Work Text:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
[Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene III, L. 140-141]
Erania, 21st June, year 596
Red lanterns and crimson garlands adorned the village during that night of June, the air full of laughs and chatters dispersing quickly through the hot breeze.
The summer solstice represented an important event for the inhabitants of the region, the change in the season celebrated with propitiatory rituals and festivities.
Erania was a small village which rose on the slope of a hill, surrounded by a vast forest full of trees of all genres, whose colors shaded from a bright scarlet to a weak orange. Inside the woods, the flora and the fauna were luxuriant, red leaves growing on the branches and numerous species of animals living peacefully.
Humans were forbidden to enter the forest, though, except for two occasions.
The first one was during the spring equinox, when they could gather supplies from that prolific place.
And the other was on the 21st June, when one, single human was allowed to step into the woods as a tribute for the spirit of the Fox who haunted that place.
Over the centuries, thanks both to its peculiar shape and history, the village had received the nickname of “Tear” but, in the special night of solstice, it resembled more a drop of blood.
Bonfires had been lit everywhere in the perimeter of Erania, like a path which headed straight to the center of the village. Along the alleys, grandmothers and mothers brought offers of food and libations while children wearing fox masks and long, orange coats ran and played around the market, excited for that expectant atmosphere. The old and raspy voices of the ancients of the village echoed in the air as they narrated stories and legends about the foundation of the town while adults and young men were busy fighting in races and contests, symbols of good luck.
Secluded in the silence of his house, Jeon Jungkook was looking outside the window as the village shone under those red lights, a spectacle he had been used to see for years now, although tonight was different, felt different.
Absent mindedly, as it often happened, his hand brushed the mark on the back of his neck, fingers ghosting on the familiar shade of the flames imprinted on his flesh.
Tonight was the night of the sacrifice.
The sun had long faded below the horizon, leaving stripes of blurry red and violet hues in the night sky, declaring it was time for him to go.
Hand on the doorknob, Jungkook casted one last glance at his home, breathing in its familiar, irreplaceable scent. He watched the wooden walls which surrounded the cozy living room; the door frame at his left, which had marked his height since his birth; the small kitchen, where his mother used to make the most delicious chestnut cakes of the whole village; at his father’s office, where he learnt to forge metal. Finally, the young man’s eyes landed on the old porch, where an empty rocking chair had welcomed his grandmother and him throughout his childhood.
Afterwards, without any other hesitation, he put on a fox mask and exited the house, not wanting to be recognized along the alleys despite the formal dress he was wearing.
As he walked past the streets of Erania, the heavy tunic slowed down his movements, giving him the opportunity to gather a few moments of privacy before the ceremony started. After that, he knew everything would have passed in a blur and he would have had to leave.
Therefore, he took his time wandering along the alleys of his village, watching the place which had seen him growing up, caressing the cold stones of the houses and smelling the floral perfume of the honeysuckles and larkspurs.
Once in the center of the square, he spotted a known face among the crowd assembled around the main bonfire and took off his mask, reaching his friend.
“Thought you had run away” Yoongi commented, unbothered, looking quickly at him before averting his attention back to the man who was currently speaking “People were starting to worry.”
“There’s nothing to worry about” Jungkook scoffed “You know I would have never left.”
“I wish you had” The older declared without missing a beat, eyes fixed on the bonfire as the younger turned speechless to him, lips parting slightly in an incredulous gape.
“It’s who I am” Jungkook decided to simply state after a while, his flat tone showing no emotion “I cannot run away from it.”
He wasn’t resigned, sad, nor angry, feelings he had always seen associated to the tributes. On the contrary, an unusual calm had somehow possessed his body, like the lazy and warm breeze that blew in the fields during those summer days.
He was about to embrace his own destiny and both he and Yoongi knew there was no point in denying that nor escaping from it.
Before the older could think of a proper answer, though, the headman of the village started his annual speech, all the citizens around them lowering their chats in respect, which reduced to mere whispers.
“Good evening, people of Erania,” the man began, voice loud and clear. “Today, as you all know, we celebrate the summer solstice, a natural event which also represents the anniversary of our village, founded almost five hundred years ago” He paused and a few heads in the crowd nodded “Our ancestors-”
“Oh no, not again,” Yoongi complained, earning a few hushes from the people around him.
“It’s our history,” Jungkook pointed out, crossing his arms and listening carefully to the headman, who was narrating the events before and after the birth of Erania.
“It’s bullshitk” Yoongi replied bitterly, eyes turning sadder and darker.
“-Another spring has come and passed, together with its usual temperate climate. The harvest was good and rich, our beasts numerous and the trees full of juicy fruits. But, as we say here, when something is given, something shall be taken as well. Half of the pact has been respected and now we have to do our part too.”
Every five years, on the 21st June, a member of the village left Erania.
The most of them returned after a day.
Others came back a few weeks later.
Some didn’t return for years.
Only one exception had been made during those long centuries of peace but no one ever talked about it, considering the fact some sort of taboo to confine behind the silence of a closed mouth and mind.
As far as it regarded what happened inside the woods, that was a whole mystery, which nobody could solve. The survivors didn’t have any memory once they came home, as if they hadn’t ever crossed the forbidden limit of the door of the village.
There were rumors, though. People told the terrible spirit of the fox tricked and played with the cursed humans; that the monster took away their memories after having seduced them; that, just for fun, she killed their souls.
Ancient legends talked about trials every tribute should have passed before meeting the fox. As far as everyone knew, they could have been both physical or mental exertions, so every child who was born with the Curse was forced to train since birth to all kind of arts and labors, from music and dance to fights and fencing until his time came to be sent to the woods, prey of the unknown purposes of the fox.
“Our tribute has been chosen,” the headman spoke solemnly. “Take a step ahead, Jungkook, from the Jeon clan.”
Hearing his name, the raven haired boy raised his chin and, aware of the eyes of everyone on him, he walked slowly to the center of the square, where the main bonfire was crackling.
Traditionally, every cursed child proved his best ability during the night of the sacrifice, as a propitious rite for the spirit of the fox to accept him as a tribute. It was also an opportunity to honor his clan, to make his forebears proud of his sacrifice.
The Jeons were well known in the village for their handcraft abilities, especially for what regarded metalwork. Therefore, the black haired boy had decided to commemorate the value of his family in a special way that night.
With a firm and solemn expression, Jungkook showed his audience two large fire fans he had made himself, forging the steel until it had turned into an intricate pattern, with two rings at the base which expanded like thin and refined arteries, creating the form of a flame.
Its shape oddly resembled the tails of a fox.
Despite its material, the metalwork was lightweight, so Jungkook had no struggle taking it and igniting the woven wicks on the tip of each tail with flames crackling from the bonfire. When the white threads started burning, he inserted his thumb in the ring on the left while his right hand gripped the other one and slowly began spinning the two fans.
The young man took a brief moment for himself, closing his eyes and breathing in slowly, speaking silent words into his mind.
Spirit of the Fox, I, Jeon Jungkook, I challenge you.
A familiar, ancient music rose from the background, the sound of bagpipes and flutes taking Jungkook into another dimension and time, the scenery of his village disappearing from under his eyes to be replaced by a mix of yellow and red. In front of him, the young man didn’t see the familiar houses nor markets of Erania but just a desert, empty area, the only source of life coming from the huge, prosperous forest on the hill rising on his left.
Automatically, his hands began to swirl the rings in fluid and hypnotic movements, body talking as he danced through those sorrowful notes, narrating a story about war and death, about sadness and joy, about his ancestors and family.
Through his fans, Jungkook shaped easily a scenery of the old times, when the four founders had arrived in that abandoned land, deciding to build a place to live, surrounded by that magnificent and thriving red forest.
No one had realized that prolific place hid a cursed secret.
Suddenly, an abrupt change in the music made Jungkook change his rhythm, shifting from calm and movements to more frantic ones, the rough sound of the drums raising and covering the sweet music of the pipes. One fan was now rotating in circles above his head while the other one swung closer to the sandy ground, drawing complex and geometrical patterns, fingers gripping tight the steel shining in the light of the bonfire.
The events the young boy was picturing in front of his eyes for the audience told now a different story, the tale of four founder families who made a deal with the evil spirit of the fox haunting the land.
In order to be able to live in that territory, every five years, the people of the village would have sacrificed one human to the Kitsune and, in exchange for that, the Spirit would have protected the village and let its people live in peace and prosperity.
Each note, each part of the story corresponded to a slow movement of the fan, the flames swirling behind Jungkook and guiding him. Unbothered by the long, silky robe, which should have impeded a dance like that, the young man kept mesmerizing his public, making people catch their breaths each time the blaze grazed the velvety cloth of his dress.
Jungkook danced along with flames, he danced with fire in his eyes.
And, just for a brief moment, when he was focused in following that fast orange flickering, the raven haired boy felt the odd sensation to be stared back.
Eventually, Jungkook’s fan swirled one last time, cleaving the air with what seemed now ten big fire claws. When he completed his performance, legs parted and shoulders raising and falling, panting and sweating, the black haired boy noticed his fingers were slightly burnt.
Then, silence fell among the audience, everything and everyone frozen still, amazed and astonished by that outstanding performance.
Silence for awe.
Silence for respect.
Silence for grief.
Then, someone started to clap his hands slowly, soon followed by another until all the crowd was cheering him. Jungkook bowed, thanking his citizens and smiling proudly, his gaze travelling along the numerous people, each one showing a different emotion on their faces, and stopping when he spotted the only figure whose arms were crossed and whose glare expressed his thoughts.
The raven haired boy gave Yoongi an apologetic look mixed to a sad smile before turning and approaching the headman of the village, who was waiting him with both a proud and sorrowful look on his face.
Maybe he was thinking about last time he had done that. About how it had ended.
Maybe five years were not enough.
Nevertheless, as always, he shook the tribute’s hand and hugged him, whispering encouraging words and advices. He was a survivor himself, after all.
Once they were done with formalities, Jungkook ignited a torch from the bonfire and, enlightening the dark alley in front of him, he headed to the door east of Erania, followed by a long queue of people, everyone reciting a song to guide him and bring him good luck.
At the end of the path, he turned, knowing he would have found his family, relatives and friends waiting for him with some gifts. as the dear ones usually did in that unfortunate occasion.
“To survive the forest,” the headman of the village recited solemnly, giving him a bag in which the citizens of Erania had put food, water and all genre of supplies. No one could know what Jungkook would have needed once inside the woods, what the Demon would have wanted from him or how long he would have stayed inside so people added small gifts too: a diary and a quill pen, to spend the time; a small blanket, to keep warm when cold nights would have arrived; an old book, in which legends and myths of Erania were narrated through fascinating pictures.
After having accepted the numerous presents, Jungkook finally reached his family, who was waiting him in mourning.
As soon as he stepped in front of his mother, the young man noticed she could barely fight her tears back, holding her handkerchief tightly, as if it had represented her own anchor.
“Jungkookie,” she stuttered, sobbing and hiding the face in her son’s chest, who was now taller than her.
“Don’t worry mother. I’ll come back,” he promised confidently, caressing her long hair and breathing in the familiar scent of home.
“I shouldn’t be the one crying,” she smiled despite her tears, detaching a bit just to offer him a small package, “I sewed this dress myself,” she explained when she noticed her son’s perplexed expression. “I thought that maybe the Kitsune would have liked it so much she would have freed you sooner,” she whispered then, careful not to be heard.
“It’s a lovely present, thank you,” Jungkook commented, moved by his mother’s behavior. Probably, she was the only one in the entire village who had a kind thought about the Spirit despite the fact that her son was about to risk his own life thanks to her.
Despite what had happened five years before.
Nevertheless, Jungkook knew someone else who would have had a nice and gentle thought towards the Kitsune, someone who had taught him so much and that couldn’t be by his side in that important night.
I will always be by your side.
An echo resonated trough his mind, a unknown voice which made Jungkook furrow his brows, as if a remote memory buried in his mind was trying to get to the surface.
“To protect yourself against the Demon,” his father said firmly in the meanwhile, bringing him back to reality. Then, he handed his son a small yet beautiful sword, which Jungkook immediately recognized as a Jeon manufacture named wakizashi*.
At the exchange, they both nodded in agreement, a mute dialogue in which each one told the other to do whatever was necessary in order to protect the family and the village.
Lastly, Jungkook reached his best friend, who had an unreadable expression, so much emotions hidden underneath that cold surface that Jungkook couldn’t help but hugging Yoongi to try to comfort him.
“Avenge him for me,” the older just whispered, holding back tightly, his dark eyes enlightened by the flames of the numerous torches around them.
Of course, five years weren’t enough.
Then, not turning back but with his gaze fixed in the forest in front of him, Jungkook played with the necklace he was wearing, touching as a habit its small ruby pendant and tracing its line until his finger grazed the back of his neck, where his mark was slightly burning, as if anticipating something.
It was just one step, only a step.
And he was inside.
㊋
Akai Shrine, 21st June, year 596
You are a monster.
The pain.
The cold.
Why was everything always so cold?
The Kitsune cuddled to the ground, enveloping the long, soft tails around his body with the aim of warming himself up, even though it seemed impossible, as if a thin layer of ice had started to grow around him, crystallizing his heart as well as his soul.
The Spirit of the fox was supposed to be embodiment of fire and flames, from his cherry hair to his five tails. Nevertheless, every five years, a familiar yet hatred cloak of bitter cold enveloped him like a snow blanket.
Five long and harsh winters had passed since the touch of a warm hand had melted that ice away.
And, as much as Taehyung longed for that touch, every memory of it was surrounded by sorrow and pain.
“Taetae, it’s time,” A light whisper in the distance jolted the Kitsune, carefully shaking his body to reality, a slight and gentle brush trying to caress him yet not reaching him.
“I don’t wanna do this anymore,” The Spirit whined, curling up tighter to the ground.
“Tae please,” Jimin begged him, eyes full of pity as he stared at the motionless body in front of him. “M-maybe he will be different this time.”
“He won’t,” Taehyung stated firmly, a slight anger painting his otherwise empty voice.
“Just give him a chance,” His friend insisted, finally making his way through the tails in order to reach the other’s face.
“I said no,” He continued stubbornly. “Besides, I’ve already got you.”
At that answer, the other made a bitter smile and sat on the ground, momentarily giving up. “You know it’s not the same,” Jimin reasoned, caressing absent mindedly one of the numerous tails, trying to soothe his friend. “It’s just…” He hesitated, not sure about what to say next.
“What?” Taehyung asked, finally opening his eyes and fixing his gaze on the other.
“I know him,” Jimin eventually confessed, fidgeting with his fingers.
A pause.
“Is he Yoongi?” Taehyung’s face peeked out from the tails, a tired and pale look which didn’t match his natural tanned skin.
“No,” Jimin lowered his head, his voice trembling just at the mention of that name, hands shaking lightly. “You know he isn’t born with the Mark.”
Yes, Taehyung knew.
He just hoped this day wouldn’t have ever come.
“He is my cousin, though,” Jimin finally confessed, disheartened. “Or, at least, he was.”
At that sentence, the Kitsune sighed, disentangling from his tails and seating in front of the other, one hand raised in the air with the intent of reaching and comfort him but soon retracting, unsure.
“Ok,” He just declared at the end, looking carefully at the pained expression on Jimin’s face.
When Taehyung stood up, his long silky robe following the fluid movement, he heard a presence, as if someone was speaking directly and clearly into his mind:
Spirit of the Fox, I, Jeon Jungkook, I challenge you.
Hearing those words pronounced by that voice, the Kitsune’s hand ran straight to his chest, a sudden pang hitting his clenching heart which made his legs buckle and his breath shorten.
“Tae?” Jimin shifted closer with a worried look, with the only result the other took a few steps back.
“I’m fine,” He panted, even though his tensed jawline ad closed fists said otherwise.
Thus, before the other could add anything else, Taehyung shifted into a beautiful fox, tails waving in the air and coat shining brightly under the moon rays filtering through the open door. After having casted one last glance at Jimin, who just stared at him helplessly, the Kitsune turned, running away from his shrine and disappearing into the woods.
㊋
Erania, 14th March, year 577
“Remember Jungkook, do not ever, for no reason, walk into the woods.”
At first look, Jeon Jihye could have appeared a soft, kind and caring mum, who was well known in the village for her unique recipe of chestnut cake. Nevertheless, she was able to transform into the angriest woman whenever she found her son too close to the red forest.
And it happened a lot.
The Jeon house was the closest dwelling to the fence wall surrounding the village of Erania, the branches of its high, characteristic elm even reaching the other side of the perimeter, where the woods began.
The black haired child huffed, not even listening to the mantra his mother used to tell him since he was four years old.
“Yes muuuum,” He answered rolling his eyes but still with a firm tone, as he really meant it.
“Don’t look at me like that, little boy,” She continued, pointing a threatening finger towards him. “It’s for your own good.”
Then, she ruffled her son’s hair, as she usually did, and let him go playing and running freely through the fields and streets of Erania.
Nevertheless, every time Jungkook was forced to walk away, he couldn’t help but turn and cast a glance at that mysterious forest, at the immense scrub of vermillion trees which delimited the perimeter of his town.
At the beginning it was easy, to forget about that cursed place, to just turn and go away. Nonetheless, after a while, the alleys he knew by heart started to bore him, the fields were void, the square of the village was empty, because no one was ever with him.
In fact, in contrast to what his mother wrongly thought, the little boy didn’t play with the other children of the village nor was welcomed in their houses. The black haired child just stared at them from afar, too hopeful they would have eventually asked him to join them.
Too shy to reach them.
Too scared to be rejected.
Alone.
Jungkook was alone.
Because Jungkook was a cursed child.
As many people used to say, the Jeons were born under a bad sign.
In fact, most of the times, it was a member of their clan who presented the Mark at their birth. No one knew the reason why Fate had decided to be that cruel towards that particular family but, still, the inhabitants of the village were careful not to walk close to that cursed perimeter, fearing that damned family could somehow taint them.
Thus, there were two kind of attitudes towards his family and people like him: the ones who feared and avoided them like the plague and the ones who worshipped them, seeing the tributes as some sort of deities who couldn’t and shouldn’t have got any relationship with the normal, innocent citizens of Erania.
In any case, no one dared to get too close to him.
No one wanted to know him.
Why should anyone have wanted it, after all?
As for the Kitsune, there were opposite believes about her as well: some people spoke about the Demon with reverence; some others with anger. Nonetheless, the majority of the citizens of Erania didn’t want to broach the subject at all.
Therefore, the only times Jungkook didn’t feel awkward or unwanted were when he was at school or with his family.
In fact, every cursed child was forced to follow a special education, aimed to prepare the future tribute for what may happen once inside the forest. Thus, the children were raised to fight and kill since they were young, on the off chance that, one day, one of them would have been able to carry out the mission no one had ever completed before: kill the Kitsune.
During those years of trainings, Jungkook had always proved his value, standing out among the other children for both strength and intelligence to such an extent that his teachers started to grow high expectations about him.
And, for once, he didn’t feel alone.
Although his teammates were five, ten, fifteen years older than him, the raven haired boy always felt a special connection with them, since they were the only ones who could fully understand him.
Nevertheless, since the other tributes were older than him, they rarely wanted to play with him or to hang out together after their long trainings, nor were they interested in the numerous questions Jungkook always asked to their teachers: why were they born with the Mark? What did it mean? What did the Spirit of the fox haunting the woods look like?
And, to each question, the response came in the same disapproval tone “Everything connected to the red Demon is evil and you shall not talk about it nor show interest on him.”
Thus, once again alone, Jungkook sought refuge and answers in a particular member of his family, who never failed to fulfill his need of knowledge.
Jungkook’s grandma, Jeon Sooyun was elderly but, if you asked 6 years old Jungkook how many years she had, even though he knew by memory each wrinkle on her face and he loved to touch her soft, silvery hair, the little boy would have said he had no idea. However, he could have described accurately her characteristic scent, a mix of fern and wood; her tiny and gentle voice, like the one of a nightingale; her comfortable lap, where he used to cuddle during the warm summer evenings, while she told him ancient stories, a lot more interesting than the ones he heard at school.
Legends about stars and destiny, about constellations and dreams, about soulmates and spirits.
“What’s a soulmate, granny?” Jungkook had once asked, staring at the night sky above them in the wooden porch as they swung backwards and forwards on Sooyun’s rocking chair.
“That’s the hardest yet simplest question of all times, my little bun,” She had replied, caressing her grandson’s black hair. “A soulmate is the part of yourself you haven’t discovered yet.”
At that sentence, Jungkook turned to his grandmother, confusion plastered all over his features, from his pouty mouth to his furrowed eyebrows.
“How can I not know a part of myself?”
“Maybe you haven’t met it yet,” Sooyun talked calmly, caressing that bewilderment away from her grandson’s face.
“And how do I know when I’ll do?”
“Maybe it will never happen. Or, maybe, it will happen tomorrow, or the day after that. Some say you can recognize them because your eyes reflect their soul,” The old lady reflected placidly. “But, most of all, it will happen when something will be given and nothing will be taken in return.”
That mysterious statement confused Jungkook even more, if possible.
“That’s not an equivalent exchange though,” The raven haired child protested, mindful of the motto of his village.
“Exactly. That is the whole point,” His granny nodded knowingly. “But don’t worry about it yet, little bun, and look up at the stars instead, as they see and know the inscrutable events ahead of us.”
The little black haired boy obeyed, fixing his gaze in the sparkling constellations above them, momentarily forgetting about those unfathomable words.
But Jungkook was also a curious child, who always craved to know more.
And the starting point to do that was by finding out the mystery that haunted Erania.
Jungkook had to wait until spring before something, maybe everything, changed. In particular, when the day of the equinox came, the only time of the year in which the east door of the village was opened for men to go inside the forest and harvest the products of the forest which the Demon provided for them.
There was an sense of unrest through the alleys of Erania, where men and women were busy celebrating the special event with a huge banquet, taking advantage of that rare and cheery occasion.
It was the perfect occasion.
As the village was immersed in that joyful atmosphere, Jungkook turned and ran back to his house, where he easily climbed the old elm, shifting nimbly from a branch to another until he reached and overstepped the perimeter of the town.
While standing above the wall, the raven haired child looked at his village one last time before turning and studying the crimson forest expanding in front of him.
It was just one step, only a step.
And he was inside.
㊋
Akai Forest, 21st June, year 596
As he stepped inside the forest, a sudden headache invaded Jungkook’s mind, flash of amber and red coloring his vision and forcing him to close his eyes for that unexpected pain while a creep sensation crawled through his veins, a certain sense of belonging and remembrance which made his body shiver.
The black haired boy shook his head, chasing that weird sensation away, trying to ignore the slight yet persistent itch coming from the Mark on the back of his neck.
Maybe that was what tributes felt when they walked inside the forest.
Taking a deep breath, the young man didn’t waste any more time and finally crossed the threshold of the vermillion forest, whose maples and hibiscuses shone of a pale and characteristic shade of red under the moonlight.
As Jungkook proceeded ahead, not having a destination but just wondering through those unknown and untracked paths, the woods seemed to slowly swallow him up, like a labyrinth surrounding him and preventing him from finding the way in or out.
Nonetheless, the woods weren’t the scary place he had always heard of, full of darkness and monsters, of dangers and pitfalls. On the contrary, the forest was enlightened by tiny sparkles of red light resembling fireflies, which gave the ambiance an unnatural shade of amaranth.
The silence was the worst thing.
Jungkook could hear his heart pounding in his chest, his breath so loud in the stillness as he stepped on the numerous sprigs on the ground, which echoed around him, their sound getting amplified and lost among the high trees.
Surprisingly, the forest seemed desert and lifeless at a first sight, although Jungkook knew the place was supposed to be full of animals and, maybe, monsters.
Who could have guessed which kid of creatures were hosted in that cursed place? Did the Kitsune control them? Where was she now? Was she aware of Jungkook’s presence?
As those unanswerable questions filled his mind, the raven haired boy sensed a presence behind him, light, feather-like steps which would have passed unnoticed to a common ear. Luckily, Jungkook had been trained for that moment since he was a child.
Thus, he carefully took some steps ahead, as if he didn’t notice anything, and then, all of a sudden, he turned, gripping tightly the wakizashi* his father had gifted him and crouched among the bushes like a predator waiting for its prey.
Eyes attentive and wide, the young man inspected the dark woods around him, careful to the slightest movement and sound even though nothing could be seen nor heard. Therefore, he fluttered his eyelids close, breathing in the peculiar atmosphere of the forest and drowning with his senses in it.
It was like he could hear the heartbeat of that forest, from its ancient pines to its hidden animals, as if everything was revolving around a pulsing center right behind him.
Suddenly, Jungkook opened his eyes and turned fast, sword half way through the air as he stared at the creature in front of him.
It was a fox.
Only a fox.
Jungkook breathed out, relieved.
Had he just imagined that weird sensation? And why was his heart pounding in his chest?
Pushing those weird thoughts away, the young man directed his attention back to the fox, whose big, amber eyes were fixed into him, as if she knew exactly where he was hiding.
Then, she tilted her head, like she was curious to see what was coming next.
Since the animal didn’t seem harmful nor willing to move any time soon, Jungkook lowered his sword and walked slowly out of the bushes, careful not to scare her.
Despite his village’s belief, Jungkook had always liked foxes. In fact, through the centuries, the animal had become a sign of bad luck to the point that people had started to think the sight a fox corresponded to a death omen.
Nevertheless, Jungkook found those animals quite fascinating, especially this peculiar one.
The black haired boy was sure he had met a fox before, even though he couldn’t recall exactly where or when, but he also knew those animals weren’t supposed to look so majestic nor that big, the large tail seemingly covering her whole body. Not to speak about the fact they were usually scared of humans.
This particular fox, though, was just looking warily at him yet not running away, as if she was studying the boy’s moves.
As for Jungkook, on one hand he would have preferred to keep walking and find the Kitsune within the night, on the other, he realized he had barely eaten during that long day and that it was probably wiser to just stop there and rest for a moment, certain he wouldn’t have the chance to sleep any time soon.
Thus, the raven haired boy decided to sit on the soft carpet of leaves and grass which covered the forest and pick at the food his citizens had gifted him just a couple of hours before. Although Jungkook had been walking for a few kilometers, his village seemed already a distant reality, remote from his actual surroundings.
Lying against a close tree, the young man averted his gaze from the fox, who was standing still, and raised his head to focus on the moon above him instead, familiar constellations adjoining it in the starry sky.
The summer heat lulled him in his memories, back to his childhood, when he spent the same summer nights with his grandmother, talking for endless hours, listening enraptured to her tales until he fell asleep in her arms.
Absent-mindedly, Jungkook started to hum a song between his lips, eyes closing and heart guiding the notes into a sad and sweet melody, high and low notes harmonizing into a sorrowful music.
Tears pricked silently and slowly the boy’s eyes as those sceneries from the past mixed to the current ones, leaving just a sad smile on his face. His voice decreased until nothing came out from his mouth, leaving a peaceful yet melancholic atmosphere around him.
Then, Jungkook focused his attention back to the woods, when he realized that magnificent fox had surprisingly disappeared from his view. Perplexed, the boy turned to the left and right, trying to find the animal but in vain.
Considering the fox had probably run away, the black haired boy sighed and opened his bag, where he found a considerable amount of products, from spices to herbs, always useful both to eat and survive.
Jungkook had just started crunching a small and sweet bun when a pinecone hit his head and forced him to look up, just to realize the fox had somehow climbed the tree behind him and was currently lying peacefully on a high branch. It almost seemed like she was mocking him, showing her teeth in what recalled a sneering expression.
“Are you having fun?” The raven haired boy asked, half amused and half puzzled. “And how did you manage to end up there, anyway?”
Didn’t you know that foxes can climb trees very easily?
A laugh.
A whirl of cherry hair and amber eyes.
A sincere smile.
As it came, the memory was soon gone, like a ghost wandering unnoticed in his mind but disappearing as soon as he caught its glimpse.
What did that mean?
Whose voice was that?
Why did it seem both familiar and unknown at the same time?
Lost in those thoughts, Jungkook almost missed the moment in which, with a fluid and quick leap, the fox jumped off the branch and landed gracefully on the ground, just a few meters away from him.
For a couple of seconds, the boy and the animal just stared attentively at each other. Then, without even thinking about it, Jungkook took a piece of bun and placed it on the small space dividing him from the fox, careful not to move too close or too fast.
At that unexpected gesture, the animal blinked a few times, standing so still it seemed she wasn’t breathing at all.
Afterwards, she carefully took a step ahead and sniffed the food suspiciously, walking in circles around that small piece of sweet bread. Seemingly still doubtful but clearly curious to taste it, the fox took the bun between her teeth and brought it a few meters away, as if she wanted to hide it from Jungkook.
As for the black haired boy, he found that behavior quite funny and, to show the animal there was no harm, he ate the delicious food first, feeling for some reason more relaxed.
Just when the fox had made sure it was safe, she gave the bun tentative bite and jumped excited on her paws when she realized how tasty it was.
When she finished, Jungkook repeated his offer, noticing the animal came closer and closer until she didn’t even bother moving away from him.
“You know, my grandma used to tell me that foxes are lucky charms and thus we should respect them,” Jungkook pondered once they had both finished eating. “She used to say she had met a fox and, from that day, her life had changed. Can you believe it? As if you could change mine.”
The boy was clearly joking but the animal, who had sat closer to him in the meanwhile, seemed strangely attentive to those words, like she could somehow understand them.
The raven haired boy stared in awe at the animal and, winning the initial indecisiveness, he stretched his right hand tentatively, reducing slowly the little space which divided him from the fox. Then, when his fingers barely brushed the animal’s face, he stilled, letting the other decide whether he should have touched that red fur or not.
The fox retracted abruptly, clearly scared for that unexpected gesture. Then, body tensed and ready to run away, the animal took a hesitant step ahead, smelling uncertainly the boy’s hand.
As Jungkook waited patiently for the animal to proceed at her pace, the fox looked at him in the eyes with such a frightened, human and pure expression that, for a moment, the boy thought she would have opened her mouth and begged him not to go ahead. Instead, she nuzzled the palm of his hand, her soft and bright fur unnaturally cold under the boy’s warm touch.
When the animal seemed comfortable enough, Jungkook moved his fingers until he reached her ear and stroked it, glad to earn a positive reaction.
“Have you ever met the Kitsune that lives here?” The young man asked after a while, not expecting any answer but just wanting to fill the silence. “I’m supposed to find her, you know.”
At those words, the fox pulled away, leaving a perplexed Jungkook behind her while she started walking in the opposite direction.
The black haired boy furrowed his brows.
Should he have followed her?
What if it was a trap?
Nevertheless, something deep and unfathomable inside him was pulling him towards the fox.
As hearing his silent doubts, the red animal turned and waited until Jungkook decided to listen to that unknown sensation and gathered his stuff to reach her. Then, she guided him inside the forest, the both of them walking steadily until the moon rays left their place to the pale sun of the dawn.
It didn’t take too long before the cursed boy got lost, not a chance to remember the way back to Erania or which compass point they were heading to. Therefore, when the fox finally stopped, Jungkook could barely keep his eyes opened, the only energy left barely allowing him to reach the nearest tree and collapse against its trunk.
Lying on those old roots, the raven haired boy fluttered his heavy eyelids just for a moment, dozing off while catching a glimpse of what resembled five, long, gorgeous tails.
It was only when the young man was long fallen asleep, tired and exhausted for the tough journey, that the fox who had kept him company for that strange night of solstice turned into a beautiful boy, the first sunrays of the day kissing his tanned skin.
Carefully, as he had done in his animal shape, Taehyung knelt in front of his enemy, pulling the curly bangs away from his forehead.
“And you should be the one destined to kill me?” He asked tilting his head, tone both amused and melancholic, certain the other couldn’t have heard nor seen him.
When Jungkook woke up the next morning, there was no sign of the fox who had brought him there nor he could recognize the forest surrounding him, now enlightened by the sunrays.
Had been all a dream?
Had he just imagined all the events happened that night?
Shaking his head, the raven haired boy got up, stretching his body while trying to decide the right path to follow among the various trails which expanded in front of him.
Only in that moment, Jungkook noticed a clearing on his left, an arch of trees paving the way to its flowered carpet, red and black butterflies fluttering their beautiful wings from a petal to another. Charmed by that mesmerizing vision, the raven haired boy took a step towards that tunnel of branches, unaware of the presence of a pair of amber eyes watching him from above.
㊋
Akai Forest, 14th March, year 577
Once inside, the forest didn’t seem the scary place Jungkook had been hearing about for years.
Wandering among the trees, the cursed child soon got lost, although he didn’t care. On the contrary, he looked bewildered around him, observing with round eyes the rays of the sun filtering through the red leaves, the birds singing happily in the air, the animals peeking out from their nests.
Wild strawberries and raspberries grew prosperous along the path, their flavor as much delicious as their look.
The forest seemed covered by a magic aura and Jungkook started to wonder why no one ever frequented that place, demanding to stay as far away from it as possible instead.
After having snooped around the bushes for a while, the raven haired boy caught a glimpse of red, like a flame shining for a moment. Intrigued, Jungkook bent on the ground and pulled the branches aside, trying to see better.
There was another child in the woods.
The little boy was sitting alone in the center of a huge and round clearing, the tall grass partially hiding his figure, so that the cursed child could only observe his back. Apparently, that stranger was busy collecting flowers, his cherry hair resembling the scarlet gladiolus he was intertwining.
“Hello?” Jungkook spoke, tone uncertain, taking a little step ahead, although the other didn’t seem to acknowledge his presence.
Then, when the cursed child was already half way through the glade, all of a sudden, the red head stranger turned towards him, bright and big golden eyes fixing into his hazel ones.
“You’ve got amber in your aura,” he stated seriously after having studied him from the top to the bottom, as if it was the most normal sentence.
At that weird phrase, Jungkook furrowed his eyebrows, confused. However, he decided not to linger on those words and make a more important question instead. “Don’t you know it’s forbidden to enter the forest?”
“Yet here you are,” the stranger replied nonchalantly, turning his back at him again and averting his attention to the flowers he was collecting before.
“You are not from Erania,” Jungkook guessed while getting closer, not wanting that conversation to die. The raven haired child was sure he would have remembered the other if they had met at the village. Although Jungkook had no friend beside his older mates at the academy, he knew he would have remembered a boy like that.
“I am not,” the other confirmed, his long fingers braiding gracefully the thin stems.
The raven haired boy couldn’t believe his luck: he had just met another boy around his age, who probably came from another village, maybe on the opposite side of the forest.
Nobody had ever ventured beyond the walls of Erania nor did anyone seem to dream about escaping those places. On the contrary, Jungkook spent a lot of his free time imagining the world outside the village and the forest, the adventures he could have lived, the landscapes he could have seen. What if there was an entire city made of steel? His dad would have loved it. What about a castle built under a lake, inhabited by water spirits and dragons?
Maybe there were even places where no one was born with a curse, where people could give and take freely, without paying a pledge.
However, if that peculiar boy roamed comfortably around the Akai Forest, unaware of the Kitsune’s existence, that also meant he couldn’t have known about Jungkook’s curse.
This was a unique chance.
For the first time, Jungkook could have had a true friend.
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I’m waiting,” he explained vaguely, still focused on his work.
“For what?” Jungkook asked, finally reaching him.
“Done!” The red haired boy exclaimed, not minding the other’s question but looking satisfied at the flower garland he had made.
Then, he turned with a shy yet genuine smile on his face and finally introduced himself. “I’m Taehyung.”
“Jungkook,” the cursed child smiled back, accepting gladly the seat next to the other, who was patting the soft grass, clearly inviting Jungkook to join him.
“Try it,” the cherry haired boy suggested, handing the other the result of his work. Then, without waiting for an answer and noticing the other’s hesitation, he placed the crown of flowers on Jungkook’s head, tiny petals of the ruby gladiolus falling on his raven hair.
“How do I look?” The cursed child asked, uncertain.
“You seem the prince of the woods,” Taehyung declared, proud of his definition.
“Really?” The raven haired boy laughed. “You should try it too,” he continued then, giving the red crown back to the other.
“No, you can keep it! The forest can’t have two princes,” the red haired boy reasoned wisely.
“And who said that?” Jungkook retorted. Then, biting his bottom lip, he observed the various species of flowers growing in the clearing until he found one that caught his eyes. Carefully, the cursed boy collected the stem of a beautiful amaryllis, large and scarlet petals surrounding its yellow anther.
Then, without saying a word, he placed the flower behind the other’s ear.
Although Jungkook’s fingers had barely grazed his skin, Taehyung widened his eyes, hands slightly trembling as his irises glistened of golden hues.
No one had ever touched him with such gentleness nor had anyone ever gifted him anything before.
On the other side, at that brief contact, the raven haired boy felt a sudden stinging sensation on the back of his neck, exactly where his cursed mark was. As a reflex, Jungkook jolted back in surprise, the other’s hand immediately retracing, as if he had got a shock.
Noticing the other’s disheartened expression at his unexpected reaction, the raven haired boy rushed to make it up to him.
“Do you want to play a game?” He proposed, picking immediately Taehyung’s interest.
“A game?” The other repeated, intrigued.
“It’ called kitsuneken,” the cursed boy explained, shifting on the ground until he was in front of the other.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“And what do you play in your village, then?” Jungkook asked, surprised.
The kitsuneken was really popular in Erania and everyone played it, from children to adults. Not to speak about the fact it was Jungkook’s favorite game.
“There aren’t any games in the place where I come from,” despite his flat tone, the other’s eyes revealed a hidden melancholy.
“I’m gonna teach you, so you can play with your family,” the cursed boy stated proudly, earning a small smile, even if Taehyung’s eyes remained sad.
“Ok.”
The game was simple, per se. There were three figures: the fox, the hunter and the village head, each one represented by a different hand gesture. As a game of chance, the kitsuken consisted of choosing one of the three characters for each turn, following the rule for which the Kitsune defeated the village head, who defeated the hunter, who defeated the fox.
“So, choose one among the fox, the hunter or the village head,” Jungkook spoke after having explained the game in details.
“I’m the-” Taehyung was about to confess his identity when the other interrupted him.
“No no, you don’t have to tell me which one you are or I’ll know how to beat you.”
Thus, they started playing, clapping their hands between a turn and another. At the beginning, Taehyung lost each match, always mimicking the fox, beaten by Jungkook’s hunter. Nonetheless, as they kept on, the red haired boy finally understood how the game worked and, after a while, Taehyung finally managed to win a few rounds.
“Again!” He begged when Jungkook stopped, not wanting that game to finish.
“Sorry but it’s getting late,” the cursed child looked up the sky, where the light of the sun was slowly replaced by the shades of the night. The young boy hadn’t even realized how many hours he had spent in the forest and now his family was probably worried. Jungkook grimaced at the thought of his mum’s angry expression and rushed to get up, even though he couldn’t remember the direction back home.
“I can take you to the boundary of the forest, so you’ll arrive faster,” Taehyung suggested, as if reading his mind.
“How do you know the right way?” Jungkook wondered perplexed, doubting the other could find his bearing in that dark labyrinth of trees.
“I’ve been walking inside this forest for some time now. I know it quite well,” the other reassured him, heading south with no hesitation.
“Don’t you have to come back home too, tough? Won’t your parents be worried?” The cursed boy insisted while running to him.
“I’ll come home after having brought you back,” he replied calmly, lips closing in a thin line which probably meant he didn’t want to talk about that topic.
Maybe he had family issues. Maybe that was the reason why that peculiar boy had run into the forest in the first place.
Lost in their thoughts, the two young boy walked silently until Jungkook gathered to courage to ask another question, deciding to change subject.
“Will I find you again if I return?”
“You will,” Taehyung nodded, turning briefly to smile at the other.
What did you mean when you said I’ve got amber in my aura?
Jungkook was about to pronounce those words when Taehyung stopped, making him crash against his back.
“Here you are,” the red haired boy sighed, observing Erania and its walls, enlightened both by the pale moon rays and the sparkling torches.
“Oh,” Jungkook just managed to say, not having expected to arrive so fast.
Thus, the cherry haired boy turned, a pained expression on his face as he watched the other in the eyes.
“You can’t say anything about this,” he warned, tone half worried half helpless. “This is our secret. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Jungkook spoke solemnly, excited to share a special friendship no one would have ever known about.
The raven haired boy had barely taken a few steps ahead when the other stopped him, his left hand stretched in the air yet not able to reach him “Wait” His voice was unsure even though hope filled his huge amber eyes. “Will you come back?”
“I promise,” the cursed boy repeated, getting closer and intertwining his pinkie with Taehyung’s one.
Once home, Jungkook entered the door and ran upstairs to his room, wanting to hide the crown of flowers he was still wearing. It was just when he took it off his head that he realized the blooming and bright gladiolus had withered.
㊋
Akai Shrine, 21st June, year 596
Taehyung shifted back to his human form as soon as he stepped into his shrine, grabbing the first among the numerous robes hanging from a near wooden wardrobe.
When Jimin heard his friend’s entrance, he immediately dropped the omikuji* he was consulting and ran to him instead. He had been waiting all night long for Taehyung’s return and, the more hours had passed, the more anxious he had got.
“Tell me everything,” he demanded, his joyful and hopeful attitude changing as soon as he noticed the other’s unreadable expression. It seemed like the red haired man was trying to hide his emotions behind a blank and void face.
The Kitsune sighed, not wanting to talk about the events of that night with his friend but knowing he could have never avoided Jimin’s interrogatory.
“He passed the first trial,” Taehyung finally admitted, praying the other would have dropped the topic.
Of course, Jimin didn’t.
“I knew it!” He screamed instead, clapping his hands cheerfully.
“Others did before him,” the cherry haired man replied flatly, taking his favorite tasseled cushion and cuddling with it on the velvet carpet on the ground.
“Shut up. How was he? I need every detail,” Jimin kept on, lying next to him.
“He… He was kind,” his voice trembled as he remembered the soft strokes and the gentle words he had received.
“Jungkook is so pure, I swear. He is brave, smart, talented, sensitive, not to speak about the fact he is handsome too-”
“He touched me,” Taehyung was merely whispering to himself at this point, not even minding Jimin’s monologue.
No one had ever touched him in his fox form.
No one was allowed.
“He did WHAT?” Jimin almost screamed, not believing his own ears. “You let him??”
“I decided it,” the red haired man specified sharply.
“Unbelievable... Could he be the One?” The other dared to voice his thoughts.
“Just… Let’s see how the second trial will go,” Taehyung stuttered again, not even daring for hope to blossom into his heart.
“Okay,” the other agreed, understanding the Kitsune was clearly too upset to continue that dialogue.
Through the time spent together, Jimin had learnt a lot about Taehyung. For example, he had got to know that the Fox Spirit liked summer, when he could bask for entire days into the warmth of the sun; that he couldn’t sleep without a light nearby; that he was fascinated by flowers and their meanings. But, most of all, Jimin had discovered how fragile and pure Taehyung’s soul was, how deeply and intensely he could feel, he could suffer, he could hate and he could love.
“He doesn’t remember,” the cherry haired man grabbed his head between his hands and curled up in agony, a tiny figure which didn’t resemble the powerful and proud fox spirit he embodied.
“What do you mean?” Jimin asked worryingly, shifting closer.
“It’s nothing,” the Kitsune finally sniffed, hiding his face in the purple pillow.
The last thing the Fox Spirit wanted to do was to talk about Jeon Jungkook. He didn’t want to talk about how happy he seemed; he didn’t want to think about those bright eyes he knew so well; he didn’t want to remember that gentle smile nor that warm touch. But, most of all, Taehyung didn’t want to admit he was still in love with him.
Now more than ever, Jimin wished he could have touched his friend, wished he could have comforted him. Nevertheless, his hands were cold, his fingers unable to reach the other’s arm, his body trapped into another dimension, leaving just a mere ghost of what Park Jimin had been in his life.
Park Jimin was a tribute.
Or, more precisely, he had been the tribute who had entered the akai forest five years before and had never left it.
Because Park Jimin was dead inside that cursed place.
Sometimes, it was quite hard for him to think the lives of his beloved ones went on just a few kilometers away from the forest, where he was born, in Erania, unaware he was somehow still there, with his own emotions and thoughts.
It was like Jimin was connected to something or, better, someone on the other side of the woods. Someone who had managed to make him stay in Taehyung’s shrine for five years, even though Jimin was unable to see him, unable to reach him.
Park Jimin had never believed in soulmates. Although he couldn’t deny that was a very romantic and intriguing concept, the boy was not the type who believed in ancient myths, especially since his own life revolved around a legend. Since his destiny seemed already written, Jimin thought he could have at least chosen the lover who would have accompanied him along that path.
Park Jimin had never believed in soulmates, at least until the day had met Min Yoongi. Nonetheless, he didn’t realize the real meaning of their bound when they were introduced; nor when they kissed for the first time, laughing silly in the dark alleys of Erania; nor when they spent the night of the bonfire together, giving each other their love. No, Jimin had understood that feeling just the last day of his life, when his heart had stopped racing, his blood stagnating in his veins but a thin string had kept him attached to the ground.
That was why, although Jimin had been one of the few people able to reach the Fox’s shrine, in the moment he had met Taehyung he already knew he wasn’t the one the Kitsune was hoping for. Because his soulmate was already waiting him home.
Nonetheless, the Fox Spirit had desperately tried to save him, succoring the tribute as soon as he had seen him fainting in front of his eyes, nose bleeding and body shaking. Taehyung had immediately sensed something was very wrong but the only thing Jimin, Yoongi, Jungkook and even the Fox Spirit ignored was that Jimin was sick of an unknown and terminal disease.
The day of his death, Taehyung had carried Jimin’s body in his own arms until he had reached the boundary of the woods and, once there, the Kitsune had spent hours looking for the most beautiful and perfumed flowers, placing each one carefully around the corpse.
Nevertheless, of course, the citizens of Erania had seen that as a mockery, as the umpteenth trick of the evil fox demon, as the final proof of her indifference towards humans and tributes’ lives. That night, they had entered the forest with the intention of setting it on fire, a useless attempt to burn the place together with its curse. Taehyung couldn’t know the person who had been walking up front with a torch that was the same guy who was now heading to his shrine. Could he?
㊋
Akai Forest, 31st August, year 583
Day by day, Jungkook’s childhood passed, unaware of the threat represented by the mark on his neck.
From morning to afternoon, the raven haired boy trained with the other tributes, learning how to use a sword and studying the flowers and plants of the forest so that he would have been prepared for his future journey inside it.
No one could imagine the cursed child knew the woods far better than anyone else.
Through those years of constant escapes, Jungkook had learnt different methods to run away from his house and had found that the best moment to do it was at night, when everybody else was sleeping. Thus, after dinner, he spent the evenings with his grandmother in the porch and, once midnight came, he climbed the elm in his garden, returning at dawn.
It was like living two different lives at the same time, one as Taehyung’s friend, when he could pretend to be a normal boy, and one as the cursed child everyone avoided.
Sometimes, Jungkook suspected his grandma knew more than she showed. Also, to her grandson surprise, she had started narrating him stories no one else dared to tell, stories about the Fox Spirit living alone in the forest.
“I saw it once,” the old lady revealed in a whisper one evening, making Jungkook’s eyes wide in bewilderment.
The Kitsune topic was considered a taboo in Erania, both because people were scared just of pronouncing her name and because the few who weren’t, usually tributes, couldn’t know anything about the Demon, since no one ever remembered what happened inside the akai forest. For this reason, Jeon Sooyun was considered an outcast, too straightforward for the superstitious citizens of the village.
“She was a beautiful fox, so much bigger than the other we rarely see at the boundary of the woods. Moreover, she had six stunning tails distinguishing her,” she described in detail, eyes lost in the horizon, as if the animal had been in front of her in that exact instant.
“And, one day, you’ll meet her too,” his grandmother continued wisely. Then, she took a ball of wool from her bag and started winding up patiently the thread around her wrists, an ancient method she had taught her grandson too.
“I don’t know if-” Jungkook replied uncertain, playing with his fingers as he watched the hypnotic movement of his grandmother’s fingers.
“But you will,” the old lady responded confidently, with a calm expression. “Although I won’t be here when that moment will arrive.”
“What do you mean?” The cursed boy asked perplexed, turning his attention to her.
“But if I’d been,” she continued undeterred. “I want you to know that, after the bonfire, I would gift you a lantern… So you could find the light even in the deepest darkness.”
Upset by those words, Jungkook was about to protest when Sooyun spoke again.
“Have I ever told you the story about the ‘Red String of Fate’?” She changed topic, focused on her arm knitting. Without waiting for an answer, she proceeded narrating the legend. “Fate was a young girl who lived upon a cloud, where she spent her days alone, lulled by the wind and kissed by the sun. One night, a terrible storm hit Fate’s cloud, making her fall down in the ocean. Luckily, a piratess named Sarang saw Fate drowning and dived into the water to rescue her. From that day, Fate lived with Sarang on her ship, sharing adventures while travelling the sea together. Nonetheless, as time passed and the two girls started to fall in love, Fate began to get sick because of the distance from her cloud, the sunrays not warming her skin anymore and the air she breathed in the sea seemingly wrong if compared to the pure winds of the sky. Realizing her lover couldn’t have survived like that, Sarang took the red ribbon she used to comb her hair with and tied it around their pinkies, so that they would have been bound forever, always able to follow each other even on the opposite sides of the world. Months and year passed like that, with Sarang stretching the string around the oceans and Fate observing the piratess’ life from above, watching over her. Nevertheless, day by day, the red ribbon connecting the two lovers got thinner and thinner, until it broke right on Sarang’s extremity. As if her heart had just stopped beating, the piratess tried desperately to fix the ribbon until, in that vain attempt, she cut her pinkie. Observing that tiny drop of blood, Sarang had an idea and didn’t think twice before using the scarlet string as substitute to her ribbon. Since nothing changed in the two lovers’ bond, Fate didn’t notice anything from her cloud, so she couldn’t know that, far from her, Sarang was slowly dying in the attempt to keep them together. It was only when the last drop of blood left the piratess’ body that Fate realized the terrible truth, watching in horror as the red string vanished in front of her eyes.”
At the ending, his grandmother made a pause, still busy on working at her ball of wool, which Jungkook had been staring to for the entire duration of the story, silent tears streaming down the boy’s eyes as he noticed the thread Sooyun kept intertwining was red.
“The legend tells that, from that day, Fate spends her life in mourning, watching over other lovers from her cloud with the promise she would have never allowed soulmates to lose one another again. Thus, she always knots carefully the red string which connects them, tying not only their pinkies but also their hearts and souls, so they would have always found each other before death.”
Absent-mindedly, Jungkook brushed the mark on his neck, moved by that story and its implications. Did soulmates exist? And, if yes, would he have ever meet his?
Noticing her grandson’s puzzled expression, Sooyun smiled and carded her fingers through his hair. “Don’t think too much about it now, little bun.”
Nevertheless, his grandmother’s story got stuck in the boy’s mind for the whole evening, so much that Jungkook decided he would have spoken about it with Taehyung that night, wanting to know his opinion about it. Moreover, the cursed boy couldn’t wait to see his friend, since they hadn’t seen each other for almost a week, both because of Jungkook’s birthday and trainings.
Despite their long lasting friendship, Jungkook had never found the courage to reveal his secret to Taehyung. He had tried, of course, but the fear of being rejected and losing the only person he truly cared about outside his family had always taken over him.
When he reached their usual clearing, though, all those thoughts disappeared from his mind as soon as he noticed Taehyung’s figure collapsed on the ground, seemingly lifeless.
“Taehyung!” The boy screamed, rushing to the other, heart almost ripping out of his chest.
In any other situation, Jungkook would have noticed how much that scene was similar to the legend his grandmother had narrated him just a few hours before, but not now, when the cursed boy was too busy panicking at the sight of his friend.
When he got closer, Jungkook realized Taehyung was surrounded by foxes, the animals sleeping next to him as if as they were watching over him while keeping him warm. Then, once the raven haired boy kneeled in front of his friend, the foxes slowly retreated, leaving the two alone.
As the cursed boy touched the cold and pale face of the other, Taehyung opened his eyes, heavy eyelids fluttering for a moment before closing again.
“Jungkookie,” he whispered, his lips quirking up in a small smile.
“Hey,” the cursed boy greeted with a knot in his throat, gripping the other’s hand tightly. “Are you feeling sick? Do you want me to carry you home?”
“No, don’t worry,” Taehyung reassured him, opening his eyes again and trying to sit up. “I must have fallen asleep, that’s all.”
A doubt crossed Jungkook’s mind, not even asking when he spoke. “How long have you been waiting me.”
At those words, Taehyung turned his head and bit his bottom lip, clearly embarrassed. “What did you bring me?” The red haired boy asked instead, looking at the small backpack on the other’s shoulders. “I can smell it from here.”
“Don’t try to change topic,” Jungkook replied serious, even though the other crossed his arms and refused to talk, too proud to admit he hadn’t left the clearing for 5 days.
“I’ve missed you,” the cherry haired boy confessed instead, making Jungkook’s features soften.
“I’ve missed you too,” the other admitted sincerely, feeling the sudden urge to comfort the other. Thus, he wrapped his arms around Taehyung and held him close, taking him aback but relieved when he sensed him melting in his hug. “I’m so sorry, I promise I’ll come every day from now on.”
“Time seems longer when you are away,” Taehyung sighed against the his neck with a muffled voice. “But I feel better now.”
Surprisingly, it seemed true: his hands were warmer and his face wasn’t as pale as before, a shade of pink coloring his cheeks.
After some minutes, Jungkook disentangled reluctantly from the his friend in order to take what he had brought for him from his backpack, although Taehyung didn’t want to let him go, still holding his fingers.
“Wait, I can’t open it!” Jungkook laughed at that unexpected clinginess, glad to see Taehyung’s eyes widen in wonder as he showed the piece of chestnut cake he had stolen for him.
“It’s delicious!” The red haired boy exclaimed after having taken a tentative bite, clapping his hands happily. “I’ve never tasted something so good.”
“My mum made it for my birthday,” the cursed boy explained. “I think she will get so mad when she will realize we’ve already eaten half of it.”
“Your birthday??” Taehyung repeated surprised while chewing the soft cake. “When is it?”
“Today,” Jungkook looked up the moon, certain that midnight had already passed. “Tonight, I wanted to invite you to my house,” He confessed shyly. “I have not many friends but you could meet my family! My grandma would love you. Plus, you’d get to know my cousin Jimin, even though lately he spends all the time with his new boyfriend or whatever.”
Park Jimin was five years older than him and, at his birth, he had presented the same mark Jungkook carried on his neck. Thus, the two cousins had been training together since they were children, although Jimin lived his cursed condition very differently from him. In fact, while Jungkook looked at the people of Erania the same way he was stared back, with suspicion and diffidence, Jimin had learnt how to pretend, always smiling to whoever he crossed his path with.
This way, with time, he had become so popular that every boy of the village wanted to hang out with him and every girl dreamed to date him. Thus, it had been a shock for everyone when Jimin proudly kissed a very embarrassed Min Yoongi in front of the whole square.
“You haven’t told him about me, right?” The red haired boy asked suddenly, pulling the other out of his thoughts.
“No, of course not,” Jungkook rushed to reassure him, even if he didn’t understand why Taehyung wanted to keep the secret about their friendship with their families. Now that he thought about it, the cursed boy realized that, while he spent hours describing Erania and its citizens, the other never talked about his parents nor his village. Did his mum make cakes as well? Had he any brothers or sisters? Did his grandmother sewed the refines silky dresses he always wore?
“I wish I could come to your birthday party,” Taehyung spoke in a sad tone while fidgeting with their intertwined fingers. “But I’m not allowed to walk so far from my house.”
This was the reason why Jungkook had never invited Taehyung to Erania before: he feared to be rejected, a feeling he knew way too well. The raven haired boy was about to retract his hand when the other held it tighter.
“Nonetheless,” Taehyung said while getting up and dragging Jungkook with him, “I can give you a present!”
With joyful eyes, the two boys ran across the clearing and into the woods, where the other guided him until they reached a river Jungkook had never seen before.
“How can you know the forest so well?” The cursed boy wondered, watching in amazement the crystal clear water flowing in front of him, which reflected the colorful gems inside it.
“I’m just curious,” Taehyung answered, taking a step ahead, his expression shifting into something dark that his friend couldn’t see. Then, letting go of the other’s hand, he entered the river with bare feet, eyes searching for something in the soil.
The cherry haired boy had just found what he was looking for when Jungkook decided to follow him inside the water, making him scream in a terrified expression. “No, wait!”
Holding his breath, Taehyung pounced on the other in order to prevent him from touching the river but, at the last second, he slipped on the rocky surface.
“What’s with you?” Jungkook cackled, staring at his friend who had just comically fallen in front of him.
“Nothing,” Taehyung relaxed although he was soaking wet, laughing in relief since nothing bad had happened. Afterwards, he stood up, so happy to see Jungkook was fine that, without even thinking about it, he got closer and kissed his cheek.
It was just an innocent and quick peck, which conveyed spontaneously all the affection Taehyung was feeling in that moment.
“Just… Thank you,” he smiled shyly.
“For what?” Jungkook blushed agape, even more confused.
“For being yourself,” the red haired boy just said and finally opened his palm to show him what he had previously collected. What could have resembled a normal stone hid a crimson and bright mineral, which shone dazzlingly under the moonlight.
“It’s a ruby,” the cherry haired boy explained, twisting the small gem in his fingers. “Some people think this particular gemstone has a flame on the inside, which always burns and gives it this scarlet color. Others even believe it has powers, such as healing and magical properties.”
“Like what?” Jungkook asked, mesmerized both by the ruby and by Taehyung’s words.
“I guess you’ll have to find out,” his friend answered mysteriously, handing him the precious stone.
“I think this is the most beautiful birthday gift I’ve ever received,” the cursed boy accepted gladly, hiding the gem inside his backpack.
Afterwards, the two friends sat and talked on the bank of the river for the rest of the night, legs hanging on the water which, surprisingly, wasn’t cold at all.
“Look!” Taehyung exclaimed after a while, pointing his finger on the other side of the river, where a little fox was studying the bank of a tree.
“What is it doing?”
“It’s a she,” the red haired boy stated knowingly. “And she is going to scale that tree.”
“Impossible,” Jungkook had just spoken when the fox jumped, effortlessly and fast, reaching the tree’s branches in a few seconds.
“You should see your face,” his friend laughed at the other’s bewildered expression. “Didn’t you know that foxes can climb trees very easily?
㊋
Akai Forest, 22nd June, year 596
The clearing seemed oddly familiar, as if Jungkook had been there before.
The raven haired boy walked carefully across the green grass, eyes inspecting the high trees in search of possible threats. Open air places like that weren’t his favorite, since he could be easily attacked from behind.
During his years of training, the cursed boy had been prepared to fight in the darkness, with the worst and harshest weather conditions; he had been trained to get a bullseye on his first throw from 50 meters and to find the best and fastest way out of a dangerous situation in a few seconds. Nonetheless, that glade scared him more than any other possible scenery the boy had ever imagined.
It seemed a little piece of heaven on Earth, too quiet and peaceful for Jungkook’s unsettled soul.
Maybe it was just an illusion created by the Kitsune.
Nevertheless, although his mind was screaming him to run away, his heart was whispering Jungkook to stay, aching for something he couldn’t understand.
Unfortunately, the cursed boy had never been good at listening to his heart.
Thus, not wanting to linger there more than necessary, he decided to leave the clearing, feeling that nothing good would have come from it. Before walking back to the woods, though, Jungkook decided to take at least the memory of that place away with him, not even knowing exactly the reason behind that sudden desire.
Therefore, the raven haired boy took the diary and the pen the citizens of Erania had gifted him, pressing bitterly his lips together at the thought of the hypocrisy behind that gesture. The same people who had treated him like an outcast his whole life were now the same glorifying and crying for him, a perfect stranger whose destiny was to be sacrificed to allow them to live.
Actually, the journal was just a symbolic present, meant to register what happened inside the woods if not for the fact each diary returned to Erania perfectly intact, blank as the memory of the tributes who received it.
Maybe a sketch would have lasted.
Hence, he proceeded to draft the clearing, scribbling roughly and fast its outlines. Flowers and animals came to life spontaneously on the paper and, at some point, Jungkook didn’t even see the glade in front of him anymore, which faded away, replaced by what his mind was suggesting him to draw. The free, loose lines turned into straight and defined ones until the cursed boy looked at the sketch and realized his drawing now showed two children in the center of the clearing, probably playing together. The one on the left looked oddly like him while the other was smiling, five tails surrounding his figure and two fox ears jutting out his red hair.
Jungkook brushed the contours of the stranger’s face with his finger. Then, he shook his head and shut the diary, heart beating fast against his ribcage.
How could he possibly know that hair was red?
Moreover, who were those boys and why had he drawn them?
On one hand, the cursed boy wanted to seek the answers to those mysterious questions, on the other, though, he knew there was no point in wasting more time there, since he had a mission to complete and a promise to keep.
In the moment he turned his back to the glade, Jungkook felt a sense of recollection, as if he had lived in that same time, space and contest before, when he had walked away from-
From what? From… Who?
Something, something hidden deep in his subconscious was trying to emerge, pushing other memories aside but still remaining unreachable and, as much as Jungkook tried to fathom it, he always crashed into a dark and impenetrable wall.
A throbbing pulse hit the young man’s forehead, making him shut his lids for the pain as confused and blurred images passed quickly before his eyes, mixed with words once heard but now forgotten.
Jungkook pressed his fingers on his temples to soothe the pain but, in that moment, he lost his balance and stumbled on a root, falling and rolling along the slope, his arms full of scratches and cuts in the attempt to protect his head.
When he finally stopped, the cursed boy found himself in a very different place from before, the sound of flowing water revealing he had fallen in close proximity to a river.
Grateful not to have broken any bone yet hissing for the numerous bruises, Jungkook slowly got up and moved closer to the watercourse to clean the open wounds on his palms and knees, his eyes immediately catching sight of some herbs nearby to apply.
As the cursed boy stared at his own reflection, tired face covered in dirt, messy hair and raggedy clothes, he began to lose himself in his own thoughts.
Would he have been able to kill the fox?
He had never ended someone’s life.
Although, technically, she wasn’t human, Jungkook wondered if he would have hesitated once in front of her.
Was that the face of a future murderer?
For his whole life, Jungkook had been raised with the belief that killing the Kitsune was the right and best thing to do and that, if I’d ever succeeded, everyone would have respected and loved him. Nonetheless, a small, secret part inside him remained curious: curious to know the story behind the Fox Spirit, behind his own curse; curious to find out what there was beyond the walls of Erania and beyond the forest itself.
Maybe he could have tried to reason with the Fox Spirit.
No.
He couldn’t.
Jungkook couldn’t forget the Kitsune had killed his cousin.
He had promised Yoongi to avenge Jimin.
After his cousin’s death, he and Yoongi had become really close.
Yoongi didn’t care if Jungkook was born with the Mark, didn’t look at him in disdain and was glad to hang out with him. On his side, the cursed boy didn’t say a word when Yoongi burst into tears out of nothing nor when he had a crisis in the middle of the crowd, protecting him from the judgmental stares of the other people.
It almost seemed like a part of him had died together with his boyfriend and Jungkook seemed to be the only one who could feel the same sense of loss.
The raven haired boy would have never forgotten the shattered expression on the other’s face when they had found Jimin’s body, the same day Jungkook himself had lost-
“What are you staring at so intensely?” A voice startled him in the silence of the forest, almost making him fall into the river.
He had got distracted.
Jungkook turned fast, wakizashi* instantly in his hand, ready to fight.
The mysterious person who had just spoken was sitting serenely on a branch, feet hanging in the air two or three meters above the ground. A fox mask covered his whole face, similar to the ones the children of Erania wore during the night of the solstice and a silky dress enveloped his slim figure while his arms and hands were full of jewels sparkling at the sunrays.
“Not to be mean but you seem pretty battered to use that,” the stranger pointed out, referring to his shabby look.
“No need to worry, I’m skilled enough not to miss my target,” Jungkook replied, holding tighter the small sword and aiming at him.
“I’m not the one you are looking for,” he explained unperturbed by that threat. “I’m just the guardian of this river.”
“Why should I trust you?” The raven haired boy asked, not letting his guard down.
“Because,” the other began, jumping off the tree and landing gracefully on the ground, just a few meters away from Jungkook. “You won’t be able to find the Kitsune without me.”
Still cautious, Jungkook decided to at least hear what the stranger had to say, since that was the only clue he had been able to find so far. “I’m listening.”
“I’m the guardian of this river,” the masked guy revealed, taking a step towards the other. “But I feel like we have met before, Jeon Jungkook.”
“You are wrong,” the raven haired boy immediately retorted, studying the possible attacking angles at that close distance. He could have chosen basically every way to stab the other, who seemed unarmed, even if the large pocket of his pants could have hid any type of weapon.
“And where do this ruby come from, then?” The masked guy asked, pointing his finger at his necklace, the blade instantly brushing his jugular.
As a reflex, Jungkook’s left hand flew to his pendant, brows furrowed in confusion.
What stupid trick was that? He perfectly knew where his gem came from. It was a gift for his twelfth birthday. A present he had received from… From who?
The cursed boy frowned, thinking deeply about that person he couldn’t remember. It must have been someone from his family, because no one else spoke with him at that time. Nevertheless, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly who.
“Tell me what you know,” Jungkook demanded, something desperate in his tone.
“Oh, I know nothing,” the mask said vaguely. “But maybe you will find your answers after you will cross the river.”
“The river?” The raven haired boy repeated, perplexed, casting a quick glance behind him.
“You will need to reach the other bank it in order to arrive at the Kitsune’s shrine. But,” He added wisely, rising one finger, “You’ll have to think carefully before taking the first step inside the water. In fact, just those with a pure heart can touch this river without dying.”
Jungkook froze, eyes widening at that revelation.
Was this a trial? If yes, then it meant he could have done nothing to win or lose, that he had no power at all. All those years spent training just to find out his life depended on something mysterious and abstract like that.
What was the shape of a pure heart?
If Jungkook had to think about someone with a gentle and beautiful soul, he would have chosen his grandmother with no doubt. Maybe Yoongi, who had once confessed him he would have rather be born with the Mark instead of Jimin, if that meant his lover would have lived.
There were so many people better than him, how could he presume to be worthy enough?
“Thus, Jungkook, of the Jeon clan, are you willing to risk your own life?”
The cursed boy took a deep breath and looked at the apparently innocuous stream flowing in front of him.
Luckily, he could swim quite well and stay underwater for a long time, so, maybe, he could have survived whatever creature would have attacked him once inside.
If his destiny was to die inside that river, then he would have fought until his very last breath.
Hence, he nodded resolutely and, putting the small sword back in his belt, he walked determinately into the river until his whole body was immersed up to the head.
Once inside, the cursed boy didn’t feel any immediate change, a hand running to his heart to make sure it was still beating. Eyes on alert, Jungkook examined the rocky bed, which was more profound than he had thought, covered in shining gemstones as the ruby he was wearing. Mesmerized by that sight, the raven haired boy swam deeper in the dark abyss, as if the crystals were attracting him.
In any case, there was no sign of mortal threats in that peaceful place, the warm water lulling him away from time and space.
After his parents had explained him the secret behind his Mark, Jungkook had spent a lot of time imagining his own death but he had never pictured something so serene.
In that moment, though, the ruby inside his pendant began to shimmer and fluctuate above him, catching his attention and making him turn, the sunrays filtering through the water showing the reflex of a blurred face from the outside, which was seemingly looking at him, no mask yet red hair distinguishing it.
Immediately forgetting the precious stones that were seemingly calling him, Jungkook swam fast to that person he needed to see and, stroke after stroke, he reached the surface, not casting his eyes away from those indistinct features. When he emerged, tough, there was no sign of the red haired guy, the other bank completely empty. Confused, he turned right and left, certain that there had to be another person.
“So, you didn’t die,” the masked guy from before commented, materializing out of nothing and startling him.
“Where is he?” The cursed boy demanded, walking out of the river and watching desperately the trees and bushes around him, not even minding his body and clothes completely drenched, too eager to see that face.
“Who?” The other asked, clueless.
“There was a guy here!” Jungkook explained, frustrated.
“Doesn’t seem to me,” he replied calmly, irritating him even more.
“He was here,” the raven haired by insisted but the other ignored him.
“Follow the stream of the river,” The masked guy just instructed him instead. “It will bring you to the Kitsune.”
Disheartened, Jungkook sighed and looked at the stream of the watercourse, noticing the sun was about to set.
Was the shrine far from there?
Should he have stayed and rest for the whole night to regain energy or was it better to face the Kitsune now?
Undecided, the cursed boy turned to the other to ask for advice, even if he suspected the mysterious guardian wouldn’t have helped him. Staring at that faceless guy, an doubt crossed the young man’s mind:
What if…
Jungkook moved fast and grabbed the stranger’s mask, a smirk on his lips when he realized he had managed to catch him by surprise. When he pulled it off, though, he was met with absolute void, the fancy clothes falling in front of him, as if nothing had ever filled them.
㊋
Akai Forest, 5th May, year 587
“What if we ran away?”
Taehyung and Jungkook were lying side by side on the grass, hands brushing and pinkies intertwined while they stared at the sky above them.
“What do you mean?” The raven haired boy rolled to the right, leaning on his elbow, chin in his palm as he watched attentively at the other.
The cherry haired boy collected a tiger lily from the grass and started caressing its petals distractedly, not looking at him. “You know what I mean.”
Jungkook didn’t say anything for a while, just staring at their intertwined hands and reflecting on those words.
Lately, his life was becoming harder and harder, divided between his secret encounters with Taehyung and his responsibilities back home, always trying to balance them but in vain. Furthermore, he had always wondered how was the world beyond the forest, curious to see it, curious to explore it.
“What about my family and duties? What about yours?” The cursed boy asked, hoping the other would have found a way out from their obligations.
“Right,” Taehyung just said, looking sad. “Forget about it, it was just a stupid idea.”
“It’s not,” Jungkook reassured him, adding right after. “Do you trust me?”
The red haired boy’s hand stilled on the flower he was brushing, gaze fixed on its delicate cerise petals.
“I do.”
Noticing the other had frozen beneath him, Jungkook put his hand above Taehyung’s fingers, comforting him with a promise. “Then one day we will run away together.”
Hearing those serious words, the cherry haired boy finally turned and met the other’s eyes, which were shining as the stars above them, full of affection and care.
“You have constellations in your eyes,” Taehyung whispered, lost in those features, pulling the curly bangs away from his forehead and carding his fingers through the other’s locks. “And long hair, as dark as the night sky.”
“Have I?” Jungkook asked, leaning closer and closer, mesmerized by the specks of gold glistening in the amber irises of the other.
Taehyung’s fingers traveled gently down to his neck, where they accidentally brushed Jungkook’s mark, which started to sting at that mere touch.
Taken aback, the raven haired boy hissed and pulled away when their lips were just about to meet, hand flying to the flame on the back of his neck.
“What’s wrong?” The cherry haired boy asked worried, trying to mask his hurt.
“Nothing,” Jungkook rushed to say, cursing his stupid mark and wanting nothing more than to return to a few seconds before, when he and Taehyung were about to…
To what?
“What are you hiding, then?” The other inquired, tilting his head in order to see better what Jungkook was trying to cover.
“Oh, it’s just a birthmark.”
It wasn’t a total lie, after all.
“I kind of feel ashamed of it so I’m not comfortable with people staring at it,” Jungkook explained, laughing shortly to erase the tension he was suddenly feeling.
“Can I see it, though?” The red haired boy asked with pleading eyes. “I promise I won’t stare.”
Taehyung was different from the others, Jungkook knew that. He wouldn’t have mocked, hated nor avoided him, especially since he didn’t know the real story behind that stigma.
Thus, the cursed boy sighed, hand sliding away and leaving the mark fully on display.
Jungkook felt oddly bare, as if he was naked, exposing the most intimate part of himself. A part he had hated through all his childhood and learnt to live with and accept also thanks to Taehyung, who had always been unconditionally fond of him.
And so was Jungkook.
Nonetheless, as seconds passed and the other kept silent, the raven haired boy started to panic inside, worrying his bottom lip until he couldn’t hold back anymore.
“I’m aware it’s ugly so-”
“I think it’s beautiful,” Taehyung interrupted him immediately, placing his hand right beneath the mark in order not to touch it. “I wouldn’t ever cover it.”
“That’s not what the majority of the people would say,” Jungkook replied bitterly, even though he was both grateful and relieved for the other’s words.
“You won’t have to hide it anymore when you are with me,” the cherry haired boy spoke seriously, shifting closer and starting to comb his ebony hair.
“What are you doing?” Jungkook frowned, puzzled yet not complaining for that gentle and soothing touch.
“I’m making you two buns,” Taehyung explained unperturbed. Then, noticing the other’s perplexed expression, he added, “Come on, you’ll look cute.”
“Don’t wanna be cute,” the cursed boy mumbled in protest, crossing his arms as a small, amused smile grew on his lips.
“Shush, let me work.”
Focused on his task, the red haired boy parted the other’s black hair down the middle, leaving some strands loose on his forehead.
In the meantime, Jungkook looked around what had become their clearing, thinking about all those years spent together there.
“Can I ask you something?” He spoke after a while, having wanted to make that question for some time now.
“Of course.”
“How do you manage to constantly sneak off from your house? I mean, every time I come, you are already here waiting for me and you never leave before me.”
“It’s not like I ‘sneak off’…”
“Do you mean your parents let you come here without saying a word?” The other exclaimed, surprised. “You are so lucky! Lately, my family always demands to know where I spend all my days.”
“And what do you answer?”
“To mind their own business.”
“Jungkook!” Taehyung scolded him, hitting his arm and losing the grip of the lock of hair he was combing. “That’s not kind to say.”
“Well, it’s not like I can tell them I’ve been coming inside this forest for the past ten years.”
“Why is that a problem for you coming to the woods?”
“Well, obviously because of the Ki-” Jungkook interrupted himself, remembering Taehyung didn’t know about the Kitsune. Hence, he decided to say just half of the truth. “In my village, people think this forest is haunted by a spirit.”
“A spirit?” Taehyung repeated, slowing his movements on the other’s head.
“It’s just a legend,” the raven haired boy said lightly, trying not to make a big deal out of it.
“So you don’t believe it?”
“Well, I mean,” Jungkook started fidgeting with his hands, unsure. “I’ve spent a lot of time inside the woods with you and we’ve never seen anything strange so…”
It was true: although the citizens of Erania kept following the traditional ritual and every five year a cursed child was sent inside the woods on the night of the summer solstice, nothing new or weird had happened to them, who, on the contrary, returned to the village the day after, unharmed and with no memory of the night spent there.
For this reason, Jungkook had seriously began to consider the Kitsune was just a mere myth, a story created to scare children away from the woods.
“Mmh,” Taehyung reflected, lifting up the first pigtail he had managed to make. “Could you pass me two strings? They should be inside my left pocket.”
Rolling his eyes but still amused, the raven haired boy took the silky threads, their color eliciting a remote memory in his mind.
Red strings…
Suddenly, he remembered the story his grandmother had narrated him so many years before and he realized that, for some reason, he had never talked with Taehyung about it.
“Speaking of legends…” The cursed boy spoke, curious to know what the other’s opinion about that topic. Taehyung had this unique way to express his own ideas, so captivating that Jungkook could have heard him talking for entire hours. “Do you believe in soulmates?”
The red thread Jungkook was handing him fell on the ground, shock plastered all over Taehyung’s features, from his wide eyes to his agape mouth.
“Soulmates?” The red haired boy repeated, picking up the string from the ground, still a bit taken aback.
“Yeah, you know… Two people… Meant to be together,” he simply said, playing with the grass as the other arranged his hair.
“Maybe? I don’t know,” Taehyung answered vaguely, twisting the black lock around his finger.
“It’s a strange concept, isn’t it? Someone out there, made for you… Can you imagine that?”
“Barely,” the other said bitterly, pressing his lips in a thin line.
“It could be anyone-”
“Or no one,” the cherry boy couldn’t really help himself from using a sarcastic tone.
It wasn’t Jungkook’s fault: how could he possibly have known how much that topic was delicate for him?
“What’s with you tonight? You are unusually silent,” the cursed boy noticed, turning to see the other’s face.
“It’s nothing,” Taehyung smiled weakly, wrapping the first bun and tying it with the red string. “Can we change topic, though? Tell me about the Fox of the woods.”
“Mmh,” Jungkook hesitated, since he would have preferred to keep talking about soulmates, wanting to know what kind of person the other had pictured for himself. “People think she is evil.”
“She?” Taehyung asked, tilting his head as he started to comb the other pigtail. “How do you know she is a she?”
“What do you mean?” Jungkook turned again, making the other lose the grip on his hair.
“Stay still!” The red haired scolded him jokingly .“Well, you said it’s a legend, so I suppose no one has ever met the spirit.”
“Well, even if they did, they don’t remember it.”
“So it could be a male too,” Taehyung reasoned.
“But… She seduces her preys with her bloody eyes!”
At those words, Taehyung burst out laughing, falling on the ground and rolling on the grass, holding his belly with laughter.
“What?” Jungkook giggled at the exaggerated reaction of the other.
“Sorry it’s just- I was trying to picture-” The cherry haired boy tried to speak between cackles.
“You are as such a dummy,” the other shook his head and crawled next to him, taking Taehyung by surprise by tickling him.
“No, please stop!” He screamed, twitching and giggling under Jungkook’s touch.
“Never,” the raven haired boy threatened him with a sly yet wide smile, immediately reciprocated by Taehyung.
Only once home, Jungkook realized he had never specified the spirit was a fox.
Nonetheless, as fast as it crossed his mind, the realization was soon forgotten.
The time hadn’t come for him to find out the truth.
Yet.
㊋
Akai Shrine, 22nd June, year 596
Jimin clapped his hands as he watched the reflex on the water, which was showing a very drenched Jungkook exiting the river.
“He passed the second trial!” He cheered enthusiastically. “Do you realize what this means?”
He and Taehyung were outside the Shrine, busy watching the stone basin of the temizuya*, the pavilion where the watercourse born and which reflected the events that were happening inside the river in that moment.
“Now, Jungkook just has to come here and-”
“Jimin,” the Kitsune sighed, massaging both his pulsing temples and tired eyes.
“I will see him again!” He exclaimed, pirouetting on himself. “And you will finally meet him in your real form.”
“Lucky me.”
“Ok, what’s with you today?” Jimin turned to his friend and gave him a pointed look, crossing his arms. “Also, don’t you think you have been a little too dramatic? All that “you are gonna die” and “just a pure heart” and bla bla bla. I mean, it almost seems like you don’t want him to come here.”
A long pause followed, in which Taehyung just played with the pendant on his neck, staring at the amber encrusted inside it.
“Because you want him to come here, right?”
“Sure,” the Kitsune scoffed, not losing his previous sarcastic tone.
“Oh please, don’t show too much excitement. And don’t even dare pulling that face,” Jimin warned with a threatening finger pointed at him. “I’ve seen you before, you even went there to check if he was drowning.”
“He stayed underwater for one minute straight, I didn’t want a corpse contaminating the river.”
“Pff, you were worried.”
“I was not.”
At that sharp and childish statement, Jimin rolled his eyes and bit his tongue, trying to keep calm and prevent from get mad at him.
For the past five years, he had learnt a lot about the Kitsune, or, at least, enough to notice how much the solstice and the cursed tributes were a sensitive topic to him. Of course, after his death, Taehyung had explained him the whole story: his past; the reason why some children were born with the Mark; the truth behind Erania and the forest.
The Fox Spirit had kept for himself just one, crucial secret.
Nonetheless, Jimin cared about Taehyung too much to let him hide and run away from his destiny, whether it be Jungkook or not.
“You can lie to yourself all you want but we both know what is the truth.”
“What is it, then?” Taehyung challenged him, feeling already a knot forming in his throat.
“That you are scared!” The other yelled, hoping at least to trigger a reaction in the other’s seemingly passive attitude.
At those words, the Kitsune raised his head, eyes wide and face hurt as if Jimin had just slapped him.
Taehyung’s bottom lip shivered briefly before he angrily bit it, trying to hide his inner turmoil. Nonetheless, a treacherous tear fell down his eye, soon followed by copious others he ignored stubbornly.
“Tae,” Jimin murmured, slowly walking closer, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
Tentatively, he placed an evanescent hand on the Kistune’s shoulder but the other pushed it away and shook his head, not wanting his friend to see him like that.
“It’s just… I don’t get it,” Jimin spoke again, tone sincere and gentle. “When I crossed the river, you only warned me I could have forgotten every moment passed inside the woods and now you say-”
“Why are you so eager for him to arrive here, by the way?” Taehyung interrupted him furiously between gritted teeth, venom in his angry voice as his long canines protruded. “Have you ever asked yourself what would happen to you once I’m gone?”
The red haired boy knew he had no right to react like that, no right to pick on his friend, who was just worried for him.
Luckily, Jimin was not the type to be discouraged and give up so easily.
“I should have left this place five years ago,” the other answered, serious e proud. “Yet, I haven’t. And I won’t until my bond will keep me tied to my soulmate. I’ll keep living until Yoongi will keep loving me. It’s thanks to him if I’m here, not to you.”
Those words weren’t harsh nor mean, just flat and simple, in one word: true.
Taehyung lowered his head. He envied Jimin, of course he did. He had found what the Kitsune had been looking for through his all existence. Yet, at the same time, he pitied his friend, because Jimin was damned to be separated from Yoongi forever.
“I know.”
As it came, Taehyung’s anger disappeared, leaving him empty.
He cupped his face, feeling ashamed.
Why had he said that?
He hated when emotions took over him.
Anytime he turned into his animal form, in fact, Taehyung couldn’t rationalize all his feelings, which hit him only when he transformed back to human.
The day before, when he had shifted into a fox and had seen Jungkook for the first time after five years, it had been a shock, of course, but it was nothing if compared with the fear he felt whenever he thought about meeting him again.
As always, Jimin was right.
Because, indeed, he was scared.
Thus, the more the Kitsune reflected about his future encounter with Jungkook, the more he felt a burning sting in his chest, as if a hundred swords were stabbing his heart at the same time.
I am not ready.
As if all his inflicted wounds were opening, bleeding out and killing him once, twice, endlessly.
I can’t do it.
“I- I can’t breathe,” Taehyung wheezed sharply, looking at his friend with pain in his eyes and gasping agonizingly for air.
Immediately, Jimin rushed to him, who had just collapsed to the ground.
“Tae, TAE,” he screamed, worrying around him even if there was nothing he could physically do to help him. “Stay calm, ok? Breathe, just breathe for me.”
“He is here to kill me," the other whispered with wild eyes, not even paying attention to his friend, almost delirious. “Because he thinks I’ve killed you.”
“We will explain him everything,” Jimin reassured him with a calm tone, confused by that sudden panic and those rambling words.
“He won’t listen.”
Noticing the Kitsune’s lost and sorrowful expression, Jimin brushed gently his forehead, hoping that imperceptible gesture would have somehow comforted him.
“Believe me, I know my cousin, he will listen. Although Jungkook tends to be a little impulsive sometimes, he has a big heart and I know he would never hurt someone else.”
Even if he had been trained all his life for that purpose.
Especially because of that.
“He hates me,” the Kitsune cried, body shaking between Jimin’s arms which couldn’t hold him. “I’m nothing but a monster to him.”
“What are you saying? Of course he doesn’t. How could he? Besides, Jungkook is not the type who is influenced by common believes which include seducing and lethal fox spirits with red eyes. He is smarter than that," He promised, certain of his words and hoping they would have cheered the other up. “Actually, I think he will like you.”
At those words, Taehyung sighed, knowing the time had come for him to give Jimin a proper explanation. Thus, fighting the tears back, he sniffed and breathed in once, twice, until his heartbeat returned regular and his cheeks weren’t wet anymore but just streaked with dry tears.
“There are things you don’t know,” he confessed bitterly, voice still unstable.
“Well, you are, like, a thousand years old so of course there are,” Jimin joked, relieved to see his friend a little more like himself, even if sadness hadn’t left his features.
“No, you don’t understand,” the Kitsune shook his head. “Things about Jungkook.”
“What do you mean?” The other furrowed his brows, puzzled.
What did that have to do with his cousin?
“I mean that I- That Jungkook,” the red haired boy took a deep breath, trying to find the courage to tell a truth he had tried to bury in his mind. “We have been knowing each other since we were young.”
For the moment, he decided to omit how deep their relationship truly was.
One step at a time.
Next to him, Jimin stilled, eyes wide and confusion plastered all over his face.
“How is that possible?”
“I wondered the same for so much time... It happened so casually: one moment I was in the clearing, alone, and the other he was there-“
“I knew it!” Jimin exclaimed, recovering from the initial shock and beginning to ramble frenetically. “When Jungkook was a child he was so enigmatic, always disappearing who knows where for entire hours, not telling me anything… I knew there was something!”
“Nonetheless-”
“That’s great! Isn’t it? Actually, it’s even more than great! Why haven’t you ever told me before? I want every detail that wily boy has hid from me. Or, even better, I’ll ask him myself when he will arrive here, I wanna see if he will dare to lie in front of my face.”
“Jimin…” The other sighed, knowing that excitement would have vanished soon.
“Ok, you are right, I’ll calm down. Sorry. But it’s so strange! You and Jungkook… And, all this time, he knew!” He turned towards Taehyung, who had just lowered his head.
“Jimin,” the Kitsune said more firmly, turning and looking at him straight in the eyes. “Jungkook doesn’t remember me.”
㊋
Erania, 14th June, year 591
Jungkook was in the porch of his house, staring at nothing in particular, just lost in the misty landscape, the rocking chair next to him empty and unmoving.
Rain was an unusual phenomenon to witness in Erania but it gave the village a fascinating and melancholic atmosphere, which perfectly fitted his current mood, the usual bright colors of houses and alleys, from yellow to red, now substituted by hues of grey and green.
His mother had prepared him a herbal infusion, probably cold now since it had been left untouched for the past hours. Still, the boy didn’t care.
Among all those droplets falling from the cloudy sky, Jungkook should have felt free to shed his own tears but he refused to do it. He had made a promise and he would have kept it.
“Don’t cry, little bun,” his grandmother had said, lying in her bed and comforting her grandson when he should have been the one doing that. “There is nothing wrong with death, especially if you have lived a life like mine. I’ve loved, I’ve grieved, I’ve run barefoot on the grass and I’ve stayed up entire nights just to watch the stars above us. These old eyes have seen many things and, even if there is still so much to discover in this world, there are no regrets in my heart.”
“But,” Jungkook knew that what he was about to say was selfish, maybe even childish, but he couldn’t care less. “I don’t want you to leave.”
I don’t want you to leave me.
At that plea, she caressed Jungkook’s hair with a smile “I’m not leaving, I’m just moving to another place. Who knows if it will be better, worse, lonelier, happier than here? Even stars arise and die every day, but we don’t hear nor pay attention to that, do we?”
In moments like those, Jungkook realized how wise and tough his grandmother truly was because, even in that situation, she had been able to find the rightest words to soothe his soul.
“Just promise you won’t waste any tear for me. As you can see, I’m meeting Death with serenity. Instead, promise me you’ll be strong, both in your body and mind. Promise me you will have the courage to love, to live, to suffer, to dream, to choose.”
“To choose what?”
“Do you remember once I said I wished I could have gifted you with a lantern for the night of your solstice?” She changed topic, looking briefly at the pendant her grandson was wearing. “I think you wouldn’t need it now. When the time will come, just follow your heart, little bun, because it always knows which one is the right path. Even before this” She tapped gently his head, making him smile a little despite the situation.
As always, Jeon Sooyun seemed to know more than she showed.
Lost in those thoughts, Jungkook twisted the small package he was holding between his fingers. He had been working on that gift for the last few months and now it was finally completed. Hence, he just had to find the right moment or, better, the bravery to give it to the person it was destined to.
Taehyung.
The last weeks had been so tough for him, full of sadness and sorrow. Nonetheless, Taehyung had always been by his side. He was there for him when Jungkook appeared in the deepest hours of the night, dragging himself in the clearing, exhausted; when he dozed off in the middle of a conversation, too tired to speak, knowing there was nothing wrong in closing his eyes for a brief moment if the other was next to him.
Jungkook felt immensely lucky to have met him, grateful to whatever mysterious force had made their encounter possible, whether it be destiny or chance.
Because no one was like Taehyung.
No one else could understand him so well yet, at the same time, be the exact opposite of him: Jungkook was shy while Taehyung was extroverted; he was quiet while the other was talkative; Taehyung was charming and elegant in everything he did whereas Jungkook…
Jungkook was just himself.
The boy didn’t know why or how his stream of conscious or, maybe, subconscious had brought him there, thinking about Taehyung like that, contemplating the desire of…
Of what?
The desire of hearing him laugh for hours? Of staring at his amber and cheery eyes for days? Of listening to him talking in his unique way, gesturing passionately, for years? Of holding Taehyung’s hand for the rest of his life?
In the backyard of his house, during a rainy day, Jungkook realized he was in love with his best friend.
The realization wasn’t as traumatic as he would have thought nor did it hit him out of nothing. On the contrary, it was just a natural and clear awareness, which had always been there, waiting for him to unveil it.
Taehyung had been part of Jungkook’s life for the past fourteen years yet the cursed boy couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he had fallen in love with him: maybe it was the first time Taehyung had given him his unique heart shaped smile, all teeth and cheeks, or, perhaps, when he had taught him the language of flowers, explaining the fascinating meaning behind each plant which bloomed inside the forest.
With that kind of feelings crossing his mind and heart, Jungkook brushed the pendant around his neck, playing with the ruby inside it, a habit he had developed through the time and that always managed to calm him.
Maybe, tonight he would have told Taehyung the truth.
Maybe, tonight would have been different.
Maybe, tonight was just a night like the others.
Sighing, Jungkook finally got up from the bench where he had been sitting for hours and headed to the forest, not minding the cold rain wetting his body but welcoming it instead. Actually, the fresh droplets of water were a soothing remedy to the turmoil inside his heart, which was beating fast against his ribcage as an unfathomable sense of anticipation invaded him.
As he ventured into the woods, Jungkook took each step slowly, breathing in the smell of the moss and the wet grass, not wanting to rush his walk even though he craved to see Taehyung.
Although it was early, the forest was immersed in darkness and silence, the only sound coming from the rain, which wasn’t as heavy as on the outside thanks to the high and leafy branches of the trees. Nevertheless, after all those years spent wandering inside the woods, Jungkook could have found his bearings through its untraced paths even with his eyes closed.
And, in that gloom, Taehyung was shining as the brightest flame, his red hair and tanned skin enlightened by the fireflies and the blazes coming from a small bonfire he had apparently made in the middle of their clearing.
“Jungkookie!”
As soon as he caught the glimpse of the boy, Taehyung ran into, hugging him while breathing in that sweet scent he knew so well.
“Hey,” Jungkook gripped him tight, holding into him and hiding his face in the other’s neck.
“How are you feeling today?” Not wanting to detach, Taehyung pulled back briefly just to cup Jungkook’s cheeks and study his face.
The other’s usually chubby cheekbones now protruded, more defined, his jawline sharp, more similar to an adult than the child he had been knowing for all those years.
“I’m fine, thank you,” the raven haired boy murmured softly. “What about you?”
“Have you seen? It’s raining!” The red haired boy exclaimed instead, raising his head to look at the sky as Jungkook kept his arms wrapped around his waist.
Seemingly not caring about the raindrops hitting his face, Taehyung closed his eyes, basking in that crisp sensation in contrast with to the warm hug the other was giving him.
“You are gonna catch a cold,” Jungkook pointed out, joking yet worrying at the same time.
“Don’t care,” Taehyung smiled, enjoying the drizzle. “Besides, you are as soaked as I am.”
“I’m not-” The boy began to protest but stopped as soon as Taehyung rubbed their noses together, laughing at his expression.
With eyes wide and full of surprise, Jungkook held his breath, speechless for that unexpected and sudden gesture, certain the other could have heard his crazy heartbeat at that close distance.
“You know, Jungkookie, sometimes I think your eyes can talk,” The red haired boy said, amused. Then, he took a step back and headed to the bonfire in the center of the glade, leaving a very puzzled boy behind him.
“Come on,” Taehyung invited the other, who was still staring at him. “Look what I’ve made you.”
As if put out of a spell, Jungkook fluttered his eyelids and finally moved, sitting on the grass, where a large leaf full of flowers and fruits was waiting for him, a colorful composition of dandelions, honeysuckles, daisies and clovers, which he had learned to distinguish thanks to Taehyung.
He still remembered the first time the other had given him a flower, expecting for him to eat it as if it was the most normal of the things. Jungkook had watched the plant with suspicion, since it didn’t seem tasteful at all and bit just a tiny piece of its petal, which had turn out unexpectedly spicy and sugary.
Lately, since the boy seemed to have lost his appetite, Taehyung had started to prepare that kind of food more and more often and, even though he was aware it wasn’t much, at least he made sure Jungkook ate something during the day.
The boy knew how much the other was suffering for the loss of his grandmother and wished he could have done more to help him in that moment. He had felt almost a physical pain when Jungkook had asked to accompany him to her burial and he had had to refuse.
He couldn’t.
But soon…
Soon he would have told him the whole truth.
And he would have been free.
“Thank you, Tae,” Jungkook said in that moment, distracting him from his concerns.
“Don’t even mention it Gukkie,” the boy turned towards him, glad to see he had eaten everything and was now staring at a particular flower, whose stem he was holding in his hand.
“You never talked me about this flower,” he reflected distractedly, watching as the amaryllis shone at the light of the flames.
“That’s an amaryllis. Do you remember? The first time we met, you gave one to me,” they both smiled at the memory. “There is a legend behind it”
“A legend?” Jungkook repeated, fascinated, turning the flower between his fingers.
“According to the myth, Amaryllis was a nymph, who, one day, fell in love with a shepherd named Alteo. Nonetheless, her affection was not returned, since the man only loved flowers and stated he would have loved only the girl who would have brought him a flower no one had never seen before. Thus, Amaryllis sought help from an oracle, which suggested she should have appeared at Alteo’s door for 30 nights, each time piercing her heart with a golden arrow. Hence, when, at last, the shepherd opened his door, before him he found a striking crimson flower, sprung from the blood of Amaryllis’ heart.”
After that story, the two boys kept silent, each on lost in his own thoughts.
In particular, Jungkook wondered why that day he had picked that specific flower.
Was there a meaning behind his action?
At the end, life was really about choices, wasn’t it?
Absent-mindedly, Jungkook brushed the small package he was keeping inside his pocket.
Promise me you will have the courage to love, to live, to suffer, to dream, to choose.
I promise, grandma.
“Tae?”
“Mmh?” The other hummed while staring at the sparkling fire in front of them.
“I realized I have never gifted you anything for you birthday… Actually, I don’t even know when it is” He scratched the back of his neck, a little nervous.
“Oh, don’t worry, that’s not important,” the other shrugged off.
“It is, though,” Jungkook stated seriously, shifting closer and making the other turn and tilt his head curiously.
Then, he opened his hand and showed the leather pouch he was hiding, where he had embossed the shape of a fox.
“I’ve noticed that, somehow, you seem always surrounded by foxes,” he explained, seeing Taehyung’s inquisitive and incredulous gaze. “Open it.”
Slowly and carefully, the red haired boy pulled the strings, which revealed something sparkling was hidden in that mysterious packet. Enthralled, he took the pendant and kept it in front of him, swinging in the air between him and Jungkook.
“But- How-” Taehyung was speechless, mouth agape as he stared in awe at the necklace Jungkook had literally made for him.
“My dad is teaching me how to forge metals. It took me a lot of attempts, though,” the other admitted, watching proudly the result of hours and days of work. “I should still add some finishing touches here and there-”
“It’s perfect,” the boy interrupted him, watching the refined details of the pendant, where was mounted a golden gem. “Is that…?”
“Yeah, it’s an amber,” Jungkook nodded, certain the other knew that gemstone already. “I know it’s not precious and beautiful as the ruby you gave me but… I don’t know. It kind of reminded me of you? It’s like a drop of sun. And, of course, its color is the same of your eyes.”
“It’s the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received,” Taehyung murmured, truly touched, feeling so emotional that his voice became feeble and unstable, eyes slightly teary. He gripped the necklace tight and held it against his chest. “I can’t even put into words how thankful I am.”
At that sentence, Jungkook beamed, glad to see the reaction of the other, who seemed genuinely happy, so excited that he immediately tried to wear that precious gift.
“Let me,” Jungkook offered, since he was struggling with the latch of the pendant Thus, he reached for the boy and wrapped his arms around his neck, starting to tie the chain around his neck.
They both smiled, faces close, a little embarrassed for that sudden proximity, even though their intertwined gazes shared the same spark.
“Done,” the raven haired boy announced, slightly pulling back.
The gem stood out against his collarbones, its golden shades glistening at the light of the fire. Hypnotized, Jungkook lingered there a few seconds more before sighing and detaching, releasing Taehyung from his hug.
Unexpectedly, though, at the last moment, the other gripped his arms, keeping him there.
“Wait, I-”
Taehyung didn’t even know what he was about to say, couldn’t explain why he had stopped him out of the blue.
“I have to tell you something,” he blurted out.
He hadn’t prepared a speech.
He didn’t even know where to start.
He wasn’t ready.
But Jungkook was there, watching at him with that look, with those eyes full of affection and-
“Me too,” Jungkook murmured, his breath fanning on the other’s lips.
“You first,” Taehyung encouraged him, still scared of revealing his secret.
“In a week, on the 21st of June, it will be the summer solstice. It’s a huge event in Erania and I…” His eyes wandered everywhere but on the other’s face, gazes locking only when he admitted. “I want to escape.”
Surprised, Taehyung blinked a few times, not having expected that kind of confession.
“It’s an idea I have been pondering for some time now,” he started as he tried to put order in the chaos in his mind, his fingers brushing Taehyung’s nape. “I feel like I’ve outgrown Erania, its citizens, its traditions. I don’t feel like it’s my place in the world.”
“And what would it be?” The boy whispered, heart beating crazily against his ribcage while he held his breath.
“Away from here. Somewhere, anywhere, in another place” Jungkook breathed deeply in, gathering the courage to pronounce the next words:
“With you.”
Taehyung didn’t say anything, just looked at him, gaze travelling from his raven and ruffled locks to his doe eyes, that could have hold an entire galaxy, to stop on his lips, which the boy was worrying between his teeth, anxious. Then, Taehyung caressed tenderly his cheek with his thumb and leaned forward, taking Jungkook by surprise and kissing him.
It felt so natural, so right, as if chance and destiny had plotted the weave and pulled the strings of their lives until Jungkook had found Taehyung, until the lips of the first had met the ones of the other.
They fitted.
They were made for each other.
The kiss was gentle and soft but also passionate, leaving them out of breath. Jungkook could feel his Mark hitching but he didn’t care, not when Taehyung was brushing his chest and his waist with feather-like touches, not when the other was melting under his hands, seemingly so fragile, even though his mouth moved confidently and decidedly.
Taehyung’s floral flavor invaded Jungkook’s mind, reminding him of springtime and freesia, a spicy and dainty blend so unique and alluring that he felt inebriated by it.
As the boy held the other tighter in his arms, Taehyung cupped delicately his jaw, hand sliding until he reached the mark on the back of his neck, tracing lightly its shape.
At that unexpected and intimate contact, Jungkook gasped into the kiss and tightened the grip on the other’s red hair, as if Taehyung had just touched his soul, goosebumps rising on his skin and a breathy moan leaving his mouth.
Thus, Taehyung tilted his head and kissed him deeper, fervently, tasting his amber fragrance, sweet and golden, like a mixture of honey and hazelnut, addicting.
None of them wanted to detach, to stop, not when it felt so great, so utterly real and surreal at the same time.
Like two stars colliding, away from time and in their own space, the two boys spiraled towards each other, as if their center of gravity had changed, not anchoring them to the ground but to their souls instead.
Hands intertwined, they detached just to catch their breaths, Taehyung nuzzling the other’s cheek and sighing in happiness.
“I’ll take this as a yes,” Jungkook panted, making the other chuckle and place the forehead against his neck.
“It is a yes.”
They stayed in that position for a while, Taehyung cuddled on his chest with Jungkook’s arms were wrapped around him, breathing each other’s peculiar scent at the same rhythm.
“What were you about to say before?” The raven haired boy asked after a while, recalling the other’s previous words.
Taehyung hesitated.
There was no need to tell him everything, not now that they were planning to escape together, right?
Jungkook had already met him, had accepted him, had loved him for who he really was. He didn’t have to find out about his past, about his nature, about his other self.
Because, with him, Taehyung had felt more real than any other moment in his life.
They would have run away, away from their destiny, away from their curse.
Hence, the boy decided to tell him another truth, one as much, if not even more, important.
“I just wanted you to know that what you feel about me, the same I feel about you.”
“You already knew?” Jungkook asked him, surprised, since he himself hadn’t realized at full his own sentiments until a few hours before.
“As I said before, your eyes can talk,” the other said, beaming. Then, he took Jungkook’s face between his hands and pressed softly his lips on the boy’s mouth, pecking him gently.
“So… The night of the solstice?” Taehyung asked, looking at him with a gaze full of hope and love. “Promise me?
The cursed boy didn’t specify that was also the night of the sacrifice. And that year’s tribute was his cousin. There was no need for Taehyung to know the whole story.
Jimin would have been fine inside the woods.
Jungkook and Taehyung would have lived happily away from it.
“The night of the solstice,” Jungkook repeated firmly. “I promise.”
And, to seal that pact, the two boys locked their pinkies, like the very first time they met.
None of them could have known, though, that was also the last time they would have done that.
㊋
Zastra, a place away from time and space
Every hundred years, a lightning flashed in the skies of Zastra, the land where Spirits lived, striking from ground to the clouds, passing from one world to another.
The phenomenon, as scary as it was astonishing, was excitedly awaited because, from its sparks, a small flame arose, blooming like a flower and transforming into a beautiful Fox Spirit, whose tail corresponded to the fire’s blazing flame.
When the newborn yōkai* opened his eyes to the word, he found a crowd of cheering Spirits looking at him with happiness and expectation.
“You have got sun in your eyes and fire in your hair, thus you are born as a Kitsune” The authority of his clan declared “You will be called by the name of Taehyung and you’ll be part of our prosperous and prestigious dynasty.”
Taehyung was born under a lucky star.
But Taehyung was also curious.
And curiosity was what cursed him.
From the day of his birth, Taehyung had been raised under the wing of Hoseok, the youngest member of his family, who took him around the fields of Zastra, teaching him everything he knew about the Spirit world.
This way, the Kitsune learned that Zastra was divided by the Other world by a thin Veil, invisible to touch and sight, which could be crossed only through a bridge that no one was allowed to traverse.
The bridge was quite fascinating, made of crystal and covered by clouds for some tracts, so that it was difficult to see its end. It was impossible not to be attracted by its structure, especially in the nights of full moon, when the pale rays enlightened that mysterious path, almost inviting the Spirits to find out what was hidden on its other side.
Nevertheless, there was so much to discover among the singing trees and the vast lakes of the Zastra that, momentarily, Taehyung forgot about that mysterious bridge, mesmerized, instead, by the flowers and plants he saw blooming on the fertile soil and the rivers, whose bed was covered in precious gems. Every flower, every animal, every Spirit had a specific smell, which the Kitsune learned how to recognize and understand.
And so, Taehyung’s childhood passed, wandering around the dwelling of his clan and running in the immense and emerald meadows of Zastra with his foxes friends, from who he learned how to shift to his animal form. All he needed to do in order to transform was to connect with the energies of nature, from the soil to the air, feeling that bright and pure power flowing in his veins.
For a long time, nothing strange or particular happened outside of his routine.
This until one afternoon, when Taehyung and Hoseok were playing in their fox form, rolling down a hill while chasing and nipping at each other. The younger had just tackled the other when something unexpected caught his eyes, making him shift back to his spirit form.
“Look!” He exclaimed, pointing at the bridge, which wasn’t hidden by clouds but shone unusually clearly instead.
“This is not a good sign,” Hoseok commented, watching with worry the scenery in front of him.
“Why is that?” Taehyung asked, not understanding why his friend didn’t share his excitement.
“Whenever the border between the two worlds becomes thin is sign of bad omen.”
Not minding the other’s uneasiness, Taehyung took a step forward, certain to have caught the glimpse of something on the other side of the bridge.
“Who are they?” The Kitsune wondered curiously, staring at the people whose aura he wasn’t able to recognize. They seemed lost and in need of help, wandering on a desert field as sand and wind surrounded them.
“Those are humans, the inhabitants of the Other world,” the other replied, his expression twisting in distaste. “Everything is different there, worst. Unlike here, flowers wither and animals perish, envy and hatred fill their hearts, turning their souls dark and corrupted.”
“Have you ever been there?”
In response, the other just shook his head.
“Then how could you know?”
“Why should I care? They can’t even see us, too worried about their mundane problems.”
“Maybe we could say hi, so they would notice us,” Taehyung reflected, raising a tentative hand that the people on the other side of the Veil couldn’t see.
“Don’t mind them. There’s nothing good coming with humans, I can assure you.”
And, by saying that, Hoseok turned and walked away, soon followed by the other, who casted a last, curious glance at those people so far away from him.
Although several nights and days had passed since that afternoon still, Taehyung couldn’t push the thought of the bridge and the humans away from his mind.
The green and bright fields of Zastra didn’t lure him like they once did, the plants and rubies didn’t interest him as before, even the landscapes didn’t seem to have secrets for him to reveal anymore. For the first time since his birth, Taehyung realized how slow and static life was in the Spirit world and started wondering if and how the Other was different.
Thus, whenever the Veil got thin, the Kitsune watched those mysterious humans from above, listening the echo of their laughs and the silence of their pain, staring as something unknown like life and death passed beneath him.
Slowly, with time, the people started to gather together in a community, building a small village in a hollow surrounded by a fertile forest. Houses and alleys rose day after day, month after month, erected with the trunks coming from the woods.
This way, Erania was born and, to celebrate its official foundation, the humans decided to organize a huge feast, preparing libations and bonfires and wearing masks and costumes.
It was the night of the summer solstice.
Taehyung watched excitedly the events underneath him, wishing to take part of that feast too, to meet those people who fascinated him so much.
Unless…
In that hustle, no one would have noticed him, right?
Moreover, everyone was in disguise so the Kitsune could have easily hidden his tails and ears. Thus, he took the most sumptuous garment he had, made of silk and golden strings.
Then, with a cunning smile and shining eyes, Taehyung chose a fox mask and sneaked out of his dwelling, careful not to be heard or seen. He didn’t have a plan, but he just wanted to take a small and close look, maybe venture a little bit.
Under cover of darkness, Taehyung reached the bridge, which was shining of all hues of blue, from turquoise to cobalt.
What was the point into building a bridge if no one could cross it, anyway?
He looked around: no one was nearby during that unusual silent night, even the trees and their melody mute.
Tentatively, he took a step ahead.
Nothing happened.
Quirking his lips upward, the boy proceeded forward and, stride after stride, he finally arrived to the other side of the bridge.
Before touching the soil of the Other world, though, an odd sensation pervaded him, a feeling which made him turn and look at Zastra like that was the last time he would have seen it. From that distance, he could barely distinguish the contours of the mountains and fields he knew so well.
The Kitsune blinked a few times and shook his head, focusing back on the forest which was now in front of him.
Why was he acting like that?
What could possibly go wrong?
It was just a bridge.
And he had crossed it.
Deciding that Hoseok had probably overstated the whole topic, Taehyung ventured inside the woods, excited to explore that new environment.
“What are you doing here, pup?” A voice suddenly startled him in the dim light, referring to his three tails, which identified him a young Fox Spirit.
Squinting his eyes, the boy caught the glimpse of a figure walking towards him, whose aura seemed similar to the one of a Kitsune, if not for the smell of something unknown, something spicy and bittersweet, like opium and aconite.
“Who are you?” Taehyung asked, tilting his head.
“Haven’t they taught you that it’s not kind to answer a question with another question?” The stranger asked, finally revealing the aspect of a beautiful girl, ebony hair surrounding her pale face as a pair of white eyes pierced him. “Anyway, I’m Mium.”
“What are you?”
“Uh uh,” She clicked her tongue and raised one finger. “Now it’s your time to answer my question.”
“I-” Taehyung fidgeted with his hands, not really knowing what to say, fearing the other would have judged him. “I wanted to see the Other world.”
“Mmm, interesting” She nodded with a mischievous grin, turning and jumping effortlessly on the nearest tree “Let’s go then.”
“I thought there was no Spirit in this World,” he said, trying to catch up but struggling a little with the different energy of that world. He felt like his body weighed more, every movement slowed down and awkward.
“Oh no, sweetheart,” she laughed, turning and winking briefly at him. “Only the bad ones.”
After that cryptic statement, she stopped and landed on the ground, hiding behind a tree and encouraging Taehyung to do so as well. Peeping from there, he could see the people dancing and singing, for once hearing clearly their laughs and chats.
“Look at them, so fragile, so weak,” Mium commented in contempt.
Taehyung furrowed his brows, not sharing that opinion: for what he had seen, he thought humans were kind, sometimes too caught up in their own emotions, following instinct, searching for rationality.
If he would have paid more attention to the other, Taehyung would have noticed that, while talking, her gaze was fixed into a particular man, anger and hatred filling her heart as her mind brewed wicked deeds. Nevertheless, the Kitsune was too focused on the scenery in front of him to perceive that.
“Why don’t we play a little with them?” Mium proposed with a menacing sparkle in her eyes and a sly smile. “Come on, let’s go.”
“What do you mean?”
The Kitsune had a bad feeling, his senses whispering him something was wrong but, when he turned to speak with the other, Mium wasn’t there anymore.
Not able to distinguish her in the crowd in front of him, Taehyung hesitated a few seconds more before putting his mask on and venturing in the village.
As expected, no one noticed him, too caught up in the celebration.
Hence, the Kitsune joined that feast, tasting unknown food and drinking delicious juice, their flavor so different from the ones he was used to in Zastra. Enthralled by everything around him, he danced and laughed, following the rhythm of bagpipes and flutes, having so much fun that he wished to be part of that forever.
Taehyung should have been careful on what he wished for, especially in night like that, when everything seemed possible, even a Fox Spirit crossing the boundary from the Spirit World to the human one.
Suddenly, a scream broke that light and joyful atmosphere.
The music stopped, the dances stilled, the smiles froze while everyone turned to the source of that sound: in front of the main bonfire, a figure was writhing on the ground, white eyes and mouth wide open as her spine bended impossibly.
Everyone was left in shock, some screaming, some others feeling sick, some watching astonished that terrifying scene, hearing the sound of bones breaking one after another.
“Sister!”
A young woman made her way out of the crowd, rushing to the other. The two girls looked identical: same blonde hair, same round eyes, the only difference in their expression, one full of worry while the other crazy.
“Hello sister,” the other said in a distorted voice, with an unnatural smile and wild eyes.
“Someone help her, please,” she turned desperately to the crowd, which was frozen in its spot, too scared to get closer.
Only Taehyung could understand and see clearly what was happening, black flames surrounding the poor woman’s aura. Nonetheless, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything.
Because she was possessed.
“What’s happening to her?” The village head finally reached the two twins, helplessly caressing the girl’s face but not knowing what else to do.
“Oh, hello my dear,” the girl on the ground spoke with that croaky and grating voice which gave everyone chills. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
At that question, the man widened in eyes in horror, shaking his head in denial.
“She is pregnant, did you know?” The girl whispered, twisting her head in an impossible angle. “I think I’ll leave her enough strength to give birth to your child, though. Or, I could do something even better.”
Between convulsions, she raised on her unstable legs, standing just because something invisible was seemingly holding her up.
“I claim your lineage, Jeon,” she stated loudly, making the witnesses gasp. “From this night on, your race will be cursed, haunted by hatred and misfortune. Every newborn of your family will come to this world with a Mark, the Kitsunebi, a stigma which will destine them to a monster like me.”
NO Taehyung screamed in his head, watching as a dark fire flowed inside the young woman’s veins, encircling her heart and descending in her belly, forming a mark on the fetus inside it.
“No, no, no,” rhe man kept repeating, taking his head between his hand, staring into nothing.
In the meanwhile, the woman’s sister had wiped away her tears and was now intent on pronouncing unintelligible words
“Are you trying to cast a spell against me?” The twin, or better, the Spirit possessing her sneered loudly, amused by that poor attempt to banish her.
“I may kill you, Jeon, but I think letting you live with your guilt is a way better torture than that. Instead…” She announced as she walked closer to the man paralyzed on the ground, tilting her head as an idea came into her mind.
Thus, she grabbed swiftly a dagger from the man’s holster and turned unexpectedly, to her sister, stabbing her with a wide smile, satisfyingly twisting the knife inside her bowels.
The blade was aimed to the sister’s heart but, at the last moment, it had been diverted by an invisible, as if, for a brief moment, the woman had been able to get back control on her body.
Everything happened so fast, barely the time of a heartbeat before the woman collapsed on the ground, the Spirit exiting her body and leaving it almost lifeless.
Afterwards, chaos broke out, some people finally reacting and coming to the girls’ aid while the others ran messily around the square.
Taking advantage of that confusion, still shocked, Taehyung walked backwards until he crashed against a tree, turning immediately and hurrying into the woods, head pulsing and legs shaking, barely holding him up.
He had never witnessed such wickedness, such unjustified rage.
He had never experienced emotions such fear and sorrow.
He wanted to run away from that pain he felt agonizingly real and never feel it again.
Nevertheless, when the Kitsune tried to shift to his animal form with the attempt of leaving those emotions behind, he realized he couldn’t.
As he tried to recall the forces of nature, Taehyung truly realized how much that world was different from Zastra, its equilibrium so unknown that it was impossible for him to balance its energies in order to transform.
Not knowing what else to do, lost, the Kitsune decided to follow Mium’s aura, which he could still sense somewhere inside the forest. That obsidian halo leaded him through the bushy trees until he reached a wooden and ancient shrine, on whose roof the Spirit was seated, apparently waiting for him.
Although he didn’t trust the Nogitsune, Taehyung was aware he could have never found the way back to the bridge alone.
“They were supposed to announce their wedding tonight, did you know? What a pity” Mium said, turning her lips downwards in a pout, feigning sadness, which quickly turned into amusement “And now she will spend the last days of her life knowing she had killed her own twin while he will live with regret, loving his children but hating their mark, a constant reminder of tonight, of me.”
“Why have you done that?” Taehyung whispered, voice muffled, not even able to scream as tears fell down his eyes.
“That man. He deserved it”
“How could someone possibly deserve something like that?”
Because he chose her over me
Because I wasn’t enough for him
Because he thinks I am a monster
“Because I am a Nogistune,” she said instead with a fierce look. “I’ve got moon in my eyes and shadow in my heart. Darkness and night are my places, chaos and fear my nourishment, evilness my nature.”
Mium was too proud to admit the truth, the bitter reality in which she had fallen in love with a miserable human, despising him and herself for that.
And she, a fox, a trickster, had been tricked in return.
Jeon Geonwu had a dream: he wanted to found a village and become its chief. Thus, he had started to wander across lands and mountains, exploring islands and deserts until he reached the boundaries of his world.
Once there, he found what appeared to be the perfect place: a small area surrounded by a prolific and heavenly forest, which seemed to provide everything a community could have asked for. Bright and juicy fruits grew on its trees, crystal clear water flowed in its river and animals ran freely thorough its meadows.
Venturing inside that heavenly and wild ambiance, Geonwu didn’t expect to find an ancient and abandoned shrine, ivy covering its walls, nor to meet inside it the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
White, hypnotizing eyes stood out against her ebony hair and nine big tails wagged on her back.
As soon as the two of them locked their gazes, the rhythm of their hearts changed, beating no more singularly but in unison instead, as if something was unintelligibly pulling one towards the other.
They spent the night together.
And the next one as well.
And then another.
Days and months passed happily and fast for the couple, locked in that idyllic place away from any worry and trouble, until Geonwu decided to share his project with Mium, who gladly accepted to help him building Erania.
Hence, they started cutting the wood of the forest and construct houses and furniture with it. They prepared provisions of food and needs, sewing covers and clothes for the future inhabitants of the village.
When the day of the departure finally arrived, Geonwu promised Mium he would have returned soon, kissing her goodbye and disappearing into the horizon.
And the Nogitsune waited, sitting in the roof of the shrine with crossed legs, as she always did, not sleeping nor eating, barely breathing, expectant for her lover.
The days became months and the months years, moon and sun raising and setting for five hundred times before she caught the glimpse of Geonwu again.
“My love,” he greeted as she ran into him, hugging him tightly while tears filled her eyes.
“I missed you so much,” Mium sighed, feeling finally safe and complete in the other’s arms.
“Me too,” he said, kissing her hair and smelling her unique scent.
“So, how did it go? Did you manage to gather your people and convince them to come here?”
“Yes, although it wasn’t easy. A lot of them was dubious, didn’t want to leave their houses, didn’t trust the unknown. Nevertheless, at the end, they saw the spark that shone in my eyes every time I described this place and decided to follow me.”
“Can I meet them?” She asked excitedly, clapping her hands and peeking over his shoulder in the attempt to see someone.
“Not now… But soon,” the other rushed to add, noticing the other’s pout. “Let’s leave them some time to get used to their new life, okay?”
The truth was Geonwu was trying to stall, to find the right and best way to introduce that unique creature to his people, too scared they would have rejected Mium, not understanding her different nature, despising her, maybe even hurting her.
And, at first, the Nogistune understood.
At night, she and Geonwu kept encountering secretly in the forest where Mium hid while she spent the rest of the time spying the humans and trying to learn their behaviors, so she would have been prepared to meet them.
“Not yet,” Geonwu refused for the umpteenth time, making the other roll her eyes and press her lips together in an angry grimace.
“Why?” She insisted, tired to always discuss the same argument.
“I told you, these people… they wouldn’t understand,” he tried to explain, caressing her cheek and hoping that explanation would have been enough to calm the other’s restlessness.
“What is there to understand?” Mium pulled away, confused, hurt filling her white eyes. “Is there something wrong with me?”
“Of course not, my love,” he reassured the other, taking her hands in his and kissing them. “Just remember that I love you and that’s the only thing that matters right now.”
Geonwu truly believed that was the safest and greatest solution.
Nonetheless, the more time passed, the worst Mium’s thoughts became, spinning in her mind and driving her crazy.
Why was Geonwu still refusing to let her come out of the darkness and walk into the daylight instead?
Was she just a dirty secret to bury in the woods?
Was Geonwu, her lover, ashamed of her?
Why had he become so distant lately?
Who was that girl he kept spending his time with?
Slowly, something started to change and grow inside the Kitsune, something dark which had remained hidden and silent until that moment.
At the beginning, the difference was small and almost unnoticeable: her white eyes didn’t gleam as stars like they usually did but were empty instead, her long and silky hair now scattered and messy.
“Don’t touch at me!” She screamed once Geonwu tried helplessly to comfort her. “Why would you, anyway? You despise me, don’t you?”
“Why would you say something like that?” He asked, pain all over his features as she refused to even look at him, hiding her face in her hands.
When the other reached her, a sudden snarl raised in the otherwise silent forest, a distorted, almost unrecognizable voice speaking.
“Get away from here.”
Nonetheless, Geonwu refused to walk away, getting closer and closer, head tilted in the attempt to lock his gaze with the other.
“Get away from me!” She screamed, finally turning and revealing her real aspect.
Her face was as charming as always, her skin delicate and pale, plump and pink lips resembling a rose bud.
At least, on her right side.
Because, if half of her appearance was still human, the other one was demonic, instead, as if fox nature she usually showed through her ears and tails had taken over her. The Nogitsune’s features were grotesque, deformed into an ugly mask of craziness and anger, bared teeth which pierced her perfect mouth and skin, making them bleed.
Geonwu stared in horror at the creature in front of him, who seemed the embodiment of a nightmare, barely recognizing Mium.
“What? All of a sudden, you pretend not to recognize me? You pretend not to see my nature? To accept me? To love me?” She mocked him, even if her eyes seemed oddly lucid and serious.
Although every part of him was screaming not to say the next words, telling him to trust their unique connection, that Mium was there, underneath that dreadful mask still, Geonwu decided to finally choose a way out of that situation, a path which would have brought him away from his lover, away from his destiny.
He lied for himself, for his dream, for his people.
“How could I love a monster?”
Then, with those last words, Geonwu turned and walked away from his soulmate, away from their bond, leaving her alone and weeping, unaware that action would have marked the fate and life of someone who was oblivious and far from those events, who, in that moment, was just catching the glimpse of the ephemeral human affairs through the reflex of his world.
Still shaking, Taehyung looked at the Nogitsune, who was whispering unintelligible and incoherent sentences under her breath, seemingly lost in her thoughts, in her memories, eyes fixed into something he couldn’t see.
“There is just one, simple rule in this world,” she suddenly spoke, raising her voice so that the other could hear. “When something is given, something shall be taken as well. And Geonwu took and kept taking, over and over again: he took the products of this forest, its wood and stones, its fruits and products. Whatever he wanted, he took.”
He took my heart.
“But never gave me something back,” she continued undaunted, barely noticing Taehyung was there too. “Thus, I cursed this forest for a whole year, to see what would have happened, how he would have behaved: every fruit, every flower, every product which left the woods instantly perished, rotten and withered. Yet, somehow, the village survived and Geonwu managed to escape his debt. At least, until tonight, when he finally paid for what he took.”
“But that woman… she had no fault,” Taehyung replied, finally speaking, unwilling to believe all that hatred and cruelty could have been enclosed in one person.
“And what was my fault, then?” Mium suddenly snapped, on the verge of tears, which she quickly fought back, regaining soon her previous composure.
Despite the situation, Taehyung felt pity for that wounded and bleeding heart, clearly seeing grey sufferance surrounding the Nogistune’s aura, making her apathetic.
“I’m sor-” He tried to say, truly sad, but the other interrupted him, furious.
“Don’t you dare,” Mium threatened, jumping off the roof and landing in front of him. “Don’t you dare commiserate me.”
At that, Taehyung shut his mouth, knowing she would have seen pity written all over his face anyway.
“Do you know what is a soulmate, Kitsune?” She asked out of the blue, tilting her head and taking a step towards him.
Instinctively, Taehyung shook his head while taking a step back, never having heard such world.
“If you are lucky enough to find that person; if, somehow, Fate decides to bend time and space to ensure that you two meet in this chaotic world, then it means that particular someone is destined to you. Someone who will complete you, who, even if you are strangers, even if you are enemies, maybe even if you are dead, will love you, will be by your side” She revealed cryptically, tone bitter “Your souls will be connected for the future and the past; your heart will no longer beat for you, but for him instead; every breath you’ll take, you’ll do it not because it’s necessary for you to live, but because of him; you’ll be bounded so tightly everything will hurt when he will be away.”
Taehyung was left confused by those words.
Who would have wanted something like that?
Something which would have brought more misery than joy, more pain than happiness, more death than life.
“I think your soulmate will have something to do with amber,” Mium reasoned, studying Taehyung’s golden irises. “You know, they say you can recognize them because their soul reflects your eyes.”
“I don’t think I want to meet them anytime soon,” Taehyung replied hastily, sensing he needed to go away from that place as soon as possible. “However, I should really go now so if you could indicate me the way back….”
At this point, he would have long preferred to get lost in the forest instead of spending another minute in company of the other.
“You know, I think Fate brought you here tonight,” she commented instead, pursing her lips in a grin.
Not minding her disjointed sentences, the Kitsune decided resolutely to just turn and leave when, suddenly, the both of them bended their ears, a noise coming from inside the woods.
“Looks like we have a guest,” Mium murmured, rushing to take Taehyung’s hand and dragging him inside the shrine. “Come.”
“Let me go,” Taehyung pulled away, determined to leave. “I’m not staying here any minute longer. I’m going home, whether you show me the way or not.”
“Oh but you can’t,” she smiled mischievously, closing the doors behind her.
“What do you mean?” The Kitsune turned, perplexed, fear crawling through his veins as an eerie sensation invaded his mind, heartbeats irregular in his chest.
“You chose to turn your back to Zastra and come to this world instead, eating its food, tasting its drinks. You carry a mark with you,” she listed, seemingly anticipating what was about to come. “You are corrupted now.”
Taehyung felt his legs shaking together with the rest of his body.
She was lying.
She had to.
“No,” he whispered in horror and with short breath, everything spinning around him.
“I bet it’s already fading isn’t it? Zastra and its memories.”
The Kitsune shook his head, certain she was just tricking him.
Of course he could remember the sapphire sky of his birthplace, the endless fields where he used to run and play with his friend, Hos-
He furrowed his brows.
Hos…
Taehyung grimaced, closing his eyes and focusing on a face, a smile, something, anything about the person he had spent his life with.
There’s nothing good coming with humans
A faceless voice echoed in his mind.
Something was wrong.
With a trembling hand, Taehyung touched his neck, travelling to his nape until his finger brushed the contour of a sign which had never been there before.
“What have you done to me?” Taehyung cried, grabbing his head between his hands and clasping so tight he teared some red locks out.
No
No
NO
“You said Kitsunebi before… Because you were cursing me as well,” se realized with a blank and void expression.
“You’ve figured that out, eventually. I hoped you would have noticed once I was far away from here but I guess I can’t have anything, can I?” She explained calmly, witnessing impassively the sufferance of the other, who curled on the ground, barely listening to her words, eyes wide and teary which stared into nothing. “You are bound to his world now, Kitsune.”
“Why?” He just asked in a mere whisper, the question barely leaving his lips.
He didn’t understand.
It didn’t make any sense.
“How you ever wondered why you are prohibited from coming here? To traverse that shining, tempting bridge?”
Suddenly, Taehyung didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Because it requires an equivalent exchange, a spirit for a spirit, a soul for another. You came thus, now, I can leave. I’ve been waiting for centuries in this despicable land, which is just a mere reflex of the heavenly world that Zastra is. Still, I couldn’t take any risk, do you understand?”
“You tricked me!” Taehyung accused her, dejection replaced by anger, an emotion he had never experienced before.
“It’s just my nature. Don’t you know?” She walked towards the Kitsune to then kneel in front of him, a mixture of pity and smugness on her face. “You should never trust a fox.”
And, by saying that, Mium shifted quickly info a silver fox and jumped out of the window, disappearing immediately inside the dark forest.
“Wait!” He screamed, trying again to shift in order to chase after her but failing.
He had to reach her.
He had to stop her.
He had to-
In that moment, though, a threatening voice resonated from the outside, the ground under his feet slightly shaking, together with the walls of the shrine.
“There is no purpose in hiding, demon.”
Despite the situation, thanks to his sharp ear, Taehyung could easily recognize that croaky yet firm voice which, just a hour before, was screaming and crying over her possessed sister, stabbed by her own blood.
For a moment, the Kitsune lingered on the window, undecided whether to follow Mium or help that poor woman, aware he couldn’t have done too much to soothe her pain.
With a sigh, Taehyung made his choice and walked back to the main door of the shrine.
For each step he took, he could feel more clearly the woman’s weak aura, which was slowly vanishing, probably because she had spent the last energies in order to reach them.
Nevertheless, when Kitsune stretched his hand to the door, barely brushing it, he immediately retracted, hissing in pain because, somehow, that wooden surface had suddenly turned candescent, the tip of his fingers slightly burnt and itching.
Eyebrows furrowed, Taehyung tried again, not understanding what was wrong. And, again, he jolted back at the mere contact, as if he just got a shock, this time more intense.
Only in that moment, he noticed the woman on the outside was talking, feeble and unintelligible words barely leaving her mouth.
Hence, he closed his eyes and focused on his ears instead, gathering the minimum energy necessary to intensify that sense.
And what he heard scared him more than any other thing happened that night.
“Through these words, I curse you, Kitsune. From now on, you will be banished from the ground of Erania, confined to this forest instead. I damn you to live here alone, in the solitude of these woods, where humans will enter just once a year in order to gather the necessary supplies in order to survive.”
Taehyung was frozen in his spot, unable to move, unable to react, to breathe.
“Every five years from their full age, the members of the Jeon clan you demanded will come inside this forest of blood, meant to be your sacrifice. For their whole life, we will teach them to despise you, to fear and hate you. Hence, they will kill you, again and again, taking your life away while you won’t be able to give them anything but love. Your heart and soul will be shattered, their pieces no more in your hands but at the mercy of the cursed people, who will choose what to do with them. Just when someone will be able to love a monster like you back, to give himself unconditionally to you, mind and soul, without taking anything in return, your sufferings, together with the curse that bounds the two of you, will come to an end.”
When she pronounced the last word, the mark on the back of Taehyung’s head started to burn, the sensation similar to a heated piece of iron imprinting not only onto his skin, but something more intimate and deep as well.
Ears hissing and clenched jaw, the Kitsune knelt on the floor, tears of agony and despair streaming down his cheeks.
This was all a mistake.
A mere misunderstanding.
Taehyung had just to tell her and everything would have been fine.
Everything could still be fine.
Fighting the pain with gritted teeth, the Kitsune got up and dragged himself towards the window, since the door seemed somehow blocked. Nevertheless, as soon as he reached it, his heart sank, mind blanking as a fog of ice invaded his body.
High flames were surrounding the whole shrine, raising from the ground, so hypnotic that, for a moment, Taehyung just stilled and stared at them, fascinated by that mix of red and orange so vibrant and alive, which was standing out in the background of the dark night.
Then, a rush of panic hit him, adrenaline taking over him and making him run desperately from a way out to another, screaming, pleading, begging.
“Let me out!”
He cried, louder and louder, banging his fists helplessly and in vain against the invisible barrier which was seemingly keeping him inside, preventing him to escape, to save his own life.
Like an animal locked in a cage, Taehyung was trapped.
His nails bled in the desperate attempt to scratch the wooden walls, which were beginning to blaze as well, tongues of fire entering the shrine and enveloping it in a firestorm.
Everything around him was spinning in a vortex of fire, whose sparks resembled small fireflies enlightening the otherwise shadowy ambience.
The Kitsune could already feel the flames beneath the tip of his fingers, under his feet, smoke now in the air, filling his lungs and making him cough, throat sore and mouth dry.
Normally, he would have been able to control elements, to just summon water and extinguish that fire.
This was not normality, though.
This wasn’t his world.
His world wasn’t made of the flames which were now burning down the shrine, slowly crawling under his clothes from the outside and penetrating lungs from the inside while his tanned and once perfect skin erupted in blisters, welts and peeling away, ablaze.
Taehyung gasped and panted in need for air, suffocating second after second, not able to cry his agony out nor to find solace in the warms tears which were endlessly streaming down his cheeks while a pain he had never sensed before was tearing at him.
No more under his control, as a defense mechanism, his body shifted into his spirit form, fluffy ears jutting out of his hair and three huge tails appearing on his back, enveloping around his slim figure in the attempt of protecting him.
Where did Spirits go when they died?
It was curious, how that thought had never crossed Taehyung’s mind until that very moment, how clearly he could see now, in the last seconds of his life, as he exhaled his last breath and collapsed on the ground.
Why?
Why?
His thoughts spiraled away, drowning in the numbness together with the Kitsune.
Everything could still be fine…
With fire he had born and by fire he was killed.
That was how Taehyung died for the first time.
And that was also the first time the Kitsune experienced a rebirth.
Dust was covering Taehyung as he woke up, blinking once, twice, confused.
He didn’t recognize his surroundings, no memory of where he was or, worst, who he was, round and amber eyes travelling along the blackened and charred ruins around him, like a black hole in the middle of a galaxy of red flowers and trees.
After a few attempts, the child slowly managed to stand up and, taking some tentative steps, he started to explore the forest, following the path of the river which stemmed from the embers of the shrine and walking along its bank, studying curiously the ambience surrounding him.
Although his mind was on a state of chaos and confusion, somehow, Taehyung could clearly remember the name of each flower he caught the glimpse of, together with their meanings; the species of animals and insects populating the forest; the characteristics of each gem on the bottom of the river.
Since his body was tired and weak for effort of moving, the Kitsune decided to take a small pause and clean his dirty skin, basking in the soothing sensation of fresh water.
As he stared at his own reflection, head tilted and wet red hair falling messily on his forehead, a flash enlightened his mind, taking him away from there and in the land of…
Zastra.
That was his first memory.
One word.
Meaningless, because he didn’t know what it was referred to, brining just remote and empty memories with it, even if, somehow, he was sure the woods where he was now reminded him of that name.
Thus, for the moment, Taehyung decided to push that thought aside, not wanting to delve into it any further, since it threatened to bring too many emotions on the surface.
Hence, summer passed like that, with the Kitsune venturing inside the forest and trying to get to know it as best as he could. As the sunny days went by slowly, his body started to get accustomed to that world and its dynamics, his physic grew stronger, allowing him to do small handcraft works and to build a shelter on the embers of the shrine.
Then, autumn came, bringing new shades to the forest, which was colored yellow and orange. Some trees stood bare, their fallen leaves creating endlessly soft carpets on the ground. Although, at first, Taehyng was sad to see the dying nature around him, soon he learned to love it, understanding that was just part of the circle of life and death which seemed to characterize that world. Thus, he spent entire days jumping into those heaps of leaves and enjoying their creaking under his feet.
Winter forced him to sew heavy dresses and gather supplies inside the den he had built, since he seemed still unable to shift into his animal form. Taehyung passed those short and cold days in company of his foxes friends, who kept him warm during the night, constantly watching over him. When a snowflake fell down the white sky and landed on the Kitsune’s palm, he watched in amazement that perfect crystal, which soon melted but was as fast followed by others, that slowly covered the entire woods.
Despite the strange and new phenomenon Taehyung had witnessed during the previous seasons, nothing changed his routine as much as Spring did, when, for the first time, someone else entered the woods, eliciting his curiosity once again. Among the blooming branches of the trees, the Kitsune spied the humans, who were busy harvesting the newborn fruits and berries, mushrooms and herbs. They moved cautiously, as if scared of that place, gathering everything quickly to then turn and leave.
Before losing track of them, Taehyung jumped on the ground and following the humans, who led him to their village. The atmosphere seemed festive, everyone cheery while welcoming the people coming back from the woods.
The Kitsune wished to get closer, to take part of that world, but, although he didn’t know why, deep inside his heart he knew he didn’t belong there.
Nonetheless, with time, as season passed, some memories slowly started to come back, partially filling the missing gaps and putting some pieces together: although Taehyung couldn’t remember clearly the Spirit world where he was born, recalling a vague shadow, a mere and distorted reflex about it, he knew its colors were more vivid, its air purer, its ground softer.
This way, the Kitsune also realized how much the akai forest was both similar to his birthplace: it was like a piece of Zastra on Earth, time passing slowly, somehow more densely than on the outside. Its luxuriant vegetation didn’t perish, its river never stopped streaming. Nevertheless, if Zastra’s fields were vast, almost endless, the clearings inside the woods were small and limited, so that Taehyung had explored easily and fast its confines.
If Zastra had represented his freedom, though, the forest looked more like a prison.
However, there were positive aspects of the human world, too for example its people. So unpredictable and ephemeral, the life of the people of Erania fascinated and intrigued Taehyung, who constantly watched them in the shadow of the forest.
In addition, through the time, the Kitsune learned how to use his powers again, not without struggle. After months and years of practicing, he had barely managed to make appear one tail even though he had slowly begun to understand the elements and energies around him, meditating in the attempt of connecting with nature.
With that regained ability, Taehyung decided to try to rebuild the shrine from its very base, the animals of the forest keeping him company and helping him when possible.
Years passed peacefully and happily for him, so quickly that the Kitsune almost forgot the pending deadline his mark represented, a silent clock which was about to strike.
Almost.
Because, as he heard the sound of celebrations mixed to laughs and crackling bonfires in the distance, as he watched the last rays of sun shining in the horizon, Taehyung was reminded the tragic night of so many years before, almost and literally a life ago, when he had been cursed together with the Jeon clan.
Although his wounds were healed, his skin intact and soft now, the Kitsune could still see clearly and vividly the scars and blisters in the innermost layers of his dermis, supposedly disappeared but impossible to erase from his mind, as if fire had burnt him inside.
Taehyung sat on the wooden stairs of the shrine, adjusting the precious and beautiful garment he had sewed for that special occasion while he waited for the cursed child to arrive, repeating in his mind over and over again the speech he had prepared.
Despite hours of rehearsals in front of an entire pack of foxes still, he didn’t know where or how to start the explanation of his condition properly.
‘Good morning, my name is Taehyung and I am a Kitsune’ seemed too formal.
‘Hey! Can we try to figure this out so the both of us can leave this place?’ sounded definitely impolite.
‘Nice to meet you, cursed friend’ too awkward.
He shook his head.
There was nothing wrong with improvisation, anyway. Right?
Feeling suddenly anxious, Taehyung took a deep breath and got up, incapable of staying still but needing to move instead, pacing back and forth on the wooden floor while many questions and doubts filled his mind.
Will the child be a boy or a girl?
Tall or short?
Shy or friendly?
As for him, the Kitsune was a mix of both, timid with strangers but, at the same time, eager to get to know someone else.
When the hues of dusk left their place to powder blue clouds, he caught the glimpse of short, blond hair surrounding the angelic face of a young woman, so skinny and tiny that she barely fitted the large clothes she was wearing.
As soon as she noticed Taehyung, the girl gave him a wide, genuine smile, which he sheepishly reciprocated, standing still, not wanting to scare her.
However, she seemed more than fine with that situation, walking determinately towards him, smile not leaving her lips for a second.
When the cursed tribute finally arrived in front of him, Taehyung decided to open his mouth to welcome her, eager to know her name, her age, her story.
Nonetheless, in less than a blink of an eye, she wasn’t there anymore.
Confused, the Kitsune furrowed his brows and turned left and right, unable to understand how she had managed to disappear.
A breath of wind.
Light, but strong enough to sweep the clouds away from the moon, letting its unveiling rays disclose a shadow on the ground beneath Taehyung’s feet, who glanced up just to be met with the sly expression of the cursed girl.
She had jumped, suddenly and unexpectedly, the movement swift as she flipped in the air and landed behind Taehyung without making a single noise, taking him aback and not even giving him the time to realize what was happening before she grabbed a dagger from her belt.
Before the Kitsune could even turn, his body reacted instinctively, taking over him: his two tails materialized out of nothing and hit the girl hard in the chest, preventing her from hurting him and making her fly and crash against the column of the temple.
Everything happened so fast, too fast.
At the sight of her unmoving and broken body, which was eliciting too many memories in his mind, Taehyung’s scared expression shifted soon to a horrified one, the Kitsune running immediately to her and kneeling close.
In the vain attempt to aid the girl, he brushed her hip with his fingers, carrying the pain away with them.
“Don’t touch me, monster” She suddenly hissed between gritted teeth, using her last energies to push the hand he was offering away.
Nonetheless, he refused to leave her side, watching impotently as the girl’s pastel pink aura faded under his eyes, losing its color and turning slowly white.
For their whole life, we will teach them to despise you, to fear and hate you. Hence, they will kill you, again and again, taking your life away while you won’t be able to give them anything but love
This was his curse.
Lips pressed together, he fought back the tears which were burning in his eyes, threatening to escape, since he knew the girl wouldn’t have wanted to accepted the wept and sorrow of a creature like him.
When she exhaled her last breath, Taehyung closed her eyelids with a trembling yet soft touch, careful not to hurt her more than he had already did, ruining her childhood, her life.
In that moment, the Kitsune promised himself that he would have never let his guard down again.
That something like that would never happen again.
Hence, he started training, exercising not only his body but his mind as well. He learnt how to control his other forms, how not to give in to instincts and fears.
When he finally managed to shift into a fox again, he spent entire years in that shape, which allowed him to understand the forest from another point of view, through a deeper level: each time the Kitsune closed his eyes, he could hear and feel everything, from the chirping goldfinches to the sound of dewdrops falling on the ground, as if he and the forest beat with the same heart.
This way, with his senses amplified, Taehyung developed new abilities too, focusing in particular on the concept of memory, which deeply intrigued him, especially since he himself wished to erase his past from his brain.
Although he couldn’t change his own mind, the Kitsune understood how to access other’s memories and trick them. Thanks to this, he transformed the forest into a labyrinth, making difficult for humans to reach his shrine and, therefore, him while they forgot everything about the woods as soon as they stepped outside it.
Taehyung locked himself, together with his heart and hopes, in that solitary construction, prey to his own dangerous thoughts, a mix of rage and sorrow, madness and rationality.
Why couldn’t they give him at least a chance?
He didn’t need them.
He had done nothing wrong.
He wasn’t wrong.
Was he evil?
They just wanted to take away his tails, his life.
No one would have ever cared about him.
He didn’t deserve that.
It wasn’t fair.
“I’m not a monster,” he screamed, curling up on the cold floor, making himself tiny, craving to disappear.
Despite his defenses, though, through the centuries some tributes still managed to reach him.
And, for once, luck was on his side.
Because, even if Taehyung was hostile and wary at the beginning, he soon learnt every tribute was as different as the color of their auras.
Kind, solar, brilliant, sincere, considerate: for the first time those people showed the Kitsune another side of their world, a part which he had never experienced, in which he was included.
Men and women came and introduced themselves, talked to him, shared their stories and knowledge, helped him building a bigger shrine, filled it with decorations and handcrafts, wrote entire books with their different calligraphies.
Nevertheless, everyone left. Left that place. Left him.
And Taehyung wouldn’t have ever asked for more.
He gave them freedom.
He gave them the right to choose.
Because that been denied to him.
He would have never put someone else in his own misery.
However, life wasn’t always idyllic. The Kitsune was fully aware of that.
And, if people had proven him that, sometimes, goodness could prevail over wickedness and cruelty, happiness over sadness, forgiveness over revenge, that didn’t mean humans’ bloodthirst had disappeared too.
This is how the idea of trials came to his mind, a test which would have somehow valued the cursed tributes, letting him take a look at them, at their nature, at their soul.
Which was the shape of a pure heart?
That was the question he used as a parameter while he recalled what he had learnt from humans through all those years.
The one of someone who wouldn’t have hurt a defenseless creature for the pleasure of it.
The one of someone who wouldn’t have seek and craved for mere wealth.
The one who would have accepted his true self.
For example, the one of a child.
Taehyung was experiencing his third rebirth when Jungkook walked inside the clearing.
His memories were blurry once again, vague flashes interspersing in his mind. Hence, he didn’t remember about his previous lives, about the curse: he was just a child collecting flowers in a glade, focused on tying gladiolus in a crown that he barely noticed the boy approaching him, not minding him even when he spoke with an uncertain and shy voice.
“Hello?”
The Kitsune didn’t even turn, sure the other wouldn’t have hurt him. On the contrary, the presence of that stranger seemed somehow reassuring.
It was his aura.
Amber and warm, like the sunrays after a rainstorm, sweet like vanilla, delicate as the petals Taehyung was brushing, bright like the most beautiful and precious crystal.
From the moment their eyes locked and their hands brushed, it hadn’t passed a day in which Taehyung hadn’t loved Jungkook.
As a friend.
As a lover.
As a soulmate.
Jungkook talked with so much passion in his eyes that, sometimes, he left the other breathless. He enjoyed to race him climbing trees but he was willing to slow down and lose just the make Taehyung smile.
During the hot afternoons of summer, he lulled Taehyung to sleep with his silvery voice and, in the cold winter nights, when the stars shone brighter, he narrated him legends about constellations, myths the Kitsune thought to have forgotten.
Jungkook was the kind of person who spent entire months in the attempt of making the perfect gift for someone else and who kept a secret in order to protect the other, although it cost him a lot of troubles.
Nonetheless, as time passed, the Kitsune’s memories came back, reminding him how and why his and Jungkook’s lives were bounded.
And he tried to tell him the truth, he truly did.
But, Taehyung postponed and postponed.
Until he couldn’t anymore.
If, somehow, Fate decides to bend time and space to ensure that you two meet in this chaotic world, then it means that particular someone is destined to you. Someone who will complete you, who, even if you are strangers, even if you are enemies, maybe even if you are dead, will love you, will be by your side.
When he had heard those words for the first time, the Kitsune had thought that was hideous, awful, that he would have never wanted something like that. Now that he was experiencing, feeling, living that sensation, though, he wouldn’t have ever given it away for anything else in the world.
Taehyung was born under a lucky star.
But Taehyung was also curious.
And curiosity was what cursed him.
Oddly, curiosity was also what saved him.
㊋
Erania, 21st June, year 591
The old and wooden pendulum clock stroke midnight, twelve monotonous rings echoing in the silent and empty living room of the Jeon house.
Everything was ready.
Jungkook had packed his stuff, gathering enough belongings to fill a backpack: a couple of wardrobe changes, some dried fruit, a water bottle and, finally, a dagger, which was secured in his belt.
Hand on the doorknob, Jungkook cast one last glance at the house he was leaving.
In the morning, his parents, who were currently sleeping upstairs, would have found the letter he had placed on the kitchen table, where he explained his willingness to depart, to go on an adventure, to move from Erania and its traditions, its restrictions.
Although it would have been difficult at first, after some time his mother and father would have understood: they knew he was and felt like an outcast, not belonging there, too curious to explore the world to resist.
Unexpectedly, though, as soon as he closed the door behind him, Jungkook was met face to face with Jimin’s father.
“Uncle?” He said, surprised, wondering what the man could possibly do at such an hour at his doorknob.
His heart immediately sank when Jungkook noticed his shocked expression.
“Jungkook, you are here,” he said, seemingly lost.
“What happened?” His grandson asked, getting more and more worried second after second.
“It’s- It’s Jimin,” the man sobbed, voice faltering and eyes red.
Jungkook had never seen his uncle crying.
“What about him?” He rushed to ask but, in that moment, his parents reached them in the threshold, probably awakened by their loud tone.
“Jimin, he-” He tried again, the words apparently refusing to leave his mouth. “Jimin is dead.”
At that statement, the three members of the Jeon family froze in their spots, shocked.
There had to be a mistake.
This couldn’t be real.
Nonetheless, the horror written all over his uncle’s face spoke clearly.
Jungkook shook his head as his mother touched his arm in comfort, refusing to believe any of that: he had seen his cousin just a couple of hours before, after the bonfire, when his dear ones had gathered to wish him good luck for the journey he was about to undertake inside the woods.
Everything will be fine Jungkook had promised while hugging him, certain of his words.
And now Jimin was dead.
How?
Why?
Jungkook’s hands trembled at the thought of those unanswerable questions and their implications. Hence, he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, not allowing himself to give up to panic. Not now.
“I- I have to go,” he blurted out without even thinking, craving to help but, at the same time, wanting to run away.
“They- The head of the village is organizing an expedition inside the forest with some men.”
Who were they?
What were they going to do?
Oh god, Yoongi…
Jungkook’s mind was a mess, the worst thoughts spinning through it, making his temples pulse so much that he almost missed the words of his father, who had just offered to join the expedition.
“I’ll come too,” the boy spoke determinately, already hearing his parents’ protests. “And nothing you will say will make me change my mind.”
He had to go, no matter what.
As he ran to the village square, his mind was furiously screaming one name.
He had lost his grandmother.
He had lost his cousin.
He couldn’t lose his lover too.
He had to find him.
He had to keep him safe.
Taehyung
A huge crowd had gathered in front of the main bonfire, whose embers were still glowing, their light reflected in the fire of the torches the people were carrying.
The village head was giving everyone instructions: once inside, the woods were uncharted territory, therefore, no one was allowed to separate from their own group; everyone would have brought the weapon he or she handled more skillfully. The aim of the mission was to find the demon and take it down.
As he listened to those strict orders, Jungkook kept shifting in his place, unable to stand still but feeling the urge to move, to fidget with his fingers, to fight back the tears and pain which were threatening to take over him.
Finally, the people started to walk in the direction of the forest, headed past the boundaries of Erania and into the unknown.
Unknown for them, at least.
Because, while the other citizens were looking at the trees surrounding them with fear and suspicion, Jungkook felt at ease in that place, in his place, as if the chaos in his mind had somehow been replaced by calm, the only worry remained to reach Taehyung as soon as possible.
Careful not to be noticed, the boy separated from his group and sneaked thorough the shadows, leaving the main path to follow another one instead, one which would have led him to the familiar glade, where he and Taehyung were supposed to meet.
Once Jungkook arrived at the boundary of the clearing, though, an odd and irrational sensation pervaded him, something which made him stop his stroll and his heartbeats quicken in his chest.
Although his body physically ached to reach Taehyung and hold him in his arms, there was a part of Jungkook which wanted to turn and go back, forgetting that place.
Heart and mind.
Mind or heart.
Pushing those thoughts away, in the same place where he had buried his emotions that night, the raven haired boy shook his head and took a step ahead, finally entering the glade.
As Jungkook caught the glimpse of the red haired boy, who was giving him his back, a flashback appeared in his mind, a memory of the first time he had ever came there so many years before, precisely fourteen.
“Jungkook,” the other turned, tone and expression hard to decipher.
“Thank god you are safe,” Jungkook sighed in relief. Then, he closed the gap dividing them and pressed his lips against the other’s, taking Taehyung into a soft kiss before grabbing his hand. “We have to go, I have to take you out of here.”
“Jungkook-”
“We can’t leave tonight. I’ll explain you everything later but now we need to return to Erania,” the boy talked fast, words rushing one after another while he looked around, protecting Taehyung with his body in case someone attacked them.
“I can’t-”
“Yeah, I know you aren’t exactly keen on the idea of visiting my village but you have to understand it’s dangerous here,” he explained hurriedly, tugging his arm.
“Jungkook, wait,” Taehyung said more firmly, pulling his hand away. “Let’s play a game.”
“What are you saying?” Jungkook finally turned towards him, confused by that sudden and senseless request.
“Please just- Just do it,” he demanded, even though his eyes were pleading.
“Fine,” Jungkook rolled his eyes, aware of how stubborn the other could be. “But as soon as I’ll won, we are going to leave.”
“Alright.”
When they were young, the both of them loved to play Kitsuneken, the game Jungkook had taught Taehyung the very first time they met. Thus, the younger started to clap his hands, three times per turn and, each time, he made the same gesture: the hunter.
After the last round came and they revealed the figures they had chosen, Taehyung losing once again, Jungkook sighed, not understanding why the other had insisted so much to waste their time like that.
“I knew I would have won, you always choose the fox.”
“I do.”
At that assertion, the red aired boy took a few steps back under the puzzled gaze of the other, which didn’t leave him for a second. Afterwards, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he shifted into a Kitsune.
Five magnificent tails bloomed on his back, like a water lotus opening its petals, disclosing them together with the secret they carried.
Tentatively, Taehyung opened his eyes, full of uncertainty and vulnerability as he showed for the first time the most intimate part of himself to someone else.
On the other side, Jungkook was just starting at his tails, no word leaving his mouth, no emotion displayed on his face, as if he was somehow hypnotized and paralyzed at the same time by that sight.
For once, the Kitsune couldn’t read those hazel eyes he loved so much, even though he could almost hear the wheels turning in the other’s head: it seemed like he was trying to solve a problem without solution.
Maybe he was.
“Please, say something,” he begged, since the other kept staring into space silently, in lack of any reaction.
Truth was that, currently, Jungkook was unable to settle the turmoil inside him, like a hurricane shattering his certainties and believes and pushing him more and more on the verge of a break down.
Old and repressed emotions were coming to the surface, mixing with new ones and ripping him apart. He was hurt, as if he had just been punched but, at the same time, he felt frozen, as if he had been immersed in icy water, drowning in a black ocean while gasping for air yet unable to breathe.
“All this time,” he suddenly spoke, voice flat and void which reflected his gaze. “You’ve been lying to me.”
At those words, Taehyung immediately shook his head.
The Kitsune bit his bottom lip as he wished he could walk closer to his lover, hug him and comfort him but he had the feel it was better to keep the distance for now, to leave Jungkook the space he needed.
“I- I didn’t know at first,” thee red haired boy explained instead, fidgeting with his hands but not casting his eyes away from the other, afraid he might had run away or disappear. “When we met, I had no idea of who or what I was. I was so lost and scared…”
His voice faltered while silent and unnoticed tears started to shine and color his eyes of an unnatural shade of red, as if his bleeding soul was pouring out crystal drops from his lashes.
"And when the memories finally returned I tried, I promise I did,” he continued, fighting back the knot in his throat which was making difficult for him to breathe. “Nonetheless, I didn’t know how… And then I saw your mark… And I realized that was no more only about me but about you too-”
His voice cracked while a sob broke out of his throat, the sound so agonizing that the other just wanted to cover his ears to never hear it again.
And, yet, he couldn’t.
In that moment, it the back of his mind, with an odd lucidity, Jungkook realized he had never seen Taehyung crying.
It was awful.
It was hurting him.
Yet, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything, although Jungkook felt on the verge of losing control.
“With time, I hoped that, eventually, you would figure it out. You are so smart and you are the first one who ever came back to me-”
The sentences rushed discontinuously one after another, tone more and more desperate until Taehyung burst out crying, hiding his face in his hands.
“I am so sorry Jungkook.”
When the Kitsune pronounced his name, the cursed boy finally reacted, as if the previous words hadn’t really reached him.
“Say it,” he deadpanned with a blank expression and a tone Taehyung had never seen nor heard before from him.
“What?” The other asked, confusion plastered all over his wrecked features.
“Just say it,” Jungkook simply repeated, pressing his lips in a thin line and watching him with dark and unblinking black eyes. “Admit out loud that you are the Demon of these woods, that you tricked me for my whole life, that you take pleasure in the others’ misery, that you killed my cousin.”
In the few occasions Jungkook had talked about the Kitsune in the past, he had never used the word “demon” to describe it, Taehyung was sure of that, especially since the major part of the tributes, together with the inhabitants of Erania, called him by that appellation he despised so much.
How could his Jungkook think any of that?
“B-but you know me,” the Kitsune stated in an incoherent and uncertain whisper.
“You are wrong,” the other’s voice didn’t hesitate for a second, pitiless. “I don’t know you at all.”
Jungkook was staring at the red haired boy with his chin raised and an indecipherable gaze, which almost dared him to deny his statement.
You do, though. Even if right now your mind is clouded by anger and fear, deep, inside your heart, you do.
You know me.
You love me.
I know.
Nevertheless, Taehyung was unable to give voice to his thoughts, too afraid of the words which the other might have said back, of a rejection from the boy who was not only his lover, but also his best friend, his family, the person he had spent the last fourteen years with.
What would he have done if all his certainties fell apart?
“Maybe, if I told you-” Taehyung tried but the other immediately interrupted him.
“Don’t-”
Jungkook’s trembling hand flied to his ruby pendant in seek of comfort but stopped midair and ran through his face instead, wiping his eyes and cheeks.
The boy was clearly struggling to cope with the events of that night, slowly losing the composure he had been able to keep until that moment. His sharpened gaze turned wider and wider and wider, as if his eyes weren’t capable of seeing clearly before, his mind was numb, paralyzed by shock, and his head shook in denial.
“I need to leave.”
At that merciless and ultimate sentence, the Kitsune’s heart sank and, like a hummingbird trapped in a cage, its beats increased so fast and frantically, that, for a moment, it completely stilled while, inside his chest, an invisible, red string was pulling him towards his lover.
“Please, Jungkook, look at me” Taehyung begged, choked while an overpowering fright began to crawl under his skin. “I’m the same person as always. The person who delights in hearing you sing, who enjoys collecting flowers and making crowns with them, who swam with you so many times in the river, who loves you.”
“Shut up!” The other screamed as his hands covered his ears, not wanting to listen.
Jungkook had never talked to him like that. Never so furious, never so cold.
As he watched the situation, together with his only relationship and friendship, slipping inescapably and relentlessly through his fingers, Taehyung felt like he had become just a mere witness of the events and not a protagonist anymore.
“You- you said we would have run away,” he stuttered, amber eyes lost and hurt plastered all over his features.
The words came out so hopeless and resigned that Jungkook gulped, wanting nothing more than to run to the other and reassure him, whisper him they could have fixed it.
Nevertheless, everything was broken in so many pieces that he had no idea where he could have started to fix them.
He simply couldn’t.
“I wish I’d never met you,” Jungkook deadpanned, seemingly devoid of any emotions if not for the traitorous tears who had started to stream down his face. “You are a monster.”
Taehyung closed his eyes and lowered his head in defeat, nodding slowly.
“As you wish,” The Kitsune whispered, voice shattered. “But just remember I will always be by your side.”
And, by saying that, Taehyung placed a hand under his chin and started to murmur unintelligible syllables, blowing them in the night breeze, which carried each word to his lover.
Who would have ever thought the Kitsune would have used his ability in tricking memories with the only person who he wished would have never forgotten him?
Apparently, Fate enjoyed playing with Taehyung.
As he helplessly raised his eyes to desperately burn his lover’s face into his memory with his mere sight for the last time, Jungkook locked his gaze with him, time crystallized, moving so slow the flutter of a butterfly wings seemed eternal.
A blink of hazel eyes.
Then, the cursed boy turned his back to the other, leaving his soulmate, together with the memories connected to him, buried in those vermillion woods.
Unable to hold the heartbreak any longer, the Kitsune fell to the ground in a disheveled heap while his grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears. The edge of his vision went dark as his five tails enclosed around him, protecting Taehyung from the outside but powerless against the turmoil inside him.
Everything could still be fine…
But could it, really?
Your souls will be connected for the future and past, your heart will no longer beat for you, but for him instead, every breath you’ll take, you’ll do not because it’s necessary for you to live, but because of him, you’ll be bounded so tightly everything will hurt when he will be away.
According to the curse, Jungkook’s love should have put an end to his suffering and saved him.
Then why this was felt like the worst and most painful moment of his whole life?
㊋
Akai Shrine, 22nd June, year 596
Jungkook had been walking along the endless bank of the river for what seemed hours now.
Despite his tiredness, the young man had decided to venture deeper in the woods and reach the shrine during that night, too many questions and doubts spinning through his mind, which wouldn’t have allowed him to sleep.
Hence, he continued, guided by the light of the bright starry sky and the fresh summery breeze, until he caught the glimpse of a high red gate, which signed the entrance of the shrine.
Sensing he was closer to his aim, Jungkook fastened his walk resolutely, hand brushing instinctively the wakizashi* in his belt.
In moments of difficulty and uncertainty like those, Jungkook wished more than ever to have his grandmother still by his side, to talk with her, to ask her for advice, certain that, even in that situation, Jeon Sooyun would have found the best solution.
As the boy approached the shrine, he noticed a flare in the shadows, a sparkle of amber eyes surrounded by five tails.
Five?
The legends talked about nine.
However, Jungkook didn’t have the time to linger on that detail since, suddenly, an unexpectedly low and manly voice raised from the entrance of the building, where a stranger was standing, seemingly appeared out of nothing, giving him his back.
“Jungkook, of the Jeon clan.”
When that voice pronounced, called his name, Jungkook felt a deep emotion pervading him, a sense of belonging and oblivion, of remote sorrow and renewed euphoria.
It was odd yet felt natural at the same time, like seeing something for the first time but knowing, deep down, that sight was familiar.
“How do you know my name?” He inquired, taking a tentative step ahead and squeezing his eyes in the attempt to distinguish the other’s profile.
“I heard you when you challenged me,” the Spirit said imperturbably, the long and fancy robe he was wearing partially covered by his majestic tails. “You passed the trials and you reached my dwelling; hence, I suppose you are here to kill me.”
At that last statement, Jungkook hesitated, not having expected such straightforwardness.
Actually, he was so certain the Kitsune would have attacked him as soon as he had walked inside the shrine that now he felt baffled. Surely, the last scenery the boy would have pictured in his mind was the one where he and the Spirit stood still, just a few meters away from each other, let alone having an actual dialogue.
Maybe it was just a trick, a deceit, but something in the other’s demeanor, the way he was standing, almost defeated, giving him his back, bare and vulnerable, told Jungkook otherwise.
“I have some questions before.”
“Questions?” The other repeated, seemingly taken aback.
“Yes,” he spoke determinately. “I mean, we could engage a fight and I’d win easily or I could take advantage of this situation and find out more about the mark I carry and the secret behind it.”
“You seem really self-confident.”
“I had been prepared for this day since my birth,” he replied. “I can wait a little longer.”
Perhaps, the Kitsune would have given him an explanation for the inexplicable events which had happened to him from the moment he had stepped into the forest: the flashes in his mind; his burning mark; the sketch of the clearing; his pendant.
“What do you want to know, cursed boy?”
“There is something twisted in these woods isn’t it? Something that changes, tricks mind and memory.”
“You are perceptive,” the Spirit noticed. “Something twisted you say… It’s, indeed, true. Despite its luxury, the soil of this forest is rotten, its air toxic. I did nothing more than a spell, so that no one would have remembered this place once they left it.”
Jungkook nodded. At least, this explained the reason why the tributes forgot everything related to the forest.
“What happened to the other cursed children who came here throughout the years, then?”
“It depends,” the Kitsune confessed, seemingly sincere. “Several of them didn’t pass the trials; some reached me; others killed me; a few died.”
What about my cousin? What happened to him? Did you kill him too?
Jungkook wasn’t sure to be ready for that answer, so he decided to change topic.
“Tell me about these trials. You talk as if they are more than one but I met only the river and its guardian along my path.”
“This is because you didn’t see the first one as a threat: the fox,” the Spirit revealed, making the other furrow his eyebrows, not understanding what he was referring to.
“The animal appeared you in the night of the solstice and, even though in your village foxes are considered a sign of bad omen, you didn’t hurt it. On the contrary, you were kind and even shared your own meal with him. As for the river, its water comes from this shrine, thus it has unusual and magical properties: it can clear and see dirt, purifying the body as well as soul, reading feelings and intentions, especially of the ones who crave nothing more than to steal the gemstones inside the river.”
Those words surprised Jungkook, who would have never guessed behind the legendary trials was hidden such simple explanation.
However, since the boy didn’t know for how long the Kitsune would have kept answering his questions he tried to rush one after another, greedy to understand, curious to find out more and more of that story.
“Is there a reason why my family, the Jeons, carry the mark?”
“There is,” the other answered shortly, without adding any further detail.
“Is there a way to break the curse?” Jungkook insisted, not wanting to give up when he felt so close to truth.
“The time for the questions is over,” the Spirit unexpectedly deadpanned even if the voice he had been able to keep flat and emotionless until that moment slowly began to crack, together with the mask of indifference he was wearing.
“I have one last thing to ask.”
Since the other didn’t give any sign of dissent, Jungkook carefully took a few steps closer, until he reached the wooden stairs which lead to the shrine, the only obstacle left to separate him from the Kitsune.
“Did I ever enter the woods before the solstice?”
Silence followed.
Although Jungkook both craved and feared to hear that answer, to unveil another piece of that mysterious enigma, that faceless voice remained mute, the only sound left filling that heavy question was the one of the raising wind.
“Taehyung?”
Jungkook had no idea of where that name had come from, unknown yet so familiar, as if he had pronounced it thousands of times before that first one.
Apparently, though, that seemed to shake the Kitsune back to reality, who slowly turned, finally revealing his face, so young that he couldn’t have been much older than Jungkook.
Wide and soulful eyes were looking at him with a shocked expression, amber irises reflecting into the other’s hazel ones. His ambrosial scent hit immediately the other’s nostrils, the golden skin glistening under the silvery moon rays.
One of his soft tails partially covered his lips, which now Jungkook craved to see, curious to know their shape, to see the line of their cupid bow, to watch them curve in a smile, even if something in his mind was telling him that he already witnessed Taehyung beaming with joy.
The Spirit’s beauty was so astounding that, for a moment, the boy wondered how could anyone forget his angelic face.
“Do I know you?” Jungkook wondered, head tilted and eyes focused as he approached the other with another step.
“No, you don’t,” Taehyung denied in a whisper, shaking his head, almost frightened.
“But I do,” he insisted, certain of his words, of his sensations.
Taehyung should have known, should have guessed that the forest would have elicited a reaction in Jungkook’s mind together and sparked off the memories buried inside it.
Jungkook is not the type who is influenced by common believes… He is smarter than that. He will insist, he won’t give up until he finds out the truth.
The words Jimin had told him only a couple of hours before echoed through his mind.
Although the Kitsune believed he had said that in order to comfort him while he remained persistent in thinking Jungkook would have just wanted to kill him, his friend kept thinking otherwise.
And, as always, Jimin had been right.
Taehyung just couldn’t believe Jungkook, his Jungkook, was standing there, in front of him, looking at him like he used to do in the past, with the same doe, hazel eyes, no harm in his gestures, no hatred in his voice.
Hence, he took a deep breath and confessed.
“For centuries, on the night of the solstice, a new tribute walked inside the forest, in seek of revenge, of answers, bearer of gifts and hopes. Nonetheless, the garments they offered me were soaked in venom as poisoned were their libations. Despite this, though, I loved every human, every man or woman who came to me. Even when they hurt me, even when I could read hate in their gazes, even when they killed me, even then, I loved them.”
Taehyung paused his story for a moment, overwhelmed, while Jungkook waited patiently, focused on the words he had just heard.
“I hoped and I hoped for someone that… Who…” He continued, fighting to find the right words without revealing too much about his own curse. “And then, one day, I just stopped. The tributes kept coming, of course, some even stayed, but, eventually, everyone left me.”
His voice slightly broke at the last sentence, so fragile that the other felt the impulse to stretch his hand and reach him, to tell him he didn’t have to go on if his past made him suffer like that.
“For centuries, everything passed unchanged in this place away from time and space, at least until my third rebirth when, on a springy night of equinox, a little boy ventured in the forest an found me,” Taehyung gathered the courage to look at the other in the eyes, whose gaze hadn’t left him for a moment. “And that child was you, Jungkook.”
The young man let that confession sink in, all those new information swirling chaotically around his head, thoughts overlapping to indistinct memories.
“How could I possibly not remember any of that?” He asked, eyebrows furrowed and wrinkled forehead. “I mean, from the moment I entered the woods, all I can recall are just some flashes, vague sensations and blurred images but nothing more than that.”
“That’s because… When you- when I-” Taehyung hesitated, unsure on how to put the following words. “When you eventually found out the truth about me you said you wanted to forget so I-”
“You erased my memories,” Jungkook completed in a whisper, a tear running silently down his cheek.
Our memories.
At that dejected yet accusatory tone, Taehyung nodded guiltily, lowering his head.
“You said you wished-” The Kitsune began to explain while fidgeting with his hands but he was interrupted once again.
“Did I explicitly say I wanted them gone?” Jungkook’s demeanor shifted abruptly as he hastily wiped his eyes.
“N-not exactly,” Taehyung stuttered, confused by that sudden fervor.
Was Jungkook... angry?
“Then you decided to take them away from me,” the other concluded, not even knowing where that confidential tone was coming from.
Despite the mood, the conversation seemed oddly normal, almost domestic, as if he was arguing with a member of his family; as if they were continuing what had been left unresolved five years before; as if time hadn’t passed at all.
“I just wanted you to forget what I couldn’t,” Taehyung spoke so innocently and sincerely that the other’s outburst of anger vanished as quickly as it came.
Hence, Jungkook shook his head, biting the inside of this cheek.
As for the Kitsune, the situation was as much weird: he didn’t know how to address the other, unsure if he was even allowed to call him by his name yet, at the same time, he felt like he was talking with the same Jungkook as ever, the person Taehyung had always been able to read and understand.
Someone you are destined to. Someone who completes you, who, even if you are strangers, even if you are enemies, is supposed to love you.
“Jungkook I-”
“I want them back,” the raven haired boy stated out of the blue, tone determined as he held the other’s shocked gaze.
“What?”
Of all the sentences he would have imagined coming from Jungkook, that phrase was the last one the Kitsune would have ever expected.
“You heard me.”
“I don’t understand,” he admitted, truly baffled.
“I’m asking if there is a way to have my memories back.”
In the state of daze he was currently living, the only thing Jungkook craved was to understand, to settle the chaos in his mind by finding our more about the missing pieces of that puzzle.
What was the nature of the relationship between him and the Kitsune?
What had brought him to such a harsh decision, to the need of cancelling all the memories connected to him?
Should he have trusted Taehyung?
No one could have solved his doubts better than his past self.
“I- I don’t know. I guess your memory loss is just transient like… A block,” Taehyung struggled to explain.
Although had been tricking minds for centuries, this was a field completely new for him.
“Did it ever happened? That someone, a tribute could remember you even once outside the forest?” Jungkook wondered, already focused on the best ways to elicit his memory.
“There was one case,” Taehyung hesitated before going on, not sure how the other would have reacted to another revea.l “One of the cursed children who decided to stay here for some time.”
“Who was he?”
“It was a she,” the Kitsune would have wanted to stop at that point but he couldn’t, not when Jungkook was looking so expectedly at him. “Her name was Jeon Sooyun.”
At that name, Jungkook froze in his spot, blood flowing away from his cheeks and leaving them pale.
“No way,” he whispered.
Until that moment, the boy had tried to keep a positive attitude towards the other, to listen without judging, to believe his words.
But this was too much.
“You are lying.”
That accusation unsettlingly reminded him the words Jungkook had addressed him the night of their fight, an experience he wasn’t ready to relive. Nonetheless, he swallowed down his emerging feelings and fought back the tears.
This wasn’t about himself.
This was about Jungkook and his certainties crumbling down once again.
Nevertheless, he had the right to know all the truth and Taehyung would have been by his side this time, not matter how much he would have hurt, not matter if Jungkook didn’t remember him.
“Why would I lie to you?”
Because that’s what Fox Spirits do, they trick humans, they feed on the others’ sufferings, they play with their emotions and weaknesses.
That was what his rational part was telling him, what they had taught him for his whole life, analyzing the worst scenarios
What if this was a trial? A lie made for him, who had always felt alone, who was so close with his grandmother; who was like an outcast among his people.
Nevertheless, his heart was murmuring him otherwise.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, grabbing desperately his head between his hands.
“She was really old, wasn’t she?” The Kitsune asked, apparently out of nothing.
Jungkook was about to bit back a sharp answer but he immediately closed his mouth.
Although at the village there were certain believes about his family, about its weirdly long-lived members, about the cursed tributes who survived the forest, Jungkook had never reflected on that detail.
“What about that?” He replied on defensive.
“Have you ever wondered how many years old?” The other inquired and, since Jungkook didn’t say anything, he continued. “Haven’t you ever asked yourself how she could know so many information about Spirits, about legends, about soulmates?”
Have I ever told you the story about the ‘Red String of Fate’?
I saw her once. She was a beautiful fox, so much bigger than the other we rarely see at the boundary of the woods. Moreover, she had six stunning tails distinguishing her. And, one day, you’ll meet her too.
A soulmate is the part of yourself you haven’t discovered yet.
The phrases she used to tell him so many times during his childhood suddenly echoed through his mind.
Had his grandmother lied to him on purpose? Why would she have done that?
“I don’t understand,” Jungkook finally admitted, tone sounding defeated, talking to himself more than to the other. “Why would she have kept a secret like that?”
“That I can’t know,” Taehyung spoke sincerely, voice soft and comforting. “Maybe she wanted to protect you; maybe she didn’t know how to find the proper words; maybe she wished for you to unveil the truth by your own. All I can say is that I still think about her with affection and care.”
He smiled tenderly at the memory of the old lady.
“You know, on her last days, she called me,” Taehyung remembered with sad eyes. “Of course, I couldn’t step inside the perimeter of Erania but, despite her illness and tiredness, she managed to reach me where the walls meet the beginning of the woods. She told me she was happy that I had found you, that you had found me. Sooyun has always been one of my favorite tributes, I truly cared about her.”
The Kitsune’s narration was somehow soothing Jungkook’s dismay, his low and calm voice enveloping into a warm and reassuring hug.
“You look so much like her,” he observed absent mindedly but immediately regretted it, afraid the other could have misinterpreted that observation.
Nevertheless, he noticed with relief that that young boy seemed more relaxed now, more in control, as if he was slowly taking a grasp of that whole situation: his breath was no longer labored but regular instead, his gaze more focused and serious, although the bewilderment painted with a hue of sadness hadn’t left them.
“So... Who carries the mark can hypothetically live forever?” He concluded, ignoring the way his heart was beating irregularly inside his ribcage.
“I’m persuaded it’s more about high resistance than immortality per se,” Taehyung reflected, since he himself wasn’t immune to death. “I guess that when, in the night of the foundation of Erania, a Spirit possessed your progenitor, somehow, the blood of the yōkai* mixed to the one of the pregnant woman and flew into her fetus, who received some of its power. I don’t think you tributes are so cunning and strong just because you spent your whole lives training, I suppose it’s more a natural attitude.”
“But… We die eventually.”
“You do,” he confirmed. “But your bodies are stronger than the others, you don’t get sick, you heal faster,
“Then why Jimin died?” Jungkook could no longer avoid that topic.
“I don’t know,” his expression darkened. “I didn’t harm him, I promise. Actually, I spent a lot of time wondering the reason behind his death and, at the end, all I can guess is that something started to change from the moment you entered the forest when you were six years old, as if you have subverted the equilibrium of this unnatural place.”
“You mean I am somehow responsible?” Jungkook exclaimed, tone between angry and frantic.
“Of course not.”
It wasn’t Taehyung who pronounced those words.
Shock wasn’t enough to describe what Jungkook felt at the sight of his cousin appearing on the entrance of the shrine out of nothing.
Jimin was exactly like he remembered him the night he had walked inside the woods five years before: smaller than him, forehead covered by bangs, plump lips curved in his usual smirk. Yet, his figure was apparently incorporeal, seemingly transparent, cheeks pale as the rest of his body.
“See? It’s not like he is fainting or something,” the boy said as he stepped closer to the other two, who were both watching him, one agape while the other with pursed lips. Thus, he added. “You see, Taehyung didn’t want me to come out but he should know I’m not the type who stays in the closet. He kept saying ‘you can’t materialize out of the blue, it will be too much to handle for Jungkook, he is not ready’. But I know my cousin is better than that.”
Judging by Jungkook’s expression, Jimin was far from being right.
Before the other arrived at the shrine, in fact, Taehyung and Jimin had had a small fight about Jimin’s plan of revealing himself. The Kitsune argued there was no way Jungkook would have wanted to talk, especially with him, let alone finding out his dead cousin was somehow alive, while Jimin thought otherwise.
“He is already upset for what he has just found out about his grandmother and now you-
“This will be good for him, for the both of you,” Jimin insisted. “If you don’t tell him everything how he is supposed to-”
Their words were barely reaching Jungkook, whose gaze was fixed on his cousin standing in front of him like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Breath stuck in his throat, he fluttered his eyelids, blinking once, twice.
Then, without any warning, he moved fast and fell on Taehyung, pinning him down while his hands flew to the Kitsune’s neck.
“Jungkook!” Jimin screamed in horror. “What are you doing? Oh god, stop!”
The boy covered his mouth with his hand as he watched powerless the scene in front of him.
“Stop messing up with my mind,” Jungkook screamed at Taehyung, although it sounded more like a plea, eyes crazy and tormented.
Beneath him, the Kitsune wasn’t even fighting back, just watching the other with an unfazed and serious gaze, as if he had been expecting that behavior, as if he had seen that moment coming and was only waiting for it to happen.
The fingers around his neck were tightening, making it difficult for him to breathe yet Taehyung didn’t care. All he wanted was to see that suffering expression leaving the other’s face. Everything around him, Jimin’s yells, the summery breeze, the compact ground against his body fell in a silent background.
Jungkook’s mind was blank, lost in a dark labyrinth with no way out.
As he was straddling Taehyung, looking at him from above but not really seeing him, one detail caught the young man’s glimpse, a pendant shining in the nocturnal moon rays, the amber locked inside it reflecting the Kitsune’s eyes.
A sparkle of gold flashed in his mind, enlightening the darkness which threatened to take over it.
A pinky promise ‘This is our secret.’
A red haired boy brushing the cerise petals of a tiger lily, watching expectantly at him as Jungkook swore ‘One day we will run away together.’
Buns and red strings.
The feather touch of a pairs lips on his own.
Suddenly, Jungkook stilled, frozen, staring at his trembling hands while he freed Taehyung from their grip, as if he had been only partially conscious of his own actions until that moment.
“How can this be real?” Jungkook’s voice was broken by sobs as he lowered his head to hide the tears which were tracing wet paths along his cheeks, hands closed into fists around the other’s silky garments.
At that desperate question, Taehyung moved his arms, hesitantly and tentatively, fingers brushing the other’s back until he almost enveloped him in a hug, still leaving him space in case he wanted to shift away from that touch.
Nonetheless, Jungkook remained there, between his arms, crying his heart out against Taehyung’s chest, overwhelmed by too many emotions, confused by feelings he couldn’t understand.
“Shh, it’s okay,” the Kitsune murmured softly, honey voice lulling the other into calmness while he stroke his nape, his shoulder blades, his waist.
He wished they could have stayed like that forever, crystallized away from reality.
Nevertheless, in that moment, a tiny drop fell on Taehyung’s forehead from the sky, breaking that spell.
“It’s raining,” the red haired boy commented neutrally, gaze fixed into the dark clouds which were gathering above them.
At that statement, Jungkook raised slightly his gaze, his head slowly thrown back until the raindrops started to mix with his tears, making it impossible to distinguish ones from the others.
“We should go inside.”
The Kitsune’s suggestion didn’t lay any claim nor did it demand a positive reply. Nevertheless, Jungkook nodded silently in agreement, pulling gradually away from Taehyung until he got up, stumbling slightly, still a bit dizzy.
Afterwards, he took a deep breath and averted his attention on Jimin, who was standing with mouth shut and a guilty expression on his face.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” his cousin finally confessed, voice thin, scared the other might have broken down again if he spoke too loud.
“Jimin?” Jungkook asked, voice hoarse to the point that he had to cough before continuing. “Is it really you?”
“It is, it’s me,” the other confirmed seriously while the Kitsune started to walk inside the shrine, certain the other two would have followed him.
“But- How-” He struggled, turning involuntarily to Taehyung, not even sure who or what he was about to ask for.
“It happened five years ago, in the day of the solstice,” the Kitsune explained. “That night, after the bonfire-”
“We fought, didn’t we?” Jungkook interrupted him, vaguely recalling a letter left to his parents, his uncle at the doorstep, five tails disclosing in from of him.
“We did,” Taehyung confirmed, looking at him with an unreadable look as he went on with the narration. “Later, when I had already brought Jimin’s body back to the boundary of the forest, I returned to the shrine and found his spirit waiting for me.”
Hence, Jungkook turned to his cousin, who was following silently the both of them from a step back, and nodded slowly his head in sign of consent.
“I can’t remember much about that night,” Jimin confessed. “I can’t even tell what happened to me exactly: one moment I was walking inside the forest and the other I found myself in front of a bridge, my body on the ground as I watched it from the outside.”
In the meanwhile, the Kitsune was guiding them through the intricate series of hallways of the shrine, torches on the walls enlightening of bright and little flames at his passage.
“Why haven’t you crossed it?” Jungkook asked, wondering what he himself would have done in such nonsensical situation.
“Do you believe in soulmates?” Jimin inquired instead of answering that question.
Before his cousin could reflect on a possible reply, though, Taehyung stopped in front of a sliding door and spoke.
“These days put you through your paces in more than a way. Hence, I thought you would have appreciated some time alone in order to rest both your mind and body. This room is provided of every need: you can use it as a shelter until it stops raining or you can spend the night here,” as he spoke, the Kitsune seemed oddly detached, not showing any of the emotions he had displayed before. However, he rushed to add. “If you want, of course.”
While he stared at the closed door, Jungkook seemed still hesitant, even though he didn’t feel like he was trapped nor forced to remain there. On the contrary, he wanted it.
“Just, please…” Taehyung was struggling in search of words, in search of the courage to pronounce them.
Don’t leave me again
“I’ll stay,” the other stated firmly, passing in front of him and putting a finger inside the handle.
Afterwards, they both lingered there, close, staring at each other in the eyes under the unbelieving gaze of Jimin, who almost rolled his eyes at that scene, trying to physically refrain himself from pushing one towards the other.
Not that he could have done that, anyway.
“Okay,” Taehyung finally gave him a small, sad smile.
Once inside, the room was wide and dark, enlightened only by the pale light of the moon partially covered by clouds, which barely let catch the glimpse of its interior.
Jungkook narrowly looked at the ambiance, though, because his eyelids felt suddenly heavy, feet stumbling over the mattress, barely reaching it before collapsing. The young man lost conscience almost immediately, falling in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Raindrops were still falling outside the window in the next morning, their soothing sound lulling Jungkook out of unconsciousness.
The raven haired boy blinked a few times, confused, not recognizing his surroundings. His limbs were aching, sore for the long sleep and the tension accumulated in the past two days.
Odd, how life can turn so unexpectedly just in a few hours.
Jungkook had started that journey convinced of his principles, of his believes, and now that it had come to an end, he was lost, uncertain of what he wanted, unsure of who he was.
The events of the night before were blurred in his mind, as if a layer of fog was covering them: the Kitsune’s encounter, Taehyung’s revelations, Jimin’s appearance, his own inexplicable reaction, between rage and sorrow.
Jungkook felt both ashamed and remorseful for that behavior, regretting to have displayed his emotions like that. Nonetheless, a waterfall of information, discoveries and feelings had crushed over him:
His grandmother was a tribute.
Apparently, he had been friend with a Kitsune, with Taehyung, for the major part of his life.
Jimin, the cousin he thought dead, was there, alive.
Jungkook needed to reflect. And he needed to do that alone.
However, lying in the bed racking his brain on those problems and struggles wouldn’t have solved them.
Thus, Jungkook got up resolutely and looked at the room more carefully, since he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings when he had entered the place. The interior was simple and bare, with pastel green walls, where branches of flowering trees were drawn together with foxes.
As he opened the wardrobe in front of him, he was left surprised by the amount of clothes and accessories it contained, both for women and men: long and comfortable trousers, silky shirts, jewels and pins.
The huge window on his left overlooked the forest, which he could have easily reached, the idea of running away momentarily crossing his mind but he soon pushed it away.
After all, he had promised Taehyung to stay.
Hence, the young man walked in the opposite direction, to the sliding door, where he even found the backpack he thought gone. Inside, everything was as he had left it: the diary where he had sketched the clearing; the robe his mother had sewed; the book of myths and legends of Erania.
Intrigued by that last item, Jungkook started to leaf through its pages, watching as images of scary demons and heavenly landscapes skimmed under his eyes.
Thus, the raven haired boy took a seat on the wooden desk near the bed and started reading carefully that book, which narrated stories about Fate and love, death and destiny; about stars and red strings, marks and curses.
It was incredible, how, even if he himself owned that book, he had never paid much attention to it, convinced it contained just tales for children. On the other side, though, when he was younger, Jungkook had never felt the desire to explore that world of supernatural, just wanting to forget his condition, angry and ashamed for the stigma he was forced to carry since his birth.
Hours passed without him even noticing, too caught in taking notes and ferreting out the details hidden between those lines.
At a certain point, a knock interrupted his deep reading, so light he barely heard it. Cautious, he neared the door and slid it open but found no one expect a tray full of food and edible flowers.
Perplexed, after having looked left and right, he collected the meal and proceeded to eat it, relishing in its surprisingly delicious taste.
Days went by like that, with Jungkook closed in his room, which he exited only to go to the adjacent porch and catch some fresh air.
That place oddly reminded him the backyard of his house, where he used to spend the evening with his grandmother: the more he thought about her, the more he realized how blind he had been to her revelations, how deaf to her words.
When he didn’t want to think and clear his mind instead, Jungkook picked up and cut small pieces of wood with his wakizashi*, truly not the best instrument to carve, even though he was skilled enough to create appreciable figures.
No one ever visited him, probably wanting to leaving him space and time.
One morning, though, the raven haired boy decided it was finally time to face both Taehyung and Jimin.
Thus, anticipating the Kitsune with his usual tray of food, Jungkook suddenly opened the door and spoke, watching as the other froze in his spot under his eyes. “I will join you for meals from now on.”
At the beginning, it wasn’t easy and, on the contrary, those reunions were full of tension and awkward silences: Jungkook didn’t talk, still coy and wary, while the other two just exchanged glances without commenting, trying to keep normal conversations in the meanwhile.
Although Jimin didn’t really need to eat, Jungkook observed him attentively enough to realize he was there more to support Taehyung than to keep an eye on him.
Nevertheless, slowly, the boy started to get used to their presence and, gradually, he managed to open up: at first, it was just an interested look; then a faint smile; until, one morning, he casually talked, as if it was the most normal thing, “Could you pass me the water, please?” Causing Taehyung to choke on the food he was chewing while Jimin tried to hide a laugh behind his hand.
From that moment on, Jungkook felt more and more comfortable around and with the two spirits, making so many progresses that he even felt safe enough to leave of his room and wander all over the shrine, losing himself in that labyrinth of hallways and rooms.
As he found out, the building seemed oddly bigger on the inside than on the outside. Walking in the dim light of the otherwise dark corridor, Jungkook passed a sliding door after another, until curiosity took over him, making him open the next one on his left.
The place would have been immersed in the gloom if not for the bright constellations painted all over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, which shone as if by magic, as if someone had been able to enclose night sky in a room.
Jungkook could see clearly Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Orion, tracing their profiles with his finger midair. While he stared at the nebulae in awe, fascinated, the boy noticed a star cluster which he wasn’t familiar with, near the Cygnus constellation: it was formed by six stars and went by the name of Vulpecola, little fox.
It felt like those stars and their shape were trying to tell him something but, in that moment, a noise from the outside distracted him, making him cast his eyes away and forget temporarily that enchanting place in order to avert his attention back to the hallway instead.
No one could be seen nor heard as he slid the door close behind him, his gaze immediately caught by a peculiar wooden inlaid door, which stood out against the other classical interior decorations.
Furrowing his brows, intrigued, the young man put a hand around the handle and turned it, the door opening without resistance to his surprise.
The room was full of all genre of stuff, from books to paintings, from golden trinkets to colorful ampules. Sheets of paper and open diaries were scattered all over the floor, so chaotically that the carpets were barely seeable beneath them.
Against the bright, colored wall there was a huge bed, covered by tasseled cushions and duvets embroidered in gold, zircons nestled all over the headboard, where a pillow hosted the small plushy of a fox, patched all over the fabric probably for its oldness.
A thought crossed Jungkook’s mind, not knowing where that certainty came from.
This must be Taehyung’s room
Curious to see what that place could have revealed about its owner, the young man headed to the writing desk on his right, careful not to step on any of the multiple objects on the floor.
Contrary to the rest of the room, the desk was oddly tidy, pens aligned next to one, single book. As he opened and leafed through it, Jungkook realized it was a diary: yellow and fragile pages were covered in signs, from messy and traced letters, to phrases in a neat calligraphy, from words and names he had never seen nor heard before to quotes and drawings.
One sketch, in particular, caught his attention: it seemed to repeat itself multiple times along the diary, six dots connected by six straight lines, drawn in vertical, horizontal, sometimes recalling the shape of a T, some others the one of a J.
The Kitsune must have noticed that detail too because he had scribbled those same two letters, each one followed by a question mark.
However, since in that book, which reflected so accurately and intimately Taehyung’s mind and soul, everything was thoroughly signed with a date, Jungkook returned to the first page, wondering when the other had started to write it:
Erania, 14th March, year 577
The day I met him.
“Tae won’t be happy you entered his room,” a voice startled the boy, making him hide quickly the diary behind his back and turn.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” Jimin laughed briefly at the other’s panicked expression. “I suggest you to explore the gardens on the outside, though. It’s the perfect place to reflect, full of surprises.”
After that suggestion, his cousin winked and turned to leave but the other called him, stretching his hand but barely brushing his incorporeal figure.
“Jimin, wait-”
“Don’t worry, we will have plenty of time to talk,” he immediately reassured him, as if anticipating what he was about to say. “Just go ahead and reach the door at the end of the hallway.”
Then, he disappeared, almost vanished in the darkness, leaving a baffled Jungkook behind with Taehyung’s book still in his hand. The boy hesitated only a few seconds before putting the diary inside his backpack and exiting that room, deciding to put it back in its place once back.
Thus, he followed Jimin’s advice and reached the gardens.
The first thing that hit him was the scent: his nostrils were instantly pervaded by the floral fragrance of ripe black cherries and blossoming peach trees, whose petals flied freely in the air. The sweet and honeyed notes of maple leaves were alternated by the aphrodisiac hues of ylang ylang.
Secondly, the sight: a mesmerizing landscape in miniature proliferated in front of him, signed by trails of crushed gravel and huge stepping stones while wooden zig zag bridges crossed small ponds full of waterlilies.
Almost afraid to ruin that perfect place with his presence, Jungkook took a tentative step ahead, worried it might have disappeared only at the mere touch of a human.
Nonetheless, since nothing happened, the young man let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and started following a traced path surrounded by blossoming shrubs, watching around it in amazement.
As Jungkook ventured amidst the slender and drooping branches of a willow, which almost covered the red bridge he was crossing, he caught the glimpse of a pavilion near a small lake, seemingly the perfect place to be alone and ponder.
Soon after, the boy reached the tiny outbuilding, where he found a bench kissed by the sunrays, which had taken the place of the rainy clouds and which were almost inviting him to bask in that summery atmosphere.
Looking around to make sure no one was nearby, the young man took a seat and opened his backpack, taking the diary he had previously stolen.
While he turned the journal between his hands, a part of him felt guilty for invading Taehyung’s privacy like that, reading his personal and secret thoughts without permission. Nevertheless, the other part, the one that craved to understand, to find out the whole prevailed.
Maybe those words would have triggered something in his mind, stirring his latent memories.
Thus, he opened the first page and started reading:
Erania, 14th March, year 577
The day I met him.
His name is Jungkook.
He taught me a game called ‘Kitsuneken’ .
I liked it a lot.
He promised to come back.
Although that first impression was short and inarticulate, as months and years passed in the diary, the narration became more detailed, pouring out endless feelings and ideas:
Sometimes, I wonder what’s beyond this forest.
I dream of trees with small flames instead of leaves, of worlds underwater, of places where the sun never sets, of deserts with eternal nights, of visiting a star.
Some notes described simple life episodes, others were real essays:
If there is one thing that I love is singing along with birds . Maybe Nature has its own music and tries to express it through thunders, winds, robins and beats coming from the earth.
And then, there was him:
Jungkook talks so passionately about stars but tonight we couldn’t see any of them because of the clouds. Thus, I decided to create the ‘Constellation Room’ here in the shrine, to see them even in the darkest hours. I wonder if he will ever see this place, though…
The more he read, the more the words started to mingle with reminiscences slowly resurfacing. The black wall which was apparently blocking his mind began to gradually crumble down piece by piece, leaving space to buried emotions and forgotten sensations, whose gaps Taehyung’s story helped to fill.
Today, he showed me his mark, his Kitsunebi. In that moment more than ever, I wished I could have told him everything.
Soon, though, soon I will.
I trust him.
As Jungkook leafed through the pages, the episodes narrated started to feel more and more familiar, so much that he could almost recall sounds, sensations, aromas of those specific moments and atmospheres.
Jungkook made me a present. Can you believe it? He must have spent weeks, if not months, on it.
Nonetheless, he didn’t only give me that but also offered me the most precious and important gift: a future. Together.
We will leave in a week, dear diary, and I don’t think I will bring you with me in this exciting, new journey.
I decided to keep the most exciting and emotional part for the last: after Jungkook gave me his beautiful amber necklace, we
“Found something interesting?” Taehyung peeked out from his shoulder, interrupting his deep reading and almost causing him a heart attack, body jerking in surprise.
Although he instinctively snapped the diary shut, Jungkook knew he had been caught.
Vaguely, in the back of his mind, the young man registered that the sun had almost set in the horizon, meaning he had spent the entire day in the pavilion without even noticing.
“The diary uh- I didn’t mean-” He stuttered, not really knowing how to apologize for his gesture.
“May I?” Taehyung asked with his eyes instead, glancing at the seat next to Jungkook on the bench.
When the other nodded, baffled, he sat on the bench and talked serenely. “If I didn’t wish you to find my journal, I would have hidden it better. On the contrary, I kind of hoped you would have found it: I didn’t want you to feel forced to read it but, this way, the choice was only up to you. Besides, I guessed you would have been more willing to listen the voice of a diary than mine.”
The boy didn’t reply, tracing the profile of the cover with his fingers, lost in thought.
“You can keep it as long as it will help you.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? That me, a stranger, can read and know all your secrets?” Jungkook wondered, turning to watch the other, whose attention was directed to the pond instead.
“You are many things Jungkook, but not a stranger. Not to me,” the Kitsune spoke calmly, honeyed voice warm as the end of that sunny day. “Moreover, you already know what’s inside that diary, you are just… untuned.
“Untuned?” The boy repeated, confused.
“You know, like an instrument. You are in the right place, you have got the elements… Hence, you only have to find the right frequency.”
Despite himself and that whole situation, Jungkook chuckled at that sentence, so simple, so right, so… Taehyung.
“Besides, there was no secret between us. Of course apart from…” He pointed at his tails and ears, joining briefly the other’s laugh. Then, as if he had suddenly realized something very important, he widened his eyes and rushed to add. “If they bother you, I can shift.”
“No no,” Jungkook immediately stopped and reassured him. “There is no problem at all.”
And he really meant that.
Clearly relieved, the Kitsune spoke again. “How are you doing today?”
“Better,” he replied honestly, even though his cheery tone slightly changed when he noticed the signs still evident on Taehyung’s neck. Although his body physically ached to stretch his hand and caress that wound he himself had inflicted, he ignored that urge and asked instead. “What about you?”
As if sensing the guilt that was pervading him, the Kitsune smiled relaxedly.
“It is such a nice day to waste it on sadness, don’t you think?” Although the question was addressed to the other, the Kitsune threw his head back to enjoy the last sunrays before night took them away.
“About what I did some nights ago-” Jungkook fidgeted with his hands, nervous.
“There is no need to apologize, I understand.”
“No, I need to say it and be sure you hear it,” he insisted, shaking his head. “I’m sorry if I attacked you, I’m sorry if I reacted like that, I’m sorry if I cried.”
Finally, Taehyung opened his eyes and fixed his gaze straight into the other’s for a few, silent seconds. He knew Jungkook didn’t like to display his weaknesses, let alone losing control over his emotions.
“Apologies accepted.”
A pleasant silence fell between the two boys after that, leaving them enough space to reflect: Taehyung felt both happy and unsettled by the conversation he was having with the other while Jungkook wanted to talk about so many topics that he didn’t know what to ask first.
“These gardens are truly beautiful,” Jungkook eventually observed, averting his attention to the surroundings, losing himself in the sight.
“Thank you,” the Kitsune smiled, following his gaze “I tried to recreate my birthplace through them: its indescribable perfumes, its colors, its greenery. Nonetheless, the flowers that grow here bloom and then perish, so quickly, so inevitably, to then b.loom again. Sometimes, I stare at them for days, watching them die underneath my powerless eyes and come to life again. A beautiful yet terrible spectacle.”
“Do you miss it? Your birthplace?” Jungkook wondered, truly moved by those words.
“Once I did,” his tone was vaguely melancholic. “Especially at the beginning, it wasn’t easy for me, to get used to this world, to its rhythm, to its dynamics. With time, though, I learnt how to appreciate it, how to love it, even if I have seen merely a little part of it.”
The young man could understand that feeling, that desire to explore the unknown.
“I started to keep diaries in order to remember better my past lives in case of death,” he confessed, glancing at the journal Jungkook was still holding between his hands. “You should write your own diary, maybe it will help you with the memories.”
“Death?” The raven haired boy repeated, focusing on that single word.
In the back of his mind, the raven haired boy vaguely recalled the Kitsune’s words from the night before, words he hadn’t considered until that very moment:
I loved every human, every man or woman who came to me. Even when they hurt me, even when I could read hate in their gazes, even when they killed me, even then, I loved them.
“You see, the mark you carry represents my tails, the flames which keep me alive. Oddly enough, no one ever seemed to realize that detail, to notice that the number of blazes changed from a cursed child to another. Thus, nobody guessed that, if they all disappeared, I would have definitely died and the curse would have ended.”
That revelation left Jungkook speechless: he had always felt ashamed of his mark, barely looking at it, trying to hide it thoroughly under his clothes, with his long hair, when it could have revealed so many information, instead, if only he would have paused to reflect.
“It must have been awful, to go through that,” Jungkook observed, feeling sorry for the other.
“Not necessarily,” Taehyung answered sincerely. “Not every tribute was mean to me. Some rested for a while, kept me company. The countless objects you saw scattered all over my room are gifts I collected through the years, even though I keep the most important one always with me.”
When pronouncing those last words, the Kitsune brushed the amber pendant around his neck with his fingers and a small smile on his lips.
As a reflex, Jungkook’s hand flied to his own necklace. “I have got one almost identical.”
“That’s because you made them yourself.”
Hence, Taehyung narrated him the story behind their gemstones, the two birthday presents they had exchanged so many years before. He even showed him the pages of the diary in which he talked about that event, watching him as he read, forehead wrinkled for the concentration and lips perking up at this or that phrase.
Speaking of gifts…
“I was almost forgetting it!” The raven haired boy exclaimed out of the blue when the other stopped talking. “Just… Wait. Ok?”
Before Taehyung had even the time to reply, Jungkook had already sprinted inside the shrine, from where he returned after a couple of minutes with his backpack, rummaging through it under the other’s both curious and confused gaze.
“I swear it has to be… Oh, here it is!”
In that moment, he pulled out a long, silky robe, colorful flowers embroidered on an ebony background.
With mouth agape, the Kitsune took the precious garment Jungkook was offering him, holding it carefully between his hands while admiring it.
“My mum sewed it as a gift for you,” the other explained with a proud smile, glad to see he seemed to like it so much.
“It’s beautiful,” he commented, stunned by that thought and manufacture, gazed fixed in the decorations enlightened by the moonlight.
“I wish I had half of her talent.”
“I still remember how delicious her chestnut cake was,” Taehyung commented absent mindedly, recalling the time when they were young and Jungkook had brought him a piece of that delicious dessert.
His amber eyes were filled with a joy as he spoke and Jungkook perked up at that, deciding he liked to see happiness on the other’s features.
And, simply like that, they kept talking until dawn, with stars moving above them and watching over two lovers finding each other again.
A couple of days after that encounter, Jimin caught his cousin in the middle of the night inside the small room they used as a kitchen, covered in flour and cream.
“How did you manage to find chestnuts in June?” He commented, bursting out laughing when the other jumped in fear, startled.
“Shhh, lower your voice,” Jungkook said in panic. “I am trying to bake a cake.”
“And everyone knows cakes need silence to turn out good,” he replied sarcastically, amused by the other’s behavior.
Not sparing him a glance, Jungkook rolled his eyes and focused back on the dough, trying to remember how is mother used to do it.
“Is it for Taehyung?” Jimin couldn’t help but tease him, walking closer.
“It is for everyone,” his cousin immediately corrected him.
“As you might have noticed during the past two weeks, I can’t eat Jungkook,” Jimin replied, loving to mock him. “You are adorable.”
“Stop,” he stated as the tips of his ears reddened.
“I’m not kidding, like, you are so dense yet so whipped at the same time. I swear, sometimes I’d just want to shake both you and Taehyung because, damn, it took you fourteen years to realize and even then-”
“So you can’t eat,” Jungkook interrupted him in the attempt to change topic. “What else can’t you do?”
“Yes,” he nodded, deciding to have mercy on him for the moment and starting to list on his fingers. “Can’t eat; can’t touch; can’t hold objects, which, let me tell you, sucks; can fly, though, which is kind of cool.”
At those words, Jungkook shook his head as his lips curved in a smile: this was really his cousin.
“It is strange, you know” Jimin confessed after a while “For me, it feels like we parted just yesterday. This is why I reacted like that when you arrived here. In this place, an eternity can pass in a second and vice versa.”
As he kept mixing the ingredients, Jungkook listened carefully to his cousin, unable to imagine how he must have felt all those years and how he felt right now, trapped between life and death.
“Do you know why…?” He asked, not knowing how to properly formulate that question.
“Why I died?” Jimin completed the sentence, impassive. “I don’t think there is a specific reason. Life and death… They just happen.”
“That’s unfair” Jungkook stated, a slight anger coloring his voice while he punched the dough with a little too much strength, as if it had some kind of fault.
“You know…” He hesitated before initiating that conversation. “It’s true, I’m stuck here, not having a grip on reality, almost like an intruder, feeling like I don’t belong to this world. This changed my perspective, the way I see things around me and, while I can’t do anything about my condition, you, on the contrary, can do something for yours.”
“What do you mean?” The other furrowed his eyebrows, confused.
“I saw the way you look at Taehyung,” Jimin started but Jungkook immediately interrupted him.
“I don’t-”
“Don’t you even dare,” he pointed a threatening finger at him. “Don’t you dare to deny what I’ve been witnessing for days, if not weeks. The fact is that you don’t even realize when you do it, as if it’s not even you who decides to stare at him, to look at him that way, but you just naturally turn to him, like a sunflower to the sun.”
Jungkook would have wanted to retort but, deep down, he knew the other was right. Sometimes, he found himself watching Taehyung as he got up from the table, following him with the corner of his eye when he moved to another room.
“What you and Taehyung have it’s so special, so pure, so rare… You shouldn’t fight that bond but embrace it instead.”
And what do we have? He would have wanted to say but asked instead. “How do you know?”
“Because it’s the same feeling I share with Yoongi.”
That simple reply left Jungkook shocked, hand stopping its movement as he turned towards the other with wide eyes. For some reason, he thought that topic was somehow prohibited but Jimin’s tone turned sweet when pronouncing his lover’s name, full of love and care, of sadness and belonging.
“You think Yoongi loves me any less just because he thinks I’m dead?” He continued, tone flat, even if emotions threatened to creep out of it. “Sometimes it tears me apart, that we are so close and, yet, he doesn’t know. And if he…”
The words poured one after another, like a swollen river, so rushed and fervent that Jimin had to pause and take a breath, “-And if I lose my memories of him, if I didn’t remember our past, our relationship, how it feels to be held in his arms, to be kissed by his lips, I would want nothing more than for him to reach me and be with me. I wouldn’t care nor need anything else, as long as we were together.”
Although his eyes were red-rimmed and his voice faltered, he went ahead. “God, if I was you, if I had the person I love right here, I wouldn’t waste a minute, not a single second…”
“But I don’t-”
“Love him?” Jimin continued, merciless, his words making Jungkook’s heart tighten in his chest. “Remember him? Because that’s a lie and we both know that.”
“It’s complicated,” the other shook his head: despite having read and reread Taehyung’s journal, all he could recall were mere flashes and sensations connected to them, colorful images, unconnected words. “I can’t base a ‘bond’, as you defined it, on a blurred and distant resonance.”
Then, they remained silent, his cousin looking at him while Jungkook focused stubbornly on the cake, which was almost done at this point.
“He could have left, you know?” Jimin confessed cryptically after a while. “I mean, his curse is broken but, still, he has decided to enshrine himself, together with heart and soul, here.”
“Curse?” He repeated, taken aback by that word.
“Taehyung has basically forbidden me from telling you the whole story, but he should know me better after all these years together,” the other said, wanting nothing more than to see his cousin and his friend living the happy ending they deserved. “I won’t reveal you everything because it is not my place to do it, but I’ll just say that, in this story, you are not the only who bears the burden of a mark.”
After saying that, Jimin disappeared from under his eyes, leaving Jungkook behind with more questions and confusion than ever before.
Later that night, when he finally fell asleep, Jungkook had a weird dream: he was in the backyard of his house, where he found his grandmother seated as always on her wooden rocking chair.
“Little bun,” she greeted as soon as she heard her grandson, even though she didn’t turn to look at him. “Come seat with me.”
“Granny?” He called, nearing the old lady and sitting next to her.
“Hello Jungkook,” Jeon Sooyun smiled with her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you, so proud you have finally reached the shrine.”
As she spoke, he looked carefully at her and noticed she hadn’t changed at all: the same wrinkles were accompanying the movement on her forehead; the same hands ; the same sweet and caring voice was addressed to him.
“How are you… Now?” Jungkook tentatively asked, uncertain of what words to use.
“I’m fine and in peace,” she replied with the serenity and the calmness which had always characterized her. “But it’s you who I want to talk about.”
“You have been here too, right?” Jungkook guessed instead, not sure himself about how to describe his situation and about how he currently felt.
“You are right,” she nodded, following that change of subject without protesting. “I slept exactly in your same room and wandered around the same hallways, even though my favorite part were the gardens.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” he agreed, his lips curving in a smile, comfortable to talk that way, like they had always done.
For a while, they spoke about this and that, about the village and its changes in the last years; about his parents; about how much Jungkook had grown up but, apart from that, they didn’t broach any serious topic.
“Why haven’t you ever told me?” The raven haired boy eventually gathered the courage to formulate the words which mattered more, the both of them knowing what he was referring to.
“Ah, here it is, the question I’ve both feared and hoped to hear for years,” she sighed but didn’t look reluctant. “Before I try to explain, let me tell you I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing and the best for you, when I decided to keep my past secret. Beside your age, you were so smart and open minded but, still, I wasn’t sure you would have understood and accepted the truth behind the mysterious Fox Spirit of the forest. You hated the Mark and, at the same time, you were fascinated by my stories about the Kitsune. Thus, I promised myself I would have waited some years and, then, I would have revealed you everything. Nonetheless, surprisingly, you entered the woods of your own free will.”
“You knew I sneaked off in the forest?” Jungkook interrupted her, mouth agape in disbelief.
“Of course I did, you weren’t as silent and sly as you thought. In fact, it’s a miracle your parents never found out about your little escapes,” she stated jokingly. “Little I knew, though, that your relationship with Taehyung would have evolved so deeply.”
At that last sentence, Jungkook lowered his head to stare at his hands instead, finding suddenly very interesting the blades of grass of the yard.
“Thus, I let the events go on at their own pace, without forcing anything. I imagined that the circumstances would have followed their course; that you path was already traced; that Fate had already written your story. Moreover, at the time, I was aware that Taehyung had been killed by the tribute on duty. Hence, I guessed he would have needed a friend as much as you needed one yourself: while he was alone, you were alone too; while he was cursed, you were cursed too and, more than that, you both own the purest hearts I have ever had the luck to meet. It’s natural you fitted so well.”
“If Taehyung and I were truly made for each other, as everybody keeps saying,” Jungkook retorted hastily, red rimmed eyes and voice broken. “Why did a mere fight end our relationship? Why did we stop talking and parted ways? Why did Jimin enter the forest and die?”
It was the first time he acknowledged the bond between him and Taehyung,
“Oh Jungkookie,” the old lady sighed and watched him with apprehension. “There is so much darkness clouding both your heart and mind: you so are angry, so scared, that you don’t realize you feel this way because you are denying and fighting a part of yourself.”
At those words, a sentence his grandmother had told him when he was a child emerged from his memories:
A soulmate is the part of yourself you haven’t discovered yet
“It’s just… I don’t know what to do,” he sighed tiredly, hiding his face in his hand.
“You can’t save everybody, Jungkook,” she tried to comforting him, sensing they weren’t talking only about Taehyung anymore.
“But, maybe, if I only-”
“And you can’t go in time and rewrite the story.”
“What can I do, then?” He turned, eyes desperate for a concrete answer.
“You can focus on the present,” his grandmother simply suggested. “On the people you care about, on your dear ones, on the you love you can give and receive.”
“And what about my lost memories?”
“Are you sure you really need them?”
At that question, the young man furrowed his eyebrows, tiny wrinkles forming in the middle of them, which Sooyun poked with her finger.
“See? You think too much,” she caressed his cheek. “Do you remember once I said I wished I could have given you a lantern on the night of the solstice?”
“To find the light even in the deepest darkness,” her grandson recalled.
Jungkook had always thought that gift was a bit odd. Nonetheless, Jeon Sooyun was well known for her ambiguity.
“At the time, you were too young to understand that I didn’t really mean a physical object but, rather than that, the flame which burns inside it instead, the same which should enlighten and guide your heart now that you seem so lost. Ask your heart what you crave so much to know and let it find the answer you are so tormented to find.”
Incredibly, those words managed to reassure him and monetarily allay his turmoil, as if the missing pieces of the puzzle were finally beginning to form a coherent figure.
One, last doubt remained in his mind, which he needed to solve before losing the chance. “Granny… What if it’s not destiny between me and Taehyung? What if were are not meant to be?”
Jungkook had never voiced that uncertainty, on which he had found himself reflecting just recently.
“Sometimes we blame too many faults on Fate. Of course, Fate ties and unties the strings of our lives but the events that happen to us during that path depend only by the choices we decide to make.”
Choices…
Could he really do that? Choose freely? Change direction? Control the events?
Until that moment, the young man had felt like his journey had somehow come to an end: he had faced the Mark; the curse; the forest; everything that seemed to define him.
Now he could restart.
“Will I see you again... Like this?” He asked, uncertain, looking both attentively and affectionately at the old lady, trying to fix every detail of her.
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid not,” Sooyun revealed, placing a hand on his chest, above his heart. “But you can always find me, here.”
At that touch, Jungkook smiled, tension finally leaving his features, which were now relaxed, serene, as if a weight had been taken off his shoulders.
As always, his grandmother was right: he couldn’t save everybody and change the past but he could act and do something for the present and, maybe, even for the future.
As he woke up that morning, a new determination was burning in his eyes.
Now he knew exactly what he should have done.
“If I returned to the village would my memories fade again?” Jungkook asked one day out of the blue during a breakfast.
At that question, Taehyung almost dropped the plate he was holding while Jimin turned his head so fast Jungkook almost heard his neck breaking, mouth agape in disbelief.
“Hypothetically?” The Kitsune asked imperturbably, an unreadable expression on his face as he locked his eyes with the other.
“Hypothetically,” Jungkook nodded, holding his gaze.
“I don’t think you would forget,” he replied carefully. “But it’s only a guess.”
The raven haired boy just nodded in response, as if he had expected that answer, while Jimin stared at the two of them with furrowed eyebrows and a confused expression, as if he was missing something.
Nonetheless, apart from that weird moment, the rest of the day went on normally, under a veil of grey, maybe for the clouds covering the sun, maybe for the general mood in the house, fact was that question was soon forgotten.
After that, afternoon and dinner passed silently, so quietly that Jungkook even began to suspect that something was up, especially with Taehyung. In fact, during the time he had spent there, the raven haired boy had noticed how much the other was talkative, always trying to include him in the conversations, always ready to listen to him, even when he himself couldn’t find the words.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least until that evening, when a light knock echoed in Jungkook’s room.
“Yes?”
“Jungkook?” Taehyung’ peeked out from the door. “May I?”
The Kitsune wearing the black robe Jungkook’s mother had sewed for him, which fitted him perfectly: the garment barely brushed the ground as he walked inside the room, tightening around his shoulder and waist while loosening in the arms and legs.
“You look good,” the boy commented honestly, seeing the other in that outfit for the first time. When he noticed the other was hesitating, just standing in front of him, Jungkook patted the space next to him on the bed.
“Thank you,” he gladly accepted both the compliment and the seat.
Nonetheless, after those two words, the Kitsune kept silent for so much time that the other started to wonder if he should have stared the conversation himself.
“Is everything fine? Did I do something wrong?” Taehyung finally blurted out, eyes fixed on his knees, avoiding the other’s inquisitive gaze.
“What? No!” He rushed to say, not having expected such statement.
“Then what’s wrong with you today?” The tone wasn’t accusing but just filled with worry. “Don’t deny it, I can sense it.”
“No, no” Jungkook shook his head “It’s only a dream I had.”
“A nightmare?”
“No, not at all. Actually, it was a nice dream, it just made me think a lot.”
Taehyung nodded, as if he understood.
“I mean it, though,” Jungkook insisted, wanting to avoid any misunderstanding. “You aren’t doing anything wrong Tae. If anything, the contrary: you are fine, more than fine.”
“I like it, when you call me Tae,” the other confessed, his lips curving in a thin and sweet smile as he noticed Jungkook’s sudden embarrassment. “You didn’t even realize when you started to use this nickname but, for me, it was truly a surprise, as much unexpected as pleasant. I really missed hearing you calling me like that.”
The Kitsune spoke sincerely, no shyness nor hesitation in his voice, just pure and simple affection. Moreover, Jungkook had to admit he was right: he hadn’t perceived all those little changes, the way he had unconsciously started to feel and act more and more at ease.
And how couldn’t he, when Taehyung was so kind, so understanding, so patent with him?
“Do you like it here?” He wondered then, legs swinging a few centimeters from the ground.
“I do,” the raven haired boy said honestly. “This place it’s so beautiful that sometimes it seems almost unreal. Nonetheless, I still have to get used to see Jimin passing through the walls so casually.”
They both chuckled at the image.
“You two seem really close,” Jungkook observed while he distractedly traced doodles on the blanket with his finger: he couldn’t help but noticing how his cousin almost gravitated around Taehyung, seemingly with the intention of protecting him.
“We are," the Kitsune confirmed. “After all, we found each other in the worst periods of our lives. Sometimes I think he would have been my soulmate if only…”
While he talked, Taehyung noticed the other’s fingers stilled on the cover, frozen like the rest of his body, waiting for him to end that sentence.
“If only?” He repeated, heart skipping a beat in his chest.
“If only he hadn’t Yoongi already, of course,” the red haired boy was watching him again with that strange look from before, a look which was both focused and intense, as if he was trying to figure something out, to read it out of him.
“Right,” he nodded, resuming the movement of his fingers, which briefly grazed the other’s hand, yet not detaching his gaze from him.
Was Taehyung on the verge of saying something else? Something about soulmates? For a moment, Jungkook had seriously believed so.
“How are you doing with the memories?” The Kitsune decided to chance topic once again, afraid he might have upset or, worse, scared him.
“It’s going better,” he admitted, not knowing whether to feel more relieved or disappointed by that sudden shift in the conversation. “Although it’s not easy: sometimes, they appear while I read your diary, for a specific phrase or word; some others, they just casually pop into my mind. In any case, I can recall a lot of past episodes now but… It’s like the memories keep coming but, at the same time, they are somehow empty, faded, dull, like they are still missing something, like I shouldn’t just remember but also feel-”
Jungkook was struggling to describe that sensation, his finger meeting Taehyung’s hand during their path and brushing it lightly, this time lingering there.
“I wish I could feel-”
Feel the same I felt once.
Feel something.
Feel anything.
Feel everything.
“Feel me, then.”
Jungkook’s heart stilled in his chest, motionless yet more alive than ever before, as if he had just received an electric shock.
The words were floating in the air between them, leaving no space to confusion or misinterpretation.
And Taehyung was there, baring himself, his body, his heart, all of him; looking at Jungkook, with those breathtaking amber eyes full of so much tenderness, so much vulnerability, so much soul, so much… Love.
Nonetheless, the red haired boy stood still, waiting for him to make the first move, leaving him space to decide, to make his choice.
However, Jungkook didn’t hesitate, didn’t even have to think about it because he simply couldn’t resist that energy, that unknown yet beautiful force which was attracting him to the other, like a star to a planet.
Hence, there was no indecision when he shifted closer to him; no nervousness when he cupped his jaw with his hand; no doubt when he leaned closer; no uncertainty when he pressed his lips against Taehyung’s.
His mouth was soft like a petal, warm like a sunny day, flavored like a bouquet of magnolias and freesias, refreshing and sweet, intense, like their kiss.
The two lovers were breathing each other’s enticing scent, one moment delicately, one moment greedily, as if they couldn’t have enough, bodies longing as they slowly shifted closer and closer, enveloped in a hug, melting together.
For Jungkook, that felt like a first kiss but, someway, it was a new experience for Taehyung too, so similar to the other they had shared five years before yet so different, more desperate, more stirring.
“Your heart is beating like crazy,” the Kitsune observed as they detached just in order to catch their breaths, lips brushing and forehead pressed together.
“How do you know?”
Instead of answering with words, Taehyung took the boy’s hand and placed it above his own chest, where his heart was pounding as fast as the other’s.
They shared the same heartbeat.
Jungkook smiled in wonder, both enlivened and enthralled by the sensation of that pulse underneath his fingers.
In the meanwhile, Taehyung was stroking his arms, nails grazing the skin and leaving a trail of goosebumps behind them, even if that leisure movement stopped when the other’s hand traveled up to his neck, to his shoulders, fingers following the profile of the black robe and lingering there, eyes asking a silent question.
In response, the red haired boy just stared back at him, his head making an imperceptible nod as the silky material slid off his shoulders, leaving his chest partially naked.
In turn, Taehyung placed his hands around the other’s waist but didn’t make any movement, deciding to speak instead, wanting to make sure they were on the same page:
“Are you certain you want to do this?”
You want to do this with me.
“I am,” he stated firmly, eyes bright and bare for him to read.
I want to do this only with you.
Afterwards, Jungkook proceeded to reassure the both of them with a sweet and short peck. When he was about to detach, though, Taehyung pulled him closer, not allowing him to end the kiss but continuing it instead.
Hence, as his left hand undid the other’s belt, the right one cupped his jaw, caressing the locks on his nape, the touch of his fingers light while the press of his lips passionate, ardent, burning.
“Tae” The young man murmured with a honeyed yet husky voice, eliciting a shiver on the other, who lied on his back and pulled Jungkook down with him on the bed, the boy gently hovering over him, their bodies adhering completely.
Head against the velvety cushion, Taehyung watched him with a stunned smile, like he couldn’t believe he was truly there, and Jungkook thought he could have just stayed like that for the whole night, maybe for entire days, looking at the other; at his body, kissed by the moon rays; at his golden eyes, shining even in the darkest shadow.
Slowly, taking his time, the raven haired boy proceeded to undress the other, stroking each portion of skin which his clothes unveiled: his tanned thighs, his curves, his waist, everywhere. On the other side, Taehyung did the same, his touch feather-like yet firm, hands roaming from Jungkook’s chest to his back, travelling up until he grazed the mark on his neck.
Oddly, the stigma didn’t itch but, then again, his entire body was on fire, especially since the Kitsune was leaving a burning trail of flames behind each touch.
In the meantime, the raven haired boy kept whispering his name like a mantra, ‘Tae, Tae, Tae’, murmuring that word on the boy’s ear, whispering those three letters against his mouth, caressing the crook of Taehyung’s neck with his lips.
It was like Jungkook couldn’t help but worshipping him, couldn’t help but loving him.
“Jungkook, I-”
The boy started to speak but he himself didn’t know what he was about to say, what he was asking, what he was confessing, what he was pleading.
“I know,” the young man reassured him, somehow anticipating and understanding what he was trying to elaborate. “What you feel about me, the same I feel about you.”
Taehyung’s breath hitched at those words, wondering for a brief moment if the other was aware of the weight of that sentence, if he had said those exact words on purpose, if Jungkook remembered the occasion he himself had told him that.
“Make me feel alive,” the Kitsune placed a hand above his chest, which soon began to slide down, across his abdomen, near his hips, and down again, even though their gazes remained locked. “Make love to me.”
Desiring nothing more than to satisfy that wish, Jungkook parted the other’s bare and slim thighs, which shivered slightly at that delicate touch, and worked him opened with his fingers, leisurely, taking time, taking care of him, until the little hisses leaving his mouth turned into smothered yet delighted gasps.
Afterwards, Jungkook pushed himself inside Taehyung, inch by inch, slowly, stopping at each hiss, swallowing every sound escaping those beautiful, alluring lips, every hiss, every pant, every whimper every moan.
Beneath him, Taehyung felt dizzy, mind clouded by too many sensations at once, body basking in that afterglow, lost in Jungkook, who he was breathing like oxygen, who was everywhere around him, inside him, wheezing, panting, thrusting, taking, giving.
Arms wrapped around him, the Kitsune pulled the boy closer and closer, as if he couldn’t get enough of him, as if he wanted more of him, more of everything, as if he craved for their two bodies to be one, so they wouldn’t have known where one ended and the other started.
Mouths modelling one another, tongues intertwined as tight as their fingers, skin to skin, heart to heart, the two boys spent the night loving each other, bodies tangled, breaths mingled, so deeply connected that they didn’t even need words anymore to communicate, sharing a moment of perfection in that place away from time and space.
When the pale rays of the moon, silent witnesses of the events of that night, gave way to the first sunray of the day, the two lovers found themselves lying comfortably one next to the other on the sheets.
Nonetheless, while Jungkook had easily fallen asleep almost an hour before, on the other hand Taehyung was awake, unable to rest, unable to think, to do anything but looking at the boy in front of him, eyes travelling intensely and thoroughly along his features, as if he was trying to burn in his memory every detail: his tiny moles; his long eyelashes; his cupid bow.
Then, he placed a hand on his cheek, caressing him tenderly.
“You are both the most beautiful and the most frightening thing that has ever happened to me,” Taehyung whispered and, after that, he finally let his eyelids flutter close, in the exact moment Jungkook opened his eyes.
It was barely the next morning, when the Kitsune blinked his eyes open, that the question from the day before came back with its weight and implications.
Despite his certainty to have fallen asleep in Jungkook’s arms, as Taehyung turned his head left and right, he saw nothing but an empty and cold space next to him on the bed, the rest of the room intact and deserted, as if no one had ever been there in the first place.
All of Jungkook’s belongings were nowhere to be found, together with him.
Barely conscious, Taehyung slid off the bed and put the black robe on, trying not to linger on the fact it smelled unbearably like Jungkook.
Then, letting his body guide him, he reached his room and locked himself inside it.
As he curled on the bed, his body ached, sore, but it was nothing if compared to the waves of pain which were crashing over him.
Nonetheless, his face didn’t display any emotion, eyes unable to shed a single tear, the only sign of his inner agony was the shiver of his hands and lips.
He knew it would have happened.
He understood.
But, still, it hurt.
Jimin must have noticed something was wrong, since he could hear him calling his and Jungkook’s names, probably because they were late for breakfast. In the back of his mind, Taehyung wondered what time it was.
The Kitsune hid his head under a pillow, not having the strength to face his friend, who was now running from a room to another, his voice more and more worried since no one answered him. Nevertheless, when Jimin arrived in front of Taehyung’s bedroom and noticed it was locked, he stopped his stroll and shut his mouth.
Through the years, he had learnt that, when his friend needed to reflect, he went to the gardens; when he wanted to feel free, he shifted into a fox and ran into the woods; when he was suffering, though, he withdrew into himself, tails covering and protecting him like a soft blanket.
Thus, although he could have easily crossed the wall, Jimin decided to respect his privacy and just sat in the hallway, waiting.
On the other side of the door, Taehyung remained silent, even though he found solace only in his friend’s presence.
Three days and nights had to pass before Jimin could finally hear the sound of footsteps coming from inside the room and approaching the door.
As he stood there, motionless, Taehyung didn’t show any emotion, hands not trembling anymore even though his eyes were void.
“Oh, Tae,” he sighed, momentarily ignoring what had happened in order to comfort his friend.
In that moment, Jimin couldn’t care less about his immaterial body: without hesitating, he wrapped his arms around his friend, merely brushing him, unable to touch him, of course, but sure Taehyung could have somehow felt his hug.
“Why don’t you take a warm bath, mmh?” Jimin suggested once he detached, hoping that would have relaxed and partially soothed if not his soul at least his body, which was seemingly and unusually tensed and pale “With those petals you like so much… The petals of…”
“Jasmine,” the Kitsune completed in a flat tone, truly appreciating what the other was doing for him, even if he couldn’t react at the moment.
“Jasmine, right,” he repeated, relived the other was somehow responsive.
At that suggestion, the Kitsune nodded and followed him to the thermal baths which were behind the shrine, where the river rose.
As promised, the hot water had a pleasing and relaxing effect on his cold skin, melting the tensed muscles and nerves caused by his huddled position prolonged for days.
For the whole time, Jimin stayed next to him and, if he noticed signs on his skin, memories of the night he had spent with Jungkook, he didn’t comment, talking about the weather, about the nature around them, about everything and nothing, instead.
At a certain point, in the middle of the bath, Taehyung finally spoke, blurting out two simple yet heavy words:
“He left.”
He needed to say it out loud.
“I know,” Jimin sighed, feeling impossibly sorry for the other.
Afterwards, though, a pang of anger invaded him.
Why had his cousin done that?
He seemed happy there, with them - No, he was happy - Jimin was certain of that: Jungkook hadn’t given any sign of discomfort nor misery. On the contrary, aside from an initial reluctance, he had joined them, talked with them, joked, laughed with such spontaneity Jimin could barely recognize the boy in front of him, so different from the usual shy and introverted cousin he was used to. Hell, he had even baked that damn chestnut cake only for Taehyung.
He truly didn’t get it.
What was the point in that senseless escape?
Had Jimin done something good when he had reassured Taehyung, when he had encouraged him to give Jungkook a chance when, instead, the other had just wanted to chase Jungkook away the moment he had stepped inside the shrine in that night of June?
“I swear I will kill him.”
“Jimin,” the Kitsune called him, tone not scolding but warning. “It’s fine, I promise.”
That was what broke Jimin’s heart more: that lack of reaction, that sense of defeat in his friends’ features.
Then, they remained in silence and, after a while, Taehyung decided to exit the large bathtub and return to his room, where he dried himself off and got changed. Only in that moment, a detail caught his eye, a particular which had passed unnoticed since he hadn’t spared a glance at the ambience around him when he had locked himself there three days before.
A white envelope was standing out in the center of his desk, an envelope he had never seen before and which he was sure didn’t belong to him.
Hence, he walked close to the wooden table and stared at the white piece of paper, hand hesitating before taking it: since nothing was written on the outside, he proceeded to open the envelope with trembling fingers.
Six words were written in a neat calligraphy:
I promise I will come back.
Underneath that phrase, a sketch of two hands holding their pinkies.
Next to the letter, on the desk, there was Taehyung’s diary.
Thirty interminable days and nights had to pass before Jungkook kept his promise, on a warm evening of August.
As soon as the raven haired boy stepped in the territory of the shrine, a figure appeared at its entrance, running towards him and giving him a slap which only passed through him, bitter cold and chills pervading his body, as if he had just been immersed in iced water.
“You!”
“Hey!” He exclaimed, taken aback.
“This is because you are dumb,” Jimin yelled at him, fuming, furious like he had never seen him before.
Then, he hit him again.
“Hey! Stop it!” Jungkook tried to shield himself with his arms, in vain.
“And this is because you are even dumber,” he continued, eyes sending daggers to his cousin. “I can’t believe you actually left. Have you a vague idea of how it was for Taehyung? For the two of us? And now you dare to come here like nothing happened? I swear, Jeon Jungkook, even though I can’t hold nor touch things, I swear I will actually kick that damn ass of yours with these damn-.”
Although Jimin had just begun to insult his cousin, he suddenly stopped talking, eyes widening and breath stuck in his throat, only a small gasp leaving his mouth when he caught the glimpse of a figure appearing out of the forest.
“I swear, Jeon Jungkook, I will never, in my whole life, listen to you again-” A very tired Yoongi panted from a few steps back, reaching the younger and raising his head just to be met with a person he thought was dead and who, instead, was standing right in front of him, shocked as if he was the one who had just seen a ghost.
Too bad it wasn’t just a person like any other.
He was like no one else.
His lover.
His soulmate.
Jimin.
Jimin, who was standing there, completely frozen in his spot, unable to formulate a coherent sentence, unable to react.
Time stilled as their gazes locked, Yoongi’s sharp and dark eyes fixed into Jimin’s unfathomable ones.
In the meanwhile, drawn by those noises from the outside, Taehyung had exited the shrine as well and was now watching in disbelief the scene which was presented in front of him, his expression shifting from surprised to concerned to finally glazed and inexpressive when he saw first Yoongi and then Jungkook.
What is a soulmate?
Although rationality, common sense, logic, everything told him what he was witnessing, who he was seeing, couldn’t be possible, still, not for a moment Yoongi thought that wasn’t Jimin, his Jimin, standing in front of him, real. No doubt crossed his mind, no shadow darkened his heart, full only of pure and unconditioned love.
If you are lucky enough to find that person
“Jimin-”
“Yoongi-”
They whispered at the same time, with a single voice, tone broken, shattered, heartfelt, awestruck, empathetic. Incredible how one word, one name, could contain and convey so many shades of emotions.
If, somehow, Fate decides to bend time and space to ensure that you two meet in this chaotic world, then it means that particular someone is destined to you.
Then, like a string suddenly snapping, something deep inside his soul tugged Jimin, pulling him towards the other, a rush of an unknown force which shook his entire being and made him move, walk, then run, run fast and faster, as if afraid he could have never reached his lover.
Someone who will complete you, who, even if you are strangers, even if you are enemies, maybe even if you are dead, will love you, will be by your side.
And, somehow, Yoongi caught him, held him in his arms, touched him like he had regained physicality. As Jimin cried into his shoulder, his lover gave him reality, gave him life.
The scene was so intimate that Taehyung felt the need to avert his gaze, just to be met with Jungkook, who had apparently walked closer to him and was now stretching and his hand towards him, an offer.
“Why don’t we leave them alone?” The boy suggested, noticing the red rimmed eyes of the other, who nodded apathetically, features blank, devoid of any emotion, even though he couldn’t really prevent his heart from shuddering once their hands intertwined.
The Kitsune was so focused on the boy who was walking ahead of him, that he didn’t even paid attention to where he was taking him until he caught the glimpse of a familiar clearing, which glistened under the moonlight, covered by a veil of ethereal magic.
Once in the center of the glade, the young man turned and let go of the hand of the other, who was watching him impassively yet attentively, awaiting in silence.
A thousand words were stuck on his tongue, about to come out of his mouth, threatening to escape, yet none of them seemed the right one to start that speech.
Why was he so nervous?
It was just Taehyung.
Taehyung, who he had been knowing for the past fourteen years; who had accepted him even when Jungkook couldn’t recognize him; who had opened his heart at him not once but twice; who he had been falling in love with day by day, not only in the past but also in the present.
It was just Taehyung.
And, maybe, that was the whole point.
Hence, Jungkook walked past him, headed to a specific area of the clearing under the other’s perplexed gaze.
“The first time I entered this forest, through my aimless wandering, somehow, I found myself in this glaze, where a little boy was sitting all focused intertwining scarlet gladiolus for a crown,” the boy started to tell as he looked at the flowered carpet on the ground. “When I approached the child, wondering how in the world someone could have such bright and bizarre color of hair, little I knew we shared so much: loneliness, resentment, even a curse.”
As he talked, Jungkook didn’t turn, so he couldn’t notice Taehyung’s shocked expression, a hand covering his mouth in disbelief.
“The boy greeted me with an odd sentence, he said: ‘I’m waiting’. Waiting for what? I wondered at the time. Maybe, instead, I should have asked myself ‘waiting for who’.”
“You remember.”
Although Taehyung’s voice was just a mere whisper, that wasn’t a question.
Thus, Jungkook walked to the Kitsune and, careful and gentle as if he was collecting the most delicate of flowers, he took the other’s hand once again, moving it towards his own chest, above his heart.
“I think I’m not out of tune anymore,” as he confessed that truth, his finger slid on the other’s wrist, where he could clearly feel the thump of his pulse, beating at the same rhythm of his heart.
In response, Taehyung just stared at him, scrutinizing their entwined fingers, Jungkook’s doe and soulful eyes, iris colored of lustrous hazel, which reflected his immensely pure and innocent soul. Then, without saying a word, he wrapped his arms around the other’s waist and clutched into him.
“I’m sorry I keep hurting you,” Jungkook whispered against his hair.
“It seems like life can’t help but hurt us both,” the Kitsune sighed, hiding his face in the other’s neck.
The two lovers stayed like that for a while, enjoying each other’s presence and proximity, a sensation they had both missed.
After they detached, still holding hands, they sat on the ground, like they had used to do so many times in that same place.
“For a moment, before, I feared you would have rejected and attacked me like Jimin,” Jungkook confessed, scratching the back of his head in the attempt to ease the tension.
“Of course I wouldn’t have done that,” Taehyung smiled faintly, but added soon. “If I wanted to attack you, I would have used my spheres of fire and, believe me, there is no way you would have survived them.”
“For real?” The boy explained, turning to him in shock.
“You will never know,” the Kitsune spoke mysteriously, snickering despite that situation.
“So... You are not angry?” Jungkook’s tone shifted to a more serious one: although the boy wanted nothing more than to get back to normal with Taehyung, to joke and speak with him for hours, he knew that, before, they had to come clean with the events of those weeks.
“I am not.”
“Why, though?” Jungkook wondered, rushing to add. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m both happy and relieved to hear that it’s just… You’d have all the rights to be mad at me.”
“Because I knew” Taehyung simply stated.
“What do you mean?” The boy asked, confused, turning to watch him closer.
“I knew you were planning to leave,” he admitted, not meeting the other’s gaze but looking at the night sky above them instead. “I could read it in your eyes. That night, when I entered your room, I did it at my own risk, not even knowing what was the purpose in coming to you and ask you what? To stay? To leave me not? To-”
“I would have stayed,” Jungkook interrupted him, tone solemn which didn’t leave any space to misinterpretation. “If you had asked, I wouldn’t even have to think about it. Still, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
“I was already conflicted about the decision of going back to Erania: on one hand, I felt the need to reflect far from the influence of the woods; to clarify my mind; to see my parents; to sort things out. On the other, I didn’t want to leave you, not again, not when I knew how much it would have hurt the both of us. Believe me when I say it wasn’t easy. On the contrary, it was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever taken: to exit the window at dawn and turn my back to the shrine, to Jimin, to you.”
The passion and the pain conveyed in each of those words left Taehyung breathless, not a doubt crossing his mind about their truth.
“On one hand, I just wished to move on and leave the past behind forever while, on the other, I knew I couldn’t leave so many unresolved situations for example-”
“Yoongi,” Taehyung completed, beginning to understand.
“Yoongi,” the boy confirmed with a small smile. “The idea of bringing him here had been stuck in my mind probably since the moment I realized Jimin was somehow still alive. Nevertheless, it took me a lifetime to convince him to come inside the woods, almost as much as writing down fourteen years of my life.”
At that last sentence, Taehyung gaped, turning just to find Jungkook rummaging through his backpack, from which he soon pulled out a diary.
“At the end, I listened to your suggestion,” he explained as the Kitsune peeked from his shoulder. “It helped me a lot with my missing memories. And, for this reason, I want you to have it.”
While he spoke, Jungkook handed him the diary, which Taehyung immediately started to leaf through in awe: in front of his eyes, there were pages and pages of cramped calligraphy, neat words following one after another so emphatically that he could almost picture in his mind Jungkook writing them down, hurriedly yet thoroughly.
“As odd as it might seem, the night we spent together was what really made me realize I had to leave,” Jungkook admitted while the Kitsune caressed the pages with his fingers, brushing the words he had struggled so much to find.
At that statement, Taehyung stopped his reading and furrowed his brows, giving a puzzled look to the other.
“Don’t you understand? I went away not only for my sake but for yours too: I was living halfway, missing pieces, lacking of something I couldn’t even define. It wasn’t fair to you. If I wanted to love you, if I wanted to love you like you deserve to be loved, then I had to come clean with myself first.”
“And did you?” The Kitsune murmured, almost afraid to ask, almost afraid to hear the response.
Instead of answering, Jungkook gifted him with the most wide and breathtaking of the smiles, eyes glistening in excitement and anticipation as he shifted closer to the other and placed his hand above the Taehyung’s one, which was holding the journal.
Then, the boy made him turn the pages, Taehyung not even watching what he was doing, lost in those hazel irises instead. Although their gazes were locked and their lips were only a breath away, Jungkook broke that intense eye contact and averted his attention back to the diary, inviting the other to do the same.
This time, there was no word filling the paper, no thought nor sentence.
Instead, in the middle of the page, was lying a mesmerizing ambrosia abloom, its ruffled petals blending from red to pink hues, which glistened of an iridescent amber under the light of the moon.
When Taehyung recognized the flower, he widened his eyes, heart beating crazily against his ribcage as he turned to Jungkook, but, before he could open his mouth and speak, Jungkook anticipate him.
“Mutual and unconditional love,” he guessed, recalling the symbolism of that peculiar flower. “That’s its meaning, right?”
Then, taking the Kitsune by surprise, he picked up the ambrosia and put it behind his ear, shivers travelling all over Taehyung’s body at that delicate brush, like it had happened when they were children.
“Once you told me this forest can’t have two princes,” Jungkook alluded to a conversation they had almost a life before. “But maybe, in this crazy world, there will be some other place which could.”
Tears of joy pricked the corner of his eyes for the sudden, unexpected, wonderful, deep emotion Taehyung was feeling.
Jungkook, his friend, his lover, his soulmate, loved him.
He remembered him.
He wanted to share and live his future with him.
“You still have constellations in your eyes,” the Kitsune murmured, caressing tenderly the other’s cheek.
“And you carry the sun in yours.”
As their lips met, a falling star traversed the sky above them, close to the fox constellation, which shone brighter than the others during that night of August, its configuration vaguely and oddly reminding the shape of their names.
Yet, the two lovers remained unaware of that phenomenon.
Maybe Fate had written everything in the stars since the beginning, after all.
* Wakizashi: a traditional Japanese sword, shorter than a katana.
* Omikuji: Japanese fortune-telling paper strips which can be found in shrines and temples.
* Temizuya: a place of purification at the entrance of the shrine, where clear water fills various stone basins.
* Yōkai: a class of supernatural monsters, spirits and demons in Japanese folklore.
