you left your shadow here ; yeonbin

5 - trust fall

The air turned black around Yeonjun, every silver lining, every gold dusted lantern expiring as if it were a bug trapped underneath the muddy soles of heavy leather boots. Footsteps slowly creaked on the floorboards and came to a halt behind Yeonjun.

“He's so skilled.”

Yeonjun's eyes didn't adjust to the dark, like they never did with Beomgyu's powers, but he turned around and faced Soobin regardless.

“He's started working on flooding the room back with light gradually and turning the lights on one by one,” Yeonjun explained just as the golden glow of the first lights flickering back to life reached through the crack in the silver curtain and embraced Soobin's features in dim shadows.
“He's stepping up his backstage game now that you've taken over the acrobatics for him.“

A smug smile curled around Yeonjun's words as he saw the inkling of past distress in Soobin's brows become lost in a lapsed eye-roll.

“So, what have you got to offer, showman?” Kai had asked — tactful as always and probably just to rile him up to put his temper to the test — after Yeonjun had introduced Soobin to the rest of the team.

Soobin's eyes had bounced around the seats at the table, never resting too long on either Kai or Taehyun in fear of his words and secrets slipping through the cracks of his mind.

Sooner or later, Yeonjun would have to tell him that Taehyun and Kai's abilities weren't the flared up river he probably deemed them to be, capturing every passing thought and emotion in their relentless stream like pebbles too close to the shore. Apart from obvious rules for peaceful coexistence with non-empaths, including not spying on thoughts and emotions when unasked for, neither Kai nor Taehyun could read soul reflections word for word.
Taehyun passed as human lie detector and wonderfully skilled behavioural specialist, because he could feel the flow of life and sensed fluctuating body functions. And although he could influence these body functions, all things considered, he didn't turn human beings into puppets on a string like he did with his pigeons.
Kai on the other hand infiltrated minds and translated the bigger picture and intents of another soul's mind without coming to know the exact words of their thoughts. He could, however, inflict distinct thoughts and images into a person's head and toy with their conscience which was, needless to say, thoroughly unasked for if he treasured harmony in their household.

Soobin’s eyes had finally set on Yeonjun's alit gaze across the table, after even Beomgyu with the warmest and most golden of airs remained blissfully avoided. Yeonjun wondered whether the rushed palpitation of his heart had stirred a nerve in Taehyun's chest when Soobin's gaze had crossed Yeonjun's, the realisation slowly trickling through Yeonjun's spine and hitting his ribcage in a sickening tremor.

Getting Soobin away from Black Charon and into the shelter of their cohesion and friendship had been his choice, surely, but it didn't mean that he had ever wanted him here in the first place, where the struggle for survival was still a given. If he allowed himself to be selfish, he would have warmed at meeting him again, the ice in his muscles would have thawed and melted away present fears inflicting a sheltered past, but when it came to Soobin, he had left his desires behind in Itamery along with him in a more secure life long ago.

Yeonjun wanted to grip him by the shoulders and shake him until his skull rattled back in place, he wanted to ask him what he was doing here and what he was hoping to get out of pursuing magic in the first place, why he was here and scream at him to go back to Itamery where Yeonjun knew he would live a normal life and not interfere with Yeonjun's present when he belonged to a secluded past.

But Yeonjun figured that he wasn't in the position to tell Soobin what to do seeing that he, too, had once discarded the secure life he could have had without as much as consulting his partner about even half of the truth around his departure. Yeonjun had clenched his fist instead and pressed the imprint of crescent moons into his palm.