Work Text:
Foreword
In this world, there are ghosts.
And then, there are the ones who deal with those ghosts.
And then, there's...
Him.
-
“Given his personality, I’d say exorcism makes perfect sense as a favored pastime.”
― Nicki Elson; Divine Temptation
~*~
It's him
His hair is as black as his eyes, as black as his clothes. In a country where black is the natural colour of such things, it is nothing special.
He's not particularly tall, and not particularly built. He's not exactly the average height, certainly, but there's enough people his frame to make it common. His features are strong, arranged in a way that is oddly appealing. But in a country where you can change you appearance with the slice of a blade, again, being pretty isn't particularly remarkable.
And the opposite of remarkable is what he is: Unremarkable features, unremarkable clothes. And perhaps, the only thing that's of any interest is the rattle of decorative bronze bells tied to his belt. They mark him as a shaman - a mudang . But then, the mudang are just as common as a penny in this country, just like the rest of him. Common.
Unremarkable.
In the end, it comes full circle. The conclusion? He's simply nothing special at all.
The wind blows then, light flashing onto his hair; and for a moment, colour flashes. The ends of his hair betray tips of the darkest brown. He’d dyed his hair once.
He hasn't in a while.
Perhaps that is the point. Not that anyone would know. They all see him, but nothing about him strikes particularly into memory. Only the impression of meeting a vaguely attractive man remains.
Perhaps, that is why the odd thing happens.
The odd thing is this:
Hatred in a glare.
Hatred, and so much more. Such a glaze that is now overflowing with tears. They flood the filmy surface, distorting the emotions that swim inside, but they do not conceal; and the disbelief, loss, anger and undulated hate is clear in them. And all of it, is directed at him, trained onto the unremarkable man with such a fixation it's unnatural.
Here is what is unnatural: someone that unremarkable shouldn't have such eyes so fixated on them.
How could someone who wasn't anything special, have so much hate directed at them after all?
It's strange. And stranger yet: the gaze, the silence.
It's like someone had sucked the soul out of this place, replaced it with a neat and pretty vacuum where nothing can come in, and nothing can come out.
The unremarkable man is an intruder. He is not wanted here.
The silence isn't broken by the man, but by the one already here. Their voice is cracked, like paper too old, suddenly picked up for use.
“Why?” They ask. “Why did you wake me?”
The unremarkable man waits. He knows why.
He also knows that the question doesn't require an answer.
“No. No. I don't want to go.” The voice sounds panicked now. “Why did you wake me? Why did you wake me?”
The unremarkable man is almost expressionless as he answers. His voice grates: like an sudden sound in an echoing room. He says: "I don't know."
It's a lie. They both know why he's here.
The mudang are as common as pennies. Anyone would know why he's here.
Just not why.
“No!” The voice is screaming now. Anguished. Unwilling. “No! I'm not ready to go! Don't send me away! I don't want to go.”
The unremarkable man looks on, expressionless. There is nothing on his face, not compassion, not annoyance, not sadness, not anger.
He simply looks down as he detaches the bells from where they're tucked into his belt. It's all made of bronze, from the rattles to each individual bell. They're well polished, all engraved with patterns that sing with power. They sound like they would make a thousand tinkling noises with the slightly of a wind’s caress.
They haven't made a single noise all this time.
But now, as the unremarkable man swings the rattle in an arc, the bells ring. They sound with a clear rich sound, many sharp strikes of metal hitting metal, uniting in the air as one twinkling cry.
It's a strangely pretty sound. It sounds like the sound the stars might make as the dance across the night sky, singing gentle greetings to each other as they pass.
Such a beautiful, cruel sound. An ode to a farewell.
There are screams behind him when he leaves: screams which curse his name and very being. They linger, even when the voice is no longer there. But he has long learnt not to care.
~*~
The whispers say
His name is Min Yoongi. That's what the whispers say.
They say that he's the odd exorcist. He's the one that takes the jobs that everyone else has rejected.
But it's not in a good way. Not in a way that makes everyone admire him.
There are stories.
There is one of a comatose patient who the doctors had given up on. She lived on in a dream, spiritual body giving her the freedom her real body never could. No one had wanted her to wake up. Her family had laboured to keep the life support going.
He’d swept in one day, and dragged her back from a sweet dream to a figurative nightmare, alive again as a living corpse.
There is another, posted online on Naver, of the spirit of an old lady who had haunted a park. She’d been a sweet thing, greeting anyone who passed her by with a smile and wave. The originator of the post writes that he’d always cheered up whenever he say her. She never caused any trouble, but rather, improved the mood of the neighbourhood. She’d been doing more good than harm.
And then, one day he'd seen a figure dressed in dark black, talking to her. There had been a metal object strapped around his hip - an object the poster now realizes had been the rattle bell of a mudang .
The poster has not seen the spirit of the old lady since.
And then there is the one that everyone knows:
It the one about the ghost who had stayed so as to look after the ones he had left behind. A saint - a guardian angel: looking after his loved ones even after death.
His family and friends had been grateful, glad that even death had not separated them. They'd wanted him to stay.
It had been a shock when a mudang had showed up where none had been called.
No one had wanted him gone.
They didn't need him there. They hadn't wanted an exorcism.
The exorcism had been completed anyway.
But those are but a few. There are many other whispers of stories than these. They wrap around him like a cloak as he walks down the street, dragging along the pavement like a solid weight. One could wonder why he manages to stand, let alone walk with such darkness upon his shoulders.
The whispers answer this. They say he must have no heart, no soul. Someone who has either wouldn't be able to bear this. They simply couldn't.
And even when he exits the streets and enters the building where the mudang headquarters is located, the whispers only grow thicker.
Even his own shun him.
They call him Gloss. Or Suga, or Agust D. He goes by different names, so as to keep off the ill will that follows him. Or at least, so say the whispers say. But the whispers have no reason to be distrusted; because Gloss, because Suga, because August D, because Min Yoongi is said to be a mudang who exorcises spirits that are don't need exorcising. They say that he does it for fun.
He's reached the level of the building that he's intended to go. There is a single door there. It's non-descript, but then there's no need for indications or fancy designs. All who come here know, and they come for only one thing.
“Chonrian V." He calls out, and the sole figure in the room turns around, and smiles.
"Oh. Hello, Yoongi."
~*~
When meeting with the seer
There are always refreshments. And it's always something new, strange, weird, or a combination of all three that Yoongi somehow always enjoys.
He would say that he's surprised, but he's honestly not.
Today it's some biscotti - an Italian biscuit served with tea apparently. It's dry but when dipped in tea, is just the perfect taste, and the perfect texture. His motions pause in the middle of stirring a piece in his cup as he idly wonders when he'd learned to stop protesting the sweets V has always pushed on him.
"Want to bring me to where you've gone?"
Yoongi looks up, then chuckles at the irony of the question. He can't count the number of times he's asked the very same question of chonrian V. "It's nowhere interesting," he says, and knows without looking that the chonrian is giving Yoongi that slow, fond grin of his.
"Right." the chonrian sighs as he places down his cup with a clink. "I suppose I should stop wasting your time and give you what you came for."
Yoongi nods, bowing his head in respect. "If you would, chonrian."
A pause, then a sigh. "Yoongi, why can't you just call me by my real name?"
And Yoongi rolls his eyes, “just because you don't stick to formality doesn't mean I should follow.”
“What do you mean, Yoongi-yah?”
“What you just did. Despite everything, I'm still older than you chonrian.”
The chonrian laughs, “even if we started going by that logic, then shouldn't you be calling me by my real name rather than my title all the more?”
“Oops.” Yoongi deadpans, his expression unchanging, and that causes the chonrian to lift his hand to cover his giggling with his sleeve.
He loves the chonrian’s laugh. Goes out of his way to humour the chonrian even if the elders don't approve. The elders don't like that he indulges the chonrian. They would prefer that he remains unhappy, Yoongi knows - a chonrian with a broken spirit is one that is easier to control.
Well. Fuck them. Yoongi has never liked the elders anyway.
“Alright then, hyung.” The chonrian speaks again, his eyes crinkling in mirth. Yoongi tries to pretend that it doesn't affect him. “Since I'm calling you 'hyung' now, then call me by my real name?”
Yoongi hesitates. It’s because he knows that if he doesn't do as the chonrian asks, then he would be sent away without getting what he needs. And he doesn't really have any excuse: he's never been one to stick to titles and formality after all.
But he can't. And saying the reason to why he can't would be as much admitting defeat as would giving in.
So, Yoongi compromises.
"...Fine. Just get it on with it chonrian Taehyung."
The expression in the chonrian’s eyes dim a little, but he still smiles. It's not everything that Taehyung wants, but it's enough for now.
It will have to be enough for now.
The chonrian lowers his eyes, he curls and flexes his hands - a nervous tick that his trainers had never managed to beat out of him. He takes in a deep breath, and then-
Yoongi will never get used to this: the way Taehyung goes stiff like a board, his eyes snapping into a void of swirling colours, travelling somewhere no one can ever follow.
It's utterly terrifying.
Then, there's a slow blink, and a shudder. And then, Taehyung is back, his posture seizing up from his shivers that he falls from his seat.
But he never meets the floor, because Yoongi is ready. Anything can happen after one of Taehyung's trances. And this time, he casts terrified eyes at Yoongi and whispers. " H-hyung… Yoongi-hyung. There's something whispering in my head. Something that isn't me."
"Yes," Yoongi replies simply. Because that is the truth. "Someone put something there, tied you to something else to make you stronger, so that they could make use of you. They asked if they could do it, and you agreed."
Taehyung's eyes flutter, and finally he closes his eyes; and Yoongi lets out a breath he doesn't know he's been holding. Taehyung's eyes are mesmerizing in their colours, even out of his trance. And finally now, Yoongi can pretend like he isn't sinking again.
"Yes…. yes. Someone did. They put voices in my head so that they could hear what those voices would say." Taehyung whispers. "And those voices say; that there's is a house on a hill in the far north at Gangbukgu, things have been moving on their own... and in Dobonggu nearby, a sweet suicide of romance in the middle of the highway near the exit to north Changdong. You'll find both boring but necessary and maybe a little surprising. But the most surprising would be in Seodaemungu. And although it's a bit far... maybe you could make a point to visit. There's someone who is in want of your help."
Yoongi laughs before he can help himself. He thinks that despite the seer’s powers, how could that last statement be true? Why would anyone ever want his his help, knowing what he does?
“Hyung?”
The voice that calls him is small. It is a different voice from the one Yoongi normally hears. It's the voice of a boy who got disappears within the voices rattling his head, a boy who never got to grow up.
“I'm here.” Yoongi whispers back, but he doesn't indulge. He seats the boy back onto his chair, holding him until the shakes have stopped and the limbs strengthen once again.
Taehyung doesn't open his eyes yet. But Yoongi knows the boy is gone when he says. “I had two new tiger bells made. You should add them to your rattle. I think you might need them soon. They won't keep you as safe as I'd like… But it should help you some.”
“You're too kind, chonrian V.” Yoongi says, finally letting go. He bows, knowing that the chonrian doesn't see.
Doesn't wish to see.
By the time Taehyung opens his eyes again,
Yoongi is long gone. Outside, the sky is the colour of storms and deep forbidding. Or at least, that's what the world thinks.
It's very much later, when his helpers are helping to dress for an audience with the elders that he speaks again. “There's someone right here who wants your help, Yoongi-yah. But would you be able to give it this time?”
The helpers look at him strangely. They always do. But they think nothing of it.
No one expects someone who hears voices in their head to be sane after all, even if those voice had been placed into their head on purpose.
~*~
It is just the way he’d been taught
Yoongi doesn't need to, but he does end up going all the way to Seodaemungu . The ghost is hard to find, almost like it doesn't want to be found, like it had purposely isolated itself away from human contact. But that can't be true: ghosts need humans to exist.
It can't be true. And yet, the exorcism is simple. Not that it's not dangerous, nor is it easy. But the ghost isn't tricky. It doesn't try to run, doesn't try to hide. Doesn't do anything beyond what it's nature dictates it must do.
Yoongi doesn't think too much of it while it happens. And he wouldn't have thought too much of it either, if not for two words uttered as the ghost fades away, two words so soft and yet so strangely clear there can be no mistaking them:
"Thank you."
They send chills crawling down Yoongi's spine.
He keeps rubbing at his ears after, feeling as if the words had seared into the skin of his lobes, into the canals of his ears. They leave an uncomfortable residue, one he can't put his finger on enough to describe. But then, he dwells on it no longer, for he's taken exactly ten steps before he suddenly swerves, eyes wide in rabid concentration; because for a while, he'd been distracted and now, he's overcompensating. Then, he relaxes, a look of annoyance crossing his face.
"You're the one who taught me how to conceal myself, Hoseok- seonsaengnim. I could spot you a mile away."
Yoongi doesn't even flinch when a voice whispers into his ear. "Odd, wasn't it? It was as if that ghost had known the truth of his existence and what he was becoming. All by himself."
"Odder that you're the one who told me it wasn't possible. Or were you lying?" He turns around and eyes the man who had appeared behind him like a spectre. His brown hair is neat and recently cut, and the look in his dark eyes is just that bit wide and just that bit gullible; expression almost like that of a child’s. He looks like someone you would hang out it, someone you would trust to hold your hair as you puke in the wake of your stupid decisions, your bff whom you can share anything with. He looks like sunshine, but Yoongi knows better.
He knows that with just an odd tilt, that childish smile on this man's face right now? It will become something that much more sinister.
"So, so… I did say that. I'd forgotten really. But it doesn't matter. Not really. But in any case, I'm more curious… how does it feel, my dear apprentice?"
"How does what feel, seonsaengnim ? Doing my job as usual?"
"Yes... that. And being thanked for it, for once."
The specification prevents Yoongi from answering carelessly like he usually does. That, and the look in his teacher's eyes. There's no laughter in there for once. He's being serious.
"Weird. It gave me the shivers."
"The good kind?"
"No. The other kind.”
Hoseok searches Yoongi's face for a moment. For what, Yoongi isn't too sure. What he's sure of is that he doesn't like his mentor’s smile when he finds what he's looking for. "Good."
"Good?”
"Yes," and Hoseok is already turning to depart. The bastard. He likes to fake flakiness. Yoongi knows that Hoseok isn't really that sort - he's constantly being a pain in the ass after all. "Because, if you like it, then you're likely to get used to it. And if you get used to it, you will start yearning for it.”
Hoseok pauses, and he has the audacity to wink at Yoongi. The absolute bastard. “And when that happens, you won't be useful to me anymore."
Yoongi doesn't know how long he is left to ponder that answer. He thinks if a time before Hoseok. It had been a very different life: one of glory, one of praise, and he'd worn his working name with pride.
Now, he uses them because he has to. Has to use many different ones. Gloss, Suga, Agust D. He's somewhat embarrassed of them now, having come up with them in the folly of his youth. He'd thought himself so smart once, all that remains now is rueful acceptance of naivety.
When he finally speaks, it's to say this: "Sometimes, I hate you for saving me that one time. If I hadn't met you, maybe I wouldn't have known the truth. And maybe then, I would have remained a hero."
Nothing and no one answers him.
~*~
The bus rattles as it goes over a bump
Yoongi is on his way back to headquarters. He sighs as he presses his head against the glass of the moving bus. The vibrations soothe for a while, making the brain rattle and the thoughts shatter from their sentences into fragments of phrases and words and impressions.
But thoughts are pesky things, and after a while, they learn to adapt and become thoughts again.
Yoongi closes his eyes.
It's still raining even though he can't see the rain fall. And so, he knows that he would have found out the truth sooner or later; some way or another.
Besides, even back then, he had been nothing like a hero.
~*~
The sky outside is gray like a storm
"You took a while."
"I took your advice and headed out to Seodaemungu ." Yoongi replies. "Before you ask, it was... interesting."
"That's good." Taehyung nods airily. "But I did miss you. No one ever comes as often as you do nowadays. Most of the mudang don't really consult with me anymore except for the annual rituals and… bigger… things.”
Yoongi chuckles. He can't help it: Taehyung just has that sort of effect on him, "yes. They depend on the public now, to tell them of the dangers. Good in a sense. People just got used to ghosts and learning to identifying them. There isn't that silly thing of disbelief now. If something weird is happening, then it's time to call in a mudang."
"I know. It makes me sad, but also happy. It's more time with you, but you're not always here," Taehyung states, before his eyes drift off into the distance.
"You're being more sane today." Yoongi observes: but he knows it's a mistake to say the moment it leaves his mouth. He's just jinxed them both.
It takes Taehyung a while to respond. "Yes, because there's only one voice speaking today; and it's saying, danger, danger, danger."
"Where?" Yoongi asks. "Should I go alert someone else?"
"No," V shakes his head. "Only you can deal with this. West Gangnam, someone has been keeping a love one stored away. It's a little late, but I did say you took a while."
Yoongi doesn't say anything else. He only goes.
~*~
The door creaks open as if it's ashamed
"They said mean things to you again."
Yoongi can only laugh, except he can't. His ribs are busted from being slammed into various things; like cabinets, doors... floors as he's thrown from the second storey.
"You're hurt." Taehyung observes. It takes all of Yoongi's energy to smile his usual smile. "And you are stating the obvious."
Yoongi tries to move then. It's a mistake. There’s pain - unbearable pain. And the next time Yoongi's vision is clear, he's on the bed in Taehyung's private room. The light has faded from the sky, and his chest is tightly bound with bandages. Taehyung is sitting there. His eyes are as colorful as usual and yet, they seem duller.
"I thought I'd lost you even though I know better." Taehyung remarks. "You will live a long life. A cursed one but a long one."
Yoongi has to chuckle even though it aches through the bandages. "Figures."
"A cursed life isn't a necessarily unhappy one," Taehyung reminds.
"Uhuh." Maybe Yoongi the mudang would have had a longer reply, but Yoongi is still dizzy from exhaustion. He's used up far too much energy, running back to back jobs. And so he closes his eyes.
Taehyung's hand is warm against his cheek; and it warms him all the way to his bones, even when Taehyung does a silly thing like ordering him to do something he's going to do anyway.
"Sleep."
Yoongi does.
~*~
It's a silly wish
"Sometimes, I wish you could stay here forever." Taehyung says.
"Sometimes, I wish I could too." Yoongi replies.
~*~
The other foot finally falls
It's during a slow period. Sometimes, Yoongi comes but V only stares blankly when he asks for any news.
Taehyung though, he begs for company. And so Yoongi stays. Maybe they talk. Maybe they eat. Maybe they just sit there, doing nothing at all.
"You are very kind."
The sentence is oddly timed, which isn't unusual. And today has been too usual already. Yoongi turns around, his mouth open with a sharp quip. But then his eyes meet Taehyung's own, and he gets caught in the myriad of colours that swirl across his irises. It is only with effort that he shakes himself out of it, and turns away.
"Whatever it is I am, kind is the least I would be." He says the word with derision, as if it’s oily grit inside his mouth. "I wouldn't want a kind heart anyway. It's fucking useless - seen as a flaw; it’s just a fucking opening for others to exploit."
Taehyung smiles. It's a sly flicker of one, one that he rarely uses. "Sounds like you've got experience."
He laughs when Yoongi looks sharply at him again and he reaches up and pats the mudang's hand. "You do have a kind heart, Yoongi- hyung . You exorcised all those spirits and demons who everyone else didn't want to. You're obviously not doing this for the glory or praise that the mantle of mudang brings."
But Yoongi shakes his head. He's smiling, but the smile feels odd. "And so that makes me kind? Is that what you've been thinking? Then you're sorely mistaken. It's just a fucking kick I get. I like being cruel, remember? Those spirits weren't doing people any harm, there wasn't need to exorcise them."
"Yes, that's what people say of the mudang. But..."
"Chonrian. Taehyung. Don't."
Taehyung closes his eyes. He ignores the stormy black that is slipping across Yoongi's face. It is anger… but it's anger that covers fear. “You learnt from your teacher and so you know: that spirits who may be harmless now get malicious over time the longer they stay on in our world. Harmless spirits are always easier to exorcise compared to malicious ones. But where's the glory in slaying harmless spirits?"
"I have no idea what you're saying." Yoongi says. Any hint of panic has slid behind a cool mask. "I do it all for fun. If you're trying to make me good, giving me a heroic back-story where there's none, you're just going to be fucking disappointed."
"And we both know that's not true. Yoongi, nothing will happen to me if I say it. I'm too valuable, and they'd be silly to think with my sight I wouldn't know."
But Yoongi only looks away, his face an expression of stone.
"Yoongi."
Something about the way Taehyung says his name has the mudang looking up at Taehyung's gaze. And for a moment, as Taehyung hand curls around his own, he sees a chance and a hope. And for that moment, he leans in, drawn like a moth to a flame, tempted to burn if only it would take the chill of loneliness from his bones.
But then, he stops himself. And Taehyung watches silently as Yoongi lips curl in a sort of rueful self-depreciation. It's like watching a train wreck, only Taehyung feels like he's the one who's hurt instead. "Silly, silly chonrian . Having voices in your mind has made you all unhinged. But, even if what you've said is the truth, you're still wrong. I am not kind."
He pulls himself out of Taehyung's grip - and it feels like something has ripped, left hanging like a gross wound dangling in the air. And the words he utters before he leaves are so soft, Taehyung nearly misses them. "If I really were kind, I wouldn't have given in in the first place."
And then he leaves. There is a hollow space where he once was.
Taehyung is left alone. He sits, eyes fixed on the door until minutes after the sound of Yoongi's footsteps have faded from the hallway.
The chonrian sighs before he addresses the walls around him. It's like they really are listening.
"He won't be back for a while."
-
Intermission
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
~*~
There is this thing with time
Time has a habit of unfolding. It's like an impossible puzzle. Spring unfolds unto summer, and summer unto autumn, and autumn unto winter, and winter unto spring again. It folds unto itself and then unfolds, like a never ending cycle. It is uncaring of humans. Humans move forward. Time doesn't care. It is unending. It moves in a cycle onto itself, and not in the same way we do.
"Humans have always had a habit of self-importance,” the chonrian says.
A softest shuffle is what announces the other man's arrival. The chonrian smiles. He would know that shuffle anywhere.
"Talking to yourself again, chonrian?"
"Yes. Did you expect anything else, Jung Hoseok?" V turns around, and greets the beige-clad mudang with a polite grin.
And Hoseok smiles back. "No, chonrian."
~*~
"So, my dear apprentice ran away."
V looks up from the tea he's sipping and shrugs. "He didn't run away. He just... hasn't visited in a long time."
"Sounds plenty like running away to me," Hoseok is amused. And by the way V chuckles, it's quite likely that he agrees as well. "To be fair, I did scare him a fair bit. It's understandable."
"I taught him well," it’s but a moment, but a hint of regret flashes in Hoseok’s eyes. "The higher ups don't mind us because we do the dirty work without complaint. But if the truth does come out then we'd be in serious trouble. Some people might succeed in killing us, and this world would go to chaos. The truth once again swept under the carpet, but this time with no one left to deal with the unwanted cases. And then there'll be too many ghosts left to fester into maliciousness and too few effective mudangs to deal with them."
"You did tell that one ghost what was happening to him though. The one in Seodaemungu." V murmurs.
"You told me I could." Hoseok reminds. He takes a big bite of his biscuit. "Remember, chonrian?"
"Oh. Yes, I did." V pauses. "I always did say that ignorance was bliss but sometimes bliss is overrated."
That sentence doesn't exactly make sense. But then, Hoseok is used to it. "Mmhmmm."
"You're one to say though." The sudden mildness the chonrian’s tone causes Hoseok to tense. "When you haven't visited in a while yourself."
Hoseok laughs. The sound is light, but there is a pain in it few can ever understand. "I was never criticizing. I only recognized what he did: easily in fact, since I'm a master at it myself."
"You really were always that way." The way V says it is odd. As if he knows Hoseok better than the few times the mudang has actually made to visit. "And you're far too cowardly to do something if you don't think there's a way out."
"That's why I trained someone who would do what I couldn't." Hoseok looks down at his cup. The tea leaves have settled to the bottom Maybe the pattern spells of a change that is coming. Not that he would know. He's never learned to read the future in tea leaves. Never saw a point in setting himself up for a fall. "And… that someone should be arriving any minute. Thank you for having me, chonrian."
"Mmm..." V nods. "You've not actually called me by my name today.”
"You know I can't, chonrian." Hoseok stands and smoothes his coat out. The teacup has been set down onto the table, drained to its last dregs. "It would break the last fantasy that I'll ever have. When you speak, I try not to look at you, so that I can pretend that the body isn't that of Kim Taehyung’s."
Then, Hoseok is gone. And Taehyung speaks, but it's not really him. It's one of the voices in his head: a voice that had once gone by the name of chonrian Namjoon and knows far more about the man named Hoseok than Taehyung would ever care to find out himself.
"That wasn't the name I was referring to, Hobi-yah."
~*~
The steps echo along the hallways
The apprentice and the teacher pass each other by.
"You don't need to say it. I know what I have to do." The apprentice says.
"Seven times should be enough." The teacher replies.
The bronze bells strapped to their waists ring just once, and then the sound fades off.
~*~
Outside, the light dies in it's magnificence
Taehyung’s eyes seem brighter than usual: Yoongi can see the flashes of colour even from the entrance where he stands. The chonrian is staring at Yoongi, but he doesn't acknowledge the mudang's presence until minutes after Yoongi has reached his side.
"Oh, hello." Taehyung’s voice is faraway, even though his eyes crinkle into a smile when finally notices. "I’m sorry. I was lost in my own world again. They all wanted to say goodbye."
Yoongi is quiet. He reaches for his bells, and there's the sound of trembling metal within trembling hands.
Taehyung frowns, and he takes Yoongi’s hands into his, smoothing the shudders away. "It's alright. I'm not really needed anymore. Those high up will not be angry. They are saying the necessary ceremonies each year are getting too expensive to do. And then, there's science."
"That's not the reason I'm trembling," the mudang whispers, but his hands have finally strengthened, the trembles calmed.
"I know," V replies. "Seven times should be enough."
Seven times for certainty. Seven times for luck. Seven times for death. And seven times for life.
Yoongi utters the purification rites, the chant more complicated than he's ever done. And the sweat of concentration beads on his forehead, flying with each violent flick of his hand.
The bells chime. One, two, three, four, five and six. A ritual almost unceremonial with how hard it is. Yoongi is struggling as he pushes - pushes against a spell that had been weaved at the dawn of time.
The bells chime one last time. A sharp victory cry, and then he lays his hand across the chonrian's prismatic eyes.
It's like being engulfed in a rainbow. The rushing colours flash and spin and fly, twisting upwards towards the heavens in a gust of voices and memories and images. It tastes like smoke. Who would have guessed, that spirits would taste like smoke? Maybe it’s true that you are what you eat.
Then, it's over - so sudden that the panting breathes sound so solid in the silence, one could have packed them and kept them for later.
Then, Yoongi slowly lifts his hand away from Taehyung's eyes. Taehyung eyes are brown now; they're glowing with the setting sun shining in them - almost gold. But they're brown nevertheless.
"It's so... quiet." Taehyung finally says. His eyes look oddly blank… oddly lost. "So, so quiet."
The tears fall, unbidden.
And then Yoongi catches Taehyung when he falls. He wraps his arms around the other tight, clinging even with the feeble, lost words whisper against his ear.
"Where is everyone-?”
"It feels lonely-”
"It's so quiet-”
"Where has everyone gone-?”
“I'm all alone-”
"I'm all alone.”
~*~
The night has fallen
"No. You're not."
And Yoongi pulls back so that he can pull Taehyung forward. And their lips meet together in an undeniable proof.
As the night passes, the tears are soothed away through caresses with thumbs and lips and the warmth from one mingles with the other as they curl up on the bed, intertwined under the blankets so that you couldn't tell where one started and the other one ended.
That night, there is proof that neither of them are really all that alone.
~*~
But in the morning, Taehyung is too tired to even stir when the covers push away to introduce the brisk air onto skin; and the bed dips and arches, moving from the displacement of weight.
In the morning, Yoongi takes one last look at Taehyung before he turns and walks away.
The night had seen tears that could be wiped away with gentle hands. But the morning sees tears that are swallowed and untouchable - that burn as they coat the throat with the taste of vanilla and salt.
-
Epilogue
"I suppose I should thank you for letting me experience being on my own for a while. It was an experience… I guess. Didn't quite like it, but well, learning experience, and I think I've finally gotten used to it? Sort of. But~ definitely ready to get back to being with other people again."
Yoongi doesn't quite know what to say really. To be fair, he's been caught quite off guard, quite unexpectedly. He'd been expecting the empty hotel room that he's been returning to for a the past month; and certainly not a lazy figure sprawled out onto his bed smiling at him with a lazy smile. "Taehyung?”
“Yes, Yoongi?”
In his bewilderment, he chides Taehyung for the informality, and Taehyung's whole body shakes with mirth in response. “I suppose… I suppose you're right. I can't even pull the superior card on you anymore.”
Exactly: “You can't be here. You don't have anything to do with the spirit world anymore."
"Says who?" Taehyung sits up and grins. "The gods of dramatic, cliché tragedy fiction? Is it a scientific fact that if one should cleanse the chonrian of the spirits of earlier chonrian then he should cease to be a chonrian?"
"But... I thought..."
"No, you presumed." Taehyung tuts - he sounds more intelligent now. Just a little.
His gaze still pierces to the very heart of Yoongi’s soul, even if it doesn't look as far beyond anymore.
Maybe that's worse.
But Taehyung is still speaking: “You presumed that I was just a normal person who got picked because I was a compatible enough a vessel to be infused with the souls of past chonrian . Don't blame you: that's the propaganda shit they tell everyone. But see, wouldn't it make way more sense if all those chosen as the chonrian had abilities of their own, and that the great powers came only from the addition of those powers come together?”
Yoongi stares, what he's just been told swirling in his head. That means… That means-
“I may not be the chonrian anymore, hyung , but I still am a chonrian . I'm still involved in the world you live in without a choice, whether you want to involve me in your life or not.”
"That's…” Yoongi licks his lips, desperate for a line of escape. “That's not what Hoseok- seonsaengnim told me."
"Well, Hoseok 'seonsaengnim' just didn't want anyone he knew to be happy before he was." Taehyung snorts. "The voice of the one before me told me that he's that sort of twisted."
Yoongi sighs. "That sounds about right."
"But there's no need to worry about that anymore." Taehyung smiles, his eyes glazing just that bit. "He has a boy with him now. The boy's name is Jungkook."
"Jungkook." Yoongi repeats. "Isn't that the name of the ghost that he exorcised? The one that made him famous?"
"Yes, the one he fell in love with." Taehyung confirms. He pushes himself up from his lying position on the bed, rising in one smooth motion.
"Great. My teacher is a paedophile." Yoongi groans, rubbing his face.
"But what do you care?" Taehyung asks as he wraps his arms around Yoongi's neck, "You will be far too busy kissing me."
And even if he doesn't have the power of all the chosen chonrian of the past anymore, it's a prediction that Taehyung makes with absolute certainty.
~*~
He is, absolutely right.
~*~
And at the end of it all
The sun blazes over the ground, drying and evaporating. The water vapour rises, drifting lazily in its upward dance towards the sky. Yoongi stares at it and thinks, that if steps out into it, that maybe, he might burn.
"Want to bring me to where you've gone?"
Yoongi turns and smiles at Taehyung. The other man looks sleepy, as if he's just woken up and draped clothes on to be decent. But he's always like that if Yoongi doesn't lecture him to dress properly. Taehyung calls it fashion, Yoongi calls it being a slob.
Yoongi holds out his hand. "It's nowhere interesting, but as long as you're willing to come with me?"
Their hands are clasped tight as they step out into the sun together.