Chapter Text
and then it finally clicks.
ah.
so this is what he's been missing for most of his life.
...
i.
the spirit world is a lawless place. a wolf's den in sheep's clothing.
the being called yoon jeonghan knows that. after all the first time he woke up in the spirit world, he was killed right away. murdered in cold blood, wasn't even given the chance to take in his surroundings, understand that he's now cursed to live forever.
the next time he wakes up, he kills for the first time. ends up vomitting on a tree afterwards, and then vomitting again after he takes the stuff of the person he just killed. telling himself over and over again that the guy will wake up again like he did, that he won't stay dead for long. that he really hasn't commited murder and his hands aren't really stained with the dark red of life.
so he goes on his way, wearing a dead man's clothes and using a dead man's weapons.
god, it feels so wrong.
...
it takes him one week and particularly a lot of close calls with death (and in these days jeonghan learns how to kill before someone notices his presence with such cold efficiency that some days it scares him) before he finally reaches the palace.
the spirit king, an old man with a grim face sitting on the throne, welcomes him with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"welcome to the spirit world being yoon jeonghan, god of knowledge." the spirit king tells him, barking out a laugh as if there is a joke that jeonghan doesn't know. "welcome to hell."
welcome to hell.
yoon jeonghan knows he won't stay in hell for a long time. not if he can't help it.
...
on the road to the spirit palace, a place where yoon jeonghan for some reason feels inexplicably tied to, a place where he knows he has to go to or else every death he has caused is all for nothing, jeonghan meets a boy.
no more than seven years old. he looks familiar, like jeonghan should know who he is. but he racks his memory, he doesn't know who this is--he doesn't know anything aside from the fact that his name is yoon jeonghan, he is god, and he should be in the palace now.
"are you going to the palace too, sir?" the child asks him and jeonghan does not kill him. he is a kid and that is the one line he will not cross. "my parents also are going! but they left me behind to see if it's safe."
"oh?" and jeonghan knows with such clarity that the child's parents either left him behind for their own safety or are dead.
"yeah!" the child sighs. "oh well, i shouldn't keep you here! mom and dad would be angry if they find out i'm keeping a busy man like you from the road!" and then he smiles at jeonghan the way only children can smile, naive and innocent and pure happiness. "see ya in the palace sir! i have to wait for my parents first!"
and then jeonghan makes his way to the palace. ignores the nagging feel in his stomach.
...
(and before the night falls, despite knowing it's stupid and futile, jeonghan goes back to the place he finds the child. thinks that maybe he should ask the child if he'd want to accompany him to the palace. it surely is safer like that.
he comes back and he does not see anything but a severed hand, blood stains and a piece of cloth he saw the child wear.
jeonghan feels himself breaking.)
...
(he does not leave until after he buries the severed hand and cloth. does not leave until he finds flowers to put on the makeshift grave. does not leave until he sends out a few prayers for the child.
he knows the kid will wake up soon, no one ever really dies in the spirit world. the people jeonghan has killed in the mornig he sees sometimes in the night.
he still feels like he killed the child though.)
...
ii.
the hong family keeps the dead alive.
sure, these white american families they're neighbors with looks at them weird whenever they burn incense or whenever they start their morning chants for the dead but the hong family has the important job of keeping the dead alive. keeping them from ever truly dying.
this is a burden and a duty that's been passed through the ages. joshua's mother does it for her father and her ancestors. soon enough when she dies, joshua will take over the role of burning incense, offering prayers, and appeasing the dead.
it's okay if the white families side eye them when they go out to buy groceries, or when the kids at highschool spread rumors about how he probably fucks dead bodies in his spare time or how the spiritual wannabes try to talk like they know what he's doing and attempting a crude and offensive copy of the hong family traditions.
it's okay.
joshua is used to it.
besides, he's doing a great job of keeping the family tradition alive that every night when he sleeps, he dreams of things he already knows. gains knowledge of his past lives. gains the knowledge that somewhere out there are two men that kisses him in different ways but with the same kind of love. kisses him everywhere and he holds them the same way they hold him.
so he studies the hong family traditions more, learning korean better than he ever really needs to the point that his mother is actually impressed and proud of him.
"even better than i could ever do." joshua's mother pats him on the back, giving him a kind smile after he reads her tea fortunes. "i'm happy you're so interested in our family heritage, shua."
and at this point he's too embarassed to admit he's doing all of this for a chance to meet these two men that has lit up the fire of his soul in his previous lives.
...
(the dreams begin like this.
the being he calls yoon kisses the human he calls choi. and shua starts to become shy, his face turning red as he watches something so intimate, so raw, so passionate, with the knowledge that he is able to join them. that he doesn't only have to watch.
so he joins them.
he embraces choi by the back, caressing yoon's face as he does so. next he helps remove the robe choi is wearing after yoon stealthily unties the rope binding it together. choi does not care, his left hand is too busy roaming yoon's body while his right trying to draw shua even closer than he can possibly can.
yoon stops kissing choi and presses a chaste kiss to his forehead. choi whines, but soon enough shua takes over his lips and it sends a jolt towards his whole body.
"such an impatient boy." shua hears yoon tell choi with an amused tone, making him whine. "don't worry, we'll take care of you, isn't that right shua?"
and shua smiles and stops kissing choi for a moment. he takes it as a chance to marvel at how utterly wrecked and needy choi is and he's so excited at the thought that it was him and yoon who made him like this. that they get to unravel him thread by thread and they have the whole night to do so.
"right you are je--")
(and joshua wakes up from his dream even before he finally finds out what their first names are. he looks down and groans in his bed as he realizes he has to do laundry in the morning again.
for the third time this week.)
...
if he writes yoon and choi so many times in his notebook in hangul, then that's his problem. if he doesn't pay attention to his teachers to just elect about dreaming of the two men of his past lives. he wouldn't be so hung up about them if it weren't for the fact that he keeps seeing them everywhere.
not only in the dreams his ancestors give him, in all the past lives he can remember (in ancient korea, joshua was a server to prince choi and yoon was his closest adviser. as a korean settler in japan, choi was the owner of the korean grocery shop while yoon was a part-timer in the library there. the war--which war? joshua doesn't care to remember, there's been so many wars in his lives--where yoon was a doctor, choi was a soldier sent to die and joshua was just a messenger. he doesn't like the war.), but they start to bleed in real life.
he almost got suspended one time he shoved the vice principal out of his way as he tried to follow yoon's laugh--something he recognizes even after how many centuries? how many years? (he gains new friends after that incident though, new friends that isn't friends ith him because they want a smart asian friend or just likes the exoticness joshua apparently brings about or friends that just wants joshua to write something in hangul for him.)
still, he keeps an ear and eye out for them though. an ear for yoon's laughter, an eye for choi's tear stricken face.
he writes their names in his notebooks, as if a charm and he starts to dislike the world even more.
...
iii.
(fire. there is a fire and seungcheol no longer knows what to do---
he is so scared. so scared, he knows he's going to die, be burned alive and eaten by this voracious flame, and he just can't help but think that if he will die because of a coup d'etat, he'd rather die in their arms. in their arms, in their--
wait who are they?
the scene changes. this time a counter. he's a grocer and it's such a slow day. he can count on his right hand the number of rude customers he's already had and he just wants something good to happen.
he looks at the clock after every other minute and his feet are already tapping impatiently. they're late and it feels weird that he's this annoyed when normally he won't even get angry when someone is thirty minutes late. but they're different.
suddenly the bell chimes ring and seungcheol smiles so big as he knows who they--
who are they?
he's hurt of the nth time this week and he's just waiting for the doctor and the messenger to come. the messenger because he knows he'll be sent to the front lines again and the docror because this bullet wound really hurts. seungcheol knows he'll die by the end of the month but it's okay. at least he met them--
but who are they?)
...
seungcheol wakes up from his dream. his head hurts, and he is crying already. his heart is empty and he yearns for something so badly that he cannot help but hurt, he cannot help the sobs that comes out of him as he clutches his head and heart.
his mother hears his sobs from the other room and comes in with a knock. she takes him into her arms and starts shushing him comfortingly.
"cheol, cheol. what's wrong? a nightmare?" she asks and seungcheol cannot do anything but nod.
he sleeps in her arms that night and when he wakes up there is seaweed soup ready for him on the table alongside his favorite side dishes. his head and eyes hurt from a night of crying.
it hurts so bad and he can't do anything about it. he doesn't even know who his heart yearns for so badly.
...
choi seungcheol has been friends with lee jihoon ever since he was born.
how could they not be? seungcheol and jihoon's mother were the bestest of friends during college and they even got married around the same time. when seungcheol's mother divorced his father, it was jihoon's mother who opened her house for them for a few months until they could get back to their feet. now the choi family and lee family are neighbors and are as close as ever.
so it doesn't come as a surprise that jihoon visits seungcheol the days he cannot bear to go to school because of the dreams (it hurts so much, too much, he can not even bear to move from his bed). he comes and drops the stack of notes and homework seungcheol missed today.
jihoon goes over to seungcheol's bed and checks his temperature. he frowns in disappointment.
"you're hot." jihoon states a matter of factly. before sitting down on the bed.
seungcheol attempts a weak smile. "i appreciate it jihoon but i don't like you that way! you're my brother, my favorite dongsaeng."
jihoon narrows his eyes at him. "you're luck you're sick or else i've already kicked your ass twice now." he sighs and lays down on the bed and seungcheol's form. "i had to deal with your adoring fans today."
"yeah?" seungcheol says absent-mindedly. "whaddya say?"
"that you're sick. what else should do i say?" jihoon sounds annoyed now. "'oh sorry choi seungcheol isn't here because he keeps having these gay dreams about two boys that makes him literally sick.' like that's gonna fly well with them. actually now that we're in this topic, why don't you actually fucking do something and stop being so useless with your love life huh?"
seungcheol laughs out loud. "if we're talking about useless, should i ask how chan and soonyoung are doing then?"
he does receive a punch in the leg for that, and seungcheol just laughs louder than before. this whole thing is almost making him forget the how hollow his heart feels right now. (he'll usually bounce back from this after one day and not feel the loneliness this extreme but now, he's sad--far too sad. he feels like he'll break.)
they go quiet after that. too quiet that seungcheol starts to think jihoon's dozing off on his legs so he starts shaking it. jihoon groans and seungcheol stops that. he needs the rest.
"i don't know who they are." seungcheol says. "that scares me a lot jihoon, i don't care about the deaths i see in those dreams, i just--i don't know them and they're already breaking my heart."
jihoon stills for a moment. he adjusts himself so he's now beside seungcheol. he smothers himself in blankets and closes his eyes.
"it's okay seungcheol." he says, and his voice is laced with sleep that seungcheol has to stifle a laugh. "i'll beat them up the moment you see and get to know them."
and jihoon sleeps. soon, seungcheol follows.