Time has a habit of unfolding. It's like an impossible puzzle. Spring unfolds into summer, and summer into autumn, and autumn into winter, and winter into spring again. It folds unto itself and then unfolds, like a never ending cycle. It is uncaring of humans. Humans move forward. Time doesn't care. It is unending. It moves in a cycle unto itself, and not in the same way we do.  

"Humans have always had a habit of self-importance." Yixing says.

A soft shuffle is all what announces the other man's arrival. Yixing smiles. He would know that shuffle anywhere.

"Talking to yourself again, chonrian?"

"Yes. Did you expect anything else, Lee Jinki?" Yixing turns around, and greets the beige-clad mudang with a polite grin.

And Onew smiles back. "No, chonrian."

~*~

"So, my dear apprentice ran away."

Yixing looks up from the tea he's sipping and shrugs. "He didn't run away. He just... hasn't visited in a long time."

"Sounds like running away to me," Onew is amused. And by the way Yixing chuckles, it's quite likely that he agrees as well.

"Well, I did scare him a fair bit. It's understandable."

"I taught him well," Onew explains. "The higher ups don't mind us because we do the dirty work without complaint. But if the truth does come out then we'd be in serious trouble. They wouldn't want their dirty laundry being aired. They like staying popular after all. So, some people might succeed in killing us, and then the world would go into chaos. The truth would once again be swept under the carpet, but this time there’d be no one left to deal with the unwanted cases. And then there'd be too many ghosts left to fester into maliciousness and too few effective mudangs to deal with them."

"You did tell that one ghost what was happening to him though. The one in Seodaemungu." Yixing murmurs.

"You told me I could." Onew reminds. He takes a big bite of his biscuit. "Remember, chonrian?"

"Oh. Yes, I did." Yixing pauses. "I always did say that ignorance was bliss, but sometimes bliss is overrated."

That sentence doesn't exactly make sense. But then, Onew is used to it. "Mm."

"You're one to say that, though." The sudden mildness in Yixing's tone causes Onew to tense. "When you haven't visited in a while yourself."

Onew laughs. The smile is light, but there is a deep regret buried deep inside. "I was never criticizing. I only recognized what he did, since I'm a master at it myself."

"You really were always that way." The way Yixing says it is odd. As if he knows Onew better than the few times the mudang has actually visited. "And you're far too cowardly to do something if you don't think there's a way out."

"That's why I trained someone who would do what I couldn't." Onew looks down at his cup. The tea leaves have settled to the bottom. Maybe they spell a change that is coming, but he wouldn't know. He's never learnt to read tea leaves. "And he should be arriving any minute. Thank you for having me, chonrian."

"Mmm..." Yixing nods. "You never actually call me by my name."

"You know I can't, chonrian." Onew stands and smoothes his coat out. The teacup has been set down onto the table, drained to its last dregs. "It would break the last fantasy that I'll ever have. When you speak, I try not to look at you, so that I can pretend that the body isn't that of Zhang Yixing's."

Then, Onew is gone. And Yixing speaks, but it's not really him; rather, it’s one of the voices in his head. A voice that had once gone by the name of chonrian Jonghyun and knew far more about the man named Jinki than Yixing would ever care to find out himself.

"That wasn't the name I was referring to, Jinki-yah."