Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

On Monday, Renjun cracks open the first of many rooms that smell of dust and age and starts puttering around. He emails Yangyang the night before and waits with growing impatience for a response all day. Yangyang loves to perform a favor, and all the better if he thinks he can sniff out any of Renjun’s personal business. Not that there is any; there’s just him, a room stuffed with junk he bought on GMarket that he should probably resell on GMarket, and a young man with volatile qi that won’t stand to be coaxed out to attune no matter what Renjun tries.

He keeps taking breaks to check his email, and to snack, and then at around one in the afternoon, he actually has a tourist show up at his door with a story about buying a souvenir in the north part of the island that they think has cursed them with poor luck.

Initially, he assumes it’s fake; this person heard about the old resonant on the hill, and they came by to get a look for themselves, maybe a story to bring back home with all their digital photos, and the house found them inoffensive enough to let beyond the gate. Except when Renjun gets close, he can feel the casual malignance radiating from an object they’ve bundled in two bags.

It’s easy enough to dispel the malignant qi, which stings his hands until he shakes it off and sends it into the earth to decay. The client is happy to hand over a fistful of currency that’s far too generous for the service he’s performed. He slips half of it back into their bag when they’re walking through the gate to their waiting taxi.

He’s seen items turn sour and petty after extended exposure to sour and petty people, and this was no exception: Renjun felt no intent indicative of a curse when he worked on the souvenir, just an accumulation of bad days and irritation with cheap tourists. Maybe someone who worked near it had latent resonance, and that combination was all it took to awaken it.

If only Haechan’s anchor were so easily awoken.

Renjun goes back inside to resume his search, but first he checks his emails only to discover that Yangyang has written him back.

Yoooo, bro, the email begins, and Renjun smiles as he settles in for the night.

Then he reads further and realizes Yangyang has taken Renjun’s request for information as an invitation to visit the island again. He’s so curious about the predicament Renjun has found himself in, and how often does he get a chance to meet a new resonant these days, anyway? Renjun’s had a miracle appear at his doorstep.

The smile drops from his face.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Yangyang, but Yangyang just visited six or seven years ago. In terms of a human lifespan, that’s perhaps a week between visits. And Renjun already has his hands full with his usual clients, and also with methodically destroying all the trinkets in his house so Haechan’s blocked qi doesn’t make him implode.

But Yangyang won’t accept a rejection, no matter how blunt, and at this point, Renjun could use the help. Yangyang’s had apprentices before, and he’s seen much more of the world than Renjun has, especially over the last handful of decades. It’s possible he’ll be able to point Haechan in the right direction for his anchor, rather than fumbling around in storage and picking things at random.

Renjun gets back to work, trying to ignore the feeling of niggling dread.

---

On Tuesday, Haechan’s mother sends him to Renjun with a home-cooked meal in well-packed matching containers. There’s a note too, which Renjun doesn’t see until lunchtime, when he’s pulling the containers from his fridge and finds it on the bottom of the stack. It’s on a pastel Post-It, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Haechan wince when he realizes it’s there.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping Donghyeok, and for putting up with Jongyul while I was at work. I hope you like spicy soup! :)

He peels off the thin paper, the adhesive leaving sticky residue on his finger. “Your mother is kind. Please thank her for me.” 

Haechan is busy with the cupboards, which open one by one before he touches them until he finds what he’s looking for. Bowls. Either because he’s embarrassed or because his hands are full, Haechan doesn’t use his phone to narrate a response. He nods, looking like it pains him to do so.

Renjun suspects he’s tread on something sensitive, either the fact that his mother included a note or maybe the suspicion she’s mentioned his given name to Renjun. It’s funny how Haechan has shown so little of what Renjun would expect from people his age—the only signs of it have been around his little brother and now with the use of his given name. 

The soup is as spicy as promised. He’s gotten too used to his own palate and the deliveries he gets from town. Renjun beckons a soda and some leftover fried chicken from the fridge, halfway showing off and halfway loath to get out of his chair after he spent so many hours yesterday bent over boxes. An old ache in his back keeps threatening to flare up no matter how much du huo he gives it.

Haechan stares unblinking at the showy resonance work. All he says when he picks up his phone to type, though, is, “You should drink more water. Or switch to Coke Zero.”

Renjun, with the can halfway to his face, raises his eyebrows. “I’m immortal. And I could turn the soda into water if I really wanted to.”

Haechan swallows a spoonful of tofu and broth, wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and sets to typing. “You’re not technically immortal, remember? You’re just old. Drink more water. Eat more fresh food.” Renjun, mouth full of a bite of chicken, tries not to snort at the phone’s inability to perform subtlety. “It’s good for you.”

Renjun gulps down half of the can in one go, even if it does leave him struggling not to appear winded at the end. Haechan, instead of nagging him, shakes with silent laughter. It’s the same conspiratorial glee from the day his brother was over, and it suits his face.

---

The day proceeds in the way the others have: with a growing pile of destroyed or severely altered objects.

The snowglobe is the biggest surprise. Ten sent it as a present, charmed to change with the seasons in some far-flung place he lived in for a few years. The resonance has faded over the years with no one topping it up, and the scene inside is frozen in winter. After their failed attempt at snowglobe attunement, flurries keep trying to form on the outside of the glass, which is now opaque. It’s an improvement over when Haechan tried his barely exhaled hello and a gale whipped through the study, followed by a sudden dumping of snow.

After expending so much energy containing it and then cleaning up after it, Renjun wants to take the snowglobe out back and smash it with a hammer. It’s easy enough to distract himself from the impulse; he shunts it off into the preparation room and lets it burn off in the furnace.

Haechan has taken his usual place on the couch. The skin around his eyes looks bruised, like the hours they’ve been at this have taken their toll on him. For the first time, Renjun feels badly about their lack of progress in a way that has nothing to do with his own impatience to get back to his routine. He’s still frustrated and definitely baffled by how stubborn Haechan’s qi is, but seeing Haechan’s neutral expression strain at the edges with each subsequent small disaster is making him feel worse.

“I’m going to get a snack. Do you want anything?” Renjun asks, just before their attempt at the last item of the day.

Haechan shakes his head and settles deeper into his seat against the arm.

Renjun prepares a few things, though the fridge keeps reopening and offering him options that require far more effort than some rice crackers and a package of cookies he forgot he ordered. He piles it all on a tray, then steps back into the kitchen to retrieve two more sodas. A little sugar will be good for Haechan. Or it at least won’t hurt him; it’s not like he’s human.

Haechan theatrically pushes his tongue into the side of his cheek when Renjun returns with the tray and hands him the soda. “My kingdom for a vegetable,” he types out on the phone. He still eats what Renjun brought him, though, polite as he is.

“I grow carrots in the garden if you’re really desperate,” Renjun says.

Haechan just shakes his head, halfway through a cracker.

He’s about to take five or ten minutes to sit at his desk and stop thinking about which items in his collection he wants to sacrifice next when he hears a knock.

Renjun checks the spyglass, shoving a few more rice crackers in his mouth and eating with annoyed vigor, and sees a boy, sweaty and dirt-stained, wringing his hands at the gate. He hasn’t even made it as far as the garden, instead looking nervously around; the house sounded the knocker as forewarning in case the boy’s bravery saps before he can make it up the steps.

Renjun brushes crumbs from his shirt and walks to the front door.

His visitor is saucer-eyed over Renjun knowing he’s there, despite the encouraging expression Renjun pastes on. It’s a fairly typical interaction for this sort of issue: Renjun locates his lost ball and sends it back over to him, and tells him not to worry about it while the boy apologizes profusely for bothering him.

After the boy stammers a thanks and turns down the glass of water Renjun offers him, he scampers beyond the gate so hastily Renjun can hear the dirt crunch under his sneakers. The house was right to alert Renjun. The boy was curious enough to lob his ball over the fence, but not so brave that he wouldn’t have run away before knocking on Renjun’s door. And now he’ll run back home with a new story about Mr. Huang, and hopefully the newest batch of local children will be slightly less terrified of him.

When Renjun comes back inside, Haechan is in the kitchen, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he left the study to eavesdrop.

“How does that work? Is it just a peephole?” the phone asks.

Renjun realizes that Haechan is talking about the spyglass. He fishes it out of his pocket for confirmation, and Haechan’s head cocks, his entire posture curious.

“I can see anywhere on the grounds,” Renjun explains, forgoing a long explanation of the work he had to do over several years to map the qi in every inch of his property. “Or a little beyond, if someone outside is too nervous to try the gate.” He looks down at the object in his palm, brassy with age, and curls his fist around it. It’s a satisfying weight. “If the house lets me know someone is lurking, I can use this to decide if we—if I should keep them out. If they’re here to cause problems.”

The enduring discomfort on Haechan’s face does not make Renjun feel confident in his explanation.

Renjun attempts to think like a human about this. He mostly figures out why Haechan could be unnerved by the idea of the spyglass, especially given what he said about the location invocation the other day.

“It won’t let me look much farther than the house. I’m not spying on anyone in town.” Not that he has any interest in that in the first place.

Renjun’s cheeks are running warm, as if Haechan caught him in a lie. He sounds defensive instead of convincing, but what he said is true: He would never use the spyglass for anything untoward. Renjun uses it to check on his plants, on the furnace when he’s stepped away from a delicate extraction, on the dampness of soil, on whether his packages have been delivered, more frequently than he uses it for security reasons. He’s annoyed that Haechan might not believe him, that the veiled hesitancy in his eyes is suspicion.

After a beat, Haechan gives a slow nod, types “Cool” into his phone to have it read too loudly in the space between them, and then he goes back to the study.

---

The spyglass isn’t mentioned again. Renjun is not the type to dig up anything but old, twisted roots causing problems for newer plants (he’s not a natural gardener, as Yangyang has teased him about for so long), so he lets the issue lie. Haechan seems the same, when he shows up the next morning. Though each failure continues to weigh on him, he hides it well. Renjun’s impressed by his perseverance. The terrified boy begging for help seems like an entirely different person from the determined young man methodically going through Renjun’s things.

Haechan has relaxed enough to nag him over the soda he drinks and all the meals he refuses to cook, to gently poke fun at him for the items Renjun keeps in odd places, and to keep asking questions. They’ve gotten into a routine now: Renjun orders them lunch or Haechan offers to split half of what he’s brought, and Renjun prepares a snack or two around all the cleanup and control of the chaos Haechan unleashes with each whisper.

At this point, Renjun trusts Haechan to entertain himself on his phone while he digs up more objects from long-closed rooms or attends to a client.

Today, he discovers a room he forgot about, which the house helpfully opens when he’s wondering where he left an old, carved jade bell that used to whisper instead of chime. The thick layer of dust inside reminds him to stop ignoring the rooms he never uses; Renjun sneezes for most of the rest of the afternoon, even after banishing the dust to the backyard.

Haechan’s already left for the day when Renjun settles in at his desk to check his email, or he would have warned him that Yangyang sent his flight information.

He’ll arrive on the island tomorrow night. Renjun’s pulse is usually only implored to change when he bothers to work out or is enraged by badly written drama plots, but upon reading that, it speeds, and he chews the edge of his nail.

Yangyang will be helpful, he reminds himself. Renjun’s certainly not getting anywhere on his own. But the idea of two people occupying his space, moving through his halls, putting their eyes and hands on Renjun’s things, makes him want to go lie down and never get up. If Renjun were younger and more tempted by impulse, or if the situation were less serious, he might disconnect the knob to the front door and tuck it in a safe where no one could get to it, lock himself up like he did when he first moved here decades ago.

But Haechan needs help, and Yangyang is a friend. Renjun has withstood Yangyang rifling through his life before, and he can do it again.

Renjun’s withstood a lot worse than Yangyang’s nosiness.

He puts in an order for more snacks, though, and makes a halfhearted attempt at tidying one of his many piles of books.

---

The next day, Haechan looks startled when Renjun tells him they’re expecting company, though he smooths over into neutrality quickly enough.

“Yangyang’s good at this,” Renjun explains, trying to sound reassuring. “He’s had apprentices, and he used to work for the conclave.”

Haechan asked a lot of questions about the conclave, probably because it’s often depicted extravagantly in bad dramas about resonants. The Conclave of Harmonics sounds intriguing, Renjun supposes, but Haechan’s enthusiasm popped like a balloon when Renjun informed him it disbanded due to politics and waning numbers decades ago. Good riddance, from Renjun’s perspective, but Haechan living in an age where resonants were rumors and folklore and, well, Renjun, made the whole thing sound glamorous instead of the de facto shadow government it really was. A bunch of ancient resonants fussing over territory disputes, driving up the cost of alchemical supplies by trying to regulate the market—as if it was any of their business what Renjun planted in his own garden—and pronouncing edicts in the name of avoiding qi deviation. Yangyang will no doubt tell Haechan lots of stories engineered to make it sound exciting.

“He’ll probably walk in, open a cupboard, and find the perfect anchor.” Renjun surprises himself with a laugh from behind his cup of tea, imagining it. It would be Yangyang’s luck and Renjun’s lack for him to solve the problem immediately.

“How long have you known him?” the phone asks.

Renjun thinks about that, squinting to remember, and then decides to be unspecific. He doubts Haechan is ready to start conceptualizing time beyond decades at this point anyway. “Mmm, longer than I’ve known most anyone.”

Haechan gives him a look like he’s aware Renjun is being deliberately vague, but he doesn’t mention it when he goes to type more. “Is he from your home country?”

“No,” Renjun snorts. “Anyway, he’s lived overseas since the— Well. I think you’ll like him.”

Everyone likes Yangyang. After a decade of living alone in this house on the island, Renjun gave two people his address. It took months to talk himself into writing Ten, but with Yangyang, there was no hesitation. He wasn’t worried about his reception. Yangyang made it very clear he was always going to have a place for Renjun in his life, even as Renjun methodically cut every tie and planned to leave everyone behind, including Yangyang.

“I can’t believe I’m meeting another resonant,” Haechan’s phone says. “This feels like a webtoon.”

“Three of us in one place is rarer than a new resonant these days,” Renjun agrees. “I’m thinking of ordering hotpot for dinner, since we have a guest. Do you want anything special?”

“I can make us hotpot,” the phone says, tonelessly punctuating Haechan’s pained expression. 

“I’m sure you can. But this place has everything pre-skewered.”

Haechan’s voiceless sigh is audible. Renjun purses his lips so he won’t laugh. After a moment, Haechan types in defeat: “Which place is it? I want to look up the menu.”

---

The controversial hotpot never gets ordered, as Yangyang decides not to come over until the next morning when he’s slept off some of the jet lag, and Haechan goes home with pointed talk of a home-cooked meal.

The next morning, Yangyang spares Renjun from arranging any transport; he pulls up minutes after Haechan’s 10 a.m. arrival in a taxi. The knocker slams itself against the door excitedly, and the stupid clock blasts its favorite song at top volume, like it knows its real owner is nearby.

“Everyone calm down,” Renjun snaps. He hates clamor. The clock twinkles a note back, but falls silent when he throws it a glare.

The spyglass shows Yangyang on Renjun’s stoop, glancing around with his mouth in a slash of trepidation, wearing longer hair than he’s sported in centuries and sunglasses low on his nose. He still looks young, ambiguously, like Renjun himself, though Renjun has seen his face framed with a hundred different styles in a thousand different settings, and Yangyang has somehow managed to be stylish in almost all of them. In this one, he’s wearing distressed jeans. Renjun can’t imagine wanting to destroy his clothing on purpose.

When Renjun opens the door, the strained expression Yangyang wore in the spyglass is nowhere to be found. He’s smiling wide while he hurriedly slips off his shoes, hangs his bag on a hook without looking, eyes still trained on Renjun like a laser beam, and then he walks forward with his arms stretched straight out. He gives Renjun a second to deny him, which he doesn’t, and then Renjun is lifted off his feet into a hug.

Yangyang smells the same. It’s unchanging, despite the expensive colognes and shampoos he cycles through; underneath it all, there’s something that pangs beneath Renjun’s ribs. Yangyang is walking memory, affectionately squeezing the air out of Renjun’s lungs.

It’s only been a handful of years since Yangyang’s last visit, but Renjun somehow forgot the way he fills up a room. How much energy he carries, even without speaking. The way a hug from him sends Renjun hurtling into the past and also awkwardly aware of the present, and how his body doesn’t remember how to be hugged.

“Okay,” Renjun says when he’s had enough of his feet dangling above the floor. He can’t say he’s fond of feeling like a doll.

After Yangyang sets him back down, he gives Renjun a once-over and a tug to his cardigan to straighten it, finishing with a gentle dusting of his shoulders.

“Dude, it’s so good to see you,” Yangyang says. “Bro, like, for real.”

Renjun huffs and shakes his head, never quite prepared for how well Yangyang adapts to various eras, but he pats Yangyang’s shoulder. “You too.”

“So where’s the baby resonant? I was promised a baby resonant,” Yangyang says brightly. He gives Renjun a swift pinch on the cheek, making him feel like a pig being appraised to ensure it’s well fed. Yangyang seems to accept the results and moves forward when Renjun gestures to Haechan, who is lurking in the threshold to the sitting room.

Haechan’s face is blank. He remains where he is, though he bows, and then presses a button on his phone. The robotic voice says a dull, “Hello, I’m Haechan. It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for helping.”

“Oh damn, he’s, like, so polite. Nice. Hi, Haechan, I’m Yangyang.”

Renjun grabs Yangyang’s bag from the hook, knowing they’ll need it. It’s deceptively light, given that Renjun knows Yangyang filled it with potential anchors in addition to whatever was already knocking around in there. Resonance work on the bag likely meant airport security was none the wiser. Renjun hasn’t flown in decades, and he has no plans to, if it’s required to get there hours ahead of his departure.

When Renjun flew to the island in the forties, he bought the ticket fifteen minutes before take-off. The monoplane shook like it was going to fall apart the entire journey, and bruised his tailbone for his trouble. It was leagues away from the cushy first-class trip Yangyang took—and extensively documented, including emailing Renjun photos of his in-flight steak—to get here.

Renjun’s marveling at the work on the designer bag, but not so consumed that he misses the way Yangyang slings an arm around Haechan’s shoulders like an old friend.

“Wanna give me the tour? Has Junjun found new rooms to hide his online shopping addiction?”

Whatever Haechan’s phone says in response is lost to the walls as the two of them move deeper into the house. On his way out, Haechan glances back, expression still unreadable.

Every creak of the floorboards tries to crush Renjun’s stomach in a vise, but he doesn’t let it. It’s just Yangyang. It’s just Haechan. His spyglass weighs heavily in the pocket of his cardigan, tempting him to see what corners of his life they’re digging into, but he doesn’t take it out. He trusts Yangyang not to pry too deeply. He trusts the house not to give up its most vulnerable spaces.

Instead, he takes Yangyang’s bag into the kitchen, sets it down, and starts preparing snacks for their long day ahead.

---

Yangyang wants to see the carnage of Haechan’s attempts at resonance work himself, and he tells him to go for broke and speak in his full voice. Renjun takes them to the emptiest room he has, in case he’s correct and Haechan’s qi is going to torrent out of him, twisted and furious and coming from the wrong meridians, the worst it has yet.

Haechan’s full voice is rusty, but he manages a hello before he starts coughing, and suddenly Renjun, Yangyang, and the room are taking an invisible pummeling. The walls creak with an inhuman sound of agony as the invocation sinks into the wood. It’s not a sleeping invocation this time. It’s meant to compel, and it reeks of frustration. Renjun shivers to feel it pass over his skin.

Yangyang looks less at ease. His easy posture is stiffer, more alert. His friendly, expressive face collapses into something more contained, more focused.

“Yeah, that’s… I don’t want to know what that would have tried to make me do, actually.”

Haechan’s brows furrow, and he types quickly. “It wasn’t another sleeping spell?”

“No, that was for sure not a chill little invocation for sleeping, dude,” Yangyang scoffs. Renjun keeps trying to correct Haechan when he says ’spell.’ It hasn’t worked yet; maybe Yangyang will have more luck. “This one tried to control us, and it didn’t feel like it wanted anything nice.”

Haechan’s expression smooths out into neutrality again, but Renjun sees tightness by his eyes that belies the calm.

“Your qi’s mad,” Yangyang says, in the instructional, matter-of-fact voice Renjun always forgets he has. “It’s fully unleashing powerful invocations to burn itself off, but mostly because it’s pissed it doesn’t have an outlet.” He gestures that they should leave the room, which Renjun is more than ready to do. He’ll come back later, when it’s less fresh, and clear out any lingering effects, maybe cleanse the walls.

In the kitchen, Yangyang gulps down the full iced coffee he procured from his bag, much to Haechan’s bewilderment. Renjun doesn’t do much of anything that’s showy, unless the occasional transpositioning counts, but Yangyang is full of little sleights of hand and tricks that require more energy than they’re worth. Yangyang likes to have fun, likes to take shortcuts, but this showy style also makes people interested in him like they’d be interested in a street magician, not a powerful, ageless resonant. With his wide grin and excited chatter, him being inhuman doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

Yangyang sends the empty cup to the sink and dumps out the ice in a clatter. The invisible hand holding it even shakes off lingering moisture. “So this has been going on for…a year,” he says dubiously, looking straight at Haechan, who looks straight back at him. “And you came to Renjun, what, like a week ago?”

Haechan types, “I didn’t know anything about resonance. I didn’t know I needed help. And then I started knocking people out.”

“No, yeah, I get it, but…qi doesn’t get like this overnight. It was acting up for a while before it started getting dangerous, right?”

That’s what Haechan told him the first night. His symptoms followed a predictable pattern of qi uncontrolled and unattended, stuck in his meridians with no anchor, no outlet. Qi banked up until it got to dangerous levels, which would have only caused foul moods and bouts of poor health in a human, but Haechan isn’t a human. A resonant with blocked qi and no anchor is another matter entirely. When it got angry, it lashed out.

“I had good luck, and then I had shitty luck. It didn’t seem like an emergency.”

“You seem like a smart kid,” Yangyang says. “I’m trying to figure out how you didn’t once think about like, Hey, maybe I should talk to the mysterious, cute resonant on the hill about my weird superpower shit?” Yangyang’s voice is still on the friendly side of loud, but Renjun can hear it straining with disbelief.

“I think Haechan would have come to me sooner if he’d realized the severity of it,” Renjun says, as Haechan starts typing with too-deliberate taps.

Yangyang’s gaze flicks to him, and it’s assessing. “Yeah, sure.” He drops whatever tension he was holding, and he chuckles darkly. “I mean, I guess when I was a kid I didn’t trust adults either.”

Renjun snorts. “I don’t think that’s true. You’ve always been…” He trails off, realizing Yangyang’s eyes have narrowed, aimed at him with a look somewhere between mischief and challenge.

“I’ve always been what, Junjun?” He leans in, smile bright. “No, I honestly really want to know what you think.”

Well, Renjun’s doomed now. If he backs off, Yangyang will needle him about it for days. Maybe he’s forgotten more of the finer details of handling him than he thought. “You’ve always had a thing about authority figures.” 

Yangyang’s face does something complicated that, to Haechan, is probably invisible. Renjun has stopped having him in his daily life, but centuries of knowing someone well means he can never forget how to read him. Or Ten. Or the others, even if he would prefer to have forgotten it all.

But then Yangyang laughs, mostly genuinely, even though what Renjun said was more of an insult than an observation. He didn’t mean it that way, but he did mean it. Yangyang was a cheerful, dutiful apprentice under Kun, and then a responsible—if somewhat unorthodox—master, and then he was in service of the conclave, mostly hunting down resonants who used unorthodox methods or with malignant aims. He carried out the conclave’s will for hundreds of years and thanked them for the length of his leash.

Maybe it’s unfair to see Yangyang as an agent of an organization that no longer exists. He’s been other things too; Renjun doesn’t see him as any of those old professions, old lives, old versions of Yangyang. He’s just Yangyang, a resonant in residence at a university, blending in with the human students and posting pictures on social media. Not a conclave enforcer. He’s been out of that life nearly as long as Renjun’s lived on the island.

“I knew you weren’t suddenly all cardigans and tea,” Yangyang says, still grinning. “Ah, bro, it’s so good to see you. I need to visit more often.”

Renjun doesn’t say You just visited seven years ago. Renjun also doesn’t know how he feels, though it’s nice that Yangyang misses him. It’s less nice to consider what Yangyang must think of him now, as sedate Mr. Huang in the house on the hill.

He’s very aware of Haechan’s attention, how he pretends not to be following the conversation like a match of Go. He has no idea what Haechan must make of this.

“You can make fun of my clothes later, even though there’s nothing wrong with my cardigans—”

“No, I like them,” Yangyang says. “You look, like, so cute. You should get some with elbow patches if you’re going to commit to this whole harmless professor thing.”

Something about harmless turns half the leftovers in the fridge and wilts some fresh vegetables. Renjun feels, from many rooms away, the furnace flare hot; quickly, he sends more qi to regulate it before anything too crucial can boil off. Renjun tries not to let any of that show on his face. Yangyang didn’t mean it the way Renjun heard it, but of course he did mean it.

“Ten already sent me some,” Renjun says. “Anyway, can we get back to helping Haechan before his qi finds something else to destroy?”

---

“I think your qi knows what it’s about,” Yangyang announces, as Haechan sweeps up bits of broken pottery. Renjun is tired and in a bad enough mood after all the destruction to let him work without help. “It, like, probably knows what it wants for its anchor, and it’s pissed none of us are getting the hint.”

The last two items they tried were shattered like a child throwing a tantrum, with no finesse—the lidded jar was literally thrown at Yangyang, who was quick enough to dodge it. Renjun feels further away from a solution than he was when Haechan first came to him. Keeping Haechan’s qi from bringing down the house at Yangyang’s vigorous pace has worn him down. 

And they only took one snack break. One.

“Can you think if you ever, like…touched anything you felt a particular draw to?”

Haechan pauses in his sweeping, scrunches up his face, then shakes his head.

“Not even a pet rock or something you loved as a kid?”

Haechan thinks again, much less dramatically, and shrugs. He pulls his phone from his pocket to type, “Not really. I’ll go through my stuff at home.” He types again, this time with more enthusiasm. “You think I found my anchor and didn’t realize it?”

“It’s a possibility,” Yangyang admits. “But to be real? Everything’s a possibility. You should go through your stuff, see if anything sparks. I don’t know what it feels like when you’re this, uh, pent up, but for me, when I touched my anchor, it was suddenly like gravity dropping out. I fell over, I think. Super intense. I slept for a day straight after, haha.”

Renjun resolutely does not remember what happened when he attuned. It’s a yawning memory, primed to suck him in and not let him out.

“But sometimes, after they’ve been attuned to, anchors change shape on their own. If you had something you loved and then can’t seem to find it, or if you, like, have something on a shelf you don’t remember getting, it could be that.”

“Renjun mentioned anchors changing shape. I’ll check tonight to see if anything’s out of place,” Haechan’s phone says.

“It’s just a theory,” Yangyang shrugs. “If I were you, I’d wander around and touch shit. See if anything responds. It’s probably better than Junjun picking random stuff for no reason.”

“Hey,” Renjun says halfheartedly. “Like you could have done better.”

“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t have. I’ve never heard of anyone’s qi being this picky, for sure.” Yangyang looks at Haechan with something like fascination, but also an edge of humor.

Haechan doesn’t seem to like it, or maybe he’s irritated by another day gone by without any progress. The phone says, “So just touch things and see what happens?”

“Yeah,” Yangyang agrees, and he banishes the neat pile of broken pottery somewhere. Haechan glances down at the dustpan, then at Yangyang with something verging on exasperation, before leaning the broom against the wall. “We’ll crack open one of Renjun’s hoarder rooms tomorrow, and you can get dusty touching all his weird shit.”

Renjun suspected this was coming when Yangyang made the perfectly reasonable suggestion for Haechan to start touching things to see what called to him, but now he knows he’s going to sit back and watch Haechan run his fingers over shelves, watch him dig into boxes. He’s got to let Haechan loose and take a backseat to this one-man expedition into Renjun’s things, and he has rooms upon rooms of things. An iceberg calves over in Renjun’s stomach, exposing sides that haven’t seen the air in millenia.

He hopes Haechan had a childhood trophy that’s transmogrified into a statue of a frog or something. He hopes this can be over before the expedition needs to begin. 

“Are you guys hungry? I’m starving,” Yangyang says.

“I was going to order hotpot,” Renjun says. “If you both want to stay for dinner. Just give me a few minutes to clean up.”

“Hurry up and feed me,” Yangyang sighs as a joking demand, craning forward to rest his head on his folded arms.

When Renjun glances over at Haechan, he’s typing like a man possessed. He holds his phone out with a determined expression as it reads, “I can make us something. It’s the least I can do.”

“You don’t need to do that.” Renjun tsks at Haechan’s grudge against his penchant for ordering food. “Ordering takeout isn’t a crime.”

“No, but the amount of sodium you consume probably is,” Haechan’s phone argues.

Renjun’s hit with that like a whip of indignity, and he’s gathering his thoughts to put Haechan in his place with perhaps too much zealousness, but Yangyang heads it off.

“I’m never going to say no to a home-cooked meal,” Yangyang says, peering up from his arms. “But the question is…can he actually cook?”

“You can’t be serious,” Renjun says.

Haechan widens his eyes to look guileless, which makes Yangyang laugh, and then his phone’s robot voice says, “I get by.”

Yangyang asks Haechan for a list of ingredients, then pulls them out of his bag one by one in such an odious display of wasted resonance and arrogance that Renjun feels his lungs still. 

As soon as he can inhale again, he’s again whooshing toward a show of the temper he was so famous for in previous centuries. Renjun’s fingers twitch like they want to curl into a fist. 

But Yangyang cuts him off for a second time. “I want to eat something nice, Junjun. I can have restaurant hotpot anytime.”

Haechan looks between them both with the wariness of someone well-acquainted to standing still and quiet in conflict. The phone screen in his hand goes dark.

A bubble of unidentifiable feeling rises in Renjun’s chest, but all he manages is, “It’s my house.”

“And I’m a guest in it,” Yangyang says. He’s not in his casual know-it-all voice: he’s gentler, imploring. Renjun knows from so many years that the tension at the corners of his eyes is apologetic. Yangyang’s playing a serious card because he wants Renjun to take him seriously.

After a moment, Renjun sends the emotion out of his body to brood in the back garden. He looks away and nods. “Fine.”

Yangyang smiles his real smile, clapping Renjun on the back when he sits down. He gestures to Haechan, still watching. “Impress me, dude.”

Haechan’s stillness lifts along with his blank expression, and he rolls his eyes at Yangyang as he reaches for a bottle of sesame oil. When Renjun laughs under his breath, he surprises himself.

In an hour, Haechan whips up a meal with the single-minded focus of someone very at home in the kitchen. He plays music on his phone while he cooks and doesn’t need to check a recipe, floating from counter to counter to the sink and pulling down bowls from cabinets that once again open before he touches them.

Renjun, sitting at the kitchen table having a begrudging conversation with Yangyang under the music, is eerily reminded of Kun, though the last time he watched Kun cook, he was doing it on an old brick range, not the induction cooktop Renjun purchased a few years ago and mostly uses to make packaged ramyeon, the greatest of all modern inventions aside from the internet. He wonders what Kun’s kitchen looks like now. It’s probably super modern, decorated by someone Kun hired. He probably has one of those smart fridges where you can check your email while you use the ice dispenser.

By the time the meal is ready, both Yangyang and Renjun have turned in their chairs to watch Haechan. He’s got an assembly line of plates and side dishes that look as good as any restaurant food. Haechan places each on the table deliberately, eyeing where he thinks everything should go, and Renjun notices he puts the best side dish directly in front of Renjun’s plate. Then, as his final act before sitting down, he thunks a Coke in front of Renjun with a disapproving expression. Renjun bestows him a half-smile as he cracks it open.

To Renjun’s annoyance, the food is incredible. He hasn’t been this satisfied since he moved to the island, though a few of the dishes some grandmothers and aunties leave for him as payment have come close. This tastes like someone has a direct line to Renjun’s taste buds and catered a meal specifically for him. From the noises Yangyang makes as he tries each dish, it’s the same for him too. Renjun has no idea where Yangyang transported the groceries from, but it’s clearly somewhere nice. The tofu Renjun can get on the island isn’t this silky, and the spices from his garden have never been so pungent. The ribs are falling off the bone, and the sticky, glossy sauce is so good he wants to ask for some to dip the meat in, to really savor the taste. 

Renjun is halfway through demolishing his plate, pausing to finish some of the best tofu soup he’s ever had, when Yangyang slows down enough to start talking again. Haechan has been watching them with an air of smug victory, though he makes a face when he tastes the soup, like it’s letting him down.

“So tell me something, Haechan,” Yangyang says, between bites.

Haechan tilts his head. His phone is on a napkin, ready and waiting.

“Did your mother teach you how to cook like this?”

Haechan smiles with teeth, which is rare. Renjun realizes it’s the first time he’s smiled at all beyond bland politeness since Yangyang’s arrival. They did have a long, trying day. Haechan takes a few moments to wipe his hands on a napkin and then types, taking another bite of meat and beansprouts with the chopsticks in his other hand. “My whole family did. My aunt, my dad, my grandmother. My mom always had me in the kitchen, so I’ve always liked to cook. I make dinner most nights.”

“Well, tell your family good job, yo,” Yangyang says, lifting his glass of water like he’s giving a toast. “This is the best food I’ve eaten in…I don’t even remember how long.”

Haechan ducks his head, shy for the first time that Renjun’s seen. The smile on his face fades, though, and he pokes at his rice.

“It would have been better with liquor, though,” Yangyang murmurs, and under the table, Renjun feels Yangyang’s foot gently nudge his shin.

“I have some somewhere,” Renjun says, trying to think of where it would be. The house might have forgotten the cabinet it’s in, given how infrequently he drinks. “I have beer in the fridge if you want.”

“No, I’m good. I mostly just wanted to watch you drink. You’re so cute when your ears get all red.” Yangyang points at Renjun, like he’s never learned manners, and says conspiratorally to Haechan, “He gets really loud when he’s drunk too. Like, full-on shouting for no reason. And then he passes out.”

Renjun shakes his head. He and Ten were always the first to get drunk and the first to stop drinking. He’s never built up any kind of tolerance; he still flushes and goes loose-limbed after a few sips. Yangyang and— Yangyang always drank them under the table.

“We should celebrate hardcore when we find Haechan’s anchor,” Yangyang says. 

“I think we’re more likely to sleep for a week than have a party when this is over,” Renjun says, but he can’t withstand the onslaught of Yangyang’s moue of disapproval and hiked eyebrow. “But fine. Buy some. Don’t use your stupid bag to show off,” he warns. “We can…celebrate. If that’s what Haechan wants.”

Yangyang turns his eyes on Haechan, who blinks under their intensity. He types, “I’ll never say no to free alcohol,” full mouth curved like it’s a joke.

When Yangyang celebrates his victory, he pats Renjun’s back, reassuring him he’s perfected his hangover remedy and Renjun won’t even feel it the next morning. Haechan’s small smile disappears, like the tide pulling away from the shore, and he sets himself to finishing the food on his plate at speed, head down.

He must be worried they’ll never actually find an end to this speechless limbo. Renjun imagines the idea of drinking in celebration feels too distant to be comforting yet.

---

The next morning, Haechan reports that he found nothing of interest in his room, and that so far, touching his things has done nothing but give him dry hands and two papercuts.

“I didn’t go through every single thing in my room,” Haechan’s phone says. “But if my anchor is a sock or a Shinee album, I might just stick to silence for the rest of eternity.”

Yangyang snorts into his coffee and tells him in droll tones to buckle up for a full day of feeling up more stuff. “Get your bandaids ready,” he adds, and looks to Renjun to determine where they should start.

Renjun was up late trying to figure out what rooms would be safe enough to send Haechan into like a grandmother at a rummage sale. He did a worried tour of old rooms, poked his head up into the attic only to spot what looked like several bird nests in its rafters, and resolved to stick with something on the ground floor. Those were all relatively organized, even if some of the boxes contained dangerous or delicate things he didn’t want a novice resonant handling.

There was the embarrassment, too, of letting Yangyang and Haechan into the depths of his unorganized rooms, filled to the brim with towering piles of boxes and shelves and things he had no other place for. 

It doesn’t help his mood when Renjun instructs Haechan to open a door to what he thinks is the most organized of all the storage areas, and it turns out to be a closet he forgot existed.

“Oh!” Renjun says, as they take in the old clothes—more traditional dress than anything else, along with a few shirts from the seventies Renjun would rather forget he ever purchased—hanging there. “Wrong door.”

Haechan looks at him quizzically over his shoulder but slowly shuts it.

Yangyang, however, steps forward to jam a foot in the door before it can close. “Wait, hold on, you kept this?” He tugs on the sleeve of a long overcoat that’s been out of fashion since before the twentieth century. “Oh man, I remember this.”

“Well,” Renjun says, “I did wear it almost every day for a hundred years.”

He’s not embarrassed that he unearthed some clothing he forgot about. It’s more that he forgot this closet’s existence entirely, and the house engineered Haechan to open it. For what reason, Renjun can’t even begin to guess. 

“You’re so sentimental,” Yangyang murmurs.

Haechan cuts a look his way that Renjun ignores.

“You never know when something’s going to come back in style,” Renjun tries to joke. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure Haechan’s anchor isn’t one of my old hats—”

“Shit, I miss hats so bad,” Yangyang sighs, and he drops his shoulders and steps back to close the closet with a soft click.

“I see you wearing hats on the Instagram all the time,” Renjun points out.

“Modern hats don’t hit the same,” Yangyang complains. He gestures at his face, stretching his neck slightly to emphasize his jaw. “These cheeks need angles.”

Renjun won’t argue; Yangyang’s always been handsome, and he’s never been anything less than put-together through changing fashions and tastes. Even now, as just Yangyang, in his cuffed jeans and oversized branded T-shirt that Renjun knows must be expensive and fashionable even if he doesn’t recognize it, he looks comfortably, casually beautiful; Renjun likes the same oversized style of shirt, but he buys his from the internet in packs of three and looks like a toddler in them.

“Have Ten find you some nice hats.”

“Ten and me are so not on the same fashion wavelength this century,” Yangyang says, but he sounds thoughtful.

Renjun tries the next door along the hallway, pausing infinitesimally when he cracks it open to make sure it’s the right damn room this time. When he sees it is, he carefully, quietly exhales, and the overhead light flickers to life.

The layer of dust he meant to banish but forgot about looks like a condemnation. Renjun refrains from mentioning it.

“Oh, this isn’t too bad,” Yangyang says. The corners of the room are lined with shelves, and those are well organized, but the space in the middle of the room that isn’t taken up by large pieces of old furniture is filled with waist-high stacks of boxes that Yangyang picks his way around. “Look, you even labeled the boxes.”

Renjun’s handwriting, trying to pretend it’s better than it is, adorns the side of every box with the date it was filled and sealed. Some even have a few notes to remind him of the more prominent items inside. Cat figurine. Peony box. Sex toy. Chariot piece. Lee Mi Ja record. Brushpot.

“I don’t keep this stuff for my own amusement,” Renjun mutters. He finds the box he dug through last night and drags it over to Haechan, who has his hands clasped behind his back as he surveys a nearby shelf. He’s polite, whereas Yangyang has already started picking things up, squinting at them, and setting them down again. “It would be dangerous to let some of it circulate.”

“Yes, this…novelty shot glass with Bruce Lee on it can never leave this creepy house,” Yangyang says, holding it out with a sarcastic tip of his fingers.

“I wondered where that went,” Renjun lies. “A grandmother brought it to me after it attracted a ghost with…prurient intentions.”

Yangyang looks at the glass with new eyes and then gingerly sets it back on the shelf, even though he knows perfectly well Renjun banished the ghost and only keeps the thing around because purifying glass once it’s resonated is more trouble than it’s worth. 

“Okay, new plan. Haechan is the only one touching your stuff,” Yangyang declares.

---

Haechan handles every item he pulls from the box with care, but Renjun’s heart stutters with each one, ready to jump into action if it falls from Haechan’s fingers. It’s a relief when they take a break and Renjun can escape to the kitchen to scrounge up a snack. Yangyang and Haechan are seated on the couch in the sitting room, and Renjun distantly hears them holding a fairly one-sided conversation where Yangyang asks about Haechan’s life with the interest of an old uncle.

He can’t find the fresh ginger he harvested over the weekend, so he pulls out his spyglass to check the preparation room to see if he left it there. He last had it trained on the back garden to check the soil, so he twists the spyglass until the front garden focuses, and he’s twisting past it so quickly he nearly misses the figure at the gate. The closed gate. It’s Mrs. Choi, shielding her eyes against the sun and squinting.

Renjun stares at her through the spyglass, trying to comprehend what he’s seeing. Mrs. Choi has always had access to his front door. She’s a regular, though not one with a set schedule. There’s no reason for her to be stalled at the gate.

“Have you been locking people out?” Renjun hisses.

He waits for a response, but there is none. Not a creak or a cranky series of dings from the clock, the usual complaints the house makes when Renjun is in a mood. It’s a telling silence. All he hears is the faint robotic drone of Haechan’s phone answering another of Yangyang’s questions.

The house has always been mercurial, thinking it knows best for Renjun and making its opinion on his choices known, but now it’s crossing lines it’s never thought to wander near before. Refusing to run water through the pipes because he’s too lazy to unclog the drain is one thing; even showing Haechan and Yangyang the closet of old clothes was just the house having fun. But not letting his clients have access to the door is…something else.

Renjun is at a loss. If he stands here and talks to the house, Yangyang’s curious ears might hear him and come in to investigate. But he can’t pretend Mrs. Choi isn’t out at the gate. “Don’t do that,” Renjun says, quiet but vehement. “People come here for good reason.”

He holds the spyglass back up to his eye to make sure he’s listened to, and after a petulant pause, the gate swings open and Mrs. Choi is granted entry. Renjun goes to the door to greet her, trying to think of what to say to apologize for the delay, how to get his hands to stop shaking.

He leaves snacks behind on the counter half-assembled, but clients come before comfort. Haechan and Yangyang, and Renjun’s suddenly much less ravenous stomach, can wait.

---

Yangyang insists no one should cook dinner after their long and tedious failure of a day lifting and moving boxes and watching Haechan touch things, so he orders delivery from town.

“Oh, so when he orders food, it’s fine?” Renjun asks.

Haechan shrugs. “I’m tired,” he types. “That’s what takeout is for. Not every meal.”

“Word,” Yangyang agrees. “Renjun, listen to the baby resonant.”

The little smile turning the corners of Haechan’s lips disappears. He sits, phone silent, while Yangyang orders, only nodding when Yangyang does a final check.

The dynamic between Yangyang and Haechan is baffling. It’s nothing like Renjun anticipated. Haechan is perhaps even more polite to Yangyang than he is to Renjun, but after dinner arrives, he’s clearly only barely humoring Yangyang’s questions (which he says he’s asking all at once because “it’s not like I can bother you when you’re rubbing Renjun’s old lamps or whatever”).

Renjun has had many years to acclimate himself to Yangyang’s moods, and a few long days to get the measure of Haechan’s, and it’s strange to watch the two forces collide. When he studies them during their meal, Haechan sits with a bland, almost weary expression, typing short replies to Yangyang’s questions, which only seems to spur Yangyang to ask more.

Everyone likes Yangyang. He’s funny and talkative and handsome and can gather a room full of people terrified of a real-life resonant into the palm of his hand with a few party tricks. Except every time Yangyang tries to show off, Haechan gives him a flat, expectant look, as if to say That’s it? When Renjun transported a Coke from the fridge, Haechan looked like he’d seen a secret of the universe. But maybe that sort of resonance is old news for him now. Renjun really has to make it clear how much power those little moments actually take, especially if Yangyang’s going to show up with his bottomless bag and set a bad example by transporting an entire meal’s worth of groceries through it.

Renjun thought Yangyang would be a relief for Haechan, who has asked so many questions that Renjun has unhelpful answers to. He doesn’t know why things work; the specifics of that, if he ever learned them at all, are hundreds and hundreds of years old. He knows by doing, can sketch out ancient inscriptions and invocations from long habit. Even if Renjun keeps his mind limber by following intricate drama plots and doing puzzles, he’s still hard-pressed to remember things from more than three-hundred years ago with true accuracy. It’s like discerning things through a fog.

Most of his first few hundred years are lost entirely, except for a few crystallized moments. The first time he crossed an ocean. He knows the first person he kissed was a girl in his village, but he has no memory of the girl herself. The first person he slept with was a man; he thinks he remembers laughing about how difficult it was to untie his trousers. He remembers his mother trying to hide her tears when she realized Renjun was a resonant. He can’t see her face, that’s lost to the fog, but he thinks he remembers the slight shape of her, and he thinks she used to rub his forehead when he got headaches. She used to sing to him. It might be why he’s always done it.

He tried writing things down for a while, but his life has been very boring with a few notable exceptions, and most of his journals turned into inventories and attempts at letter drafts he never sent.

Yangyang is less than a hundred years younger than Renjun, and there’s no way his memory can be much better, but it seems like it is. Yangyang tells stories of old events like they happened yesterday, though he’ll later admit he made things up to fill in the gaps. And he had all of the conclave’s considerable library and resources at his disposal—especially when he became a master and took on an apprentice. It’s likely much of his life has been painstakingly recorded on scrolls somewhere.

Yangyang was supposed to be a valuable resource. A resonant who could make the past and tradition, however much Renjun avoids it, come to life again. Renjun thought that’s what Haechan needs, or at least wants, given how many questions he’s asked. But even when Yangyang dangles a topic in front of him like bait on a hook, Haechan gives him an impassive stare. Maybe a nod.

Renjun can’t fathom it. But it’s not his business to do so; it’s his business to find Haechan an anchor. 

---

Haechan goes home later than usual, after dinner, when it’s just past dusk. Renjun worries about him walking down the hill in the dark. He’s wearing a deep maroon hoodie and jeans, not exactly a beacon for any cars to spot. Yangyang, thinking quickly, grabs a jacket of his own, and does quick resonance work to make it almost eye-searingly reflective, then drapes it over Haechan’s shoulders.

Haechan gives a thumb’s up, though he looks down at the jacket like he wants to burn it. Renjun watches him leave through the gate, following his slim figure drowning in Yangyang’s jacket, as Yangyang takes a stroll around the garden.

“I bought liquor,” Yangyang announces, after he’s bent to examine a few flowers that seem to lean into his gentle touch. There’s something too calm and casual in his demeanor, the slight slouch as he slips his hands into his pockets. “It’s such a nice night, you know? We should sit out in the pavilion and listen to the frogs.”

Renjun expected this would come, sooner or later. He’s glad Yangyang suggested the alcohol to buffer it, though after a day of having his nerves frayed watching his things lifted up, examined, appraised, joked about, he wishes it were another night. But until Haechan finds his anchor, Renjun imagines every day will be like this.

They take a tray out to the pavilion, as well as an old lantern that Yangyang gets a kick out of lighting. Renjun is bundled up against the pleasantly, seasonally unlikely chill night air while Yangyang is still in his enormous T-shirt. He pours them both cups, and the burn when Renjun drinks is always surprising. It wakes him up, puts him more firmly in his body, the low seat under him always a little uncomfortable. It discourages clients from lingering. Renjun retrieves two waterproof cushions from storage, gives one to Yangyang, and sighs with relief when he resettles on top of his.

“You know, it’s honestly nice to see you can still leave the house,” Yangyang says, after he’s sipped his second glass to the dregs.

“Ha ha.” He’s been a hermit so long that remarks glide right off him, but the fact that it’s Yangyang saying it does carry more weight than a curious client.

Amidst the sounds of frogs and wind whistling through the taller plants in the garden, Yangyang seems more like what he is. His hair falls over his brow in a way that makes him look noble. In the glow of the lantern, he’s first soft and lovely, and then there are secrets in the hollows of his face.

“I mean it, Junjun. I’m worried about you, cooped up in this house all the time, no friends—”

“I have friends.”

“The bitchy baby resonant doesn’t count,” Yangyang says, but the corners of his mouth rise.

Renjun shifts on the cushion and squints over at Yangyang. Bitchy is a strong word for the occasional edge Haechan manages to convey with a robotic phone voice. Renjun swallows more of the burning liquor. Ten’s bitchy. Renjun used to be bitchy. Haechan’s twenty-one. “I didn’t mean Haechan. I know a lot of people here. They rely on me. I see people all the time.”

Yangyang makes a noncommittal noise and waits for Renjun to sip more alcohol. Renjun can already feel it flushing him, making his layer against the cold superfluous. He really does get drunk very easily. “Okay,” Yangyang says. His eyes are too bright in the dark.

“Don’t be so worried about me. I live like a lazy old cat.” Renjun flaps a hand in the direction of the pavilion’s opening. “I’m usually looking at the flowers.”

“Just leave the garden more often, yeah?” The brightness dims, and the faintest of lines around Yangyang’s eyes crinkle up as he smiles. “And get a phone, you know Ten is terrible at keeping up with email. He only texts, and half of it is emojis.” He pauses and tilts his head. “Emojis are—”

“I know what emojis are,” Renjun huffs. He rubs over the apple of his cheek to feel how warm it is.

He’s glad Yangyang changed the subject. He thought he could brace for a rehash of the same awkward conversation, mostly a fight, that they had seven years ago the day before Yangyang left to return to Neo City, but truly, today—if not the last week—has run him ragged.

What was he talking about? Oh, the internet. Renjun continues, “I have incredible WiFi. I had the house—”

“Please don’t tell me you did more creepy shit with your house,” Yangyang groans.

Renjun’s satellite and internet are absolutely enhanced with resonance. If there’s one thing Renjun knows how to do, it’s harness and redirect energy. “I’m saying I stay connected. I know memes. I watch Sweet Home.”

Yangyang props his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his palm. He gazes at Renjun with open affection, an experience very familiar but still disconcerting. “Uh-huh.”

They finish the bottle, or rather, Yangyang finishes the bottle, as the frogs crescendo and the wind whips itself up. Renjun loves spending time in the garden even when it’s too dark to see much. The silhouettes of the three rocks are nearby, in their latest impossible configuration, like stone guards keeping watch.

He walks Yangyang to the house with Yangyang’s arm around his waist, pretending like he’s drunker than he is to use Renjun for balance. It’s another old habit, and one he allows himself to be amused by, probably because he’s drunk enough to not feel uncomfortable. Inside, Yangyang takes his time using the bathroom, gathering up his things, and calling a taxi to take him to his hotel, but Renjun is in no great rush to do anything but change into pajamas and sleep. 

Renjun knows Yangyang won’t overstay, won’t ask to crash on the couch or on the bed Renjun bought before he determined he prefers the mat. Yangyang will go to his hotel because he refuses to stay overnight in the house, and Renjun is more relieved than he is bothered by it.

They wait just outside the front door for the taxi to pull up. Despite the wind, it’s refreshing to be outside. The dark feels inviting. Yangyang leans against Renjun again, and Renjun feels the buzz of his speech as much as he hears it.

“Ah, bro, I need to be a better friend to you.”

“What do you mean?”

He sees the headlights of a car cut through the darkness and break into slices from the pattern of the front gate’s bars, but Yangyang stays where he is, bag secured in one arm, Renjun secured in the other.

“After everything that happened, I let you come here and, like, burrow, and I’ve visited like… What, is this the third time?”

“Fourth,” Renjun says. He swallows hard upon admitting he knows about the first time, in 1952, when Yangyang appeared at the gate and Renjun refused to let him even come to the door. “It’s fine. You’ve had your own life. First the conclave— And you decided to start over too.” He looks up to see Yangyang’s profile, the way his hair falls so effortlessly around his ears and face. The longer hair, messier than decorum dictated and tucked under a tall hat, is centuries gone, but it’s the same face. The same kindness. “I could have gotten on a plane to come visit you in Neo City, you know,” Renjun points out.

Yangyang smiles briefly and glances down. He squeezes Renjun around the middle and then steps away. “No,” he says gently, as he leaves the house and Renjun behind for the night. “I don’t think you could have.”