Archive of Our Own

Loneliness is his companion.

There is nothing and no one around him for years, before the humans come and things get a bit easier. His mind is not as empty, as defeated. He doesn’t know why or what put him on the earth; he doesn’t remember anything before. The humans make what they call ‘children’, but he cannot ever remember being one of them. He was born as he is, if he was born at all. He simply became, when before he was not. He watches them, observing their patterns and interests before deciding to come into their homes to offer help. They serve him as a god and he doesn’t  really care to correct them. 

The hunger that used to drive him mad for years at a time has quelled, the humans offer their blood - criminals, virgins, unfortunate townspeople. He doesn’t care. It’s all food in the end. He doesn’t grow attached, and they believe it brings them luck of some kind.

They ask for his name, but a name is not something he has knowledge of so he doesn’t answer. They take it to mean they aren’t worthy of knowing but the truth is far simpler. He doesn’t want to make one up from the sounds he can make and hear around him, from the pictures on the walls. When he claims a name, he wants it to be meaningful - wants it to feel like his, wants it to be remembered by someone that matters to him. 

The humans grant him some form of sanity, but not a sense of belonging. He doesn’t feel anything for the beings so unlike him outside of curiosity and the loneliness stays, fermenting until it lashes out more violently than before.

One day, a woman approaches him. She is beautiful. Her skin is dull and pale, the shade of being at death’s threshold, her wrists frail - walking like a newborn deer. He finds appeal there, something different than the lively humans outside.

The woman asks for his blood, sure of healing properties inside it no one has ever known of, including the god himself, but he listens and agrees easily enough. He’s bored, and a little charmed. He feeds her blood, little by little, every day she comes to him. They talk as equals, learning from each other and finding comfort in their presence. The god can tell the blood is not healing her, and every time she comes back weaker than before.

For the first time, he gets attached.

The night the woman passes in her own home, he feels the pain in his unbeating heart and tears stream down his cheeks. Her little brother, the reason she was so desperate to stay alive all these years, pleads with the god to give her more of the blood - convinced he has simply not given enough. He doesn’t know what makes him do it, if his heart is soft for the only boy the human has left behind in her passing or if he just wants to show him she is gone but when he gives her his final blood through a kiss he never took alive - the woman stirs.

The god cannot do anything as she rips her own brother to shreds, eyes wild and raging. Her scent turns into something he has never smelled, and he allows her to leap on him and drink. As the man loses consciousness, he feels excitement at the prospect of his creation.

When the god wakes, the woman is tamed and crying over the torn remains of her little brother. She pleads for him to do the same he did for her, and he tries but to no avail. The child is merely pieces of rotting flesh, too far gone to heal into even a monster like them.

He tries to ask her to stay with him, keep him company in this endless loneliness, but the woman looks at him with eyes that no longer resemble the ones he fell in love with and she leaves.

He never sees her again.

He makes more, hoping to fill the loneliness she leaves behind - more painful than the last.

A man shows up on his doorstep, claiming he has traveled for a long time in search of answers to his questions.

“You have no idea how long time can be,” the god quips jadedly, but the man simply smiles at him, a smile the god thinks is fit to rival the sun he has never liked but found beautiful nonetheless. He notices the fangs similar to his own poking through, and his mind stalls. 

“I have a feeling I might.” The man quips back, chuckling. 

Their eyes grow teary as they reach out to touch the other and find belonging in the absence of breath, warm skin, and a heartbeat.

He lets the man stay with him, tells him of what happened in the village around them as bodies lie where the woman left them, others turning into monsters that run away.

“I am sorry, all this talking and I haven’t asked your name. I am Kino.”

“Kino,” the god tastes it, swishes it around on his tongue, and smiles. It fits the man well, a cute name with elegance and a sense of mischief. He turns his eyes as he replies.

“I do not have a name.”

“No!” Kino gasps, looking at him with sad eyes that the other allows.

“My brother gave me my name, as I gave him his.” Kino smiles fondly as he speaks of his brother, though the god just feels great envy and anger he fights to keep down at the thought of them starting their long lives together as he had to suffer alone.

“Could you give me one?” He asks the young man, watching his eyes widen and then crinkle as he agrees excitedly and thinks to himself, scanning the other’s face and tracing fingers.

“I met a man whose name would fit you well.” Kino finally speaks. “Hui,” he names him with a devastating smile as he looks to see if the god likes it.

The god looks at the other, feeling a great fondness bloom for the man who is not only beautiful and interesting, like the human woman he loved, but like him .

“It means glorious.”

And so Hui falls. 

Kino teaches him about the humans, shows him their families and inventions - their art. Hui likes it, finds the humans endearing if not only because the other god does. He watches his beautiful eyes flit from painting to scroll as he explains how people have learned to express themselves, talking excitedly and sharing his passions. Hui listens to every syllable, thinks about having all of forever isn’t bad if it’s with him.

“Huuui,” Kino whines. “Are you listening?” His lips form a petulant pout, exaggerated and cute. Sometimes Hui wonders if what the other man has made him is pathetic. 

“Yes.” Hui smiles at him, and Kino’s pout is replaced with a smile back. He goes back to telling him of how people have learned to move their bodies, says he wants to try it too. Hui doesn’t think much of it, until he sees him for himself.

A few days later, Kino invites him to his very own performance. His limbs move gracefully, spine arching and long fingers leaving lines through the air that spell out what he wants. He’s mesmerizing and beautiful. His face bends with his movements, sultry and focused. Hui wouldn’t be able to look away if he wanted to.

“They call it dancing.” Kino finishes, gauging Hui’s reaction.

“Incredible.”

“Are they not!?” Kino squeals with glee. 

Hui doesn’t clarify that he meant him.

“I miss my brother.” Kino whispers under the light of a full moon, the two men drinking fermented rice water they’ve received from the humans in offering. Hui hums at the moon.

“You are lucky.” Kino looks at him, the fire in front of them burns lower - ready to die out at any moment. “You do not know what it is like to be truly alone.”

“I suppose not.” The god looks pensive, biting back his lips like he’s not happy with what Hui has said. “Come with me tomorrow.”

“Where?” Hui was not aware he was planning a journey.

“Home.”

“This is my home.” Kino looks at him warily, takes another swig.

“A new home. With us.”

“You wish to go back?” Hui has not met the man Kino calls his brother, but heard stories of him - as well as the horror that made Kino leave him. Hui doesn’t understand Kino’s disdain for his brother’s actions but he has not said so.

“Come with me.”

Hui thinks maybe he never had a home before anyway, and he’s found one right beside him. The fire finally dies, and Kino leans his chin onto Hui’s shoulder - closing his eyes and humming a song he makes up on the spot. 

Hui wraps an arm around him from behind and hums along.

“Tomorrow then.” 

Hui is not favored by the brother. He can feel the aggression at every step he takes, and they get into their fair share of physical fights after the first meeting - though Kino pleads for them both to calm down, and the two men have no strength to resist the endearing god. They come to live in peace, finding new places to settle and their own missions to see through.

Kino continues to learn of human development, Hui coming with him and listening to his grand dreams of communities just like theirs. Hui has shared his story of the woman, leaving out the parts where he grew to care for her as an equal, and it leaves Kino pleading for them to try again.

They go on excursions to find people, Kino insisting they must be willing and aware of what they’re subjecting themselves to. Hui doesn’t really care.

All he wants is what Kino wants.

All he wants is Kino. 

Yuto comes between when he hears of their activities, tells Hui to stop corrupting his brother and Hui doesn’t have the interest to correct him. Everything they are doing is Kino’s idea, Hui just gave him the tools he needed to pursue his grand and ambitious dreams. 

Hui doesn't have any dreams. He just has him. 

“I want what the humans have.” Kino explains, another night they are away. Another human that didn’t quite make it to the state they wish, others running away to where they can’t find them and becoming lost causes.

“What do they have that we don’t?” Hui laughs.

“Love.” Kino whispers, looking up at that familiar moon. “It is such a human thing.”

Hui gulps down saliva, a nervous tic he’s only noticed since Kino arrived.

“Why is it only human?”

It can’t be. Hui loves him.

“Their hearts beat.” Kino looks at him with a small smile tugging at his left side, something sad in his eyes. “That strange organ inside them, pumping blood and giving life. It is good for more than that.”

“How could you know that?” Hui scoffs. Kino has been acting strange for some time now.

“Someone told me I make their heart beat faster.” Hui’s eyes turn cold. He looks but Kino is looking away, a dreamy stare inside his beautiful eyes as he thinks of a confession Hui had no clue of before tonight. 

Hui can’t lose Kino to a human. How could he? He’s the only one that knows what he is, who he is, other than his brother. That should be enough. 

“What did you reply?” Hui doesn’t really care. He just needs to hear the sure rejection of the silly human that believed they could love a god.

“I told him to teach me.” Kino’s fingers run across his bottom lip. “Humans are so warm, Hui.”

Hui has already started to walk away, fists shaking at his sides.

He cannot be warm. He cannot make his own heart beat, let alone Kino’s. 

He cannot be love. 

Yuto finds someone, he rarely comes back to the castle before nightfall. Kino tells Hui stories of how silly his brother is, how in love, with pain in his eyes that Hui cannot understand. He has gotten news back of two great candidates for turning, a frail and sickly woman agreeing - claiming she needs to find her son. Her husband doesn’t care for her, but offers a large sum in return for a miracle operation as he sees it. He stands in front of Yuto’s bedroom door, where he knows Kino went to bug his brother and listens in to their conversation - hoping to understand more of what Yuto finds in his own human, understand how he can possibly be that for Kino.

“I do not know? I feel less alone, I suppose.” Kino says to himself, answering his brother’s question of what Hui makes him feel. Hui’s body tenses at the response, already seeing where it’s all going with a red filter. “He understands me.”

“Right. So do you think that is love?” Yuto’s voice.

Hui doesn’t want to hear it. He knows. He’s always known deep down.

Since the night Kino told him of the humans he allowed to touch his lips, maybe before even then.

“Love? No. Hui is nothing like that to me.”

He opens the door, knocking curtly, and presents the face of someone who is not turning to the dust he should be, long overdue his time. He tells Kino of the news he so longs to hear, agrees to take Yuto along when they go and walks out, Kino by his side as always - mind run amok in distress, his heart missing. 

“If I asked you to, would you kill me?” Kino asks him one night. They sit and look at the moon often, feeling a calling during the night that they don't day. Hui knew this day would come, since the first time he explained to them that they had the power to end their lifetimes. Just the three of them. He always knew Kino would ask him. In the past, perhaps, he might have felt pain at this request. Might have begged him to reconsider and stay to see what else the humans have to offer.

But Hui is tired of humans. He’s tired of Kino feeling like someone he’s never known.

This Kino is familiar. This Kino knows the pain of being alive for so long you don’t know what life is anymore, or what it ever was.

“Any time.” He says. 

And he means it. 

Hui doesn’t mean to interfere with Yuto’s lover, but he feels no remorse when he does. Something has grown twisted inside of him. He no longer looks at Kino like something precious to cherish, instead something to cage and keep.

If he can’t have him, why should a lowly human?

Yuto loses Wooseok and Kino comforts him as best he can. Hui doesn’t say a word, watches as gods crumble at the feet of subjects with a sneer.

It’s all for the best in the end.

It will all be for the best. 

“Have you been with a human again?” Hui growls as he smells someone unfamiliar on Kino’s scent, not there only a few hours before. Kino startles, rubs at his neck with a sheepish smile and shrugs. He can almost hear the metaphorical snap of a rubber band pulled too taut, the last of his shame at hurting the man he loves flying out the door with whatever human he’s lain with last.

He grabs the man’s wrist, pulling him towards him roughly and looking into his eyes as their faces grow close.

“W-what are you doing?” Hui thinks for a moment of kissing him, but he’s a monster after all. He wants more than that. He grips his wrist tighter, fighting with himself before giving into the carnal urge and moving towards the other’s neck. “Hui!”

Kino sounds scared. Hui doesn’t stop.

Kino doesn’t struggle much when Hui sinks his fangs deep into the other’s neck, only for a moment he seems to panic and attempts to push the other away but he stops trying not even a few seconds in and lets his body go limp in Hui’s arms. The wild god drinks and drinks, the blood rushing into his mouth and tasting so sweet. He hears Kino whimper as they both sink to the floor, never taking his lips away from the pale, lovely neck.

“H-hui,” Kino’s voice is faint, Hui can taste his life inside his mouth. He pulls away, wiping at his mouth with his wrist but there’s too much blood to rid himself of - the red spilling all the way down the other’s collarbones. Kino is crying, reaching his hand out towards the door for someone. “Y-yu-” he tries to call, but Hui flies back in, lifting his draining form as he stands to suck the last dredges - not a drop to be left - and takes him away.

Not even his brother can have him anymore. 

Kino’s blood runs freely down his mouth like the beast he is and he meets Yuto’s wide eyes as he walks into the room. 

“How?” 

Hui drops Kino’s body, the younger’s eyes closed and lifeless. It makes a sick sound as he hits the stone floors.  

“How could you hurt him if you loved him?”

“What use is unrequited love?” Hui can scarcely believe it’s himself any longer. Maybe this is why whoever created him left him alone. Maybe Hui was always meant to be alone. 

“Do you not feel it? You want to kill that little human you let go, do you not? Deep down. You do not want him with anybody else after all. Think of how sweet his blood would taste.”

Yuto’s claws tear into his body, ripping shreds of flesh apart and leaving Hui screaming through it. He doesn’t have any fight in him, not willing to hurt Yuto too. Not willing to become more of a monster than he always was. He lets Yuto destroy him, feels every ounce of pain and still doesn’t believe it enough to atone for what he’s done to the only man who ever gave him reason to live, reason to love.

Death doesn’t feel like anything at all. Hui opens his eyes to a brightness so loud he closes them again immediately.

“Up, up.” A voice calls, sweet but demanding. “Come on. I don’t have all day. Especially not for you.” He opens his eyes again, and sees a man too beautiful to put into words, or he thinks he’s a man anyway. He can’t be quite sure. He slowly lifts his hands, running them over the body that should be torn to shreds and finding it intact - and warm. He gasps, realizing that he’s breathing and he slowly puts his hand over his heart to find a beating. “Oh my heavens, get up .” The man kicks him and Hui whines in pain, standing to appease the bully.

“Wh-what am I?”

“Dead.” The man has a clipboard, looking through multiple sheets and glancing at Hui every few moments.

“I thought so.” He keeps his hand over his beating heart, playing with his breathing and looking at the warm tone his arms hold. He doesn’t look dead. “Why am I...”

The man looks at him with a brow raised, his hair is long - his eyes big. He’s quite handsome.

“Why am I breathing?” Hui asks. “Why is my heart beating?”

The man laughs to himself, and Hui gets the feeling he should be offended.

“Haven’t you always wanted to?” He meets his eyes, eons of knowledge behind them. Hui continues to stare at him. “Most people don’t wish for such tiny things, but then again. I guess you’re not most people.”

“You know who I am?”

“It’s my job.” He sighs. “Don’t flatter yourself, chump.”

Hui doesn’t understand his strange language, figures it comes with being someone outside of time and space, then wonders if he’ll learn it as well.

“Your type is supposed to be ... kind? Heavenly?” Hui’s read the messages of the humans of a God, an overarching one and beings that come from the beyond of lifetime in trying times. He’s also found places he believes he would go, but he can’t believe this is that.

“We’re not all the same.” The man scoffs, and starts to walk with a hand waving to follow. Hui does so, looking around to find nothing under him, nothing anywhere except for in front of them - a road of light with a door in the far distance. “I honestly cannot believe he let you in here.”

“That makes two.” Hui mumbles. He thinks he hears the other laugh. “Do you have a name?”

The other seems to hesitate, then shakes his head. Hui figures it was worth a shot.

“So you are saying because I wanted to be human, I am?”

“No. You wanted a beating heart, with that comes all sorts of organs.” Hui flinches, wanting a beating heart is not something he ever admitted to himself - rather condemning the humans instead. “Anyway it doesn’t matter here. Who you were.”

“I thought only good beings come here.” The man turns, they’re at the front of the gate now - the bright overwhelming but not hurting Hui’s eyes - in some mystical way.

“Who decides what’s good and what’s bad?”

“I thought God did.”

“Ah, that name again. They always call him that.”

Hui can’t wrap his mind around it. He’s killed someone, out of selfishness and rage. Surely monsters don’t belong here. He was always meant to be alone.

“You were not meant to be alone.” The man says softly, making Hui look at him with wide eyes. He feels his new heart speed up. The man’s eyes are kind, sympathetic and gorgeous. “God has his plans.” The man frowns as he says this, like it’s a speech he’s practiced a million times and doesn’t even believe anymore. “He must have made you suffer for a reason.”

“Why make anyone suffer at all?”

The man looks apprehensive, turning away from him and walking through the light. Hui doesn’t know whether to follow. He looks around at the nothingness, thinking that maybe this is his punishment. His eternal resting place - exactly the same as his start. Alone.

A hand reaches out from inside the door of light, and holds itself open with its palm up. Hui places his own on top of it, taking in the feeling of a warm hand - his own hand, and is pulled through the light into a world of stars. He looks down, finding a carpet of night sky, buildings built of stars standing with people bustling about, and a great big light illuminating it all - the moon.

“Welcome to heaven,” the man smiles. 

Hui is told he has to talk to God before he can really come in, and the old god feels his heart speed in anxiety. He is happy to have this gift, if not used to it. The man takes him to the tallest building in the center of the space they’ve stood in and tells him to go inside.

“Will you still be here?” Hui asks, growing attached to the only being that’s talked to him the entire time he’s been here. The pretty face helps. 

The other looks at him with a sly smile, and shrugs.

“Maybe, maybe not.” 

The meeting goes well, Hui thinks. He doesn’t actually remember anything after he walked in and some strange presence touched his forehead, finding himself back outside in the center afterwards. He gathers he’s been let through. He looks around but can’t find the man from before, feeling disappointed, instead a new being appears next to him.

“Hello!” His voice chirps. This man is different from the last, he shimmers as he walks and he has wings made of the same light everything else is around here. He’s also pretty, but not in the same way. His hair is shorter, and though his eyes are big they don’t hold the same feeling the other one did.

“Hi,” Hui says, frustrated that these people don’t have names to differentiate. “What am I supposed to call you? Number two?”

“You don’t get to call me anything.” The man says, with the same sickeningly sweet smile on his face. “You shouldn’t even be talking with me. Shouldn’t even be here really.”

“What is your problem?”

“I don’t like murderers.” Hui grows pale, frozen in his spot. “Don’t worry. I don’t have the ability to kick you out. You’ve already been blessed.”

“Uh -” he doesn’t know what to say to him.

“I’m here to show you where you’ll stay from now on.” Hui nods meekly and follows the man, walking a step behind and avoiding the strange wings. He wonders why the other doesn’t have any. They walk in uncomfortable silence, eventually coming up to a door a little bigger than him with nothing on the other side. “Here we are. When you walk through this door, you’ll be anywhere you want to be. It will change depending.”

“Anywhere?”

“It won’t work for anything perverted. Or heinous.” He gives Hui a glare.

“Who do you think I am!?”

“Someone who killed an innocent man.” The other looks back at him mockingly. Hui wonders if it’s all a guise and he’ll be reminded for all eternity of what he’s done by this man, put into comfort before pushed into torture and pain. If the other side of the door is atonement, Hui is ready to walk through - unforgiving of himself. How could he? Yuto had said it. How could he? “When you go somewhere, you won’t be able to see anyone there and no one will see you. It’s not the same space as life.”

“So you can’t see people you left behind?”

“Who would you want to see?” The man’s smile falls, he looks at him with cold eyes. “His brother?”

“No - I.” Hui wants to see him . Kino. Where is Kino?

“He’s not here.” The man’s eyes are so sad, but there’s some kind of relief there. “You didn’t kill him.” Hui loses all his breath, feeling what it is to be winded and bends over to rest his hands on his knees as his heart pulses painfully. Tears drop and fall onto the path below, and he shudders.

“Thank you.” He falls to his knees, moving slowly towards the man and bowing. “Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t save him.” The man seems to soften as he looks upon Hui and sighs, he puts a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”

Hui stands, looking at the door and slowly opening it though he feels nothing beneath his palm as he pushes. He walks through with the man and more tears fall from his eyes. It’s the beach. Their beach. The full moon hangs in the sky, and the fire from that night is still going strong. If Hui imagines, he can see himself with Kino right in his arms on the blanket beside it.

“Will I ever see him again?” Hui’s voice is raw; he doesn’t look away from the fire. 

“Maybe.” The man hums. “If fate allows.” 

There is no time here, Hui can’t feel anything passing. Things happen around him, or they don’t, and it doesn’t matter. No one notices. Hui walks. He walks a lot, looking around and observing places. Sometimes the door changes and he’s back in the castle, sometimes he’s in the village he started in. It hurts to be inside.

He thinks that might be part of the point.

“You!” Hui calls when he spots him. “It’s you! The one who welcomed me.” He runs up to the man, still with that same clipboard and frustrated frown. “You don’t feel like the others.” Hui has seen a handful of what he believes are angels around, but they all have wings apart from this one. He wonders if he’s not an angel after all.

“That’s rude.”

“Sorry. I was just saying.” Hui feels like he likes this one more. He hasn’t talked to a lot of people here, most people not interested to talk to anyone that they didn’t know in their life and a lot of them staying inside their own doors. He wonders what others see, but hasn’t tried visiting anyone yet. “Do you have a door?” He asks.

“You ask so many unnecessary questions.”

“I just want to know more about this place, and you.”

“Why me?” The man looks at him from his files, Hui wonders if they’re new papers every time or the same ones.

“I told you. You feel different.” He can’t place his finger on it, but everyone else here feels - a little less real. “Why don’t you have wings?” He flinches, ready to be berated for asking another question like that. Instead he gets a hand over his mouth, and he tries to ignore that the man smells faintly sweet - like cherries. 

“I do .” He hisses. Hui tries to mumble out that he can’t see them if he does. “Shut up. If you just stay quiet for like three seconds, I’ll show you my door.” Hui nods eagerly, smiling when he lets go of his mouth and gestures for him to follow. The angel’s door is hidden further away from any regular being’s door, and the man hurries Hui inside when they get to it, closing the door behind him. “There! Are you happy?” Hui stares at him, awestruck. The man’s hair has changed, a thick red part on the side of his black hair and a glossy sheen on his lips. Hui looks around him, unfamiliar with the setting. Everything is made of what looks to be iron, a metal the humans had just barely learned to make into things when he had passed away. He wonders what time it is there, and how Yuto is doing - how Kino is doing.

“Where is this?” Hui asks in wonder, walking around and poking things like a giant chair made of a beast’s hide that shines and makes strange noises when he sits. In front of him, a million lights and contraptions with switches and things that make noise when you press them.

“Hands off!” The man yells, shooing him away from the machine. “It’s my studio.” He sighs. “You’re too old to know what any of this is.”

“Aren’t you older than me?” Hui questions. The man shrugs.

“I don’t have an age. I exist outside of time.”

“Why is this where you want to be?”

“Because I like music.” He sighs, sitting in the strange chair that spins around in front of his machine. “Sit on the couch.” He gestures at the giant squeaky chair, and Hui sits uncomfortably - afraid of it. “Oh my-” He fiddles around with the lights and some kind of words appear on the glass in front of him, he does something else and a noise starts to come out of somewhere - making Hui jump out of his skin. He listens, realizing it’s the voice of the man - singing.

“How are you doing that?” Hui manages to get out.

“I recorded it.” Hui gives him a look and he shakes his head, saying to forget about it. “Do you like music?”

Hui does. He loved hearing it when humans invented strange tools that plucked sounds they put together into melodies, and people put words in melodies to sing stories. He wanted to make his own. He nods his head and gets a smile from the other. “Your voice is beautiful.” He watches the man blush and turn away, fidgeting with the machine again.

“Why do you want to know about me?”

“I like you.”

“What!?”

“I like being around you. You make me feel like this isn’t all some strange dream. This place is .. strange. I don’t know when I’ll get used to it.” Hui admits. He’s been walking and walking but nothing feels all that real. He wonders if this is what not existing means.

“Did you like being alive?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes.” He frowns, thinking of days with Kino and the rare occasions Yuto would smile with him - in the castle, where time felt much too long and tiring but felt like something.

“Do you like it here?”

“In your door?”

The angel pauses. “Sure.”

“I like it here. I like music, and learning about new things.” He runs his hand over the strange seat that he called a ‘couch’ again and smiles. “And I like you.”

The angel’s ears grow red and he looks away again, clearing his throat. “We should be getting back to the outside.”

Hui doesn’t want to go.

“Can I come back here sometime?” He feels like something is real here. He doesn’t want to leave at all, but if he can just come back - that could be enough.

“Only with me.” He frowns. Hui agrees and they step outside into the night again.

“Seungjun,” the angel says. He’s still a little red. “My name.” 

Hui starts finding Seungjun whenever he can. The angel teaches him about the machine in his studio, and about the time period all the things in there are from. Hui loves it, he starts learning how to make his own music and Seungjun is surprised to find it’s really good. Hui loves seeing the other’s face light up when he plays him a new tune.

“Why don’t you try singing?” Seungjun asks one day, as they sit inside. Hui gets shy, he’s wearing clothes that Seungjun has conjured from the door that fit the ‘vibe’ as he calls it, so that Hui can change out of his robes that everyone wears.

“I don’t know if I’m any good.” Hui admits. Sengjun perks up, sitting up and playing a slow melody that repeats. He turns to Hui, eyes expectant.

“Just sing whatever comes to mind. Any way you want. Just feel it out.” Hui struggles, his voice cracks and he’s nervous. Seungjun always makes him nervous. “It’s okay. Try again.” So Hui does, and he feels the melody - feels the emotions that were hiding deep inside him ever since he arrived and he sings. His voice is clear and soulful, he does little runs at the end and when he opens his eyes he sees Seungjun looking at him with his mouth open. “That was-”

“It’s my first time, okay!” Hui rushes, hiding his face in a cushion.

“That was amazing, Hui.” Seungjun gasps, turning around and hitting some buttons - then playing it back. He’s recorded him. Hui gets to hear his own voice back to himself, and he kind of likes how it sounds too.

“Does anyone else do music here?” Hui asks, and he sees Seungjun get tense - turning his attention to nothing in particular on the soundboard.

“Yeah, I’m sure there’s a few people.”

“So why are you hiding?” Hui has had the feeling for a while now, that Seungjun is hiding a lot of things - a lot more than his music. “Why don’t you have wings?”

“I do have wings.” He shouts at Hui, and then there’s someone standing there. Between them. Seungjun’s eyes are huge, fear circling deep inside them. Hui recognizes the man as the snarky one who first showed him his door. “You can’t-” Seungjun shoots up from his chair.

“What is an unholy doing in your door?” The man hisses. Seungjun looks between Hui and the other angel in panic. The angel’s eyes focus in behind Seungjun, squinting, and then he gasps - raising a hand to his mouth in shock. “Your wings-”

“Hyojin, please. Just - just for a little longer. I won’t let him in again.” Hui frowns at that, not being able to imagine being here without the studio any longer. 

“Don’t use my name in front of him.” The other angel, Hyojin, looks between them, face paling. “You told him. You told him your real name.”

“I’ll go.” Hui stands. “I won’t come back.” The thought of it tears him up inside, but he can see the distress in Seungjun’s eyes and the trouble that’s obviously brewing around him. He’s not going to be the reason anyone else gets hurt. “I’m sorry.” He bows to Hyojin and steps out the door, out into the lifeless night sky.

Everything here is pretty. Everything here seems perfect.

It's all fake. He hates it. 

He’s summoned to talk to God, again. A terrifying notion in the first place, even more so the second time around. He walks back to the familiar building and tries to be brave but he feels like he might faint. There’s an angel standing next to the entrance, one without wings - one that’s not Seungjun.

“Hello?” Hui says, and the man looks up at him with a smile.

“Hi.” He says back pleasantly.

“I’m here to see -”

“Ah yes, well. He’s trusted me with your case, so follow me just around the corner here.” Hui is confused and a little terrified, this is the nicest angel he’s met yet and following him into a corner feels like a recipe for getting double killed. When they reach their destination though, there’s just a door - though it’s not the same material all doors are made of. This one is an ominous black matter grid, and Hui thinks he’s definitely fucked. “Don’t be scared.”

Hui laughs nervously, but follows the angel inside. The nice demeanor of the other helps to calm his nerves, and he holds his breath once they’re inside. He recognizes it. This place. It’s the castle, though things have been renovated with modern fixtures and furniture. He whips around, looks at the angel in question and shudders.

“Who are you?” He whispers, intimidated by his power. He’s sure he’s not like Seungjun, or Hyojin, or anyone else he’s seen around here. Is this God?

“I’m Changgu. I’ve been dying to meet you.” The angel laughs, a silly laugh and looks at Hui with a smile that reaches all the way to his eyes. “That was a terrible joke. You won’t even get it.”

“Why are we here? Why is this your door?” Hui has never felt so scared in his life, not even when he was dying.

“I’m sorry, Hui. I really am. I can’t answer that, not now.”

“Why was I summoned?” He steps further away from the being, he doesn’t think he’s an angel anymore. He doesn’t like being in here.

“Well,” Changgu hums, his finger to his lips as he thinks, “to put it simply. You’re a corruption.”

“What - what does that mean?” Hui’s breath wavers. He knows what it means.

“We might have to remove you.” Changgu sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Real bad luck.”

“What else is there?” Hui doesn’t know what the other place is like, and while he probably deserves it - he doesn’t want to go. He can’t go.

“Non - existence.” Changgu frowns. “It’s not fun.”

“So what can I do?” Hui is ready to do anything. Changgu’s expression changes to one of pity, and then Seungjun is beside him - just as afraid. Hui hates seeing that look on Seungjun.

“You make a choice, Hui.” Changgu levels him with a meaningful look. Hui’s heart sinks to his feet. “One of you has to go. If you choose him, you won’t be punished. You’ll be allowed to stay for the rest of forever.”

“But he - he stops existing?” Hui’s voice rises. It’s fucked up. It’s so wrong. What kind of heaven is this? Seungjun has tears in his eyes but he won’t meet Hui’s gaze. “I can’t do that.”

“If you choose you, then you stop existing - forever.” Changgu looks heartbroken, like he’s friends with them both and is seeing loved ones struggle but he’s above it all. Hui looks at Seungjun, looks down at his tanned skin - his human self. “You don’t have to answer now.”

“How long?”

“There is no time here, Hui.”

“So what? Am I just going to go about and then one day be sprung this on me again!?”

“Pretty much.” Changgu’s voice is calm but somber. “There’s nothing else you can do.”

“What if I don’t make a choice?”

“You both stop existing.” Changgu disappears, they’re outside the door - there’s not even a door like the black matter one around anymore. Seungjun is standing next to Hui, shivering and holding back tears. Hui throws his arms around him, holding him close and tucking his face into his shoulder.

“I won’t.” Hui chokes out, holds Seungjun tighter still. “I won’t choose you.” Seungjun cries harder.

They spend all their time together. Hui figures if he’s going to stop existing, he can take advantage while he can. Seungjun comes to accept Hui’s decision, though he won’t stop crying and blaming himself. Hui doesn’t let him do it for long, always finding a way to distract him with a new song, a lame joke, a cute face - anything.

They’re in Hui’s door, where the scenery has changed to a spacious bedroom with his own studio in the corner - a photo frame of the beach on the desk he spends all his time. Instruments lie around with sheets of lyrics he’s written.

“It should be me.” Seungjun says, as they’re lying on the bed - cuddling close. Hui really likes the feeling of warm skin on his, the reminder that he got to really be alive for a moment, was honored enough to get to spend that time with Seungjun.

“How many times do I have to go over this?” Hui laughs. He’s been laughing a lot lately, to hide the anxiety that any day now they’ll be back in that room where Hui has to choose non-existence to save Seungjun, the choice he’ll make over and over again. “It’s going to be me.”

“It’s my fault.” Seungjun says, gripping onto Hui’s shoulder with his little hands. Hui takes one in his own and puts it to his heart.

“No matter what you say, this right here,” he lets him feel the beat, “this was enough for me. For a lifetime.” He looks deep into Seungjun’s eyes, cloudy with tears once again. “For forever.”

“But it’s not enough for me.” Seungjun’s voice breaks and he buries his face into Hui’s neck. “It’s really my fault.”

“Would it make it better if I let you tell me why?” Hui looks at him with a smile, because there could be a million reasons, all true - and Hui would still never choose him.

“My wings. They disappeared before you even came.” Hui knows that, because the first time he saw him - they already weren’t there.

“I know, so? What do the wings even mean?”

“It’s your holiness.” Seungjun explains, twisting a finger into the bottom of Hui’s tee-shirt. “When they’re gone, you’ve been corrupted.”

“What is corruption?”

“Sin.” Seungjun takes a shaky breath. “Greed. Envy. Lust.” Hui snorts. Seungjun frowns at him, unamused.

“Everyone has those, to some extent.”

“Not holy beings!” Seungjun whines. Hui loves when Seungjun whines. “I wasn’t supposed to.”

“So what were you so greedy and envious of?”

“Don’t forget the lust.” Seungjun laughs. Hui loves when Seungjun laughs.

“Of course, the lust.”

There’s a long pause, like Seungjun is trying to find the exact words to use. “Being alive.”

“What? Like down there?” Hui raises a brow.

“Yes.” Hui understands that, to some extent. Being alive is better than being here, but being here is better than not being - that’s why his choice is easy even if it’s not. Seungjun has to exist. “I’ve never been alive. I’ve only been here.”

“So how do you know you want it so bad?”

“I didn’t. I just wanted something else. Not this.” Seungjun shudders. “Maybe not existing is also-”

“No.” Hui puts two fingers to Seungjun’s lips, looking him in his big brown eyes. He loves those eyes. “No.” He says, final.

“There’s another part to corruption.”

“Hmm?” Hui is listening, but he’s also enjoying every moment he can. He doesn’t know how many moments he has left.

“Doubt.” 

“Of who?” Hui takes a moment. “God?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Obviously he exists. I met him, we all have. You work for him.”

“It’s not that.” Seungjun hits Hui’s chest playfully with a pout. “His workings. His plans.”

“You’re not allowed to question it?” Seungjun shakes his head. “What is this? A dictatorship?”

“It’s being. It’s how things are here.”

“But when you’re alive, you’re not held to these standards?” Hui made it into heaven even though he killed Kino, or tried to kill him anyway, but now he’s being taken out of existence for asking a beautiful man’s name. Worth it.

“Is being really better than not existing, do you think?” Seungjun whispers, tilting his head up to look at Hui again. They never make eye contact for long, always afraid of the pull it initiates.

They both know what this is.

“I do.” Hui confirms.

“So why are you giving it to me?” Seungjun’s voice doesn’t rise. Whispers are their secrets, even if secrets aren’t possible here. Hui doesn’t want any secrets anymore, there’s no point. You can take secrets to your grave, but Hui will never even have that.

“Because I love you.” He says it clearly, loud enough. It’s not a secret. Seungjun’s eyes grow cloudy again, and he tilts his head up further - moving closer. Hui closes the distance, letting himself indulge in what this place calls sin before his final moments. When he’s gone, no one will remember him. No one will ever know he was here. Seungjun won’t. This thought brings both pain and relief to Hui’s heart, bittersweet.

“I love you too.” Seungjun says it back just as clear and loud. No secrets.

“Make your choice.” Changgu’s voice sounds, and they’re back in the room.

Hui should have known. Really, they kind of did. The moment they felt content, the moment they gave it their all - it’s all taken away. He laughs, looking at Seungjun with a smile. He has to laugh for Seungjun. He can’t let him see how afraid he is.

“What will it be, Hui?” Changgu’s voice is devastated. Hui thinks he can hear him crying, but they can’t see him. He’s not in the room with them. There’s nothing here, like when Hui first died - except without even a light path.

“Me. I choose me.”

He hears Seungjun scream and then nothing.

“Wake up!” Seungjun yells right into Hui’s ear, morning light coming through the window of the bedroom. Hui groans and turns over in his bed. He was up until five, making a song for his baby - the baby yelling into his goddamn year. “Huiiii, you promised we would go on a triple date today!”

“Today is a long day. With many hours. I’m sure there’s at least one I can use to sleep a little more.” He pulls at Seungjun, making the man fall over into the bed and roll into his side. He turns to place a kiss on his forehead and snuggles into him.

“I knew you would do this.” Seungjun pouts, but snuggles right back and Hui laughs. He doesn’t have to laugh anymore. He just wants to. “We only have until the end of time to see everything Hui. I’ve missed out on so much!”

“It’s okay. There’s a lot of things I wish I missed out on. I’m doing you a favor.” Seungjun rolls Hui over and slaps his butt hard enough to make a loud sound. Hui is about to tackle the man, when the door swings open and Kino comes barreling in.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” Kino says, way too happy to be awake - even if vampires don’t sleep in the first place. The other three slink their way in, bringing the entire triple date straight into their bedroom. Kinky.

“He looks tired,” Changgu sounds like he sympathizes, but Hui will never trust Changgu again in his life. Not after the trauma of heaven, poor Seungjun having a mental breakdown as Changgu chirped, ‘You passed the test!’ and gave them their prize of a free lifetime. Finding Yuto and Kino again wasn’t a choice, more than finding - it’s like Yuto tracked him down. The initial fight was scary, Hui protected Seungjun and pleaded for Yuto to only hurt him if he must. Something about the act of selflessness made the god pause, reevaluate, and Kino has always been too kind. Even after Hui took his life, with many apologies once reunited and many tears, Kino forgave. Seungjun jokes that Kino was always meant to be holy, but Hui wonders if it’s a joke at all. “Maybe we should let him sleep.”

It makes Hui’s skin crawl and he nearly jumps out of the bed.

“I hate it when you act like that.” He hisses at Changgu, who just sticks out his tongue as he hides behind his giant boyfriend. Yan An smiles sheepishly at Hui, shrugging in a ‘what can you do with him’ manner.

“I’m hungry.” Shinwon whines, pulling at Kino’s hand. “Let’s get food! Hui can meet us later.”

“Exactly! We’re on the same page here.” Hui shoots a thumbs up at Shinwon, who looks back at him confused and continues to bug Kino. Hui thought seeing Kino with his three boyfriends when he was brought to life again would bother him, but really it makes him happy. He has Seungjun now, and Kino being alive and happy is pretty good.

“Quadruple date or I cut the wifi for a month!” Jinho yells from the hallway.

“Pentuple date!” Wooseok’s loud voice chimes in. He can hear Yuto’s groan from here.

“I wish non-existence was still an option.” Hui complains, hugging his pillow. He watches Changgu lift a finger and flinches. “No! I’m up. I’m up.”

He’s got such a long life ahead of him.