Bedtime Stories and Circus Tales (Of Those We Lost to the Night) [1/2]
Title: Bedtime Stories and Circus Tales (Of Those We Lost to the Night)
Pairing: girl!Xiumin/girl!Lay (side Chen/girl!Luhan, brief girl!Chanyeol/girl!D.O, platonic girl!Lay/girl!Luhan)
Rating: PG-15
Genre: fantasy, romance
Warning(s):[Spoiler]
side character death
Word count: 18.4k
Summary: If you know anything about traveling circuses in their prime then you probably a thing or two about Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers. You probably know about the death of Jumbo and the fire of 1944; but you probably don’t know about The Night Brothers. We were, in fact, The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one ever knew it. We filled up seats even during the Great Depression, but never made it past 1939. It’s the world’s best kept secret, and there’s a reason for that. Come in close then, I won’t tell it twice. (night circus!au)
Author's Notes: This fic was loosely based off of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a recommended read if you haven't done so yet! Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants also helped with some aspects of the circus. Special thanks to S for yelling at me and making sure I got this done on time and for listening to me whine even if she didn't actually get to read it yet herself. Thanks to the prompter for submitting this prompt because I loved it and I'm glad I got a chance to write this so I hope you enjoy! Much thanks to the Mods for being so patient with me throughout the process, seriously.
This was written for the 2015 round of girlexochange!
“They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true. What they don’t tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.” -Big Fish
Prologue: Do You Believe in Magic?
My grandmother’s favourite story to tell is the one about how she met the love of her life.
“Do you believe in magic?” She asks. A five year old me nodded along enthusiastically, a twenty five year old me tells her to stop being ridiculous and tell the real story. “This is the real story,” she says. “There is no other way to tell it.”
There’s a box of letters still up in our attic, but not one of them ever got sent. They have a recipient, but no address.
There could be a box of unsent letters somewhere in Europe, but they’re as lost as the person who wrote them.
“Now listen carefully,” she says, “if you know anything about traveling circuses in their prime then you probably a thing or two about Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers. You probably know about the death of Jumbo and the fire of 1944; but you probably don’t know about The Night Brothers. We were, in fact, The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one ever knew it. We filled up seats even during the Great Depression, but never made it past 1939. It’s the world’s best kept secret, and there’s a reason for that. Come in close then, I won’t tell it twice. And remember, this story has a happy ending, no matter how sad it may seem.”
01. The Last Train of the Day (April 1934)
The last train of the day always left at six pm sharp. The sound of the rickety wheels on the old tracks let me know that evening had come again and that I had made it through another day. My town was incredibly dull, nothing ever happened, and I lived right on the edge of it. If you were to look out of the front window you’d see rows of identical white houses on decent sized lots. Each house was equipped with a porch with a swing and an old dog sleeping by the door. Every lot had bright green grass that was always trimmed, not a brown spot could be seen. Everyone knew everyone, and by eight every morning, I heard the sounds of people greeting each other on the street. If you were to look out of the back window all you would see was an empty flat landscape, with small rolling hills further in the distance. That town wasn’t on any map, but somehow they found it.
I remember that first night exactly. It was about three weeks after I turned twenty, just when the weather was starting to get warmer and everything was starting to grow again. The train blew its whistle three times at six pm and I was in bed by ten. I expected to wake up to the noises of the street at eight as per usual, but instead I was awakened at midnight to the sound of music. I wish I could describe to you the way it sounded when it trickled through my walls, but I’m afraid it’s something you needed to have heard yourself to really understand. It was welcoming, but also enticing, the kind of music you would want to follow just to see where it’s coming from. It wasn’t a very fast beat, but it wasn’t slow either. It was almost hypnotic, but not quite, because I didn’t follow it that night. I didn’t even try to figure out where it came from.
The music woke me up again the next night at the same time. This time I listened. I heard some guitar, violin, saxophone, flute, and piano. They weren’t playing typical circus music and certainly not the kind you see in the movies nowadays. They were playing their own music, everything about that place was their own.
It wasn’t until the third night that I actually got out of bed. That morning when I went out at 8:15 (exactly, mind you, I was always on time) to grab the paper, I saw my neighbour. “Good morning!” He said. And I greeted him back. Then I asked him about the music, and he had no idea what I was talking about. All he did was pat me on the head and tell me that he hoped I got a better sleep that night. So it was on that third night that I waited up in bed expectantly, and just as the train left on time every night, the music started again. This time, I pushed my covers aside and placed my slippered feet on the wood floor, making my way to the kitchen. The doors opened onto the back patio. The music was louder from outside, and when I looked out across the fields, there it was.
From my place, I could see the various sizes of tents and all the lights. It seemed so far away, but when I started walking, it got close fast. The music continued to play, but I never saw any speakers. The main tent was right in the middle, surrounded by about ten smaller tents. All the tents were black and white striped and a black iron fence surrounded the lot. It was like walking into a film noir. I stood at the gate and looked up. The Night Bros. was written upon the arch.
There was one ticket booth and no line, so I walked right up. “Here to see the show?” The boy at the booth looked young, no more than fifteen. He was wearing pyjamas, and it was at that time that I realized I had also gone in my pyjamas.
“What’s the fee?” I asked.
“Just a pretty smile from the pretty lady.”
It took longer, but the depression had hit our small town as well. It hit everywhere, and the circus believed that any money that was saved should be spent on food. Their entertainment was free to help people get through. I smiled at him and he gestured for me to go in. That boy was in the front row for the show that night, but past that night I never saw him again.
Walking about the circus grounds were various workers. The performers-artists as they preferred- did not wander the grounds before the show started, choosing instead to make sure they were ready. There were people I didn’t recognize from town, and people I did, but no one ever talked about the circus, and no one ever talked to me. Aside from the odd worker or clown running around, everyone was still in their pyjamas. They must have wandered across the field in the same way I did. The music continued to play as guests went in and out of tents. I considered seeing what was inside one of the tents, but the show was about to start.
“Come one! Come all! Welcome to the The Night Brothers Circus! The show is about to begin! Monkeys, lions, daggers and the flying trapeze, you’ll see it all! Make your way to the big top and prepare to be amazed! The show is about to begin!” A loud voice boomed out from across the grounds, but there was never any sign of a loudspeaker. It was a formulated voice that belonged to no one in particular, I learned later.
The main tent was by far the largest, that’s why they called it the “big top.” It was also the only circular one. The surrounding tents were all cubed. The menagerie was a long rectangle and was the second largest tent. It was put up a few yards behind the big top, and the artist tents were even farther behind that. The big top on that first night was just about full, seating over five hundred people. I saw my neighbour in the stands, but he didn’t notice me. I took a seat near the middle of the last bench. It was farther back, but also the highest up, so I still got a pretty good view of the show.
There is a certain fascination you get when you see the love of your life for the first time. Maybe it’s not love in that first moment, but it is something. The first time I saw her was definitely something. There’s an unexpected warmth that comes across your skin, your stomach churns up a bit, and you can’t tear your eyes away. She stood up on the highest platform, and even from way up there her outfit sparkled. It was a body suit somewhere between silver and gold that could catch light from every angle. The skirt attached was short and a translucent champagne colour. She left her hair down, and it fell in soft brown waves over her shoulders and down her back. She was the most captivating part of the whole show, and her act hadn’t even started yet. She was going to jump. She was going to throw herself into the air high above everyone else but she didn’t look afraid at all. In fact, she looked excited. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet and smiled at the girl across the ring on the platform opposite her. She trusted Sehee with her life, literally, but I suppose there were very few people in the world whom Yixin didn’t trust.
Then she jumped, both of them did, but there was something about the way Yixin took off. Her take off was light, and she didn’t appear to be falling, but gliding before she took hold of the trapeze. They moved fluidly, with mid-air somersaults and trapeze switches, as well as grabbing hold of each other. Sehee was graceful and strong when she held Yixin up. No doubt the girl was talented at what she did, but I was always nervous when I watched her, fearing that she might slip or miss the trapeze one day and fall. Yixin seemed to float effortlessly throughout the entire routine. It was like she could fly, like she couldn’t fall even if she tried.
She was absolutely captivating, and maybe it was in the rush of the night, but I knew that I had to know her. Somehow or another, I wanted to know her better, and I wanted her to know me too.
After the show ended and everyone started to clear out of the tent, I ran around to the back where I presumed the artist tents were. It wasn’t a very well thought out plan, but in its own strange way, it worked. The biggest tent behind the big top was where all the animals were kept. I pushed the door flap open and went in. All the animals had already been returned to their cages. It was the only menagerie among the circuses of the time that did not allow visitors in. That was Lu Hua’s territory, her whole life was in that tent. A voice called from behind me, but I couldn’t understand. She was speaking French. I spun around quickly and found the lion trainer from earlier standing at the tent entrance. She was still in her performance outfit of knee high translucent striped stockings with a glittered black corset top and black shorts. Her red jacket was long enough to reach the hem of her shorts. Her dark brown hair was still pulled back in a tight ponytail and she wore black ballet slippers. She looked at me confused, and then spewed out more fast French. Then she gasped loudly and started to yell.
“Lu Hua? What’s going on?” It was the first time I saw Yixin so close up. Her brown hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves and her dress still sparkled even without the bright lights of the big top. She had placed her hands on Lu Hua’s shoulders and looked around at me. Even from farther back her dark eyes looked just as soft as her voice sounded. She didn’t seem surprised to see me there. “I don’t think she’s here to steal the animals,” she whispered into Lu Hua’s ear, wrapping her arms around her middle. “You’re the only one crazy enough to get that close to a lion.” She giggled and pressed a gentle kiss to Lu Hua’s neck. Then she looked at me and my eyes darted to the dirt floor. I thought I was foolish to think that someone so beautiful didn’t have someone else already. “You were at the show,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. “Have you gotten lost?”
“Um, yes, sorry,” I stumbled over my words and tried to focus my eyes back on her, but I saw the ceiling instead.
“Do you want a tour?” She asked. I thought about saying no, that I should be headed home, but the entire thing still felt like a dream, so instead of going backwards, I decided to keep pushing forward.
“That sounds nice,” I said. I managed to look back at them right as Yixin smiled brightly.
“Great!” She exclaimed. “I’ll get Jongdae!” She spun around and ran out of the tent. She was so light on her feet, it almost seemed like she was floating, like she hovered longer than other people with every step she took. I watched her disappear, forgetting momentarily that Lu Hua was still there. She sighed and shook her head lightly with a smile.
“Bienvenue,” she said.
Lu Hua did all the animal acts. The lion, the horses, and the monkeys too. The only animal Lu Hua thought she was missing was an elephant. She was the only one who did those acts, there was no one better, no one even came close. They’d picked her up somewhere along the border of France and Spain. Chinese by ethnicity, she spoke only French to people she had just met. She made it appear like she could only speak one language, so if she didn’t like someone, she’d never have to talk to them again because they wouldn’t be able to communicate anyways. It was a lie though. Lu Hua didn’t just speak one language, she spoke seven. The animals came from all over, and she wanted to speak to them in their native tongues. She was never really in her right mind, but I guess that was what made her so good with the animals. She just wasn’t afraid of them, and they respected her. The horses followed her naturally and the monkeys clung to her like a mother. The lion was her best friend. But that wasn’t all she was good at. She also helped with the side tents. She created most of the stuff that went on in there, and was always trying to push her limits and come up with new things. She and Yixin were inseparable.
Yixin came back a few minutes later with Jongdae in tow. He was a good young man who gave his life to that circus, even if he didn’t get much back. More often than not he was covered in dirt and his hair was a mess. He gave his all in even the worst of tasks because the circus had given him the one thing he went out searching for in the first place: a home where everyone could eat every night and no one got kicked to the curb.
“I don’t usually give tours,” he said, wiping his neck and forehead with a towel and leaving it around his neck. “But I’ll do my best.”
“Oh Jongdae!” Lu Hua called. He acknowledged her simply by looking in her direction. “Can you make sure Sébastien’s den gets cleaned today?” She never called them cages, even though that was what they were.
“I’ll do my best,” Jongdae said. “It’s a little hard to clean that thing when there’s, you know, a full grown lion inside.”
“Merci,” she chimed, giving him a smile.
Jongdae gave a basic tour of the circus. “That’s the big top where the main show takes place, but you know that already. The smaller tents all contain something different, they’re pretty cool and they change often so you should check them out. Back there is the back yard where all the artist and crew tents are as well as Lu Hua’s menagerie. They’re all off limits and whatever you do, never go back into the menagerie, Lu Hua’s crazy. You heard her, she expects me to clean the cage with the lion still in it; it’s like she wants me dead. We spend two to five days in every town and only operate at night. We’re probably The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one knows it yet. That thing over there with the cigarette is my twin sister Baekhee. She’s not supposed to be smoking on the grounds, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go kick her ass. Tour dismissed.”
Jongdae had three secrets. The first was that Baekhee wasn’t actually his sister. They had met along the tracks before the train came along, and Jongdae had made the story up to protect her from her actual past. The second was that he was Lu Hua’s rival. Whatever she did, Jongdae one upped her behind the scenes. And the third was that he was unmistakably, undeniably, and unconditionally in love with her.
But perhaps the most peculiar thing he said all night when he was talking about the circus was: “When you wake up, you won’t remember any of us.”
🎪
I don’t remember getting home that night, but the next morning I woke up in my own bed. My alarm went off at eight am just as it had every day before. The circus seemed fuzzy and far off, like it really was just a dream. But I remembered everyone there and I remembered what Jongdae had told me. No one in town mentioned the circus at all that day, so I didn’t either. I didn’t fall asleep that night either, and I decided not to change into my pyjamas. If I was going to hear that music play, I wanted to look decent in the very least. I picked out my favourite dress, a simple navy blue number with a white collar and belted at the waist. It was long sleeved for the cooler spring night. I even fitted a hat upon my head and curled my hair. When the clock hit midnight, I held my breath and waited. Quietly at first, and then louder as it travelled across the field and hit my ears, the music played. The music playing again confirmed to me that I hadn’t been dreaming, so I quickly slipped on my flat shoes and headed out across the field.
I didn’t have to go back. I didn’t have to wait for the music or wear proper clothes or rush across the field as fast as I could. I could have left it as a vague memory and continued on with my life. Maybe it was because it was different, or maybe it was because I wanted to prove Jongdae wrong, or perhaps it was something else altogether, but I felt that I absolutely needed to go back. Besides, that was where the trapeze artist was, in all her beauty, and there was still so much more to learn. I was broke, everyone was, and I was certain that if your home was somewhere that was constantly moving, no one could take it away from you.
I walked through the gates, giving the boy a smile as I went through. A different child every night, whoever wanted to take the job. I wandered the grounds for a bit, enjoying the night air and contemplating if maybe I should check out some of the other tents when I saw Jongdae. He appeared to be heading for the back yard so I called out his name. I waved at him when he turned around, but he didn’t wave back, instead he looked very confused. He took a quick look around before approaching me.
“How do you know my name?” He asked, and then he smiled. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, ma’am.”
“We met last night,” I said. “Although I don’t believe I ever gave you a name. I’m Kim Minseon.” I offered out my hand but his smile faded and he pressed his mouth into a line.
“Excuse me,” he said, before turning and leaving hurriedly.
He left me confused, but I attended the show again that night anyways. Everything was the same as the night before. Lu Hua with Sébastien was always captivating, and she always looked at home when she sat upon any of her horses. But no one looked more at home on anything than Yixin on her sky high platform. Her outfit glittered and her face glowed as she smiled at Sehee across from her. That night, Yixin took a look out at the audience before their act started and I swear that her eyes caught mine. They jumped, Sehee falling gracefully and Yixin flying with invisible wings.
Immediately as I stepped out of the tent, I felt a hand grab my arm and I was pulled to the side. “Alright Miss US Navy Wife,” Jongdae whispered harshly at me. “I don’t know who’s pulling the strings for you, but I can take a couple educated guesses and Lu Hua is certainly not one of them, considering you broke into her animals’ tent last night and have returned again tonight with apparent recollection of the tale.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You got a home?” He asked, quickly changing the subject.
“Yes,” I replied.
“You got a mom and pops?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My dad was military in the The Great War and-”
“You got money to pay for that house?” He interrupted. Everyone there had a story, he didn’t really need to know mine.
“No,” I said softly after a pause.
“Well then,” he said, finally breaking his serious visage and cracking a smile. “Looks like you’ll be bunking with me and the sister! The tent’s a little small for three, but it’s homey. Follow me.” He didn’t give me much of a choice, pulling me along to behind the big top and into artist territory. The workers tents were further behind the artist tents and much smaller in size despite housing more people. “These are the worker’s tents,” he said. “Probably a lot shittier than your home, sometimes literally, but at least you don’t have to pay for them. And you got a job, something a lot of other people don’t have nowadays. Food is provided, but you gotta be there for it, because if you miss it, you get none, got that Doll?” I nodded just as he stopped in front of one of the tents. “Number five,” he said, pointing to the number above the entry. “Home sweet home.”
Jongdae pushed the fabric aside and led me into the tent. All that was inside were three small cots and some extra clothes strewn around. The girl that Jongdae had pointed out as his twin sister the night before was sitting cross legged on the middle cot, a lit cigarette between her lips. She smiled and removed it from her mouth, blowing out a thin cloud of smoke.
“C’mon Baek, that’s disgusting how many times have I told you not to smoke in here, you’re gonna burn the place to the ground.”
“Do you smoke Minsoo?” She asked, ignoring her brother.
“It’s Minseon actually, and no I don’t, but thanks.”
Baekhee nodded. “Another uptight rich girl with some bad luck. You know how to pick ‘em Jongdae. She looks like the wife of a US Navy man.”
“That’s what I said too!” He smiled at his sister and then reached in for a high five. “But I didn’t pick her.”
“You telling me Lu Hua did?” Baekhee asked, then let out a loud single laugh. When Jongdae shook his head, Baekhee slowly shut her mouth. “No shit,” she said, and looked directly at me with a surprised expression before her lips turned into a sly smile. She took another puff from her cigarette. “Well I’ll be damned.”
“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
Jongdae cleared his throat and sat down on the cot on the left side of the tent. “There’s a few things you should know,” he said.
“First, breakfast is at eight pm.”
“Eight pm?” I questioned. “Breakfast is at night?”
“In case you haven’t noticed Army Wife, we only operate at night,” Baekhee said. Her hair was pulled back messily, tied up with some string. Sometimes, if it caught the sun just right, her hair glowed almost blonde, but that night, like most nights, it simply looked brown with no trace of her natural highlights. Her jeans were loose around her thighs and rolled up above her ankles, and more often than not she didn’t wear a bra under her t-shirts. (“Bras aren’t made to work in because women aren’t made to work,” she’d said later. “I say, fuck that.”) All of her clothes looked like they belonged to Jongdae at one point.
“You’ll sleep during the day, either in this tent or in the train car when we travel,” Jongdae continued. “If you miss breakfast, you get nothing, remember that. Most of us are up by six though to make sure we get a chance in the showers. Remember that. Then we set the entire place up; the big top, the side tents, and everyone has to help. The only things we hide in the daytime are our tents, the artist tents, and Lu Hua’s menagerie. We start the set up at eight thirty which means you get half an hour for breakfast. By eleven everything should be up and the artists should be getting ready and we should be making sure they have everything they need. The music starts playing one minute after midnight, the show starts at one and goes for an hour. Everyone should be out of the park by three, and then we take all the tents down and we’re in bed by five or six. You’ll get two more small meals throughout the night. Eat them quick. Any questions?”
“Yes,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘hide’ our tents?”
Jongdae smiles. “That part you can just leave for me.”
“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Baekhee said, standing up from the bed and taking one last inhale from her cigarette. “But tomorrow morning I’ll show you the ropes of everything. Us girls gotta stick together.” She winked and then headed outside the tent.
“One last thing,” Jongdae said. “We’re not equal, us and them. They don’t eat with us, and they don’t get their hands splintered or their skin bruised setting this place up every day. They came here for a different reason too. But the crew? We aren’t special. We all joined the circus to die, to drown our old selves. You’ll probably be pretty different here too. In fact, you probably already are.” He was right. Already my schedule had been broken and my string of identical days had been cut and frayed. Later, my projection of myself had less to do with how I looked and more with how I acted. I could be covered in shit but people would still stick around me, because at least there they could acknowledge that they were also covered in shit. “We’re still expendable citizens, and they’re not. They’re the best, and they can’t be replaced. I just want you to remember that.”
When he stepped out the tent, the room went dark. I hadn’t noticed that there was no lamp in the room, and yet it had been lit up until the moment Jongdae left. I stood in darkness for several minutes, wondering if I should go back out to the circus yards or lie down on my cot. It took a while for it to sink in that I was never going to see my white picket fence house again, but my American Dream had died long ago.
I don’t know how long I had been standing there when I heard a small voice. “It’s dark,” the voice said, and I knew that voice. I had heard it before. Sometimes I think that I still hear it.
She giggled and then a soft hand was clasping mine. “Are you scared?” She asked in the darkness. My words caught in my throat so I shook my head, thinking afterwards that she probably couldn’t see me either. But she spoke again. “Good,” she said. “Then I want to show you something.” She led me out of the tent, her hand still wrapped around mine. The amount of people left on the circus grounds at that point in the night who weren’t workers was very few, and they all seemed about ready to head back to bed. She walked slightly ahead of me, but even from the back she was beautiful. Her hair was down and falling past her shoulders, the spring breeze blowing pieces of it around. She was no longer wearing her stage outfit, but a purple silk nightgown the draped itself over her long body. “This one,” she said, breaking the silence and leading me into one of the small side tents. Darkness surrounded us again. I could feel her turn to face me in the darkness so she could grab my other hand as well.
“I’m Yixin,” she said.
“Yixin,” I whispered back.
“Yeah, and I don’t know why, but you feel familiar.”
“I was here last night too,” I said, and Yixin hummed in response.
“I wish that were the reason you feel so familiar,” she said, trailing off. “What’s your name?”
“Minseon,” I said.
“Minseon,” she whispered back, and a shock went through the tips of my fingers, warming up the rest of my body. I thought, in that moment, that maybe Yixin felt a little familiar too. Maybe, there’s a certain kind of feeling you get when you touch the love of your life for the first time. Maybe your skin prickles or your heart beats faster. Maybe the room is suddenly too hot or maybe time is suddenly moving too slow. Or maybe it’s excitement and familiarity, because maybe, just maybe, you’ve met before, even though neither of you can remember it.
The tent lit up as twinkling balls of gas appeared above us and the roof of the tent covered itself in stars. Nebulae past the Milky Way danced above us, swirling the artificial sky and dropping explosions of light within the small tent. It seemed bigger now though. The sky seemed to stretch endlessly with nothing to stop it or obstruct the view. Constellations drew themselves into the open dark spaces above us. “Oh my,” I breathed. “What-what is this?”
“Do you like it?” Yixin asked. I looked down from the ceiling to find her smiling at me.
“This,” I said, gripping her hands tighter and looking back up at the sky. “This is amazing!”
“I’m glad,” she said, letting out a breath I didn’t realize she had been holding. “All of the smaller tents are really cool; even better than this. And they’re always changing.”
“How? What kind of technology is this?” I asked with excitement.
Yixin took a step closer. “Do you believe in magic?” She whispered.
“What? No, that’s-”
“Maybe you should,” she said quickly, and a piano started to play. It sounded as though someone was playing it in the room with us, but we were the only two in the tent. I didn’t know the song, but the notes flowed together beautifully and before I knew it I had started to sway in my spot, collisions of light and explosions of brilliance still above us. “Do you want to dance?”
I stopped my movements and looked at her. She had a shy smile on her face and her eyes reflected the light above us. I realized I had been looking at the wrong stars the whole time. All I could do was nod. She took my right hand and placed it on her shoulder and her now empty hand fell to my waist. She continued holding my left hand, and then we danced, stepping side to side and turning around the room. Yixin seemed to glide in everything she did. It was effortless. Eventually, she pulled me in closer, and with her arms around my waist and mine around her neck, we started to sway slowly as the piano continued to play.
Soon enough though, the music stopped. “Thank you,” she said, and she took my hand and led me back to Jongdae and Baekhee’s tent. They were still out helping with the cleanup.
“I’ll make sure Jongdae leaves you a light next time,” she said, before she disappeared out the tent.
02. Like Wildflowers in Summer (July 1934)
“Hot as Hell out here this evening, ain’t it Navy Wife?” Baekhee took a second to stop pounding the peg into the ground to wipe her forehead. “I need a snipe so bad right now.”
“It’s probably good that Jongdae hid them,” I said, panting. Despite the fact that the sun had already started to set, the air was still incredibly humid. “It can’t be good for you to be smoking so much, especially with all the work you do.”
“You don’t understand Minnie,” she whined. “Listen, runaways and cigarettes go together like Bonnie and Clyde, right? We’re bad for each other but also so, so good. God I feel like death, you can’t just take those away.”
Baekhee, despite everything, became my best friend in those years. She was the one who got me out of my dress and into jeans that were a little too big but rolled up well, and tanks that she probably took from Jongdae. She taught me everything about the physical labour, the food, and the secret ins and outs of how the place was run. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll see if I can grab you one when we’re finished setting up.”
“Thank you thank you thank you Min you’re the best!”
“Baekhee!” A female voice called from behind us. We turned around together and were greeted with a rare sight. Kyungah stood there with her arms crossed and her long black hair falling pin straight around her. Her lips were painted red and matched her long red blazer. She still wore her nightgown underneath, white and way too short, but she had put on her knee high, lace up black boots. It was the first time I had seen her up close. “I need you,” she said.
“No thanks,” Baekhee scoffed. “I’d rather be out here pounding pegs into the ground and sweating out my ass than have you throw more daggers at me.”
Kyungah and her partner Chanmi were what Baekhee referred to as “the Team of Death.” Kyungah was insane and Chanmi was in love, which Baekhee figured were kind of the same thing and that’s how they ended up together. “Don’t get between them,” she had said. “I’m serious, you might die.” Kyungah had the best aim I had ever seen when it came to throwing daggers. The way she flicked her wrist was so quick and precise, it sent the weapon shooting directly where she wanted it to go. She could kill someone if she wanted, and a lot of days she looked like she did, but she never would. And Chanmi stood there through everything. Chanmi was the one who stood up against the wall, daggers landing close to her body all over, but she never even flinched. In fact, she smiled. She grinned like an idiot every time, according to Baekhee. (“Don’t you mean she grins like a girl in love?” I had asked. “Ain’t they the same thing?”)
“You can’t say no to me,” Kyungah said. “I need you.”
“Throw daggers at Chanmi; that kind of thing is only fun for her.”
Kyungah sighed. “I need you to line my eyes,” she said, annoyed. Then she added: “You’re the best at it.”
“Thank you for acknowledging my greatness!” Baekhee said, raising her arms and giving a few turns.
“You are an absolute imbecile and you’re lucky I have no daggers with me.”
“Alright alright, I’ll be there as soon as I finish this.”
“You can come now.” Kyungah turned her attention to me. “Yixin wants you,” she said. “She says you can drop what you’re doing and just go now too.” Then she looked up at the lot of men still hard at work. “Hey boys!” She called. “Cover for these ladies, will you?”
“Baekhee’s not a lady!” Jongdae called from further across the lot.
“Jongdae’s got a small dick!” Baekhee called back.
🎪
It wasn’t the first time in the past few months that Yixin had called me into her tent to help her with something before the show. Lu Hua was a constant presence there too. She also, thankfully, didn’t hold a grudge and constantly greeted me with smiles.
“Yixin?” I called when I arrived outside her tent.
“Come in!” Her voice called back to me. Three months after the dance and Yixin and I had barely had enough time alone for me to hold a decent conversation between the two of us. Lu Hua was always there. And I figured, for the longest time, that they were already a thing. They held hands and were always pressed incredibly close and laughing to themselves.
Lu Hua stood in the center of Yixin’s tent, already dressed in her outfit. She was gently touching the small fascinator dolled with red feathers on her head out of habit of making sure it was still there. Then she adjusted her knee high translucent striped stockings and every piece of glitter on her black corset top was perfectly in place. Her black shorts fit her perfectly and she quickly threw her red jacket on as a last minute thought. Yixin had tied the bows on the back of Lu Hua’s black ballet shoes for her earlier and her short blonde hair had been curled. “Good evening,” she said with a smile. I returned the greeting. “I’ll be leaving now, I’m going to make sure Sébastien has been fed.”
“I’ll see you later then,” Yixin said, blowing an air kiss that Lu Hua reached out and caught. Yixin’s tent was a lot fancier than the one I shared with the twins. There was a portable closet in her tent to hold her things, and she slept on a bed rather than a cot. Clothes didn’t litter the grass floor and there was a dark wood vanity with a mirror to the left side. Her sheets were of higher quality and the place smelled like Lilacs as opposed to cigarette smoke. Her tent was a light pink colour and she had strings of lights across the roof of the tent. Lu Hua had her own tent, but more often than not she seemed to be more of an accessory in Yixin’s. She had left quickly that day.
“Does Lu Hua like me?” I asked. “Sometimes I can’t tell.”
“Don’t worry, she thinks you’re cute,” Yixin giggled. “Can you do my hair for me again?” She was in the process of removing the curlers from her hair. “I want to be one of those renaissance princesses,” she said.
“You say that like you aren’t one already,” slipped out of my mouth as Yixin moved to sit on her stool. She stopped and turned to me, a smile breaking across her lips. “I mean-because well-you’re--” I stuttered.
“Thank you,” Yixin said softly, sitting down on her stool. She pulled another out from under her vanity and moved it behind hers. She tapped it as a signal for me to sit.
“Isn’t it a little impractical?” I asked, sitting down behind her. She faced her mirror directly.
“What is?” She asked.
I reached forward and touched her curls. “Doing your hair different for every show. Doesn’t having it fully pulled back make it a little easier to do the jumps? Doesn’t your hair just get in the way?” I pulled lightly on a curl and watched it bounce back into place.
“I could do that routine blindfolded,” Yixin said. I stood up and pulled together a chunk of curls on one side of her head, divided it into three and measured out their thickness before starting to braid. “Some hair around me is nothing.”
“As long as you don’t fall,” I hummed, concentrating on making the braid perfect.
“I never do,” she said. The room filled with silence after that and Yixin watched me in the mirror. When I finished the first braid, I switched to the other side, copying the first one identically. The silence was nice. It was refreshing with how loud the twins always were, and Yixin let me concentrate on her hair. It was always incredibly soft, and whether she had curled it or left it in its loose, natural waves, it always seemed to look perfect. The silence was quickly broken by some yelling outside the tent.
“Jongdae!” Lu Hua was yelling. “Where is Sébastien’s food?” There was a pause. “Jongdae!” She yelled again, this time from farther away from Yixin’s tent.
“I don’t know Lu Hua!” His voice was fainter with him being further away. “Why would I take Sebastian’s food? He’s a full grown lion, do I look like I have a death wish?”
“It’s Sébastien,” she stressed. “God, learn some French!”
Yixin smiled. “They’re always so loud,” she said.
“Try living with Jongdae and Baekhee for a day,” I said as I finished off the second braid. I couldn’t help but smile fondly.
“I’m glad you’re getting along with everyone.” Yixin smiled at me in the mirror. Then she took a deep breath, like she had gotten nervous for a moment. “Do you miss your home?” She asked.
“What’s there to miss?” I pulled the braids together so they made a crown around her head and reached forward for another elastic which Yixin handed me.
“Let me know,” she said. “If you ever do start to miss it.” Then she opened the top right drawer of her vanity and pulled out multiple small flower clips. “Can we use these too?” She asked. I played with her hair, moving some pieces of it in front of her shoulders and fluffing her curls.
“Absolutely,” I said, taking them from her and placing several experimentally around her head. The only times I got to see myself in a mirror was whenever I was in Yixin’s tent doing her hair. My hair had gotten longer and was always messily tied back in the same way that Baekhee did hers. There was often some dirt on my face that I hadn’t been able to wash off before going into Yixin’s tent. She always did look like a princess compared to me. I looked more like the princess’ maid.
“Do you miss yours?” I asked. “Your home, I mean.”
Yixin smiled. “This is my home,” she said. “It’s all I’ve ever known. This is my family. They are the people I trust the most in the world. If I ever lost one of them, I don’t know what I would do. I care about these people more than anything.”
Yixin grew up like wildflowers. From her first memories, she knew she was different. She could do things the other kids around her couldn’t do. She could light up rooms, and not in a metaphorical sense. She didn’t remember the house, but she remembered pretty dresses and sitting alone a lot. She would sit there quietly, and you had to be careful when you touched her, because she was sensitive to a lot of things. She had parents at one point, as every child does, but she couldn’t remember them. All she could remember was a dark haired man standing at her door. He had taken off his top hat and bowed to her. “Good evening,” he had said. “I want to offer you a home, one where people actually understand you. Your light is a good thing, and you’ll be able to do amazing things with it one day.” Yixin thought maybe there had been a fire that had swept through her home; that she was now a flower growing out of the ash. A small girl with a round face and blonde hair had popped her head out from behind the man’s leg. She looked at Yixin and said something to her in Chinese. Yixin had felt safe, even though she didn’t understand. She agreed to go with the man, who she learned later, didn’t age. And although he himself was stuck at twenty one, he helped her grow.
Yixin admired herself in the mirror. “I like them,” she said, touching a few of the white flowers lightly. They had small diamonds on them that glittered under the lights when she turned her head certain ways.
“I like them too,” I said, then, after some hesitation, “you look beautiful. Like a princess.” She stood up and pushed her stool behind her, stepping in and leaving very little distance between us.
“Maybe we should do yours too,” she said, pulling on the string in my hair. The knot came undone and my hair fell around my shoulders. “It’s getting long like mine,” she commented.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “My hair is dirty from the work.”
She leaned her face down and my breath hitched in my throat. “You still look beautiful to me,” she said. A smile broke across her face. “You’re also incredibly cute,” she said with a giggle, and I could make a pretty good guess that I was blushing. “We’ll just fix it then,” she said, running her fingers through my hair and pulling it back up.
Lu Hua walked back into the tent then. “Yixin I swear I-oh,” she cut herself off. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were, uhm, doing hair,” she said, waving her hands around as though she were gesturing to the entire situation. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave!”
“What?” I questioned.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll leave.” She followed up with some rapid fire Chinese in Yixin’s direction before backing out of the tent.
“What did she say?” I asked, and Yixin giggled and shook her head.
“It’s not important,” she said, tying the string tightly in my hair. “There, that looks a little better.” She moved away slightly to admire her work.
“Was there anything you needed help with?” I asked. She was staring, and my eyes flickered to the ground. Even the grass in her tent looked better than in mine.
“No,” she said softly. She looked like she wanted to say more, but all she said was, “you can go now. I’m sure they need your help.” She smiled at me as I left. Yixin was almost always smiling though.
03. The Man Who Didn’t Age (September 1934)
It must have been no later than two or three in the afternoon when he appeared in the tent. I don’t know long he had been sitting there, but I had guessed that it wasn’t too long.
“Kim Minseon,” he said. Despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon, the tent was completely dark. No light entered at all. I could see his silhouette and felt the dip in my bed next to me where he sat, but that was all I caught of him. “I am terribly sorry for not coming to introduce myself earlier,” he said. His voice was of a higher pitch, but he kept it low. “I travel around a lot, you see. You have been here for how long now, about five months, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up in the darkness.
“We are very happy to have you as a part of our family,” he said. His top hat appeared to be tilted down over his face even the darkness and he sat facing the side of the tent, back turned to everyone. “I have noticed though, that Yixin seems to have taken a liking to you.” For someone who had come in to introduce himself, he hadn’t yet. “Although I cannot quite fathom why. You do not seem incredibly interesting, my dear.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leave her alone, Tao,” Jongdae’s voice came in stern from across the tent.
“Oh, Jongdae, you are awake.” He spoke to Jongdae, but didn’t turn to face him.
“What are you doing in here?” Jongdae asked.
“I simply came to meet the new recruit.”
“Well now you’ve met her. Get out, before we wake up Baekhee.”
“Oh,” Tao said, a smirk pulling across his face in the darkness. “I don’t think she will.”
“What did you do?” Jongdae voice was low and sharp.
“Nothing,” Tao said with a small laugh. “She will wake up in the evening just fine. I cannot understand why you are still here, Jongdae,” he continued. “You could have your own tent.”
“My answer stays the same,” Jongdae said. “I don’t want to be in your show.”
“And this is all for her?” Tao asked inquisitively. “You stay in this too cramped tent to stay with her?”
“She’s my sister,” Jongdae stressed.
“No, she is not.”
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“Jongdae keeps secrets, my dear, and lots of them.”
“All I want to do is protect her.” Jongdae’s voice was weaker than before. “This is all I can do.”
“When you get tired, come and see me,” Tao said as he stood up. “It was nice to finally meet you Minseon. I have heard a lot about you, but I still fail to see what she sees in you. You are just human.” With that he walked out the tent, and the daylight began to filter back in.
“Don’t listen to him,” Jongdae said, getting out of his bed and moving to Baekhee’s. “He’s been in this world for far too long now.” He rested a hand on her forehead and then her cheek. She made a small noise in her sleep and Jongdae smiled.
“She’s not your sister.” It came out more of a statement than a question. “You’re not twins? Are you even related at all?”
Jongdae looked up at me. “No,” he said after a pause. “We’re not. But this is for her own protection, so don’t you dare tell anyone. No one needs to figure out where she actually came from. She’s enough like a sister to me anyways. Gets on my nerves all the time but I still love her, I gotta.” He turned to look at the entrance of the tent. “You can come in,” he called, and Yixin pushed the fabric aside and walked in, smiling sheepishly.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Yeah well I don’t think any of us can now.”
“Did he do anything?” Yixin looked like she was almost scared to know the answer. Jongdae shook his head.
“We’re all fine,” he said. “I’m going to go take a walk though, need some air and some daylight.” Yixin nodded at him and he walked out the tent, leaving Yixin and I with a still fast asleep Baekhee.
“I’m sorry,” Yixin said.
“I’m not sure why you’re apologizing.”
Yixin made her way over to my cot and sat down next to me. “It’s not that he’s bad,” she said. “He’s just a little difficult sometimes. A little overwhelming. We always know when he comes around too. It’s like a weird signal goes off and we know he’s on the grounds or in the train with us. We know because we’re the same as him, but different than everyone else, and he never lets us forget it.” She sighed. “And of course he knows why you’re here. He knows you didn’t just hop on the train like some of the others did.”
“Why am I here?” I asked. “Why did Jongdae grab me on my second night?”
Yixin played with the thin sheet that was over my legs. “You were supposed to forget,” she said finally. “The audience thinks they watch us but we watch them too, and I saw you that first night, watching so intently. It was the most exciting jump I ever made. After the show I could hear Lu Hua yelling in French, which was odd, she hasn’t done that in a long time. When I went in to the menagerie, you were there too. You were so close and so beautiful that I just didn’t want you to forget me. I wanted to leave an impression. I wanted to know you.”
All I could do was nod, but everything she had said echoed exactly what I had felt too.
“I’m different,” she stressed. “Some things, they feel different. You feel different. Like every time I touch you my fingers burn but I don’t want it to stop. I’m oddly drawn to you.”
I nodded again and it was silent for a few minutes before Yixin stood up. “I guess I’ll be headed back now,” she said. I reached out to grab her arm quickly.
“Wait,” I said, and she looked at me expectantly. “Me too.”
“You too,” she whispered back. I tugged lightly on her arm and she sat back down on the bed.
“That ain’t magic,” Baekhee mumbled from her bed. “That warmth you feel? That’s not magic Yixin. That’s love, and that’s human.” She pulled the covers over her head and fell back asleep. My throat went dry.
“Minseon?” Yixin looked down at her hands and grabbed the sheet, playing with the thin fabric between her fingers. “Can I-well, um, can I-kiss you now?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, already leaning forward. Yixin looked up and suddenly her face was right in front of mine. She leaned the rest of the way in, closing the distance and pressing her lips against mine. She tasted like Yixin. I can’t describe it in any other words. And when she smiled against my lips, I knew that Baekhee was right, even though it took me forever to finally say it.
04. Long Nights and Bright Lights (December 1934)
My first New Year’s with The Night Brothers’ was the best I had had in years. I hadn’t really had anyone to spend New Year’s with for years, aside from the neighbours in my small town, but they weren’t the most exciting. Chanmi and Lu Hua were in charge of making the fireworks. We were somewhere in the mid-west, tens of miles from the next town, and snow covered the ground. I stood in the field with Baekhee, the both of us having borrowed some of Jongdae’s bigger sweaters. It was still cold though, and I stood there bouncing on my toes and rubbing my arms trying to keep warm.
“Two minutes!” Jongdae called, and everyone cheered. Lu Hua grabbed Chanmi and they ran off together towards the tents.
“Park Chanmi if you set anything on fire I will stab you,” Kyungah called out. “So be careful!”
“Don’t worry babe, I’m really good at carefully blowing things up!” Chanmi called back. Kyungah smiled to herself.
Yixin came up behind me, placing her hands on my upper arms. “Cold?” She asked. I nodded. Her hands were incredibly warm even through the sweater. “I’ll warm you up,” she said.
“What about me?” Baekhee whined.
“Go find your own magic fairy, this one is mine,” I said, and she pouted at me. Yixin laughed behind me and wrapped her arms around me completely, pulling me into her chest.
“Count it down! 10! 9!” Jongdae called, his voice getting drowned out as everyone joined in.
8! 7! Jongdae appeared beside Baekhee, whispering something in her ear.
6! 5! Baekhee responded with a mischievous smile and a curt nod.
4! 3! 2! Yixin’s warmth penetrated through my sweater as she wrapped her arms tighter.
1! “Happy New Year!” Everyone shouted, and the fireworks went up. Bright bursts of silver and gold, lit up the sky and twinkled amongst the stars before fizzing out. I turned around in Yixin’s arms and reached up to pull her down for a kiss.
“Wooooooo yeaahhhh!” Jongdae hollered, pumping his fist in the air.
“Take her clothes off!” Baekhee yelled and I laughed against Yixin’s lips.
“Later,” Yixin whispered into my mouth, her fingers fire on my skin as they slipped under the sweater. I didn’t even notice how fast Jongdae slipped away into the darkness.
(January 1935)
Shortly after Lu Hua and Chanmi’s silver and gold fireworks ended, another few erupted. The girls were walking back to the group when the first one went off. Bright red and white and shaped like Lu Hua’s lion. It was followed by a monkey, a galloping horse, and an elephant. Then the sky was lit up again by one in the shape of the big top, two more traditional fireworks going off behind the big top.
“What the Hell?” Lu Hua yelled, only to be drowned out by everyone’s cheers and the explosions in the sky. The final explosions spelled out Happy New Year brightly in the sky before the sparks fizzled away. Chanmi raised her hands above her head and applauded towards the sky.
“What a show,” I heard Jongdae say from his spot next to his sister.
“Simply amazing,” she said, and they shared a low five between the two of them. Then he bent down and grabbed a handful of snow. He turned away from us, and when he turned back around, the snow had been perfectly shaped into an ice flower. He made his way over to Lu Hua.
“Hey,” he said from behind her, making her jump and turn around. He held the flower out towards her.
“What’s this?” She asked.
“A consolation prize,” was his response.
“What?”
“Happy New Year Lu Hua.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking the ice flower from his hands. “Happy New Year Jongdae.”
Part 2
Pairing: girl!Xiumin/girl!Lay (side Chen/girl!Luhan, brief girl!Chanyeol/girl!D.O, platonic girl!Lay/girl!Luhan)
Rating: PG-15
Genre: fantasy, romance
Warning(s):[Spoiler]
side character death
Word count: 18.4k
Summary: If you know anything about traveling circuses in their prime then you probably a thing or two about Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers. You probably know about the death of Jumbo and the fire of 1944; but you probably don’t know about The Night Brothers. We were, in fact, The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one ever knew it. We filled up seats even during the Great Depression, but never made it past 1939. It’s the world’s best kept secret, and there’s a reason for that. Come in close then, I won’t tell it twice. (night circus!au)
Author's Notes: This fic was loosely based off of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a recommended read if you haven't done so yet! Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants also helped with some aspects of the circus. Special thanks to S for yelling at me and making sure I got this done on time and for listening to me whine even if she didn't actually get to read it yet herself. Thanks to the prompter for submitting this prompt because I loved it and I'm glad I got a chance to write this so I hope you enjoy! Much thanks to the Mods for being so patient with me throughout the process, seriously.
This was written for the 2015 round of girlexochange!
“They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true. What they don’t tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.” -Big Fish
Prologue: Do You Believe in Magic?
My grandmother’s favourite story to tell is the one about how she met the love of her life.
“Do you believe in magic?” She asks. A five year old me nodded along enthusiastically, a twenty five year old me tells her to stop being ridiculous and tell the real story. “This is the real story,” she says. “There is no other way to tell it.”
There’s a box of letters still up in our attic, but not one of them ever got sent. They have a recipient, but no address.
There could be a box of unsent letters somewhere in Europe, but they’re as lost as the person who wrote them.
“Now listen carefully,” she says, “if you know anything about traveling circuses in their prime then you probably a thing or two about Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers. You probably know about the death of Jumbo and the fire of 1944; but you probably don’t know about The Night Brothers. We were, in fact, The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one ever knew it. We filled up seats even during the Great Depression, but never made it past 1939. It’s the world’s best kept secret, and there’s a reason for that. Come in close then, I won’t tell it twice. And remember, this story has a happy ending, no matter how sad it may seem.”
01. The Last Train of the Day (April 1934)
The last train of the day always left at six pm sharp. The sound of the rickety wheels on the old tracks let me know that evening had come again and that I had made it through another day. My town was incredibly dull, nothing ever happened, and I lived right on the edge of it. If you were to look out of the front window you’d see rows of identical white houses on decent sized lots. Each house was equipped with a porch with a swing and an old dog sleeping by the door. Every lot had bright green grass that was always trimmed, not a brown spot could be seen. Everyone knew everyone, and by eight every morning, I heard the sounds of people greeting each other on the street. If you were to look out of the back window all you would see was an empty flat landscape, with small rolling hills further in the distance. That town wasn’t on any map, but somehow they found it.
I remember that first night exactly. It was about three weeks after I turned twenty, just when the weather was starting to get warmer and everything was starting to grow again. The train blew its whistle three times at six pm and I was in bed by ten. I expected to wake up to the noises of the street at eight as per usual, but instead I was awakened at midnight to the sound of music. I wish I could describe to you the way it sounded when it trickled through my walls, but I’m afraid it’s something you needed to have heard yourself to really understand. It was welcoming, but also enticing, the kind of music you would want to follow just to see where it’s coming from. It wasn’t a very fast beat, but it wasn’t slow either. It was almost hypnotic, but not quite, because I didn’t follow it that night. I didn’t even try to figure out where it came from.
The music woke me up again the next night at the same time. This time I listened. I heard some guitar, violin, saxophone, flute, and piano. They weren’t playing typical circus music and certainly not the kind you see in the movies nowadays. They were playing their own music, everything about that place was their own.
It wasn’t until the third night that I actually got out of bed. That morning when I went out at 8:15 (exactly, mind you, I was always on time) to grab the paper, I saw my neighbour. “Good morning!” He said. And I greeted him back. Then I asked him about the music, and he had no idea what I was talking about. All he did was pat me on the head and tell me that he hoped I got a better sleep that night. So it was on that third night that I waited up in bed expectantly, and just as the train left on time every night, the music started again. This time, I pushed my covers aside and placed my slippered feet on the wood floor, making my way to the kitchen. The doors opened onto the back patio. The music was louder from outside, and when I looked out across the fields, there it was.
From my place, I could see the various sizes of tents and all the lights. It seemed so far away, but when I started walking, it got close fast. The music continued to play, but I never saw any speakers. The main tent was right in the middle, surrounded by about ten smaller tents. All the tents were black and white striped and a black iron fence surrounded the lot. It was like walking into a film noir. I stood at the gate and looked up. The Night Bros. was written upon the arch.
There was one ticket booth and no line, so I walked right up. “Here to see the show?” The boy at the booth looked young, no more than fifteen. He was wearing pyjamas, and it was at that time that I realized I had also gone in my pyjamas.
“What’s the fee?” I asked.
“Just a pretty smile from the pretty lady.”
It took longer, but the depression had hit our small town as well. It hit everywhere, and the circus believed that any money that was saved should be spent on food. Their entertainment was free to help people get through. I smiled at him and he gestured for me to go in. That boy was in the front row for the show that night, but past that night I never saw him again.
Walking about the circus grounds were various workers. The performers-artists as they preferred- did not wander the grounds before the show started, choosing instead to make sure they were ready. There were people I didn’t recognize from town, and people I did, but no one ever talked about the circus, and no one ever talked to me. Aside from the odd worker or clown running around, everyone was still in their pyjamas. They must have wandered across the field in the same way I did. The music continued to play as guests went in and out of tents. I considered seeing what was inside one of the tents, but the show was about to start.
“Come one! Come all! Welcome to the The Night Brothers Circus! The show is about to begin! Monkeys, lions, daggers and the flying trapeze, you’ll see it all! Make your way to the big top and prepare to be amazed! The show is about to begin!” A loud voice boomed out from across the grounds, but there was never any sign of a loudspeaker. It was a formulated voice that belonged to no one in particular, I learned later.
The main tent was by far the largest, that’s why they called it the “big top.” It was also the only circular one. The surrounding tents were all cubed. The menagerie was a long rectangle and was the second largest tent. It was put up a few yards behind the big top, and the artist tents were even farther behind that. The big top on that first night was just about full, seating over five hundred people. I saw my neighbour in the stands, but he didn’t notice me. I took a seat near the middle of the last bench. It was farther back, but also the highest up, so I still got a pretty good view of the show.
There is a certain fascination you get when you see the love of your life for the first time. Maybe it’s not love in that first moment, but it is something. The first time I saw her was definitely something. There’s an unexpected warmth that comes across your skin, your stomach churns up a bit, and you can’t tear your eyes away. She stood up on the highest platform, and even from way up there her outfit sparkled. It was a body suit somewhere between silver and gold that could catch light from every angle. The skirt attached was short and a translucent champagne colour. She left her hair down, and it fell in soft brown waves over her shoulders and down her back. She was the most captivating part of the whole show, and her act hadn’t even started yet. She was going to jump. She was going to throw herself into the air high above everyone else but she didn’t look afraid at all. In fact, she looked excited. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet and smiled at the girl across the ring on the platform opposite her. She trusted Sehee with her life, literally, but I suppose there were very few people in the world whom Yixin didn’t trust.
Then she jumped, both of them did, but there was something about the way Yixin took off. Her take off was light, and she didn’t appear to be falling, but gliding before she took hold of the trapeze. They moved fluidly, with mid-air somersaults and trapeze switches, as well as grabbing hold of each other. Sehee was graceful and strong when she held Yixin up. No doubt the girl was talented at what she did, but I was always nervous when I watched her, fearing that she might slip or miss the trapeze one day and fall. Yixin seemed to float effortlessly throughout the entire routine. It was like she could fly, like she couldn’t fall even if she tried.
She was absolutely captivating, and maybe it was in the rush of the night, but I knew that I had to know her. Somehow or another, I wanted to know her better, and I wanted her to know me too.
After the show ended and everyone started to clear out of the tent, I ran around to the back where I presumed the artist tents were. It wasn’t a very well thought out plan, but in its own strange way, it worked. The biggest tent behind the big top was where all the animals were kept. I pushed the door flap open and went in. All the animals had already been returned to their cages. It was the only menagerie among the circuses of the time that did not allow visitors in. That was Lu Hua’s territory, her whole life was in that tent. A voice called from behind me, but I couldn’t understand. She was speaking French. I spun around quickly and found the lion trainer from earlier standing at the tent entrance. She was still in her performance outfit of knee high translucent striped stockings with a glittered black corset top and black shorts. Her red jacket was long enough to reach the hem of her shorts. Her dark brown hair was still pulled back in a tight ponytail and she wore black ballet slippers. She looked at me confused, and then spewed out more fast French. Then she gasped loudly and started to yell.
“Lu Hua? What’s going on?” It was the first time I saw Yixin so close up. Her brown hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves and her dress still sparkled even without the bright lights of the big top. She had placed her hands on Lu Hua’s shoulders and looked around at me. Even from farther back her dark eyes looked just as soft as her voice sounded. She didn’t seem surprised to see me there. “I don’t think she’s here to steal the animals,” she whispered into Lu Hua’s ear, wrapping her arms around her middle. “You’re the only one crazy enough to get that close to a lion.” She giggled and pressed a gentle kiss to Lu Hua’s neck. Then she looked at me and my eyes darted to the dirt floor. I thought I was foolish to think that someone so beautiful didn’t have someone else already. “You were at the show,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. “Have you gotten lost?”
“Um, yes, sorry,” I stumbled over my words and tried to focus my eyes back on her, but I saw the ceiling instead.
“Do you want a tour?” She asked. I thought about saying no, that I should be headed home, but the entire thing still felt like a dream, so instead of going backwards, I decided to keep pushing forward.
“That sounds nice,” I said. I managed to look back at them right as Yixin smiled brightly.
“Great!” She exclaimed. “I’ll get Jongdae!” She spun around and ran out of the tent. She was so light on her feet, it almost seemed like she was floating, like she hovered longer than other people with every step she took. I watched her disappear, forgetting momentarily that Lu Hua was still there. She sighed and shook her head lightly with a smile.
“Bienvenue,” she said.
Lu Hua did all the animal acts. The lion, the horses, and the monkeys too. The only animal Lu Hua thought she was missing was an elephant. She was the only one who did those acts, there was no one better, no one even came close. They’d picked her up somewhere along the border of France and Spain. Chinese by ethnicity, she spoke only French to people she had just met. She made it appear like she could only speak one language, so if she didn’t like someone, she’d never have to talk to them again because they wouldn’t be able to communicate anyways. It was a lie though. Lu Hua didn’t just speak one language, she spoke seven. The animals came from all over, and she wanted to speak to them in their native tongues. She was never really in her right mind, but I guess that was what made her so good with the animals. She just wasn’t afraid of them, and they respected her. The horses followed her naturally and the monkeys clung to her like a mother. The lion was her best friend. But that wasn’t all she was good at. She also helped with the side tents. She created most of the stuff that went on in there, and was always trying to push her limits and come up with new things. She and Yixin were inseparable.
Yixin came back a few minutes later with Jongdae in tow. He was a good young man who gave his life to that circus, even if he didn’t get much back. More often than not he was covered in dirt and his hair was a mess. He gave his all in even the worst of tasks because the circus had given him the one thing he went out searching for in the first place: a home where everyone could eat every night and no one got kicked to the curb.
“I don’t usually give tours,” he said, wiping his neck and forehead with a towel and leaving it around his neck. “But I’ll do my best.”
“Oh Jongdae!” Lu Hua called. He acknowledged her simply by looking in her direction. “Can you make sure Sébastien’s den gets cleaned today?” She never called them cages, even though that was what they were.
“I’ll do my best,” Jongdae said. “It’s a little hard to clean that thing when there’s, you know, a full grown lion inside.”
“Merci,” she chimed, giving him a smile.
Jongdae gave a basic tour of the circus. “That’s the big top where the main show takes place, but you know that already. The smaller tents all contain something different, they’re pretty cool and they change often so you should check them out. Back there is the back yard where all the artist and crew tents are as well as Lu Hua’s menagerie. They’re all off limits and whatever you do, never go back into the menagerie, Lu Hua’s crazy. You heard her, she expects me to clean the cage with the lion still in it; it’s like she wants me dead. We spend two to five days in every town and only operate at night. We’re probably The Greatest Show on Earth, but no one knows it yet. That thing over there with the cigarette is my twin sister Baekhee. She’s not supposed to be smoking on the grounds, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go kick her ass. Tour dismissed.”
Jongdae had three secrets. The first was that Baekhee wasn’t actually his sister. They had met along the tracks before the train came along, and Jongdae had made the story up to protect her from her actual past. The second was that he was Lu Hua’s rival. Whatever she did, Jongdae one upped her behind the scenes. And the third was that he was unmistakably, undeniably, and unconditionally in love with her.
But perhaps the most peculiar thing he said all night when he was talking about the circus was: “When you wake up, you won’t remember any of us.”
🎪
I don’t remember getting home that night, but the next morning I woke up in my own bed. My alarm went off at eight am just as it had every day before. The circus seemed fuzzy and far off, like it really was just a dream. But I remembered everyone there and I remembered what Jongdae had told me. No one in town mentioned the circus at all that day, so I didn’t either. I didn’t fall asleep that night either, and I decided not to change into my pyjamas. If I was going to hear that music play, I wanted to look decent in the very least. I picked out my favourite dress, a simple navy blue number with a white collar and belted at the waist. It was long sleeved for the cooler spring night. I even fitted a hat upon my head and curled my hair. When the clock hit midnight, I held my breath and waited. Quietly at first, and then louder as it travelled across the field and hit my ears, the music played. The music playing again confirmed to me that I hadn’t been dreaming, so I quickly slipped on my flat shoes and headed out across the field.
I didn’t have to go back. I didn’t have to wait for the music or wear proper clothes or rush across the field as fast as I could. I could have left it as a vague memory and continued on with my life. Maybe it was because it was different, or maybe it was because I wanted to prove Jongdae wrong, or perhaps it was something else altogether, but I felt that I absolutely needed to go back. Besides, that was where the trapeze artist was, in all her beauty, and there was still so much more to learn. I was broke, everyone was, and I was certain that if your home was somewhere that was constantly moving, no one could take it away from you.
I walked through the gates, giving the boy a smile as I went through. A different child every night, whoever wanted to take the job. I wandered the grounds for a bit, enjoying the night air and contemplating if maybe I should check out some of the other tents when I saw Jongdae. He appeared to be heading for the back yard so I called out his name. I waved at him when he turned around, but he didn’t wave back, instead he looked very confused. He took a quick look around before approaching me.
“How do you know my name?” He asked, and then he smiled. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, ma’am.”
“We met last night,” I said. “Although I don’t believe I ever gave you a name. I’m Kim Minseon.” I offered out my hand but his smile faded and he pressed his mouth into a line.
“Excuse me,” he said, before turning and leaving hurriedly.
He left me confused, but I attended the show again that night anyways. Everything was the same as the night before. Lu Hua with Sébastien was always captivating, and she always looked at home when she sat upon any of her horses. But no one looked more at home on anything than Yixin on her sky high platform. Her outfit glittered and her face glowed as she smiled at Sehee across from her. That night, Yixin took a look out at the audience before their act started and I swear that her eyes caught mine. They jumped, Sehee falling gracefully and Yixin flying with invisible wings.
Immediately as I stepped out of the tent, I felt a hand grab my arm and I was pulled to the side. “Alright Miss US Navy Wife,” Jongdae whispered harshly at me. “I don’t know who’s pulling the strings for you, but I can take a couple educated guesses and Lu Hua is certainly not one of them, considering you broke into her animals’ tent last night and have returned again tonight with apparent recollection of the tale.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You got a home?” He asked, quickly changing the subject.
“Yes,” I replied.
“You got a mom and pops?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My dad was military in the The Great War and-”
“You got money to pay for that house?” He interrupted. Everyone there had a story, he didn’t really need to know mine.
“No,” I said softly after a pause.
“Well then,” he said, finally breaking his serious visage and cracking a smile. “Looks like you’ll be bunking with me and the sister! The tent’s a little small for three, but it’s homey. Follow me.” He didn’t give me much of a choice, pulling me along to behind the big top and into artist territory. The workers tents were further behind the artist tents and much smaller in size despite housing more people. “These are the worker’s tents,” he said. “Probably a lot shittier than your home, sometimes literally, but at least you don’t have to pay for them. And you got a job, something a lot of other people don’t have nowadays. Food is provided, but you gotta be there for it, because if you miss it, you get none, got that Doll?” I nodded just as he stopped in front of one of the tents. “Number five,” he said, pointing to the number above the entry. “Home sweet home.”
Jongdae pushed the fabric aside and led me into the tent. All that was inside were three small cots and some extra clothes strewn around. The girl that Jongdae had pointed out as his twin sister the night before was sitting cross legged on the middle cot, a lit cigarette between her lips. She smiled and removed it from her mouth, blowing out a thin cloud of smoke.
“C’mon Baek, that’s disgusting how many times have I told you not to smoke in here, you’re gonna burn the place to the ground.”
“Do you smoke Minsoo?” She asked, ignoring her brother.
“It’s Minseon actually, and no I don’t, but thanks.”
Baekhee nodded. “Another uptight rich girl with some bad luck. You know how to pick ‘em Jongdae. She looks like the wife of a US Navy man.”
“That’s what I said too!” He smiled at his sister and then reached in for a high five. “But I didn’t pick her.”
“You telling me Lu Hua did?” Baekhee asked, then let out a loud single laugh. When Jongdae shook his head, Baekhee slowly shut her mouth. “No shit,” she said, and looked directly at me with a surprised expression before her lips turned into a sly smile. She took another puff from her cigarette. “Well I’ll be damned.”
“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
Jongdae cleared his throat and sat down on the cot on the left side of the tent. “There’s a few things you should know,” he said.
“First, breakfast is at eight pm.”
“Eight pm?” I questioned. “Breakfast is at night?”
“In case you haven’t noticed Army Wife, we only operate at night,” Baekhee said. Her hair was pulled back messily, tied up with some string. Sometimes, if it caught the sun just right, her hair glowed almost blonde, but that night, like most nights, it simply looked brown with no trace of her natural highlights. Her jeans were loose around her thighs and rolled up above her ankles, and more often than not she didn’t wear a bra under her t-shirts. (“Bras aren’t made to work in because women aren’t made to work,” she’d said later. “I say, fuck that.”) All of her clothes looked like they belonged to Jongdae at one point.
“You’ll sleep during the day, either in this tent or in the train car when we travel,” Jongdae continued. “If you miss breakfast, you get nothing, remember that. Most of us are up by six though to make sure we get a chance in the showers. Remember that. Then we set the entire place up; the big top, the side tents, and everyone has to help. The only things we hide in the daytime are our tents, the artist tents, and Lu Hua’s menagerie. We start the set up at eight thirty which means you get half an hour for breakfast. By eleven everything should be up and the artists should be getting ready and we should be making sure they have everything they need. The music starts playing one minute after midnight, the show starts at one and goes for an hour. Everyone should be out of the park by three, and then we take all the tents down and we’re in bed by five or six. You’ll get two more small meals throughout the night. Eat them quick. Any questions?”
“Yes,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘hide’ our tents?”
Jongdae smiles. “That part you can just leave for me.”
“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Baekhee said, standing up from the bed and taking one last inhale from her cigarette. “But tomorrow morning I’ll show you the ropes of everything. Us girls gotta stick together.” She winked and then headed outside the tent.
“One last thing,” Jongdae said. “We’re not equal, us and them. They don’t eat with us, and they don’t get their hands splintered or their skin bruised setting this place up every day. They came here for a different reason too. But the crew? We aren’t special. We all joined the circus to die, to drown our old selves. You’ll probably be pretty different here too. In fact, you probably already are.” He was right. Already my schedule had been broken and my string of identical days had been cut and frayed. Later, my projection of myself had less to do with how I looked and more with how I acted. I could be covered in shit but people would still stick around me, because at least there they could acknowledge that they were also covered in shit. “We’re still expendable citizens, and they’re not. They’re the best, and they can’t be replaced. I just want you to remember that.”
When he stepped out the tent, the room went dark. I hadn’t noticed that there was no lamp in the room, and yet it had been lit up until the moment Jongdae left. I stood in darkness for several minutes, wondering if I should go back out to the circus yards or lie down on my cot. It took a while for it to sink in that I was never going to see my white picket fence house again, but my American Dream had died long ago.
I don’t know how long I had been standing there when I heard a small voice. “It’s dark,” the voice said, and I knew that voice. I had heard it before. Sometimes I think that I still hear it.
She giggled and then a soft hand was clasping mine. “Are you scared?” She asked in the darkness. My words caught in my throat so I shook my head, thinking afterwards that she probably couldn’t see me either. But she spoke again. “Good,” she said. “Then I want to show you something.” She led me out of the tent, her hand still wrapped around mine. The amount of people left on the circus grounds at that point in the night who weren’t workers was very few, and they all seemed about ready to head back to bed. She walked slightly ahead of me, but even from the back she was beautiful. Her hair was down and falling past her shoulders, the spring breeze blowing pieces of it around. She was no longer wearing her stage outfit, but a purple silk nightgown the draped itself over her long body. “This one,” she said, breaking the silence and leading me into one of the small side tents. Darkness surrounded us again. I could feel her turn to face me in the darkness so she could grab my other hand as well.
“I’m Yixin,” she said.
“Yixin,” I whispered back.
“Yeah, and I don’t know why, but you feel familiar.”
“I was here last night too,” I said, and Yixin hummed in response.
“I wish that were the reason you feel so familiar,” she said, trailing off. “What’s your name?”
“Minseon,” I said.
“Minseon,” she whispered back, and a shock went through the tips of my fingers, warming up the rest of my body. I thought, in that moment, that maybe Yixin felt a little familiar too. Maybe, there’s a certain kind of feeling you get when you touch the love of your life for the first time. Maybe your skin prickles or your heart beats faster. Maybe the room is suddenly too hot or maybe time is suddenly moving too slow. Or maybe it’s excitement and familiarity, because maybe, just maybe, you’ve met before, even though neither of you can remember it.
The tent lit up as twinkling balls of gas appeared above us and the roof of the tent covered itself in stars. Nebulae past the Milky Way danced above us, swirling the artificial sky and dropping explosions of light within the small tent. It seemed bigger now though. The sky seemed to stretch endlessly with nothing to stop it or obstruct the view. Constellations drew themselves into the open dark spaces above us. “Oh my,” I breathed. “What-what is this?”
“Do you like it?” Yixin asked. I looked down from the ceiling to find her smiling at me.
“This,” I said, gripping her hands tighter and looking back up at the sky. “This is amazing!”
“I’m glad,” she said, letting out a breath I didn’t realize she had been holding. “All of the smaller tents are really cool; even better than this. And they’re always changing.”
“How? What kind of technology is this?” I asked with excitement.
Yixin took a step closer. “Do you believe in magic?” She whispered.
“What? No, that’s-”
“Maybe you should,” she said quickly, and a piano started to play. It sounded as though someone was playing it in the room with us, but we were the only two in the tent. I didn’t know the song, but the notes flowed together beautifully and before I knew it I had started to sway in my spot, collisions of light and explosions of brilliance still above us. “Do you want to dance?”
I stopped my movements and looked at her. She had a shy smile on her face and her eyes reflected the light above us. I realized I had been looking at the wrong stars the whole time. All I could do was nod. She took my right hand and placed it on her shoulder and her now empty hand fell to my waist. She continued holding my left hand, and then we danced, stepping side to side and turning around the room. Yixin seemed to glide in everything she did. It was effortless. Eventually, she pulled me in closer, and with her arms around my waist and mine around her neck, we started to sway slowly as the piano continued to play.
Soon enough though, the music stopped. “Thank you,” she said, and she took my hand and led me back to Jongdae and Baekhee’s tent. They were still out helping with the cleanup.
“I’ll make sure Jongdae leaves you a light next time,” she said, before she disappeared out the tent.
02. Like Wildflowers in Summer (July 1934)
“Hot as Hell out here this evening, ain’t it Navy Wife?” Baekhee took a second to stop pounding the peg into the ground to wipe her forehead. “I need a snipe so bad right now.”
“It’s probably good that Jongdae hid them,” I said, panting. Despite the fact that the sun had already started to set, the air was still incredibly humid. “It can’t be good for you to be smoking so much, especially with all the work you do.”
“You don’t understand Minnie,” she whined. “Listen, runaways and cigarettes go together like Bonnie and Clyde, right? We’re bad for each other but also so, so good. God I feel like death, you can’t just take those away.”
Baekhee, despite everything, became my best friend in those years. She was the one who got me out of my dress and into jeans that were a little too big but rolled up well, and tanks that she probably took from Jongdae. She taught me everything about the physical labour, the food, and the secret ins and outs of how the place was run. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll see if I can grab you one when we’re finished setting up.”
“Thank you thank you thank you Min you’re the best!”
“Baekhee!” A female voice called from behind us. We turned around together and were greeted with a rare sight. Kyungah stood there with her arms crossed and her long black hair falling pin straight around her. Her lips were painted red and matched her long red blazer. She still wore her nightgown underneath, white and way too short, but she had put on her knee high, lace up black boots. It was the first time I had seen her up close. “I need you,” she said.
“No thanks,” Baekhee scoffed. “I’d rather be out here pounding pegs into the ground and sweating out my ass than have you throw more daggers at me.”
Kyungah and her partner Chanmi were what Baekhee referred to as “the Team of Death.” Kyungah was insane and Chanmi was in love, which Baekhee figured were kind of the same thing and that’s how they ended up together. “Don’t get between them,” she had said. “I’m serious, you might die.” Kyungah had the best aim I had ever seen when it came to throwing daggers. The way she flicked her wrist was so quick and precise, it sent the weapon shooting directly where she wanted it to go. She could kill someone if she wanted, and a lot of days she looked like she did, but she never would. And Chanmi stood there through everything. Chanmi was the one who stood up against the wall, daggers landing close to her body all over, but she never even flinched. In fact, she smiled. She grinned like an idiot every time, according to Baekhee. (“Don’t you mean she grins like a girl in love?” I had asked. “Ain’t they the same thing?”)
“You can’t say no to me,” Kyungah said. “I need you.”
“Throw daggers at Chanmi; that kind of thing is only fun for her.”
Kyungah sighed. “I need you to line my eyes,” she said, annoyed. Then she added: “You’re the best at it.”
“Thank you for acknowledging my greatness!” Baekhee said, raising her arms and giving a few turns.
“You are an absolute imbecile and you’re lucky I have no daggers with me.”
“Alright alright, I’ll be there as soon as I finish this.”
“You can come now.” Kyungah turned her attention to me. “Yixin wants you,” she said. “She says you can drop what you’re doing and just go now too.” Then she looked up at the lot of men still hard at work. “Hey boys!” She called. “Cover for these ladies, will you?”
“Baekhee’s not a lady!” Jongdae called from further across the lot.
“Jongdae’s got a small dick!” Baekhee called back.
🎪
It wasn’t the first time in the past few months that Yixin had called me into her tent to help her with something before the show. Lu Hua was a constant presence there too. She also, thankfully, didn’t hold a grudge and constantly greeted me with smiles.
“Yixin?” I called when I arrived outside her tent.
“Come in!” Her voice called back to me. Three months after the dance and Yixin and I had barely had enough time alone for me to hold a decent conversation between the two of us. Lu Hua was always there. And I figured, for the longest time, that they were already a thing. They held hands and were always pressed incredibly close and laughing to themselves.
Lu Hua stood in the center of Yixin’s tent, already dressed in her outfit. She was gently touching the small fascinator dolled with red feathers on her head out of habit of making sure it was still there. Then she adjusted her knee high translucent striped stockings and every piece of glitter on her black corset top was perfectly in place. Her black shorts fit her perfectly and she quickly threw her red jacket on as a last minute thought. Yixin had tied the bows on the back of Lu Hua’s black ballet shoes for her earlier and her short blonde hair had been curled. “Good evening,” she said with a smile. I returned the greeting. “I’ll be leaving now, I’m going to make sure Sébastien has been fed.”
“I’ll see you later then,” Yixin said, blowing an air kiss that Lu Hua reached out and caught. Yixin’s tent was a lot fancier than the one I shared with the twins. There was a portable closet in her tent to hold her things, and she slept on a bed rather than a cot. Clothes didn’t litter the grass floor and there was a dark wood vanity with a mirror to the left side. Her sheets were of higher quality and the place smelled like Lilacs as opposed to cigarette smoke. Her tent was a light pink colour and she had strings of lights across the roof of the tent. Lu Hua had her own tent, but more often than not she seemed to be more of an accessory in Yixin’s. She had left quickly that day.
“Does Lu Hua like me?” I asked. “Sometimes I can’t tell.”
“Don’t worry, she thinks you’re cute,” Yixin giggled. “Can you do my hair for me again?” She was in the process of removing the curlers from her hair. “I want to be one of those renaissance princesses,” she said.
“You say that like you aren’t one already,” slipped out of my mouth as Yixin moved to sit on her stool. She stopped and turned to me, a smile breaking across her lips. “I mean-because well-you’re--” I stuttered.
“Thank you,” Yixin said softly, sitting down on her stool. She pulled another out from under her vanity and moved it behind hers. She tapped it as a signal for me to sit.
“Isn’t it a little impractical?” I asked, sitting down behind her. She faced her mirror directly.
“What is?” She asked.
I reached forward and touched her curls. “Doing your hair different for every show. Doesn’t having it fully pulled back make it a little easier to do the jumps? Doesn’t your hair just get in the way?” I pulled lightly on a curl and watched it bounce back into place.
“I could do that routine blindfolded,” Yixin said. I stood up and pulled together a chunk of curls on one side of her head, divided it into three and measured out their thickness before starting to braid. “Some hair around me is nothing.”
“As long as you don’t fall,” I hummed, concentrating on making the braid perfect.
“I never do,” she said. The room filled with silence after that and Yixin watched me in the mirror. When I finished the first braid, I switched to the other side, copying the first one identically. The silence was nice. It was refreshing with how loud the twins always were, and Yixin let me concentrate on her hair. It was always incredibly soft, and whether she had curled it or left it in its loose, natural waves, it always seemed to look perfect. The silence was quickly broken by some yelling outside the tent.
“Jongdae!” Lu Hua was yelling. “Where is Sébastien’s food?” There was a pause. “Jongdae!” She yelled again, this time from farther away from Yixin’s tent.
“I don’t know Lu Hua!” His voice was fainter with him being further away. “Why would I take Sebastian’s food? He’s a full grown lion, do I look like I have a death wish?”
“It’s Sébastien,” she stressed. “God, learn some French!”
Yixin smiled. “They’re always so loud,” she said.
“Try living with Jongdae and Baekhee for a day,” I said as I finished off the second braid. I couldn’t help but smile fondly.
“I’m glad you’re getting along with everyone.” Yixin smiled at me in the mirror. Then she took a deep breath, like she had gotten nervous for a moment. “Do you miss your home?” She asked.
“What’s there to miss?” I pulled the braids together so they made a crown around her head and reached forward for another elastic which Yixin handed me.
“Let me know,” she said. “If you ever do start to miss it.” Then she opened the top right drawer of her vanity and pulled out multiple small flower clips. “Can we use these too?” She asked. I played with her hair, moving some pieces of it in front of her shoulders and fluffing her curls.
“Absolutely,” I said, taking them from her and placing several experimentally around her head. The only times I got to see myself in a mirror was whenever I was in Yixin’s tent doing her hair. My hair had gotten longer and was always messily tied back in the same way that Baekhee did hers. There was often some dirt on my face that I hadn’t been able to wash off before going into Yixin’s tent. She always did look like a princess compared to me. I looked more like the princess’ maid.
“Do you miss yours?” I asked. “Your home, I mean.”
Yixin smiled. “This is my home,” she said. “It’s all I’ve ever known. This is my family. They are the people I trust the most in the world. If I ever lost one of them, I don’t know what I would do. I care about these people more than anything.”
Yixin grew up like wildflowers. From her first memories, she knew she was different. She could do things the other kids around her couldn’t do. She could light up rooms, and not in a metaphorical sense. She didn’t remember the house, but she remembered pretty dresses and sitting alone a lot. She would sit there quietly, and you had to be careful when you touched her, because she was sensitive to a lot of things. She had parents at one point, as every child does, but she couldn’t remember them. All she could remember was a dark haired man standing at her door. He had taken off his top hat and bowed to her. “Good evening,” he had said. “I want to offer you a home, one where people actually understand you. Your light is a good thing, and you’ll be able to do amazing things with it one day.” Yixin thought maybe there had been a fire that had swept through her home; that she was now a flower growing out of the ash. A small girl with a round face and blonde hair had popped her head out from behind the man’s leg. She looked at Yixin and said something to her in Chinese. Yixin had felt safe, even though she didn’t understand. She agreed to go with the man, who she learned later, didn’t age. And although he himself was stuck at twenty one, he helped her grow.
Yixin admired herself in the mirror. “I like them,” she said, touching a few of the white flowers lightly. They had small diamonds on them that glittered under the lights when she turned her head certain ways.
“I like them too,” I said, then, after some hesitation, “you look beautiful. Like a princess.” She stood up and pushed her stool behind her, stepping in and leaving very little distance between us.
“Maybe we should do yours too,” she said, pulling on the string in my hair. The knot came undone and my hair fell around my shoulders. “It’s getting long like mine,” she commented.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “My hair is dirty from the work.”
She leaned her face down and my breath hitched in my throat. “You still look beautiful to me,” she said. A smile broke across her face. “You’re also incredibly cute,” she said with a giggle, and I could make a pretty good guess that I was blushing. “We’ll just fix it then,” she said, running her fingers through my hair and pulling it back up.
Lu Hua walked back into the tent then. “Yixin I swear I-oh,” she cut herself off. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were, uhm, doing hair,” she said, waving her hands around as though she were gesturing to the entire situation. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave!”
“What?” I questioned.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll leave.” She followed up with some rapid fire Chinese in Yixin’s direction before backing out of the tent.
“What did she say?” I asked, and Yixin giggled and shook her head.
“It’s not important,” she said, tying the string tightly in my hair. “There, that looks a little better.” She moved away slightly to admire her work.
“Was there anything you needed help with?” I asked. She was staring, and my eyes flickered to the ground. Even the grass in her tent looked better than in mine.
“No,” she said softly. She looked like she wanted to say more, but all she said was, “you can go now. I’m sure they need your help.” She smiled at me as I left. Yixin was almost always smiling though.
03. The Man Who Didn’t Age (September 1934)
It must have been no later than two or three in the afternoon when he appeared in the tent. I don’t know long he had been sitting there, but I had guessed that it wasn’t too long.
“Kim Minseon,” he said. Despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon, the tent was completely dark. No light entered at all. I could see his silhouette and felt the dip in my bed next to me where he sat, but that was all I caught of him. “I am terribly sorry for not coming to introduce myself earlier,” he said. His voice was of a higher pitch, but he kept it low. “I travel around a lot, you see. You have been here for how long now, about five months, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up in the darkness.
“We are very happy to have you as a part of our family,” he said. His top hat appeared to be tilted down over his face even the darkness and he sat facing the side of the tent, back turned to everyone. “I have noticed though, that Yixin seems to have taken a liking to you.” For someone who had come in to introduce himself, he hadn’t yet. “Although I cannot quite fathom why. You do not seem incredibly interesting, my dear.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leave her alone, Tao,” Jongdae’s voice came in stern from across the tent.
“Oh, Jongdae, you are awake.” He spoke to Jongdae, but didn’t turn to face him.
“What are you doing in here?” Jongdae asked.
“I simply came to meet the new recruit.”
“Well now you’ve met her. Get out, before we wake up Baekhee.”
“Oh,” Tao said, a smirk pulling across his face in the darkness. “I don’t think she will.”
“What did you do?” Jongdae voice was low and sharp.
“Nothing,” Tao said with a small laugh. “She will wake up in the evening just fine. I cannot understand why you are still here, Jongdae,” he continued. “You could have your own tent.”
“My answer stays the same,” Jongdae said. “I don’t want to be in your show.”
“And this is all for her?” Tao asked inquisitively. “You stay in this too cramped tent to stay with her?”
“She’s my sister,” Jongdae stressed.
“No, she is not.”
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“Jongdae keeps secrets, my dear, and lots of them.”
“All I want to do is protect her.” Jongdae’s voice was weaker than before. “This is all I can do.”
“When you get tired, come and see me,” Tao said as he stood up. “It was nice to finally meet you Minseon. I have heard a lot about you, but I still fail to see what she sees in you. You are just human.” With that he walked out the tent, and the daylight began to filter back in.
“Don’t listen to him,” Jongdae said, getting out of his bed and moving to Baekhee’s. “He’s been in this world for far too long now.” He rested a hand on her forehead and then her cheek. She made a small noise in her sleep and Jongdae smiled.
“She’s not your sister.” It came out more of a statement than a question. “You’re not twins? Are you even related at all?”
Jongdae looked up at me. “No,” he said after a pause. “We’re not. But this is for her own protection, so don’t you dare tell anyone. No one needs to figure out where she actually came from. She’s enough like a sister to me anyways. Gets on my nerves all the time but I still love her, I gotta.” He turned to look at the entrance of the tent. “You can come in,” he called, and Yixin pushed the fabric aside and walked in, smiling sheepishly.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Yeah well I don’t think any of us can now.”
“Did he do anything?” Yixin looked like she was almost scared to know the answer. Jongdae shook his head.
“We’re all fine,” he said. “I’m going to go take a walk though, need some air and some daylight.” Yixin nodded at him and he walked out the tent, leaving Yixin and I with a still fast asleep Baekhee.
“I’m sorry,” Yixin said.
“I’m not sure why you’re apologizing.”
Yixin made her way over to my cot and sat down next to me. “It’s not that he’s bad,” she said. “He’s just a little difficult sometimes. A little overwhelming. We always know when he comes around too. It’s like a weird signal goes off and we know he’s on the grounds or in the train with us. We know because we’re the same as him, but different than everyone else, and he never lets us forget it.” She sighed. “And of course he knows why you’re here. He knows you didn’t just hop on the train like some of the others did.”
“Why am I here?” I asked. “Why did Jongdae grab me on my second night?”
Yixin played with the thin sheet that was over my legs. “You were supposed to forget,” she said finally. “The audience thinks they watch us but we watch them too, and I saw you that first night, watching so intently. It was the most exciting jump I ever made. After the show I could hear Lu Hua yelling in French, which was odd, she hasn’t done that in a long time. When I went in to the menagerie, you were there too. You were so close and so beautiful that I just didn’t want you to forget me. I wanted to leave an impression. I wanted to know you.”
All I could do was nod, but everything she had said echoed exactly what I had felt too.
“I’m different,” she stressed. “Some things, they feel different. You feel different. Like every time I touch you my fingers burn but I don’t want it to stop. I’m oddly drawn to you.”
I nodded again and it was silent for a few minutes before Yixin stood up. “I guess I’ll be headed back now,” she said. I reached out to grab her arm quickly.
“Wait,” I said, and she looked at me expectantly. “Me too.”
“You too,” she whispered back. I tugged lightly on her arm and she sat back down on the bed.
“That ain’t magic,” Baekhee mumbled from her bed. “That warmth you feel? That’s not magic Yixin. That’s love, and that’s human.” She pulled the covers over her head and fell back asleep. My throat went dry.
“Minseon?” Yixin looked down at her hands and grabbed the sheet, playing with the thin fabric between her fingers. “Can I-well, um, can I-kiss you now?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, already leaning forward. Yixin looked up and suddenly her face was right in front of mine. She leaned the rest of the way in, closing the distance and pressing her lips against mine. She tasted like Yixin. I can’t describe it in any other words. And when she smiled against my lips, I knew that Baekhee was right, even though it took me forever to finally say it.
04. Long Nights and Bright Lights (December 1934)
My first New Year’s with The Night Brothers’ was the best I had had in years. I hadn’t really had anyone to spend New Year’s with for years, aside from the neighbours in my small town, but they weren’t the most exciting. Chanmi and Lu Hua were in charge of making the fireworks. We were somewhere in the mid-west, tens of miles from the next town, and snow covered the ground. I stood in the field with Baekhee, the both of us having borrowed some of Jongdae’s bigger sweaters. It was still cold though, and I stood there bouncing on my toes and rubbing my arms trying to keep warm.
“Two minutes!” Jongdae called, and everyone cheered. Lu Hua grabbed Chanmi and they ran off together towards the tents.
“Park Chanmi if you set anything on fire I will stab you,” Kyungah called out. “So be careful!”
“Don’t worry babe, I’m really good at carefully blowing things up!” Chanmi called back. Kyungah smiled to herself.
Yixin came up behind me, placing her hands on my upper arms. “Cold?” She asked. I nodded. Her hands were incredibly warm even through the sweater. “I’ll warm you up,” she said.
“What about me?” Baekhee whined.
“Go find your own magic fairy, this one is mine,” I said, and she pouted at me. Yixin laughed behind me and wrapped her arms around me completely, pulling me into her chest.
“Count it down! 10! 9!” Jongdae called, his voice getting drowned out as everyone joined in.
8! 7! Jongdae appeared beside Baekhee, whispering something in her ear.
6! 5! Baekhee responded with a mischievous smile and a curt nod.
4! 3! 2! Yixin’s warmth penetrated through my sweater as she wrapped her arms tighter.
1! “Happy New Year!” Everyone shouted, and the fireworks went up. Bright bursts of silver and gold, lit up the sky and twinkled amongst the stars before fizzing out. I turned around in Yixin’s arms and reached up to pull her down for a kiss.
“Wooooooo yeaahhhh!” Jongdae hollered, pumping his fist in the air.
“Take her clothes off!” Baekhee yelled and I laughed against Yixin’s lips.
“Later,” Yixin whispered into my mouth, her fingers fire on my skin as they slipped under the sweater. I didn’t even notice how fast Jongdae slipped away into the darkness.
(January 1935)
Shortly after Lu Hua and Chanmi’s silver and gold fireworks ended, another few erupted. The girls were walking back to the group when the first one went off. Bright red and white and shaped like Lu Hua’s lion. It was followed by a monkey, a galloping horse, and an elephant. Then the sky was lit up again by one in the shape of the big top, two more traditional fireworks going off behind the big top.
“What the Hell?” Lu Hua yelled, only to be drowned out by everyone’s cheers and the explosions in the sky. The final explosions spelled out Happy New Year brightly in the sky before the sparks fizzled away. Chanmi raised her hands above her head and applauded towards the sky.
“What a show,” I heard Jongdae say from his spot next to his sister.
“Simply amazing,” she said, and they shared a low five between the two of them. Then he bent down and grabbed a handful of snow. He turned away from us, and when he turned back around, the snow had been perfectly shaped into an ice flower. He made his way over to Lu Hua.
“Hey,” he said from behind her, making her jump and turn around. He held the flower out towards her.
“What’s this?” She asked.
“A consolation prize,” was his response.
“What?”
“Happy New Year Lu Hua.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking the ice flower from his hands. “Happy New Year Jongdae.”
Part 2