Archive of Our Own

Hokkaido was quiet, pristine, and as far removed from civilization as it was possible to be in Japan. Which was exactly how Minho liked it.

He’d had to put in a shit ton of work to get here. Rearranged schedules, figured out decoys and diversions for the paparazzi, spent upwards of two days vetting and selecting a suitable guide. But it paid off. Hiroshi was somewhere in his early fifties, had the hiking stamina of a machine, and didn’t give a single flying fuck that the quiet, polite Korean who had booked him for the day was apparently a world-famous idol who’d just got done packing multiple stadiums throughout the country for a short concert tour. All his guide seemed to care about was whether or not Minho could keep up with him which, he had to admit despite all his training and the fact that he literally danced for a living, was giving him a run for his money.

“Ah, can we…” He coughed, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Can we please pause here for a bit, Tanaka-san? This, uh. This tree here is fascinating.”

Hiroshi raised an eyebrow but dutifully came to a stop. Minho tried his best to hide how he was struggling for breath even as he glanced quickly at the wilderness around them. According to Hiroshi the area they were in wasn’t officially Shikotsu-Toya; the giant national park was apparently a couple more miles out still. Even so, you wouldn’t have known just by looking: the forest around them seemed to roll out endlessly in all directions, nothing but tall, majestic trees reaching up toward the sky. Here it was almost entirely silent, not an echo of city noise, and the air was clean and speckles of sunlight filtered down from the canopy above to cast dancing shadows along the narrow dirt path they were following, and Minho didn’t care how much Seungmin and the others had teased him when he’d first announced he was going on this trip. We’re in Sapporo, his younger bandmate had said, shaking his head. It’s the literal beer capital of the country, and you’re going hiking?

And yes, as it turned out, Minho was. And he didn’t regret it. Sure, it would’ve been nice to celebrate the successful end of their Japan tour with some expensive drinks and maybe a trip to the closest nightclub, but also it had just been so long since he’d had a chance to get out in nature again. To walk amongst the trees, to let a cool breeze ruffle his hair and feel that familiar burn in his thigh muscles and to leave it all behind for just a few hours: the fame, the pressure, the insane schedules and exhilarating performances and a life he loved with all his heart and yet still needed a break from every once in a while. Yes. Minho closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of fallen leaves and crisp, clean air. Nothing could be better than this.

Or, well. One thing, maybe—one person, rather. But he’d left Jisung back at the hotel that morning, burrowing back into his pillow with a grumble after Minho kissed him goodbye and left. And he didn’t blame his partner, not at all: Jisung had pushed himself just as hard as the rest of them throughout the tour, on top of grabbing time at every local studio he could find between events to try to finish the last couple of tracks for their next comeback. Now that everything was over the younger man was heading straight for a crash worthy of the record books, so the best way Minho could care for him was to let him get some goddamned sleep.

So yes, despite the fact that he would’ve loved to have Jisung here with him, laughing and joking and probably whining every quarter-mile about how much his feet hurt, Minho didn’t mind being alone. Maybe he could ask Hiroshi if there were any local villages nearby; it might be nice to gift his partner a little souvenir or something when he got back, to brighten his day.

“…her again?”

Hiroshi’s gravelly voice broke neatly into his thoughts, and Minho blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

His guide cocked his head. “I said, are you thinking about her again?”

“About who?”

Hiroshi grinned. “The woman who makes you smile like that.”

Oh. Entirely without his permission he felt his cheeks heat. Was he really that obvious? “Ah, yes, um. Something like that.”

The older man just laughed. “It’s good,” he said, “that you’ve found someone. Young folks these days only seem to care about work and salary. No one bothers with relationships anymore, with marriage or kids or raising families. With love.”

He didn’t seem to mean anything by it, but Minho felt something tighten in his chest all the same. Love. That wasn’t…he actually hadn’t thought about what he and Jisung had as love in a while—not because that wasn’t what it was, but because it was so much more than that. It was warm, quiet mornings and intense, passionate nights; finding home in Jisung’s soft laugh and warm, grounding touch. It was the two of them being faced with a constant endless storm of interviews and performances and rehearsals and events, and yet still somehow finding time to eat dinner together or enjoy a lazy, sun-warm morning full of kisses and giggles and wandering hands. It was Jisung falling asleep on Minho’s shoulder on the ride back home after a long day. It was Minho blushing and stammering his way through meeting Jisung’s parents at Chuseok. It was the way they smiled at each other, communicated without words, gravitated together no matter where they were or what they were doing.

It was seven years of the best thing that had ever happened to him, the reason he got up in the morning and the blessing he whispered breathless gratitude for every night. Han Jisung was his light, his center, his fucking everything, and yeah. Love just…didn’t quite cover it.

Still, he wasn’t about to say any of that. Minho cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. Well. We’re trying our best.”

Hiroshi nodded, then turned back to the trail. “Do you still need to rest? It should only be about another hour before we…oh.”

Minho blinked, watching as the older man smiled and stepped forward to point at the base of a nearby tree where there was a…was that a broom?

“Inau.” His guide indicated the small stick that was half-falling out of the ground. It looked old, already half-rotted away and yet Minho could clearly make out what looked like curled wooden shavings cascading down from its tip, almost like tightly curled locks of hair. “Left by one of the indigenous people here. It usually indicates something in the area is sacred.”

Oh. Minho nodded. “Like a shrine?”

“No, Ainu don’t practice shinto. It’s more like a…sign? A marker.” Hiroshi shrugged and turned back to the trail. “Anyway, we had best leave it alone. As I was saying, if we continue along here for another hour…”

Minho let his voice fade away, because that was when he noticed it. A few inches away from the marker, something glinted in the dirt. Just a hint of a sparkle, the slightest suggestion of beauty and he frowned and knelt down, carefully brushing soil away to reveal…

Oh. Wow. The gemstone was colored a deep clear blue like the ocean under sunlight, and when Minho plucked it from the ground it shone like a diamond, almost seeming to emit its own soft glow. It was about the size of his thumb, rough and unfaceted yet breathtaking in its beauty, and he’d never seen anything like it before. Was it a sapphire? An opal? He’d never heard of anything like this being found naturally in Japan, but then again he wasn’t exactly a geologist. Maybe this sort of thing was common here, especially in a place as wild and pristine as this.

Either way, what a gorgeous specimen. Minho smiled and slipped the gem into his pocket. He knew exactly what to do with it.

It might have been his imagination, but it almost felt like something shivered through the air as he turned away. Something just a bit cold, like thin icy fingers reaching out to brush his shoulder, to attempt to pull him back. But it was gone as quickly as it came, and Minho shook his head as he hurried to catch up to Hiroshi. Whatever. He had a hike to finish, and someone important to get back to.

Jisung was in the shower when Minho finally trudged back into the hotel room later that evening, feet aching while his shoulders threatened to call a general strike over working conditions. The bathroom door was tightly shut with the loud steady shhh of running water but that did nothing to cover the echoes of Jisung’s singing, and despite how his body felt like it was half a second away from collapse Minho couldn’t help but smile as he set his backpack down on the table and closed his eyes, taking just a moment to enjoy it: the soft lilt of Jisung’s voice, carving out of the silence a warm, glowing melody like the unrelenting pulse of magma in the night.

I’ll protect you, it’s okay to hurt
I’ll embrace the wounds you shed
To me you’re already a sin

It was rough and slightly off-key and, as always, enough to send a shiver down Minho’s spine. STAY thought they had it all figured out: that Jisung had written this song as a love letter to Minho, a quiet yet powerful description of how dangerous it was to love him and yet how hard he would fight for it anyway. The epitome of doomed romance, really, and Minho had to laugh because while STAY was on to something in that Jisung had written it about the two of them, also their fans couldn’t have been more wrong.

The lyrics weren’t about Jisung yearning for Minho. They were, as his partner had whispered to him one late autumn night, voice thick, a message of gratitude. It was Han Jisung who over the course of a year had fallen further and further into the traps of his own churning mind, locking himself behind bars made of anxiety and judgment and the persistent sinister murmur of you’ll never be good enough, until all he could see of himself was destruction, an out-of-control inferno that burned everything it touched. 

And yet, through all of it, Minho had been there. He hadn’t even really thought about it back then, just knew that the further Jisung drifted the harder he needed to hold on, so he had. He’d held his partner fast, grabbed Jisung in all his anger and hurt and burning self-hate and pulled him in again and again no matter how many fights it caused, how many curses and insults and trembling tear-filled pleas of you should just leave me, please, you deserve so much better, hyung.

But Minho refused to listen. Knew it was just Jisung’s fucked-up brain talking in those moments, knew their bond would survive this, would conquer the demons of Jisung’s mind just like it had everything else life had thrown their way. And so he grasped his partner with both hands and held on no matter how much it scalded and singed, until slowly, painfully, Jisung healed. He learned to breathe again, to forgive and hope and live again, and Minho held him close and thanked every god he could think of that Jisung was still here, that they’d survived this heaving awful eruption together, and he honestly hadn’t expected anything else to come of it.

A couple months later, he’d damn near had a heart attack the first time he heard “VOLCANO”.

So I can melt into you
Hug my body, even if it hurts, it’s okay
Among the cold and harsh waves
I need your heat, you are my volcano

Muffled through the bathroom door, Jisung’s voice drifted soft through the room. Minho swallowed around the lump in his throat and sat down at the table, letting the echoes of the younger man’s quiet thanks wash over him for a moment longer before shaking his head and finally opening his phone. As much as he would have liked to keep listening, he’d been out of cell range for the better part of a day. The notifications were piling up, and he had work to do.

Despite his best intentions he got lost in it after a while: catching up on the group chats and updates from the company, responding to Stays’ Bubble inquiries, reacting to every new social media post the other members had put up while he was gone. In fact he didn’t even notice that the water had turned off until a pair of warm, strong arms draped themselves loosely around his shoulders. 

“Hi, stranger.” Jisung was wearing just the hotel’s fluffy white bathrobe, a warm, solid weight against Minho’s back as the light orange blossom scent of his shampoo filled the room. Minho hummed and tipped his head up, smiling as his partner obediently bent down to brush their lips together, just a brief, quiet moment of connection. 

“Hi yourself. How were things at the studio today?”

“Nonexistent. Binnie had to go put out a couple of fires and I need him to do the final balances, so.” Jisung yawned, thumbs rubbing nonsense circles into Minho’s shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ll just head in early tomorrow.”

“You. Early.”

“Tch. You’re one to talk, Mr. I Snored So Loud During Mass It Startled the Pastor.”

Minho laughed. “Point.” Then, even as Jisung touched his still-wet hair with an unhappy noise and made to turn away, he reached out to grab his partner’s wrist. “Hang on. I have something for you.”

The younger man blinked at him, so Minho quickly pulled the stone from his pocket and offered it up. Jisung’s eyes widened. “Oh. What’s this?”

“I picked it up somewhere in the forest.” Minho shrugged. “Didn’t think it deserved to stay buried in dirt.”

“I can see why.” Jisung turned the gemstone slowly in his hand, the bright overhead light reflecting off its frosted surface and making it glow an even more vibrant blue. “Wow, hyung, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah. I figured beautiful things belong together.”

“Sweet talker.” Jisung set the stone down on the dresser, and Minho blinked.

“Hey, don’t you want to—” The rest of the sentence was lost as he suddenly found himself with a lapful of warm, freshly-showered partner, pushing a sound from him that was most definitely not a squeak as his hands came up instinctively to grasp Jisung’s slim hips. “Wait, what’re you…”

“Hm?” Jisung reached down to undo the bathrobe’s tie, sliding the white fabric off his shoulders to pool on the floor, revealing miles of tempting golden skin. “You mean you don’t want a reward for bringing me such a nice gift?”

“Um.” In Minho’s defense, all the blood in his brain was rapidly rushing south. “I, uh…”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” And then his partner was leaning in to kiss him, filthy and wet and so very hot and, well. Minho wasn’t stupid. Catching up on work could wait.

As his phone hit the floor with a thump next to Jisung’s discarded robe, neither of them noticed the stone still sitting atop the dresser, now glowing a soft, otherworldly blue as a tiny little flicker played across its surface like a miniature lightning bolt, sharp and intense. Like a reckoning, an oncoming storm. Like something very, very angry.

Minho woke up alone.

He shifted beneath the covers with a soft groan, instinctively reaching out across the mattress. Feeling only cool emptiness, he sighed and slowly blinked his eyes open. Jisung must have left early for the studio just like he sai—wait.

In the next instant he was awake and aware of three distinct things. One: beneath the thick blanket he was fully dressed, when he clearly remembered falling asleep naked and intertwined with his partner.

Two: his ass was hanging half off the edge of the mattress because the bed was a single rather than the king they’d booked upon arriving in Japan.

Which led, alarmingly, to realization number three: he was in a whole different hotel room.

Sudden panic crackled through him, adrenaline flushing his entire body cold and hot and then cold again. Minho shot up and threw the covers back, casting all about the unfamiliar space. Fuck, what—what was this place? Where the hell was he? Maybe he’d gotten up in the middle of the night and decided for some reason to go stay in one of the other members’ rooms? But that made no sense; there was no one else here, and why would he do that when he had Jisung?

Maybe…Maybe he’d been kidnapped? But that was ridiculous, their team was practically bristling with security after that very close call Felix had with a delusional sasaeng last year—not to mention the commotion Jisung would’ve created had anyone attempted anything in the middle of the night. But where was his partner? Surely Jisung would’ve stopped him or woken him up if Minho had somehow magically started sleepwalking. But Jisung wasn’t here, and what did that mean? What the fuck was happening?

Okay, first things first: he needed to find him. Minho scrambled for his phone on the nightstand—odd, that wasn’t his case, had he somehow switched it out without remembering—and then he unlocked the screen, and everything froze.

From the cheerful bright rectangle of his phone, Soonie, Doongie, and Dori peered up at him, curled casually around each other in a puddle of sunlight in his parents’ living room. Cute as always, but also so very, very wrong—because Minho’s lock screen was a selca he and Jisung had snapped together on the beach at an extremely private Mediterranean resort last summer, the two of them pressed up intimate and close as they grinned at the camera, unabashedly happy because it had been their anniversary.

Now his cats blinked up at him in place of his partner, and Minho swallowed, something cold sinking like a stone in his stomach as he entered his passcode and began to scroll, each new discovery tilting his world just a little more off its previous comforting axis.

No intimate, years-long chat history, full of banter and inside jokes and all the world’s affection.

No couple photos saved anywhere in his files.

No archive of dozens of voice notes ranging from joyful to irritated to confused to sleepy, that he always promised to delete and then never did.

No ‘SUNGIEEE ❤️❤️ dont change this hyung!!’ saved as his most-used contact.

It was like Han Jisung didn’t even exist, and Minho cast his phone aside and practically leaped out of bed because fuck. What the fuck was happening? Why had everything flipped upside down and sideways like this overnight?

And where the fuck was Jisung?

Chan squinted at him from the doorway, voice hoarse. “Lino? What’s—”

Minho shoved past him so hard he nearly clipped his shoulder. “Where is he?” he demanded, storming into the room as multiple misshapen lumps shifted on the two beds. “Hannie, are you in here? What the fuck—”

“What?” Chan stumbled after him, looking like he was still trying to figure out what dimension they were even in. “Who, what—why’re you—”

But Minho ignored him as he flicked the lights on, flooding the room to a series of low, exhausted groans. Changbin hissed and pulled the covers back over his head, while next to him Felix squinted at him with a look of utter betrayal. Jeongin, meanwhile, blinked up at Minho from the other bed through tired, sleep-swollen eyes. “Hannie…?”

Minho blew out a frustrated breath. “Yes! Where is he? Because I swear to God if he snuck out with Hyunjin again—”

“I—what?” Felix was now sitting up with a yawn. “Who’s Hannie?”

Oh, very funny. Minho rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever, did he at least tell you where they went? I need to—”

“Hyung.” Jeongin shook his head. He looked at least a little more awake now judging from the way he was frowning at Minho, a little tightly like he had no idea what was going on and was maybe a little pissed about it. “Who is Hannie?”

Oh great, so they were all in on it. Fine. Minho crossed his arms with a glare. If that’s the way they wanted to play it… “Han Jisung,” he snapped, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Chan immediately stiffen. “You know, the guy who wrote like a million of our songs? Who raps like it’s an Olympic sport and is scared of bugs and oh yeah, whom I’ve also been dating for the last seven years?”

Silence. Felix and Jeongin blinked at him, confused. Next to them Changbin had thrown his covers back once more and was now staring at Minho with wide eyes, surprised and vulnerable and…pained?

“Lino-hyung.” Felix shook his head, speaking slowly as if Minho were a particularly skittish cat. “We don’t know a Han Jisung.”

“We’ve never had anyone like that in our group,” Jeongin added. “Are you sure you’re not getting us mixed up with someone else?”

He said it gentle, placating, as if Minho were a child who had gotten lost at the mall and that more than anything just lit the anger even brighter because what—what the fuck was Jeongin even talking about, what did he mean— 

“Okay, whatever this is, it’s not funny,” he snapped, even as a tiny little thing deep inside him flickered to life, a cold growing realization that something was very, very wrong. “Okay? And why isn’t he at the studio? The staff there looked at me like I was crazy when I went looking for him there, it’s like they’d never even heard of him or that he’s part of—”

“3RACHA.”

Changbin said the name like the whisper of a memory, soft and a little shaky as if afraid the word would summon the most terrible of evils. His eyes shone, bright and just a bit wet, and Minho had no idea why that made his heart skip a beat, that cold thing in the pit of his stomach twisting suddenly with a spike of pain even as he barreled on. “Yes, 3RACHA! So—what, did he go to a different studio? Why is his phone disconnected? Where the fuck is he?”

“Okay, Lino.” Chan looked like a man on his way to the gallows even as he stepped forward, took a deep breath, and held up his phone. “Um. Is this…is this him?”

Displayed on the screen was a low-quality photo taken in what appeared to be a half-lit noraebang. On the cheap-looking couch a much younger version of Chan grinned up at him, his arm extended to hold on to the phone as Changbin smiled next to him, and squished in between them was…

“Yes.” Oh, thank God. Minho stared at the photo of Jisung—younger, yes, probably no more than a teenager, but here. Oh Jesus, oh thank fuck, he had actually started thinking for a second that…but he was wrong, he was wrong, Jisung wasn’t… “Yes, that’s him. That’s Hannie. So where—”

“He’s not here.” Changbin rose slowly from the bed, and…and why was he looking at Minho like that? Like everything inside him was about to crack apart? “I’m sorry, Minho-hyung, but, um. You can’t see him. None of us can.”

What? But—

“Why?” It came out harsher than he intended, pulled taut and fragile and on the verge of breaking. And Minho could only stare, breathless, as Chan’s shoulders slumped and he slowly lowered his phone. His gaze filled with sudden pity, sorrow and a vast aching grief so bone-deep Minho felt the ground itself shift below him, as if preparing to open up an abyss to swallow him whole.

“You can’t see him,” Chan said then, slow, deliberate, “because Han Jisung was killed in a car accident ten years ago.”

The earth yawned open beneath his feet. Darkness descended, nothing but black sucking emptiness as Minho gaped at Chan, as his entire world shifted a couple steps over and then abruptly crumbled into nothing. “Wh-What…What do you mean…” Why was Chan lying? Why were they all playing this stupid fucking game—it wasn’t fucking funny, oh Jesus, none of it made any fucking sense and he just wanted everything to be okay again, he wanted Jisung here, smiling and warm and safe and—

Chan sighed, and his next words floated to Minho as if from underwater, echoing from a far-off place that he didn’t want, no, not this, he didn’t want any of this, where was Jisung, he needed Jisung— 

“I’m sorry, Minho,” Chan whispered. “Han Jisung is dead.”

And all the light in Minho’s world abruptly winked out.

Dead.

Jisung was dead.

Minho curled up further under the covers, entire body shaking. Even with the thick blanket everything was freezing, like he’d been dropped into the middle of the Arctic, like he had no hope of ever feeling any warmth again. And he didn’t, because Jisung was dead. Jisung was gone, had been gone for the entire last decade and Minho didn’t…he couldn’t…

“Yes.” Chan’s voice drifted to him tight with stress as their leader paced the length of the hotel room, phone pressed to his ear. “Yes, Manager-nim, that’s right, he’s not feeling well. No, sir, I really don’t think—yes, please remove him from the schedule for today…”

“Lino-hyung?” He didn’t think he’d ever heard Seungmin speak so softly. The younger man sat on the bed next to him, running gentle fingers through his hair. “Hyung, please, can you talk to me? Hyung?” Over his shoulder Hyunjin hovered with big, worried eyes; they’d called the rest of the members over as soon as Chan broke the news, as soon as Minho let out a low, echoing wail as his legs gave out beneath him because—because—

“Should we get a doctor?” It was Felix, watching him from the other bed with a heartbroken look on his face, but Jeongin shook his head.

“I don’t think it’ll help,” he said, before his voice dropped. “I don’t think anything will help since he…I mean…”

His gaze flicked over to where Changbin was standing by the window, talking on the phone presumably to someone at the venue. There was no mistaking the stiff set of his shoulders though, or how exhausted Chan looked as he negotiated with the company. The grief was obvious, sitting heavy atop the two remaining members of 3RACHA thick as a cloak, and Jeongin swallowed, turned away. “I just…I don’t understand, why would Lino-hyung have any connection to 3RACHA, they haven’t been a group since before debut and that guy they were talking about, Han Jisung—”

Minho flinched. Seungmin cleared his throat. Jeongin blanched and quickly looked away, falling instead into an urgent whispered conversation with Felix. And Minho didn’t have to see the way they kept glancing back at him, worried and confused, to know.

They thought he was crazy. That he’d had a vivid dream, or maybe ingested something he shouldn’t have and now he was hallucinating this person whom he claimed to have known for years and yet no one except Chan and Changbin had ever even met. This man he insisted was real, that he’d held and touched and kissed just the previous night, and who now was nothing but a memory, an echo of glowing potential that had been cruelly snuffed out in a shower of sparks and glass on a slippery Seoul highway in 2016.

God. Where was Jisung? Why wasn’t he here, brightening Minho’s life with his laugh and his smile and the grounding solidity of his touch? Why had he left Minho so suddenly, abandoning him overnight to stumble through this empty world without him, lonely and bereft and wondering how the hell he was supposed to keep on living in darkness without his only source of light?

“Okay, thank you, sir.” Chan hung up. Then, with a sigh like he was preparing to go on stage, he turned to the rest of the room. “Lino’s off the roster for today; official company announcement should be out shortly. Hyunjinnie, go ahead and rework the choreo for our stage today for six people—”

Six. Six, because Stray Kids was only seven, with one person missing. Fuck, what was Minho supposed to do?

“—and the rest of you head over to the SKZOO thing, Binnie and I’ll catch up after we get Lino settled here.”

Low murmurs filled the room as the other members obeyed. Felix scrambled off the bed, Hyunjin and Jeongin hurrying to join him as they booked it for the door like their asses were on fire. Minho just curled up further, ducking his head beneath the covers. Whatever. Maybe they were scared of him, or unsure, or confused at his apparent psychotic break. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore, without Jisung here.

A warm palm brushed softly over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, hyung,” Seungmin whispered, mattress shifting as he rose and followed the others out. And then it was just Chan and Changbin, their soft breaths the only sound left in the room as Minho lay where he was, small and alone and utterly lost.

He didn’t know how much time passed then, how long he stayed there ensconced in thick fabric layers that should’ve felt safe but only brought darkness and the threat of suffocation. But eventually the mattress dipped once more, followed by Chan’s soft sigh. “Minho-ah,” their leader said, tugging gently at the blanket. “Can you sit up for a bit?”

And even though it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done, Minho obeyed. There was nothing else he could do, anyway. The room felt even emptier without the other members there, and Changbin watched him quietly from the corner while Chan reached out to take his hand. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” the older man said, “but it’s obvious you’re having a hard time. So why don’t we just head back to your room, huh? Get you something to eat, let you sleep some more, maybe it’ll help?”

And, god. He sounded so kind, so gentle, eyes big and practically shining with compassion because that was just the man Bang Chan was: too good. Too rooted in logic and reality to believe that just the previous night Minho had occupied a whole different world, one full of light and laughter and everything beautiful and warm. And now he had nothing. Now he had lost the other half of his soul, and he couldn’t even be angry because Chan didn’t know any better. To him, Minho must surely have lost his marbles. How else could they explain why he was all of a sudden so heartbroken over a boy who’d been dead ten years?

He swallowed, shook his head. “Please, hyung,” he said. “You have to believe me, this—this isn’t my world. Something happened, I don’t know what but last night he was with me, I swear he was and I’m not crazy—”

“No, of course you’re not.” But Chan didn’t mean it, Minho could see it written clear on his face and if—if he could just convince him, figure out how to make Chan believe him because he couldn’t do this by himself. He couldn’t be left alone to navigate this world that was dark and empty and meaningless because he didn’t even know how to exist in it without Jisung—

“When was his birthday?”

Chan blinked. Minho lifted his head; Changbin was now standing by the bed, arms crossed, shoulders set with his lips pressed together like a linebacker preparing for a tackle. The younger man lifted his chin, a challenge flashing in his eyes. “When?” he said, sharp, and, well. Minho didn’t even have to think about it. 

“September 14.”

Changbin narrowed his eyes. “Did he have any siblings?”

“Yes, his hyung. I met him once, they have the same nose.”

“What was his favorite movie?”

Fresh pain lanced through his heart. Minho swallowed, dropped his gaze. “Howl’s Moving Castle. We watch it together at least once a month. He…He knows the whole thing by heart.”

Silence. Minho stared down at the bedsheets crumpled in his lap, eyes burning, and counted the next few seconds in sound. One: a soft rustle as Changbin lowered his arms. Two: the long, shaky breath he released. Three: his voice, brittle and taut and holding all the world’s pain: “Oh. Jesus fuck.”

He sounded breathless, like he’d just been punched. And on the bed next to Minho Chan said nothing, and when Minho finally looked up it was to the sight of their leader staring at him, and that was no longer softness in his gaze. It was no longer gentleness, the indulgence of a parent trying to calm a toddler after a nightmare. No. Chan’s eyes instead were nothing but vulnerable, raw and flayed open like Minho had just taken a sledgehammer straight to his heart, and yeah. Minho took a deep breath. “His stage name was J.One,” he said, “and you only let him into the group because he kept hanging around and wouldn’t go away, so eventually you just gave up and told him to stay.”

Another beat. Then Changbin released a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob, while Chan’s hand flew to his mouth as the tears finally spilled over. “Jesus Christ, Lino,” he whispered, and Minho nodded.

“I know him,” he said. “I know him and I love him, he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I have to find him so please. Please help me.”

His words faded into the quiet of the room, small, meaningless. His two bandmates stared at him, stunned. And Minho just sat there and breathed, trying to hold on to it: the hope. That tiny little sliver of light breaking through in a world of darkness, because now they knew he was serious. They knew he was telling the truth, so maybe…

Chan shifted, coughed into his fist. “Okay,” he said, low like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Okay, say we believe you, that you’re—what, from a whole different dimension or something? A place where Jisungie is still, um. Still alive.” His expression cracked as he glanced quickly at Changbin. “Then what? Do you have any idea how you got here?”

Minho shook his head. “No. I just woke up this morning and everything was different, and he was gone.”

“Did anything weird happen before you fell asleep?” Changbin looked like he couldn’t quite believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. “Like I don’t know, did you touch something strange or talk to a suspicious-looking stranger or—”

“No.” God, they were getting nowhere. He had no idea what happened and Jisung was still gone and vanished and— “No, there wasn’t anything, we just fell asleep after I—”

Wait.

Chan sat up, alert. “Lino? What is it?”

But Minho couldn’t answer because…no. No way. It couldn’t be…surely it wasn’t possible…except, crazy as it sounded, it was. Because…Because hadn’t Hiroshi said that the place was sacred somehow? And when he picked up the stone and felt that odd icy sensation of something trying to stop him from leaving…

Oh. Oh, god.

Changbin made a surprised noise and Chan nearly fell off the bed when Minho leaped to his feet but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care because—because he knew. Oh, god, he knew what had happened, knew where he needed to go to fix everything and get Jisung back and he was shoving his shoes on and booking it for the door in the next second even as his friends scrambled to catch up. “Wait!” Chan cried, hurrying to pull his jacket on. “Wait, Lino, where are you going—”

“The forest.” Minho yanked the door open, didn’t bother looking back. “I need to find a tree.” 

He’d always had a good sense of direction. Minho had never been more grateful for it as he hurried down the beaten forest path. A thin layer of snow had dropped overnight, the freezing air biting through his thin coat yet he barely felt it as he cast around in desperation, searching, searching—

“Gah, fuck!” A little ways behind him Chan tripped over a rock and nearly slammed face-first into the nearest tree. “Lino, what are you—can you just s-slow down a little—”

But Minho couldn’t. Not when he had to find it: the place where it all began, where, perhaps, he’d encountered a power he never should have touched. Fuck, why hadn’t he thought before he acted? He was usually so composed, so levelheaded about every decision he made—but then again he had never been any of those things, when it came to Han Jisung.

Changbin, to his credit, barely even seemed winded as he brought up the rear. “Hyung, I don’t know what you’re looking for but maybe we should—”

“No.” Minho shook his head, peering into the forest. Was it this one? No, what about that one? Fuck, all of them looked the same, he’d never find what he was looking for by just walking around but also hadn’t Hiroshi pointed out…what was that thing in the ground called? Ina? Inu? If he could just find it again, if he could just—

And then. Oh, Jesus. There. Embedded halfway in the frozen soil like a garden stake, leaning enough it had nearly fallen over just like the last time, and Minho didn’t even recognize the sound that tore itself from his mouth as he dashed forward and fell to his knees before the sacred marker, scrabbling with his fingers at the dirt.

“Lino!” It was Chan, but Minho barely even heard him because—because no. He was digging, tearing the earth apart as his fingers ached with the chill but—but where was it? He didn’t see anything, no glowing blue, no unyielding hardness beneath his hands even as he shoved the soil aside in desperation and panic and no, this wasn’t happening, no no no—

“Lino!” Chan seized his arm but he snarled and shoved back on reflex, ignoring the older man’s yelp as he reached once more for the dirt but then Chan swore and grabbed him again, trying to drag him back and Minho yelled and fought as hard as he could, shoes scrabbling against the ground because this wasn’t happening, he had to find it, it had to be here because it was his only chance to see Jisung again, it was the only way he could bring Jisung back—

“Fuck!” Chan just barely dodged one of his fists, eyes panicked and utterly terrified. “Jesus, will you—Binnie, help me—”

 But standing behind them Changbin suddenly drew in a deep, shuddering breath, eyes going so wide Minho could see the whites all around. “Oh, fuck.” He reached up to point at something behind them. “What is that?”

They both followed his gaze, and Minho froze. 

Further into the forest, something was glowing. It was light, nebulous, a barely-there bit of illumination amongst the thick trunks, and as they all stared the collection of soft luminescence seemed to move, to shift and flicker and coalesce into being until suddenly a—a thing darted out from behind the nearest tree.

It was…looking back on it, Minho wouldn’t really be able to come up with any sort of suitable description. If pressed he might have said it was maybe about the size of a dinner plate and that it floated in the middle of the air, but other than that it was impossible to assign other characteristics to the object because it just…never stopped changing. Shifting, moving, transforming: one moment vaguely round, then flat, then rough and jagged like a half-exploded star. It also didn’t stay in any one place, instead flitting about the branches and leaves like some hyperactive insect, and it emitted a low echo as it moved, all different pitches and tones like a xylophone being abused at the bottom of an abyss.

It was, in short, something most definitely not supposed to be anchored in reality, and yet here it was hovering before them, flickering and pulsing as it danced amongst the trees. And Changbin looked like he was going into shock while Chan seemed to be having trouble finding his voice, and also Minho barely even noticed because he was too busy staring at the object.

The object that glowed a bright, shimmering ocean blue, the exact same color as the gemstone he’d lost.

“Is that.” Changbin licked his lips, entire body tensed like he was ready to bolt any second. “Is that a…ghost?”

GHOST?

The sudden new voice startled them all. It seemed to explode out from all directions at once, tinkling and almost childlike yet at the same time ringing out so loudly Chan yelled and Minho flinched. But then the floating blue whatever-it-was flickered for a moment, the tiniest burst of light crackling across its surface, quick, light, almost…amused.

GHOST?

“Oh, shit.” Chan’s face had gone pale. “Oh shit, it’s talking.”

TALKINGTALKING? Each booming high-pitched syllable was punctuated by another pulse of blue light, another quick shapeshift. GHOSTGHOSTGHOST?

Jesus. Minho got slowly to his feet, staring at the…phantom? Spirit? He had no idea, but neither did he care because. God. Somewhere deep down in a part of himself he didn’t like to think about he’d started to fear even as he dragged Chan and Changbin with him up the hiking trail: that maybe he was wrong. Maybe the stone had nothing to do with what happened to him, to Jisung, and he was just chasing myths and dead ends and he would never go back to the world he’d come from, would never get to see his partner again, to hold him and kiss him and know that they were forever…

But now. Now this spirit hovered before them with its twinkling light and melodic echoing voice and it shouldn’t have existed, none of this should’ve even been fucking possible, yet here they were. And he didn’t care that he had no idea what was going on, where this thing had come from or what it had to do with the gemstone he’d taken yesterday. All he knew was that the spirit was here, it was here and Jisung wasn’t and therefore…

“Y-You.” He swallowed around a suddenly-constricted throat and took a step forward, ignoring Chan and Changbin’s identical worried noises. “What did you do?”

The spirit shimmered, impossible to read. DO? WHAT DID I DO?

“What did you do to me?” He shook his head. “Just what the hell are you?”

WHAT THE HELL AM I? the spirit repeated, playful, almost mocking. OH. WHAT AM I? WHAT AM I? I AM THE BRANCHES, I AM THE TREES, I AM THE FOREST, OH YES, THAT’S ME!

“Christ.” Chan came to stand next to him, and his whole body trembled and he practically stank of fear and yet he didn’t move, a solid pillar of enduring support and Minho had never been more grateful for it as the older man said, in a voice that was slightly strangled, “Um. So you’re…a part of this place? Like a kami?”

OH, KAMIKAMIKAMI. OH, THEY’RE FUN! The spirit zipped around a thick tree trunk with a flourish. NO. NONONONO. I AM NOT KAMI. I AM NEVER KAMI. I AM MUCH, MUCH OLDER.

Oh. Well, fuck. Before Minho could say anything, though, Changbin cleared his throat. “I-I see. Well then, uh, Spirit-sama, with the utmost respect, did you…” He pointed at Minho. “Did you, um, do something to him?”

At that, the spirit…Minho couldn’t explain it but somehow he just knew it turned to look at him. Its blue glowing core pulsed once, sharp. DO? it said. DO SOMETHING?

“Yes.” Chan now, voice a little steadier. “He’s…lost someone, and we need to get him back. Did you maybe have something to do with that?”

OH. The spirit did a quick up-down movement, probably its equivalent of a nod. HMM. YES.

“What?” In his surprise Changbin forgot politeness entirely. “Why?”

The spirit thrummed, shivered, flickered in and out of existence between a few trees, almost like it was thinking. Minho held his breath because god, he wasn’t crazy. Something had been done to him. Jisung had been taken from him, and he was going to get him back. He didn’t care what it took; he was going to figure out how to reverse this because he didn’t belong here, he needed to get back home to his world and his life and the one person who could complete him—

The spirit twinkled, bright. And then:

HE PISSED ME OFF.

Silence. A wave of cold surged through Minho as he stared at the spirit, confusion warring with anger and panic because what? What the fuck, what did he do that was so horrible, all he’d wanted was to give Jisung a gift…

Chan, anyway, seemed just as confused. “What do you mean?”

The spirit…well, huffed was the best way to describe it, though Minho would never have been able to tell you how he knew. It traced a slow, lazy circle in the air, its energy reminiscent of a petulant child kicking at a rock. HE TOOK MY MOST PRECIOUS THING, it said then—grumbled, really. SO I TOOK HIS MOST PRECIOUS THING.

Oh. 

Oh, Jesus. 

Next to him Chan made a broken noise. Changbin swore under his breath. And Minho just stared at the spirit, this bright glowing entity that he hadn’t even known existed before this moment but who also had the power to change his entire universe. To take everything that he loved and vanish it into thin air simply because it had felt wronged, and he hadn’t meant to do anything, all he’d wanted was to make Jisung happy and he couldn’t. Oh god, he couldn’t.

“I-I’m sorry.” He licked his lips, mouth dry like everything inside him had shriveled up into nothing. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it, please—”

But the spirit only gave another angry thrum, loud enough Minho felt it in his chest like a punch. YOU DIDN’T MEAN IT, it mimicked, singsong and scornful. YOU DIDN’T MEAN IT.

It sounded derisive, mocking and mean and intended to cut. And cut it did: Minho felt the wound tear open in his heart, raw and bleeding and so very painful and he couldn’t help the soft whine as he curled forward, squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed a palm to his chest. Fuck, it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad and this never should’ve happened, why had he been such a fucking idiot—

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as hot tears flowed down his cheeks, and Chan blurted out a panicked “Lino” when he bent down to press his forehead to the dirt but Minho didn’t care because he’d beg if he had to, he’d ask and plead and give up his very life because none of it was worth anything without Jisung anyway, and he just needed his partner back. “Please. I’ll do anything, whatever you want, so just—please. P-Please give him back to me.”

The spirit hummed. His two friends said nothing, probably too stunned for words, and for his part Minho just stayed where he was, bowed down before this glowing whimsical being who had the power to change the world as it saw fit, to take everything away but also to return it and—and if he could just get a second chance, one single opportunity to go back then he would do it right, he’d fuck right off out of Hokkaido and never set foot in Japan again and take Jisung home and bundle him up and never, ever let him go and—

HMM. The spirit flitted back and forth, teasing, almost playful. YOU ASK SO NICELY, HMMHMMHMM. BUT NO. NO, I DON’T THINK SO.

Yet even as everything inside Minho turned cold, even as his eyes burned with fresh tears and despair surged up and unfurled in a screaming silent wail of grief and darkness and the earth-shattering pain of loss—Changbin cleared his throat. “What if he returns it?”

Silence. Minho snapped his head up, staring, and Chan looked like he was about to fall right over from shock but Seo Changbin just stood where he was, firm and unyielding, and the look he gave the spirit wasn’t angry or challenging in any way but rather only reasonable. Like they were discussing contract renewals with the company, or the theme of their next comeback or who would be paying for dinner tonight. Just something regular, almost inconsequential. Something they could all figure out together, if they just listened to each other with respect.

For the first time since its appearance, the spirit looked…thrown, different shades of blue shimmering across its shifting surface. WHAT IF HE RETURNS IT? it repeated, and Changbin nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Whatever it was he took from you…if we find it and bring it back here, then everything’s good, right? Then you can set everything straight again, send him back to his world or whatever.”

Or whatever. If he hadn’t known the younger man for nearly a decade Minho might have done something crazy like yell at him because Jisung wasn’t just a whatever, an afterthought—he was so much more than that, he was everything that Minho loved and cared about and for Changbin to just handwave him casually in such a way…

But he knew better. He could see it in the tight lines at the corners of Changbin’s eyes, in how his hands at his sides trembled just slightly: he was scared. He was worried and terrified and also he was willing to step forward and try to negotiate with a magical goddamned forest spirit anyway, and god. Minho almost couldn’t believe it. How had he managed to find people like this, friends—brothers who were willing to fight for him like this, to go to bat for him without an ounce of hesitation even as he spouted crazy claims of having come from a different dimension and loved someone who was long dead and—

WELL. If Minho hadn’t been drowning in grief and the horrible loneliness of having lost everything in one fell swoop he might have laughed at the spirit’s slightly bewildered tone, like of all the ways it had expected this interaction to go this was the very last one on the list. WELL THEN. WELLTHEN WELLTHEN. WELL THEN I SUPPOSE IT WOULD BE CONSIDERED. YES, HMMHMMHMM. IT WOULD BE CONSIDERED.

And. What? Oh, Jesus, had Changbin really just…and then Chan coughed. “Okay, so then, uh. Can you like, tell us where this thing is? Because it’s obviously not here anymore.”

“The quicker we find it, the sooner you get it back,” Changbin added, and the spirit pulsed once more. Seemed to think about it for a moment.

Then, at last, it spoke, voice echoing through the forest clear and commanding. BRING ME MY HEART IN THE PLACE OF THE BELOVED, AND PERHAPS THEN I WILL RETURN YOURS.

And then, with a quick, dance-like circular movement like a final flourish before exiting a stage, it vanished.

The forest faded back into empty silence, nothing but the soft whisper of the breeze and the sounds of their own harsh, rapid breaths. Minho stared at the spot where the spirit had been, entire body numb like he was watching himself from far away. Jesus. Had that really happened? Had he really managed to piss off an ancient magical spirit, and now in order to get the man he loved back he had to locate a tiny little blue gemstone somewhere in the world, going only off of a single strange riddle?

Christ, this couldn’t be real. He had to be imagining it, hallucinating or maybe it was all a dream and he would wake up any moment now and Jisung would be there, smiling and warm and reaching out to him with a soft, affectionate Hyung…

Chan let out a laugh then, breathless and more than a little hysterical. “Well,” he said, looking at both of them in utter disbelief. “Fuck.”

Minho peered out the window at the watery blurred lines of the city passing him by, and felt only empty numbness.

It was raining. Fitting, really, given the circumstances: that Seoul, the place that had always been his home, that he’d always loved with its lights and energy and capacity to hold all his dreams and ambitions, was now blanketed in a shroud of ash-gray dampness, quiet and forlorn. Because this was his world now, ever since that vengeful forest spirit had decided to make him suffer. This was what he had to look forward to in a life without Han Jisung.

“So what do you think?”

Changbin sounded exhausted, eyes half-lidded like he was having trouble keeping them open even as he steered them carefully toward the freeway offramp. Minho couldn’t blame him. They’d basically been moving nonstop since the revelation in the forest; Chan immediately dispatched them back to Korea, telling them in no uncertain terms to get to the bottom of this fucking thing while he made excuses and ran interference and basically did everything he could as SKZ’s leader to get the company off their back. And Minho was grateful for it, he really was: that he no longer had to do this alone. That two of his closest friends had his back, were willing to risk everything to reunite him with a man they barely remembered. But would it be enough? Did Minho have any hope of ever seeing Jisung again?

“Hyung?” Changbin glanced briefly over at him with a frown. “Did you hear me? Do you have any idea what that spirit meant by ‘the place of the beloved?’”

He sounded entirely lost, which wasn’t far from where Minho was himself. Because he had no clue. The place of the beloved…did that mean Jisung’s home? The restaurants he liked to go to, the amusement parks he liked to visit?

Leave it to a goddamned deity to give them a cryptic puzzle with roughly ten thousand different possible interpretations. Minho grimaced. “I…I don’t know. It could be anywhere.” Anywhere, and god, the world was just so big. How was he ever going to find the stone when he had no idea where to even start looking?

Changbin nodded. “Well, what’s the most likely answer? Where did he spend the most time, or feel the most at home?”

Home. And, well. Minho sat up, squaring his shoulders. Baby steps. He couldn’t begin anywhere else, and he owed it to Jisung to at least try. 

He took a deep breath. “Where’s my dorm?”

Turned out some things never changed. The building Changbin pulled them up in front of was the same one he and Jisung would have returned to together, in a whole other life.

“Wow, so you lived together too?” The bright lights of the elevator did nothing to hide Changbin’s bemused expression. “That’s…That’s pretty serious.”

“We’ve been together for seven years.” Minho shrugged. “So yes. It’s serious.” It had just been a given back in 2024 when they moved to paired dorms; the other members hadn’t even tried to negotiate, just worked out living arrangements amongst the six of them because of course Minho and Jisung would end up sharing.

Their first night in the apartment by themselves had been…memorable. Minho let out a shaky breath, stomach churning with grief and longing as he came to a stop in front of a familiar door and input the code he knew by heart.

The unit inside was laid out exactly the way he remembered: a sizable kitchen opened up into a large living room, which in turn led to the master suite on one end and the smaller second bedroom further down the hall. The spare room had barely seen any use back where Minho came from; sure, it was furnished, and Jisung kept some of his stuff in there and made sure to change the sheets and make the bed on a regular basis should some crazy sasaeng or paparazzo break in and get suspicious. But every night when they got home from work he’d toss his duffle onto the mattress and then smile at Minho and follow him into the master, and that was just the way it was. That was the way it had always been.

Except now. Now Minho looked all around him at the evidence of a life without the man he loved: there were no dirty dishes in the sink, left for a couple days at a time because Jisung got absentminded when he was composing a new song in his head; no guitar propped up on its stand in the corner of the living room; no soft crocheted blanket thrown over the back of the couch that Jisung’s grandmother had gifted him for Christmas a few years back; no colorful scribbled drawings stuck to the fridge that Jisung’s niece and nephew had made and his partner insisted were worthy of being displayed at the MMCA. 

Instead the kitchen and living room were spotless, the walls bare except for a few pieces of tastefully selected art, and the second bedroom had been converted into a small rehearsal room complete with bright recessed lights and mirrored walls. Minho stared at it and tried not to throw up.

Changbin, anyway, seemed to understand from the gentle way he stepped up and touched Minho’s arm. “Come on, hyung,” he said, soft. “Let’s have a look around, yeah?”

Over the next couple of hours, they searched the entire apartment. Pulled open drawers, peeked under furniture, peered into dusty closet corners and around the backs of roughly a million boxes. But there was nothing. No glowing blue gemstone, no promise of getting his partner back, and Minho stood in the doorway of the master suite staring at the giant king-sized bed that was vast and luxurious and utterly empty, and had never felt so lost.

It wasn’t here. There was nothing here, Han Jisung didn’t even exist here and—and what was he supposed to do now?

“Hey, so.” Further inside the room Changbin straightened up from where he’d been searching the nightstand and sent Minho a small, lopsided smile. “Um. What’s he like? Your Jisungie.”

Oh. Minho swallowed. “Kind,” he said. “And funny and so damned smart, and he can never get enough of us taking care of him because he just loves us so much.”

“Oh.” Changbin cocked his head. “That’s a little…different from the way I remember him.”

“Yeah. He’s changed a lot since debut.”

“I’ll bet he has.” His younger bandmate sighed then, wistful. “It’s kind of surreal, you know? Not just this whole situation but how you describe him. It’s…It’s hard to explain but like, I can see this Hannie, you know? Even back before the…the crash, I could see it in him, that goodness he had, even though he was always trying to cover it up at the time. I remember back then always thinking that he was going to be great. He was going to be fucking amazing, and all he needed was the right opportunity or perhaps…” He paused, cleared his throat. “Perhaps the right person to come along, to change him for the better.”

He looked like he meant it, watching Minho steady and so damned sincere, and Minho had to turn away for a moment as tears stung the corners of his eyes. Because he remembered. He remembered getting curious and watching Jisung’s segment of their Two Kids’ Room episode, thinking he would probably laugh, that the younger man would tell a story about one of the endless antics they got up to when they were together.

Instead, Jisung looked straight at the camera and said, He basically pulled me from the shadows into the light.

God. Fuck. Minho wanted him back. He just wanted his partner, warm and alive and here.

In front of him Changbin coughed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Ah, anyway. Sorry. Looks like the stone isn’t here so, um. Where do we look next, hyung? What other places did Hannie love?”

Other places Jisung loved. There were so many, too many, but also…also, he couldn’t just give up. It didn’t matter how much it hurt, how much it felt like his heart was being torn apart into raw bleeding pieces every time he faced down the possibility of a future without Jisung in it. Somewhere out there Jisung was waiting for him, was maybe right this moment running frantically around trying to find Minho too, and he just. He had to do this. There was no other choice, no other option. He had to find Jisung again. There wasn’t anything else.

He took a deep breath and met Changbin’s gaze. “Come on,” he said. “We have work to do.”

The next two days were a blur of searching and travel. Thankfully STAY believed the company’s line about Minho being ill and Changbin sustaining an injury; it only took redyeing their hair black and donning a couple of masks to allow them to move about the city unharassed.

And move they did. Minho took them everywhere: the restaurants Jisung liked to eat at, his favorite food stalls and convenience stores, his parents’ house and the studio and the little dog park he frequented with Bbama whenever he was home. A whole journey through Han Jisung’s life and, completely without meaning to, the story of their own relationship: the cozy little cafe where they’d had their first official date. The movie theatre where they’d kissed for the first time, warm and safe in the dark. The amusement parks they frequented, their favorite noraebang, the private little AirBnB a couple districts over they often rented for a weekend whenever the city center and their jobs became too stressful and suffocating.

It was a reminder of what he loved, what infused his life with light and hope and vibrant joy, but also it brought to mind everything he’d lost, every place they visited echoing of Jisung’s presence and making Minho miss him like a hole had been torn open in his heart. And no matter where they went or how hard they searched, they never found the stone. None of Jisung’s beloved spots yielded the one thing Minho needed, and he stood a few feet away from the park bench where Changbin was sifting helplessly through the dirt, and knew that this was the end. That he would never see Han Jisung again.

The park was one of the smaller ones in Seoul, about half a mile from their dorm and little-known enough for two world-famous idols to occasionally be able to steal a bit of time together here between trips and events. He remembered the last time they’d been here, how the fading orange light of the setting sun had outlined every strand of Jisung’s hair in fiery gold, the sight of his partner enough to take Minho’s breath away as the younger man squeezed his hand and smiled and said…

“It’s not here.” Changbin straightened up with a grimace. “All this time and running around everywhere and it’s not fucking here!”

He kicked one of the bench legs so hard the sound reverberated through the small clearing, but Minho hardly heard it, too busy trying to breathe through the pain in his chest. So this was it, then. It was over. He could think of no other places to go, nowhere else that might have contained traces of Jisung’s happiness. They hadn’t found the stone, wouldn’t be able to return it to the spirit. He would be stuck here for the rest of his life, aimless and alone, always incomplete, always knowing that, because of his own stupidity, he’d destroyed his only chance at a bright, golden future.

“Hyung?” The look of alarm on Changbin’s face might have been funny except there was nothing at all humorous about this situation, only sorrow and the deep sucking darkness of despair. The other man scrambled forward, eyes wide. “Oh no, hyung, no, please don’t…”

He looked terrified, lost and scared and also Minho couldn’t help him because. Because it was over. He didn’t even recognize the sound that issued from his mouth, thin and trembling like an animal in pain as he bent over, shaking, struggling for breath as fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. Oh god, it hurt. It hurt, he couldn’t—please just make it stop, he needed to breathe, he needed to find the stone, he needed—Jisung—

“Hyung!” Worried hands flitted over his shoulders, his back, Changbin’s voice brittle to the point of breaking. “Hyung, it’s—it’s gonna be okay, I swear, we’ll find it, okay, we just gotta—we just have to keep looking—”

But it was a lie. Minho knew it was a lie, and this was what it felt like for his heart to break. This was what it felt like to stare down a barren future alone, cold and gray and utterly meaningless.

Changbin, evidently, hadn’t gotten the memo because the younger man just continued babbling, frantic. “We can still go back, okay? We can go back to the woods and find the spirit again and we can—we can get it to talk, I’ll fucking make it talk and if it doesn’t tell us exactly where to look then I don’t care how ancient or powerful it is, I’ll find a way to kill it and then I’ll piss on its fucking grave—”

And.

And then.

Minho snapped his head up so fast he nearly bashed Changbin right in the chin but he couldn’t even care because. Because Changbin had said…

And—fuck. It shouldn’t be—this wasn’t fucking right, and also it made sense. Awfully, horribly it made all the sense in the world because the last time he’d had the stone, he’d given it to Jisung. It had belonged to Jisung. It was with Jisung.

The place of the beloved.

Grave.

Changbin squawked when Minho reached out to seize his shoulders, instinctively trying to shake off his grip but Minho held on, staring at him and he probably looked like a crazy person and also. Also he knew where to go. Oh, god. He knew where they would find the stone.

“Wh-Where…” He coughed, blinked back a fresh wave of tears. “Changbinnie. Where is he buried?”

He would have missed the grave entirely if he hadn’t been looking.

It was raining. Fat wet droplets splashed down on him, soaking his face and clothes and dripping everywhere as Minho stared down at the small stone marker, tiny and featureless and entirely unremarkable—because in this world, that was what Han Jisung was. Born September 14, 2000; died June 7, 2016. Long before he would have become anything more than just another young, faceless JYPE trainee. Long before Minho would come along with his hopes and ambitions to debut as an idol, and would miss entirely his chance to seize the most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced.

Changbin stood a few feet away, nothing more than the slightest awareness of another presence at his back. The younger man had said nothing on the way over and he remained silent now, and Minho was grateful for it. What could he say, anyway, that would make any of this better? What could he say, to make it so that Minho could be forgiven for what he was about to do?

Thunder rolled through the gray skies above as a fresh torrent of rain poured down, biting and cold. Minho stared at the unfeeling black characters and the white stone slab that were all that remained of Han Jisung, and took a deep, trembling breath.

Sungie, he thought, sorrowful, desperate. I am so sorry.

Then he lifted the sledgehammer and slammed it down on the marker as hard as he could.

The sharp ring of impact echoed through the cemetery, clear even through the roar of the rain. Changbin yelped and Minho just grit his teeth and did it again, and then again, stomach churning as stone cracked and exploded and split right apart, just like his heart as he destroyed the place where his partner rested. As he took every remaining bit of hope inside him and tore it to pieces by desecrating the final remnant of Jisung’s memory.

Slam! Slam! Over and over he brought the sledgehammer down, until the marker over Jisung’s grave was nothing more than bits of debris and dust, rapidly turning into mud in the rain, revealing beneath a yawning black chamber in which stood a single small, pale green urn.

With a strangled sob Minho fell to his knees and reached in to pick it up. His hands shook, slippery-wet with rain so that he nearly dropped the little clay vessel and it was so small, unassuming and almost impossibly light because Jisung had been only sixteen when he died: just a child, quiet and nameless and so quickly forgotten. Except Minho couldn’t forget. He would never forget—how Jisung was the center of his entire world, the glowing heart of everything that made Minho who he was except now Jisung was dead, nothing but a pile of burnt-up ashes in a dull little container and—and he had to do this, he had no other choice, he had to find the stone, he had to make everything right again…

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, thick with tears as he groped for the lid of the urn. “Oh Hannie, oh my love, I am so, so sorry…”

And then he was pulling the lid off and Changbin was shouting “Hyung, stop!” behind him, broken and tearful, but Minho didn’t. He couldn’t, and he grit his teeth and plunged his hand inside—

Ashes. Blackened gray dust and bits of bone and all that was left of the man who was the other half of his soul. Minho’s stomach heaved and he moaned and barely managed to turn his head aside before he was throwing up all over the ground, sour and thick and full of poison because that’s what this was. This was venom, this was the awful, terrible act of desecrating his partner’s grave and pillaging his ashes and Minho groaned and continued retching into the dirt even as he dug his fingers desperately through all that was left of Jisung, searching, searching because—because please, after everything he’d been through, after destroying his partner’s memory and his own soul in this way he needed to find it, it had to be here—

And then, suddenly: something hard. Something cold and unyielding within the gristly contents of the urn and Minho cried out and wrapped his fingers around it and yanked—

And there it was. The gemstone lay innocuous in his hand, glowing bright luminescent blue even through the layer of watery ash, and behind him Changbin made a high-pitched noise and the rain poured down and Minho just stared at this evidence of his crime, this tiny little thing that shouldn’t have meant anything and yet, in the end, carried the weight of everything that mattered in the world.

The next few moments happened very fast. The stone pulsed once, bright, almost as if making an announcement. A searing white light descended upon him, sudden and all-encompassing like a curtain being drawn, and even as Changbin shouted something in alarm Minho clenched his fist around the stone and slammed his eyes shut against the burning illumination as everything went hot and cold and upside-down and sideways…

And then: silence.

No thunder, no rain. No cemetery, no Seo Changbin, no sledgehammer or broken-open grave or an urn containing the ashen remains of all his light. Minho coughed, pushed himself slowly to sitting as he clutched the stone with one hand and brushed water from his eyes with the other. What happened? Where was he—oh.

The ancient Hokkaido forest rolled out all around him, an endless landscape of trees like the bars of a prison cell surrounding the clearing he was standing in, a small, vaguely circular space carved out amongst the vegetation like a stage that had been cleared for a solo. A cool, smoky mist settled low over the ground, blanketing everything in a gray formless shroud, and from somewhere very, very far away came the single tinkling echo of a bell, ringing out soft in the quiet of the woods.

Then, a few feet before him on the very edge of the clearing, a shape slowly resolved from the ether. Tiny at first, barely a drop of light but it grew quickly, drew together like morning dew condensing until it became a puddle, nebulous and ever-changing and glowing a familiar clear blue.

Then, as Minho watched, trembling, the puddle became a shape. Ever so slightly solid, ever so slightly human—just the suggestion of someone there, not quite reality yet not quite hallucination. Something in between, something that lived in the liminal spaces between worlds. Something that could change the course of any universe it bordered, if it so chose.

And then the spirit spoke, its voice concentrated, quiet, clear. Well. You look like you’ve had a hell of a day.

Minho stared. Sat there in the middle of the clearing with his mind entirely blank, and he knew what the spirit was seeing: a man soaked from head to toe with water still dripping from his hair, covered in dirt and mud with tears and snot all over his face as he shook so hard his teeth chattered. Yes. If the spirit’s whole goal had been to defeat him, to take all the strength in Lee Minho’s core and crush it into nothing…then it had succeeded. It had won.

The gemstone sat heavy and cold against his palm, ruthless in its solidity. Minho swallowed and lifted his hand, opening his fingers so that the pale light of the moon overhead glinted off soft ocean blue. His skin was still covered in a wet layer of ash—of Jisung, and he had to fight against the sudden surge of nausea up his throat.

“I-I found it,” he whispered, hoarse. “I brought it back, so p-please. Please give him back to me.”

The spirit didn’t answer, just continued to hover in front of him, blank. The forest held a silent, forlorn vigil all around them, each tree a tall, faceless monument to everything that had come before and everything that would persist after. Minho held up the stone, an offering, a sacrifice made at the altar of desperation. “Please,” he repeated.

The spirit cocked its head, just the smallest of movements. Why?

And Minho just. He stared at this glowing being before him, bright and intense and utterly cold as a far-off frozen star. Why? But he’d thought…but it had promised…

“Y-You.” He licked his lips. “You s-said if I brought it back then you would change things, you would m-make things right—”

Hmm, no. The spirit’s voice echoed through the forest, vast and enduring and untouchable. I said I would consider it. I made no other pledge.

And. And what? But he…he’d found it, he’d fucking dug through the burned up remains of the man he loved in order to return the fucking stone and…and it wasn’t supposed to be this way. He’d brought it back and the spirit was supposed to accept it and snap its incorporeal fingers or whatever and he was supposed to find Jisung again, he was supposed to have him and hold him and never fucking let him go…

But the spirit’s voice remained flat, impartial, completely soulless as it continued, I don’t much think you deserve a second chance, after what you took from me.

And it meant it. Despite the blankness of its tone Minho heard it: that the decision had been made. 

The grief surged up in a wave, anguish and a deep, soul-shattering sorrow and he hung his head, tears mixing with rain to drip steadily onto the stone in his hand.

“But it was such a small thing,” he whispered. “Just a tiny, simple thing.” And it came out brittle and broken because that’s what he was. That’s what he would always be, now that he’d lost Jisung forever. 

The spirit hummed. But perhaps now you understand, hm? That even the smallest change can make the biggest difference. It can cost you so much more than you’re willing to pay.

And yes, it had. It had cost him everything. The world faded out, went gray and numb at the edges and Minho just sat there and stared at the stone, at this tiny little trinket that was beautiful and fragile and also contained within it all the destruction and blackness in the universe. God, he’d tried. Wherever Jisung was, whatever he was doing…Minho hoped he would at least understand this. That he’d tried his best to get back to him, even though he failed in the end.

Well then. The spirit shimmered, a white hazy wave that rippled across its surface. The stone responded with an identical pulse, shining bright for one second before losing all its light, fading into nothing but a tiny black lump in Minho’s hand. Fitting, given the giant gaping hole that had opened up in his heart.

I suppose you’ll have to get used to this world, seeing as your stay has been extended, the spirit continued, and it didn’t even sound particularly pleased, only practical. And in the end, Minho would never understand why he said it. Why the words tumbled from his mouth entirely without his permission. Why, in that single hopeless, wretched moment, he reached out one last time.

“Will he be okay?”

To say the spirit blinked would be an exaggeration, but it certainly seemed to pause for a moment, the shimmering white light along its surface arresting mid-movement. Who?

“Han Jisung.” Slowly Minho raised his head, and he could barely even make out the spirit through the blur of hot tears but also he just. If he really had lost everything, if he really would never see Jisung again then he at least deserved to know. “Back in my world. Will he be okay?”

The spirit said nothing, and that was all right. Nothing mattered, anyway, and Minho just kept talking. It was like his heart had turned off, like now between his ribs only a blank shadow was left. Which was the truth, because he was nothing now. 

“He’s looking for me, right?” he said, inflectionless, dead. “It’s been two days and he’s probably freaking the fuck out and he’s going to fucking lose it when he can’t find me. And he’ll grieve, I get that. He’ll get angry and blame himself and he’ll carry that wound probably for the rest of his life, but also. Also, will he heal? Will he find someone else eventually, move on with his life? Will he…will he be okay?”

Because Minho wouldn’t return to his world, but also he would never stop loving Jisung. Passionately, desperately, and even though they were literal universes apart he would spend the rest of his life here hoping every day that Jisung would get through this. That he would find someone to love, someone so much better and more worthy than Minho, and they would bring back his smile and his bellowing laugh and Minho himself would never be okay but maybe Jisung would be. Maybe Jisung would be happy, and that…that was all he could ever ask for. Because this was what it meant to love: to find your person and hold on to them for as long as you could, and then when the time came, to let them go.

The silence stretched. The spirit hovered in the middle of the clearing, glowing soft and luminescent and unreadable, and that was okay. Minho took a slow, trembling breath, and the grief still sat like a boulder crushing him down but he would survive it so long as Jisung was safe. So long as Jisung lived, then Minho could live too.

A gentle breeze whispered through the trees, rustling the leaves and branches with a tinkling melody of quiet, tremulous hope. Minho closed his eyes and thought of Jisung, of his smile and his touch and the softness of his eyes, and it wasn’t much in this cruel black world he was in, but he would take it. Eventually the memory of his partner would fade with time and distance, but for now he would keep it here. For now he would tuck Jisung away safe inside his heart, and hold on to him for as long as he could.

Then the spirit’s voice abruptly shattered the silence, booming through the darkness. It sounded…exasperated. Annoyed. And maybe, just maybe, the slightest bit impressed.

Just when I think I’ve about had it with humans, it grumbled, you go and pull this bullshit.

And before Minho could reply, could speak or shout or even think, really, the world flashed white once more. Searing light enveloped him, burning and painful and enough to destroy, and he didn’t even have time to scream before everything disappeared.

Minho woke up alone.

The hotel room around him was quiet and dark, just the soft hum of the air conditioning and the—

Wait.

Hotel room.

His heart leaped into his throat as he threw the covers back and—oh. Minho stared all around him at the darkened room: the flatscreen set into the opposite wall, the pale dawn sunlight just starting to filter through the shimmery white curtains at the window. The place he recognized—because he was back in Japan. The bed was a king. And he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

He scrambled for his phone on the nightstand and turned it on. Then laughed, thick and wet and breathless in the silence.

From the glowing screen his own face grinned up at him, happy and carefree against the backdrop of a gorgeous white beach, and ensconced safely within the circle of his arms: Han Jisung, smiling brightly at the camera so wide his eyes squinched up into little crescent moons as the sand and the water rolled out behind them, vibrant and eternal.

Jisung, his partner, his life. His everything.

Oh. Tears rolled down his cheeks as Minho stared down at the photo, at the man he’d thought he would never see again. But now he would. Now Jisung was here, he was safe and alive and okay, and fuck. Minho needed to see him.

The ride to the studio seemed to take an eternity. Jisung didn’t pick up any of his calls—he usually put his phone on DND when he was working—and Minho leaned forward in his seat, peering anxiously out the window as his heart rabbited in his chest, as that glowing golden thread at the center of himself gave a sharp tug the closer they got to the building, thrumming with fear and uncertainty and also the stubborn bright tinge of hope because he was going to see Jisung again. Minho hadn’t lost him. After getting punted into a different dimension and encountering a magic spirit and running all over Korea and tearing apart a gravestone that never should have been, Lee Minho had finally found his way back home.

He was out the door and booking it for the building even before the van had fully stopped, ignoring his driver’s startled shout as he barreled through the front doors. Where was Jisung? He raced down corridors and through thick, insulated doorways, frantic, desperate. Was he here? What about here? Fuck, how could this place be so fucking big, how was he supposed to find Jisung in this labyrinth of hallways and recording booths and meeting rooms and—

And then. The studio he burst into was no different from all the others, and yet he saw it immediately, thrown carelessly over the back of one of the chairs: Chan’s coat. A half-full mug of cold coffee next to the synthesizer, that Changbin always placed there no matter how much their leader yelled at him about accidents and electrical shorts.

And, hanging delicately from the hook by the door: a scarf. Plaid grey, cashmere, expensive in a way Minho had teased Jisung endlessly about until his partner whined at him to stop. The same one Jisung had worn on the plane on their way over to Japan. The one he’d hung in the closet in their hotel room, just the previous night.

The recording booth was empty and dark, but the door on the other side of the control room was ajar, revealing beyond it a small lounge, warm and brightly lit. And then, even as Minho held his breath, Changbin’s voice drifted to him through the open doorway. “—igured out the bridge transition, I think that got rid of the dip at least.”

“That’s great.” Chan’s answer was light, teasing. “Only took three hours, no big deal.”

And then, like a sunrise unfolding over the horizon, like all the light finally returning to his world: a bright, achingly familiar laugh. “Don’t blame him, Channie-hyung, we all know he doesn’t do well with jetlag—”

And Minho was moving. Even as his soul lit right up, as his heart thrummed in his chest and expanded with hope and anticipation and an endless, echoing love he darted across the room and shoved his way through the door so hard he stumbled and nearly fell flat on his face.

But he didn’t care. Couldn’t care because from their spot by the door both Chan and Changbin stumbled back in surprise while seated on the couch Jisung just blinked up at him, bemused. “Hyung?” he said, as everything inside Minho just. Broke. “Oh hey, did you need someth—uh, whoa, wha…?”

It came out strangled, and also Minho didn’t give a shit as he released a tiny, broken cry and wrapped Jisung up as tightly as he could, entire body shaking because god, he was here. Jisung was here, he was safe and alive and back with Minho right where he belonged, right where he would always stay forever.

The silence in the room stretched, stunned and a little fearful. Minho clutched Jisung to him, burying his face in the younger man’s shoulder as he breathed him in: the scent of his cologne, spicy and sharp, along with sweat and musk and underneath it all something that was distinctly Jisung, that would always be Minho’s safety, his compass, his home. Jisung’s hands twitched before slowly, hesitantly reaching up to encircle him, careful, like Minho was a fragile thing that would break at the slightest touch and it was true because that was how he felt: on the verge of shattering, of flying apart into a million shards of utter nothingness if Jisung wasn’t here to hold him together.

“Um.” His partner’s voice rumbled up between them, low and soothing and achingly safe. “Could you guys just…give us a minute here?”

“Yeah.” Minho didn’t have to look to know Chan was nodding, a soft rustling sounding out as their two bandmates obediently shuffled toward the door. “And if you need anything or—or if there’s anything we can do for—Binnie? Oh Jesus, why are you crying—”

“I-I don’t know!” Changbin sniffled, voice already fading away as they made their way across the studio. “I just, it just feels so important—”

And then they were gone, the front door of the studio sliding shut with a click behind them. And it was just Minho and Jisung and the enormity of this thing between them that threatened to tear Minho right apart and that his partner didn’t even know about, and Minho whimpered and tightened his grip, trying his very best to fuse them right together even as his tears soaked into Jisung’s shirt.

“Hyung?” The younger man’s voice was a gentle whisper, his palm running a soothing caress up and down his spine. “Hey. What happened?”

And, well. Wasn’t that the question. Minho might have laughed if he had anything left in him for humor, but as it stood he simply settled almost his entire weight onto Jisung, knowing his partner would take it, would support him unconditionally as he always did. And what could he say? Could he tell Jisung the whole story? It sounded ridiculous even when he replayed it in his head, and Jisung would be kind about it, Minho knew he would be, but also he wouldn’t believe him. It was outrageous, anyway: a magical forest spirit? Interdimensional travel? Having to live without the love of your life because he’d been killed years before you even met?

“Baby?” Jisung was starting to sound seriously worried. Minho sighed, reached down to squeeze his hand.

“I, um. I had a bad dream.”

“Oh.” And—god. Jisung didn’t laugh, didn’t tease or probe or try to tear it all down because of course he wouldn’t, that wasn’t who he was and Minho had never loved him more as his partner rubbed his back, gentle. “Um. What was it about?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Minho shook his head and brought Jisung in close, staring straight into his eyes as everything inside him rang out with relief and desperate want. “I just…I love you. So fucking much.”

“I love you too.” Jisung said it easy, automatic, like it was a fact of the world. And it was—of this world, and Minho lost his breath a little as his partner reached up to touch his cheek, his gaze nothing but kind. “Hyung,” he whispered. “What do you need?”

And, well. Minho didn’t even think about it. He just leaned in and kissed him.

It was warm and familiar and passionate as it always was: the comforting shape of Jisung’s mouth, the press of his lips and the way his breath caught just a bit as Minho shifted in his lap, erasing any remaining space between them as he finally returned home, found the place he belonged in Jisung’s taste and touch and the revelation of having him close. Jisung, for his part, just rolled with it, one hand sliding into Minho’s hair even as he shifted back on the couch to give him more room to maneuver—before emitting a yelp and darting his hands down to seize Minho’s as he went for his fly. “W-Wait, what are you doing?”

His eyes were practically bugging out of his head, and yeah, Minho got it. They never did anything in public, the risk of being outed far too great but also…also he’d just gone two fucking days thinking Jisung was dead. That his partner was gone and Minho would never get to see him again, and he just…Minho shook his head. He needed this. Fuck, he needed…

“Wait, wait!” Jisung tried once more to bat his hands away, eyes wide. “We can’t—are you really—”

“Yes.” Minho shoved at him, ignoring Jisung’s squeak as he flopped back onto the couch and Minho crawled up after him. “Now.”

Then he dove down to kiss him again, filthy and hot as he did everything with his tongue he knew Jisung loved and beneath him his partner moaned and arched up into it, unthinking, hands scrabbling for purchase along his shoulders even as Minho reached between them once more.

He felt it then: the moment Jisung gave in. The younger man’s body relaxed against his, warm fingers sinking into his hips to haul him in as Jisung whined and deepened the kiss, licking into Minho’s mouth as he finally surrendered. Minho popped open the button of his jeans and this time Jisung didn’t resist, instead wiggling his hips to help as Minho shoved his pants and boxers down his thighs to bare his cock, already half-hard and starting to curve up toward his stomach.

Before he could do anything more than admire it though, the world suddenly flipped. He landed on his back with a sharp “Oof!”, blinking up at the ceiling for a half-second before his vision was blocked out by Jisung looming over him, face flushed, eyes glinting with heat and a smoky promise that sent shivers down Minho’s spine as the younger man cocked his head. “Since you’re so desperate for it, I should make sure you get everything you want, hm?” he said, before nodding somewhere over Minho’s shoulder. “Stuff’s in my bag.”

Jisung’s duffle was on the low table next to the couch. Minho obediently twisted around, and it only took a moment of rummaging for him to come up with a condom which. They were going to have to talk about this, why was Jisung carrying stuff like this around in public where anyone could—

Then Jisung slid his pants and underwear off, baring him to the room before reaching down to wrap firm fingers around his cock and Minho promptly lost the plot, eyes slamming shut as he moaned and thrust up into his partner’s grip. “F-Fuck, Sungie—”

“If you insist.” And god, Minho would really have liked to smack that shit-eating grin right off Jisung’s face except that would mean the younger man would stop touching him and that was just blatantly unacceptable. So instead he just whined and spread his legs, heat rushing down his spine and through all his extremities when Jisung answered with a low groan, almost pained as he stuck his fingers in his mouth and then quickly brought them down toward Minho’s entrance.

They did this often enough that his body had learned what to do a long time ago. Minho sighed at the first touch of Jisung’s fingers to his hole, relaxing his muscles so that his partner was able to slip two inside almost immediately, the slide and stretch of them enough to make him a little lightheaded. God, it felt good, and Minho threw his head back and moaned as he rolled his hips, trying to take Jisung deeper, to bring his partner home in every way possible.

“Fuck.” Whatever face he was making seemed to drive Jisung absolutely insane, the younger man staring down at him in awe for a moment before pulling his fingers out and scrambling for the condom. “Oh fuck, hyung, do you have any fucking idea—”

Minho did, actually, and he hooked one heel against the small of Jisung’s back, trying to pull him in even as he lifted his hips, inviting. “Come on, baby,” he purred, as Jisung swore and ripped the little foil packet open with his teeth. “Come on, give it to me, hyung wants your cock…”

“Fuck, Jesus fuck.” Jisung’s hands were shaking as he rolled the condom on, fingers glistening with lube even as he reached up to grasp Minho’s thighs, spreading him open as he slid forward and the head of his cock bumped along Minho’s rim once, twice, before finally pressing up and in.

“Nnngh…” Minho arched up from the couch, mouth falling open on a breathless cry as he was stretched, filled, completed. The world faded away, thick cotton between his ears shutting out everything except for Jisung, the sound of his low groan as he fucked slowly forward and the feel of his cock stretching Minho wide, opening him up and stuffing him full and giving him everything he had ever wanted. Fuck. It was so fucking good: the slow delicious drag of Jisung’s cock along his inner walls, his rim stretched wide around that lovely thick girth, the solid hot press of the younger man’s balls up against Minho’s ass as he bottomed out at last.

God. Minho sighed and pulled his partner down for a kiss, moaning softly into Jisung’s mouth as he shifted his hips and reveled in the feeling of the younger man inside him, safe and connected and finally, finally home. After everything he’d been through, after having hovered on the cusp of losing this forever…yeah. Minho would never take this for granted again.

“Move,” he whispered, as Jisung trembled against him. “Please, Han-ah.”

So Jisung did. Obedient as always, he didn’t bother starting slow, seeming to sense that wasn’t what Minho wanted as he pulled out a couple inches and then rocked back in, solid and strong, and Minho threw his head back with a gasp and lost himself in it.

It was, as always, fucking divine. Jisung fucked the same way he produced: focused, unyielding, intent on only one goal. And it was honestly a really shitty place for them to do this, the couch was cramped and the cushions lumpy and Minho’s head kept bumping against the arm each time they moved and also he couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here as Jisung groaned and slammed his hips forward over and over, driving his cock into Minho without hesitation, lighting everything up in fiery pleasure. The couch creaked beneath them and Minho clutched at Jisung’s shoulders and wrapped his legs around his partner’s waist, pulling him in, tying him down because Jisung wasn’t allowed to be anywhere else, he was going to stay right here because he was Minho’s, he would always be Minho’s and—and—

“O-Oh…” Pleasure lit like miniature starbursts all over his body, the crest of it concentrated between his legs where Jisung was filling him up so fucking good and Minho gasped for breath, mind spinning, desperate and entirely lost. “Oh Sungie, more, give me more, oh my god—”

And Jisung brought it. With a low growl the younger man ducked his head, mouthing at Minho’s throat as he upped the pace, slamming into him without mercy so deep Minho could practically taste it, until his world became nothing but this: Jisung’s cock, Jisung’s hands, his mouth and his tongue and him, here. Always and forever here.

The flicker of heat at the base of his spine was sudden and sharp and entirely unexpected. Minho moaned and pulled Jisung closer, kissing him everywhere he could reach. “Baby,” he whimpered as his thighs began to tremble and his muscles tensed up. “S-Sungie, oh fuck, I—I’m gonna—”

“Fuck, nngh, hyung.” Jisung scraped his teeth over Minho’s throat and slammed in one last time, hips spasming as he emptied himself into the condom. Minho whined at the feeling and clenched down on his partner’s cock as it twitched inside him, everything full and hot and so, so good even as Jisung panted against him and groped blindly for the tissue box on the coffee table, drawing one out and holding it loosely around the tip of Minho’s own drooling, straining prick.

“Come on,” he breathed, slow and thick like he couldn’t quite get his mouth to work even as he reached his other hand down to strip Minho’s cock fast and merciless, making him nearly leap off the couch. “Come on, hyung, lemme see you come, I want it, you’re so fucking hot—”

And Minho didn’t know if it was his words or his touch or just Jisung being here but either way it didn’t matter. The world washed white, everything exploding in heat and mind-numbing pleasure as he wailed and came, hips twitching as his cock shot out pulse after pulse of hot come, as Jisung sighed and caught all of it easily, taking care of him as usual, as he always would.

 Minho collapsed onto the couch, panting. Jisung sat back just enough for his cock to slip out, running a soothing palm over Minho’s thigh when he whined in complaint. “Easy, love,” he said, as he tossed the tissue into the wastebasket in the corner. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t seem to mean anything by it, yet still Minho’s heart tightened in his chest. “No, you’re not,” he answered, and it was perhaps a little sharper than he intended because Jisung just grinned and shook his head as he tied off the condom. 

“Man, if this is what happens when you have a nightmare then we need to get you dreaming more often,” he said, and he was joking, Minho knew he was, and yet. Yet. 

He pushed himself up to sitting, sighing at the deep yet wonderful ache of his body as he reached out to curl his fingers around Jisung’s wrist, offering a shaky smile when the younger man looked up at him. “I love you,” he said, as Jisung blinked. “I know you know, but I want to say it anyway. I love you, Han Jisung, more than anything in the world. And I will never leave you. I’ll die before I do.”

And he meant it. He shouldn’t have gotten this second chance, certainly didn’t deserve it, but here it was and Minho was going to take it. He was going to hold on to Jisung as long as he could, always and forever and even longer after that. And he was never, ever going to pick anything up from the ground ever again.

In front of him Jisung looked bewildered and maybe a little suspicious, like perhaps he was about to come home to the cats having destroyed his favorite pillow or something. But Minho just watched him, steady, and eventually the younger man shrugged and sent him a smile, soft and warm and easy as always. “Sap,” he said, endlessly fond even as he scrambled up from the couch. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I want to try the kaisendon at the market.”

He was already pulling his jeans back up, so Minho hurried to follow. And it was okay, that Jisung didn’t know. He didn’t need to, anyway, because the most important thing was that he was here. Jisung was here, and that was all Minho could ever ask for.

He smiled, took Jisung’s hand, and tailed his partner toward the door. Then, two steps in, Jisung blinked and turned back to look at him.

“Hey,” he said. “Whatever happened to that rock you gave me?”