DREAM

You have half a mind to shove the mounted specimen into his hands and dare him to find a single fault. You pride yourself on being the best at what you do. And so you find yourself walking up behind him, silent steps on porcelain floor. “Hello!”

The man startles, broken out of his stupor, turning around with wide eyes and furrowed eyebrows. A timid smile fast replaces the look on his face, and he greets you in a hushed voice, "Hello."

"May I help you with something?"

"Oh, I'm just… looking around," the man says. He shakes out his hair and glances at the mounts, eyes flitting over them one by one. The smell of dried, pressed marigolds wafts through the air – a sweet floral scent with a bitter edge.

"Are you looking for anything specific?"

"I – I wanted to start collecting,” he says after a while, glancing at you before his gaze wanders away once more. “I'm afraid I haven't really thought past that…"

"Well, that's alright. Easily remedied," you nod, offering a smile you hope seems understanding. "Do you know what it is you’d like to start collecting?”

The man stands and stares at you with a blank look. Moments pass without the sound of the man’s voice and so you suggest, “Birds? Insects?”

You laugh at the face the man makes at your last suggestion. “A clear no for the insects, then.”

“Uh, well – I’d like a mount for my living room,” the man tries for a smile – bashful, sweet –, taking his hands out of his pocket. He clasps his hands together and tilts his head up to the ceiling, looking lost in thought before he catches himself and continues, “Something classy? Majestic? Something to make it less … empty.”

“I certainly have plenty that fit these conditions,” you smile, finding something oddly endearing in the way the man behaves himself.

You beckon for him to follow and begin walking toward the collection of your larger mounts, leaving the man to trail after. Though much unlike your usual clients, there have been few like him who have come to your shop without knowing what it is they want – typically the ones who walk out empty-handed. It’s not something that bothers you, but you’re determined to end this one differently.

The man stays silent as you begin to provide advice on the variety of mounts that would best suit his needs and expectations.

“And these… are sourced ethically?”

You blink, baring teeth in a wide smile. “Of course! I have different sources for all the specimens I work on.” You turn around, gesturing to all the different mounts and figures displayed around you. “Hunters, of course. Veterinarians, Animal Control, and the local Pet Store often donate as well – strays, pets that have passed away, and animals who cannot be re-released."

The man nods, mouth shaped in an ‘O’ as he listens to your usual spiel to clients who come concerned, asking the very same. ‘Ethical Taxidermy’ is a label you find as humorous as it is ill-defined, slapped on difficult work to make more appealing. It’s not something you’re innocent nor repentant of when it comes to the business you truly want to run.

"Better off here, wouldn’t you agree?” you tilt your head. “Better off taken care of, preserved to look as they had when alive, rather than thrown in the garbage or cremated.”

“Given a second life,” the man murmurs, looking straight back at you, unafraid to meet your eye.

A smile graces your lips, pleased. “That’s right.”

Silence ensues – strange, but not entirely uncomfortable. When the man averts his gaze, turning his attention back to the array of mounts he’s seen time and time before, you take the opportunity presented to you. You rake your eyes over raven hair and olive skin, a Greek nose, and full lips, rosy and dampened by a quick flash of tongue. Eye the patterned scarf, silk and expensive, draped over long limbs dressed in a brown sweater and a pink button-down, and the white pearls adorning his ears and hanging from his neck. It’s something out of a magazine – the way the man dresses.

“It’s an incredible collection you have,” the man remarks. He looks back at you with a curious gaze. “What has been your most extraordinary project to date?”

It’s not a difficult question to answer.

“An ongoing one at the moment,” you say, thinking fondly of the mount that waits for you behind closed doors. “A long, repetitive, arduous procedure that I continue to better my abilities with.”

The room stays quiet. You do not say more and the man strangely does not ask. You look back into dark brown eyes and smile, strangely aware of the beat of your heart.

Moments pass after moment until the silence is broken. “Which would you recommend?” he asks. “Out of all the mounts?”

“Generally, I would recommend starting small if you don’t know where to begin. Work your way up to bigger mounts. But if you have no personal preference and merely want something big – something that takes up a considerable amount of space in your living room without crowding it – I suppose it all depends on how large your living room is then.”

“Quite big,” the man says, nodding to himself. “Very big.”

“Then a bull moose, perhaps,” you say. You lead the man to where the mount stands; the proud being it is, and rightfully so. You’ve strived to keep it all in this portrayal – the confidence in its gait, the strength in its physicality, the pride in its abilities. “A majestic piece. Powerful. An incredible way to lessen the emptiness of a large room.”

You wait – wait until you’re rewarded with the words you want to hear.

“I’ll take it.”

You smile. “Perfect.” You’ve done this hundreds of times before – but this feels different. This man will be back, hasn’t even left yet, and you already find yourself looking forward to it all the same.

“I’ll need you to fill this out,” you tell him, when you’ve relocated to the counter and you’re handing him the formalities. “Your name, date of birth, the address you’d like me to deliver it to, and your signature, please.”

It’s a process as swift as it is quiet.

The bell rings when the man leaves your studio and you glance at the paper in your hands.

Park Jisung.

Jisung returns not even two weeks later and purchases another mount – a towering menace of a beauty that you had slaved on after Kun had brought it in nearly a year ago. One of the oldest mounts still left in your store, you’re almost sad to see it go. Almost.

You had seen him before he came in – watched him bumble in his patterned scarf, pearl necklace strung neatly on his neck, pausing right before he pulled the door open. The bell had rung and you smiled from your desk, bright and wide.

“Here for another?”

Jisung had nodded, a sheepish smile on his lips, and it was all too easy for you to lead him to your biggest mounts.

Jisung naturally gravitates to your bigger mounts, looking for more to make his space less empty he says. Make it comfortable, make it occupied.

It’s all Jisung will consider seriously, all he’ll consider with the intention of actually taking it off your hands. Naturally, you disagree; reasons with him that smaller specimens can have a mighty presence too, when displayed correctly.

(Jisung takes home a box that visit, a golden hamster inside that you find Jisung bears a resemblance to. You find out later on that Jisung keeps it in his bedroom and is elated.)

It becomes a routine. You see the passing months in pieces, but standing front and center of your mind is this: Jisung returning with his bottomless pockets of money and simply buying another creature, another mount – whatever he likes like it’s nothing to him. Thousands spent, tens of thousands spent, all on finished works, but he comes back, intervals never longer than a dozen days.

“These can’t all be for your living room,” you remark one day, watching as Jisung signs away thousands of dollars yet again.

“It’s not,” Jisung says easily, not even bothering to look up. “I’ve emptied out a room for them.”

You stare until Jisung meets your eyes and you laugh, suddenly breathless. You tell Jisung to show you a picture the next time he comes back, but Jisung merely shakes his head.

“You should see it in person,” Jisung says. “It’s better in person.”

Your heart thuds, and you smile, “I’ll wait for your invitation.”

Change comes in a quiet voice, thinly veiled curiosity asked in a voice that’s grown so familiar you don't register it at first.

It's a simple question – but it changes everything, that much is clear.

“How do I commission a specific creature?”

“Usually, you’d have to pick a hunter first,” you say. “Commission the kill and then instruct them to bring the corpse to me.”

“Oh.”

You glance at him, wandering back and forth, unable to stand still, from mount to mount like he hasn’t seen these a dozen times by now. “Which would you like?” you ask, tilting your head. You place your pen down and lean back into your chair. “I have friends who can hunt it for you.”

Jisung looks back at you. There's a moment of prolonged silence and you observe the way Jisung lowers his gaze to the ground and blinks – the way his eyes glaze over like he’s gone somewhere else entirely. He walks back to the counter slowly, meets your eyes slowly. It takes a while for Jisung to communicate what he wants. “I want something so special I believe only you would be able to provide.”

“Flattering,” you say, eyebrow raised and a smile pulling at your lips. “I won’t do it for free despite that.”

Jisung doesn’t hesitate with his answer. “I’ll pay whatever amount you’d like.”

“What is it then?”

Jisung blinks – opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Cryptids,” he says. “I’d like to commission a cryptid mount.”

It’s hard to ignore the spark that crackles inside your stomach after Jisung utters his request. The ceiling lights feel a little stronger, white and bright and casting shadows on Jisung’s face. Angular lines on the essence of youth.

“And if I told you I don’t do them?”

Jisung’s face stays carefully blank. “Then I would ask you to forget I ever asked.”

You laugh. Shaking your head, you comb a hand through your hair as you stand from your seat. “Cryptid mounting isn’t illegal here, Jisung. Looked down upon, sure. But it’s never really done by the people who matter, is it?”

It's endearing to you – the way Jisung ducks his head, skirting the statement he could've easily known through some research, skirting the question he already knows the answer to. You don’t wait for an answer Jisung won't provide. You turn around; Jisung follows.

The cryptid room is bigger though less filled, with a higher ceiling to accommodate for the towering heights the creatures have. You look back at Jisung who looks around, eyes brimming with the sort of wonder you would argue one could only see in a child.

“Not your first time seeing one?”

“No,” Jisung shakes his head. “No, my parents kept one on display in our living room as I grew up.”

“I see,” you say. “What was it, exactly?”

“A Baku.”

“Dream-eaters,” you note. Common then, rarer now, after all the hunting history and folklore have put it through. You’ve never mounted a Baku before. “Did it work?”

Jisung makes a face, pressing his hands to his cheeks, eyes still trained on the exhibit, jumping from creature to creature. His voice comes out distracted. “Hm? Not really.”

“Is that what established the curiosity?”

“I suppose so.”

The answer comes in a voice bordering absentminded, so you leave it at that, letting him pace the room and explore the options he's been presented.

“I’ll take this one,” Jisung points to a Wendigo you’d mounted months before you ever approached Jisung, abandoned by its original buyer after seeing the sheer size of it. “Along with the commission.”

You smile, thinking of the present that came alongside it.

"A what?"

"A Katshituashku," you drawl into your phone, dragging every syllable out. Donghyuck is seated, in what you would guess is the little gas station at the corner of Main and Seventh, toying with the straw in his drink. You see Jaemin in the background and consider sending him a wave before he disappears from the frame entirely.

"No, shut up, I heard you the first time," Donghyuck says, a scowl pulling at his lips. He looks up from his drink, “A Katshituashku?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s –” Donghyuck pauses. The interest on his face is evident; taking down a Katshituashku would make for great publicity, near invincible as it is, only wounded through the soles of its feet. You already know the answer before Donghyuck says it. “Where?”

“How would I know? That’s your job.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and sets his drink aside. “Sorry I assumed the buyer knew where what he wanted was?”

You sigh, “He mentioned Maine?”

“How much?”

“For free.”

Donghyuck reaches out and grabs his phone from whatever it’s leaning on, shoving his face closer to the camera. He narrows his eyes, “I’m hanging up.”

“Have you ever known me to be a cheapskate?” you huff. “Do it quickly and you can name whatever price you want, yes?”

Donghyuck lights up, well aware that you would give him whatever amount he asks for – if kept reasonable. He grins and salutes you through his screen, “Whatever you say goes, boss man.”

You text Jisung as soon as it arrives.

The body was delivered today. You can come see it, if you’re free.

Jisung shows up in record time.

You don't know why you ask, but the words come easy, like it's been sitting on your tongue for years, waiting to be said at that exact moment. "Would you like to watch?"

Jisung stills, looking at you with wide eyes. "I'm sorry?"

"Would you like to watch me work on your commission?" you cock your head to the side. "You can come whenever you’d like to. If you have nothing else to do, that is."

“I’d love to!” he beams, clasping his hands together akin to a prayer. “To stay and watch, please.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Don’t you have a job? Matters to attend to?”

“Not one that expects me too much.”

"A strange job. Or the ideal one. If you're earning enough to be buying as many mounts as you are." You purse your lips. “Stay where I can see you. Peripheral or central vision. I don’t like people wandering around my workshop without my knowledge.”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Jisung tugs at the ends of his clothes, nodding at every word that comes out of your mouth.

“Most importantly – do not distract me,” you warn him, wagging your finger at the taller man. “Else it is your commission quality on the line.”

The smile on Jisung's face is brighter and warmer than any bonfire you’ve ever set.

Jisung proves capable of following your simple rule the first few weeks, only asking his burning questions once you’ve put down your tools and seated yourself beside him for a break.

“Isn’t it limiting?”

“What is?”

“Not opening during business hours. Being open six hours a day, only three days a week limits your market reach.”

You shrug. It’s always worked for you. More time to dedicate to the crafting process, more to maximize productivity. “I reach the people I want to reach. Friends, friends of friends.” People who can afford it. People who can and have no problem ignoring the illegal aspects that could come with the practice, you leave unsaid.

“You’re one of the only ones who come to visit my lonely little store, anyway. Most customers don’t personally come to the shop,” you continue. “They call, they email, they make the order and put in a deposit. Then I ship the mount when I’m finished.”

Jisung keeps quiet. Stays in his place, in the corner of your eye, and absentmindedly traces the wood grain of the table. His eyes never seem to leave you. Not until you look back.

“I’m not in it for the money,” you say, after a long stretch of silence. God knows you have enough.

“I know,” Jisung says, a small smile on his face. “Otherwise you’d be charging me for this commission a whole lot more.”

Jisung leaves and you finally get to work on what you’ve been looking forward to all week.

A present from Donghyuck. A burden lifted from Donghyuck.

You open another door to Mark’s smiling face and take in the cool air that greets your face. You sigh – deep, anticipatory. Content.

Mark is smiling at you, and so you smile back, wide and full, eager to keep Mark at his best.

“I almost thought you were on display.” 

You look up from what you’re doing and stare at Jisung, sitting straight and proper from where he observes. “What did you say?”

“I almost thought it was you on display,” Jisung leans forward onto the table in front of him, “So focused. Unmoving. Beautiful.”

“You should be,” Jisung murmurs, nodding to himself, and you watch the way his eyes rake over your face, the way he stares and so unabashedly meets your eyes with an indecipherable intensity. Something close to wonder. Something close to desire.

“Jisung-ah,” you say and imagine yourself standing from your seat. Walking over to Jisung and bending him over the table he’s leaning on. Jisung would let you. You know that much.

“Yes?”

“Be quiet.”

When Jisung leaves, You stay in your workshop and stare at the closed door leading to the cold room. Stare until your breath deepens and your heart rate rises.

I almost thought it was you on display.

You find that you don’t dislike the thought of it at all.

You could be. In another world. Created by the very few hands you trust. You would be a beautiful mount – Jisung’s mount – situated in his living room, his study, his bedroom. Wherever Jisung would want to place you.

Like Mark.

The first and only time Jisung breaks your rule is at your own instruction.

It comes with a cost.

“Jisung-ah?”

No answer.

You sigh, pressing your lips into a frustrated frown. “Jisung, I need those tools now.”

How long does it take to retrieve a honing steel and a simple sanding stick? Still, you receive no answer. You shudder, feeling the brush of cool air on your skin. Did Jisung open a window?

“Jisung-ah, what in the world are you doing –”

Then, you look back and see the door to the wrong room open, feeling your heart drop from your chest. The drag of your chair echoes loudly through the room, scraping against porcelain tiles. You reach for the shaving knife on the next table and wrap your fingers around it with a vicelike grip, taking tentative steps toward the opened room.

Mark has always been the most dominating presence in a room. It extends to death, still the center of attention, situated in your cold room. Jisung is transfixed.

Something ugly blooms inside your chest, a bitter flower full of thorns.

“So this is why Mark hyung’s body hasn’t been found,” Jisung says when you step into the room. “Everyone assumes he’s just been eaten by something. Flesh stripped to the bone.”

Jisung takes a step closer, and you watch as he tilts his head and begins circling the mount with a blank look on his face.

You grip the tool at hand a little tighter, and imagine what Jisung would look like – head bashed in, flesh and bone drenched in red, a face once so handsome unrecognizable to the human eye. A shame, really.

Or perhaps you’ve earned a new addition to your growing collection.

“He looks so,” Jisung pauses, lips pressing together in a tight line. “Preserved.”

“You captured his smile so well—” Jisung laughs softly and you do not know what to make of it. It’s not what you’ve expected, not what you’ve daydreamed or dreaded during those few sleepless nights.

You don’t know what you expected.

“This is embalming, isn’t it?” Jisung asks. The smile on his face is still the same – as good and as pure as you’ve ever seen on his lips. “How long does it take you? How often? Do you do it by yourself?”

“Get out.”

Jisung reaches for you, a kind, excited look in his eye that must betray what you imagine he must truly be feeling. “Y/N, it’s –”

“Get the fuck out of my store before I change my mind, Jisung,” you snap.

Jisung pulls his hands back and looks at you, taking a step back. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks at you – a graveyard in his mouth, filled with all the words you won’t let him say.

It’s a terrible decision that hits you full force in the stomach once Jisung disappears from sight.

Jisung doesn’t come back the next day. Or the next week. Or the week after that.

The shop feels emptier, colder. Mark’s family do not come barging in, looking for their son’s dead body, still whole and preserved, like you had intended to keep.

You continue working on the commission during the day and scream your frustration into your room during the night.

Jisung returns twenty-three days later, an hour before closing times.

You see him before he comes in, in his brown sweater and pearl earrings, pulling at the door with the certainty that he’d grown into all those months ago.

It’s too easy, inviting him back into your workshop. Too easy, falling back into old habits.

“How did you get his body?”

You evade the question and throw one of your own. “You knew him?”

“Our families are friends.”

“And were you?”

“I looked up to him,” Jisung shrugs. “I wanted to be a hunter like him – and his whole family before him, I suppose – when I was younger.”

“But?”

“My parents forbade it.”

You hum as you prepare the mold, carving muscles and veins into place one after the other. You’re making good time – further along than you had expected to be at this point. “Well, it’s a good thing they did. You’d likely fall on your weapon before even spotting the cryptid.”

“I wouldn’t fall on my weapon at all!” Jisung makes an offended sound, plump lips pursed into a pout before you send him a look that reminds him of his volume. He slouches, curling into himself before murmuring, “I’d just need training. I could’ve been a hunter if I’d gotten some.”

"Maybe." You could see it. Bloodstains on hunter's clothes, dried mud on leather boots, lethality at hand. You glance at Jisung, pressing your lips together. “You could’ve.”

“We might’ve met earlier if I had become one,” Jisung muses.

"You could still be one," you say. "Then I'd have you hunt for me."

“Was Mark your first?”

A face flashes before your eyes – striking features complemented by delicateness; sharp eyes and full lips with a captivating draw. The first. The failure. The reason why you started.

So significant then, now a muddled memory you struggle to hold on to by a loose thread. A corpse in the ground that you’ll forever regret.

You try to smile. Was Mark your first? Of course not. First victory? First triumph? Perhaps, you could say that. It’s not perfection yet, but it’s the closest you’ve gotten by far. But to get to even this level of mediocrity, you needed practice, you needed failure – as all great artists do. “What do you think?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

Moments after moments pass. You don’t need to look up from your work to know that Jisung is staring. He always is. You don’t ever want him to look away.

“Could I see him again?”

You close your eyes, pausing your work and hovering your file over the foam. “Jisung –”

“Please,” comes the plea, “Just for a moment.”

Jisung has a way of slipping through defenses, a way of pushing through the rifts with glittering eyes and quiet pleas.

Or perhaps you simply let him.

Walking inside the cold room with an audience to something you’d never meant to have on display just yet is disconcerting.

Not as it had weeks before. But unsettling nevertheless. 

It's not ready. Not perfect. Not worth presenting to someone you want to show nothing less than magnificence to.

But Jisung seems to think otherwise.

"Have I mentioned how much I love your work?" Jisung turns back to face you and smiles widely. There’s something in his eyes that washes a wave of warmth all over your body. It's admiration. Devotion.

Slowly, sweetly, you smile back and tilt your head. “No, I don’t think you have.”

Black loafers click against porcelain tiles as Jisung walks towards you, closer and closer, until you see nothing but kind eyes and full lips. The air smells like marigolds and you draw in a deep breath.

“Y/N,” Jisung says.

Mark’s watching as you reach up, cold fingertips on warm skin, cupping Jisung’s cheek. Jisung sighs, deep, content, and presses closer, closing his eyes.

“Y/N,” he says again.

Inhale. Exhale. A breath of warm air against your lips.

Jisung will make the journey with you.