Today’s musical theme is Gregorian chant. The resonating voices press their way through shelves and between spines, lending the already dark Pied Piper an ominous, cave-like quality. The chanting is like nothing Namjoon has heard and he only has a name to match the sound because it’s his job to flip the cassette tape when side A ends. Glimpses show Donghae ghosting through the shop with stacks of paperback books of mysterious origin and thoughtfully distributing them into the store’s nooks and crannies.

The Pied Piper is a sanctuary of sorts. The shelves nearly vibrate with a multitude of stories, paper and ink lives leaping from page to page. Astronauts discover life on faraway planets, warrior queens overthrow civilizations, and penitent men find no redemption. Every time a book is opened people are at once captivated, enthralled, and transported, a wonderful kidnapping of the imagination.

Namjoon offers himself up to this new type of theft. He sacrifices his mind and his time to the sometimes frightening whims of Dahl, the painful minutiae of Knausgård, and the blistering romance of Marcella Kints. They treat him kindly. As does Donghae, who lets Namjoon read on the clock as long as he completes his list of tasks for the day. His generosity is nearly too much to bear; Namjoon may borrow the books he reads and stash them behind the counter so they can’t be purchased before he’s finished. Tucked away in a corner with Jane, the Siamese shop cat curled in his lap, Namjoon explores new worlds with giddiness and relief.

And then the customers intrude in his bubble of quiet solitude with a question or a request for recommendations.

Namjoon has this down to a science. He only recommends three books: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Candle Maker’s Daughter, and the 1978 edition of Robert Heinlen’s The Puppet Masters. Not because he’s read the last one, but because the cover is rad as hell and he wants someone to buy it. Ignorant of his efforts, the yellowed paperback is still sitting on the science fiction shelf, minding its own business.

The monks chant and bellow in unison, the bass rumble of their voices just audible in the back corner by the French biographies. This is where Namjoon is hiding with a crate of books to be shelved, none of which are biographies, French or otherwise. He loves The Pied Piper, but sometimes everything is too much for a brain that often feels squeezed into his skull.

Donghae, in his mysterious comings and goings, has left Namjoon alone except a murmured explanation of the appropriate tape-flipping procedure.

Namjoon is grateful -the morning was rough, the night worse. Even the tranquil pink sunrise, like colorful chalk dust blown across the sky, couldn’t erase the stains the night left behind his eyes. He woke with his hand squeezed into a fist that’d pulled the trigger as blood poured from the books. All of his memories, good and bad, were twisted up, thrown out, cut up, and swallowed, burning on their way down like acid, but refusing to stay dead. Sometimes he feels like his brain is bleeding. Sometimes it’s stuffed full of cotton, flowers, and lamplight.

Wherever his head is, coffee has made it worse. His hands are jittery from caffeine and it always feels like a cold sweat is drying on the back of his neck. Customers grate on him -their questions, their eyes, their breathing. The buried, cave-like quality of the store is normally grounding, but today he feels trapped. Namjoon’s been practicing being honest with himself, and honestly, he’s not fit to be at work.

He has a hunch that Donghae is making himself scarce and avoiding scolding him for slacking because he’s picked up on Namjoon’s mood. This is instead of doing the sensible thing and sending him home or just firing him. Who knows what he’s capable of in this kind of mood. He’s afraid to find out and Donghae should be too.

That would require Donghae knowing anything about Namjoon and his pitch black past, but he doesn’t. He’s gone and unwittingly hired a criminal to stack old novels and sell picture books to children.

He needs to quit thinking about it.

Time passes in a colored blur of spines, dusty pages, and shelving -U’e before Ue and who knew there were so many last names that started with U? One customer, two, three. The chanting lulls him.

He’s back by the French biographies again with a copy of The Lives of Michel Foucault by David Macy and it’s only now occurring to him to wonder whether the biographies are in French, written by the French about the non-French, or about famous French people. Knowing Donghae, it’s likely a combination of all three.

There’s a sound behind him and everything in Namjoon jumps to red alert. A customer is speaking to him, asking him questions with staring eyes, and he’s tall, taller than Namjoon who’s standing in the corner, thrown into shadow and without an escape. The man’s face is also shadowed, his shoulders are broad, and Namjoon inexplicably believes that he’s looking at himself, a self that’s clawed its way from the past and only needs a split second to swallow him whole.

He’s gone. Not the customer, but Namjoon. The words dropping from his lips are stiff and icy in an empty echo of power and command, but everything else feels too fast and separate. He’s not in the man in front of him because that’s a stranger, a blur, an object. Namjoon isn’t behind or above his body, but strangely inside it. He wonders if he’s always inhabited this same flesh and has no knowledge of who he is.

He feels fake. When his head turns, the world moves too quickly. The hands in front of him clench into a fist, the sensation distant. This large, scarred hand somehow belongs to him.

He can’t even see the customer startle at his fist. He has no awareness of the deathly cold expression etched into his face, the tense quivering of his shoulders. Namjoon spent too long honing the mere fact of his body into a threat.

The slow motion swoop of Donghae slipping a well-worn book into the customer’s hands and guiding him away doesn’t register.

Donghae’s gentle touch on his head is the only way Namjoon realizes that he’s sitting on the floor with his head cradled in his hands and his eyes clenched shut. It was as if the pressure on his skull could force the hyperawareness out or his real self back in.

Bruise-like starbursts appear and ghost away in the darkness of his closed eyes. The frightening sensation has passed and Namjoon is rock solid in his body, but the echoes of it make him shiver. He becomes regret. That he’s such an awful employee. That he can’t interact with customers the way he should. That he reverts to that when he’s cornered, that he hasn’t burned it out of himself yet. That he doesn’t know if he can.

The touch on his head slides down to drop onto his shoulder and deliver a reassuring pat. By the creak of his shoes and the rustle of his chinos, Namjoon knows Donghae is crouched in front of him. He pulls one of Namjoon’s hands away from his head and he didn’t even realize he was squeezing so hard. Blood rushes back to the area with a tingle. Instead of dropping Namjoon’s hand, Donghae holds it gently between his own.

The warmth and realness of it almost undoes him. Namjoon hasn’t touched anyone since that handshake with Seokjin, something he feels pathetic for remembering.

“Are you real?” he asks Donghae. It’s a stupid question. He sounds crazy.

Air whooshes out of Donghae’s nose like he’s amused, but he doesn’t laugh. He gently squeezes Namjoon’s hand, gives it a little pat. “I am, and so are you.” It’s matter-of-fact, like he deals with this specific question all the time. “Sometimes we wish it were otherwise, but here we are.” His tone isn’t quite consoling, just on this side of encouraging.

Something about Donghae’s quiet, unassuming presence makes words tumble from Namjoon’s mouth, dredged up from his insides in a sticky, ugly mess. “It’s red, back there, where I came from. It’s wrong-” That silver-dollar moon hangs above him with Yoongi’s flashing eyes and the blood that’s on his hands and on his face-

Donghae is stronger than he appears beneath the frumpy sweaters and shapeless cardigans. His grip is a steel manacle keeping Namjoon’s hands from tearing at himself. Namjoon is shaking.

“…and –I –I am too.”

Instead of the final, ringing pronouncement of damnation, the finals words trickle out and lilt up at the end in question. He didn’t know that doubt wriggled inside and made a cozy little nest, emerging to chip away at the hard, black stone of loathing and regret that sits heavy in his chest.

Donghae doesn’t interrupt, but he emits an aura of calm goodwill.

Everything feels slower and quieter both inside his head and out. “You can’t keep me here,” Namjoon finally says. “I’m gray all over and I don’t know if I can change it.” It makes sense in his head, but becomes meaningless out loud.

Donghae is cross-legged in front of him. Those strangely knowing eyes pierce him once before dropping to their hands. The monks’ chanting fills the silence between them. Customers don’t exist here. Nothing outside of this corner of The Pied Piper exists.

After another minute, Donghae speaks.

“My favorite color is yellow,” he says. He falls silent for another minute. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. A corner of his mouth twitches and his eyes are focused on the Namjoon’s hand, then his chest, then the floor.

“Namjoon, you’re a sunflower.”

Namjoon’s never seen one in real life. They’re big, he thinks. Really big. But that’s all he knows. If something specific is meant by it, it’s lost on him.

Face smooth and serious, Dongahe says, “I want you to read Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. Not now, but soon. Go home for today. I’ll see you tomorrow at three.” With one last squeeze, he releases Namjoon’s hand, rises, and disappears amongst the shelves.

A collection of sentences most definitely exited Donghae’s mouth and swooped into Namjoon’s ears, but their meaning is more than he can comprehend curled up on The Pied Piper’s floor nursing the end of an old headache and the beginning of a new one.

Indeterminable minutes pass as Namjoon slowly unfolds, pushes himself to his feet, and shuffles out of the book store.

--

…I'm afraid that sometimes
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike,
And I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!