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Not all have the luxury of choice, but Renjun has the luxury of time.
It’s finicky — time always is — but Renjun, when he’s overwhelmed, can make it stop for him a little. When anxious, Renjun can just tap the page and will himself into being embedded in that world, in that story. There was some trial and error involved in the process; there always was. But it really had helped him out in some really stressful moments in life.
Being able to suspend time like this really helped him out during his college entrance exams. He started having an anxiety attack right outside the room so he just disappeared into his favorite book, The Little Prince. Going on the journey or running into the main character as a tiny side character on one of the planets eased his heart and soul. He escaped when he reached the logical end of a chapter or any kind of cliffhanger.
Those were the established rules Renjun had figured out for himself over time. It all used to be so easy.
Until Jaemin.
#
Renjun had agreed to MC his cousin’s wedding. For some strange reason, Renjun’s standup act had made rounds on the Huang Family WeChat, and now he was never gonna live that up.
He was dressed in his sharpest black suit, pressed to perfection and panic. The crowd’s larger than he expected, though he should have known the diaspora wouldn’t stay so scattered. Weddings and funerals are, after all, the two events to best gather a clan.
The cousin closest to his age is Chenle, but his dyed-and-fried hair is an off-putting impression. Renjun supposed he should give him more credit, though. He’s changed a lot since he was a kid. He used to be lightly feral, but he’s toned it down since. Plus, Chenle’s brother is the one getting married, not him, so Renjun’s opinion doesn’t really matter all that much.
[Although it’s distressing how Renjun and Chenle are technically at or almost at an age where they could get married. The pressure has begun, even though it’s freaking ridiculous.]
Renjun looks out over the crowd of tables spanning the reception hall. It’s intimidating, the chairs filled and pairs of eyes tracking his every move and quiver of his voice. Logically, he knows it doesn’t work that way, but what he knows and what he feels are two entirely different things when Renjun’s anxiety gets this bad.
And it is that bad, Renjun acquiesces, spreading his sweaty palms and watching the uncontrollable tremor in his fingers. How was he supposed to control his voice and face if he couldn’t control even just this little thing?
He bribes Chenle to cover with 100 yuan, handing his cards off to Chenle and stepping out of the suffocating room. It’s all just too much to handle at this moment. The thing about this church is Renjun knows it like the back of his hand, having spent many a Sunday school here. He excuses himself from the main hall and wanders the carpeted corridors.
Time ticks away, but there’s a kids’ room that leads to an enclosed playground courtyard he knows can help him out. It was there way back when Renjun was that young, but it’s remained largely unchanged, he realizes as he makes it there.
The same brown wood bookshelves line half the wall of the room, and the tri-color rug is the same, if a little faded. Renjun approaches the shelf, picking up one of his favorite books from when he was eight, touching its pages with reverence, love, nostalgia, and the hope to be anywhere but here, just for a little time.
#
It’s the bleakest choice, but Renjun’s in a mood. And he already knows the narrator isn’t the protagonist, which should help his case. Running into Bessie does not. The Ophiotaurus swims in the Hoover Dam, but it’s on the wrong side. No, Renjun’s pretty sure Percy met Bessie in the other context.
Things are weird. He doesn’t see any of the demigods he’s supposed to. Everything in Renjun’s core tells him he should run, only how can he when they’re supposed to be his ride home?
Renjun heads to the elevator, and it’s empty too. He gets in out of boredom and a sick desire to meet Athena if she’s here. It’s empty on the way down until it opens lazily at the 3rd floor.
Then some guy is just running his way in. “Close the doors!” he screeches. Renjun looks at him dryly. The panel is right next to the man. He grins sheepishly and then uses the hilt of his sword to punch the floor button.
He’s tall, placid as he smiles, with something so wordlessly charming to his face. Renjun’s more than a little enchanted by his beauty. He’s wearing a blue Yankees cap that are the same shade as his jeans. Wait…his sword, Renjun’s brain belatedly clocks.
“Are you a demigod?” Renjun asks in English, using his eyes to gesture at the gold sword half his height probably.
The guy blinks in a boyish, objectively cute way. “Wait, you can see this? Who are you?”
“I’m just a mundane!” Renjun raises two hands. Wait, no, that’s the wrong universe. “A mortal?” he tries again.
“Immortal?”
“No. A. Mortal,” Renjun enunciates. In a way, forcing Renjun to not think in his native language is helping distract him from the much too self-aware worrying. Is that the point of this exercise? “So you’re a demigod, then?” he repeats.
The boy hesitates so visibly Renjun can almost see the formation of the word on his tongue, barely curbed by some other intense force.
“I’m Renjun, by the way,” he prefaces. “And you are…?”
He hesitates again, snapping out of it only as the elevator dings loud with their arrival. “Jaemin, uh…. Gotta go!”
He — Jaemin — runs out without much else, only leaving behind a Renjun that echoes, dumbfounded: “What kind of name is Jaemin Gotta-go?”
#
Renjun finds himself in the kids’ room once again, having reached the end of that chapter. Weird. He’d never taken over the role of another character before, much less one with speaking lines or the ability to hit a villain in the eye with a blue hairbrush.
It’s the first time Renjun’s left more unsettled than when he went in, but it’s not the last. Maybe that’s the point, to distract Renjun from anxiety this time instead of quieting his fears and removing himself from the situation enough to gain some objectivity the way he usually does?
Only one way to test that theory. Renjun reaches for another book on the shelf, wanting to escape into the universe held here.
#
Hogwarts is actually kinda fun for a boarding school if you’re removed from the Golden Trio’s antics. Call it wishful thinking, but Renjun’s glad he doesn’t have to work too hard to conjure the Ravenclaw attire. Renjun’s an adult but he’s small enough to pass for a student at Hogwarts. He doesn’t even have to work too hard since it’s a day everyone’s out doing whatever at Hogsmeade.
Renjun explores the castle, taking his time with all the moving staircases, as is his right as a minor character in these people’s stories. He stumbles onto the Room of Requirement because he’s always been curious: what would it give Renjun? What in the world would Renjun need?
The doors open to show him…a four-poster bed with red sheets. Great, Renjun thinks sarcastically. Even the universe was telling him to slow down and take a damn nap. Renjun slips off his shoes and then flops onto the bed.
It’s too bad earbuds don’t really exist in the Wizarding World because Renjun’s left to fend off his own anxiety as he slept. Why was he nervous about the stage anyway? Wasn’t it something he’d done before?
Only it wasn’t as simple as that. Renjun, for what it was worth, cared too much about the details. It was what kept him alive, paying attention to his finances or the nuances of his work, but it was overwhelming in such excess. Renjun cared too much about too many things. The stage itself wasn’t the issue. It was normal to feel anxiety about public speaking.
It wasn’t normal to have this extreme of a reaction, however. It wasn’t normal to be this unable to function. It just wasn’t normal to be so tense in his muscles and sick to his stomach. Renjun wasn’t normal. His brain just wasn’t built that way. It was built to tire easily, he acquiesces, right as he falls asleep. When he wakes, Jaemin is there, leaning over him.
“You drool when you sleep,” he says, and Renjun is mortified to realize this is the same guy from the other book .
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here, Renjun?” the guy asks, using a hand to adjust his Slytherin beanie.
“You remember my name?”
“Oh, I always remember a pretty face,” Jaemin says easily, like the pouring of water. Fucker.
Renjun struggles to not gape. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you.”
“Hmm. So I suppose you also jump worlds.”
“Yes?” Renjun says instinctively before realizing, “Oh! You’re from the real world too?”
Jaemin only smirks emptily, “How do you know what’s the real world, though? All I know is that I just jump through books laterally. What do you do?”
Renjun frowns, “Nothing like that. I tap a novel page, and it transports me here.”
Jaemin hums. “Interesting. So you jump into the books, vertically. Well, I have a message for you,” he says. “You’re missing something.”
“And you’re missing a screw.”
“No, what’s the cost of your being here? Think about it. I risk my connection to reality, though to be fair, it was always thin to begin with. What’s your damage?”
“Maybe I’m just built different.”
“Yeah, Mr. Dorito. Sure you are. Just…keep an eye out. Here and in your ‘real world,’ okay? Life has a way of catching up to you.”
Renjun’s brow furrows, since if he really wanted to get technical, life also threw Jaemin at him, but he nods. Jaemin clasps him on the shoulder, and Renjun’s gangster-y shoulders feel oddly renewed, like the muscles are just stretching into their own with the flap of an angel wing.
The doors creak open, and then there’s Cho Chang standing there, looking guilty as hell. Renjun feels his cheeks heat up when he realizes what this position looks like to any outsider, but it quickly dissipates in light of how this is the wrong book for her to do that.
Of course, it could be foreshadowing, but for a character who didn’t even know about this room at this point in time, she has a lot of explaining to do.
They never get to it, as Renjun is whisked up, up and away back to the real world.
#
There’s usually a point in Renjun’s process where he slows down in a world to gather his thoughts. He doesn’t usually jump around like this, but it’s not working. He doesn’t feel settled enough to go back and stun a crowd with his charming wit. And Renjun has to feel secure in himself to do it. Renjun stretches his limits, pulling at a third book. He’s never gone higher than three before in one day; brain fog tends to take over, after a while.
Renjun thinks he’s in control. He doesn’t know if it’s true or if something else is pulling him in, someone else.
#
In any other context, Renjun would hesitate to ingest drugs from strangers he knew nothing about, but he also knows this book well enough to move along with its plot.
Renjun eyes the ‘Bite Me’ tablet with half-baked disgust. If he closes his eyes, he can almost hear Jaemin’s voice being the one saying it. Ugh, this better be more sugary like dessert or it’ll seem like an expired medication. He swallows it down and then curses Jaemin in his head because this tablet tastes like ass and not in a fun way.
Renjun doesn’t really know how he jumps from there to a tea party with the Mad Hatter. Or at least, a guy in a hat that’s probably that. (Some of that is story logic too, but Renjun’s mind usually fills in the gaps.) Renjun will never admit to it out loud, but he will say this: Jaemin wears the hell out of a hat. It should be illegal to look that good.
“What’s cracking?” Jaemin grins at him.
Renjun takes his place at the opposite end of the long table. Plates stretch between them, but they’re all with hairline fractures or empty. “Okay, egghead. What’s your theory for all this? This is supposed to be me time.”
“You know about action-reaction, right?”
“Newton’s third law of motion, yeah.”
“Dreamscapes work the same way. That’s what this is, even if you use a book to transport yourself there. There’s a cost for every time you come in. That’s why I stay here, and you stay where you are. Largely.”
“What cost? What are you talking about? I never had any issues until I met you. ”
“I have a riddle for you, Renjun. What goes in, out, and home all at once?”
“A riddle? We don’t have time for this. I can barely think straight around you anyway.”
“Oh, really?” Jaemin pounces on the innuendo, and Renjun groans. “Answer, and I’ll help you,” he promises.
Renjun glares at him. He wracked his brain for an answer, even a shred of one. The riddle sounded so familiar and easy, like Renjun had heard it before and memorized it, only there was no possible way that was the case. “How the hell are you supposed to help me? You barely make sense as it is.”
Jaemin as the Mad Hatter takes off his top hat, flipping it artfully. “This is my hat. It gives me the ability to cross dimensions. That’s why I was telling you I jump laterally.” Now that Renjun thought about it, Jaemin had worn a hat in every iteration they’d met.
“You’re crazy,” he says anyway.
“You believe me, though? It’s very important to me that you do.”
Renjun sighs. It wasn’t like he had more overwhelmingly a reason to not trust him, you know? That’s how these things went.
“Stay,” Jaemin implores. “Have some tea!” There are no cups at the table.
“This is the stupidest tea party I’ve ever been to!” Renjun grumbles. Renjun as Alice storms off, ending the chapter.
#
Renjun decides vehemently he’s had enough. He puts the books away and confronts his fate. By now, he’d rather face his fears than deal with another version of Jaemin. It’s not so bad, he rationalizes. Just a crowd of people who know and love you, even if you make a mistake. Just breathe, and read the script.
Only this time when he steps on the stage, he freezes up for an entirely different reason. Among the crowd, there is one face he recognizes that absolutely shouldn’t be there.
Renjun finishes his set, then discreetly scuttles over to a corner table in the back. He could barely read the cue cards right in front of his face without shaking, but he had no issue picking out the character that had no place being here.
“You must be Athena?”
The lady turns in her seat, a foggy expression overtaking her face. “I think so.”
She sets down a teacup that reads ‘Sip Me.’ It’s meant to be smarmy, but Renjun knows for a fact it doesn’t match with the rest of the cutlery spread across all 35 tables.
“Come with me,” Renjun picks up the cup and leads her back to the children’s room with the books. On the way they pass multiple glass display cases, outlining service missions and other projects. There’s one Renjun almost doesn’t register until he backtracks and realizes: that’s a Quidditch broomstick. What the hell is a Quidditch broomstick doing in the real world?
“Just one moment,” he tells Athena, handing over the teacup so he can pry open the casing. Finally, it gives and he pulls the broom out. Forget anachronisms; this was just absolutely incongruous.
The voice of Jaemin rang in his head, cautious and red. Renjun never had issues before today, but if every trip of his in meant something came out, he was for once anxious about the world he’s entering, not leaving behind.
#
The book deposits Renjun and his party in a different place than it did last time. Last time, things were easy and all he had to do was get high and confusingly horny.
Renjun and his favorite goddess, Athena, wade through some forest. There’s definitely a half-feral Cheshire Cat somewhere that reminds Renjun all too much of his cousin Chenle. But it’s all mostly standard like the yellow brick road — ah, Renjun really needs to brush up on his books. At one point, Athena almost strays but Renjun pulls her back before the thorns can stab her in the foot. Renjun doubts the immortal goddess would be felled by some plants, but then again, he also didn’t expect her to be so…unlike herself. She was less the goddess of wisdom and more just a confused old lady.
Renjun finds Jaemin in a maze. There are red hearts at every dead end that make Renjun laugh as he backtracks. “Missed me already?” Jaemin teases, from where he’s lounged on a red throne.
Renjun rolls his eyes. “I brought a friend,” he gestures to Athena.
Jaemin bows, taking off his hat as he does so. Renjun peeps the rainbow fabric lining its inside and decides yeah, that’s plausible enough to warrant a wormhole.
“Oh, also, I figured out your riddle,” Renjun says. “What goes in, out, and home all at once?”
Jaemin’s lips quirk. “And?”
“Me. It’s me, isn’t it? I go into your world to get out of my own for this place feels like, or honestly, has always felt more like my home than the actual one. And this is that cost you were mentioning, for when I come in, something comes out of the book. And I need your help bringing everybody home.”
Jaemin’s eyes surge gold just briefly. “What’s in it for me?”
“Anything,” Renjun feels the shiver cascade down his spine. “I can’t do this without you. Without you, I’d just be pulling out even more items with every trip. Guess the Mad Hatter isn’t so mad after all?”
“You haven’t seen me angry yet,” Jaemin says calmly. “Things disappear. You take their place. They don’t come back when you leave. We live on; we live out our stories without you, but they’re empty. You take the entire life force out of the story with you, Renjun.”
“And? I see that now, and I’m trying to do my best to fix it. Why are you being so pushy?”
“Don’t you see that means I get to see less of you?” Jaemin’s voice takes on some added notes.
“You’d raze all the story worlds for just one person? Who am I even to you?”
“You’re….” He falters. “You’re Renjun.”
“Uh, boys?” Athena cuts in.
“Sorry, right,” Renjun shakes away whatever the hell that feeling is. “This is the only way, Jaemin. Anything,” he reiterates his promise.
“Fine.”
Renjun turns back to grab Athena’s hand; she stays in this form long enough to be perceived by Renjun and Jaemin and is solid enough to grasp onto and lead into the rapidly expanding hat Jaemin’s tossed to land sideways onto the ground.
They land smack in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The air is windy, the chilly kind that lets Renjun know this place is infinitely alive and angry for it.
“Mom?” Annabeth asks. She runs over, breaking away from her walk with her father. Renjun and Jaemin retreat, watching the parent and child reunite in a hug with misty eyes. God, Renjun’s worries seemed so small next to the gravity of this kind of love. Maybe he should’ve included something about that in his speech.
Athena turns back and mouths, “Thank you,” over Annabeth’s head at Renjun and Jaemin. Renjun inclines his head and then pulls at Jaemin’s wrist to face each other. “Next stop?”
“What am I, the Hogwarts Express?” Jaemin mutters under his breath.
“But much cuter,” Renjun teases.
Jaemin rolls his eyes good-naturedly and then tosses his Yankees cap onto the ground. It rapidly expands to their height and Renjun and Jaemin step inside the dome-like tent with doors to other universes. The one to the Wizarding World has a lightning scar etched into it. How fitting, Renjun thinks.
Renjun leaves the Quidditch broom with Luna, who was always his favorite. She’s eccentric and lovely as ever, and given infinite time and resources, Renjun would stay forever to pick apart her brain. Jaemin has to physically pull him away, reminding him time isn’t on their side.
It’s a bit dumb they travelled all this way with the teacup in hand, but Renjun truly forgot about it. Jaemin takes him by the hand back into his home dimension, Wonderland.
There, the birds and trees just sing differently. Renjun knows from context and memory that this is Jaemin’s home, but just the way Jaemin postures himself here would also give it away. Jaemin, is always a bit tense, like something, somewhere is brewing like a soup made to haunt him, but here, his frame relaxes. He smiles more. He’s more malleable, and Renjun wonders if he appears the same way to others in his home world. Given his anxiety, probably not. Shame.
They land in a meadow that’s idyllic save for the giant hole in the ground. Ah, this is where Alice first fell.
“No, no, no,” Renjun groans. “How am I supposed to get the teacup back home if this is where we’ve landed? I can’t survive the whole story again.”
“Renjun. Renjun,” Jaemin placates. “Give it to me.”
“What?”
“The cup. Give it to me.”
Renjun hands it over. Jaemin crushes it with the force of his hand squeezing. The gasp tears its own way violently out of Renjun’s throat. “What are you doing?”
“Eh, I was needing new china anyway,” he justifies. “It’ll make it there, I promise.”
“Okay?” Renjun’s a bit unsure how to respond.
“Till then, one more stone left unturned. What do you hope the last thing to escape with you will be?”
“You,” Renjun answers honestly. “Even as I know it’s not your world, that you have to return, that you’re happiest here, that you belong here. I still want to remember you in my world. Even for just a little bit of time, I still want…you,” he confesses.
Jaemin’s cheeks are tinged just the faintest red. Cute, Renjun notes. “This is quite the leap of faith, no?” Jaemin suggests, nodding his head at the hole.
Renjun gives him a wry smile, looking down at their joined hands. “Together?”
Jaemin nods and they fall together backward. They never hit the bottom, for this chapter of their lives ends first.
#
Renjun’s back in the kids’ room, but it’s started raining. Renjun can’t quite decipher if it’s good or bad. Definitely less than ideal for the wedding party whenever they decide to head out to the parking lot. Definitely ideal for someone like Renjun, who not only loves rain, but seeks to find beauty in all the mundane things.
Renjun makes his way back to the reception hall, which has progressed past the father-daughter dance into nearly everyone joining the dance floor. There are a couple people who aren’t but it’s loud and lovely partying.
Of course Chenle’s throwing it back and scarring at least eight aunties and uncles. Renjun cracks a dry smile. Even as unromantic as the tableau is, it’s something he wishes he could share with someone. It’s at this point he lowkey wished he brought a date. And just then, Renjun finds another familiar yet foreign face amongst the reception tables this time around, but it’s exactly how he wished.
“You’re shorter without the hat,” Renjun tells Jaemin as he walks up to his table.
“Still taller than you,” he points out. Jaemin’s eyes are piercing, so sharply alive and smart, but his smile belies all his good intentions. He’s an agent of chaos at best, but Renjun’s more than a little drawn to that. To Jaemin. “Wanna dance?” he holds out a hand.
Renjun beams, accepting his delicately real hold and reveling in how it anchors him to reality. “I thought you’d never ask.”