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Seongwoong remembers dying.
There’d been an explosion, he knows. An accident, probably, even if accidents aren’t what he thinks of when one mentions Lee Sanghyeok, but if not an accident, then it would have been intentional and it certainly hadn’t been that.
But he doesn’t actually really remember the explosion itself.
No. Instead, what he remembers is Sanghyeok pushing him off, eyes wide. The reflection of the flames had danced there, and he remembers the mild burn of his fingertips because he’d rolled too close to one of the fires.
He remembers muffled questions and pleas, though he doesn’t remember what exactly either of them had said.
He does know he himself hadn’t said much, not with jagged shards of metal embedded in his torso, one of them stabbing through his ribs and out the back. It’d made breathing hard and it’d made the taste of blood well up in the back of his throat, creeping up when he’d coughed to stain his mouth.
And so whether it was bleeding out from everything or choking on his own blood, he’d died there.
Only, he wakes up.
He closes his eyes, mind hazy, and not moments later—for him, at least—he’s forced back awake with a surge of electricity.
It races through his veins, setting his nerves aflame, and he chokes on his scream, trying to twist away from it.
Hands press down on his shoulders, keeping him still.
“It worked!” That’s Sanghyeok’s voice, ringing just by his ears, loud and delighted as the lightning leaves his system, ebbing down to a persistent burn.
Seongwoong cracks open his eyes, meeting Sanghyeok’s too-bright gaze, and promptly passes back out.
He wakes up again, painlessly this time but with a gasp deep enough that he immediately has to roll to the side, coughing.
His hands are trembling, an unpleasant hum in the back of his head, but Sanghyeok’s there, helping him sit up.
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t—” he starts to rasp before he coughs again, violently, spitting out something onto his palm.
It’s dark, red, like clotted blood and it drips from his fingers slowly, stinking of rot.
The hum worsens, rising to a fever pitch that starts to drown everything else out.
Seongwoong stares at the thing in his hand, registering the bitter metallic taste coating his tongue, and the last thing he manages to whisper before going back under is, “What did you do?”
Something pulls at the skin on his chest when he wakes up and he presses at it, feeling the rough bumps of stitches.
He furrows his brows, slowly sitting up, only to be stopped when something tugs on his wrist.
Pausing, he slowly turns his hand over and he just has to stare at the tube inserted into his skin.
The door slams open and he startles, tearing his gaze away in time to see Sanghyeok step in.
Spotting him, Sanghyeok immediately brightens, hurrying over.
“You’re awake.”
Seongwoong thinks back, to rancid blood, to lightning, to something pierced through his chest and lung, and he says, “I don’t think I’m supposed to be.”
“Of course you are,” Sanghyeok snaps back, and Seongwoong recoils. “You’re fine now. Here, let me see.”
Seongwoong doesn’t say anything as Sanghyeok pokes at the stitches, checks the tube and the machine it's attached to, a great hulking thing set beside the bed Seongwoong’s found himself on, and smiles.
“Feel anything out of the ordinary?”
Seongwoong shakes his head, putting his hand on his chest. His skin is cold, lungs not shrinking and expanding as they should—not at all, in fact—and he realizes.
The hum starts again in the back of his head, grating and relentless. “I’m not breathing.”
Sanghyeok blinks. “And…?”
“I don’t—I’m not—I’m not breathing, Sanghyeok,” he says, hand still pressed over his unbeating heart. “I’m not alive.”
“Of course you’re alive—” Sanghyeok starts, but Seongwoong doesn’t hear any more of it, giving in to the cresting wave of darkness.
Sanghyeok’s there the next time he wakes up and the very first thing he says is, “What did you do?”
Sanghyeok just tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“I’m dead, Sanghyeokie,” Seongwoong says bluntly and Sanghyeok’s mouth falls into a flat, displeased line. “I’m supposed to be dead. What did you do?”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” Sanghyeok replies, reaching over Seongwoong to fiddle with the machine. “I’ve figured it out—or, well, almost, but you don’t have to die.”
He fiddles with a switch, and Seongwoong doesn’t get a chance to respond before he jerks with a painful jolt of electricity, and passes back out.
“You should let me go,” he tries and Sanghyeok, busy checking the mess of stitches half keeping Seongwoong together at this point, pauses. “Let me die.”
“No,” he says. “You’re going to live.”
Seongwoong doesn’t have an answer.
“Sanghyeokie, please, there’s a natural order to things, you can’t just reverse death.”
“I’m reversing it right now, aren’t I? Anyway, I have a new heart for you and it should work better than your old one. No tears. You won’t bleed out.”
“Where are you getting all of this?”
Silence.
“Sanghyeok—”
“They’re donations, don’t worry. Now lie down.”
“Sanghyeok, please—”
“Lie down.”
He can’t tell how much of him is left now. His fingers are mismatched, most of them having rotted off while he’d been unconscious—or, rather, dead, and he can see color differences in the patches of skin sewn together.
Seongwoong’s not supposed to be awake, not yet, not with Sanghyeok around, but he is and he takes the time to look down at what he’s become.
It’s not a pretty sight.
He’s just glad there isn’t a mirror.
The door slams open and he jumps, whirling in time to see Sanghyeok stumble in, dragging something behind him.
Seongwoong freezes.
Blood is splattered over his face and it leaves an eye catching trail behind the body in his hands. Sanghyeok looks up and notices him. “Don’t worry,” he says, an unsettling smile on his face. “They’re not dead yet.”
Horrified, he can only whisper, “What did you do?”
Sanghyeok makes a face, snarling down at the body. “They’re trying to stop me. But I’m almost done. They’re the key to keeping you awake, I know it. Everything’s fresh now, fresher than anything else so far, and I—”
An explosion cuts him off, rattling through the room, but Seongwoong barely flinches, busy processing the words.
He’d had the suspicion already, that these parts he’s made of now hadn’t been gotten legally, and if the half dead man lying on the floor wasn’t proof enough, he doesn’t know what is.
Sanghyeok growls again, slamming the door shut, he pulls out a knife—still freshly bloodstained and Seongwoong feels like throwing up, if he could.
Sanghyeok seems to notice his expression and his face softens. “It’ll be okay,” Sanghyeok says, approaching, free hand landing on Seongwoong’s shoulder. “I won’t let them kill you. I won’t let them stop me.”
Seongwoong doesn’t say anything for a beat and Sanghyeok starts to retreat. Then, “You’re not going to stop, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
Conviction settles in Seongwoong’s chest, heavy but sure. He smiles up at Sanghyeok. He doesn’t cry—he doesn’t think he can anymore. “You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
Sanghyeok shakes his head vigorously. “No! Of course not. I’ve finally gotten you back now, I’m not going to let you go.”
“Okay then,” Seongwoong says, standing. He stumbles a little, but he’s steadier now and he finds his footing. Sanghyeok meets him halfway and Seongwoong pulls him into a hug. Sanghyeok melts a little beneath his touch, grip on the knife loosening as he closes his eyes.
Seongwoong lets them stay like that for a moment more, before he snatches the knife from Sanghyeok’s hand and drives it up.
Sanghyeok chokes, all the breath driven from his lungs, but Seongwoong only drives it in deeper, pushing him backward until he feels the tubes connected to him—buried into the skin of his arms, his back, his neck—snap, sending the two of them collapsing to the floor.
He sits up, meeting Sanghyeok’s wide eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Seongwoong says, cradling Sanghyeok’s face. “I’m sorry.”
Warm blood starts to pool beneath the two of them, and he can feel it lap at his knees. The hum already built up in the back of his head worsening faster now, now that he’s cut off from the machine.
“You should have let me stay dead, Sanghyeokie,” he whispers gently.
He closes his eyes, feeling death start to take him again, and his last thought as he lays himself down beside Sanghyeok, a death rattle building in the other’s chest, is that he hopes this is the last time he has to die.