Chapter Text
It had been a good day. Maybe too good.
They’d walked through the mall with drinks in hand, browsing shops they had no money for, laughing like they weren’t three fugitives hiding under fake names with ghosts in their pasts. Gi-hun had been admiring his reflection in a passing glass panel, hands running through his new (slightly too short) crimson hair.
“Okay, but maybe next time,” Gi-hun said as they stepped off the escalator, “I keep more of my hair. I miss it a little.”
Jun-ho glanced over, unimpressed. “Just admit it was a shitty haircut and you didn’t wanna insult the stylist because she’d been putting up with you flirting with Young-il the entire time.”
Gi-hun raised a hand, playfully scandalized. “I would never—”
“You did,” Young-il deadpanned. “But it was cute.”
Gi-hun grinned, cheeks faintly pink. “So you do admit you were watching.”
Jun-ho rolled his eyes. “God. I’m gonna ask for my birth certificate to be revoked.”
Then Young-il stopped.
His body went rigid mid-step. One second they were joking, and the next, he was staring straight ahead like someone had punched all the air out of his lungs.
“...Shit.”
Gi-hun immediately stopped laughing. “Young-il?”
Jun-ho followed his gaze. Down near the end of the hall, just outside a boutique, a man in a black coat was pretending to be on the phone.
But Young-il knew that face.
The subtle tension in the shoulders. The trained stillness. The faint scar above the lip.
One of his guards.
They’d been found.
“Run,” Young-il said. Voice low. Controlled. Final. “Now.”
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The mall turned into chaos.
They bolted. Gi-hun grabbed Jun-ho’s hand and yanked him, and the three of them took off through the hall, dodging people, knocking over displays, shouts rising all around them. Behind them came the unmistakable pounding of heavy boots, the shout of “There! It’s them!”
Security guards joined in, confusion and panic erupting. But these weren’t mall security. These were armed. Trained.
Professional.
And they were here to kill.
Jun-ho cursed under his breath as they skidded into the parking lot, the bright lights above flickering ominously. “They’re gaining—!”
Gi-hun turned, grabbed Young-il’s sleeve. “Come on—!”
Gunfire.
A scream.
Gi-hun gasped — pain blooming in his gut like fire. He fell, knees hitting asphalt. Blood already spreading beneath him.
“GI-HUN!” Young-il screamed.
Another shot.
Jun-ho saw it happen in slow motion.
The way Young-il turned, putting himself in front of Gi-hun.
The way his body jerked backward with the force of the bullet.
“NO!” Jun-ho shrieked.
Young-il crumpled. Right onto Gi-hun.
“No—” Gi-hun caught him, arms wrapping around Young-il’s body as they both collapsed to the concrete, the taste of iron in his mouth.
Another shot. A shout. Gi-hun didn’t even know where Jun-ho was anymore. All he could see was Young-il.
His red hair stuck to his forehead, darker now, glinting crimson under the flickering parking lot lights.
Gi-hun coughed. His blood stained Young-il’s shirt — but Young-il wasn’t moving. Gi-hun’s hands trembled as he cupped his face.
“I knew it,” he wheezed, coughing. “What are the damn chances… I die… with a haircut redder than my own blood…”
A faint smile on Young-il’s lips. But glassy eyes.
Gi-hun choked out a weak laugh. “You said you liked the color, not the cut. And now I’m dying with the ugliest hair I’ve ever had. Fuck this bloody red.”
“I’m glad I got to see it again,” Young-il whispered, choking out a chuckle, or maybe that was blood. “Red suited you.”
And then… his body stilled.
“Young-il?” Gi-hun’s voice trembled.
“Hey,” he whispered, cupping his cheek. “Stay awake, c’mon—”
But there was no answer. Young-il’s head rested against Gi-hun’s chest, limp.
Gi-hun sucked in a deep breath, body shuttering. He pressed his forehead to his lover’s and closed his eyes, whispering brokenly, “I’ll see you again… next time, okay…?"
Behind them, Jun-ho was screaming. He didn’t feel the bullet rip through his side — he didn’t feel anything but the desperate crawl forward.
Jun-ho’s knees hit the concrete as a bullet tore into his thigh. He screamed, then fell, dragging himself with shaking arms toward the two figures collapsed in the distance.
His arms shook as he dragged himself across the asphalt, ignoring the pain, the burning in his lungs, the gunshots around them.
He could see them. Could see the blood. Could see how still Young-il was. Could see Gi-hun’s fingers twitching weakly as he tried to hold onto him even in death.
“No—” Jun-ho cried. “NO—”
“Gi-hun—” he wheezed, voice cracking. “Hyung—!”
He crawled further, hand outstretched. “Hyung—Gi-hun—please—”
Gi-hun barely turned his head. His eyes fluttered open, cloudy but still so warm.
Gi-hun looked over, his vision swimming.
“I’m sorry… Ha-jin,” Gi-hun whispered. “We had fun… right?
He smiled faintly as Jun-ho collapsed beside him, reaching for his hand.
“I’ll see you later, Ha-jin,” Gi-hun whispered, voice slurring. “I'll take care of the other you… yeah? I’ll protect that version of you, at the very least, even if you don't remember, I promise... my sweet little brother…”
Jun-ho sobbed, body wracked with grief. “No—no, please don’t—don’t leave me, please—”
Gi-hun’s fingers curled around Young-il’s. And then stilled.
Jun-ho stared, blood soaking through his palms, shaking violently.
All he could do was scream.
Jun-ho was screaming. He didn’t even realize he’d been shot again.
All he knew was that Gi-hun was gone.
Young-il was gone.
And he hadn’t even said it.
He hadn’t even gotten to tell them.
Hadn’t even told them that it had been fun. That it had felt like home. That they’d been the first people to ever make him feel like he belonged.
Hadn’t told them how happy they made him.
How full the world had felt with them in it.
How he wanted just one more day. Just one.
Now he’d never get it.
And no matter how he begged his heart to stop, for the breath to slip out of his lungs, for his eyes to lose their life like he'd seen it do to his hyung's, it refused.
Death refused him.
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The world went quiet. The blood soaked the asphalt. And the lights flickered above the bodies of three fugitives who had tried to make a life for themselves.
Three family members who were never meant to be a family.
But had become one anyway.