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Seungcheol sees his first crow when he’s six.
He’s sitting on a bench in the train station, waiting for his mother to come back from getting tickets so that they can visit grandma in the city. He likes the ginger cookies that grandma makes, and the sweet lemon icing that dots the tops. They remind him of the daffodils in the garden back at home.
There’s a little boy, maybe his age, standing on the other side of the tracks. Seungcheol stops swinging his legs and stares curiously. He hasn’t seen very many other children, having lived in rural Korea for his entire life. When he does meet up with other children, they are often loud and push each other around. Seungcheol does not like most of the children that he meets.
This boy is different. He’s quiet, and just stares at the tracks below. Seungcheol wonders what he sees there.
“Seungcheol, what are you looking at?”
Seungcheol smiles up at his mother as the train’s wheels growl in the distance. “It’s almost here. Do you have the tickets, mama?”
“I do, dear.” His mother smooths down his hair; she does that a lot. No amount of gel can keep Seungcheol’s unkempt bangs swept back.
Seungcheol looks back at the tracks, and cocks his head. The boy is standing in the middle of the tracks now, reaching down to pick up his wooden train. There is a beautiful black bird perched on his shoulder. Smiling, Seungcheol tugs on his mother’s sleeve.
“Look, mama. I want a bird like that boy has. Can I have one? Pretty please?”
His mother looks up, and her face goes white, whiter than her hair. “Oh!”
The train screeches to a stop. The people around him scream, and Seungcheol frowns as they start to hurry down to the tracks. Well, that’s the wrong place to go. Where are they going?
“Love, don’t look.” His mother grabs his hand and pulls him up, leading him out of the train station just as people start to rush in. Seungcheol whimpers as people bump into him.
“Mama, I thought we were going to grandma’s.”
“Change of plans, dear. Let’s go home, alright? The train is sick today.”
Seungcheol pouts, but he knows better than to whine. “Trains can’t be sick, mama.”
“You’re right. Let’s go back to papa, okay?”
Later, when they’re home, his mother tells him to never go on the tracks like that boy did, because it was bad and the boy is being punished somewhere now. Seungcheol nods cheerfully and goes to watch his favourite cartoon.
Seungcheol is thirteen when he sees the crow again.
He’s old enough to volunteer at the hospital, so his mother drives him over and tells him to call her if he needs a ride back. He gets assigned to the palliative care ward, delivering snacks to the patients and their families. He’s old enough to know that most of the patients won’t make it past a month.
He likes his job, kind of. It’s a bit depressing, but it’s fun to see the people smile.
At the end of the day, he delivers the mostly-empty cart back to the cafeteria, to the praise of the head worker, Ailee.
“Good job, Seungcheol. Any questions?”
“Um, yeah. This might be a bit irrelevant, but why are there weird fake birds on the patients’ shoulders? Is it a special holiday today? I mean, Halloween was a month ago.”
Ailee purses her lips, concern bleeding into her usually bright smile. She asks Seungcheol, quietly and calmly, if he’s okay- if he needs to sit down and have a drink, or just go home.
“What? No, I’m feeling fine.”
“Maybe you’re just tired. Go home, honey, and get a good night’s rest. Maybe you’ll laugh about this tomorrow.”
The birds are still there the next day, even though Seungcheol sleeps for a good ten hours. And the next day, and the next. Seungcheol thinks he even sees the bird on Jung Yerin’s shoulder start to move, and blink its beady little black eyes.
The next day, he’s told by a teary Ailee that Yerin, little sweet Yerin, with her big beaming smile and sparkling eyes, has passed away of her brain tumor.
And then he understands.
Seungcheol meets Jisoo when he’s seventeen, under the yellow light of a streetlamp.
“C’mon, Jisoo, it’ll be fun!” Soonyoung shouts, gliding along the edge of the sidewalk on his brand-new rollerskates. “Just put them on, c’mon!”
“No, thanks.” The boy, Jisoo, shakes his head. “I’ll just stay here with your friend, ah-”
“Seungcheol,” he supplies, smiling at the other boy. “You’re Jisoo? Soonyoung has told me a whole lot about you.”
Jisoo laughs, and his pretty almond eyes scrunch up. Seungcheol likes that.
“Oh, I hope nothing bad.”
“No, just that you text with the weirdest emojis,” Soonyoung calls from farther down the sidewalk. “And that you used to have an obsession with anime.”
Jisoo’s cheeks are pink, even under the weak, flickering light. “W-well, it wasn’t an obsession, it was more like- like an interest.”
Seungcheol chuckles and pats him on the shoulder. Jisoo jumps, startled, at the touch.
“It’s okay. Anime’s pretty cool.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.” Seungcheol shrugs. “I mean, I’d love to watch Mob Psycho 100.”
“Oh, I read the webcomic for that,” Jisoo says enthusiastically, then shyly ducks his head. “I mean, like, the Korean translation, anyways.”
“Me, too. Wanna watch the anime this weekend? My house?”
“I barely know you.”
“Well, that can change. What’s your favourite colour?”
Jisoo laughs again. Seungcheol really likes that. He thinks one of his major goals in life might be to make Jisoo laugh as much as possible.
The moon is glowing beautifully tonight, and it’s reflected in Jisoo’s eyes. Enchanted, Seungcheol nearly misses the next words that are spoken.
“You’re pretty funny.”
“Thanks. You’re pretty. Just in general.”
“That was smooth, but I don’t think you’re giving off the impression of wanting to be my friend.”
“I know. I don’t want to be just your friend.”
“Wow. You’re talented at acting, too.”
“I’m terrible at acting, if that makes you feel any better.”
“I think that you should call some theater and see if they’ll hire you.”
“I think that you should call me when you get home.”
“Honestly, you’re going to make my face red.”
“It’ll still be pretty, though.”
“Seungcheol, stop hitting on my friend,” Soonyoung says as he skates back up to them. “And don’t call guys pretty, that’s weird.”
Jisoo shakes his head. “I don’t mind it.”
“Well, I’m going to cross the street and leave you two lovebirds alone.” Soonyoung is turning around, and the light falls on his back, shining against the black feathers of a crow.
Seungcheol’s heart drops and he grabs Soonyoung’s arm. “Wait!”
Soonyoung’s head snaps back to them, a confused expression on his face. “What?”
And then a car rushes by, a flash of red illuminated by the streetlamp.
“No headlights,” Jisoo mutters, eyes wide. “What a- Soonyoung, are you okay?”
Soonyoung gapes at the darkness in front of him. “Seungcheol, how did you-”
“Just heard it coming, I guess,” Seungcheol says, heart racing. The crow snaps its beak around nothing and then spreads its wings, flying away and disappearing into the murky night.
Seungcheol and Jisoo make it official when they’re seventeen.
“I knew it,” says Seungkwan triumphantly, shoving Hansol out of the plastic cafeteria chair. “You guys were ‘watching anime’ at each other’s houses way too much.”
“For the record, we did actually watch anime,” Jisoo grumbles, the tips of his ears turning red. Seungcheol snorts and ruffles his hair.
“Oh, who cares?” Jeonghan says, rolling his eyes. “We already knew. You didn’t even need to tell us. You two are too obvious.”
“Can I be the best man?” Soonyoung says excitedly. “Hey, I introduced you two to each other.”
“Now, now, let’s not get too deep into this,” Seungcheol says hurriedly, seeing Jisoo pale. “You can have bragging rights.”
“I honestly didn’t think it would be this easy,” Jisoo says quietly when everyone returns to their own conversations. “I mean, being gay? In Korea?”
“It’s not easy. And it won’t be.” Seungcheol slips an arm around Jisoo’s shoulder, pulling him close. “But here, with these friends, it is.”
“I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too.”
Seungcheol gets a job as an accountant when he’s twenty-three.
Yes, it can be tedious, but Seungcheol likes it. He’s always liked numbers and math, and music. Maybe in a different life, he could have been a music teacher or a singer, but he’s content with being an accountant. At least here, he doesn’t have to see those black crows everywhere.
And yeah, maybe he does feel this nagging guilt in the back of his mind that he’s not a paramedic or nurse; that he’s not using this gift for the good of mankind. Gift? Seungcheol thinks it’s more of a curse.
He hates knowing that people are going to die. He hates being helpless to do anything but turn away and cover Jisoo’s eyes.
The worst thing about this job so far is his colleague, Kim Sowon. She’s pregnant, and has had a crow on her shoulder for the longest time. During meetings, in the break room- Seungcheol can’t keep his eyes off of the crow. And he has no idea what’s wrong. He can’t tell her to get an abortion, because he doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to do, and she wouldn’t listen to some random guy who told her to abort her baby because he thought she was going to die.
Sowon goes on maternity leave and never comes back. Died in childbirth, poor young thing, says one of the ladies during lunch, and Seungcheol goes outside to call Jisoo.
“Seungcheol? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Oh, okay. Hey, you forgot your keys at home.”
“Ah, shoot.”
“It’s alright. I’ll wait for you when you come back. Hey, did you know that there’s this really tubby cat in Japan and he’s all over YouTube?”
Seungcheol goes back inside with a smile on his face and ten YouTube links.
And sure enough, Jisoo is waiting at the door when he comes home, three bags of Chinese takeout in his hands.
“Hey, so the new place down the road has this great chicken meal that I thought you might like. Wanna eat outside? The sky’s beautiful today.”
And just like that, Seungcheol feels the day’s worries and guilts float away, and he hugs who might be the love of his life.
They get engaged later that year.
They’re twenty-four when Seungcheol sees the outline of a crow on Jisoo’s shoulder.
He feels his whole world crumbling around him and he can barely breathe. Jisoo stops in the middle of his explanation on why maroon bridesmaids dresses are better than white ones, and Yuna wouldn’t like to wear a white dress anyways.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Seungcheol nods faintly and grabs onto the edge of the table, trying to steady himself. “Y-yeah, yeah, go on.”
“Do you need to sit down?” Jisoo sounds worried, hands gently leading him to the couch. “Should- should I call an ambulance?”
Seungcheol chuckles weakly. “Woah, slow down, Jisoo. I-I’m fine.”
This can’t be happening.
“What’s wrong?” Jisoo’s voice is slowly becoming higher-pitched in panic. “S-seungcheol, what should I do?”
“Jisoo.” Seungcheol plants his hands firmly on Jisoo’s shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes. “Don’t go to work today.”
“W-wait, why not?” Jisoo stutters, hands coming up to rest on Seungcheol’s own shoulders.
“Just don’t. Stay with me, please.”
And maybe the desperation in Seungcheol’s voice is enough to convince him, or the fact that Jisoo still thinks that Seungcheol is unwell, because Jisoo stays home, cooking chicken noodle soup and replaying every episode of Naruto Shippuden on their TV for him.
Come nighttime, past the time that Jisoo usually gets off work, the crow’s shadow is still there. Seungcheol feels a lump growing in his throat.
“Seungcheol, really, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
And Seungcheol breaks down for the first time in years, tears soaking into Jisoo’s One Piece t-shirt. He’d bought it for Jisoo’s birthday, and Jisoo had laughed and they’d been happy. It seems so long ago now.
“Seungcheol?”
“I-I don’t know.” Seungcheol is shaking slightly. “I-I just don’t know what to do. Please, I don’t know, go get a check-up at the doctor’s tomorrow. Please.”
“Okay, I will.” Jisoo is trembling a little. “Just stop crying. Smile, okay? Everything will be okay in the end.”
Jisoo goes to the doctor’s the next day. Seungcheol spends an entire week antsy and jittery. He types out diseases instead of numbers at work. What are they like? Are they curable?
The results come back perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with Jisoo.
And it just makes everything worse.
Seungcheol can’t keep Jisoo at home forever. He can’t always be by his side. So he lets him go, and prays that the crow will go away.
It doesn’t.
It’s a Saturday night and the crow is perched perfectly still on Jisoo’s shoulder. It stares at him, almost mockingly.
And then it moves.
It stretches its wing, extending it around the back of Jisoo’s head and then retracting it.
Jisoo is reading a novel about lovers who are fighting over something trivial- the colour of their new home. Seungcheol would trade spots with them if he could. He envies them. He wishes they would appreciate each other more.
There are two other birds on the headboard of their bed, silently watching as Jisoo puts his book down and turns off the light.
Seungcheol accepts it now. It will hurt later, too much to process, but for now, he can do nothing but take Jisoo in his arms and thread cold fingers in his hair.
“You’re being awfully cuddly tonight.” Jisoo shifts in his embrace. “Will you still be like this when you’re my husband?”
It’s said teasingly, lightly, but it still sends a sharp spike of pain through Seungcheol’s heart.
“Of course. Always. For the rest of our lives.”
“Good night, Seungcheol.”
“Good night, Jisoo.”
Seungcheol closes his eyes.