The first time Kyungsoo saw him it had been a particularly bad day. His heart threatened to pump out of his chest, the medicine he was suppose to take not acting as quickly as it should. He gasped for air that didn’t seem to want to come, the lack of oxygen making the world around him spin. He didn’t dare mention it to his mother or she’d haul him back to the ER and he’d likely be admitted yet again - trapped in the sterile, dove-grey walls of the hospital ward that had become his second home. One of the resident physicians had once joked that they should name a room after him - he never saw that man again.

Slow, deep breath...then another….

His mother said that his heart was just too big, too good for his frail body. Frankly he knew that was, to put it kindly, bull. His disease didn’t care how kind he was, how sweet his mother insisted he was as a baby. It was only a matter of time before the beating organ would fail and he would die. The kind, sweet baby who had become a hopeful, optimistic child was now pragmatic and bitter. The episodes were coming more and more frequently and sometimes he just wished it would all stop - that he would go to bed and not wake up.

At first he thought it was a side effect of the medications he was taking when he saw a blond-haired man out of the corner of his eye as he managed to stumble his way past the old claw-footed full length mirror he’d convinced his father to bring down from the attic. He couldn’t explain why he wanted the antique in his room. It wasn’t as if he really wanted to look at himself. After all, he knew what he looked like and saw how day by day he seemed to shrink, his eyes looking bigger in his sunken face, his skin pale and nearly translucent. So this is what Death looks like...

Except at that very moment when he looked into the mirror he didn’t see death. Instead he saw someone so beautiful it was almost painful to look at him. Tall, lean, golden skin and prominent brows. The man looked like a god - Apollo to his Hades. Underneath his amazement at what he was seeing a part of him hated this figment of his imagination, the man everything he would never be.  He reached up to rub his eyes, to clear the hallucination.

Only the hallucination didn’t go away, the thin lips widening into a gummy smile as he watched Kyungsoo, the blond’s expression nothing short of fascinated. It was as if Kyungsoo was something interesting to see, which was impossible. The two stepped forward at the same time and Kyungsoo finally noticed the background behind the other. Kyungsoo’s antiseptic bedroom walls were nowhere to be found, substituted by the lushness of a rich forest. Greens and browns and the blues of a crystal sky replaced the blandness of taupe and ecru and eggshell. It was as if Kyungsoo could smell the firs and wildflowers and not the acrid Listerine scent of his own world.

The blond man said something but Kyungsoo shook his head, unable to hear the other’s words. He imagined the man had a deep voice, something warm and rumbly and he felt a pang of loneliness. Knowing that his life was limited he’d distanced himself from those he knew and it had cost him dearly, the need for company almost overwhelming. It must have shown in his face because the blond’s impressive brows furrowed and he vanished. Kyungsoo cried out and turned away - even his imagination abandoned him.

He refused to look into the mirror for days,  instead curling up in a chair by the window, watching the children playing outside. They ran in ways that would have left him gasping for air but only made them giggle with delight as they played tag. His heart ached with longing - and the next time he turned to the mirror the blond man was there, holding up a sign with handwriting that was barely legible. It was accompanied by a drawing of something that resembled a puppy - or a hippopotamus.

I’m Kris. Why are you so sad?

Before Kyungsoo had a chance to think about it - or about the fact he was talking to someone in the mirror - he blurted out “because I’m alone.”

The man paused, then wrote something else down in his scrawling script. He smile as he held it up for Kyungsoo to see.

Not anymore.

Over the next few weeks Kyungsoo found himself spending more and more time with the man in the mirror. If the other’s clothing wasn’t enough to tell him otherwise, he saw the two moons reflected behind the tall blond and realized that Kris was more than just a figment of his imagination. Through conversations scratched out on loose leaf paper Kyungsoo discovered that Kris was some kind of mage-scholar-scientist hybrid and that his world was like the steampunk books Kyungsoo had read, magic melding with a kind of technology decades before his own. The mirror that Kyungsoo looked at was what Kris called an ‘anomaly’ and the mage found himself coming every day, fascinated by Kyungsoo’s world - What are those television things and why do people sit in front of them for hours on end? Internet? Nets are for fishing. and by Kyungsoo himself. Kyungsoo had never believed in magic but perhaps...

They talked and discussed and argued and laughed and slowly Kyungsoo found himself smiling more and hating himself less. The one thing he did hate was when it came time for Kris to leave. He would reach up, his small, frail hand mirroring the blond’s, the cool feel of glass a barrier between their fingers - between their worlds. Kris’ smile would slip, a look of determination coming over his face.

Someday, Kyungsoo.

“But I don’t have many more somedays,” Kyungsoo whispered.

And he was right. As his smiles grew, that delicate heart began to fail - it was as if the love that was growing for his blond mage was putting too much pressure on his heart. Kyungsoo’s movements slowed and it took forever to cross his bedroom, his breaths coming with more difficulty. Those large eyes stood out even more in a face now pale and drawn.  If Kris noticed he didn’t say anything, instead distracting Kyungsoo with tales of his world and sharing his own hopes and dreams.

Kyungsoo turned to the mirror one day and saw Kris talking with another man, a man with a kind face and a prominent dimple when he smiled. He felt a pang of jealousy - but he didn’t really blame Kris. After all, the man was beautiful and from Kris’ own world and he...well, he was dying.

Kris turned back to face Kyungsoo, his expression not one of guilt or betrayal but rather one of resolution.

I was just talking to Yixing and he agrees. It’s time to stop this. We can’t meet like this anymore.

Kyungsoo reached up to place trembling fingers over his chest, the pain in his heart surely from it shattering into millions of tiny, jagged pieces.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” the smaller boy murmured, standing up on shaky legs, clutching the chair behind him for support.

Come here, Kyungsoo, Kris coaxed, placing his hand on the mirror, long fingers just begging for Kyungsoo to touch them, even if it was for the last time.

This time when the fragile boy reached up to touch the mirror he gasped as the polished surface gave way - much like liquid mercury - Kyungsoo’s fingers coming into contact with a hand much larger than his own.  Dark eyes met his, those formidable brows softening as Kris’ lips parted in that gummy smile the smaller boy had grown to love. There was no paper this time, just those lips forming words that Kyungsoo could easily read. - and this time a voice, deep and warm and a sound he’d dreamed of for months.

This is Someday, Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo took his hand and stepped through.

His parents found him the next morning, still and silent - and yet with a sweet smile they hadn’t seen in years on his unmoving face.