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It's a familiar sight; ramshackle buildings, smoke furling up from God knows where, a small fire doing whatever it can, flickering red-yellow inside the smallest room. You could see the fire from the holes in the wall, and you could only know there were holes in the wall if you'd been born there and gone over and over every inch of it. No stranger could ever know about these holes, because no stranger ever stopped by this town. Not this one. Turn and turn about. Nobody new to meet, no new places to go, ever. Kyungsoo was alright with obsessions, spotlessly cleaned floors and re-learning everything explored and discovered years ago. So, of course, Jongin tried to fit in. But the sight was familiar, and the fact that he knew every inch of it already, that there was nothing else to it to know, that it wouldn't change - it repulsed him.
The fire, though. The fire, and the fact that he could see it through the holes. His mother had told him that stars were holes in the heaven, for all the people up there to look at him through - it hadn't made him feel awed or comforted, but it was more or less the same concept. Look to somewhere else. Somewhere that isn't where you are now. Somewhere you can't be. Not yet, though, Jongin told himself. Jongin can't be there, just yet. But one day. One day he'd be on the other side.
Anyway, back to the fire, in the ramshackle building, which was made of hole-ridden walls. Jongin had been on the other side of those. Remember how no stranger ever stopped by this town? Pardon. There's always that one exception to the standing rule, and the town's firelighter was it, in this case. Park Chanyeol, ready and willing at whoever's service. So long as he was given a smile, he'd light firewood up for anyone. Odd payment, but he seemed sad enough to comply with. And he still didn't know his way around the place, despite his living there for years. Park Chanyeol did not know the inside of his own room with his eyes closed; Jongin could attest to that. So Park Chanyeol could not and did not know there were holes in the walls that made up his funny little building.
But he knew the outside. He knew other strangers, he knew places, he knew stories and stories. He knew how to tell a story, knew how to talk to fire. Jongin kept him company on nights the crackling got bad. Crackling in Jongin’s ears and at his fingertips and over his limbs. Not in his chest, though. That was different: a feverish tattoo against his ribs. And in his stomach was a swooping kind of buzz. And Chanyeol could drive it away. Somewhat. Chanyeol was a magic man. Chanyeol said Jongin would be a Power kid, one day, just let 'em wait, and Jongin wished he was right and wished he was wrong. Right, because that would mean something that might get him a way out. Wrong, because he could just as well get something that'd glue him here like cement and concrete. Or mortar and bricks. He wasn't sure. Doors and hinges, then. Doors and hinges and door frames.
Chances, chances. Jongin wasn't good at gambling, never took a chance if he knew it could go wrong. But with Powers, there was no chance, no choice, just stubborn fate that stuck like hell and never washed off. Imagine Jongin stuck with the duty-laden of Power of being able to reap harvest at insane speeds, or something. Kyungsoo was enough for that, thanks. It was shudder-inducing, but Chanyeol seemed to like Kyungsoo, even though he rarely smiled for his firewood. Jongin let it slide. Chanyeol was a magic man.
He'd tell tales in that deep, clumsy warm voice of his, and the fire would dance at his bidding. Pirouette and leap and shape and reshape itself into the figures of Chanyeol's stories, into soldiers in battle and lovers in courtship and mourners at a funeral pyre. If Jongin listened carefully, even the fire told part of the tale, sound filling in the highs and lows of Chanyeol's timbre. And Jongin always listened carefully. It would clear his head, calm his frantic pulse. On the rare nights it didn't - Chanyeol was the magic man - Jongin submitted to the flames. "Close your eyes," Chanyeol said, and Jongin obeyed. The dark was welcoming, and the heat that came with it, Chanyeol's hands digging in, not uncomfortably, on his shoulders and Chanyeol's fire, was obliterating. There was a rush of it, of everything. Wavering air settling on his ears, sparks dancing into his hair, searing searing warmth coursing in, through and under his skin. It went on and on until he was sweating and shaking and his throat felt ready to melt. Jongin let his head fall forward onto Chanyeol's arm. That was the signal, and everything stopped immediately. No crackling, no buzzing, no swoop thwoop in his stomach or roaring in his ears. The sudden, stark difference exhausted him more than anything else, and morning would usually find Jongin curled up and snoring in his own bed, Chanyeol's mess of red hair slowly bobbing down the street, back to his fireplace, back to his flames.
-
"You're getting them, you know," Kyungsoo said, quietly. They were lying on the roof of Jongin's house, all three storeys up with nothing between them and the sky. Jongin found it exciting how things looked smaller from there. He rolled over to face him. "Getting what?" But Jongin had a feeling that, yeah, he did know.
"Signs. Symptom things. I bet your skin feels weird and stuff mixes up in your head. I used to get migraines, myself." Kyungsoo sounded long-suffering. Veteran, soldier; elder, experienced. Jongin's eyes widened in awe. "I've got crackles, and static. Some migraines. Sometimes I just pass out. But Chanyeol hyung helps."
He let it slip by accident. Not that they ever agreed that Jongin's visits to Chanyeol were a secret, but he'd never talked of them aloud, before. The static started again.
"Chanyeol?" Kyungsoo raised an arm to trace a pattern into the stars. "Really?" He didn't sound too judgemental - Jongin had been afraid of that. He sounded genuinely curious.
"Chanyeol hyung's a big help."
"Really," Kyungsoo said, again.
"He can make the fire dance. Sometimes it's good with the headaches."
Kyungsoo closed his eyes, folded his hands on his chest. "Tell me about him."
So Jongin did. He wasn't much of a talker, but he'd do anything if Kyungsoo asked. And Chanyeol - he deserved to be talked about. Jongin told every story he could remember, and then some. You don't just let magic men slide like that. You’ve got to be nuts if you do.
"Nuts," Kyungsoo repeated, sleepily. The sky was getting pink. "He sounds nice, Jongin."
Jongin stood up, on the roof. The streetlamps were dimming with the lightening sky. Little Seulgi from across the street hopped onto her bike with difficulty, then started off. The town was spread haphazardly around him. Apartment building, villa, apartment building, cold store, primary school, playground, restaurant, apartment building... all the way to the sprawling sand dunes and little hills. And then the red, weighty sun, raising its great head over the horizon. Red, like fire and Chanyeol's hair.
"He is," Jongin said, and a breeze picked up as he walked to the edge. He could jump, he thought, suddenly. For all those little seconds he'd be falling, everything would be exhilarating, Jongin was so sure -
"Don't you dare think about it," Kyungsoo snapped, eyes still closed. "You think my earth power is funny? You jump, I make trees sprout from the pavement and catch you?"
Sheepish, Jongin stepped back. "I just want," he stuffed his hands into his pockets, "I just want to feel something."
It seemed a bit like he was just whispering whimsical idiocy to the deaf winds, but Kyungsoo yawned something in reply. It was strangely comforting.
"All in good time, Nini. Remember that."
Jongin did. Jongin never forgot. There was something about the moment, right then: the shifting air, the flickering lights. Pre-dawn and the cold that always came with it. Open roof, Jongin just shy of the edge. Kyungsoo lying safe in the center, being Kyungsoo.
It was something that stayed, and Jongin would remember.
-
Minho was a boy who liked birds and wood carving and collecting glass prisms. Sometimes, if Jongin was in the clearing on sunny afternoons, he'd see him, crouched over a nest of some sort, sketching on his pad, or cleaning his collection of prisms. His elder brother was a glazier.
"You ever think of what it's like, being in a prism?" Minho asked, often. He'd push his spectacles up (thick, horn-rimmed), and wait patiently for an answer.
"I dunno," Jongin always said. "Seems kind of... cagey."
"But they're beautiful. Look at the light. Think of standing in the glass, washed in all those colors. All that light."
They never progressed further on that thread of conversation, and neither of them seemed to mind. Sometimes you just needed some quiet time with a quiet friend.
Sometimes Jongin thought about how everyone was so taken by the beauty of their lives, with their fixed places and unrelenting routines. Duty and diligence only got anybody so far. It was a bit like being fixed in a prism, wasn't it? And what was the point of being washed in colors if the extent of your world was your personal space? Stretch your arms and the glass that touched your fingers kept you in.
Jongin's headaches got worse, and Chanyeol was barely able to make a dent in the pain with his voice alone. Now, Jongin nearly always sat still as Chanyeol enveloped him in wispy, smouldering white flames. Power kid, power kid. Jongin wanted to be one so much.
-
There were always a few moments that made everything seem alright. Butterfly chasing with Seulgi, climbing the dunes with Minho, the first real science project he'd had to do for his finals. For the last one, he'd chosen physics, made a glider. The time between taking off and landing were some of the sweetest minutes he'd ever have. Freedom. Movement, travel, no restraints. The wind kissing his hair. Jongin wanted that. Jongin wanted to stay like that, gently sweeping across the skyline, the sprawl of the city welcoming beneath him, forever.
-
Jongin raked the leaves in the front yard of every house, three blocks around, and waited. He swept the floors, re-painted walls for autumn, and waited. Chanyeol smiled when he came by. A year had passed since the first night of the whispering, scratching sounds inside his head had started. “Almost there,” Chanyeol would say. Jongin sure hoped he was almost there; the crackling felt like it was taking over him completely on some days. He gave Chanyeol an answering grin, a little more tired each time, and waited.
-
Kyungsoo stood against the closed door of the pantry, small shoulders squared. Clearly he wasn't going to let anybody interrupt him until he was done. "We're getting worried."
Jongin had a bit of an idea about this. His mother's darting glances towards him, his sisters' lowered voices whenever he entered their room. Uneasy, he scuffed his shoes around on the floor. "About what?"
"How long this is taking, that's what!" A puff of breath, undertones of frustration. "The longer this goes on, the more dangerously it finally starts up. The last time the signs went on for so long, your grandfather almost blew up the entire house when he first lit something up!" But Kyungsoo was holding back on something. Small shoulders squared, but too stiff for comfort or confidence.
"That's not it.”
A beat of silence. Jongin scuffed his shoes again.
"And everyone thinks..." Kyungsoo looked a little embarrassed. "Everyone thinks you're going to run away as soon as you get the chance."
Truthfully, Jongin couldn’t find it in himself to deny it. The look on Kyungsoo’s face made him want to, but the words fighting out of his mouth were - “I’ll come back.” Like that was reassuring. Kyungsoo just shrugged, as if he’d expected it. Shoulders slumped, with one hand pushing on the handle. The door began to creak open, and Jongin felt like he had to say something else, something that filled up the silence that had settled too quickly after he spoke. So he grabbed Kyungsoo’s hand. “Really. I will.”
“Okay.” Kyungsoo’s hand was slightly damp in his, warm and a little sweaty. It slid out of his, eventually, and although Jongin felt uncertain, like it was wrong to let go, he did.
-
Maybe there was some truth to Kyungsoo’s words, because it was almost disastrous, the first time it happened. He’d been hanging onto the door of the bus, feet placed firmly on the first step. The bus never went too fast, and Jongin knew to cling with all he was worth to the bar. One moment, Jongin was on the step. The next, he was standing in the road, bus rattling on without him, oncoming traffic blaring at him to step aside. And the third second, Jongin was sitting on a box, watching Kyungsoo paddle bathe the farmer’s mare. Kyungsoo yelped when he saw him. And Jongin… well, Jongin just kind of keeled over.
-
As far as goodbyes go, Jongin was sure he’d done a pathetic job. Sure, he’d squeezed Seulgi’s hand - so very small and pink in his - and promised her a gift when he came back (mostly to stop her from wailing), he’d hugged Kyungsoo hard enough to squeeze the life out of him (”Stop, Jongin, I can’t breathe! Good God, what kind of hug is this?”), wiped his mother’s tears, written his sisters a long letter each. He wrapped the glass rods from his chemistry set for Minho (‘this is as close to glass prisms as I can get, hyung’ the attached note read) and cleaned through his room, organizing his way through the piles of junk.
But he’d been positively ecstatic to do all of it. He knew Kyungsoo wouldn’t have done everything so easily, as if it didn’t hurt him to leave everything behind. “Kyungsoo and you are two different people,” Chanyeol attempted to dissuade the knot in his stomach and the tight balls of tension nestled snug beneath his shoulder blades. Sparks flickered hotly over his skin. Jongin wriggled. “Uncomfortable?” Chanyeol asked, at once, hands pausing over his back.
“Not really.”
Chanyeol kept quiet for a while. Then, “You’ll come back, won’t you?”
It struck Jongin, then, that he hadn’t done anything in farewell to Chanyeol. Jongin reached back to squeeze the large, warm hand. “I will. I swear.” And if Jongin felt guilt because he meant this, this vow, to Chanyeol, more than he meant the one to Kyungsoo, then he pushed it away and buried it deep before he could think.
-
Alone, then. Alone and on a cliff and nobody in miles and so gloriously and fulfillingly alone. The sea furled and unfurled in rough, frothing waves at the jagged rocks so far below. Above, the sky spread serenely in shades of deep blue and grey and white, tinged with purple towards the horizon. Jongin could feel the soft promise of rain against his skin, smell out the coming scent. The clouds were beginning to gather.
-
The fall followed.
Stinging bites of salt water, carried far up by the wind. The dragging weight of his skin against the air, of the air against his skin. Faster and faster, until he was almost weightless, until he was almost as heavy as the earth. Jongin fought to keep his eyes open: the rocks were getting closer. Arms spread, hands balled into fists, he closed his eyes and thought -
- and he was standing back at the top of the cliff, waves roaring in anger at their loss. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, louder than the static ever was, louder than the gulls that had just begun to cry. Thwub thud. Pause. Thwub thud. Every inch of him, alive. A smile, spreading over dry, chapped lips that threatened to split and bleed.
Time to do it again, then.
-
The gulls kept up a cacophony, so loud it was almost painful. Jongin kept stepping over the edge, each time even better than the last. Each time, his face wetter from the spray. Each time, returning from an even closer save from the rocks.
But he was flickering. He'd hold up his hand, see it fade into translucency, then sputter back into vision at once. It was like watching himself through an old, faulty shutter camera. He didn't take much notice of it, until he was one inch away from the rocks and his - his body? His mind? Refused to obey. One more millionth of a second and -
- he was sitting, legs dangling over the top, covered in sweat and out of breath. He saw his legs flicker invisibile, then into solidity. He leaned back on his arms, inhales frantic.
-
He was determined to fight it out. He raised his hand to the fast-setting night, saw the moon glowing down at him, through his skin.
-
He couldn't fight it out, and he was fading quickly. Not yet, it wasn't supposed to happen yet, he was supposed to work on his Power and go places - go to damned places - not disappear. He felt a twinge in his gut as he thought it over. Rolled the word over on his tongue, swallowed it and let it settle at the bottom of his throat. Disappear.
-
Halfway down, hurtling and hurtling and hurtling, neck to neck with nothing and everything in the small spaces of his world, a hand stopped him. Not too warm, not too cold. Almost felt like a pocket of air around his wrist, until he opened his eyes (he'd taken to closing them, by then) and saw pale, thick-knuckled fingers against his skin. And then an arm, long and bony, and shoulders and a neck, and a wide torso down and a long, lean face up. Slightly slant eyes. A gaze that could have been stern if the eyebrows arranged themselves properly, which they hadn't. The face looked confused.
Jongin should have smashed to bits at this point, but there he was, very whole. He looked down. The rocks were farther away than they had been a moment ago.
-
His name was Yifan, and apart from being intimidatingly tall, he flew. Hell, there were feathers dusted along his arm, tangled in his hair.
Jongin coughed. "You a-- you a bird?"
"No." His cheeks went up and squished in on themselves, smile strangely sweet. His gums showed and his teeth were small and white. "But I can fly."
"Ah," Jongin said. They didn't say much more after that.
-
Jongin didn't stop careening down. He couldn't explain it. Days and days; he'd explored the area around, of course, had tried chasing deer to see their babies, tried getting into rabbit burrows by will (for a stifling three seconds, he'd succeeded, then chickened out). Visited an inlet of the sea and bathed in it. But the fall was the most addicting. The fall never ended unless he wanted it to, not even at his most translucent worst.
The only difference was that now, Yifan kept him company. "Beat you to the top," he'd say, lazy and at ease. Jongin would beat him every time, and Yifan didn't look surprised or unruffled. In fact, he'd look pleased, as if he had won. And neither of them minded.
Yifan hadn’t gotten the point, at first, though. “It’s n-not g-good,” he stammered, in the beginning. He stammered when he was surprised. “D-don’t hurt yourself. P-please.” But it wasn’t about hurting himself. It was about pushing the limit, about almost--, the biggest adventure. Jongin tried his best to explain, stuttered on his own words in his own turn, trailed off pathetically. But by then, they’d gone down and back four times already. And then Yifan seemed to understand the fall.
-
There comes one day, of course, when you overshoot. You can grow up in a town and know it inch by inch, know the holes in the wall and how every inhabitant spends the day, and you can leave that town and have your life gleefully upside down, and you can meet a stranger among the wild animals, and you can hold his hand while you fall, but this isn't going to go on forever. Like previous chapters have closed, the one you live now will, too. Sometimes you know how it will, and sometimes you don't.
Jongin didn't. Yifan may have had an idea, because he seemed to be consistently skirting on the edge of telling Jongin something.
"Your Power-" he'd start, deep voice muffled. That was the thing with his voice. Deep voice, but muffled. Like it came from the depths of his stomach and echoed a little on its way out his mouth, got soft and slightly forgetful of what it was meant to say. Jongin would wait for him to continue, but he'd just shrug his big shoulders and keep quiet.
"New, aren't you?" he asked, once.
Jongin nodded. Yifan's quiet was the kind that extended over to everything, made everyone else quiet, too. A bit like Kyungsoo's, but Kyungsoo was, well. He was Kyungsoo, no other way about it.
Jongin kept waiting. It's entirely possible that the day would have come when Yifan would get around to asking him whatever it was, or telling him whatever it was, but Jongin left before it came. He didn't mean to, but he did. Funny, how things end up that way, most of the time.
-
Truthfully, he couldn't help it. He remembered spreading out on the turf. Remembered Yifan sitting up against a tree, some feet away, head nodding. Remembered closing his own eyes, slowing his own breathing, drifting off to his own dreams. But when he woke up, he was underwater. And he couldn't think himself out. There was too much blue, too much green, too much heavy space around him, oppressive and cunning and determined to live him out. It went in his lungs.
-
Again, a hand on his wrist. Yifan, he thought, at once, and gripped back however well he could. Blue green blue green blue green blue suffocating blue green blue green blue weight blue green blue green -
- pulled to the surface, gasping, choking. Everything burning in his throat. To make it worse, it was raining. Water water water droplets over his face, like tears, smelling like so much salt. The hand gripped him fiercely, didn't let go. Jongin's arm was getting pulled out of its socket. There was water in his ears, and he couldn't bear to open his eyes. "I've got you," someone said, from far away, from behind the ferocious lapping of waves. It didn't click with any voice Jongin remembered hearing before. "I've got you." Jongin spewed some more water out of his nose, taking a gasping breath.
"Okay," he managed to say, throat raw. Throat so raw it hurt to breathe.
The water around him was calming down, curling back from him in soft ripples. Almost as if it was regretful. The droplets slid off his face and plurk-plurk-plurk-ed into the water. That was when he realized how quiet it was. He could hear droplets going back to the surface. His hand felt numb. "Thanks," he rasped, and then with all the painful white around him, seeped blacks and greys, and then nothing.
Nothing.
-
Warmth. The sound of something thin and fragile lashing out in harsh, angled streaks overhead. And smells - mmm, good smells. He sniffed a little, turned over. Bubble bubble. Sounded like something was cooking. Smelled like something was cooking. Good good, he was hungry. Very hungry. His stomach growled. He turned over, on the other side. It was warmer on the other side. He shivered, burrowed his head further into the pillow. Drowsy. He'd just stay this way until he felt like getting up.
Then the sound of someone stepping over broken twigs - Jongin's eyes snapped open. Broken twigs? Nobody had broken twigs on their floor at home. What nonsense. He sat up, immediately. Everything spun. He lay back down, immediately. The roof over his head was slant and made of cloth, and when his hand landed outside the bed, it landed on the floor. Strewn with what definitely felt like broken twigs. He wasn't home, was he.
"Finally up!" someone said, and it sounded familiar, like someone saying, I've got you, like it would go with a hard grip on his wrist and unbelievable amounts of water trying and failing to get at him. "The name's Joonmyun." Jongin turned on his side, again, to look.
Disastrous hair. Like a bird's nest, except more curly. Slightly small eyes, but round-ish. A very kind expression. Small mouth, too. Small person. He'd be a little dwarfed if Jongin stood next to him. Blue shirt, dark jeans. Joonmyun - Joonmyun, wasn't it? Joonmyun gave a nervous laugh. "You okay?"
Jongin opened his mouth to say something, but - "No, no wait." Joonmyun raised a hand and cut him off. "That's a ridiculous question. Of course you're not okay. Nearly drowned. Sorry about that. I've got soup going, if that's alright. Not allergic to meat, are you?"
Jongin closed his mouth, shook his head.
"Okay. That's... that's good. I think you should lie down for a while. Unveil your mysteries later." He made to move out of the hole in the wall. The wall was also made of cloth. Weird. "It's raining out," Joonmyun spoke, again. He seemed to want to say something. "I am very curious," he blurted, then blinked rapidly and backed out at once.
Mmm, smells. Bird hair. Jongin closed his eyes, slowly, went to sleep, slowly, dreamed of nothing, slowly. So slow. He felt at peace, almost.
-
The soup was good. The soup was excellent. He probably had five bowls, and Joonmyun chuckled nervously every time he asked for more. "You, uh, like to eat," he noted. He said 'uh' a lot. Very unsure, this Joonmyun. "You won't, um, eat me, will you?"
Jongin choked on spoonful, snorted it up his nostrils a little, and began to cry involuntarily. "I'm not a cannibal," he assured him, when he got his breath back and the soup out of his nose. "I'm just... hungry." He wiped the tears from his eyes with some embarrassment.
Joonmyun's face cleared. "Ah," he said, knowledgeably. "Of course. You've been out blank for so long."
Now Jongin was nervous. "How long?"
But Joonmyun shook his head sagely and forced another bowl on him. Maybe Joonmyun was only unsure around potential man-eaters.
-
Joonmyun controlled water. He was a beach guard, living alone and saving up for something. He wouldn't tell Jongin what. He was open, but he was secretive. Still, there are only so many things you can save up for. Probably a dream house, or the means to a degree. Any variation of 'excitingly stereotypical future'. Not that Jongin said this out loud. Nobody ever agreed with him when it came to ideas about the future, and he got that. Wayfaring and being alone wasn't everybody's choice of dessert. He got that.
Joonmyun was feeding him a piece of cake, and Joonmyun was making little fountains burst up from the sand for him, and Joonmyun was solidly grounded, solidly built, solidly there for him. The water parted like bead curtains when Jongin ran his finger over it, and Joonmyun was always there to smile at him, eyes crinkling up, from the other side. When Jongin looked away first, he could almost feel the slump in Joonmyun's shoulders, feel the smile slip a little. The warmth stilled in the air for a second, shimmered and then stayed firmly. "Jongin-ah," Joonmyun would say, lilt in his voice, and Jongin would smile back, a calculated beat late.
-
You don't overstay, just for the comfort. You don't overstay when someone is in love with you and you aren't in love with them.
Jongin was the big spoon, mostly, curling around to fit Joonmyun, one arm protectively around him, the other a pillow for him. Bird hair, so catastrophic. Jongin buried his face in it, took deep breaths. The ground was covered with twigs, but they didn't really hurt, and there were always fountains. Sometimes Joonmyun would make it rain for him. You don't overstay, you can't overstay. And Jongin wanted to be selfish with Joonmyun, though it wasn't fair, and Jongin still wanted to be alone.
-
"I've been thinking," Jongin tried, tone carefully casual. Parody, wasn't it? Careful. Casual. How could they go together? Or maybe the word was paradox. Joonmyun was so pretty, in the mornings. Pink cheeked, the back of his neck damp with sweat, eyes a little shiny. Even in the mornings. Jongin got distracted.
"Hmm," Joonmyun said, lids fluttering shut and then forcing themselves open again. A small smile forming. "I'm glad you do that. Thinking's good."
He swatted Joonmyun, half-heartedly. "Shut up, I really have. I've been meaning to..." and he stopped. There was nothing left for him to say that wouldn't take up his energy, that wouldn't tug at what was aching inside his ribs. And Joonmyun, somehow, understood. He rolled over and sat up. "You do the things you've been meaning to do, Jongin. I'll do mine."
You don't overstay.
When Joonmyun sent him a bright smile, something in his eyes bleeding into the corners of his mouth, Jongin smiled back at once, lump taking residence in his throat. You can't apologize with a single smile, and you can't say goodbye with silent exhales. Jongin looked around the tent a last time, before he closed his eyes. And willed.
-
He half expected to find himself back on the cliff, Yifan standing in front of him - but of course he wasn't. He was in someplace quite else.
Home had been a sprawl; what lay before him was a striving, a reaching, a fulfilling of a plan, neat and in rows and columns. No winding roads, but straight streets and perpendicular boulevards. Trees planted at regular spaces. Apartment building atop a drugstore, apartment building atop a grocery store, apartment building atop a sports goods store. So many stores, so many blazing neon signs. All orderly, all organized. The same number of steps to each shop, every shop the same height above the ground. The marble steps (must be marble, right?) gleamed. Regular cleaning. No villa, no business tower; everything separated, slotted, allotted by district. If the city seemed like a seething mess, that was only because it was buried under the multitudes.
The moment he'd appeared (foot caught on a crack in the pavement), he'd been shoved and pushed, abused by the loud sound of human interaction, of conversation and clacking heels, murmurs and snatches of someone playing guitar. Noise pollution. Something metallic clattered and hissed and clattered again. Smoke billowed in his face, and steam pushed through the launderer's bucket that hung outside. Dogs barking. For the first few seconds, Jongin was dazed.
And then (- "Hey you, can't you see a fellow trying to walk, here?" -) he began gathering his bearings. This was it. Part of the Great Unknown, part of the never ending Secret, the people on people on people mass that he did not care for, that did not care for him, that he was a stranger to, that was a stranger to him. Nothing tied him down, and he was free to go, to do as he pleased.
He looked carefully at the people. Some with smaller eyes, some with larger. Different shades of skin. Shoulder to shoulder, most coming to his shoulder, some taller than him, some up to his elbow. The same determined look on all of them, the same expression of destination to reach. Same clothes, even.
They went in groups. Girls, up to ten in a cluster, all legs and long hair and darting glances. High, peals of laughter. Boys, snapbacks and low-slung jeans. Maybe four or five at a time. Duffel bags, water bottles, tennis rackets. Men in business suits, women in pencil skirts and high heels. What was the difference? he thought. What makes anybody think they're any different? On the macrocosmic scale, everyone's the same as someone else. Everybody's a type. Like in the city. Everyone a type of building. Slot, allot, classify.
Class. Separate them by class and they take everything the wrong way. Jongin tried to think about it some more, but his head hurt, and he needed a place to stay.
-
The school buildings stood together against him, glass windows peering down from amidst brick walls of a stern, demanding beige. Jongin looked up at the board, proud letters spelling a proud name. The gate creaked open, as if welcoming him, and Jongin went in.
-
The smell of food drew him into the canteen. If anybody was around, he'd be embarrassed, but the whole place seemed deserted, even though it was a weekday. Odd. His footsteps sounded softly along the halls, floors tiled greyish-blue and white.
Even the canteen was empty, but there were several trays ready, food steaming hot in containers at the counter. Jongin cleared his throat, looking around. Still nobody in sight. He hesitated, but then his stomach growled. Who was he kidding?
-
He'd planned on going in because, well, school. He missed Seulgi, and Minho, and classes with Chanshik. School back home had sound, though. People talking, teachers lecturing, students scratching their pencils on their notebooks, raising hands and asking questions. Nothing of the sort here, though. It wasn't as empty as he'd initially guessed; every classroom full, not a single empty desk when he peeked in the doors. But nobody's saying anything. If it weren't for his sneakers, squeaking occasionally on the floor, he might as well have been walking through some kind of vacuum.
The next classroom he passed, he stopped and turned around. Tried the door handle, stepped inside. Everyone was bent intently over their books, teacher pointing to something on the board. No sound. No movement: everybody frozen mid-motion. The hairs on his neck rose. What was going on?
And as if in reply, something started to boom, upstairs. Bass, followed by drums. A guitar riff followed, eventually, and by that time Jongin's outline was blurring, pulsing- and then he was gone.
-
A hiss. "Shit!" A dangerously high pile of books wavered before him, then tumbled onto the carpeted floor. Shelves surrounded him. Library?
A boy stood opposite him, tall and worried extremely disheveled. His hair spiked up in a mess, glasses askew with one nosepad pressing into an eyelid, shirt tousled and crumpling under his large fist. He was moving - eyebrows furrowing and unfurrowing as he surveyed the damage, fingers tapping nervously at his thigh.
"Hello," Jongin coughed.
"Shit," the boy said, again. "Aren't you supposed to be standing still? I froze time."
Wait. Froze time? Jongin's head started spinning, and the dubstep on the stereo didn't help. Froze time? Boombox and stereo in the library? "I came in the middle of the day," Jongin explained. "Stranger here." The boy relaxed, blinking a few times. "Stranger, huh?" And he stuck out his hand, waiting for Jongin to shake it. Jongin did, although warily.
"Huang Zitao," the boy introduced, pointing to his leopard printed T-shirt. Jongin wasn't the best at English, but Kyungsoo's rigorous training allowed him to decipher BEAT BREAK splashed along the front. Which didn't make sense. "Sorry about the mess," Zitao sighed, gesturing towards the books. "I was just trying... to catch up on duty. Before the head librarian came."
Jongin caught sight of the clock on the wall - the second hand was vibrating back and forth. For some reason, his mouth ran dry. "Ah," he attempted at intelligent conversation. "That explains it."
-
Apart from freezing time - (not that he was complaining, but did Jongin always have to end up with Power wielders?) - Zitao made mean pancakes, ramyun, bibimbap, and a huge assortment of Chinese stuff that Jongin didn't know the names of. And he did kung fu, ran the nutrition editorial of the school magazine and spent most of his time in the school building sorting and resorting books. "It pays," he shrugged, when Jongin asked him whether he liked doing that. Zitao was also surprisingly good at astrophysics and interested in quantum theory. Jongin had heard snatches of it in school, promises of learning it later in college, but that hadn't really worked out. Obviously.
The next few weeks, Jongin spent under various trees on campus, blinking out of sight the second he felt someone staring at him strangely. Zitao kept him company, limbs warm and splayed across his own in comfort, voice weaving in and out of Jongin's thoughts as he talked about quarks and planetary orbits. Zitao shared his textbooks, his earphones (novel to Jongin), his lunch and, most importantly, his bus pass. "I don't really go anywhere," he squinted down at him, under the sun. "You go around and explore, pioneer."
-
Jongin liked the city. Of course, he didn't like it enough. And Zitao - Zitao was the first person who came closest to understanding this. Understanding the grip that Jongin was in, the restlessness and emotional fever, the turning of his stomach when he rounded the corner and found himself in the same place, again. Nobody so far, not Kyungsoo or Yifan or Joonmyun - not even Chanyeol - had understood the need to go, to be lost, alone. "What kind of place would you want to go to," Jongin asked, "If you wanted to go away?"
Zitao scratched at his knee. They were sitting side by side on the low wall, outside the sandwich store. A kid on a scooter screeched as she passed them, pigtails bouncing against her shoulders as she went. "My hometown," Zitao laughed, at length. "I love home. I love the people there, my family, the food. The beach and the sea. The smell. Everything's richer than I remember, every time I go back. But you wouldn't want that."
Jongin leaned his head on his shoulder, kicked his foot against the wall. "No," he agreed. "I wouldn't."
"The mountains, then?"
Jongin smiled, surprised. The mountains. It sounded pleasant. He hadn't thought of that. "I might."
-
Small flakes of snow settled atop his skin. He walked on, wiped sweat from his brow. He was shivering, and the flakes stayed there, soft, prickling with cold and heat at the same time. The sensation made him remember, with a pang, of Chanyeol. He turned around to check his progress, then steadily climbed upwards - (Zitao had looked at him, strangely. "Why bother? You could just -" he snapped his fingers "- poof, and be at the top." Jongin had laughed. "I've got to work for something, Zitao. Why bother at all then?" And Zitao had fallen silent, brooding.)
As he reached the top, he realized he didn't feel all that exhilarated - just then. He waited for the sunrise.
The snow fell in little flurries, then. Nested in his hair and piled on his shoulders. When the sun did rise - more white than red - Jongin saluted it. Hey from here, magic man.
And then a laugh, from somewhere behind. Not at him, but kind of... yeah, at him. "Prince of the night, is it?" Not laughing anymore, but still, laughingly. Jongin turned around, and the snow loaded down thick and fast as soon as he did. "Ah, ah." The tone was reprimanding, and Jongin squinted past the white fuzz that insisted on assaulting his vision. "I shouldn't be seen like this. Not at five in the morning. It is five o' clock, isn't it?"
"Hello?" Jongin tried. "I'm not sure about the time. Is anybody there?"
The drifts began to pacify, and a dark silhouette emerged from between the sheets of snow. "I am very much here," the silhouette said, sounding amused. "People mistake me for a spirit, though, sometimes. But I'm a human."
"That's..." Jongin shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Very comforting."
"You think?" the silhouette cleared into a small, sturdily-built man. Almond eyes and sharp cheekbones. Shaggy hair to his shoulders. "I'm flattered."
Jongin didn't know what to make of that.
-
He lived in a cave. A cave, and his name was Kim Minseok. Jongin found himself asking how these things managed to happened to him - not mention to him alone - but then he shook his head and tried to understand what Minseok was saying. Which, he realized, eventually, was impossible. The storm outside had gone from snow to hail, and there were actual stones hitting on the lip of the entrance and rolling in. The roof vibrated a little. Minseok gave up talking and ushered Jongin further into the warmth of the rugs. "Here," he puffed, drawing the soft material around Jongin. "You stay for a few days, and then you can be off to wherever you want to be off to." Jongin shivered, nodded his head. Minseok stepped back to look at him, appraisingly. "Cute," he grinned, and made off into the cold without another word.
-
Minseok was a comforting presence. Jongin might have stayed on for longer, if it hadn't been for the the strangers streaming in, day in and day out. He couldn't catch the details, but he got the gist.
"...need your help, Minseok..."
"...your powers... come handy..."
"...outnumber us..."
"...otherwise..."
A week passed that way, and another. By the middle of the third, Jongin had scoured every bump and dip in the mountain tops, and he and Minseok had barely exchanged more than a few words each day.
When Minseok collapsed into the spot on the floor opposite him, Jongin knew what he was going to say. The look on his face, exhausted, sweat streaming down from his brow. "I signed up for the war," Minseok stated, simply.
"It isn't safe?"
Minseok reached out a hand to pat his head. He looked guilty, eyes regretful. "I wanted us to be friends," he started, then stopped. Then, "I'm sorry."
Jongin leant into the touch. Minseok was such a comforting presence.
"I'm sorry, too."
-
Sometimes you just meet someone at the wrong time.
The last Jongin saw of Minseok was a whirlwind of ice and a wall of snow so thick it wasn't white, it was blue. Jongin almost lost him in the storm, but there was a touch on his shoulder, and a soft, stern, "Go." It sounded far away and whispery, as if the snow had carried the sound.
Jongin closed his eyes, stepped through with the screaming wind, and went.
-
A resounding crack, extreme instability, and he was floating underneath a branch, right after he slipped from it. He stopped flailing and yelling to look about.
"You're very lucky."
A good way below him, somebody was holding up both their hands, as if they were keeping him up. The somebody seemed to be straining hard, curly brown hair tousling in the wind. "You're very very lucky."
"I'll say," Jongin choked, and promptly fell down. He lay there on the ground for a few minutes, stunned.
"Sorry," the person said, sounding truly apologetic. Pretty big eyes widened expressively and stared down at him. A slim, pale hand was shoved in his face. "Want to get up?"
I'll say, Jongin was about to say, again, but he'd never liked redundancy - and anyway, I'll say sounds dumb when it's said more than once. He thought he remembered Kyungsoo tell him something like that, long ago. "You okay?" Pretty Big Eyed Person looked worried.
Jongin grabbed the hand and yanked himself up.
-
Pretty Big Eyed Person was a decidedly male twentysomething (although his face could pass for a sixteen year old girl), four years older than Jongin. He hailed from Beijing, China, his name was Lu Han ("Call me Han, though!") and was telekinetic.
"Telekinetic?" Jongin repeated, blankly. He eyed the demonic resemblance to a smile that was forming on Han's face with apprehension. When Han flicked his wrist in reply, he knew his gut had proved him right. Jongin found himself shooting six feet off the ground, then hanging there with great discomfort. "STOP!" he called out, desperately, but Han just left him as he was for a bit, laughing fit to burst. His chin disappeared into his neck, as if he had no jaw. It was alarming to watch, but it took Jongin's mind off the whole six-feet-off-the-ground dilemma.
When his feet touched the ground again, Han was still grinning. "That's telekinesis."
"Oh. I didn't know."
"There's a lot of things you don't know," Han intoned, superior. His back was straight and his legs crossed. They were sitting in front of mats with tea cups on them, and this was supposed to be peaceful, so Jongin tried not to be a little annoyed. Then Han swiped Jongin's chin with his thumb and smiled at him, really smiled (what on earth), and Jongin found himself melting like the sugar cubes in Han's tea (there had been seven of those).
-
"I have a sweet tooth," Han whispered, totally not creepily, into his ear. Jongin felt himself flushing from the neck up. Han leaned in so close. "Yeah," Jongin whispered back, "I know."
-
It was a hazy summer, where Han lived, nothing but lazy days. Jongin was bored out of his mind, but Han begged him to stay. "Come on," he'd plead, tugging at his arm. "I have something to show you." And it was different, each time, something Jongin hadn't seen before - but Jongin knew the drill. This was a small town. He knew the fact that there would be a hole in the brush and a private spot among the trees, he just didn't know the specifics, didn't know where exactly. He knew there would be two small families with two small children each, each extremely adorable and spoilt, each with a wide array of winning smiles.
"Yeah, let me guess," Jongin mumbled, rubbing his eyes as Han told him this. "They live a little bit away from the bakery, which is probably next to a well, and across from the well you have the school."
Han stopped and stared. Jongin regretted saying it. But I know this, he thought, anyway. I know all of this, and I need to go.
But Han kept him there. Kept him close.
-
Han was doubled up and wheezing on the field, a sheen of sweat over every inch of him. "Foul," he forced out. "You don't kick me in the guts and then score an actual goal."
Jongin dwindled sadly onto his knees. "I was going to kick the ball," he offered, miserably. "I didn't mean to disembowel you."
Han frowned at him. "Don't do that. The pout. Distracting. Two fouls, I say."
Jongin blinked. He'd been pouting? "Two fouls," he agreed, eventually, and handed the ball over.
-
Jongin knew the summer nights well, too. Star bright, star shine. Wind soft and cold. Maybe the stars were brighter there than at home, but still.
Han had an arm around him, as they lay on their stomachs on the ground. He was talking about destiny, and Jongin was only half listening.
-
His Power began to flicker, again, but he didn't take much notice of it. It was small, at first. Just little things here and there - his hands growing translucent, teleporting taking more effort than it should, his silhouette shimmering strangely in the mirror.
-
Han's hands were always playing with his, now. Fingers climbing up his arms, fingers twining with his, little pats to his shoulders and tickling his feet. And he stared at Jongin, sometimes, when he thought Jongin didn't know.
-
And then Jongin found himself staring, too. Staring, his own fingers playing of their own accord, his knees nudging Han's, listening carefully to what he said.
-
"What is it?" Han broke off, with a small laugh. "You're staring." His lips were parted just a bit, smiling a little, teeth shining pearly white under the lights in the field.
Jongin's mouth seemed drier than usual. He swallowed. "I know," he said, and propped himself up on his elbows, leaned in.
-
Han kissed back, every time.
-
The other boy in the room was a stranger to Jongin, but Han seemed good friends with him. "Try it." His voice was soft, but firm. There were sounds of something scraping across the table surface. Jongin felt like he was eavesdropping. Screw it, he was eavesdropping. But he had to... he inched closer to the door, head tilted towards it.
"It's not working." Han sounded strained. Voice fraying into something desperate. "I don't understand, Yixing!"
"It's happened before. You know what the problem is."
A thud, as if Han had sat on the floor, suddenly. And a smaller one, as if whatever he'd been trying to lift had dropped, too. "Tell me again, Xing," Han whispered. "I don't want to say it myself."
Sighing. Someone quietly sat down, probably next to him. Jongin chewed his lip.
"The wrong person will make your powers sporadic, Han." Yixing sounded gentle, comforting.
"I don't want this."
Jongin sidled away. This wasn't his business.
-
"Let's try playing dirty," Han joked, and Jongin froze. Various, compromising thoughts began to whirl around in his head-
"I'll try levitating the ball, you zip around against it."
Well, that lapse of judgement had been embarrassing, but otherwise it sounded fun. "Sure."
-
Han won by just one goal ahead, and that was the problem. The problem was Han, on his knees again, shivering and shaking as if he had a fever. The problem was Jongin, sweating and fading sharply, in and out of focus. "You okay?" The problem was that they were the problem, and they couldn't face it, avoided each other's eyes.
"Tired, but hey. You won."
Crooked smile. "Damn right I did."
They made their way to Han's place, tired and worried, arms looped easily around each other's waists. Sometimes, you get an odd feeling, but you still hang on.
-
Sometimes, you are so goddamned stubborn, and it hurts you, and it hurts the other person. But it balances out; they always hurt you back, because they're stubborn, too. At times, isn't that the only thing that keeps you together? Isn't that all you have left in each other?
-
Han rolled over, and their foreheads knocked together just the slightest bit. "Hey," he whispered, but Jongin kept his eyes closed, pretended he was still asleep.
-
He was up on the roof of the library, thinking about people and differences, again. Unlit cigarette in hand, he leaned over the railings. He wasn't really going to light it. But the feeling was comforting. Something there between his fingers. Han's handholding had become addictive.
Han. Jongin compared him to himself, tried to reason out why people thought they were special. Wasn't it because they were special - to someone else? And then people sink into that, because it makes them feel good, and if they have brains then they let themselves sink but they don't believe, and if they don't then they drown and depend.
That's what he was getting wont to do, him and Han both. Drown and depend.
-
Han was waiting for him when he came back, knocking on the door. Hazy lazy summer days, fading to hazy lazy autumn nights.
"Hey," Han said, a pleading note catching in his voice, and Jongin let himself smile.
"Hey yourself," he said.
-
Jongin kept his eyes open, the better to see with, the better to remember.
Han closed his.
And they kissed, hands hanging loosely at their sides, clenched into fists.
Jongin tilted his head back, Han going on tiptoe to lean into his mouth.
Jongin whispered a hushed, muted farewell against Han's tongue. Han didn't say anything back.
And then he went, when it got too much to bear.
-
The road spread, vast and wavering in the heat, before him. Jongin took a deep breath, started walking.
-
Taemin came three - four? - five? - no, many months after. He came when Jongin had stopped bothering to keep count.
Taemin was simple; just human, just pure, just there. Taemin walked, Jongin followed. Taemin laughed, Jongin smiled. Taemin sang, Jongin hummed. Taemin built a pillow fort, Taemin dragged Jongin inside, Taemin wrapped himself around him, Taemin fell asleep, tidy and neat, chin tucked over Jongin's shoulder, in his arms.
Taemin didn't have a Power, had nothing to hide.
He had a picture of his family, living comfortably in some grand big city in America, on the mantelpiece. He had a plushie collection, ever expanding in the special plushie closet. He had his life ahead of him, not as set and printed and cemented as others that Jongin had known, and Jongin admired him for that. Jongin admired Taemin for his voice, the earnestness with which he did everything, his dancing, the avidity with which he ate, his wariness of old ladies, the excitement with which he woke up every single day. Every damned day, Taemin found a reason to wake up, and stay awake, to find another reason for the next morning.
As much as Jongin wanted to - as much as Taemin wanted to - Jongin didn't fit with it, with any of it.
They had dates and balloons and a one-hundred-days anniversary, candlelight (too soon), huge teddy bears (too much), and lots of harmless, little fights (too heavy). And Jongin had to hide his Power. He couldn't pin down why, but he had to. Taemin's city and Taemin's life hadn't prepared him for this.
So it was the road, inevitably, again. The road, again in the summer, again wavering, trees carving themselves into his eyelids, boughs bending and not bending enough, wind rushing and not rushed enough.
-
This had been about the Great Unknown, about the Secret. When had this become about hearts? When had Jongin last slept alone?
-
Follow the light. Follow the light burning on through the darkness.
Jongin stumbled, fell. Bruised knees and scarred elbows. But that was okay, there had been worse. There had been much, much worse. Follow the light. Go on, Jongin. Jongin. Kim Jongin. Everything was okay. Under control. Keep walking.
Follow the light, the light that was a person, the light that was a shining, piercing boy with shining, piercing eyes and shining, piercing hands. Light from his hands. Easy smile. "Name?"
"Kim Jongin." Jongin stumbled, fell. Shining piercing eyes and hands and boy caught him. "From, uh, far away."
A light laugh. Light boy! Light laugh! "No joke. You look it."
Jongin squinted, tilted his head, tried to look at him.
"Nah, don't bother. Close your eyes or I'll blind you. Not being arrogant or anything."
Closing his eyes was a welcome prospect, actually, so Jongin did just that.
"I'm Baekhyun," he thought he heard the boy say, but then he was asleep, and then he forgot.
-
He woke up at a deserted gas station, keys to the convenience store by his hand. Sorry, couldn't stay read a scrawled note by the hard bed, and Jongin was grateful for the isolation and the quiet.
-
The first time he met Kim Jongdae, it was unwitting and unknown. Lightning zig-zagged through the air in bolts of white outlined in indigo, coming to a dead stop in front of Jongin's feet. He was too tired to move, to wink out someplace else. And slowly, almost courteously, the lightning wound its way around him and continued on. He'd had no idea.
-
The second time: a wiry boy with glasses and a spattering of moles like spacedust over his face and neck, sat across from him at a coffee table. They bumped knees, and Jongin looked up. The boy grinned, and his fingers tapped the table. Spark spark spark, he saw, and blinked hard because he couldn't believe it. Then the fingers stopped tapping, and the boy was gone. Jongin blinked again. The exit door creaked as it dithered to and fro, as if someone had just ran through it in a hurry. He'd had no idea.
-
"Name's Kim Jongdae," someone laughed in his ear. Jongin turned around, surprised. Leather jacket, dark glasses, black shoes. Head to toe in black, in fact. "Hello," Kim Jongdae tilted his head, cocked an eyebrow. A lit cigarette glowed from between his fingers and, when Jongin looked down, three more lay by his heel, crushed to ashes.
"Hello," Jongin replied, dazed. And still, he'd had no idea.
-
"Try it," Jongdae urged. "You never know."
Exasperated, Jongin flailed his hands about. Nothing happened. "We've been at this for three hours," Jongin reminded him. "And I already teleport. I can't just suddenly sprout a second Power and make lightning, too. That would be like sprouting a second head that spoke French."
"Your analogies are wicked gross," Jongdae shuddered, looking fascinated. Jongdae liked using wicked as an adjective. Jongin couldn't remember having heard it in that context since fourth grade, but he didn't think it was polite to point this out - not when Jongdae was pressed up against him and actually capable of sizzling him to a crispy roast.
“Two headed Jongin,” he nodded, instead. “The very epitome of gross.”
-
When Jongdae had given up on Jongin’s nonexistent potential of wielding electricity, he switched to cooking. “Guess my specialty,” he’d drawled, with an exaggerated wink. Jongin pretended to think.
“Burnt bread?”
“Idiot!”
Jongin earned himself a lousy kick, and dodged it. “Alright, alright,” he acceded. “Grilled meat.”
“Now there’s a boy,” Jongdae declared to the room at large (which was empty except for them), “Who’s got a head on his shoulder, and brains in his head.”
Jongin bowed.
The cooking lessons themselves were disastrous. Grilled meat was most definitely burnt, baked bread was reduced to charred remains of carbon, and the most they ever accomplished was, well, buying milkshakes from the convenience store.
“Jongin,” Jongdae looked at him, seriously, in the way that Jongin had come to realize that Jongdae was definitely not serious. “It was a pleasure teaching you culinary skills, and it was an honor learning from you - “ (Jongin snorted into his coffee and spluttered) “- I think, now that we have become accomplished chefs -” (Jongin went red in the face and tried to breathe) “ - we can move onto, say, kite making, or something else as delightfully dist- shit, Jongin, are you okay?”
Jongin was choking, since when could that classify as okay?
-
Jokes aside, Jongdae did know how to teach. He knew how to make a kite, knew how to knit (although Jongin wasn’t interested and immediately told him so), knew how to take a joke and knew when to stop cracking them.
It was Jongdae’s lessons on literature that made Jongin feel like he was waking up. Days and nights blazed past as Jongdae read out from Geumo Shinwa to Cheonno-yeokjeong, from the magazines of the early 1900s - Changjo, Kaebyok, Pyeho. Prose and oral tales and poetry, Jongdae knew it all.
“Listen to this,” Jongdae poked him, staring into his book. Jongin rolled over.
“Hmm.”
“My love left, ah, ah my loving love left.
Smashed the green mountain light; broke from me to walk
the narrow track that leads to the autumn forest.
The oath of old, once strong and radiant as a golden flower,
changed to cold dust, flew off on a puff of wind.
The memory of that first piercing kiss,
the kiss that reversed destiny’s needle,
retreated, disappeared.”
Jongdae paused. “There’s more. You want to hear it?”
“Quiet, a bit. I want to hear just that part again.”
“Han Yong-un,” Jongdae nodded. “One of the greatest of his time.”
-
“Listen, Jongin!” Jongdae leaned against the doorframe, calling him. Jongin licked the sweat from his lips and looked up. Changing around the layout of the front lawn was harder than it looked. The benches were massive.
“Yeah?”
“If you are my love, then love me: night after night
you come to my door – I hear your footsteps –
but you never come in, you just leave again.”
Jongin turned a little, to look at him. Jongdae was looking back. Just looking. Eyes heady and blazing, just looking.
Later that night, when Jongin came in, Jongdae kissed him.
Han Yong-un became Jongin’s favorite.
-
You can love and you can love and you can love and you will go wrong because you love so much, because you love so wrongly, because you love.
-
This time, when Jongin woke, Jongdae was the one who'd gone, first.
He let out an ugly laugh.
“I’d have left anyway,” he said, to the empty room (except for him). “I’d have left anyway.”
-
It wasn’t just the poetry at midnight or the novels at the crack of dawn. Jongdae himself was a consciousness, a breath of the coldest, delightfully frigid air. Jongdae was an awakening. Without him, Jongin traipsed through the world, half-asleep.
-
He hated that he did, but he went back home. Or maybe he didn't hate that he went home, just hated why. Moment of weakness, lots of moments of weakness leading up to weeks of being tired and wandering and miserable.
He searched the whole place through, but everyone was gone. The town lay empty, every block a ghost of what it had been. The doors creaked open at the lightest knock, windows gray with dust. The houses remained where they were, from his memory.
-
He jumped the stairs to Kyungsoo's room, two at a time, wondering at how short he'd been back then, how much bigger everything had seemed.
The room was draped in sheets, furniture looking like little spirits waiting for him to come back. From beneath the rectangular, wispy cloud of the bed poked the edge of a brown box. On his knees, Jongin reached out and swiped it free. The dust shimmered up in a billowing fountain, and he coughed and sneezed for a minute straight before he could do anything else.
In neat writing (Kyungsoo was nothing if not neat), was the label to Jongin. And nestled inside were sheets and sheets of blank paper. Tucked inside the lining is the note ‘write letters!!!’
So Kyungsoo had been planning to write to him. How would he have sent them, though? Perhaps that’s why the sheets were empty - Kyungsoo had no way of knowing.
He’d promised he’d come back. His stomach lurched with guilt.
-
Chanyeol’s place was even more empty. He’d never needed furniture, so there was nothing left but a dead fire, in the middle. The room that was once so warm was now so, so cold. The heat that flickered in Jongin's memory, was beaten out by the ashes that shifted slightly, in the fireplace, when he opened the door.
Jongin walked around the room, turn and turn about. He wished he could see Chanyeol. Wished he could meet everyone. Whatever happened to them all? He sat down.
Then the ashes shifted again, and Jongin watched, caught between bated breath and resigned exhale.
A phoenix, tottering and old and at the end of its days. Its feathers were still moulting, dull reds and greys. It beat its wings pathetically, managed somehow to flutter from the soot and onto Jongin's shoulder. It gave a faint call, like bells ringing, before flying back to the ring of stones and cold remnants of coal. It turned to look at jongin, blinking slowly before lifting up its head.
Jongin watched, transfixed. One more call, more wretched, filled with longing, before it burst into crimson, purple, golden flames. It warmed Jongin to the bone, warmed him so much, so heady, so much warmth, such a beautiful scent, Chanyeol, Chanyeol hyung, Kyungsoo, warmth, fire...
Jongin fell asleep, and dreamed.
-
The dream was quiet. He was back where the beginning was, back on top of the cliff. The sea was quiet. Perhaps that's why the dream was. The sea, and the sky, and the wind. Just a soft breeze, now, and he was lying flat on his back, blinking up at the light blue hue, sun dangling somewhere behind shrouds of clouds.
"It's been a while, Jongin-ah." Deep, clumsy warm voice, the one that made Jongin automatically picture big, friendly ears and people made of flame, dancing in the fire.
For some reason, though, he couldn't move. His back was stuck to the ground. He realized this with calm, his inability to move not instilling any fear in him. Chanyeol’s hair strayed into view, bright red in contrast against the sky. Big eyes crinkle up in a smile, shiny teeth and a dimple. “Hey there, Power kid.”
Now Jongin wanted to move, wanted to jump up and barrel into that warm, solid person. Magic man. But his throat was dry and his back was stuck and all he could say was, “I’ve missed you.”
Chanyeol hummed, sat down on his haunches, face so much closer to Jongin’s own. Eyes twinkling. “Missed you too, buddy. You’ve been through some rough stuff, huh?”
Jongin wanted to curl up against him, wanted to cry a little, maybe, wanted to wrap his arms around him, wanted warm fire hyung hyung hyung --
“Hey,” Chanyeol whispered. “Hey.” And his long, lanky arms reached out, soft fingers gripping his shoulders firmly and lifting him from the ground’s grasp. “Hey.” Jongin, curled up against Chanyeol, Chanyeol’s arms around him. “Don’t be a baby, now, didn’t put you through fire to make you into a little baby.”
Jongin felt strange. So strangely weak. He never remembered wanting contact and warmth and someone else so much before, never remembered buckling under and craving for comfort like this, ever.
Perhaps it was because the dream was quiet, Chanyeol was there. Probably because Chanyeol was there.
And there, in the dream, Jongin started falling asleep, eyes drooping shut in the warm embrace. “Jongin,” Chanyeol murmured, and his voice sounded like it was floating down to Jongin, like Chanyeol was talking to him but looking up at the clouds. “Jongin, when have you felt most alive?”
-
He opened his eyes. The fire was burning blue, now. No warmth radiated from it, and there were drafts coming in through the open door. Jongin closed his eyes, let the wind take him where it willed.
-
Beneath a tree, again, only this time the boy under it was someone else, and Jongin was the one who stood at a distance. The boy was dressed strangely; white leggings clinging up to his waist and a loose, light blue cloak the color of the afternoon sky. It shone, like silk. It shifted a little, in the small breeze.
Jongin had an odd feeling, as the breeze lifted and began to rush, strengthening into a wind. It was the oddest moment, something whipping over his skin, as if he were waiting for the Great Unknown to happen. The leaves were rustling loudly, in the tree, and Jongin remembered.
"All in good time, Nini. Remember that."
The boy turned around and saw him, smiled and got up. Bowed low, stood straight again. Something about him reminded Jongin about the first fall, and the smell of the sea. The boy kept smiling. Soft and easy, eyes in crescents.
It all made sense, somehow. Bowing back to him, walking towards him as he walked towards Jongin, stumbling to introducing themselves. Like the globe model at Minho's desk that spun and spun had finally stopped, and Jongin's finger was pointing towards the spot he'd wanted all along.
"Oh Sehun," the boy said. He lifted his hand to rest on top of Jongin's outstretched one, and the air raced a circle around them. The leaves of the tree trembled and let go, joined the gusts. "I control -"
"The wind," Jongin smiled back, finally.
Sehun's grew wider. "Yeah."
-
The strings tugged at him, of course. The Secret's siren call and the open road. It worried him, a shadow of the static invading his mind and his going to sleep in his bed and waking up miles away. But he always made his way back. Back to Sehun, and the little cottage at the bottom of the hill. "Morning," Sehun said, each time, as if nothing had happened.
"Morning," Jongin would reply. And their shoulders brushed. And they understood.
-
"What if I leave?"
"I'll come with you."
They sat side by side, before the fireplace. One of the logs broke off, fell with a crackle into the flames. Jongin felt Sehun squeeze his hand.
"I'm the wind, remember?"
fin.