Chapter Text
“I found someone else. Hope you’re okay with that.”
The text message still open on his phone on the floor beside him, as his heart sinks and tears fill up his eyes. His whole body goes numb first, then he starts shaking and suddenly a feverish cold embraces him.
“An idiot… a complete idiot… why did I trust them not to hurt me, not to find someone else while we’re apart” Yuchan whispers out the words through his tears, the heartbreak just pins him to the floor, and he spends the night there, curled up, sniffling, the text still shining on his phone screen.
The next morning he is up with the sunrise. A headache blaring through his skull from the hours he spent crying last night, but he can’t stay on his bedroom floor forever. He puts on his shoes, grabs his earphones and phone, hurriedly closes the text, puts on his running playlist and decides to go clear his head.
A good two hours later, his phone and earphone batteries now dead and a comforting breakfast and coffee later, he is now back in his apartment and on a mission.
He gathers all the letters they’ve exchanged, all the ones he still hasn’t sent and throws them into a small box. He rips out the pages of his journal where he wrote about them, not wanting any cruel reminders but still reads through all of them again. The words still make his heart ache, but his determination pushes him forward. They’ve clearly moved on and he should too, as much as it hurts, he needs to push forward, and the sooner the reminders are gone, the sooner he can mend his own heart.
Once he was sure he had everything, he gets in his car and starts driving. It’s a long drive but his mind is set on a certain place and he will bear through all the traffic to get there. Now, miles away from the city, sitting down by the creek and looking at the cascades he takes a moment to just breathe in the nature. To feel the calm and let the sound of rushing water wash away his anxiety. Finally, he takes out the box and the lighter he brought with him, and lights the first letter aflame. He watches as the flames slowly eat away the words, erasing them from existence one by one, and turning them into a light stream of smoke that flows away with the breeze. He sits here for an hour, burning the pieces of paper one by one, slowly letting go of the weight on his chest as they’re engulfed in flames.
His mind wanders every now and then, to the enchanting melody that appeared in his dream last night, sounding familiar but he can’t quite place it. It’s captivating, and heart wrenchingly beautiful, and gives him the strongest feeling of deja vu. And as he burns the last letter, it’s like he can hear it through the breeze all over again.
After a short drive, he realizes he’s around the same place where his car broke down a few weeks ago, and his curiosity makes him pull over and take a look around. He doesn’t remember much of the last time he was here, just knows he walked to look for help and then woke up, from what he assumes was a strange dream, in a clearing about 50 meters away from his car.
But the little voice in his head has been questioning that dream for a while, so he walks into the forest again, under the excuse of one more walk to clear his head before he goes back home to reality.
He walks amongst the trees, for a while, not seeming to find the path he loosely remembers, and instead of a sunny clearing, he seems to have walked deeper into the forest and found himself surrounded by fireflies. Dancing around him in a way that made him forget everything else, entrancing him to follow the warm flickers of their tiny bodies right to a small circle in the thick of the forest. Yuchan stops in the circle, as a firefly lands in the hand of a handsome curly haired young man who smiles brightly at him, his teeth shining in the tiny lights.
The firefly suddenly disappears on his hand and an orange glow spreads from his palm to the tips of his fingers. Yuchan watches as the rest of the tiny glimmers of light disappear in his hair and Yuchan can swear he saw tiny flames light up his eyes.
The curly haired man smirks lightly in amusement at Yuchan’s stunned look after the last firefly disappears in his hair.
“Bad breakup?” he asks suddenly.
“Yeah, I really wasn’t expecting eve-”
“So you decided to go out and burn everything that reminded you of them?” the man cuts him off, looking more amused by the second.
“I just needed all the reminders gone, and I thought it would hel- wait, how did you know?”
“I know most of the things that happen around here” he answered with a chuckle, “especially if they involve fire and love.” he adds, looking down at his hands.
Yuchan just looks at him sheepishly, confused at the man’s words, and wondering if this is another weird dream.
“So little dove, what’s your name?” the man breaks the silence, looking back at Yuchan with a friendly smile on his face.
“Um, I’m not sure if I should…” Yuchan trails off, suddenly remembering all the old wives tales about fae and other creatures that hide in the depths of the woods.
“Oh how silly of me, I should have introduced myself first! I’m… uhm…” the man is suddenly deep in thought as if he can’t quite remember his own name.
“I can’t use my real name, Svarog is just not a name a mortal would believe” the man murmurs to himself and suddenly looks back up at Yuchan “I’m Junhee!” he says eagerly, proud of himself for remembering the name he chose for these situations. “And you are?”
“I’m Yuchan” he replies uneasily, but as he looks at the smiling face of the man in front of him, he starts calming down and a warmth starts embracing him slowly.
“Well Yuchan, it seems to me that you had a rough few days. I think you’d like a distraction. Is that not what you came here to look for?” A knowing and mischievous smile spreading across his lips.
“Uhm, yeah, I guess I did…” he trails off, looking back over his shoulder.
“Ahh, so I’m just not who you were expecting to find. That’s okay, I’m sure the one you’re looking for will show up soon, he always does. And he sounded fond of you when he told me about your last time here.” he says in a nonchalant tone, sitting down and patting the ground beside him, gesturing for Yuchan to do the same.
“So, this heartbreak, you want to tell me what happened? It might make it actually take some weight off your shoulders, the letter burning couldn’t have helped that much.”
So Yuchan does. He tells him everything, the unusual feeling of calmness and content around the man giving him more confidence than he thought he had, and soon enough his head is propped up on Junhee’s thigh like a pillow, and Junhee’s unusually warm fingertips are tracing along his arm, mapping out each mole and freckle there.
The sweet melody suddenly starts again, and Junhee immediately takes note of it, as well as of the sudden glimmer in Yuchan’s eyes, clearly indicating that he recognizes it as well. The cold breeze coming through as the melody becomes louder makes Yuchan notice that he discarded his shirt at some point and as he opens his eyes he notices the lace veil draping over his eyes.
“Oh I hope you don’t mind it, I just thought a pretty thing like yourself deserved to be adorned by pretty things” Junhee ads smugly, and Yuchan can only blush.
A cold breath on his arm startles Yuchan out of the haze he’s in as Junhee’s hot fingertips have now moved on to tracing the freckles along his collarbones, and as he twists his head to the side, he is met with the familiar icy hair and the lightest blue eyes that he simply couldn't forget.
“Donghun?” Yuchan asks quietly, too scared that if he says it louder the bubble will burst and he’ll wake up.
“Donghun? You’re still going with that silly name Stribog?” Junhee asks through a chuckle.
“And what name of yours did you give him? Junhee?” Donghun asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, it sounds nice, and I think it fits me!” Junhee squeaks and holds a hand to his chest, feigning insult.
A sharp intake of breath from Yuchan makes them stop their playful bickering and turn back to him. A red mark around the mole on Yuchan’s chest, from where Junhee kept his fingers too long, the heat emitting from them clearly not human.
“Now look at what you’ve done…” Donghun tusks, shooting a playful look back up at Junhee.
“Whoops… I guess you’ll have to cool it down with your icy kiss to make your little lamb all better” Junhee smirks back down at him.
Donghun looks at Yuchan for an okay, and after he gives a small nod, he leans over him and kisses down his chest, tracing the freckles along his chest, cooling them down after Junhee’s hot fingers leave them and move to the next ones, and all Yuchan does is shudder and mewl beneath their touch.