the inauspicious “they say that” doesn’t always turn up a good hunt, but with any luck, this one will. 

 

minho swallows as a reflex at the thought of when he had first heard of his destination. the taste of the village’s name was sour, and he had only barely bit back the bile.

 

“cheobunhada,” and the old man didn’t even curl his lip, for it had been over a century since the one day its very existence became foul. he laid it out plainly: a curse laid on it so that it could not even be spoken of without gagging. 

 

it is a beautiful day, and minho hums to himself as he heads towards cheobunhada. he should be able to reach it by sundown.

 

the warmth of the afternoon sun plays over his face. he takes a moment to breathe it in with satisfaction, slowing slightly. it is still early in the afternoon, and he can certainly rest for a few minutes and think through this next adventure. 

 

it’s a novel rumor, and with it he hopes a more exciting challenge in front of him. he would almost say he could smell it. although - 

 

“cheobunhada,” he says to himself, and then laughs after the initial blow of bitterness settles. 

 

there. he may not be able to smell the challenge, but he can certainly taste it. whatever cursed this village, whoever, is a creative sort he will give due appreciation and thanks to, before he disposes of them. 

 

look at him, ending the fight before it even starts. arrogance, his old friends would have said, and they would have been right. there are modest hunters, and effective hunters, and minho is more of the latter. but where would a truly modest man have landed? not where minho is, enjoying the taste of a pear on a sunny day, excited and enlivened by what’s coming, even if that were to be his death.

 

there’s no shame in that. he is who he is, and he is where he has chosen to be. life, in his opinion, is best shamelessly lived.

 

throwing the pear to the side, he tosses his head back; he closes his eyes and bares his neck. thieves, monsters, any who come by him are free to cut his throat.

 

the passing minutes - three, five, ten? - and the life that could have ended, doesn’t. he’s grateful and says a quick prayer of thanks to the gods.

 

brushing his mouth dry, he turns to his pack to review his materials one final time. at this time of year, in a remote mountain range, the trees in thin, papery leaves - a few items to shift around and arrange for a quick retrieval, should it prove necessary. 

 

he’s satisfied, with his rest, his snack, and his work. he stands and hoists the sack onto his back. the distribution of weight has shifted, and he adjusts carefully. 

 

off to the east, a bell rings. birds startle out of the trees, wisping into the air like smoke. a curious action, one of them takes: a northwardly, solitary bent. 

 

minho, by nature curious, by practice vigilant, watches its path until it passes out of his sight. 

 

 

(let us follow the bird, let us lift on the same wind, let us descend beyond the treetops and feel the rush against our feathers)

 

(let us be weightless)

 

 

when the chirp issues from the open window, hopeful and bright, jinki is a man considering an incomplete rooftop. there’s a tinge to the grey ink he doesn’t enjoy the look of. it strikes him wrong, for some indefinable reason. overnight it’s become an intrusion to the painting it was meant to help detail. 

 

like a medicine with poison laid inside of it. jinki frowns. with that image in his head, he waves the bird off with dissatisfaction laying a nest inside his head.

 

it seems today is another day for uncertainty.

 

he has a constantly fluctuating collection of art, its growth and depletion in fits and bursts. today it lessens as he rips the parchment loose in one motion. his fingers do an excellent, and practiced, job of crumpling it into a ball. 

 

a small bit of a little would-be world, and he lets it fall to the floor. all of the depletions were once like that - promising starts. too many, and yet he keeps trying. what else can he do?

 

from the doorway behind him, his thoughts are interrupted by a noisy, demanding sigh. it seems he has been so caught up in his thoughts, he managed to not notice taemin observing. it would be rude for anyone else. but for taemin, this is rather the norm, and he has impeccable timing even better. 

 

jinki has a half-apology on his lips, but taemin gives his attention elsewhere and calls the snubbed bird to his hand. a series of happy peeps follow her as she flutters across the room to land on his gentle, unworked hands. taemin produces a seed from his pocket to feed her. 

 

jinki lets that image wash over him. the world narrows back down, no longer too big to manage, too ungainly to be perfect.

 

that’s always the problem with his works - at some point, his vision of it creeps outside the parchment.

 

the easel lies empty before him. jinki reaches out. a fresh piece of paper curls into existence beneath the inked whorls on his fingertips.

 

as he begins work again (always a beginning, always again), taemin picks up the discarded crumple. in one hand the bird has settled down into his palm. in his other, flame up between his fingers.

 

the sun will set soon. jinki welcomes the warmth taemin brings: of immolation.

 

 

minho’s sense of timing proves just right - he enters the village just before sunset. he slips in with the rest of the tired bodies coming home, wanderers and workers and travellers all seeking shelter. with only an inquiry or two - he considers his smile and manners just as much weapons as his knife - he finds directions to the inn. 

 

the building is cold and tired, a perfect match to its occupants, but he’s slept in worse. what spurs him away from the food and drink and company is the acid in the very air. since the moment he stepped beneath the mantel, the ugly erosion that is in the land and its people is apparent. diseases, of course, decay, naturally, but he has a keen sense that shows all of them are interconnected, like a spindly spiderweb is beneath each foot and table and stone and plant, keeping them tethered to poison.

 

he’s grateful that he found a stream to drink from on the last mile of the journey, because he had to dump out the water kindly offered by the matron. it had begun to eat through the wood under his seat, when he glanced in a moment of regret. in the morning, while the sun is still rising, he will go back and refill his canteen.

 

he could not avoid the food, but eats as little of the vegetables as he can. the meat, he unwraps from his cloth, because even from his seat he could see the dog. begging and hungry, in the courtyard, where he would pass it on his way to his room. he kneels down and leaves it on the ground, to let it try to quell its pangs. it is part of this place, what would harm him in the food is now what the dog longs for.

 

a century - at least - of this. minho closes his eyes as he shuts the door. after the next few days, their fortune will be turned. the boil lanced, the demon banished.

 

he would be glad to see it - and he will be glad to leave. minho is no healer. this village and its people, its beasts and its plants and its children, will have to re-learn what it is to not be poisoned.

 

he lights a candle in the room, as waxy and as weak as it is, and prays again.

 

 

with the sun fully set, taemin lights the fireplace. he watches jinki sit on the steps and, inch by inch, relax. the heat taemin calls up serves to soothe both his body and soul. 

 

that’s his entire purpose, to attend to jinki. for now, anyway. he will keep the fire going through the night, to be jinki’s accompaniment. jinki needs it on evenings like this, where he will focus into the stars. 

 

they lay in the sky, and uncovered. vulnerable, even from miles away. it is too much like jinki’s heart, when he has nothing to work on. 

 

taemin is almost jinki, and jinki is almost taemin. for all their nearness in the stories of their lives, this is where taemin cannot follow, and where he cannot learn from jinki. 

 

jinki will create and let taemin destroy. he will never create and let it remain.

 

all taemin would have done, were he in jinki’s position, would create. willful, spiteful, even - flawed, certainly. and that is where jinki would have it burned. 

 

but taemin? he would have made it, and it would be done. the value of it - why it should be allowed to exist - is that it was his. no other justification was necessary.

 

on nights like this, there is no dreaming, and no sleep, with jinki and the stars. another difference between the two of them: 

 

“what is there in sleep for me, taemin?” jinki had said. his smile was a lament. “dreams? where myself, the dreamer, is nothing but prey. i’ll be fine - awake and wandering.“

 

the thought of jinki - of taemin, by extension - being prey was so absurd he had to laugh. and later, slept well. 

 

after checking on jinki, and seeing the movement beneath his eyelids, taemin goes into the quiet, ever-hopeful room where jinki perpetually creates. he sits himself where so many abandoned pieces have landed as crumpled pieces of trash. he lays his hands side by side, palms up. 

 

he thinks of what he has burned, at his master’s behest. he puts all of his will into it and summons up a curtain of fire, spreads it between his hands.

 

the rooftops are a dancing orange: its people, fluttering, frail flickers of light that taemin watches greedily.

 

 

every sloshing motion of his flooded mind, to be tipped out into the soil beneath jinki’s feet, even while regret, with its ever-sharpening claws and its keen, unflagging sight, will scratch at him. he will not yield to it.

 

instead, he will remember: he could not be what others wished of him. so, he will simply be, despite all else. 

 

let the regret scratch at his flesh, let the surplus of his spirit drown him. 

 

he will look up at the stars, he will plant his feet on the ground. and he will continue.

 

 

the sun breaks through the trees. first in quiet slivers of silvery beams, while the dew on the grass evaporates lazily.

 

when it crashes above the canopy, taemin crashes with it. he falls out of the modest bed.

 

shaking himself into wakefulness, and walking to find jinki, he pauses in front of the latest work to have his attention, only just started the other day. he didn’t even pay attention to it, after disposing of the abandoned work. 

 

it will be a village - always, the only village of note - but for now the barest shading of blue is at the top corners. 

 

when he finds jinki, he sees he’s still on the steps, his posture broken in half. his hands flat against the floor as he keens forward. taemin clicks his tongue against his teeth, hearing what is silently issued.

 

a prayer for other gods, begging them to acknowledge him and what he has abandoned. 

 

 

it is still dark when minho wakes. he passes quietly out of the inn - the dog he had fed follows him hopefully for a few steps, slowing with a whimper when minho proves he has nothing else to give. 

 

the walk back to the stream is a pleasant one, with the sun b beneath the horizon. the gasp that comes out of him after dunking his face in, breaks the silence of the pre-dawn.

 

“curious to see one out so early,” comes an innocent comment, and minho turns to face the older man properly. he bows his head. “on a journey, young man?”

 

“up into the forest,” he says with a smile, then pointing in the direction he had seen the bird go the previous day. “i seek whoever lives up there.”

 

the older man’s face darkens with an honest fear. he moves as if to rush forward, to take minho by his shoulder, but minho steps back in apprehension. 

 

“do you know what’s up there?” he instead asks. 

 

“no,” minho says. “do you?”

 

the man shakes his head, but he does. they all do, minho realizes. every one in this village knows what has cursed them. but still they refuse to say. another part of the curse, perhaps.

 

“stay on the marked trail,” he finally says. he looks at minho with pity. “and if you see anything - man or beast - turn around.”

 

he takes his advice with a serious nod and thanks. the man shakes his head, runs his tongue over teeth and rotted gums.

 

he finds out the quality of his advice in less than an hour. 

 

minho is not a fool, but the trail thins until he is forced to walk toe-to-heel. he slips on an errant rock, and stumbles to the right. 

 

when he crashes into the ground, the first body collides with him. hot breath, stinking of meat, is breathing a snarl at his neck. minho pulls at the knife at his side and swings it in front of him. he waits only for the moment the weight on him eases to scramble to his feet. 

 

unlike the dogs of the town, that are poisoned like everything else, the one before him is healthy. robust, even, but eerie. unnatural intelligence in its eyes, bony protrusions at its shoulders and legs. a ridge down its spine that is wet, slick with a pungent sweat. 

 

the wind that is at minho’s back, ruffling past the dog, serves a damning correction almost too late.

 

he glances behind him to see the other two that have padded up behind him. he barely steps back in time, dancing over roots and small brush until he finds himself backed up against a tree too wide and sturdy for his path. 

 

one of the dogs leaps at him, and he kicks out at it, catching it in the chest and carrying it back with a pained yelp. that, and a low whistle carried like a flag by the wind, gives minho just enough room to reach his long arms up to the nearest branch. he pulls his legs up, lets himself swing backwards, and kicks off the trunk for enough momentum to wrap his legs around the branch. 

 

a sudden weight tugs at his pack, threatening to pull minho away from his precarious safety. he relents to a one-handed grip to slip the loops of the pack off of one shoulder, then the next. the pack falls and the dog with it, its jaws still clamped around it. 

 

the pack serves as a distraction, or so he has to assume, as he’s able to slide down towards the the junction of the trunk and the branch. from there, he works carefully and manages to leverage himself into an upright position. catching his breath, he presses his back against the wide trunk of the tree. 

 

he lets his neck relax and his head slip loose. the collision of skull against tree stops his laughter for a curse. when he goes looking, he finds the cause - a knot forming at the back of his head.

 

that, and some scrapes along his arms. not a bad turn of it, at all, and he says this to the two dogs still digging through his pack. he chides them for so messily eating his rations, and looks for the third.

 

one of the two snaps a snarl in response, and he scolds their rude manners without breaking away from his search. when he stops, he scolds again, more emphatically, when he sees his journal is losing several pages. 

 

if he had tucked that into his waistband instead, he’d be able to make some good observations. the characteristics of these beasts, their location, a rough sketch. he makes the purposeful motion to relax, to let the dogs desecrating his possessions be nothing more than a scene to commit to objective memory, so he can put it down later.

 

one of the dogs lets out a bark, perhaps offended by his ease, and minho can only laugh in the joy of survival. relief and exhilaration mix until his amusement fills these woods that invoked such dire warnings.

 

 

jinki comes back to himself when a bead of sweat falls onto his hand, so the blossoming sunrise isn’t quite a surprise, but the form of taemin’s shadow, demanding his attention so promptly, is.  

 

“good morning,” jinki says, and taemin nods in impatient agreement. belatedly, jinki notices the orange-hot coal he is tossing between his hands.

 

a blossoming sunrise, in a blue sky, and there’s something thunderous in the air.

 

a hunt is underway. he stifles a sigh and instead strives to treasure the natural burn in the air, the crispness of the air. 

 

taemin gestures into the woods, and jinki nods the acceptance of his absence. as he heads towards the edge of the grove, he lets out a low whistle with a liveliness in his step. there’s always, somehow, more energy he finds to add to his natural bounty, when it comes to defending his home. to defending jinki. he watches taemin greet the large shadow just waiting beneath the canopy.

 

he stands and brushes himself off. 

 

it would break both of them, to tell him what he has been considering lately. that they should simply let them through the forest, onto the land they’ve maintained together, under the mantel of the door to their home, and to jinki’s very side. let them reach out and slip their blades between his ribs.

 

the dogs cease their barking. taemin must have found their quarry.

 

 

(let us follow the dog, let us delight in the scent of apprehension, let us taste pride and triumph)

 

(let us be thrilled in our strength)

 

 

perhaps he should have risk eating last night, minho idly thinks. he did manage a drink, but he’s been up this tree for a few hours, and the day is becoming too bright to hope for rain. as with a smile and manners, though, minho values patience on a hunt. 

 

and so he is rewarded before he must consider more aggressive action: a careless, unhurried whistling that no villager would adopt.

 

all dogs have a master, after all. 

 

"hie," a young man calls, and the one dog that came in with him sits like a housepet, and one of the two underneath minho runs to join him. 

 

minho calls out to the remaining one a mocking “still?”, and it rolls its tongue at him, blackened and boiled. 

 

their master walks up soon enough and squats down to brush through minho’s belongings. 

 

“hello and good morning,” minho greets lightly. the man stands and looks up at him, with a face that is not quite kind, and not quite threatening. a mask-like sort of face, if minho had to call it something. something put on as a concession for polite company.

 

cautiously, minho moves his legs to one side and watches for any reaction. seeing nothing tensed, in either man or beast, he jumps down. remaining close to the tree, as a matter of caution, he watches how the dogs continue to nose at their master’s hands. he absentmindedly pets them, never once looking away from minho.

 

an affinity for animals, an instinctive mistrust of minho, and an eeriness. all the signs are there, that this is who minho is looking for, but this is not the place to act for it. too much is against minho for him to win this. 

 

“go back the way you came,” he finally says. 

 

not a terrific start, but he has had worse, so minho asks: “why?” 

 

a scoff. minho smiles, amused that he isn’t even trying. the thin invitation he gave for minho to remove himself from the confrontation, was just as much of a concession. minho raises his eyebrows in a silent push.

 

“because you are here hunting, and not for animals. but now you’ve ended up the quarry cornered and trapped. i am releasing the trap, and you can either be grateful and head back to the path, or you can step back into the trap like an especially brainless rabbit. in that case, my dogs and i will retrieve you. i’m sure someone, somewhere will write your memorial and mention your bravery, if that’s any comfort.”

 

he walks forward a pace or two, a light in his eyes that is anything but amiable.

 

“it is a good morning. i suggest you see the good afternoon as well. no need to bother your thoughts with what dwells in these woods.”

 

minho steps forward, and the dog closest to him bares its teeth. he stops, but his head.

 

“you’re not who i’m looking for,” he tests. these are not solely his words, his sentiments to intruders: they are someone else’s, that he passes along with true reluctancy. minho receives a snort in response, and with it a validative feeling sweeps his chest.