“I remembered that, and, remembering that, I remembered everything.” 
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

He turns his face into a sun that can only be spring in its early strains; young enough to give way to a light breeze that threads through branches and loose clothing, but warm enough that it has lost all the bite of the last season. It's around noon, and Luhan feels his hand being yanked; someone is pulling on it, impatiently pulling, pulling, pulling. Glancing down, he sees that it's Taemin, looking eager in the way only children can.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Taemin squeals, stamping his feet, and Luhan laughs, letting himself be led.

They half-run, half-walk along a path that's dotted with trees as green as jade and crowds of families clustered around signs that point to different animal enclosures. It's then that Luhan recognises his surroundings as the zoo.

"Where are we going?" Luhan wonders aloud, but he gets his answer a moment later when Taemin rounds the curve of the path and the train station comes into view. His son keeps pulling him along, but Luhan's footsteps slow as his eyes wander. He doesn't know if he's just imagining it, but as he looks, things are fading; changing. The ticket booth in front of them is suddenly gathering dust; a 'closed' sign appears behind the glass of the booth where Luhan swears it wasn't before; and past it— there! In front of them looms an orange train and Luhan can only stare.

It's not as large as a real steam engine, but the orange train is ample enough to carry people, and is well-fit for the zoo, what with its little cowcatcher and number '3' emblazoned on the headlamp; details designed to delight children and amuse adults, to take them back to the days when they were younger—freer, maybe. Oddly, the train itself reminds Luhan of something, but it's vague enough that he doesn't pursue the thought. There appear to be words written along the side of train, and unconsciously, he finds himself drawn to them.

"Daddy, aren't you coming?"

Luhan realises distantly that he'd let go of Taemin's hand. "Mm, yes, just a minute..." he murmurs, not tearing his eyes away from the lettering. He moves even closer to the train, reaching a hand out. Tangerine Express, Luhan reads, and beneath his fingers, the letters fade a little, peeling at the corners, and with it comes the sound of crying.

Breath hitching, Luhan looks up in alarm and sees that Taemin is gone, and that it's not him that's crying. It's someone else. Someone sitting in the driver's seat of the Tangerine Express, almost hidden from view but betrayed by the face that turns and meets eyes with him.

Yoona.

Luhan blinks, dazed beyond belief, and suddenly Yoona is no longer in the front seat of the train; she's coming towards him, arms outstretched, but with hesitation. Every part of her, every step she takes forward radiates uncertainty, but for Luhan, every step forward brings him closer to her, until he's connecting it all—everything— like freshly discovered constellations.

There she is, as if he's seeing her anew— Yoona, Yoona, Yoona. Actually, this is the first time Luhan has seen her—really seen her—in years. Familiarity blossoms all at once, then explodes.

And now he's seeing other things, too. He sees a blur of white, blue, and flashing lights, and Yoona is beneath him as people rush them to the emergency room, and her hand is clutching his, begging him not to let her go, and Luhan remembers nodding—or maybe he's nodding only now—

Everything becomes much calmer— there is a splash of stars out across the night sky, and Yoona against the railing of the veranda and he's on the floor of it, clutching her little finger; he sees it all as if he's looking in on the outside, spying to steal back what was already his. Side by side on the veranda, Luhan sees their mouths are moving, divulging secrets they've never told anyone else before, and then suddenly it all fades away...

... now there is warmth in Luhan's arms, and the quiet of sleeping. A song fills the air, and he realises it's him; it's him singing to the bundle in his arms, to his son, though he doesn't know which one. It doesn't matter.

The scenes rise faster and leave again almost as fast, all out of order. Luhan sees the inside of a doctor's office; Yoona in white, walking down the aisle; himself standing beside the sandcastle he'd built with Taemin as their photo is taken; picking Taemin up from school; meeting Yoona. Somewhere amongst it all, Luhan realises he's seeing his life, everything he had lost in the recesses of his mind in trauma.

Eventually, Luhan can't distinguish singular events from the images spinning in his mind—it's all too fast, much like life itself— until suddenly, they all come to a complete stop.

Luhan is left blinking in the present, pupils contracting as real sunlight hits his retinas, and his legs seem to melt, splaying underneath him as he falls forward. He squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for a collision with the ground, but it doesn't happen.

Slowly and with more care than he's ever spared himself before, Luhan opens his eyes again and sees that Yoona has caught him. The Yoona in front of him is the same Yoona he married, the same Yoona he'd seen in almost all his recovered memories. She looks older than he remembers, but that's because she is— and so is he. After everything, Luhan realises they're both much older than they should be, and the thought has him falling into her, leaning on her until she's the only thing holding him up.

"I'm sorry," Luhan sobs into her hair, and there is so much more he wants to say, but right now all there is in this world, in his world, is Yoona. She's here, he thinks. Here and nowhere else.

Yoona clutches onto him, digging her nails into his back until it almost hurts with the relief of seeing and having the unbelievable. "There's nothing we could have done. Nothing any of us could have done," she says, and Luhan has a feeling that she isn't just talking about the two of them, but about everything.

***

Beside Yoona in the backseat of the taxi, part of Luhan is already crushing him with the feeling that he is too late, but the larger part of him is still hoping. Hope, after all, has always been the strongest poison.

It is March 18, and the sun is tilted slightly past midday when the taxi pulls up in front of the hospital. When they disembark, Luhan and Yoona are more than their ordinary selves— they are parents, mother and father, heading to the only place they really should be right now. Yoona reaches for his hand, and Luhan closes his eyes for a fleeting moment so that for a blink of time, he is somewhere else, in a place where everything is all right. He draws strength from the belief that that place exists in another world, however shallow that belief may be.

As they walk, Yoona murmurs that Jongin is here, too, and not just here as in Japan, but here in the hospital, with Taemin— Luhan hears it all and he doesn't. The words enter and recede like waves into his conscious, and Yoona's hand on his arm is like a lone cliff, the only thing anchoring him to this place.

They arrive in front of Taemin's room, and for the first time since leaving the taxi, Luhan looks at Yoona and sees himself reflected in her eyes. "This is it," she says, hushed to the point that her voice is almost silent. He nods. This is it.

Luhan doesn't remember then or later who opens the door, only that he and Yoona had walked in and found a flat line sprinting across the heart monitor, and two boys—brothers, twins—holding hands across the space between the bed and the chair beside it; one boy is awake and hyperventilating slightly in between panicked mutterings. The other is not breathing at all.

There had been running, Luhan will remember later. But right now, all he is conscious of is suddenly being at the bedside, on his knees, and it's like some cruel higher being made him to be this specific height because at this level, his eyes are on par with those of the boy who is already gone, eyes shut off from the world, not meeting Luhan's.

"Taemin..." Luhan murmurs, over and over without realising, and eventually it begins to sound like a whimper, and then a prayer. There it is, the crippling hit and knock-out of reality, the seeping of hope into Luhan's veins as it changes from a spiked high into its true form—a deadly poison that kills as fast as it captures. The flat line stays flat, and Luhan stays on his knees.

There are noises around him, but the world in Luhan's ears is submerged in water, and it all comes to him like voices stifled behind palms, saying things he can't understand. Taemin is gone, and there are no tears because he won't accept this. He wants to shout, he wants to fall off the edge of the world because this is what he thought would happen, but not what was supposed to happen—

"Luhan."

The smears of voices sharpen in his ears, sharpen into background noise that he hears now, and in the centre of it is Yoona's voice, calling him back. Luhan looks up, and sees Yoona standing behind him, a hand on his shoulder. There are parts of him in her face, parts of his emotions splayed out right there across her face, too, but she holds it together. Sometimes one person needs to be strong for two. "Luhan," she says again. "He's gone."

***

Spring is still waltzing with the month when Sehun and Yuri arrive in Japan, smiles on their faces for comfort but weary hearts on their sleeves.

It had taken a week for Luhan to tell Yoona that maybe Taemin ought to be buried in Japan, another day for Yoona to agree, and a half week more before everyone who needed, wanted, or asked to be here had vacancies that coincided with one another.

"I'm sorry," Sehun says, Yuri says, everyone says; Yoona and Luhan hear it so many times that they are, too. They are sorry for this, for something that was out of their control, for something that can't even be called a failure of their parenting because that's not what Taemin was—is, Yoona reminds herself. Taemin is all they could ever have asked for.

March hasn't left yet, but the colour is a mid-shade of blue, somewhere between acceptance and holding on (but far from letting go), something reminiscent of winter and just as cold. At first, Yoona hadn't wanted Jongin to be there—there's still so much he doesn't know. Even now, Luhan is still living next door, still 'Mr. Luhan' and practically a stranger. But a funeral is for the ones who are left behind, Luhan had said, and in the end, Jongin comes along with his mother because one day, Yoona thinks, he's going to realise what he lost and it will be easier if he knows that he had said goodbye with everyone else, let go of the same weight of grief as everyone else.

Beneath a willowy tree near the Tangerine Express, the first grave in the zoo is dug. The evening matures in shades of morose pink as everyone gathers around, heads bowed, tissues waved here and there as if saluting Taemin. Sehun is a mess, Jaejoong looks akin to a rock beginning to split, and Jongin's face is a jigsaw of an expression, juggling confusion and fear and something that looks like loss but isn't fully realised. Luhan stands behind Yoona, staring at his feet as though he's not quite sure what he's doing there.

"Taemin," Yoona says, standing by the casket in a dress that's not black. "Up until now, I haven't been given enough time to say everything I wanted to say, but now that I have a chance, I honestly don't know what I want to say anymore, or even how I feel. I want to say that I miss you, but what things about you can I say that I miss, when the only thing I was around to see and remember is that you were sick? It isn't something I think I'll ever want to dwell on, because it doesn't define you— it's not something that should be 'missed', so I will not say that I miss you.

"I don't think any of us will ever feel as though we got enough time with you, especially when we try to grieve and find that we have only images in our mind that could have been, but didn't happen. But believe me," and here Yoona starts to cry, "you will stay with us. You will grow with us in our minds in  all the ways you can no longer grow, and when we die, you will be buried with us, just as today we will be buried with you, too. I don't know if I believe in God, Taemin, but I hope that somewhere, you're not sick anymore and you don't have to hurt, and if that place exists, then that's what I'll believe in.

No eyes are left dry by the time Yoona is finished, though even as the tears fall from his eyes, the look of confusion still hasn't left Jongin's face. Everyone looks to Luhan, expecting some more words, but instead of speaking, Luhan steps forward, pulling something from his pocket as he goes. There's a flash of orange; when he opens his palm completely, the tangerine train in his hand sits sorely visible. Luhan leans over the casket, carefully prying a matching little orange train out of Taemin's hand, and replacing it with the one he had brought.

"There," Luhan whispers, and it's only for Taemin. He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to his son's brow one last time, wishing there was more he could say; for now, this is all he can manage, and he says a silent apology to Taemin, hoping that it is enough.

As he steps back without another word, Luhan turns the train he'd taken from Taemin over in his hands, and the name 'Jongin' dances across his eyes. Since coming here, this train had been the only evidence of Jongin, of a twin brother Taemin didn't know about, but now everything has come full circle and is where it should be; a couple of metres away, the underside of the train in Taemin's hands now says 'Taemin'.

As the casket is lowered into the ground, Luhan can't help but remark silently, with a heavy feeling in his shoulders, at how tiny it is. He squeezes Yoona's hand, so tight it's probably painful. Yoona leans into him to say something. 'They look alike, Taemin and Jongin." There's a pause. "I never knew."

"Neither did I," Luhan murmurs back.

*

After the funeral, the atmosphere is like a party, but without the cheer and with a more pronounced feeling of suffocation. By some miracle, Yoona and Luhan manage to emerge from the small crowd gathered, moving away around the corner the way a swimmer comes up to breathe.

Sitting against the cowcatcher of the Tangerine Express, they are far enough away from everyone else to form their own little private bubble here, but close enough that they're still sharing their worlds. It's here that Luhan starts crying, letting go of all the guilt, the hurt, the pent-up emotion he had kept bundled so tightly within him for the last few hours. He wonders how it's possible for one person to bear so much grief, to feel as though life revolves in a fixed orbit around some cruel planet of loss. "I still... can't really believe it," Luhan says quietly. "Don't you just feel like none of this is fair?"

"Of course." Yoona's voice is distant in the physical sense; she's looking up at the stars— trying to count, maybe. There aren't many out tonight. "I don't just feel it, I know it."

"It's strange, I—" Luhan stops, searches for the right words. "You said that you'll never feel like you got enough time with him, and while I spent these last few years with him, I... I feel the same." He looks at her, wondering if he's being fair. "Now that you're in my life again the way we both remember you were, it's almost like you never left. Like I just woke up in the middle of a bad dream and found you by my side, and all the time I had with Taemin never happened. I have the memories of him, but it just doesn't feel real anymore. It doesn't feel like enough."

Yoona puts a hand on his face, her eyes like the other side of the moon. "Would it ever have been enough, though? We're parents. Sometimes all we want is for our children to be with us, even if in reality, that can't happen. Even if... even if they're better off in a place without us."

"I wish I could go with him."

There's silence for a moment. "I would tell you not to say things like that," Yoona whispers, "but then that would make me a hypocrite."

"Would you stop me?" He his lips, his heart in his throat. "If I... tried to leave?"

It sounds like Yoona is wincing, but Luhan can't be sure because he's not looking at her. "No."

Luhan nods. "Because you understand," he says. "Because if it were you asking me the same question, you'd want me to consider your freedom, too."

Yoona mirrors his nod. "Exactly. But you know... you know we shouldn't throw ourselves away like that. We have to hold on." She takes his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "We have to keep going. Taemin is just as alive now as he was a few days ago, or even a few years ago. Death doesn't change that. All we can do now is continue where he left off."

"It'll be hard as hell," Luhan says.

"But doesn't everything worth living for demand endurance as payment?" Yoona asks gently. "This is no different."

"You're right." Luhan laughs a little, closing his eyes. "Who'd have known we'd fall this far? Seven years ago, we didn't have any of this."

Yoona nods, her silence an agreement in itself. "We've had some setbacks."

"Some, she says." Luhan laughs again, but the corners of his smile are blue, and soon, it's no longer a smile at all. "We shouldn't be together," he says quietly.

"I know." Yoona avoids his eyes.

"We shouldn't," Luhan continues, "but I've been through so much in this world with and without you that I don't care about the way things should be anymore."

"I never did care." Yoona rests her head in the crook of his neck, and for a time, they are silent. Around them, the world keeps spinning, the moon continues its dance with the sun, and somewhere on Earth, there are birds stirring, heralding the approach of a new day as theirs comes to a close. The world is this way even though Taemin is gone, and it will continue to be this way until they are all gone. Luhan wonders if much would change if the two of them just sat here until they died.

But then Yoona says, "There's still Jongin to think of," as if she'd heard his thoughts.

"I know." All too well, Luhan adds silently, then bites his lip. "What are we going to tell him?"

"Everything." Yoona looks terrified, revealing for just a flicker of time the weakest parts of her. All this time, Luhan realises, her eyes have been asking, Where now?

Luhan nods. "Everything," he agrees. He leans forward on his fingertips and kisses her; this, more than any other part of him, says, We need to start again.

***

It's nearing midnight when Yoona, Jongin and Luhan get home from the funeral. Jongin is long gone, lightly snoring in his mother's arms as the three of them exit the elevator.

"Tomorrow," Luhan whispers, looking at Jongin and knowing now is not the time.

Yoona nods, but as Luhan turns to head for his apartment, she holds onto his hand. "Can you stay?"

There's no one else in the hallway except for them, no other sounds except their breathing, and somewhere below that, their hearts beating, but somehow... somehow there's also something else. Luhan looks at their hands, then up at Yoona, and he swears he can hear hope just as clearly as he feels it. Maybe that makes it more real, he thinks.

It takes only a moment for him to make a decision. "Of course."

***

The orange juice quivers in the glass Luhan is holding as the world wakes up to the last days of March. Eventually, he puts it down, knowing drinking anything is beyond him right now. Outside, the rising sun is a lurid yellow egg yolk, and just a couple of walls away, Yoona has gone into Jongin's room to wake him up. Goosebumps stand to attention all over Luhan's body as he thinks about all the things that could possibly go wrong.

"Someone is here to see you." Yoona's voice drifts down the hall and Luhan straightens even more, not quite sure what to do with his eyes or his hands or his heart.

"Who?" Luhan hears Jongin say, and then suddenly he appears along with his voice, rounding the corner with Yoona, still blinking sleep out of his eyes. The little boy stops when he catches sight of the man sitting at the dining table, and somewhere in his morning daze, recognition sparks. "I know you. You're Mr. Luhan," Jongin says mildly. "You gave me toys."

Luhan laughs, though the nerves threaten to turn it into tears. "Yeah." He swallows. "How are you, Jongin?"

"Good," comes the default response. "Do you got some more toys to give me?"

"Jongin," Yoona chides. "Where are your manners?"

"What are you doing here, then?" Jongin asks, ignoring her, because to children, curiosity trumps all other things.

Slightly trembling, Luhan stands and closes the space between them, one step, then another and another, until he's lowering himself down into a crouch in front of Jongin. He searches his son's face, trying to find the right words in the jewel-like brown of Jongin's eyes, but comes up blank. When he opens his mouth, he still doesn't know what to say; nothing comes out. With panic mounting, Luhan looks up to Yoona, his expression a silent plea.

Taking initiative, Yoona places a hand on their little boy's shoulder. For the briefest of moments, her eyes hold Luhan's, and he can see that she understands; that she has for years. "Jongin, there's something we have to tell you." She hesitates. "Remember when I told you that Daddy had to leave for a while?"

Jongin nods. "You said you didn't know if Daddy was going to come back."

"That's right," Yoona says, and something like guilt tugs at the strings of Luhan's soul. "But now Daddy is back, and he's here to stay with us." She looks at Luhan, and Jongin's eyes follow.

A frown slashes Jongin's brow. "Mr. Luhan is... Daddy? My Daddy?"

"Yes." Luhan finds his voice, not even trying to resist the warning sting of incoming tears. "Yes, I am."

"But—" Jongin looks lost in his attempts to reconcile the truth with what he knows, what he's used to. "But I don't remember..." he trails off, shaking his head. Unconsciously, Luhan moves towards Jongin and when their eyes meet, Jongin suddenly bursts into tears.

Luhan hadn't thought it was possible, but he loses every ounce of the little composure he'd pieced together, and when Jongin comes forward of his own accord, he envelopes the little boy in his arms, shaking. "I'm sorry," Luhan murmurs, in between sobs and shoulders and cloth that smells like home, and vaguely he remembers saying the same words to Yoona. There seems to be nothing else to say.

"Where were you, Daddy?" Jongin's voice is tiny, his hands looped around Luhan's neck.

Swallowing, Luhan grasps for a truth that he can bear telling Jongin. "Daddy... Daddy had to go away for a while to fix something."

"Did you fix it?"

There's silence as Luhan stares breathlessly at Yoona, and he knows they're both wondering if telling the truth is the best option. But as tempting as it is to tell their little boy a lie to appease him, Taemin doesn't deserve to become a lie, and they both know it. "No," Luhan says.

"No?" Jongin doesn't seem to understand.

Luhan draws him in for another hug, clutching onto Jongin to avoid answering anything else, to hide the still-fresh loss in his eyes that even a child would notice, especially a child like Jongin. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Jongin says, surprising Luhan. "You're back, Daddy. It's okay."

***

 

Later that night, Jongin asks for a story, and for the first time since he can remember, Luhan gets the honour to tell it.

He's about to ask Jongin if there's a particular book he wants to read, but in the end, Luhan thinks of something better. After Yoona has overseen the brushing of Jongin's teeth and pyjama changing, the two boys sit in bed, the covers pulled up to Jongin's neck and Luhan's waist.

"There was  once—"

"You're not gonna read from a book, Daddy?" Jongin interrupts.

Luhan smiles a little. "No. But I think you'll like this story."

"Okay..." Jongin nods. "Keep going."

"There was once a little boy," Luhan continues, "and he was beautiful. He made everyone around him happy. He could smile wider and brighter than anyone else, and sometimes he dreamed about running and jumping faster than all the other little boys and girls. But one day, the little boy found out that he was sick. To help him, the boy's daddy took the boy to a place to make him better."

"Did he get better?"

"No." Luhan's voice cracks. "When the boy's daddy took him to the hospital, the doctors said there was nothing they could do to help. They said that soon, the little boy would die, and when he heard this, the boy's daddy was sad. But he didn't want the little boy to be sad, too— he wanted him to smile just as widely, just as brightly, and dream just as much as he always had. So you know what the boy's daddy did?"

Jongin's eyes are wide. "What?"

"Near their house, there was a zoo, and in it was a train called the Tangerine Express," Luhan continues, and for a moment, he almost convinces himself it is only a story.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Yoona is leaning against the doorframe, listening as earnestly to the story as Jongin is. This is the first time she's heard the story told this way, and a part of her marvels at how different something feels when it's all over  and done, when all the parts can be rearranged into something that makes sense but doesn't feel real.

"A train?" Jongin parrots. "Wow, that sounds cool. Did it make the daddy happy?"

Luhan's throat thickens. "Yes," he tells Jongin. "Yes, he was happy. He still is."

"Still...?" Confusion crosses Jongin's face, present in his frown. "What about the boy?"

This time, it's Luhan's turn to frown. "What about him?"

"Was he happy?" Jongin presses.

For the longest moment, Luhan wonders what to say and finds that he honestly can't think of what to tell Jongin. Any answer could be the truth, or it could be a lie. Luhan thinks of Yoona, of the years that passed without her, the ones he spent without Jongin but with Taemin, and realises that he'd never really considered if the little boy—his little boy—was happy. For a moment, he closes his eyes and sees Taemin's face, remembers his smile.

With a smile of his own, Luhan says, "Yes, he was."