Chapter Text
I see a bad moon a-rising
I see trouble on the way
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The gravel crunches loudly under the tires of Chanyeol’s car, drowning out the radio. He’s driving slowly down the road, probably too slowly but he’s never driven on gravel before, and this tiny hybrid wasn’t meant for anything but pavement. Besides, he hasn’t seen a single speed limit posted yet, so he has no way of knowing anyway. He’s also going slowly because he’s squinting at an email of written directions on his phone, and trying not to drive into one of the steep ditches on either side. As the email predicted, Google maps had given up on his location about three miles ago, when he turned off the paved roads of town onto gravel.
A truck whips by him going the same direction, engine roaring, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and completely obscuring his field of view. As a result, he almost misses the turn, just barely managing to make out the cement sign that says “MOONVIEW PRAIRIE RESEARCH, RESTORATION, AND MANAGEMENT CENTER” at the corner.
The email says to park his car along the road near the farmhouse, then walk up along the road the rest of the way, since apparently heavy rains had washed it out last month. He quickly spots the farmhouse, a small but well-kept white building with what appears to be a flourishing garden and lawn that borders a large cornfield. Everything borders a cornfield out here. No one appears to be home, so he parks, and starts to walk. The road winds past the house and quickly upwards, through a pleasant copse of hardwood trees before cresting a large hill. The road is indeed washed out—Chanyeol can see large, muddy ditches across the road where he assumes the rainwater swept the gravel away. It’s surprisingly steep, and tricky going over the mud, so by the time Chanyeol reaches the top he’s sweating heavily in the early afternoon sun.
He stops, panting a little, backpack sticking to his back, and admires the view. The trees give way at the top of the hill to sweeping, rustling prairie, spread across the wide area before sloping down and away on the other side of the hill, into more trees. Beyond that there’s more prairie and a reedy pond fed by a stream, according to the map he was sent. It doesn’t look like the rest of the landscape he’d seen on the drive this morning, grasses and flowers swaying golden in the sunlight as opposed to the endless hills of tall green corn, stalks jabbing sharply at the sky. To the left is a surprisingly large single-story 70’s-era building, with a large metal shed and tractor outside. A windmill towers over the building from behind, not as large and futuristic as the ones Chanyeol saw earlier, but still impressive.
“This is awesome,” he says aloud. Suddenly, relocating from California to corn country on a semi permanent basis doesn’t seem quite as daunting as it had this morning when he’d started driving.
“Isn’t it?” comes a voice to his left, and Chanyeol nearly falls over as a man’s head pops out of the grass. It’s quickly followed by a body as he stands up and picks his way out to the road. He takes off heavy work gloves and extends his hand to shake. “I’m Professor Lee; you must be Chanyeol. Glad you managed to find the lab.” He smiles a wide smile that seems to rival the sun for brightness. Chanyeol can’t help but smile back as he takes his hand. “Nice to meet you, professor.”
“Come on in then, let’s get you oriented!”
Professor Jinki Lee doesn’t seem to stop smiling for the duration of the lab tour. He shows Chanyeol around the lab, discussing current projects and programs and where everything goes. He’s thrilled to have a new assistant out in the prairie, and Chanyeol had come highly recommended by the department back at the university. Chanyeol blushes a little but also preens with the compliments.
“Oh, you’ll want to meet Kyungsoo at some point, he manages the burn crew and does other basic land maintenance for the Center,” Professor Lee says, after showing Chanyeol the equipment in the shed, which appears to be mostly larger versions of gardening tools, plus foils and firestarting kits. “He lives over there.” He points to the farmhouse from before, distant at the bottom of the hill and on the other side of the cornfield, which extends a bit up the low slope before meeting prairie. From the hilltop Chanyeol can see that the field stretches out from the farmhouse and the road, away from the Center grounds and into the distance. He thinks he can see a silo at the other side but he’s not sure, it’s so far away. God, there’s so much fucking corn out here.
“Oh, right,” Professor Lee says, and it’s the first time his smile seems to slip a little. “See that cornfield? Stay out of it.” Chanyeol nods and opens his mouth to ask why, but the professor moves on to the windmill and he’s sufficiently distracted.
The afternoon passes quickly but busily as they traverse the grounds and start to hash out the details of Chanyeol’s job duties as well as his own research opportunities. The professor also frets a bit over Chanyeol’s living arrangements before Chanyeol reassures him that he’d already stopped by the cottage in town set aside for the Center’s lab tech and found it perfectly acceptable. Eventually, Chanyeol's stomach growls loudly and Professor Lee shoos him out of the lab to find dinner, saying that he’d be staying a bit longer to do some evening data collection.
It’s cooling down outside as the sun inches towards the horizon, a breeze playing over the grasses. Chanyeol looks out over the cornfield. He can see the small farmhouse near his car on the other side, maybe a hundred or so meters away, and the town water tower rising out of the trees in the distance beyond that. It’s not far, it’s only just dusk, and by the time he’d circle around via the road it’ll be fully dark and Chanyeol really doesn’t want to walk along the uneven road at night. Surely it would be fine to cut across—he can even see a sort of path through the stalks, probably for irrigation. He’ll be careful not to break any crops, and charm his way past any grumpy farmer. He hoists his backpack higher on his shoulders and swings his legs over the low fence.
It’s surprisingly dark in the stalks, the leaves reaching much higher above his head than they appeared on the outside of the field, and Chanyeol is not a short man. But he can still see okay, and he marches along, feet crunching on dirt and old corn leaves. A couple times he brushes against the stalks to either side and he jumps back with a hiss, out of fear of damaging any crops and also surprise at how sharp the thick green leaves are. They leave thin, shallow red scratches on his biceps and he tucks his elbows in a little tighter.
Halfway across the field—or what he thinks is halfway, it’s hard to tell—he hears rustling to his right. At first he thinks it’s merely a trick of his hearing, or the breeze that’s been playing all day. But as he plods along and the sun sinks lower, the rustling continues, more regularly and a bit louder, more insistent.
It’s probably a deer. Chanyeol thinks they come out to feed around now, and there was no deer-proof fencing around this field. While deer aren’t inherently dangerous, Chanyeol doesn’t particularly want to surprise one, so he picks up the pace.
The rustling matches his pace, and then shifts to the left. Chanyeol stops, and the rustling stops. He peers into the corn, trying to see movement, straining his ears for noise. Dark green looks back at him, and silence presses. He can’t even hear crickets. He starts walking again, and the noise immediately starts up, following as his pace increases until Chanyeol is speedwalking through the corn, no longer giving any thought to the care of the crops on either side.
Then, quite suddenly, there is a loud, low growl somewhere to his right and Chanyeol runs. He doesn’t know what it is, fueled by blind panic, logic lost to the increasing shadows on either side and overtaken by base instinct to flee. Suddenly he can see the end of the path about twenty meters ahead, and he puts on a burst of speed. The rustling seems to shift quickly, trying to overtake him in front and he sprints faster. He’s a few meters from the exit when a man appears out of the stalks directly in front of him and Chanyeol barrels into him at full tilt.
They both go down and crash into the stalks, Chanyeol already yelping apologies though he’s drowned out by loud barking. He catches himself on the ground and finds himself looking down at wide, dark eyes set in a thundercloud expression. Maybe it’s his panic-addled brain but Chanyeol freezes for half a second too long, transfixed by the face glaring up at him through the dim light. Plush lips pulled into a frown, framed by a square jaw, full cheeks, and dark hair cropped short on either side. And those eyes, deep and blinking owlishly up at him under thick brows. He hesitates a moment too long, however, and the eyes shift into a blazing glare before he’s shoved roughly off to clamber to his feet.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the man says harshly as Chanyeol brushes himself off. The barking has stopped and Chanyeol now notices the largest, whitest, fluffiest dog he’s ever seen, almost glowing in the low light and standing alert at the man’s side. He barely resists the urge to (carefully) approach and cuddle it. It helps that its apparent owner is glaring at him. Chanyeol hangs his head and adopts his most sheepish look, the one that has over the years got him, Baekhyun, and Jongdae out of many an entanglement.
“Oh, I’m sorry man, I was just trying to get back to town after working late—didn’t realize this wasn’t a shortcut.” He grins lopsidedly and tries to look as charmingly helpless as possible. This guy seems youngish, maybe he can even get a friend out of this. He sticks out his hand. “I’m new around here. Chanyeol Park, nice to meet you.”
The man’s face doesn’t change, except maybe to tighten in slight confusion. “You’re the new lab rat,” he says, more a statement than a question. Chanyeol drops his hand, about to protest the moniker when the man continues. “Didn’t Jinki tell you to stay out of the corn?”
Chanyeol blinks. “Professor Lee? Oh, yeah, well…” he trails off, avoiding the glare still directed his way. “I mean, he mentioned it but I didn’t think it was a big deal, it’s just corn...” even as he says it, Chanyeol winces at how douchey that sounds.
“It’s not just corn,” the man says, face tight and voice hard. “And you should stay out of it, especially at night.” He turns towards the exit, the dog trotting ahead. Chanyeol scrambles to follow him. They emerge before another low fence, and the man nimbly hops over the railing after his dog and stalks towards the small farmhouse away from Chanyeol.
“Wait!” Chanyeol says, nearly tripping over the fence in realization. “You live here? You must be Kyungsoo—Professor Lee told me to talk to you!”
Kyungsoo stops short and whirls around, pinning Chanyeol in place with his eyes. “Don’t. Fuck. With. The corn,” he says, nearly growling each word. “Got it?” Chanyeol raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, I’m sorry man, I won’t, I swear.” Kyungsoo nods once, then continues to his house, dog trotting at his side. Chanyeol stands there in the cooling night air for a few minutes until he hears the sound of a screen door slam.
He shakes his head as if to clear it, then sets off towards his car. Maybe the bars in town have friendlier folk, and Chanyeol needs a drink.
Turns out there is in fact only one bar in town, and on a Tuesday night it’s mostly empty save for a couple truckers venturing in from the highway. Chanyeol only stays as long as it takes to order and eat a burger (surprisingly decent) before making his way to his home for the forseeable future.
He wasn’t lying about the house being perfectly acceptable, a cute little ranch cottage with a small garden and a large yard Chanyeol could only dream of out in California. But it’s also very empty. Chanyeol flops onto the couch, resting his legs on the stack of cardboard boxes containing his life relocated. His ears strain for the sound of Baekhyun yelling at his computer and Jongdae breaking into random song. Instead, the quiet presses down on him, a stark contrast from the noise of L.A.
“You chose this,” he says to the popcorn ceiling. “It will be good for your research. It’s only a year or so. Maybe less.” He sighs, rolling to smoosh his face into the back of the couch. “You’ll be fine.”
Eventually, he manages to fall asleep but the silence keeps him awake late into the night.