you left your shadow here ; yeonbin

6

The air was stale and stifling, the pearly sheen of sweat on Yeonjun's forehead proof of too many people breathing on top of each other for far too long.
Yeonjun had slipped into a black sweater and hidden his face underneath its hood as he stood on one side of the stage between the end of the star-speckled curtain and the beginning of the stands and watched as Taehyun instructed one of his pigeons to return the woolen hat it had stolen from a starry-eyed kid in the audience. He allowed his pigeons to sweep through the stands once more, stardust raining from their silver feathers, before he announced the last performer of the night and left the stage with an elated grin.

Yeonjun's ribcage fluttered when the veil parted once more and Soobin stepped into the spotlight, the clapping and cheering ensuing tuning numbly alongside the throb of Yeonjun's heart and the pace of his thoughts.

Yeonjun couldn't see Black Charon from where he was standing, enthralled faces obscuring his view, and although Kai and Beomgyu had swapped likewise neutral impressions behind Black Charon's presence - hushed between curring pigeons and flapping wings as Taehyun had taken on the stage - Yeonjun's ribs tightened against his lungs.

Soobin was a natural, Yeonjun decided, beaming and waving like he knew he was the brightest star in the universe, like he couldn't get enough of the feeling of the spectators circling into his orbit and racing him like hundreds of tiny moons chasing behind the earth.
Yeonjun couldn't help but wonder where the blurry line between Soobin and the lie that he had masqueraded himself as started and where it ended, and whether Yeonjun would be brave enough to want to pick the facade apart, or if it was too frightening to uncover the twenty-one years old boy he had left behind and tear a gash in his heart that had long since closed, that he had intended to never touch again - turn the solitude into stormy seas, raging winds, and cold downpours.

Soobin spun through the air with so much ease and sharpness that it made every movement around him appear harsh and creaking, like a flipbook suddenly missing too many pages to build a flowing image, like it was the scene around him thrown off its physical dependencies and not making sense anymore instead of Soobin deceiving what gravity had once determined.

Soobin sacrificed the solidity of the floor for the air and climbed the ladder with such agility Yeonjun was sure he would have missed it if he had blinked even one more time.
His eyes remained glued to the way Soobin made it look like the thin string between the two poles was hundreds of meters wide and not ten meters above the ground, his balance not once slipping, and even when his feet left the rope it seemed to curve back against Soobin as though wanting to catch him.

Yeonjun had watched Soobin's routine enough times to have it memorised and yet it never failed to capture his attention as though he was the radiant beam Yeonjun's moth eyes followed hypnotically.

Yeonjun was so ensorcelled and aware that he caught the exact moment the magic around them tipped and tilted.

A gunshot sliced through the air and severed the rope Soobin had been flying on, leaving him at the mercy of gravity as he spun downwards, nearing the floor so, so fast.

Yeonjun's stomach dropped along with him, and he tasted bile on his tongue.
Never before had he wished so desperately not to have agreed on removing the net as in that moment.

The lights went out before Soobin could hit the floor, the anticipated sound of impact drowned in the agitated gasp of the crowd and the numb cotton in Yeonjun's head.

It took him mere seconds to understand what Beomgyu had done but far longer to will his body to move forward.
He didn't need light and shadows to find his way backstage and behind the spot where the curtain parted to give way for the performers. Although Yeonjun's stomach clenched with nauseous pulses and his feets tingled unsteady and numb even to the burn of blisters from the too-tight boots, he took off his sweater and opened the silver curtain.