Chapter 1
sorry souls of thoseJinki scrubs at his hair, while an angel sits on the stool outside.
“It’s only polite,” they had said, scoffing. Jinki didn’t think angels were supposed to scoff, but Kibum was a very particular kind of angel, he had learned. In any case, Jinki had agreed it was a polite expectation, and stepped into the shower with a sigh of relief. His worn body welcomed the heat.
“That was very brave of you,” cuts through the sound. Jinki blinks the water out of his eyes. Kibum never does quite mean exactly what they say.
Brave - ah - he thinks he sees where this is going.
“The lifeguard was already there,” Kibum continues.
Brave means reckless.
Reckless means stupid.
(The thing with Kibum is that stupid never does mean stupid. It means, I care about you, I’m worried about you, I think you’ll hurt yourself and I can’t bear it.)
So, Jinki ultimately pulls the curtain back to peek at Kibum, and isn’t surprised to find them irritated, the fabric at their shoulders pinched and plucked up like a hissing cat.
The angel looks back at him and waves their hand.
“Don’t give me that look.”
“I’m not giving you a look,” Jinki says, but he withdraws nonetheless. He folds his fingers into each other, soaping up carefully to get any lingering sand.
Briefly, he thinks of Kibum standing at the shoreline, their mouth working to a scream no one but him would hear.
“I can’t believe you’re trying to lie to me. Do you have any self-preservation?” Kibum says. Their voice drops to a mutter. “I can literally see your soul.”
Jinki hums, amused. Perhaps if Kibum wasn’t so Kibum, the concept of an ethereal being seeing every notch and curve of his soul would bother him. But at this point, it’s hard to feel anything they say as a threat.
The strange thing was, that Jinki was not particular religious, or spiritual. But no one sees Kibum, besides him. No picture, or video, renders their face. They say goodbye to Jinki in Seoul, and greet him in Daegu. They know Jinki’s every secret wish and fear.
(He had relented and asked Kibum what they would call themselves.
Angel, they had said. The smile that played at their lips was a little smart, a little nervous. Like there was any other option?
“I don’t know,” Jinki had said innocently. “Alien with cloaking tech?”
The look on Kibum’s face had been so affronted Jinki burst out laughing in his cubicle, transforming it into a fake fit of coughing.)
Jinki had gotten himself checked out as discreetly as possible, just in case, but there was nothing indicating he had lost grip on reality.
So he, ordinary office worker, had a guardian angel. A bout of what Kibum deemed silly politeness had gotten them to concede a full name - Kim Kibum - and Jinki held onto that that, wondering if it was fake or if they had been a human at some point.
“Your skin’s going to get wrinkly,” Kibum says, breaking into his thoughts. “I declare as the guide for your immortal soul, that proper skincare is a moral imperative.”
Jinki glances at the tips of his fingers. Uncanny.
“I’d think that’d be vanity,” he says, but he sticks his hand out in a silent request. The towel lands in it after a moment. He turns off the water with one hand and then wraps the towel around his waist.
Just because Kibum has a view of his immortal soul, doesn’t mean he can have a view of his very mortal body.
“Most sins are just the extremes of good habits,” Kibum admits as Jinki steps out. “Nothing wrong with a little self-care.”
“Or a lot,” Jinki suggests back and gets a returning smile. For an angel, Kibum has a lot of opinions on things like human hygiene and wardrobe. Less so is the inclination for good deeds, or quiet contemplation.
Jinki figures that this is because he already was doing these things on his own. Kibum wouldn’t bear to be a redundant guardian angel, unneeded and only there to validate someone else’s decisions. Frankly, Jinki thinks this makes more sense than any other concept of a guardian angel he’s heard. It makes sense when Kibum argues with him about the things he does, or tells him to do the things Jinki’d never do for himself.
Even if it doesn’t end up changing Jinki’s mind, it gets Jinki’s mind working , making life more interesting than it would have been by himself. An angel like Kibum is like a thought experiment.
(They’d probably hate that, if Jinki voices it, because Jinki isn’t especially good with his words, and Kibum wields words like a knife. But he thinks they’d get it, eventually, and smile.)
(Jinki especially wouldn’t voice this thought: when Kibum smiles, he can see the human they must have been. Brave and sweet; sensitive and stubborn.)
And that’s how it is today, Kibum prickling at Jinki running into the water at the beach, a small girl in over her head, her parents nowhere to be seen. A lifeguard that Jinki knew was there, yes, but why did he do emergency training at university if not to use it?
Bravery is recklessness is stupidity is what if your training wasn’t good enough and you both drowned? as Jinki dries his hair, as the sand is carried down to clog up the pipes.
He pushes his meandering thoughts, knowing they will find no conclusion, but they come back like a swinging door.
A thought experiment, and a balance, is what Kibum is. Kibum who scoffs and puts themselves in front of all the weak, struggling spots of Jinki’s all-too-fragile heart. Who, when he gets too self-sacrificing, when he puts others’ needs above his own, and ends up suffering for it.
Why did Jinki let himself be worked to the bone? Why did he give up all his energy, all his time, for maybe-friends who didn’t even thank him?
If it was just Jinki trying to wrestle with those thoughts, alone in his head, he wouldn’t be able to function, too tripped up in his own anxiety and self-doubt.
But he’s not alone. He pulls the towel away from his face and Kibum is looking at him, a curious expression on their face.
Angel, and all that.
All these unvoiced thoughts, they already know, and they just keep being there for Jinki, making his life better.
“I think you should get some food,” Kibum says abruptly, breaking their gaze. “And by you, I mean, me vicariously living through you. And I think you want pasta.”
Jinki laughs softly to himself. Their appetite being so particular is hardly a surprise.
Ah, here’s the thing about appetites. About hunger, and about consumption.
You want something that is ripe.
Centuries can pass, without this kind of opportunity. Kibum knows Jinki’s soul. They know how it makes them salivate, the sheer good in it. If they could have, they would have ripped it out of his body on first scenting. They would have lived on its bounty for centuries more.
But no soul can be ripped out, without loosening. If Kibum tried for it now, when Jinki’s soul has never been in question, by himself or by others, it would simply kill him.
Kibum needs him alive, just - less certain. They need Jinki to be thought of with scorn or disgust or pity or anything that makes him less than human. The wonders of public opinion would do all that needed to be done, and then Kibum could feast out of the chalice of his broken body.
Jinki does a spin in his office chair and startles Kibum out of their thoughts. Clearly noticing, he half-smiles at the demon in apology and asks what they want for dinner.
Kibum thinks about the busy market a few blocks away, but before they can respond, a co-worker steps through Kibum and breathlessly asks Jinki for some help on a report.
It’s Jinki’s lunch, but he agrees nonetheless.
Kibum thinks the tortures of hell have nothing to compare to the wash of gratitude from the other man, how it latches Jinki’s soul even tighter to his body.
(They glare hatefully at the other man, knowing that Jinki forgot to grab breakfast this morning too.)
Their target is kind, effortlessly and publicly kind, and, worse yet, has no ambition to exploit. Kibum leans over the pair and half-listens to how Jinki gently corrects and deflects the younger man’s protestations and flattery.
If Kibum could have gotten to him sooner, younger, they’re sure they could have made him a figure in the public sphere.
He could have been tainted and halfway to hell by now, with Kibum setting the table.
Jinki’s scheduled lunch passes, so Kibum joins him down in the building cafeteria for a few minutes instead. They watch Jinki thank the worker politely. He navigates the maze of chairs and tables and lets others pass when there’s a jam.
He stumbles into his chair and makes a corny joke about the stew. Kibum fights back a smile, because they’ve been at this too long, because only a demon who’s completely lost their senses would laugh at their starvation.
Jinki notices their withdrawl, because of course he does. He has managed to notice everything about Kibum except the part where they’re trying to destroy him. He changes to one of Kibum’s favorite pastimes - making up backstories for passersby - and speculates into a waiting silence.
Kibum indulges him, and doesn’t manage to hold back a smile this time.
Take their truancy up with a judge. Demons aren’t supposed to be role models.
A regular iteration on a theme:
“You can’t just drop everything to help him out.”
“It wouldn’t be everything, it would be - “
“Too much. Even I can see that. You need sleep, for one, you haven’t slept for more than 3 hours a night this entire week.”
“....I’ll catch up tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow when you were going to put in applications? That tomorrow?”
“I - I could.”
“You shouldn’t. what he thinks if you say no.”
“Okay, okay…I’ll tell him next time.”
“No, just tell him off, he can’t bring this to you on short notice. He knows how busy you are.”
“Kibum, I’m not going to just tell him to off.”
“Don’t tell him ‘next time’, then. At least that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Kibum.”
“....I just don’t want to be your alarm clock again, it’s making me feel guilty just seeing you wake up.”
“Sure.”
A touch to the arm. A smile that they don’t want to return, but gets tugged out of them. Like a rotted tooth being pulled for its own good.
At worst, Jinki’s soul is a little smudged. They should just get out, leave this as the one that got away.
But -
but -
Kibum can’t remember the last time someone touched them without wanting something. Smiled at them without expectation.
It should be more of an affirmatively move, dumping a reunion with old friends like this.
(Kibum had put claws around friends, only barely metaphorical, when discussing it with Jinki.)
They’ll take the apologetic declination, pleased as they can be for that much. The cab pulls up in front of Jinki’s apartment. When he gets in, he pauses before leaving the door open, feigning a conversation with the driver about traffic.
Kibum tilts their head and smiles, because Jinki is improving as a liar. Behind his back, he’s tapping his fingers against the seat, asking Kibum to join him.
They hardly have to, but it won’t do any harm. It could even help, making sure Jinki doesn’t do something stupid like apologize more for taking a night for himself. Worse, he could tell the driver a different set of directions entirely.
(Would Jinki do that? Kibum’s pretty certain not, but they slide into the backseat regardless. Jinki smiles briefly at them from the side before flipping his phone camera on. He angles it up, and his face down, so Kibum can see his hidden, wider smile.)
“Would you close the door?” the driver says, impatience lining his voice. Jinki lets out a small noise of apology, and then scoots closer to Kibum.
“Sorry,” he says, loudly, then another “sorry”, softly and just for Kibum, when he reaches across the span of their chest, when no one but each other knows the points of contact between their bodies.
Jinki withdraws and radiates warmth, glowing in soft pleasure as the driver pulls away from the curb.
Kibum holds onto a sigh. They should really break him of that habit. (The habit of courtesy, or worse yet, more daunting yet, the habit of happiness.)
Tomorrow, perhaps.
A night out is a night out, Kibum firmly believes, but there’s such a thing as terrible seats and this theater is full of them. They hope that Jinki researched ahead of time.
Jinki himself, unsurprisingly, doesn’t seem to have noticed. Instead, he’s standing at the entrance, gaping at the wiring and staging. It promises an impressive show, but he should really be moving, given how close they are to the starting time.
Punctuality is just as much a virtue as a vice but Kibum doesn’t care if they’re encouraging good habits. They lean over to whisper to Jinki to find his seat.
“Seats,” he whispers back, and that’s just not something Kibum wants to consider, but sure enough, Jinki is escorting them towards the right wing of the theater, to a conspicuously empty pair of seats.
Even from here, Kibum can see there are open single seats.
“Jinki, look at me,” they demand. Jinki looks up from his program curiously and Kibum very firmly goes and sits on the lap of a guest a row beneath. “Go get a better seat, I’m sure you can trade up.”
He touches his hand to his ear and says, “No, that’d be rude,” careful not to look at the stranger with an ignorance to their lapful of angel. Kibum expansively sighs and gets up, waves their hand through the person.
“I assumed you wanted to see this from an angle that wouldn’t cramp your neck. My mistake.”
“I do want to see this,” Jinki says. He’s still purposefully not looking at Kibum, and Kibum feels the growing annoyance after how attentive he was in the cab. “Just not - by myself.”
Kibum huffs.
“You are by yourself,” they stand up from the unnoticed lap, clamber over the riser to sit next to Jinki. Jinki dares to look at them, then, his eyes sliding off of Kibum’s reluctantly to look at the aisle.
There’s so little space between them, and the murmurs of the crowd around them are quieting. The lights are softening, and with it, is Jinki’s expression.
Kibum could break him between their hands. They could carve the smile off his face.
Yet all Jinki does is shake his head. Even in the low light, the little smile of disbelief on his features is clear. He stands up to a half-crouch and apologizes to the woman on his right. He gestures for Kibum to stand up too.
When they do, unable to do anything else, Jinki reaches out to grab their hand. He tucks it close to his pocket, so no one can see him holding nothing at all. He starts steering them to the exit.
“Come on, then. I’d rather have no seat at all than sit without you.”
Kibum studies him again. Another contemplative glance, another back of a cab.
Jinki just keeps being like this.
Kibum isn’t a person. If they had been a person once, they aren’t any longer, and the only taste they got of Jinki realizing that was when they first revealed themselves.
The jibe he had made about being an alien was little more than the deflection against a very real anxiety. A normal human reaction, when faced with something beyond was disquieting. Even Jinki, as…unusual as he had been with Kibum…was no different than anyone else in that moment.
They should be trying to get back to that imbalance, but they find themselves upset at even remembering it. That there was a moment when Jinki didn’t treat him like a person.
Kibum hasn’t been a person for a very long time, and they would like, very much, to forget that for tonight.
Jinki lays his hand, palm up, in the space between them. Kibum doesn’t know what to do with it. They don’t know what to do with themself.
“I want to drink,” Kibum says, which is almost a lie. Jinki chuckles and concedes, pulling out a bottle of beer. It’s not nearly enough - it’s one drink, it’s back at his apartment. But maybe if they’re lucky, he’ll do something stupid.
Kibum can feel how hopeless that thought is. Jinki changes back into his home clothes, more at ease in sweats and a t-shirt, and clinks the neck of the bottle against a water glass.
One beer, into two. Jinki was going to eat out after the show, and it’s hitting him earlier on an light stomach. A lowered inhibition, and Kibum should be jumping on the opportunity, but Jinki rests his head on Kibum’s shoulder without warning.
“Hey, Kibum,” he says, the end of the address trailing into nothing. Kibum gives him a moment before prompting. He’s not asleep. His fingers are rubbing the hem of his shirt, the light of the TV glancing off his nails.
“Yeah?”
“How did you - how did this happen?” he asks. He doesn’t have to specify; Kibum can feel what he’s asking in his soul.
“...That’s a very insensitive thing to ask.”
They’re almost impressed as much as they’re hurt. When Jinki pulls back, they’re looking at a the lack of focus in his eyes. The bottle twists between his fingers.
The apartment has paused around them, the TV recycling the same lines over and over again in a loop. It’s Kibum doing this, but Jinki won’t remember. This may just be the moment it all hinges on, where Jinki becomes less than, and in so doing, gives himself up for devouring.
Jinki rubs at his eyes and yawns. The TV breaks the loop; new lines are read for practiced laughter.
He moves the bottle to the side and clumsily grabs for Kibum’s hand. They watch the arc of it, move their hand so he finds it easier.
They watch him fall asleep. The dreams inside his soul rumble and rouse awake, stretching into fullness.
Kibum doesn’t dream. But they do stay, until Jinki wakes up around two. There’s an angry red bruise on his cheek, and a dry scratch in his throat.
It takes him a moment to get his bearings, pulling away from Kibum and scrubbing his hand through his hair.
In between blinks, Kibum’s form disappears into the darkness.
There’s something Jinki is forgetting. He wanders over to get a drink of water, before throwing himself onto his bed.
He’ll remember in the morning.
A demon sits on the beach as the sun comes up. They watch the tide come in and out. It’s the same sea they swam in hundreds of years ago.
They groan and put their head on their knees, and try not to listen in on the resumed dreams of their prey.
When Jinki does remember, he tries to apologize. Of course, he tries to apologize, his eyes heavy with sincerity.
Kibum waves it off, because it’s better if Jinki doesn’t. That’s what they want.
Jinki bites at his lip. Kibum can sense the gathering bravery like static before a storm.
“Kibum, just because - I know you’re not human now - that you’re supposed to be here for me, but I want to…I don’t want to, I mean - I don’t like how I treated you.”
“Stop it,” Kibum says, harsh. They can’t hear absolution, not from anyone, but particularly not from him.
They are trying to send Jinki to hell. To squeeze his soul from his chest and swallow it whole.
Kibum has never stopped being hungry.
“Just stop,” they say, again. Jinki, mercifully, obeys.
What choices, really, does a demon have?
What choices would an angel have, if they had managed a different sort of life?
Kibum doesn’t want these thoughts. In the moments, though, when they manage to push them aside, they are left terribly, painfully empty.
Jinki looks at them sideways from his walk to work. It’s been a quiet week. Nothing to complain about, except it reminds him of what it was like before Kibum.
He wants to say something, because it’s clear that Kibum has been upset ever since Jinki had raised that unseemly question. And they said it didn’t matter, and Jinki knows he can’t keep apologizing for the rest of his life.
But he’s never seen Kibum so hurt before, and he caused that.
He draws in his breath. Kibum lets out an exhale.
(A perfect balance.)
“You need to stop caring about what others think of you,” they say, cold and formal. “Including me. Your life would go a lot easier if you didn’t get tied up into what you think you owe people.”
“I don’t care what they think,” Jinki says with a frown. “Well, I do, but this is about what you think, not people in general. Please, Kibum, I know it hurt you. You don’t have to pretend it didn’t. Tell me what I can do to make it up to you.”
Kibum’s mouth creases in a frown as they stop. When they turn to face Jinki, they seem on the verge of tears.
“ It doesn’t matter , you idiot. Not me. Just go and - I don’t know. Do good,” they say with a grimace. “Do evil. Whatever makes you happiest. Others are going to see you how they see you, put you in their categories, and then it all gets tallied up. Go and save all the people you want, be nice to staff, and have one bad day where there’s just enough people to make their opinions. See where you end up.”
They turn their back to them and duck into a side street. Jinki follows.
“Every single person thinks they know what you are, and they believe it. You’re just one person, believing yourself good or bad or average. Five hundred against one and your eternity is what the five hundred think of you. Two hundred to two hundred and one. The scales tilt against you all the same. One bad day - “ Kibum stops. Their chest is heaving and Jinki isn’t understanding at all.
He reaches out and lays his hand on Kibum’s shoulder.
“This is you telling me not to care what people think? Because it’s not very persuasive,” he says gently, jokingly.
Kibum shakes his hand off.
“It’s not fair,” they finally say. “None of it. Especially not me.”
Jinki studies them.
“Okay. You know me so well now. And I think I know you too,” he says. He steps closer to Kibum. They shift, but don’t back up, watching Jinki closely as he gets up his nerve.
“I think you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”
Kibum recoils.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why? I’ve been thinking that - believing that - for months now. What’s wrong with saying it out loud?”
“Because it’s a lie,” Kibum says as their face closes off, becomes untouchably beautiful. They push themselves up to their full height and all around the two of them the world pauses.
“I’m not an angel. You have to - you have to know, that I’ve been trying to make you worse. To weigh those stupid ing scales against you. I’m not - I can’t be the best thing that ever happened to you. I want you to be less, in the eyes of others. I want you to suffer. I - I need it, Jinki.”
Kibum’s silhouette is growing darker, and the shadows around them longer.
It’s more than that, Jinki realizes. The city itself has grown dark, held in a twilight.
“Oh,” he says. There’s something closer to understanding in him, now, but even if Kibum is eldritch, they’re still - he s in front of him, trying to find Kibum’s hand.
“I’m so hungry,” Kibum says. Their arm reaches out and their hand cracks around Jinki’s wrist, cold and rough and there’s a wet warmth on Jinki’s cheeks and he doesn’t remember crying but then it hits his lips and it’s coppery and hot.
Kibum laughs. Jinki doesn’t recognize it as it fills the street, echoing higher and louder. It’s like a physical pressure pushing against his body, seeking to crush him into nothing.
He struggles to catch his breath, because this is Kibum, Kibum doesn’t - Kibum wouldn’t.
Jinki trusts them, even as he starts to feel himself tear apart.
“Pasta?” he says, like it’s the last neurons of his brains connecting Kibum and hunger and the darkness doesn’t pull back so much as it scatters, like cockroaches when the filament starts to glow in an old bulb.
On the verge of hyperventilating, his lungs expanding in a desperate bid for air, he drops to his knees to recover. Only Kibum’s hold on his wrist keeps him from falling over entirely.
He thinks - Kibum.
Perhaps he said it out loud too, because in between one breath and the next, they, too, have disappeared. Jinki’s arm drops to beside him.
There’s a car honking from the street, and another horn retorts.
The world is continuing on, apathetic.
Kibum lost their soul centuries ago. The detail and circumstances are little more than impressions, now, soft etches of a scarring.
They were abandoned, twisted and pried into pieces, left open to be eaten. And so it was, and so they continue the fine tradition on.
There is no meaningful choice for them. Who they were is lost. All they can do is keep going after others, paralyzed into a ravenous hunger.
They scream into the sea, as they cloak themselves from the world.
No one will hear it.
Well -
Not no one.
(Kibum has spent the last several months tying themselves to Jinki’s soul. They can find him in less than a moment.
It takes Jinki quite a bit longer than that, but only for ignorance. He is, indeed, only human.)
Jinki settles besides Kibum, out of breath and his suit jacket thrown into the sand besides them.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Kibum says. “Stupid.”
(The thing with Kibum is that stupid never does mean stupid. It means, I care about you, I’m worried about you, I think you’ll hurt yourself and I can’t bear it.)
Jinki reaches forward to unlace his shoes, not hurrying. He pulls off his socks and digs his toes into the cold sand.
Kibum frowns.
“You’ll get sick.”
Jinki pauses.
“Does that not count as suffering?”
Kibum shakes their head, because Jinki doesn’t get it.
“I mean, probably not,” Jinki says, and Kibum realizes they said it out loud. They’re too lost in their emotions, ever since they lost control in the street and let this man get into his chest, curl inside the hollowness of their wrecked and covetous soul and insist they deserve more. “I think you were lying to me about what you were, but I don’t really care about labels.”
Kibum doesn’t say anything in response. Jinki has turned to the side and is digging around his bag.
“You said you were hungry,” he says, and pulls out a small carton. “It took me a little longer since you weren’t there, sorry.”
He lays out his jacket and opens the carton, unpacking the rest of the bag.
“So - tell me how it works,” he requests.
When Kibum says nothing, flabbergasted, Jinki waves his utensil at them.
“You were trying to kill me,” he says in a prompt.
Kibum winces. The least they can do, if Jinki insists on not letting them go, is to be honest. They begin to explain, trying to put words around it.
“So you’re not really physically hungry? Do you have a stomach?” Jinki asks at a pause. “What happens if you get an X-ray?”
“I…don’t know,” Kibum says slowly. They had just finished what they thought was an excoriatingly detailed account for what it was like for them to consume souls, and, inversely, what it was like in the hunt for one.
It’s an odd deviation, odder still that Jinki is smiling softly. He twists a fork in the noodles and hums.
“So you always watched me eat, and to be honest, I think you’d like this more than me.” At Kibum’s expression, he hurries to add: “It’s fine! I like it fine, it’s just not my first choice.”
“That’s not - I’m not a person, Jinki. I don’t actually - I’m sure I don’t need to digest food.”
Jinki shrugs.
“You could humor me. It’s the least you could do, don’t you think?” Kibum doesn’t have anything to say to that, and opens his mouth slightly as Jinki lifts the fork. The clear pleasure Jinki wears on his face makes Kibum warm. Comfortable.
The burst of flavor on their tongue is something close to heaven.
“I wonder how much it takes,” Jinki muses as they chew. “Like if you’ve known ten people your entire life, is a majority of six enough to get the soul….how it needs to be, for it to get taken?”
Kibum snorts. They lean over to twirl another forkful of noodles.
“Probably.”
They eat together in companionable silence. The tide continues to come in.
“So - “ Jinki sits back on the heels of his hands. “ - if I’m the only person who knows you now, and I still think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Is that enough for it to work in reverse?”
Kibum promptly chokes on their pasta.
A soul can be lost, a person unmade, in an unjust world. And this is an unjust world, where people believe there’s no worth in others.
But it is also a gracious world. The ruins of the person are still them. Those can be enough, if there is someone to believe in it.
It hurts, of course, being human again.
(Kibum aches every day.)
(Jinki wraps his arms around them; he kisses them, sweetly, gratefully.)
But it is good, too.
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