#hohyun

Jonghyun found himself waning sooner and longer, his slim body growing thinner still, and one morning just before dawn, a scowling Kibum took the reins from his hand and replaced them with a stout, steaming elixir.

The people fear that the moon is displeased – or ailing, he warned. The spring festival is scarcely a fortnight hence. Sleep now, fortify yourself, and find some way to demonstrate your favor, and swiftly.

I’ll blossom the apples for you, Kibum offered, laying an uncommonly gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to his brow. But you must act on this boy or put him behind you. The very earth feels the pull of your longing; surely this herdsboy cannot be immune to it.

But he was; surely he was, for each day the herdsboy smiled brightly as ever as he led his goats to pasture and back again, cheerful and whistling and thoroughly unaffected. Perhaps his offerings had grown a little heartier – he left a cheese every day now, for it was too early for any wild fruits, as well as an apple or pear from his winter store and sometimes even a small loaf of coarse bread, made by his own strong hands – but this was easily attributed to his devotion to the moon god. Others had also cautiously increased their offerings, for while Jonghyun was not known as a wrathful being – indeed, he could afflict mankind little more than by ceasing to shine at night, something he did once every 28 days regardless – Kibum had spoken truly, and there was uncertainty and concern at his present, prolonged waning.

Wearied by Kibum’s directive and the weight of constant lonely longing, Jonghyun took himself to earth and sat beneath an apple tree, one of several in the meadow that flanked the herdsboy’s hut, wrapping his silver foxskin about him as a coverlet and nestling his chin amidst its plush pile. It was the first truly warm morning of the new season, and he watched through his lashes as the herdsboy emerged from his hut and unstrapped the goatskins from his legs with a jubilant cry, then sat on his stoop and sighed with pleasure at the warmth of Kibum’s light on his winter-paled shins.

No, this one belonged to Kibum’s world of sunshine and merriment, not Jonghyun’s soft darkness and melancholy and lullabies.

Jonghyun tipped his head back against the trunk and let his eyes fall closed, the lids heavy with unshed tears.

He had surely drowsed no more than a minute when he was startled awake by the soft low voice he loved so well, so nearby that his heart stumbled in his chest.

“Have you breakfasted, stranger?” the herdsboy asked, and Jonghyun opened his eyes to find the youth crouched before him: near enough to touch, were he to stretch out a hand; closer than they had ever been before, with the innermost edges of his brows raised in concern: an expression Jonghyun had long adored.

Face to face, he was so beautiful Jonghyun could not draw a breath, and so he gave no reply, expecting the youth would direct him to the temple, for it was an easy distance and the priestesses always fed travelers – and the herdsboy was unmistakably headed there himself, for already he bore the plump goatskin bag over one shoulder.

Instead, he leaned forward to lay the backs of his fingers against Jonghyun’s forehead, brows knitting as he sought for fever, and the moon – feverish in truth, if not in a way that mortals might detect – trembled beneath his touch.

“You are pale with exhaustion,” the herdsboy observed with a frown. “Have you no proper place to lay your head for a few hours? My hut stands just yonder,” he explained, throwing back an arm in explanation, “and my goats are freshly milked. I will make you grain porridge with milk and honey, and you may sleep awhile upon my cot.”

At this something buckled in Jonghyun, like the latch upon a floodgate, for even gods may dream impossible things. “You need not,” he whispered in token protest, but he was truly so very weary with lovesickness and the sleeplessness that follows in its wake, and all at once the boy caught up Jonghyun in his arms. Those lean, strong arms he had ached for so long to envelop him now curled beneath his back and knees, hefting his body as though he weighed no more than a moonbeam.

The youth smelled of wood fires and warm milk, of goat-musk and boy-musk and the last of winter’s chill, and Jonghyun clenched his eyelids against a tide of hot tears.

“You are so spent you can scarce keep your eyes open,” the boy worried. “Or are you ill in truth?”

Jonghyun shook his head, for he did not trust his voice, and buried his face in the boy’s tunic – poor peasant’s cloth, softened by countless washings in the stream and saturated with the scents of the boy’s body. At this proximity he could feel the pulse of the boy’s heart beneath his cheek: quick and hard – no doubt, at the burden of another’s body in his arms, however small and slight.

Surely it was Jonghyun’s imagination, but it seemed the boy cradled him closer as he carried him to his hut and inside, to lay him carefully upon a thin straw pallet near the hearth.

“My cover is unequal to your own,” the boy said ruefully, glancing between the coarse patchwork of goatskins that served him as a blanket and the lush silver fur that currently lay over Jonghyun, but the moon caught the boy’s hand as he made to withdraw the humble coverlet.

“By your leave, I will enjoy them both,” he pled, a little hoarsely. “For I am grown thin these days and feel the cold more keenly.”

“The day promises to be warm,” the herdsboy said with a smile, tucking the goatskins around Jonghyun as well. “But I would not have you take chill in my home.”

He quickly prepared a grain porridge, hot and hearty, with generous measures of milk and honey, then propped Jonghyun’s back against the wattle and daub and chafed his feet between long, strong hands as Jonghyun raised each spoonful to his mouth with trembling fingers.

“Still you are shivering,” the boy remarked, and snugly bundled the covers about Jonghyun’s feet before adding more wood to the hearth, then brought him an apple for good measure.

“I must take the goats to pasture,” the boy told him, almost regretfully, and shouldered the skin bag of milk once more. “And I must visit the market as well this day, but freely avail yourself of any of my meager comforts. I will return before sundown to stable the goats, and –”

“I must depart before sundown,” Jonghyun interrupted him, so gently, but still the admission cracked his heart, for he ached to hear the boy’s intentions for the evening, however impossible. Surely he meant to offer Jonghyun a portion of his supper, perhaps even a place to sleep for the night…

“Of course,” the boy said softly, as though he had expected this answer, and Jonghyun closed his eyes once more, this time with regret.

Something brushed his forehead then, something light and warm and fleeting, making Jonghyun’s scalp prickle with pleasure, but when he opened his eyes, the boy had gone.

Porridge and apple lay forgotten as the moon cried himself to sleep, face buried in a straw pallet that smelled of the herdsboy’s body and a goatskin patchwork drawn over his head.

To his astonishment, and in spite of his grief, he slept better than he had in nearly a decade – since first he had glimpsed the herdsboy as a merry child with sunburned cheeks, all lanky limbs and a curly tangle of black hair that defied the confines of ribbons – and he rose mid-afternoon with a fine appetite and devoured cold porridge and apple in minutes, with several mugfuls of goat’s milk, and even caught himself perusing the herdsboy’s larder for more. It was humble and scanter than Jonghyun would have guessed in light of the gifts the boy always left at the temple, and Jonghyun forbade himself any further repast – for he had food aplenty at home, but this boy did not.

“I could feed you,” he whispered, circling the mouth of the nearly empty flour jar. “Such food as you could scarce dream of, and you could pasture your goats among the stars.”

He let himself think of the kiss – if indeed it had been such – only thrice, stroking the place on his forehead where the herdsboy’s lips had touched him. A brow kiss was a blessing; a well-wishing, seen as often betwixt kin as lovers, and the boy – this vibrant, beautiful, perfect boy who laughed with his whole being – had found Jonghyun all but crumpled beneath a tree, wearied to a thread and thin as a beggar’s child.

No, if he had kissed Jonghyun’s brow before departing, it was motivated by compassion, which the herdsboy possessed in no short supply, not ardor.

As desperately as Jonghyun wished to replenish the boy’s larder – to burst it at its seams with parcels of rich food and drink, then exchange his humble straw pallet and goatskins for a marble pedestal pillowed with deep cushions and draped in furs – he knew he dared not, for the boy could not know that a god – let alone the moon himself, who loved him to distraction – had slept on his cot and eaten his porridge; that he had carried a god to his own bed and chafed his feet warm and kissed his brow. Jonghyun would – must – remain a weary traveler to him, grateful for his generosity but too poor to repay it in any material means.

With this in mind, Jonghyun carried both pallet and goatskins outside, to air them upon the sun-warmed grass and dry the damp left by his tears, then he swept the hut from stoop to sills, for tidying the boy’s home would demonstrate Jonghyun’s thankfulness while costing him nothing, nor betraying his true identity.

You are the veriest fool, declared Kibum; faintly, for he was quite some ways off, in Jonghyun’s mind. If you truly wished to show him favor, you would have pulled him beneath the covers and bade him hold you while you slept, not tidied his home, which little required it.

Jonghyun ignored his brother’s chiding and spent half an hour scouring the meadow for dandelions – there were but three at this early date; their brave yellow faces the very first of the year – to lay upon the herdsboy’s refreshed cot as a token of gratitude.

The hut smelled of Kibum when Jonghyun was finished: of warm grass and meadow-pollen and dusty golden light – as befits the herdsboy, the moon reminded himself when the realization saddened him – and he busied his hands with assembling a meal for the boy upon his return: a simple, hearty potage of root vegetables simmering over the fire and a dish of baked honeyed pears. The nights were still so very cold, and the boy might well be chilled upon his return, in which case a hot meal would be a better reward than any sum of gold.

This being done, Jonghyun stood in the doorway, foxskin wrapped about him and eyes fixed on the empty meadow as Kibum drew the light ever lower. It is not yet your renewal night, came a distant, regretful whisper from just above the horizon. I will give your boy a few minutes more, but if he does not return soon, you must leave without saying goodbye.

Jonghyun’s heart panged, for though he had known it was unlikely that he should see the herdsboy before departing – had expected, even intended as much – still he had hoped the boy would return in time for a farewell greeting. For one final smile, given only to Jonghyun; for another lungful of rustic musk, or a fleeting touch of long fingers.

He ducked back inside the hut, heart sore and eyes burning, and was halfway through lighting the lamps when he heard the first bleat, closer than he could have dreamed. “You came,” he breathed, and ran to the doorway once more to watch the herdsboy chase his goats into their shelter by the fiery orange light of Kibum’s valiantly slowed sunset, barking to hasten them while glancing frantically over his shoulder at the hut, and his handsome face grew radiant with both joy and relief when he caught sight of Jonghyun on the stoop.

Gate bolted and goats secured, the herdsboy reached the hut in four long strides, ruddy-cheeked and panting, his black hair ribbonless and wind-tangled about his shoulders, and Jonghyun thought he had never looked more beautiful.

“I meant to return much earlier,” he said, “but the kids strayed off, and I was so afraid I should miss you –”

“I would not leave without thanking you for your hospitality,” Jonghyun replied, but he lowered his gaze at the boy’s words, feeling his cheeks warm.

The boy slipped a large cloth bag from his shoulder and pressed it into Jonghyun’s hands. “To sustain you on your journey,” he said, adding shyly: “T’was why I went to market this day.”

Jonghyun opened the bag to find a bounty of foodstuffs that would have cost the herdsboy a milk-goat at the very least. A large golden loaf of the finest bread and a portion of cold roast beef, savory roasted nuts, rare citrus fruits, sweet filled pastries, a flask of pale wine, and a fat pouch of honey candies: offering foods of the richest sort. The sort of gift that kings lay upon the altar of their favorite god on feast days – and the very fare Jonghyun had ached to provide to the herdsboy, whom he worshipped in his turn.

“Thank you for visiting this humble place,” the boy said softly, his eyes on the stoop beneath Jonghyun’s bare feet, then he dropped to his knees, bending low to press kisses to each one. “For taking shelter in my home,” he sighed, resting his cheek against Jonghyun’s calf in a gesture of reverent submission that stole the moon god’s breath away.

Jonghyun curled his fingers into fists against the urge to reach down and stroke that wind-tangled hair; to gently lift that face and kneel in turn to bring his own to meet it. “I am not who you believe,” the moon said as evenly as he could manage. “I am a weary traveler only; you gift me far too richly.”

“I would gift you richer still, had I the means,” the herdsboy whispered, and dipped his head to press a kiss to each sensitive ankle bone in turn, making Jonghyun’s thighs tremble.

Kibum’s light flickered warningly, clinging to the very edge of the horizon, and Jonghyun slipped the priceless foxskin from his shoulders. “I am not who you believe,” he said again, his voice quaking beneath the weight of the lie, “and so I will repay your generous gift with one of my own.”

He draped the fur about the herdsboy’s bent form, whimpering silently as he lifted black hair as soft as feathers to lay the garment against the youth’s nape, but before the herdsboy could raise his head and respond, the moon had vanished.

Breathless and shivering, Jonghyun appeared in his temple, to quickly collect the evening’s offerings before his imminent ascent, and his breath caught anew at the sight of a cloth bag; a twin to the herdsboy’s gift, awaiting him upon the altar.

“From your beloved,” the priestesses confirmed, for they were full aware of the moon’s adoration. “He came early and in a feverish hurry, with his entire flock in tow, and had a quarter hour’s labor rounding them up again as they gamboled about the courtyard with their fellows.”

Jonghyun smiled at the image in spite of his state and took the bag from the altar, finding its contents to be identical to the one he already carried – an unimaginable expense for a poor herdsboy – save for a familiar scrap of red ribbon that had seemingly fallen inside as the boy made up the parcels.

He would have sold two goats, Jonghyun realized: fine milking does, substantially reducing his income in order to afford such luxuries – not to mention, needlessly traveling far out of his way to obtain them. And why prepare a second gift – an exorbitant expense – if he intended to bring an offering gift to Jonghyun at his hut?

Because he feared to miss you, Kibum supplied in Jonghyun’s mind, his tone at once impatient and pitying, and Jonghyun joined him a moment later, weighted down with the herdsboy’s gifts.

He knew you for the moon god, Kibum said frankly, tossing the reins without watching to see whether his brother caught them, and was terrified you would depart before he could offer proper tribute, be it upon your altar or upon your person.

The sun god arched one sharp black brow in shameless intimation, and Jonghyun glanced betwixt the reins in his hand and the rich parcels weighing him down at either shoulder. He is…singular in his devotion, he conceded.

He carried you like a lover within moments of your meeting, then laid you in his own bed and departed with a kiss to your brow, Kibum recalled dryly. And when you made to leave him, he showered you with offerings; knelt before you and kissed your feet like he’d never beheld anything so precious. And still you believe him to be merely a pious devotee, who wishes a beautiful maid for his bride?

Jonghyun flicked the reins and set off before Kibum could press the issue, but his brother’s voice followed him into the night sky, gentler now: How can you believe he could never love you when this day he has given overwhelming proof that he already does?

He promised himself again and again that he would take no special notice of the herdsboy as he passed, nor linger above the hut he now knew so well, but his hands faltered at the reins when he spotted his beloved far below, wrapped in Jonghyun’s foxskin against the evening’s chill and seated upon the stoop, a steaming bowl of Jonghyun’s potage cradled between his hands and his face upturned to receive the moon’s light.

Thank you for this day, Jonghyun told him silently, tears burning in his eyes. For your care even more than your gifts, though I cherish them as well, and the sacrifices you made to obtain them. I will find a better way to thank you – to fully reward your kindness.

You know that method already, Kibum informed him upon his return, as though he had been a full participant in Jonghyun’s internal dialogue. Make love to him: this morning, if you like, or if you prefer to be in finer form ere you present your body beneath his coverlets: go to him during the festival, on new moon night. You will have nearly a fortnight to restore your flesh and fully a night and a day to enjoy him.

Jonghyun pondered all of this in the days that followed, as he reverently consumed every last morsel of the herdsboy’s extravagant gifts while seated on the floor behind his altar and absently counted the ribbons in his treasure box. The youth’s offerings had not altered since their encounter: without fail, and despite his decreased supply, still he delivered a full skin of goat’s milk every morning for the priestesses – and Jonghyun too, who always drank a mugful, sweetened with honey, ere he settled to sleep for the day. More often than not now, rather than returning to his palatial bed at home, Jonghyun slept in one of the empty pilgrims’ cells off the temple courtyard, furnished with a straw pallet and thin coverlet and sometimes a goat-kid or two trotting in to lie beside him, for in such a place he could easily imagine that he lay again in his beloved’s bed, and that this time the herdsboy would return early and join him beneath that coverlet.

The boy still came to the temple before sunset with his little tokens – humble once more; a small coarse loaf baked by his own hands, an apple, and almost always a bit of cheese – and now there were dandelions among them, tied with a scrap of red ribbon or, better still, woven into a flower crown, which Jonghyun donned without hesitation and wore on his journey, scenting his hair with the midday meadow and lending a faint golden hue to his light.

The herdsboy gave him dandelions because he had given them first, Jonghyun reasoned, even as such explanations made Kibum apoplectic with exasperation. It was not uncommon for the boy to leave flowers on the altar with his evening gift, nor for Jonghyun to wear them in his hair; he offered dandelions now because there was little else in bloom, or perhaps he had concluded that Jonghyun admired them, having received three of them from the moon himself.

The moon’s visible face waned as appointed as the festival drew near, though Jonghyun swiftly gained back the weight and vigor he had lost with restful sleep and a steady supply of goat’s milk and cheese – and adoration, Kibum chimed in dryly. His gifts nourish you differently now, filled as they are with unabashed love.

Jonghyun blushed and dismissed this with a roll of his eyes, but the festival drew ever nearer, and Kibum wrung from him the promise to spend it in the meadow near the herdsboy’s hut, where there would be feasting and merrymaking and contests of swiftness and skill, in which the youth always took part and excelled.

Kibum had pressed for a greater commitment, of course, even threatening to bar Jonghyun from his celestial duties – to delay the very waxing of the moon – if he did not at least kiss the herdsboy at the festival, but Jonghyun was reluctant to encounter the youth again: afraid, he admitted only to himself, that he would find no repetition of those tender gestures, only a handsome head bowed to the ground in reverence.

The herdsboy, Jonghyun was certain, wanted a beautiful maiden at his hearth and in his bed, and he would surely seek and meet this mate at the festival. And so the moon conceived a plan that would enable him to encounter the youth one final time – and then, he promised himself, he would put such longings behind him forever.

He would guise himself as a young woman, and with little difficulty, for Jonghyun stood a head shorter than the herdsboy and was possessed of a small, fine frame, nipped even slimmer at the waist. His jaw was strong and his cheekbones high, to be sure, but his eyes, dark and delicate, were exquisite as a maiden’s; his nose small and his lips ripe as rosehips. It would take precious little embellishment to give him the semblance of a pretty maiden: a maiden who might openly approach the herdsboy at a festival and share wine with him, perhaps even ask him to dance – an activity beloved by the agile youth, though he only ever partook in the group dances; never alone with a partner.

You are the veriest fool, Kibum sighed, even as he painted Jonghyun’s cheekbones with stardust. Would you truly have him love you as a maid?

He will not love me, Jonghyun assured him. I merely wish to be near him one last time.

Kibum chuckled and shook his head as he cinched an embroidered girdle at Jonghyun’s waist, belling the skirts about his narrow hips and small, thoroughly unfeminine backside. And if he desires to bed you like this? he wondered impishly, darting a hand inside his brother’s blouse to pinch and rouge his nipples, furthering the illusion of breasts beneath, and Jonghyun leapt back with a mortified cry, to the sun’s riotous laughter.

If I drape your loin covering just so, you can lift your skirts and take him inside you without him once knowing that he mates with a male, Kibum offered, even as the moon turned away, face burning, to arrange a veil over the back of his head, concealing the short length of his wavy dark hair.

I’ve done it many a time, the sun assured him. Your positions are limited somewhat, but none are unpleasant in the least –

I will not deceive my beloved into bed! Jonghyun snapped. I go tonight simply to be near him one last time; to be in his presence without the disparity of god and man between us. To laugh and dine and dance with him – and then let him go, to find the maiden he means to wed.

Kibum sighed once more, somber now, and handed Jonghyun his finest earrings. I accept this, though I may not agree, he said quietly. I have observed your beloved in my turn, and I feel this evening may not proceed as you intend. How will you respond if you are the maiden he wishes to wed – or, like as not, he recognizes you as the god he worships daily?

He will do neither, Jonghyun replied, for your disguises are flawless, and he will wed a girl from his village.

If you are wrong, the sun teased, but gently, I sincerely hope I shall not see you back here till tomorrow evening.

If I am right, you shall not see me till then either, Jonghyun told him, for I expect to weep in my temple at least that long once I have freed him of the burden of my love.