“I don’t f*cking get it. Is this what you wanted? For me to leave you alone?”
This should be enough. These words should fill Yeonjun with the satisfaction of having achieved what he wanted. With the placid quietness of his freedom. But Beomgyu’s voice breaks, vulnerable and wounded. It splinters— ragged edges of piercing sadness burying deep in his chest. And the things he knows, the decisions he has made, the choices he has taken… they all feel void and meaningless.
“I just- Why? Why are you like this? Why do you keep… pushing me away?”
The words echo in the walls of his office. They explode and ripple around them. They destroy everything. They destroy him.
Emptiness.
Only emptiness remains.
All there has ever been is emptiness.
Beomgyu’s eyes, so far riveted on his, dignified and wounded and proud, close. The turning of a page, the last line of a chapter, the end of a story— of them, if there has ever been a ‘them’, to begin with. His eyelashes are a knot of fate coming undone, bathed in tears too clear, too bright, too pure. And if Yeonjun weren’t so sure he is empty inside, he’d allow himself to think the image breaks something within him.
He has never seen the boy so openly wounded, so clearly defeated.
So he turns his back on him. He builds a wall. He closes his eyes, doing his best to ignore every detail of his heartbreak, every tear, every pout, every sob. Everything that long ago he promised would never happen again.
It’s okay. This is okay.
It is what he wanted. What he expected.
The next thing Yeonjun hears is the sound of the boy’s footsteps as he walks away. The beating of a fading heart. The end of something which should have never started.
Outside, the lights of the seoulite night twinkle, cold and artificial, distant as the stars. Car horns blare among the buildings, barely drowned out by the murmur of an ever-living city. But inside, the penthouse trembles with the ruins of what might have been. The rubble of an instant, the trace of a war Yeonjun has won. And it’s uncanny— the way the world can hold both at the same time, the way reality can be irretrievably torn apart while everything remains the same. And if life is like that, Yeonjun wonders if history is an endless scar made up of small deaths, of irreparable mistakes and moments to which there is no going back.
‘Why? Why are you like this?’
There hasn’t been enough time to answer him. Or maybe these are not the kind of questions that can be answered. Maybe it has not been a matter of time, but of courage.
Emptiness.
Only emptiness remains.
The only thing Yeonjun has ever felt is emptiness.
It’s better this way.
He prefers it this way.
The sound of an ambulance crosses the city.
It is a cry spilled over the night, a roar that no one hears.
Red lights burst in the darkness, splintering through the water droplets like shrapnel, blood ebbing away, a curtain falling over the end.
Yeonjun can feel it.
It is not the siren that calls to him, nor the lights.
It is death.
He feels its throbbing in the earth, the vibration of a new silence branching out into his body. Translucent threads clinging to him, pulling on his body, leading him across the road, through the night. The sensation is stronger the closer he gets, and is almost overwhelming when he stops in front of the crashed car. Pieces of the hard plastic of the headlights crunch under his shoes.
Humans are fragile.
Lives that emerge like flowers on the asphalt, shattering reality. They are soon crushed by others like them.
No matter how much they scream or how much they revolt. No matter what they leave behind. No matter who they think they are, what they have done, how they have been. No matter what they deserve.
“Please… please.”
One day, all that’s left of them is their soul fading into the abyss.
“Please, sir. Please.”
Yeonjun crouches down, hunches his back to look under the mass of metal the car has become and find the source of the voice.
A hand reaches out to meet him. Thin, long fingers, stained with gravel and blood. Two white butterflies flutter around it, hovering over its wounds. Caring for whoever the hand belongs to.
Yeonjun picks them up carefully, caressing them gently before storing them in his pocket.
The wounded hand clutches at the pants of his tailored suit.
“Please. I don’t… I can’t-”
“It’s raining,” he says, ignoring the hand’s pleas. His own voice sounds brittle and wrinkled. Unused. It’s been a while since he last exchanged words with someone.
Not that it matters. Not that he cares.
The words escape his lips like an empty fact, hollow. It’s an easy truth— it’s raining. The drops are so thin they feel like mist. It’s annoying, he thinks. Uncomfortable. Rain gives death a metallic quality that makes him wrinkle his nose, for some reason. It’s cold. He’s tired. Though none of that matters.
He’s early. Obviously the owner of that hand is not dead yet. The impact should have killed them at once, but some souls are more of a nuisance than others. He just has to wait a little longer. The last one is close, he can feel it.
The hand, however, grips the fabric tightly. It pulls him down with shocking strength, making him fall to the asphalt, sink into the dirty puddles of the city, among the blood and gravel and the repulsive mixture of rain and gasoline.
Yeonjun gasps, irritated. He feels the rage building up between his teeth, the bitter poison of his anger pooling under his tongue. But when he opens his eyes, he realizes the person looking at him trapped under the debris of the car is… him.
Himself.
His face arched in a grimace of despair he has never felt before.
The pain pierces his body like a bolt of lightning. It burns him from the inside, making him feel his every limb, the tightness of his skin over his muscles, the freezing cold of the night, the sound of the ambulance cracking in his brain, the anguished cries of the firemen. The slow, cold advance of death. He’s-
“Please!” his own voice exclaims, clawing at him from within. “Please, it’s too soon! It’s way too soon!”
Sadness engulfs him like the fire surrounding the car, and a different fire erupts inside him, cold and hot, acidic, spreading and churning as if trapped in his core.
“It’s too soon!”
He can see himself reflected in his own pupils, in the pool of gasoline spreading rapidly between them, like a water clock counting down the time before blowing them up. The fire gushes from his insides, burns his lungs, claws at his mind.
This must end.
It doesn’t make sense. In the hundreds of years he has been doing this job, this has never happened to Yeonjun before. It is simply not possible.
He reaches out, trying to force death into his arms. But his body does not respond. His body is his body and at the same time it is not, trapped as it is under the wreckage of the car, the metal piercing his chest, compressing his lungs.
“Please, it’s too soon! I’m not ready. IT’S TOO SOON!”
This must end. This is not him.
He must remember.
He must finish it.
“I… I promised…”
Has to…
He must…
The fire covers his throat, incinerates his tongue, opens his teeth. A black mass gushes from his lips, falling, dense on the ground.
It must end.
He must remember.
Everything…
… everything is his fault.
Yeonjun wakes up as he gasps for breath.
He still feels the fire crawling up his throat, its invisible fingers clawing their way from his chest, unstoppable.
Light creeps through the curtains. Another day always comes. No matter what happens.
He sits up, holding his hand to his temples in a vain attempt to erase the scars the nightmare has left in its wake. Memories warp and splinter in his mind, morphing beyond recognition— open, exposed wounds that bleed onto his consciousness.
Yeonjun sighs, watching the way the light disperses over the shards of glass resting scattered on his bedroom floor.
“It reeks of alcohol.”
“Good morning to you too, Taehyun-ah.”
The ghost speaks to him from the corner, sitting in that way Yeonjun has only ever seen on Taehyun— legs perfectly crossed, graceful and functional. He doesn’t even look up from his tablet, but Yeonjun can feel the disappointment just the same, like a bullet shot over his glasses.
The boy wordlessly gestures with his head towards his right. Yeonjun worries his lip and follows the movement, holding in a second sigh.
The pills wait for him on the bedside table, translucent and yellow, warping the light that passes through them. They feel wrong. Like a drop of water suspended in time, an oval of contained light about to fall apart on the dark metal of the cabinet. Human medicine for an ailment that is anything but human. For a body that is anything but human. It is a lie that Yeonjun lets rest in his mouth before folding it over his tongue and wiping it away with water. They don’t help. They’ve never helped.
What happens to him is not cured by medicine, but by death.
Taehyun nods as soon as he sees him swallow, setting his tablet aside and approaching the closet.
“You have a meeting in about 40- no, 37 minutes,” he explains from the other room. The distant tinkling of hangers nails at Yeonjun’s temples despite the distance.
“The usual?”
“Something like that. A few international conflicts here and there, a leak of classified information… you know the drill. There’s a request for special forces team #74, and they’re waiting for your orders. We also got a tip on a shipment of camcorders intercepted before they arrived at-”
“Tell them I know they are the ones who have them and that I’m not in the mood.”
Yeonjun stands up, letting the sheet pool around him on the floor.
“Tell them yourself. They’ve sent a couple of their men, I’ve left them waiting in one of the meeting rooms.”
f*cking annoying.
“Then tell Beom-”
“I won’t. He can’t,” Taehyun interrupts. “Not anymore.”
The silence is thick. Heavy.
It’s f*cking ironic, considering that despite it Yeonjun can still hear Taehyun’s judgment, the low murmur of his disapproval hanging in the air and… and more. He can hear the metallic sound of the truth falling between them, sharp, severing the thin veil of sleep still clinging to his eyelids. The gentle forgetfulness that, for a moment, has allowed him to overlook yesterday’s events.
“He left,” Taehyun reminds him anyway, leaving a perfectly pressed pile of clothes on the bed and passing him a white, fluffy bath robe.
“I know.”
“He was… upset.”
“I know.”
Yeonjun passes him by, closing his fingers on the soft fabric, his knuckles clenched white. The metal bathroom door whispers against the tiles as he opens it, and then he turns on the faucet, letting the sound of the shower fill the small space, the water taking with it the dense silence of this new reality. He inhales, exhales.
“He said he will not come back.”
Yeonjun stops. The fire ebbs and breathes in his lungs, pushing his heart against his ribs.
“He should keep his promise, then.”
Taehyun’s disapproving silence takes over the room once again, reminding him of the emptiness Beomgyu has left behind. But it’s all right. It’s perfectly fine. This is what Yeonjun had wanted all along. Peace. Silence. The emptiness he was used to before the boy arrived, before things got… complicated.
He observes as his reflection disappears in the bathroom mirror, hidden by the steam. Taehyun studies him from the door-frame, his brows furrowed— but, since he’s a ghost, in the reflection there is only him.
It’s cruelly accurate.
“You know you’re not gonna be able to escape it forever, right?” the ghost grumbles. “I know you, Yeonjun. Why are you doing this to yourself?”
Yeonjun doesn’t want to reply. sh*t, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Or like— to talk at all.
He’s got what we wanted, doesn’t he? He’s got what we wanted, and that’s it. He made his decision a long while ago. From now on, Beomgyu won’t be here to talk his ears off. He won’t look at him with those stupid puppy eyes. His beautiful, delicious soul will taunt him no more. The boy will be safe, and he… he’s doing fine. Great, even. So why can’t Taehyun shut the f*ck up? Why can’t he leave him alone?
The heat from the shower clings to his muscles, oppressive, and the steam brings with it the stale smell of the whiskey in which he drowned himself before falling asleep. It’s f*cking disgusting.
“Man… why are you like this?” Taehyun mutters, shaking his head, leaving the bathroom.
The words ricochet against the walls. It is the same question that’s been haunting him since last night but, unlike Beomgyu, Taehyun abandons it as if he doesn’t really need an answer, as if he doesn’t expect it— so its echo is lighter than the previous night. It hurts less.
Yeonjun looks at the steam wall between him and the mirror, grateful for the way it has completely hidden his reflection.
The right question is why wouldn’t he. The question should be why they have come to harbor the expectation that Yeonjun would be different.
He’s the grim reaper, for f*ck’s sake.
The days go by like tracing paper— their edges transferred from one surface to another until they become indistinguishable, until Yeonjun doesn’t know exactly how much time has passed. The same meetings, the same problems, the same dull ache settling into his body like sand flowing down an hourglass.
The same empty chair in the meeting room, waiting in front of him. As if the absence could take shape and remind him of… everything.
The guilt. The tears.
The promise.
Yeonjun drops against the back of the chair, crossing his legs with a sigh. Silence immediately falls among the management board, anxiety oozing from their bodies, acidic and stale, heavy on Yeonjun’s tongue, peppered with the icy pinpricks of apprehension. He can see the trembling in their hands, the perspiration pooling on their temples.
They fear him.
The emotion is simple but powerful. Primal. An inescapable urge, a force they don’t understand but which nonetheless heeds them to stay away from him. To run. It is a natural reaction. After all, survival is a basic instinct for humans— even if none of them yet know what he is, or the fact that he will likely be the last thing they see before they vanish.
Yeonjun allows himself a moment to indulge in the rush their reaction gives him, in the way his power courses warm and energetic through his veins, the way it swells his muscles and fills them with a sense of pride and mirth.
Ah, it feels… right. This is how it should always be.
He nods cordially at them, inviting them to continue. One of the directives drops his papers before moving on to the next slide.
“Yes, as I was saying. Uh... so- so far our teams have managed to decrypt a portion of the information. We have several buyers, as you all can see in the document, exhibit 3. If we keep pushing…”
The empty chair seems to laugh at Yeonjun.
It is an irrational idea and yet, as the voices of the managers fade into the back of his mind, the feeling seems to occupy his thoughts, to fill every space in his mind, every little nook and cranny he used to think safe. It makes him feel cold. Flowers of ice blooming on his throat.
Soon someone new will sit in that chair, and they won’t be Beomgyu. They will be someone different—someone who will not have the same dark eyes, the same long, delicate eyelashes, nor the same bright, sweet aura. Someone who won’t scribble little bears in the corners of confidential documents, pouting and ignoring everything else. Someone who won’t fall asleep during meetings, and who won’t be a small menace to some of the company’s more ethically questionable and wealthy clients. Someone Yeonjun doesn’t know.
Soon, he will not have to sit in front of that empty chair, dread clawing at the pit of his stomach.
He inhales, forcing himself to savor again the fear and anxiety floating in the air, letting it remind him of his power, his control, his authority. Mostly, though, he seeks in the air the absence of something else— Beomgyu’s scent. He revels in the way it makes his mind feel clear despite the slight pain that always accompanies it, his ideas sharp and eloquent. He feels capable. He feels strong. He feels powerful.
Yet for the first time in years, it makes the room feel… empty. Odd.
Yeonjun holds back a sneer.
He’s got what he wanted. Everything’s alright. It’ll take a while for the company to recover (despite whatever Yeonjun might say, Beomgyu is f*cking great at his job), but other than that, this is precisely what he was looking for. What he had planned. So why? Why does it feel so… wrong.
It feels wrong.
He clenches his fists, bites the inside of his cheek.
It’s f*cking exasperating.
But perhaps he should have known better. He should have expected this. Beomgyu is f*cking infuriating, always has been. And by extension, his absence seems to be, too.
He closes his eyes, letting the light dance behind his eyelids, shapeless and cruel. The headache is killing him.
Yeonjun still remembers the first time he saw Beomgyu in this very room, five years ago— his long black hair floating behind him as he hurried to sit at the applicant table, the round wire-rimmed glasses, the mark of a lip piercing carefully removed for the occasion. He remembers the disheveled look despite the dignified seriousness of his suit two sizes too big, as if the boy couldn't completely hide who he really was. But what he remembers most clearly is the exact moment when their gazes met. His eyes bright and dark. The total absence of fear. The… the curiosity that shone in them.
For a moment, Yeonjun had feared the impossible— that Beomgyu knew. That Beomgyu had recognized him. That he had been able to see beyond Yeonjun’s position in the company, beyond the business empire he had created, beyond the human stratagem with which he had concealed his true nature and his monstrosity. That, perhaps, despite it was absolutely impossible… perhaps he remembered him.
The idea had settled like poison in his chest, spreading through his body beat by beat, breath by breath, relentless and… warm, soft. It had brought with it a suspicious amount of stupidity and recklessness that Yeonjun would have thought unbecoming of him. That was the only explanation he had found for the fact that, despite Beomgyu’s complete lack of credentials and experience, despite understanding that it was a risk, despite knowing that it was a grave, grave mistake… he had hired the boy, overlooking other perfectly apt candidates. It was also the only explanation as to why a part of him had wished, for an instant, that Beomgyu would recognize him. That he would see him. That he’d actually see him for what he was. What he is.
Oh, how stupid. How reckless.
But that’s the thing— nearly five years after that day, Yeonjun keeps making the same questionable decisions when it comes to Beomgyu, and Beomgyu still makes him laugh. He still fills his body with that same poison made of light, still invades his senses with that unnerving feeling, pure and warm and sweet.
Yeonjun has always been able to feel the souls and auras of creatures. But with Beomgyu… with Beomgyu it’s slightly different. It’s… too much. Never enough.
Beomgyu’s aura is bright, clear, iridescent— it tastes and smells like a morning stranded between spring and summer, warm light spreading its fingers among wildflowers, birdsong scattered among the dew, time pregnant with possibilities, futures, strawberry jam on still-warm scones, breakfasts on the porch under a blanket as the sun raises over the forest. And peace. So much peace.
Yeonjun drops his head on his fist, pushing the memory away, locking it in a drawer and throwing the key into the confines of his mind… positive that it will find its way back despite everything.
Everything about Beomgyu is frustrating.
His aura, and his lips, and his eyes, and his scent, and his recklessness. His windshield laughter and his permanent need to hibernate like a bear. The music he listens to as he writes code and the way the sound escapes his headphones as he approaches him, and the way he pronounces his name "Yeon-du-nie-hyung~~~" as he pouts. Even the fact that the boy has been promoted with surprising ease until he became the company's general manager of cybersecurity analysis.
Which brings us back to this moment. To this meeting. And to the fact that Beomgyu should be here because there’s no way Yeonjun is able to understand everything they’re talking about on his own.
But he’s not, and it’s better this way.
This is what he wanted.
He’s a damn good CEO in his opinion, anyways. It’s just that he draws the line at Python, never mind how many times Beomgyu has assured him that it is the simplest programming language and that it is impossible for Yeonjun to have a company specializing in security and cybersecurity and not know how to write code. It’s just… not his thing.
He might be getting old.
He is hundreds, if not thousands of years old.
But coding has never been a priority in his mind. The whole company is just a… front of sorts. Yeonjun likes dealing in secrets and violence because that is the language of the kind of humans —unethical, shameless, pathetic humans— who make the most pacts. You need pacts to get workers. You need workers to attend to the absolutely stupid amount of bureaucracy and people that death involves. The company has branches on cybersecurity, private security and private military, and a promising plan to branch out into the pharmaceutical industry in the future. And it all allows him to have a rather impressive amount of ghosts bound to him by afterlife pacts, who are now in charge of collecting the souls he can’t attend to and dealing with all the boring stuff— because the world is annoyingly full of humans, like a pest.
Divide and conquer, and sh*t like that. Or outsource and be free. Whatever.
Of course, Beomgyu doesn’t know this. Beomgyu doesn’t know anything.
And yet, despite the way he’s worked his way up in Yeonjun’s company, despite the way he’s made himself indispensable in his day-to-day life, despite the way the guy has (unilaterally) established that they’re friends, and even despite the way his eyes filled with tears as he understood that Yeonjun wouldn’t give him more — all those things about Yeonjun’s truth that Beomgyu ignores… they affect him directly. Particularly.
The air fills his lungs torturously, claws at his insides. His stomach resents the icy prick of emptiness.
Taehyun is right (he always is), Yeonjun is not going to be able to avoid him forever.
Beomgyu is dying.
Beomgyu is not actually dying.
That’s the problem.
Yeonjun can feel the tug of death, the translucent thread that binds him to the boy, glowing like his soul. He can feel it encircling his body, can feel the pressure it exert on his muscles, ever tighter, as if reminding him of the obvious—
Beomgyu should be dying. Actually, he should be already dead.
Instead, he’s walking downtown on a flannel shirt and baggy jeans and rundown converse, his long hair tied in a messy bun, his piercings back on, dangling softly with the warm breeze. He’s so innocent, so unsuspicious, so naive. His aura glows softly, prettily. It makes the boy look small and frail… and deliciously weak.
Yeonjun clenches his fist, bites his lips.
Beomgyu’s gaze is lost in everything and nothing, as if he is able to see something that others cannot, as if there is a secret world spread over reality, one to which only he has access. One that makes him suddenly smile at the most absurd things. One that, for some reason, makes Yeonjun’s lips curl treacherously upward, rebellious, as if playing a game of mirrors.
And Yeonjun is here— his senses heightened and trained on Beomgyu, on his every move, his every breath, following him like a f*cking creep— because… because…
Yeah, anyway.
He lets out a sigh, ignoring the nervous tremor shaking his muscles, the surplus of energy trying to push him forward. Just a few feet ahead, Beomgyu smiles in front of the display window of a new coffee shop, his eyes bright with curiosity, his neck exposed, slender and delicate as he gazes at the garland of flowers decorating the storefront. His Adam's apple rises and falls visibly, outlined against the sunlight, so... so vulnerable.
Yeonjun gasps. His saliva feels thick and gritty in his mouth. His tongue, clumsy and heavy, makes its way between his lips without him being able to help it. The constant hum of his thoughts muffles his ears, so absolute and constant that he can barely make out what they are saying. Still, the idea sticks inside him, jolts desperately, over and over and over and over again. He does his best to ignore it, pulling a lollipop that Beomgyu had left in the pocket of his blazer jacket— just one more memory of the boy now walking ahead, one more piece Yeonjun still hasn't managed to get rid of… that maybe he hasn’t wanted to get rid of.
f*ck, it's all so godsdamned stupid, so ridiculous.
But it doesn't matter. It's all going to end soon.
It will all disappear at some point. That's how it works. People die, ideas die, memories die. Reality always finds a way to bring an end, and Yeonjun can't help but feel that there is a certain comfort in that idea. A small refuge to return to; one to hide in.
Everything dies. Everything disappears. Even lifeless things, immortal beings— monsters like him.
There is not much time left. The signs are there, constant, unstoppable; throbbing on his temples and gnawing on at his joints.
He places the candy on his tongue, putting the wrapper back in his pocket. Sour apple. Green and bright and fresh and sweet. Sizzling and innocent, just like Beomgyu.
It's nice.
But it also makes him wonder…
Yeonjun shakes his head, flaps his wings behind him thoughtlessly, restlessly, as if he can make the idea go away.
He supposes this is better than doing what he's been doing all these days— locking himself in his office or his room, drinking his weight in whiskey, trying to ignore the iridescent tug of Beomgyu’s death thread, the incessant torment of his memories. The suffocating feeling of wanting to escape from himself, from his own body, from his guilt. The silence. The headache. The nightmares. The sound of the boy’s footsteps walking away after their argument —why are you like this, why are you like this, why are you like this. Is this what you wanted, is this what you wanted, is this what you wanted? For me to leave you alone, alone, alone?
Why is he like this, indeed.
Not that following him would change any of that. Well, maybe the whiskey thing. But at least he's here, and here he can't sleep, can't think, can't feel. At least the street air isn't charged with his permanent contradiction. At least here the hubbub drowns out the voices of his memories. At least here death hums satisfied, convinced that Yeonjun is going to do what he must.
At least from here, hidden in his power and from the comfortable safety of the crowd, Yeonjun can see Beomgyu, and his instincts can relax.
That makes things somewhat easier.
Who knows, maybe this time he'll get i-
A new thread of light clings to his wrist, pulling him forward, causing him to stumble over a woman and her dog. Yeonjun hastily excuses himself despite that she can't see him, sidestepping the mass of bodies occupying the street. Pain immediately sets in, cutting off his circulation, stabbing into his flesh. Other threads of other colors and other people move, crawling over his skin, joining this new iridescent thread— stronger, more intense, more imminent than all the others. He can feel its claim in his bones —It's time, it's time, it's time—, ice snakes climbing inside him, biting him, disfiguring him, turning him into a knot of rage and regret, a vessel for every lost soul swarming the streets of Seoul, amplifying their voices and the gritty sound of time running out.
f*ck, he’s only lost sight of him for a second, he just…
And that’s the thing— Beomgyu is not dying, but he keeps being about to die. Death is a long, dark shadow surrounding his figure, blanketing his soul, attracting every danger to him because his time is long due. Because Yeonjun hasn't done his job.
Yet.
There it is.
A truck speeds down the street, out of control, snaking between other cars and pedestrians. Yeonjun can feel the driver's racing heartbeat, the scream inside the cab as he tries to brake, a new thread tying itself to his ankle, indigo this time, faint— that of the driver.
He can see it. He can see it all— the way Beomgyu crosses the crosswalk, the way he distractedly waves to a dog, his delicate hands wrapped in the sleeves of his oversized shirt, his lavender scent sweetening, edging on vanilla, his bright eyes coated in tenderness. He can see his fragility, his weakness, his humanity. Yeonjun can see before it happens the way the truck impacts with his body, the way Beomgyu is thrown off, his body so frail, so light, landing on the concrete. His bones breaking irretrievably, his head resting in an unnatural angle on the hard edge of the pavement.
The image stirs something bitter within him. Painful. Hot and cold, rage and dread.
Yeonjun should just let it happen.
He would only have to wait, reach out and pick up Beomgyu's glowing soul from his corpse.
‘You are warm, hyung. Warm. Warm like a star hanging in the sky. Have you ever thought about that? You are warm. At night it is difficult to notice it. It is cold and it is dark and the stars are far away and tiny. But if you pay attention, if you listen to them- they are warm. They are tender. They care. They burn just so their light fills with warmth the universe, they shine just so their light can travel for years, so we can see them despite the distance. Their memory remains even when they have become something totally different. And I know you're gonna say only humans think the stars shine just for them. I wish the stars knew we shine for them too.’
Yeonjun would only have to let it happen. Should just let it happen.
‘Yeondunie-hyung~~ Have you seen this? Have you seen me? Are you… are you proud?’
It would all end if it did. One ending in exchange of another.
It would be okay. He would be fine.
‘Are you okay, hyung? You know I'm here, right? I'm here for you-’
And yet, once again, Yeonjun finds himself wrapping his hand around the thread, pulling it before the impact can occur, stopping the truck with a gesture of his free hand.
The consequences are immediate. The street is flooded with the silence of what has not happened, the wandering souls curl into his body, explode against him— their regret and guilt and rage digging into his stomach like a splinter of hatred, opening him up and dissecting him with their claws in search of something that does not exist, of a soul he has not achieved. His muscles stiffen, saliva pools under his tongue with nausea. His body becomes a battlefield, a bloodthirsty war of instinct.
He falls on his knees, his breathing ragged, a thin layer of cold sweat covering his back. He waits until the souls abandon him on the sidewalk, until the evening chill covers his body. Until only he is left— wounded, broken.
He has failed.
Once again, he has failed.
And Yeonjun wonders if the reason he follows Beomgyu, the reason why all these years he has been unable to forget him, the reason why he has never been able to let him go, can be reduced to this— iridescent threads knotted to his body, pulling at him, pushing his body to the next moment, to the next end.
If what he feels is just death turning him into a puppet.
He looks at his claws, the black stain covering his fingers and hands, disappearing into his forearms. He looks at his black wings and the way they cover his body, absorbing the light. People pass around him without seeing him. They walk without knowing that a 28-year-old has once again managed to bring the grim reaper to his knees, to escape from his embrace. It would be poetic if it were not catastrophic; if prostrating on his knees could solve something, if it could give meaning to the uncontrolled heartbeat churning in Yeonjun’s chest, if it could explain how it is possible that after thousands of years, of wars, of injustices and pandemics experienced stoically, the grim reaper is weeping on a street in Seongsu-dong over the end that could have been. Lamenting the pain that that void would have left behind.
In the distance, Beomgyu simply walks away; as gentle, as bright, as delicate as ever. Ignorant that Yeonjun has failed once again.
That he has chosen to fail again.
Dawn’s light crosses the hospital waiting room. It slips unnoticed through the fluorescent lights, just like any other of the ghosts trapped within these walls. Time does not exist here. The world does not exist. The future does not exist. Here, life and death dance on the surface of all things, waiting on their edge, and the world seems to be composed of encounters and losses. Humans come and go, they sit, they wait, they cry and disappear. Silence breaks different silences, and life goes on.
Their souls cling desperately to each other, but only one of them remains alone.
Hundreds of threads cling to his body demanding his attention, forcing into him their uncertainty, their stories, their fears, their anger, their regret. Yeonjun, however, sees only one. The thread glows iridescent between his fingers. It flows and curls up. It hums. It beats. Its aura is soft and gentle, and surprisingly silent.
Yeonjun has followed it here, to the one person who watches the sunlight slipping through the windows. The only person who waits for no one else.
“I promised,” the boy whispers. His breath draws storm clouds on the cold surface of the glass.
"I know,” Yeonjun vows.
But he can't hear him. No one can hear him. No one can see him for what he really is.
“I promised,” he repeats. “But it hurts.”
"I know.”
The smell of the vending machine coffee is sharp and astringent, as if it knows, too, that this place is not right. As if it was there just to convince the humans to leave faster. After all, places like this, halfway between life and death, are always dangerous— if they don't find a way to leave them, they run the risk of being trapped in them forever. Like this boy.
Yeonjun tries to get close to him, to see his face, to show him his own.
He can't.
“I don't want to- I can't die. I can't. I promised.”
"I know.”
He does. He knows. He knows as well as he knows no one can truly escape death. No one can escape him.
And yet, the boy’s uncontrolled sobs open wounds on his skin, bury their nails on his chest, on his ribs, on his lungs, on his wings. They dig until they hold his dead heart, and Yeonjun can only hold his breath, feeling himself die. Every tear, every ragged gasp torments him.
He wants to protect him. He wants to end him. He wants to save him. He wants to wreck him.
Yeonjun swallows the lump in his throat.
What is it that he wants to tell him? That it’s okay? That he is not alone? But why would he lie to him?
Yeonjun knows that sooner than later the boy will have no more strength or willpower left with which to avoid death. Soon he will realize that there is nothing left to fight for. Promises don't matter when the people you vowed them to are no longer there.
So why? Why?
The idea is a cold, heavy tide. A current that pushes him inward, that plunges him into his perpetual emptiness. No one can escape him. No one can escape him. No one can escape him.
Not even himself.
Yeonjun wonders if that's the reason why he can't move. If that's the reason why the words won’t leave his throat.
“I don't want to die,” the boy stutters, digging his nails in the palm of his hand. Yeonjun wants to hold it. To cover it. He can’t. “So why does everything feel so pointless? Why do I want to live if I'm so-if I'm so... ”
Silence lingers between them. The sun changes, eclipsed by clouds. Someone dies, someone is born, someone cries. The threads pull Yeonjun, try to push him away. To take him to the other souls.
To stay is an act of rebellion.
An act of love.
“I'm so… lonely.”
This is it. This is the first time the boy has ever said it. The first time Yeonjun gets to listen to it, at least.
A warm, bitter feeling pools in his stomach. Contradictory and ambiguous and terrifying.
It is heart-breaking. It sounds uncannily similar to his own voice, and it kills him.
He can't move, he can't move, he can't move. He can't. When he looks at his body, he sees it. The soil opening up to swallow him, roots and branches surrounding his feet, integrating into him, molding into him, becoming him. Charred bark, black and filled with stars. He tries, he pushes, the wood breaks and he falls.
He screams and the boy turns.
But when he looks up, in the pained, tear-streaked face, he sees only himself.
"I told you, didn't I?"
Yeonjun sighs, ignoring the question and crouching on the dark ground. Butterflies flutter inside his sleeve, emerging shyly from between the folds of his blazer, floating between his fingers, landing on his lips. He caresses their wings, and flashes of their past flood the darkness behind his eyelids, making him, if anything, even more aware of his future.
His time is running out.
He does not care. It does not matter. The pain in his temples throbs with the certainty of the end, as if it is aware that he is going somewhere. That he won't come back.
"Hyung, you miss him."
Taehyun cuts one of the flowers neatly planted in front of them in rows and rows. He lets its wilted petals sink into the black soil, waiting for the butterflies to descend and on them, their light fading out as they enter the soil. A few seconds later, they emerge as tiny buds of light.
"I don't."
"It wasn't a question. You miss him. We miss him. And we need him."
But what is it to need someone? He doesn't need Beomgyu. He has left, and the sun is still there. Life and death are still there. Humans live. Humans die. Their souls await to be reaped and sowed back into the abyss. Their memories nourish the world, they change and grow and rest, then find other ways to live, just like they always do. Nothing has changed. He doesn't need Beomgyu.
But he f*cking misses him.
He has no right to miss him.
"Hyung. Just... tell him you are sorry."
The ghost can't see it, but Beomgyu's death is knotted around Yeonjun's finger, shining bright, full of life. Yeonjun can't bring himself to look at it. He can't bear to see the way it mingles with the light of the other spirits turned spiritual butterflies, with the glow of the death blossoms planted on the ground.
He just prunes another of the stems, dips his fingers into the dark soil. His jacket floats lightly despite the lack of breeze, and the guns he carries flash from his holsters, unloaded after his last errand on the surface— a secret, a pact. Another scumbag refusing to die and keep his promise.
It's f*cking pathetic how those assholes always think they can fool him.
Yeonjun wonders if this has ever made him happy, and finds out he has never thought about it before. He has had no need. Life and death are simply part of him. They are what he is. There is no need to enjoy them.
Is he sorry?
"I'm not."
To lie is easy.
He can keep saying the same words, over and over. He can unfold them on his tongue, like old friends. He can warm them with his breath before letting them go.
He will keep on trying until the feeling fades. Until his lies become a certain, undeniable truth. He's not sorry. He doesn't miss him. He will forget. He will forget. He will forget.
One way or another, he will.
"I've known you for longer than Soobin and Kai, hyung. You might be able to fool them, but you can't fool me. You are burned-out. You look... sad. And that's a lot, considering most of the time you don't show any kind of emotion." The ghost seems to hesitate for a moment. "You also seem... sicker than before."
Yeonjun stands up, shaking the dirt off his pants. The gesture brings back memories of his latest dreams.
"I'm okay, Taehyun-ah," he smiles. The darkness of the abyss feels like a refuge. It always has. Before he met Taehyun, before Kai came with Soobin into their lives, before fate brought him before Beomgyu-- this is all Yeonjun knew. His home. His reign. "Have you registered the new additions?"
The ghost bites his lip, studying him, but lets him be. The glow of his tablet bathes the darkness, covers his spectral face with the dull color of the graphics dancing on the screen.
"I did. Two of the teams have finished their missions. Jungwon and the others intercepted one of the gangs, so they got their hands on a good amount of souls and seem to have managed to get a couple of pacts that might be useful to us. We've picked up some confidential information on the movements of the eastern mobs- EJ and Nicholas are on it. Nasty business, to tell you the truth. I don't think any of the politicians involved are going to come off well, Karina's team is taking care of it. The other teams are functioning normally, registering and dispatching other deceased, and we haven't detected any anomalies in the ordinary souls— they've been coming in uninterrupted, as usual."
"Good," he nods.
Beomgyu's absence has generated some internal problems in the company that have resulted in some chaos in the work on souls, but everything seems to be returning to calm. Everything eventually finds its way. It's alright. It's almost as if nothing has happened. As if Beomgyu never got to leave, as if he never got to be around in the first place. Yeonjun doesn't allow himself to dwell on the small sliver of pain it causes him, or the strained feeling of the boy's thread cutting through his circulation.
He glances back, watching the soft, distant glow of the souls that have been planted. The portal is drawn in front of them, wispy lines of artificial light. Soobin and Kai wait on the other side, and there is a certain peace in that small haven of ordinariness. In the well-done work, in moments like this— the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the office, the laughter of his friends as they go over the latest details of the company's business, the traffic of souls, their future plans.
A small miracle that's what Beomgyu had called it.
It's not who we are, hyung. It's what we build. It's the people we choose, " he had confided to him years before. He had sat on that very same table, a warm cup of coffee on his hand, a fond, gentle look in his eyes as he watched the boys bicker. "You chose them and, what's even more important— they chose you. Everyday."
Sometimes Yeonjun wonders how Beomgyu could possibly know so many things. How is it possible that someone like him seems to hold the keys to the universe.
That day Yeonjun had bitten his lips, silencing the question he had thought of so many other times, the question that has constantly haunted him— 'And you, Beomgyu, who do you choose?' Now he thinks, however, that if he had come to ask it, if there had been an answer, Yeonjun would not have wanted to know it. Any answer would have broken the fragile grip he has always had on his own impulses, and the even more fragile grip he has on his newfound emotions. No. Asking is not healthy. Wanting to know is like poison. If Beomgyu had ever said another name, a name other than his... But if Beomgyu had said his name... If he had...
No. f*ck. No. It would have been a lie. It would have been a mistake. All those emotions, all those feelings... they're not real.
He plops down on the back of his chair, watching the boys. The evening light tints the faint glow that emerges from their intangible bodies, densifying their souls. Be that as it may, Beomgyu was right. These boys are a small, strange miracle. Souls brought together by fate. Lost souls who, ironically enough, have found him. Taehyun, who has called himself his best friend— a spy and informant from the occupation years who only feared death... until he met it face to face. Kai, who killed some animal abusers and then took his own life. Soobin, who doesn't remember anything about the circ*mstances of his death, but whom Kai found roaming around a shelter, protecting the animals there. A cute ensemble. A miracle...
"Hyung... what happened that night?"
... But he'd rather not listen to their endless questioning ever again.
He sighs.
Kai's voice is cautious, small. A tentative caress to an abused animal. His eyes sparkle with a kind, gentle curiosity, as if he wants to make it clear that he doesn't want to hurt him. That he can be trusted. And Yeonjun... Yeonjun knows he can trust them. He knows he can say anything, and they will listen and support him. And, in a way, that's worse— because he doesn't deserve it.
Yeonjun closes his eyes, as if his eyelids could stop them from trying to prod into his memories. He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want his mind to conjure that night. To haunt him with the tears that filled Beomgyu's eyes, with the sweet, gentle happiness that had embraced him only to turn sour and monstrous inside him. It had been a venom. A curse. Hope is a castle hanging from the sky. Unreachable. Unreal.
He hates how he allowed himself to think it true.
Now that Beomgyu is gone, things seem to be much clearer— which only serves as proof that the things he felt were a ruse. A trick of the mind. A figment of his imagination— a dangerous one, a selfish one. His nature showing itself. Because as much as he looks like a human, he can't feel like one. He can't love like one. He can't give like one. He looks human because that's what makes him approachable. But he is a monster. A beast. A predator.
This is the right thing. He's doing the right thing. And it's not that bad. He's more comfortable like this, anyway— with the safety that comes with the lack of feelings, the pleasant satisfaction of a job well done.
"Hyung?"
"Yeah. We just... showed our true colors, I guess," he shrugs it off. "It's better this way."
"Better for whom?" Taehyun inquires, ever skeptical.
But Kai jumps out of his seat, walks through the table to approach him. "Does that mean he knows the truth? Oh! Did you tell him about us, too?"
The truth? How could he ever tell Beomgyu 'the truth'? What would he tell him? That the friends he's made here at work are actually ghosts? That he's the grim reaper? That he literally wants to eat him? That he could die at any f*cking moment? Or that they met long before he applied for that job? Kai's eyes shine with hope. Yeonjun feels like a fly, trapped in the web of his own lies.
Soobin taps his lips with a pen, the plastic lightly passing through his skin.
"I wonder if that's the reason why he looked at us that way the other day."
"Oh, you're right-"
Yeonjun looks up. The comment hits his chest, expels all the air inside him. Taehyun responds before he can, but his voice sounds distant, as if he's underwater, as if the tide of his thoughts has been unleashed inside him just like that, engulfing him, spitting him onto the shore, abandoning him to his fate.
"He hasn't, guys. He didn't tell him."
"Did you..." Yeonjun swallows hard, his nails digging into the soft skin beneath his knees. He shouldn't ask. He doesn't want to know. "Have you kept in touch with him?"
The boys look at each other, then at him. Their eyes seem... sad, and Yeonjun knows he shouldn't have asked. He has no right to ask. They are Beomgyu's friends, too.
And still-
"He... he came a few days ago. To grab his stuff and say goodbye and, you know..."
"Hyung, we're... we're sorry," Kai struggles to say. "We were worried about him, too."
The bustling sounds of the office punctuate the silence as Yeonjun forces himself to breathe, to pull his head out of the tide that has swept him away, out of the tangle of memories and feelings that cling to him, trying to pull him under.
Of course. f*ck, of course they're worried— they're his friends. Their relationship has nothing to do with Yeonjun, and it's stupid that he didn't realize it sooner. They don't even know about their shared past. They don't know the real reason that binds him to Beomgyu. They don't know anything. He has made sure it is so, and that is how it should be. He should rejoice. He should... he should celebrate that they are friends, that Beomgyu can count on them despite everything. That he has someone to lean on.
f*ck... Of all the mistakes he's made, of all the trouble he's caused Beomgyu, maybe this is the only thing he could be proud of. He's a monster, but they... Soobin, Taehyun, Kai— they're good. They're sweet, and funny, and crazy, and would give anything for the boy. They've never been afraid of the truth, never hid from him.
Not like him.
"Don't you think-"
"Hm?"
He inhales. He exhales.
"You call him your friend, but he doesn't even know what you really are, doesn't he? You guys can talk to him only by possessing your old corpses or the bodies of other people."
Soobin frowns, looking at him as if he could see more.
"So... Is that the reason?" he inquires.
"Huh?"
"The reason why you're punishing yourself."
"I am not punishing myself."
"You are," Taehyun sighs. "You are, because Beomgyu does you good. He makes you happy, hyung, and you are pushing him away."
"I am the grim reaper."
"Yes, you are. And he makes you happy. Both things are not incompatible."
Kai wanders around, grabbing a cookie from the cupboard and munching on it pensively. The crumbs fall from his mouth to the carpet, leaving a trail after him.
"Why don't you just... you know— kill him?" he suggests, scratching absentmindedly the old scar from the wound that killed him. He only stops when no one replies, noticing the raised eyebrow Soobin is giving him. "What?"
"Not everybody is a serial killer, honey."
"I'm- yah, hyung! I'm not a serial killer! They were bad people. Bad! Evil!" He shouts, huffs, kicks his feet. "And you know I didn't mean it like that. I'm- was a human, but he... He's the grim reaper, he said it himself! It's part of the job description."
"I'm just joking. You're so f*cking cute when you get mad."
"But he has a point," Taehyun adds, picking the cookie crumbs that have fallen everywhere. "We know you're pushing him away because he has to die. But that's the thing— he has to die. Just like everyone else before him, just like us. He's your... you know, but you know he can't escape death."
"'Your... you know' is a really cute way to say 'the guy he's in love with', baby," Soobin smirks, wriggling his eyebrows in what Yeonjun suspects is an effort to look suggestive. "You are my... you know, too."
"I'm n-"
Yeonjun is going to quickly deny any allegations of a crush, but Taehyun ignores Soobin, looking at him instead like he's about to spill everything Yeonjun is not allowing himself to think about— how he has found comfort on a human boy, how he has learned to cherish someone he should've thought unimportant, how he makes him feel despite the way he has always thought it was impossible for him, how weak he is for him. Because he is— he is growing weaker by the minute. It feels like, without Beomgyu, life has become meaningless, or worse— like it has always been meaningless. Like he has always lived with his eyes and his heart closed, thinking that living was... that. Existing. Letting his emptiness push him through the endless days and endless nights, through his job, and the souls that come and go with it. Uneventful and dull.
And then Beomgyu appeared— stubborn and sweet and kind and bright, and Yeonjun... Yeonjun...
"You don't- You don't get it."
"Then explain."
"I can't."
A rock club.
That’s where Beomgyu is heading three days later, and where Yeonjun is following him pulled by a new iridescent thread and an impeding sense of doom. Again.
He doesn’t know where the latter comes from, but it is there, making him feel restless as he tries to busy himself with finding one of the candies Beomgyu used to leave in his pockets. There are none. He must have finished them without even noticing.
Yeonjun knows he shouldn’t have come. It’s not healthy, it’s not right. He should stick with his decision and let the boy be— because surely enough, Beomgyu has already moved on. He has nothing to do with the sad, forlorn boy that Soobin, Kai and Taehyun claimed to have seen. Yeonjun can see it in the way his aura glows despite the filth and squalor of the streets, the drunken men zigzagging about, the neon lights and the smell of urine and garbage. He can see it in the way he descends the stairs of the club, the way he mixes with the crowd, the way he screams and dances and joins the mosh when a crappy punk band plays their new song.
And he is alluring.
He looks… gorgeous, and wild, and free. His long hair glows under the lights as he jumps, and there is glitter around his eyes, stuck to his eyelashes, moving with him as he dances, as if he wanted to show everybody what Yeonjun has always known— that everything in the way Beomgyu sees the world is magic.
The boy raises his hands, spinning on himself, and Yeonjun swallows hard, his senses attuned to the boy's every move, every glance, every gesture.
Stalking.
Waiting.
He walks through the crowd, circling around the boy without losing track of him, identifying every exit, every group, every path by which he could approach him, every indecent look, every whisper, every nudge other humans share as the boy dances, oblivious to the desire he arouses around him. A flash of something dark occupies his mind as the audience surrounds him, exposing him, allowing others to look at him.
And gods… the chain in Beomgyu’s ear dangles softly as he moves, tangling with the thin leather choker he’s wearing, the metal ring begging to be grabbed and… f*ck. His white oversized shirt falls over his shoulder, giving Yeonjun a perfect glimpse of the outfit underneath— the tiniest crop-top covered in delicate mesh, his belly button piercing and his high wasted black jeans, illegally short, giving way to those dainty long legs and his heavy platform boots and… and Yeonjun has never really thought about the impact this would have in him after forbidding himself from seeing the boy, and after having grown used to his slightly formal attire at the company, and after that last night before their fight, when he… he…
He shakes his head, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, silencing them and his instincts to take, to grab, to devour. He regrets coming here.
f*ck. f*ck. Beomgyu looks devastatingly delicious. Scrumptious.
He should leave.
He should leave.
It’d be better if he just did as he decided, if he followed his own plan. He doesn’t trust himself. No— he doesn’t trust his nature. And he… he owes Beomgyu at least that. At least-
Beomgyu’s thread tenses, pulling him forward, towards a group of big dudes stuck to the bar, waiting for their beers. They can’t see him like this, when he’s in his real state, but they still seem to feel his presence, glancing around and cowering as if they have felt the looming presence of death.
Yeonjun guesses they have, in a way.
And then he notices Beomgyu is not alone. The drummer of that sh*tty band is right there with him, his hand hovering over his bare shoulder, caressing the thin strip of his top. And Yeonjun knows that look— that f*cking human wants Beomgyu. He wants to eat him, to make him scream, to hear him moan. He wants him in a way his little shaved egg-like head could have never experienced before, because that’s how Beomgyu is. He is… he is…
The thread pulls again, and Yeonjun swallows the bitter, salty feeling pooling on his tongue, the unnamed blistering fire consuming his veins. He wills his mind to focus.
If there’s a thread, there’s death. If there’s death, Beomgyu is in imminent danger.
Yeonjun has noticed the pattern— the way year after year death has become… rash, careless. As if it were desperate to find the boy, to make him meet his end. It keeps coming increasingly often, in the most random ways, every time more violent.
And it’s his fault.
A new band gets on stage, a blue-haired woman screaming the lyrics of Hope by Descendents at the top of her lungs.
On f*cking spot.
Why can't you see you torture me
You're already thinking about someone else
When he comes home
You'll be in his arms and I'll be gone
Yeonjun is f*cking trying to find where the threat lies. He is. The mosh is crazy but controlled, and the crowd seems slightly unimpressed by the singer’s drunken dancing. Yeonjun watched Beomgyu when he got his drink, so he knows it isn’t spiked. He glances at the venue’s structure, just in case— everything seems to be in its right place, so he discards any sort of collapse or fire.
So now you wait for his spark
You know it'll turn you on
He's gonna make you feel,
the way you wanna feel.
He wants to rip the singer’s head off, but that aside, everything’s fine. He can’t see any impending threat to Beomgyu’s life. He pushes through the crowd, trying to see Beomgyu again— only to find him dancing with the man, his arms stretched around his thick neck, playing with his chains. The drummer smiles against his cheek, letting his hands fall to Beomgyu’s small waist, caressing his back, grabbing his ass. His muddy aura mingles with the boy’s, making it look dull, overpowered. Tainted.
Yeonjun sees white.
It feels as if the fire is consuming him from within, incinerating the self-imposed boundaries, the chains with which he has bound and tamed his feelings. He swallows as if his own spit could quench the flame, desperate for some kind of relief.
He only- he has only felt like this when....
The man caresses the boy's cheek, cradles it, he whispers something against Beomgyu's ear. Whatever it is, it makes Beomgyu giggle, all rosy cheeks and pearly teeth and shiny eyes and-
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong.
Beomgyu is his. His. His. His. His. His.
The idea is overpowering. All-consuming.
Beomgyu is his. Yeonjun’s. He has always been.
It feels overwhelmingly true, fiercely clear. He has always known, he just… From the very first day he saw him, before he even knew the boy— Yeonjun had already known that he was his. He had been his since the very first time he had felt his soft, beautiful soul, so different from any other Yeonjun had encountered before. Since the very first time he had scented and tasted it— so fresh, and clean, and pure, lavender and honey and the slightest scent of moss, cool breezy mornings and fern unfolding under the sun, the earth roaring at its endings, brazen and brave and full of life. He had been his, his, his, his to love and to hold and to keep. Every smile, every tear, every second spent looking at the world with such warmth, such love, such tenderness. He had been his ans Yeonjun had pushed the idea away, like a f*cking idiot, because he was scared. He is scared. He had watched every smile that Beomgyu gives away like silent gifts. He had trapped them and kept them in a cage made with his fingers, wishing that that warmth would never fly away. And at some point, he had realized the tragic beauty of that prison.
But now that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have the time or the energy to fight his selfishness, his nature.
Beomgyu is his. His soul belongs to him.
He’s his despite everything and because of everything. He’s his because he’s alive and Yeonjun is dead. Because he’s bright and lovely and sensitive and Yeonjun is death and darkness and coldness. It shouldn’t be possible, but it is— Beomgyu is his. He belongs with him.
So why? Why is he giving himself away so easily? Why is he allowing that stranger to touch him the way he had wanted Yeonjun to touch him? Why is he smiling at him? Why is he dancing with him, pressed against his body?
The man engulfs Beomgyu, and the boy raises his head and lets him kiss him, lets him hold him, lets him touch him. He kisses him messily, half-assedly. Or so Yeonjun tells himself. A kiss like a lie, like poison. Like treason. A kiss with opened eyes.
Yeonjun swallows as he watches them kiss, as his eyes meet Beomgyu’s, as they lock their gazes. It is almost as if Beomgyu could see him despite being in his true form, invisible to humans. Almost as if the boy were trying to make a point— ‘See, hyung? I don’t need you,’ he seems to say. ‘You were right, it was a mistake, I’ve never really wanted you’. And Yeonjun can only feel the cold, white fire pulling his muscles, the numb pain of his nails digging on his palms, the acidic bitterness of jealousy, pooling on his tongue.
And he knows he has lost.
He knows it as he walks through the crowd, as he pushes his way through the mass of bodies, of sweat, of alcohol. He knows it as he realizes that at some point he must have lost control over his body, that he must have shifted out of spite, out of anger and pain, revealing himself.
He has lost. The well-tended web of lies and self-control he had woven between them is no more. And now there are no restraints. There is nothing left to stop him.
He has lost.
Yeonjun grabs the man’s shoulder, pushing him away from Beomgyu. He punches him in the face before he can even look him in the eye. Before he is able to process the image that rushes into his mind— a glimpse of the future, a braid of time, a dark thread binding him to the boy.
It is him.
He is the imminent threat.
Yeonjun can see everything clearly— his plan to leave the bar with Beomgyu, the knife he was planning to threaten him with, the red ropes in his pocket. And then he can no longer see anything. Anger is a violent creature growing in his chest, covering his eyes. Death sighs and murmurs in his ear, crying out for revenge. It speaks to him of the endings and dark depths that dwell in mankind. It speaks to him of their boundless cruelty, of evil for evil's sake. He can feel the way his fingers turn into claws again, the edge of his wings spreading in the room, looming over them, uncontrollable. In this state, Yeonjun could pierce his throat with his hand, he could extract his heart and soul and leave them on the sticky floor, fragile and vulnerable, for the rest of the humans to step on until there is nothing left. He could rip out the man's tongue and fake a suicide, hang him with it until his corpse was found. He could bind him as he had thought to bind Beomgyu, he could wound and dismember him and let vengeful souls feed on his dreams.
He could do anything, because Yeonjun has lost control of himself altogether. Because that human, that jerk, has not only dared to touch Beomgyu, but has approached him with the intention of hurting him, of humiliating him, of hurting him.
And Beomgyu is his.
His to devour, his to taste, his to obliterate. His. His. His.
Yeonjun lunges at him, his claws extended, black and sharp.
It is Beomgyu's hand that stops him before he can reach him, though —a new contrast between death and life, between compassion and revenge that is not lost on Yeonjun—, and it feels so wrong and so right. A burst of hysterical laughter bubbles on his chest, pushing through his teeth and escaping from his lips broken, monstrous.
Just like he is.
The boy's touch is a delicate, shy, urgent tapping— a caress of light, soft and warm. He holds his hand, pulling Yeonjun in the opposite direction, away from the man and the curious eyes that begin to take notice of the scene. As they get away, Beomgyu’s newest death thread dissolves. And then it’s only his hand that binds them together.
Such a faint, fragile link.
Yeonjun studies their intertwined fingers, Beomgyu's painted fingernails, the bar stamp smudged on his wrist, the ink bleeding on his golden skin, coating his veins. The anger he feels is a raging sea, a dark wave rising from the depths— so great, so violent, so brutal it could shatter everything, unleash itself upon the earth and sweep over the world. And yet Beomgyu's hand —so small, so soft, so delicate— is all he needs to be rendered harmless. The touch of his soul seems to sing to him, to cradle his rage, to curve his vengeance. Everything that seemed important crashes against his dainty body and fades away. His anger licks the boy’s shore, growing weaker wave after wave. No longer a roar, a violent scream, but a murmur of foam.
Beomgyu is his, but Yeonjun, an age-old creature, a beast of time and death, is a caged animal worshiping his soul.
He has the faint memory of once thinking it was a miracle. But right now, with the taste of unspilled blood hanging from his tongue? With the certainty of his monstrosity still clinging to his skin? Right now it feels like penance.
He tries to focus. To set his mind to the present. He has barely registered that they have stopped. They are now at the edges of the bar, in a darker, emptier corner of the venue. A few feet away the crowd has shifted, the lights of the stage slightly dimmer. There’s someone taking lines beside a column, picking the white powder with the tip of a rusty key, and three girls are making out right next to the bathroom door. A new band has taken the stage, playing something that sounds suspiciously similar to deftones. And then there’s Beomgyu.
Beomgyu, who is not even looking at Yeonjun, frowning at the dirt as if it had insulted him. Mad.
And it is only then that Yeonjun comes to realize everything that has just happened. All that it means. His cover has gone to sh*t, the security of his powers and invisibility has abandoned him, and all the boundaries, all the barriers he had erected in front of Beomgyu, all the distance he had tried to put between them and the emotions he hasn't allowed himself to think about, all of it… all of it has failed.
The boy scoffs, sighs, shakes his head as he stomps the sole of his boot on the floor of the bar. Yeonjun watches as he opens and closes his mouth, the air rushing in and out of his lips, undecided. Part of him wishes he doesn’t say anything.
Part of him… maybe part of him has been waiting for this moment just to hear his voice again.
“Just— What are you even doing here?”
And it's not as if the question is unreasonable, but there's something about it that unnerves him, something that fans the flames of his rage. It's the way he says it, as if Yeonjun has no right to be there, as if the very idea of being near him is ridiculous, annoying. As if he would have rather stayed with that human and his turbulent, pestilent soul than be here with him.
Beomgyu frowns, his arms crossed around his chest. He smells like… like rage, like burnt flowers. His heart beats fiercely on his chest.
“I asked you what the f*ck are you doing here.”
“What am I doing here? What are you, doing here, Beomgyu?” he asks instead, his voice booming in the corner, his wings flapping furiously behind him. “f*ck, don’t you see? How can you- How can you be so f*cking oblivious. I swear, that man-”
“That man was gonna be a pretty decent f*ck and now he has a broken nose and no intention to see me again.”
“Holy f*ck, what- ‘A pretty decent f*ck’? Really?”
His blood burns in his veins, his muscles itch with the desire to make Beomgyu understand the kind of danger he has been exposed to, to put him in his place, to make him stop talking, to make him stop looking at him with that hatred and defiance, to stop behaving like a f*cking kid and-
"Yes! Yes, Yeonjun. A nice dude who doesn't f*cking push me away and who finds me desirable. Is that so hard for you to understand?"
The question sticks in his mind, along with flashes of the pungent, wet scent of sadness and shame that permeates the boy's words. It physically hurts. Hearing him say that... And it's f*cking ironic, because it's his own fault— he's the one who pushed Beomgyu away. It is he who has tried to make him understand that they mean nothing to each other.
And still… it hurts.
It f*cking hurts.
“You have absolutely no right,” Beomgyu adds, and Yeonjun can see him shaking. “You have no right to tell me who I should f*ck or not or who should I meet. Not anymore.”
What was Yeonjun expecting? A ‘thank you for saving me, hyung’? An ‘I’ve missed you’? The boy doesn’t even know that he has been about to die, and Yeonjun doesn’t deserve the latter.
Beomgyu is right. What does he even want? What is… what is he doing here?
Floating underwater
Ever changing picture
Hours out from land
In tune with all our dreams
Yeonjun stays there, unmoving. Unable to say anything, unable to process, unable to understand. The singer's voice in the background sinks into his thoughts, heavy and dense, pushing him back into the depths of himself, into boundless darkness, inexhaustible emptiness. His body is a piece of wood stranded on the shore, one more corpse that the sea of his anger has claimed. He feels hollow. Vulnerable. His heart is raw and full of fear, naked before Beomgyu. Now that there is no rage, no revenge, no hate, now that there are no barriers, no limits, no excuses....
He has nothing to say.
He has no answer.
Yeonjun is not human. He doesn't feel like them, doesn't exist like them, doesn't live like them. Emotions are a borrowed dream, a foreign object lodged between his ribs. A fragment he has unknowingly stolen and allowed to poison him—and these are the consequences. Beomgyu waits for his response, his eyes bright and angry and bold, his gaze clear and sharp, like a mirror turned knife.
But he is the grim reaper. When all these people die, he will be the one to follow their souls. He will be the one who plants their dreams. And he will remain so until death deems him unnecessary, useless— an old tool that has lost its keenness, abandoned to its fate, back to earth.
That moment is closer than anyone knows.
He has nothing to say.
He has no answer.
All this time... all this time he has only been fooling himself.
The ocean takes me in
To watch you shake it
Watch you wave your powers
Tempt with hours of pleasure
"Look, Yeonjun-ssi." Beomgyu's voice sounds strained, cold, its wings clipped and unrecognizable. "You come out of nowhere, you ruin my date, you beat up the dude I'm hooking up with. Wasn't it that you didn't care about me? Hadn't you decided it was better if we didn't see each other? Why? Why are you doing this to me?"
He's right.
Yeonjun wishes he wasn't.
How dangerous it is to be close to Beomgyu, to let his soul make him believe that he can feel, that he has the right to be something else, something different, when he can't. When, in fact, it is quite the opposite.
And to think that he has dared to consider Beomgyu's soul as his. What a ludricrous, dangerous notion. A soul-less being trying to claim the most vibrant of souls. A bloody monster convincing itself of having feelings. He is like a predator caught playing with his food.
How could he have lost his mind like that? How could he have let himself be driven by his instincts jus like that, just like an animal? How could he have forgotten everything that really matters? The reason why he has done what he has done, the reason why he has distanced himself from the boy?
He nods, swallowing hard. The sound of the bass sinks between them, seems to warp reality, bury him alive in the dark floor of the bar. For a moment it feels like he's never going to be able to move far enough away, that his body is going to reject the distance he's self-imposed, the pain he's decided to punish himself with, the emptiness he must return to in order for Beomgyu to be safe. It feels as if he is forcing himself to cut off and leave behind a piece of himself.
But that's okay. This is how it must be, because none of this is real. Because it's the only way to keep Beomgyu alive. The only way not to hurt him anymore.
He must stop fooling himself.
Beomgyu looks away, and it's easier that way. If he doesn't look at him, it's easier to convince himself that what he feels is irrelevant, that it's not real, that the need to possess Beomgyu is just death claiming what is owed to him, his instincts hitting him and making him feel insatiable. Yeonjun is an addict and Beomgyu's soul is his exact mark, but it is only because it is what death demands. What it has been demanding for years. It is just that— his soul. If he puts distance, if he holds on for as long as it takes....
He turns, pushes his body into the crowd, into a place where he can disappear and it's... surprisingly easier than he thought. So much so that it feels like a mistake. Like a betrayal. Just as much as the laughter of the crowd, the happiness of others, the music that flows even though it's all over. Even though this is the end of the impossible.
It is unfair that the world does not wither with each of Yeonjun's steps. It is unfair that life goes on when he feels like something inside him is dying, like every bit of his body is asking him to turn around.
Yeonjun bites his lip, letting it all become a distant murmur, a watercolor of muddy water and indistinguishable colors bleeding over his mind. Tomorrow he won't remember how he left the bar. He won't remember how he came home, how he chose from the liquors in his cellar, how he managed to get drunk until he lost consciousness and drowned in his dreams.
At least in them...
But before he manages to pull away, Beomgyu grabs him, pushes him back. His back bounces against the wall in the same corner they were in a few seconds ago. All the air in his lungs rushes out between etched names written in permanent marker and something that looks too much like ketchup not to be ketchup, dates and promises and dick doodles. And none of that matters because Beomgyu's hand is around his wrist, because he can feel his soul brushing against his body, because he can smell the lavender notes, sharp with anger but slightly smoky, because the boy's eyes look at him with renewed defiance, renewed courage.
Because he is Beomgyu and he is too close. Too close.
Yeonjun can feel the effects instantly— the way the boy's soul caresses the darkest spots inside him, the way his heart beats maddeningly, the way his wings tremble, hidden behind his back, and the skin on his fingers tightens under the threat of his claws. His breathing stumbles over itself, rapid and ragged, sending more oxygen to his muscles, sharpening his senses, preparing him for... for...
For the hunt.
No. This isn't right, this isn't-
"Aren't you even going to apologize to me?"
The boy's voice cracks at the end, just as his dainty fist strikes Yeonjun's chest, his knuckles white— as if he'd hidden half the word in his hand, as if he'd regretted it after he started to say it and smashed it to dust with his own hands, ending its life before it could be free.
Apologize?
There are so many things he should apologize for that Yeonjun has lost count. So many that the word has lost its meaning. So many that the reasons why Beomgyu demands them now seem... insignificant.
Still, Yeonjun lets the word sprout on his tongue, weighs it, cares for it, studies it. And yet, each of its letters seems to be made of splinters, clinging to his throat, clawing at the roof of his mouth. He gulps in a breath of air.
And that is his mistake.
The different shades of Beomgyu's soul braid, coil, sway as they enter his lungs. They flicker around him like stardust, past and future imbricated in a fog of present, of possibilities, of life and history. Night and day, sunlight and moonlight, fireflies and dragonflies fluttering as if in Beomgyu's soul fit all things— all the lives Yeonjun does not have, all the souls he has mowed down, all the hope and illusion and emotions he has never known. That he will never know.
It is too much.
Too much life, too much light.
It makes Yeonjun feel numb, lost. The boundaries of his own existence seem to vanish, his emptiness drains away, his ideas melt away like wax wings exposed to the sun. His body burns, burns, burns. It is a pyre ascending towards the sky, ashes released in the darkness of the night. It feels light, it feels unstoppable, it feels unreachable. Beomgyu smells of lavender and vainilla, of tea and bergamot, of sunrises and sunsets tinting the sky, moss and fallen leaves, the scent of storm and dust suspended over the sun. Of time. Home. Yeonjun can feel the way it sizzles on his tongue, its taste sweet and pure and slightly fruity... and the decadent edge melting over his insides— dark chocolate and spices falling over black cherries. It makes him salivate, his fangs lengthening painfully against his gums, making him taste blood.
Beomgyu... He wants to own him. He wants to ruin him. He wants to eat him whole.
The music sounds far, far, far away, drowned out by the dense fog of Beomgyu's soul, by the glint of the boy's doe eyes, sharp with defiance, wet with tears of something akin to frustration. A dense blush has climbed his cheeks, like the swirling clouds of the end of the day, and his hair caresses his skin softly, teasing Yeonjun, reminding him that it has been too long since he has allowed himself to touch the boy, that he has never allowed himself to touch him the way he wants to, the way he should, the way he only allows himself to imagine in secret, in the shelter of the night, away from his shame and his morals.
And his lips.
Jesus. f*ck. His lips.
Yeonjun swallows, tracing them with his gaze.
Beomgyu's lips— so soft, so pink, so perfect. Yeonjun has memorized them a thousand times, the way the bottom lip is slightly thicker, the way it dips gently in the center, pushed in by his lip ring, the many soft curves of his smiles, of his surprises, of his pouts. The way they part when he concentrates, just like he is doing now, his breath coming in and out, agitated, over and over again. The way his tongue lingers over them when the boy acts like a puppy, asking Yeonjun to praise him for anything. The way his tongue runs over his lips from time to time, devilish and cruel, even pinker than his lips, even softer. Shy and delicate and-
There's a shift.
This time, when Beomgyu pushes him against the wall again, Yeonjun doesn't see anger in his eyes.
But mischief.
The fist that has struck his chest opens over his sternum, his outstretched fingers tracing the surface of his skin, playing with the edges of his shirt, with the barbs on the zipper of his leather jacket. With him. His other hand runs down his torso, his abdomen, his chest, his neck. It stops on his cheek, and Yeonjun can only bite the inside to the point of bleeding to keep from letting himself fall against his hand, sinking into his touch, allowing himself to feel its promise. He is so close, so perfect. Yeonjun could have him if he wanted, could make him his with just a gesture. And Beomgyu...Beomgyu, god, Beomgyu. Beomgyu seems to know everything. Seems to see it all in his eyes. To read it in his features.
The boy's gesture has changed, a small smile lifting one of his corners, that infernal little tongue tracing the edge of his teeth. Beomgyu takes a step closer, pinning him down, making it even harder if possible. He lays his nose on his cheek, rubbing it gently, letting a small sigh flutter against Yeonjun's jaw. His nose is small and soft and slightly cold, and Yeonjun hadn't realized until now how feverish he felt, how tense his muscles are. The boy's lips caress the sensitive skin of his ear, his tongue licking along its curves.
Take me one more time
Take me one more wave
Take me for one last ride
I'm out of my head
Jesus. f*ck.
Yeonjun needs him. He needs his body and he needs his lips and he needs the velvet of his voice murmuring his name instead of trying to get a raise out of him. He needs to devour him so much that the need is almost blinding, so much that he can feel the boy's absence on his tongue, the thirst constricting and drying his throat. He needs to destroy him, needs to possess him, needs to taste him. It's an instinct— Yeonjun doesn't need to think about it, doesn't need to rationalize it. The sensation is there before anything else. Before any other idea, before his body and his thoughts and his name. He just needs Beomgyu, Beomgyu, Beomgyu.
Beomgyu smirks as if he already knew everything. As if this has been his plan all along, as if it is Yeonjun who has fallen into his trap, who is trapped. As if he were his prey, and not the other way around. The idea is an inferno of light and fire exploding behind his eyes, burning away the last traces of his restraint, letting out the monster he really is.
He turns, pushes him against the corner, grabs hold of his hair, pulling it back to expose his neck, inhales his essence. His soul.
Mouthwatering.
Beomgyu laughs, and his laughter feels like a curse. A bad omen. It tinkles like broken chains. As if he's free even though he knows he can't be.
"What is it, hyung?" he speaks against his lips. "Have you changed your mind?"
No, no. It can't be. And yet... Beomgyu lets his shirt fall from his shoulders, his breathing ragged. Yeonjun can hear the racing heartbeat of his body, can feel the warmth emanating from his soul, the slight change in his scent, in his essence, in his color. It is a blazing sun, shining on the last drop of water, desperate, feverish. It is sweet spices and ripe fruit, nectar spilling from the flowers. The boy dances against his body, as if he can draw the music on his skin.
And Yeonjun is trembling.
"You know what? I think you do, hyung. I think you want me, but you're too afraid to accept it. To accept me. To accept yourself."
"I'm not afraid."
"Oh, no? The big bad wolf is not afraid?"
"I'm not a f*cking wolf."
Perhaps he is. He surely feels like one. And Beomgyu is his golden prey— the one which has escaped too many times prior. The only one he can't have.
The one he'd do anything to get.
"You sure look like one, though. Yeondunie-hyung~~ you look like you want to eat me whole."
He does?
f*ck. He does.
Yeonjun cups his face. He's moved closer to Beomgyu without even registering it, his lips hovering over the boy's, merely an inch apart. His fingers sink into his cheeks— his grip strong, rough, steady. The boy is in his hands. He is his. His. His. He allows himself to breathe him in, inhale his scent, his aura, his soul.
Beomgyu is his.
A growl of satisfaction escapes his chest, and he can feel Beomgyu's breath fluttering against his lips, can see the trembling of his pupils, his heart pumping blood faster and faster, sending a clear message to the rest of his body, asking it to escape, to survive. He smiles, enjoying the slight change in his scent, the sharp, metallic, slightly chemical notes, the strident sensation.
Fear.
Beomgyu is afraid of him.
Finally.
Yeonjun approaches him without missing a beat, noting the surprise in his gaze, the messy blinking, the way his eyes roll, his lips half-open with a gasp— Yeonjun inhales and exhales on his lips, stealing and yielding his air, taking ownership of even that before biting them. Beomgyu whimpers, trying to wriggle out of his grip, trying to rest his lips on his and turn this into a kiss, but Yeonjun holds him steady. This is not for him. This is not his decision. His lips are not his, but Yeonjun's. His to bite, his to be hurt, his to bleed. The taste is so damn sweet it's shattering.
His free hand runs along the curve of the boy's waist, the hard edge of his ribs. He can feel his breath under his hands, the tension in his muscles, his trembling. Yeonjun pushes his knee between the boy's legs, knocking him off balance, boxing him in with his body. When Beomgyu whimpers, when he tries to push his body with his weak hands, when he clings nervously to his leather jacket, Yeonjun drops a small scoff, satisfied, and licks the wounds he has opened on his lips.
When he steps away, he can see it— Fear, yes. But also something else. Beomgyu's eyes glow with heat, with molten lava, with hunger, with defiance. As if... as if all this excites him.
It is a challenge.
A game.
One that Yeonjun is made to win.
The sound of the waves collide
The sound of the waves collid
The sound of the waves collide
Tonight (we ride)
“Run,” he gets to grunt.
“What? What do you-”
“Run. I’ll give you five minutes.”
The boy hesitates for a second, his gesture caught in a mask of fear and excitement and confusion. But he runs, just as he has been ordered. Just as he should— spurred on by his instinct, by the cold terror that has settled in his stomach, by the image of Yeonjun.
The idea gives him an intense pleasant satisfaction, one he didn't even know was possible.
Beomgyu is his and Yeonjun is going to play with him. He's going to tame him. And then... then he's going to devour him. He's going to tear him apart. He's going to ruin him until the boy begs for mercy, until there's nothing left of his pure soul, no trace of the challenge that always seems to tinkle in his eyes.
Yeonjun closes his eyes, inhaling, exhaling. Allowing himself to feel everything around him— the crowd's souls, their breathing, their hearts beating and ticking like dying clocks. The screams, the conversations, the music. Drugs and laughs and bitter arguments and nonsense.
Sometimes he wonders if humans huddle together for the sake of confusing death.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't take half a second, but Yeonjun takes it in stride. He separates in his mind the scent of fear and excitement, the sound— Beomgyu's rampaging heartbeat as he walks away, his hurried steps as he escapes, like a staccato, a symphony that he plays with care, letting each of its nuances integrate into him, letting the emotions wash over him.
The rest of the threads that accompany him disappear. Only Beomgyu's remains clinging to him, ever brighter, ever more tangible, ever clearer. It knots in his hands, clings to his chest, pulls him toward the boy.
He swallows, counting the seconds. Sweat sticks the hair to the skin of his forehead, his breath trembles. But everything else, all his senses, are sharper than ever.
Three.
Two.
One.
Yeonjun smiles, gifting Beomgyu an extra second.
And then, with a flick of his hand, he vanishes.
His body appears in the middle of an alley dotted by the incessant flickering of a streetlight. Yeonjun can recognize it— a narrow street between buildings that no one ever passes through, cluttered with the trash from the area's restaurants, their metal back doors the only thing interrupting the high brick walls.
But not even the noise of the adjacent streets can silence Beomgyu's stifled gasp when he comes face to face with him. Not even the smell of garbage can hide the strange mixture of scents the boy gives off.
Fear. Excitement. Desire. Panic. Pleasure. Nerves.
The boy stops. He looks pale. A film of cold sweat covers his forehead, sticks some of the locks to the sides of his face. His legs tremble, weak, and his feet stumble on the tiles.
Yeonjun doesn't have to do anything. Beomgyu turns around and runs before he can.
He counts to 10. He adds another 10, just because the power rush makes him feel magnanimous. Because something inside him is enjoying this— and he knows Beomgyu is enjoying it too.
A f*cking major turn-on.
He bends down, picking up a coin glinting between the tiles. He studies it between his fingers with a smile.
It has only heads.
With another gesture, he vanishes.
He reappears behind Beomgyu, several streets further north. You have to hand it to him— the boy can run.
But there are consequences. Yeonjun can feel the exhaustion that begins to tighten the boy's muscles, can feel the way his breath seems to claw at the walls of his throat, the way it barely reaches his lungs. Beomgyu shivers, stopping to peek around a corner, lost and suspicious.
It's almost ridiculous how f*cking easy it is to approach him unnoticed, how easy it is to slide up to his back, to bring his lips to his ear, to peer over his shoulder at the empty intersection of streets.
"Come on, Beomgyu-yah," he chuckles against his ear. "You're not even trying."
Beomgyu's cry of surprise sounds like music to his ears, though nothing beats the way the blood rushes in his veins, the fizzing of adrenaline, the subtle tinkling of his soul as he trembles, helpless and vulnerable. Yes. Yes. This is what Yeonjun is— a hunter. A beast. This is what he was made for. His body is built to chase, to find, to attack. To devour the lives who can't go back to the earth. The souls that even the soil rejects.
Beomgyu shakes his head, stumbles forward, starts to run. And this time, Yeonjun just trots after him, enjoying the scene, the sound, the scent.
And then Beomgyu laughs.
He laughs, and laughs and laughs, and his laughter is his undoing. His laughter is a precipice and he falls, falls, falls.
The world is a gaping emptiness punctuated by the stars of his nervous laughter, by the harmonious tinkling of little bursts of happiness and excitement, by the way Beomgyu looks over his shoulder at him... maybe not just out of fear.
Maybe just to make sure he's still there.
It is strange and wonderful and terrible and beautiful, and Yeonjun realizes he had never considered this possibility.
He looks at his hands, his black claws, his black veins. His palms covered with threads and blood of souls he has never come to know.
And then he looks ahead.
At the shining soul that runs before him.
And everything ends and begins, everything explodes and implodes, everything is born and dies in Beomgyu's gaze, and Yeonjun doesn't understand what has happened when his body launches and appears over the boy's— but he doesn't wonder about it either. He simply drops on top of him, lets inertia push them forward, absorbs the blow of the brick wall against his own body, welcoming Beomgyu into his arms, protecting him and covering him and resting him against the wall.
And he kisses him.
Their bodies materialize in the center of Beomgyu's room. The place Yeonjun has snuck into hundreds of times. A place where he never dared to think that something like this could happen.
There is something magical about kissing Beomgyu here. A meaning that dances at the edges of his consciousness, overshadowed by need, by hunger, by thirst. By Beomgyu's lips, slotted perfectly between his, by the moans stifled by their mouths, the warm, soft touch of the boy's tongue against his own. And his hands. Beomgyu's hands, clinging to his shirt, clawing at his neck, clutching at his hair— as if the kiss was too much, as if the sensations were about to overtake him, as if he needs to breathe but not as much as he needs to keep kissing him, as if he was afraid that releasing him might make Yeonjun disappear.
Yeonjun pushes the boy against the door, caresses his cheekbone, tucks his hair behind his ear. He sweeps his gaze over his face and he breathes heavily against his lips.
It's an instant, a second of clarity amidst the dense haze of his instincts, but the image is forever etched in Yeonjun's mind. It does so with such force that it feels like a pivotal moment, like the hard core of his existence. When Yeonjun is gone, when his consciousness is extinguished on the ground they walk on, the last thing he will think about is this— the boy's lips swollen by his kisses, bitten by his teeth, wet with his saliva. And his glistening eyes, his pupils dilated, quivering with fear and desire and surprise.
There will be nothing else. This Beomgyu, in this exact moment, will be the only thread giving meaning to his existence.
Beomgyu whimpers, demanding Yeonjun's attention, and his heartbeat seems to echo in the room, racing, nervous. Yeonjun smirks, letting his head fall on the crook of his neck, allowing himself to inhale his scent, to breathe in his soul. He doesn't know if Beomgyu's scent has ever had these nuances before— spicy and sweet and decadent, but with an unfamiliar sparkle, something bright and exciting. Fireworks on a summer night.
"Hyung..." the boy whispers, letting his hands drop to the lapels of his jacket, tugging them gently outward. It feels like a whine and a command, and Yeonjun stiffens against it.
The memory of the other man in the bar lights up in his thoughts like a flare in the dark, and the traces on the boy's body become suddenly evident. Yeonjun can smell the trail the drummer's hands have left on the him, can feel the traces his soul has left on Beomgyu's.
His instincts dull his mind, his senses. He can faintly hear the boy's whimpering, is dimly aware that he is tugging at him, pushing at his clothes, trying to undress him.
But the thought is too intense. It rekindles the fire raging inside him, it burns, burns, burns.
He presses the boy against the hard surface of the door, grabs his arms and holds them above his head. Beomgyu's heartbeat is a fevered creature, a hummingbird trying to take flight. Yeonjun inhales and exhales, struggling to maintain control, trying to find something, anything his mind can cling to, something other than the hatred building up in his body, the dark, dense mass of his jealousy swirling over his tongue, sour and bitter, threatening to erase Beomgyu's delicious taste.
And there it is.
Amid the tangle of scents fogging his soul, Yeonjun finds it— the path his own skin traced against the boy's neck back at the bar, like a clear window to the brightness he knows, to Beomgyu's gentle warmth, to all the things that make life bearable.
He tries to hold on to them, to focus on his own mark, his own imprint on Beomgyu's skin.
The sensation is pleasurable enough to silence part of his instincts, and Yeonjun uses the moment to push the words out of his mouth. His voice harsh and guttural, as if made of darkness and smoke and earth.
“I need to know—” he breathes. He takes in Beomgyu’s scent. Relax. Focus. “I need to know, Beomgyu-yah—”
“Yes,” he gasps. As if he doesn’t even need to know what he’s approving.
“I need… to know if this is what you want.”
“Yes,” he repeats, his voice thin and raspy and sweet and feverish, like a solid layer of melted sugar. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Please, hyung. Yes.”
“I won’t—” he swallows. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to— restrain myself.”
“f*ck.” Beomgyu trembles under Yeonjun’s grasp. He swallows, too, his Adam's apple rising and falling gently. And, f*ck, deep down Yeonjun has always known he wanted Beomgyu, but it has never felt as overwhelming, as life-consuming as right now. His teeth hurt with the physical need to eat his soul, of sucking out his vital energy, his life. His pleasure. “Then don’t, hyung. Please. I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t— please, don’t hide. I’m… I’m yours, if you want me. Any way you want me.”
I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours.
How could Yeonjun not want him? In what kind of universe is that possible?
Beomgyu, who is light and stars and rain and life. Wildflowers shaking their petals on the breeze. The right word at the right time and the gentle silence of moments that last forever. Beomgyu, who is brave and strong despite being weak and naive. Beomgyu, who looks at death every day, laughing in spite of fear.
I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours, if you want me.
Thirteen years have passed since they first met. Thirteen years of secrets, of lies— so many that sometimes Yeonjun wonders who he is, how the image he has created of himself has blurred his true self. So many lies that they seem to have solidified around his body like a cage, a prison of what-ifs, of should'ves, of parallel universes folded over his skin, creases of destiny riddling his insides. It has been thirteen years in which the only thing Yeonjun has done is hide....
And, perhaps, the only thing Beomgyu has done is find him.
Everything, everything, everything about Beomgyu is f*cking frustrating.
The weight of the past escapes his body with a growl, and Yeonjun pounces on the boy. The kiss is swift, like a wildfire, a spark that incinerates everything in its path— violent and rampaging, hungry for the things Yeonjun shouldn't have. And yet, those things come. Beomgyu moans against his lips, opens his mouth, shows his tongue. And Yeonjun needs nothing to understand him, to slide his own over his, to savor the sweet pleasure of his saliva, the buzzing tingle against his lips. To know that Beomgyu wants more, more, more. Anything he can give him.
Maybe that's the reason for the fire.
Maybe the flames exist only to consume them both, to erase the boundaries that separate them, the chains of consciousness that bind their instincts, the distant voices of their thoughts that still dare to alert him that this could be a mistake, that this is what he has avoided so many other times.
Perhaps, in some other universe, Beomgyu and he and their fire light up the sky of a night like shooting stars, and another version of them —a free and beautiful and different one, one in which their feelings are not a damnation— makes a wish.
To be together forever.
Yeonjun kisses him, kisses him, kisses him. His hands release their grip and lose themselves in Beomgyu's skin—on his arms, on his shoulders, on his cheeks, in his hair. They cling to him as if kisses could consume him, as if his saliva were his only remedy, as if his choking breath could fan the flames. He wants to burn, he wants to explode, he wants to turn to ashes. He wants to forget what he is and just be this— this thing he can only be with Beomgyu, this version of himself he had never allowed himself to know. He bites his lips, abuses them. He lets his canines tear at the thin skin, tastes the tiny drop of blood that gushes from them.
Beomgyu moans and Yeonjun sinks his claws into the strands of his hair, pulling it back, exposing the boy's neck in a perfect arc— skin smooth and soft and fragile, punctuated by a small mole that pulses over his jugular. Yeonjun buries his head in the hollow, nosing his skin, inhaling its essence, its warmth. The boy's breathing quickens, his hands scramble over Yeonjun's back, over his neck, they cling to his hair as if they don't know where to go, as if they want to keep him there, as if they want to push him away.
Instead of biting him, Yeonjun lets out a small chuckle, teasing him, breathing on his skin, letting the boy feel the warmth of his mouth and the ghost of his tongue— but the touch he's waiting for? That one never comes.
Beomgyu's greedy whimper vibrates against Yeonjun's chest, churns in his ribs, becomes a lightning bolt coursing through him, electricity building up over in his gut, fire devouring his insides. His dick chubs up against the seams of his pants, heavy, growing hard. The boy's hands tremble as a litany of hyung hyung hyung leaves his lips, vibrating on the skin of his neck, curling in the air above his ear. Yeonjun smiles as he allows Beomgyu to fight his clothes, to tug at them feverishly, as if he's forgotten how clothing works, as if he can only think he wants it off, off, right now, this instant.
It's fun, watching him try. To see him so desperate, so cornered, so needy. He doesn't even think about helping him— he just closes his eyes and lets him do it. He allows himself to feel Beomgyu's trembling fingers as they struggle with his belt, the tingle of desire, the hunger, the thunderbolts that electrify his skin.
When he opens them, Beomgyu looks like a forlorn, pitiful mess— his lips pouting, a flush splashing across the skin of his cheeks, his eyes bright with frustration.
"H-hyung..."
Yeonjun growls, and the boy crouches over himself, his thin hands gathered in a defensive posture, trembling in front of him. On another occasion, the gesture might have caused Yeonjun to stop immediately, his conscience and morale returning all at once, filling him with guilt.
But not today. Not now.
Not when Beomgyu's soul smells so deliciously appetizing, so sweet, so spicy. Not when Yeonjun can detect the decadent notes of need, of pleasure, of sex— so contrary to the innocence and vulnerability of his gesture.
Not when the boy's fear sizzles on his tongue spurring his own desire, his instincts, his insatiable hunger.
He scoops the boy up, taking him in his arms and carrying him to the bed before throwing him down on it. His body, so delicate and light, bounces against the mattress, and Yeonjun proceeds to remove his own jacket and shirt with a simple gesture, discarding the pants Beomgyu has opened on the floor.
He is not so lenient with the boy's clothes.
His fingers clutch at the fishnet shirt resting on his body, curl around the thin black strips that adorn it— so delicate, so useless, so absurd. He pulls at them and tears them as if they had betrayed him, as if they were to blame for letting the whole world see Beomgyu's body, his smooth curves, his golden skin.
The boy gasps at the sound, his breathing broken as well.
But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Yeonjun takes his sweet time running through the thin straps of Beomgyu's crop top, teasing, toying with the boy's breathing, with his stifled moans, with his trembling. He lets the pleasure and impatience and fear build in Beomgyu's chest, waits for his desperation to dull his mind, until there is nothing left but him in the boy's thoughts, nothing but the need to be undressed, to be watched, to be devoured. And when Beomgyu whimpers senselessly, when his own fingers curl over the straps as if he is the one who is going to tear them, only then— Yeonjun tears the fabric of the shirt.
And oh.
Oh.
Now this is an unexpected image.
The boy's skin is an expanse of softness accentuated by his blushing, pearly with sweat. His ribs rise and fall maddeningly, and Yeonjun wonders if the movement he thinks he sees in them is really the beating of his heart pushing against them or if perhaps his imagination is too wild, driven mad by the boy's proximity, by the possibility of touching him at last, at last, at last. But the idea disappears as soon as it has arrived, and a static buzz occupies Yeonjun's mind as soon as he sees them—
The small pink stone in the shape of a cherry blossom hanging from the boy's navel and, a little higher, crowning his dusty pink nipples, two small shiny, metallic beads that sparkle in the dim light of the lamps like a lighthouse, guiding those who, like Yeonjun, have become shipwrecked and lost in his body.
The boy stirs under his gaze, nervous, his long dark hair messy around him, his cheeks and ears red, his lower lip quivering under the prison of his teeth, fidgeting with his lip ring.
f*ck.
f*ck.
f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck.
Yeonjun can hear the sound making its way from somewhere inside him, earth-shattering and animalistic, low and rumbling. The force with which he clenches his jaw might as well be breaking his teeth, and he wouldn't give a single f*ck.
Beomgyu's eyes grow wide with surprise, and he seems about to babble something when Yeonjun launches himself at him, kissing him, biting him, drinking in his moans as his hands explore his body, his cheeks, his neck, the fine, hard lines of his collarbones, his shoulders, his chest... and heavens above— his nipples.
He finds them with a ease that would suggest he's done this before— the piercing balls feel cool against his fevered skin, grounding him, calming him. But control has long since escaped Yeonjun hands. He descends on them, tracing a path of saliva with his tongue, and then... he avoids them.
The boy groans, lifting and dropping his head, defeated. Yeonjun can feel Beomgyu's erection pressing against his abdomen, the way he reacts to his attentions. He descends a hand to his belly and caresses it gently. His tongue fiddles with his navel piercing.
“Yes, please, hyung, please-”
He chuckles softly at his whining.
“So f*cking pretty. So f*cking delicious. So f*cking mine, Beomgyu-yah.”
“Yes. Yes. Yours.”
“Say it.”
“I’m yours, hyung. Yours.”
Beomgyu drops his hands, reaching out desperately to touch Yeonjun's bare skin, but Yeonjun pulls away before he can do so, placing himself between his legs.
“Hyung, please. Please, I wanna touch you-”
“No.”
Ah— that word again. It is nice, now that he’s the one uttering it. It makes him high with power.
“Please- I need-”
“No.”
No, he doesn't deserve it. Yeonjun wants to drive him as crazy as he feels. He wants Beomgyu to be drown by his own need until there's nothing left of him. He wants him to feel the desperation he had felt at the bar, when he saw him kissing another man.
He wants desire to inscribe in Beomgyu's flesh that Beomgyu is his property so he never forgets that it is Yeonjun who decides. That he is the only one who can see him like this. Feel him like this.
Yeonjun is the greatest predator on this planet- and Beomgyu is his prey.
"Please, hyung- Please-"
The boy reaches out a hand, fumbles over his nightstand, his fingers searching through his lamp, through his books, throwing everything away until he finds what he's looking for and offers it to him, his eyes glazed over with desire, blurry with pleasure.
Lube.
The boy is handing him a bottle of lube.
Holy f*ck.
“Say it,” he orders.
Beomgyu whines feverishly, shaking his head against the mattress. Brat.
Yeonjun tugs at his nipple piercing.
“Say it or I’ll f*cking leave.”
“Gosh… ah, just— f*ck me. Please. Hyung. f*ck me.”
“Hm… I don’t know, Beoms… Do you think I’ll be a good f*ck?”
“Oh, please I- I hated him.”
“Didn’t seem like it, you know?”
“It was… ah, it was because you were there.”
Well, that is… unexpected.
“You saw me?”
“Yes. f*ck, yes. I always see you, hyung. I always keep my eyes on you,” he mumbles.“It was- God I just wanted you to see me, too. To want me.”
The boy sits up shakily on his elbows, staring at him, holding his gaze.
“Don’t you see? I wanted you to feel like I do. To f*ck me like I’ve always wanted you to.” Someone should forbid Beomgyu to speak like that. Yeonjun thinks the way his blood rush to his co*ck must be illegal. “But y-you rejected me… and… I wished you felt that way, too.”
“Rejected?”
Beomgyu nods softly, his eyes bright with unshed tears.
Something between laughter and an outraged growl bubbles its way up from his chest.
Is that it?
That's the reason why Beomgyu let that man approach him? The reason he came so damn close to dying? The reason he let his filthy hands roam his body and muddy his soul?
His soul.
His. Yeonjun's.
Yes. His. His.
Of course. He has to make it his. He has to mark it, so nobody ever dares to touch it again. He has to devour it. To own it.
Yeonjun abandons the pink piercing, repositioning himself on Beomgyu, studying his unblemished skin, the warm patches of his flesh, the areas where his soul is the clearest and most accessible, the spots where traces of the other man are still discernible. He studies everything to exhaustion, everything until there is nothing that escapes his plan.
And then he pounces.
Yeonjun bites and sucks and claws at every spot, burying his canines in Beomgyu’s flesh, sucking it between his lips, running his tongue— the soft skin under his cheek, under his ear, of his neck, over his collarbone, of his sternum, his nipples, his abdomen, his navel, his belly. Beomgyu's sighs and moans pepper the room like burning stars, but Yeonjun can barely hear anything, can barely think— his instinct takes over everything. It tells him to mark, eat, devour, slurp, suck, bite, tear apart. Beomgyu’s body is a golden field of blossoming red, purplish flowers— like poppies stretching their petals to the sun. And isn’t it funny how poppies are considered the flowers of death?
He lets the boy's soul slide over his lips, encircle his tongue— it feels as if he has come home, as if his insides are where it has always belonged.
It feels natural yet special, magical— Yeonjun has never done this. He has never even thought of using his power for pleasure. He has never felt this when absorbing a soul.
The thought pauses for an instant over his mind, making him stop.
Beyond the instinct, beyond his nature demanding him to capture and kill his prey, Yeonjun retains a piece of consciousness— a voice asking him to stop, to remember his plans, to remember who he is. Who Beomgyu is.
Beomgyu is not just a soul.
Beomgyu is more. Beomgyu is everything.
He exhales slowly, closes his eyes, drops his head on the boy's hip bones. His breath is a whirlwind shaking a forest canopy, and Beomgyu is his anchor, his restraint, a wildflower standing up to the wind.
The idea is... sweet. Comforting.
So much so that Yeonjun finds himself smiling against his skin, depositing a soft kiss over the waistband of his pants.
And maybe Beomgyu knows it. Maybe the boy is able to see it all, to know it all— his inner struggle, the ghosts that haunt him, the voracity of his instincts, his fear. Maybe that's the reason his hands linger on Yeonjun's hair, the reason they caress him gently, tenderly, patiently.
When he lifts his eyes, when their gazes meet, no words are needed.
Silence is a promise. A powerful one. One stronger than both of them, older than him.
Yeonjun smiles, descending again on Beomgyu's belly, unbuttoning his pants, hooking his fingers in the belt loops and pulling them off. Stripping him naked.
He can feel the boy's trembling under his hands, his nervousness, his desire. He presses a kiss on each of his hip bones, nudges his legs open, kisses the junction between his leg and his hip, the scars of the accident that caused them to meet for the first time, the delicate skin of his bare thigh and— god, Beomgyu is so beautiful. So soft. So perfect. He rubs his cheek against the warm, tender skin, he kisses it, bites it softly. From where he stands, he can see his co*ck— hard, leaking, and furiously red. It is pretty, too, just like everything in him.
He lets his hand hover over his dick, and he can hear the way Beomgyu holds his breath, the way his eyes close, the press of his head against the pillow.
He chuckles softly, barely touching the tip with his fingertip, drawing a slow circle, too soft to be enough. Still, Beomgyu's hips lift off the mattress treacherously, and a long moan flickers between them.
Yeonjun licks his lips.
“Is this okay?”
“Y-yes hyung, b-”
“But?”
“M-more, please.”
“More?”
Yeonjun picks up a small drop of precum with his forefinger, gently pushing it away, his gaze fixed on the way the clear liquid stretches, on the way the light passes through it. Beautiful. He sits up slightly, reaching between the sheets for the bottle Beomgyu offered him earlier. It opens with a slight click, and a trickle of lubricant slides over his fingers.
"Beomgyu-yah?"
The boy clears his throat suddenly, swallowing and closing his mouth, his eyes flitting between Yeonjun and his hand, lost.
"Yes?"
Yeonjun smiles, moving closer to him, planting a hungry kiss on his lips, letting Beomgyu relax into his hands. It's soft, and sweet, but it doesn't hide a hint of the hunger they both feel, and Yeonjun nudges his legs with one hand, spreading them open and pulling them to his chest gently. He looks at Beomgyu when his finger caresses his little flustered hole, drinking the surprise from his eyes, from his lips, smiling into it, allowing his inner monster to enjoy his shock- the way he trembles at the new feeling, like a little animal realizing its destiny.
“Hyung!”
“Hm?”
“Hyung, please- please.”
“Please, what?”
“Please… please put it in. I’m begging you, hyung, please. I’m gonna- I don’t wanna-”
Yeonjun smiles against his lips, pressing a last, chaste kiss before descending again between his legs.
"Oh, but I'm not gonna put it in, love. Not yet."
He can see the way Beomgyu's eyes twinkle when he hears the word. He can feel the way his own heart skips a beat when he says it.
He hasn't meant to say it. It wasn't his intention.
It has escaped his lips, wild— too real not to be free. So he just let it fly away. He lets it escape. He accepts it, a creature in its own right. A fragment of his voice animated by the boy's soul, a path between them.
Yeonjun breathes on the boy's co*ck, letting it hit his lips with its little spasms.
“Have you heard me, Beoms?”
“Y-yes. Yes, hyung.”
“Well done. Now— do you perhaps know what am I going to do?”
Beomgyu licks his lips, closes his eyes.
“P-prep me?”
Cute.
f*ck.
So f*cking cute. Yeonjun feels like his dick’s gonna burst.
“Hm. Kind of. I’m gonna make you mine, Beomgyu. I’m gonna eat your pretty little ass and open you up with my fingers and my tongue and I’m gonna make sure you are never able to feel any other thing or think of any other person. I’m gonna make you cum as much as I want and I’m gonna devour you until you can only say my f*cking name. Got it? How does that sound?”
“Y-yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, please. Hyung. Please.”
He caresses his thighs, massaging them gently.
“That’s it, love. That’s good. No one else gets to see you like this.”
“No, hyung.”
“You are mine. Say it.”
But Beomgyu's response stretches into a moan as Yeonjun finally draws a circle with his tongue over the boy's hole. His body trembles, jerked by the sensation, and Yeonjun finds that nothing satisfies him more than that. Nothing pleases him as much as having power over the boy's moans, the ability to make him lose his speech, as if he were able to command his words.
It reminds him slightly of their first meeting, of how quiet and shy Beomgyu was then. Not that he isn't now, but now Yeonjun has grown accustomed to the boy's sudden bursts of energy, the incessant chatter, the jokes and laughter and shouting. To the constant challenge in his gaze and his permanent brattiness.
He has never been able to do anything about it, but now... now...
Yeonjun bites into the plush flesh of his buttock, burying his teeth and licking the imprint his canines have left behind, then returns to the little hole— so rosy, so soft. He pounces on them, letting his tongue trace a little spiral and, oh.
God. f*ck.
Beomgyu is— his soul feels like molten light dripping on his tongue. Warm and smooth, impossibly sweet and fruity. Ambrosia, nectar. Vanilla and cherries and light on a gentle breeze of blossoming flowers. Nothing could have prepared Yeonjun for this. Nothing could have alerted him to how much the taste would drive him mad, how intense it would be at this point.
He can't stop. He can't.
He drags his tongue over his puckered hole, feels the muscles tensing, massages them slowly. He presses his tongue against them, caresses them with his lubed finger. Beomgyu reacts so, so beautifully— clenching and unclenching, trembling under him. Yeonjun repeats the motion time, and time again. He draws crosses, and circles, and flowers, and stars— a whole universe against the soft, exposed skin. As if he could relearn the meaning of the world just by tasting his soul.
He prods his hole with the tip of his finger, pushing it gently inside, watching in awe as it struggles and then simply goes in, just to suck it greedily immediately after.
Beomgyu moans like a howl— loud and broken and forlorn, like a song to the moon. And Yeonjun can see the sound behind his eyes, white and explosive and brutal, a wave of pleasure that leaves him dizzy, lost.
He has cum.
God. Perhaps Yeonjun has cum, too. Just by tasting him. By feeling him.
He looks at him from between his legs— all flushed out, a beautiful, blabbering mess. Beomgyu tries to calm his breathing, to talk to him, to ask him something, but the words jumble and fall apart and stumble over each other, incoherent. The boy's eyelashes flutter desperately, trying to keep his attention on Yeonjun, to hold on to the moment. There is cum all over his tummy, pooling in his navel, drowning the little cherry blossom stone. Yeonjun kisses his dick softly, smiling at him despite the boy clearly cannot see him. He cannot see past the waves of pleasure that take him away from the shore of his consciousness.
And Yeonjun buries his fingers on the plush skin of his ass cheeks, and digs again. He bites, licks, prods his hole with his tongue. Beomgyu is like putty after his org*sm, all f*cked out and blissfully tired, pliant and malleable under his hands and his tongue. He f*cks his hole with his finger, hooks it, looking for the soft lump inside.
When he finds it, it’s too much.
Beomgyu screams, gasps for breath, pushes his body away. And Yeonjun clings to him, holds him against the mattress, makes sure he can't escape— pleasure stirs the boy's soul like a sea, pushing wave after wave against Yeonjun, drowning him, dulling him, overriding his senses. This is all that matters, this is all that exists. Beomgyu and his pleasure, Yeonjun and his hunger, both insatiable. He continues to push his finger— in and out, in and out, in and out, playing with the pink edges of his pretty hole, slowly adding a second finger.
The second time Beomgyu tries to escape, Yeonjun bites the joint of his leg, marking him— a reminder that he's his. His to own, his to ruin, his to f*ck.
He’s so sensitive already, and they have only started.
“No, hyung-,” he tries to persuade him. “You. Y-your turn. Now—”
“You’re not the one giving orders here, love,” Yeonjun utters softly, gently. And still, there’s a quality to his voice— the sharp edge of an order, the staggering echo of his power. It makes Beomgyu cower deliciously.
“Hyung, I don’t think I’ll be able to- if I- I have already-”
Yeonjun inhales the soft nuances of his nerves, the soft, faded notes of his fear twinkling over the immense expanse of his desire, chocolate and cherries melting on his tongue. f*cking scrumptious. Mind-bogging. He kisses his perineum again and again as he f*cks his puckered hole with his fingers, and Beomgyu’s hands grab his, tries to push him away, to drag him closer, to find release. To find something to hold on as he rides his pleasure— shaking and trembling and spasming around him. His hips raise from the mattress, trying to follow the movement of his fingers, of his tongue, f*cking himself as best as he can under Yeonjun’s grip. But Yeonjun doesn’t bulge, nibbling on the sensitive skin, sucking one of his balls, feeling its weight on his tongue. Three fingers. It’s a stretch and Beomgyu’s breath hitches, but Yeonjun rewards him with a long, slow lick of his dick, and a gentle nudge of his tongue on the slit that crowns his tip.
So salty, so decadent, so warm.
He tastes like the sun.
“Hyung- oh my god. Oh my god I’m- I’m”
Beomgyu’s second org*sm is a merciless heatwave, a tide of exploding stars expanding over the universe before turning into a black hole, pulling Yeonjun’s mind into nothingness.
He feels both of their bodies drifting away in absolute contentment— a calm sea, its surface frozen in time, bathed by the sunset, with nothing around to give him a clue of the time that has passed, of what has happened, of how long he has been lying there, his head resting on the boy's bruised thigh, barely a couple of centimeters from the soft scar that runs down his leg. A permanent reminder of the day they met.
Of the things he has done.
Memories fight against the fuzziness of his thoughts, like cracks of ice piercing the expanse of shared peacefulness. He can barely process the sweet touch of Beomgyu's hand on his head, tidying his hair where he pulled it, caressing the curve of his ear, the valley of his neck, the gentle rise of his-
Lightning flashes across Yeonjun's back, brutal and intense, blinding his mind.
He can only feel and feel and feel. His body is a storm, a roar of fire and ice shaking the universe, ripping its way through his veins, electric nails sizzling over his blood, clawing at his insides. He hisses and snarls, showing his teeth to the boy, his claws elongated and dark against the white sheets.
His wings.
Beomgyu has touched his wings.
He can’t even process the fact that Beomgyu shouldn’t be able to touch him at all. He shouldn’t be able to see the wings he has touched.
The moment seems to stretch on into infinity— his body tense and poised for attack, his heart hammering against his ribs, climbing out of his mouth. There is something in the back of his mind screaming that this is wrong, wrong, wrong, that he should make himself disappear, escape, run away. There's something he should remember, something building up in his mouth— its stale, bitter taste, folding in on itself. Something like an ending.
But Yeonjun can only look at Beomgyu. The way he crawls on the bed, his hand outstretched towards him, trembling. The way fear makes his dark pupils quiver, the flash of wonder and curiosity twinkling in his eyes.
He doesn't know how long the moment lasts. He doesn't know how long his body remains in a state of alert, how long he spends trying to debate whether this is right or wrong or right or wrong or right or wrong, whether the danger lies with him or with the boy, whether he should give in to the brutal instinct howling in his mind, the consciousness made of teeth and darkness that expands over his thoughts whispering over and over the same word— kill.
Everything disappears in an instant.
Everything disappears when Beomgyu smiles.
“I wanna see…” he whispers. Softly, gently. As if it were Yeonjun who is a weak, delicate creature, scared and defenseless and about to escape. “Please… I wanna see. May I?”
Such magical words.
And here’s the thing.
Even drowned by his instincts, taken over by his monstrous nature… Yeonjun can’t say no to Beomgyu. Not when he looks at him like that.
He closes his eyes with a shaky breath, dropping his head in unspoken consent. His wings unfurl behind him, expanding, too big for the room. Too... shy.
Something in him tells him this is too much, that this should be impossible, that this is an important moment, something he should reserve for-
The boy's fingers hover over the thin skin, startling him. A shiver runs down his spine.
“Oh… are they… feathers? No… skin?”
Yeonjun sighs, taps his fingers impatiently on the soft surface of the sheets, bites the inside of his cheek to hold himself down.
“None.”
“None? But it is… something. Right?”
“Darkness,” he grunts.
It is hard to speak like this. It is… distracting.
Beomgyu is naked and there’s cum and a thin layer of sweat glistening on his tummy, and then those f*cking piercings, shining softly under the light, and his scent… his taste… his-
“Darkness,” the boy repeats, slowly, trying the word on his tongue. “It looks like… It feels like the darkness turns into feathers or something like that, you know? It’s like they’re there but they’re-”
“No feathers.”
He wants more.
He wants to eat. To ruin. To devour.
Beomgyu’s pleasure feels like a distant echo, swallowed by the electric storm, by the buzzing sound of his touch on his wings.
He needs, needs, needs.
“Okay,” the boy giggles, “no feathers. But there are stars. Are they— are they real?”
It is embarrassing. To be touched like this, rendered vulnerable by this human. Completely at this boy’s mercy. Weak. Weak. Weak.
The feeling of his fingertips caressing the usually hidden skin pools on his insides, it makes him dizzy with want, with need.
He can smell himself on the boy’s skin. He can see the bites, the marks blemishing his soft flesh. The image brings with it a low growl of satisfaction, a soft, grave purr. It makes his perspective change.
Ah, yes.
This boy is his.
He’s touching him, because he’s his. Because he has allowed it. Because he wants him. He owns him.
He’s not weak.
He’s strong. He’s powerful.
He’s starving.
Yeonjun tackles Beomgyu, pushing him back against the bed, covering his body with his own, allowing himself to savor the scent of his soul on his neck, the scent he has learned to recognize as home. It's amazing how attuned he is to his soul. How clearly he can feel it, the way it calls to him, calls to him, calls to him. Soft and suggestive and delicate and devious. f*ck. His erection is heavy, aching. It throbs with the need to feel Beomgyu.
f*ck, he can't take it anymore.
He pins the boy on the bed harshly, licks his neck, sucks his skin, and then, in a single, swift movement, he enters him.
And gods above.
f*ck.
He can feel the boy's whimper on his co*ck from how deeply buried he is in him.
Never. He has never felt anything like this before. He's never thought it was possible.
It's so overwhelming that he's afraid to move, afraid of what might happen if he felt the embrace of Beomgyu's walls again, afraid of what would happen if he stopped feeling it, afraid of how easy it would be for him to lose his mind, to lose himself, to sink again and again and again into the boy's flesh, into his essence, into his precious moans.
Afraid of hurting him.
“It’s okay- hyung, please.”
Beomgyu's voice is soft, slightly tremulous.
“But-”
“Please. I want this. I’ve wanted this for years.”
For years… He has wanted this for years.
And hasn’t Yeonjun longed for Beomgyu too, all this time? Hasn’t he longed for him even before he met him, trapped as he was in his own reign of emptiness, sitting on his own throne of thorns?
He hesitates.
But it can't be right. It can't. If it were right, why didn't he do it before? No, no, no. Beomgyu feels so fragile under his body, so weak, and the pleasure is so blinding, so absolute, so maddening. No, enough has been enough. Beomgyu has enjoyed it and so has he and he should be able to stop now, he should prove to himself that he is not the monster he thinks he is. It is not too late, not yet.…
“Am I not yours, hyung?” The boy pleads.
Is him?
And what does it even mean?
Why would he want to make Beomgyu his? Why would he accept to drown his light in the sea of darkness that lives within him?
Beomgyu moves under him, undulating his hips, f*cking himself on Yeonjun’s dick, showing him.
He is his, he is his, he is his.
And perhaps… perhaps the key is Yeonjun has always wanted to belong to Beomgyu, too. He has always wanted to give him everything.
So he turns them, sitting against the headboard and handling the boy so that he’s sitting on his dick, his weak, trembling legs straddling him. He hold his waist tightly with white-knuckled hands, begging him silently to take him. To take him whole. To see him. And the boy smiles at him like light, like spring, like an angel, caressing his cheek before holding the wooden headboard, gasping and moaning softly as he buries himself on his dick.
Gods.
Yeonjun guides the movement carefully, supporting the boy, helping him to steady himself. He lets his consciousness cling to the boy's eyes, to his open mouth dropping one and another and another moan, to the marks he has left on his neck, now stretched and vulnerable above him. Fireworks. That's what it feels like. Like watching light defy the night, bursting beautifully into the void, crackling and hissing and popping on the way, again, and again, and again. Hot and cold, ice pouring down his spine.
It is perfect.
It is beautiful.
Beomgyu's soul glows intensely, increasingly brighter, occupying the whole room with its iridescent hues, covering all the little things, all the memories, all the objects, all the photos with fine shimmers of color.
“Touch them,” he whispers. Not an order, this time.
Just… him.
“Huh?”
“P- please.”
Beomgyu's eyelids are heavy with the excess of pleasure, filled with tears, gaze fluttering on his outstretched wings. He is almost out of it, absorbed by the way his body absorbs Yeonjun's dick, by the intensity of the moment, by the over-stimulation. His body trembles in spasms, and he has long since ceased to be able to control his desperate whimpers, the need for something that has no name, for an ending that rolls over him again and again, sending him tumbling beneath the sea of his desire.
He reaches out a trembling hand, tracing the outline of the tiny stars with his fingertips, and it's too much. It's so intense that Yeonjun can't control the way he pistons his hips upward again and again, filling the boy impossibly, pushing them both over the edge.
He's his.
His.
Their release arrives simultaneously and it's... maddening. Yeonjun’s body is left stranded, disconnected from reality. The sensation is a current of wind that sweeps him away from the earth, a cloud that numbs his mind, as if he has ceased to exist and exists too strongly at the same time. It is terrifying and exhilarating and maddeningly pleasurable and, after a moment, that draft pulls him into an expanse of light, of spring breeze, of never-ending sunsets.
All this... all this has not been the outcome of his instincts. It has not been the threads of death pulling him towards the boy. There is no hiding. Not anymore. Never again. What has brought him to this point is not Beomgyu's soul, or its scent, or its brightness... but Beomgyu. Yeonjun is in love with him.
He has always been.
Beomgyu lets his body fall on his chest, and, for the first time in his entire existence, Yeonjun feels at home.
Darkness harbors its own creatures.
Some of them, like Yeonjun, only find refuge in it.
In darkness no one exists. The contours of consciousness are invisible. Bodies are invisible. Minds are invisible.
In darkness the world is safe. It is a safe haven, a den for fragile souls, for irreparable voids.
Outside it, the world is loud and constant, a torn cry to the future, a race that never ends. Outside, everything is exposed, everything is visible. Splintered men and terrified creatures searching for their reflection, unable to find themselves among the outline of other men.
Yeonjun only comes out of his darkness when it is imperative. He takes away from the light the exhausted souls. He devours the broken souls. He guides the lost souls. And then he returns to the darkness he knows, to the emptiness he dwells in, the emptiness that inhabits him.
But this time... this time it is not he who goes out in search of it.
He's in the darkness, but in front of him there is a glow, a trembling point of light, held in the void. A soul.
Its body ululates softly, purrs against his hand, against his neck, against his chest. Yeonjun hears the sunrise and sunset whispering inside it, a bright laughter tinkling over its heart, a promise.
Lavender and honey.
He closes his eyes.
Yeonjun opens his eyes.
The light is a soft mantle covering his body. There is tenderness and warmth all around him, and the feeling seems impossible, inconceivable. If he could, he would reach out a hand to test its touch. If he could, he would cling to a piece of it as one clings to the stars— hiding them in the shelter of his chest, selfishly creating a new home between his fingers.
Above him, the universe seems to have spilled onto a white ceiling, spinning on itself.
But it is impossible. Impossible.
If he pays attention, he can see it— the sharp outlines of a room, posters of music and plants, wooden furniture on black and white walls. A human song plays in the background like a soft murmur, a warm, gentle purr. Calloused fingers gliding over the strings of a guitar at an undefined point in the past.
It takes longer to see him— The boy whose torso towers over him, his face hidden behind a book, like a wall of words erected between their faces. His long brown hair floats gently in the evening breeze, and his hand gently caresses Yeonjun's head, his usually well-groomed hair, delicately massaging his temples.
He has the feeling of having experienced something like this before. A dream superimposed on a dream. Pieces of his decayed memory, like worn teeth. A weeping willow beside a river of clouds, long branches floating on the night breeze, hiding him and someone else from the world.
He wouldn't mind coming back.
He wouldn't mind staying here forever, his head resting on the boy's lap, wondering what the worlds he reads are all about, where he goes when he opens his books. If perhaps they are a refuge for him, the way he has unknowingly become a refuge for Yeonjun.
He sighs. The words get stuck in his mouth, curling up on his tongue.
'Can you see me? Could you, please, see me?'
But the boy doesn't.
He can't.
He closes his eyes.
Yeonjun opens his eyes.
Darkness is not enough. His crown of thorns is now a curse.
Guilt plagues him, ravenous and angry. Everything's his fault.
He closes his eyes.
Yeonjun opens his eyes.
The room he has been in so many times before welcomes him back. Notes of lavender and vanilla, usually soft and gentle, become sharp prickles. They pool bitterly in the back of his mouth.
A muffled cry emerges from his side.
A nightmare.
The boy has a nightmare.
His sob splashes across the peace of the room, his face contorted with pain. Despite lying beside him, Yeonjun can do nothing. His presence here is a mistake, a slip. A craving in which he indulges in secret, hidden and ashamed.
A thread of light clings to his wrist, glowing in the almost absolute darkness of the night. Blinding, like the truth.
He wants to wake the boy from his memory-ridden dream, wants to cradle him in his arms, wants to promise him that everything is all right. That everything will be all right. He wants to hum the boy's favorite songs, to remind him that the world is full of other things, of little flashes of happiness that make life worth living.
But he can't move. He can't even get closer.
Yeonjun doesn't exist. Not in the way that matters. And everything he wants to say, everything he wants to build for the boy is just a lie.
'Please, see me. Look at me,' he whispers. ‘I’m sorry.’
The boy doesn’t see him. He will never see him.
He promises himself this will never happen again.
He has already made his choice. Now it's only a matter of time.
He closes his eyes.
Yeonjun opens his eyes.
His reflection in the mirror returns to him the image he had been expecting— the patch of darkness spreading over his hands, over his legs, between his wings. His joints ache, stiff and unstable, less his than they have ever been.
He's dying.
Soon, he will be gone.
But the boy... the boy will live.
It’s a promise.
He closes his eyes.
Yeonjun doesn't open his eyes when the nightmares are gone.
This time, his memories are a safer, more comfortable place to be— more than this house that was once his refuge, his secret. More than this place made of past and dreams of impossible futures.
He wonders if this is enough. He knows this is the end.
He can feel it in his bones.
The warmth of the boy beside him feels like goodbye. A kind farewell Yeonjun doesn’t deserve. One that makes him not want to leave. But he should. He should. He must. Soon it will be too late. Soon there will be nothing left of him, and he doesn’t want Beomgyu to witness it. He doesn’t want another ending weighing down his soul. Yeonjun has had enough of that— enough guilt, enough shame, enough pain to last for ages.
He smiles at the darkness behind his eyelids, at the morning sun drifting behind them. The last he will ever see.
It will all be over soon.
Both of them will be free.
Part of him wonders if things could have been different. If there is some version of this world where things don't have to be the way they are. Where they both could have found some middle ground. Something that didn't hurt as much as this.
Maybe not.
Maybe it's impossible. After all, he and Beomgyu are two opposing forces of nature, death and life, light and darkness. Two whirlwinds meeting on the open sea. Everything that hurts Beomgyu is his fault. Everything that hurts him comes from Beomgyu's hand.
He opens his eyes.
For the first time, Yeonjun refuses to look at the boy lying down beside him. If he does, he doesn't think he will be able to leave. Yeonjun is a greedy, selfish creature. And Beomgyu... Beomgyu is...
It's easier like this. Easier if he just pretends it's a normal day. Just him, getting up from his bed. Him breathing deeply from the edge of the mattress, trying to convince himself that he doesn't feel the pain, that his head doesn't feel like it's about to explode, that his limbs don't freeze with the shriek of stiffness that plagues them. That his skin has not been practically covered by the darkness.
He lies to himself. He always does.
It’s easier this way.
Yeonjun pushes his darkness away. He gets dressed in silence, slowly, painfully. He only needs a moment, he only needs to find the strength to materialize himself back home— a place where he can rest, where he can allow himself the pain, where he can say his goodbyes and… let go.
He tries. Heavens, he really does, but… he can’t.
The pain is too unbearable, too intense. It branches inside him, sprouting like metal flowers, spreading like an icy fog over his skin. That which had once been as natural as breathing now causes his body to burst into bolts of pain, blinding him.
So... he has already lost some of his powers, huh?
Yeonjun shakes his head, commands his muscles to move through the pain, pushes his body forward, to the door, out of the room. Each gesture moves the icy mist closer to his heart. The room stretches infinitely to the entrance, but once through it, once he's out of the house, Yeonjun could call the guys and ask them to come and get him. He only has to push himself a little more, a little further. Crawl, if necessary. Whatever it takes to get out of there, to distance himself from the boy and his warmth, from the softness of his soul, from the blinding glow of last night's memories.
He puts one foot after another, one foot after another, one foot after another.
The total of his existence has not been much different than this— an empty desert, a constant darkness, a kingdom built out of nothingness. The king of endings. The lackey of death.
If he thinks about it, in truth, he's tired. Tired of himself. Tired of the succeeding days, of humanity, of history. He is tired of crawling through time, tired of souls, tired of being the one who carries their sad endings, their reluctance to give up their lives, their resentment, their pain, their past. A puppet. A vessel. That is what he is. A monster manipulated by death, a receptacle for all the things he has no right to live, for all the things he can only mow down, break, destroy.
It took him to meet Beomgyu to realize it.
To understand that he has never had the right to choose. That he has never been able to decide if this is what he wants. People live, and they change. They love and hate and suffer. But he... He remains, constant and unchanging. There is nothing in this world that is for him. Nothing that really belongs to him.
He lets out a chuckle of contempt.
The only thing he has ever wanted is Beomgyu, and doing so is about to kill him.
And maybe it's worth it— to die for Beomgyu. To die for someone so beautiful, someone so alive, so kind, so... so different from himself.
His only regret is that he hurt Beomgyu in the process.
And now he regrets having to hurt him once more.
His feet stumble in front of the door and he grits his teeth, stifling a scream of pain. Just a little more.
Just a little more.
Just a little...
"I knew this would happen."
Beomgyu's voice is a gunshot. A bullet ripping through the room, stabbing into his back, setting off a fresh wave of pain.
No.
Oh, God. No, no. Why? Why did he have to wake up now? Why can't even this go right? Why? Why? Why? Isn't this enough? Isn't his pain enough?
He clenches his fists, looks at the shadow of the trees stretching across the living room floor, the darkness clawing at the light of dawn. It seems to mirror his pain— the way death spreads inside him, like metal branches, sharp and cold, barbs of ice devouring his insides.
"Won't you say anything? Hyung, you—" The words choke in Beomgyu's voice. They shatter, splinter, fall apart in the silence; and Yeonjun's mind is back in his office, again breaking the boy's heart, again hurting him, destroying everything he touches. The king of endings. "f*ck, you're so f*cking unfair. At least- at least look at me. Say it to my face. Say you don't want me. Say you think it was a mistake, that you'd rather not see me again."
How, how could he say something like that? How, when even after doing his best to deceive himself the truth is that Yeonjun only wants Beomgyu? How, when Beomgyu is the only thing that makes life worth living?
No, he can't say something like that. He can't, no matter how much it would make things easier. He can't, no matter how much he tells himself that Beomgyu's hatred is more deserved than his love. He can't.
All Yeonjun longs for is Beomgyu. All his emotions belong to the boy. All of his dreams. All of his smiles.
"I... I have to go, " he whispers gruelingly, his breathing labored, his voice barely there.
A coward. A monster. A puppet. A king.
He shakes his head, pushes his muscles forward, forces himself to continue. The doorknob is only a few steps away. A few steps is nothing. A sigh. An abyss. A new end.
But Beomgyu clutches his jacket, stands between him and the door, and suddenly there is nothing to separate them. Nothing to prevent Yeonjun from seeing the tears running down his cheeks, the pure, unbridled pain that occupies his face.
The pain Yeonjun has caused.
Everything... everything is his fault.
Funny how, even now that he is awake, Yeonjun wants to comfort Beomgyu... to no avail. His body does not respond. He watches the tears fall helplessly.
"So... it didn't mean anything to you? Even now... even after what we did last night, even after what I saw... Am I not good enough?"
Yeonjun looks away, tries not to see him, to avoid the pain he's caused— it's too much. Too much pain inside and out. Too much even for him.
And yet, Beomgyu approaches him, forces him to look at him. The boy holds his face, cradles his cheeks, sliding his thumbs over them. He... God. Yeonjun hadn't realized he was crying.
He has never cried before.
"I... Hyung, I don't understand."
Ironic. Ironic. Everything is f*cking ironic.
There's nothing to understand. He's the one who doesn't understand anything. Why? Why is this happening to him? Why once again can't he comfort the boy as he would like? Why has he once again made him cry, despite having promised himself over and over again that he wouldn't do it again? Why does it have to be Beomgyu who comforts him? Why does Beomgyu have to be the one who sees him cry for the first time? Why? Why? Why?
"See? You are crying, too. Hyung, please. Please, talk to me. Let's fix this. I want to be with you. I- Why can't we be together?"
Yeonjun shakes his head stiffly. He can't speak. He can't move. He can barely breathe. The pain spreads like a tree made of electricity and metal and ice, the cold curls over his mind and body, his muscles are so stiff he can't even feel them.
And it's stupid, stupid, stupid. It's horrible, it's unfair, it's a living hell right before nothing is left but death. It's too late. Soon it will all be over and Yeonjun doesn't want it to happen in front of Beomgyu. He closes his eyes, begging for death, pleading from the empty cell of his mind, employing his last energies to do so.
Please, please, please, please, don't let him disappear in front of him, don't let him hurt him more than he already has, don't add one more scar to his soul.
God, guilt tastes acid. It is yellow and gray, and slightly blue. It has no end.
"Hyung, please. Don't you see? Can't you see it? Can't you... please, look at me. I- I love you. I love you, don't you know by now?"
And Yeonjun should be surprised. He should treasure the word between his ribs, burn it into his skin, never let it slip away.
But it's too late.
Yeonjun swallows, and the pain is a tide of ice sinking him to the bottom of the earth, tearing him away from the world little by little until he can only feel the cold around him, until his body is indistinguishable from the rest of the inert things in the room, until what happens is a distant image, a sensation that doesn't quite belong to him. And it terrifies him. He is terrified of the way Beomgyu seems to disappear from his sight despite having him in front of him, terrified of not knowing what is going to happen to him, terrified of the fear that clings to his insides.
God, please.
"I..." Beomgyu bites his lips, hides from him. "I love you."
Yeonjun knows. He knows it. He has always known about Beomgyu's ever-growing love. He has known about it, just as much as he has always known that he loves him, too. He has tried to deny it just as much as he has denied himself his own emotions. Because it was easier. Because part of him thought it would be less painful.
But it isn't.
He loves Beomgyu. And Beomgyu loves him too. But the truth is Beomgyu doesn't really know Yeonjun. Even if he has seen him, even if he has seen and touched his wings, even if he accepted his true form last night... Beomgyu doesn't know him. Not really. He doesn't know of the pain that dwells inside of him, he doesn't know of his darkness, he doesn't know that soon he will be no more. He doesn't know who he is. What he is.
So yes, Yeonjun knows about his love. He has always known, yet he has always taken his feelings and sent them away— a cardboard box and a white and red sticker that says "return to sender". Because he's empty. He's void. He's a monster, and all that love feels wasted on him. A love letter left on the mat of an abandoned house.
Soon he will be gone.
And it hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
It hurts to leave Beomgyu behind. To leave behind his love. To have hidden and ignored and returned back every single thing that has made him happy. Everything that made him something else, something more, something other than the grim reaper.
It is so f*cking scary.
He bites the inside of his cheek, pushing away the pain so he can gather every remaining bit of energy and push it to his lips, forming the words he needs to say. The ones he's never been able to say. The ones he has never allowed himself to say.
"Please, Beomgyu. Please. Let me... let me let you go. Let me give you at least this. At least a world where I'm not here. A safer, better world for you. Let me... let me..."
He's nothing. A tool. A puppet. A beast.
But Beomgyu... Beomgyu is free. Beomgyu is alive. His life is loud and bright and gentle like a sunset. His cheeks are always warm and his hands are always soft and his nails are always round and kind, as if he were scared of hurting the world.
As if he held his own tenderness on his fingertips, ready to be given away.
And Yeonjun doesn't deserve it.
"Let me let you go."
And then everything disappears.
The pain bursts within him, it plunges him into darkness, it pushes him, pulls him, tears him apart. It is an infinite scream crying over itself, a thread of teeth and blood and shrapnel stretching over future and past, coiling over destiny. Ephemeral and endless.
And then it ends.
And when it ends, there is nothing. There is no pain, no stiffness, no cold.
Yeonjun blinks, startled, his eyes hurt by the light around him. He can hear the bright song of the birds, the steady murmur of the wind, the distant roar of a storm.
It is raining. Not enough to be called rain. It's a faint drizzle, the promise of something stronger. Yeonjun wrinkles his nose, but he doesn't feel the metallic edge he's used to.
Oh. It's true.
It's over.
It's all over.
He looks around, tries to make sense of the smear of greens and blues and grays that splashes across his mind. A graveyard. Yeonjun knows it. He's been here before.
He turns, recognizing the graves, the trees, looking for... looking for him.
For Beomgyu.
The boy is where he always is, his body kneeling beside one of the tombstones, his shoulders slumped and shaking, his head resting on the stone. And Yeonjun is quick to recognize this for what it is— a memory.
He approaches him, startled, stumbling over his own feet, hurrying to get closer to the boy. But with each step, the souls of other deceased emerge from the graves like an angry swarm, closing in on him, burying themselves in his body— their pain, their regret, their sadness... all become part of him, poisoning him, decaying him, clinging to his body, transforming him. Darkness spreads across his skin. He tries to run, to reach the boy, to tell him the truth.
It's all his fault.
"I miss you," he hears him say.
It's all his fault.
"You weren't there when I needed you."
It's all his fault.
The death of Beomgyu's parents, his accident, the pain and the sadness and the danger...
"You weren't there when I needed you the most. "
It's all his fault.
The souls pierce through him, furious, wounded. His muscles stiffen, they turn into rocks, into earth, into branches— black matter that crumbles with his steps, the earth devouring what has always belonged to it.
Yeonjun falls to his knees, his hand outstretched toward Beomgyu, clutching his sweater. After thousands and thousands of dreams like this, this is the first time he's managed to touch him.
When the boy turns around, Yeonjun sees the name inscribed on the tombstone.
It's not Beomgyu's parents.
It's his own.
Hyung
Hyung
“Hyung!”
“Hyung, please. Please. Oh my god.”
"I'm sorry, hyung. I’m sorry…" Beomgyu's voice comes to him like a wave, splintered and broken and full of tears, pushing him back to the surface. Back to life. "I'm so f*cking sorry, hyung, I didn't- God, I didn't know! I didn't know you were sick. Hyung! Please... look at me, look at me, look at me. Everything is alright. You are fine, you are safe. Hyung, please. Please. Stay with me, please."
Please.
Yeonjun can feel his eyelids struggling against the weight of death, the pain retreating for now, leaving a small piece of his mind to his consciousness. The morning light blinds him, magical and endless. It makes the boy's hair glow softly, illuminates his face, his lips, his cheeks, his eyes. It's as if this moment is something between reality and dreams and memories, as if it doesn't quite belong to him— too beautiful to be real, too sorrowful to be a lie. He’s lying on the floor, his head resting on Beomgyu’s lap, like he has done many other times… only this time it’s not a secret. This time Beomgyu’s tears fall on his cheeks, on his eyelids, on his lips. The boy cradles his body softly, hugs him as if he could fix him. Perhaps he has fixed him.
Yeonjun can see this for what it is— an opportunity. An opportunity to make things right. To satisfy death.
Or maybe just to tell the truth.
A miracle and a curse.
But Yeonjun will take what he can get. Anything he can get.
He breathes deeply. His throat feels as if it's slit open. His tongue is dry, heavy between his teeth, numb. He tries to sort out his thoughts, to make sense of the words. He wants to comfort Beomgyu, to tell him that everything will be all right, that none of this matters. That he loves him, but that it is too late. That he is doing this for him. That everything is for him.
What he blurts out, however, is something entirely different.
"I had never hated myself until I met you," he confesses.
He doesn't know where the words come from, why he says it, why this is the first thing that comes to his mind when there are so many other much more relevant things to say.
Beomgyu's crying halts immediately. He runs his hands over Yeonjun’s face, caresses his cheeks, touches him over, and over, and over again like a plea, like he wants to make sure that Yeonjun is there, that he is alive. Silence is a wound of time between them. Yeonjun swallows, pushing new words out of his lips.
"I had never had the need to be better until I met you. I had never before wanted to be different. I had never felt repulsed by myself until I decided I wasn't good enough for you." Yeonjun breathes, swallows, opens his eyes. "But this is what I am, Beomgyu-yah. I am death, and I am endings, and I am pain. I am... I am the grim reaper."
"I… I know."
"What?"
The question feels foreign to his own ears, a desperate, high-pitched, absurd shriek.
This is... this is not what he was expecting. At all.
Yeonjun tries to sit up, to command his muscles to move, to help him. It takes several attempts, but he manages to kneel down in front of Beomgyu, to put himself at the same height, to look him in the eyes.
“I know,” Beomgyu repeats— slowly, softly. His gaze firm against Yeonjun’s. “I’ve always known. It started as an inkling, then I was almost sure, and then I… I listened in on one of your conversations with Soobin and Kai about… you know— the souls and the pacts.” The boy shakes his head, his cheeks covered in a light blush, still streaked with tears. He sniffles, wiping them away with the back of his hand. His soul shivers around him. “You… you always acted like I couldn’t see you, like I wouldn’t remember who you are, so I was taken aback. But I have always known, I have always seen you, I have always remembered you. It took some time to understand that other people didn’t— that they didn’t see you the way I could. I knew what you were and still… and perhaps this is stupid but I was scared that you would realize I know and disappear from my life. And… it doesn’t matter. I just- I know, hyung. I know and I don’t care. Just like I don’t mind your wings, and your claws, and your… your fangs.”
He can't believe it.
It is not possible.
Beomgyu... he knew? All this time, all these years, he had done his best to hide it and Beomgyu... knew?
"The job..."
"I applied because I learned that you were the CEO there. I guess…" the boy blinks, looking intensely at his fingers, blushing furiously. "I uh- I just wanted to spend more time with you."
That's not possible.
Why? How?
It has to be a mistake. A mistake. 'I have always been able to see you.' No. There's no way. It must be a mistake. Beomgyu can't have always been able to see him. He... God, in his room... All those times... No, that's not the most important thing.
No. No. No.
Beomgyu doesn't understand, he doesn't know what Yeonjun has done, the... the damage he has caused him...
"I'm the grim reaper. The grim reaper. It was me, Beomgyu. Don't you see?"
His voice breaks, frail. Part of him wants to hide it, to conceal it, to take the secret with him into the void where he is about to disappear. But Beomgyu... Beomgyu deserves to understand everything. To know.
He swallows, forcing the words out of his mouth.
“That very first night… The night of the accident… It was me who took your parents’ souls away. I was ready to take you away. But I… I couldn’t,” he confesses. His heart beats madly in the prison of his ribs, trying to escape. “You are so… so bright, so kind, so gentle, so pretty it ruins me, Beomgyu. I can't afford to let the world be without you. I wouldn’t know how. From the very first day, all those nights I took refuge beside you, all those moments we shared… They changed me. They changed everything. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what the world is if you are not in it. I don’t know how life could make sense if you, the liveliest person I know, weren’t here.”
Beomgyu wipes a tear that has escaped from his eyes. The silence lasts an instant. A moment wherein Beomgyu's lip trembles so much that he is unable to speak. But when he finally does, he doesn’t scream, he doesn’t point at him, he doesn’t blame him for taking his parents away, for leaving him behind, alone in this world. Instead, his eyes bore into him, full of compassion, of tenderness, of warmth.
"What is- What is happening to you, hyung?"
Yeonjun drops his head, shaking it.
"Hyung, please..."
"I can't take you away, Beomgyu. I can't," he whispers. He doesn't know how to do this. How to say it. How to make him understand. Now that he's here, now that everything has been exposed...
Yeonjun is afraid.
A fresh wave of pain rises through him, cold and absolute at the mention of his decision. There's ice sliding over his veins, covering his blood, expanding from within him. It is getting late.
"What do you mean?"
"I..." he swallows hard, breathes in. Out. "I'm dying, Beomgyu."
It takes a second for the idea to sink in for Beomgyu. For him to grasp the implications of what he says. A cry stirs in his chest— air fluttering in his lungs, trying to escape. And then his tears fall, endless and terrible. His gasping breath ragged, painful.
"What? No...” he wails. “No, hyung... That's... That's not possible. You are... You are the... W-why?"
"I just..." Yeonjun exhales. He clenches his fists, tries to distance himself from the scent of Beomgyu's soul, from the pain and sadness that drenches his essence, covering it in a dense, sticky film. He has to say it. He must. The boy deserves the truth. "I didn't do my job. I refused... refuse to let a particular soul die. And now death considers me useless, so it wants to stop making use of me. I have... I have no reason to exist."
Beomgyu's silence is pregnant with realization.
"Me. You are... You are talking about me."
Yeonjun can't reply. He can't say anything.
Not when Beomgyu's weeping splashes the room, not when the sound hurts more than anything Yeonjun has ever experienced. Beomgyu is crying and Yeonjun would like to stop the world, to shut it down, to make it go up in flames. He would like to make himself disappear, to fold up and fade away forever— anything to make the sadness leave his soul, anything to help it regain its light.
But he can't.
So he crawls to the boy and, for the first time... for the first time, he can do it. He can comfort him. He hugs him, cradles him, strokes his hair, hums softly— and the feeling is bittersweet, complex. He wants to stay here forever, but he wants to never go through this again. And it's okay, because soon he would never make Beomgyu cry again.
"Hey, Beoms...” he coos gently. Rolling nausea pushes through his chest— a tide of icy ache pooling on his lungs, clawing its way out of his throat, pooling under his tongue. He swallows it. “Love. Beoms. It's okay. It was my choice. It still is. I would make the same choice time and time again."
"Why... Why? I... I'm not... you rejected me."
Yeonjun sighs, the memories of that night coming back in full force.
"I... I was scared, Beoms. I am scared. The things I feel when I'm with you... I can't control them. I have never felt this way before. I just- I don't know how to make sense of it. I have these... these impulses, these terrible, scary, possessive impulses. I think you make me the most human I've ever been, but I'm also the most monstrous version of me when I'm with you. You... you saw it yesterday, I- It terrifies me that, at some point, I could lose control and... and..." he swallows, closes his eyes.
"But I like that side of you!" the boy blurts out. And it hurts to breathe, but Yeonjun can't help but smile. He can't help but kiss his forehead, his eyelids, his tear-stricken cheeks.
He's adorable.
"It is death that makes me this way, Beomgyu. It... it wants you but I could never, never give you up," he explains. "And that night, when you came to me, when you... when you tried to kiss me... I just- Beomgyu, you must understand. I couldn't even think properly. All of a sudden I had this... this urge, this need to- to own you. To eat you.To ruin you. And you kept looking at me, so innocently—despite everything I had done, despite all the pain I had caused you, despite all these twisted things I was feeling. I had worked so hard to keep you at a safe distance, but you kept making it so f*cking hard just by looking at me, by smiling at me, by... by being yourself. You are so perfect, Beomgyu-yah. So everything I could ever want, it scares me. I would do anything for you. To save you. And I did, and I knew the consequences it would entail. I knew I would disappear soon and... I wanted to avoid this. This situation," he murmurs, picking one of Beomgyu's teardrops with the pad of his finger, "these tears. I just... And this is so selfish of me, but I don't want to leave you. I wanted to avoid this. I didn't want... I don't know what dying means for me and that's a bit scary but what truly terrifies me is... I'm gonna hurt you again. I'm gonna hurt you again, and again, and again, just like... just like I'm doing now. I don't want you to go through this again. I don't want you to lose anybody else, but I'm dying. I thought if I pushed you away, if I distanced myself from you... you wouldn't have to see me. You wouldn't have to understand what is going on. You wouldn't have to be here when I died. And you would be safe. No more... No more near-death experiences. No more pain. No more secrets. That was my choice. I would never take your soul away, so it felt like I had struck a good deal when I realized death would take me, a soul-less being, in your stead. It felt... ridiculous, your soul is so beautiful... So, instead of hunting you, I started using my power to save you, to take you away from the hands of death. And, in exchange, I would only have to disappear after a while— and if I disappeared, there would be no one to take your soul, no threat to your life."
Beomgyu squirms in his arms, as if he doesn't know what to do, as if he can't find a way to distance himself and hold on at the same time. As if pulling away could make Yeonjun disappear, this time forever.
"No, please. No. I… I don’t want this. I can’t accept it, hyung. I can't— Why would you do something like that?"
Why?
Why wouldn't he? How couldn't he?
"Maybe… maybe I just wanted you to know that even death would kneel before you. That even death has the will to live if it is beside you. That you deserve to live. That the world is a better place with you in it. That I've only found life worth living through your eyes."
"But now you are... dying."
Yeonjun smirks.
"You can't really die if you have never been alive, Beoms."
The boy bites his lip, and Yeonjun can detect the slight change in his soul, the way his sadness becomes sharp, the way his anger bubbles to the surface.
"You... stupid, dumb hyung!" The boy screams nonsensically, rolling over in shock, his fists pounding over and over in Yeonjun’s chest, burying his head in his shoulder. He cries, and cries, and cries, rage and sadness tinkling over his soul, stealing its light. "You have to- Hyung, you have to stop it. You have to end this. You can’t— you can’t die. I beg you. Do whatever you have to do... please. Please..."
"I can't, Beoms. You must understand..."
"No."
"Beomgyu-"
"No."
The boy is trembling in his arms, crying like he has never cried before— not even during that accident, not even when he was waiting in the hospital, alone in the world, not even when he was visiting his parents in the cemetery, not even in his worst nightmares. Beomgyu cries as if his tears could shatter the world, as if he could give up his soul.
It... it breaks Yeonjun's heart.
"I'm sorry, Beomgyu-yah. Hyung's sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry for hurting you again. I'm sorry for handling everything like this. I'm sorry for exposing you to death time after time, for putting you in danger."
The darkness revolts against him, against his words. It feels like his spine is branching out, like cold, icy steel is digging it's fingers through his lungs, stealing his breath. But Beomgyu climbs onto him. He hugs him, covering his body with his own, clinging to Yeonjun— his face hidden in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, his fingers clutching his shirt in a fist, his legs around his waist. And it is... nice, warm, to be held like this.
A part of him wishes that they could stay like this for a while longer, breathing the gentle light of Beomgyu's soul, listening to his heartbeat, letting the boy's warmth erase the painful iciness of his incoming death. If he's about to disappear, he wishes he could disappear in the comfort of Beomgyu's arms.
How selfish he is.
"You know…” Beomgyu mumbles at some point, his voice caressing Yeonjun’s neck softly. “At some point, I stopped avoiding it.”
"Avoiding what?"
"Death."
Yeonjun frowns, moving so he can look Beomgyu in the eye.
"What do you mean?" he asks. Then he remembers— "Wait, what about your... your promise?"
"It meant nothing after a while, hyung. It meant less."
"Less than what?"
"Less than you," he smiles. "You see, it didn't take long to understand what was happening when I first saw you after the accident. And it didn't take me long to understand that, since that moment, after every near-death experience I went through, you were there— waiting, watching, taking care of me. Sometimes hiding from me right before me... like you couldn't stand yourself. You thought I couldn't see you, but I have always been able to. Some days you would lie on my lap or read beside me as I gamed, and I would find reasons to caress you, to pat your head, to watch you sleep. And those were my favorite days— when you came to me and closed your eyes and the pain in your eyes just… went away for a while. It was sweet. It felt like home. When you were there I didn’t feel lonely, I wasn’t scared. We never talked, but I felt like you always listened. Like you cared. And you were so warm. So gentle. So sweet. So... yes, you are right, death kept coming for me— but I had fallen in love with it."
The breath catches in Yeonjun's chest, swelling it, filling it with something warm, something tender, something soft. A tiny bundle of the purest light fighting off the darkness that expands inside him.
He is afraid of moving. Afraid that saying something might make it disappear, afraid that it will fade into his emptiness and vanish forever. He fears that he is feeling it by mistake, that it doesn't belong to him. It's too... too good, too sweet to be true. Too good to be his.
How is it possible?
Beomgyu loves him. He loves him. He has always loved him. He has always seen him.
And all this time, Yeonjun has thought himself invisible— a secret too grim to be shared, a creature too void, too cold to be loved. But not for Beomgyu. Perhaps the boy has enough love for both of them. Perhaps his soul is warm enough for the both of them. Perhaps.
Perhaps it isn’t.
Because at the end of the day, no matter what they feel, Beomgyu should be dead and Yeonjun should be the one to pluck him out of life. And he can't.
The pain nibbles at his insides— icy claws and icy teeth and icy fire fighting back. Yeonjun wonders how much there is left of him inside. How much is just frozen ash, waiting to fade away.
Oh, and how terrible it is— to love is to die, to live is to die. There is not one thing without the other, no story without its end.
“And isn’t it odd?” Beomgyu wonders, his eyes bright, his gaze lost in that beautiful world that only he inhabits. “How fragile our life is. How hard we cling to the weakest, tiniest things. Back then, when I was sick with cancer at the hospital, I felt terribly lonely. But then, that very same day a butterfly approached me, and I wondered if I could ever see it again, so I kept trying. I kept living for another day. For another butterfly. Then, when my parents died in that accident as they transferred me to a new hospital… hyung, I was in total despair. I was fighting, forcing myself to fulfill the promise I made them before they died— that I would beat cancer, that I would never die. I was pushing myself to live and it felt wrong and unfair and meaningless without them. But it was spring and the cherry blossoms opened their petals despite the freezing winds and I wanted to live to see them again. So I told myself to try a bit more. Just another year. Then, I was discharged, and I felt so lost. It was so confusing to have to go back to a world that have kept going on without me. But you were there, somewhere, trying to live as much as I did. Trying your best. Working in the shadows to let the light and life grow, like a gift. Coming to see me, supporting me in secret, lending me your ear. So I kept trying. I kept living. Because at some point, life guided me to you, and I wasn’t scared of death,” he smiles. “I was in love.”
Yeonjun feels like he is falling. Falling. Falling.
“Beomgyu… I’m a monster.”
“You are not,” the boy replies, a frown on his face. “I don’t… I don’t know what it means to be the grim reaper, hyung. But I do know how it feels to be right beside him. To be with him— with you. I don’t know why you have convinced yourself that you are cold, and brutal, and some sort of monster with no feelings. I don’t know if someone told you so, or if you just never paid attention to who you really are. But I don’t think of you like that. To me, you are my hyung. My healing. My star. You are dorky, and funny, and gentle, and sensible. You are kind and impossibly warm. And you are loved, hyung. Not only by me— by Taehyun, by Soobin, by Kai, and by so many other people.”
“Beomgyu…”
"You are. You are loved," he repeats, leaving no room for argument. "But you have to learn to see it. You have to let the rest of us love you. You have to let us stay by your side."
God, Yeonjun would like to believe him. He almost believes him. But at this point Yeonjun is more darkness than flesh, more ice than hope. The sun streams through the windows and the room is filled with Beomgyu's unstoppable light, and Yeonjun can see the dust floating on the beams of light, can hear the distant chirping of birds, can almost imagine that this is a normal day, that they are ordinary people, that this is their home, their little shelter made of memories and dreams and future— but he can barely feel his fingertips, and pain bursts between his ribs like flowers of ice, his throat is pierced by metal thorns and his teeth rattle with the icy mist in which he sinks. And all those little things, all those little dreams become splinters of impossibility, icicles stuck in the palms of his hands, melting away, slipping helplessly through his fingers.
It's too late.
He's almost gone.
Beomgyu takes his trembling hand, his honeyed skin a stark contrast with the black stain of Yeonjun's darkness. He holds it against his lips, warming it with his breath.
Yeonjun doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want this to end. He doesn't want to disappear. Not like this, not when Beomgyu loves him and he loves him too. Not when he has just learned that the world can be beautiful and warm and kind.
It is... it is unfair. It's so f*cking unfair.
Beomgyu kisses his blackened knuckles, a soft, gentle smile spreading on his lips, so beautiful, so tender, so perfect. He lets their hands rest over his heart, their fingers intertwined.
The soft beat of his heart under their fingertips is... precious. Magical.
Like touching life. Caressing the light.
Beomgyu’s soul tinkles mellowly. It nudges his hand, sizzles between his fingers. Sparkly yellow— like happiness. Like hope.
"Make a pact with me," the boy proposes— all courage and determination. His eyes are bright, clear, fierce. "Make a pact with me, hyung, and never let me go."
“A… a pact? No, Beomgyu, I can’t.”
“Yes, hyung. You can. You will.”
His words sound surprisingly clear, certain. As if he already knew everything that would happen. As if he is not afraid. And perhaps he is not— Beomgyu is a human, and humans are weak... but Beomgyu might be stronger than them all. Stronger than him.
Yeonjun trembles as he looks at him. He’s terrified. What Beomgyu proposes goes against everything he has ever fought for. To make a pact with him would mean to kill him.
“No I- I can’t. I would never.”
An icy iron hand tears at his thoughts, stiffens his tongue, encircles his throat. He cannot breathe. He cannot think. He cannot... he can't focus. Waves of ice tear at the shores of his mind, advance through his ideas, flood his insides. There is nothing left. There is nothing left. Soon there will be absolutely nothing left of him.
The beating of his heart is a muffled drum, a wounded creature struggling against its chains. Yeonjun can hear its howl from within, his pained hiss demanding that he listen to the boy. That he kills him.
But he can't.
He can't. Never.
“Hyung, listen to me,” the boy demands, his soft, warm hands cupping Yeonjun’s cheeks and bringing him back, his eyes settled on his, resolute. “I love you, hyung. I’m telling you I choose you. I choose you over my promise. I choose you over everything else. Every bit of my life that I haven’t lived. Every decision I haven’t yet made. Every future I haven’t yet experienced. I’m telling you I want to make a new promise— one that binds me to you. Forever. I want to stay by your side forever.”
The morning light is not as bright as Beomgyu's soul is at this moment. And yet, small and elongated, the sun's rays stretch out to touch him, as if they too cannot comprehend what has just happened. What this moment means.
Beomgyu chooses him.
Him.
Him, who has lived for centuries locked in his kingdom of darkness. He, who is about to be consumed by death. He, who has rejected him and pushed him away and shown him the most horrible, most monstrous parts of himself.
Beomgyu chooses him.
Sometimes Yeonjun wonders how is it that Beomgyu knows so many things. How is it possible that someone like him holds the keys to the entire universe.
“Beomgyu…”
But what can he say? He has no words. The darkness has taken everything from him. He has… nothing to offer but himself. Nothing but his love— wicked and impure and imperfect, as he is.
He loves Beomgyu, and perhaps to love is to trust. To trust despite the fear. To trust despite the end, looming over him. And if it is like that, Yeonjun wants to trust with everything he has. He wants to trust Beomgyu even if that's the last thing he does. Even if it is too late, even if it means doing everything he promised himself he wouldn't do.
Just as Beomgyu has trusted him.
He pushes his tongue through the ice, pushes the words through the fog, pushes his heart through the darkness.
And into the light.
“I love you, too, Beomgyu-yah.”
That’s the best he can say. He hopes the boy can understand.
Beomgyu nods, smiling, resting his forehead on Yeonjun's. His soul against his void.
So different. So perfect.
The boy looks at him one last time— his eyes full of restrained emotion, of promises, of love, of tenderness. And then they’re closed, and a single tear falls between them, rolling down their cheeks at the same time, falling on top of their intertwined hands.
And maybe it's too late. Maybe they are already on borrowed time. Maybe none of this will work. But Yeonjun swallows the pain, lets the darkness hide between his bones, lets the light of Beomgyu's soul reach every point of his body, and with the last of it, he lets everything he feels leave his body one last time.
“I love you, Choi Beomgyu,” he repeats. “I love you so much. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I deserve. And perhaps I don’t deserve you. Perhaps I’m not good enough for you. But I love you. That, I know. I love you.”
He closes his eyes and inhales, letting himself taste Beomgyu’s soul. Letting his instincts take over— ice and fire and the darkest of nights. His wings unfurl behind him, his claws click against the wooden floor, his canines elongate painfully against his lips.
And then Beomgyu kisses him.
He kisses, and kisses, and kisses, long and soft and hungry and kind. A kiss made of both of them, of darkness and light, of death and life. And Yeonjun inhales his soul, devours it, lets it fill him completely, until they’re one, until he can feel Beomgyu’s warmth inside him, his colors, his laughter.
When he opens his eyes, there’s a light before him.
He has seen it before, in a dream. A dream made of darkness and unfolded futures. It purrs against him, rests against his lips. Yeonjun caresses it with his fingertip, he kisses it.
He closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, Beomgyu is there, right before him— his skin now ethereal and translucent and bright, just like his soul. The threat of his death is gone, the cold pain in his limbs is gone, the thread linking them is gone, but Beomgyu… he is still here.
They both are.
Forever.
