"Qian!"

He shouts her name, screams it, his vocal chords straining painfully from the effort. The soot in the air blackens his skin shining with sweat. His dress shirt, formerly white, is smeared with dirt and grease. People are running in many directions; it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what they are trying to escape. 

The city is burning.

Matches thrown into puddles of oil create eternal fires, the thick smoke choking the life out of the elderly, the babies. The rain clouds take watch but do not deliver the people from their suffering. The skies keep gray and flat with no promises for salvation from the endless burn of war.

The bombs, the grenades, the ones who hold them. Changmin rages against those as he throws himself into finding her.

"Qian!"

He should have known this was going to happen. The few days of silent restlessness was a warning. Changmin was in the Center, filing for their final immigration when the low hum of jets resonated, still yet sure. The glass broke and Changmin ran.

At twenty six years old, he can still sprint without much effort. Others are not as fortunate. When his legs power him down the street, Changmin passes the unlucky that fall out of burning buildings, wailing as the flames burn their lives away. It is a familiar hysteria, a familiar rise of panic that he forces down.

"Qian!"

His body convulses and he tugs in a few breaths of polluted air. The bombs must have released some sort of mild gas again. Changmin chokes on the ashes that are disseminating in the winds. Hands on his knees, he spits and the saliva comes out gray. He rubs his mouth against his shirtsleeve and starts running again.

"Qian!"

Changmin sees the twisted iron monument to his left, standing among the billowing smoke. The iron is set deep into the ground, and he knows that only God could demolish it. Therefore, it is where he and Qian have agreed to meet in any dangerous situation.

"Qian!"

"Changmin!"

He jerks around and oh, she's running towards him, her porcelain skin scarred but safe because she had listened and stayed at the monument and waited patiently. There is nothing stopping him from holding her close to his chest and sobbing in relief. Her expression is calm as he collapses in her arms. Changmin presses his face against her collarbone, her neck, her own face. She smells like a spring day, such a contrast to the fiery world around them. When the desperate cries spill out of his rapidly beating heart, engulfing her in a fiery inferno, that is when they know that they love each other.

"I'm okay, Min. Don't worry," Qian whispers, smoothing her fingers through his hair.

She has always been the stronger one out of the two of them. He kisses her scars, old and new in lines that he knows only glass would have scraped. "I"m sorry."

"Don't be." Her hands cup his face as she draws back slowly. "We can't stay here anymore."

"I know."

Changmin fumbles for the passes that he'd snatched up right before the attack began. They are under his shirt, for safety. When he s the shirt to pull them out, a small sigh escapes Qian when she sees the well known scar etched into his chest, arcing to his muscled shoulder. Her hand unconciously reaches up to glide over it. Changmin allows her to do so and watches her face carefully. Her eyes shift and she buttons up his shirt for him.

She takes the passes from him, holding them next to each other in the flames' light. They are made of durable plastic, bearing new identities. Max and Victoria. Her eyes trace over the unfamiliar words. The photographs, however, are the same. 

"Are you ready?" he asks quietly.

There is only a tiny pause of hesitation before she answers.

"Yes."

[a/n: no plot at all, i'm sorry. ; n ; i was just drowning in changtoria feels. forever shipping, forever waiting for their marriage announcement. if sooyoung and  yoona can openly date, why can't they? thoughts of a #delusionalshipper. hehe. i'll continue "step by step" soon.]