Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first thing Shotaro knows is that his head is pounding. A throbbing pain thuds behind his eyes and through every blood vessel in time with the beating of his heart.

The second thing he knows is that he’s lying on something soft, which is the first time in weeks he’s rested on something comfortable. The seven of them have been travelling in Anton’s antique RIIZER since their last ship exploded on a job, and the beds were worn through decades ago.

The third thing he knows, once he gets past the ringing in his ears, is that it’s very, very quiet. There’s no background buzz of the ship, no atmosphere hum of a planetary protective shield, no electrical interference of nearby devices with Sohee’s cybernetic parts.

It’s too quiet.

The last time he’d experienced this kind of quiet was the cave collapse, when the artefact had exploded in front of him. His hearing had gone for a few days.

Has it happened again?

Or maybe he’s finally dead, his timer run out, and all their searching has been for nothing.

He pries his eyes open, vision blurry. It’s hard to pull in breath.

“Hyung…” a voice sounds distant and vague. He can’t make out all the words. The person attached to the voice comes into his view, a blurred mass, and it’s all too resonant of the collapse, the immediate aftermath, the panic, being reached by Sungchan and Eunseok, only for the energy that had found a home in him to ricochet through each of them and throw them back.

Has he done it again? Has he hurt someone?

The blurry person takes a hold of his arm, and he cries out and pulls back, curling into the bed. He wants to say, don’t touch me, but the sounds don’t come out right.

“It’s me,” the voice says with a waver, and that’s what breaks through his panic. “Taro-hyung, you’re safe. We’re okay. You’re with me.”

It’s Sungchan.

“Can you breathe with me? Breathe in?”

Shotaro tries, because Sungchan has asked, though he’s shaken that Sungchan would try to touch him so brazenly. He blinks away tears, and though his vision is still not quite right, Sungchan’s face comes into view, awkwardly hunched over him from above.

He grasps the soft covers beside him. He’s in a bed—an old fashioned Earth bed.

He breathes in, breathes out. Seeing Sungchan’s face makes things easier—he looks unharmed except for the worry in his features.

“Hi,” Sungchan says softly, when Shotaro has calmed enough that he can meet Sungchan’s gaze. “You with me?”

“Where are we?” he asks, voice small. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you. Do you think you can sit up, first? You should eat.”

Sungchan touches his arm and Shotaro jerks away again. Sungchan puts his hands in the air placatingly, but it’s clear he wasn’t hurt, and Shotaro slowly sits up as the world spins around him.

The dangerous energy that has been humming in his blood for the last few months isn’t there. He can feel the difference so starkly now he has his bearings.

“You fixed me?”

“Nearly,” Sungchan says softly.

After a moment, he reaches out to Sungchan, who helps him stand. Then he comes into Sungchan’s body, and Sungchan wraps his arms around him in an embrace.

Shotaro sinks into the feeling. He’s been too afraid to touch anyone for weeks, but there’s no sign of an energy burst now—Sungchan doesn't even flinch, but pulls him in close, arms cradling him like he’s precious cargo.

“You’re okay,” he says softly, and Shotaro finally relaxes.

“I thought it happened again,” he says quietly, and Sungchan smooths a hand over his back.

“We’re okay. You were the most hurt. Do you think you can walk?”

They waddle together to the door. The room, he’s now noticing, seems to be made out of wood. It has a low ceiling, and the door opens up to a wider room taken straight from a retro-style Earth cabin.

He realises for the first time where he is.

“Why are we here?” he asks, clinging to Sungchan, fearing he’ll lose his balance and crumple into a heap without him. Sungchan holds onto him, reliable and firm, guiding him to the low couch.

“Because,” Sungchan starts, sitting beside him, never letting go of Shotaro’s hand. “You got hurt.”

“What happened?” he asks again.

“You don’t remember? I think you have a concussion.”

“Did I hurt someone?”

“No, you didn’t. You had another energy burst, but this time you were close to a security barrier. All the energy bounced back and there was a little… well…”

“Explosion?”

Sungchan cringes. “You were unconscious on the floor and we had to get out of there. You only blew up a bit of wall, nothing serious. After we escaped, Sohee made a breakthrough. He figured out that other sources of energy and electrical frequencies have been causing your energy to react, so we realised it would be better for you to stay in Wonbin’s pocket dimension until we find a solution. There’s no tech in here, so hopefully you shouldn’t have the whole explosion problem anymore.”

He takes the words in slowly. “So… you’re putting me in here until you guys figure it out?”

“You make it sound like we’re locking you up,” Sungchan says, but they can both hear how feeble it sounds. It is essentially house arrest, quarantined until a cure can be found.

He falls back into the couch, drained. His team are risking their lives to find the other half of the artefact that can hopefully contain the energy inside of Shotaro, and now he can’t even help them.

He wants to argue that they’re stronger as a team, that he should be out there, but he knows in his heart he’s currently more of a hindrance, and a danger, than the leader he’s supposed to be. He also can’t deny the huge relief of not having this dangerous ability inside him threatening to burst out at any moment.

“That makes sense,” he says in a small voice. “I’m going to get lonely without you guys here, though. Wonbin shouldn’t come too often if it tires him.”

Nobody knows how long it might take to find the artefact. They’ve been chasing empty leads for months now.

“The others won’t visit,” Sungchan says, slowly, like he’s not sure how to break the news. “It’s not just that it’s hard for him. Seunghan is worried we’re being tracked by people interested in your energy signature, and Wonbin thinks travelling to the pocket dimension leaves a trace they can follow. It’s to protect all of us, Taro-hyung.”

He bites the inside of his mouth so he doesn’t start crying, because his head hurts too much for that, and he knows Sungchan is right. This is the best solution to protect everyone.

“How long are you staying here?”

Sungchan looks surprised for a moment. “As long as you are.”

His mouth drops open. “What?”

“I volunteered to come in with you to look after you. We weren’t going to leave you on your own with an injury,” Sunghchan says, like it’s obvious.

“It could take months for them to find this artefact…” he starts, trailing off, staring at him.

“Then I’ll be here to keep you entertained,” Sungchan says, patting Shotaro’s knee softly and standing up. “Will you have some soup?”

He nods vaguely, mind racing. “Are you really staying?”

Sungchan smiles at him. “You’re going to be sick of me in no time.”

☄️

Weeks ago, the seven of them were searching for an artefact they’d been sent to find by a shifty buyer with a lot of money. They knew the artefact was dangerous and powerful, but what they didn’t know was that another group of raiders were looking for it at the same time as them.

They clashed, and shooting broke out. That was fine—their team was sent on this mission for a reason, and between Shotaro’s pinpoint shooting accuracy and Sohee’s defensive tech, they were hardly even inconvenienced by the raiders. But the cave where the artefact was hidden wasn’t so lucky.

It collapsed right onto the raiders and the artefact, shattering it into pieces and releasing whatever force was inside of it. Shotaro received the brunt of the ensuing energy wave. It knocked him right off his feet, hard into the ground.

When the dust cleared and his friends came to check on him, he could feel the buzz of energy in his veins, though he couldn’t understand the feeling at the time. The energy he absorbed had released a second shockwave when they touched him, knocking them off their feet.

Over the next few days, things changed. They discovered new abilities for each of them, some so striking they’d hardly been upset about the loss of the client’s fee. Shotaro’s energy had stabilised, and they’d thought everyone would be okay—that maybe the new abilities were the real payoff for their work.

But Shotaro’s ability to release energy hadn’t been sustainable, and stabilised wasn’t the right word. Adjusted, maybe, at first. Then, it had only grown.

The build up had never stopped. He became an endless energy supply, but an imperfect conduit.

Now, it seems as though Sohee’s theory was correct, and his surroundings were the real problem all along. The energy isn’t buzzing under his skin in this place, but sitting comfortably. With no interference, it feels like he could almost live with it. It’s an incredible comfort to have the sense of touch back, to know Sungchan can reach out to him again and neither of them will come away harmed.

But as nice as it is, he can’t live in Wonbin’s pocket dimension forever.

“Look at this,” Sungchan calls to him, leading the way around the cabin.

The cabin is situated at the bottom of a lush grassy slope, with mountains running along the left side of the house as far as the eye can see. To the right is a tall forest, quiet and serene.

Shotaro follows him around to the back of the house, where there’s a vegetable patch stretching back far and wide, with neat rows of all kinds of crops in bloom.

“At least we won’t go hungry.”

In the weeks since Wonbin discovered his pocket dimension, they’ve each visited a couple of times, and none of them ever seen another soul living here. But this place is also slightly different every time they come back. Shotaro is of the belief it isn’t a pocket dimension at all—maybe something closer to an afterlife, or a liminal space, since it seems to be set up to cater for Wonbin’s every whim and need.

He doesn’t voice that now. The last thing they need in their minds is that they’re stuck in an afterlife.

It’s strange to be somewhere so peaceful. Life in the interconnected solar systems is always noisy, the spaceships or artificial atmospheres protecting them from the vastness of space always buzzing in the background. He’s rarely been to planets that haven’t yet had a technological revolution, and even they weren’t completely quiet like this.

Shotaro lies on the grass as Sungchan wanders between the rows of crops, picking some vegetables out to make them some food.

The first time Wonbin figured out his newfound ability, he’d been standing on the deck one second, simply gone the next. They’d all guessed his ability to be teleportation at first, which Eunseok had discovered was his the day before. Then they considered invisibility when he didn’t come back right away.

As time continued on with Wonbin in sight, they did a slightly frantic search of the ship, then began to fear he’d teleported into the deadly expanse of space.

When he’d popped back, he was glowing with joy like Shotaro had never seen before. One by one, he’d taken them with him to visit the pocket dimension.

This place became Wonbin’s own private world and endless personal inventory. His ability was so charming, it somewhat overshadowed Sohee’s telekinesis discovery the following day.

Shotaro stares up at the endless, pale blue sky now, the odd fluffy white cloud floating past. His colony comes from a planet of year-round winter, so the mild weather here is a luxury to him. To Wonbin, who was raised on an international space station, it’s probably his idea of luxury too. It’s how he imagines Earth was in its prime, the blue skies of old stories, the stunning landscapes and greenery. Of all the places to be quarantined, there are much worse places to wait out his days.

☄️

For the first few days they’re at the cabin he feels nauseous and dizzy, but the symptoms slowly subside. It helps that, as they settle in, his fear of hurting Sungchan with a random burst of energy at any given moment subsides. The constant alertness he’s lived with for the past couple of months dissipates, allowing him to actually rest and recover.

They explore every nook and cranny of the cabin in those first few days. It’s a little bit different each day—sometimes, the small kitchen has tins of food that can be heated over the open fireplace. Other days, a cupboard crammed full of stuff appears between the bedroom and kitchen: Badminton rackets, knitting needles, notepads and colouring pens, books Wonbin has mentioned reading in the last few months.

They hold onto some things so they don’t disappear again. Though Shotaro isn’t quite up to badminton yet, he does start learning to knit in the endless free time they now have.

He catches Sungchan sitting outside and looking up at the mountains often. He likes watching the sunset behind them in the evenings, the pink and purple streaked sky keeping his attention for long, slow hours. Shotaro often joins him.

It’s not been the easiest, lately, to sit and talk with Sungchan or any of the guys. Every conversation was about finding the artefact, and Shotaro never wanted to sit too close. But here, he finally feels safe. He would’ve had an incident by now if Sohee’s theory had been wrong, and Sohee is rarely wrong about things like this.

“Do you want to explore them?” he asks one evening. A bench had appeared in front of the house today to accommodate their routine of sitting outside in the evenings, but they’d both still chosen to lie on the grass.

“Hm?”

“The mountains,” he says, eyes cast over the slope of the one closest to them, tracking the distance from the bottom to the top. “Is that why you’re always looking at them?”

“Not really. Maybe if we had the ship, but it’s too far on foot. I do want to go into the trees sometime, but I’m also kind of scared of what we might find.”

“What, you think there might be monsters in here?”

“I don’t think perfect things exist. This place seems a bit too good to be true so far.”

“I still don’t think it’s a pocket dimension. I think we’re in Wonbin’s dreams.”

“You think? Shouldn’t we see him, then, when he sleeps?”

“Maybe not. What if this is just one corner of a huge world where all his dreams happen? He could be on the other side of those mountains fighting villains and conquering the world.”

Sungchan chuckles. “Maybe we shouldn’t explore the forest, then. I wouldn’t like to see what’s going on in his mind any more than this.”

“Let’s not push the boundaries too much,” he agrees. “I can’t believe being here is actually helping. I feel normal again for the first time in ages.”

“Yeah?”

“Other than the dizziness, yeah. Even that’s going now.”

“Good. I was really scared when you hurt yourself.”

He glances over at Sungchan, only to find he’s already looking Shotaro’s way. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I haven’t stopped being scared ever since the artefact exploded and I saw you go down.”

Shotaro looks back at the mountains, swallowing. “I’ve been scared, too. Even if we can’t find the other half of the artefact, at least we bought a bit more time by coming here.”

“We’re going to find it,” Sungchan says, and it’s the most assured he’s sounded in weeks. “Trust in the others, they know how important this is. And they’re good. They can do this.”

“Right,” he says softly. He does trust them to do everything they can for him—for most of them, this team is the closest thing they have to family. But some things in the universe are simply impossible, no matter how much they want to achieve them. “Sungchan-ie?”

“Yes?”

“Have you been sleeping on the couch?”

“Yes. I don’t know why the cabin won’t give me another room, but I couldn’t find anywhere better.”

Shotaro is quiet for a long moment, heart pounding. “Do you want to share the bed with me?”

There are a lot of reasons he shouldn’t offer this. For one, he’s throwing caution to the wind. While he might feel physically different, it’s no assurance his power problem is completely gone.

For two, things between him and Sungchan have been awkward lately, and they haven’t found the right time to properly talk about it. But he’s had the last few days to think about things, and the space to calm down and think rationally.

There’s a real possibility the others won’t find the artefact. Or they will, and it won’t work. Or trying to harness it does irreversible damage, like the other half had.

If he doesn’t have much longer to live—or if he’s now fated to spend the rest of his days in Wonbin’s pocket dimension—he doesn’t want to leave things on bad terms with Sungchan for much longer.

“Are you sure?” Sungchan asks, after a pause. Their hug on the first day they arrived is the most they’ve touched each other in a long time. It’s been hard, because Sungchan is a tactile person, and even Shotaro has felt lonely and starved of affection while trying to keep his distance from the rest of the team.

Maybe that’s part of the reason he’s suggesting this. He misses his best friend.

“Yeah, if you want to. While we're here, I think it will be okay.”

He looks over at Sungchan. His eyes are bright, smile on his face like Shotaro just announced his birthday had come twice this year.

“You must be feeling better if you want to offer that.”

“Your body is going to hurt if you sleep on the couch every night,” he mumbles, but he can’t help but soften at the bright look in Sungchan’s eyes.

“I missed you,” Sungchan says, reaching out to touch Shotaro’s chin briefly, like he wants to make contact but is suddenly overwhelmed with the options of where to touch.

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“You know what I mean. You belong like this—happy, safe, somewhere beautiful. It was hard, seeing you suffer alone.”

The sun disappears fully behind the mountain at that moment, the last golden rays of light retreating and leaving the air cool, light dim.

“I didn’t like being alone either,” he admits. “But it was hard to see another way.”

“We’re here now,” Sungchan says softly. “You don’t have to be alone again. We’re going to make this work, I promise.”

☄️

A week passes, and then two. Naturally, they set up projects and start new hobbies to pass the time between making meals and sleeping and not doing a whole deal else.

By night, they share the bed, and sleep soundly without any incidents. Shotaro has bad dreams sometimes, wakes up drenched in sweat, but does a good job of keeping it to himself. By day, Shotaro teaches Sungchan to knit, and Sungchan sets about planting flowers in the empty lot of earth that recently appeared beside the cabin.

It’s idyllic. But the more time that passes, the guiltier he feels.

He knows how a typical job goes. Finding artefacts like the one that had ruined his life is not a walk in the park. There will be shifty meetings in back alleys, fights in high-security buildings, stealing classified documents, hacking secure servers, and chases by intergalactic forces across galaxies if they’re spotted doing any of the above.

His friends are risking their lives every day to try and find something that might help him. There’s no way for him to support them from here, nor even to know if they’re okay. Feeling safe and relaxed comes with a dark shadow of shame he can’t shake.

“Did you pick a deadline with the others?”

Sungchan looks up from where he’s working hard at carving a simple plaque out of wood. So far, it looks like a wonky bit of firewood. “Huh?”

“If they can’t find it, you should have agreed on a time when they’d come to get you out. You agreed no visits until they find the artefact, but what if they can’t find it at all?”

“They’ll find it,” Sungchan says simply, and goes back to his carving.

He swallows his apprehension, and tries to focus on his knitting design. He messes up the next stitch, and fiddles with the needles half-heartedly.

“Taro-hyung,” Sungchan says, after a slightly tense silence has stretched between them. “You’re not a burden to us. You know that, right? You’re worth all this work.”

He hesitates to answer. It’s hard to word his feelings in a way to avoid sounding like he doesn’t value his own life. It’s not that—he wants to live. He just couldn’t live with himself if one of them got hurt or killed looking for this thing.

But he can’t hide from Sungchan. They’ve known each other the longest, and he’s been good at reading Shotaro from the start.

“After the artefact explosion,” he says instead, picking at the pile of wool beside him, “I was so excited. After, you know, we thought the worst bit was out of the way, I was recovering and everyone was discovering what they could do… I thought, we’ll be invincible like this. It made us stronger, so no one could take us away from each other again. I thought that maybe we could even stop running around for other people and make an honest way for ourselves.”

His eyes are wet. He wipes at them before tears can fall. “Now we’re in a worse place than ever. If anything happens to one of them because of this… Chan-ah, have you thought that, if anything happens to Wonbin, we’ll be stuck in here? We can’t get out without him. We might never see them again—and we’ll never know—”

Sungchan abandons his carving tools and moves over to sit beside him. He reaches out to wipe a stray tear from Shotaro’s cheek, then gently pulls him in for a hug.

“You need to stop thinking like this,” he says, cradling the back of Shotaro’s head. “It’s not going to help anything.”

“How can I stop? It’s all because of me.”

“They’re probably thinking the same thing out there,” Sungchan says, leaning out and looking at him intently. “Eunseok was the one who wanted to take the job in the first place. He blames himself, I can tell. Wonbin was supposed to be at your side when the artefact exploded, but he wasn’t. Things might’ve been different if he was. Then Sohee, when he realised that technological interference was what’s been triggering your energy bursts… that means that his cybernetics were part of the problem, and it took him months to realise.”

“None of that was their fault. You can never escape technology in any advanced solar system, and we would never have known in the first place if it weren’t for him—”

“I know,” Sungchan says, agreeable. “If you were with them right now, you’d tell them to put all that behind them and focus on the job, right? What’s done is done, and the important thing is focusing on the new goal.”

That does sound like him. It’s been hard to keep his head and be a good leader amidst all this—if anything, Sungchan has taken the reins recently. “You actually listen to me.”

He's joking, but Sungchan says, with absolute resolution, “Of course I do. We all do. So the best thing you can do to help them, and help yourself, is follow your own advice. Let’s think about what we’ll do when we get out of this cabin and back into the real world.”

Shotaro can’t dare give himself such high hopes.

Like he reads Shotaro’s mind, Sungchan adds. “And hey, worse case scenario, we’re building ourselves a nice home here.”

Shotaro scoffs. “You can’t stay here the rest of your life.”

“I could do it with you,” Sungchan says, like he really means it.

Shotaro and Sungchan have lived and worked together longer than they’ve known anyone else on the RIIZEr. But, he realises for the first time, they’ve never lived together like this before. Alone, with no work to do, nobody else in their periphery.

Nothing to distract from the feeling of wanting something he’s not sure he can have.

He half-heartedly punches Sungchan’s arm, because he’s not sure how else to respond. Then he laughs, tension leaving his body.

Sungchan always knows how to disarm him. It’s a good thing they’ve always been on the same side.

“I’m sorry. I won’t talk like that again. I know our team is good. I know I can trust them.”

“That’s right,” Sungchan says softly, taking Shotaro’s hand to squeeze it briefly. He does that whenever he can now, but there’s still a slight hesitation in it, like Shotaro rejecting his touch would be the worst possible scenario and he has to consider that first. But he always reaches out anyway. “We’ve done enough of being afraid. The worst part of all this is over now, we’ve found a place that is safe, and the team is on track to finding a solution. So let’s try not to wallow while we’re here, because we might never get a vacation like this again.”

“When did you get so wise?”

Sungchan’s face brightens. “I’ve been listening to you, that’s all.”

“Don’t flatter me,” he says, but there’s a real smile on his face for the first time in a long time.

Sungchan watches him with warm eyes, knuckles brushing Shotaro’s cheek. “I’ve missed seeing you smile.”

Shotaro ducks his head. “I’ve missed you,” he admits, echoing Sungchan’s sentiment from that night on the grass. He hadn’t realised just how much he missed Sungchan until he was given back all this time with him. Easy companionship; the breathing space to talk about everything under the sun, and nothing that really matters. To simply exist beside each other in comfort and safety.

Sungchan reaches up to brush a tuft of Shotaro’s hair away from his face. They’re close enough that Shotaro can feel his body heat.

“Lucky you, then. Stuck here with me.”

“I think you’re stuck here with me.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“You’re going to get sick of me.”

“Nah. That’s never gonna happen. We could be stuck here together until the end of our lives, and I wouldn’t get sick of you, Hyung.”

He runs his hand down Shotaro’s arm and smiles. There’s a long beat before he stands up to move away, going back over to his misshapen pet project.

Shotaro feels a little dizzy, but his concussion symptoms have been completely gone for days now.

“Do you want me to make you something?” Sungchan asks, sitting down and frowning at his plaque, like he’s just now realising it’s a lost cause. “I could try and make a plate.”

“I think I might get to eat more splinters than food if you do that,” Shotaro says, and laughs when Sungchan puts his hands on his hips and purses his lips.

“I’m going to make you one now just to prove you wrong!”

“Please, have mercy on me!”

“No, you’ve brought this on yourself,” he says, but he can’t even pretend to sound offended. He’s as giddy as Shotaro is, their genuine laughter filling the room, suddenly making things feel actually… okay.

Not like they’re stuck in an empty prison waiting for their sentence. More, as Sungchan said, like they’ve taken a break together on some distant planet, without a care in the world for a little while.

They always said they’d do this together at some point. Even if this isn’t the most ideal scenario… well. He might as well enjoy it while they have it.

☄️

They first realised Shotaro’s power wasn’t going to settle down about a week after the initial explosion.

They were parked on a desolate desert planet to test Seunghan’s powers with the vast rock formations there. He was having trouble controlling his new ability, which was creating problems, as his ability affected the density of matter. He kept walking through walls instead of bumping into them and dropping objects through surfaces instead of placing them down. Wonbin was getting worried that he was one day just going to fall through the floor of the RIIZEr and become an instant victim to the unforgiving vacuum of deep space.

Anton, too, hadn’t much space to test out his enhanced speed and strength, and was freely doing laps around the desert at a distance.

At the time, Shotaro was feeling pent up and overstimulated, and he was struggling to let out his tension. He’d gone running too while the team had practiced, because his ability didn’t particularly do much when there was nothing to power up. But it hadn’t helped—by the time they retreated back to the RIIZEr, he was even more worked up than before.

“Hyung,” Sungchan called to him, jogging after him down the narrow hallway of the ship. “Do you think we should cloak the ship for tonight? I know we haven’t seen anyone, but Sohee isn’t actually sure if this planet is abandoned or not.”

“Yeah, better to be safe.” He was still breathing heavily, and it was starting to feel like it wasn’t just from the run. It was stifling, like every cell in his body was ringing out for release, but he didn’t know what to do to make it better.

“Are you okay?” Sungchan said, but Shotaro’s hearing was muffled, and it was hard to make out the words. He couldn’t catch his breath, and he shook his head, hands on his knees as he stumbled to the side.

Sungchan shouted for someone. He couldn’t hear who. The noise in his head was overwhelming—he couldn’t breathe—he couldn’t see…

Then, Sungchan touched him. He knew that, because the contact felt all-encompassing. It was just a hand on his arm, but for a moment, his world narrowed down to that single touch.

He’d given off sparks before. Given the others small shocks, accidentally overloaded pieces of tech. They thought it was a learning curve in controlling his ability.

The eruption that followed was like the initial explosion all over again. He could feel the energy escaping him through Sungchan, flinging him back with a deadly charge.

Shotaro fell to his hands and knees, senses coming back to him. He could breathe again. The voices of his team were returning.

It was not a pleasant sound.

Wonbin was a few feet down the hallway, kneeling over who he belatedly realised was Sungchan. He was screaming out for Sohee, who came skidding down the hallway from the other end. From the bathroom behind Shotaro, Eunseok appeared with urgency.

“Don’t touch him!” Wonbin shouted, pointing at Shotaro.

Shotaro felt that like a slap to the face. But the pieces were coming together—he realised what he’d done to Sungchan all at once, and that horror far overshadowed Wonbin’s fear.

“Is he okay?” he asked, with foolish hope.

He knew Sungchan wasn’t okay. Wonbin wouldn’t look so afraid if Sungchan was anywhere close to okay.

Sohee skidded down to Sungchan’s other side. Without a word, he put his cybernetic hand to Sungchan’s chest.

A short, single charge buzzed through his hand to Sungchan’s chest. Shotaro felt like he was going to throw up.

“Again,” Wonbin said, and Shotaro dazedly got to his feet as Sohee raised his hand and reapplied it to Sungchan’s chest.

Seunghan was watching from the ship’s entranceway as Shotaro stumbled over to see better, careful not to touch anyone.

Sungchan’s eyes were half-lidded, blank. His chest wasn’t rising.

The second pulse did nothing.

Shotaro fell into the wall and slid down it. His hands were shaking. He did that.

He killed Sungchan.

On the third pulse, Sungchan pulled in a trembling, choked breath of air. Wonbin let out a sound that Shotaro wouldn’t forget for a long time.

At that moment, Anton entered the ship behind Seunghan, only just back from his run. Casting his eye over the group, he’d asked, “What happened?”

No one knew what to say.

None of them touched Shotaro after that, but they couldn’t coax him to move with his words, not even Sungchan. He waited until they all cleared out, shaking and clutching his knees as he tried to stand.

Sometime in the early hours of the following morning, he came to the conclusion he had to leave.

They all knew now that there was something wrong with him. He was a threat to the group if he stayed.

If he nearly killed Sungchan, no one was safe.

He packed a bag and picked out enough food supplies to last him a few days. He would take the escape pod, land it on the other side of the planet, and figure out what the fuck to do from there.

All he knew was that he had to get away.

Approaching the escape pod in the dim light of the powered-down RIIZEr, he nearly tripped into a wall when he found someone waiting at the escape pod door.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, and Sungchan stood up slowly, carefully. His face came into view, set and firm.

“I could ask you the same question, but I think I already know.”

Shotaro felt suffocated again. Not by the energy this time—by the weight of Sungchan’s look, by the guilt that pulsed through him every second he looked at his face.

“I have to go.”

“No. You stay with us, and we figure this out together.”

“I can’t. Think about it—it’s not worth it.”

“You’re not leaving us. You’re not leaving me. If you go, I’m coming with you.”

“Don’t—” he started, but his words were stolen from him, anxiety and stress breaking and giving way to a pit of despair. “Please, let me go.”

“No,” Sungchan said, softer, but resolute. “We’re going to fix it. We can’t do that if you go.”

Shotaro knew he would not dare physically move Sungchan out of the way. He also knew that Sungchan would stay there all night if he had to, flashing his shiny doe eyes at Shotaro and staying firm in his decision.

So that had been that. Shotaro turned around and went back to his room, vision blurred with tears.

He hadn’t slept that night, nor the night after. The others took the lead on looking up a solution, and by the time Shotaro had managed to sleep and wake up with some of his wits about him, they’d already begun tracking down their first lead for the second artefact.

It was the first time in knowing each other that he and Sungchan had seriously disagreed. Neither of them were in the place to make it a real falling out, but nor were they in a state to talk about it afterwards. They hadn’t addressed it since, too driven by the job, not enough time to slow down and talk.

They both knew why they made the choices they had that night. It wasn’t that there was anything left to say—Sungchan had worked hard to remind Shotaro that his crew loved and valued him since the two of them had arrived at the cabin.

But the argument is still on their minds. Touch is still not coming without hesitation, because Shotaro hadn’t touched anything even vaguely sentient since he stopped Sungchan’s heart in that hallway. Now, touch reminds them both of the pain they’ve been through, of being driven apart by living with so much risk.

It’s getting easier. The pocket dimension gives them a sense of safety that is not only a huge relief from the last few months of uncertainty, but also a security he thinks they’ve never had before. This amount of space and attention only for each other is something of a gift.

But it doesn’t make it any easier to forget.

☄️

He wakes up one night crying and curled up in the bed, covers kicked off him, Sungchan’s worried voice in his ear.

“You’re okay, Taro-hyung. We’re okay. Please wake up.”

Images plague his mind of a dim corridor and a body on the floor.

Sungchan is cradling him from behind, one hand running up and down his arm, front pressed against Shotaro’s back. The touch grounds him, but fear and grief still wracks his body.

Between Sungchan’s steady soothing voice and the warm, gentle touches, Shotaro takes some long breaths and comes back to the dark bedroom.

“You with me?” Sungchan murmurs, his forehead pressed against the back of Shotaro’s neck.

“Yeah,” he sniffles, and reaches around to place a hand over Sungchan’s. Sungchan responds by wrapping his arms further around Shotaro, and his tension finally releases as he relaxes into the embrace. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” Sungchan’s voice is soft, rumbling through Shotaro’s chest. “Will you tell me what your nightmares are about?”

He sighs, feeling a stray tear drip into his pillow. “You noticed?”

“Of course. You don’t have to say, but maybe it could help.”

He’s quiet for a long minute, simply breathing, embracing the comfort of Sungchan’s hold. “They’re about you.”

Sungchan hums like he’s not surprised. “When my heart stopped?”

“When I killed you,” he corrects.

Sungchan exhales air onto the back of his neck. “You know I don’t blame you. And I’m not afraid of you.”

“Everyone else was. You should’ve been. We saw you die.”

“I know,” Sungchan says softly. “But it was only for a minute. I’m fine now, and you’re okay too.”

He shifts carefully in the bed, and Sungchan loosens his hold so Shotaro can turn to face him.

When he’s turned around, he can only faintly see Sungchan’s face in the dim room. But his eyes shine in the little light there is, and his thumb sweeps across Shotaro’s cheekbone.

“You can’t blame me for being terrified.”

“No,” Sungchan agrees. “But I still hate to see it.”

“I can’t just pretend that it never happened. I’ve spent the last two months feeling like a dangerous thing, like I was risking everyone’s lives just by existing. And it was only getting worse over time.”

“Not for much longer,” Sungchan says, hushed.

Shotaro doesn’t say anything for a long while, but breathes slowly, watching Sungchan’s chest rise and fall.

“Can I see the scar?”

Sungchan looks at him for a moment. Then he sits up in the bed, and pulls his t-shirt over his head.

Shotaro slides out of the bed to open the curtains. Moonlight streaks in, revealing the scar that now covers Sungchan’s left shoulder and bicep, reaching down to his chest.

It’s a striking sight. Red jagged lines like pathways of electricity stand stark in his skin, especially against the pale light. Shotaro has caught glimpses of it before, but hasn’t been able to face it completely yet.

He sits back down the bed beside him, resting a shaking hand on Sungchan’s bare shoulder.

“I’ve never been more scared than when I realised what I’d done,” he whispers. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself… if…”

“But you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

Sungchan’s eyes are round and sad. “I don’t even remember it, you know. What I remember most is waking up and seeing the terror on your face. Hearing what had happened, then knowing what you would do… and that there would be no way for me to comfort you.”

It’s almost hard to believe him—that the worst part of dying was Shotaro seeing it. Except that it’s Sungchan. Shotaro knows, with certainty, that he does mean it.

“I never wanted to leave you guys,” he says, almost a whisper. “But I knew you wouldn’t leave me, and I couldn’t stand the thought of staying and hurting any of you again.”

“And I didn’t want to make that night harder for you.” Sungchan’s face is open, watching Shotaro’s. “But I knew there was no way I could let you go alone.”

“I know.”

Sungchan leans over, resting his chin on Shotaro’s shoulder as they both look out at the window. The nights here are bright, with stars like gems in a deep blanket of sky. The moon is large, pale white, with a few particularly large stars circling it.

It makes the skyline look silvery, glowing in the night.

“It was scary when you were first hit,” Sungchan says into the absolute quiet. “It’s never easy seeing any of us go down in a fight. But I was the most terrified the last time you overloaded. When I heard the wall explode, you were so close to it, and it was the biggest energy surge you’ve had yet. Because I kept thinking, all along, that at some point your energy would fry you too. At some point, it would be too much, and we might be too late to fix it. As hard as we’ve been trying, it felt like we couldn’t work fast enough. I thought that moment might be it. It was so scary. I was grabbing you, checking for your pulse, before I could even pause to think.”

He leans back on one hand on the bed, moving away enough that Shotaro can turn his head to look at him again.

“Eunseok was the one who suggested the pocket dimension, after Sohee realised what the problem was. I was panicked, I couldn’t think straight, because you weren’t waking up… and no one argued when I said I was coming with you. They agreed, told me they could figure it out between them. Even though they’ve always looked to us, our experience, to guide them as a team.

“Really, I got the easy job. Taking care of you is as natural as breathing to me. Seeing you happy and healthy again is all I wanted. I’m the one who should be feeling guilty, you know, for leaving them out there. I do, a bit. But mostly, I’m so fucking glad to be in here with you, knowing you’re okay. I don’t know if I could carry on with that fear. I know it’s not easy, waiting here like this, not knowing what’s going on out there… but I’m so grateful every day we found this way to make things okay, buy us more time.”

Shotaro swallows down the weight of Sungchan’s love with difficulty. His eyes feel hot, but the tension in his chest is unwinding, at last, threatening to release every last unsaid thing ever held between them.

“I love you,” he says softly. “You know I never wanted to hurt you, right?”

Sungchan’s eyes soften, smiling. “Of course I know. I love you too, and I never wanted to scare you.”

He chokes on a laugh. “Only you would apologise for dying.”

“It was careless of me,” Sungchan says, and Shotaro hits him, but can’t suppress a giggle.

“I can’t believe you!”

“Yeah, you can,” Sungchan grins. “Hey, can I show you something?”

“What is it?”

“Come on.”

Sungchan pulls his shirt back over his head, and takes Shotaro’s hand to drag him up from the bed and out of the room.

He leads them outside the cabin, barefoot in the soft grass, but the air is as mild and comfortable as always. They’ve laid out here plenty to watch the stars, especially on bad days when Shotaro’s thoughts crowd his head and make it hard to sleep. It’s no less beautiful now to watch the stars glow, the faint colours of aurora borealis streaking above the mountains.

Sungchan sits cross-legged on the grass, so Shotaro follows his lead, hugging his knees.

“I’ve been practicing,” is all he says, before looking out to the grassy clearing ahead of them, where the slope up to the mountains begins.

When Sungchan’s ability first appeared, it seemed to be the strangest of them all. His power to create illusions began with noises for buttons that hadn’t been pressed, or odd words they all heard but no one spoke aloud. Then came visions of cartoon characters standing at their deck window or walking across rooms for brief seconds. Once Anton made the connection to the comic books Sungchan likes to read, they realised they were projections from his mind.

They hadn’t seen much of his ability after that—it’s Sungchan’s style to work on these things in private. Even here, with nowhere to go and only the two of them around, Shotaro hasn’t caught a glimpse of Sungchan’s ability at all since arriving.

Now, it takes his breath away.

A body of water ripples into his vision, a large pond that covers the grassy slope with an impossible bend of gravity. The stars above pop into the reflection of the water one by one, making it glitter under the night sky.

A small family of frogs appear on the bank closest to them, hopping along in the mud and ribbeting. Beautiful flowers of all kinds grow, leisurely curling up into being.

Though he’d never taken Sungchan to his home colony—not been back himself since he left to join the ENSEAT cruiser team, where he’d first met Sungchan—they’ve told each other enough stories about their home planets.

His favourite place to go on the colony was the nature reserve. It was restricted to well-paying visitors only, so a visit meant sneaking in and putting his neck on the line for a chance to stand in the presence of fresh pine trees, the beauty of the flowers in the carefully preserved glade, and the soft trickle of the pond that fed the ecosystem there.

It was where he first learned his love of the heist, sneaking into the reserve and watching the frogs jump around without a care in the world. It was where he first decided he was going to leave the colony and see the beauty of the wider universe, whatever it took.

Sungchan has no way of knowing what that reserve looked like, but the similarity of the vision he’s created is striking. Shotaro feels sixteen again, endlessly wondering what the universe might hold for him outside of his home colony.

He looks over at Sungchan, whose eyes reflect the twinkle of the night sky above.

Shotaro has visited many places since leaving his colony all those years ago. But as it turned out, the sights he’s seen aren’t the main treasure of travelling the universe. Nothing has stayed with him like the people he found along the way; nothing matters as much as the love he found for the first time in the people who chose him, even despite all the pain and damage he’s caused.

“What do you think?” Sungchan asks, and Shotaro realises his lips are parted in surprise.

“It’s incredible,” he breathes. “When have you been working on this?”

“Whenever I was bored,” Sungchan says, but the gleam in his eyes tells Shotaro he’s underplaying it. Based on what he remembers of Sungchan’s power when it first appeared, he’s come leaps and bounds since.

Has he been working on this vision specifically? For Shotaro?

“You’re amazing,” he says, reaching out to the closest flower, multicoloured with huge, waving petals. His fingers pass right through it, but it looks as solid as anything else around them. “Did you do all this for me?”

“Mostly to impress you,” he admits, and Shotaro breaks into a smile. He can’t help it—Sungchan’s affection is rolling off him in waves.

It’s incredible that Sungchan can still make him feel this loved, despite everything.

“I’m impressed,” he says, and watches as Sungchan’s bright, warm eyes roam his face. “I’m always impressed when it comes to you, though.”

Sungchan is watching him intently. A brief pause hangs between them. “Hyung…I don’t know if this is a good time. But I want to tell you something.”

“You can tell me anything.” Shotaro’s breath catches, like he already knows what he’s going to say.

“You… you’re really special to me. I’ve felt that way for a while. But I didn’t know how to say it, or if you would feel the same. I just want you to know, even if… even if it’s too much, I need you to know how much I care about you.”

He can’t tamper down the smile on his face. “Sungchan-ie. You are my person. I love our crew, but you’ve always been my person. I never doubted that.”

Though they’ve never said this to one another, it’s not that he’s surprised by Sungchan’s confession. He’s not even scared.

“I love you,” Sungchan says, steadfast, certain. “I wanted to wait until things were fixed to say something, so that maybe we could have a chance of working on… on a relationship, if you want that too. But I don’t want to wait anymore. We’ve been hit by so many close calls lately, I didn’t want to wait any longer to tell you.”

He gets it. While his future is still uncertain, there’s no better time to make everything right than now. “I don’t want to wait either. I love you, Sungchan-ah. There’s no one else I’d rather be stuck here with.”

“Really?”

“I haven’t felt about anyone the way I feel about you. You and me… we’re something different. I’ve always felt like that.”

Sungchan’s beaming smile shines in the dark. “Can I kiss you?”

“Kiss me,” he says, and Sungchan leans in, captures Shotaro’s mouth in a precious press of lips, hand coming to the small of his back.

Shotaro leans in to meet him halfway, a sweet sound escaping their lips as they press into a second, third kiss. The fourth lasts longer, Shotaro tilting his head, chasing the bright, ecstatic feeling that lights him up with every touch, every gentle kiss.

When they pull apart, Sungchan is prettier than ever, his delighted face so close and so beautiful under the glow of the moon.

Shotaro kisses him again, just because he can.

☄️

The next morning, he wakes up with Sungchan’s warmth plastered alongside his body, soft morning light drifting in through the cracks of the curtains.

Sungchan’s face is soft and slack with sleep. Shotaro smiles to himself, thinking about their night spent under the stars.

He felt so, so happy. For the first time in a long time, he was free, and he was excited about life, and in a situation straight out of his dreams.

Sungchan wanted the same intimacy with him he’d always thought was pure fantasy.

After the confession, they’d spent some more time kissing and talking and Sungchan showing off his illusions, until Shotaro’s eyelids had been drooping with sleepiness and they fell back into bed, holding each other.

It’s still exciting in the light of a new day. He and Sungchan have something new to explore now, and what feels like all the time in the world to explore it.

Scary too, though. He’s never been in a relationship before. What might be different between them? Should he do something special? After Sungchan’s display last night, he feels like he should do something nice in return. But what?

Sungchan stirs beside him, eyes cracking open and blinking blearily.

Shotaro loses his train of thought. He’s so cute, and finally, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants about that feeling.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, and Sungchan’s eyes smile. He can see the moment he realises none of last night was a dream, as he reaches out to put his hand around Shotaro’s waist and pulls him in closer.

“Snuggle,” Sungchan says, voice morning-rough, and Shotaro can’t help but giggle at his cuteness.

“Okay,” he says, and nuzzles his forehead against Sungchan’s. “But we can’t stay here forever.”

“We can’t?” Sungchan asks, and places a wet kiss against Shotaro’s cheek.

After some time spent whispering and giggling and generally basking in the glow of their newfound intimacy, they get hungry enough to scavenge for some food. Today, they go into the cabin kitchen to find a plate of fresh sausages waiting to be cooked, along with a carton of eggs. The longer they stay here, the more attuned the pocket dimension seems to be to their needs, but fresh meat and dairy is a new miracle bestowed upon them, and a very welcome one after many meals consisting of rice and vegetables.

Sungchan skewers the sausages to cook over the fire as Shotaro prepares the eggs along with a few veggies to serve up. He almost drops them half-whisked when Sungchan comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around his stomach and dropping his head onto his shoulder. But they manage to cook their breakfast without any serious losses, and a few kisses on the side.

They take the food out to the table round back of the cabin, which overlooks the vast vegetable patch. It’s late in the morning already, sun high in the sky. Time was already meaningless here, with the two of them having nothing to do and nowhere to go, but he feels particularly defiant of it now.

It feels as though they’re running on a new sort of time. Whatever will best suit the two of them, as a unit—lying under the stars in the middle of the night, breakfast late on a morning, quiet evenings spent showing each other their new hobbies—that’s the time they’re living on now.

“Can I ask you a question?” Sungchan asks after a while. He’s been stealing glances at Shotaro over the meal, eyes sparkling and laughing a little each time he’s caught, like he can’t stop looking, but is too shy to admit that’s all he wants to do.

“You make it sound scary when you ask like that. You know you can ask me anything.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d like taking important questions over breakfast.”

“Is this really breakfast?”

“It’s breakfast if we want it to be. But in that case, I wanted to ask, how long you’ve… well, I was surprised by how easily you said you liked me last night. Like you already knew, and you were ready to say. But, why wait to tell me? How long were you waiting?”

Shotaro looks down at the sparse remains of his eggs. It’s a vulnerable question, but he doesn’t want any more secrets between them. And with the mindset that he may not have much life left to live, he doesn’t want to waste it on cowardice.

Sungchan has done so much for him already, opened up this new world of a relationship for them both. He can’t shy away from embracing it the way he really wants just because it’s new to him.

“I fell for you before I’d even fully learned to speak Interspace Standard,” he says, and feels heat rise to his cheeks immediately. He’s imagined telling Sungchan this dozens of times, last thing before drifting off to sleep, wondering if it was something Sungchan would ever want to know. It makes it simultaneously easier and harder to say now.

“You were always trying to help me understand things, even though you didn’t have to. It was easy to tell how much you cared, even about people you hardly knew. How much you wanted to learn, how patient you are. And you’ve always been handsome. I think, in a way, you were the first person to properly see me, who I am and who I want to be. I thought the feeling might pass, that maybe it was just because I wanted recognition so badly, and you gave it to me so easily.

“Fast forward three years, and we had decided to leave the team on the ENSEAT, just you and me to go and find Anton. Then after that, we picked up the crew of the RIIZEr, one by one. It felt right. We felt closer with the rest of our crew than ever.

“Then, I realised that the feeling never went away. It had grown, even, it was bigger, it meant more. But there was also a lot more on the line if something went wrong. Our team is smaller, and they came together around the two of us. And I love our team so much—I can’t risk it. It was enough, for me, being part of the team with you. Leading the team with you. I also thought that if you felt the same way, you would’ve said something. You’re too honest, you know, I didn’t think you’d want to keep it a secret. So I carried on, focused on our jobs.

“But things are different here. There’s no one else around. No jobs to keep me busy. And I keep wondering if this will be my last chance, you know? There’s a good chance this energy will still kill me, so if there was ever a time to try and be honest with you…”

“Don’t say that,” Sungchan says. He places a hand over Shotaro’s hand and pulls him in, leaning across the table to kiss his mouth gently. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I want to believe that. But we can’t know for sure.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. There will be a solution out there, and we will find it.” Sungchan speaks with such conviction, holding Shotaro’s hand and holding firm eye contact.

“You make me believe it more.”

“Then I’ll keep telling you. We’ll make the impossible happen if we have to.”

He kisses the back of Shotaro’s hand, and rests their connected hands between them, thumb gently stroking his knuckles.

“Also, you’re a complete romantic,” Sungchan says, grinning widely, face bright. “I never could’ve imagined you’ve liked me for so long!”

“Don’t, stop,” he says, but he’s giggling even as he feels his face turning red. “What about you! Tell me about your side, quickly.”

“You’re so cute,” Sungchan says, eyes glittering. “I don’t know exactly how long I’ve liked you. I just woke up one day last year and realised it. Maybe it was after we’d settled into the RIIZEr, and I finally felt secure, like our crew was going to last. But I didn’t know if you would be upset with me, I had no idea if you felt the same. Then when it got to the point I thought I couldn’t hold it in any longer… the job came along, with the artefact. There hasn’t been a good time since. But like I said yesterday, I didn’t want to wait a minute more.”

“I can’t believe it took both of us nearly dying then being quarantined in a pocket dimension to be able to confess.”

“I would’ve said it already if it weren’t for all the nearly dying,” Sungchan whines, and Shotaro laughs.

“The timing worked out in the end. Imagine trying to talk like this on the RIIZEr. Every conversation carries through the walls.”

“You never know, Wonbin hasn’t had anyone stay in his pocket dimension this long before. Maybe he sees us in his dreams, and they’re all gossiping about us back on the ship.”

“Don’t say that, that’s scary.” He holds a fist up to the sky and shakes it. “We’re not a drama to keep you entertained!”

Sungchan’s laugh makes him feel like the funniest person in the world. “When all this is over, we’ll have to let him take a long break in here. I feel bad, getting to enjoy all this before he really did.”

Shotaro hums. “How much longer do you think we’ll be here? It’s been weeks already.”

“What, rushing to get away from me so soon?”

He shoots Sungchan a look. “Am I going to be any further away from you out there? The RIIZEr is smaller, if anything.”

“True,” Sungchan says with a goofy grin. “I don’t know, it’s impossible to say. A few weeks more, maybe?”

“It could be months,” he muses. “It could be days.”

“Right,” Sungchan agrees, softer.

“Let’s not rush things. However long we have, let’s just enjoy the time.”

“Agreed,” Sungchan says. “Because however long we have in here, we have much longer out there, remember.”

He allows himself a smile. “Right.”

“We do,” Sungchan says again, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “No pessimism allowed. Say it.”

“We have all the time in the world,” he says, and Sungchan slides his chair over to kiss his neck. Shotaro giggles, and pulls him in closer.

☄️

The following morning, Sungchan takes him on a date.

“We can’t have a date in these same four walls,” Sungchan declares, packing a rucksack of food. “I thought we could finally explore the forest.”

“If we get eaten by nightmare creatures, it won’t be very romantic,” Shotaro points out, but when the cabin handily gives him some shorts for walking, he figures it can’t be all that dangerous.

It’s still a bit intimidating, going far enough from the cabin that it disappears from view. Sungchan has an excellent sense of direction, so it’s not that he’s worried about getting back. More that they don’t have a clue what might be out there. Shattering the sense of comfort and safety they’ve built here is the last thing he wants.

Sungchan somehow knows he’s feeling nervous, because he takes his hand when they walk deeper into the forest, jumping over large tree roots and crossing narrow, trickling streams. That helps, he has to admit.

They walk for around an hour, and see nothing nefarious. Only small birds hopping along branches, unusual flowers in different colours and sizes, and once, what must be a deer standing between two trees, watching them without fear.

Eventually, they come out the other side of the trees, and the sight takes his breath away.

The forest ends abruptly where the trees meet a steep cliff edge, one that seems to run for miles in either direction. Way below the cliff is a wide, rushing river, the sound just about reaching them on the clifftop, a soothing hush of white noise in the otherwise serene forest. Over the river is a steep valley, that leads between a set of mountains, towering over them in a row of other mountains. The sky around the mountain tops looks a hazy, pale blue, dotted with hovering clouds above.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, hushed, though there’s no real reason to be.

“It is,” Sungchan says, and when Shotaro looks over, Sungchan is watching him, smiling.

“You know, when we first left the ENSEAT, I wondered if we should take the time to travel together,” Shotaro confesses after a long moment watching the view. “Or if we could in the future, once we had a plan figured out. Travelling and seeing the universe is all we ever wanted to do, each of us. But we don’t usually get to see the pretty places while working a job. I always wanted to see places like this.”

“I know. Whenever we do find ourselves somewhere nice, you always take the time to appreciate it.” Sungchan rubs a hand soothingly up and down Shotaro’s arm. “When we’re out of here, we’ll take a well deserved holiday. Let’s go wherever you want to go.”

“I like the sound of that,” he says. It feels like his heart is ready to burst from his chest when Sungchan speaks like that; like all he wants to do is treasure him.

They stop there, at the cliff edge, to enjoy the view and eat their picnic. The grass is so soft and the earth springy that it feels as comfortable as sitting on the couch in the cabin, and he wonders why they haven’t ventured out like this until now.

When the food is done, Shotaro leans against Sungchan’s side, who places an arm around his shoulders.

“So, I had an idea,” he says eventually, and Shotaro sits up to look at him.

“You’re on fire lately, aren’t you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! It was your idea to come out here.”

“Right, it was. I’ve got the best ideas. I haven’t got the best skills, but you have to appreciate my intentions, okay?”

“What is it?” he says, pulling on Sungchan’s arm. “Did you make me something?”

Sungchan watches his face for a moment, drinking his expression in and briefly brushing his jaw before he draws back into his bag.

He comes back holding a leather-bound journal, with thick, cream pages, and engravings in the front cover.

“The book appeared, plain, some day last week. The tools to work on the leather came the day after. It’s… some of the patterns are wonky, but the cabin didn’t give me another book to redo it, so… I did my best.”

On the cover, the journal says Shotaro’s name in his colony language, Neo Japanese, along with some simple—and yes, wonky—patterns of leaves and hearts and flowers around the border.

Shotaro has no idea how Sungchan even knows the original spelling of his name. He had no idea he’s been working on engraving leather lately to make another gift for him.

He’s been swept off his feet again, stunned by Sungchan’s sweet gift. This is just as touching as the projection image, if not more.

“Sungchan-ah…”

“I had an idea, too, but we don’t have to use it for this,” he says in a rush. He opens up the cover of the journal. Between the first two pages, a flower has been pressed, pink and simple, hardly larger than a coin. “I can tell you’re worried about how long we might be here. I was thinking it might be nice to do something to mark the days, and also give us a reason to explore this place, learn more about it. So for each day that we’re here, we could find a new flower and press it into this journal. You’ll have a souvenir for when you leave, and maybe it won’t make each day passing seem like a bad thing.”

Tears well up out of nowhere, and he rubs at his eyes, speechless. “How do you think of these things?”

Sungchan shrugs, looking pink-cheeked. “Does that mean you like it?”

“I love you,” he says, and throws his arms around Sungchan’s shoulders.

Sungchan giggles into his neck, and Shotaro hugs him tight.

“You are amazing. Let’s do it.” He pulls away from the hug to look into Sungchan’s eyes, cupping his face with one hand as Sungchan holds him, halfway onto his lap, with an arm around his waist. “How did you even know how to write my name like this?”

“Umm.. it’s from years ago, before we could even speak to each other. This one time, we were waiting around on deck, babysitting the ENSEAT while everyone else was out on a job. You sketched me a picture of the local moon because it looked so unusual. We both thought so, I could tell, but you didn’t know enough Interspace Standard to properly talk to me about it. I liked the sketch so much you gave it to me and signed your name on it like this. I still have it, it’s stuck beside my bunk. I’ve looked at it so many times that I remember how to write it.”

He shakes his head. He can’t stop smiling. “I can’t believe you. I love you. Thank you so much.”

“I’m so glad you like it,” Sungchan says, seemingly overcome for a moment too.

Maybe he feels the same thing—that it feels so unreal to be together like this, to be able to share these things. So precious.

Shotaro kisses him, and the arm around his waist tightens, and they fall into the soft grass wrapped up in one another.

☄️

Life in the pocket universe turns into a routine. Every few days, they walk out into the woods, or up the mountain beside their cabin, or simply wander across the glade to pick out a new flower for the journal. On days in-between their wanderings, they work on their new hobbies, or try cooking a new meal with whatever ingredients they’ve been given that day, or come up with another way to pass the time. Building their own board game is one. Decorating the pages around the pressed flowers is another.

He doesn’t show Sungchan, but he’s started writing things along with each flower. He remembered how to write my name in a language he doesn’t speak. He built me a vision of the first home I ever knew. He loves me so much he held me even though it could kill him.

Things aren’t perfect. He still wakes in the night, crying out, full of fear. He still thinks about their team every day, worried where they might be, if they’re alright, how they’re coping without them. Some days, the fear of never knowing, or never finding a solution, overwhelms him.

But Sungchan is endlessly patient and optimistic. He kisses Shotaro’s tears in the night, and endows him with comfort. He distracts him when he can feel him retreating into his own head. He truly believes that they’ll all get out of this in one piece.

One month passes in the pocket universe, then two. Then three. Sungchan helps him cut his hair. Shotaro names the birds that often perch on the cabin roof.

Then, on one of their hikes, they go far enough to find fruit trees. Every tree seems to have a different fruit, and he’s not familiar with any of them. But Sungchan is delighted, climbing up to pick some to take home.

On their way back to the cabin, Sungchan suggests they start planning an orchard of their own, to bring the fruit close by.

Shotaro stops in his path, breathing heavily.

“Hyung?”

“That could take months.”

“What?”

“For an orchard to grow, that could take… I don’t even know how long it takes things to grow here, but…”

“Then we can find out,” Sungchan says simply. Shotaro heaves the bag further onto his shoulders, and keeps walking. “What? Did I say something?”

“No. Sorry, I’m not mad at you.”

Sungchan catches up at a brisk walk. He reaches to pull the back from Shotaro’s shoulders, setting it on the ground. “Let’s take a break.”

He sits obediently at the base of a large tree. Sungchan sits beside him, bags discarded.

“I didn’t mean that I expect us to be here for many more months,” Sungchan starts gently. “I know as well as you do how much longer we might be here. But even if we aren’t here to see the trees bloom, it’s another project for us to nurture them. It’s also a gift to Wonbin, in a way, to leave them here for him.”

“Yeah,” he says, running his hands along his legs to try and comfort himself. Sungchan places a hand on his thigh to help soothe him too. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I think I miss them, miss the ship, even. I never thought I’d say that about Anton’s old RIIZEr, but…”

“I get it,” Sungchan says, soft smile on his face. “I miss them too.” He hesitates, then sets his gaze on Shotaro. “If this is weird, tell me to stop.”

In the forest around them, five figures flicker into view.

“Seunghan, did you eat all my box of snake tails again?” Sohee shouts, stomping across the forest to where Seunghan stands with Wonbin.

“Why would I do that when you nearly killed me for it last time?”

“He did,” Wonbin says, and Sohee jumps onto Seunghan’s back, who starts running as if that will help him escape.

“Bye bye, Hyung,” Anton sing-songs. Eunseok just crosses his arms and watches Seunghan try to prise a cybernetically enhanced, raging Sohee from his back.

“Your ability is so amazing,” Shotaro tells him. His heart feels simultaneously heavier and lighter. “You make them look so real.”

Sungchan shrugs. “The projections have been accurate even since my first illusions appeared. I think it would be harder to try to make something look not real.”

“The comic book characters you projected weren’t realistic. They looked drawn.”

Sungchan bites his lip. “I said accurate, not necessarily realistic. And technically, that wasn’t the first time I’d projected an image. That was when I was still figuring out how to stop it involuntarily.”

Shotaro raises his eyebrows. “Why do I feel like there’s a story behind this?”

Sungchan’s face is slowly getting pinker. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Then I definitely want to hear it!”

“Um… so you know how Eunseok is always walking into my room without knocking? And I keep almost killing him for it?”

“Yes,” he says, laughter on his tongue already.

“My first illusions were projections from my dreams. I only know this because Eunseok walked in on me napping, and whacked his head on my door because he was so surprised… by the projection…”

“Of?”

Sungchan scratches his head sheepishly. “Us making out on my bed?” he says it fast, like it might sound better as a stream of sounds.

Shotaro laughs out loud. “Just making out?”

“Yes, just making out! And maybe touching… a little bit…”

Shotaro hits him, but he’s laughing, his sour mood from before gone. Sungchan has some kind of magic about him that always makes things better, even if just a little bit. “I can’t believe you two kept that quiet!”

“I had to use a mix of bribes and threats to keep my dignity,” he says, shuddering. “I don’t think he would've really told you, he has more sense than that. But stars knows he’s been holding it over my head.”

“He won’t be able to anymore,” he grins, caressing the long hair at the back of Sungchan’s neck. He said he wanted to grow it out as long as they were in the pocket dimension, see if he could look like the old traditional men from his colony with hair down to their ankles. It’s not even at the base of his neck yet, but it’s the longest Shotaro has ever seen it, and it looks good on him.

“That’s right,” Sungchan says, eyes gleaming like he’s just realised it for the first time.

Shotaro laughs, and they meet in a kiss, sweet and quick, before another one, longer and slower.

Sungchan’s hand, still resting on Shotaro’s thigh, slips up to his hip, then his waist, squeezing lightly as they take a long, slow moment to kiss deeply, affectionately.

“You can if you want, you know,” Shotaro says quietly when they part.

“Hm?”

“Touch me. Do more than kiss me. We don’t have to, but I just want you to know I wouldn’t mind. You don’t have to be so gentlemanly.”

Sungchan stares at him, clearly surprised by the turn of conversation. But he gathers his wits quickly, and asks, slightly breathless, “You want to?”

“Yes,” he says simply, smile unstoppable on his face. “Do you?”

“Yes,” he says, and caressing Shotaro’s side again. “Okay. Good.”

“Good,” he repeats, placing one last peck on his lips. “Shall we get back to the house?”

☄️

Shotaro wakes up in the middle of the night, and for the first time, he’s not awoken by fear.

His body is still alive with the ghost of Sungchan’s lips on his skin, the feel of his weight over Shotaro’s body, the trails of burning touches left across his stomach, his thighs, his face.

He is in love with Sungchan, deeply and completely. It’s as easy as breathing, and the scariest thing in the universe.

His eyes flick over Sungchan’s face. He’s got one arm slung over Shotaro’s waist—he often sleeps like this, possibly out of habit, possibly so he’ll wake up when Shotaro has nightmares. His long hair is falling into his eyes.

Shotaro desperately, fervently, wants to hold onto this moment in time.

But more than that, he wants to take this feeling back into his normal life. He doesn’t want this time with Sungchan to only exist in a pocket dimension, in isolation from the universe.

He wants them to live a life to the fullest together. He wants them to enjoy each other’s company in parts of the universe yet untouched. He wants to visit the planets with the most beautiful views just so they can see them together.

He wants to be back with his team, have them tease them and groan but ultimately, be happy for them. He wants this to last when they make it back to normal life.

He wants to have Sungchan, in every walk of life, in every moment they can think to have together.

Sungchan sighs in his sleep. Shotaro kisses him on the nose. Very faintly, he smiles, and snuggles further into the pillows.

☄️

One week later, Shotaro is dozing on Sungchan’s lap when Wonbin appears in the living room.

At first, half-asleep and stunned by the sudden apparition, he assumes it to be one of Sungchan’s projections. But Sungchan himself jolts hard enough to jerk Shotaro up, blinking at Wonbin.

“You two look a sight for sore eyes,” he says, but he’s smiling like he hasn’t seen them in years.

It’s been three months and thirteen days since they arrived in the pocket dimension, and here Wonbin stands before them with the smile of success.

“I have never been more glad to see you,” Sungchan says, standing to embrace him in a hug, and Wonbin laughs and squeezes him back tightly.

Shotaro stands slowly, suddenly much more awake than before. The other two step apart, and look at Shotaro more seriously, though Wonbin never loses his smile.

“You found it?” Shotaro asks.

“We found it,” Wonbin confirms, then for the first time in his memory, brings Shotaro in for a hug too. “I’m so glad you guys are okay. We were worried there might be side effects of travelling through dimensions we hadn’t accounted for…”

“We were more worried about you!” he exclaims, suddenly full to the brim with warring emotions, for his friends, for his life, for whatever comes next. “Working a job like this without the full team…”

“We managed,” Wonbin says, in a voice that tells Shotaro it was a close thing. “I’m just sorry we weren’t quicker. Though it seems like you guys settled in well here.”

He and Sungchan exchange looks, Sungchan looking at the floor with a grin. “You could say that.”

“Are you ready to go? We are so ready to go back to normal life, I can tell you that.”

Shotaro looks around him. They’ve made the cabin home in the time they’ve been here, with crafts they’ve worked on covering the shelves and mantelpiece, books half-read left open on the table, vegetables pre-eminently chopped on the kitchen counter. It’s nearly dinnertime.

On the couch behind him, the leather journal Sungchan had given him sits innocuously. He picks it up and slips it into a sling bag he’s become particularly fond of.

Sungchan and Wonbin are squabbling over whether Sungchan needs to bring back the basket of hand-crafted objects he’s been working on over the past few months. “All of them? Really? Where are we going to put them all!”

“I made them for you guys! If you don’t want to appreciate my love…”

“The more you pack, the harder work it is for me to bring you back—I’m not even sure what that’s meant to be…”

“It’s clearly an owl!”

“I’m ready,” Shotaro says, and Sungchan sighs as he places the basket down. “Just bring Anton’s in my bag. He’ll love it.”

“That’s more like it,” Wonbin agrees, and Sungchan places the dog-dinosaur thing into his sling bag. When he spots the only other thing in the bag is the journal, he shoots Shotaro an affectionate look.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Take my hands, and hold on tight,” Wonbin orders.

“You have to let go of me as soon as we arrive,” Shotaro says. “As soon as you can, okay?”

“I will,” Wonbin says softly. “I got you, Hyung.”

He takes Wonbin’s hand.

In the blink of an eye, he’s standing in some kind of jungle terrain, the air humid, the sun stronger than the one in the pocket universe. Wonbin releases his hand instantly, which is good, because the buzzing, overwhelming feeling of energy washes over him like it never left. Even here, in a jungle that looks organic, just the presence of the RIIZEr and Sohee’s cybernetics and whatever safety measures are installed into the planet is enough to make him feel like he’s about to explode.

The thrum of energy brings him to his knees and knocks the air out of him—how did he live with this for so long? Sparks fly in his peripheral vision, and someone calls out for Sohee to back away.

“Hyung, Hyung. Let’s do it now. Let’s not wait.”

He tries to focus his vision, past the noise in his ears and the thrum of his blood, the overwhelming feeling of energy about to burst out of him. Sucking a breath in, he holds a hand up, telling whoever it is to wait, just a moment. He can get this under control, at least long enough to tell who he’s speaking to.

When he can blink open his eyes and properly see again, Sohee is gone, probably retreated to the ship. That helps. Sungchan is kneeling in front of him, watching him closely, with Wonbin behind him, Eunseok squatting to the side of them both.

“I can do it now,” he says, catching his breath. “What do I do?”

Eunseok presents him with the artefact, couched tenderly in what looks suspiciously like one of the RIIZEr emergency fire blankets. He can tell it’s the right thing, because it looks exactly like the other half they’d found. It’s not much more than a strange, dark rock with carvings of a long-forgotten language, though it is encased in an ever-shifting, glassy outer layer.

“You take this, and direct your energy into it,” Eunseok says. “We’re hoping it’s as simple as that.”

“Is there any risk?” Sungchan asks.

“Sohee-hyung thinks the energy you’re wielding is different enough from your body’s energy that it doesn’t risk sucking your life up or anything,” Anton says, soft voice coming from beside Shotaro. He can’t see him well—the edges of his vision are starting to pale with the effort of keeping the energy force in.

“Okay,” he says, ready to reach for it.

“But?” Sungchan asks, and Shotaro raises his head, to see Anton look at Seunghan.

“Nothing too serious,” Seunghan says. “The guy we stole this artefact from… he was using it to erase his memories.”

“That feels pretty serious!” Sungchan exclaims.

“No, no—it only takes what you give it,” Wonbin says. “It might not take any memories at all, but  Sohee thinks, since you’re giving it the energy you’ve been carrying for six months…”

“It might take the last six months,” Shotaro says, squeezing his eyes closed.

It’s not fair.

When he opens them, Sungchan is watching him intensely, his doe eyes round and mournful.

“I don’t want to forget,” Shotaro says, voice small. His palms feel like they’re burning. He may not have long left to do this.

Sungchan takes a deep breath. “I’ll remind you,” he says, and though his voice wobbles, he still has conviction. “We’ll do everything again, I’ll tell you everything. You’ve got to live again, Hyung, that’s the most important thing. We’ll still be here. I’ll be right by your side, okay?”

Shotaro wishes he could reach out and touch him. He’s shaking so badly.

There’s only one course of action here.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too.”

“Eunseok, put it down, and all of you back away. It’s so—so much…”

“You’re going to be okay, Hyung,” Anton says softly.

Eunseok does as he asks, and they all take steps away from him.

It’s hard to tell how far away they are. It’s hard to see much but the artefact, which glows alluringly at the centre of his vision.

There’s no more time to lose. He reaches out, and as he does, he tries to hold in his mind every memory he made with Sungchan over the last three months.

He grasps the artefact, and a huge blast of electricity, golden and pluming, bursts from him. The energy that has lived in him for so long is sapped into the artefact instantly, the rock glowing brighter than anything as he feels the overwhelming sensation under his skin lessen, lessen, drawn into its intended home all along.

The memories he’s desperate to cherish flick through his mind. His mind is racing too fast to know if they’re full, or fleeting.

Are they staying, or are they being sapped out of him too?

It's all over quickly, the electric arcs snapping out of existence and the rock’s glow fading back to nothingness.

Shotaro is absolutely drained. He collapses onto his side on the jungle floor, voices calling for him in the distance.

☄️

He blinks to consciousness in his low-lit bunk on the RIIZEr.

His head is thumping. Even the dim light is too much, and he rolls over, burying his face into the pillow with a groan.

“Hyung?”

Sungchan’s voice seems to echo in his head, and he grunts an affirmative.

“Does it hurt?”

Shotaro raises his head, trying to focus on Sungchan, who is sitting beside the bunk. He has to crane his head to see him, as Sungchan is anxiously peering down at him with wide eyes.

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a spaceship,” he groans. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“Umm…”

He tries to cast his mind back, but his memories are fuzzy. It takes some thinking for anything to come to him with clarity.

“We were on a job. Searching for an artefact… there was another group of people there… did we get into a fight?”

He slowly sits up to rest against the headboard. Sungchan doesn’t say anything, and Shotaro blinks up at him.

Sungchan looks… disappointed. Devastated, even, lips pressing together as he tries to hide his emotions for Shotaro’s sake. He’s never been very good at that. “Is that it?”

“I feel like something big happened after that. But I don’t know what, it’s all fuzzy.”

Sungchan nods, swallowing. “That did happen, but it was six months ago.”

“Six months?!” he exclaims, pushing himself up a little more. Has he lost six months of his life? How?

“You weren’t well,” Sungchan says quietly. “The artefact we found hurt you. We’ve been searching for a way to fix it… but the solution took your memories.” He reaches out to pick up Shotaro’s hand, press it firmly between his own big, warm hands. “But you’re okay now. It worked. That’s what matters.”

Shotaro’s head is pounding. He searches for memories of being sick, and all he comes back with is a blanket feeling of deep unease.

“I’ll get you some water,” Sungchan says suddenly, standing and stepping away from the bed. There’s a shake to his voice that makes Shotaro even more uneasy. “I’ll be right back.”

Shotaro is left alone, with the creeping feeling he’s lost something big. Something important.

He glances around his room for answers. On his bedside table is a journal he’s never seen before. His name is carved into the cover in his colony language, and the surrounding engravings are amateur, but clearly done with painstaking effort.

He picks it up, and it feels familiar in his hands.

The journal falls open on a pressing of a flower. It hardly fits on the page, long purple petals curling at the corners. Underneath, in his handwriting, it says, He comforts me even when he is scared too.

He flicks over a page. Another flower, blue and yellow, pressed between the pages. He sighs my name in his sleep when I am lying right next to him.

Another: a green stalk with yellow leaves. He loves me, and never hesitates to tell me.

Shotaro’s hands are shaking.

He closes his eyes, and in his mind, he can see the cabin from Wonbin’s pocket dimension. He’s sure the flowers are from there.

Sungchan returns to the room with a bottle of water. He sniffs as he sits beside Shotaro again, uncapping the bottle and placing it on the side table. His movements slow when he sees what Shotaro is holding.

“Hyung?”

“You made me this?” he asks, closing the book to show the cover.

“Yes.”

His mouth twists. He laughs, but feels like crying. He can’t remember their confession, but the yearning, burning feeling he has for Sungchan is larger than it’s ever been.

He has missed a lot.

“How long have we been together?”

Sungchan’s eyes are misty, but when he cracks a smile, it’s real. “A bit more than two months.”

“Two months?” He’s devastated by the loss, and stunned to hear it’s really true. But there’s also a thrill inside him, knowing that the two of them actually work together; that Sungchan feels the same. “Have we kissed?”

Sungchan chokes a laugh. “You think we didn’t kiss in two months?”

“I can’t believe I forgot!” He places his face in his hands. “All that time waiting, then when it finally happens… will I ever remember?”

“We don’t know.”

He chokes a little, not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. “You have to tell me everything.”

“I will,” Sungchan promises, steadfast. He comes to sit on the edge of Shotaro’s bunk. “I can remind you now.”

Sungchan tentatively reaches out for him. Shotaro goes easily, his body remembering what his mind has lost, heart racing nonetheless.

Sungchan's lips press against his, the kiss warm and real and electric.

As they kiss, Shotaro sees a range of mountains against a hazy blue sky, with trees spread out all around them.

With Sungchan’s hand holding his side, he sees a night sky full of stars that glow like gems.

When Shotaro presses in for a longer kiss, he sees a bedroom that feels like his own.

Then he pulls back and sees Sungchan, whose eyes shine brighter than the stars from his memory.

“I got you,” Sungchan whispers. “I'll tell you everything. Or, even better—I can show you.”

Around them, the walls of his bunk fade and are replaced with dark night surroundings, lit up by the stars. Wonbin's cabin is to their right, with the mountain range stretching along beside it.

On the floor, a vision of Sungchan and himself are sitting, talking in soft voices, matching love-sick looks on their faces.

Shotaro gasps, clutching Sungchan’s hand. Sungchan only smiles, holding onto him as he moves out of the bed to look closer.

“Are you doing this? You have so much to tell me!”

Sungchan laughs, and pulls him in for another kiss. “I won't miss a single second. I promise.”