| run. chanyeol/kyungsoo. action, tension, drama (lol) 3k pg-13 { if i tell you to run, you run. }

ephemeral

When Kyungsoo molds the earth with his bare hands, he feels a sense of aliveness, a sense of power. His eyes trace the horizon of the earth, dipping in for each valley set against the smeared oranges of the sunset behind it, glancing up for the peaks and squinting for the forests far away. The earth is his child, the ground his home, and everything his doing. With a lift of the hand he can plant a tree, grow it, and make it draw fruit as does an apple tree during harvest. When he feels lonely, he brings white flakes dancing onto the ground to cover his artwork, when he feels angry he pours buckets of rain to wash his plate clean. Because his land is his home but also his art. It is the medium through which he expresses himself. They call him mother earth but really there is no mother—he had one once, but now the task is bestowed onto him as a father earth, or a brother earth, or simply me in the world I have created, the world I have molded, the world I will shape. This is Kyungsoo’s home. This is Kyungsoo.

But for every virtue there is a vice, and with the beauty that is the earth and the lands on it comes the vice that comes in the form of Park Chanyeol, a lanky, goofy fellow who knows nothing but chaos. Call Kyungsoo peace—though it may be up for debate—and Chanyeol is immediately chaos. They are at opposite ends, at different poles, different sides of the spectrum. Yet Park Chanyeol is an attachment to the earth, a burden Kyungsoo must bear as he creates masterpieces of his own.

In one instance, Kyungsoo spends three decades building the image of his dreams—beautiful, curved, subtle slopes painted a light green under a faint morning light, trees that bend so delicately to provide shade but also aesthetic comfort, and a stream running through—no, treading through the in-betweens in a way that only tickles your ears as you cup your hands under the crystal clear water. It is a picture of paradise that becomes reality; he had spent three painstaking years creating this exact architecture with his bare hands, until they were calloused, until he had nothing left to do but shed tears on the first day, watching as the remorseful rain splashed on the hills like a mother does over her child when she realizes he has grown up. He watched for days as little humans trickled in among the right places to convene, creating humble homes, having petty arguments, settling disputes with negotiations and distaste—but they are humans and they are beautiful, he thinks. He wishes he could mold them, too. He closes his eyes that night with peace upon his eyelids, his chest hollow with air and happiness, his breathing calm and regular. All is well.

But in the morning, he opens his eyes not because of the twinkling melodies of birds but because of a putrid taste in his mouth and an acrid odor pinching his nose; something is wrong, he realizes and he looks down into his picture of paradise that has oh so quickly descended into a picture of hell. And just in the corner of his eye he can see the back of Chanyeol’s head. He can pick out his cackling laughter among the swooning mourns of the trees, his mocks and his spiteful remarks sparked from sarcastic jealousy. Tears spill this time, not in light drops but in heavy, fat droplets that stick to the ground until it floods, until the burning ashes and the charred remains of his masterpiece is drowned in his angry tears.

Chanyeol is like that. Kyungsoo must be weary of him whenever he makes a masterpiece, for when it is too good, Chanyeol sniffs it out like a dog does for mischief and gallops over to hurriedly crush it to its “rightful pieces,” as he so often comments. Sighs are common in Kyungsoo’s mortal world, and so are Chanyeol’s biting laughter, the sweltering heat and biting smell that only comes after a good forest fire.

star-crossed. > sehun/kai. > elements!au / gods!au. > less than 1k words. > rated G. > summary: they’re star-crossed by nature.    

Legends say—if there are legends, that is (perhaps they’re just rumors whispered through ears through ears through ears)—that it started because one met the other at a bar, or the beachside, or maybe an amusement park. Or maybe it was somewhere so normal that it was abnormal, like on a line to buy coffee, or at the supermarket near the bread aisle. In the end, though, it wasn’t really the beginning that mattered. It was the end, or the middle, or somewhere, something in between those two.

They say that the two of them wanted so desperately to be mortal, for their lust for the ephemeral beauty, the flawed, punctured beauty of an incomplete human was so great that they wanted to live with their subjects, make love with their subjects, be their subjects.

They say that when the two of them—at different times, obviously—fell to the ground, the sky broke into a fractured piece of glass, shattered into a million little pieces so small you could live with one of them in your eye without you knowing, ever. They say the two of them were the only ones left unsplintered, unharmed from the shards because it was them who had created the break in the sky.

They had uncanny similarities. One was the god of the wind, the other the god of travel. But the wind was very much traveling, and traveling was close at hand with the wind. They were, in a sense, one and the same, if you squinted your eyes hard enough.

The god of wind, whose mortal name went by Oh Sehun, was flirtatious, lighthearted, charming. He spoke twenty tongues, and could tame his own to lick the nape of your neck so viciously, yet so serenely and so softly that all you could do was shudder and let out a pleasured moan as you let him take over you, blow his soul into yours until your body was nothing but holes. That was the god of wind, who came and went, never making up his mind, but making sure that nobody would miss his touch. It was the one thing nobody could avoid, you know. Wind. Air. The omnipresent element.

And then there was the god of travel, the brave one, the one with the ganas, the will, the power. His teeth were blindingly white, and his body was so toned and muscled from years, decades, eons of travel that by now, he was the master of it all. He could move from one place to another effortlessly. Just a jerk of his muscles and he was there, in your heart, and then there, out of your memories. He cruised into and out of lives, out of times, out of places. He traveled not space but time and every dimension because he could. That was his life, the god of travel. He called himself Kai.

They took the shape of a mortal, embodying a personification of their element—Sehun, wind; Kai, travel—in a way that mesmerized passerbys.

But there is one thing I must mention, one thing they have pleaded me never to mention, the one thing I feel is the most important to point out. Both, although in their majestic greatness, felt loneliness. Both felt isolated, alone, empty. They yearned to live with the mortals, and thus they had been estranged by their kin, their brothers, who would cluck their tongues down at the two foolish brothers frolicking among soon-to-die animals, beasts of selfish motives.

For thousands of years, each lived in isolation, without knowledge of the other. Alone, they would cruise in and out of human lives, making love with some, courting others, marrying some, killing others. It was a game—a lovely, wretched game of boredom and loneliness. It never crossed their minds that there may be another god doing the same thing.

It was in the twenty first century that the probability lined up and it was about time that they would encounter each other. And they did. And again, the beginnings didn’t matter, it never did, never will. They met, they cried, and they tasted each other’s tears out of joy, pure joy that they were no longer alone in this empty abyss of echoing chants. They had each other.

But the heartbreaking part of it is that they never met again. For one was the god of wind, the other the god of travel, and they could not stay, they could not stagnate, and they could not dwell. They cried, they embraced, they spoke, they made love, but then they inevitably moved on, out of obligation, for their natures were not in line with permanence. They loved each other when they met, they loved each other when they left. And when they left, they left the probability behind them, wondering how many more centuries it would take until the chances lined up so that they would, by coincidence, bump into each other again and tell each other the stories of their past.

That is the story of the god of wind and the god of travel, star-crossed lovers.     

i plead insane

author: yeonuline pairing: kai/krystal (+more but can’t say bc spoiler) genre: horror, psychological, weird rating: nc-17 [smut, cursing, mentions of death, etc.] summary: jongin comes for peace. he leaves without it.

“I said, ask your other employees!” “Jongin, I have already told you. There are no other employees in this building except for you and me. Everyone else is a patient. Anyone you meet who is not me is a psychiatric patient.”

Finish fic

if anyone still follows this, my lj has moved to yeonuline.livejournal.com

exodus [colorado, 9:02]

> exo teaser series! > previous: [ london | barcelona | arizona | berlin | edinburgh | marseille | almaty | lyon | yunnan | ALL ] > collab with peacockgege. stay tuned for the finale! > note: apologies for the lateness... busy week + a sudden case of writer’s block //otl

      Morning whistles into his ears. He opens his eyes, lifts his arms lethargically, and lets out a slow yawn. The window is open, just as he had left it, and the chill bites into his shoulders as he sits up, his back arched, leaning against the frame of the bed. He bows his head down, his eyes closed again. He breathes. Fresh air. Leaves. Morning. Spring.

And Kai is near.

He jumps out of bed, suddenly, and feels the urgency in Kai’s footsteps, the nervous zapping of disappearances and reappearances, the light steps, the shallow breathing, the quick heartbeats likely to accompany that kind of gait. He feels the bare toes pressing against the cold morning soil. It’s clearer than ever. Kai is near. And something is wrong.

In the past few days, Kyungsoo has been noticing a shift in patterns. A reshuffling of the system, a slow but steady change from random movements to coordinated teamwork. They’re getting back together, he had realized. And it’s about time they come for me.

After throwing on a light jacket, he walks out to his balcony. It’s his home--for two years and counting. The perfect place for him--the peace, the quiet, the loneliness. Just what he needs. Away from white coats and loud noises. But even if he wants to run away from the other nine as much as possible, one thing is inevitable.

He always knows where all of them are.

If you give him a map, he’ll close his eyes, feel a little, think a little, and then point at the area they’d be--down to the coordinates. Down to the numbers. The address, maybe, if you give him enough resources. Because unlike the others, Kyungsoo has control over the one thing all ten of them have constant, daily contact with. Something he can track, feel, remember. Earth.

Footsteps are like fingerprints. There’s a personality in them, a pattern, a rhythm Kyungsoo knows how to follow, how to remember. It’s like a scent, a memory, a voice. When he feels it, he knows it. He can recognize it. With the careful, calculating treads of Xiumin, he can hear the soft voice, the nose-biting scent, the clean appearance. The reckless, free-floating stomps of Chanyeol can be felt no matter how buried he may be in a city--the laughter is a given, the voice unavoidable. There’s a pattern, a detectable familiarity that Kyungsoo can feel like family when he closes his eyes and searches for the other nine.

It’s like watching a board game from above--a board game where the board is a map and the players are ten tiny speckles--pathetic, helpless, and probably, he assumes, hopelessly surrounded by white coats everywhere. He watches the shift in patterns, the movement of bodies. With the zaps of disappearances and reappearances, it’s easy to know which one Kai is. With the rest, it takes a little bit of intuition and concentration. But usually, within a few minutes, he can find and maintain the locations of all nine.

And today, the footsteps are bunched together, near each other in clumps. They’re assembling.

He leans against the edge of the balcony and looks out into the vegetation--the trees and the rustling leaves. He breathes out slowly and says, “it’s been a while.”

Behind him, Kai chuckles. “I can never surprise you.”

“Until you learn how to fly,” Kyungsoo shrugs. He turns around and looks into Kai’s eyes. “What is it?”

Kai shakes his head. “You knew, didn’t you.”

“Of course I did. I can’t help it.”

“It’s the white coats.”

“And we’re assembling again? In what--two years?”

“They’re restarting the exo experiments, and this time they’re planning big.”

“You’re still in London?”

“I am.”

Kyungsoo leans back against the frame of the balcony, his elbows rested on the brim. “And we’re going to stop them, I’m assuming?”

“We have to.”

“And who decided this?”

“Well--I did. I mean, I was the first to know. And it’s our obligation--you,” and Kai pauses, swallowing, looking into Kyungsoo’s eyes intently, “you know how it is. It’s more than just pain, having these--these powers. We have to make sure they don’t do it to anyone else.”

Kyungsoo nods solemnly, looking down at his feet. Then he sighs sharply, looking up, “And everyone’s in on this?”

“Well,” and he sighs, “that’s the thing.”

“Of course.” Kyungsoo pauses. “Xiumin?”

“Right. And a few of the others--but first, we need all of us together.”

“And you think we’re going to fit together, easily, just like that?”

“We’ll--we’ll take care of that later.” Kai frowns, looking into Kyungsoo’s expression, trying to read his emotions. He runs his hand through his hair coarsely, a familiar action Kyungsoo hasn’t seen in a while. Something settles into Kyungsoo’s mind, something like home and I remember how we used to be, all together like that. Something nostalgic. Something he faintly misses, maybe.

“Are you in?” Kai asks.

Kyungsoo looks at Kai, then at his feet again. Then he lets out a soft chuckle.

“Well why the fuck not,” he says. “It’s been a while. It’s been getting boring. I’d rather see you all in person than dream about you from the feeling of your footsteps.”

Kai smiles. “Great. Let’s get started.”

exodus [lyon, 06:26]

> exo teaser series! > previous: [ london | barcelona | arizona | berlin | edinburgh | marseille | almaty | ALL ] > collab with peacockgege. stay tuned for zyx!

    It was the gold watches.

It had to be—there was no other reason, no other explanation as to why he flew out of control. There were three of them—one on a fat, hairy wrist, another on a thin, dainty wrist, and the last hung loose on a strong, tanned one. Three in a row. It was just too good to be true. Perhaps his subconscious had registered the images and weighed the options: risk of getting caught versus not having to worry about money for at least another two months.

But it didn’t matter, because what was done was done. The darkness had overcome the station and the people were screaming. And of course, within seconds, Baekhyun had taken what he needed, slipping through the crowd, reaching into pockets quickly and deftly. Like a free-for-all buffet, he had thought, smiling wryly at his own comment. And within two minutes, he was standing in the doorway, grinning at the frenzy, feeling as full as his sagging pockets.

“Adieu,” he whispered. And then he left.

He had been in the Lyon Part Dieu, ten minutes early at the station for his train, when the feeling had overwhelmed him. It’s been two weeks, he tried to tell himself, and two weeks is too risky. But the watches—all three of them!—they were too good, too delicious, too beautiful. He had closed his eyes. Taken deep breaths. But when he exhaled, the lights had gone out. He had lost control momentarily.

But now—now, it’s the dawn of Saturday morning and Baekhyun is strolling in the streets, reflecting on his excursion that day. He feels full; he feels new. His new jacket fits snugly, and his music is sweet. He rocks his head lightly to the beat, elated because of his new treasures and the mild air—the perfect weather for an early morning stroll. Yesterday, he had traveled to a place about three cities over and traded the watches for cash (they never ask questions) and had gone out to buy himself a new set of clothing (leather jacket, leather pants—he’d been eyeing them at the mall for quite some time). And of course, new earbuds. The old ones had torn apart.

He smiles. There’s something refreshing about turning out the lights. About being able to see a bustling mass of people busy at a train station halt to a frenzy of self-preserving screams and frantic searching; about looking at all of those luminous glass containers hanging on the walls and sucking the life out of all of them, all at once. Gone. It is then that he feels exhilaration, a manic happiness that nothing else can achieve.

He closes his eyes, adjusts his jacket, pulls the earbuds out of his ears. They drop, bouncing against his thighs.

Darkness.

If one were to stand beside him, they would see a knowing smirk, a swagger of the gait, a luxury of motion. Brisk air beats by in unforgiving gusts and Baekhyun shivers for a moment, letting the cold wind bite into his bare neck, keeping him awake.

He exhales and imagines a small cloud of white billowing out in front of him. The air around him is dead, the atmosphere silent. For once he has created a darkness for himself, for no one else but him and his own peace. No crowd, no panic. Just his muted breathing, the faint murmuring from his earbuds, and the occasional noise from afar: perhaps a man leaving early for work, or a cat slinking past some bushes. These are the moments he loves. The moments that keep him grounded, keep him settled near the floor, able to remain unseen and indistinguishable. Peace and quiet. Darkness.

He walks, listening to the sounds around him. To become a true master of darkness, Baekhyun thinks, one must learn to navigate the blackness without one’s power. He closes his eyes. I see darkness just like everyone else does, now. He walks forward. He listens.

A few meters to the right of him, someone is snoring in their house. To the left, faint droplets of water drip in the sewers. Above, a bird nervously shifts in its nest. His feet pad on the humid ground below him. And behind, his steps echo with someone else’s: quiet, incognito, careful. Following him.

Baekhyun’s heart leaps up into his throat. Shit, he thinks. He tries to act normal—I don’t notice you, I don’t notice you, I don’t notice you I don’t notice you please don’t be following me—and after a few more meters, he stops. An echo of his footstep sounds behind him before coming to a stop as well. Faint, but still noticeable. He begins to walk again. If he concentrates hard enough, he can hear muted whisks of the air, like someone is twirling a whip from afar. It happens in sync with the stranger’s footsteps.

He begins to ransack his mind for any possible mistakes in his previous excursions. Perhaps he had left behind a piece of himself; or perhaps one of the jewelry men had betrayed him. But how could they find me now? How could they follow me in the dark—the dark meant for me and no one else?

His steps quicken despite him, and before he knows it, he’s shuffling nervously. So are the footsteps behind him. They probably know by now, Baekhyun thinks. They know I’ve realized. Anyone can hear my heart pounding from at least a meter away. He realizes his hands are shaking.

I can’t go like this—not after so long. I’ve been doing okay, I haven’t been killing anyone. I’m okay. He thinks about the white coats, about the experiments, about going back. Is it the government? Have they found me? Thoughts run through his head, coarse and brutal. His breathing is rough. His head throbs.

It isn’t long before the fear takes over him. Who could it be? The white coats? CIA agents? Betrayers—the French police, perhaps? The French government? Would they take him back? Would they force him to return—would they lock him up would they kill him would he be executed he’s too young to die oh my god what have I done—and he snaps. His legs break into a run.

Fuck fuck fuck, he thinks, biting back tears and running for his life. I don’t know who you are but just don’t take me, leave me here, I’m actually happy for once, alone, in my own place, doing my own thing—fuck, don’t take that away from me.

And he collides right into the chest of a faint fragrance of cologne and trench coat.

“Hey,” the voice says. And Baekhyun gasps. It’s been too long. His brain freezes—

“Shit—Chen—I mean, Sehun—I mean—I mean Kai—”

“You’ve got it right.”

“—they’re here, they’re here,” and Baekhyun gasps because he runs out of breath, “they’re—just—just run! Do your thing! Protect yourself—”

“It was me, brother. Relax.”

“You? No, I mean—behind me—there were steps behind me—”

“That was me.”

“You?”

“Me. Kai. Now why don’t you turn the lights back on so I can see a little better?”

For a few delays moments, Baekhyun breathes coarsely, staring emptily at Kai. It is then, after a few seconds of considerably slower breathing and a more organized train of thoughts, that Baekhyun realizes what Kai has said.

And with Baekhyun’s relaxed exhale, the lights turn on in the neighborhood, fading in from a dim glow to the firey flickering of lamplights.

Kai blinks. “I didn’t realize it was so early in the morning.”

“It’s nearly seven now,” Baekhyun says, shrugging. “And you scared me. I thought you were the white coats.” He shivers. “Never want to see them again.”

Kai clears his throat.

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t too hard,” Kai shrugs. “A few cases of stations burning out over the past two years in France—I figured it had to be you. Not to mention,” and Kai smiles with a twinkle in his eye, as if ready to say a good joke, “It was my watch you stole that day.”

Baekhyun stares incredulously before laughing, albeit nervously. “Of course,” he says. “The third one—the Rolex GMT Master II, right?”

“I had to try it out and see how good you’ve gotten.” He smiles. “Have to admit, couldn’t feel it at all. For a moment I thought I had gotten the wrong person.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, still smiling. “What about you? Still with them?”

Kai sighs.

“Not for them, right?” Baekhyun shifts uncomfortably. “I can trust you, right? They don’t know where I am?”

“I haven’t told them,” Kai says slowly. “But you know them. They might know where all of us are. They might have trackers on us. We’ll never know.”

Baekhyun tenses visibly.

“Anyways,” Kai says, clearing his throat again. He adjusts his collar, looks around, before looking back at Baekhyun. “We need to go some place safe to talk. Tomorrow—I’ll come back. We’ll go someplace secret, someplace dark.” He pauses, thinking. “But of course, I’ll trust you to provide the dark.”

“What is it?” Baekhyun raises his eyebrows in concern.

“The white coats—” and Kai pauses, as if still registering the information himself, “—they’re restarting the exo experiments.”

Baekhyun gasps. For a moment, the lights go out. But when he turns them back on, Kai is gone.

exodus [marseille, 10:22]

> exo teaser series! > previous: [ london | barcelona | arizona | berlin | edinburgh | ALL ] > collab with peacockgege: where is the next member? what is he doing now?

      Suho feels weak.

He feels weak because the air is thin, crisp, curling dry at the edges. There is no thickness to the air, no comforting heaviness on his shoulders, nothing keeping him on the ground. His breaths come out short. They die in front of him, little huffs of air quickly evaporating into nothingness. His hands feel dry. They crack invisibly, and he winces occasionally at the sharp air cutting into his skin.

His head feels heavy as he lifts his head up to look at the whistling trees. This barren forest, he thinks. I’ve taken all I could from you. And the time is almost over. Both you and I are dying. It is time to go.

He walks through the forest once more--the forest that had once been his friend, his comfort, his source of nourishment. Just a year and a half ago he had stumbled upon it as he was frantically searching for a good place to hide; for paranoia was one of his weaknesses, and he knew he would be able to function well in society. Not with such a pressing concern on his mind. And to this day, the thoughts never waned--the nightmares never stopped. He would jolt awake every morning at six with a scream in his throat and a name on his lips.

But now, he thinks. Now it’s almost over. My time has gone. His heart feels depressed, shriveled, dry. There is no longer healthy blood in my veins, nor spirit coursing through my body. I am empty. I am a shell. I have failed my beloved.

He thinks back to his companions--he could call them friends, perhaps. He thinks of how he had promised to protect them, how he had made an effort, garnered courage in even the weakest of them to escape. To fight back. To bring justice. But alas, things had fallen apart and all he could do was blindly give them a piece of their shared legacy and push them away to hidden corners of the world. Take this, he had said. Take it and don’t come back. Take it and forget us forever.

As his feet drag across the colorless foliage lying limp on the frozen grounds of the forest, he thinks about the first day he had met the forest. Walking into it had given him a surge of courage, of liveliness. Surrounded by natural water and far from human interaction, he had cherished this place as his new home. His private abode. Every day he would drink from it--from the roots singing low into the ground to the leaves screaming high into the trees. Every bit of the forest he took in as himself. As an embodiment of his entity, as an extension of his body.

But he knew he would exhaust the forest some day. Life does not last. He knew he was of no help to this thriving world; he was merely a parasite, sucking away at its life day by day, keeping himself alive at the expense of the beautiful piece of nature.

And the day had come.

That day is today. The forest is dying. Suho is dying. His soul is dying. Everything, everything as I know of it, Suho thinks, is dying. My companions are dying, I am dying. The government will prevail, he thinks in misery. I have failed everyone.

He traces his fingers against the dry leaves hanging from a limp, lifeless tree. As he feels the texture, the branch snaps off. It falls to the ground, and the rustling of the leaves echo through the silent forest.

I’m sorry, Suho wants to whisper. I have done too much wrong. Tears bubble in his eyes. They wet his cheeks. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

But as the moisture reaches his lips, Suho suddenly senses something beyond. Something more. Deep in the woods.

He regains some energy, some hope; perhaps I will survive after all, he begins to think. Perhaps two years of suffering will amount to something. His pace quickens; his heart thumps uneasily in his chest. His fists are clenched--weakly, but still clenched--and within a few minutes, he finds himself where he had never been before: in a clearing.

A clearing in the woods.

It seems like heaven; it is too good to be true. Light shines through the gap in the treetops, blinding and beautiful. And at the center is a house. An old, dilapidated, beautiful house, left alone mid-sentence, almost. The door is ajar, the windows are open. But as a hiss passes through the site in a gust of merciless wind, Suho realizes it has been left untouched, unfinished, for many years. It has been dying, just like I have. Carefully, he steps closer.

Something about the house draws him in; something about its architecture, its purity. Its simpleness. Its poignancy. This is hope, he whispers. This is hope. On the verge of death, a little flower sprouts from your rotten remains.

I have been dying, but I will live. He reaches for the door.

He nearly jumps back as the door screams uncomfortably at his careful budge. When he finally closes his eyes and swings the door open, the creak of the rusted metal is deafening. But he soon recovers and steps through, making his way through the house. The furniture is upturned, books are scattered on the floor.

“Anyone?” His throat opens up painfully as his voice cracks for the careful word. He hasn’t spoken in days.

No answer.

He tiptoes, then, into the living room. Beautiful interior design. Victorian furniture. He looks at the paintings on the walls, and wonders if this house had ever belonged to someone. Or if it even exists. Perhaps he is hallucinating.

But as he leans in to examine the centimeters of dust protecting the barely visible painting, a creak sounds behind him. He jumps back in terror, and his heart pounds faster than it had in months.

“Who is that?”

One of the doors in the hallway is slightly open. Suho squints. He waits, frozen in place. I am weak. I cannot attack. I am defenseless. He thinks about asking for mercy. He thinks about the white coats. Maybe he could offer to go back to London, maybe he could be a part of the experiment again. Because with them, he was safe, at least. With them, he had protection, albeit with his freedom lost.

But upon minutes of waiting, only silence replies. Tentatively, he makes his way closer to the door.

“Hello?” A whisper. Barely audible. He touches the doorknob, hesitates. He imagines scenarios, imagines death flashing before his eyes. And then he closes his eyes shut and swings open the door, ready to scream, ready to cry for mercy--

His eyes are still shut and the door bangs against the wall. Still, no one but silence’s patient whistle replies.

One eye opens. Then the other. He widens his eyes. He sighs.

“No one,” he says. His shoulders sag. “It’s no one.”

Must have been the wind. Suddenly, he feels relieved. I thought I was close to death. I thought I was caught. But it was the goddamn wind. The goddamn wind! He wants to laugh, to smile. He wants to turn to a friend and hug him--look! I survived! But alas, there is no one. No one but the patient observance of a dead silence.

His thoughts are disrupted by a tiny sound. A drip. Another drip. A third drip. Just the sound quenches his thirst, charges him with power. He smiles--a real one. It’s been a while, he realizes. He walks over, touches the faucet, turns the knob. Water flows like heaven and Suho laughs. He laughs and he laughs and maybe hours pass before he is done with the water, and soon, he is new, he is awake, he is alive.

I am Suho, he says to the skies. And this forest has saved me, killed me, and saved me again.

Outside, he closes his eyes. A smile curves his lips. He raises his hands. It is time to return your favor, he thinks to the forest. And with a flick of his wrist, he floods the forest.

Thank you, he whispers. I will return to London, finish my deed.

And I promise you, I will come back someday.

what

It’s the dawn of spring and the sun is peeking above the horizon. A colorful palette of red and gold hues refract onto the metal frames of the city buildings, and the silence seems almost sacred as Kyungsoo peers out the window. At six in the morning, it seems like there’s nothing alive but him, the sky, and the brisk air through the open window. Occasional clinks of the plates decorate the silence.

As he dries the last dish (because he has a habit of washing dishes in the morning—it’s a good ritual to start the day), his ear picks up a low vibrating noise. With his apron still on, he shuffles over to the counter where his phone is glowing. Who would call at such an early hour?

010-1932-1938.

Tentatively, he picks up his phone. It falls silent in his hands. “Eight missed calls,” it reads. All from the same number. How persistent this person is, Kyungsoo thinks.

The phone vibrates in his hands again, displaying the same number once again: 010-1932-1938.

He stares at the numbers, vaguely remembering who it might be. Three rings later, he decides to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello!” The juxtaposition of a deep bass and a cheerful squeak surprises Kyungsoo. The voice is undeniable. Kyungsoo curses in his head. Fuck. I forgot. Shouldn’t have answered.

“Chanyeol?” And Kyungsoo winces—only because Chanyeol can’t see him.

“Yes! Hello! It’s been so long, friend!”

He swallows. “Yes,” he says slowly. “It’s—it’s good to hear from you.”

“Look, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol says suddenly, his voice urgent. And for a split second, Kyungsoo thinks that maybe Chanyeol has gotten his shit together, maybe he knows how to deal with himself now, now that it’s been two years since they’ve graduated. But immediately, he follows, “I’m dying.”

He spits out an exasperated sigh. “What is it?”

“I—I was,” and Kyungsoo can hear him swallow on the other end, “I was driving, you see. I was in New York City, and I was driving, and this taxi driver—those goddamn taxi drivers are ruthless, you don’t understand, and anyways, they—they crashed into me and I fractured my rib and then I had to go to the hospital and it was pretty bad I mean—it was pretty bad.” Chanyeol exhales.

“Are you alright?” Kyungsoo frowns. How much of this is reality?

“Well, you see, the doctors were so worried, and they—they were so worried and I was in the hospital for a while and I had trouble with insurance and you see, I might need help—I might need some assistance—“

“Are you in New York right now?”

“Well no,” Chanyeol says, and he sounds flustered, “I’m in Seoul.”

“But you were in the hospital in New York?”

“No.”

Kyungsoo tilts his head. What? He waits, but Chanyeol doesn’t elaborate. The line is silent for a few seconds before Kyungsoo sighs and then asks, “So your hospital was in Korea?”

“Yes.” Pause. A few seconds. “It was in Seoul.”

“Are you in the hospital right now?”

Pause.

“No.”

Kyungsoo sighs again—with Chanyeol, one can never sigh too much. “So you’re okay now?”

“Well,” and Chanyeol stops for a moment—gathering words or thinking of a story, Kyungsoo will never know—and he continues, “I guess.”

Kyungsoo remains silent.

“Alright,” he says slowly. “That’s good to hear.”

“But,” Chanyeol says suddenly, his voice sharply rising, “I have a new job now.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says. Chanyeol is a bumbling, blindly grabbing kid—grabbing for stories and unsupported claims. He talks too fast about too little.

“Do you want to have lunch with me today?” he blurts.

The line goes silent. Kyungsoo swallows. He contemplates hanging up.

“Hello?” Chanyeol’s voice is quiet, meager. Desperate.

Lonely.

For the first time, Kyungsoo hears something real, something tangible, something that lives and beats and cries—in Chanyeol’s voice. It had always been a much too cheerful, childlike tone. But something about this time tells Kyungsoo that even Chanyeol’s at the end of his fuse now. He’s been alone for two years, Kyungsoo realizes. We’ve been avoiding his calls, dodging his invitations. He’s been alone for too long.

“Yes?” Kyungsoo finally answers.

“Would you?”

He pauses. Waits. Well why the hell not? Kyungsoo thinks. To make this little kid happy. To tell him he’s not alone.

“Sure.”