“Ryeowook!”

The scream tears itself from his throat even as his lungs protest the oxygen being redirected elsewhere from his body. The sweat mixes with his stings as it drips down to the open cut on his cheek, and his legs feel like they’ll give out underneath him any moment now―but he won’t stop. He can’t stop running, not until he reaches that abandoned building in Shibuya where it all started.

It’s so ed. It’s all so ed.

Last night he fell asleep with the love of his life in his arms, sated on instant ramen and throat sore from too many hours of karaoke. His last conscious moments before sleep claimed him were spent in prayer. Maybe some of Ryeowook’s power had spread to him, and he could keep them both in that little slice of paradise forever.

But then morning came, and so did the police, but Ryeowook was gone.

Now, he’s running like his life depends on it. In every way that matters, it really does.

“Ryeowook!!”

The heat of the sun beating down on him is like a cruel joke, a pathetic facsimile of the warmth he felt traveling around Tokyo with this amazing, optimistic, pure soul by his side; the fiery wit of Ryeowook’s jokes; the passion for life in the other’s eyes. What would his life be if he’ll never get to feel that again?

“Kyuhyun, would you like to see the sunshine again?”

How stupid he was for answering honestly. Well, the weather can stay crazy. He’d rather have Ryeowook over any blue sky.

There must still be a way. There has to be. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once he reaches the shrine, but that’s no matter. He’ll do, say, pray whatever he must to get Ryeowook back. There’s gotta be something, anything, that he can do.

He finally makes it to the base of the fire escape, but he doesn’t slow down. The ominous creaking of metal as he speeds up the dilapidated structure does nothing to deter him, not when he’s so close. The sight of the torii and its quaint garden, intact and lit up by the sunlight, almost made him faint with relief.

He finally crossed through the shrine, and he prayed as hard as he could.

Ryeowook.