The wind moved easily through what was left of Hyosan. Grass had begun to split through the cracks in the pavement, vines climbing the walls that once held classroom windows. No soldiers came anymore. No one did. The city had been left to time.

Cheong-san and she stayed because there was nowhere else to go—and because leaving felt like erasing what was left of who they were.

They didn’t need much now. They didn’t tire, or get hungry the way people used to. Their hearts beat slow, faint but real. Sometimes they joked that they were halfway between ghosts and humans, watching the world rebuild from a distance.

That afternoon, they sat on the rooftop of the old school. The air was cool, the sky pale and endless. She leaned against the rusted railing, legs crossed, eyes closed against the wind.

“Hard to believe this place used to be loud,” Cheong-san said, voice low.

She smiled without opening her eyes. “You never liked loud.”

“I didn’t mind it when it was you.”

She looked at him then—really looked. There was still warmth in his expression, even if his eyes had that faint, unnatural gleam. It was the same look he’d had back when they were just two kids sharing snacks under the stairwell.

They spent their days wandering the city. Sometimes they’d find things people left behind: music boxes that still played a few broken notes, half-filled notebooks, tiny reminders of life. She liked collecting them. He liked watching her smile when she found something new.

“Do you miss them?” she asked quietly, turning an old Polaroid over in her hands.

He thought for a moment. “Yeah. But I think they’d want us to keep living.”

Her eyes softened. “This counts as living?”

He nodded. “If you’re here, it does.”

The wind caught her hair, brushing it across her face. He reached out automatically, tucking it behind her ear, his touch careful, unsure. She didn’t move away.

They stayed like that for a long time—two half-alive friends watching the sunset burn over the ruins of their hometown, the last traces of warmth still finding them in a place the world had forgotten.