Chapter Text
The waves have now a redder glow —
The hours are breathing faint and low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
Yuta didn’t dream.
He gave those to the humans, and they all craved them the way he had craved the same thing a long time ago. He could not control them completely — he sensed what they wanted in all of their tangled desires, some harder to notice than others, and gave it to them. He sighed contentedly when he felt his chains tightening over their souls, the misery and suffering a show for another day that would always come.
And then, there was the boy.
A boy as haunted as he was lovely who asked every time Yuta touched him to make him feel alive. Mark was a wonder to him; a stained glass with so many colors and patterns he fought back the desire to break it to see how every little piece made him whole, the multicolored crystal veins a path for him to walk on. At first, he was sure he would only break it at the right moment, and then he decided he did not want to. He could stare at it as much as he desired if it was his.
And Mark was his.
“He’s meant to die,” Jaemin said, cleaning the blood from his wrist. “How he does is not fixed yet. By his own hand, or… the priest’s.”
“Hmm,” Yuta clicked his tongue. “You saw something else.”
“I couldn’t see clearly. Jungwoo is still mad at you for not visiting him often,” Jaemin broke the blood array completely. “However…I saw you as well.”
“Did I kill him?”
“You didn’t,” Jaemin replied after a few moments. He was being overly cautious. Yuta was pleased. “It’s the only way he can go with you.”
“I know,” Yuta replied and didn’t ask anything else. Jaemin took the hint and continued, “I’ll have everything else ready in two days.”
“You can ask whatever you wish, Jaemin,” Yuta rested his head on his hand. Jaemin had almost gone mad the first time he arrived at Yuta’s city. It was not a place for the human mind, and even though Jaemin was not completely human, it still was sharp enough to shatter him from the inside. Yuta finally knew what Mark saw all this time in his dreams. It had been his future all along. “There’s something in the town that you want. What is it?”
Yuta was not counting on Jaemin’s silence for a moment. As if he was not sure anymore. Then he smiled and it was the Jaemin he had known for centuries now. Some demons didn’t trust Jaemin: he was no regular magician; he didn’t summon demons to grant normal folk their petty wishes or to talk about fortune and the future in common fairs, but his reasons were unknown to everyone but him. Yuta didn’t mind; he would trust Jaemin for the fun of it.
“The priest.”
Yuta nodded, content, and Jaemin left, his blood scrubbed clean. Yuta had hidden his tent once again, unwilling to deal with humans who were not Mark. He hadn’t planned to reveal it in the first place, preferring to lure humans in without them knowing what was there at all, but Mark would have not come back if Yuta didn’t reveal himself. One gift transformed into two and three and so on.
He exited the fair, nodding slightly to the low-ranked demons under him that greeted him, their nature completely replaced by discipline. Yuta let them stay for a little longer as the only people left in the town would be the weakest ones, and grand demons preferred their next prey to be untouched and spotless and most of them had things to attend back in Yuta’s city. The people they all had maimed would arrive in no time there, and then Yuta would finally get his fill.
And Mark.
He passed the sea and the demons under it quieted completely as he passed by, shivering from the fear. Yuta did not care about the conception of time, but he guessed it was not late and yet the humans had their doors tightly closed. He heard a few gasps and screams, and he sighed with satisfaction. The flowers the humans kept were dying, colorless as a cloth exposed to the sun. Yuta crushed one and kept the remnants until he arrived at the chapel, touching the cross pattern on one of his rings hard enough to feel something creeping up his arm.
Before he opened the double door of the chapel, he drew something on the floor with the dust of the flower.
He breathed the town in; the gasps, the nightmares, the woman who was thinking about throwing himself to the sea. He identified Mark between all the threads, his essence clean and soothing. It called to him; it had done so that first night when he had meant to get a painting of him and decided to keep a boy instead.
He didn’t dream and yet, perhaps if he closed his eyes and pretended he did, they would resemble him.
Yuta opened the door and he saw the priest on the altar. He smiled when the smell hit him; it was too strong and he touched his ring once again, the incense almost making him stumble but he did not. His face remained the same even though he suddenly wished he could end one or two of those people under his influence. It would be years and years before he came to a human town again.
The priest turned around and was not surprised to see him there. The candles around them started to burn higher and higher and then flickered out, leaving the room in complete darkness for a second. Yuta laughed sensing the fear.
“ Wha t are you?” Father Kang asked as Yuta stopped playing with the light, a bible in his hand. Yuta considered burning the whole place before leaving. “You are not a human being.”
“You told the boy I was,” Yuta shrugged and didn’t walk further. “I do look like one, don’t you think?”
“He doesn’t understand anything,” he replied. Yuta narrowed his completely black eyes, the smile turning cruel. “He thinks you can get him out but you can’t. You will kill him.”
“What he thinks of me stays between me and him. I’m rather shy.”
“You will never have him. You can’t offer him anything but damnation.”
“How funny,” Yuta said, licking his lips. “You won’t let him live either.”
Yuta couldn’t get through to him as easily as he did with other humans but he felt it. The hatred at his powerlessness; he meant to blame the Mayor who wanted power and Yuta promised it to him, or the boy who was sure Yuta was not a human being since he laid his eyes on him, but returned to him to get a taste of the things no one had ever given to him. Yuta had let him out of his cage regardless of the price, and nobody didn’t know how deep it ran.
“Do you think I did your job better than you?” Yuta hummed, the priest stepped backward when he noticed the red and human blood dripping from Yuta’s hands. “They confessed their sins in the name of a small illusion. Did you know there’s a woman who plans to sell her son to the Devil? There are a few of us. She has plenty of options.”
“You-”
“Even your loyal follower. She stopped feeling compassion for her son long ago for fear of divine punishment. I applaud you for locking a little kid up in a dark room to learn how to control demons. He has a small scar on one of his hands for those times, didn’t you see it?”
“We want the best for him-”
“Since I set foot in this town, I won,” the priest noticed how Yuta’s hands were completely clean now. “Every show must come to an end, Father Kang. This one will do it soon, but you will remember, won’t you?”
“W-was it because of the boy? Did he attract you?”
Yuta laughed and said instead, “You say that I can’t give him anything, but you would offer him to me if I tell you I’ll receive him as a sacrifice.”
He opened the door, the temperature dropping impossibly low now. “But he can’t save any of you,” Yuta didn’t glance at the priest anymore. “I won’t accept his sacrifice. That’s not how I want him and therefore, it’s not how I will take him.”
He broke the door on his way out.
Mark was tending the garden when Yuta saw him — he was throwing the dead flowers away, probably wondering why they suddenly stopped growing and coming to the answer quickly; nothing in the town would ever grow, not until Yuta left. He noticed how thin and pale Mark looked; he had been careful with the things he took, caring more than in the past about what Mark could take and what he could not. He was not counting on Mark being insatiable; hungry to grab what was available to him.
Yuta didn’t like touching humans as Donghyuck did. Some of them hated humans, others were fascinated by them, and Yuta hated them until he preferred giving Mark his fascination instead of something else. He was winning every time Mark brought him closer, every time he trusted Yuta enough to kiss his neck, his teeth obediently away.
“You are real,” Mark had said once, hovering over Yuta as if their roles were reversed. His hands were on each side of Yuta’s head. “I just wish you weren’t.”
He raised his head and smiled when he saw Yuta. The gesture surprised them both for the way Mark turned around, the empty soil more interesting to him now. He fed in other forms — lies, wrath, worthlessness — and didn’t need to lay with humans for something else than breaking their minds but with Mark, he drank his reactions as if he was something else entirely. He was neither human nor lover, but he didn’t mind getting on his knees from time to time.
“You are killing the flowers,” Mark whispered when Yuta got closer to him. In an instant, Yuta put Mark’s mom to sleep. “My mom was trying to grow some passionflowers but they all died. She’s having some problems sleeping…”
“What a shame.”
“Yuta.”
Mark would not ask if his mom's nightmares were caused by Yuta, probably scared of the answer. He didn’t pry on Mark’s thoughts as he would have but he still read him well enough; the discomfort, the terror of dying, and how being with Yuta was walking on broken glass in the void, a bad step and he would fall. And now with his mother who woke up with full-flashed eye-bags and throat raw from screaming that Mark never heard.
Yuta pressed his thumb between Mark’s eyebrows, soothing the cress. “Don’t think about it. Now, you can ask about other things.”
“Other things?”
Yuta crossed his arms. Mark cleared his throat. “Where were you?”
“Are we having a lover’s quarrel?”
“O-of course not. We are not that. ”
“No,” Yuta agreed. “We are something worse.”
“So.”
“I was taking my time with the holy heavens,” Yuta laughed at Mark’s expression. “Seeking forgiveness. Wondering when my weeping will turn into joy.”
“Were you in the chapel?”
“I didn’t do anything to him, Mark.”
“Did Father Kang hurt you?” Mark whispered instead. “He has his means.”
Yuta kissed him, softer than he had ever done anything in his existence. He savored when Mark relaxed against him and his heartbeat was enough life for both of them. Yuta held the sound tight, noticing it was getting fainter and fainter. He released him and kissed his cheek when Mark leaned in again, smiling at his expression.
“I can be your human lover for tonight, Mark,” Yuta said in his ear. “Take me to your room.”
Yuta was aware some demons liked to haunt houses because there was no easier way to drive people to madness, and Yuta resisted the urge to finally snap the thread that kept together the mind of Mark’s mother, but it was not the time yet. Mark grabbed his wrist as he opened his bedroom but didn’t do anything else for a long time; only his bright eyes were staring at Yuta in the dark, sadness in each blink, and for a moment, Yuta almost ended up wishing he could understand how it felt to have a heart cutting a ribcage, the suffocating pressure of the world falling apart with nothing to hold onto so Mark would not be alone. But he could not; he hadn’t even felt it when he was different a long time ago. He and Mark had met in the middle by chance; fate was inescapable for all beings, someone used to say to him, and for him and Mark was the same.
Perhaps it was that Mark would stay in the dark with someone he loved and Yuta had never shied away from giving gifts to the selected few he liked.
And he liked Mark when he kissed him for the second time that day, his hands cold against his neck. Yuta placed one of his own hands above his, their fingers interlocked in his neck. Mark’s fingers trembled slightly, and Yuta tightened his hold on them slightly.
“Yuta,” Mark said as he pushed him against the bed. Yuta didn’t resist — Mark was designed to lure him in, to see how many sins they could fit into the minimal space between them. “A truth for a truth.”
Yuta caressed Mark’s lips with his thumb. “When you touch me,” Yuta guided Mark’s hand down his body, “I almost feel the need to tell you to not break my heart.”
Mark held him for a second. “You are killing me, aren’t you?”
“It’s the first step that is slower,” Yuta pushed him under him, Mark’s eyes unusually bright. “And then it’s faster and faster.”
“Did I give you what you want?”
“Not yet,” Yuta was aware of how fragile Mark had gotten. “Your heart still beats as fast as it did that first night. Are you still scared of me?”
Mark shook his head and in moments like these, having Mark under him, he was a winner; Yuta took him from Him , and he would keep him; he would give him the sun he was meant to see, and the moon would be silver instead of red, and the sea in front of him would not be haunted anymore.
He liked him enough.
“What’s your truth, Mark?”
“I’ve always wanted to choose,” Mark muttered. Yuta didn’t move. “It’s odd, isn’t it? You ruined this town. You ruined me.”
Mark’s touched his arm. “You are real, Yuta,” Mark sighed. “You are real but you will never give me anything that is.”
“I’m not your human lover,” Yuta agreed, blending into the darkness as he often did. “I will never be. But you can want me. You can ask for love.”
There’s nothing I would not give to you.
“You can’t love anyone,” Mark’s hair was completely black against his pillow.
“Why do you think so?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“What’s love to you?” Yuta whispered in his ear. “Is it always kind? Gentle?”
“It has to be.”
“What would happen if I am with someone else in front of you? Would your feelings be gentle and kind?” Yuta raised his chin in the dark. “When you’re biting my neck or putting your hands around it, squeezing it so slightly, is it gentle and kind?”
“You can want me, Mark,” Yuta muttered against his skin. “You can love me.”
Mark put his hands on Yuta’s shoulders this time. “Yuta, tell me a lie this time.”
Yuta removed Mark’s shirt, the mark above his hip the greatest reminder. “I’m yours, Mark. Do with me as you please.”
And Mark did it — repeatedly, roughly, and Yuta gasped more than once. And then Yuta dried his tears and fucked the lies and truths out of him. Mark was unreachable but not when he asked for more and more, his skin feverish to the touch; his soul bleached in the darkest shade they both found, and yet he was still so alluring that Yuta would need an eternity to play with him as much as he wanted.
“ Let the morning come ,” someone had told him a long time, the golden blood staining the white floor. “ And you will beg to have something else than reverence. Love above all things, do you remember? Love above all things. ”
He did not remember. He would never beg a human boy to love him, but when they were done and Mark sighed, his skin once again paler than Yuta remembered it, he removed one of his rings. The most important one. A gift once given that took years and years to clean completely. Mark widened his eyes, suddenly on alert, as Yuta said, “Sit down.”
“Uh-huh,” Mark complied, confused.
Yuta stroked the skin on his neck, and his throat, and fastened the necklace as his ring shone slightly over Mark’s chest. “Time is ticking isn’t it?”
“I-is this-?”
“You know what it is, Mark,” Yuta released him. “You will accept it soon, won’t you? What you’ve been given to me.”
“Yuta,” Mark whispered. “I…”
Yuta kissed him, not letting him continue.
“I need something to dream of too.”
Mark didn’t leave his bed the day after; he spent the whole time between dreams and nightmares — dreams of a vibrant sun and a garden full of what seemed to be tulips of a variety of colors. He remembered asking Mrs. Son the meaning of them as he helped her to tend her garden, and she had answered, “They have different meanings depending on the color, Minhyung. Purple means ‘ eternal love .’ Did someone catch your eye?” And in those dreams, there was always Yuta. He ignored how Yuta didn’t seem to belong with sunshine in the back, laying against him in the sunset because if he remembered it, it became a nightmare accompanying the visions of a red cathedral, the stained glass looking like dripping blood, and they all shattered if he got closer.
He was dying.
And the fair was leaving.
Something shifted within the sea. The reflected moonlight twisted, tainting the melancholy waters red for a moment. Unknown phantoms haunted those waters, everyone said clutching their chests with a shiver, and while in other places it could be nothing else than a tale to terrify misbehaving children, in a town like theirs it terrified even the one who prayed each night, and this time the water was somber the moment the sun disappeared.
People guarded themselves at home. Something odd was happening that night, like the flash of a knife before the stabbing.
In the only manor of the town, that night the Mayor didn’t attend any of the complaints — the fair was coming to an end, and more and more people expressed their content with it. It granted miracles , some of them said. I saw my husband for the first time . I had forgotten the green of his eyes while others said, It’s a curse . Haven’t you seen how all of them are falling sick? They talk about torture and—
“There’s not much I can do. It’s surely for the water,” Mayor Zhong repeated to Father Kang as the cases started to rise and no one knew how to proceed. There was only one doctor in the town, but he had closed his doors after one of the sick scratched his face. Mayor Zhong didn’t have any time to regret anything; his father had been the Mayor, and he refused to give his son the same fate. He had been asking for greater powers since his first travel and if it came in the form of a charming young man, he would receive it for now, waiting for the right moment.
“They’re not humans. He’s not human,” Father Kang repeated for the tenth time that evening. “If you had allowed-”
“Do you think it would have kept him at bay?”
“What did he promise you?” Father Kang asked instead. Mayor Zhong wiped his sweat off with a handkerchief. It was rather hot that night. He saw something moving behind Father Kang but he blinked and it disappeared. “What could he give you that God can’t?”
“Those are dangerous words, Father Kang. I’m not little Lee Minhyung who can put up with it.”
“Minhyung is none of your concern.”
“My son came to me asking if you are going to burn his friend,” Mayor Zhong stood up. “What have you been doing to that boy?”
Father Kang also stood up, his eyes sharper than Mayor Zhong had ever seen. “There’s only one human being in this town who gained his favor, Mayor Zhong. And it’s not you.”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“If you cared about this town at all, you would get the boy first than he does.”
“Minhyung? What can Minhyung give him?”
“He caught the fancy of a Devil,” Father Kang said. “And that Devil would first repent than hurt him.”
Father Kang didn’t bother to add anything else and left, frustrated at every step. Mayor Zhong was shivering the moment he ate dinner with his family, and with nothing to say when Chenle expressed his worry over his friends — Minhyung hadn’t appeared all day, and his mother had yelled at him for knocking on the door, and Renjun had been looking for his mother for days but she hadn’t appeared yet. He stared at Chenle’s face against the fireplace and suddenly couldn’t bear the pang of guilt accompanying him with the face of his son, intensifying in the silence when he got into bed and his nightmares began.
He didn’t wake up again, the last expression on his face one of pure terror at what was in front of him.
Chenle cried all night.
That same night, in the west of the town, the low-ranked demons started to leave one by one.
“You first,” Jaemin signaled to one who liked to torment young wives, ignoring its deformed face. It crawled on the cold floor of his tent and Jaemin kept his smile, nothing reassuring in the gesture — it promised a stab in the back, and the moment words for help were to ever come out, the throat would already be cut.
“Witch, you know a lot, don’t you?” Jaemin shrugged at the question, his smile still plastered on his face. If he moved slightly, it would come off. “Is it true that Master is going to bring a human boy-?”
Jaemin threw it into the array, but instead of going to Yuta’s city, it became dust in front of him. “Now, who’s next?”
They didn’t say anything else, throwing Jaemin odd glances before leaving. He was not a human, but he was not a demon either. He existed in between, having the best and the worst of both. He massaged his head for a brief moment, surprised that he could still feel pain, and doubted it would be for overdoing it. He knew the paths he ought to walk, and he had outlived most witches and magicians at that point.
The bridge always had to hold, and as there was one day left, Jaemin had to be more creative to keep granting wishes. Some people asked for one wish and never returned while others continuously arrived at his small tent as if he were the solace they had been looking for all their lives. In their eyes, he was merciful and powerful and his price was nothing like the stories told.
He asked for a coin.
And a hidden small portion of their hearts.
“Is there someone inside?” a woman’s voice asked from the outside, his headache veiling her hesitation. Jaemin glanced at Donghyuck’s ring carefully stored in his most expensive glass and the grimoire carefully kept under the table. “You haven’t left yet, right? They told me so!”
They. Jaemin’s smile twisted.
The tent’s curtain opened, and the woman entered, her teeth chattering from the cold. Her eyes had an unnatural glow with her pupils almost red with the light of Jaemin’s bright candles around her. He also noticed her wrists were bandaged. Perhaps they all would blame Yuta’s presence for what the town had become, but Jaemin would disagree — most humans reached the same path that the woman in front of him, or the ones dying out of terror. Creatures like Yuta and Jaemin offered the easiest way out for a price.
“Y-you’re not normal,” the woman’s voice came out with effort, raw and wrong. “There are demons everywhere.”
“I’m not a demon,” Jaemin’s expression was kind. Deceptively so. “I’m merely a bridge.”
“I-I want a wish! You c-can give it to me. You are the only one who can.”
“And what would that be?” Jaemin’s own wrist was bandaged but he still reached up for his knife, the pentagram already forming on the floor. He sighed in his mind thinking about how long it would take him to clean and purify his space before the dark energy started getting even to him. He was not a regular magician indeed. “I’ll ask the same thing twice. Choose your answer wisely.”
“I want to get out of here,” she slurred the words, her eyes getting crazier. Jaemin didn’t disregard the possibility of having to use the knife for something else. “My son… my son… he’s not doing what he should! His beauty will pass and who would receive him? Who?!”
“Your son,” someone repeated behind her. Jaemin didn’t react, instantly moving aside so the newcomer could stand in front of him. The pentagram was useless now. Jaemin sighed. Some magicians had the faint idea they could control what they summoned with the right words and an indifferent mind, but Jaemin had always been above everyone else for the same reason. With a Prince of Hell, there was no bargain in the slightest — they took what they wanted, and left the rest to perish slowly.
Donghyuck passed her by and the woman fell to her knees instantly until he was in front of her and she started to tremble, her eyes unable to take in what was in front of her: Donghyuck was not a demon who whispered petty things in ears, but a thousand nightmares wrapped in endless desire and beauty.
“What a lovely night,” Donghyuck said, the silk of his black clothes bright and soft. “You can’t taint it by playing with demons, don’t you think?”
The woman didn’t say anything and grabbed her head as if she was hearing things no one else did. Donghyuck stretched his arms. "What do you want for him?”
“H-he has t-to be b-beautiful f-for a long t-time,” she kept trembling. “S-someone has to accept him. H-he will get me out, he will get me out-”
“Is this son of hers beautiful?” Donghyuck asked Jaemin. Jaemin suppressed raising his eyebrow; he was sure Donghyuck had seen him at least once before. He grabbed Jaemin’s cards and started to play with them.
“He is,” he replied simply.
Donghyuck’s smile was sinister.
“Is his beauty the way for you to get what you desire?”
“I-it has to be! H-he has to be,” the woman shrieked when Donghyuck came closer. “H-his time is passing by. W-we have to leave.”
“And what will you give me? I am feeling very generous today. You can call it a goodbye gift.”
“Anything! My soul!” the woman had her palms together. Donghyuck’s eyes flashed, but his smile remained the same. Jaemin’s eyes lost all mirth. “H-his soul. I’m h-his mother!”
“He’s my son!” the woman yelled. “He’s mine. He’s mine. He’s mine.”
Donghyuck placed the cards neatly on the table. Jaemin blamed the slight discomfort on his preference of playing fair when it came to deals with greater demons or devils like Donghyuck. Only a few of them would bargain without the human dying in the next hours, or allowing them to live for greater schemes like Yuta, and this time was no different. Donghyuck did not like when they died quickly; he dragged their suffering until they reached the same place in Hell, and the pain was long-enduring.
“Very well,” Donghyuck smiled. “Who I am to deny it?”
He moved his hand, and the woman shuddered violently as she saw the true nature of his eyes. Dark blood gathered around the corner of her mouth, and then her whole body started to convulse. Jaemin imagined how at that exact moment Huang Renjun would feel something inside him permanently break; his world would shift almost unperceptively, and then he wouldn’t be able to discern how it was before anymore. He would pass each mirror and river, his face unmarked by the passing of time, slipping away each day until he was forever lost. And then, his true punishment would arrive.
“There’s nothing in this world that is free, don’t you agree?”
Jaemin remained still when she started to scream and Donghyuck laughed. Her throat started to bleed, the screams escalating and escalating until Jaemin’s head throbbed again. Donghyuck was about to get closer to her when someone forced the tent open and Donghyuck stopped completely.
Donghyuck pushed the woman aside, her screams dying.
Jaemin heard Donghyuck whisper when he saw Huang Renjun’s face, “ Please .”
Renjun ran to his mother, staring at Donghyuck for a second, who was rocking back and forth like a small child. She started to scratch his arms and Renjun didn’t know how to react at first, her sudden strength surprising him. He heard Renjun switch to soothing words, withstanding the scratches and the yells. Before she could hurt his face, Donghyuck pushed her off Renjun.
“Don’t waste your time,” Donghyuck threw her off, her head colliding with one of the bookshelves Jaemin kept there. “You are a bright one, aren’t you? You should know by now.”
Jaemin didn’t miss how Donghyuck’s eyes were a normal shade of brown, the pupil visible. He sighed inwardly and sat behind his table.
“Who are you?” Renjun’s fingertips were trembling. He didn’t look heartless at that moment — he was nothing but a lost boy. Jaemin bit the inside of his cheek. “My m-mom doesn’t mean it-”
Donghyuck tilted his head. “Your chest is hurting, right? You can’t breathe.”
Renjun shook his head repeatedly, his eyes wide. Jaemin was not fooled — he was stunning like the light hovering over the edge of a razor. However, this time, he was the one who got cut. That was a pain unlike any other, Jaemin realized, the one that came with being alone in the wild, with no one strong enough to go for protection.
Huang Renjun was alone and the world had tilted, causing his fate to crumble before him. He crawled back.
“Twenty years, Huang Renjun,” Donghyuck collected him into his arms, Renjun’s eyes almost white out with terror. But Donghyuck’s voice was soothing as if he was holding a glimpse of Heaven, long ago denied to him. “And after that, I’ll come for you.”
Renjun’s tears started to fall. Donghyuck released him softly, and Jaemin was surprised when he dried his tears. “She never wanted your love, Renjun. She wanted your loyalty and you gave none of it.”
“Please no,” Renjun reached for his arm. “Please don’t do this to me. Please. Please .”
“It’s a gift from your mother, Huang Renjun,” Donghyuck removed his hand from his arm, his fingers lingering there. And then he grabbed Renjun’s hand, slipping his favorite ring into one of his fingers, the gladiolus catching one of Renjun’s tears. “I’m very good at giving those. You will remember it every time you stare at the mirror, at your reflection in those haunted waters. And you will know.”
Renjun grabbed his head and fell to his knees, so frightened Jaemin thought for a second he could die like all those other people around the town. When he stared at Donghyuck, his eyes full of tears, Jaemin was sure something froze inside Donghyuck.
“What a shame,” Jaemin spoke, distracting everyone. “A cursed family.”
Donghyuck turned to him and Jaemin smiled quietly.
“Oh, definitely,” Donghyuck didn’t look at Renjun anymore. “It’s not easy collecting souls, is it?”
Donghyuck disappeared and Renjun’s horrified expression unsettled even Jaemin. Renjun’s mother laid unmoving on the floor, and what a truly bothersome thing would it be when he had to clean. Or perhaps he could burn the whole thing and go back to Yuta’s city, and stay there until he forgot humans were volatile and unforgiving things.
“You have to leave, Renjun,” Jaemin said. “Your mother will never be what she was.”
“I-I want to die,” Renjun whispered. “Please, kill me. Kill me. Kill me.” ”
“You can’t die,” Jaemin bit his finger and touched Renjun’s forehead. “Twenty years, Renjun.”
“You told me she was not doing anything with demons. You-”
“I didn’t lie to you,” Jaemin said, keeping the rest for himself. He didn’t care what human beings chose or what they did to one another, but he never considered she would do that to Renjun either way. Renjun, the heartless boy who starved for love and strength, and if he did not have it, then he pretended he did not want it. But Jaemin could see it; if it did not go to any place, it might explode and be replaced by something completely different. “Go home, Renjun. I’ll send your mother back… a little bit calmer.”
Jaemin was the bridge. He didn’t exist in Hell and he didn’t exist on Earth. His hands were tied and so, he could only watch as Renjun crawled towards the exit. A lot of people would talk about wails all around the town, accompanying those of the sea, and would never how human they sounded. But they would tell the story, years later, of a beautiful boy crying until he couldn’t speak properly ever again. His knees would be completely scrapped when he reached home, his fingers scarred, and then the morning would come, and Renjun would be the only one who knew where the phantoms of his scars hid.
Mark woke up at the sunset of the last day of the fair. He was sure he heard someone crying in front of his window, but he couldn’t move; his legs could barely work as he almost fell when he went to take a shower, and his mind was slowly slipping away from him — he heard things that he was sure were not there, and his mind did not work properly. He needed Yuta to make it stop, but he went back in time somehow. He didn’t know if he had made him up.
His house was oddly submerged in darkness, the shadows of the setting sun deepening the shadows. He clutched his chest when he noticed his mother in a corner of the living room that the sun did not reach, mumbling things he did not hear until he got closer. She was apologizing.
“Mom?”
She raised her head quickly, the bones of her neck straining for the movement, and threw her arms around him. Mark’s body whole body hurt, but he let her hold him, her sobs racking through her body so violently that Mark’s heart broke. He started to cry too without meaning to; he allowed the regrets between them to appear. She would never be able to touch him again.
“I’m sorry, Minhyung, I’m so sorry,” she clutched his shirt. “I believe you. I believe you. You are good, Minhyung. You are good.”
Mark didn’t reply anything to that. He had dreamed of that moment all his life; someone holding him close, telling him he was good, that he deserved to live. He had wanted to do so many things; to live with his friends, find solace in their little friendship, and then he wouldn’t have needed to go to Yuta to make him feel like a human being. Or something else entirely, but alive. Alive.
And yet, he didn’t think he and Yuta were not meant to meet at least once. He was his fate.
“What about resting, hmm?” Mark lifted her in his arms. “It’s okay. He won’t bother you anymore.”
“Demons can’t love, Minhyung,” she said when she placed her in her bed, the clarity of her eyes surprising him. She was staring at the ring. Yuta’s seal. “But if… if… he can give you something…”
Mark laughed, the sound almost sad. “Don’t worry about it.”
“In another life, Minhyung, you will find someone w-who loves you. Who adores you. I…”
“You could not,” Mark fixed the covers and her pillow. “And that’s okay.”
“Minhyung, my Minhyung,” she started to cry again as Mark slowly walked away, unable to stare at her a moment longer. His vision became blurry and not for the tears. “Don’t let him catch you.”
Before Mark left his house, he saw her mother had added something else to the altar. It was a picture of him as a child; one of the few he ever had as they were more expensive than they could afford, and a lonely cornflower accompanying it.
“ It means happiness and hope in love ,” his mom had explained when he was a child and one of their neighbors had given him one for his birthday. “ Men in love used to wear it, Minhyung, and if it faded too fast it meant their love would not be returned. ”
Mark walked away.
He would never find out the flower never died.
The town was even stranger. People greeted him and an old woman that he had never seen before helped him to walk for a few moments, thinking Mark was going to the chapel. “You should, son. It’s a rare plague. One for the mind. We all need to pray. Even though the door is broken and the cold is another divine punishment.”
“Do you think it has a cure?”
“I don’t think so. It even took the Mayor. Here, come, let me help you some more.”
Mark thought about Chenle and while he didn’t refute her, he said he was the son of a fisherman and she let him go, not wanting to get close to the water. She said she was going to pray for him, and he smiled, ignoring how he doubted someone’s prayers would save him.
If he wanted to be saved at all.
“Pray for one of my friends instead. He needs it more than I do.”
There were other things he noticed — the screams of agony inside the houses, the broken windows as if someone had shattered them to make the images stop, and Mark wanted to help. Perhaps his actions could cancel out Yuta’s, or maybe Yuta just would be amused by his antics. He stood in front of the water, high enough to drown, but didn’t move. He didn’t hear anything anymore or saw something different.
“Mark,” someone spoke behind him. He didn’t recognize the voice instantly; it was raspy and rough and he almost tripped when he realized it was Renjun. “Uh, sorry if I sound like this.”
“Junnie, what happened to your voice?”
Renjun was paler than ever against the moonlight, and if Mark didn’t know him best, he would think he resembled the phantoms under the water. He was a ghost in front of him, and Mark tried to conjure his face from memory as his eyes were failing him more and more.
“Who gave you that ring?” Renjun didn’t get closer to him. “It’s pretty.”
“A curse, Junnie. Don’t mind it.”
“Now I understand,” Renjun swallowed. He frowned in concentration as if speaking was hard for him. Mark’s sadness only grew. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Is it ironic, Junnie? That I fell like this?”
“No,” Renjun replied quickly. “I think you would make anyone fall for you.”
Mark smiled. “I prefer dying by his hands than someone else’s, Junnie. What does that make me?”
“Foolish and my friend,” Renjun said, and then, with his gaze lowered, “Are you going to leave?”
One heartbeat.
“Yes.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I don’t think so,” Mark looked at the sky. “You have to take care of Chenle. He needs you.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Renjun nodded. Something shone on his finger but Mark was sure Renjun didn’t want him close so he didn’t press. Not even when he was sure it was the last time he would see Renjun; that was how his friend was — he did not ask for fear of rejection, but Mark would have never denied him anything. “You can’t see me like this either way. But I will stay with Chenle as long as I have to.”
“Renjun, why were you crying last night?”
“I’m cursed too, Markie,” Renjun’s tears traveled down to his neck. Mark hadn’t heard him call him that way since they were kids. “I-I will cry in front of you and never do it again.”
“Renjun, don’t cry. Tell me-”
“It’s so unfair,” Renjun stepped back. “What they did to you…what they did to me. Was I looking for monsters when there were none?”
“Renjun,” Mark spoke softly, “You’re good, you know that? You’re good.”
“Mark, let me say what I want to,” Renjun wiped his tears and finally looked at him. “Don’t leave me.”
And then Renjun’s eyes were sharp as a razor. “And don’t die for this town, Mark.”
“I-I don’t mind, really,” Mark said, aware no one would believe him. But he needed to erase the emptiness in Renjun’s eyes. “It’s okay if you and Chenle can have peace. Your mom-”
“She will get better,” Renjun cut him off. “She doesn’t have to be your concern.”
“Huang Renjun.”
“Mark,” Renjun grabbed his shoulders. “We will meet again. In Heaven or in Hell or whatever place that exists for us. I’ll be there.”
“Renjun.”
“On the other side, right?” Renjun didn’t touch him. Mark was almost glad.
“On the other side,” he repeated and he turned around, the sea vast and unforgiving.
As Mark arrived at the crossroads, he was glad there was no one else around — the lights of the fair were completely turned off and no one could get in, and Mark completely ignored it as he passed by. He would think about Yuta and the cross of the ring over his chest, and he did not want to do either of those things. He bit his thumb, nervous — he thought about Renjun holding Chenle as he cried, with tears of his own, and how the two of them would grow old together. But if he saw Chenle, he reminded himself, he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. Renjun, heartless. He, cursed. And Chenle, more than anything, innocent.
“Minhyung,” someone was waiting for him. Mark trembled slightly. It was so dark he couldn’t count the trees. “You’re dying.”
“Father Kang.”
“He’s killing you.”
“Is he?” Mark felt the ring pressing over the bare skin of his chest. If he touched it, it would stab him.
“A devil can’t love anyone,” Father Kang said. His clerical clothing was black with a silver big cross accompanying it. The night he led the souls to rest seemed a lifetime away; Mark didn’t know he would encounter a devil, or that he would let him in. In more ways than one. “It was a test that you failed.”
“It’s fine by me. I can’t love anyone either,” Mark shrugged, his teeth chattering. It would be different, perhaps, if Yuta had asked him two nights ago to love him. He would. “You should go back, Father Kang. The town needs you.”
Father Kang remained silent for a long time as if he meant to say something, but in the end, did not. Mark didn’t think Yuta would stop if he died. He was a sacrifice even though he did not know what he would gain.
He was very tired.
“You will never have another chance, Minhyung. But I’ll pray for you.”
“No need,” Mark raised his hand. “Others need it more than I do.”
“I’ll make sure your mother is well taken care of.”
“I’ve never asked anyone anything,” Mark started, watching the grass. “Tell people I left with the fair.”
“Very well,” Father Kang said but did not move. “Do it, Minhyung. I know he gave you the means.”
Mark didn’t say anything else. His eyes lined up with tears but he couldn’t feel anything — there was no joy, laughter, or terror. He was an empty shell, and if someone knocked, they wouldn’t hear anything at all. Mark removed the necklace and Father Kang’s eyes narrowed when they focused on it. From afar, it looked like a normal one until the pattern of crosses was mismatched to the human eye. Something otherwordly. Mark covered it with his whole hand and as Father Kang got closer to him, he tightened his grip and quickly pressed it against his neck.
It was sharp enough —
And then, two cold fingers were on his wound. “I can’t leave you alone.”
“Y-y-”
“Shh,” Yuta whispered and brought him closer. “A name is a powerful thing.”
Father Kang shrieked when he saw Yuta behind him. Mark didn’t know what he was seeing.
“He’s yours, Jaemin,” Yuta’s fingers never left his neck. “Do with him as you please. But let’s make him suffer a little, hmm?”
Jaemin appeared behind a tree and removed his hood. “Benevolent as always.”
Through his blurred vision, he saw Jaemin take the arm of Father Kang who meekly followed him. He heard him say, “I’m not a ghost. I’m alive. Yes, yes, of course, I came back to help you. No, I never died. You failed back then, too.”
Mark coughed out blood. Yuta brought him down to the grass.
“It hurts,” Mark whispered. “It hurts.”
Yuta removed the ring from his hold. He didn’t clean it.
“You can cry,” Yuta said. “You can cry, see? You’re here with me now.”
“Yuta,” Mark whispered. “Yuta, it’s dark.”
“It is?” Yuta placed Mark’s head on his chest. He was not cold anymore; Mark had noticed he did that often; he accommodated himself into Mark’s place and heart. “What were you going to say two days ago?”
Mark’s eyes were glassy. He tried to breathe but his body was burning from the inside, slowly and all-encompassing. And then, the sensation started to disappear slowly.
“In the darkest hour, I’ll stay with you,” Mark whispered, the blood dripping from his neck. “We can’t be together in the light, didn’t you say? So in the dark… I’ll stay with you.”
Yuta merely asked, “Will you?”
“I will.”
"A truth for a truth, don’t you think so?” Yuta wiped his tears. Yuta cut the tip of his finger with his ring, his dark blood mixed with Mark’s. It should not happen — Mark was human and Yuta was not, but there it was. The color of Mark’s blood darkened while Yuta’s brightened. “It could be love. A love that exists only for you, that I created because of you, and therefore it has no word to describe it but love you want and so it is.”
“You won’t leave me.”
“No, Lee Minhyung, I won’t leave you,” Yuta placed his fingers in his eyelids. “Sleep.”
When morning came, there was no trace of the fair anymore. All the tents completely disappeared overnight, but people did not get better. Some of them died with the same terrified expression of the Mayor and others couldn’t stand the dark anymore. There was no trace of Lee Minhyung either, his mother staring at the window unmoving.
Father Kang’s expression remained neutral as he told mothers, fathers, siblings, completely families that a demon was haunting the town, and he could not do anything to cast him out — he would steal what he wished, and there was no God when it came to him. He was odd in ways people preferred to ignore; he forgot the scriptures, stopped mid-sentence, and burned completely the paintings of the Princes of Hell. Chenle had heard him mumble about a boy with silver hair that he had met a long ago, and he thought about the magician with the sharp eyes, but he had disappeared with the fair too.
Chenle heard it all sitting in a wooden pew of the chapel with the smell of incense all around him and the heavy sobs of other people.
Renjun was not by his side; he threw up at smelling the incense and then some more at the chants and prayers all around the town. After service, Chenle found him waiting in the graveyard of the town.
“‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
“I-I didn’t ask yesterday about the ring,” Chenle said. Renjun stared at it. “Who gave it to you?”
“It’s just a gift from someone I met at the fair,” Renjun replied. His voice was low and broken, every word was difficult to pronounce.
“Seems very expensive, Junnie,” Chenle didn’t smile. He could not. “Do they treat you well?”
“No,” Renjun smiled. “All the pain you receive you have to give it back tenfold, Lele.”
“Renjun,” Chenle grabbed his wrist. “Did Mark-?”
“We will never see him again,” Renjun whispered and didn’t flinch when it started to rain. “But I think… he’ll finally be allowed to live.”
“Why you two…?” Chenle shook his head and started sobbing.
“I’ll stay with you for now. And then…”
The town became as haunted as the stories told it, and Chenle withstood it all. He pretended it did not hurt when Renjun, after two years, left as well. And he also pretended that he did not notice how his face hadn’t changed once.
It all remained the same.
There were two shadows under the sun; if a human being were to look at them, he wouldn’t notice something amiss with it. It shone when it had to, it didn’t burn more than it should, and the flowers and the trees and everything under the skin inclined towards it. Far away, however, a city lay. And no sun would be there.
“Don’t you like them?”
“I think they’re good,” the other replied. “Is this your way of telling me you love me?”
The boy coughed, but he was beautiful to everyone who saw him. His eyes weren’t tired, but bright, and he belonged in that place — he drew all day, learned how to swim, and wrote letters to friends that would never receive them.
“Do Devils search for love?”
“We do not,” Yuta said, caressing his hair. “But I think everyone would want to be loved by you.”
Mark laughed. “Wow.”
Yuta brought him closer and kissed his nose. “You’re very lovely, did you know that?”
“And you’re evil,” Mark kissed his cheek. “But I still like you.”
“Just like?”
Mark whispered something in his ear and Yuta laughed. “You’re bad now.”
They remained there, Mark’s skin glowing under the sun. Sometimes he stared at Yuta’s city and knew that he would need time to accompany him there, but he would. He would withstand it.
“Is this the life you want, Mark Lee?”
“Yes,” Mark grabbed his hand and smiled, shyly, not used to having him close yet. “It’s the life you give me.”
When they were so close, people couldn’t discern the two shadows.
A demon and his boy. A boy and his demon.
The human fell once.
The demon twice.