Her entrance felt like a meteor hitting the earth. There was light and fire, and everything around her burned. She was an old soul, covered in flames, without a face.

'Phoenix', she called herself.

She put on a show, and Chanyeol tried not to laugh. There was nothing about her that scared him any longer.

"See? He's gone," Chanyeol said cheerfully and the figure flickered as it spread, slowly exploring its surroundings. He could have stopped her, but he didn't. He needed her to see everything. He needed her to trust him. "And I'm sure this place would be more comfortable for you anyway."

Fire surrounded him, just the way it had back then, when he had lost everything.

"His family will definitely notice that you're not him, but they're smart. They know that there's nothing they can do, if he was so stupid to tell someone his name."

The fire at his legs. He didn't flinch, not even when a shrill noise like a laughter filled the air. It was the third time now that he faced a parasite.

"How very despicable of you, Park Chanyeol," the phoenix woman said and sounded amused, although it was hard to tell. Her voice sounded female, but also as inhuman as crackling fire.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Well," he said, and balled his hands into fists. Just a little closer, just a little more. Until then he couldn't move. "In the end everyone fights for themselves I guess."

Something like a hand carressed his cheek. His skin sizzled, although it wasn't real. The skin was part of his soul. She would of course try to hurt him.

"So, do you like it?" he asked chattily.

She didn't answer, but her thoughts were obvious. Even larger parts of her seeped into every pore of the dream. At this rate they would be able to switch. She would come over, and once she was gone, Chanyeol could return.

"Why would you give this to me?" she asked and embraced him.

He finally saw it. Her heart.

"I wouldn't," he smiled and his hand into what he assumed to be her chest. A shadow fell from his back and dropped to the ground.  It looked like the flimmering picture of an old TV, but it was still there. It had been hidden where the phoenix couldn't find it, deep inside what Chanyeol was now.

Kai had become a shadow, but he was not yet dead.

"I see," the phoenix woman said as her figure slowly turned into a human shape. "I see," she laughed, as she grabbed Chanyeol's arm and tried to pull herself free.

"You two must really think that you're so smart."
When she finally managed to get him off herself, it was already too late.

She wasn't the inferno any longer, or the little girl, or the old man. She seemed barely older than them and was dressed in a colourful hanbok.

"Are you a shaman priest?" Chanyeol frowned. "Or do you just like to dress up, Shin Bokja?"

She gave him a devilish smile and tried to get back to his body, but he stopped her. Now that he knew her name, they were not just even, he had the full advantage.

And the panicked expression in her eyes told him that she must have realized it, too.

"I mean, I can just find out myself, if you don't tell me," he said flatly and pulled at one of her memories.

Her eyes widened. "You have no right," she muttered, when he interrupted her harshly.

"No right?" he scoffed. "Why wouldn't I have the right? Didn't you walk around with my memories? Didn't you lie to my friends and my family members? So why do I not have the right?" His voice had gradually turned louder.
When she tried to get away, he grabbed her arm. Pictures poured out of her body, pictures of her actual past and of the lives she had lived since then. Pictures of pain and suffering and betrayal.

Chanyeol ripped her apart, not minding the things he saw.

Kai thought he heard her laugh, and closed his eyes. He had become a shadow overflooded with her memories.

---

Shin Bokja was, like them, a child with an immense power. She could wander dreams, something that had always seemed rather simple and easy to grasp for them, but for her it had meant that she was cursed. She couldn't control it.

Her parents feared her, but her village head believed her to be a powerful being. She was secretly trained to become a shaman in that small world that was her village.

It was the early twentieth century.

Japan had occupied Korea.

And Shin Bokja's life slowly became a mayhem of pain and misery.

Japanese men burned down her temple and the house of the village head. They turned all the men into 'soldiers' and the prettiest girls into 'comfort women', ual slaves for the Japanese men who defended their 'motherland'.

Shin Bokja wanted to run away.
She thought that at least her mind could escape.
But without a body she couldn't go anywhere.

A drunk soldier attempted to strangle her. It was then that she realized it. If only she was him, if only she had his body, she could go wherever she wanted.

The soldier killed her body but she killed his soul.

She became the inferno.

She became the phoenix.

---

"Jongin," Chanyeol said and grabbed his arm to pull him up. Something that felt like warmth spread in Kai's chest. He would have felt touched or comforted, had he not known that it was his life energy Chanyeol finally returned tiny bits of. "Don't get lost in that woman's memories."

Chanyeol avoided his eyes again.

Around them the flames slowly diminished.

"She's dying," Chanyeol said.

It had all been part of his plan, that plan he had tried to pull off without letting Kai know until the very last minute.

He took over Kai's body, leaving so little of his soul that he could stay undetected. It was the reverse of what they had been in the beginning. Now Chanyeol was the real person, and Kai was barely more than a memory.

If Kai was still there, the phoenix couldn't steal his body, unless he himself told her his name. And it scared Kai to think that it was maybe for such a reason that Chanyeol didn't make him disappear altogether. Even if the plan wouldn't work, he still had a body to go back to.

Faint screams filled the air, and Kai shivered.

Chanyeol sighed, and put on a weak smile. "I'll go back now," he said. "Let's hope that she doesn't have another trick up her sleeve."

Kai slowly nodded.

"Look, Jongin, I," Chanyeol began and looked down. He then held out his hand, as if he wanted to touch Kai's chest, just the way he had touched the phoenix before he killed her. He seemed to notice that the gesture must have seemed threatening, so he balled a fist and bumped Kai's shoulder. And something exploded.

It was like an energy blast. The moment the manifestations of their souls connected, most of what Chanyeol had quietly stolen, came back in one sudden rush. There were memories and knowledge, and most of all, strength. Immense strength Kai didn't know he had possessed.

Kai finally became whole again.

"I'll make this up to you," Chanyeol said before he jumped.

It felt almost as if they were they way they had used to be. Almost. But there were traces they wouldn't be able to erase, nightmares they wouldn't be able to avoid, doubts they wouldn't be able to shake.

Kai's mind was still quietly burning.

In Chanyeol's there probably wasn't much left but ashes.

He tried to close his eyes to finally sleep, when a tiny flame flared up in front of him. An almost transparent version of the phoenix's real self smiled at him. He was about to put a distance between them, when she put up her hand and shook her head.
"Oh, please, don't make a fuss," she said in a thin voice. "I don't even know your name, and you don't know mine. I'll disappear even without your doing."

She looked like a ghost carried away by the wind.

And suddenly he felt another doubt. Before Chanyeol had left, she had screamed. Now she seemed calm.

It was almost too easy.

"Did you know this would happen?" he asked, and her smile widened.

"I did consider it to be a possibility, yes," she said. "My ideal setting of course was you killing him, but you wouldn't have done that, would you? You still had a chance when you realized who he really was. You didn't use it."

He frowned. "Did you know that he wouldn't make me disappear?"

It was maybe because he wanted her to tell him that there was another reason for Chanyeol to keep him alive, one in which he wasn't just the safety lock for his body.

She smiled, as if she could read his thoughts.

"You're doubting him," she stated.

He avoided her eyes.

"Do you think he would destroy his anchor?" she then asked.

He snorted. "So I'm an anchor now?"

Maybe that was it. Kai had somehow managed to pull Chanyeol's soul back.
And if Chanyeol managed to take his body back, he might always need that ability again. If the phoenix was in his Kai's body, Chanyeol would lose an asset.

Kai felt sick, but he couldn't stop thinking that way.

"Oh, my dearest Kai," the phoenix sighed. "You're such a very sweet person, so let me try to ease your mind a little." Her thin hand took his. It felt like being touched by sunlight.

"Park Chanyeol isn't a bad guy," she said and sounded genuine. "I've seen his mind and his memories, so I know. I have of course no recollection of what happened to him after you two met me, but the Park Chanyeol I know wouldn't harm the only friend he can really talk to. He is reckless, yes, but neither stupid, nor a murderer."

She slowly faded away. Her last words sounded like the crackling of a dying fire.

Her grip on his hand tightened.

"But, you see," she said as her eyes disappeared and turned into black hollows. "I'm not stupid either. We all have to die eventually, I understand that, but doesn't everyone want to leave some kind of legacy?"

She chuckled.

He panicked and tried to get away, but she wouldn't let go of him.

"A tiny seed can turn into a magnificent tree, and such a tiny seed is now in Park Chanyeol's mind. He wouldn't hurt you, no, but he will never be able to become the old him again. He's been in this world for too long. One day he will find himself close to death, and he will remember how easy it is to steal a body. He knows that he can live forever if he wants to. That temptation will always be there."

Like a candle that got blown out she turned into smoke, leaving nothing but an faint smell.

Kai looked around, as his world slowly became the way it had used to be.

He was scared.

And suddenly felt lonely.