Archive of Our Own

I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make your dear voice come alive again?

I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

O scales of feeling.

I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet, prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and face of some passerby.

I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.

— Robert Desnos

Death's clock ticks silently.

Every human has one thing in common; in the silence of the night, somewhere between the waning clamour of human life and the darkness that expands a room into an endless tunnel, the ticking of a clock can be heard.

Years ago, Yeon Sieun ceased to exist.

The world became a bleak backdrop, everything distorting into one single beat.

That was the day that the tick of the clock made itself known to him, embedded deep in his ear.

The only proof that he continues to live is that ticking.

Nothing exists beyond that measure of time.

Sieun tracks his life in a second becoming a minute into an hour, a day, a week, a month, until a whole year passes.

An untethered string, floating at the whim of the breeze.

That is all he is.

On his calendar, there is a single day circled.

As he sells the furniture in his apartment, cancels his subscriptions, disconnects his phone, and hands in his resignation, Sieun returns with a look at the calendar. An unbroken-broken promise to be fulfilled soon.

The clock ticks away, counting down.

It gets overpowered by the bustle of the airport but returns inevitably when every other passenger on the plane falls asleep and the hum of the engine is the only accompanying choir. Unsurprisingly, sleep evades Sieun for the entire fourteen hours and he wastes the time staring out at the sky, hands folded politely in his lap.

After they land, the first thing he does is check the time. He stares up at the flight board.

It is just about to turn eleven.

He has an hour until midnight. Cutting it close, but he will make it.

Navigating the airport is not difficult, though the air inside is oppressive. White walls, cavernously high, with windows that look out onto the tarmac where the planes are lined up.

He does not have a suitcase to retrieve from the belt, so he consults the signs for the way out instead of following the crowd towards the conveyor belts. Seeing the directions on the boards written out in Korean is a little disorientating at first, but he blames that on his lack of sleep.

He is rarely offered a chance to escape the monotony of the day. Even the odd times that he does drift off into a pitiful sleep, the nightmares that ravage his mind are more than enough to cut it short.

Sieun pulls the hoodie further over his head and follows the arrows to the exit.

Outside, he hails down a taxi and gives the driver the closest building he can remember to his destination. It earns him a dubious look through the rear-view mirror, but he lacks the energy to feel offended.

Coming out of the airport without a suitcase and asking to be dropped near a high school is bound to sound suspicious. He may pass as younger than he actually is but what student in high school would be flying in on a Tuesday evening during the middle of the semester?

Thankfully, the taxi driver does not bother with questioning him further, and the drive settles into a silence. Minus the ticking.

Sieun stares out the window as Seoul flies by. Trees crammed with yellow and brown leaves fill the streets, and the few people who walk under them are wearing scarfs and jackets, fending off the cold chill that persists through the night.

Every so often, Sieun's eyes flit to the time on the car's interface, frowning slightly as midnight crawls closer.

It should not unnerve him as much as it does. There is no demand for him to arrive there on time anymore. The reminder thuds in his chest like the recoil of a cannon. He pulls his gaze away from the time and onto the road again.

Traffic is not so bad at this time of night, and they sail smoothly through the roads of Seoul.

Soon, the streets become familiar and he deduces that they are steadily approaching his destination. He walked these streets in another life, back when everything was starting to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, or a heart being sewn into one whole.

Cleaved open and bleeding, he draws himself into the car, fighting off the urge to reach into those memories and submerge in their warm cradle. He knows by now the ramifications of wanting to live in the bliss of a promised forever.

The car comes to a halt and Sieun pulls out a wallet from his back pocket, handing the driver the money before exiting with a bow. He is thankful that he remembered to exchange some of his American dollars before boarding his flight here because he did not have had the time to do so after arriving.

The metronome reminds him of that.

Autumn's gentle death surrounds him instantly once he steps out the vehicle, chasing a shiver up his spine. There are less trees near the high school, and instead, he hears the shattered breath of the air, moving around him like a tide. Ebb and flow.

Sieun puts one foot in front of the other and starts down the street.

After a moment of consideration, he lets his hood fall down, not wanting to draw any attention.

The building at the end of the street stretches into the night sky as he nears.

Byuksan failed to change in his absence. He stares at it over the wrought iron gate which has been locked shut for the night.

People always think that change is the natural successor to their absence. It is a way of thinking that Sieun has never really put any faith in once in his life. His presence is less than a ghost, more of a memory.

Still, a part of him wrongly assumed Byuksan may have been harmed by time and its unforgiving hatred.

The same part that thought it would change the day someone stopped waking up.

He had been different to Sieun; the room would shift to cater him, his fierce and sunny disposition so prepossessing that even the air seemed to mould around him. Back then, Sieun thought the school would feel the loss of life as he had—the whole city, the whole world, even the universe itself should have mourned—but everything continued as usual.

Only Sieun had died that day.

Continuing passed the gate, he finds his way through the greenery on the left. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the dim light and he stops stumbling over every uneven chunk of dirt.

The night is deathly quiet as he creeps closer to the ashen walls that surround the back courtyard. He is spit out of the vegetation near the shed and takes a second to regain his bearings. Nothing has really changed since he had last been here, but it still takes him a second to situate himself.

His sneakers hit the brick pavement and he crosses the distance to the shed, ignoring the bolt-locked door.

On the other side, there is a plethora of flowerbeds. His heart spasms painfully at the sight and the next breath from his mouth comes out a little uneven.

In the far corner is a birch tree surrounded by shrubs of gardenia and a plot of dirt beneath it.

The bark of the tree is hidden from Sieun's eyes by a shadowy silhouette.

He would recognise it anywhere.

He sucks in a breath and steps away from the shed, treading a direct path to the birch tree.

The person there turns to face him but Sieun does not look. A reckless, desolate voice in his brain beseeches him for a glance at the face, but Sieun refuses. The pain of the first few times he fell for such a deceit are scarred deep in his bleeding heart.

He does not need tricks of light and sleepless hallucinations.

He is here for a single thing. Here in Seoul, here in South Korea.

Here, still alive.

This is his last promise to Ahn Suho that he has to fulfill.

Only then will he be able to stop listening to the ticking in his ear and finally surrender to it instead.

Sieun has lived over eight years waiting for this day.

His final day.

He steps up to the mound, studying the gardenias. At least they have grown in number since he last saw it. So has the birch tree. Maybe nourished by that which he came to retrieve.

The presence at his side does not fade but it rarely does. They persist. As persistent as Ahn Suho had been in his conquest to become Sieun's friend. Which he had succeeded in eventually, because Ahn Suho always succeeded. He was someone whose effort reaped the results he deserved.

Until…

Sieun cracks his neck and drops his gaze to the mound.

He freezes.

It has been torn open. Grass strewn across the place, and dirt spilling over the brick at his feet. A shovel rests beside a hole in the dirt.

Acid burns up his throat. A cold perforates his chest like a bullet and he almost stumbles back.

It takes a morsel of his courage to turn to his right.

Ahn Suho is staring at him with wide eyes. They shine still. They always do. Seeing Suho with his eyes open is always so hard for Sieun to stomach. It is his ruining; a destroyed possibility.

Sieun knows better than anyone else that Ahn Suho is dead. It has been the one and only truth of his life for over seven years.

He died and left Sieun behind in pieces that only Suho's gentle hands could have put back together.

Yet, Sieun cracks seeing him here now. He knows he has not slept in days and the last time he did succumb to his nightmares, it was his foot that had connected with Suho's skull and dealt the killing blow instead. Nevertheless, the sight of Suho is just…

It is a dream.

A dream that Sieun never got to believe in. Not for long, at least.

He looks down at Suho's hands and that is when everything stops.

Even the ticking.

Cradled in his hands is the thing Sieun came to retrieve.

Eight years ago, Suho had dragged him here in the early hours and together they had dug a small hole to put their time capsule in.

Their pinkies had interlocked, Sieun pressing his lips together with that face he used to give Suho whenever he thought he was acting childish—an expression he never wore again, one he regretted each day because truly there was something else he wanted to say in those moments—and Suho smiling. They had promised to come back here at midnight eight years from that day and dig it up together.

Regardless of whatever could have torn them apart.

What neither expected was for Suho to go into a coma a week later and die a year after that.

The small container is no longer buried but in the hands of Sieun's Suho. The one he hallucinates when he manages to avoid his nightmares for long enough that his subconscious haunts him in other ways.

They usually just stare at him. They never do anything. How can they? They are figments of his despairing hope.

Sieun stares at the time capsule before his eyes return to Suho's devastating face. He is frozen in shock. Sieun has seen every emotion on that face, but this one stabs him in the stomach. There is something hurt there, and even in his dreams, he is usually spared from seeing the damage he has caused Suho.

Lips parting, he inhales. The air shatters in his lungs and his next breath is rough and desperate.

"Suho-yah?"

Suho continues to stare at him. His bottom lip quivers, eyes glassy.

And Sieun knows.

He knows it cannot be Suho.

Suho is dead.

No amount of love—living in surplus in Sieun's body and slowly killing him—can conjure Suho back to life. If that is all it took, Suho would have never fallen into a coma in the first place.

The silence kills.

Kills and kills again.

Sieun dies a thousand times in the span of a few seconds, knowing his call will never be answered.

A crushed noise sounds in his throat and he shakes his head. "I must be seriously crazy." Lifting a hand to rub his eyes, he gives his head another shake again. "Why would he be here?"

Static and colour distort his vision when he opens his eyes again. Probably the lack of food in his body alongside the minimal sleep. But even through the chaos, he can make out Suho in blinding clarity, still standing there like a harbinger of death.

Maybe he knows that Sieun's life will end tomorrow. Maybe he knows that this is the last thing Sieun will ever do before he dies and seeks him out in whatever afterlife exists on the other side of Death's ticking.

Unable to help himself, Sieun traces Suho's features with his eyes. He manages to look older. Not considerably, but with the passing of a few years.

Sieun cannot help the shame that twinges in his chest. He avoids mirrors, but he knows that the years without Suho have not been easy on him. Half the time he already looks dead.

"Is this what you would've looked like now?" Sieun says, hand lifting in the space between them.

He stops before it can make contact with the frozen mirage. He has tried to touch them in the past and the coldness of air was so palpable that he had vomited for an hour straight. Although he had known it was a hallucination, the touch of death had been visceral.

"I wish I could've seen it."

Suho's face shifts, something breaking.

They stare at each other. The hallucination refuses to disappear, staring and staring and staring.

Sieun starts to feel a nausea roil in his stomach. Squeezing his eyes shut, he hits his temple with the butt of his palm. Again and again. Hoping to jostle whatever receptor in his brain was replicating Suho to such resplendent precision.

"Please." It is a croaked sound.

Callouses brush his wrist, restricting his movement.

Sieun stills.

"Sieun-ah…"

His eyes fly open.

Suho is still staring at him.

Suho, who is holding his wrist now.

"What are you saying?"

The pulse in Sieun's wrist pounds. Louder and louder. It is so forceful like it is trying to beat out of his skin and meet the warmth of Suho's hand.

Warm.

So warm.

Sieun's other hand shoots up, cupping Suho's face.

Warm.

So fucking warm.

He chokes, wrenching himself free and cradling all of Suho's face in his hands. Everything he has ever wanted, everything he lived for, everything he is going to die for one day. Tomorrow.

Warm.

"Suho? Suho-yah?"

He feels the shaky breath Suho releases as his eyes swarm with tears.

"Is it really you?" Sieun breathes. "If this isn't real, I can't— You can't… Suho-yah." He inhales in three staggered lifts of his chest. "Suho-yah, please."

Hands cover his. They are warm.

Calloused and warm.

Every line on them can be felt, pulsing with life. The faint throb of a heartbeat that is not his own brushes against his skin.

"It's really me, Sieun-ah."

Blood rushes to Sieun's head. He refuses to take his eyes off Suho for even a second, even as his body tips back. Until his eyelids flutter closed and he loses consciousness, he spends every second staring at Suho.

Who is alive.

The moment Sieun passes out, Suho lunges to catch him as he crumples.

"Sieun-ah," he says again, his voice finally working but only to say that name.

Sieun is here.

Sieun who abandoned him is here.

Except, something is undeniably wrong.

Sieun did not act like someone who chose to leave Suho and wanted nothing to do with him. Sieun had acted like Suho was not real, like a child pretending that they cannot see their imaginary friend anymore.

"Sieun-ah," Suho breathes, brushing his hair from his forehead.

Sieun's long lashes are closed and refuse to open.

When he had stepped out of the shadows earlier, ignoring Suho as though he were not there, Suho had frozen.

Years of agonising over what to say if he ever saw Sieun again, of yelling, fighting and forgiving, it all melted at the sight of those bottomless eyes. Maybe it was the depth in them, the profound nothingness in an ocean once so vast.

Because Suho knows those eyes like the back of his hand, dreams of them most nights. Dreams of Sieun in high school, at his side; dreams of him in the vulnerable light of an early dinner because they are too tired to stay up and want to go to bed early. Dreams of a life where Sieun stayed and every night he whispers how Suho was worth every second of waiting.

Those eyes so vacant now.

Suho's first thought had been that Sieun looks sick, once golden skin a sickly pale, eye bags that have sunk deep into his colourless cheeks, and a bony wrist that brought tears to Suho's eyes.

Simultaneously, Sieun had never been so beautiful as the moment he returned to Suho.

He had been shocked to silence, complete and utter disbelief, worsened when Sieun looked at him with such heart-aching pain, as if Suho's very existence was tearing him apart.

Only spurred to action when Sieun started hurting himself.

And now Sieun has fainted.

Suho stares at him. Really looks at him, as if he has not spent every second of Sieun's presence doing just that. Calmer in sleep, he seems at peace. Suho wonders if Sieun dreams. Dreams of him—them.

Wonders most why Sieun chose to keep a promise after he chose to leave. If that is even the truth anymore. What the truth could be, if not that.

Slowly, he gathers all of Sieun in his arms, lifting him up. The time capsule is still in his left hand, and he spares a glance at the shovel and the hole he has dug before walking away.

His original plan was to fill it up once again but things have gone wildly off-track.

All that matters now is to get Sieun somewhere he can rest. Somewhere that Suho can care for him.

His car is only a street away, and Sieun is barely heavy enough for it to feel like any exertion.

After waking up from the coma, Suho put his body through hell and back to recover.

He is twenty-five now and reaping the benefits of his arduous training. Stronger than he had been the last time he saw Sieun, in more ways than one. In all the ways that would have mattered back then.

He manages to set Sieun on his feet, hugging him close as he gets the passenger door open. The time capsule is temporarily left on the dashboard so that he can lift Sieun into the car. Hair spilling over his face, Sieun curls forward in his seat and Suho's hand snakes forward, catching his forehead before he crumples to the floor.

And despite himself, despite everything that has happened in the past half an hour, Suho lets out a fond laugh, dripping in affection long disappeared in the enormity of Sieun's absence.

He gently tips Sieun back in the seat, fastening his seatbelt and giving his hair an indulgent stroke before closing the car door.

Only when he gets in the driver seat does he remember the time capsule. He reaches across the console and takes it from the dashboard. Without thinking, he leaves it in Sieun's lap. Strokes his hair again. Just to feel the soft strands and know he is really there.

It does not matter what is to come now.

For the first time in years, Suho feels a faint sense of security, something so distinctly absent after Beomseok—after Sieun.

He twists his key in the ignition and the car rumbles to life.

The vibrations spread from the seat to his body like atrophied waves.

He keeps a strict sleep schedule most nights because health is undoubtedly important to him. Every day is recovery, even after so many years.

It is past midnight, and he is usually in bed by ten. But tonight had been in his calender for years, before he had learnt what it meant to use a wheelchair, crutches, and a cane.

He came tonight with a quashed hope that Sieun may show up. But he did.

The drive to his apartment is completely still. Quiet.

A faint ticking noise from the car is the only thing audible.

Sieun is still asleep as Suho parks outside his apartment. He says nothing; silently kills the engine and rounds the front of the car, hauling Sieun out with the time capsule still in his lap. Sieun's head rests on his shoulder and Suho sucks in a breath before tightening his hold and pressing the fob to lock his car.

He carries Sieun up to his apartment.

He never thought peace could settle in his bones as it does now, with Sieun cradled in his arms.

This time, he keeps Sieun in his hold as he twists the key in the lock and pushes the door open. Absentmindedly, he begins to slowly rock him, like pacifying a child.

Sieun releases a long breath, so he must be doing something right.

"Sieun-ah," Suho says again as he enters his apartment, because he really cannot help himself.

The space looks quaint all of a sudden. It feels like home for the first time in the three years that he has been living there.

Suho left a few hours ago just to return with his home in his arms.

He closes the door behind him and holds Sieun tight, padding through the living room and into his bedroom. Slowly lowering Sieun to the bed, he takes the time capsule from his lap and places it on his bedside table before pulling back the quilt.

Sieun's face presses into his pillow, taking a deep breath. For a moment, Suho thinks he is awake, but there is no sign of him stirring in his expression.

The quilt flutters down over Sieun and Suho tucks it tight.

"Sieun-ah, I'm here," he whispers, brushing the hair off his forehead. "I'm here."

Sieun exhales.

It does not really register to Suho what he is doing until he is in his pyjamas and slipping into bed beside Sieun.

Maybe it is wrong. Maybe Sieun will wake in the morning and leave him again.

Tonight though, in his slumber, he cozies into Suho's chest and lets himself be embraced.

The clock on the bedside table that is usually the only sound Suho can hear as he settles down to sleep is indistinct in comparison to the regular draw of Sieun's breath.

Sleep is already clawing at him, trying to drag him into a dreamscape that, for the first time in years, will resemble the situation he currently lives.

Sieun in his arms.

Sieun here.

Sieun.

Yeon Sieun.

Suho brushes his lips against Sieun's scalp before he drifts off.

Two very different dreams exist that night, in the privacy of an unlit room. They stand at a juxtaposition, fragments lingering in the air that cushions them.

Tendrils snake out of Suho's dream, reaching deep into the anguish of Sieun's subconscious and tug at him, trying to pull him out into the idyllic household that Suho returns to each night—their home together. He has just cooked them ox knee soup, a silly tradition they do on their anniversaries in remembrance of the day Suho realised he was in love with Sieun. He wants to share it with the boy he fell in love with. Calls to him.

For the first time, Sieun does not leave their bedroom to join him. So, Suho reaches out.

At the bottom of a desolate pit, Sieun is watching Suho's chest rise and fall through the thicket of a forest. He is frozen in place, terror laying siege to his body until roots extend from beneath his feet and his skin becomes the rotting corpse of a tree.

Suho still breathes, and that is enough.

He will not take the beep of a heart monitor for granted ever again.

As branches stretch up from his shoulders, he feels something brush his arm and looks down. It is a golden light. Where it lands, human skin is once again visible.

Sieun tries to grab it but his hand goes straight through. A tether, he realises. Leading him somewhere.

"I can't," he says as it twinkles. "I have to stay with him."

When he turns back to the break in the thicket, Suho is gone.

His heart stops dead in his chest and his head whips to the light, but that has abandoned him too, left to his fate in the forest.

He struggles against his own body to move—to search—but he has assimilated with the ground, and all he manages is the faint crumbling of bark. He tries to open his mouth, wanting to call out for Suho, but he no longer has one. Every part of him hardens into a birch tree, until even his airways are constricted by the sap that he produces.

He chokes to death at the hands of his own creation, and the last groans of his bark echo through the forest.

Su-ho.

Sieun thrashes awake, gasping as the oxygen he was deprived of rushes into his lungs. He covers his throat with the faint touch of a hand, trying to calm his heart which is almost beating out of his chest.

What hurts is not the lingering stiffness from becoming a tree, or the Suho with his eyes closed that disappeared. It is the one with his eyes open that tears at Sieun's chest, leaving him gaping.

He dreamt of Suho, warm once again.

Even his worst nightmares are incomparable to that violent act on his heart. Years of ignoring every flash of Suho he sees among passersby, in the people he meets, and all it takes is the two syllables of his name to rock his foundations.

He should know better by now.

After all this time, Sieun still wakes some mornings and thinks he is sixteen and Suho exists somewhere in Seoul. Eventually it comes back with the tidal force of a tsunami, that he is twenty-five and Suho has been dead for over seven years.

Between his gasps for air, Sieun's eyes dart around the space that he finds himself in. The bedroom is unfamiliar and nothing stands out or triggers his memory of what led him there. He must have passed out from exhaustion at some point between the taxi and the flowerbeds where the birch tree with its gardenias and the time capsule are.

He runs his hands over the soft linen and looks around for where the ticking he can hear is emanating from. His whole body tenses when he finds the clock on a bedside table.

But that it is not the time—five whole hours after his departure flight back to the U.S.—that sends a sharp dread through him.

It is the small time capsule there, cracked opened and with three letters laid out beside it.

He must have found it the night before but he has no recollection of that occurring.

Shakily, he shifts over in the bed and reaches for the letter on the top of the pile. Just as his fingers brush it, his eyes discover something else, now visible from the new angle.

A framed photo of him and Suho.

It is similar to the one Sieun has in his room in America, except in this one, there is a faint smile on his face that is lacking in his version.

Sieun realises he must still be dreaming.

Footfalls draw his attention from the bedside table to the door.

It opens slowly. Incrementally.

Sieun's breath catches in his throat.

A head peers around the door, eyes widening when they find Sieun staring back.

Sieun blinks. Once. Twice.

"No."

It comes out certain but laced with panic.

Suho steps into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Sieun asks, voice breaking. "I can deal with the nightmares. Not seeing you like this. Not seeing you so alive." A tear slips from his eye, dropping down his cheek and onto his hands. "Why? Why now?"

Suho opens his mouth to speak, and Sieun scrambles to cover his ears.

"No! Stop! I don't want to hear his voice." A sob wracks through his body. His bones seem to crumble into dust at the sheer pressure of his misery, crushing him in from all angles. "Just leave me alone!"

He smacks the heel of one hand against his temple, squeezing his eyes shut. "Please. Just go. I'm begging you."

He hiccups as a shudder spasms through him, his breath refusing to come out. He feels faint. He might actually, at this rate.

A warm hand lands on his chest. "Breathe, Sieun-ah."

Even after so long, hearing that voice makes Sieun comply immediately.

He inhales like he has not breathed in eight years. His chest rises and presses back against the hand. It burns through the thick material of his hoodie.

"Good."

Sieun shakes his head, hitting the side of it again. "Stop."

"No, Sieun-ah. Listen to me, please. I don't know what you think, but I'm alive. I'm alive and I'm right here in front of you, okay?"

Opening his eyes, Sieun finds Suho bent to one knee at his side, a hand on his own heart like he is connecting the two in his attempt to ground him.

Sieun stares at him. "Stop lying to me." He sounds so defeated; war-torn. "It's mean, and you were never mean, Suho-yah."

Suho's face crumples. "Sieun, what can I do to prove to you that this is real?"

Sieun is silent for seconds that carry the weight of seven years spent waiting for his death. Today.

"Kiss me," he breathes.

Because no matter what, the guilt that he carries with him will never allow dreams where he is given something good. It is in his every cell, the guilt. A toxin that his body has never produced antibodies for, one that his immune system refuses to fight. It lives inside him, breaking him down day after day—killing him again and again. That is why Sieun is just a ghost haunting the corridors of his own body, waiting to find his home once more.

And this Suho, conjured up by his conscience to haunt him, it will not disobey the chemical signal that has been instilled in him—he does not deserve Suho in any way. He is not allowed to have him for even a second of a blissful illusion.

Sieun lost Suho a thousand times since the moment he went into a coma. Every second has been a small death.

Withering away.

Suho's expression is blank. He does not move. They never do.

Sieun nods, pressing his lips together. "See? So just leave—"

Two hands brush against his jaw. His face is cradled so tenderly.

The words die on his tongue, a shaky breath escaping him.

Suho's lips press against his.

And they are so incredibly, undeniably warm.

Sieun freezes completely.

Suho's kiss is not punishing as he believed it may be. It is not accusatory, or filled with resentment.

Suho kisses him like he is writing words onto Sieun's lips.

I'm alive. I'm here. Trust me.

And silently, faintly—not anything more than a tick—etching into the lines of his lips: I missed you. You came back.

It echoes through Sieun, so loud his eardrums might burst. There is no noise but their lips touching.

He is so still he may have died.

The fail-safe in his heart does not trigger when he breaks into pieces. Maybe it never existed in the first place. Or maybe it just never prepared for this.

His heart shatters through his ribs to beat against his skin. It breaks through sinew and shreds everything in its path to Suho.

Suho.

Alive.

Alive and kissing him.

"Suho-yah," Sieun breathes, and for the first time, it sounds like a greeting.

Suho rests his forehead against Sieun's, still cradling his face. "Sieun-ah."

Sieun only manages one deep breath before he unleashes a torrent of tears. He pulls at Suho until he falls down onto the bed, and somehow, Suho already knows. His arms are open for Sieun to climb into, even though they never hugged once before in their lives.

Sieun melts into him, sewing their bodies together as he clutches Suho. Skin weaving as one; reaching for one another; fitting together.

Second after second, every moment spent thinking Suho was dead spills from his eyes, soaking into Suho's shirt as he is held in warm and forgiving arms.

Suho speaks to him in a soft voice, one that remained deep inside him, awaiting Sieun's return.

"It's okay. I'm alive. I'm here. Trust me." His face presses into Sieun's hair so he breathes the next words directly to his brain, the one that has been torturing him for so many lonely years. "I missed you. You came back."

And Sieun will never be the same again.

Today is the day promised to him years ago. That he could finally be at peace when he passes on to find Suho.

He dies and comes back to life in Suho's embrace. He finds Suho.

His tears do not abate.

Suho is rocking him, worry carved in the groove between his brows.

His mind grapples with the three developments warring for his attention.

Sieun thought he was dead.

Sieun wants to kiss him.

He just kissed Sieun.

The longer he dedicates to the first thought, the tighter he squeezes Sieun, still weeping, and the more he thinks about the other two, he itches to do it again. Just to test if maybe that would help Sieun stop crying.

Despite it all, his heart skips in his chest at the thought.

He leaves another trace of a kiss in Sieun's hair, brushing down to his temple. Sieun hiccups and withdraws, taking in Suho and whatever expression he is wearing. Suho is not entirely sure, mostly because he is too busy studying Sieun to even feel the muscles in his own face.

He may have spent the entire morning before Sieun woke doing just this, but no matter how many times he does, he still cannot comprehend that he is real.

Sieun looks like a devastated temple. A broken stained-glass window. He is so beautiful that Suho finds himself short of breath.

"Sieun-ah," he mumbles, stumbling over each syllable like he only just learnt how to speak. Like he has been born anew. "I missed you."

Sieun's expression crumples again and he takes his bottom lip into his mouth, shaking his head. He tugs Suho close once more, hiding against his neck.

Suho allows a small pause before he says, "Did you miss me, too?"

A second floods the entire room, opening a chasm beneath Suho.

It closes again when he feels Sieun's head bob against his neck. A nod.

"I thought you were dead," Sieun whimpers.

Suho's hands slide further across Sieun's back, holding him closer. It is his turn to drop his face into the safety of Sieun's skin.

"I'm not," he says with as much certainty as he can muster; certainty that is rooted in suffering. His proof of existence takes the shape of Sieun's silhouette, he knows he is alive because he has suffered so greatly, missing him. "I'm here right now. With you."

Living once more.

The moment that Sieun discovered Suho was alive, it is as though time started moving. Like Suho's life was truly on pause until Sieun's eyes were witnessing him again.

Sieun breaks down once more.

Suho cradles—rocks—him through it, even when his legs go numb and his shirt is soaked from all the tears. Even when Sieun tells him he has to be a hallucination because they always taunt him like this.

Suho's own tears start at that point. It takes a few minutes for Sieun to notice the erratic rise of Suho's chest and when he retreats to find Suho biting his bottom lip, cheeks flushed and eyes misty, he cups Suho's face and strokes the tears.

"Don't cry," he whispers. "Please don't cry, Suho-yah."

Suho nods as he leans into the warm promise of Sieun's palm. It feels like a tomorrow for the both of them. A tomorrow Sieun thought would never come. A tomorrow that Suho thought would be without a home.

But a tomorrow will come. For the both of them to be together. Intertwined.

It takes the morning for them to settle into something less heart-breaking. Sieun realises at some point that he is still curled in Suho's lap, but Suho says nothing about it, so neither does he.

They should probably talk; Suho being alive, Sieun being back. A lifeline. Sudden clarity restored after years of floating through the monotony of loneliness.

But instead, they walk out of Suho's bedroom and Suho cooks them breakfast. Sieun hovers nearby, scared of Suho leaving his sight for even a single breath. The anxiousness is replicated in the millisecond glances Suho throws his way every minute or so.

Sieun was never this courageous when they were teenagers. Now, he walks up to the counter nearby and stares at Suho. Studying. Memorising.

Suho glances up from the pan with a smile. His hair is tousled, and his face is still flushed from crying. He managed to change shirts earlier after Sieun sobbed through the material.

"Have your tastes changed?" he asks.

Sieun shakes his head, forcing his eyes away to look at the food in the pan. "I like your cooking."

"Good. You need to be fattened up," Suho says, eyes crinkling.

Sieun frowns.

Suho rests the wooden spoon on the side and takes a step towards him, gently picking up Sieun's wrist. It rests face up against his palm and he strokes the bony edges.

"You're too thin."

There is something to the way he says it, an ache of squandered time that may take years to stop haunting the chasm between them.

"You're not," Sieun responds, matter-of-factly.

Suho is noticeably bigger than the last time Sieun saw him wasting away on a hospital bed. He looks safe, or like safety. Sieun wishes he could live forever in those arms and how they swallow him up in a shelter of warmth.

As if sensing what Sieun was thinking, Suho pulls him into a loose hug again. Sieun releases a breath as his lashes flutter closed. A hand cups the nape of his neck. Secure. Sieun has never felt so secure in his life.

"I work at a gym," Suho quietly says, like it would be okay if the information slipped Sieun's notice.

As if Sieun is not starved for details about his life, thirsting for more evidence that Suho is alive, like collating every little piece of information will solidify this Suho in his arms.

His heart is so full.

"A gym?" he repeats back.

Suho retreats, but one of his hands linger at Sieun's waist. Fighting the urge to keep it there by resting his own over it, Sieun flexes his fingers.

"I can't exactly be weak if I'm training people for a living," continues Suho. "I've got to be reliable."

It lands oddly. Like he is preaching a religion that he stopped believing in.

"You've always been reliable, Suho," Sieun says.

Because it is the truth.

Even in death, Suho has been the most reliable crux of his life—his cornerstone through everything.

Suho stares blankly at him. Sieun is the person that he failed most to be reliable for. But there was not a trace of dishonesty in his tone.

Suho coughs, eyes darting around the room as a blush creeps up his cheeks.

"Well I'm more reliable now," he declares, lifting his arm and flexing his well-trained muscles. "See?"

Sieun is unable to decide whether he should be looking at Suho's arm or his face and ends up turning to the pan of food instead.

"I see."

There is a shuffle as Suho returns to cooking. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Sieun asks.

"What do you do? Where do you work?"

The question hangs in the air and Suho—for reasons unknown to him—regrets speaking.

Sieun seems to deliberate over what to say before finally settling on, "Just a regular office job. I quit a few weeks ago."

He does not say that he quit to return to Korea, or that the action itself had been a severance, completely isolating himself from everyone who knows him—that he quit to make for an easier passing. He says none of this. Simply watches Suho's reaction.

Suho's brows shoot up. In his head, Sieun had gone on to become some prolific doctor or physicist. Something that takes years to learn and consumes every second of the day. He has no clue that time stopped being available the moment he disappeared from Sieun's world. Sieun's every waking hour was with Suho, missing him—grieving him.

"Really? One of the big corporate buildings in Seoul?" Suho imagines him being promoted almost every day, rapidly rising through the ranks until he owned the company itself.

Sieun shakes his head. "No. It was in America."

The spoon clatters to the side. Brown sauce splatters over the marbling, but Suho is none the wiser.

Something writhes in his eyes, trying to reach out for Sieun to read, but he hides it well enough.

"America? You… You live abroad?"

Sieun nods.

Face falling, Suho turns away before Sieun can witness it. His hand comes up to the back of his neck and he rubs it repeatedly until the skin turns a raw shade of red.

Bubbles pop in the pan and distract him from his train of thought, the terror already creeping in again as though Sieun had not been situated in his lap an hour before, sobbing his heart out upon realising that Suho is alive.

The fear of Sieun leaving again; it haunts him like a second skin—a second heart, disembodied, beating just to break with each moment that Sieun is not by his side.

He wanted to believe that Sieun's reappearance was a second chance but maybe it is just another heartbreak.

"Suho?" Sieun softly says.

"How come you're back in Korea?" Suho asks.

Sieun goes silent. It is a pause that draws Suho's attention, cloaked in a secret. He wants to unwrap it.

"Hm?" he prompts.

Sieun's eyes flit up to him before going down to his hands, fidgeting against his legs.

"Uhm… For the time capsule."

The bubbles start popping in Suho's lungs when he takes a breath. They fizz; explode. Tiny tastes of the joy that Sieun seems so easily able to provide. He is a reckoning to Suho's nervous system, and Suho would have it no other way.

"Just for that?"

Something crosses Sieun's face too quickly to be deciphered. Suho almost tries to reach for it.

"Yes."

Sieun looks at Suho then. They watch the other like it could reveal whatever they need to hear most. But maybe, as they should know by now, it starts with the bravery to talk. Waiting for the other just leads to more waiting. Miserable waiting.

A day, a week, or maybe eight whole years.

Sieun is tired of it.

"My flight was this morning."

"Are you going back?"

Their voices collide in the air. They find each other halfway.

"This morning?" Suho says at the same time Sieun shakes his head.

Suho's mouth closes and parts thrice. Sieun says, with more conviction than a shake of his head, "I'm not going back."

"Don't you have—"

"The only thing I need is in Korea," Sieun asserts, shifting on his feet and looking away.

His hand lifts so he can tug at his earlobe, and it is only when Suho follows that movement that he notices the red tinge to Sieun's ear.

His breath catches as he realises.

Sieun is talking about him.

"Stay with me," he blurts out.

Sieun seems to be frozen in time, like a clock stopped ticking and he is forced to remain stagnant. Until his eyes fly to Suho's face, disbelief seeping in. "What?"

"Please."

Sieun's breathing quickens a little, eyes widening. Suho bites his bottom lip, head snapping down to the pan.

And Sieun does not answer him. Somehow, Suho knows not to take it to heart. Maybe it is in the glazed look over his eyes, and the way he wavers as he walks over to the dining table, like Suho did when he was just learning to walk again (like he still does sometimes).

They are eating breakfast in that hush, the quiet of a morning Suho dreams of too often for its serenity to be hurtful. He shovels food in his mouth with an attentive eye on Sieun throughout.

It only takes a few minutes for him to set his spoon down and say, "Sieun-ah."

Sieun raises his eyes from his bowl. Since they sat to eat, he had been scooping the soup and letting it trickle back into the bowl. Yet to put any in his mouth.

Suho picks his bowl up and stands from his side of the table, moving to the chair next to Sieun instead.

Gently, he extracts the spoon from Sieun's hold and takes a minimal amount of the liquid, no meat or anything else. Just a test. Cupping a hand beneath it, he blows on the steam before guiding it to Sieun's lips. He stops a respectable distance away, leaving the choice entirely up to Sieun.

It takes Sieun a few breaths before his chapped lips peel apart; he allows Suho to feed him.

"Sieun-ah," Suho says again (really he cannot help himself). "You have to eat properly." He takes another spoonful, this time with a small chunk of meat.

"I don't have an appetite," Sieun says with a crinkle of his nose.

"I know." It comes out soft.

"Suho." He still lets Suho spoonfeed him the next mouthful.

And the next.

"Hyung wants to see you healthy," says Suho, eyeing him.

"You're still not older than me," Sieun mumbles.

But that is all it takes apparently. Suho feeds him breakfast, although encouraged to take his own bites whenever Sieun needs a break from eating. It takes them quadruple the time it usually takes Suho to finish breakfast, and he would not trade a single second of it.

Better spent than any of the past seven years of his life.

When they are finished, Suho stares at Sieun's profile, his eyes closed as he grits his teeth. Suho had chosen something simple so that it would be easily to digest after his emotional outburst, but despite that, Sieun does not seem to be taking it well. Probably would not take anything well; it is clear that he has hardly been keeping a regular diet.

While Sieun waits for his food to settle in his stomach, Suho decides he has to find something to do with his hands. The chair scrapes as he stands, and not a moment later, fingers are circling his wrist.

"Where are you going?"

"To get you some clothes," answers Suho, looking down at Sieun, who is now open-eyed. "I thought you might want to shower and change."

Sieun tugs his wrist once and Suho is immediately lowering himself back into his seat. "Okay, I'll wait."

His hands start picking at the lint on his sweatpants before rubbing the marks on the table, frowning at the new scratches that were not there the last time he checked.

A huff, a note amused, comes from his left. He lifts his head to find Sieun regarding him with something familiar.

"You still can't sit still," Sieun says.

A warmth creeps up Suho's neck and he rubs the flushed skin. Twenty-five and he is just as fidgety as he was at seventeen, when Sieun knew him best.

"And you're still a statue," Suho counters, eyeing Sieun's good form.

Sieun's head turns away as a smile ghosts his lips. Suho wishes that he had been privy to its full splendour, but is content with just a frame of it. For now.

When they eventually move from the dining table to the bedroom, Sieun remains sickly, as if on the precipice of vomiting. Nausea roils his stomach and refuses to abate.

Suho must notice because he pulls out a chair for him to sit on. "Should I draw up a bath?"

Sieun does not know how to answer. He does not want anything beyond Suho being beside him. It is all he has longed for over the years, though he always thought it would come to him differently than it has.

When you think you are going to die, you purge yourself of all your desires. Of course, Sieun was dying for someone else—to reunite with someone else. The only thing he could never let go of was Suho, but everything else he relinquished with ease. He lived without desire for so long.

And now he is sat there, an empty shell who only knows two syllables. Su-ho.

Nothing else matters—can matter.

Met with silence once again, Suho decides a bath is the best option to move forward. Sieun manages to seem so incorporeal even when in front of him and warm. There must be something he can do to bring him back into his body, whether that be melting him in a steam-filled room or something else.

Sieun follows him into the bathroom as Suho gets on his knees and waits for the water to warm. When it finally does, he seals the drain with a plug and perches on the side of the bath, staring at Sieun.

Sieun stares back.

Both of them wondering how to have a conversation about seven years living in the shadow of the other's absence; how everything has been utterly misconstrued and neither knows how to trace back to the root of it all.

Suho is the first to speak. "Is it okay if I go and grab some clothes and you keep an eye on the water level?"

After considering it for an awfully long time, Sieun nods. He opens his mouth to tell Suho to be quick but decides against it.

Suho still returns within a minute. He places the pile of clothes on the side before folding up his sleeve and feeling the water. The faucet is cut off and he dries his arm on the towel. "Feel if it's warm enough," he instructs, motioning towards the bath.

Tentatively, Sieun brushes his fingers over the surface of the water, disturbing it with little ripples. It is a reminder that he is actually there, one that fades into a still calm once again.

"It's fine."

Suho leans against the wall. Straightening up, Sieun blinks at him. He wrings his hands together.

"Are you staying?"

It is a loaded question, though Suho knows he means it in a very simple way. Does he intend to stay in the bathroom while Sieun bathes?

"Do you want me to leave?" Suho answers with a question.

After a moment, Sieun shakes his head.

"I can turn around while you get in," Suho offers softly.

Once he receives a nod from Sieun, he puts his back to the bath, vision taken up by the door.

The only sound in the room is the whisper of clothes against skin, the air thick with steam and the many things two seventeen-year-olds were never given the chance to explore. Suho hooks a finger in the collar of his sweatshirt and gives it a shake, hoping to dispel the humidity that is clinging to him like a second skin.

Splashes of water sound. So very quiet, like Sieun is unable to make an impact loud enough to draw attention. Like he does not want to.

It makes Suho tense.

Before Suho turns around, Sieun brings his knees to his chest and hugs them close. He is unsure if it is a measure to preserve some of his dignity or if it is a natural instinct; to make himself take up as little space as possible.

The water swashes up the side of the bath, a constant hush until it settles down again. It is only then that he speaks.

"You can turn around."

Ever so slowly, Suho spins on his feet until he is facing Sieun once again.

The first time Suho sees Sieun naked, it is far from what he imagined. His brows draw together and his lips pinch.

In the bath, Sieun looks so incredibly small. Like a child. That is all Suho can think. How vulnerable and little he seems to have become.

Sieun stares up at him with those round doe eyes of his, shimmering gold in the overhead light. Deep in that glowing abyss, Suho swears he sees a promise of the Yeon Sieun he fell in love with, shielded in a sanctuary somewhere.

Suho stares back with iron in his eyes. No matter what it takes, he will meld the key to open that gilded cage and learn Sieun's deepest self. He wants to know the eight years between their promise of a tomorrow and when it finally came.

After a second of stalling, he grabs a small wooden stool from the side and places it down near the head of the bath.

"You're too thin," he says again.

Sieun shrugs, pulling his legs closer to his body.

A small bowl from the side is dipped into the water until half full.

"Tilt your head back," Suho murmurs.

Sieun does so. Their eyes meet for a second before he lets them flutter closed. The water from the bowl falls in a gentle waterfall onto his hair, and Suho tenderly combs his hand through the locks. He repeats the motion a few times until Sieun's hair is completely soaked through.

Dispensing a few pumps of shampoo onto his palm, he emulsifies it by rubbing them together. Sieun blinks his eyes open once or twice to check that Suho is still there, and Suho offers him a small, reassuring smile until his eyelids slip shut again.

His hands glide over Sieun's hair to coat it with suds of shampoo before he starts to massage it into his scalp. Fingers find their way behind his ears, rubbing slow circles. Suho learnt the art of massage therapy as his legs reacquainted with the floor beneath him and he has mastered it since with his job at the gym.

Unwittingly, Sieun releases a content sound, the tension in his shoulders dispersing into the water and creating ripples upon its departure. Every shift of his body causes those oscillations that remind Suho he is really there.

He gently rinses the soap from Sieun's hair and tussles with the urge to press a light kiss to the newly exposed skin of Sieun's forehead.

Once he is finished washing Sieun's hair, he puts the bowl on the floor and relocates to the side of the bath.

Sieun lets his legs slip down, body loose for the first time in years. Suho's touch is still his undoing.

Suho crouches, stroking Sieun's hair back. Sieun turns to look at him, eyelids low as though he may tumble into a sleep once again. Hopefully one that will not rob him of his memory of Suho as he is now, alive.

His hand breaks the water and brushes the side of Suho's face. Suho closes his eyes and leans into the touch, both of them uncaring for how the water is cooling as his thumb rubs over the warmth of Suho's cheek. Even his stark nakedness is naught in comparison to the intimacy they share now. That gentle touch carries the promises they should have spent years compiling together.

And a promise to stay.

Suho embosses it against his skin by laying his own hand atop Sieun's.

"Suho-yah," Sieun whispers.

Eyes opening, Suho finds Sieun's gaze, steamed by the air. Everything seems to melt between them. He leans forward. His lips brush over Sieun's nose, and a second later, Sieun gently tips Suho's face down so that their lips can meet.

When they do, his eyes flutter shut. Suho watches the peace that settles into the fine lines of his expression. It is as though he begins and ends with the touch of their lips—with Suho.

Tears sting Suho's eyes again, dripping down silently and falling into the lake that bathes Sieun.

The kiss ripples like water against his lips, leaving behind an impression of Sieun in a way that cannot be erased.

Sieun withdraws first. His breathing is a little uneven, and his eyes widen as if in disbelief. By his own actions or Suho's, neither of them know.

"Sieun-ah."

Suho does not speak the name, but breathes it, like it is engraved into his lungs, in every breath he breathes.

Sieun retrieves his hand from Suho's cheek and it slips into the water again. He breaks their stare to consider the tiling of the wall opposite him. "Is this a dream?"

"No," answers Suho.

"I used to have dreams like this when you were still in a coma," Sieun says this in a voice so quiet as though it terrifies him to be heard—or to not be. "I would be helping you after you woke up. I did so much research into post-coma recovery in preparation."

A fond, reminiscent look is in his eyes, but it unnerves Suho. It is an expression of a spectator, or an outsider. Like he is a narrator of a story that he has no influence on. Which could not be further from the truth. The day that Suho first tasted the syllables of Sieun's name, his world found a new axis. He is nothing if not influenced by Sieun's every breath, look, and word.

"You never liked being seen as weak, so you would put up a fight, but eventually you would let me in. I would wash your hair, or help you move around. Those days, I never wanted to wake up."

His mouth folds in on itself, and the first sign of the haze he has entered shattering becomes visible. Suho is not sure what is worse—the illusion or the inevitable oppression of a reality that haunts you.

"When you died, I never dreamt of that again. Like my mind knew it would break me now that the possibility of it ever coming true was cruelly taken away."

A pause.

"I don't know what's worse, Suho-yah. For it to never have happened, or for you to have gone through all of that without me there. Thinking of that…" His voice breaks a little; desolate. "I can't—"

"Sieun-ah."

Suho's index finger aligns with Sieun's jaw and gently coaxes his eyes back to him. It registers in Sieun's face like a confrontation. His eyes widen, as if he has just found Suho alive again for the first time. Like that minute of talking may as well have been with the tiles rather than a person. Too scared that Suho had evaporated alongside the steam in the air, and he was all alone again.

But he is not. Suho will never let him be lonely for the rest of his life.

"You were right. I was a pain in the ass to everyone when I was recovering. I lashed out all the time. I'm glad you didn't have to bear the brunt of that. Knowing you, you wouldn't have complained once. I wouldn't want that. Maybe you would've hated me for it."

Sieun shakes his head. "I could never hate you."

Suho presses his lips together in a smile. "I know. I could never hate you either. So don't blame yourself for the things in the past that are out of our control. It's already happened, Sieun-ah. We have only now to make things right."

Sieun's eyes go round.

"And I want to," Suho adds on. He tilts his head. "Make things right."

With an exhale, Sieun hides his face in his hands. "I'm sorry."

This time, Suho listens to the beat of his heart and kisses Sieun's temple. "It's not your fault. You're here now."

A broken noise is muffled in the skin of Sieun's palm and Suho sighs, stroking Sieun's hair and resting his forehead against the side of his head. "You know, Sieun-ah, I've never once blamed you for anything. Even when I thought you left. I wanted to be resentful, but I couldn't. I just wanted to see you again."

"Me too," Sieun says through small weeps. "I just wanted to see you again."

A slight frown marrs Suho's expression. There is something hidden in the fine print of Sieun's words, but he does not unravel it. Not for now. Later he swears to read between all the convoluted lines of Sieun's time alone, but it is too early. Too soon.

"Mm. And we have. So let's just take it a day— No, an hour, even a second at a time. That's all you have to do, okay?"

That is all Sieun had been doing. He exists on the currency of time, exchanging one second for the next, waiting out the years with the same impassivity of a birch tree that awaits two boys to dig up her chest. Death's clock is all he knows as it counts down.

The metronome has subsided—dissolved—completely in the intensity, the unapologetic loudness, of Suho's presence. There is no tightrope for Sieun to balance his life on. All he can do it continue as he has been, existing in the seconds where the past and future cannot reach him.

Except now, the clock is counting up.

He gains more time.

More time with Suho.

Suho feels Sieun nod and smiles with his face hidden. It reflects back at him in bath. The distortion of undulating water makes him look seventeen again.

"Okay," he repeats. Not a question this time.

The ticks are slow at first. Maybe because Sieun claws at them with the frenzy of loss, lodged in the notches of his spine and integrating with his nervous system. Every thought panics until the next tick, when Suho's breathing comes steady.

After the bath, He dresses in Suho's clothes and the fabric swallows his frame until his is nothing more than big eyes staring up at Suho. It coaxes a laugh from Suho, and a faint trace of what was once a smile ghosts Sieun's face at that pleasant sound.

They settle on the edge of the bed as their tongues remain settled in their mouths, unsure what syllable should be shaped first. How to begin. It is always the hardest to begin again. But they have promised.

Eventually, Suho takes the letters from his bedside table. It is the only tangible thread they have of the past other than their grief. He starts there.

"You put another letter," he says.

Sieun studies the crinkled paper, two of them unfolded and filled with the sharp lines of the ballpoint pen he still uses to this day.

Back then, he considered using his mechanical pencil instead but decided against it. Everything he wanted to say to Suho was to be etched in an ink that could not be erased or fade with time. That was the depth of his love for Suho, to leave his vulnerabilities permanently noted on a page. An exposure he had never risked before.

"Did you read them?"

Suho shakes his head. "I thought about it, but we were always meant to read them at the same time. Remember? We said we'd do it together or not at all."

"Together," Sieun mumbles and it is a word so foreign that it sticks to his teeth like hard candy.

He is handed the letter from Suho, the one that has been waiting for him for years and years. The one he has been waiting for, too. A eulogy that is being read at his rebirth instead.

Before they can read, Sieun says, "The other letter, it's from when you were—"

"I figured. It's okay." Suho gives his hand a reassuring squeeze.

Thorns of guilt perforate Sieun's lungs but he takes a shaky breath nonetheless and nods. "Okay."

The letters are their mouthpieces, and Suho has to behold the depths of Sieun's tragedy to bring him back into the sun once more. Even if it maims.

Dear Sieun,

Hi. I've never written a letter before, so I don't really know where to start. This is my tenth draft, actually. I promised myself this would be the last, so prepare for the worst!

When I think of what I want to ask you in eight years, all I can think of is: How are you?

So, how are you, Sieun-ah?

I hope you're well. Even if time has separated us, I would accept it as long as you have been living okay.

Actually, that's a lie.

You came into my life so suddenly, but I can't imagine a future without you now. When I try, it's just murky. You mean so much to me, Sieun-ah. All the words in the world are inadequate for me to explain my feelings towards you, but I'll try.

I can only hope I've already been given enough years to put this in a much more concise and less embarrassing way.

I think I am deeply in love with you.

And when I say 'think', I mean 'know'. I think I knew from the moment I met you. I knew you would change my life, and you have. I feel like I've come alive again. When I lost MMA, I didn't know how to keep going. But you've given me something to live for. Every day, I'm always thinking of you.

If I'm honest, it's a little scary.

How can I love someone so much when I'm so young? What if nothing ever feels like this for the rest of my life? And if we are no longer friends (or more, I don't know), do I still spend every day thinking about you? I'm sure I will.

Now that I've written it, it seems so easy to say. I love you. I've been running in circles about how to tell you this, but it's that easy, isn't it? I love you, Sieun-ah.

I love how warm-hearted you are, and that smile you always try to hide now. I love how pretty you look, and how you make my heart race like I'm a kid again. I love how when I'm with you, everything feels a little easier. I can forget my worries with just a look from you. Everything about you is just so… loveable. I can't think of another word. You are so loveable. And I love you for it, and so much more that I hope by the time you read this, I've finally found the courage to tell you to your face.

I want to spend every day with you.

So I guess there's a question I'm itching to ask more than how you are. Though, that's still very important to me.

But what I really want to ask you, Yeon Sieun eight years in the future, is this:

In the future, are we together?

I hope so.

From,

Suho.

Dear Suho,

How are you?

I have a lot of questions. Things are always easier to write on paper than say to each other.

Even though I told you this was a stupid idea, I was lying. It's nice. I was just a bit flustered that you were so certain we would still be in each other's lives. I would like to believe that too, but how are you so fearless? I wish I could be as outspoken as you, and then maybe I would be saying these things instead of writing them down.

I will try to be as honest as I can in this letter, and say everything I hide whenever I am with you.

Suho, you have made something of my life. I cannot explain it any other way. I was a shell before you, and sometimes it scares me how very human you have made me.

I hope these words can reach you how I intend them to.

In the future, am I more open with you? Do I smile more? I hope so. As inevitable as the sunrise, I think you will continue to make me see the beauty in everything. In you.

You make me feel so warm. Like I was living in winter before you, and now every day is summer. I think this is what love feels like.

You are the strongest person I know and I admire you so much. You shoulder so much and never complain. Have I told you these things already? I hope I tell you every day.

I'm going in circles here. I'm terrified to write this down in ink and know that my heart is bared somewhere in Seoul until we dig it up again.

But I will do it. Because you deserve to hear the truth.

I am in love with you, Ahn Suho.

You have completely mesmerised me with all your easy smiles and laughs. Though, I know they are not actually 'easy'. You just have a way of making them seem so effortless and I think that is what makes them so beautiful to me. You are resplendent despite everything. What chance did I possibly stand against that?

I long to understand you and be with you always.

I started this letter asking how you are, but I hope I already know. I hope that I ask you every day.

This love I feel is so bright that I can hardly contain it. I am surprised you have not noticed. Or maybe you have. If you have, please be courageous once more.

I want to spend our future together. I cannot imagine it with anyone else. I do not say these words lightly, I truly mean them.

Are we together where you are? Do you love me, Suho in the future? Do I still get to enjoy every day by your side, with your smile?

From,

Sieun.

At the end of my last letter, I asked you to be brave once more. And I feel the weight of that on my hands, like they are bloodied.

I will never ask that of you again, so please wake up.

Suho, are you awake?

That is all I wonder now. Will you be there when I open this capsule? Please. I am so incredibly selfish but I would give up everything in my life to see your eyes open once more.

I am so sorry.

I thought I knew just how much I loved you when I wrote my letter before this, but I did not.

I read this poem the other day about how grief is just love with nowhere to go. And this grief that I feel without you is so heavy I can hardly walk. I cannot breathe without you.

You are everything, Suho-yah. Everything. You were are the only thing that matters. You are my sun. You are golden.

You still will be, I know, when you read this letter. Because life cannot continue without you, so you must wake up. You have so much more of your life to live. So much more time for us to be together. I promise you, when you wake up, I will no longer hide how much I love you. I will yell it. I will love you loudly. And I will love you softly. I promise. The love I harbour for you is so much bigger than I ever thought. You are my lifeline, Suho-yah. The only thing keeping me alive is that you are too. That beep of your monitor has synced with my heart.

So please read this.

Even if you hate me. Even if I disgust you. Even if it is all my fault. I know it is, and I'm so sorry.

All I ask is that you read this.

That would be enough.

With my entire heart,

Sieun.

Sieun finishes the letter before Suho does. He does not have two to read, after all.

He is already crying, but apart from the first wail that came from him like an animal being gutted, his tears fall silently as he waits.

Suho's hands are shaking and his breathing becomes rough.

It is his choice to read the second letter, and Sieun cannot dissuade him. His eyes remain true on Suho as he waits.

And then it comes.

Suho releases a broken cry, his whole body shaking with the force of it. His hand comes up to wipe his face, but he refuses to cease his reading. Still as headstrong as he had been when he asked Sieun to write these letters.

It is then that the air shifts. Sieun's heart stutters in his chest as Suho snaps his head up and looks at him with wild eyes.

"No."

The letter is abandoned on the side and Suho cups Sieun's face. "No— Sieun-ah, you—" He chokes on his next breath and Sieun bites his lip as a shattered breath escapes him.

He tries to soothe Suho, but Suho panics with the same ferocity that Sieun did all those years ago when he found him unconscious on a hospital bed. "Sieun-ah, is that what yo— Did you…? Please… Please tell me you didn't."

Sieun shakes his head because he did not. He was going to. An important distinction, and one he knows is just a loophole; a cop out from telling Suho the truth.

"I thought you left me," Suho breathes and his voice breaks. "Sieun-ah…"

"I love you," Sieun says.

"I love you," he repeats, louder.

"I love you, Suho-yah," he says a third time, softer.

As he promised to do years ago, while Suho was still sleeping.

Suho sobs.

Sieun tries to wipe his tears but his effort is fruitless. Suho is barely able to hold himself up, leaning into Sieun as though he can find shelter there. Sieun's chest melts around him and lets Suho crawl into the safety of his ribcage. He holds him.

"I still love you," Sieun promises. "I always have."

Suho's hands grasp at the hoodie Sieun is wearing like he is trying to nail him down. Sieun lets him; will let him do anything.

"I love you, Suho-yah. Thank you for waking up."

Suho chokes out his name, rendered unintelligible by the surge that has been triggered inside him. The fear spilling out in droves as he realises that he almost lost Sieun in a way that he had never considered. And when the words finally do form, it is a plea.

It is a desperate prayer.

"Please— Please don't leave me again," he cries.

He cranes his neck to look up at Sieun, who is already staring down at him.

"I won't. I won't ever leave you." Sieun says it like an oath.

He runs his thumbs over Suho's cheeks, so tender that it seems unfeasible for those hands to once have enacted such violence. But even that too was in the name of his love for Suho.

Suho's watery eyes remain on Sieun as his sadness is gently washed away in the light of his warmth.

His hand cups around Sieun's and he brings it to his mouth, kissing the palm and leaving his tears along the fate lines.

"I love you, too. I think I've always been waiting for you to return one day. I said in my letter that you made me feel alive again and I was right." His voice is hoarse. "I've never felt more alive than I do right now."

"Suho-yah…" breathes Sieun, still caressing his face.

"I'll make up for it all. The time we lost. I'll never let go of you again," Suho says, escaping from the shelter of Sieun's ribs; always a bird longing for freedom and flight. Sieun's heart naturally follows, soaring with him.

Suho cradles Sieun's face. "I love you more than you'll ever know."

"Me too," Sieun whispers.

Their third kiss is just as soft and forgiving as the others. It no longer has to carry the shame of their silence; there is no past to contend with. The future and all the time between stretches out so thin it becomes obsolete. Sieun and Suho are together in every moment that exists—in every tick.

They will be forevermore.

And the ticks pass.

Slowly.

Like a ringing call that Suho takes that afternoon, with Sieun curled against his side, asleep. It is the first sound to interrupt the metronome of the clock on his bedside table since their last 'I love you', and in that time, they have been pressed so close their breathing and heartbeats are synchronous. The blanket swathes over them, tucked under Sieun so he is cradled like a baby against Suho's chest. Suho litters kisses over his hair and forehead, and Sieun occasionally draws himself further into the warmth Suho provides with a rub of his head, or slipping lower under the quilt.

The call does not wake him, though he reshuffles his limbs, legs sliding between and around Suho's as if completing a jigsaw puzzle or stitching up a loose thread. Suho hooks his foot around Sieun's ankle, and just like that, their bodies are perfectly interwoven.

Suho whispers into the phone as he stares down at Sieun. Eyes never straying.

He takes the rest of the week off from his job. Yeongtae is unsurprisingly accepting of the short notice, always willing to give Suho grace for his bad days—or weeks.

When the call ends, he twists in bed to slide his phone on the side, and Sieun mumbles, "Where are you going?"

Suho smiles as he turns back, hugging Sieun closer. "Nowhere."

And he means it.

Sieun stares up at him, blanket and hoodie drowning him in a mountain of fabric. All dark irises.

Suho rests their foreheads together and both of them close their eyes. It will take a long time for their touches to be less seeking and more routine, and for their gazes to no longer trace like hands over one another when they cannot mould their palms together like clay. The need to capture what was once lost in every fleeting second, every tick—to never spend a moment without the other as the focal point of their every sense.

After a few seconds, Sieun pulls back, blinking as he studies Suho's face. They are too tightly wrapped together for him to wiggle his hands free, so he gently blows on the skin around Suho's eyes, which has been stripped raw from his tears. Suho lets out a small laugh. "What are you doing?"

"Your eyes look like they hurt," Sieun says.

"They do. Maybe you should kiss them better." Suho lowers his head, lashes fluttering shut.

Time is nothing but small bursts of anticipation.

A graze of lips over his eyelids causes the sweetest sting and Suho smiles with a hum as Sieun remedies both sides with his kisses.

"All better," Suho says once he is done, which earns him an incredulous look so fond it becomes redundant to think anything else was meant by it. Sieun is so fond—so in love.

They wade in the warm lakes of their gazes, neither moving for a while.

"I've taken the week off work," Suho says eventually.

He feels Sieun's foot start to fidget against his own even as his face remains passive. It is a habit Suho learnt when he knew Sieun before; sudden hand flexes or bouncing toes all signalling the happiness and excitement that sometimes fails to reach his face.

"Is there anything you need to do?" asks Suho.

Sieun shakes his head, but then says, "I might have to return to America to pack up my apartment at some point."

Dread coils in Suho's stomach, leaden like metal. Punctures his lungs. It forces a breath from him along with the following words, "I'll come with you."

Sieun blinks before nodding. "Okay."

He has no reason to fight Suho's companionship. It is all he has longed for—before him, during him, and after him. And again, now, with him. With each tick.

"Later," he says, because it has no place in the moment, where they are binding together in the comfort of each other's warmth.

"Later," Suho repeats, stealing a kiss.

The corner of Sieun's lip twitches up and he squirms in Suho's hold before slotting them closer together. He may as well be digging into Suho's body to locate the deepest part of him for refuge—for closeness—and Suho is about to let him do just that.

He kisses his forehead again, lips too eager to map the contours invisible to the eye; the lines of unknowing.

They stay in bed for the majority of the afternoon until Suho coaxes Sieun from the bed by hand to have an early dinner. Sieun remains tucked against his side as he cooks, though it is an ungainly dance. Suho has never been so content with being immobile, not after waking from his coma. The aches of being bed-bound and Sieun's weight attached to him are bruises he wants to carry for a lifetime. The pins and needles in his arm no longer reminds him of a time when he could not hold a spoon between weak fingers.

Dinner does not go down much easier than breakfast did. That takes time, but seeing Sieun grind his jaw as he forces food down his throat is not a sight Suho will ever grow accustomed to. Does not want to.

Sieun lets himself be fed once again. Welcomes it, perhaps just a little. Suho rubs his back as they wait out the nausea that inevitably follows.

Once all the cutlery and bowls are washed up, they find themselves on the couch, sitting so close to each other that their legs are pressed together; their feet tangled.

Sieun traces Suho's face with his finger as Suho runs a hand up his side. Comforting, maybe. A little indulgent. In the lines of his palm that gently grazes over Sieun, it is etched how deeply he wants to embrace him, hug him so tightly until they merge.

A thought he decides is best kept far from his mouth for now.

"Sieun-ah," he says after a while.

Sieun's finger pauses on the top of his cupid's bow.

"We should go and get you some clothes soon." He squeezes Sieun's side. "Mine are too big for you."

"Okay," Sieun agrees and he returns to outlining the curves of Suho's mouth.

When those lips curl up into a smile, Sieun follows the new course with a sparkle in his eyes. Like a river flowing, changing course constantly. A face once set in position suddenly so capable of forming expressions—it strikes such wonder in Sieun.

He places a kiss where Suho's cheek is swollen with joy and another where his eyes crinkle at the corner.

"When you grow older," he says, and he speaks it so purposefully because it promises a tomorrow he once believed buried under a limestone grave. "I hope you have smile lines and crow's feet."

"Crow's feet," parrots Suho with confusion. "What?"

Sieun strokes his finger over the lines near his eyes. "Here. It looks like a crow's foot when we smile. When the skin wrinkles with age, it becomes permanent. If you smile and laugh a lot."

Suho stares at him for a breath before tilting his head. He gently holds Sieun's jaw in his hand. "Show me on your face."

Sieun blinks at him. "I can't smile on command."

Pulling a face, Suho ponders over how to persuade a smile from Sieun.

In the end, he chooses simplicity. He scrunches his nose before showering Sieun in kisses all over his face.

A half-syllable of Suho's name comes from Sieun but Suho keeps with his onslaught of millisecond kisses.

"I love you. I love you. I love you, Sieun-ah," he says in-between.

It comes clear; a wind chime. A breeze flutters through Suho's apartment like a late afternoon in the summer has come early. The wind chimes float in the currents of the air and create music as they touch. Quiet but melodic.

Suho withdraws slowly, drinking in the expression on Sieun's face. He is giggling.

It is ephemeral.

But captured in Suho's memory now; Sieun's eyes becoming half-moons, the crow's feet at the corner of them, and his lips pulled up into an unfamiliar smile.

Suho has never touched art in his life, but he feels the strongest urge to paint it. Watercolours. The colour blooming across the page as Sieun blossoms before him now.

"You are so beautiful," Suho breathes, brushing a thumb over the skin where all of that happiness—relief—had manifested.

A faint blush dapples Sieun's cheeks but he does not avert his gaze as he would have in high school; still too fearful to lose sight of Suho for a second.

"How have you grown more beautiful?" asks Suho, copying Sieun's earlier exploration with touch. Sieun lets him trace over his face. "It makes my heart hurt."

Worry flits over Sieun's expression before he realises Suho does not mean it in the medical sense of the word. It hurts because he feels so much—wants so much. Just as Sieun's heart aches with growing pains, stretching in all directions until it is large enough to house Suho in his entirety.

Once Suho's fingers have journeyed across the landscape of Sieun's face, they end up where his jaw meets his ear, and tug gently at his earlobes. Sieun waits until Suho is finished with his tactile inspection before he speaks. He says it quietly; ashamed.

"I look sick."

Suho pauses. "Do you think so?"

When Sieun nods, he can feel the callouses of Suho's finger brushing over his jaw.

"I'll take care of you, then," Suho says. "My sick baby."

Sieun almost jolts in place, snapping upright. The faint blush on his face deepens in hue. He stares up at Suho with wide eyes. The fingers against his jaw start to rub little circles.

"You have to get better, hm?"

Words fail Sieun, still unaccustomed to… everything.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, he thought he would be flying back to America a final time to die. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he believed Ahn Suho a martyr of life.

He lacks everything in the abundance. Years of being whittled down with every tick like he was being chipped away, until what remained is skeletal. The words, expressions, and emotions within him cannot capture what it means for the sun to rise after what he believed was an eternal lunar eclipse. He lacks so greatly in Suho's radiance.

He has no doubt that Suho will teach him it all once again, but for now all he has to offer is three words.

"I love you."

Suho smiles like Sieun has just knighted him with the biggest honour, to be loved by him.

"I love you, too."

And Sieun wonders if more than Suho being blind to his sickly appearance, still believing him as comely as the sun on the ocean, that love is what makes him beautiful. To love so profoundly; to love like the embrace of the ocean and sun painting a fire in the sky; to love like two souls bound across lifetimes, destined to meet again and again; to love as he loves Suho. That, undeniably, is what lends him the beauty Suho sees. Because it is him. Not in or of. It is.

Which must be why Suho glows as resplendent as the sun before him.

Sieun shuffles on the couch, body twisting towards Suho. Chocolate-coloured eyes twinkle as he draws closer.

"Suho-yah, do you remember what you said to me when you saw me on the bus that one time?" he asks.

Suho stares at him and begins rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb. "What was it?"

He does remember. Just wants to hear Sieun say it.

"You said we must have been married in our past life."

"Yeah."

Sieun's lashes flutter a little. "I hope so. And I hope that… in the next one, I can find you, too. Without having to wait."

Suho cannot remember what life meant before Sieun was sitting on his couch, telling him he loves him. His life begins and ends with Sieun. The seven years are like a prologue, or the page dedicated to. It is the waiting before the story begins.

Suho has been waiting.

"I hope so, too," he says. "But if I have to wait my whole life to see you only once, I still would. Sieun-ah, you are worth waiting entire lifetimes for."

Sieun's eyes deluge and Suho lets out a light laugh, stroking his cheek. "Don't cry again, baby."

Sieun sniffs and he coaxes Suho's face down, brushing their lips together. "You too, Suho-yah. You're worth living for. I love you."

"I love you, too," Suho says between kisses as he lifts Sieun into his lap.

The overuse of a word or phrase can make it lose its meaning. I love you in excess becomes a stand-in for an excuse or a greeting.

But Sieun and Suho did not say those words when it mattered most. They spent years with it living inside them, poison to their systems. So they are going to say it like hello. And it will still hold every ounce of meaning that it should; it says exactly what they need to say.

Thank you for finding me again.

When they go to sleep that night, Sieun sneaks under the warmth of Suho's hoodie, head poking out of the collar. Suho laughs at how adorable he looks, but secretly revels in the comfort of their hearts beating in such close proximity that they sound as one.

They fall asleep like that.

They continue to for the weeks after.

It starts with dinner getting easier. Breakfast is still a struggle because Sieun habitually feels nauseous in the mornings.

A lot of the time he sleeps in. It is like his body has reached its final destination—home—and he is now being allowed to rest. Suho stays in bed, sometimes on his phone, reading a book, or mostly just watching Sieun sleep.

The panic remains; Sieun wakes up thrashing or clawing, Suho's name on his tongue like a forsaken prayer. Suho learns to soothe him through it until he is cognisant enough to recognise the warm body that cradles him. And after, too. Suho is always soothing. Sieun loves him for his patience.

So breakfast is swallowed down with a stomach that flips whenever Suho drifts from sight.

But a few days in, Sieun is able to clear his bowl of food in the early evening. His face twists in a cute manner as he realises the nausea did not follow after. Suho gets much more excited than he does, spinning him around in a way that definitely makes the nausea return. Sieun keeps that a secret as Suho apologises and kisses him all over his face.

It starts with dinner.

The following day they go clothes shopping and Sieun compiles a simple wardrobe to bring home. Suho clears out half of all his drawers for Sieun. He likes them sharing a drawer more than having separate ones. Eventually, they do not bother with having one side each; their clothes mingle as their hearts do.

Suho tells Sieun lots about his life. Sieun could never bore of sitting on the couch, their limbs always touching somehow, and Suho offering an anecdote of a time Sieun thought him dead. It is such an odd feeling to fill in the expansive ink of Suho's absence with glimmers of light. Like on New Years four years ago when Suho went to the coast with his halmeoni and he wished to see Sieun once more, as Sieun was in America wishing to see Suho again.

He learns about the jobs he has had since recovering from his coma and the people who were able to coax him out of his shell after everything. He learns of the life that he is being knitted into, the people who will soon know his name, who he will one day share a dinner with, Suho's hand rubbing his thigh under the table, a silver band gleaming on their ring fingers.

The week they are allowed to spend in the blissful peace of Suho's apartment slips through their fingers rather quickly. But the days are etched into their skins as enduring as a stone tablet in a museum. Sieun has never known such serenity. He feels like a bird gliding through a gentle summer breeze. He has no destination nor future, just the sun on his wings and a newfound sense of freedom.

He is awoken on the Monday from a dream about Suho in a glasshouse, surrounded by all those machines. He is forced to watch as the gardeners, wearing masks that conceal their identities, painstakingly weed around the flora, snipping at the machines that keep Suho alive. Sieun tries to tell them that they are killing the only life that matters, but they cannot hear him through the glass. Cannot see him begging.

When the final machine is cut and the heartbeat flatlines, Sieun jerks awake. He is still banging at the glass, sobbing even when it serves no purpose to. He cannot stop his wailing; they have taken his Suho from him.

"Sieun-ah," a soft voice whispers. "Hey, Sieun-ah. It's okay. I'm here. Sieun-ah. Look at me, baby."

The weeds that should have been cut are coiling around Sieun's neck, choking him. They want to rob him of his life as well, and he will let them. He cannot breathe without Suho. Does not want to live without him. Would never desire a life without his sun.

A hand ghosts his heart and Sieun thrashes. "No—"

Something brushes his temple. It is warm and a bit wet.

"Hey, hey." The words are spoken right against his skin and Sieun falters for a moment. "Sieun-ah, breathe with me."

Sieun inhales when he hears the other person inhale. Exhales in tune with them. Their breathing syncs again. He starts to settle.

He twists in bed and blinks. His wet lashes stick together and delay the moment he opens his eyes to see Suho there, glowing in the early morning. He smiles sadly at Sieun, brushing fingers in his hair.

It is another moment in which Sieun is privy to the beautiful truth that Suho is alive.

"Hi."

Sieun hides his face in Suho's sweatshirt and mumbles, "I'm sorry."

He is hugged close and he feels Suho nuzzle against his hair. "You don't have to apologise. Do you want to tell me about it?"

Sieun shakes his head. A hand begins rubbing circles on his lower back and he feels as though he could drift off again. Sleeping should scare him—more time away from Suho, and oftentimes at the cost of forgetting he is breathing on the other side of his consciousness. Yet, Suho's presence is so comforting and safe that it encloses him in some hazy bliss, and he becomes incredibly vulnerable to sleep's lull.

"Are you still tired?" Suho asks.

"Mmmm…"

A light laugh rumbles in Suho's chest and Sieun digs his head closer, wanting to find the source of the sound and submerge into every vibration, until it echoes in his cells.

"You can sleep in the car, but we've got to get up now, hm?" Suho strokes his head before cupping his face.

Sieun's eyes peel open again and confusion filters through the fog of fatigue and nightmares. "Car?"

Kisses are dusted over his cheek and forehead. "I'm going back to work today."

Sieun frowns. Hard.

He is still frowning when Suho starts trying to get out of bed. Sieun clings to him with a disapproving sound. Suho laughs again and takes it upon himself to scoop Sieun out of bed and carry him, legs and arms wrapped around him like a koala. He kisses the side of Sieun's face and whispers, "I won't let you leave my sight, don't you worry."

A sleepy half-smile grows on Sieun's face.

Against all odds, he manages to drift off in Suho's arms again. Upon realising, Suho lets out a fond sigh. He could not envision a better way to start his day, and he settles on the couch, deciding that getting breakfast on the way is the best option rather than waking Sieun.

Sieun stirs a little while later and they get ready. All Sieun has to do is brush his teeth and change clothes whilst Suho wants to take a shower.

After exiting with a towel tied around his waist, he finds Sieun sitting on the side of the bath, waiting idly. Kissing his cheek, Suho asks, "Are you going to be warm enough in that?"

Sieun looks down at the hoodie he took from Suho's side of the drawer. "I think?"

"Wear one of my jackets. Better safe than sorry."

After nodding, Sieun is rewarded with another kiss, this one minty against his lips. His hands fidget by his side, wanting to hold Suho as close as possible but knowing that they have to leave soon.

A part of him wishes they had the time to waste in the walls of Suho's apartment, where it is just them and nobody else. The world remains at a distance when they are together here. But Sieun cannot make demands of Suho to give up his life for a few more minutes in bed. He would never want to.

In a way, the world outside is more proof that Suho exists and the apartment is more than a dreamscape. Sometimes Sieun is struck with this fear that maybe none of this exists in reality, and he is dying somewhere in Seoul or America. Maybe he is laid upon a hospital bed as Suho had been and this is all a dream.

If that is the case, he hopes to never wake up. If being asleep forever lets him live for the first time, it is a trade he will make in an instant.

Suho smiles as he retreats and Sieun follows after him into the bedroom, sitting on the bed as he gets changed. He lets out a yawn or two and hears the soft laugh Suho tries to muffle in the fabric of his hoodie.

On the way out, he is wrapped in a big puffer jacket and a scarf. He tells Suho it is too much. Suho says he knows.

The panic sets in when they enter the car. Suho clicks in his seatbelt for him as Sieun's breathing turns erratic. His hand is clasped and the back is kissed. Suho speaks against his skin. "It's okay, Sieun-ah."

But nothing is ever safe enough. Sieun longs to weave a cocoon around Suho, one that will keep him safe inside forever. He wants to hide him behind his ribcage.

Yet, he will not.

Suho is his sun, and a bird free-sailing in the wind. Sieun could not bear to clip him of his wings or rob him from the sky just for a sense of security.

So he steadies his breathing with Suho's and squeezes the hand back in confirmation.

Suho waits until Sieun seems calmer before setting off. Their hands stay interwoven until Sieun realises and tells Suho he has to have both of his hands on the steering wheel.

Being chastised amuses Suho and he hides a smile as he wraps his other hand around the wheel.

He attained his license long ago, and the remnants of the fear from his motorbike crash have long since vanished in the face of his experience. He could drive the route to the gym blindfold, and often mans the wheel with only one hand.

It seems the days of that are over. Sieun jumps at every car that turns towards them and tells Suho the colour of the light at every street.

Suho should find it irritating—he is a more than capable driver. But he is endeared. At a red light he leans across to console to kiss Sieun's cheek, stroking his hair. He is told off for not paying attention and a laugh bubbles up in his chest before he puts his hand back on the wheel, squeezing it so tight that the rubber squeaks.

Sieun informs him that the light is turning green.

Suho loves him.

They arrive at the gym and Sieun releases a sigh of relief once the engine is turned off. He tries to apologise for his worry but Suho does not let him.

"I understand. It just means you love me."

A soft flush pinks Sieun's cheeks and Suho hugs him, laying his lips against the blush.

"I love you, too."

Sieun's fingers curl in the back of his hoodie and he tucks his face so perfectly against Suho's neck. Suho wishes they were still in bed back at home.

Alas, he has a job to perform.

As they step into the building, Sieun thinks of a video. It is seared into his memory like a brand of his failure; with eyes closed he sees not darkness but a limp body on the floor as it is subjected to a torrent of kicks. Even in the vacuum of silence, the sounds of every hit that was administered to Suho echo.

Sieun is haunted by the ghost of a boxing ring in his mind.

The gym where Suho works is equipped with one, tucked in the far corner. Somehow past the people, the front desk, and all the equipment, Sieun is able to spy the outer ropes, like an animal assessing a new environment for risks.

He grabs Suho's hoodie, feet suddenly rooted to the ground. When Suho stops beside him, it blocks his view of the ring. Sieun looks up, confronted with the concern that has begun etching across Suho's face.

"What's wrong?"

Sieun shakes his head. "N… It's nothing."

Frowning, Suho takes a hand to Sieun's cheek, stroking a thumb across skin. "It's okay, baby. Tell me."

"The boxing ring," mumbles Sieun, casting his eyes down to the padded floor. "I just…"

"Ah."

Suho glances behind him at the offending corner. When he first got the job here, it was a battle he had to tread alone. That which had been his closest ally when he was younger, his safe space, had been defiled. He refused to let them create any more vulnerabilities for him to bear. So, he forced himself to sit in the ring during his lunch breaks, or before and after hours, until he grew accustomed to it once more.

But it is not something he could ever tell Sieun, nor is he expecting him to undergo the same methods of exposure.

"We can stay far away from it, hm? I won't go in there."

Nibbling on the inside of his cheek, Sieun nods. Suho leaves a promising kiss to his brow bone and Sieun's eyes close as he submerges in that warmth.

A clatter sounds to his right, and Sieun turns his head in the direction it came from.

At the front desk, three people are watching them with wide eyes—two younger women and a man who must be well into his forties.

Suho waves at them. "Hi, everyone."

They do not return the greeting.

"Your coworkers?" Sieun asks.

"Mm. Let me introduce you."

Suho takes Sieun to the front desk, motioning to the woman with the ponytail and introducing her as Chaewon, the long haired one as Saeyoung, and the man in the back as the owner, Yeongtae.

Sieun is introduced as just that. Sieun.

Suho's Sieun, as he becomes known over the coming weeks.

The first day in the gym, he is given a seat at the front desk. He watches Suho with his clients, eyes rarely straying. Saeyoung jokes that he is a statue—a new mascot for the gym.

Chaewon jabs her in the ribs for that.

Every time that Suho brings a worn-out client to the front desk to hand over to Saeyoung, he says his goodbyes or a 'see you soon', before bracing his hands on the back of Sieun's chair and looking down at him.

Without fail, Sieun will tilt his head back to meet his stare. Suho is incredibly attentive to how he is feeling, always asking if he is growing bored. Sieun just shakes his head. Nothing can be boring when Suho is alive in the world. A constant source of life and energy within arms reach. Sieun is beyond content to sit there watching him for days on end.

Still, Suho tries to offer some entertainment. He winks at Sieun after finishing up a demonstration on how to do hip thrusts to his client. Sieun blushes and looks away for the first time, hands covering the entirety of his face.

When Suho brings this client to the front desk, he gives Sieun a quick kiss to the cheek and a light-hearted apology. Sieun sighs and returns the kiss only when prompted. Suho pretends to pout.

Lunch break feels too short of a time. They go to the employee lounge and Sieun sits in Suho's lap while they eat. He tells himself he would not do this if anyone else was in the room, but he has a strong inclination his desire to be close to Suho will far outweigh his shame every chance it has.

It is a process of learning one another again—of becoming a key and a lock, fitting together perfectly.

Suho feels like he will dissolve into nothing but dust and aches without Sieun's weight holding him down. That was the state he was damned to eternally before Sieun reappeared and he was moulded into a body again by loving hands.

Without Suho's warmth, Sieun spirals. His fingers are like hooks in the night, shooting out and grasping at the feverish skin that embraces him until he feels it beneath his own. He exhales with relief at every brush of hand and lips.

He waits out the time it will take for Suho to map out every inch of his exterior with his warm caress until Sieun is melted entirely from his shell. His skin splinters under every kiss or stroke and the sun runs in rivulets in those cracks, seeping closer and closer to his heart.

Neither want to part again.

Suho waits by the bathroom sinks while Sieun uses the toilet, checking himself in the mirror. While he gives his hair a run through, he hums. A faint huff that curls like a smile in the air comes from the stall that Sieun is in. Suho's lips lift into a smile of his own.

Sieun emerges, heading to the sink next to Suho to wash his hands. Immediately, Suho attaches to him from behind, kissing his face as he hugs him tight. Sieun lets out an amused sound but does nothing to deter Suho's onslaught of affection. Why would he?

"I need to dry my hands," he says after turning off the tap.

They shuffle as one to the dryer and while the air whirrs out, Sieun leans his head back against Suho's shoulder as his ear and jaw are kissed.

"Every time I look over and see you," Suho murmurs, "I get so happy it's kinda hard to breathe. You make me so happy, Sieun-ah."

The loud airflow ceases and Sieun pivots to face Suho. "You make me so happy too, Suho-yah."

Suho smiles before kissing Sieun on the lips. "The only downside is I can't keep kissing you every time I feel that. I don't think my clients or boss would approve."

Sieun's mouth forms one of his fond downturned smiles. "You kiss with your eyes."

Nose scrunching, Suho says, "Do I?"

"Mm. I can feel it."

"Kiss me with your eyes, too," requests Suho with an endeared stare—his irises nothing more than a kiss.

Sieun's eyes round a little, emotion surging into them, every morsel of the love he saved for Suho over the years and now in their newly forming day-to-day.

To be allowed past the gates that Sieun fortifies himself with as easily as breathing and to find that trove of love dripping over every surface is the greatest blessing of Suho's life, he thinks.

A phantom touch, light as the kiss Sieun stole when Suho was half asleep, brushes against Suho's lips.

His eyes widen. "Wah. Sieun-ah, I really felt that."

Sieun smiles softly. "See?"

This time, Suho kisses him properly.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

The routine of home to gym to home becomes solid within a week. Getting out of bed starts to feel less like Suho dragging Sieun and more of a joint effort to convince the other they must leave their love cocoon.

By the time Sieun is solidified as 'Suho's Sieun', the two have fused into one soul and body. A single beating heart that sounds out the letters of their names.

Sieun is watching Suho fold away his laundry from the bed one night. The sleeve of Suho's hoodie that he is wearing covers his mouth.

His eyes are filled with content, like the warm buzzing during a summer evening.

"Suho-yah," he says.

Suho looks over his shoulder before breaking into a smile. "Hm? What is it?"

Planting his hands either side of him, Sieun shuffles into a cross-legged position. That prompts Suho to desert his freshly cleaned clothes in favour of kissing Sieun.

He has slowly conditioned the other to expect one every five seconds. Every inch of his face, head, and neck have been showered by Suho's lips.

Sieun gently extracts Suho before he can deepen the kiss any further. It has been enough time that Suho does not seem fearful or hurt as a doubt that never entirely leaves but hibernates instead is reawakened. The one time it happened a few weeks before, Sieun almost cried, apologies like torrential rain from his lips.

Now, Suho tilts his head, a little playfully before his hands sneak under Sieun's clothes and start tickling his side and stomach. Sieun kicks out as he falls back on the bed, squirming to escape Suho's teasing.

"What is it?" Suho prompts again, ceasing his tickling after Sieun has flailed around enough to gratify him.

Instead, his thumbs run small, soothing circles against Sieun's stomach.

"The windbreaker you used to wear," Sieun says, noticeably breathless, "the one that said 'keep on pushing' on the back."

Those three words seared in his memory, of Suho's back as he left. Every time Sieun considered relinquishing early to see Suho's back just once more, even if it was because Suho chose to walk away again in disappointment, Sieun would remember those words.

So, he kept on pushing.

And now he has Suho again. Truly has him.

Suho nods.

"Do you still have it?"

That makes Suho pause, all his motion stopping. Sieun's hands cover Suho's and brush over the knuckles. He likes the callouses rough against his skin. The sensation feels so tangible he cannot deny its existence, as his mind still attempts to do sometimes.

"I think my halmeoni kept it," muses Suho. "It's probably at the house. Why?"

Sieun shrugs. A moment later, Suho's fingers start to tap against his skin like a spider crawling. He is five seconds from tickling the answer out of Sieun.

He does not know when Suho discovered he is ticklish, but Sieun rues the day (he does not, he adores how Suho is learning him so intimately).

"You can't laugh," Sieun says.

Suho gets an endearingly confused look on his face. His hair falls in soft spills as he tilts his head to the side. Sieun finds himself stroking Suho's knuckles again.

"I won't," promises Suho.

"I used to want to try it on."

Suho blinks.

The next day, they visit halmeoni.

It has only been a few weeks since they reunited, and they have not branched out yet. Suho informs Sieun that night when they are cuddling in bed that his halmeoni knows Sieun is back, but she has given them the space to come to her in their own time.

The woman who was slowly wasting away by Suho's bedside is nowhere to be seen now. She stands tall by the door as they walk through the front yard, a big smile gracing her weathered face. It is worn in the way that a childhood toy is—shaped by love.

Sieun and Suho's hands are interwoven but they reluctantly disentangle so that Suho can pull her into a hug. It takes a few seconds for his hand to blindly reach for Sieun and coax him over too. Two arms wrap around him and Sieun is cradled in the scent of fresh linen and a home that knows love.

They have lunch together, the two holding hands under the table as they—mostly Suho—talk about their lives. Once they are done, they wash the dishes and say their goodbyes as the older woman leaves the house to meet with a friend.

Suho has a spare key, so they stick around to find the windbreaker.

They head upstairs to his bedroom, one which Sieun has entered twice—once before, and once during.

He takes in the minimal changes as Suho rifles through his closet.

The familiar swish of material pulls Sieun attention from a poster about shoulder rotations. Suho unhooks the windbreaker and flashes it to Sieun.

"Is this what you ordered?" he asks.

Nodding, Sieun reaches out with fingers, brushing over the fabric of the arm. It feels like late night deliveries and the weight of a helmet.

He smiles softly.

The hanger is forgotten to the side, and Suho lifts the jacket to pull around Sieun's shoulders. Sieun slips his arms into the holes. Only the tips of his fingers are visible at the end of the sleeves.

Silently, Suho takes a step back and studies him. Sieun is looking down at himself too, taking in how the windbreaker looks on him.

"It suits you," Suho says. "You look so pretty."

Flushing, Sieun mumbles a thank you.

He lifts the sides of the windbreaker up to his face and inhales. It does not take long for him to let it drop back to its original position with a frown. "It doesn't smell like you."

After recovering from witnessing Sieun smell his clothes, Suho says, "I haven't worn it in a long time. It's been collecting dust in the closet."

Sieun does not have any response to offer him and they stare at each other in a hush.

Then, Sieun lifts his arms into the air, extending towards Suho. He leaves a big enough gap between them for Suho to step into. His eyes glisten as they catch the overhead light.

Suho crosses the distance in one step and wraps his arms around Sieun, picking him off the ground as he rubs his head against his chest. A rumble beneath his ear signals that Sieun is laughing. Suho squeezes him tighter, hoping he can pass on enough of his 'Suho smell' to appease Sieun.

It must be enough.

Sieun adores that windbreaker. He wears it all around the house and at the gym, too. It makes him a little less incongruous around the gym, but the oversized 'boyfriend's clothes' look it gives him barely helps beyond that.

He is delighted to discover that the length of time he spends cuddling with Suho gives the windbreaker a hint of Suho's smell, and it rises to his nose whenever he is wearing it.

It feels like a childish dream coming true.

And it is that windbreaker that he wears when he is sitting by the front desk a month later and hears a call.

"Suho-yah!"

Both Sieun and Suho look up at the same time. It's the late afternoon, and Suho just finished with his last client. Usually they rush off, but Suho had sat in the office chair next to Sieun and been resting his head on his shoulder, so they loitered.

Long enough that an unexpected visitor comes.

She is missing her pink highlights. That is the first thought Sieun has.

Suho's arm around his waist slips down.

"Yeongi-yah."

The second after she spoke, her eyes had fallen on Sieun. She remains frozen in the door, likely frozen in time, too.

"Yeongi-yah," Sieun echoes.

Her bottom lip trembles as she tucks it within her mouth. Suho stands, hand sliding up Sieun's back in a soothing gesture before he makes his way to the door, voice low as he talks to Yeongi.

Sieun stays rooted in his seat, unable to reach out—unsure how to. Gaps in his speech that Suho has always accounted for and understood are suddenly so immense.

Yeongi curls in on herself a little, shoulders shaking. Suho's arm wraps around her back and he hugs her close, tucking her head underneath his chin. He stares at Sieun over her body and smiles before mouthing, "It's okay."

Guilt slithers through Sieun and he averts his eyes, like he would find a snake coiling around him and constricting his airflow.

Instead, what he finds is Suho's windbreaker. The splash of red that he is beginning to wear more often, a product of living with Suho's wardrobe. Staring at the soft folds of the windbreaker, how it crinkles as he shifts, Sieun is imbued with the courage that took Suho to his doorstep and away again towards a gym. He has to keep on pushing.

His legs shake as he stands on them, but they land firm against the floor as he walks over to meet the two memories of his past.

Yeongi's eyes drift up at his approach, rimmed red and swarming with tears.

"Yeongi-yah," he greets. "I've missed you."

Her face crumples. She virtually pushes Suho from her and dives into Sieun's arms instead. So vulnerable, just as Sieun last saw her, sitting together in Suho's hospital room before she left, shouldering the burden of blame.

It was so tangible back then, the existence of the blame—the need to blame someone. From Yeongbin to Beomseok, to Seokdae, to Gilsu, to Yeongi, to Suho, and to Sieun. A constant cycle of hatred and malice, but it was always misplaced.

They were just kids. It was never their role to be arbiters, holding the scales of justice. But it was what they became in the absence of fairness; their own judges and prosecutors, demanding reparations for age-old wounds that began to bleed again.

"I've always wanted to tell you this," Sieun continues. "It wasn't your fault, Yeongi-yah. You never did anything wrong to deserve the blame."

Yeongi sobs.

Arms wrap around them, hugging them both. Unconsciously, Sieun tilts into the bath of Suho's warmth.

"I always tell her that," Suho says quietly.

Despite himself, Sieun's mouth curves up slightly, facing Suho head on.

"I love you," he mouths.

Suho lowers his head to kiss Sieun's cheek. A quiet response because he still has not learned the art of whispering his love just yet.

When Suho looks down at the two in his arm, he thinks to himself that he is so lucky. Everything he has gained in his life, the love that spent years lost without a target, it is all bundled in his grasp now.

He closes his eyes and breathes in the new beginning—the second chance.

It takes a little while for Yeongi's tears to subside. In the time since Sieun last saw her, she has softened around the edges, and Suho's consolation is not met with barbed jabs as he always had been when they were younger.

He grabs his bag from the employee room and they leave, the three of them, walking the streets like retracing the footsteps of their youth.

The air is crisp, dancing around them with such life. Sieun's hand is the warmest part of him, stowed away in Suho's pocket, their fingers fitted together. The last leaves of autumn give way and yield to the concrete.

On the road, a black taxi cruising down the road draws Sieun's attention.

An entire lifetime has spanned between the moment he stared out of those tinted windows onto the street and thought of memories that were no longer his to believe in.

Now, his everyday is spent remaking them, patching up the injury of loss by being so wholly present—with Suho, by Suho, for Suho.

They arrive at a small restaurant, one that reminds Sieun of the barbeque place that Suho used to work.

Suho leans down to whisper about how Yeongi visits every so often and they always end up eating here.

Once they find a table, Sieun and Suho take the booth seat so they can squeeze close.

Yeongi glances between them with so much unsaid.

But more than any words can express or assure, she is most fulfilled by seeing them like this—two clay jars that have been moulded into one, capable of holding double the love now that they are together.

Across the table, it radiates from them.

The drag of Suho's step and the uneven weight distributed between his sides has been resolved now that Sieun is there, perfectly carved as if they have been created to exist together and never apart.

Like an equation that has been waiting to be answered.

They order food and talk over the heat radiating from the grill, Suho cutting the meat and splitting it between them. He indulges himself by feeding Sieun, permitted every time without any hesitation. So far from how they had been in high school, Sieun stares up at him with that moonlight pooling in his irises as he accepts the food he is offered.

There are questions and answers.

The how, mostly.

The thing that Sieun and Suho had to discuss eventually as well, to discover where their lines had diverged even as they reached—clawed—for one another.

Sieun bites his lip hard as Suho explains how after a fit he had, the hospital connected his halmeoni to another institution that had recently established a department for coma research where he could get better care. The timezone difference meant that Sieun missed the call from the hospital about his critical condition, and it was his mother who had called them back to find out what happened.

A few weeks later, she informed Sieun that Suho had passed away from complications.

The transfer had been complete. Suho was not at the hospital anymore.

So, when Sieun had the chance to call them to confirm whether it was true, he was forced to hear the words that were forevermore slashed into his skin like evidence of his failure:

We do not have a patient by that name at this hospital.

Under the table, Suho runs a hand over Sieun's leg as he talks, trying to soothe as the memories whip like a lash.

If only he had come back. If only he had never left.

As Suho repeatedly kisses into his skin every night, Sieun reminds himself that he cannot change the past, only live now appreciating that they have found each other in spite of its harsh hands.

And what a life he has now, loving Suho as freely as the ocean surges—to be loved like the dazzling sun on the sea's surface. For someone so certain in his death, Sieun cannot exist as anything but the antithesis of it, not when he has so much love for Suho held within his once broken shell.

He smiles with his head lowered, covering Suho's hand with his own. Suho squeezes, and his sentence is temporarily aborted so that he can crown Sieun with a kiss to the top of his head.

"Are you still…" Yeongi asks, prompting Sieun to raise his eyes. "In contact with her?"

A sharp shake of his head. "No."

He cut her out of his life the moment that he found out, much like she had cut Suho out of his. Only, this severance barely bled. How could it? They hardly knew each other, even though the blood he lost over Suho was hers to begin with.

He is not even certain that she is aware of what has occurred. They talked so little in these passing years. She always struggled to confront the truth that her son was much, much weaker than she wanted to believe. It worsened her guilt for leaving him so lonely. Likely for lying, too.

She had no idea just how lonely she had truly left him, without his Suho.

Yeongi nods solemnly before redirecting the conversation to more exciting things. Sieun is pleasantly surprised to hear news of Seokdae and of Yeongi's own work as a hairstylist and freelance graphic designer. It fits her, and the way she has filled out the cast of her boisterous personality to become such a strong woman, even after everything.

They part out the front of the restaurant with a promise to see each other soon, and once they have sent her on her way in a taxi, Sieun and Suho return to the gym and drive home to the comfort of their love cocoon.

Routine, once so tortured, now offers Sieun the soil to flourish.

He discovers religion somewhere between Suho's morning kisses, the sensitive spot in the bend of his neck, and whispered confessions. A bedroom that is revered with their love, spilling out into the apartment.

Slowly, the chasm of loneliness and fear is bridged.

His nightmares stop acting as a morning alarm. They still visit with their death-cold grip, but they are not so regular. Sometimes, he does not dream at all. All he knows in sleep is the embrace that he drifts off in.

Suho panics a little less when Sieun is out of his sight, and Sieun is more settled during their car rides.

The past exists around them rather than within them, no longer stretching for miles beneath their feet. It weighs less.

Some mornings, Suho picks Sieun up in his arms, spinning him around for good measure just so that he can hear that giggle that is becoming more frequent as the weeks pass. It signals a good day is coming, though Suho has not had a bad one since Sieun re-entered his life.

Nor has Sieun, not as he becomes so human once again. He seeks out Suho's touch like it is a healing balm, or the lungs inside his chest that give him life, learning how tactile he can be when given all he wants within arms reach; he hugs, kisses, squeezes, and all the more.

They spend their weekends in blissful solitude, often lazing in bed, sleep intermittent with conversations and kisses.

Between shared clothes, meals, beds, jobs, routines, they find that home has only really ever had one meaning.

Each other.

"Baby?"

Sieun looks up from the laptop, cool against his thighs. He exits the tab that he has been looking at before nodding at Suho. "Hm?"

Like a sudden break in the clouds, Suho beams. "Nothing."

He takes the room between them in three strides and Sieun has already moved the laptop to the side so Suho can slump down against him. "'M so tired…"

Fingers raking through Suho's hair, Sieun asks, "Why don't you nap for a bit?"

Suho props his head against Sieun's chest, gazing up at him. He does not speak for a short while.

Sieun tilts his head in question.

A moment later, Suho shuffles forward to kiss him, the corner of his lips lifting into a smirk as he does so.

"What are you hiding on the laptop?" he asks, fingers tickling the centre of Sieun's palm.

Sieun attempts to respond, but Suho is too busy kissing all the air from his lungs to allow him an opportunity to speak.

Not that he can really complain.

He would be more than willing to spend the rest of his life in this bedroom kissing Suho as though the entire world is simply a backdrop that ceases to exist when they touch.

His hand brushes Suho's jaw, thumb rubbing as Suho deepens the kiss.

In a smooth move, Suho flips them over so Sieun is resting atop him, hiking him up so that he sits at his abdomen.

Sieun threads his fingers in Suho's hair, sighing into the oath of their lips on each other. As if realising that Sieun has to be able to speak to answer, Suho starts travelling southward, lips mapping out the skin down Sieun's jaw and neck. Sieun adjusts his head to offer easier access.

"I thought you were tired," he says softly, voice tinged with a breathless quality.

Suho caresses his waist, hands sneaking beneath his—actually one of Suho's—hoodie. "Never too tired for you."

A smile blossoms on Sieun's face and he closes his eyes, sinking into the sensation of Suho's touch. Maybe because he spent so long certain it was gone from this world, but the brush of Suho's skin always sears him like a brand, rippling out in all directions. As the hands slide up his back, Sieun's muscles roll to greet the calloused palm. Suho grins into his neck.

"Care to tell me what you were doing on the laptop now?" he prompts again.

Sieun's eyes peel open and he narrows them at Suho as he withdraws, though his hands remain beneath Sieun's hoodie, massaging his back in a way that is making Sieun melt.

Sieun leans his weight on his elbows, staring down at his boyfriend with a frown. "I was going to tell you tomorrow."

Suho smiles before planting a peck on Sieun's mouth. "I'd like to know now."

An incredibly fond sigh escapes Sieun and he chases Suho's kiss with his own.

"I was looking for tickets for us," Sieun murmurs, lips a breath away from Suho's. His fingers play with the top of Suho's hair. "My lease is almost over."

It takes Suho a second to realise what Sieun is talking about. In the river of their time together, he forgets the waterfall that roared in the silence of before. That life had once been absent of each other.

"In America?" he asks.

Sieun nods. "I don't know when you can get time off work, but I'll— we'll need to go soon."

Suho kisses him for the correction, groaning as he tightens his hold on Sieun. "How long?"

"A few days. I'd rather not hang around."

Suho does not outright agree, but it is more than obvious in how he lights up and rains kisses on Sieun's face. Sieun lets out a breathy laugh.

"We can go soon, book the tickets and I'll get the days off," Suho murmurs, angling his head to lay his lips along Sieun's jaw.

"Okay," Sieun says.

Suho smiles, nibbling at his jawbone before returning to his mouth.

Another day spent basking in their lazy, evening kisses, where they fall asleep, limbs entangled and Sieun's head resting against Suho's chest; he can hear the heart beneath skin from within his ear, each thud mimicked in his own body.

Over the next few days, he soaks up the last of the serenity before he has to cleave it open with a plane ride.

Despite the comfort that Suho always provides, Sieun is unable to stop thinking about returning to the place where he spent so long rotting away. Does the sapling recognise the decomposing bark of the tree it once fell from?

The thoughts are often short-lived, not allowed much time to catch his attention before Suho does first—a gentle kiss accompanies a murmur of, "What's on your mind, Sieunie?"

And without fail, Sieun shakes his head and says nothing.

They pack their things into one suitcase for the both of them.

There is nothing he really desires to retrieve from his old apartment. What he told Suho all those months ago still rings true. The only thing that he needs is in Korea, oftentimes in his arms; leaning on his shoulder as he spends the majority of the plane ride sleeping.

When they step out to the taxi rank for arrivals, Sieun notices that it has snowed, leaving behind a sheet of white coating the entire landscape.

Something cold bites his nose.

It is still snowing.

Suho lifts a hand to watch a snowflake melt in his warm palm, but they melt before even making contact with his skin. Sieun weaves their fingers together, leaning against his side.

"You're too warm," he says.

That draws a soft laugh from Suho and a kiss is placed upon Sieun's head.

They manage to find a taxi driver that is willing to take them to Sieun's apartment, though the fare is steep.

The second that he speaks in English, a cold sweeps through Sieun. It is a language untouched by Suho; a language that has not realised Suho is alive. The words taste foreign and wrong, like his mouth has been reconfigured, or like he is a new person entirely. One that is a stranger to the language.

For the same reason that he learned it, Sieun uses it now. Necessity.

Suho does not understand much English and has never felt compelled to learn it before. Until he hears it from Sieun's tongue and is captivated by it—by Sieun speaking it.

It occurs to him that there are entire languages that Sieun has not heard Suho's love spoken through. A language he spent seven years speaking almost everyday. And if it is a one from the period in which he believed Suho was dead, did he ever bother to acquaint himself with any words of love—of kindness? Or is everything he knows of the English language bereft of that, and of Suho?

It is a whole world of words and a thousand new ways for Suho to share his love.

He learns closer to Sieun once the car departs and requests, "When we get home, teach me how to speak English."

Sieun faces him with a faint disbelief. "Why?"

"So I can tell you I love you in the language you spoke when you were without me," Suho whispers.

Eyes rounding, Sieun stares up at Suho with a love that transcends language. Syllables form words until they become sentences that hold meaning. Yet, nothing that is spoken could ever reproduce the ecosystem within Sieun's body that exists solely to house his love for Suho. An imperfect tongue fails every time to express just how fundamental this love is to his existence, how it holds him up and keeps him alive.

Perhaps only the depths of his misery that Suho was exposed to will convey that. For the magnitude of Sieun's grief was paramount to his love, before it was allowed to return to its host.

He knows that he will never know the depth of Suho's love either.

But he cherishes that as much as it upsets him. He has the rest of their lives to explore the caverns that comprise Suho's love. And after that, entire lifetimes.

"Okay," he says. "I love you so much, Suho-yah."

Uncaring for the potential audience, he lifts their joined hands that have been resting on the seat between them and kisses the back of Suho's. After a moment, Suho copies him, smiling as he does.

That smile is as good as tattooed into Sieun's skin, deeper than any ink could reach.

They eventually reach the street that he used to live on, what feels like an entire century ago.

He has spent the latter half of the drive fending off nausea, Suho's worry mounting with every second that it persists.

A while has passed since he last had to reckon with Sieun's body being unacclimatised to its surroundings. Back then, it was the warmth and love that it found so foreign. Now, Sieun recoils from the cold that used to be his second skin.

Once Suho gets the suitcase from the back of the taxi and they pay the driver, he loops an arm around Sieun's upper back, squeezing him. "Do you want to go somewhere else first? Maybe for some coffee?"

Sieun shakes his head, but quickly adds, "Unless you want to."

Smiling, Suho says, "Whatever you want is what I want."

They head into the lobby and take the elevator to the fourth floor.

Suho extends two hands between them in the wait before it chimes. Sieun places the keys to his apartment in one and his own hand in the other.

Suho kisses his forehead, murmuring into the skin. A ticking accompanies the rise of the elevator as it passes the floors.

When the hallway is revealed on the other side of the sliding doors, Sieun chokes on his breath.

His hand is squeezed so tight that he cannot deny the existence of what holds it. Suho is by his side, warm and alive.

"I'll book a hotel," Suho asserts once they are out of the elevator. "I don't want you staying here with how it's making you feel."

After a tentative second, Sieun nods.

Everywhere he looks there is a memory of Suho, because Sieun has only ever measured life in him. The white-washed hallway is filled with his absence so profoundly it is like a presence within itself. And it used to be. Sieun was like a broken tree from which another grew, sustaining his imagined Suho.

The ghost of Suho had lived his life alongside him, because they were synonymous. Life could not exist without Suho, even if Sieun knew he was not actually there.

But now that he has reclaimed his life to share with Suho, alive, the overwhelming despair is all that remains, housed in this building.

They reach his door and Suho checks the number on the key instead of asking Sieun if it is the right one.

He can feel Sieun trembling like the autumn leaves were the day that he returned to Suho's life.

The lock gives way, clicking open for them to enter. Suho steels himself before stepping inside.

It is not even his own grief that is inlaid in the apartment, yet the patterns are so recognisable to him as if he constructed it with his own hands. Because he knows it so intimately now.

It is Sieun's kiss, how water dripped through his hair the first time that Suho bathed him. It is the hue that Sieun blushes and that Suho wears. It has been painted to follow the waveform of Suho's laughter and the one that his will inevitably draw from Sieun. It contains the lines of the crow's feet by his eyes that Sieun loves to kiss, and every other way in which Sieun loves him.

It is Sieun's love.

Only here, it has been memorialised in death.

Much like the depictions of someone's life along the walls of their tomb, Sieun preserved Suho's memory upon his passing, and his love turned grief became the structures to house Suho's presence by his side.

How Sieun knew him so intimately from their time together that he could craft a resting place for Suho out of his own life is beyond Suho's comprehension.

And it shreds his heart to pieces.

It is as though he has returned to a tomb where his body lies, and he has to remind himself that Sieun has not lived within this grave in a long time.

That his grief has been dyed the most beautiful shade of love once more.

Sieun squeezes his hand. It grounds Suho to the moment, tethering them together.

The only sound is the ticking of a clock on the far wall.

Suho flips the light switch and the bulb overhead flickers to life, casting the apartment in a white glow. The door closes behind them, softly sealing them inside.

Suho's back is taking up Sieun's entire field of view and he cannot tear his eyes away.

Nothing exists beyond Suho's hand in his and his back.

Sieun has to keep on pushing.

There is no furniture inside, and Suho opens his mouth to make a comment on that. He thought he would be heavy-lifting the next few days to clear the space, but it seems that everything is already gone.

It truly is nothing more than a resting place. In the past, for Suho to haunt, and now for Sieun's life before finding Suho to remain buried.

A croak of a syllable escapes Suho as his eyes land on the first piece of furniture in the entire house.

It is a dining table.

Beside it is a single chair.

The image is so lonely.

That is when his eyes land on the white paper atop the table.

Coiled next to it is some rope.

Suho stops breathing.

The ticking intensifies until it drowns out everything else.

A single chair. A table. A rope.

Anything else could be sold. What remains are the three things that Sieun needed after retrieving the time capsule and fulfilling his final promise to Suho.

And the third and final note he left behind.

Suho is rooted in place, unable to move from the sight that is before him.

How close he was to losing Sieun.

"You said…" he croaks, voice strangled as if something is choking him. "You said you didn't."

He remembers that shake of Sieun's head even through the blur of tears that had been inhibiting his vision at the time.

He has been holding onto that, believing that they always would have found their way back together, even if they just missed each other under the birch tree when the gardenias were still blooming.

But that was his last chance.

The panic that realisation sends through him is so great that it makes his legs buckle.

He had nearly lost Sieun forever.

"What?"

Suho stumbles forward, clutching the side of the table. His eyes skim over the first line of the note.

Just as he did in his second note to Suho, Sieun begins this one with an apology.

Always apologising.

Like he is not the boy that Suho fell in love with, so sensitive and warm-hearted—like he does not deserve to take up space even though Suho would offer him the entire world for his leisure.

To whoever finds me, I am incredibly sorry to have inconvenienced you. I promise that this was not a failing of anybody but myself. I was not someone who could be saved, despite what you may be thinking. There was nothing anyone could have done for me.

All of my business has been cleanly tied up, so there shouldn't be any issues to follow my passing.

I'm assuming my parents will be notified, so I am writing my will here for them. I have also put this in writing legally, but it would be preferred if that trouble was avoidable.

I would like to be cremated, if possible. Suho's halmeoni still lives where she used to, and her phone number has not changed. If you cannot remember, I have left the details for you in Korean on the back of this note.

Please ask her to leave my ashes at Suho's grave. If he has also been cremated, I would like my ashes to be scattered where his were, or to be allowed to stay beside his urn if she is still in possession of them.

If she rejects this request as I know it imposes on her greatly, please scatter my ashes at Hyeopjae Beach. It is the one that Suho wanted to go to for his birthday.

I believe that is the least that you can offer me, as my parents.

Finally, please do not mourn me. I have been planning this for a long time now.

I apologise for not being the son that you wanted, but I hope you can find some closure now that I am gone.

This was not something that you could have prevented, even if you were around more.

As you have likely realised by now, I loved Suho deeply. I cannot live without him anymore. It is too hard.

I am simply being allowed to return home to him after many years of waiting. I will be happier there. Wherever I go, I will be with him.

That is all I want.

Thank you for listening to my final requests,

Yeon Sieun.

Suho chokes on a sob.

Within a second, Sieun is in front of him, alive, and his face spiralling into sheer terror.

"Suho-yah? Are you okay?" Sieun cups his face, hands trembling so much that they cannot actually get a hold of Suho. "Is something hurting? What's wrong? Please… Should I call someone? Suho-yah?"

"Sieun-ah..." The anguish in Suho's voice only worsens Sieun's distress.

His hands start grabbing at every part of Suho's body, eyes scanning for a sign of visible injury or pain.

"Yes, I'm here, Suho-yah. What is it? Please, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

"You said you didn't," Suho repeats, voice grief-stricken. For a moment there, he had read the note and believed he was too late—that he was going to open the door to his halmeoni's house and find an urn with the name of the only man he has ever loved engraved on it. "But you lied to me… You were going to."

Sieun's mouth parts and he inhales sharply. His head starts to turn but Suho grabs his face before he can, shaking his head.

"No, no— Don't look," he begs. "Don't look, Sieun-ah."

Sieun listens and keeps his eyes on Suho.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, running shaky hands over Suho's cheeks. "I'm sorry, Suho-yah."

Because he always apologises.

"Don't," Suho says, voice breaking. "I don't want to hear an apology. That's not what I want."

Despite how devastated he is, Suho does not speak in any tone other than the one he reserves for Sieun in their most tender of moments, where every word sounds like a confession.

"Okay," Sieun whispers. "Okay, Suho-yah."

Suho takes a shaky breath and drops his head to the safety of Sieun's shoulder, his sanctuary on the hard days.

A hand lands atop his head and begins to stroke, soothing him.

"It wasn't a lie," Sieun says. "It was a half-truth. I haven't before. I was going to. You asked me if… If I had. I didn't want you to have to carry something so heavy alongside everything else."

"I want to carry everything that you hold," Suho whispers. "Nothing will ever be too heavy for me when it comes to you, Sieun-ah."

"I still wouldn't tell you at that time. But eventually, I was going to. I forgot… I forgot about this."

"If I were gone, I would've wanted you to live out the rest of your life."

"I couldn't." It is quiet and so incredibly vulnerable, like a snowflake that melts before it can even touch skin. "I can't live without you, Suho-yah. You are my other half. Life has no meaning without you."

Sieun says it so easily like a fact of life. Because to him, it is. The sky is blue, the sun will set, and Sieun cannot live without Suho.

Suho inhales, breathing in the smell of the body wash they both use that is clinging to Sieun's skin and clothes.

"I love you so much, jagiya," he whispers. "I'm so grateful that you stayed alive to keep our promise. It must have been so hard. But I'm here now, and you don't need to keep fighting anymore. I'm always gonna be holding you up, Sieun-ah."

A broken noise escapes Sieun and Suho holds him tighter.

"You'll never have to live without me," he promises and it is the truest of oaths. "I'll find you in every universe and make sure you won't. Even if we get separated, I'll find my way back to you. So all you have to do is wait for me."

Sieun lets out a weep as he nods, hugging Suho back. "Thank you for loving me, Suho-yah."

"It's my greatest honour."

He does not tell Sieun that he would do it all again for him. That he would walk into that ring willingly even knowing what was to come.

He does not tell him that if given that second chance, he would kill everyone there instead.

They deserve none of his mercy nor his apologies.

For condemning Sieun to spend years caught in the throes of grief without him, Suho would willingly lay down his morals. For almost robbing him of Sieun and the tender love he nurtures, Suho would tear them apart.

But he does not dirty Sieun's ears with that morbid truth.

Kissing the side of his face, he gently asks Sieun to step out of the apartment for a moment.

They have rarely been more than a few steps apart since finding each other again, so the request takes Sieun by surprise. Hesitation is rigid in every muscle of his body, but he ends up nodding.

"Promise me that you won't take long."

"No more than ten minutes," Suho says with a smile that is slightly strained.

Sieun shuffles sideways so that he sticks to Suho's request to not look at the array on the table.

When he hears the door click shut, Suho heads to the kitchen and starts sifting through the drawers.

There is not much, but Sieun has not sold all of his cutlery. Maybe some of it came with the apartment.

It does not take too long for him to find what he is searching for.

He returns to the table, opening the box in his hand and taking out a single match.

In one forceful strike a spark catches, a flame kindling at the end of the stick.

He pinches the corner of Sieun's note, eyes refusing to digest the words for a second time.

The flame catches on the white lined paper, curling almost immediately as it browns. Like a flower withering, petal by petal.

The pieces that break off fall to the table and crumble into ash, not so dissimilar from the snowflake that melted before it could sting his palm earlier.

Suho lets the note burn into ashes. When it is completely gone, he stares at the small pile it has left behind.

Popping the lid off the small round container he found in the kitchen drawer, he scrapes the remains and closes them inside. The black of the ashes clings to his hand, so he rinses it under some water.

He would burn the rope too, if he could.

However, he settles for putting it into a bin bag and hiding it to the side.

It is only then that he retrieves Sieun from outside.

The second the door opens, Sieun is flying into his arm with so much force it knocks the breath out of him. Suho curls an arm around his body, which is much fuller than when they first saw each other again. Much fuller than the time that Sieun wrote that note.

With Sieun clinging to his neck, Suho carries him back inside and into the bedroom, kissing his cheek without a second between.

Instead of setting him down on the floor, Suho's hand lands on Sieun's thigh and hikes him up so that he can wrap his legs around his abdomen. Small sounds spill from his mouth where he is hiding it in the crook of Suho's neck.

"It's okay, Sieun-ah. I'm here. You did it, and now we just need to pack up and we can go."

After a few seconds, Sieun nods with a sniff.

Their method of packing away what remains in his room is far from practical. Sieun is like a koala around Suho for most of it, the side of his face pressed against Suho's so that they are cheek-to-cheek. Like he is absorbing all of Suho's warmth through where their skin meets.

Suho will point to something and ask if Sieun wants to keep it. Sieun will respond with yes or no, prompting Suho to put it into one of the three piles. There is a third for everything Sieun seems to hesitate on before answering.

Sieun did not keep much. Half a closet worth of clothes, the odd thing from his childhood, work stuff he could not sell, and of course, anything that he still had of Suho.

Most of the things left behind he wants to get rid of.

The sapling does remember the rotted tree from which it fell, and it does not want to carry its legacy into the future with it.

Sieun recognises the scent of death clinging to everything in the room.

Once they have organised what is left into the three piles, Suho releases Sieun to the floor so that he can grab the bin bag that he has hidden in what was once the living room. While Sieun is still musing over his 'maybe' pile, Suho shovels all of the things to be thrown away atop the rope.

It is bursting by the time that he ties it, including that which Sieun decides is definitely a no from his bundle of hesitation.

Suho disposes of the bag in the huge bin around the back of the apartment complex.

When they return to the bedroom, Sieun picks up a framed photo that has been placed atop the 'yes' pile.

He holds it so tenderly, in the same manner that he cradles Suho's face.

"I only really came back for this," he admits before glancing back at Suho. "And your pillow."

"Finally returning it?" Suho jokes, crossing the room and squeezing Sieun against him.

He studies the photo in Sieun's hand, the same as what he has kept on his bedside table since before he went into a coma.

In Sieun's version, there is no faint smile on his face, as if Suho was in possession of it until they met again.

Suho is thankful that he held onto the one that captured Sieun's smile in time.

There were moments during recovery when he would finally take a step on his own and the pride that swelled in his chest would only last a few seconds before he remembered that there was someone who did not witness it—who chose not to. And the wind would seem so strong all of a sudden, with a force that it could bring him to his knees. Or maybe it was the weight of absence that he buckled under.

Whilst he was sprawled on the floor, he would wonder if Sieun left because he did not think Suho was strong enough to endure this. All the aches in his atrophied body could not compare to the pain of missing Sieun—of loving someone who chose the peace of only knowing Suho at his strongest, rather than the weak man he had become.

At least his muscles would strengthen with enough training, and the aches would fade with time. His heart, however, could be nothing but weak. Even if he tried to lash out with anger, Sieun was cradled in its beating centre. It beat in morse code, spelling out Sieun's name.

He thought maybe Sieun was right to think he was not strong enough to survive.

But at night, when he would lay in bed, staring at that photo of them, that slight smile on Sieun's face would offer a little comfort. Suho could believe that at one point, Sieun leaned on his back and knew he was supported. He could believe that if Sieun had once smiled so intimately, perhaps he could again.

In a way, he was right.

Sieun glances up at Suho and smiles just as he did back then.

They are two seventeen-year-olds again for just a brief moment.

Suho kisses the top of Sieun's head, blinking away the second surge of tears that fill his eyes.

They pack away the things into the space they left in the suitcase for them. All of those eight years of Sieun's life fit into one corner of their suitcase.

That is all Sieun needs.

Suho is dragging it through the doorway when someone calls out in English.

He does not think anything of it until Sieun's voice answers; only then does he turn.

Sieun is staring at the elevator where his landlord is speed-walking towards him.

"You were on a trip for a long time," she says in lieu of greeting. "I thought your lease would end before you returned. How have you been?"

It takes Sieun a second to find the right word in English.

"Good. I've been in Korea."

Vanessa appraises Suho behind him, an appreciative look in her eyes. "Who's this?"

"My high school friend," Sieun says, again finding the words so foreign to the tongue.

He would call Suho his lover, but he cannot remember quite how. English is not a language of love for him. It never has been. Every syllable is imbued with loss.

"He's… Uh… We're…"

Vanessa's brows shoot up her forehead. "Boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend," Sieun repeats with a nod.

"Wow, you went abroad and fell in love?" She claps her hands together but a second later her excitement seems to dwindle. "Does that mean you're not renewing your lease?"

Love.

Sieun tucks the phonemes away alongside 'boyfriend'.

"I'm moving back to Korea," he says.

A rather theatrical cry comes from Vanessa and she grabs his shoulders to give him a little shake. Sieun can feel the way Suho tenses behind him, unsure if he needs to step in. It brings a faint smile to Sieun's face.

"I'll miss you," she says with a dramatic flair.

They are barely close enough to necessitate a greeting, but she is still the person that he got to know the most during his time in America.

"Thank you for all your help," he says.

That earns him a slightly confused look. There is not much to be thankful for, but maybe Sieun is just holding so much gratitude within him knowing that this is the last time he will walk this hall.

Turning back to Suho, he switches to Korean to ask for the keys. Suho hands them to him, brows knitted together.

Sieun passes them on to Vanessa.

The second that the metal is within her hand, he can feel the weight of the walls growing lighter until it is barely worth a feather.

With that, he has unlocked the tomb of time and allowed it to begin again. The ticking becomes obsolete, just another sound in the bustle of the world.

Sieun is no longer a memory that lingers on a roadside. He is no longer a part of Suho banished from being with him—half a person, half a lung.

"As sad as I am to see you go," Vanessa says, "you seem to be doing much better than when I last saw you. I'm glad. Is it because of him?"

She glances at Suho as she asks the question.

"Yes." It is the easiest thing to answer.

She narrows her eyes at Suho. "You better treat him well or I'll hunt you down to Korea."

An amused sound comes from Sieun.

"What did she say?" Suho asks, uneasily.

"That you have to treat me well or she'll hunt you down to Korea," Sieun relays.

Fabric shifts as Suho bows his head towards her, muttering something to himself that Sieun cannot pick up on.

Vanessa leaves them after a few more questions and they finally step into the elevator.

Suho releases a sigh, shoulders slumping as he leans back against the wall. Sieun's eyes are fixed on the end of the hallway.

The elevator doors begin to close.

For a moment, he swears he can see the shape of Suho near the door to his old apartment, staring at him.

A small smile on his face, so fond and thankful, the same one that he used to give Sieun in high school.

The Suho that existed in the depths of his despair does not know how that smile has changed slightly with time. He is stuck in high school forever.

Tears well to Sieun's eyes as the doors close and cut the ghost who accompanied him through every tick of his loss from view.

When the elevator starts the descend, he turns to Suho, who is already watching him. A curious look dances in his gaze.

"You're real," Sieun states.

"I am."

"You're alive."

"I am."

Sieun smiles, so wide that it hurts his cheeks. Tears fall from his eyes.

"I love you."

Suho's eyes flare. The English is foreign to him, just as foreign as it feels on Sieun's tongue. Pieced together like a child's first words; sticky and so personal, nothing like the coldness of the language that was all he once knew.

It belongs to the new beginning that he has now, with Suho. The entire future they have laid out to be together, without having the run from the ghost pains of the past.

Sieun has been given a second chance.

Eight years ago, he watched Suho walk away from his apartment door, three words seared into his memory.

Keep on pushing.

Now, they walk away together, hands interlaced, and three different words promised between them.

I love you.

Upstairs, he leaves not only the apartment where he planned to die, but also the one where he lost Suho for the first time, and the hospital room that Suho used to lay in.

He wishes Suho could feel the weight of his confession, of what this moment means to him, but no words can ever do it justice.

Yet, somehow, Suho knows what Sieun is telling him.

"I love you, too," he whispers in Korean.

The doors open to the lobby and their hands remain interlaced as they walk out of the building.

Sieun will never know life without Suho ever again.

Suho saves up for a trip to Jeju close to their one year anniversary.

Although he books it a few weeks early, Sieun does not comment on it.

He has begun helping around the gym in recent months once they believed he had settled enough. He manages the front desk some days, but Suho is still insistent he has to have at least half a week to himself.

What little Sieun makes he also puts towards the trip, despite Suho's protests.

They spend their days at Jeju mostly on the beach, though it is Autumn again and not quite the weather for swimming.

When they make it to Hyeopjae Beach, Suho lets Sieun wander ahead a little before taking out a small container he brought with him.

The breeze picks up the ashes of Sieun's final note and carries him out to sea.

Suho watches the particles dance in the wind for as a long as he can before they are no longer visible.

If there is a world in which they were not reunited under the birch tree, diverging from this universe like the two versions of their photo together in high school, he hopes that it is enough for him to have fulfilled Sieun's final request.

"Suho-yah!"

Suho turns at the call, sniffing and blinking away the haze over his vision.

Sieun is waving at him from where he is standing close to the shore, rising onto his tiptoes before falling down again in his endeavour to gain Suho's attention.

Which he always has, even in the quietest of moments.

Suho huffs with amusement before pocketing the empty container. The pocket is stuffed full.

He crosses the distance between them, grinning as Sieun dashes the final few metres and jumps into his arms.

Suho spins him in a circle, their lips finding each other with the same confession of love in both Korean and English.

After dinner, they return to the beach to watch the sunset. Sieun marvels at the brush strokes of clouds across the sky and Suho admires how they make him glow. Sneakily, he takes a photo or two.

His hand slips into the same pocket that he carries the empty container in.

Taking a deep breath, he says, "Sieun-ah."

Sieun turns to him, a soft smile playing on his face.

It falters slightly as Suho lowers to the sand.

"Do you know what today is?" he asks.

With wide eyes, Sieun shakes his head.

"Nine years ago today, you brought me ox knee soup and I realised that I was deeply, deeply in love with you. Ever since then, I've just fallen more and more in love with you, Sieun-ah. There aren't enough languages in the world for me to put it into words, nor enough time to scratch the surface."

Suho's shaky hand pulls a small box from his pocket.

"My life begins and ends with you. In every lifetime, I'll never have enough words or enough time to show you that. Even though you still haven't forgiven yourself for not being there during my recovery, my love for you still carried me through it. You were there, giving me a reason to keep going. As you do every day that you're in my life."

The first tear slips down Sieun's cheek, his eyes flooded to the point that he has to keep blinking so that he can see clearly. He cannot miss even a second of this moment, with Suho's knee sunk into the sand, every hue in the sky clinging to his skin until he looks like he is painted from Sieun's memory, captured in his radiance as love glows around him.

"I'd like to believe that we were always meant to find each other under that birch tree. That even though we were kept apart, we would always find each other. Because my heart is half of yours, and half of yours is mine. We can't live apart for too long."

He smiles softly as he lifts the lid of the box in his hand. The tendrils of light from the sun dazzle the silver rings inside.

Sieun gasps.

"I love you so much, Sieun-ah. There is no version of me that doesn't love you. Before you, I was just waiting. And I'd wait forever for you. But…" His voice breaks a little now. "But I think we've both waited long enough in this life. I think we're allowed to have our peace together now."

His breath trembles in the space between them as he inhales.

"Sieun, you gave up your last name almost a year ago now, and I've spent every moment since wanting to ask you to take mine."

A choked sob breaks through Sieun's sealed lips and he covers his mouth with the tips of his fingers.

"When I find you on the bus in our next life, I'll ask you if we were married in our past life again. I'm on my knee right now to ask you if we can fulfill that promise. Would you allow me the honour of being your husband?"

Sieun is nodding before Suho has even finished. The words have hardly left his mouth before Sieun is saying, "Yes, yes." He inhales, sobbing in staggered breaths. "Yes, Ahn Suho. I'd want nothing more."

Suho smile is radiant as he takes the smaller of the two rings from the box and slides it onto the ring finger of Sieun's outstretched hand. The fit is perfect, so much so that Sieun could forgot he was wearing it if he were not marvelling at it.

Because the promise has been there long before given tangible form. Sieun has always been Suho's, and Suho his.

It glints in the sun, illuminating the engravings that run along its surface.

Suho pushes off his knee to stand. In his haste to put the ring on Suho's finger, Sieun almost drops it to the sand.

A soft laugh comes from Suho as he cups Sieun's face with his free hand, stroking the wet skin with so much tenderness.

Once their rings are on, Suho lifts Sieun's hand and rubs over the band, feeling the grooves beneath.

The motion catches Sieun's attention, and a second later, his fingers close around Suho's wrist. He brings the hand to his face for closer inspection.

The ring is engraved with two dates.

The first is the day that they met, all those years ago.

The second is the date that had been circled on Sieun's calender, the moment that they found each other again after eight years.

The date written on their letters addressed to one another, waiting patiently beneath a birch tree with its robe of gardenias to bring them back home to each other once more.

Their second beginning.

Sieun's face crumples before his head goes back with a loud wail.

Suho cannot help the affectionate laugh that spills from him as he tries to soothe his lover, cradling his face as he wipes away the constant stream of tears.

"Ahn Sieun," he jokingly scolds, "why are you crying?"

"Suho-yah…" Sieun sobs. "Suho-yah, I love you so much. Thank you… Thank you for loving me."

"I love you too, Sieun-ah. I'll love you forever."

In this life, it was eight years without each other.

The next, they will be born a house apart and spend every second of their lives always a hairbreadth from each other.

The ticking that used to follow Sieun around is a metronome, balancing the scales of the world.

It is not Death's clock he heard.

It is one that guides his heart back to its home.

Back to Suho.