The first thing Sehun noticed when he came out of his strange trance was that shards of the iron bars were all over Nari, catching the moonlight from where they’d embedded themselves in her hair and in her clothes.

“Hold still and let me brush it off,” Sehun said, frowning and reaching for her shoulder, but she shoved him off.

“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It won’t all come off anyway.” She batted his insistent hand away. “Let’s just find somewhere to sleep for the night. It’s getting dark out, and all we’ll accomplish is walking ourselves into the cops’ hands at this rate.”

But my parents will get worried if I don’t come home, he realized with a twinge of guilt. Yet somehow he knew he couldn’t go home, couldn’t leave Nari alone in the woods tonight of all nights.

“Alright,” he said. Turning from her, he squinted at a line of trees in the distance. “If we get deep enough into the forest, we should be safe from the police when they arrive at the prison.”

She nodded, gesturing for him to lead the way. They walked in silence for a few minutes, neither knowing what to say now that the impossible had been done, their mission completed. Sehun finally worked up the courage to break the silence when they were within a few paces of the treeline.

“Where are you off to next, then? Now that you’ve recovered the diamond?”

She hummed quietly, eyes distant. “Myanmar, maybe. Depends on who I can get to sneak me out of Korea. Thailand, if I can’t find a boat to Myanmar.”

“Hm.” Sehun felt strangely empty. “I’ve heard Bali is nice at this time of year.”

She made a noncommittal sound in the back of . “Mm. Maybe.” They were in the forest now, climbing over wayward tree trunks and rocks, and they both quieted again to focus on not tripping in the dark. The forest floor was horribly tangled and overgrown, leaving little space to step and balance.

“I think we’re far enough in now,” Sehun ventured to say after a couple minutes. “No one ever comes here. The police won’t bother searching this far.”

“Okay.”

They sat down against a large tree, curling into the space between its roots and the ground. Laying down, Sehun pulled his knees up to his chest to make space for Nari and closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. The stress and exertion of the day had caught up with him abruptly, making him drowsy. Or perhaps the sudden sleepiness was from the sharp little prick he had felt earlier when they had crossed the treeline and Nari’s hand had ghosted over his shoulder.

“Nari,” he mumbled, struggling to keep his eyelids from closing, “will you still be here when I wake up? I still hav