Work Text:
“So, Yeosang, welcome to Holla Holla!: Sports Edition!”
Yeosang glances nervously over at his manager, Eden, who’s standing behind the camera, giving Yeosang an encouraging thumbs up. The lights are bright in the studio, meant to make his skin look poreless and not like the greasy, BB-creamed-into-oblivion mess that it currently is. Yeosang is sweating everywhere, most noticeably at the small of his back and at the bends of his knees.
And he can’t bring himself to do anything but choke out a laugh at first. Eden’s thumb drops to the side, his expression pinched. Yeosang warned him that interviews have never been his strong suit, and he’s much better at standing still and looking pretty when asked. He tends to need a lot of time to think things through, unless he’s being asked to read someone to filth, obviously.
“Glad to be here, Minhyuk,” Yeosang manages. “Can’t say I ever pictured myself here, but I’m...here all right.”
Eden rolls his eyes behind the camera and drops his thumb back to his side. “Hopeless,” he mutters, and Yeosang can’t hear him but can read the word on his lips loud and clear.
Yeosang reiterates, mentally, that he isn’t a television personality. He’s a pro skater. The most talking he does in public is when he’s holding a trophy in front of a camera and saying “Thanks to my mom for buying me my first board, and thanks to my boyfriend for--”
Fuck.
Yeosang pushes the thought away.
“So what’s the tea, babe?” Minhyuk presses, trying to ease the tension in the way someone with nearly a decade of gossip-show experience can. Even he seems out of his element, trying to get Yeosang--possibly the shiest interviewee to ever grace his show--to say anything charming whatsoever.
“Oh, I--I’m not sure how to say this.”
Eden throws the script he painstakingly wrote up for Yeosang (that Yeosang had nervously spilled coffee on immediately after reading the words ‘after careful consideration…’).
“After careful consideration, um, and recent events, uhhhh, my team and I have decided that it’s best if I, um, well. Retire.”
There’s a tense moment where Yeosang waits for the studio to crash in around them. For some booby trap to be triggered. And for it to be televised. Like his other most recent trauma. It’ll be shown to his family, where they’ll watch a chunk of sound equipment collapse right through his guts.
“Oh!” Minhyuk cries, and Yeosang is now realizing that of course Minhyuk already knows the so-called ‘tea’ and has been briefed. It is his job to manufacture drama, to pull the threads of every little emotion out until the viewers have a thick sweater of delicious chaos. “I do hope you’re taking care of yourself, hon. That accident looked brutal. And we were all so sorry to hear about your very public, very tragic breakup.”
Yeosang looks at Eden, his hands shaking where they rest over his knees. He wishes he weren’t forced into this stupid suit. He wishes he could play with the shredded threads of his torn jeans, the ones with the holes over the knees, where Yeonjun would--
Yeosang’s body aches. Everything aches.
It’s been nearly eight months, and everything still aches.
Eight months ago, the nation watched him discover Yeonjun’s infidelity in real time. They watched him, at the peak of a 6.7 meter half-pipe, finally reconcile the visual of his long-term boyfriend with his hands fisted into blond hair and lips--and his lips they were--
The nation watched as Yeosang lost his balance at the peak of a 6.7 meter half-pipe, crashing to the vert and sliding gracelessly on his back to the flat of the pipe. There was an audible gasp from the collective crowd around him. Something cartoonish, drawn out and exaggerated for maximum impact.
Not only was Yeosang expected to win the event, he was expected to win by a large margin.
Yeosang remembers the way his body felt almost numb. The way everything burned so hollowly that Yeosang thought maybe he was bleeding out. Maybe he’d already bled out and was just a sack of skin.
His board had split in half. Splintered, really.
It felt all too metaphorical. How Yeosang crashed emotionally and physically at the same time. How he lost everything at once.
Which brings him to the blue velvet seat across from Minhyuk in the Holla, Holla! studio.
“It’s for my health,” Yeosang says, quiet and pained.
Minhyuk reads the dark aura building around Yeosang’s body and reaches across the little marble side table between them to take Yeosang by the hand. “We’ll miss seeing you out there with your pretty little face. Please be well. Men are shit, and you’ll meet a good one, I promise.” He gives a sweet goofy smile, and Yeosang understands why he’s praised for his hosting. He can push, be harsh if need be, but he knows when to soothe, too.
And, with that, Yeosang’s 10-year pro-skating career is over.
Hongjoong slams the trunk of Yeosang’s Subaru shut, the last of his moving boxes sitting in the gravel driveway.
“Listen, I know we said we would support you any way we could, but don’t you think abandoning city life for the straight-up boonies is a little extreme?” Seonghwa asks, sniffing the air suspiciously. “Everything smells like cows.”
“My therapist said getting out of the city might help me clear my head,” Yeosang replies, fishing his new house keys out of his pocket. “Are you going to help me unpack or are you just here to neg me?”
Hongjoong and Seonghwa share a wary look but eventually give in, grabbing dusty, shoddily-taped boxes from the ground and hauling them to the porch.
“What are you planning on doing, Yeo? You’re not skating anymore, and you never finished college,” Hongjoong says, swiping some bird poop off Yeosang’s porch steps with the toe of his chelsea boot.
“I’m gonna fix this house up,” Yeosang declares, gesturing to the paint chipping off the porch beams and the poorly patched roof. “I need a project.”
“If you just wanted a project, you could’ve just asked Yunho to lend you his fancy grown-up LEGO kits,” Seonghwa insists, while Yeosang fiddles with the jammed door knob, eventually kicking the base of the door until it creaks open.
“I know you’re both going to miss me terribly,” Yeosang replies, “but I think this is really going to be good for me. I haven’t been able to focus on anything at home. My old home, that is. The apartment, you know. Everything reminds me of Yeonjun or skating. I just want some peace.”
Hongjoong drops his first cardboard box to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust in the entryway. He wraps Yeosang up in his arms, his head tucked into the crook of Yeosang’s neck. “We just want you to be happy, Yeo. You know we just worry.”
“If worrying were an Olympic sport–”
“You’d run out of wall space for your Gold medals, yeah,” Yeosang finishes, huffing. “Everything just feels off right now.”
Off is one way to put it. Yeosang feels like one of the old women down at the Chinatown fish market has scraped him raw with a fish scaler. He feels so exposed. The articles that came out after his Earth-shattering run at the last tournament called it all a tragedy . Just like Minhyuk had. And they meant it nicely. He’s sure they did.
Tragedies, after all, are all about missed opportunities. Potential that’s lost horrifically. The “ship of dreams” that delivered thousands to their deaths. Hamlet trying to get revenge for his murdered father ends up… you know…being Hamlet.
And Yeosang, the great athlete who started skating professionally at 16, was brought down by a skincare model with a penchant for exhibitionism. A true Samson indeed.
“You’re gonna be okay, Yeo,” Seonhwa says, brushing Yeosang’s long hair behind his ear. “You are.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m a Gemini,” Yeosang responds, letting Hongjoong nuzzle into his neck.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Seonghwa murmurs, petting Yeosang’s cheek gently.
“I tried.”
Hongjoong and Seonghwa hum soothingly.
They spend the next couple hours helping Yeosang vacuum and scrub down the floors, walls, cabinets, and bathroom with Swiffers. Once half of his boxes are unpacked, they lay out a blanket on the floor in the living room and watch Youtube videos on Yeosang’s laptop. Luckily the previous tenant had a WiFi setup that she’d left behind, so Yeosang had just needed to call up the number on the back to set up payments.
Yeosang falls asleep between his two best friends and wakes up with a crick in his neck to the sound of birds.
“Is that…birds?” Hongjoong rolls over, squinting through the sunlight streaming into the living room from the open windows. And, sure enough, there are two finches perched on the windowsill, staring at them. Hongjoong shakes Seonghwa awake. “Baby, help. Birds.”
Seonghwa blinks slowly, voice rough from sleep. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know! Sing at them! Make them go somewhere else! What if they come in the house?!”
Yeosang sighs, stretching his arms overhead, cracking the knots in his spine from sleeping on the floor. The birds don’t react as he moves to the window.
“Hey, guys, nice to meet you. I’m your new neighbor. Unfortunately, I’m not accepting house guests just yet.”
The birds turn their heads in unison to face Hongjoong and Seonghwa.
Yeosang pauses, brow furrowing. “Okay, fair. I’m not accepting visitors I don’t know into my house yet.”
Behind him, Yeosang hears, “He’s already talking to birds, Baby. What if he becomes Bear Grylls out here and starts drinking his own piss?”
“Bear Grylls doesn’t just drink piss all the time, Joong,” Seonghwa mutters. “It’s a survivalist thing.”
The birds return to staring at Yeosang. Yeosang huffs and flaps his hands, shooing them away before slamming the window closed.
“Country birds are weird,” Yeosang observes, watching as one of the birds seems to hover in front of the window with one of its talons flipped up. “Is that bird giving me the bird? How strange.”
“That would definitely be strange,” Seonghwa says, nervously glancing at Hongjoong. “Uh, baby, why don’t we leave Yeosangie to get settled now? We should hit the road before rush hour.”
“Riiiiiight,” Hongjoong replies, carefully reaching for his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
They stand with Yeosang on his creaky front porch. “Please call us if you need anything,” Seonghwa says, patting Yeosang’s left cheek, while Hongjoong cups his right cheek.
“Have you thought about getting a gun?” Hongjoong interrupts.
“I’m not getting a gu–”
“He’s not getting a gun, Joong. You’re not, right?”
Yeosang huffs, stuffing his hands into his sweatpant pockets. “No, Dads , I’m not gonna get a gun.”
“Maybe consider a big dog, then,” Hongjoong insists, glancing around at the surrounding woods. “This place just gives me the heebie jeebies.”
“Why, because no one is pissing into trash cans or ranting about Revelation like in Flushing?” Yeosang teases. “Now go. Shoo. I’ll be fine. I’ll think about a dog, but I really think this place is perfectly normal, and we’re just not used to so much open space and quiet.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Seonghwa agrees, tugging at Hongjoong’s hand. “C’mon, Baby. Yeosang has work to do.”
“Please call us if anything happens. I mean it. We’ll get over here ASAP.”
“ASAP as in however long it takes to borrow Mingi’s car from Jackson Heights and then drive back up here,” Yeosang scoffs. “Seriously. I’m a grown ass man.”
Hongjoong presses a smooch to Yeosang’s cheek before following Seonghwa to the car. “We love you, Yeo.”
Yeosang waves as they get settled in the car and Seonghwa starts the engine. “Love you too.”
This is what happens when your Dad Friend marries your other Dad Friend. The friend who brings the Tums rolls in his bag whenever you go get hot wings marries the friend who actually knows how to read a map. A collision that could probably create a new planet if circumstances were right.
Hours later, Yeosang parks his Subaru outside a farmstand with long oak wood tables stacked with crates of produce. There are two men running the stand, both looking far too beautiful to be farmers. One of them has what appears to be designer overalls on and silver hair. The other has hot pink hair and a cropped flannel top.
“A new face!” Overalls shouts a bit shrilly. Pink hair whacks him on the ass with a hiss of, “Calmly, please.”
“A new face,” the first man says again, monotone.
The second man rolls his eyes. “Hey, stranger,” he says to Yeosang. “Sorry about him. We just don’t get a lot of new customers around here. Most of the houses in this area have been with families for generations.”
“Right,” Yeosang replies, glancing between the two men. “You’re…farmers?”
“We like to say we’re ‘agricultural entrepreneurs,’” Overalls declares, thumbing at his denim overall straps.
Yeosang hums. “And you’re…from around here?” He doesn’t mean to sound so suspicious, but he’s also a Gemini. (He still isn’t sure when that’s appropriate to use an excuse for things).
“Ah, he’s observing that we’re handsome Korean men living in the rural lands of the gorgeous Hudson Valley,” Pink hair says.
Overalls giggles. “We get that a lot. We actually moved here years ago. We’re kind of part of a…business…conglomerate?” He glances at Pink hair for affirmation, then continues, “We’re assigned areas to live in that might need some help with…agricultural entrepreneurship.”
“Interesting,” Yeosang says, instantly even more suspicious. “You’re still pretty hot for ‘agricultural entrepreneurs.’”
“Oh! Well, you know. We were just born with gifts. Green thumbs, as they say. Sorry, I’m Wooyoung, and this is my partner, San,” Overalls explains.
“Partners like…You’re gay? Out here? Openly?” Yeosang glances around, waiting for an ignorant horde to storm the premises.
Wooyoung and San exchange glances again, communicating seemingly telepathically. “Well, yeah? San and I are tied together by fate, so it would be pretty obvious even if we didn’t say anything.”
“Tied together by fate,” Yeosang repeats, laughing under his breath. “You talk like Shakespearean witches.”
Wooyoung leans over across the table, cupping his mouth with his hands and whispering, “Honestly? That’s because we are.”
Yeosang blinks, staring hard at a speck of dirt on Wooyoung’s cheek. “Look, I know I’m new, and I seem kind of out of it, but I’m kind of going through some shit right now, so please don’t…whatever it is you’re doing.”
San shoves Wooyoung to the side, taking his place across from Yeosang. “I’m sorry about him. You’re obviously here to get some food, right? What can we get you?”
San and Wooyoung bag up various produce, proudly picked that very morning, and bread (baked by San himself, he claims).
“You like your new house?” Wooyoung asks, tying some twine around bundles of corn. “It’s been abandoned for a while, so I’m sure you have a lot of work to do.”
“You know where I live?”
Wooyoung’s eyes go wide. San groans and shoves him toward the camper trailer parked next to the farmstand. “Git,” he hisses. “You’re so bad at this.”
“How do you know where I live?” Yeosang demands, eyes narrowed.
“It’s like we said earlier,” San explains. “We really don’t get a lot of new people moving up here. Most people are from old families on farms like ours. And that house you moved to–it’s been abandoned for a couple months now. So everyone was talking about it when someone finally bought it up. He didn’t mean to scare you. He’s bad with humans.”
“Humans?”
“Fuck, you know what I mean,” San sighs, rubbing at his face tiredly. “Honestly, that house is kind of special around here, which is why we got so excited that someone finally decided to take it.”
“I don’t really plan on staying. I’m really just here to take a break, fix the place up, and then flip it.”
“You can’t do that!!!!” Comes Wooyoung’s shrill cry from the window of the trailer.
“Shut your trap!!!” San yells back.
“Make me, daddy!!” Wooyoung shouts in return, making an obscene gesture with his tongue pressed into his cheek.
“Ignore him. Seriously. But, are you really just here temporarily?” San asks, somewhat despondently.
“Well, yeah. I’m kind of a retired skateboard pro who went through a very painful injury and very public breakup recently, so I’m just trying to clear my head. Figure things out.”
“And you don’t think that you might figure out that this place is good for you?”
Yeosang’s brows pull together in confusion. “What do you mean? Why do you care so much about that house?”
“The woman who lived there before you,” San explains. “She was kind of like a grandmother to us. And she had this…aura. Bright, warm, comforting. She was really special.”
“Ah, I heard from the realtor that she passed away recently,” Yeosang replies, sucking at his bottom lip awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
San waves the comment off. “Death is never the end anyhow. And the house really feels like her still. It has that warmth. That…”
“MAGIC!! IT’S A MAGIC HOUSE, YEOSANG!” Wooyoung shrieks.
“Metaphorically, he means,” San adds quickly. “Metaphorically magic.”
“Then why don’t you two live there?”
San bites the inside of his cheek and glances over at the trailer. “We don’t really put down roots anywhere. It isn’t in our nature. We’re more nomadic. But Helen, the woman who built that house, really put her soul into it. She never married or had any children, but she was always there for people like us. People who would pass through. Newcomers. Anyone.”
“So you’re worried I’ll tear it down or something? I just wanna clean it up. Fix the roof, make sure the foundation is secure, shit like that. I promise I won’t destroy Helen’s house,” Yeosang asserts, fiddling with the woven produce bag in his hands.
“Just really be careful. That place is one of the only special places left here.”
“Yeah,” Yeosang replies awkwardly, tucking his dollar bills back into his jeans pockets. “I mean, I bought it, so I’m stuck with it for now anyhow. I’ll do my best to…keep it special?”
San’s lips spread into a genuine smile. “I believe you, Yeosang. Thank you.”
Yeosang glances over to the trailer, where Wooyoung is peering through a slit in the window at him. Glaring, more like. He points to his own eyeballs and then points over at Yeosang through the glass.
Yeosang raises his hands in surrender and backs away toward his car. It’s only as he’s driving home that Yeosang realizes he never gave San his name.
The next morning, Yeosang is out weeding the large raised bed garden in the backyard space. It looks like it once housed herbs and perennial flowers. A strange deer stands at the edge of the woods, chewing grass slowly and appraising him. It doesn’t look away even when Yeosang makes eye contact.
“The animals here are fuckin’ wild ,” Yeosang mutters.
There's rustling in a huge overgrown forsythia bush. The deer eyes it and bellows out a somber cry. The bush settles. Yeosang doesn’t even want to know.
He’s on Facetime with Yunho the following day. Yunho is stirring a pot of Spaghetti-o’s on the stove.
“This is sonically the worst food you could be making while on the phone with me,” Yeosang observes, listening to what can only be called “ schlorping ” from the wooden spoon in the pot. “Just put it in the fucking microwave, Yunho. It’s canned noodles for babies.”
“Yeah, but these are for my baby,” Yunho protests. In the background, Yeosang hears Mingi shout, “IS THAT YEOSANGIE? DON’T MAKE FUN OF MY SGETTI-O’S!”
Yunho leans into the phone camera until only one massive eye is shown, like do you understand now?
“He says ‘sgetti’ unironically?” Yeosang whispers solemnly.
“Unironically,” Yunho says, nodding solemnly in return.
“Right, well–”
Just then, the forsythia bush rustles again, and there’s suddenly a scratching at the kitchen window. Yeosang looks over to see the two finches from his first day at the house. They’re frantically dragging their talons over the glass, creating somehow a worse sonic experience than Yunho’s pot of baby pasta.
“What’s going on over there, bro? Someone trying to break into your shack?”
“It isn’t a shack ,” Yeosang argues, walking over to the window. He lifts the latch and slams the window open. “What the fuck do you want, huh? Bird seed? I don’t have bird seed for you! Did the old woman who lived here feed you or something? Sorry, she’s like dead now, so—”
The birds start screaming.
“Yunho, I’m gonna have to call you back.”
“Did those birds just scream?”
“Don’t burn your baby spaghetti.”
Yeosang tosses his phone onto the kitchen table and heads out the sliding glass door into the backyard.
The birds swarm him instantly, wings flapping up a storm as they scream. Real, human-like screams. They twirl around his head before flying over to the forsythias, where Yeosang hears that rustling again.
“You want me to do something about that?” Yeosang questions, voice cracking. It’s early evening, but the sun is setting pretty early now that it’s mid-Autumn, so the sky is tinged with warm orange and vibrant pinks. It would be pretty if it weren’t the unfortunate sky that hangs over Yeosang here… as he inevitably is murdered .
“Yeah. About that. You’re birds. I’m going back inside. You guys deal with this. Nature is your realm, not mine.”
The birds look unimpressed, and they follow him all the way until he’s safely back inside, slamming the glass door between them and sticking a mocking tongue out at them.
Yeosang has four missed calls from Yunho, but he decides to just watch videos on Youtube until the birds give up tapping viciously on his window.
It takes a couple hours, but they eventually stop. Yeosang breathes out, head in his hands. Yeosang can’t deal with nature. He’s from the city. Nature in the city consists of rats intelligent enough to get on and off the subway at the right stops and pigeons so fat from bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich-remains that they don’t even fly anymore, just waddle uselessly down the sidewalks.
Yeonjun was always the one.
Always the one to get rid of the silverfish and cockroaches that managed to slither into their apartment. The one who remembered to water Yeosang’s succulents on the windowsill because Yeosang kept getting gifted succulents without understanding they are alive and require sustenance.
Fuck Yeonjun. Fuck these stupid birds. Fuck nature.
“I think there’s some kind of cryptid living in my yard,” Yeosang says.
On FaceTime, Hongjoong is wearing a “Suck my dick, I’m the chef” apron. He looks concerned, pausing his batter stirring.
“What kinda cryptid are we talking here? A yeti or a moth man?”
Yeosang decides to ignore the somewhat taunting tone of voice and respond honestly. “I have no idea! I just know all the creatures in my yard keep going buck-wild around this one bush.”
Yeosang peeks out his kitchen window at the bush in question. It’s massive. It honestly looks like two or three bushes that have melted and formed one ultra-bush. Definitely big enough to house a Yeti or a Mothman.
“What do I do? Do I scare it away? Should I just leave it?”
Hongjoong lifts his batter-coated whisk and points it at the screen. “Don’t you dare. I refuse to let you die in that shack!”
“Why does everyone keep calling my house a shack?! It’s not that bad!” Yeosang cries indignantly, shoving a pre-cooked rice container into the microwave.
“It’s bad enough that you’re housing a cryptid !” Hongjoong argues.
“Fine. I’m gonna prove you wrong! The guys at the farm said it’s a magical and very special house, so… nothing bad could live here! It’s probably just a mole or something! Maybe a lost dog!” Yeosang huffs, just as his front doorbell rings. “I gotta go. Someone is here.”
“Yeosang, I swear if you get murdered!”
“You’ll what ?! I’ll already be dead anyhow!” Yeosang cries.
“I will Dr. Frankenstein resurrect your corpse and then kill you myself!”
“Ew. Go roleplay your sick Mary Shelley fantasies with your husband instead,” Yeosang replies, giving his camera the bird and then ending the call.
The doorbell rings again. Yeosang peeps through the peephole, but there’s nothing there. Just to be sure, he cracks the door open. There, wiping its paws on his Please Leave doormat, is a raccoon.
Yeosang just stares. “There’s no earthly way you can understand me, but can I help you?”
The raccoon chitters and points its snout toward the side gate that leads to the backyard. Yeosang sighs and decides that maybe the Universe is testing him. Maybe there is a really, really cool sword stuck in his yard that will make him King of the Earth. Or maybe the Universe has decided to finally punish him for that time he let drunk Mingi scale the side of a 7-11. He didn’t die, obviously, but Yeosang definitely almost instigated an absolutely disgusting parkour death.
Explanation 1 for why the raccoon summoned him: maybe he can’t open the gate? Well. The raccoon scales the fence easily, so there goes that.
Explanation 2: maybe the raccoon is a figment of his imagination. Trauma, you know. It really fucks you up.
Yeosang carefully nudges the raccoon’s tail with the toe of his sneaker. The raccoon hisses and skitters toward the Cryptid Bush. Guess that isn’t it either.
“Ah, fuck. Not you too. Listen, tomorrow, okay? I just can’t deal with the Cryptid Bush right now. It’s almost time for my drama.”
The raccoon chitters solemnly as Yeosang flees back into the house.
The next day, Yeosang grabs a pair of kitchen scissors and heads outside.
The entrance to the woods behind his house is apparently now a little spectator spot for forest critters. The raccoon from yesterday sits on the back of a coyote, and a huge family of groundhogs is gathered together and squeaking like they’re gossiping, shutting up as Yeosang approaches.
“I know I’m no Steve Irwin, but this isn’t normal, right?” Yeosang asks the birds, who are now perched on his shoulders like an angel and devil. “Is this how Snow White and Cinderella felt? I mean, suddenly there are just birds and shit. Acting like people.”
The birds don’t respond.
“Fucking…fine! Fine, you all win!” he yells, holding the scissors out in front of his body as he creeps closer to the Cryptid Bush.
A rabbit presses its nose to the back of Yeosang’s ankle, pushing him closer.
There’s a soft whimper from within the bush.
Yeosang sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Okay, I’m coming in. Don’t panic. Doooooon’t panic,” Yeosang says, attempting to sound soothing despite the abject fear radiating from his very core. He’s pretty sure his blood is vibrating so hard it could evaporate, leaving a deflated husk behind.
He brushes the first layer of branches aside, feeling the ones above his head catch on his hair. Yellow petals land on his shoulders, and the birds flutter away.
And there, by the base of Yeosang’s overgrown forsythia bush, is…some dude? Okay. Well. There’s a simple fix here: “Hey, yo, you’re in my bush.”
The dude looks up, face coated with mud and eyes glassy, and he doesn’t speak.
“Sorry, uh, let me try that again. Are you lost? You’re in my bush. Like at my house. My house.” He gestures behind himself toward the house. “ My house. Not your house, right? Where is your house?”
As he looks more closely, the dude has a sort of… odd texture? His skin. It isn’t like Yeosang’s skin. It’s more like unglazed pottery. Like he might need a better moisturizer.
“She’s really, really gone for real now, isn’t she?” the guy asks, wrapping his arms around his knees, which are pulled tight to his chest. “Helen.”
“Who the fuck is He–oh. The old woman that San mentioned.”
The guy’s eyes widen, and he leans forward. “San? You spoke to San?”
“You know him? Should I take you there, so he can help you get home?”
“This is my home,” he responds, voice low but calm for a strange, loitering lonelyboy.
Yeosang’s brows knit together, and he inspects the placid expression on the boy’s face, looking for some hints of hysteria or madness. “Was Helen your mom or something? San said she didn’t have kids. And why would they just leave you here if she died?”
“I don’t have parents, but Helen was the closest to the real thing as anyone could ask for,” he replies. “She was always the only one who could help when…” He trails off, lifting his arm up so Yeosang can see what appears to be a huge gash just bitten right out of the flesh. ‘What appears to be’, though, because there’s no blood or internal tissue. It looks like he’s just missing a hunk of what Yeosang recognizes to be ‘arm’, but in a cartoonish way that gets the point across without actually showing what Yeosang knows to be the inside of an arm’s contents.
“Right,” Yeosang says, squinting more closely at the strangely censored-seeming, cartoonish wound. The more he looks, the more it looks like art. Like something earthy. Like clay. There’s a matte look to his skin, too. “So I’ll take you to hospital? The hospital? Take you there? Now?”
“I don’t need a hospital. I’m not human. I’m made of clay.”
Yeosang has never done bath salts. Truly, never. Even though he went to a party in Bushwick once where a girl offered him free bath salts if he’d take a selfie and tell her friends they were dating. Yeosang had declined. Don’t trust Bushwick girls.
But now Yeosang is wondering if maybe the water here is laced with bath salts. How else could his brain possibly conjure this scenario to hallucinate? A boy made out of clay?
“I’m just…of all excuses to loiter. You’re made of clay ? Isn’t there anything slightly more feasible for you to use?”
“I’m not lying. There’s no reason for me to lie. Helen created me out of clay from the river just through the woods here.”
Yeosang blinks slowly, waiting for his neurons to fire in just the right way for the world to correct itself. It doesn’t.
“Okay. I’m…a pretty empathetic person. My ex, the absolute fuckbird, used to say that I came off as cold and stoic or whatever, but that was just his excuse to cheat on me. I’m trying to be understanding here, but my patience for empathy has been pretty minimal since he exposed his affair live on national television and contributed to the destruction of my career. So, please, don’t fuck with me. I’m 99% positive I’m losing my shit because I keep seeing these weirdly human-esque birds? I know they say trauma can really fuck your shit up, but this is just! This is just…”
The boy stands up, uncaring of how the bush branches stab into him from all directions. “I’ll try then. To show you.”
Yeosang follows him into the woods, which Hongjoong would murder him for, listening as the sound of running water grows louder as they get closer to the river. The only muscles in this guy’s body that move are the ones immediately requiring movement. With none of the other little nuances and minute motions of the human body present.
They reach the edge of the riverbank, where the water laps softly at the mud and stones. The boy looks at Yeosang, face expressionless. He sticks his pointer finger into the mud, and Yeosang watches as the mud latches onto him, attempting to fuse into his skin like the Venom symbiote or something, wriggling and wet and desperate.
“Okay, what the fuck? But what the fuck, though?”
The guy shrugs. “Like I said. I wasn’t born. I was created. Here. By Helen,” he explains. And his eyes are so lifelike…so human. So Yeosang is having trouble computing. His eyes can see that gross symbiote of a clay finger, so monstrous in contrast to those deeply human brown eyes. “With this clay. It recognizes me.”
“Okay that is…I’ve certainly never seen that before. That’s…hm.” Yeosang waits for a single thought to materialize. His brain decides on: “Do you… have a name?” despite the bajillions of more pressing questions circulating through Yeosang’s skull.
Even the clay-boy looks surprised, expression shifting in such a human way that Yeosang has to force himself to look down at the freaky clay finger to remind himself that this really isn’t just some local punk kid refusing to get off Yeosang’s lawn.
“I’m Jongho,” he replies, eventually shaking off the wriggling enchanted clay from his finger and back into the riverbank. “Helen named me after her godson, Jongho Choi. He passed away young. Childhood cancer.” He wipes his finger on his dirty gray t-shirt. “She always said he was the strongest person she ever knew, until she made me.” He speaks very matter-of-factly. Very calmly.
Yeosang likes the gentle cadence of his voice. He sounds like he would record some great audiobooks about, like, clockmaking or naval battleships.
Yeosang, now clutching Jongho’s wrist to remind himself that Jongho is very real and not a manifestation of his trauma, leads him back to the house. This time, though, he walks Jongho through the front door and sits him down on the pile of pillows and blankets that Yeosang has been using as a bed in the living room.
“You kept saying that,” Yeosang says, waving in Jongho’s direction with a shaky hand, “she ‘made’ you?” He makes finger quotes.
“Do you know what a golem is?” Jongho asks, brushing flowers out from his reddish brown hair.
“A gollum? Like ‘my precious’?” Yeosang poses crouched over like a raptor, doing a perfect vocal impression of the LotR character.
“I have no idea what that means, but no. A golem. It’s Hebrew. Helen comes from a line of Jewish mystics and Rabbis. Grew up just kind of fiddling with magic from time to time, you know. Historically, golems were created as protectors. We’re molded out of earth and imbued with life when inscribed with the word ‘ אֱמֶת’.” Jongho holds out his left forearm, the one without the huge gash in it, and Yeosang can see the sunken edges of an engraving. Like a branding but inverted. Like scar tissue that sinks in. Like when you’d sign pottery by dragging a pencil through wet clay, which is probably literally what occurred. “It means ‘truth.’”
“And you? Were you created like that? As a protector?”
“You could say that.”
“What’s that mean?” Yeosang takes Jongho’s right arm to inspect the huge gash. “And is there no way to fix this? It’s high-key freaking me out, no cap.”
“I’ve lived with an old Jewish woman for the last like ten years, so I’m going to need you to speak like you aren’t a Youth,” Jongho admits, covering the gash with a hand for Yeosang’s sake.
“‘A Youth,’” Yeosang repeats, snorting. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“So, in essence, Helen made me for her best friend, Sohee. She was human-Jongho’s mother. Sohee Choi. When Jongho passed away, the human one, Helen couldn’t stand to watch Sohee just…deteriorate. The depression just ate away at her. Helen thought that she could give Sohee purpose again by creating me. But Sohee…didn’t make it.”
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Jongho,” Yeosang murmurs. “That must’ve been…so hard.”
“Yeah. But then it was just me and Helen. I can’t die in the human sense of the word. So when Sohee was gone, Helen smudged out the ‘aleph’ here,” he says, brushing his thumb lightly over the first Hebrew letter engraved on his arm. “And I turned back to clay. The hebrew word without the aleph becomes the word for ‘death.’ So I didn’t die. Because I couldn’t. But I was nothing again. By the time she got me back here, she’d changed her mind, I guess. Obviously I was just a lump of clay, so I don’t really know, but what I do know is that I came back to life right here in this house.”
“That’s really intense,” Yeosang admits. “All of it sounds like fairytale bullshit, but I’m doing my best. I just know that…Helen…She sounds like she was really great,” Yeosang replies. “And loss is shit.”
Jongho barks a laugh, warm and inviting. “Loss is shit.”
“What? Helen wasn’t one for swearing or something?”
“Oh no ,” Jongho scoffs, laughing brightly. “Helen was the queen of swearing. Her and Sohee could go off on tangents in these thick, thick New York accents and every other word would be a swear, honestly.”
“You know,” Yeosang starts, watching how Jongho’s words form between his pink lips. “You really are very human.”
Jongho smiles faintly. “I guess that’s good. Helen worked really hard to treat me like I was her real godson. Of course, San and Wooyoung helped, too.”
“Wait…sorry, what? How?”
“Golems are made with a very rudimentary form of magic. I started out as a kind of living husk.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
Jongho laughs. “It likely was. But Helen didn’t give up on me. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but this place has its own magical energy.”
“The house?”
“The land. And the house, too, I guess. You’ve met them, though, so I’m sure you know about San and Wooyoung.”
“I’ve met them, but I can’t say I know anything beyond them being a particular kind of strange.”
Jongho’s shoulders shake with laughter now. Yeosang hates that it feels good. Making someone else laugh. Yeonjun didn’t really understand Yeosang’s humor. A bit too blunt. A bit too dry.
“Strange is a very human way of putting it,” Jongho replies. He casts a glance over at the kitchen window. “You could probably just ask them directly.”
Yeosang follows Jongho’s gaze and sees the two little finches perched on his windowsill, beaks pressed to the glass like little voyeurs.
“Please don’t tell me those birds are…”
Jongho stands, walks over to the window, and taps on the glass. “Hey, the jig is up. C’mon.”
Yeosang once again wonders about the water in this house. About whether or not he’s been poisoned with bath salts or some other hallucinogen. Because one moment, he’s looking at two small brown birds, and the next he’s looking at two very obnoxious, very naked human men.
“Right. So. Can we come in?” San asks meekly through the glass, hands cupping his junk.
An hour later finds San and Wooyoung wearing borrowed sweats from Yeosang’s single unpacked suitcase. The four of them are sitting in a circle on the makeshift living room bed on the floor. Yeosang has attempted to compute the fact that San and Wooyoung aren’t really ‘agricultural entrepreneurs’ but are in fact witches. It helped for him to see Wooyoung literally heal the humongous gash on Jongho’s arm with a handful of wet clay and a simple incantation.
“We’re sent out on missions to help towns that rely on agriculture but are struggling due to drought or contaminated soil or something like that.”
“So... Farm witches.”
“Sure, if you’d like.”
“Farm witches…”
Yeosang zones out about then, brought back only when Jongho lightly pokes his cheek. Yeosang can feel the heat from his finger. He reaches out to snatch at it. Jongho blinks.
“So why is it that you are so alive? And human?”
“That would be our doing,” Wooyoung explains proudly, thumping his fist to his chest. “This area is one of the last untainted spots of pure magic. When Helen told us about Jongho,” here he reaches out to ruffle Jongho’s hair like he’s an endearing younger sibling and not a husk of clay, “we made an agreement.”
Yeosang looks between Wooyoung and Jongho. Jongho looks back calmly at Yeosang, almost expressionless. Yeosang wonders if that’s how Yeonjun felt about him when he said Yeosang is cold. Stoic. It’s frustrating. Not knowing. Not being able to read Jongho like he can easily read San and Wooyoung.
“What kind of agreement?”
“Since Jongho is technically ‘of the earth’ and also was created with the intention to protect, San and I were allowed to petition our Coven leader to make Jongho an elemental spirit. We had a ceremony, there was a ritual or whatever, San and I gave our blood, yadda yadda, anyhow–Jongho is the official spirit protector of this land,” Wooyoung says, ending with a flourish of his hands in Jongho’s direction as if showing him off.
Yeosang draws in a deep breath. Or, he tries to, but then he hiccups violently. Jongho hands Yeosang a tissue from his cargo pants pocket. Yeosang wonders how long that tissue has been in there and how long Jongho has been wearing that pair of cargo pants. He waves away the tissue with a soft ‘no thank you.’
“So I guess that’s why he’s not just a husk of clay that ambulates,” Yeosang reasons.
“Exactly. Jongho is just as much alive as this land is. He ages, too, just like the earth does,” San explains. “He’s inextricably tied to this place, which is another reason we’re so protective of it.”
“Makes sense now,” Yeosang replies, playing with a loose thread in his sweatshirt. “Is that why you somehow knew my name without me saying it?”
“We’ve been subtly thwarting every purchase attempt until now,” Wooyoung says, leaning back on his hands and splaying his legs out, really making himself at home. “One guy came and started talking about building some kind of hipster-ass CBD shop here, so San, Jongho, and I got all the forest critters here to swarm him. Chased him right back into his car, and he never came back.”
“And there was this couple,” Jongho adds, slapping the floor like just the memory of them repulses him. It’s the most animated Yeosang has seen him.
“Ugh!” San groans, throwing up his hands. “This couple , Yeosang. They were talking about turning this place into some kind of overpriced AirBnB for city people. Wanted to clear the woods to build a pool and everything.”
“Just swim in the river,” Jongho scoffs.
“Right? Water is water,” San agrees, rubbing Jongho’s back with a grin. After seeing Jongho in the midst of a crisis while huddled in a big bush, it’s honestly refreshing to see him with San and Wooyoung. So much more…alive.
“So you chased them off, too,” Yeosang gathers. “But then why did you ask if Helen was really gone when I first found you?”
Jongho presses his lips together in a grimace. “I could still feel her sometimes,” he says softly. “Just…around. But then one day I just stopped feeling her.”
“Because I bought the land?” Yeosang guesses.
Jongho shrugs. “Not that it’s your fault or anything. This place just kind of absorbs the energy of its caretakers. For a long time, everything just felt like Helen. Vibrant. Warm.”
“And then I came along,” Yeosang huffs. “Sorry ‘bout that. I really…I can leave if–”
“No!” Wooyoung cries, flopping over to basically clamber into Yeosang’s lap. He slaps his palms to Yeosang’s cheeks and squeezes . “Why do you think we even let you buy the place? It likes you. The magic here. It’s suuuuuuper picky about its caretakers historically, but it likes you, Yeosang.”
Yeosang looks over at Jongho, who is playing with one of his cargo pant pockets. The button is missing, so he’s just flapping the pocket open and closed. “Not sure why that would be. I don’t know anything about nature. All my plants always die. Yeonjun was always the…he was the one who…” He stops himself, blinking up at the ceiling to prevent any shameful displays of emotion in front of these strangers.
“Ex?” San asks gingerly. Yeosang nods.
“Bad?” Wooyoung asks, less gingerly. Yeosang nods again.
“Not sure how much you know about me,” Yeosang starts, blowing out a deep breath to clear the shameful torrent of emotion threatening to escape.
“Just the basics, honestly. We don’t have technology or anything, so we kind of rely on the old grapevine. But squirrels don’t have the internet either.” Yeosang isn’t sure if that’s a joke or not, so he leaves it alone.
“Right. I’m a professional…er. Sorry. Was a professional skateboarder.”
“Holy shit that’s so cool,” San says, eyes wide. “Like Tony Hawk?”
Yeosang quirks a brow.
“Sorry. He visited a town that Wooyoung and I used to watch over. Was amazing. Did you do those flips and shit?”
Yeosang laughs behind his hand. “Yeah. I did. I was … really good, too. And I truly loved it, you know? But I had this boyfriend too. He’s a model. Perfect face and skin and height and everything. We’d been together about two years. Moved in together after six months. Things weren’t perfect, but we were both busy, so it didn’t really matter.
“And then my last tournament. This huge televised event. I mean, huge , like broadcast in twenty different languages. I met him before my run, and he acted totally normal, you know? Kissed me. Wished me luck. So I’m doing my run, obviously killing it, and I always try to look for him in the crowd at least once during the run. So I’m 6.7 meters in the air when I actually spot him.
“And he’s just…he’s just macking on some dude I’ve never seen before. I mean straight up mauling him with his mouth. Remember, I’m 6.7 meters in the air . And suddenly I’m falling. Listen, I’ve fallen on too many half-pipes to count, but this was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was like I left my body. It seemed to take forever to fall. But then I just slammed to the ground. Splatted . Really.
“I guess Yeonjun stopped tongue wrestling with whoever that guy was long enough to run up and find me. Fractured some ribs, but apparently I had enough energy to tell him off right there. Asked whose tonsils he had been excavating or whatever–sorry, that visual is awful–and I must’ve been screaming it because all the microphones around us picked up the sound. Tears and snot on my face. My skin is torn up in several places, so there’s blood too. I’m basically a biohazard. Announcers are rushing up to get a close-up, and then all their microphones pick up me exposing him as a philanderer.
“I’ve just suffered the worst injury of my ten-year career, and now here I am… crying and shouting, and Yeonjun doesn’t even deny it. He just stays kneeling next to me on the bottom of the half-pipe. Doesn’t apologize either. Just lets my rattled brain call him any number of insults that I am embarrassed to have somehow conjured up at that moment. I passed out pretty soon after and woke up in the hospital with my manager, Eden. Yeonjun’s shit was gone from my apartment when I got back.”
San and Wooyoung both blow out long breaths.
“Woof,” Wooyoung replies.
Jongho reaches out a hand and grabs Yeosang’s, squeezing gently. “He sounds like a real Shmendrick.” Yeosang must look confused because Jongho adds, “Sorry. Yiddish. Raised by Helen, the purveyor of Yiddish insults. He sounds like a ‘stupid jerk.’”
Yeosang chokes on a laugh. It’s just…Jongho’s delivery, with his blase expression and calm tone of voice. He just hums in assent.
“So you’re done skating?” San asks, expression solemn.
“For now. I think I just need to mentally disconnect the thought of skating from the memory of that day,” Yeosang explains wearily. His body aches to skate again. Sometimes he can feel the soles of his feet tingling like they used to when he’d skate. He hasn’t really been able to breathe since he stopped. It’s like every breath is stunted in his lungs, never fully complete.
“I’ve gotta say, though, you took that magical revelation very well,” Wooyoung says, brushing his dark waves from his eyes. “All things considered.”
“Honestly, I think I’m just glad to discover I’m not being poisoned with bath salts.”
“That was your other explanation?” San laughs, squeezing Yeosang’s ankle. Yeosang misses his friends. He misses Yunho’s giant golden retriever hugs and Hongjoong’s way of always knowing what song to play to fix a bad mood and Seonghwa’s comfort pancakes that he shapes into butterflies and smiley faces after a shitty day. He even misses the way Mingi would drape himself over Yeosang’s back and refuse to let go until Yeosang laughed.
Yeosang notes that Jongho is still holding his hand. Firmly, but it’s comforting. “I’ll probably feel different about it later when it really sinks in, but right now I’m still just kind of dealing with everything.”
“Do you want some help?” San asks.
“Ohhh, a house makeover montage?!” Wooyoung cries. “Who needs the Property Brothers when you’ve got the Property Lovers !” He grabs San’s ass and whoops excitedly. Yeosang doesn’t want to know.
But he does feel differently the next day. He’s hyper aware of the way the fat raccoon watches him powerwash the stone paver path through the yard. Or the way the other birds will just follow Wooyoung and San around as they revitalize the abandoned raised bed garden, even sometimes offering assistance by yanking out weeds with their beaks. Jongho carries 50 lb. bags of mulch from Yeosang’s car to the backyard like they’re nothing. Yeosang jokes that Jongho could probably carry all five bags at once and then gets panicked when Jongho attempts just that, struggling to find places to balance the big sacks in the crease of his elbow or bend of his neck like a waiter at a fast-casual establishment.
But after a week, it feels less strange and more…warm. Like everything around him is working to make good . Jongho sits on the floor in one of the bedrooms, trying to read an IKEA instruction manual. Yeosang looks up a video on Youtube, and the two of them haphazardly build Yeosang a real bed.
The four of them have been mostly sleeping on the mess of blankets in the living room, still, like a pile of puppies. It’s the oddest but most comforting arrangement Yeosang has probably ever experienced. He still misses his friends, but he’s less lonely. He’s starting to feel okay on his own, not relying on them for everything.
Yeosang and Jongho proudly show off the shoddily built IKEA bed to Wooyoung and San when they come inside from repainting the house exterior. Wooyoung bites the inside of his cheek. San grimaces.
“What, you could do better ?” Yeosang challenges.
Wooyoung snaps, and the strange leftward lean of the bedframe corrects itself.
“Okay, fine. Cheating, but fine,” Yeosang huffs.
By the second week, Wooyoung and San have to leave the house. They can’t stay in one place too long. Their magic grows restless. Wooyoung illustrates this by accidentally getting stuck as a bird for several hours, fluttering in a panic around Yeosang’s house while Jongho, San, and Yeosang attempt to catch him in a butterfly net or plastic cup. San eventually tells them to give up until Wooyoung changes back by himself, so Yeosang shows them videos of some of his skate routines.
San whoops and shrieks the entire time, but Yeosang finds himself watching Jongho’s reactions. They’re so…pure. Eyes sparkling like some kind of anime heroine. Little gasps of surprise despite him claiming he has no need to breathe. Yeosang giggles behind a palm. Even bird-Wooyoung stops chaos-flapping around to perch on San’s head and watch, chirping along with San as he screams in excitement.
Wooyoung eventually tires his magic out enough to transform back, and he and San head back to their trailer.
So Jongho and Yeosang are alone. Jongho doesn’t actually ever need to eat, but he sits with Yeosang at their cheap IKEA dining table with free mismatched chairs that San found by the side of the road. Yeosang picks at his eggs.
“You don’t really need to eat, breathe, or sleep, huh?”
Jongho folds his arms on the surface of the table and lays his chin down, looking up at Yeosang. “Not the same way humans do. I draw energy from the magic around us. From the earth. And I don’t sleep, but sometimes I do just kind of…stop. Let myself absorb for a bit.”
Yeosang stabs a floppy egg bit. “What about, like, emotions? You feel those?”
Jongho pouts his lips out into a little beak. “Hard to say. I’ve never been human, so I don’t know what it is that you feel, but I have felt things. When Helen got sick, and I watched her explain her diagnosis to me,” he twitches his nose and sniffles, gaze flicking to the wall, “I felt just…bad. It’s hard to explain. But it was here,” he explains, thumping his fist against his chest. “Tight. Hollow. I was frustrated, trying to understand how someone like Helen could be here one day and then gone. It happened so fast too. No time to—I don’t know. And, yeah, I could feel her in the air here for a while, but it sucks when you spend your whole existence with someone, and then suddenly they aren’t there anymore. I just didn’t get it. Helen molded me out of wet dirt and gave me life , but I couldn’t do the same for her. I couldn’t bring her back.”
“You tried?”
Jongho nods, biting the inside of his cheek. Yeosang wonders if that’s a habit he picked up from Helen too. “I was created to protect, but I had nothing to really protect. I was aimless.”
“Is that why you hid in my forsythias for several days?”
Jongho huffs a soft laugh. “I guess so. I was trying to spy on you. Get the animals to do it for me too. But you never did anything offensive, so I couldn’t hate you, despite wanting to.”
“So you can feel hate?”
“From what Helen told me, hate is the antithesis of love. And while I’m not human, I’m certain that I loved Helen. I saw what she did for Sohee, and I wanted to be that for her. Not romantically. As a son, you know?”
“What does love feel like to you?”
Jongho sits back up, looking at Yeosang while he makes a face out of scrambled egg bits on his plate. “For me, it was almost instinctual at first. Something like a fight or flight response. I was like a guard dog, reacting to any sign of danger. Helen hit her head on this lamp here once,” he says, gesturing to the brass lantern light fixture above their heads, “And I punched it. I was so mad at anything that caused her pain.”
“Cute.”
Jongho doesn’t flush, but he does look away shyly. “But after the Coven granted me the abilities of an elemental spirit, I felt things differently. I felt connected to things around me. I could read their energies and intentions. Helen created me, but she also was just…special. She radiated love. And I could feel it, take it in, you know? So, yeah, I don’t really know how humans feel love, but I know I’ve seen it, and in my own way I think I’ve known it.”
Yeosang nods, feeling out of his depth a little. “You’re fascinating, Jongho. You have more emotional maturity than I’ve ever managed to have in my twenty-six years of life.”
Jongho taps the plate and gestures for Yeosang to keep eating, noting that he’d stopped attempting to eat completely. “You’re thinking about Yeonjun again?”
“I don’t think about him that much,” Yeosang protests. Jongho quirks a brow, and Yeosang sputters a laugh. “Okay, fine. Maybe I do. I’m trying not to.”
“Would you like to think about something else instead? Can I show you something cool?”
He stands, holds his hand out, and waits for Yeosang to take it. He leads Yeosang outside through the sliding glass door. It’s dark out now, the weather getting much cooler once the sun has set. Yeosang wraps his cardigan tighter around his body with his free hand, not wanting to separate his and Jongho’s hands. The air tastes crisp the way it always does in late autumn. It isn’t heavy with condensation like in spring.
Jongho takes his free hand and holds it out, palm up to the sky. He shuts his eyes, so Yeosang does too. He’s hyper aware of all the sounds around him. In the city, it’s so hard to notice anything other than the trials and tribulations of Man. There’s no silence pure enough to hear wind through branches or the cacophony of crickets chirping and cicadas buzzing on the off-beat.
Even from behind his eyelids, Yeosang can see the flash of sudden light. When his eyelids open, there’s a storm of fireflies fluttering over Jongho’s open hand. He’s never seen so many gathered in one place. Like a school of fish, flying so tightly together that they’re just one mass of light. Yeosang watches as Jongho twirls a tan finger, and the fireflies scatter and reform into letters, spelling out YEOSANG.
“Holy shit,” Yeosang coughs out excitedly. “Yer a wizard, Harry.”
“I’m a what?”
“Wait, did you know that reference?” Yeosang splutters.
“Reference?” Jongho asks, tipping his head to the side like a puppy. “I have no idea what you said.” Jongho closes his fist, and the fireflies reform to spell JONGHO in the air. Yeosang can’t stop grinning. “Hey, Yeosang?”
Yeosang hums.
“Are you really going to leave after we fix the house?” his voice is soft, just barely heard above the sounds of nature at night.
Yeosang licks his chapped bottom lip as the fireflies are released, choosing to instead circle around Jongho, lighting his body with a warm, orange glow like they’re reluctant to leave him. “I’m not sure.”
Jongho turns to face him, and Yeosang wonders why the idea of disappointing this creature makes his ribs hurt. “Do you want to know what you feel like to me?”
Yeosang swallows thickly. “Like my energy?”
Jongho nods.
The fireflies shift to incorporate Yeosang into their swirling cyclone of light. Like they’re in some kind of tunnel, separate from everything else in the whole world. Yeosang kind of likes that idea.“ I’m a little afraid to know.”
Jongho holds a hand out, and a single firefly lands in his cupped palm. He watches it closely, the way its legs shake out like it’s stretching after a long day. “I can feel that too. Your apprehension. You carry it with you. But underneath that, you’re really bright, Yeosang. So bright that I almost can’t look at you directly sometimes,” he says, wiggling his fingers as more fireflies try to land on him. “A solar eclipse. Like that. You’re really beautiful to look at, but I’m almost certain looking at you for too long will burn.”
Yeosang hides his face in his hands, flushing all the way down to his chest. He can feel it. The blood rushing through him. “Wow. Um. That’s. Thank you?”
Jongho grabs Yeosang’s hands, and the fireflies disperse out into the air in all directions, leaving the two of them in the dark. “Was that too much? I’m sorry if I misspoke.”
“No, it’s just. No one has ever called me beautiful before, I think.”
Jongho flicks his gaze from Yeosang’s house slippers up to his face. “You must not know many observant people.”
Yeosang tries to slap his hands against his own face again, but Jongho is still holding his wrists. Yeosang notes how strong his grip is, how Yeosang would really have to fight to escape, despite Yeosang being a professional athlete who, until a couple months ago, was in the gym everyday. He flushes more.
“Okay, well. That’s enough, um, excitement for tonight, I think.”
Jongho releases him, and Yeosang’s skin tingles for hours after.
Wooyoung and San drop by a few days later to help Yeosang patch the roof. Yeosang accidentally steps on a loose shingle and slips. Jongho leaps out of the garden and plants himself in just the right spot to catch a shrieking Yeosang as he tumbles off the edge of the roof.
His body is firm and warm. Solid. He holds Yeosang bridal style, looking concerned. “Are you hurt?”
Yeosang flushes. From above, San and Wooyoung giggle at him.
Jongho growls at them, thinking they’re laughing at Yeosang for almost dying and not for the very obvious pink blush in the apples of his cheeks.
Yeosang clambers out of Jongho’s hold and brushes himself off, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Right. Thanks. Good job Golem-ing, Jongho.”
Jongho returns to planting the tulip bulbs, none-the-wiser to Yeosang’s predicament that seems to be getting worse the more time he spends with Jongho.
“You have a crush on the cryptid,” Seonghwa repeats, voice grainy through the phone.
Yeosang shushes him quickly, even though Jongho is currently out with San and Wooyoung, helping them murder the swarm of spotted lantern flies that have discovered the tomato plants outside their camper.
“He’s not really a cryptid.”
“But he definitely isn’t human,” Hongjoong interjects.
“Sure. Get him on a technicality, I guess,” Yeosang admits.
“He isn’t dangerous , is he?”
“I don’t think so? He’s really gentle. Simple and pure in a way. The kind of person that dogs automatically trust.”
“You said he’s a nature spirit or whatever, though, so that means nothing,” Seonghwa replies. “I really don’t know how we’re discussing this so casually.”
From behind him, Mingi approaches the phone. “Let Yeosang date the cryptid, y’all. It could be good for him after everything. Can he still, uh, you know?” He mimics a dick going into a hole with his hands.
“Yunho, can you remove this cretin from my sight?” Yeosang hisses.
“Is that a no?” Mingi follows up, as Yunho arrives to wave at the camera and then drag Mingi away. “What? I’m trying to ask the questions we’re all thinking about, okay?!”
Seonghwa winces, watching Mingi continue to mime fucking with his hands. “Sorry, Yeo.”
“I mean, he has a point,” Hongjoong says. “You said he doesn’t eat or sleep like we do. Does he even…have parts?”
Yeosang stares into the camera for a moment, hoping they can read his abject horror at the turn of the conversation. “He’s human shaped , but I have not yet had a reason to assess his… parts .”
Seonghwa slaps a palm over Hongjoong’s mouth. “Stop, baby. Maybe Yeosang doesn’t care about that, you know.”
“I just don’t even know if he knows what fucking is ,” Yeosang stresses, rubbing at his face with newly calloused hands from weeks of yard work.
The house is looking awesome, of course, after all of the long days spent driving back and forth from the hardware store to the house, clambering up ladders to nail new siding up and stop the occasional nighttime swarm of bats that had been enjoying the warmth of Yeosang’s spare bedroom—now occupied by Jongho, who claims he didn’t mind sharing with them, and revitalizing the abandoned garden space in the yard.
There’s now furniture in every room, most of which was discovered on the side of the road by either San or Yeosang during their drives from the hardware store or WooSan’s market. Jongho had helped Yeosang hose off a set of iron garden chairs and a matching table, and now they take breaks between chores by having orange juice in the garden. Jongho insists on squeezing the juice with his bare hands directly into their glasses, and Yeosang doesn’t know if he’s showing off for Yeosang or if he just has some strange eccentricities that are inexplicably Jongho .
“Just ask him,” Hongjoong replies. “Does he flirt with you?”
Does he? Yeosang wonders about the orange squeezing again. Or about when Jongho called him beautiful. Or about the one time that they were helping WooSan jar up a huge vat of jam made with overripe fruits from their stand, and Yeosang had accidentally touched the newly boiled jars with his bare hand. Jongho had taken Yeosang’s hand and immediately sucked the red-tinged, stinging skin into his mouth. Better? He’d asked, voice low and soothing, expression at once concerned and also teasing. For a professional skateboarder, you’re kind of clumsy .
“I don’t know,” Yeosang answers weakly. “I’m used to guys who are so…obvious? I mean, Yeonjun asked me out by literally asking me directly ‘do you want to go back to my place with me and jam to some music?’”
“Fuck, I forgot about that. What an absolute scum-douche,” Hongjoong grumbles. “Jam to some music. I know something he can jam up his —”
“My love,” Seonghwa interrupts, pinching Hongjoong’s lips closed. “We get it. We all hate Yeonjun.”
Yeosang thinks back to what Jongho said before. About hate being the antithesis of love. Yeosang, who once believed himself so wholly in love with Yeonjun… did he actually, really, genuinely hate him now?
“I don’t hate him,” Yeosang murmurs after a moment. “Actually, I think I might’ve for a bit. Right after, you know? But I haven’t really thought about him much. Not for a couple weeks. I think to really hate him, I’d have to invest my energy into him. And I don’t. I don’t hate him. I’m just…done.”
Seonghwa and Hongjoong glance at one another. Seonghwa whistles under his breath, but Hongjoong full-on applauds. “God! That’s our Gemini KING right there! I’m so proud of you, Yeo.”
“I guess moving to bear-country really was good for you,” Seonghwa admits. “We really are happy for you, Yeo. And if you want to kiss a cryptid, we’ll support you.”
And that’s what best friends are for, Yeosang supposes.
Yeosang has been showing Jongho all the media he’s referenced in conversation before, like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter . He’s showing him another favorite, The Notebook , which he’d mentioned the other day after asking Wooyoung if he and San ever quoted if you’re a bird, I’m a bird at one another before transforming into actual birds.
Yeosang tries not to fidget on the patched-up suede loveseat, but his thigh is pressed up against Jongho’s thigh, and Jongho has his wet auburn hair pushed back off his forehead after a shower. Yeosang watches as Jongho’s eyes track the motions on the screen.
Yeosang must’ve forgotten how often Noah and Allie make out in this movie because every time it happens, he twitches a little. But kissing is nothing compared to watching their passionate, wet-from-the-rain fuck session next to Jongho, who shows no outward sign of reacting for the first couple minutes.
Then Yeosang notices him shifting in his seat. Tugging at his sweatpants (his new favorite after Wooyoung got him to relinquish cargo pants for the sake of fashion).
Oh. Oh . He’s hard. He’s…hard?
“Jongho,” Yeosang whispers, like he’s scared to spook him.
Jongho calmly hums to indicate he’s listening.
Yeosang’s blood is pumping so loudly and rapidly that it’s in his ears, blocking out almost all sound. His chest feels both hollow and too full. He’s aching, wanting, but everything is overwhelmed by his heartbeat.
“Are elemental spirits allowed to…” Yeosang swallows, and it sounds so loud in his own skull. “With humans?”
“I wasn’t given a guidebook,” Jongho replies, voice low and a little hoarse. “But I need you to be more specific.”
Yeosang’s so turned on that his skin pebbles with goosebumps and his teeth feel like they might start chattering at any second. “Can you, um. Could you maybe.”
Jongho turns, and his lap looks so inviting that Yeosang can’t help himself. He climbs on over, straddling him on the loveseat, feeling the heat and thickness of Jongho’s body. Jongho’s hands twitch against his sides before coming to grip at Yeosang’s waist. “I’ve never been like this before,” he admits shyly.
“Like…aroused?”
Jongho nods, eyes glassy where they look up into Yeosang’s. “Yeosang, I think you’re what Helen brought me back for. My purpose.”
“That’s…that’s a lot of pressure,” Yeosang chokes out, sweating everywhere he and Jongho are touching. “How about we start with a kiss?”
Jongho’s lips spread into a grin. Yeosang leans in.
Jongho doesn’t taste like clay. He tastes like the air at night in spring, heady and fresh and almost floral—
Yeosang parts his lips, licks against the seam of Jongho’s lips until he lets him in. The Notebook continues playing through until it returns to the DVD menu screen, but they don’t stop kissing to shut it off. Yeosang’s legs ache from maintaining his position, but he has no desire to leave Jongho’s lap. They’re both hard, but Yeosang is trying to be okay staying like this. He’s warm, feeling secure with Jongho’s hands on him, and Jongho seems overwhelmed as is, gasping despite not needing to breathe.
Yeosang shifts, and Jongho lets out a low groan at the sensation. “Is this okay? Jongho, this is okay?”
Jongho just shifts his grip to Yeosang’s ass, firmly guiding him in a rhythm of brushing their cocks together through their matching sweatpants. Yeosang can’t remember the last time he did this. Just feeling for the sake of feeling.
Yeosang rocks their bodies together, watching Jongho’s expressions shift from overwhelmed to determined to amazed. His eyes are glassy, gaze never straying from Yeosang’s face, even as he tips his head back against the couch cushions and parts his lips on a choked-off moan.
“Yeosang,” Jongho warns. “I’m. I don’t know the protocol. Is it okay if I—”
Yeosang dives in to kiss him again. He can feel the muscles of Jongho’s abdomen tightening where Yeosang’s hands rest against his stomach. He can feel the way Jongho thrusts his hips up to meet Yeosang’s while they kiss. Yeosang isn’t sure he’s ever felt this good before. There’s no pressure for him to do anything or be anything. He’s just feeling good.
Making Jongho feel good.
Jongho’s grip falters, thighs shaking, and he bites down on Yeosang’s lower lip as he rides out his orgasm. Yeosang can tell he’s overwhelmed, so he just holds him, palms against Jongho’s cheeks, foreheads pressed together. Jongho has stars in his eyes as he looks at Yeosang.
“Did you?” Jongho finally asks.
Yeosang shakes his head, and he isn’t going to press the issue because he honestly feels good just like this, but Jongho presses his hand to Yeosang through his sweats, and Yeosang practically gurgles out a moan.
“Can I?” Yeosang nods, and Jongho continues to rub Yeosang over his sweats, pressure firm and just right. “You’re so beautiful, Yeosang. Really. If either one of us should have been a forest spirit, it should have been you. So fucking pretty.”
Yeosang shakes, grasping at Jongho’s shoulders, sweat rolling in rivulets down his spine. “Fuck. Jongho, fuck, I—”
“Do you feel good?” Jongho asks. “Am I making you feel good?” Yeosang tries to nod, head hanging as he ruts himself against the firm pressure of Jongho’s palm. It all just becomes too much as Jongho groans merely at the sight of Yeosang humping his palm, and Yeosang’s hips stutter as he comes inside his boxers and sweats.
He collapses against Jongho, who just holds him tightly as he shakes through it.
They wake up in Yeosang’s bed. After kissing for a bit longer last night, he’d taken Jongho by the hand and led him to bed, his eyelids feeling heavy and skull full of thick cotton. Jongho doesn’t need to sleep, but he lets Yeosang lay his head on Jongho’s chest. Yeosang was out almost instantly.
It’s the knocking that wakes them up. Yeosang squints at his phone, charging on the nightstand. It’s about 10 am. San and Wooyoung are at their farm stand until at least 3pm, and none of Yeosang’s friends told him they were stopping by.
Yeosang unlatches the four sets of locks that Hongjoong had insisted on him installing, and Yeonjun is standing there on his front porch.
“Did I die in my sleep and get transported to Hell?” Yeosang mutters, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “What the fuck are you doing here, Yeonjun?”
Yeonjun stands there, hands in the pockets of his trendy skinny black trousers, hair newly dyed a bright turquoise. “I asked Eden for your address,” he says, scuffing his oxfords against Yeosang’s newly painted porch. “I missed you.”
Yeosang scoffs, moving to slam the door in his face, but Yeonjun grabs at the door before he can get it shut.
“At least talk to me, babe.”
“Don’t fucking call me babe, you vile fucking cockroach,” Yeosang spits. “I told you at the hospital that I never wanted you to contact me again, so what the fuck is this? You think a couple months changed my mind? You humiliated me .”
“It wasn’t that big a de—”
“Not that big a deal?” Yeosang cries, shoving at Yeonjun’s chest. “The internet was filled with stories from other models you’d been fucking behind my back. For weeks that was all I saw online.”
“I only ever loved you,” Yeonjun replies.
“Wow,” Yeosang chokes out. “Amazing. Glad to hear that of all the notches on your fucking disgusting bedpost, I was the most precious ,” Yeosang hisses. “Get the fuck out of here. I mean it. I don’t give a fuck what you have to say.”
“It isn’t like you were so perfect, you know,” Yeonjun gripes. “Impossible to get you to open up about anything . Like pulling teeth to get you to even tell me your fucking favorite food or song or anything.”
“Fried chicken,” comes a voice from behind Yeosang in the doorway. “And his favorite song changes depending on the weather.” Jongho steps out onto the porch, arms folded over his chest, and Yeosang can’t look away from the way his arm muscles flex. “You’re the Shmendrick who cheated on Yeosang?”
“What the fuck is a Shm—”
“I think you should leave,” Jongho says firmly. “You’ve got really bad energy, and we don’t tolerate that shit here, Shmendrick.”
“Stop calling me that. Yeosang, who the fuck is this?”
Jongho quirks a brow. “You’re not gonna leave?”
Yeonjun’s face is red, a vein in his neck pulsing the angrier he gets. “Yeosang, tell this fucker that I—”
Jongho gives a low whistle, and everything freezes for a second before there’s a loud distant thumping. It’s like a stampede from his backyard as all the critters living in the woods behind his house come sprinting around the house.
A squirrel climbs Yeonjun’s leg from beneath his trousers, making him shriek, high and shrill. The fat raccoon ties his shoelaces together, causing him to trip onto a river of field mice that form waves, carrying Yeonjun away from the house. A buck uses his antlers to wrench open Yeonjun’s car door, scratching the expensive paint as he does. The mice swarm up into a massive wave, tossing Yeonjun into the car, before the buck kicks the door shut behind him and then stands at the window as if waiting for Yeonjun to try to get back out.
And Yeosang is breathless with laughter. He isn’t sure he’s ever laughed so hard in his life. There are tears in streams on his cheeks, and he’s bent over at the waist, clutching onto the doorframe to keep from keeling over. Jongho watches like a hawk until Yeonjun manages to get his key in the ignition and pull out of the long driveway.
“You okay?” he asks, touching the small of Yeosang’s back with a gentle hand.
Yeosang straightens and crowds Jongho up against the door. He teases his fingers along Jongho’s jawline, soft and sweet-smelling. “Guess you really are my Golem.”
Jongho grins, arms winding around Yeosang’s neck to tug him down into a kiss.