you'll come back, right?

As soon as the shuttle engages successfully with the station, Jongin is out of his seat in a flash, hair matted to his forehead and suit feeling oddly like a vice. He hears Luhan's distinct call of "Wait!" but he pays no mind. When one is miles away from the one thing that grounds him to reality— space, time and the universe suddenly matter so much more than solar systems on maps and botched space programs on dusty white paper.

He walks through the bridge, echoing footsteps making their way towards him. Jongin is scared. Of what, he does not know. It is not the unknown, nor the stale, empty and desolate space station that he'd called home 3 hours before the death trap that was Miller's planet. He clenches his fist, and thinks of Luhan's determined, deranged eyes as he had waded to the beacon in the shallow sea, the gargantuan wave threatening to swallow them whole with no amount of remorse. Jongin is not scared of death, no.

He's afraid for those he's leaving behind.

"J-Jongin? Luhan? Is that you?" He hears a raspy voice call, and he's struck by the stark, singular thought that this cannot be- this cannot be Minseok.

Wispy gray hair and dark eyes meet his gaze, and Jongin feels his fingernails dig into his palm, cutting through, a stark reminder that he's still alive. Alive— with blood flowing red through his veins and someone at home still waiting.

The NASA scientist looks tired, and old, Jongin realizes, the man's once youthful smile, bunched up cheeks now sunken and pale, eyes filled with a hollowness and emptiness that sends a shiver down Jongin's spine. 

Minseok sobs with relief, eyes pooling with loneliness and everything in between.

“I thought you were gone,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief.

“How long were we gone?” Jongin whispers, dread overtaking his senses. The silence is loud and ringing his ears, his gut roiling and churning like a lost boat in an endless sea. 

"I waited twenty-three years, Jongin."

Twenty-three years? 

There's a fist-like vice around Jongin's heart, squeezing and squeezing as crinkled eyes and kitten lips flash through his mind, disappearing like the fleeting touch of fingers across his skin. The silence is louder than words, and Jongin's gaze is white-hot, black, and suddenly, nothing at all. 

"No no no, it can't be. I timed the mission! Three hours! We were gone just three hours! Stop playing with us Minseok - this isn't a ing joke!" Jongin spits, breathing harsh and lips pulled back into a snarl.

Minseok shakes his head, looking awfully small in his coat, eyes downcast.

"Gargantua," Luhan mumbles, "because Miller's planet was so close to the black hole, the gravitational anomalies cause time to move exponentially slower. An hour for seven years. That's why we perceived positive beacons from Miller's planet all these years, when they were merely just minutes before she was killed by a wave."

The tension in the air hangs thick like a choking smog, none of them able to speak.

"Damn it," Jongin whispers, fingernails cutting into skin, teeth biting into lips. "God ing damn it!"

"I'm sorry," Luhan says, eyes shining with unshed tears, eyebrows pulled together into an utterly devastated expression. "I'm sorry, Jongin, I—"

"Enough," he says.

He walks away, each footstep a tad louder than the shattering of his heart.

 ***

"Last unread message, twenty-three years ago." The robotic voice announces, and Jongin lets out a shuddering breath.

"Play it from the start."

There's static— bow-shaped lips, twinkling eyes, and furrowed eyebrows swim into view.

"Hey Jongin," the person says to the screen. "How are you?"

"I miss you a lot," he continues, eyes darkening for a second - so subtle, no one except the man across the screen, lightyears away, could have caught it. The telltale slump of shoulders, and the almost disappearing curl in his lips— Jongin feels his heart thumping steadily, and yet, it feels as though there's nothing there. Nothing but an empty cavity of whispered promises made to be broken.

"I miss you too," Jongin mumbles to the empty cabin, voice echoing into the void. 

Watches on both their wrists sit snugly as a stark reminder of what cannot be.

"I hope you're sleeping properly out there— however it is you do that. I hope you're eating your meals regularly. You always neglect your meals when you're crazy about something," the man chuckles, a bark of a laugh too loud to be genuine.

"Baekhyun came over today. He doesn't hate you, he says, although I think he never did right from the start. He always dotes on you a lot, even if you can't tell." They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Jongin thinks he sees it in the shine of Jongdae's eyes.

"He always didn't," Jongin smiles, a small, small wistful smile.

Present tense masks the pain of times long gone.

"Chanyeol proposed," Jongdae begins, and Jongin grins, despite himself.

"Always knew he could do it," he says to the monitor, even as a lone tear slides down his cheek, mapping a course of regret and bygones.

"They're getting married in 3 months, Jongin," he says, a forlorn smile on his face.

"Wish you were here," Jongdae whispers.

Jongin doesn't register the wetness on his cheeks - doesn't register the sting in his eyes.

He only thinks of the what-could-have-beens and i-love-yous.

The next message plays, and the monitor shows Jongdae with a child on his lap, as he grins brightly. He's always been Jongin's sun, even when somewhere a few light years away - a star burns bright, scorching everything in its path.

"Hey, look who's here!" Jongdae makes the little girl wave, and he laughs through his tears.

"It's Uncle Jongin," Jongdae says to the child, her tiny eyes crinkling up beautifully, a tiny tinkling laugh showing through tiny teeth.

"About time," a voice says, and Baekhyun stands behind Jongdae's chair, fond smile on his face.

"Meet Seungwan. She's bright, and laughs a lot. Must take after me," he says smugly.

Jongdae clicks his tongue.

"You should be thanking the gods she isn't a little ."

Baekhyun holds his hand to his heart in mock offence, and they both laugh at the camera.

Jongin laughs, too. He pretends he feels the warmth of Jongdae's side, the small grasp of Seungwan's hand on his thumb.

"Hey, aren't they cute?" Jongdae says, an excited tone to his voice, looking at the children across the road on a field trip, pale yellow uniforms and hats bobbing up and down.

"What?" Jongin says, distracted by a poster advertising fried chicken pasted haphazardly onto a storefront. 

Jongdae swats at his arm, and Jongin yelps, massaging his skin gently. 

"Ow," he says, and Jongdae laughs. He points across the street - and Jongin sees a boy pull on his classmate's neatly braided pigtails, only to pout when the girl glares at him.

He laughs, and is delighted to see Jongdae's smile, mirroring his.

"Yeah, they're like little ducklings."

Jongdae's laughter is bright and loud, and some children look across the street in curiosity, which only makes him laugh even more.

"Someday, i'm going to adopt a child like that, and make her kimbap rolls and pickled radish for her field trip lunch."

Jongin frowns.

"Don't I get a say in this?" He says with mock sadness.

Jongdae puts an arm around his waist, warm through their sweaters.

"You'd love her too," he says, smiling up at Jongin.

***

Last message: Dated 8 years ago.

Jongin stares at the screen dumbly, unsure of what to expect. It's as if his entire being is numb, blood thick as tar and bubbling, threatening to break the surface of his skin. He feels nauseous, chest clenching painfully.

The screen blinks, once, twice—

"Hey," Jongdae starts, and Jongin doesn't know how react.

Jongdae's eyes are dimmed, bags under his eyes dark and lines on his forehead deep. His gray hair is carefully pushed back.

Jongdae doesn't push back his hair, Jongin thinks numbly. The Jongdae so many years ago would always wear his hair down. He'd complained about his sparse eyebrows, and Jongin had laughed.

"It's my birthday today," the other man starts.

"Before you were gone, you said that by the time you came back— we would be fifty years old with gray hair and wisdom teeth, and you would come back and hold my hand and everything would be okay," Jongdae says, tears rolling down his cheeks in rivulets— Jongin's face mirroring the other's across the screen so many hours, days, months away.

"I turn fifty today. I don't know if I should be sad that you're not here, or angry, or even hateful that Baekhyun was right and that you were never ever coming back."

"If you're going, just go," Jongdae says, voice biting and sharp. His back is small and hunched and Jongin's heart aches.

"It was always space, wasn't it?" the other man continues, voice a sob more than anything else. "Somewhere, deep inside me, i thought you'd be happy with us. Even if everything on this God damned planet dies away, you'll have me. You'll always have me.  Guess it just wasn't enough, huh?" Jongdae whispers, turning to look at Jongin, eyes filled with something akin to hurt and regret. 

Jongin is quiet. The silence is too loud. 

"You've always looked at the stars," Jongdae whispers, hands tangled in his shirt, voice hoarse from crying. 

"You'd get this faraway look in your eyes, like there was no place you'd rather be than out there, in that dark, endless space, surrounded by nothing but new worlds to explore. I-I was a fool to have thought we'd be enough."

He laughs, too much of a bark to be real. He shakes his head, then, resigned, as if he'd given up on trying to convince Jongin to stay. 

The wristwatch Jongin had given him the other day sits cold on his wrist, metal and leather wintry against his skin. 

The clock was ticking. 

Eventually, in between Seoul and Saturn, Jongin realises that despite all this— despite all the potentially habitable planets they would have to explore, and humanity's fate resting upon his shoulders, it wouldn't be a home if it didn't have Jongdae. 

Jongdae keeps rubbing and rubbing at his eyes - the cotton of his shirt stretched taut, and he presses the heel of his hands against his eyes to make the tears and everything stop.

Jongin lets out a sob, his fist held to his mouth, spots peppering his vision and and his windpipe suddenly clogged up like he can't breathe.

"And I hate myself for saying this, but I still love you— I never stopped loving you, Kim Jongin, and I wait each passing hour, looking at this stupid wrist watch as if it's tiny hands could rewind and bring you back to me. I hate myself for waiting. I still am. I'm still hoping you'll come back. And I know that I never would have forgiven myself if I'd forced you to stay with me five thousand, three hundred and thirty seven days ago. But who's counting right?" Jongdae's crying freely now, and he only lets the tears come on harder. Everything hurts, hurts, hurts.

"You promised," Jongdae whispers through the screen. 

I love you.

"You promised," Jongdae repeats.

I love you too.

"Please come back," comes the murmur, and Jongin sees the last of Jongdae's broken smile before the message ends.

I will.

 -

"Maybe we've spent too long trying to figure all this out with theory.

Love is the one thing that transcends time and space."