Archive of Our Own

“You will ruin yourself,” God tells him. 

Yeo One watches the beautiful human boy carefully, a small smile uncontrollably spreading without reason.

“For him?” Yeo One says with conviction. “Anything.”

“You do not even know him yet.”

“This boy,” he moves a branch out of the youth’s way as he plays in the woods, “will grow to be everything to me.”

Yeo One sees the threads that the universe leaves him, wrapping them around his fingers with care and leading their patterns. God scolds him each time, but Yeo One claims he hasn’t broken any rules yet - gives his best grin and says he’ll try his best not to when they both already know there’s no way he won’t.

“Has it taken you again?” God questions as Yeo One watches the endless being separated from his human lover with a frown. “Have you had more visions?”

“No.” He’s being honest. Since he saw the man the boy grows to be, Yeo One’s purest form kissing him softly with tears in his eyes and boundless love in his heart - a sadness Yeo One could not understand set deeply inside that he’s willing to take on just to feel that love once more, he hasn’t seen anything else. All he knows is this endless being and his lover are somehow connected to the boy’s future, and he’s kept his eyes on them despite the unfortunate selling of the human to a despicable owner. “Can’t I help them?” He looks to God. “Why must they suffer?”

“You know why.”

Yeo One doesn’t think it’s fair, that he’s sure he could help a lot more than his fair share if God would just let them have the angels join in. He holds his tongue, waits for his future to become real because time is not something they control. 

Yeo One is afraid to love a human, who is so fragile to time - much more than any of them, but he knows he will have no choice. He has seen the future, and he has felt the love he holds in his heart for Yan An , his lover’s name, and he already feels it growing now.

“You will have another.” God says quietly, getting ready to move once more. “It will hurt you greatly.” Yeo One spins around from where he watches his future friends, wiping a tear as the human is abused inside his new home.

“This hurts more than you can know!” Yeo One yells. “ Help him !”

But God looks on, shakes his head, and disappears. Yeo One screams down at the earth, whispering apologies to Wooseok begging the man to stop. Seungjun takes him away from the edge with pity in his eyes and shaking hands.

“What are we doing?” Yeo One whispers. “Why aren’t we doing anything?”

Seungjun doesn’t answer. 

The next vision comes not long after, and Yeo One is not watching over it from his own eyes as he did the first. The same deep love stays in the heart he occupies, but it’s not his own, the pain splits him down his middle and his eyes won’t stop flowing tears as blood flows from wounds inside the young man’s body. Yeo One can’t move. He smells gunpowder, blood and shit and misery around him. There is a fear inside him, from the breaths he is struggling to take and his thoughts are full of the other’s own. He sees that same beautiful boy with his mother, making dumplings. He sees someone who looks a lot like him if he was younger smiling at the boy he is, he sees that same boy growing up and telling him he loves him.

Yeo One’s own thoughts struggle to break through, but now all he can think is no. No, no, no.

He is Yan An, and Yan An is dying.

But this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. In the first vision, they are older and happy and making love. Yan An can’t die when Yeo One hasn’t even met him yet. He can’t tell what time it is, he can’t tell how much people have grown.

Yan An is speaking, and Yeo One is listening to his own lips moving desperately.

A chill spreads through Yan An, and Yeo One can’t tell if it’s because he’s lost so much blood or because he’s now looking at himself, crying over Yan An who doesn’t actually have his eyes open - or maybe he does, but he can’t see.

“We have to move him!” Yeo One is watching himself plead to the endless being he’s been watching in the present, begging as though it’s the only thing that matters and the being, Yuto, isn’t moving to help. “Please, he’s going to suffocate and he’s already lost so much , so much blood.”

Help him. Save him. Yuto, please! Yeo One’s own thoughts scream through again, and Yan An chokes on blood.

“Please. I can’t die. I don’t want to die.” He struggles out. Yeo One is watching him die in two realities. Both of him plead with Yuto once more, and Yeo One is terrified but the man finally seems to agree with the convincing of another that Yeo One hasn’t met yet. He feels himself getting pulled away from the vision, and desperately tries to connect with the man he’s inside the consciousness of before he has to go but he doesn’t succeed and he’s thrown back into heaven. God is standing above him once more. Yeo One is still crying uncontrollably, his heart in so much pain.

“He’s going to die.” He gasps out between sobs. God looks at him in pity. “Do you hear me?” He stands on his own two feet, reaching his hands out in an attempt to lay his hands on the figure that’s plagued him forever but meeting nothing. “ He’s going to fucking die!”

“I warned you.”

“I won’t let him.” Yeo One wipes at his nose and eyes, teeth grit. “You hear me?”

“I know.” God smiles, no kindness in the expression. “You won’t.”

“You knew. You knew this would happen. You know what’s going to happen.”

“I cannot control time, Changgu.”

Yeo One freezes, staring at him - directly at him. God is someone he only knows in concept, as anyone can, but as he looks at him now he can see him.

God is not grand, not bigger than life. He isn’t even tall . He looks like he could be someone’s father, and he has kind eyes though they hold a deep sadness as they gaze upon him now.

“Who are you?” Yeo One gasps. “Are you Him?”

“It’s almost time, if you can see me now.” His eyes grow sadder, and he looks away from Yeo One. “I wish I could help you.” The man in front of him sounds emotional, like his voice is thick with tears, and he won’t face him. At this time, God feels so human. “In some ways, this might be best. This way, you can stay with him somehow.” When he turns back around, he has a big smile with tears running down his cheeks and he reaches out a hand.

“What do you mean?” Fear strikes Yeo One once more. What could make God cry?

“You’ve always been my favorite, you know.”

Yeo One doesn’t get an answer and once more God disappears, but time moves so quickly he can’t see what’s happening in front of him until Wooseok is face down in the river and Yuto is crying over his corpse. When Wooseok drinks from Yuto until he dreams, Yeo One goes to him and convinces him to meet Yan An on that day - says he’ll meet him once more then.

Yeo One will not let Yan An die. God knows he won’t, and that’s what scares him most.

Yuto loses Kino to Hui, and Hui pays the price. Yeo One knew that all of them were connected, threads wrapped around his finger until he could reel in Yan An. Seungjun takes a liking to him, and Yeo One is happy to see the angel expressing care for someone from the earth, aware of his lust for life.

Hui crosses boundaries in heaven, but Yeo One knows God too well to think he would really punish him. Until one day he’s summoned to do a job.

Yeo One was created to play with existence, build the world. He brought humans, he brought Yuto and Kino, and then eventually Hui on a whim. These days, he wonders if that was time pushing him towards the right ending once more. The only one he didn’t bring about is God, and time controls them all without any stopping. With creation comes destruction, and he’s been asked to take someone out of existence only once before - a human who delved too far and phased through time.

“What do you mean we have to erase him?” Yeo One says in disbelief. “So he broke a few rules, that’s hardly the worst he could do!”

“It’s not about the rules.” God appears to him as a human man from now on, but no one else seems to notice. It’s their own secret. “He can’t exist in this reality.”

“That means he doesn’t exist at all!” Yeo One argues. God gives him a look he doesn’t comprehend.

“You’ll understand in time.”

“You always say that, in time.”

“You have to erase him.”

“This is going to kill Seungjun.” He tries to get God to look him in the eye, but he can’t, and sometimes Yeo One wants to call him a coward but he’s the closest thing he has to a brother here and he sighs and nods in agreement because after all, he knows best.

Yeo One comes to understand when he gets another vision, where he understands who Hui is and what he’s gone through and comes to care for him - so even though he doesn’t know why, he cries as he tells him to make his choice.

He knows he wouldn’t pick Seungjun.

The scream from Seungjun’s lungs is the worst sound Yeo One has ever heard, but somehow in the vision he thinks he’s heard that exact sound before.

When he comes back, it’s only a matter of earth days before he has to actually do it.

Seungjun never looks at him again, and the last Yeo One hears of the angel he’s flung himself down to earth in misery - burning up in time and joining his lover in non-existence.

Yeo One doesn’t remember him after that. 

“Is this what ruins me?”

They’re both crying. Somewhere along the length of time, Yeo One realized what this must all mean and decided to go through with it anyway - as though it were a choice.

God nods his head, once.

“Is he happy?”

“You make sure of it.”

“Changgu.” Yeo One tries it on his tongue. “Is that what he calls me?”

“Over and over.” God wipes at more tears. “You love it.” Yeo One looks at him.

“I love him.” He nods again. “Can I know your name?”

“There’s a reality,” God pauses, another sad smile as he grasps Yeo One’s hand tighter as he feels time taking him again “they call me Eunkwang.”

“I’ll find it.”

“You won’t.” He shakes his head, and Yeo One knows that must be true, and then he’s back there - at that battlefield - on the other side of Yan An dying and he knows what he has to do.

He can’t take away Yan An’s pain as he begs Yuto to turn him, but he’s there - begging Yuto just like in the dreams, repeating reality so he can tweak it. He feels Yan An’s awareness of him, the warmth inside his heart and he uses his essence to say goodbye.

They never even got to meet, not really, not him. That was Changgu.

He says it anyway, because he means it, and he thinks he can feel Yan An understand.

“I love you.”

His existence splits between the two realities and part of him is taken to where he wants to be. Always, he can feel it - part of him is always there with him. In the reality where Yuto saves Yan An and Changgu finds him again years later with a wife and kids but all that same love, Yeo One doesn’t exist.

In this reality, Yuto doesn’t save him.

In this reality, Yan An dies.

And Yeo One lives on.

When Yeo One has nothing to do in heaven, and he’s strong enough, he watches Changgu live the life he wanted and pretends it’s almost the same. It’s him after all, he feels that same love. Yeo One is there when Changgu meets Ai, the beautiful Chinese woman who becomes his wife and bears his children. Silent tears fall when he hears Minghao and Junhui’s first cries, and the angels avoid looking at him as he sits in the square and watches Changgu’s sons grow. He becomes an outcast in heaven, and always feels like someone’s missing but he can never remember.

He thinks he used to have a friend here, a friend something terrible happened to, because sometimes he looks at one of the doors and cries. Sometimes he comes across Hyojin, and it looks like he hates him before he’s back to his normal self. Sometimes it feels like Yeo One knows why, but he never does.

It hits him much too late, when he feels Changgu is growing sick and frail, and sees the pain in Yan An’s eyes at losing him that Changgu is human - punished for playing with life and saving him instead of letting him die - and Changgu is going to die and go back to heaven where he’ll have a hard time telling apart realities again.

When the time comes, and he feels Changgu pass and go back, he can tell the difference - because Seungjun still exists and Changgu doesn’t erase Hui. He tells him it’s all a test and sets them free. Yeo One sobs violently as Seungjun gets to live as he wanted, and doesn’t throw himself to the earth - tired of existing .

He runs to his door, throws it open and finds the studio left just as it was in Changgu’s reality. He’s holding onto a hoodie his friend liked to wear, going through his dashboard and finding songs he made with Hui.

They were so in love .

He doesn’t hear Hyojin enter the door, but when he looks up at him from the floor he’s sitting on with wet eyes he sees the emptiness that Seungjun’s absence has left on Hyojin, even if he doesn’t remember him.

“Hyojin,” Yeo One’s voice sounds terrible.

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s his door. Don’t you remember him?” Yeo One gets up, stumbles over to Hyojin and holds onto his arms as he tries to look into his eyes and will Seungjun’s memory back. “Don’t you recognize this voice?”

“What voice?” Hyojin is crying with him now. “W-why? Why does it feel like I lost someone important to me?”

“Seungjun,” Yeo One yells his name. “Can’t you hear the song?” He screams, voice raspy and sore. Hyojin shakes his head, putting it into his hands as he continues to shake.

“W-who? Why - why do I hate you, Yeo One?” Hyojin looks up at him, eyes red and wings fading. Hyojin is losing his purity, like Seungjun has for Hui in Changgu’s reality - like he almost did here. “Why do I want to never see you again?”

“Please,” Yeo One is going insane. He watches Seungjun and Hui in love in his other eyes, he watches all the people he loves happy together - throwing parties and learning and growing. He watches Minghao and Junhui get married, have kids of their own and die . He screams and screams, hitting his head on the couch in the studio. The time is going too fast. Through it all, everyone there is together and happy. Changgu comes back. Yan An cries as he welcomes him into their little group, gaining two other boyfriends.

“Make it stop.” Yeo One whispers.

“Who the fuck are you?” Hyojin screams, lunging at him and grabbing him by the collar. “What did you do to me?”

Someone enters the door with them, he hears another angel yelling at Hyojin to put him down but his mind is elsewhere. He’s watching Changgu and Yan An fight, shaking his head because he’s all he has. They can’t leave each other.

They separate. Yan An goes back to China, and Yeo One stays in Korea to focus on finding new ways to help the humans with disease.

Yuto and Hui run an empire of vampires, turning volunteers. 

The humans get scared. 

There’s a war. Hongseok almost dies. It takes them years to get him to wake up, like Kino centuries ago. Jinho almost dies of a broken heart.

It’s all happening so fast, and this whole time Yeo One doesn’t see Yan An.

“ Changgu !” He thinks he sees Changgu look into himself, thinks he can hear him. “I did this for him!”

He went insane; he lost all he had so that Yan An could live. How could his other self lose him? How could he fall out of love with Yan An? How could he let him leave?

“I did this for him.” He feels arms carrying him out and he’s back to his reality. An angel with dark hair and concerned eyes he remembers as Wyatt is carrying him as another he recognizes as E-Tion holds Hyojin back who’s still screaming threats at him and crying. “Where are you taking me?” 

“He wants to help you.” Wyatt says, and he looks afraid. Yeo One must look terrible, he hasn’t stopped crying and his eyes are twitching from being stuck in both spaces at once. Changgu keeps looking at him, like he can see what’s happening and is sorry for him.

He doesn’t need his fucking pity. He had Yan An, and he let him go? Yeo One would never. Could never. He’s brought into the familiar space of nothingness, where God stands but he’s no longer Eunkwang - he’s back to that entity no one can see, only feel, and it makes Yeo One angrier. Wyatt puts him down and leaves the room with a bow, tucking tail.

“Changgu,” God says, and Yeo One all but snarls.

“Don’t call me by his name.”

“It’s you.” Everyone looks at him with pity. “It’s all you. You can hear me now.” The realities meld, and Yeo One feels Changgu inside him. He’s never felt whole since that day, and it’s like a breath of relief. His mind is clearer. “Relax.”

“Where is he? Where’s Yan An? I did this for him!”

“You can’t see him anymore.”

“No! You said this ruins me, but it saves him! It’s supposed to save him!”

“He’s been saved, Yeo One.” It’s Eunkwang again and he looks stern, but that sadness from before is back. “He lived a long, long life after you saved him on that battlefield with Yuto.”

“Lives, he lives. He isn’t dead.”

“He’s been dead here this whole time. You’ve been watching someone else’s life like television. Aren’t you tired?” Eunkwang holds his hand, tears gathering inside his lash line once more. “Don’t you want to rest?”

Yeo One almost forgot. He almost forgot that Yan An died in that war. That goddamn war.

“Why can’t I keep watching?” Yeo One falls to his knees in front of Eunkwang, pulling at his arms as though they can give him Yan An back. “Why can’t I see him anymore?”

“He’s going to die again.” He admits, eyes closing in apology. “He dies in the war against vampires, protecting Kino. He was always going to die in a war.”

“This isn’t fair. You knew. You knew. ”

“I can’t control anything, Changgu.” This time it doesn’t bother him. It’s him. It’s all been him. Yan An was his, even if it was in another reality. They had lifetimes together. “You’re going to split again. It’s going to be hard. Changgu is going to find him dead.”

“So we can - we can make another one. Another reality where he’s not, again.”

“Your mind already can’t handle this, Yeo One!” Eunkwang yells in exasperation. “You’re already,” he swallows, “ruined.”

And Yeo One is. His mind is frayed, all his strings unwrapped and lost.

“So what? What do I do now?”

“I want to help you. It’s the only thing I can do.” Yeo One feels it in his stomach, that there’s going to be a choice and one is goodbye. “Don’t you want to rest?” He repeats himself.

“Are you going to erase me?” Yeo One says, it sounds too loud in the room. The idea of it is terrifying, but Yeo One is tired. He’s been watching Changgu for so long. He’s starting to feel the realities splitting again, Changgu leaving him bit by bit, and he can’t see Yan An dead again. His heart can’t take it.

“I can’t do that.” Eunkwang is crying for him. God is crying for him. What makes God cry?

“What is it?”

“You can do it yourself.” Yeo One feels a chill run through him, and Changgu is gone. He can see him searching, asking Yuto where Yan An went and the other looking around in fear for Kino instead, shaking him by the shoulders and begging to find Kino. He’s going to see it soon. He can’t. He can’t . “You can burn, Yeo One.”

Burning, like Seungjun after Hui was gone.

“Will everyone forget me?” He thinks of Hyojin, how much it would help him. He thinks of God, his only companion from the beginning. “Will you?”

“I will never.” Eunkwang smiles. “You’ve always been my favorite, you know.”

“I might have had a feeling.” Yeo One laughs through his tears again. They’re still looking for Kino. Shinwon is injured, but he’s screaming that he sees them inside the castle - that they’re cornered. “He’s going to die.” He whispers, closing his eyes and taking a shaky breath.

“I’ll remember you.” Eunkwang promises. “You’ve done enough.”

Yeo One gets up from his knees, thinks of hugging the entity and decides against it. He smiles at him, like he used to, when he was still living his own life. They’re running into the castle. They can hear screaming, Yuto is covered in smoke as Kino is getting burned by torches. He can’t bear to watch.

He sees the edge, looks over and knows down there - in life - is where Yan An is, buried deep below the ground and taken apart but there. His Yan An. The boy who grew up to be everything.

Yuto is ripping heads off bodies, Wooseok at his side tearing with his nails as Kino is out on the ground, charred.

Yeo One shuts his eyes tight, doesn't want to see Yan An like this. Changgu is screaming. He must have found him.

He turns his back, lets go.

Yeo One falls, and as he feels himself burning to nothing, he thinks of how nice it would be - how nice to be reborn in a better reality, where Yan An doesn’t die in a war and Yeo One doesn’t have to make a new reality to be with him. He imagines their big strange family, in the castle that turns into a penthouse eventually, waking up to Yan An’s smile every morning.

Happily, he burns.