Bulletproof

4b. Evelyn

Hoseok stares at her, concern in his eyes.

"Are you okay?" he whispers.

She breathes out slowly. "Let's just not think about it today, okay?" She shakes her head. "I can't do an ending."

"Then we won't make it one," he agrees, squeezing her hand. He stands from the park bench and pulls her to her feet.

She hadn't been able to sleep much last night. She'd been up by four to get ready to face the day.

To face her last day with Hoseok.

He'd knocked on her door around six and the two of them had walked to the park to watch the sunrise. Was it cliché? Absolutely. Did they give a damn? Not in the least.

Hoseok kicks at loose gravel as she shuffles down the walking trail. Even with her resolution to avoid the topic, the knowledge that Hoseok will be on his way to war in a mere 24 hours weighs heavily on her silence.

"Ultimate place I hope I get stationed," he says suddenly, breaking the gloom. He smiles at her, puffing out his cheeks to get her to return the expression. "Florida. The weather is perfect in the spring."

"Hoseok..."

"Just hear me out, babe. If I get stationed in Florida, I can send you pictures of palm trees in every letter."

She can't help but grin in spite of herself.

"Florida, huh?" she asks. "Well, California has palm trees, too, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but California has too much desert land. There's too many forts and posts inland for me to be guaranteed a spot by the water, you know? Florida is surrounded by ocean. I prefer those odds."

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Okay."

He lets go of her hand and grabs her arm, swinging her over his shoulder like luggage. She shrieks in surprised delight.

"Hup 2, 3, 4!" he chants, jogging down the path. She can't contain her laughter at his antics, even if they do pertain to a subject she doesn't particularly want to dwell on.

The breakfast hour has them strolling down the street, hand-in-hand, through the spring light to the obscure coffee shop shrouded in anonymity.

She doesn't feel like she can stomach much of anything as she sits across from Hoseok, but she orders tea and a muffin anyway. He sips from a steaming mug and breaks off a piece of his doughnut.

"Here," he insists, nodding at the chunk and holding his hand close to her mouth. She reluctantly accepts.

He frowns. "You can't stop eating when I leave."

She picks at her breakfast. "I know," she says quietly.

"I know you said you wanted to leave it alone, but I just can't enjoy today if I don't know for certain that you'll keep living your life without me." His eyes are wide and his brow is set, mouth in a tight line as he waits for her response.

She puts her head in her hands. "I don't have a choice to live or not live. I have to keep breathing. There's not really any way around it." Visible relief crosses his features. "What? Did you think I'd leap out a window or something?" she attempts to joke.

He shrugs. "Off a bridge would be more your style."

"Hoseok!" Her mouth hangs open in a half-smile. "You can't say stuff like that."

He winks and takes another sip of coffee. "Private Jung Hoseok..." he muses a moment later with a lopsided grin. "Has a certain ring to it, don't you think?"

She shakes her head and breaks another piece off his doughnut. "It sounds an awful lot like, 'Here lies Jung Hoseok.'"

"It's not going to come to that, baby, okay?"

"Do you really know that, Hoseok?" she challenges.

He sets his cup down. "Yes. I do know that."

She raises an eyebrow skeptically. "Nobody knows what's going to happen in war, Hoseok." The word "war" tingles uncomfortably on her tongue, sends her squirming in her seat.

"I'm promising you right here, right now--I will do anything to make it back here--back home--to you."

She mulls the vow over for a moment, torn about its validity. A part of her is taken aback. There was no way Hoseok could make such a bold proclamation and stick to it in the heat of battle, surrounded by his comrades-in-arms, facing a world of gray where it is as black-and-white as him or them. Hoseok would always pick the scenario where it would be him. In that, she thinks he must be bluffing to make her feel better. But then again, Hoseok's never been the type to lie either.

Her eyes search his face.

"Hoseok...I couldn't ask that of you."

She has never seen his irises glimmer with such fierce sincerity. He leans forward and takes her face in his lightly calloused hands. It briefly crosses her mind that they will never feel this soft again. He will never be this soft again. Not after brandishing guns and pulling triggers, twisting grenade pins and staring down barrels lined with the rage of foreigners plotting murder.

"You don't have to ask. I'm telling you--I'm coming back home to you." He brushes a piece of hair from her eyes so nothing is in between the two of them. His voice sounds strangely deep when he continues, full of passion and something else. It almost scares her. "No matter what."

She leans across the table until their foreheads touch and twines her fingers in his soft black hair.

"Hoseok, what if the people in your regiment mistake you for one of them?"

"They won't. I'll be wearing American colors. Our uniforms are different from the Japanese ones."

"That's not going to matter. They're going to see an Asian face, and they're not going to care about what colors you're wearing. They're not going to know your parents immigrated here years before you were even born." Her voice shakes and cracks as her volume increases. She is sure the few people in the coffee shop are staring now. "They're just going to shoot, Hoseok. I'm going to lose you! I--"

"No matter what," he interrupts in a whisper, his warm breath skimming the skin on the bridge of her nose. "No matter what."

She shuts her eyes and lets herself feel Hoseok's warm presence before whispering back.

"No matter what."