panorama
nobody knew the cosmic elevator actually doesn't go all the way up. yi soo/scheduler, ji hyun, mentions of others. g. (literal) fluff.

His first coherent thought after riding the elevator arrives when the doors begin to open. It is but one word: finally.

As the doors finally open and show him his so-called afterlife, the second, third and fourth thoughts are; but sunbae said there are no clouds here, why are those clouds pink, and is this who I think it is?

The girl's mouth opens into a big "o", and that is also same sound she makes when she sees him. They look exactly the same as when they last met; he with his dark suit and pristine white shirt and windswept brown hair tastefully out of place, she with the dress and heels he bought her one tearful night and hair cut shorter than she wore it when she was alive. She walks towards him, and in her large dark eyes he can see reflections, the emotions flitting through his face - surprise, shock, confusion, the familiar irritation he feels when she is near. But mostly the surprise.

HIs fifth official thought after no longer being a Scheduler is, and she is still very pretty.

...not that he would ever tell her that, of course.

"And here I thought you told me death was one big nothing," she tells him, one perfect eyebrow raised and full lips twisted in a smirk - she picked that up from him, he recalls idly. "Coming over to visit? I never thought you to be the type."

She turns around, and instead of noticing the way her hair frames the back of her dress when she walks, he looks around him instead; there is nothing but pink clouds as far as the eye could see, blanketing the world she now lives in. He could feel its soft cushion underfoot; idly, the eighth thought of his existence is would it taste like cotton candy?

"I tried it once," she says, piling up a mass of clouds into some approximation of a backrest before diving headfirst into it. He chuckles, for she is much like a child, and she does not notice this, only motions around her, sit anywhere. "It tasted like air, naturally. Really sweet air. Like strawberries."

HIs fifteenth thought is accompanied by an uncharacteristic blush, oh, I just said that last one out loud, didn't I? He helps himself down onto a sitting position on the clouds. He stares at the floor quizzically - he thought he would sink in all that pink cotton, but it bounces under him, keeping him sturdy and safe sitting beside her. Beside her.

"And you are sure you have no idea why you are here?" she looks away, and mouths "with me"; it is an action not meant to be noticed, but he still sees it, still irrationally feels for her. How long has this girl, who had always been used to people and luxury and everything she wanted on a silver platter, been left alone in this endless elsewhere, with nothing but herself and the fluffly fluffy pink clouds for company? Suddenly he finds himself thanking whatever deities put him here with her. He has long lost count of his thoughts, like he always has been when it concerns her.

"No." He finally finds his tongue, which is weird, since he's always the one to throw out a quippy retort back at her, and he sort of misses that. She is the only person he talks to who does not belittle him, or fear him, who is not a Scheduler, and is not Yi Kyung.

Just thinking her name gives him the shivers, now. How long has it been since he last saw her face? Has she been eating well, sleeping well, living well...? Of course she was, and so he pushes that thought away.

He turns around and sees the girl looking at him. When he sees how she is gazing idly at him, a smirk finds its way to his lips. "Missed me, didn't you?"

Color floods her cheeks - good, she looks less like she's in the afterlife now, and that's a good thing - as she grimaces and hurls fistfuls of cloud his way. "Don't flatter yourself." He continues laughing, and she listens, all fight gone in her veins; laughter is really a beautiful sound. Her tone grows serious, though, when he finally looks at her, and he does not like this. "I have not seen a person in such a long time, is all."

They're locked into conversational limbo again, until she asks: "How were Mom and Dad? I've missed them a lot."

"They're fine, though they will always miss you, of course." He presses the cloud she threw him to his lips, idly, and smells it. Strawberries, indeed. "By the way, did you know Yi Kyung was actually your sister?"

"Really?" She falls face-first in the fluff with her exuberance, swims aimlessly in it for moments until he takes pity and fishes her out of it. "I never knew! But it's good then - Yi Kyung-unni really is my unni!"

He looks at her, deadpan face firmly in place, though his mouth twitches at the corners, threatening to be a smile. "You know that does not make any sense."

"Still, at least the three people I love the most in the world are happy together," she says in a flighty, sing-song voice. Again he is reminded that she is but a child, an overgrown little girl who was simply to young and too innocent to have to endure so much pain and have to die so soon. "It would have been nice, though," she murmurs, to nobody in particular.

"It would be nice if what?"

"No, nothing. Never mind, forget I said anything." she beams beatifically at him, and again it makes his heart ache. "Anyway-"

"Han Kang-sshi's been watching over her, as you wanted him to. They're all right."

She presses her hands to her chest and exhales, as if expelling all her worries. "Thank God."

He lifts an eyebrow. She still can be grateful, even after all that's happened? He would have to thank someone for her, at any rate. "We're the same now. You know it wouldn't hurt you to ask."

She huffs. "Well, you never did answer my questions upfront, now didn't you?"

"And when did that ever stop you from asking?" He shrugs, secretly glad that she's finally returned to her old self - the adorably naive, irresistibly crafty little woman-child who he'd accompanied on her last 49-day journey. "If anything, my resistance only made you even more persistent. I'm actually glad you were my last schedule; if I had to deal with another person like you, I swear I will die again. Of exhaustion, this time."

"Die again, Yi Soo-sshi?" she smiles at him for the nth time that day - day? month? year? time flies so confusingly in the afterlife - as if she was the happiest girl on the surface of the un-world. "And here I thought I was the one not making any sense."

He shrugs. The way he has been acting towards her puzzles him, as well. Sunbae told him it was five years since he was last human (that was around the time when he met her; he does not know how much time has passed, though), and what little memories he had as a human, he was head over heels in love with Yi Kyung. Which did not make sense to his groggy, amnesiatic mind back then, but he found himself understanding why he would do everything he did.

This time, though, it was different. When he remembered his past, he knew that he never did want to feel that way ever again - but he still does not know why he still remembers those forty-nine days more clearly than he does anything else. He still remembers how she had panicked when they had first met, how he had been irritated as she pressed the emergency button over and over, how he had taken her out of hiding one night and bought her the dress she still wore up to now. He still remembers how awkward it felt when she told him she was happy to have him and Han Kang on her side, and how light-headed he was when he held her hand and ran off the bus.

He still remembers the way she smiled at him when she stepped on the elevator, never to return, and how conflicted he had felt when he realized that he was never going to see her again.

There is a name for the feeling he feels when she smiles at him, when she leans her head on his shoulder like what she is doing now, searching out a person's warmth and somehow finding it despite them being both dead. He knows what it is called, just as he knew what it was when he felt it many years before, but he cannot bring himself to even think of it. It just does not make sense.

It does not make sense now, but someday, it will.

After all, he thinks as he wraps his arm around her neck with her head on his shoulder, they have all the time in the world.


fin.


Forgive the shortness and OOC-ness. Also, forgive my nonsensicality.

I was supposed to be doing assorted college stuff. Instead, I am doing this.
The fandom for this one is the Kdrama 49 Days, by the way. I have no idea why I am so drawn to writing for it these days...I didn't even like it as much as I do You're Beautiful, which I have never written anything for.
Yes, yes, it makes no sense. Please forgive me. I shall continue on with my Management and my History and my Filipino, and not sleep much tonight. =_=