Chapter Text
They came in flashes.
Just vividly moving pictures at the back of his eyes when he’s curled asleep in his room, noise pushed to the back of his mind to listen in on what they entailed. He’s still too young to understand what they meant, believing they are fragments from a picture book his mama read to him before he went to sleep.
He’s there but he also isn’t. Like a bystander pretending to look in on the scene even when there’s something familiar about it that tugs harder on his heartstrings.
Can he call them dreams? Dreams were supposed to be about something fun, like race cars, or superheroes that represented the things he was interested at that age.
But he’s stares down as someone with black hair and tan skin looking in on the arena from above where he is sitting with who appears to be his father, a short but built man who is sneering at him as they watch the other men and boys competing in games in this setting that is too complex for his young brain to conjure on his own. He sees the boy’s head turn to one of the boys in the arena, different if it was by the blonde hair and the circlet glinting in the sunlight, running past the man fast that there is no competition and he wins just as easily.
The golden-haired boy receives a garland that is crowned on his head, lightness of his hair contrasting and he can hear the man, sneering down as he turns over the boy.
“That is what a son should be.” His disappointment is obvious.
Sicheng wakes up before he could see the boy’s face, ducked down from shame and the heaviness of his father’s words.
The ache of familiarity stays.
…
Sicheng likes to believe that he’s lived a fulfilling life even if was more sheltered than most children his age. His parents were loving and kind, always with him every step of the way, and his older sister would encourage him to pursue his interests no matter how small they were.
He learns Traditional Chinese dancing when he’s ten, he dreams of travelling to New Zealand with his sister so he can take in the sights and he is always given expensive things if they could afford it. They weren’t that rich but they were well-off enough that Sicheng could understand that despite all the finer things in life that’s thrown on his lap, his heart is still yearning for something.
It’s an odd feeling of emptiness, the hole a shape of a silhouette that he still doesn’t understand. He looks up to the sky a lot as if to ask it what that something is and he never comes up with an answer.
His sister says he might need excitement elsewhere.
He doesn’t think it’s excitement that he needs.
…
He chooses to go to South Korea to pursue the offer that SM gives him.
They scout because of the skill he developed over the years with his Traditional Dance that they approached him outside of his school out of the blue. His classmates whisper amongst themselves when the well-dressed man hands Sicheng a card that had the company’s logo on it.
It’s a good company, in terms of sales and popularity with the title as one of the Big Three that ruled over South Korea’s talent agencies. But Sicheng is not dumb enough to not know about the scandals, the lawsuits and the things he knows he needs to endure the moment he makes this decision.
His intuition tells him he won’t regret it but then again, regret is going to be the least of his problems the moment he signs himself over. It’s not a walk in the park. Still, he wants to follow the intuition that something is waiting for him there.
His mother cried for some time, scared of sending him off to a place he doesn’t even know the language of, tearfully asked him to change his mind. His father gave him a look that he didn’t know what he was thinking but he’s torn between letting him go and scolding him for acting rashly. His sister just hugs him and really, it’s probably what he needed.
The night before he leaves China, he dreams.
This time, he’s staring into the gathered men holding out their wrists marked with blood and ash. The hall looks extravagant with people, tapestries hung high on columns and the benches draped with cowhide.
He sees the same boy from the first dream cowering behind an older man who doesn’t look back as he storms outside and everyone is leaving as well. He follows them, outside where the boy climbs the donkey and looking back-
Sicheng’s own face looks back at him, no, not at him. It’s looking back at the building.
He looks terrified, disappointed mingling with a tinge of panic when he catches an older man’s gaze. It’s the same look a son has, knowing well that he’s going to end up with a useless son that will bring him nothing but humiliation.
Static blurs his surroundings and he’s staring down at blood in his hands. Blink once and twice but it comes and goes every time he lets it escape his sight, using darkness to pretend he can calm his frantic heart. He’s lying down facing a body with a crack on their skull reaching out to him with pale fingers, trying to make a grab at his throat and the pungent smell of death envelops him.
He wakes up drenched in cold sweat and it’s already morning.
…
The adjustment period was rushed.
He has to debut after just a year of training, something he doesn’t understand.
He tries his best to go through with it in his broken Korean and he works harder that he ends up overworking himself. Because dancing took his mind off of things, doesn’t let the dreams corrode his memories that he can’t discern them from the reality in front of his eyes.
He thinks he’s listening to someone playing the lyre in a garden under a harsh sunlight bearing down his back, admiring someone as they brandished their sword and the telltale feeling of adoration that he’d stop his step midway into a kick to hold his chest to reassure his too fast heartbeat. Envy, anger, resentment, regret, regret-
Then it melts into resignation that lets him feel the worry and the care he doesn’t even understand.
Sicheng doesn’t have time to entertain the dreams, sleep deprivation only seems to intensify them but he steels himself and practices.
Again and again, he practices.
Otherwise, there is that tinkling laughter like honey that breezes past his ear like a wisp of the past he doesn’t know if he welcomes.
…
Meeting Lee Taeyong felt like a freight train hitting him head onto his face.
He’s debuting for NCT 127 and only after a year of training that his tongue still doesn’t curl around syllables that well he has to keep himself quiet. But he has to shoot for something called NCT Life, this time in Seoul so he can get closer with the other members.
He and Kun might be close now because they shared the nationality and he doesn’t know how he’d survive without his gege there to ease the nerves. He’s more comfortable with the elder that he told him about the dreams, just to help him cope and no longer explain why he suddenly jolts up in the middle of the night.
“Don’t you think that maybe these dreams aren’t dreams?” Kun would ask as they huddled together because Sicheng is shaking one night on the intensity of the images he sees punctuated that he was staring down at his dead body encased in armor with blood pooling around him.
Sicheng would always shake his head.
It’s a damn shame they don’t get to partner up for this outing, something about Chinese members learning from the ones who are better in Korean than them and making them feel more comfortable with each other. Sicheng is instructed to sit down on a white sofa holding the red spool of yarn and he bids goodbye to Kun who is seated in another room across the hall with his own blue spool of yarn.
Red like in his dreams.
A game of chance. Sicheng never cares about this type of thing and he waits patiently.
“Winwin!”
There’s a protest from the other person that had chosen the blue yarn and Sicheng looks over his shoulder to see the person who’s going to be his teammate.
His grip loosens on the yarn he has wrapped on his pinky.
Sicheng has heard of Lee Taeyong before. He’s the leader of NCT’s first unit, NCT U and well-known for his rapping and dancing that he doesn’t hesitate to listen to the songs when it was recommended after he watched the Chinese Version of Without U. Everyone on the web would talk about him being a candidate on being SM’s golden boy alongside the younger Mark Lee and it’s made Sicheng curious.
Nothing could prepare you for staring into a face that looked like it was made from carved marble. His jaw is sharp, his skin undisturbed by flaws from where he can see and eyes that crinkled into crescents as if to ease the anxiety in him. The dyed white hair is fading lilac in the ends, the pastel that compliments his skin only succeeding to make him look otherworldly. Taeyong doesn’t belong here, he’s too different to be part of this world that he might as well vanish if Sicheng so as much blinked. He looks intense with the way he stares at him for a minute, flashing him a smile and Sicheng’s breath is lodged in his throat that he stands up. Taeyong gives his hand a shake before pulling him to bump their shoulders and Sicheng blurts the first thing he can think of.
“Are you mine?”
Taeyong doesn’t blink and only smiles wider.
“Yes, I’m yours.” His eyes are dark, almost twinkling and Sicheng is afraid of the constellations that he’s conjuring in his head to match every light in them.
The words stirred his heartbeat, little pattering turning to thunderous thumps that echoed in his ears and he hid the sharp intake of breath by parting his lips in time for his smile to overtake his mouth.
The visions worsen after that.
Sicheng would wake up with a headache that made him feel like vomiting, nails raking right on his every nerve with their jagged tips and he starts seeing things that make less sense than when he’s asleep.
Long hair, yellow like the sun tied with a leather band. Muscles that stretched whenever they moved with their spear being jabbed into air and the straps of his armor fastened as he watched him prepare for the war.
Sicheng looked down at his hands, flushed red and wet before he looked up through his dripping bangs to see Taeyong with water streaming down his long hair that he watched trail down his arms.
Wait, what? He blinks away the drop that gets caught in his eyes and he stares into his ceiling, bleary-eyed.
Warmth envelopes him even when he kicks off the blanket and the AC is on full blast.
…
It’s jarring to have Taeyong as the kind leader he is.
Reminiscent of the person that Sicheng sees every night when he even as much as lose his focus for a minute, there’s regality to Taeyong that he wants to copy but could never. The way he speaks over the maknaes in a manner that is more of an old man than a twenty-two year old, carries the burden of the group he has to check on them every time he thinks there could be a strain to the dynamic and he’s nothing but patient in teaching Sicheng to grasp the language. Taeyong is wiser than he is given credit for except he doesn’t use words to show them and lets his actions dictate it.
Sicheng sees the strength inside him. He sees the way that he’s modest even when everyone is praising him for all his hard work and the vulnerability he holds when mistakes he supposedly made are brought up just so they couldn’t debut. Sicheng was sure that despite how everyone paints Taeyong as the bad guy, he was like the rest of them: trying to survive the trials the path they chose for themselves as long as they could. People will always be critical when you’re climbing to the top of the social ladder, when your success is clearer than day that they want to poison the air with any accusation they can fan to pollute all the hard work that they have done.
Sicheng wishes that his dreams influenced the warmth that seeped into his entire face when Taeyong gave him reassurance.
But then again, developing feelings for Taeyong was so easy when he’s been nothing but a kind and wonderful person who didn’t stop to think of what he might gain. Perhaps there might be some underlying motive yet Sicheng found that it’s often for everybody’s benefit.
“Have you eaten yet?” Taeyong would ask him, eyes open for rejection but he looked like he knew the other wouldn’t refuse and Sicheng would smile, looking down at the remnants of the ice cream that Taeyong brought him.
Sicheng would nod and Taeyong’s smile is only making his headaches worse that it blurs into the image of him just like the one that holds him in the visions that occupy his sleep.
Soft touches of a hand around his wrist or guiding him on his back that didn’t feel any less real.
…
Perhaps he shouldn’t have lingered.
He always chalks it up to the awe that settles in his chest when Taeyong is in sight doing the things he does best. When they practice, Sicheng’s eyes are drawn to Taeyong’s form every time he executes a dance move hiding under the pretense of wanting to learn the move so he can catch up. Taeyong is fluid, movements sharp enough it hit the music they set up and Sicheng’s captivated. When they’re in the safety of their dorm room, he finds that being near Taeyong sent electricity down his spine that he’s afraid of touching him lest a spark ignites. He’d always side step out of the way, blushing and lowering his head down before he’d make a hasty apology in his limited Korean.
Sicheng would clutch his shirt and feel smaller than he actually is when Taeyong looks at him by passing.
Why does he feel like crying when Taeyong isn’t near? It’s like he’s afraid of something that hasn’t happened yet and every part of him wants to make sure it never does as long as he is close to Taeyong.
His dreams are about claiming back something that was lost, him wearing armor and breathing deeply to ease the fear that’s pulsing in his veins.
There was no malice in his choice, for the sake of the one he cared for, the one he grew up with and knowing parts of him that he couldn’t bear to think all the ideals pressed on him would be for naught. He can’t find another way to help the men that have been deemed unworthy of saving and if it meant, being out there in a battlefield he didn’t belong, he would do it. All for his sake. Men were dying, all around him as the flames ran amok that he can’t tell if the warmth is from them or the tears that are stinging his eyes. The ships were burning and there is so much blood from the attack that he doesn’t even think to run back to tell it.
If he doesn’t want to fight them, then Sicheng will take his place.
There is not much fight in him because he was not born for this but he looks at the man before him, weary and seeing nothing to gain from helping those who shamed him. He raises his hand, lips pressed together as he stares straight into his eyes.
“Swear to me that if you go, you will not fight them.”
It was an easy request that he complies, finally managing to find a way to get through his pride and fury that he had built up inside him. Sicheng knows he can save so many this way and save Taeyong-he pauses, eyebrows furrowing as he looked up with a promise to only frighten them. This was not his name here. He was not Taeyong here.
Led to the men, their eyes shining with hope to see shoulders heavy from the anticipation and the armor he wore that would make not make him who he is. He knew the armor like his hands, the helmet’s crest, silvered sword hanging from the waist and the baldric of hammered gold.
It would take a fool for anyone to not recognize it. It was unmistakable and Sicheng feels the lump on his throat.
He’s warned, don’t leave the chariot and don’t throw his spears. There is a great disparity in their skill and if he even tried, it would be given away he was not the one they believe he would be.
“I will be alright.” He tells him, arranging himself into the chariot as he listens to Taeyong tell the men to bring him back to him when it was over.
The adrenaline could have been to blame, the thrill as he let out an angered cry to the men who looked at him in shock and joy that finally, finally it was their savior. Perhaps the armor molded him, all those years watching him fight did he not hesitate to throw a spear to hit a Trojan right at their breast. He doesn’t see if he was dead, ignores the way that someone is looking at him to warn him of what he promised but he throws another spear, another dead as the men scream.
There is a son of Zeus that comes and despite being no one who is gifted with skill, he hits him with his spear that he could step back with his weight tipping the chariot that it sends him tumbling. He holds the hilt of his sword, fear pumping through his veins waiting for retaliation but his head has snapped.
It is not enough.
Even with the taste of blood in his mouth, death creeping closer like it’s waiting for him to make the last fatal mistake before it took him away, he looks up to the city of Troy and the thought of its fall is something he can’t let go. They deserve losing it, deserve it for the ten years they lost and how- static comes to his mind- will die.
There is a strangeness that comes with this, snapshots moving too fast for him to connect but the pain from the spear piercing his skin, the way that his helmet is removed from his head to reveal he isn’t the hero they had thought he had been by his armor and the looming dread that Hector is going to kill him.
The thoughts that came as the man walks closer to him without looking elsewhere as if he knew exactly what he was going to do. Sicheng’s breathing is ragged, head pounding as blood is spilling from his wound while he thinks about what happens after this. Remembering the consequence if he were to kill him, the echo of a soft voice, then he knew that Hector will not be set free alive if he kills him and Sicheng knew that no one can help him now, not these men who are looking at the prince as Hector marches towards him.
There is no safety for him even when he tries feebly to stop the spear from piercing him, red dripping from the wounds that is cut before searing pain knocks his breath out, the agony of having the tip of the spear plunged into his stomach.
His head is swimming in bursts of color that he is afraid that this is real, that he is really dying with Hector looking over him twisting the spear deeper inside his stomach like he was doing something so simple. Sicheng feels himself panic, because he feels himself moving but not right now, not where he is laid on the ground dead with his blood splattered on the ground and the last thing that rings in his mind, both as he finally leaves the living and wakes up in cold sweat that he fell off his bed head first was a name.
Achilles.