Janus

Trouble is never far away.

Kibum wakes up to Darwin clinging to him in search of warmth, his body a furnace.

If he’s this sick, there’s only one reason; the wound is infected. Kibum goes to peel away the thin strip of gauze covering it, but he doesn’t need to. The gauze is sticky and oozing, and Kibum’s uneasy heart starts racing.

“Darwin, wake up,” he says, shaking him when Darwin fails to respond immediately. “Yah, wake up!”

With a groan, Darwin opens his eyes. Then he groans again, this time sounding pained. He reaches for the wound, but Kibum catches his hand before he can touch it.

“Hey, we need to clean your wound. It’s a little dirty.” Kibum avoids the word ‘infection’, because it is such an ominous word, but Darwin seems to have guessed anyway, because he’s wide awake at once, alert. He goes pale when he sees the dirty bandage and looks to Kibum with wide, panicked eyes.

Kibum’s heart skips a beat. What does Darwin expect him to do? Swallowing his fear, Kibum says “It’s not dangerous, don’t worry. We just need to clean it and you’ll be fine. I mean, you see me and not a huge walking steak, right?”

He chatters away while ushering Darwin to the bathroom, hoping to calm them both with his unfunny jokes. It works right until he peels the bandages away to reveal a raw, infected wound; it hits him that he’s the one who did this to Darwin and he feels so sick that his voice fails him.

But Darwin is as sweet as the song Kibum named him after. He pats Kibum’s knee and smiles at him, trying to reassure him when he should be vengeful or angry instead. Kibum’s eyes cloud with tears, but the apology on the tip of his tongue is still too heavy to let fall. It’s hard to apologise when he knows he has to hurt him even more; there’s really no painless way to clean an infected wound.

Darwin bears it all with grace.

This time, Kibum is generous with the antiseptic and gauze. There’s no point trying to preserve everything for a decade if there’s no one to preserve it for.

Sycorax

“Tuna?”

Darwin shakes his head, his mouth curved into an unhappy frown.

Kibum sighs. No matter how much he tries to convince Darwin to eat, no matter what he tempts him with, the boy just shakes his head and tries to hide inside the sheets.

“Look, I know you don’t feel well, but you’re not going to get better if you don’t eat. What about a nice, fresh tomato?”

When the sun goes down and the air becomes cooler, Darwin starts shivering. His fever still hasn’t broken. Kibum isn’t expecting a miracle recovery, but this deterioration worries him more than he dares to admit, even to himself. He’s just a student and all he has is a first-aid kit that is fast depleting. There is nothing he can do for Darwin, no way he can save him.

He can’t lose him too.

Despite not being particularly cold himself, Kibum retrieves one of the heavier winter blankets from the cupboard and wraps them both up in it. He wraps his body around Darwin’s, feeling a little awkward at first. “You’ll be fine,” he says, not knowing who that statement is meant to reassure, Darwin or himself. “This fever just means that your body is fighting the infection. Anyway, there’s a pretty stream about half an hour away from here, have you seen it?”

Darwin doesn’t respond.

“I’ll take you there when you get better. You can hear the stream before you see it, like a soft harp or something. And as you get closer you can smell the water too. It’s not salty like the sea air. And the water is so clear. You can see the rocks at the bottom and if you stand in it, there’s little fish that sometimes nibble at your feet-” Kibum’s voice breaks then.

He buries his face in Darwin’s hair, trying to hold back tears. He barely knows Darwin. It’s only been a handful of days since he came stumbling into Kibum’s life, but the thought of losing him is unbearable.

Concentrating so hard on keeping his tears at bay, Kibum nearly misses the words whispered by a voice that is not his own.

“I’m scared of dying.”

At first, he thinks he imagined it. “Darwin?”

“Mmmh?” Kibum tries to pull away a little, to get a closer look at Darwin’s face, but Darwin follows his movement to keep his face buried in Kibum’s shoulder. “Don’t go.”

“I’m not…” Kibum is reeling with shock. So Darwin can speak after all. Why has he been pretending to be mute? But before he can get lost in the mystery of Darwin’s selective muteness, the full force of what Darwin said hits him. “Yah, you’re not going to die, so there’s nothing to be scared of. I’m here, Eve is here, and we won’t let anything bad happen to you, okay?”

Kibum prays for it to be true.

Iapetus

The new day brings with it new hope – and new grievances.

Kibum’s initial joy at waking up with a fever-free, sweaty and no-longer-delirious Darwin in his arms had soon been replaced by a vague, irrational irritation.

He tries telling himself that Darwin has reasons of his own for not wanting to talk, but it disturbs him nonetheless. He’s been so bereft of conversation since Minho disappeared and whilst Darwin’s presence does alleviate the loneliness somewhat, it doesn’t make up for having another person to speak with. To think that Darwin selfishly received all of the benefit of Kibum’s company and gave so little in return, when it would have cost him nothing. Does Darwin find him funny, Kibum wonders, a fool chattering at someone who can’t be bothered to exchange even a single word with him.

He takes a bath, thinking that it would make him feel better. And it does, for a while. As he dumps dipper after dipper of cold water over himself, carelessly, his frustration melts away. That Darwin is alive and well is all that matters; everything else can be worked out. Maybe he has good reasons for not speaking. After all, Kibum did spear him. Maybe he was afraid, until the fever got rid of his fears. Who knows? He shouldn’t immediately assume the worst.

And then he’d come out of the bathroom to the sight of Darwin rooting through Minho’s drawer.

“What are you doing?” The volume of his own voice shocks Kibum – he’s so used to diminishing his presence that he’s forgotten what it’s like to shout – and Darwin too, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. “Don’t you have any manners? Do you think you can just go through other people’s things without even asking them?”

He strides over and slams the drawer shut, narrowly missing Darwin’s fingers. “You don’t get to touch this, ever!”

Instead of being sorry, Darwin dares to look affronted. As if he isn’t living in Kibum’s house, eating his food and wearing his clothes without having to contribute anything in return.

Kibum pulls his own drawer open, pulls things out at random and tosses them at Darwin. “This, you can use. And wash the clothes you have on now, and dry them too. I’m not your maid.”

Darwin flips the bird at him and slams the bathroom door, as if he only has these avenues to show his displeasure at Kibum; as if he can’t voice his displeasure instead.

So he’s going to keep up this pretense, Kibum thinks, temper flaring. He looks for something to take his anger out on and his eyes land on Eve, who’s standing in the corner of the room with his tail tucked between his legs, and with a rush, that anger turns to shame. He’s not twelve to be reacting like this.

He needs space.

As much as he likes Darwin, being cooped up with someone all day and all night is bound to sour any relationship.

“I’m going out!” Kibum yells – and his temper worsens just that little bit more when he doesn’t get a response from a still-pretending-to-be-mute Darwin.

Outside, the sun is bright and cheerful as if it is personally mocking Kibum.

It’s only been a day since Kibum has been out, but it already feels like an alien terrain. His heart beats an uneasy rhythm and he becomes uncomfortably aware of how exposed he is. All that shouting and banging about, how far would those sounds have carried in a world without the noise of humanity?

Telesto

Tapioca hunting.

It’s a job Kibum despises, but with much guilt. They would probably be dead without the abundance of tapioca that grows wild in the brush surrounding the house; without it, he and Minho would have had to go into the town for food, and there they would have met gruesome ends.

But that might have happened anyway, to Minho. Of the two of them, he is the better man; if any one of them had to die, it should have been Kibum.

Kibum shakes the thought away.

Tapioca.

He hates the taste of it, that floury blandness that persists no matter cooking method he uses. But, whenever it is time to eat, he’s so hungry that the first bite of roasted or boiled or mashed tapioca always tastes like ambrosia. At any other time, though, the memory of its taste makes him want to lie down and give up; if tapioca is all that his future holds, it’s a future he rather not live to see.

As distracted as he is, Kibum wanders far further than he intended to. He only realises it when he comes upon an unfamiliar thicket full of burdock plants; he scolds himself for growing so complacent that he didn't even notice that he'd wandered further than is safe, but he’s also pleased. Burdock root will be a welcome change, Kibum thinks, mind racing with different recipes he can try out with the roots. And he can pick some leaves to brew into tea too.

It’s no easy task, though, harvesting the burdock roots. Kibum pricks his hands on the thorny plants and often times, the roots he so painstakingly turns up are too old to be eaten. He’s not learnt the technique of digging up burdock, so he gets covered in dirt as he carries on and sweat too, thanks to the merciless sun.

Kibum digs until he has amassed more burdock than he can feasibly carry, but he’s still frustrated and the prospect of tramping back in the heat only to be rewarded with the difficult task of making up with Darwin does not appeal at all.

it, Kibum thinks. Minho’s just buggered off somewhere and Darwin is pretending to be mute; why does he always have to be the reasonable, responsible one?

So instead of going back, he takes a hike to the stream. Having both pockets full of burdock doesn’t make the hike easier, but in the end it’s worth it. He wasn’t exaggerating when he described it to Darwin earlier. The gentle flow of the water plays like silver bells even before he comes into sight of the stream. Somehow, the air is lighter here; the heat less oppressive. There is a pleasant scent in the air, one that reminds him of freshly cut grass.

Praying that his luck holds out, Kibum strips down to his underwear and takes a bath in the cool waters. As much as it is going to walking back with wet underwear, there’s no way he’s going to risk running into those things buck .

Alone, his mind turns to Minho.

They used to come to this stream. They would take turns to bathe and keep watch. Minho would always ramble on about how they should follow the stream upriver one day and then maybe they’d find other people who hadn’t been affected, like them.

He misses Minho so much, and yet, not enough.

It’s like a constant headache. It’s there every second of every day, but he’s learnt to push it aside to function. Everything in his very small world reminds him of the generous, loving friend who shared that world with him.

But Minho deserves more than that. Minho, who always gave his all in everything he did, deserves epic grief; floods of tears, the rending of clothes, wailing and ranting at the heavens. He deserves more than the nothing Kibum has given him.

Kibum sighs and dips his head underwater. The cool water washes over him, drowning out his thoughts, but he can only hold his breath for so long.

He’s been so busy taking care of Darwin that he hasn’t even searched for Minho lately. It’s as if he’s easily replaced Minho with Darwin. Minho deserves better than that.

And Darwin deserves better too. Now that his anger has been washed away, Kibum feels ashamed about the way he reacted to Darwin in the morning. His reaction was more of a response to his own guilt and insecurities than it was to Darwin’s innocent trespassing.

For the first time that day, Kibum laughs. He must seem like such a bipolar lunatic to the poor kid.

Chaldene

The sun is setting by the time home comes into sight. Kibum heaves a heavy sigh of relief, finally allowing his tired legs to slow. He can’t believe how careless he had been at the stream, to simply luxuriate in the water with no regard for time as if he weren’t living in some dystopian nightmare.

Poor Darwin must be hungry. Worried, too, Kibum guesses; at least, he would be if their positions were reversed.

The door is unlocked. Unbarricaded.

Kibum’s heart sinks, its weight unbearable.

He whips out his Swiss army knife, that tiny pathetic thing he has had to rely on after he lost his hunting knife, and pushes the door open.

Nothing looks out of place.

The mattress is in the middle of the hall, sheets neatly folded on top of it. Another pile is next to it.

Darwin’s clothes, the ones Kibum had asked him to wash and dry.

The bathroom door is ajar, emptiness yawning out.

The kitchen is untouched, the back undisturbed.

There is no sign of Darwin or Eve.

Pallene

If burdock roots could talk, these ones would laugh at him. He can’t eat them raw and he can’t be faffing about in the kitchen with no lights, so there’s nothing to do but to put them in the empty pot and stare at them. It’s so frustrating to live like this, like a caveman, bound by the sun and whims of nature.

Lonely and hungry, Kibum curls up on the mattress and hopes that sleep, at least, will give him some respite. It feels too large, too empty, for his body to rest. Minho wasn’t much of a cuddler, but Darwin was, and Kibum misses them both so badly it aches like a physical wound.

Something creaks.

Kibum ignores it. The house is old and large and full of things that creak all the time. He’d learnt long ago not to jump at every little sound it makes.

Then he hears it again, in the same place.

It’s still not cause for alarm, but now Kibum is alert.

This time, it’s a different sound, like rats skittering; it’s very much the sound of something moving rather than an old house creaking.

Kibum stands up, panicking. There are no rats here. He’s never heard this sound before. And whatever is making it is alive – or was.

The Swiss army knife in his hand feels wholly inadequate. Kibum curses himself for not taking a knife from the kitchen earlier. Maybe he was wrong to assume that Darwin and Eve left by choice, or that they left at all. It’s too bad that this realisation is coming too late.

A rattle. A loud, purposeful rattle. It’s in the ceiling right above the room, and it’s trying to get in.

With his heart hammering wildly in his chest, Kibum backs away from the source of the sound. Should he make a run for it, he wonders.

The ceiling opens. Kibum’s knees nearly give way. He’s lived here for so long and he hadn’t even realised that there was a secret door on the ceiling, what an idiot he has been.

Something moves out of the darkness of the ceiling, two long, pale things.

Arms, Kibum realises, holding some large, wriggling rodent.

It’s like something from a horror movie; disembodied, spectral arms unleashing eldritch horrors into a badly lit room with a cornered protagonist. Kibum would run, but his legs feel like jelly. He’s not even sure if he can find the strength to swing his knife at the thing.

The wriggling rodent drops to the ground and runs right at Kibum. He readies himself to be mauled and raises his knife. It yips – a happy sound – and that’s when Kibum recognises the creature, the one he’d been so scared of, as Eve. Not a moment later, Darwin’s head peeks out of the hole in the ceiling, his long red hair giving him away instantly.

All of a sudden, Kibum feels exhausted. He’s relieved, yes, but he can’t take much more excitement like this before his heart or sanity gives out altogether. Absent-mindedly, he puts his knife away and pets Eve, giving the little dog the attention he’s begging for while his heart rate finds its way back to normal.

Darwin gracefully drops from the ceiling and goes to the pot first, brows scrunching in confusion when he sees the still-covered-in-earth burdock roots instead of dinner.

“Yah, what the do you think you’re doing?” Kibum’s voice comes out far less authoritative than he would like; he’s still recovering from fright. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

At least Darwin has the good grace to look sheepish.

“Did you break the ceiling?”

Darwin pulls an exasperated face, as if the question isn’t a reasonable one. When Kibum doesn’t give, he shakes his head and tugs Kibum’s hand and pulls him right under the opening, and now Kibum can see that it’s actually an trapdoor that leads to the roof. It must have been made to allow workers to access the plumbing or electrical works. Kibum supposes that if he were left alone in an empty house all day long with nothing to do, this would be the sort of thing he’d discover as well.

Darwin climbs on the dresser and hauls himself up into the opening.

“Okay, I get it. Can you come back now?”

Apparently, Kibum doesn’t get it, because Darwin drops through and tugs at his arm again, pointing at the trapdoor. Kibum has half a mind to tell him to use his words when he finally understands what the other wants.

“Oh, no way. It’s not safe. You shouldn’t have gone up there and I have no interest in stumbling about the dark.”

Darwin tugs his arm again, more insistently.

“Look, we can go up together tomorrow, okay?”

Darwin shakes his head, insistent.

“I have to see it tonight?” Kibum asks, to clarify, and Darwin nods eagerly. Kibum sighs; Darwin really has him wrapped around his little finger, seeing how Kibum is actually contemplating climbing up into the roof with him. He doesn’t know what’s so interesting about plumbing or non-functional electrical lines that Darwin has to show him right now, but if it’ll appease him Kibum is willing to play along. As long as Darwin doesn’t show him a family of rats or something, he’ll be fine.

“Fine, you go first, I’ll follow.”

It’s endearing, the way Darwin’s face lights up when he says that. Little er, Kibum thinks, getting his way just because he’s cute. He quells his fear of the dark and hoists himself through the trapdoor after Darwin.

Pitch darkness.

That’s all there is. Kibum freezes, dropping to his hands and knees. “Hey, maybe this isn’t such a good idea-” he says, when he hears shuffling and a clammy hand pats his shoulder, searching its way to his wrist. He waits, bemused, until he’s tugged forward. He allows Darwin to lead him like this, the two of them crawling through the secret space like moles.

Being deprived of sight, Kibum’s other senses grow stronger. He can smell dust; old dust, the sort that has been undisturbed for years until it forms a cottony blanket over everything. He can hear every sound their movements make; the scrape of their clothed knees over the wooden flooring, their breaths, the quiet tap of Darwin’s fingernails on wood as he finds his way to whatever he’s looking for.

Because of his heightened sensitivity, Kibum smells the change in the air – it’s sharper, lighter – before he sees the skylight, cracked open, revealing a sliver of the night sky.

He freezes, panicked, before he regains his senses and pulls his hand out of Darwin’s grasp. “What the do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, aware that the sound of his voice might carry outside. “Do you think we barricade the doors and windows for fun? Close that thing now, it’s not safe!”

Darwin doesn’t listen to his warning. He finds Kibum’s hand again and pulls at him, gently, as if he’s trying to coax a frightened animal out of its hiding place. Kibum hates this, being patronised by a boy who doesn’t understand that Kibum’s only survived this long because he’s so careful.

He almost yanks his hand out of Darwin’s grasp again, ready to go back down, when a voice at the back of his head stops him. Is it worth it, it asks, to have been so careful? To outlive Minho? To live in a self-imposed cage? If these are really his last days, how does he want to live them?

He allows Darwin to lead him out.

The skylight creaks when Darwin pushes it open; its hinges have rusted from disuse. The rood outside slopes gently, so his shaking legs find solid purchase. Darwin only walks a step or two away from the skylight and sits down, patting the space next to him.

Kibum sits. He’s terrified, afraid to look up from the roof or his knees, and he can feel his breaths coming quicker and quicker. His instincts are screaming at him; that he’s out in the open, that he can be seen, that he’s going to die. But a second passes, and then another. And another and nothing happens. Kibum finds the strength to take a few deep breaths, to release the tension in his limbs and slow his racing heart.

The air is sweet. That’s the first thing he really notices. It’s light and sweet, and he takes a deeper breath. The air in the house is trapped and still, and a little smoky from the small fire he keeps for light and warmth, but out here, the air is cool and refreshing.

Now, he dares look up. It’s surprising how much light there is. He can see Darwin clearly. He can see down the side of the house, into the wet kitchen he goes to when he wants a moment of peace and over it’s walls into the shrubbery outside the house. He can see the forest caping the hill and the highway, circling it, that leads into town. And beyond that, he can see the dark, glittering waters of the sea, where it merges with the night sky.

Kibum looks up. The sky is scattered with an abundance of stars, like someone spilled an entire bucket of paint over a dark canvass. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. It’s the Milky Way, he realises absently, understanding now why it was named thus. It stretches above them, vast, and yet it feels like he can touch it if he finds a tree that's tall enough. 

How long he stares up, Kibum doesn’t know, but when he finally brings himself back to earth, Darwin is there, looking at him with such fondness that Kibum can’t bear to meet his eyes.

“Thank you,” he chokes out. It’s such an inadequate phrase for his gratitude, for this gift that Darwin has given him, but he doesn’t have anything else to say.

Darwin shifts closer, until they’re shoulder to shoulder, and they sit together in companiable silence. No words are needed to appreciate the beauty of the world they’re lucky enough to see.

Which is why Kibum almost misses it when Darwin does speak.

“My name is Taemin.” Kibum turns to look at him, but Darwin’s – Taemin’s – gaze is fixed in the distance. His cheeks are flushed, as if he’s embarrassed.

Kibum nods, making sure that Taemin can see him. He wants to know why Taemin waited so long to speak to him, why he kept his silence when it almost got him killed, but those are questions for a different time.

“I thought I was the only one left,” Taemin says. “Me and Eve. I’m… I’m so happy that you found me. I know I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, and I’ve taken up so much resources-”

Kibum wraps his arm around Taemin’s shoulders, silencing him. “I’m glad I found you too, despite the whole stabbing thing.”

“Is it okay if I stay with you?”

Kibum’s only known Taemin for a few days, but he knows his heart would break if Taemin were to leave. He knows that Taemin is the only reason he’s survived so long after Minho’s disappearance. In time, he knows, he’ll come to value Taemin’s life as much as his own. There is nothing in this world that would get him to say no. But to Taemin, he just says “That would make me very happy.”

XXXXX

hiya everyone! 

this was a fun little fic to write. i can't really remember now what inspired me to write it, but it turned out pretty well, i guess. as always, do comment and let me know what you think, what worked and what didn't etc. 

to my dear friend, i hope it's okay that your birthday present was completed so late T.T. 

love, 

sherleigh