Chapter Text
From the moment he was born, Kim Sunoo was marked for death. It was an uncomfortable thing, to grow up knowing that you were going to die. Or at least, it was uncomfortable for everyone around him.
Sunoo couldn’t understand what distinguished him from anyone else. Didn’t everyone live life knowing that it was a finite thing? But when people caught the flash of his golden eyes their faces clouded over with pity, as if death were not an inevitability for every human on earth.
He has been chosen, they would whisper. Only Death himself can choose to spare him now.
In Sunoo’s humble opinion, Death could fuck right off. He didn’t need its mercy, thank you very much.
On the day that Sunoo came into the world, it rained. The sounds of his wails harmonized with the percussive thump of swinging branches beating against the windows as the sky split open in grief and wept for him. When he first opened his eyes, everyone was horrified.
There were horrified because the baby had piercing golden eyes, and because as soon as he opened them to the world he fell completely silent. They did not see what he saw.
A shadowy figure standing in the corner of the room. A flash of red. Pain.
Sunoo’s ghost was there on the day he was born, and his ghost was there every time Sunoo skirted death. He came to see it as his shadow, lurking just on the outskirts of his peripheral vision, waiting for the next opportunity to strike. He never saw it directly, except for in the moments just as he was about to die. Whenever that hazy silhouette showed up, danger always followed. One of those days, Sunoo’s ghost would sink its claws into his skin and he would be unable to escape his fate any longer.
He tried to describe it to others, the thing he saw, but he himself did not know exactly what it was. Maybe he truly was being haunted by a tortured spirit, or maybe it was a manifestation of his fate, some kind of deadly messenger coming to reap his soul.
“Well seeing as how you’re still very much alive, I’d say it’s doing a pretty lousy job,” Sunghoon told him.
“Or maybe I’m doing a spectacular job of surviving,” Sunoo argued. Sunghoon smiled at him with teasing fondness.
“I’ve seen you trip over your own feet,” Sunghoon said, but not mockingly. “I think you need a guardian angel more than anything.”
“I already have one,” Sunoo said with a sniff. It was true, though embarrassing to say out loud. Sunoo had come to see Sunghoon as a guardian of sorts, or at the very least, a life long companion.
There had never been a time when Sunoo had been without him. They had been born in the same hospital, raised in the same neighborhood, and had always run together no matter where they went. Sunghoon had been there to hold him in the dark, when layers of blankets had not been enough to cease his frightened tremors as the shadow swept along the walls and that trademark streak of red trailed after it.
He was there to help scrub the walls of Sunoo’s room in the mornings that followed, taking soap and sponge to the crimson circles that had been painted into the peeling plaster. A signature. Circles upon circles, painted on the walls, etched into the fabric of the carpet, inked onto leaflets of paper and notebooks. Whenever the ghost came it was sure to leave its mark, never using any other shape, and never using words.
Sunghoon had witnessed it all and comforted him through it all, even when Sunoo's mother sought out the aid of a fortune teller to discern the fate of her cursed son. She had received a prophecy in return for a scandalous sum of money; whether the premonition was a bullshit scam or the whispers of a genuine prophet, only fate could say.
He will cross paths with death once he makes a pledge of love.
His mother, a superstitious woman, took the words to heart. When he was young she kept him away from playgrounds and parks, and as he grew older she bade him to come home directly after school. He never grew close to anyone else, never forming any long lasting or deep friendships that could lead to something more.
As long as Sunoo never fell in love, her reasoning was, he could never die by the curse’s hand.
But then there was Sunghoon. Sunghoon who had always been there, and would always be there, who could not be shut out, nor would anyone dare to try. Sunghoon who knew that Sunoo was cursed, the glaring reminder shining out of Sunoo’s face every time they met eyes. He knew that Sunoo could not give his love to another, not if he didn’t want to succumb to the icy embrace of predestination. He knew it all, and still he stayed. Still he loved.
“Don’t say it to me,” Sunoo would whisper again and again, as their arms held each other in the dark, and circles dripped from every surface. “Don’t say anything to me that I can’t say back.”
So Sunghoon didn’t tell Sunoo he loved him.
“I love your laugh,” he would murmur, his smile bleeding into his words, coloring them with audible affection. “When you laugh it sounds like the showers of spring, like a warm drizzle hitting pavement and splashing around bare feet.”
His words were poetic and almost rehearsed, like he had thought again and again about what he would be allowed to say, running the lines through his head until they were committed to memory and spilled from his lips like well known sonnets.
“When you laugh,” he said, “your eyes become wet, every time. Drops poured from gold, like rain breaking through the clouds.”
I love you, was what Sunghoon really wanted to say. Sunoo wouldn’t let him. But it was alright. He knew.
Because Sunghoon loved the curve of his smile when he talked, the dip of the dimple in his cheek, the sweep of his bangs across his forehead that kissed his eyelashes after a few too many weeks without a trim. These were the things that Sunghoon spoke of instead.
Because Sunoo’s eyes were his warmth on a cold night. Because his skin was soft like the velvet caress of a fresh rose petal. Because his laughter was like rain. These were the words that Sunoo collected and held dear to his heart in place of those three words that could not be said. But he heard them all the same, woven amongst all the others.
“I know,” Sunoo would say when Sunghoon was finished. Then he would reach forward and trace the line of Sunghoon’s brow, down his cheek, along his jaw, and across the curve of his throat. Goosebumps trailed after his finger, blossoming along the path of his touch like they had been planted there by him. Sunghoon shivered.
“Are you cold?” Sunoo asked.
“No, never,” Sunghoon said. “Not with you.”
“I’ll keep you warm.” I love you.
“I know.” He knew.
A shadow flickered in the corner, quiet and brooding. When Sunoo was wrapped up in Sunghoon like this, it didn’t dare come near. Instead it stuck against the walls like a stain, seeming almost shy. Yet Sunoo couldn’t help the tremble of his lip as he heard the rhythmic sound of circle after circle being traced like a menacing target. A bullseye, maybe.
“Don’t be afraid of the things that lurk in the dark, Sunoo.”
“Why?” he whispered.
Sunoo expected simple words of comfort, repetitive reassurances that Sunghoon would fight off the ghost if it found the courage to draw closer. But instead, Sunghoon looked contemplative, worrying his lip between his teeth as he grappled for a suitable reply.
“Because maybe some things are just afraid of the light.”