sit on the roof. It was quiet since it was a restricted area (for the general public, although not for him), and the weak autumn sun was warm against his cheeks.
He had his hoodie down, and the soft breeze messed with his hair. He spared another look at the message that had appeared with his next assignment. It was all bold capitalized letters. Chan rolled his eyes, knowing his manager had a flare for dramatics. It only specified an hour to meet. He checked his watch again as the small hand moved to mark the agreed time.
His manager materialized in a cloud of red smoke. Cut out from the blue sky, he looked like a giant gargoyle in black. Chan snorted.
“Don't you ever get tired of putting up that show, hyung?” he asked, without moving from where he was sitting.
Soonyoung gave him a toothy smile.
“You know I live for the performance,” he replied, removing invisible dust from his black suit.
“You just look dumb,” Chan usually enjoyed antagonizing his manager hyung, but the retort came out flat.
Soonyoung pursed his lips before sitting down on the floor beside him.
“And you,” he said, looking at the city view, “are ignoring my texts. It's been three days, you know I can't cover for you with Him forever.”
Chan sighed, hugging his knees.
He had received Soonyoung's texts, of course, every morning without fail since he did not take Kim Mingyu's soul when he was supposed to.
“I know,” he replied.
“What's up, Chan?” Soonyoung asked, and he knew he was inquiring as a friend, as a brother, not as his superior. “You've never failed an assignment before. You know I brag about your perfect record with the other section managers, right? I won't be able to look at Jeonghan hyung's face when he catches wind of this.”
Truth be told, Chan didn't even know what it was. He had spent the last few nights sitting in a corner of Kim Mingyu's room, listening quietly to his labored breathing and the soft beeps the machines attached to his body made.
Wonwoo came every night. Sometimes he read to Mingyu, sometimes he told him about his day. Sometimes he sat there in complete silence.
And Chan sat there too, trying to disentangle the complex mess in his chest.
When Soonyoung understood that he was not getting an answer out of Chan, he sighed and stood up.
“I bought you two weeks,” Chan's eyes flew to his hyung in disbelief. Soonyoung just straightened his jacket. “By the time the sun rises at the end of the fourteenth day he has to be dead, blah blah, you know the drill.”
Chan was about to reply when his hyung held a hand signaling he wasn't done yet.
“Unless…”
“Unless what, hyung?” Chan jumped to his feet, and resisted the urgency to grab Soonyoung from the collar.
Soonyoung smiled since he had the complete attention of his audience.
“Unless you can make a case and prove the human deserves to live.”
Chan stared at him. Soonyoung's smile got even bigger, his eyes crinkled.
“How am I supposed to do that, hyung?” he asked in disbelief. Soonyoung shrugged.
“Then take his soul and let's all be done with it,” he replied, but his smile got mischievous as he raised an eyebrow. “But where's the spectacle in that?”
Then, he wasn't there anymore. Chan stood glued to the floor for a few more minutes.
Wonwoo woke up after dozing off for a few minutes. Chan watched him massage his neck before he took off his glasses to rub his eyes. Then he looked at Mingyu for a few seconds before leaving the room.
Chan was good at his job, if anything, except for this particular setback in his usually spotless record. So he knew grief when he saw it, and Wonwoo's eyes were full of an incommensurable grief. Something inside Chan's chest tightened. Maybe he didn't care at all if this Kim Mingyu guy deserved or not a second chance, but he was determined to get it, because he couldn't bear the sad look on Wonwoo's eyes.
He found him near the vending machines, sitting in a row of chairs that were usually occupied by patients and family. Chan checked the clock. It was barely past 4 A.M. Wonwoo was looking at the disgusting instant coffee from the machine in his hands, in a styrofoam cup.
He tried to look nonchalant as he approached the vending machine, pulling a worn-down wallet from his pocket. When Wonwoo heard steps, he looked up and something, something Chan couldn't quite put his finger on, something he couldn't describe because he didn't remember ever feeling it coursed through his veins. He felt his cheeks getting hot, suddenly nervous about being perceived as a physical form.
“Hey,” he mumbled before standing in front of the machine. Wonwoo just nodded.
Chan pressed some buttons and a colorful can dropped. The scrap of metal on metal was loud in the silence. He sat, leaving a chair in between them. The beverage smelled disgustingly sweet.
Chan had heard plenty of human conversations, but that didn't mean he was qualified to lead one. He scanned his brain trying to recall a good opener but nothing came to mind. As Wonwoo sipped his drink, he knew his time was coming to an end.
“Crazy weather, huh?” he splurged, trying to sound nonchalant.
Wonwoo looked at him with the most uninterested look anyone could ever muster, Chan was absolutely sure. He felt his cheeks heat under his gaze.
He was about to open his mouth to say something, probably worse, when Wonwoo saved him the trouble.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice deep and gravely. Chan felt a twinge of something pulling at his chest. “If the rain continues we might as well drown.”
It wasn't like Chan was in control anymore of whatever was happening with his face, but he could feel the smile forming before the chuckle. Wonwoo smiled timidly as well before looking at his drink again. They sat there in comfortable silence for a while, Chan almost forgetting he was corporeal, too used to sharing silences with Wonwoo, albeit unknown to him.
“Are you here with someone?” Wonwoo asked, breaking the silence. Chan almost jumped, too comfortable with sitting in silence.
“Yeah,” he lied. “You?”
“Same,” he replied, before slipping into silence again, but this time it felt tense. “How long have you been here?”
“For quite some time,” Chan half lied. “You?”
“It's been a week,” he replied. “My friend, he… He was coming back from work and had some sort of accident…”
Chan didn't reply and the sentence stretched within the silence.
“Sorry,” Wonwoo adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I'm not big on small talk, usually, I just… I guess it's nice talking to somebody that, you know, can reply.”
“I'm not good with small talk either,” Chan said, but it came out as a whisper. He cleared his throat. “What's your friend's name?”
Of course, Chan knew, he knew almost everything there was to know about Kim Mingyu, but he let Wonwoo talk about him anyway. He learned the important stuff that wasn't in his file, like how he liked his ramyun cooked, how many beers he could drink in a row, how he was dear enough to his friends that they took turns looking over him. Wonwoo got the night shift, since he worked from home and had more forgiving hours.
Wonwoo's watch quietly beeped and he looked at the time before rushing the last of his drink.
“I have to leave, Jihoon will be coming soon, you know…” The words kept floating around them as he got up from his seat. “See you around, okay?”
Chan waved a hand timidly while watching Wonwoo walk away.
Chan had taken up to sit around the rooftop of the building. It had been raining almost non-stop for the past two days. He had seen Wonwoo, tucked away back in their little corner, glowing ghostly thanks to the vending machine's spectral light in the middle of the dark hallway.
He had been mostly silent, and Chan didn't push. He had heard the nurses talking about it, that same morning. Wonwoo had just left, and they both sighed, clicked their tongues and shook their heads. “So sad,” they said. “Such a young man, spending his time here.”
“It's just a matter of time,” they said, as they refilled Kim Mingyu's medication. There were more sighs, pursed lips, sad glances as his vitals were checked again.
Chan knew time was imperative. And it didn't stop, even for Death. So he glanced at his watch, pulled his hood over his hair and roamed the hospital halls again, searching for a room that was too similar to the one he spent his nights in. Something ached in his chest as he got his job done, for the first time ever.
He didn't visit Mingyu during the day, usually, but he made his way to the side of his bed anyway. A guy he had never seen before was sitting beside him, trying to watch the TV hanging on the wall, but paying too much attention to the machine's keeping his friend alive.
Chan had some understanding of medical jargon, that's how he knew the numbers shown on the monitor were all wrong. He wasn't supposed to use his powers for, well, whatever it was he was doing, but since he was on a special mission, he might as well.
With a few flicks of his wrist, he messed with his vitals until he was satisfied, and he got to see first hand when the doctor on call explained to Wonwoo as soon as he arrived that, although they didn't know how, Mingyu was getting better. Wonwoo thanked her profusely, and when the doctor left the room, he smiled at Mingyu, softly threading his fingers through his hair. Chan didn't feel physical pain, but he surely felt something quite similar to it. When Wonwoo spoke softly, he left the room.
He was pondering at their usual place, if there even existed something that could be called theirs, when Wonwoo found him, a few hours later. They never made plans to meet, but they always found each other there nonetheless.
Wonwoo looked, well, happy. Which was what Chan intended when he messed around with Mingyu's health. But he didn't expect this something, quite resembling a monster, to poke out its ugly face at the sight of Wonwoo being happy due to someone else.
And Chan felt despicable.
Wonwoo rambled all about the good news, Chan feigned surprise and congratulated him. When the subject changed to his own imaginary loved one struggling with some generic sickness, he graciously avoided the topic, buying himself some more time.
Days passed by. He kept messing with Mingyu. Nurses and doctors couldn't still figure out how he was doing fine but not showing signs of waking up. He kept spending the nights with Wonwoo, tucked away in a little corner where time seemed to sit still. Chan kept receiving texts from Soonyoung in various tones of threatening promises. He kept committing to memory every detail of Wonwoo's face alight by the vending machine's light on the late-night night poorly illuminated hallways. It kept raining. He kept fighting that ugly feeling every time Wonwoo smiled when talking about Mingyu.
He still hadn't figured out a reason why he should save Mingyu. He was too young, he didn't deserve it, he still had plenty of things to live and see and experience. Nothing was good enough. Death was never fair.
Sometimes, when he came to reap a soul, the person could see him. He didn't usually mind, but he was feeling rather irritated when he entered a room and the old lady looked directly at him.
“Ah, you are here,” she greeted, like they were old friends.
The people around her bed looked around and whispered to each other, but neither Chan nor the lady paid attention to them.
“I am here,” he replied, closing the distance.
“I was wondering when you were coming,” she said, closing her eyes. She looked impossibly small in a too-big white bed.
Chan looked around the room, to the people surrounding the woman. They all looked sad.
“Ma’am,” Chan said, and the lady opened her eyes, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Chan toyed with the hem of his hoodie. “How’s being alive?”
She hummed in thought.
“You get to experience so many things. Love, heartbreak, loss, happiness…” She looked around, at the people looking at her carefully. “It is the most beautiful thing, being alive.”
Chan held her fragile hand in his, and studied it for a second. It was light in his grasp, he could see the veins through the skin.
“I'm ready,” she said. Chan nodded and took her like she was falling asleep.
The monitor announced she was gone, and her loved ones surrounding her collectively let their breath escape. Chan left before realization hit for them.
He was running out of time. He paced in their usual place by the vending machines, the corner of the hospital that seemed tucked away from space-time. It was the usual time Wonwoo came for a snack or something to drink, but it was getting late and he was nowhere to be seen.
Chan clicked his tongue before deciding his next move. He didn't even bother to take out his wallet, just extending his hand like there was no glass separating him from the goods inside the metal box, and took out a bag of chips that he had noticed Wonwoo enjoyed.
The hall was quiet, only the constant beepings of machines and an occasional cough filled the ominous silence. The nurse station's door was closed. He stood before Mingyu's door and let out a shaky breath before knocking softly.
But the person who opened the door wasn't Wonwoo. Instead, a very confused guy gave him a once-over. He looked like a cat that had been woken up from his nap against his will, his rather longer dark hair was all rustled up. If he wasn't so confused, Chan could have laughed, the guy looked more like a Death than him, dressed in all black from head to toe and sporting such pale skin. He narrowed his eyes.
“Uh, sorry,” Chan blurted. “I was looking for Wonwoo…” He checked again the room number on the door, just to make sure, but it was right.
The guy in front of him raised an eyebrow.
“He didn't come tonight,” he said, and was about to close the door in his face.
“Uhm,” Chan said, feeling the panic setting in. The guy looked at him again, looking more annoyed. “It's just that we usually see each other around…” Suddenly he felt incredibly dumb, the shiny bag of chips crinkling in-between his fingers. “Is he okay?”
“Yes, he's okay,” the guy sighed, like he was so done. He looked so tired. “He's just not getting enough sleep so I bullied him into staying home tonight.”
Chan nodded. “Thanks,” he said before handing the chips to the guy. “I guess this is for you then.”
He waited a few beats by the door when he closed it before changing to his intangible form again and crossing the wall like it was made of thin air. The guy, Jihoon, Chan guessed with the information provided by Wonwoo during their talks, was sitting beside Mingyu's bed devouring the bag of chips.
“Wouldn't it be hilarious,” he was saying to the man in bed. “Wonwoo finally meeting someone and it is at the hospital while staying with you.”
He laughed like it was the most amazing joke. Then his laugh died down and his face fell.
“Like you never stop watching over him,” he sighed.
Chan could guess the sun was peeking from the horizon. But the sky was still gray with clouds, spilling on the ground like it was trying to drown the city. It had been days, already, without sun. He missed it on his skin when he spent time on the rooftop.
Jihoon was asleep on a chair beside the bed, his legs sprawled and his arms crossed before his chest. Mingyu was asleep too, the sad beeping counting his heartbeats. He sighed before grabbing his hand and closing his eyes.
This was an exercise Chan didn't like very much. It made him feel weird, like he was intruding in places that weren't meant for him. He walked over a long hall with no doors. His footsteps were too loud. Finally, he reached the end of the hallway, the door was ajar and he could hear soft music. It was a white room, empty except for the couch in the middle of the room. And there was someone sitting on it already.
Sometimes, the contrast with the bodies lying in hospital beds was shocking. He felt both a familiar and unfamiliar sensation. Before him, was Kim Mingyu. He had seen him enough times to kind of feel they knew each other. But also, it was uninjured Kim Mingyu, awake Kim Mingyu, standing on his own two feet Kim Mingyu. And that to Chan was strange.
The guy looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but the little quirk of his lips let him know that he knew what his business was.
“Ah, so my savior finally decided to come and visit.”
“I'm not your savior,” Chan replied immediately.
“That's not what everyone else is saying,” when Mingyu smiled, his canines peeked through.
“What? Does anybody else come to see you?”
He shrugged.
“Not really, not like this. It's more like… sensations. Like a general feeling. It let me know that you are important to me,” he explained, not looking at him.
Chan sighed before plopping down on the couch.
“Well, I mean, I am trying to save you. But I don't have any idea how,” he said. Mingyu hummed in acknowledgment. “I need to prove that you deserve to live.”
“Well, damn, I don't know. I think I'm a little biased on that subject,” he replied with an easy smile on his lips.
Chan looked at him dumbfounded. “Aren't you worried? You may literally die,” he said.
Mingyu shrugged again, smiling even wider.
“I don't get visits like this but I do hear things, sometimes, and Wonwoo likes to talk. Probably because he thinks I can't tease him, but as soon as I wake up he's in trouble.”
“What are you even talking about?” Chan asked, feeling a little exasperated.
“I know Wonwoo, we've been friends for ages. He's prone to shy away and slow to open up to new people. But he talks about you, sometimes.”
“What does he say?” Chan asked, feeling his own voice small in the expanse of the room.
Mingyu shrugged. “That you're nice. He likes talking to you.”
Chan plopped down on the couch next to him.
“We need to figure out a way to save you, Kim Mingyu. We're running out of time.”
They spent what Chan could translate as Earth hours trying to figure out something. Anything. While Mingyu was a good person, nothing seemed quite enough to tilt the scale in his favor. Even if he did his taxes diligently, if he put back his shopping cart outside the grocery store, if he put away a chunk of his salary for charity. When he left it was night already. He checked his watch and cursed under his breath before walking to the vending machines.
Wonwoo was already there, resting his elbows on his legs, a styrofoam cup between his hands, his glasses slowly falling down his nose. And Chan ached in a way he thought he wasn't allowed to.
“Oh,” Wonwoo said, looking up at him. A small smile on his pursed lips, like he was willing his face to keep his feelings under wraps. And Chan ached. “I thought you weren't coming tonight.”
“How could I miss one of our dates?” He teased, and immediately regretted it. But Wonwoo chuckled and somehow the hallway was less bleak.
“Right,” he said to his cup, with a pursed smile. Chan could tell his coffee was already cold.
“There's a 24-hour diner a few blocks away,” he said without thinking much about it. Wonwoo looked up again, his glasses sitting on the tip of his nose. “Do you want to go? Maybe have some coffee that doesn't taste like dirty water?”
Wonwoo stared at him for a few beats and Chan felt inadequate. Like they could only exist together in that liminal space by the vending machines, never allowed to step out of it together. Then Wonwoo checked his watch and nodded.
“Actual coffee sounds nice,” he said.
Chan had once talked to a teenager before helping her cross to the other side. She was one of his first assignments, when Chan still was curious and hungry for more, avid to know things that didn't belong to him. She was an avid fan of romantic dramas and when Chan asked what her regrets were she said that she thought it was a pity she had never fallen in love. Then launched on a description of all her favorite cliches in romance that had Chan almost not making his move on time. She had looked particularly dreamy when telling him all about the handsome love interests that saved the main characters from a sudden shower, lending them their umbrellas and walking them home.
Chan vaguely thought of her as Wonwoo walked beside him, holding his umbrella between them. The rain made a relaxing pitapat on the fabric of the umbrella and their shoes splattered the hem of their pants whenever they stepped on a puddle but neither seemed to mind. Especially Chan when he noticed the way the umbrella leaned on his side, covering him from the rain, even if exposed Wonwoo's shoulder to the elements.
“This place looks nice,” he said, shaking his umbrella to get rid of the rain that clung to the fabric as they reached shelter under the roof.
“I've been around for quite some time,” Chan replied before he pushed the door open. “I learned a few things.”
Wonwoo followed to a table and when the waitress came around with coffee he looked different. Under the warm lights and with something lifting off his shoulders, against a different backdrop, he looked less tense. Even if his phone was on the table in case it rang, even if he checked his watch a few times.
Chan felt himself smiling, and Wonwoo returned the smile. And under the yellowish lights of that dingy diner with slightly less crappy coffee and with the rain hitting the window beside them, after he dismissed his tries at talking formally and urged him to call him just hyung, Chan thought that Wonwoo was made to be happy, to smile that toothy smile and scrunch his nose with happiness and that he deserved to live a carefree life. So he had to save Mingyu.
He didn't waste any time. Finding Mingyu inside his head was easier. There was no couch this time, the hallways led him to a garage and he found Mingyu inside a car. He climbed in the passenger seat and, just like that, they were on the road. The rain blurred their visibility and Mingyu leaned over the steering wheel.
Something primal erupted in Chan's chest. Something that he shouldn't have, nonhuman as he was. Not alive as he was. Logically, he should not have been scared, but he was.
“Mingyu,” he said, reaching for his shoulder. “Slow down.”
But Mingyu kept his eyes on the road and Chan's hand went right through him. A shiver ran down his spine and he tried to grab the wheel, unsuccessfully. Then he realized, he wasn't there with Mingyu, not in the way he was before. He was inside his memories.
The constant patter of the rain against the windshield grew louder and steadier, the curtain of rain got denser and Mingyu leaned even closer, his eyes narrowed as he tried to see where he was going. Instinctively, Chan clung to the dashboard, as if that would do any good for him.
Then, this Mingyu made of memories gasped, his voice full of concern as a tiny oh, no left his lips. He parked the car on the side of the street, headlights lighting nothing more than rain and the wipers working to exhaustion even when they didn’t make any difference. With a curse under his breath, Mingyu took off his seatbelt and jumped out of the car, not bothering to close the door. Chan followed close behind, the rain hitting his skin as if made with tiny knives.
It all happened so fast, even for Chan’s supernatural eyes. One second, Mingyu was running under the rain, the next there was a loud screech of tires against the pavement and a metal crunching sound that made him nauseous.
Chan stood there on the sidewalk, watching as the other driver exited his car with shaking hands. Mingyu was lying on the floor, his arms tightly wrapped around something. Chan blinked away the raindrops clinging to his eyelashes until he made out the shape.
“Oh, Mingyu,” he said, to no one in particular. “You were trying to save a dog.”
It was a skinny little thing, it stirred in his arms until it was free, sniffing Mingyu’s face. The other driver got closer and spooked it. Chan gave it one last look before it disappeared under the rain, running away with its tail between its legs.
The rain subsided enough for Chan to stop blinking furiously. Enough for him to assess the situation better. There was blood being washed away, mixing with the puddle under Mingyu. The other driver got close enough to notice the same thing, fishing his phone from his pocket with shaky hands.
“Hi,” he said when someone on the other line picked up. “There’s been an accident.”
Chan kept his eyes on Mingyu as the man gave the details and said he’d wait for the ambulance. His eyes were closed, his wet hair looked impossibly black, his jaw was slack. Only his chest moved with every breath.
“Well, that sucks.”
Chan turned around to find Mingyu, the one he knew, standing beside him. The rain seemed not to fall on him. His eyes were nailed to his body on the floor and his eyebrows were furrowed. Chan felt sorry.
Before he could reply, the driver started moving. He hung up only to look around and when he found himself alone, he ran back to his car. He backed until he was able to maneuver around him and then speeded through the street, not a sign of hesitation.
Chan’s heart sank. He was not able to find a reason to save him, Mingyu would most likely die and no one would even know why he risked his life in the first place. And he gave Wonwoo and their friends hope, he made them think Mingyu would walk out alive and that was even worse. Having hope was always the most difficult part to digest. He knew, he’d seen it many times.
They stood there in silence, until the rain stopped and the ambulance came. The first responders looked around, searching for whoever made the call, but there was not much time to lose. In a few frantic moves, Mingyu was strapped to the stretcher and the ambulance took off, its siren cutting through the quiet of the night.
Then an idea started to form in Chan’s mind.
“Mingyu,” he turned around, his hands flying to his shoulders. “I have to leave. But I think I know how to save you.”
Mingyu blinked at him, still shaken up from all he had just seen. But Chan was determined to bring that man back to his life, back to his friends and his family. Before he could even say something, Chan had already left his memory.
But he didn’t come out back to the side of the hospital bed. Instead, he opened his eyes in Soonyoung’s office. He barely looked up from the files he was scrolling through on his tablet.
“I didn’t expect to see you here so soon,” he said. “Already gave up?”
“Never,” he replied. Soonyoung looked up with renewed interest this time. “I need your help.”
Soonyoung left the tablet on the desk and smiled. “What is it?”
That’s how they found each other in the archives. Soonyoung had to bat his eyelashes to the archivist who barely rolled his eyes before he let them in.
“Remind me what are we searching for?” Soonyoung asked, his face buried in some old scrolls covered with dust.
“I’m pretty sure a sunbae told me about this clause,” Chan replied, following words with his finger that had lost all meaning after a few hours of navigating moldy stacks of paper. “We just need to find an antecedent that it has happened before so I can plead my case.”
Soonyoung only hummed before going back to his stack and Chan tried his luck in another ancient book that almost disintegrated between his fingers. The only thing that interrupted them was some soft footsteps.
“Will you be done soon?” The archivist asked, his voice full of sympathy for them in a task he deemed useless. “I’ll have to close soon.”
“No, no,” Chan said, trying to gather scrolls in the hollow of his arms. “I’m running out of time.” Both of them looked at him with pity in their eyes and Chan felt bile climbing up his throat. “He doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Death isn’t fair,” Soonyoung recited with even intonation what was engrained into all of them. But Chan wouldn't have it.
“It has to be here, somewhere,” Chan insisted, pointing at the books and scrolls scattered all over the table. He was plenty aware that he sounded insane, but before Soonyoung could say as much, the archivist cleared his throat.
“Tell me what is it,” he said. “Maybe I can help. Especially if that will get you out of my archives.”
“I know you’d like to have me over more often, Myungho,” Soonyoung smiled with mischief, but Chan clapped a hand on his mouth to keep him quiet as he explained to the archivist what were they searching for.
Minghao hummed in thought for a few seconds before he snapped his fingers.
“You are searching in the wrong place,” he turned around and disappeared behind a shelf. Chan and Soonyoung followed him closely as he walked toward the edge of the archives. The shelves turned dustier and the hallways were poorly illuminated, until they made it to a very old-looking section of the archive.
Minghao ran a finger through the spines of a collection of books that seemed old. The spine labels were faded but he knew exactly what he was looking for. He made a sound in the back of his throat before he pulled out a big volume bound in red leather. He blew the dust off the cover before he opened it exactly on the page he needed.
“During the Salem trials,” he explained, his eyes roaming the page, “a woman saved her daughter from execution, taking her place as a witch.”
He passed the book to Chan but he couldn’t make the words in the poor light.
“So?” Soonyoung pressed.
“So, her reaper felt pity for her. She pleaded so she’d be spared, in account she had sacrificed herself to save someone else’s life.”
Chan looked up from where he was trying to make out letters, a spark of hope flaming in his chest. “Was it granted?”
Minghao nodded. “It arose another series of difficulties since she didn’t burn at the stake, but she was granted another chance.”
Soonyoung gasped dramatically, leaning over his shoulder to look,
“How didn't I know this?” He asked, trying to reach for the book to have a closer look. “How come nobody knows this?”
Minghao shrugged. “It's an old clause. That's the last documented use of it, Deaths usually don't care about keeping their assignments alive. Quite the opposite.”
Chan closed the book with a loud thud and pressed it close to his chest, protecting it from Soonyoung’s hands. It was such a precious thing, he couldn't let it get away from his sight. He turned around to look at him.
“I need to leave,” he exhaled. Soonyoung nodded.
“I’ll get you an appointment with Him,” he guaranteed. “But don’t take long.”
“Thank you,” he said, to both of them, before running across the thousands of corridors filled with books and scrolls carefully arranged until he was out of the archives and was able to get back to the hospital, the book still clasped in his hands.
Despite how late it was and the routine Wonwoo liked to keep that Chan knew by heart, he wasn't by the vending machines. His shoes were too loud and his clothes too tight and uncomfortable in his skin.
He tried Mingyu’s room but he had no luck. Mingyu was just as he left him, the machines keeping him alive beeped and he breathed and his eyes twitched for a second. Chan willed him to wait just a little more.
His feet naturally took him to the roof. He tried the doorknob and blinked when it opened easily. The rain had subdued and the air was crisp out there. The clouds had parted to let a tiny sliver of moonlight and Chan avoided the puddles to walk over Wonwoo.
He had his hands in his pockets and he was looking up at the sky. The moon reflected in his glasses and he looked so sad. Chan wanted to erase all the marks grief and worry had carved on his face, in his hands, in the places deep within him that no one could reach or see but that he could feel.
Wonwoo turned around when he heard him, and something broke in the way his smile didn't reach his eyes. Like a thread too tense, Chan felt like he was about to snap.
“How did you get here?” He asked, the book heavy in his arms.
“The door was open,” Wonwoo eyed him like he knew something. The air was charged with electricity, Chan could taste it in his tongue. “Something told me to come.”
Somehow, Chan knew that was Soonyoung's doing. He thanked him in his mind. But he was running out of time and he still had so much to do. So much to see and so much to learn and he had barely scratched the surface of who Wonwoo was and he was already being ripped from him.
Because, see, Chan wasn't an idiot. Chan knew who he was, he knew his place in the grand scheme of things and he knew that this was most likely the last time he'd see Wonwoo. Mingyu would wake up and they would leave and Chan would keep haunting the hallways, scaring nurses and holding old ladies’ hands. And, with a little luck, he wouldn't see either of them in a long, long time.
“I'm running out of time,” he whispered. Wonwoo furrowed his eyebrows, confused, and when he opened his mouth to say something Chan shook his head. “Mingyu will be fine.”
Wonwoo smiled like he had just told a joke he couldn't quite grasp. “What are you talking about?”
“I can't tell you how, but I know he'll wake up,” his fingers were numb. Wonwoo's smile dropped, he tried to reach for Chan but he stepped back, just out of reach. “He'll be fine, hyung. You'll be fine.”
“Are you messing with me?” Wonwoo's eyebrows were tightly knitted together, and he erased the distance between them in two swift strides, grabbing Chan by the shoulders. His hands were warm and heavy, grounding. Chan closed his eyes for a second.
“Never,” he whispered. He almost thought Wonwoo couldn't hear him but the night was so quiet after the storm that he could hear his breathing. He wondered if he could hear his heart beating in his chest, too. “I wish I could tell you everything.”
And, for once, Chan allowed himself to be selfish. For once, he took something for himself and not in the name of something else, allegedly bigger than him. He grabbed him by the collar of his jacket with one hand and, for once, the only thing he'd worship was Wonwoo and how he closed his eyes just a second before Chan kissed him, how his hands bunched the fabric of his black hoodie and the feeling of his chapped lips and how his mouth was so warm it could scare the ghosts away.
Chan committed everything to memory, he made sure to get it seared into his mind, deep enough in his core that he would never be able to forget it even if he was destined to walk the same existence a thousand years more. He memorized the cold uncomfortable feeling of Wonwoo's glasses against his cheek and the way the book's spine dug into his ribs and the distant siren that traveled to the roof and how the wind messed Wonwoo's hair when he pulled away from him.
“I'm sorry I can't give you more. You deserve so much more.”
He was running out of time. He always was. He doubted there was a universe where he wasn't late, where he wasn't trying to collect everything he could inside of him for safekeeping before running to the next location. Chan hoped anyway that somewhere he wasn't.
Chan didn't look back, even when Wonwoo called his name. He heard Wonwoo following him, the noise the rooftop door made when it closed behind him, his footsteps on the stairs and how the words he was about to say choked on his throat when he realized Chan was nowhere to be seen.
“Took you long enough,” Seungcheol said as soon as Chan crossed the threshold to his office.
“It wasn't such an easy task,” he complained, dropping the book on his desk.
Seungcheol invited him to sit with a gesture of his hand but Chan had too much pent-up energy in him to do so. Instead, he opened the book on the page he needed and pointed at it with a finger. Seungcheol grabbed the book and leaned on his desk chair, reading the case carefully.
“Huh,” he said, like it was his first time seeing that file. “Interesting.”
“Well?” Chan pressed, searching his face for any indication of his final answer.
But Seungcheol closed the book and with a passing of his hand, it disappeared, probably back to the archives.
“I'll be honest with you,” two files magically appeared in his hand. “I didn't think you'd pull it off but I stand corrected.”
“That means…” Chan asked, too scared to harbor even more hope, too scared it would crumble in his hands.
Seungcheol opened the first and Chan recognized Mingyu's file. He stamped a red seal on it and dropped it on a tray on his desk from where it vanished.
“Done, Kim Mingyu will wake up and probably live a very long life,” he said, and before Chan could cut him off, he waved the second file. “Now, for the second file, you may want to sit down.”
Chan obeyed, and Seungcheol turned the file so it'd be facing him. He inhaled deeply before he opened it only to find his face staring back at him.
“What is this?” He blinked, trying to make sense of the words on the paper.
“This is from the temporary workers section,” he pointed at the department symbol on top of the page, different from the one he was used to seeing in his files. “There are two kinds of people,” he explained. “The ones who are meant to die, like your friend Mingyu, and the ones who aren't. Like you, Chan.”
Then, he launched to explain how he was sick and while his body recovered from it languishing on a hospital bed very similar to the ones he was familiar with, his soul -or something akin to it- wandered around doing this job until it was time for him to return to his life.
“You had some more time on your contract,” Seungcheol said, flipping the pages until it landed on one that stated terms and conditions and had his signature under it, “but I guess we can cut it short this time.”
He didn't even give time to Chan to reply. He smiled as he stamped it as well with his seal and dropped it on the tray. Then, there was nothing.
The first thing Chan noticed was how bright it was. Piercing white light directly shining in his eyes. He blinked and tried to turn his head to avoid the light, but there was a hand on his forehead that prevented him from moving.
There was a faint click and the light relented, leaving dancing spots in his already blurry vision. He focused really hard on taking in his surroundings. The off-white ceiling, a hand wrapped around his, distant voices that he couldn't quite makeup, a constant beeping right above his head that was driving him crazy.
Very slowly, it all started to make sense again, even if Chan felt like he was living in bits and pieces. Someone wearing scrubs explained to him what he was doing at the hospital, but he barely wrapped his head around it. He could manage to speak but it hurt his scraped-up throat. He endured many, many tests and even while his parents helped him to the car when he was discharged, something sat uncomfortably in his stomach. Like an itch under his skin that he couldn't scratch. He walked the hallways and there was something familiar in them, even if it was the first time he stepped foot on them while awake. Somehow, he knew in which corners to turn and what corridors were good shortcuts.
The dreams didn't start until he was back home. At first, Chan only woke up with an odd feeling that didn't leave him even if he tried rubbing his chest to try to calm down his heart. Then, gradually, he was able to retain a few details. An old lady holding his hand here, a wide room with a couch there. A pair of black-rimmed glasses and elegant hands around a styrofoam cup. Those were the worst dreams, Chan always woke up feeling like he was missing something, like he had forgotten a very important part of himself and now he was left hollowed without knowing what was supposed to fill him up.
Since he woke up, Chan walked around like one half of a whole, but he didn't even know what shape the missing piece took.
It was one of those particularly difficult days, where he could feel the negative space in his tongue, when it all changed.
Along the way, Chan had developed a liking for heights. Finally, his parents let him off their overprotective wings to go back to his own apartment, with the promise of daily check-ins with them. That pleased him very much, because it meant he had access to a rooftop. It had finally stopped raining and Chan sat down, not caring for the water seeping through his jeans. He didn't let go of his umbrella, clutching it like it was a lifeline, closed in his grip as he hugged his legs, bringing his knees to his face. Chan spent a few peaceful moments like that, overlooking the skyline, when someone cleared his throat behind him, scaring the shit out of him.
In one swift motion, Chan was on his feet, yielding his umbrella like it was a sword.
“Who are you?” He asked. The man in front of him smiled, his eyes narrowed, cheeks bunching. It contrasted with his slicked-back hair and his all-black suit.
His smile faltered for a second. “Right, you don't remember.”
Chan felt a little dumb with the umbrella in attack position, so he brought it to his shoulder. “Do we know each other?”
“You could say so. My name is Soonyoung. We worked together for a while.”
Chan blinked in confusion. “I don't think–”
“I'm really sorry,” Soonyoung said, checking the time on his watch, “but we don't have time to catch up. You could say I shouldn't be here right now. I just had to come to see you because you have to know.”
He didn't waste much more time. Soonyoung fished inside his pocket for a piece of paper and handed it to Chan. It was wrinkly and when he unfolded it he noticed the ink was smudged and the handwriting hasty. It had been written in a hurry.
The address didn't spark anything besides recognizing the neighborhood. But the name… The name stirred something familiar but dormant in his chest, something that did recognize it even if Chan himself didn't. Like there was something in the fabric of his own being that knew what he couldn't understand.
“Kim Mingyu,” he read out loud, carefully, enunciating every vowel and consonant.
“Wonwoo isn't in the system yet so I could only get my hands on Mingyu's file. You'll have to make do with that information.”
It was like his heart beat itself out of place, free-falling from the rooftop to the sidewalk. Wonwoo. Chan didn't know anyone by that name and yet the ghostly space inside him took shape.
“Who's Wonwoo?” He asked, his voice barely above a whisper, like the world had tilted and he was barely gripping the edge and if he talked louder it would tip entirely, taking him with it.
But Soonyoung turned his head like he could hear something Chan couldn't. And Chan knew they had run out of time.
Although he was, Soonyoung didn't feel like a stranger. So when he approached Chan in a few strides, he let him envelop him in a hug. Strangely comforted, he hooked his chin on his shoulder and closed his eyes, sighing. It wasn't exactly what he was missing, but it felt a little too close to home.
“I'm gonna miss you,” he said against his hair, “you were my favorite after all.”
And, as out of the blue he had appeared, Soonyoung wasn't there anymore. Chan was left alone on the rooftop with a piece of paper crinkled in his fingers and a name hanging from his lips.
It took him no time to make a decision. In his haste, Chan dropped his umbrella but he didn't care, he ran down the stairs, flying over the steps until he reached the street.
He stood for a few seconds thinking of what to do. People kept coming and going, dodging him standing in the middle of the street. Any sort of public transportation would take a while and he was feeling fidgety, itchy. He still had the paper crumpled between his fingers so he gave it another look, memorizing the way the characters looped before he started running.
There wasn't much in Chan's mind while he jumped puddles and avoided colliding with unsuspecting passersby. He could only repeat the name to himself, softly playing it over and over in his mind. He didn't know who this Wonwoo was or what he meant to him but he knew he had to find out. Like there was something connecting them both, like a fish line that was being drawn to the boat and he couldn't do anything else but to let it take him.
He got to the building just as an older lady left. She let the door close behind her but gave Chan exactly the few seconds he needed to sneak inside. He called both elevators, desperately pushing the call buttons, but they were too slow so he ran up the five flights of stairs until he was standing just in front of an unfamiliar door with sweat clinging to his hair and uneven breathing.
Without much previous thinking, Chan knocked on the door. Then, only then, he wondered what he was doing. He was standing in front of a stranger's door that some kind of random entity had given him and how was he supposed to explain that to this Kim Mingyu to whom he was most certainly a stranger? He considered ducking, running down the stairs just as he had come, leaving the whole episode behind and writing it off as a fever dream or the consequences of being out for quite some time.
Chan was just about to take a step away when the door opened, revealing someone he was sure he didn't know and yet… Yet–
“Oh,” Kim Mingyu said, leaning on the door frame like he was used to complete strangers knocking on his door on random Thursdays. “I know you.”
Chan was about to ask him from where, to beg for some answers, when Mingyu's eyes wandered behind him as the elevator door opened.
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When Chan ran away, he left Wonwoo standing on the rooftop like he was planted there, like roots had sprouted from his feet and nailed permanently to the floor.
It didn't feel like he stayed there too long, but he must have since by the time he peeled himself from the floor and ran behind him, he wasn't there anymore.
He made his way to Mingyu's room to find the hallway crowded. It set all his alarms off, so he sprinted all the way until a nurse held him back as he was trying to elbow his way inside the room.
“He's fine,” she said, her hands firmly secured around his shoulders. “More than that, actually. He's awake.”
It took a second for Wonwoo's brain to compute her words. He turned to look at her and she was smiling, her eyes were glossy and only her words resonated above the noise in the room.
He's awake.
Everything else went in a whirlwind of friends coming and going and a multitude of tests being done and conversations with doctors who didn't understand how Mingyu's body had worked a miracle but it had and being discharged a week later was proof enough.
Wonwoo had spent every night by the vending machines, waiting and pondering and then doing some more waiting. But every night he spent it alone, and whenever he heard the rustle of fabric or shoes scraping the floor, he looked up with hope flooding his insides but every time he ended up swimming in disappointment.
When it was time to leave, logically it was Wonwoo who was set to drive Mingyu home. He spent almost every night with him so he couldn't even think of leaving him by now. Even if Jihoon pointed out that it was the obvious choice, since their apartments were across the hallway from each other.
He was hauling Mingyu's bag while a kind-faced nurse guided him to the door. Mingyu was just like before the accident, like he never spent time away from them in a place they couldn't reach. He only talked about getting clearance from the doctor to get back to the gym and that he missed having caffeine. Sometimes, Wonwoo caught him staring into nothing, like he was having conversations with himself. When Wonwoo asked about it, he said he had strange dreams but didn't allow anyone to pry more information out of him.
Before they left, Wonwoo walked to the nurse station to say goodbye and to express how grateful they were. All the nurses waved their hands in dismissal and they all chuckled when one of them tried to coax his phone number out of him to set him up with her daughter.
“We enjoyed having you around but we hope we never see you again,” one of them joked.
“Actually,” Wonwoo said, already feeling his ears heating up, “could I ask for another favor? Do you know someone named Chan? He was usually around at night, also taking care of someone.”
One of them tapped her chin in thought.
“I know of a patient who is in the other wing of the hospital and has been for a while, he actually woke up from a coma around the same time Mingyu-ssi did.”
Wonwoo shook his head. “Must be someone else, then.”
And, like that, life continued its course. Slowly but surely, he fell back into his old routines. He tried to cultivate healthier habits now that he was home, like going to bed at a reasonable time, even if that meant laying in bed staring at the ceiling for hours. He also kept trying not to think about Chan, at that point he was more and more convinced that he had hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe his body had reacted to the distress, inventing him a friend to talk to, someone who could understand him and keep him company during those long lonely nights. And maybe his brain was an asshole so it had made him incredibly good-looking and breathtaking in all the ways Wonwoo had always wanted, only to realize that he didn't exist.
So it was one of those days. Life kept going on and the world kept turning and there was something always missing. He loosened his tie on the elevator on the way up to his floor. He had a meeting with some higher-ups back in the company so he had to dress his part, which was an unwelcome change from his usual home office attire.
The doors reflected his tired face and he sighed when they opened with a cheerful ding, very in contrast with his mood. He walked on autopilot, not really paying any attention, until he reached his door and realized Mingyu was standing in front of his, looking at him with a twinkle in his eye, like he knew something he didn't. And, standing in front of him with a confused crease between his eyebrows…
“Chan-ah?”
When Chan looked back at him, his eyes sparkled in realization. He opened his lips slightly, like he wanted to say something but didn't find the words.
“I'll leave you to it,” he heard Mingyu say before his door closed, but he couldn't care at all when Chan was back in front of him. If anything, judging by his teasing tone, he'd hear about it later.
“Hi,” Chan said, and Wonwoo noticed his hands shaking and his shoes drenched from the rain.
Wonwoo punched the code in the keypad and it played a little tune when it unlocked. He pushed the door open as much as he could.
“Do you want to come in? I have coffee.”
Chan hesitated for a second as he looked alternatively at Wonwoo and the other side of the door. Wonwoo didn't push and he finally made his call as he crossed the threshold before Wonwoo and untied his shoes.
“I don't really like coffee,” he said.
Wonwoo suppressed a laugh. “I also have tea. Maybe your shoes will dry by the time we finish a cup, we'll see.”
At long last, Chan smiled and Wonwoo felt like something had lifted from his shoulders, like he was unknowingly carrying extra weight and it had shed from him in one swoop as he dropped his bag on the floor by Chan's shoes and walked over to the kitchen.
“Alright, hyung,” Chan said as he followed him close behind. “We’ll see.”
And Wonwoo didn't know it yet but all Chan could think at that moment was that he was so alive and there was love waiting to be felt and there were good days waiting to be lived.