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“I’m not going to any more weird artsy productions. You guys splashed water into the audience the last time. I’m not getting soaked in the name of art again,” is what Soobin’s first reaction was to his roommate handing him another colorful flier. He knew what was on it, because it's always the same thing, because Beomgyu loves doing theater and loves the ragtag bunch of friends he' made doing it, so whenever they have a new production, he bothers anyone at least halfway willing to listen to go and see it. Soobin, admittedly, more than others, since he's his roommate and contractually obliged to spend time with him.
He is also, tragically, not as immune to his puppy eyes and sulking as he’d like to be. The problem is that Beomgyu is unfortunately kind of cute, and his years of theater training allow him to turn from his usual nightmare mode into the absolute sweetest thing at the drop of a hat.
So Soobin has a soft spot for cute things, sue him. Plus it’s not like Beomgyu’s troupe’s performances are bad, anyway, when they aren’t dousing the audience with a garden hose.
“We’re just trying to do a more modern take on theater, okay?” Beomgyu defended that particular disaster to a drenched Soobin on their bus ride home that day. “Nobody wants to just sit quietly in a seat for three hours these days.”
And Soobin would beg to disagree, because he would spend six hours sitting in silence if it meant not having to spend a single second in wet slacks on public transport, but what does he know about art, right?
Apparently not a single goddamn thing, because when he finally reads the flier on his bus ride to the local art school building where the performance was taking place, what he reads about sounds nothing like theater. Interactive experience, the boldly-printed text boasts. Unprecedented intimate approach to storytelling. Let us guide you through a whole new world.
You’re welcome to visit us, traveler. We’ll be happy to see you!
It's a little cringy, honestly. A lot of big words for what couldn’t possibly be that unique of an experience. Over the three years he and Beomgyu have known each other, he has seen a lot of weird shit, from pieces played entirely in the dark, with the only source of light being the performers’ phones, to an attempt at playing with trained animals that ended with a frankly adorable dog roaming through the audience instead of participating in the play like she was supposed to, to a play half performed in a language basically no-one in the audience spoke and the aforementioned hosing incident.
Whoever is in charge of creating these shows is an absolute madman - or listens a little too closely (read: at all) to Beomgyu’s suggestions, but Soobin can’t deny that going to see Beomgyu’s shows is never boring. The performers are good, clearly passionate about all these new ideas and bringing them to life on stage, as is the rest of the crew. Every time Soobin went, there was this energy in the theater that he struggled to find anywhere else. The kind of passion and love of their own craft he found himself envious of more than once.
So he is willing to go through this, even though the flyer makes it sound more like the boring version of a haunted house than a theater performance. The worst that can happen is him having kind of a boring time and getting to poke fun at Beomgyu when they catch the bus home together that night. It isn't like he has more at stake than some of his free time.
When he enters the foyer of the building after showing his free ticket at the door, it's already bustling with life, dolled-up to look almost like a garden, with large flowerpots strewn all around, benches scattered across the room and decorations made to look like hanging willow branches hanging off the ceiling. It's cute, if not the fanciest décor ever. The windows are wide open, leaving the inside quite cold but feeling as close to being outside as it can get with the evening air streaming in.
There are people milling around the place, some of them obviously the future audience, dressed in normal, casual clothing, but among them are the performers, already done up in strange, colorful, fanciful costumes. There's a woman with translucent wings strapped to her back with glitter in her hair, a man with his face and arms painted with tiger stripes, but in unnatural hues of blue and purple, a tall man in a satyr costume and a person in a bowler hat with prosthetic elf ears carrying a picnic basket full of ping pong balls in all the colors of the rainbow. If there is a unifying concept to all the costumes, it has to be absolute chaos, but it has its own charm to it. Soobin has a feeling this production would be a hit with little kids.
Having received no real instructions on what to do once inside, Soobin finds himself a seat on one of the benches under an open window and watches the performers chat up the audience members - some stick in pairs, some in larger groups, but there are some lone wolves just like Soobin. Each of them gets picked off by a single performer, though - that is obvious. They pick their targets one by one in a deliberately natural way; if he wasn’t people-watching like he was, he wouldn’t have even noticed, and he finds that pretty impressive.
Beomgyu is nowhere to be found among the cast members in the foyer, though - a shame; Soobin would have liked to experience the performance with someone he actually knows.
“Hello, Traveler.”
To his absolute embarrassment, Soobin lets out a loud yelp that makes everyone in the vicinity look over, startled by the voice of the performer who is suddenly next to him - he didn’t see the man approaching him at all, busy as he was watching the satyr charm a group of young women in a way almost too befitting of the mythical creature he's dressed as. The newcomer is dressed in all black, which was maybe the reason Soobin missed him - he didn't notice him in the foyer at all, much less heard him walking up to him.
He's wearing a tight-fitting black turtleneck with a fluffy black vest over it, and a pair of tight pants tucked into a pair of boots, with leather finger gloves on both hands. From between the waist of the pants and the bottom of the vest hangs a thick, fluffy black tail, matching the ears poking out of his hair, the only shock of color a periwinkle flower crown nestled on the crown of his head. It's very unlike the other costumes with how simple and contemporary it looks, yet somehow it looks just as cute and fanciful as the other ones.
Maybe it's something about the performer’s face, his big, dark-lined eyes, the glittering amusement in them at his undignified reaction, the little fangs that show in his mischievous smile. It seems almost otherworldly perfect, cute but sharp and strangely catlike even though Soobin can’t find a trace of prosthetics on him. Does his face really just look like this? That would be insane. No one is this… fairy-like naturally. Not even Beomgyu.
By the time he shifts his scrutiny to the tips of the performer’s fingers poking out of the finger gloves, he realizes he's been staring too long, and the other is still waiting for Soobin to respond to his greeting.
Way to make an ass out of himself.
“Right. Hi.”
The performer laughs, and it is just as cute as the rest of him. He really has just been waiting for Soobin to get his shit together. How embarrassing.
“Welcome to our world,” he says then, clearly the next line of whatever rehearsed speech he was told to give, but Soobin lets it slide. Suspension of disbelief. Turn off your cell phone, turn off the part of your brain that knows that fairies don’t walk around in Doc Martens and let the magic of theater pull you in. “What’s your name?”
Caught off guard by the question, Soobin blinks at him first before replying. “Soobin Choi.”
To his surprise, the performer laughs at him again, this time narrowing his big eyes at him while shaking his head. “You answered honestly, didn’t you? That’s foolish of you - has no one ever told you not to tell the fae your true name?” He leans a bit closer to Soobin, who realizes with a start that he’s never seen him perform here before. Most of the others were familiar, although none of the friends Beomgyu brought over sometimes were present in the foyer. This guy, though - this guy is completely new. Somehow, it makes this more real, makes it easier to pretend he's a stranger in a strange land, approached by this odd, cat-like local. “It could get you into a lot of trouble here.”
Intrigued by the concept, Soobin holds eye contact with the other. “Will you use it against me?”
A glimmer of amusement flickers through the performer’s eyes before he leans away dramatically. “Me? I’d never, of course. You can trust me.” Then he flashes him the least trustworthy grin Soobin has ever seen, making him smile. “A stray cat has never lead a human astray around here.”
Soobin tilts his head, glancing up at the cat ears on top of the other’s head. “Is that what you are? A stray cat?”
“That is my nature,” the performer nods, and Soobin is a little shocked by how blithely he responds to something that couldn’t have been written in the script. “Although the Queen likes to believe otherwise, I am and always will be a stray - but that is no concern of yours,” he shakes his head then, like he spoke too much, and offers him a limp hand, slightly curled like it was a paw. “That’s what you may call me. I’m the Black Cat - I answer to no other name.”
Confused about what he’s supposed to do, Soobin reaches out to shake his head, just to have the Cat press his curled fingers into his palm, like a cat giving him its paw. Soobin stares at the point of contact in awe. “But that’s… not your real name, is it?”
With a huff, the Cat unfurls his hand and grabs Soobin’s, pulling him up to his feet with surprising strength. “Of course not. You learn quickly, Soobin.”
Intimate approach to storytelling indeed - Soobin feels almost awkwardly touched by hearing the performer say his name. Is that what they were going for? Making you part of the world by making a representation of the world talk to you. He had to admit something about it worked - despite the limp tail bobbing with the performer’s movement and the sparse decoration of the foyer, in the low lighting he could almost see it. Sitting in a garden, when a black cat approaches him, beautiful but strange, welcoming him to its wonderful world of weird but colorful characters.
Speaking of which, somewhere between Soobin’s public humiliation and the Cat making him stand up, the crowd in the foyer has thinned out - only a few groups and individuals remain, and when the Cat glances at the clock over the entrance, he pulls at his hand insistently to guide him away as well.
“But we have to go now. Follow me.”
Playing along, Soobin follows him, lets the Cat’s hand linger in his even though the space is navigable enough that they don’t need to be holding hands to keep track of each other. He could tug his hand free if he wanted, but the Cat’s hand is cool and so soft in his own, he finds that he doesn’t really want to. There’s something straight out of a children’s book about it, anyways - the casual lack of boundaries. The strange feeling of closeness, of comfort he feels about this guy despite having met him not even five minutes ago.
“Where are we going?” He asks, more out of obligation, willing to be pulled wherever the script dictates they do at this point.
“You’ll see. They always meet at this hour.”
“Who?”
The Cat doesn’t answer, taking him past the big doors he usually would take when attending a performance, leading him up a narrow staircase to the side instead, two flights up and then left, before stopping abruptly and turning around, almost making Soobin run into him. He admires the performer’s composure as he doesn’t even flinch at their sudden closeness, making Soobin have to be the one to stumble back to allow them to look into each other’s eyes comfortably.
Soobin opens his mouth to ask what the sudden pause it about, but the Cat presses a finger to his lips, shushing him with a surprisingly cat-like hiss. “Be quiet now, okay? They can’t see us. We’re forbidden from interfering with human matters.”
Almost endeared by how seriously the line is delivered, Soobin nods with a smile, making a show of zipping his mouth shut. The Cat’s mouth curls a little, close to a smile but not quite there. He reaches for Soobin’s hand again, and he takes it, and together they walk quietly down the hall until it opens up into a room, blocked off from the hallway by some painted props of bushes. The Cat makes him crouch behind one of them, and together they peer out into the room. The overhead lights in it are off, but there are two bright lights pointed at a spot on the floor a little further from them, where someone spread a checkered blanket on the floor, a picnic basket and a few plastic dishes with half-eaten food completing the quaint little scene. There are two performers lounging around on the blanket. One is sitting up, the other resting with their head on the other’s thighs. They’re playing with each other’s fingers and staring at each other, like there’s nothing else they’d rather be looking at in this world.
One of them is dressed normally, in a pair of jeans and a shirt, but the other has prosthetic scales all over their arms and the parts of their legs that are bare in the dress they’re wearing, bright emerald green and somehow shimmering in the bright light aimed at the two. A human and a fae, then. Simple, but effective, wasn’t it. Nothing like star-crossed lovers to ground a magical story in the most basic of human experiences.
“Is a hundred years not enough to find another?” Soobin recognizes the warm, amused voice immediately when the one playing a human speaks, despite the man sitting with his back to Soobin. He’s heard it countless times, telling Beomgyu off for goofing off while they’re trying to memorize a script in Beomgyu and Soobin’s kitchen.
This is Yeonjun’s role, then - a human in love with a fae.
“A thousand years would not be long enough,” his counterpart retorts passionately, grabbing Yeonjun’s hand tightly and staring up at him seriously. Soobin can place this face as well, but can’t quite pin a name to it. “You are my only - the only one I will ever need.”
“Calm down, my pretty dragonfly,” Yeonjun’s other hand drops to cup his lover’s face. “The life of your kind is long - so much longer than mine. We must be reasonable.”
Soobin flinches when the fae in Yeonjun’s lap sits up abruptly, and he can hear the Cat huffing in amusement next to him. He ignores him, though, in favor of watching with wide eyes the confrontation in front of them.
“Must you remind me of my curse?!” The fae shouts unhappily. “Is it not enough for both of us to know I will be cursed to keep living long after you are gone? Must you hurt me with it? Does it bring you joy to see me in tears, my love?”
Yeonjun’s face crumples, almost too believably, as he pulls his lover’s sobbing face to rest on his shoulder. “Of course not, my dragonfly - I apologize. I did not mean it.”
The Cat sighs heavily next to Soobin, and it’s so loud he involuntarily looks over at him. He catches Soobin’s eye and shakes his head. “I think we should leave them some privacy now,” he says, offering Soobin his hand again, who takes it hesitantly this time. He can still hear the two lovers talking, so it feels strange to leave a scene which is clearly still playing out. The Cat’s grip is insistent, though, and they steal away from the scene together quietly. They go down another set of stairs, and come to a corridor with many doors on each side - once again, the Cat turns around, and this time Soobin is ready to stop immediately to prevent them from colliding.
“I’m supposed to take you to the Queen now,” he explains, looking unhappy, but more like a grumpy cat than the sorrow of the fae from earlier. “She insists on meeting every traveler that comes through here.”
Soobin nods, but tilts his head in curiosity. He doesn’t know what is reaction is supposed to be, but he wants to know what the performer's answer to the question he wants to ask would be, so he goes for it. At the very least, they can laugh about the unfortunate gaps in planning together if this goes wrong. “You dislike her.”
Once again, a smile tugs at the Cat’s mouth, and he nods. “She is a vain creature, and always wants to wield more power than Mother Nature granted her. She keeps her subjects in a tight grip…” Then the performer’s eyes slide down Soobin’s body, and he almost recoils as a wave of self-consciousness overtakes him. He’s not too insecure about his looks, but the look the Cat gives him looks almost genuinely appraising, like he’s actually checking Soobin out, even though the next words out of his mouth sound like they’re on script again. “And she’s particularly fond of human men. Fascinated by them, really. Especially that one,” the Cat points with his chin behind Soobin. The one Yeonjun is playing in this piece, then. “Most men are out of her mind as soon as they leave her sight, but not this one. She remembers him, and that doesn’t bode well for his poor soul.”
There’s a beat of silence where Soobin thinks he was supposed to react, but the performer carries on when Soobin just stares into his wide, dark eyes instead and pulls him a little closer by their still joined hands, suddenly serious and imploring.
“Do nothing to catch her fancy, okay? Be as unremarkable as you can. Nothing good ever comes from gaining the Queen’s favor.”
And Soobin’s taken by the narrative enough to sound way too sincere when he promises, “I won’t.”
“Good,” the Cat retorts, still serious, and squeezes his hands, his tail swishing adorably when he turns on his heel and guides him further down the corridor, then to a set of double doors, where he pauses again, turning only halfway towards Soobin this time. “If she asks what your business here is, tell her you’re just passing through,” he says, and waits for Soobin to nod before opening the door up.
It’s a normal room, maybe used as a classroom during normal days, but today, all of the furniture is pushed off to the walls and the lights are off, a single overhead light shining down on a throne in the center of the room, a high-backed, perfectly polished chair covered in fake flowers, surrounded by vases of all shapes and sizes, filled with even more flowers. There’s a string of rose-shaped fairy lights across the back of the chair as well, casting the young woman sitting in it in an almost eerie glow. She’s dressed in a dress that seems to almost change colors when she moves, and she has a heavy-looking coronet sitting on her head, and flowers woven into her long braided hair. Soobin has a feeling he knows her as well, that maybe she was one of the people holding onto a garden hose the last time he went to see these people perform, but something about her makeup, her dress, the light in the room makes it easy to forget that. Makes it easy to look at her and think that she does not look quite human. Not quite as much as Soobin’s cat-like companion, but enough for his disbelief to be thoroughly suspended.
“Oh, welcome,” she acts startled by their arrival, and reaches out a hand toward the Cat immediately, who comes obediently to her side and lays that curled fist in her palm, just like he did with Soobin. “Who have you brought me, hm? Has a human soul wandering through my realm caught your fancy? That is quite unlike you, pet.”
Hesitantly, Soobin steps further into the room. The actress - the Queen - doesn’t look at him, but keeps staring at the Cat, who grows stiffer at the way he is addressed.
I answer to no other name, he told Soobin earlier, and now he understands the implication of that line.
When the Cat refuses to answer, the Queen drops her hand and purses her lips, turning instead towards Soobin, her voice suddenly much less sweet than it was when addressing the cat. “You. What’s your name?”
Startled by suddenly being pulled into the scene, Soobin glances at the Cat for reassurance and guidance, but the actor is not looking at him, instead staring at his own feet with a frown. “I… you can call me Traveler,” he says eventually, stumbling a little over his own tongue.
It brings a smile onto the Cat’s face immediately while the Queen narrows her eyes at him.
“You know our customs then. Very well.” She adjusts her skirts, making the dress shift again. “I am the Queen of the fairies, and this is my pet, the Black Cat.” The Queen reaches out and fondles one of the cat ears on top of the Cat’s head like it’s an actual ear. “What brings you to my kingdom, Traveler?”
“I am… just, uhm, passing through… Your… Majesty.” He stumbles through his line again, but the Cat gives him a pleased smile which warms him enough to forget why exactly he should never join a theatre club.
“Passing through,” she repeats, then huffs through her nose with disdain. “Very well, then, you are welcome to-”
Then the door behind Soobin opens, and he squeaks in surprise again, and the whole room pauses for just a second in response, before the Cat recovers from the shock of Soobin’s reaction first, jumping towards him and pulling him aside into the shadows of the room and away from the scene that was apparently just supposed to start, given that there’s Yeonjun standing in the doorway they came through, currently looking a little stunned.
Through where they ended up holding hands again and where their arms are brushing since they’re standing so close, Soobin can feel the Cat’s actor tremble as he suppresses a laugh. When Soobin looks at him, he just squeezes his hand reassuringly.
The Queen’s actress is the next to recover, reaching a hand towards Yeonjun. “You. What are you doing here, my dear? Have you come to visit me?” There’s a tremble of hope in her voice and Soobin can’t help but admire her delivery.
Yeonjun clears his throat, then fully enters the room, closing the door behind himself and walking with quick strides over to the Queen. “I have come to beg of you,” he says, taking hold of her hand and then kneeling in front of her, letting the back of her hand touch his forehead. “I have fallen in love.” Delight crosses the Queen’s face for just a moment, before it’s wiped away by Yeonjun’s next words. “With one of your subjects - my dragonfly.”
Soobin is almost taken aback by how quickly the Queen’s actress is able to change her demeanor completely - she stiffens up, her voice grows cold and her expression twists. “Is that so?” Yeonjun nods and she withdraws her hand into her own lap, leaving Yeonjun staring up at her, still kneeling. “What do you want from me then, mortal?”
“I…” Yeonjun’s voice falters as he hesitates, eyes going back and forth. “She will not be with me, because she is immortal, and I am not - but you have the power to change that, do you not? You can make her mortal.”
“That I can… but things like these come at a price, mortal.”
And Soobin knows already what the answer will be, it might just be the oldest story ever told, but he is drawn into the narrative just enough to still feel the impact of Yeonjun’s perfectly delivered, enthusiastic, “Anything. I will do anything.”
The Queen’s head twitches, and her expression shifts as she leans forward. “I will give your dragonfly a mortal life…” Yeonjun’s face brightens with joy, maybe too exaggerated, but Soobin finds he doesn’t really mind. “But once she breathes her final breath, you will be mine - and you will live out the immortal life she will have abandoned as one of my pets.”
That’s the catch, then. Soobin can’t help but pull a face of distaste, and he feels another tremble next to him as the Cat’s actor makes another valiant effort not to laugh at him. Maybe they should have picked someone less giggly to be one of the guides - but then again, Soobin is not complaining. Holding hands with a handsome man with beautiful eyes and a cute smile is not the worst thing Beomgyu has subjected him to.
Of course, Yeonjun’s character barely hesitates at the strange offer he is given. “I accept. If that is what I have to do.”
Slowly, the Queen rises, and Yeonjun shuffles backwards on his knees - the actress must be wearing some sort of platform shoes under her flowing dress, because she towers at an intimidating height, and he is pretty sure she was not this tall the last time he saw her. It helps sell the character, helps her looks less natural, less human. “But the word of a mortal is not enough - speak to me your true name, and I will bind us in a contract that neither of us can break.”
Entirely too absorbed in the drama, Soobin finds himself squeezing the hand of the performer next to him, letting go immediately when he realizes how tightly he was holding it. He refuses to look to the side to see if the man reacted in any way - maybe it’s better not to know; it isn’t as if it would make the blush overtaking Soobin’s face go away.
Yeonjun’s shoulders heave exaggeratedly as he considers the Queen’s offer, but then he hangs his head and nods. “My name is Lysander.”
Soobin’s face does something undignified again - he is not a huge Shakespeare guy, but he has taken a lit class or too, and he’s pretty sure that’s pulled straight out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He looks over at the Cat’s actor, who just shrugs at him, the gesture so lacking in whimsy that he’s pretty sure it was a hundred percent authentic. It’s a pretty on the nose reference to make - but then again, this whole play seemed to be a bit more about the experience than the writing. He can give them some slack, and not be a snob. For tonight, at least.
When he looks back at the scene, the Queen is smiling too widely, but Yeonjun—Lysander’s head is bent, so he cannot see her glee as she spreads her arms wide in a dramatic gesture.
“Lysander, I, the Queen of the fairies, will grant your lover mortality.” She shifts one hand to hover of Yeonjun. “But as soon as her time is up, as soon as her eyes close for the last time…” she adds the other hand, to hold them both together over his head as if casting a spell. “You will turn into a raven, and you will roam my realm as one of my subjects, for all eternity.”
Yeonjun lifts his head, expression startled, but as soon as he looks up at the Queen, he seems to hesitate - he said he would do anything, turning into an animal, an actual pet, does not seem any more terrible than having to live an immortal life without the love of his life, does it?
“I, Lysander, accept this deal.”
Soobin catches himself holding his breath as the Queen lowers her hands and smiles at Lysander pleasantly, and as Lysander seems to struggle to accept the decision he has just made, waiting for the next thing to happen - but instead of the scene continuing, his guide’s hand tugs at his shirt instead.
“We should go,” the Cat says quietly, and Soobin realizes that the actors are waiting for them to leave, holding the scene the best they can after the curtain was supposed to drop. He rushes to follow him out of the room, and back into a corridor.
They don’t hold hands this time, but Soobin still sticks close to the actor, just because distance between them feels jarring all of a sudden - it feels like it breaks immersion, and makes it feel less like they are wandering through a magical forest with branches hanging down towards them, and more like they are walking down a sparsely decorated corridor.
“Lysander seems quite devoted to his fairy love,” the Cat’s actor says thoughtfully, and the tone is so perfectly light, almost as if he is talking to himself, that Soobin almost hesitates whether it is a scripted line at all. “Have you ever loved this deeply, Traveler?”
The Black Cat stops in the middle of the hallway, and faces Soobin fully - he looks away, just because of how serious his expression is - Soobin did not really expect the script to turn around and question his love life of all things.
“Would you live forever by yourself, just to save your lover from the same fate?”
Soobin’s mouth works soundlessly, and the actor patiently waits to see if Soobin manages to say anything in response - he has been chatty enough during other parts of this experience; surely he would have something to answer when the play expected him to think about its themes.
But he has nothing. It’s not something you think about every day, is it? How far would you go for love? What would you be willing to give up for someone you love? For your family? For a friend? For someone you loved? Would you make a difference between them?
It is not something he expected to think about on a random Friday.
When it becomes clear Soobin’s got nothing for him, the Black Cat turns back around and starts walking, and Soobin rushes to follow. He pushes open another door, this time to a room that would be pitch black if not for a single light source in the middle of the room, one that resembles one of those DIY projects for kids where you punch holes into a box and put a light in it to make your room look like it’s full of stars. It casts dozens of little spots of light all around them, and Soobin finds himself pausing as they step into the starry room, just enjoying the atmosphere of it. The actor closes the door behind them, casting the room in nearly pitch dark again, and sits down on the floor by the light, which Soobin takes as invitation to do the same.
He waits for the performer to say his next line, but as Soobin watches his handsome face, tilted up to look at the artificial stars, he does not move an inch to say a single word, so Soobin gives up and looks up as well, at the ceiling covered in stars.
It takes almost a minute of silence for him to realize that he’s supposed to spend this time pondering. He was not meant to reply, he was meant to think about it. To look up at a starry sky and imagine if he were in Lysander’s shoes. Soobin is not the most romantic person, but he thinks he is loyal, devoted, to a reasonable extent. He would uproot his whole life for a relationship, if he was really in love, or at least he thinks so. He would drive across the country to help a friend out. He would give a family member an arm if they lost theirs, he’s pretty sure.
Nobody in the real world trades an eternity for a lifetime. But maybe they trade infinite possibilities for one certainty, and maybe that’s something quite similar. Maybe real love, real devotion, comes down to anything else is worth it, for a lifetime with you.
And that’s. Kinda beautiful, isn’t it?
It brings a smile to his face, and when he tilts his head back down as his neck starts to hurt, he catches the Cat’s actor smiling at him, too. He immediately feels shy and looks away, but then a sudden thought has him looking at the guy again, at the ears on top of his head and the shiny tail.
An eternity of being the Queen’s pet, as exchange for a single wish.
“Is this how you came to be? The same way as Lysander - were you human once, too?”
Maybe he’s overthinking this - the Cat is probably not meant to be a character of his own, with a detail backstory and everything. But the actors smiles widely, showing Soobin all his sharp teeth again.
“You’re smarter than I expected, Traveler,” he says and Soobin tries not to take offense - he’ll pretend it’s a scripted line. They definitely scripted what to say if an audience member tries to theorize about the Black Cat’s lore, and they definitely made insulting their intelligence a part of the experience. “Maybe I have - but if I ever was human, it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be one.”
The Cat rises to his feet, and offers Soobin a hand to stand as well, that he does not let go of once they are standing.
“And if I’ve ever loved, then I’ve forgotten their face eons ago.”
It’s such a melancholic line that Soobin’s heart drops a little as the performer guides him back out of the room and into a corridor, where they glimpse a small gathering of people entering another door. Soobin’s pretty sure they haven’t been to that room, and he wonders briefly how different each audience member’s experience is, if there is something in that room Soobin will not get to see tonight, or if it’s one of the scenes he has already experienced, placed in a different room in the building to try and prevent what just happened - different guided groups running into each other in the hallway.
He almost misses the Cat’s actor glancing at him nervously as the door closes loudly behind the other group, but he notices and squeezes the actor’s hand before they let each other go again. It’s experimental theater - it’s bound to have kinks - the point is that they don’t usually do this.
“Let’s go,” the Black Cat says firmly, and Soobin slides back into the world where they’re traipsing through a magical forest.
They take an odd route which makes Soobin pretty sure they’ve just walked in a circle, but it becomes pretty clear why, as the Cat opens one of the doors to reveal the room with the Queen’s throne again, except this time, the fae Lysander is in love with is sitting at the faerie queen’s feet with her head in the queen’s lap, starting to sob as she hears the door open.
“Oh, my queen,” she laments as Soobin and the Cat slip into the room, keeping close to the wall, feeling removed from the action just by the virtue of barely any light reaching them from the lit-up throne. “Something terrible has happened to me.”
The Queen’s face is placid, almost too much for Soobin’s taste, knowing how the previous scene went, as she pets the fae’s hair. “What is it, my child?”
The fae lifts her face towards the queen, and Soobin finally notices that there is glitter applied to her cheeks, imitating trails of tears as streaks down her face. As if faeries cried glittery tears - he can’t help but find it kind of an endearing choice. “I have fallen in love, my queen. My heart is overcome with tenderness for a human.”
A bit confused, Soobin looks over at the Cat. Is this the scene they are supposed to be watching? They just watched Lysander do basically the same thing - but the Cat’s actor stays focused on the scene, so Soobin assumes that the plot is about to thicken right now.
“He wants me to be his bride - but it cannot be; my heart would break the moment his ceased to beat, and i would spend an eternity trying to take root in the ground that would one day have to hold his body, but I was made a fae, not a tree, and I would never embrace him again.”
The Queen leans forward. Soobin holds his breath again. “You truly love him then, my child?”
“With all my heart.”
“Would you give up your immortal life to be with him?”
“It is a curse to me as long as it stands between us!” the face exclaims, as if the question offended her.
The Queen smiles. Soobin doesn’t want to distract the performers by fidgeting, so he holds himself as still as he can instead, too drawn into the story to not feel nervous on the lovers’ behalf. “There may be a way then, my child.”
Relief and wonder overtakes the fae’s face, and for a moment she looks almost grotesque with passion as she grabs handfuls of the Queen’s skirt in her desperation, making the strange material of it shimmer. “There may?!”
“There is a flower, powerful enough to strip a fairy of their magic,” the Queen sounds out slowly. “If you breathe in the pollen of this flower, you will fall into a deep sleep, and once you awaken, you will be able to walk among the mortals as one of them.”
The fae gasps. “What flower is it? Where does it grow?”
“In the deepest, darkest parts of the forest, where it glows red with the blood of those who have lost their lives given to obtain it.”
It’s a little overwrought, but Soobin can let it slide - especially with how well the fae’s actress sells her overwhelmed gasp, rushing to stand up and bolting for the door with another exclamation of, “I must have it! I must!”
Soobin expects the scene to hold at that equilibrium again, with the Queen staring at the door the fae left open while they listen to her feet disappearing down the hall quickly, but then he is thrown again, when the Queen looks directly at them. At Soobin and the Cat, who hisses, but doesn’t say anything. He takes Soobin’s hand and leads him out through the open door, all while the Queen continues to glare at them with sharp eyes.
The Black Cat closes the door, and looks up at Soobin, who is so unsettled by the Queen’s glare he forgets to unsuspend his disbelief for a moment.
“The Queen lied to them,” he says, and Soobin’s mouth falls open. Once again, the performer seems to suppress a laugh, and Soobin finally comes back to earth a little again.
“Does the flower not exist?”
The Cat shakes his head. “It does - but it does not glow red because of those who have tried to make their way to where it blooms. It burns with the blood of those who have fallen victim to it. Its pollen is deadly - strong enough to kill anyone.” He looks at the door they are still standing by briefly, before looking at Soobin again. “Even the Queen.”
“…oh.” This is not going to be a feel-good story, then. Maybe the better Shakespeare reference for it would be Romeo and Juliet.
“The Queen plans to make Lysander hers sooner than is her due,” the Cat says sadly, and starts walking down the hallway, following in the fae’s footsteps. “One would think that the life of an immortal fae would teach her patience.”
Soobin keeps pace with him, and even though the performer is obviously done with his lines, he can’t help but speak up when a thought comes to his mind. “Maybe there’s no patience in love.”
The actor looks a him, clearly, startled, then laughs even though it’s out of character at the moment, tilting his head to one side. “I think sometimes love is nothing but patience.”
He thinks he likes that notion, maybe even more than his own thought - if the Queen really loved Lysander, she would at least let him live out a happy life first before forcing him to keep her company. If you truly love someone, you know that you will love them the next day, the next week, the next month, that you will love them for decades, that you will love them for the rest of your life. You might be impatient to see them, to embrace them, to tell them you love them, but at the core of it is this knowledge that this is not something that can just go away. Love is patient. Love is patience.
It takes him way too long to realize they have been looking at each other without saying anything. He quickly looks away at his own feet, and the performer laughs again.
“Either way, this does not bode well for Lysander and his dragonfly.”
Soobin clears his throat and nods. “Right.”
The actor smiles at him, then starts putting his serious face back on as they come back to another stretch of hallway Soobin is familiar with - the same place where they watched the lovers for the first time from behind cutouts of bushes - now instead of those, there are trunks of trees, stretching all the way to the ceiling. The two of them can’t comfortably peek out from behind the same one, so the Cat crossed to the other side, and they each peek out from behind their trees at the fae that sits in the middle of the picnic blanket, with a red flower pressed to her chest.
“My beloved…” she sighs sadly. “I wish I could have found you, so we could share this joyous moment together.” She lifts up the flower, looking up at it with her eyes softening, one heart to her chest. “Soon - soon I will be just like you. Then we can be together, for the rest of…” She smiles widely, and her voice comes out perfectly thin and tender, just like a fairy realizing that time that used to mean to little to her might soon mean everything. “For the rest of our lives.”
Soobin covers his mouth, both moved and anticipating what happens next - her bringing the flower down, towards her face, closing her eyes, ready to seal her own fate.
“Wait.”
His head snaps to the side. If there was any plot twist he was expecting at this point, it was for Lysander to be the one to stop her. But it’s the Cat, stepping out from behind the tree and approaching the fairy.
“You? What are you—”
“The Queen is plotting against you - that flower; it is not an antidote to magic, but an antidote to life itself. Your lover, he has—”
“Dragonfly!” Yeonjun bursts into the scene through a door Soobin didn’t even notice, rushing to the blanket, tearing the flower out of his lover’s hands and tossing it away, grabbing her face instead with his expression obliviously joyful. “I come with the most wonderful news.”
His fae love looks at him with a terribly stricken face, and Lysander’s face falls as she does not seem to return his enthusiasm. He strokes her cheek, now worried.
“What is it, dragonfly?”
She looks away, at the flower discarded on the floor, then at Yeonjun. “My love, what have you done?”
“I… I have convinced the Queen to make you mortal…”
“At what cost?!” She clutches at the front of his shirt. “No deal with a fae comes without a cost.”
“He has promised himself to her, should you ever die,” the Black Cat says, and they both look up at him, startled.
“Who are you?” Lysander demands.
“I am just a stray cat,” the Black Cat answers, then looks towards Soobin before delivering his next line - the other performers still ignore him, and Soobin cannot shake the feeling that the look was not in the script. “One that has made the same mistake as you before.”
Ah - that reveal was supposed to come later. Soobin is glad he forgot to take his hand off his mouth, because a smug smile is not really a fitting audience reaction right now, even if the performers are trying very hard to ignore him.
A look of understanding crosses Yeonjun’s face as Lysander seems to connect the dots as well.
“Then - the flower,” the fae says, a conclusion dawning on her face as well.
“It was meant to drive your lover into the Queen’s arms. After all, an immortal life spent alone without ever getting to have the one he loved would be a painful one - and she would be right there to soothe it.”
Soobin pulls another face, but this time there is no one to laugh at him, and he can wallow in his disgust as much as he wants to.
“An immortal life?”
The fae looks between her lover and the Cat with confusion, and Lysander hangs his head.
“The deal was my mortality, in exchange for yours. I would not just be hers once you were gone… I would be hers forever.”
She gasps, stricken, letting Lysander go in favor of clutching at her own chest. “But… that means…”
“There is only one thing we can do now, and there might not be much time left to do so.”
The two of them look up at the Cat with hopeful eyes, and he sighs.
“You have to leave now, and never come back again.”
Lysander looks at his lady love, who covers her mouth with her hands to muffle a cry.
“In the human world, the Queen’s magic cannot reach you. If she cannot make you mortal, then her pact with the human will be broken.”
“But a fae cannot just live among the humans.”
The Black Cat shakes his head. “Not for long. If she does not come back…”
“I will die,” the fae finishes the sentence for him, before looking at Lysander. “Much sooner than a human would.”
“But the pact will not be fulfilled - and the human can go free.”
“Dragonfly…” Lysander holds the fae by her elbows. “I have made my choice. I will gladly suffer eternity to be with you for one lifetime. Let us stay - and leave with me, as a human.”
“What if there is more to her trickery? What if, the moment I become a human, you become fae in my stead, and we can never leave this place? What if she will never rest until my eyes close before my due time is up?” She rises to her knees, looking down at her lover insistently. “I would rather live a year with nothing to worry about but my love for you, than waste a decade I could have spent loving you in fear of her.”
Lysander’s hands slowly let go of her elbows, but her hands rush to catch them.
“We must go. Whatever it brings, however short a time we may have. Please - if you love me, come with me. If not…” She lets his hands go again. “Then I will go by myself - I love you too much to let you suffer an immortal life like the one I have been cursed to endure.”
Not a tragic ending, then. A bittersweet one, maybe.
Lysander grabs her hands, and they come to stand together. “I love you - even if our life together only lasts a moment, I will love you for a century. And…” He swallows, and looks down at their feet. “One day, I will see you again - there, where the path of all feet leads once they stop moving.”
“My love!”
The fae throws herself into Lysander’s arms, and he holds her tightly. They hold scene in a familiar way, and the Cat slowly walks backwards until he’s out of the stage light, and he looks at Soobin, who looks back, suddenly thrown by the scene ending so abruptly. He blinks at the actor as he adjusts to having to pay attention to the real world, where he’s leaning on a cardboard tree prop and Lysander is the same guy who once accidentally demolished Soobin’s ice cream stash.
“The Queen will not be happy with me,” the Cat’s actor says, once he is probably sufficiently sure Soobin is actually paying attention. “I may pay a handsome price for what I’ve done.” He looks over at the lovers, now standing with their foreheads together, still pressed close. “But it seems worth it.”
The Cat smiles at Soobin, and Soobin nods. The actor’s eyes squint a little as his fake acting smile gets a bit more genuine. He offers Soobin a hand.
“Let’s go.”
He takes the actor’s hand, and is briefly distracted as Lysander and the fae’s actors take each other’s hands as well, disappearing to the back through the same door Yeonjun came in through before. The Cat’s actor leads him down the hallway again.
By now, Soobin feels sufficiently well-versed in the layout that he thinks he can make educated guesses on which doors they’ve been through before - this one is the Queen’s room. This is the star room. This is the door the other group went through.
Then, as they follow the hallway, a sounds rings out through it, from somewhere past the bend at the end of it. The Black Cat startles, and squeezes Soobin’s hand. It takes a moment for Soobin to fully place the sound, but as he’s being dragged towards one of the doors, which was obviously supposed to inconspicuously be marked with a little piece of neon tape right under the door handle, but he’s paying way too much attention now, he slowly realizes it was a raven’s call.
“One of the Queen’s lackeys - he must be after me; or after them. We have to hide.”
With that line, the actor pulls Soobin into one of the rooms and closes the door, then presses his ear against the door, so Soobin follows his lead. This way, their faces end up too close, and even though the room they ended up in is completely dark, there is just enough light coming through the keyhole and from under the door that it glitters in the man’s big eyes, as he stares at Soobin without blinking. Soobin almost doesn’t blink himself - it feels like a waste of a good view. Are normal human eyes supposed to be this pretty?
“Oh, you mongrel! You dirty alley-cat. You betrayed your queen!”
He ends up blinking, as much as he hates to do it, as soon as he hears the voice, because he recognizes it immediately, despite the squawking tone it’s affecting.
“Ah, we will hunt you down and hang your skin off of the sycamores!”
It’s Beomgyu, his voice getting louder as he walks down the hall, accompanied by a surprisingly convincing sound of flapping wings. He sounds a little out of breath, so he’s probably the one having to make it himself.
“And the two lovebirds you have helped escape her plans…”
The footsteps come to a stop right by the door. Soobin wonders if Beomgyu knows what audience he is playing for right now.
“When the dogs catch up to them, we will string up what remains of them right next to you.”
He must have come right up to the door to say it, and Soobin jumps back, startled, making the Cat’s actor almost break again.
Beomgyu’s steps disappear down the hall again, along with the flapping of wings. Soobin, embarrassed, leans his forehead on the door and tries not to melt into the floor. He can’t believe he can’t stop making a fool of himself in front of a guy as good-looking as this.
A hand lands in the center of his back, and he peels himself away from the door.
“We have to make sure that the two of them make it out of the forest,” the Cat’s actor says, and the delivery is stilted, sounding less like an urgent statement and more like he’s gently trying to get Soobin to get going again because this whole experience is carefully timed and they need to hustle to the next scene.
“Right. Of course.”
The actor opens the door, and the light from the hallway illuminates his surprisingly judgment-free face. Soobin lets himself be led out of the room, and the door closes behind them loudly. Obviously that was by design, because as soon as it happens, there is another loud raven call from behind them, and the Cat’s actor starts running down the hall. Soobin struggles to follow, not the most athletic person in the world party just because of a lack of desire to be one, and the actor quickly and obviously adjusts to him, slowing his pace into more of a jog. Once they turn a corner, they hear the barking of dogs coming through one of the doors ahead, and as they near it, Yeonjun and the fae’s actress burst through it, slamming it closed as the noise grows louder behind it. Yeonjun presses his back to the door, panting heavily even though his face makes it clear he has not been straining himself due to a lack of any flush or sweat anywhere on him, and Soobin just lets himself be impressed by how good he is at convincingly breathing this hard.
The actress grabs at his arm. “We have to keep going! We are almost there!”
“Here!” The Cat’s actor runs forward, ahead of all of them, to the heavy door of a fire escape that he pulls open with surprising ease. “This is where you have to cross. Once you pass the threshold, she cannot reach you anymore.”
The lovers look at each other, wide-eyed, then intertwine their fingers and run towards the fire escape. The door rattles once Lysander pushes away from it, and it startles Soobin, who jogs after them just to try and hide his surprise. They come to a stop in front of the open door, and the fae lets Lysander go in favor of giving the Black Cat a big hug.
“Thank you for everything you have done for us, my friend.”
The Cat does not reply, just smiles at the fae, who lets go of him just as Lysander crosses the threshold alone. The two of them stare at him, but he only extends both his arms towards the fae.
“Dragonfly. Will you be my wife?”
The fae’s shoulders shake, and she nods, taking both of Lysander’s hands and letting them guide her past the threshold, and back into her lover’s arms. Behind that door down the hall, the sound of dogs barking lowers until it stops.
“Yes, I will.”
Holding hands again, they run down the stairs together, and Soobin tries to ignore the sound of the door opening and closing just one floor below them. It’s not really an epic escape, but he gets the point.
The Cat leans on the open door and looks at him with a thoughtful expression.
“So ends the tale of Lysander and the dragonfly,” he says slowly, then tilts his head to one side. “What comes next…” he looks towards the open stairwell, his voice echoing through it. “I may never learn. But you,” he focuses on Soobin again. “May follow them, and find out for yourself. Or you may write a different ending of your own, if this one does not suit your fancy.” He smiles, and it’s obviously a scripted smile, an acting smile, but Soobin finds it captivating nonetheless. “Or, every time you have a choice of your own to make, you might think of this.” He gestures into the stairwell. “And wonder what love is worth to you.”
He lets the line echo, through the stairwell and in Soobin’s brain, before reaching up and taking the periwinkle crown off of his head, offering it to Soobin, who takes it without thinking, admiring the little paper blossoms.
“Take this, and remember us, Traveler. Fare well.”
Ah. That’s the ending, then? He walks down the fire escape and into the ‘real world’? He think he kind of likes this, and he feels a bit proud of himself for reading the cue well as he walks through the door without having to be prompted.
“One more thing, Traveler.”
Soobin was already on the top step, but he turns around. The Cat’s actor has his hands folded behind his back now, and the way he leans against the door looks more coy than anything now.
“You know me as the Black Cat, but I have a real name. And maybe, if you speak it out in the real world when you’re in need, I may come to your aid…” He looks down the hall, then looks at Soobin and smiles. “If I don’t end up strung up from a sycamore.”
Oh. That’s sweet. Soobin nods. “What is your true name, then?”
The actor hesitates, and Soobin can’t tell if he’s struggling to remember the name they gave his character, or something else.
“It’s Taehyun.”
It’s not as whimsical as Soobin expected. Honestly, it just sounds like any other name. But maybe that’s the point? The Black Cat was supposed to be just another human caught up in fairy schemes, but still, Soobin was kind of expecting another Shakespeare reference.
“Ah.”
The actor laughs, and it looks way too real to not be a genuine laugh. “Goodbye, Soobin.”
Soobin waves at him with the fake flower crown. “Goodbye, Taehyun.”
He only hears the fire escape door close once he’s almost out of the building, being ushered through the actual exit door by a helpful crew member who thanks him for attending and tells him where to go.
Being out in the fresh air feels strange, after all of that - he feels a bit like he’s walking on clouds even as he wanders down the street towards his favorite café, so he can have something warm while he waits for Beomgyu.
Beomgyu makes his presence known by pinching both sides of Soobin’s neck, making him squawk out in pain and surprise, instead of tapping his shoulder or calling out to him like a normal person - it’s basically part of their routine right now, but Soobin still complains about it while Beomgyu slides into the seat next to him, stealing his hot chocolate to take a sip while Soobin bookmarks the page on the book he’s been reading and sets it aside.
“Missed you too, man,” Beomgyu says brightly while setting his cup back down. “How was it? Pretty impressive, right?”
Soobin snorts, but he can’t deny he was pretty impressed. They pulled off a lot of things Soobin never thought a theater could do. “It was interesting.”
Beomgyu’s eyebrows rise and he presses his hand to his chest dramatically like he’s been shot. “Wow - high praise coming from you.”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s definitely better than the water hose stunt.”
“You’ll seriously never let that go.”
“Wet pants on a bus, Beomgyu.”
Beomgyu sighs, but he has nothing clever to respond to that. He picks up Soobin’s cookie and breaks a piece off to chew on. Soobin rubs at his ear.
“I liked it.”
He looks away when Beomgyu’s face brightens and kneads his ear a little harder.
“It was cute, and an interesting idea. Not sure everyone’s ever tried to pull of the romantic version of a haunted house.”
Beomgyu makes a happy nose around his mouthful, and Soobin rolls his eyes, picking his hot chocolate up for a sip.
“Yeonjun’s a good actor, too.”
“What ‘bout me?” Beomgyu demands with his mouth still full.
“You scared the shit out of me, actually.”
Beomgyu looks way too happy about that, even though he can’t mock Soobin fully while still chewing - serves him right, for leeching off of Soobin’s food.
Thankfully, by the time he’s done eating, Beomgyu’s moved on from it, and instead asks, “Whose storyline did you see?”
Soobin blinks at him. “There were different ones?” He kind of wondered about that, but still.
Beomgyu shrugs. “Like, a little bit. The different guides had different backstories, so a lot of the intermissions between scenes go differently depending on who you’re with.” He scratches at side of his head. “I tried to fix it so you’d see Kai’s one, I thought the Dove’s storyline was the most interesting, but apparently someone stole you away before he could get to you.”
“Ah, yeah.” He reaches over to his side, where the periwinkle crown is resting on the table, and lifts it to show it off. “I went with the Black Cat.”
“Huh?” Beomgyu squints at the flower crown. “What’s that?”
“It was part of his costume - he gave it to me during the ending.”
“He did what?” Beomgyu leans back in his chair dramatically. “That was not in the script. He can’t just give pieces of his costume away - unless he brought that in himself, I guess, but still.”
Huh. Soobin twists the flower crown between his hands.
“You should probably give that back.”
Well, that’s… disappointing. Soobin lets it fall back onto the tabletop. “Can I just give it to you to bring here when you go in for rehearsals?”
Beomgyu gives it another doubtful look. “It’s probably not ours. It probably belongs to the other troupe.” When Soobin just looks at him uncomprehendingly, he rolls his eyes. “It was on the flyer, dude. It’s a co-production with the troupe from the university on the other side of town. We needed extra people to pull it off.”
Right. This seemed large-scale enough to require extra manpower. “That’s why I didn’t recognize the actor - I was wondering how I haven’t run into him before.”
Beomgyu snorts little and picks up Soobin’s hot chocolate again for a sip. “Yeah, Taehyun’s one of theirs.”
Oh? “Taehyun?”
With a hum and a nod, Beomgyu puts the cup back down. “That’s his name. Taehyun Kang. If you need to get the crown back to him, I can probably get you his number - he and Kai are friends.”
Soobin sits frozen, staring at Beomgyu who just looks back in obvious confusion. Taehyun. The Black Cat’s pretty actor Taehyun, who gave Soobin a part of his costume and his actual name. For him to say in the real world, so maybe they could meet again. If Soobin wanted to - if he wanted to find out who the actor was, with the pretty eyes and the cute smile and the warm hand he offered Soobin so readily.
Wow.
“Yeah,” Soobin has to clear his throat so he won’t sound like a squeaky door saying it. Wow. “Yeah, I’d like his number.”