Chapter Text
Without warning or reason beyond the turning of seasons, the vibrant colors of April swirled until their saturation reached its peak. The bougainvillea climbed over rusted gates like ambition that had learned to be beautiful. The gumamela opened along the alleys as if the walls beneath them were not damp with old rain and older blood. Even the sky had acquired a blue so severe that it felt almost insulting, a cheerful and careless blue that lowered itself over funerals, debt, violence, and every catastrophe people had learned to call ordinary through sheer repetition.
April was not an allergen, but it provoked people nonetheless.
The old women mocked it first. They sat outside local convenience stores with their fans moving lazily against their throats and spoke of the month as though it were a foolish child wearing a dead woman's jewelry. The delivery drivers agreed, saying that only April could be shameless enough to make the streets beautiful when the gutters still stank of things better left unnamed. The children, who did not yet know that beauty could be offensive, picked fallen petals from the pavement and pressed them into their notebooks, creating gardens of paper that would fade and crumble by summer.
At the edge of the cemetery, saprophytes began their work. They were not visible to the casual eye, these organisms that fed on decay. They resided where the living no longer wished to look closely. On the roots of dead trees. Beneath the cracked stones of forgotten graves. Along the walls, where rainwater gathered and softened the names carved into marble until the dead became illegible. They absorbed what had already been given up by the world and turned decay into a strange form of nourishment, making death feed the living soil.
Then came May.
May bloomed flamboyantly, as if it had never fed on rot, as if beauty could be separated from the corpses that nourished it. It filled the district with flowers sold for apologies, anniversaries, birthdays, burials, and confessions made too late. Only then did the season become a subject of healing for the insane, as seen by the unaffected. Only then did people begin to believe that time could mend what it had broken.
Han had always thought this was cruel. Not the flowers themselves. Flowers, at least, did not lie about what they were. They opened, endured briefly, and surrendered without pretense or false hope. It was the people who bothered him. They brought chrysanthemums to funerals as if grief needed decoration. They placed lilies beside coffins as if death could be made clean by fragrance, as if the smell of flowers could erase the smell of what had been lost. They ordered roses for the dead with more sincerity than they had ever offered to the living, paying for beauty only after there was no one left to appreciate it.
By seventeen, Han had learned to arrange flowers around bodies. By twenty-two, he had learned that some bodies arrived with more silence than others. Some came with families screaming. Some came with police questions. And some came with nothing but the marks they carried, the stories written in their wounds.
The funeral house stood at the old district's narrowest street, wedged between a closed bakery that had been closed longer than it had been open and a pawnshop that changed owners every six months like a game nobody was winning. Its official name was Ever Rest Memorial Services, printed in faded gold letters on the glass door. The sign had been there since Han was a child, and the letters had survived typhoons, unpaid taxes, two fires nearby, and one drunken widower who had thrown a stone at it because his wife looked too peaceful during the wake—as if peace was an insult rather than a mercy.
Han's uncle owned the place, though ownership was a generous word for a building that seemed to be negotiating with collapse. The ceiling leaked over the storage room in a rhythm that had become almost predictable, a kind of metronome of disrepair. The embalming area smelled permanently of disinfectant and hidden dampness, that particular scent of things trying to preserve other things that refused to be preserved. The chapel lights flickered whenever the refrigerator was opened, as if the machines were competing for the same fragile current. Still, it remained one of the most reliable businesses in the district because people died regardless of the economy, regardless of whether anyone could afford the services.
Han worked there because someone had to. His uncle called it a family obligation. Han called it an unpaid apprenticeship with spiritual damage. The dead, however, were easier than the living. They did not ask why his hands shook after midnight. They did not make promises they would break by morning. They did not insist that things would get better in the vague, careless manner of people who had no intention of helping.
That April afternoon, the funeral house was unusually quiet. No wake was scheduled until the evening. The lilies for Mrs. Choi had already been arranged around the white coffin in Chapel B, their stems cut at precise angles, their leaves stripped carefully. The chrysanthemums for the infant who had not lived long enough to be given a nickname were soaking in cold water behind the counter, waiting for someone to decide what they meant. Han had just finished trimming the stems of yellow tulips when the bell above the glass door rang with the kind of urgency that suggested someone was not looking for a coffin.
He did not look up immediately. Long practice had taught him to distinguish between the hesitant entrance of grieving families and the purposeful entrance of the lost.
“Wrong door,” he said, keeping his eyes on the tulips. “The pawnshop is next door.”
No answer came.
Han sighed and lifted his gaze.
The man standing by the entrance was dressed as though he had stolen an expensive outfit from someone with worse taste in everything but price. Black jacket, white shirt, and dark trousers that had probably cost more than Han's monthly salary. His hair was slightly damp from sweat or rain, though the sky outside had remained clear all afternoon. He was young, perhaps Han's age, perhaps older by a year or two. It was difficult to tell because exhaustion had a way of making people look both ancient and unfinished, as though they had been carved halfway and then abandoned.
Most notably, he held one hand against his side. There was blood between his fingers. Not a small amount. The kind of blood that suggested the body had not yet decided whether to keep or discard its current occupant.
Han stared at him for a moment. Then he looked at the floor where blood was beginning to drip with mechanical regularity.
“You are dripping,” he said with the tone of someone observing that a plant needed water.
The stranger glanced down, as though only then remembering that blood was a liquid and therefore subject to gravity.
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”
Han set the scissors down with careful precision. “Most people who come here bleeding usually apologize after they stop bleeding, not before. It suggests an optimism I am not sure they have earned.”
“I was being polite.”
“You were being inconvenient. There is a difference.”
The stranger smiled. It was not the smile of someone happy. It was too clean for that, too practiced, like something learned from a manual rather than felt. It had the shape of amusement without the warmth that should have belonged to it.
“Is there a doctor here?” he asked.
“This is a funeral house.”
“I noticed.”
“Then you understand the kind of clients we usually accept and, presumably, why arriving with an active wound might be considered unpromising for your future.”
The stranger's smile widened slightly, and Han caught the first real thing beneath it, something that moved like intelligence beneath shallow water. “I am trying not to become one of your clients. That was the entire plan, actually. So far it is not working as intended.”
Han should have called someone. That would have been the reasonable response, the safe response. A bleeding stranger had entered the family business in the middle of April, and there were procedures for this, though none of them had been written down. He should have shouted for his uncle, called an ambulance, or locked the inner door in case the blood belonged not only to him but to whatever violence had followed him there like a debt.
Instead, without quite knowing why, Han took the first-aid kit from beneath the counter. The small white box had seen enough use that the red cross had faded to the color of old rust.
“Sit,” he said, and watched as the stranger obeyed, lowering himself carefully onto the chair used by clients who came to choose coffin sizes while pretending they were not calculating grief against their remaining budget.
Han dragged another chair in front of him. When he knelt, the stranger looked briefly surprised, as if courtesy was not something he expected from people in his immediate vicinity.
It was a shallow wound near the lower ribs, poorly wrapped with what looked like a torn handkerchief. A knife wound, probably, which is not necessarily fatal if treated properly. Han had seen enough bodies to know the difference between wounds that suggested anger and wounds that suggested precision. This one was the latter. The edges were clean. The depth was measured. Someone had decided to hurt this man with care.
“You should go to a hospital,” Han said, beginning to gently clean around the injury.
“I dislike hospitals.”
“That is not a medical argument, and you are bleeding. Medical arguments are the only kind that matter right now.”
“I also dislike questions.”
Han did not pause in his work. “That is unfortunate. You entered my workplace bleeding. Questions are now part of the service. Non-negotiable. So please choose: hospital willingly, or hospital after you faint on my floor and I call an ambulance. Both end with a hospital. One is slightly less embarrassing.”
The stranger leaned back against the chair, watching him with an interest that felt excessive for someone losing blood. There was something almost gentle about the way he looked at Han, the way he tracked each small movement, as if Han was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in a very long time. Han disliked being looked at like that. It made him want to move faster, or slower, or stop moving entirely.
“What is your name?” the stranger asked after a while.
Han pressed gauze against the wound, not gently. The stranger inhaled sharply, and Han felt a small, mean satisfaction at it.
“Is that your technique?” the stranger asked. “Cause pain and maybe they will answer?”
“My technique improves when people answer questions before I have to ask twice,” Han said. “Call it a system of incentives.”
The stranger was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Steven. My name is Steven.”
Han glanced up briefly. The man's eyes were darker than they appeared at first glance, full of something that had learned to hide in plain sight. “Only Steven?”
“For now,” he said. “The last name changes depending on what kind of conversation we are having.”
“That is suspicious.”
“You work in a funeral house and sound like a moral authority commenting on my naming conventions. I could make observations about your suspicion, but I will refrain, for your sake and for my side.”
Han returned to cleaning the wound. “How did you get this?” he asked, not because he particularly cared how Steven had gotten hurt, but because silence made the space between them feel too small, too intimate, too loaded with possibilities.
Steven smiled again. “A disagreement about payment.”
“You did not pay someone?”
“I paid the wrong someone.”
Han did not press further. He cleaned the wound in careful silence while Steven watched him the entire time, tracking every movement like someone learning a skill they might need later.
“You are very calm,” Steven said eventually.
“I grew up around dead bodies. It tends to put bleeding ones in perspective.”
“I am not dead.”
“Then stop moving. You are making this difficult.”
Steven did not stop moving, exactly, but he stilled in a way that suggested cooperation. He leaned slightly forward, studying the flower petals scattered across Han's apron, the ones that had stuck to the fabric while he was arranging them earlier.
“You arrange these?” Steven asked, pointing at the petals with his free hand.
“No. They arrange themselves. I merely supervise their arrangement and occasionally correct their mistakes.”
“That is a funny way to describe work.”
“I was not joking,” Han said, but there was something almost like warmth in his voice.
Steven looked toward the open doorway leading to Chapel B. From where he sat, he could see the edges of white lilies surrounding Mrs. Choi's coffin, the way they formed a careful barrier between the living and whatever came next.
“You make death look expensive,” Steven said quietly.
Han secured the bandage with practiced efficiency. “Death is expensive because looking peaceful costs extra. You cannot maintain the pretense of rest without significant investment in fragrance and careful lighting. Death is naturally unflattering. We simply help it along.”
“That sounds like something printed on a business card.”
“If I ever inherit this place, I will consider it,” Han said. “Though the thought makes me want to walk into traffic.”
Steven's gaze returned to him, and this time there was something different in it, something less like assessment and more like recognition. “You want to inherit it?”
Han finished tying the bandage and sat back on his heels, studying his work. It was not perfect, but it would hold.
“No,” he said, and the answer came too quickly for it to be anything but true. “I would rather burn it down and scatter the ashes than inherit it.”
Steven watched him get to his feet. There was something in the young man, in the way he moved, that suggested he understood the weight of unwanted inheritances. “You should leave through the back,” Han said, changing the subject with the firmness of someone who disliked his own honesty. “If someone followed you, I do not want them coming through the front door and disrupting Mrs. Choi's wake.”
Steven did not move.
“That is very thoughtful,” he said.
“It is practical. Thoughtful people are arrested. Practical people clean their floors.”
“Thoughtful things are often practical when people are embarrassed about being kind.”
Han looked at him flatly. Steven raised both hands in surrender, then winced because one of those hands was still attached to the injured side of his body.
“Right. Back door,” Steven said. “I am taking the hint.”
Han led him toward the back of the funeral house, through the narrow corridor that smelled of formaldehyde and something older, something that no amount of cleaning could remove. When Steven's steps faltered, Han stepped forward before he could think better of it, letting Steven's weight lean into him for only a moment. It was surprising how much heat another body held, how substantial it felt against his own.
Steven smelled faintly of smoke, rain, and something metallic that suggested he had been bleeding for longer than just the moment before he arrived.
“You are feverish,” Han said, noting the warmth coming off him.
“I have been told I run warm.”
“By whom? Anyone whose opinion mattered?”
“By various people whose opinions I have since discredited for other reasons.”
Han stopped at the back door. “That is what I thought.” He opened it and checked both directions. The narrow alley stretched out before them, lined with moss growing between the cracks and the smell of fried garlic from a neighbor's kitchen. Everything was still.
Steven paused at the threshold, one hand protecting his bandaged side beneath the jacket.
“Do you always help strangers who bleed on your floor?” he asked.
“No. You are my first inconvenience today.”
“I am honored.”
“You are annoying,” Han said, and it was meant to be dismissal, but something in his tone suggested otherwise.
“Also true,” Steven agreed.
He stepped into the alley slowly, carefully. Han watched him move, noting the way he held himself, the way the pain registered in the small movements of his shoulders. That should have been the end of it. A strange man entered, bled, flirted badly, left, and became another story the district swallowed before dinner. A moment Han could file away and forget.
But Steven turned back.
“The flowers,” he said, his voice different now, carrying something underneath the lightness. “Which ones are for people who deserve to die?”
Han looked at him. The question was delivered lightly, but the air around it had changed. Something beneath the humor had surfaced, not enough to be named, only enough to warn him that Steven was asking about himself, had been asking about himself since he arrived.
“None,” Han said. “Flowers are not judges.”
“Then which ones are for people who think they do? Judge, I mean. For people who think they deserve the ending they have arranged?”
Han did not answer at once. Instead, he reached into the bucket nearest the back door and took a single white carnation. It was not the prettiest one. One petal had bent at the edge, and its stem was too short for most arrangements. By any reasonable standard, it was nearly worthless.
He gave it to Steven anyway.
“This one,” he said. “This one is for you.”
Steven accepted it with a strange stillness, as if he had been handed something more substantial than a flower.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“Nothing. It was damaged, so I could not sell it. But it survives anyway. I keep it because it is still a flower, still capable of opening, even though no one asked it to, even though no one particularly wanted it. It does not require judgment to exist. It simply does.”
Steven stared at him for what felt like a long time. The white carnation looked impossibly fragile in his hand, a small thing against all the darkness he was carrying.
Then he laughed, and this time it was a real sound, full of something that might have been hope or might have been the last bit of something else leaving him.
“You are terrible at comfort,” Steven said.
“I was not comforting you.”
“Of course not.”
He tucked the carnation carefully into his jacket pocket, the way you might tuck away a secret or a promise. Then he turned and walked into the alley, into the sunlight and the laundry shadows. The white carnation remained visible at the edge of his pocket until he turned the corner and disappeared entirely.
Han stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching the empty space where Steven had been. That should have been the last time. It was not.
The next body came three days later.
Han recognized Steven's work before he recognized Steven himself, which was a terrible thing to know about someone after one meeting. The corpse was male, approximately forty, delivered before dawn by two men who refused to give their names or meet anyone's eyes. They dropped their burden at the loading dock like they were depositing something stolen, which perhaps they were.
The police report claimed robbery. The family claimed an accident on the train. Han's uncle claimed payment had already been made, which was the only thing anyone cared about. The body would be beautiful before dinner. That was the only truth that mattered anymore.
The dead man's throat had been cut with a precision that suggested neither anger nor panic. Han could tell the difference now, had learned to read violence the way some people learned to read books. A professional wound. The kind inflicted by someone who had killed before and would kill again. The kind that suggested a message was being sent, or a debt was being paid.
Han stood beside the preparation table in the pre-dawn quiet and felt a coldness gather at the base of his spine.
“You are staring,” his uncle said, coming in with coffee he did not offer to share.
“I am observing.”
“Observe faster. The family arrives at eight. Mrs. Choi's family called and wants to move their wake. Something about inauspicious timing.”
Han nodded and began to work. The body had no bruises beyond the fatal wound, no defensive cuts or signs of struggle. Either the dead man had trusted his killer completely, or he had died so quickly that his hands had not had time to argue. Either way, there was a kind of mercy in it. Han cleaned the skin with professional care, arranged the limbs, and tried not to think of a young man with a false smile asking about flowers for people who thought they deserved death.
He did not succeed.
When the sun finally came up and Han stepped outside, needing air and distance from the body that smelled too much like decisions made in darkness, Steven was sitting on the closed bakery's metal steps across the street.
Han stopped walking. Steven lifted a hand in greeting. The bandage beneath his shirt must have pulled with the movement because his smile tightened, but he did not lower his hand. He simply waited, patient as someone who had nowhere else to be.
Han crossed the street.
“You are either very brave or very stupid,” he said, standing at the bottom of the steps.
“I have been called both.”
“You killed him.”
Steven's expression did not change. The street between them filled briefly with the noise of a passing bus. When it was gone, the early morning returned, quiet and indifferent.
Steven looked up at him from the steps. “Are you asking?” Steven said. “Or are you giving me an opportunity to deny it?”
“I am giving you an opportunity to deny it,” Han replied. “Because if you do, we can pretend this never happened. You can walk away. I can go back inside. We can both forget.”
Steven came down the steps and Han did not retreat. They stood very close in the cold light of early morning, and Steven reached for him.
“I did not kill him because I wanted to,” Steven said, and his voice carried the weight of something Han did not yet understand. “I killed him because he needed to die, and no one else was brave enough or stupid enough to make it happen.”
Han laughed, and it came out colder than he intended. “That is what all murderers say when they wish to remain interesting.”
Steven's eyes sharpened. Something dangerous moved across his face. “You think wanting matters?”
“Yes,” Han said. “Unfortunately, it is one of the few things that does.”
Steven took a step closer. “The man at your table sold three girls to settle a debt. One of them was thirteen. One of them died before she reached the pier they were being shipped to. The police lost the file twice. His brother paid the district captain. His wife sent flowers to church every Sunday and called herself a good person.”
Han's anger lost its immediate shape. It transformed into something else, something more complicated and harder to name. He looked at Steven, really looked at him, and saw the truth sitting underneath the practiced smile, underneath the polite fictions.
Steven continued, voice even and careful. “Someone put his name on a table. Someone paid. I accepted.”
“A table,” Han said.
Steven's smile returned, but this time it looked tired rather than practiced. “You don't want to know.”
“That is not for you to decide.”
“It is, actually.”
“Then you came here to confess just enough to feel human and withhold enough to stay untouchable.”
Across the street, the bakery owner arrived and paused awkwardly, keys in hand, as though sensing that the air near his storefront had become unfit for business. Steven stepped aside, and Han returned to the funeral house before either of them spoke again.
He expected not to see Steven after that. Instead, Steven came back the next week with coffee that was too expensive, then with bread that he had probably stolen, and then with a box of mangoes that had clearly been taken from somewhere fancy. Han accepted none of them at first, but Steven left them anyway on the guest table.
“You cannot bribe me into ignoring murder,” Han said one afternoon while Steven sat in the front room, flipping through an outdated coffin catalog with theatrical interest.
“I would never insult you with such a cheap bribe.”
“This coffee costs more than my lunch.”
“Then it is not cheap.”
Han looked at him over the counter. Steven smiled mildly while looking at him, like someone who had learned long ago how to make waiting into an art form.
It should have been unbearable, and in some ways it was. Steven was unbearable in the way heat was unbearable during a blackout. He was constant, intrusive, and impossible to reason with. He appeared at inconvenient hours, injured less often than expected but bruised more often than he admitted. He spoke lightly of terrible things. He seemed to know every exit in every room. He never sat with his back to a door. He remembered how Han took his coffee after hearing the order once.
He also helped carry flower buckets without being asked. He fixed the broken hinge of the rear gate after watching Han kick it shut for two weeks. He brought cat food for the strays and denied doing so even while one of them sat on his shoe. The first time Han smiled because of him, it was an accident.
Steven was attempting to tie a ribbon around a funeral wreath and failing with the concentration of a man disarming a bomb.
“How does it know which side to face?” Steven muttered.
“It is ribbon, not a witness.”
“It keeps twisting.”
“Because you are attacking it.”
“I am handling it.”
“You are threatening it with your fingers.”
Steven looked offended. “I kill people with these fingers.”
“That is not a recommendation for floral work.”
The ribbon slipped again. Steven cursed under his breath. The cat by the back door meowed as if in judgment.
Han laughed. It was small and barely even there. He felt it leave him before he could stop it.
Steven looked up. The sight of his attention made Han wish immediately to retrieve the sound and bury it somewhere sensible.
“What?” Han asked.
“Nothing.”
“You are staring.”
“I am observing.”
“That is my line.”
“I am honoring your influence.”
Han rolled his eyes and took the ribbon from him. “Move.”
Steven moved slightly. Their shoulders touched while Han retied the ribbon properly. It was a simple contact, the kind that should have meant nothing. But Steven went very still beside him, and Han, who had spent years beside the dead, recognized the rare and difficult vulnerability of someone forcing himself not to want.
Han finished the bow.
“There,” he said.
Steven did not look at the wreath.
“It looks better when you do it.”
“Most things do.”
“That confidence is attractive.”
Han's hand froze on the ribbon. Steven's smile appeared, but there was caution beneath it now. As if he had thrown a knife and regretted its direction while it was still in the air.
Han turned to him.
“You flirt at funerals?”
“I flirt near funeral supplies. The distinction matters.”
“No, it does not.”
“It does to me.”
The room smelled of carnations, wet leaves, and old varnish. Afternoon light slid through the dusty window and caught in Steven's hair, softening the sharpest parts of him. He looked younger then, like someone who looked harmless and incapable of holding sharp objects.
“Do you truly want to die?” Han suddenly asked.
Steven blinked. The question had not been planned. It had been waiting, perhaps, beneath every conversation they had avoided finishing. Steven's expression closed in increments.
“What makes you ask that?”
“You look like someone who has been preparing for his funeral.”
The words were softer than Han intended. Steven's gaze dropped briefly to the wreath between them.
“Death has been so elusive,” he said. It was a joke. But it was also not a joke. Han hated him a little for that. He hated him more for the fact that the hatred was already tangled with concern.
“You should not speak like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like your life is an overdue appointment.”
Steven looked at him then. For a moment, he did not seem amused at all.
“And if it is?”
Han had no answer that would not expose too much. So he turned away and lifted another bundle of flowers.
“Then reschedule,” he said. “We are fully booked.”
Steven laughed, but it arrived a bit late.
The district called the syndicate the Table because no one knew what else to call something so ordinary and monstrous at once. It did not have one headquarters. It did not have one leader. It existed in restaurants, private rooms, card games, port offices, election campaigns, shipping ledgers, funeral payments, police favors, and whispers exchanged beneath the noise of karaoke bars. A name written down could become a debt. A debt could become a contract. A contract could become a death sentence. By the time a body arrived at Ever Rest Memorial Services, the violence that produced it had usually been folded into paperwork.
Han learned more than he wanted to. And not because Steven confessed. Steven was careful with facts, especially those that could place Han in danger. However, violence had its own grammar, and Han had been reading bodies long before he learned to read Steven.
A man with two broken fingers before a bullet to the heart meant interrogation. A woman with clean nails and poison-darkened lips meant betrayal disguised as hospitality. A boy with bruises on his wrists and river water in his lungs meant someone wanted him found but not understood.
Han began keeping a notebook. At first, he told himself it was for work, like the dates, names, wounds, funeral arrangements, payments made in cash, and families too afraid to ask questions. But then he began writing patterns: the same courier, same police signature, and same flower orders paid anonymously before the bodies arrived. The connections became visible once you knew how to look for them.
Steven found the notebook one rainy evening. Han had left it beneath the counter while arranging orchids for a wake. When he returned, Steven stood beside the register, staring down at the open pages with all the color gone from his face.
Han crossed the room quickly and snatched it away.
“You had no right.”
“You have no idea what you are doing.”
“I am writing.”
“You are building evidence.”
“Good. Then I am not entirely wasting ink.”
Steven stepped closer. Rainwater clung to his jacket, dripping onto the floor that Han had mopped an hour earlier. Usually, Han would have mentioned it. This time, he did not.
“Burn it,” Steven said.
“No.”
“Han.”
It was the first time Steven said his name like that. Steven was not teasing, not amused, and not gentle. He was afraid.
Han's grip tightened around the notebook.
“I thought you disliked questions.”
“I dislike funerals more.”
“You keep bringing them to me.”
The words landed right there in eerie silence. Steven looked away first. And it did not satisfy Han. His anger moved through him with nowhere clean to go.
“You told me once that wanting does not matter,” Han said. “You were wrong. It matters because one day you will have to decide whether you want to remain there or become your own person.”
Steven's jaw tightened.
“You think I do not know that?”
“I think you know it and have built a very elaborate personality around not acting on it.”
A faint smile touched Steven's mouth.
“You are cruel when you care.”
“I am cruel when I am tired.”
“You are always tired.”
“And you are always bleeding.”
“Not currently.”
“Emotionally, then.”
Steven stared at him. For one absurd second, despite the notebook, despite the rain, despite the list of dead names between them, Han expected Steven to laugh. But he did not. Instead, Steven reached forward and took Han's hand.
Steven's fingers were cold from the rain. There was a small scar across his knuckle that Han had not noticed before. Their hands did not fit perfectly, which made the contact worse. It was neither poetic nor fated. It was two frightened people standing in a funeral house, holding the evidence of everything that could destroy them.
“You cannot save me by investigating them,” Steven said.
“I am not trying to save you.”
Steven looked at their joined hands.
“Then what are you doing?”
Han wanted to open his mouth, but no answer came.
The rain struck the windows in a sudden, hard burst, loud enough to conceal the first crack in the silence. Steven lifted his gaze, and whatever he saw in Han's face made his expression soften with something close to grief.
“That,” Steven said quietly. “That is why you should burn it.”
Han swallowed.
Steven's thumb moved once across the back of his hand, barely touching, actually, but Han felt it with the unbearable intensity of someone who had grown accustomed to the stillness of corpses.
“You are terrible at comfort,” Han whispered.
Steven leaned closer.
“I learned from you.”
There would have been only Steven's mouth and Han's fear and the terrible relief of crossing a line they had spent weeks pretending not to see. It was a light, unsure kiss. Both of them were trembling, though neither would admit it.
And then, someone knocked on the front door. Both of them moved apart at once. Han slid the notebook beneath the counter. Steven stepped back, all softness erased so quickly it felt like watching a light being killed.
At the door stood a man in a gray barong, holding a black umbrella. Han recognized him immediately. Mr. Jeongwoo. Mr. Jeongwoo owned three warehouses near the pier, two restaurants that never seemed to serve customers, and enough police loyalty to make his name unnecessary in certain conversations. He was one of those men who smiled as though generosity had been invented for him. His wife ordered flowers from Ever Rest every All Souls' Day.
Behind Han, Steven went completely still.
Mr. Jeongwoo's gaze moved from Han to Steven, then back. His smile did not change.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly. “I hope I am not interrupting.”
“You are,” Han replied.
Steven made a sound that might have been a warning or a prayer.
Mr. Jeongwoo's smile widened.
“Young people,” he said. “So honest before life teaches them pricing.”
Han did not invite him in. Mr. Jeongwoo entered anyway.
The funeral house seemed to shrink around him. He looked at the flowers, the coffins, the framed price lists, and the damp umbrella in his hand as if everything belonged to him because he had decided to notice it.
“I came to place an order,” he said.
Han walked behind the counter.
“For whom?”
Mr. Jeongwoo tilted his head.
“That depends.”
Steven's voice came from the side of the room, low and controlled.
“Leave.”
Mr. Jeongwoo did not look at him yet.
“Steven,” he said, almost fondly. “You have been difficult to locate.”
“I was not aware I owed you an appointment.”
“You owe many people many things. That is the trouble with boys who survive too often. They begin to confuse luck with permission.”
Han looked between them. Every word contained another word beneath it. This was not a conversation about flowers.
Mr. Jeongwoo finally turned to Steven. “The Table has a contract.”
“No.”
“You have not heard the name.”
“I heard enough.”
Mr. Jeongwoo sighed, the way an uncle might sigh at a disappointing nephew.
“You are becoming sentimental. It is unattractive.”
Steven smiled then. It was the cleanest, coldest smile Han had ever seen on him.
“I have many unattractive qualities.”
“Yes,” Mr. Jeongwoo said. “But sentiment is the only one that makes you inefficient.”
His gaze moved to Han. Han felt it like a hand at his throat.
Steven moved before Mr. Jeongwoo could speak again, stepping between them with speed that looked almost lazy if one did not understand the threat.
Mr. Jeongwoo smiled.
“There it is.”
“No,” Steven said.
“You do not even know what I am going to say.”
“I know enough.”
Mr. Jeongwoo tapped the umbrella against the floor once. “Tomorrow night. Nine o'clock. The old municipal archive. You will receive the file there.”
“I said no.”
“Refusal is expensive.”
“I can pay.”
“Not with money.”
The silence that followed revealed the shape of the trap.
Han understood it before Steven turned his head. He understood it from the angle of Steven's shoulders, from Mr. Jeongwoo's satisfied calm, from the notebook hidden beneath the counter, and every pattern Han had written in it. He understood that the Table knew. Not everything, perhaps, but enough to place a finger on the softest part of Steven's life and press.
Mr. Jeongwoo's voice softened.
“You have always been a practical boy, Steven. Do not become foolish now.”
Steven laughed under his breath.
“Funny. I was recently advised to become my own person.”
“By whom?”
Han met Mr. Jeongwoo's gaze.
Steven did not look away from Jeongwoo, but his hand moved behind his back, small and sharp, telling Han to stay silent.
Han did not.
“By me.”
Steven closed his eyes briefly.
Mr. Jeongwoo looked delighted.
“I see,” he said. “Then I will order lilies.”
Han's stomach turned.
“For whom?” he asked.
Mr. Jeongwoo smiled. “That depends on tomorrow.”
He left without purchasing anything. The bell above the door rang after him.
For a long moment, neither Han nor Steven moved. Then Han reached beneath the counter, pulled out the notebook, and held it against his chest. Steven turned around slowly.
“Do not say it,” he said.
“I am going with you.”
“I said do not say it.”
“I heard you.”
“Han.”
“You are very arrogant for someone who almost collapsed in my funeral house the first day we met.”
Steven crossed the room so quickly that Han's back struck the counter before he realized he had retreated.
“This is not funny.”
“I was not joking.”
“You think because you wrote down names and wounds, you understand what they are capable of?”
“I understand that they are afraid of being recorded.”
“They are afraid of nothing.”
“Everyone is afraid of something.”
Steven's face was close now. It was too close for anger to remain simple.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
Steven looked at him with a fury that had nowhere to go but honesty.
“I am afraid they will kill you to teach me obedience. I am afraid they will make me watch. I am afraid they will put your body on this table and ask me what flowers I want around you. Is that clear enough, or should I make the explanation more poetic?”
Han could not answer. And Steven's breathing grew uneven. His hands were clenched at his sides, as if touching Han would either solve everything or ruin what little control remained.
Han reached up and touched the small cut near Steven's lip. It had healed into a faint line.
“You cannot frighten me into leaving you alone,” Han said.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I am trying to keep you human.”
Steven laughed once, broken and disbelieving.
“You chose a difficult hobby.”
“Yes,” Han said. “You are very high-maintenance.”
That did it. Steven's mouth trembled, and a breath that might have become a laugh escaped him instead.
“You are impossible,” he whispered.
“You keep coming back.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
The question had been beneath all the others. Why return to the funeral house? Why bring coffee? Why let Han speak cruelly and stay to hear the next sentence? Why look at him as if every ordinary thing he did had become evidence of a life Steven was not sure he deserved?
Steven leaned closer until his forehead rested against Han's. The contact was light, almost exhausted.
“Because it is quiet here,” he said. “Even when you are angry.”
Han closed his eyes.
“That is a terrible reason.”
“I have worse ones.”
“Name one.”
Steven's breath touched his mouth.
“Because you look at me like I am still deciding what kind of man I can be.”
Han opened his eyes.
Steven was looking at him as though the answer had cost him something.
“And are you?” Han asked. “Deciding?”
“Deciding?”
“Yes.”
Steven's gaze slowly dropped, and Han thought he would step back, but he did not.
“I think I already decided,” Steven whispered. “I am only afraid it is too late.”
Han kissed him first.
It was a poor decision in almost every practical sense. There was a syndicate outside with eyes in every corner of the district. There was a notebook beneath Han's hand that could get them both killed. There was a corpse in Chapel B, flowers soaking behind the counter, blood patterns neither of them could unlearn, and an appointment at the municipal archive waiting like a blade.
Still, Han kissed him.
Steven made a sound against his mouth that was not a surprise exactly. It was closer to surrender. His hands rose carefully, almost reverently, and settled at Han's waist as if he expected to be told not to touch anything fragile. Han hated that caution. He hated the thought that Steven had been made into a weapon so thoroughly that tenderness seemed to confuse him more than violence.
So Han pulled him closer.
Steven shuddered.
The kiss deepened, ungraceful and searching. It did not feel like salvation. It felt like two people reaching across a burning room and deciding, foolishly, that the heat was worth crossing.
When they separated, Steven remained close.
“This is dangerous,” he said.
Han looked at him. “You came into my workplace bleeding.”
“That was less dangerous.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“I am serious.”
“I know.”
Steven touched Han's cheek, so softly it might have been grief rehearsing itself.
“If tomorrow goes badly—”
“Do not start.”
“If it does,” Steven continued, “you run.”
Han's expression hardened.
“No.”
“Han.”
“No.”
“You do not know how to survive their kind of violence.”
“I know how to survive yours.”
Steven flinched.
Han regretted it, but only because it hurt him too visibly.
“That was unfair,” Han said.
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
Steven nodded once.
The apology was accepted. Han was beginning to understand that this was how Steven received tenderness, too: carefully, as if it might conceal teeth.
“I will go tomorrow,” Steven said. “You will stay here.”
Han did not answer.
Steven's eyes narrowed.
“You are already planning to ignore me.”
“You are learning.”
“I dislike this development.”
“You dislike not being obeyed.”
“No. I dislike the idea of you being dead.”
Han reached for his hand, and Steven simply allowed it. Their fingers linked between them, imperfectly. The rain had softened outside into a quiet and persistent tapping. The flowers behind the counter waited in their buckets. The dead remained dead. The living, unfortunately, continued to make choices.
“Then do not die either,” Han said.
Steven looked at their hands.
“I cannot promise that.”
“Then promise something else.”
“What?”
Han thought of April and its offensive beauty. Of saprophytes feeding in the cemetery. Of May, pretending healing was not built from decay. Of the notebook, the bodies, the man in the gray barong, the white carnation Steven had carried away like a joke, and perhaps kept like something else.
“Promise that when you want to die,” Han said carefully, “you will come here first.”
Steven's face changed.
“That is a strange promise.”
“I work in a funeral home. Strange promises are within my jurisdiction.”
Steven swallowed.
“And what will you do if I come here wanting that?”
Han held his gaze.
“I will make coffee,” he said. “Then I will insult you until the feeling passes.”
Steven laughed. This time it was not a clean practiced smile. It broke in the middle, and Han loved him a little because of that. But then, it also terrified him.
“Fine,” Steven said. “I promise.”
Han followed him the next night.
He did not do so foolishly, though Steven would later accuse him of that in every possible tone. Han waited until Steven left through the rear alley behind the funeral house, dressed in black with a knife hidden at his ankle and a gun tucked beneath his jacket. Then Han took the notebook, slipped it inside the lining of his own coat, and followed from a distance.
The city at night belonged to those who had learned how to walk as if they were not afraid. Han had not learned this. He walked like someone trying very hard to pretend, which was often the same thing if no one looked closely.
The old municipal archive stood near the river, abandoned after a flood damaged most of the ground-floor records. It had become a structure people referred to only when giving directions to somewhere else. The windows were broken. Vines climbed the concrete. The front gate hung loose from one hinge, moving slightly in the wind with a sound like someone breathing through bad lungs.
Steven entered through the side door.
Han waited. Five minutes passed. Then ten. A motorcycle moved along the road and disappeared. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked twice and then stopped abruptly. The district seemed to hold itself in place.
Han was supposed to stay outside. But waiting made him so anxious, and so he entered.
The archive smelled of wet paper, dust, mold, and river mud. Shelves leaned beneath the weight of records no one had saved properly. Moonlight entered through gaps in the roof, striping the floor in pale, broken rectangles.
Han heard voices from the second floor. He moved toward the stairwell. Halfway up, he saw the first body.
A man in a black shirt lay against the wall, neck bent wrong. Han froze, one hand gripping the railing. There was no blood at first glance. Only the impossible quiet of a body that had recently stopped being a person.
Steven had been there.
Han continued upward. This was the moment he would later return to again and again, if later could be said to exist in any meaningful way for someone who died shortly after. He would ask himself why he did not turn back. He would ask whether love was bravery or merely the most elegant form of stupidity. He would ask whether the universe had warned him through every dead flower or every corpse that had arrived with a message folded into its wounds.
At the top of the stairs, the second floor opened into a large records room.
Steven stood in the center of it with blood on his face and a gun pointed at Mr. Jeongwoo. Three other men lay on the floor, their bodies arranged like a pattern only Steven understood. Mr. Jeongwoo did not look afraid. That frightened Han more than the bodies.
“Sentiment,” Jeongwoo said, “has made you sloppy.”
Steven's hand was steady.
“You talk too much for a man at gunpoint.”
“And you hesitate too much for a man holding one.”
“I am considering where to shoot you.”
“No,” Jeongwoo said. “You are considering whether killing me will save him.”
Steven's face went blank. Han realized too late that he had stepped into the light.
Steven turned, and their eyes met. The anger in his face was immediate, followed by fear so raw that Han felt it across the room.
Behind Jeongwoo, a shadow moved. Han saw the gun before Steven did.
There are moments in which the body chooses before thought can become language. Han did not remember deciding. He remembered only movement. The scrape of his shoe against wet concrete. Steven is shouting his name. Jeongwoo smiling, and the flash of the gun. It was the terrible, ordinary sound of a bullet entering a room.
Han looked down at his chest as though someone had spilled something on him. His coat was dark, so the blood took a moment to be noticed. Then warmth spread beneath his fingers. His knees weakened.
Steven fired.
The man behind Jeongwoo fell, while Jeongwoo easily fled, or perhaps Steven let him flee because Han was falling and the world had narrowed to the distance between them.
Steven caught him before he hit the floor.
It would have been almost funny if Han had been able to breathe properly. After all those bodies Han had arranged, all those families he had instructed to hold shoulders rather than hands because fingers stiffened strangely after death, he had not expected dying to be so undignified. There was no solemn music, no clean white light, and no meaningful weather. There was only mold, dust, Steven's shaking hands, and the sound of someone repeatedly saying no as though repetition could become medicine.
“No. No, no, no. Han. Look at me. Look at me.”
Han tried. He really did. Steven's face hovered above him, stripped of every mask. He looked terribly young. Younger than the man who had entered the funeral house bleeding. Younger than the killer. Younger even than the boy he might have been before the Table found him.
“You followed me,” Steven said, voice breaking. “You're stupid, impossible—why would you follow me?”
Han tried to answer. Blood came out of his mouth instead.
Steven pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Please. Please, stay with me. I'll get you out. I'll fix this. I know someone. I can—”
“You are bad,” Han whispered.
Steven froze.
“What?”
Han swallowed. It tasted like iron.
“At comfort.”
For one impossible second, Steven laughed. Then he cried. It was not loud. It was worse because it was quiet. His face crumpled around the sound, and Han wanted, absurdly, to apologize for making him unattractive with grief.
“I told you to run,” Steven said.
“I said no.”
“You should have listened.”
“You say many useless things.”
Steven pressed his forehead to Han's. His hands were slick with blood. Han could feel them trembling against his chest, as if Steven were trying to hold his soul inside his body by force.
“I'm sorry,” Steven whispered. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
Han wanted to tell him not to apologize. He wanted to tell him the notebook was in his coat. He wanted to tell him Jeongwoo knew too much, that the funeral house was involved, that the bodies were not merely evidence but messages, that someone had ordered this not only to punish Steven but to erase everyone who had begun to understand the pattern.
He wanted to tell him about May; about saprophytes, about how healing was sometimes only decay given another name. Mostly, he wanted to tell Steven that the kiss had not been a mistake.
His hand lifted with difficulty. Steven caught it immediately and pressed it to his cheek.
“Do not,” Steven said. “Do not look at me like that.”
Han tried to smile. It must have failed because Steven looked destroyed.
“You promised,” Han whispered.
Steven shook his head.
“No. No, you do not get to use that now.”
“Coffee,” Han breathed. “Insults.”
“Stop.”
“When you want to die.”
“Han, stop.”
“Come to me first.”
Steven's grip tightened around his hand.
“I will,” he said desperately. “I will. I promise. Just stay. You have to stay to insult me properly, okay? You have to—”
The lights flickered. The moon shifted behind the broken roof.
For a moment, Han saw something standing behind Steven.
Not a man, and not a shadow exactly. A tall, dark figure with a face obscured by the absence of light. It stood at the edge of the room with a stillness that made all other stillness appear alive.
Han felt no fear when he saw it. That was strange. He had spent years among the dead and had feared many things, but not the dead themselves.
The figure lifted its head.
Han understood.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Steven leaned closer.
“What? What is it?”
Han looked at him.
The pain had begun to recede, which seemed cruelly generous. Steven's face blurred at the edges. Han wanted to memorize him with the precision of a final duty: the blood on his jaw, the wetness beneath his eyes, the small scar near his lip, the terrible love he had not known what to do with until it was already too late.
“Steven,” Han said.
“I'm here.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't. I'm here. I'm right here.”
Han's fingers moved weakly against his cheek.
“That is the problem.”
Steven did not understand. There was no time to make him. The figure behind him reached out one long, dark hand.
Han died before Steven could say his name again.
Death was not darkness. That disappointed Han. He had expected darkness, or perhaps nothing, which seemed more efficient. Instead, he woke standing in a corridor that did not appear to end. The walls were neither white nor black, but a color that reminded him of old paper soaked in moonlight. Doors lined both sides. Some were open. Some were locked. Some had no handles. Somewhere far away, typewriters clicked with bureaucratic aggression.
Han looked down.
His shirt was clean. There was no blood stain, and he looked decent.
A woman sat behind a desk at the center of the corridor, though Han was certain the desk had not been there a moment earlier. She wore a black suit, red lipstick, and the expression of someone who had already decided he would be troublesome.
“Park Han,” she said.
Han stared at her.
“You died at twenty-two years, seven months, and nine days. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the chest. Secondary cause: romantic foolishness.”
Han blinked.
“Excuse me?”
She stamped a paper.
“Do not argue with the classification. We see it often.”
“Where am I?”
“Processing.”
“For what?”
“Reassignment.”
Han looked around again. A man in a hospital gown walked through a door at the far end and disappeared into golden light. A child holding a stuffed rabbit sat on a bench while a creature with antlers filled out paperwork beside her. An old woman scolded a floating skull for mispronouncing her surname.
Han returned his attention to the woman.
“I would like to wake up.”
“You cannot.”
“Then I would like to file a complaint.”
The woman looked up.
For a brief second, something like amusement crossed her face.
“Yes,” she said. “Definitely troublesome.”
Han stepped closer to the desk. “Steven. Where is he?”
“Alive.”
The answer struck him harder than death had. Han closed his eyes. Alive. Steven was alive. Good. The relief that moved through him was so large it almost became pain again.
The woman opened a drawer and removed a black folder. “Ordinarily, you would be directed toward transition. However, there has been an irregularity.”
Han opened his eyes.
“What irregularity?”
“You saw the collector assigned to you before separation.”
“The shadow.”
“Yes.”
“Was that death?”
“One of its employees.”
“That is less poetic than expected.”
“Most truths are.”
She handed him the folder. Han did not take it.
“What is this?”
“Your reassignment.”
“I did not apply.”
“No one does.”
The folder opened by itself.
Inside was a page with his name written at the top. Beneath it were several lines of text he could not read at first. The letters shifted like insects, rearranging themselves until meaning settled.
Position: Reaper Candidate.
Assignment Type: Delayed Collection.
Bond Interference: Severe.
Primary Soul: Steven Kim.
Han stopped reading. The corridor grew quiet, or perhaps his hearing had narrowed around that one name.
“No,” he said.
The woman's expression did not change.
“You have not heard the terms.”
“No.”
“That is rarely an effective response.”
“I am not taking him.”
“You may not have a choice.”
Han laughed once.
“I died because of him.”
“Yes.”
“I loved him.”
“Yes.”
“He is alive.”
“For now.”
Han gripped the edge of the desk. “Do not say it like that.”
The woman folded her hands. “Steven Kim has escaped death eleven times before his natural threshold. Three were caused by skill. Two by coincidence. One by medical intervention. Five by unauthorized interference from entities who believed his file was incorrectly marked.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means death has been circling him for some time.”
Han remembered Steven's smile in the alley. ‘Death has been so elusive,’ Steven once said to him. His throat tightened.
“You said delayed collection.”
“Yes.”
“Delayed until when?”
“Until he is ready.”
Han looked down at the folder again. The letters shifted.
Primary Soul: Steven Kim.
Status: Living.
Condition: Fractured.
Risk: Self-directed death-seeking behavior.
Assigned Collector: Park Han.
Han read it once, then again. The corridor seemed to tilt for Han's [erspective.
“He wants to die,” Han whispered.
The woman did not answer. That was answer enough. Han closed the folder slowly.
Somewhere behind him, a door opened. Wind moved through the corridor, carrying the faint smell of rain, lilies, blood, and the funeral house. For a moment, he heard Steven's voice from somewhere impossibly far away.
Han.
He is being remembered. Han thought of that, hearing Steven's echoing voice. He held the folder against his chest.
“What happens if I refuse?”
The woman smiled without warmth.
“Then he dies without you.”
Han looked at her.
“And if I accept?”
“Then you follow him until the appointed moment. You do not reveal yourself unless permitted by threshold breach. You do not alter the conditions of death. You do not interfere with mortal consequence. You collect the soul when it is ready.”
Han's fingers tightened around the folder.
“And if he is not ready?”
“Then you wait.”
“How long?”
The woman stamped another page.
“As long as it takes.”
Han thought of Steven on the archive floor, covered in blood, begging him to stay. He thought of their silly promises in the funeral home. He thought of the Table, Mr. Jeongwoo, the notebook hidden in his dead coat, and all the bodies arranged beneath flowers that had never judged anyone.
He thought of April, obscene with color. He thought of May, pretending to heal. Then he looked at the woman behind the desk.
“If I accept,” he said, “can I protect him?”
“No.”
Han smiled faintly.
The woman sighed.
“That was not an invitation to become creative.”
“I am not creative.”
“You worked with funeral flowers.”
“That is grief logistics.”
“You are going to be difficult.”
“I have been told.”
The woman held out a pen.
Han took it. The contract appeared beneath his hand. The ink was black at first, then silver, then the red-brown color of dried blood. Han signed his name without asking the remaining questions, because he already knew the answers would be either useless or unbearable.
The woman took the contract back.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You are now dead with responsibilities.”
“I preferred an unpaid apprenticeship.”
“Most do.”
The corridor began to fade. The desk, the doors, the woman, the distant typewriters, the old paper walls. All of it dissolved into a darkness that was finally closer to what Han had expected from death.
Before it took him completely, the woman spoke once more.
“Park Han.”
He looked at her.
“When he sees you, he will ask whether you are there to take him.”
Han said nothing. The woman's expression softened, but only slightly.
“The correct answer is yes.”
Then the corridor vanished.
Steven did not attend Han's funeral like a mourner. He attended like a man planning revenge.
The funeral house was full by late afternoon. Neighbors came because grief, in the district, was both a tragedy and an event. The flower suppliers came with unsold white roses. The old women came with fans pressed to their throats, whispering that Han had always been too quiet, too serious, too pale, as if these had been symptoms they should have reported to someone.
His uncle stood near the coffin, looking smaller than usual and too angry to cry.
Steven stood at the back. He wore black, though not the careless black he usually wore. This was formal, deliberate, and severe. His face had healed badly from the fight. A bruise darkened his cheek. One of his knuckles had split open again. He looked neither ashamed nor proud of these things. He simply stood with his hands at his sides and stared at the coffin as if waiting for Han to sit up and scold everyone for the poor flower placement.
Han stood beside him, unseen.
That was the first cruelty of his new position. He had expected distance. Instead, he had been returned close enough to touch and given no body with which to do it.
Steven's gaze did not move from the coffin.
“You used too many lilies,” he said.
No one heard him except Han.
Han looked toward the arrangement around his own body and felt immediate irritation. He was right. There were too many lilies. His uncle had panicked and accepted everything the suppliers brought, resulting in a display that made Han look like someone with expensive guilt instead of opinions. The carnations were placed too low. The chrysanthemums clashed with the roses. Someone had tied the ribbons incorrectly.
“This is disgraceful,” Han said. No one heard him.
Yet Steven's mouth twitched. It was not a smile, not truly. But something moved there, brief and ruined, as if some part of him had imagined Han saying exactly that.
Then his face collapsed again. He stepped forward when the crowd thinned.
Han followed.
Steven approached the coffin with the careful movements of someone entering a room where a dangerous animal slept. He stopped beside Han's body.
For a long time, he did nothing. Then he reached into his jacket. Han saw the white carnation that he had first given him on their first meeting. It was damaged, dried, and carefully preserved. Steven had kept it.
Han felt something inside him break again, which seemed unfair because he had assumed death would limit the number of times a person could be broken.
Steven placed the carnation between Han's folded hands.
“You gave me this because it was damaged,” he whispered.
Han stood beside him.
“Because I could not sell it,” he corrected automatically.
Steven's breathing hitched.
“I should have died that day.”
Steven leaned closer to the coffin, his voice low enough that even the nearest mourners could not have heard.
“I should have died the first time I came here. Or the second. Or all the times after. You knew that, didn't you? You knew something was wrong with me.”
Steven's hand trembled against the coffin's edge.
“You told me to come to you first.”
Han's throat tightened around a useless answer.
“I'm here,” Steven whispered. “You arrogant, impossible, terrible-at-comfort bastard. I'm here.”
Han reached for him. His hand passed through Steven's shoulder like mist. Steven did not feel it. Of course, he did not. He closed his eyes and bitterly accepted the fact that he was dead.
The room smelled of lilies and grief. Outside, April continued blooming without shame, bright and saturated and cruel. Somewhere beneath the cemetery walls, saprophytes fed quietly on what the world had left behind.
Steven lowered his head.
“I don't know how to do this,” he said.
Han opened his eyes.
Steven's shoulders shook once. He did not let himself cry properly. Even here, even now, he rationed grief like a resource that could be used against him.
Han stood beside him until the evening ended. He stood there when the last visitor left. He stood there when his uncle locked the doors and broke down behind the counter. He stood there when Steven returned alone after midnight, picked the lock of the rear gate Han had once watched him repair, and entered the funeral house like a ghost before he had earned the title.
Steven walked to the coffin. He carried Han's notebook. Blood had stained the edges.
“You were right,” Steven said.
Han stood across from him.
Steven opened the notebook, his fingers moving over the pages with reverence and self-hatred.
“You were right about the patterns. Jeongwoo was not only cleaning bodies for the Table. He was using this place. Your uncle did not know. Or maybe he knew enough not to ask. The payments, the flower orders, the police signatures. You saw all of it.”
Han looked at the notebook, then at Steven. Steven laughed softly.
“You always had to be clever.”
The laugh broke.
“I loved that.”
The words entered the room too late.
Han closed his eyes.
Steven pressed the notebook to his chest.
“I'm going to kill him,” he said. “Then everyone above him. Then everyone who touched your name. Then everyone who made you afraid. Then—”
“No,” Han said.
Steven did not hear him.
“Then maybe death will stop being difficult.”
Han stepped closer.
“Steven.”
There was no response.
Steven looked down at Han's body one last time.
“You told me to come to you first,” he whispered. “I did. You are not here.”
Han stood directly in front of him.
“I am.”
Steven turned away, and the door closed behind him. Han followed because the contract required it. No, in truth, Han followed because love required worse.
Outside, the April flowers trembled under a wind that had arrived without rain. Steven walked into the narrow street, carrying the notebook in one hand and a gun in the other. His shadow stretched long beneath the streetlamp.
Han's shadow followed it at a distance that would neither touch nor leave, because he was not yet ready to take what death had assigned to him.
Behind them, May waited at the edge of the city, preparing to bloom from everything April had failed to save.