hold me 𐦍 yeonbin

051 ᯓᡣ𐭩

“I used much of my most powerful dust to send him back to the stars,” Siyeon says from behind him. The pressure lessens, still lingering, though no longer in a way that makes Soobin anticipate his demise. “If he’s found his way back to Terra, he shouldn’t be powerful enough to make even a human such as Yoon afraid. He shouldn’t even be able to stand.”

“He didn’t get Yeonjun’s dust, did he?” Soobin dares to ask. He braces for his mouth it will fill with poison or for the hint of deep purple smoke that occupies the entire room to fill his lungs.

“He can get pixie dust from any pixie,” Yeonjun says, reminding Soobin that he is still in the room, that Soobin has someone he can trust on his side.

His response does not sit right with Soobin. If Yeonjun remembered, and their contract from what otherworldly beings refer to as yesterday was fulfilled, he should know why Taehyun can’t steal dust from just any pixie. Yeonjun was supposed to have remembered everything when he left. Soobin wonders if the bluebells reclaimed his memories again, and if he should take Yeonjun to them, or if it is better that Yeonjun does not see what happened to them last time—yesterday. 

His head fills with more inconclusive maybes, and suddenly, the idea of his old life with ordinary human issues and relationships calls out to him. He finally loses the momentum built from the night he left. He doubts his recent decisions. He wonders if he even has a chance to make up for his actions and live harmoniously with the humans he abandoned.

If Soobin was going to cry about his recent regrets, he would do so now and be halfway back home before Yeonjun’s documentary even ended and he would notice. If he was allowed to leave, if the stars would let him, he might have already. The idea of being cosmically bound to Yeonjun because of a single contract sealed with white pixie dust, prohibiting Taehyun from ripping them apart, physically written in the stars that he and Yeonjun were connected even through Taehyun’s universal reset, is not as exciting an idea as it was when Siyeon first explained everything. He had hoped Yeonjun would come back to him until Siyeon revealed his second contract.

If it weren’t written in the stars, Soobin would be washing dishes and dreading his morning test that he failed to study for.

When the room fills with light again and Siyeon settles on the couch next to Yeonjun, only the other human in the room reacts to Soobin’s discomfort. Bora scoots her chair around the table until her leg nudges Soobin’s and she wraps her arm around his waist.

“I know none of this makes sense,” she says quietly.

Soobin stiffens. “You could try explaining it, then.”

Bora takes a deep breath, like she is finally ready to stop being so vague about everything and finally share the rest of the story he missed.

“Maybe it isn’t Taehyun that the man with fake eyes is afraid of,” Yeonjun says.

“You think so?” Bora asks.

Yeonjun does not take his eyes off the screen. “He probably used the footage you’re talking about as bait to catch Taehyun’s attention and bargain with him, thinking he would be merciful enough to give him another chance before I found him.”

“That doesn’t explain why he would wait so long, though,” Bora says over Soobin’s shoulder. “The fact that this happened right when you returned can’t be a coincidence.”

“Maybe it is because he is afraid of Taehyun that he wants to provoke you,” Siyeon says. Even when she isn’t being scary, she still manages to frighten Soobin with the leftover underlying reverb in her already deep voice. 

“He should be afraid of me,” Yeonjun says. He doesn’t even take his eyes off the screen. “I told him I would kill him.”

Yeonjun never once expressed an urge to find and kill Yoon. Now that he has his dust and wings, his confidence must have grown. He could easily kill one human with the snap of his fingers.