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Jeno’s hands start to feel numb first, his fingers freezing up around his cup until it slips free, spilling alcohol over the shoes of the other partygoers he’s standing with.
He’s deaf to their complaints and groans, because his hearing starts to ring next. Then his balance goes, forcing him to stumble to one side, gripping the back of the sofa next to him for support. His vision is blurry—it’s way too warm in here. How much has he had to drink?
He swerves his way to the door—thankful this is a house, not an apartment, and he comes straight out into the little garden in front of whoever’s place this is. He can’t feel the temperature of the night air around him, or the ground beneath his feet.
In fact, he feels like he might fall to dust, be blown away by the gentle night breeze, and never be seen again.
He’s on his knees in the grass, desperately trying to feel the blades between his fingers. It’s like his fingers are running right through them, an avatar clipping through pixels. Incorporeal.
Where is he? What’s going on? He can’t see straight—he can’t hear. In his skewed vision, his hands look like they’re glowing.
Where is he going?
“Got you!” a voice says, right as everything snaps back into clarity, and Jeno intakes a breath like he’s never breathed before. “This is why time usually doesn’t try to race against me—it knows I’m faster. It was having a little bit of fun with me today, but you know I wouldn’t lose out when you’re the prize, Jeno.”
“W-what?” he says, righting himself and blinking his vision back. A man stands in front of him, young, but with a head of stylish silvery hair. He’s wearing a bizarre outfit—a long purple overcoat paired with a very open, very loose, very silky lace-up shirt, like he’s part Victorian gentleman, part slutty pirate.
“I’m glad I found you in time,” the man says sweetly, taking Jeno’s hand to help him up from the grass. “Now you have to come with me, we’re still racing against time. And I know you humans tend to be so very slow.”
“What?” he says again, but the man simply takes him by the hand and pulls him up. He lets himself be guided away from the house party—it’s not like he wanted to be there anyway. Plus, this guy knows Jeno’s name, even if Jeno is too drunk to recognise him.
Well, actually, he doesn’t feel that drunk now. He’s barely had half a cup of whatever they were serving there. So what hit him all of a sudden?
“Where are we going?” he asks, as they speed walk down a street that gets darker the further they go. And he’s not that drunk, and he still doesn’t know who this guy is. Maybe he should be pulling away.
“Sorry, I couldn’t triangulate you properly. Hard to do when you were disintegrating from time and space itself, across your whole timeline—this was the point where you were most intact, because you’ve never been further away from Renjun than now, at—” the man turns abruptly, taking Jeno’s face between one hand and squishing his cheeks. “How old are you? You look young.”
“Twenty-one,” Jeno says through squashed lips.
The guy breaks out into a smile and shakes his head adoringly, cooing like he’s looking at a new-born instead. “So young! I’ve never known you this young. You’re so cute.”
“Sorry, but who are you?”
“Hm, that’s right. You don’t know me yet. That means you haven’t met the TARDIS either, right?”
“What?”
The man turns around with a smile that slightly unnerves Jeno. He’s really starting to consider running the other way, when he realises they’ve come to an obstacle in the street. It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks like a big, blue, rectangular… box. Standing ten feet tall, probably no more than five feet wide, Jeno can make out a set of windows in the blue wooden door facing him that are glowing with a warm light, and the words POLICE BOX running above the doorframe.
“Alright, let’s do this quickly then, shall we? My name is Jaemin, and this is the TARDIS. I need you to come inside for the next bit, so suspend your disbelief for a moment to humour an old man, would you?” The guy—Jaemin—swings open the door with a wink. “Come on in.”
Inside the blue box is a well-lit, clean, white room, wide and tall with a walkway leading to some kind of waist-level, circular console. It has random buttons and switches and levers that look like they belong in a sci-fi movie, and there are circular panels on the walls that glow a soft white light. Running through the console, a huge tube full of wires and something thick and glowing and slowly hissing draws the attention to the centre of the room.
“Sorry, girl, I know we rushed here,” Jaemin says, skipping up the walkway to put his hands on the console and look up at the huge tube—the brain? the computer?—running through it. “But it was worth it, look, we saved Jeno from obliteration!”
“What…” Jeno says, confusion compounding, stopping to stand in the middle of the walkway, staring around the room. “How is it… so big?” The room must be at least ten times the size of the box on the outside.
“Magic. Science. Whatever you want to call it. Cram a few dimensions into a mainframe, infuse it with a time-cortex, keep her regenerating every few centuries, it’s amazing what you can do. Are you feeling the need to run around my ship and test her size on the outside compared to the inside? Because as I keep saying, we really need to get going.”
“This is a ship?”
“Yup!” Jaemin says brightly, pushing a lever, and the huge brain running through the console begins to whir and move, as the whole huge room makes a wheezing noise and judders underneath him. The room tilts, but doesn’t fall, like… the box has taken off.
Maybe somebody laced the hot dog he had earlier with something hallucinatory. None of this makes any sense.
“Is it—um, flying? Where are we going? Who are you, really?”
The whirring noise grows, wheezes, then cuts out as the room comes to a standstill. Jaemin approaches him, and puts his hands on Jeno’s arms.
“Jeno, I know this is very confusing, but I have to say, you’re doing wonderfully so far.” He speaks so gently, his tone so affirming, Jeno does feel comforted. Even if he thinks he’s just been kidnapped by a strange sexy pirate-gentleman in a box-spaceship. “Now I’m going to say something that’s going to make you panic, but don’t worry. I’ve got it all handled.”
“Are you going to say I’ve been erased from all of time and space again?”
“I’m afraid you—wait, how did you know that?”
“You’ve said that like, twice already.”
“Oh, I didn’t know I said that out loud. You don’t seem as worried as I expected.”
“Because I obviously haven’t been erased from time and space. I’m still here, aren’t I? I think you might just be a bit…”
“Crazy?” Jaemin says, nodding seriously. “I am. I definitely am. But I’m also right, so very often, Jeno. You need to pick that up quickly.”
His hands leave Jeno’s biceps to take a hold of his left forearm, and hold it up.
“Currently, you only exist because of this.” He taps on a bulky watch strapped to Jeno’s wrist, fastened with a thick band of something like leather, but with a malleability he doesn’t recognise to be actual leather. The watch face is covered by clear, thick glass, but the watch inside has five hands, one of them ticking very quickly around the face of the watch. Above the watch face, set into the thick band, is a small keyboard in a language he doesn’t recognise. It only has nine buttons, and below it, three small dials.
“Oh?” he says, surprised. He hadn’t realised he was wearing the watch this whole time. “When did you give me this?”
“When your existence, past, present and future, was about to be obliterated in someone’s front garden. Don’t take it off, or you’ll cease to exist and everyone you’ve ever known or will know will forget about you.”
Jeno withdraws his right hand from touching it. He’s inclined to believe the sexy man in the spaceship—he certainly felt like he was about to be obliterated from the earth back there, and it’s not like anyone from the party followed him out to check on him.
“Okay…” he starts, taking a deep breath in and exhaling. “So you came to save me from being obliterated from time and space.” He has so many questions he doesn’t know where to begin.
“Yes,” Jaemin says, kindly, but also like he’s talking to a small child. “But I haven’t saved you yet. The vortex manipulator will only keep you intact for so long—we have work to do.”
“What? What do we need to do? And why am I being obliterated in the first place? And who—who exactly are you, really? I still don’t—I don’t understand.”
Jaemin only smiles and taps his nose. “That’s the question, isn’t it? You’re going to find out shortly, so I won’t waste time telling you that part. As for the obliteration, you have Renjun to thank. I told him holidaying in Apalapucia was only going to be a disaster. The wildlife there eat time-space for breakfast, you see, and will draw it from anything they can get their teeth around. Of course he managed to get bitten by a very potent magra—little snake-like thing, very sneaky—which isn’t only taking a little nibble, but a whole string of his lifeline.” He huffs, like it’s a small annoyance, and Jeno feels kind of dizzy.
“So Renjun… is…”
“Poisoned, but he’ll be fine. I left him in the capable hands of the Sisters of Plentitude—some of the best nurses this side of the universe, I swear. But we didn’t get him help quickly enough to stop the lifeline being eaten up, hence why I’m here.”
“The part of his lifeline it’s eating is… me?”
“Yup, you got it! Wow, catching up so quickly, I’m so proud of you!” Jaemin pinches his cheek as Jeno stands there, wide-eyed. “Naturally, you’re the yummiest bit.”
“Um. Are you sure that’s me? I haven’t even seen Renjun in…”
“A year? Longer? Yes, there’s a reason this is the only point I could reach you. You’ve never been further from Renjun than right now—physically and emotionally, at different colleges, Renjun trying to find himself back in China…” Jaemin sighs wistfully and shakes his head. “You’re so young. When I know you, you’re twenty-seven, and married. Well, nearly married. I’m very excited for the wedding. I love dancing at with all the aunties at weddings.”
“M-married?” This is the craziest part so far—in the future, he’s almost-married to his best friend?
“That’s why the magra is eating you up, gorgeous! You’re his closest, most loved person. The most delicious part of a lifeline. But I’ve got you now, so all we need to do is go in and clean the wounds—put you back into Renjun’s timeline, you see? That should fix you right up, heal the memories, make you whole again, etcetera.”
“I think I need to sit down.”
“Nope, no time for that!” Jaemin takes his wrist, and presses his thumbs into the watch face, which begins glowing softly. “What I’m doing right now is infusing the vortex manipulator with some of Renjun’s psychic residue. The psychic residue is going to read your own memories, and match them with Renjun’s, to take you to the most crucial points along your shared timeline. Since you haven’t got together yet, I’m guessing most of them will be in your future, so just go along with it when you get there, okay? The important part is wanting to remember your life, and the rest will come naturally. Remembering is the main thing that makes us who we are, aside from loving—memories are the most unique thing we have, after all. Just go with whatever feels right in the moment, and that should naturally fix the timeline as you go.”
“How will I remember them if I haven’t lived them yet?”
“Don’t you want to remember yourself? Your life together?”
“Of course I do, but it hasn’t happened to me—”
Jaemin puts a finger to his lips. “You’re thinking about this all wrong. You have to want it. No more linear thinking—only determination, and common sense. Alright?”
“I am speaking common sense—”
“Human common sense, I’m talking cosmic common sense. You’ll have some soon, once we start hopping through your timeline, I suppose. I’ll be able to see everything from here, so don’t worry, I can help you out if anything goes wrong. But I have full faith in you! You’ll be twenty-seven by the time we fix this, so I hope you don’t get time-travel sick. What am I saying? Of course, I know you don’t. You’re a perfect little time-passenger.” Jaemin grins at him, before twisting one of the dials on the watch and stepping back. “Good luck, Jeno!”
A flash of light swallows him, and Jeno is sent hurtling through space and time.
-
He lands in his own bedroom. The one back home, not at college.
So much for space and time travel.
“Jeno?” Renjun’s voice says from beside him, and he sits up.
They’re both laid across his bed, staring at the stickers he put on his ceiling as a kid.
“Renjun?” he says, blinking as the memories settle in. Graduation, moving home, working café shifts. Renjun coming home too, and Jeno realising he lives for the times they spend together. Like right now.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asks, looking sulky.
“Um… say it again?”
Renjun sighs and rests his head back against Jeno’s blankets, put out. “I asked you how your date went.”
He’d gone out with a girl who left him her number a few days ago. It had been horribly awkward—the only reason Jeno had gone was to see if it would help him get over Renjun.
“It was terrible.”
Renjun raises his head again then, looking over at him. Jeno thinks he looks a little bit too pleased, and flops back down to avoid his gaze. “Really? How so?”
“We had nothing in common. I’m too awkward for dates. I don’t get how people go on them.”
“You can’t be too hard on yourself. I know how you get when you’re nervous. You need to get to know someone before you date them, I think. That will help you feel a bit more comfortable next time.”
“That’s going to be hard. I don’t have any friends apart from you.” He says it before thinking, going pink when he realises the implication.
“Maybe you should go on a date with me next time, then.”
It’s at once the last thing he expected Renjun to say, and the one thing he wanted him to say. He and Renjun never talk about relationships or dating—the tone always turns weird when they do. Jeno had always thought it was because Renjun could sense his crush, and was kind enough never to go there.
“Really?” he asks, not sure whether he should be laughing it off or grabbing the opportunity while he has it.
“Yeah, really,” Renjun says softly, propping himself up on one elbow so he’s looking over Jeno. Jeno looks up at him with wide eyes. “You know how I wanted to do college in China to help me figure out where I wanted to be?”
“Yes?” He’d hated the idea—that maybe Renjun wouldn’t stay in Korea, that maybe his future lay somewhere Jeno wasn’t. Even if he hadn’t had much hope—or courage—for really being with Renjun the way he wanted to, he’d always imagined his future would have Renjun in it, one way or another.
“Being in China didn’t open up new pathways to me. It just made me miss things I’m used to back home.” He reaches out, places a hand on Jeno’s arm, and smooths it up and down, the touch light and warm. “It made me realise what I can’t live without.”
“What…” he swallows. Is Renjun saying what he thinks he’s saying? “What can’t you live without?”
Renjun’s hand stills, and he pulls his bottom lip inside his mouth. Their eyes meet, both searching, waiting for the answer to show itself.
“I realised that my feelings for you are more than they should be,” he says quietly. “And that I don’t want to go somewhere you can’t follow. I want to… Jeno, if you feel the same, which I think… I think you do, I want to be with you. I want to at least try.”
Jeno swallows. “You couldn’t tell I’ve been half-in love with you all these years?”
Renjun’s smile grows, radiant on his face, propping his head up with a hand in his hair. “I had an idea. ‘In love’ is a big phrase, though.”
Jeno groans, hiding his face with his arm, and Renjun laughs. “Is that a yes? I can’t believe it took you going on some random date for me to ask this, but I realised I’m letting you slip away by doing nothing. I have to be honest and say that I want you to be my boyfriend, or how will we get anywhere? You were never going to make the first move.”
“I had no idea you liked me!” he exclaims in protest, flinging his arm out again. It lands on the bed with a dull noise, and Renjun laughs at him again, reaching over to smooth some hair out of his eyes.
“Now you do.”
“So are we going to… what do you want to… shall we go on a date?”
Renjun eyes are crinkled, endeared. Jeno feels like he’s living a dream. “I’d like that. Where do you want to go?”
Jeno pauses for a moment. “Where is left that we haven’t gone already?”
Renjun’s hand trails down to rest comfortably on Jeno’s stomach. “We’ll have to go to all our usuals, just as a couple. It’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. It means I can kiss you at those places now.”
Jeno doesn’t know why he feels so shy at the prospect. He’s imagined it what must be hundreds of times. “Really?”
“Really,” Renjun says, with a small laugh, but it makes Jeno feel giddy inside. “God, you’re cute. I don’t know why I didn’t ask before.”
“I’m kind of still in shock that just happened.”
“I promise it did.” He leans in and leaves a kiss on Jeno's cheek. “See? Believe me?”
“Uhhh,” he says, brain going blank. “I think so. But you could make me feel completely certain…”
He trails off, tapping his index finger to his bottom lip, looking at Renjun’s as he does. This is the boldest thing he’s ever done in his life.
“Cheeky,” Renjun says, slightly breathlessly, but he smiles, and Jeno can see him considering it. Then he leans in, and pecks Jeno’s mouth, and they both smile at each other before starting to giggle.
“You really want to be my boyfriend,” Jeno says quietly, like he might break the moment it if he’s not careful.
“Yeah, really. But take me on a few dates first, and we’ll see if this works, okay?”
“Of course. Let’s plan the first one now.”
Renjun smiles, and when he lays back down again, it’s to sling an arm over Jeno’s chest, and burrow his face into Jeno’s shoulder.
This is crazy. Jeno has a boyfriend, and it’s the only boy he’s ever wanted.
-
He’s thrown back through time, landing on two feet in the TARDIS.
“You are the cutest little humans I have ever seen, I swear,” Jaemin says, coming up to Jeno to cup his face in both hands. He’s got the widest smile on his face—so wide he’s slightly worried he’s about to be eaten up. “It looks like this will go smoothly, right? You were able to act like you were in the moment well.”
“I did feel like I was in the moment,” Jeno says, looking down at the watch in confusion. It felt like this whole problem of his erasure from history was a million miles away, back there—like he really was living there rather than popping in for a short stay. Now he’s back here, the moment feels like a memory again.
“That’s okay, that’s good! That’s how it’s supposed to feel. Let’s get you ready for the next one.” Jaemin takes his wrist again, turning one of the dials carefully.
“If something comes up you shouldn’t be seeing, you’ll look away, right?” He’s eyeing up where the monitors on the TARDIS are showing a live feed of Jeno—Jaemin did say he would be watching.
Jaemin gasps, scandalised, drops Jeno’s arm and whacks him playfully. “Already getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you? Don’t worry, it won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”
Jaemin winks at him, before Jeno’s watch pulls him away again.
-
They’re in Paris, three years into their relationship, at the stage where they live together, travel together, and are considering adopting a cat together.
He’s learned that if there’s one thing Renjun wants in the world, it’s to travel, see beautiful works of art, try different cultural foods, and experience life in new and interesting ways. It forces Jeno—a dedicated homebody—out of his comfort zone, but it helps that the only thing he really wants in the world is to make Renjun happy.
So they’re in Paris, and Jeno has a ring in his pocket, and he keeps running his fingers along the edge of the ring box, feeling so nervous he can’t actually take in any of the historic and iconic works of art in the Louvre. Renjun is talking his ear off about most of them anyway, relaying details from the Mandarin tour guide headset he’d been delighted to spot at the front desk.
He keeps going over what he’s going to say in his head, trying not to mouth it out loud or Renjun will know something’s up. If he practises it enough, he won’t trip over his words, but he doesn’t want to let slip he has something planned, either. Renjun is so giddy about seeing the Mona Lisa, he’s sufficiently distracted, but he’s perceptive enough to catch on at the smallest hint.
It’s dark by the time they leave the Louvre. The fountain outside is lit up yellow, and Renjun marvels at it for a moment.
“That was amazing,” he says. “I feel so lucky to be here with you. Even if you don’t really care about anything we saw in there.”
“I care!” he huffs. “The Mona Lisa was very… Mona Lisa…”
Renjun laughs. “She was small, and we could barely see her in the crowd. But she was still amazing. That painting was made hundreds of years ago by one of the most iconic painters of all time, and we could go and see it with our own eyes. How many millions of people must have seen that painting? Isn’t it amazing that the human race can make things like that happen?”
“It is,” he says, as Renjun runs his arm through the crook of Jeno’s elbow.
The River Seine runs right along the Louvre, with the Eiffel Tower a short walk down the river. They’d agreed to go and see it at night, all lit up, earlier that day. So they set off that way without deliberation, strolling along side-by-side.
“It made me think about something in there, though,” Renjun says after a moment, looking out across the water.
“What’s that?”
“I think that a painting becomes even more beautiful once you know its history and meaning. There were so many paintings in there I recognised because they’re famous, but the guide was telling me all about the lives of the people who painted them, or who the paintings were gifted to, or what personal meaning they had to the artist. Understanding that made them more beautiful than just their aesthetic appeal. Do you understand what I mean?”
He hums. “I feel that way about people. You can see a person, and think that they’re beautiful. But the more you know someone, and you realise that they’re also kind, and bright, and strong, and giving, and thoughtful, and that they see goodness in all things. And when you can see those traits as part of them, it’s like they become written across their face. So that person becomes even more beautiful to you.”
“I think that too. You’re so handsome, but you’ve become even more so the longer I’ve known you. Especially since we started dating, and you’ve gotten better at expressing yourself… you are definitely more beautiful the more I learn about you.”
He buries his face in his scarf, tongue caught in his mouth. “You stole what I was going to say!”
Renjun laughs. “It can be true for both of us. I just wanted to thank you for organising this trip. I love you, Jeno. You become more beautiful to me every day.”
He intakes a breath, and stops along the path. The Eiffel Tower has just come into view, and this is the perfect place to do it, even if Renjun has totally stolen his thunder by saying something more lovely than he ever could, completely off the cuff.
“Renjun,” he says, pulling Renjun’s attention away from the glittering Eiffel Tower.
“Yes?”
He sinks down to one knee, and watches as Renjun’s face cycles through confusion, surprise, and delight. His hands are shaking as he pulls the ring box out of his pocket.
“You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever known, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You kind of stole what I was going to say, but, um… I love you. And I want to be married to you. Will you… will you marry me?”
He stuttered anyway. Oh well.
“Jeno,” Renjun says, all in a rush, but the smile on his face is beaming, even along the dark path of the Seine. “I would love to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He takes Jeno’s hands, and pulls him up, and meets him in the middle with a kiss. The ring box is cupped between their hands, and when they pull away, Jeno has to fiddle with it for a moment to get it open and present Renjun with the ring.
Renjun takes off a glove, and Jeno slips it onto his finger, and Renjun begins to giggle as he admires it twinkling under the light of the moon.
“I love you,” Jeno says again, watching the ring too. Renjun looks up at him, and meets him with a kiss again.
“I love you so much. I was really hoping you were going to propose on this trip. This is so perfect, baobei.”
Jeno feels all the tension leave him, and they start walking along the Seine again in perfect time. “You knew??”
“I saw the box in our luggage. Sorry, babe, but I didn’t peek, I promise.”
Jeno lets out a frustrated noise, and Renjun laughs, and Jeno can’t be too annoyed, really.
He’s made Renjun happy, and that’s all he wants to do.
-
The bright interior to the TARDIS makes him blink a few times, in contrast to Paris at night.
“That. Was. So. Cute.” Jaemin says, a strange growl to his voice. He’s sat on what looks like a desk chair with wheels, but with the arms and back of a plush armchair. His feet are up on the console, looking up at the monitor where he’s watching Jeno, a packet of what Jeno presumes are snacks for space-pirate-people in hand. “Seriously, I could eat you both up. Ooh, don’t you just love love!”
He swings his feet off the console, dropping the snacks on his chair and skipping along the walkway towards him. Jeno is still wearing his coat and scarf from Paris, and his hair feels longer, too—he really is speeding through years of his life at a time.
“We must be meeting you soon,” he observes, pulling up his sleeve so Jaemin can access the watch. “But things are moving so fast. What important moments are left other than the wedding?”
“You won’t see the wedding yet. You’re not married, remember? Renjun met me the night before, and we’ve been travelling since.”
Jeno freezes as Jaemin begins messing with the dials again. “Renjun… he left to go travelling with you the night before our wedding?”
“Yup!” Jaemin says, focused on the watch. He steps back and pats Jeno’s arm. “I travel in space and time, Jeno, the night before your wedding is as long as it needs to be.”
The answer isn’t as reassuring as he might think.
-
He appears… back in the TARDIS. But instead of standing on the walkway, he’s underneath it, with the main console above head height. He can still see around the room, but when two people enter the TARDIS, running along the walkway, he remains out of view. They wouldn’t spot him unless they looked directly down.
“Jaemin, get us out of here!” That’s Renjun, running in behind Jaemin, and Jeno stops short in surprise. The two of them are in traditional dress, and beyond the TARDIS doors, Jeno can hear the roar of something otherworldly and huge.
“I wasn’t planning on staying!”
Jaemin runs around the console, hitting switches and buttons, and the ship begins to shake and wheeze like before. Renjun grasps the railings along the walkway, and Jaemin remains impressively balanced as the whole room tips. Jeno grips one of the circular divots in the wall to stay upright.
“You nearly got us killed!” Renjun starts, the second the ship lands, stalking up to Jaemin.
“That’s not true. I was completely in control of the situation.”
“Oh yeah? So was this all part of the plan?”
“Actually, yes. The creature was made of space energy, Renjun. The TARDIS generates space energy when it takes off—I successfully caught her in our tailwind, and she travelled with us. The only reason she was rampaging around the town was fear—she didn’t know where she was or how to get off the planet. Now look.”
Jaemin gestures to a wall of the TARDIS, and Jeno steps back to get his own view of it. It opens up into a transparent material, like a temporary window into space—and yeah, they really are in space—where a creature that looks half walrus, half squid floats happily alongside the TARDIS.
Renjun stares at the way the huge animal swims among the stars. “So… you saved her. By baiting her into flying with us.”
Jaemin looks very pleased with himself, coming to stand beside Renjun at the walkway railing. “What did I tell you? I never do anything without good reason.”
Renjun turns to face Jaemin, places his hands on Jaemin’s shoulders, and leans up to kiss him.
-
When he next comes back, Jaemin is no longer the picture of relaxation. He’s standing up at the console, furiously typing something into one of the keyboards on his console, eyes trained on his monitor. He whips around to face Jeno when he materialises along the walkway.
“Why did you go there?” he asks, frown on his face. “That wasn’t right. You’re supposed to be travelling through your own life—your life with Renjun. You weren’t here for that. Were you? No, you weren’t. So why did you go there?”
“It’s fine,” he says, and it really is. It was a bit surprising, sure, but he and Renjun have an understanding. Renjun can go out to parties, or have a few drinks, and kiss other men if he wants to. The only rule is he has to tell Jeno about it afterwards, and they have to have a discussion about it if it becomes anything serious.
Renjun’s short-lived dates with Donghyuck was what brought in the Serious Discussion rule—Donghyuck realised he wanted something casual the same time Jeno realised he was too jealous to let Renjun see people without him. But the kissing rule still works well—it means Renjun can have all the fun he wants without dragging Jeno to parties he hates, but they both still come home to each other at the end of the day.
“Maybe that is an important part of our relationship,” he says, then immediately feels dread at the idea. As much as he trusts Renjun, that’s a big statement.
“No, no, that’s not right. It’s not. Also, this is about putting you back into the world via your shared life with Renjun. Why would you be witness to something you were never a part of? Why would it take you there?” He comes up to Jeno, tapping the face of his little watch carefully, frowning at it.
Jeno looks at Jaemin again. He doesn’t seem flustered Jeno saw the kiss, so Jeno must know about that in the future. Well, he must’ve known… or he will know… whatever, he’s sure Renjun tells him.
“Let’s try it again. Can you bring me back if something goes wrong?”
Jaemin nods, hesitantly. “I think so. Probably. Maybe.” He runs his hand briefly through Jeno’s hair, long and layered down to his nape at this point in his life. “I don’t like that I don’t understand. Not when you’re the one doing this.”
He swallows, trying not to keen into the feeling of Jaemin’s hand in his hair. “Let’s just try again. If something goes wrong again, we’ll reconsider.”
Jaemin nods, going back in to adjust the dials on his watch. “I’ll be right here, angel,” he says gently, running a hand along Jeno’s arm before stepping back.
Jaemin was so adamant just now that him kissing Renjun wasn’t important, but he’s certainly acting like he’s someone important to the both of them. He’d raced time to be here, to put Jeno back together, after all.
Before he can consider that further, Jeno is pulled through time.
-
When Jeno first meets Jaemin—the first first time—he’s at his bachelor party. It consists of a very strange set of people.
There’s his dad. Jisung, a childhood friend he’s known longer than anyone. Donghyuck, a good friend of them both who Renjun had been on a few dates with last year. His cousin, Sungchan. And Chenle, a colleague from his new workplace who has made himself fast friends with Jeno the last few months.
Nearly everyone here also went to Renjun’s stag, too—the only reason they’d decided to have two separate parties was because Renjun has a lot more friends and family than Jeno, and Jeno isn’t a big fan of huge gatherings. As it stands, they’re drinking and playing games in his dad’s kitchen, while Jeno is trying not to worry too much about his wedding tomorrow. Celebrating any harder might have given him a breakdown before such a big social event like a wedding.
He’d come close to calling the party off, in fact, since he and Renjun had a serious discussion about moving the wedding just a few days ago. As much as they love each other, neither of them feel excited for the fuss of it all. They’d decided against it, since it isn’t a real marriage anyway—not legally—and the expenses are too high to rearrange, not to mention explaining the decision to Renjun’s extended family travelling in from China. They’d agreed that the ceremony was a good chance to see family, and doesn’t have to change how they see their relationship.
So he’s at his own stag party rather reluctantly, wishing this all wasn’t such a big ordeal. Thinking about every little detail that needs to go right tomorrow—thinking about all the people who are going to be looking at him. Thinking about how he can do it all for Renjun, probably.
Then, the room begins to rattle and shake slightly, and a wheezing sound phases in, and then a big blue box is parked in his dad’s kitchen. Jaemin opens the door, giving the room a beaming smile and clapping his hands together.
“Jeno! So nice to meet you, Renjun has told me all about you. Hope you don’t mind me barging my way in here, but Renjun was absolutely taken with New Earth and asked me to pick you up. Not sure why that was the place that made him crack, out of all of them. New Earth isn’t all that different to your Earth. Anyway, he’s asking for you, and really it’s about time I meet you too, don’t you think?”
He takes Jeno’s hand, and Jeno finds himself standing, even though he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. But Renjun is asking for him, so he’ll go.
“Who the hell…” Donghyuck is saying, pointing at Jaemin.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have him back in time for the wedding! Well, I suppose the wedding will wait for you, since it’s your wedding. And you’re both here, on the TARDIS, so who’s going to get married if not you? But I’ll have him back in time anyway!”
Jeno is then dragged into the TARDIS, and his brain short-circuits because of the bigger-on-the-inside confusion, and Jaemin starts pressing switches and pulling levers, and the TARDIS heaves and rattles around him.
He clutches a railing and waits for it to stop, mind racing. When it does fall blissfully quiet again, Jaemin approaches him, much more carefully and gently, and with a sweeter smile on his face.
“Come on. I have strict instructions to bring you straight to Renjun. He thought you’d be intimidated by me, for some reason.”
Renjun knows him so well.
He opens the TARDIS door, to what looks uncannily like… Europe.
Renjun is right outside, sat on a bridge running over a canal, looking up and swinging his legs around as soon as he sees Jaemin and Jeno. He runs and embraces him like it’s been months, and Jeno holds him close, because he’s still not really sure what’s going on. But Renjun looks relaxed and radiant, and it’s been a while since Jeno saw him this happy.
“You came!”
“This guy came and picked me up in his… box… and now I’m here,” Jeno says, looking around. On closer inspection, while the buildings look European, the people here have… gills. Or tails. Or cat ears.
“Venice, New Earth,” Jaemin supplies. “I stand by it that there are more interesting places to show you, but Renjun insisted it be here.”
“Jeno doesn’t like to travel,” Renjun says, still plastered to Jeno’s side. “But he loves anime.”
Jeno flushes. “You brought me… to…”
“The future,” Jaemin supplies helpfully.
“The future… because the people here have cat ears?”
“Of course I did. See, you knew straight away, didn’t you?”
“Shut up.” He can’t help but laugh. “What the hell is going on?”
“Jaemin,” Renjun says. “I’m going to take Jeno for a walk, help him adjust.”
“Alright. Lovely. I’m going to go and speak to the Pope. He wanted some recommendations for entertainment channels in the local solar system if I was ever in this time period again. I’ll pop back after.”
“See you soon,” Renjun says, taking Jeno’s hand in his and waving Jaemin back into the blue box. They begin to walk away, and Jeno looks over his shoulder as the blue box heaves, whines, and disappears.
“He’s coming back for us, right?”
“I’ve actually not been dropped off by him somewhere before. But he’s a time traveller, how hard can getting the right pickup time be?”
Jeno looks around them, watching as a young girl with antlers runs past them.
“This is so surreal.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve been doing this for weeks, and I still can’t believe half of the stuff I see.”
Jeno squeezes Renjun’s hand in his, digesting that. “But you haven’t been gone for weeks.”
Renjun looks away then, biting his lip. “It’s a time machine.”
“So you met a stranger from space on our wedding night, and ran away with him?”
Renjun stops them in the path. “Okay, yes, but not like that. I know that doesn’t sound great, but you know I wouldn’t do that to you. The plan was always to come back.” He pulls on Jeno’s arm nervously. “I’ve missed you a lot. I just kept thinking that going back would mean having to face the wedding, so I’ve been putting it off. I didn’t mean to be away this long.”
“You’re dreading the wedding this much?”
“Not dreading, just—I feel so much pressure I could crumble under it. I know everyone we’ve invited is happy for us. I know this won’t even change much, because it’s not even legal. But it changes how I think of myself. Like a real adult, or something. I feel like I want to be young and free with you forever.”
“Not with Jaemin?”
Renjun tilts his head with a grimace. “I’m going to hear about this for a while, aren’t I?”
“You think I’m not going to forever remind you of when you ran off with another man without me? You could’ve at least introduced me. Where did this guy even come from?”
“I met Jaemin in a big Daiso. Seriously, it was when I was getting in some toilet roll, you remember? The same time you headed out for your bachelor party. But there was something weird about the mannequins in the Daiso, and I got caught up in a scuffle, and one thing led to another—and we saved the world.”
“From mannequins?”
“The aliens were making people into mannequins, okay? Jaemin was there to stop them. That’s what he does—looks after innocent people, travels the universe to discover civilisations in need. He’s a traveller, and a doctor, and a saviour, and an enigma, and he asked me if I wanted to come with him for a bit. And I—I wasn’t having cold feet, you know that. But I was so scared. It’s such a huge change, and I thought that going with Jaemin—getting away for a while—would help me find some breathing space, figure out if I was really ready. Because I’m so sure about you, Jeno, but I want to be sure this change is the right thing for us both.”
Jeno searches his face, steady. “And what did you find out?”
Renjun shrugs. “I still don’t know. I’m enjoying travelling so much that I haven’t thought about returning to my job and my chores and the huge big wedding we have planned. All I know is I’ve missed you a lot. That’s why I asked Jaemin to pick you up. It didn’t feel right to do this any longer without telling you. I’ve been thinking about it since day one—I’m sorry it took me this long.”
He sighs, deflating his whole body. “We can just move the wedding back if you’re not ready. I’m okay with that.”
Renjun runs a hand up Jeno’s arm. “I know you are. I know you would. But it’s okay, we don’t have to. I just want to follow this through for now, and see where it goes. I haven’t felt like myself in a while, honestly, and maybe I’m just not ready to grow up. But I want to try and find what it is I think I’m missing. If it’s nothing, then maybe I need to face my fears, take the leap and commit to a life of adulthood. Until then, I like this. Doing something so far away from my life makes normality feel like a luxury.”
Jeno stays silent for a moment. “So you want to take a break?”
“Not from you,” Renjun says firmly. “Just from the trappings of society. You know?”
Jeno looks out at the water, trying to take all that in. It’s a very Renjun thing to say—he has huge dreams, and beautiful ideas about the universe, and he’s always believed in aliens. He’s too full of life to be contained by his job, by a routine, by a society that lives by rote. He can see why this is a dream come true to him. “I see.”
“But would you be okay with that? If I stayed with Jaemin? And would you… would you stay with us for a while?”
“Why do you need me to stay?”
Renjun shifts his weight nervously, leading them over to a section of wall they can sit on. “The truth is, baby… I’ve kissed him a few times. And I think… it’s not serious yet, but I think it could get serious. So if you want me to call this off, I will. You’re the most important thing to me, and if you want to go back home and forget this, I’ll come with you. But I want to show you the amazing things he’s shown me. I want you to see what I see in him—I think you’d like him more than you expect. Even if just for a little while, I want to try doing this together, before we settle down.”
Jeno settles back against the wall, exhaling. In the space of about ten minutes, he feels like his entire life has been flipped upside down.
If Renjun is asking Jeno to be here—to come travelling in the most extreme way, across time and space with a stranger he’s just met—he must feel something serious beginning to grow in him, about Jaemin. Jaemin will inevitably come to a crossroads of where he meets their relationship, sooner or later.
Jeno could say the word here. He could tell Renjun to come home, and he would. He would get married to him tomorrow, and they would live in domestic bliss until they’re old and grey.
But deep down, he knows that’s not Renjun. He knows Renjun is a free creature, and if Jeno wants to love him, he has to let him dance with the world and travel the stars and feel what he feels. This is who he fell in love with—it would be wrong to try and cull him, to trap him into a life he dreads.
He loves Jeno—that’s all Jeno can ask for. So he’ll do whatever he can to make Renjun happy in return.
“I’ll try anything if it’s with you,” he says eventually, and sees the way Renjun’s whole body eases up and comes to life, his smile making Jeno feel like he’s struck gold. “But if it gets too much, I’m going to tell you. I might want to go home in two days.”
“Of course, baby, of course,” Renjun says, throwing his arms around Jeno’s shoulders from the side. Jeno reaches up to pat Renjun’s arm, heart hammering. What has he just agreed to? “We can go home and get married when we’re ready. But until then, doesn’t travelling the stars sound amazing?”
Jeno thinks he would rather get married than confront the unknown void of space. How is this less scary than a ceremony with friends and family? He’s nervous, but not as terrified as Renjun seems to be.
But all of this is about Renjun, really. And he was being honest, before—so long as he’s with Renjun, he’ll try anything once.
-
Jeno groans when he comes back to the TARDIS this time, but Jaemin seems much more relaxed. There’s something new in his look, though.
“That was more like it. I never knew you talked about me like that. Can’t resist me, huh?”
All this space-time travel is making him feel weary. “Am I supposed to feel exhausted like this?”
“Yes, it’s completely normal, your body is going through a lot. We must be nearly there by now, then we can go and pick up Renjun from Apulapacia, and run away together in my box. Sound good?”
“Can’t we go and visit him now? He hates being alone.”
Jaemin waggles his finger at Jeno from down the walkway. “No no baby, we need to finish this first. You have to remember you’re disappearing from his timeline because you’re the most important thing in his life, to him. If we go back now, with only half your shared memories restored, it will only confuse him more.”
“How come you can remember me, then? You’re not confused at all. Not even when I only existed as a twenty-one year old at a college party.”
Jaemin pushes away from the console, sidling up to Jeno with a cattish smile. “I’m over nine-hundred years old, Jeno. I’ve been travelling in time and space almost my whole life. I have a certain psychic resilience to changes in the timeline. I’ve had a big cosmic impact on the universe, you see, which means change happens around me rather than to me. I can remember, but no one else in the universe knows who you are right now.”
“Right,” Jeno says, though he doesn’t see at all. He’ll go with it. “Have you ever done this before? Restoring someone to their timeline?”
Jaemin gently picks up Jeno’s wrist once again, but glances up at Jeno’s face while adjusting the dials.
“No, actually, I haven’t. That’s why I’m worried about you—I know a lot of things, and I know how to do this right in theory. But I don’t like taking chances when it’s you.” He steps back, looking at Jeno intensely. “But you’re doing so well. We’re nearly there.”
-
Jeno materialises at speed, slipping, falling, tumbling down some kind of wide tube—wet and slippery, like a waterpark attraction, only the red lights and lumpy water makes him think he’s somewhere far more disgusting.
He lands on something soft, in shallow water, and sits up, coughing out drain water.
“Jeno? You okay?” Jaemin is here, somewhere. They’d been exploring the strange workings of a huge ship, large enough to contain cities, but floating through space with no engine, and a citizenship of people willing to forget their decisions at every democratic election. Renjun had disappeared not thirty minutes before, and he and Jaemin had been searching a corridor marked as unfit for entry in an attempt to find him.
They had found him in the surveillance room, tapping away at the tech in there. But Jaemin hadn’t spotted the man-sized hole in the floor in front of the surveillance room, and had fallen straight in. With his hand in Jeno’s at the time, Jeno had come tumbling after him. The last thing he’d seen was Renjun’s long-suffering expression looking down at them.
Well, at least he’s alright. He’s not going to be happy he’s been tasked with getting the two of them out of here, though.
So far, travelling with Jaemin has consisted of visiting underground tunnels filled with lizard-people, fighting a robot creature called the Daleks during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and visiting a windy, rocky planet full of angel statues that move only when you blink. Though he’s been terrified half the time, it’s sparked enough adrenaline in him to wake up a kind of childlike curiosity and excitement he thought he’d grown out of years ago. And Jaemin is funny, and he’s strange and knowledgeable and adventurous and kind. Jeno finds himself surprisingly comfortable with him, and it’s easy to forget how out of his comfort zone he’s in when he feels so well-adjusted so quickly.
It’s nice.
Or at least, he was thinking that until they ended up here.
“Surely this is food waste,” Jaemin is muttering to himself, on his hands and knees next to Jeno, feeling around in the shallow water at their feet. “But why is there so little of it? We should be drowning in it, with so many people on board. How are they disposing it, really? This floor—why is it spongy?”
He suddenly stands on two feet, and tests the ground with a light bounce, like a small child about to jump on his parents’ mattress and ruin the springs.
“Are we stuck in here?” Jeno asks, still sat on the spongy floor of the huge dark room. He’s already mucky, he might as well save his energy.
“You’re too much of a pessimist, Jeno. Don’t say we’re stuck—say, this is an opportunity for learning! Why would they have such a huge space for waste disposal, on a ship like this? No engine, no proper waste, but all this space for it? What kind of ship is this?”
“Why have a waste room at all? Why not eject your waste directly into space?”
“That’s littering, Jeno, there are recycle points all over the universe, you should put your waste in one of those.”
“Maybe they’ve just disposed of their waste, then, so it’s empty.”
The room rumbles beneath them with a groaning noise, and they both hold still until it passes. Then Jaemin frowns and crouches down again, placing his hands on the spongy floor.
“Oh,” he says, stilling. “I see.”
“You see?” Jeno asks, looking down at the floor with uncertainty. When Jaemin stands, he follows after him this time. “What do you see?”
“Alright, so the next word might be a little bit scary,” Jaemin says, turning to Jeno and placing his hands on his shoulders. “I need you to be in a relaxed place. Let’s take a deep breath in…”
“Jaemin,” he says, more pleading, and Jaemin gives in immediately.
“We are standing on… a tongue.”
“A… tongue.”
“A tongue!”
“So this is…”
“A mouth! Exactly! We’ve figured it out, gorgeous—the ship is built on a creature, that’s why it has no engine! It must be a star whale or something even bigger, to carry this much weight—blimey, I thought they were extinct by now…”
“Jaemin,” Jeno says, suddenly feeling a lot more unsteady on his feet. “We’re in a mouth.”
“Yes! Incredible, isn’t it? If this is just the mouth, I’d love to see the stomach!”
A rumble, like the one that had passed a minute or two ago, shakes them again. Jeno recognises what it is this time—digestion.
“On second thought, I think I can imagine the stomach.”
“I can’t believe it took you falling into this thing to figure that out,” Renjun’s voice echoes around them, and they both look up together.
“Have you been listening in this whole time?” Jaemin accuses the ceiling.
“The surveillance they have here is very totalitarian,” Renjun remarks. “I’m about to activate the star whale’s chemo-receptors. That should get you out.”
“Chemo-receptors?” Jeno asks weakly.
“Yeah, sorry baby,” Renjun says. “See you soon.”
Jaemin takes Jeno’s hand with a sigh, turning them to face the black hole at the end of the huge cavern.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Jeno asks tentatively. Distantly, the sound of a wave of water building gets rapidly louder.
“Yes, dear,” Jaemin says, closing his eyes. “We’re getting out the undignified way.”
The upended waste is more than enough to propel them up and out, into what must be some sort of overflow tunnel with a maintenance door at the end. But he lands hard on his back, and goes down with a thump and a groan.
“You alright, angel?” Jaemin says, crawling over to him. His hair is dripping wet with gunk, his clothes discoloured and dirty under the red light in the corridor. They’ve just been spat right out of a creature’s mouth and into a dark and dirty tunnel, but he’s still got that ever-present smile on his face.
At that moment, he thinks to himself, I get it. It’s obvious why Renjun has been quick to develop feelings for someone like Jaemin.
And that’s a scary thought in itself.
“I need a shower,” he says, turning over grumpily as Jaemin laughs at him. They stand up together, Jaemin with a supportive hand at Jeno’s back, and head back to Renjun together.
-
He lands back on the TARDIS walkway to see a tense Jaemin sitting in front of the monitor. He’s slow to look around when Jeno arrives, like he’s deep in thought.
“Did that throw you off?” he asks, stretching. He’ll be ready for a long nap after all this time travel.
“Yes,” Jaemin says, unhappily, standing and crossing his arms, facing Jeno at the other end of the walkway. “That wasn’t about Renjun. That was about you and me. Why has that come from his psychic residue?”
“He saw the whole thing.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t about you, your life.”
“Yes it was.”
“Your life with him, then.”
“It still was, I think.”
Jaemin eyes him up like that answer doesn’t satisfy him. He walks up to Jeno slowly.
“You’re really growing into yourself well. Most humans wouldn’t be coping as well as you.”
“I’ve figured out that it’s not really about time travel. It’s about Renjun. And me, and you. But mostly Renjun. And I know Renjun well, so I can handle that.”
Jaemin pats his shoulder in solidarity. “Now that’s the truth, if I’ve ever heard it.”
Jeno lifts his wrist dutifully, which makes Jaemin smile. “I’m still ready for this to be over, though.”
“Alright. Let’s get things moving. Not too much longer, and we can go and pick up your bride-to-be.”
“Groom. He’s my groom.”
“I know, I just like the sound of bride-to-be better. Alliteration is way more fun than gender roles.”
Jeno snorts, before time takes him once again.
-
He comes to in a very cold place, bundled up in a thick coat, Renjun similarly heavily covered by a padded coat next to him. Jaemin is walking up ahead, where they’ve just exited the warm TARDIS out into a freezing alpine tundra.
“You’re in for a treat,” Jaemin says, turning around to grin at them, walking backwards as he explains. He’s not wearing anything but his usual get up, skin still peeking through the loosely-laced flowy shirt he always wears. “There’s been a freeze warning, which means this is the height of winter on Darillium. People come from galaxies around to hear how the towers sing as Old Man Winter passes between them.”
“It’s so cold,” he says, gritting his teeth together. “Jaemin, it’s really, really cold.”
“Yes, dear, that’s the point. It’s the height of winter on a very cold planet.”
“Where are these towers, then?” Renjun asks, taking quick little steps to try and catch up with Jaemin, but their cold plodding can’t match the free skipping of Jaemin ahead of them.
“Further up this way. Come on!”
“Why are we walking there?” Jeno groans. “We have a machine that travels anywhere we want it to!”
“You try and fly her, then! She barely ever listens to me, I’ll have you know. Besides, it’s nice to take the scenic route like this, isn’t it? Look, you can see the frost flowers here. And the air is so pure, so clean—you have barely anything like this left on earth. You should be appreciating it.”
“I can’t appreciate anything if my fingers fall off,” Jeno mutters, out of Jaemin’s earshot, who is distracted by the frost flowers.
Renjun huffs a laugh, and Jeno feels pleased all his moaning isn’t completely lost on his companions.
“We won’t be long, okay? It should be worth it to hear the towers sing.”
“It better be,” he grumbles again.
Though he complains, he can’t help but smile as they watch Jaemin race ahead when a gap appears between the two mountains surrounding them. The pathway leads out to where the mountains quickly drop into the ocean, pack ice floating slowly over still seas. In the middle of their view, planted in the ocean, are two tall rocky spires. This side of the mountain, they find a reasonably-sized crowd of people from all kinds of alien races, chattering excitedly and clearly waiting for something. All of them are watching the spires expectantly—these must be the famous Singing Towers of Darillium.
“We should go up there!” Jaemin is saying excitedly, pointing at a rocky outcropping that, in Jeno’s opinion, looks like it could fall into the ocean at any moment.
“No,” he says, at the same time Renjun says.
“We’re okay here, Jaemin.” As much as he loves the adventure, Renjun can get fussy about things like the cold, and the breeze is ice cold here. At least being in the crowd gives them both a bit of cover from the weather.
Jaemin pouts at them both. “No fun, the both of you.”
“I don’t want to die,” Jeno says.
“You can go up there if you want, we’ll wait here,” Renjun compromises.
“Do you know how often this comes around? A year on Darillium is equivalent to twenty-two of your Earth years—”
“And you own a time machine,” Renjun says. “We’ll come back another time if we miss anything good.”
Jaemin pouts harder, grumbling. “You’ll never appreciate the beauty of being in the moment if you think like that!”
Renjun shoos him away with his hands. “Stop complaining, or you’ll miss it. Go get your place.”
Jeno laughs as Jaemin huffs and slips through the crowd to his desired vantage spot. It’s nice to have someone else to be nagged by Renjun with, he thinks.
Watching him go, Jeno ponders on that, shifting his feet and bouncing in place to stay warm. It’s so easy to accept Jaemin as part of everything they do, it’s become a blurry line of whether they are the ones travelling with Jaemin, or if Jaemin has joined them, become a part of what they are.
He’s lost track of time—it’s hard to say how long it’s been when days and nights don’t pass on the TARDIS, and when they travel to different planets and solar systems with different measurements of time and cycles around the sun. But he must’ve been here a few weeks at least, and already it’s hard to imagine going back to his life without Jaemin in it.
But how can they incorporate someone like him into their daily lives? They can’t travel space and time forever, can’t disappear from their families and friends and lives to live in dreams. But it’s hard to imagine asking Jaemin to come back and live with them, too, in their Seoul apartment, cramming in little human dates between 9 – 5 hell.
That’s a question for much further down the line, he supposes. He’s barely seeing the tip of the iceberg of whatever the hell they are, or are going to be.
For now, he watches Jaemin’s silvery head of hair pop up on the ledge in front of the crowd. He stands up straight, searching for them before waving their way, grievances apparently already forgotten. Renjun stands up on his tip-toes to wave back with a laugh, and Jeno waves back too, before Jaemin turns back to take in the sight of the two tall towers of stone stood in the ocean.
“I think we’re in love with Jaemin,” Jeno says, staring out to the towers after him.
Renjun looks around to him, and Jeno looks back. Renjun seems stunned for a moment.
“You think so?”
He nods. It’s simple enough, to him. More simple than he ever thought this could be. “I think so.”
Renjun exhales slowly. “I didn’t think you’d come around this fast.”
“Neither did I. But he’s Jaemin.”
“Yeah,” Renjun agrees, solemnly. “You get it.”
“Maybe everyone just falls in love with him.”
“Maybe. He’s nine-hundred years old, he must’ve brought other people travelling like this.”
“They’re not here now,” Jeno shrugs. “Good sign or bad sign?”
Renjun shrugs back. “Does it matter? We feel how we feel. What matters is what we do about it now.”
Jeno watches Jaemin strike up a conversation with some kind of cyborg person next to him. “We are crazy.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
They look at each other, and Jeno catches a twinkle in Renjun’s eye. He laughs softly, partially in disbelief, partially in relief they’re on the same page about this. What do you do when you’ve fallen in love with a nine-hundred year old charming alien from space who takes you on adventures through time?
Where can you possibly meet halfway with someone like that?
“This is insane.”
“Yep.”
“So, what do you think we should do?”
“I think he’s going to spook when we tell him,” Renjun says quietly, watching Jaemin stand against the expanse of ocean. “I think he loves people, but is secretly afraid of holding them too close. I think he’s had loss before, and doesn’t want it again.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t picked up any of that, and the idea of it suddenly grounds him.
“But I also think it can work, if he’ll let us in.” Renjun lifts his chin, and says the next sentence in a hush, as the crowd falls quiet around them; it must be nearly time for the towers to sing. “I think it’s worth a try.”
They share a look, and as they do, the wind picks up, so icy cold his cheeks feel like they’re burning.
Then, the towers start to sing.
It must be something to do with the way the wind hits the ice, between the mountains, with the position of the two spires—the sound isn’t a million miles away from the sound of wind chimes on a gentle evening, or wind whistling through buildings on a blustery day.
But it is far, far more beautiful than either of those things. It’s more than a sound—it’s the way the air resonates around them, making Jeno feel light, making the sound seem like a physical caress to the brain. It sounds like a thousand soft whispers in harmony—it sounds like the hum of angels you expect at the gates of heaven.
It only lasts a minute or two, and the crowd bursts into appreciative chatter when it’s over, and for a moment, Jeno struggles to recollect himself. Then Jaemin’s face appears amongst the crowd, smiling his beaming smile, and it all slots into place.
He is Lee Jeno. Tomorrow, he is getting married to his boyfriend whom he loves very much, only tomorrow hasn’t come for weeks now. He’s an office worker from South Korea, and a time-traveller. He’s a homebody, and now more cultured than almost the entire population of the Earth.
He’s an introvert in love with an alien infamous amongst the cosmos, known by none and by many at the same time. It all depends on who you ask, or what you ask.
Given the privilege, he and Renjun would like to know him the best, hold him the closest.
If he’ll have them.
-
Jeno walks slowly down the TARDIS walkway when he appears this time, shedding his thick padded coat along the way. He comes to a stop at Jaemin’s side, who is sitting staring at his monitors, hands tucked under his chin in deep thought.
“Still think you’re not an important part of our relationship?” he asks, and Jaemin stirs, standing up with a deep sigh.
“I can recognise that I’ve become a part of your lives. I wouldn’t have asked you both to come with me if I wasn’t prepared for that. But it’s not supposed to be this much.”
“Not supposed to be?” Jeno asks, tilting his head. “That’s different to don’t want. That’s different to isn’t. You can’t help where life takes you, sometimes, but you don’t have to fight it if it’s not a bad thing.”
Jaemin’s mouth is at an unhappy slant, and it’s not the playful pout of before. It’s deep concern.
“I think I know where you’re going next,” Jaemin says, putting his hand in Jeno’s to pull around the vortex manipulator. “The Singing Towers was just last week. There’s only one thing that’s happened since then which you both might consider significant. Last one, then we’ll fully have you back.” He adjusts the dials one last time.
“Can’t wait,” he says, watching Jaemin take a step back. “I’ll be a real boy again.”
That, at least, gets a smile out of Jaemin before he goes.
-
In his final stop along his lifeline, the three of them are walking through a misty city that feels like a quainter, cleaner London, with cobbled streets and wonky buildings along narrow paths. It’s also completely empty in the streets at night, and very quiet. He’s feeling the effects of being somewhere so very quiet, trying to quieten his steps as they follow where Jaemin leads, Jeno’s hand safely in Renjun’s.
They turn into what looks like a park, deserted, but moonlight permeates the thick fog that rests over the trees.
“Jaemin,” Renjun says quietly as they follow a path between the trees that leads to what looks like a lake, he’d guess. Hard to say with the fog hanging over it, but certainly a wide expanse of water. “I thought you said this trip was our wedding gift.”
“It is. What, you don’t like it?”
“It’s… not what I imagined,” Renjun admits, and Jeno stifles a laugh into his scarf.
“That’s because we haven’t got to the good bit yet. Have some patience, would you?” He navigates them to a bench in front of the lake, and pats the seat cutely to encourage them to sit. “Haven’t you wondered why the city is so quiet?”
“No night workers?” Jeno says, and Jaemin waggles a finger.
“Nope. The city would only be this abandoned if there were some consequence to being outside at night, right?”
Renjun slowly looks over at Jaemin, unblinking. “If you’re telling me we’re here to fight dictator robots or something on the night before our wedding—”
“Every night is the night before your wedding.”
“But this really counts, because it’s your gift for our wedding!”
Jaemin waves him away. “This is Kazran—the planet isn’t too dissimilar to yours, in a lot of ways. But there’s a key difference.”
“Which is?” Jeno prompts. Jaemin loves to put on a show about this stuff, and Jeno loves to indulge him.
Jaemin raises a hand to point out the fog hanging in front of them.
Jeno peers into it, looking for what he’s supposed to be seeing.
“That it’s foggy?” Renjun says, unimpressed. “We have fog on earth, you know.”
“It’s not fog,” Jaemin says, gentle and teasing, right as Jeno sees it.
“Renjun,” he says, and his fiancée looks around to follow his gaze.
In the fog over the lake, the shape of something large swims through it swiftly. The dark shape against the moonlit fog is almost comically specific—fins, tail, long body…
“Jaemin,” Renjun says, gripping Jeno’s hand in his. “Does this planet have… flying sharks…”
“They’re not flying. They’re swimming. But they swim in dense droplets rather than compact water. No more or less harmless than your sharks on Earth.”
“Yes, except we don’t usually inhabit the same spaces as sharks on Earth,” Renjun hisses.
As he watches, Jeno spots the figures of other sea creatures swimming along in the fog. A squid wriggling along over their heads, schools of fish high in the sky. Smaller fish darting by, a hand’s reach away. There are small, delicate figures slowly rising through the air a few feet ahead of them, and by peering hard enough, Jeno realises it’s the lilies from the lake trying to climb the fog.
“Ah, don’t worry. Sharks are harmless unless you provoke them.”
“Then why is the city abandoned at night?”
“Normal, human fear. It’s a majority human colony here. The people are afraid of what they don’t know.”
“Surely they would know sea life better than us, if it lives on the planet half the time,” Jeno says, reaching out a hand to gently skim along the top of a stingray, smiling as it passes.
“Good observation, baby,” Jaemin coos, pleased. “But no. Like I said, it’s not actually fog—the sea life here natively live in the clouds, and the clouds naturally sit much higher than yours do on earth. But something called the cloud belt was implemented fourty, fifty years ago? As a means of control, it lowers the clouds at night so the sharks and whales and other creatures of the deep roam the streets. The people here know little about aquatic creatures, which is why they fear them, which is what keeps them in at night. But it’s all harmless, really.”
“Where did the cloud belt come from, then?” Renjun asks.
“A powerful man here invented it to get rich. Single-handedly runs the seafood industry. Don’t worry—I gave him a good talking to.”
“So why is the cloud belt still in place?”
“It’s not. Well, it won’t be. This is the night I came to visit Kazran and give him a slap on the wrist. Well, it was several nights to be fair, and we went back and forth through time, and there was this lovely girl… anyway. The point is, I heard the sky is beautiful the first hour after the cloud belt is lifted. The night sky hadn’t seen the face of this planet in so many years, and the stars danced in relief to see it again. So I decided to come back and see it for myself.”
“So you’re somewhere back there…” Renjun says, turning his body to look back at the city around them. “Convincing some man to change the world?”
“As usual,” Jaemin grins.
“So we could go and say hi to your past self right now?”
“You could, but why would you want to do that? I’m the better version between us.”
“I just think that would be interesting,” Renjun says, and Jeno huffs a laugh at his curiosity.
“It’s still Jaemin,” he says, and Jaemin tips his head, wondering.
“Actually, you might be surprised by how much time can change people. Especially me. I had a different face back then, and everything.”
“Different face?” Renjun says, and Jeno turns away from the sight of the jellyfish overhead to look at him too.
“Yup,” Jaemin says, looking pleased with himself. “Had a few of those. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, you know?”
“Then we’d like to learn,” Renjun says smoothly, and Jeno’s gaze flits to the side of his boyfriend’s face, turned towards Jaemin.
Jeno swallows, tampering down the nerves in his chest. Is now the time they’re going to do it?
“Yeah?” Jaemin looks endeared by that prospect. “You already know more than so many other people.”
“We feel lucky you chose us,” Jeno says. “Well, chose Renjun, who dragged me along.”
“I chose you too, gorgeous,” Jaemin says warmly. “You’re a package deal. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Jeno feels giddy, cheeks heating despite the cool air of the night.
“Jaemin,” Renjun starts, confidence buoyed by Jaemin’s flirtatious, honest mood. He’s not always the most forthcoming, so Jeno agrees now is as good a time as any. “You know you’re invited to our wedding, right?”
“I certainly hope I am! I am not missing out on dancing with all your aunties and uncles and cute little cousins.”
“Well,” Renjun says, glancing at Jeno who squeezes his hand in support. “Jeno and I have been talking, and we think we’d like to go back for the wedding soon. Not right away, but… soon.”
“Oh. Okay,” Jaemin says, shuffling a little in his seat, looking confused. “I can drop you off whenever you want.”
“Well, that’s just the thing,” Renjun says. “We want to get married, and have our honeymoon, and if you could pick a nice planet out for us, that would be great…”
“Oh, absolutely! I know just the place! Have you got anywhere on earth with pink oceans?”
“…because we want you to come with us.”
Jaemin looks at him blankly. “Sorry, say that again?”
“We want you to join us on our honeymoon,” Jeno says, voice low and even.
Jaemin’s gaze flits between the two of them. “…Why?” he says, sounding mystified. “I know what you humans get up to on honeymoons, you know. I don’t do any of that.”
Jeno clears his throat while Renjun whacks him. “Not that, stupid! We want to spend time with you. We want you to be with us the way we’re with each other. I don’t know if boyfriend is the right word for someone like you, Jaemin, but whatever you want to be… we want to try that with you.”
Jaemin blinks a few times, brows furrowed. “Why would you ever want that?”
“Like he just said,” Jeno murmurs. “We love you, and we want to know you more. We want to make this serious.”
“Serious?” Jaemin mutters, like he’s trying to understand the meaning. “But I’m never serious.”
“But you could try, if it’s something you wanted,” Renjun says, insistent and sincere. “If you don’t, that’s fine. We’ll always be happy to have you in our lives anyway. But it’s serious for us, and—speaking for myself, anyway—I don’t want to run around in this box with you if I can only ever chase rainbows. I want to know what we have, I want to know what you want. Ironically, being on the run like this made me realise the value of commitment.”
He looks back at Jeno, and squeezes his hand. Jeno flashes a smile at him, burrowing further into his coat. His heart is pounding, waiting for Jaemin’s response.
“You can take some time,” he adds in a low, nervous voice. “You have a lot of that, anyway. We only want to be doing all this if we can be honest with you.”
Jaemin is pouting to himself, like he’s deep in thought. Before he can speak, a loud noise echoes through the city around them, like the bow of a boat creaking, or the groan of a huge piece of machinery.
The fish swimming around them grow a little more frantic, and all at once, begin to swim upwards.
“Oh,” Renjun says, realising what’s happening. “The cloud belt is lifting?”
“Yes,” Jaemin says, sounding as though he’s still in distant thought. Jeno and Renjun avert their attention politely, instead watching the fog slowly lift off the city.
It gains speed the higher it goes, the further away from the pull of the planet’s gravity it rises, he’d guess. As the fog disperses, and the sea life flies high enough to disappear from sight, the sight of the moon finally breaks through to smile down on them.
“Oh, wow,” Renjun breathes, as the sky slowly clears, the night revealing itself.
Jaemin had been right. The sky is dancing, swirling in purples and blues and greens, reminiscent of an aurora borealis on earth.
“It’s beautiful,” someone says, and he realises after a second it’s himself. He can’t help it—there are stars that shoot through the dancing colours, creating a treat to the eye, a beautiful natural phenomena he feels he has to drink in every second of.
He’s distracted by the figure of Jaemin standing from the bench, and wandering over to the edge of the lake. In full view, the still lake reflects the light of the dancing sky above them, the colours distorted further on ripples of water. Jeno stands to go after him, releasing Renjun’s hand to walk the few feet away to the lake’s edge.
“Thank you for bringing us here,” he says, as Renjun stands to join them too. “Sorry if we scared you.”
“Scared me?” Jaemin says, and his voice is peculiar, and Jeno lifts his head from watching the lake to look at Jaemin’s face. “Of course you scared me. This is terrifying.”
“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” Renjun says softly.
“No, but I do have to decide something. Say yes, and give myself to two little humans who will live a fraction of my lifetime—two little humans I care for very much, who love me, who want to know me. Terrifying. Or say no, and run away again. Keep running. That’s all I know, is how to run.” He turns to face Jeno, instead of looking at the water, eyes intense. Jeno lets him look, looking at him right back.
“What have you been running from?”
“You,” he says, searching his face before looking at Renjun too. “What people like you two mean to me. I’ve travelled with enough people to experience love and loss and life and death. It’s terrifying. It’s the scariest thing in the universe, and I’ve seen a lot of the universe.”
“Isn’t that why you should do it?” Renjun says. “Everything worth having is scary at first.”
“Maybe,” Jaemin says, staring at him for a long moment, before looking back at Jeno. “But I’m afraid you won’t like what you get.”
“You’re supposed to show us the worst of you. That’s what love is,” Jeno says, curling his hands in his pockets. “And we love you anyway. That’s what love is too.”
Jaemin stares at him, purple light from above bouncing from the water and onto his face. He looks beautiful like this, and Jeno can practically see a thousand thoughts running behind his eyes.
He looks like he’s never been told such a thing before. For all Jaemin has seen the universe, for all he knows plenty about planets and cultures and the past and the future and space and Earth and everything in between, he’s missing some things that live close to the heart. It’s easy to tell he struggles to let people in.
It’s what makes this all the more worth it. To worm inside Jaemin’s chest, to the point this is a difficult decision for him—to Jeno, it’s a sign he wants it, too. He just doesn’t know how to accept it.
Jaemin takes a step forward across the grass, hands cupping Jeno’s cheeks to hold him fervently. Then he kisses him, for one long, warm moment.
He pulls away, eyes bright and a little shiny, and exhales a misty breath of air. Then he looks up to the dancing sky, and takes a few steps back.
“I’ve booked the grand hotel overlooking the lake,” he says, nodding his head in the right direction. “Three nights. Enjoy your wedding gift. I’ll be back to pick you up in three days.”
“Jaemin,” Renjun says, stepping forward, but Jeno reaches out for his hand.
“We should give him some time,” he says, though his lips are tingling, and his breath shaking slightly. “He’ll be back.”
Jaemin is already halfway across the park, striding through the trees, heading back to where the TARDIS is parked further into the city. In the streets around the park, people are leaving their homes, marvelling together at the sight of the sky unblocked by the cloud belt for the first time in years.
“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Renjun asks, and Jeno raises a hand to touch his mouth delicately, like he’s afraid to dislodge the feeling of the kiss.
“He’ll come around,” he says, unsure why he’s so certain. He understands Jaemin, somehow—for all the ways that they’re different, they understand each other so well. He just needs time.
Renjun grumbles a little, before coming up close to Jeno’s side, the two of them stood watching the dancing sky a little longer.
“I do think that’s a good sign,” Renjun says after a minute or two. “That he kissed you.”
“I sure hope so,” Jeno says, and Renjun laughs, releasing his tension. “Give him time. He’ll come back to us.”
“You’re very sure of yourself.” They knock shoulders, swaying slightly in the night. “Where has all this confidence come from?”
Jeno shrugs. “It’s Jaemin, isn’t it?” Simply, he will always come back for them.
-
He mourns the loss of the cool night air and gorgeous skies of Kazran when he arrives back in the TARDIS for the final time.
“How long ago was that?” he asks Jaemin, who is sitting with his feet up on his chair, knees to his chest.
“For Renjun, four days. For me, a few weeks. For you, give or take your whole life.”
“We went to Apulapacia straight after Kazran?”
“Yup. Blame Renjun, he saw it in a brochure and insisted on seeing the ‘softest beaches in the galaxy’, or so they were advertising. It’s always better in the brochure.”
He stands in one swift movement to start hitting buttons and flipping switches. They seem to be different to the ones he’d chosen before, to fly the TARDIS away from the house party, but nonetheless the ship wheezes and heaves and tilts around them as they fly through time and space.
This is familiar now. He’s twenty-seven, and he’s waiting to hear if the sexy space man wants him back.
“We haven’t talked about it yet,” he verbalises, as the last of his memories slot into place. The only missing history is at the very end, after Renjun had bent down to look at something on Apulapacia—that must be the moment of the fated magra bite that kicked all of this off, that erased him from time. “Our proposal—”
“No,” Jaemin says shortly as the TARDIS lands, falling silent around them. “Later, Jeno. For now, we have to pick up your fiancé.”
He exhales a breath at the words—he hadn’t realised just how worried he’d been. He’s excited to see the love of his life again, know he’s okay. Jaemin is right—that talk can wait until they’re all safely together again.
He treads over to Jaemin’s side cautiously, looking at what he’s watching on the monitors.
It’s the three of them, on Apulapacia, walking along a beach made of incredibly fine-powdered sand. Renjun is bending over to look at something, pulling back a large leaf from a vine-like plant.
Jaemin calls at him to stop a moment too late.
“We’re a bit too early,” Jaemin murmurs from next to him, fiddling with dials on the TARDIS console. “You don’t have to see this.”
“It’s fine,” he says, watching Renjun scream in fright, kicking away the magra—it really does look like a snake—and clutching his ankle. He doesn’t remember this. “I want to know.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Out on the beach, Renjun exclaims in surprise, staggering back. “What was that?”
“Renjun,” the Jaemin out there says, slipping on the sand as he grips his arms and goes to pull him along the beach at pace. “Those things—they eat parts of your history. We need to get you to the Sisterhood, now, they should have the antidote—if you’re lucky, it will only be something small, like a childhood pet, or a crappy part-time job, or—”
Behind the two of them, Jeno has started to glow.
He’s trying to take steps to follow them, but where his skin exudes light, it’s hard to move. He remembers this now—as it was happening, he knew he was fragmenting into nothing. He didn’t have time to do anything, or even say anything.
The light causes Renjun and Jaemin to turn at the same time, pausing and semi-sinking into the sand.
“No!” Renjun screams, and it’s more visceral, more terrified than when he’d been bitten, more terrified than Jeno has ever heard him be before.
A shiver travels through his body as he watches his past self collapse into nothing, clothes gone, existence gone. Renjun hadn’t been able to reach him in time, and had fallen into the sand, screaming.
“No! No, no—Jaemin, we need to get him back! Jaemin!”
Jaemin catches up with Renjun, hauling him up off the beach as he wails in protest and begins to cry.
“Renjun, you have to remember him. You can do it for him, you have to hold onto what you know. You know him better than anyone—”
“I—I can’t, Jaemin, it’s—I’m not strong enough—”
“You can, Renjun, you can! You love him, focus on that—you love him, you love him, and I will get him back.” He lifts his hand to cradle Renjun’s head briefly—Jeno can see his foresight even here, gathering some psychic residue from Renjun as his memories slip away. He’d planned to save Jeno’s life from the moment he disappeared.
As they come to the edge of the beach, where a tall white building looms, a figure in white nun’s dress comes running out. When she reaches for Renjun, she has the gentle hands of a woman, but a cat-like face, like all the people on this planet.
“Renjun, I’m going to get him,” Jaemin promises, while passing him off to the nun. “Wait here for me. I’ll be back with Jeno before you know it.”
“You—you need to get…” Renjun looks confused, letting the nun support him as his knees give out. “Jaemin—”
“I’m coming back!” Jaemin calls, before breaking into a run along the front of the building, coattails whipping behind him until he disappears into the TARDIS.
“And then you did come to me,” Jeno says quietly, watching the other TARDIS disappear, and Renjun be guided inside the building looking dazed and confused, tears running silently down his face.
“And then I did come,” Jaemin agrees.
“You fixed me. Put me back together. Will that heal Renjun? Nothing else will disappear from his life, right?”
“No,” Jaemin says softly. “The nuns will administer the treatment to fix the bite, and I’ve cleaned and healed the time wound,” he says, gesturing to Jeno before putting a hand on his arm and rubbing up and down soothingly. “This should put us all back to rights.”
“Thank you for coming for me.” Jeno is still wearing his button-up coat from Kazran, but the planet outside is bright and sunny. Jaemin must think the same thing, because he begins to unbutton Jeno’s coat for him, avoiding his eyes.
“I’d do it a thousand times over for you,” Jaemin says gently. “For Renjun, too.”
Jeno exhales slowly. His nerves aren’t helped by the gentle way Jaemin pushes his coat from his shoulders, pulls it from his arms, and carefully folds it over the walkway railings. “Let’s go and bring him home too, then.”
“Home, home?” Jaemin asks, one eyebrow raised.
“I meant here,” Jeno says softly. “The TARDIS.”
Jaemin studies him for a moment, eyes roaming his face. Then he smiles softly. “Alright. Let’s go get him.”
-
They leave the TARDIS together, and enter the large white building Jeno now realises is a hospital. The receptionist points them in the right direction the moment she sees Jaemin, and they follow through one long hospital corridor, until they reach a bright white room with Renjun’s name outside it.
As soon as Jeno walks inside, he can tell something is wrong.
Renjun is sitting on a bed, cheeks still pink from his fear back on the beach, but tears dried. He looks up at them when they walk in, and his eyes slide right over Jeno to look at Jaemin.
“Jaemin!” he says, standing up. He can’t go far, an IV of some kind in his arm, but Jaemin strides across the room to meet him with a smile. “I can’t believe you left me!”
Jaemin hugs him close, wrapping his arms around him for a few long moments as Renjun buries his face in his neck. Jeno stands behind them, watching, stomach dropping. “It wasn’t for long, was it? And look who I brought back!”
He releases Renjun to step back, gesturing to Jeno.
Renjun looks, but doesn’t see him.
“Who is this?” he asks, and Jeno swallows, blinking rapidly.
Jaemin’s smile falls away, and he turns back to Renjun. “What?”
“Who is this?” Renjun repeats, one hand clinging to Jaemin’s sleeve as if to stop him from leaving again. “What happened to me back there? I don’t understand what’s going on.”
In the corner, the nurse stands tense, watching something on a monitor. “It’s not taking.”
Jaemin whips around to face her. “What isn’t? Your estesa leaves, they’re everywhere—the cure is simple, your children can make it—”
“Jaemin,” Jeno says quietly, because this won’t be easy on anyone if Jaemin gets angry. As much as it kills him to have Renjun stand there with no recognition in his eyes, he knows they can fix this. That’s what Jaemin does—it’s what he always does.
“I’m going to make this right,” Jaemin says, walking up to Jeno and taking his hand. “You’re here, you’re back, so it can be fixed.” He turns back to the nurse, who raises her head to look at him, one of her ears twitching. “What’s stopping the cure from working?”
“Jaemin, tell me what’s going on,” Renjun says, pulling at his IV drip frustratedly.
“Estesa leaves work by embalming the puncture in a lifeline,” the nurse explains. “For a creature like a magra, even the worst bites should only leave a wound the size of a hangnail. An estesa leaf can heal that much.”
“So why isn’t it?” Jaemin says, hands on hips, voice low.
“His wound has been torn apart. It’s much bigger than that,” the nurse says, pointing to a render on the screen of lines and colours and thousands of colourful dots. It means nothing to Jeno, but Jaemin’s eyes widen. “His lifeline has been touched by a great cosmic impact, and the wound is infected by it.”
Jeno sees Jaemin’s shoulders slowly drop. “The infection… it’s causing something else to be forgotten?”
“No. The same strand of his lifeline is still being erased,” the nurse says, and Jaemin whips around to face Jeno.
“Still here,” Jeno says and the nurse hums, purr-like.
“The magra doesn’t work like that. It doesn't hone in on physical concepts. You may be part of the erased lifeline strand, but the rest of the strand isn't yet cleaned and fixed.”
“Surely the magra wound would only be infected if the lifeline strand it’s trying to eat is… cosmically impacted itself…” Jaemin mutters to himself.
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Renjun huffs, finally freeing himself of the IV, though it causes the nurse to bristle. “I’m not following any of this.”
“When the magra bit you, it took me from your lifeline,” Jeno says, with an uneven voice. “It was trying to erase me from all history, and Jaemin came to save me,” Jeno says, and Renjun looks him up and down, blinking hard as if trying to remember.
“Okay,” he says, warily. “So why don’t I remember you now? You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Because the magra doesn’t take specifics,” Jaemin says, running a hand through his hair, antsy. “It takes things less tangible than that. It takes the first time you cried; it takes the place you used to hide as a child; it takes inside jokes and nostalgic songs. Or, if you get a particularly nasty one, it takes your parental influences, it takes your life’s inspiration, it takes a part of you so huge you struggle to comprehend the world without it.” He comes over to Jeno, placing his hands on his shoulders, looking into his eyes. “So what are you, Lee Jeno? What more is there of you? What do I have to go and save next?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he says, lifting his hands to Jaemin’s head, fingers reaching down to touch the base of his jaw, as if he too can pick up psychic residue. “It took what he loves the most. Jaemin, it’s you. You’ve been going too, all this time. It’s just taken longer, because…”
“Of my cosmic impact,” Jaemin murmurs, eyes wide. “And my psychic resilience, and my life is longer, and more scattered, and…”
“Here,” Jeno says, breathless, going to take the vortex manipulator off. He hadn’t actually wanted to be right about this.
Jaemin grasps his wrist to stop him. “No, no! You keep that on! If the wound isn’t healed, the magra bite will take you as soon as you’re vulnerable.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I—” for the first time, Jeno thinks he sees Jaemin lost for words. “I don’t know how to save myself. I think… if I want you and Renjun both to live…”
“You need to remove the infection,” the nurse says, matter-of-fact. “Then the wound will heal.”
“No,” Jeno says quietly. “You’re not—don’t talk about him like that. Jaemin, you saved me, you can save yourself too.”
“I don’t think I can,” Jaemin says, quietly. “Not if I want you both to be okay.”
“Jaemin,” Renjun breathes, and Jaemin lifts his hands from Jeno’s shoulders.
His palms are glowing.
Jaemin looks at them, and it’s the first time he’s seen Jaemin look truly afraid. In a start, he takes off running, out of the room and down the hallway.
“Jaemin!” Renjun calls out, taking off running after him.
Jeno feels frozen still, mouth open like he wants to shout too, but he doesn’t know what to say. What can he possibly do to save the man from space who knows everything?
Everything but how to save himself?
“He’s right, you know,” the nurse says, looking at Renjun’s graph. “This might be the only way.”
“It can’t be,” he says, shaking his head.
“People like him,” the nurse says, picking a clipboard up from the side and holding it to her chest. “They don’t know how to let things be.”
Jeno swallows, and turns away from her, running down the corridor and out of the hospital.
He finds Renjun at the door of the TARDIS, banging on the blue wood and shouting for Jaemin. Jeno reaches him just as the TARDIS begins to phase away, and he catches Renjun around the middle, dragging him away so he doesn’t get caught in the tailwind.
“No, no! Jaemin, wait!” he cries, and Jeno holds on tight even as he struggles, pulling at Jeno’s firm hands.
He can’t help but feel deja vu—Renjun pulling away from the person trying to save him, to go towards the person he’s about to forget. Both of them victims to the magra’s bite, simply because Renjun loves them too much.
When the TARDIS has fully disappeared, the two of them collapse back onto the ground, knocked off balance by Renjun suddenly stopping struggling.
There are tears on his face, and he’s not sure why. He releases Renjun, who turns around and look at him, dazed.
“What… what are we…” he says, and Jeno blinks white spots from his vision.
There’s something important he needs to remember. If he can just… remember…
“I don’t know,” he replies, frowning. The lights are getting brighter. “Where did… where…”
“Jeno?”
Jeno reaches out for Renjun when he says his name. He remembers him.
Why doesn’t that feel like a good thing?
-
Jeno wakes up in his bed, in Seoul, blearily blinking away sleep. They’d left the blinds open last night, and the sunlight is getting in, making him grimace against the white spots left behind his eyelids.
Renjun is stirring next to him too. “Can you get the blinds?” he says, half-asleep. “It’s too early to be awake.”
Jeno sits up from the bed, and across the room, spots the three-piece suit hanging from the wardrobe.
How could he forget? He’s getting married today.
-
They part at the venue with a kiss, pulled away to get dressed with their respective families. They're preoccupied by that old tradition about not seeing each other dressed up until the ceremony, which is kind of silly since they’d picked out the wedding suits together. It’s not too much of a bother—he's just happy his parents want to help him get ready. His mum fusses, dusting every speck of dust from his suit, and his dad claps him on the shoulder and rambles about how proud he is to see Jeno get to this point in his life.
It’s very kind, really. But he’s distracted the whole time by this nagging feeling he’s forgotten something.
“I wasn’t supposed to bring anything else, was I?” he asks as his mum combs through his hair, smoothing down his sideburns with her thumbs.
“Nothing but yourself, and your husband. You’ve got those things as far as I can see.”
“And everyone has turned up? We don’t have empty seats? And the food, that’s all here? The groomsmen, should I be greeting them? Did—”
“Everything is going smoothly,” his mum says, firmly, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him as she places the comb down. “Don’t think about any of that. After this, you’ll be married. That’s what you should be thinking about.”
He can’t help it—he’s nervous by nature. He’d spent his whole bachelor party last night worried about things like this.
Whatever it is he can’t remember is going to bother him the whole day, he knows it. It’s kind of killing him—he wants to remember, but that doesn’t mean much if the damn thing stays out of reach.
-
His dad walks him down the aisle first, kisses his forehead at the altar, then goes to stand with the groomsmen. Then comes Renjun, walked down by his dad too—and he looks as beautiful as ever, hair a little wavy, carefully styled to one side. He looks a little nervous, but is smiling all the way down the aisle, making eye contact with Jeno when he’s just a few feet away.
That makes them both smile wider, and for a moment, Jeno is able to forget about the thing bugging him. For a moment, all he can think about is that he’s about to be married to the most beautiful boy in the world, the reason he knows love is real.
They take each other’s hands, say their vows, and share a kiss in front of their loved ones.
What more can he ask for than this?
-
At the reception, the feeling comes back, and only grows. There’s definitely something he’s forgotten.
He greets people politely, working on autopilot. Usually, he can get away with that when Renjun is with him—he’s much better at engaging with people than Jeno. But Renjun seems similarly distracted today. Most people kindly don’t mention it, but Jeno can tell they’re both a bit… off.
“Let’s go through here,” Renjun says to him, taking his hand to lead him through the function room and up the grand set of stairs in the hotel.
They come through to what must be his parent’s hotel room, because Renjun has the key, and it’s empty inside. He picks his way across the suitcases on the floor to go to the balcony doors, stepping outside, Jeno following after him.
It’s a pleasant spring day outside. For some reason, Jeno feels it’s been a while since the weather has been like this.
“You alright?” he asks, gently placing a hand on Renjun’s back.
“I just needed some air,” he says, clutching the railing. “I feel so strange today.”
“I know what you mean,” he agrees, leaning against the railing too. “Are weddings supposed to feel like this?”
Renjun laughs a little. “Did we jump into this too early? Why is everything so unsure?”
“Maybe,” he shrugs. “Do you want to get divorced?”
Renjun slaps his chest, and Jeno laughs, and both of them ease up a bit. “Of course not. I’m just trying to figure out what it is I feel like I’m missing. We’ve got everything here, haven’t we?”
“I feel like that too,” Jeno murmurs. “But at the end of the day, we’re married to each other, you know? I feel like I can tell you anything, and I hope you feel like that about me, too. If we figure out what it is, we can find it together. Marriage doesn’t have to change anything. Technically, we’re not even legally married, so…”
“We will be one day. When the law catches up.”
It makes him so happy to hear Renjun speak like that. As much as they both feel uncertain about the unknown, Renjun is always certain when it comes to Jeno. That’s all he needs to feel confident in their relationship, no matter their status.
Jeno reaches out to hold his hand, and Renjun accepts. The two of them stand there for a little while longer, just enjoying the quiet scene of the hotel lawn. At the end of the green, green grass, there’s a scattering of trees, and the view of a wide lake peeking through the trunks.
“Have we been here before?” Renjun asks eventually.
“I don’t know,” Jeno says, frowning. He’d been wondering the same thing. “I don’t think so. Maybe we’ve just got déjà vu.”
“From what?” Renjun asks.
Jeno doesn’t have an answer.
-
Renjun starts to cry at the reception. It’s while his dad is making a lovely speech about the two of them, so no one else thinks it’s strange—indeed, it gets some coos out of Renjun’s various aunts and uncles. But Jeno knows Renjun, and he can see the way his eyes are glazed over. Jeno knows they aren’t happy tears.
He pulls him aside before they’re set to take their first dance, under the guise of letting him clean himself up in the bathroom. Dutifully picks him up a wad of tissue, and watches him clean his face in the mirror in the quiet bathroom.
He doesn’t want to ask what’s wrong, because he feels it too. It’s just a sense of wrongness he can’t quantify—not between them, not with the wedding.
It’s because something is missing.
“What were you thinking about?” he asks instead.
“I think…” he starts, dabbing at his eyes, then slowly lowering his hand, watching himself in the mirror. “I feel like I’m waiting for someone important to arrive, but they’re not coming. And I’m really sad that they’re not here. But I don’t know who. I don’t know—that’s what’s upsetting me the most. How can I not know?”
He’s explained the feeling well. Jeno feels the same.
“We’ve only got our dance left. Have some drinks, have some food. Then we can go home. Let’s not be hard on ourselves. Maybe when the wedding is over the feeling will leave.”
“But why are we both feeling it?” Renjun says, staring at Jeno in the mirror. “What the hell is wrong with us?”
“I do want to remember,” he says, and he’s not sure why he says it. “I’m trying.”
Renjun stares at him, and neither of them know what to say.
-
Despite it all, their first dance goes well. Right until the end.
There’s always something comforting about holding Renjun, even as his mind is racing with memories he can’t grasp, even as everyone he knows and loves stares at the two of them sway together on the dance floor. But he has Renjun in his arms, and that’s the most important thing to him. Renjun holds him too, and it’s reassuring to know that they understand each other—that they can be a little sad on their wedding day without knowing why—that they both love each other all the same.
When their dance comes to an end, they hold each other’s hands, looking at each other. Around them, their family cheer and celebrate their love—truly, what more could they want?
What is it they’re missing?
Jeno looks around the room. One of his cousins is wearing a long, purple overcoat that flutters around him when he turns to speak to another guest.
His grandma’s dress—a deep blue—a familiar blue.
He grips his wrist. He hadn’t worn a watch today.
Why?
“Renjun,” he says, and all other sounds phase away. Renjun is the only person he can focus on—he needs to tell him—how did they forget?
“Jeno, you’re crying,” Renjun says, reaching up to thumb away the tears from his face. As he does, his fingertips graze the base of Jeno’s jaw.
He lifts his own hands. He doesn’t know how to do this—but Jaemin had made it look easy.
“Renjun,” he says, cradling Renjun’s face with his hands, fingertips delicately splayed around his head, willing the psychic residue to transfer from his fingertips to Renjun’s mind. “You need to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Jaemin,” he breathes, and images flash through his mind. Incredible things—scenes from fairy tales. Monsters and magic and stars and fish that fly in the sky. “You need to remember Jaemin.”
Renjun mouths the word, and Jeno grasps at the memories that flit around his mind.
“Jaemin,” Renjun says quietly. “Jaemin?”
“Jaemin,” Jeno says, firmly, smiling at the memories of the three of them on Darillium, on Kazran, on New Earth. But also resting in the TARDIS, eating meals at vendors around the universe, picking out their next adventure. The three of them together, wherever they are.
He’s still crying, but smiling through it.
“Oh my God,” Renjun says, clutching Jeno’s hands harder. “How did we forget Jaemin?”
“Jaemin, we love you,” he says, gaze wandering like he expects Jaemin to wander up any moment now. “Come home.”
“Jaemin, I remember,” Renjun agrees, clutching Jeno’s hands hard. “I know you. Come back to us, before I kill you myself.”
Echoing around the room, a wheezing, rattling sound kicks up, as the TARDIS phases into existence in the middle of the dancefloor.
Their guests gasp and scurry back, but he and Renjun surge forward, delighted. Jaemin flings open the TARDIS door right as they reach it, and steps out with a beaming grin, bringing them both into a hug at the same time.
“You’re back, you’re back!” Renjun is saying, as Jaemin pulls back to kiss Jeno on the cheek, then Renjun, then stepping out of the TARDIS completely to greet the room jovially.
“Couldn’t miss the dancing,” Jaemin says cheekily, and Jeno grabs him to pull him back in for a proper hug, laughing. He’s missed him so much.
-
True to his word, Jaemin insists on dancing with every auntie, uncle, and cousin at the wedding, plus any other friends and family who ask for a dance with the mysterious man in coattails. He’s swapped out of his usual attire for a traditional western wedding-goer look, complete with top hat and all. He’s charmed the whole room with it, though neither he nor Renjun know exactly what to say when they’re asked who Jaemin is to them.
Towards the end of the night, when things are winding down and the top hat has been lost to one of Jeno’s little cousins, he approaches and asks Renjun for a dance. Jeno sends them off with a smile, though can’t help sneaking glances at their slow dance while he talks to Sungchan about where they’re honeymooning. He’s not too sure now. Either the planet Jaemin had picked out, or Shanghai. Whichever has fewer deadly pests that eat people from history.
Someone taps on his shoulder, and he turns to see Jaemin smiling at him. Renjun is practically glowing, but only casts Jeno a sparkly-eyed look before skipping off to speak to Donghyuck, who is being excessively nosey about who Jaemin is, exactly.
“And you?” Jaemin says, laying out a hand. “I need to dance with the new Mr. Huang.”
“We’re not legally married, Jaemin, our names are staying the same.”
“No, no. You’re Mr. Huang if I say so.”
Jeno laughs, taking Jaemin’s offered hand and following him out to the dancefloor.
It’s sparse by this time, the DJ winding them down with a set of slow love songs playing over the sound system. Jaemin holds him reverently, both hands going to Jeno’s waist, making his cheeks warm as he rests his hands at Jaemin’s shoulders.
“I can’t believe you’re really back,” he says, thumbs gently caressing the base of Jaemin’s neck. “How did we do that?”
“You know exactly how you did it. You wanted to remember. Mix that with the psychic residue you picked up—clever boy, Jeno—and backup from your partner in crime over there, you stitched me back together from memories, the way I did with you.” He pouts, pulling Jeno in slightly closer, making him flush and zone in on Jaemin’s soft bottom lip. “I’m miffed that you did it much quicker and easier than my way, to be honest.”
“I had an advantage,” Jeno says, willing himself not to stammer this close to someone so beautiful. “Renjun’s magra wound was already healed. There was nothing to fall through once we got you back—you did all that legwork with me. All we had to do was want you here. Which we did. And still do.”
Jaemin smiles at him, and pulls him forward to kiss him.
There’s a scandalised gasp somewhere behind him, but Jeno pays them no attention. The kiss only lasts a second, but his heart skips at the gentle warmth of Jaemin’s mouth on his. When they pull back, Jaemin’s eyes are gleaming.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Sorry for doing it separately with you two, but it’s more romantic to do it while dancing, don’t you think?”
“We could dance all together,” Jeno breathes, just to be contrary, just to calm the way his heart jumps. “Ring a ring o’ roses at our wedding.”
Jaemin lifts his hand up to flick Jeno gently on the forehead, and Jeno giggles.
“What I’m trying to say is that I agree to your proposal,” Jaemin says, voice smooth as velvet. Jeno could just fall into it. “You both trusted me a lot to come away with me. I don’t know how advisable that was, since you just got erased from history…”
“So did you,” he points out quickly. “We’re both back now.”
“Yes, very true. But you, especially, Jeno—you pushed yourself to come travelling with me. And you ended up liking it.”
“I really did,” he murmurs.
“Trying something like this… it’s out of my comfort zone. But I think Renjun’s right. I think that’s exactly the reason we should try it. The two of you are so precious to me. If you think this will work between us, I trust you.”
“We believe in you more than anything, Jaemin,” he says, daringly going in to steal a brief kiss again. Jaemin looks delighted. “We love you, and want you. If you feel the same, that’s all we need. We can make this fit any way you like.”
“Then I want to try,” Jaemin says, voice low, only for Jeno’s ears. “I’ll give myself to the two of you, and see what happens.”
“I can’t wait to find out,” Jeno says, and the two of them meet in the middle for a long, slow kiss, Jaemin’s cheeks between Jeno’s hands, Jaemin’s palms travelling to pull him in by the small of his back.
“Alright, that’s enough, I’m feeling left out,” Renjun’s voice says beside them, and they break off with soft laughs.
“Do you want some too?” Jaemin asks, swooping in to kiss Renjun in the same way. Renjun indulges it for a moment, then pulls away, putting his hands on his hips.
“No, I want you to stop putting on a show at our wedding. Did we have to debut this here?”
Jeno hums, looking around at the open mouths and wide eyes looking at them around the room. “Want to get out of here before anyone starts asking difficult questions?”
“I like that idea,” Renjun says, and Jaemin grins, grabbing Renjun by the hand, who reaches out to grab Jeno too. The three of them run from the room together, laughing, paying no mind to Donghyuck shouting after them indignantly.
They leave the function room and come out to the wide lawn. Jaemin had moved the TARDIS from the dancefloor to park it beside the lake earlier, and it’s so dark outside, all he can make out is the reflection of the moon on the lake’s surface, and the glowing POLICE BOX sign running along the top of the TARDIS.
“Where are we going?” Renjun asks, as Jaemin produces the key to the TARDIS door, slotting it in and pushing it open.
“Wherever you like,” he answers, turning in the doorway to look at them. “I’ve still got your honeymoon plans lined up.”
“When are we coming back?” Jeno asks, and Jaemin winks at him.
“Whenever you like, too.”
“And you’ll be with us?” Renjun asks. “Even when we’re back on boring Earth?”
“Earth is anything but boring, I’ll have you know,” Jaemin says. “It has the two of you.”
With that, he steps inside. He and Renjun look at each other, full of hope and joy and anticipation for the next adventure.
They step inside after him.