#6 [EXO, Baekhyun/Chanyeol]
Fandom: EXO
Title: Ignite
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Length: 7,080 words
Summary: Chanyeol can create fire from his breath and his hands, but he doesn't realize until too late that a pair of bright eyes set off a different kind of flame in his heart.
Warnings: limited (somewhat) graphic violence
Remixee author: the-maknae
Title of work you remixed: the boy who played with fire
Link to work you remixed: http://followthepanda.livejournal.com/1812.html
The circus has moved to another location, but Chanyeol doesn’t think it will be much different. The sun will set, the tents will rise, the lights will glow with the snap of two fingers, and the audience will be in the same state of awe as all of the other ones have been in. He’s lost count of how many shows they’ve done or how many places they’ve been to. The only way he can tell when they’ve moved is when he wakes up and his cage is jostling on crooked wheels instead of nesting on the freezing ground. Sometimes he thinks they’ve moved when there seems to be a change of staff, but he can never truly remember the rotating faces when he’s so rarely allowed to see them.
This time, he knows they’ve moved. It’s only ever a few moments at a time, but between the gaps of the curtains he spots a pair of bright eyes that he’s sure he would have noticed before. Even though he’s far away, he can feel the warmth in those bright eyes even though they’re just part of the cleaning staff or something like that. Chanyeol wants to get to know those eyes and the person behind them, but that won’t happen. There’s a distance he will never be able to bridge even if he had the courage to.
It’s finally the night. The show will go on as usual, nothing special per say, but it’s finally a night where all of the staff will be in the audience. Chanyeol knows it’s a bit silly, but he can’t help hoping that he’ll be able to find the bright eyes that he knows work between shows and the face they belong to. There’s half an hour before the show starts, but an excited buzz arising from the stands is already audible from his place backstage. He dares to part the thick curtains just enough to see that most of the seats are already occupied. A small section in the front rows is taped off, and it seems that a few of the staff members are seated, but is…
“Ow!” He falls to the ground, massaging his neck to ease the pain of being pulled back by his collar. “Kris, what was that for?”
The boy standing in front of him furrows his eyebrows and hisses, “You know better than to do that. What if the ringmaster sees you?”
Chanyeol avoids the other’s eyes. “I’m just excited, that’s all.”
“How many shows have you done by now? This isn’t anything new. You need to stay careful.”
“I know, I know.” But even a threatening glare and flapping of scaly wings doesn’t stop Chanyeol’s heart from beating faster by the minute.
Chanyeol often thinks it’s a shame that he’ll never get to experience watching a show with quite the same enthusiasm as a true audience member. Even if he were able to sit on greasy bleachers amongst a crowd of innocent spectators, he wouldn’t enjoy it the same way because he knows too much. For every position that one of the contortionists twists into, Chanyeol remembers the hundreds of times she practiced it, each imperfect execution followed by the crack of a whip or the dull thud of a blow. Each time the audience roars in awe and approval, the ringmaster’s sneers of contempt from failed trainings ring in the back row of his mind.
Still, he always bubbles up with amazement with each act even though he knows the acts and performers by heart. There’s just something about striped uniforms and colors flying through the air on trapezes, tightropes, and juggling balls; that something sets off the little jump in his stomach when he sees things he used to think were impossible play in front of his eyes.
So he loses himself in it all. No one is watching him, so he peeks through the curtains and watches Sehun break his usual poker face as he pretends to fall off his tightrope, gasping even though he knows the performer has total control over his balance and will be safe and smirking in a matter of seconds. He shudders as Minseok tosses sword after sword in the air and smiles cheerfully after swallowing them one by one. Even Kris elicits a reaction from Chanyeol though he does nothing but furrow his brow and flap his dragon wings as he stands in place. The audience always does get a kick out of the freaks.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the act you’ve all been waiting for! The freakiest of freaks! Let’s give it up for the one and only… Human Matchstick!”
Shit, he nearly forgot his cue. Chanyeol strides out in his gold sequined jacket (ridiculous, Kris calls it, but Chanyeol really likes it) and a smile nearly as bright while waiting for the impatient hush to take hold of the whole audience. Slowly, he raises his hands, cups them close to his mouth, and begins to blow a thin stream of air. A familiar warmth pools in his palms and grows until a ball of flames trembles in the air, trying to escape his grasp. Soon the fire is larger than his head, and he splits it between his fingers to display it to the eager crowd. Another puff of air twists the flickering heat into soft folds and curved edges until the shape of a unicorn is clear. It prances in his outstretched palms until he gets bored and sends a breath of air its way, and it shifts into hot scales and flapping wings. The audience becomes even more excited when the miniature dragon opens its mouth and roars a stream of smoke and flames - fire within fire. Chanyeol takes a step backwards and makes the creature spread its glowing wings to grow, grow, grow until the spectators shrink back with fear.
One particular movement towards the front rows catches his eye. In the specially taped off staff section someone has nearly fallen out of the edge of their seat with shock - someone with bright, bright eyes. It’s a boy that looks about his age, and even in the glow of the fire’s light Chanyeol thinks he shines a little brighter than anyone else around him. Perfect, perfect, perfect is all Chanyeol can think, and the flames in his hands pulse to the beat of his heart. Until it stutters and stops, and the fire vanishes.
Panic douses his mind with the cold beginnings of a flood, but he quickly turns the faucet off and coaxes a few flames back into his reign. This time, a phoenix is born from his breath, and it circles around him streaming steam until it shoots upward towards the ceiling of the tent and disappears with a clap of his hands and a puff of smoke. He bows as the audience leaps to its feet and sends cheers flying above his head, all collected by the ringmaster’s greed as he welcomes the entire crew back onstage and claps Chanyeol on the shoulder very, very hard.
“Idiot.” The hiss burns in Chanyeol’s ears, but he’s not sure whether it’s the words of the ringmaster or the whips that stings. “Why would you choose to mess up now when you’ve finally gotten better during daily training? Do you miss spending your nights in a cage with the tigers? I’m sure they’d be glad to see you again.”
Chanyeol opens his mouth to respond, but a rough fist and the taste of blood block the words from coming out. Another crack of the whip on his back and he feel his resolve crack as well. Streaks of his stage makeup swirl in the blood dripping on the floor and his trembling hands, specks of glitter getting lost in dark crimson.
The ringmaster leans down until his hot, filthy breath stains Chanyeol’s bruised neck. “You’re a freak. And not even a good one at that.”
The look in the assistant’s eyes as he locks Chanyeol behind iron bars might be apologetic, but Chanyeol can’t really tell seeing as his vision is starting to sport with dark patches of incompetence. At least he’s not with the tigers tonight. Who knows, maybe the coldness of the metal rods surrounding him will let his bruises lighten a little.
“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?” The whisper is so soft that it barely makes it across the tent to Chanyeol, light on his ears but heavy in severity and sorrow.
“Kris… don’t bother worrying about me.”
“All traces of Zitao and Luhan are already gone. No matter how bad it gets, you can’t end up like them, okay?”
Loud memories and Chanyeol’s stuttered breathing alternate to fill the paused silence until Kris’s voice cracks it again. “Never forget the weight around your neck, or else it’ll only become heavier in the end.”
Images flash sharply in the darkness: hungry flames and glinting metal soaring through the air; held breaths viscous with horror; two shining, striped metal triangles left in a pile of rubble outside the striped circus tents. The cuts on Chanyeol’s back burn more fiercely. He decides to surrender his eyelids to sleep, but a flapping of thick fabric interrupts him from nodding off.
“Hello?”
It’s not a voice he recognizes, which is curious. No one comes into the freaks’ tent apart from the ringmaster, his assistant, or the freaks themselves. Yet here someone is knocking carefully at the bars of his cage, and it would be cute if the metal didn’t ring so coldly.
“H-hello? Who are you?” Chanyeol whispers. The lighting is dim, and he can only make out the figure of a boy kneeling at the door of his cage. His eyes seem worried yet still bright, quite bright in fact, but Chanyeol’s probably lost enough blood to be untrustworthy. He’s probably making things up as usual.
“Can you stand? Can you run?”
Chanyeol stares at the other boy, becoming more and more confused with each blink. “What? I think so?”
Slender fingers fumble hurriedly with a set of keys and the empty lock on his door until it opens with a nervous clang, and a smaller hand reaches for Chanyeol’s bloodied one.
“Well then, let’s run.”
A few new bruises start to blush along the edges of the already existing cuts on his calves, but Chanyeol’s too busy running to do anything more than bite his bottom lip in pain. The other boy is practically dragging him along through the thickets of tall trees, fallen trunks, and vicious twigs that seem to go out of their way to injure his legs.
“Can we… slow down?” he pants while practically leaping over a tree stump.
The other boy turns around for the first time and Chanyeol’s grip on his hand slackens, for it really is Bright Eyes. He’s here, right in front of him. Chanyeol never would have guessed it.
“Sorry, are we moving too fast? I just wanted to get you away from there, but it looks like you’re still getting beaten up,” the boy grins sheepishly, gesturing at Chanyeol’s torn pant legs.
“Yeah, I’m a bit tired,” Chanyeol wheezes as they slow down to a walk and their hands awkwardly fall to their sides. He reaches for the black cord hanging around his neck to keep his fingers occupied. “You seem like you know where you’re going… have you been here before?”
“A few times, like when I was bored as a kid and came exploring with my brother or when my mom sent me to the next village to buy things. It’s not too far from here, so we’ll be able to get medicine for your wounds pretty quickly.”
“Doesn’t that cost money? I don’t have any… I’ll be okay if I can just sleep well for a few days,” he starts hastily. Owing a big favor to Bright-eyed Boy from the start might not be the best idea.
Bright-eyed Boy smiles reassuringly, and Chanyeol must be really hungry all of a sudden because his stomach feels funny. “I just got paid, and it’s totally okay. I don’t mind.” He turns back around while reaching for Chanyeol’s hand and tugging, guiding him over rotting bark and around a pile of dung while wrinkling his nose. It’s adorable. Adorable? Chanyeol didn’t know boys could be adorable.
“What’s your name?” he blurts out, realizing too late that he might have crossed a line of hierarchy. Did this count as talking out of turn?
Bright-eyed Boy stares at him curiously before laughing quietly, and Chanyeol winces as he prepares himself to be punished for lack of respect.
“I didn’t tell you, did I? How rude of me. Baekhyun. I’m Byun Baekhyun. I am - was - one of the cleaning staff. Very high-up, classy position, I know.” Chanyeol has never seen teeth as white as Baekhyun’s. “And you? I’m assuming your parents didn’t name you the Human Matchstick.”
Chanyeol snorts, all nervousness evaporated. “Surprisingly enough, they didn’t. They named me Chanyeol.”
“Well, let’s soldier on, Chanyeol, so you can get your medicine faster!”
The next time Chanyeol trips over a broken branch on the ground, he doesn’t even notice the stinging.
After trekking through the forest for the night and next morning, they come across a wooden sign. Baekhyun crows, “We’ve found it!” in victory.
“Found what, the village? This still looks like the forest to me.”
Baekhyun’s face falls a little. “Oh. Can you not… read?”
“We don’t learn things like that in the circus. I joined before I had the chance to learn, so.”
“When… when did you join?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure? I was young enough that I don’t remember when it happened. Somehow the circus found me like this and took me away so I could be trained from the start.”
“The circus found you like what? Like… oh.” Baekhyun finally looks down at Chanyeol’s hands. “So that’s why they felt a little funny. They’re wooden.”
“Ding ding ding! You’re correct! I don’t have any prizes to offer you though.”
“Wait… so you were born with wooden hands? And you were taken away because of that… so do you not remember your parents?” Baekhyun’s eyes are still pools of brightness, but ripples of worry float on the surfaces.
“Yup, I was born with wooden hands and wooden feet. And I don’t remember anything of my parents. I don’t even know their last name - my last name. Ah well, they’re probably glad that they don’t have to put up with a freak for a son.”
They stand silently for a few moments, and Chanyeol wonders if this would be a good time to twiddle his thumbs until Baekhyun speaks.
“I don’t think you’re that much of a freak. I mean, I guess it’s pretty strange to have wooden body parts, but you seem pretty normal otherwise. If I didn’t see your hands, I wouldn’t think you were different.”
“Really? Uh, thanks. You’re nicer though,” Chanyeol blurts, tripping over his words more than he trips over his feet. “For going out of your way to rescue me even though you knew you would be fired. I’ve never known anyone who’s done something so nice. Really, why did you do it?”
It seems like Baekhyun is well practiced with stitching silences into the middle of conversations. His voice is quiet when it starts up again, slowly parting the thick drapes of said and unsaid questions with a cautious answer. “Before the curtain closed at the end of the show, I saw the ringmaster hit you and I heard his whip. It’s not right for someone special to be treated like that. To be reined in so cruelly.” He looks down at the ground and draws faint circles in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. Chanyeol isn’t able to stop thinking about or reply to the words someone special, so he looks up at the leaves. They don’t help but instead seem to be whispering this is awkward in the wind.
“Well anyways, the sign says that the nearest village is a mile away. That’s why we don’t see any houses or buildings.”
They walk the remaining distance without talking, but it’s okay because there isn’t an awkward silence. Too many birds to count string shrill chirps from tree to tree, making the melodies interwoven with ripples of early morning sunlight and dappled leaves. Puffs of wind become syncopated with the rhythm of leaves crunching beneath their feet. A few times Chanyeol thinks he hears Baekhyun joining in with breathy whistles and he smiles, because this scene is more precious than anything the circus could create.
Even if Baekhyun hadn’t been walking so briskly, Chanyeol would have found it hard to keep up with him. There’s so many things to see that he finds far too fascinating not to take a look at. Although he’s been told about villages and the ways that ordinary people live from other circus members, he hasn’t ever seen the little colored houses with laundry hanging outside or the cobblestone streets that pay no attention to conventional flat surfaces. Three houses together are still smaller than any one of the circus tents, but the simplicity of pale pink, green, and yellow walls with a cerulean sky as a backdrop is a new kind of beautiful. He had always been taught that more is better - more sequins, more lights, more fire, more money - but the village seems to have ignored that, and Chanyeol thinks he could learn to ignore it too.
“Chanyeol! Earth to Chanyeol! The clinic is right over here, stop standing around!”
He nearly hits his head on the doorway as he ducks inside, sneezing at the pungent scent of herbs. The owner jumps a little at the sight of him, not used to seeing people nearly twice as tall. While Baekhyun orders the medicine, Chanyeol ogles every wooden drawer and every glass jar, each one looking nearly as old as the frail owner who shuffles around at half speed. Without thinking, he reaches out to the nearest bottle on the counter, spinning it around to look at the colored label. The clinic owner looks up from wrapping the herbs at the noise and frowns at the slightly charred, wooden fingers in front of her. Baekhyun hisses under his breath and pulls Chanyeol’s wrist below the counter out of sight, hurriedly thanking the clinician and taking the medicine and Chanyeol out of the store.
Chanyeol rubs his wrist where Baekhyun had grabbed him, where it hurts but also feels warm with a feeling that he can’t identify. “What was that for?”
“It’s not safe to let people see your hands. If someone comes looking for you and asks about a boy with wooden hands, people will remember seeing you and they’ll be able to find you. Plus some people are just cruel and will treat you like a freak if they see you.”
“But I am a freak. I’m different.”
“You’re different, but not really. You’re not a freak.”
Chanyeol feels heat pooling in his cheeks, but before he can open his mouth a familiar sound rings out from several streets away. “Hey, isn’t that accordion music?”
Baekhyun explains that the bigger villages like this one have annual festivals - this one being the Festival of Hearts, seeing as the lanterns, flower arrangements, and any and every decoration are all shaped like hearts. Chanyeol gapes in awe as Baekhyun pushes him over to an empty side street to help him apply the medicinal herbs, so distracted by the whirls of people and activity that he almost forgets to flinch when cool fingers press against the skin on his back. Baekhyun’s movements are quick and timid, barely brushing against him and the loose bandages keep falling out of place.
Chanyeol turns around and sees that the other’s face is tinged pink, then laughs, “You can breathe, you know. My back’s not going to burst into flames.”
“I know. It’s just that I’ve never done this before.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I can do this myself if it makes it easier, I’ve had to-“
“No!” and Baekhyun’s fingers are suddenly confident, one hand firm against his side and the other tightly wrapping the bandages and herbs in place. “If you do it yourself, it’ll come undone. There. Let’s go see what that music is about!”
Chanyeol follows obediently, but he stops for a second to catch his breath. Baekhyun probably wound the bandages a little too tight around his lungs, maybe around his heart too.
“Hey, I know this! Dancing! Let’s go, let’s go!” Chanyeol pulls Baekhyun into an empty space between the waves of accordion music and the swaying circles of people, hobbling a little on his clunky wooden feet.
“Are you sure this is okay? I mean, your back…”
“You’ve been looking out for me for a while, so let’s have some fun now!” Chanyeol can literally look out for Baekhyun, as he’s a head taller than the majority of the crowd and can definitely see everything. Instead, he chooses to look at Baekhyun as he lets himself fall into the accordion’s familiar croons, not unlike the music played at the circus, and the twinkles in his eyes from the heart-shaped lanterns swaying gently above them. Neither of them can dance very well, so Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s wrists and spins him around in circles, bumping into others who all laugh along. He takes in the thudding of many feet on the stone streets, the rush of energy in each resonating vibration in the air, and the warmth of Baekhyun close to him, and Chanyeol thinks this is the most fun he’s ever had. Something in his heart quickens and tingles, maybe from the transition to a faster song playing, and he wonders if this is how a festival of hearts feels for everyone.
After overworked feet and tired lungs, they make their way to the stalls set up on the perimeters of the streets, and it’s time for Chanyeol to ooh and ah all over again. Too many twinkling lights and the smells of fried oil and sugar wrap around him and remind him of the circus. Subconsciously, he reaches for the black cord around his neck and the cold metal charm burns into his thumb.
“Baekhyun?”
“Mm?” the other huffs through a mouthful of popcorn.
“Is it okay for boys to like boys? Or for girls to like girls? Is it weird?”
Something stirs in Baekhyun’s eyes, a different kind of light that Chanyeol’s never seen before, like the angry flames that the ringmaster sets alight when the lions come out. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know? This is a festival of hearts, right? But I only see girls and boys giving each other hearts, or family members. We don’t give hearts to each other in the circus, literally or metaphorically, so I really don’t know… is it supposed to be obvious?”
A soft sigh is Baekhyun’s only response at first. Then: “People are cruel. People misjudge, say things that aren’t true and believe things that they know aren’t true yet are too afraid to admit. But when it comes down to it, if you’re a person, you love, whether the other person loves you back or not. If you’re a person, you can love any other person and no one can stop you. Boys are people and girls are people, and people love other people, so boys can like boys and girls can like girls and boys can like girls. Love is love, right? Ugh, that sounds a bit cheesy.”
“No, it was perfect. I get it now.” So can I like you?
They pass a few more houses, a thought ringing louder in Chanyeol’s head with every step. “Baekhyun? Do you… like boys?”
“…Yes. Is it that obvious?”
“No. I was just… wondering.”
Chanyeol thinks about how Baekhyun’s eyes are always lit up, how they crinkle at the edges when he smiles, how Baekhyun’s smile is even brighter than his eyes and how his laugh is the brightest. He wonders how something that everybody has or does can seem so special just because of irrational feelings of affection and love. But then he wonders if he is really a person, and therefore if he can really love.
They stuff themselves with the village’s signature foods, naengmyun and ddeokbokki, and a few times Baekhyun shyly reaches over the table to wipe off the sauce that splatters all over Chanyeol’s face, which only makes him splutter more and they end up laughing over and over. Truthfully, Chanyeol doesn’t really stop smiling, because whenever he stops laughing Baekhyun still has a smile lingering on his face and Chanyeol can’t help but mimic him. His smile only falls a little when Baekhyun tells him they have to leave the village that night.
“So soon? I thought the festival was for a whole week.”
“You’re forgetting something here. We’re running away. Every day we stay in the same place is a day for people to catch up with us.”
“Oh. Right.” Baekhyun’s right, as always. Except for when he suddenly grabs Chanyeol’s wrist as they enter the forest and veers sharply to the left onto a barely visible path.
“Where are we going? Do you even know?”
“Nope,” Baekhyun cackles gleefully. “But we’ve been pretty lucky so far, right?”
Right. Baekhyun doesn’t let go of Chanyeol’s wrist until the festival’s heart-shaped lanterns are out of sight.
When their feet give way to exhaustion and the surely spreading blanket of night, they’re nowhere near any villages or signs of housing and have no choice but to sleep in beds of moss. Chanyeol is reminded of the circus’s traveling nights, where the canvas covering his rickety cage blocked the clearness of the stars and almost too much oxygen. It’s too cold now for chirping crickets to comfort him, but there’s the sound of Baekhyun’s breathing and that’s more than he could ask for.
“Baekhyun, are you cold?” His jacket is worn thin at the elbows and a little shrunken, emphasizing the smallness of the curves of his spine and stomach.
Baekhyun shakes his head no in response, but Chanyeol sees yes in his determined jawline trying to keep his teeth from chattering and his knuckles white from squeezing his thin arms. “You’re silly,” he murmurs as he wraps an arm around the smaller boy’s stomach and closes his eyes, hoping that Baekhyun can’t feel his thudding heart through the thin layers of fabric between them.
Baekhyun’s breathing slows down and he relaxes his jaw, surrendering himself to sleeping under the stars. When Chanyeol wakes up the next morning, he feels like it’s the best he’s ever slept despite the cricks in his back.
Chanyeol is content watching the back of Baekhyun’s head bob up and down three steps ahead of him, always letting him lead because it seems Baekhyun is so sure of himself, sure enough for both of them. Chanyeol needs that certainty when he’s not confident in himself, too busy noticing everything Baekhyun to think about if it’s even okay for him to be thinking about Baekhyun so much. Images of the couples from the Festival of Hearts dance through his head, and he looks down at his wooden hands, thinking about how they once held Baekhyun’s wrists. The char marks are fading from his palms after several days without use, but Chanyeol doesn’t know whether they will ever fade enough to him to forget about them.
“Baekhyun?”
The smaller boy suddenly stops walking and swivels around, but Chanyeol doesn’t notice until too late and they’ve slammed into each other. Baekhyun grabs Chanyeol’s forearm to keep himself from falling over, and when he starts to fall back anyways Chanyeol takes a step forward and they’re close, far too close. Faint pink spreads across Baekhyun’s cheeks as he looks up at Chanyeol, not unlike some of the teenage girls with their boyfriends at the Festival of Hearts.
“You were saying something?” Baekhyun mumbles, eyes drifting to the side away from direct contact.
“Uh… I was… when? When do you know? When, you know, when you like someone?”
“Like someone?” Baekhyun parrots. He frowns and wrinkles his nose a little, and Chanyeol has to look away too because it’s that tingly feeling in his cheeks and his stomach again. “Well, if you think about them a lot and thinking about them makes you happy. When you feel bad for thinking about them so much because maybe you shouldn’t, maybe it’s a waste of time, but you keep on thinking because it makes your heart beat faster in a good way.”
“Oh.” There’s a sinking feeling in Chanyeol’s stomach, because that’s exactly how he feels, and how does Baekhyun know everything, how does he do everything the way he does, how is he so wonderfully Baekhyun. In a hurry, Chanyeol starts walking again before realizing he’s going in a slightly wrong direction.
The birds are chirping and the trees are rustling, but this time the silence is awkward.
“Why do you ask? Is there someone from the circus you miss? That you like?” Baekhyun doesn’t turn around or stop walking.
“Not really. Kris - the guy with dragon wings, if you remember from the show - is a good friend, I guess, but I don’t like him. I don’t miss the circus. The last few days with you were more fun than I had in one of the tents.”
It’s not really awkward after that, and they started laughing again after Chanyeol tripped over a tree stump. But Chanyeol almost thinks that Baekhyun catches his eye a little more, and when he changes his bandages that evening, he imagines that Baekhyun’s cool fingers linger on his skin a little longer.
Baekhyun must be a light sleeper, Chanyeol thinks as said boy starts poking him in the side to wake up.
“It’s starting to rain,” he whispers. Chanyeol thinks Baekhyun’s voice blends beautifully into the hushed pitter pattering of drops falling to the ground. A few conveniently fall on Chanyeol’s nose, making him sneeze in surprise and Baekhyun laugh like a small set of silver bells.
“What do normal people do when it rains? Isn’t the Festival of Hearts still going on? How will they celebrate if it’s raining outside?” Chanyeol asks, stretching out his hand to catch a few drops as they fall faster and faster.
“Well,” Baekhyun starts, a smile slowly growing on his face. “A lot of people will probably do this.” He gently hooks his fingers around Chanyeol’s chin, cool with rain, and leans forward until their lips touch. Baekhyun tastes sweet, not like the cotton candy they serve at the circus but something else unidentifiable, and Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do. All he knows is just Baekhyun: his sweet breath, soft sighs heating the skin near his mouth; sharp tongue gently gliding over Chanyeol’s teeth; rosy lips, swelling from Chanyeol’s clumsiness and uncertainties. When Baekhyun leans back, eyes twinkling, he’s taken not only Chanyeol’s breath but his heart too.
“Some people think it’s gross. They don’t like being wet.”
“No, no I like it,” Chanyeol beams. “And we don’t have an umbrella, so I guess we have no choice.” He leans back in to capture Baekhyun’s laughter with his lips.
So they spend the next few days, Chanyeol doesn’t care to count how many, now walking side by side instead of Baekhyun always leading in front. The difference in their strides makes their footsteps perfectly off-beat. And when Chanyeol weaves his arm around the other’s small waist in the form of a question mark, Baekhyun always curls into it like the perfect answer to everything.
Chanyeol has become used to waking up under the fluttering shadows of the fragmented canopy and Baekhyun’s frail eyelashes, hushed whispers of morning sunlight and variations on how much longer can you sleep, stop drooling you lazy bum, you’re so beautiful do you know gently tumbling into his ears. Sometimes Baekhyun’s cool fingers dance in the hollow of his throat or along the slopes of his collarbones and trace meaningless patterns into his skin, and Chanyeol keeps his eyes shut to hold onto the feeling a little bit longer before it evaporates into nothing but memory. This time, the emotion dissipates between quick squeezes of slender fingers before he can register what’s happening.
“Chanyeol, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whispers, but Chanyeol giggles and places a finger on the other’s lips, knowing exactly where they are despite his still shut eyelids. “It’s so nice and warm here. Let me sleep for ten more minutes.”
“It is nice here, you’re right, but unfortunately we don’t have time for that.” He feels a cooler shadow fall over him, maybe the both of them, and he looks up to see thick, furrowed eyebrows and scaly wings drooping just slightly.
Chanyeol’s smile shatters into pieces, now irretrievably lost in the forest floor. “Kris, what are you doing here?”
“You know very well why I’m here. We have to go back. Now.”
Baekhyun’s darkened eyes dart from Chanyeol to Kris and back to Chanyeol. “Go back? To the circus? But why would you go back there when it’s… you know.”
“He hasn’t told you? Well, I guess it’s not something very fun to talk about,” Kris sighs with pain swimming in his irises. Chanyeol fidgets and shifts in place, but it’s not the uneven ground that makes him uncomfortable.
“See that necklace Chanyeol’s holding onto?” Chanyeol looks down and finds that he’s rubbing the metal triangle nervously between his fingers. “Pretty, isn’t it? Too bad for us it’s not just a fashion statement.” One of Kris’s scaly hands reaches under his collar and pulls out a black cord identical to Chanyeol’s.
“These look like cheap little necklaces you can buy at street markets for three dollars, but if you knew what these did you would pay much more to make sure you didn’t have to wear one. Everyone in the circus is given one of these, and it literally makes us closer. You can never leave the circus once you enter it, just like once you put one of these necklaces on, you can’t take it off.”
“But Chanyeol… Chanyeol left. And he’s still okay, so why can’t he stay away from the circus?” Baekhyun stutters.
Kris takes a deep breath and presses his lips together. Chanyeol continues engaging the surrounding twigs in a staring contest.
“That’s not all of it. The necklaces have some sort of tracking device or something that outputs a signal when we’re outside of the circus, I don’t know. If you try to cut the cord or just get the charm off, it’ll only get thicker, tighter, and heavier. So you can better remember your commitment, or burden really, I suppose. No matter what you do or how far you go, the ringmaster will find you and bring you back. He usually sends his assistant to collect the runaways, but I overheard him say where you two were and came here as fast as I could.” He flaps his wings. “If Chanyeol comes back on his own will and not dragged in by the assistant, his punishment might not be as severe.”
“Punishment?” Baekhyun gulps. Chanyeol feels the others’ eyes on him and refuses to meet them.
“Well, the outcome will be the same, but the execution might be cleaner. I mean that literally. The last time this happened was when two of the acrobats, Lu Han and Zitao, decided they’d make a run for it. Zitao got scared and came back a few days later on his own, but Lu Han was dragged in by his collar. Everyone was forced to watch as the ringmaster… heated things up. He makes a whole show out of it, and if it weren’t for all the blood and death, it could be another one of our regular circus acts.
Our ringmaster has quite a temper, as you well know by now. I’m not sure what made him angrier, Zitao crawling on his knees and tugging at his pant legs sobbing for forgiveness - ‘weaker than a newborn rat,’ I believe the ringmaster put it - or Luhan saying nothing at all with his chin high in the air, defiantly refusing to let the tears spill down his cheeks. At least Zitao had it quicker - the first knife went straight into his throat, probably so he wouldn’t be able to make any more sobbing noises. The other four went straight into his heart, but by then most of his blood had trickled down his chest. Everyone had nightmares about Lu Han’s death for weeks on end, some even months. Since he wouldn’t say anything, I guess the ringmaster wanted to make him cry out and beg for mercy, to admit he’s weaker and helpless. But even when the knives flew into each of his fingers, toes, and ears, he barely made a noise louder than a gasp. His blood was everywhere and even if you covered your nose with both your hands you could still smell it.
So either way, Chanyeol is going to die by the ringmaster’s knives. However, if he comes back on his own will and at least pretends to be sorry, his death will be swifter and probably less painful for all of us.”
“All of us?”
Kris’s smile is sad, so very sad. “This is almost entirely your fault. Of course the ringmaster won’t let you miss the show.”
“Why,” Baekhyun whispers, “why would you follow me when you knew all along I was leading you to certain death?”
“I found more hope in your eyes in one moment than I’ve seen in all my years in the circus. I figured there would be more happiness in a few days with you than I’d have in a lifetime trapped in the circus.” And it’s cheesy, but it’s Chanyeol, and that’s why Baekhyun bites his lower lip and only cries harder when Chanyeol kisses the first few tears away.
They don’t exchange words for the rest of the journey, just desperate, constant touches in the spaces between their fingers, circles around thin wrists, open angles of elbows and the empty curves of their lips.
The circus is not dead silent when they arrive, but rather falling into a mute illness that is only partially broken. There’s actually too much noise: unnecessary changing in and out of costumes, props and equipment toppling to the ground when they shouldn’t, and unlit lanterns swishing dangerously back and forth on lines that aren’t tight enough. It’s all proof that everyone in the circus is trying to bury the impending silence for as long as possible. Once they let it smother them they’ll be able to hear each and every one of their thoughts, and that’s the scariest thing of all when you know someone’s going to die within the next few hours. Your thoughts don’t belong to you when you’re frightened, and fencing them in is even harder when you try to force it. You’ll crack, just like a whip in empty air.
And so the whip cracks as the ringmaster calls everyone to the big tent. Everything is set up as it would be for a regular performance, loud striped fabric and bright lights burning into the audience’s backs as they sit on the edge of their seats. Even the spots under the bleachers are free of dirty footprints and crushed popcorn due to too much anxious free time on the staff’s hands. The flaps of the tent are zipped shut, a reminder that once you join the circus, you can never leave.
Chanyeol has been strapped to the wooden board for an hour already, giving last, hopefully reassuring smiles to each person as they trickle in and stare, frozen before anything happens. He only lets himself wince from the tight bands around his body in the moments between gasps and pointed fingers. For a fleeting second, he wonders if he could set the restraints on fire and escape, run away, be free, but then that would only prolong the same ending and the same pain but more of it. As if a response and a reminder to those thoughts, the ringmaster steps on the platform and cracks his whip. Moments later, Chanyeol spots Baekhyun in the front row, shining streams of tears trickling down his face already, and he too tries not to cry.
This is Chanyeol’s last time on center stage. There will be a show like none ever before.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” There’s something in the ringmaster’s voice that is harder, rougher, fiery than usual. Maybe it’s the flames engulfing the metal of the knives he holds in his hands, a dangerous flickering reflecting in his eyes.
“Let this be a reminder to you all: you can find nothing more spectacular than this circus.”
It actually could be quite beautiful, the fire licking the reflective surface of the metal blades and sending fragments of light to explode across the stunned eyes that couldn’t tear themselves away. Spectacular, in fact, if Chanyeol didn’t feel the blade land centimeters from his neck and the quickening of his heart. The wood board he’s strapped to is thin, and as the second knife lands near his hand, he flinches and sees that his fingers are trembling.
He gets an idea.
Flaming knife number three comes soaring through the air, trailing smoke, and Chanyeol snaps his fingers just before the blade pierces the wood. A small flame flickers in his palm and he strains himself to make it grow, grow, grow. The ringmaster is visibly stunned, but there’s nothing he can do but watch as Chanyeol coaxes the flames in his hand to dance not into a fantastical creature, but a shape with two strong, symmetric curves meeting at sharp angles, a shape that looks simple but means something far more complex. Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun one last time and smiles his hardest. He finally lets the tears fall as he sets the ball of fire free, embracing it as it seizes him in its grasp and hungrily licks his body. Chanyeol’s death will be entirely his own to decide, and he decided from the beginning. At least these flames devouring him are his own and not those of cold metal and colder hatred.
And as he falls, he thinks, I give my heart to you.
Title: Ignite
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Length: 7,080 words
Summary: Chanyeol can create fire from his breath and his hands, but he doesn't realize until too late that a pair of bright eyes set off a different kind of flame in his heart.
Warnings: limited (somewhat) graphic violence
Remixee author: the-maknae
Title of work you remixed: the boy who played with fire
Link to work you remixed: http://followthepanda.livejournal.com/1812.html
The circus has moved to another location, but Chanyeol doesn’t think it will be much different. The sun will set, the tents will rise, the lights will glow with the snap of two fingers, and the audience will be in the same state of awe as all of the other ones have been in. He’s lost count of how many shows they’ve done or how many places they’ve been to. The only way he can tell when they’ve moved is when he wakes up and his cage is jostling on crooked wheels instead of nesting on the freezing ground. Sometimes he thinks they’ve moved when there seems to be a change of staff, but he can never truly remember the rotating faces when he’s so rarely allowed to see them.
This time, he knows they’ve moved. It’s only ever a few moments at a time, but between the gaps of the curtains he spots a pair of bright eyes that he’s sure he would have noticed before. Even though he’s far away, he can feel the warmth in those bright eyes even though they’re just part of the cleaning staff or something like that. Chanyeol wants to get to know those eyes and the person behind them, but that won’t happen. There’s a distance he will never be able to bridge even if he had the courage to.
It’s finally the night. The show will go on as usual, nothing special per say, but it’s finally a night where all of the staff will be in the audience. Chanyeol knows it’s a bit silly, but he can’t help hoping that he’ll be able to find the bright eyes that he knows work between shows and the face they belong to. There’s half an hour before the show starts, but an excited buzz arising from the stands is already audible from his place backstage. He dares to part the thick curtains just enough to see that most of the seats are already occupied. A small section in the front rows is taped off, and it seems that a few of the staff members are seated, but is…
“Ow!” He falls to the ground, massaging his neck to ease the pain of being pulled back by his collar. “Kris, what was that for?”
The boy standing in front of him furrows his eyebrows and hisses, “You know better than to do that. What if the ringmaster sees you?”
Chanyeol avoids the other’s eyes. “I’m just excited, that’s all.”
“How many shows have you done by now? This isn’t anything new. You need to stay careful.”
“I know, I know.” But even a threatening glare and flapping of scaly wings doesn’t stop Chanyeol’s heart from beating faster by the minute.
Chanyeol often thinks it’s a shame that he’ll never get to experience watching a show with quite the same enthusiasm as a true audience member. Even if he were able to sit on greasy bleachers amongst a crowd of innocent spectators, he wouldn’t enjoy it the same way because he knows too much. For every position that one of the contortionists twists into, Chanyeol remembers the hundreds of times she practiced it, each imperfect execution followed by the crack of a whip or the dull thud of a blow. Each time the audience roars in awe and approval, the ringmaster’s sneers of contempt from failed trainings ring in the back row of his mind.
Still, he always bubbles up with amazement with each act even though he knows the acts and performers by heart. There’s just something about striped uniforms and colors flying through the air on trapezes, tightropes, and juggling balls; that something sets off the little jump in his stomach when he sees things he used to think were impossible play in front of his eyes.
So he loses himself in it all. No one is watching him, so he peeks through the curtains and watches Sehun break his usual poker face as he pretends to fall off his tightrope, gasping even though he knows the performer has total control over his balance and will be safe and smirking in a matter of seconds. He shudders as Minseok tosses sword after sword in the air and smiles cheerfully after swallowing them one by one. Even Kris elicits a reaction from Chanyeol though he does nothing but furrow his brow and flap his dragon wings as he stands in place. The audience always does get a kick out of the freaks.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the act you’ve all been waiting for! The freakiest of freaks! Let’s give it up for the one and only… Human Matchstick!”
Shit, he nearly forgot his cue. Chanyeol strides out in his gold sequined jacket (ridiculous, Kris calls it, but Chanyeol really likes it) and a smile nearly as bright while waiting for the impatient hush to take hold of the whole audience. Slowly, he raises his hands, cups them close to his mouth, and begins to blow a thin stream of air. A familiar warmth pools in his palms and grows until a ball of flames trembles in the air, trying to escape his grasp. Soon the fire is larger than his head, and he splits it between his fingers to display it to the eager crowd. Another puff of air twists the flickering heat into soft folds and curved edges until the shape of a unicorn is clear. It prances in his outstretched palms until he gets bored and sends a breath of air its way, and it shifts into hot scales and flapping wings. The audience becomes even more excited when the miniature dragon opens its mouth and roars a stream of smoke and flames - fire within fire. Chanyeol takes a step backwards and makes the creature spread its glowing wings to grow, grow, grow until the spectators shrink back with fear.
One particular movement towards the front rows catches his eye. In the specially taped off staff section someone has nearly fallen out of the edge of their seat with shock - someone with bright, bright eyes. It’s a boy that looks about his age, and even in the glow of the fire’s light Chanyeol thinks he shines a little brighter than anyone else around him. Perfect, perfect, perfect is all Chanyeol can think, and the flames in his hands pulse to the beat of his heart. Until it stutters and stops, and the fire vanishes.
Panic douses his mind with the cold beginnings of a flood, but he quickly turns the faucet off and coaxes a few flames back into his reign. This time, a phoenix is born from his breath, and it circles around him streaming steam until it shoots upward towards the ceiling of the tent and disappears with a clap of his hands and a puff of smoke. He bows as the audience leaps to its feet and sends cheers flying above his head, all collected by the ringmaster’s greed as he welcomes the entire crew back onstage and claps Chanyeol on the shoulder very, very hard.
“Idiot.” The hiss burns in Chanyeol’s ears, but he’s not sure whether it’s the words of the ringmaster or the whips that stings. “Why would you choose to mess up now when you’ve finally gotten better during daily training? Do you miss spending your nights in a cage with the tigers? I’m sure they’d be glad to see you again.”
Chanyeol opens his mouth to respond, but a rough fist and the taste of blood block the words from coming out. Another crack of the whip on his back and he feel his resolve crack as well. Streaks of his stage makeup swirl in the blood dripping on the floor and his trembling hands, specks of glitter getting lost in dark crimson.
The ringmaster leans down until his hot, filthy breath stains Chanyeol’s bruised neck. “You’re a freak. And not even a good one at that.”
The look in the assistant’s eyes as he locks Chanyeol behind iron bars might be apologetic, but Chanyeol can’t really tell seeing as his vision is starting to sport with dark patches of incompetence. At least he’s not with the tigers tonight. Who knows, maybe the coldness of the metal rods surrounding him will let his bruises lighten a little.
“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?” The whisper is so soft that it barely makes it across the tent to Chanyeol, light on his ears but heavy in severity and sorrow.
“Kris… don’t bother worrying about me.”
“All traces of Zitao and Luhan are already gone. No matter how bad it gets, you can’t end up like them, okay?”
Loud memories and Chanyeol’s stuttered breathing alternate to fill the paused silence until Kris’s voice cracks it again. “Never forget the weight around your neck, or else it’ll only become heavier in the end.”
Images flash sharply in the darkness: hungry flames and glinting metal soaring through the air; held breaths viscous with horror; two shining, striped metal triangles left in a pile of rubble outside the striped circus tents. The cuts on Chanyeol’s back burn more fiercely. He decides to surrender his eyelids to sleep, but a flapping of thick fabric interrupts him from nodding off.
“Hello?”
It’s not a voice he recognizes, which is curious. No one comes into the freaks’ tent apart from the ringmaster, his assistant, or the freaks themselves. Yet here someone is knocking carefully at the bars of his cage, and it would be cute if the metal didn’t ring so coldly.
“H-hello? Who are you?” Chanyeol whispers. The lighting is dim, and he can only make out the figure of a boy kneeling at the door of his cage. His eyes seem worried yet still bright, quite bright in fact, but Chanyeol’s probably lost enough blood to be untrustworthy. He’s probably making things up as usual.
“Can you stand? Can you run?”
Chanyeol stares at the other boy, becoming more and more confused with each blink. “What? I think so?”
Slender fingers fumble hurriedly with a set of keys and the empty lock on his door until it opens with a nervous clang, and a smaller hand reaches for Chanyeol’s bloodied one.
“Well then, let’s run.”
A few new bruises start to blush along the edges of the already existing cuts on his calves, but Chanyeol’s too busy running to do anything more than bite his bottom lip in pain. The other boy is practically dragging him along through the thickets of tall trees, fallen trunks, and vicious twigs that seem to go out of their way to injure his legs.
“Can we… slow down?” he pants while practically leaping over a tree stump.
The other boy turns around for the first time and Chanyeol’s grip on his hand slackens, for it really is Bright Eyes. He’s here, right in front of him. Chanyeol never would have guessed it.
“Sorry, are we moving too fast? I just wanted to get you away from there, but it looks like you’re still getting beaten up,” the boy grins sheepishly, gesturing at Chanyeol’s torn pant legs.
“Yeah, I’m a bit tired,” Chanyeol wheezes as they slow down to a walk and their hands awkwardly fall to their sides. He reaches for the black cord hanging around his neck to keep his fingers occupied. “You seem like you know where you’re going… have you been here before?”
“A few times, like when I was bored as a kid and came exploring with my brother or when my mom sent me to the next village to buy things. It’s not too far from here, so we’ll be able to get medicine for your wounds pretty quickly.”
“Doesn’t that cost money? I don’t have any… I’ll be okay if I can just sleep well for a few days,” he starts hastily. Owing a big favor to Bright-eyed Boy from the start might not be the best idea.
Bright-eyed Boy smiles reassuringly, and Chanyeol must be really hungry all of a sudden because his stomach feels funny. “I just got paid, and it’s totally okay. I don’t mind.” He turns back around while reaching for Chanyeol’s hand and tugging, guiding him over rotting bark and around a pile of dung while wrinkling his nose. It’s adorable. Adorable? Chanyeol didn’t know boys could be adorable.
“What’s your name?” he blurts out, realizing too late that he might have crossed a line of hierarchy. Did this count as talking out of turn?
Bright-eyed Boy stares at him curiously before laughing quietly, and Chanyeol winces as he prepares himself to be punished for lack of respect.
“I didn’t tell you, did I? How rude of me. Baekhyun. I’m Byun Baekhyun. I am - was - one of the cleaning staff. Very high-up, classy position, I know.” Chanyeol has never seen teeth as white as Baekhyun’s. “And you? I’m assuming your parents didn’t name you the Human Matchstick.”
Chanyeol snorts, all nervousness evaporated. “Surprisingly enough, they didn’t. They named me Chanyeol.”
“Well, let’s soldier on, Chanyeol, so you can get your medicine faster!”
The next time Chanyeol trips over a broken branch on the ground, he doesn’t even notice the stinging.
After trekking through the forest for the night and next morning, they come across a wooden sign. Baekhyun crows, “We’ve found it!” in victory.
“Found what, the village? This still looks like the forest to me.”
Baekhyun’s face falls a little. “Oh. Can you not… read?”
“We don’t learn things like that in the circus. I joined before I had the chance to learn, so.”
“When… when did you join?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure? I was young enough that I don’t remember when it happened. Somehow the circus found me like this and took me away so I could be trained from the start.”
“The circus found you like what? Like… oh.” Baekhyun finally looks down at Chanyeol’s hands. “So that’s why they felt a little funny. They’re wooden.”
“Ding ding ding! You’re correct! I don’t have any prizes to offer you though.”
“Wait… so you were born with wooden hands? And you were taken away because of that… so do you not remember your parents?” Baekhyun’s eyes are still pools of brightness, but ripples of worry float on the surfaces.
“Yup, I was born with wooden hands and wooden feet. And I don’t remember anything of my parents. I don’t even know their last name - my last name. Ah well, they’re probably glad that they don’t have to put up with a freak for a son.”
They stand silently for a few moments, and Chanyeol wonders if this would be a good time to twiddle his thumbs until Baekhyun speaks.
“I don’t think you’re that much of a freak. I mean, I guess it’s pretty strange to have wooden body parts, but you seem pretty normal otherwise. If I didn’t see your hands, I wouldn’t think you were different.”
“Really? Uh, thanks. You’re nicer though,” Chanyeol blurts, tripping over his words more than he trips over his feet. “For going out of your way to rescue me even though you knew you would be fired. I’ve never known anyone who’s done something so nice. Really, why did you do it?”
It seems like Baekhyun is well practiced with stitching silences into the middle of conversations. His voice is quiet when it starts up again, slowly parting the thick drapes of said and unsaid questions with a cautious answer. “Before the curtain closed at the end of the show, I saw the ringmaster hit you and I heard his whip. It’s not right for someone special to be treated like that. To be reined in so cruelly.” He looks down at the ground and draws faint circles in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. Chanyeol isn’t able to stop thinking about or reply to the words someone special, so he looks up at the leaves. They don’t help but instead seem to be whispering this is awkward in the wind.
“Well anyways, the sign says that the nearest village is a mile away. That’s why we don’t see any houses or buildings.”
They walk the remaining distance without talking, but it’s okay because there isn’t an awkward silence. Too many birds to count string shrill chirps from tree to tree, making the melodies interwoven with ripples of early morning sunlight and dappled leaves. Puffs of wind become syncopated with the rhythm of leaves crunching beneath their feet. A few times Chanyeol thinks he hears Baekhyun joining in with breathy whistles and he smiles, because this scene is more precious than anything the circus could create.
Even if Baekhyun hadn’t been walking so briskly, Chanyeol would have found it hard to keep up with him. There’s so many things to see that he finds far too fascinating not to take a look at. Although he’s been told about villages and the ways that ordinary people live from other circus members, he hasn’t ever seen the little colored houses with laundry hanging outside or the cobblestone streets that pay no attention to conventional flat surfaces. Three houses together are still smaller than any one of the circus tents, but the simplicity of pale pink, green, and yellow walls with a cerulean sky as a backdrop is a new kind of beautiful. He had always been taught that more is better - more sequins, more lights, more fire, more money - but the village seems to have ignored that, and Chanyeol thinks he could learn to ignore it too.
“Chanyeol! Earth to Chanyeol! The clinic is right over here, stop standing around!”
He nearly hits his head on the doorway as he ducks inside, sneezing at the pungent scent of herbs. The owner jumps a little at the sight of him, not used to seeing people nearly twice as tall. While Baekhyun orders the medicine, Chanyeol ogles every wooden drawer and every glass jar, each one looking nearly as old as the frail owner who shuffles around at half speed. Without thinking, he reaches out to the nearest bottle on the counter, spinning it around to look at the colored label. The clinic owner looks up from wrapping the herbs at the noise and frowns at the slightly charred, wooden fingers in front of her. Baekhyun hisses under his breath and pulls Chanyeol’s wrist below the counter out of sight, hurriedly thanking the clinician and taking the medicine and Chanyeol out of the store.
Chanyeol rubs his wrist where Baekhyun had grabbed him, where it hurts but also feels warm with a feeling that he can’t identify. “What was that for?”
“It’s not safe to let people see your hands. If someone comes looking for you and asks about a boy with wooden hands, people will remember seeing you and they’ll be able to find you. Plus some people are just cruel and will treat you like a freak if they see you.”
“But I am a freak. I’m different.”
“You’re different, but not really. You’re not a freak.”
Chanyeol feels heat pooling in his cheeks, but before he can open his mouth a familiar sound rings out from several streets away. “Hey, isn’t that accordion music?”
Baekhyun explains that the bigger villages like this one have annual festivals - this one being the Festival of Hearts, seeing as the lanterns, flower arrangements, and any and every decoration are all shaped like hearts. Chanyeol gapes in awe as Baekhyun pushes him over to an empty side street to help him apply the medicinal herbs, so distracted by the whirls of people and activity that he almost forgets to flinch when cool fingers press against the skin on his back. Baekhyun’s movements are quick and timid, barely brushing against him and the loose bandages keep falling out of place.
Chanyeol turns around and sees that the other’s face is tinged pink, then laughs, “You can breathe, you know. My back’s not going to burst into flames.”
“I know. It’s just that I’ve never done this before.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I can do this myself if it makes it easier, I’ve had to-“
“No!” and Baekhyun’s fingers are suddenly confident, one hand firm against his side and the other tightly wrapping the bandages and herbs in place. “If you do it yourself, it’ll come undone. There. Let’s go see what that music is about!”
Chanyeol follows obediently, but he stops for a second to catch his breath. Baekhyun probably wound the bandages a little too tight around his lungs, maybe around his heart too.
“Hey, I know this! Dancing! Let’s go, let’s go!” Chanyeol pulls Baekhyun into an empty space between the waves of accordion music and the swaying circles of people, hobbling a little on his clunky wooden feet.
“Are you sure this is okay? I mean, your back…”
“You’ve been looking out for me for a while, so let’s have some fun now!” Chanyeol can literally look out for Baekhyun, as he’s a head taller than the majority of the crowd and can definitely see everything. Instead, he chooses to look at Baekhyun as he lets himself fall into the accordion’s familiar croons, not unlike the music played at the circus, and the twinkles in his eyes from the heart-shaped lanterns swaying gently above them. Neither of them can dance very well, so Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s wrists and spins him around in circles, bumping into others who all laugh along. He takes in the thudding of many feet on the stone streets, the rush of energy in each resonating vibration in the air, and the warmth of Baekhyun close to him, and Chanyeol thinks this is the most fun he’s ever had. Something in his heart quickens and tingles, maybe from the transition to a faster song playing, and he wonders if this is how a festival of hearts feels for everyone.
After overworked feet and tired lungs, they make their way to the stalls set up on the perimeters of the streets, and it’s time for Chanyeol to ooh and ah all over again. Too many twinkling lights and the smells of fried oil and sugar wrap around him and remind him of the circus. Subconsciously, he reaches for the black cord around his neck and the cold metal charm burns into his thumb.
“Baekhyun?”
“Mm?” the other huffs through a mouthful of popcorn.
“Is it okay for boys to like boys? Or for girls to like girls? Is it weird?”
Something stirs in Baekhyun’s eyes, a different kind of light that Chanyeol’s never seen before, like the angry flames that the ringmaster sets alight when the lions come out. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know? This is a festival of hearts, right? But I only see girls and boys giving each other hearts, or family members. We don’t give hearts to each other in the circus, literally or metaphorically, so I really don’t know… is it supposed to be obvious?”
A soft sigh is Baekhyun’s only response at first. Then: “People are cruel. People misjudge, say things that aren’t true and believe things that they know aren’t true yet are too afraid to admit. But when it comes down to it, if you’re a person, you love, whether the other person loves you back or not. If you’re a person, you can love any other person and no one can stop you. Boys are people and girls are people, and people love other people, so boys can like boys and girls can like girls and boys can like girls. Love is love, right? Ugh, that sounds a bit cheesy.”
“No, it was perfect. I get it now.” So can I like you?
They pass a few more houses, a thought ringing louder in Chanyeol’s head with every step. “Baekhyun? Do you… like boys?”
“…Yes. Is it that obvious?”
“No. I was just… wondering.”
Chanyeol thinks about how Baekhyun’s eyes are always lit up, how they crinkle at the edges when he smiles, how Baekhyun’s smile is even brighter than his eyes and how his laugh is the brightest. He wonders how something that everybody has or does can seem so special just because of irrational feelings of affection and love. But then he wonders if he is really a person, and therefore if he can really love.
They stuff themselves with the village’s signature foods, naengmyun and ddeokbokki, and a few times Baekhyun shyly reaches over the table to wipe off the sauce that splatters all over Chanyeol’s face, which only makes him splutter more and they end up laughing over and over. Truthfully, Chanyeol doesn’t really stop smiling, because whenever he stops laughing Baekhyun still has a smile lingering on his face and Chanyeol can’t help but mimic him. His smile only falls a little when Baekhyun tells him they have to leave the village that night.
“So soon? I thought the festival was for a whole week.”
“You’re forgetting something here. We’re running away. Every day we stay in the same place is a day for people to catch up with us.”
“Oh. Right.” Baekhyun’s right, as always. Except for when he suddenly grabs Chanyeol’s wrist as they enter the forest and veers sharply to the left onto a barely visible path.
“Where are we going? Do you even know?”
“Nope,” Baekhyun cackles gleefully. “But we’ve been pretty lucky so far, right?”
Right. Baekhyun doesn’t let go of Chanyeol’s wrist until the festival’s heart-shaped lanterns are out of sight.
When their feet give way to exhaustion and the surely spreading blanket of night, they’re nowhere near any villages or signs of housing and have no choice but to sleep in beds of moss. Chanyeol is reminded of the circus’s traveling nights, where the canvas covering his rickety cage blocked the clearness of the stars and almost too much oxygen. It’s too cold now for chirping crickets to comfort him, but there’s the sound of Baekhyun’s breathing and that’s more than he could ask for.
“Baekhyun, are you cold?” His jacket is worn thin at the elbows and a little shrunken, emphasizing the smallness of the curves of his spine and stomach.
Baekhyun shakes his head no in response, but Chanyeol sees yes in his determined jawline trying to keep his teeth from chattering and his knuckles white from squeezing his thin arms. “You’re silly,” he murmurs as he wraps an arm around the smaller boy’s stomach and closes his eyes, hoping that Baekhyun can’t feel his thudding heart through the thin layers of fabric between them.
Baekhyun’s breathing slows down and he relaxes his jaw, surrendering himself to sleeping under the stars. When Chanyeol wakes up the next morning, he feels like it’s the best he’s ever slept despite the cricks in his back.
Chanyeol is content watching the back of Baekhyun’s head bob up and down three steps ahead of him, always letting him lead because it seems Baekhyun is so sure of himself, sure enough for both of them. Chanyeol needs that certainty when he’s not confident in himself, too busy noticing everything Baekhyun to think about if it’s even okay for him to be thinking about Baekhyun so much. Images of the couples from the Festival of Hearts dance through his head, and he looks down at his wooden hands, thinking about how they once held Baekhyun’s wrists. The char marks are fading from his palms after several days without use, but Chanyeol doesn’t know whether they will ever fade enough to him to forget about them.
“Baekhyun?”
The smaller boy suddenly stops walking and swivels around, but Chanyeol doesn’t notice until too late and they’ve slammed into each other. Baekhyun grabs Chanyeol’s forearm to keep himself from falling over, and when he starts to fall back anyways Chanyeol takes a step forward and they’re close, far too close. Faint pink spreads across Baekhyun’s cheeks as he looks up at Chanyeol, not unlike some of the teenage girls with their boyfriends at the Festival of Hearts.
“You were saying something?” Baekhyun mumbles, eyes drifting to the side away from direct contact.
“Uh… I was… when? When do you know? When, you know, when you like someone?”
“Like someone?” Baekhyun parrots. He frowns and wrinkles his nose a little, and Chanyeol has to look away too because it’s that tingly feeling in his cheeks and his stomach again. “Well, if you think about them a lot and thinking about them makes you happy. When you feel bad for thinking about them so much because maybe you shouldn’t, maybe it’s a waste of time, but you keep on thinking because it makes your heart beat faster in a good way.”
“Oh.” There’s a sinking feeling in Chanyeol’s stomach, because that’s exactly how he feels, and how does Baekhyun know everything, how does he do everything the way he does, how is he so wonderfully Baekhyun. In a hurry, Chanyeol starts walking again before realizing he’s going in a slightly wrong direction.
The birds are chirping and the trees are rustling, but this time the silence is awkward.
“Why do you ask? Is there someone from the circus you miss? That you like?” Baekhyun doesn’t turn around or stop walking.
“Not really. Kris - the guy with dragon wings, if you remember from the show - is a good friend, I guess, but I don’t like him. I don’t miss the circus. The last few days with you were more fun than I had in one of the tents.”
It’s not really awkward after that, and they started laughing again after Chanyeol tripped over a tree stump. But Chanyeol almost thinks that Baekhyun catches his eye a little more, and when he changes his bandages that evening, he imagines that Baekhyun’s cool fingers linger on his skin a little longer.
Baekhyun must be a light sleeper, Chanyeol thinks as said boy starts poking him in the side to wake up.
“It’s starting to rain,” he whispers. Chanyeol thinks Baekhyun’s voice blends beautifully into the hushed pitter pattering of drops falling to the ground. A few conveniently fall on Chanyeol’s nose, making him sneeze in surprise and Baekhyun laugh like a small set of silver bells.
“What do normal people do when it rains? Isn’t the Festival of Hearts still going on? How will they celebrate if it’s raining outside?” Chanyeol asks, stretching out his hand to catch a few drops as they fall faster and faster.
“Well,” Baekhyun starts, a smile slowly growing on his face. “A lot of people will probably do this.” He gently hooks his fingers around Chanyeol’s chin, cool with rain, and leans forward until their lips touch. Baekhyun tastes sweet, not like the cotton candy they serve at the circus but something else unidentifiable, and Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do. All he knows is just Baekhyun: his sweet breath, soft sighs heating the skin near his mouth; sharp tongue gently gliding over Chanyeol’s teeth; rosy lips, swelling from Chanyeol’s clumsiness and uncertainties. When Baekhyun leans back, eyes twinkling, he’s taken not only Chanyeol’s breath but his heart too.
“Some people think it’s gross. They don’t like being wet.”
“No, no I like it,” Chanyeol beams. “And we don’t have an umbrella, so I guess we have no choice.” He leans back in to capture Baekhyun’s laughter with his lips.
So they spend the next few days, Chanyeol doesn’t care to count how many, now walking side by side instead of Baekhyun always leading in front. The difference in their strides makes their footsteps perfectly off-beat. And when Chanyeol weaves his arm around the other’s small waist in the form of a question mark, Baekhyun always curls into it like the perfect answer to everything.
Chanyeol has become used to waking up under the fluttering shadows of the fragmented canopy and Baekhyun’s frail eyelashes, hushed whispers of morning sunlight and variations on how much longer can you sleep, stop drooling you lazy bum, you’re so beautiful do you know gently tumbling into his ears. Sometimes Baekhyun’s cool fingers dance in the hollow of his throat or along the slopes of his collarbones and trace meaningless patterns into his skin, and Chanyeol keeps his eyes shut to hold onto the feeling a little bit longer before it evaporates into nothing but memory. This time, the emotion dissipates between quick squeezes of slender fingers before he can register what’s happening.
“Chanyeol, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whispers, but Chanyeol giggles and places a finger on the other’s lips, knowing exactly where they are despite his still shut eyelids. “It’s so nice and warm here. Let me sleep for ten more minutes.”
“It is nice here, you’re right, but unfortunately we don’t have time for that.” He feels a cooler shadow fall over him, maybe the both of them, and he looks up to see thick, furrowed eyebrows and scaly wings drooping just slightly.
Chanyeol’s smile shatters into pieces, now irretrievably lost in the forest floor. “Kris, what are you doing here?”
“You know very well why I’m here. We have to go back. Now.”
Baekhyun’s darkened eyes dart from Chanyeol to Kris and back to Chanyeol. “Go back? To the circus? But why would you go back there when it’s… you know.”
“He hasn’t told you? Well, I guess it’s not something very fun to talk about,” Kris sighs with pain swimming in his irises. Chanyeol fidgets and shifts in place, but it’s not the uneven ground that makes him uncomfortable.
“See that necklace Chanyeol’s holding onto?” Chanyeol looks down and finds that he’s rubbing the metal triangle nervously between his fingers. “Pretty, isn’t it? Too bad for us it’s not just a fashion statement.” One of Kris’s scaly hands reaches under his collar and pulls out a black cord identical to Chanyeol’s.
“These look like cheap little necklaces you can buy at street markets for three dollars, but if you knew what these did you would pay much more to make sure you didn’t have to wear one. Everyone in the circus is given one of these, and it literally makes us closer. You can never leave the circus once you enter it, just like once you put one of these necklaces on, you can’t take it off.”
“But Chanyeol… Chanyeol left. And he’s still okay, so why can’t he stay away from the circus?” Baekhyun stutters.
Kris takes a deep breath and presses his lips together. Chanyeol continues engaging the surrounding twigs in a staring contest.
“That’s not all of it. The necklaces have some sort of tracking device or something that outputs a signal when we’re outside of the circus, I don’t know. If you try to cut the cord or just get the charm off, it’ll only get thicker, tighter, and heavier. So you can better remember your commitment, or burden really, I suppose. No matter what you do or how far you go, the ringmaster will find you and bring you back. He usually sends his assistant to collect the runaways, but I overheard him say where you two were and came here as fast as I could.” He flaps his wings. “If Chanyeol comes back on his own will and not dragged in by the assistant, his punishment might not be as severe.”
“Punishment?” Baekhyun gulps. Chanyeol feels the others’ eyes on him and refuses to meet them.
“Well, the outcome will be the same, but the execution might be cleaner. I mean that literally. The last time this happened was when two of the acrobats, Lu Han and Zitao, decided they’d make a run for it. Zitao got scared and came back a few days later on his own, but Lu Han was dragged in by his collar. Everyone was forced to watch as the ringmaster… heated things up. He makes a whole show out of it, and if it weren’t for all the blood and death, it could be another one of our regular circus acts.
Our ringmaster has quite a temper, as you well know by now. I’m not sure what made him angrier, Zitao crawling on his knees and tugging at his pant legs sobbing for forgiveness - ‘weaker than a newborn rat,’ I believe the ringmaster put it - or Luhan saying nothing at all with his chin high in the air, defiantly refusing to let the tears spill down his cheeks. At least Zitao had it quicker - the first knife went straight into his throat, probably so he wouldn’t be able to make any more sobbing noises. The other four went straight into his heart, but by then most of his blood had trickled down his chest. Everyone had nightmares about Lu Han’s death for weeks on end, some even months. Since he wouldn’t say anything, I guess the ringmaster wanted to make him cry out and beg for mercy, to admit he’s weaker and helpless. But even when the knives flew into each of his fingers, toes, and ears, he barely made a noise louder than a gasp. His blood was everywhere and even if you covered your nose with both your hands you could still smell it.
So either way, Chanyeol is going to die by the ringmaster’s knives. However, if he comes back on his own will and at least pretends to be sorry, his death will be swifter and probably less painful for all of us.”
“All of us?”
Kris’s smile is sad, so very sad. “This is almost entirely your fault. Of course the ringmaster won’t let you miss the show.”
“Why,” Baekhyun whispers, “why would you follow me when you knew all along I was leading you to certain death?”
“I found more hope in your eyes in one moment than I’ve seen in all my years in the circus. I figured there would be more happiness in a few days with you than I’d have in a lifetime trapped in the circus.” And it’s cheesy, but it’s Chanyeol, and that’s why Baekhyun bites his lower lip and only cries harder when Chanyeol kisses the first few tears away.
They don’t exchange words for the rest of the journey, just desperate, constant touches in the spaces between their fingers, circles around thin wrists, open angles of elbows and the empty curves of their lips.
The circus is not dead silent when they arrive, but rather falling into a mute illness that is only partially broken. There’s actually too much noise: unnecessary changing in and out of costumes, props and equipment toppling to the ground when they shouldn’t, and unlit lanterns swishing dangerously back and forth on lines that aren’t tight enough. It’s all proof that everyone in the circus is trying to bury the impending silence for as long as possible. Once they let it smother them they’ll be able to hear each and every one of their thoughts, and that’s the scariest thing of all when you know someone’s going to die within the next few hours. Your thoughts don’t belong to you when you’re frightened, and fencing them in is even harder when you try to force it. You’ll crack, just like a whip in empty air.
And so the whip cracks as the ringmaster calls everyone to the big tent. Everything is set up as it would be for a regular performance, loud striped fabric and bright lights burning into the audience’s backs as they sit on the edge of their seats. Even the spots under the bleachers are free of dirty footprints and crushed popcorn due to too much anxious free time on the staff’s hands. The flaps of the tent are zipped shut, a reminder that once you join the circus, you can never leave.
Chanyeol has been strapped to the wooden board for an hour already, giving last, hopefully reassuring smiles to each person as they trickle in and stare, frozen before anything happens. He only lets himself wince from the tight bands around his body in the moments between gasps and pointed fingers. For a fleeting second, he wonders if he could set the restraints on fire and escape, run away, be free, but then that would only prolong the same ending and the same pain but more of it. As if a response and a reminder to those thoughts, the ringmaster steps on the platform and cracks his whip. Moments later, Chanyeol spots Baekhyun in the front row, shining streams of tears trickling down his face already, and he too tries not to cry.
This is Chanyeol’s last time on center stage. There will be a show like none ever before.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” There’s something in the ringmaster’s voice that is harder, rougher, fiery than usual. Maybe it’s the flames engulfing the metal of the knives he holds in his hands, a dangerous flickering reflecting in his eyes.
“Let this be a reminder to you all: you can find nothing more spectacular than this circus.”
It actually could be quite beautiful, the fire licking the reflective surface of the metal blades and sending fragments of light to explode across the stunned eyes that couldn’t tear themselves away. Spectacular, in fact, if Chanyeol didn’t feel the blade land centimeters from his neck and the quickening of his heart. The wood board he’s strapped to is thin, and as the second knife lands near his hand, he flinches and sees that his fingers are trembling.
He gets an idea.
Flaming knife number three comes soaring through the air, trailing smoke, and Chanyeol snaps his fingers just before the blade pierces the wood. A small flame flickers in his palm and he strains himself to make it grow, grow, grow. The ringmaster is visibly stunned, but there’s nothing he can do but watch as Chanyeol coaxes the flames in his hand to dance not into a fantastical creature, but a shape with two strong, symmetric curves meeting at sharp angles, a shape that looks simple but means something far more complex. Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun one last time and smiles his hardest. He finally lets the tears fall as he sets the ball of fire free, embracing it as it seizes him in its grasp and hungrily licks his body. Chanyeol’s death will be entirely his own to decide, and he decided from the beginning. At least these flames devouring him are his own and not those of cold metal and colder hatred.
And as he falls, he thinks, I give my heart to you.