Together We're Lost (In A Dream) [Kaisoo Fanfic]

Epilogue

November, 1902

It was a terribly chilly winter compared to previous years, and Kyungsoo wondered if it might be a good time to invest in a thicker coat; if the chattering of his teeth were anything to go by, it seemed like he would need it.

He wasn't too far from the bakery, thankfully, so he was soon slipping into the warm comfort of the little shop. Minseok appeared to be just taking the payment from his current customer, the two of them chatting as he did so.

"And Yixing? Is he still well?" Minseok was asking the young man. Kyungsoo turned his attention to the selection of freshly baked bread on display, trying not to seem as though he was eavesdropping.

"As well as ever. I promise to keep you updated." The man's voice drifted into Kyungsoo's ears despite his best efforts. Curiosity getting the better of him, he lifted his head slightly to sneak a glance at the young man. He was handsome, to say the least.

"Kyungsoo!" Minseok suddenly exclaimed, seemingly startled to find Kyungsoo standing just a little way away.

"Good afternoon, Minseok," Kyungsoo greeted the older man with a warm smile, his gaze flicking to the stranger briefly. "I apologise for scaring you. I didn't want to interrupt when I came in."

"Nonsense! It is completely fine," Minseok replied, if a little more skittish than usual.

An easy smile settling on his plump lips, the stranger gave a polite bow of his head in Kyungsoo's direction. "Indeed, I was just leaving," he said before shooting Minseok a faint smile, his eyes lingering on Kyungsoo's face just a moment longer before he bid the two farewell and left the shop.

"He seemed very pleasant," Kyungsoo commented as he met Minseok's gaze, the stranger's unique features lingering in his mind for a little while after their encounter. "Is he a regular customer?"

"Not as such. He comes and goes." Minseok's tone was dismissive, but Kyungsoo couldn't help observing that they seemed a little more familiar than suggested. Nonetheless, the thought was forgotten when Minseok's eyes lit up with playfulness in the next moment. "Besides, it seems I only cater to the rich and famous. How is life treating you, Sir Best-Selling-Novelist?"

"Oh, please," Kyungsoo chortled with embarrassed laughter, though he had to admit that he did feel quite proud of the achievement. "Will you be purchasing a copy of the latest book?"

"As always, my dearest customer, I will do my best to get one before they are all gone," Minseok replied, and that was enough to appease Kyungsoo for now.

As he made his way back to the house with the elder's finest loaf of fresh bread, Kyungsoo's thoughts were a jumble of wedding plans and novel ideas about a handsome man in a bakery. He wondered if they might ever see each other again.

He also wondered whether he should at least buy the wedding dress, for he knew that Wendy had an occasional taste for luxury. Even so, Sehun had expressed a strong desire to shoulder all of the costs for himself and his wife-to-be. His new barbering business had caused quite a stir amongst the good people of London, many of them enthralled by the handsome young man with the most precise skills they had ever seen. The ladies were often disappointed to find that he was already betrothed to another, but the business was not at all affected by this small fact.

Zitao had also insisted on paying for all three of their suits, a gift to his brothers using the earnings from his role as the theatre's regular pianist. Alas, his request had been shot down, too. Apparently, the only way to gain his forgiveness had been to attend the debut of his newest play last night, J.M. Barrie's 'The Admirable Crichton', which explained why Kyungsoo felt so tired on the day of his big release.

He couldn't deny how proud he was of his brothers, however. Their respective successes had come about in recent years and they had excelled beyond compare, the three of them often having been referred to as the "bachelor brothers", though that wasn't all true now that Sehun was to be married next spring.

Zitao had also met a beautiful young lady since joining the orchestra, whom he soon after began courting and had since stayed together.

That left only Kyungsoo, the eldest of the three and yet the one who, whilst his brothers were wrapped in their lovers' arms, would wrap himself in the pages of a freshly bought book until his mind had travelled somewhere far, far away from his body.

It was the only way to cope, sometimes, for it commonly felt as though something wasn't quite right when he was alone, like he was about to hear gentle footsteps by his side and feel warm arms curl around his body from behind. Nothing ever came, however, and he was left feeling a twinge of emptiness inside his heart.

Writing seemed to alleviate the feeling for a while, he found. It was easy to become lost in his all-consuming characters to the point where he felt that he and they were the same, and it was the adventures in his own life that he was writing so earnestly about. Perhaps he was simply inspired by the ground-breaking novelists who had preceded him, but the burning love and desire he wrote of in his novels seemed all too real, like he had truly experienced it himself.

And this was exactly what the publisher had observed when Kyungsoo was informed that they had decided to go ahead with production. "Elijah and Emmeline have the strangest dynamic, but I would not change it for the whole barkin' world!" the old man had roared, much to Kyungsoo's dismay. The man was rather peculiar, but he printed Kyungoo's books and paid his dues, so he didn't mind all that much.

Making his way to the bookstore now, he wondered if there really would be a crowd of buyers as predicted. Sure enough, the stands were swarming with adoring fans when Kyungsoo finally arrived, and he looked on at the scene with pride.

It pleased him to see a variety of young and old, male and female, though the majority were admittedly ladies who gushed over the protagonist's devastating love story.

And so it was a surprise when his eyes fell upon rough, large hands by the stand after seeing so many dainty fingers clutching his books, and the surprise only grew when Kyungsoo looked up to meet the very eyes he had gazed upon that morning in the bakery.

"It's a terribly creative story, don't you agree?" the man grinned, and the mischievous curl of his lips seemed to take Kyungsoo back to a time long forgotten in his memories.

It was a time when every minute of his life brought a new twist, and his days were filled with both fervent love and excruciating heartbreak, yet he seemed to yearn for the feeling more than anything else in this world — it was a time when the emptiness in his heart was so beyond full that it might burst.

How strange it was to feel all this from a man he just happened to have met twice in one day, and still it felt as though he had known him for a lifetime already.

"Yes, I suppose it is," Kyungsoo murmured, gazing at the man with the strangest sense of déjà vu.

Stretching out his free hand, the man's smile only widened. "I'm Jongin."

~

Emmeline's fingers danced to the sound of his heart, following the beat like a form of morse code only known to them.

"Will you ever come back?"

"One day, my love, perhaps I will." Elijah's voice echoed in the darkness. "And when I do, I will paint you a deep blue sky and pepper it with stars so bright that they would glisten on your pretty, pretty cheeks. I will hang the moon perfectly amongst them, and we will dance along the sky like we are the only two people in the world."

"I will hold that day in my heart until it comes," came Emmeline's whisper.

"And it will. Just always be waiting for me."

*

End.