Chapter Text
Finding a good vacation spot for someone who has been basically everywhere is hard. Made more so by the fact that every time Minho asks, he’s told that Jisung is just happy to go wherever he wants.
Minho’s sure he actually would be too, Jisung is insanely go-with-the-flow probably because time is meaningless to him and making people happy seems to be the only thing he has left. Whatever, Minho wants them both to enjoy themselves, and he can’t enjoy himself unless he’s sure Jisung is having a good time. Independent of his own.
Minho is also slowly learning to be normal about Jisung, since they keep doing stuff outside the apartment. Jisung’s corner store salary goes exclusively to pampering Minho; with food, with a bracelet he saw on an outing with Felix that he went back the next day to purchase with a wad of cash.
Minho wears it all the time now. It’s nothing terribly fancy, just a chunky chain with a clasp that Jisung had them etch a little ‘till death’ into. It’s heavy though, stainless steel, and he loves the weight of it on his wrist. A reminder.
Jisung likes to decorate himself with similar bracelets too now, though often more intricate than Minho’s. They’ll have little skulls or oxidized carvings on the links or whatever strikes his fancy at the moment. The point is not the style, the point is that they match and also that Minho is annoyingly soft about this shit.
He also loves the hoodie Jisung got him, dead in the middle of June, with a screen printed cat holding a katana in its mouth on the front of it. He wore it several times already despite the weather, and will wear it a lot more when he’s not already sweating to death just being alive.
It was their hundred-day gift, since Jisung learned about the concept of the anniversary form Felix and was immediately trying to do the math for what day they were on. 117 at the time Minho received the hoodie, give or take if you consider day one Minho taking the cat home or when he finally gave in and fucked Jisung for the first time.
The vacation destination he’s deciding on will allow him to use the hoodie soon though, because he wants somewhere that feels isolated. Somewhere Jisung won’t feel the need to hide his shifting, where they can just roam about without anyone nearby.
When he searched for a location where you can feel alone, he got a lot of private islands that would actually eat the entire sum Jisung gave him – and more. The others were all inaccessible national parks, places you feel alone going to because it’s such a goddamn struggle to get there at all. That’s a bonus though, because if it’s a nightmare to get there it’s less likely that Jisung has already been to it.
All of those places are in the north, since most tourists probably want to experience summer and warmth. The most reasonable being the very top of Norway, where they can book a cabin in the wilderness accessible by mountain road and rented car and no one else should really get anywhere close.
That’s for later, in a month or so when his week and a half of vacation is already blocked off for. He needs to buy his flight, which is annoyingly expensive but Jisung did drop him several million won to fund it so he’s got no space to complain really.
Now he has to get through his workday instead of just staring at images of cute little cabins in big mossy valleys and imagining Jisung strutting around it as like a reindeer or something. It’d be very cute, less so if he decides to flop around as a walrus – another one of the animals that shows up a lot when he types random searches in between meetings.
He finds the cabin he wants to rent the next day during lunch, books everything else quickly after. It’s remote, accessible only by a dirt road that closes for the season two weeks after their booking. He stared at the flight confirmation in his email a little while later, struck by the realization that he might have purchased a trip to his own murder scene.
It’s remote, inaccessible. People wouldn’t know he was dead for weeks, maybe months. The ‘till death’ on his wrist feels heavy, like a brand. It was cute when he got it, a lovely token but that's the thing with Jisung. You just can never know.
He’s learned more about Jisung in the past few months. Little things, bits and pieces because the totality is unknowable. Unfathomable.
Learned that he’s impossible to watch anything with because he knows too much – anything remotely historical and he’s nitpicking at the sets and outfits. Plotlines too, because ‘no one would ever do that.’ Even fantasy is a struggle, since directors insist on making all the immortal beings prim, proper little virgins waiting for their one true love and Jisung watches, but with an angry glare and his little paws crossed over the lip of a cat bed.
He made it eight episodes into My Demon, pretending he wasn’t watching, before jumping down and ranting for a solid thirty minutes that the guy’s job literally was killing humans, how could he have moral qualms over more killing? Also why is he so opposed to human attachments, that’s the only thing that makes existing forever worth doing?
The whole thing had been said still as a cat, so he could pace angrily on Minho’s limited floor space as he ranted about shows always making everyone bland and boring.
“Do you want to keep watching?” Minho had asked once he ran out of steam, and the little cat jumped back on the bed with a resolute expression.
“Yes, we’re finishing this.” Jisung had stated, and there were several instances of angry squinting but they did. Continued to watch shows afterwards too, though a little bit more curated. Jisung loves horror and watches a lot of anime, because them being completely removed from reality means he has a lot less to get angry over.
The horror movies have led to learning some more unsettling things, though honestly almost anything can lead to some unsettling discovery with Jisung. Quietly muttered ‘that’s not how that works’ as someone gets dismembered on screen, Jisung watching the rest of the scene with a pout.
Minho’s also seen the jaguar again, a couple of times. They went camping two weeks ago to get out of the stifling heat of his shoebox apartment, stopping by his parent’s house to pick up his gear because he doesn’t have the space to house it himself. They ate dinner with them, Jisung chatting with his mother as Minho sorted through his storage boxes.
It was cute, Jisung friendly and full of charisma like usual. He ran around as a dog later that night, once the tent was set up and they took a short walk to explore the space. And then the next day Minho woke up to the jaguar, splayed across the foam mattress. Saw it again, that evening as it padded out of the woods near their private spot, blood smeared across it’s fur and some sort of quail type bird hanging limply from its mouth. Watched as he shifted back into piercing-Jisung, bird in his hand but the blood still smeared across his face and neck.
Watched as Jisung stuck his tongue out to lick the blood off his lips, maintaining eye contact and it took everything in Minho not to fuck him right there, next to their campfire. Out in the open, where anyone could see the depths he’s sunk to.
So yeah, he’s maybe going to fly all the way to Norway to die, but that’s a risk everywhere he goes with Jisung. He wouldn’t say it’s part of the draw, because he does really enjoy being alive at the moment. It’s a part of being with Jisung though, that undercurrent of danger that thrums through their entire relationship.
Giving it up would mean giving up Jisung, and he can’t do that. He’s hooked now, an addict for life.
‘Till death.
So instead he doesn’t worry about it. What will happen, will happen. He gets home and shows Jisung his plan, pictures of the valleys and the fjords that he found online and how they’ll be alone so Jisung can take whatever form he wants the whole trip.
Except for having sex. Minho is still too picky to diverge much for that one, but from the camping experience they will do other stuff than just fuck in a new setting. Both of them like nature, went on lots of hikes and walks and Minho made them meals to eat in the woods, including the bird Jisung cleaned and gutted for him.
And they’ll be there for over a week, instead of a mere two nights of freedom. Lots to explore, lots to fuck on.
“Sounds amazing, hyung.” Jisung tells him once Minho’s explanation is complete. The statement falls a bit flat, because Minho is pretty sure he would have said that about anywhere he picked, but the kisses that follow are great. As is the “I wanna be a polar bear” that gets pressed into his cheek.
“I don’t think they exist there.” Minho says back, not that it matters really. Jaguars certainly don’t inhabit Korean campgrounds and that didn’t stop Jisung. Minho did see ads for polar ice tours that promised the chance to see one when he was scrolling, though they involved a five hour boat ride further north first.
They won’t need to go on any of those to see the wildlife, won’t need to go anywhere near other people except to get food – maybe. They don’t need other people at all, not with the way Minho is desperate to keep Jisung to himself.
Jisung doesn’t share that desperation, at least not all the time. He likes going out, taking Minho on dates to a new restaurants every week. He likes walks too, in parks or just down the street, to the grocery store and back, in whatever shape makes sense to him at the moment. The amount of times Minho has walked a dog in the last couple of months is staggering for a resolute cat person.
Also sometimes Jisung keeps the collar on when they get home, the little red gem dangling from the center like a badge, a brand. Minho loves it, loves almost anything Jisung does. Jisung favors thin collars, no thicker than Minho’s fingers, small enough that Minho can still get at the skin of his neck.
He doesn’t have a collar on now, instead a thick chain held closed with a padlock brushes against Minho’s collarbones, the little gem dangling where it’s strung through the shackle. It’s heavy on his chest, Jisung likes a lot of big, chunky details to his outfits. Or Minho does and Jisung indulges, it barely matters who instigates things with them.
It’s symbiotic, Jisung can read Minho better than he even knows himself, and Minho will do anything for Jisung in return. Felix has commented on it, how Minho barely needs to speak before Jisung is handing him what he wants.
Specifically, Felix had called it eerie. Minho finds it romantic, he’s always had a hard time expressing himself in relationships and with Jisung he doesn’t need to. Felix had pulled him aside though, told him to make sure he doesn’t lose himself in this relationship.
That’s precisely why he wants to keep Jisung to himself, because no one else understands. No one else can understand, they all have to think that Jisung is normal, some mere mortal. Only Minho knows how precious Jisung is.
How inescapable.
It doesn’t matter now, what Felix thinks of them. Not when Jisung presses more kisses into Minho’s jaw, makes him melt like no one else can.
The month until their trip is long, summer full of donor events and board meetings he can’t attend but has to manage regardless. He doesn’t have to work too much overtime though, and when he does he gets visitors at his office window, mostly birds but also once a frog that marinated in his spare coffee cup while he finished up an email or ten.
They go out to eat, Jisung carefully screening each restaurant he picks because he has a very refined palate. Not a terribly high-brow one, he took Minho out to a stall deep in a market Minho had never been to so they could eat sotteok sotteok once. It had been delicious, the sausages juicy and the rice cakes chewy and clearly freshly made, and the skewered fish cake and bindaettok that they bought at nearby stalls were pretty decent too.
It was just street food though, not something he expected someone who had been literal royalty to seek out. And they did seek it out, it took almost an hour of public transport and walking to get to the stall. Jisung seemed proud of himself though, the stall apparently the best rated one in the entire city or something.
That’s what Jisung seems to care about. Not that it’s fancy or expensive, but that it’s the best.
He’s almost surprised when he gets the reminder about his flight in his email, the trip an abstract future thing until it’s suddenly right there. He has to pack, set up his away message at work because he will not have any service, except for stealing wifi in the nearby town. Has to delegate his required tasks, which is how Hyunjin shows up in his office later that week, very casually leaning against his door frame.
“So you’re taking vacation.” He says, like Minho doesn’t know what he’s after. “A week and a half.”
“Yes.” Minho says, tone bland as he finished up what he was typing.
“You never take vacation.” Hyunjin states – which is not completely true. He doesn’t take this much at once though, arranging care for Dori is complicated when you’re a resolute introvert and she deserves better than a kennel.
Jisung smooth talked the kid three doors down into cat sitting though, ten thousand won a day to make sure her bowls are full and an extra five thousand every time he cleans her litter box. Minho assumes his parents will help somewhat, because the kid is seven – told them as much when he came over to be taught how everything works. Dori didn’t hate him though, and the kid’s mother promised that she will be well taken care of.
“Jisung is taking me on a trip.” Minho sighs, his website blurb drafted and not able to distract him anymore. Hyunjin makes an excited sound, though that was probably the obvious conclusion. It’s the only thing that changed, that upended his entire life.
“Oooh. Where are you going?” Hyunjin demands as he sits himself in the chair opposite Minho, settling in it for the long haul. “Are you going to somewhere nice? A beach where you can seduce him in a tiny bathing suit? An all-inclusive resort?”
He’s getting ahead of himself, clearly someone needs to take Hyunjin out to some all-inclusive by the beach.
“No.” Minho says. “We’re going to Norway.”
“Oh.” Hyunjin’s face falls. “That sounds cute.”
There’s clearly no recognition, the country not on Hyunjin’s radar. “It’s in Europe.” That gets some excitement back in Hyunjin’s face, though Minho suspects that he’s thinking more of Paris and the Mediterranean. “The north part, near the arctic.”
The excitement falls again, Hyunjin pulling his brows into a confused frown. He’s typing on his phone and Minho takes the moment to look at his emails quickly. Not anything urgent, which is good because Hyunjin is tilting his head as he inspects his phone.
“It’s… quaint.” He says, probably looking at the photos of the colorful little villages. Minho’s not sure Hyunjin would find the fjords and rock cliffs quaint. He’s very much not the outdoorsy type.
“I picked it.” Minho says, which gets a brief eyebrow raise but then Hyunjin sticks out his bottom lip as he nods.
“I can see that.” He says, “It seems like your thing.”
Yes, yes. Minho the mountain gay. They’ve had this conversation before, when Minho learned that Hyunjin is a fancy pillow princess and thus deeply boring to him.
Minho’s computer pings him with two more emails, and Hyunjin finally uncurls himself from his chair. “Anyways, I have to go make a dozen iterations of the same twitter banner. Good talk, as usual.” Hyunjin states as he claps his hands on his thighs. “Enjoy your wilderness or whatever.”
He will, thank you.
He doesn’t say anything, just waving Hyunjin off as he turns to answer the emails. He has a lot of stuff to wrap up, ends up working an extra hour just to get the last things out before watering his plants – and the toad basking in one of the pots.
“Baby, time to go home.” He tells the sleepy toad, that crawls into his cupped palm, the silver hoop with its gem loose around a hind leg. Minho doesn’t have any good pockets, Jisung prefers breast pockets and will tolerate the occasional jacket pocket if necessary. Without those options he shifts into a sleepy ferret, letting out a long yawn against Minho’s finger before being draped along his neck.
Minho knows when Jisung wakes up, a tickle forming as his whiskers suddenly start moving around a lot more.
“I want tteokbokki.” The little rodent in his ear tells him as he gets off the bus, and he has to stifle his grin lest the little granny on the corner think he’s weird. Takeout is a good idea though, since he has to finish packing and doesn’t really want to cook and clean dishes on top of that.
Jisung whispers his order in Minho’s ear as he waits in line, and then he’s walking home with two bags of food while Jisung flies up to get their drinks ready. The door swings open before he’s even out of the elevator, piercing-Jisung poking his head out.
“Gimmeeee. I’m so hungry today.” Jisung says, reaching for his bag before hurrying back inside as Minho takes his shoes and work bag off. There’s a bowl and a glass of water at the table for him when he makes it, Jisung already curled around his own and eating quickly.
“What did you do today to make you so hungry?” Minho asks as he pours his rice cakes into his bowl, the sauce nice and volcanic looking. Jisung has the normal one, with half a brick of cheese on top.
“I forgot to bring money for lunch again.” Jisung says, pausing to bite off the long strand of melted cheese. “So I spent my lunch break as a duck chasing people so they’d drop food by the river.”
Minho grins as he bites into his food, because this is not uncommon for Jisung. He forgets to carry around money relatively often, though how he makes up for it differs a lot. He has come to Minho’s office a couple times, begging to be fed out of Minho’s snack drawer. Also Minho has given folded up bills to a suspicious number of birds.
“Nothing good fell?” Minho asks, and Jisung shakes his head.
“Even the kids held on to their food. It was extremely disappointing.”
“We have some stuff in the fridge if this isn’t enough.” Minho offers, side stepping the fact that his boyfriend tried to shake down children for their corndogs or fried whatever.
He had intended on making gimbap for the flight with the stray remnants he still has from his efforts to clean out the fridge. The flights to their destination will be abysmally long, so he figured travel snacks would do them well. He can buy more at the airport though.
Jisung ends up eating the cookies he had hidden away for the trip as Minho tries to cram as many clothes as he can into his suitcase. They’re all big too, hoodies and jeans and lighter sweaters for the warm days. Big hiking boots too, and a raincoat because Minho can’t just decide to be dry at an instant.
It’s a tight fit, a bunch of his shirts joining the food in his carry-on bag, the gimbap sitting in the fridge overnight and then they’re going to bed, both phones charging on the nightstand and a handful of alarms to make sure they make their flight.
The actual flight is very boring and mildly uncomfortable. It’s annoyingly packed, both Gimpo International and their plane, so Jisung has to be small and tucked away against Minho the entire time. Minho’s pretty sure he’s just taking a nap in his bag half the first flight, the really long one to Paris. It’s confirmed when he reaches a hand in to take out his water bottle and brushes against something warm and furry curled up in there.
That plus the half-eaten gimbap that he pulls out to supplement the airplane lunch. They buy a bunch of pastries during their layover, before a quick flight to Oslo and another to Tromsø before they’re finally free. It took twenty two hours to get this far, about thirty if you count the time changes, and they still have to make it to the little cabin that Minho booked.
That should only take them another hour and a half, arriving right before midnight but the place is all self-serve. Minho has the instructions for how to open the door as a screenshot on his phone, a recommendation by the owners because they warned him he’d probably not have service anywhere near it.
They also recommended that Minho pay extra for the in-car GPS for the same reason, and it’s only a little while later when Jisung sits himself in the passenger seats and works on figuring out how to type an address into it with a writing system that Minho is wholly unfamiliar with.
Jisung ends up pointing him through every turn anyways, the midnight sun illuminating the sporadic road signs. Jisung also does the decoding of the door instructions while Minho unloads the car so he can pass out on the bed, finally horizontal.
What feels like scant hours later, Minho wakes up to so much fur and squirming paws that tap at his arms.
Jisung slept a lot more on the flight, able to actually curl up and be comfortable. He’s clearly well rested when Minho cracks his eyes open, some sort of dog panting excitedly in his face. It’s not a German Sheppard, but it’s close – fluffier. Fur maybe a little paler, but that barely matters with a big slobbery tongue that he tries to dodge, rolling over on the bed still groggy and jetlagged.
“Do we have any food? Coffee?” Minho asks once he’s sitting up, Jisung trotting around in their cabin clearly having explored everything.
“Nope.” The dog says, the clock on his very much useless phone telling him it’s nine in the morning. Going into town it is, a map for that also saved as a screenshot. He takes a quick shower, Jisung joining him briefly before running out to open the suitcase for him and then they’re back in the rental car and out to buy breakfast and groceries for the week.
So much fish, which isn’t really a problem. Some of it is in cans, some in jars, some in little vacuum sealed bags. Neither of them can read anything on the packaging, picking things up based on pictures. Some cured non-fish, for variety. Lots of bread and potatoes because none of these people eat rice. Jisung picks up a piece of brown cheese that Minho eyes suspiciously, but it’s plastered with the Norwegian flag so clearly it’s a thing here.
Minho has no goddamn clue how much he spent on any of it, but his card clears and they have enough food to last them a while. A mix of stuff he can throw in a bag for a hike, and stuff to cook in the evenings. And then they’re back up towards the cabin, where they’re completely alone in the world. There are a few trees, none of them very big, and then just rocky mountains lining the valley the cabin is built into.
Jisung shoots out of the passenger seat as the dog again, running off across the low grass and shrubs. Minho can hear his excited barking echoing faintly as he drags the food inside. He’s back moments later, as piercing-Jisung to grab and fill a glass of water from the tap before chugging it down.
“I like it here.” Jisung says once he’s done, an understatement. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to really run.”
Minho can already feel the workouts Jisung will put him through while they’re here. Not today though, today is about figuring out how the kettle works, how to get the fire started and figuring out where the extra firewood is stored. Walking around the area near the cabin a bit, though there’s a laminated map of some of the trails nearby in by the front door that Jisung scrutinizes for a while.
The next day Minho wakes up to coffee and Jisung explaining which of the trails he wants to do, before spending the entire day climbing up mountains and down to fjords with Jisung as a random variety of wildlife jogging around him. Minho’s legs burn when they get back home, which means he gets to lay back as Jisung rides him on their bed. And the massages him for good measure, because he’s an endless found of energy as long as he’s well fed.
The day after that is more of the same, though they haven’t seen anyone at all on this particular trail so Jisung decides to lumber off the path as a polar bear and fuck they’re huge creatures. Minho knew that objectively, saw Jisung looking up pictures and size comparisons back in Korea so he could prepare.
He stays still as Jisung’s snout is level with his shoulder as he walks on all fours, letting him lead the way to a patch of grass that is struggling even with the constant sunlight.
“Look.” The polar bear huffs out, before he flops down on his front legs and starts shaking his furry ass at Minho. It’s a little startling because Jisung usually behaves more or less as the animal he embodies would, but they’re alone now so the ass shaking turns to a heavy flop onto his back and Minho has his phone out to capture as a giant paw caresses up his side like this is some sort of strip tease.
He’s not at all aroused by it but he is very entertained, laughing as Jisung plays it up even more for the camera.
“Damn, big things move so slow.” Piercing-Jisung complains as he walks back to the trail, dressed in the same hoodie and hiking gear that Minho is wearing. Minho takes a couple pictures of him like this too, since it’d be odd if he posts zero identifiable pictures of his boyfriend after a week-long trip. He also takes a selfie, on the top of one of the mountains the next day, piercing-Jisung waving in the distance as he stands on a rock.
The nights are cold here, not quite freezing but close and they cuddle in front of the fire. Sometimes with Jisung as some furry thing, his feet stretched towards the heat as Minho hugs the rest of him to his chest. Sometimes as humans, primarily because they just fucked on the pile of blankets they made in front of the fireplace.
“What if I hadn’t picked you up that day?” Minho muses, Jisung as the little cat he favors so much. The one Minho picked up from the alley those eons ago.
“What do you mean?” Jisung purrs out, leaning into Minho’s hand as he strokes down his back.
“My life would be so boring if I hadn’t decided to go that route, if I hadn’t seen you in the alleyway. I would be missing out on so much and I wouldn’t even know.” Minho sighs out and the little furry head raises off his arm to look at him.
“What makes you think that was the first time we met?” Jisung asks, shifting back into piercing-Jisung as Minho blinks at him. “I don’t follow just anyone home, baby. I have a type. Not as picky as you, but I still choose my partners.”
It takes a conscious effort to breathe, to remember to exist.
“We met before?” Minho asks, trying to scrape through his memories to figure out when. How? Jisung comes in so many forms though, and while Minho doesn’t talk with a ton of people there are still too many options.
“Of course.” Jisung breathes down into him. “The cat is just the one that worked.”
He’s aware, distantly, that Jisung just admitted to stalking him. That it should ring some alarm bells somewhere in his brain.
But this means Jisung chose him.
He’s not just convenience or happenstance. He is a decision, something intentional. And that’s all he’s ever wanted to be.
“I love you.” He breathes into Jisung’s smile, splayed in a mess of blankets in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Alone with his stalker, his boyfriend. His one true love.
“Love you too.” Jisung breathes back, kissing down into him as Minho feels around for the bottle of lube that should be around somewhere. “Love you forever.”
It’s a promise, a threat, something that sinks into his skin as easily as Jisung’s teeth, followed by a soft tongue to soothe the sting. He wouldn’t want it any other way, would let Jisung consume him whole if he wanted to. It almost feels like he is as he works him open, molds Minho into something new. They whisper endearments to each other as Jisung sinks in, perfect. Made for him.
He scrolls through the photos he’s taken so far afterward, Jisung curled against his chest and looking at the screen sleepily.
If he makes it out of here he’ll have a couple more secrets to keep and a bunch of pictures to post for his friends and family. They have a selection of hiking selfies, quite a few pictures of just the view, the absolutely sunning nature that surrounds them. That one where Jisung is hugging himself for warmth in the middle of chillingly cold water, he had been a seal a few second prior and the sudden lack of blubber and insulating fur had been stark.
Also quite a few pictures of wildlife, not all of them Jisung. A herd of reindeer they stumbled across, Jisung somewhere in the mix, a wolf that was definitely Jisung, howling out to see if there were any others nearby. A pretty bird that landed on their porch when they were having coffee – not Jisung.
And if he doesn’t make it home, whatever authorities Norway has will just need to scroll a little to find his favorite picture. The series that might worry them, but Minho has stopped feeling fear. Not like a normal person would.
They’ll take one look at the picture of his lover, out on a grassy patch trying to seduce him and know: ah yes, that’s how he met his end.