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The Realm of Xiah

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Yoochun’s favorite color is red.

But not for any profound reason, or anything. He just likes the way it looks. The way it can be used – unquestionably – to symbolize the most beautiful aspects of life. Like love. Passion, beauty, and joy. It represents fire – burning flames, intangible yet so strong, that somehow possess the contradictory power to both enliven and destroy.

It represents our very beings, what gives us our existence. Blood. Rushing through our veins at every waking moment, from the day we are born until they day we inevitably perish.

One color, one shade in an endless spectrum of varying hues which derive from it, has the ability to manipulate one’s mind. The power to embody the complexity of one’s emotions. To silently speak for one’s heart – one’s very soul.

Red.

Power.

Bees can’t see the color red.

And Yoochun wants to cry because, despite having five whole eyes, bees will never be able to witness for themselves the raw allure and elegance of red. They will live their entire lives unaware of its glamor, its sheer artistry – natural and untainted by man and so refined that it amazes Yoochun how organic it is. But bees will never know that. Bees, and all of their five eyeballs, will never see red the way Yoochun sees red. The way the rest of the world sees red.

Yoochun knows that a lot of animals can’t see the color red. It devastates him, but not as much as it does when he thinks about bees because Yoochun ing loves bees. Honeybees and bumblebees, in particular. So harmless and sweet, simply roaming the world and performing their inherent duties in a wonderfully perfect cycle. Together. A collective. Never straying from the paths set for them but never complaining because Yoochun likes to believe bees are too well-mannered to whine about their lives like humans do.

Like Yoochun does.

Yoochun isn’t a bee. He wishes he was a bee, because if he was, life would be so much easier. Structured. He wouldn’t fail to meet other's sky-high expectations because everyone’s life would be the same and performing the bare minimum would be standard. Bees are one. Bees are helpful – to one another and to the ecosystem as a whole – and Yoochun aspires to be like them, even though he knows it’s impossible. But not because he’s very much a human and without the six legs and wings and striped fuzz, but because he’s a failure at everything he does and can’t even breathe without someone scorning him for deviating from their wants. Their plans for him.

His mother does that the most. She’s a bee, but not the kind Yoochun – or anyone except male dogs, he supposes – likes to be around. Yoochun is sure that she hates him and has never really loved him. Not as much as she does Yoohwan. Yoochun is everything his younger brother is not – impatient, rude, self-centered, and uncaring of those besides himself; he admits it – and she reminds him of that every second that she can. Enables it with her comparisons. Fuels it with her blatant preference for her second-born. Unaware that she’s a large reason as to why he is the way he is. That, like the color red, she was able to inadvertently dominate his person and contort him into the Yoochun she despises with just her overbearing presence alone. Her words. Her lack of affection and negligence of his feelings.

She’s like a personified version of the color red. Not all of the good things about red that Yoochun loves, but all of the bad things that he wants to ignore. Rage, violence, malice…and tomatoes. She cooks things with tomatoes a lot.

Yoochun hates tomatoes.

Mostly because he doesn’t know whether they’re a vegetable or a fruit and it makes him angry. They look so deceptively nice – like soft apples or too round peaches plucked straight from a tree. And then you hold one in your hands, weigh its thickness and bask in how wonderfully it fits in the depth of your palm. So you take a bite through its red skin, expecting to feel just as full as it looks, only to realize just how hollow it truly is. Its top layer is thin. A lie. And it’s only after you submit yourself to giving it a taste – lowering your guard and heightening your fascination – that you discover how false all of your innocent presumptions were.

Tomatoes . And Yoochun is so tempted to start a global campaign against the farming and selling of such atrocious things that it keeps him up at night, wondering how many signatures it will take before –

“Oh my ing god, what is he talking about?”

Yunho gives Jaejoong an admonishing look, bringing a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. “Let him speak, Joongie. He’s making sense.”

Disgruntled and slouching miserably into his chair, Changmin shakes his head. “No,” he mutters flatly, “he’s making me want to choke myself. Nothing he said just now makes any sense.”

“He's right. I am so lost,” Jaejoong says, not even hesitating to do so despite it being Changmin (of all people) who he agrees with. He takes an irritated stab at the disfigured fried fish on his dinner plate, and then another and another, having quickly lost his appetite when Yoochun suddenly began his random-as-all-hell spiel about colors and bees and mother problems and tomatoes. “Can we please knock him out? He’s annoying me and ruining my mood.”

“Your mood was already ruined,” Yunho sighs with a pout. He looks at Yoochun then – with interest, rather than the frustration Jaejoong and Changmin square him with – and smiles at him like he understands. “Go on with what you were saying, little man. I’m listening.”

Changmin groans loudly, back slithering down further in his seat. “Yunho, please don’t humor him. He’s not being philosophical – he’s high.”

“Higher than a kite,” Jaejoong grumbles. Another stab at the grotesque meal. “You should’ve given him half-a-petal, not the whole damn thing, you moron. Humans can’t handle that much.”

“Evidently,” Changmin snaps in return. He glares at Jaejoong from across the dinner table, fingertips beating against the marble table-top at a jerky and quick rhythm that reflects his discontent. “Humans have never had to take the antidote before. How was I supposed to know it was basically drugging him to the moon?”

“You’re supposed to be the smart one. I’m not paying for your education just for you to be so stupid.”

“I have a scholarship, .”

“Keep that tone of voice with me and I’ll scholarship my fist in your face.”

“I’m not even going to validate that comeback with a response.”

“You just did,” Jaejoong jeers at Changmin’s upturned nose, and points at him with one of his ruby-encrusted chopsticks. “Now who’s the , ?”

“Ladies, please.” Yunho intervenes with his calming voice, and an awkward silence overtakes the expansive dining hall of golden chandeliers and shimmering décor. Jaejoong and Changmin continue to glower at one another, but remain quiet, and Yunho uses the opportunity to speak to Yoochun again. “Little man, aren’t you hungry? You haven’t touched your meal since we got here.”

The three of them look to Yoochun expectantly, waiting to see if he’s regained some sort of cognizance.

“– before people realize how vile tomatoes are and they’re universally banned from being consumed,” Yoochun continues without missing a beat. He’s slumped in his chair, head lolling back and forth with eyes so bloodshot that it looks like his head is going to implode. Jaejoong throws his hands up in exasperation, Changmin’s mood no better, and it’s only Yunho who leans forward in his seat to listen to Yoochun’s nonsensical talk. “All tomatoes do is hurt you. They’re wrong and I hate the fact that they are the same color that I like. Red is too good for tomatoes. Red doesn’t deserve the slander that is the tomato’s existence.”

“How long is this going to last?” Changmin bemoans childishly. Jaejoong tsks but doesn’t answer, not having anything to say (for once), and Yoochun goes on rambling about absolute gibberish that would’ve stayed in his head had he not been so deliriously inebriated.

They had been on their way to Junsu’s castle, the demon excitedly pointing out the immaculate parts of his realm that were along the way, when Yoochun started losing it.

Outside of the fiery stables where the fish-ponies were kept was a garage of expensive cars – at least seventy – that probably would cost Yoochun all of his organs a thousand times over on the black market to afford. Junsu explained (before Changmin translated) that he never actually drove them. They were human objects, things that appeared and disappeared in his realm as time passed and luxuries changed, but he liked the way they looked so he kept them.

Then came the dock where dozens of yachts were tied.

Then multiple buildings, like a small city of warehouses, full of the latest clothes and fashionable brands.

Another row of buildings, stories tall, filled to the brim with the newest and most innovative electronics.

Demons – not as pretty as Junsu, but sharing his gaudy clothes and rose-yellow eyes – passed by them with expensive jewelry hanging from their necks and wrapped around their fingers, diamond watches clasped to their wrists. They gawked at Yoochun in wonder, looking up from their tablets and phones as they laid sight upon a human for the first time in their lives (though not without bowing to their prince first).

And while Yoochun found the entire thing to be freaky, Jaejoong, Yunho, and Changmin seemed used to the endless stares. To the miles of ridiculously costly things around them that would make even the richest man in South Korea gape. They took it all in stride, asking Junsu questions about how he’s been, if his father was still out of town, and casual things like that.

But nothing was casual about being in an entirely different dimension while surrounded by every single item on Earth that everyone wants but few can actually have.

This place wasn’t home to the God of Materialism for nothing. Yoochun felt his already-empty wallet weep in his pocket from just standing there.

Twenty minutes (or so he estimated) into their tour was when Yoochun started to feel...weird. It wasn’t his breathing this time, no. He was breathing fine actually, better than he had in a long time. But one minute he was wiggling his eyebrows at Junsu's as he walked in front of them – "you're not even being subtle," Jaejoong snarled – and the next, he felt as if he were being dunked head-first into a pool of...really thick water (it's hard to explain, goddammit). Then he started to stagger, legs feeling wobbly, and the world around him seemed to tilt out of nowhere – abrupt and dizzying and causing colors to spot Yoochun’s vision.

Changmin's ominous “uh oh” at the sight of him didn’t help him feel the least bit better.

The last coherent thought Yoochun had was of something along the lines of “this feels oddly like the time I ate three edibles in a row,” and then his spirit went s o a r i n g. All of a sudden, Yoochun was on cloud nineteen, mind disturbingly blank and heart beating so wildly in his chest that he was scared it would claw its way out and run away to join the circus.

He distantly felt Yunho catch him before he collapsed, and he whooped at the rush of gravity that overtook him like he was on a rollercoaster. Second by second, it was like he was being dragged further and further away from his own body. Watching it from afar as Yunho and Junsu fretted over him while Jaejoong and Changmin began to argue over who was to blame for getting the human high.

High. That’s what they said he was, isn’t it?

That explained a lot. It explained everything, actually. Like the loose lips, random thoughts, spontaneous urge to marry someone he thought was Satan just a moment ago, and the inability to sit up straight and actually think.

He knew that stupid flower ed with his brain cells, he just knew it. The world owes him some money because he called it, gosh darnit!

Oh, his Bad Luck™. It never fails.

The five of them had to cut their tour short, and rushed to Junsu’s towering castle at the edge of the Realm with a goofed-up Yoochun in tow. In between shouting insults at Jaejoong (what else is new), Changmin said food would probably help him get sober faster ("Maybe. No promises, I'm not a doctor," he disclaimed). Yunho tearfully said it was worth a shot, and Junsu led them all to his dining hall where plates of food were somehow already prepared.

“Tablowfish,” Jaejoong grunted in disgust at the sight of their meal. “A Xiah delicacy even though it looks like some warped Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles .”

Yunho dropped Yoochun into a chair as delicately as possible (sort of) and patted his head. “Here, little man. Eat up. It tastes better than it looks, trust me.”

Meanwhile, Changmin and Junsu were busy whispering to one another, the demon’s face so petrified and worried that – even though he was situated deep on the four-hundred and twentieth plane of reality – Yoochun actually felt giddy at the sight of it. At least someone cared about him. Or looked as if they did, anyways. It actually felt really nice.

A few moments later, after what looked to be some goading on Changmin’s part, Junsu hurriedly left the dining hall. “He’s going to look for something that might help,” he informed them as he took his own seat at the table. “He’s not sure what’ll work, but anything will do if it’ll get this guy to shut up.”

Yoochun didn’t even realize he was revealing his innermost feelings to them (albeit sporadically and without understandable transitions) until Changmin pointed it out. And now here he is, at the head of the table, feeling as if he’s flying and drowning all at the same time in the worst but best possible way imaginable.

Weed and alcohol ain’t compared to this realm’s flowers. No wonder Jaejoong k