The night stretched across the sky.
Dark and wide.
Consuming everything at the edges first.
Then the middle.
Until all the shapes the forest made in daylight became something else.", "Wobbly.", "Dark.", "The suggestion of trees rather than trees themselves.",
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Then the rain came down.
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Gentle at first.
From clouds that had been gathering without announcement.
Small drops finding the dry earth.", "Finding it.", "Changing it.", "The dust becoming mud.", "The mud becoming something that held footprints and gave them back.",
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The shelter they had built was small.
Sticks tied together with vines.", "The forest providing what the forest provided when you learned to ask it properly.", "Leaves layered across the top.", "Not perfect.", "But enough.", "Enough to make a roof out of what was available.",
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Ha Joon and Eun Byol underneath it.
Bodies close.", "The rain singing its particular song through the leaves above them.", "The forest joining in around it.", "Wind and water and the low sounds of living things finding shelter the same as them.",
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Eun Byol looked at the clouds.
At the dark shape of them above the canopy.
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"You told me once that you wanted to be here.", she said.", "That you wanted to be strong.", "I never got to ask why.",
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Ha Joon's face.", "Dried blood.", "Bruises finding colors that hadn't been there a week ago.", "His hair tied back.", "Damp.", "A small drop landing on his forehead as he looked at her.",
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"I wanted to be stronger.", he said.", "I wanted to be a better person.", "A person that could take care of his mother.", "A person people could look at and admire.", "Love maybe.",
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Tears came out slow.
His eyes catching the low light.", "Going glassy.", "Holding it.",
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"I felt alone for so many years."
A breath.
"I guess I just wanted to be special."
He paused.
"Looking back that was wishful thinking.", "I came into this world alone.", "I'll probably die alone.", "I gave up on a long time ago.",
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He stopped.
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"But then I met him."
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Thunder.
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It moved through the forest.", "Light arriving first.", "Filling everything for a single second.", "Ha Joon's face catching it.", "His eyes holding all of it.", "All that brightness.", "All that sudden clarity.",
Then the sound following.", "Deep.", "Moving through the trees.", "Interrupting the forest's song for just a moment.", "Creating discord in it.", "Then fading.", "The forest resuming.",
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Inside his head.
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A young boy.
Dark skin.", "Short nappy hair.", "A suit that looked like it came from somewhere else entirely.", "Black jacket.", "White shirt.", "Sitting in an old brown chair that had seen better decades.", "Eyes that consumed everything they landed on.",
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His voice.
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*I don't want talent. I want greatness. And I can see it in you.*
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"For a long time nobody saw me.", Ha Joon said.", "I felt like a ghost.", "Useless.", "Like I took up space without justifying it.",
A breath.
"He made me feel something.", "He made me feel not special exactly.", "Just seen.", "Like someone had looked and found something worth finding.",
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He looked at the rain coming through the gaps in the leaves.
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"I think you'd like him."
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Eun Byol looked at his face.", "At the way the light moved across it when he talked about the boy in the chair.",
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"The way you talk about him.", she said.", "He must be something.",
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Ha Joon's voice.", "Soft.", "Certain.",
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"He is."
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She looked back at the sky.", "At the clouds still carrying their weight across it.",
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"I didn't want to be here.", she said.", "For the longest time I've been trying to find where I belong.", "People kept telling me where that was.", "And now this.", "This horrible place.", "Closer to hell than anything I've known.",
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She paused.
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"But I'm happy I got to meet you."
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Ha Joon looked at her.
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"And what are you talking about.", she continued.", "You're going to die alone.", "I'm right here.", "I'm tired.",
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They both smiled.
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At the same time.
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The rain carrying on above them.", "Through the leaves.", "Into the mud around the shelter.", "Steady.", "Indifferent.", "Beautiful in the specific way that rain is beautiful when you are already wet and have accepted it.",
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From somewhere in the dark.
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Footsteps.
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Barely audible beneath the rain.", "But present.", "Getting closer as the rain's intensity grew.", "As if the rain was covering something.", "Being used by something.",
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Chi-Long.
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Her face finding the dark between the trees.
Emotionless.
Moving toward them.