Sudongtober 2020

a hyperlink to make it easier - read maple's au ! :D okay starting for real now

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Bora shifts her position, trying to get a bit more comfortable on the hard surface of her car. It’s cold, the slight breeze nipping at any exposed skin. The metal beneath her is equally so, keeping her body chilled through the light fabric of her sweater not quite suited to the weather.

It’s not really the cold that bothers her though. No, it’s the emptiness. Staring up into the night sky, at the wondrous expanse of countless stars… and feeling nothing but cold.

She can remember how it used to be. How she used to stare out at the stars and see something worthy of awe, of excitement. How her mind would imagine the countless undiscovered worlds, entire new solar systems full of life so different from their own it would take lifetimes to understand it.

Back then, the stars held nothing but possibilities. Endless possibilities, just waiting for Bora to take the initiative and make them come true.

Now, she doesn’t see the stars. Not really. Even now, on this little excursion she took with the express purpose of trying to look at the stars - to regain even the tiniest bit of that wonder she used to have - there’s nothing. 

Now she looks up into the night sky, and she sees the darkness. The vast emptiness in between the stars, full of the unknown. She sees the darkness move, reaching towards her in menacing tangled knots, sharp and unforgiving. 

She looks up into the night sky, and feels a prickle at the back of her neck. A phantom pain that will never let her forget. 

Bora shakes her head. This was stupid. Stupid of her to think something as simple as retrying her old hobby of stargazing would be enough to lift the weight off her chest. To let her reclaim any of her passion for exploring the vast unknown beyond Earth. 

Those days are gone now. Taken from her in a way she’s not sure anything could ever resolve.

Bora just about resigns herself to making the lonesome drive back to her apartment, when soft footsteps make her freeze. She doesn’t look, worried that she knows exactly who it is.

“Bora.”

Bora’s breath quickens, the weight on her chest growing impossibly heavier as the newcomer lays down next to her on the hood. She doesn’t dare look over, unwilling to tear her eyes away from the dark sky above her she’d been so ready to abandon only moments ago.

“Dongie. You can’t be here. You shouldn’t-... You know you should leave me alone.”

“Oh Bora…” Handong starts, and the gentle way her voice caresses her name is enough to break down all of Bora’s defenses. All the walls she’d spent so much time building, carefully erecting them brick by torturous brick, and with one word they crumble apart. “You don’t mean that. You don’t really want me gone.”

Tears prick at Bora’s eyes, shaking her head because of course Handong’s right. She could never want her gone. Never did want her gone. Bora just wishes she could’ve told her that when it truly mattered. 

Bora knows no words are needed to answer Handong’s declaration directly, so instead she just lets it all out. Everything that had been so carefully stacked behind those walls she’d built comes tumbling out onto the rubble.

“Oh Dongie… I wanted so much. For me, for you, for the crew and our ship… there was so much more ahead.” Bora laughs, but it’s nothing like the laugh she used to let loose so freely. Instead it’s sharp, bitter, full of the same emptiness and longing that consumes so much of her life now. “We really had it all, didn’t we?”

Handong hums lightly. “I guess we did. Plenty of successful missions under our belts, a wide variety of complementary skills, and most of all… a close-knit, trustworthy crew.”

The words feel like knives, each one biting into Bora deeper and deeper, the pain all centered on the spot right at the apex of her spine.

“Yeah,” Handong continues, “I think that was what I valued most. How I knew each and every one of us had each other’s back, that we could all rely on each other no matter what.”

“Dongie… please…” It comes out as a strangled plea. 

“You’re right. We really did have everything. If only some of us were strong enough to keep it all, right?”

Bora can feel the accusing glare directed at her, like their old ship’s laser weapons burning right through her. 

“Dongie… I didn’t… I never wanted-...”

This time Handong cuts her off, her calm voice rising with bitterness and hostility. It’s a harsh tone Bora can’t ever remember hearing from Handong before, but it so perfectly embodies the betrayal she’d seen on her face the last time they’d truly been together.

“‘I never wanted it,’ she says. It’s always about what you want, isn’t it? ‘I wanted’ this, ‘I never wanted’ that. Have you ever stopped to wonder what I wanted?”

“Dongie…” This time the name comes out broken, the last whimper of someone begging for everything to stop. A person who’s entire world has already shattered, desperately clinging to the tiny pieces in the hopes that even part of it could ever be put back together.

“All I ever wanted… was to live.” 

And that’s when the sobs break loose. Bora almost convulses with the strength behind them, the sounds tearing her raw from the inside out. Guilt and regret churns within her, like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot itself is ripping her apart.

She sees flashes - glimpses of all the things she’s tried so hard to forget. Memories she’s worked endlessly to bury deep in her mind, under reassurances that all feel so empty now.

“It’s not your fault” gets blown away by the feeling of her bones cracking and mending over and over, quietly dropping down into navigation from the ceiling.

“You didn’t actually do it” sent flying out of her mind as she sees herself chirp out a loud and cheerful greeting, but only to cover the noise of the lock clicking into place. 

“There was nothing you could do” shrivels and disintegrates while she remembers what it was like, trapped inside her own mind. Screaming and banging against the back of her own eyes, unable to stop her body from acting normally. Holding up a normal conversation, indistinguishable from her own personality.

“Really, you did all you could. You fought so hard, and it did save lives” crumbles as her mind can only fixate on the one she couldn’t save. The betrayal and the pain that crossed Handong’s face when she felt the appendage dig into her chest, still staring into the eyes of someone she’d trusted unconditionally. The confusion and despair as she fell to the ground, her companion’s eyes cold and unfeeling even as she watched one of her oldest friends gasp out her last breath. 

Bora remembers what it was like, watching her dear friend die, blood on her own hands, and knowing Handong would never know the truth about what happened. She remembers the extra agony that she couldn’t apologize, couldn’t send any sort of sign or even say goodbye. 

And then more memories come tumbling in, the dam broken. Each one adds its own flavor of regret to the maelstrom. Bora sees red flashing lights, the reactor alarm blaring. She sees herself lying, suggesting poor plans of action, gripping too tightly, blood, Gahyeon’s body completely transformed, the hole in Siyeon’s stomach, the horror on the rest of the crew’s faces when they’d realized Gahyeon wasn’t the only one…

Minji, tears pouring down her face as she holds a gun, pointed straight at her. The despair, the desperate desire not to believe, but knowing what she felt when her hand had found the back of Bora’s neck. 

The sheer agony of the mixture Yoohyeon poured down her back, safe for her skin but burning through the creature attached. Its pain was hers, flaming needles piercing and scorching her as the creature struggled to live, or to at least take them all down with it.

Seeing Handong’s body again, finally herself once more, but all of her apologies falling on ears that could no longer hear her. And her tears falling for a body that could no longer see them.

Bora finally returns to herself somewhat, now able to see the sky above she’d been staring at before. Most of all she feels her body, stiff and sore and cold from laying on the car for so long and from how hard she cried. 

“Dongie… I miss you. I miss you so, so much.” She finally turns towards where Handong had been laying next to here, her arm reaching out, and finding nothing there. Bora stares into the space where the Handong her mind had conjured up would be had she been real. 

“I’m sorry.”