Chapter Text
"a hymn to our division (if we were glaciers)"
Though we are beginning to unknow each other, let us not be strangers my dear.
The sea will soon forget our glacial marriage. The ships who see us will never know that we are but fragments.
Maybe the east will bear you softer winds. Maybe the tropical currents will not wear away at me. And maybe we can pretend (pretend that we are whole).
He wakes to a bar of warm light across his face, and a weight on his stomach. Blinking away the dots, he raises himself further into the white morning.
The weight is a hand, and the warmth is a breath on his skin. Someone’s leg pins his own down. Something like skin presses under his fingers, soft.
What?
“Ugh, stop moving around so much.” Mingyu claps a hand over his mouth before he can shout. “Shh, it’s just us.”
Seungcheol wheezes for a moment. His muscles relax before he registers it. Oh. It’s just them.
Mingyu, on one side of him, eyelashes crumpled. A leg with a long scar is thrown near the edge of the bed, which means that Seokmin is curled somewhere near his feet. A lock of Jeonghan’s hair tickles his elbow. He catches Seungkwan’s silhouette somewhere near Jeonghan.
And so…that must be Wonwoo, tucked under his arm, chest rising in deep, even breaths. Seungcheol’s throat goes dry.
“He was looking for you, last night. Thought you might have been drinking,” Mingyu adds, bleary-eyed and hoarse. “We found you here and decided we’d crash. Your bed is too big anyway.”
Wonwoo looked for him. Four words that gut him like a blade.
Seokmin rouses with a soft murmur, casting a half-open eye across the room. “Oh, hyung, you’re awake? Wonwoo was…“ He trails off, rolling over and snuggling back into the pillows.
“Looking for you,” Mingyu finishes, eyes drooping even as his mouth moves. “Not like he-hmm-told us, but we knew it.”
Of course. Seungcheol lays back down so Mingyu can put his head on his shoulder. “Okay, Ggyu, go back to sleep.”
Mingyu obeys with a grunt. “You know he likes you, right? Like, so much. He didn’t even seem happy at dinner. Kept looking at the seat beside him and…”
Seungcheol swallows, rubbing circles into Mingyu’s back. “And?”
“‘N when we came back here, he disabled your alarm and got extra blankets from the—”
Mingyu cuts off with a soft snore, and Wonwoo moves on his other side, shifting even closer.
You know he likes you, right?
The months will pass, the years will pass, and Seungcheol will not forget it. How lovely, to be searched for. How lovely, to be missed even in the presence of others.
He looks at the man who has curled into him, wrapped around him, claimed every part of him without knowing.
Do you love me, Jeon Wonwoo?
Time ticks. Spins. Red numbers counting down the beats of his heart. Wonwoo’s hair is messed into a fluff.
Do you know I love you?
~
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.” Woozi packs more rice into his bowl before moving to the side dishes. “About government funding.”
Seungcheol waits, hands gripping the edges of his trap.
After a moment, Woozi looks up at him. There is something vulnerable in his face. “I think we should try it, Blue.”
He inhales sharply. “Yeah?”
Dr. Woo gives him a rare smile, shoulders relaxing. “Yeah. Let’s fight for it.”
~
To make a point, Dr. Woo doesn’t let them out into the public eye for two weeks. Only when the venue promises an ample security detail do they finalize an appearance. At this point, he’s not sure what else the world wants to know about them. It feels like every corner of their fake love has been turned inside out, soft skin exposed to the scrutiny of a thousand scorching gazes.
Their stylists have been getting more creative these days. To switch things up, Wonwoo is handed a blue suit and he’s given a black one, and they’re shepherded into a changing room the size of a closet.
A month of back-to-back appearances have at least afforded this routine some semblance of familiarity. His arm jabs into Wonwoo’s shoulder only about three times, and they only waste a few seconds searching for the lightswitch in pitch darkness.
Adjusting his cufflinks, Wonwoo peers into the lone, dusty mirror. “I prefer black.”
“Just be grateful you aren’t dating Seokmin,” Seungcheol snorts, bracing his foot over a heap of boxes to lace up his shoes. “or else you’d be wearing bright yellow.”
“Hyung, I love you.”
His smile is only a little shaky. This part is familiar too. “Thanks, Wonu.”
~
And then, of course, the ball drops. He probably shouldn't have gotten distracted by the cutesy setup, but screw him, all the stuffed animals strewn everywhere really took his guard down.
“What do you say to the idea that if your relationship ends, the Rangers will be compromised?”
He feels his smile fade. The studio lights are feverishly cold, drawing goosebumps from his skin.
Very, very slowly, Wonwoo’s neck twists towards him. To anyone else, his gaze might seem innocent enough. But there is a muscle in his jaw that becomes tense when he gets flustered, and right now, it’s popping almost clean through his skin.
It’s as if someone has combined his every worry, his every pervading anxiety, and spilled it into a single question.
Seungcheol thinks of every mistake he has ever made, raising his voice at everyone else when he was only angry with himself, or pointing his finger at the room when it was his fault. But when he apologized, they always forgave him.
That time when he destroyed a building he shouldn't have, blew a hole through one too many bridges, and the Rangers were forced into a federal review for three long months. But when he tried to leave, Mingyu unzipped his suitcase by the cover of night and put all his things back into their places, and Jeonghan disabled all the elevators and blocked off all the stairs.
Of Seungkwan always calling him the best leader, in birthday cards and media conferences alike. Of Seokmin using the last of his energy to embrace him in that battle, despite scrapes and blood and the weight of fatigue.
And Wonwoo. Who has forgiven him everything.
Seungcheol sits up.
“The strength of our team is too great to be shattered by something like that. If we take training into consideration, I have known my members for nine years now. We’ve been through fights, both big and small, both personal and intergalactic. But I have always loved them, all of them. Wonwoo in a different way, maybe, but even if our relationship changes, the fact that I love him will not.”
No, he has to look at Wonwoo right now, has to tell him this eye to eye. Because even if no one else knows, they do.
“There is nothing you can do,” he begins, trying to put the weight of years on every word, every syllable that leaves his tongue. “that will make me leave. No single thing. We will always survive, even if it takes time.”
Very distantly, very faintly, he thinks he hears something thunderous erupting from the audience. Applause? Cheers?
But the only thing he knows is that Wonwoo’s mouth is breaking out into a beam, head bent forward as if it cannot hold the weight of his happiness, because in this instant, he has made Wonwoo happy. In this instant, he has done something right by the person he has loved for so long, even after they have hurt each other so much.
It means more than the PR of it, the dramatic romance of the moment which Dr. Woo will rave about later. Because Wonwoo isn’t a moment to him. Wonwoo is years, eons. Every moment. Every eternity.
Wonwoo’s hand grasps the back of his sleeve as they leave, hand winding into the crook of his elbow. He feels a flush spread down from his throat to his chest, like high tide working its way down his skin. “Glad to see I didn’t scare you off.”
The building is close to the ocean. A glimpse of it, a thin stripe of blue, peeks out from a gap in the skyline. Thick white clouds swathe the sky. Sunlight burns into their skin and dances in swatches across the pavement.
The wind blows Wonwoo’s hair into his face, and his voice into Seungcheol’s heart. “Scare me off? I don’t think you could.”
~
“We’ve received an invitation.” Dr. Woo pulls up a 3D scan. “For a reception at the mayor’s house.”
This is different. He knows it as well as anyone. A private party, not an interview. This is where they will drum up support.
“Do we know who else is attending?” Jeonghan pipes up.
Brow set low, Woozi spins a pen between his fingers. “The mayor is friends with the prime minister’s advisors. They can help us lobby for government financing, as long as we get them on our side.” He sighs. “I really think it would be good if you guys go. The whole team has been invited.”
Seokmin brightens. “Divide and conquer, right? We can get more people on our side that way.” Seungkwan and Mingyu voice loud agreements, and Jeonghan hums along.
Wonwoo gives him a sidelong glance. “Do you think we should do it?”
Under the weight of all these trusting eyes, Seungcheol musters a nod. “It’s worth a shot.” At least his team will be with him, no matter what. He’s willing to try anything for them.
Evidently relieved, Dr. Woo relaxes into his chair. “Good. Then let’s get practicing. The party is in five days.”
Yelping, Seungkwan sits up. “Five days?”
~
They’re reading by the low light. Wonwoo’s ankle is brushing his knee, and Seungcheol’s arm is hanging off the bed.
He’s been trying to process the same paragraph for the past ten minutes. It’s practically burned into his brain now. Snapping his book shut, he sighs. “Do you think this will be it?”
“Hmm?”
Muffled sounds from the traffic jam below seep through the window and Seungcheol rubs his eyes. “This party. Do you think it’ll be the end?”
The end. They both know what it means. Sometime, when their funds are secure and they are beginning to fade from the public mind, Command Center will announce the end of their relationship. Buzz will skyrocket for a while, but then the scandal will fade, and everything will be back to normal.
Normal. The word has occupied a strange place in his heart for a while now. He’s grateful for it, this thin facade, but there are things he has realized he would prefer.
Strangely, of everything in that fling, only the breakup had seemed real. Everything else, those fleeting moments of joy, had been clouded with a gray, fearful fog. But when they ended it, all he felt was that emptiness. Like his chest had expanded to contain double the happiness he deserved, and now it had nothing to hold.
This time, even this will be fake.
“If we try hard enough,” Wonwoo replies, finally, setting his own book aside. “If we do really well, then I think it will be.”
Seungcheol sits up, balancing his weight on a shaky elbow. “What do you think we should do?”
Wonwoo opens his mouth. Closes it. Then, his shoulders set, as if he’s decided something. “Well,” he begins, tongue sweeping across his lower lip. “There isn’t a script. We’ve got to be believable.”
He nods along. “Right.”
“To be believable—I mean, they’ll expect us to kiss of course.”
To kiss?!
Right. As normal couples do. Be cool, Choi Seungcheol. Be cool.
“Of course,” he cries, too-loud, voice cracking. “We can do that if…if needed. I think so, yeah. That’s cool.”
Wonwoo blinks very fast. “It can’t be helped. We’ll—we’ll have to practice.”
Seungcheol stops short.
Is wishful hearing a thing? Or does that word mean something else, practice ?
But the dark line of Wonwoo’s stare is fixed on him, and it’s hard to deny the way it burns holes through his skin. Hard to deny what it means, then and now. “You’re right,” he agrees breathlessly, shifting closer with unconscious intent. “I think so too, yeah.”
Wonwoo breaks away from the wall, arms bracing on the bed for a moment, and then his lips are on his. Automatically, Seungcheol’s hands move up to his waist to steady him (he was always falling over himself), to pull him closer and keep him close.
But Wonwoo isn’t unsure anymore. He winds his hands together behind Seungcheol’s neck and presses nearer on his own, twisting his head to push into his mouth. He isn’t bones and skin anymore, he’s heavier. But Seungcheol is stronger.
He finds himself falling back anyway, spine giving out under the sheer weight of shock. Wonwoo smells softly of his favorite cinnamon perfume, and his hair is so so soft, and his skin like cotton stretched out, pulled taut beneath Seungcheol’s hands. The faint calluses on his hands brush across the nape of his neck, and if his face wasn’t locked into place right now, he might have shivered.
Panting, Wonwoo pulls off. Their noses bump together when his head tips forward, and Seungcheol is so, so happy and so, so certain that he must definitely be dreaming right now.
Everything is too bright.
The ceiling light gleams right into his eyes, and he winces, untangling a fist from Wonwoo’s hair to press over his face. His elbow proceeds to slam directly into the footboard of his bed. “Fuck!” he curses. “Ah!”
Above him, Wonwoo’s face is laced with amusement.“Smooth.”
“Gee, sorry,” he huffs, catching his breath. “It’s been a while, okay?”
“Old man.” There’s an uncertain pause. When he manages to open his eyes again, Wonwoo is peering down at him with a new expression. “How long?”
Five years.
Seungcheol tugs at the grip on his shoulders, and Wonwoo crumbles into the pillows beside him. They don’t have to tangle into each other to fit on the bed anymore. They do it anyway, legs between blankets, pillows strewn like cottony nebulas. “You know it’s you.” He takes a hand up in his own and presses his mouth to the knuckles. “It’s always been you.”
After a moment, there is a weight on his shoulder, hesitant, as if unsure whether he’ll be able to bear it or not. But—and it feels weird to say, but he means it—it’s as if his shoulder has been created to bear this very weight. It’s as if he has been created to love Wonwoo.
“I missed you,” Wonwoo murmurs, a secret pressed between their skin, the low current of his voice fanning across his collarbone.
They are little waves and they have died before. But the wind has sliced into the sea, and they have emerged to disrupt the horizon once more.
So again, inevitably, they find each other in an endless expanse. Again, they join hands, and again they squeeze their eyes shut. Maybe this time, the golden sands will not peel them apart. Maybe this time, they can circle the seas for eternity.
~
(With another push, the door to the rooftop flies open. Shutting it with the back of his foot, Seungcheol takes long, determined steps across the concrete.
Wonwoo doesn’t turn around from where he leans against the railing. So Seungcheol hunkers down next to him, raking a careless eye over the city which Wonwoo finds so enthralling. Dawn bleaches their skin in shadows and brilliant orange. Scaffolding and half-made structures prick the sky with their violet silhouettes.
The Power Rangers have been active for six months. The city is receiving new investment. Because of them, that scaffolding is up, and the dreams of new skyscrapers dot the skyline. Every time he thinks about it, his chest swells.
“Did you have another nightmare?” he asks.
“No.”
“The others were looking for you.”
Wonwoo looks at him finally, filling a void he didn’t even know was empty. “And you found me.”
The warmth of the sentence nearly tips him over. Flushing, he scratches the back of his neck. “Well, you come up here sometimes, don’t you? You said you liked the silence.”
There is no response. Is he homesick? Maybe the views remind him of Changwon. Or tired? But if he’s tired, shouldn't he still be in bed? Perhaps if Seungcheol had more experience with this stuff, it would be easier to tell. But whenever the kids have problems like these, they go to Jeonghan, not him.
“Are you alright?” he tries, finally. “You didn’t come to dinner yesterday.” It had shocked him, especially since Wonwoo loves group dinners. His absence had clung to the night like a winter chill. “I missed you,” he admits.
Wonwoo pins him in place with an abrupt sideways glance. “You did?”
“Well yeah.” Dropping his gaze, Seungcheol scuffs his shoe against the low wall. “I always miss you when you’re not there.”
For a moment, Wonwoo seems to reel. His fingers twitch on the railing. A rosy glow rises to the fine bones of his face.
Before Seungcheol knows what is happening, a hand is pressed across the front of his shirt—the stars are sinking, the sea is young, a flock of birds erupts into black petals above the horizon—and Wonwoo’s lips are slotting over his mouth.
Soon the promise of dawn will fade away. They don’t know that yet. At this moment, the earth is still a fog of lazy colors, and the problems of the future glimmer on the horizon like the golden line of the sun. Someday, they’ll feel its true wrath on their skin. For now, they look forward to that distant, intangible warmth.)
~
Seungcheol doesn’t want to be the only one to speak. Time is the rarest, most precious commodity in the world, and they have all put so much time into this. So many breaths, so many years. Years they won’t get back. So it doesn’t seem right to go up there, at this final reckoning, and pretend that it’s all him. Blue and black make nothing but bruises. Adding pink, white, yellow, and red transforms them into the Power Rangers.
So they prepare, and they prepare.
Enough is an illusion that drives men to their deaths. He desperately hopes that, just this once, they can trap that mirage in their hands. He desperately hopes that they are enough.
~
“You kissed him?”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s complicated.”
Soonyoung perches on top of his skymobile. “When has it not been complicated with you two?”
He supposes that’s true. It’s weird, loving Wonwoo. Like a lightning bug aspiring to love a firework. Different shaped minds, different shaped hearts.
“But it’s for certain now?” Soonyoung’s foot kicks into the air beside him. “That you’re giving it another go?”
Maybe? Probably? Wonwoo kissed him back, and that has to count for something. Right now, this problem is too muddled with all the other ones. They’re not going to get anything done with the Rangers’ demise looming over their heads.
“Once we have funding, we’ll figure it out,” he decides, unrolling his toolkit. More than a decision, it’s a promise. One to Soonyoung, and one to himself. And the cloying regret that has pooled in him for all these years. So many delays, the nails of time scraping across his heart, drilling into him like sharp screws. What’s one more? Just one more?
“Hey, Cheol,” Soonyoung’s face drops into cool seriousness. “We’d be screwed without you and all, but you don’t have to spend every running moment worrying about us.”
“I don’t,” he protests.
“Ah, okay.” Soonyoung is starting to smile again. “Then keep that up. Because we’re super ninjas, you know.”
“I know, I know.” Embarrassment burns in the corners of his eyes, and he tosses his screwdriver a little harder than he should. “You’re super ninjas. You can take care of yourselves.”
“That,” Soonyoung agrees belatedly. “But also, we risk so much trying to save other people’s lives. Why can’t we enjoy our own? What else do we owe the world?” A hand lands on his shoulder. “What else do we owe ourselves?”
Something owed. A debt.
Seungcheol sits back on his heels, exhaling.
His poor, scraped, punctured heart. But it has been his steady companion. Helping him throw buildings and lift skies. And his life. Because this is his first. Because he will only ever live one, and this is it, and yet every day he is inching closer to the end. Or barreling towards it.
At the age of twenty seven, he has already fulfilled most people’s bucket lists. See the unfettered stars at their clearest, fall from the sky towards the rushing earth, meet an alien, save the world.
And yet still there is something unfinished. That, which if unfulfilled, no matter how long he lives, will make the years seem meaningless.
Jaw tight, Seungcheol puts his tool to the tire and starts twisting.
~
A new mayor was voted in just weeks ago. Seungcheol isn’t very into politics, but this one is definitely richer than the last if his parties are anything to go by. The mansion has been strung with yellow lights, like fireflies after sunset. They are ushered in by a butler with a pinched face, directed into the expansive ballroom.
Anyone who’s anyone has been invited to this party. He’s already identified the heirs of three influential families, one of which manufactures nearly all the anti-alien technology in the market. Seeing as there’s an alien attack every other week, he can only imagine what the family safe must look like.
They quickly camp out by the champagne glass tower, which Mingyu is halfway to deconstructing already. Seungcheol can’t really say anything about it either, since he’s handling the other half. Better to busy himself with drinking than—
“Do you think they’ll introduce us, like last time?” Wonwoo murmurs, playing with his earring. He’s wearing a black suit which, unfortunately, looks absolutely incredible on him, and his hair is spiky and mussed over his eyes.
He is a magnet, and Seungcheol is metal, trying to resist the pull so hard that the room is starting to spiral.
“They could,” he replies, and takes another sip of champagne so he can blame his dizziness on the alcohol instead.
Wonwoo gives him a furtive glance before straightening the oversized sleeves of his jacket again. “I don’t know about this suit.”
Seungkwan takes the bait. “Oh stop it,” he barks. “The suit is stunning. You look like everyone’s first love, hyung.”
(Here is the first sign that something is very, very wrong:
They were on a walk. Seungcheol had turned, about to say something, and found Wonwoo hunched over an alley cat.
It had been an early morning. A convenience store grocery run, judging by the weights of bags he still remembers on his elbows. But this is a shadowy, pale memory.
What he remembers like a knife through his heart is the tenderness of Wonwoo’s face as he scratched around the cat’s back, black beanie tucked behind ears, arms like long pillows from the baggy fabric of his tank. The gentle dip in his throat as he swallowed, the curl in his lips like the joy of dawn.
And the realization. You, Jeon Wonwoo, are my first love. )
“Really,” Seokmin chimes in, eyes going wide with sincerity. “It’s super nice on you, hyung. Black is truly your color. I mean it’s your color , but it’s also your color-”
“Hush, it’s the mayor,” Seungcheol hisses because it is the mayor, but also because the more Wonwoo’s smile grows, the more he feels like kissing him again. Or maybe that’s a good thing? He’s too used to suppressing these rebellious feelings to know what to do with them, now that he is expected to draw them out in endless red strings and drape them wherever he goes.
The mayor is a tall, bony man pressed into a velvet suit. Greyish, slicked back hair crowns the top of his high head, and when he peers across the ballroom, it seems as if he’s appraising his wealth. In a way, they do belong to him. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be spending their Saturday evenings in his ballroom, drinking his champagne at lethal rates, ready to flatter their way to an end.
They don’t have the time to make a decision about it, because then the mayor’s secretary is whispering something in his ear, and the whole procession is approaching them with alarming speed.
Their future. Ready to slam them in the face and plow over them. Except he won’t let that happen. Wonwoo’s fingers brush over his shoulder, and he knows, at once, that he can do it.
Seungcheol puts a hand forward and meets them with a firm shake.
The mayor straightens. “The Power Rangers. It’s a pleasure.”
He smiles tightly. “Happy to be here.”
~
(It’s their first time at a party like this. Two months after their identities have been revealed, and Dr. Woo is insistent on getting them acquainted with the world.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to introduce you all to my daughter. She’s a little shy.” The mayor, a stout man with wiry glasses, steps aside to usher a small girl into their circle. Amused, Seungcheol watches her make an immediate beeline for Wonwoo, ignoring the rest of them.
“Shy?” he repeats jokingly.
The mayor’s cheeks go red. “I’m so sorry. She’s a fan of all of you, but the Black Ranger’s her favorite.”
Wonwoo, who had looked startled at first, has now sunk to a crouch to talk with her, gently taking her tiny hands in his own. Maybe Seungcheol should be jealous, either of her attention or of his, but he only feels fond.
“No, no, it’s alright,” he laughs, belated. “He’s my favorite too.”)
~
[After discussion, Seungcheol and Wonwoo have decided to end their relationship. It was mutually agreed, and there are no hard feelings. The two are determined to ensure that their commitment to public safety remains strong, as it has been over the past six years.]
Comments (1150):
@Luzzthelion: Oh no…
@fewtrinket: Wow. I really thought this would last a long time, they looked so in love. Maybe they were under too much pressure?
@AbruptLight: I just hope they’re happy
~
The Command Center issues the notice of their separation a week after government funding is confirmed. Again, it’s the beginning of one thing and the end of another.
Six months. It must seem so brief to people, so fleeting. But he has felt every second of it ticking by, scraping against his skin.
Six months. That’s how long they lasted the first time too. June to December, glossy green leaves to branches like twisted bones. It seems they are forever condemned to halves: half a relationship, half a year. But they have also condemned themselves to it. They are their own fates, fingers wound in heaps of red strings.
Untangle, separate. And all they’ll find, in the end, is that there has only been one string, and it has knotted them irreversibly together.
~
Seungcheol catches Wonwoo on the elevator up. I was looking for you, he doesn’t say, because it must show on his face the way it does on Wonwoo’s.
He withstands two floors of silence before looking over.
“Do you want to take a walk?”
No hesitation. None of that cliff-like fear slicing into his ribcage. Wonwoo’s gaze is immediate, sending heat prickling to his face. “Yeah.”
They hold hands, and they take the plunge.
~
“Why are you putting your hands in my pockets?”
“I’m cold,” Wonwoo wheedles, raising his fingers, which are white as snow.
“You’ll get frostbite,” Seungcheol hisses back, grabbing his hands and sandwiching them between his own. “How do you always forget your gloves? Here, hold my hand.”
Their fingers curl together. In the blackening evening, their breaths are like smoke, rising up to brush the stars.
The convenience store is a beam of white light, visible from a block away. Neon posters and bubbled lettering. “Do you want lychee juice?” Wonwoo asks, face glowing like a holy angel.
He squints into the window, at those familiar aisles. Nothing like a bag of cheese puffs on the brink of an existentialist conversation, he supposes. “Well then. Shall we?”
The bell dings above them, and the employee behind the counter gives them a tight nod. They shuffle to the drink section, toying with glossy bags of snacks and packets of ramen before patting them back into neat display.
“You like these lollipops, don’t you?”
Wonwoo’s mouth catches on a flustered smile. “Only the orange flavor.”
Seungcheol takes a bag anyway, smoothing out the plastic in his fingers. He can finish the others.
Their items are rung up and bagged, accompanied by a weary see you again . They settle in a bus stop ten feet away, where the shelter keeps them warm from the cutting breeze.
~
Seungcheol is in the middle of picking the wrapper off a lollipop when Wonwoo speaks.
“You said that nothing I do will make you leave. Do you remember?”
Despite himself (that bubbling fear growing in his gut) he manages a frosty huff. “Do I have memory loss? How come you always ask me if I’ve forgotten things?”
“Because you seem to have forgotten that I loved you,” Wonwoo cries, sitting up straight as if he is kicking the weight of the world off his shoulders. “I loved you, hyung. How could you think you scared me off? How could you think I regretted anything?”
There is nothing to say to this. They are finally talking about it, and he can’t even summon words. His chest feels too full, and his lungs too empty. Their quick breaths escape into the air like puffs of smoke.
“I loved you too,” he mumbles at last, setting the lollipop aside and folding his hands over the edge of the bench. “So how could I forget anything about you?”
Clouds sift over the moon, and they are shrouded in watery light. This is his first life. His only life. He can meet the horizon and grapple with eternity, and still be mortal. Hurtle through the stars and sew up the sky, but his heartbeats will be numbered all the while.
Wonwoo moves imperceptibly closer with each ticking moment. “You said you wouldn’t leave me,” he repeats.
“I did.”
“Hyung, look at me.”
Wonwoo’s gaze is insistent as it rakes over his face, searching, searching. “I thought I would be okay with only being friends. I tried to be, I really tried. It was supposed to get easier. But— hyung —I forgot what it felt like to be loved by you. I forgot that feeling of…fuck, I don’t know, it’s just that even the fighting seems worth it, you know?”
“How could you forget?” he demands. “How could you forget if I never stopped? I can’t just turn it off like a switch, Wonu. You’re so easy to love and you’ve never believed it. It’s been five years , darling, and it was the wrong time, I know it, but now I’m scared we won’t ever be real—”
He cuts himself off consciously. This night seems too silent to bear his words, the twinkling stars too conscious of their existence.
“What is real?” Wonwoo ventures, picking off his broken thoughts. “We weren’t artificial, were we? I loved you, you loved me. So what would make us real?”
It’s shameful, but he feels shy about it. This trivial wish which has cloaked him like a fog. “Giving it a name. Not being scared about it.”
“We could be real now.”
The clouds slip away.
Wonwoo stares at him with wide, fresh eyes. Such certainty in his voice. We could be real now.
Seungcheol shudders. Yes, so many things could go wrong. They just ended the PR scheme, government funding rests on shaky foundation, the public eye is trained on them more than ever and the rangers are at a turning point but—
This is life. Everything is at a state of almost-disaster, everything is on the edge of that cliff, and no time will ever be the right time unless he reaches out and latches on.
“Could we?” he’s asking, voice going throaty with hope.
“We could try.” Behind the thin fog of his glasses, Wonwoo’s eyes gleam with hope and the soft frost of their shared breaths. “And we don’t have to tell anyone if you—”
“No,” he cuts in. They won’t make the same mistakes, they won’t set themselves up for failure. “No secrets. We’ll tell the others.”
“Okay, yeah.” Wonwoo’s mouth breaks into a smile, glasses tipping down the length of his nose. But he doesn’t tuck his chin into his chest, and he doesn’t try to hide it. He looks effusively, immensely happy in a way that even the sun cannot parallel.
His hand falls open from its clenched fist, and without thinking, Seungcheol slides his own into it. Wonwoo’s face goes pink.
They are old, but in a way, they are young. Young, naive, and trying once again.
So time knits back. Or maybe it stops. Sifts through where they intertwine and gives up trying to brush past them.
If they are waves, he knows not how long they are meant to last. Permanent or temporary. Born of sea storms or of afternoon breezes. And there’s no point in it. Everyone—even those who know the future—must approach it day by day. Moment by moment.
Those stars which have existed since the beginning of everything, for billions of years; time takes no mercy on them, does it? The two of them, they are only people. The moments will scrape by, and they will be grateful. Every kiss, every conflict. It’s all love. All love.
So there is no dramatic declaration, no tearing hearts out of chests. If you ask him, later, the date of their anniversary, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. One day from the next, when the night is all the same. Where one thing begins and the other ends, if life is just a circle of blue seasons.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Just that they are eternal.
~
They tell the others. Sit them down, Soonyoung and Minghao too, and confess to everything.
“ What?” Seokmin cries. “You two… what ?”
“Dated,” Wonwoo repeats, eyebrows raised.
“Dated?”
Seungcheol sighs. “Five years ago.”
“Five years ago?”
“And completely by coincidence, we paired you two off for the PR relationship too?” Seungkwan demands. “And you didn’t say anything to us? Wonwoo? Seungcheol hyung? We wouldn’t have forced you to do it. That’s horrible. And for so long too. Six months! While we were teasing you about it!”
“It must have been so awkward,” Mingyu mumbles, picking at a hangnail. “I can’t even imagine. Sorry, hyung.”
This hadn't been the reaction he was expecting. Maybe anger, or disappointment. But no. They seem sad.
Frowning, Seungcheol sits forward. “It’s okay. Really, guys.” A room full of woeful stares greets him, and he is slammed with a burst of fond warmth. “No, don’t feel bad. It happened five years ago, we had plenty of time to get over it. I mean—” He glances at Wonwoo, who nods. Okay, yeah. No secrets. “It didn’t turn out horribly, did it?” he offers.
Seungkwan peers at them. “What do you mean?” Behind him, Soonyoung’s eyes have blown wide open.
“Well,” With some trepidation, Seungcheol licks his lips, carefully measuring his words. “With everything happening, we kind of talked things out, and we're in a different situation now. So Wonwoo and I, we were planning to start dating again.”
Silence.
Mingyu and Seungkwan stare at them, shocked into stillness. Shocked, or displeased? Seungcheol waits, holding his breath.
“ WHAT?” Seokmin shrieks, half leaping out of his seat.
Jeonghan is honest-to-god gaping at him. And Soonyoung is grinning, face collapsed into a line of jubilance.
So…
“That’s great!” Mingyu rasps, blinking back into awareness. “That’s great. As long as you weren’t pressured into it, or—”
Seungkwan hides his face in his hands. Oh no. Before he knows what he’s doing, Seungcheol is stepping over and folding him into his arms. “I’m so happy you figured it out, hyung,” he hears, muffled within his shirt. “Five years. You’ve been hiding it for so long, for our sake. You two deserve to be happy.”
“Thank god! Thank you!” Minghao throws up his hands before pointing them at Wonwoo. “I was getting tired of listening to this guy being so lovesick.”
Huh? “Lovesick?” he echoes, grinning as he twists around.
Wonwoo is already shaking his head, overlapping Minghao’s protests with fervent denial. Mingyu shakes the room with his giggly laughter, and yes, this is a familiar situation, even in its divergence.
His team is happy, Wonwoo is happy.
Seungcheol feels that little thing break open in his chest at last. Warm light, seeping through his skin, his soul. The shell of relief, cracking open. He is not just content anymore.
At once, he is happy too. Those two horizons which seem eternally apart conform into a single line.
~
Again, the world circles. Again, he finds himself at the beach.
Everything is quieter in the winter. The snow melts into the sand, and the sand melts into the sea. He is but a little interruption in the wind, a little spot on this vast expanse of existence.
“Hyung.”
“Ah,” he says, finding himself smiling. “You found me.”
Wonwoo looms near the edge of the beach for a second, before stepping down. As he nears, the footprints he makes in the sand trample over Seungcheol’s own, until the two separate trails are one muddled path.
What belongs to him, and what belongs to Wonwoo. There is no sea, there is no shore. Only, at this moment, the wave.
Only when Wonwoo stands next to him, looking out into the horizon, does he speak again. “Were you looking for me for a long time?”
“No,” Wonwoo replies mildly. “It doesn’t seem so long, now that I’ve found you.”
Seungcheol inhales too quick, lungs filling with cold air.
It’s a nasty trick that clocks are circles. It makes it seem as if time is neverending, that every missed moment will return, ripe for catching. As if second chances are a given, not a blessing.
“They used to have fireworks down here, right?” he asks, as the memory collides with him full-force.
“Hmm, yeah. I think they stopped four or five years ago.”
Four, five years ago. “Fuck, that long?” he laughs, though it’s more bitter than happy. “That’s…we wasted so much time.”
Time is a waning candle after all. A second shaved off his bones whenever he breathes. People only get one chance at things, just one chance, and to think that they let five years whisk by them. In a life when each day is precious, four or five years.
“I don’t think so.”
He looks over.
Wonwoo has shoved his hands into his pockets and is watching him with those soft, sad eyes. “I don’t think we wasted them,” he repeats, shoulders lifting to his ears. “This is our first time being alive. The way you don’t scold people for messing up a recipe the first time they try it, or a new skill. We’re not any different. We’re not going to be perfect the first time.” He pauses, eyes drifting back to the horizon. “So maybe—I don’t know. Maybe we’re warranted some mistakes, hyung. You too.”
Rosy light seeps away from the sky in satin-like droves. Wonwoo’s face glows pink in this fresh sunset. His black hair sifts softly atop his forehead, nose peeking above fringed scarf. And sure, this Wonwoo is new, but he feels so known, so familiar.
If the universe began all over again, could there be any permutation of coincidences—of mistakes and blessings—that could lead to anything but them? No. Even if a celestial power somewhere picked the wrong star to burst open, they would be here. Wonwoo and him. Perhaps as two leaves brushing against each other as they are carried through the breeze. Or perhaps as two birds, finding each other on the narrow tangent of a telephone line.
Or perhaps as they are now. The ocean, the earth, and them lingering on this watery tangent.
“I can’t believe this is my first time being alive,” Seungcheol breathes, captivated, hypnotized. “Because it feels like I’ve been loving you for so long.”
Wonwoo’s head tips back, a laugh bursting out of his chest. “Now what am I supposed to say to that? You’re too good at this.”
What does he owe himself? What does he owe the world which has, in its infinite permutations, given him a life with Wonwoo in it?
“Wonu,” he whispers.
When Wonwoo turns, he reaches up, pressing a palm to his cheek. Wonwoo’s eyes tick between his.
Later, there will be worlds to save. Now, just the one beneath their feet, soft and forgiving.
Their lips meet. Blue becomes black, and black becomes blue. Eternity proceeds in its endless journey.
~
When they are spotted on a walk, two weeks later, the media pounces. Articles file out from hot presses: “Flame Relit: Seungcheol and Wonwoo giving their relationship a second chance?”
Though Dr. Woo promises lawsuits with fire and vengeance in his eyes, Seungcheol lets them be.
Second chances. Another valiant effort against cosmic chaos, the entropy which seems to rip everything apart piece by piece, particle by particle. The way the magazines talk about them is as if they are human. As if they are only men in these great waves, helpless, but trying .
This, at least, is true.
And perhaps, if our oceans converge
—perhaps, if the currents sweep us back together—
the ravine between you and me will close as our jagged edges collide
and the joy of our reunion will
be borne on every tide.