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Jeongguk’s fingers slowly wrap around the tiny teacup’s handle, watching as the air frazzles like static, the tea inside of it sloshing as he swirls the cup. His bare thumb slides along its edge, dipping just slightly into the liquid—
and everything is gold.
His black, leather glove is resting on the table. It’s so long that even if he were to reach out, he would not be able to touch Namjoon. He’s seated all the way at the other end, still refusing to meet Jeongguk’s gaze. Fizzling out into puffs of steam, the gold in the cup continues to curl in on itself, blowing bubbles.
“Do you think the fumes are toxic?” Jeongguk asks, finally putting the teacup down. “It would be a bad idea to drink it, yeah?”
Namjoon finally raises his head to meet his eyes. In the half-lit kitchen, all of his features cut much sharper; Jeongguk wonders, briefly, if he’s eating enough. He’s almost gaunt.
He still doesn’t say anything, but Jeongguk knows that won’t last long. Namjoon always sits in his silence, throwing phrases around in his head until he finds the perfect thing to say. Whatever it takes to lull Jeongguk into complacency. Not because one touch of Jeongguk’s hands will turn him into gold, but because the last time Jeongguk kissed him, he said something much, much worse than he should have been allowed to.
Namjoon’s eyes drift to the radio—
in the aftermath of the recent attack on the Magic Regulation Office, we will be providing the public with updates as we are provided with them in real-time. Currently, the
—and he purses his lips.
“Crazy, huh?” Jeongguk asks. He leans back in the chair and gives Namjoon the brightest smile in his arsenal, eyes twinkling as he holds Namjoon’s gaze. “To think someone would just go and blow up a building.”
Namjoon shakes his head, waving his hand noncommittally, and in the weak gust created, the lights flicker alight one by one. It’s gentle magic, the sort of magic that belongs to spring, that comes from the lightest of touches, a breath of air against Jeongguk’s throat. His exasperation is only too evident when he agrees. “Yes. But he’ll be found soon enough at this rate.”
“You think?” Jeongguk stands up, rubbing his shirt where it had torn earlier. One of his should be left in the bedroom, but if he takes his eyes off Namjoon for a second, he’ll vanish again. For good, this time, probably. Jeongguk slides his dirty jean jacket off his shoulders before draping it over the chair.
The kitchen is tiny as always, but since the last time he saw it, it’s turned into a potions room. Jeongguk runs his finger over the kitchen counter, swiping up some of the black dust as he lifts his hand. Charcoal. Namjoon is only a few feet away, the warmth of him almost tangible. If Jeongguk was twice as brave as others believe him to be, he would have put his hand over Namjoon’s and held on — glove on. Even if touching Namjoon without it would mean eternity for them. You’re golden, Jeongguk. (But not without you.)
He turns his face toward Namjoon, who does not dignify him with a response. Namjoon is busy studying the stiffened gold in Jeongguk’s teacup that is slowly puttering back to life. “You know, sleeping potions are a pretty nasty thing to gift a guest. Not that it’ll work. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
Jeongguk wishes his voice was steady. It is not.
Namjoon does unspeakable things to him, and he carefully censors them for himself, because it is easier to function if Namjoon is not in love with him. If Namjoon is not in love with him, there is no point in loving him back, and then Jeongguk will have no reason to return here.
“Hubris was never a good look on you, Jeongguk,” Namjoon says softly. His face is so close, right there, his lips a mere second of bravery away from everything Jeongguk wants,
and Jeongguk falls.
Jeongguk meets Namjoon when he’s twenty. It’s some history class on the advancement of rune magic Jeongguk has forgotten all about in the years since. Jeongguk sits down a few seats away, tapping his pen against the table until Namjoon slides a scrap of napkin right under the nib to shut him up. When Namjoon raises his brows at him, Jeongguk’s heart is a little too tight. Sounds a little too loudly in the absence of the clicking. Namjoon is handsome and Jeongguk likes men; it’s simple: Jeongguk decides he’d ruin anything for the sake of having this.
Jeongguk is twenty-one when Namjoon is his for the first time, twenty-two when the world says they’d be better apart.
Despite that, it starts less like a disease, and more like a blessing.
Jeongguk is a Midas, a King’s Pawn. The sort of magic user born with patterns already engraved into their bones, leaving their magic unstable and always, always manifesting in one of a few, select ways. For Jeongguk, it’s gold.
If he was luckier, he would have noticed earlier, all those tiny signs that were meant to beg Jeongguk to be less pathetically in love and more desperate to get his act together. A gift is meant to materialize anytime between eighteen and thirty, and after that, you’re stuck with a decade or so before something begins to fester inside, instead. Something inevitable and deadly (a rot). It’s in his bones, after all. Bone, blood, somewhere in the very core of him, the magic said, ‘let me stay here a little while, until that inevitable end.’
The tradeoff is: no one can possibly kill you before you go. With every lick of magic comes power greater than anything meant to be summoned in this world, and then the government watchdogs show up at your heels to protect you (keep you in check). Burn until you smoke out, a Pyric wrote right after the King’s Pawns status claimed him, too, and when you go, take them with you. Jeongguk never thought too hard about the ambiguous ‘them.’
Jeongguk is alone when he turns his textbook into gold, the color flickers, as if unsure of itself, before the pages return to their original state — and then into dust.
“I see you’ve become more of a romantic since we last met up.” Jeongguk lowers his eyes to the soft, glowing bands wrapped around his wrists. Nothing else confines him, and both of them know it would take him nothing but a flick of his hands to undo them. They’re hot enough to sting, but only barely. A quiet reminder.
Namjoon drags his chair closer to Jeongguk’s, sitting down hesitantly.
—Please be aware that due to the perpetrator’s status as a King’s Pawn, it is not safe for civilians or defense units not specialized in A-level and above containment magic to approach him—
He takes Jeongguk’s discarded glove from the table and, with the utmost care, puts it back on him with practiced ease. Namjoon never once touches his skin, but Jeongguk closes his eyes and imagines it through the leather. Namjoon's warm, calloused palms wrapping around his fingers, squeezing tight when he was spiraling. Namjoon is good. Jeongguk wants to ruin him and have his fill. He wants to be selfish and be allowed to love Namjoon the way Namjoon deserves. The way no one else can, for the amount of time they have left.
But he can’t have him. Smoke them out.
“What did you think you’d gain, Jeongguk,” Namjoon asks him, hands folded in his lap, “by coming here today?”
Jeongguk moves his head, eyes dragging over the ceiling. There’s soot along every crack in the old, floral wallpaper.
— it is likely the perpetrator is still within the confines of the city. The Office of Defense has issued a no-regulations capture order in addition to a monetary reward for any information leading to his capture—
“You’re not going to turn that off?” Jeongguk asks in turn. “It’s getting on my nerves.”
Namjoon’s fingertips brush against the charred edge of Jeongguk’s leather glove. Jeongguk has not gotten a new pair in over a year, despite how roughed up it has become, far beyond desirable soft-and-worn-in. It’s more stupid than anything, he knows, but Jeongguk has recently developed a penchant for sentimentality.
“Jeongguk,” Namjoon repeats.
Jeongguk scowls, his mouth tense and brow furrowed as he spits out a: “What?”
So, so spiteful — in love, more so.
These are the things Jeon Jeongguk cannot immortalize: Namjoon’s hands the first time they ran over his bare waist, Namjoon’s breathless laughter into his ear, the way Namjoon looked at the Jeongguk instead of the sunset, enthralled, the moment before something changed between them. This is what Jeon Jeongguk did immortalize: Namjoon’s college sweater, on accident, a puddle of gold on his floor. He almost laughed when it happened because of course it was going to be Namjoon. Of course, above all else, Jeongguk’s unruly powers would seek to claim him first.
Namjoon’s finger curls around one of the bands wrapped around his wrists, tugging on it to reel Jeongguk back to the present. “I asked, what did you think you would gain by coming here? You and I both know we are not leaving here together.”
Jeongguk chews on the inside of his mouth, hoping he will bleed. Namjoon’s clumsy healing magic is kind and soft, warm where it needs to be, and painful when it matters; he just wants one, last taste of it. But instead he leans in, face so close to Namjoon’s that their noses almost touch. The sound from the radio stutters, interrupted by a disorganized wave of magic. Is Namjoon nervous? He shouldn’t be. Jeongguk would never do anything to hurt him. It is the world that hates them.
“It doesn’t have to end,” Jeongguk’s voice is raspy, needy. “We can disappear.”
Namjoon raises his hand, fingers curling around Jeongguk’s neck.
And pushes him away.
Jeongguk grits his teeth but allows it, slumping back in the chair while his arms flex against the restraints.
“I don’t want to do that.” Namjoon shakes his head, reaching for his own teacup. Slowly the liquid begins to bubble, stirring into what is too close to a boil to be safe. Namjoon does nothing, and Jeongguk waits for the inevitable. “It is precisely because I do not want to ‘disappear’ that I am doing this, Jeongguk. I wish you would just sit down and listen, this time. You were so good at it, back then—”
The boiling water runs down Namjoon’s hand, dripping onto his lap, and Namjoon does not so much as wince as the teacup cracks at the top.
“—weren’t you?”
“That’s not good, is it?” Jeongguk asks, spinning what had just been a tennis ball in his hand. It is solid as a rock, coated inside-and-out in a golden tint. By all means of assessment, it is gold. “Fuck.”
Namjoon hovers behind him, completely stiff. His hand is awkwardly held some inch or so above Jeongguk’s shoulder without actually touching him, as if he’s—no. Namjoon would never be.
“You can’t tell anyone.” Namjoon’s fingers finally come to rest on his shoulder.
Jeongguk leans into it, wants to sink his entire body against Namjoon’s and close his eyes, wake up and realize it’s his pre-exams stress brain doing some weird shit to him. That’s not going to happen, though. And Jeongguk’s room, looking like an auction valve filled top-to-bottom with intricate, gold ornaments, is not suddenly going to go away. Everything looks particularly ugly with how stiltedly the light filters through the windows with the curtains fully pulled shut.
“Hey, it’ll be fine.” Jeongguk tilts his chin up, meeting Namjoon’s eyes.
Namjoon gazes back at him, fingertips digging into Jeongguk’s shoulder, and with all of the pessimism that has never come naturally to him, says: “It won’t.”
Jeongguk lolls his head to the side while watching Namjoon make a mess of the kitchen. How long had it been since he arrived here? Even one of Namjoon’s sleeping potions would not hold him down longer than half an hour at most. Considering everything that went down before Namjoon knocked him out, then…
“They’ll be here in less than forty-five minutes, Namjoon, you should hurry up and untie me. I told you, we can leave together. You don’t have to get yourself into deep shit like this, I have it figured out.” Raising his hands, Jeongguk shakes them back and forth. The glowing string spits out a flicker of light as he does, shrinking around his wrists until it is tighter than before. Jeongguk winces, cussing when a throb of heat stings his skin where it grinds into the rope. “They said they’d help.”
Namjoon pauses, midway through opening a drawer. He peers over his shoulder. “Who?”
Jeongguk purses his lips, childish enough to want Namjoon to give a little before he takes.
“Who, Jeongguk?” He slams the drawer shut and the metal hinges break, the whole of it clattering onto the floor, the glass bottles inside crashing down along with it. Namjoon scrambles, studying labels, and Jeongguk has half a mind to tell him that nothing in there is poisonous, if only to save him some peace of mind. But there’s a satisfaction in watching Namjoon suffer a little, if only as payback for the sleeping potion.
Still, he supposes he owes Namjoon one answer. He rocks from side to side, tapping his heel into the wooden floor. Namjoon throws a look over his shoulder, tracing the newly formed crack in the floor, and Jeongguk offers him a barely-apologetic smile before stopping. It’s not his fault this building wasn’t built to contain him; there’s a reason Jeongguk moved.
“Yoongi.”
Namjoon pauses, blood on his hands from the shards of glass. Gods, so much fucking red. Even his eyes are red. Don’t cry, Namjoon.
“Yoongi did.”
Yoongi is already long done with the Academy by the time Jeongguk arrives, but he’s Namjoon’s mentor, and Jeongguk desperately wants to please every single person Namjoon has ever crossed paths with. Jeongguk could spend as many years as he’s been alive picking Yoongi’s brain, and there would still be at least four Libraries of Alexandria left in him. And not once does he bring it up of his own volition.
“So you’re Namjoon’s…” Yoongi gestures vaguely at Jeongguk, “... whatever.”
“Boyfriend,” Jeongguk supplements. “Yeah.”
“Great.” Yoongi takes a cigarette out, spinning it between his fingers. He grinds the pad of his thumb over the tip of it, over and over, until it begins to crumble. “Well, great. No, really. He probably needs someone, considering how busy everyone is, nowadays. He gets lonely a lot, I think, and I’m not here, and neither is Seokjin, and Hoseok left, too, early, right? He was really early, but he had to go and chase dreams elsewhere he said, anyway, I guess I’m—”
Jeongguk stares blankly at him.
“—rambling… It’s been a while since I met someone new. But it’s good, I mean it. I’m glad Namjoon has someone. It’s kind of dead around here now, easy to just hole yourself up, even if you’re still a student. That’s on purpose, by the way.”
“What’s on purpose?” Jeongguk is mesmerized by the way sparks shift whenever Yoongi’s fingers move, lighting the cigarette for a moment before being smothered by Yoongi’s thumb. Again and again and again and again.
“Huh?” Yoongi asks back, the cigarette nearly completely crumbled in his hand. “What’s on purpose?”
“You just said, ‘that’s on purpose, by the way,’” Jeongguk repeats back to him. He watches Yoongi crumple the cigarette up in his palm before dumping it on the ashtray like a dry worm. The remaining embers take hold and it’s ash within seconds. “So I asked, what is?”
Yoongi pauses. He moves the cigarette box from hand to hand, then, quietly, slips it into his jacket pocket. With it gone, he begins to pick at his hands instead. “The isolation. It’s no good if you have too many means of thinking straight; teaching’s there for getting you ready for the box, someone told me. He’s not around anymore, though, so you can’t ask him. I might not be around long, either, I think, but Namjoon should be, as long as he…”
Yoongi drags his fingers down his face. “Sorry, what was I saying?”
Namjoon returns and gently pries Yoongi’s fingers off his face, like they’ve done this one thousand times before. He looks at Jeongguk and gives him a dismissive smile, just soft enough to make Jeongguk comply with whatever he asks. “Maybe we meet up another day? I want to get Yoongi home, he doesn’t look so good.”
But Yoongi’s eyes are on Jeongguk, bearing the weight of something he will not be able to name for months, years after that day.
Yoongi’s research is only ever about King’s Pawns — he is the only one to outlive the decade-long life expectancy after the gift manifests itself. A convenient case study, right there in his own home, all the answers Yoongi could ever need in his own journals. He eyes Jeongguk and they both know.
When Jeongguk meets Yoongi that day, he is eighty-seven, perpetually thirty as far as his body goes, sick, and with barely a lick of magic left in him. And whatever is there is so uncontrollable he isn’t supposed to wield it at all. Namjoon tells Jeongguk that Yoongi has already predicted the day he’ll die; he just won’t tell anyone when it will come. Whenever the gift feels kind enough, I suppose. Namjoon spent three years studying under Yoongi’s tutelage, longer than anyone else has ever lasted. Longer than Seokjin, longer than Hoseok: people Jeongguk know by name only.
It’s Yoongi that Jeongguk goes to first when Namjoon disappears.
Namjoon isn’t angry with him — that’s the fucking problem. Namjoon doesn’t get angry, he seethes and sits in silence, watches Jeongguk with quiet contemplation, considering all the ways they have gone wrong, all the ways he could implode. And not once does he do anything about it. Maybe it’s what lit the fuse in Jeongguk, who used to lack anger, too. Something irreparably fiery and comforting (destructive) scratched against Jeongguk’s chest and then settled in right next to his heart.
“You dragged Yoongi into this?” Namjoon asks without a lick of accusation, almost detached. At least tell me I shouldn’t have, Jeongguk almost begs. It’s worse when Namjoon keeps his back to him, rummaging through the documents stacked on the kitchen bookshelf. “Is he…”
Fine? “Pretty awful. What were you expecting?”
Namjoon sighs, finally pulling out a binder from amongst all the cookbooks. A blue, fresh cover. Not one Jeongguk has seen before. Without another word, Namjoon puts it down on the table, close enough for Jeongguk to be able to see the notes. Namjoon’s eyes briefly shift to the watch on his wrist and Jeongguk can practically hear him spinning through scenarios.
“For them to take better care of him.” Namjoon flips through another couple of pages. “But I suppose that was giving them too much credit, was it not? It’s not as if they ever looked out for you, either. Isn’t that right? And here you are, throwing tantrums, seeking me out so you can indulge in whatever heroic, idealistic fantasies it is they have exasperated in you. I already made my decision, and so did you when you decided not to stay with me.”
You left me, Jeongguk wants to say. You left me one day and not once did you reach out. Not a phone call, not a text message, not even a fucking post-it note. Empty air. We lived here and I loved you here and you ruined it and I still love you, I love you, I—
beep!
—Jeongguk jerks in his chair, staring at the radio as it kicks back into the report from a temporary commercial break.
“I’m not—” Jeongguk’s wrists stretch the magic bond, the edges of it frizzling with static, sparks stinging through his shirt and pants, “—throwing a tantrum. Just, please— please consider it. It wouldn’t be too bad. At least we’d be together, you know? I can’t go with you, you know that!”
His hands are shaking, fists tightening, and god, Namjoon’s magic is warm even when it restricts him, doesn’t actually hurt even as he tears the bonds loose and the magic vanishes into dust that fizzles out before it ever hits the ground. Jeongguk heaves, feels that awful ache in his chest whenever he exerts himself. The bracelet on his wrist beeps in tune to the radio, flickering with light. He hesitates, bare fingers hovering over the tracker.
Namjoon is looking, too. “Do you have the guts to?”
Jeongguk swallows.
This is the deal with Jeon Jeongguk: he listens well.
This is the second thing you’d ever learn about him: he can’t resist a challenge.
Jeongguk’s thumb touches the tracker. It sizzles, curls and breaks, the glass melts, turns from clear glass to gold. Bee—
Namjoon never takes his eyes off him.
“Jeongguk, you understand, don’t you?”
Jeongguk remembers relearning habits he had sacrificed in favor of Namjoon’s company. Choosing to work out in the morning rather than evening so he could pick Namjoon up from his office after he landed that assistant job; laundry on Wednesday when Namjoon can spend the nights; there’s no point keeping oatmeal in his refrigerator anymore; ‘yes, my weekend is free.’
Yoongi shows up three days after Namjoon is confirmed missing. He has no answers, either. Jeongguk seeks him out a month later—in his wake is a dorm room dressed in gold and a refusal for his lease to be renewed. All he can offer is a: “Sorry, I don’t really know where to go, they don’t…” (they don’t get it, they don’t get it), “... understand. Any of it.” And Yoongi, who Namjoon must have learned kindness alongside, shrugs and steps aside, makes himself a cup of coffee, and slams the door to his office shut. The next time they speak is over breakfast the next morning, Jeongguk dressed in the same wrinkled clothes from yesterday. It’s Thursday. He doesn’t have it in him.
“He’s not coming back,” Yoongi says. He never really eats; for breakfast there’s a slice of toast with a sheen of butter on his plate alongside yet another cup of coffee. Most of the time when they talk, Yoongi is busy looking at his hands, or people passing them by, or his phone. Now he’s forced to look at Jeongguk.
His eyes are dull. Jeongguk wonders if this is what people who are meant to die but keep living look like—if, should he outlive his gifts, he will look in the mirror one day and have eyes like those.
“You don’t know that.” Of course I know that. I know everything about him. We are everything.
Yoongi’s eyebrows lift slightly, dismissively, before he says, “He told me.”
Jeongguk doesn't resort to violence, but he wants to break something the way he breaks right then. He clenches his jaw. “What do you mean, ‘he told me’?”
“Exactly what i just said.” Yoongi fiddles with some files he’d brought with him to the table. “He told me to let you know if you came knocking.”
Pausing, Yoongi peers down at the papers. Jeongguk sees something in him spark, the tiniest of flickers, so loud in their silence that the candles on the table catch a flame for a second before fading away. Yoongi swallows dryly before holding the papers out to Jeongguk. “But you could find him, couldn’t you?”
Jeongguk wishes he could live in ignorance. Namjoon’s profile from his mentorship with Yoongi has been printed out, along with Yoongi’s messy notes, their project timelines, and incident reports. Jeongguk’s voice is weak. “Is this when you knew?”
Yoongi’s lips pull into a taut smile. “I knew from the moment he came looking for me. I was just holding out hope.”
“And you didn’t tell?”
“No.” Yoongi raises his cup to his lips, letting it obscure him. “I didn’t want them to keep him from dying the way they have me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Namjoon murmurs. Passive.
He reaches out, brushing Jeongguk’s messy bangs from his face before tapping the back of his ear to a click. The tracker falls into his palm. They stare at it, together, and the hurt in Namjoon’s eyes makes Jeongguk nauseous, sick to his stomach, something burning at the back of his head, heat, heat, heat, and without so much as another word, the tracker bursts into flames. “Did you know about this one?”
Jeongguk stares at the tracker in Namjoon’s hand, nothing but grime and ash now, a sputter of broken electricity.
Can Namjoon hear his heartbeat?
“No.”
Namjoon nods and lets the dust scatter when he brushes it off on his pants. “You don’t have to lie to me. I would never be upset with you.”
“But you’re not coming back with me.”
Namjoon smiles, all warmth and honey and undeniably Namjoon in its kindness. Wide and open. Jeongguk’s. “Either we die for them or we die for us.” He pauses. “Yoongi let you read the files, did he not?”
I wish he hadn’t. “Yes.”
“So then you know what they did to him?”
To him and to Hoseok and to everyone else, what they would have done to me, maybe. To you. “He never explained it in detail.”
“I wouldn’t have, either.” Namjoon holds his hand out, palm up, so that Jeongguk can smooth his thumb over the lines on his scarred skin. Fire has kissed him everywhere, proof of someone’s inexperience before the flames learned to listen. “He’s a walking graveyard. When he asked me to kill him, I said no. But now I’m considering it.”
“I can’t—” Jeongguk leans forward in the chair, breaths stuck in his throat, thick and cloying, and his forehead is so cold against Namjoon’s warm skin. Both of his hand grip Namjoon’s outstretched one. “—I can’t. Not to him, not—intentionally. But they said if I just, if we just listened, if we gave up our years to find a solution, we could… go. Be on our own and—maybe they won’t, maybe that’s—maybe—a stupid dream, that they really would, but it’s better than being out there, alone. Resourceless. I don’t want us to only have another five, seven, eight years. I want more than that. Please, be selfish this time. Or selfless for me. Let me have this, let me have us.”
He needs to stop. Needs to shut up. Nothing stays inside of him: everything spills open from the places Namjoon has touched (everywhere).
“You’d let people lay their lives down for it?” Namjoon pulls his hand back, and, when Jeongguk chases it, cups his face instead. Like this, with Jeongguk seated and worn and please, Namjoon, please, he towers over him. “Do you know why Yoongi made it, when no one else did?”
Jeongguk has theories: bizarre, simple theories. A healing gift. Dumb luck. Fate.
Namjoon’s thumb sweeps below Jeongguk’s right eye, where the skin is wet. “Because he wasn’t born into this. The blood in his veins isn’t his—it’s an amalgamation of every King’s Pawn that has passed through that university. Before they died there was always a blood transfusion with Yoongi at the other end, piling gift upon gift in him, when he didn’t pass after his time was supposed to be up, they kept going. His body didn’t fizzle through the powers the way ours will, because it was never meant to hold them in the first place. Instead he withers away, kept alive by gifts that refuse to let his body do what is natural. Age, die. He’s just… a placeholder. He’s just a convenience to them, Jeongguk. Until they find a way for him to give those gifts to other people who never wanted them.”
The sour taste building in Jeongguk’s mouth has him dry heaving, a pulse catching in his eyes and growing violently into a headache that tremors even down to his neck and heart.
“He’s not what they’re looking for—he’s just an excuse. They’ll keep him alive until he starts rotting, and then they’ll try again. It’s not for us that they’re doing it. It doesn’t matter if they find a way for us to outlive the gift. We’ll serve the state, or the university, or some other ambiguous ‘them’ we won’t ever really understand, and then we will burn, or melt, or simply turn into dust, in whatever way our gifts decide we die. And Yoongi will be left, alone, thinking he killed us, too.”
Namjoon’s lips press against Jeongguk’s brow, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbone, coaxing him to turn his face up. And this is the Namjoon who Jeongguk has loved all this time; the one that won’t life for him, the one he can’t have, the one he wants.
“They won’t save me even if I come with you. They’re not going to save anyone.” Kind when he lets Jeongguk down, when he ruins them. “But it would be nice if we could burn together, wouldn’t it?”
There is neither resignation nor a waver of fear in Namjoon’s voice. Peering back up at him, Jeongguk feels his resolve crumbling. He wants to be the fire in Namjoon’s hands.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
Carefully, Namjoon cards his fingers through Jeongguk’s hair. It’s messy and long now, long enough to bunch into an awkward ponytail. Maybe Namjoon is thinking about how hot it isn in there, how he used to touch Jeongguk like this when they were together, how Jeongguk used to take kitchen scissors to the ends of it instead of going to a barber.
“Are you still going to let me go?” Namjoon asks.
Jeongguk doesn’t answer.
—Law enforcement has confirmed that communication with one of their units has been disrupted. Further updates on the perpetrator’s location will be temporarily unavailable until contact has been reestablished. Until then, it is advised that all civilians remain alert and report any suspicious activities in their area—
Namjoon’s eyes flicker to the radio. “Who else did they send?”
Jeongguk shakes his head, mouth dry when he says, “Just me.”
“They have a lot of faith in you.”
“Yes,” Jeongguk agrees, words raspy. “They thought you’d be swayed.”
“Because they’re desperate. And they think I am, too.”
Jeongguk shrugs. “Or they thought you loved me enough to go back.”
Namjoon stops before he pulls back. “I love you enough to talk this through with you.”
“This late.” Jeongguk tries not to guilt and fails, it is eating him up and Namjoon is not enough to soothe him.
“No one plans this,” Namjoon counters. “Not even—not even I.”
“So when did you know that you were going to leave?” Jeongguk’s fingers rub into his eyelashes harshly, he wants to keep his eyes shut. His fingertips feel prickly, the way he does before the world turns gold for him.
When Jeongguk’s gift activates, Namjoon returns home and sets his curtains on fire. It feels good to do it on purpose, as if he has some semblance of control over his life. An anchor that isn’t Jeongguk.
Yoongi greets him the day after, and he knows. He just does, as if the world is merely an extension of him. Like his blood is just another river in the world, waiting for one more to link up with it. The river Styx shoved into a fragile body.
“I don’t mind it, you know,” Yoongi says as Namjoon makes his fourth mistake for the day. He can’t keep track of the notes. At one point every candle in the room goes out, but before Namjoon can panic at the thought of the cameras lingering on him for too long, Yoongi gestures vaguely and they all light up again. As if it had been him the entire time. “Being alone.”
You could leave.
Namjoon laughs, smiles, and shakes his head. “Sure you don’t.” How many people like me did you lose before you started feeling that way?
Yoongi shrugs and returns to his work. He has spent two months trying to manifest gold out of coal with little success. The last King’s Pawn to stay at the Academy had been a Midas; if Yoongi can properly draw out this gift, too, in addition to the fire, then it would be considered safe to attempt transfusions on people other than Yoongi. They rushed it before—more corpses they pile at Yoongi’s feet.
“Are they going to attempt again? With the treatments, I mean. He didn’t… he didn’t make it to a decade even, did he?” Namjoon asks awkwardly. How do you tactfully say, ‘I know your friend just died, did they ever try to save him? By the way, I think my boyfriend will die, too, and I with him. Would they care enough to try to save us, or is it more important to pick you apart and feed people the pieces of you that are left?’
“I don’t know,” Yoongi murmurs. “I stopped keeping track.”
The lump of coal in Yoongi’s hand is sleek, sharp gold when Namjoon looks over. Before they can say anything, Yoongi tightens his fist until dust drips from between his fingers. Nothing but soot.
He looks as if he’s lost again.
The reality is: Jeongguk is going to die. Namjoon is going to die. Yoongi desperately wishes the world would let him die, too. No amount of blood is going to save them, no matter the gift or amount of dumb luck.
“You could have told me.” Jeongguk grips Namjoon’s hand again, tighter and tighter. “You could have just… told me. That there was no point. That it was never for us.”
Anything but the absence.
Namjoon doesn’t say anything, not at first. He waits as Jeongguk clings to him and the dust settles around them. “I could have.”
“Should have.”
“Yeah,” Namjoon agrees quietly. “Maybe. But I wanted to die alone, in the end. And you would have moved on and lived your decade out. You would stop grieving, at some point. That’s how it works. I would just be another broken bone—I might steal a year from you, but you’d forget all about how it feels.”
“That’s so awful,” Jeongguk chokes out from between gritted teeth. “Such a fucking awful thing to say.”
But Namjoon’s hands are too warm, his veins too prominent. He meets Jeongguk’s gaze steadily. “I know.”
“Is that why you didn’t run?”
Namjoon’s mouth quirks. “I can want things, too. One last chance to see you, I suppose.”
“I suppose you’re expecting me to leave, now, and let you sit here alone while they scramble to get to you.”
“That was my plan,” Namjoon admits. “It sounds like I won’t get my way.”
Jeongguk’s half-smile matches Namjoon's. “You’ve had it your way for too long.”
“You could live out your decade, Jeongguk. Maybe they’d even figure something out.” Namjoon presses their foreheads together. Jeongguk tentatively drags his hands up Namjoon’s arms. “There’s nothing heroic or useful about dying.”
“I know,” Jeongguk says. “But maybe I won’t.”
Namjoon blinks. Warm warm warm warm horrifically warm sunshine in the air on his skin in his lungs: Namjoon is a disaster. “But you’re not leaving?”
Jeongguk shakes his head. He wishes he could tell Yoongi goodbye, too. Leave him something for the loneliness in case this doesn’t work out. Jeongguk knows Namjoon is not leaving this building with him.
“What goes first, do you think?” Jeongguk asks, splaying his fingers out. “My gold, or your flames?”
Namjoon blinks slowly, eyes moving from Jeongguk’s palm to his eyes. Golden, now — Jeongguk can feel it in his veins.
And Namjoon, red-faced, drenched in sweat, ready to combust, tells him—
“—that’s not a fair question from someone who never loses.”
Yoongi turns the broken tracker-recorder over in his hand.
“When did it stop working?” [They] ask, and Yoongi shrugs noncommittally.
“Stopped functioning on my end a good forty minutes ago, but we got all of it transmitted onto tape before the other side blew up. I’m guessing Namjoon noticed and got rid of it.”
No one comments on it. They’ll let him get away with it, if only because they already had to retrieve one body today, and dealing with another one is too much.
He turns his eyes to the ash, the dust, the graveyard, the wooden bones of the house that have splintered and point at the sky like ugly roadsigns. Someone passes him by in a hurry. There’s a second body.
“That’s a pale flame you’ve got there,” Hoseok says, leaning against the side of the bed as Yoongi twists the tiniest of fires between his fingertips. It is bright red—800 degrees Fahrenheit, maybe. He wishes he could tell already, it’s been months since this gift took to him.
“Don’t tease me, it’s no good like this.” Yoongi scowls, repeating the action, the flame moving from behind one finger to in front of the next. Too red. “They wouldn’t consider it mastery. Not like you.”
“Right,” Hoseok agrees. “But I think this fire suits you perfectly as is. I’m surprised it took at all.”
“With how many transfusions they put me through, it better have.” Yoongi chews on the inside of his mouth. He hasn’t left this building for months. “They’re talking about… trying another one.”
“Another?” Hoseok echoes. “No way that won’t spiral. We can’t even handle one, as it is. I don’t understand why they won’t just focus on… keeping what few of us they have alive, rather than trying to shove a gift into every little mundane person they seem fit.”
Yoongi turns his face away.
“Sorry.” Hoseok’s foot taps anxiously against the floor. “You know I just mean… I—”
—I have two years, Yoongi. Two years left, and then I’m going into the ground. How do you think I feel, watching them break every promise they’ve ever made to keep me safe?
“It’s okay,” Yoongi murmurs. “I get it.”
He snaps his fingers, returning his attention to the weak flame. Hoseok can count his time left, but Yoongi? Yoongi can’t even have that.
Hoseok scoots him over on the bed and lies down next to him, and when Yoongi lowers his hand, flame vanquished, Hoseok entwines their fingers.
“Hey.” Namjoon peers up at Jeongguk, gold dripping down his hair, his clothing charred, a cold breeze from the cellar holding them.
“Loser,” Jeongguk heaves. “You couldn’t even hit 1,064 degrees.”
Somewhere above them is a collapsing building.
Jeongguk takes the small tracker from Namjoons palm, where the recorder Namjoon had pretended to crush earlier blinks.
The only thing they hear is: “I’m guessing Namjoon noticed and got rid of it.”
The static makes it barely comprehensible, and the second after it end the line goes dead.
“Gotta get moving,” Jeongguk murmurs. “Is he coming?”
Namjoon holds Jeongguk’s face, no longer so fiercely hot it is unbearable.
“No.”