EPILOGUE: Daybreak

Like the flames I lost to you, sadness overwhelms me too

The rain sends shivers down my spine and seeps into my memory

Who was it that loves you so? Who was it that hates you so?

I gasp in pain- the memories begin to swirl inside my mind

Should I believe in what we did then?

And if I do, leave you behind and feel regret again

Is this the way to say goodbye love?

When you and I had promises yet to fulfill.

- It’s Too Late, Weiss Kreuz -

Fuu looked up to see Taecyeon walking towards her. She set her eyes down and back to Changmin’s grave. It has been a month since Fortuna was obliterated, but the scars were still fresh in her heart and mind.

“Hey,” she heard Seulong say to him.

Taecyeon didn’t answer. He had separated from the group a few minutes ago to visit Eunhee’s plot. There wasn’t really anything more they could have said to each other. While Fuu could say that even she had moved on, nothing was same anymore. With the exposure of Lee Sooman and General Yang, there had been a new purge on the officials. It was towards a new world order, but Fuu couldn’t help but think there was something more at work than all of them realized.

“Hey,” she heard Taecyeon finally speak, “thinking too much? We’re supposed to be celebrating, although it would have been better if we’re getting a few medals and a promotion.”

Fuu smiled softly. “I don’t understand how blowing up the labs will get you promoted. Though you two getting promoted for blowing something up does make sense.”

…

Jay scratched his head, feeling anxious at what he was about to do. Conny had assured him it was a good idea, but he wasn’t too sure. It had sounded like a good strategy on paper, but it was the execution that mattered.

The door opened slowly, and he stretched out his hand.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He flashed Nara his most charming smile though he felt silly when she didn’t immediately accept the peonies in his hand. “Hi?”

She raised a brow, but said nothing as she took the flowers from his hand. “You need another favor don’t you?”

He didn’t blame her for being skeptical. He had been using her for her intel these last few months, but it came to a point that it became the excuse he would use to see her. “Let’s try this again,” he said.

“Try what?”

“This,” he said, stepping closer to her, invading her personal space.

…

Another drink down the bar and Junsu downed it one shot. He turned to the barkeep for another, and the young woman looked at him patronizingly before pouring him another concoction from her shaker.

“Woman troubles?”

Junsu snorted into his glass and looked up at her. “You have no idea,”

“You might want to wrap that up, we’re closing soon.”

He looked around him, only then noticing that he was the only customer left. Only the janitor and the security guard joined him, and then there was the gorgeous barkeeper. “Maybe,” he said softly. “What’s your name?”

She smirked. “Yoojin.”

Junsu rolled his eyes, but kept the charm. “Nice name. I knew a girl with the same name. She was pretty too.”

Yoojin bit her lip, hiding her smile. “Really now.”

“Oh yes. She was the kind to make sure a stranger doesn’t go home drunk alone, too.”

…

Junho pushed the door open with his back, in his arms were a basin of water and his medical kit. Rai sat silently on the bed, and she looked up at him, her amber eyes dull under the dim lighting. He set the basin down and checked her bandages. Her wounds wouldn’t heal, just as her old scar, they ate her flesh refusing cure.

Junho’s eyes followed the scars on her body, on the iris branded on her skin. “Are you feeling any better?” For the previous nights Rai would wake up screaming, nightmares plagued her, and he felt helpless unable to do anything more for her.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” she said, “someone like you, you shouldn’t be helping someone like me. You should have left me to die.”

“Is living really that painful for you?” Rai looked away. “We all live as we choose to. The pain and all the bad things, we choose to live with them, but we can also choose to not let them define who we are. You are not tainted, Ayame, the pain isn’t who you are.”

Rai gazed out of the window, keeping her thoughts free from the way her body ached and burned as if she was literally on fire. Junho’s hands were gentle on her skin and she sighed softly as he laid her back down to rest.

“You don’t have to watch me sleep tonight,” she said.

Junho flushed, embarrassed though he intuitively knew that she had always known. “Will you be okay?”

She nodded, yet Junho had a bad feeling coiling deep within him. The next day Junho came back to an empty room. On the white sheets were the bandages he used on her, nested in between them, was a single blood iris.

…

“We need better people on our team,” Chansung complained, pulling out yet again, the files of their new recruits.

“Rain’s working on that,” Jinwoon answered, busy with the stills and files he had received from Nara. “You have to forward these to Jia and Suzy, any news on Mr. Henney?”

When he didn’t get an answer, Jinwoon finally looked up from his computer and wheeled his way to the other man. Chansung tapped the screen unsure of how to interpret what he saw and Jinwoon looked at him gravely, similarly in limbo. Rai’s tracker stopped blinking- she was at the old beach house. The archbishop’s head dropped into his hands and Chansung sighed raggedly.

There was a phone call to be made.

…

Mai rolled her eyes as she heard Seulong and Taecyeon’s boisterous laughter from their new office. She still didn’t understand how it was possible that even those two could recover so easily, even though it had been almost a month since. She rolled her shoulders, ready for a work out when she stopped. Junho walked into their side of the station- he wasn’t supposed to be there.

“I thought you were on leave?” she asked, surprised.

“I was,” he simply answered. His phone started ringing, and he pulled it out, only to push it into Mai’s hands. He disappeared into the training room, ignoring Mai’s voice.

“Hello?” she said into the phone. It was Jinwoon so she knew it had to be important. She was left speechless as Jinwoon gave her an update, and she clasped her free hand on . It shouldn’t have shocked her, but it did. Now she knew why Junho had looked so sombre, why he was now inside the training room.

She closed the call and pulled out her own phone. There was someone she had not heard from in a while, and fear slowly crept up her system. One ring, then two.

“Lieutenant?” The very recently promoted Wooyoung had been on a special case under orders from Rain. “Hello?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she stuttered, “just...tread with caution?”

She heard chuckling from the other line, and she was tempted to drop her phone on the floor and just stomp on it- even when her leg had yet to fully heal.

“Look, I just wanted to know if you were still alive, is that so bad?!”

Nothing. She heard nothing, and anger bubbled up inside her when beeping followed. He hung up on her. She groaned in frustration and stuffed her phone back into her pocket.

“What’s wrong with you?” Wooyoung walked into her line of sight, looking fairly amused.

opened and closed and when he started chuckling again, she swung her fists at him. He dodged her easily, as always. “Your form is bad,” he said, catching her wrist in his hand and twisting her around, immobilizing her.

“Lieutenant, this is assault,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I know that.” He laughed. “Doesn’t change the fact that you still need to work on your form.”

…

Sunlight peeked through the pale yellow curtains, casting a soft glow on June’s pallid skin. Her lips were more pink now that she had more life in her, and Nichkhun held her hand gently. She still had not woken up, but he was willing to wait as long as he could.

It had been peaceful days since Fortuna, and Nichkhun breathed in the soft breeze that marked the coming of winter. He stood up to close the window, suddenly feeling nostalgic. He briefly wondered where the others could be at that moment. Jinwoon and Chansung had not contacted him, though he had told them that should they require him, he wouldn’t turn them down.

He sat back down on the stool next to the bed, and he almost stopped breathing when June’s lids slowly stirred. Seconds felt like hours as her fingers twitched and quivered. Her eyelids fluttered open, and Nichkhun couldn’t explain nor define what joy he had felt as he gazed back into the eyes he had missed so much.

Her eyes searched his, and Nichkhun smiled softly at her. The gesture was almost foreign, even the tears that begged to be released from his eyes. And then she spoke.

“Who are you?”

- End -

Only the sorrowful night is sure to see the shadows of love

For in every dream the image of you lingers still

So I walk alone, sleepless, lost, wandering under the moon

Should eternity end, and all will be blanketed in emptiness

All I pray for are wings of a swallow, so I can fly and disappear into the heavens

- Beautiful Alone, Weiss Kreuz -