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1.
Dust never falls, here. Dust never falls and the light never changes; a pale twilight filtering through the arched windows, a prelude to a night that never comes. Yoongi is sure it was dawn rather than dusk, when someone else stood behind the counter. Maybe it changes with each owner. Maybe Yoongi is wrong. Maybe it has been too long, way too long.
Head pillowed on crossed arms, sprawled over the counter, Yoongi watches a spider weave her web in the corner of the tall bookshelf to his left, full of leather-bound books he never read, trinkets of all kind he never touched. There’s a skull staring back at him with empty sockets, the skull of a bird-like creature that must have belonged to another world. Or another time, for sure, someplace forgotten and faraway. Yoongi used to wonder what all those objects were for, since they are not what he is selling. Yet they kept piling up, something new in the corner when he wakes up. But magic needs a place to rest, and maybe there are just that, repositories of the strange and the wonderful, relics of all that the world has lost as smog from high chimneys and the clanking noises of machines spilled into darkened streets.
But maybe Yoongi is wrong. Maybe it has been too long, way too long. A soft sigh escapes his lips as he turns his head, towards the windows and their eternal twilight, and he’d stopped looking out when the view wouldn’t change. Fields never reaped and never sowed, yet always full of golden wheat shuddering under the wind, a timid crescent hanging overhead, in a sky caught between light and dark.
The sigh that escapes him then is heavier, one of those with lost thoughts riding on their tails. When he turns again the spider is resting in the middle of her web and Yoongi stares, finding something comforting, something of beauty in the regularity of the patterns, in the shine of the thread. We’re alike, he thinks, both waiting for something, for someone to get caught in their web. He closes his eyes, a weary fatigue nesting in his limbs, in his cells, and maybe if he wishes for it hard enough he can melt into the counter, into the wooden floor, become a spider himself, weaving shapes with silk thread. But here nothing ever changes, and when the copper chime above the paneled door sounds softly, Yoongi straightens behind his counter, tries out a smile, and gestures a welcome to the customer.
“How may I help you?”
2.
The kettle’s whistle pulls Yoongi from his reverie and he stands, the chair scraping back on the tiled floor. The light is always nicer in the kitchen, warmer, and that made it his favorite room. There is plants on the windowsill who never grow and foodstuff on the shelves that never go bad. Somehow, the tea tin is always full, the pantry never lacking. The house takes good care of him, and Yoongi sits down, staring at his lonely cup steaming in the middle of the square table. There is no other chair opposite his, just as there is only one set of cutleries, only one cup, only one bed. He stares until the steam stops rising, until the cup is cold to the touch, the liquid perfectly still inside. Still, just as everything else.
Yoongi dumps his untouched tea in the sink and stares at the dark liquid mixing with clear water as he rinses it out. When the water cuts off silence dawns on him, thick and heavy, and as he reaches out to put the cup back on its shelf he opens his hand instead, the cup falling from his grasp, crashing on the tiles with a satisfying noise. He leaves them there, the shattered bits of porcelain; he could yet influence this still world, after all. Not for long, as he comes to know; and the cup is back on its shelf, unmarred, just as the tiles at the foot of the sink bears no trace of the incident. Yoongi stops drinking tea, then. Yoongi stops liking the kitchen as much. But this, too, he gets used too.
3.
The copper chime above the door sounds again, dragging Yoongi from under the counter where he sits cross-legged, absorbed in an old picture book. East of the Sun, West of the Moon the cover reads, and Yoongi had forgone the words of the tale in favor of the pictures. A woman weeping in a dark forest, golden hair falling in her lap; a knight astride a black horse leaping into battle, arrows and fire, his enemies’ shields raised, and the young woman, again, on the back of a white bear, moon shining overhead in a winter’s sky. Still worlds full of wonder and each one fascinates him, soft colors and sharp lines speaking to him of faraway lands and ardent heroes he wishes he could follow. But the chime had sounded, and so he closes the book, puts it away under the counter, his customary smile on his lips as he raises.
A man stands in the middle of the shop, looking cautiously around him, pretty like only sad people can be. It must be love, then, Yoongi thinks, and he clears his throat to attract attention. Still not soft enough, and the man jumps as he turns towards him.
“May I help you?”
The man has sharp, dark eyes and Yoongi stares, trying to soften his expression into one of reassurance. The man tilts his head, considering him, thoughtful.
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s okay, I am. What do you need help with?”
A hesitant smile finds its way on the man’s full lips and he steps closer, still cautious, still wondering, but there is magic in this place and it always finds a way.
“I don’t need help with anything.”
“Are you sure? You wouldn’t be here if you did not.”
The man cocks his head, clearly amused, and takes the last step separating him from the counter. Up close he looks younger than Yoongi first thought. Tired, too, and those eyes, full of a darkness Yoongi knows well.
“Maybe I am lost.”
“If you want to believe that, you can.”
“That’s a strange answer.”
“You’re in a strange place.”
A laugh, and the man seems to find a new resolve, something of a challenge in his sad eyes.
“Alright. Anything?”
“Anything.”
The smile stays on his lips as he answers and Yoongi stares at the lips moving, words he didn’t expect softly falling.
“I wouldn’t mind something to drink, then.”
Yoongi stares, features carefully blank. The man stares back, a new light in his eyes that has Yoongi lower his gaze, down to his pale hands over the counter, to his bitten nails that haven’t grown in years.
“Just a drink? I can give you so much better.”
The man is still smiling when Yoongi looks up, but there’s a faraway look in his face, eyes looking through years to things bygone.
“There’s this drink my mum used to make me, when I was sick. A long time ago. There was lemon and honey, sugar and a little bit of rum. It was warm and lovely. I want this. I want you to have it with me.”
“Alright,” says Yoongi, and he trudges around the counter, the man following him without a word through the little archway he has duck under to get to the landing that leads towards the kitchen, with its small door of pretty stained-glass panels. The man has silent steps, Yoongi gazing above his shoulder to make sure he follows. And he is, looking this way and that, a dreamy smile still on his lips. Something warm spreads in Yoongi’s veins, then. A companion, he thinks. Someone to have drinks with, someone to lead through the house and show pretty things to. The warmth doesn’t last, shriveling under the stillness of the winter inside him and the hole it leaves is quickly filled with ashes. Nothing ever changes, here. Yoongi’s gaze falls from the man’s face, and he won’t look again.
Yoongi pushes the kitchen’s door open and the kettle is on the stove, whistling as he steps inside, a pot of honey and half a lemon standing on the counter next to it. When Yoongi opens the cupboards there’s two mugs waiting for him, two plates for the little biscuits he finds in the pantry, next to a bottle of rum. He looks back at the sound of a chair scrapping on tiles and the man has taken a seat in Yoongi’s chair. But there’s another, identical but for the color of its wood, and Yoongi gingerly sits on it once the drink is made, expecting it to disappear at any moment.
But it stays solid under him and he watches the man clasps his hands around the steaming mug, breathing in the smell of lemon and honey, the woody undertones of rum.
“It smells just like it.”
He takes a sip, tentative, dark eyes peering at Yoongi over the rim of the mug. Yoongi hasn’t touched his own drink yet.
“Tastes like it, too. Thank you. It’s just what I wanted.”
Yoongi nods slowly, staring at his own mug, at the steam rising from it. He half expects the man to be gone when he looks up but he’s still there, solid and overly radiant amidst the washed-out tones of this frozen place.
“I used to be sick a lot, as a child. And then I wasn’t, but maybe I kept pretending a little. And she knew, but maybe she kept pretending she didn’t. So I would stay nestled in blankets and she would give me this to drink, with only a dollop of rum on account of me being a child. It was like a magic potion. It was nice. And then she wasn’t there to make the drink anymore, and I was never able to get the taste right on my own. But this is it. This is just right.”
Yoongi feels he has to, and so he smiles, a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He doesn’t remember this kind of feeling. Doesn’t remember the people, nor the places; doesn’t remember what happened when he was sick, if someone was there with him, or if he was alone, shivering in his bed until it passed. Maybe he was like the princesses in the books, a sad orphan raised by a wicked stepmother who didn’t love him. He chooses this as the truth, then, something he wouldn’t mind having forgotten.
“What is your name?”
“You don’t need to know. What is yours?”
“You don’t need to know either. But it’s Kihyun. Yoo Kihyun.”
“Yoo, like the willows?”
The man nods, and dark hair fall in his eyes, a hand raising to push them back. Yoongi watches the proceedings, something unfurling inside him. He used to like willows, he thinks, watching them sway in the wind, branches bent to the earth, trying to caress the river. The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows – a wall against the wind. Or maybe it was just a picture in a book that he read, black words on white pages; a weeping willow with sap like tears running down its pendulous branches. There’s metal in his jaw when he speaks again.
“Is that really all you wanted?”
“Yes. A memory, the past in a cup. It’s already a lot, you know. What did your childhood taste like?”
Yoongi stares into his mug as if the cloudy liquid inside it held the answer. He hears his own voice say that he doesn’t know, and yet, yet there’s something stirring in the depths of his mind, something ancient, sleeping under dust and rubbles. Yoongi doesn’t look, closes the door quietly, letting it burrow a little more under the weight of centuries. It will come out when it’s ready.
This time when he looks up, the man is gone. The chair he sat in, too, and the mug he held in his hand. Yoongi’s own cup is cold and empty.
4.
Yoongi’s sinking in an old rocking chair, a book opened on his crossed legs. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and as he lived, he wondered. Yoongi looks up, to his own windows and beyond, where the sky yet remains the same, a summer day eternally fading into night, the moon still an idea hiding behind soft clouds tinted crimson by the setting sun. And as he looks on a strange peace touches his restless thoughts; something almost warm he cradles against his chest lest it would be gone too soon. The golden fields sway softly under the wind and for once he doesn’t hate them; he lets his gaze wander over the hills painted on the horizon, and he wonders if he could ever reach them, were he to step outside, if maybe the gates of dawn laid beyond and were they to open time would flow again.
It’s a short-lived hope, a small smile making its way onto his lips as his gaze falls back to the page. Here the sun rises, and it will always rise, anytime he needs it to. Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. And it’s there in the room with him, warming his skin down to his bones, giving a shine to his dark hair. Yoongi revels in the imaginary sun, its image strong behind his eyes, chasing the dark nesting inside him. But it doesn’t last, for a breeze rises and this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness.
The gift of forgetfulness, Yoongi thinks, and he wonders if that’s what it was, at first, a gift which turned into a curse as he remained stagnant under a night that never fell. Maybe that’s what he had wished for, and the house had complied, giving him what he wanted. A shelter, undisturbed peace, and oblivion.
Yoongi turns the book over on his thigh, reclining back in his chair, slowly rocking as he closes his eyes. The wind in the willows, the cover reads, above a drawing of a river, a mole and a rat canoeing under the trees. Yoongi likes the river, he thinks, just as he likes willows and the wind on his skin. Again he doesn’t know if the memories are his, or something he read on a white page. But it’s there nonetheless, and it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t make it any less real.
A shiver goes through him then, a ghost kissing his skin. Eyes still closed he fumbles until he finds the knitted plaid thrown over the back of the chair. He pulls it around his shoulders, burrowing until he feels warm enough; and soon Yoongi falls asleep, the rocking chair coming to a stop as his breath evens. He dreams of meadows and slow rivers, of horned pipers in dark clearings, of willows, willows softly swaying in the wind.
5.
The chime sounds above the door, softly echoing throughout the house, into the kitchen where Yoongi’s staring at the coffee grounds at the bottom of his cup, where no future is to be read. He rises slowly, a tiredness washing over him and it seems he’s aged five years when he ducks under the archway to the front room. He stands there, staring at the customer who wandered near the bookshelves, reading the titles to himself.
“You have a good collection.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I got lost again.”
Kihyun has the same smile, the same eyes, the same dark hair, slightly tousled. He’s wearing a suit this time, and Yoongi doesn’t know what to do with him.
“You’re not supposed to come back. No one ever comes back.”
Kihyun shrugs, choosing a book on the shelf and opening it at random. He reads, and as he reads the tension in his face makes way to a soft kind of peace and Yoongi stares; the lines of his neck, his jaw, the slightly pouty mouth and sharp nose, the eyelashes, the hair, the hair falling over his brow. This is someone, Yoongi thinks, someone with a life of their own, with their own thoughts, their own hopes; people they are friendly with and a mother, a mother that used to make them a drink of honey and lemon when they were sick until she couldn’t anymore. Yoongi stares, feeling removed from life itself, a faraway visitor marveling at the wonderfulness of others.
Kihyun smiles then, turning towards him with the book opened in his hands.
“Listen to this, it’s good: ‘At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.’”
His voice takes on a new quality as he reads, as if it was only a vessel for these words that didn’t belong to him, as if they themselves dictated the tone and texture of the voice that should tell them.
“Is that what you wish for?”
“Hm?”
Kihyun raises his gaze to him and Yoongi holds it, feeling brave.
“To free yourself. Is that what you wish for?”
Kihyun smiles, shaking his head.
“No, not today.”
“No? What do you want, then?”
“I’m not sure. I just feel a bit tired.”
Kihyun puts the book back on the shelf and Yoongi watches, watches as he lifts a finger to caress the spines of the countless others filed there; some books Yoongi never read, some books he did and some he loved; some he goes back to when he needs a friend.
“Which one is your favorite?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you read to me?”
“Read to you?”
“Yeah. I’ll sit here, and you can read to me.”
“Alright,” Yoongi says without thinking, and as Kihyun shifts towards the chesterfield chair in the corner, he lets his fingers go over the books, eyes fleeting over the spines, until one feels right under his touch. A small, white book, smooth pages smelling of new paper. He sits cross-legged on the floor, back at the foot of the chesterfield, and Kihyun brings his knees up against his own chest, peering at the pages, peering at him. But when Yoongi starts to read, he closes his eyes.
“When I think about my younger brother, my heart bleeds like a burst pomegranate. I wonder why. Maybe because we were two and we didn’t receive much affection from our parents. I also think it’s because he died terribly young. The death of a twenty-one-year-old boy is difficult to imagine. It’s the age where you have the least relationship with death.”
There’s a shift behind him, a small gasp, and Yoongi pauses in his reading to gaze back. Kihyun’s eyes are still closed, his body limp against the back of the chair, curled up on himself like a child, like a sleeping animal. But he’s listening, Yoongi knows he is, and there’s a sadness at the corner of his lips, a wetness clinging to his eyelashes. But he’s waiting, and so Yoongi turns back to the page and keeps on reading, soft words with too much meaning coursing on white paper.
“…It would be so nice if I could keep on living this way, chastely like inorganic matter. If I could stay like this with my brother, without anything changing, altering, putrefying… Wishes came one after the other, overflowing in the shape of tears.”
Yoongi pauses again, a heaviness pressing against his chest, within and without. The thing inside him stirs again, blurred memories beginning to unthaw and he’s not sure he wants them out of the ruins he buried them in; maybe the things you lost lay better forgotten. He looks at the white pages, at the pale fingers gripping too hard, bending the soft cover of the book. It’s a conscious gesture to slowly let go, smoothing the cover, turning the page to get to the next sentence and maybe this one will hurt less.
Yoongi looks back, first, looks back at Kihyun, something solid and warm, someone to hold onto, and he’s half-afraid the chair will be empty. Not yet, though, and he watches Kihyun, half asleep, dark hair falling on wet cheeks and Yoongi wants to touch him, if just to marvel at the nearness of another human being. But Kihyun remains part of another world, one Yoongi left long ago, and if Yoongi can look he cannot touch.
So he turns back to the book, reading, reading until his voice tires and if time flew maybe it would already be morning. The last page is here, soft between his fingers and Yoongi wishes this book didn’t have to end, that they could stay here, in a time, in a room of their own. Yes, it could be perfect, he thinks, living chastely like inorganic matter, if only he wasn’t alone, if only the sun rose and set beyond the hills, if only, if only. Kihyun’s breathing is soft behind him and Yoongi’s voice lowers, almost to a whisper as he slowly works through the last page.
“Then, my brother died when the petals of the cherry blossoms began to drift like snowflakes. He couldn’t last past thirteen months. His body, at the end, was like a glass object.”
There’s a shift behind him, something like a sigh, and then, nothing. Yoongi doesn’t turn back. He knows what he will find.
“Only, when I think about my brother, I remember this snowy night where he held me against his heart, and I cry.”
Yoongi closes the book, placing it neatly on the floor before him, a white rectangle on the polished wood. He doesn’t turn back, frozen in the dim light. He feels the wetness on his cheeks and watches as drops roll down to his chin, where they collect and drip, falling to the folded hands in his lap. The chair behind him is already cold, as if no one ever sat in it.
6.
Wishes aren’t free. There is always a price to pay. A customer who asked for love had his sight taken away; they couldn’t see their beloved anymore. They didn’t mind, they took the deal anyway. Another one who wanted a cure for a dying friend was erased from the friend’s memory. They didn’t mind. They took the deal anyway. Yoongi wonders what Kihyun had to part with. Something small, for sure, in exchange for a warm drink and a night spent reading. But these weren’t really wishes, even if the house provided. It was simply wants. Small desires. Maybe they were free.
But Yoongi knows there’s a devil in his hands, he knows nothing is ever given freely. So he keeps wondering, what did Kihyun had to part with. But Kihyun doesn’t come back for him to ask. Not for a long time. So Yoongi sits in the chair he sat in, sits and wonders, looking at his own hands, pale and never changing, never altering, never putrefying. He hopes it wasn’t much, but maybe it was; he knows the meaning these few moments had for him. Life had flown again, if for a little while, and something lost awoke in his mind.
And so he hugs his knees to his chest, waiting. Floating like inorganic matter in his twilight cell, and years don’t make a difference.
7.
“I didn’t think I’d come here again.”
Yoongi’s hands still on the small ornate box he’s playing with. Something different lays inside each time he opens it. Buttons, small bones. A silver chain. He doesn’t look towards the voice, gaze boring holes in the velvet-lined bottom of the box.
“I didn’t think you would, either.”
Kihyun takes a few steps, sits on the floor next to Yoongi. Yoongi still doesn’t look at him but he tilts his head towards him, listening, to his breathing and his voice and the rustling of his clothes as he settles.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I found a box.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
Kihyun hums under his breath and Yoongi still refuses to look at him, eyes set on the little box in his hands. But he doesn’t need to look to feel Kihyun’s warmth, to feel the pull of his body next to his and his hands tightens around the box, edges digging into his palms. There’s a shift next to him, tentative fingers fleeting over his and Yoongi lets Kihyun take the box from him, the ghost of Kihyun’s touch lingering over his hands.
Yoongi watches as Kihyun opens the box with quiet anticipation, watches his face scrunch up in wonder as he looks inside.
“Oh.”
“What is it?”
“A poppy.”
Kihyun holds out the red bloom to him and Yoongi takes it, the soft petals strangely bright amidst the grey tones of the room. Just like Kihyun, he thinks, and only then does he look at him, gaze wandering over his face, over the collarbones peaking from his shirt, over the hands gently folded over the box. He looks new, Yoongi thinks, and yet, strangely at home amidst the odds and ends of the little shop.
“It’s your turn.”
Yoongi nods, tucking the poppy behind his ear as he takes the box from Kihyun, who scoots closer, eager to see what will be in it. But Yoongi hesitates over the closed lid, something shifting in the air, something like a warning weighting over his shoulders. What felt like a game suddenly isn’t anymore, and he traces the pattern carved on the lid with a cold finger, Kihyun watching him with curiosity.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s a lie, he thinks. He knows what it is. An old fear, one he knows well. Yoongi feels the red petals of the poppy against his temple, the warmth of Kihyun at his side, the cold of his insides and there’s something stirring in the depths, the door he wished shut struggling open.
“Open it for me.”
Yoongi shoves the box towards Kihyun, who takes it back without questions and flips the lid, peering inside.
“It’s just a sheet of paper.”
A sheet of paper, folded in four, that Kihyun takes out of the box with too much care.
“It’s old. All crinkly.”
“Show me.”
As he slowly unfolds the paper, it seems to Yoongi that he already knows what it is, what he will find there. And he’s right, of course, the handwriting dotting the page in a loopy scrawl painfully familiar.
“You know, I always wonder what you felt. If you knew you were going to die when the water filled your lungs, or if you still hoped someone would come for you. Someone told me it didn’t hurt, that once the panic ceased, it was like falling asleep.
I wonder what my life would have been like, if the bloated corpse they brought back hadn’t been yours. If I would have kept on hoping you were alive somewhere and that you would come back, like you promised. You know, sometimes I forget you’re not here anymore. I wake up in the middle of the night and I look for you. I think you must be reading in your armchair, just like you did when you couldn’t sleep. But the house is empty, and I remember. I miss you and I don’t know how to make others understand.
I started to fold my clothes the way you used to, to cook the way you used to; I sleep in your room. They say it’s unhealthy, that I should leave and start over somewhere. But I’m afraid to leave, and to forget you. To find myself really alone because I don’t know how to go on anymore.”
Kihyun is reading above his shoulder, breath hitching in his throat, and Yoongi lets the paper flutter to the floor, placing the open box next to it.
“It’s a letter?”
Yoongi nods, silent. There’s a wetness clinging to his eyelashes, and it seems the floor isn’t solid anymore, giving out under him and he’s sinking; he’s sinking and the sensation shouldn’t be this familiar.
“From who?”
A touch like an anchor, Kihyun’s warm hand on his shoulder and Yoongi leans into it, all his weight in a welcoming embrace.
“I think I had a brother once. He had dark hair like you and a wide smile, and he liked to play the adult even if he was just a kid.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened to him. It happened to me.”
Kihyun nods as if he understood everything and maybe he does, Yoongi thinks, maybe he does and maybe it’s fine, he’s still here, still solid and warm.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Yoongi nods, feebly, and they stay like this for an eternity or so it seems, Yoongi’s back resting against Kihyun’s chest, both hidden in the shadow of the tall shelf. And maybe it’s the smell of the poppy, or maybe it’s just the warmth and the silence, but soon, Yoongi falls asleep. And when he sleeps, he dreams.
8.
There’s no distinction between sky and water, and the wind in Yoongi’s hair is cold, too cold. He’s sitting on a pier somewhere, and if he hears the river gushing under he can’t see it. Everything’s grey, a moonless twilight painting everything in shadows, and it seems the night will never come.
There’s a voice somewhere, words he can barely make out in a low murmur, and he heard them someplace else, he heard them in his own voice and it was warm, it was warm and there was someone else next to him, it would be so nice if I could keep on living this way, and it would, it really would, if I could stay like this with my brother, and Yoongi remembers, he has a brother, he has a brother who didn’t want him to go, who didn’t want him sitting on a pier under an empty sky but Yoongi’s tired, so tired, and it would be so nice if nothing changed, nothing altered, nothing putrefied, if he could stay like this, like inorganic matter…
And the voice is the voice of the water, of the night and the sky and it’s calling to him, depths of the darkest blue opening before him and he’s sinking, he’s sinking, and it’s a lie, he thinks, it’s not like falling asleep at all.
9.
Yoongi wakes with a jolt, gulping down air as if he’d been choking. His back hurts and he’s alone, he realizes, alone and slumped against the shelves, as if Kihyun had disappeared while still holding him. And he must have, Yoongi thinks, rubbing a sore spot at the back of his head.
His gaze falls to the letter and the little box next to it, and he stares for a long while, hesitant, until he carefully folds the paper and places it back into the box.
“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you behind. I didn’t mean to forget you. I was– I was lost.”
Yoongi closes the box, softly, and when he opens it again there’s a silver clasp in the shape of a leaf resting on the velvet lining, words he doesn’t know the meaning of engraved on its edges. Io suuicien lui damos amo. Yoongi stares, taking the clasp in his hands and it feels warm, as if someone had held it in their palm for a little while.
He pins it to his shirt, above his heart, and he feels better, somehow, as if the warmth of the silver was spreading to his being. He doesn’t question it; he’d learned long ago to accept everything that happened in the still house. The clasp stays there, above his heart, and it stays warm, a companion for those days with no beginnings nor ends, where Yoongi sits at the window, staring out at the golden fields, at the moonless sky overhead, staring and thinking.
The door he had refused to look at had been half-opened, light streaming in, over the dust and rubbles lying there undisturbed, and it had sufficed. He had remembered, and his dreams had all been the same; dark waters and a darker sky, him slipping, slipping to the depths, and the voice, always. But he wasn’t scared, not anymore. He was simply waiting. Waiting for a change.
10.
The chime above the door jingles and Yoongi raises from under the counter, his customary smile on his lips. A man stands in the middle of the shop, looking cautiously around him, pretty like only sad people can be. Yoongi’s smile turns more genuine, and he walks around the counter, leaning his back against it as he stares, stares at Kihyun.
“May I help you?”
Kihyun’s sharp, dark eyes falls on him and he tilts his head, considering him, thoughtful.
“This is new.”
Yoongi looks down, at the clasp shining on his chest.
“The box gave it to me.”
Kihyun nods, stepping forward. There’s something different about him, Yoongi notices. It’s like he’s seeing him for the first time, seeing how easily he belongs there, amongst the bric-a-brac of the shop, amongst the magic of the house.
“Do you know what the words mean?”
Yoongi shakes his head as Kihyun stops before him, close enough to touch. Kihyun lifts a finger, tracing the edges of the pin, slowly.
“Io suuicien lui damo amo. You are here in place of the ones I love. It’s old, very old. When people went away, they used to gift each other things with this inscribed. It’s a placeholder. So that you are not alone, even when all others are gone.”
“But I’m the one who left.”
Kihyun tilts his head, an infinite sadness in his pretty eyes.
“You remembered?”
Yoongi nods, and buries himself against Kihyun’s chest when he opens his arms for him, hiding, hiding the wetness of his cheeks and the guilt in his eyes.
“It’s okay. You’ve suffered enough.”
“Did you come for me?”
Kihyun is warm, warm and safe, and his hand finds Yoongi’s as he disentangles himself from him, staring into his eyes, wiping away the tears from his face.
“Yes, I did. It’s time, if you want to.”
Yoongi stares, and his gaze drifts, drifts to the shelves full of books, some he never read, some he did and some he loved; some he went back to when he needed a friend. He looks at the skull of the bird-like creature, at the little box he left on a shelf, at the objects that kept piling up, something new in the corner when he woke up. Magic needs a place to rest, and maybe he did, too.
“I think, I think I would be okay to go.”
Kihyun nods but doesn’t move, and Yoongi is grateful. He needs this to last, needs to feel a goodbye for this place he loved and hated, hated and loved, for this place that took care of him, that found him when he was lost and brought him back to himself.
“Will I ever meet you again? Wherever I go.”
“I don’t know,” Kihyun smiles, raising a hand to Yoongi’s cheek, tugging a strand of hair behind his ear where once there was a red poppy, and he’d been beautiful, that day, sad and beautiful.
“I will come with you. And if we lose each other, I’ll be here, until I find you again.”
He points to the silver clasp, and Yoongi understand its warmth, then, and he hopes all those people who parted centuries ago felt it too. So he nods, and Kihyun embraces him again, one last time, before tugging on his hand, towards the front door, the one that wouldn’t budge no matter how hard Yoongi tried.
It opens easily under Kihyun’s hand, and when Yoongi looks beyond, he’s staring at a rising sun.
11.
Dust never falls, here. Dust never falls and the light never changes; the soft shine of a waning summer afternoon, a prelude to a twilight that never comes. Head pillowed on crossed arms, the man behind the counter watches a spider weave her web in the corner of the tall bookshelf to his left, full of leather-bound books he recently decided to read one by one. There’s other trinkets, too, like the skull of a bird-like creature that must have belonged to another world, who he named and found a hat for. He wonders what all those objects are for, since they are not what he is selling. Yet they keep piling up, something new in the corner when he wakes up. But magic needs a place to rest, and maybe there are just that, repositories of the strange and the wonderful, relics of all that the world had lost as smog from high chimneys and the clanking noises of machines spilled into darkened streets.