Title: Hypernova
Pairing/s: ot13
Summary: (cosmic!au) They sleep with their eyes open. That means they're always waiting.
A/N: au where wjsn are a type v on the kardashev civilization scale. yes they're not quite human. this is really short. less than 1.5k words. something experimental derived from wjsn’s concept/mvs (momomo to happy, i got you). insp from this. ive always wanted to make use of their concept and spin it off + this has been sitting in my head since Secret came out i needed to get this out. let's see how this goes. real names are used instead of stage names (seola=hyunjung, exy=sojung, bona=jiyeon, eunseo=juyeon, yeoreum=jinsook)    are you ready?   happy halloween!

- Richard Siken, “Birds Hover the Trampled Field,” War of the Foxes (2015)

i.

"We have to go. Now." Sojung says with faux confidence, as if she has not said the same five words a thousand times before and pretended to be brave. 

Nobody asks where. Where doesn’t matter. What matters is away from the looming presence of something sinister. It teeters on the edge of their instincts, twirling and dancing around their hive-mind, carrying wild paranoia. It's what keeps them running.

They look at each other for the last of times. Light beams bleed out of their eyes and draw lines of blinding light across their arms and torsos and legs.

At the far back, Juyeon finds the strength in her to laugh, "Race you to the nearest star cluster." 

Right at the end of her words, thirteen pairs of legs coil and dash through ring systems, too fast and too panicked to think of their next stop. 

In the beginning, it was fun. 

In the beginning, there's something thrilling about running away from the unknown.

But the beginning happened a long time ago and they have been running for eons now; farther and farther to the edge of an infinitely expanding, multiplying, multiverse.

In pairs and in trios the lights flicker and fade. Quasars paint their trajectories in full luminescence before supermassive black holes scramble them in the darkness. Hands leaving hands, the restless screaming in the dark static of the universe swallowing their voices and thoughts. 

Yeonjung disappears first. Then Hyunjung and Sojung. Cheng Xiao and Juyeon. Dawon, Soobin and Dayoung. Xuan Yi, Mei Qi and Luda. Jiyeon. All slingshot and scattered across multiple dimensions and strange galaxies.

Only Jinsook makes it to the nearest star cluster, waiting in loops of infinity. She overturns a flower that blooms between her hands.

This is the season of reaping.

ii.

They sleep with their eyes open. That means they're always waiting. Waiting for each other.

Yeonjung remembers falling first. A free fall into the abyss, plunging deeper into a darkness without an end. Somewhere between swirling around the achromatic void, light begins for her again. A glimmer of hope. From the tips of fingertips, from the corners of her eyes. 

They're calling for her. Who, she isn't sure. To where, she isn't sure either. She couldn't stop herself from falling. She blinks and finds herself staring into a familiar pair of eyes and an outstretched hand. 

She knows many names but none belong to this stranger.

"Come on, Yeonjung," the stranger says. "Let's go home."

"Home?" Yeonjung asks. She knows what home is but the one in her mind doesn't belong to her either.

-

They are not made for running so Cheng Xiao and Juyeon make wings out of constellations and stick them between their shoulders. Cheng Xiao thinks they should've stayed. 

"Stayed where we were or stayed running, it doesn't matter," Juyeon says aloud, "We're still hunted either way."