those who swallow stars

jung yujin. just how long will you stumble around in the dark until you feel scared? hands on fire yet you're afraid to touch, afraid to burn enough that you drown. when will you realize you are the reason why you are lost?

[yujinfey]

—JAEYONG⋆ˊˎ

yet again, he doesn’t wait for a response, tossing the keys to yujin instead, counting on him to catch them (and to not take this opportunity to steal his car.)

tw: blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

this is already a little surreal, but listening to jaeyong start to talk about vampires is something that he hadn’t expected to be a conversation between them, when they first met, through all of the things that they talked about. he eyes the ring when jaeyong shows it to him, listening quietly and watching it gently glow in the presence of himself, effectively giving him away. he’s seen objects like it before, even had experience with jewelry and imbuing it with certain properties, thinks of the necklace he gave sunkyu on his birthday— and it’s all very different than this.

walking alongside him, he tries to think of all of the things that he’s put into the world, wonders if any of them are used in the ways that jaeyong uses his ring, swallows and feels a wave of nausea run through him, and tries to effectively push that thought down and away and out of his mind, feels the shake in his hands start and so he shoves them into his pockets instead to find some kind of semblance of control.

he tells him that he probably wouldn’t want to know, and he’s right. he doesn’t. he doesn’t think he could handle it.

jaeyong’s humor proves to pull him out of his mind effectively, garnering him a small chuckle past his lips. yujin thinks he would be least convincing vampire ever, and when he mentions that he could be a werewolf, he only starts laughing more. enough for him to bend over with it, hand pulled from his pocket to splay against his stomach as it echoes into the night. “well.. i guess you’ve got your intel, then,” he says, eyes catching back on that ring again, and then back up to jaeyong, smiling with all teeth.

“i think my only mistake was possibly running into you when you were wearing the ring, but i couldn’t of really seen that coming, so. i guess it’s mostly coincidence, otherwise i might’ve just continued to fly right under your radar,” yujin reasons, and he feels like usually he does tend to be hard to pick out unless someone knows or they’re looking, just because he doesn’t use his magic often, and he doesn’t really.. think he looks like a witch. he’s not sure if there’s anything identifiable that way, since they’re so close to humans that there really isn’t much of a notable difference. though it makes yujin wonder if there’s a certain way witches just tend to present themselves.

yujin continues to listen to him quietly, shrugging his shoulders. “i’ll probably forget by tomorrow, if that’s any consolation,” he says, and his memory does tend to be pretty bad, nothing that he tries to do on his own. “i don’t interact with.. vampires and werewolves often, but even then i can’t usually tell. i’m used to mostly just.. assuming everyone is human, because how.. likely would it be that i run into others when there’s so many people in seoul? but..” he trails off, and thinks about how all of this seems to be more closely connected then he ever thinks. maybe it’s a part of him trying to think that it’s more spread out, that maybe everything that his parents sell don’t stay in the vicinity of the city, like if they go farther away somehow yujin is able to pretend it doesn’t exist easier.

it’s here that yujin spots a difference between them— thinks if he was given the option to quit working for his parent’s business, if he could quit having to take it over, then he would. in a moment. he doesn’t think he has any attachments to any of this any longer, doesn’t see himself ever having a moment he’d regret it. the only reason he hasn’t left yet is because he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life running from them, doesn’t want to subject sunkyu to that, either, and doesn’t know any other possible way out. yujin knows he doesn’t know the whole story with jaeyong, and so he lets it settle in the air between them. “then if you do— i know one day, you’ll be able to,” he tells him, because he does believe that. if jaeyong really wants it.

at his car, yujin is listening to him ask him for a favor and then reaching up to catch his keys a moment later. “yeah—” is what he gets out as he does, and he’s just grinning at him a moment later, keys in his hand, at the fact that he’d managed to get them. he unlocks the car and pulls open the door, retrieving the towel as he’d asked for and bringing it out. while he’s got both in his hands, he wipes off any remnants on the keys and on his hands and tries not to think about it— thinks about the night that he’d come home to sunkyu covered in his own blood and the way that they had both held each other, shaking. remembers falling asleep to the steady rise and fall of sunkyu’s chest, anchoring himself in that moment to that singular pinpoint, to keep his thoughts from wandering, to calm himself down enough to sleep.

he offers the towel to jaeyong once he’s finished. “i wish i knew more how to.. help you so you could get home without it getting all over your car, at least,” yujin says with his eyebrows furrowed, and he isn’t sure he knows any spells he could do quickly enough to help aid him. he lets his hands fall to his sides, still holding his keys so he can at least wipe everything off without them getting dirty again.

he’s dragged back to that night again. the blood he had gotten all over his car seats, scrubbing it out the next morning. taking back that velvet pouch of potions to his parents and only returning later that night with barely any energy left— the way he had gotten as far as their couch before he had let himself crumble, which was at least farther than the night before, when he had slid down to his knees in the doorway. yujin’s not sure if it won’t ever stop lingering in his mind, the way that sunkyu had looked at him, the way that he had wiped away his blood with his hands like it was something they were meant to share, like yujin wasn’t supposed to handle it all on his own.

“do you.. live with anyone?” he mumbles, curious if jaeyong has someone to go home to, as well. “i know you’ve mentioned someone before, but i didn’t know if you lived together,” yujin mentions, and it’s all mostly just been talked about inbetween all that they’ve said, but never anything in detail enough compared to everything else.

even with how much he wishes that sunkyu never had to deal with the things that he does, that they do, he thinks of how grateful he is to have him right there with him, kneeling down on the ground with shaking hands and the smell of blood and to not have him run away. he knows that somehow he could’ve figured out a way to do it on his own— maybe, maybe, but sunkyu makes it so much more easier to pick himself back up, to remind him, to hold him close and convince him maybe this isn’t what he deserves, to not wallow so long in the darkness.

he’s not sure how he’ll ever make sure that sunkyu knows just how much— and so he vows to stay with him as long that he can, to protect him, to keep him safe, to make sure that he’s happy, as the only way that he thinks he could ever repay him for all that he means to yujin. he hopes that it’s enough.

@feyjaeyong

[yujinfey]

—SUNKYU⋆ˊˎ

he shoots him a little smile. it’s sincere, because it’s hard not to smile and mean it when he sees how content yujin looks, but it just needs a little more effort than usual. he hopes yujin doesn’t notice.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin knows he runs warm— thinks it’s a nice compliment to sunkyu, if only he can keep him warm whenever he gets too cold, offer a little bit of his warmth to his chill to ease it when it gets to be too much. his words still make him laugh quietly, shaking his head a little bit and only holding him tighter to make sure that he absorbs more of it.

humming at his comment, he can only think that.. maybe being with sunkyu like this makes him sappy— maybe it’s the ocean and the fireworks and the night time sky, maybe it’s sunkyu, sure and true, pressed up against his side. there’s a peacefulness to this world that yujin doesn’t notice often, but in this moment, he can see it. so maybe he’s sappy, and maybe he just wants to make sure that sunkyu knows how special he is. to him, to this world. just us. yujin thinks that nothing else could even sound better than that.

kissing him is easy. yujin knows this— and another thing he knows, is that feeling that wells up in his chest every single time their lips touch, the one that burns, the one that feels like it would consume him if he let it, one that he would welcome happily. it’s soft and familiar and there is still a part of him that thinks that this is the most warm thing that he knows, but there is also his heart, fluttering like a butterfly contained, this threatening to beat against his ribs, too, like there’s more that he needs to let out, words forming on his lips even occupied like this, maybe amplified because of it.

it’s the hand on his hip, it’s the way that he knows how sunkyu’s lips slide against his own, it’s the fact that they’ve almost memorized this— no, they probably have, and yujin thinks he still will never get tired of it.

he stares into his eyes and thinks that he can maybe see the light of the fireworks reflected there, maybe even himself, and he thinks of a time he would’ve been scared of this, but slowly, and surely, he has been accepting it. thinks that maybe it’s something like allowing himself things, it’s something like letting sunkyu be in his life if he wants to be— he’s tired of running, he’s tired of hiding away from it, he’s tired of telling himself he doesn’t deserve this. maybe the universe can give him this. just this. it’s all he asks for.

he feels his hand on his hip, blinks and thinks that it’s all climbing up his throat. he’s not even sure he could define it all, but it almost burns, licking over his bottom lip and adjusting his piercing to settle against the swell right, and maybe he’s still running a little, just a bit. just for this. he welcomes sunkyu’s words when they come, humming.

“of course we can, kyu,” he says, and he brushes his nose against his back, closing his eyes for just a moment. maybe he can just stay here for awhile, in this feeling, and pretend that it’s enough, pretend that it’s not slowly consuming him while he isn’t watching, too afraid to give it a name. yujin’s thinking for a moment, and he makes an affirmative noise. “i believe it does. we could order room service and watch for more,” yujin offers, eyes opening now, and he catches the curve of sunkyu’s smile— but. he’s known him for long enough to notice there’s something about it that is not like his others.

and it’s not something that overly worries him, he can tell that there’s still a true curl to it, but there’s also something that is hidden in the corner, something that makes yujin pause for just a moment. he looks over his features for just a moment, a quick look, and he knows that sunkyu would tell him if there was anything, so he decides to wait patiently for the moment that he might tell him, if he needs to. and if he doesn’t— well. yujin will do whatever he needs to help ease that hidden thing away until he doesn’t think about it anymore.

so he offers him a small smile back, and he hopes that it conveys what he’s thinking, that sunkyu can come to him if he needs, or yujin will be here for him if he asks. he’ll do anything that he asks— if it means that he can be what sunkyu needs. so he slowly untangles them and leaves one more kiss on the top of his head before sitting up and scooting forward, shoving his feet into his boots and standing, brushing some of the sand off of himself with a little frown. “it really is everywhere,” he whines, quietly, and he’s sure it’s probably even in his hair. “the one thing about the beach that i could argue makes it less fun,” yujin continues, and he’s gathering up their things, the backpack full of snacks and drinks that he slings over his shoulder, arranging sunkyu’s shoes right next to him so he can put them on.

waits until he’s off the blanket to pick it up and shake off the sand— folding it corner by corner and draping it over one arm, one hand sliding to the low of sunkyu’s back to lead him back to the car. it’s right where they left it, shining darkly in the parking lot as they leave the distant noise of the fireworks crackling in the sky behind them. he’s unlocking the car as they near it in a comfortable silence, pitching the stuff in the back and telling himself he’ll care about the sand later. sliding into the front seat and starting the car, radio picking up low in the background where they had left it when they had arrived.

“what should we order.. do you think we should order pizza to the hotel instead?” yujin offers, and maybe he’s trying to make some sort of small talk to distract sunkyu from whatever he had been thinking about as he pulls his seatbelt on, only hoping that the simple idleness of it is helpful— he’d do anything for him, and having sunkyu in his life for so long, he only hopes that knowing what he needs in this moment comes to him as naturally as everything else does, when it comes to things between the two of them.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

—KIJUNG⋆ˊˎ

tentatively, he crouches down, careful not to get too close and spook the dog. him feeling comfortable enough to drink is important. as for eating the whipped cream...well, kijung wouldn’t mind scaring him out of that nearly as much. he carefully extends a hand toward the puppy and lingers there, testing the waters, giving the animal time to adjust and either accept or reject his approach. there’s no whimpering or cowering, so kijung reaches further, and lightly pets the puppy’s fluffy fur. his lips curve up in the slightest smile.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin is pleasantly surprised when the man follows him outside— though he knows he wouldn't be able to deny petting a puppy when it was offered to him, either. he keeps holding up the water cup for the dog to drink, retracting his hand petting his fur as he settles back in his boots and allows him to get his fill.

he watches, quietly, as the man pets the puppy and a smile stretches over his features. yujin supposes puppy petting is a certain type of healing.

once it seems the puppy is finished, yujin sets the cup down on the concrete and roots around in the cardboard container for a straw, in which he shucks the wrapping and sticks it into his own coffee. he goes back to petting the puppy as he drinks from it, thinking about how, possibly, he could insert this puppy into his life.

it's not like he hadn't talked about getting pets before with sunkyu— whenever he goes to visit him at the shelter, it takes an extraordinary amount of effort from them both to not adopt every single dog in the vicinity of the building. usually he goes to bring him lunch, which devolves into the both of them petting puppies until he has to go back to helping, and yujin tried to placate himself with that being enough puppy interaction.. but.

looking at this puppy, yujin isn't sure he’s going to be able to leave it. even if he did turn it into a shelter, he thinks that he wouldn't be able to sleep, thinking about if he's okay, when he gets adopted, if he just ends up back on the streets.

so it's not like sunkyu will get mad. and he thinks they probably could take care of a dog, if they wanted to. and when sunkyu shifts, he can help them acclimate to each other slowly. he's sure he's seen videos of dogs and ferrets being best friends before.

he’s maybe sat there five minutes and already convinced himself. thinks about arriving at their apartment tonight with a puppy in his arms and imagines how, hopefully, happy sunkyu will be to see such an adorable puppy.

he looks over to the man, a considering expression on his face. “do you have a pet? it seems you like dogs. though you mentioned homework.. are you in college? maybe you're not allowed to have dogs if you live in a dorm,” yujin mumbles, reasoning to him aloud instead of in his thoughts.

he hadn't continued after he graduated high school— his parents placing more importance on him learning how to run the business and no time for really anything else. they considered it more of a waste of his time, when he already had an opportunity to make money and a name with himself in his family’s work, then try and chase something else. yujin didn't really try to argue it.

“i think dogs are created from pure joy,” he murmurs, carding his fingers through the soft fur. “they're so sweet and pure, and they love so unconditionally. just petting them brings people peace. i can't believe this little guy was left all alone when he’s capable of being so kind like this. i was thinking of taking him to a shelter but.. maybe i might just take him home,” yujin rambles, and he thinks about kindness, he thinks about how much he wished he was extended an ounce from the people who were supposed to love him throughout his life and feels his heart grow heavy at the prospect of him not extending it even in this small way, through this dog.

there's a part of him that always hopes— thinks about how— he never wants to become his parents. in any form. some nights he lays awake, unable to sleep and thinking about it.

he morphs his thoughts into taking him home, into seeing sunkyu and making him happy. of the both of them being able to love this small little puppy, give him a home. one in a space that they have both finally found a small pocket of comfort. there's a small smile gracing his features as he thinks— it sounds lovely, just the kind of home he’d want to come back to, even if it already was one with just sunkyu waiting for him these days.

he extends his smile to the man kneeling down petting the puppy with him.

“you should get one, maybe. if you don't have one. it seems to make you happy. if you could have one around, that is,” he tells him, just because the smile on his face when he was petting the dog seemed to be quite telling, in yujin’s eyes.

“my—,” he furrows his eyebrows. what had he.. almost called sunkyu? he pauses even longer. how does he describe sunkyu to someone else? every single word he thinks of doesn't even seem to encompass how he feels towards him properly— feels like stopping short in his mouth because it's not enough. “my best friend volunteers at an animal shelter, sometimes,” yujin mentions, and even.. that doesn't feel accurate enough. sunkyu is so much more than that. he swallows down the feeling for later.

“maybe if you ever decide to get a pet, he could help you there! or. if you can't, you can always just go and pet puppies. that’s what we do all of the time,”

@feykijung

[yujinfey]

—SUNKYU⋆ˊˎ

there are plenty of other spectators on the beach, though sunkyu had made sure they were a good distance away. they look like families or otherwise people who must be close, judging by the indistinguishable edges of their silhouettes, painting an idyllic ending for what he imagines must have been a nice date for them. it makes him smile to think about, a little tired but happy as he settles back into yujin’s space. happiness looks good on other people -- it had looked the best on yujin today, all of it even sweeter compared to the sour memories of last week. “i was thinking that i’d make a hundred trips home if it meant we’d get to go to the beach afterwards every time,” he says to yujin, scuffing his feet at the edge of their blanket where he can feel the cool sand. “i mean, i wouldn’t want to, but if it was the only reason we ended up coming down here, then i guess it wasn’t all that bad. maybe we’ll even find another octopus for you to be friends with.” he grins, nudging his shoulder into yujin’s.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

he’s happy enough to see that his jacket could keep the warmth huddled in close to sunkyu, but there’s a part of him that’s pleased when sunkyu moves closer to him, too. yujin shakes his head a little when he mentions him getting sick, a small smile on his lips. “impossible. i’m always kinda hot anyways, you know that,” he says, and gently rubs at his side with his hand, an idle motion he doesn’t think too much about, another way to warm sunkyu up more.

“plus i’ve got you here too, don’t i?” yujin mentions, and he’s already looking at him when sunkyu looks over to meet his gaze. like this, yujin is once more reminded of the space between them and the way that somehow, with sunkyu, it always feels magnetic, like there’s something that’s pulling him closer and closer and it never feels like enough, no matter what yujin does. he feels it again, right now, but he’s indulgent in the way that he lets it drag out.

the side of his mouth quirks up into a smirk when he tells him he’s missing the show, a low chuckle falling past his lips. “i think i wasn’t missing much. sure, the fireworks are pretty, but.. i think there’s something quite more beautiful i can be looking at right beside me,” he murmurs, even as sunkyu guides his gaze away and to the sky. he does like seeing the explosions of light in the sky, so disconnected from him then how intimately he can know them up close that he can almost find them awe inspiring, instead of something that makes his hands shake, little prickles of heat in his fingertips like they’re bursting on his palms.

he watches the sky for a little while, before he hears sunkyu speak again, laughing at his statement. “if you want to come to the beach more often, kyu, i’ll bring you here,” yujin tells him, and he nudges his shoulder back. “we don’t need a reason to come, really, i just wanted to give us an incentive to get through the weekend, but we don’t need to have one again to do it,” he tells him, and when he mentions the octopus, he pouts a little bit.

“i don’t want another octopus to be friends with— i’m just.. your octopus,” he says, and to prove his point, he wraps his other arm around him and rests his cheek against his shoulder, his leg coming up to curl around one of his. yujin squishes him for a moment before he at least pulls his leg away, digging his feet into the sand just beyond their blanket just because he can.

he’s quiet for a moment as he watches the sky, and memories from the past weekend come rushing in again. he thinks about doing it a hundred more times just to have these moments alone with sunkyu, and he knows that he would, but he also thinks about the ache in his chest at the way they had to act around his parents. the way he had to shove his hands in his pockets to keep himself from reaching out for him as much as he does, for his hands, to hug him, to— he thinks of this morning, checking into the hotel. the receptionist that mistook their actions for.. being a couple.

he thinks of how he’s holding onto him, right now, on this beach filled with other couples watching the fireworks light up the sky. chews on his bottom lip and thinks that it’s that feeling again, the warm one in his chest that he keeps running from, and he thinks that he doesn’t want to think about it right now— just wants to think about sunkyu, just wants to focus on him and nothing else, not question himself or his actions or how he feels and just do what feels right. isn’t that all that matters?

“sunkyu-yah,” he calls out, then, and he tilts his head up to wait for his gaze to meet his, a small smile sliding onto his lips as he meets them, finally, once more, and look, there, he feels the weight of the necklace on his chest, how solid and true sunkyu feels in his arms, hears the way the fireworks crackle and thunder in the background.

he closes the distance between them. feels the gravity close between them, that rush, then the sweet, familiar feeling of sunkyu’s lips against his own. he lets his eyes fall shut, and this is the feeling in his chest, warm and right and.. home. yujin doesn’t think it’s a place anymore, he thinks that maybe it’s right here.

sunkyu in his arms, sunkyu pressed against his side, sunkyu’s mouth slotting perfectly when he seeks him out in the dark. he rises a bit up on his elbow from where he had slid down, and when he pulls back, he lets his eyes flutter open as their noses brush. like this, he can barely hear the fireworks, maybe even the rest of the world. just the fluttering of his own heart in his chest, the warmth that blooms inside him when he’s this close to him. just that familiar beat of home, home, home.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

—KIJUNG⋆ˊˎ

kijung suspects turning the man in won’t be necessary, and that he’s already found out. what’s an employee to do, however, other than ask him to leave? and kijung doesn’t think that’s a bad option. he’d probably prefer it, actually. “you aren’t helping him having him around so many people.” he won’t turn them in, though. that much is probably obvious; if he wanted to he would’ve already. well, he still could if this guy gets on his nerves.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin’s eyeing the expanse of the counter where the baristas slide the finished drinks as the man talks to him, intending fully to snatch them up and leave before he’s asked to— and he looks over to him with a bit of a smile on his mouth, a slight shrug of his shoulder.

“the little guy seemed thirsty, and i got him a tiny treat, too, to tide him over while i buy him some dog food because i don’t have any at home. and.. how can i come to a cafe and not get myself a coffee while i’m here? it’ll give me more energy, anyways,” he explains, and it’s mostly with a convinced tone, like he had devised this plan and settled it being on the best course of action that he could take. something he had done on the way down the street after gathering the puppy in his arms and spotted the sign for coffee a moment later— quick, but efficient.

he purses his lips together a bit when he mentions he’s not really helping the dog, but he had felt a little lost at what to do, mainly found himself focusing more on how to take care of the dog’s basic needs on his own. “we won’t be here much longer. i guess i thought getting him some water and whipped cream to cheer up might make him feel a little better. plus, he was cold, and it’s warmest against my chest, and the jacket keeps it all in,” yujin says, and notices his order coming up on the counter.

wordlessly, he steps forward and smiles brightly at the barista. “can i get a to-go carrier?” he asks, dimples prominent in his cheeks, and thanks them once they slide it across to him. with one hand, he slots all of the cups into the cardboard and carries it by the handle back over to the man he had spoken to earlier.

“see? easy!” yujin pipes up, and frowns a little as he looks the man over. “you didn’t get anything? you can have a bit of the whipped cream if you want! maybe before the dog has some of it,” he says, nose wrinkling, and motions towards the door.

“you wanna come with us? then you can pet the dog if you want, but it’s probably better if we go outside. since you know about him, now you’re an assistant.. if you want to be,” yujin offers, but there’s a bright grin on his face— then the puppy starts whimpering against his chest, again, and maybe he can smell the water he’s carrying.

“i won’t take it personal if you don’t come, but! who turns down petting a puppy?” he says with a giggle, and starts walking towards the door, not wanting to make the dog wait any longer to receive what yujin had bought him.

outside, he finds a clear part of the sidewalk to shift him out of his jacket and set him on the ground, crouching down to a tiny siberian husky sitting down on the pavement as he gets out the water, first, and holds it out for him to drink— a gentle smile on his lips, piercings glinting in the light as he reaches out with a free hand, freshly painted nails running slowly through his fur as the dog happily laps it up.

“there you go, sweetheart,” he coos quietly, quite the picture with his leather jacket and boots and purple hair, leaning over to feed the puppy some water with a grin bright in his features.

@feykijung

[ymmow]

:-)

[yujinfey]

you are/my truest feeling yet

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

distantly, yujin hears the resounding noises of the fireworks that are in front of them, and he had started with his gaze turned to them, bursting and sparkling down in little trails like shooting stars until they reached the water, but then. but then. he had turned his gaze to sunkyu.

there is something about the night framing him, and beyond the sounds of the fireworks is the soft lull of the waves reaching the shore and receding, and there is also something about the way that the bursts of light in the sky reflect on his features. his eyes trace the slope of his nose and the curve of his jaw, he watches the way they shine and reflect in his hair. reclined back on one arm, yujin can’t help but lean in and kiss his temple, slide an arm around his waist.

yes, he should probably be watching the fireworks, he had driven them to the water just so they could see them, but sunkyu is so much more beautiful.

he thinks to earlier that day, driving sunkyu down to busan on a trip that he had mentioned as an offhand goal to look forward to when they had first arrived at sunkyu’s parents the weekend before, how in that moment all he could think about was how he could help the both of them get through it. remembers sunkyu’s shaking hands, remembers having to shove his own in his pockets just to stop himself from reaching out like he wanted to, thinks about how, now, he doesn’t have to stop himself if he doesn’t want to. and he doesn’t want to.

he remembers the other time they had chased fireworks in the night sky, a whirlwind of a night that yujin thinks of in flashes, he thinks of sunkyu framed in pink light, he thinks of sunkyu dancing with him, the beat of the music so loud he could feel it in his chest, right alongside his rapidly beating heart. he thinks of the whiskey and soda, and he thinks about how he’ll never be able to drink it again without thinking of sunkyu. it seems fitting, as many things in his life are defined and shaped around sunkyu, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

he thinks of sunkyu’s hand in his, pulling him forward along midnight covered streets, he thinks of waiting at crosswalks and feeling like he could spin and float into the sky with the way that sunkyu makes him feel. there is the fact that maybe he should be scared, like he used to, of seeing fireworks bursting in the sky, a representation of what he can create from his hands, and he thinks about how sunkyu coming into his life has started to give him reasons not to be afraid of his hands anymore. somewhere along the way, he began to realize that some of the things he could do were things he could use to protect sunkyu, to make sunkyu happy, thinks of the weight of the necklace on his chest and looks down to see the mirroring one that sunkyu wears as he does. he wonders if it’s warm, he’s thinking of him quite a bit.

yujin finds himself nuzzling sunkyu’s shoulder and he wonders if it’s obvious that he lost focus on the fireworks and found his attention in sunkyu, instead. it’s a bit inevitable, his fingers curling in his shirt at his waist. he was glad they thought forward to bringing a blanket with them so they could lay out on the sand and watch the lights burst in the sky, though he still feels like somehow, somehow, he has gotten sand all over his jeans. there is a bit of a chill from the ocean, so yujin is mostly trying to make sure that sunkyu doesn’t get cold, a hum quiet in his chest.

“are you warm enough, sunkyu-yah?” he murmurs somewhere near his ear, just to make sure that sunkyu can hear him through all of the noise.

even with his question, he still raises up on a palm and shrugs off his leather jacket, and in the next moment, he’s draping it over sunkyu’s shoulders, and returning to the position he was in previously, laid out beside him, hand sliding back around him. even with the added cover of his jacket, yujin still wants to make sure he can give sunkyu as much of his warmth as possible, he certainly has more than enough to spare. he thinks, then, of how good it feels to get away from it all, knew that the both of them needed this sort of reprieve, thinks of how he hasn’t even checked his phone all day, how blissful the world can be when all he worries about is sunkyu and what else they can do together.

he’s smiling to himself, unable to help it. sunkyu makes him so happy he can’t contain all of it, sometimes. it spills from him like maybe light should, crackling and fizzing like a fire in his chest that he never wants to put out. so he holds him a little tighter, pulls him a little closer.

nothing else matters. he repeats it to himself like a mantra, a litany of reassurances that he keeps close to his heart, in that he’ll never let anyone or anything ever take this, take sunkyu, from him.

not when it’s his. not when he is sunkyu’s, in turn. the entire world couldn’t take this from them. he’ll never let it.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

—AREUM⋆ˊˎ

“my bet is on the boyfriend. he has all of that pent up anger that could easily be used to help him gain the upper hand, however, taking into consideration that he is in fact drunk... it could also be the innocent bystander who happened to be drug into this whole mess.” she was definitely enjoying this all a little too much and it was showing.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin listens to her explanation and can only raise an eyebrow. there’s certainly something.. different about her, something that yujin doesn’t want to jump to conclusions to, so quickly, but. there is only a small pool of beings that yujin can consider that can hear conversations happening in a club with music, chatter, noise so thick and cluttered that yujin can barely hear the women beside him if she wasn’t projecting her voice in his direction well enough.

he knows they exist, they blend in among others, just as yujin does in his own way, but he doesn’t think that it’s quite a high possibility that he’ll run into them on occasions like this, out of everyone in the club he began talking to.

“or you’re really good at reading lips,” he mumbles, playing along a bit with the cover if she does have one, the excuse just barely making an explanation for it. yujin’s drunk enough to not press the matter further, if she wanted to expose herself then he’d let her do it on her own. he didn’t think it was his place to call her out, just as he didn’t want to come out with the fact that he was a witch right away, either.

his eyebrows furrow a little bit at her cold laugh, shifting in his seat and taking a long pull from his drink. “i’ve seen enough of it to become sick of how much it exists. maybe it propels people forward, maybe it’s a balance, if there is something like that, in order to equal out into the good, but a lot of it seems unnecessary and perpetual. why make people suffer when you have the option to not?” yujin says, and the whispered words out of her mouth confirms it for him. so she’s not human. he supposes that fact, at least, explains why her words contain so much of an opinion opposing his own.

“i’m not sure if i want to even think about who would win, i’d want to it stop escalating before there’s a winner, really. can there even be one in that situation? everyone is already losing by being involved in it, in the first place,” yujin’s frowning a little now, and he turns to look at the bartender, unsure if he wants to observe this any longer, but he sees the way that he’s glancing at a security guard, and how he pushes forward through the crowd towards the altercation. he’s guessing the bartender noticed quite a while ago, and when it didn’t break up, he decided to put a stop to it.

he could tell how much the women seemed to be enjoying things, but it seemed like they’d stop, soon, and yujin wonders if she’ll linger after not having the fight to observe from the angle of the bar. he assumes it’s the only reason that she came over here, and he just happened to be sitting there.

“i could say that i thought i was a bit jaded, but i don’t think i’m at the point of despising humanity that much,” yujin muses, and he’s finished with another drink, now, and he idly drags his fingertip through the cold condensation on the side of it for something to do, seeing the man who started the fight getting dragged away by two security and turning away, content with knowing that he’s been removed.

“no winner, then. just a reminder that everything comes in doses. i think that’s the thing about the universe, is that there will always be both in tandem, good and bad, maybe, but you can’t have one without the other. and the good will always make the bad feel worse, and the bad will always make the good feel even better when it comes around. it’s just how things are,” he says, and shrugs a little.

“i’m not sure if it has anything to do with humans or maybe it’s just how things are. in my own opinion.. i don’t think anyone can escape that, no matter who or what you are,” yujin continues, and he looks over to her for a moment, then back to his drink. maybe it’s empty, maybe it’s just waiting to be filled up again. he motions for another. he’d like to think that it’s just waiting to be made full once more.

@feyxareum

[yujinfey]

—SUNKYU⋆ˊˎ

he presses his forehead to the back of yujin’s warm, warm hand and closes his eyes, telling himself that he’ll just take a breath here. one moment, and he’ll wash all of this blood off of yujin’s hands, so that yujin won’t have to think about it anymore. “i’m so scared of losing you.”

tw: blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

his words make something settle in his chest, and hearing that sunkyu would make sure that nothing will happen just reminds yujin of his own resolve, of the fact that he wouldn’t let it happen because he doesn’t want sunkyu to have to see anything more like this. he doesn’t want sunkyu to have to face his parents, he doesn’t want him to see any of it. quietly, he tells himself that he won’t let it happen, either. for the both of them. and maybe that’s something that he can finally accept.

he shakes his head a little, his tone more steady when he speaks for this. “i’ll never get tired of you, sunkyu yah, i don’t think it’s possible,” yujin says, and he hopes that sunkyu can feel the way that he means it. he’s with sunkyu everyday and sometimes even that doesn’t feel like enough, and the moments that he’s away with him just consist of the desire to get back to him. he can’t count the amount of times he has been out and wanted to turn and point something out to sunkyu, only to notice that he isn’t there and miss him more with an ache that is only cured by the sight of his smile, the weight of his hand in his.

“yeah,” he echoes, letting out a bit of an exhale. “just a little bit more and then we can do that,” yujin says, and it feels like a statement he tries to put out into the world for the both of them, providing a bit of resolve to finish this so they can get back to only worrying about each other, the warmth between them.

he hums in agreement when he says he needs to get his shirt off, and he keeps his vision up. he doesn’t want to see what he looks like as sunkyu undoes the buttons, and so he focuses on his features instead. doesn’t think about how he feels like his shirt, something crisp and precise turned rumpled and stained. the strained breath sunkyu lets go feels like something solid in his chest, but he still doesn’t look. as he throws it into the tub with the other articles of clothing, yujin feels another piece of what happened that night float away from him.

yujin keeps quiet as he works but his point of focus stays on sunkyu. lets himself be tilted and moved as needed, tries to let himself calm down, tries not to think about how much sunkyu is doing for him while he sits there, useless, tries to think that this is something for sunkyu, too, that sunkyu will feel better that it’s done. he thinks if he wasn’t here, he probably would have went straight to bed, fell asleep in these clothes and hoped that sleep would allow him some form of clarity in the morning. everything would be so different if sunkyu wasn’t here with him. he thinks of that often, lately.

he tries not to react too much at the pain, more of a dull ache now more than anything, knows that sunkyu is being as gentle as he can and it would hurt regardless, knows that he’s safe here and this is to help, so he tries to quiet as much of it as he can as sunkyu treats everything that he can see.

as he finishes, there is a thank you on the edge of his tongue that he would say if sunkyu didn’t tell him he’d get him a shirt and leave the room, leaving him with the small kiss that makes the darkest parts of the inside of his chest quiet. he waits, playing with his fingers, until sunkyu comes back, grateful for the way that he helps him like this, too, guiding his arms into the sleeves and finding comfort in the softness of the sweater. “thank you, kyu,” he murmurs to him, genuine, quiet, looking down to the blood still lingering on his fingers when they come through the sleeves, eyes going to sunkyu and feeling his heart break at the emotion that he sees there painted clearly in his features, something yujin wouldn’t be able to miss.

yujin listens to him, staring down at him with his heart in pieces, though all he can think about is somehow piecing back together sunkyu’s if he could, if he can.

everything he says feels like echoes of his own thoughts, but it doesn’t make hearing it any easier, the fact that sunkyu has to indirectly deal with this too, that sunkyu has to see him like this. “i’m tired, too,” yujin murmurs, and he feels like if his voice breaks, he won’t point it out. he lets it happen. “it’s.. it’s always been like this. i wish that i could make it easier for you, too, because you have to do the same thing. i remember how it used to be, when i visited your house. it. it hurts, to see someone that you care about so much have to change so drastically to cater to other people who are supposed to love unconditionally, but all it ever feels like is that it is conditional, and. all i ever could do is watch. i’ve always felt so.. helpless. so i try to. give as much as i can to you in any other way possible, the fact that you’ve been here with me this long, despite everything that you have to handle, too, i’m so. grateful for you. and scared. i’m scared, too, that this life we live doesn’t guarantee anything but all it does is take,” he breathes out, and he would reach out to cradle sunkyu’s cheek in his hands if they weren’t dirty, feels the way that he has to hold back like a physical ache.

“but,” he murmurs, and watches as sunkyu places his forehead against the back of his hand, and it’s another time that he wishes with everything he has that he can do more than this, then just give him words, wishes he could do something about it, too.

“you’re not going to,” yujin says, and he shifts, now, to slide off of where he’s sitting and come down on his knees to settle next to sunkyu. here, on the same ground, he leans forward and presses their forehead together, squeezing his eyes shut to give them both a moment of quiet, of safety. “i’m right here with you and this is where i’ll stay. somehow, somewhere, someone, who knows what, gave me you. in this life, i received you, and i mean it when i say that i’ll stay. i’ll be here with you. so don’t be scared, because there’s nothing that will keep me from doing that. i’ll fight to stay here. i’ll do anything if it means i get to wake up to you another day. so don’t be scared,” he opens his eyes, now, and he brings a free hand up to tilt sunkyu’s chin up, for him to open his eyes too, for them to be able to meet their gazes, the millionth time, the next one leading to another million, ones that yujin looks forward to.

“you have me. you’ll always have me. please remember that, sunkyu yah,” yujin tells him, and his words are final, even if they’re said with tears waiting in his eyes, glittering in the dim light of the bathroom. he takes a breath and he reaches for the cloth on his knees that sunkyu had left on the counter before he went to get him clothes, and he wipes his hands in it, and reaches up to wipe any remainder of blood that he finds on sunkyu, wipes his chin. when he’s done, he leans forward, and he leaves a quiet kiss on his forehead. throws the cloth into the tub and he stands, reaching out his hands for him.

“c’mon. let’s forget all of this for a little while. let’s just. focus on each other, okay? it’s just us, here,” yujin tells him, and he thinks that when he looks into his eyes, it calms all of the shaking that had once been racking his frame, his hands, and thinks that it replaces it with a certain type of warmth that yujin can rely on, that yujin wants to stay in for awhile.

one more gaze, here, and yujin offers him the quietest smile. a million and one. a million more.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

— ARA⋆ˊˎ

again, she looked out towards the aisles that were visible from her place behind the counter. at that time of day, they were empty of any other customers. it made her decision relatively easier. “sure. why not?” she answered, one shoulder lifting in a casual shrug and the corners of her mouth tugging up into a faint smile. “there isn’t much else to do right now. and it could be pretty fun.”

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

her comment makes him laugh, tilting his head back a bit, his thumb running over the spines of the books in his hands idly. “you can never know when the books might need to start an uproar. if i was stuck in a bookstore all day with nothing else to do, i might try to start something pesky like that just for some fun,” yujin returns, and his dimples appear in his smile, imagining something like magic making them fly up and out of the bookshelves and twirl around the room, fluttering pages and little thumps as they bump into each other. he thinks that maybe books wouldn’t have such good air flight driving techniques.

he raises an eyebrow a little at her question, shrugging his shoulders. waving his hands around a bit, he gestures vaguely, no meaning behind it. “maybe a little, but i wouldn’t expect anything else. i’d do the same, really, i mean it,” yujin tells her, and he really doesn’t mind, like the books, if he was stuck in a bookstore all day he might try and cause a bit of a ruckus on his own just to make things interesting, which seems to be a little bit more risky then selling customers books like he should be doing if he was hypothetically a good worker.

yujin pulls a book from a shelf and considers the summary on the back cover, fingers running over the inscribed title and humming to himself. “as much as i’d like to be cool enough to guess right away, i think maybe a couple of questions could help?” he muses, and he slides it back carefully into the place that he had found it, traveling a bit further down the aisle. it does obscure his view that he had of her in the first place from behind the counter, but since the place is empty, he assumes that his voice carries.

“hm.. are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person?” he asks her, and finds that he’s placed himself in the mystery section. and maybe it’s a bit of a mystery, too, that it’s the first question he happens to ask. “i think.. it’s half empty. half of the contents of the glass are just waiting for the other half in order to be whole, maybe. and you might think.. why am i asking this, but i feel like. it could affect the kind of book that you like to read,” yujin says, and he comes back to the end of the aisle, peeking out before fully appearing, a little smile on his mouth.

“oh! i’m yujin by the way. since we’ll figure out our favorite book genres, it feels fitting that you might know my name, too,” he offers her, and he starts down another aisle, eyes running over the varying colors and textures of the books stacked neatly in a row, all waiting for someone to pick them up and discover another world. it had been an easy way for yujin to feel like he could get away, sometimes, when he didn’t have anything else.

“you can ask me questions too, if it helps. though maybe my favorite genre might be obvious after my answer? or maybe that’s just obvious to me,” he says, sliding a book off of the shelf. yujin flips carefully through the pages, scanning through the words, and carries it back out, slow, meandering steps carrying him back out into the open. “the early gray morning seemed to contain something i couldn’t put my finger on. maybe it was the way the skies would open up to rain, the way lightning streaks across the sky like a flash, lighting up the world beneath it, causing creatures and humans alike to look up in awe. was nature trying to tell us something? or was it just the way the world worked? in bright streaks, in brilliant flashes, a moment of time to the next with or without purpose, but demanding to be seen?”

he reads the passage aloud, tone slow and careful, and he looks up to her, his hair falling into his eyes as he finishes. “..do you think that it means something? when it rains? when there’s lightning? does everything have a purpose or.. does it just happen?” yujin asks, and looks down to the book, trailing over the words. he had read this before, but it had been some time since he had revisited it. he finds it funny how he can remember how he felt when he read this, back at his parent’s house before they told him to leave, tucked into his bed that once burned in flames, the light of his lamp and the rain pattering against the windows, a storm that begged to reach him even though he was inside, and remembered finding a moment of comfort, amidst all of the anxiety he always had living there.

he remembered asking himself if he thought that the world had purpose or it was something that allowed them to exist there, both living in tandem. yujin remembered, too, falling asleep to the rain getting harder, and thinking maybe there was more to it than just that.

@arafey

[yujinfey]

—AREUM⋆ˊˎ

areum leans a little closer towards the male beside her while keeping her attention on the two men, speaking only loud enough for him to hear here. “from what i’m hearing, the muscular one has a girlfriend and thinks that the other one is her lover. the interesting part is, the other guy doesn’t even know the girlfriend. so what would you say to him in order to finally hit that last nerve?” her tone seems almost playful but also dangerous as she asks this.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

“hopefully they’re escorted out before it becomes anything like that,” yujin says, and he finishes his drink, setting the glass down and playing with the rings on his fingers to occupy himself, still watching the conversation happen between the two men. it’s not like he hadn’t seen many of these happen, it was quite a common occurrence when drinking was involved. he had never been one to instigate fights himself— always thought about the capabilities he had and never used. all it left was a bitter taste in his mouth.

he knew his father would have something to say about it. that he could just easily use his magic to get to someone before they even got close enough to touch him, about how yujin could be invaluable in deals, how he could become a great example of someone that everyone could learn to fear. yujin’s known enough of that to know that he would never want to be that person to someone else.

“well, first i’d want to know why he even thought that in the first place, if that’s really the case. if he truly doesn’t even know the girl involved, then why is the boyfriend even challenging him? then it feels more like an ego thing then even anything to do with the other guy. it could be something he fabricated himself— i think the mind twists things to look certain ways sometimes, even if it isn’t real. so he’s drunk, so he saw this other guy and maybe had a moment of insecurity. but instead of.. dealing with it himself, he took it out on his environment,” yujin reasons, and he tilts his head towards the bartender when he happens to catch his eye, pushing his glass towards him for another refill.

he directs his gaze to her for a moment, humming a little to himself. “and there’s another thing. i mean— how do you know all of that? i can’t hear what they’re saying too well, honestly, over the music. do you know him or do you just like getting involved when you see a little bit of trouble?”

yujin muses, and looks over when he hears the drink being set back near him, thanking the bartender and picking it up, taking another sip and looking over to her a moment later.

“either way, i feel like there’s a lot more here than meets the eye. and to hit a nerve, really, with anyone while they’re drunk, is as easy as looking in the wrong direction. just like it was with him in the first place, when he picked a fight with that other man,” he shrugs a little here, setting his glass back down and looking towards them again.

“so you could say anything and make it worse. he’s already chosen that path tonight. i think anything would make him mad at this point, but the conversation is already derailed enough. i mean, look at his girlfriend, she looks like she wants to intervene, maybe she’ll go and get someone to help break it up soon, if someone else hasn’t already. i might.. say something to the bartender, at least, unless they stop talking on their own. i mean, i feel kind of worse for her, honestly, that her partner would do something like that because of his own ego.. or if he didn’t even trust her enough to make up things like that. she deserves better,” yujin finishes, and he realizes he’s probably been talking quite a lot, but when he’s a few drinks in, it tends to happen. and she had asked him what he thought about it, even if he did derail it quite a bit into another topic.

maybe he would be a bit more perceptive if he hadn’t drank as much as he did already, but he did come here to forget more than anything else.

@feyxareum

[yujinfey]

you drain the fear from me

dear sunkyu yah,

every year we get around to this day and i think along the lines of the same thing. it’s been another whole year, and i’ve known you for so long, it feels familiar. i think we’ve celebrated in a lot of ways, but i know that every single day i get to have you in my life is one in it’s own way. recently that’s been even more true, because i’ve been able to wake up every single day and it’s to you, and i couldn’t be more grateful for that. it makes me wonder about all of that time we spent living apart, and i'm not sure how we did it. at least i know now that being able to fall asleep next to you is a whole lot nicer then over video calls on our phones.

do you remember that one year we celebrated at your house, and when the sun started to set, we snuck outside and wandered into the trees? the sky was a beautiful spread of color, oranges and pinks and purples and all i could think of was that the sky wanted to celebrate that you are here, the whole world, does, because to me. well. you were, and still are, my whole world, and i feel like anyone and everything that meets you should realize what a once in a lifetime opportunity that is. to talk to you, to see you smile.

and so i hope you have a good day today. i hope that every single day i can make you happy, but today i just want to make sure you know how much you mean to me, and. to think back to all of those years ago, when i met you for the first time, i can only think about how glad i am that it was you.

we have a lot of memories together, don’t we, kyu? despite everything that we’ve been through together, i feel like part of the reason that i’ve been able to weather it all is because i have you with me. i hope you know that every single time i reach out for your hand it’s because you feel like something to anchor me in the dark. you’ve always been so much light to me, sunkyu yah. i hope, too, that when i reach out for you, i can be something that allows you to feel tethered to this earth, but also a reminder that. i’m here, and i’ll remain here with you always, if that’s what you’d like, too.

i thought you’d wonder, maybe, when i had the time to write all of this to you, so i’ll paint you a picture. you were reading a book on the couch, one hand on the pages and one hand in my hair like you know how i like, but then i felt your hand start to slow, and i looked up, and you had fallen asleep. so i saved the page that you had stopped on and tucked you into a blanket, and you’re still sleeping across the room while i’m getting all of this together for you. i have a gift for you, too, but i wanted you to have this first.

before you moved in, i barely spent any time here. it felt too dark, and. it was also too.. empty. looking at you now, i feel like you came in and spread light to every edge of darkness that had filled up this space, and now i have so many memories of warm afternoons laughing with you, and late nights watching movies together on the couch, and eating breakfast over the counter, and i couldn’t think of a better way to fill up this space with happiness.

along with this are two pictures i had printed, i thought we could put them up in the apartment, decorate with some more of those moments. the first is one i took of you myself, even though i’m not so good with cameras, i think the picture came out well just because of how pretty you are. it was that night on the balcony, the one where we danced under the stars. the second photo was one that another volunteer at the community center took for us, when i came to visit you for lunch that one day after i was done at my parents. i actually didn’t know she had taken it, but she came and gave it to me after, and i couldn’t help but print it. you look very pretty in that one, too.

here’s to a lot more memories, sunkyu yah. i think i might start carrying around a camera just to capture them all, just so i can fill up the walls with all of them, so we can reminded whenever we pass them in the hallways. these small moments of happiness. i always find it easily when i’m with you, kyu.

i left this by the bed so you could read it once you woke up. when you’re done, come out to the kitchen, because i’m making breakfast. and i have something else that i’d like to give you.

yours,

yujin

—

@feysunkyu

[jjongho]

i adore him a normal amount

[yujinfey]

—SUNKYU⋆ˊˎ

i’m sorry. it’s stuck in his throat. i should have been with you. i should have been there.

focus. he silently counts to three; he rests a hand on yujin’s cheek, then the lapel of his jacket, and sunkyu’s still shaking but he needs to focus. “do you think you can move enough to get your jacket off...?”

tw: blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin can barely handle the look in sunkyu’s eyes. the tears that wait to fall, the shakiness of his hands as he reaches out to him, and he thinks that he wishes he could clear it all away so he doesn’t leave any evidence of this, of his failure, on sunkyu’s hands, too. he wishes he could be better, so that sunkyu didn’t have to bear the weight of any of this at all.

as he wipes at his cheeks he tries to fight the feeling back, tries to get through the explanation instead and accept the fact that sunkyu is here, sunkyu is already involved in this, yujin has already dragged him this deep. he feels a little too raw at the edges to try and accept it so he tries to cast it to the side, tries to tell himself he’ll visit it later and accepts the feeling that he isn’t a good man, wouldn’t ever be one to subject sunkyu to this. to this entire life, to yujin himself.

he deserves so much better.

he’s not even sure what to think about. everything seems to be running through his mind and weighing heavy and flowing away and he feels so scattered, and he thinks of his parents and the kind of words that they’ll have for him but he doesn’t think anything will hurt as much as seeing tears in sunkyu’s eyes, to see him shaking, all because of yujin. all of his fault. he never wants to see him like this, much less be the cause of it. sunkyu always deserves to have a smile on his face. “i just don’t want them to come over here. i don’t want you to. see that. whatever it will be. whatever they’ll do to me,” he says, laughs wordlessly and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment but that doesn’t clear his mind in the slightest, opens them to just look back down at the floor, it’s all he can handle for the moment.

sunkyu says he’s glad he came home but all yujin can think of is that he made him cry, and there’s. just hurt. he can handle anything else but making sunkyu upset, anything other then that emotion in his gaze. there even isn’t a way he can think of, right now, to make it go away, to make him smile, and it makes him feel worse, that all he brings is sadness and he can’t even clear it away. a never ending thunderstorm, he feels like he’s rumbling the very foundation of the apartment and not stopping, there is lightning in the windows and striking down to the very center of his heart, rattled to his core that he couldn’t be better then this.

he tells him to hold on, so he does. he stands there in the hallway, taking in shallow breaths and trying not to fall apart.

and when he comes back up, yujin looks up to see him outlined by the lights of their apartment, framed by all of the memories here, and yujin thinks he might already be fractured. when he holds both of his hands, he feels a shudder go through him, that they have both been dragged into this reality and covered over in it, he feels like he’s spreading it everywhere. there, he says we, and yujin can’t help the way it falls over him, and it’s then that tears fall down his cheeks, unbidden. he’s still shaking, but he feels like somehow, sunkyu contains some of it in the way that he grips his fingers.

“will you rest with me?” he asks quietly, because it’s all he can manage. he lets him lead him into the bathroom and it feels like yujin is once more allowing himself to sink, here, in sunkyu’s hands, in his arms, in the way that he always helps him feel some sort of calmness in the midst of a storm. maybe the rain is outside, and maybe it’s slamming against the windowpanes and it’s dark and angry but here. here they’re far away from all of that. all in the connection of their hands. no matter how broken yujin feels, no matter how much he thinks that he doesn’t deserve it, sunkyu is still. here. holding his hand. telling him that they’ll do it together.

yujin sits and watches him run the water. he traces his features with his eyes, in the shitty bathroom light, the curve of his jaw and his hair, following the strands, the slope of his nose. there’s so many years between them, there is so much between them, and here they are. he thinks back to when they were younger, and never thought of a reality that sunkyu would have to wash his blood off of his hands.

his hand is cool on his cheek. he can’t help but reach up and cover it with his own for a second, trying to chase it away with warmth. yujin had been trying not to touch him, if maybe he could somehow keep from staining him with all of this, but he can’t help the way that he naturally reaches out for him every chance that he gets, can never fight it for too long, no matter the reason, even if he never ever wants to, just has some part of him that tells him sunkyu would be better off if he didn’t.

his hand follows to his jacket. he hums a little. “i can,” he says, and he favors his right side as he manages to get the left off, and let the suit jacket slide off, where he tosses it towards the bathtub, where they can wash it later. squeezes his eyes shut while he does it, scrunching his nose up but pressing forward. here, the crisp white button down he had slid onto his shoulders leaves nothing to not be seen. his hands go up to his tie to loosen it and undo the knot, and he deposits that in the tub, as well, to deal with later.

he thinks he should be doing all of this on his own, but sunkyu had asked him to let him do this, and so. he does. he notices the shaking of his hands and brings both of his own to sunkyu’s, holding them for a moment, leaning forward to press them against his cheeks, for just a moment. “i’m sorry,” he whispers, a resounding echo, and wishes he could make it all better, wishes he could take them away somewhere less dark, somewhere where they don’t have to worry about any of this.

yujin looks up after a moment to meet his gaze. he thinks about all of the times he’s ever met sunkyu’s eyes, and wishes that like this, it didn’t have to be another one that he would remember, covered in his own blood. “tell me what you’re thinking,” he says quietly, because he can see that sunkyu is holding something back, maybe, he can see all of the thoughts that he keeps inside, and he doesn’t want him to, wants to clear them all away.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

—SUNKYU⋆ˊˎ

terror breaks through his voice, and sunkyu is trying so hard to stamp it down, to wring this out of his words and the shaking in his own hands because yujin needs him to do this, but all he’s thinking is that he needs to see yujin first. he needs to see yujin’s eyes, open, on him.

“i have to. to-- yujin, p- please, look at me?”

tw: blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin hears his voice but is unable to look up. he made it this far but now that he’s here he’s just filled with so many thoughts, so much of it weighing so heavy, but looking into sunkyu’s eyes when he’s like this.. he doesn’t know how he can bear it too. he can barely handle the sound of his voice when he calls out his name, and he knows when he gets closer, feels his touch. he could feel his presence with his eyes closed, as he does now, but he still doesn’t know how to face him.

all he could think of the whole way here was how much he wanted to hear his voice, to see him, to feel his touch, to calm down, to feel safe, and now that he’s here, he feels like all he did was bring so much darkness, threatening to swallow him and the whole apartment whole. it’s another one of those moments he wonders if all he does is sink and pull down sunkyu with him.

he feels trapped here, in his feelings, in his shame, knowing there’s no way to take back the way that sunkyu has seen him in this state, and he knows there’s tears pooling in his eyes, too, unable to hold them back. especially now that he hears sunkyu’s voice. especially now.

how can he explain to him how badly he’s fucked up? how does he even begin to articulate that into the air? he can feel his hands on his wrists and despite it all his touch feels grounding, he tries to think of him, he tries. he tries so hard. he has to move forward from here. he has to pull himself together for. for the both of them. so he lets his hands drop, slowly, from his eyes, and he tilts his chin just slightly to look at sunkyu.

he’s sure he looks like a mess. the tears have fallen from his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, mixing with everything else, and yujin can barely hold himself still. “sunkyu yah,” he says, quietly, as it’s the first thing that comes to his mind. “i’m sorry,” is the second thing that leaves his lips, and he would reach out and touch him, but he also doesn’t want to spread the darkness that he is harbouring, trying so hard to swallow down, push back, ignore that it’s there until the intensity of it fades.

it’s what he has to do. he has to hold himself together.

yujin takes a breath. “they. sent me out, to complete a deal. i um— you know i haven’t done that. before. and it went completely wrong,” he chuckles wetly, empty laughter, trying to hold these jagged pieces of himself together.

“i fucked it up. the buyers thought that.. whatever they were buying it for was lower than what my parent’s asked for. so. this is how they reacted. i didn’t.. didn’t finish the deal. i just came back here, so. there’s my parents finding out, too. that i fucked up again. actually, even worse then usual. i lost them money. i don’t even know if i should.. be here right now, but. i just wanted to come back to you,” as yujin speaks, his voice is quiet, barely there, betrayed by the tightness of his throat and his shaking he just can’t seem to cease.

“maybe they’ll call me in the morning, maybe it’ll be in a few minutes. i don’t know if they actually care or not, but i do still have the potions, and their car instead of mine, so maybe that’ll be what they go searching for,” he bites his lower lip just to try and cut off the feeling welling up behind his eyes, again, feeling pathetic for crying in the first place, but he’s at the point that he’s unable to keep everything in check, all of his energy trying to go to make himself speak clearly and steadily without breaking.

he wishes he could hold him. he keeps thinking that maybe it would be something that could allow him to feel like he could be whole again, but he feels like he would somehow smother his light, or any that he happened to have left, after seeing yujin likes this. “i’m sorry i came home like this. i didn’t know what else to do but come here to you. i just.. failed at everything tonight. i’m sorry if i made you wait, sunkyu yah,” yujin tells him, and his eyes stare past him, down the dim hallway, to their bathroom. he knows it’s where he should go next, but he has to move forward from here.

“i should probably— change. clean up,” he says softly, and he lets sunkyu’s hands fall away from his own with sadness in his heart, reaching to stand up from where he had sunk. he grits his teeth together, trying to swallow down the pain, and he tries not to show it on his face, just for the fact that he doesn’t want sunkyu to see, he doesn’t want him to know. he can handle this, anyways, it’ll stop hurting soon, and it’ll all be okay. he keeps trying to repeat these things to himself, feels like he’s trying so hard to run in the opposite direction of how dark it all felt when he arrived. he knows he can’t allow himself to go there.

he clutches his side, where it will probably bruise, and wishes he could remember all of the pieces of what happened, but it all feels more like a blur now. yujin thinks he just wants to sleep and forget that it all happened, try to handle the weight of having sunkyu see him like this, of how he can somehow make up for it, all of the hours he guesses he was gone and sunkyu had to spend them not knowing what was happening.

yujin still tastes blood in his mouth. he wonders if it’ll ever fade.

standing proves more difficult then he thinks. maybe it’s all of the anxiety, the lack of energy, of going through so many things that night, lately, that it makes him unsteady on his feet. he bends over slightly as he tries to handle it, letting out a steady breath as his head spins. just a little bit more, and he can lay down. he still has to clean up all of the blood he has left on the floor.

and there is everything that comes after that, too.

“did you eat?” he asks sunkyu quietly, and he might just be trying to buy himself some time before he makes the walk to the bathroom, maybe all of his adrenaline has finally run out, and he’s being hit with the pain and exhaustion all at once, of countless late nights out using his magic, expending as much of it as he could to finish these potions just to fail the deal, everything finally coming into fruition to leave him standing here feeling fragmented and broken.

he’ll make it up to sunkyu. he’ll do everything he can to.

[yujinfey]

repose in your eyes/your hands

tw: violence, blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

he thinks of the night in separate pieces. first, he sees leaving home. sunkyu watching him from the bed as he takes himself apart, discarding his piercings, combing his hair back, buttoning up the crisp shirt that covers over his tattoos, when he slides on the dress shoes instead of his boots. he thinks of the feeling of sunkyu’s hand in his own when he has to let go, he thinks of that final squeeze before he leaves the apartment behind, and in it, the one piece of home that yujin knows in this world.

then, there is the hour long ride to his parent’s home. there is the way his knee bounces, and he’s unable to fiddle with his rings because he has none, and so he texts sunkyu inbetween him trying to swallow, calm down, breathe quietly. he does this multiple times a week, so why is every time so hard? why does it feel like it’s the first time he’s done it every single time? maybe it’s because he’s not always quite so sure what he’s doing unless he’s preparing a spell for a lengthy amount of time, and at this current point in time, he had finished everything he had been asked of a few days prior.

he thinks, idly, waiting for a message back from sunkyu that eases some of the tension every time he feels his phone vibrate in his hands, that everything has been a little too much lately. he knows his parents are only thinking about the bond, only thinking about the impression that yujin might be giving when he can barely do magic, still, when he expresses no interest in the business still, and does not try to engage any further. he thinks of his mother, dark eyes from his doorway back home, the hidden sneer she barely manages to hide as she tells him that now that they’re living together, yujin better not show an ounce of weakness. he’s supposed to show sunkyu how capable he is, how powerful he is, and so all of this extra business he’s been doing lately is supposed to be representative of that.

and usually, he’s good at hiding it. he thinks he is. maybe he’s just running or putting it behind a wall, but even when he woke up this morning, the bags under his eyes were so prominent. his hands are shaking even as he tries to eat breakfast, and he’s felt so drained, lately, like he barely has anything left. he feels like the exact opposite of the pinnacle example of a good son, yet he still enters their home with a smile. he still presses a kiss to his mother’s cheek and tries to swallow down the bitter taste in his mouth. his father still stares from some distance away, and he’s got the paper in his hands, but yujin knows he’s watching his every move. yujin pays careful attention to not falter.

sunkyu in his mind, again, as he usually is. he feels even more upset to think that his behavior might be making him worry, and he thinks about the other night, breaking down on the way back from his parent’s house enough that he had to stop the car, steady his breathing. feeling like a fool for not being able to swallow back the tears welling in his eyes, the tightness in his throat, the way his hands were shaking way too much for him to feel comfortable driving. he thinks of sunkyu’s voice on the phone. we said we'd do this together, didn't we? i want to deal with this together too. yujin wishes it was easier. he wishes that all of this didn’t exist, he wishes that they didn’t have anything to deal with together, he wishes that all they had to focus on was— being happy. often, yujin wonders how different a person he would be if he didn’t have to deal with all of this, but he also thinks about how he received sunkyu in the process, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.

the next part of his night, as he had tried to go back to his bedroom where he had basically converted it into where he does all of his magic, having replaced the remnants of whatever childhood he did have into places for books, for ingredients, for anything that he needed, the things that his parents collected for him to help complete the more complicated spells. there is his father’s hand on his shoulder, telling him he’s going to do something a little different tonight.

yujin had wondered when this would begin.

a velvet pouch, the glasses of the potion he had previously divided and labeled, tied together with strings. he, himself, feels like he is being led on them as his father guides him to another car, one with darkened windows, and gives him the address to key into the gps. he thinks of sunkyu. he thinks— he can barely think. feels like an extension of himself as he drives, as he repeats what his father told him over and over in his mind. the asking price that his parents had previously negotiated, that he should be firm and professional, accept no less than what they’re asking for, do not come back unless he’s received the money.

he’s alone, and the meeting place is dark. waiting at the edge of a forest, the dark trees looming from the car a few feet behind him, he waits. until they come from the tree line. first, he’s outnumbered. three to his one, and yujin looks briefly up to the stars. he thinks of sunkyu again. thinks of his hand in his own when he left, he thinks of the fire he feels in them right now, the way his heart pounds in his chest. he is not prepared for this.

the next thing he is not prepared for: they expected a different price. yujin winces at the sound of his own voice as he tells them he’ll accept nothing less. it sounds weak. he feels weak.

he expects the anger, even if it takes him only a moment to anticipate it. the potions are waiting back in the car, locked in the glovebox. this, at least, he prepared for. but not for what comes next.

yes, yes, they’ll teach him a lesson, if he won’t hand it over. of course, they’ll have to make sure it’s obvious, so whoever sent him here knows not to mess with them again. it makes perfect sense.

yujin sees his father, feels the coldness of his gaze as the first punch connects with his face. pain flashes, blinks across his features, and he reaches his shaking hand up just to see blood. at least in this moment, he can laugh, just at the ridiculousness of it all. blood in his teeth, on his hands, finally, now, finally. he’s not sure how to feel when it’s just his own.

he can hear his father, now, too, can hear him tell him to use his magic. he could, easily, and be out of this place without a scratch. yujin is not a fighter. not for himself.

when did he get on the ground? maybe it’s better this way. he clutches his side, pain blooming as each hit connects with his skin, and he thinks maybe he isn’t present for this, not entirely. it all stops as soon as it starts. maybe it’s because yujin isn’t laughing anymore. he can hear footsteps, distantly, and shifts onto his back with a wince, just to stare up at the stars. they’re still there, blinking down at him.

he wonders if this is what his parents wanted. he’s not sure what’s worse, proof that he can’t do this, on top of all the proof that he already gave that he can’t do this, or the fact that he didn’t even get the money. it’s not like it’ll hurt them, they’ll probably do anything they can to smooth over the deal, yujin can see it now. he could go back there bruised and bloody and they’d ask him where the money was. take the potions back, they’ll make sure he makes up for it on the other end, he’ll work harder, make more.

so he doesn’t go back to his parents. he goes home.

yujin feels a little bit like he’s in a dream, but it’s not a very good one. he’s known nightmares his whole life but this is something he can feel all of the way to his bones, as he gets back to the car, everything feels so tedious, driving back to their place. it’s not the apartment that he wants to go back to, but it’s sunkyu. and he knows, what this looks like. he almost considers not going back, stopping somewhere to clean himself up, but he remembers together and thinks he has no more energy left to even try and bear it on his own.

he couldn’t even look at his reflection in the rear view of the mirror of the car, but he had caught glances that made him immediately focus his attention back on the road. he parks, feeling like a puppet on strings. climbs all of the stairs, trying to steady his breath. he thinks he can still feel blood on his face, dripping down his chin. he’s glad he doesn’t run into anybody.

yujin isn’t even sure how long it’s been. and he hadn’t texted him, couldn’t even steady his hands enough for it, so as he gets the door open, he shoulders inside. makes sure it’s shut, and it’s locked, and it’s at that moment that he finally lets it all go. he slides down until he’s sitting on the floor and presses his hands to his face and it’s then that he lets himself shake. there’s still a part of him that tries to keep it quiet, because he feels so raw, anyways, and he feels like any moment it’s all going to come rushing to him, and it does, then, it does. the fact that he fucked up, that his parents will be angry, that he doesn’t know how to fix it, the fact that he can’t protect himself, he didn’t even try, the fact that he’s probably going to worry sunkyu, the fact he came home like this in the first place because he wasn’t capable enough, and his hands curl into tight fists, and he’s unable to keep the pieces together anymore.

he is a failure. he can’t do anything right, and he has let down his parents, and he has let down sunkyu. he knows they should do this together, but he wishes he was stronger, he wishes that he could. be someone sunkyu can rely on, can be confident in that he’ll be okay, not have to think about it, no matter what. and he’s failed.

he’s failed now, especially, since he can’t even hold any of this back, make sure that sunkyu doesn’t see. it feels even worse, that he’s so weak right now, he can’t even hide it, it feels like it’s all spilling out, out of his control, and he’s shaking so much he can’t even focus on anything, nothing other then the feeling like he’s slipping over an edge, losing his grip.

maybe there’s blood on the floor, now. it’s all over his jacket. it’s all over his hands. yujin thinks he should probably get used to the feeling, now. this is his life. he can’t ever have anything be different.

he had known darkness for awhile now, but nothing like this.

nothing like this.

@feysunkyu

[yujinfey]

answers only/for monsters

—JAEYONG⋆ˊˎ

“would you mind walking with me? thanks,” jaeyong doesn’t give yujin a chance to answer before he starts walking, simply expects him to follow or maybe run from him. jaeyong’s number one mission now, however, is to make sure yujin is the only one that catches him. they’re friends, after all. what secrets is yujin willing to keep for him? that may be the most interesting answer of all.

tw: blood

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin had gone to the bar on a whim.

it was another late night, and maybe he was walking for awhile, now, losing track of the hours with his hands jammed in his pockets. he hadn’t expected to run into anyone. he hadn’t expected to run into jaeyong, either. he had seen the sign for the bar and decided to give it a try, but as soon as he passes an alleyway right before it, there he is, stepping out from the shadows. there’s a flash of recognition over his features, then. he sees the blood.

he thinks about monsters, about a night filled with smoke in an entirely different place, in another alleyway, and thinks about how all of that led to here. he remembers the tightness of his throat, he remembers the heat in his hands, he remembers going home and washing them clean over and over to try and get rid of the feeling to be met with no remedy.

he finds himself devoid of words, so he listens, instead. it slowly all slides into place. it makes him think how small the world must be, that the two of themselves find each other in this position, knowing how this world is composed of a lot more than meets the eye. yujin reminds himself he doesn’t know the whole story here, but he also tells himself that it’s probably exactly what he thinks. it’s not a hard thing to piece together— he’s a hunter.

yujin wonders if he knew, this whole time, that he was a witch. figures for all of his monster that he barely let reveal to him in the times that they’ve talked wasn’t enough to come in the way of their friendship. his resulting question makes laughter bubble up out his chest, filling up the space between them and leaking out into the night. “no. if anything, i’d be just as insane as you,” he answers, means, yes, i do know about all of this, and maybe he laughed to break the tension here, maybe because he’s a little nervous, maybe because he hadn’t expected any of this, always has had a hand in things but never saw the results. to be standing in front of jaeyong like this, it’s all a little too visceral.

all he can smell is copper, heavy in the air. it fills up his senses and makes every inch of him feel like he’s standing on an edge, slipping his hands from his pockets just so he can flex his fingers, curl them into fists in the cool night air.

he asks him to follow him. it’s a moment later that he traces right after his footsteps and falls into place beside him.

“so.. small world, huh?” yujin mumbles, and maybe now isn’t the time for him to try and joke, but maybe he also has a penchant for trying to make light in situations when he isn’t sure what else to do. “did you.. know about me before this, or are you just finding out right now like i am?” he asks, because he’s curious, and it has never come up before this. yujin didn’t even have a clue that jaeyong could’ve.. known about all of this. he thinks back to their conversation that night and more of the pieces fall into place. he wonders if jaeyong is thinking the same.

“i guess, then, the question could be— who’s the bigger monster? born or made, maybe it’s really about which one is more. though.. that feels. hard to measure. and a question i don’t know if i really want the answer to, between us,” he muses, and his boots feel heavy on his feet, sound loud against the pavement as he follows jaeyong, unsure on where they’ll end up. probably somewhere to hide all of the red, out of the light. yujin wonders how many nights jaeyong has ended up like this.

wonders how many nights he had come home himself weary from his parents, covered in chalk and charcoal with lines of spells echoing in his mind, fingertips meticulously following line by line, piece by piece, finally collapsing at his apartment with no energy left, simply an echo of the man he had woken up the day as. maybe he doesn’t have blood on his hands, but he still handed over the perfectly bottled potions, he still read out the spells.

he doesn’t really know all of the protocols for this. in the face of danger, he usually found himself running, as the type of magic that he could do quickly usually lended to that sort of scenario, if he absolutely had to. it wasn’t often, but he knew he could do it, if it was necessary. not for himself, no, but if anyone else needed it, if he could save somebody else, protect them, then in those moments, he tries to swallow any ounce of anxiety that wells up inside of him— he could not just sit to the side and hope for the best. it’s not the type of person that he could be. funny, how he chooses this willingly yet still causes these situations in other places, between other people, chooses the ignorance that he never sees what happens, lets his parents make the deals and know the details and he just answers to their will. it’s another thing he tries not to think about.

yujin fiddles with his lip ring. a nervous habit. “do you.. know what i am then?” he asks quietly, and wonders if jaeyong would even want to know, at this point. he guesses it might be fair, though he doesn’t have much in the way of proving it, having never been the type to showcase his magic even with the smallest of spells.

something his parents would probably object to, but it’s another thing yujin lets cross his mind and fade away.

he’s messing with his rings, too, and tries to calm himself down, doesn’t know why he’s having this sort of reaction. it’s not like he doesn’t always have it in the back of his mind, that someone else he meets could know about this world, know about him and who he really is, but he does usually tend to operate like whoever he meets is human, and unaware of it. having all of it revealed to him so quickly is probably what is making him like this, the fact that he had been so completely thrown off by the fact. there’s a smaller part of him, too, that wonders if they’ll still be able to be friends, if jaeyong would even still want him involved in his life, in some way, wonders how all of this will work.

he takes a moment to look up at the stars. the same as the other night, twinkling quietly against an inky backdrop, and yujin holds his breath. lets it go. decides to let things happen as they may, even if he has no clue how they’re going to play out.

all of this talk about monsters, and yujin can only think about what even makes someone human in the first place.

@feyjaeyong