#tofuho

Two hundred Galactic years ago, Floating Gaea became his home. It became everyone's homes after the destruction of Ünder. No one knows how or why Ünder was undone the way it was, just that it was undone in the same way every other planet in their system had.

Days after the emergency sirens began wailing, hours after the public announcement calls stating that evacuation was mandatory, minutes after their escape pods left the atmosphere and entered The Beyond—space—did the Great Light swallow Ünder in her shimmering, resplendent halo of destruction.

A beacon from his pod some ten miles away light up, a silent herald that indicated his shift was almost done. He began ending his day as he always did—repacking his tools, uploading his data to the ETC mainframe and saying goodbye to his children and his friends.

“Good work today, my loves,” he murmured, his fingers dancing over the energy field.

Minho had no sense of belonging to his pod—it wasn't his home, his real home, or the one he’d claimed two hundred years ago. His pod was just a place in the many great places he'd been forced to move to as the Great Light's kiss annihilated planet after planet. He can't even recall what his planet had looked like. Green. He could remember all of the green.

Gaea was blue. Ünder was grey. The radiation from the Great Light had rendered it so. There hadn’t been much green on Ünder to begin with—the whole place was basically one large city, the roots and branches and leaves and trees and flowers all carved out to make room for the galaxies refugees.

Planetary Reconstruction Act of 2319. They were going to use Ünder as a base and bit by bit, rebuild their acute solar system. Then build and build and build, expanding until there was room for everyone.

But then....the Great Light, so they had to rebuild from Gaea. Much building hadn’t been done in the last two hundred years. Practically none. But Minho trusted Floating Gaea’s leadership. They would have a planet again. One day.

That’s what made him look at Ünder—the aching yearning of wanting soil and land under his feet again. But even if the radiation had dissipated, it was beyond repair. No one should be on Ünder. No one could survive on Ünder. But...

Just there, as if he were floating amongst the clouds, then the stars, is a figure.

Impossible.

Uncannily, the same moment Minho notices him through Z.E.U.S. is the same moment the man notices Minho. Minho blinks hard, tries to clear his vision, because it was simply impossible what he was seeing. But when he opens his eyes, a figure in all black and masked, appears before him. Lights flare on the mask, a welcoming, soothing light green.

Minho was back in his personal transportation unit, hurtling back to his solitary pod before the figure could so much as speak.

The next day—because despite how much as he would like to, he cannot abandon his duties—Minho is back, tending to his electric fields, his energy garden. He doesn't see the figure that day and he is relieved.

He doesn't see them the next day,or the day after that, and by the end of the week, Minho begins to think that he imagined the whole entire encounter.

A month passes and it is inspection time. Minho was practically humming with excitement It is the only time that he gets visitors and he may be a little eager to show them—show anyone—what he has managed to accomplish with his section of Z.E.U.S. The Inspector General, covered head to toe in a radiation resistant suit—excessive, and unnecessary—introduces himself, but doesn't give Minho the chance to speak before he is glancing over Minho's work, his expression torpid and bored. Not to be deterred, Minho tries anyways.

"It's a field, sir," he croaks, his voice long grown to going days, weeks, months, without speaking to someone else. Without speaking at all. "Not like generation field but a–I, uh started off with flowers, but since we’re trying to sustain life—”

The Inspector General glares at him balefully through the visor of his suit before going back to punching something into his datapad.

“Grains.”

Minho’s head snaps towards the voice, his eyes wide, his mouth falling open. It was the same figure–a man, he can tell—in his all black, masked, hovering on the other side of Z.E.U.S. like he’d been invited to the inspection as well. He isn’t wearing a radiation suit like the inspector is wearing, despite being on the supposedly radioactive side of the shield, nor is he wearing the astrosuit that Minho dons. It’s just him, the void of space, and nothing else.

Minho isn’t even sure how he can hear him. Hell, he may not even be real. The Inspector does not react to the voice. Doesn’t even look up.

“I’m not speaking. I’m…in your head. No, no. That sounds creepy. I am—” The man, the creature, stops and waves. “I’m Jinki. I live down there,” and he points towards Ünder, which is impossible. “I live there. I rule there. It is my kingdom.”

Minho nods slowly and reminds himself once he is back in his pod, that he should schedule a trip to Gaea proper and seek out a full mental health panel.

“Your section of Z.E.U.S. passes, but let’s eliminate most, if not all, of these...abnormal augments you’ve made,” he says, his nose scrunched in disgust as he glances over a patch of marigold energy flowers it had take Minho a six months to grow. “Regulation codes exist for a reason. You’re responsible for a lot of lives, Minji.”

Minho, once again, doesn’t get a chance to respond because the Inspector is gone, floating back to his own PTU and darting back towards the large floating space station hoving in the distance some fifty-miles away.

“Your name is Minji?” There is a brightness to his aura, shades of gold, and wheat, much like his fields.

Minho turns back towards the man—Jinki. His head is tilted, as if curious, and it would almost be adorable if not for the all black, the menacing mask, and the fact that he is hovering in space, moving through it, where Minho is tethered to his unit and would float away without it.

“No. My name is Minho.”

The man tilts his head in the other direction. “I know.” He says with a hunt of humor that makes Minho feel like he is listening to a joke he doesn’t understand. “I just wanted to know why you didn’t correct him. I don’t like him. Any of them. They don’t treat you well.”

Despite the fact that this man couldn’t very well know how others treated him, to Minho, it was not a matter of being treated well. It’s about being treated at all. Mattering. Minho’s job is important; thus, it makes him important. “I ignore it because I need to seem irreplaceable. Content. Useful. That way they won’t leave me behind.”

“Someone would leave you behind?” The sound of his voice is one of disbelief. He begins pacing, or floating, back and forth between the great void of space and Minho’s section of Z.E.U.S. “Considering Gaea’s mission to rebuild the universe, they should want nothing but the finest specimen for reproduction. Look at you.” He pauses and his head turns towards Minho, a sweeping look from head to toe. The mask flares bright pink. “Even if you lost your job here, you’d make an excellent breeder.”

Minho is so blown away by the matter-of-fact way that Jinki sprouts his nonsense that he isn’t even offended by Jinki’s suggestion that if he would never be useless just because of his DNA.

“I—I like being important here. With my field. If I have to suffer a little…” he motions towards Gaea, “to get secure that, then I will.”

Minho’s vision is filled with more color, this time a sickly green from Jinki’s mask. “Ghastly,” he spits. “That you have to suffer disrespect to survive, Minho.”

Minho bristles at this because he has explained—he has explained—why he does what he does and if this…wraith doesn’t get it, then too bad!

“Have a good day,” he says instead of the curses he wants to spit out because respect has been drilled into him and he can’t abandon his Gaean teachings, not even for a...whatever Jinki was.

“Please don’t go.” It was said softly, so delicately that Minho has no choice but to turn around. “I—need your help.”

A raised brow. “With what?”

Jinki looks around, at him, at the vast emptiness under and around him, and then at Z.E.U.S. “You know how to operate this thing, right?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Do you…know how to dismantle it?”

Jinki’s question surprises him, confounds him, but mostly enrages him. “Why would I dismantle it? It saves people’s lives.”

Jinki head tilts again. “Is that what they told you?”

“It keeps the radiation from Floating Gaea,” Minho barks out even though he knows that isn’t quite...true. “It generates the energy for it! You heard him! I—I am responsible for a lot of lives.”

The way that he tilts his head is annoying, as if he is studying Minho. But more than that, it feels as if he is studying what Minho is, what Minho means—to him, to the universe at large. Suddenly, though, Jinki’s aura, which was once bright and full of light, the very thing that had allowed Minho to continue this asinine conversation, darkens. Wisps of it fans out behind him, like a miasmic void, curling and ripping through his light. “They are lying,” he hisses. “They aren’t saving lives. They are ending them.” He appears closer now, almost touching Z.E.U.S, and the light radiating from his mask is a vivid, angry red. “They are murderers.”

Minho stews over it for hours, pacing up and down his pod, doing an unhealthy amount of cleaning after his dismisses the cleaning droids, reprogramming his audio/visual droid for a crisper resolution. He slams his food into the rehydrator, he beats his fist against the Atmospheric Water Producer when the stream isn’t fast enough to fill his cup without him waiting for minutes, he kicks the astrobutler’s charging dock when it asks Minho what’s wrong.

“Everything, you pile of junk!”

Loyalty. Respect. Honor.

Those were the words he swore on when he aligned himself with Gaea’s Energy Transmutation Corp. That his work would be for the betterment of Floating Gaea, that he respected their cause of building and sustaining life, that he would honor those lost—planets, plants, and life—to the Great Light.

How dare he. How dare he.

Minho doesn’t even bother eating his food or drinking his water. He is out of his pod, into his suit, and powering his PTU back towards his sector of Z.E.U.S.

Jinki is waiting for him, his aura once again emitting light and warmth. As soon as Jinki sees him, the lights on his mask flare in luminous arcs of pale gold.

Z.E.U.S. buzzes between them. Minho slams his hand against it and it flares as well, blue and green and white. “I don’t believe you.”

Jinki nods, as if he understands Minho accusation sans a lack of explanation. “Of course, you don’t believe me. Of course. I’m sorry. I should have…explained better. I was just...angry. I shouldn’t have—.”

“There is nothing to explain. Floating Gaea is not a lie. The Corp is not a lie.”

“You, the people, no. You are not a lie, Minho. The generator that keeps us separated is not a lie. It does power Floating Gaea. But do you know how?”

This is ground Minho can stand on in confidence. “Ambient energy from the universe. I–we—the Corp, we collect it, convert it into a useful form—blastseeds—and plant them into the generator,” Minho recites like he is speaking to a review board and not a floating apparition.

“Yes. That is correct.” When Jinki sighs, the mask doesn’t change from it’s steady, peaceful yellow, but flutters and vibrates like ripples in the very ambient he spoke of. “…by stealing energy from Ünder. From stealing the life energy from what’s left of my world. This…energy you think you are collecting from space? It is there because it is life energy…from “The Dead”, who I rule over. We try to keep as much as we can, but it floats away, beckoned by the generator’s gravitational pull.”

Minho laughs, unable to help himself. “You think ghost are powering Z.E.U.S?”

Jinki’s returning laugh is loud, rueful, dark sounding. “Do you have to be dead to be considered dead by those in power?” He turns and looks back at Ünder. “We are alive. They stole our resources, left us behind when The Great Light came, and now are stealing the energy produced by us. The energy of our bodies and souls.”

“That’s—that’s absurd.”

Jinki, once again, nods, like he can understand Minho’s disbelief. “I can show you. I can take you to my home.”

Those words may sound ordinary to anyone else, but Minho has lived on Floating Gaea for 200 years. For fifty of those years, he has lived in his pod, separated, but still apart of the great glory of the space station. He has not once, in his 200 years here, left. He knows what a home is. He does not remember what home feels like. To Minho, those words sound like a siren’s call.

Still...

“Will I have to dismantle Z.E.U.S to do so?”

Jinki shakes his head. “I am Z.E.U.S. It is made of everything that I am. All of us from Ünder are Z.E.U.S. I—” and Jinki reaches towards Minho, through the refractor, to place a warm, gloved hand against Minho’s cheek. Minho gasp is sharp and loud.

Fifty years since Minho has touched another person. Minho is touch starved, and desperate and he only realizes this when Jinki’s gloved hands is against his face. The caress—which feels like thirst sated, like longing eradicated, even in this ephemeral form—is more than enough reason for him to clutch to the feeling. “I’ll…” Like it was a reflex, like it was inherent and natural to touch Jinki, Minho curls his hand around the hand against his cheek. “I’ll go. But I have to be back tomorrow to tend to my fields.”

“I’ll make sure that you are. I promise.”

The surface of Ünder is grey. The surface is—collapsed buildings, the hollow corpses of homes and the skeletal remains of life, withered away on its surface, remnants of the past, etched in stone, and ashes, and death.

Underground, underneath the soot and the ghost of forgotten civilization, however, is not grey. It is all colors. More colors than Minho has ever seen, more than his eye can actually conceptualize. He almost has to squint because it is so much.

“They call the surface Ünder Forgotten. They call us The Dead, the Leftbehinds,” Jinki says as he guides Minho through the underground citadel, “because they would not extend the resources to come back for us.”

“Why,” Minho says, awed, because there is so much life here, but also troubled by Jinki’s claims. “Why would we leave you behind?”

“Someone had to make sure you all escaped. Someone had to man the announcements and the alarms. Some of us were tasked with gathering history books and artefacts and monuments to Ünder to carry into the sky.” Jinki pauses and looks up to the cavern’s roof. “And some of us were just too much to fit on the last of the shuttles.”

“Jinki,” Minho says, looking around. “There are—”

“Millions of us? Yes. Some of us do procreate, Minho.”

Minho turns to look at him and Jinki’s mask is flaring with something like amusement, purples and soft reds.

“We started off as 569 people. We discovered this place and we flourished. Come. Let me show you.”

Jinki’s hand is warm around his as he drags Minho towards the center of town and Minho closes his eyes to savor the feeling. “The Ceremony,” is all he says once they reach a rocky sheared off bluff that looked over a caldera. “Since our energy is being stolen, I have found a way to share it between all of us. So, we can all, at the very least, stay alive. It’s not perfect—it weakens some, strengthens others, makes us equal in a way. But it was not a measure meant to sustain for all eternity. Energy comes in all shapes and forms and consistencies. It’s like mixing blood, transfusing one type into another. Our bodies have begun to refuse the energy of our neighbors, our families, our friends.”

The Ceremony is a—well Minho doesn’t know what to call it. A young boy, maybe Minho’s age, is lying on a bed of banana leaves and roses and moss, his skin, a sickly grey in contrast to the vividness of the flowers tucked around him.. From their vantage point on the overlook, Minho could see hundreds of thousands of people have surrounded him, chanting something, using words that Minho has never heard before.

“Old Ündean,” Jinki offers. “The language of energy.”

Below, the bodies are covered in markings Minho has never seen either, various shades of green across their eyes and down their chest, swirled around their fingers and up their backs, gentle arcs across shoulder blades. The young man has been smeared with these colors, but they do nothing to hide how near death he looks.

A few of them don masks like Jinki’s. They circle the young man in a rhythmic swaying dance, periodically reaching out to smear more colorful ink across his body.

“What are they doing?”

Jinki extends a hand towards the crowd. “Waiting,” he murmured.

“For what?” Minho thinks this is a healing ceremony, maybe, a prayer, sent up to the old Gods of Ünder—the ones he can remember—asking them to heal and restore.

Jinki turns his head towards him and the lights of his mask are now a deep blue. “For him to die.”

Minho’s breath hitched. “…What?”

Jinki sighs. “So that we may harvest the energy he has been given, and in turn, share it amongst us all. The energy has…killed him. Weakened his body. Rotted the container of his soul. He…” Jinki looks back over the procession. “He will be at peace. Soon.”

The ones in the mask like Jinki’s raise long gilded staffs in the air, and the moment the young boy’s eyes flutter closed, they bring them down against the earth with a solid, reverberating thud.

Wails. Loud, agonizing, sorrow heavy wails filled the cavern, the sound dancing along with a blueish-green mist—one so very familiar in hue and consistency to Minho. Like the energy coils of Z.E.U.S. It settles over everyone and the wails stop.

Jinki turns around and begins to leave. “Peace is all we have.”

They continue like this for weeks, months. Minho spends half of his time tending to his fields. At the end of his shift, instead of returning to his pod, he returns to Ünder, Jinki waiting patiently by Z.E.U.S. to charter him underground.

It’s odd that no one has noticed his absence. A gift, he tells himself, to be so unnoticed. A pang of regret that he is so unforgettable.

But no in Ünder. Minho is affection starved, so the laughter, and the hugs, and the kisses across his forehead from elderly Ünder citizens fills, his heart in a way that maintaining Z.E.U.S. never did.

He meets Jinki’s Acolytes, who appear at his side at random, whispering things in their ruler’s ear before flitting away. “Jonghyun,” he would announce when one with a deep red mask would appear. “Taemin,” when one with the blue mask popped up. Kibum, gold. Ara, purple, and Jungah yellow.

One day Jinki grabs his hand—Jinki never tells Minho to follow him, he always grabs his hands and leads—and the travel further and further underground until they reach a reflection pool. “I wanted to give you time…I,” Jinki pauses, and frowns, “I wanted you to believe me, just me. To trust me. But when you’re gone and I’m thinking of you, I realize that you’re a scientist and I’m the ruler of a forgotten city that shouldn’t exist—and proof. You need proof.”

Jinki suddenly pulls his hand to his face and bits down hard into his thumb. Minho gasps because what in the hell was he doing. A sharp canine digs into Jinki’s flesh, drawing forth a large droplet of blood. “Here. Proof. This will give you proof,.and he holds his hand over the pool.

Minho reaches out grabs him before the blood can hit the water, instead splatter on the stone lip of the pool. Quickly, he pulls Jinki’s arm into his lap before the fool can try again. “You’re right. I need proof.”

“Right,” Jinki says, determined, his mask flaring orange as he tries to untangle his hand from Minho’s. “So, I’m going to show you.”

Minho doesn’t need magical, mystical reflection pools. “Show me your face instead.”

“With this pooI I can—what?”

“You want me to trust you, and I do. But you haven’t trusted me enough to show your face. I believe you. I’ve been coming here for months and I…” He gestures to everything them. “I believe you.”

The mask flares a deep blue, one so deep it almost looks black. “If…if I show you my face, will you help me?” Jinki takes a step closer. “Help us?”

Minho thinks of the old lady who made him a bracelet out of twisted moss just because she liked the way he smiled. Minho thinks of the young boy who died and his mother and father who’d cried, even as they received his energy back into them. He thinks of how Taemin’s mask is brightest right before he retires to eat, or how Jonghyun sings behind his when attending his duties, the colors fluctuating shades of crimson as he runs through note after note. Kibum likes to tinker with his settings so that sometimes his gold adopts hints of rose. Ara’s laugh, Jungah’s compassion.

He thinks of Jinki who is doing all of this for his people. How he would do and give Jinki anything. But Minho has lived a life where give and take is mandatory. He doesn’t want to demand Jinki take off his mask, he has made the decision to help regardless. But he wants to see. Because this want is selfish, adorn-born, and full of longing.

“I will.”

Jinki’s face and body is a disaster. A long line extends from the tip of his nose, over his lips, and down his neck, the skin pink and shiny and long healed. His right arm is a prosthesis, pieces welded together from scrap metal, glowing circuitry he’s scavenged from discarded Corp PTUs, covered with synthetic skin. The lower half of his jaw is a patchwork of scar tissue—rendered this way when the human body is exposed to a power that could rip flesh from bones.

It is the most beautiful disaster Minho has ever seen.

Floating Gaea—no one had scars. No one had anything to remember the nicks and cuts and bruises that life gave you. There were elixirs that annulled pain within seconds, medicines that healed within moments, technology that extended life for centuries.

Jinki is a testament to survival. Jinki is older and wiser than anyone, anything, he has ever met. He is everything that Minho has ever wanted.

And Minho reacts to this, reacts with every atom and molecule, every infinitesimal thing that has been boiling and hissing and foaming and yearning under his skin ever since Jinki reached out to touch him.

Minho is touched starved. Affection starved. He gets piecemeal from the citizens of Ünder. Touches here, laughter, and empathy, and concern, there.But it leaves him hungry, ravenous, craving for more.

So, Minho kisses him. A chaste thing, his lips pressed against the other’s. And it is enough for Minho. Jinki taste like serendipity. A shudder runs through him so powerful that the only thing Minho can do in the wake of it all...is cry.

“I—will help you. But I’m scared. I’m terrified. What—” he pauses when Jinki attempts to wipe away his tears, only for more to fall. “What happens if I help you? Am I surrendering the people of Gaea to destruction? Will I ever see you again once you have what you need?”

Jinki holds Minho away from him. “You think…I approached you because you have something I need?” His laugh is tender, but it was still laughter and Minho stiffens. “I could have picked any one of your peers. But I wouldn’t have been kind, Minho. I am not kind. I would have invaded their minds, like I did with yours, drove them to madness, manipulated them into doing what I want. I only need a few of the fields dismantled. Stasis. Homeostasis. That could have been done without even revealing my presence to them.”

“Why didn’t you?” Minho whispers. “Why me?”

“I came to you, asked you, because I wanted you. You. To understand me. To know me.”

“Not because I’m important?”

“You are not important.”

Minho stiffens further, tries to pull from Jinki’s grasp, but some fereal, primordial flashes in Jinki’s eyes, something possessive and his grip is like stone. “You are not important in the way they’ve trained you to value yourself. They think you are important because of what you can do for them. I know you are important because of who you are. Because I’ve learned you. I’ve peeked into your soul and found nothing wanting. You aren't important. You are invaluable.”

Minho looks down, tears still falling from his eyes—his face is probably all red and splotchy. “What happens after I give you the access codes?”

Jinki squeezes his hand. “I will dismantle certain portions of the generator. Only for a short time. I don’t want anyone from the sky to suffer. I could if I wanted. I could destroy the whole thing, indefinitely, but I am not, and I do not want to be, that person.”

“What was this all for, if you were only going to do something temporary?”

“Because this is about peace. I will offer your leadership what they refused us. Kindness. I will demand a solution that helps, not only Gaea, but all of us.”

Minho doesn’t understand how Jinki can be so brave, so fearless. Gaea is Gaea because it is powerful. The weapons they have, the resources…

“Aren’t you scared? What if they don’t want to help? What if they try to hurt you?”

Jinki’s smile is a bit sad. “It is not a question of not wanting to help. They will. It is not a question of them trying to hurt me. They can’t. Gaea will either allow me to rule Ünder as I find necessary, or I shall be forced to rule both land and sky.” Two hands skim up Minho’s arms, across his shoulders, to clutch his neck in a possessive grip and bring Minho closer. To where they are sharing the same breath. Jinki returns Minho’s kiss and it is nothing like Minho’s chaste thing. It leaves him breathless and consumed and utterly ruined. “And my hands are not gentle, Minho,” he whispered.

When Jinki returns to Minho, he and his Acolytes are covered in blood.

Minho wants to feel horror, he does, but when you’ve been isolated from something for so long, you begin to grow numb to its existence. He only feels a faint melancholy that Floating Gaea was not wise enough to listen.

“It’s only the blood from one person,” Jinki rumbles as he and his Acolytes float around Minho, now back in his suit. The suit itself now feels claustrophobic, like he wasn’t meant to spend most of his waking hours trapped in it, harvesting energy from a place he rarely got to enjoy.

“Come, Minho. We have an announcement to make.”

Jinki stands before his millions. They look up at him like he is the sun, a sun they can no longer remember. Minho absorbs his heat, thinking of the many fields he could plant if Jinki were his sun.

“Floating Gaea is no more,” he says, his voice soft with the authority of command.

The crowd rips into a frenzy, and Minho is confused. They’d left Floating Gaea as it was.

“And,” he says, as he surveys those below him “Ünder Forgotten shall no longer exist after today.”

This time the crowd greets him with silent confusion.

“I have spoken with the Gaeans. When they refused to help, I showed them my unmatched power and the limits of my benevolence. I exacted this cruelty for a purpose. As so, I have assumed leadership of their floating palace.”

Shouts rise up from the crowd, a cacophony of anger and sadness, variations of “You’re leaving us?” “You said you would fight for us! For Ünder!”

Jinki lets their anger swell. His Acolytes move forward as one unit, towards the edge of the bluff, but Jinki holds his hand up, calling them back to his side.

Minho is surprised at their viterol, having only seen the brightness in all of them, but maybe, just maybe the darkness was in them all, all along. For if you are forced to live in the shadows, you very well may become one. “I have,” Jinki says, eventually. He doesn’t yell, but his voice carries over his people with the power of a ferocious roar.

They quiet down. They tip their heads back. They listen.

“Ünder Forgotten will no longer be called Ünder just as Floating Gaea will no longer be called Gaea, for I will rule both. And they shall be one. Domain. Our land shall be called Domain. And we shall never want for energy, food, or life again.”

The crowd is a monolith of shock, mouths hanging open, tears welling in eyes. Then there is shouting, happy hoots and ecstatic cries, this time with shouts of old Ündean. “Jinki, kyvernítis! Ruler! King! God! Theós! Kyvernítis, Kyvernítis, Kyvernítis!”

“And,” Jinki steps back, holding his hand out to Minho.

Minho frowns but steps forward, nonetheless, use to Jinki’s silent commands that feel less like demands but an ushering onto the right path. “I can find no one else as worthy to rule over our Domain with me, then our savior.”

The crowd is frenzied now “Sotíras! Minho, sotíras!”

Minho takes a step back, his eyes wild, his heart racing. “What—what are you doing?”

Jinki grins, then sobers. “I am asking you to rule beside me. Both land and sky.” He pauses, then removes his mask in the darkness of the overlook. Minho can see the tears in his eyes, and the affection he has for this man feels more radiant and more powerful and more potent than The Great Light. “I’m asking you to be with me.”

“You want me? I am...nothing. Nothing,” he hisses.

On Gaea, Minho was important because of what he did.

Here…

“You are everything, Minho. And now,” Jinki paused to look at the new Domain citizens below him. “You are a King.”

Jinki chokes, obviously not expecting that answer. He looks at Minho with wide, honest eyes, mouth agape in a slight ‘o’. He’s blushing, a grossly embarrassing pink over his cheeks and he knows there’s no way he’s going to talk his way out of this one. He tries anyway. “What--what are you talking abou--”

It’s a mistake, a horrible mistake, when he finally looks at Minho, sees the stack of papers in his hand and realizes it was a script, he was reciting a scri--

He looks like the wind has been knocked out of him. Minho swallows, eyes wide, blinking slowly. “Why do you--why do you look like that.”

Jinki shuts his eyes tight, prays that this is all a dream but he knows he’s not that lucky. He opens them, tries for a level-headed composure but it’s pathetic, at best. “You look like you already know the answer to that question,” he dead-pans, attention focused on the patterns of the wood floor.

“Hyung,” he murmurs, almost like a plea, as if that’ll be enough to fix what he’s just done. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Jinki states, still avoiding his eyes.

Minho pauses, brows furrowed. He can feel his eyes on him, can practically see the concern them, like this, somehow, is all his fault. Minho doesn’t move, though, doesn’t say a word. Jinki decides for him.

The baby murmurs quietly at their feet, tucking its chin underneath the many blankets in the carriage.

“I’m sorry,” Minho chuckles, resting his chin on Jinki’s shoulder. “I couldn’t resist,” he whispers quietly in Jinki’s ear.

“Yeah yeah,” Jinki rolls his eyes, smiling amusingly before regaining his composure. “We should call the police.”

“Yeah, we should,” Minho agrees, picking up the carriage and carefully bringing it inside their apartment. He places it on the coffee table in the living room, sitting on the couch soon after, Jinki following suit.

"The more I look at it, the cuter it gets,” Jinki grins, leaning over the sleeping bundle.

Minho laughs quietly then, glancing at Jinki in amusement. “It?”

“Do you know what gender it is?” Jinki playfully retorts, nudging his shoulders against Minho’s.

Minho pauses for a moment, peering down at the rosy-cheeked little bundle. He begrudgingly nods his head. “Touché.”

“In any case,” Jinki sighs, placing his hands on his knees. “Let’s hope it doesn’t wake up crying or something like that–” Jinki adds, getting up and banging his shin squarely on the table in front of him. 

Cue the crying. Cue the exasperated look Minho sends him as he cradles the baby in his arms and rocks it gently, blatantly glaring at Jinki’s silent apology.

“Shh shh,” he cooes, rocking it back-and-forth in his arms. The crying slowly quiets, Minho pausing to look at the big, round eyes staring squarely up at him. “I think it’s a girl,” he smiles, bringing her closer to his chest.

“And why do you say that?” Jinki questions, peering over. 

Minho shrugs, “She just feels like one. I mean,” he continues. “We could check.”

“Right, yeah,” Jinki nods, feeling embarrassed for the both of them. “I can’t believe we just realized that now.”

“Hey, at least we did,” Minho reasons half-heartedly.

Jinki  quickly, carefully peels away the covers and checks. He nods an affirmative. “Yep, your instincts were right. It’s a girl.”

Minho sits down then, watching as her fingers curl into his shirt. He pauses, eyes thoughtful. “I wonder why they left her.”

Jinki sits down beside him. “I couldn’t imagine why you’d ever want to”, he says, laughing quietly as the little one takes hold of his pinky. “Why would you ever want to let her go,” he murmurs.

Minho looks at him, the corner of his lips turning up. He presses a lingering kiss to his temple, Jinki smiling up at him in amusement. “What was that for?”

Minho kisses him again, capturing Jinki’s lips this time. He feels him lean into it, reflexively moving closer, sending butterflies to his stomach. “I love you,” he whispers against his lips, their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you, too,” Jinki beams, pressing a chaste kiss to Minho’s lips before pulling away. 

Silence settles comfortably between them, Jinki leaning on Minho’s shoulder.

He can feel the nervousness bubbling at the back of his throat, the way his thoughts rush back to old memories, memories of--where they--

Maybe--

“Jinki.” Minho says, a calm seriousness to his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember when we talked about,” Minho pauses, swallowing. “When we talked about adopting?”

He can feel how Jinki tenses up against him, Minho quickly regretting ever mentioning the words. “Nevermind,” he quickly dismisses, placing the baby back into the carriage. “Where’s the phone--”

Jinki grabs his arm, fingers wrapped securely around his wrist, stopping him in his place. “Wait.”

Minho sits back down, watching Jinki patiently. Jinki’s fingers intertwine with his, a reassuring smile across his lips.

“I remember, talking about it,” Jinki starts. He looks down then, mumbling the next few words. “And how I reacted about it.” Minho squeezes his hand, urging him to continue, Jinki smiling in appreciation. “But I, I can see why, why you’d want one. I mean, want to adopt.”

Minho nods quietly, smile careful. 

“Well, I mean, I always have, but I guess seeing the real thing in front of us, having it practically be given to us.” Jinki pauses, chewing at his lip, brows furrowed. “I don’t know why it feels different. Or maybe I’ve changed.” He looks over at the baby once more, watching them quietly with those big, innocent eyes. “I was thinking, why don’t we call the police tomorrow? I mean, it’s Christmas day, and I would rather not--” I’d rather not leave her like that.

Minho nods once more. “I’d rather not, too.” He takes Jinki’s hand into his own, thumb rubbing circles into his skin. He brings it up to his lips, kissing his fingers softly, eyes never leaving Jinki’s. “I love you.”

Jinki laughs shyly, making feeble attempts to pull his hand away. Minho won’t let him. “You just said that.”

“You keep making me want to say it,” his lips run over Jinki’s cheek, nose, eyes. “Over and over.”

“I know,” Jinki mumbles, wrinkling his nose. His are cheeks warm. “I need stop doing that.”

Minho chortles, letting go of Jinki’s hand to place them on his cheeks. “I love you,” he says once more, looking Jinki straight in the eye. He kisses Jinki on the lips. “And there’s no way you’re going to stop me from saying that. I love everything you do, everything you are.”

It only takes a second for Jinki to kiss him, open-mouthed and breathy, fingers curling at his nape--

Only to stopped by the sweet, shrill sound of the baby before them, long-forgotten.

“Is it bad that I forgot--”

“Yes. But I forgive you,” Minho teases, bringing her in his arms once more. “We were ignoring her,” he murmurs, gently poking her nose. She laughs at that, grabbing for his fingers.

“You know she’s probably gonna keep us up all night,” Jinki says, deadpan.

“Probably.”

“Hey, how are you,” Kibum’s voice is muffled and scratchy through the receiver, Minho placing it snug between his shoulder and ear.

He shrugs, as if Kibum could see it. “I’m fine,” he says, his fingers deftly chopping vegetables for stir-fry. It’s a lie, and he knows that, but he doesn’t want to deal with pity right now.

“Fine enough for me to come over?” Kibum pries, voice a little sing-song, and he knows he’s just trying to be comforting, but the tone rubs him the wrong way, Minho grimacing at the sound.

“Please don’t talk to me like that,” Minho sighs, scooping the ingredients in his hand and throwing them on the pan. The stupidity of it hits him too late, specks of oil spattering over his hands. He curses under his breath, quickly running his hands under cool water.

“What just happened? Are you okay?” The worry in his voice makes Minho’s chest tighten, but he’s angry more than anything. He’s tired of hearing that voice. He closes his eyes.

So tired.

“I’m fine, Kibum,” Minho says again, but the pain lingers sharply on his hands. He sighs. He’ll have to go to the store now. “I just burned myself, that’s all,” he explains, gingerly stirring the pan with a spatula.

“Are you sure? Do you want me to come over? I can bring some medicine and--”

“Kibum,” Minho interrupts, sharp and cutting.

It takes a few minutes for him to respond, Minho internally cursing at his harshness. “I’m sorry, I--”

Minho sighs once more, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Kibum.”

“What?” he asks, caught off-guard. “Oh--oh okay I’ll--

His voice is small.

“--I’ll call you tomorrow, then.” The line goes dead.

Minho finishes up with the rest of his cooking, downing his food in a matter of seconds. It’s tasteless, anyway. Everything’s been like that lately.

Minho winces, stretching his arm just a little too far, the burns stinging painfully. He looks at the discoloration, the pink flesh standing out starkly against his tan skin. 

He grabs his keys and heads to the nearest drugstore.

“--Shit,” Minho curses, the man accidentally grazing his burns, knocking the medicine out of his hands in the process.

“Oh, sorry--” he apologizes, noticing the burns seconds later. The stranger grabs his hand, rubbing around the marks soothingly, Minho’s stomach turning at the touch. “Are you alright?” he asks, warm brown irises looking up at him with genuine concern.

Your eyes.

“My eyes?” the man asks, Minho realizing he’d said the words out loud a second too late.

“Nothing,” he mutters, quickly looking away. He pulls his hand away too, bending down to pick up the burn cream soon after. The stranger follows, crouching down beside him.

“Hey,” he says, and Minho looks up. He’s smiling at him, it’s small and careful and Minho strangely feels like it’s just for him.

“You’ve got the wrong cream for that,” he gestures, snapping Minho out of his thoughts. “Here,” he says, taking it out of his hands. “I’ll show you the right one.”

“--What’s your name?” Minho finds himself asking, as the man’s eyes flitter through the aisle.

“Oh--my name?” he asks, pointing to himself. He smiles again, that terribly heart-wrenching smile that Minho’s starting to fall in love with. 

“It’s Jinki. Lee Jinki.”

Jinki’s eyes linger on the man across the bar, sighing dejectedly before turning to face Kibum. “What happens if he’s not gay? And I end up accidentally putting the moves on this poor, naive straight boy?”

“Then you do,” Key concludes, “And then you’ll apologize and walk away and that’ll be that. Or maybe he’ll call you a faggot in the process and walk away from you. But either way you’ll come out mostly unscathed.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Well I am. And I can’t stand watching you pine over this guy for the past hour. So go,” Kibum says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him in the stranger’s direction.

That does, close to nothing, however, Jinki scurrying back and sitting beside Kibum, staring at the glass between his hands. 

“You’re terrible.” 

“Yeah, I know. I’m too scared, and I know that. But knowing isn’t going to magically make me change my ways now is it? So please, Kibum, there’s no point in discussing this and watching you get frustrated over me yet again so let’s move on,” Jinki rants. His head hurts from all the thinking.

“But he’s so hot,” Kibum whines, looking over Jinki’s shoulder, eyeing the long fingers wrapped around the stranger’s glass as he takes a swig. “Oh my god look at him right now he’s just drinking beer and he looks so damn good doing it.”

Jinki turns immediately, much to his dismay. Honestly, I have no self control, he thinks, watching the way the man’s Adam’s apple moves with every gulp. Jinki swallows, but shakes away the thoughts and focuses on winning this stupid argument instead. “Then you go for him!” He spits, the answer coming out harsher than he’d wanted.

Kibum notices, distinctly taken aback. “What? No. I’m not a dick,” he huffs, turning back to Jinki. “You like him a lot, more than you’re letting on and I know that.” 

Ah right, Jinki thinks, this is why I put up with him. “Yeah,” he agrees, tracing a finger around the lip of the glass. He bangs his fist on the table, the bartender eyeing him warily. “Shit,” he curses, pillowing his head on his arms. “I wish I wasn’t like this.”

Kibum frowns pitifully, clapping him on the back. “It’s okay, one day, you’ll have your--BITCH GET AWAY FROM HIM--YAH--”

Jinki snaps his head up, watching Kibum wave his hand angrily at the girl striking up a conversation with the stranger from afar. He can’t help but laugh, swinging an arm around his neck and leaning on his shoulder. “Fucking bitch” he hears him mutter under his breath, and Jinki’s smiles grows. But his eyes accidentally meet the stranger’s, mid-smile, and he feels his throat constrict. 

He looks away immediately. That was nothing. I’m over-thinking this. Yeah. That was--

He looks again. He’s still watching him, a playful smile painted across his lips.

“Well come on,” he interrupts, heading towards the door. “Let’s go out.”

Minho pauses, innocent eyes wide with fear. “Out?” The word barely comes out as a whisper.

“Yeah, there’s a party tonight.”

“But why do I have to–”

“You said you’d do anything to make me feel better,” Jinki pointedly recalls.

Minho falters. “Yeah, but–”

Jinki closes his eyes and sighs, whipping around. “I’ll make it up to you,” he idly says, winding his arms around his neck.

“Make it up to–” Minho starts, questioning eyes directed at Jinki’s. “But I thought I was doing this because I missed–”

“Yeah well, this is probably going too far so–”

“Hyung.” Minho pouts, eyebrows scrunched together in indignation.

“It’s cute when you whine like that.” Jinki smiles, pecking Minho on the lips. “If you do this for me, I’ll do that thing you like, when we get back.”

“But you hate that–”

“Yeah. Yeah I do. And it’ll probably be a very long time till I’ll ever consider doing it again so,” Jinki leans in, lips brushing over his ear, breath hot. “I’ll make it the best you’ve ever had.”

Minho swallows.

When Jonghyun opens the door in a clean-cut suit and tie, braced with the sight of Jinki dressed in an equally clean-cut suit and tie and Minho laced up in thigh-high stockings and an impossibly-short maid outfit, the first thing he says is surprisingly flattering, to say the least.

“You look hot,” he nods, before turning to Jinki. “Like really hot.” He sends him a high-five, cocky smile in place. “I’m so glad you took my advice.”

“This was your idea?” Minho gapes. His eyes slip past Jonghyun and into the room full of impeccably dressed, sophisticated-looking people and thinks this might be the longest night of his life.

“Why are you taking so long I can’t keep entertaining your guests for you–” Kibum scolds, before his eyes take in the sight before him, expression slowly changing from anger to complete shock.