"Jongin, please, hang on, I’ll get you out of there, I promise—"

Time seemed to be on a constant loop. Every breath seemed tedious, every blink fruitless, every second repeated in exactly the same way. Taemin felt as though he was living the same day over and over, trapped in an endless cycle, like a lonesome butterfly in a tiny glass cage.

"It’s no use, Tae. I can’t hold on anymore…"

Sharp tears brimmed Taemin’s eyes whilst more streamed infinitely down his cheeks. His best friend lay in his lap, his blood soaking through Taemin’s shirt and onto his hands, a scarlet puddle forming around where Jongin lay. Taemin’s tears begun to fuse with his best friend’s blood, Taemin screaming as Jongin begun to lose breath.

"N-no! P-please, Jongin, hold on… please… please don’t leave me…!"

The memories would always taunt him, the words of each and every person he watched die leeching onto every ounce of regret Taemin held. That day, he let his own best friend die in his arms. If Taemin hadn’t disobeyed his parents orders by hunting down Jongin the minute the disaster struck, Taemin would never had gotten to see his best friend again.

That being said, would he rather have watched his own best friend die?

"Tae… I… I can’t… I-I’m sorry…"

The voice of his best friend would always tear through Taemin’s thoughts, holding his sanity by a leash too often for his liking. Taemin felt the true meaning of uselessness; when he could do nothing but watch as Jongin’s heavy breaths became gasps, choking on the blood pooling in his mouth. Within minutes of Taemin finding Jongin sprawled on the concrete floor, writhing in pain; Jongin was dead. 

"TAEMIN!"

Their screams. His own parents screams haunted him at night, tormented him in his sleep, and drove Taemin to screaming himself. He was lucky enough not to witness them die directly, but he was clever enough to know that they couldn’t have possibly survived.

The house caved in on the Lee family whilst they were inhabiting it. Taemin’s parents were both on the lower floor of the house whilst Taemin was upstairs in his bedroom, mourning over the death of his best friend. It took Taemin two days to escape from underneath the rubble: and that was when he was on the top floor of the house. Unless, like himself, a miracle happened, Taemin was certain his parents were dead.

Everyone you ever loved no longer exist, Lee Taemin.

The same second passed.

The twenty year old Taemin arose from his lying position on the bench he rested upon: the only unbroken object in the entire railway station. He would say he ‘rested’ rather than slept; Taemin had never had a proper night’s sleep since the apocalypse occurred. Twisting his neck and stretching slightly, the young man retrieved the metal crowbar he always kept in his possession and stood upright. It took a moment for Taemin to recover from the sense of vertigo before he could begin walking; having a lack of food or water in his system caused Taemin to suffer from mild spells of dizziness every now and again.

The boy had been on the hunt for food since day one: from rummaging under broken structures to venturing into unstable buildings, Taemin couldn’t afford to stay in one place and starve. However, he knew for a fact that he would have to leave Seoul at some point: the amount of edible food left in Seoul was inevitably limited. His stomach growled loud and clear, yet Taemin remained unfazed, continuing to travel further down the railway platform.

He begun to grow deaf to his stomach’s constant protests as the days went past. 

Spotting an overturned train overhead, Taemin decided to scavenge it for anything worth eating. Judging from how far the carriage doors were from the platform that he stood on, Taemin thought it would be easier to clamber into the train via the tracks below. Inhaling inward and mustering every ounce of energy he had, Taemin leapt off the platform, landing sharply onto the metal lined ground. The boy cursed through gritted teeth, wincing and curling his fists in order to bear the pain of the fall.

You can bear the pain of a fall but you can never bear the pain of everyone that left you all alone, Taemin…

The sun’s rays sliced through Taemin’s vision, temporarily blinding him as he attempted to stand upright. His stomach silenced itself for a moment, almost out of courtesy as Taemin finally elevated himself to his standing position.

The sunlight seemed to be brighter than usual.

Shaking his head and tottering in the direction of one of the carriages, the boy calculated how he was going to attempt to climb up to reach the train door. The train was tilted at a forty five degree angle; Taemin reckoned he could bundle himself inside if the door hadn’t been closed. Subconsciously swinging the crowbar he held around, it took a moment for Taemin to realise he could use it to pry the door open.  Hooking the one end of the crowbar into the parting of the one automatic train doors, the boy heaved with all his strength he could muster. Despite his efforts however, the door wouldn’t budge. Deciding there was no use in wasting precious energy on trying to break into the train (which Taemin reckoned had no edible food regardless), the boy clambered back down onto the tracks.

Surprisingly, his stomach didn’t complain at how quickly Taemin gave up.

You don’t feel it, Taemin? You don’t feel the blood rolling down your cheek? You don’t taste the blood caking on your lips? You don’t feel the excruciating pain in your stomach, begging to be heard, to be fed? You can’t hear it screaming? 

"Ow." A tiny mumble escaped into the atmosphere, taking to the air like a butterfly in the wind.

Taemin’s lips remained motionless.

Snapping his head in the direction of the voice, Taemin witnessed something he had never even dreamed of seeing. A little girl, on the train tracks ahead of him, on her hands and knees. Her dusky blonde hair cascaded down her tiny shoulders, her curls reminiscent to the sunlight pouring onto her. A daisy chain encircled the crown of her head, her pale blue dress seemingly a size too small for her petite figure. Wobbling back onto her feet, she clapped her hands in order to dust off the speckles of stones on her palms.

And, contrary to her mumble of dull pain earlier that moment, the girl smiled brightly.

Despite rubbing his eyes vigorously, the girl still wandered around Taemin’s line of sight, hopping over the ridges of the train track playfully. Taemin had not seen one human being (albeit, that was actually alive) since the aftermath of the apocalypse. The fact that there was actually a real girl in front of him didn’t sink in until the girl spotted the young man, her eyes widening fearfully before darting off behind one of the carriages of the overturned train.

The boy struggled to process what he had just witnessed.

An actual human girl.

It took a moment for Taemin to reassure himself that he wasn’t hallucinating. The sight of her, the sounds she made, her reactions: it all seemed too real to be an illusion. He crept near to the train carriage she had ran behind. In order not to startle the poor girl (whether she was a figment of his imagination or not), Taemin simply knelt beside the wheels, close to the corner of the train. Without peering round, Taemin decided to talk to her from his current position.

"I’m not going to hurt you…" he mumbled with a small smile, his tone made cheerful enough to comfort the girl, as opposed to the opposite of his intentions. 

"Y-You’re not?" the voice behind the carriage squeaked, the tiny crown of golden hair visible from behind the edge of the train.

"No, of course not."

Hesitantly, the girl reemerged from behind the train carriage at the sound of Taemin’s reassuring words. Her tiny feet were the first to unmask themselves from the shadows, before the rest of her body followed. Taemin found himself transfixed at how the little girl’s golden hair seemed to shimmer when basked in the sunlight, and caught himself subconsciously smiling when the young girl flashed the boy a small smile.

"What’s your name, cutie?" Taemin asked softly, almost afraid that he would scare her off again like he had done previously.

"… Luna." The little girl mumbled almost shyly at the elder boy’s compliment, shifting herself from foot to foot, her eyes fixated at the ground in front of her.

Taemin had never found someone more adorable.

"I’m Taemin." The young man introduced himself cheerfully, holding his palm up in the air and waving lightly. In response to his light gesture, the little girl waved back, pressing her tiny palm against Taemin’s own.

Does it feel real, Lee Taemin?

"… Taemin?" Luna blinked for a moment, her tone questioning… almost as though she had recognised it. "Yep. Lee Taemin." Taemin confirmed boldly. However, the little girl’s eyes only widened further at the sound of his full name. "We need to go." Luna mumbled almost commandingly, seemingly irrespective of the boy’s opinion. Without warning, the little girl grabbed Taemin’s out-held hand, dragging the young man further away from the train. Thrown off guard by the little girl’s sudden assertive tone, Taemin stuttered a little. “W-Where?”

"… Away."

Taemin raised an eyebrow out of a mixture of confusion and curiosity at the little girl’s rather brief reply. “Away where?” Despite his attempt at luring a more detailed response out of the little girl, Taemin only received the same brief answer: "Away from here." The young girl continued to haul the much larger boy away from her temporary hiding place. Luna didn’t need to put up much of a fight; Taemin simply let her lead, but rather, on his behalf, his subconscious did the protesting against leaving so quickly. "I don’t understand… is there something dangerous here?"

"N-no." Luna stuttered. After a moment of silence, the little girl murmured out of confession. "… I want to find my mommy." This time, it was Taemin’s eyes that widened. “Your… mom?” He could barely process the idea of another human being still in existence, let alone any more. Taemin found it increasingly difficult to believe what his eyes and ears were presenting to him. "Is she still here?"

Luna didn’t falter. “I know where she is.” The little girl stated confidently, much to Taemin’s disbelief. "Y-You do?" With a somewhat exaggerated nod, Luna continued to march forward, in the hopes that Taemin would follow. However, the little girl was not aware of where she was placing her feet between the tracks...

"W-whoa wait you’re going to—!" Taemin caught Luna timely the moment the tip of her shoe got caught in the train track. Due to the boy’s timing, the little girl only toppled forward a fraction. "Are you okay?" To Taemin’s surprise, the girl didn’t seem at all fazed by the sudden stumble: instead she found herself simply smiling guiltily up at the young man. "Right, you’re directing me from up here from now on." Taemin declared, slinging Luna onto his back like a rucksack. No sooner was the little girl mounted on Taemin’s back in a piggy-back fashion, with Luna giggling softly.

And so, the two marched on together.

The hours rolled past, each minute passing somewhat faster than the previous. Whilst on their travels in search of Luna’s mother, Luna and Taemin had exchanged conversation. Luna had talked about spending time with her mother whilst Taemin had talked about the times in which he had spent with Jongin. Oddly, the little girl seemed to be very interested in Taemin’s deceased best friend. The young man didn’t mind talking about Jongin. Aside from keeping the little girl on his back entertained, Taemin enjoyed reminiscing over the memories he had of their friendship.  

One day, the two shall stand side by side once again…

After several hours of conversing, Luna gasped abruptly, causing Taemin to shoot his glance worriedly in her direction. “What’s wrong?”

"We’re running out of time!" The little girl wailed.

"… Running out of time?"

"It’s getting dark!" Luna pointed at the setting sun in the horizon ahead of them, the lower half of the sky painted a bright amber, a wash of deep blue beginning to settle above the round sun. Taemin, somewhat panicked by Luna’s urgency, quickened his pace, bounding down street after street. Whilst Luna most likely wanted to find her mother before sundown, (at least from what he could assume), Taemin was more concerned as to where the two would be able to take rest for the night. "Up there!" Luna answered Taemin’s thoughts by directing his attention up at a nearby hillside, the almost mountain-like hill covered in trees and shrubbery. A cable car cord that led to the peak was dismembered from the contraption, the cable car towers knocked over and unrepairable single-handedly.

"… How are we supposed to get all the way up there?"

"Like this!" Helplessly, Taemin watched as the little girl slipped off his back and begun to clamber up the craggy hillside, seemingly effortlessly, hopping from rock to rock like a spider on a web.

"W-what are you doing?! Isn’t it too dangerous—"

"I’ve been up here before!" Luna ‘reassured’, loudly calling for Taemin to follow her from her current position. In order to comfort Taemin, the little girl took a more stable approach in gripping the hillside with her hands, scaling up the hill on all fours. 

After much hesitation, Taemin begun to follow suit, gripping tightly onto the sandy rocks and crawling up behind Luna. He decided to stay close on her tail in case she were to fall despite her overwhelming level of confidence (for such a young kid, Taemin thought). The boy had to support himself at times with the thicker branches of the trees that would cascade in his path, and soon found a way to swing from branch to branch whilst standing, effectively scaling up the steep hillside whilst standing upright. Grinning, he rooted his feet on a tree stump, after managing to overtake the little girl, crossing his arms out of feigning impatience. 

His grin only grew wider at the pout Luna had on her face. “How did you get all the way up there before me…?” Before she got the answer to Taemin’s sudden change in speed, the elder boy hauled her up onto his back once again, continuing to trudge up the hill with an extra load on his shoulders.

"No fair… that’s cheating." Luna mumbled in an almost sulky fashion, causing Taemin to chuckle lightly to himself. 

No sooner did the two finally reach the top of the hill, Taemin with a lack of breath whilst Luna bore a bright smile. Unlike the young man had expected, the hilltop was much more vast, stretching out seemingly endlessly into the horizon. The grass grew a vivid green, the moon’s rays twinkling on the dewdrops that settled on the grass’ blades. Petals of pastel pink seemed to dance about in the wind, and around the cherry blossom trees dotted around the apparent field atop the mountainous hill. In the distance, stood a figure with a similar body structure to Taemin’s own, his back turned. The figure’s dark, wind swept hair seemed to rustle gently in the breeze, dressed almost head to toe in brilliant white, the jeans in which the figure wore almost an illuminant blue.

Taemin-ah… you’re finally here…

Taemin felt a sharp yanking at his wrist before he was flung back into reality, a rather confused Luna staring up at the elder boy. Reopening his eyes, Taemin discovered that the hilltop was in fact simply an ordinary hilltop, the ground dusty and ridden with pebbles and dying weeds. Shaking his head, Taemin glanced down apologetically at the young girl, ruffling her hair in an attempt to cheer her up. “Sorry. I was… daydreaming.” He couldn’t find another word to describe what he had just witnessed. The little girl could only frown at Taemin’s ignorance of what she was saying. “I saidddd we should camp up here! There are lots of stars that come out! That’s how I saw my mommy.”

The young man struggled to interpret what Luna was trying to explain to him. “You… wish for her?”

"Yep! When I woke up here long time ago, I said I wish I could meet mommy again because I couldn’t see her for a long time. And now I can see her whenever I want." Luna took Taemin by the hand after her rather vague explanation, leading him further into the centre of the hilltop, where more wheat-dusted grass lay limply on the ground. "Sit down here!" The young girl pointed at the spot at their feet, urging Taemin to sit down, to which Taemin himself responded by perching cross legged on the exact place she had so pointed out. Albeit, Taemin still questioned how farfetched Luna’s story was at first.

You don’t have to be a child to wish on a star, Lee Taemin…

Much to Taemin’s surprise, the little girl then settled herself down upon Taemin’s lap, curling up, her tiny mouth stretching itself into a large yawn. Taemin chuckled lightly at the sight. “Tired?”

Luna nodded, squinting her eyes with the back of her hands. “Mhm.” Burying her head into Taemin’s chest for a moment, the little girl chapped her lips together, inhaling slowly. Similarly, Taemin took the time to look up at the increasingly darkening sky. One by one, minuscule dots of light grew more visible, and no sooner were the heavens above dusted with thousands of tiny stars. After a moment of silence, Luna mumbled from the fabric of Taemin’s shirt. “… Taemin?”

"… Yeah?" Taemin blinked down at little girl laying in his lap, her golden head of hair almost affectionately. Luna’s hair seemed to shimmer faintly despite the sun setting a while back, her skin glowing in the moonlight. "Do you… miss your friend? A lot?" The question took Taemin by surprise at first. He didn’t expect her to ask about Jongin so suddenly. “… Yeah. A lot.” Breaking into a weak smile to mask the tears prickling at his eyes, Taemin tried to avoid eye contact with the little girl.

Yet, despite her age, Luna was smart enough to know Taemin wasn’t as strong as he made out to be.

"Don’t cry…" Reaching up, the little girl smeared the tear trickling down Taemin’s cheek with her thumb, before patting Taemin’s hand reassuringly. "You’ll meet him again." Taemin let out a short laugh, albeit more emotionless than intended. “You think?”

"I don’t think, I know.” Luna corrected, before another yawn promptly interrupted. “Wish on a star. It… really…” Taemin blinked, waiting for Luna to finish her sentence. However, a light snore confirmed to Taemin that the little girl had fallen asleep in his arms. "Ah, cute…" Taemin beamed, weaving his fingers absent-mindedly into her long locks. Taemin admired how brave the little girl was. Being alone in the world was so difficult for a grown man such as Taemin, but to the little girl, it seemed like the playground only grew bigger. Whilst Taemin swallowed himself in thoughts of death through passing each dead body enveloped under layers of rubble, Luna scaled each mountain of rubble for fun. 

Cradling Luna in his arms, Taemin focused up at the starry night sky, considering doing what Luna had advised him to do earlier. Wishing… "Does it actually work, Luna-ah? Hm?" Taemin mumbled to himself, finding his blinks growing into stares as he marvelled at the heavens above. Through both sleepless and dreamless nights, Taemin had never met Jongin again. Jongin was dead; Taemin watched him die right in his arms. The mere possibility of meeting Jongin again was something Taemin never really took into consideration. Yes, he wanted to meet Jongin again, yet he didn’t know how it would be actually possible.

Turn back the hours, the days, the weeks, the years… Turn back time, Lee Taemin…

Glancing back down at the sleeping girl in his lap, Taemin smirked out of realisation. Luna herself was a miracle. So it wouldn’t hurt to try wishing for Jongin again, Taemin thought. Closing his eyes, and inhaling slowly, Taemin murmured his one and only wish: "Let me tell Jongin I’m sorry… Sorry for not being able to save him…" The young man found his breath hitching, another tear escaping from his eyes. "I want to talk to him again… I-I don’t care if I die… I just…" Taemin’s silent cries echoed in the still atmosphere, the night breeze consoling him.

"What the heck are you talking about, Tae?" Taemin’s heart stopped for a moment out of shock, finding Jongin’s head resting in his lap as opposed to the sleeping Luna. Jongin grinned, his arms folded and staring up at the crying Taemin. Taemin could only assume his head was recreating the illusion to comfort him. “I-I wish you didn’t die. Or I just died with you. Why am I still here?” Craning himself upright, Jongin sat up, swivelling around to sit next to Taemin instead. “We’ll meet again someday. Up there.” The spirit pointed up at the night sky, causing Taemin to scoff a little. "You too?"

"… What?" Jongin laughed, however, his chuckle soon faded along with his smile, a much more serious expression replacing it. "You know, Tae… life’s a test. You survived for so long without me… do you seriously want to give up now?" 

➳ Y E S

➳ N O