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Jaemin walks a familiar beat. The grass underfoot is still damp with morning dew and residual rain from the storm the night befire, shining in the rising sunlight. All around, he can hear the forest rousing, half its inhabitants waking with the dawn while the rest slip into slumber. The wind sweeps through, brushing over Jaemin in a gentle caress, rustling the budding spring leaves.
The forest sighs, coming alive as gold spills over the treetops and eases away the shadows, putting them to rest until nightfall draws them out again. Jaemin moves easily between the trees, picking his way carefully over puddles from the night's rainfall, stepping around bushes beginning to burst with colored berries and rustling with hidden inhabitants.
Jaemin loves mornings like these. Light pours down in pools of melting honey between the gaps in the canopy, and Jaemin runs his hands through it, letting the warmth seep into his skin. Birds titter and sing above him, flitting between the trees with quick wing-beats. To Jaemin's right, two squirrels race each other across the dewy grass and up the trunk of an old oak.
Jaemin exhales, watching his breath billow out and curl away from him in thin wisps. It's still chilly in the early mornings, with spring just barely wrapping the forest up in its arms. Jaemin lingers in the sunlight.
Something in the woods calls to him, though, urging him forward. He isn't sure what beckons, but when the trees whisper his name, he listens. Jaemin forges on, ducking under branches and under leaping squirrels. In the moments between moments, in faint beats of silence, there's the persistent feeling of something—like the wind curling around Jaemin's shoulder, nudging him onward.
Soon the grass gives way to moss, and Jaemin nears one of the lakes dotted through the woods. Perhaps it's more of a pond, really, but after the heavy showers the night before, the banks are swollen, the land muddy around it. The body of water ripples with the tail-fin flicks of its fish, with the kicks of the frogs bounding from one lily pad to the next.
Draining out of the lake is a small stream, textured with pebbles and larger, current-smoothed stones. The water is foggy with stirred-up dirt and silt from the rain, but Jaemin can still see the bottom of the stream, sandy yellow beneath the glinting of the surface in the morning light.
Something draws Jaemin to the water, and he steps down to the bank of the brook, feet sinking in the soft earth. Just downstream from where he stands, there is a bent sapling—bowed over by the heavy rains and wind of the night before.
Jaemin walks to it, sinking to a crouch to examine the crack running through its bark where it bends. He reaches out a careful hand, running his fingers gently over the soft wood. He can feel the life in the young tree, thrumming through it like a heartbeat. The current is low, weakened by the blow to the tree's side, but it's there. Stubborn and steady.
A smile blooms on Jaemin's face. The little tree has bent but not broken, fighting to keep its place at the stream's edge. Jaemin closes his eyes and exhales, focusing on the feeling of the water-softened bark under his fingers, on the thrum of life buzzing against his skin. Jaemin breathes steadily, and lets the magic singing in his veins pool in his fingertips, slipping through to twist around the sapling and dance to the beat of its life force.
The air thickens as if humidity has sprung up around Jaemin, and then as quickly as it appears, it dissipates. Jaemin opens his eyes, and the crack running through the body of the young tree has stitched itself together, leaving only a thin white scar where the damage was moments earlier.
Jaemin lets his hand drop back to his side and stands again, admiring the sapling as it stands at attention, no longer bowed. It's a simple thing, really, but it makes him smile. The sapling's leaves shudder as if caught in a light breeze, though the air is still, and Jaemin smiles wider.
Heading back upstream, Jaemin settles on a large rock near the water, tipping his head back to look up at the sky. The pale blue of dawn has deepened to a bright azure. The sun has climbed to the tops of the tallest trees, sitting nestled in the canopy of leaves. Jaemin looks back to the stream. He doesn't question what's called him all the way to the lakes—just waits, listening.
When he listens carefully, he can hear the answers to... well, everything. Questions he hasn't even thought of yet. The trees love to whisper. The woods know more than he ever will.
After some time, a breeze picks up, ruffling Jaemin's hair and billowing through his clothes. Jaemin stands, lets the wind carry him south. He walks twenty paces and then, there in the moss, sees a butterfly—purple-blue wings fluttering lightly before falling still to reveal a tear running through one.
Jaemin sinks to his knees, ignoring the wetness seeping through the material of his pants, and leans closer to the butterfly. Its wings beat once more before it falls still, perched in the moss, unable to fly. Jaemin stills himself as well, considering the flightless creature as it seems to consider him.
After a long moment, Jaemin shifts, carefully extending a palm, laying it flat in the damp moss just shy of the butterfly. He lets his magic pool in his hand once more, hoping the butterfly will feel it, will be drawn to it.
Another moment drags out, and then the butterfly beats its wings again, creeping closer to Jaemin's open hand. Jaemin nearly holds his breath as the butterfly flutters onto the palm he's held out in offering. The feeling of it sitting atop his sensitive skin sends tingles running through him—there's as much magic in the butterfly as there is in him. More, even. As the butterfly settles in his palm, Jaemin can feel that it's a creature of magic.
It's a bit more complicated than the sapling, then, to patch the butterfly's wing, but Jaemin breathes evenly and knows he can help.
"How would you like to fly?" he murmurs to the butterfly, lifting it carefully, cradling it to his chest where his center of magic is strongest.
The butterfly's wings beat gently as if in answer, and Jaemin smiles. He lifts his free hand from the ground and brings it up to join the one holding the butterfly, cupping his hands together. Jaemin lets his eyes fall shut and focuses on the pinpricks of pressure and life in his hands. He takes a deep breath, drawing energy into his lungs from the forest air, and then exhales, letting all the magic flow through him, pooling in his cupped hands like water.
Jaemin feels the butterfly flutter in his hands, wings working up a light breeze between his palms. It stirs up the magic, soaks it in. After a moment, the points of light pressure and spark where the butterfly touches Jaemin's skin fade away, and Jaemin opens his eyes to see the creature floating in the air above his hands, level with his eyes.
Jaemin sits back on his heels and watches the butterfly twirl through the air, dancing on a breeze Jaemin can't quite feel. He smiles up at it, wings beating steady and strong as Jaemin's heart, flashing brightly against the blue and green backdrop.
The butterfly swoops closer, landing on Jaemin's nose, and he goes slightly cross-eyed trying to look at it. The touch is fleeting, just a moment of stillness before the butterfly lights off his skin again, but Jaemin settles. The woods are no longer calling to him. The butterfly is free.
With one last wink of its wings, the butterfly rises into the wind and flutters away. Jaemin watches it go until it's out of sight, and then picks himself up and heads back through the woods the way he'd come.
The butterfly has flown home, so Jaemin does too.
—
In his kitchen, windows flung open to let in the spring air, Jaemin finds he has a visitor; perched on the window sill is the butterfly from the woods. Its familiar wings splash color against the pale wood, and catch Jaemin's eyes as he rolls out dough on a board on the counter.
"Oh," Jaemin says, blinking at the beautiful creature. "Hello."
The butterfly's wings beat twice in greeting—flashes of purple and blue like a deep, velvety sunset. A quiet happiness unfurls in Jaemin's chest at the sight, at the fact that he'd been able to help, and the butterfly is strong and able to float through the forest on its own once more.
"My name is Jaemin," Jaemin says. It's courteous to introduce oneself, he knows.
The butterfly's wings beat again, and Jaemin smiles. He returns to the dough on his counter, molding it into shape. When he glances up again, the butterfly is still there on his windowsill, seemingly content to linger there.
Jaemin figures that it's only polite to speak to it, even if it doesn't say anything in return. So while he works on baking lemon-drop cookies to bring into town to share and to leave in the woods in offering, he lets his mind wander, lets stories and musings spill from his lips to fill the air of his kitchen. To his delight, the butterfly remains perched on his window sill, beating its wings gently, but never leaving.
When Jaemin has finished with the cookies and the sun has shifted in the sky so it shines through his window, cutting a bright square of light onto the carpeted floor, Jaemin prepares to leave. He gathers up all the cookies but two, leaving one on the counter for himself, and setting one on the windowsill for the butterfly. The butterfly approaches it carefully, seemingly appraising it before fluttering down to rest atop it.
"Thank you for your company," Jaemin says, nodding his head to the creature.
The butterfly's wings flutter again, and Jaemin smiles.
"I hope to see you again," he says, honestly seeping through his voice.
Another beat of the butterfly's wings, and the smile spreads wider on Jaemin's face.
When he leaves, the butterfly is still there on the window sill, perched on the cookie. Jaemin waves goodbye over his shoulder as he walks down the stepping stones that lead away from his cottage.
When he returns, the butterfly is gone. The cookie as well.
Jaemin wonders when he'll see the beautiful creature again.
—
As it turns out, the butterfly visits Jaemin often.
Spring blooms warm and bright over Jaemin's small corner of the world, and as the trees fill in with lush green leaves, and all the grasses grow tall and wild, and wildflowers dot every hill in the area, the most vibrant colors Jaemin knows are still those of the butterfly's wings.
Warmth settles over the edge of the woods as summer draws nearer, and Jaemin's open windows regularly welcome the butterfly to his home. Some days, it visits only for a few minutes, fluttering through as if to simply see that Jaemin is still present and well before disappearing again, but some days it lingers. Jaemin likes those days best—quiet company and the comfort of home without having to be alone.
Once, after flitting about in his kitchen while Jaemin busied himself with brewing potions for the townsfolk, the butterfly trails Jaemin halfway down to the valley while he heads to town to pass out his goods. It floats in the breeze and paints streaks of purple against the blue sky, and lights on Jaemin’s shoulder before taking off and leaving him to finish his work in town on his own.
On one particularly warm day, when the sun beats down golden over everything, heating the soil and the flat rocks in Jaemin's yard, lighting the world up so bright that it's hard to look right at anything, Jaemin retreats into the woods. There, he finds the butterfly perched in a cluster of pink flowers near one of the streams gurgling through the forest. It flies up to him without a moment of hesitation, and lands on his nose, dotting pollen on his skin. Jaemin gets the strangest feeling that it's just been waiting for him to arrive, to visit like it visits him.
And so it comes to be that Jaemin seeks out the butterfly in the woods almost as much as the butterfly travels out to the hill Jaemin's cottage sits atop. Jaemin grows as used to looking for flashes of purple among the forest's leaves as he does out his own windows.
It's a strange companionship, perhaps, because Jaemin is the only one who ever speaks, and sometimes he doesn't even do that - just exists in silence while the butterfly lingers nearby - but Jaemin thinks it's special. There's something more to the butterfly than just its beautiful wings and the fact that it comes to him and listens when rambles. He knows there’s more.
The butterfly has its own magic, unlike anything thrumming through Jaemin's body, and yet there are also faint traces of Jaemin's magic clinging to it, sewn into its wing where he helped it heal. There's something threading the two of them together—not fate or a familiar bond, but something quieter, simpler. They're connected merely by choice, by Jaemin choosing to help an injured creature of the woods, by the butterfly choosing to return to Jaemin even though he had nothing left to give but his company.
The tie that binds is loose, delicate. And yet, Jaemin doesn’t worry about it breaking. He finds he’s quite content as is, to wake every morning and choose to search for his newfound companion in the warm, forest air, to know that each morning, the butterfly chooses to search for him as well.
—
Jaemin is in his garden, face shielded from the bright sun by a wide-brimmed hat, trying to encourage life back into his wilting rosebush, when the butterfly floats down into view, settling on one of the open petals of a rose mere inches from Jaemin's face. Jaemin blinks. The purple and blue of the butterfly's wings contrast beautifully against the pink and green of the rosebush.
"Hello," Jaemin says, sitting back in the soil, withdrawing his hands from the base of the bush.
The butterfly beats its wings in greeting, and then flutters down to one of Jaemin's hands, landing delicately on his pointer finger. It lingers for a moment, then lights back up. Something about the action urges Jaemin to follow, so he lifts his hand, moving it along the same path as the butterfly.
When the butterfly lands once more on one of the roses, Jaemin rests careful fingers against the petals—they're silky smooth under his touch. Jaemin watches closely as the butterfly picks its way across the tip of the flower to settle on Jaemin's finger again. He sits, waiting, until he feels the buzz of the butterfly's magic seep into his finger.
All at once, Jaemin understands. He lets his own magic pool at his fingertips, tickling where it brushes against the butterfly's. At the beat of the butterfly's wings, Jaemin's magic stirs up, and leaks out, drawn into the air. The fluttering of the butterfly's wings catches it, spinning his magic together with its own until the air is sparkling over the rosebush.
The butterfly lifts up from Jaemin's finger and flutters from bud to bud, petal to petal, spreading the magic over the bush like pollen, like falling light. Before Jaemin's eyes, the bush brightens, color deepening, and the leaves tremble lightly before springing up as if shedding a weight.
When the butterfly lands again on the bridge of Jaemin's nose, the rosebush is bursting with life again, blooming under the sun. Jaemin leans back on his hands, tipping his head to admire the work before letting his eyes focus on the splash of purple-blue obscuring his vision.
"Thank you," he murmurs, voice low so as not to startle the butterfly. "You're one clever little creature."
The butterfly's wings flutter, and Jaemin thinks he can tell that it's happy—pleased with what they've accomplished together. It takes flight again soon after, drifting off to the woods again in the breeze, and as Jaemin watches it go, he knows something has shifted.
The tips of his fingers still tingle with the butterfly's bright, velvety magic.
—
On the summer solstice, Jaemin returns home from bringing an order to town, and finds he has a visitor—perched carefully on his front gate, sits a boy he's never seen before. He has jet black hair, a pretty, nearly ethereal face, and delicate limbs, and he sits there like he belongs, like he's just been waiting for Jaemin's arrival.
As Jaemin approaches, he can see that there's an air of familiarity to the boy, though he's never seen that face before. When the sunlight catches just right in his hair, it gleams purple and blue, like spilled oil.
"Hello," Jaemin calls to the boy as he draws nearer.
The boy fixes dark eyes on him, and smiles. It's almost blinding in the summer sun. The boy raises a hand to wave, still balanced on Jaemin's gate like he weighs nothing.
In no time at all, Jaemin is mere paces away from the gate. Up close, the familiarity of the boy is even stronger—like he's someone Jaemin has met before in dreams, or...
"My name is Renjun," the boy says. Without moving a muscle, he swings the gate open to let Jaemin pass.
Jaemin opens his mouth to introduce himself, but Renjun smiles at him and the words die on his tongue. Renjun already knows.
Jaemin walks up to him, and Renjun leaps down from the gate, floating to the ground and landing before Jaemin. Jaemin holds out a hand, and Renjun takes it. Jaemin's palm tingles, and Renjun's skin is soft as silk.
"It's nice to finally meet you," Jaemin says with a smile.
Renjun's skin is opalescent up close, glowing soft pinks and purples and blues under the sun. He smiles, and his lips remind Jaemin of unfurling rosebuds. “It is,” he says. “Very nice.”
—
In the summer heat, Jaemin finds himself venturing into the woods more and more. Where spring was filled with afternoons baking in his kitchen and tending to his gardens, trekking back and forth between his home and the town square, summer passes by with Jaemin’s bare feet sinking into the moss by the lakes, the cold, sparkling river water gurgling around his ankles.
Where spring was quiet, was Jaemin listening to the sound of the birds and the slow regrowth of his little corner of the world after the winter, summer quickly grows louder. Summer becomes cicadas buzzing, crickets chirping and hopping through the grass around Jaemin’s feet, frogs croaking from lily pads and turning to choruses of peepers at the fall of dusk over the marshes. Summer becomes songbirds overhead and and the racket of small woodland animals racing to and fro in the underbrush.
Summer becomes Renjun.
Renjun’s face lighting up like dawn breaking across the horizon in response to Jaemin’s stories, Renjun sharing stories of his own as he gradually opens up more and more to Jaemin. Renjun squeezing a lemon into lemonade with his bare hands and then laughing like chiming bells at the stickiness running down his arms and coating his skin. Renjun’s glittering eyes and his fingers sparking with magic because he’s made of it and it pours out of him like light from the sun.
Jaemin becomes more familiar with the forest than ever with Renjun as his guide. They travel to nooks and crannies of the woods that Jaemin has never spotted before, and Renjun leads Jaemin up the tallest of trees to glimpse the forest from overhead—a rolling sea of shining green, rippling like waves in the wind.
On a blisteringly hot day, Renjun even dares Jaemin to leap from one of the trees, and the rush of the wind as he plummets towards the rippling surface of the lake cools Jaemin like a perfect trick before the lakewater swallows him up and chases the rest of the sweltering heat from his body. That day, Jaemin’s skin runs wet not with sweat, but with algae-swirled water, and he’s not sluggish from the heat, but bubbling with energy.
He wonders if it’s something in the water, in the forest air that has brought him to life, but he knows, as Renjun kicks his legs in the shallows at the shore, that it isn’t as simple as that. The excitement bursting in Jaemin’s chest like fireworks has less to do with the activities and more to do with the company.
And as long as that company is Renjun, with that soft, contemplative smile on his face as he gazes across the water at Jaemin, he is perfectly fine with it.
—
The moon is full, hanging high in the sky as Jaemin opens his front door to the night. The air is nippy as summer fades into the nearing autumn, and Jaemin wraps his arms around himself as he steps out onto the stone footpath that leads away from his cottage.
Something has been nagging at him all night long, keeping him from sleeping. Maybe it’s the brightness of the moon pouring silver pools onto the wood of his bedroom floor, or maybe it’s the chill in the air, or maybe it’s neither of those, but something draws Jaemin out. He walks to the end of stepping stones and reaches his gate.
For a moment, he simply stands there, hands curled loosely around the wood as he soaks in the night air, tipping his head back to watch his breath billow into the shafts of moonlight falling over him. As he stands, a light breeze picks up around him, and before Jaemin’s eyes, the clouds of his breath are swept away in the direction of the woods. Jaemin exhales, pushing his gate open and stepping out.
The breeze isn’t a summons, but a suggestion. Nevertheless, Jaemin is more than willing to listen.
Cottage falling away behind him, Jaemin ventures carefully to the treeline, feeling the damp grass give way under his feet as he walks, leaving a lightly trodden path behind him. The wetness of the grass makes it look like it’s glittering in the silver light of the moon.
Jaemin reaches the first trees and pauses, still and listening. The forest sighs in the breeze, and then, when Jaemin closes his eyes and lets the darkness open his ears to even the faintest of sounds, it whispers for him. Come, come, little witch. Come see the nightlife.
So Jaemin ventures into the woods, and the light of the moon slips away with the forest floor shielded by the canopy, but Jaemin finds it doesn’t grow impossibly dark as perhaps he had expected. Instead, all around him, the trees and underbrush seem to glow faintly, and small, luminescent creatures flit through the air, dancing like shooting stars between the branches.
Jaemin breathes out in wonder, treading carefully across the ground, following the tugging feeling in his chest. He passes clusters of hanging berries and walks under branches rustling with small creatures, invisible in the shadows, but intending no harm to Jaemin as he passes through.
Soon, he comes to a clearing, and all at once, he understands. Why he couldn’t sleep, why he followed the wind into the woods—he understands it all with crystalline clarity, like he’d been submerged underwater, looking up at the sky through the shifting surface of the water and now he has come up for air, breathing in for the first time and seeing the world with open, unobstructed eyes.
Across the clearing, Renjun is floating under the stars. His wings are magnificent—the same wings Jaemin had seen fluttering here and there all spring long, but large enough now to lift Renjun’s human form. They’re translucent like this, moonlight shining through so the purples and blues glow like galaxies, swirling with magic.
Jaemin stands in silence, watching as Renjun touches down lightly, bare feet barely compressing the grass as he lands. Renjun meets his eyes across the clearing, and smiles. He gleams in the moonlight, with silver pouring over his skin and turning him pearly pink. His black hair seems to reflect a kaleidoscope of color, changing every time he shifts, tilts his head so it catches the light at a new angle.
“Hi,” Renjun says, cutting across the clearing to reach Jaemin, holding out a hand for him to take.
Jaemin steps towards him and accepts his offered hand. Renjun’s skin is cool, smooth and soft as always. “Hi,” he breathes as Renjun curls his fingers around his hand. His grip is gentle, but his magic swirls, ever-present, just under his skin, and Jaemin knows that Renjun is a vessel of incredible strength. His gentleness is purposeful, considerate.
Renjun meets Jaemin’s gaze steadily for a long moment, then steps away and leads Jaemin to the center of the clearing. When they come to a stop under the bright light of the moon, Renjun glances up, and for a moment, the moon is reflected in his eyes. Jaemin thinks they’re deep enough to hold the whole cosmos.
Renjun looks back to Jaemin and the smile on his lips turns soft. “How would you like to fly?” he asks.
Jaemin feels warmth unfurl in his chest. He remembers months ago, a scene so much like this: him cupping a butterfly in his palms, offering the skies to it. Now Renjun holds Jaemin in his hands, and his wings beat lazily at his back, stronger than ever. There’s a small seam of gold running through one wing, contrasting the silvery purple-blues. Jaemin knows that’s the mark of his magic - born from the sun where Renjun’s is born from the moon - morning gold spun through the night.
Now Renjun offers the skies to Jaemin.
And who would he be to say no?
“I would love to fly if it’s with you,” he says, and it’s the truth.
Renjun smiles wider, pleased, and pulls Jaemin into his arms. “You’ll have to hold on,” he tells Jaemin.
“Of course,” Jaemin says. He has no plans to let Renjun go—now or ever, unless Renjun asks it of him. He wraps his arms around Renjun and the ground slips away.
They rise slowly at first, but once Renjun sees that Jaemin is comfortable in his arms, content and absolutely trusting, Renjun’s wings beat with more force, and they shoot up into the sky. Jaemin clings to Renjun as exhilaration sparks through him, and a delighted shriek of laughter springs from his lips. It draws a warm, bubbling laugh out of Renjun, and propels him higher.
They break through a pillow of low hanging clouds, and the mist settles all over them, but Renjun’s hands are steady and don’t slip in the slightest. Jaemin inhales the wet air and looks down at the world shrinking beneath them, shining silver in the starlight.
Eventually, Renjun stills, wings beating just enough to keep them steady in the air. When Jaemin tips his head back, the moon looks close enough to touch. Jaemin soaks in the sight for a moment before meeting Renjun’s eyes. He’s so close, Jaemin can see flecks of silver in his dark irises—proof that he’s a child of starlight.
“Thank you,” Jaemin says, blinking slowly, drinking in the sight of Renjun’s shining face.
Renjun tips his head in a nod. “Thank you,” he says. “I hadn’t thought I would be able to fly like this again. You’ve given me a great gift.”
“I’m happy to have helped,” Jaemin tells him, because it’s the truth. “And that you didn’t fly away from me,” he confesses.
“You’re a good witch,” Renjun says. “I have been happy to spend time with you.”
“You’re a good fairy,” Jaemin echoes. He pauses, considering. “Would you spend more time with me? Will you go when winter comes or…” he dares to hope… “can you stay here? With me?”
Renjun purses his lips, contemplating the question. After a moment, he lets out a light breath. “I have never stayed here past the last autumn heat,” he says. “I have never had a reason to stay through the winter’s cold before.” He blinks slowly back at Jaemin, watching him as he holds his breath in anticipation. “I suppose… perhaps now I do.”
A disbelieving smile crawls across Jaemin’s lips and a funny warmth blooms in his chest. “You’ll stay?”
“Will you keep me warm?” Renjun asks. There’s something teasing spun through the genuine question in his voice.
Jaemin nods. “Of course. As long as you want, I’m yours. If you keep me close, I’ll keep you warm.”
Renjun smiles. “I will keep you close, then.” His arms tighten just so around Jaemin. “How close would you like to be?”
“As close as you want,” Jaemin answers.
Renjun tips his head closer, so his nose brushes Jaemin’s, and Jaemin once again goes slightly cross-eyes looking at him. When Jaemin doesn’t show any signs of protest, one of Renjun’s hands shifts to nudge Jaemin closer as well, so their lips are a breath away from touching. “Closer?” Renjun whispers.
“Please,” Jaemin breathes.
Renjun smiles, soft in the moonlight, and closes the last breath of distance between them. His lips are velvet soft, smooth and tingling with magic and something more. He kisses Jaemin right there, high in the sky, holding him close for warmth. It’s months in the making, and holds the promise of months more to come.
Jaemin kisses him back, and the stars twinkle around them. It feels infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s pure and simple—it’s magic.