Archive of Our Own

1.

“They found a body in the lake,” Yoongi says as he flops into the empty chair next to Kihyun, autumn sun painting playful shadows on his face, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“What?” Kihyun startles, looking up from his phone long enough to watch Yoongi struggle with his lighter, hand cupped around the dancing flame. Its shaky light draws out the stark lines of his face and Kihyun stares, barely listening when Yoongi speaks again, gesturing with the cigarette.

“They found a body in the lake,” he repeats, words turning into smoke as they reach Kihyun’s face. “Like, a dead one. Floating face down.”

Kihyun swallows, glancing in turn at the convenience store's bright front, at the plastic table he sat at, at the sun he can see starting to set behind the hill, at Yoongi’s face, finally, his face betraying no emotions. There’s his cup of soggy noodles at his elbow. There’s a soft breeze against his neck. There’s a body in the lake.

“Who is it?” he asks, his voice echoing to his ears as if he was standing in a vast, empty room, and he watches Yoongi shrug, reclining in his chair as he takes a drag. He still looks sun-kissed, as if he had walked straight out of summer to find Kihyun huddled there on his own, too pale under the waning light of late afternoon. Yoongi feels faraway, Kihyun thinks then, as if they weren’t quite on the same plane of existence.

“Dunno yet,” Yoongi’s saying, and Kihyun wills his voice to bring him back into the moment. “The dudes from the dam are waiting for the police before fishing it out.”

Kihyun nods, and in his mind there is a body floating face down into darkness, hair swaying like reeds in the water, white hands turning as pale as the creatures of the deeps. And then Yoongi is staring at him with an eyebrow raised, and the image dissolves before his eyes.

“How do you even know that?” Kihyun asks, matching Yoongi’s stance to give himself countenance, his phone face up on the table catching the remains of the light. It seems too calm a day for a corpse to be floating in the lake. At the next table over two girls are sharing beers and chips, long hair swept over their shoulders, something one of them says sending them into hysterics. If Kihyun looks through the glass storefront he can see the cashier idly scrolling through his phone, boredom painted on his young face. None of these people knows, he thinks then. No one knows about the body in the lake, besides him, and Yoongi, and the ones who found it.

“I was hanging with Jin in the patrol car. He got a call on the radio and I overheard, and then I had to promise him I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“And then you came right here to tell me?”

“You’d have known sooner or later,” Yoongi says, smiling a cheeky smile and Kihyun rolls his eyes, even if it’s true. They would have called him eventually. He pushes off the table to stand, gesturing for Yoongi to follow.

“Let’s go see,” he says, and he knows this is why Yoongi came, this is what he was waiting for. Kihyun watches him stub his cigarette in the ashtray on the table, wipe his hands on his jeans as if to erase the smell of tobacco from his fingers. It never really leaves him, though, the smell. It’s in his hair and at the tip of his fingers and it should be gross but somehow it isn’t, and sometimes, when Yoongi isn’t really paying attention, Kihyun would scoot closer. It feels like stealing, then. Because it’s not just cigarettes. It’s the smell of his skin, of the laundry he uses. Of whatever he did that day, sticking to him. And Kihyun breathes it in and he pretends everything is fine, and normal, and maybe if he opens his eyes Yoongi would smile at him and Yoongi would know. But he never does, and so it feels like stealing.

Kihyun follows Yoongi down the road, the one that will lead them to the fenced lakefront. From the locked door they can climb through the woods, tripping on unearthed roots and slipping over fresh mud, until they find the place where the fence was damaged in a landslide some years ago. No one bothered to fix it; no one ever comes into the woods anyway. Except Kihyun, and Yoongi, and they slip under the fence easily, dirtying their clothes, the first dead leaves of autumn clinging to the underside of their shoes.

They skid down a scree slope, climb back up the talus and lie flat there, police lights skirting the top of their heads. They have a good view of the lake from there, and of the tall, sinister flood gates preventing it from drowning the village below it. Kihyun stares, an uneasy feeling blooming in his belly, the same one each time. He’d had dreams of the gates opening, of the cold, grey water engulfing the village down below, engulfing him while he slept, his body buried under the great weight of it. He would wake choking then, the darkness of his room starkly felt against his skin, slimy and moist as if he’d indeed been touched by the water sleeping miles above his head.

Beside him Yoongi struggles with the bag he’d carried, extricating heavy binoculars from its depths with a squeak of triumph.

“Seriously?” Kihyun asks as Yoongi peers through them, adjusting the lenses to bring in front of his face the scene unfolding on the opposite bank.

“I always come prepared,” Yoongi says, passing the binoculars to Kihyun once he’d had his fill.

“It looks like you,” he says in a soft voice and what a strange thing to say, Kihyun thinks as he looks through the binoculars, what a strange thing to say even if it’s true.

They have dragged the body onto the flat bank of the lake, paramedics sliding down the slope towards it, bearing a stretcher. Kihyun can see Jin standing there next to a fence of yellow tape, his ill-fitting uniform making him look broader than he really is. Someone else is taking pictures of the body, the lake and the bank while agents are walking alongside it, stare riveted to the ground. The boat they used to fish the body out is idling there too, gently rocked by small waves.

Sounds do not reach their hiding place and the scene seems almost peaceful to Kihyun, careful gestures, careful hands bearing the corpse onto the stretcher and Kihyun looks at it then, really does, and Yoongi is right. The dead man looks the same as him, high cheekbones and floppy dark hair plastered to his brow by the cold water. Full lips gently parting on a still breath, and the delicate arch of his eyebrows adorning his closed, long-lashed eyes. But he’s taller, Kihyun can tell. Taller and rounder in the face, and the more he looks the less alike they are and why did they both think they ever were? Kihyun follows the stretcher as it is born up the slope to a waiting ambulance and the man could be sleeping, if it wasn’t for his deathly paleness.

“It’s not anyone from the village,” Kihyun says as he lowers the binoculars and Yoongi nods at his side, heaving a sigh that might be relief.

“Who would come up here to die, though?” he asks and Kihyun shrugs, looking back at the lake through the binoculars even if there is nothing more to see. The water is peaceful, lapping gently at the leafy banks. Tall trees stretch their branches above the water, their reflection distorted in the current, slightly wrong reflections of another world. If he had to choose, Kihyun thinks, if he had to choose, it would be here, too. And then he remembers his dreams, the weight bearing down on him, his lungs filling with grey water and the great terror that came with it, slimy and moist and almost cruel.

“Maybe it’s a murder,” Yoongi is saying. “Maybe someone dropped him in there.”

Kihyun shakes his head, lowering the binoculars from his face.

“It’s not,” he says, and Yoongi stares at him the way he does sometimes, as if Kihyun was a problem he needed to solve, eyebrows slightly furrowed, lips pinched. Kihyun doesn’t look at him.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” Kihyun shrugs, and he couldn’t explain it himself. He had just known, as he had watched the man who looked like him, and then didn’t. He had just known. And the trees had known, too. The water and the damp earth underneath it all. Kihyun closes his eyes, breathing deep. Above him branches click and hum, and below him the soil throbs, millions of invisible processes endlessly churning. And it is mostly decay, he knows, a prodigious rot he’ll be a part of someday, century-old corrosion in which tree roots burrow, incessantly turning air into life, fungi webs extending as far as the earth goes. Death is everywhere.

“Kihyun,” Yoongi’s voice calls from somewhere far, far away, and Kihyun opens his eyes, turning to look at him. His round face and bright eyes and the dark hair upon his brow, and his lips parting and his chest rising on a breath, rising and falling, rising and falling. Kihyun stares and Kihyun knows that one day it will still, and Yoongi too will be part of that relentless rot, colors and smells swallowed by the great green of the earth. But for now, for now he is here, and Kihyun stares at him breathing. And he wishes he were closer, he wishes he were braver. He wishes Yoongi knew.

“I lost you for a bit,” Yoongi’s saying and Kihyun smiles, twisting his hand painfully in an effort to anchor himself back into the moment.

“Sorry,” he says, “I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Yoongi asks and it’s too quiet, then. You, Kihyun could say. You, and how alive you are, and how I wish I could tell you, but how do you tell people what they are doing is not enough? How do you tell people they’re not giving the right kind of love, the one you really want? You don’t. You can’t.

Kihyun shrugs, handing Yoongi back the binoculars, careful that their hands don’t touch. He shifts against the soil then, sitting up, brushing the front of his shirt free of twigs and dead leaves.

“Nothing, really. Just, you know. There was a body in the lake.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, his gaze still unsure as he fits the binoculars back in his bag.

They stand up, and it is still too quiet. It’s like breathing in an element denser than air, Kihyun staring at Yoongi’s back as he trudges on ahead, ducking under low branches, legs brushing the tall ferns growing in the shade. Words may have weight, Kihyun thinks then, and he drops his gaze, staring at his feet, at the soil underneath them.

Before him there’s Yoongi, crushing leaves as he goes. There’s the muggy air against his skin, the buzzing of insects in his ears. There’s the soft, yielding feel of the soil underfoot. There was a body in the lake.

2.

Yoongi slides into the plastic chair next to him, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, and Kihyun has a sensation of déjà-vu that has him stare a bit too intensely. Yoongi cocks an eyebrow at him as he lights his cigarette, dancing shadows highlighting his cheekbones.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kihyun says, dropping his gaze towards the disemboweled bag of crisps on the table. “Did they find another body in the lake?”

Yoongi laughs, shaking his head before taking a drag. Kihyun watches the incandescent tip slowly turn the cigarette to ashes.

“Nah, I was just bored.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“You’re always here,” Yoongi shrugs as he flicks his cigarette, ashes falling to the ground. Kihyun would protest, but it’s true. There’s not that many places to go to, in the village, and the corner store up on the hill has a nice vantage point. When it gets too stuffy in the house, when the silence gets too loud, he comes here. He doesn’t know when Yoongi started to notice.

“Can I have a drag?” he asks instead, extending his hand to Yoongi, who stares at him with wide eyes.

“You don’t smoke.”

“Maybe I do now,” Kihyun answers and Yoongi passes him his cigarette carefully, an eyebrow raised. Of course, Kihyun chokes on the first puff and starts coughing indignantly, to the great amusement of Yoongi who takes back his cigarette and thumps him gently, letting his hand rest on Kihyun’s shoulder once the fit has passed.

“Okay, what possessed you to ask for that?”

Kihyun gestures vaguely, his throat raw. The hand on his shoulder feels much too warm and he has the urge to move from under its weight yet he wills himself to remain still, lifting his gaze to Yoongi.

“I don’t know,” he says and Yoongi laughs, shaking his head as he goes for the bag of crisps. Kihyun watches, the taste of the cigarette acrid on his tongue. He wonders how Yoongi can stand it. He wonders if Yoongi tastes the same, bitter and harsh. If he will ever know. There’s a soft sadness unfurling under his heart Kihyun tries to quell before it blooms, but it is too late, it seems, roots already burrowing deep into his lungs before he took notice.

He coughs again, gaze falling from Yoongi towards the tree line he can see from their vantage point. Beyond it are the floodgates, and the artificial lake above, its grey mass languidly swaying under the autumn sun. Kihyun swallows as a chill comes over him and he looks back at Yoongi, lounging in his seat as he scrolls through his phone. Kihyun feels removed then, as if a veil had fallen between him and the rest of the world. It’s the dream, he knows, it had dodged his steps ever since he’d woken up, putting a strain on him he couldn’t shake.

It had been the same as always. A great flood engulfing the village, the terrible weight of the water pressing against his chest, pulling him to unknown depths and he’d seen himself drift there, hair swaying like weeds, a dark halo around his pale face. But this time, he wasn’t alone. There was a hand clasped in his, its bloated flesh cold, so cold to the touch. He had lifted his gaze, and the eyes gazing back had looked like his, and the turgid lips had shared the shape of his own. There are places you cannot seem to leave, there are dreams you cannot seem to shake. Kihyun remembers standing on the edge of the lake, a long time ago, and he remembers how close he’d been, the water lapping at the tip of his shoes. How easy it would have been, to step in. How he had wanted to.

“Kihyun,” comes Yoongi’s voice, and he forces himself back in the moment. “I lost you again.”

“We weren’t talking,” Kihyun says, wondering how Yoongi knew.

“I know,” Yoongi says and he’s smiling, something small, tentative. “You still weren’t there.”

“Sorry,” Kihyun says, gaze dropping to his hands in his lap.

“It’s okay,” Yoongi shrugs, bringing his cigarettes to his lips. “Where do you go?”

“What?” Kihyun asks, and Yoongi looks almost sheepish.

“Where do you go when you’re, you know, not quite there?”

Kihyun tilts his head, considering. He had never thought of it as going anywhere. But maybe Yoongi was right, and maybe he was treading in that other world he saw in his dreams, in that other world that had called to him, that day at the lake, all those years ago.

“You ever feel…” Kihyun starts and interrupts himself, gathering his thoughts. Yoongi is watching him, letting his cigarette slowly consume itself between his fingers. Kihyun stares at the black rectangle of Yoongi’s phone resting on his thigh.

“You ever feel like you shouldn’t be here?” he starts again. “Like it’s a mistake, like you were never supposed to be here, and you should go back.”

“Go back where?” Yoongi asks, and his voice is quiet.

“I don’t know,” Kihyun shrugs, lifting his gaze as a breeze rises. The sun has almost entirely disappeared behind the hill, swallowed by the jagged edges of the trees. They look like teeth, Kihyun thinks, fangs against the twilight sky.

“Where everything goes back eventually, I guess? I think that’s where I go. As if I’m called back.”

There’s a hand on his wrist, suddenly, warm and calloused and Kihyun looks up into Yoongi’s face and there’s something wild in his eyes, something like worry, too, his mouth set in a tight line and Kihyun feels like laughing.

“Don’t look so dramatic,” he says instead, a smile quirking his lips and Yoongi’s hand tightens on his wrist before letting go.

“Don’t go too far,” he says, and Kihyun looks down at the fading traces of Yoongi’s grip upon his skin. He fits his own hand against them, squeezes as strong as he can. When he lets go, the white and red streaks take a little longer to fade but they do, eventually. Kihyun wishes something would stay.

“I won’t, it’s okay,” he says, looking up into Yoongi’s face but there is still this line of worry creasing his brow, there is still the wild look in his eyes. Kihyun tries, then, he lifts a hand and pokes Yoongi in the cheek. It’s furtive and barely there, yet the tip of his finger burns when he lets his hand fall back down into his lap.

“I’m not kidding, I’m fine,” he adds, and Yoongi looks stunned for a split second. Kihyun never touches him first. Kihyun never touches anyone first, and he watches as Yoongi’s gaze falls to his hands, lingering there.

“I wouldn’t know what to do,” Yoongi says then, keeping his gaze on Kihyun’s hands. “If you went away.”

Kihyun wonders if Yoongi knows, then. If he knows about him standing at the edge of the lake until it had been too dark to see. If he knows about the dreams, about the trees, about the rot underneath it all. He almost asks, but then he knows it’s impossible.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says instead, wondering if he’ll be able to keep that promise. Maybe the water will come for him, spill from his dreams into his little room until he is floating above his bed, breathless, lifeless. He gazes back at Yoongi who’s still staring at his hands, and so Kihyun turns one over, palm up. An invitation, a daring one that Yoongi takes, fitting his hand against Kihyun’s own, closing his fingers over him. He’s warm, always warm. Kihyun smothers a sigh in his chest and leans towards Yoongi, almost imperceptibly so. It’s fine, like this. It’s nice, even if the nights are getting too cold to stay outside, even if Yoongi will never know, even if the body in the lake had looked like his own.

3.

They come to him three days later. Jin in his ill-fitting uniform, shuffling awkwardly at the front door, and Kihyun would tell him he already knows, that he was waiting, but it would incur too many questions.

“Hey,” he says instead, a gentle smile on his lips that Jin mirrors.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Kihyun replies, shuffling back to let Jin enter. He takes too much time to divest himself of his boots, sitting awkwardly on the little sunken sofa, waiting for Kihyun to produce the obligatory cup of coffee.

“What is it for this time?” he asks as he sits in a chair opposite Jin, who’s blowing on the cup Kihyun just gave him.

“Well, maybe you’ve heard,” Jin starts, taking a sip before continuing. “We found a guy in the lake.”

Kihyun remains silent, waiting for him to get to the point. Jin puts the cup back on the table, wipes his hands against his thighs, and finally looks up at Kihyun.

“Like, a dead guy. And like, it would be nice if you would, you know. Do your thing at the lake.”

Kihyun sighs, his gaze drifting to the altar in the corner, to the name engraved on the wooden tablet, the soju bottle and the apples stacked in front of the picture. He drops his gaze then, staring at his hands twisting in his lap.

“I cannot do it like he did, you know that.”

“Yeah,” Jin says, visibly uncomfortable. “But can’t you like, pretend? Like you did when the Lee kid got lost in the woods. It will make everyone feel better. Especially the old folks.”

Kihyun sighs, rubbing at his eyes. Jin is looking at him with a hopeful little smile he just keeps frozen on his face. Kihyun rolls his eyes.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he says eventually, and Jin’s shoulders slump in relief.

“Thank you, I’ll owe you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kihyun says absently, waving off Jin’s thanks.

“I’ll text you the details,” Jin adds as he gets up, and Kihyun follows him to the door, watching until the patrol car disappears down the road. He remains there for too long a time, staring at the gravel path in front of his door. There’s a weight pressing against his back, and he can see eyes in his mind, looking at him with disappointment.

Kihyun turns back then, walking up to the little altar, the front door banging close behind him. And he stands there, words on the tip of his tongue but he cannot get mad at a wooden tablet, and as he stares at the picture, at the smiling man looking back at him, looking so uncannily like himself, all the fight gets out of him.

“I don’t really have a choice, you know,” Kihyun still mumbles before turning on his heels, going towards a room at the back of the house, one he always keeps closed. Just then, his phone chimes. Jin, and his always too-detailed texts. Kihyun sends him a quick assent, and raises his head back up to stare at the door handle. He wonders then if the chill he feels curling at the base of his spine every time has to go in will ever subside. If his hands will always break in a cold sweat, if the burning feeling pushing behind his eyes will always be there. At least he doesn’t see him anymore, conjured up by his mind in too many detail. Yet Kihyun still holds his breath as he pushes the door open, yet his gaze still flies to the rafters.

But the room is empty, of course, empty as it always is. The small bed in the corner, the desk he freed of clutter years ago, the shelves full of dusty books and the wardrobe in the corner. Kihyun sighs, dropping his hand from the handle as he closes his eyes for a split second, trying to untie the knot in his stomach, to expel the ashes from his lungs. It is fine, he tells himself, he’s fine. Yet the air here is different, almost weighty, the ceiling so low and the walls so close. Kihyun feels heavier here, more inside than anywhere else. He acts quickly then, opening the wardrobe with fretful hands, retrieving the clothes that he needs before bolting outside, closing the door behind him with too loud a bang, as if he was pursued. He feels out of breath, the clothes rustling against his chest as he holds them too tightly.

And the burning behind his eyes pushes tears he won’t let fall, wiping furiously at his face, and his hands feel clammy, and his body feels cold. He sits on the couch Jin had occupied a century ago, smoothing the clothes over his lap, staring at the white cotton. It is fine, Kihyun tells himself again, breathing deep until he feels it pass, whatever it is. Remains of a grief too sharp to bear, of a mourning that will never end. He shakes himself then, laying the clothes next to him on the couch. He still has hours to prepare, and he is fine, and if he closes his eyes there is nothing to see, nothing to hear.

Except for a knock at his door, and when he finally manages to drag himself over to open it, Yoongi is standing on the threshold, a smile on his face.

“Yo,” he greets, lifting the plastic bag held in his hand. “I brought lunch! And Jin told me you were in for the whole lake thing.”

“Is there anything this man doesn’t tell you?” Kihyun asks and Yoongi pretends to think for a second, grinning out a nope as he shoulders past Kihyun towards the couch where he plants himself, gazing at the bundle of clothes laying there.

“Isn’t this some sort of scam?” he asks then. “Won’t the spirits or whatever be mad?”

Kihyun shrugs as he takes the bag from him, pulling out the contents to set them on the table. Jjajangmyeon, and enough dumplings to feed a small army. The food’s still warm, steam curling in the dry air.

“I don’t know,” Kihyun says, sitting cross-legged near the table. He separates two wooden chopsticks, handing them to Yoongi. “I don’t think so. I try to be sincere.”

Yoongi nods, popping a yellow danmuji into his mouth.

“I like to think they feel magnanimous towards me,” Kihyun adds as he stirs the noodles in the black sauce, the smell making his stomach growls. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

“They better be,” Yoongi says in a way that makes Kihyun laugh, and they start eating mostly in silence, Yoongi talking briefly of how agitated Jin is about the whole thing. It isn’t until the dishes have been put away, both reclining on the couch as the soft lull of full stomachs falls over them that Yoongi turns serious, sneaking glances Kihyun catches with a raised eyebrow.

“What is it?” Kihyun eventually asks when nothing comes forth, and Yoongi sighs, closing his eyes as he lets his head fall against the backrest.

“Nothing, I just. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Kihyun says, slightly turning towards Yoongi, who is still not looking at him.

“I never understood why you stayed in that house, after, you know.”

Yoongi speaks softly, hesitantly, and Kihyun makes a noise that has him finally turn to look at him, hair flopping in front of his eyes. He waits, but Kihyun isn’t answering.

“Sometimes I think of you all alone here, and it sits uneasily,” Yoongi adds then and Kihyun smiles, tilting his head.

“You think of me?”

“Shut up,” Yoongi laughs, kicking Kihyun in the shin with a socked foot. Kihyun smiles, stretching as he sprawls more comfortably against the couch, bringing his legs up on the cushions.

“It’s not all bad,” he says then, staring at the ceiling. He can almost feel Yoongi next to him, the focused attention he is giving him.

“It’s not all bad, not like you think. All my memories of him are here. If I left, it would feel like losing him a second time.”

Yoongi nods, humming under his breath. Kihyun wants to touch him, then, nudge him with the foot he has resting on the cushions or grab his wrist, push back the hair from his brow. He doesn’t, though, keeping his hands to himself, sagely folded in his lap. Yoongi is worried, he can tell. Worried for him.

“It’s fine, you know. I’m alright now. Mostly.”

Yoongi nods, glancing at him, but he remains silent still and Kihyun has the urge to talk then, anything that will fill that rift he feels growing between them.

“My brother,” he starts, and it may be the first time he mentioned him aloud to Yoongi. “He was different. As if he shouldn’t have been here. And so it was just… too difficult for him.”

There’s a sudden warmth on his ankle, a light weight, and when Kihyun looks Yoongi’s hand is resting there, barely pressing against his skin.

“You are, too,” Yoongi says, and he sounds sad.

“What?” Kihyun looks up with wide eyes, and he hopes the hand will stay where it is. And he breathes in, and he breathes out, and still the hand does not move.

“Different,” Yoongi is saying. “Sometimes you slip, and I lose you, and I don’t know where you go. And it scares me. I feel like someday you won’t come back.”

Kihyun does not know how to respond. Yoongi has strong hands with calloused fingers, a bright smile and wild, dark hair he pushes back when he’s annoyed, he doesn’t care about anything, he doesn’t know about the feelings hidden behind Kihyun’s ribs, and he’s never, ever scared.

“I’m not going anywhere, I swear,” Kihyun croaks eventually, and Yoongi’s smile turns painfully sad as his fingers press into the soft flesh of Kihyun’s leg.

“You’re too close,” he says then, and at first Kihyun doesn’t know what he means. “You know, you live alone in this house, and people want you to exorcize a lake, and–

“It’s not an exorci–” Kihyun tries, but Yoongi’s words barrel over his.

“And sometimes you just stand there,” he says, Kihyun’s wide eyes trained on him. “And you’re just gone, and you tell me you’re called back, and your brother, he felt the same, didn’t he? And then he went.”

“I don’t–”

“And I don’t want you to go, I need you to stay here,” Yoongi finishes and there’s a desperation in his dark eyes Kihyun had yet to see.

“I told you,” he tries again and Yoongi stares, lips slightly parted. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

“How can I be sure?” Yoongi asks and his fingers almost hurt now, and they will leave red streaks upon his skin, Kihyun knows. And he wants to pull Yoongi into himself, then, have him feel him, his hands on his body so that Yoongi knows that he is here, that he will stay; and there’s a savage pull that wants him to reach out and touch, to put his lips to Yoongi’s skin, and there’s a wild thought that tells him Yoongi would let him.

But Kihyun doesn’t. He remains frozen on the couch, gaze falling from Yoongi’s face to the hand at his ankle, and the silence is crushing then, heavy with the weight of silent words.

“I always answer, when you call,” Kihyun says then in a small voice, and Yoongi’s gaze snaps up to him. He seems wounded, a crease of worry upon his brow and there’s an aborted motion towards Kihyun, as if he was going to pull him in, there against his chest. But he stills, and Kihyun’s breath catches in his lungs. There is something there, he knows, something left unsaid he is afraid of spying lest he misunderstood, and so he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try anything. Yoongi squeezes his ankle once before letting go as he leans back against the couch, gaze falling from Kihyun.

“I’ll come with you to the lake.”

“Okay,” Kihyun assents, and they fall quiet, the weight of things unsaid nesting between them.

4.

Yoongi helps Kihyun dress. Knots the goreum over his chest, holds out the white overcoat for him to slip into. He does it in silence, and it lends a solemnity to the proceedings Kihyun isn’t sure how to handle. Each of Yoongi’s gestures has a weight of its own; warm hands resting too long upon Kihyun’s shoulders, fingers carefully tying the knots, gaze fleeting over Kihyun’s face, never lingering. Yoongi seems lost in thoughts, and Kihyun wants to ask, but he is not certain the answer really is something he wishes to hear. And so he remains silent, too, packing the few things he will need. A bamboo stick, and the cloth he will tie to it. A straw doll he gives to Yoongi, and there used to be musicians following his brother, and he used to be part of them. But there was no one now, not anymore, and so that will have to suffice.

He climbs into Yoongi’s car who drives them to the lake, the old songs on the crackling radio filling the silence none of them had yet found how to break. There are already people waiting by the fence, old folks mostly, and Jin who smiles when he sees them, unlocking the door to usher them beyond, towards the sloping banks of the lake. There are whispers of thanks as Kihyun passes by, Yoongi following close. Jin locks the door behind them, and it seems to Kihyun they have crossed a border. All is quieter here, the soft soil yielding under his feet, the tall trees shadowing their path. All is older, too, knowing, and there are roots meeting underground where death is incessantly turned into life, where a whole unseen world blooms out of decay.

Kihyun looks up at the crown of the trees, dressed in the flaming colors of autumn. The sun has started to set, haloing them in fire, and that ancient beauty wakes a reverent awe in Kihyun. He feels his chest expand, the branches of his ribs twining; but underneath it there’s a quiet dread, too, for all things unseen, for that muted power flowing through the earth. They were there before him, and they will be after, consuming whatever his flesh still has to give.

Kihyun trips, Yoongi’s hand shooting to grab his arm, steadying him. Careful, he tells him, and Kihyun smiles back at him as they stumble down the bank, reaching the place where Jin is waiting for them. The exact place where they had dragged the body out of the water and if Kihyun looks across the lake he can see the rise where he and Yoongi had laid down to watch, flat on their bellies. He wonders if their imprint is still there in the leafy carpet, if the understory remembers them; what they had said, how they had looked.

“Should we start?” Jin’s voice rises, breaking him out of his thoughts and Kihyun nods, gathering his wits. He stands before the grey waters of the artificial lake, silent for a long time, Yoongi beside him still holding onto the straw doll they will send floating soon enough. Before him Kihyun holds the bamboo stick with its flowing cloth, and as Jin stares at him expectantly he tries to feel something. A presence, someone whom he can ask, but there is nothing to be felt. And so he takes one step, and then another, waddling into the cold waters as Yoongi’s breath hitches. But no one stops him, and so he goes as far as he dares, water up to his waist.

And there, water pressing on all sides, he feels it. The weight, and the cold, and the force strumming underneath it. Release it, he asks, the soul, give it back, and he stabs the bamboo pole in the water, once, twice, three times, repeating his little prayer. There should be music, and there should be chanting, and there should be a thousand spirits coursing through him but he has nothing, only his little words, and he hopes their weight will suffice. Kihyun keeps it up, the praying and the stabbing, he keeps it up until the cold chases the marrow of his bones, until water weighs down his clothes, pulling at him as if a hand had grabbed him.

And maybe it did, a hand belonging to someone who looks like him but isn’t him, someone who let the water pull him deep, and the rope pull him up. And Kihyun closes his eyes then, remembering that day standing on the bank, staring out at the grey water and the white sky and his own fragile hands. And he thinks of the flaming trees upon the bank, of the bed of moss and dead leaves underneath their canopy, of how it is always cold, into the woods, always cold and always dark like he thinks a grave would be. I am called back, he had told Yoongi and he understands, now. The dead do not want to go alone. And so Kihyun looks back, once, to Yoongi standing on the bank and he seems so far, and Kihyun wants to tell him that he loves him, that he loves him not like a friend should, and that he is sorry.

But Kihyun remains silent, and instead, he lets himself sink, hand in bloated hand, ten fathoms deep in an element denser than air. It is neither warm nor cold, neither light nor dark, and he doesn’t feel pain, not really. There had been a weight pressing against his chest, almost crushing, but now, it is gone. There is nothing, not like he thought, not like it should. Time seems to stretch, and he doesn’t know for how long he has been here, wherever here is. He doesn’t know anything anymore. He simply is, and then he isn’t, dissolving into the nothingness where he thought someone would be waiting, waiting for him. He thinks of Yoongi standing on the bank, he thinks of the corpse face down in the lake, he thinks of his brother, how he had looked, how he had felt. How that day, that day where he had seen him for the last time, a part of him had died, too, his chest torn asunder as his knees had hit the floor, eyes lifted to the rafters.

There had been something he’d wanted to say. But he doesn’t remember, now, he doesn’t remember anything. There is peace, in forgetting. There is mercy in death.

But it doesn’t last. There is a sudden pull, and a terrible pain, light exploding in front of his eyes as his chest expands and he splutters, something pushing him on his side as he chokes on water. Someone, not something, and there are panicked voices he doesn’t recognize until glacial hands frame his face and he hears his name repeated over and over again and choked words amongst it, you always answer when I call and Kihyun forces his eyes open, squinting against the light.

Yoongi’s hair is sticking to his brow, rivulets of water running against his cheeks and he is wide-eyed, face pale, voice raw as he calls to him. Kihyun wants to smile, but he is coughing again and it’s Jin next to him, who pushes him to his side once more. His throat feels scraped raw and he is cold, so cold; a shiver runs through him, shattering any coherent thoughts. Something warm is thrown over him and Jin is crouching next to him, pushing back his hair from his face.

“Kihyun,” he is saying, and he sounds so terribly serious Kihyun snaps at attention. “Can you hear me? Are you alright? Can you breathe normally?”

Kihyun nods, struggling to push off the ground; he wants to sit up but somehow there is no strength left in his limbs.

“What in the goddamn hell was that?” Jin asks as cold hands help Kihyun sit up, and he is reclining against a chest as wet as he is. Yoongi rests his hands over his stomach, loosely hugging him under the pretense of propping him up, and Jin’s jacket slips from Kihyun’s shoulders.

“You’re lucky Yoongi was already halfway in the water when you disappeared,” Jin is saying, and Kihyun tries to crane his neck to look at Yoongi, giving up when it proves too demanding.

“You were?” he croaks instead, and the hands over his stomach tightens for a split second.

“You froze,” Yoongi says, “like you do sometimes. You didn’t turn when I called, and I thought something was wrong, so I went in.”

“You stayed under only a couple of minutes,” Jin picks up, “but you should probably still get checked up. I’ll drive you guys to the clinic, alright?”

Kihyun nods feebly as Jin stands up, dusting the front of his pants. Kihyun wants to move, but the arms around him tightens and he feels Yoongi’s chest against his back, rising in a shaky breath.

“You didn’t answer when I called,” he is saying, lips too close to his skin and Kihyun shudders, a hand hovering over Yoongi’s own. I’m sorry, he wants to say, but Yoongi is curling up, grip tightening over him.

“You really scared me,” he says in a whisper, a tiny fuck escaping his lips as he presses his face in the crook of Kihyun’s neck and it should be too much, really, it should, but Kihyun closes his eyes and lets it wash over him; the sticky, heavy feel of his wet clothes against his skin, their earthy smell and the headache starting to pound behind his eyes, and Yoongi, all around him, his breath against his neck and his chest against his back and his hands pressing into his flesh. And it’s okay, he wants to tell him. I answered them instead of you but it’s okay, it was a mistake, I don’t want to go, there is no you wherever they are, there is no me, either, just a vast emptiness. And I would miss the trees and the memories, and I would miss you, and I would miss myself, too, maybe.

Kihyun swallows, an acrid taste on his tongue and there is so much he needs to say to this man gripping him too tight but the words lose their way and it is too late, then. They are moving, Jin pulling him stumbling to his feet, Yoongi shouldering half his weight. As they lumber up the slope Kihyun looks back towards the lake, towards the grey waters blinking under the late sun and their rows of silent guardians stood in serried ranks on the opposite bank. Silent but talking, a language only they know, roots linked underground and fungi networks like the synapses of buried gods, chemical signals carried by the wind and for a second in that bleak emptiness he had heard their echoes. Kihyun shifts, looking at Yoongi, the side of his face, his gaze glued to the ground lest they would trip, his dark hair falling softly against his brow and he, too, will be part of it someday.

And it drives a cleaver through his heart, this fragility – death has built a realm below them, and there is not far to fall. Yoongi has draped Kihyun’s arm over his own shoulders, hand gripping his wrist, thumb over his pulse and Kihyun wonders if he can feel that desperate blood of him coursing in violet veins, whether he would know what it means. I love you, I love you, I love you, each beat bringing them closer to that dark belly waiting for them, that bleak emptiness under the lake. It is the order of things, and yet pain is deep and wide, and Kihyun closes his eyes, wishing there would be one safe place, wishing one of them could go through it unscathed.

5.

It starts raining as Jin drives Kihyun back from the clinic, a light drizzle that blurs the scenery through the car’s windows and raises from the earth an old smell, damp grass and the peculiar scent of pines. Kihyun stares through the window, feeling as if he was still underwater, humidity sticky on his skin, sight blurred and lungs tight. The car is silent, Jin and Yoongi quietly sitting at the front, thinking him asleep. Kihyun drops his gaze from the window, staring at Jin’s hand over the gear, idle fingers tapping a nervous rhythm, at Yoongi’s too straight shoulders and messy hair. Yoongi who had pulled him from the depths, who had held him against his chest, whispering panicked words into his ear. Who had only let go of him when the doctor had called Kihyun’s name. And Kihyun wants to ascribe meaning to each of Yoongi’s gestures, each of his words; a meaning he yearns for yet staring unseen at Yoongi’s face through the rearview mirror he knows it isn’t fair, he knows it isn’t right. He drops his gaze, then, closes his eyes. Wishes for sleep to pull him under.

He wakes at the sound of gravel crunching under the tires, and it isn’t long before Jin leaves the car idling in front of Kihyun’s house, turning towards him, shaking him by the knee.

“You awake? We’re here,” he’s saying as Yoongi disentangles himself from his seatbelt, coming around to open the door for Kihyun. Jin leaves them at the threshold, exchanging a few words with Yoongi Kihyun doesn’t hear, too busy kicking his shoes off and diving on the sunken couch, a soft kind of lethargy coming over him; sleep hasn’t fully left him yet.

There’s the sound of padding footsteps, and the feel of Yoongi dropping right next to him; he smells of rain and mud, and when Kihyun looks at him his hair is damp still, his clothes barely dry, sticking to him.

“You can go take a shower and borrow my clothes,” Kihyun tells him, voice raw, gesturing towards the bathroom. Yet Yoongi doesn’t move, just sits there looking at him, and the weight of his gaze makes Kihyun drop his own. There’s too much sadness, there, too much worry.

“I’m fine,” Kihyun mumbles and Yoongi sighs, shifting slightly. His hand looks for Kihyun’s own, pulling at him. And Yoongi’s so close, it’s hard not to move, it’s hard not to touch him. But Kihyun remains sagely still, lifting his gaze as Yoongi folds his hand over his.

“Can we talk about it?” he asks and Kihyun wants to say no but it’s a yes that comes out. And Yoongi is staring, and he doesn’t know what to tell him.

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” Yoongi asks and Kihyun shakes his head, dropping his gaze. He cannot tell him about the pain, deep and wide inside of him. About the hole in his side, about the empty room that is sometimes full of a dangling body, about the man face down in the lake and how it had almost been him, about the pull he had felt, there in the water, how he’d thought someone would be waiting.

“You can tell me,” Yoongi is saying with a press of his hand and there are years worth of tears burning behind Kihyun’s eyes, a weariness so deep he can feel it growing roots in the marrow of his bones and he is exhausted, he is; he had only wanted to rest.

“I thought…” Kihyun starts and Yoongi is quiet, so quiet. Kihyun stares at their hands, how they fit against one another, and how warm, really, how warm it all is. And Kihyun lifts his gaze, stares at Yoongi’s face, at the turn of his mouth, the shadows upon his cheekbones and the kindness in his eyes and maybe it is enough, Kihyun thinks then, enough days spent in the fire, enough nights spent dreaming of a watery death.

“I thought maybe he would be there,” he starts again. “I thought maybe he would be waiting for me. You know, I miss him more than I remember him. I couldn’t tell you the sound of his voice, or the way he would walk. The taste of his food and how his laugh felt.”

Yoongi is pulling gently on his wrist, and Kihyun lets himself slump against his side. There are tears on his face he hadn’t noticed, but this time he lets them flow, just like the words out of his mouth.

“I try to remember, but there is nothing. It is like he is dying again, and I try to hold him back, but where he goes I cannot follow. And there is so much emptiness left behind. And, I don’t know. I am tired. I thought he would be there. I thought he would be waiting.”

Kihyun falls silent, closes his eyes, burying his face against Yoongi’s side. He smells of the lake, of the pines, of the damp earth they’d fallen to, as Yoongi had dragged him out of the water.

“You remember what matters, though, don’t you?” Yoongi is saying then, his voice muffled to Kihyun’s ears. “You remember the feel of him, and that you loved him. You remember his favorite things, where he stood in the house and what you would talk about. You remember that he was different, and that it was too difficult, for him, in the end. You remember that he loved you, and that he was sorry.”

There’s a whimper Kihyun takes too long to understand came from him, and Yoongi’s arms are draping around him, pulling him closer; there are great, wracking sobs he buries against Yoongi’s chest and he hadn’t cried since that door had opened on a hanging body wearing his face, since he’d watched them bury the half of him under the soft earth. And for a while it seems all that grief, all that misery is pulled out of him, Yoongi’s warm, breathing body against his own an altar to hold the weight of it, if for a little while. And Yoongi doesn’t say anything, just lets it wash over him, warm hands resting against Kihyun’s back, soft words whispered until the tears abate, until Kihyun feels emptied, as if a great burden had been pulled out of him. He should move, Kihyun knows, there are no reasons to remain curled against Yoongi yet he cannot find the will within him. And Yoongi is yielding under him, hands warm, the beats of this heart felt against Kihyun’s own chest, no attempts made to push him away. And so they remain, quiet and still, until Kihyun falls asleep.

6.

Kihyun wakes to the sound of the coffee maker, the blanket spread over him falling off his shoulders as he sits up. He’d been laying on the couch, alone, a cushion wedged under his head. A shiver goes through him as he sets his feet on the cold floor, draping himself in the blanket. He’d slept in still-wet clothes, and he feels chilled to the bone. The only traces of Yoongi are the sounds in the kitchen and Kihyun follows, leaning against the doorframe as he watches. Yoongi is washing the dishes Kihyun had left in the sink that morning as the coffeemaker splutters on the counter. He has showered, damp hair fluffing up, and the clothes he wears are Kihyun’s own; an old hoodie and ratty sweatpants. He looks soft, almost dream-like, and Kihyun quietly enters the kitchen to sit at the table, blanket draped over him like a cape.

Yoongi glances at him then, putting a cup upside down on the drying rack.

“Feeling any better?” he asks and Kihyun nods. His skin feels dry, and he knows how swollen his eyes must look. Yet he feels soothed, almost calm, tender like a bruise. And Yoongi is standing there looking like he belongs, looking like he’d always meant to be there, in Kihyun’s kitchen, in Kihyun’s clothes. It feels almost sad, then, a deep yearning unfurling under his skin Kihyun’s smothers in a breath, dropping his gaze under Yoongi’s appraising one.

“You didn’t have to stay,” he says then and his voice sounds raw, tasting like clay as a cough escapes him.

Yoongi fills the cup he had just washed with water, crossing the few feet separating them to set it in front of Kihyun as he takes a seat at the table.

“I know,” he says then, gaze careful. “I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

A fleeting smile escapes Kihyun, and he gazes down at the cup in his hands without taking a sip. Once again Yoongi is too close, too warm, too open. His hands itches to reach out, rest against the side of Yoongi’s face, push back the too-long hair, follow the line of the collarbones jutting underneath the hoodie. But Kihyun doesn’t know how to do it, doesn’t know what is allowed. Fears what would happen, then, were he to dare, how much of his truth would come spilling out.

“It’s okay,” Yoongi says then and his voice is soft, almost subdued. Kihyun looks up, puzzled, but Yoongi is looking at his hands around the cup as he lifts his own, pulling gently on Kihyun’s wrist. Kihyun watches with quiet awe as Yoongi sets his palm flat against the side of his face, eyes closing, a silent breath leaving his parted lips. And his skin is soft and warm, and there’s a weight to him Kihyun didn’t use to feel. He is there under his hand, and Kihyun presses against the soft flesh, Yoongi leaning into his touch. The bump of his cheekbones and the line of his jaw, the fluttering of his lashes and the pouty shape of his lips. Kihyun follows the dipping lines, down Yoongi’s throat to the crook of his neck and the fine collarbones. And below, too; he splays his fingers there, right above Yoongi’s heart, and if he presses he can feel its pounding beat.

Yoongi opens his eyes then and Kihyun almost snatches his hand back, as if caught stealing; but Yoongi’s fingers close around his wrist, keeping him there.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, voice almost inaudible, as if too loud a sound would shatter the moment. And it would, Kihyun knows, something fragile trying to take shape in between them, each gesture more crucial than the last, each word weighing upon his fluttering heart.

And then, “please,” Yoongi says faintly, eyes almost pleading as his fingers press into the soft flesh of Kihyun’s inner wrist, into the tender spot where his heart pounded the skin green and blue. And Kihyun leans in then, feeling possessed, he leans in and Yoongi does not taste bitter nor harsh, he tastes like he feels, soft and yielding. And it’s not enough, then, Kihyun’s hands coming up to frame Yoongi’s face, fingertips lost in his damp hair as he presses on, Yoongi’s lips parting on a sigh. I love you, he’s trying to say, and if his words always fail him maybe this will not.

When they part Yoongi is laughing, sounds buried in Kihyun’s shoulder, Kihyun who pulled him into a desperate hug as if to prevent him from leaving, from slipping, him too, down a river he cannot follow. And Yoongi hugs him back, hands lost in the folds of the blanket, murmuring words Kihyun pains to hear over the wild beating of his heart.

“I was so scared,” Yoongi is saying, “fuck, I saw you disappear under the water and I was so scared, and I thought I was too late, I really did.”

Yoongi pulls back, staring at Kihyun’s face. Kihyun who feels like hiding, who feels like spilling, who feels that maybe, despite the fragility of flesh, despite the only certainty that he has, despite the smell of the undergrowth still clinging to him, despite the chill in his bones and the quiet realm underneath their feet, it is still worth it to try, even just for that one moment, that one moment where Yoongi is looking at him as if his loss would tear him asunder. Kihyun knows, then; he does not want to go, not yet, despite the loneliness, the sorrow, despite the torn pieces of his heart. His ghosts aren’t the only ones calling after him; Yoongi’s hands are warm where he touches him, his voice loud where it resonates between his ribs.

And so he leans in, resting his forehead against Yoongi’s own, closing his eyes as Yoongi’s hands come up, framing the curve of his neck. And it feels simple then, it feels easy.

“I love you,” he says, the words weightless. “And I’m sorry.”

Yoongi shifts, fingers tangling in his hair as he pulls, kissing him softly, tender like the end of summer, like the fluttering of his heart, like Kihyun needs him to be.

“Why are you sorry?” Yoongi asks when they part, breath ghosting over Kihyun’s face, Kihyun who drops his head, resting his forehead against Yoongi’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just am.”

Under the grief and sorrow festers another layer, one of guilt, one of regrets. He should have done more, he should have been more. He should have known what to do, what to say. And he should be stronger, now, too, after all this time. He should be who he was before, present, and whole, and well. But there was no pulling himself back, the pain deep and wide, too far a fall to climb out. The chasm of it carving out more of himself with each darkened thought until his bones felt hollow, his flesh flayed, air sealed in too tight lungs, grey waters pressing on all sides. Soon there will be nothing left, not enough even for the fungi of the soil where he will be buried. He is weary. There is only sadness, when he thinks of the people he loves.

But Yoongi is lifting his face with both hands, kissing the corner of his mouth, the mole on his cheek, his temple, his nose, and Kihyun finds himself laughing then, weakly fending him off until Yoongi alights on his lips again, soft and deep and it’s okay, he says, you’re alright, we’ll figure it out, I love you, let me be one good thing, a start, something to hold you up until you know how to swim and you will, I know you will, we can even get you lessons and Kihyun is laughing, or maybe crying, or both, he doesn’t really know but it doesn’t really matter, either. Yoongi is holding him up.

“What are you saying?” he asks, laughing, crying. And Yoongi pulls him in, holds him impossibly close and maybe it’s fine to rest there for a little while. Maybe it is alright, despite the grief and the guilt and the water high above their heads, the water and the cold woods waiting for him, waiting for all of them.

“I’m saying it’s okay,” Yoongi whispers close to Kihyun’s ear, “and that whatever you need I’ll do it. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t, and I’m sorry, too, for not seeing how heavy a burden it was to carry on your own. I love you. I will help you.”

Kihyun nods, eyes closing on new tears he buries against Yoongi’s shoulder. It is not sadness, though, not really. It is something deeper, tender like a shallow wound; there is someone who knows, someone who cares, someone to acknowledge his pain. Someone who will sit with him, side by side together in the belly of death, amongst the roots and the fungi, hair damp and clothes sticking to their skin. Someone who will pull him up were he to fall, someone who will wait until he can walk again, hand in hand. Someone who loves him, someone he loves back.

Kihyun fists his hand in Yoongi’s hoodie, his own hoodie, smelling like him against Yoongi’s skin. He lifts his head, feeling a headache starting to pound behind his eyes; there had been too much, in too little time.

“It’s okay,” he says, “I’m okay.”

And Kihyun finds that he is not lying, despite the dry feel of his skin, the pain in his skull, the chill in his bones. Something has settled, if for a little while, a soft kind of exhaustion coming over him, almost welcome. Yoongi is smiling, lifting his hand to push back a strand of hair from Kihyun’s brow, smiling and looking at him with too much warmth, too much fondness. Kihyun drops his eyes, watching as Yoongi clasps his hand in his.

“You smell like mud,” Yoongi says then, apropos of nothing. Kihyun laughs, hitting him on the shoulder before standing, letting the blanket pool on his chair.

“I’ll go shower,” he says, Yoongi’s hand still holding his own. “Are you staying?” he asks, lifting his gaze to Yoongi who lets go of him, reclining in his chair as he stretches.

“Yeah,” he says simply, smiling as if something tremendous hadn’t just happened, as if he had always known, as if nothing had really changed, in the end. Yet something subtle has shifted, in the curve of his smile, in the light of his eyes. As if a veil had lifted, and to Kihyun he feels close, finally, he feels real.

(He still dreams of the water. He still wakes on choking breaths that leave him gasping. But most of the time, Yoongi is there, pulling him against his chest until he feels safe, until he is soothed. And there are new dreams, too. Dreams where he sits on the forest floor, feet sinking in the soft soil, the air cool and crisp against his skin. There is someone else, too, but he never knows for sure who it really is. They sit there quietly, listening to the sounds of the understory, to the birds in the trees and the water they can hear but not see. They are not waiting for something to happen, and so nothing does. They simply sit, talking like plants do. Sometimes Kihyun feels a soft touch upon his hand, sometimes there is a smile, or the whisper of a song. Those are his favorite dreams; when he wakes he is rested, and the feel of the undergrowth stays with him, kind and serene.

It takes him weeks to understand what this place really is, what he is dreaming of. That quiet realm under his feet, the place at the tree-roots’ end. And it isn’t so bad, then, not like he thought, not like he saw under the lake that day.

It feels like forgiveness. It feels like moving on.)