Chapter Text
The end of the world came quietly.
It was like a shadow had passed over them, and as the splendour of the city rusted and dulled, the souls of its people faded and greyed.
The world was dead, and the decay was rushing to catch up.
“Log 97-
“It’s 87.”
“Log 87- sorry- Log 87 of the Sakurai Dig. This is Dr Tachibana speaking and it is Day 28 of the dig. It is currently 0825 and we have finished constructing a map of the cave system based on our drone’s scanners. We appear to have three- three pathways in the cave that will lead us to a large underground cavern containing pieces of architecture that could give us a better idea of what exactly we’ve found here- Maria, would you like to-”
“This is Dr Cavandenza speaking- the drones were unable to fully scan the cavern but they’ve managed to bring back some scans of what appears to be largely intact pieces of architecture. According to the renderings- here look, look at this shape here. It’s a stairway, going up the side of a large structure- a tower? The amazing condition of these structures are fascinating- how long have they been buried under this cavern? What is a piece of civilisation doing here, buried under a rock on the seafloor-”
“This is amazing.”
“Yeah, yeah it is.”
“Anyways, since we have our map, Dr Dienhiem and Dr Kanade will be leading separate teams down two of the paths we found to reach the cavern and hopefully get something we can carbon date- oh right, the cavern appears to be filled with air, despite being on the sea bed, which we believe is partially responsible for the condition of the architecture-”
“Dienheim team, heading out.”
“-which is to say, simply- oh, Carol! Good luck, I hope you- uh, this was Log 87, Dr Tachibana, signing out. Carol, you’re taking Chris and Kirika aren’t you-”
“-now next on today’s news, an international team of archaeologists under the C.CYGNI foundation has returned from an extensive one-year expedition with what may be the biggest archaeology discovery of the decade. We have Mary Sue on site now, waiting on their official statement.”
“Thank you Joan, this is Mary Sue from Neo news and I am here in Neo Tokyo, at the C.Cygni’s Neo Japan headquarters. In five minutes time, Sakurai Ryoko, the head of C.Cygni herself, will be giving us her official statement on what she considers not to be the biggest archaeological find of the decade, but the biggest find of the century.”
“Those are big claims Mary. We have with us today-”
On a Sunday, Minseok went to a park to pray.
In the summer of that year, something changed. It began with a crack no bigger than a fingernail, but it would become a fissure that rent the world and every world beyond. It began in the dead of night in a land of ice and snow, and by the next night, it had crept upon a land of spring and towering buildings.
The morning after, the boy had woken. The first rays of dawn met his eyes, and he could see it was a different dawn then the day before. It was a dawn he both dreaded and yearned for. He knew instantly, what had come and what was to come, and thus he roused from his bed and readied himself to pray.
It was bright and hot, his vision tinged with warm yellows and blurry with the haze of heat. In the park, he could smell the slow burn of the grass and trees. As he walked across the decorated pavement he felt the stone cook his shoes. The sun had intensified rapidly during his short walk and his skin was beginning to flare. In the park, he could smell the slow burn of the grass and trees. As he walked across the decorated pavement he felt the heated stone cook his shoes. Sweat dripped from his brow and his clothes clung to his damp skin. Vague memories of a similar trial, akin to a pilgrimage, came to mind. It had been a different lifetime and made under harsher conditions in a yawning desert of red sand but no doubt the Sun was attempting to replicate it here for him.
Minseok had never been in this park before, but they said it had a good, large pond in the centre. He had heard it was a plain pond, bare of any fountains and statues, set in a deep circular pool. There would be an abundance of koi and aquatic plants, but they wouldn't be much of a hindrance in the way of Minseok's plans.
He continued walking deeper into the park, passing by the first few joggers of the morning and an early couple, poised to take pictures of the dawn. None of them reacted to his presence, none of them moved. They were all frozen in place, separated from time as was the birds suspended above them and the ants below. At that moment the park contained the boy and only the boy, in all ways save physical.
Minseok followed the scent of algae threaded water and found the pond where it should be, that is, sitting solemnly in the daylight. It was a pretty thing, in his opinion, and it reminded him of the pond he used to keep once, in a home beyond the stars. That pond had been gold bottomed and though it was devoid of fish it had thrived with plants.
The chatter of summer cicadas and restless birds had long since disappeared, and a passing by family froze mid-step; a child in a laugh, a father wiping the sweat from his brow. Amongst the water lilies, a hidden dragonfly was suspended in the space between a wide leaf and a pink petal, it's wings glistening in the noon light.
As Minseok stepped into the pond, bare feet made contact with the still waters and golden robes cascaded down to pool on the solid surface of the pond.
From afar, it seemed as though Minseok was turning into gold; his ratty blue shirt was slinking behind a shimmering bronze vest, his jeans hiding behind the long hems of a tunic. A golden robe had tucked itself around Minseok's torso, his hands buried in large, long sleeves. The transformation ended as a circlet of golden fur sprouted across Minseok's hazel hair.
Minseok looked up at the sun and sank down to his knees.
“I am here.”
The sun looked down and a tremor shook the ground. He remembered, faintly, that when he previously did this the entire temple shook violently and glowed hot with power. The Sun was weaker here, but the next step remained the same.
It brought the full brunt of his light upon the kneeled boy. He closed his eyes and let the light burn him. If he was true and worthy it would not hurt him, and if he was not he would return to ashes the moment the light touched him.
The sun looked down, and to the boy,
i t
s a n g
̴̧̠̻̺̦͚͕͖͇͎͌͋t̶͉͇̆̌͛̇̆́̒͝ḥ̶̢͎̹͉̪̦͖̖̺̃ę̵̨̛̠̭̲́͌̀̄ ̶̧̡͖̭̬̞̬͎͈͚̮̇͐̏̄͌͋͂̽̊̌͜͝g̷͖͂̑ ̵̨̙̘͚̺͇̻̯͙̽̋̃̏̓̕R̶̨̢̫͕͂̇ ̶̛̪̺̐̋̇͐͌̂̈́͊̄e̷̹͎͉̣̘̎͜ͅ ̸͕̎A̶̛̠͉̝̜̙͙̩̠̠͒̈́̊̆̈́̽͛͛̚̕͜͝ţ̴̼̘̭̱̻̻̟̠͎̀͊̓̈́ ̴̬̞̹͓̥̟̮̲̏͠Ş̸͉̯̞̘̚ͅȰ̴̧͚̥̭̲̬̲͜n̵͈͇̠̝̪̱͍̠̹͂͒̓ǧ̵̡̹̠̺̞̲̰̱̞͓̀̓̃̎̿̈́̈́͜͜
̷͓̞̥̺̩̘̯̰̫̩̆͐̔̅̈́̕̚͝Ļ̶̡͓̝̻̰͎̈́͑̀̾͗̀͒͝ä̸̢̬̤̣̳͎̖́̏͆̽͜ ̴̞̗͕̙̘͍̝̠̰͗̔͊͊̾͂̎̈́̎͆̕͝ͅĄ̷͕̘̝̪̳̘̙̯̞͎̀̀̐͝Ḩ̷͎̕ ̴̡̫̟̜̥̬͎͖̔̔̓̓̐͋̐͑͊̚͜͜A̷̡̦̍̉͗̾̕͝ ̷̘͚̙͇̣͙̫͐̋̈́Ā̶̢̨̨̨̪̮͖͕͕̙̯̱͐̈́̅ ̷̢̨̺̭̻̺̲̳̋̂̅̈́̒͝͠͝l̴̟͓̙̘̯̼̹͔͚̘̃͋͌͐̀͘͘͝ͅȁ̸̧̟̱̤͙̃̈́͜ ̶̡͕̰͓̗̭̓̾͂F̷̣̣͐͊̆͐͊͘̕̕ ̵͓͕̩͑̂̍̓̍̚͝a̷̢̗͍̥͚̜̙͔̽̏͗̓̀̋͝ ̷̰̐͐͊̉̋̄̍͂̔̋̿ḷ̷̞̮̭͎͈͕͕̓͌̋́͝ ̶̧͇͉̽͒̆̄̈́͒̏̋a̴̢̨̳̖̼͉͇̬̱̐͜ä̷͓̳̳͕̤̮̝͂͊͊̽͒̽̀̂̄ą̸̢͓͎͎̘͈̰͈̫͒̄͌̓̄̔͊̊͋͊͘
A beat. Then two.
The light faded and the Sun, omnipresence and all-seeing, bore witness to his unscathed form.
“I have returned,” he said softly, still on his knees. Minseok waited, and when the voice did not continue, he bowed, thanked the sun, and walked away from the pond.
Unfrozen, the passing by family could not for the life of them recall the day being so hot, or the boy who walked away from the fountain in too-long jeans and a threadbare shirt.
-{END OF PROLOGUE}-
And from the sea, she emerged, limbs of foam and hair like woven pearls.
The first thing she saw was the Sun, and the Sun who looked back upon her graced her with light.
Loved was she by all who saw her, and love did she, all that she saw.
In the northern shopping district of Neo Seoul was an unassuming clothing store, one of many in a chain and opening late into the night. It was surrounded by similar stores, some with the hours to match, and went up two storeys. It saw a fairly decent amount of traffic, enough to keep it running safely. Today it was attracting the most attention out of all it’s rivals, due to the unfortunate fact that it was on fire.
Neighbouring stores, also in varying degrees of fire, were emptying as fast as they could. But the congestion was horrible, because the street was a small one could barely squeeze two cars through when empty, and barely a car when vendors and shoppers filled it on an average night. It was proving difficult for firefighters to go in with the panic and space, and the damage was growing by the second.
Within the store where the fire had originated, there were few spaces free of flames left, and one of these few spaces was occupied by four people and a creature.
Towering before three cowering young adults was a humanoid creature formed of sizzling, soot-black rock, four-armed with muscled lion legs. It’s three curling horns grazed the ceiling, one pulsating with an ominous light, and through it’s uneven, pointed teeth it growled and hissed at the humans.
“Surrender, guardian!”
“Never heard of that word, sorry.”
Standing between the monster and the three humans was a young man, dressed in the most unusual of clothes. Like a prince in a fairy tale, he was dressed in a white blazer, his lapels and collar a striking azure. Connected by thin chains, a pair of silver doves rested on each jacket breast. Underneath his blazer was a honey-coloured vest and beneath that a white dress shirt with a blue ribbon at his neck. It was an odd thing to wear to a fire, but then again, there was no precedence for such an occasion.
The oddly dressed young man, his face obscured by a golden mask, spoke to the three hiding behind him.
“I’m going to distract it, and when I do the three of you need to run away as fast as you can.”
The three nodded fearfully, and the young man reached for his belt. The monster reared back and charged, reaching out grab and crush him between its grotesquely elongated hands. It closed its fist around empty air, and for a moment it was confused. Then a cord wrapped around its neck and sent it toppling backwards.
One of the three civilians gasped as the young man jumped up and over the monster, landing neatly behind it to throw out a whip. When the monster toppled, he looked at them and yelled at them.
“Hurry up and go!”
They bolted away and out into the street, leaving him alone with a fully recovered and angry monster. The young man’s brave facade started to slip.
“Well, just you and me left buddy.”
It roared and charged, horns first. The young man dove to the side, letting it crash into the wall. It dazed him and bought the young man precious minutes, but the building began to make ominous sounds. The young man swore to himself and looked around for anything, anything that could help. He needed to do this without severely injuring the monster.
He took note of the changing room doors around him, the shattered display window he could barely see through the smoke, the loose mannequin head rolling by and- the fire hydrant, right outside that window.
He grinned.
The monster shook its head and roared, whipping it’s heavy head around. It spotted the grinning young man and in a fit of mindless rage, charged. It blew through the store, a strangely smooth process until it hit something that was most definitely not the young man, something solidly rooted to the ground and rumbling ominously.
Outside the store, those who braved the initial fire and the sight of the monster charging out bear witness as water bursts out the damaged fire hydrant. It arcs above, spraying those unfortunate enough to be below. The monster bellowed as he freed his horns from the hydrant, it’s skin sizzling violently as the water comes into contact with it. The young man takes his chance to run towards the monster, jumping up and bringing a blade down on a one pulsing horn.
The horn shattered on impact and the monster roared, which turned to a scream, and then into a whimper as it shrunk down, shedding thick layers of charcoal until there was nothing left but a woman, a human woman, who slumped forward into the peculiar young man’s arms.
“Shit.”
He laid her out onto the sidewalk and checked her pulse, her breathing. When he found both he sighed in relief. Around him the fires had begun to weaken, leaving with their summoner, and the firefighters surge into the area with renewed vigor. One spots the unconscious woman and the dressed up man through the smoke. He runs forward, but when he emerges from a wall of smoke the unconscious woman’s only company are three teenagers, two with their phone pointed at the sky. Their cameras are trained on the figure on the rooftop, and someone calls out.
“Hey! Cadet Venus-”
“- is probably a bit of a narcissist,” says panellist A.
Baekhyun sneezes and reaches for the remote. He’d turned on the local tabloid talk show, run by what appeared to be eight exhausted college students, three adults who’d never seen a television and a lifetime supply of coffee.
Panellist B is a lot less nice. “A bit? This crazy guy runs around at night in a costume- he’s got an ego as colourful as his gadgets!”
He sneezes again and accidentally switches the channel. It’s the channel that always runs news, or traffic and weather updates when there was no news to report. It was on the weather now, a smiling woman predicting rainfall in the afternoon. Baekhyun sneezed again and Kyungsoo looked up at him in worry.
“I thought idiots couldn’t catch colds.”
Baekhyun went back to the bowl of cereal waiting for him at the table, Kyungsoo across it. His best friend since babyhood was smiling at him, but there was worry in his eyes.
“It’s a sign I’m getting smarter,” Baekhyun jokes. “It’s not that bad. Feel a little chilly, that’s all.”
Kyungsoo looked unconvinced. He could count on one hand the number of times Baekhyun fell sick per year. “If you say so. But you should sit out of sports later.”
Baekhyun wrinkled his nose at him. Getting hit in the face by the equivalent of a water bazooka had been tough, but he wasn’t willing to go down that easily. And they had games for sports that day. No one got hurt or tired from games.
“- and an update on last night’s fire at the shopping district B-”
Baekhyun turned to see the television in the living room.
“- 7 people are still hospitalised for smoke inhalation, minor burns and injuries obtained during the panic. Witnesses at the scene report to having mass hallucinations-”
Baekhyun scoffed. That was one way to handle a literal monster burning down a store. He put the last piece of toast in his mouth.
“I heard that Cadet Venus guy was there,” Kyungsoo mentioned. “One of my classmates sent a video around.”
“Really? Cool.” he paused for a bit to consider his next words. “What do you think?”
Kyungsoo picked up his plate and moved towards the sink. “What do I think about what?”
Baekhyun switched the tv off. “What do you think about Cadet Venus?”
It sounded inconspicuous enough, but Kyungsoo eyed him suspiciously. Baekhyun’s heart skipped a beat as a spike of anxiety shot up his spine.
“You have a crush on the guy don’t you?”
No, Baekhyun thought, because he wasn’t that much of a narcissist. Really. But then he also really wanted to know what Kyungsoo thought of him. Indiscreetly.
“I mean, he is handsome.” Because he’s me, Baekhyun thinks, and my amazing heartthrob face can capture hearts even through a mask.
(Maybe he was just a little bit narcissistic.)
Kyungsoo snorted. “Of course you like the guy who saves the day in cosplay.”
“Excuse me. Excuse me. By that logic, every superhero is a cosplayer. Superman. Iron Man. Wonder Woman. You just called Wonder Woman a cosplayer, have you no shame-”
His tirade was broken by the bell of his front gate and a voice calling out from them. “Soo Hyung! Baekhyun Hyung! We gotta leave for school now!”
Kyungsoo practically shoved the plate he was holding in the drying rack. “Jongin is here. Let’s go- stop that!” He pointed a fork at Baekhyun’s best impression of a single actor porno.
“Your boyfriend is here! Here for his ‘Soo’ Hyung-”
Kyungsoo grabbed his bag and ran for the door. “I’m leaving you!”
“No! Think of the children! Kyungsoo!”
Baekhyun ran out after him, grabbing his jacket and his bag. For a moment, something blue glowed from his jacket pocket.
Kim Minseok's home was minimalistic if one was to comment on the lack of furniture without seeming like a bitch. (If you wanted to be the bitch you could call him poor, but there were very few people in the world that gutsy.)
The apartment was squarish, half of it making both Minseok's living room and bedroom. Pushed up against a wall was a mattress, and on the wall adjacent to it was a low table, a cabinet and a small bookshelf. The shelf was laden with books, both for school and for leisure. The table contained what was left of Minseok's homework and a battered laptop, feeding lines of news from a live broadcast.
“… Today in Neo Seoul we may expect a cloudy morning, but high winds may result in clearer skies towards the afternoon…”
Minseok himself was going about the kitchen, which was a small quarter in the apartment, readying what would be his fourth sandwich. The third was still clamped between his teeth, but if his stomach had any say in the matter, it would be gone in seconds.
“…We have invited Professor Egsavier with us today to discuss the collection of archaeological treasures unearthed last year …”
Minseok popped his bread into his toaster and poked his head out of his kitchen. On the screen of his laptop, a generic middle-aged man was seated at a panel, shuffling papers.
“… it appears to be either a merchant’s ship, with a crew returning home a long journey. We found a variety of fascinating goods from origins yet to be known, like these- these appear to be ceremonial tools, ornate and well preserved…”
Several photos flashed through the screen- a gourd-shaped stone the length and width of Minseok’s forearm, a rusted necklace made of interlocking crescents, an unassuming hexagonal box with a complex lock crawling across three sides and a curved dagger in two pieces.
Unexpectedly, Minseok recognised one of those things.
Four months ago Baekhyun’s favourite arcade and favourite staff member, a college student working part-time called Heechul, had re-installed an old hybrid game into a corner of the store.
“It’s something like a combination of ‘whack-a-mole, a crane game, and a lucky draw’,” Heechul explained, reading off the advertising on the side of the game.
“Those are combinable things?”
Heechul shrugged. “Apparently. Wanna be the first to give it a go?”
Because Baekhyun very secretly nursed a sort of puppy crush for the elder and he wanted dearly to impress him, he agreed to try. After two hectic attempts at understanding how it worked, he managed to clear the third round when the machine made an odd sound between a clunk and a fart, then Baekhyun heard something fall into the prize slot.
“Oh it’s the kind that gives prizes instead of tokens,” Heechul noted as Baekhyun bent down to reach the slot. “Guess I’ll have to re-stock it once in a while if it gets played. What’ve you got?”
Baekhyun held up a small, rectangular box. “Huh, thought these things usually came in capsules.”
He pried it open and Heechul leaned closer to look. It was a pen, the old kind that required a matching inkwell. It looked to be a pale gold at the upper body, with tiny silver doves chasing each other around, and a light turquoise towards the nib. The ring of foam dividing the two colours implied that it was the sea.
“Oh, I think I know what that is,” Heechul pointed at the sphere decorating the butt of the pen. “Must be Venus, the planet. The doves are supposed to be the symbol of the goddess or something.”
“Cool,” Baekhyun answered. There was an odd feeling building up in him the longer he looked at the pen. “Looks like one of those expensive pens you keep in a glass case.”
Heechul agreed. “Keep it safe. I’ll try and figure out if the rest of the prizes here are like that and how the hell I’m gonna stock it. Hey, Jungsoo! This machine is wack!”
“Did you break it?”
Baekhyun closed the box and went around playing a few more games, smiling at Heechul if he passed by while checking around, sometimes with his boss, Jungsoo, at his elbows. and he almost forgot about that pen. Eventually, he headed home, and he remembered the box he’d stuffed into his bag. He took the pen out, running a finger over the doves, the engraved seafoam, and on a whim, he tossed it up in the air.
The following sequence of events was what he could only describe as a magical girl transformation.
Glowing. Glittering. Sparkling. Then boom.
He’d looked at the princely suit he was wearing in a mirror, complemented by various accessories like the gold eye mask, the smart beret and the magically dyed blonde hair- then he struggled to un-transform for an hour and threw the pen out his window.
Baekhyun was an adventurous, thrill-seeking, hyperactive teenager but accepting a magic pen was pushing it.
He’d thought it was over and done with but the next day he opened his pencil case and the pen was innocently nestled between his pens.
He’d tried various ways to get rid of it over the next few days but it followed him like a dog- only dogs were cute, sentient creatures, deserving of love, and supposed to follow you but this creepy pen was not. He tried breaking it next, but the pen might as well have been made out of diamonds. He gave Kyungsoo a heart attack when the former caught him trying to blender the pen. He was banned from the kitchen for a week until Baekhyun could wear him down with his sulking.
Eventually, he gave up and let the pen be. It made a good toy for his fidgety fingers and as long as he didn’t make it somersault in the air it wouldn’t turn him into the main character of a magical girl anime. Not that he didn’t like the outfit. It emphasised his butt well and he was very proud of his ass he considered it his best asset. But he never saw much reason to use it until one of the school chickens mutated into a three-headed, giant, murderous poultry Frankenstein.
It had been a cool day, which was Kyungsoo noted to be odd as it should have been getting warmer as they progressed into summer. But instead, they were getting sudden bouts of rain that turned the air muggy. There was a restlessness stirring and Baekhyun initially suspected that a fight had broken out when he heard the screaming.
He had been in his classroom, tuning out the muffled panic looking for his- he didn’t remember. But he did remember looking up as a large shadow passed by the window and coming face to face with a three sets of horribly magnified chicken beast eyes. He’d shrieked as any sane person would, and it shoved a beak through the windows and right at him. He scrambled along the ground for his bag, and his pencils spilt out. Baekhyun had zoomed in on it, or specifically, the glowing light it was emitting and something had clicked. He dove for it, ripping out the pen as the chicken monster broke down the classroom wall and tossed it up.
He didn’t remember exactly what happened next, only that there was a great deal of multicoloured light and the vague recollection of very unfamiliar, very embarrassing phrases coming out of his mouth. The end of the memory faded oddly and when he came to he was at home on his bedroom floor, aching.
Up till two weeks ago, that was the extent of it. A plant gone rogue, a cat or bird going ballistic in the park. The plant mutants tended to be easier since they were slower and more fragile. Baekhyun, or Cadet Venus as he had taken to calling himself, usually needed to hit them twice or thrice. Animals were of a varying range, considerably faster and stronger. But in exchange, they seemed to exhaust themselves quickly.
But then the weird mutants started to beat Baekhyun back. He was still winning, obviously, because he was great, but he was coming out of fights with more cuts and bruises. The town was coming out of fights with way more screaming, fire and rubble. And as the only person who could do anything about, Baekhyun was going to be adding detective work to his repertoire of skills soon.
-{INSERT MISSING SCENES}-
Baekhyun was a great wingman. If being a wingman was a job, he’d have an amazing resume to send that would get him hired on the spot. The company would take one look and they’d say wow! You were the one responsible for getting Do Kyungsoo and Kim Jongin together? That’s amazing! You’d be perfect at our weird wingman company.
It began like this: Byun Baekyun, social butterfly and aspiring singer, had been friends with Do Kyungsoo, introverted theatre star, since their mothers had run into each other at the hospital- Mrs Byun on a checkup for her several months old baby and Mrs Do on a checkup for her yet to be born baby.
Kyungsoo was amazingly talented on the stage. He had joined the theatre when he was in his last year of elementary school and once everyone realised that he was exceedingly good at it, he kept at it. Baekhyun still remembered being completely stunned at Kyungsoo’s first play, at this complete transformation his best friend went through. Suddenly he was confident, flirtatious and outgoing- a complete opposite to what Baekhyun knew. And to Baekhyun’s absolute delight, acting gave him more confidence in real life. He made more friends, smiled more, talked more- there were fewer people Baekhyun had to punch for calling Kyungsoo creepy.
Come late last year Kyungsoo went on a play about tap dancing. Baekhyun had watched him play a murderer, a figment of someone’s imagination and an amnesiac prince before so he was excited to see what his best friend would do with his latest character. They had the dance club come in as extras and instructors, and since Kyungsoo had gone as far as to join a judo club outside the school for a previous role, Baekhyun expected him to approach the dance club. What he didn’t expect was for Do ‘dating-is-a-waste-of-time’ Kyungsoo to develop a massive crush one of the dancers. A planet-sized, woefully cute crush.
“This isn't funny!” Kyungsoo had hissed at him in the janitor’s closet, the third time that week he’d dragged Baekhyun into a convoluted evasive manoeuvre when his crush came near.
“If you get to disapprovingly look at me every time I go to the arcade to see Heechul, I get to giggle at you when you avoid Jongin.” Baekhyun giggled again and got a headlock for his trouble.
He liked Kim Jongin. The younger boy reminded him of Kyungsoo in a lot of ways. Baekhyun had seen him dance three tap dance routines perfectly and amazingly, then two hours later on the way home, he saw the same boy trip three times and knock into a wall while chasing a stray dog. The gap between their on-stage personas and their off-stage selves were cutely similar. He and Kyungsoo were practically soulmates.
Baekhyun was going out of his way to create situations where Jongin and Kyungsoo could talk to each other, like the time the student playing Kyungsoo’s love interest in the play was out sick and he ingeniously suggested Jongin step in.
It was a perfect plan- Jongin was the dancer guide for that particular dance scene so no one would question it. Baekhyun only had to worry about that very dangerous glare Kyungsoo sent his way and the high notes in the song his choir would be singing in the scene. Baekhyun watched Kyungsoo battle a very slight blush and to his absolute delight, he saw Jongin doing the same.
“Look, he’s definitely turning a little pink,” he whispered to Daehyun as they got ready. Daehyun looked dubious, but Taehyung, who was struggling to wolf down his sandwich before the teachers noticed, nodded enthusiastically. “He’s blushing. Super blushing.”
Baekhyun as vibrating with excitement the whole time the scene was playing. Daehyun had to smack his thighs before he’d noticed that the choir was about to sing. When the scene ended it took all of Baekhyun’s willpower, and the knowledge that if he did such a thing Kyungsoo would cook cucumbers into his dinner forever, not to scream for the drama club to go into the next scene. The scene with the kiss.
“Go into the next scene!”
Baekhyun choked. That hadn’t been him- it was Juhyun, signalling the theatre club to move forward. When Kyungsoo had his back turned, she looked Baekhyun in the eye and flashed an ‘ok’ sign with her fingers.
“I could kiss her right now.”
Daehyun laughed. “Do’s going to murder you.”
“It wasn’t me and he has no proof.”
The choir moved away so the stagehands could roll a flat through. There was no singing in this scene so Baekhyun moved around the set to get a better view of Kyungsoo as he tenderly cupped Jongin’s cheek and tilted his face down. Baekhyun waited with bated breath as Kyungsoo moved forward slowly and their lips came into contact. Daehyun had followed him, and as Baekhyun came to the verge of exploding from excitement the elder clamped his hand over his mouth.
-{INSERT MISSING SCENES}-
The hallway was long. Baekhyun had been walking down it a good minute but he still couldn’t see the other end of it. There were windows at his sides, spanning from floor to ceiling and packed with thousands of sea glass. The decorative lattice that supported them would cast the shadow of birds once in a while.
The floor beneath his bare feet was rough, the way sand was, but solid and firm. There was a hand on his shoulder, and if he listened closely there was a soothing voice behind him. He couldn’t understand the language but he got the sense that he was being urged on. It sounded like a woman’s voice.
He came to a stop and before him loomed a pair of huge double doors. They were clear, like glass, and Baekhyun saw a young boy on the other side, his hair light as straw, with flowers in his arms. There was a woman behind him, her face shadowed, with golden hair that fell to her waist in curls. She had a hand on his shoulder.
Baekhyun reached out for the doors and the other boy did the same.
They yawned open at his touch, sweeping away from Baekhyun and revealing a candle-lit hall, thrice the height of the hallway. At the other end of the hall was the statue of a woman, her robes pooled at her hips to reveal her bare breasts. She was kneeling on an open clamshell, a hand on her chest and another across her stomach. Baekhyun stepped closer, entranced. Her hair was like the woman in the glass, long and curling.
The hand on his shoulder moved down to the flowers he hadn’t noticed in his arms. It guided him, lifting the flowers to the brazier that separated him and the statue. They caught on fire immediately- though he could feel no heat, and the hand that had guided him gave one last squeeze of his shoulder before disappearing and leaving Baekhyun alone with the statue.
He looked up one last time at the empty stone eyes and carved smile before advancing, forward to where the shell melded into the floor. He stopped at the lip of the shell, a bare inch below his eyes, and laid the burning flowers at the goddesses knees. He stood there and watched until the flowers crumbled into ash. A chant began, resounding through the room. No, a prayer song, a song for the goddess. Baekhyun knew her name. He knew it.
He opened his mouth to sing.
Baekhyun woke up with a start, the high pitched ringing of his alarm piercing his ears. His shirt was damp with cold sweat, and when Baekhyun fumbled for his phone, there was a tremor in his fingers.
“Ok,” he breathed. “I was a cultist in a past life? Not cool.”
-{INSERT MISSING SCENES}-
One of the reasons Baekhyun almost always volunteered for clean up duty was that it gave him a little alone time in the music room after the rest of the choir had left. Baekhyun did his best thinking in big empty spaces and listening to the slow hum of the school as the sunset gave him feelings. Odd feelings, like peace and nostalgia, and he really needed that right now.
He went around with the broom once, picked up a couple of left behind things like notebooks and water bottles and put them in the storage cabinet with the broken door. There were other lost and found items in it, from an umbrella to a keychain, and things that made Baekhyun smile, like notes for passing and a sweets box they stocked up regularly.
He went around to lock the other cabinets, where they put music books and spare instruments, and the storage room, where they kept folded chairs and the drum set. Eventually, he reached the piano in the corner. Baekhyun hadn’t played in a while but there was something stuck in his head. A tune he couldn’t place.
He sat down on the bench and eased the cover open.
They were getting stranger, these dreams and visions. As they got clearer they began to look like memories, but Baekhyun had never lived in places like that where fields of colour spread out into the distant hills. He’d never run around huge temples of white stone as a child. He had never seen that marble statue of a woman, looming above with the kindest smile, and laid burning flowers at her feet. He felt displaced, like he was getting mixed together with another person.
Baekhyun pressed down on one key, and then the next, and the next until he had that tune in his head flowing forward. It still sounded different from what was in his head, so maybe he was playing it wrong. He stopped at a note, grasping in his head for the next one when a hand fell on his shoulder.
“Jes- shit-”
He jumped and twisted in the bench, an amused boy behind him.
“Just me, just me,” Daehyun said, raising his arms in the air. “Sorry. I left my homework behind and heard you playing the piano.”
Baekhyun tried to calm his heart back down and nodded. “Yeah, hey, just tryna get this beat stuck in my head out.”
He nodded and went towards the storage cabinet. Baekhyun watched him riffle through the notebooks. For a moment his vision flashed and he was looking at Daehyun, but Daehyun was wearing white robes and leaning into a water fountain, laughing as his hair caught the spray. Daehyun was looking at him, holding a hand out and he was calling his name-
Baekhyun shut his eyes and willed it away. Just a hallucination, he thought. Just a weird fantasy.
“Hey.”
Baekhyun opened his eyes to see Daehyun in front of him, looking at him with concern. “Dude, you okay?”
Baekhyun cranked out a smile and tried to wave him off. “Just tired. The whole… mood the city’s been in, it’s got me feeling antsy I guess.”
Daehyun nodded in understanding, and Baekhyun had an idea. There was a slight chance he might know, and if he did it’d mean it wasn’t another weird dream thing.
“Hey,” he motioned to the piano. “By any chance, have you heard this tune anywhere before? I’m tryna remember it but I keep running into a memory block.”
He played out the tune, his fingers dancing across the keys, up till the point he forgot and watched Daehyun’s face as he tried to think.
“Hey, I think I have!”
Baekhyun lit up. If Daehyun had heard of it must have a real song somewhere, not one of his hallucinations. Daehyun motioned for him to scoot to the side of the bench and sat down.
“Let me try and see if I got this right.”
He started playing the tune, and when he reached the point Baekhyun had left off he continued. Baekhyun listened, and it fit perfectly.
“Yeah! That’s the one. It still sounds a little different though but man, you really helped.”
Daehyun smiled at him. “No problem. I don’t remember the song precisely either so it might be that, or if I’ve got my head on right it’s supposed to be a different instrument. Must be from a thing when we were kids.”
Baekhyun nodded. That sounded right. Well, it made more sense than ‘mystical forces stuck it into my brain’. He felt his mood lift from the small reassurance and clapped Daehyun on the back.
“Really, thanks. That tune’s been stuck in my head for a week and it feels great getting it out.”
Daehyun laughed, a little taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm but happily rolling along with it. “Whatever you say dude. Oh, and remember that we’ve got an extra morning practice next Monday. Taehyung’s been extra jittery. First public show and all.”
“Got it.”
-{INSERT MISSING SCENES}-
The third sports hall where the small, neighbourhood kendo club practised on the weekends had flooded apparently last night when the sudden, violent rain had blown in one of the glass windows in the ceiling and let in the rain. When Baekhyun’s own hapkido class came to an end, there was a congestion of confused people with bamboo swords stuck in the lift lobby so he opted to take the rarely used stairwell near the toilets.
When he entered, someone was already there, slumped on a step. Baekhyun caught sight of his school’s badge pinned to his bag and diverted himself to the other side of the stairs. The badge was gold, so that meant he was in the upper years of the school.
A hand shot out, closing around his wrist and for moment Baekhyun’s skin burned.
He whipped around, staring at the hand on him, hissing, then he looked at its owner and saw gold. Golden, sun-filled eyes that used to look at him like the world revolved around him, carried him up the steps of a temple to lay him at the altar and worship-
The boy, whose eyes were not gold but a honeyed brown, loosened his grip.
“I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
Baekhyun stuttered back into reality, blinking back a vision of sun-baked roads and a hand in his hair, staring down at the other boy. He had round cheeks that gave him a slight babyface, not entirely unlike the one Baekhyun was said to have. His hair was dark and falling just short of his eyebrows and he looked to be of a similar height, just without Baekhyun’s leanness.
“Sorry, uh, you’re familiar-,” Baekhyun really could not recall that face,” but I’m not sure why?”
The boy looked a little dissatisfied, a little sad. “Alright then.”
Baekhyun was about to apologise- he felt horrible, though again he didn’t understand why- when his phone started buzzing and what had been a funny ringtone but was now a mortifying choice started resounding through the stairwell.
“-give you up! Never gonna let you-”
He caught a small smile pulling up the familiar stranger’s lips as he answered the call.
“Hey! This is Baek Byunhyun- no wait- Hyunbaek-”
“Baekhyun,” a raspy amused voice filtered out. “It’s me.”
“Oh,” Baekhyun relaxed a bit. “Hey Soo. What’s up?”
Baekhyun had turned away from the mystery boy, entirely missing the dark look he gave the brief shadow that passed by the stairwell window.
“It’s starting to rain. Do you need me to bring an umbrella over?”
“It’s raining?”
He turned around, struggling to squash the unreasonable disappointment he felt when he saw he was alone, and sure enough, there were little drops of water starting to appear on the window glass.
“Nah it’s fine. I can borrow one from the lost and found.” Baekhyun heard a second voice over the line, muffled but still unmistakable. “Besides, it sounds like you got a date.”
“We are studying,” Kyungsoo rebutted. If Baekhyun hadn’t known him since they were in diapers he would have missed the embarrassment in his deadpan voice. “Jongin is failing home economics. He set the shepherd’s pie on fire.”
Baekhyun laughed and heard something like an indignant response from the Jongin. “I’ll be fine. Go kiss your boyfriend.” He hung up before he could hear the reply and after one last look at where the mysterious boy had been, he went down the stairs.
What was causing all this? Before Baekhyun had found the pen, or as the ‘voice’ in seemed to call it, the ‘heart of Venus’ there were no mutant sighting like the ones he’d been fighting. And now that humans were mutating- did he have a guarantee that the would turn back to normal once he blasted them with magic? Baekhyun didn’t even understand the parts he was personally involved in, let alone the parts involving outside interference.
There was something Baekhyun dreaded thinking about. The mutants and the core had appeared at the same time, and the core seemed to be the only power able to truly affect them, so they were definitely related, but how? Did they share a cause or maker? By turning into Venus, with superhuman abilities, was Baekhyun a mutant? He didn’t want to think about that.
“Baekhyun!”
He must have walked for longer than he thought because when he looked up he was already his house, Kyungsoo standing in front of the gate with a worried face.
“Why didn’t you pick up your phone?”
An unexplainable anxiety was creeping up Baekhyun’s spine. “Sorry, I think my battery’s flat. What wrong? What happened?”
Kyungsoo pulled him into his house. “You need to see this.”
In the rush, his umbrella had gotten thrown down before the door, and Kyungsoo refused to let him take his muddy shoes off. Baekhyun came into the living room where a pale Jongin was staring at the tv and on the tv was a crumbling building, half-swallowed by a crater.
Baekhyun could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
“Oh… god.”
It was the community centre, the one he had left less than an hour ago, and it was half gone. An entire block of it was gone, replaced by a smoking hole on the ground.
Jongin seemed to notice him and called out in worry.
“I- I’ve gotta go-” Baekyun felt strangely cold. He had been so close- had it been a mutant? How did he not notice?
Kyungsoo was grabbing him by the shoulder.
“Baek? It’s over- this happened twenty minutes ago. There was one of those monster things-”
It was a mutant and Baekhyun hadn’t noticed. The responsibility had been with him and he wasn’t there.
“- it was huge but then it was gone.”
Baekhyun’s voice sounded distant to his own ears. “What?”
“Look,” Kyungsoo said pointing at the tv.
“ - shockingly zero casualties. The only sign of the monster was this crater-”
The smoke cleared away for a moment and Baekhyun caught sight of the unnatural pattern spread radially from the centre. He edged nearer to the tv and ran a finger down the screen.
“ I know this .” He murmured.
Jongin started in alarm and Kyungsoo was looking at him, worried, shocked and confused. “Baekhyun?”
He traced the design with his finger and he could feel something swelling inside him, surfacing in his mind.
“▋▋▋▋?”
Quite suddenly, Baekhyun’s vision blackened and he tilted sideways, Kyungsoo yelling behind him.
Baekhyun reached out and felt his fingers close around the rough stone of a worn rail. He focused on that feeling and reeled in the rest of his senses, bringing the world into focus. He could feel the wind sweep through him, warm and fast. He could hear the hum of a hundred people in the distance. He opened his eyes and the light beat down on a city spread into the horizon.
“Welcome to Venus.”
Beside him, leaning over the balustrade to gently smile at the crowds, was him.
Slightly older, with sun-bleached hair and bronze eyes, but it was unmistakably him, from when his name had been ▋▋▋. Baekhyun watched as the other him raised a hand for a dove to land on his palm and twitter happily. He turned back to the city, a sea of round stone houses interrupted here and there by towers of spun gold. Mindlessly he traced a tower with his fingers, trying to recall why it felt familiar.
“Those are the temples,” ▋▋▋explained. “Dedicated to the goddess.”
“The lady Venus,” Baekhyun murmured. “Where are we?”
▋▋▋pushed off the balustrade, which Baekhyun now noticed ringed a large, wide balcony, and came nearer. “As I said, we are in Venus. During the Veneralia when I was named as the prince I believe.”
He pointed below, where banners of red and orange were flying over the heads of a thick crowd. They all seemed to be either heading towards or building Baekhyun was in. He could hear cheering and chanting in a language he knew but didn’t understand. He could tell, from the general mood and air, that this was a form of festival.
“This was an amazing place. I am saddened that all you will get to see are memories.”
Baekhyun watched as the colours of the city dulled, like a large shadow passing, and the buildings crumbled and collapsed. It was quiet, without the screams of the populace or the crash of the temples falling. The railings under his fingers were cracking, minuscule faults under his fingers. Suddenly all Baekhyun could see was grey and all he could feel was a feeling of deep sorrow.
“This will happen to your world too,” ▋▋▋ said. Gently, he cupped Baekhyun’s jaw. “You will have to stop it.”
Baekhyun wanted to laugh. “I’m a teenager who can’t pass math to save his life. I couldn’t even beat that mutant yesterday. You want me to save the world?”
There was anger creeping into him. Anger, despair and frustration. His emotions were waking him up and breaking the dream.
▋▋▋ looked sad. “You will understand in time. But I think it will be fine if you woke up now. Your friend,” and odd smiled curled his lips. “Your friend is very worried now.”
Kyungsoo had been watching Baekhyun sleep for hours, uncharacteristically still, before he stirred awake sluggishly. Baekhyun always slept like an electrocuted octopus, smacking him all over during the first few sleepovers until Kyungsoo learned to pull his sleeping bag farther away. He managed to be even more hyper when he was awake. It was disconcerting to see him so still. He released the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and reached out to touch his clammy forehead. “Baekhyun?”
He was blinking unevenly, eyes glazed and Kyungsoo was worried dammit. He could count on one hand the number of times Baekhyun got seriously sick in a year on one hand. Baekhyun was a lot stronger than he looked- Kyungsoo had seen him get back up smiling from everything life threw at him and seeing him now was messing him up internally.
“Hey, ow. Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun tried to get up and wince. “What’s going on?”
“You passed out that’s what happened,” It was taking all of his energy not to shriek. “You just went sideways and- god Baekhyun what is happening right now?”
Baekhyun was looking at him, something dark in eyes and Kyungsoo had grown up with him since their mothers met in the maternity ward. Kyungsoo knew what Baekhyun looked like when he was lying, when he was keeping secrets and that was exactly the face he was looking at now, only that face was also gaunt and pale. He hadn’t seen Baekhyun with eye bags so severe since their entrance exams.
“You’ve been gone. Disappearing. I rarely see you after school now, and when I do you’re tired all the time. Hell, you’re not even all there when you’re in school. You’re forgetting things, spacing out- I can see you sneaking out of your house at night and coming back in the morning looking like shit-”
“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun interrupted softly.
Kyungsoo closed his eyes and tried to breathe. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, tell me what’s wrong. I had freak nightmares that you’d joined a gang or started drugs.”
That seemed to shock him. “I would never- Soo. Soo that’s not what this is, I promise.”
Kyungsoo waited and Baekhyun could tell he was waiting but how the hell was he going to explain this clusterfuck? ‘Hey Soo, I turned into a magical girl a couple of months ago and it went dark like really fast. Also, I’m partially possessed by an ancient prince from a parallel universe and the fate of the world is kinda resting on my shoulders. Lol.’
Fuck, how was he going to explain this?
“It’s… I’m sorry.”
He was saying that a lot lately. God, he felt like shit.
“It’s uh, not my secret. A… friend of mine, he’s in a bad spot right now. He’s having a completely shit time but it’s like, a really private thing for him and I can’t just say it. But I promise I’m not getting into a gang or getting high, it’s just… weird. Weird and complicated.”
Kyungsoo didn’t look fully convinced but his shoulder eased a bit. Technically, Baekhyun’s past life wasn’t him, exactly, and it was weird and complicated so he hoped it wasn’t lying. He and Kyungsoo knew each other better than themselves so he was crap at lying to the other.
“It’s a friend,” Kyungsoo sighed, breaking the silence. “You’d stick your neck out for people you’ve known for hours. You’re stupidly nice you know that?”
It sounded like a compliment, but Kyungsoo looked defeated. Baekhyun had never hated finding that pen more than he did now.
“You’re nice too you know?”
Kyungsoo blinked in surprise.
“You like to beat yourself up a lot but you are the nicest person I know. You’ve got a boyfriend who’s probably waiting for you out there and you’re still here, babying your shitty best friend.”
“Don’t diss yourself,” Kyungsoo grumbled, but he was smiling. Baekhyun continued.
“Remember when you learnt to make chicken soup for your mum when she sick? You were seven and you stacked two stools to reach the kitchen counter. You almost burned your fingers and it tasted bland, but your mom ate the whole thing smiling.”
"Do not bring that up again. It's embarrassing."
It was… eerily quiet. Baekhyun usually slept in on his sick days or went straight out on his free days so he wasn't used to being up and about his house at this hour. And alone to boot. Maybe he missed Kyungsoo too. He was still sleepy but he’d just lie awake and stare at the ceiling if he went back to bed now so he’d be better off getting up and getting something done.
Like his very much neglected schoolwork.
Baekhyun gave that thought five minutes to roll around his brain before he decided that that sounded completely unappealing and booted up his laptop to search for more mutant sightings.
Yesterday’s incident had been weird. It had been big and loud, enough of a deal to make the local news. Most mutant sightings seem to fade after they happened, no matter how much of a ruckus they caused. Most people had trouble remembering details, or after a couple of hours the excitement died quickly, too quickly, and no one thought of bringing it up again. If it weren’t for spontaneously uploaded videos and selfies, rapid texts to friend circles and forum posts, Baekhyun wouldn't be aware of half the incidents he did. It was like something was literally pulling the wool over the eyes and ears of everyone in the city. It scared Baekhyun, because people were getting hurt and in a few hours they would forget why. No one else could remember it and therefore stop it, so it was his responsibility to keep Neo Seoul safe.
The community centre was still causing an online buzz. Again, strange. Baekhyun went back a bit to yesterday’s content on two forums and three social media sites to see the shaky, grainy photos of the mutant. It was humanoid, with an extra pair of arms and an insect-like shell covering it. It seemed to have been trying to destroy the centre by barreling through walls and punching through the floors. Baekhyun played a video and watched it break off a pillar in the centre’s lobby.
The good news was that it didn’t seem to be the type that aimed at people, like the horned mutant from the shopping district fire. It didn’t pay much attention to the people running away or tried to obstruct them, which was probably why there weren’t too many people badly hurt. But it still didn’t make sense for no one to be hurt. Baekhyun scrolled back up to more recent postings and here the crater was a dominant point of discussion. Baekhyun got treated to an array of photos of the crater with different points, angles, times and lighting and each one made his head throb. It was like seeing the news yesterday- seeing that unnatural, flowery formation made his head feel like a tiny brain-person was trying to claw his way out from inside. Eventually it grew so bad he had to close his eyes halfway through a video and breathe.
It’s not a flower.
Baekhyun startled and opened his eyes. He wasn’t in his room anymore- he was standing on a wide sheltered path of seamless marble. It circled around a large garden, which in turn circled around a pool. Baekhyun tried not to panic and looked around for the other him.
“What the heck is this?”
This wasn’t a dream, this was a waking vision and Baekhyun found the other him peeking around one of the large columns that held up the path’s roof. He didn’t seem to be as old as he usually was. Today he was closer to Baekhyun’s age, with lighter hair the colour of hay. Baekhyun called out, but there was no response.
“Must be the non-interactive kind,” Baekhyun mumbled as he walked up to the other him and tried to see what he was so fixated on. At the edge of the pool was a figure in a white toga, with long golden hair loosely tied at their neck.
“Your mom?” Baekhyun guessed, but he looked down to see the blush on the other boy’s face, the shy twinkle of his eyes and the way he kept bunching up his toga with one hand. “Oh, a crush?”
Baekhyun tried to look closer at the other person, his curiosity rising. He tried to step closer but the mystery person seemed to notice his other self’s presence and called out.
“Your highness?”
The other him jumped and came out from behind the pillar to flusteredly greet the other person, a male if Baekhyun heard his voice right.
“Lord Sol.”
Baekhyun felt his eyebrows raised. From what he could recall, that was what they called the oracle priests. This was starting to sound scandalous. Baekhyun watched as the other him approach slowly, and the priest rose to greet him. Baekhyun leaned to the left, trying to see the priest’s face, and heard someone scream.
He jerked, almost sending his laptop flying, and suddenly he was back in his room with four, poster riddled walls in place of huge stone columns.
“Aw, come on! That’s worse than the cliffhangers on Tuesday night dramas!”
Baekhyun heard another scream and he looked down at the source. His laptop had started playing another video of the centre incident, filmed shakily. Baekhyun grumbled about interrupted dramas and was about the stop the video when he saw a flash of gold.
He hit pause and replayed the scene.
There were flashes of gold appearing near the monster, barely visible through the debris and panic. He thought it was a cloth, then sparks, then a sword. He switched to another video and he realised it was all of the above. There was someone there with the mutant, slipping between the rubble and casting magic. Magic that glowed gold whereas his glowed blue. It was… another cadet.
-{INSERT AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF MISSING SCENES}-
-{EXPLANATORY AIDS:
after this, he goes to school, comes across news of boy injured at centre in the toilet, goes to look for him, but! pang pang, Daehyun calls, he’s playing the Veneralia song, woosh evil Daehyun? pow pow! Oh no, Venus is loosing! Prince Minseok here for the rescue! Oh what, I remember almost everything now! You're my past life soulmate!
END OF EXPLANATORY AIDS}-
“Do you remember,” Baekhyun asked breathlessly in between the messy, desperate kisses. “Marrying me?”
Minseok paused, his mouth on Baekhyun’s neck, and hummed into the skin. “I think this world’s equivalent is engagement actually.”
Baekhyun laughed and tipped Minseok’s head back so he could chase his lips. “But do you remember?”
“Why don’t you check for me, tell me if my memory is right.”
He lifted Baekhyun into the air and the younger curled his legs around Minseok’s waist, gleeful. Minseok lowered Baekhyun down to fully rest on his hips, guiding one arm to loop around his neck. Minseok brought his other hand to his lips.
“If you will let me, I will bring you to the peak of this temple and lay you on Venus’s feat. I will claim you before her eyes, bury my heart in your chest and take yours for mine if you will let me. If you will let me, I will love you on every day the sun rises.”
Baekhyun had turned red, a bright and furious red that went down to his chest. Minseok laughed and set him down on the bed.
“You could have just said you remembered.”
Minseok placed a hand on his cheek, brushing a thumb across his cheek. “I wanted to see this face. You blushed just as bad as the first time.”
Baekhyun pouted and pulled his hand from his cheek and to his lips. “Two can play at this game, you know?”
-{INSERT MISSING SCENES}-
“I don’t need advice from some Venetian slut who ran away from his kingdom!”
Kyungsoo saw the hurt flash on Baekhyun’s face he almost regretted it, but his head was too busy with his own rage and his past self’s rage and confusion. He couldn’t see straight, all he was seeing was red and he couldn’t bring himself to care about the way Baekhyun’s lower lip was quivering.
“I’m done here.”
He got up and stormed out the Byun household, his jaw clenched. Fuck Baekhyun and all of his damn secrets. He worried over the other boy for nothing. They were under attack, they were being invaded and everything was going to be solved with his boyfriend’s arrival. Did that damn Venetian keep his brain between his legs? Did he not remember dying, did he not fear dying again ? He was a spoilt brat and-
He heard someone running after him, heavy footsteps and ragged breath. He had come quite far, he noticed. Was it Baekhyun? Was it his lover? He turned around, ready to argue again, but it was neither of them. It was Jongin, looking- upset. Angry, even. For a moment the sight of him cleared Kyungsoo’s mind and tamped down the other him.
“You need to apologise to Baekhyun.” Jongin said firmly. Kyungsoo looked at him incredulously.
“Why should I?”
“What do you mean why should you!?”
Great. Everyone was on Baekhyun’s side. It seemed today was really not going to be his day. He walked off on Jongin, leaving the younger boy behind.
“Kyungsoo wouldn’t have made Baekhyun cry!”
He stopped.
“Fuck,” he said softly. “Fuck!”
He kicked at a streetlamp and it bent with an ominous creak and flickering of lights. God, he was an idiot!
“Kyungsoo?”
Jongin tentatively reached out to touch his shoulder and Kyungsoo wanted to melt into that touch.
“Fuck… Jongin… I called him a slut.”
Jongin looked taken aback. “What?”
“I called him a slut Jongin. I… did what every bully Baekhyun’s ever had did and- fuck, I hurt him didn’t I?”
“You think?” Jongin was red now. “Do Kyungsoo you turn round right now and apologize to him!”
Since they were young Baekhyun had always had the uncanny ability to perceive and guide people’s relationships. He could tell who had a crush on who with a glance, which pairs or groups would fit together or who was cheating on their partners and the like. Baekhyun would say that Kyungsoo could do something similar, but he was the only one who could craft bonds between people like an artisan.
Baekhyun learnt how to use his gift well over the years and people would gravitate towards him, allured by charisma he produced. He was likable, sociable and light of heart- it gave him many acquaintances but few friends. Mostly, pointing out bad matches and cheater alienated him. Sometimes, it got him bullies.
They never had much trouble before because while children could be cruel, they could also be simple. But their last school had gotten Kyungsoo expelled, and Baekhyun’s grandmother had pulled him out after a slew of fights with the school board.
Kyungsoo hadn’t known how they got him into that classroom alone, but he’d followed the sounds of a commotion after school and found the worst thing he could have possibly found. Fourteen students of varying ages, screaming profanity and jeering.
Kyungsoo saw that the boy in the middle of the group was on his knees, crying. He was trying to push away the hands on his arm, and someone grabbed his hair and pulled up. Kyungsoo had hazy memories of what happened next. All he remembered was thinking, that’s Baekhyun, and the next thing he knew someone was screaming and there was blood on his knuckles. He had a boy on the floor, sobbing as he held his nose, and his friends who could still stand were fleeing out the door. Someone had grabbed his arm, was tugging at it. There were tears falling on his school shirt and a soft, sobbing voice calling his name.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Kyungsoo, stop.
Please.
Baekhyun was crying and it didn’t sound like the crying he did when he was younger and his mother left, or when he’d gotten an award during his second choir competition. It sounded broken and awful, and that was the sound Kyungsoo remembered when he came up the stairs to Baekhyun’s room. That was the sound he could hear from the other side of the door and he knew he was the cause.
“If you are going to hurt him again, I will not let you through.”
The boy standing in front of Baekhyun’s door looked exactly like his past self. He was younger, carrying fewer scars and lighter skin than the sun-beaten prophets of the lion but here were the same eyes that had seen war begin and end. Here was a man who he knew had killed, had walked over bones, who had told a king he would die on the steps before his throne without fear. Here was the man who’d fallen in love with a determined prince of Venus and given him the rest of his short life.
“I need to apologise to him,” Kyungsoo assured. “I will swear on your god and mine that I will not hurt him, if that is what you need.”
He gave him a once-over. (Kyungsoo should ask for his name, later). There was a fierce protectiveness in his eyes, in his stance. After a long beat of silence, the other boy moved aside.
“I’ll make do with your word.”
Kyungsoo nodded in thanks and knocked thrice, then twice after a second. He heard the crying die down and something drag across the door. Through the door came a choked response.
“Soo?”
Kyungsoo steadied his breathing. “Baek? Can I come in?”
There were more dragging noises, then he heard the door unlock. Kyungsoo slipped in and closed the door behind him, spotting Baekhyun on the floor by his bed. His eyes were red and his face was glistening with tears. Kyungsoo knelt down by him and pushed the hair away from his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Baekhyun didn’t respond, so he continued. “I didn’t mean that. I was frustrated and confused and angry- and I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve that and I- I should never have said that to you. I knew better but I-”
Baekhyun leaned into him and Kyungsoo moved to accommodate him. He’d stopped crying completely, but his voice was soft and hoarse.
“Do you hate me?”
Kyungsoo had asked why, after they’d left their last school. Why did you stop me?
Baekhyun still had a deep, purple bruise blooming across his cheek and eye. I don’t want anyone to hate me.
“You have been my best friend for over a decade. I’ve gone through almost my whole life with you.”
He paused, his throat dry.
“I love you, Baek. I could never hate you, and it will take a lot more than a dead man throwing a hissy fit in my head to change that.”
Across the room was the mirror attached to the side of Baekhyun’s wardrobe and he could see Baekhyun smile in its reflection.
“Do you mean it?”
“Every word.”
Baekhyun burrowed deeper into his side and Kyungsoo readjusted his position to wrap an arm around the slighter boy.
“I might cry again. It’s not all out yet. I’ve been holding back since the giant octopus-cat near the fish market almost killed me two weeks ago.”
Kyungsoo felt his heart stop for a moment.
“It’s ok. I’ll be here. I’ll be trying to fully digest your near-death experiences and planning how to bubble wrap you.”
“Soo .”
He started crying again mid-laugh, and Kyungsoo stayed there for all the hours Baekhyun needed him to.
The other boy was intense.
Jongin had gone back to Baekhyun’s house because the buses had stopped running and it wasn’t like he had the money for a cab. There had been the option of Kyungsoo’s house, but he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to introduce himself to Kyungsoo’s parents in the dead of the night.
So he’d gone to Baekhyun’s house where the door was unlocked and sat down in the kitchen. A few minutes later the boy Baekhyun had come home with came down and sat across Jongin. He’d been staring at Jongin for a good fifteen minutes by now, and Jongin strongly recalled the time he’d gotten chased and attacked by a cat when he was seven. That cat had stared at him like that too before pouncing.
“Are you Kyungsoo’s boyfriend?”
Jongin started and stammered out a reply. “Yeah- yes, boyfriend- Kyungsoo’s- I am Kyungsoo’s boyfriend!”
The last bit came out in a squeal and the other boy laughed as Jongin flushed.
“I don’t bite. I’m Minseok, you?”
“Um, Jongin.”
Minseok nodded and smiled. “Do you go to North Municipal too?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m a year under Kyungsoo and Baekhyun.”
The conversation awkwardly progressed from there. Jongin was starting to feel less intimidated by Minseok’s obvious discomfort.
“Think they’ll make up?” Minseok asked. Jongin looked at the stairs that linked the living to the rooms above. “Absolutely.”
Kyungsoo dreamed.
He hadn’t dreamed in a while, not since he was a kid. This dream was vivid, filled with sharp colours and extensive detail. He was seated in a wooden patio connected to a stone house. It had a steep roof and he was looking out at the largest lake he had ever seen. In the distance was what appeared to be a line of mountains. His companion was seated across him, his arms folded on the small, round tabletop.
“It is not a lake, exactly. We are on an island, in a caldera, one of the thousands around Mercury. This is Caro. It is fairly small, and what you may call ‘backwater’, but it is peaceful.”
His companion had a wistful look on his face. “I was born here.”
“It does look lovely,” Kyungsoo agreed. “How’d you live here and still end up being a bitch?”
His companion laughed, loudly and heartily. “You remind me of my siblings. Bark and bite, packed in one small package.” He stopped laughing and looked Kyungsoo in the eye. “I will take being referred to as dead. It is not entirely untrue. But a ‘hissy fit’? The gall.”
Kyungsoo scowled. “Shove it. I won’t let you do that to Baekhyun again.”
His companion shrugged. “Venetians. They’re all simple-minded fools. You’ll see what I mean. That prince is a collection of bad rumours.”
Kyungsoo kicked at him under the table at him and watched him sigh, unflinching. “He’s not a ‘Venetian’, he’s Baekhyun, he’s my best friend and you are a ghost, piggybacking on my body so you better learn to suck it up.”
His companion looked taken aback. “You’ve got more gut than I thought. It will perhaps be more… endurable than I expected, having you as my future.”
“I may look like you, but we are not the same person.”
His companion was more aged, with his red hair cropped close and neat. But even with the jagged scar marring half his face, Kyungsoo could see his own features in his companions face. The shape of his face, his lips and his one good eye- they could have been mistaken for brothers.
“Alright, I will admit that you are right on several points. Mainly that as the dead man in this equation, I am technically in no place to be takings the reins. But I assure you that Venetian- your friend, and his simple-minded idea of prevention will bring trouble.”
Kyungsoo shot a glare at him when Baekhyun came into the conversation, but he couldn’t hide the fact he wanted to know about the ‘trouble’. Mutants, magic, reincarnation an all.
“What do you know about it?” Kyungsoo challenged. His companion laughed at that and grimly smiled.
“My dear child, the thing that killed me, that Venetian prince and the other several billions of people in Exosphere?
It has come here.”
Kyungsoo jerked awake, knocking elbow with something that shifted and groaned.
“Crap, sorry Baek.”
Baekhyun yawned wide and stretched. “What time is it?”
The clock across read fifteen minutes past eleven and the sun was shining through the drawn curtains over Baekhyun’s study table. The wind was cold though, so Kyungsoo supposed it might have rained again in their sleep.
“It’s close to noon. C’mon, up. You can eat cereal for breakfast while I cook lunch.”
Baekhyun rubbed his eyes and grinned at Kyungsoo. “We’re gonna skip school?”
“You destroyed the school, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
Baekhyun laughed and smiled and it felt good to see that again.
They left the room and headed downstairs, where the sound of voices and movement were present. There was more than one voice, and both were male, so Jongin must have followed him back to Baekhyun’s house last night. Speaking of which…
“What’s his name?” he asked Baekhyun as they stumbled down the stairs. “Your, um, boyfriend?”
“It’s Minseok, here. Now. Whatever you call it.” Baekhyun stifled another yawn mid-giggle. “I’m not sure where we are, relationship-wise. We were married on Exos but we literally just met here and- holy shit!”
Baekhyun lept back, knocking into Kyungsoo and nearly unbalancing him.
“What’s with the water?!”
Kyungsoo looked over Baekhyun’s shoulder. The last three steps of the staircase was submerged in water- Kyungsoo saw a wooden cat that had been on the coffee table float past. Baekhyun tentatively stepped forward and they heard a yell from the kitchen.
“Are you guys up? We’re blocking up the back door.”
They splashed their way to the kitchen and saw Jongin and Minseok stuffing rags into the backdoor gap.
“It’s the rain from last night,” Minseok greeted when he noticed them. “There’s a hell of a flood outside.”
“It’s the wrong season for that.”
Kyungsoo frowned at him and opened a window to peek. The water was near twice as high outside, an unnatural sight in a city like this. It should never have gotten this bad outside typhoon season. And there was an odd sheen to it, and odd scent...
“It smells like magic,” Baekhyun noted. “I didn’t notice it before, but now that there’s so much of it…”
Minseok winced. “Might be my fault.”
Jongin was looking back and between them. “Magic has a smell?”
“You can perceive it with your five senses, though that depends on how sensitive you are or how concentrated it is.”
Jongin looked lost. “This is starting to sound like chemistry. I am very bad at chemistry.”
Minseok laughed. “You could leave, if you want.”
Kyungsoo rounded on him. “Are you really chasing my boyfriend off?”
Baekhyun looked equally surprised. “Min?”
“Let me explain. Firstly, you are in danger. The mutant that attacked Baekhyun the day before yesterday isn’t like the others. He’s... self-aware. He could know how to pick hostages, for one.”
Baekhyun recalled the fight. Daehyun hadn’t turned into a monster, he still looked humanoid. And he’d been able to speak, communicate.
“Secondly, you’re human. You can’t cast magic, and it doesn’t look like you punch through steel. If a mutant outbreak happens, we'll likely be in the thick of it and you’re going to be totally defenceless.”
Jongin blanched. “Ok, I can’t argue with that. Wait, what do you mean I’m human? Aren’t you guys…”
He trailed off, looking them each over. Baekhyun sighed and smiled sheepishly.
“How do I explain this? I’m not a hundred percent sure, but we’re either aliens, or some really unlucky isekai protagonists.”
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-{INSERT MISSING LEAD INTO PART 2}-