Jongin wakes up to darkness, when the clock by Kyungsoo's bedside is blinking 4:32 and when Kyungsoo's labored breathing is the only sound that fills the silence. He sits up, hugs himself as a cold breeze makes its way into the large french window, ruffling and blowing the white curtains in its way.

Kyungsoo stirs beside him, soft white fringe covering the half of his eyelids like snow on top of mountain peaks, and Jongin watches as the older languidly pulls the covers up to his shoulders.

“Jongin!”

Jongin hears his name being called, syllables caught in a sibilant whisper.

“Jongin!”

He hears it again, this time a tad bit louder. He turns around, only to see a face peeping into the frame of Kyungsoo's hand mirror—It's Chanyeol.

“Chanyeol? Why—”

“Jongin,” Chanyeol starts, turning his head to both sides as if to check if they were being watched. “The police—They know it's you.”

“What?”

“There has been talks going around the city about how someone from Sinistro broke into Dextro. All workers were asked to participate in a roll call earlier,” Chanyeol breathes out, and Jongin watches as the older visibly swallows. “I tried my best to cover for you. Trust me, I did. But they still found out.”

Jongin feels his heart hammer violently against his chest. Blood rushes to his eardrums, and he forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“It won't be long until they come for you, Jongin. You have to come back here. Now.”

“I can't. I still have things to figure out.”

“Jongin—”

Jongin walks puts the mirror face down before he walks towards the room's veranda, ed shirt flying open as he strides towards the stone railings. There's a plethora of red and blue lights from the distance, and Jongin widens his eyes once his ears recognize the blaring of police cars.

“!” Jongin curses, limbs shaking and stuttering, as he runs back inside the room.

He picks his jeans up from the floor, pulls it hastily over his boxers, buckles his belt, and fumbles with the buttons of his shirt. He has to get away as soon as possible.

“Jongin?”

Said man looks back frantically, and he finds Kyungsoo awake and sitting up on the bed. Kyungsoo is rubbing his eyes with the back of hands. The collar of his satin shirt falls loosely off of one side of his shoulders and there are traces of dried up sweat on his exposed skin, making his skin glimmer under the moonlight. Jongin doesn't miss how the shadows on Kyungsoo's skin fall onto the trail of red marks along the older's collarbones.

“Where are you going?” Kyungsoo croaks. The sirens grow louder.

“I have to go Kyungsoo. The police are after me.” Jongin walks toward the other male.

And Kyungsoo latches his hands onto the material of Jongin's sleeves. “What are you saying?”

“I'll explain later. I'll—” Jongin's voice breaks, continues on a higher pitch, “come back. I promise.”

Kyungsoo forces a kiss against Jongin's lips, and Jongin has to coax the older's fingers off his shirt.

And just like that, Jongin gets down through the metal stairs of Kyungsoo's balcony and he runs, and runs, and runs towards the outskirts as fast as he can, deliberately going through dark back street lanes and squeezing into cramped alleyways to avoid the police.

He reaches the outskirts without a scratch, and his fingers come up to grip around an inexistent fabric below his collar as he tries to catch his breath; he had forgotten and left his tie under Kyungsoo's own litter of stripped-off clothing.

---

Jongin doesn't come back for a day, opting to lie low and stay hidden so that the police could get off his back before he decides to come back to Kyungsoo. And when he does come back, it's to the sight of Kyungsoo staring blankly into his hand mirror.

Jongin knocks at the glass door which separated the balcony from Kyungsoo's bedroom. Startled, Kyungsoo's eyes light up and he rushes to open the door for Jongin before throwing himself onto the younger.

“You're okay.” Kyungsoo's voice quivers as he buries his head into Jongin's chest. “I thought—I thought something bad happened to you already, Jongin—”

“I'm sorry if I got you worried, but I'm here now. I'm okay,” Jongin reassures the older.

Kyungsoo holds Jongin tighter. “They came here, and they asked for you. But I didn't tell them anything. I won't let them catch you.”

If only being with you wasn't forbidden in the first place, Jongin thinks, but he doesn't voice it out.

“How did you get away?”

“The police uses this radar that can track me but it only works in the city, so I got away by going out of town, to the outskirts.”

“But why were they chasing you?”

Jongin sighs. “I'm not supposed to be here. We're not supposed to be together.”

“What do you mean?”

Jongin is the first one to break away from Kyungsoo's embrace. He sits on the edge of Kyungsoo's bed, one hand raking through his hair in frustration. “I don't know. Chanyeol said it's become an unspoken rule.”

Kyungsoo takes the space beside Jongin. He slowly inches closer to the latter. “You mean we're breaking rules?”

Jongin nods.

“Is there a punishment?”

“Yes.” Jongin feels Kyungsoo shift and he turns to the latter to see how Kyungsoo looks at him with a troubled expression.

“Jongin that's...”

“I know.”

Kyungsoo shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing and forming creases on his forehead. “You could get hurt!”

Crescents are imprinted onto the skin of Jongin's palms as he folds his hands into tight fists. “What do you want me to do? This is the only way I can be with you.”

Silence. Kyungsoo looks away. When he looks back into Jongin's eyes, he clasps Jongin's hands tightly around his own.

“You told me that they can't track you in the outskirts. We could go there Jongin. We could leave now and stay there forever.”

Jongin retrieves his hands from Kyungsoo. “No, Kyungsoo. No. We can't do that. You have so much to live for here in Dextro. Going there with me would take away all of it.”

“But they don't matter to me as much as you do. Please, Jongin,” Kyungsoo pleads, “I want this. I want us. Don't you?”

“I do.”

“Then promise me we'll end up being together.”

Jongin hesitates, tries his best to avoid jumping into conclusions, and he feels guilty for the blinding smile that blooms on Kyungsoo's face after he says, “I promise.”

Because the truth is, Jongin doesn't really know if he'd be able to keep the promise.

---

“You have to see this,” Jongdae says, demands. He leads Jongin in front of the TV.

The Local News is on, except it's not on its usual time slot. And Jongin's breath catches in his throat when the image of a blindfolded man being dragged to a stage is shown on the screen.

“To the person who went into Dextro and even had the audacity to break all the sacred rules that have binded our worlds for years, this is a warning for you,” a man in all black states in front of a microphone stand.

“You know who you are, and we do too.” At that, the blindfolded man is commanded to kneel down, and without warning, they take off the cloth from the man's eyes to reveal a beaten up Chanyeol.

Jongin jaw clenches, and Jongdae holds and restrains him by the shoulders, forcing him to listen as the announcement continues. “So if you value your friend's life, surrender yourself immediately at the Ministry of Control. And please do bear in mind that the control police are also onto you just in case you don't do the right thing.”

The Local News disconnects, and the shopping center chimes back on.

Jongin panics. “They have Chanyeol! What should I do?”

“Calm down. Do you have a plan?” Jongdae asks.

“Kyungsoo and I—we're planning to run away here in the outskirts and just live here.”

“You can't do that anymore,” Yifan says, “Pa and I have been preparing to leave this place ever since I overheard from others that the Ministry of Control is planning to burn this place down.”

“We could—we could go to Sinistro's outskirts instead!” Jongin desperately states.

Jongdae tightens his grip around Jongin's shoulders. “Jongin, listen to me. There's enough time for you to settle things with Kyungsoo. I doubt that the Ministry is going to kill just to find you. They don't work that way, and I know since I've been in your situation before.”

“But do know that there's a rebellion going on at Sinistro. Do you really think Kyungsoo can survive there? Don't you think he'd be better off living out his planned life here at Dextro? Don't jump into conclusions, Jongin.”

Jongin nods, barely understanding everything. His hands shake even when they're curled up into fists.

---

The next day comes without a blink of an eye for Jongin, and he rushes to Kyungsoo. He's filled with the gruesome combination of anxiety and hope. Anxiety for all of the things he'd caused by going to Dextro, and hope for the thin chance that all of it will end like how he wants it to, with Kyungsoo by his side.

He reaches Kyungsoo's room, and his heart sinks to the pit of his stomach when he's greeted by the sight of a crying Kyungsoo. It sinks even more, deeper until all Jongin can feel is emptiness, when Kyungsoo cries and smiles from joy when he tells Jongin the good news.

“Father has allowed me to sing! To sing, Jongin, it's my dream!” Kyungsoo says, and he's jumping in joy.

The thin chance of being together with Kyungsoo becomes thinner with the echo of Jongdae's words inside Jongin's mind.

“Aren't you happy for me?” Kyungsoo asks when Jongin remained standing still, unmoving.

So Jongin forces a smile. “I am. I'm very happy, actually.”

“Why? Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.”

“Oh, okay. Let's celebrate?”

Jongin never got to ask Kyungsoo that day.

The next two days are spent with Jongin having the intention to tell his plans to Kyungsoo, only to be stopped by Kyungsoo telling him another set of good news. Through the days, Jongin learns that Kyungsoo has started his vocal training, that Kyungsoo's singing got praised by his teacher then his father, and that he's practicing hard for an upcoming concert that involved only his presence and his voice. Life seemed to be getting better for Kyungsoo, and it made Jongin's resolve grow thinner each day.

By the fourth day, Jongin thinks that maybe this isn't love. That maybe what they have is an infatuation, a loose black thread amongst their red ones. But Kyungsoo doesn't fail to make Jongin's heart flutter even with just the sound of his melodious voice. Jongin has never felt anything akin to what he feels when he's with Kyungsoo, and the realization makes him more confused than how he already is.

“My father hates Sinistro, and he slapped me when I mentioned it in front of him,” Kyungsoo says.

“Really?” Jongin asks. They're lying down on Kyungsoo's bed, body pushed closely agaisnt each other.

“Yes.” Kyungsoo shifts his position, choosing to lie on his belly and use his elbows to prop himself up as he looks up to Jongin. “Do you think we're like Romeo and Juliet?”

Jongin's eyebrows arch at the sudden question. “Yes. Somehow.”

“Well I don't.”

There's a palpable glaze over Kyungsoo's eyes, one that made Jongin believe that Kyungsoo's in love with him.

“Why not?”

And Kyungsoo whispers, voice way under his normal pitch, before pressing his lips against Jongin's. “Because I think we have a better chance at getting our happily ever after.”

They made love every night, and, sometimes, love made them. Jongin takes the time given to him to memorize everything that made Kyungsoo: the way his lips stretches into a heart whenever he smiles, the way his eyes crinkle into crescents when he laughs, and the number of moles that dotted and mapped out his skin.

On the seventh day, Jongin thinks that maybe they could make this last.

“Do you know that myth about finding your other half?” Kyungsoo plays with Jongin's hair as they sit against the end of his bed.

Jongin vaguely remembers what Chanyeol had told him before. About how their 'working numbers' would glow if they met their other half for the first time at the age of twenty. “I haven't heard the one from Dextro yet,” Jongin says.

His eyes travel to the numbers on Kyungsoo's forearm. He runs a finger over it, making Kyungsoo giggle.

“They say that our worlds are opposites of each other, which means that my other half would be someone from Sinistro,” Kyungsoo explains. “Do you believe it? Because if you do, then it'll mean that I've found my other half.”

Jongin is about to say yes, but he's cut off by the sound of police cars. Kyungsoo lets go of his hand and stands up to look through the window.

“I have to run Kyungsoo,” Jongin says.

Kyungsoo grabs hold of his hand. “No. We'll do it together. Let's go to the outskirts now.”

“We can't. The Ministry of Control has already burned it down.”

“Then where are you going?”

Jongin doesn't answer, standing up to take his things, but Kyungsoo understands.

“No, Jongin. No. You have to take me with you! We can go to the outskirts there!” Kyungsoo looks at Jongin. “You promised me.”

“Kyungsoo—”

“Please, Jongin. Please.”

And so they run.

Jongin holds Kyungsoo's hand tightly in his as they run towards the Central tower. The police are not far from behind them, others already out of their cars, and Jongin leads the way into the building.

His heart races as his every step echoes against the marble floor, just like before, but this time he's with Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo.

Jongin turns his head towards Kyungsoo, and he doesn't miss how the older's head is turned away from him and towards the city, towards Dextro. Jongdae's words resurface inside Jongin's mind.

Do you really think Kyungsoo can survive there? Don't you think he'd be better off living out his planned life here at Dextro?

They reach the uppermost floor, with the police reaching closely behind them.

“Fugitives!” they say.

“Stop!” they say.

Upon reaching the inside of the transportation room, Jongin halts, squeezing Kyungsoo's hand tightly around his. He needs time. He needs time to think about his decision of taking Kyungsoo with him. He mustn't jump into conclusions; this might be a mistake. They need time, but it's exactly what they don't have.

And it's only when Jongin sees the way Kyungsoo looks back before crossing the portal, the way Kyungsoo's head is still faced towards Dextro, does he make up his mind.

As soon as they set foot into Sinistro, Jongin takes one more look at Kyungsoo. He feels a sting in his eyes as Kyungsoo looks at him expectantly. But he has to do it. It's for the best.

“I'm sorry, Kyungsoo,” Jongin mutters, tears making their way to his cheeks, before he closes his eyes and—He pushes Kyungsoo back into the portal.

It all happens in seconds. Kyungsoo lands safely back at Dextro before Jongin hears the sound of breaking glass and something hitting against flesh.

There's an excruciating pain in Jongin's head, and then everything turns black.

---

A knock on the door makes Jongin turn his attention away from the window frame before him.

The door to his working shack creaks open and Chanyeol peeks inside, grinning widely, “He's calling for you, Jongin.”

“Okay. Tell him I'll be there in a second.”

“Hey,” Chanyeol says, and Jongin hums. He clears his throat before continuing, “I've been telling you this for months, but thanks for coming back for me.”

And Jongin dips his head down. “Why wouldn't I, right?”

“Yeah.”

Jongin picks up the black cloth that he'd left lying abandoned on the floor since morning and pulls it over to cover his work table. He takes off his gloves and turns off the light bulb before rushing inside the house and into the kitchen, welcoming the sudden change of temperature after having spent long hours at his working shack with a huge grin.

Jongdae and Yixing greet him with wrinkled smiles.

“You're looking better,” Jongdae says.

Yixing walks up towards Jongin and he touches the scar on Jongin's head. “It has healed very well.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes at this, “Don't be silly, Yixing. All wounds heal.”

Sighing, Jongin scratches the skin of his nape.

“Well, don't waste time. He's a busy man too, right?” Yixing says, and Jongin nods as he quickly makes his way up the stairs. “Come back down for supper when you're finished!”

Jongin makes his ways inside his room, and the mirror on his study table has turned into a portal.

“Hey,” Jongin greets.

Kyungsoo grins. “How have you been?”

“Good.” Jongin scratches the skin of his nape—It's a new habit he'd picked up after he got injured on the head and the neck; he used to scratch the scars there.

It's been months after the incident. Jongin's punishment ended up with him being banished to the outskirts, which was not really that much of a punishment to him because he could do everything he wanted in the outskirts, like pursuing the arts. The government had chosen to spare his life in order to avoid possible rebellions. Jongdae had been banished with him too, as well as Yi Fan, but the latter was left at Dextro where he truly lived.

“How about you?”

“Same.”

“Are you happy?” Jongin asks, just like before.

And Kyungsoo answers, “Yes.”

There's a pause where Jongin looks at the smile on Kyungsoo's face, small and fragile as if it could be easily turned upside down by the wind.

Kyungsoo clears his throat. “Actually... I wrote a new song.”

“Really? I'm very proud of you,” Jongin lets out a laugh. “What's it about?”

Jongin doesn't know why but Kyungsoo looks away. He notices the way the older swallows visibly before he looks back at Jongin with glazed eyes. “It's about—” Kyungsoo starts, and his voice breaks, reconnects on a softer pitch, “—how the numbers on my forearm glowed on the night I first met you.”