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When will you come home?
Home?
Your brothers are waiting for you, King.
My brothers?
In Yonggung.
When he opens his eyes, he sees the bottom of a fishing boat above him. The sunlight filters through the water’s surface, distorts the view of the hull. A small school of fish swim quick and smooth just in front of his face - a blur of silver and blue - leaving nothing but a trail of bubbles behind that vanish just as soon as they appear.
Logically, rationally, he knows that he’s suspended in the water, which is an impossibility. Yet he does not need to breathe and he feels as if he’s floating on his back, waiting for something.
Whatever he does wait for finally comes - a person singing just above him, their voice so clear and distinct despite him being underwater.
Beyond the sound lies Yongwangguk
Its ceiling made of dragon ribs
Its floors made of dragon belly
Swallow me, O King, to give us luck
Junmyeon wakes up choking. For a brief moment, he’s clawing at his throat, before his chest loosens up and he can breathe again. He spends the next minute gasping, letting the panic settle in his belly as he stares at the alarm clock at his bedside. 6:03. His alarm would sound in half an hour anyway - might as well take the extra time.
It’s only when he’s standing under the shower does he feel like his skin fits over him properly. Looking down at his hands, Junmyeon spreads his fingers and passes them through the shower spray, watching the water droplets flick off his skin. Briefly, he imagines he can feel each droplet that hits him, hypersensitive to the water, its movement, how he stands at the centre of a stream.
The moment passes. Junmyeon turns off the shower and grabs his towel to dry off.
Do you remember when the world was made?
Was I there?
You told us that in the beginning, there was nothing.
And then? There was light?
Yes.
Do you remember?
He does, at least a little. Creation has always been hazy for them. It all happened before they were cognizant in a sense. Mayhaps there is a power beyond them - the gods and their magic - that made unto the earth and sky from the void that encompassed all.
First, there was the void, yes?
And then there was light.
Yes. Even floating in his non-created being, he knows it. Knows something has changed in this nothingness, even if he has no eyes, no skin, no way to feel how the light is there. Still, he opens his mouth made of nothingness and can recite the lines that described this hallowed moment.
‘And all that was heavy sunk to become the earth, and all that was light drifted above to become the sky.’
He knows light. Light is like him - a god-being not yet in being. The earth too. In the sky, there are more. When do they be?
An eternity passes as the universe settles onto its strings. The void shrinks further and further backwards, seeping what has become, leaving land and sky, sea and mountain behind as it hides itself.
The nothingness will return one day, to cut the strings and swallow the world whole, the gods with it, but that is none of their concern now. Now is the metamorphosis of everything.
Of the sky came one drop of dew and it was coloured blue. Of the earth came one drop of dew and it was coloured black.
Meeting at the centre, they mixed, and finally, the world began.
Finally, he was born, along with others, his brothers, his world and his palace and his court with its creatures that worshipped him as ruler, as king, as god -
The dreams have become too intense to ignore so Junmyeon takes to what he knows best - overanalyzing. He remembers the words whispered in his ear, even in the dreamscape, and looks up whether Yonggung even exists in reality.
There’s both a pang of surprise and relief when the search results come back with confirmation. Along the north-east coastline of Jeju-do is a village sporting the same name, though it has not sprung up as a tourist despite being along the coast.
Instead, the few articles that include Yonggung village report it is abandoned, mayhaps haunted from its bloody history - that is not found referenced anywhere on the Web - and often simply a resting place for hikers on the many long trails that covered the entirety of the island. The best thing to do at Yonggung was to gaze at the weathered buildings in their historicity and forget what had truly transpired there.
Any detailed information on the village would most likely be in the Jeju-do’s libraries, along with the archives of Jeju-do’s myths, legends, rituals, and traditions. If Junmyeon wanted more - and he did, if only to soothe the unrest that prickled under his skin - then he would have to travel to the island personally.
Junmyeon takes a shower to feel human again and begins to pack.
Without you, chaos reigns here now.
I’m sorry.
Everyone hopes for order once more.
For me?
It has been so long, yet we still wait for you.
A cacophony of voices. His brothers - it must be. So many voices and one of them his, and he can hear himself speak, his throat hoarse. He has been speaking a long time, yelling, arguing. There is a deep chasm within his chest and it feels like he will be swallowed whole from the inside out. Something has happened. Something must happen.
‘You cannot do this to Iseung - !’
‘I will!’ He can feel himself shout, the grief vibrating through his throat. ‘They’ve killed one of us - how can we simply sit here and let them get away with this?’
‘They’re humans,’ one of his brothers reasons. ‘They are misguided and deceitful. They do not know what they have done.’
‘Were we not made of the same earth? The same sky?’ He feels like he’s retreading his own tired arguments, but he can’t give up; he refuses. ‘They know us as their counterparts, their gods, and they have killed one of us - ’
‘Your proposed punishment goes too far,’ another one says.
‘It doesn’t go far enough,’ he snarls back.
‘You cannot do as you please, Yongwang,’ says a god-brother, the one who loves the humans the most. His voice is calm, soothes the noise of voices but does nothing to fill yawning emptiness in his core. His centre where he can feel the loss of one of them so acutely that no thought can pierce past his need for revenge. A blood price. ‘There will be consequences that none of us expect.’
‘What would you have me do then?’
‘We will wait for the humans to atone.’
‘A god-brother is dead.’
‘As Yongwang, you feel all life and all death,’ he says, voice soft. ‘But if you choose to become only the Yongwang of death, the blood price will be too much for both the humans and you.’
The other gods shift and murmur and surround him. Many are in favour of the blood price, only a few had been vocal in their opposition. After all - a god lies dead.
‘If we wait, if they do not atone, then the blood price must be paid,’ he says finally.
His brother seems resigned to the compromise. ‘Then we wait.’
The first thing Junmyeon notices when he wakes is that he’s drowsy. There is no tightness in his throat, no suffocating weight on his chest, no churn of anxiety in the pit of his stomach, no need to want to peel out of his skin until he can feel like he fits back into his body again.
It is a simple drowsiness. One he feels he hasn’t felt in lifetimes. The ferry’s PA system announces it will dock at Jeju-do’s main ferry terminal in twenty minutes, and Junmyeon lets the lethargy work through him. His eyes are drooping, his shoulders relaxed, feeling warm. He is this close to home and already, already, he is this close to touching something bordering on… normal.
Close to fourty-five minutes later, Junmyeon is flipping through the tourist pamphlets at the bus terminal that is adjacent to the ferry dock. His small suitcase is beside him. The map makes clear that there are no bus routes that head towards the non-tourist areas of the north-east so he’d have to find his own way there.
Sighing, Junmyeon walks past the lanes where the buses are parked, waiting for boarding. He’s out of the terminal in a few minutes, finds himself rolling his suitcase along the long sidewalk of the roadway that leads off the docks and follows the coastline. The blue sea shimmers under the midday sun, making the ferries and other boats flash white along the water.
He breathes and it’s easy.
‘Where are you off to?’
Surprised, Junmyeon turns around quick, almost tripping over his suitcase.
There’s a young man standing in front of him, smiling sweetly as he runs a hand through his messy light brown hair. ‘You seem lost.’
‘Oh - yes.’ Junmyeon can’t help but feel struck at the sudden appearance of the bus parked along the curb. He hadn’t even heard the engine. ‘I need to get to Yonggung.’
‘Woah - really?’ The young man raises his eyebrows high. ‘Not a lot of visitors to that place and today we have two?’
Junmyeon blinks. ‘Two visitors?’
He nods, gesturing to the bus behind him. ‘I’m the chauffeur, name’s Baekhyun. The cute sulky driver is Kyungsoo. We run a tourist bus.’
‘Ah - I’m Junmyeon.’
Baekhyun gestures for him to get on the bus. ‘You just seemed lost so I thought I’d ask if I could help and guess what? Our other passenger is going to Yonggung too.’
‘Oh - wait, sorry, how much?’
‘Don’t worry! You pay once we can actually get you to the destination, customer guarantee and all.’
The bus doesn’t look different from the ones parked from the terminal, and if there was another passenger, then it seemed safe for now. Should the bus get lost, Jeju-do was small enough it would end up at some place of civilization eventually.
Junmyeon picks up his suitcase and gets on the bus.
His nap on the bus is dreamless.
Junmyeon opens his eyes when he feels a brief touch on his shoulder. The other passenger.
‘We’re almost there.’
He sits up and looks out the window at the blooming greenery of Jeju-do in the summer. The trees climb high and the underbrush is painted in shades of green, brown, grey. Occasionally the treeline breaks and Junmyeon can catch the blue flash of the ocean before being swept back into the forest.
Baekhyun’s voice rouses him from his sightseeing. ‘The bus is too big for the trail that leads to the village proper so we’re going to stop at the intersection. Yonggung is just a twenty minute walk away.
Junmyeon finally stands up, looking at the front of the bus. Baekhyun is leaning his shoulder against the driver’s seat, talking to the other passenger who has their back turned on Junmyeon. They are speaking quieter now and Baekhyun laughs out loud after a moment. ‘Thanks!’
The bus is easing up on the acceleration. Junmyeon steps into the aisle and brings his suitcase along. Baekhyun looks over the other passenger’s shoulder and waves at him. ‘Hey, sleepyhead.’
Finally, Junmyeon catches a proper sight of the other passenger when they turn around to look at Junmyeon.
He looks the same age as Baekhyun, with dark hair and sharp delicate features. He’s startlingly attractive to Junmyeon - black eyes and a soft, curling mouth fitting between a strong jawline and high cheekbones.
‘We haven’t been introduced, huh?’ He says, his voice surprisingly low. ‘I’m Jongdae.’
‘Junmyeon.’
‘We’re here,’ cuts in Kyungsoo, the driver. From the windshield, Junmyeon can see the paved road continues southwards. To the side, there is a faded sign and padded dirt path that cuts east through the forest toward the coastline. It looks part of the many hiking trails on the island and Junmyeon restrains his sigh at the walk he knows is coming.
‘How will we get back?’ He asks.
Kyungsoo looks at Baekhyun and Baekhyun shrugs. ‘There’s a bus stop a few minutes along the road where the shrubbery clears up. if you wait there, a bus will come eventually.’
‘Eventually,’ hums Jongdae softly. ‘Thanks for the ride.’ He nods to Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and steps off the bus.
Junmyeon suddenly remembers. ‘How much do I owe you?’
Baekhyun waves his hand airily. ‘Jongdae paid for both of you. Generous guy.’
Kyungsoo looks at Junmyeon. ‘Be careful in Yonggung.’
Junmyeon nods, taking his suitcase and getting off the bus. ‘It’s home.’
As the bus begins to move, he can hear Baekhyun laugh from an open window, so loud and unmistakable - ‘then welcome home!’
The bus drives off and disappears in the horizon before Junmyeon finally looks at the hiking path they would have to walk.
Across the roadway, Jongdae is standing patiently at the mouth of the trail, watching him. ‘Are you coming?’
Junmyeon takes a breath, holds it as he crosses the paved road, and exhales when he stands on the dirt. The wind makes the tree leaves whisper, and he can hear the crunch and shift of the underbrush under his steps.
For the first time, Junmyeon feels awake.
‘Sorry,’ he says, stepping into the woods. ‘I’m ready now.’
O King! Swallow my pure soul!
Past doorways of dragon teeth
Down hallways of dragon vein
So you may leave the rest of us whole
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