Chapter 1

The station is eternal, waiting for each arrival. To wait, however, implies the passage of time, the now and the then. There is no such thing, here. There is always, and this here - it is merely a conceit.

Therefore, Jonghyun will wait without waiting; and there - here - one shows. He wears a quaking love, a blister of unvoiced expression, and Jonghyun knows he will not be moving on.

“I wasn’t ready - “ he says from an unformed mouth, even before the hard lines of shape have finalized. He is still coloring in on this plane, transparency freckling his skin like blemishes, and Jonghyun nods, presses their hand against his head, and sends him back.

“What was it about him?” Jinki asks from beside Jonghyun. They were already there, of course, but they are everywhere, everywhen, so it’s only when they vocalize that Jonghyun knows they are asking to be acknowledged.

They shrug, and Jonghyun can feel the whirling mixture of Jinki’s emotions gusting, but affection always wins out, as a bell cutting through disquiet.

“He wasn’t done.”

“So many of them aren’t,” Jinki says gently. Compassion glows faintly at the corner of their eyes. A blink, a sharpening notion of inevitability. “They all have to go on.”

“He will,” Jonghyun says; time is also a notion, a folded paper of design - the man ages, returns. “Show me, please.”

Jinki doesn’t say anything, but their hands join together, and Jonghyun see through their eyes. The relief is flooding the small room; within it, the tight cluster of bodies that breathes a single sentiment, a single joy. The dying body is revived; the man is restored.

Through them, Jonghyun can see how each thread that joins them together will fray and fall apart. But for the now, for the here, the strictures of life, of earth -

“Good,” they say, and Jinki squeezes their hand before letting go.

Jinki persists without expression, as Jonghyun passes through so many more, a never-emptying anteroom. They are right, in a way: there are so many who aren’t done, so many who want - who beg, plead - but it is Jonghyun who is the first guidepost, the first voice heard, and it is they who can look, and know without doubt.

There can be grace spared, a sweet forgiveness, and Jonghyun is the one to apportion it out.

Where it’s Jonghyun who creates the journey, Jinki is the journey itself. They form the path Jonghyun bids them on, unfold the route in the line of their palms. They are the press, the push forward after Jonghyun’s declaration, to take them back - or on to the next. Jinki will mark the course as fitting: the lessons curated for each need. And what is provided on the way: the consolation it takes for the first step, and the preparation for the last.

Together they are the gate, and the road.

So, it is Jinki who has led the man back, after Jonghyun saw it fit. They lend steadiness, unassailability to the transition. Nature yields to their firm argument: the gentle not yet of a return, the encouraging go on.

Jinki takes them to the door, and turns the knob. The person breathes. The spirit transports.

The fluidity of Jonghyun is something Jinki can never understand; and when this is voiced, colored in wonder, Jonghyun says back - “If you don’t understand, why do you take them where I say? You are everywhere. You can take them wherever you’d like.”

It’s a teasing rebuttal, for the absurdity of it. As if Jinki would mistrust Jonghyun. As if Jonghyun would mislead Jinki.

“I’d like to eat something,” Jinki says. He has turned the knob, and the taste of the return, the joy, is spiced, and fragrant, flittering off of them.

Jonghyun brims with soft pleasure, and they nod. They descend.

The broth burns Jinki’s tongue, and Jonghyun laughs bright in the cold, winter air.

They hold hands beneath the table well after finishing, their fingers interlaced, a hangnail scraping against rough skin they wear only temporarily.

It’s an infinite storm, of infinite droplets, each own a charge of responsibility and protection, and Jonghyun commits without hesitation each to Jinki’s care for their guide. So many come with the disbelief that out of all the lives, it's theirs that has ended. Almost as many arrive with shivering outline of anger, or the discoloration of fear of what has come for them. And the first task is always - solace. Fear is firmly dispelled, as Jinki will take them on, and in the doing prepare them for what is next.

“And what is that mysterious place?” Jonghyun asks Jinki, and Jinki doesn’t answer, but there is a tendering ache to the space around them, a melancholic sweetness pressed against their palms. There is no answer either of them can ever receive, and so Jonghyun doesn’t ask for more than this.

The ones Jonghyun allows to return, they come back, their reprieve long-forgotten, long-justified. They look upon Jonghyun and remember - oh , here i was, here i am again - and it’s a great, cracking grief that tears them in pieces.

They hand them over to Jinki - Jonghyun cannot bear to apologize. It was right, for them to return. Jinki never asks, simply puts them back together, softly repairing what is so fragile. The stars are a gathering curtain of grief around them.

There is no eternity, when they make a descent. They are observed, seen, passing the days. They spend decades growing old, learning what it is to ache, to laugh without control, to toss and to turn. Jinki turns to Jonghyun from beneath the covers of a comforter and says, voice cracked with age -

“Let’s go back.”

Jonghyun kisses the tip of their nose, grey hair falling between their lined and weathered foreheads. The air grows silent and still.

The embrace they have wrapped each other up in is unending; they open their eyes, they have never left, maintaining this place that has no here or now.