If there was any doubt left that this Jin wasn’t real, it had cleared right up with the thunk on the head. Not hard enough to damage, of course. Jin had only tried to break his nose once; it wasn’t usual for him to be an aggressive person, and even now Ahn-Bo knew he held himself back from what he’d truly wanted to do.

The firm knock to his head had given him a short moment of clarity—the fog of grief clearing just enough for him to confirm that yes, his friend was actually here. Struggling through the (massive) forest, alone, and clearly outside of his element. For Ahn-Bo.

He simply stood there in stunned silence as he was scolded and then squeezed so tightly he could barely breathe. It felt soothing. The pressure and the human contact he hadn’t had since they’d last seen each other. (If he’d known the date, he’d have realized it had been five months that they’d been without each other.) Ha-Eun had kept him company here and there, but she had always been more reserved when it came to physical affection. It was Ahn-Bo that was the cultural anomaly. And now she was gone, all because of him.

A blink brought him back to the present, just in time to clock the vampire’s accusations of him looking like a ghost, scoldings of tigers (he sounded like the nanny Ahn-Bo had as a child), and his dramatic and angry exclamations—all whilst his hands were fluttering all over his body as if checking for broken bones or missing limbs, tidying his clothing as if it mattered. It was automatic to have his arms wrap around Jin’s waist. But there was no grinning or flirty banter, or any emotions at all.

"You can’t be here," was all he managed to say.