hold me 𐦍 yeonbin

035 ᯓᡣ𐭩

Beyond the glass, humans and their human children cluster together in a circle. Some tap on the glass, the only barrier between Yeonjun and hundreds of greedy hands. The lowest part of the cage is a meter off the ground. Some human mothers lift their children to watch Yeonjun at eye level.

Soobin told Yeonjun that humans should not touch the glass cages in pet stores. Soobin said he would never hold Yeonjun as a pet. Soobin is not like the rest of humanity.

Some humans hold phones in front of their faces, while most stare directly at Yeonjun. He doesn’t want to be the center of human entertainment. He wants to be with Soobin.

Yeonjun doesn’t want to be with Soobin. He wants to be at home.

Yeonjun ducks back into the stump. If they don’t see him, they won’t want to purchase him.

Disappointment. The emotion echoes in every human heart. Like the human child with its mother in the pet shop, the humans here came only to observe with no intent to purchase. Like the rats in their sparkling purple tubes and domes, Yeonjun coils into a corner to avoid the humans’ gaze.

Yeonjun has been decorated in miniature human clothing not as comfortable as a short and a sweater. There is glitter stitched into the gold and green fabric to resemble the gradient of his wings. It hooks around his neck and under his arms, leaving his shoulders exposed and ending just below his hips like the dress of a sidhe.

Despite the slits on the back of the dress too small for him to have full control of his wing muscles, he wraps himself in his wings. When he closes his eyes, he imagines a field of bluebells covering his spirit in their warmth. Soobin is there staring down at him, calling his name. It’s the first time he has ever been called Yeonjun.

It’s not Soobin’s comforting harp song that he hears, but the sound of hundreds of eager humans from all directions, invading his dream. It wasn’t a human who set a trap or brought him into captivity, but a child of the stars involved with more of Yeonjun’s life than Yeonjun was privy to.

Like snakes and humans, children of the stars are capable of manipulation and inflicting intentional, unprovoked harm.

Yeonjun understands irony now. Irony is when the being who guided Yeonjun’s education on the dangers posed by humans was the reason Yeonjun ended up at the mercy of the man with fake eyes. It explains why Yeonjun heard his wings calling him. He does not yet understand what role Taehyun has played in relation to the man with fake eyes, or Yeonjun’s unexpected arrival on Terra, or his motivation.

Rage. It is not from the humans. He knew rage the moment he knew there was no escaping the operating room. He felt it again when Taehyun tried to take Soobin’s name, and when Soobin refused to take Yeonjun to his wings after seeing them on the TV.

A chorus of awe and surprise overcomes the space when Yeonjun decides to do something with his rage. He springs from the fake stump into the view of the humans. When he tries to use his dust to light fire to the glass, nothing comes out. Not even his feelings of hopeless and panic illicit the response he’s grown accustomed to, as not a single particle of dust in brown, purple, or even black, leaves his body. The last of his dust is impotent grey that he is unable to command.

Feeling exposed and ashamed, heart pumping and lungs heaving, Yeonjun darts back into the fake stump. He can barely control his wings with how violently his body shakes from adrenaline.

A cloud of something that isn’t dust fills the stump from pores in the wood below. When it reaches Yeonjun’s legs it burns and numbs, and Yeonjun escapes into the exposing glass cage. The humans cheer at the sight of his agony.