Yesteryear

The Sea

Wooyoung and San had made a fire out of some pieces of dry driftwood they found buried halfway in the sand. San's fire-making skills never got rusty as he ignited the flames and sat down together with Wooyoung in the sand. To dry off, Wooyoung had stripped from his tunic and cloak, only sitting in his pants. When San had noticed him shivering despite the warming flames, he had called over their horses and got a blanket from one of his bags. Wrapped into it and with the heated skin of their naked torsos leaned against each other, they sat at the fire.

Through the open V of their blankets in front of Wooyoung's chest where his body leaned against San's shoulder, Wooyoung dug around in the ashes with a stick. Every so often the wind turned and had the smoke bite into his eyes, but he never minded it.

The light of their fire permeated the nightly air. The shine made it hard to see the reflection of the moon on the water as it rippled with the waves.

"What did you think of Leonardo's and Seonghwa's theories on immortality?"

San shifted his arms that were wrapped loosely around Wooyoung's frame. His cheek squished against Wooyoung's dry hair when he leaned their heads together.

"I thought it interesting. It carried a lot of scientific logic compared to what we are used to hearing. I see the modern time spirit in their theories."

"Did you find them believable? That you may have become immortal through a strike of chance by tumbling over a potion?"

"If the opposite of that is becoming immortal out of someone else's will, then yes, I find that theory more believable. I didn't seek to become immortal. But neither could I imagine someone else attempting to prolong my life on purpose," San replied. His voice was soft in the night. Wooyoung enjoyed listening to it over the noise of crackling wood and the rushing waves.

"I thought of another theory while we listened to Seonghwa."

San dipped his head to Wooyoung's shoulder. Gentle lips left kisses on Wooyoung's fire-warmed skin. Wooyoung shuddered when they travelled over his sensitive neck and poured San's devotion into him. It was sweet, like the ambrosia San had fed him in Rome. Wooyoung couldn't get enough of it.

"What is it?"

Wooyoung felt the movement of San's lips on his skin, tried to predict what words they would form.

"I wondered if immortality might be hereditary. You said you couldn't have children... I thought if maybe that has to do with your condition, then maybe those rare children get it from their parents."

San was silent for a while. His kisses had faded out and he merely rested his forehead on Wooyoung's shoulder. Tense and ready to apologise for the intrusion, Wooyoung rested in his arms.

"I barely remember my parents," San muttered after long minutes of them listening to nature around them. "I spent only a few years with them. Ten? Maybe fifteen? Far too short for me to remember who they were in the grand spectrum of my life. I wouldn't know if they were immortals. But I also never met them again."

Wooyoung's head throbbed with memories from his biology classes. About dominant and recessive genetics and whether that immortality might be an ultra-exceptional occurrence, much more extraordinary to achieve than any genetic uniqueness the modern world knew.

"Did you have siblings?"

"Not that I know of."

Wooyoung didn't want to dig around in the man's mind too much. The time he spent as a child was far from the past. If San remembered it, those memories might have been the most precious ones that he didn't want to share.