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Luis laughed. An ugly, wet sound through the smoke. “Dude, they sound desperate as fuck. Your girlfriend?” The word sent something hot and reckless through Jun’s blood. Luis leaned in, grinning through a haze of cigarette smoke. “What if I called her to join us—”

Jun didn’t think. His neck reared, and he drove his forehead into Luis’s jaw.

The crack echoed through the room. Luis howled, stumbling backwards, the phone and cigarette spinning into the dark. Jun’s skull detonated with pain—white-hot and blinding.

The momentum tipped the chair. Jun hit the floor hard, the wooden legs splintering under his weight. Iron flooded his mouth. Warm liquid ran down his face. From his forehead, his nose, he couldn’t tell.

A light flickered on the floor. His phone. He started dragging himself towards it, wrists still bound behind him, every inch of movement scraping his ribs against the wood. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever felt. His throat was so dry it felt scorched. His vision pulsed—there, gone, there, gone.

His collar was yanked backwards. He choked and his back slammed on the floor. Luis’s full weight crushed down on his chest, and the first punch split his lip against his teeth.

“Fuck you!” Luis screamed with each punch, spit spraying on Jun’s face.

Each blow pushed the world further away. Jun’s face went numb. Blood pooled in his mouth and trickled down his throat until he started choking on it. This was it. This was how it ended. At least he could finally find him.

But then the pounding stopped. The weight on his chest was gone, and Jun could breathe—barely.

He heard Luis struggling and wheezing. Then a slap and a crash of random objects.

“What the fuck…” Luis groaned. “Who the fuck are—”

Something crashed into Luis from the side. Jun heard scuffling. Something heavy slamming into a wall, then furniture splintering, followed by a pained groan.

Jun turned his head towards the noise. It cost him everything he had left.

Two figures grappled in the dark. One of them crashed backwards through the plastic table, scattering everything on it. Luis was screaming. A kick shut him up, then another. The screams turned into whimpers. Jun should run, but his body wouldn’t let him.

Hands gripped his shoulders. Jun groaned a raw, animal sound he didn’t recognize as his own as he was lifted upright. His head lolled. A face swam into focus inches from his. A black helmet. Only eyes were visible.

The room was too dark to see much. But Jun was close enough. Close enough that when those eyes blinked, he caught the flutter of long lashes and, just beneath the left one, a small dark mark on the skin.

“… Can you hear me?”

Jun tried to answer. What came out was a wet rasp. Barely human, barely sound.

A soft thumb caressed his cheeks, then his dry lips. Jun squeezed his eyes, sharp pain shooting through his head.

“Stay with me, please,” pleaded the person’s voice.

They pulled him close. His head settled against their left shoulder. The scent of their sweat and sweet musk hit something buried so deep in Jun’s memory that his body responded before his brain could. His muscles loosened. His breathing slowed. Warm arms wrapped around him, and Jun stopped fighting.

He didn’t think about who it was. He didn’t think about anything.

He just let go.

28

Forward

Kana clenched her fists as she stared at the girl on the couch. Her eyes darted between Ashley and the gun.

“Sunny…” she whispered.

Ashley yawned. “Huh?”

Kana stepped forward. “Do you not recognize me?”

Alex studied Ashley’s unmasked face: round cheeks, large eyes buried in galaxy eyeshadow. She looked like a kid playing dress-up. He tried to imagine her on stage beside Kana and Snowy in matching idol outfits. The image wouldn’t hold.