Work Text:
PM
There are three witches gathered in the office: one with short hair, one with long and one with a lock of it caught between her teeth as she concentrates on the piece of amethyst at the end of the chain she hangs over ten strips of paper, some slightly yellowed and some still the same pristine white as the walls around them.
There are three witches and then, there are two of them: himself and Minho. Both of them hover over the trio, wary of how deep the session runs the risk of going. These are not the standard love witch scam artists they were accustomed to running into on a daily – sometimes, nightly – basis. It had taken a decent amount of persuasion from Jinki to get the three of them here in the first place, ready for a relatively more mundane challenge than he and Minho were used to handling.
It’s running close to an hour since the session commenced; on the floor, the three women are just as quiet as they were when they’d begun. Except for the occasional murmur of ‘hold on’ each time the dowsing crystal seemed to incline the slightest bit towards an odd direction, the silence had settled uncomfortably.
Minho shifts and Jinki glances warily at the ripple in the shadow. He’s not sure what to make of the proceedings up until now, even though it had been his idea. In the time that had filtered past the night, he imagined that he’d be willing to trade his month’s earnings for what was running through the tawny head of the witch attempting the dowsing. With her eyelids at half-mast and back arched over the scraps of notes Jinki had saved, there’s precious little for him to draw from Sunyoung’s expression.
And then there’s a hum in the air which causes his spirits to drop. Sunyoung tugs the chain upwards so that it winds around her fingers with each movement while Soojung sets down her pen and notepad. Amber’s the one who dares to speak first, an exasperated grin flickering through the dying light.
“You got yourself a smart one, oppa.”
Minho lets out an explosion of breath, which Jinki can tell is both the result of relief and frustration. This isn’t bad news, but it also isn’t anything that clears a path in this whole matter. It was now back to the start, which Jinki takes as a prelude to another long run of ruminations, over and over the same puzzle pieces.
But he likes puzzles. It’s the feel of them he enjoys as they shake, rattle and roll around his head, fitting this way and that. Jinki likes taking his time with them. It’s Minho who concerns him as Jinki notes the impatient twitch in his heels and the tight purse of his lips.
“Hold on.”
Instead of a whisper, it’s a command. Sunyoung’s fingers are untwining the knotted chain and then the amethyst swings back into place.
Minho’s feet still mid-pace and Jinki knows he’s caught it. Minho’s always had a sense for these things for as long as Jinki’s known him and even far longer than that. Then it’s them and the three witches following the curve of each swing of the dowsing pendulum as it curves higher and higher, towards the window, out where the night arrives soft-footed and the moon beckons with a strange silver song.
It’s, as Minho puts it, a confluence of lights and music in the right moment in time. Like if you were dreaming, he’d once told Jinki when they were first starting out in the business. Like if you were walking, then flying into sweet, dangerous oblivion. This last bit is what Jinki had gathered from the years that followed; there was little to say about the intensity of Minho’s perceptions, except what could be gleaned from the tiniest changes in his posture when he picked up on them and the gleam in his eyes, whether in anticipation or fear.
If there are dreams, they only prove the existence of nightmares as Jinki had come to learn on his own terms. But these were the type that flew well under the radar, so embedded in the crests and dips of Seoul’s crimewaves that they went mostly unnoticed by the city’s populace. Sometimes background noise is all it is, scattered and harmless amidst the tangled frequencies of everyday worries at work, school and home.
And sometimes –
Sometimes…
“This is Blue Night with Kim Jonghyun.”
… it’s music.
The strips of paper are only ever from Jonghyun. One, two, three and then Jinki had stopped count at fifteen. Kim Jonghyun was the voice of midnight and the pep in Jinki’s step the mornings after; to Minho, it’s not so much who Jonghyun is than what he might be.
“You never know what type of animal you’d run into out there, hyung.” He lectures Jinki over the first cup of coffee, peering right over the steam and into the bags under his partner’s eyes. “Vampires. Werewolves. Incubi.”
He would often stab his scrambled eggs with his chopsticks for emphasis. Whatever the effect it was supposed to have, there was no mistaking the remnants of a heart on fire in Jinki’s chest. If he tilted his head back and gazed out at the expanse of endless sky, Jinki imagined he could still taste the embers on his tongue instead of his own breakfast.
The notes on the paper strips had led him to Blue Night, to Kim Jonghyun who spoke of morning dewdrops and night orchids in the same vein as galaxies and heavenly bodies. In the peace of an afternoon lull in his awakened state, Jinki would find himself trying not to toy with the idea of another mystery, especially not when they had case after case of hauntings to close before sunrise the next day.
Jinki would also find himself trying not to discern the color of a voice without a face, closing his eyes on purpose when he could get away with it. It should be an easy feat, to not think or comprehend, except that dreams came easier in their stead, day and night. He would often find the beginning of one chasing the end of the one that had left before it and then stream unto stream, dot by dot, the plot would carry on despite his best intentions.
Somewhere in the haze, Minho’s voice ebbs and flows, the scolding so distant that Jinki might as well as shrug it off.
The witches have left the office to return to their own quarters above the shop they have to close for the night. In an anticlimactic twist, they only charge him and Minho half their fee for the dowsing session.
(“You didn’t even find the damn thing.” Minho cajoles them, seconds after he’s already whipped out his wallet and it’s too late to stop the paper notes from being charmed away into Amber’s eagerly waiting hands, splayed open.
“Shush now, it’s still Solstice night,” Sunyoung answers, the sugar in her voice coating the coolness beneath. “You know better than to let such negative energy loose.”
“And besides,” Soojung adds. “You boys still owe us for the Tennis Court incident.”
Minho clams up, the smile on face fixed and fake.)
“We did owe them for the Tennis Court incident.” Jinki agrees, keeping his voice low and clear enough to reach across the gap left in-between himself and Minho, as the latter’s stride grows brisker with irritation. It still doesn’t break as they reach the subway; Minho’s footfalls ricochet throughout the empty walkway, then the fluorescent-lit tunnel inside where Jinki sniffs at the after-aroma of evening takeaway and diet Mountain Dew burps. His senses aren’t the same as Minho’s; they completed each other, certainly, but nowhere near as effective on the same levels.
They’d repeated this enough times to clients with problems running the entire strange spectrum of whatever it was that dearest society dubbed ‘strange’: Minho was the one who did the ‘sensing’ in as much sense of the word that the average denizen of Seoul was aware of. He was the one who could see the dead grandparents still at the dinner-table, smell the perfume of the long-departed lover in the one-person boudoir and hear the whispers of the shadow-demon that clung to one’s shoulder to feed on such terrible thoughts.
Minho – when he wasn’t scowling at feeling conned by their friendly neighborhood coven of witches – was the approachable one, the one who asked the right questions and wore the correct concerned expression when a broken-hearted teenager or broken-down office slave sat shivering before them. If their agency had a face – in as much as two-person agency needed one – Jinki knew that it had better wear Minho’s straightforward, sympathetic grin.
Of all the things Jinki’s thought of and, eventually, got done, he hazards a guess that this partnership might be one of the better choices on his record. He’d even admit that it’s the best one by far, even though Minho’s mood has sunk ten degrees by the time they board the train.
The compartment is blessedly empty. Jinki takes a cursory glance at their surroundings, takes note of Minho’s thumb and index finger pressed into either side of his forehead, his eyes scrunched shut. As the train begins to move, Jinki raises his voice over the sound of the doors closing:
“Minho? I’m going to take your hand, if that’s okay.”
The train leaves the station, now moving under cover of the night. The pause lasts until the second Minho exhales – probably in resignation – and holds up his hand for Jinki to enclose in his.
That brief pause may have been just as much for Jinki’s benefit as it was for Minho’s. The chatter that slowly fills Jinki’s mind is distinctly muted –
(“Think of it as…” Eommoni had grasped for the right words to explain their shared gift and affliction. “Like a coffee shop soundtrack. Even on the busiest days, it’s just background noise. It shouldn’t stop you from getting to the heart of the matter.”
Jinki had been eight years old.
“But it’s still all in their head?” He’d prodded, reaching for her much larger hand, hoping to find its secrets etched inside the wrinkles scrawled in her palm.
“It’s all in anyone’s head, son.”)
– but there it is, nonetheless. Jinki recognizes that high-pitched whine at the back of Minho’s thoughts, central to the dark brew of worries that clouds his features. He sends in a whisper, one subtle enough to slip under the radar of Minho’s inner self-critique, but careful not to wake the rest of his insecurities. There’s a crackle that passes through as Minho’s defenses go up in reflex before the quiet sets in, hush gently falling over hush.
As Minho’s mind steadies, Jinki sends him a thought of his own. This one is bright and sweet as the tangerine they’d split between the two of them earlier in the day, when the afternoon light had shed golden flakes into their mugs of tea. It has no particular shape, but glides smoothly enough that something in Minho’s head chimes. That’s good enough for Jinki.
The whine – not unlike the warning shriek of a kettle on a stove – hasn’t dissipated completely, but Jinki’s well aware of the reason behind that. He’ll allow that much for Minho to dwell on.
(The trap was a broken music-box.
“It’s repurposed!” Amber had protested against the background of a large upturned metal container which had been full of tennis balls a quarter of an hour ago. “And it’s been tested! Victoria took it for a test run on the last half-moon!”
“It’d better work.” Jinki’s head had hurt from all the exclamation marks punctuating her voice, not to mention the goose-egg forming on the side where one of the balls had got him. At least Minho was still in motion, meeting each serve the Fiend aimed at him and hurling heated threats back at its invisible form flitting around the court.
It was Soojung who managed to lure it by swinging a silver charm towards the spirit circle which Sunyoung had managed to draw just off the center of the court in record time. In the middle of the circle stood the unassuming trap; with the way it stayed clasped shut, Jinki had wondered if it was too late to run the Fiend down with one of the flying paper seals Minho dropped.
But then he’d felt the suck of air around them: the sky that day was the clearest blue he’d ever seen, clear enough to catch the ripple of light within the circle. There was the tiniest sense of a musical thrill in the breeze that followed, when the unassuming wooden box opened on its own accord, lifted its felt lip up as if it were taking a sip, but instead, swallowed.
Minho had heard it more clearly. Once they’d had to clean up the mess by themselves – additional magical assistance from the coven would have set them back the cost of six lunches – and lug the box containing the agitated Fiend back to the office, he’d described the sound of its voice to Jinki:
“Low. Husky. Almost human. Almost.”)
The ride back via the subway isn’t a long one. Jinki has done what he could for Minho’s troubled mind; just as far as he’d been allowed to. There was still a ten-minute walk back to the old brick-and-mortar apartment block which housed Jinki’s personal quarters on the fifth floor. There was no time to dwell on anything else but the current problem that awaited them in a magic-sealed box locked inside a safe under Jinki’s desk.
Still, there’s something which he owes Minho.
“I’m sorry about all this.”
As expected, Minho brushes it off. His pace slows until Jinki catches up and they stay in sync until they turn right around the corner to cross the street where his place is now a six-and-a-half minute walk down the sidewalk, before the five minute ride up to the fifth floor in the tiny elevator.
Minho lectures him on a lot of things, but none of them hide any sort of expectation to be followed. Jinki considers that it’s only because he’s the older one and therefore, not under any obligation to fully listen and take heed. Minho always says what he means and leaves it at that. So very unlike the author of notes Jinki receives.
(While the decision to involve the witches probably hasn’t been the best, Jinki secretly thinks – hopes – it was worthwhile. After all, hadn’t Jonghyun once said, on-air, that he was like the moon?
“Because I only come out at night? Yes.”)
In the elevator, Jinki makes up his mind to make it up to Minho by fixing him a good strong cup of coffee as soon as they stepped inside his living-room. He knows Minho’s mind is fixed on the Fiend in the box and would probably appreciate the dose of caffeine in preparation for the rest of the night ahead. It was fortunate that the makeshift spirit trap came with a soundproofing charm, courtesy of Victoria.
Minho shoots him a look as he fumbles with his keys. “You know, you’re actually lucky you can’t hear that thing the way I can.”
“That bad?” Jinki sympathizes, knowing how much of a pain extra-sensory overloads were, particularly in Minho’s case. “Does it scream like that opera singer we had to seal inside a perfume bottle?”
Finally, a real smile.
“Not exactly, hyung. It actually sounds…”
Jinki unlocks the door and leads the way in, half-listening to Minho as he gropes about for the light-switch in the dark.
“… It really sounds like it’s blowing raspberries in there.”
This elicits a chuckle from Jinki. “That doesn’t sound like too much trouble. What do you think we’re in for? Errant pre-school ghoul? Shapeshifting teen poltergeist? Or a…”
The rest of his joke crumbles in the back of his throat as he watches the expression on Minho’s face falter. While Jinki had accepted his true nature as an Empath years ago, he’d long since understood the harmony of a shift in emotions unveiled on a person’s face. He didn’t have to lay a hand on Minho’s frozen figure in the hallway to understand that there was trouble on the loose.
“How close is it?” He asks.
There it is, the uncoiling of Minho’s defenses that steel his glance and steady his footing. Jinki tightens his grip on the bunch of keys still in his hand while reaching for a paper seal in his jacket pocket.
“It’s humming.”
“Has it escaped?”
“It’s not the Fiend.”
The unease slides further up Jinki’s spine, accelerating his pulse and freezing his tongue. It’s the first time something of this nature has managed to break past the wards in his house.
But there’s no time for shock. He’s already sidling as close as he can get to Minho, ensuring he’s got his partner’s back covered. Minho’s already doing the same for him.
This time, Jinki hears it too: an absence of sound. It was unlike the quiet of empty spaces; it was the sound of watching, of someone waiting and listening. Then there’s the lightest of footfalls: not heavy enough for the most fleet-footed of humans, not sharp enough to pass for an intruding spirit intent on making its presence known.
Jinki knows what it reminds him of: a particularly large housecat. Minho must hear enough of its breaths to gauge how far off his guess was.
He watches Minho watch the space between his couch and the coffee-table, and Jinki waits for the creature to reveal itself. Hidden under his jacket, his hand switches from the paper seal to a compact net which would spring open should he flick his wrist in the direction of the attacker. This precaution was necessary; while Jinki trusted Minho’s instincts, the latter’s reflexes wouldn’t hesitate on an ill-advised sucker punch.
There’s a shift of light as an outline grows visible. Minho startles, head pricked in the direction of Jinki’s bedroom.
“Do you hear it?” Jinki murmurs low enough to keep his voice level. “The Fiend?”
“It’s screaming a name.”
“Whose?”
“…Bummie?”
The next thing they know, the gumiho has sprung before them. Jinki whips out the net, flicking the lever which activates it, but he’s a second too late. The open net lands over an empty space while the gumiho – a particularly eye-catching fox spirit – seemed to warp its way around them before either he or Minho can react. Its golden coat glimmers for the briefest moment as it rushes into the open bedroom.
Jinki’s own senses had come alive; he’d felt its fur brush his ankles, the contact being enough for him to get a grip of the gumiho’s intentions. It was well-acquainted with the Fiend trapped inside Jinki’s desk; an unusual finding, given its otherwise solitary nature. But the most curious thing of all – the thing which nearly sets Jinki ablaze in a fit of excitement – is who had sent the gumiho.
It was the same name which answered the previous mystery of who’d been sending him love notes, full moon or not.
He and Minho sweep into the bedroom, seals at the ready. They’re met with a scene from a modern folklore tableau: the gumiho bearing its teeth as it hunches over Jinki’s desk, with one golden paw splayed over the locked drawer which contains the trapped Fiend. If the rattling inside the wooden enclosure which Jinki can make out over the growling is anything to go by, this is supposed to be a rescue mission.
So much for getting some much-needed rest tonight.
Ever the gallant knight, Minho steps in front of Jinki as they carefully approach the scene. “Are you under orders?” Minho attempts diplomacy. “Who sent you?”
“He did.” Jinki answers, happiness flowing through him like liquid sunshine.
Minho balks, then whips his head back to glare at him, understandably taking offense at the cheerful note in Jinki’s tone. Behind his back – a rookie mistake, Jinki mentally chides – the gumiho fixes its stare on them. It’s not the first time either of them has encountered one, though Jinki thinks this might be the most mesmerizing one he’s come across on a night in Seoul.
He places a reassuring hand on Minho’s shoulder, gently – but firmly – brushing him aside so that he can face the gumiho alone.
“I know what name you go by. You didn’t come here with bad intentions; my wards would’ve let me know otherwise. Though I must say you did a good job sneaking past them. I won’t demand any more secrets from you, so don’t be shy.”
Jinki lets a beat drop before he says it: “Bummie?”
“It’s Kibum to you.”
The gumiho remains perched on top of his desk, though its stance relaxes by the smallest degree. Jinki’s gotten the first step right. Now, it’s time for smoother sailing.
“Thank you for letting me know.” He says, keeping his tone light and polite. “And your friend?”
“The fool who fell prey to your clutches? I’d call him the devil, but he can tell you himself.”
There’s a sharp thump from the inside of the drawer which Minho interprets as “Taemin?”
For a moment, Jinki can swear it’s a snort he hears as the gumiho tosses its head. “Well, there you go.”
“How far did you travel to get him?” Jinki presses on delicately. “Your kind don’t normally stray too far from nature.”
“A ‘stray’ of sorts is what I am. And so is this fool.”
Another protesting thump echoes from the drawer.
“You went too far this time, Taemin.”
“How far?” Minho interrupts. The gumiho’s glare shifts to him.
“He was entrusted to deliver the notes and got distracted by making a scene in public.”
If Jinki’s heart had wings, it was already past the point of soaring. It was a strange burden to bear alone, to know that someone was reaching out and to have no sense of direction as to where that reach came from. And now for things to fall into place in such a way makes Jinki wonder if he’s too far-gone to come back down to earth.
“So, were you entrusted to bring him… to bring Taemin back to…” Jinki stumbles on his words, the realization of where this led quickly sinking into him. “… To him?”
But there’s still the distant moon under which the gumiho proceeds to stretch and yawn after hopping onto the closest window ledge.
“We don’t answer to anyone, Taemin and I. Kim Jonghyun is just as good an ally as it gets.”
Jinki tries to suppress the shiver that runs through him. It’s too late though; the gumiho sees everything.
“Just what type of allies are you exactly?” Minho asks, the urgency in his voice rising. “Who is he to you and what does he want from my partner?”
The crest of excitement that rises in Jinki’s chest begins to fall. The answer to that might hold the key to this odd relationship – if it could be called a ‘relationship’ at all – in Jinki’s mind. All he’d had to go on were words, written and spoken, and no other clue as to the persona behind them. It was like reaching for light and only to grasp nothing but air.
“Who Kim Jonghyun is to me is my own personal quandary. What he wants from him…” The gumiho’s tail flickers in the direction where Jinki stands. “… is anyone’s guess.”
Minho huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re not very helpful. Not very useful leverage in getting your friend out of the drawer.”
“He’d stay in there forever if I had my say. But I’m not the one whose fondness for him keeps him around to run useless errands.”
The thumps resume in earnest, presumably rebuking the gumiho’s sentiments.
“I have a proposition to make.”
Minho moves forward to place his hands the desk, palms flat on the surface and fingers splayed. Enough for a show of mutual trust while maintaining cover under his hands in case of a surprise attack.
“Kibum-ssi, take us to Kim Jonghyun and we’ll bring Taemin to him. We’ll loosen the charms on the trap in his – and your – presence.”
It’s a bold move, but not unlike Minho. As high as his defenses were around the type of beings they dealt with, Jinki knows fear and pride were the last things Minho would succumb to. An opposing, caustic combination in some cases.
The gumiho’s teeth are visible again, on one side. Its eyes narrow, but its stare has lost some of its sharpness. To Jinki’s bewilderment, he realizes that it’s smirking.
“You have a real feel for these things, Minho. I’ll give you that.”
“Haven’t you already, for, like, every other case we’ve solved?” There’s a crack of a grin on Minho’s face before it fades with the next left turn they take in Jinki’s Kia. “Seriously, hyung, I can’t read this gumiho the way you do. He’s all business. No fun at all.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“They’re normally the mischievous sort. This guy meant every word he said.”
Jinki sometimes forgets that he’s the one who’s supposed to be hyper-aware of their client’s real motivations and intentions. It could be the effect of having taken up Kibum’s offer to tail him – he quite liked the sound of that in his head – all the way to Blue Night studio without having first sat down to dinner. Jinki normally would never forego a full meal.
Yet here he is, at the wheel with Minho having called shotgun over the racket in the backseat. They’d kept the Fiend in the box, now strapped into place right behind Minho’s seat.
“You haven’t even stopped for coffee.” Minho observes.
Jinki resists the urge to dab at the twitch in his left eye. “You’re one to talk, always willing to drop everything to follow up on a lead.”
“Yeah, but that’s me. This isn’t like you.”
Jinki knows what he means by that. He has both hands clamped on the steering wheel, gripped so tight over the leather cover that his knuckles burn white. The radio – which had automatically sprung to life as soon as he’d keyed in the ignition – was tuned into static, instead of the usual soft RnB or rock (favored by Minho) or the jazz or classics (preferred by him). 5.25 FM, on which one radio station broadcast exactly one show at the stroke of midnight and then vanished as soon as the host bid his listeners goodnight.
“Hyung, green light.”
It’s a good call from Minho. Jinki returns to the stretch of road in front of them, flanked by boutiques and mini-marts which were closed for the early hours. A setting so ordinary he might have lost track of the gumiho gliding ahead, unimpeded by the complete lack of traffic.
“What do you think’s gonna happen?” He asks Minho, not sure if he wants to know. Minho was the practical sort, always baffled by vague little notes that seemed to point in no particular direction. He’d have theories, sure, but Jinki likes to think – or hope as much as he allows himself – that this was something that defied their usual kind of logic.
“To you? I dunno, I thought we established that he had the hots for you.”
The flush of heat fully engulfs Jinki’s face – the urge to sputter “Kim Jonghyun does not have the hots for me” a fleeting impulse – and he can’t meet Minho’s glance. There’s another rattle from the backseat which Minho addresses with a glare through the rearview mirror and a “Shut up, Taemin” already learned from Kibum.
Jinki counts to five before he begins again: “I’m… not mad. About any of this. I doubt he’s leading me on, in case you were wondering.”
“You knew I was thinking just that, hyung.”
Minho means well, he always does. But Jinki, for once, wants him to be wrong, as if the series of events that led them here can be chalked up to bad math. Logic did have its limits.
There doesn’t seem to be anything else left to say, every previous discussion they’d had about this so well-treaded that Jinki’s memorized all of the answers. All of which have rung true at some point, only to dissipate the moment he tuned in to Blue Night with Kim Jonghyun.
It’s not long before Kibum comes to a standstill in front of a short, beige, nondescript building further downtown than he’d imagined going, but not far enough that felt closer to the truth of the matter at hand. Jinki’s expectations aren’t the only that have fallen short; Minho appraises their surroundings, along with the gumiho, and frowns.
Jinki has to smile at all of this.
“What were you expecting? A cave?”
“This is worse.” Minho scowls. “They’re blending in, whoever they are. I don’t like it.”
“What do you sense?”
“Nothing. I hate that.”
“Well,” Jinki unlocks his door and swings one leg out, letting out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “We’ve still come too far to make a run for it. You can stay in the car, if you want. This is something I need to do.”
He hears the gravel crunching underneath Minho’s foot as he makes to exit the vehicle and knows that it’s worked. Jinki can always count on him to have his back. He’d make sure to pay him back later.
“Breakfast is on me.”
“If we make it through this in one piece.”
Despite the warning, Jinki knows they’ve both got this. They were born for moments like these, this and many more that had passed, and many yet to come.
The Kia rocks back and forth behind them, unexpectedly.
“Shit.” Minho slaps his forehead. “Almost forgot to take Taemin with us.”
AM
Jonghyun likes to dwell on revolution in every sense of the world, but mostly on the aspect that concerns the part of earth on which his feet are inextricably planted. Feet on the ground and head in the clouds, as his mother would say.
“Wander and wonder as long and far as you like.” She used to tell him while tucking him in for the night. “So long as you don’t forget your roots.”
What a word it had felt like, for Jonghyun to wiggle his toes and tap his heels on the mattress to check what held him down. If it wasn’t for his tendency towards seasickness, he would’ve become a sailor, and if it wasn’t for gravity, he would’ve opted for an astronaut. So many places to explore and they all existed in his head. So that’s where he stayed most of the time, only letting himself out when his thoughts needed airing.
In time, the airing grew into a broadcast, which was initially enough to feed his wanderlust. If he wanted to be more thrifty with his words, he sold them during the daytime, complete with the compositions to match. As he watched his thoughts grow with each passing night, he tried to decipher which originated from him and which washed up on the shore of his dream-state and stayed stuck there.
To have dreams to explore was a wonderful gift, his mother reminded him time and again. To encroach too far into others wasn’t something that could be helped sometimes, but it came with a price.
So Jonghyun keeps dwelling on revolution, with his feet planted firm and heart prone to wander. He’d learnt to maintain constants in his life, his mother and sister being the twin suns at the center of his orbit. There was Blue Night of course and the litany of listeners that managed to stumble upon it. There were clues he liked to scatter around Seoul to keep things interesting.
The notes to Lee Jinki were the one thing that hadn’t crossed his mind on a whim. He hadn’t meant to crossover into a dream as vivid as the one on the night he’d met him. He hadn’t wanted it to end as he’d felt Jinki slipping away to the blare of an alarm clock when morning arose.
Jonghyun feels it still, that thing that binds them. A reason to reach out beyond the vastness of night and to hold on.
Jinki must have not been sleeping well lately; that could be why Jonghyun kept missing him of late, in the most important sense of the word. For the first time, he’d come to truly understand what it meant to feel rooted.
Revolution, as in to revolve, to encircle an object. With his feet planted on earth, Jonghyun wonders if any one planet can have too many moons. Mars had two, Saturn had fifty-three, Jupiter seventy-nine.
Perhaps Lee Jinki had one too; if he did, Jonghyun would have loved to know its name.
As the commotion outside in the lobby grows louder, Jonghyun debates between waiting it out or taking a peek beyond the studio door. There’s an incomplete sheet of lyrics which demand his attention after all and he can already guess as to what’s causing the noise.
A minute passes and he pushes his notepad aside. That’s enough waiting for tonight.
He walks up to the door and tiptoes to look through the peephole. There are two strangers standing in the lobby hallway, one of whom he immediately recognizes. The other one struggles with clutching onto the lid of a wooden box in his arms, the contents of which seem to be waging an impassioned war within their confines. And there’s Kibum settled on the leather couch, his long bushy tail curled around him, gazing smugly at the very peephole Jonghyun stands hidden behind. He knew him too well.
Inhaling – absorbing the base notes of his cologne and the hidden, almost ingrained, waft of ink on paper – the comforting lull of his personal space, Jonghyun steadies himself and unlocks the door.
Everything comes to a standstill.
Kibum’s clipped tones ring sharp and clear around them: “About time.”
The taller stranger’s stare lands directly on Jonghyun, scanning him from head to toe. From the looks of things, he hasn’t made the best impression on this new visitor. The clamor from inside the box grows louder immediately, which Jonghyun deduces can only mean one thing:
“Oh, you’ve found Taeminnie?”
Kibum’s tongue clicks in distaste.
“No, we caught Taeminnie.” The tall stranger nearly growls. “After he wreaked havoc on three supermarkets and a tennis court.”
Well. At least this didn’t seem as bad as the incident with the radar detector, though that was a story probably best left for another time. Just past the tall stranger, almost hidden, is a sight that makes Jonghyun’s stomach drop and his heart lift.
“Lee Jinki.”
The not-stranger leans away from where he’s been hiding in his partner’s shadow, a hesitant smile on the verge of forming. This only seems to annoy the tall one further as he jerks his head towards Jonghyun again.
“Kim Jonghyun?” He doesn’t inquire as much as demands. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
Jonghyun can’t disagree. It had occurred to him on a few occasions – by way of Kibum’s snide remarks – that his methods of communication weren’t exactly the most orthodox. But if anything, at least they’d left an impression.
“They agreed to release Taemin once they met you in person.” Kibum, ever the negotiator, raises his head to meet the tall one’s scrutinizing stare, eye for eye. “A deal’s a deal, isn’t it? Minho-ssi?”
The one who isn’t Jinki – Minho, Jonghyun immediately corrects himself – returns the glare. The longest few seconds pass until Jinki clears his throat and motions for Minho to hand him the box. Jonghyun watches with interest as Jinki’s fingers – shorter and stubbier than his, dexterous and quick all the same – make quick work on initiating the intricate series of unsealing charms to force open the lid. Eventually, the lid springs open entirely and Jonghyun has to brace himself for the sudden force in the atmosphere that usually signaled Taemin’s arrival in a room.
Jonghyun watches Jinki take in what happens next, when Taemin briefly comes into view as he stretches into his human form. The almost delicately placed features and lissome physique were not unusual in a Fiend of Taemin’s nature, especially those who thrived on an imbalance in nature (“Appearances trumping personality,” as Kibum often dryly remarked.).
Taemin lifts his eyes to take in both sides of the room: his captors on one side and companions on the other. This time, they’re a clear shade of blue, contrasting softly with the pale blond waves that frame his face. It would make for a breathtaking sight for anyone blessed (or likely cursed) with the Sight that came with abilities like theirs. Taemin turns slowly, raising his head to scope all sides of this familiar territory. Taemin smiles with his full lips and white teeth. Taemin stops to cast a long look at Jinki and Minho.
Taemin sticks his tongue out at them.
Jinki stares. Minho splutters. Kibum scoffs. Jonghyun winces.
Taemin instantly ripples away into the air, leaving behind the faintest impression of himself and echoes of laughter that scatter everywhere until a door to an inner passageway slams shut in his wake.
“He’s…” Jonghyun grasps for the correct words, painfully aware of the damage done. “He’s actually a lot nicer once you get to know him.”
Lee Jinki almost smiles again. Jonghyun can tell by the way one half of his face twists, with his one eye creased. The other eye is cast warily on Minho, along with a hand on the other’s shoulder, which makes Jonghyun uneasy.
All things considered, Minho gathers himself more easily than expected. But just to err on the side of caution, it’s Jonghyun who picks up where they left off:
“Yes. I’m Kim Jonghyun. Allow me explain what I can…”
What Jonghyun rather not explain, he tucks away further inside his head. Conversation was a type of dance that lay far beyond the steps he’d learnt from storytelling. All words, different forms. Even names rolled off differently when spoken of, instead of being thought. Jinki, Lee Jinki, how strange it felt to say it aloud and awake, instead of dreaming it.
Some could call the dreamscape an ocean of sound. Some would go so far as a sea of noise. So Jonghyun had decided long ago that the answer lay somewhere down the middle. Sometimes beneath the clear waves of hopes and aspirations were the murky depths of doubt and disillusionment. Sometimes the storms contained the point of calm, under which the inspiration lay buried.
He’d decided that what he felt for Lee Jinki that night – and the ones that came after it – lay in the middle. Not deep enough that he was completely adrift in the vast space of possibility, but not quite near enough to the surface over which the dawn would break.
The notes he’d sent Jinki were like skipping stones over water in that sense. Jonghyun liked the way they felt as they were whisked out of his hands, containing the parts of himself he chose to give away. He liked the ripples they formed, even liked thinking about the ones far out beyond his line of sight.
Jinki, he tries, keeping it to himself as he speaks to a wary Minho. Jinki. Jinki-ssi. Jinki hyung.
“So you’re saying that you met my partner in a dream?” Minho repeats the parts he’d understood, disbelievingly. “Now that you’ve met him in person, what’s next? Wedding bells?”
“I w-wouldn’t go that far. Of course not.” Jonghyun reassures him, trying desperately to hide the blush that creeps up his neck.
“Eat, dream, wake. That’s how he lives. Not necessarily in that order.” Trust Kibum to make things worse. “Since he’s had nothing but your partner on his mind over the last couple weeks, why don’t you let Lee Jinki have a say, Minho-ssi?”
Jonghyun can’t ignore the snigger contained in the last word of that sentence. Unfortunately, neither can Minho. The air crackles in a way that only befits a storm.
“Jonghyun-ssi?”
Jonghyunnie? If Cupid was actually a thing, Jonghyun would have been foolish enough to believe that hearing his name as an echo of what he’d heard in Jinki’s dream was the arrow still buried deep in his chest.
“If it’s okay…” Jinki spoke carefully. “I’d like to talk you more. In private.”
The arrows tears a little deeper; Jonghyun nods.
Minho huffs. But he nods at Jinki regardless. “I’ll be waiting, hyung.”
Jinki starts, his voice turning more hesitant. “You don’t have to – ”
“I will.”
“Jinki, we can go talk in my studio. Minho-ssi…” Jonghyun’s mind leaps on an idea before he can properly consider it. “Kibummie can keep you company while you wait here.”
A hiss punctuates his thoughts. This definitely hadn’t come from Minho, but it’s a reaction Jonghyun’s come to expect from years of having a gumiho by his side.
“C’mon, Bummie. You need to stick around in case Taemin tries to set off all the fire alarms again.”
“You really take my patience for granted.”
“Out of all the fox spirits in Seoul, I do, yes.” Jonghyun sneaks the fondest smile he can muster into his tone. It isn’t difficult. “Please, Bummie? We’ll try not to take too long.”
There’s the quickest intake of breath through flared nostrils. And then –
“Fine.”
Jonghyun’s smile spreads his mouth wide. “Thank you, Bummie!”
“But only if I can…”
This doesn’t bode well. Before Jonghyun can figure out the rest, Kibum is already sat upright on the couch, shifting. It’s rare that Kibum should reveal his human form so freely, let alone with strangers. It’s also been a while since Jonghyun has seen the scar on his eyebrow, the determined jut of his jawline and the knowing smirk that rarely held real malice.
It’s been a while since he’s seen all of Kibum.
Jonghyun sighs as Minho’s jaw drops.
“Put some clothes on, Bummie.”
(This is how falling in love began.
There is a beach which stretches on as far as the eye can see. There is the indigo sky above them, speckled with stars, a sight which someone else would have deemed ‘magical’.
To Jinki, it was just another night ensconced in the clarity of deep, sweet sleep. To Jonghyun, it was just the stuff dreams were made of.
This was where he’d given Jinki his name and heart, where end and infinite would eventually merge.
They’d walked along the shore, hand-in-hand while Jinki tried to read his mind. ‘Tried’, because everything was a little muddied in dreams and everything was a little clearer. By the time Jinki woke up, he’d have a little piece of Jonghyun clinging to him in a place he’d never known existed in his memory and he’d have lost a bit more of Jonghyun as well.
Jonghyun would remember everything and anything that translated into mixed signals over the Blue Night airwaves. He’d lie awake later, recollecting the soft flesh of Jinki’s palms and the light reflected in his eyes whenever Jonghyun looked at him.
And that was it, really. After all, that was only how falling in love began.)
“So you’re a Dream Walker?”
Jonghyun nods in response to Jinki’s question, hoping that his smile isn’t too misplaced. This was still a lot for Jinki to comprehend. It doesn’t stop Jonghyun from hoping that he’d eventually come around and smile too. He remembers that Jinki had the most beautiful smile in his dreams.
“And you know I’m an Empath?”
Jonghyun nods again, which he believes is dignified enough. He’d come to learn a lot of things about Jinki. It was what kept him up most nights.
“Huh.” Jinki concludes. That seems fair.
“Yeah, I know. It’s a lot to take in at this time of night. Or I should say,” A quick glance at the wall clock confirms Jonghyun’s suspicions. “Morning. It’s three thirty.”
He’d pulled out his desk chair for Jinki to sit, but the latter still chose to stand as he took in the organized chaos that was the Blue Night studio. Notepads and notebooks of varying shapes, sizes, colors and patterns are piled on every available flat surface, sprinkled over with ballpoint pens and blunt pencils. There are even a few loose sheets fluttering over the edges of the desk, scribbled over with ideas and reminders.
For the first time, Jonghyun feels exposed. He supposes it’s a side-effect of growing up with the gift he had, except that the symphonic cacophony of dreams didn’t always translate into great organizational skills during waking hours.
But Jinki smiles and even though it’s small, Jonghyun’s sure he’s been forgiven for the mess that defines one half of his life. It feels all right to return.
(One time, they’d ended up in a river.
Jonghyun can’t swim in real life, but dreams are real insofar as he wants them to be. And if he can’t swim here, he’ll float, just as long as Jinki’s by his side.
As they drift downstream, he tries to count the trees above them, branches run over with newly formed green leaf-buds while the sky is a milky shade of baby blue. It must be spring.
“The trick is to keep breathing.” Jinki states the obvious. Like that isn’t what he was doing all along, one breath in and another out. “Just think about it.”
It figures that people never say what they mean or mean what they say in dreams. In the dreamscape, words were either heavy weights underneath one’s tongue or entirely formless above it. Maybe it’s a miracle that Jinki speaks at all, to him of all people, and keeps drawing Jonghyun here of all places.
“Where in the world are we…” Jonghyun never finishes the question, because he realizes he doesn’t care if he never receives an answer. Just as long as he’s here, by Jinki’s side.
When they do end up drifting off separately – Jinki to wakefulness and Jonghyun further down the winding river – that’s the part where he remembers to breathe. He lets out a breath he can’t remember taking in and then his eyes flutter open to sunlight flooding his bedroom.
Now the trick is to keep breathing, in and out, out and in, for the rest of the day.)
“Dream Walking skipped a generation in my family. My grandmother had the gift, but not my mother. Or my sister. Then, I remember, one night when there was a full moon, I was eight years old and slipping into our dog’s dream. It was about squirrels.
“My mother told me not to worry. It was just something her mother used to do and life went on as normal in her family. I never intend to enter someone’s dream, I just slip in. That’s the only way I can describe it; I’m there before I even realize it.
“For a while, I thought I’d never have dreams of my own. When I did, they were dark and… nothing. Just nothing. It worried me for so long before I had the nerve to ask my grandmother about it. I had to go live with her for a while, to learn how to create my own little bubble in my head whenever I slipped so that the dreams of others wouldn’t affect me as deeply.
“I remember the first time I woke up from a sleep so peacefully: I was twenty-two, just out of college, in my own place. I learnt that would be a very rare occurrence. Most of the times, I wake up and I’m just flesh and blood and a headache. Do Empaths go through that too? Sensory overload?
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I was rambling. I should let you speak, Jinki… hyung?”
(Bit by bit, Jinki remembers the first dream.
The world around him was blue. And cold. And damp. He remembered it had been October when he’d fallen asleep and then time didn’t matter anymore, not when his translucent reflection stood perfectly parallel to him, right beneath his feet.
Jinki remembers the place where the sky and sea were supposed to meet, where his mind would find peace and stop dwelling on a loss he wasn’t sure he’d suffered.
Then, the light.
A ray of light.
A falling star on its way to be caught. All he needed to do was reach for it, but not yet. He knew – somehow – that it would come to him.
And it did, bursting warmth in the cup of his hands.
Hand-in-hand, someone reaching out for him.
Jinki remembers.)
“Most of the time, people don’t remember the dreams I slip into.”
“But I do. I remember some things.” Jinki realizes. “I just… needed some hints.”
Jinki’s cute that way, when he’s figuring things out with his brow furrowed, Jonghyun observes. This is the closest he’s come to being starstruck over anyone.
“Trust me, Jinki hyung, that wasn’t my intent. To lead you to me. I was happy just to admire you from afar. I didn’t think you’d reach out.”
Jinki turns to him, aglow with something Jonghyun’s too afraid to define. “You reached first.”
Technically, Jonghyun knows that’s true. He was drawn to Jinki’s dreamscapes and hadn’t questioned why until Jinki couldn’t sleep anymore, because he’d been pondering over the notes Jonghyun sent.
“I feel like a narcissist, now that I think about it.” Jonghyun admits.
“May I take your hand?”
Jonghyun’s heart leaps straight into his throat. “Excuse me?”
“I.. You seem nervous.” Jinki falters, his hand halfway stretched towards him. “I thought I could help… you know…”
“Read my mind?”
“No! No, that was never my intent. I just… I could help clear your mind.”
Jonghyun takes stock of himself. It’s nearing dawn, he’s high on work, caffeine, and the events which had recently transpired. He doesn’t have to feel his pulse to know that it’s racing at fever pitch. He holds out his hand regardless.
When he meets Jinki’s gaze, he finds himself looking for the light. It had always been there in the dreamscape, or was it a figment of Jonghyun’s own imagining? He looks away without having looked at all, disconcerted by his thoughts.
“Jonghyun?”
He lets out a breath he couldn’t remember taking in.
“That’s a good start.” There’s a chuckle in Jinki’s voice, crinkling the rest of his face as he speaks. “The trick is to keep breathing. You remember that, don’t you?”
Jonghyun does remember.
Jinki’s hand is warm, round and tiny, when placed in his own. The skin on their palms brush while their fingers entwine. Jonghyun doesn’t know if this is part of the process, but it feels right.
“Okay, you might want to close your eyes. Most people prefer it that way.”
Jonghyun does as he’s told, curious about what lay beyond the dark.
(Jinki feels the color in Jonghyun’s thoughts: a shade of sunflower yellow pulsating, streaked with a peachy red that practically screams ‘SHUTUPKISSMEHOLDMETIGHT’, then dots of blues and greens that seem to hold most of the spectrum together.
There’s more that lies beneath the mess. Jinki can hear the hum of darker, cooler shades. He could try pushing these away and leave Jonghyun with a clean blank space to work with. But somehow, he feels that a mindscape that wasn’t full of color wouldn’t be the one worth living with for Jonghyun. Still, he imagines that the approach of warmer weather wasn’t something that he greatly anticipated either.
So Jinki starts with the summer colors that bleed into each other, separating the reds from the oranges and yellows. He doesn’t delve too deep into them; the heart would reveal what the mind wouldn’t in a time that felt right for both of them.
He then brings out the blues. A particularly pretty shade stands out to him, a light color – aqua sounds about right – and then a darker shade of night.
A blue night. Jinki smiles to himself.
That would do for now.)
“How do you feel now?”
Jonghyun blinks a few times, allowing his thoughts to settle. “They’re clearer. Brighter. The things in my head, I mean…”
He glances warily at Jinki. “How bad did it get in there?”
“I didn’t allow myself in too deep. Like I said, I’d never fully enter someone’s headspace without their permission.”
A sudden hollow screech makes both of them jolt. It starts off loud enough to reverberate past the walls, but quickly fades. “Taemin.” Jonghyun offers by way of explanation. “He hasn’t raced through the vents in a long time. He must have gotten cabin fever from being stuck in that box of yours.”
They wait in silence, waiting for the quiet to seep over them again. Jinki seems more relaxed; relaxed enough to lean against one of the filing cabinets. He’s hardly intimidating; if the lights were any dimmer, he’d appear softer still. The thought warms Jonghyun in a way that settles comfortably on his skin, like when they were back on that beach, stargazing.
He allows another minute to keep himself composed.
“He’s gone now, probably on another floor.” Jonghyun begins again, hoping he can draw time out further still. “Taemin, I mean. Fiends don’t seem to need much sleep. He could go on all day and night with how much energy he has pent up.”
“Was Taemin how you managed to get those notes delivered?”
“Yeah.”
Jonghyun can recall the very moment he’d dispatched the first one with the Fiend, and more clearly, the one afterwards, where he couldn’t sleep and had just lain in bed with the sunlight on his face as the morning stretched over Seoul. A strip of paper had felt like a compromise for a love letter: not too long as to scare off his recipient, but not long enough to keep said recipient uninterested.
“Am I scaring you?” He asks Jinki. Just to be sure. “It must have been so weird. Like I said, I was okay with being so far from you. If that’s what you wanted. I just…”
“What do you want, Jonghyun?”
Jonghyun wants. It’s as simple as that and just as complicated. He’d wanted to be seen without sight, so that just meant he’d wanted to be heard. He’d wanted to be loved, even if that meant being hurt. He’d wanted to wait until the time was right and he’d wanted to reach out while he could to stave off the impatient urges to be reached for.
He laughs as soon as he feels the lump in his throat. It’s utterly absurd and so completely like himself. “Remember what I said on my last broadcast, Lee Jinki? I’m like the moon.”
Jinki filled in the rest. “Because you only come out at night?”
“Yes. And a part of me remains unseen. The part where I drift through people’s dreams while keeping my own to myself.”
Jinki steps forward. “… Do you want me to see you?”
This was the hard part.
“I’d like that.” Jonghyun breathes.
He closes his eyes again, embracing the black and slight tinges of light that flit through. Instead of coming full circle in a revolution, it’s always like he oscillates back and forth, the constant being so hard to pinpoint. He’d wanted to know what it would be like, to be constant as a satellite.
Jonghyun?
“Jonghyun?” Jinki feels a lot closer. “Can I hold you?”
Jonghyun peers through his eyelashes, his breath catching as Jinki’s hands reach for him again. “I… I wanna – I mean, I do.”
Jinki’s shirt smells faintly like home in a way Jonghyun can’t explain to himself. All he knows is that it reminds him of the type of warmth that shifts with the seasons: the first rays of morning sunshine in Spring, the flush of wet heat on a Summer night, a bonfire in Autumn, a well of tangled limbs under a blanket in Winter.
“You look different than you did when I was dreaming.” Jinki remarks, his arms firm around Jonghyun’s waist. “You remind me of someone I’d run into at, like, a park or somewhere.”
“So I look like a stranger?”
“You feel like an old friend, that’s for sure.”
It touches Jonghyun in a way that makes his heart hurt. He can’t think of much more to add than what makes it flutter instead.
“You once called me ‘Jonghyunnie’.”
“In the dream?”
“Yeah.” The confession has Jonghyun feeling wiped out already. But… “You can call me that when you’re awake too.”
His fists tighten into the fabric on Jinki’s sleeves. He might have just come full circle in time for a new beginning or he might have missed the mark entirely.
Jinki’s fingers run through his hair and Jonghyun realizes that he finally has his answer.
He keeps breathing in Jinki’s scent, allowing his heart to soar.
“Why are you in tears now?”
Kibum’s back in gumiho form now that it’s just himself, Taemin and Jonghyun again, and therefore, has no more patience for human outbursts of emotion. Jonghyun wipes his eyes and gazes back out the window as Jinki’s car exits the driveway. There’s a crimson streak in the morning sky above them, which can only mean rain later.
“It’s because I’m happy, Kibum.”
If it rains, it’ll pour, and he’ll have an excuse to stay indoors, doing nothing but write and listen to the sounds of the rest of the world moving past. He’ll think of the rain washing the plants and trees greener, the red and white clover flowers bright as discarded sweet wrappers in their ceramic pots. The clouds will shift by nightfall, leaving the sky open for the stars and moon. By that time, he’ll be blinking through the sleep in his eyes, ready to slip away again.
“I’ve never met a stranger person than you, Kim Jonghyun.” Kibum’s tail brushes around his ankles while Taemin attempts to ruffle his hair by puffing short bursts of air over his head. “But I’ll stop by your bedside tonight. Make sure to keep the fire going.”
“Thank you.”
He’ll have to go home and start burning the incense, a necessary ward against any wayward sleep demons as advised by his new friends. Jinki and Minho didn’t have to care so much, but Jonghyun is grateful for it regardless.
“Don’t waste the day daydreaming again, hyung.” He hears Taemin giggle in his ear.
(“So I guess I’ll see you in my dreams later?”
Jonghyun replies, “If you’re lucky.”
Yes, his heart sings, yes, yes, yes.
He’ll see Jinki many times more: during the afternoons in coffee shops where they’ll sip from cups and talk about their days with the sun lighting up their faces through the windows, in the evenings which will find them strolling through the quietest parts of local parks with only the moon for company, and if he’s lucky, long beyond that when dawn breaks in the tiny apartment Jonghyun calls his own.
He’ll have many, many things to tell Jinki, about the very little things he knows about the universe: the distance from Venus to Mars, the number of light years between the Andromeda and Butterfly Galaxies, what coordinates make up Ursa Major and that the brightest star in the night sky is the Dog Star, which makes him happy for the sole reason that he loves dogs.
And he’ll want to learn so many, many things about Jinki: where he got his name from, how he liked his coffee, what books he’d read, what type of music he liked listening to and if Jonghyun could play him his favorite song sometimes.
But for now, he’s content with the last sight he’d had of Jinki: that of his full wide smile, which lit up Jonghyun’s world just like the stuff dreams were made of.
Or even better.)