The person stepped out of the shadows. Sure enough, it was the stranger, wearing the very same windbreaker from the last time I saw him. I choked out a tiny laughter.

   “So it’s you, after all.”

   I flinched as I made my way towards him. I d for the rope, together with his bag. I managed to make out the outlines of a chair in front of me.

   “You’re bleeding,” he pointed out.

   “It doesn’t matter,” I shot back. “You’re Woohyun, aren’t you?”

   There was a slight pause, but he nodded his head anyway. “I am.”

   I never expected to meet a familiar stranger in a situation like the one we were in. I was hoping for something more mundane, because meeting someone for the first time while they were in the middle of trying to commit suicide was quite surreal.

   “I’m Sunggyu,” I returned.

   “I know,” he said. “I saw you in the newspaper once—back when you and your whole class participated for the Cancer Awareness Month.”

   Silence.

   “I knew that you followed me on that day, too,” he carried on.

   “But why did you pretend that you didn’t notice?”

   Woohyun looked at me, and his eyes began to glimmer because of his tears. “I wanted to know just how far you’d go.”

   He looked down, and smiled bitterly at the rope I was holding. “I never thought you’d go this far.”

   “I never thought I’d go this far, too,” I admitted.

<:>

   The both of us went up to the rooftop, where the lights coming from the bright city surrounded us. It felt like we were in a broken snow globe, where everything was still unless shaken.

   “Don’t you feel cold?” Woohyun asked.

   “Not really,” I answered. “Do you want to move somewhere else?”

   He shook his head no. “This place is fine.”

   I smirked, and didn’t say anything anymore. It was strange, being able to sit beside Woohyun, only to gaze up at the wintry sky. How long we stayed there, I had no idea. The silence wasn’t that deafening, and the coldness I felt wasn’t that bitter.

   “I planned to do it three days before that letter gets posted publicly,” he began. I looked at him, not saying anything. I wanted to listen more. I wanted to find out the reason behind everything without me having to force it out from his mouth. “So nobody could really stop me. But then, I guess I was secretly hoping that someone would come for me…like the way you did.”

   I smiled a little, and looked up at the sky.

   “You’re not going to say anything?” he asked.

   “Are you finished talking?” I asked back in reply.

   He sighed. “I think I still have more to say.”

   “Then feel free to do so,” I said. “I’ll speak once you’re finished. We have all of the time in the world.

   “We have all of the time in the world.”

   Woohyun chuckled at my remark. “It must be nice, having your mindset, Sunggyu.”

   “Not necessarily,” I replied.

   He raked his right hand through his hair. “Have you ever been in an abortionist’s clinic?”

   “No.”

   “It’s like a slaughterhouse in there,” he said, a bitter smile gracing his lips. He swallowed. “Only, it’s cleaner. It smelled like antiseptics, too.

   “My older brother and I had a younger sister. We were bad at looking after her, so we ended up going to that place to wash our hands—to pretend that she didn’t get pregnant.”

   My eyes widened. I remembered something from the letter that he wrote.

   Nayoung. I’m sorry for what I did to you and your baby.

   “She died after a few days,” he muttered. “The operation didn’t go well, so she caught an infection. In the end, our parents found out that she had a baby through the autopsy. The police didn’t bother investigating further. They assumed that she went alone, and the abortionist couldn’t be traced at all. And so, the both of us were off the hook. That happened a year ago.

   “My sister…she will stay sixteen forever.”

   Woohyun buried his face in his hands, which were resting on his knees. “Until now our parents don’t know that my brother and I were involved. I feel like a murderer, Sunggyu. I swear I really do.

   “Living everyday is painful, especially when I see the person who impregnated her lead a normal life,” he choked out. “I look at her classmates, and think that things would have been different if we didn’t try to solve it ourselves.”

   I bit my lower lip. He started sobbing, and before I knew it, I was crying with him, too.

   “You’re trying to solve things by yourself again, Woohyun,” I pointed out. “That’s why you came here in the first place, right? To get it over with.”

   He didn’t reply.

   “You want to set things straight, but if you’re dead, you really wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so, would you now?”

   Woohyun looked at me.

   “I’m uncertain about the future, but I want you to know that I’ll be here for as long as I can. We can start again.”

   Soon, I felt his cold hands on my face, brushing my tears away.

   “I guess this is one of the perks of being alive,” he said. “I’m still able to wipe the tears away from someone else’s eyes.”

   We took the rope and the chair out of the building, and incinerated it. We watched the specks of amber rise up from the fire, diminishing at a certain height. The smoke went up, and the smell of burning wood and thread entered our senses. The dancing flames were reflected against Woohyun’s dark eyes, and the heat warmed my body up a bit.

   “You’re still barefoot,” Woohyun pointed out.

   “It doesn’t matter,” I replied.

   “You have a way with your words,” he remarked. “Nobody could really talk me out of it, but you did.”

   “You simply responded.”

   He smiled a little. “I guess you’re right. And maybe I was already in doubt when we met. I just needed a little push.”

   I smiled back at him.

   “Hey, Sunggyu,” he called out.

   “What is it?”

   “What if we were in a book? How do you think would things come to an end?”

   “I’m not so sure,” I answered. “Maybe just like this.”

   “Just like this?”

   “Just like this,” I confirmed.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.
- Isaiah 55:8