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The roar of the crowd of segyein is no match for the thud of Hyuna’s heart against her ears.
They must be having the time of their lives. Hyuna imagines that the ratings are sky high, the cameras lingering on her and Mizi’s pictures on the scoreboard—probably the only reason that they haven’t been killed yet. They must be biding their time, gathering forces to recapture them and force them into the competition again.
Hyuna needs to do everything she can to make use of this moment. The segyeins are probably only minutes away from finding them.
But Mizi is still collapsed and frozen at the front of the stage, shoulders shaking. If Hyuna makes a break for her, there’s no way she’s getting both of them out in time, not with how motionless Mizi is. And they won’t be close enough to her team for backup. The reasonable, smart thing to do is to leave Mizi and get out of here—which she can’t do. She can’t.
Heart still hammering away, Hyuna looks up and meets Luka’s wide-eyed gaze. Her heart flips against her will.
Right. He’s here, too.
A warm, sticky trail trickles down Hyuna’s leg. Her wound continues to seep mercilessly; she can already feel her mind begin to swim, the blood loss sinking its claws in. If she doesn’t do something, she’ll be down for the count, and then there’s nothing they can do to salvage this.
But she still can’t look away from the reverent awe in Luka’s eyes.
He takes a step toward her, shaky and disbelieving. Hyuna feels her team’s fingers twitch around their guns as they wait for a signal from her.
Hyuna’s mind whirls. She lets out a small, shaky breath, forcing herself to think, dragging her attention away from the gravity of Luka’s gaze.
Her team has the data they came for; Isaac and Dewy are probably setting up the rocket launch now. Hyuna has to get as many people home as possible, Mizi included. They’ve sent most of their forces on this mission, and despite the fact that every single one of them had been prepared to lose their lives—
Hyuna grits her teeth. No. If they don’t make it back, they’ll be in a far worse position to act on their success. She can't risk their lives for her and Mizi, not in the states they are.
Luka’s eyes glow blue. His face is radiant, lit up with adoration. He takes another step, and Hyuna almost blinks with surprise—she expected him to be closer, somehow. Time has slowed, an eternity between every breath, as soft and gentle and deadly as the Garden’s mockery of yearly snowfall.
Something in Hyuna’s mind clicks with the beginning of a plan.
Fuck, she thinks. This is going to hurt.
And she doesn’t just mean physically.
Stop. Hyuna wills her hands to stop shaking. He hurt you. He killed your brother. He doesn’t deserve an ounce of your compassion.
But she knows that no amount of hating Luka over the years has managed to quell the remnants of the fierce love she once felt for him, all those years ago. She could lie to herself, but she knows that her heart isn’t beating this fast from adrenaline and fear.
And she knows Luka knows it, too.
That’s exactly what Hyuna is going to take advantage of.
Her rebellion is strong. There are a dozen leaders under her command, Isaac and Dewey included, who could easily fill the space she leaves behind, though she’s arrogant enough to know they won’t exactly have her brand of verve and conviction.
Jacob had wanted a message to be sent out to the universe. The data she had downloaded, full of encrypted files, videos, holos have all been transmitted to members of the rebellion all over the area, ready to be sent into the vastness of space for someone, anyone else to listen—both on this planet and beyond. A universe-wide movement is at their fingertips.
There’s one more thing that she can think of to reach people, to build a force that has a real chance at taking the segyein down.
They need a martyr.
Hyuna flicks her fingers in front of her, hidden from Luka’s gaze. This signal is specific to her team: scatter and disappear. Hyuna knows that the ones who see it are passing it onto those who didn’t. Within a moment, her team is gone.
Hyuna shakes her head at the rebel with a gun to Luka’s temple, Rachel, who is one of their best sharpshooters. Hyuna remembers the giddiness in her eyes during her first day at the shooting range. She sends a helpless mental apology to the sweet girl for what she’s about to make her do and sends Rachel another series of signals: stay, shoot, scatter.
Hyuna swallows. War demands sacrifice, she knows. She’s so tired of it.
She’s tired.
She casts one more look at Mizi’s shuddering body. I’m sorry, Mizi, she thinks. I’m sorry to make you lose me, too.
Hyuna takes one more breath to reset. She only has one shot at this. She only has seconds. She needs to get it right.
On Luka’s next step, Hyuna moves forward, breaking into a run. Luka’s jaw drops, his beatific grin stretching wider.
For a moment, Hyuna is taken back to the Garden. She is a child with a perpetual song in her throathe cool, artificial breeze blowing through her hair. The flowers sway around them, shrieks of joy carrying on the wind as her friends play around her. A high, sweet voice calls to her, and she turns to see Luka running towards her as fast as his little legs can carry him, Hyun Woo on his heels. She laughs back, bracing herself to catch him.
Luka laughs, and Hyuna watches him brace to catch her. She imagines, just for a moment, what it might be like to be held in his arms. It’s been years since the last time. She doesn’t know what his body feels like against hers, anymore.
She shouldn’t want to know, really. But there’s no time to regret any of it.
Hyuna is tired and heartsick and about to die. She’s not going to begrudge herself a little bit of comfort now.
In the final moment before she reaches Luka, she flicks three fingers again, meeting Rachel’s eyes over his shoulder for just a moment.
I’m so sorry.
Hyuna throws her arms around Luka—oh, he’s cold, even after a performance, the way he’s always been, not enough air and blood circulating in that frail body of his—and whips him around.
The shot pierces her through the back. It doesn’t go as deep into her body as Hyuna expected, and her throat burns with sorrow. Rachel, ever brilliant, must have done something to soften her shot. Hyuna doesn’t think it will make a difference.
Hyuna doesn’t feel the pain. Not yet.
Luka is frozen beneath her. His hands twitch around her lower back, like he’s afraid to move them. She knows that her blood is staining his front. She wishes she could see the look on his face, struck with the urge to gloat, see, this is what it feels like to grieve—and, bizarrely, to soothe his distress away.
Hyuna prays with all of her heart that Rachel has disappeared and they’re fully alone. She prays that Luka’s shock will erase his memory of what just happened, and she can rewrite it.
Somehow, her brain is still sharp enough for speech. She seizes consciousness with every bit of strength she has left.
Hyuna tilts her head into his neck and begins to whisper.
She names her fictitious killer into a shuddering Luka’s ear, weaving a falsehood about a traitor, someone who had infiltrated the rebellion solely to exact revenge on Luka, with his endless list of dead competitors. She confesses with a wavering voice that she couldn’t do anything but protect him, the one she loves. The words taste like ash and vomit on her tongue. Luka lets out a ragged gasp, and Hyuna presses her advantage.
You were my one and only weakness, she whispers. The words are barbs intended to dig in and fester, coated in the poison of her lie. But they also land with the barest weight of truth.
Hyun Woo was always Hyuna’s biggest weakness, and then the family she built around the rebellion. And Luka is…
Hyuna’s arms tighten around him. Luka’s tears drip into her hair. There are black spots in her eyes that don’t disappear with her increasingly heavy blinks.
Live with love, she says, and it’s both a whisper intended to haunt him…and a prayer. A plea. A last effort to turn him against the segyein, to bring him back to her.
Once upon a time, even for a little while, Luka was kind. He was sweet. He was her and Hyun Woo’s best friend, until his upbringing and the competition and his efforts to win Hyuna’s attention turned him into her greatest, most beloved enemy.
In another life, Hyuna thinks Luka would remain the boy he once was. He might even grow into a man she could love without reservation, without the nauseating, ugly swell of emotions with which she associates him.
But that life is not this one, and the only way she can truly rely on Luka is to use Luka’s own greatest weapon against him: manipulation.
If she can get him onto their side—or, at the very least, against the segyein—by costing him herself—well.
She’ll have won the rebellion an invaluable tool. Another rocket, perfectly created for the segeyin’s pleasure, that will self-destruct and bring about victory.
And she’ll have brought Luka home.
Forgive yourself, Hyuna murmurs, by which she means: think about the fact that you lost me.
Everything begins from there, Hyuna says, by which she means: fight for me.
Her legs buckle, and she sags against Luka, who follows her to the ground, arms coming to cradle her. His breath comes out in gasps, and he’s muttering no, no, no under his breath.
He’s not cold anymore. Or maybe it’s just that she’s colder, despite the warmth of the blood pooling around her.
For the first time, Hyuna pulls back and allows herself to look at him. She looks at the watery blur of his eyes, the anguish on his face. She traces his beautiful, boyish face with her eyes.
Satisfaction burns in her chest, misery on its heels, a quiet ache of love the shadows beneath them both.
Yes, Hyuna thinks. Good. This is what you deserve. But you have a chance to do something good. Don’t let me down, okay? Just this once, don’t let me down.
A scream shatters the air. Mizi.
Sorry, Hyuna thinks again, bleary. Luka lets out a broken sob, and Hyuna realizes she’s said it out loud.
There’s a shadow above her—not Luka’s, not Mizi’s. Another rebel leans over her, speaking in low tones to Luka, and Hyuna’s vision can’t focus enough to identify who it is behind their mask. What are you doing?! Get away, Hyuna wants to cry, but she doesn’t have enough breath in her lungs to speak.
We can save her, she thinks the rebel says, and Luka’s tight grip on her shoulders fades away into nothing, and she’s being lifted up, up, up.
And then Hyuna is floating, as warm and joyous as the dream she, like Jacob, has given her life for. She drifts up and away, weightless and free, and imagines herself the rocket carrying their hopes away into a universe filled with new, burgeoning song.