Every day passed by the river's edge was a new beginning. The sun was bright and the air was soaked with life.  It was a different kind of vibrant than the adventure up north. Both were full of color and noise but the jungle held a place in Yoongi’s heart. He knew  where he could kick off  his shoes and let his calloused feet take him through roots and mud. In fact, he was rather guilty of carrying them or tieing the laces to his backpack for much of the way from The Port to the lake. The mint haired mail man couldn't remember the last time he’s walked into Jellyfish township with shoes on.

Being in the jungle wasn't like meeting an old friend the way the oak tree in the valley was. It was like...a lover running to greet him as he opened the gate. Not that he'd ever had a love to do so, but the racing in his heart matched the way it was described in stories. His heart felt like the look in his mother’s eyes every time she saw his dad. Every time he took a breath of muggy, saturated, humid air it pounded with the pulse of the world and called him into the darkness under the canopy.

Sweat was already settled in beads on his back and dripping generously down his face as he set off from his camping site in the late morning. Vermillion sounded like a steam engine boat just rolling through the tide with loud breathy pants. Not the stealthiest of companions, plodding along in loud brush, wandering off to lap at the river every once in awhile. His mint haired master was forever grateful for the lack open space and the limited number of large predators in the jungle because Vern at being quiet in the heat and the humidity. At least in the north, with the wider variety of large pointy toothed things, the massive dog managed to keep his tongue in his mouth more often.

Even though Yoongi’'d sworn to himself he wouldn't take a contract when he'd left three mornings ago, as he’d swung past the jungle entrance hub Minjun had nonchalantly pushed the Jellyfish Mail in his direction. Not even a contract. Just a handful of letters and two gold coins. It made the young courier feel a little bit like an outlaw taking under the the counter mail from both Jiyong and Minjun. In the case of the cinnamon haired sub-commissioner it was probably just gross love letters for Ravi and musical scores for Taekwoon...Leo? Yoongi was never quite sure when to use nicknames and when to use real names.

Distraction ruled at the start of every journey, but most especially the kind where he was in a new place, or an old place after staying on the same routes for too long. Going to Jellyfish took him a little off course. Directed him three days to the west of his fastest route, down the part of the river he loved the most deeply. He counted the birds and listened to the screeching howl of monkeys rustling around in the high branches. Tapped his fingers along unfamiliar logs because everything under the canopy was in a constant state of flux. Especially with the rainy season coming on his tail.

With so much time to waste he didn't even stop in TS for the night when he went through. Something was pulling him foreward despite his muddy sheepdog walking right up the two steps to Youngguk and Junhong’s front porch and nudging it with the broad top of his fluffy head. It was dark out in the early morning hours but Yoongi just...didn't have it in him to stop. So he pressed through. Vern didn't take much convincing, just the promise of mud and maybe a sloth or two to bark at was enough for him.

Jellyfish came and went only vaguely more slowly than that. He at least had the decency to schedule his arrival for midday and stay for dinner. Yoongi wasn't one to pass up on Hakyeon’s cooking and Vern wasn't one to pass up the scraps.

There was well that lacked all the ornamentation of the big cities with their fountains at the very center of town. He slept on the ground in that square. The trees were thin and the light of the sky poked through, like glitter dancing on the edges of his dark eyelashes. Yoongi  found the sound of rushing water deep in the ground soothed him so he listened and watched and let the world rock him to sleep. The stars whispered to him in the night, tapping out their morse code and the river in the ground rushed and all was right.

A lot of things came and went; like they always did. The stop and go of a long journey, some things melted together in the vastness of it all.

Some things stood out.

Like catching sight of the rotted out stump of an old signpost sunk in the ground outside the tree fortress. A common checkpoint for the very few couriers that walked the trails between Heechul’s and TS without passing through Jellyfish. Sprawling houses built up high in the branches. A stranger had told a story once about how the people who built it had died. It sounded more like folklore than anything else though.

Parts of it were upkept by those select few who contracted between Heechul and JYP. Min and Jo Kwon and Chansung all had little places up there that they’d cleared and cleaned. Yoongi knew this because names were carved in walls and unsafe stairs had been replaced. It was a good number of people's special place it seemed. Probably because it was hidden but still easy to find.

That rotten post piqued his already itching curiosity so he pulled his backpack up his shoulders despite the deepness of the night and the ache in his tired soul.

“What do you think Vern?” He asked, “should we go?”

To be clear it wasn't really a question for the dog because his heart was already starting to pulse in his chest  That magnetic pull that had never failed him dragged him off into the forest before Vern could even so much as bark.

It took them two more days off course; following the signs of old life and ruin. He probably would have missed what he was looking for if he hadn't been so keen on finding it. All of the signs and the old road hunks that he found in the trees had given him clear hints.

A white marble archway was wrapped in roots and flowers sticking out from the trunk of a heavy tree. Cracked and winding with new life. Yoongi didn't know exactly what it was, except that it was very old and had stairs that descended as far as he could see. Carved on the front old words nearly consumed by foliage read “in love we trust.”

Ah.

It was a heart.

Well... not a heart, but a lifeblood stream. The young courier had been told many times by teachers and parents that places like this had once been much more prevalent than they were. Places like his home where people went to hear their soulmate’s name whispered to them. There were only three known Hearts, but the lifeblood near a Heart could carry the same whisper. He must've been directly north if it was an artery that ran close enough to the surface to dig up. Exactly north. Part of Yoongi wondered how far he would have to walk in that direction to just be home but the rest of him knew that he had to go the other way. Or maybe something whispered it to him. He would never be quite sure.

He wouldn't be Yoongi if the thought of going in had been a question.

So the mint haired mail man stripped his backpack off; and his ratty black sweater and put them against a half toppled pillar covered in moss. There was a small procession of pillars in varying states of disrepair leading to the solid entrance.

He had the sudden foresight to pull out of his perfectly chipped, banged up and probably worth replacing orange ceramic bowls and pour some water for the dog.

“Stay put buddy,” he offered, “or go get yourself some dinner. Just make sure you come back for me alright?”

All he got were some loud lapping noises in reply and he ran his hand across a solid back covered in coarse gunmetal grey hair.

Out of respect for the people that came before him and the ones who would, no doubt, come after, he jammed his two gold coins from Jun.K into the slot in the wall just passed the threshold. The dull metallic jingle told him he wasn't the first person in a millennia to me here at least.

If he'd been wearing his shoes he would have taken them off but instead Yoongi just did his best to scrape the caked on mud off on the first step.

He braced his hands against cool, slick, stone and breathed in the musk and mold and a thick, heavy undercurrent of sandalwood. Incense burned into the porous walls of the cavern. Any reasonable person probably would have taken a light source but Yoongi had grown up in a place like this and he knew that he wouldn't be long in the dark. Hand to the wall and follow the sound.

The stairs didn't lead nearly as deep as the mailman thought they would. They opened into a large chamber where the rush of prismatic light flew along the ceiling. To his surprise there was no case above the river; just marble on three sides. Like it had been diverted there maybe.

A less respectful person probably would have dipped a hand in, but he wasn't going to risk his life on some fleeting curiosity so he stood watching. Even sat after a while and just stared as the shimmering movement of shifting light. Silvery liquid sloshed and rushed along the marble and splashed out, spreading along the floor sometimes.  Prismatic rainbows cast on the wall shifted in and out. He felt...young again. And not quite so bitter at the quiet in the room. It was cool and calm and it echoed with a surging pulse like home. He cared less and less about his lack of soulmate the more he traveled. There was too much to see. How could he possibly tie himself down when there was so much to do. He wanted to travel with Onejunn and take a contract farther up north, passed Block B to Big Hit or maybe even all the way to Starship. He’d heard rumors about the sky above the treeline and how gorgeous it was.

“It would be a shame to stop adventuring,” the mint haired mail man scoffed. Suddenly in the silence he found his own voice strange but he kept talking anyway. Like he used to.

Yoongi started muttering about how it wouldn’t be worth it, giving up his life. He mail courier curled his knees to his chest and leaned against the marble wall and sighed. He was sure not even a soulmate could convince him to settle down. He didn’t want to have a home. Not the kind he returned to. Having the kind that he wrote back to was different. Maybe if the mint haired man did get a name he could just...ignore it and never look. He wouldn’t have to tell anyone he’d heard anything.

At some point, long after dark, Yoongi wandered back up the stairs and brought Vern and his belongings down to sleep there and eat some leftover lunch. Cooked fish and stale bread. His diet was not the most exciting half way through a long trek but he never went hungry.

It was the best nights sleep he'd gotten since he left home with cold marble and a dog for a pillow. Which doesn't sound comfortable but sheepdogs are surprisingly good at it.

They crossed the river on a rainy day when the water was treacherous. Of all the things Yoongi had learned in training he never thought swimming would be his most invaluable skill but surely  it was. Or maybe it was his courage. Plenty of the mail people he knew could swim, not many of them dared to.

The sky greeted him with a certain kind of twinkling vigor as he crossed out of the tree line in the heat of the day. With his feet aching and his heart full he approached town finally.

Months had gone by since the start.

YG to JYP to Heechul’s in one long trek. It was a journey for the ages.

That hub was bustling and loud on the edge of the lake. Shouts echoed off the wall of brush and shattered through trees leaving a piece of each word behind as they went.

There was an enormous iron shield planted solidly in the ground at the south road’s entranced over in front of a terrifyingly shaky watchtower that the mint haired mailman had be forced to climb at least twice. Maybe refuse or flotsam were better words for both items. The tower and the iron both certainly looked like something the river would drag in or the tide from the lake.

The metal shard wasn't in any particular shape but it was taller than Chansung, and probably Taecyeon too. Anyway that...thing was beaten with an enormous mallet at the start of first wave and the end of last wave everyday. “to wake up the slackers and back up the snatchers,” Heechul always said. The long haired commissioner called people that swooped in at the end of last wave to outbid contracts snatchers.

Very rarely it was rung to mark special occasions or wedding processions. Yoongi had only seen it used in that way once so he's certainly not expected to have it done for him; but Yoseob the mid day watchman caught sight of the mint haired mail man as he cleared the green brush line. The tower shook as the handsome guard descended.

Yoongi was perpetually amazed by the grace of the tower keepers and how they managed not to fall.

“He's here!” The other man screamed, booming loud and clear into the heart of they’re driftwood town, “Yoongi’s back!”

There was was always fanfare in his returns but not this much. Certainly not the kind that warranted a sort of gong being struck on his behalf. The crumpling sound of metal on metal clamored and clashed with the sounds of town until it overtook them.

Yoongi and Vern stopped where they stood and waited curiously as the noises all shifted through the air. Vern even managed to rasp out a bark before his excited wiggles took over.

Heechul came running. Sprinting. That man ran for nothing. An old injury made his left leg stiff but here curious onlookers out of his way.

“Yoongi!” Was screamed repeatedly, uncomfortably close to the young mail man’s ears as he was swept into a hug.

Not a bone crushing hug thankfully. Just a sudden one. The muddy sheepdog decided he needed to help and jumped up planting his front paws on the commissioner’s gentle shoulders and nearly knocked them all over as the horse puppy shook and slobbered and slapped his tongue around.

“How was the trip?” “You need a haircut,” “Good heavens you need a shower,” we're all sputtered out in very quick succession. He'd bathed in a stream the day before but his clothes did smell like travel so he didn't argue and his hair was long enough to tuck behind his ears. Which he hated.

Yoongi maybe had forgotten how to interact with humans a little bit and had to remind himself to greet Heechul as the older man pulled away. That happened sometimes after really long treks and he had stretched his by a good two weeks to give everyone else time to arrive so.

“Hey Heechul,” came rasping out and Yoongi was legitimately proud of himself. Legitimately.

“How was the trip?”

“Same as always,” Yoongi replied, “Just a little slower.”

~~~
Hey Everyone! I finally got my computer back today. There were a ton of hold ups and ridiculous costumer service issues that I won't bore you with but suffices to say I am glad to have this thing back. I've been writing in google docs and it was killing my dyslexia. Anyway I hope you enjoyed! Pretty please leave a comment if you have anything to say, feedback makes me a better writer.

~RFL