alternate ending because i'm nice.

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It's the first day of sunlight.

The sun falls on your face like a warm lamp, and you close your eyes and tip your head back, feeling the warmth of the rays on your skin. It sends a soft shiver through you, and you run your hands down your upper arms and rest the soles of your sneakers against the metal railing.

Nothing seems to matter - the day is lazy, and you want to take off your jacket, but you know that if you do, the gust of cold wind will rip through the gauze-like feeling of the first day of summer.

You open one of your eyes and glance down, at the rusted railing of the capsule holding your lean form. Gosh. Everything feels miles away.

The rest of the amusement park is abandoned, like it has been for years now, rusted and old and forgotten - but not completely. You're still here.

You stand, your joints creaking after a long hour of only sitting, and stretch. A bone in your neck makes another unoiled creak, and you let out a soft, satisfied sound.

There's a flash of blond.

You're alert.

Eyes wide, you glance into the distance, relaxed shoulders instantly tensing. Blond? Blond? In a place like this?

It's been almost a year, or more than, since the mess, and the last thing you want is to be caught up in the firestorm of your old flame again.

"Y/N?"

The voice is soft, and you jerk to attention again, spreading your feet slightly apart in a more stable stance. "Who is it?"

There's a sudden hand on your shoulder, and you grab it before twisting sideways, intending to throw the person over your shoulder - but then you catch a glimpse of their face.

The sense of familiarity hits you hard, like a bullet, and you stumble back, letting go of his hand and raising it to your forehead.

Great. A whole year, and he still keeps his stealth.

Him.

The one that got away.

"How are you?" He asks softly, lips pursing. His hands are still at his sides, as if he's not sure what to do with them. "After..."

He trails off, and you can't blame him. You don't want to hear the words ever again.

"I'm okay." You say in a shaky voice, and stare at him in hard scrutiny, half from disbelief, and half from the twisted and tangled emotions stuck in your throat.

"Well...even if you're not, that's fine." He gestures to the seat. "You want to...?"

Hesitating only for a short moment, you nod, and take a seat next to him in the capsule. The space is cramped, but that's the least bothersome thing about the whole ordeal.

The two of you are quiet for a moment, and you wish that you'd forgotten about him. That even as your life fell apart through the weeks, he hadn't been your lone source of comfort - or the thought of him some unspoken fantasy in the abandoned attic.

Then, he looks at you again, and the warmth of his gaze is so opposite to the older chill that you find yourself melting all over again.

"How's your Sugaberry?" He asks, smiling slightly. The smile speaks of the unspoken, tinged with nostalgia and sadness, of what he thinks could be.

You laugh a little, like a short spasm of muscles rather than real amusement. "Apparently, three months into our relationship, he found out that he wasn't so straight after all." You shrug awkwardly. "But then, I guess Hoseok can turn anyone gay."

The blond's lips form an o, and he nods understandingly. "Well, if it's any comfort, your feelings were based on the void of loss...you okay?"

The repetition of the question brings a smile to your face. "Yeah. It just wasn't meant to be, I guess."

He opens his mouth and instead of speaking, inhales slowly. "What about...him?"

The wary tone of his voice tells you exactly whom he is referring to. You look away.

"I didn't really catch up." You don't know if you're sad about it. "I just...couldn't."

It's funny that you're so comfortable with the one next to you now, since a year ago, you wouldn't have pegged him for someone you could even get along with.

"If it's any consolation, I got a job at a daycare centre." He supplies, face bright and hopeful, and you smile again. "And I guess that you - you taught me that."

"Taught you what?"

"To hope." He purses his lips in a smile. "To get over the past, to build from scratch. To...get away."

You realise that when your eyes meet, you have to swallow back a dry patch in your throat. This, you tell yourself, this is what matters.

"Nothing worked out, you know," You mutter, and his eyes catch the sunlight and reflect it in the most brilliant way, like light sparking of a piece of broken glass - broken glass, smoothed at the edges from the roughness of the sea. "It all fell apart, but we all stayed together."

"Sometimes that happens." He agrees, and his hand covers yours, slender fingers caressing the back of your hand. Slow, long, hesitant. "Sometimes you still stay together, even if you're fractured inside."

You close your eyes, breathing in the balm-like summer air, and open them again. He's still looking at you, and it's so pure and full and natural that your breath falters and so does your heart. "Because that's what friends do."

He smiles.

His eyes light up, brighter than the golden sun, braver than the wind and more beautiful than the rest of him. But he's as beautiful as the rest of him when he smiles.

"Thank you," You say in a small voice, as you feel older. "For keeping your promise."

"Thank you," He says, leaning closer, looking younger than ever. "For making me promise to return."

All of your thoughts are stuck together inside your head, like a cacophony of emotions - all the nostalgia, pain, love, and growth hot-glued together like the most beautiful of symphonies.

"You have beautiful eyes." You whisper, the gentle breeze carrying your whisper on its back.

He doesn't say anything, but when he leans in, your heart stutters and blushes.

Your lips meet like the cold and hot currents, growing and changing under the sun, but growing and changing together.

His palm - the once cold, cut apart skin that held a gun to the ground - now warm and gentle, caresses your cheek in all it's fragility. Your palms are flat against his chest, against his beating heart.

The warmth spreads through you like the seasons, the rejuvenation and rise of autumn, the cold coziness of the winter, the beauty and growth of spring, and finally - the warmth and memory of summer.

The kiss is like the first day of summer, and you can't help but think it apt.

His breath shudders as you pull apart, your heartstrings threading together and creating a new pulse. His hand stays cupping your cheek, and he's close enough that you can count all the new freckles on the tops of his delicate cheekbones.

"You do realise," Baekhyun says, "that you just kissed a guy who used to be a girl?"

You grin. I realise that it doesn't matter, in love. "I realise that I'm gayer than I thought."

He laughs, and the change is palpable, the change you followed through months of imagining and remembering, hoping that he would come home.

And here he is.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for this." You breathe, his breath tickling your face.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted this." He says quietly, and leans in to kiss your forehead. "You waited for me."

"You came for me." You sigh.

"Home is where the heart is." His eyes turn into crescents, the emerald glimmer of his sunlit green eyes like the fresh green leaves of July. "It's the first day of summer."

"It is." You agree, smiling slightly.

Baekhyun looks at you with stars in his eyes, with all the love that you could ever ask for. And you wonder how you look at him, too. "You ready to grow together?"

You reach up, and your fingers tangle in his now-blond hair that looks like cotton clouds under the sun. "You bet."

Run away.

"I'm back." He says, smiling.

"And you're here." You agree.

Run away!

"I love you." He whispers, and kisses you again. Your arms loop around his neck, and his skin feels warning yours, the cottony material of his shirt enveloping your arms.

Like the changing seasons, like a breath of fresh air.

"Like the summer and winter," You whisper back, "I love you, too."

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soft hours :')

if anyone's confused she started growing feelings for him back when she made him promise to come back, and it developed over the year. sope sailed. yay.

and this is an alternate ending. you can imagine that this if you want to, or you can imagine that she ended up with yoongi. either is okay, it's all up to you.

so this idea came to me cause a lot of you were shipping the MC with baek after operation run away and i was like why not?? let's give some beautiful people a surprise gift!

cause y'all deserve it, and here you go <333

stay safe and hydrated, bundle up cause winter is close, and remember that i love you kittens!

love,
Manx.