A Moment In Time | Stray Kids x Reader | Oneshots

❔Hwang Hyunjin - Curtain Call

Set in the nineteenth century
⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

They say he comes with the rise and fall of the curtains. Every autumn to winter, like a gust of wind, he beckons audiences from every corner of town to a night at the theatre he so often calls home.

Some wonder if he even exists outside of the stage, or who Hwang Hyunjin actually is. Others argue over which form of his is true, for he never returns each year with the same persona.

Is it the angel he acted as for the Christmas plays? The one whose ethereal beauty could make you question whether he was made of light. Or is it the demonic character he adopted on the most memorable night of Halloween the townspeople had ever seen? Whose singular glare could pierce a spear through your soul.

None could reach a seasoned conclusion. So they say, Hwang Hyunjin is an enigma, who possesses irrevocable charisma.

He makes you love and hate him all with the pull of curtains, and only he decides when.
Every question he's asked would be deflected, dismissed. All but one: "Why do you perform?" to which his answer would without a doubt be "I owe my life to the theatre. It saved me."

Then just as the last snow of winter begins to melt, he'd already have vanished. His dressing room put together as if he'd never been there at all, and the town is left wondering whether he was merely a phantasm conceived of winter.

Except, you knew he wasn't. When you found him outside the stage on the night before your performance together.

He was there, just crouching outside of the theatre building in a bundle of winter coats and scarves, extending his hand to something hidden behind the waste cans. Sniffling its high-pitched whines hiding in the snow, its frozen snout just grazing against the tips of his fingers.

His cheeks flushed red, silken blond hair dusted with snow and falling in messy strands around his shoulders. His lips, chapped and slightly agape, puffed out steady icy breaths.

For the first time in all these years, he looked human. He was human, fragile and shivering in the cold just like anybody else, heart beating and blazing with warmth for this little creature despite the subzero temperatures.

Several minutes passed in silence before he took notice of your presence and slipped away around the next corner. Before you could even shout his name, and your cracked voice carried away by the wind.

It wasn't long when you saw him again. You don't think you could ever forget the night of your performance together. The night you and he stood on the same stage, tasting the other's lips for all the audience to see.

His lips moved expertly, as if he knew the precise pattern and pace he should go. His grip on your waist was solid, convincing. And it wasn't until you broke away, heart thundering and breathless, that you remembered with a disheartened pang that he had done this countless times before you, with countless actresses whose names you should never come to know.

They were cheering, of course, at the end of such an astounding play, made remarkable by none other than the star who stood beside you. But it wasn't over yet. When he announced that he would perform a dance.

With you in the audience, he returned to that stage with a new demeanour. It was as if he were in possession of a new being, something entirely different, yet entirely like himself.

He stood centre stage, in front of the audience whom he knew came for him and him only, you among them, and he smiled. His arms, hugged by the sleeves of a silk blouse the same colour as the snow outside, lifted on either side of his body and he was off with the first beat of the song.

Like a sweep of owl wings, silent as their feathers, he turned the very hardwood floors beneath his feet into the pathways of heaven. Every step light and effortless, and at the end of every sequence of moves you found yourself breathless.

Try as it might, the spotlight fought to keep up with his pace as he transformed the stage his world. It was clear when he leapt and touched the ground once more with an aerial touch. The audience released a collective breath from having held it, like a ripple in a frozen lake.

Left and right, he turned and twisted and every stretch and sweep of his arms like wings left you mesmerized all over again. Very much like wings, yes. The way they carried him to and fro until he stopped, poised like a bird taking flight. And then he was flying- no, ascending, lifted off the stage for a grand finale. Higher and higher he went until he was directly under the illuminated gaze of the moon prop.

A pause. Arms raised as if to cup one of the stars in his hands. A longing glance. And then he was off again for the final moondance.

The headlights followed his revolution round the stage, round and round. It put the audience, including and especially you, in such a trance that you didn't notice the sparks flying.

It was instantaneous. The sparking fuselage and the unmistakable electrifying pop going out one-by-one in each of the six headlights. Then the combustion sending the theatre in an uproarious fire.

You didn't even have a chance to get up from your seat until you found the seats had suddenly started emptying and footsteps trampled all around you. Chaos erupted as hundreds fled to escape the ravenous heat of the flames and the plumes of smoke.

And all the while, you couldn't help staring back at him, who was left helpless elevated in centre stage by the harness that trapped him to the very thing he pronounced his passion for. The very thing he claimed he would give his life to.

What a pity, that such a star would have to burn out so soon. Tangled, confused, he tried to free himself, to return to earth, but it was in vain. The flames moved faster than gravity.

And as you stood there at the exit coughing and sputtering the fumes out of your lungs, you chanced one last glance at him and found that he had relented, the light in his eyes dimming out, fading as he resigned to this fate.

At that moment, he was neither angel nor demon, but a phoenix in flight. The curtain rises once again devoured by the flames of misfortune, as he takes a bow. The final curtain call.