Seunghoon is only twenty when the world ends. 

And in the same way it's amazing how fast humankind can make leaps in ethics, civilisation and technology, it's a gruesome parody of this capability with how quickly everything goes to hell. 

Institutions crumble and it all regresses to survival and hunger and instinct. The country is broken up into fractured zones, each ruled loosely by various groups, none of them better than any others— those who managed to keep their hands on what scarce weapons were left. The better you killed the more power you had and that was all there was to it. 

His parents are the first to go. It is a gang of raiders armed to the teeth against his father with a hammer, their mother hastily ties a knot on their last bundle of food and shoves it into Seunghoon's arms and tells his sisters to disappear into the trees and that they will find them later. Not even a kiss goodbye, and sometimes Seunghoon dreams that his parents are still searching for him. 

By the time he loses his last sister, he doesn't have it in him to cry anymore. He comes home as the sun is just beginning to set, its scorching heat still beating down mercilessly. His arms are covered in scabs and scratches from scrounging through mutilated stumps and blackened soot. On his back he carries whatever wood he could scavenge from the scraps of the forest, piled messily into a poorly made gurney sack thick with grime. The soles of his scuffed boots scrape unpleasantly against the broken, cracked ground as he rounds the hill.

He knows immediately.

The door to their makeshift hut is tethering on a single rusted hinge, blown open wide. It squeaks, high and slow, as it sways precariously with the wind, a warning, a cry. Both.

Seunghoon feels his heart plunge to the pit of his stomach and he wants to run forward but his body will not let him. Step, by step, by heavy step until he's finally at the door.

He doesn't need to enter to see the house is empty and all their food is gone, but he does anyway. He is rewarded for his tenacity- or perhaps, denial— by the familiar body crumpled on the floor, the pool of blood, thick and angry and red. 

He wants to scream. He wants to cry. But he has done it all before, three times.

He has lost it all before, three times, and now four.

With the wood in his arms and the matches in his pocket he starts a fire and watches the vestiges of a former life burn. 

-

He makes his way south, doesn't quite know where he's going except away. Days and nights blur into each other, and he falls into a routine of waking up, moving, finding food and sleeping. It's been maybe a month and he's been battling a fever on and off. Rain is rare and he has to dig deep for water— this can easily consume half his day. His nail beds raw and red and dirt caking his fingers, all for some murky water that sustains him and poisons him simultaneously. It's a cruel game, he thinks, as with each desperate mouthful he cannot know if he is closer to life or death. 

Then— his fingers brush against a tangle of something, and he freezes, blinks. Maybe the exhaustion is getting to him. He tentatively scoops another mound of dirt back with his hand, and there it is, no doubt. A clump of root, dried out, sure, but so close to the surface? With renewed fervour he claws at the ground, not caring as his skin gets roughed up and starts to bleed, because sure enough, there is more root, heading north. 

Seunghoon follows.

The air is sour and humid, as it has been ever since the sun turned lurid and the sky took on its sickly green hue. It still chokes his lungs, burns at his throat, but out here, the more Seunghoon moves, he can swear he's breathing a little easier. The air feels a little thinner.

He finds it a good hour or so after the sun has set. Just past a junkyard of ruined buildings, down a steep slope. This was probably a small city in the suburbs— has he really wandered this far?— and it seems to have already been looted dry and laid to waste, abandoned. But right there, hidden behind a cracking clock tower, he hears it and then he sees it. 

Slowly, he sets his things down. Peels off the shirt he has been wearing for weeks, long since dyed black with dirt from its original pale blue. His pants follow and this isn't a task when they're already ripped nearly to shreds, and then his shoes. He slips into it. 

The lake is cool and refreshing against his feverish skin, and it curls soothingly around him. For the first time in a long time, Seunghoon feels clean. Come to me, the water coos, and its gentle lull pulls at Seunghoon insistently, come be clean. He takes a deep breath and the air feels crisp and sweet and his chest heaves greedily. He likes this, he decides. He wants to stay.

Yes, yes, the water croons, and Seunghoon's feet move on their own, relishing the squelch of the mud between his toes as his heels sink into the of the lake bed. The lilt of the water sweeps against his torso and washes over his shoulders. Why don't you rest? the lake sings, and he thinks he might like that idea and so he lets himself be carried deeper, lets his arms flow with the water and float uselessly from his sides. Come, and the surface of the water slips over his lips and soon, soothes the painful heat behind his eyelids. Further still and his hair sweeps like gentle tendrils over his face.

The lake says again, sleep, and Seunghoon opens his mouth and inhales, and the icy water sweeps through his lungs, down to his bones.

Sleep.

-

White light, too bright. Seunghoon feels like he's floating and yet so heavy and wonders if this is what death feels like, some sort of permanent semiconscious paradox. He tries to feel his fingers, imagines his body and eventually finds them, but he can't lift them, even with all his focus they only twitch weakly. 

Then a blurry dark mass swims across his vision, and Seunghoon's eyes give, splitting open at the seams. The mass takes on a corporeal shape and Seunghoon thinks he must be dead, because—

"Angel," he hears his own voice croak, but it sounds tinny and far away. The angel turns to look at him, startled, and then his handsome face softens into a smile. 

Wow. What a smile. 

He chuckles lightly and even through Seunghoon's impaired senses the sound is magical. "Well, that's flattering." 

Seunghoon feels suffocated as his wits return, and realises how warm he is, how he's wrapped up in his own sweat. He tries to move and he can't— his hands are pinned to his sides, his whole body is swaddled in thick, rough cloth. The angel seems to notice his struggle and an apologetic look floods his features. Hurriedly, he moves to kneel by Seunghoon and works at the swathe of blankets, and Seunghoon exhales a sigh of relief as the air hits his overheated body when the final layer falls away. 

"You were freezing cold and turning blue when I found you," the angel says by way of explanation. 

Seunghoon isn't sure what he's supposed to say so he manages "Thanks." As in, thanks, you weren't supposed to. Thanks, I was trying to die. Thanks, and now what?  

He realises he's let his guard down only because of how ethereally winsome this face is. He can't be so sure that he's safe, and he thinks he should ask for the man's name, but his throat is sore and dry and words fail him. 

The man seems to read his mind though and supplies, "I'm Jinwoo." His eyes crinkle into crescents and he has a dimple, god. Jinwoo slips a battered metal bowl into Seunghoon's hands and says, "Eat, please." It's dry and mushy and starchy but Seunghoon's senses are too dull for him to have the strength to even retch and so he swallows dutifully as Jinwoo watches and beams. 

-

A week later Jinwoo says, "Here," pressing something cool into his hands. "I found this in a pocket while rinsing out your clothes."

It is a thin silver band, his mother's wedding ring. All he has left of her. Strangely, Seunghoon feels nothing when he looks at it, glinting in his palm. It doesn't seem to mean what it used to when he'd clutch it to his chest at night. 

So he reaches out and slides his fingers over Jinwoo's wrist, "Wait." And Jinwoo's eyes widen in surprise but he does as he's told. Seunghoon stands, and he's a good head taller than Jinwoo, and his hands cup Jinwoo's elbows. His eyes drift to focus on the stray strand of black hair that's drooped over Jinwoo's nose and he itches to brush it away. Instead, he clears his throat and he says, "Keep it. As thanks."

When Jinwoo only gapes, Seunghoon carefully reaches for Jinwoo's right hand and brings it up slowly to his lips. Presses a gentle kiss to each fingertip and in a gesture that is comedic and reverent and beautiful all at once, he slips the silver band onto Jinwoo's pinky finger. 

-

They grow yams and some roots and onions and Seunghoon eventually stops hating the blandness. On good days— as good as days can get— they wander through the scarce greenery, more brown than green, and they imagine that all is still right in the world and they are just two boys out on a picnic. 

Blueberry, raspberry, boysenberry, poison berry. Jinwoo teaches him how to identify good fruit from the bad with a cheeky song and his lovely, lilting voice like dripping honey. The sun is still harsh but when he's with Jinwoo, Seunghoon swears it's a little less malicious red and a little more golden warm. They gorge themselves on the tart berries and Jinwoo stands on his toes and kisses Seunghoon, slow and sweet.

 -

Jinwoo stops wearing the silver ring on his finger. He's tied it onto the cord around his neck with a jade pendant that's always been his. When Seunghoon asks, he answers that it's closer to his heart like this. 

-

Jinwoo doesn't intend to stay for much longer. 

"I'm going to Imja, to find my family." he hums, folding his few pieces of clothing neatly and sorting his seeds and cans of food, "I was in Seoul when it happened."

He had just been passing by when he found Seunghoon. "A side quest," he muses, remembering a time before all this when he'd loved video games. 

"Imja is a small island... We have fish, we have water so I'm hoping—" his eyes are so bright when he turns to look at Seunghoon, "—that I'll see them again."

Seunghoon doesn't have the heart to level with Jinwoo. In fact, when he's looking like this, so fiery and determined and hopeful, it makes Seunghoon want to hope too. 

Jinwoo reminds him of how the sun used to be before it turned angry. Jinwoo is— and it hits him like a bag of bricks, heavy and damning and freeing, the truth— Jinwoo is his sun. 

So against all his reservations, he finds himself blurting, "I'll come with you!" The decision is easy. 

"To Imja?" 

"Yeah."

Anywhere.

-

They travel for months, and it's funny to think that what started this was Seunghoon wanting to end it. 

They forage for food in the day and sip water from canteens, and when the sun starts to dip they fix up a ratty tent that's barely big enough. Sometimes if they're lucky enough to stumble through an empty suburb they'll get to hole up in a proper, albeit broken house for a bit. 

It is always Seunghoon who checks for the bodies.

-

"The night you found me in the lake— the night I tried to die— what were you doing?"

"The same."

-

Finally, close. They can see the flicker of the island just beyond the sea. Jinwoo is ecstatic. He describes the salty sea air from back when sea breezes were still briny and crisp, talks about his sisters and rosy cheeks and of brushing their hair before bed. His father's back bent low over his nets as he took stock of his catch for the day. 

-

The island is a ghost town. 

No signs of a struggle. Mass graves in the town square marked by nothing but clumsy raised mounds of dirt. 

A clearance operation. Islands were too fussy to inhabit, but their inhabitors a waste of resources. 

They're gone, long gone. Jinwoo's last hope. 

For the first time, Seunghoon sees Jinwoo's brilliant smile shatter completely as his last hope, the only thing keeping him tethered to this world, slips from between his perfect fingers and crashes and burns. 

When the smaller man slumps heavily, all fight and will leaving his body, Seunghoon catches him and whispers sweet, empty words into his hair and wipes tears from his glassy eyes. 

He wonders, as Jinwoo falls apart, if he— if their love— is enough of a reason to keep going. 

 - 

It is too much work to head back to the mainland. Collecting wood, shaping it, the time it'll take to build another raft will take them months. 

If it were up to Seunghoon, they'd already be gone. He sees the way Jinwoo stares blankly at the bleak landscape, no recognition of his childhood in his eyes. Notices how Jinwoo's hands shake when he's holding them. 

He seems paler than usual but Seunghoon can no longer tell, if it's the sadness or the greyness of the obsolete island. 

 -

Jinwoo is kind, and Jinwoo is generous and still so giving. He swallows his sadness and wakes Seunghoon each morning and kisses him each goodnight. They can't know for sure because time and dates are arbitrary in the lonely dystopia, but Seunghoon thinks it's been a year. 

Thinks it's their of-sorts anniversary. 

They wade into the sea hand-in-hand and dig their toes into the sand. Ignoring that the sea swirls brackish green instead of blue and the odd fish corpse that bobs morbidly to the top of the waves. Seunghoon takes in the way Jinwoo's eyebrows frame his eyes and watches each drop of water slide down the curve of his face. 

At night, they build a small fire that crackles and chokes and warms their hands as they watch each other through the smokey glow of the flame. Seunghoon feels full even though they haven't had anything to eat. 

He loves Jinwoo. 

And Jinwoo laughs when Seunghoon tells him this between fluttery kisses peppered across his neck and cheeks. He smiles his smile, but this time it's devilish, and kneels between Seunghoon's legs. 

-

The fates are vindictive. 

Poison. The night they arrived, when Jinwoo tripped and fell, and the tiny cut. The glass had been coated in a poison, used by raiders to slowly and gradually kill off entire communities that were draining resources or just in the way. What they'd thought was a small bruise had bloomed into a magnificent red and purple camouflage splayed across Jinwoo's side, curling up towards his chest and down towards his hip. 

Fatal.

"Why didn't you say something?" 

Jinwoo lips simply quirk up, pretty as ever, as Seunghoon rocks in his arms, sobs wracking his body.

-

They stay in the fragile wooden house by the dock because Jinwoo is too weak to run anymore. They know it is only a matter of time- before the raiders track them down, or before the poison takes Jinwoo.

This deadline is brought up when the sun starts to burn brighter and the air turns more and more acrid with each passing day. Their yams stop growing properly and the water starts to run yellow, smelling of sulfur. Jinwoo is standing quietly at the open pantry one evening when Seunghoon returns. As the door swings shut, he turns and says, "We have two weeks." 

He's still smiling, but it doesn't quite reach the eyes.

-

 He says, 

"Seunghoon, I have to."

He holds them out in his hands, wet and gleaming. Their vivid hue against Jinwoo's pale skin— mocking, taunting. It suddenly becomes horribly clear what Jinwoo wants.

"Jinwoo, no." 

Boysenberry, poison berry.

And then he breaks.

"No! I won't let you." he's clutching blindly at Jinwoo, fumbling for his hands, "You can't, you can't," and the tears prickle and well and spill and he's clawing at Jinwoo, and it's like his entire world has stuttered to a halt. The tears he couldn't shed for his sister now pour forth without restraint and he feels his lungs constricting and he's hysterical, and he thinks he's screaming. He is a hurt, wounded animal and the calloused hands attached to flailing limbs finally find Jinwoo's neck and he drags his palms up and cups his face roughly, "Please, Jinwoo, no. I won't allow it. I'll die with you," he chokes, pressing their foreheads together, "Please, we'll- we'll share whatever's left until its gone or until they come and take us—"

"Seunghoon," Jinwoo whispers, "I know you don't want to die." 

And there it is. It hangs in the air, spoken. Jinwoo has come to know him better than he does himself and it will be the end of him.

"I have nothing left for me here," Jinwoo says, and his tone is patient, like he's reasoning with a child. 

"You have me," Seunghoon begs, "You know you have me."

"And if I don't do this, I'll lose you too." Jinwoo feels so warm against Seunghoon's skin. Jinwoo feels like home. 

His eyes are clouded over and misty when he raises his head to speak to Seunghoon. Even as rivers run down his cheeks his voice is firm and he says, "You still have it in you to live and you, you're all I have left. So please," 

Seunghoon begins to shake and it feels like the day the world ended, when the golden sun fizzled and burst and streaked the sky blood red and the air burned and it hurts everywhere, all at once. His head throbs and his heart— his heart—

"It's okay," Jinwoo whispers against his lips, and he tastes warm and wet and salty with tears, and Seunghoon isn't sure whose they are anymore, and he's shaking uncontrollably. "It's okay to be a bit selfish, " and Jinwoo— soft, sweet Jinwoo, his Jinwoo— presses a kiss to his nose, his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids. "I'm being selfish right now, Hoon," he smiles, and Seunghoon feels his heart melting all over again, "It hurts so much and I'm so tired and I want— I want you to remember me as I am now."

Seunghoon doesn't know what to say and so he tightens his grip on Jinwoo's waist, careful to avoid the angry red and purple that's bloomed across his beautiful skin for weeks. Jinwoo, pliant, darling Jinwoo, shifts his hips and tilts his head back, dark hair waterfalling down his neck and Seunghoon never imagined a simple gesture could be so breathtaking. Even when he's seen this a hundred times before, Jinwoo is exquisite still. 

He trails kisses down Jinwoo's exposed neck and Jinwoo's breath hitches, and Seunghoon moves down, down, and flicks his tongue along Jinwoo's collarbone, worshipping every crevice of his body. "Seunghoon," Jinwoo breathes, and Seunghoon commits his voice to memory, to heart. Burns the image of Jinwoo in his arms into the deepest part of his mind. 

"Seunghoon." Jinwoo calls again, and their eyes find each other. There is nothing left to discuss.

He dives into Jinwoo and lets himself drown, and somewhere miles away the lake from which they found each other laps sadly at the bank. 

-

Jinwoo's smaller frame is curled flush against his front. It doesn't feel different from any other night. The heave of Jinwoo's chest soothes Seunghoon and he leans closer still, wraps his arms around Jinwoo and tugs him reverently to himself. Buries his nose in Jinwoo's neck and can feel the vibration of Jinwoo's throat when he murmurs "Hoon. Please." It is a whisper, barely there, and he twines his fingers through Seunghoon's. And Seunghoon has never been able to refuse Jinwoo anything, so what more is this last request? 

He feels so, so heavy when he nods, and the smile, that smile he loves so much, that smile that could bring oceans to halt and earthquakes to their knees, flashes bright even in the early morning darkness. 

"Just promise me," he says, pulling Jinwoo close, "That you have no regrets left." And that you love me. he adds in his head, but his mouth fails him on these words. 

But Jinwoo knows, as he always does, and Seunghoon gets his answer. 

"You've done enough for me. This— you— are enough for me."

I will always love you.

-

When Seunghoon wakes up, there is sunshine peeking through the gaudy orange curtains he has never liked. The air is still musty and flecks of dust speckle through the room as they always have. It is quiet.

Jinwoo is tucked into the blanket, beautiful as the day they met, black hair fanned around his pale face. An angel. His lashes are so long and lush and Seunghoon is overcome with the urge to count each one, and so he does. He takes a last look at Jinwoo's sleeping face, serene and wonderful and his entire world. He a thumb over Jinwoo's cheek, relishing the feel of soft flesh and the ridge of his cheekbones, traces his fingers down to his cherry lips. Presses a gentle, lingering kiss to Jinwoo's mouth.

The small dish of berries is empty and if Seunghoon were to peel back the covers to look, he would see that Jinwoo's fingers are stained rich purple.

-

When he finally rises from the bed— their bed, something clinks in his pocket and he draws a shaky breath and slips his hand into his linen trousers. Cold and metal. His mother's ring— his Jinwoo's ring. Looped onto a single thin thread next to the jade pendant. For you, the room seems to whisper. For you, Jinwoo echoes. It has all been for you. 

-

Seunghoon shuts the rickety wooden door behind him and doesn't look back once. He has yams to last him four weeks now and a hundred miles ahead of him.

At the fiftieth, he breaks.

-----

 15 years. 

The grass is bright and green and the sun hangs high and proud in its rightful place. Spring is in full bloom, and this is the fifth year they've had seasons again. The light breeze carries the scent of flowers with it, and Minho presses a daffodil into Seunghoon's palm. 

Minho, with his dark eyes and sharp edges and the tattoos that decorate his body alongside the scars that mar warm, tan skin. Smelling of tobacco and spice where someone sweet and clean and earthy once stood in his place. Minho, who never asks too much but always gives. Whose rugged, fiery strength has given him the will to act on his desire to forge a future for himself.

Minho, who loves him. 

Minho, who he thinks that he can eventually learn to love in full, in return. 

-

There are a lot of children in the rebuilt city. For obvious and traumatic reasons, parents there one day and then gone the next. Tragedy has a way of hitting the innocent the hardest. 

Seunghoon follows Minho into the reception area where they are greeted by a chirpy staff in a neat black turtleneck and jeans. She knows them by now, they've been visiting the boy for months. 

The boy who's about to be their son. 

The staff member fills up the last few pages of the document and Minho signs his elaborate rose scrawl on the thick line where the signature should rest. Finally, she asks, "What will his name be?" —many children are nameless, too young to remember what their family called them before they all disappeared. 

And without hesitation, Seunghoon breathes, "Jinwoo."

She smiles warmly and jots down the letters, and Seunghoon feels a strange rush tremble through him. It feels good to say it aloud.

But then Minho says it. And repeats it, "Jinwoo." because Seunghoon has kept this name a tight-lipped secret for 10 years. Seunghoon's heart lurches as the name leaves Minho's mouth. He says it again, and again, because he finally has a name to attach to his lover's once-lover. And by the fifth time, Seunghoon thinks it is not as strange as he always thought it would be, to hear his name again, and to hear it fall from someone else's lips. 

-

On the way home from the orphanage, Minho is silent. Seunghoon is starting to worry— if he made a mistake. If he should have kept that name buried in his heart like the body in the broken bed all those years ago. Then Minho says, quietly, "Did you love him?" 

And Seunghoon feels like the air has been swept from his lungs and he gasps, "Yes," He thinks of big innocent eyes and the sweetest smile he has ever tasted, "So much."

"Then I'm thankful, too." Minho says. "Jinwoo," he sounds it out, each syllable careful, like he's testing the name in his mouth. 

"What a beautiful name."

The ring against his throat feels warm next to the jade pendant that still hangs faithfully by it. 

Seunghoon thinks, yes.