When Gihun's hands leave her wound, the lights start going out. Or maybe Saebyeok just couldn't keep her eyes on even the piggy bank anymore.

She met her brother for the last time in this same half-darkness. He had stripped the skin off the soles of his feet with their father's knife and fitted them over Saebyeok's own, nuzzled the top of her head the way he would when they were little, and said, "I'm sorry, Saebyeok. Just a few miles more for me, okay?" When her fever broke the next morning, he was lying cold flush against her in bed, and she refused to believe he had died in the night and she didn't. She'd like to see him now. Instead...

It smells like her grandmother's spot at the fish market. Stinking, sweating, dead and living... sublime. Where she learned to ignore the shrinking of her stomach, and salivate, and smile.

Someone is banging on the gate. Or the fence, the border, ice on the river, men with guns Saebyeok and her mother had to sleep with to pass, whatever you call it... struggling against the walls of your pen is always so loud. Someone is yelling out her name and concern, so real and desperate it would sound like home if it weren't for the accent. She'd snort if she isn't so busy gasping. Southeners' tongues really are the wrong cut for this language. But Saebyok doesn't mind when Gihun cries for her.

Her eyes break into more sweat, her skin keeps tearing up. There is panic again, bigger by the second, and not because of the pain. She thinks back to the future. What about her mother, Jesus knows how far she is from all she deserves and all Saebyeok had ever wanted to give in return for everything, oh god; what about Umma's little doppelganger, bullied and frightened and all alone? Chael. Her poor, sweet, Chael. Saebyeok took him (their mother's face and eyes and smile) out and fed him enough last time they met so his tummy hurt with how full it was, not with how empty. She hadn't hugged that boy enough. She hadn't thanked him for gracing her life enough, and she sobs even harder.

Through all the snot and spit, it smells like the hole in her stomach. Clammy. Hot as the burning sun at daybreak-

It's not her grandfather who stands before her. They both wore the same glasses—and wasn't that her favorite story as a child, about how, against all odds and great danger, her grandfather managed to get his full moon-shining-clean-and-cool-as-crystal-magic-glasses?—and Cho Sangwoo's spectacles glint like the final star before night fades. Saebyeok watches right back through her tears. She was born afraid, yes, but she is also going to die soon. He should be honored. He is the last thing she will ever fear.

(What? But she hasn't seen glasses on him since the first game; even then, she isn't sure if the bespectacled figure she remembers noticing had been him. So maybe it really is... but it can't be. She hardly has any blood left... nor the Kang family pride within... not that that matters anymore, not now...)

His lips mouth her name. She imagines he is whispering. Everything is very long and very slow. The blade shines and all she manages to comprehend is that she didn't get to taste her last meal, shame. It would've been her first ever steak. Maybe this man's... childhood best friend, wasn't it? oh well... would make good on his kindness and take her brother and mother out for steak...

A hand, not ungentle, closes on the tears Saebyeok couldn't choke down her throat any longer. A whisper against her screaming friend, the screaming pulse in her ears. Not unkind:

I'm sorry. I'm sending you home now.

She hears rather than sees him draw a cold line on her neck (she's done it plenty before; she recognizes the sound). Oh, Saebyeok bleeds. Her life force fountains up in slow motion to dab freckles on his cheek. Her father had freckles when nobody else but she did. That thought takes away the hurt, it doesn't hurt. In fact, even the cold is gone, now, and she doesn't feel anything at all.

(She will miss Gihun's warmth.)

A lifetime ago, seconds ago, she would have fought to change things. Now, she is weightless as being should be. Time to close up shop. They didn't make her, he didn't. It's just time, and the universe is seeing her to her door at the end of market day. There is rice where she is going, and a full, small table fenced only by loving smiles. That had been the plan all along, hadn't it?

Sangwoo closes her eyes for her when she no longer has the strength to. Saebyeok exhales softly...

Thanks.

She dreams of a small, warm hand pulling her into the dark, and the promise of drinks after sunset.