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"Hyung." Taehyun's cold nose pressed into the side of Yeonjun's neck. "Hyung, it's time to get up. I made breakfast."
Yeonjun lifted his head up slightly, opening his eyes just enough to see the blurry outline of the bowl in Taehyun's hand before he fell back onto the pillow with a groan.
"Come on, hyung, you have to eat something," Taehyun said. His voice took on a plaintive note. "Please? For me? Just one bite."
Getting up sounded so unappealing, though. It was far more tempting to lay in bed and hopefully fall back asleep and slip into dreams which were happier than reality. If Yeonjun was dreaming, nothing was real and none of the desolation was real.
"I'll even open up the fruit jar for you."
Oh, he must have been getting desperate. Taehyun had been adamantly against Yeonjun's singular purchase, but he had also been too late to stop it.
Yeonjun didn't respond, but the pattering of footsteps told him Taehyun was already rushing off to get it.
Taehyun burst through the door in record time and tapped the spoon against his lips. "Peach? Pineapple, maybe?"
In spite of himself, Yeonjun let out a laugh that was rusty from disuse.
"No need for that, Taehyun-ah," he said, but he still opened his mouth and waited for Taehyun to spoonfeed him a piece of fruit.
Taehyun looked brighter than he had in months when he fed Yeonjun a spoonful of pineapple and peach.
Yeonjun flopped backwards onto the bed again when he had swallowed, only for Taehyun to grab at his shoulder and pull him back up.
"Eat first," he insisted, pushing the bowl into Yeonjun's hands. It was the same beans and rice as usual, and it made Yeonjun want to gag. "You can have fruit after. But you have to eat to stay alive."
Taehyun met Yeonjun's gaze and seemed to understand what the challenge in it meant. And if I don't want to stay alive? What then?
Thank whatever is out there that I could survive. I'm glad it wasn't me. As soon as the thought popped into Yeonjun's head, he was disgusted at how self centered he was. After all, he was still alive.
But with the earth slowly dying, with little food left, with no news of the outside world for the past six months, at least — there had been no power, and since paper newspapers and calendars had long since stopped being produced after everything went digital, he only had a vague idea of how much time was passing — it was hard not to feel grateful for life and ashamed that he still wished for death.
When he went outside at all — he avoided it as much as possible, fearing disease, but sometimes it was inevitable — he kept on a mask and averted his eyes when he saw the despair. Everywhere seemed like it was a ghost town, no matter where he went. Even the places bustling with people seemed stagnant, because everyone knew the end was near.
How near, no one could be sure. Yeonjun wasn't even certain that governments were still functioning. He was surprised that he could even get food — he had expected to run out months earlier.
But now, with the predicted tsunami or earthquake or whatever it was — Taehyun had heard whispers in the marketplace in the snatches of conversation he caught about something big and disastrous — it seemed that all there was to do now was wait for his death.
The only light in his life was Taehyun, and he had a feeling the futility of it all was catching up to Taehyun, too. It was only natural after everything else they had lost.
Sometimes Yeonjun dreamed about performing on stage, and each time he woke back up to the nightmare of his life it was like losing everything all over again. Although he hadn't performed in ages, his body remembered everything.
Yeonjun the idol was almost an entirely different person from the Yeonjun fighting to stay alive, and fighting not to give into death. That Yeonjun had struggled, too, but at least in the past he had had a sense of a future, however murky. Now, he had no future. Time would end soon.
The worst day of Yeonjun's life was very ordinary at the start. In fact, "worst day" wasn't even the best way to describe it, because he hadn't recognized the tipping point of the world sliding into disaster until it was far too late. Like everyone else around him, Yeonjun had either not noticed it, pretended not to notice it, or actively avoided all news of it.
As an idol, everything had been consumed by his work, so he hadn't had the time — he let himself believe this — to worry about the state of the world. It was far too easy to idle away his life.
That mistake had cost him.
Two months into the famines, the water shortages, the rampant disease, and the general chaos, disaster — beyond what had become normal — struck. Yeonjun had been living with the members in their usual dorm, hoping and praying that the problems would simply disappear. All of them had clung to one another that first night that the news — back when computers and phones and televisions still worked — had begun to predict nothing but doom, and no way for anything to get better, and vowed to wait it out. It wasn't safe, all of the organizations declared, to go out very often. That meant they couldn't stay with their families, and they couldn't work. They were stuck. Three of the members got sick within days of each other. It had started mildly, just a cough and a sniffle, and Yeonjun had thought that there was no cause for concern. They would just have to be extra careful.
Yeonjun was wrong. The illness — whatever it was — had progressed slowly at first, and then accelerated until there was almost nothing left of them. They had been emaciated by the end, and barely recognizable.
Soobin was taken first, two weeks after he had first fallen ill, and even though the warning signs had been there, it had hit all of them hard. When they had still been TOMORROW X TOGETHER — none of them knew what they were anymore, but a lifetime so long ago it the memories melted together they had been an idol group — Soobin had been their leader, and he had been their rock. Losing Soobin was like tearing out a vital organ, and the ragged edges of the hole Soobin left behind could never heal cleanly.
Seeing Soobin's warm eyes — clouded over from fever and from exhaustion — staring up at him as Soobin weakly implored all of them to take care of each other had been a knife to the heart. Soobin had begged them to go away, terrified that Yeonjun and Taehyun would get sick, too, but all of the members had refused, lying with him until he'd taken his last breath.
Taehyun was the first person to try to think rationally. He'd recognized that they couldn't keep Soobin's body, and that it wasn't safe. They would have to give him a proper burial.
Kai and Beomgyu had been too weak to stop him, but Yeonjun had fought and screamed and pleaded with Taehyun to let him spend just a few more moments with Soobin to say goodbye to him.
Even in death, even glassy eyed and with none of the light in his face, Soobin was still beautiful. When his arms gave out, and the weight of Soobin's body disappeared, Yeonjun went from clutching at Soobin to hugging himself desperately. He slept in the spot where Soobin had taken his last breath that night, resting his cheek on the patch of fabric that still smelled like him, with a hint of baby powder even though they had all stopped wearing perfume and cologne and none of them could shower regularly. He dreamed that he could still feel the heat of Soobin's body, although Soobin's warmth had faded.
Yeonjun refused to speak to Taehyun after Soobin's death. He knew it was childish, but he felt as though it was just one more thing taken away from him. How much more until he had nothing left?
Instead of talking to him, Yeonjun had sulked around the house because it wasn't safe to leave without a reason. It took two days of his grief-fueled anger before Taehyun had had enough.
"Hyung." Taehyun's voice was raspy, probably from having cried so much. He knocked insistently at Yeonjun's door. "Hyung, open up. It's me."
"Go away," Yeonjun said hoarsely. He could hear the petulant tone in his voice and felt irritated by it. "Leave me alone."
"Hyung, please," Taehyun begged. He sounded choked up, like he was about to cry. "You can't shut me out. You and Beomgyu-hyung and Kai — you're all I have left. We only have each other."
Yeonjun didn't say anything. Hearing Taehyun talk made him feel like breaking down all over again. There was a quiet thud.
"Hyung," Taehyun sniffled, "please, please let me in. I need you."
With a sigh, Yeonjun slid off of the bed and slowly padded towards the door. He opened it, wincing at the creak, and his arms shot out to catch Taehyun as he fell forward. Yeonjun had an image in his mind of Taehyun slumped against the door in tears. Taehyun collapsed into Yeonjun's arms, sobbing even harder.
Yeonjun hugged him to his chest, feeling tears slip down his cheeks and soak into Taehyun's hair.
Losing Beomgyu was far more of a shock because they had thought he was getting better. Yeonjun had felt the barest sliver of hope when, several days after he had made up with Taehyun, he heard Beomgyu asking for his favorite foods, although he couldn't give them to him. It was like a light shining into the overwhelming darkness of their lives.
For a few hours, at least, Yeonjun had imagined Beomgyu recovering fully, laughing with them and teasing him. He had seen a future where Beomgyu could live, where they felt a little more whole.
That day, Taehyun and Yeonjun had worked together to make a pitiful imitation of what Beomgyu had asked for, and they had all sat together on the bed they came to share, because none of them wanted to be apart for too long for fear that they'd disappear, and eaten a meal. Although it couldn't have been described as joyous, for just a short time Yeonjun had caught a glimpse of a future beyond the grim reality they had now.
But then the next morning, they had woken up feeling lighter only to find that Beomgyu was gone. He'd left quietly, without a struggle, as if he was happy to die.
Yeonjun often wondered, after he was gone, whether Beomgyu's burst of energy had been a sign of him giving up. Soobin being gone had affected Beomgyu especially, and several times Yeonjun had caught him crying out for Soobin when he was in pain and didn't remember that Soobin couldn't help him. When he was in a darker mood, Yeonjun thought that the reason Beomgyu started to get better was because he was looking forward to seeing Soobin again.
At his darkest, Yeonjun wished he could go along with them.
They had all carried his body outside and buried it with one of Soobin's sweaters right next to Soobin so they could be together in death as well as life.
Kai slipped away from them just as quietly as Beomgyu had. At the start of the disaster, they had all taken to sharing a bed, and they had never gotten out of the habit. It would have felt strange to be apart again through the night.
Before, Taehyun had liked to use another member's arm as a pillow — usually Soobin. Nowadays he was the one who was being used as a pillow. After he got sick, Kai would often wake up in the middle of the night, shivering violently. He had lost a lot of weight in only a month, and was so thin that he couldn't keep much body heat in. To keep his fragile body warm throughout the night, Taehyun usually wrapped around him like a koala. He was too scared to let go of him, afraid he would lose another piece of himself.
It turned out that his efforts were wasted. Yeonjun woke up several days after Beomgyu's death, exhausted after a fitful sleep as usual, hollow with grief, only to brush against Kai's cheek and find it cold. This time, it was Yeonjun who had to pry Kai from Taehyun's grip. Taehyun had clung onto Kai with all of his might, unwilling to part with another piece of home.
Yeonjun was weakened with grief and a general lack of food, but he managed to get Taehyun to let go long enough lift up Kai. The weight of him was shockingly light in his arms, and Yeonjun was swept with a wave of despair when he looked at Kai's angelic face. His giant baby was no longer a giant, and he was no longer a baby, because Kai no longer was.
The air outside was polluted and so thick Yeonjun could almost taste it at the back of his throat, souring his mouth.
"It's just you and me now, hyung," Taehyun choked out. He didn't look up at Yeonjun, but his hand curled around Yeonjun's. Yeonjun squeezed his hand back gently — he'd never been one to reach out to hold hands, but these days, when Taehyun was the only comfort in his life, he treasured the little bit of warmth Taehyun brought him when he would wordlessly take Yeonjun's hand in his.
They dug a grave for Kai in silence, under one of the skinny, sickly-looking trees. Yeonjun ignored the way Taehyun was staring at the patch of dirt right next to Kai that Taehyun had once said would be a peaceful place to rest.
"Stop it," he tried to hiss. It came out in a soft whimper instead. "I'm not burying you, too."
Taehyun turned his tearstreaked face away from the freshly upturned earth and buried his face in Yeonjun's shoulder.
"Come on, hyung," Taehyun coaxed, holding up a jar to his lips. "You need to drink something."
"I'm going to die anyway," Yeonjun croaked, but he opened his mouth and let the beer, heavily diluted with water, fill his mouth.
Apparently, Taehyun had read somewhere that before water was consistently safe to drink, people would drink alcohol instead, and it was less dangerous as well as less alcoholic.
It had been a month since they'd become two, and three months since the whole disaster had started.
Taehyun sighed. "Please. Just do it for me?" You're all I have left was unspoken, but Yeonjun still felt it. And it was true. They only had each other now.
"Fine." Yeonjun had another swallow and then put the jar down. "Is today market day?"
"Hyung, you remembered?" Taehyun's eyes shone. He had been trying to get Yeonjun to follow his schedule regularly for ages to avoid simply letting the days slip by into the murky haze of time.
"No." Yeonjun felt a faint pulse of guilt at disappointing him. "Just a guess."
"Okay, well…" Taehyun hesitated. "Want to come with me? Just this once? It'll be good for you, I promise."
"I didn't even say anything," Yeonjun said gruffly. "Sure. Let's go, Taehyun-ah."
Taehyun seemed a lot more chipper now that Yeonjun was going with him. Yeonjun suspected that it was almost entirely put on for his benefit, and that Taehyun was struggling a lot more than he let on, but he appreciated it nonetheless.
"Wait, Taehyun-ah, shouldn't one of us…"
"Shouldn't one of us...?" Taehyun prompted, his face expectant.
"Shouldn't one of us stay home? You know, to take care of Kai?"
Taehyun looked as though he had been slapped in the face. His shoulders hunched up, and he curled inward on himself. "Hyung," he said faintly, with a hint of a sob creeping into his voice, "hyung, Kai…"
Yeonjun gasped when he remembered and he wanted to pinch himself. Fuck. Kai was gone, too, and he'd been a fucking idiot to forget, even for a moment, that Taehyun had lost his best friend. Kai's death had been another blow, and now it was just the two of them.
Taehyun had confessed to Yeonjun quietly in the dead of night that he was terrified of losing Yeonjun, too. Yeonjun had reassured him that he was going nowhere, but his words meant nothing when the both of them had already lost three bandmates in the span of two weeks. Yeonjun had had his own nightmares of waking up next to Taehyun's body growing cold.
Four whole weeks had passed, but the wound was still raw and painful to the touch. Neither of them had had enough time to heal.
Something seemed to come over Taehyun, and although his breathing was still shaky, he squared his shoulders and shook his head as if to clear it.
Taehyun gathered up several tote bags and one of the wallets and took one of Yeonjun's hands in his.
The walk to the market was decent. It wasn't too far, and the roads were empty, so they could walk in relative peace. Yeonjun tried not to think about how empty the buildings were, how the only noises around were the occasional dog howling.
Yeonjun didn't know where they were going, so he let Taehyun grip his hand tightly and pull him along.
He nearly fell over when a shimmer in his peripheral vision caught his eye, stopping him in his tracks.
Taehyun turned around when he felt Yeonjun stop.
"What is it, hyung?" His thumb stroked over the back of Yeonjun's hand, perhaps subconsciously. "Is something wrong?"
Instead of answering, Yeonjun pointed at the flash of blue.
Taehyun squinted in the direction that Yeonjun was showing, and then he rushed over to crouch around the place Yeonjun had been pointing at. He looked up at Yeonjun with wide, sparkling eyes.
"Hyung, look at this," he said, gesturing excitedly. It probably wasn't safe to touch, so he didn't pick it up.
Yeonjun squatted next to him and nearly toppled backwards in shock. In the gutter lay a moabong, slightly dirty but otherwise intact. None of them — neither of them, he had to remind himself — had seen one in ages. In the early days, they'd heard about lightsticks being used in emergencies, but they had never seen one of theirs.
They didn't usually talk about their old life. Soob- only one of them had encouraged Yeonjun and everyone else not to forget about it or close it off, but they didn't have that reminder anymore. The collection of albums and such had been relegated to one of the old unused bedrooms, where it stayed out of sight and out of mind.
Yeonjun finally tore his eyes away from the abandoned moabong several minutes later, and he stood up and dusted himself off, although there was no real need to. He tugged at Taehyun's hand to urge him up, and Taehyun kept staring at the lightstick for a few more seconds before he joined Yeonjun.
"Come on, Taehyun-ah," he said, not looking at the lightstick. "Let's go."
"But hyung—" Taehyun came obediently, but his eyes were still fixed on the moabong. "Wait, you're going the wrong way."
He put a hand on Yeonjun's waist lightly and steered him to the left.
Taehyun came closer and closer to Yeonjun and made himself smaller and smaller the further they got from the dorm, and he was holding Yeonjun's hand in a death grip.
When they got to the market, Yeonjun recollected that it had previously been a public park, but it had been converted into an unregulated marketplace for any and all survivors.
"What are we buying?" he muttered to Taehyun.
"You'll see," Taehyun whispered back. "Just wait."
Yeonjun froze up when they passed by a group of teenagers. He tried to lean closer to hear them, but it was only the normal chatter.
"Hyung?" Taehyun gave him a wide-eyed look.
Yeonjun shook his head. "It's nothing," he said, and it was. He'd just been so sure they had been singing. More specifically, he'd thought they were singing one of their songs, and it struck him as depressingly hopeful to sing in the face of death.
"If you're sure," Taehyun said. He angled his head towards a tent. "Over here."
Yeonjun ducked his head to go inside the stall. Like everyone else they had seen, including themselves, the seller's clothes were an indistinguishable color — some mix of yellow and grey and brown. Yeonjun had grown to recognize the beiges and dirty dishwater as the colors of despair and futility.
As Taehyun bartered for canned beans and dry rice, which would make up the same cheap, easy meal they'd had for months now, that Yeonjun was trying not to gag at having to eat again, Yeonjun let his mind wander. He imagined a place where people were still happy and carefree, still had enough to get by easily. He had no way of knowing if such a place existed.
Taehyun accepted the stacks of cans, filling six bags with them so they wouldn't have to go back soon. When Taehyun wasn't watching, Yeonjun slipped in two tins of canned fruit, too, and left a note behind to pay for it. Taehyun would probably be furious with him when they got back and put away everything, but Yeonjun thought he'd die if he had to have the same meal for the next however long without any variation.
They also stopped to buy more beer. Neither of them particularly liked it, but after what had already happened, Taehyun had been too afraid to take risks with the water.
When they returned, it was nearly dark out. They ate in silence, splitting a can of beans and rice. Taehyun was stony faced and had refused to acknowledge the fruit beyond calling it a waste of precious resources.
Yeonjun wanted nothing more than to sleep, but his mind was filled with the sound of their own music. He couldn't manage to quiet his restless mind, and couldn't bury the terrible sense of loss.
Yeonjun vaguely recalled that he had once heard dogs could sense earthquakes before they happened. Perhaps this was the reason that for the past two days, there had not been a single moment of silence because one dog or another had been howling. They knew something was coming.
The fated day started like any other, excepting the howling dogs. Yeonjun and Taehyun woke with the sunrise. Taehyun rolled out of bed to heat up the same canned beans and rice that they'd had every day for months on end, and dragged Yeonjun out of the tangled sheets.
Yeonjun stumbled over his feet when Taehyun led him over to the meager breakfast they had. Taehyun didn't let go of his hand even to eat.
The sun rose and fell and lay hanging halfway up in the sky when Yeonjun felt it.
Maybe Taehyun did too, because for the first time in months, he started to sing. It was faint and rusty, because he was out of practice and hadn't warmed up, but it was still the same voice Yeonjun knew.
Yeonjun didn't recognize it at first. It was one of their songs, and would have been their last had they not renewed their contracts.
Taehyun broke off into a soft sob and curled his body up against Yeonjun's chest, making himself small to fit in Yeonjun's arms.
"Hyung," Taehyun whimpered into Yeonjun's shoulder, "I don't want to die."
Yeonjun could feel Taehyun's body trembling, and he hugged Taehyun even tighter. There was nothing he could do, because they both knew they were going to die.
He buried his face in Taehyun's hair and rocked Taehyun back and forth in his arms, trying to soothe both of them. In the back of his mind, Yeonjun registered a rumble beginning from far away. As he waited for the shaking to start, he held Taehyun tighter to his chest, closing his eyes.
The earthquake made Yeonjun's stomach churn, just as he imagined the water boiling out at sea. It was ten or thirty minutes after the horrible shaking started when a roar started, and Yeonjun could see clearly — although his eyes were squeezed shut to block out the horrors to come — the wall of water rushing towards him. Taehyun shook harder, muffling his sobs against Yeonjun as his tears soaked into his shirt.
There was a resounding crash as the walls folded like cardboard and the windows shattered, and then the water hit, and Yeonjun felt the cold rush in from outside and swallow up the warmth.
Hyung. Yeonjun thrashed around wildly in search of Taehyun. He had heard Taehyun's voice. He was certain of it.
Hyung, I'm scared. The world had gone cold and black, but he could still feel Taehyun's smaller hand in his. He was still panicking, but the terror and urgency was starting to wane.
Hyung, I don't want to die.
Don't worry, Taehyun-ah. Hyung's got you.
Hyung!