죽음의 선물 (JUGEUMUI SEONMUL) for YEOLXING
For: yeolxing
Title: 죽음의 선물 (Jugeumui Seonmul)
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/girl!Sehun
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Genderswitch, [Spoiler] character death, implied suicide
Length: 3103 words
Summary: Chanyeol leaves home to find himself in the volcanoes. MAMA!AU
Author’s note: This is dedicated to my girls; you know who you are. Thank you, I love you.
Also many great thanks to the Mod, for without her, there would be no fic at all. Thank you for your patience and your assistance.
As for this fic, it is symbolic of my feelings.
Chanyeol looks up at the snowy sky and watches as the flakes drift down. One lands on the tip of his nose and he reaches to brush it away as it begins to warm against his skin. It melts against his fingertips.
The weather is a sign that the end is nearing. It’s July. It’s usually well over thirty degrees, so hot that Minyoung has to leave pockets of ice about their home to cool them down. Right now it’s so cold that Chanyeol only feels warm because he’s got permanent flames licking at his body, keeping his temperature raised to a sensible level. Because of his heat, he often finds Junhee and Semi curled up next to him when he wakes up. Junhee has never been able to handle the cold, and he thinks Semi just likes the company. She’s never too far away from her older sister.
His flames are too dangerous to leave them about the place the way Minyoung leaves her ice. He doesn’t want to burn their home down.
They’ve been together for so long-thousands upon thousands of years-that Chanyeol generally considers them his family. He doesn’t think he ever had any real family. He doesn’t recall how he was born. He wonders if he was created when the planet was, but his memory doesn’t stretch that far back.
Chanyeol is the embodiment of fire.
There are eleven of them, and they all embody a different aspect of life. Minyoung is ice, Lu Han is will, Junhee is water, Yixing is health, Baekhyun is light, Jungbin is electricity, Chanyeol is fire, Kyungsoo is earth, Zitao is time, Jongin is movement and Semi is air. Together, they control their planet; they make sure that it and the creatures on it flourish and survive.
But right now, the planet is dying. The ice in the air promises that there is no hope for them.
In recent years the cards have constantly informed them that their time is near, that the enemy approaches. Chanyeol does not know who the enemy is-none of them do. But they suspect that it is from a nearby planet, one occupied by people and not spirits or animals like their own. The cards tell them to stand strong, and they will defeat their enemy and protect their planet from harm. If they cannot stand, they will be defeated.
They have been fine until now, with no wars and no cause for concern. There are no people on their planet, nothing to affect their peaceful existence, despite the fact that their planet was created for such life, and the attributes they embody are to help coax such life into existence. But such life never came to fruition on their planet.
They were created as warriors, to protect their home, but they have not lived as such.
After all this time, the weather has informed them that something is very wrong with their planet.
Chanyeol feels suffocated, surrounded by his family who only have their eye on one goal; stopping their planet from being invaded. He needs his own time away from the rest of them, and he knows that soon he will not have the chance to be away from them. They will be with each other even more than they currently are. He cannot live like this. He needs a break.
Chanyeol knows that now is the time for him to do something, before it is too late. Before he doesn’t get the chance to leave again.
“I am leaving,” he says, that evening, surrounded by his family. These are the people he loves most in the world, but they are also the only people he knows. “Not forever. But I need to learn how to hone my skills before the battle comes. I need to be able to protect you all from harm.” He does his best not to look at Semi.
“Do you know if you will be gone long?” Lu Han asks, his eyes soft.
Chanyeol shakes his head. “I shall try not to be too long,” he says, although he doesn’t know how long he will need to be away for. “I am going to the volcanoes, to where it is hottest. There, I will train until I am reconnected with my fire, and I shall return to help.” The thought of living with the lava excites him, lights a fire inside him he’d long thought burnt out.
“We shall miss you,” Junhee says quietly. “I hope you will find yourself, Chanyeol.”
“Please, Junhee, stay in the warmth,” he replies, unable to admit that he will miss her, too. He turns to Semi. “Keep her warm for me, I’m trusting you.”
“I will,” she says, and she holds his gaze until he tears his eyes away to look at the rest of them.
Some of them wish for him to stay, but none of them tell him not to leave. Maybe they understand why he has to go, maybe they want him to go. But none of them beg him to stay, until late that night, when Semi leads him away from Junhee, who curls up into a whimpering ball the moment Chanyeol leaves the bed.
“Please don’t go,” Semi whispers. She won’t look at him, and her fists clench around her shirt.
“I have to,” Chanyeol tells her, and he holds her to his chest, pulling her into his warmth. He holds her there for several moments, until she relaxes. When she pulls back, he presses a quick kiss to the crown of her head. “I’ll be back before you know it. I will regale you with stories of the volcanoes I have seen, and how I vanquished the dragons that live there.”
She snorts, even though her eyes are wet, and kicks him weakly in the shins. “Please don’t,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll get yourself killed if you try to take on a dragon all on your own.”
“I will be absolutely fine,” he assures her. “And when I come back, I will tell you something. Something important.”
Semi smiles at him, her cheeks pink with warmth, although he can’t tell if it’s due to his fire or if she’s just blushing. His hand in the small of her back, he leads her back to bed.
The fire in his chest is a little cooler that night, possibly because he knows that this will be the last chance he will get in a while to be close to them, to her, like this. But it won’t stop him from leaving, because he knows he has to go.
When he leaves early the next morning, nothing with him but a bag of dried food and a bottomless flask of water, they wave him off, tears in their eyes, but nobody stops him.
He wonders, as he walks, if Semi has found his medallion yet. It was a gift from her and Jongin for the last millennium. They had made it for him as a gift, and he wore it everywhere as a symbol of courage and strength. It reminded him of his goal to protect them, to protect Semi. It is one of the most precious and meaningful belongings he owns.
Leaving it behind, for her, is the bravest thing he’s ever done.
He walks without rest, without slowing, until he reaches the volcanoes.
He does not rely on water and food like a human. They eat more for pleasure, and they sleep out of boredom, not because they need to. He had brought his bag of food and water more out of habit than necessity, and the knowledge it will remind him of home. He watched Lu Han slaughter the animals they used for feed, Kyungsoo dry-cure it, and Yixing pack it. He watched Junhee pour her soul into his flask, ensuring that it will never empty. He watched Jungbin do her best to carry it without pouring her own energy into the flask.
He already misses them, but he left for a purpose, and he refuses to return until he has achieved his goal of self-realisation. He needs time away from them in order to learn. He needs to experience this.
He distantly knows that he is not the only one who has had to leave. Many millennia ago, Junhee had left to live in the water, and Semi had been inconsolable in her absence. It had been mere days before Junhee returned.
Lu Han, who has always had a hard time with possessing a strong and convincing will, had also left to learn control over himself, so he didn’t accidentally force anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. That had taken him much longer, but when he returned he had learnt how to turn it off.
Even Baekhyun had left to practise turning his light on and off, so it didn’t wake them up in the night.
Chanyeol is the first for centuries to venture out of their home to find himself, but he is not the first to do it at all.
The next while is spent even with a lack of thinking, as Chanyeol focuses on climbing the craggy edges of the volcano, making his way over snow-covered grass towards the still-bubbling tip. It amazes him how snow can be constantly falling into the volcano and upon the sides, yet not melting.
The lava is not as hot as it should be, Chanyeol realises upon reaching the top. Being made of fire, he is able to gauge the temperature of everything, and he knows that this is degrees below what it should be; so low that it shouldn’t be able to bubble in the way it is. This just shows that their planet is failing.
He settles down on the grass, despite the ice and snow wetting the ground, and lets the lava bubbles hypnotise him into sleeping.
He doesn’t know how long he spends at the volcano.
At the beginning, he finds it too quiet. He has lived for a long time used to the sound of human voices. The tranquillity of the place is something that he realises he has to get used to, after talking aloud to himself begins to hurt his voice. He takes to meditating to the melodic tune of lava bubbles.
Soon, however, the quiet becomes attractive, as he calms himself down and becomes less the immature, humorous person he’s been for so long, but instead a person learning to hone their craft. He forgets the sound of voices as he meditates for long stretches of time. He soaks in the heat of the lava. Even though fire and lava are different substances, he eventually grows accustomed to the point where he can touch the lava with his bare skin and not feel more than a tingle of pain. The sensation is enough for him to enjoy it, to do it again.
He starts to wonder why he never left earlier. This was where he needed to be. He doesn’t need the food or the water anymore, for breathing in the hot air from the lava is enough to sustain him. He wonders if he will ever reach the point where he will be able to eat the lava. He thinks that if he does, he will grow stronger. Stronger than his limited imagination can promise him.
But at the same time, he doesn’t know why he doesn’t just stay here for the rest of his life. He’s comfortable here, and warm, despite living out in the open under the never-ending stream of snow.
He doesn’t know why he ever thought he’d go back.
It is during one of his long meditation sessions that he is brought, unkindly, back to earth.
“Hey, Hyung,” he hears. He ignores it, eyes remaining shut.
“Hyung,” the voice repeats, and then there is pressure on his shoulder, shaking him. “Hyung, wake up. You’ve got to come back. We need you.”
Chanyeol regretfully opens his eyes to see Jongin standing there. He’s grown even taller in the time since Chanyeol left, or maybe it’s just that Chanyeol had forgotten what Jongin looks like.
Of course it’s Jongin. Jongin is the only one able to move across ground instantly, the only one who is capable of finding Chanyeol, even though he isn’t hiding.
Nobody else would be able to make the journey as quickly as Jongin. But part of Chanyeol wishes that Semi had come with him.
It takes Chanyeol a long time to search for his voice, as Jongin hops impatiently from one foot to another. Eventually, all he can do is shake his head, and he shuts his eyes again.
“Semi misses you, you know that? She thinks we can’t hear her cry herself to sleep at night, but we can. We need you, Hyung. You make us whole.”
But because she isn’t here, Chanyeol doesn’t want to listen to reminders of Semi and the life he left behind.
“I’ll come back,” Jongin assures him, and then he’s gone, and Chanyeol breathes a little easier.
Jongin returns again sometime later, when Chanyeol is half-submerged in lava. He gasps.
“What are you doing to yourself? Chanyeol-hyung, you can’t-you can’t do this.”
Chanyeol flinches at the words, and the pain comes rushing back, quickly. He pulls himself out of the lava and spreads himself across the snow, bathing his new burns. He’s done it before, submerge himself without burning himself, but not with an audience.
“It’s soon,” Jongin says. “The fight is soon. We need you to come back.”
Chanyeol doesn’t remember how his voice works now, so he doesn’t bother to reply. This time he doesn’t hear Jongin leave.
The day Chanyeol is able to fully submerge himself in lava and climb out of the volcano in the same state he went in is the day he knows he is ready for the fight and ready to leave the volcano to head back home.
He pulls on the clothes he hasn’t worn in a long, long time and packs up the leftover food and his water flask for the journey home. He bows deeply to the volcano and, finding his voice, thanks it for its help.
“I am a better warrior now,” he says aloud. His voice cracks, and he opens his flask to drink from it, the first time he has needed to since the beginning.
His flask is bone dry.
Chanyeol frowns, wondering if the lava heat has sucked all the moisture out of it. He replaces the lid and begins the long and careful climb down the side of the volcano.
He makes his way back home, stopping to drink from an icy river. The water rejuvenates him after such a long time without and he feels his spirit returning, his excitement to see his family again. He has missed them, he finds, even though he had put them aside for so long. He had, after all, done it all for them. For Semi.
He watches the skyline grow nearer, anticipating arriving home.
He needs to see Semi, to apologise to her, to tell her his feelings. He’s been holding them in for so, so long that he doesn’t know he manages it. Being away from her, not thinking about her in all that time, has only made his feelings grow. He needs to be able to tell her.
He looks up, ahead. He’s so close he can almost touch it. Excitement thrums in his veins.
He stops still in his tracks.
There is something wrong with the skyline, but he can’t place it.
The nearer he gets to the patch of land where they live, the more the hairs stick up on the back of his neck as fear runs through him. It only takes a few more moments for him to realise what is wrong.
The home he lived in, where Minyoung kept them cool in summer, where Junhee looked after them and snuggled close to him at night, where Kyungsoo cooked for them, where the youngest ones grew up, where he spent his life with Semi, is gone. The roof and most of the walls have been blasted away by what he can only presume were cannon. He can see the edge of the worktop, and parts of their appliances remain, but mostly there is nothing left of their home. It is all blanketed in a thin layer of white.
Chanyeol’s throat and chest clench. Maybe they got out. Maybe they torched their own home in warning, or protection, as a defence mechanism to fool the enemy. Maybe they’re hiding, ready to leap out at him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Several hundred years ago, Chanyeol had thought that they had all gone away and left him, but then they’d leapt out of their hiding places to surprise him; a cruel trick. Jungbin had laughed so hard at him that she’d cried.
He wants to call out to them, to say he knows they’re just hiding, but the words get stuck in his throat. When he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He can’t make a sound in the eerie silence.
He walks into the house, through the open doorway, and picks his way through the rubble, looking for something that can explain to him what happened here. There seems to be very little left of their belongings and he can’t bear to think that something might have gone down here.
It doesn’t take him long to reach the back of the house, even though it was once a huge building. Now the rooms have crumbled together to make an unidentifiable mess. He mourns the loss of all of this, all their belongings, as he continues to search.
He is looking around, almost dazed like a sleepwalker, when something catches his eye. A second look, and he realises what it is. He drags his eyes away quickly, his throat seizing, bile catching. He counts to ten, trying to force it back down his throat.
He doesn’t want to look at her. He can’t bear to look at her.
Chanyeol sinks to his knees amidst the snow-covered rubble and stares at his medallion clutched tightly in her fist, her other hand linked with that of her sister, and Chanyeol’s eyes moisten for the first time in his life.
He closes his eyes.
I love you.
When the end comes, there are eleven, posed in an unmoving circle with their hands linked together, who lie in wait for it to claim them. They look peaceful, as if they are sleeping upon the pristine white snow.
Except for the one who formed the circle, whose blood stains the snow beneath for all eternity.
Title: 죽음의 선물 (Jugeumui Seonmul)
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/girl!Sehun
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Genderswitch, [Spoiler] character death, implied suicide
Length: 3103 words
Summary: Chanyeol leaves home to find himself in the volcanoes. MAMA!AU
Author’s note: This is dedicated to my girls; you know who you are. Thank you, I love you.
Also many great thanks to the Mod, for without her, there would be no fic at all. Thank you for your patience and your assistance.
As for this fic, it is symbolic of my feelings.
Chanyeol looks up at the snowy sky and watches as the flakes drift down. One lands on the tip of his nose and he reaches to brush it away as it begins to warm against his skin. It melts against his fingertips.
The weather is a sign that the end is nearing. It’s July. It’s usually well over thirty degrees, so hot that Minyoung has to leave pockets of ice about their home to cool them down. Right now it’s so cold that Chanyeol only feels warm because he’s got permanent flames licking at his body, keeping his temperature raised to a sensible level. Because of his heat, he often finds Junhee and Semi curled up next to him when he wakes up. Junhee has never been able to handle the cold, and he thinks Semi just likes the company. She’s never too far away from her older sister.
His flames are too dangerous to leave them about the place the way Minyoung leaves her ice. He doesn’t want to burn their home down.
They’ve been together for so long-thousands upon thousands of years-that Chanyeol generally considers them his family. He doesn’t think he ever had any real family. He doesn’t recall how he was born. He wonders if he was created when the planet was, but his memory doesn’t stretch that far back.
Chanyeol is the embodiment of fire.
There are eleven of them, and they all embody a different aspect of life. Minyoung is ice, Lu Han is will, Junhee is water, Yixing is health, Baekhyun is light, Jungbin is electricity, Chanyeol is fire, Kyungsoo is earth, Zitao is time, Jongin is movement and Semi is air. Together, they control their planet; they make sure that it and the creatures on it flourish and survive.
But right now, the planet is dying. The ice in the air promises that there is no hope for them.
In recent years the cards have constantly informed them that their time is near, that the enemy approaches. Chanyeol does not know who the enemy is-none of them do. But they suspect that it is from a nearby planet, one occupied by people and not spirits or animals like their own. The cards tell them to stand strong, and they will defeat their enemy and protect their planet from harm. If they cannot stand, they will be defeated.
They have been fine until now, with no wars and no cause for concern. There are no people on their planet, nothing to affect their peaceful existence, despite the fact that their planet was created for such life, and the attributes they embody are to help coax such life into existence. But such life never came to fruition on their planet.
They were created as warriors, to protect their home, but they have not lived as such.
After all this time, the weather has informed them that something is very wrong with their planet.
Chanyeol feels suffocated, surrounded by his family who only have their eye on one goal; stopping their planet from being invaded. He needs his own time away from the rest of them, and he knows that soon he will not have the chance to be away from them. They will be with each other even more than they currently are. He cannot live like this. He needs a break.
Chanyeol knows that now is the time for him to do something, before it is too late. Before he doesn’t get the chance to leave again.
“I am leaving,” he says, that evening, surrounded by his family. These are the people he loves most in the world, but they are also the only people he knows. “Not forever. But I need to learn how to hone my skills before the battle comes. I need to be able to protect you all from harm.” He does his best not to look at Semi.
“Do you know if you will be gone long?” Lu Han asks, his eyes soft.
Chanyeol shakes his head. “I shall try not to be too long,” he says, although he doesn’t know how long he will need to be away for. “I am going to the volcanoes, to where it is hottest. There, I will train until I am reconnected with my fire, and I shall return to help.” The thought of living with the lava excites him, lights a fire inside him he’d long thought burnt out.
“We shall miss you,” Junhee says quietly. “I hope you will find yourself, Chanyeol.”
“Please, Junhee, stay in the warmth,” he replies, unable to admit that he will miss her, too. He turns to Semi. “Keep her warm for me, I’m trusting you.”
“I will,” she says, and she holds his gaze until he tears his eyes away to look at the rest of them.
Some of them wish for him to stay, but none of them tell him not to leave. Maybe they understand why he has to go, maybe they want him to go. But none of them beg him to stay, until late that night, when Semi leads him away from Junhee, who curls up into a whimpering ball the moment Chanyeol leaves the bed.
“Please don’t go,” Semi whispers. She won’t look at him, and her fists clench around her shirt.
“I have to,” Chanyeol tells her, and he holds her to his chest, pulling her into his warmth. He holds her there for several moments, until she relaxes. When she pulls back, he presses a quick kiss to the crown of her head. “I’ll be back before you know it. I will regale you with stories of the volcanoes I have seen, and how I vanquished the dragons that live there.”
She snorts, even though her eyes are wet, and kicks him weakly in the shins. “Please don’t,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll get yourself killed if you try to take on a dragon all on your own.”
“I will be absolutely fine,” he assures her. “And when I come back, I will tell you something. Something important.”
Semi smiles at him, her cheeks pink with warmth, although he can’t tell if it’s due to his fire or if she’s just blushing. His hand in the small of her back, he leads her back to bed.
The fire in his chest is a little cooler that night, possibly because he knows that this will be the last chance he will get in a while to be close to them, to her, like this. But it won’t stop him from leaving, because he knows he has to go.
When he leaves early the next morning, nothing with him but a bag of dried food and a bottomless flask of water, they wave him off, tears in their eyes, but nobody stops him.
He wonders, as he walks, if Semi has found his medallion yet. It was a gift from her and Jongin for the last millennium. They had made it for him as a gift, and he wore it everywhere as a symbol of courage and strength. It reminded him of his goal to protect them, to protect Semi. It is one of the most precious and meaningful belongings he owns.
Leaving it behind, for her, is the bravest thing he’s ever done.
He walks without rest, without slowing, until he reaches the volcanoes.
He does not rely on water and food like a human. They eat more for pleasure, and they sleep out of boredom, not because they need to. He had brought his bag of food and water more out of habit than necessity, and the knowledge it will remind him of home. He watched Lu Han slaughter the animals they used for feed, Kyungsoo dry-cure it, and Yixing pack it. He watched Junhee pour her soul into his flask, ensuring that it will never empty. He watched Jungbin do her best to carry it without pouring her own energy into the flask.
He already misses them, but he left for a purpose, and he refuses to return until he has achieved his goal of self-realisation. He needs time away from them in order to learn. He needs to experience this.
He distantly knows that he is not the only one who has had to leave. Many millennia ago, Junhee had left to live in the water, and Semi had been inconsolable in her absence. It had been mere days before Junhee returned.
Lu Han, who has always had a hard time with possessing a strong and convincing will, had also left to learn control over himself, so he didn’t accidentally force anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. That had taken him much longer, but when he returned he had learnt how to turn it off.
Even Baekhyun had left to practise turning his light on and off, so it didn’t wake them up in the night.
Chanyeol is the first for centuries to venture out of their home to find himself, but he is not the first to do it at all.
The next while is spent even with a lack of thinking, as Chanyeol focuses on climbing the craggy edges of the volcano, making his way over snow-covered grass towards the still-bubbling tip. It amazes him how snow can be constantly falling into the volcano and upon the sides, yet not melting.
The lava is not as hot as it should be, Chanyeol realises upon reaching the top. Being made of fire, he is able to gauge the temperature of everything, and he knows that this is degrees below what it should be; so low that it shouldn’t be able to bubble in the way it is. This just shows that their planet is failing.
He settles down on the grass, despite the ice and snow wetting the ground, and lets the lava bubbles hypnotise him into sleeping.
He doesn’t know how long he spends at the volcano.
At the beginning, he finds it too quiet. He has lived for a long time used to the sound of human voices. The tranquillity of the place is something that he realises he has to get used to, after talking aloud to himself begins to hurt his voice. He takes to meditating to the melodic tune of lava bubbles.
Soon, however, the quiet becomes attractive, as he calms himself down and becomes less the immature, humorous person he’s been for so long, but instead a person learning to hone their craft. He forgets the sound of voices as he meditates for long stretches of time. He soaks in the heat of the lava. Even though fire and lava are different substances, he eventually grows accustomed to the point where he can touch the lava with his bare skin and not feel more than a tingle of pain. The sensation is enough for him to enjoy it, to do it again.
He starts to wonder why he never left earlier. This was where he needed to be. He doesn’t need the food or the water anymore, for breathing in the hot air from the lava is enough to sustain him. He wonders if he will ever reach the point where he will be able to eat the lava. He thinks that if he does, he will grow stronger. Stronger than his limited imagination can promise him.
But at the same time, he doesn’t know why he doesn’t just stay here for the rest of his life. He’s comfortable here, and warm, despite living out in the open under the never-ending stream of snow.
He doesn’t know why he ever thought he’d go back.
It is during one of his long meditation sessions that he is brought, unkindly, back to earth.
“Hey, Hyung,” he hears. He ignores it, eyes remaining shut.
“Hyung,” the voice repeats, and then there is pressure on his shoulder, shaking him. “Hyung, wake up. You’ve got to come back. We need you.”
Chanyeol regretfully opens his eyes to see Jongin standing there. He’s grown even taller in the time since Chanyeol left, or maybe it’s just that Chanyeol had forgotten what Jongin looks like.
Of course it’s Jongin. Jongin is the only one able to move across ground instantly, the only one who is capable of finding Chanyeol, even though he isn’t hiding.
Nobody else would be able to make the journey as quickly as Jongin. But part of Chanyeol wishes that Semi had come with him.
It takes Chanyeol a long time to search for his voice, as Jongin hops impatiently from one foot to another. Eventually, all he can do is shake his head, and he shuts his eyes again.
“Semi misses you, you know that? She thinks we can’t hear her cry herself to sleep at night, but we can. We need you, Hyung. You make us whole.”
But because she isn’t here, Chanyeol doesn’t want to listen to reminders of Semi and the life he left behind.
“I’ll come back,” Jongin assures him, and then he’s gone, and Chanyeol breathes a little easier.
Jongin returns again sometime later, when Chanyeol is half-submerged in lava. He gasps.
“What are you doing to yourself? Chanyeol-hyung, you can’t-you can’t do this.”
Chanyeol flinches at the words, and the pain comes rushing back, quickly. He pulls himself out of the lava and spreads himself across the snow, bathing his new burns. He’s done it before, submerge himself without burning himself, but not with an audience.
“It’s soon,” Jongin says. “The fight is soon. We need you to come back.”
Chanyeol doesn’t remember how his voice works now, so he doesn’t bother to reply. This time he doesn’t hear Jongin leave.
The day Chanyeol is able to fully submerge himself in lava and climb out of the volcano in the same state he went in is the day he knows he is ready for the fight and ready to leave the volcano to head back home.
He pulls on the clothes he hasn’t worn in a long, long time and packs up the leftover food and his water flask for the journey home. He bows deeply to the volcano and, finding his voice, thanks it for its help.
“I am a better warrior now,” he says aloud. His voice cracks, and he opens his flask to drink from it, the first time he has needed to since the beginning.
His flask is bone dry.
Chanyeol frowns, wondering if the lava heat has sucked all the moisture out of it. He replaces the lid and begins the long and careful climb down the side of the volcano.
He makes his way back home, stopping to drink from an icy river. The water rejuvenates him after such a long time without and he feels his spirit returning, his excitement to see his family again. He has missed them, he finds, even though he had put them aside for so long. He had, after all, done it all for them. For Semi.
He watches the skyline grow nearer, anticipating arriving home.
He needs to see Semi, to apologise to her, to tell her his feelings. He’s been holding them in for so, so long that he doesn’t know he manages it. Being away from her, not thinking about her in all that time, has only made his feelings grow. He needs to be able to tell her.
He looks up, ahead. He’s so close he can almost touch it. Excitement thrums in his veins.
He stops still in his tracks.
There is something wrong with the skyline, but he can’t place it.
The nearer he gets to the patch of land where they live, the more the hairs stick up on the back of his neck as fear runs through him. It only takes a few more moments for him to realise what is wrong.
The home he lived in, where Minyoung kept them cool in summer, where Junhee looked after them and snuggled close to him at night, where Kyungsoo cooked for them, where the youngest ones grew up, where he spent his life with Semi, is gone. The roof and most of the walls have been blasted away by what he can only presume were cannon. He can see the edge of the worktop, and parts of their appliances remain, but mostly there is nothing left of their home. It is all blanketed in a thin layer of white.
Chanyeol’s throat and chest clench. Maybe they got out. Maybe they torched their own home in warning, or protection, as a defence mechanism to fool the enemy. Maybe they’re hiding, ready to leap out at him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Several hundred years ago, Chanyeol had thought that they had all gone away and left him, but then they’d leapt out of their hiding places to surprise him; a cruel trick. Jungbin had laughed so hard at him that she’d cried.
He wants to call out to them, to say he knows they’re just hiding, but the words get stuck in his throat. When he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He can’t make a sound in the eerie silence.
He walks into the house, through the open doorway, and picks his way through the rubble, looking for something that can explain to him what happened here. There seems to be very little left of their belongings and he can’t bear to think that something might have gone down here.
It doesn’t take him long to reach the back of the house, even though it was once a huge building. Now the rooms have crumbled together to make an unidentifiable mess. He mourns the loss of all of this, all their belongings, as he continues to search.
He is looking around, almost dazed like a sleepwalker, when something catches his eye. A second look, and he realises what it is. He drags his eyes away quickly, his throat seizing, bile catching. He counts to ten, trying to force it back down his throat.
He doesn’t want to look at her. He can’t bear to look at her.
Chanyeol sinks to his knees amidst the snow-covered rubble and stares at his medallion clutched tightly in her fist, her other hand linked with that of her sister, and Chanyeol’s eyes moisten for the first time in his life.
He closes his eyes.
I love you.
When the end comes, there are eleven, posed in an unmoving circle with their hands linked together, who lie in wait for it to claim them. They look peaceful, as if they are sleeping upon the pristine white snow.
Except for the one who formed the circle, whose blood stains the snow beneath for all eternity.