One Christmas, Zion and I decided to sneak out of the house to get a tree. I was fifteen, Zion being ten at the time.

There was no such thing as Christmas trees any more, so we were hunting for anything we could get our hands on. Zion pointed to trees that would take us hours to fell with an ax. He screamed with delight when we stumbled upon a baby pine tree. It was past the seedling age. Sizable enough to hold some ornaments. Zion was particularly excited to hang the glass piece he painted in an after-school activity.

I worked with him to uproot the tree. We pulled and pulled. We took a break after getting the roots to move a few inches.

"Cosma," Zion said, when we were taking a break. "Do you think the world will ever go back to the way it was?"

"Before the war?" I say. I guessed Zion was old enough to hear the truth. "Probably not. Most everything is destroyed."

"My school teachers say that Seoul is recovering," Zion said. "That after the risks of radiation are gone, we can venture outside the shield."

"I would love to venture out of the shield," I say, focusing on the positive. Being with Zion made it easy to see the bright side.

Zion sighed. I put my arms around him. He was so much smaller than me. I felt like I could pick him up and put him on my shoulders. "I want to get married in Paris," he said.

"Paris?" I scoffed. "That's quite a big dream you have."

"Don't tell me you don't want to get married," Zion said, squinting at me.

"Maybe," I said. "But for now I'm too busy taking care of you."

"What kind of guy do you want to marry?" Zion said. I didn't know what about the Christmas season put him in a romantic mood.

"Someone like dad," I said. "Kind, patient, funny."

"That's so... basic," Zion responded.

"What kind of lucky girl are you picturing?" I said.

"Probably someone like you," Zion said, honestly.

"You're just as basic as me!" I said. We laughed together. I squeezed him to me, taking in the puffiness of our jackets and the way our breaths mixed together into a warm mist. Seoul has changed enormously since the war. But it was still dead cold in the winter.

"You have to make me a promise," Zion said, when we finally finished uprooting the tree.

"What is that?" I said. I put the pine tree on one shoulder, carrying it back in the direction of our apartment. It wasn't too heavy.

"The guy that you marry," Zion said. "The guy you end up with. Make me a promise."

"Okay, what promise?" I said, thinking I'd have to entertain him no matter what ridiculousness he would say. Zion was good at being ridiculous. But he was also good at being brutally honest. And sometimes very insightful.

"The guy that you marry," he repeated, "he has to put you first. That's the main thing."

I shrugged off his comment at the time. "Okay, I promise."

It's in a time like this, walking side by side with Jungkook toward one of our last chances to win the competition, where I wonder what Zion would think. What would Zion think of the boy who I entrusted my life with? Would he approve? Would he have smiled to see Jungkook offer me his life in exchange for mine?

I hope Zion is holding on. That he'll be able to see both me and Jungkook after this. To give him his approval in person.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Hope you all are enjoying/have enjoyed the Permission to Dance concerts!