When he woke up the next morning, Jongin didn't open his eyes. First and foremost, he relished the feel of the warm sunrays beating down on his eyelids. The asphalt ground was hard and rough underneath his back, but that he didn't mind. For the first time in a long while, he felt at peace.

He opened his eyes and felt the corner of his lips tug up to a smile as he realized how his arms, which were outstretched for too long to a lover who isn't there, now held the woman he had loved more than he had loved himself. It was the love that ruined them both, and they weren't going to let that happen just that easily.

"What if..." Jinsung started, but then pursed her lips and continued no more.

The man tilted his head towards her direction. "What if what?"

"What if life was a big fallacy? What if we are in hell, living as sinners cast down and condemned to eternal damnation? What if it was true, that only the good die young, because some ed up god wanted to separate the good from the bad? That could be a good one: the good die young and go up to heaven and the bad continue to live on earth aka hell."

Jongin scrunched his nose, not really quite getting the point clearly. "How does this work?"

"Well," Jinsung continued, her head fanned out across the lanes of the crossing. "As punishment, the sinners get to relive again the nightmares that will continue to haunt them until they learn their lesson. As for the good, well, let's say they're enjoying their own visions of heaven."

He inhaled, breathing in the meaning of her words. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

She smiled and closed her eyes. "Would you die for me?"

That moment, he wasn't fooling himself. The world has quieted down and his heartbeats toned down to a lull hum. For now, they were breathing the same air, lying on the same ground, and looking up at the same sky. And even if that vast blue horizon was to spiral and them both in darkness, there was only one thing he knew for sure.

He knew for sure that this love had killed him – the same love that he was yearning for. He believed the memories – fictional or not – to be the cells that make up what he was now. And he was lying down on the in between – the point of no return. Jongin had already decided, and now there was no undoing.

Finally organizing his thoughts, he breathed in. "I'm looking forward to decomposing in this embrace and to floating in nothingness. And if my family has already forgotten to mention my name in hushed whispers, my second and last death would be oblivion."

"Are you afraid?"

"Death doesn't scare me," Jongin replied softly, almost a whisper. "Life is scarier. Life was for death. Life was all about the future, and there was only one future for everyone: death." And he shifted to lie on his side to face her. "And you know what scared me the most?" he asked, wounding his arms tighter around her.

When she didn't respond, he continued. "The most terrifying thing was to see you die over and over and over again with me doing nothing about it. Grief was tolerable. There are lots of distractions that could get me going every day. But more than grieving and broken and sad, I was alone. And I think accepting the fact that you're gone is worse than dying." 

To this, she smiled. But it didn't take long for her to grow curious again. "Jongin," she called out.

"Hmm?" He didn't even look at her. He was busy watching the traffic light shift from green to orange to red and repeat.

She looked down at the arms that were encircled around her and then stared out into the far distance. "What happens if a car comes by?"

The man smiled with the right corner of his mouth, similar to Mona Lisa's famous smile. "We die."

"But we already did..." Jinsung muttered to herself almost inaudibly, but he had caught it.

"You're wrong," Jongin stated after a while. "This isn't hell. We're in heaven. See, I believe in our own visions of paradise."

The woman looked at him. "And yours is?"

"This," Jongin said. "A sunny day. Lying down. You. I could die a thousand deaths if this would be my heaven."