Chapter Text
They lie in bed together under dim, bluish light. Lee Do’s apartment felt like a high-end showroom; cold, modern, and empty of personal clutter. Only the rumpled bed disrupted its sleek perfection. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a glittering, silent city.
Moon Baek lay on his back, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting loosely across his chest. His fingers hovered near the gauze taped over the healing wound just above his heart. His face was quiet, but not peaceful. There was too much history behind his eyes. His gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was low and even, like he was asking something he already knew the answer to.
“How did we end up so different?”
Lee Do didn’t respond right away. He turned onto his side, head resting on his arm. From this angle, only Moon Baek’s right eye was visible, the warm, dark brown one. The other, pale and artificial, was hidden in shadow. Lee Do wasn’t sure he wanted to see it just now.
He watched him in silence. The tattoos that stretched across Moon Baek’s skin. The raised lines of old scars. The tension in his stillness. He looked like something that had endured a long time without softening. When Lee Do finally spoke, his voice was quiet but steady. A faint crease pulled at his brow, not from disapproval, but something closer to regret.
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare ourselves.”
He let the words settle between them. He wasn’t trying to close the subject, only to keep it from tipping somewhere neither of them wanted to go. Slowly, he rolled back onto his back. Their shoulders brushed. His voice softened.
“The people around you were different. Different from mine. They didn’t…” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “They didn’t love you the way they should have. I’m… I’m sorry.”
Moon Baek didn’t answer at first. His eyes remained locked on the ceiling. But his fingers began to twitch slightly, drifting across the gauze. He scratched at the edge of it without thinking. The cotton felt rough, like it was trying to remind him of something he didn’t want to remember. When he finally spoke, there was no emotion in his voice. It sounded like something he had said to himself too many times.
“They did save my life.”
It sounded like resignation. Not belief.
Lee Do turned his head slightly. His brow tightened, and when he spoke, his voice had changed. It cut through the room, not cruel, but carrying something raw. A mix of anger and grief.
“No. Those people were thinking of themselves when they saved you.”
He swallowed, quieter now.
“They weren’t saving you. They were saving something else. Their bottom line. Their reputation. Their own guilt. They didn’t save you.”
That ended the conversation for a while. The silence between them grew heavy, filled with things that hadn’t been said. Outside, the city continued without them, glowing and distant behind the glass. Moon Baek's nail caught on a loose thread of the bandage. Before he could do anything with it, Lee Do reached out and swatted his hand away, not harshly, just enough to stop him.
Moon Baek almost smiled. Almost. But he kept his face still.
After a long pause, he turned his head to look at Lee Do. His voice was low, calm, but there was something pointed beneath it.
“So why did you take those missions? All that overseas work. Black ops. Freelance jobs that no one expected you to come back from. You had to know how likely it was you’d get killed.”
He paused. His hair fell partly across his face as he shifted. Lee Do braced himself. He didn’t mean to, but he did. The artificial eye was visible now, blue and glassy beside the natural brown one. If Moon Baek noticed any change in his expression, he didn’t acknowledge it.
“Were you trying to kill yourself?”
Lee Do let out a soft, breathy sound. It wasn’t a laugh. It was closer to disbelief, or maybe exhaustion. He turned his face into the pillow for a moment before looking back at the ceiling. The thought made him feel hollow. When he answered, his voice was slow and quiet.
“Well, if you put it like that...”
He exhaled. A small, humourless smile pulled faintly at the corner of his mouth. Then he turned his head again to glance at Moon Baek.
“I think I just wanted to be useful.”
Moon Baek turned his head slightly. Something shifted behind his eyes, hard to name. It wasn’t pity. It was too close, too familiar for that. Maybe it was sadness. Or something heavier. He didn’t speak.
He just watched Lee Do in silence, letting the quiet settle between them like something old and aching, something that had been there long before either of them knew each other. Then, without much warning, he crumbled a little. His body shifted, and he exhaled a sharp breath, the words spilling out before he could stop them.
“Fuck you.”
He shoved at Lee Do’s shoulder, not with real force, but enough to make his point. Enough to create distance between them, even if only a few inches. Enough to say, without saying it out loud, that was too much.
Lee Do let himself be pushed. He shifted slightly, allowing the space, but there was no tension in his body. No resistance. He just turned his head lazily and looked at Moon Baek with one brow raised. His expression was dry, almost lighthearted in contrast to the weight of what had just passed between them.
“What was that for?”
Moon Baek dragged a hand down his face and let it drop limply against the pillow. He shut his eyes like he was trying to erase the last few minutes from his memory. For a moment, he just breathed, slow and controlled, the kind of breath meant to keep something from cracking open. When he spoke, his voice was low and worn.
“Don’t say shit like that,” he muttered. “Makes it harder to hate you.”
Lee Do’s smile was faint, barely more than a twitch at the corner of his mouth. But it was real. Something in it was sad.
“You don’t hate me.”
“I do. Just not all the time.”
He opened his eyes again and looked at Lee Do. The sharpness was still there, but it was dulled by something more honest. Exhaustion, maybe. Grief that hadn’t found its shape yet. His voice was softer now, almost careful.
“You talk like you’ve already given up sometimes.”
Lee Do didn’t respond right away. His gaze lifted back to the ceiling, and the smile faded. His voice was quieter when it came, as if he were speaking more to the ceiling than to Moon Baek.
“No, that’s not it. It’s just… most of my life, I’ve been on autopilot. Since I was a kid, really. I don’t know what else to do besides take orders. Follow instructions. Aim, fire, move on. It’s not even survival instinct anymore. It’s just… easier.”
Moon Baek watched him. His face didn’t change, but something flickered deep in his expression. Not pity. Something closer to panic, but quieter, buried. He didn’t move. His body stayed still, but his fingers curled slightly into the sheet between them, gripping the fabric like it might hold him together.
“Well,” he said eventually, “stop doing that then. Doesn’t suit you.”
Lee Do almost laughed. But before he could respond, Moon Baek spoke again.
“Doctors said I have four months at most left.”
The words came out too evenly, like he had rehearsed them. Maybe he had. Maybe he had already said them to himself a hundred times in the dark.
Lee Do blinked, slowly, and the silence stretched.
“Okay.”
Moon Baek turned his head toward him, frowning slightly.
“Okay?”
His voice wavered at the edges, but only just. He held Lee Do’s gaze like he was trying to find the lie in it. Like he was trying to decide whether to push him again or reach out and take his hand. The single word hit harder than it should've. Something in its simplicity made it feel almost cruel.
Lee Do turned to face him fully now. His voice was steady.
“I’ll stick around.”
Moon Baek exhaled a humourless laugh. It sounded like it hurts a little coming out.
“Of course you will. You better.”
There was a pause.
“And I’ll kill you myself if you leave me.”
He meant it. But not in the way it sounded.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The room held them in its silence, thick with everything they’ve said and everything they haven’t. Then Lee Do spoke again. His voice was lower now. There was no edge to it. Just quiet honesty, and something that felt like guilt.
“You won’t be the first person to die on me.”
Moon Baek stared at him. His expression was hard to read, unreadable even to Lee Do. Then, without a word, he sat up. The sheets fell from his chest, leaving the ink and bone of his body exposed in the faint city light. He didn’t look back as he spoke.
“I’m going to get water before I throw something.”
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and walked toward the kitchen. His back was to the window, the faint city lights behind him casting long shadows across the tattoos that traced his spine like a map of all the places he had survived.
Lee Do watched him go. Then turned his face back toward the ceiling.
“Still don’t hate me?” he called, voice just loud enough to reach the kitchen.
There was the sound of the fridge opening, the clink of glass. Then Moon Baek’s voice, flat and dry but not without feeling.
“Working on it.”
Lee Do stayed lying in bed, a soft, almost wistful smile curving his lips as he closed his eyes and shifted carefully among the tangled sheets. The quiet stillness of the apartment wrapped around him like a fragile shield, a brief moment of peace in the chaos of their lives.
Then, bare feet moved slowly across the wooden floor, pulling him back to the present. His eyes fluttered open to the dim light. Moon Baek stood in the doorway, bare-chested, a living map of his past. Dark tattoos spiralled across his skin. Raised, pink scars dotted the surface from surgeries meant to fight the cancer that had taken root within him. Above his heart, a stark white bandage clung to the spot where a stray bullet had torn through.
Moon Baek’s eyes held a depth almost too knowing, the warm brown of one eye mixed with the pale, artificial blue of the other, both framed by strands of hair streaked with grey, a silent testimony to battles endured, both physical and emotional.
The weight of it all pressed down on Lee Do, the terrifying thought of having almost lost Moon Baek, and the cruel certainty that he would lose him eventually. He didn’t know which was worse: the near loss or the inevitable one waiting in the future. The fear and sadness flickered across his face, raw and vulnerable, something Moon Baek caught instantly.
“Don’t do that,” Moon Baek said softly, low but firm, tinged with gentle insistence. “Happy thoughts, please.”
After a brief pause, he stepped forward and held out a steaming cup of tea. “You want some?”
Lee Do shook his head quietly and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He leaned forward until his head rested against Moon Baek’s warm stomach, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath him.
Moon Baek let out a small, amused sound, the corner of his mouth twitching with a smile as he looked down. His free hand went to Lee Do’s nape, holding him there.
“Going soft on me?” he teased, standing tall while Lee Do settled against him.
Lee Do grumbled something incoherent against him and stayed there, the hand on his nape a comfortable weight. Moon Baek twirled strands of his hair absentmindedly.
“Is there anything you want to do before you…?” Lee Do’s voice was low, hesitant, leaving the question unfinished, as if saying the words outright might break something fragile. Moon Baek’s fingers stilled in his hair, the motion fading into stillness.
After a long pause, Moon Baek whispered, “No. Not really.”
The words settled between them, quiet and heavy with unspoken meaning.
Lee Do shifted slightly, searching his face. “Nothing at all? No last things you want to see or say?”
Moon Baek’s gaze held his, the pale blue of his artificial eye catching the dim light like a distant star. “Maybe just… this,” he said softly.
His fingers tightened gently in Lee Do’s hair, a quiet anchor in the space between them.
Lee Do leaned in, resting his head closer against Moon Baek’s chest, letting the silence fold around them like a fragile shield, full of things neither needed to say aloud.
Moon Baek’s hand wandered up Lee Do’s head, simply holding him while he sipped his tea. “You sure you don’t want any?”
Lee Do scoffed and shook his head, his breath a sharp gust of warm air against Moon Baek’s chest. “Not right now,” he murmured. Goosebumps followed in its wake, and Lee Do watched in mild fascination.
Moon Baek’s fingers traced slow, lazy circles at the base of Lee Do’s skull, grounding them both in the quiet. The warmth of the tea steamed between them, filling the space with something soft and ordinary amidst the weight of everything else.
They stayed like that for a while, neither needing to speak, letting the rhythm of each other’s breathing and the faint hum of the city outside settle around them like a fragile peace.