a skeleton to bury, another to make home
cw. soft smut. implicit sex. novel spoilers. top baek saehon x bottom kim soleum. cross posted on ao3.
baek saehon doesn't know why he's still holding on to his sister's skeleton. he should've buried it a long time ago.
his sister is no longer around to house him from the madness of jisan. her ribcage, a bygone artifact of the past, has long been weathered by time and the repetitive crazed rituals of his hometown—if he can even attach the word 'home' to it.
his body outgrew the brittle calcium of his late sister's bones. piece them as he may, a joint for a joint, it will not return a safe haven to a boy who learned to dread the lottery.
baek saehon is an unlucky bastard with no home. a boy who grew up to fear the day he'll draw the golden stick. and similar to how oedipus cannot make apollo's words untrue, baek saehon's prophecy is the will of jisan.
a viper trapped in a jar learns not to bite its savior, its mind preoccupied with the thought of freedom.
all it will remember is the first sliver of light—an agent sacrificed in his stead.
"what's your name?" baek saehon murmurs, mouth against a throat that holds words he long to hear. his hand snakes beneath an unfamiliar blue uniform. it burrows in the warm space between the textile and skin, the gap between restraint and yearning. fingers digging against the side of the agent's ribs in hopes of being permanently housed in the locked bones within.
sacred home beneath warm skin.
"mr. civilian—" the man who introduced himself as an agent hissed. the agent who—in baek saehon's desperate folly—embraced his role as a scapegoat with exhausted acceptance. as if to be consumed in the belly of a ghost story is a calmer, tranquil end.
baek saehon cannot understand that. and neither can he forget the obsidian eyes with red irises.
"i go by the name grapes—"
"not that. your name." baek saehon insisted, aware of the underlying desperation in the hoarse demand. "who are you?"
if he truly wishes for the truth, all baek saehon needs is to lift the medical eye patch on his left eye. let the black purple eyeball discern the agent's halo.
be it the unfamiliar silver glow of a bureau's agent,
or red. deepest shade of red. the hue of a drop of blood after the first incision. the sky before its surrender to night. the irises of ■■.
a halo that warns baek saehon of inexplicable horror. danger.
a halo that leads to a single person, an entity. that individual.
"just... tell me. please."
the truth that baek saehon longs for is closer to confirmation rather than admission. an ajar door in a company housing where cheerful music of a silly cartoon drifts from the gap. beyond the door is baek saehon's truth. cast aglow by the screen of a computer, nestled on a couch with a blanket and pink plush toy.
and he needs the agent—him—to open the door for him.
to allow him to slide in the gaps of his ribs. to let baek saehon's body coil around the organ nestled between the lungs. for what is a festival's gong but a distant echo when consumed by the beating of a person's heart?
baek saehon's fists curled on the coarse material of the agent's uniform. the textile crumpled, a product of an indecision whether to push or pull closer. to consume the truth or be consumed.
to be home or to be permanently lost.
but indecision can never last for too long. a viper—an ambush predator—cannot allow its body to be exposed for long, perceived by its prey. seen.
the first taste of the strike is intoxication. a venom that retreated in the back of the viper's throat. all consuming. intoxicating.
then it's blood. from the cracked lips of the agent's lips. an opening made by baek saehon's teeth, wounded before soothed by the tongue. any noise made was consumed by the man who follows the way home through the sounds of muffled words and involuntary whimpers. his fingers map the skin of the agent's sides, as if to trace the route that will lead furthest away from jisan.
beneath the blue uniform and pale skin is his home; not the small village in the heart of chungnam. his home lies beneath translucent skin and a bobbing throat. it will tremble each time his hand strays a little too low. little tremors for a lost boy's homecoming.
"this is inappropriate, mr. civilian—hah."
a gasp has never sounded so similar to a 'welcome home.' sweet sanctuary beneath the bones will not dissuade baek saehon from the exploration of the flesh. to reach his home, saehon's hand must first reach the dip of the agent's stomach, trace the line from the navel to the beginning of the ribs, and cup the place that holds his heart.
his mouth will leave its marks. hansel's bread crumbs to find the way home in the form of a red mark on the neck, an angry love bite on the collarbone.
and when baek saehon sheds the last of his clothes, hands on the buckles of his belt, a tear in the facade surfaced.
"baek saehon you psycho—!"
"psycho it is now?" saehon replied with a petty lilt to it. "what happened to mr. civilian?"
another gasp escaped the agent's lips. he's never seen that man in such a state of disarray before. the epitome of composure reduced to an open shirt and flushed chest.
and he's the one who did it.
there is a strange sense of glory in being the undoing of what is immovable.
try as he may to reestablish any nuance of apathy, the agent's hand on baek saehon's chest trembled—another case of push or pull.
baek saehon's remaining eye cannot help but watch in a strange concoction of awe and fascination as the agent's adam's apple moved before words escaped his pretty lips. "are you contaminated, mr. civilian?"
a moment of indignation, then confusion from the agent. "then why do you—"
there was no hesitation in baek saehon's homecoming. the path home deemed him as a stranger. an intruder in a sacred temple where no false worshipper shall make his consecration. it was tight, unrelenting. as if to proclaim that baek saehon's home is not in the pale body beneath him.
in a desperate prayer, his hand reached for his. hold me as i lay myself bare. accept me as i am in the altar of your flesh. allow me in the hearth within your ribs.
and perhaps, for once, the right deity heard baek saehon's plea. his prayer answered through fingers curled with his, a reverent utterance of his name.
and when the final mark was left, when none can doubt where he belong, only then did baek saehon's body surrender to a will of a being higher than jisan.
ear against a chest, from within the skin he can hear the call of home.
"mhm?" he hummed, too exhausted to lift his head. too close to home to be lost again.
"did you hear me? i said i'm kim soleum—"
baek saehon is far from stupid. far from a fool. doubts blossomed when he began to hesitate to lift his medical eye patch—perhaps a subtle acknowledgement of a truth he subconsciously knew all along.
"your face is better as an agent."
a subtle twitch curled the corners of baek saehon's mouth. hand still lingering on the agent's sides, idly tracing the outline of a man's ribs. he can hear his blood sing, the rhythm of his breath, the call of his beating heart.
a survivor must find another pair of bones to call home.
and close to the agent's—kim soleum's—ribs, he is home.
he'll bury his sister tomorrow.