I would rather be a bird without wings -- ii
I would rather be a bird without wings (than a bird without feet); Jinki/Minho; R-ish
note: this fic and I share a love-hate relationship. most of it happened while my brain was preoccupied with cross-talking signalling cascades and those CD molecules that come cheaper by the dozen, ugh. (these two sentences are unrelated.)
Jonghyun slides into the seat across from Minho with a breathless greeting, hands fumbling with the scarf that has swallowed up his neck. The powdery snow dusting his hair and shoulders is already melting. Minho looks up from the serviette that he has been busy folding.
"Why must we meet at places like this all the time?"
"Hey, it's a cafe today, not a diner! Now which way does this thing unwind..."
Minho forgoes courtesy and cuts straight to the point. "Are you going to pay?"
Jonghyun pauses in his herculean endeavor and blinks at his friend before his eyes lower to the mug of plain tea on the table. "Is this why you ordered cheap tea at a cafe known for its glorious menu of non-tea-things? Because you think I would be a bad friend and-"
"Well the other choice was water and I am in debt."
"And I said in my text that I've got you covered! Jorth, are you not being fed? You're so snappy." Jonghyun finally gets his scarf off.
Minho takes a deep breath and goes back to his serviette.
"I'm sorry Jjong."
"Nah, I know you're stressed."
The shorter man unzips his jacket and untucks something he's been cradling between the layers of his clothing. It catches Minho's eye when his friend puts it down on the table. He abandons his almost completed spacecraft origami and picks it up, unfolding it to get a better look.
"Newspaper?"
"Yup." Jonghyun grins.
"On paper..."
"Authentic paper."
"...Why?"
"A couple of my artist friends are doing a retro movement thing for some kids charity, so for the rest of the month they're going to sell actual physical paper copies of the news! They've put a lot of work into figuring out the procedure and assembling the equipment they need and I dare say the result is pretty darn good. Their trial run was last week in district seven and the reception was phenomenal, so now they're distributing all over Jorth. How cool is that huh?"
"It's a waste of resources."
Jonghyun rolls his eyes and calls out two orders to one of the boys in aprons running around the place. When he turns back, he makes a strangled noise in his throat.
"Minho."
"What? I'm putting the paper-" he makes a large tear in the front page "-to good use." Another tear frees up a perfect square.
"This is a waste of resources! And it's my newspaper!"
Minho spares a moment to nudge the tea along with its temperature-sensitive color-shifting coaster closer to Jonghyun, who is still looking at him in disbelief. "Are you trying to placate me by offering me lukewarm tea that I'm going to be paying for? That you've already drunk?"
Jonghyun gets no answer.
"Minho, that's hurtful."
"So." Minho glances up at him quickly before giving his attention to the slowly forming plane in his hands. "You said you thought of something? And it's not as risky as your last idea to make me some quick money?"
"Right, now about that..." Jonghyun clasps his hands and leans forward, whispering conspiratorially. "You've still got all your stuff from the academy right?"
Minho visibly stiffens.
"Don't get mad at me yet! Just hear me out. I wouldn't bring this up without good reason."
Minho stares at him for a while before he acquiesces.
"Okay, so you've got all your stuff from back then right?"
He shifts in his seat and slowly nods.
"Including your lenses, your graduation badge, and your message cube? Your uniform?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"Auction them."
Jonghyun looks as if he'd just said the most brilliant thing in the world, but Minho only frowns, barely giving the idea a moment's consideration before he starts shooting it down.
"My lenses are eight years old. They're dead lenses, not to mention when Chilhyun-hyung had them commissioned, they were fitted to my physical requirements. What could anyone else possibly do with them?"
"Collectors! There are ridiculously rich people who like to collect stuff like this. And may I remind you, it turned out that you didn't need lenses to fly, so they're practically brand new! Except for the part where they've been sitting in your case for ages. Except for that, they're brand new. That's rare."
"Rare is only good if people want it."
"Well, you were kinda famous back when you were still in the academy."
"Jjong-"
"Hey kid!" Jonghyun beams enthusiastically at the server who has just brought them a matcha latte and a wet cappuccino. "Have you ever heard of a Choi Minho?"
The boy peaks at Minho from behind his bangs before looking back at Jonghyun. "Y-you mean the leaper who can fault-slip without proto-lenses? Yeah, he was pretty famous for that right? I-I'm a fan...actually..."
Minho sighs. "Did Jonghyun pay you to say that?"
"Uh." The boy fidgets, avoiding Minho's eyes.
"Jonghyun..." Minho turns and notices his friend making threatening faces at the kid.
"Do I still get paid now that he saw through it?" The boy rubs his nose and braves Jonghyun's potential wrath.
"No." Jonghyun thunks his head down on the table, almost knocking over his latte. "You did nothing! In fact, you ruined it! Why did you stutter? And why were you reciting the lines when I told you you were supposed to feel them and own them? Now go away."
The boy's mouth twists at the hand that Jonghyun waves dismissively at him. "I'm telling Sodam-noona you bribed me to lie for you."
Jonghyun hisses after his retreating back. "Look who's a tattletale! And well, if we're going that far then I'll just stop taking you with me when I go watch shuttle launches at the spaceport! Let's see how you manage to do that behind your brother's back when I'm not there to help!"
The kid freezes, struggles for a bit, and then grits out a fine before running away.
"Was that Seungyeop-hyung's little brother?" Minho takes a sip of the cappuccino and licks away the foam on his lip. "Is that why you picked this cafe? Because you recruited your brother-in-law to lie to me?"
"You're missing the point! The point being that some people still know who you are-or well, who Choi Minho is-and they'll probably be willing to pay good money for your lenses. Besides, they're fucking proto-lenses even if they're dead. That shit is expensive as hell."
Minho looks unconvinced so Jonghyun switches up his angle of attack.
"Okay, and then there's your graduation badge and your memory cube. You probably aren't aware but a couple of pilots from your year are doing pretty well. Especially Fan. After He and Zitao went to Second Earth, they managed to get into Novus. Their mandatory initial landing contract ended almost two years ago, and since then they've joined up with Kyuhyun-hyung and them. They've been making quite a name for themselves."
"That's great." Minho's grip on the mug handle tightens before he lets go and goes back to his paper origami. "That's good for them."
"Right, so the message cube has got Mark imprints from them. Legit Mark imprints, much more meaningful than simple signatures. You don't even have the sell the original. Make duplicates! They've got fans who'll snatch 'em right up. And the graduation badge-"
"Nobody sells their badges."
"Exactly! Makes them even rarer on the market. Especially rare because you and Fan and them are Ahn Chilhyun's last batch of students!"
"Nobody sells them because that's almost like selling your fault-slip license."
"Except it's not! And it's totally legal. A little shady, but totally legal."
Jonghyun stares at Minho, expectant, but the taller man is the image of reluctance.
"I mean, you don't really have other assets that you can liquidate right? These are the only sorts of things you own that I think might actually auction for a pretty decent amount of money. And the bonus is that they're small and you're the one hanging onto them, so even if they go missing, it's not noticeable."
Jonghyun knows his friend is swaying.
"Think about it. Sleep on it. And then thank me. I'll hook you up."
Minho lets his cappuccino go cold. He stays in that corner seat, folding planes, some larger than others, different makes and different models. He has been refining the art of it since he was eight, so his fingers move deftly without a second's hesitation. He remembers Jinki being curious about his habit of collecting paper or any paper-like sheets of material, remembers the afternoons spent teaching him all the little tricks, remembers the look of concentration on his face as he tries to copy what Minho is doing.
Jinki's planes always come out as prettily as Minho's, but they never fly as far. And Jinki would complain that Minho must be withholding some kind of secret.
Minho remembers finding him one evening out on the rooftop of the boys' dorm with a stack of paper pinned underneath his foot, turning each page into birds instead of planes. Minho remembers the sun was behind him, the shadows obscuring his expression.
Hey.
Jinki looks up then. Hi.
Where did you get all that paper?
Jinki waves a few pages at him. It's my leaper training contract. I know you think it's a waste of resources to have this stuff printed out but I asked to get a physical copy when I, well...
When you terminated it.
Jinki hands him a bird. Yup.
Minho sits down beside him and tries to balance the bird on its two skinny legs. Why?
Jinki brushes the hair out of his face. It sets me back two years, so now we'll be graduating together! And I talked to my parents about this. They're fine with it.
Jinki. He grabs the older boy's wrist and stops him from starting on a new bird.
Jinki looks at him and finally bursts out laughing. Why do all of you think that it'd be so bad for me to become a mapper instead?
Minho doesn't let go. But I don't get it. You were doing so well.
Jinki pats his hand in reassurance. And who says I plan to stop doing well? I'll still do well. I have an intuition for mapping that's rare. Why do you think the administration would allow me to switch programs when contractually they get a smaller cut of my earnings from my first ten years in the workforce if I graduate as a mapper rather than a leaper?
But you've always wanted to fly.
I'll still fly. Mappers get to go on flights.
Jinki picks up one of the birds on the ground and throws it in Minho's face.
Stop looking like your cat just died!
Minho rubs at the spot where the paper beak had struck him.
It's not called giving up, Minho. I'm trading in one dream for something even bigger.
Minho remembers how soft and radiant he looks then, with the wind in his hair and the sun on his cheek, half a halo made of golden clouds. Minho remembers his own reflection in those eyes, the warmth of his lips. Minho remembers being happy and sad and excited and confused, uncertain, a little afraid, but light enough to fly without-
He jumps when one of the servers tells him they're closing up soon. It's pitch black outside and Jonghyun's long gone. Minho stares for a bit at the back of the empty chair on the other side of the table, and Jonghyun's last words come back to him.
Are you sure you don't want to talk to Jinki about it?
No. No, he's going to make this work himself. Minho gathers up the fleet of planes littering the table and crushes them together. He's about to wrap it all up with the last remaining pages of the newspaper when one of the squares he didn't use falls out and flips over. A rather familiar black and white face grins up at him from next to his toes.
Minho gets the wind knocked out of him.
Slowly, he sets down the mess of paper and ink in his hands and bends down. With unsteady fingers, he picks the square off the floor and turns it right side up.
His heart accelerates.
Would people really buy dead lenses? If they would, if...
Jinki finds himself standing at the stove, watching the dumplings swim around below the surface of the boiling water. His ears are buzzing and he can't quite recall how he made it home, but he knows it has to have been at least a few hours since he's been back. The apartment heater is on, but his hands still feel cold. He looks down at them, his right in a fist and the fingers of his left curled loosely against his palm.
With a soft sigh, he turns away from the stove and plops himself down in a chair. Next to him on the kitchen table is a pair of wool knit mittens. And under the mittens is a clear rectangular card with three parallel blue veins. When he swipes a thumb over its surface, it lights up faintly under his touch and two of the blue veins reassemble themselves into a row of numerals. Underneath the initial 9 is Taemin's Mark imprint and next to it is the name of the account's new authorized holder: Choi, Minho.
The earnings he'd accumulated over his student years, doing extra work on the side. The consolation payment from the academy. The insurance payout. What he could save from all the odd jobs that Heechul-hyung finds for him, seven and a half years' worth of those. If he couldn't be a son to his parents and a brother to Taemin, at least he could give them something right? But it turns out they didn't even use a single reotaler of it.
Mum and dad gave him the account, Taemin said, but since he knew the truth he couldn't use the money for himself, not even for tuition. And now that they're leaving, he felt he should give it back.
Jinki admits that he and Minho need the money more than Taemin and mum and dad, but...
Jinki wants to laugh.
What has he been doing all this time?
Somewhere along the line, Minho comes home too. The mulmandu turns into manduguk, but the soup is a little thin and the skin of the dumplings a little overcooked.
As he watches Minho spoon the food into his mouth, the words just slip out: "I love you."
Minho's chewing pauses but he doesn't look up. Then slowly, he swallows and clears his throat. "What's this all of a sudden?"
"Nothing." Jinki quickly turns his attention to his soup.
There is silence.
Minho clears his throat again and mumbles. "I love you too."
Jinki ducks his head lower. Putting down the spoon, under the pretense of wiping his nose, he passes the heel of his hand over the corners of his eyes too.
"I know you don't like it because it's risky but I went out today."
"Everything's okay?"
"I saw Taemin."
The confession makes Minho pause again. "Saw him...in the crowd?"
"No." Jinki stirs his remaining dumplings in circles. "I met him. He asked to meet."
"But he promised that-"
"Don't get mad at him! He just wanted to see me."
Minho puts down his spoon.
"So are you okay?"
"Why are you asking if I'm okay? You see me everyday. But Taemin, he..." Jinki glances at Minho and smiles. "He's doing well. He grew up well. I don't think I would have recognized him in a crowd. He's almost your height now, I'd say. Hazelnut hair, a little like the haircut you have, or well, about this length anyway. It's hard to believe he's twenty-six when he still acts like such a kid sometimes."
"What did you guys talk about? Why did he suddenly ask to meet?"
"He-" is going to Novus, but Jinki can't say it out loud. "I don't know. He just says that he misses me. Maybe it's more surprising that he didn't hunt me down earlier."
Minho doesn't speak.
"I know. I told him we can't do this often."
"Maybe it'd be okay to tell your..."
Jinki just shakes his head and Minho leaves the rest unsaid.
That night, when Jinki jolts awake, Minho isn't lying next to him in bed. He gets out from under the covers and grabs a cardigan, doing his best to soften his footsteps. Peaking out into the hallway, he finds the bathroom lights off. And so easing the door just a little bit wider, he slips out and makes his way toward the living room.
At first, he doesn't even find Minho in the darkness.
He just sees a cobalt blue circle that rises into the air and flips-once, twice, three times-till it aligns. And next to it is a blue-green circle, the color familiar to the point that it steals his breath away.
The second one is Minho's proto-lens.
He knows it because he has the other one tucked away in his drawer. It's sort of funny. They're partners, but in reality, Minho is a leaper who doesn't need a mapper to navigate and he's a mapper who doesn't need a leaper to do the piloting. So maybe they've got it all wrong. Maybe they've been getting it wrong from the very beginning.
I love you.
I love you too.
But being in love or not, being together or not-they're separate things.
By the time Jinki gets up the next morning, Minho has already gone off to work. He finds a bowl of rice porridge and a small dish of pickled radish and cold beansprouts on the kitchen table.
He waits. He gathers up the courage and waits.
The sun goes down a bit earlier than yesterday. And then he bundles himself into his jacket and scarf and goes up to the rooftop. Their apartment building isn't nearly tall enough to give him an unobstructed view the sky, but he knows from previous years that it's enough for him to make out a bit of the Swifts' flyby. Just a bit, but that's enough.
He waits.
But midnight comes and goes, and this year, the sky stays dark.
When Jinki lets himself into the apartment, he's jerked roughly forward into a suffocating embrace. The door slams shut behind him and those arms around him locks down even tighter.
"Where were you? Where did you go? Why didn't you leave a note?"
Jinki lets himself stay still for a moment.
"Happy birthday, Minho."
"What?"
Jinki pushes away and smiles at him. "Or well, I guess it's happy belated birthday now."
Minho stares at him. Straight at him. Jinki vaguely notes that it's been a while since they've looked each other in the eye. He reaches out to grab Minho's hand. A breath in, a breath out. See? It's not so hard.
"I think we should talk."
Minho tenses up. "About what?"
Jinki pulls him to their beaten up couch and presses him into it. Then he sits down next to him, legs and arms neatly arranged. He looks around their small empty living room as if he were seeing everything for the first time.
"Talk about what?" Minho repeats, full of anxiety. Does he know? Has he found out?
"I think..." And he goes quiet after that.
Minho's mind shifts into overdrive as he scrambles to think of the best way to admit the mess he'd made of their financial situation. The best way to explain why he'd kept it a secret and how he's going to fix it. The best way to ask for forgiveness.
"I-"
"Let's break up."
Minho's heart lurches to a stop.
"Jinki, what-"
"I think we should." He blinks and looks straight ahead.
"What are you talking about?" Minho's voice jumps up a few pitches out of incredulity.
"I think it would do both of us good-"
"But you told me yesterday that you love me!"
Jinki's fingers curl up where they lay in his lap.
Minho leaps onto his feet and shouts it out this time: "You said it! Just yesterday you said you love me!"
Jinki flinches but doesn't take it back.
"I know-"
"You said it! You said..."
Jinki watches Minho's chest rise and fall as the other man struggles to find the right words. His fingers are tingling. It's something called fear, he knows.
"This is bullshit!" Minho roars with angry bitter laughter. "It's my birthday! It's my fucking birthday! So you disappear and then come back and tell me this?! You can't do this! You, don't get, to do this, to me!"
"Minho-"
"What gives you the right to do this?! Huh? Why? Why now? We've been together for eleven fucking years! We worked hard every single year for eleven years. Aren't they supposed to mean something to you?"
"They do, Minho, they do." His vowels drag as he tries keep his voice under control.
"Seven and a half years ago, they were going to let you die, but I couldn't." Minho jabs a finger at his chest. "I couldn't do that so I wrestled you back. If there are things such as souls in this world, then I sold mine to get you back. I didn't do that for you to leave me!"
"That's not-"
"Then tell me what is wrong!"
"You're a swift Minho." Jinki holds his left hand in his right. "I clipped your wings but you're still a swift."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
"You think about it a lot don't you?"
"About what?"
"About the sky. About space." Jinki pushes the words off his tongue, feeling all the courage that he has built up quietly slipping away. "A-about flying."
Minho stares at him, eyes wide, as if he were speaking some foreign language.
"You can still fly, you know. Ever since I met you, I've known that you were meant-"
"Bullshit."
Minho doesn't yell it out this time. It simply hangs in the air as a whisper. But no matter how much Jinki opens his mouth and tries to get the rest of his sentence out, there is no sound.
"So is this how much you think of me?"
Jinki feels his breaths turn shallow.
"Is THIS how much you think of me?" Minho repeats, louder this time. "Is this how much you think of yourself? Is this how much you think of us? All this time we've been together... Lee Jinki do I even know who you are? And do you even know who I am?! Look at me! Have a fucking good look at me!!"
Jinki tries to hide himself behind his arms, but the left half of him refuses to cooperate and the width of a single arm doesn't make for much of a shelter.
"The sky, space, flying-I gave up all of that years ago."
Jinki can't help the whimper that escapes his lips.
"I GAVE UP ALL OF THAT! YOU KNOW THAT! I GAVE IT ALL UP! ALL OF IT!"
Minho's cry rips right through him, a bullet through paper, and the remaining bits of his tattered courage flee. He scrambles for the safety of the bedroom, willing himself to not hear what comes next. Because deep in his heart he knows exactly what's next. He knows it like the back of his hand, word for word, and it's what he has been afraid of. No no no, he's not going to let Minho say it now, not when he's not ready.
Minho watches him disappear. The world suddenly tilts on its axis.
Tears trail over the bridge of his nose and fall into his other eye. Folding in upon himself with both arms wrapped around his head, he grits his teeth through the pain. "I gave it all up I gave it all up I gave it all up for you. For you."
Like a fish on land, he gasps for air.
I gave it all up for you. Don't you ever think of why?
A bleary-eyed Jonghyun throws out a few expletives about his Saturday morning peace and quiet before he opens his front door to find a haggard Minho on his doorstep. The man's eyes are bloodshot, a little hollow, nested in a bed of deep shadows. His hair is uncombed and his face unshaven.
A few seconds' pause later, he says: "Well you look like shit."
Minho silently pushes past him to get inside. Jonghyun yawns and scratches his stomach, trailing after the taller man as he makes his way to the kitchen.
"I mean it. You actually look like shit. What happened? Shouldn't you be cuddling in bed?"
Minho slams the milk down on the counter. A second slam follows as the fridge door swings shut. Jonghyun is suddenly more awake. He grabs the cereal and quietly hands it over.
"Did you even get any sleep?"
The cereal box slips out of Minho's fingers and scatters its contents across the otherwise immaculate tiles. Jonghyun's Skrubba-EV nudges past his legs to start cleaning up the mess, whirring and making vague noises of disapproval. Minho doesn't notice and just keeps his eyes fixated on the space in his hand where the box had been.
Very carefully, Jonghyun asks: "Did you get kicked out or something?"
Minho lifts his gaze. And then he wobbles.
Jonghyun reaches out on instinct to steady him by the elbow but ends up with an armful of Minho instead. The unexpected weight knocks him a few steps back. Grunting, he struggles to get a better hold of his friend.
"Whoa hey Minho. Minho?"
He feels Minho's arms wrap about his middle.
"Minho, did he find out? Did you...tell him?" Jonghyun tries to maneuver them over to the table so he can sit Minho down in a chair. "Is this because of what I said? Did you tell him because I said you should talk to him? I'm sorry, I didn't know he'd react like this."
Minho just shakes his head and clings onto Jonghyun.
He cries then.
He couldn't cry all night, but he cries then, in Jonghyun's arms.
The shorter man awkwardly pats his head. "I guess it would be bad timing to tell you that someone's interested in verifying the authenticity of your proto-lens? Well not yours but the proto-lens that you said belonged to some dead you-know-whatever Swifts' captain. The guy is willing to pay a hefty sum and getting yourself out of debt is the first step toward fixing things with Jinki, right?"
It doesn't coax a response out of Minho.
"Um okay, bad timing. We'll get you better first and then talk later. Do you want my bed? A body pillow? Hot soup? Ice cream? The unspilled cereal?"
Still no response.
Jonghyun begins to rub circles into Minho's back. "It'll be okay. It'll turn out okay. He loves you to bits and you chose him over flying and over Novus. You guys are like...like...a fish and its gills. The fish wouldn't be alive without the gills and the gills would be pointless without the fish...or something... So why don't you go get some rest? I bet he'll be running down my door and demanding I give you back to him in no time."
So Minho goes to sleep.
He goes to sleep and dreams of the first time he ever flies the simulation unit at the academy. He dreams of Jinki waiting for him when he completes his mission and gets out. He dreams of saying I'm back as if he'd actually gone somewhere far, far away, and then Jinki laughs and indulges him and says, welcome back.
Jinki falls into a dreamless sleep as the sky whitens. He wakes up an hour later to an empty apartment.
He doesn't get dressed. He doesn't clean himself up. He doesn't eat. He just spends the entire day huddled in the corner of the couch that he had occupied the night before. He waits-he's good at that-and he waits. But Minho doesn't come home and at one point, he falls asleep.
Some time during the night he wakes up with a pain in his side, so he straightens out his aching limbs and limps his way to the kitchen. There is still some leftovers from Friday and he eats that cold. He's three mouthfuls into it when the pain gets worse and he makes a run for the bathroom. But of course, his body is not meant for running so he barely avoids a collision with the wall. Lying in the middle of the hallway, he throws up what he just ate. The heaving doesn't stop though. It doesn't even when there's nothing left in his stomach.
He digs his nails into his left elbow, deep enough to draw blood.
And then he falls asleep again.
When he wakes up slightly past noon, he pushes himself off the floor and goes to the bathroom. He cleans himself up, and then cleans up the mess he'd made. Sorting through their belongings, he separates his from Minho's and puts it all in a corner of the living room. He sets down the proto-lens in his care on the kitchen table. Next to that metal case, he puts down his phone, and next to it, he leaves the bank card Taemin had given him.
Pulling on a sweater and then his jacket and boots, he grabs his scarf and Taemin's mittens and heads out. He locks the door and then, one by one, he takes the keys off the keyring. He pushes each into the crack under the door until they've all disappeared.
So it ends like this.
Jinki walks out into the sunset. And he keeps on walking, through the snow, the people. He walks until his legs almost give out. A passerby asks if he's okay and helps him to a bench, so he sits there and stares at the toy store across the street. He watches the strangers, the mothers and fathers, the kids. Things that he once had, things he would have had, could have had, might have had. He watches the festive lights that come on up and down the street till it doesn't seem to matter that the sun is gone. He hears people laughing and there's a store that's playing Christmas classics. Someone is singing about snow and mistletoes and presents on the tree. But what if all he's got are homes that he can't return to?
The mines, he decides. He'll go to the mines.
Just then, a man who'd been walking by doubles back. "Lee Jinki...?"
He tenses at the mention of his name.
"It is you!" The other man tugs the mask off his incredulous face.
"Ki...bum?"
"Are you okay? You don't look so good."
Jinki feels a warm hand on his face and something inside of him crumbles.
"Kibum, I'm tired. I'm just tired."
He tries to stand up but then the world goes black.
Minho finally pulls himself together enough to go back home. It's Monday, he has work, and he can't afford to get fired. He needs this job. So he is left with no choice but to go home and grab his things, a change of work clothes too. (Jonghyun owns dress shirts and ties and suits, but the sleeves and pantlegs are too short. Minho tries them on anyway and the only comment Jonghyun has is shut up.)
He takes a deep breath and inserts the key into the lock. He'll be quick and quiet about this, in and out. Maybe he doesn't even have to wake Jinki up.
Something is a little off to him when he has a harder time pushing the door open than usual. And then he sees them, the keys on the floor. No, no no. His insides go cold. He runs straight for the bedroom and finds the door wide open, the bed made and empty. He turns to the living room and spots Jinki's belongings in the corner. At least his things are still here. That means he's coming back, right? But then what do the keys mean? His mind is a mess before he even sets foot in the kitchen. And yet it is on the kitchen table that he sees what he least wants to.
"Jonghyun?"
"He's gone."
"I don't know, Jjong. I don't know..."
Jinki opens his eyes to find a different ceiling. For a few seconds he's lost, but the pounding in his head forces him to stop trying to remember.
"Dear guest, would you like some water?"
His head snaps to the right to find an Omni-AD beside his bed. Croaking out a thank you, he pushes himself a little upright and takes the proffered glass. It soothes his throat but his stomach is empty and burning.
"Would you like some chicken noodle soup?"
"Who's your owner?"
"It's Mister Kim Kibum, sir. Would you like some chicken noodle soup?"
"Omni, go clean up the kitchen. I've got the soup." Jinki hears the voice before he sees its owner. Kibum comes in with a bowl balanced in his hands. He's familiar to Jinki and strange to him at the same time.
"We have three packets of crackers left. Would you like me to fetch them?"
"Omni, kitchen, now." Kibum sets the bowl down on the nightstand.
"I was just trying to be helpful, sir." Omni raises his long arms.
"More like you don't want to wash the pot."
"May I suggest you acquire a Vaska-EV, sir?"
"And return you to the store while I'm at it? Sure, I don't mind."
"Point taken." Omni backs out of the room.
Kibum pulls up a chair and starts stirring the soup. "Don't mind Omni. I had him programmed this way. Purposely bickering with your domestic humanoid may seem odd, but it puts me at ease more than ordering around a thing that obeys your every command."
Jinki looks around, at the walls, the furniture, the duvet covering him. He looks at Kibum, sitting there and blowing over a spoonful of soup, preparing to feed him as if it were the most natural thing to do. The younger man has pink highlights in his side-swept blonde bangs now and that's something Jinki thinks will take him time to get used to, but somehow Kibum makes it seem like they really never became more than three floors apart. Three floors-the blood drains from his face.
"Jinki? Are you okay? Are you feeling worse all of a sudden?"
"This place..."
"I moved here five years ago, don't worry." Kibum reassures him. "But I still run into your parents sometimes. They're doing well. Taemin too."
"I know. I saw him a few days ago." Jinki reaches for the bowl but Kibum moves it away.
"Open your mouth."
"I have hands, Kibum."
"That's great! So do I." He doesn't point out the flaw with Jinki's argument. "Now shut up and open your mouth. I don't want the soup going down the wrong pipe."
Jinki looks at him and isn't sure what to feel.
"Mouth, open, now."
Once the entire contents of that bowl is sitting warmly inside Jinki's stomach, Kibum hollers for Omni. The humanoid trudges into the room and grudgingly accepts the bowl and spoon along with his new task of washing them. After he leaves, the silence doesn't last long before Kibum breaks it.
"Look, I know you don't have a thing on you except for your clothes and a bit of cash. What's going on?"
Jinki looks away and crosses his right arm a little defensively over his torso, hand reaching for his left elbow. What he doesn't foresee is Kibum's hand shooting out and grabbing his wrist. He tries to resist it but Kibum has always been stronger than he looks.
"I saw the nail marks on your arm too, so don't do that anymore."
He turns away from Kibum and shrinks into himself.
"Stop hiding yourself. This isn't like you."
"But I am like this." He buries his face into his left shoulder, right arm still outstretched and locked in Kibum's grasp.
"I don't know what happened back then, but I don't care about back then. I care about right now. What is going on with you right now? Why did I find you sitting on a bench like that? No keys, no phone, not even enough money to get yourself a night's worth of shelter. What were you going to do? Where were you going to go?"
"I don't know..."
"If you're like this then obviously you didn't just lose your things."
"I don't know, I don't know..."
"I'm not asking you to explain why you're alive, Jinki. You're alive and that's good enough for me." Kibum moves to sit on the bed and drags the other man closer to him. "I've known you ever since I became old enough to keep the memories I made. I fixed your horrible art projects because you can't coordinate colors and you wrote my essays. We built our homebase together. Things changed somewhat after you enrolled at the aviation academy and we started talking less, but you didn't become less to me because of that. And then I went to your funeral. I bawled my eyes out. I spread your ashes. I nearly drove into an oncoming hovercar and scared my mother witless. But if it doesn't end with that, then let me be your friend again."
Kibum gives him room to cry for a while, no words of comfort, no hug, just that one steadfast hand circling his wrist.
"I'm just...tired."
"You said that right before you passed out on me. What are you tired of?"
"...Of-of myself?"
"You're not the way you used to be, but that doesn't stop you from being something."
"But what am I?"
"You're Jinki."
"Not who but what? Kibum, I can't walk quickly and I can't walk far, much less do anything else on my feet. If I want to grab something and it's too high up, I can't even climb up on a chair to get it. I can move my left arm but I can't hold a cup without dropping it five seconds later. I can't do the dishes, I can't cook, I can barely spread peanut butter onto bread. I can eat but can I put food on the table and feed myself? Not really. I only have half of my hearing left so even if a hovercar is barrelling down on me I wouldn't even know which direction it's coming from until I see it with my eyes. But well, usually that's not a problem because I can't even go outside. I'm un-Marked, Kibum, I'm a ghost. As far as the system is concerned, I'm not even human. I'm like Omni, except worse, because I can't even do a tenth of the things that he does..."
Kibum lets him talk till he gradually false asleep. Then he tucks him in properly and goes to his study to make a call.
"Lee Taemin, you know your brother is alive, don't you?"
"Tell me where Choi Minho lives and don't pretend you didn't track down the exact address."
Minho sees Jonghyun by the front door so he knows he didn't hallucinate the noises. His heart begins to soar, but then he realizes the door is closed and there is no one else around. His footsteps slow.
"Jonghyun?"
His friend remains frozen.
"Jjong? Was there someone-"
The shorter man turns around, looking dazed, one side of face redder than the other.
"What happened?"
"I heard knocking at the door so I went to open it. I mean, you were asleep so I thought I should get the door. What if it's Jinki, right?" Jonghyun rubs at his smarting cheek. "But no, it wasn't him. It was some guy I'd never seen before, a man, kinda tall, brown tweed jacket, yellow scarf, wearing a bowler hat. He's got blond and pink hair. Strange colors, huh! His expression was so scary-"
"Jjong what did he want?"
"He asked me if you lived here and I said yes, then he slapped me, yanked the door out of my hand, and slammed it shut." Jonghyun recounts the events with a frown as if he can't be sure what had just happened. "Do you get strange visitors like this often?"
Minho pushes past him and runs out the door. The hallway is empty so he dashes downstairs, ignoring his friend's demands to know where he's going. He even runs out of the building, but he doesn't see a single person matching the description. And then the biting cold finally gets to him.
When he gets back upstairs, he grabs onto Jonghyun like a lifeline. "Describe him to me. What did he look like?"
"I told you, brown tweed-"
"His face, damn it. His face!"
"Uh..." the shorter man squirms uncomfortably. "His eyes are a little narrow. Sort of long and narrow? Goes up in the corners like this. And...and cheekbones. Well, I didn't exactly get a very good look."
"And you said he asked specifically for me? And he wore a bowler hat?"
"Yeah. So you know this guy or something?"
Minho's eyes stop focusing on Jonghyun and a second later he's in the kitchen flipping through the contact list of Jinki's phone. When he doesn't find what's looking for there, he goes into Jinki's call history and dials a call to the very last number.
"Taemin! Taemin?" He yells without meaning to. "Your brother had a friend named Kibum something right?"
Kibum returns home to find Jinki gone. He ate his food, he took his medicine, he even made the bed and folded the pajama set Kibum had lent him. But Jinki's gone, his jacket, his scarf, his boots.
"Omni!"
"Yes, sir?" The humanoid peaks out from the bathroom.
"Where is Jinki?"
"The guest?"
"Yes, where did he go?"
"He said he's feeling better and wants to go for a walk."
"And you let him?!"
"Was I not supposed to, sir?"
"Omni you're a fucking idiot!" Kibum spins around on his heels and goes right back out.
He holds onto the hope that maybe Omni isn't so stupid, that maybe Jinki was telling the truth and really is around here somewhere. But no matter how many times he circles around his neighborhood, Jinki is nowhere to be found. Jorth, what was he expecting? Jinki being the way he is, why would he want to go for a walk of all things?
He goes back to where he found Jinki yesterday and he sits down on the same bench, next to the spot where Jinki had sat. No matter how he tries to act, the years have made them into strangers. He's not sure how Jinki thinks anymore. Where could he have gone?
Kibum's phone rings then and he allows himself half a sigh of relief before he realizes Jinki doesn't have a phone on him and doesn't know his number, not since he changed it a few years back.
"Hello?"
"Is this Kim Kibum?"
Kibum pauses, and then narrows his eyes, quietly swearing to skin Taemin alive. "Choi Minho."
"You know where Jinki is, don't you?"
"I don't know. Where is he?"
"Tell me where he is!"
"Don't you fucking yell at me!"
"He's with you isn't he?!"
"I don't have time to deal with bastards like you."
Kibum hangs up and gets to his feet. His phone rings again, but he turns it off. He has thought of one last place where he can look for Jinki. He prays he is right as much as he prays he is wrong. Because the very thought of what Jinki could do there makes him sick to his stomach.
And it's like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago. He and Changsun are throwing rocks down the mine shaft, counting out the seconds to see when there would be a noise in order to figure out how deep it goes. And Kibum, Kibum's always yelling at them to get away because if they lose their footing, they may really end up personally seeing how deep the shaft runs. Look, even now, Kibum's calling out to him even now...
"Yah Lee Jinki!"
And then there are arms winding around him, pulling him away. And Jinki lets it happen, lets the arms drag him back until they fall together. He's lying on something soft, and those hands, they are tugging at him, touching his face. Someone somewhere is crying. He doesn't know who and doesn't know where until the hands move him around and he is staring up at Kibum's wet face.
Kibum holds on to him until it leaves both of them in pain. And Kibum cries. Hard and ugly.
Jinki nudges his cheek against Kibum's stomach, and quietly, he says: "I couldn't do it, Bums. I couldn't do it after all."
It's nighttime and they're lying in bed together, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, hand in hand.
They begin with the earliest memories that they have of each other. And then all the subsequent memories throughout their childhood and adolescent years. They comb through everything, even the mundane, down to the smallest details. Sometimes they accuse each other of making things up, sometimes they just listen to each other quietly and try to picture what it had been like. Kibum tells Jinki about his life now, what has happened in the past few years, the relationships that he'd started but had to end. Eventually Jinki tells Kibum what happened too.
"So this Jonghyun is a friend?"
"A friend."
"And you ran away from home because you tried breaking up with Minho."
Jinki makes a soft noise.
"Jinki?"
Kibum gets a squeeze on his hand.
"Don't you ever make me attend your funeral again."
Silence.
"You're a lot more than what you make yourself out to be."
Kibum turns his head in Jinki's direction. In the dark, he can make out the glimmer reflecting off the whites of the other man's eyes.
"And sometimes you don't know what you mean to other people without talking to them. You need to talk to people, Jinx. You need to learn to do that. It's not fair for you to not care about their feelings. Or well, our feelings."
"But Minho's meant for something better."
"And how do you know he'd be better if he didn't have you?"
"He's meant to fly. You have no idea how happy it makes him."
"But you make him happier."
"I don't think I have in years, Kibum."
"Minho's a full-grown man. It's only natural that he has worries and not everything is your fault. This is why I said you need to talk to people. You won't know what's wrong with him and you can't help him with it if you don't talk to him."
"It's just...you can't deny it. I made his life harder."
"He chose you over flying. However much flying means to him, you mean more. So don't go dismissing your own weight because that really hurts."
"I saw him with his proto-lens. He misses it. I know he misses it. And I know he hates his job right now."
"Jinki, everyone has to do things that they don't like and don't want to in order to have something they do like and do want. Nobody gets their way all the time and nobody is happy all the time. But isn't it a good feeling to come home to someone you love? To know you have something there, something that makes it all better?"
"But you don't understand how good of a leaper he makes. If he has the chance to go to Novus and-"
"And what? Fly difficult missions? Earn lots of money? Get famous? And then?"
"He'll find someone who doesn't need him to give up-"
"Jinx, tell me again what you did in your fourth year at the academy."
"What?"
"You switched programs. You set yourself back two years. You chose him over flying, because you wanted to be with him."
"But it's not the same. Even if I did that we were still going to-"
"You told him it's not called giving up, Minho, I'm trading in one dream for something even bigger. Don't you see it?" Kibum pushes. "He understood you back then, or maybe he didn't and just chose to trust you. But either way, why can't you do the same for him?"
Jinki tries to pull away but Kibum doesn't let him.
"Novus is nice and all but it isn't the world, Jinx, so it isn't the end of the world either. And Novus isn't his world." He pauses. "You are."
Kibum feels him shaking.
"Lee Jinki, you are a fucking idiot."
Kibum finally pulls him into an embrace. "I'm using my saved up holidays to take the rest of December off, so stay with me. I'll get Omni to break out the cookbooks. We're going to have a feast everyday. Not only that, we're going to sing Christmas carols every waking moment of every day till you throw up just thinking about them. And we're also going to go out and shop and spoil ourselves till my apartment runs out of space for new things."
"And then when you're ready, you're going to go talk to him and you're going to tell him you love him."
"Taemin!"
The younger man jumps with a start. As soon as he sees Minho, he promptly turns around and begins speedwalking in the other direction. His speedwalk soon turns into a run, but the number of people out on the sidewalk means he doesn't get very far before a hand clamps down on his shoulder and pulls him aside into an alleyway.
"Let me go. I'm going to scream for help!" Taemin shrinks against the wall. He'd successfully avoided everyone for the past five days, even going as far as borrowing Jongin's phone so he can turn his off.
"Don't. I just want to talk to you."
"Yeah, well I don't want to talk to you." There is a tremor in his voice and he refuses to meet Minho's gaze.
"I'm not going to ask where Jinki is."
"What you're giving up?" Taemin lifts his head then. But he realizes what he's doing and drops his head again.
"Just tell me if he's okay."
"Y-yeah, he is."
"That's good. I'm glad. And I have another thing I want to ask you."
"What?" Taemin glances at him nervously.
"This." Minho pulls the bank card out of his wallet and shoves it under Taemin's nose. "It has your Mark imprint on it but it also has my name. Your brother left it behind. What is this and what doesn't it mean?"
"I-it's money."
"What money?"
"The money that you've been sending over for him every month."
"What?" Minho is stunned.
"Mum and dad gave it to me. I didn't want to use it. Hyung worked hard to earn all of it, so I couldn't."
"But why did you give it back to him now?"
"Because..." Taemin shifts as discreetly closer to the mouth of the alley as he can. "I got licensed as a mapper and my partner and I have worked out the details of a contract with the Novus State. We got ourselves five years on the Cadens to Iuno route. So we're relocating to Second Earth soon and we'll be settling on Cadens-3 in January."
"And this is why you asked to meet with him." Minho doesn't blink.
"I wouldn't break a promise unless I had to."
"Okay, okay..." Minho nods even though he hasn't digested all of it. "And one last thing-I promise it's the last thing-you know where your brother is? You can go see him right?"
Taemin tenses, alarmed.
"Don't bolt!" Minho hurriedly says. "I-I just have something I want you to give to him."
"I can't. You're gonna get me into trouble with Kib-" Taemin shuts himself up.
"Just say it's a birthday present. Or a Christmas present. Please Taemin?"
"Well wh-what is it?"
"It's nothing bad, I swear."
Minho slowly takes a small rectangular package out of his coat pocket. It's half the size of his hand, an inch thick, wrapped in plain white paper. Taemin looks at Minho and then down at the present and then up again before he gingerly reaches out and takes the thing. He holds it for a few seconds without moving, as if he expects it to explode.
But when nothing happens, he quickly stuffs into his own pocket. "Okay, I'll give it to him."
"Thank you, Taemin." Minho puts on the most harmless smile he can manage. "And can you tell him, tell him..."
Taemin waits but Minho doesn't speak again after he trails off.
"Tell him what?" He prompts.
Minho smiles again and shakes his head. "Just give him the present."
And then Taemin is off like a rocket, vanishing into the foot traffic.
Jinki and Kibum sit across from each other in the food court of the shopping complex. Before each of them is a bowl of steaming chikara udon. Kibum takes his chopsticks and smacks the other man across the back of his hand.
"Stop looking around like you're a criminal on the run!"
"Bums, I shouldn't be out in public. What if-"
"There are plenty of ghosts on Jorth; they're not going to start terminating everyone when it's almost Christmas."
"You're not making me feel any better."
"You will feel better once you start eating!"
"But-"
"Don't you know that looking around like that just makes you more suspicious?"
Jinki resigns and picks up his chopsticks. He has to admit that the udon smells pretty tempting. And so for a while, there is only quiet slurping. Four bites in, however, he can't help himself.
"So why are we out here anyway?"
Kibum glares until Jinki puts a piece of toasted rice cake in his mouth. As he is chewing, Kibum points to one side. Turning his head in that direction, Jinki wonders what exactly is he supposed to see.
"See them?"
"Who?"
"Mother and daughter. Matching orange hats, hideous things."
Jinki spots a woman carrying shopping bags and a little girl with a balloon in her hand. "What about them?"
"The kid is happy because she got what she asked for."
"How do you know?"
"We passed by them in the magic trick supplies store."
"Oh." Jinki spots the logo of the store among their bags.
"And over there, four o'clock. See the boy wiping his snot all over his dad while his mom is trying to feed him?"
"The one who's been crying?"
"Yeah, because he couldn't have the toy robot building kit he wanted."
"Okay?"
"And look down."
"What?"
"Look down!"
There's a package next to his bowl.
"What is this?"
"Magic."
"My birthday already passed and you said you're holding onto my Christmas present till tomorrow morning..."
"Open it."
Jinki looks at Kibum a little skeptically before putting down his chopsticks. He turns the package over in his hands and shakes it next to his ear, but his efforts yield no clues.
"Not everyone gets what they want, Jinx."
The wrapping paper-or well, just simple white paper-comes off easily.
"When you don't, it's not the end."
There in his palm sits a very familiar metal box. His heart is in his throat.
"And when you do, don't let go."
Minho falls into the couch and pulls up his legs. Jonghyun went home promising he'll come by tomorrow to check up on him, but suddenly Minho feels like maybe he should have asked him to stay. Because he's all alone now, and he feels it, that thing that gnaws away at his bones.
He waits.
The blue-green glow of his proto-lens keeps him company, and he waits.
Behind the curtain, the black squares of the window turn navy. And then they brighten into lighter and lighter shades of blue. The sun is rising; it's Christmas morning, a quiet Sunday morning. He aches but he think he understands it better now, what it feels like to be small and helpless and alone. To wait and not know what will come.
And then there's a series of knocks on the front door.
And he goes to open it, as if he's been rehearsing this scene.
Jinki's standing there in a new black peacoat with burnished buttons, his hair trimmed a little shorter. He's got snow all over him but his eyes are bright and his cheeks are red. Minho can feel the bones in his legs turning into water and he finds himself stuck halfway between a sob and a laugh. How do you put this feeling into words?
"I'm back."
"Welcome back." He whispers.
"I love you."
"I love you too." He feels the corners of his mouth tugging upward.
"We're going to be okay."
"Yeah."
Minho thinks he's going to cry, but he doesn't.
"Yeah, we'll be okay."
He gave up his wings, but now he has a home.
____a/n: I named this story before I named the iuno swifts and wrote about Minho and Jinki's first meeting. in fact, I decided on the name swifts before I even realized that the greeks called them "without feet". don't you love it when things work themselves out magically like that? and did anyone pick up on the existence of a subplot with the man who gave minho his old proto-lens?
p.s. the civil wars - poison & wine is love.
note: this fic and I share a love-hate relationship. most of it happened while my brain was preoccupied with cross-talking signalling cascades and those CD molecules that come cheaper by the dozen, ugh. (these two sentences are unrelated.)
Jonghyun slides into the seat across from Minho with a breathless greeting, hands fumbling with the scarf that has swallowed up his neck. The powdery snow dusting his hair and shoulders is already melting. Minho looks up from the serviette that he has been busy folding.
"Why must we meet at places like this all the time?"
"Hey, it's a cafe today, not a diner! Now which way does this thing unwind..."
Minho forgoes courtesy and cuts straight to the point. "Are you going to pay?"
Jonghyun pauses in his herculean endeavor and blinks at his friend before his eyes lower to the mug of plain tea on the table. "Is this why you ordered cheap tea at a cafe known for its glorious menu of non-tea-things? Because you think I would be a bad friend and-"
"Well the other choice was water and I am in debt."
"And I said in my text that I've got you covered! Jorth, are you not being fed? You're so snappy." Jonghyun finally gets his scarf off.
Minho takes a deep breath and goes back to his serviette.
"I'm sorry Jjong."
"Nah, I know you're stressed."
The shorter man unzips his jacket and untucks something he's been cradling between the layers of his clothing. It catches Minho's eye when his friend puts it down on the table. He abandons his almost completed spacecraft origami and picks it up, unfolding it to get a better look.
"Newspaper?"
"Yup." Jonghyun grins.
"On paper..."
"Authentic paper."
"...Why?"
"A couple of my artist friends are doing a retro movement thing for some kids charity, so for the rest of the month they're going to sell actual physical paper copies of the news! They've put a lot of work into figuring out the procedure and assembling the equipment they need and I dare say the result is pretty darn good. Their trial run was last week in district seven and the reception was phenomenal, so now they're distributing all over Jorth. How cool is that huh?"
"It's a waste of resources."
Jonghyun rolls his eyes and calls out two orders to one of the boys in aprons running around the place. When he turns back, he makes a strangled noise in his throat.
"Minho."
"What? I'm putting the paper-" he makes a large tear in the front page "-to good use." Another tear frees up a perfect square.
"This is a waste of resources! And it's my newspaper!"
Minho spares a moment to nudge the tea along with its temperature-sensitive color-shifting coaster closer to Jonghyun, who is still looking at him in disbelief. "Are you trying to placate me by offering me lukewarm tea that I'm going to be paying for? That you've already drunk?"
Jonghyun gets no answer.
"Minho, that's hurtful."
"So." Minho glances up at him quickly before giving his attention to the slowly forming plane in his hands. "You said you thought of something? And it's not as risky as your last idea to make me some quick money?"
"Right, now about that..." Jonghyun clasps his hands and leans forward, whispering conspiratorially. "You've still got all your stuff from the academy right?"
Minho visibly stiffens.
"Don't get mad at me yet! Just hear me out. I wouldn't bring this up without good reason."
Minho stares at him for a while before he acquiesces.
"Okay, so you've got all your stuff from back then right?"
He shifts in his seat and slowly nods.
"Including your lenses, your graduation badge, and your message cube? Your uniform?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"Auction them."
Jonghyun looks as if he'd just said the most brilliant thing in the world, but Minho only frowns, barely giving the idea a moment's consideration before he starts shooting it down.
"My lenses are eight years old. They're dead lenses, not to mention when Chilhyun-hyung had them commissioned, they were fitted to my physical requirements. What could anyone else possibly do with them?"
"Collectors! There are ridiculously rich people who like to collect stuff like this. And may I remind you, it turned out that you didn't need lenses to fly, so they're practically brand new! Except for the part where they've been sitting in your case for ages. Except for that, they're brand new. That's rare."
"Rare is only good if people want it."
"Well, you were kinda famous back when you were still in the academy."
"Jjong-"
"Hey kid!" Jonghyun beams enthusiastically at the server who has just brought them a matcha latte and a wet cappuccino. "Have you ever heard of a Choi Minho?"
The boy peaks at Minho from behind his bangs before looking back at Jonghyun. "Y-you mean the leaper who can fault-slip without proto-lenses? Yeah, he was pretty famous for that right? I-I'm a fan...actually..."
Minho sighs. "Did Jonghyun pay you to say that?"
"Uh." The boy fidgets, avoiding Minho's eyes.
"Jonghyun..." Minho turns and notices his friend making threatening faces at the kid.
"Do I still get paid now that he saw through it?" The boy rubs his nose and braves Jonghyun's potential wrath.
"No." Jonghyun thunks his head down on the table, almost knocking over his latte. "You did nothing! In fact, you ruined it! Why did you stutter? And why were you reciting the lines when I told you you were supposed to feel them and own them? Now go away."
The boy's mouth twists at the hand that Jonghyun waves dismissively at him. "I'm telling Sodam-noona you bribed me to lie for you."
Jonghyun hisses after his retreating back. "Look who's a tattletale! And well, if we're going that far then I'll just stop taking you with me when I go watch shuttle launches at the spaceport! Let's see how you manage to do that behind your brother's back when I'm not there to help!"
The kid freezes, struggles for a bit, and then grits out a fine before running away.
"Was that Seungyeop-hyung's little brother?" Minho takes a sip of the cappuccino and licks away the foam on his lip. "Is that why you picked this cafe? Because you recruited your brother-in-law to lie to me?"
"You're missing the point! The point being that some people still know who you are-or well, who Choi Minho is-and they'll probably be willing to pay good money for your lenses. Besides, they're fucking proto-lenses even if they're dead. That shit is expensive as hell."
Minho looks unconvinced so Jonghyun switches up his angle of attack.
"Okay, and then there's your graduation badge and your memory cube. You probably aren't aware but a couple of pilots from your year are doing pretty well. Especially Fan. After He and Zitao went to Second Earth, they managed to get into Novus. Their mandatory initial landing contract ended almost two years ago, and since then they've joined up with Kyuhyun-hyung and them. They've been making quite a name for themselves."
"That's great." Minho's grip on the mug handle tightens before he lets go and goes back to his paper origami. "That's good for them."
"Right, so the message cube has got Mark imprints from them. Legit Mark imprints, much more meaningful than simple signatures. You don't even have the sell the original. Make duplicates! They've got fans who'll snatch 'em right up. And the graduation badge-"
"Nobody sells their badges."
"Exactly! Makes them even rarer on the market. Especially rare because you and Fan and them are Ahn Chilhyun's last batch of students!"
"Nobody sells them because that's almost like selling your fault-slip license."
"Except it's not! And it's totally legal. A little shady, but totally legal."
Jonghyun stares at Minho, expectant, but the taller man is the image of reluctance.
"I mean, you don't really have other assets that you can liquidate right? These are the only sorts of things you own that I think might actually auction for a pretty decent amount of money. And the bonus is that they're small and you're the one hanging onto them, so even if they go missing, it's not noticeable."
Jonghyun knows his friend is swaying.
"Think about it. Sleep on it. And then thank me. I'll hook you up."
Minho lets his cappuccino go cold. He stays in that corner seat, folding planes, some larger than others, different makes and different models. He has been refining the art of it since he was eight, so his fingers move deftly without a second's hesitation. He remembers Jinki being curious about his habit of collecting paper or any paper-like sheets of material, remembers the afternoons spent teaching him all the little tricks, remembers the look of concentration on his face as he tries to copy what Minho is doing.
Jinki's planes always come out as prettily as Minho's, but they never fly as far. And Jinki would complain that Minho must be withholding some kind of secret.
Minho remembers finding him one evening out on the rooftop of the boys' dorm with a stack of paper pinned underneath his foot, turning each page into birds instead of planes. Minho remembers the sun was behind him, the shadows obscuring his expression.
Hey.
Jinki looks up then. Hi.
Where did you get all that paper?
Jinki waves a few pages at him. It's my leaper training contract. I know you think it's a waste of resources to have this stuff printed out but I asked to get a physical copy when I, well...
When you terminated it.
Jinki hands him a bird. Yup.
Minho sits down beside him and tries to balance the bird on its two skinny legs. Why?
Jinki brushes the hair out of his face. It sets me back two years, so now we'll be graduating together! And I talked to my parents about this. They're fine with it.
Jinki. He grabs the older boy's wrist and stops him from starting on a new bird.
Jinki looks at him and finally bursts out laughing. Why do all of you think that it'd be so bad for me to become a mapper instead?
Minho doesn't let go. But I don't get it. You were doing so well.
Jinki pats his hand in reassurance. And who says I plan to stop doing well? I'll still do well. I have an intuition for mapping that's rare. Why do you think the administration would allow me to switch programs when contractually they get a smaller cut of my earnings from my first ten years in the workforce if I graduate as a mapper rather than a leaper?
But you've always wanted to fly.
I'll still fly. Mappers get to go on flights.
Jinki picks up one of the birds on the ground and throws it in Minho's face.
Stop looking like your cat just died!
Minho rubs at the spot where the paper beak had struck him.
It's not called giving up, Minho. I'm trading in one dream for something even bigger.
Minho remembers how soft and radiant he looks then, with the wind in his hair and the sun on his cheek, half a halo made of golden clouds. Minho remembers his own reflection in those eyes, the warmth of his lips. Minho remembers being happy and sad and excited and confused, uncertain, a little afraid, but light enough to fly without-
He jumps when one of the servers tells him they're closing up soon. It's pitch black outside and Jonghyun's long gone. Minho stares for a bit at the back of the empty chair on the other side of the table, and Jonghyun's last words come back to him.
Are you sure you don't want to talk to Jinki about it?
No. No, he's going to make this work himself. Minho gathers up the fleet of planes littering the table and crushes them together. He's about to wrap it all up with the last remaining pages of the newspaper when one of the squares he didn't use falls out and flips over. A rather familiar black and white face grins up at him from next to his toes.
Minho gets the wind knocked out of him.
Slowly, he sets down the mess of paper and ink in his hands and bends down. With unsteady fingers, he picks the square off the floor and turns it right side up.
His heart accelerates.
Would people really buy dead lenses? If they would, if...
Jinki finds himself standing at the stove, watching the dumplings swim around below the surface of the boiling water. His ears are buzzing and he can't quite recall how he made it home, but he knows it has to have been at least a few hours since he's been back. The apartment heater is on, but his hands still feel cold. He looks down at them, his right in a fist and the fingers of his left curled loosely against his palm.
With a soft sigh, he turns away from the stove and plops himself down in a chair. Next to him on the kitchen table is a pair of wool knit mittens. And under the mittens is a clear rectangular card with three parallel blue veins. When he swipes a thumb over its surface, it lights up faintly under his touch and two of the blue veins reassemble themselves into a row of numerals. Underneath the initial 9 is Taemin's Mark imprint and next to it is the name of the account's new authorized holder: Choi, Minho.
The earnings he'd accumulated over his student years, doing extra work on the side. The consolation payment from the academy. The insurance payout. What he could save from all the odd jobs that Heechul-hyung finds for him, seven and a half years' worth of those. If he couldn't be a son to his parents and a brother to Taemin, at least he could give them something right? But it turns out they didn't even use a single reotaler of it.
Mum and dad gave him the account, Taemin said, but since he knew the truth he couldn't use the money for himself, not even for tuition. And now that they're leaving, he felt he should give it back.
Jinki admits that he and Minho need the money more than Taemin and mum and dad, but...
Jinki wants to laugh.
What has he been doing all this time?
Somewhere along the line, Minho comes home too. The mulmandu turns into manduguk, but the soup is a little thin and the skin of the dumplings a little overcooked.
As he watches Minho spoon the food into his mouth, the words just slip out: "I love you."
Minho's chewing pauses but he doesn't look up. Then slowly, he swallows and clears his throat. "What's this all of a sudden?"
"Nothing." Jinki quickly turns his attention to his soup.
There is silence.
Minho clears his throat again and mumbles. "I love you too."
Jinki ducks his head lower. Putting down the spoon, under the pretense of wiping his nose, he passes the heel of his hand over the corners of his eyes too.
"I know you don't like it because it's risky but I went out today."
"Everything's okay?"
"I saw Taemin."
The confession makes Minho pause again. "Saw him...in the crowd?"
"No." Jinki stirs his remaining dumplings in circles. "I met him. He asked to meet."
"But he promised that-"
"Don't get mad at him! He just wanted to see me."
Minho puts down his spoon.
"So are you okay?"
"Why are you asking if I'm okay? You see me everyday. But Taemin, he..." Jinki glances at Minho and smiles. "He's doing well. He grew up well. I don't think I would have recognized him in a crowd. He's almost your height now, I'd say. Hazelnut hair, a little like the haircut you have, or well, about this length anyway. It's hard to believe he's twenty-six when he still acts like such a kid sometimes."
"What did you guys talk about? Why did he suddenly ask to meet?"
"He-" is going to Novus, but Jinki can't say it out loud. "I don't know. He just says that he misses me. Maybe it's more surprising that he didn't hunt me down earlier."
Minho doesn't speak.
"I know. I told him we can't do this often."
"Maybe it'd be okay to tell your..."
Jinki just shakes his head and Minho leaves the rest unsaid.
That night, when Jinki jolts awake, Minho isn't lying next to him in bed. He gets out from under the covers and grabs a cardigan, doing his best to soften his footsteps. Peaking out into the hallway, he finds the bathroom lights off. And so easing the door just a little bit wider, he slips out and makes his way toward the living room.
At first, he doesn't even find Minho in the darkness.
He just sees a cobalt blue circle that rises into the air and flips-once, twice, three times-till it aligns. And next to it is a blue-green circle, the color familiar to the point that it steals his breath away.
The second one is Minho's proto-lens.
He knows it because he has the other one tucked away in his drawer. It's sort of funny. They're partners, but in reality, Minho is a leaper who doesn't need a mapper to navigate and he's a mapper who doesn't need a leaper to do the piloting. So maybe they've got it all wrong. Maybe they've been getting it wrong from the very beginning.
I love you.
I love you too.
But being in love or not, being together or not-they're separate things.
By the time Jinki gets up the next morning, Minho has already gone off to work. He finds a bowl of rice porridge and a small dish of pickled radish and cold beansprouts on the kitchen table.
He waits. He gathers up the courage and waits.
The sun goes down a bit earlier than yesterday. And then he bundles himself into his jacket and scarf and goes up to the rooftop. Their apartment building isn't nearly tall enough to give him an unobstructed view the sky, but he knows from previous years that it's enough for him to make out a bit of the Swifts' flyby. Just a bit, but that's enough.
He waits.
But midnight comes and goes, and this year, the sky stays dark.
When Jinki lets himself into the apartment, he's jerked roughly forward into a suffocating embrace. The door slams shut behind him and those arms around him locks down even tighter.
"Where were you? Where did you go? Why didn't you leave a note?"
Jinki lets himself stay still for a moment.
"Happy birthday, Minho."
"What?"
Jinki pushes away and smiles at him. "Or well, I guess it's happy belated birthday now."
Minho stares at him. Straight at him. Jinki vaguely notes that it's been a while since they've looked each other in the eye. He reaches out to grab Minho's hand. A breath in, a breath out. See? It's not so hard.
"I think we should talk."
Minho tenses up. "About what?"
Jinki pulls him to their beaten up couch and presses him into it. Then he sits down next to him, legs and arms neatly arranged. He looks around their small empty living room as if he were seeing everything for the first time.
"Talk about what?" Minho repeats, full of anxiety. Does he know? Has he found out?
"I think..." And he goes quiet after that.
Minho's mind shifts into overdrive as he scrambles to think of the best way to admit the mess he'd made of their financial situation. The best way to explain why he'd kept it a secret and how he's going to fix it. The best way to ask for forgiveness.
"I-"
"Let's break up."
Minho's heart lurches to a stop.
"Jinki, what-"
"I think we should." He blinks and looks straight ahead.
"What are you talking about?" Minho's voice jumps up a few pitches out of incredulity.
"I think it would do both of us good-"
"But you told me yesterday that you love me!"
Jinki's fingers curl up where they lay in his lap.
Minho leaps onto his feet and shouts it out this time: "You said it! Just yesterday you said you love me!"
Jinki flinches but doesn't take it back.
"I know-"
"You said it! You said..."
Jinki watches Minho's chest rise and fall as the other man struggles to find the right words. His fingers are tingling. It's something called fear, he knows.
"This is bullshit!" Minho roars with angry bitter laughter. "It's my birthday! It's my fucking birthday! So you disappear and then come back and tell me this?! You can't do this! You, don't get, to do this, to me!"
"Minho-"
"What gives you the right to do this?! Huh? Why? Why now? We've been together for eleven fucking years! We worked hard every single year for eleven years. Aren't they supposed to mean something to you?"
"They do, Minho, they do." His vowels drag as he tries keep his voice under control.
"Seven and a half years ago, they were going to let you die, but I couldn't." Minho jabs a finger at his chest. "I couldn't do that so I wrestled you back. If there are things such as souls in this world, then I sold mine to get you back. I didn't do that for you to leave me!"
"That's not-"
"Then tell me what is wrong!"
"You're a swift Minho." Jinki holds his left hand in his right. "I clipped your wings but you're still a swift."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
"You think about it a lot don't you?"
"About what?"
"About the sky. About space." Jinki pushes the words off his tongue, feeling all the courage that he has built up quietly slipping away. "A-about flying."
Minho stares at him, eyes wide, as if he were speaking some foreign language.
"You can still fly, you know. Ever since I met you, I've known that you were meant-"
"Bullshit."
Minho doesn't yell it out this time. It simply hangs in the air as a whisper. But no matter how much Jinki opens his mouth and tries to get the rest of his sentence out, there is no sound.
"So is this how much you think of me?"
Jinki feels his breaths turn shallow.
"Is THIS how much you think of me?" Minho repeats, louder this time. "Is this how much you think of yourself? Is this how much you think of us? All this time we've been together... Lee Jinki do I even know who you are? And do you even know who I am?! Look at me! Have a fucking good look at me!!"
Jinki tries to hide himself behind his arms, but the left half of him refuses to cooperate and the width of a single arm doesn't make for much of a shelter.
"The sky, space, flying-I gave up all of that years ago."
Jinki can't help the whimper that escapes his lips.
"I GAVE UP ALL OF THAT! YOU KNOW THAT! I GAVE IT ALL UP! ALL OF IT!"
Minho's cry rips right through him, a bullet through paper, and the remaining bits of his tattered courage flee. He scrambles for the safety of the bedroom, willing himself to not hear what comes next. Because deep in his heart he knows exactly what's next. He knows it like the back of his hand, word for word, and it's what he has been afraid of. No no no, he's not going to let Minho say it now, not when he's not ready.
Minho watches him disappear. The world suddenly tilts on its axis.
Tears trail over the bridge of his nose and fall into his other eye. Folding in upon himself with both arms wrapped around his head, he grits his teeth through the pain. "I gave it all up I gave it all up I gave it all up for you. For you."
Like a fish on land, he gasps for air.
I gave it all up for you. Don't you ever think of why?
A bleary-eyed Jonghyun throws out a few expletives about his Saturday morning peace and quiet before he opens his front door to find a haggard Minho on his doorstep. The man's eyes are bloodshot, a little hollow, nested in a bed of deep shadows. His hair is uncombed and his face unshaven.
A few seconds' pause later, he says: "Well you look like shit."
Minho silently pushes past him to get inside. Jonghyun yawns and scratches his stomach, trailing after the taller man as he makes his way to the kitchen.
"I mean it. You actually look like shit. What happened? Shouldn't you be cuddling in bed?"
Minho slams the milk down on the counter. A second slam follows as the fridge door swings shut. Jonghyun is suddenly more awake. He grabs the cereal and quietly hands it over.
"Did you even get any sleep?"
The cereal box slips out of Minho's fingers and scatters its contents across the otherwise immaculate tiles. Jonghyun's Skrubba-EV nudges past his legs to start cleaning up the mess, whirring and making vague noises of disapproval. Minho doesn't notice and just keeps his eyes fixated on the space in his hand where the box had been.
Very carefully, Jonghyun asks: "Did you get kicked out or something?"
Minho lifts his gaze. And then he wobbles.
Jonghyun reaches out on instinct to steady him by the elbow but ends up with an armful of Minho instead. The unexpected weight knocks him a few steps back. Grunting, he struggles to get a better hold of his friend.
"Whoa hey Minho. Minho?"
He feels Minho's arms wrap about his middle.
"Minho, did he find out? Did you...tell him?" Jonghyun tries to maneuver them over to the table so he can sit Minho down in a chair. "Is this because of what I said? Did you tell him because I said you should talk to him? I'm sorry, I didn't know he'd react like this."
Minho just shakes his head and clings onto Jonghyun.
He cries then.
He couldn't cry all night, but he cries then, in Jonghyun's arms.
The shorter man awkwardly pats his head. "I guess it would be bad timing to tell you that someone's interested in verifying the authenticity of your proto-lens? Well not yours but the proto-lens that you said belonged to some dead you-know-whatever Swifts' captain. The guy is willing to pay a hefty sum and getting yourself out of debt is the first step toward fixing things with Jinki, right?"
It doesn't coax a response out of Minho.
"Um okay, bad timing. We'll get you better first and then talk later. Do you want my bed? A body pillow? Hot soup? Ice cream? The unspilled cereal?"
Still no response.
Jonghyun begins to rub circles into Minho's back. "It'll be okay. It'll turn out okay. He loves you to bits and you chose him over flying and over Novus. You guys are like...like...a fish and its gills. The fish wouldn't be alive without the gills and the gills would be pointless without the fish...or something... So why don't you go get some rest? I bet he'll be running down my door and demanding I give you back to him in no time."
So Minho goes to sleep.
He goes to sleep and dreams of the first time he ever flies the simulation unit at the academy. He dreams of Jinki waiting for him when he completes his mission and gets out. He dreams of saying I'm back as if he'd actually gone somewhere far, far away, and then Jinki laughs and indulges him and says, welcome back.
Jinki falls into a dreamless sleep as the sky whitens. He wakes up an hour later to an empty apartment.
He doesn't get dressed. He doesn't clean himself up. He doesn't eat. He just spends the entire day huddled in the corner of the couch that he had occupied the night before. He waits-he's good at that-and he waits. But Minho doesn't come home and at one point, he falls asleep.
Some time during the night he wakes up with a pain in his side, so he straightens out his aching limbs and limps his way to the kitchen. There is still some leftovers from Friday and he eats that cold. He's three mouthfuls into it when the pain gets worse and he makes a run for the bathroom. But of course, his body is not meant for running so he barely avoids a collision with the wall. Lying in the middle of the hallway, he throws up what he just ate. The heaving doesn't stop though. It doesn't even when there's nothing left in his stomach.
He digs his nails into his left elbow, deep enough to draw blood.
And then he falls asleep again.
When he wakes up slightly past noon, he pushes himself off the floor and goes to the bathroom. He cleans himself up, and then cleans up the mess he'd made. Sorting through their belongings, he separates his from Minho's and puts it all in a corner of the living room. He sets down the proto-lens in his care on the kitchen table. Next to that metal case, he puts down his phone, and next to it, he leaves the bank card Taemin had given him.
Pulling on a sweater and then his jacket and boots, he grabs his scarf and Taemin's mittens and heads out. He locks the door and then, one by one, he takes the keys off the keyring. He pushes each into the crack under the door until they've all disappeared.
So it ends like this.
Jinki walks out into the sunset. And he keeps on walking, through the snow, the people. He walks until his legs almost give out. A passerby asks if he's okay and helps him to a bench, so he sits there and stares at the toy store across the street. He watches the strangers, the mothers and fathers, the kids. Things that he once had, things he would have had, could have had, might have had. He watches the festive lights that come on up and down the street till it doesn't seem to matter that the sun is gone. He hears people laughing and there's a store that's playing Christmas classics. Someone is singing about snow and mistletoes and presents on the tree. But what if all he's got are homes that he can't return to?
The mines, he decides. He'll go to the mines.
Just then, a man who'd been walking by doubles back. "Lee Jinki...?"
He tenses at the mention of his name.
"It is you!" The other man tugs the mask off his incredulous face.
"Ki...bum?"
"Are you okay? You don't look so good."
Jinki feels a warm hand on his face and something inside of him crumbles.
"Kibum, I'm tired. I'm just tired."
He tries to stand up but then the world goes black.
Minho finally pulls himself together enough to go back home. It's Monday, he has work, and he can't afford to get fired. He needs this job. So he is left with no choice but to go home and grab his things, a change of work clothes too. (Jonghyun owns dress shirts and ties and suits, but the sleeves and pantlegs are too short. Minho tries them on anyway and the only comment Jonghyun has is shut up.)
He takes a deep breath and inserts the key into the lock. He'll be quick and quiet about this, in and out. Maybe he doesn't even have to wake Jinki up.
Something is a little off to him when he has a harder time pushing the door open than usual. And then he sees them, the keys on the floor. No, no no. His insides go cold. He runs straight for the bedroom and finds the door wide open, the bed made and empty. He turns to the living room and spots Jinki's belongings in the corner. At least his things are still here. That means he's coming back, right? But then what do the keys mean? His mind is a mess before he even sets foot in the kitchen. And yet it is on the kitchen table that he sees what he least wants to.
"Jonghyun?"
"He's gone."
"I don't know, Jjong. I don't know..."
Jinki opens his eyes to find a different ceiling. For a few seconds he's lost, but the pounding in his head forces him to stop trying to remember.
"Dear guest, would you like some water?"
His head snaps to the right to find an Omni-AD beside his bed. Croaking out a thank you, he pushes himself a little upright and takes the proffered glass. It soothes his throat but his stomach is empty and burning.
"Would you like some chicken noodle soup?"
"Who's your owner?"
"It's Mister Kim Kibum, sir. Would you like some chicken noodle soup?"
"Omni, go clean up the kitchen. I've got the soup." Jinki hears the voice before he sees its owner. Kibum comes in with a bowl balanced in his hands. He's familiar to Jinki and strange to him at the same time.
"We have three packets of crackers left. Would you like me to fetch them?"
"Omni, kitchen, now." Kibum sets the bowl down on the nightstand.
"I was just trying to be helpful, sir." Omni raises his long arms.
"More like you don't want to wash the pot."
"May I suggest you acquire a Vaska-EV, sir?"
"And return you to the store while I'm at it? Sure, I don't mind."
"Point taken." Omni backs out of the room.
Kibum pulls up a chair and starts stirring the soup. "Don't mind Omni. I had him programmed this way. Purposely bickering with your domestic humanoid may seem odd, but it puts me at ease more than ordering around a thing that obeys your every command."
Jinki looks around, at the walls, the furniture, the duvet covering him. He looks at Kibum, sitting there and blowing over a spoonful of soup, preparing to feed him as if it were the most natural thing to do. The younger man has pink highlights in his side-swept blonde bangs now and that's something Jinki thinks will take him time to get used to, but somehow Kibum makes it seem like they really never became more than three floors apart. Three floors-the blood drains from his face.
"Jinki? Are you okay? Are you feeling worse all of a sudden?"
"This place..."
"I moved here five years ago, don't worry." Kibum reassures him. "But I still run into your parents sometimes. They're doing well. Taemin too."
"I know. I saw him a few days ago." Jinki reaches for the bowl but Kibum moves it away.
"Open your mouth."
"I have hands, Kibum."
"That's great! So do I." He doesn't point out the flaw with Jinki's argument. "Now shut up and open your mouth. I don't want the soup going down the wrong pipe."
Jinki looks at him and isn't sure what to feel.
"Mouth, open, now."
Once the entire contents of that bowl is sitting warmly inside Jinki's stomach, Kibum hollers for Omni. The humanoid trudges into the room and grudgingly accepts the bowl and spoon along with his new task of washing them. After he leaves, the silence doesn't last long before Kibum breaks it.
"Look, I know you don't have a thing on you except for your clothes and a bit of cash. What's going on?"
Jinki looks away and crosses his right arm a little defensively over his torso, hand reaching for his left elbow. What he doesn't foresee is Kibum's hand shooting out and grabbing his wrist. He tries to resist it but Kibum has always been stronger than he looks.
"I saw the nail marks on your arm too, so don't do that anymore."
He turns away from Kibum and shrinks into himself.
"Stop hiding yourself. This isn't like you."
"But I am like this." He buries his face into his left shoulder, right arm still outstretched and locked in Kibum's grasp.
"I don't know what happened back then, but I don't care about back then. I care about right now. What is going on with you right now? Why did I find you sitting on a bench like that? No keys, no phone, not even enough money to get yourself a night's worth of shelter. What were you going to do? Where were you going to go?"
"I don't know..."
"If you're like this then obviously you didn't just lose your things."
"I don't know, I don't know..."
"I'm not asking you to explain why you're alive, Jinki. You're alive and that's good enough for me." Kibum moves to sit on the bed and drags the other man closer to him. "I've known you ever since I became old enough to keep the memories I made. I fixed your horrible art projects because you can't coordinate colors and you wrote my essays. We built our homebase together. Things changed somewhat after you enrolled at the aviation academy and we started talking less, but you didn't become less to me because of that. And then I went to your funeral. I bawled my eyes out. I spread your ashes. I nearly drove into an oncoming hovercar and scared my mother witless. But if it doesn't end with that, then let me be your friend again."
Kibum gives him room to cry for a while, no words of comfort, no hug, just that one steadfast hand circling his wrist.
"I'm just...tired."
"You said that right before you passed out on me. What are you tired of?"
"...Of-of myself?"
"You're not the way you used to be, but that doesn't stop you from being something."
"But what am I?"
"You're Jinki."
"Not who but what? Kibum, I can't walk quickly and I can't walk far, much less do anything else on my feet. If I want to grab something and it's too high up, I can't even climb up on a chair to get it. I can move my left arm but I can't hold a cup without dropping it five seconds later. I can't do the dishes, I can't cook, I can barely spread peanut butter onto bread. I can eat but can I put food on the table and feed myself? Not really. I only have half of my hearing left so even if a hovercar is barrelling down on me I wouldn't even know which direction it's coming from until I see it with my eyes. But well, usually that's not a problem because I can't even go outside. I'm un-Marked, Kibum, I'm a ghost. As far as the system is concerned, I'm not even human. I'm like Omni, except worse, because I can't even do a tenth of the things that he does..."
Kibum lets him talk till he gradually false asleep. Then he tucks him in properly and goes to his study to make a call.
"Lee Taemin, you know your brother is alive, don't you?"
"Tell me where Choi Minho lives and don't pretend you didn't track down the exact address."
Minho sees Jonghyun by the front door so he knows he didn't hallucinate the noises. His heart begins to soar, but then he realizes the door is closed and there is no one else around. His footsteps slow.
"Jonghyun?"
His friend remains frozen.
"Jjong? Was there someone-"
The shorter man turns around, looking dazed, one side of face redder than the other.
"What happened?"
"I heard knocking at the door so I went to open it. I mean, you were asleep so I thought I should get the door. What if it's Jinki, right?" Jonghyun rubs at his smarting cheek. "But no, it wasn't him. It was some guy I'd never seen before, a man, kinda tall, brown tweed jacket, yellow scarf, wearing a bowler hat. He's got blond and pink hair. Strange colors, huh! His expression was so scary-"
"Jjong what did he want?"
"He asked me if you lived here and I said yes, then he slapped me, yanked the door out of my hand, and slammed it shut." Jonghyun recounts the events with a frown as if he can't be sure what had just happened. "Do you get strange visitors like this often?"
Minho pushes past him and runs out the door. The hallway is empty so he dashes downstairs, ignoring his friend's demands to know where he's going. He even runs out of the building, but he doesn't see a single person matching the description. And then the biting cold finally gets to him.
When he gets back upstairs, he grabs onto Jonghyun like a lifeline. "Describe him to me. What did he look like?"
"I told you, brown tweed-"
"His face, damn it. His face!"
"Uh..." the shorter man squirms uncomfortably. "His eyes are a little narrow. Sort of long and narrow? Goes up in the corners like this. And...and cheekbones. Well, I didn't exactly get a very good look."
"And you said he asked specifically for me? And he wore a bowler hat?"
"Yeah. So you know this guy or something?"
Minho's eyes stop focusing on Jonghyun and a second later he's in the kitchen flipping through the contact list of Jinki's phone. When he doesn't find what's looking for there, he goes into Jinki's call history and dials a call to the very last number.
"Taemin! Taemin?" He yells without meaning to. "Your brother had a friend named Kibum something right?"
Kibum returns home to find Jinki gone. He ate his food, he took his medicine, he even made the bed and folded the pajama set Kibum had lent him. But Jinki's gone, his jacket, his scarf, his boots.
"Omni!"
"Yes, sir?" The humanoid peaks out from the bathroom.
"Where is Jinki?"
"The guest?"
"Yes, where did he go?"
"He said he's feeling better and wants to go for a walk."
"And you let him?!"
"Was I not supposed to, sir?"
"Omni you're a fucking idiot!" Kibum spins around on his heels and goes right back out.
He holds onto the hope that maybe Omni isn't so stupid, that maybe Jinki was telling the truth and really is around here somewhere. But no matter how many times he circles around his neighborhood, Jinki is nowhere to be found. Jorth, what was he expecting? Jinki being the way he is, why would he want to go for a walk of all things?
He goes back to where he found Jinki yesterday and he sits down on the same bench, next to the spot where Jinki had sat. No matter how he tries to act, the years have made them into strangers. He's not sure how Jinki thinks anymore. Where could he have gone?
Kibum's phone rings then and he allows himself half a sigh of relief before he realizes Jinki doesn't have a phone on him and doesn't know his number, not since he changed it a few years back.
"Hello?"
"Is this Kim Kibum?"
Kibum pauses, and then narrows his eyes, quietly swearing to skin Taemin alive. "Choi Minho."
"You know where Jinki is, don't you?"
"I don't know. Where is he?"
"Tell me where he is!"
"Don't you fucking yell at me!"
"He's with you isn't he?!"
"I don't have time to deal with bastards like you."
Kibum hangs up and gets to his feet. His phone rings again, but he turns it off. He has thought of one last place where he can look for Jinki. He prays he is right as much as he prays he is wrong. Because the very thought of what Jinki could do there makes him sick to his stomach.
And it's like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago. He and Changsun are throwing rocks down the mine shaft, counting out the seconds to see when there would be a noise in order to figure out how deep it goes. And Kibum, Kibum's always yelling at them to get away because if they lose their footing, they may really end up personally seeing how deep the shaft runs. Look, even now, Kibum's calling out to him even now...
"Yah Lee Jinki!"
And then there are arms winding around him, pulling him away. And Jinki lets it happen, lets the arms drag him back until they fall together. He's lying on something soft, and those hands, they are tugging at him, touching his face. Someone somewhere is crying. He doesn't know who and doesn't know where until the hands move him around and he is staring up at Kibum's wet face.
Kibum holds on to him until it leaves both of them in pain. And Kibum cries. Hard and ugly.
Jinki nudges his cheek against Kibum's stomach, and quietly, he says: "I couldn't do it, Bums. I couldn't do it after all."
It's nighttime and they're lying in bed together, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, hand in hand.
They begin with the earliest memories that they have of each other. And then all the subsequent memories throughout their childhood and adolescent years. They comb through everything, even the mundane, down to the smallest details. Sometimes they accuse each other of making things up, sometimes they just listen to each other quietly and try to picture what it had been like. Kibum tells Jinki about his life now, what has happened in the past few years, the relationships that he'd started but had to end. Eventually Jinki tells Kibum what happened too.
"So this Jonghyun is a friend?"
"A friend."
"And you ran away from home because you tried breaking up with Minho."
Jinki makes a soft noise.
"Jinki?"
Kibum gets a squeeze on his hand.
"Don't you ever make me attend your funeral again."
Silence.
"You're a lot more than what you make yourself out to be."
Kibum turns his head in Jinki's direction. In the dark, he can make out the glimmer reflecting off the whites of the other man's eyes.
"And sometimes you don't know what you mean to other people without talking to them. You need to talk to people, Jinx. You need to learn to do that. It's not fair for you to not care about their feelings. Or well, our feelings."
"But Minho's meant for something better."
"And how do you know he'd be better if he didn't have you?"
"He's meant to fly. You have no idea how happy it makes him."
"But you make him happier."
"I don't think I have in years, Kibum."
"Minho's a full-grown man. It's only natural that he has worries and not everything is your fault. This is why I said you need to talk to people. You won't know what's wrong with him and you can't help him with it if you don't talk to him."
"It's just...you can't deny it. I made his life harder."
"He chose you over flying. However much flying means to him, you mean more. So don't go dismissing your own weight because that really hurts."
"I saw him with his proto-lens. He misses it. I know he misses it. And I know he hates his job right now."
"Jinki, everyone has to do things that they don't like and don't want to in order to have something they do like and do want. Nobody gets their way all the time and nobody is happy all the time. But isn't it a good feeling to come home to someone you love? To know you have something there, something that makes it all better?"
"But you don't understand how good of a leaper he makes. If he has the chance to go to Novus and-"
"And what? Fly difficult missions? Earn lots of money? Get famous? And then?"
"He'll find someone who doesn't need him to give up-"
"Jinx, tell me again what you did in your fourth year at the academy."
"What?"
"You switched programs. You set yourself back two years. You chose him over flying, because you wanted to be with him."
"But it's not the same. Even if I did that we were still going to-"
"You told him it's not called giving up, Minho, I'm trading in one dream for something even bigger. Don't you see it?" Kibum pushes. "He understood you back then, or maybe he didn't and just chose to trust you. But either way, why can't you do the same for him?"
Jinki tries to pull away but Kibum doesn't let him.
"Novus is nice and all but it isn't the world, Jinx, so it isn't the end of the world either. And Novus isn't his world." He pauses. "You are."
Kibum feels him shaking.
"Lee Jinki, you are a fucking idiot."
Kibum finally pulls him into an embrace. "I'm using my saved up holidays to take the rest of December off, so stay with me. I'll get Omni to break out the cookbooks. We're going to have a feast everyday. Not only that, we're going to sing Christmas carols every waking moment of every day till you throw up just thinking about them. And we're also going to go out and shop and spoil ourselves till my apartment runs out of space for new things."
"And then when you're ready, you're going to go talk to him and you're going to tell him you love him."
"Taemin!"
The younger man jumps with a start. As soon as he sees Minho, he promptly turns around and begins speedwalking in the other direction. His speedwalk soon turns into a run, but the number of people out on the sidewalk means he doesn't get very far before a hand clamps down on his shoulder and pulls him aside into an alleyway.
"Let me go. I'm going to scream for help!" Taemin shrinks against the wall. He'd successfully avoided everyone for the past five days, even going as far as borrowing Jongin's phone so he can turn his off.
"Don't. I just want to talk to you."
"Yeah, well I don't want to talk to you." There is a tremor in his voice and he refuses to meet Minho's gaze.
"I'm not going to ask where Jinki is."
"What you're giving up?" Taemin lifts his head then. But he realizes what he's doing and drops his head again.
"Just tell me if he's okay."
"Y-yeah, he is."
"That's good. I'm glad. And I have another thing I want to ask you."
"What?" Taemin glances at him nervously.
"This." Minho pulls the bank card out of his wallet and shoves it under Taemin's nose. "It has your Mark imprint on it but it also has my name. Your brother left it behind. What is this and what doesn't it mean?"
"I-it's money."
"What money?"
"The money that you've been sending over for him every month."
"What?" Minho is stunned.
"Mum and dad gave it to me. I didn't want to use it. Hyung worked hard to earn all of it, so I couldn't."
"But why did you give it back to him now?"
"Because..." Taemin shifts as discreetly closer to the mouth of the alley as he can. "I got licensed as a mapper and my partner and I have worked out the details of a contract with the Novus State. We got ourselves five years on the Cadens to Iuno route. So we're relocating to Second Earth soon and we'll be settling on Cadens-3 in January."
"And this is why you asked to meet with him." Minho doesn't blink.
"I wouldn't break a promise unless I had to."
"Okay, okay..." Minho nods even though he hasn't digested all of it. "And one last thing-I promise it's the last thing-you know where your brother is? You can go see him right?"
Taemin tenses, alarmed.
"Don't bolt!" Minho hurriedly says. "I-I just have something I want you to give to him."
"I can't. You're gonna get me into trouble with Kib-" Taemin shuts himself up.
"Just say it's a birthday present. Or a Christmas present. Please Taemin?"
"Well wh-what is it?"
"It's nothing bad, I swear."
Minho slowly takes a small rectangular package out of his coat pocket. It's half the size of his hand, an inch thick, wrapped in plain white paper. Taemin looks at Minho and then down at the present and then up again before he gingerly reaches out and takes the thing. He holds it for a few seconds without moving, as if he expects it to explode.
But when nothing happens, he quickly stuffs into his own pocket. "Okay, I'll give it to him."
"Thank you, Taemin." Minho puts on the most harmless smile he can manage. "And can you tell him, tell him..."
Taemin waits but Minho doesn't speak again after he trails off.
"Tell him what?" He prompts.
Minho smiles again and shakes his head. "Just give him the present."
And then Taemin is off like a rocket, vanishing into the foot traffic.
Jinki and Kibum sit across from each other in the food court of the shopping complex. Before each of them is a bowl of steaming chikara udon. Kibum takes his chopsticks and smacks the other man across the back of his hand.
"Stop looking around like you're a criminal on the run!"
"Bums, I shouldn't be out in public. What if-"
"There are plenty of ghosts on Jorth; they're not going to start terminating everyone when it's almost Christmas."
"You're not making me feel any better."
"You will feel better once you start eating!"
"But-"
"Don't you know that looking around like that just makes you more suspicious?"
Jinki resigns and picks up his chopsticks. He has to admit that the udon smells pretty tempting. And so for a while, there is only quiet slurping. Four bites in, however, he can't help himself.
"So why are we out here anyway?"
Kibum glares until Jinki puts a piece of toasted rice cake in his mouth. As he is chewing, Kibum points to one side. Turning his head in that direction, Jinki wonders what exactly is he supposed to see.
"See them?"
"Who?"
"Mother and daughter. Matching orange hats, hideous things."
Jinki spots a woman carrying shopping bags and a little girl with a balloon in her hand. "What about them?"
"The kid is happy because she got what she asked for."
"How do you know?"
"We passed by them in the magic trick supplies store."
"Oh." Jinki spots the logo of the store among their bags.
"And over there, four o'clock. See the boy wiping his snot all over his dad while his mom is trying to feed him?"
"The one who's been crying?"
"Yeah, because he couldn't have the toy robot building kit he wanted."
"Okay?"
"And look down."
"What?"
"Look down!"
There's a package next to his bowl.
"What is this?"
"Magic."
"My birthday already passed and you said you're holding onto my Christmas present till tomorrow morning..."
"Open it."
Jinki looks at Kibum a little skeptically before putting down his chopsticks. He turns the package over in his hands and shakes it next to his ear, but his efforts yield no clues.
"Not everyone gets what they want, Jinx."
The wrapping paper-or well, just simple white paper-comes off easily.
"When you don't, it's not the end."
There in his palm sits a very familiar metal box. His heart is in his throat.
"And when you do, don't let go."
Minho falls into the couch and pulls up his legs. Jonghyun went home promising he'll come by tomorrow to check up on him, but suddenly Minho feels like maybe he should have asked him to stay. Because he's all alone now, and he feels it, that thing that gnaws away at his bones.
He waits.
The blue-green glow of his proto-lens keeps him company, and he waits.
Behind the curtain, the black squares of the window turn navy. And then they brighten into lighter and lighter shades of blue. The sun is rising; it's Christmas morning, a quiet Sunday morning. He aches but he think he understands it better now, what it feels like to be small and helpless and alone. To wait and not know what will come.
And then there's a series of knocks on the front door.
And he goes to open it, as if he's been rehearsing this scene.
Jinki's standing there in a new black peacoat with burnished buttons, his hair trimmed a little shorter. He's got snow all over him but his eyes are bright and his cheeks are red. Minho can feel the bones in his legs turning into water and he finds himself stuck halfway between a sob and a laugh. How do you put this feeling into words?
"I'm back."
"Welcome back." He whispers.
"I love you."
"I love you too." He feels the corners of his mouth tugging upward.
"We're going to be okay."
"Yeah."
Minho thinks he's going to cry, but he doesn't.
"Yeah, we'll be okay."
He gave up his wings, but now he has a home.
____a/n: I named this story before I named the iuno swifts and wrote about Minho and Jinki's first meeting. in fact, I decided on the name swifts before I even realized that the greeks called them "without feet". don't you love it when things work themselves out magically like that? and did anyone pick up on the existence of a subplot with the man who gave minho his old proto-lens?
p.s. the civil wars - poison & wine is love.