Little Jongin clutches onto the barre as he begins stretching. He was slight for his age, chin barely reaching the top of the wooden beam, but he's bending and twisting enthusiastically anyway, demi plie as neat as a tightly tied bow, the shyness from before slowly leaving him. He's here to dance, and as his mother smiles at him from where she's correcting the posture of another student, he chants his mantra of I want to make her proud inside his head. I want to make her happy, all the determination a twelve-year old could muster embedded into every word.

She had been tall and lean, much like his adult self. Grace dictates every single move she made, pulsing from the flicked points of her fingers to the very tips of her toes when she dances. She demonstrates a plie and a tendu on the barre herself, everyone else following suit with varying degrees of success.

"Your mother's beautiful," Jongin hears Baekhyun breathe into his ear. He could only nod. She really is. Or was. This was her in her element and it shows, almost resplendent she is under the glow of the instreaming sunlight as she stands en pointe in the center of the room.

Jongin's never had the chance to see her mother dance professionally, but he knows from the countless framed pictures they had in their tiny apartment that she was an amazing ballerina. She'd given up on her career to become a wife and a mother. After the divorce, Jongin knows that she grew to resent ever making that decision. She'd disposed of something she cherished greatly for a person who'd disposed of her without so much as a second glance.

But his mother was resourceful, and she managed to get them back on their feet quickly, having a successful dance school up and running within a couple of years. This very place right here, Jongin recalls as he looks around the studio. A place to call her own, one set up as her marriage was crumbling down. It's somewhere she depended on to regain a sense of self-worth.

Regardless of how resilient she had been, however, she never found it in herself to forgive his father's infidelity. The hatred ate away at her. The woman Jongin's looking at right now, with the smile and a chuckle to spare for everyone, isn't real.

She's only an illusion. A projection all on her own, afforded not by the separation of her soul from her body, but by those antidepressants Jongin's seen in their medicine cabinet.

As a young boy, he'd asked his mother about them, about his father, about why she looks so sad when no one else is around. She never answers his questions with words, only a tight-lipped smile and a dismissive pat on his chubby cheek. He gradually learned that it's better not to ask. Reminiscence only threw his mother into a downward spiral of depression. He couldn't deal with it then, so he ignored her whenever she allowed herself to fall into that pit of self-pity. It's no wonder then that whenever he allows himself to do the same now, he couldn't deal with it either.

Jongin maintains a minor state of disarray for days after.

He gets distracted at work, overshooting the print orders for the company's new jewelry campaign by the hundreds. Taemin comments at every chance he gets that Jongin appears like a train's run him over. "Dude, Sehun told me about the astral projection thing, but maybe you're overdoing it," he says as he peers at his friend over the partition dividing their cubicles.

That couldn't be further away from the truth. Jongin's been avoiding projecting, going as far as not sleeping, which is probably the real reason why he, to quote Taemin, looks like crap. He knows that just dozing off won't transport him anywhere. That's not how projection works. But he's slightly afraid that if he goes back he may never want to leave.

Because although his appearances may have taken a hit, he actually feels pretty darn great. He can't quite put a finger on why and how, but his head's clearer. His chest feels lighter too, as if a huge weight has been pushed off of it.

This is all a bit strange. He thinks back to the planes, and the things Baekhyun's said. He remembers every word, but try as he might to call to mind what exactly transpired in between their small conversations, he just couldn't.

Jongin ditches lunch with Taemin one day to hijack Yixing's afternoon session instead. He pretty much rammed into his office, the good doctor spewing oolong all over his phone at the sudden intrusion.

"You've been where?" He asks, face turning pale after he hears Jongin's story. "Oh Jongin. I told you to not talk to strangers."

".....no you didn't."

Yixing frowns, a finger waggling at his client's face. "Well, you should know better. Jongin," he sighs, "this is no laughing matter."

Jongin counts to three slowly in order to resist from rolling his eyes. It's not as if he's giggling right now. He doesn't think this is funny either. "I know, Yixing. But—"

"Do you know why I told you to stay in our astral world?"

"....well, actually, you never said—"

"Because it's dangerous. We are not meant to mingle with things we don't know before it's our time to do so. Now," Yixing hands a mug of oolong to Jongin, settling on the glass desk before him, "this boy. Is he pretty?"

Jongin blushes pink, head nodding hesitantly. "I guess."

"Damn it!" Yixing looks annoyed, mumbling these kids, always thinking with their first to himself. Jongin decides to ignore that jab as Yixing continues. "And he's from the memory realm."

"There's such a thing?"

"Of course. Where do you think all your memories go?" Yixing ruffles his hair roughly. "Jongin," he begins again with a sigh. "Do you know why I studied astral projection?"

Because you're crazy, Jongin almost says. Thankfully, he still has some tact. He settles with a small shake of the head.

"That's my brother." Yixing points to a picture next to his mother's portrait. The guy is more or less Jongin's age, but the photograph had obviously been snapped a long time ago. "He, like my mom, was? Is? An astral projector too. But he went too far with it."

"What happened?"

Yixing shrugs. "Don't really know. He traveled a lot more than I did. Do. He was always more enthusiastic about it. It's true," he reiterates when Jongin snorts. "After a while he began going off about wanting to go places. He'd read about it on some god forsaken website and of course, chose to listen to that rather than our mother and myself."

He doesn't sound angry, Jongin thinks. Yixing's tone is more defeated than anything.

"Yimin woke up one day, so happy. He said he'd finally jumped into another.... realm or plane or whatever you want to call it. Said he'd seen things that were so beautiful he never wanted to leave. That scared me, but it got even worse when he met a pretty girl. A spirit, a thing, he told me." Yixing narrows his eyes at Jongin then. "Started thinking with his too."

"Hey—"

"He became a shell of himself soon after that. Then one day he just never came back."

".....I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," says Yixing with a slight smile. "I wanted to travel to save him at first. But then mom wouldn't let me, saying she couldn't lose me too. So this," he gestures around his office and livelihood, "is really to help people project safely, and to remind them to never go beyond what they know."

Jongin understands then that it is not defeat in Yixing's voice; it is acceptance.

"I can't tell you what to do, Jongin," Yixing says as he lays a hand over the younger's shoulder. "I really do care about you, though, and I don't want you to end up like my brother. Just a body without a soul." He pats Jongin's head the way you would a pet, fond and sincere. "So I hope you forget about that boy and the planes. I'll help you, okay? To find some other way for you to be happy again. Even if it's not through astral projection."

Yixing should have stopped there. Jongin hasn't gotten to be this comfortable with a near stranger in ages. He is touched enough to take any advice the guy might give him. But—

"It may take a much longer time, but you have to. If you value your safety over your happiness."

That goes to show, despite his good intentions, just how little the doctor knows Jongin. He of the quick fixes, he who would never take the long way route to get something he needs. He who would never take anything over the chance to free himself of the vile, suffocating feelings within.

"You came back," Baekhyun says as he laces his fingers together with Jongin's the second he steps into their secret spot. "I knew you would."

Jongin is a little overwhelmed because Baekhyun is all up in his personal space, practically snuggling into him already. He slings his free arm around Jongin's waist, chin propped on the ridge of his collarbone.

"Are you okay?" Jongin asks, surprising himself that he's not just flinging Baekhyun to the other end of the beach like he would have done overtly touchy strangers normally.

Baekhyun nods. Or at least he tries too. His chin just digs deeper into the sinewy muscles of Jongin's clavicle when he does. "Just a little tired. I've been waiting for a while." Jongin glances sideways, and catches the pallor of Baekhyun's skin. It's as if he has literally been drained of colour. "I'm not supposed to stay down here for too long."

"You mean you've really been waiting all this time?"

"I said I would, didn't I?"

"What if I never made it back?"

Baekhyun shrugs, slowly gets off of Jongin, palms anchored on his chest to hold himself steady. Jongin's fingers twitch from the urge to pull him back in. "I guess I would have received the privilege of knowing how it'd feel like to die a second time around," says Baekhyun, trying for a smirk only for it to come off as a grimace.

"That can happen?" Jongin asks in disbelief.

The other just shrugs again. "Maybe."

"...... then let's go."

".......what?"

"Let's go to the planes. I think I may need it. You..... obviously need it too."

Baekhyun's stunned for a few moments, and then he smiles, positively blooming with something that completely snatches Jongin's sanity away. "Why Jongin, I might have been terribly wrong about this whole thing," he murmurs, pushing back into the warmth of the boy's chest. "Maybe you're the one who'll fix me."

Jongin would soon find out that Baekhyun, as it turns out, is not a boy, a thing, nor a whatever. He's a snare trap in human form, and Jongin gets caught in it's noose much too quickly for it to be good for his heart.

Dancing was more than a hobby or god-given talent to Jongin. It was his whole life.

It had been since the first time he watched his mother breaking in the newly fitted parquet of the studio with an impromptu performance in front of a bleary-eyed Jongin. He'd sat on his bum, hugging his knees to his chest, jaw opened in awe as she went into a series of grand battements, giggling and clapping as she ended with a pirouette.

She paused, pulling him up to join her. Jongin imitates whatever she does, little sticking out and feet shuffling every which way they could go. From the outside looking in it would have looked ridiculous. Heartwarming, yes, but they had all the finesse of a pair of monkeys trying to two-step, and they weren't picking any moves up very well at all. However it had been life-changing for six year old Jongin, as silly as that sounds. He knew then that he'd wanted to dance too, if it makes her happy.

The twelve year old Jongin now effortlessly jumping into a grand jete thinks that way too. He loves dance, he really does. He wants to do it for the rest of his life. It's the one thing that brought back the sparkle into his mother's eyes after the bitter divorce, and he hopes to god, whoever you are, that if they keep on going dancing, it'll stay there.

Of course that's not meant to be. Jongin senses in his heart that even then he'd already known his mother is slowly slipping away. Her smiles though plenty, are empty; every step taken in front of her adoring class a chore rather than a pursuit of passion. He knows that no matter how flawlessly he could execute a fouette en tournant or how many competitions he wins, his mother would continue on drifting away from him.

So he pushes further, trains harder, in the hopes that it'll distract him enough from his mother's unraveling. Jongin latches onto dancing as though his life depends on it, even as his mother lets it go and gives up on hers.

"I've seen worse. But that was gross."

Jongin rolls his eyes, though secretly he agrees. If that really was how cheesy people in the early throes of a relationship are, he has no idea how any couple could last, or how one could still perceive the other as ually attractive after the first date for that matter.

"It's beautiful around here, though," Baekhyun says.

This time Jongin nods his agreement. "I used to come here a lot after...." The accident goes unsaid. Baekhyun throws him a smile to show that he understands. Jongin feels something lurch in his stomach, pretends that it was the heavy dinner he had before bed and the fact that his head is still hurting from the replay, and not the way the other's eyes are so soft around the edges whenever he looks at him.

While he's at it he also would like to blame the tricks the planes had thrown at them on their journey up to this place for this repulsive reaction towards something as simple as a smile. It was the first instance where he'd witnessed the malicious potential of the planes. He had never been pelted by self-catapulting rocks before, and he's pretty sure one hit particularly hard at his temple. So yes, he can gladly say that no, he is certainly not affected by how close Baekhyun's leaning towards him, and he is most definitely not even thinking about how the warmth radiating from Baekhyun is soaking into his bones. The mere thought of it is disgusting.

"It's great, isn't it?" Jongin continues to stop himself from getting a denial-induced aneurysm. "Not a lot of people know about it, but it's actually right smack in the middle of the city."

Baekhyun gets on his feet to have a look around. It's a quaint cafe, the type to have a hodgepodge of trinkets as decorations. Most don't seem to fit in. There's a huge collection of old Korean paintings on one wall, but then on the other end old rock records are stacked up upon a rickety wooden shelf. "How'd you find it?"

"I hiked a lot, as part of the.... rehab I had to go through." Jongin gets up too, joins Baekhyun at the large windows overlooking the slopes of Yongmasan.

"Where I used to live, there were a lot of mountains too."

Jongin's startled, to say the least. "You can remember things?" From when you were alive?

"Yeah," Baekhyun nods. "Not a lot at all. But bits and pieces. Mostly you'll just have a feeling that a place has been important to you. Those you never forget."

"Do you know..... how you died?"

Baekhyun shrugs. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't." He turns and grins at Jongin again, mischief in every line of his face. "Maybe I fell off a mountain."

Jongin hisses. "Don't joke about things like that."

The other chuckles after a brief silence, trying to diffuse the tension. "Alright, alright. Let's talk about something else." He feigns thinking up a topic, pointer tapping at his chin. Jongin thinks it's oddly charming. Baekhyun clears his throat, snapping Jongin out of his mini reverie of listing down all the other things about this thing he frustratingly finds oddly charming. "So have you figured out what I am yet?" Baekhyun asks. He climbs into an old couch the cafe has, pulling Jongin along by the hand to make him sit as well.

"Umm," he tries. It's a bit distracting when Baekhyun's rubbing circles around the swell of his palm. Plus, even he thinks his answer's incredulous. "I think you're a succubus."

"Excuse me?" Baekhyun chokes.

".....am I wrong?"

"Jongin. First you say I'm a demon," says Baekhyun. "Now you're saying I'm a girl."

"What?"

"A succubus is a lady. A very pretty one," Baekhyun states, wiggling his eyebrows at Jongin. "But unfortunately not me."

He could have blurted out another variation of you're pretty, but Jongin successfully emits a snort instead. Although, if he was to be honest, Baekhyun is stunning. It's not as if he wasn't already since the first time they'd met, but after returning back to the planes he'd positively blossomed. Jongin reckons it's not just because he's infuriatingly radiant all the damn time. With every instance of Jongin taking his hand, accepting his offer to travel to the planes, Baekhyun gains more colour. His eyes, Jongin discovers, are not red. They're a deep russet, hazel specks scattered within the thin ring of their irises. His black cord has changed too. It's a lighter shade now, almost gray. Jongin's sure he didn't imagine it growing longer too.

"Hello?" Baekhyun snaps his fingers in front of Jongin's faraway eyes. "Were you listening?"

"Uh. I'm sorry." Jongin shakes his head. "Did you say something?"

"I was saying, that if I was in the same line of work as a succubus is, I'd be called an incubus instead. And I sure as hell won't be your glorified travel guide, Jongin. I'll be," Baekhyun's eyes flicker down for a moment, "doing something else." Jongin's pretty sure they were focused on his crotch.

A scarlet blush creeps up his neck when he realizes that Baekhyun has not only inched closer but is unabashedly checking him out everywhere. "What would you be doing," Jongin manages to breathe out even as Baekhyun leans further in.

The smirk on Baekhyun's mouth grows. Jongin's throat is so dry it clicks when he swallows. "You," Baekhyun whispers. "I'll be doing you."

A final flash of thought passing through Jongin's mind was damn, that was cheesy, but then Baekhyun's kissing him, thin lips massaging his own plusher ones, and Jongin gets it. He understands how his past relationships have ever moved from point A to B, when all the other has to do is kiss him literally stupid.

He also blanks on the fact, as Baekhyun pushes him down at the same time he pushes his tongue into Jongin's mouth, that he was on a mission to get answers. But with the guy's fingers skittering across the sharp slope of his collarbones, then grazing down the span of his chest before disappearing into the band of his pants, Jongin completely forgets if there even was a question in the first place.

"Dude, you made it," Sehun gawks. "This is not you in projection, is it? Or am I the one whose projecting?" He puts a hand up to test out this theory by way of a high-five. Jongin slaps it hard in return, doesn't leave him hanging the way he usually does. Sehun gawks some more.

"Yeah, yeah. I knew you missed me a lot," Jongin jokes. "Didn't want to keep stringing you along. Came out tonight specifically to tell you to piss off."

Sehun stares at his friend as if he's spontaneously sprouted an extra head. "Wow, you're jokey and y too. Did I wake up in an alternate universe or—"

"We're really glad you're here, Jongin," Boa interrupts, pinching whatever she could from her boyfriend's waif-like waist to stop him from being a sassy little . "The others will be so happy to see you."

Jongin nods. He's looking forward to hanging out with his friends again too. Some of them he hasn't kept in touch with for months. But then again he hasn't felt this good, this up for anything, in years. Sehun throws his head towards the bar from where they're standing in the doorway in a silent follow me, Jongin trailing behind the couple to where he guesses everyone else is waiting already.

Ravi engulfs him in a huge bear hug as soon as he quips a hello to the table. "How are you doing, buddy?"

"You look great, Jongin," Soojung pipes up before Jongin could say anything.

The familiar faces around the table mumble their assent, a random voice or two yelling I hope you're feeling well and chin up!

His friends' intentions are noble, but Jongin remembers now why he dreaded attending these get-togethers. They're always designed to revolve around cheering him up. He's treated very well. He doesn't think he's paid for his own beer since the accident happened. But when people constantly treat you like you're a walking pity party, it's kind of difficult to not think that that's exactly what you are.

Jongin refuses to allow this to pull him into a resentful mood, however. He's out with a mission to have a good time, and for the first time in a while he feels as if he actually could. He will not be a debbie downer now.

"I'm good, guys," he says with two thumbs up, plopping down onto the plush semi-circle lounger. "Now buy me drinks."

Everybody shuts up for a full minute, wondering what on earth has taken over Jongin's body to make him so.... agreeable. But then Changjo shouts at the bartender for allsorts of alcohol, and Jongin proceeds to get wasted.

He doesn't even realize how much he's missed being able to just let go until then. He isn't forcing it when he joins in the raucous laughter, courtesy of a drunk ballet demonstration by an intoxicated Jinyoung. He senses how his friends are still treading over glass around him, but he couldn't care less. He jumps into the games and conversations, a happy participant instead of the passive bystander role he'd embodied for too long.

So caught up is he in the atmosphere that he doesn't notice an addition to their group until the person clears his throat.

"Jongin," his voice booms. "Fancy seeing you here! Haven't heard from you in ages."

Who are you, Jongin asks in his head. Oddly it feels as if he has met him before. The recognition is there, but the recollection is missing. He rakes his brain for more clues and clarity, but whilst he is occupied with the jumbled mess in his head this stranger pushes forcefully into the small space left next to him. Jongin throttles into Sehun as a result, this fumbling giant of a guy fitting himself in.

"You look..... healthy," he continues. He smiles at Jongin, all teeth showing. "I'm really, really glad."

Even in a state of confusion Jongin can't help but smile back. The man's quite handsome, and though his grin is bordering on horror-story level, it's infectious.

"I know we didn't end things in a good way," he plows on. "But I always worry about you, you know?"

There's another pause across the table as Jongin's friends abandon their drinks to wait for his reaction. Ravi is jostling his head in the intruder's direction none too subtly. Is that supposed to signal something? Jongin doesn't get what he's supposed to get.

"I'm sorry," so he begins to say. "Who are you?"

He could hear the sharp intake of breath from nearly everyone around him. The smile falters from the guy's face.

"Jongin," he frowns, hurt evident in his tone. "It's me, Chanyeol."

".....okay," Jongin answers. "Nice to meet you?"

"Don't be like this, Jongin-ah."

"Like what?" He's really perplexed now. "I'm really sorry." He doesn't want to upset this Chanyeol person. He doesn't exactly know what he's doing that's making him look like a kicked puppy. "Do we know each other?"

"What game are you playing at?" Chanyeol demands, nostrils flaring in anger.

Right, that was the wrong thing to say, then, Jongin belatedly thinks. He glances at Sehun, Changjo, anyone for support, but they're all either busy looking anywhere but at him or looking far too pleased at what's unfolding in front of them. Jongin wonders briefly if Chanyeol had been a one night stand, ends up blurting his thoughts out, only fueling the guy's fury even more.

"What the hell," he practically yells at Jongin as as he grabs his wrist forcefully.

That does it for Jongin. He hates being touched by people he isn't close with, much less someone he's sure he hasn't met before tonight. He pushes Chanyeol off the lounger. "Maybe you know who I am but I don't know you. Please don't make a scene. Just leave."

Chanyeol gapes from where he is on the dirty floor. He eventually collects himself enough to shoot Jongin an even dirtier look, before getting back up and disappearing into the crowd.

An eerie quietness befalls the table again. Sehun breaks it first.

"Damn, Jongin," he lets out together with a low whistle. "That was cold. Pretending not to know who he was like that."

"What are you talking about? I really don't know a Chanyeol."

Ravi chuckles. "Alright, where's the hidden camera," he says, feigning searching the club for one. "Should have known this was some Punk'd when you showed up."

Jongin's a bit miffed about that remark, but there are bigger issues at hand. "I'm serious, guys. Who was that?" He suddenly feels a headache coming on. "And how come you all knew who he was?"

Sehun narrows his eyes at Jongin, trying to gauge if his best friend is kidding or not. "You've been really weird lately, dude," he points out, tinge of concern colouring his deep voice. "You don't carry that hideous Dooly thingy around anymore, and last week you said you've never been to Moscow when you have. Four times. Where you won four competitions."

He shifts uneasily in his seat, trying to remember everything but failing. Is this what Baekhyun meant by forgetting? Is that what's happening to him?

"And this. It's either you're a really good actor," Sehun goes on, "or there's something you're not letting me help you out with."

"We could all help," Boa chips in.

That's the final straw, Jongin rebels internally. He can't stand it anymore. He's tired of being viewed as this weakling who is in constant need of aid from others, others whose is probably no more put together than his own. And he knows it's not fair to be this agitated when everyone's just worried about him, but he really just wants to scream off, because he doesn't need them, not really. He has Baekhyun now. They share a somewhere that's otherworldly and scary and beautiful, and so exclusively theirs alone, so everything else. He just wants to crawl into bed and project.

Thus Jongin brushes his friend's questions and offers with a grateful laugh as he tries to make an early escape, an actual actor whilst he's at it. "Of course I remember who Chanyeol is," he lies through his teeth. He wishes someone would just tell him, though. He's still curious about who Chanyeol was, and what he should mean to him. Why does it matter so much that Jongin didn't recognize the man?

Thankfully, Soojung emerges out of her glass of dry beer long enough to contribute. "Thank god you do," she hiccups. "You only dated him for what, like, three years?"

Jongin blinks, and the room goes quiet all of a sudden. Sunlight still shines through, but now it's a soft yellow instead of a blinding white. The students are gone, their parents along with them.

He sees his younger self spread out on the empty floor, legs arranged into a straight split, torso bent over until his forehead touches a knee. This is a piece of cake for Jongin. His body has been conditioned to take this sort of stress, muscles never having been allowed to stiffen. He lifts his head up, stretches his back into an arch, then stands in the fifth position with the help of the barre.

It's only him and his mother now. She's standing in a corner, talking into her mobile. Her face is contorted into a grimace, voice low and quivering, the way it does when there's underlying anger threatening to boil over. Jongin knows straightaway that she's talking to his father, no doubt arguing about one thing or another.

Even then, he couldn't be sure that he remembers his father very well. Jongin only knows that he is a tall, burly man with a timbre that could shake mountains.

Okay. Maybe that's a terrible exaggeration. But Jongin had been merely five the last time he'd seen or heard the man up close and personal, and not just by chancing a glimpse through the rungs of a gate or overhearing a raised decibel of a voice from the other end of his mother's phone.

A competition's around the corner. Jongin puts the radio on, its volume low to not disturb his mother's conversation. He takes a deep breath, proceeds into a choreography he already knows like the back of his hand.

Don't you want to see your son?

The music is an experienced puppeteer, Jongin's body the puppet at the end of its strings. He curls into himself, his starting position resembling a young bud.

It's been years, Junhyung... He misses you. He doesn't show it but he needs his father right now.

Jongin pushes an arm out slowly to the tempo of Giselle. His muscles move like a pendulum, constricting in turn, and he unfurls like a newly bloomed flower.

Don't give me the 'I'm busy' crap. You can't even take a day off for Jongin? I'm pretty sure you make time for her.

He bursts into his routine, body contorting to accommodate the stress. He's barely halfway through when he starts to feel the dull ache of acid pooling in his muscles, but it's the sort of ache he relishes in, pushing through without ever breaking stride.

You have the gall to say that to me? I don't think I've said this enough but you're a ing bastard, Junhyung.

A sprain runs up his ankles as he lands from a jete. He runs again, then leaps; and then he's in the middle the dance floor, imagined spotlights burning down upon his silhouette. He holds position in an arabesque, leg extended high up behind him.

Look. I don't even care anymore what about you and me. But if you're really the type of person who can't even spare a few hours for your own child, then you.

He brings his leg in carefully to the lull of the final seconds of the music. The pendulum reverses, his muscles now relaxing in turn, and the flower shrinks back into a bud.

Goodbye, Junhyung.

Baekhyun screams when Jongin, his Jongin, collapses onto the floor, keeled over as if from pain.

It's another one of those things he wishes he could have been warned against. Astral deja vu hurts, yes. But when the memories relived are those suppressed deep in the dark recesses of the mind, it's even worse. Those that you remember crystal clear, like this one, but choose to not acknowledge.

Jongin could hear his mother's voice reverberating around the room. He could decipher the hatred in her tone, taste the poison in every word spat out. Somehow, he'd managed to push them all into a place he never wanted to revisit, masking them over with dance. This had been the point of her undoing, and it was because of his father and himself. The blame was never hers alone, the way Jongin has forced upon her shoulders over the years simply because it was the easiest thing to do.

Before the memory fades he looks up just in time to see little Jongin emerging from his performance, eyes baiting for his mother's gaze in a search for appraisal. His face falls when she just stares at him blankly in return. In the final moments of his lucidity older Jongin thinks, as she walks out of the door, that she is the most tragic personification of the flower in his dance. Once her bloom has ended, she remains enclosed, and Jongin did nothing but watch her wilt and wither away.

The change comes in a manner as subtle as Baekhyun is; which is to say, it doesn't take Jongin a long time at all to catch on.

"Baekhyun," he asks one night, grip tight enough around the other's wrist to be painful. "Did I do something wrong?" Baekhyun neither looks at him nor answer. Jongin's heart squeezes terribly, as if it's a wet rag being wrung dry of water. "Is this about the other time?"

He had been surprised at how Baekhyun had scrambled away from him that night on the couch. Jongin was embarrassed, but the other had appeared to be absolutely mortified. It was worse when Jongin could see the regret that was there in his face, just before Baekhyun made him go back and wake up.

Jongin had told himself not to bother too much. He could have just imagined the severeness of Baekhyun's reaction. It probably had been nothing like that. But the next time he showed up at the beach, Baekhyun was distant. He didn't greet Jongin in with his usual modus operandi of overattached clinging. The way he'd handled Jongin was brisk, almost professional-like. A tour-guide, like he'd said before, and Jongin's a pesky tourist he's way too underpaid to be looking after.

The oddest thing, though, is how determined Baekhyun is at avoiding the planes. For the last several nights he has persuaded Jongin to just while their time away on the beach doing god knows what. It has been awkward to say the least, when Baekhyun rarely so much as glances in Jongin's way. What concerns Jongin most is that Baekhyun's fading away whilst he's forced to watch on as the vigour Baekhyun had reacquired steadily deserts him.

"What are you talking about?" Baekhyun's voice is level when he finally replies, but Jongin could tell that he's simply trying to shut himself off. He's twisting his arm, hoping to pry loose off Jongin's grasp.

Jongin can't allow that. It's more than simply wanting to finish what they had started the other day. Baekhyun's hands all over him had been heaven, but what Jongin wants from him now is something on a more visceral level. He can't tell where or when it began but Baekhyun's become too important for him to let go without a fight. I am most certainly, he reasons with Yixing's voice in his head, not thinking with only my .

"Wait," Jongin says as Baekhyun's wrist slips from his hold. He catches the tips of his fingers instead. Don't be like this to me. I need you, he wants to say. But he's always been better at showing his feelings rather than say them, so he says follow me.

And then they're in the dance studio, plastered together, swaying along to complete silence. Jongin has an arm wrapped around Baekhyun so tightly as if he's the only thing anchoring him down. Baekhyun's body is molded against his own, and yet he feels miles away. Jongin does the only thing he could think of that would close that gap between them: he kisses him. Baekhyun lets him be. He feels a kick of triumph when Baekhyun's hands move up to cup his jaw, mouth finally open to accommodate Jongin's tongue. But just as suddenly as he yields, Baekhyun retreats, burrowing his face into Jongin's shoulder instead.

It is only when he hears a quiet sob that Jongin registers the wet saltiness Baekhyun's lips have left on his own in their wake. Jongin panics. He tries in vain to have a look at Baekhyun's face, but the guy would not budge. Jongin settles with running a hand down his back until he calms down.

"What's the matter?" Jongin asks after a while.

Baekhyun goes still in the circle of his arms. "I've lied to you so much."

Jongin says nothing. It's not as if the revelation is a shocker to him.

"I lied about how I stumbled upon you. I lied about not knowing what I am. I'm using you, Jongin-ah. Gods, I lied about everything, I'm so sorry."

There's probably snot now on his shirt, but it doesn't matter. Jongin whispers it's okay, nose nuzzling into Baekhyun's hair.

"No, it's not," the guy sniffles. "I'm a horrid thing that stalks and hounds on travelers like you for my own benefit and then I kiss you and make you fall in love with me so that I could stick my hand down your pants."

He senses more than he sees it, the beginnings of a grin on Baekhyun's mouth against his collarbone. Jongin bursts out laughing first. "You're so.... weird," he says, for lack of a better word.

Baekhyun pulls away just enough so that Jongin could see his tear-streaked face. There's a small smile on it too, but it's tinged with remorse. "That's not the point, Jongin-ah. Don't you notice," he says, a hand brushing against Jongin's silver cord, "how yours has faded but mine's sort of grown? With every memory.... every piece of you that you leave behind in the planes, I get stronger." Baekhyun returns his face back into the crook of Jongin's neck. "I'm literally the soul out of you."

It's true. The silver of Jongin's cord has dulled out. Its shine appears to have translocated onto Baekhyun's, their colours almost similar in hue now. Jongin guesses he hasn't realized it until now because he's always just focused on Baekhyun whenever he's around.

"I've been stuck here for too long," Baekhyun continues. "This is my only way out of the planes but..... I wish that you had ran away. I wish you never returned, like the others. Left me dry." His lips tremble a little as he goes on. "I wish I had given up on you as easily as I did them too. Why did I keep on waiting for you on the beach? I just.... I wish you weren't you. It would have been easier for me to—"

"—Baekhyun, I don't care," Jongin breaks his silence. "You can have whatever you want from me. You're right, you know, I do lov—"

"Shut up," Baekhyun cuts in. He sounds so tired, Jongin notices. "The only thing I want from you is for you to take good care of yourself." He rests his forearms on Jongin's shoulders, fingertips just barely skimming the soft skin of Jongin's neck. "That's why you shouldn't come back."

"...but Baekhyun—"

"I won't wait for you. I can't survive outside of the planes without..... well, without feeding off you. So I won't be here the next time." Baekhyun's eyes water, but they're stoic and adamant in his conviction. "I mean it."

The dread pooling at the base of Jongin's stomach makes him want to throw up. "Don't do this, please." He feels twelve again all of a sudden. Only this time it's him who's breaking apart, and not his mother.

Baekhyun shakes his head. "I have to. " He takes a deep breath before soldiering on. "Even if you find me, I will not see you."

Jongin's clutch around Baekhyun's hips tightens, as if leaving a bruise there would make him change his mind. "Baek, listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me," Baekhyun says , voice steadily rising. He pauses, bracing himself to say what comes next. "I don't want to see you anymore."

Tension saturates in the air between them, but a lightbulb goes off in Jongin's head. You're lying, he thinks, almost wanting to cry in relief. He latches onto the tremor in Baekhyun's voice as he'd said those awful words like it's a lifeline. You're full of bull. He knows, if he figures out a way to travel to the planes on his own, Baekhyun will be there waiting. But before he could say anything, Baekhyun guides his hand onto his cord, makes him tug at it.

When he wakes up, he gets to work straightaway. He'll find a way to Baekhyun even if it kills him.