Archive of Our Own

THE FIRST DAY

How long is a second?

A briefness. Pull one’s eyelids apart and force them to become aware of their own blinking, the speed in which their vision shutters once you let go. One single second is 1/60th of a single minute, a 1/3600th of a single hour. We grasp at designations congruent with an old understanding of the way stars in the sky work and decide, almost arbitrarily, that this is a year, a month, a week, an hour, a minute—a second.

He forces his eyes apart and stares up at the sky. The sun is bright and blinding in a way that doesn’t reflect his memory of the place he’d come from. A dreary, rained-in airport. An house filled with dead smoke-alarms. Heat rests against the curve of his corneas. His vision blurs until he has to blink it away.

A third of a second. Another third. His eyes squeeze shut as he rubs at them.

9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of caesium 133. A second. The modern definition supplanting the historical. Some astronomer’s desire to make sense of the physics of it all.

The vibration of atoms. The shattering together of quarks to make time and space. A sentence that wouldn’t make anymore sense to the regular everyday man on the street than if you’d jumbled all the words together just like those bits of matter. The scientists that it had made sense to, well—they’d made a clock out of it. Something functioning at a level of uncertainty of one second in 30 million years.

He opens his eyes to the blur of the world around him. It’s funny, he thinks, how long a second can feel when you truly hone in on it. Maybe if he stretches his hand out far enough, he’ll feel it. The perfect resonation of an atom fed by an eternity of unchanging elements, like the shake of the ground beneath him—

“Kim Seungmin.”

Seungmin snaps back into vibrant focus, glancing over at Minho, who’s staring at him with a look teetering between concern and frustration. His arm’s slung loosely over the edge of the rumbling pickup truck, knees drawn up close, sunglasses perched low on his nose. “Yeah?” Seungmin says, eyes flicking towards the other two in the back with them, who don’t seem to be paying them any attention. They’ve mostly spent the entire bumpy trip chatting amongst themselves anyway, Minho included. “What?”

Minho’s hand falls onto his shoulder. It should be comforting. Seungmin tells himself that it should be comforting. Minho’s his boyfriend, after all. “Maybe you could try to enjoy yourself a little bit, huh? Be a little less of a killjoy.” The sweetness in his voice almost sounds forced. But Seungmin knows—it’s the heat, and the rough travel, it’s getting to all of them, and he’s just taking it the wrong way. “You wanted to come along.”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says, “yeah—sorry. I’m just tired.”

Seungmin’s rewarded with a short smile, and Minho strokes the nape of his neck once before his hand falls back down, and he laughs at something slightly insulting that Jeongin’s just said about Changbin like his attention hadn’t left the conversation at all.

1/60th of a minute. 1/3600th of an hour. Sometimes, if you don’t focus, if you just let time pass—twenty seconds can feel just like one.

No. Minho’s wrong. He hadn’t really wanted to come along.

Seungmin looks back down the path that the truck is barrelling down at top speed. There’s nothing but miles of desert, of forest, of both and nothing but the blazing cover of the open sky. Perhaps out here where that uncertainty lies, the one in thirty million. Time-lost.

(He had to.)

The ground is forgiving beneath Seungmin’s soles as he leaps down from the truck, his bag slung over his shoulder. His heels dig into the soil as he hangs back to look around at the mass of trees flanking them on all sides. Air, fresh and full of something that reminds him of the medicine he used to rub under his nose when he fell sick as a kid, kept in the drawer of his mothe—

Abruptly, the smell is too much. He takes a step forward and bumps into the back of Chris, who spins and grabs him by the arm before he can stumble. “Oh,” he says, grip relaxing the instant he sees that Seungmin’s steady again. His worry is open and easy, the way everything else about him is and has been since Minho had introduced him to the group a year ago as an exchange student from Australia. Seungmin almost wishes he’d sat in the back of the truck with them instead of sitting up front with the driver for the three-hour trip. Even though they’d never talked much before this, he’d always seemed nice. “You okay?”

“It’s fine.” Seungmin steps back and shakes off the blue haze. “It’s pretty here.”

A forest in the middle of an island, surrounding a quaint little village that Seungmin never would’ve heard about if not for Chris who calls it home. If not for Changbin wanting to do his thesis on the unheard-of commune that Chris had apparently grown up in and told them stories about. If not for Seungmin walking in mid-conversation and discovering that Minho was due to go with Changbin and Jeongin two weeks from then, and hadn’t told Seungmin.

Minho hadn’t meant anything by it. He’d forgot. He’d meant to tell Seungmin earlier, but he’d been busy, and things had come up. It happens. It happens.

“It is, isn’t it?” Chris smiles, and motions towards the trail that leads through the trees towards what should be the clearing to the commune. “You ready to see the rest of it?”

The others have already gone on ahead, following their other guide through the mess of green shrubbery. Even Minho, who’s speaking to Jeongin, and hasn’t spared Seungmin a glance since they’d gotten down from the truck. He’s just excited to be here. He’s been looking forward to this almost as much as Changbin.

All the while, Chris is standing there. Waiting for him.

“Ready,” Seungmin says, and he follows after Chris into the undergrowth.

A caesium clock rattles. His eyes blur with the sting of eucalyptus. A flute, high and reedy, and then the shade breaks on Nüwa, a grassy space lit brightly and beautifully by the afternoon sun. Wooden structures, not quite houses; architecture seemingly both traditional and modern in the way that they rise out of the ground in ways that almost remind Seungmin of back home. Gardens, fields of growing crops, some fenced-away barn. To Seungmin’s surprise, there’s a lake about a mile out, skyline clear in its calm waters.

He hadn’t imagined it would look like this—this wide. This open. They’d passed so much desert and rock on their way outbound from the city that this feels like some sort of secret paradise tucked away for chosen eyes only.

Two large wooden poles form a tall gateway that they pass through as they enter the compound. There are strange carvings all the way down them that Seungmin can only catch a good glimpse of when he strains his eyes—twisted dragons with their claws curled around balls, strange men with large mouths and bulging eyes that seem to follow him as he walks, featureless turtles and small winding flowers and unmoving ocean waves.

“Woah,” comes Jeongin’s voice from ahead of him, “holy shit. Is that a bear in a cage?”

“This is amazing—Chris, you never showed us what this place looked like!”

Chris has his hands in his pockets, smiling like he knows a secret the others don’t. “It’s beautiful. I know. That’s why I always talk about missing home so much.” He spots someone coming down the grass-clear lane past a little group of youths playing music and holds his arms out, smile growing wider. “Brian!”

A man slightly older than Chris, dressed in something loose and flaxen, trudges up to them and tugs Chris into a big hug. For a brief moment they rest their foreheads together, before Brian’s pulling away and ruffling Chris’ hair fondly. “Hey, kid. Welcome home.”

Chris steps back, and glances over at the others, beckoning them close. “Everyone, this is Younghyun-hyung,” he says in Korean, and then, in English, “we call him Brian, here. We grew up together here on the commune. He’s like my older brother.”

Brian appraises them for a short moment before giving them the same welcoming smile as Chris, almost as dizzying and bright as the sun above them. “Welcome. I hope this little pest has been treating you well.” He ignores Chris’ indignant noise and asks, “You guys want a tour?”

“He’s offering to show you around, since he’s guided guests around the compound before,” Chris explains in Korean for the others. Seungmin’s English is good enough to know what they’re saying, so he focuses on taking the rest of it in instead. The way everyone’s dressed in similar shades of white, cerulean, seafoam, mint—even though the shades of their skin vary between wildly different tones and the shapes of their faces speak of a dozen cultures. The way everyone looks so…

“Seungmin?” Chris’ warm voice fills his hearing. “Are you alright?”

A group of kids runs past them, shrieking with laughter as they tag each other. The group of musicians sitting on a mat on the grass wave at Minho and the others as they’re led by Brian deeper into the commune. A woman carrying a basket of glass bottles lifts a hand and waves.

They look so free, Seungmin thinks, and he’s—he’s not, he’ll never be—

“Fine,” he finally answers, and he gives Chris his best smile, even if it isn’t worth much these days, and unsticks his feet from the grief clinging to the soles of his feet to catch up with the others.

They’re shown around the area. Changbin takes notes on his phone the entire time, shooting question after question at Brian, who takes the interrogation in stride, and Minho speaks to Chris quietly about something that Seungmin can’t hear. He wonders if he should step closer, maybe walk next to Minho—he’s Seungmin’s boyfriend, after all. But the more he thinks about it, the less he wants the proximity.

“And this is where you’ll be staying.” Brian brings them up the stoop of a pale building that opens up onto dozens of beds lined up against each wall and a second floor with much the same. Seungmin steps in carefully, mouth falling open at the way the ceiling is painted—dragons spinning around each other, petals for scales, the description of something otherworldly in the way they cling to each other. “Your beds are the furthest to the left.”

“Who sleeps in here? All of you?”

“Just the younger ones. It’s sort of a progression—when you get older, you move out into your own house. Signifies the true start of your adulthood.”

Minho turns, still staring up at the ceiling. “And when’s that?”

“When you’re thirty-five.”

“Why thirty-five?”

“It’s a traditional thing,” Chris says lightly. “The number three represents life, and the number five represents the five elements. Water, fire, earth, w—”

“—wood and metal,” Changbin finishes, “yeah, I’d read that your people, Nüwa—all of it’s based pretty deeply in a mix of East Asian and Scandinavian culture.”

“Strange combination,” Minho comments, eyebrows raised in fascination.

“Our ancestors were from everywhere.” Brian waves a hand in the direction of a small display of photographs hung up on the wall by the door. “See for yourself.”

The photos date back years, annual snapshots of some sort of festivity. “Our Dreamers,” Chris says. Seungmin steps closer to inspect one from forty years ago of a smiling young man with a crown of flowers in his hair, and then another of the same scene from a hundred years before that, this time with a flower-crowned girl in her teens. “From a celebration that we perform each midsummer—you’ve arrived at the perfect time for it.”

“Hey, hyung,” Jeongin says, nudging Chris on his other side, “what’s with all the freaky statues, by the way?”

Brian raises an eyebrow, judgement apparent in his expression. Jeongin doesn’t notice. “They’re totems. Of our guardian spirits. We rely on them for protection. We don’t anger them.”

“Right,” Jeongin says, and then, in a whisper that’s louder than it should be, “definitely wouldn’t try to have any sort of private time with them watching.”

Seungmin lets out a breath through his nose, unimpressed, and Minho glances over his shoulder to send him a sharp look. Seungmin looks away, and pretends to be observing one of the carvings by the door until Minho turns back to Chris.

Minho’s always been weirdly protective over Jeongin. Something to do with the way they’d grown up together, something to do with Jeongin being younger than him (despite the fact that Jeongin’s only a few months younger than Seungmin, and Minho’s never treated him the same way). It’d be fine if Jeongin didn’t run his mouth half the time.

As his thoughts drift, the totem that he’s been looking at finally registers in Seungmin’s brain. It’s a man dressed in long robes, hair wild, eyes big and unseeing, mouth stretched open in a scream. In one hand, he holds a feather-ended spear. In the other, he holds a sword. His face has been painted a sharp, dark red. A contrast to the almost pastel sweetness of the sunshine-covered commune.

A guardian spirit, Brian had said.

What does it guard them from?

Seungmin tears his eyes away from the totem and its red perch outside the main hall, and moves to walk beside Minho. “Hey,” he says, reaching to take Minho’s hand. “Sorry.”

Minho lets him. “For what?” he says, like he’s trying to move on from the conversation before it even starts.

“For—nothing.” Seungmin shakes his head, not looking at Minho. “It’s nothing.”

“Okay.”

Half-expecting Minho to let go of his hand, Seungmin loosens his grip. But—Minho doesn’t let go, instead giving it a little squeeze. The motion makes Seungmin feel just a bit better. Like Minho’s finally noticing him, how he’s feeling.

“I know it still feels like it hasn’t been long since the—you know, the thing,” Minho adds, wincing slightly, “but it’s almost been half a year. It’s going to be fine, okay?”

It’s not really Minho’s fault. It really is just his mind playing tricks on him. Making him think that Minho doesn’t care. He does. He does care. It’s just the travel, and the heat, and the fact that he wants to have a good time. He can have a good time, Seungmin can have a good time, he’ll make sure that he doesn’t mess the trip up.

“Yeah, okay.” Seungmin leans in to brush a dry kiss to Minho’s cheek. Minho doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t brush it off either.

It’s enough. It’s fine.

The guardian spirit’s eyes linger on Seungmin’s back as they leave, wide and looming.

The local festivities only begin tomorrow. The rest of the evening is theirs to enjoy. Under the slowly-receding sun with the breeze blowing through their hair, it only seems appropriate that they light up. “It’s no trouble with us,” Chris explains, leading them along the side of a grassy hill embanking the lake. “As long as nothing is set on fire just yet.”

“Just yet?” Changbin asks, tossing Jeongin his lighter, and Chris shoots him a smile. Another one of Chris’ strange little jokes that none of them really get. It must be a cultural thing.

The lake is where they meet Hyunjin and Jisung, who turn out to be from Seoul just like they are, but had been studying in Canada when they’d met Brian. They’re ecstatic to be here, clutching at each other’s arms the entire time, sharing sweet kisses when they think no one is looking (which turns out to be the entire time).

Minho takes the joint from Jeongin, who’s already flopped down onto the grass with all his limbs outstretched, and asks the couple, “You two wanna?”

“Sure,” Jisung says. He takes a breath and shotguns it right into Hyunjin’s mouth before breaking out into giggles. Hyunjin rolls him right over into the grass and brackets him with his long limbs as they start to make out right then and there.

Changbin snorts. “Thanks for the free show, I guess.”

“That’s disgusting,” Jeongin says breezily.

Seungmin can’t look at them.

“Kim Seungmin.” Minho’s holding it out towards him. “C’mon.”

Seungmin hangs back by a tree, feeling the bark under his fingers. “I don’t think—”

“Come on,” Minho repeats, brows furrowed. “You never had a problem with it before.”

Before. He didn’t have a problem with a lot of things before. But before has become after, and after’s not the same anymore, and Seungmin stares at the neatly-rolled stick in his boyfriend’s hand for far too long of a second before taking it from him.

“Good boy,” Minho says, and Changbin lets out a brusque laugh. It feels like a joke that Seungmin’s not privy to.

He stares down at the joint. It’s just a few breaths. He can do a few.

The smoke fills his lungs like an old friend closing their hands around his throat. Relax, he tells himself, shutting his eyes and exhaling. It should make him relax, shouldn’t it? It should calm him down, make everything slow, make him feel good.

The sun is sharp against his eyes when he opens them again. The joint’s already been passed off to Changbin, who’s asking, “Dude, this shit’s stronger than usual—”

“—blame the guy who sold it to me, alright? I didn’t check—”

“—it should be fine anyway, not like we hav—”

“—an—it do—s—op—”

“—stop, Se—mi—stop, he—”

“—help, Seungmin—why won’t you help me—”

His fingers scrape harshly against the trunk of the tree he’s still holding onto. Everything feels too bright, too rough—and he stumbles further down the hill, leaving the voices behind.

It’s hard to breathe. There’s air all around him, but it’s hard to breathe. The smoke in his lungs, it won’t dissipate, it’s weighing him down like bricks. Maybe this is how it feels. This is how it’d felt when his sister had stuck that hose into the exhaust pipe of their dad’s car and waited in her room for it to come in. For it to puddle up along the door and slip through the cracks. Cradle her in waiting arms before collecting their parents too.

Knock knock. Who’s there?

Maybe this is how she’d felt as she died. As she killed them. Like bricks in your lungs, dragging you down to your knees.

No, no, no—

He should’ve helped her. He should’ve known. He should’ve gone home. He should’ve known. He can’t breathe, he’s going to die just like she is. He can’t breathe. He should’ve known. HE SHOULD’VE KNOWN. HE SHOULD’VE GONE HOME. HE DIDN’T KNOW. HE DIDN’T GO HOME. HE DIDN’T KN—

He drops to his hands right on the edge of the lake and splashes water onto his face, shaking so hard that he almost falls in. It’s enough to shock him out of his sudden panic, sending him into a strange post-haze clarity. It’s still not enough to make him feel completely lucid—the lake shimmers in a way that it hadn’t before, the grass is moving, curling its little fingers into the laces of his shoes.

A bad high. That’s all it is, he tells himself, drying his hands on his jeans and sitting down on a dry spot on the bank. It’s just a bad high. He’ll ride it out and then go back to the group—

The group that let him run off on his own. That haven’t come looking for him.

Seungmin stares out towards the waterline, eyes and mouth dry. He thought he had to come along, to make sense of it, them, to salvage things. Maybe he should’ve stayed at home after all. There wouldn’t have been any difference. He still hears his ghosts anyway.

THE SECOND DAY

Their first meal is taken outdoors at a set of long communal tables arranged in the shape of a triangle, carved wooden benches following in the same way to allow everyone to be seated in view of each other. The tables are set closer to the lake, allowing them a beautiful view of the water and the forest dotting its edges. It’s the most scenic breakfast Seungmin’s ever had.

He takes a seat between Minho, who’d gone to sleep last night in the bed beside his without asking about the incident by the lake, and Hyunjin, who seems a bit more skittish than the night before. Must be an after-effect of the drugs, Seungmin imagines. Jisung, Hyunjin’s boyfriend, is on his other side looking similarly discomfited. Hopefully they’ve learnt to never accept anything from Jeongin ever again.

The others look fine. Well-rested, even. Changbin’s chattering away to one of the villagers about something that Seungmin can’t hear from where he’s sitting, and Minho’s checking his phone. “Still no signal,” he mutters. “Not a single bar out here.”

“Try again later, maybe.”

“Obviously,” Minho says, just a hint of edge in his voice. “Would be pretty stupid if I didn’t try again.”

“I was just saying.”

“Alright, alright.”

Seungmin sinks back into his seat just as one of the villagers comes up to them, a tray held steady in his hands. He sets a bowl of something creamy in front of Seungmin—some sort of soup that smells of the wheat-fields close by—and a plate of fresh, still-steaming bread rolls next to it. Another girl comes up to neatly place glass goblets by their plates. They’re half-filled with juice. The tang of citrus fills Seungmin’s nostrils as he picks it up to inspect it. It’s fresh too.

The girl gives Minho a drink too, looking at him coyly under long lashes. She’s pretty. Red hair falling down her shoulders in wavy tresses, a small face. Minho’s gaze stays fixed on her as she moves onto Changbin.

One of the commune elders stands up. She’s a stout woman with a flat nose and tan skin. “Today marks the start of our midsummer festivities,” she says grandly, spreading her arms. Her English is accented and unfamiliar. “We welcome our guests from outside, and ask that they feel at home with us while they remain.”

There’s a smattering of applause. Then, two more people stand up. They’re far older than the elder, looking like they’re in their seventies or eighties. Hair greying, faces wizened. They’ve been sat together, and are wearing bramble in their hair.

The elder continues, “We will soon proceed with the ceremony of new life. Please, eat.”

No one moves for their forks or spoons. Seungmin glances around, and then lets his gaze return to the old man and woman, who are standing stock still.

Then, they inhale sharply, and make a loud noise in tandem like they’ve practised it. Not quite a sigh, not quite a scream. Just—a sound. Like a breath announcing its abrupt arrival.

Everyone remains strangely silent.

Another second blips past before the both of them return to their seats, and it’s only when they take their own utensils that the rest of the villagers begin to move. Three seats down, Chris reaches for his spoon and murmurs something to the blond boy sitting beside him, the one who’d served them their food earlier. The boy notices Seungmin staring and gives him a sweet smile, waving.

Seungmin puts his hand up in greeting, and the boy’s eyes light up.

Beside him, Minho takes a sip of his juice. His eyes are still drawn to the girl, who’s setting down more glasses across the clearing but still very obviously looking at him whenever she can. Jeongin’s saying to him, “The girls here are kinda hot, huh?”

“Yeah,” Minho says casually. “They are.”

Seungmin rips a bread roll in half and ignores the sinking feeling in his stomach.

The sun beats down upon the backs of their necks as they’re led out of the main compound with the rest of the villagers. The open fields become dustier and rockier as they continue to walk. The ground rises and rises and twists into hills, and eventually they’re brought into a small enclosure within several crags, each cliff-face turned inwards.

Just before they go any further, Chris turns and stops them. “Actually,” he says, glancing between them, “I’m not too sure if Changbin—or Minho has warned you? You may not want to witness the ritual. It can get a bit… intense.”

“We’re good,” Changbin says, something gleaming in his eyes, like he knows something they don’t. Seungmin definitely doesn’t—all Minho had mentioned was that the ritual would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and nothing else. “They’ll be fine—right?”

“Guess so,” Jeongin says, shrugging. Hyunjin and Jisung look similarly unsure. “You said it’s a big deal for you guys?”

“It’s a great honour for the chosen,” Chris says, a bit hushed. “It’s… incredibly important. And very beautiful, to us. But visitors don’t always take to it very well.”

There’s something about all of this that makes Seungmin uneasy. The way that Chris is talking about it, the way that neither Changbin nor Minho seem to want to be upfront about what’s actually going to happen—part of Seungmin feels like he should turn tail and leave right now. Go back to that little wooden house with its painted ceiling and rows of beds and ask for that guardian spirit to calm the spiking anxiety in his chest.

But he doesn’t.

Minho moves a little closer to Seungmin. “You want to stay? You can still go back to the main compound.”

“No, it’s fine—”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says. He’s not, but he feels like he has to be fine. He has to prove that he’s okay. He can handle a little ritual with some strangers. It’s not like they have to take part in it. “I’m fine. I want to see this.”

He wants to be here with Minho. With everyone else. Witnessing whatever this is. If he’s the only one who goes back—

“Alright,” Chris says, looking between them. “Let’s go, then.”

They’re gathered with the rest of the villagers as the older man and woman from earlier make their way up one of the cliff-faces; it’s been clefted with stairs, rising high above them into the bright blue sky.

Everyone watches, silent with anticipation.

The woman steps forward first. She raises a hand up towards the sun, and then mouths something that Seungmin can’t make out.

And then, she falls.

No.

She hits the ground with a sick crunch.

No, no—

The man closes in on the edge and starts to raise his hand too, but there’s screaming, somebody’s yelling and another person is shushing them, and he falls too.

No, no, no—

He’s not dead. There’s an awful gurgling noise and the twitch of an errant limb. A villager, one of the elders, moves out of the crowd handling a long heavy mallet. “What the fuck,” Hyunjin sobs, sounding hysterical, but Seungmin doesn’t hear the rest of his words over the sound of the mallet being brought down onto the brittle skull of the choking old man.

Slam. Slam. And then he’s dead, just like the woman.

Dead, just like—

The commune elder from before, who’d spoken at the meal, comes towards them, concern etched into her features. “Brian,” she says sternly, and Brian lowers his head, chastised. “You hadn’t told them?”

“He did,” Jisung says hollowly. Him and Hyunjin look shaken and horrified. Seungmin feels the same way that they look. “We… we didn’t think he was telling the truth.”

The elder looks at them with sympathy. “To honour the cycle of life,” she starts, “we choose to return to the earth. We give our lives so that others may live in our stead. Coming from the earth, returning from the earth—it is all part of the gods’ design. Their will.” Her gaze flits from person to person before landing squarely on Seungmin, who still hasn’t taken a breath. “And when two new children are born, they will take the place of the honoured. It is in our nature. They wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Seungmin breaks off from the group, not wanting to hear anymore.

“Seungmin!” Minho followers after him, but Seungmin barrels down the dusty path until he’s out of sight and out of hearing of the rest of the group and the other villagers. “Seungmin, wait—”

Seungmin stops and turns on his heel. “You knew? You knew and you didn’t—”

Minho rears back. “I asked if you wanted to stay!”

“I didn’t know I was staying for this,” Seungmin whispers urgently. “Minho-hyung. You knew.”

“I mean, I guess—Changbin mentioned it, and I was just really interested to see if they really would do it, and—it’s part of their culture, you know.” Minho waves a hand back towards the congregation. “It’s just what they do. Who are we to say anything about it?”

It’s almost disturbing how nonchalant Minho is about this. Especially when he’d known—he’d known and hadn’t told Seungmin—had he expected Seungmin to be over—

Seungmin shakes his head, feeling ill. “I’m going back to the house,” he says. “Just… give me a little bit of time.”

Minho says nothing as Seungmin makes the long walk back, wanting nothing more than to get out of there. Away from all of that, away from them, away from him.

He doesn’t remember how he gets back to the house. All he remembers is stumbling up the stairs and nearly knocking into one of the beds, but someone catches him before he can. “Seungmin,” Chris says, voice as gentle as the hand on his arm. When had he followed Seungmin out of the clearing? He doesn’t remember seeing Chris catch up. “Seungmin, wait. I understand that… that must have been very—intense, for you. And I’m sorry for not warning you properly. That was on me.”

“No, I’m sorry—” Seungmin runs his hand through his hair and exhales hard, feeling overwhelmed. “I’m sorry. I want to leave. I don’t know why you’d invited us here. I need to go.”

Chris doesn’t let go of him. “I wanted to share this with the friends I’d made,” he explains slowly, eyes boring into him like he hopes Seungmin will wait, will listen and understand. “It’s… it’s this crazy once-in-a-lifetime event that happens so rarely, and I knew they would appreciate it, Changbin and Minho.”

“I don’t know how to appreciate something like this,” Seungmin admits. “I’m not studying it like they are.”

“But I was the most excited for you to come,” Chris says, and everything else cuts out. Like white noise, the silence fills Seungmin’s ears until it’s grown into a roaring wind, rising and rising and finally breaking. And then, nothing.

Outside, the grass trembles in the breeze. There isn’t another voice in earshot for miles.

“What?” Seungmin says, not understanding.

Chris leads him to one of the beds and sits them down. A cracked-open window close by sheds a stray ray of light upon his face as he looks at the floor. His eyelashes cast butterfly-shadows across his pale cheeks. He’s wordless for a long moment, fidgeting with his fingers before he starts, “Listen. I know what you’re going through—”

“You don’t,” Seungmin immediately says, “I’m not going through anything, Chris, it’s nothing.”

“I know what you’re going through,” Chris repeats, “because I lost my family too. My parents.”

Seungmin stops fighting the urge to leave. “Oh,” he says quietly. “You…”

“They died in a fire, when I was younger. And it was—awful.” Chris offers him a small smile. It’s not humourous, it’s not pitying. It’s just the smile of someone who does know what it feels like. “At first, at least. The first few moments. That kind of grief… it’s unimaginable. But I never got to feel lost, I never drowned under the weight of it, because everyone here embraced me, and loved me. The way a family would. I’ve always felt held by them. And you deserve that too,” he says, taking Seungmin’s hands in his. Seungmin is far too entranced by the way he’s speaking, low and light but with the brevity of a trusted secret, to pull away like he normally would. “You deserve it.”

“I don’t… I don’t know about that.”

“Seungmin,” Chris says, more carefully now. “I’ve seen… I’ve noticed the way that Minho’s been… speaking to you. He’s my friend, and I like him, but—do you feel held by him?”

Held, Seungmin wonders, brows knitted together, does he feel held by Minho?

Does he?

Chris’ face tilts towards his, like a sunflower heavy with bloom. Eyes searching his, like he holds the light that he seeks to receive. “Do you feel held, Seungmin?” His mouth forms each syllable with undue care. “Does he feel like home to you?”

Seungmin has no response. His mouth feels dry under the concern of Chris’ gaze. His entire focus is intense upon Seungmin but not in an overbearing way. Like he cares. Like he cares about Seungmin. Like he actually wants to know how Seungmin feels, and not just for the sake of knowing but actually to make something of that information.

Chris whispers, “Stay. Please.”

Seungmin glances away, suddenly feeling warm. “I will.” He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I trust that you mean well, anyway.”

“Thank you.” Chris’ relief is palpable. Seungmin can hear the way he smiles even though he’s not looking at him. “Your trust is precious. I hope you know that.”

It’s the first time anyone’s ever said anything like that to him. Not even Minho.

Seungmin swallows around the lump in his throat and allows Chris to leave him be for the time being.

He feels calmer, hours later, after speaking to Chris and having a bit of a lie-down. There’d been something about Chris that’d made Seungmin drop his guard for the first time in a long time. He hasn’t let himself be that vulnerable around anyone besides Minho since before.

It’d felt good.

Seungmin’d ended up sleeping through lunch, and it’s his rumbling stomach that brings his feet to the kitchens in search of something to eat. They’ll hopefully feed a starving guest, wouldn’t they? And he’s not like Jeongin, who’d apparently tried to sneak in yesterday night to take a look around and gotten a scolding from one of the cooks for it.

It’s bustling and busy, probably getting ready for dinner already. It’s a homey little place with wooden cabinets stacked to the ceiling, several big tables with food and pots and pans laid out across it, multiple ovens and stoves that seem older than Seungmin himself. “Hi,” he says, and he receives a chorus of greetings in return, making him blink. They seem almost glad to see him. “Is there… anything left over from lunch? I sort of fell asleep and missed it.”

“Seungmin, right?” A boy appears at his arm, eyes bright. He’s the one from this morning, the one who’d waved at him. “Hello, oh, it’s been so long since we had a visitor who spoke English so well! I’m Felix. Here,” he says, tugging Seungmin over to one of the tables, “we’ve still got some rolls—there’s butter, and some salt, and maybe if you’ve got time you won’t mind helping us prepare some stuff too, yeah? Since you’re here? We love showing new people the ropes.”

“Time,” repeats Seungmin, a bit taken aback by how effervescent Felix is, all smiles and cheer, “yeah, yes. I’ve got time. How can I help?”

He gets his buttered breadrolls, and in return he’s enlisted in kitchen duty for a couple of hours. One of the cooks directs him to a table where they’re rolling out dough and packing them into little oiled baking tins. Seungmin finds it nice to distract himself with something tedious for a bit, even if it is a bit eerie how happy they all seem here.

He mentions it to the girl working beside him, who’s laying filleted cherry snappers into the dough-filled tins, and she just says, “We don’t harbour any grief or anger inside ourselves. We just let it out to become one with the earth again, you know? It’s better that way.”

Better. Anything seems better than the way Seungmin’s dealt with it.

He just gives her a little smile and continues doing the work until evening falls and he’s shooed out to go rest. “You’re a guest, we can’t just have you slaving away till dinner,” Felix tells him with a laugh, leading him out the door. There’s flour on his face, and Seungmin imagines there’s probably some on his own too. “Can I sit with you later? You seem nicer than the others.”

“Sure,” Seungmin says, feeling a bit warm. That’s unexpected. Maybe making one new friend will be the sole good thing that comes out of this trip.

And then, he remembers Chris, and the way his hands had felt so warm as they held his.

Do you feel held, Seungmin?

Perhaps more than one.

Oddly enough, Hyunjin and Jisung aren’t at the next meal. Seungmin takes his seat next to Minho, same as the morning, but saves the one next to him until he sees Felix wandering over with a smile on his face. Jeongin’s found himself sat in between two of the commune girls, looking starry-eyed, and Changbin’s further up with Chris who’s been telling him about some sort of sacred book that the village owns.

“Do you know where those two—the ones who came with Brian, Hyunjin and Jisung, are they still asleep or something?” Seungmin asks Felix, who just blinks at him. “Or…”

Someone two seats down says, “Oh, those two? They went home. They weren’t too comfortable after watching the ceremony earlier. It’s such a shame. We’d have loved for them to stay a little longer.”

Understandable, Seungmin thinks. He’d almost done the same too.

Minho, who’s tapping at his phone again in an attempt to get cell service, makes a dismissive sound under his breath. It reminds Seungmin of the way he’d reacted earlier to the event, to Seungmin’s distress. He doesn’t understand it—Minho’s never been this callous… has he?

Has Seungmin just not noticed all this time?

Seungmin’s not particularly hungry, but he forces himself to dig into the fish pie (that he’d had a hand in preparing, he recalls with some degree of satisfaction) set before him, along with a fresh salad of snap beans, corn, roasted squash and peppers—the last of which he notices Chris cautiously plucking out of his bowl and dropping onto Changbin’s plate, to Seungmin’s mild amusement.

“So,” Felix starts, crunching on a mouthful of greens, “what’s your family like, Seungmin?”

The question catches him off-guard. He supposes he should’ve expected it, that’s always the way conversations go. What’s your work, what do you study, are you seeing anyone. What’s your family like. Seungmin’s family.

“They’re, uh.” Seungmin clears his throat. “They’re not here anymore.”

Beside him, he feels Minho tense up a bit.

Seungmin chances a glance up at Felix. To his surprise, Felix seems genuinely upset by it. Seungmin’s stomach sinks, and he’s about to apologise, when Felix says, voice soft, “That’s terrible, Seungmin. I’m so sorry. I know we’ve just met, but… if you ever need to talk about it anytime, just look for me.”

“Oh,” Seungmin says, equal parts touched but uncomfortable by how openly he’d just offered that. “Thank you, Felix. That’s… that’s really nice of you.”

“You’re doing okay, I hope?” Felix rests a hand on Seungmin’s arm. “No matter how long ago it must have happened, you must still be quite sad about it. I know I would be.”

“I… yeah.” Seungmin swallows, words coming out before he can think about it. “I am, still. Sometimes.” All the time. “But it’s okay.”

Felix smiles, but it’s not fake. Not the way so many people have smiled at Seungmin in an attempt to make him cheer up quicker, to move on in the conversation, because who wants to talk about the dead?

They do, Seungmin realises. Felix, Chris, the people at this commune—death seems to be more than natural for them. No one seems to shy away or pussyfoot around the topic. They genuinely want to speak about things that people back home never would.

Not like Minho, who continues eating like he’s hoping they’ll talk about something else less depressing. “Sorry,” Seungmin murmurs, “wasn’t intending to disturb your meal.”

Minho gives him a sharp look. “You don’t really think that lowly of me, do you?”

“No, n—of course no,” Seungmin says, frowning. His grip tightens around his fork. “It’s just… I don’t get why you’re always like this.”

“Like what?”

“Just…” Seungmin shakes his head, deflating. He’s not going to get into a fight in front of everyone else. “Nothing.”

“It’s always nothing with you,” Minho says. He takes a sip from his drink. It’s a strange pale pink compared to everyone else’s chrysanthemum-yellow lemonades. “Whatever.”

Seungmin returns to his meal, and pretends he doesn’t see Felix looking at him with the same kind of concern that he’s always wished Minho would.

It doesn’t matter. Seungmin doesn’t think he deserves that concern anyway.

THE THIRD DAY

He dreams of his family. His sister reaches for him from where she’s sitting, slumped, on the concrete floor of the garage. The hose is wrapped around her neck, and then it’s wrapped around his, and he can’t breathe. He stumbles back into the house and falls into the arms of his parents, who scratch and claw at his arms, asking why he hadn’t come to visit. Why he hadn’t been staying with them. They could’ve gone together, they say, his big sister could’ve taken all of them away together. Somewhere nice, somewhere he should be too. He should’ve been there. He should’ve been there. HE SHOULD’VE BEEN THERE. HE SHOULD’VE BEEN THERE. HE SHOULD’VE BEEN THERE. HE SHOULD’VE BEEN THERE. HE SHOU—

Seungmin opens his eyes.

The air is cool and dry. The sun isn’t all the way up yet, but he can already hear the soft sounds of rustling, of people getting up to do their chores, their jobs, to prepare for today’s festivities. His feet stretch under his thin blanket, heels digging into the bed. Inside his chest, his heartbeat is jackrabbit-fast, erratic to the point of soreness. Seungmin rubs over it with his palm and sits up, letting the sheet fall around his waist.

He is twenty-one years old today.

A quick glance to the bed beside his reveals a still sleeping Minho, who likely won’t wake just too soon. He’s an early riser, just like Seungmin is, but he’d seemed tired last night and had muttered something about sleeping in on a holiday. And the others—they’re not likely to wake till the sun’s high in the sky.

It’s not a difficult decision to make. Seungmin tiptoes towards the outhouses and gets a quick shower in before anyone else enters the bathing rooms. The running water helps. He tilts his face up to the spray and imagines that it’s rain beading down his face, his skin. Cleansing him of the dream that’s slowly fading into the morning air.

He pulls on a clean shirt and towels his hair on the steps of the house. A few villagers pass by, waving at him as they go. He wonders where they’re headed off to, what they’ll be doing.

Ever on its perch, the house’s guardian spirit totem stands on guard, just a few feet away from where Seungmin is sitting. In the early morning light, it doesn’t look particularly terrifying, not like the first time around.

You should’ve protected me too, Seungmin doesn’t say. Or is that only for the ones who believe?

It doesn’t speak. A bit of ash breaks off the end of a joss stick, a handful of which have been firmly planted into a pot of soft soil and old, burnt incense right below the spirit.

Seungmin stands, brushes off the back of his jeans, and goes to walk the grounds.

And, for some reason, the others don’t question him—he’s given smiles and more waves as he wanders aimlessly through the compound. He passes by the kitchens, where two women are scrubbing out several pots, and then meanders through a path that leads him along the lake, where several children are playing.

A little girl spots him and runs up. “Hi,” she says, clutching at the hem of her dress shyly, “d’you wan’ a flower?”

Seungmin nods, but she doesn’t hand it to him. Instead, she motions with her hand for him to squat down. Curious, Seungmin does, and he finds himself smiling when she tucks it behind his ear. “Thanks,” he says, and she smiles widely and runs back to join her group of friends, some of them weaving flower crowns from wild daisies and zigzag wattles and eucalyptus leaves, the others tugging at crude fishing lines that rest along the shallow bank.

He continues along the path and finds himself close to the farms where several people are already toiling away. He spots Felix, who’s holding a basket filled with something Seungmin can’t see from where he is, and Felix spots him in return. “Seungmin!” he calls happily, bounding over. “Good morning!”

“Hi, Felix,” Seungmin says, and he smiles. He can’t help it. It’s infectious, and there’s no reason to not. “Everyone’s up so early.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it? Well, sometimes.” Felix’s nose crinkles. “I like sleeping in a lot more, but I get up when I have to do chores. Here,” he says, pressing two small buns into Seungmin’s hands. “You can break your fast with Chris if you’d like. He’s in the greenhouse.”

Seungmin lifts them close to his face. They’re warm and smell of baked buckwheat honey.

The greenhouse is shuttered by long leafy canopies across the roof, protecting the crops inside from the oppressive sunshine. Seungmin pushes past the linen door covering and finds Chris midway through digging up a long line of carrots.

Chris spots him when he’s a few paces away, and sits back on his haunches with a welcoming smile. “Hey,” he says, ungloving his left hand to accept a bun from Seungmin, who sits down beside the basket of soil-dusted carrots. “The daisy suits you.”

Seungmin suddenly feels self-conscious. “Thanks,” he says, raising a hand to touch the flower in his hair. The back of his neck warms slightly. “Honestly, just going off looks, I’d have thought you’d be doing something involving a little more heavy lifting.”

“The arms are kind of a bluff, to be fair,” Chris says, looking a bit shy, and Seungmin breaks his gaze, abruptly aware that he’d just indirectly admitted to checking him out. “The way we all work here… there’s no differentiating between what tasks people do here, whether you’re a man, or a woman. If someone’s good at something, they do it.”

“And you’re good at picking vegetables?”

Chris lets out a huff, but it’s amused, not anything else. “I like gardening,” he explains, “farming. It’s meditative. Exhausting, tedious work, but it’s soothing. I play music for the commune sometimes too—that’s how Brian and I became so close, he does the same. But doing this… it makes me feel closer to the earth.” He places one hand down on the ground, fingertips scraping gently at the loose soil. “That’s what we all strive for, here.”

Seungmin takes a bite of his bread, running Chris’ thoughts over in his head. “It’s really important to all of you, isn’t it? Nature. Coming from the earth and returning to the earth. Stuff like that.”

“That’s right,” Chris says, looking pleased. “In our scriptures, one of the ancients asks: why do the sun and the moon and the stars stay just where they are in the skies above, if they’re not held in place to allow the earth to keep its perfect shape?” He lets out a laugh. “Don’t worry. We have a school here. I’ve studied abroad. Scientifically—I know that’s really not what’s going on, but… I like believing in it. That it all comes back to the earth.” He shrugs, not really looking anywhere as the corner of his mouth quirks up. “It’s beautiful, to me. And that’s why I always knew I’d come back.”

It is, Seungmin thinks. It’s beautiful. He’d never grown up steeped in religion; his family had gone to temple occasionally, and he’d followed a couple of friends to bible studies out of curiosity, but he can’t imagine growing up in a place like this. Being raised to believe not in a god that believes in karmic retribution, or a god whose name gets invoked for violence and disdain.

Instead, just believing in the ground beneath one’s feet. That all things, good and bad, come from it. All things, good and bad, will return to it. A cycle of life. It’s simple.

(It’s in our nature. It’s a great honour.)

“I’m glad you came back,” Seungmin finally says. “And... that you brought us along.” Me, he wants to say. That you’ve let me come along.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Chris gives him a knowing look. “I noticed you’re settling in well, after the first day’s shock.”

“Yeah, I guess… Felix is really nice,” Seungmin says, thinking of the boy who’s attached himself to Seungmin in less time than he’s ever made a friend anywhere else. “I hope we’ll get to keep in touch after.”

“Oh, he’ll be completely heartbroken if you go,” Chris says fondly, “you should just stay here.”

That’s a thought. Seungmin can’t help but laugh. “I should, huh? And what would I do? Pick carrots?”

“Maybe,” Chris says, grinning. Then, he asks, more earnestly than Seungmin had been expecting, “What would you be interested in doing here, if you ever did?”

Seungmin’s taken aback. “Here?” he asks. “I… don’t think I’d be good at anything.”

“Of course you would,” Chris assures with more certainty that Seungmin could ever feel. “You’re observant. Meticulous. You think a lot more than most people do. You could do something that needs all of that. A fixer of things.”

“Everything I’ve ever touched I’ve just broken.”

Chris is still. “Then,” he says, “come.”

He stands and brushes off his trousers, travelling to the patch next to the one they’d been sitting by. Curiously, Seungmin follows, and he kneels down right beside Chris, who points at the ground. A tuft of green sticks out of it. “Dig your fingers in.”

Seungmin’s eyebrows furrow.

“C’mon,” Chris encourages. “Nothing’s gonna bite, I promise. Earthworms don’t have teeth.”

Seungmin barks a laugh, and hesitates for just a moment before pushing his fingers into the soil. It gives easily beneath the pressure, and it’s not long before he feels something hard. “What is it?”

“Just pull it out. Slowly.”

With one hand, Seungmin digs around it, the other grasping carefully at what has to be some sort of vegetable. Soon, the rest of the stalk is showing in a vivid purple, and then a bit of soil-covered growth over the top of something, and—Seungmin pulls the beet out with a grunt, and examines it. “Oh.”

“There, see,” Chris says, obviously pleased. “Whole and hale.”

Seungmin offers him a smile. Fine, he thinks. It’s a sweet lesson, even if he still doesn’t entirely believe it himself. “Didn’t really expect to be digging up roots on my birthday,” he says.

“Oh, right!” Chris’ smile grows. “I’d wanted to surprise you, but—it’s so early in the morning, I don’t think the others must be awake yet. I wanted to let Minho be the first to wish you.”

Seungmin’s smile wilts slightly, but he turns his head before Chris can see it. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “I’m sure he will. Later.”

“Good. Good,” Chris says, “and after, I can give you your present.”

Seungmin eyes the patch warily. “It’s not a beet, is it?”

Chris giggles. “Nah,” he says. “I wrote you a song, actually. But—I don’t have my guitar here with me, right now.”

“That’s—” Seungmin swallows around the lump in his throat that’s begun to form despite his own will. A song. No one’s ever gone to that much of an extent for him. “Sing it for me later, then.”

“Later,” Chris says. Like it’s a promise.

He hopes it is. More than anything. Even a birthday wish from his own boyfriend, and—isn’t that just sick?

Seungmin nods, gaze downturned. He’ll forget it once Minho comes to him. Once Minho holds him close and wishes him later. Because he will. And that’ll be enough for him. It has to be.

There’s a strange situation at lunch. Changbin and Jeongin are gone.

Just gone.

A village elder confronts Minho, mentioning that one of their important religious tokens, their sacred book (the same one that Chris had mentioned) has gone missing too.

“If Changbin took it—I’m so sorry.” Minho keeps apologising. Seungmin doesn’t understand. He doesn’t think it’s weird that the both of them would disappear like that? What would Jeongin even need with the thing? “But, I swear, I would never be involved with anything like this. I had no idea he would.”

Seungmin hangs back behind Minho, letting the words settle. He’d just thrown them under the bus. Just like that, without a second thought.

He wonders if Minho would ever do the same to him.

They take their seats side-by-side. Felix is on Seungmin’s side, and whispers into his ear about making him a birthday drink later during the night feast. Seungmin lets himself smile, warmed by his thoughtfulness, and promises to meet him by the kitchens later in the evening.

And then, he turns to Minho and waits.

He waits through their meals being served. Through one of the elders making a grand speech about tonight’s fireside feast and tomorrow’s festivies, the final day of the entire midsummer celebration. Through Minho’s uneven gaze on everyone other than him.

Please, Seungmin thinks, desperate. Please remember.

Please think of me.

Give me a second thought. Or even one.

(He doesn’t—

—until later that night, when there’s a roaring fire by the lake and everyone in the commune has gathered around to pluck at legs of roasted and smoked lamb, of jacket potatoes crisped within smouldering coals, sweet corn milk that chills Seungmin’s hands nicely in the closed heat.)

Minho approaches him with a little slice of cake in his hands, attempting to light the tiny candle on top with the lighter he’s flicking in successive, failed attempts. “Happy birthday,” he says, and Seungmin sets his cup down to take the cake from Minho with a smile. See, he thinks, he remembers. He remembered and he’s here. He got Seungmin something because he remembered and he wants to fix whatever’s going wrong between them.

“Thanks,” Seungmin says, after he’s blown out the candle that Minho has painstakingly lit, and he’s afforded a kiss that goes nowhere as Minho’s abruptly called away by one of the villagers about something he’d asked about for his thesis.

Seungmin watches him go, the single thread of longing in his chest snapping.

Further down, closer to the lake, a group of younger villagers are playing some music together. Chris is part of that group, singing something that Seungmin can’t quite make out.

Seungmin wanders over until he’s just close enough to be noticed, but not to bother them. It doesn’t stop Brian though, who gets up and leaves his guitar behind just to drag Seungmin over with a call of, “Make room for Christopher’s boy!”

“I’m not—” Seungmin starts, sitting down beside Chris, but he pauses and looks over at Chris, who just smiles and strums a stray chord. His eyes are earnest and lovely in the light of the campfire. Any refutation Seungmin had wanted to make dies in his throat. “What are you all playing?”

“Some traditional hymns,” one of the girls says. “Have you heard of St. Edward Sheeran?”

Seungmin blinks.

“C’mon,” Chris complains, and the girl laughs so brightly that the sound echoes off the serene surface of the dark lake. “Sorry about her. She still thinks it’s funny to pretend like we’re all uncultured countryfolk who don’t know what MP3 players are.”

“It’s fine,” Seungmin says, “I prefer St. Christopher Martin, actually.”

There’s some scattered laughter, and Seungmin’s heart warms. They’re nice, these villagers his age. He hadn’t realised there were more people who were like Chris here. Even Felix, who’s sitting on the other side of the circle, weaving flowers into the hair of a girl who’s lying back in his lap.

“Chris says that you sing,” Brian says without any prompting. “Sing something!”

“I can’t—”

“His voice is amazing,” Chris says encouragingly, “c’mon, Seungmin. Sing something from back home? Just a couple of lines?”

Seungmin wants to turn them down. He wants to turn them down so badly, but—he thinks about how Minho’s never boasted the same way about his singing before, not even before he’d stopped pursuing it to concentrate on his degree. Changbin, Jeongin, none of Minho’s other friends—they’d never asked. He’d never told.

“Okay,” Seungmin eventually says, after a drawn-out pause, and there’s a cheer. “I’d love to.”

They sing. They play music. The night carries on, and Seungmin finds himself laughing, having fun.

Left aside, the cake goes uneaten.

He’s exhausted, but he feels good. He hasn’t felt this way in a long time.

Everyone’s in varying states across the clearing under the tree—a few people are sitting by the water, skipping stones. Some are lying in the grass, not doing anything in particular. By the fire sit Chris, who’s put his guitar away, and Seungmin, who turns and asks, “Can I get my birthday present now?”

A big smile breaks across Chris’ face.

He does as Seungmin requests, clearing his throat before singing something low and soft about the sky. Something about how vast it is, something about the stars waiting for the sun to come so that they’ll get to rest each night. Something that makes Seungmin ache without any explanation.

Chris stops before there’s any second verse, and says, embarrassed, “Sorry. I know it’s not great.”

“It was,” Seungmin says. “Believe me. Honestly.” He pauses for second before adding, “Tell me about the stars you mentioned. In the song.”

He’s never seen Chris light up this quickly. “Of course,” Chris says. He turns his face up and only needs to search for a moment before his arm darts up to point towards the left. “See that group of stars there? The ones that look like a cross?”

“Yeah?”

“That one’s the Southern Cross. It’s my favourite one. It’s special to me,” Chris says, “because it always reminds me of home. And every single time I see it—I’m reminded of how amazing things can still be. Not ‘is’, but ‘can’. No matter what goes wrong, or whatever bad thing happens… the stars don’t change. They’ll always be there to guide me home.”

Seungmin doesn’t say anything, but he rests his knee against Chris’ and nods.

Chris doesn’t move his knee away. He smiles, and says, “They can guide you home too, if you want.”

And as Chris continues to draw the tip of his finger across the firmaments, pointing out constellations Seungmin’s never even heard of before, Seungmin can’t help but wonder why Minho hadn’t been like this. Why Minho can’t be like this for him.

You know he’s not like this, Seungmin tells himself. He’s known what Minho would be like from the moment they agreed to date. He’s never been sweet in the same way. He’s straightforward, a challenge, someone who’s always kept Seungmin on his toes. Someone who’d taken care of Seungmin in his own subtle way.

But that’d been before. When Minho still knew how to take care of Seungmin. Before Seungmin changed. Before he became whoever this person is, occupying the body of who Seungmin was before everything went to hell.

Seungmin changed, but Minho never did. He never wanted to.

Maybe he should have, comes a whispered voice in his head. Then he would be here instead.

He closes his eyes. The fire has started to go out. Above him, the stars grow colder with every second that passes.

THE FOURTH DAY

It’s the final day of Nüwa’s midsummer celebrations. Seungmin almost doesn’t want it to end, for all that he’d been apprehensive when he’d first come. He still is, but not quite in the same way. He can’t quite describe it still.

He wakes up too late for a morning walk, tired out from the previous night’s escapades. Beside him, Minho stirs and sits up, looking far groggier than Seungmin. “You okay?” Seungmin asks.

Minho doesn’t answer. Seungmin wonders what he’d done last night to be so out of it.

He leaves Minho be, not wanting to get into an argument before he even gets his shoes on, and goes to gather his things. Felix had come by yesterday before lights out with a whisper of, “These are for you,” a bundle of clothes in his arms that he’d given to Seungmin with a big smile. “For tomorrow’s dance.”

Seungmin unties the flax hemp rope and unfolds the clothes. They’re just like what the villagers wear: a tunic embroidered in the same style and a pair of loose trousers. There’s a pretty symbol on the sleeves of the tunic that Seungmin spends a few moments running his fingers over, feeling the threadwork. It’s not like anything he’s seen before.

He puts it all on and only returns to the house for a moment to drop his things off before he makes his way towards where everyone else seems to be gathering.

Right in the center of the commune, where a tall wooden pole rises out from the ground. A fierce blue-and-green scaled dragon twists around it all the way to the top, where its claws are almost closed around a brilliant orange orb. The sun, perhaps. Along the pole are dotted bunches of real flowers, bright and colourful. The same ones the children had been picking by the lake yesterday morning.

Seungmin finds himself unable to look away despite the actual sun starting to hurt his eyes. He takes a step forward—

—and nearly stumbles into someone passing by. “Shit, sorry,” Seungmin says, “I mean, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Sorry.”

The girl just waves it off. “Don’t worry,” she says cheerfully. Seungmin vaguely remembers her being introduced as Sally, last night. Long dark hair and a pretty smile. “Everyone has the same reaction the first time. You’re Seungmin. You’re going to take part, yes?”

“I don’t really know what it is,” Seungmin ruefully admits, and Sally just laughs, but not unkindly. “I heard it’s… a dance?”

“Well,” Sally says, taking his arm and leading him to a set of tables, where some of the other villagers are gathered, “you’ll see.”

The two tables are a short distance away from the pole; one bears the load of three dozen glasses, the other a glass bowl of some brown-green tea with herbs floating along the surface of it. They join the line at the table, and Sally turns to Seungmin as they wait their turn. “It’s called the Dragon’s Dream,” she says. “All our young people under a certain age partake in it each midsummer. And there is dancing, but maybe not the kind you’re expecting.”

They move up in the queue. Seungmin waits expectantly for her to continue, but when she doesn’t, he asks, “And that’s it?”

“For now,” she says.

It’s their turn now. A woman fills two glasses with just an inch of the drink each and hands them over. Seungmin takes a look at his and follows Sally to the side, where she raises her glass. “Now, we link arms and we drink.”

“What’s in this?”

Her eyes sparkle with mirth. “Something to help you dance better.”

Seungmin takes another look at the tea in his glass. He thinks about the last time he’d been told to take something that messed with his head. The voices that followed him down the lake as the others just stood by. They just stood by and did nothing.

But—they wouldn’t. The villagers. Chris wouldn’t, and Felix wouldn’t, and maybe Sally wouldn’t either. They wouldn’t make a fool out of him.

He links arms with Sally and downs his glass like a shot.

She follows suit. “Now,” she says, “you breathe in, real quick, like this,” and she inhales sharply, and lets the exhale out like a cry. The same way those two villagers had at the meal, before they—before they— “And then you breathe out. Try it.”

Seungmin breathes in, and lets it out.

“One more time,” she says, and he does. The rush of oxygen makes him feel a little lightheaded, and it must show on his face, because she says, “You feel it?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says, “yeah, I feel it.”

The grass is starting to do a weird thing again. It warps around his feet and threatens to not let go. Seungmin blinks it away, and returns his gaze to Sally just as she says, “The dance begins soon. Come, you have to get ready.”

“That wasn’t getting ready?” Seungmin lets her drag him away, stumbling after her with a sudden lack of coordination. He has no idea how he’s going to do any sort of dancing, much less walk on his own two feet without falling over.

Another group is gathered around a woman with a brush in her hand. She’s painting the faces of the dancers, Seungmin surmises, and he’s brought to the front of the group as she finishes with someone else. “What year did the earth give you life, boy?” she asks, dabbing her brush into a pot of clay-red paint.

“2000,” Seungmin says, and there’s a couple of delighted murmurs. The woman blinks at him and then smiles. “Is that a good thing?”

“Oh yes,” the woman says, beckoning him close. “The gods love our dragon-born children. They are blessed. As are you.”

Blessed isn’t something Seungmin would ever say about himself, but as the woman slowly and reverently paints a swivel over his temple that goes down his closed eye and cheek. The tail of it goes over the corner of his mouth and ends on the side of his chin.

He opens his eyes to see that everyone else has their symbol on their forehead, their dragon tails curving over their eyebrows instead. There are a few others with dragons on their cheeks, but very few.

Seungmin breathes in once more, and touches his tongue to his lip. The paint tastes of milk and honey.

They stand in three big circles around the pole.

Felix is right there on his direct left, with, to Seungmin’s surprised joy, his own dragon painted right over his cheek, curling around a patch of freckles under his eye. “Ready?” he asks, but Seungmin has no answer.

Right before they begin, he glances over at the rest of the villagers who are just observers for today, seated in a neat group close by. He spots Chris first, who lifts a hand in greeting. Seungmin raises his hand too, smiling.

Four seats down is Minho, who’s not wearing the same clothes as the other villagers. That’s strange, Seungmin thinks. Why didn’t he put his on like Seungmin did? He’s not been one for flagrant disrespect, not like Jeongin—

Jeongin, who isn’t with him. He’s sitting all alone in a crowd full of strangers. No one else from their initial group is there except Minho.

And Seungmin, who doesn’t get a single second to consider how bizarre it is, because the music’s starting and everyone is moving and Felix has grabbed his hand to pull him along with the rest of them.

Time is kept by the steady beat of tanned hide-lined hand drums, the bright ringing of bells. The high rising call of two fiddles dictates their erratic movements, first a skip left, then a skip right. Seungmin doesn’t let go of Felix, suddenly afraid that he’ll get lost if he does. The sharp cry of a flute pierces through the sound, telling them to move quick, quicker.

His feet seem to dance of their own accord, moving in steps he hadn’t realised he’d had. They switch between lines, and Seungmin finds himself holding the hand of someone he’s never even met before, their own dragon painted across the side of their forehead and down the bridge of their nose. They’re laughing as they say something in English to Seungmin that he can’t catch. Seungmin stumbles along, trying desperately to keep up, not letting go.

And then, someone on the other side of the circle slips and falls, taking three other people with them.

The music stops abruptly.

Seungmin stops too, along with everyone else. The four kids who’d fallen are quickly ushered out of the circle, and then the music starts up again with no warning.

That’s what it is, Seungmin thinks. They can’t fall down.

They dance around, and around, and around. Slowly, more and more people trip out of the circle or fall. The tea keeps him light on his feet, makes him feel dizzy and alive. He doesn’t know how long he goes. He doesn’t know how long he dances for, how many times he spins or moves around or takes someone else’s hand. He loses Felix to the blur of the world spinning around him, to the music filling his ears and the scent of perfumed flowers in his lungs.

The earth is solid beneath his feet, but he feels like it’s moving along with him. Dancing just like they are.

Felix stumbles and falls to his knees, and Seungmin stares, his hand still open. It’d been ready and open to catch Felix’s, but his fingers had slipped through Seungmin’s like butter, and Felix has to be helped up, exhausted from the unending movement.

Seungmin’s just as tired, but something tells him to keep going.

And he does.

They keep going—

—and going—

—and he stumbles but doesn’t fall, and he laughs—

—but someone else does trip and—

—Seungmin grasps a girl’s hand, the same girl who’d spoken to him earlier, but this time he understands her, she says his name and she says that it feels like they’re in the sky, and he gets it and it feels just like that—

—and the music stops again.

Seungmin rocks back on his heels, disoriented.

There are only five people left.

A strange burst of excitement rockets through his system. He hasn’t fallen. Out of everyone who’d started, he’s still standing.

He glances back at Minho, wanting to see what his reaction is, wanting Minho to see that he’s doing well, that he’s getting involved the way Minho wanted him to in the beginning, he’s not being a killjoy—

Minho isn’t paying attention. He looks… off. Like he wants to be anywhere but there.

Seungmin’s expression hardens. Fine, he thinks, turning his back on Minho. He doesn’t need Minho’s approval. He doesn’t want it.

They set off again. They’re dancing slower now, stumbling more. The music feels reedy and exhausted too. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been at it, at this point. Minutes, maybe. Hours, even. Maybe they’ve danced through the entire day and it’s the next morning. He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t need to know. He just knows that he can’t fall.

“I’ve never gotten this far,” the boy on his right slurs, and the girl beside him giggles, adjusting her lopsided tunic that’s ridden up her middle. Seungmin laughs too despite not getting the joke. He just feels like he should laugh too. “I—oh!”

There’s a thump, and Seungmin looks to see that they’re both on the ground, tangled up in each other’s limbs.

The music dies down.

Seungmin looks up to see who’s left. Where is everyone? There’s no one standing next to him—

There’s no one standing next to him.

He’s the last one.

A loud cheer erupts. Before he knows it, the others have flocked towards him, all happy smiles and cheers. They surround him and crown him with flowers he’s never known the names of and pass him around from one person to the other, each of whom congratulate him and tell him how wonderfully he’s done and how they’re proud of him.

They mean it. They mean every word, and every smile. Their faces blur together, as do their words, but Seungmin hangs onto everyone single one as he steps through them, feeling dazed and confused. You did it, they say. We are so proud. You were beautiful.

He sees Felix, whose face is smudged with grass and paint. One of the elders, the one who’d been there at the first ritual, who looks at him with a considering smile. Sally, who clasps his hand warmly. The child who’d given him a flower by the lake gives him yet another flower, tucking it into his wreath. His mother, who walks past him without any expression on her face—and Seungmin turns in shock, wanting a second glimpse, wanting to see her again—

Chris appears and he’s beaming so brightly that Seungmin can’t help but gaze at him, pupils blown despite the blinding light of the sun, feeling so inexplicably drawn to him. “You did it,” he says, and he takes Seungmin’s face in his hands and he kisses him.

Everything falls away.

And then Chris pulls back, smiling fondly. “I knew it would be you,” he says as Seungmin is led away. “I knew.”

It would be you, his voice echoes in Seungmin’s chest, I knew it would be you.

Seungmin can’t breathe, but not the same way as when he’d been by the lake.

He feels full.

A photograph is taken. He finds himself seated at the head of the table as they’re all brought back to the main compound to share in a meal of salted chicken and stewed vegetables and flower-scented tea. Seungmin still feels dizzy and overwhelmed by all the attention and from the lingering after-effects of the drink and dance, but it’s good. It feels good. He hasn’t felt this good in a long time.

The entire time, Minho sits alone, staring at him with a strange expression. He almost looks ill, bent over his food like he can’t bear to eat. Seungmin finds that he doesn’t want to ask, for once. In a streak of bitterness, he tilts his gaze away.

For all the times that Minho has swept his concern under the rug, it’s time he lets Minho know what it feels like to be the one who’s not being asked if he’s okay.

Just this once.

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Seungmin glances up to see the slightly blurry face of one of the elders. “As this season’s chosen Dreamer,” he says, “you will come with us to bless the crops.” He must see the uncertainty in Seungmin’s face, because he adds, “Do not be fearful, child. It is simple. Your friends will guide you.”

I don’t have any friends, Seungmin almost says, but then he looks further behind the man and Sally is there, wearing a smaller crown of flowers on her head and holding a small cloth pouch. Felix is there too, holding a lit torch, the flames of it flickering in the slight breeze. And Chris, further away, who beckons towards them, like he’s saying to Seungmin, follow them.

Trust them.

“Yes,” Seungmin says, mouth dry at the realisation. “They will.”

The blessing is simple.

Seungmin lays the small pouch of herbs over raw meat, a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves that are resting in a hole at the centre-point between the commune’s farms. The hole is filled in with soil, and he’s led in a song.

It doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Even then, it feels like Seungmin’s buried something far bigger than just a little pocket of spices. Like he’s put something else to rest along with it.

They return to the village center with little fanfare. He steps down from the little cart that they’d requested he travel in, and is about to follow them to wherever he’s supposed to go next when he noticed the little house on the outskirt of the main compound.

Strange, he thinks. He hadn’t noticed it before. Or, maybe he had, during their initial tour—but it hadn’t drawn his attention like this.

A strange call echoes across the pathway. It almost sounds like—

Seungmin makes to go closer, but someone takes his wrist. “We’re not supposed to go there,” Sally tells him, eyes wide, but there’s something in her voice that suggests she knows why.

He needs to know. He wants to know.

He breaks free of her grasp and goes where he’s not supposed to go. As he gets closer, the sounds get louder. It’s not just the first one, there’s another—two voices in tandem. The same sort of groaning. Like they’re in pain.

But it’s not.

There is a keyhole in the door. His fingers tremble as he lays his hands on either side, as he bends his knees to look into it. His heart is in his throat. He doesn’t want to look. He has to look. He doesn’t want to know. He has to know.

He has to know he has to know he has to know—

The first thing he sees is Minho’s bare back.

The second thing makes him fall back from the door and scramble up again, wanting to be as far away from the sight as possible. No, no, Seungmin thinks. Something thick and dark and horrible claws its way up his throat and forces its way out of his mouth. Bile, bitter and disgusting, bites at the back of his teeth as he throws up.

He thinks he might be saying no. His mouth is forming a shape, but he can’t hear anything in his ears but a low hum and the sound of his own heartbeat. Minho’s bare back and the marks of small fingers and a shock of deep red hair. He’s fucking her, he’s fucked her, he’s left Seungmin, she’s not Seungmin, he’s—

There are hands holding him. His feet scrape futilely at the ground as he’s carried away by the steady arms of people he can’t see.

He’s lowered down onto a bed, where he sucks in a hard breath that isn’t enough. Now he can’t breathe again, but now it’s the kind of not-breathing that makes his lungs hurt and his head hurt and everything hurt.

Minho isn’t coming for him.

Seungmin breaks. He breaks and cries and screams and wails, and it’s not just because of what he’s seen, it’s because of all the times he hasn’t been able to cry—been allowed to cry—been allowed to mourn and cry and sob, he’s angry—angry and grieving and it’s been an entire year, it’s been inside him for an entire year, inside him eating him up and taking everything he’s ever felt and making him feel like it was only ever his fault and he didn’t deserve to cry.

He ends up on the floor, heaving. He’s shaking with the force of his sobs. He can’t even speak.

Someone holds his face in their hands. He doesn’t know her, he can’t tell what her features are through the blur of his tears. She holds his face and she takes a deep breath and she lets out a cry just as he does.

And they do it again. They do it again, and slowly, the others around him begin to do the same thing. They breathe when Seungmin breathes, they scream when he screams.

And they cry along with him.

They cry with him and he cries with them, aching and scared and heard.

He cries until the only thing left is nothing.

The final ceremony is held in the same field that the dance took place in. The pole remains, but a small wooden stage has been erected before it. Seungmin doesn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He doesn’t remember being dressed, doesn’t remember everyone gathering. He doesn’t remember being picked up off the floor of the house or having his tears dried.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

He’s here now.

The elders’ ceremonial words go over his head. Nothing registers with him besides their final request to him: to select who should have the honour of giving the last life to the precious earth, to complete the rituals. To bless the ground one last time for blessing them.

Lots have been drawn, names from a cloth bag. There are two men who have already volunteered. A sweet-looking young man’s name has been drawn for the last spot, but he doesn’t look worried. Instead, he looks as though he anticipates it. He knows that it’s an honour.

He stands beside Minho, who’s laid back in a wheelchair. He’s been dressed in plain linen clothes. He’d been part of his own ritual, an elder had told Seungmin, but they thought he would have let Seungmin know. They believed he had, they’d said.

He never did.

“You may choose, child,” someone says kindly.

Everyone is waiting on him.

Seungmin lets out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. It doesn’t help. He still feels like he’s drowning. He takes a step forward, and finally looks at Minho.

Minho, sickly and unseeing, begs wordlessly for something Seungmin can no longer give him.

Seungmin makes a decision.

There is a building, far on the other end of the commune, that Seungmin has only noticed in passing.

Its walls are wooden and painted in reds, greens and blues. Structured like a barn but lower to the ground, it rises out of flat land and stands out against the far line of the forest. A symbol is painted over the door.

A dragon made of milk and honey.

He notes with bland neutrality that Changbin and Jeongin’s bodies are in the barn too. Propped up on one side like puppets, stuffed full of hay and made a mockery of. Even Hyunjin and Jisung, whom he didn’t really know anyway. Their sagging, skinned faces are eyeless and unseeing. He can’t seem to dredge up any sort of sympathy for any of them.

None of them cared for him anyway.

Especially—especially not Minho, who’d faked it till the end. Who hadn’t wanted him to come, who hadn’t wanted him. Who’d just been waiting for the right time to cast him aside, to leave him drowning in the dirt under the weight of his own sin.

Minho’s gaze is still unclear, fuzzy, as two of the elders arrange his new body in the middle of the structure. Blood trickles from the maw of the freshly-dead bear he’s been sewn into with fishing line, limbs shoved into a disgusting prison of flesh and muscle and fat and fur. He can’t move. Seungmin knows what that feels like. Knows what feeling trapped and useless feels like.

Now Minho knows too. It’ll be the last thing he knows.

The barn begins to burn.

He watches the flames eat the barn up. There are twin screams, but neither of them sound like Minho. Minho isn’t screaming. He can’t scream. The building blazes faster and stronger, and the screaming continues.

Behind him, someone begins to scream too.

Seungmin takes a step, and stumbles. Another step, and everyone around him is wailing and crying, anguished and grieving and sharing in the pain of the two men who went to their deaths voluntarily, the pain of the man who didn’t, their pain and Seungmin’s pain and the pain of the earth beneath them and his parents’ pain and his sister’s pain. They keep screaming and Seungmin feels nothing, everything, all of it, none of it.

He falls to his knees in front of the burning barn. This close, he can feel the fire prickle his skin. The heat tastes like freedom on his tongue.

They’ve been returned to the earth from where they came from, but more importantly—they’re free. Even Minho. Even his friends.

Even Seungmin.

A smile tears across his face. He’s finally free.

After, he doesn’t get to feel lost. The commune folds him in like he’s always been one of them, taking him by the arm like he’s a child and drawing him close, touching his hair, his face, speaking to him in low, gentle tones. He’s changed out of his festivity clothes and given plain garments like those from the day before, like those of everyone around him. They feed him something warm and unsweet to line his stomach and keep him from feeling like he’s about to throw up or pass out.

They never leave him alone, and as they feast under the moonlight that night, he joins them in their much more sombre grieving, though he isn’t too sure whose loss he’s grieving. His own?

Theirs. Ours—they are his, and he is theirs, now. Isn’t he?

Chris sits beside him and takes his hands. He brings them to his mouth, brushing his lips over them, and he whispers, “Do you feel held now?”

Does he?

Yes, Seungmin thinks, face turned up to the stars. And there it is, the Southern Cross, much the same as Chris had pointed out to him the night of his birthday. Those same stars that have led him home after all.

Seungmin reaches for him, fingers curling into Chris’ tunic, wordless.

Chris still knows what he’s trying to say. Chris allows Seungmin to come closer, to seek out the warmth and the open, earnest affection he’s wanted the entire time. He allows Seungmin to kiss him and doesn’t push him away. He merely holds him.

He holds him.

How long is a single second?

Here, Seungmin discovers, is the uncertainty.

The clock stops and shatters, crushed atoms in the cold night.