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“One day, tens of millions of years from now, someone will find me rusted into the mud of a world they have never seen, and when they crumble me between their fingers, it will be you they find.” - Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods
-
The day the city of Pompeii is devoured by fire and gold starts off well enough.
Of course, the citizens of said city are unbeknownst to the impending destruction, so August 24, AD 79 appears to be just another trifling day in the grand scheme of things. Sehun, one of the inhabitants in particular, has been having a spectacular morning so far alongside his best friend, Baekhyun.
Sehun is made up of earth tones. Black, unkempt hair falls in front of his face, despite his parents’ shared distaste for it. "It’s unfitting for someone of his status to look anything but pristine," they’d always say to him, to which he would always respond by dragging his fingers through his hair to make it stick out even further. He and his parents seem to disagree on an awful lot of things these days. Though, if there’s one thing he’s grateful to them for, it would be his height. Sehun is tall, taller than other nineteen-year-old boys, with toned broad shoulders and sun-kissed skin. His eyes, impossibly bright eyes, are the color of the ground beneath his feet. They light up whenever he talks about books, flowers, the sea, the city of Pompeii, or Baekhyun.
The city of Pompeii, both a port city and Sehun’s first love, is a prime location for trade as well as farming. The thriving metropolis is actually known for its farmlands, which produce an overwhelming number of grapes and olive trees. Besides this, Pompeii has been his one and only home for nearly two decades, ever since he was a mere babe. It watched, like a mother bird nursing its child under its wing, as Sehun grew up into the man he now is; and in turn, Sehun falls more and more in love with the city every day. He falls in love with the surrounding ocean that seems to stretch on to the ends of the earth; the ever-present smell of fish and myrrh and pomegranates in the air; and the people, as lovely and brilliant and beautiful as the lights in the sky.
And if the city of Pompeii is Sehun’s first love, well, Baekhyun is his second.
Sehun and Baekhyun’s friendship started with a collision, as all great friendships do. Sehun can still remember the exact moment he met Baekhyun, the exact moment he knew his life would be forever altered because of the boy with bright eyes and golden skin.
-
Nine-year-old Sehun loved adventures. He loved the thrill of exploring, of discovering things yet to be found. He was a bright kid who saw the beauty and excitement in life, which was probably how he stumbled upon Baekhyun, quite literally.
It turned out that colliding with someone was inevitable when running through a crowded market. However, it was probably Fate’s sense of humor that caused clumsy, deer-legged Sehun and Baekhyun, the storm with pretty eyes and a heartbeat, to cross paths.
“Oops,” Sehun breathed, catching himself just as the boy turned to look at him.
The first thing Sehun noticed about the boy was the color of his eyes. They were strikingly pitch black, something uncommon amongst the people of Pompeii. Sehun briefly wondered if the boy came from a foreign land, but it would have probably been rude to ask, given that he hadn’t even introduced himself.
Either way, the boy was staring at Sehun with dark eyes that seemed way too full of something, something that he couldn’t quite place, something that was a blur of curiosity and something else.
The boy with eyes the color of the night sky blinked languidly at Sehun before an earsplitting grin consumed half of his face. “Hi!” the boy chirped, “I’m Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun. Baek-hyun. The boy had later explained that his name literally meant ‘golden,’ and nine-year-old Sehun couldn’t think of a more perfect descriptor for him.
(He still can’t. Baekhyun is everything golden and bright and beautiful in the world.)
The sun-kissed and bright-eyed eleven-year-old seemed to have an extra spark in him, a soft aura of happiness that surrounded him like tunic.
It only took Sehun a couple of seconds to realize that the boy, Baekhyun, had been talking to him. “Sehun,” he blurted out, his voice slow and calm and not at all like the beating of his heart, “I’m Sehun.”
“Well, Sehun,” Baekhyun tested out the name on his lips, “do you like adventures?”
Sehun had immediately said yes and watched, impossibly fascinated, as Baekhyun took a step closer to him, his piercing eyes never breaking eye contact. Baekhyun asked another question, “Do you want to go on an adventure with me?”
It took Sehun all of two seconds to nod, his own eyes wide as he stared at the boy in front of him. Baekhyun had smiled at that, the first full grin Sehun had brought out of him.
(Sehun remembers comparing his smile to the lights that shone during the night sky and finding a disturbing lack of differences between them.)
“Follow me then,” the golden boy stated simply, a hint of mischief laced into his voice. Without checking to see if the younger boy was indeed trailing behind him, Baekhyun turned and walked away like a bright-eyed promise. There was absolutely no hesitance before Sehun started following Baekhyun, something he’d continue to do for the rest of his life.
And maybe it wasn’t love at first sight, but Sehun knew instantly that Baekhyun was going to matter to him. He just didn’t figure out that maybe, possibly, this person was going to matter the most. It was as if little Sehun’s heart just went, “Oh, it’s you. You’re the adventure I’ve been waiting for.”
-
“Sehun-ah.” Baekhyun’s voice jars Sehun out of his daydream, and he’s met with two eyes filled with the same curiosity they had ten years ago. “You alright?” The pair of them are now half-swimming, half-floating in the sea, their heavy tunics made even heavier due to them being dampened from the torso downwards.
“Yeah,” Sehun clears his throat, the taste of the ocean on his lips, “I’m good. I was just thinking, I guess.”
“Oh. Well then, come on Sehun, we have to head to the Macellum,” Baekhyun’s voice is soft as he brushes past Sehun and heads for the land. Sehun notices how the waves tug on Baekhyun’s legs and hips as if they want him to stay, as if they want a little piece of him. Everything seems to.
And Sehun sort of understands, he does, when they swim in the sea and the waves stand up and hug Baekhyun as if he is the one responsible for keeping them blue. Sehun is sure, then and there, that the waves attacking Baekhyun are trying to make Sehun jealous, as if they’re saying, “Look, I’m closer.”
He sighs and follows Baekhyun to the shoreline of Pompeii.
-
When the two arrive at the Macellum of Pompeii, which is more simply known as the city’s marketplace, they’re immediately engulfed in the smell of fresh produce, fish, and sweat, signaling another busy day in the thriving city.
The air around the Macellum is hotter and more humid than the rest of the city, probably because it was one of the focal points in Pompeii. Today, the streets are swamped with citizens as usual. Each person is rushing to finish his duties as quickly as possible, hoping to catch the well-awaited tournament happening in the amphitheatre this afternoon.
People greet the pair as they pass by, a brief “Good day, Sehun! Good day, Baekhyun!” before they disappear back into the crowd. They aren’t alarmed at the fact that a highborn and a commoner are practically attached to the hip because, well, everyone who’s lived in Pompeii long enough knows that wherever Baekhyun goes, Sehun goes.
Sooner or later, the two finish their daily chores such as buying bread and cheese for their families, picking up some extra cloth, and browsing through the different jewelries and garments they see as they make their routinely rounds.
On their journey back to their houses, they happen upon a common acquaintance – a girl named Marina. She has her nutmeg-colored hair done up into an intricate braid today. Her eyes are the color of the ocean after it rains, which is coincidentally what she’s named after, although Sehun can’t help but notice that they’re not quite as lovely as Baekhyun’s. The girl two years Baekhyun’s senior beckons them towards her, a friendly smile on her lips.
“Hello to you, Sehun!” she says, her hands stained with the blood of the fishes she’s currently gutting. “You as well, Baekhyun!” They both greet her respectively, pointedly looking away from the graphic site in front of them.
“How’s your day going so far?” she asks while pulling out the entrails of one of the fishes. Sehun’s stomach lurches.
“It’s splendid,” Baekhyun replies, an easy smile on his lips, “and yours?”
“Just another busy day catching and selling fish,” she grins in response, “you know how it goes.”
“You’re probably the best fish catcher I know,” Sehun admits, “and you’re not even a man. It’s lovely seeing you put the rest of them to shame with your fishing skills.”
At this, Marina throws her head back, her boisterous laughter floating up above the market’s ruckus. “Sehun, you flatter me too much!” That being said, she stands a bit taller and puffs out her chest, confidence dripping from her lips.
“He’s a charmer, he is,” Baekhyun playfully slings an arm around Sehun’s shoulder, pinching his left cheek. Sehun would have laughed at the awkward angle of Baekhyun’s outstretched arm if he didn’t know about the smaller boy’s hatred for being teased about his height.
Dark eyes are suddenly far too close for safety, but Baekhyun smiles like he doesn’t know how dangerous he is. Delight instantly colors Baekhyun’s crinkled eyes. As it happens, Sehun discovers that ‘delight’ mixes with the color black beautifully.
Marina lets out another lovely peal of laughter. “That he is!” she agrees. “His fiancée is a lucky, lucky lady.” At the mention of his fiancée, Sehun rips his eyes away from Baekhyun’s and scowls at the ground. All of a sudden, he is reminded of the first time he met her and her family. It isn’t difficult to remember because it had been the worst day of Sehun’s life.
-
It was raining when Sehun met her. Sehun had thought that the downpour had been a sign from the gods, warning him of the tragedy that was to come. (How right the gods were, Sehun thinks now.)
“Tonight, we feast!” Sehun’s father beamed as the two families raised their wine-filled cups in celebration.
His fiancée and her family were buzzing with excitement and Sehun’s parents were looking at him with pride and delight painted across their faces. Normally, he’d grin happily at them in return, but Sehun had this strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was similar to the feeling he got when he swam in the ocean this one time and he had wanted to put his feet down on something solid, but the water was deeper than he had thought and there was nothing there.
Sehun picked up his cup and swallowed down a large gulp, letting the bittersweet taste of wine wash out his uncertainty. If Sehun focused hard enough on the steady beating of his heart, he could have almost pretended he didn’t feel it breaking.
-
This time, Sehun comes back from his daydream on his own, only to arrive to the curious eyes of Marina and the downward tilt of Baekhyun’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun finally agrees, breaking the silence, “she really is, isn’t she?” Sehun can’t do anything but give a halfhearted hum of agreement. He doesn’t help but notice the sudden dullness in the color of Baekhyun’s eyes because, well, Sehun notices everything about Baekhyun.
Marina seems to sense the lull in the conversation so she excuses herself from the small triangle they had formed, proceeding to go about her day. Sehun is too busy thinking about his arranged marriage to notice the sad look Baekhyun gives him.
See, Sehun loves his parents, he truly does; he just wishes they had at least asked for his opinion on the engagement first, or better yet, called off the marriage entirely. Deep in his heart, Sehun knows that he should at least give his bethrothed a chance, but he also knows that he would rather run straight into the ocean and swim until his limbs grew numb than marry (anyone else besides Baekhyun.)
Sehun, ever the hopeless romantic, is a firm believer of loving someone based on their beliefs and personality rather than their wealth and dowry. He cares more for how people eyes light up whenever they talk about something they love. Case in point, his friendship with Baekhyun has nothing to do with Baekhyun’s social status and everything to do with the way Baekhyun looks at him as if Sehun had arranged the lights in the sky.
However, more than once, Sehun’s parents have told him to get the silly notion out of his head. “True love?” they’d laugh as they’d take a sip of their wine, “True love doesn’t exist. It’s not the treasure at the end of an adventure, Sehun; you will never find it. You chase air and dreams.” To this, Sehun would smile politely and walk away with further determination than before.
The thing that brings Sehun back from his thoughts this time is the sound of people screaming, and it’s by far the worst thing he has come back to. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he sees the collective look of sheer panic on the face of every single person around him, including Baekhyun. They’re all staring, mouths dropped open in fear, in the direction of Mt. Vesuvius. Sehun slowly turns his head towards the mountain, but he then wishes he hadn’t.
A column of smoke can be seen bursting from the mountain, an ugly black snake in contrast to the golden midday sky. Sehun watches, transfixed, as it rises higher and higher into the heavens. It is only when Baekhyun frantically tugs on Sehun’s shoulder that he notices rocks ranging from the size of a grain of sand to rocks the size of his fist start falling from the sky. To his horror, the citizens of Pompeii start dropping like mosquitoes. Sehun is paralyzed with fear. His newly bought bread, cheese, and cloth tumble out of his hands as all thoughts of chores and groceries are forgotten.
The hideous black cloud grows and grows until it starts spreading outwards over the neighboring cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Sehun can only watch as the downpour of ash, powder, and dust turns the once vibrant Pompeii into a foreign, unrecognizable land devoid of any color whatsoever.
Run. Hide. Move. Do something. These are the only coherent words Sehun is able to form in his head. He still remains as stationary as a rock.
To his rescue, Baekhyun pulls Sehun aside just as a rock crashes down into the space he’d been occupying a split-second before. Before he could thank him, Baekhyun’s attention has already shifted back to the mountain. With that funny feeling in the pit of his stomach again, Sehun follows his gaze.
“Eheu,” he breathes. The exclamation of grief is the only thing Sehun’s voice could manage as his eyes fall on the horror in front of them. The nightmare is bright and beautiful and blazing, and it’s unlike anything Sehun’s ever seen before.
The burning liquid rushes down the side of the mountain, consuming anything and everything in its path headed straight towards their beloved city. Sehun can only bear so much pandemonium, so he looks away and keeps his eyes on Baekhyun. The terrible, vicious nightmare is golden, much like the flecks in Baekhyun’s eyes, and it makes Sehun sick to his stomach.
He wonders how something so beautiful as the gold in Baekhyun’s eyes could bring so much destruction.
Sehun is tempted to look away in fear of getting caught, but Baekhyun is too busy watching the chaos unfurl before him to notice the pair of sad eyes studying him.
How dangerous it is, Sehun thinks then, to have something worth losing.
In fear of getting caught, Sehun shifts his gaze upwards only to see complete darkness. The sky is completely shrouded by the black smoke. Any traces of light are gone. It shouldn’t unsettle Sehun as much as it does.
A sudden blast of heat comes from the direction of the mountain, causing warmth to spread through his entire body like a tide. Any other thoughts Sehun has quickly dissipate as he wraps his hand around Baekhyun’s wrist, ignoring the other boy’s surprised jolt.
He weaves through the crowd with Baekhyun right behind him, purposefully ignoring the frantic and anguished cries of those around him. Thoughts of his parents run through his mind, and he can do nothing else besides hope they found safety elsewhere. Right now, there's nothing and no one he can focus on besides protecting the boy he loves.
When the heat outside soon becomes unbearable, the two duck into an abandoned house just past the middle of the city. In a last-ditch attempt to ensure their safety, Sehun and Baekhyun barricade the doors and windows with plotted plants and copious amounts of cloth they find strewn across the floor.
After effectively sealing themselves in, Sehun allows himself to slump against the wall, exhausted and weary after going through all the chaos outside. Sehun knows his hair is a bird’s nest and that he’s probably covered head-to-toe with dirt and sweat, but he doesn’t really mind. Sehun’s hands still refuse to stop shaking minutes after they’ve entered the house.
Despite this, he appears to be handling it better out of the two of them. Baekhyun is as pale as a ghost, his eyes black, his entire demeanor erratic and bright like a dying light. It takes a while for Sehun to adjust.
He’s never seen Baekhyun like this. He’s only ever seen smooth, confident Baekhyun with his loud voice and contagious laughter and lightning touches, has only been met with his sparkling eyes and bright smiles. Yet here he is, twitching and pink and pale and red around the edges and gray on the surface and jumpy and weak and blurry, sparking like lightning, jumbled like a hurricane.
After several minutes of sitting in tense, painful silence, Sehun lets out a cough that has been building up in his throat. His eyes immediately water and he reaches up to wipe them away with shaking hands, only to be met with Baekhyun’s gentle hands.
“Shhh,” Sehun can see that Baekhyun is crying now, tears running down the sides of his cheeks. Sehun wants to kiss them away. “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright. Sehun-ah, we’re going to be alright,” Baekhyun repeats, over and over and over again like a constant mantra he wants so desperately to be true.
Suddenly, Sehun reaches out to wipe Baekhyun’s tears away, and it’s like all barriers are broken. The two boys fall into each other’s spaces so naturally, and when they intertwine, Sehun’s hand finds Baekhyun’s heart.
It makes him let out a cry of relief, to know that Baekhyun is alive, breathing and burning and existing with Sehun during their final moment on this earth.
The shaking has taken over Sehun’s entire body now; he has stopped trying to suppress it long ago. Soft, reassuring presses of lips on Sehun’s skin do nothing to calm him down, because he can feel the trembling of Baekhyun’s body as much as he can his own.
“I’ll see you soon, I’ll see you soon, I’ll see you soon,” Baekhyun starts to mouth into the crook of Sehun’s neck. Given the context in which it is said, it’s the most honest and intimate thing Sehun has ever heard Baekhyun say to anyone, about anything; and he puts it way back into the corner of his mind reserved for beautiful things.
Yet another blast of extreme heat washes over their bodies, and any tears that escape Sehun’s eyes are instantly vaporized. It’s gotten to the point where he can barely open his eyes and his throat feels as if it has been set aflame and breathing is hard, close to impossible, and suddenly Sehun feels everything and nothing all at once.
The light is so bright and the heat is so intense that he can barely make anything out, but then it’s like Baekhyun’s voice is floating up over the chaos, ringing out loud and clear.
I’ll see you soon, I’ll see you soon, I’ll see you soon.
Sehun opens his mouth, and he knows that he’d be laughing if he was capable of speech. At that moment, Sehun is suddenly brought back to the happiest moment in his life, one random night in Pompeii watching the clouds travel across the night sky. He was with Baekhyun, of course; Sehun's days were often the brightest whenever he was with the boy. Looking back on it now, he could probably pinpoint this as the exact moment he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life beside Baekhyun, underneath a blanket of lights.
-
The two were lying on one of the many fields of grass in Pompeii, chatting idly as they gazed at the night sky. They were incredibly close; Sehun could see the golden flecks dotting the irises of Baekhyun’s eyes, but Sehun didn’t mind. If anything, that just further proved Sehun’s theory that Baekhyun was in fact the human embodiment of the lights in the sky, almost as if Light itself decided that it was tired of being so immense so it compressed all of its beauty and complexity and wonder into a smaller form. (It’s an ongoing hypothesis; and Sehun is sad now that he knows it will never be solved.)
“They’re beautiful,” Baekhyun had whispered as he stared up at the lights. Sehun ached to tell him how he found him more beautiful than all of them. He was actually positive the lights themselves stared down and wondered how the boy beside him shone so brightly.
“Baekhyun?” Sehun’s voice rang out in the quiet of the night.
“Yes, Sehun-ah?”
“We’ll be together for the rest of our lives, right?” A pause.
“Of course. I promise.”
Baekhyun propped himself up on one elbow, eyes bearing into the side of Sehun’s face. It was suddenly hard to think, to breathe, to do anything, when Baekhyun was staring at him with eyes bright enough to light up the night sky.
“And when you get married? Will we still continue to as close as we are right now?” Baekhyun had asked conversationally, but Sehun could sense the underlying tone of insecurity in the slight quiver in the other boy’s voice.
Sehun blinked. Truthfully, his impending marriage was the last thing on his mind at the moment.
“Until those lights up above die out, Baekhyun. All of them,” he said simply, fondly watching the immediate change in Baekhyun’s facial expression. He smiled, procuring enough light for the entire city and momentarily stealing Sehun’s breath away. It was all sorts of wonderful.
-
Another wave of heat comes and, stronger and more immense than all those that came before it, and suddenly it hurts to even think at all. Sehun’s entire body feels like it’s burning gold.
It all comes to an end soon enough, although he can’t pinpoint exactly when. Time bends and stops and stretches on, but Sehun’s already gone, floating back into the light with hope burning in his veins like lightning. The light that is so much like Baekhyun rises up like morning, swallowing up the dark, and Sehun finds himself unafraid. After all, how could he possibly be afraid of anything that reminds him of what he loves most? Sehun then envisions himself rising, up, up, up into the endless day. When Sehun finally opens his eyes, he’s enveloped in liquid gold, his entire being glowing amongst the lights in the sky.
As he turns, Sehun can almost see Baekhyun floating right beside him.
-
A few thousand years later, in 1785, a worker stumbles upon something interesting whilst digging to establish the palace of King Charles III. Upon further excavation, they unearth a land frozen in time, the ruins of the ancient city known now as Pompeii. After spending weeks carefully uncovering the infrastructures of the godforsaken ruins, one of the workers notices a peculiarity inside one of them. This leads to the haunting discovery of the shells of two intertwined figures, who were now nothing except ash, rust, and stardust.