Jongin had amassed an embarrassing collection of carved birds in varying positions of song and flight since the first time that he had laid eyes on the young lord that sang in the King’s palace. He had been barely thirteen back then, only on his second visit to the bustling city market place since beginning his apprenticeship under his father. 

“Try to put the more practical items towards the front” Jinki was saying as he lay out the large wooden bowls and some tall vases. “Just behind, you can put the prettier pieces. Like these little friends here.” He cooed down at two wooden tigers, anchored to the same base as they reared up on their hind legs as if preparing to engage in a dance. The elder Kim had a great love for all manner of cats of any size, but tigers were his favorite muse. 

“Remember, a lot of the other merchants who come to the market bring exotic wares from all over the country and even outside of Korea. We can’t compete with them in gaudiness, and few people come to the market in search of art in the first place. So we lure their eyes with more functional items, and trap them with everything else.”

Jongin chose not to repeat his mother’s utterances; That Jinki’s charming smile and often bare arms lured many a young lady in all on their own. 

“Father, why do we bother to come to the market? We get plenty of work on the weekdays, and mother says that proper carpenters shouldn’t be making silly baubles.”

“Your grandfather would disagree,” said Jinki, unbothered by his wife’s disparaging comments. “He used to say that anyone who can give their dreams and fantasies a form that the rest of the world can appreciate is an artist. And this, my handsome son,” he gave his tigers one last loving before laying them out with the rest of the pieces on the mantle, “I would argue is art. Silly baubles can be found and sold anywhere, but it’s not every day you get to give your dream a tangible form and share it with others.”

The boy thought about this and hummed noncommittally. He didn’t fully understand what his father was saying, but he would not argue with wisdom that supposedly came from his grandfather. Though Jongin could barely remember the man, thoughts of him often brought the boy a warm and comfortable feeling. 

Two older women had stopped in front of their kiosk to admire a small wooden kitchen stool, the legs carved to look like waves supporting a curved shell of a seat. They glanced up the market and muttered to each other behind their hands as they perused the woodworker’s items.

“He is quite the little thing, though, isn’t he? Looks barely old enough to have lost all of his teeth.”

“Well you know what they say, the smallest of spiders can have the most poisonous bite. I’ve heard that he tried to enchant the palanquin carriers when they were bringing him over. Four grown men almost drowned themselves in the river, encouraged by the words of the child. Oh, what a lovely stool!”

“ What?! Just with his voice? Why, that can’t be! Were that true they wouldn’t let him anywhere near the imperial city, much less in the King’s very home!”

“I’m just telling you what I’ve heard!” The first woman sulked, having moved on to inspecting Jinki’s tigers. “They say the mask he wears is enchanted by the palace priest, so he cannot use his Magic when he wears it.”

“But he can’t really sing with that thing on, now can he? Who is it saying all of these things, anyway? You are spending too much time in the tea houses, unnie, listening to all those bored old sows prattle nonsense. Oh, don’t sulk now! Look, wouldn’t this be lovely above your fire place?”

She pointed at a wooden dragon Jongin had helped his father finish only a day earlier, thin whiskers trailing the length of the serpentine body and scales that shone with dark veneer. The women were easily sidetracked as they doted over the dragon and asked Jinki about prices for the little ocean bench as well. Jongin had listened to their whole conversation and was blistering with curiosity. Someone else with Magic, in the King’s palace? Were he older and wiser, he might have been struck with the appropriate fear of such an implication. Many times his own mother had warned him of how he might be captured and sold to the King, or far worse, if anyone ever discovered his abilities. But as it was he only felt a childish curiosity about this other person that might be like himself. 

Jongin had not noticed how loud the marketplace truly was until suddenly it began to quite. Not into total silence, but as if a blanket had been thrown over a group of babbling children and their din was still present, but muffled. The two women who had been in the middle of pulling out their coin purses immediately began to nudge each other excitedly and, had Jongin been looking at him, he would have seen his father make a comic attempt at reigning in a rather impatient expression. 

But the boy’s attention, like most of the market’s, was captured by the group of finely dressed people making their way slowly down the wider main road. Four men in the green uniforms of palace guards stood around two smaller figures and as they got closer Jongin recognized them as boys around his own age. 

“Well, it hardly looks like an enchanted mask, does it?” The women began to mutter again.

“Were you expecting some sort of muzzle? Look at all those guards, for only a child!”

That, Jongin realized, must be the Magic boy.   

It was like a wave of silence was moving through the crowd with the boys at the crest of it. They moved without stopping at any of the stalls and as they got closer Jongin could make them out more clearly. The two boys moved close together and Jongin wondered how they did not stumble over each others' robes. As if tripped by his very thoughts, one of the boys suddenly stumbled forward. He was small, but not as small as his companion, and his hair was cut unevenly to hang around his face and fall just above his shoulders. His face was thin and small featured, like the fairy children Jongin’s sisters loved to tell stories about. He looked nervous and the tips of his fingers peeked from the wide sleeves of his hanbok, traveling restlessly from clasping in front of him to moving up around his mouth as his eyes seemed to try to look everywhere at once. 

The smaller boy had slightly longer hair that was braided neatly away from his face, which was lowered to the ground so Jongin couldn’t make out his features. Jongin could only see that what looked like a scarf, or a piece of cloth, covered the lower half of his face. There was something tired in his gait, shoulders slumped forward as if the little body could barely support the weight of the opulent robes draped over it. 

The group was just passing the woodworkers stall when a confident and familiar voice shouted over Jongin’s shoulder, so loud in the otherwise quite market it startled Jongin and caused the nervous looking boy with the unkept hair to give an impressive jump.

“Hello, my little Lord!” Shouted Jinki. The guards leveled him suspicious looks but the carpenter payed them no mind, friendly smile focused at the young boy in blue who only barely tilted his head in acknowledgement. “A beautiful day to visit the market, but it seems nothing yet has caught your eye. Would you honor our stall with a visit? Perhaps you will find something calling to you.”

For a moment, the little lord didn’t move and the boy by his side casted nervous glances back and forth from the stall owner and back to his companion. Jongin was just thinking that the other Magic boy was very rude when he finally lifted his head. 

For the first time in all his young years, Jongin felt the presence of his heart in his chest. It was heavy, it was large, and it hurt throughout all of his body.

The little lord did indeed have a mask covering his nose, mouth, and chin. But beneath a pair of inquisitive eyebrows were the most beautiful eyes Jongin had ever seen and he wished it had been him, and not his father, who had called out for the other boy’s attention. As it was, the boy barely spared him a glance as he took small steps towards the mantle of wooden figures and peered down at them as someone might look into a pond if they are afraid of falling in. 

The two old women who had been this entire time loitering at the stall began to make quite a show of admiring the bench that had first brought them in and eagerly handing over the money for the dragon. Jinki winked at them and they giggled as they stepped back, looking as pleased as if they had been the ones to pull in the young lord’s attention. But the boy seemed unimpressed and only roved his eyes over the blanket, brows now smoothed out and what could be seen of his expression impassive. 

“That’s quite pretty, Master Do,” said the nervous boy, who Jongin realized must be some sort of attendant. He was pointing at a handheld mirror, handle engraved with flowers and one large and splendid beetle, its wings just beginning to unfurl. Jinki had carved the body and Gwiboon had fitted the glass to it. It was secretly one of Jongin’s favorite pieces because seldom did his mother show any kind of interest in the so called baubles they sold at the market. 

The small boy in the heavy blue robes only lifted one shoulder and gestured at the closest guard to give the coin purse to the nervous young attendant.

“An excellent choice, my little lords,” said Jinki with a wink at the two young men as he wrapped the mirror in a glossed piece of parchment. “It was my wife’s skillful hands that finished this mirror so beautifully. These callous fingers are only good for carving wood; fitting glass takes a more gentle touch.”

He handed the mirror over to the small attendant who received it with a small bow and both hands. Before he had even straightened up, his companion had already turned away from the carpenter’s mantle and begun to move along the market again, guards falling into formation around him. 

To this day, Jongin doesn’t remember deciding to move, but suddenly his wrist had been caught in the strong grip of one of the grown men as his fingers barely brushed the silken blue threads of the little lord’s hanbok. The boy’s glassy black eyes had turned to regard Jongin, question clear in them. He waved his hand to the guard who let Jongin go but did not move completely away, still half shielding the boys in blue. 

“You-“ Jongin’s voice came out raspy, his throat dry. He coughed once to clear it.

“You didn’t pick anything for yourself.”

The boy’s eyes had flit from the blanket back to Jongin’s face. He lifted one thick eyebrow. Jongin reached into the deep pockets of his worker’s pants.  For the first time in his life he’d thought of how shabby he must look. 

When he uncurled his fist before the young lord, the wooden rabbit that had been his first ever work was sitting peacefully in his palm. He had only grabbed it on a whim before leaving his house that day, but was sure then that this must be why it had caught his eye that day of all days. The detail had not faded over the years, silvery whiskers and soft eyes as clear as they were almost ten years before. 

“It’s a gift. To remember your first time at the market.”

The little lord did not move and Jongin felt his face beginning to heat up. One of the guards turned away and coughed to hide his laugh at the little carpenter’s expense. Jongin’s fingers began to curl back around the rabbit and he looked down in shame, but a smaller and much paler palm reached out to cup the back of his hand, holding it up before it could retreat back to the carpenter’s pocket.

The little lord’s skin was soft against Jongin’s calloused knuckles as he reached out and took the rabbit with his other hand. He inspected it and its delicate head with a finger before inclining his head at Jongin in the smallest of bows. Then he’d retreated his hand, turned his back, and begun to walk away again with the nervous attendant at his heels. 

“Nice try, kid,” snorted the guard that had caught his hand. “Don’t aim too high or you won’t survive the fall.” The man left to follow the rest of the group, not waiting for Jongin to respond or even understand his words. 

Jinki said nothing when his son returned to sit at his side, but there was a knowing smile on the woodworker’s face. That night, after the two Kim’s had packed their things and returned home, Jongin had forgone dinner to sit outside with the worn whittling knife that still held the indents of old Donghae’s fingers on its handle and had begun to carve. He stayed out there until the sky turned purple above him with the waking of the sun and when he was done, a small wooden bird extended its wings once before stilling in his palm. 

***

Baekhyun and Lord Do make good on their promise to return to the market the next day. 

Jongin had been anxious all morning, part of him waiting hopefully while the stronger half of his subconscious wished they would not come. The resolve he had the night before when he had finished his carving wavered endlessly back and forth. As often happened when the singing lord would not leave his mind, Jongin had looked down into his palms hours after he had returned home from the market to find a beautiful wooden bird nested in his hands. Its wings were half unfurled from its wooden body, primary feathers long and tapered at the ends, and its head thrown back in silent song. The ruffled feathers of its small chest buffed out, as if the bird had just inhaled in preparation to sing. Its eyes were familiarly wide and doe shaped, human-like in their brightness. Of the numerous figurines Jongin had ever gifted to the young lord, the birds he had inspired had never been among them. The words of the guard that had not made sense to the juvenile Jongin now haunted the young man constantly. 

Don’t aim too high, you won’t survive the fall 

Such a tangible display of his affections for the lord would be too bold, too obvious.

But after the implications Baekhyun had so casually made yesterday Jongin couldn’t help but feel that he had been plenty obvious already. And somehow he’d also become hopeful…. After all, Lord Do did not visit any other stall with such frequency as the carpenter’s, and the attention that he always gave Jongin, the attempts at conversation even if through a mediator. It had to mean something? 

The singer seldom came to the market two days in a row. If he did return, truly just for the sake of seeing what Jongin had not finished the day before, the young carpenter had decided he would give the bird to the lord. A silent and vague expression of his admiration.

By the time the young Lord and his attendant are standing before the carpenter’s stall Jongin had worked himself almost into a frenzy, shedding his outer robe to keep from sweating through it. 

“Jongin-ssi,” purrs Baekhyun, looking even more smug than usual, “You seem not to be feeling the chill today.”

As usual, Jongin barely pays him any mind. He misses the days when the boy would bumble and blush when he visited the carpenter’s stall.

“It is not often I get the pleasure of seeing you twice in a week, My Lord,” he addresses the other boy. The singer ducks his head almost shyly and Jongin tries not to smile stupidly. Baekhyun snorts behind his hand.

“You are not the only one who has been deprived these few weeks,” mutters Baekhyun under his breath. Jongin is slightly confused by the words and the way Lord Do treads heavily on the attendants toes. He signs something to the attendant who scowls as he translates, favoring the leg that had not been stomped on.

“‘It has been a while that I have not breathed the air outside the palace walls. And I was left with the curiosity of what you were making yesterday’” Baekhyun almost sneers. Jongin feels his cheeks heat up and stoops his own face to hide a pleased smile.

“Your interest in my work flatters me, My Lord.”

“More like interest in your-umf!” Jongin looks up only in time to catch the attendant doubling over to grab at his stomach, expression contorted in pain. The Lord sidesteps his whimpering companion to kneel before Jongin, the movement of his robes causing a wave of jasmine and sandalwood to waft over Jongin and he begins to feel ashamed of how he must smell of sweat and wood shavings. If Lord Do notices, though, he does not make any indication and instead looks at Jongin expectantly over his mask, gesturing towards him. The carpenter stares at him for a moment, dumb from having the other man so close, before he realizes what the lord must be waiting for. 

It’s now or never, Jongin, his flustered mind supplies. He can only have you arrested if you offend him.

This thought gives him pause for a moment, not having occurred to him before. But his treacherous body seems to have already made up its mind and he watches as if from outside his body as his own dark hand reaches for the box where the newest addition to his collection of birds is hiding. 

Somehow Lord Do seems almost more nervous than Jongin himself, his pale fingers fidgeting in his lap and eyes unable to stay on the carpenter’s face for too long. Ever since they were children Jongin had never witnessed Lord Do lacking confidence; The other boy always commanded himself with a silent confidence apparent in his straight back and unwavering gaze. But now even the tips of his ears are tinged red as he reaches for the box Jongin proffers out to him. Though, reasons the carpenter, that could be from the air that has begun to grow colder and colder as the Fall settles in. 

He swallows nervously as the lord opens the box and glances inside. For a moment, he seems to have no reaction and Jongin panics, wondering if he’d handed over the wrong box in his nervousness and now the object of his affection was staring into insulting emptiness. But then Lord Do places the box on the floor between them so that he can use both hands to lift out the wooden figurine. The bird that had seemed so small in Jongin’s tan palm expands the entire length of the Lord’s hand and the carpenter’s heart aches longingly at the sight. The other man inspects the figure as if it were made of glass rather than wood, expression softening with every feature he discovers until there is a suspicious wetness in his eyes. He traces one delicate finger under the arc of a doe eye he undoubtedly recognizes and Jongin feels the panic welling in him again. Perhaps he has somehow offended the other man, capturing his likeness in the beast he is so often compared to. For the first time, Jongin realizes with horror that the lord might not be so fond of the monicker the towns people had come up with for him, ‘Song Bird’. He expects the man to toss the creature back in the box, maybe sign at Baekhyun to tell him off, or worse, get up and leave without any signs at all. Instead he is transported to eight years ago when a pale, unblemished palm reaches out to cup the back of his own hand. He stares down dumbly, his numb mind only noticing once more the difference in the size of their hands. His eyes move from the ivory knuckles to a thin wrist that is swallowed by splendid blue silk, then traveling up his sleeves to meet Lord Do’s moved expression where he is held captive. Shining back from his favorite eyes in the world is only gratitude and maybe something else. Though that could also be a mix of Jongin’s wishful thinking and the reflection in his own eyes. 

Suddenly, the lord gives a startled jump and Baekhyun, who had crept in to peek over his master’s shoulder, gasps audibly in shock. Jongin is ripped from his daze and looks at the two in confusion before following their stricken gazes to the wooden bird in the Lord’s palm.

The wooden bird that had begun to flutter its wooden wings and throw up its wooden head in delight, throat obviously working over a song though no noise escaped its beak. Jongin chokes in horror and instinctively tries to wrench his hand away from Lord Do as the bird finally stills back to its original position. However the soft hand closes around his with a surprisingly strong grip and Jongin looks up into intense eyes. The deep onyx orbs seem to search Jongin’s face for answers to questions the woodworker can only guess at. The silent exchange can’t last more than a few seconds with Jongin’s heart pounding so distractingly in his ear he cannot even think to control his expression. Lord Do squeezes Jongin’s hand before he retracts his grip to once more cup the bird in both hands and put it gently back into the box, closing the lid with finality. He inclines his head daintily and signs something to Baekhyun, having to nudge the assistant and sign again as the other was still staring stupidly at the air where the bird was only a moment before, jaw unhinged. The attendant stutters into action, all his usual confidence whipped away for a moment as his eyes flit all over the market place.

“Uh, mhmph,” He clears his throat, “ ‘As usual, your work is without compare, Jongin-ssi. Thank you for yet another beautiful piece.’”

The woodworker opens and closes his mouth soundlessly, only able to respond with a dumb nod as the two males clad in blue stand. The Lord cradles the box to his chest as if it holds the most precious of secrets. Jongin swallows heavily as the other man once more inclines his upper body in a slight bow. Baekhyun repeats the motion more stiffly behind him. His expression has graduated from dumb shock to something like understanding and, to Jongin’s confusion and horror, scheming delight.