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A storm is brewing on the wrong side of the window. On the other end, there's a movie you used to love playing in the background. You can't for your life remember how it ends—the lead is reciting that line carved into your heart—and it doesn't matter, not really, when the hand on yours tugs at your frays, rips at your heartstrings more than anything else in the world ever could.
His shoulders fill the worn denim jacket perfectly: the jacket you just couldn't throw away, the jacket you wore for the longest time. Now, your shoulders fill her jacket again. Everything is right.
Well, except for one thing. Is it too selfish to ask for? But you've been good for so long, and so very alone.
"Yoon Hwapyung."
Your voice quivers more than the air dancing between you both. He doesn't seem to notice it as much as you do, with the way he continues to draw circles on your hand with his thumb. The soft hum that leaves his lips is a constant.
"Let me cut your hair."
For a moment in time, there is nothing but silence. Had the night swallowed your words? Had you said them at all? If you pressed play on the remote, would he disappear? You don't remember when you started sleeping with the television on. Maybe it was when you had gotten used to the sound of breathing next to you. You'll have to put away two soju glasses at the end of the night, regardless.
Then he starts to move—slow-motion, like a replay of another memory you'd fall asleep to—bracing his hand on the woven carpet as he pushes himself off the ground. The shadows on his cheekbones are darker than night and his legs are like swaying branches in the wind. You want to drag him down, bury him in your arms until he remembers what it feels to be warm again.
He throws a look over his shoulder. The light from the television screen makes his skin look luminescent. But the bathroom is too wet, too cold. You'd screamed at the sea to return what was yours, until your lungs burnt themselves out and the sun came up.
You grab his arm.
"Here. I'll clean up after."
You find a pair of scissors on the drying rack. It's the only one you've got.
He flinches when the metal kisses his skin: a slight tremor, whisper beneath his bones. Then, he leans back to meet your blade.
This time, you're the one who's moving away.
"Forget it. This was a stupid idea."
His hand finds yours without him looking.
"Hey, Kang Gilyoung."
Rude as the day he was born. You try to look angry and know you've already failed.
"Don't go soft on me now."
"I just... don't think I'll do a good job."
To save some pride for the both of you, even if it holds no meaning in this space you carved for yourselves.
"Don't worry too much. I'll look handsome, regardless. Do you need a picture?"
"No."
You've seen his face more in the year he stayed dead than the time you spent together.
"Good. I don't have any."
The dim of the room lends enough cover for your blade to be the only one cutting through white noise.
On a night less forgiving, he'd asked why you became a policewoman. It'd killed your mother. It was difficult to answer without feeling like you were betraying her. With your grades, you could have been a prosecutor or lawyer. The awards beneath piles of dust are proof of worse years, of following rules that never failed you.
When you held a gun for the first time, it felt like something inside you had shifted: ugly, black viscera spilling out from crevices you thought you'd sealed shut.
Powerful. Like you had a chance against him.
"I wanted to catch the bastard with my own hands."
It made him smile, so you felt that it was enough.
Now the credits are rolling, and you've missed the ending again. Did she say what she wanted to, in the end? Did it matter? He left, anyway.
You shoot, because it's healthier to purge whatever was inside of you at the gun range than anywhere else. Eat meals that hold more weight in nutritional value than actual taste, go for runs when the sun hasn't yet fallen over the horizon and the quiet has become too loud. And later in the night when you're downing your fourth glass—a reflection of his—you can go, "Don't skip meals," to the priest with those dark eyes, pretend you've got your life stitched back together better than he has his.
You don't tell him that you've spent the last year using your badge to visit the morgue each time an unidentified body washes up. It's bad luck to speak of the dead.
You've never believed in angels, because you've never believed in God, but you heard their wings were as brittle and soft as silk. His hair fans around him—feathers stained black with tar—and he melts into your hands like he needs something you weren't entirely sure you were giving, like he needs it now. You didn't know your hands could be like this. You didn't know your hands could be kind.
It's too quiet. The light from the television screen has disappeared, and without the soundtrack filling the cracks of time, your head puts itself in a flurry again.
Well, you're almost finished. You know even without looking, feel him come back to himself beneath your hands like he'd just woken up from one of his terrible nightmares. Would he stay this time? The storm outside isn't letting up, and neither of you are getting any younger.
He has his eyes closed when you turn him around, but his eyelashes still tremble with each heartbeat that passes.
"I missed you."
Warmth—like a bonfire in a biting winter night—chapped skin on yours, trailing fire in its wake. And suddenly you're thirty-two again: with the wind beneath your feet, caught between an arm and death's door. You let your eyes fall shut to the cadence of familiar lips, hands wrapped tightly around your shoulders, and think, Maybe this is how it really ends.
The thumb that swipes at your cheek is softer than the first rays of morning sun.
Oh. You can't remember the last time you allowed yourself to cry.
Finally, Yoon Hwapyung opens his eyes. He's smiling, so it makes everything fade away.
"I know, Gilyoung-ah."