Neo Seoul is a city that dreams of a better tomorrow.
At the NSK’s Apgujeong academy, a girl and boy stand gazing out a window, their faces turned toward the sky of the greater Gangnam area.
“Bora-yah,” the boy asks, pointing, “what’s that? It looks like pieces of stars falling.”
“Ay, Chang Minwoo.” The girl laughs. “When did you get so romantic?”
“Just now, I think. I mean, look at it. Isn’t it beautiful?”
The Dome that was once a part of the sky is gone, blown to rose-colored fragments of light. The fragments float down like crystallized snow. Or as the boy likes to think, like stars.
The girl wonders if this is the beginning of a new world.
■ ■ ■
On an airship fleeing Neo Seoul, a cold-eyed man looks out at the destruction he’s brought upon the city he’d once promised to protect. He feels no regret. He knows that there will come a day when he’ll return to this city — once beloved, now hated — to finish what he’s started.
■ ■ ■
In a warehouse in Old Seoul, a young boss rescues a group of girls, kidnapped by the now-disbanded Red Moon gang. He’s joined by another boy with a silver crown pinned to his shirt. “I think we got them all, boss,” the boy says, panting. “They’re a little traumatized, but I think they’ll be all right.”
“Good job, Daeho-yah,” the boss says. “We’ll bring them back to their families.”
Daeho frowns. “What about the ones who don’t have families?”
“We’ll be their family,” a third boy says, taller than the other two. “We won’t abandon them.”
After his friends leave, the boss looks up at the sky. A moment of deep sadness hits him — he wonders if he’ll ever see his father and his best friend again — but then the sadness passes. The future is bright and new, and he has hope in what tomorrow might bring.
■ ■ ■
At the center of the bridge in a crowd of refugees fleeing across the broken Dome’s barrier, a woman calls her young son from the railing. “Jaeshin-ah. Don’t stand so close.”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes are riveted to the sky.
“Lee Jaeshin!” she calls. “Come here right this minute!”
“Eomma!” he cries, pointing. “It’s a shooting star.”
She thinks of scolding him. She even opens her mouth to follow through with the thought, but then he turns from the railing. For a second, she can’t breathe — he looks just like his father and brother.
“Eomma,” he says, “I made a wish!”
She smiles. “What did you wish for?”
“That hyeong will like me, that he’ll want to play with me when I finally meet him.”
The mother holds back the tears that rise unbidden to her eyes. “Of course,” she says. “I know Jaewon will love you.”
■ ■ ■
In the sky above Neo Seoul, there’s a boy, falling.
And there’s a girl reaching for him with the extended arms of a God Machine.
She catches him gently in the palms of her GM’s hands, bringing the cradled hands of the machine near to its chest so that when it opens, he’s right there, waiting for her. She jumps through the air, landing beside him. “Jaewon-ah!” she shouts, taking the boy into her arms. “You’re alive! What were you thinking? How could you just jump like that? When you were the one who tried to stop me from jumping off the Tower!”
“It’s a little different,” he says, feeling a little dazed from the fall, and from the way he feels in her arms — safe.
She scowls. “How so?”
“I knew you would catch me.” The boy grins a lopsided grin.
The girl can’t tell if it makes her more furious or more overjoyed; all she knows is that it makes her heart race.
His grin grows wider. “I heard what you said, you know.”
The girl frowns to hide the sudden blush in her cheeks. “It’s easier to speak of love when you think the person you love is lost to you forever.”
He thinks of making a joke about leaving, but her lips are trembling, and he thinks maybe he can save the jokes for a different time.
“I’m sorry I took so long to get to you,” he says softly.
She nods. “But you did get to me.”
“Yes. I tried really hard.”
“Did you?”
“I needed to get to my girl.”
“Is that all I am? A girl?”
“Yes,” he teases. “That’s all you are.”
She frowns again and he laughs at her annoyance. He likes this vulnerable side of her.
His body hurts all over, but it doesn’t stop him from sitting up. He takes her face in his hands. “You’re just a girl. A girl I think I’m falling in love with.”
“You think?”
He brings her face closer to his. “How do I show you how I feel?” he whispers against her lips. “How do I show you how much you mean to me?” Softly, he kisses her. He thinks, with growing wonder, that it’s a different feeling to kiss someone you love.
He hurts everywhere, his wrists, his stomach, his legs. But it’s like the pain leaves with her kiss, replaced by something stronger, something that burns within him. He moves one hand to the back of her head, drawing her closer. He’s so desperate to show her how he feels that when he finally ends the kiss, they’re both breathless.
She stares at him, at his boyish, dazed smile and bruised lips. She feels a little stunned. She doesn’t think anything could make this moment better than it already is.
“I love you,” he says.
■ ■ ■
My father used to say that the way he loved me was the same way he loved his country, a fierce pride that couldn’t be contained, and for a long time I couldn’t understand that, and maybe I still don’t understand.
All I know is that I love Tera. It’s a knowing that in one person I have peace and home and family. If this is how my father felt about his country, then it must be something to fight for.
Tera squeezes my hand. Together we’ll fly to Oh Kangto’s battleship in the sky, and maybe for a little while, we’ll be safe.
■ ■ ■
Love is a country. It’s vast and endless and full of an unbreakable hope.
Maybe this love is a love that’s worth dying for, I don’t know. All I know is that it’s worth living for, again and again.