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v.
“if I jump,” jimin asks, “will you jump too?”
namjoon doesn’t need to turn around to look beneath the gray sky — so heavy that it seems to swallow the horizon — or over the rooftop ledge that cuts into his back, to know that the fall would be fatal.
instead he tilts his head back to meet jimin’s eyes as the younger stands with his back to the chasm, black combat boot heels hooked over the red brick ridges. with the tumble of midnight hair fluttering across his complexion, jimin’s arms are thrown out from his slender frame for balance, and namjoon knows that freedom teases at the edge of his lips.
“nah,” namjoon replies, crossing his arms across his chest and shifting his weight to the right leg, as to hide the shudder that has nothing to do with the whistling wind. he pauses. “mostly because you’d live to tell the tale, and I wouldn’t.”
jimin laughs, but it’s a hollow sound and is centuries too far to reach his eyes. “perks of being immortal?” without waiting for an answer, he hops lithely down to sit on the edge, twisting to look out over his shoulder.
namjoon follows the trajectory of his gaze towards the city — the new york city lights, the life caught in alleyways and skyscrapers, the glamor and all that it hides, to the vanishing point where they all blur together.
after a moment, jimin half-turns to peek at namjoon from the corner of his dusty gray eyes. this time when he asks his question, it sounds as if it catches on every fold in jimin’s throat before being born on those full lips.
“why do mortals try to destroy everything they fear?”
shaking his blonde bangs, namjoon replies, “because we can’t handle the unknown and incomprehensible. it reminds us of our mortality and ignorance.”
“do you fear me?”
he looks up into those gray eyes and wonders once again if the centuries of loneliness had made jimin cry out all the color. he sees the once-blue pupils and breathes, “never.”
at this the immortal smiles so wide that it could be innocent had it not been tainted with flown-away dreams and lost chances.
“then would you do it?”
“do what?”
“end time for me.” jimin looks at him, really looks at him, fiercely intent. “I believe you could do it. all those who try to kill me fear me, but you do not. nor do you fear time like mortals too, world-walker, for you transcend it as well.” he leans forward and the smudged gray of his eyes is far more like steel now. “would you do it, namjoon?”
as he pauses to choose his words, namjoon steps forward closer and closer until they are just a touch away. he is so much taller than jimin that at this height, they are almost eye-level. his stare wanders over the immortal being’s face and it’s not the first time namjoon wishes that he himself isn’t a time-traveler. being saved is not what jimin ever wants, but namjoon would give almost anything to be the one to.
“if it were anyone else, no way,” namjoon says, slowly, leaning down towards the other. “but for you—”
“—for us,” jimin cuts in.
namjoon hesitates, long and heavy, before agreeing, “for us.”
at this, jimin reaches down to run a thumb across the fading script forever inked into the tanned skin of namjoon’s wrist that peeks out from his sleeve hem.
he thinks how they had come to this point, a mutual attraction that became something so much more, and having them fall headfirst into this mess too complicated for either of them to comprehend.
“for you,” namjoon whispers. “I will.”
ii.
when the capital walls crumble after the destruction of the gates, after everything burnable have been scorched into the earth and everything else ravaged, it’s not just the day that breaks.
he watches from afar, beneath a war-torn sky and devastated earth, so helpless to save the home that had once abandoned him. the prince knows every brick that is severed from its place and every crack that is buried underneath ashes and bloodshed, and the city cries louder than its people and it stifles the very air.
yet is a prince still a prince if his home and city is destroyed?
so, when troy falls tonight, it’s not the world that catches fire, but him.
***
in the wake of it all, the orphan greets the summer sunrise alone and with his uncovered back to the spilling of color on the horizon. everything before him is so white and hazy and confusing that he hardly feels the edge of the rocky cliff beneath his bare toes. nor does he feel the seaside wind beating against his exposed chest, because all he can feel is the absence of the lion inside his chest, once thrashing against the jail of his ribcages, but lies now chained, still.
he feels so very absent and apart from everything that when he hears footsteps behind him, it takes him so long to react. all the summer light is far too bright for his tired eyes so he focuses instead on the stranger striding towards him.
the newcomer is tall and wears unfamiliar clothes, his blonde hair a peculiar cut of shaved sides, but still some long strands that fall into a round face. yet it’s not as unfamiliar as the almost warm expression from furrowed straight eyebrows and pursed lips.
he doesn't care. the black-haired prince just wants to tell someone, anyone , how his heart is a war-torn city burning to its knees and he's choking on the tightening noose in his throat. how he's seasick on dry land, bleeding out from wounds that no one can see. or how every object he comes across looks like a weapon he so desperately wants to destroy himself with, but can't.
yet he can’t say any of this over the numb static in his head, like his brain has fallen asleep and every nudging thought is just a feeble attempt at movement. so he just peers up at the tall stranger now just an arm’s length away and asks instead, "who are you?"
the stranger doesn't answer. just reaches out closer ever so slowly with understanding driftwood-colored eyes. it’s both a question and a promise.
through the curtain of midnight hair, he finds himself mirroring the taller man. closer. and closer…
until he’s reaching across time and space to take the stranger’s hand, who seems far too familiar to be a stranger. and he’s just a earth-bound stargazer latching onto the dimpled smile that spreads across the other’s face.
***
(“jimin,” namjoon says. “how does that sound?”
they sit together at the brink of another world, the ashes of yesterday washed away and the ruins of troy are far behind them.
“jimin,” the fallen prince echoes, trying the foreign sounds in the creases of his mouth. twisting, turning, tumbling like a wayward shell captured from a beach.
the name isn’t his, but it somehow feels safe in his ribcages, safe rolling from namjoon’s lips like this. so he tries a smile like the first hesitant step into the sea and says, “I like it.”
the name isn’t his, but it’s a sound that is becoming his. something he can call his own.)
i.
beautiful things aren’t meant to be his.
the sweep of springtime sky is a brilliant shade of lapis lazuli, and so is the color of the black-haired prince’s eyes, upturned towards the vault of heaven, before he shuts out the brilliant summer light when tugs the temple gates closed behind him.
the spicy incense of annual tribute burns heavy in the air as he strides along the stony hallway leading to the throne room, and it catches like sleep on his eyelashes. he finds assaracus dusting the last of his prayers from his hands and retreating respectfully from the altar.
“little brother,” assaracus says warmly when they embrace, his body steady and broad, though not as broad as the grin across his battle-worn face. such a contrast to his younger sibling.
the festival of the sun is in full swing outside, the flutes and music weaving seamlessly through the beat of drums as it moves through the streets and halls. the youngest prince is anxious, though; this is his coming of age ceremony as well.
assaracus laughs. “illus and I have complete faith in you, little one,” he assures, ruffling the midnight locks before it is laden with jewels and veil. “after all, you are father’s favorite.”
but then his expression darkens.
“what is it, brother?”
sighing, assaracus crosses his arms and turns his bearded face towards the open window. when he answers, it’s slow, as if he is choosing his words carefully.
“I worry,” he admits. “illus and I worry that father may have spoken too rashly at last night’s dinner. how he had proclaimed to the universe the unrivaled beauty of his youngest son.” he shakes his head. “the gods are great, however, we cannot test them, and I fear we may be punished for father’s carelessness...”
his brother takes all of this in, his anxiousness heightening in his pulse, but before either can speak, the stagnant air of the hall is suddenly alight and alive with a humming power, as if shocked with mythic lightning.
the younger prince sees his brother’s eyes widen at something behind him, so he turns in time to see the old god descend in his chosen form — a towering and broad-shouldered man with unyieldingly sharp features and blindingly golden hair. the youth is trapped, immobile, entirely entranced by the timeworn eyes now focused on him, seemingly like holes carved from the vast sky itself.
through the haze of reverence before this otherworldly being, the youngest hears the god request to spirit him away, and only hears a demand.
“with all due honor,” assaracus fumbles, courageously breaking the paralysis that he must experience, to step towards his brother, “we always pay tribute to the king of the gods. you cannot take him away!”
“that is not something,” the god says, his voice a sound like impending thunderstorms, “you mere mortals can decide.”
suddenly there is light, blinding, searing light, and a scream rips through his throat when the youngest prince starts to lose sight of his brother and finally understands that he will lose him entirely.
he breaks his own paralysis enough to take a few steps, but it is in vain. great steel talons seize him above his elbow and the stony ceiling falls beneath powerful wingbeats as the young prince is taken away. everything is chaotic white-gold and the world falls away.
“eternity is terribly, terribly boring,” the ancient god murmurs low in his ear, smirk drenching every syllable. “so I will give you this one last scene. do not look away, my sweet boy. burn it into your eyes, sear it into your memory.”
the last thing he sees before the consuming darkness is everything burning to ashes.
***
he wakes to find himself on a mountain plateau, beneath a dome of sky, peppered with pinpoint stars, that seems to stretch infinitely in a curved vault.
but something is wrong. he doesn’t know what, only that this body isn’t his anymore. even if it still looks the same — the midnight locks, lapis lazuli eyes, even the birthmarks at the throat — the very make-up of it is so strange, so foreign, so wrong…
this time the god appears far less like a thunderstorm, and more like a fog. with his return, everything comes surging back to the prince. assaracus, his loving older brother…
“h-how could you do that?” his normally smooth voice cracks like a whip in the space. “why? you’re heartless! evil!”
the god’s expression hardens at this, even more dangerous than before.
but the ruined prince cannot be stopped now, his tangled dark hair doing nothing to hide the ferocity of his eyes. “he had nothing to do with this. punish my father, or me!” there are tears streaming down his face now and his cries are reaching higher and more impassioned pitches. “how could you do that? how could you do that to him?”
pauses before answering, the god speaks with timeless and limitless power. “but I gave you eternity in this garden where you do not need to fear time nor death.”
the youth shudders, as his own words strangle themselves in his throat.
the ancient god continues, crossing powerful arms across his chest and tilting head back, “the dice have been cast and troy has been forsaken with the losing hand.” he turns slightly to fully face the prince at his feet. “do not weep, for your home has already forsaken you before it bet all treasures.”
the young prince bows his head, quaking from his fingertips to his bare feet from all fear, anger, pain, and nothing and every emotion in between.
as he fades into the backdrop of midnight sky, the god’s words echo tauntingly. “hate is a wonderful way to pass time, is it not? my lovely ganymede, fair fair prince of fallen troy.”
locked out of heaven, trapped in paradise
what a fool was he to believe that he is beloved of the gods
iv.
he ignites flares by the seaside lighthouse just to feel something again.
there are times when jimin misses namjoon the most, but tonight it comes in crashing waves, and jimin is just drowning.
so he spins and twists barefoot on the stony path, smearing trails of smoke and ashes against the harbor air. he is so lost in the haze of smoke and heated lights that it takes him a moment to stop and see that he has been surrounded.
as he counts in the twenty-three roman soldiers in bronze armor readying their nineteen bows and quivers of arrows and four hefted swords, he lets out a humorless laugh.
he should be used to this, he thinks, after these centuries. mortals always want to destroy things they fear.
his laugh unnerves the armored men and he notices them glancing in the same direction so he focuses his eyes — now a tired chalcanthite — on the foreigner in the midst as well.
the time-traveler stands out even before he moves out in front of the group, with his wine-colored hair and almond eyes mirrored across a broad nose. from the looks of his unusual clothes and lack of timeworn aura, jimin guesses that this must be the time-traveler before namjoon. a surge rises in his chest at the remembrance, but he swallows it back.
jimin hears the signal and steps back and throws his arms out. walks straight into the rain of fiery arrows, hoping he will die, but knowing that he won’t.
mortals are such fearful creatures, jimin thinks, in the presence of something they cannot destroy.
they are running, dispersing like freed birds until there is only one. the young world-walker is starting to become distressed as he extracts a strange metal object from his side with trembling hands. jimin thinks it must be a weapon of the future, just as a bang strikes him at his shoulder.
he welcomes it, welcomes the bullet. continuing his stride, he sees the initial uneasiness that’s full-blown panic now on the other’s face before he takes the barrel and forces it to his chest. this close and beneath jimin’s resolute stare, the young time-traveler finally falters and looks his age. a mere eighteen to the immortal’s agelessness.
jimin knows the invasive intensity of his gray-eyed stare lays siege against the other boy’s walls, tearing them down ruthlessly, so he grips the cold metal even harder to his chest and says, “I dare you.”
he tries.
they all do.
***
something flickers behind him and jimin stops running along the abandoned harbor to throw a longing glimpse over his shoulder, hope blooming hot against the cold of his skin.
only the empty sea-washed stones are there to greet him.
the strength in him drains from him, pouring out until he throws the remnants of his flares over the edge and lets go. falling back even farther from the sky until the inky sea catches him and embraces him so tenderly.
he drifts, the sound of waves soaking into his numbed senses. all he can feel beneath the saturated mass of heaven is how his thoughts cannot move an inch without bumping into some piece of namjoon. he closes his world-worn eyes, and pretends that the salty wetness at his cheeks are just sea brine and foam.
and just like the tales of disbelieving minstrels, he forgets.
iii.
the lyrics flow steadily in the seconds between yesterday and today from namjoon’s lips as he performs a song that he’s been working on.
jimin stares, not wanting to but cannot help doing so. passion-fueled vein and sweat dripping down tanned cheekbones and mixing into the blood- and tear-stained poetry-rich lips. and jimin wishes desperately more than anything, that namjoon would love him as much as he loves his art.
a shy expression dusts namjoon’s skin when he finishes and asks quietly, “could you help me with something?”
“anything.” jimin means it far more than he could even hope to convey.
when namjoon asks him of the home he has lost, jimin replies with more than that. he speaks about the eternal sensation of being displaced and detached in a room full of people, of being left behind just by standing still, of being alone.
namjoon lets him work through his feelings and after a long, long time, jimin talks himself into silence. then he apologizes for what he says, that he didn’t mean to be so bleak, that he’s okay really, that he probably wasted namjoon’s precious time.
“no.” surprised, jimin looks up to meet namjoon’s stare, and shivers involuntarily despite feeling nothing cold. when namjoon finally speaks, he knows that the time-traveling artist finds so many verses in the crevices of jimin’s smile.
“I found everything I need.”
***
the next time they see each other, he tells jimin about how the new song “hiraeth” had been an overnight success in the future. though it burns out like a wet flare soon thereafter, he admits, jimin is still glowing at this. grinning so wide his almond eyes are crescents and his full lips pulled so taut.
“yes, the earth continues to spin and the world moves on,” jimin says, everything about him so open, so eager. “but for you—”
“—for us ,” namjoon cuts in.
jimin hesitates almost imperceptibly, before agreeing, “for us.” he reaches across to run a thumb across the fresh script now forever inked into namjoon’s wrist. “for us, it is something .”
between them in these breathy spaces, it lives on.
v.
“if I jump, will you jump too?”
jimin really should have expected namjoon’s answer, but it doesn’t hurt any less with preparation when the older replies offhandedly, “nah.”
the emotion — he has never been good at hiding his feelings — must have shown on his face, because namjoon continues, “mostly because you’d live to tell the tale, and I wouldn’t.”
replying with a laugh he’s far from feeling, jimin settles to sit on the rooftop edge and stares out to the cityscape and asks, “do you fear me?”
“no—”
“you should.”
namjoon’s eyebrows furrow so tightly. “why?”
“all mortals do.” the back of his boots thunk against the concrete when he swings them idly. “they fear what they do not trust — what they cannot understand nor destroy.”
“you’re different—”
“am I?” he shakes his head. “I am not trustworthy, I have seen the world at least seven times over, I know the universe and it is empty. cold. doomed. I could turn my powers to evil at any moment—”
“but you don’t.”
jimin hesitates. that hesitation is all namjoon needs to pull in close, with two hands on either side of the other’s thighs, not stopping him but also demanding undivided attention. the earnesty has jimin entranced, trapped beneath the intensity of namjoon’s stare.
“you shouldn’t fear yourself either.”
“but I’m afraid of living forever and watching the world move on without me” gets trapped in the back of jimin’s throat. but, as he takes in the steady calm that’s so namjoon, jimin whispers instead, “I think you could do it.”
“do what?”
“end time.” jimin’s hands rest on the tanned ones and presses namjoon’s into the concrete, slotting his fingers through the spaces. “for me. would you do it?’
now namjoon is hesitating and jimin is desperate and torn. he wants to stay, inhabit the forever he has with namjoon, with him. he wants to dream a little more, daydreams catching on their eyelashes like the eternal sleep that never claims jimin...
but still... it is time to leave and every chance he has rests in the large tan hands beneath jimin’s own.
it’s my truth , he thinks, soaking in the bitten lips before him and adverted eyes. it’s probably covered in scars, but this must be my fate, dying at the hands the only person who knows me.
namjoon still isn’t answering so jimin whispers, almost a whimper, “would you do it for me—”
the rest of the question is lost against the snaking of strong arms around jimin’s waist and pulling him artlessly closer, and he’s tilting his head to ensure a deeper fit. a sense of urgency takes over them as their breaths shallow gasps of want and need. their hands not leaving a single area untouched, over the scars and wounds unseen, but also — secretly and selfishly — just to make sure they are both actually there, now, and for the simple joy of touching being together.
“if we must rewrite history,” jimin nudges breathlessly into their mouths, “let’s erase our names. I’d rather we be forgotten together, than remembered apart.”
namjoon pulls back at this, to cup either side of jimin’s face so gently, both light and steady, as if he is praying that jimin won’t fall apart or break at his touch.
the following kiss namjoon presses into his lips now has jimin leaning into for more, stopped only by namjoon’s steadiness, his gentleness far more dangerous his passion had been.
jimin squeezes his eyes shut and tries so desperately not cry.
then, in an instant, namjoon’s gone.
***
he waits.
but as the hours, minutes, tangled breaths drag by, jimin is unraveling fast, raindrops slipping down his cheeks instead of tears. namjoon is taking too long, it should have been over already.
a flash of lightning splits the saturated air and he faces the bleeding sky.
he’s just trying to endure, the only thing he can do is this.
maybe he can never fly, less like kites he had once trailed across lapis lazuli skies and between lavender clouds, and more like the dying flower petals decaying from scattered bouquets;
maybe he can’t touch the sky, but he still wants to stretch his arm, reach a little further, he just wants to run just a little bit farther;
but maybe he’s meant to do it himself. he can’t rely on anyone…
gray eyes fluttering closed, he leans out over the edge with hands outstretched, with one last thought of the man with trusting eyes.
wanting to fly further away. further…
further…
ii.
the greeks are long gone by the time namjoon returns, but they leave destruction in their wake, scarring the land and leaving their ravaging mark before sailing away.
but it’s nothing to the hollowness in his chest and he wonders if this is what it’s like to choke on his lungs.
he sees the too-familiar silhouette on the cliff’s edge, naked to the waist — exposed and vulnerable in more ways than one — and hears the beautiful voice asking tentatively of him, “who are you?”
seeing and knowing that he will be completely rewriting, unravelling something that means so much to him, makes something much less like jealousy and far more like heartache boil underneath his skin and nails.
just reaches out closer ever so slowly, with only eyes for the trapped youth who had seen and understood more of him than anyone else ever had.
closer
closer… until he's reaching across time and space to offer a hand that he knows the earth-bound stargazer will reach for.
but today, they are both questions without answers, promises without fulfillment.
today, they both become stars.
you have the kind of light they name constellations after