Jungkook is twenty five when he finds himself on a trail heading back to the village.

It’s an accident.

He was simply trying to find a shortcut back to Jongno City, and in the process of crossing a hill and skirting his usual crossroads he discovers himself on the very same road that ten years ago the five of them had been fleeing by.

Then he had been hidden in the back of a wagon, the insane thud of his heart the only sound in his ears, a sweet signal that he was alive and he was escaping. Now he sits astride his horse, heart thudding for a very different reason. “There there,” he murmurs to her quietly as she nickers nervously, eyeing the forest with deep suspicion.

The memories of that night are blurry, their escape harried and cloaked in darkness. Time has smudged into a charcoal image.

Jungkook has never been able to find the path back to the village on his own and he has never tried asking Donghyuk for directions in case Seokjin somehow finds out and explodes with fury. Seokjin for one has never harbored the desire to return. Sometimes Jungkook thinks there must be something wrong with him because he seems to be the only one who does.  

And here the opportunities lies, tantalizingly close.

Jungkook looks skyward. The sun is arcing just to the right. He still has a few hours before dusk and that is plenty of time to get in and be out. He may not remember the way here but the path from the fringe of the woods to the center is one firmly imprinted in his mind.

He his lips. “Should I go?” he asks his mare, and she tosses her head, fine strands of her almond mane flying about. Jungkook knows her well. A toss means she doesn’t like it, but she can do it. A straight out refusal is when she bucks and doesn’t let him dismount. Jungkook pats her reassuringly, fingers combing through the tangled hair. He should brush it later when they stop to set up camp.

Jimin always rolls his eyes and complain that Jungkook doesn’t name her. Jungkook doesn’t see reason to. She is his horse and she doesn’t need a label to prove it.

“Let’s make it quick,” he says with a click of his tongue and cracks the reins. His mare starts up a gentle trot, her hooves crunching loudly on the bracken flooring.

The undergrowth grows thicker but she surges through, not protesting when the branches tug at her coat. Jungkook slows her down and takes out a long stick that he keeps handy. He uses it to push aside the bracken and they continue on.

Ten years is a long time. In ten years he has grown eight inches, seen the entire eastern continent and has developed a reputation as a top topographer of Jongno. It means he travels and plots new trails and landmarks on a rough sketch of papyrus that he sources from Jeonju. Upon returning to Jongno, Jungkook will then spend days carefully drawing out the map with a steady hand and a thick ink dipped brush. Donghyuk, the trader who saved them that day ten years ago, will then professionally produce the map and distribute them to whichever client requests for one. They make a good team.

They aren’t the only one.

Seokjin has settled down in the city, helping Donghyuk out with the running of his business now that he has expanded to more than just the trade of goods but the production of them as well. Donghyuk himself has long stopped his travels as a merchant trader and handed the metaphorical and physical reins over to Namjoon who does his job well, bartering and trading and returning with bulging pockets.

Jimin and Taehyung travel as well. Jimin with his itchy feet and need to move acts as a messenger, first and foremost for Donghyuk and his company, but also for anyone who hires him. He travels tirelessly from place to place by horse or foot to deliver or collect and repeat. Taehyung on the other hand has picked up a unique hobby of collecting rare and unusual items which he will then procure and bring back for Donghyuk to appraise.

In ten years they have all changed. For the better, Jungkook thinks.

Sometimes though he’ll wonder that if they have changed that much, then just how much has the village changed? Surely even that place could not be frozen in time.

His mare nickers to bring his attention back to in front of them. She pushes past some bushes, gentle against her thighs and Jungkook’s breath catches in his throat as he recognizes the clearing. The trees look absurdly the same, twisted and wrought in their own strange ways.

Jungkook reins her in and dismounts. He doesn’t tie her to a tree in case she needs to bolt. And if she does, it will only be because the situation is dire. Jungkook trusts his steed to stay loyal.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he murmurs to her, scratching behind her ears. She exhales gentles over his face, bathing him in hot air that smells vaguely like hair and Jungkook makes a face. He lets her go with a gentle rad on her muzzle, knowing that this is just her own way of saying take care. “Be good,” he says and chooses to take only his knife and walking stick from the saddle bag at her side. He doesn’t remove it from her for two reason: the first in case they need to make a quick escape, the second being that he doesn’t plan to stay for long.

Jungkook slips the knife into the holster at his waist and grips the stick tightly as he cautiously starts down the trail.

The trees are the color of the dirt you have to dig to find, dark and rich. Their gnarled shape and leafless branches give way to a more defined path and then the structures of houses and huts.

The village has not changed one bit. The circle of elder cabins remains the same, polished and dark cedar. Jungkook can pick out the apothecary, the blacksmith, the general store. Their signs are still marked with the same symbols, if in need for a bit of a paint job. In the distance, just above the treetop, Jungkook can make out the spire of the church, tall and golden and reflecting the afternoon light.

Jungkook swallows and forces himself to continue forwards.

It’s been ten years, he tells himself. They can’t hurt you now.

Still, he puts one hand to the knife at his hip, the cool touch of metal reassuring.

Only then does it strike Jungkook that the village center is surprisingly quiet for a late Thursday evening. He walks up to the closest house and peers in through the window. His first impression is that either the window glass is extremely murky, or the insides are not lit. All he can see in his watery reflection in the gloomy, so he pulls away and grimaces when his fingers come away from the pane coated in dust.

The next house is no better. Nor the one after that. They are all dark, uninhabited.

Finally he tries opening one of the doors. It is unlocked and swings inwards easily, if slightly stiff as if with disuse. It creaks and Jungkook grumbles to himself that he didn’t think to bring the flashlight in the saddle pocket, trying to not feel unnerved by the silence of a village that had always been bustling in one way or another.

Jungkook is forced to stand there for a moment and squint, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

The first thing that he can make out is the fuzzy outlines of furniture, tables and chairs. He takes a hesitant step inwards and the floorboard squeals audaciously loudly. Jungkook winces and freezes.

When nobody comes out yelling at him for intruding he straightens up and takes another step inwards.

Outside the sky is darkening slightly and it makes it easier to see inside of here. He can pick out another doorknob and he wraps his fingers around it, twisting. To his utter shock it comes right off in his hand. He stares at it and sees the rotten end of the wood. Just how long has this house been in disarray?

Despite his misgivings, the sense that something is seriously wrong here is what drives Jungkook forwards. Knife in hand, he edges into the room, his supple boots treading lightly.

The air is stale and musty, as if this house has been uninhabited for years.

The room he is now in is a bedroom. There is a desk in the corner with an untidy sheaf of paper that looks ragged and hole ridden. Jungkook tries not to match it up to the state of Yoongi’s desk in the days long ago. He looks to his right instead where there is a bed and frowns when he sees something on it, long and dark.

“Hello?” he says, voice raspy and uncomfortably loud. It echoes in the empty room and there is no response.

Jungkook takes another step forwards, his fingers gripping into the knife tightly.

There is definitely something on the bed, around his height and width. Jungkook leans forwards to examine it but it is even darker here in the bedroom, what with a tiny window that does not admit the evening sun’s light. He slides the walking stick out his belt buckle and sinks into a half crouch, prodding at the thing with one end of it. To his horror there is a crunching sound, like floorboards giving way or paper tearing.

What is this thing? Jungkook wonders fearfully, brow dipped. He prods at it again and the same tearing sound ensues. He can’t get anything more from just prodding at it so gingerly Jungkook puts down the stick and slips on his glove, thick and black and useful for touching foreign items. The object is firm at firs touch, but as Jungkook applies pressure he feels it give way and collapse in. Beneath that first layer he can feel something sharper, more solid. His fingers curl around the first of what feels like several and he runs one finger up and down the length. It’s no longer than his hand and thick as two fingers. On a whim he curls his hand around it and grips tightly. When he tugs, it comes loose.

Jungkook holds it up to his eyes and squints  and promptly drops it with a yelp, falling back and onto his . He scurries back, ripping off the glove by the wrist, turning it inside out and throwing it to the ground.

It’s a rib. A ing rib bone.

He stares back at the black shadow on the bed and then like a puzzle piece sliding into place he realizes what it is. A body. In some state of decay where the bones have weakened enough to be removed and skin is but a fragile web. Revulsion builds in his throat and Jungkook has to force down the nausea.

He leaves the glove and stick on the floor as he rushes out the house and back to his horse. She neighs worriedly, muzzle nuzzling his hair worriedly as he frantically rummages through her saddle pack to find the flashlight.

“Stay here,” he orders and runs back to the village, and against all internal screams of not to, back into the house.

The flashlight flickers on and now he can see the house properly. The walls are a moldy yellow-white; the floorboards cracked. Jungkook realizes now how lucky it was that he didn’t step into one of the gaping holes to his left. He would have fallen through and could have injured his leg.

The furniture is dusty. The bedroom is dank.

And on the bed is indeed a body. Its eyes are gaping holes and clothes settle flat against the skeleton, a mocking mimicry of humanity. Jungkook doesn’t recognize who it is but it is clear that he (if the clothes are anything to go by) was a villager once upon a time.

Jungkook backs out of the room and wonders how long has this man has been dead here for.

He checks the next house and finds two bodies there lying side by side in a bed. The longer hair of the second body and the shorter shedding around the first body suggests a couple. The tarnished wedding band, a marriage. Their half collapses skeletons tell Jungkook that even love could not parry death.

Jungkook checks three more houses and whilst some of them are empty, others have bodies in the exact same manner.

Finally the nausea surpasses a threshold and Jungkook falls to his knees at some bush and throws up the contents of the lunch he had on the road earlier, bread and cold meat. It slithers to the grass in a mushy brown pile and Jungkook has to turn his head away from it in case it invokes another wave of nausea.

He’s too busy trying to hold it all in that he doesn’t hear the approach of feet. He only notices the newcomer when the man sinks to his haunches and offers Jungkook water.

Jungkook jumps and nearly falls, but the stranger catches him by the shoulders.

“Are you okay? Did I surprise you? I was just worried.” The stranger has a rumbly voice that reminds him of Namjoon, only it’s not as deep, just, well like the rolling of rocks down a hill, each stacking higher and higher.

Jungkook coughs and takes the water canteen when the stranger offers it again. The first gulp he uses to rinse out the bitter taste of vomit, spitting with relief to the dead grass underfoot. The second he swallows with relief, cool and sweet against the burning sensation in his throa.t

“Better?” the stranger asks, eyes beneath thick black brows worried.

Jungkook nods and hands back the bottle. “Thanks,” he says, voice still a little rough as he wipes away the excess water on his chin.

“Choi Ikje,” the stranger says by way of introduction.  

“Jeon Jungkook,” Jungkook responds, voice hoarse.

“What brings you here?” Ikje asks as he uncaps the bottle and takes a swig of his own, wetting dry lips after he recaps it.

“I was in the area,” Jungkook replies tersely, unsure of what is the right thing to say. One wrong word and this Choi Ikje could turn from friend to foe.

“Really?” Ikje raises his brows. “Not many people know about this village. Only traders and the villagers, except they’re all kind of dead.”

Jungkook chokes. “All of them?”

Ikje nods. “Well at least the ones who stayed. At least half the village up-ed and left. They’re the smart ones. Those who stayed perished.”

“How?” Jungkook croaks. “Why?”

“Disease,” Ikje replies and Jungkook stiffens.

“Aren’t we in danger then?”

Ikje shakes his head. “Transmitted only by direct touch.” A frown flickers over his face. “You didn’t touch any of them did you?”

Jungkook thinks guilty back to the glove and his stick. He’s glad he left both of them behind. “Not directly,” he tells Ikje who then relaxes.

“Good,” he says with relief. “I mean they’ve been dead for so long that it is unlikely for the infectious particles to still be around, but hey, caution.”

“How do you know they died of an illness?” Jungkook asks, voice dry. Ikje hands him the bottle and he takes it gratefully.

“I’m a medic. I can recognize the signs,” he says, eyes sharp as flint. “I should also give you some vaccine later just in case.”

“What’s a medic doing all the way out here?”

Ikje gives him an appraising once over.

“What’s a traveler doing all the way out here?” he shoots back.

“I told you,” Jungkook says evasively. “I was in the area.”

Ikje snorts. “As was I.”

Jungkook gives a little sigh. Their conversation is going in circles. “I used to live here,” he confesses. “In this village.”

Ikje’s eyes widen incrementally. “When?”

Jungkook has to suppress the urge to shrink away from Ikje’s beacon like gaze. “Ten years ago.”

Ikje’s eyes widen even further if that is even possible. “What did you say your name was again?”

Jungkook wriggles uncomfortably. “Jeon Jungkook.”

Ikje snatches at his wrist, his grip surprisingly iron-vice. “Come with me,” he orders, voice tightening.  

“Wait, where? Why?” Jungkook protests, struggling in vail. “My mare!”

“Grab her and come with me,” Ikje says, not letting go.

“Why?” Jungkook twists hard to set his wrist free and rubs at the sore skin there.

“My client,” Ikje says, eyes dark as pitch now. “I want you to meet her.”

“Her?” Jungkook echoes, mystified.

Ikje nods. “Her.”

*

His client is a woman with a waterfall of hair that tumbles down her back, dark as midnight but with streaks of grey threaded through.

“Min-ssi,” Ikje calls out and the woman turns gracefully.

Jungkook feels a blow to his stomach, a round house kick square in the centre. He grinds to a halt and stares to her, recognition clear as day. Her eyes widen and a gasp falls out of .

“Eomma,” Jungkook whispers, unable to help the words that spill out.

“Jungkook,” his mother says softly and there is no mistake. Her face has aged and her eyes possess a weight that never used to be there but there is no denying it. After thirteen years he has found his mother again and Jungkook isn't sure if he is pleased or terrified.

*

Either way Ikje forces him to stay. He pushes Jungkook down next to their fire and practically forces food and water and some pill into his hand. He doesn’t seem perturbed that they are mother and child who have tension crackling within the space between their shoulders. He just busies himself with cooking and lets them be. Jungkook holds his tongue and watches Ikje work, not wanting his eyes to stray or his tongue to slip.

Therefore it is his mother who speaks first. “You’ve grown,” she says and Jungkook can see the way her hand twitches like she wants to reach out to touch him.

He doesn’t let her. Not yet. He doesn’t trust her and her intentions.

“Of course,” he replies, perhaps a tad too curtly. “It’s been thirteen years.”

She winces and he feels bad. But it has been thirteen years.

“I know,” she says, voice as faint as the wind. “Would you believe me if I said I came back for you all?”

Jungkook would. But she’s too late. Ten years too late.

“I thought you were dead,” she says softly, ignorant to his harsh thoughts. “I heard from a traveler that the village had collapsed. He had met some villagers who had fled and asked him to spread the story of disease so that no other trader would go there and get infected. They warned me not to go back, but I had to. They then suggested I take a medic with me, so I hired Ikje here.”  

Ikje hums in acknowledgment and turns over whatever he is roasting on the fire.

“Did you find…” Jungkook gestures with his hands, unsure of what he wants to say.

“Your father?” His mother assumes. “Yes.”

Jungkook swallows. “And he is…”

“Dead,” his mother says shortly and Jungkook cannot discern her tone. It is not sorrow-wrought but neither is it irate. “The fool stayed.” She calls him fool the way a woman scorned would.

“Where was he when you found…him?” Jungkook dares to ask.

His mother is silent for a moment, her face shocking pale against the firelight. The sky is dark now and shadows dance.

“In the back yard,” she says slowly. “I found his bones in front of two crosses. Why a grave is there I could never fathom-“

“Yoongi-hyung’s,” Jungkook says in a wavering voice and he closes his eyes against the tears that threaten.

He can hear the sharp inhale of his mother’s breath. “How do you know?” she whispers, voice drawn tight like a ready gun.  

“Father promised to bury him properly. The church would never allow hyung to be buried in their graveyard so he must have buried him at home. With Hoseok-hyung as well.”

He can see the imprint of their smiles, bright and big, on the back of his eyelids. Fresh grief scratches at the doorway of his heart once again.

You would have thought ten year sufficient time to get over a death, but death it seems never truly leaves someone behind.

“Hoseok?” his mother gasps. “That sweet boy who was in the year below Yoongi at school?”

“Yes, him,” Jungkook whispers and his hands sneaks up his neck to where the pendant is. He clutches at it like a lifeline.

“Why-“

“Yoongi-hyung loved Hoseok. And the church did not condone that. They died trying to escape.”

“When did this happen?” his mother demands, her voice faint. Jungkook opens his eyes and she looks like she herself is about to keel over. Ikje watches her with careful eyes as he continues to turn the meat.

“Ten years ago,” Jungkook croaks. It feels like only yesterday.

“Is that why you left?” she asks and Jungkook nods.

“And why did you come back?”

Jungkook swallows and clutches at the pendant even tighter. “I was in the area,” he says. “And I couldn’t help myself.”

A sob finally wrenches its way free of his mother’s throat and she throws herself across the campsite to embrace him. Jungkook lets her. The time of petty grudges has long passed and she is the last living relative he has.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into his ear and he slowly wraps his arms around her tiny waist. She’s grown thinner, older. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why did you leave?” Jungkook finally summons the courage to ask, thirteen years too late.

“I couldn’t stand the way the church was controlling everyone. The village was bad enough as it was before and this was the last shred. I was born and raised in the city. I loved your father enough to move to this stagnant little village, or at least I thought so. I guess I didn’t love him enough to stay through that.”

“And us?” Jungkook whispers. “Did you not love us enough to take us with you?”

His mother pulls back and there is guilt spread on her face like butter, fresh and gleaming, quick to spoil. “I should have,” she says in a cracking voice. “If I did then maybe Yoongi would still be alive. But I didn’t. I was selfish. I thought you would hold me back. I convinced myself that you would have a better life growing up in a stable environment. I could have never imagined…”

Jungkook closes his eyes to that thought. His brother Yoongi who somewhere deep inside always harbored the small hope that their mother would return. He had never told Jungkook but Jungkook had known from the way he had scorned their father’s name and chosen to take up their mother’s maiden name instead. Min Yoongi¸ he had said to the village elder one day when addressed. My name is Min Yoongi, not Jeon Yoongi. Okay?

“No, you didn’t,” Jungkook says harshly, but he feels entitled to it. His mother is right. One possibility of Yoongi still being alive is one that she has squandered and Jungkook wants to hate her for that. But then it would also mean Yoongi’s chances with Hoseok would have forsaken and that in itself is also a crime.

Jungkook’s façade crumples. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me.”

His mother shakes her head. “You have every right. I should have stayed. Or taken you two. Or convinced your father to leave. He was a good man and I never deserved him, nor you two.”

She sits down on the log next to Jungkook and smoothens her long travelling pants. She is no longer the skirts and dresses mother he once knew, the woman who cooked and cleaned and tucked them to bed on time. His mother has changed and so has he. Perhaps, for the better.

“What will you do now?” she asks after a while when Ikje has rolled out a bedspread and declared himself retired for the night. He’s snoring softly now and it’s just the two of them and the stars and moon above.

“I have a job,” Jungkook tells her, feeling like there is so much he wants to say to her. “I have to return to the city soon.”

His mother hums softly and though their shoulders are not touching he can feel her warmth. “I would like to see my son at work.”  

There’s an unasked question hanging in the air. Jungkook could ignore it now and rebuff her, but he has long forgiven her and so he takes it with two hands and brings it to his chest. “Come with me?” he offers and his mother turns, eyes shining.

Then she notices the pendant hanging at his neck. “You have it?” she says, reaching out to pick it up. She presses the button and it pops open, revealing the broken clock that he has chosen to never get fixed. Inside is the photo of the four of them, faded now, a fairy tale moment from once upon ago.

His mother’s eyes soften as she traces a finger first over Yoongi’s face, then over his father’s.

“Do you want it?” he asks, reaching to unhook it from his neck. It was originally her wedding gift.

His mother however shakes her head. “Keep it,” she says gently and closes the lid, laying it down on his chest again. “It belongs to you now.”

Jungkook nods and grips at it, emotions thick in his throat.

“Ikje needs to make another round of the village tomorrow so he can finish up his medical report for the guild, but we can leave after that,” his mother says into the blue distance.

Jungkook nods and then pauses. Thinks for a moment. “Can we do something else before we leave?” he asks.

She turns. “Whatever you want.”

“Their graves,” Jungkook says, voice thick. “I want to see their graves.”

He knows that his mother knows exactly what he is talking about. “Okay,” she says softly and reaches over to his hair just the way she did when he was a child and in need of a warm hand and hug. She begins humming and Jungkook recognizes it as the lullaby she always used to sing to him before bed. Jungkook closes his eyes and leans into her touch and song and it soothes him.

*

His father’s bones have been covered up with a sheet and they will bury him later, marking his grave with an identical cross. For now though Jungkook’s focus is on the two graves at the back of his house and their beautiful, if a little rough, crosses.

It is clear that it was his father who made them. Cedar smoothened down with a knife and tied together with hemp rope. Carved just above the cross section on one is a simple M.Y, and on the other a J.H. It appears that their father acknowledged Yoongi’s desire to keep a part of their mother tied to him. Maybe somewhere deep inside their father had hoped for her to return as well.

Jungkook sinks to his knees and clasps his hands together, closes his eyes and hopes that wherever they are, they are together.

When he opens his eyes his mother is mirroring his position. She stays on her knees longer than he does though, and Jungkook wonders if she is begging Yoongi for forgiveness. Jungkook knows that that for all of Yoongi’s harsh tongue he would forgive her in a heartbeat.

He turns around to give her a moment’s privacy and is greeted with the sight of his old house. He doesn’t dare to enter, not because the doorway has fallen in or that he can see from here that the staircase is chipped, but because he doesn’t want the memories or material objects in there.

This is enough. To see that Yoongi has been laid to rest. And soon, his father.

Ikje buries their father for them. Jungkook fashions a hasty cross and they pack it in tightly with the earth and wish him to a happier place than here.  

When they leave they go by the east exit which is the fastest route to the main road. It forces them to go by the church and Jungkook wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Perhaps for the holiness and worship of the place to preserve it in perfection?

However the church like everything else in the village is decayed and falling in one itself. The cross still stands tall, but the spire is severely eaten at and half the construct is rubble on the ground. From the rusty glint of the roof Jungkook expects that the cross won’t stay standing for much longer either.

It appears that even religion cannot combat the march of time.

Jungkook briefly wonders what became of the priest. Did he flee at the first signs of disease, or did he stay and succumb to it?

Either way it Jungkook finds that that can remain unanswered.

 He turns, heading back to his mother and Ikje where they stand patiently, allowing him his moment. Ikje gets into the driver’s seat, and his mother slides into the open space next to him. Jungkook saddles up and mounts his mare and with a nod to Ikje they both crack their reins and leave the village and its disarray behind.

He’ll take them to the city and show his mother his job as map plotter and maker. He’ll then introduce her to Seokjin, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung, Donghyuk, the lady at the bakery who always slips him sweet treats when he returns, the old man who always grumbles about how Jungkook must be cheating when he always wins at Yutnori but will challenge him again regardless, the little girl from the flat two floors down who has probably grown two inches in the span of time he has gone and…

Ten years is a long time for many things to change. Some for the worse. Some, as Jungkook glances at his mother, for the better. She smiles and waves back at him and without even thinking Jungkook smiles back. He tries to hide it by turning his face back to the road, embarrassed that he is so pleased at such a small show of attention. His mare nickers and shakes her head, her equivalent to rolling her eyes. He leans forwards and pats her.

“Take me home girl,” he whispers in her ear and she neighs and enters a trot, pulling slightly ahead of the wagon. Jungkook adjusts, gripping with his legs and adapting to the rhythm. He feels the ground fly beneath them as they grow closer to the city and its inhabitants, the people and the place that for all his travelling, has become his home.

Home is such a strange word. He never thought he’d call a place home again, not after the trauma of losing Yoongi and his placehold in the village. But ten years is enough time for him to put the past to rest and to realize that here is a place with friends and family who are not going away, who know and look out for him, who care for him.

It’s not like anything will drastically change around him. The same people will come and go. Jungkook will continue his travels across the world with his mare. And when he comes back to Jongno Seokjin, Namjoon, Jimin and Taehyung will be there to greet him.

But it’s the subtle things that have shifted. His mother for one. Jungkook hopes she will become a permanent fixture in his life. His father, Yoongi, and Hoseok for another. No longer will he wonder what became of them. Closure at last.

He feels unburdened from his regrets and his worries, the hooks that the past has always had dug into him finally loosening and releasing him.

Jungkook may have thought he was free ten years ago, but now he realizes that this is true freedom. Acceptance. Conclusions. Putting the past behind him and the future in front of him. The way it’s meant to be.

He takes a deep breath and inhales the sweet air. His mare whickers, picking up on his buoyant mood. He leans forwards to press his cheek to the warm skin of her neck there and runs a hand idly up and down it, .

In the far distance he can see the smudge of grey that is Jongno.

I’m going home, he thinks, a dozen different people coming to mind, and he grins.

And that's it folks. 

Thanks for reading!