38: Tacenda.

A year in one place didn’t necessarily make it your home, but Jisung couldn’t help feeling that way as his gaze got stuck on things a little bit longer as the day for leaving got closer.

The way up the mountain was rocky and made entirely of places where Jisung had at one point stumbled and gotten caught by Minho’s watchful hands. The tree he had crashed into while flying the first time was visible from the path.

He would never get to fly again, he realised. He would never get to use his golden core.

The wall of discipline still held only three thousand rules, although Old Man Jinyoung had tried to put more on it. Jisung thought about adding his own rules. In any case-- Minho had in no uncertain terms made it clear-- he would personally go hack the new rules off of the rock if they appeared there, so they hadn’t.

The wall where they first met with Minho was only a wall in the daylight, but Jisung’s breath caught staring at it. Chan had talked about assigning meaning to things that the first time the ‘fated meeting’ had been explained to him, and now he could not help looking at the wall and wishing meaning on it.

That’s where I met him, he thought desperately.  That place is forever the place where I met him.

But it was only a wall, built in the style of a dynasty Jisung didn’t know the name of, and he’d leave the Geumgangsan soon.

He looked for a sign that he should stay in the cold spring and the main hall and the cat meadow, eyes scanning for a message that wasn’t just his own selfish wishes about it. He wanted the universe to jump in again, and make the decision for him.

Minho’s house had been the worst offender at first, but after a year it was undeniably a home for them both. Minho’s white robes only took half of the space in the closet. Jisung’s notes on his side of the table were disorganised, spilling to Minho’s side. There were two kinds of tea in the cabinet, one strong and the other mild.

That was the corner where Minho had meditated obsessively when Jisung first came here and got badly on his nerves by sitting on his lap or talking endlessly. There, by the porch, was the cut on the floorboard that Jisung made when attempting to demonstrate his juggling skills with chopsticks and then accidentally used spiritual powers with it.

He looked at the doorway opening to the yard, the lush greenery all around. Nothing was cramped. Nothing felt like the ‘too much’ of his apartment in Seoul.

They’d played music on that porch so many times. The song that Minho had made. The one that was about yearning.

And Minho –

Jisung could not look at him. Could not look at him when every passing day those eyes turned a little more expressionless, the man closing off before his eyes. It was like neither of them could spend these last days apart, yet when they were together it felt excruciating.

It was strange to imagine what his life had been before Minho. Before there had been someone always there, giving him looks of exasperation and indulging him in the silliest of things.

He thought about the day just before he’d come here, how he’d been up for more than eighteen hours, going out to pick up more energy drinks to somehow manage to finish his degree. How that didn’t feel like a real thing anymore.

A business degree. The world he was returning to cared about business degrees.

He’d been relieved, he recalled. Just a little bit. For not having to go back to that, just for a while.

Here, there has been breathing space. And Minho.

Now the man was sitting there with him on the porch again, listening to the rain clinking against the roof. It was very green here. Much greener than anywhere he’d ever been before.

“Minho,” he said, breaking the silence.

Minho inclined his head, a show of listening. Jisung slumped more against the wall behind him, enjoying the fact that Minho did not tell him not to slouch. Never told him to do anything, nowadays, just let him be however.

“It’s nothing, I just like saying your name. Minho.”

“Jisung,” Minho replied. Unhurried. Like he too was saying it, just to say it.

“Minho,” Jisung said. “Do you remember when I first showed up, and I told you what kind of person you would be in the modern world?”

The man nodded.

“What I said then was true,” he stated. “But I don’t think I’d like you half as much if you were any different.”

Golden eyes gave him a look; gentle and frail.

The sound of rain was overwhelming. Jisung took that look and selfishly put it away inside him, shielded in the softness of his heart.

Jisung pulled himself up, then.

“Jisung?” Minho asked as he slipped back inside, all the way to his room.

He came back quick enough, holding a plastic bag with a logo of a corner store Jisung had visited a year ago. He sat back down, cross-legged, and peered in.

Three cans of energy drinks. They were definitely still good since those things had the expiry date of thousands of years in the future now.

Jisung tossed one of them to Minho, who easily caught it in the air and brought it closer to his face to inspect.

“Red Bull?”

Jisung snorted. “Yeah,  Red Bull. It’s an energy drink. Ah – has caffeine in it. It makes you feel more awake.”

“Mn. Jisung has mentioned this before.”

“Oh. I guess I have been telling everything there’s to tell about home, huh?” Jisung took a can as well.

“No,” Minho said.

“No?”

Minho’s long fingers twitched around the drink. He shook his head. “No.”

“Okay, Minho. So, look, you need to look now.” Jisung presented the can and put his finger under the ring. “You pull this up like so and-- it’s open.”

“It… makes a sound.”

“Oh, right, it fizzes. It’s just carbonated, don’t worry about it.”

Minho blinked. “I see.”

Then he opened his own, staring at the little opening as it foamed. The rain got heavier. Jisung toasted with his can, and then took the first sip of energy drink he’d had in a year.

“Oh, ew, it’s kind of too sweet now actually,” he said right after swallowing.

Minho had taken a sip as well, probably much smaller than Jisung's, and was now staring at the can with an odd expression on his face. He seemed to be unsure of his opinion. The man took another sip and frowned.

“Oh no, you like it, don’t you?” Jisung grinned, leaning towards him.

“I do not dislike it.” He took another sip. “It is strange.”

“Is it just that you like sweet things, Minho? That it doesn’t even matter how fizzy and caffeinated and other-dimension-y they are?”

Minho gave him a look. Jisung smiled and chugged half of the can down in one go.

“Ha, these things got me through the first years of college,” Jisung said. “Oh, I need to get a job. When I go back. I mean. I don’t suppose I’ll be studying again any time soon, not if I can’t pay tuition.”

“Jisung,” Minho said. “Is jewellery worth anything in your world? Gemstones?”

“Uh… yeah… sure... I mean, people like pretty things.”

“You have said our money would be worthless there, but perhaps you could take something with you that you could sell.”

Jisung put the drink down, eyes widened. “Minho.”

“I would not have you go back and live any part of that which you find difficult in your life,” Minho said.

He thought that selling expensive enough jewellery would at least get him started. Buy him enough time to get a job and not worry about it. And then, he’d just….

The reality of the situation was agony every time he thought about it.

His hands were shaking. It might’ve been because of the caffeine he hadn’t tasted in a year. It likely wasn’t.

“Yeah, that’d probably...yeah. I think that would work. Emeralds are expensive, I guess. Jades too, and you have necklaces made of those here, I’ve seen them. Hyunjin or Yehi probably knows people who would buy those.”

“Jisung. I apologise for not being able to help more.”

Jisung snorted a humourless laugh. “Minho, do you know, I was miserable when I came here. I was at my breaking point. One more tug and I would’ve snapped. This year has been – I’ve been so happy. I’ve been through all kinds of other emotions too, but I was really just very happy here.”

“So even if it was only a year, and even if we may never meet again, I am so glad to have met you. I’m so glad to have known you, Minho.”

Minho had turned his face away, his jaw squared like he was gritting his teeth. He closed his eyes, exhaling very slowly.

“Jisung,” he said, and sounded pained. “If it worked, I would come with you.”

“Minho.” Jisung shook his head. “You are too good.”

He didn’t know how someone could be this kind. How Minho could still be this understanding, this giving. Maybe he didn’t love Jisung back, but he cared enough to say this.

“I am not,” Minho said. “It is Jisung who is too good.”

Jisung felt like arguing, but when he opened his mouth the other shook his head.

“I...before, I thought you were many things. Flighty. Unnecessarily contrary. Heedless of others and their feelings. It did not take me long to realise how wrong I was.” Golden eyes looked at him, so intense. “Jisung, you are the most selfless person I know.”

It was the longest Minho had talked to him in one go in a while, and for the entirety of it, Jisung felt himself holding his breath. How could Minho say these words? How was he expected to leave when someone so good thought such a thing about him?

He did not realise his grip on the can had tightened until it made a crunching noise. Jisung cleared his throat, turning away to blink the shine from his eyes as he placed the can down.

“Minho… have we not talked about this? My heart will die from this overdose of kindness!”

“It is exposure therapy.”

“Minho!” Jisung let out a surprised laugh, distracted from the choked-up feeling in his chest. “You can’t use my modern concepts against me!”

Minho gave him a look, something almost fond, but merely took another sip of his energy drink. Jisung tried to find it funny, then. That such a high-ranked, esteemed ancient cultivator was sitting on the porch of his old-timey house drinking Red Bull with the grace of a person holding a tea ceremony.

He really attempted to find the humour in it, but it was hard. This was something he wanted to hold onto so badly. So ridiculously badly.

Jisung took in a full breath of the rain-scented air, fresh and brisk. He put away his drink. Then, he closed his fist and extended it to Minho.

“Hold that for me?”

Minho blinked at him, holding out his own hand palm up, ready for Jisung to drop whatever needed holding in it.

So Jisung opened his fist and grasped Minho’s hand, pursing his lips together so as to not laugh, then failed miserably as Minho blinked at him, eyes widened.

When Minho made an attempt to pull away, Jisung tightened his grip.

“No, you opened your palm, that means you have to hold it,” he said.

Minho sighed, fond and exasperated and amused and all the things he always was when Jisung did these stupid little things. But he didn’t pull his hand away, and Jisung held onto it like it was his lifeline.

“I can’t believe you fell for it,” Jisung said. “You know, at one point back home I did that so much to my friends that they started having trust issues.”

Minho observed him. “Does Jisung intend to cause me trust issues?”

“No,” he said. “I just really wanted to hold your hand.” There was a slight pause, the sound of rain in the silence.

“I see.” Minho tilted his head. “You could have asked.”

Jisung huffed a laugh.“And face the devastating possibility that you’d say no? Unlikely!”

“Jisung,” Minho said, voice painfully honest. “I would not say no.”

Jisung could not face him, then. So he only squeezed the hand in his grip and felt it squeeze back.

The rain continued on, hitting the roof with heavy drops, and Jisung held onto the warmth of Minho’s hand in his.