I wish we had met in a different world - I would have loved you with all my heart. Her words hang over them like ominous clouds, between remembering and forgetting, between then and now, between reality and dreams - he had lost her too many times. Though he knows it is but a dream there is something very real about the sinking feeling that curls around him like a frost bite, nipping at the ends of his nerves.

For a moment he is again a king, separated from the very people he wanted to protect, obeyed but not understood, revered but not loved - he still wears a mask, though of a different kind - invisible - to hide his wounds from poking eyes that seek for weakness. He remembers the loneliness of that life - a self imposed penance for not being there when she longed for him. A wolf longing after a moon - untouchable, unattainable. Even if we are from different worlds… Even if we are from different worlds.

Then he is a teenager and she smiles like the autumn sun - warm and bright but mild enough that he could gaze at her. There is a skip in her step, a rainbow in her eyes. Her hands are soft when they smooth over his raw knuckles.

“Do you always fight?” Her tone is half disapproving and half curious, she fawns over him as if he is a kicked puppy.

“No -” his voice is snappy, and he pulls his hand out of her reach and into his pocket. He wonders why she would even bother to clarify that, instead of putting him in the don’t cross list like half of the school.

“Of cause the rest of time you swim.” She nods as if she had understood the complexities of his life.

They sit side by side on a boulder, feet swinging and jackets flapping in the wind. Above them a vast sky is dotted with stars they are supposed to gaze at with the people in the camp below and between them is a silence too comfortable to be broken with words.

“Why did you follow me?” He asks her, trying to sound nonchalant as she pulls her jacket tighter around herself, shivering slightly.

“You know that over there is Pegasus -” she points at a random set of stars and he snatches her hand making her eyes snap back to him. Her fingers are cold and her eyes wide, instead of letting go he stuffs her hand in his pocket, fingers laced through his.

“Yeon Hwa might be watching,” he tells her with a shrug, and his lips tug into a smile when she shakes her head, and settles closer, so that their shoulders brush and leans her head on his shoulder. She looks up at him, her eyes alight with amusement and her grin cheeky at how he had suddenly sat up straighter. From that angle he could count the freckles on her nose, or the hairs on her lashes - his eyes flicker down to her lips and back up into her eyes.

“Yeon Hwa might be watching -” she repeats, a silent laughter in her voice. “But then - didn’t you bring that fate upon yourself by declaring I’m your girlfriend?”

He thinks for a moment, knowing what she meant, and then thinks back to that bullying cousin of hers, who had been dumbstruck for good five minutes until he had dragged her away.

“Do you mind?”

“No,” she still sounds cheeky, but her tone is sleepy. “It’s warmer this way.”

“You didn’t have to follow me all the way up - I’m not going to jump.”

“You didn’t have to scare her - I was not going to cry.”

So takes a deep breath of chilly air and looks down at her.

“Still -” he says. “I’d watch over you. You don’t necessarily have to cry.”

“So would I -” she points out. “You don’t necessarily have to jump.”

“Go Ha Jin, stop turning around my own words.”

“Hwang So, stop asking why I follow you...as if you don’t know.” she mutters the last few words and returns his glare. They watch each other for a moment, before she burst out laughing. “There’s a firefly on your hair!”

He lets her laugh and basks in the warmth of the sound. He yearns to tell her that he did not lie - you are mine - the words dance at the tip of his tongue but he never tells them. Instead it is always her - the friend - the best friend - sweetheart - it is always Ha Jin pushing the limits of their bond to the next - then to the next step.  

And he doesn’t mind, for she is always there. When she is there, he is not burning in jealousy at the affection his mother seemed to have reserved for anyone but him, or worried about the dark looks his brother has reserved for him. He doesn’t care for the hours he spends pushing his limits in the pool until his muscles protest and lungs burn.

Home is a person, he thinks when she hugs him - he is home.

“I didn’t do it,” he mumbles against her neck, her fingers running through his hair when Tae’s ban goes public. “It wasn’t even a complain -”

They are sitting on the floor of the locker room, his forehead on her shoulder, his arms around her middle. He had said it over and over again to many people who either didn’t believe him or didn’t give two hoots, that he has almost lost his voice. Her small hand pats his back.

“I ruined my brother!”

“He will know the truth - it always comes out anyway.” She mutters, trying to smile but looking as pained as he is. “You did the right thing. It saved him from himself. He was losing himself - now that it has stopped he will think with a clear mind and he will understand.”

And he believes her, believes in the confidence she has to do the right thing and lets her lull him into a false sense of hope. And everything begins to go south.

Exposure doesn’t pull Tae out of darkness, instead he crawls further in and as the time goes by, there is hardly any remains of the man he once was. He is but a fallen star and there is a void growing inside him - pent up hatred pointed towards So that keeps growing, growing and poisoning him.

He relives that day when he had almost lost her, and the fear coils around him tight. He is running, breathless - anxious - until taking the elevator to his mother’s office. He can no longer hear her scream, and he prays - desperately - that he doesn’t lose her to the heights of Tae’s delirium.

So thrashes around in his feverish frenzy as the memories from that disastrous day replays in his mind, he is hardly aware of the cold hands on his face, wiping off sweat from his brow or calling his name in soft worried tones.

“Ha Jin!” he croaks from cracked lips, just as he had done when he barged in and found her curled in a corner.

She doesn’t reply, doesn’t rise her head. He can see her trembling, he can see the fresh scratches in her arms. She screams startled when he pulls her into an embrace and thrashes around, hitting him, pushing him until he locks his arms around her, holding her still and presses his lips to her forehead.

“It’s me - me it’s okay.” 

Her struggle subsides slowly and her hands grip fist fulls of his sweater, burrowing into his warmth, snuggling closer. He holds her in his arms, cups her face and makes her look at him. A bruise is blooming on one of her cheeks and tears run freely from her bloodshot eyes.

“Tae?” He asks in whisper.

She doesn’t answer, instead points a shaking hand away from them, towards the windows and as he turns the doors are thrown open again and his mother rushes in, her screech makes his brain curl.

Tae!”

His blood turns ice at the sight of all the spilled blood and his brother laying in that

pool of his own life seeping out of him, surrounded by broken glass. His lashes are still fluttering, wet and sticky, his fingers tremble as his mother kneels mindlessly in the blood as it seeps into the seams of her clothes, stains into her hands.

Ha Jin’s arms tighten around him, as he watches life dimming out of his brother’s eyes, her head is tucked against his neck, her breath harsh - she doesn’t see.

His mother rises like a goddess of war, drenched in blood and fire in her eyes and he shivers, at the raw hatred she radiates.

She drags him up, her nails scraping him like claws, screaming words already lost on him.

“Murderer! Monster!”

On her hand is a sharp edged shred of glass and her mind is lost in grief. Ha Jin struggles to come between them - but there is a power in her grief that cuts him even before the glass had managed to cut.

He pushes her away just as it cuts through his face, the pain blinds him and paralyzes her for a moment with shock. In the next, he is pushing her towards the door, away from his crazed mother, his dying brother and the general hell that is his life.

“Run Ha Jin Run!”

He sees the determination in her eyes as she reaches for him and knows that he cannot make her leave him at the cost of her life.

“So!”

Instead he wraps himself around her and takes the wrath of his mother upon himself. It hurts - it burns and she is drenched in his blood.

“No -” he thinks selfishly as he gathers her close, the loss of blood making his head lighter. “No - I won’t let you take her. Not Ha Jin. Not again.”

Her palms pressed against his cheeks is no part of his nightmare, neither is her lips, grazing his forehead.

“I’m here - I’m here!” she mutters against his ear, no longer the scared girl but in a breathy tone of a tearful woman.

He feels her touch as the fever is broken, feels the weight of her head against his heart, the moisture of her tears seeping into his skin.

“Why do you do this -” he hears her mutter, a sob choking her voice. “Why do you make it so hard for me to turn away?”

The pain in her voice settles over him like a physical pain and he is dying to sooth her, kiss away her tears. But his arms feel like lead, he cannot even gather her close. Then there is the ache in his heart as he feels her tracing his features with her lips, on his forehead, on his eyelids, along the bridge of his nose, the line of his jaw - her kisses are mere whispers, her tears trickling down his face.

It is a farewell without reasons and an apology without words.

I wish we had met in a different world - I would have loved you with all my heart.

“Don’t go” he wants to grab her hand, as it trails down his chest, wipe her tears and hold her as she wept. “You promised -” he wants to say. “Don’t go.”

But she slips away, a mere memory of a dream and she is no longer there when he opens his eyes.