Chapter Text
Humans are incredibly frail creatures. Little dolls with tendons and skin holding them all together, smoothed over frames of bone. It's so common for those bones to break that there's an entire medical field dedicated to it, systems in place to mend the injury when it happens. All over the world, it's expected that people will come to harm- and they do. Gunil has seen it time and time again, but he's not sure he'll ever get used to it, even after so long. Some fundamental part of him, that still remembers the feeling, can't help but wince at each bruise and contusion. Call it muscle memory, only without the muscle.
(Somewhere underground, in a cemetery he can't enter, there's a skeleton with his DNA that has a steel plate and screws in the left elbow.)
Frail creatures, each and all of them, but no less interesting for it. Gunil is a chronic people-watcher, consuming their comings and goings like high calorie sweets, becoming invested in their storylines.
🪽
One of his favourite haunts is the train station. The nervous system of the city, it sends it's citizens back and forth to work, to school, and home again. People don't speak to one another, despite their closeness, despite the fact they might see each other in passing, five days out of every seven. Empty cardboard coffee cups and other trash roll through the platform like urban tumbleweed. The same breeze that propels them fails to ruffle the snowy feathers on the wings curved tight around Gunil's body. His hair is tousled by the wind, just like a human's would be, but not his feathers. He's never really known why. Contrary to the opinions of some, being extra-human doesn't necessarily mean being all-knowing. Yes, he's had much more time than a human does to observe and learn about the world, but that's all it is. Gathering up information and categorising it, like he's the curator of a library all his own.
He sits on a bench on the platform, swinging his legs idly. The toes of his sneakers graze the concrete just barely. There's a girl sitting next to him, and she's staring at the train tracks like they're supremely interesting. Gunil picks up on it then: the edge of an emotion that isn't his, a flash of an image that's low resolution, grainy. This doesn't happen often- he has to be in close proximity, and the thought has to be of a large enough magnitude and intensity to come through. What does come through sits in his chest for half a second, and then it's gone, but half a second is enough.
He knows what the girl is thinking. He saw the image: her silhouette in frozen motion, crumpled down onto the tracks, the train visible and only milliseconds away from hitting her. That picture, the saturation turned up to unnatural colour, and then a feeling of fear edged with relief.
She still hasn't moved from the bench they're sitting on. Gunil shuffles over closer to her. There's a loose thread on the hem of her sweater, and she's picking at it doggedly, unravelling the edge. He wonders if she even knows she's doing it. No further flashes of her thoughts reach out to him, but he can still feel the barely tangible aftertaste in the back of his throat. When he was alive, he'd never felt that flavour of terror mixed with relief. It seems like such a blessing, in hindsight, to have never known it, even though there were times when he thought he did. Mistaken in life, humbled in the After.
Gunil reaches out to wrap his hand gently around the girl's wrist. She doesn't stop fidgeting. It's only a token action; she can't see him, she can't feel him. There is no functional purpose for him to touch a human, but on the rare occasion, he does anyway. His hand on their shoulder, or placed on their arm, or, even more rare, his hand clasping one of theirs. Human gestures, ones of comfort, solidarity. Even though he knows the humans can't perceive him, a part of him wonders anyway. Wonders if they can't feel even the slightest pressure of his hand on their own, wonders if some lingering warmth, from the body heat he doesn't even have anymore, stays with them for the briefest of moments.
Still, people come and go, in life and beyond. Gunil's hand drops away as the girl stands and shoulders her backpack. There's a little cat charm on one of the zippers. He keeps his eyes on her until she boards her train safely, and watches the locomotive set off down the track until it's out of sight. He doesn't know why she didn't do the thing she'd been imagining. Maybe it was because of how hard he'd been willing her not to in his mind, trying to transfer that energy through his fingertips on her skin. He supposes it's only human, even if he isn't one anymore; everyone likes to think their good intentions are strong enough to make a difference, mortal or not.
Gunil comes back to the same platform at the same time for an entire month straight, but he doesn't see her again.
🪽
Sometimes, Gunil likes to collect things he sees people discard or misplace. Souvenirs of a sort, nothing necessarily valuable, or even useful, things he's sure the humans won't miss too dearly. He keeps his collection in a battered old biscuit tin, the kind of tin his mother used to keep her sewing supplies in.
There's an American quarter, stamped with the year 1998; a ticket stub from the number six train; a handful of plastic beads, shaped like daisies, that fell from a broken bracelet; a fountain pen, monogramed with the initials 0.S, that someone had left behind on a bench; a wooden button carved into the shape of a teddy bear. All this and much more besides, all linked to a specific memory, all serendipitously acquired.
He'd take, but he'd never steal. Not until he found him: the young man with the lilac hair and the feline eyes.
🪽
When he was alive, Gunil used to play the drums. It was more than a hobby to him; he wanted it to be his job, playing in a band and touring all over the world. That dream felt achievable, if not a little lofty. So much time has passed since the last time he picked up his drumsticks, since he last felt the reassuring grain of the wood against his fingers.
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All he can remember is: headlights blooming through the lens of the windscreen like daisies, growing so large, so quickly. It was more than a few seconds, but- it felt like it was over in the time it took for him to blink.
Gunil blinks. The flourescent lighting overhead feels like it's trying to singe his retinas.
"Where am I?", he asks, to nobody in particular. He closes his eyes, their lids feeling as though they've been dipped in concrete. His voice feels foreign in his throat.
"What happened?"
Somebody is holding his hand, he registers. They squeeze it gently.
"Shh, darling," they murmur, and Gunil recognises the voice, then the faint jasmine lilt of their perfume.
"Eomma?" he says, licking his dry lips, "what's happened?" He cracks his eyes open enough to see her.
"Don't worry, you're in the hospital. You're safe now." His mother smooths his hair from his forehead, and tries to smile, but Gunil can see the worried crease between her brows.
"What happened, mom?"
His left arm feels constricted, too heavy by his side. He looks at it; the bright white of the cast surrounding it stands out starkly against the anonymous blue hospital sheets.
"What happened to my arm?"
His eomma doesn't answer for a while, hesitating. Gunil feels anxiety creeping in past the cotton wool woven around his brain.
"You were on your way home, and someone hit you. A drunk driver," she explains, a bitter tone entering her voice. "Your car rolled off a bank and into a ditch-"
"Oh, shit," Gunil breathes,
"And you broke your arm. They had to operate on it," she continues slowly, "it needed a metal plate and screws to put the bones back in order. You banged your head, too. The doctor says you have a concussion."
Gunil lets the information melt over him as he lays in the hospital bed, gazing at his cast. He tries to wiggle his fingers, looking at them poking out from the end rather pathetically. They move, but only a little. A twinge of pain travels up his arm like a tiny zap of electricity.
"He also said you're lucky to be alive," his mother whispers, trying and failing to hold back her tears. "You could have died, Gunil," she says, her voice shaking. "I could've lost my son."
Gunil squeezes her hand firmly with his right, the one that still works properly.
"I'm here, mom, I'm okay, everything's gonna be okay."
But it wouldn't, and he knew even then, to some instinctual degree.
Gunil tried to play his drums again, once he was finally done healing and had attended all of his physio appointments. He could do many of the things he used to; dress himself, feed himself, shower, use the bathroom. Gaining independence back took a lot of time and work, but it was worth it. He didn't need to be looked after anymore- he could finally go back to his apartment. It was a relief to leave the sometimes stifling atmosphere of his mother's house, with her fussing around him and helping him with every little task.
Gunil had sat behind his drums for the first time in eight months, his heart thudding in his ears. The drumsticks felt familiar in his hands, like greeting an old friend; but trepidation multiplied in his blood like a virus.
He started with a simple beat, using light pressure, his foot sitting steady on the pedal of his kickdrum. Everything seemed fine. He began picking up the tempo slowly, laying out sets of eight beats at increasing speed. It was effortless, like he'd never taken a break at all, but then-
An off-timed hit on the snare. Pain shot through his left forearm like lightning. The drumstick fell from his hand, landing soundlessly on the carpet.
Fear thundered through Gunil's chest. He bent to pick up the fallen stick with his left hand, and found he couldn't. There was no strength in his fingers, like they'd suddenly turned boneless, impossible to maneuver.
Breathe, he'd told himself, trying to quell the encroaching sense of panic. Eight months ago your arm was shattered. The physio said there was a lot of nerve damage, and that can take a long time to heal.
(And sometimes it never heals), his brain supplied helpfully. Gunil shook his head as if to dislodge the fear gripping his mind.
"I'll just try again later," he said out loud, his otherwise empty apartment offering no opinion on that idea.
He tried, and tried, and tried again, but it was useless. A month of fruitless and increasingly panicked attempts to play his drums again went by, before he conceded defeat and went to see his physiotherapist.
"It could take more time," she said gently, after examining his arm. "Sometimes people take years to get their full range of motion back. Don't overwork it, and try not to stress about it," she went on, fixing Gunil with a look of such sympathy that it made him feel vaguely ill.
"It might never get better than it is now, though, right?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
His physio glanced away as she confirmed his worst fear.
"Yes. It might never recover any further."
And so, Gunil's dream of musicianship had floated away on the wind, ducking and diving like a lone feather as it drifted out of sight. That was Before, six letters which held who he was in a succinct package, something which he can now shove into a drawer at the back of his mind. He never got to be a musician, but he's sure he's over that, now. He's almost certain of it.
🪽
Nothing so remarkable occured on the day he first saw him, though that isn't quite right; Gunil heard him before he saw him.
It isn't uncommon for people to busk outside the train station, (Gunil has long since been calling it his train station, in his head)- mostly people strumming acoustic guitars, singing along to ballads or stripped-back versions of pop songs. That's why, while he's amusing himself with walking the yellow safety line by the tracks as though he's on a tightrope, his ears perk up instantly.
It's not guitar, it's not scratchy singing, it's not a pop song; it's piano. Classical piano, played deftly. Before his accident, Gunil studied drums at Berklee, and he shared an apartment with a piano major. He knows more about the classical virtuosos than he cares to remember, and so he recognises the piece being played immediately: Clair De Lune. Moonlight, in French. It sounds that way, too, bright and twinkling against a backdrop of melancholy, as deep as the night sky. The melody rings out faintly through the entire station, so beautiful in the utilitarian space that the contrast is almost absurd. Gunil is drawn to it as if it's a siren song. The music gets gradually louder the closer he gets, until he's climbing the flight of stairs to the upper atrium, and the sound swells to fill his entire chest.
The source isn't a piano, of course, but an electronic keyboard, hooked up to a little amp. The keyboardist sits on a black stool, his hands flying over the keys, his hair hanging in his face as he concentrates. It's the softest shade of powdered violet that Gunil has ever seen.
He draws closer to him, feeling vaguely as though he's sleepwalking. Something about the music makes him fuzzy around the edges, pensive, curious. It's a stupefying mix of emotion.
There's a short bench a metre or so from where the keyboard and it's player are set up, and Gunil perches there, his knees drawn up to his chest with his arms clasped around them. He sits there, listening, watching.
The final notes of Clair De Lune rise from the amp in a pretty sigh. The boy who'd played them raises his head finally. Gunil unconsciously draws in a little gasp of air he doesn't need. He's beautiful, so beautiful; fine features all carved in a way that could seem austere, if not for his gentle eyes and his soft, pinkish cheeks. He brushes his hair behind his ear and leans down to pick up his bottle of water, taking a few sips. While he drinks, he looks at (through) Gunil, glancing around the station, seeing the city moving and breathing all around them in constant motion. He is a calm island in the sea of bother and bustle.
The travel case of his keyboard is set out in front of him, laying open with a few notes tossed into it, though it's mostly coins. Gunil moves without thinking; he happens to have the teddy bear-shaped button he'd found, sitting in his pocket. Perhaps he moved it there because the fine wooden grain reminds him of drumsticks, and when he puts his hand in his pocket he can hold it for a moment, remembering.
As the keyboardist puts his water down and sifts through his backpack looking for something, Gunil places the teddy bear button on top of the little pile of coins laying in the case, and walks away without looking back.
He doesn't intend to think about or see him again, this transient distraction of a boy. People come and go through the station, a great thoroughfare of faces, and though Gunil sees many come and go regularly, there are still many more he only sees once. The pianist was likely the latter, stopping by on his travels to make some cash, before continuing on. A student on his gap year, Gunil supposed. Perhaps he was a music student, the way Gunil once was before. He could imagine it easily; passing by that unmistakable head of hair in the corridors, on their seperate paths to class. Maybe they'd have caught each other's eye, and passed a smile between themselves. Parallel lives in a parallel world, not this one. It didn't do to wonder. Nothing good had ever come from it in the past.
🪽
He comes back again, Gunil's little songbird. Every Tuesday and Friday, usually in the morning, but sometimes in the afternoon. Over the course of weeks, his train station is glittered with classics; Chopin, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and more Debussy. The pianist's fingers are nimble on the keys, pale morning light tinting his lilac hair in silver, his bright eyes focused and clear. His afternoon visits are something else, a more sombre tone, where the music he chooses to play takes a turn towards pieces that ache sweetly. The melodies weave through the sunset sky that drenches the city, and just before night falls, he packs up his keyboard and takes the number six train.
Every week, Gunil wagers with himself whether the pianist will be back the following Tuesday. He sits up all night on Mondays, watching trickles of passengers traipse tiredly through the station, the flourescent lights making their skin look sallow and weary. He wraps his wings around himself tightly, not cold but needing the embrace, even if it's only from himself.
Dawn comes, and an hour or two later, he's there, setting up his keyboard stand and unfolding his stool. He has a cup of coffee with him some days, and that's how Gunil comes to know his name: 'Jungsu', scrawled in marker on the side of his cup. He turns this name over on his tongue a few times, testing the way the syllables feel in his mouth. They're smooth at each edge, soft and harmless.
The boy the name belongs to is just as gentle. Each press of each key is careful, despite the speed at which each one is depressed, and then released. He plays like a sigh, and Gunil feels it in his chest, heavy like the wings on his back. Watching Jungsu for the fifth Tuesday in a row, he thinks to himself: the way he looks when he plays, that's how I felt when I picked up my drumsticks and sat at my kit for hours. I was this immersed, I was this focused, I was at peace. He's envious all at once, with an intensity that bothers him. Since he died, he's never looked at a person and wished to be them- if not exactly content with no longer being human, he'd at least come to accept it. Why would he want to be fragile like that again? Vulnerable to any wit or whimsy life decided to serve to him? Better to be the way he was now, invisible and immune to harm, a shadowless shadow. It had occured to him, briefly, that maybe he ought to stop paying so much attention to Jungsu. He was becoming too preoccupied, too curious about this mysterious pianist with the lilac hair. His own absolute anonymity won in the end. Jungsu would never know he was being observed, so it didn't really matter if Gunil didn't stay away from him.
🪽
And so, he doesn't stay away.
Gunil is a captive audience for every miniature concert Jungsu performs, parked on his usual bench and watching him play. Sometimes he sits with his eyes closed, focused solely on the sound of each note, his fingers tapping in rhythm against his thigh. The din of commuters and schedule announcements recedes, as though the volume dial has been eased down to almost silence. All Gunil can hear clearly is the piano, and he lets the music wash over him as if it were a shaft of bright sunlight breaking through clouds. He feels it in his heart, in the pit of his stomach, tingling in his fingertips. The music soothes him, but it hurts him, too.
Gunil wants to play again. There's no point in trying to hide it from himself. He wants to sit behind a drum kit, and play until calluses are worn back into his fingers. Jungsu's brow furrowing with concentration, the passion in his eyes and the set of his jaw: Gunil wants to feel that way again. In his element. Contented. It's been forever since he's experienced anything close to that feeling, and, not for the first time, he wishes he could be released. No more wings, no more invulnerability, no more silent secrecy. Death, and then whatever else there could be. Anything but this.
Feeling more melancholy than he has in a long time, he leaves Jungsu a new momento from his collection. A daisy-shaped bead, placed on the pile of coins in his keyboard case when he isn't looking. Something so worthless, yet so precious.
Gunil doesn't know if Jungsu kept the teddybear button, and he doesn't know if he'll keep the bead. The point of a gift, in Gunil's mind, isn't what it's worth, or even if it's kept- what matters is the sincerity with which it's given. He hopes Jungsu can feel his sincerity when he holds each little trinket in his hands.
🪽
More weeks pass, and Gunil leaves more momentos in Jungsu's keyboard case. A ticket stub, a hairclip, a coin. Once, even a postcard, taken from a stand near the train station's entrance. He'd wanted to write something on it, but what could he possibly say, even if his writing was visible to the human eye? Better to leave it blank, open-ended. The picture on the front is of a country lane, green fields abounding, with a sliver of the sea visible on the horizon. It says, in cursive script across the top, "Wish you were Here."
Each time Jungsu packs up his keyboard with a new trinket inside, Gunil's heart thrills to know a part of himself is now in Jungsu's possession. That's what they are, really, aren't they? These little tokens? Echoes of himself, an invisible fingerprint pressed into paper, a transfusion of warmth from his heart, wrapped around a little piece of plastic. His smear of lead across paper, I am here, I am here, I am here.
Months go by, slip away easily. Time has a different economy when your days are in surplus. Jungsu doesn't move on to somewhere new, and Gunil finds he likes this new addition to what has long since become his home. The music is beautiful, always so deftly played, and the musician is just as captivating. Gunil has never felt like this, at least not in death, and it's almost like being alive again, with how keenly it stings to see Jungsu play. As a musician he's near flawless; as a person, he's radiant, and draws Gunil's eyes as if by magnetism. Jungsu is so alive, full of warmth, always dropping a few coins from his keyboard case into the cups of people begging for change at the station's exit. He smiles with all the brilliance of morning sunlight when children pull their parents by the arm to come and see him play. Even on days where he barely makes a few dollars, he plays with all his passion intact, and he still smiles, bright and sweet. Gunil sits on his usual bench and remains a captive audience. It hurts, and it's the most human he's ever felt.
🪽
Technically, Gunil can go almost anywhere. He stays mostly at his train station simply because he likes it there, with it's ever-changing faces, and just enough familiarity to feel safe. So, it's out of curiousity and a niggling urge to change the scenery, that he chooses to follow Jungsu. At first, he tries to rationalise the action, but quickly finds he can't rationalise it, not beyond simply wanting to follow him. Gunil isn't bound to any one place or any set of rules, so he allows himself this.
Jungsu exits the train station from the main walkway, walking against the flow of people entering the station through the same gate. He carries his keyboard safely in its case, his arm clasping it to his chest. Gunil walks alongside him, passing cleanly through the other commuters as if they were tricks of the light. He's not sure what that must feel like to the humans; perhaps like nothing at all. He keeps some distance from Jungsu still, as though being too close to him could burn him, that perpetual sunshine becoming too strong to withstand. They walk, apart yet together, and Gunil imagines for a moment that Jungsu can see him; that this is their routine, walking home together; that they mean more to each other than Gunil knows they ever will. Maybe I'd hold his hand, he wonders wistfully. Maybe when we got home we'd cook together, watch television, and at night we could stand side by side at the bathroom sink to brush our teeth. Maybe we'd go to bed together.
The spring breeze lifts Jungsu's fringe from his brow, and flutters in the trees while they pass through each street. The sun is starting to dip into the horizon, and the light becomes just slightly more gilded. It's a golden moment, everything so picture perfect, so beautifully ordinary.
It turns out that Jungsu lives not far from the train station. Knowing he's been this close all along makes Gunil's heart twinge, thinking about all the time he could've had with him. Jungsu stops at an apartment building and lets himself into the lobby. Gunil files in behind him, and then they take an elevator. They've never been alone like this before, and in such a small space. Nerves set Gunil's skin prickling with goosebumps. How can he be this giddy and anxious when he knows he can't be perceived? He feels like he did when he had his first real date, out of his depth but loving being in the water anyway.
It's not that he wants to spy on Jungsu, he just wants to know how it feels to be in a space so full of him, packed wall to wall with the very essence of him. Gunil wants to know Jungsu, that's what it comes down to.
The elevator comes to a halt, and then they're stepping out into a corridor. Halfway along, Jungsu stops at a door, and sets his keyboard case down so he can fish in his pocket for his keys and let himself in. Stepping inside, Gunil is taken aback by how light and airy the space is. The setting sun still has some strength in it, and it streams in through the east windows. There's a small kitchen, with a breakfast table, and chairs that don't match. Various houseplants live in planters that are kept up high out of reach, and that's how Gunil knows that a cat lives here before he even sees it.
The living area is also small and blends right in to the kitchen space, with a couch and an armchair facing a tv. Gunil can see a short hallway with two more doors, down beyond the living area. Jungsu's cat is laying in the fast-diminishing mote of sunlight that reaches the armchair. It's a calico, warm splotches of brown and orange in her creamy white fur.
She perks up, and her ears twitch inquisitively when Gunil walks over to admire her. There's a superstition some people have where they believe certain animals, and human babies, can see angels. The babies part is true; small toddlers, too, can see them, and Gunil has had wide-eyed little children stare at his wings with unmasked curiousity countless times at the train station. The only animal that can see angels, as far as Gunil knows, are cats. They seldom pay much attention to him, but they do know he's there, and so does Jungsu's calico.
Gunil keeps looking around. Jungsu is busying himself in the kitchen, beginning to make dinner. He chops up ingredients with a slow and steady pace, singing to himself while he works. Gunil is awestruck; Jungsu's voice is beautiful, so clear and bright, sharp in the softest way. It fills the apartment, caressing Gunil's ears, lulling him into a feeling that he only knows as peace.
There's so much to see in Jungsu's apartment, despite its diminutive size. A record player shares a shelf with books in the living room, and there are framed photos dotted here and there. One of them appears to be Jungsu and his parents, there's another of what must be his grandparents, and then Gunil comes across the photo that's taken pride of place on the shelf. Jungsu is in the middle, and there are two guys on either side that look to be the same age. One is well-dressed and broad, standing with his arm around a slight man with black nails and longer hair, and on Jungsu's other side there's a short man with wide sparkly eyes, holding hands with a taller guy with a wide smile and a crooked front tooth. The four of them flank Jungsu, and they all seem so comfortable, so happy to be there with each other. Gunil can imagine being friends with them. He can't help but notice that they're so neatly paired up, except for Jungsu, and he lets himself daydream for a moment about what it would feel like to be the other half of Jungsu's pair. What it would be like to come home with him like this, to help him in the kitchen.
All at once, Gunil feels like an intruder, like he's done something very wrong in following Jungsu here. It can't be his reality, he's had his chance at life, and he squandered it. He should never have left the train station and imposed himself upon Jungsu's private life. While he's having his moral dilemma, Jungsu sets the lid down on the pot he has on the stove, and comes to sit in the armchair, carefully moving the cat on to his lap.
"Have you been behaving yourself, hmm?" he asks the cat, scratching behind her ears. "Not getting up to mischief, I hope."
A pause, and then:
"I got another treasure today, at the station."
Jungsu pulls a marble from his pocket, swirly purple with a galaxy of glitter on the inside. Gunil's eyes widen. He'd put that very marble in Jungsu's keyboard case that afternoon, just one of the many trinkets he'd found and left for Jungsu in lieu of money over all these weeks.
"Pretty, isn't it?" he asks the cat, rolling the marble in his palm. She doesn't seem too impressed.
Jungsu plucks a little wooden box from the bookshelf. Inside are all the bits and pieces that Gunil has left for him all these months. It feels strange to see them all together, such a random assortment of things. He can't believe Jungsu kept them all. The teddybear button, the postcard, the daisy beads- everything is there, kept safe in the box.
Carefully, Jungsu deposits the marble into with the other items and puts the box back in its place on the shelf.
"Come on, Petal, let's get you your dinner before mine's ready, baby girl."
Gunil sits at the breakfast table with his knees drawn up, watching Jungsu continue to bumble about in the kitchen. He chats away to Petal while he empties a little tin of wet food onto a saucer, placing it down on the linoleum floor where the cat is already waiting expectantly. While he continues to cook, Jungsu tells Petal about his day, and the people who stopped for a moment to watch him play at the station.
The apartment fills up with the scent of good food cooking; spices and herbs tickle Gunil's nose. His stomach would surely be rumbling, if he were able to feel hunger still.
Once he's finished cooking, Jungsu serves the stew in a bowl, and comes to sit at the opposite end of the breakfast table to Gunil, scrolling articles on his phone while he slurps broth from his spoon. Petal weaves in and out of the chair legs where Gunil is sitting, curious of him again, now that she's had her dinner. Gunil just sits and looks on in wonder, imagining his life with Jungsu. They'd sit here each night, together, and instead of browsing articles on his phone, Jungsu would be talking to Gunil about his day. Gunil would listen, rapt, and he'd fawn over Jungsu and the way his cheeks puff out with the food he's eating. So domestic, so ordinary. So out of reach. Gunil sits until Jungsu finishes, and he's washing his dishes in the sink when Gunil passes through the front door, and goes back to the station.