Hongbin held the glass orb carefully as he walked over to the large cauldron. As he got closer, the sounds of human voices, and wailing, cries of pain grew louder. The cauldron glowed an eerie blue color, the light illuminating parts of his face while hiding the rest in shadows. He looked into the cauldron, the remnants of a thousand years of sadness still in his eyes as he watched the spirits float around, the souls of the dead wandering around in the void between death and the afterlife, waiting for the day they finally are able to cross over to the other side. It was Hongbin’s job to prepare the souls for their passage. Whatever happens to the souls after tonight, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to know. All that he was aware of was that when they left his home, the souls were free.

Sighing, he slowly reached into the cauldron and the souls became even more restless before he managed to grab a hold of the one he needed. Some people choose to believe that souls appear in the physical form of the creature they once inhabited but instead, they were small bulbs of light, no bigger than your average light bulb. When Hongbin held them, they glowed brighter and pulsed in his hands, almost as if they were breathing and, strangely enough, still alive. In the palm of his hands, he held the soul of a young woman finally free from purgatory. Carefully, he lowers his hands and allows the soul to slip into the glass orb. Covering the opening with his hand, he closed his eyes and mumbled a spell under his breath. Afterwards, he lifted his hand, revealing the now sealed top of the orb, leaving no trace of an opening and the voice of the young woman inside now silenced forever.

He walked over to his worktable where a crate was placed on the tabletop, the lid off and put to the side. He gently laid the orb down on top of the ones that were already in it, each layer cushioned with pieces of cloth and hay.

“It’s that time again…” a voice sing-songed behind him. Hongbin whirled around, startled. His arm hit the crate, the sound of it scraping against the wooden table like nails on a chalkboard. Jaehwan was standing near the cauldron, a sad smile on his face before his eyes dropped down to the cauldron.

“Oh, Jaehwan. Don’t do that. You almost made me knock this over!” Hongbin gestured to the crate. Once a month he had to do this. He had to get souls ready to be free.

Jaehwan didn’t seem mildly bothered by that. Instead, he asked, “Is tonight the night?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t say that. You know what I mean,” Jaehwan snapped and Hongbin flinched even though he was aware Jaehwan wasn’t able to do him any harm.

He grabbed another glass orb from the shelf and walked back to the cauldron. Jaehwan watched him expectantly but Hongbin just gave him a pointed look and reached into the cauldron and drew out another soul. He put it into the orb, the soul of an old man, ignoring Jaehwan’s pained expression. He repeated the process he did for the others, chanting the sealing spell and putting the soul into the crate. He made a grab for another glass orb when Jaehwan’s voice stopped him.

“So I’ll take that as a no then?” he asked quietly.

Hongbin sighed and didn’t look at him. Instead, he busied his hands with reorganizing the souls in the crate. “You’re an absolute curse,” he mumbled.

“Oh!” Jaehwan exclaimed, clearly exasperated with Hongbin’s words. “I’m a curse. I’m a curse you put on yourself. I’m a curse you consciously choose to keep around.”

Jaehwan’s words were like knives, sharp and pricking at the loose pieces of Hongbin’s heart. “I had no choice--”

“You had every choice!” Jaehwan shouted. “You didn’t have to do this to me, Hongbin. It was incredibly selfish of you and you know it! You’re keeping me around when you know I shouldn’t be here!”

Hongbin felt his entire being fall apart. He slammed his palms down on the table, the sound resonating throughout the room. Everything seemed to fall silent at that point. Even the souls in the cauldron seemed to have quieted down or maybe it was the furious blood rushing in his ears blocking out the noise. He turned to face Jaehwan was didn’t move from his spot by the cauldron. “You don’t understand, Jaehwan. You never understood. You’re just a selfish as I am. This is my punishment, don’t you see?” Hongbin gestured to Jaehwan. “I’m the reason why you’re--” Hongbin stopped, the words dying in his throat. His

tongue felt curiously thick, his voice refusing to come out. “You’re…”

“Say it,” Jaehwan urged.

Hongbin backed into the table, his fingers holding onto the edge with a death grip. Flashbacks of racing headlights and screeching tires and Hongbin’s voice screaming as he watched Jaehwan hit the windshield, shattering the glass before rolling

off and onto the pavement ran through his mind. “...dead,” Hongbin whispered. “You’re dead.”

Death was certain and it was eternal. No matter how much Hongbin worked nor whatever spell he tried, nothing could bring Jaehwan back to what he truly was. The best he could do was what he was looking at now. He was able to trap Jaehwan’s soul inside the body he died in. If one was to look at Jaehwan now, they’d see a young man in tattered clothes, dried blood on his shirt and his skin covered in bruises, cuts, and scrapes. But no matter what Hongbin did, Jaehwan doesn’t and would never belong on this side of reality ever again. His soul longed for peace but he wasn’t allowed to move on until Hongbin freed him.

“I wasn’t able to save you, Jaehwan,” Hongbin whispered, his voice hoarse. He shook his head, tears threatening to fall as he thought about the day Jaehwan opened his eyes again, wondering if he was in Heaven or not and if Hongbin had died as well. He took a deep, shaky breath. “This is my punishment.”

He looked up and saw Jaehwan watching him sadly. “It’s been two years. There was nothing you could do. Hongbin, to this day, I have never blamed you for my death,” Jaehwan said softly. He glanced towards the souls in the cauldron. “But you and I are both very aware that I don’t belong here. He walked towards Hongbin slowly and stopped a few feet away from him. “I’m tired.”

Jaehwan did look really worn out. There was hardly any trace of the man Hongbin once knew but it was his eyes that were the most frightening. They were so…dead. So lifeless, lacking the joy that Hongbin hoped would be there when he resurrected Jaehwan.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Jaehwan, I’m sorry,” Hongbin kept repeating yourself. “It just wasn’t your time. You weren’t supposed to die that night,” he whispered.

Jaehwan shook his head and came closer. He reached out and took Hongbin’s hands in his. Jaehwan’s skin was cold to the touch and it wasn’t going to warm up anytime soon but Hongbin didn’t care. His hands felt familiar; the perfect size, fingers long, slender, and pale.

“You and I had no control over when that would happen but it was my time,” says Jaehwan. “And now it’s time to let me go.”

“I don’t know if I can. Without you-- with you gone for good, I-- I’d be all alone. It’s not an easy world to be alone in.” Hongbin squeezed Jaehwan’s hands, putting some of his own warmth into them.

Jaehwan pulled one of his hands out of Hongbin’s grip and cradled Hongbin’s cheek in it. His thumb ran over Hongbin’s cheek bone and his pinkie finger felt around the angle of his jawline. “Oh, silly Lee Hongbin, did you really think I’d leave you alone for

good?”

Before Hongbin could respond, Jaehwan leaned forward and pressed his lips to Hongbin’s. They were cold but they were still Jaehwan’s. Hongbin held back, afraid that if he held Jaehwan closer, pushed himself further into Jaehwan’s arms, the latter would disappear faster.

Jaehwan pulled a bit away and kissed Hongbin’s cheek. He says, “I’ll always be with you. Death really isn’t the end.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Oh come on. Your job is to collect and transport souls. By now, you should know that there’s something after death even if you don’t know exactly what.”

Hongbin looked down and chuckled, the sound sad to his own ears. When he looked back up at Jaehwan, the latter had tears running down his cheeks, his eyes glassy. This was the most alive Hongbin has ever seen him. He felt his own tears fall as he leaned forwards and kissed Jaehwan’s cheek, his lips meeting a warm tear drop against cold skin and he bit back a sob.

“Yes,” he whispered, taking a step back. “This isn’t the end.”

“It isn’t. Hey, maybe if I’m good enough, the big G will make me your guardian angel.”

Hongbin laughed at that and it surprised him that he could make any positive noises at a situation like this but Jaehwan was smiling at him and that’s all that matters. He turned and got a new glass orb from the shelf. Reaching forward, he held Jaehwan’s hand and gave it one last squeeze before letting go for good. “I’ll miss you so much,” Hongbin says, meaning every word.

“I’ll see you soon,” Jaehwan replies and Hongbin knows it’s a promise. Jaehwan never broke a single promise when he was alive and not even death could stop that streak.

Hongbin stepped back and smiled sadly. “Ready?” he asked.

“You have no idea.”

Hongbin grinned. Slowly, he began to chant a spell. He watched as Jaehwan’s eyes closed and his mouth opened, a light coming from inside beginning to spill out. He watched as Jaehwan’s soul slipped out of his body, leaving it as an empty shell and then flying into the glass orb. Placing his palm over the opening, Hongbin performed the sealing spell. When he was done, he saw Jaehwan’s lifeless body topple over, crumbling into a pile of ash on his floor. Hongbin fell to his knees, the glass orb gripped in his hands so hard, he was afraid it might shatter. Sobs racked his body, his chest heaving as he cried, mourning over the man he loved for the second time.

In his hands, the orb began warming up, its light pulsing, sending little shocks of heat into Hongbin’s skin. Hongbin held the orb up closer to himself. It seemed to glow brighter than the others. “Jaehwan…,” Hongbin murmured as he rubbed the orb affectionately, ignoring the tears that were still falling. “I didn’t say I loved you…” Fresh new tears filled his eyes and he leaned over, clutching the orb to his chest while the little round glass ball kept sending out pulses of heat, offering as much consolation as it could but it wasn’t enough.

~~~~~~

When night fell, monsters roamed the streets. Little kids dressed up as vampires and voodoo dolls filled the sidewalks, their bags full of candy and other treats the adults were willing to give up. Sanghyuk walked down the street, dressed in all black with his hood pulled up. He stopped in front of the same house he went to every year on Halloween. All the lights were off and he could feel the magic rolling off the building in thick, heady waves. The place was heavily glamoured to look like a normal townhouse. The first time Sanghyuk came to this place was about a century ago when the curse to transfer souls into the afterlife was put upon him and he still remembers how sick the magic made him feel. Even now, he still felt the tingling of something uneasy settle deep in his stomach.

Walking up to the door, he rang the bell and waited. Not long after, Hongbin opened up. “Hello, Sanghyuk,” he greeted solemnly. He stepped back from the door.

Sanghyuk walked in and pulled his hood down. He closed the door behind him, locking it. “You know what I’m here for.”

“Still too good for a ‘hello’, I see,” Hongbin said tiredly.

“Listen, you hate doing this as much as I do,” Sanghyuk said. “I just want to get this over with.”

“As do I,” Hongbin says while walking off to the backroom. “I hope you remember my ‘don’t-touch-anything-whatsoever-or-you-might-end-up-double-cursed’ rule?” and he disappeared into the shadows of the room.

Sanghyuk walked in further into Hongbin’s house and turned a lamp on in the living room. There’s no rule against turning on lights. Hongbin’s living room was decorated simply in shades of beige, tan, and light yellow. There was a fireplace he said he never used on one side of the room. The mantel above it was usually empty but tonight, there was something new. A picture of Jaehwan, Hongbin’s past lover if Sanghyuk remembered correctly, and what looked to be an urn. It was plain silver with no distinguishing marks or anything on it. Why Hongbin had it puzzled Sanghyuk. Jaehwan died a while back and supposedly, his body disappeared. If it hadn’t, then why did Hongbin have the urn and not Jaehwan’s family? Were those really Jaehwan’s remains?

“Sanghyuk.” He turned around and found Hongbin standing a few feet away, a wooden crate in hand. It was nailed shut. “Don’t touch anything,” Hongbin warned before handing the box over to Sanghyuk. “Here’s the cargo for this month.”

Sanghyuk nodded uneasily. “Thanks. Now, excuse me for rushing out but,” he pulled his hood up, “I’ve got other soul collectors I need to visit. Halloween is always such a busy night.” And with that, he went to the front door, unlocked it and stepped out.

Hongbin watched him leave, the door slamming shut behind him. With a flick of his wrist, the door locked. With a sigh, Hongbin walked back into the other room and came back with another glass orb in his hands. He ignored the angry pulses of burning heat it was giving off as he placed it next to Jaehwan’s urn and picture.

He was wrong.

Jaehwan was wrong.

They would never meet again after death. Jaehwan had forgotten that Hongbin couldn’t die. As a soul collector, he was immortal.

There would be no after death for him.

The orb glowed brighter than ever and Hongbin could almost hear Jaehwan’s voice through the sealing spell, begging and pleading, screaming for freedom. Hongbin walked up and stared into the orb, stifling a sob as he watched the light float around helplessly.

“Don’t you see, Jaehwan? If I let you go, we’ll never be together again. I can’t die. I can’t meet you anywhere,” he said, his voice unsteady and wavering. “Now is not your time, Jaehwan. It can’t be.” He backed away from the orb slowly. “I love you so much. I love you…”

He walked out of the room after shutting the lamp off, his shoulders shaking, the only light coming from the glass orb. A tiny crack had started to form on the surface. A voice floated out, faint and near impossible to hear and it kept repeating only one thing.

Hongbin, Hongbin, Hongbin...

~~~~~~

Happy early Halloween~!

~Raksa <3