hold me 𐦍 yeonbin

005 ᯓᡣ𐭩

Inside the building is small, cramped, and dark, and the walls are patchy and not nearly as neat and pristine as the ones in the operating room or the magic store, and certainly nothing like his home. Despite the darkness, Yeonjun finds comfort in these walls. The energy inside the hollow building is low and almost indistinguishable from the street outside. It smells like humans.

Yeonjun follows Soobin up the stairs that switch directions four times, passing many doors with different numbers and energies radiating inside. They stop in front of a door with the numbers 5 and 8 engraved on a plaque.

Soobin offers the ring to the door again, using the second, smaller metal key and the door grants him access, swinging open to reveal a room similar in shape to the magic store, though only about half the size and not near as crowded with furniture.

“After you,” Soobin says as he steps aside.

“Why?” Yeonjun steps away.

A trap. It’s a trap.

“It’s not a trap,” Soobin assures him.

“Prove it,” Yeonjun says.

Soobin does what humans do when they feel agitated by another human and rolls his eyes. Yeonjun doesn’t appreciate how the gesture makes him feel.

Belittled.

Once on the other side of the doorway Soobin spins around to face Yeonjun, holding out his arms to welcome Yeonjun in.

Inside it’s dark but cozy and more specious than the operating room.

A flash of light, and suddenly the room is lit from above. In front of Yeonjun are dark red walls covered in large pieces of paper arranged in a specific, aesthetic order according to color and size, each featuring different texts, other humans, and abstract objects that have no correlation to each other. To the left there is a large red couch—the largest Yeonjun has ever seen in the human world—and in front of it sits a thin black box, what Yeonjun assumes is a piece of human decor or technology based on the cords running along the wall behind it, not dissimilar to the bright screens they wheeled into the operating room on occasion. Unlike the screens in the operating room, these cords are plugged into a wall and not to Yeonjun.

There are two doors in front of him, and to the right there is a kitchen. Yeonjun has never seen a kitchen in person. He learned about them from Taehyun, and the way humans use chemistry and physics in the room, much like a lab, to produce the most efficient form of nutrition. It’s called cooking.

“It’s probably nothing like whatever sort of log or mushroom you live in,” Soobin says.

“You think I live in a mushroom?”

“Or a log.”

“I don’t….” It’s not worth it.

“One day I’m going to show you a not-hollow stump.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” There are no stumps on Terra. Trees on Terra aren’t given the opportunity to grow to their full potential before humans destroy them.

Yeonjun scans the room again for any indication of a trap or cage or gurney.

“You’re right, my home looks nothing like this. It’s nowhere near as…” Yeonjun fumbles with the human terms he knows, trying to pick out the right one to capture the way this room makes him feel.

“Wow, you’re not really one to pull your punches, are you?”

“I’m not going to punch you.”

“I meant verbally.”

“I wasn’t going to insult you, either. The word I’m looking for is ‘cozy,’ I think.”