Heaven. Sort of? I’m not really sure what I expected the whole “After life” thing to look exactly, but I was pretty sure it would’ve had something to do with fluffy clouds and giant waterslides.

I stepped off the bus and took in my surroundings. Okay, definitely not the earth. I mean, it felt like earth. It looked like earth. It even tasted like earth, as weird as it sounds. Except much, much sweeter, like the air was made out of maple syrup, or a pumpkin spiced latte.

But as I watched the bus pull away—as it began to really sink in that I was completely alone in a creepy parking lot without a sweater or a phone or a friends in the world—I began to sense something else buried below all of that delicious sweetness. Something sour and full of decay.

Then I got it.

The air tasted like dead flowers.

No, dead roses.            

Just like the ones they’d had at my funeral. Just like the ones they’d scattered all over my grave after they’d lowered me in.

I could still hear the hollow thump-thump-thump of thorny stems hitting the casket as the flowers had landed, one by one, on top of me. I could still remember the way the smell had begun to transform as the hours, days, weeks had passed.

Suddenly, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the taste was everywhere. On my tongue, up my nose, down my throat—choking me with the thought of death and dying. It made me want to throw up, even though there was nothing left inside of me.

My stomach then let out a crazy, out-of-control growl, interrupting the thought. Whoa there. Guess I was hungrier than I realized. I put one put in front of the other, making my way toward those familiar glass doors. Every step I took was one step from my old life on earth. One step farther away from my friends and family, and into the red, radiant neon light.

I tried not to think about it.

When I got close enough to the pizza parlor (the only one store in there), I peeked through the windows. From the outside looking in, the place seemed just like usual, a typical pizza shop.

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go inside, but given my growling stomach and fairly limited options, it seems like the best thing to do. Plus, the smell of fresh pizza right out of the oven was killing me.

I took a deep breath, pushed against the glass doors, and walked inside. Almost immediately, the smell of simmering tomato sauce, crispy-crunchy crust, mozzarella that will melt in your mouth engulfed me. Oh wow was that good. I breathed the place in, letting it warm me up.

Yum, Yum, Yum

In the booth to my right, I saw a girl who looked around my age flipping through a teenage magazine, /I didn’t know. Maybe, an old one.

Across the same booth sat a boy in a maroon sweatshirt who looked a few years younger or the same age as Younghyun. His face—completely drenched in freckles—was glued to a Nintendo DS, locked in some kind of virtual trance.

All of a sudden I felt invisible. Forgotten. Like the universe had played a really mean practical joke on me, even though I’d never done anything to deserve it. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for somebody—anybody—to march through those doors and take me home. To let this horrible bad dream end already.

“Let me be home. Let me be with Mom and Dad. Let me be taking the most insanely evil trigonometry test of all time. Just let me be anywhere but here. “ I quietly begged the universe.
“Please.”

But when I opened my eyes, the boy in maroon sweatshirt was still playing his Nintendo DS. The girl who was browsing through a teenage magazine was still there.

I thought the floor might buckle beneath me.

In fact, I wished it would,

The sound of fuzzy TV reception snapped me out of my self-pitying haze, and I glanced toward the back of the restaurant, near a giant stack of pizza boxes.

In the corner—his scuffed army boots kicked up on a small checkered table—sat a kid about my age or a few years older who was busy fiddling with an old-school TV remote, trying to change the channel/

Our eyes met for a split second, and I felt a rush of tiny pinpricks sweep across my shoulders, as if I’d walked through a cloud of static electricity. His eyes were dark—not quite brown or pure black, like they hadn’t decided which to be. He had a fair white skin, like maybe a korean idol who were into cosmetics. His hair was a dark chestnut brown and cropped short, and when he moved, I noticed the occasional glint of gold where the sun had gotten in.

I watched him for a moment, trying to figure out what it was that seemed so familiar to me. Army boots, check. Washed-out jeans and faded gray T-shirt, check. Sunglasses hanging from his collar, check. But most importantly, the jacket. Antique brown sort of leather jacket but with a zipper, maybe a bomber jacket like that.  

Then it hit me. It wasn’t his face I recognized, it was his outfit! The kid was totally ‘80s. I laughed a little under my breath as I remembered one of the favourite dramas of all time, Reply 1988. One of the OSTs popped into my head and I couldn’t help singing along silently.

Except then I noticed his scar.

Deep and jagged, starting at the top of his hand, stretching up his wrist, and finally disappearing underneath his sleeve.

Uh-oh.

“All new souls need to check in at the counter,” a woman’s voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

I spun around and saw a red-haired sort of middle-aged woman sitting on a stool behind the pizza counter. She had a big crossword puzzle spread in front of her, and was wearing a bright yellow eye glasses that had slipped more than halfway down her nose.

“Name?”  This time she looked right at me, her voice something like thirty percent bored and seventy percent annoyed.

My eyes darted left, then right. Nobody else in the room seemed to care. She was definitely talking to me.

“Um, Kang Yewon?”

“You’re late.”

“I am?”

She pointed to a clock on the wall overhead that had apparently stopped telling time.

“Sorry.”

Crossword Lady waved me over. “Doesn’t matter. Come sit. Paperwork. Also, you can help me with my puzzle.”

My stomach growled again, this time louder than before. I looked back over to the 80’s guy, who had traded fiddling with the remote for  very delicious-looking slice of pizza.

Ooh, what is that, artichoke and sun-dried tomato?

He kept his eyes on me as he slowly—deliberately —bit into a thick piece of crust.

Ugh, stop teasing me.

I glared at the boy and he just smirked in reply.

Crossword Lady ahem-ed at me at her counter stool.

“First you sign, then you can eat.”

I got up from the booth and slowly made my way over to the counter. I pulled out a stool and sat, then watched as the woman took-out a brand new file folder and scribbled my name down on the tab.

“I’ll just need you to fill this out.”

“I think maybe there’s been a mistake.”

She eyed me but didn’t budge. “I doubt it.”

“But this is all wrong. I feel fine.”

She laughed. “And so does everyone in here. Now, paperwork.”

 I crossed my arms and clenched my jaw, feeling my inner child-self coming back. “I.Don’t.Have.A.Pen”

She pointed at my right hand. “Yes.You.Do.”

Before I could argue with her, I realized that actually, I did have a pen. Right in my hand, ready to go. I almost fell in my chair.

How the hell did that got here?

The weirdest part? I recognized it.

No. Way.

It was the same pen I had back in third grade. Back then when I was an even bigger dork who got so excited and couldn’t sleep before the School Supplies Shopping Day.

The pen was white on top and sky blue on the bottom, with six (YES!) color options, depending which button you pushed down. And can even press two buttons at the same time to mix colors. To a third grade bookworm who’d spent her entire summer practicing her signature in cursive, this pen was a complete and total thing of beauty.

I stared downat the piece of paper in front of me, pushed down the green button and began filling out the answers.

NAME: Kang Yewon
DATE OF BIRTH:  December 22,1999
DATE OF DEATH:
 

I paused, glancing up at Crossword Lady , who had gone back to her puzzle. Her face was scrunched up with concentration. I moved on to the next question.

CAUSE OF DEATH:

I stopped again, biting the inside of my lip. After a few seconds, I scribbled down my answer.

Evil boy who deserves to suffer.

Below that were just typical personal questions, asking your mother and father’s name, if you have a sibling and even a pet. Some questions were so weird and annoying that made me want to tear off the paper and throw it in a trash bin. (Maybe not, because this thing depends when I will eat.)

After I finished filling out the form, I handed it back to the Crossword Lady and decided to help her out in her puzzle, she then finally gave me a slice of pizza I’ve been waiting for.

~~~

It had been a week. One week since I ceased to be.  One week since I’d slipped through the universe and landed in some strange, other dimension of my hometown, stuck in the same outfit and cursed to eat pizza all eternity.

Not such a bad curse, actually. At slice you could eat pizza all day everyday and never gain a pound. Shiah would be so jealous.

“Are you gonna eat that?”

Whoa, he speaks.

I watched in surprise as Bomber jacket/80’s Dude made his way over to my booth and took a seat. He yawned and scratched his head.  Then he reached over and grabbed a slice of my half-eaten veggie pizza. “Can’t let a good thing go to waste.”

“Be my guest,” I said, bringing out my inner Disney Princess Belle self.

“Ugh, veggie?” He examined a big piece of eggplant. “How boring can you get?”

“Tell it to my parents. “ I shrugged. “They raised me vegetarian.”

“For real?” He gave me a pitying look. “Wow. My deepest condolences. “

“Uhm. Thanks.” I said.

“So,” he said between disappointed crunches, “Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the good old Great Beyond, little lady.”

Great Beyond?

He stuck out his hand. “I’m Sehun. Resident Lost Soul.”

I shook it.

“And you are?”

“Yewon.”

I smiled at him and he smiled back.  We just sat in silence and I found myself staring at some of the other kids around the room. Then something occurred to me. The girl reading a teenage magazine. The Nintendo Kid. Sehun.

Even me.

Every single person in the place, with the exception of the Crossword Lady, was young.

“You looked confused. “ Sehun said

How observant.

I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Who are all these people?”

He shrugged. “You now. Just your average dead peeps.”

“But, like, where are all the old people? Where are all the adults?”

“Um…” He scratched his head. “Probably hanging out at a more expensive restaurant?” There was that smirk again.

I gave him a look. “Are you always this charming?”

“Are you always this beautiful?”

“Haha. Very funny. But seriously, what’s everybody doing here? What are you doing here?”

He shrugged again. “I’m not like the official expert or anything. Some of them” —he pointed to Nintendo Kid—“ are seriously out of touch with reality. Then others” —he nodded at Teenage Magazine Girl—“ have been hanging around for ages. I just happen to really like pizza. Everybody tends to move at their own pace, do their own thing,” he said.

“But believe me.” His eyes darted toward the big windows overlooking the ocean. “There’s plenty of fun to be had out there.” He winked at me and grinned.

“On that note, want to have some?”

Oh, SMOOTH.

I raised an eyebrow. “And what kind of fun might you be referring to?”

He put his hands up in defense. “Hey now, lil’ lady, let’s try and keep it PG , okay? I mean for one thing, there are children present. And for another, we’ve only just met. So let’s just keep doing what we’re doing, keep dating other people, and let things develop naturally, all right?”

He shook his head and whistled. “Tsk. It’s like no matter what I do, the ladies can’t resist me.”

I felt myself blush ten thousand shades of red. I couldn’t believe this kid. Was he serious? He couldn’t be.

Could he?

I cleared my throat awkwardly, and tried to think of something to say. “So, um, how long did you say you’ve been hanging around again?” My voice came out super high-pitched, sort of a twitting birds.

He laughed, “I didn’t.” Then he grabbed another slice off my tray and wolfed it down in three giant bites.

“Impressive,” I noted. “You could compete professionally.”

“Boy’s gotta eat.”

I pushed the rest of the pie in his direction. “Help yourself. I’ve definitely had enough to last me forever.”

He paused for a moment, eyeing me. “Forever’s a pretty long time. Maybe longer than you think.”

I wasn’t really sure what he meant, so I kept quiet.

“Speaking of life and death….” His voice turned thoughtful. “What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. What’d you die of?’

I felt my chest tighten. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Come on.” He said. “Don’t be shy, I won’t bite.” He chumped down extra-hard, grinning. “Well, maybe a little.”

Ugh. Boys are SO gross.

“Look.” I tucked a stray a piece of hair behind my ear. “Let’s change the subject , okay?” I glanced over at Crossword Lady, hunched over the same puzzle she’d been working on for days.

“Eight letters,” she muttered to herself. “A stupid person who might also double as a pizza topping. Eggplant? Mushroom?” She began to erase furiously.

“Meatball!” Sehun spun around. “Try meatball!”

Crossword Lady stopped erasing and, after a second of counting letters, blew him a kiss from across the room. “Thank you, darling!”

“Darling?” I whispered sceptically. “Sounds like somebody’s got a crush.”

“What did I tell you?” He struck a pose. “The ladies looooooove the jacket.”

I rolled my eyes. “Surely they do.”

My mind wandered for a second I couldn’t help thinking of Mom and Dad. How we all used to do crossword puzzle in the newspaper and a few crossword puzzle book we bought from the bookstore.

Suddenly, I looked up at Sehun. “Do you have a phone I could borrow?”

“Why? Need to call your other boyfriend?”

“Nu-uh,” I said, crossing my arms. “For your information, I want to call a cab.”

Sehun leaned in closer across the table. “Oh? And where do you think you’re going?”

“Home,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’m going home.”

“Wait a second.” He put down his pizza. “You’re for real, aren’t you?”

“She” —I pointed to Crossword Lady—“said it would only take a few days for my paperwork to process, or whatever. But it’s been almost a whole week. “ I grabbed my cup and slurped the last but of Sprite from the star.

“So what’s the deal?” I asked, “Why’s everything so crazy long around here?”

He leaned back, a look of amusement on his face. “What’s the big rush?”

“We’re wasting time.”

He laughed. “Angel, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’ve got nothing but time. So you may as well try to relax and enjoy yourself.”

He put his arms behind his head and inhaled deeply. “See? What you need is to learn to stop and smell the pizza.”

Oh no you didn’t

News flash, Dude. Don’t ever tell a girl to relax. It only makes us madder.

I stared at his jacket, disliking it more and more by the second. “Do you ever take that thing off?”

“Why would I? I look good!”

“You look stupid.”

“Uh-oh, look out. She’s testy today, folks.”

I scowled. “I am not testy.”

“Or wait a second.” He grinned. “I get it. You’re trying to get my clothes off, aren’t you? You totally want to see my y bare man chest!” He reached for his jacket zipper.

“Ew!” I threw a piece of crust at him. “Spare me the hairy details.”

“You sure?” He paused. “You really don’t know what you’re missing.”

I shook my head.

“Okay . . .” But before Sehun zipped all the way back up, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a tiny book. Then he tossed it in my direction, where it landed in front of me with a thud. “You’ve got questions?” He asked. “This has answers.”

I picked it up and took a closer look. Ran my fingers over the black cover and gold foil letters.

The D&G Handbook

“D and G?” I said. “Dolce and Gabbana?”

He snorted. “Try Dead and Gone, the guidebook. Pretty much the only literature you’ll be needing from here on out.”

I opened the cover slowly and flipped pages until I landed at the table of contents.

Chapter 1: You’re Here. Now What?

I’d like to go home now, that’s what.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Sehun said. “But trust me, there’s a lot of handy info in there. Some great ideas on bow to stay busy.”

“Life’s a tricky business, kiddo. You’ll have to learn to distract yourself.”

“The problem with time is,” he continued before I could tell him off, “sometimes there’s just  too much of it.” Pointed out to the book. “ The D and G really helped me to adjust.”

“Adjust?” An uncomfortable feeling began to take shape in the pit of my stomach. “Adjust to what?”

“Just do yourself a favour and study up.” He smiled. “Because believe me, there will be a test.”

I tilt my head, confused with what he’s saying.

“Anyways, why do you think you’re here, Yewon?” His question caught me off guard. I felt the slightest tingle in my nose. The smallest twitch at the corners of my eyes.

Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry.

I nodded yes.

“Oh?” He said. “And why’s that?”

Who the hell did this kid think he was? Here he’d known me for all of five minutes and he was acting like he was some kind of expert on the subject.

The subject being me.

“You know what?” I said. “It’s really none of your business.” With that, I slid out of the booth and moved across the room to another table, right next to the window.

“Just like I thought.” He got up and made his way to the soda fountain, refilling my cup with Sprite. Then followed me to the new table and pulled out a chair.

“I’d really prefer to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Nah, you like the company. “ He scooted in across from me. “Listen, Angel. What you’re feeling right now is totally normal. Happens to the best of us. It happened to me.” He grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and wiped his mouth and hands.

I didn’t answer and just grabbed my soda and started chewing the straw. Old habit.

“It’s like this,” Sehun said. “I’ll show you.  He uncrumpled the napkin, smoothed it out on the table, and started writing. When he was done, he pushed the napkin toward me. “Read.”

I looked down. There, the messy and totally boy-handwriting. Sehun had jotted down a list of five words.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Sadness
Acceptance
 

He reached over and slowly circled denial with his pen. “See that?”

I glared at him, officially sick of our conversation/

Don’t talk to me.

“That’s you.”

I turned my head as hot, angry tears began spilling down my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “You’ll understand, Angel.” He said. “One of these days.”

He grabbed the napkin, folded it and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll just hold on to this for safekeeping.”

We sat together in silence for a couple of minutes. I continued to chew on my straw, fixing my eyes on the ocean.

Sehun go the hint and changed the subject. “So. Almost eighteen, huh?”

I nodded, still not looking at him. “Almost.”

“And you’ve been here for a week?”

I nodded again, even though I couldn’t be sure. Time was weird now. I could feel it passing all around me. I watched the sun rise and fall just like always, but the minutes seemed to stretch on forever. Not in a boring way, like when I used to sit in History class drooling on my notebook waiting for the bell to ring. This place was like fast-forward and slow motion all at the same time.

“So what’s the word, lil’ lady?” He gave me a hopeful smile. “Are we having fun yet?”

“Fun?” I snapped. “Is this supposed to be fun?”

“Why not?” he glanced over at the door. “It’s like I said you know we can get out of here whenever we want, right?”

“And go where?”

He chuckled. “What do you think? That you’ve gotta sit here shoving pizza in your face all day every day until the of time?”

“None of you people ever leave,” I grumbled, looking over at Crossword Lady. “It’s annoying that she’s in charge.”

He gave me a funny look. “Who said she was in charge?”

I didn’t get it. We were all just a bunch of kids.  Somebody had to be in charge. Didn’t they?

“But if she’s not,” I said slowly. “then who?”

He leaned in real close and smiled like he had a secret he couldn’t wait to spill.

“You are, Angel.” Sehun said. “You are.”