Chapter Text

Chapter I: Like Snow Piles Up

'Even in August, it's winter here.'

Jeongguk stood at the station platform. 

Bitterly cold. 

Utterly confused. 

He stared at the yellowed ticket in-between his frosty gloved fingers. 

What was he doing here again? 

A few hours ago...

This had to be prank, a fucking knee-slapper for Namjoon hyung. He’d called him at God knows what hour of the night to tell him to check for a surprise underneath his pillow. 

"Hyung, you called me for a surprise?" Jeongguk asked sarcastically, as he glanced at the electronic clock on his nightstand. 

He groaned. 

"It's like four a.m…"

"I know! But just trust me on this!!!" Namjoon whispered through the phone, his excitement sending tingles down Jeongguk's spine and pain through his ear.

He reluctantly got up, shoving the pillow aside & sure enough, there it was. Jeongguk’s eyes landed on a piece of paper, a fucking ticket to be exact. 

“Well I’ll be damned…” he muttered lightly.

’ Tsukimi Express ’ - an ephemeral journey with the moon, admission ticket for one , it read. 

"How'd he pull this off…" Jeongguk mumbled to himself.

The ticket began to twinkle, as the moonlight crept over his shoulders as he shifted in his bed.

“Is this a joke hyung?” Jeongguk asked, adjusting the phone with his scrunched shoulder, his fingertips gingerly grazing the ticket. 

Namjoon responded with a breathy sigh, almost as if he expected Jeongguk’s uncertainty but was nonetheless disappointed that he’d asked. 

“Would I be calling you at four in the morning if this was a joke?”

“Point taken. I can’t believe you did it.” Jeongguk smiled gleefully. He could hear Namjoon hyung’s congenial chuckle from the other line.

“Remember, the ticket will lead you to the station. Hopefully, if the lore is true, then I’ll see you soon, Koo.” With that, Namjoon hyung hung up. 

Jeongguk darted out of bed, towards his closet. Packing what few articles of clothing he owned, along with his folklore books & his beloved Canon 5D Mark camera, a gift from Namjoon hyung, into his battered duffel bag and backpack. Jeongguk donned himself into warmer clothes, his worn out gloves, and a pair of beaten boots. 

He rushed towards the window with all of his belongings, and pushed it open. Jeongguk flung his backpack over one shoulder, one hand gripping the duffel bag and the other placed above on the window. He placed one foot on the windowsill, but not before a vivid glimmer hit his eye. He turned his head and saw the ticket, still there where he left it. 

Of course he’d forgotten the most important item.

His fricking right of passage.

"Genius Koo strikes again," he sighed to himself.

He threw his baggage onto the icy fire escape, what few bits and bobs he owned, the old metal rods rattling as he did so, and snatched the ticket from the mattress. He placed it, carefully, in one of the countless pockets in his cargo pants, and climbed out the window. 

The fire escape was slick with frost and ice, and Jeongguk tried his best not to clatter against the rusted frozen stairway, his weight & belongings not being any help either, as he took step after step, down a path he’d take multiple times.

But there was something different this time.

He arched his neck back, glancing up at the ink-spill sky, grey clouds scattered and patched across it. The stars peeked through, glittered like they did every night, and Jeongguk felt as if they were talking to him. He searched for the moon, his eyes darting until they landed on it. He was a true selenophile at heart.

The moon was full and round tonight, & had reached a waxy orange hue, like an egg yolk in the sky, with the lone rabbit still imprinted on the half side. 

That damn rabbit.

In all the folktales and all the lores, he could never find anything about that damn rabbit in the moon. 

It's position would never change, and would always appear during the phase of a full moon. All he knew for certain was that if the rabbit appeared, then so would the train. 

Call it a gut instinct.

He nodded his head in affirmation, more for his own self-confirmation.

As Jeongguk’s boots came into contact with solid concrete, he felt something moving around in his boots, nudging and tugging him. He glanced down only to find the ticket peeking out, glittering and shimmering a bright yellow hue in the cold. 

At first he thought maybe it had slipped out and the wind was just pulling the ticket out, but as Jeongguk inspected further, the ticket actually seemed to be moving, struggling to slip out and be free.

By itself.

Out of his fucking boots.

'What the actual fuck!? Namjoon hyung didn’t mention anything about the ticket being an anthropomorphous little shit.' he thought, as his eyes widened.

He had no choice but to follow the ticket's movements, inching slowly and trudging through the thick snow, before realizing that he could actually pull it out of his boots and actually hold it, like any rational person would assume to do first. 

Despite the pristine snow dancing around him, Jeongguk blended in quite well with his surroundings, when, in fact, his black ensemble should have been a stark contrast. 

He had just reached the road used to enter the main plaza in his small town. 

A one way street if you will.

Nobody ever left from here and that was about to change.

Jeongguk and Namjoon were the only residents here now. Perhaps there were people here before, but not anymore. Not that Jeongguk could remember anyways.

Jeongguk would no longer be shackled to this miserable place. The snow. The cold. The sunless days and freezing nights.

He'd lived his entire life alone, nobody at his side. Nobody to talk to. Nobody to laugh with. Nobody to cry with.

His life had always just been monotone and numbing. He'd already succumbed to his own thoughts of leading a meaningless future. Working towards nothing. Never becoming anything.

He frequently thought of his fears and it terrified him.

That was until Namjoon hyung came into his life.

Namjoon hyung was everything to him and without him, Jeongguk would be lost and astray. Namjoon hyung always made him yearn for something more.

He was stuck in a limbo and he couldn't figure out how to get out.

But things were different now.

The town was somber and barren, a sight Jeongguk had become accustomed to as the time had flown by. The wood in the buildings had been rotting for god knows how long whereas the cement and concrete had fractures and cracks dispersed throughout the structures, and looked as if they'd seen better days. 

The withered trees and demolished buildings moaned and groaned and the chilling air whooshed past them, the icy shards of snow pierced through Jeongguk's skin, his nose and fingers becoming red and numb, but not enough to become blistered. 

The road was vacant and dilapidated. Jeongguk knew which sidewalks and crossings to avoid, so he wouldn't cause a tremor to wriggle through the shaky ground. The little stores and shops were all closed, just filled with toys and haunted memories of what used to be someone's life. The only sources of light came from a rusty old street lamp , which flickered out every few minutes or so, and the ticket continued to tug Jeongguk’s finger, away from this ghost town.

It was in this very desolate town, where Jeongguk lived alone.

Honestly, Jeongguk thought he'd be better off in a world full of monsters than rather being alone.

He could hardly ever remember how he met Namjoon hyung because everytime he tried to recall their first meeting, Jeongguk was met with splitting migraines. He never understood why.

He didn't dare ask Namjoon hyung nor did he ever bring it up in their conversations, fearful of driving his precious hyung away.

They usually only ever discussed the lore surrounding Tsukimi, the welcoming of the autumn moon after the delicate spring and summer nights, sharing the same dreams of escaping from this barren town.

There was no spring nor summer here. Just the freezing cold and endless snow all year round.

The wonderful depictions of spring in the lore made Jeongguk's heart yearn for a place he could call home. A place where he could forever smell the flowers in bloom and the warmth from the sun in his hair. Where he could feel the wind breeze by him without sending chilling shivers throughout his weary bones.

That is what Jeongguk wanted. And to have Namjoon hyung remain by his side. As they'd spend their remaining days in springtide. He could finally take photos of flowers that weren't decayed & frostbitten and of his hyung lounging in the sun. 

Namjoon hyung could go on and on rambling about his random vast knowledge, like patagonias and cherry blossoms and Jeongguk would listen, completely enamored by his hyung's way of speaking and his descriptions of a world that wasn't cold. 

It was Namjoon hyung who got him interested in the lore anyways, as he was the one who brought it up, telling Jeongguk about the train, and how he'd journeyed there, with someone he loved very much. How he'd seen the endless fields and people who were always lively and frolicking gayly throughout the meadows.

But that was only once, and the pain Jeongguk saw in his hyung's eyes, shattered him. He'd wanted to ask who the person was, and what said person was like, and why ultimately, Namjoon hyung ended up here.

But he couldn't, for some reason, he could never bring those questions to rise. Whether it was because the ache in Namjoon hyung's eyes or the pain from his own nails digging into his clenched fists or whether it was his rage or jealousy of someone being so close to his hyung's heart or simply because Namjoon hyung got out. 

Jeongguk didn't think too much about it, because if he allowed himself to think of the infinite possibilities of having a life, he'd be denying his given reality. He didn't want to remain in this delusional world where nothing made sense, his head already hurt yet his heart felt nothing.

But…

But the folktales and lore and Namjoon hyung gave him that one chance to visualize a possibility.

According to the books they'd studied, on the night of Tsukimi, at a certain time, in a certain place, a train will come to take you away to the day when spring begins. 

An everlasting home where spring never left and the frost disappeared. 

That train was called the Tsukimi Express, the train that arrives during the autumn moon and takes you to spring.