“So… what do you want to do today?”

Joohyun hums, her back still turned to Seulgi as she pours herself a glass of water. A light breeze blows in from the window outside, and Joohyun’s dark hair billows in the wind.

“What do you want to do?” She flips the question back at her as she turns around, her lips quirked to the side.

Seulgi shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. I just… want to lie around in bed all day. With you.” To that, Joohyun laughs. “Although I guess we better get around to doing something? We could go to the beach later.”

“Whatever you want, Seul.”

Seulgi affects a pout. “I want you to pick. Please?”

Joohyun relents with a light wave of her hand. “Silly. We can play video games. Do things you did in the 2000s.”

Seulgi nods, swallowing a lump in . Does she still remember how to play The Last of Us or Grand Theft Auto, or any of the Fallout games. She gnaws on her lips, still deep in thought even as Joohyun smacks her shoulder lightly in admonishment.

She finally settles on, “Pokemon!” Surely, not thing can go wrong with that?

“Which one?”

“The… FireRed one!”

Joohyun shrugs, nodding as she slips onto the couch. “Not the Alolan version?”

“Nah. I hate the rainbow Muk. That’s the stuff of terrors.”

Joohyun hums in agreement. “You do love your angry egg/coconut tree/whatisits though.”

“That’s… not untrue. We can play Let’s Go instead then?” Seulgi asks, hopefully, and Joohyun only responds with a light tap on Seulgi’s nose. “Let’s Go, Pikachu! Although I may or may not have last complained that it was too easy…”

Which, she’s not sure if she really made that complaint in front of Joohyun before. But surely, more than a century of being in San Junipero coupled with the fact that all Seulgi did after the Let’s Go! Pikachu release back then was complain about how the recent editions of all the Pokemon games became pathetically easy to play – EXP sharing ruined everything –  meant something right?

And since Joohyun only makes a tinkling laugh in response, Seulgi’s heart simply swells in this moment. Seulgi fiddles with the Switch and turns it on. She knows enough from the clips she’s watched to know that this Joohyun dislikes animals – is it  because she got chased by a dog half a millennium ago? – but still adores animated animals.

Or in this case, Pokemon.

What kingdom can you classify Pokemon? Do they fall into higher or lower ranks? Is Pokemon a Kingdom? A Genus?

You’re not a biologist, Seulgi. Has never been one. Would never delve into the specifics of taxidermic classification. The closest she’s ever got to biology was way back in high school. Or whatever the healers tell her nowadays about her restoration. The airwaves are punctuated by talk of molecular editing. Her circles talk about the next step to immortality. A fountain of youth is one thing – but living forever is another.

At any rate, life and death matters little to her. And certainly, the mechanical specifics of life and death never intrigued her much. Not least because they can’t explain whatever has happened to her. Or them.

(Don’t fall into a funk, Seulgi.

That’s not what you came here for.)

She pulls her thoughts together, shutters them away for another time with a practiced ease, and then she turns to Joohyun, asking, “Would you rather we ride the Arcanine or Rapidash?”

Joohyun pretends to deliberate for a while, but the answer is the shiny Rapidash, obviously. But of course. The shiny Rapidash is a pretty blob of pixels, a relatively majestic thing with a billowing purple mane.

Although… “It’s a little like Rapidash is suffering from incomplete combustion.”

She only earns a slap with that remark.

“But it’s true! Look, come on, you’ve got to see it!”

Joohyun lets out a huff. “Let’s… just pat Pikachu instead, okay?” She mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “at least actual Pikachus are never annoying”.

A strange feeling fills Seulgi’s lungs, a squeeze and a rush of air. It takes her an entire second to realise that she’s laughing, freely and carelessly.

*

It’s sometime in the afternoon when they pull themselves off the couch to throw some of the clothes into the washing machine.

Strictly speaking, it’s not really necessary for anyone in San Junipero to lift a finger to do the laundry. Tossing it into the sea would probably accomplish the same effect, since nothing truly changes here.

But Joohyun likes doing it. It’s some habit that’s been ingrained in her, apparently. That she used to do it for her parents, before. Reminds her of happier times, probably, when she was their good, perfect daughter, who clinched good grades at school and came home to iron shirts and hang clothes on a line.  

And now Seulgi finds herself folding clothes in the bedroom. They work quietly, not speaking overly much.

Seulgi’s content to just stare at the slight furrow on Joohyun’s forehead as she immerses herself in her task.

Ordinarily, Seulgi hates all things repetitive and mechanical. Ever since she could afford it, she’s paid someone to do her laundry for her.

But here, with Joohyun, picking up each shirt and pulling a hanger through it, rolling up socks into neat little bundles after Joohyun scolds her for scrunching them up without care, or ensuring each crease is evened out and each fold is symmetrical, nothing feels like a mundane chore. And maybe she’s getting ahead of herself, but doing laundry isn’t that boring: she might even claim that these actions are therapeutic.

Soft light filters in from the window and falls in mottled dapples across the room. She abandons her task for a moment, electing to languidly roll her way into a supine position instead as she closes her eyes. Outside, there is the small sound of a small bird singing a familiar tune and the distant rumble of a motor as a car speeds by on the motorway.

She opens an eye for a single moment. Joohyun’s still folding the laundry.

She lets out a breath. Her chest clenches and is filled with so much air. This air rushes around her lungs but is lodged as : there is so much that she wants to say, and so much that she doesn’t want to say.

Is this love?

Is this what it feels like? Is this what that Seulgi felt? This unknown contentment. This sense of calm.

If the world was a hurricane of gushing wind and blaring noises, they are here, ensconced away from it. For each strum of sadness that rushes through her is the soothing sense of wholeness that being with Joohyun gives her.

For each word she doesn’t know how to say, each word she swallows because she doesn’t know how to say them, she does not feel that there is something missing between the two of them.

And so Seulgi feels like a thief. Stealing away what that Seulgi has forged between them. An intruder into their private moments. An outsider.

She does not know this Joohyun.

And this Joohyun does not know Seulgi.

But oh, she seems so very familiar.

Is it because Seulgi thinks she knows her? That at some point, Joohyun appears in her dreams. In her memories. A beautiful ghost never to leave her thoughts?

Never mind that Seulgi has only met Joohyun in those few sparse moments. Never mind that last they met during the trial period was a few centuries ago. Never mind that she doesn’t know Joohyun at all.

All that she knows of her are fragments of other Joohyuns.

A thousand different fractals of Joohyun, a thousand unknown sides.

Her eyes were to Seulgi as familiar he stars in the night sky, dark and distant crystals that remain out of reach to her. And yet, here, if she closes her eyes, she can pretend otherwise. She can pretend that the voice she hears is a sound she’s grown used to hearing. All the Joohyuns carry with them a certain grace, a certain loveliness, a certain steel. A voice of wintry warmth that can pacify the ferocity of a December ocean.

Seulgi and Joohyun do not know each other.

But all the same, she feels as if she loves this girl.

(How could it be?

Should she say it? Is that inauthentic?)

“Joohyun-ah!” she says as she sits up, scooting to where Joohyun’s sitting. She is met with a sound of acknowledgement. “I think I love you.”

“You think?”

Joohyun stares at her, her face unreadable for a moment. For a second, Seulgi wonders if she’s messed up, that Joohyun knows – but how could she possibly? Her worry dissipates when Joohyun smiles, wide so beautiful that Seulgi’s heart aches. And then she kisses Seulgi’s forehead.

In that moment, all that they are feels perhaps, enough.

*

Seulgi’s is half hidden underneath the blankets until Joohyun’s foot nudges hers, and she blinks blearily up at Seulgi before pulls into a dopey grin.

“Tell me something about the 2000s.” Her eyes are wide and imploring.

Seulgi pauses, unsure how much she’s told Joohyun before. “What do you want to hear about?”

“Anything.”

“Okay.” It makes Seulgi’s heart scream when Joohyun shifts more closely to Seulgi’s side, such that her forehead bumps against Seulgi’s shoulder. She would die if Joohyun’s arm snakes around her body.

“Erm… so… as you know, I used to take photos for fun. Nothing too serious. Travelled a lot. Paris. New York. Rio de Janeiro. Even Cape Verde. But I think I still miss Shibuya most. I loved its lights and its colours! Not to say that I didn’t like Harajuku, but Shibuya was the first place I travelled to with my own money.

“Work took me to a great many places, but so did hiking. Mont Blanc. Fuji. Kilimanjaro. The usual. Wanted to scale the K2 but never got around to that. Everything got so busy at work that training for the K2 got too much to handle. It’s a terribly difficult mountain after all.”

Joohyun’s lashes flutter, dark and delicate against her pale visage.

“Do you think that we can get the system to procure some mountains into this world?”

Joohyun is altogether more treacherous than the quick death from a mountain tumble would bring. Joohyun is a slow death, a painful fall through the ages.

“Sure.”                                                                                                   

She has long told herself to stop making promises that she can never keep. But this is a technicality. It’s doable. But. The words will be but air, spoken but never to materialise. It’s always feasible to turn gaseous nitrogen, but that works against the force of the universe. It will not be what the laws of the universe commands, having to lower temperatures so drastically in a pressurised environment. And really, creating a mountain in a decommissioned simulation is a mountain she will not seek to move, even if she can. Why bother?

“We can go together,” Joohyun presses on.

She is all sleep-mussed hair and pink cheeks and all Seulgi wants to do is to lean in and kiss her.

And so she does.

*

They are beneath the stars once more.

Seulgi closes her eyes, feeling the slow rise and fall of her own chest and the slow thud of her heartbeat. She knows midnight is fast approaching, and this allowance, this moment of weakness, must be temporary. Beneath her closed eyelids, tears begin to well in them.

Joohyun’s hand slips out of Seulgi’s to grab hers, giving it a light squeeze.

“We should go to sleep soon,” Seulgi begins, as a way of parting.

For a moment, there is nothing but the gentle swoosh of waves. Nothing about San Junipero is violent except the thundering in Seulgi’s frame. An orchestra roars in her, the timpani of her heartbeat, the woodwind whoosh of her blood, the deafening crescendo of her violent thoughts.

For a moment, she wants nothing more than to hurl her entire frame into the waters.

But the waves are slow and placid, the waters languid and warm.

For a moment, she basks in the warmth of Joohyun beside her, willing herself to commit the scent of Joohyun’s laundry softener into her memory.

If she hopes hard enough, maybe she’d carry this scent into the next millennium. Lavender laced with a lighter floral note. It frustrates her, a little, that she doesn’t know what the floral note is, but Joohyun being right here, beside her, eases that unease. It’s a little as her very presence soothes the turbulence of her heart, a summer moon that tames the tides.

“You aren’t my Seulgi.” Joohyun finally says.

Wait, what?

Seulgi jolts upwards, but Joohyun pulls her down. “I knew you weren’t… my Seulgi. It’s okay.”

This time, tears slip out of Seulgi’s eyes. “But… I lied to you. I killed you. I am choosing to kill you forever.”

“Yes, you are,” Joohyun agrees, her voice free of any accusation. “And yet.” And yet, indeed.

“You don’t have to accept this, you know. You can try to change my mind.”

Joohyun just smiles. “Just because you aren’t my Seulgi doesn’t mean that I don’t know that you can be ridiculously stubborn. Especially once you’ve made up your mind about something.” A light tap on her nose. “Your time’s running out, isn’t it?”

“So is yours,” Seulgi whispers back, hoarsely.

Joohyun shrugs. “It’ll be painless.”

Seulgi jerks back from her. She hates the sting of the tears in her eyes.

“How… How can you stand to be so casual about this? So cavalier about this… this termination? You know that I will not… that I will file you away. That I will never see you like this again.“

By now, she’s sprung to her feet.

 “This… this is the last thing you will see, these fake stars, these computer-generated waves, this… this farce! What about the fact that I’ve lied to you all day? Or well, tried to? Didn’t it hurt, having to pretend that you didn’t know? Didn’t it trouble you? Didn’t it? Does the sight of me not enrage you?”

She doesn’t realise that her voice is rising, but at this point, she’s nearly shouting. Her voice is terribly loud with nothing but the soft swish of the waves in the background.

“How can you not care if I am going to terminate you? How can you just sit there and look at me with your beautiful face and tell me that it’s going to be okay? You are going to be terminated! You won’t live another day! I will be the one who’s going to pull the plug out and you will cease to exist!”

Swish.

She grabs a fistful of sand and hurls it into the sea.

Swoosh.

Joohyun tugs on Seulgi’s hand, pulling her down again. “Seulgi-ah. Shh. I will be fine. As you’ve said, I don’t exist. You do, though. You’re the one who’s going to live with your guilt, not me. I will simply cease. And I’ve been given so many wonderful years with you here. A few centuries is enough borrowed time, don’t you think?”

“You know that me, being here with you, is an anomaly in the entire game already. You will be out there, alone for god knows how long. It will hurt. It’s hurt you, I can see that.”

Seulgi sniffles. It’s been so long since she’s cried in front of someone she doesn’t really know what to do. Does she wipe at her face with her bare hands? Does she just let her tears and all stream down her face?

“You hurt. Not me. I am sorry that I won’t be there for you.”

“No. You shouldn’t be. It’s not your fault. Not at all.”

“Perhaps so,” Joohyun agrees. “All the same, I wish I could be with you.”

Seulgi chokes back a sob. “I wish you could be with me too.” It comes out as a soft whine as she settles back on the sand next to Joohyun, urged by another tug of her hand.

Then a look of steely determination replaces the wistfulness in her eyes. “We’re not going to mop. Okay? Come now. We’ll count the stars, shall we?”

She swallows, pushing down words that bubble in her, an unceasing froth that rivals the number of stars in a true night sky.

“The system broadcasts six hundred and sixty-nine stars here,” Seulgi informs her, replacing her expression with a watery grin.

A laugh. “Okay. Let’s count them then.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three. Four. Five.”

“Six. Twelve. Eighteen.”

“Thirty-six. Fifty-four. Seventy-two.”

“One hundred and forty-four. Two hundred and eighty-eight.”

“Two hundred and eighty-nine–“

“Hey, you’re breaking the pattern!”

“You did so first!”

“Did not!”

“Did too–”

“Are we even counting the same stars? How can you be sure we’re counting the correct clusters of stars?”

“Well, see… Alright, we can point then.”

“One!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

“Four!”

“Five!”

“Six!”

“Seven!”

*

The officers remind her to pack up.

She does so, swiftly, choking back what emotions that have swelled up in her. She slips their Cookies into her bag, knowing that she’d find enough in her to destroy them one day. It’ll be easier to destroy her own. But Joohyun’s. Oh. God.

The entire complex has closed down. Seulgi’s one of the last to snatch the uses of it. Exploits her position to do so.

It’s a waste of scarce resources. Foolish. A relic of the past.

Well, they’re not wrong. Trying to live forever on falsehoods is decadence personified.

Making it available to everyone is the tragedy of the commons.

The officers tap her shoulders, jolting her back into reality.

She shivers. It’s cold in here.

They remind her to pack up. She nods. She will. They are dismissed. Turn off the lights on the way out, she reminds them. The door slams.

She’s alone once more.

A/N: I was also considering posting historical AUs here in this document! (To justify: everything in the path of history are all... technically in the same verse.)