They first met on a cloudy day (but then again, everyday was cloudy). The thick green fog had dissipated into a thin, sickly yellow mist. Not safe enough to travel without a gas mask, but much safer than when it had been a fog. Junjin had decided to venture out into the streets of Seoul.

It was a sad sight, once towering buildings reduced to nothing but rubble and ashes, streets empty and littered with filth, and every essence of life gone from the once vibrant city. Junjin knew it was a sickening sight, but he couldn’t help the sense of awe, of wonder as he jumped over fallen debris and strolled through lines upon lines of withered trees.

There was a grotesque sort of beauty to post-apocalyptic Seoul, the sort achievable only by destruction. Sure he hated it, but he would be lying if he said it did not strike a sense of wonderment inside of him.

When he was in the middle of his fifth lap around his neighborhood (because one was just never enough), he heard a slight rustling sound. It was an odd sound, because it wasn’t one of the rustling sound he was used to. And his ‘rustle’ was a different rustle. His was smooth polyester against polyester, the other was of coarse fabric against an even coarser surface.

He paused, turned around to scan the area before him, but nothing was well out of the ordinary—granted the thick green lenses from the gas mask was obscuring his vision. He paused for a while. But when there was no other sound heard, he turned back, figuring he just imagined everything. Because if someone—or something—was actually there, he, she or it would have made themselves known by then. Junjin was not armed and nowhere near dangerous, the only things he had on his person were his clothes, bread cap and gas mask.

Another sound—this time the sound of glass shattering under a hard boot—made Junjin turn around and get into a defensive stance, because even if Junjin meant no harm that didn’t mean the other party will be the same.

The person in front of Junjin froze in the middle of retracting their booted foot. Staring straight at Junjin (at least that was what he presumed, he couldn’t see the other’s face behind their gas mask) as he lowered his foot back to the ground.

Junjin could see that the other person was a male, both from choice of clothes and the way the person moved. He was shorter than Junjin, his hands were clutched close to his body and he took a small step back, as if preparing to run away if Junjin made even a single movement.

He was scared, Junjin realized. Junjin himself didn’t remember when was the last time he had seen another living thing, let alone another person. He understood if the other was wary around him. Seoul had been abandoned by its people when the war ended, but Junjin were one of those who chose to stay. Junjin didn’t know who chose to stay, but he knew he wasn’t the only one.

Relaxing his stance, Junjin stepped back a little from the other male, trying to signal to the other that he did not want to hurt him. They stood in silence, and since the other male had not decided to run away when Junjin let down his guard, Junjin decided to speak.

“What’s your name?” Junjin asked. His voice slightly muffled by the gas mask.

The other didn’t say a word. He didn’t even make a single movement at Junjin’s question.

“What’s your name?” Junjin repeated, louder this time.

Junjin didn’t know if he had been too forceful or too loud, but the other had jumped as if he had been shocked and ran away straight after, clumsily jumping over fallen debris and trudging across bits of broken glass.

Junjin stared hard at the space where the other was, but then sighed and shook his head before heading towards his home. It was a strange encounter, and Junjin would most likely forget about the whole ordeal in a matter of days, so there was really no use putting too much thought into it. Besides, Seoul was a big city, what was the chance that they would coincidentally meet again?

(But what Junjin didn’t know back then was that the gears of fate had finally turned)

A/N: next one in a few days