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“A surety rose in me, lodged in my throat. I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.“ - The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
✵
"Who are you?" Seungcheol asks.
He can't see the man anymore but he can feel him, his presence like a weight on his awareness, always pulling, pulling.
A touch on his shoulder, a breath near his ear.
"Yours,"
And there, in the space between sleep and waking, Seungcheol hears him laugh.
He wakes up alone.
✵
Seungcheol has always been able to see ghosts. It’s not usually a problem. It’s not even something he always thinks about.
Or it wasn’t, until now.
He dials the number on the old, creased business card in his hand, flipping it back and forth in his fingers as the phone rings.
The Society of Paranormal Research had contacted Seungcheol when he'd graduated high school and tried to recruit him. They needed people like him, people that could see the dead.
The Society hunted ghosts, kept them under control and out of sight from everyday people.
He's always known about the Society, but he never wanted anything to do with them until now. Ghosts had never bothered him, had just drifted past him, stuck in the patterns of their old lives.
Jeonghan appeared slowly around Seungcheol's new apartment, a sad sweet ghost with a beautiful face that Seungcheol occasionally saw out of the corner of his eye.
In Seungcheol's presence, he got stronger, appearing more often.
Jeonghan wasn't like any spirit Seungcheol had ever dealt with before. Jeonghan could see him, for one.
The first time he'd looked up and seen Jeonghan in the mirror, staring back at him, he'd been so afraid. The strangest part though, is that Jeonghan had looked just as terrified as Seungcheol, just as confused by his presence.
✵
After that first time, though, Jeonghan had just gotten stronger, and the first time he spoke, Seungcheol had yelped. He's not proud of that. Jeonghan is still teasing him about it.
"You've been able to see ghosts your whole life," Jeonghan says, sitting on his kitchen counter, kicking his feet. "And I say hello to you and you're screaming like a baby."
"You're not supposed to be able to see me," Seungcheol says, exasperated, stirring his food on the stove. "You're not supposed to be able to talk, either. Or, I don't know, be so annoying all the time."
"I've always been an overachiever," Jeonghan says, tilting his pretty head to the side and smiling.
"It's not funny," Seungcheol grumbles, "It's freaking me out."
Jeonghan giggles. The sound isn't like any of the other sounds that Seungcheol has associated with ghosts his whole life. It isn’t haunting, or hollow, or eerie. It's cute.
✵
The man the society sends is small and good looking, his face serious.
“It’s considered inhumane,” Kyungsoo says, watching Seungcheol’s face carefully, “for someone with your abilities to live with one of them. You make them stronger, then you take it away. It’s kinder, they say, to leave them be, let them fade naturally. Or to get rid of them.”
Jeonghan cuts the lights.
Seungcheol had seen that coming, and he’ll swear later that he only jumped because he hadn't been exactly sure what move Jeonghan would try.
Kyungsoo chuckles dryly.
"I've been in this business a long time, kid," he calls to the room. Seungcheol winces. Jeonghan's not going to like that. "You're not going to scare me off."
The lights come back on. Kyungsoo holds his arms out to Seungcheol in a gesture that says "see!".
Seungcheol frowns. Kyungsoo's eyes lock on something behind Seungcheol's head. Seungcheol sighs and takes a drink of beer.
Seungcheol watches Kyungsoo's face fall, then crumple. The lights flash out again, and Seungcheol can see Jeonghan behind Kyungsoo, bent over the back of the couch, whispering rapidly in Kyungsoo’s ear.
He can't see any details in Jeonghan's figure, just the blackness of his outline against the light from the window behind him. He's a shadow, a shade, and he sounds horrifying, demonic.
Seungcheol can't make out the words that he's hissing in Kyungsoo's ear. But they're obviously affecting Kyungsoo, frozen stiff and scowling.
And then Jeonghan is gone and the lights are back on.
Kyungsoo stands immediately, adjusts his shirtsleeves and leaves without saying goodnight.
Seungcheol sighs, dropping his head against the back of the couch.
"He was trying to help," Seungcheol says to the empty room.
Jeonghan scoffs. He's by the windows now, staring down at the street below. Seungcheol watches him for a moment, then puts his drink down and crawls down the length of the couch to sit closer to the window.
"What did you say to him?" Seungcheol asks. Jeonghan turns, moonlight on his face. He smirks, and it's cruel. Seungcheol's breath hitches.
✵
Seungcheol doesn't see Jeonghan again for four days.
"I'll tell you everything I know if you promise not to call those stuffy assholes again," Jeonghan says when he reappears, startling Seungcheol while he's doing the dishes. He jumps, dropping the bowl he was washing back into the soapy water in the sink.
"Why can't you just walk into a room, huh?" Seungcheol says, turning the water off and rounding on Jeonghan, crossing his arms angrily. The effect is somewhat ruined by his purple rubber gloves, but he sticks with it, frowning slightly.
"Because that's boring," Jeonghan says, vanishing and reappearing right in front of Seungcheol in the time it takes him to blink. He's so gorgeous this close that Seungcheol can't think of a clever retort, just stares at the gentle swell of Jeonghan's bottom lip, the shine in his dark brown eyes, the two lines that appear between his eyebrows when he focuses his attention on Seungcheol. "And besides. You're so cute when you're scared."
They sit on the couch and Jeonghan tells Seungcheol what he can remember of his human life. He’s been a ghost for such a long time that the details are blurry now. He was a nobleman’s son, an army general, an expert fighter. There had been a man, one he’d loved. A blacksmith with gentle hands and a smile that charmed anyone who saw it.
“He died,” Jeonghan says, his tone sharp and decisive, “He died a long time ago. I forgot that for a while, but I remember now.”
Seungcheol comes closer to Jeonghan, holds out his hand, but Jeonghan ignores it. Seungcheol folds his fingers down again.
“There’s a striking similarity. Between the two of you,” Jeonghan says, “When I saw you for the first time, I thought-”
Jeonghan stops, but Seungcheol understands. He sees Jeonghan start to get lost again, his eyes filling with tears, his hands twisting in his lap.
“You’re, really old though,” Seungcheol asks, and Jeonghan scowls at him, wiping at his eyes, “So why do you look, I don’t know, modern?”
"I'm me," Jeonghan says, sighing, "I know who I am, I remember most days. There's a sort of concentration of me-ness, like, here." He gestures around his body. "But there are blank spaces, too. Appearance is one of them. Seeing people how they really are is tricky, and the human mind is so strange."
"If I focus, I can appear how I want," Jeonghan continues, "But usually the imagination of the person who sees me fills in those blanks. So I'm wearing whatever clothes your mind put me in."
Seungcheol blushes fiercely at that and Jeonghan raises his eyebrows.
"Why did you ask?" Jeonghan says, grinning like he's caught onto something and he doesn't plan on letting go. "What am I wearing?" He gasps, looks up at Seungcheol with mock outrage, "Am I naked?"
"No!" Seungcheol yelps. “You’re in like, casual clothes.”
To be more exact, Jeonghan is in a white linen button down that would drop down to his thighs if it weren’t tucked into the front of his rolled khaki shorts.
It makes him blush, for some reason, to learn that he’s been imagining Jeonghan like this, so comfortable and soft. Vulnerable.
"Can you show me?" Seungcheol asks, tentatively. "What you looked like, I mean. When you were alive. Can you show me?"
Jeonghan is quiet for a moment.
"Yeah," he says, "I can. I might freak out though, just so you know. It's a lot to bring everything back."
"You don't have to," Seungcheol rushes to say, "Please, don't, if it's going to hurt you."
"It's okay," Jeonghan says, kinder than Seungcheol ever heard him. Gentle. "I can handle it. I want you to see me how I was."
Seungcheol doesn't know how to respond. It feels bigger than he knows what to do with.
For some reason Seungcheol can’t explain, Jeonghan’s clothing is the first thing he really focuses on.
The jacket of his hanbok is lavender-colored silk in two layers; the bottom layer darker, thicker, and the top layer sheer and gauzy. There are delicate patterns stitched into the front in thin silk thread.
And then he looks at all of Jeonghan. Seungcheol holds his breath. He’s never seen anything so beautiful.
Jeonghan, alive, holding himself like the nobleman he was, chin set in a hard line. His hair is long and black and held half-up with a simple black ribbon at the back of his head.
Jeonghan had told him he’d been a skilled swordfighter and Seungcheol had laughed, but he can see it now.
Jeonghan makes eye contact with him and looks at him curiously, like he doesn’t recognize him at first, and then his face falls. Seungcheol realizes with horror that it’s the same face that Jeonghan had made the first time he’d seen Seungcheol, the awful recognition of the man he loved, the one he’d said was dead.
Seungcheol reaches forward but Jeonghan jerks away from him, tears brimming in his eyes, and then he’s gone.
✵
That night Seungcheol reads article after article online until he finds a jeogori with a similar design to the one Jeonghan was wearing.
The image is from a museum exhibit, and the caption tells him that it’s a recreation of authentic early Joseon Dynasty hanbok. Fourteenth century. He has to reread it a few times. Fourteenth century.
Six-hundred years.
He scrolls back up to look at the hanbok again.
Jeonghan’s was prettier, Seungcheol can’t help but think. Thicker silk, the dyes more natural and muted, stitches painstakingly placed.
✵
Jeonghan’s gone two weeks this time.
Seungcheol can't see him, but he feels the shift on the couch pillows.
Between commercials, he sees Jeonghan reflected in the black of his tv screen. He's sitting, cross-legged, at the other end of the couch. He's facing Seungcheol, eyeing him suspiciously.
"I'm not him," Seungcheol says, just to make that clear as soon as possible. He can’t handle seeing Jeonghan cry again.
"I know," Jeonghan says, quietly. He sits there in silence, chin on his knees, limbs curled close to his body, for a while.
It's eerie, prickles at his mind, that he can see Jeonghan's reflection and not Jeonghan.
"What are you watching?"
He turns his head. One moment Jeonghan is not there, and the next moment, he is. A flickering film reel.
Seungcheol had forgotten just how beautiful he was.
✵
"Tell me about him," Seungcheol asks. He's too drunk, and it's after midnight, and Jeonghan's been invisible all day, which usually means he's moping.
He's here now though. Seungcheol can feel him. Can always feel him.
Kyungsoo had sworn it was impossible, but Seungcheol can smell him too.
Jeonghan smells like a struck match.
Seungcheol's laying on his bed, where he's been since he got home and stripped his clothes off, tugging his shirt over his head and kicking his jeans off at the same time, feeling trapped.
Jeonghan's in the doorway.
By the window.
At the foot of Seungcheol's bed.
"Why?" Jeonghan asks. Seungcheol looks over at him. His thoughts feel shaken loose, scattered.
"He must be pretty special," Seungcheol says, "For you to wait all this time."
Jeonghan surveys him, unblinking. Then he's gone. Seungcheol groans, letting his head flop back against the mattress.
He should have kept his mouth shut.
He hauls himself out of bed and feels his way to the bathroom, brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face.
When he climbs into bed, he's alone. When he rolls over to face the wall, he's not alone anymore.
Jeonghan sighs, propping himself up on one elbow so he can look down at Seungcheol on the pillow.
"Give me your hand," Jeonghan says. Touch me. Make me real.
Seungcheol frees his hand from the sheets, offering fingers towards Jeonghan. Jeonghan takes it, that first brush tingling like always, and places Seungcheol's hand on his waist.
Jeonghan takes a strand of Seungcheol's hair between his thumb and forefinger, and tucks it back into place.
"You look just like him," Jeonghan says sadly.
"I know," Seungcheol says, licking his lips, "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Jeonghan says with a soft smile, "It's not your fault."
Seungcheol moves closer on the bed with a soft rustle of sheets. Jeonghan rests a hand on Seungcheol's cheek and he can feel it, slightly cool but there.
"You're not, though," Jeonghan says, "I can tell. You're you."
"Is that a good thing?" Seungcheol asks. Searching Jeonghan's face. He's solid now, color flooding into his brown eyes, pink filling in his mouth.
Pink on his cheeks.
"Sometimes," Jeonghan says. And it sounds like a dare.
Seungcheol comes closer, head resting on the same pillow now, almost nose to nose. Jeonghan raises his eyebrows, a teasing grin tugging at his mouth.
It drives him crazy that Jeonghan is able to do that, to give in and not give in at once. To act like he's doing Seungcheol some great favor by letting him close, all the while they both know that he could vanish in an instant if he really wanted to. That he's staying here for himself too.
Seungcheol is starting to sober up, and he's aware now of just how very naked he is, and how close Jeonghan feels.
"I can hear you, you know," Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol's grip tightens on his waist and Jeonghan feels so real, skin and bone and muscle. When he breathes, close, Seungcheol can feel it on his mouth. "In the shower."
Seungcheol's stomach drops.
"You try so hard to be quiet, don't you?" Jeonghan says, sliding his hand down to the side of Seungcheol's neck. "Is that for my benefit?"
Seungcheol doesn't move an inch. Just closes his eyes and gasps when Jeonghan presses his long fingers into Seungcheol's pulse point, surely feeling the rapid beat of his heart.
"Because, jagi," Jeonghan says, "If you really wanted to do something for me, you'd be louder."
Seungcheol kisses him, fingers clenching around the fabric of his shirt. Jeonghan lets himself be pulled close, wrapping his arms around Seungcheol.
Kissing Jeonghan is unlike kissing anyone else. It's less, somehow, but also a whole lot more. His lips buzz pleasantly with an almost electric hum as Jeonghan licks between them.
Seungcheol keeps kissing him for as long as he can, sliding his hand up the back of Jeonghan's shirt, holding him close.
Jeonghan is quick and dirty though, and he nips at Seungcheol's lips, tugs on his hair and presses a thigh between his legs until he's hard and begging.
"Can you?" Seungcheol doesn't know how to ask this, his hips rolling up, pressing his dick against the soft give of Jeonghan's thigh. "Can you-"
Jeonghan pulls his hair, tilting his head back and surveying him with cold dark eyes.
"I can," he says, "Is that what you want?"
Seungcheol nods frantically, chasing Jeonghan's mouth again.
Seungcheol fingers himself open on his back while Jeonghan watches from between his thighs.
When he can't wait any longer, he pulls Jeonghan down into a kiss and begs for it.
He holds himself open with trembling fingers as Jeonghan angles his cock against Seungcheol's entrance and slowly sinks inside.
Seungcheol groans, wrapping his arms around Jeonghan's back. Already he feels so full, feels Jeonghan everywhere inside of him, splitting him open.
Jeonghan kisses him fiercely once he's fully inside. His hands are low on Seungcheol's hips, the grip tight and bruising, pressing them closer together.
Seungcheol hooks his legs around Jeonghan's back and Jeonghan rocks into him, over and over and over again until Seungcheol is completely ruined, wholly desperate.
Seungcheol comes, untouched, his wrists pinned to the bed as Jeonghan grinds his cock deep inside him.
"Mine," Jeonghan says when he comes, thrusting back into Seungcheol.
Seungcheol nods.
What else can he say? Who else does he belong to but him?
✵
Seungcheol watches Jeonghan sleep, his forehead smooth of any worry lines.
Jeonghan doesn’t need sleep, but he’s been acting more human recently, napping occasionally on the couch instead of vanishing entirely for hours on end.
He thinks about Jeonghan waiting here for generations for a man that isn't coming back.
He wonders what would happen to him, in Jeonghan's place. If he'd do the same. If his love would fade with time.
Jeonghan's hand twitches in his sleep, fingers unfurling towards Seungcheol.
He lays down next to him, taking care not to disturb the blankets too much.
Jeonghan's fingers curl, then uncurl.
Seungcheol thinks he understands.
That he could have all the time he wanted, all the time in the world, and it still wouldn't feel like enough.