SBB 2016 ENTRY #17: UNSAID WORDS (2/2)
Title: Unsaid Words (2/2)
Pairing: General (Minho/Kibum, hints of Taemin/Minho)
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings:Strong language, implied depression and eating disorders, mentions of death and self harm
Final Word Count: 15,627
The phone keeps ringing. It ripples through the room, warping and distorting as it bounces off the walls and buries itself in Kibum’s brain, aggravating their headache. At first they attempt to sink deeper into the snowy wonderland of their multiple pillows, but at last they give in and forces themself to get up, abandoning the warmth and safety of their bed. Pins and needles prickle their legs as the blood flows down to their toes.
It’s probably only their editor, so Kibum doesn’t know why their hand shakes as they reach out for their phone. Their eyes catch on the wooden desk, the grain swirling in the shape of rose. When he looks away from the timber table, Kibum is no longer stood in the middle of their bedroom.
They’re in a glass cabinet. Walls on all sides, and no door, and no air holes and. Kibum places their hands against the cool glass and feels, for all the world, like a museum exhibit. Something displayed. Something there for interpretation, but nothing definite, a flexible and immaterial object, scrutinised and ignored and infinitesimally important.
No air holes.
Kibum’s head spins, their stomach floored by the sudden realisation. Fuck, fuck. There’s a pedestal in the cabinet alongside them, no doubt support to something before them, and Kibum groans as they try to lift it. Far too heavy. But if they can just…
On their knees, Kibum leans their whole weight against the solid glass pedestal, panting desperately as inch by inch it makes its way towards the edge of the cabinet. Close, so close, but their ears are full of wool and their lungs of cotton dust and it’s tipping, tipping-
The crash echoes through Kibum’s mind and all through the building. Shards of glass cut Kibum’s bare feet as they stumble out, gasping in air. When the world stops spinning, Kibum winces their way to the delicate iron-wrought railing and stares out across the drop.
The building’s size in beyond comprehension. It reminds them of the loom; the flickers or it dancing beyond their understanding, glimpses of circular places in the past and haziness ahead, tangled threads in the time-space continuum, in places they haven’t lived yet. Across the wide chasm, Kibum sees other cabinets; a glance behind them shows their cabinet just one in…thousands? A hundred thousand? The wide floor hugs the wall, winds up the inside of the tower-like structure, like a huge spiral staircase without steps, a helter-skelter, the incline so gradual Kibum can hardly sense it. And still the glass cabinets stretch onwards and upwards, and each one of them…
Empty.
Unnerved, Kibum walks on, treading softly through the smothering silence. Not down; there’s something deeply disturbing about the darkness when they look down, a black and gaping maw of consumption. No, up, where ensconced candles light the way. The floor beneath their feet is formed of large stone blocks, the wide slabs dipping in the centres from years of use. Use by whom? They pass dark corridors bored into the main tower, the stone roughly hewn, like lice infestations through aged wood; through them, the pale, hushed glint of glass once more.
They don’t get dizzy, even as hours, or maybe years, pass by.
And then there is something, in a display case. Kibum looks up, then, and ahead, stretching around and up the curve of the stone tower, glass and more glass full of things; heavy coats and tapestries and jewellery and statues and shrunken heads and dolls and more, more their eyes can’t make out. They return their attention to the first full case beside them.
It’s a loop of human teeth, gleaming bright and threatening, threaded into a necklace. There’s a placard beside the plinth, reading ‘Izwe Mamlakat’ in small, neat, studious handwriting. They shudder at the memory. Kibum leans forward, and the movement passes candlelight over the wet ink.
The shuffle of something across stone. Something not Kibum.
Whirling around Kibum comes face to face with a hooded figure. For a split second, an absurd moment, Kibum flushes hot at the sudden outlandishness of their pyjamas, and then they’re backing up, the glass cold through the thin cotton material, cold against Kibum’s spine.
The figure doesn’t move. There’s an aching familiarity to the curves of the humanoid creature’s jaw, this bone-deep recognition that pierces even this odd habit-like garment, but Kibum’s unsure if they know this creature as friend or foe. So, carefully, Kibum peels away from the cabinet, edging around them and walking backwards carefully up the eternal slope, hands held out in front of them, placatingly, peacefully, adrenaline readying each limb in Kibum’s body for self-defence.
Softly, for disturbing the silence and in fear of sparking aggression, Kibum says, “I’ll just be going now. Thank you.”
Glancing back at regular intervals, Kibum forces themself to walk, until the spirals hide the figure from view and they break into a sprint. Fuck, fuck. Who knows what that was, whether it’s calling for reinforcements, if they offended it, if Kibum shouldn’t be here? They have to find another intercosmic rip, and soon.
Huffing, Kibum plows ahead, up and-
“Fuck!”
“Whoops!” They crash to the ground, bringing the foreign creature down with them. Hands on their elbow.
“Get away from me!” Kibum yells, momentarily forgetting where they are, the echo reminding them with dreadful certainty.
Another hooded figure; this one stands and, even as Kibum stumbles away on bloody feet, advances fast, latches onto Kibum with a human hand and slams another hand over Kibum’s mouth then drags them bodily into the nearest off-reaching corridor.
Under the cover of the shadows, the human yanks their hood off.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Kibum splutters, rushing to take in the person’s wide, soft face and sharp jaw, straight nose and thick eyebrows, intense eyes and puffy lips. “I should be asking you that!”
“Race?” The person demands, hands still gripping Kibum’s arms tight as iron.
“Human?” Kibum tries to sound sure but in their confusion it comes out a question.
Luckily their captor powers on, “Supporting?”
Kibum stares back, wide-eyed. “Supporting who?”
“Which side are you on in the fucking war?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Kibum hisses back. “I’m a fucking world-shifter!”
“You’re an…oh.” The person deflates, until it almost seems to be Kibum holding them up. “Eunsook.” The person mutters, distractedly. “She/her pronouns.”
“They/them. Kibum.”
“Kibum, hey?” Eunsook slumps onto the floor, leaning back against the wall of the tunnel. “Nice to meet you.” She doesn’t look at them, just stares straight ahead, and Kibum’s not sure if it’s because the adrenaline has sapped her strength or because she’s thinking.
Kibum crouches down next to her awkwardly. “You too.”
Eunsook’s hand shoots out again to clasp their forearm. “Wait, did anyone else see you?”
Kibum tenses again. “Yes.”
“Shit. Fuck. Look, follow me, and whatever you do, don’t touch the glass.” Eunsook stands, pulling Kibum upright, and bursts into a run down the corridor, away from the main tower, almost soundlessly. Kibum’s head whirls at the development, the smack of their feet on the floor painful but thankfully quieter than if they wore shoes. “Fuck!” Eunsook gasps breathlessly, pulling Kibum out of the light and down another offshoot corridor, holding a finger to her lips.
The hooded human glides past silently. Kibum waits and waits and then leans carefully, silently, forward and whispers next to her ear, “Eunsook, I shifted into a cabinet and broke it to get out.”
She turns to them, eyes wide with horror.
“Are they going to kill me?” Kibum breathes.
“Not,” Eunsook huffs back, the horror shoved aside by some unearthly fire. Kibum thinks the sight heavenly, “If we run fast enough.”
And so they run. Darting across huge corridors of stone, their reflections hounding them in glass cases like haunting ghosts, slipping into shadowy cracks and hidden store cupboards.
“Who are you?” Kibum pants, in one such cupboard, arms wide to suck in as much oxygen as possible.
“Espionage for the other side. The losing one. For the people these bastards destroy and collect.” Eunsook spits after a second. “Not any longer, though.”
Kibum’s chest winces. They’re not supposed to make things worse. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” The very base of Kibum’s tummy aches with the reassurance. “If I stayed a moment longer, I’d have gone mad.” Kibum sighs, a deep shuddery thing. Eunsook eyes them for a long moment, and then mumbles, “I’ve shifted worlds once.”
“Shit.”
“Intercosmic rips don’t move, right?”
“Not the big ones.” Kibum says, not mentioning how their entire room back home has apparently become a tear in the fabric of reality, heart hammering the thrum of hope in their chest.
Eunsook offers Kibum her hand and she doesn’t let go, palm sweat slick against Kibum’s, as they dash out and up, ducking and weaving, sneak past clusters of hoods, past display cases that stare back at them, not even as they come to a huge staircase, steep and treacherous.
At the very top, Eunsook pulls Kibum back from almost topping headfirst over a low guardrail and into oblivion. They’re on a narrow strip running around the edge of the huge skylight at the zenith of the main tower. Kibum feels their stomach drop at the height. Trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline and fear, they shuffle around the edge until Eunsook tugs on Kibum’s hand, and points. First, down where Kibum squints at a black mass teeming up the wide spiralling floor, heart palpitating at the realisation that it’s the hoods coming for them. Then, right out, over the edge.
Kibum feels their mouth go dry. Yet, even as their head spins, Kibum can sense the slash in the material of the universe hovering over the ledge. They’ll have to jump off. Fall a little way down.
Kibum doesn’t ask how Eunsook found it but they’ve always been good at guessing. So they give Eunsook’s fingers an extra squeeze, and then let go, pushing Eunsook gently back away from the edge. Towards the stairs, like a reminder to go down that way.
“Will you be ok?” Eunsook asks, voice suddenly soft, her voice hardly audible above the rush of cloaks moving, rising up from below.
“Will you?” Kibum asks in return. Eunsook smiles, a smile like iron and blood and promises kept, already hitching up her cloak and withdrawing a knife from a strap around her thigh.
Kibum grits their teeth, prays that the threads of fate are kind for once, and jumps.
---
Kibum stands in front of the mirror in their bathroom. Their black roots are starting to show and they glare at them half-heartedly; Kibum can’t decide if the ebony fading to lavender looks bad. Not that anyone will be seeing it, but. Kibum sighs.
(They feel worn thin, like old socks or a carpet, or a shawl in need of darning. They’re stretched too far, so far that nowhere they can do enough. Or else, and worse, so much worse, a dark and pervading fear, they touch on events, on places, on people, just once, just enough to leave a mark, and then they’re gone. Shuffled along. The shuttle passed back.)
When that awful, biting tingling starts, Kibum stops poking their stomach and lets their hands wander to the call of the veil; they dip their fingertips into the mirror, swirling them through the surface and wondering at the silver viscosity of the glass.
Like water, the mirror parts around him as they slip through.
Their bare feet land on pale wood decking, made warm by the gentle sun. Beyond the little steps lies a small stretch of grass, the colour of late summer. The garden is small and familiar, though they don’t think they’ve ever been here before; it's a strange feeling, as though they have crawled inside their own dreams.
Surrounding the garden is a high wall, the top of which looks like a wave, red brick tiles floating on the ocean of creamy white stone, and snuggled in the left corner there sits a calm blue shed, far enough away to look fit for fairies but close enough that Kibum can see the every petal in the tiny flowerboxes. If they squint. Slender trees arch over the shed, framing it perfectly. The walls seemingly trap warmth, the air shimmering with faint heat; the sun's rays seep below Kibum's skin to warm their bones.
One wall hides beneath a trellis of emerald leaves and pink roses. Other flowers bloom in tiered flowerpots, hints of brown in the stems but leaves as green as ever. The jardinières are joined on the deck beside them by a simple, iron-wrought table and chairs. Each elegant chair has it’s own cushion, pastel thread stitched into flowers and birds, and beyond the head of the table there’s a wood-burning stove made of chipping rosy bricks, logs and kindling piled generously and arbitrarily, as if a young child had been balancing them and they’d tumbled down, unlit on the burner.
There’s a fountain too, the running water miraculously clearing Kibum’s mind, the quiet stream accompanied by the equally quiet chirps of birds flying overhead. There’s a statue of Buddha, or some similar religious figure, cross-legged and meditating in the centre of the pool below the small waterfall. A bird flits down to drink, then swiftly swoops off again, sunlight splashing off its feathers.
Something soft and fluffy touches Kibum’s calf and they nearly jump out of their skin. When they look down, a cat is winding itself through and around their legs, athletically slim but with cream fur so fluffy it looks more soft cushion than cat. Kibum makes little clicking noises with their tongue, little smooching sounds, as they crouch and bury their hands into that downy fluff, enticing loud, rumbling purrs from the feline.
“Aren’t you just gorgeous? So beautiful.” They draw out the vowels, their tone all fuzzy, with that blind adoration for cats one has.
“You’re rather beautiful yourself.” The cat replies.
Kibum topples over backwards and lands with an ‘oomph’ on the deck.
“I’m going mad.” They tell the sky.
“That’s a shame.” The cat murmurs mildly, nuzzling its tiny wet nose into Kibum’s palm.
“You are talking, aren’t you? It isn’t in my head?” Kibum sits up, cross-legged on the floor, subconsciously stroking the cat.
“Isn’t everything in your head? Does a physical world even exist?” The cat muses, voice breaking off into happy purrs when Kibum scratches under its chin. “Déjà vu.” The cats laughs in between purring. “Feels like Descartes has come to visit all over again.”
“You met Descartes?” Kibum splutters.
“Dear lord, have you not? I thought everyone has met him. He says he knows everyone who’s anyone. Unless you aren’t worth his time?”
“I’m not of his time, more like. He died ages ago.”
“But did he?” It sounds like the cat would be raising an eyebrow, if cats could raise their eyebrows. Instead, it just tilts its head at them curiously. “If one’s name lives on, can one ever die?”
The thought pulls a startled, interested huff from Kibum’s lips. “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” The cat smiles. “That’s the biggest question.”
“It wasn’t a question-“
“Do we ever know anything?” The cat continues blithely. “How do we come by knowledge? Does knowledge even exist? Surely all ‘knowledge’ we gain is through sensory experience and yet can we trust our senses? Can one trust in anything?”
For lack of a response, Kibum changes the subject. “I read an article recently about there being water on one of Saturn’s moons. They’ve flown a satellite through the water geysers that erupt from time to time through the thick layer of ice, and apparently there’s organic matter in it.”
“You don’t say!” The cat’s tail flicks excitedly. “Oh, I do love new information. Tell me, did they ever reclassify Pluto?”
(Oh yes, this was good. Kibum loves space. Kibum can talk about space. Fuck that nominalism shit.)
“It’s 134340 Pluto now. First, the team discovered Eris, a minor body that’s 27 percent bigger than Pluto and thus the 9th largest body known to orbit the sun. Then the IAU decided that the likelihood of finding more small rocky bodies in the outer solar system was so high that the definition "a planet" needed to be reconsidered. So Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.”
“Oh, the poor thing.” The cat tuts sympathetically. They settle into silence, Kibum’s fingers combing through the long fur around the cat’s neck as the cat itself twists to lick its haunches. Only the fountain, and faint chirruping of the birds, and the cat’s greedy purrs can be heard.
(Kibum thinks they can see a universe shimmering behind the falling water; there’s another one lurking beneath the vines; yet another…)
“Hmm.” hums the cat. “You’re right.”
It doesn’t really surprise Kibum that the cat can read their mind. “But?” They prompt. Because there has to be a price to pay. Nowhere can be so perfect.
The cat laughs again. “You’re sharp, pretty one.” Kibum flushes pink even as they shake their head. They don’t need to say it out loud for the cat to hear their fervent disagreement. “Tch.” The cat scolds them gently. “You are.”
“Price?” Kibum says, voice tight with discomfort, desperate to change the subject.
“He has to give the all clear.” The cat flicks its tail in the direction of a statue, shrouded by shadows within a partially hidden alcove.
Kibum doesn’t know how they didn’t see it before. They stand and the cat mews its sadness at being left bereft of strokes before trotting delicately after them as they approach it.
The statue is of carved marble, perfectly smooth. The figure is that of a young man, with strong jawline despite the round face; complete with perfectly straight nose and full lips in a wide, closed-lip smile that doesn’t seem to meet his eyes, the stone only emphasising the intensity of his stare. The posture is neutral; his hands loosely clasped in front, an intricately engraved ring on his left index finger. There’s a timelessness to the statue that makes it impossible to estimate the man’s age.
“Does he give permission often?” Kibum asks, close enough that their breath ruffles the leaves of the plants that trail down over the statue’s quiff and shoulders like a hooded cloak. Kibum takes the cat’s laugh as a “no”.
The longer they inspect the statue (so finely detailed it really does seem likely to spring to life at any moment), from the faint dimples in the youth’s cheeks to the tiny cracks in his lips, the younger the man seems to look, until Kibum is thinking of him as a boy.
There’s something terribly familiar about him. Without conscious thought, Kibum finds themself trailing their fingertips over the exquisitely chiseled folds of the man’s shirt, startling a little at the coldness of the stone; they’d been expecting the warmth of a live being. Their fingers dance up to carefully touch the boy’s face.
“I don’t know where you could’ve seen him before. As far as I know, he’s never moved.”
“How do people leave then?” Kibum asks, glancing down at the cat.
The creature let out a pitiful meow. “They always leave when I’m asleep, so I wouldn’t know.” It tilted its head at them, laughing slightly, “Don’t you even think about knocking me unconscious.”
Kibum laughs with it. “I wouldn’t dare. I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried to leave?”
“Why would I want to?” The cat mused. “When I have everything to live comfortably here.”
Kibum frowns at that. “What do you eat?”
“Oh beautiful one, I don’t need to eat.” The cat says. Kibum kneels and gently pulls the cat onto their lap, cuddling it in their arms, snuggling their face into the soft fur of its stomach. There had been something so mournful, so nostalgic about that single clause that makes Kibum’s heart ache. The cat rubs its face against Kibum’s bony shoulder, makes a little mew, “You do though. You’re all skin and bones.” Kibum giggles at that.
“I can’t eat either.” They say. The cat doesn’t say anything in response, but it’s a little while before Kibum’s loving hands are able to caress a purr out of it. (There’s a difference between can’t and don’t.)
The cat falls asleep and Kibum lays it carefully in the sunlight, pausing momentarily to admire the way the sun’s rays dust the cat’s fur in gold, before facing the statue again. Kibum doesn’t think enough time has past for the sun to have changed positions but somehow the statue is now doused in sunlight. It softens the statue’s expression into something genuinely happy, and Kibum finds themself echoing the smile.
“Well? The cat is asleep. Will you let me leave?”
The fern mantle shifts and a faery steps through the curtain of leaves, perched on the statue’s shoulder. Kibum blinks but is otherwise totally unsurprised; that is, until the tiny thing flies towards him, alights on their outstretched hand, and looks up at them with the same face as the statue.
“Hello!” The round face is cuter on a smaller scale, less intimidating, and the smile on those little lips is genuine.
“Hello.” Kibum says back, quietly, mindful of the faery’s delicate, elfish ears. “Will you help me leave?”
The faery tilts his head at Kibum, frowning so that miniscule creases appear between his eyebrows. “But you don’t want to go back.”
The faery raises it’s tone at the end so it sounds like a question, but it’s not really. Kibum doesn’t know what expression their face is wearing; they feel a bit numb. The feeling of the faery jumping up and down on their palm to attract their attention recalls them from the empty place they’d retreated to.
“Sorry.”
The faery smiles, and there’s something sinister lurking beneath it. “Don’t worry! So you want to leave? Are you sure?” Kibum hesitates. “Are you sure you’re sure? Don’t you want to stay with us?” The faery asks, excitedly, gauzy wings fluttering in anticipation.
The nagging reminds Kibum of Jonghyun, who in turn reminds him of Minho, and Kibum doesn’t really want to go back, but they do want to leave. There’s a subtle difference made obvious by the pathetic pain in their heart; they miss them. They haven’t seen them in at least a fortnight. They want to see them again, and the chances of them ever arriving here are minimal. Even if they did, they wouldn’t want to stay. And Kibum has a feeling that leaving is a one-time offer.
“Sorry.” They say again. The faery’s face falls, taffy pink lips forming a pout.
“Ok then. You have to kill the cat.”
Kibum blinks down at the faery, then bursts into peels of laughter.
“Very funny.” Kibum laughs, but even as they do so, their stomach roils with dread.
“I’m not joking.” The faery pouts up at them, black eyes wide with sincerity.
“I’m not going to kill the cat. It’s a nice cat.”
“Oh please Kibum, don’t be so childish.” The faery says. Only it’s not the faery speaking, it’s Kibum’s mother, it’s her voice exactly, the same tenor, same accent, same disapproving, disappointed tone. They don’t remember much of her, all the thread and memories messy with youth and inexperience, pricked fingers and harsh teaching. They shiver and drop their hand abruptly but the faery just flaps their wings and hovers in front of Kibum as if nothing had happened.
“Why should I kill the cat?” They spit.
“Because I told you to! And I’m the one who controls if you leave or not.”
“How’d you control that?”
“Bummie, I’m not going to tell you.” Shit, now it’s Minho’s voice. Kibum’s hands are shaking. “Just kill the cat.”
(It’s not real anyway; Kibum knows the cat isn’t real.)
“That cat is nicer to me than you are.”
“The peasant is more pleasant than the warlord but who are you going to obey?”
“Is this a game to you?” Kibum demands.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a game or not. Hunting is a sport until someone gets shot.” Kibum doesn’t even know what the faery is trying to say. “Just kill it quick. It’s asleep, it won’t feel it.”
Kibum wants to be sick.
(How many people have killed the sleeping cat before?)
The faery flies over to the cat and lands on its back, forcing Kibum to look at the feline. The cat’s ear flicks a little but it continues to purr softly, steadily, and sleepily.
(It’s not actually a cat, though, is it?)
“There’s nothing to kill the cat with.” Kibum declares.
The faery giggles, waves his hand vaguely, and then points at the iron-wrought table. “Not a problem!”
A knife glints in the sunlight.
(The cat isn’t real.)
---
Their editor has sent them their Monthly Movie Recommendation List. It appears in their mailbox at the start of every month, the first Thursday on the dot. Sometimes Kibum wonders if they want a list in return, but they never ask, so Kibum never sends one.
Anyway, the film Kibum just watched has them in tears. They’re always tearjerkers, their editor’s films. Stories about family and platonic bonds and pretentious teen angst that leave Kibum wrecked. More than once, Kibum has wondered if their editor isn’t a little sadistic, sending them all these films. Usually they manage to hold it all in but - perhaps because the protagonist looked a little like Jonghyun - they’ve ended up sobbing into their mountain of pillows. It’s been a long while since Kibum last cried.
(Maybe, Kibum’s brain hisses, it’s because you failed. It’s because the cloth is complete and there’s only so much you can do-)
Kibum sniffs. They’re going to write a complaint.
Now, feeling all snotty and disgusting, they clamber out of bed and go to take a shower, one so hot their skin burns red. They put their music on loud and let the water wash away the salty tear tracks down their cheeks. They know crying isn’t a weakness, as such, but just the thought of crying makes Kibum feel so utterly pathetic; they only relax once the scalding water has swept away all residual vulnerability, and they feel like a normal person again.
Kibum gets out, pauses their music, and stands naked in the middle of their bedroom, the cold air flowing over their bare skin, making them feel thin and delicate and fragile. Their bed sheets need changing and they hate, absolutely hate, getting into bed when the sheets aren’t spotless right after they’ve showered, but there are invisible weights tied to their wrists, as a drowned man, and Kibum’s body hurts even at the thought of struggling to change the sheets. So they stifle their thoughts and slip back under the puffy duvet, focusing on how soft the cotton is against them. Not on how dirty and disgusting and lazy and gross and- soft.
Silence settles throughout their little apartment, and these are the moments when Kibum misses Jonghyun and Minho the most. Kibum wishes they were here to save them from their conscience; as it is they’re sinking, sinking into themself, drowning in their own brain. The duvet is oppressive but Kibum starts shivering when they attempt to get out, so they retreat and let the eiderdown smother them.
Kibum blinks and when they next open their eyes, Minho is over the other side of the room, sifting curiously through Kibum’s bookcase and the sheets of writing on their desk.
“Minho?” Kibum murmurs in quiet confusion. What’s he doing here? It feels wrong. It feels undeserved.
“Kibum!” Minho jumps. “I didn’t see you beneath those blankets.” Minho grins, crosses the room to perch on the edge of Kibum’s bed. “Don’t let it go to your head, but I might have been missing you. Just a bit.”
The laugh that leaves Kibum’s lips is the least calculated or controlled noise they’ve made in weeks, a spluttery, happy cackle. Minho’s face crinkles into a smile at the sound. (He always comes back.)
“I’ve missed you too, you oversized kid.” They shuffle aside to make room, patting the space beside them so Minho slings his legs round and lies next to them properly. They curl up facing one another, Kibum below the sheets and Minho sprawled on top of them, content with the companionable silence for the while being. Studying each other’s faces, recommitting them to memory, noting the tiny changes from since they last saw each other. Kibum’s eyes roam over Minho’s tanned, smooth skin, from the tips of his artfully messy, dark hair to the dips of his collarbones peeking out above the collar of his shirt. He has a new bruise around his neck, long, finger-shaped purples and greens. At one point, Minho reaches out and takes Kibum’s hand, dwarfing it within a sandwich of his own large, warm hands.
“Your hands are freezing!” Kibum’s too busy trying not to blush to respond.
Like the quiet, trustworthy warmth of a summer night, peacefulness fills the room, fills Kibum, until they’re calmer than they’ve been for ages.
“Is Jonghyun alright?”
Minho’s mouth twitches into a half smile. It looks oddly mannequinesque. “He’s doing well. Ended up having to cross-dress yet again and he lost his shit for a bit but he’s back to normal now. He’s been missing you too, y’know. Wouldn’t stop whining about sacrificing people to the ether in an attempt to bring us together again.”
After waiting a second to let the overwhelming feeling of being loved die down, Kibum teases, “Well, I’ve definitely been missing him more than than I’ve missed you. Why did the multiverse send me a giant?” and Minho duly over-reacts, huffing and shoving Kibum’s shoulder before rolling over so Kibum’s faced with the muscular planes of his back. Kibum shuffles forward and slips an arm through the gap between Minho’s neck and the pillow and drapes their other arm over Minho’s side, so they can spoon the taller man, bending their legs into the curves of Minho’s, breath ruffling the fluffy hair at Minho’s nape. Minho hums his forgiveness.
“He’ll be jealous when I tell him I’ve seen you. He’ll be glad you’re alright.” There’s a pause, then Minho twists to fix Kibum with that worried, motherly stare of his. “You are alright?” When Kibum doesn’t respond, Minho turns around completely within the cage of Kibum’s arms, blinks at their abrupt closeness, then plows on, “You can trust me.”
“You can trust me too.” Kibum says. They’re not trying to make a point, but Minho grimaces a little and shrugs.
“I suppose you’re right. Even if I trust you, I’m not about to spill my deepest darkest secrets to you.” No, he’s not; he’s never been Jonghyun. “Wait, I’ll tell you one. Did I ever mention my acute fear of spiders?” Kibum feels the way Minho shudders at the thought and they both laugh.
When the giggling dies down, Kibum clears their throat and whispers softly, “I’m just afraid you won’t like me, if I tell you what makes me so…anxious, all the time.”
Minho makes a quiet ‘tch’ noise, pushes forward to brush his nose against Kibum’s. Minho’s low, deep voice rumbles soothingly through Kibum’s bones, “I would never dislike you.”
(He might hate you, though.)
“And I could never hate you.” Minho adds. He must see the surprise in Kibum’s expression because he appears momentarily hurt, then simply, heart-wrenchingly, sincere. Minho’s smile, the way it swallows his eyes and crumples his handsome face into this adorable, boy’s face, makes Kibum’s blood sparkle in his veins.
“Ok.” Kibum whispers back.
When Kibum opens their eyes and finds themself staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling of their otherwise empty room, they can still feel the steady weight of Minho’s big palm resting on their waist and the hot sweetness of Minho’s breath tickling over their cheeks.
---
Kibum hates cutting their fingernails, because then when their skin itches, they can’t use their nails to scratch at their thighs and hips and forearms. (Moth holes.)
Anyway, that’s irrelevant. Right now they have bigger concerns. Kibum has to leave the house - they’ve run out of coffee and they cannot live without wool - but they don’t want to. They can’t stand it. They can feel people staring at them, curling their lips in disgust. They nearly laugh; for all that they told Yeri they weren’t an Omadsiz, they were lying. They’re actually worse; they are far filthier, far more useless and more pathetic.
Kibum’s skin is itching but they can’t scratch it off because then people will stare even more. (Nobody will darn them safe anymore.)
By now they’re pushing open the doors of the main lobby. They pause for a moment at the top of the stairs, just enjoying the feeling of sunlight, the warmth sinking down through layers of skin and fat and other tissues to heat their insides. The sun doesn’t discriminate who it shines upon.
We like nature so much, because it has no opinion of us.
“Hey!” Somebody calls, and Kibum has to fight not to run right back inside again. Their stomach turns and they desperately try to recall everything they’ve done recently.
(Oh God, oh God, what have you done now? Have you done something wrong? You must’ve done. What, what, oh God, what have you done, Kibum? Who’ve you disappointed or hurt or horrified now?)
“Hiya!’ Their neighbour grins as she climbs the steps two at a time, a bag of groceries in each hand. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Kibum smiles back. “I’ve been busy; we must’ve kept missing each other.” The lie makes their throat tighten. “You’re looking amazing!”
She - Kibum can’t remember her name? Even on Bad days, they’ve always been good at names, how have they forgotten hers? - preens a little at that. “Thanks. I’ve finally been making use of my husband’s gym membership.” She’s married? When did that happen?
“How is he?” They ask vaguely.
She gasps. “Oh gosh, you don’t know, do you?” Her face positively shines. “Don’t worry, ‘m not married yet.” A short burst of laughter. Kibum blesses, for once, heteronormativity. “No wonder you just looked like somebody just moved all your furniture without you knowing. I’m engaged!”
“Congratulations.” Kibum grins, and it’s possibly the only genuine thing they’ve said in the whole conversation. “He’s lucky to have you.”
She flushes happily at that. “Thank you. Come on, tell me. Have you got anyone?”
Kibum can’t help but laugh, shaking their head. “Not at the moment.” Not any time soon.
She pouts cutely. “You’ll find somebody worth you one day, babe.” For a split second, Kibum sees Minho in their mind’s eye. The image warps into Jonghyun, then Jinki. Their brain hurts. “Will you have dinner with us? You look like you could do with a decent meal; all skin and bones, you are! It’s nothing special, I just nipped out to grab some things, but-“
“Thanks for the offer.” Kibum says, masking how much the very thought terrifies them. “But I’ve got to…” They shrug, and she rolls her eyes in sympathy.
“Sure, sure. Stupid work! Well, I shan’t keep you any longer. See you around?”
Her name comes into Kibum’s head at the last second, to their relief. “Good to see you and congrats again, Ailee.”
After that Kibum keeps their head down.
Across the road, even as the green man flashes and fades into black and red and Kibum still crosses. Snip. The first heat of summer chases them along the pavement, tossing lost petals into the air, brushing playfully against Kibum’s skin, smelling like hot asphalt and sun-scream and broken childhood. Another knot tied. Into the convenience store, the cold air blasting out the increasing warmth, cutting Kibum to the bone, through muscle and sinew and freezing their very marrow. Snip. And it’s empty, every short aisle a warren of discarded packets stuffed in wrong places and bright colours merging and swirling and blurring across the pattern of Kibum’s conscious, and not a living thing in sight. Kibum’s shoes tread quiet, soft in the silence and hard on the edge of here and there, and when did Kibum last eat and where did Kibum last see Jonghyun and did they ever know Minho at all, and. Snip. Kibum’s hand shakes as their thin fingers grip onto the jar of instant coffee and then there’s a flash of Eunsook’s face, and that girl they once helped years ago, and their shapeless mother, and the flick of a cat’s tail around the end of the tin pyramid at the aisle end and the crash of the glass case- no. Knots tied. The crash of the instant coffee on the floor, and the shattering of worth and the wave of coffee beans over the cheap tiles and Kibum’s feet and the sound of something approaching and.
The cashier smiles at Kibum, a full-lipped, soft smile of faerie origin, dark eyes sparkling like the sun on corrugated roofs and hair like midnight ink. They offer a hand that’s pin-pricked and calloused and Kibum’s on the floor but they don’t know how they got here and they don’t know why, or when or how, but this keeps happening and they’re tired, and sad, and they’ve given all the threads of their soul away.
So they take the hand.
Snip.
---
“Haven’t you had enough?” The young woman jumps at the sudden question, turns around sharply.
“Oh.” She smiles, a dusty thing, an aching thing. “It’s only you.”
“Only me?” Junghee pushes herself off the doorframe and into the room. Dust mites leap into action as her long skirt brushes the dirty floor, wool in the corners and pins between the old floorboards, the yellow walls softened by years of sunlight streaming through the wide French windows. “I’m hardly an only.”
Her friend is paying her little attention, though. “Doesn’t it look beautiful?” She glances away for a second, just long enough to reach out a trembling hand and pull Junghee into place, fussing with the fabric so it hangs just right. “With the light of the sunset falling on it.” She flutters to the doors, open onto the Juliet balcony, as if willed there by a fickle breeze that forces her back within herself once more, returning to Junghee’s side.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Junghee repeats, sliding a hand around her friend’s narrow waist. She rests her dark head on Junghee’s shoulder. She watches, with fae eyes, careful and wistful, as Junghee reaches out and traces a band pale pink thread through the sunset.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of it, Junghee.” She whispers, voice sad, so sad Junghee’s whole body aches with it.
She doesn’t say the rest, doesn’t say ‘not while you’re still unhappy too, and not while these yellow walls and the long nights and these thoughts keep me terrified and trapped and pretending and not while he’s gone, and not when the world suffers, and not when nothing I do is ever good enough-‘.
Instead, Tae kisses Junghee’s soft cheek and says, “The loom just wasn’t big enough.”
---
Return to Part One
Pairing: General (Minho/Kibum, hints of Taemin/Minho)
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings:Strong language, implied depression and eating disorders, mentions of death and self harm
Final Word Count: 15,627
The phone keeps ringing. It ripples through the room, warping and distorting as it bounces off the walls and buries itself in Kibum’s brain, aggravating their headache. At first they attempt to sink deeper into the snowy wonderland of their multiple pillows, but at last they give in and forces themself to get up, abandoning the warmth and safety of their bed. Pins and needles prickle their legs as the blood flows down to their toes.
It’s probably only their editor, so Kibum doesn’t know why their hand shakes as they reach out for their phone. Their eyes catch on the wooden desk, the grain swirling in the shape of rose. When he looks away from the timber table, Kibum is no longer stood in the middle of their bedroom.
They’re in a glass cabinet. Walls on all sides, and no door, and no air holes and. Kibum places their hands against the cool glass and feels, for all the world, like a museum exhibit. Something displayed. Something there for interpretation, but nothing definite, a flexible and immaterial object, scrutinised and ignored and infinitesimally important.
No air holes.
Kibum’s head spins, their stomach floored by the sudden realisation. Fuck, fuck. There’s a pedestal in the cabinet alongside them, no doubt support to something before them, and Kibum groans as they try to lift it. Far too heavy. But if they can just…
On their knees, Kibum leans their whole weight against the solid glass pedestal, panting desperately as inch by inch it makes its way towards the edge of the cabinet. Close, so close, but their ears are full of wool and their lungs of cotton dust and it’s tipping, tipping-
The crash echoes through Kibum’s mind and all through the building. Shards of glass cut Kibum’s bare feet as they stumble out, gasping in air. When the world stops spinning, Kibum winces their way to the delicate iron-wrought railing and stares out across the drop.
The building’s size in beyond comprehension. It reminds them of the loom; the flickers or it dancing beyond their understanding, glimpses of circular places in the past and haziness ahead, tangled threads in the time-space continuum, in places they haven’t lived yet. Across the wide chasm, Kibum sees other cabinets; a glance behind them shows their cabinet just one in…thousands? A hundred thousand? The wide floor hugs the wall, winds up the inside of the tower-like structure, like a huge spiral staircase without steps, a helter-skelter, the incline so gradual Kibum can hardly sense it. And still the glass cabinets stretch onwards and upwards, and each one of them…
Empty.
Unnerved, Kibum walks on, treading softly through the smothering silence. Not down; there’s something deeply disturbing about the darkness when they look down, a black and gaping maw of consumption. No, up, where ensconced candles light the way. The floor beneath their feet is formed of large stone blocks, the wide slabs dipping in the centres from years of use. Use by whom? They pass dark corridors bored into the main tower, the stone roughly hewn, like lice infestations through aged wood; through them, the pale, hushed glint of glass once more.
They don’t get dizzy, even as hours, or maybe years, pass by.
And then there is something, in a display case. Kibum looks up, then, and ahead, stretching around and up the curve of the stone tower, glass and more glass full of things; heavy coats and tapestries and jewellery and statues and shrunken heads and dolls and more, more their eyes can’t make out. They return their attention to the first full case beside them.
It’s a loop of human teeth, gleaming bright and threatening, threaded into a necklace. There’s a placard beside the plinth, reading ‘Izwe Mamlakat’ in small, neat, studious handwriting. They shudder at the memory. Kibum leans forward, and the movement passes candlelight over the wet ink.
The shuffle of something across stone. Something not Kibum.
Whirling around Kibum comes face to face with a hooded figure. For a split second, an absurd moment, Kibum flushes hot at the sudden outlandishness of their pyjamas, and then they’re backing up, the glass cold through the thin cotton material, cold against Kibum’s spine.
The figure doesn’t move. There’s an aching familiarity to the curves of the humanoid creature’s jaw, this bone-deep recognition that pierces even this odd habit-like garment, but Kibum’s unsure if they know this creature as friend or foe. So, carefully, Kibum peels away from the cabinet, edging around them and walking backwards carefully up the eternal slope, hands held out in front of them, placatingly, peacefully, adrenaline readying each limb in Kibum’s body for self-defence.
Softly, for disturbing the silence and in fear of sparking aggression, Kibum says, “I’ll just be going now. Thank you.”
Glancing back at regular intervals, Kibum forces themself to walk, until the spirals hide the figure from view and they break into a sprint. Fuck, fuck. Who knows what that was, whether it’s calling for reinforcements, if they offended it, if Kibum shouldn’t be here? They have to find another intercosmic rip, and soon.
Huffing, Kibum plows ahead, up and-
“Fuck!”
“Whoops!” They crash to the ground, bringing the foreign creature down with them. Hands on their elbow.
“Get away from me!” Kibum yells, momentarily forgetting where they are, the echo reminding them with dreadful certainty.
Another hooded figure; this one stands and, even as Kibum stumbles away on bloody feet, advances fast, latches onto Kibum with a human hand and slams another hand over Kibum’s mouth then drags them bodily into the nearest off-reaching corridor.
Under the cover of the shadows, the human yanks their hood off.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Kibum splutters, rushing to take in the person’s wide, soft face and sharp jaw, straight nose and thick eyebrows, intense eyes and puffy lips. “I should be asking you that!”
“Race?” The person demands, hands still gripping Kibum’s arms tight as iron.
“Human?” Kibum tries to sound sure but in their confusion it comes out a question.
Luckily their captor powers on, “Supporting?”
Kibum stares back, wide-eyed. “Supporting who?”
“Which side are you on in the fucking war?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Kibum hisses back. “I’m a fucking world-shifter!”
“You’re an…oh.” The person deflates, until it almost seems to be Kibum holding them up. “Eunsook.” The person mutters, distractedly. “She/her pronouns.”
“They/them. Kibum.”
“Kibum, hey?” Eunsook slumps onto the floor, leaning back against the wall of the tunnel. “Nice to meet you.” She doesn’t look at them, just stares straight ahead, and Kibum’s not sure if it’s because the adrenaline has sapped her strength or because she’s thinking.
Kibum crouches down next to her awkwardly. “You too.”
Eunsook’s hand shoots out again to clasp their forearm. “Wait, did anyone else see you?”
Kibum tenses again. “Yes.”
“Shit. Fuck. Look, follow me, and whatever you do, don’t touch the glass.” Eunsook stands, pulling Kibum upright, and bursts into a run down the corridor, away from the main tower, almost soundlessly. Kibum’s head whirls at the development, the smack of their feet on the floor painful but thankfully quieter than if they wore shoes. “Fuck!” Eunsook gasps breathlessly, pulling Kibum out of the light and down another offshoot corridor, holding a finger to her lips.
The hooded human glides past silently. Kibum waits and waits and then leans carefully, silently, forward and whispers next to her ear, “Eunsook, I shifted into a cabinet and broke it to get out.”
She turns to them, eyes wide with horror.
“Are they going to kill me?” Kibum breathes.
“Not,” Eunsook huffs back, the horror shoved aside by some unearthly fire. Kibum thinks the sight heavenly, “If we run fast enough.”
And so they run. Darting across huge corridors of stone, their reflections hounding them in glass cases like haunting ghosts, slipping into shadowy cracks and hidden store cupboards.
“Who are you?” Kibum pants, in one such cupboard, arms wide to suck in as much oxygen as possible.
“Espionage for the other side. The losing one. For the people these bastards destroy and collect.” Eunsook spits after a second. “Not any longer, though.”
Kibum’s chest winces. They’re not supposed to make things worse. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” The very base of Kibum’s tummy aches with the reassurance. “If I stayed a moment longer, I’d have gone mad.” Kibum sighs, a deep shuddery thing. Eunsook eyes them for a long moment, and then mumbles, “I’ve shifted worlds once.”
“Shit.”
“Intercosmic rips don’t move, right?”
“Not the big ones.” Kibum says, not mentioning how their entire room back home has apparently become a tear in the fabric of reality, heart hammering the thrum of hope in their chest.
Eunsook offers Kibum her hand and she doesn’t let go, palm sweat slick against Kibum’s, as they dash out and up, ducking and weaving, sneak past clusters of hoods, past display cases that stare back at them, not even as they come to a huge staircase, steep and treacherous.
At the very top, Eunsook pulls Kibum back from almost topping headfirst over a low guardrail and into oblivion. They’re on a narrow strip running around the edge of the huge skylight at the zenith of the main tower. Kibum feels their stomach drop at the height. Trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline and fear, they shuffle around the edge until Eunsook tugs on Kibum’s hand, and points. First, down where Kibum squints at a black mass teeming up the wide spiralling floor, heart palpitating at the realisation that it’s the hoods coming for them. Then, right out, over the edge.
Kibum feels their mouth go dry. Yet, even as their head spins, Kibum can sense the slash in the material of the universe hovering over the ledge. They’ll have to jump off. Fall a little way down.
Kibum doesn’t ask how Eunsook found it but they’ve always been good at guessing. So they give Eunsook’s fingers an extra squeeze, and then let go, pushing Eunsook gently back away from the edge. Towards the stairs, like a reminder to go down that way.
“Will you be ok?” Eunsook asks, voice suddenly soft, her voice hardly audible above the rush of cloaks moving, rising up from below.
“Will you?” Kibum asks in return. Eunsook smiles, a smile like iron and blood and promises kept, already hitching up her cloak and withdrawing a knife from a strap around her thigh.
Kibum grits their teeth, prays that the threads of fate are kind for once, and jumps.
---
Kibum stands in front of the mirror in their bathroom. Their black roots are starting to show and they glare at them half-heartedly; Kibum can’t decide if the ebony fading to lavender looks bad. Not that anyone will be seeing it, but. Kibum sighs.
(They feel worn thin, like old socks or a carpet, or a shawl in need of darning. They’re stretched too far, so far that nowhere they can do enough. Or else, and worse, so much worse, a dark and pervading fear, they touch on events, on places, on people, just once, just enough to leave a mark, and then they’re gone. Shuffled along. The shuttle passed back.)
When that awful, biting tingling starts, Kibum stops poking their stomach and lets their hands wander to the call of the veil; they dip their fingertips into the mirror, swirling them through the surface and wondering at the silver viscosity of the glass.
Like water, the mirror parts around him as they slip through.
Their bare feet land on pale wood decking, made warm by the gentle sun. Beyond the little steps lies a small stretch of grass, the colour of late summer. The garden is small and familiar, though they don’t think they’ve ever been here before; it's a strange feeling, as though they have crawled inside their own dreams.
Surrounding the garden is a high wall, the top of which looks like a wave, red brick tiles floating on the ocean of creamy white stone, and snuggled in the left corner there sits a calm blue shed, far enough away to look fit for fairies but close enough that Kibum can see the every petal in the tiny flowerboxes. If they squint. Slender trees arch over the shed, framing it perfectly. The walls seemingly trap warmth, the air shimmering with faint heat; the sun's rays seep below Kibum's skin to warm their bones.
One wall hides beneath a trellis of emerald leaves and pink roses. Other flowers bloom in tiered flowerpots, hints of brown in the stems but leaves as green as ever. The jardinières are joined on the deck beside them by a simple, iron-wrought table and chairs. Each elegant chair has it’s own cushion, pastel thread stitched into flowers and birds, and beyond the head of the table there’s a wood-burning stove made of chipping rosy bricks, logs and kindling piled generously and arbitrarily, as if a young child had been balancing them and they’d tumbled down, unlit on the burner.
There’s a fountain too, the running water miraculously clearing Kibum’s mind, the quiet stream accompanied by the equally quiet chirps of birds flying overhead. There’s a statue of Buddha, or some similar religious figure, cross-legged and meditating in the centre of the pool below the small waterfall. A bird flits down to drink, then swiftly swoops off again, sunlight splashing off its feathers.
Something soft and fluffy touches Kibum’s calf and they nearly jump out of their skin. When they look down, a cat is winding itself through and around their legs, athletically slim but with cream fur so fluffy it looks more soft cushion than cat. Kibum makes little clicking noises with their tongue, little smooching sounds, as they crouch and bury their hands into that downy fluff, enticing loud, rumbling purrs from the feline.
“Aren’t you just gorgeous? So beautiful.” They draw out the vowels, their tone all fuzzy, with that blind adoration for cats one has.
“You’re rather beautiful yourself.” The cat replies.
Kibum topples over backwards and lands with an ‘oomph’ on the deck.
“I’m going mad.” They tell the sky.
“That’s a shame.” The cat murmurs mildly, nuzzling its tiny wet nose into Kibum’s palm.
“You are talking, aren’t you? It isn’t in my head?” Kibum sits up, cross-legged on the floor, subconsciously stroking the cat.
“Isn’t everything in your head? Does a physical world even exist?” The cat muses, voice breaking off into happy purrs when Kibum scratches under its chin. “Déjà vu.” The cats laughs in between purring. “Feels like Descartes has come to visit all over again.”
“You met Descartes?” Kibum splutters.
“Dear lord, have you not? I thought everyone has met him. He says he knows everyone who’s anyone. Unless you aren’t worth his time?”
“I’m not of his time, more like. He died ages ago.”
“But did he?” It sounds like the cat would be raising an eyebrow, if cats could raise their eyebrows. Instead, it just tilts its head at them curiously. “If one’s name lives on, can one ever die?”
The thought pulls a startled, interested huff from Kibum’s lips. “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” The cat smiles. “That’s the biggest question.”
“It wasn’t a question-“
“Do we ever know anything?” The cat continues blithely. “How do we come by knowledge? Does knowledge even exist? Surely all ‘knowledge’ we gain is through sensory experience and yet can we trust our senses? Can one trust in anything?”
For lack of a response, Kibum changes the subject. “I read an article recently about there being water on one of Saturn’s moons. They’ve flown a satellite through the water geysers that erupt from time to time through the thick layer of ice, and apparently there’s organic matter in it.”
“You don’t say!” The cat’s tail flicks excitedly. “Oh, I do love new information. Tell me, did they ever reclassify Pluto?”
(Oh yes, this was good. Kibum loves space. Kibum can talk about space. Fuck that nominalism shit.)
“It’s 134340 Pluto now. First, the team discovered Eris, a minor body that’s 27 percent bigger than Pluto and thus the 9th largest body known to orbit the sun. Then the IAU decided that the likelihood of finding more small rocky bodies in the outer solar system was so high that the definition "a planet" needed to be reconsidered. So Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.”
“Oh, the poor thing.” The cat tuts sympathetically. They settle into silence, Kibum’s fingers combing through the long fur around the cat’s neck as the cat itself twists to lick its haunches. Only the fountain, and faint chirruping of the birds, and the cat’s greedy purrs can be heard.
(Kibum thinks they can see a universe shimmering behind the falling water; there’s another one lurking beneath the vines; yet another…)
“Hmm.” hums the cat. “You’re right.”
It doesn’t really surprise Kibum that the cat can read their mind. “But?” They prompt. Because there has to be a price to pay. Nowhere can be so perfect.
The cat laughs again. “You’re sharp, pretty one.” Kibum flushes pink even as they shake their head. They don’t need to say it out loud for the cat to hear their fervent disagreement. “Tch.” The cat scolds them gently. “You are.”
“Price?” Kibum says, voice tight with discomfort, desperate to change the subject.
“He has to give the all clear.” The cat flicks its tail in the direction of a statue, shrouded by shadows within a partially hidden alcove.
Kibum doesn’t know how they didn’t see it before. They stand and the cat mews its sadness at being left bereft of strokes before trotting delicately after them as they approach it.
The statue is of carved marble, perfectly smooth. The figure is that of a young man, with strong jawline despite the round face; complete with perfectly straight nose and full lips in a wide, closed-lip smile that doesn’t seem to meet his eyes, the stone only emphasising the intensity of his stare. The posture is neutral; his hands loosely clasped in front, an intricately engraved ring on his left index finger. There’s a timelessness to the statue that makes it impossible to estimate the man’s age.
“Does he give permission often?” Kibum asks, close enough that their breath ruffles the leaves of the plants that trail down over the statue’s quiff and shoulders like a hooded cloak. Kibum takes the cat’s laugh as a “no”.
The longer they inspect the statue (so finely detailed it really does seem likely to spring to life at any moment), from the faint dimples in the youth’s cheeks to the tiny cracks in his lips, the younger the man seems to look, until Kibum is thinking of him as a boy.
There’s something terribly familiar about him. Without conscious thought, Kibum finds themself trailing their fingertips over the exquisitely chiseled folds of the man’s shirt, startling a little at the coldness of the stone; they’d been expecting the warmth of a live being. Their fingers dance up to carefully touch the boy’s face.
“I don’t know where you could’ve seen him before. As far as I know, he’s never moved.”
“How do people leave then?” Kibum asks, glancing down at the cat.
The creature let out a pitiful meow. “They always leave when I’m asleep, so I wouldn’t know.” It tilted its head at them, laughing slightly, “Don’t you even think about knocking me unconscious.”
Kibum laughs with it. “I wouldn’t dare. I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried to leave?”
“Why would I want to?” The cat mused. “When I have everything to live comfortably here.”
Kibum frowns at that. “What do you eat?”
“Oh beautiful one, I don’t need to eat.” The cat says. Kibum kneels and gently pulls the cat onto their lap, cuddling it in their arms, snuggling their face into the soft fur of its stomach. There had been something so mournful, so nostalgic about that single clause that makes Kibum’s heart ache. The cat rubs its face against Kibum’s bony shoulder, makes a little mew, “You do though. You’re all skin and bones.” Kibum giggles at that.
“I can’t eat either.” They say. The cat doesn’t say anything in response, but it’s a little while before Kibum’s loving hands are able to caress a purr out of it. (There’s a difference between can’t and don’t.)
The cat falls asleep and Kibum lays it carefully in the sunlight, pausing momentarily to admire the way the sun’s rays dust the cat’s fur in gold, before facing the statue again. Kibum doesn’t think enough time has past for the sun to have changed positions but somehow the statue is now doused in sunlight. It softens the statue’s expression into something genuinely happy, and Kibum finds themself echoing the smile.
“Well? The cat is asleep. Will you let me leave?”
The fern mantle shifts and a faery steps through the curtain of leaves, perched on the statue’s shoulder. Kibum blinks but is otherwise totally unsurprised; that is, until the tiny thing flies towards him, alights on their outstretched hand, and looks up at them with the same face as the statue.
“Hello!” The round face is cuter on a smaller scale, less intimidating, and the smile on those little lips is genuine.
“Hello.” Kibum says back, quietly, mindful of the faery’s delicate, elfish ears. “Will you help me leave?”
The faery tilts his head at Kibum, frowning so that miniscule creases appear between his eyebrows. “But you don’t want to go back.”
The faery raises it’s tone at the end so it sounds like a question, but it’s not really. Kibum doesn’t know what expression their face is wearing; they feel a bit numb. The feeling of the faery jumping up and down on their palm to attract their attention recalls them from the empty place they’d retreated to.
“Sorry.”
The faery smiles, and there’s something sinister lurking beneath it. “Don’t worry! So you want to leave? Are you sure?” Kibum hesitates. “Are you sure you’re sure? Don’t you want to stay with us?” The faery asks, excitedly, gauzy wings fluttering in anticipation.
The nagging reminds Kibum of Jonghyun, who in turn reminds him of Minho, and Kibum doesn’t really want to go back, but they do want to leave. There’s a subtle difference made obvious by the pathetic pain in their heart; they miss them. They haven’t seen them in at least a fortnight. They want to see them again, and the chances of them ever arriving here are minimal. Even if they did, they wouldn’t want to stay. And Kibum has a feeling that leaving is a one-time offer.
“Sorry.” They say again. The faery’s face falls, taffy pink lips forming a pout.
“Ok then. You have to kill the cat.”
Kibum blinks down at the faery, then bursts into peels of laughter.
“Very funny.” Kibum laughs, but even as they do so, their stomach roils with dread.
“I’m not joking.” The faery pouts up at them, black eyes wide with sincerity.
“I’m not going to kill the cat. It’s a nice cat.”
“Oh please Kibum, don’t be so childish.” The faery says. Only it’s not the faery speaking, it’s Kibum’s mother, it’s her voice exactly, the same tenor, same accent, same disapproving, disappointed tone. They don’t remember much of her, all the thread and memories messy with youth and inexperience, pricked fingers and harsh teaching. They shiver and drop their hand abruptly but the faery just flaps their wings and hovers in front of Kibum as if nothing had happened.
“Why should I kill the cat?” They spit.
“Because I told you to! And I’m the one who controls if you leave or not.”
“How’d you control that?”
“Bummie, I’m not going to tell you.” Shit, now it’s Minho’s voice. Kibum’s hands are shaking. “Just kill the cat.”
(It’s not real anyway; Kibum knows the cat isn’t real.)
“That cat is nicer to me than you are.”
“The peasant is more pleasant than the warlord but who are you going to obey?”
“Is this a game to you?” Kibum demands.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a game or not. Hunting is a sport until someone gets shot.” Kibum doesn’t even know what the faery is trying to say. “Just kill it quick. It’s asleep, it won’t feel it.”
Kibum wants to be sick.
(How many people have killed the sleeping cat before?)
The faery flies over to the cat and lands on its back, forcing Kibum to look at the feline. The cat’s ear flicks a little but it continues to purr softly, steadily, and sleepily.
(It’s not actually a cat, though, is it?)
“There’s nothing to kill the cat with.” Kibum declares.
The faery giggles, waves his hand vaguely, and then points at the iron-wrought table. “Not a problem!”
A knife glints in the sunlight.
(The cat isn’t real.)
---
Their editor has sent them their Monthly Movie Recommendation List. It appears in their mailbox at the start of every month, the first Thursday on the dot. Sometimes Kibum wonders if they want a list in return, but they never ask, so Kibum never sends one.
Anyway, the film Kibum just watched has them in tears. They’re always tearjerkers, their editor’s films. Stories about family and platonic bonds and pretentious teen angst that leave Kibum wrecked. More than once, Kibum has wondered if their editor isn’t a little sadistic, sending them all these films. Usually they manage to hold it all in but - perhaps because the protagonist looked a little like Jonghyun - they’ve ended up sobbing into their mountain of pillows. It’s been a long while since Kibum last cried.
(Maybe, Kibum’s brain hisses, it’s because you failed. It’s because the cloth is complete and there’s only so much you can do-)
Kibum sniffs. They’re going to write a complaint.
Now, feeling all snotty and disgusting, they clamber out of bed and go to take a shower, one so hot their skin burns red. They put their music on loud and let the water wash away the salty tear tracks down their cheeks. They know crying isn’t a weakness, as such, but just the thought of crying makes Kibum feel so utterly pathetic; they only relax once the scalding water has swept away all residual vulnerability, and they feel like a normal person again.
Kibum gets out, pauses their music, and stands naked in the middle of their bedroom, the cold air flowing over their bare skin, making them feel thin and delicate and fragile. Their bed sheets need changing and they hate, absolutely hate, getting into bed when the sheets aren’t spotless right after they’ve showered, but there are invisible weights tied to their wrists, as a drowned man, and Kibum’s body hurts even at the thought of struggling to change the sheets. So they stifle their thoughts and slip back under the puffy duvet, focusing on how soft the cotton is against them. Not on how dirty and disgusting and lazy and gross and- soft.
Silence settles throughout their little apartment, and these are the moments when Kibum misses Jonghyun and Minho the most. Kibum wishes they were here to save them from their conscience; as it is they’re sinking, sinking into themself, drowning in their own brain. The duvet is oppressive but Kibum starts shivering when they attempt to get out, so they retreat and let the eiderdown smother them.
Kibum blinks and when they next open their eyes, Minho is over the other side of the room, sifting curiously through Kibum’s bookcase and the sheets of writing on their desk.
“Minho?” Kibum murmurs in quiet confusion. What’s he doing here? It feels wrong. It feels undeserved.
“Kibum!” Minho jumps. “I didn’t see you beneath those blankets.” Minho grins, crosses the room to perch on the edge of Kibum’s bed. “Don’t let it go to your head, but I might have been missing you. Just a bit.”
The laugh that leaves Kibum’s lips is the least calculated or controlled noise they’ve made in weeks, a spluttery, happy cackle. Minho’s face crinkles into a smile at the sound. (He always comes back.)
“I’ve missed you too, you oversized kid.” They shuffle aside to make room, patting the space beside them so Minho slings his legs round and lies next to them properly. They curl up facing one another, Kibum below the sheets and Minho sprawled on top of them, content with the companionable silence for the while being. Studying each other’s faces, recommitting them to memory, noting the tiny changes from since they last saw each other. Kibum’s eyes roam over Minho’s tanned, smooth skin, from the tips of his artfully messy, dark hair to the dips of his collarbones peeking out above the collar of his shirt. He has a new bruise around his neck, long, finger-shaped purples and greens. At one point, Minho reaches out and takes Kibum’s hand, dwarfing it within a sandwich of his own large, warm hands.
“Your hands are freezing!” Kibum’s too busy trying not to blush to respond.
Like the quiet, trustworthy warmth of a summer night, peacefulness fills the room, fills Kibum, until they’re calmer than they’ve been for ages.
“Is Jonghyun alright?”
Minho’s mouth twitches into a half smile. It looks oddly mannequinesque. “He’s doing well. Ended up having to cross-dress yet again and he lost his shit for a bit but he’s back to normal now. He’s been missing you too, y’know. Wouldn’t stop whining about sacrificing people to the ether in an attempt to bring us together again.”
After waiting a second to let the overwhelming feeling of being loved die down, Kibum teases, “Well, I’ve definitely been missing him more than than I’ve missed you. Why did the multiverse send me a giant?” and Minho duly over-reacts, huffing and shoving Kibum’s shoulder before rolling over so Kibum’s faced with the muscular planes of his back. Kibum shuffles forward and slips an arm through the gap between Minho’s neck and the pillow and drapes their other arm over Minho’s side, so they can spoon the taller man, bending their legs into the curves of Minho’s, breath ruffling the fluffy hair at Minho’s nape. Minho hums his forgiveness.
“He’ll be jealous when I tell him I’ve seen you. He’ll be glad you’re alright.” There’s a pause, then Minho twists to fix Kibum with that worried, motherly stare of his. “You are alright?” When Kibum doesn’t respond, Minho turns around completely within the cage of Kibum’s arms, blinks at their abrupt closeness, then plows on, “You can trust me.”
“You can trust me too.” Kibum says. They’re not trying to make a point, but Minho grimaces a little and shrugs.
“I suppose you’re right. Even if I trust you, I’m not about to spill my deepest darkest secrets to you.” No, he’s not; he’s never been Jonghyun. “Wait, I’ll tell you one. Did I ever mention my acute fear of spiders?” Kibum feels the way Minho shudders at the thought and they both laugh.
When the giggling dies down, Kibum clears their throat and whispers softly, “I’m just afraid you won’t like me, if I tell you what makes me so…anxious, all the time.”
Minho makes a quiet ‘tch’ noise, pushes forward to brush his nose against Kibum’s. Minho’s low, deep voice rumbles soothingly through Kibum’s bones, “I would never dislike you.”
(He might hate you, though.)
“And I could never hate you.” Minho adds. He must see the surprise in Kibum’s expression because he appears momentarily hurt, then simply, heart-wrenchingly, sincere. Minho’s smile, the way it swallows his eyes and crumples his handsome face into this adorable, boy’s face, makes Kibum’s blood sparkle in his veins.
“Ok.” Kibum whispers back.
When Kibum opens their eyes and finds themself staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling of their otherwise empty room, they can still feel the steady weight of Minho’s big palm resting on their waist and the hot sweetness of Minho’s breath tickling over their cheeks.
---
Kibum hates cutting their fingernails, because then when their skin itches, they can’t use their nails to scratch at their thighs and hips and forearms. (Moth holes.)
Anyway, that’s irrelevant. Right now they have bigger concerns. Kibum has to leave the house - they’ve run out of coffee and they cannot live without wool - but they don’t want to. They can’t stand it. They can feel people staring at them, curling their lips in disgust. They nearly laugh; for all that they told Yeri they weren’t an Omadsiz, they were lying. They’re actually worse; they are far filthier, far more useless and more pathetic.
Kibum’s skin is itching but they can’t scratch it off because then people will stare even more. (Nobody will darn them safe anymore.)
By now they’re pushing open the doors of the main lobby. They pause for a moment at the top of the stairs, just enjoying the feeling of sunlight, the warmth sinking down through layers of skin and fat and other tissues to heat their insides. The sun doesn’t discriminate who it shines upon.
We like nature so much, because it has no opinion of us.
“Hey!” Somebody calls, and Kibum has to fight not to run right back inside again. Their stomach turns and they desperately try to recall everything they’ve done recently.
(Oh God, oh God, what have you done now? Have you done something wrong? You must’ve done. What, what, oh God, what have you done, Kibum? Who’ve you disappointed or hurt or horrified now?)
“Hiya!’ Their neighbour grins as she climbs the steps two at a time, a bag of groceries in each hand. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Kibum smiles back. “I’ve been busy; we must’ve kept missing each other.” The lie makes their throat tighten. “You’re looking amazing!”
She - Kibum can’t remember her name? Even on Bad days, they’ve always been good at names, how have they forgotten hers? - preens a little at that. “Thanks. I’ve finally been making use of my husband’s gym membership.” She’s married? When did that happen?
“How is he?” They ask vaguely.
She gasps. “Oh gosh, you don’t know, do you?” Her face positively shines. “Don’t worry, ‘m not married yet.” A short burst of laughter. Kibum blesses, for once, heteronormativity. “No wonder you just looked like somebody just moved all your furniture without you knowing. I’m engaged!”
“Congratulations.” Kibum grins, and it’s possibly the only genuine thing they’ve said in the whole conversation. “He’s lucky to have you.”
She flushes happily at that. “Thank you. Come on, tell me. Have you got anyone?”
Kibum can’t help but laugh, shaking their head. “Not at the moment.” Not any time soon.
She pouts cutely. “You’ll find somebody worth you one day, babe.” For a split second, Kibum sees Minho in their mind’s eye. The image warps into Jonghyun, then Jinki. Their brain hurts. “Will you have dinner with us? You look like you could do with a decent meal; all skin and bones, you are! It’s nothing special, I just nipped out to grab some things, but-“
“Thanks for the offer.” Kibum says, masking how much the very thought terrifies them. “But I’ve got to…” They shrug, and she rolls her eyes in sympathy.
“Sure, sure. Stupid work! Well, I shan’t keep you any longer. See you around?”
Her name comes into Kibum’s head at the last second, to their relief. “Good to see you and congrats again, Ailee.”
After that Kibum keeps their head down.
Across the road, even as the green man flashes and fades into black and red and Kibum still crosses. Snip. The first heat of summer chases them along the pavement, tossing lost petals into the air, brushing playfully against Kibum’s skin, smelling like hot asphalt and sun-scream and broken childhood. Another knot tied. Into the convenience store, the cold air blasting out the increasing warmth, cutting Kibum to the bone, through muscle and sinew and freezing their very marrow. Snip. And it’s empty, every short aisle a warren of discarded packets stuffed in wrong places and bright colours merging and swirling and blurring across the pattern of Kibum’s conscious, and not a living thing in sight. Kibum’s shoes tread quiet, soft in the silence and hard on the edge of here and there, and when did Kibum last eat and where did Kibum last see Jonghyun and did they ever know Minho at all, and. Snip. Kibum’s hand shakes as their thin fingers grip onto the jar of instant coffee and then there’s a flash of Eunsook’s face, and that girl they once helped years ago, and their shapeless mother, and the flick of a cat’s tail around the end of the tin pyramid at the aisle end and the crash of the glass case- no. Knots tied. The crash of the instant coffee on the floor, and the shattering of worth and the wave of coffee beans over the cheap tiles and Kibum’s feet and the sound of something approaching and.
The cashier smiles at Kibum, a full-lipped, soft smile of faerie origin, dark eyes sparkling like the sun on corrugated roofs and hair like midnight ink. They offer a hand that’s pin-pricked and calloused and Kibum’s on the floor but they don’t know how they got here and they don’t know why, or when or how, but this keeps happening and they’re tired, and sad, and they’ve given all the threads of their soul away.
So they take the hand.
Snip.
---
“Haven’t you had enough?” The young woman jumps at the sudden question, turns around sharply.
“Oh.” She smiles, a dusty thing, an aching thing. “It’s only you.”
“Only me?” Junghee pushes herself off the doorframe and into the room. Dust mites leap into action as her long skirt brushes the dirty floor, wool in the corners and pins between the old floorboards, the yellow walls softened by years of sunlight streaming through the wide French windows. “I’m hardly an only.”
Her friend is paying her little attention, though. “Doesn’t it look beautiful?” She glances away for a second, just long enough to reach out a trembling hand and pull Junghee into place, fussing with the fabric so it hangs just right. “With the light of the sunset falling on it.” She flutters to the doors, open onto the Juliet balcony, as if willed there by a fickle breeze that forces her back within herself once more, returning to Junghee’s side.
“Haven’t you had enough?” Junghee repeats, sliding a hand around her friend’s narrow waist. She rests her dark head on Junghee’s shoulder. She watches, with fae eyes, careful and wistful, as Junghee reaches out and traces a band pale pink thread through the sunset.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of it, Junghee.” She whispers, voice sad, so sad Junghee’s whole body aches with it.
She doesn’t say the rest, doesn’t say ‘not while you’re still unhappy too, and not while these yellow walls and the long nights and these thoughts keep me terrified and trapped and pretending and not while he’s gone, and not when the world suffers, and not when nothing I do is ever good enough-‘.
Instead, Tae kisses Junghee’s soft cheek and says, “The loom just wasn’t big enough.”
---
Return to Part One