Chapter Text
The first time Aaron saw one of the ghosts, he’d been lost, running late, and stupid enough to fear his manager the most of all the beings in the music show building. Only minutes before, his manager had launched a whole flurry of words straight past Aaron’s feeble Korean understanding, which he'd guessed were much-needed directions to their waiting room. Though he'd vowed to simply trail after his other members, he's somehow lost them already.
Later, he'll learn his assumption was wrong. The first time, you don't get directions. This is a test of worthiness; a rite of passage to see whether the path reveals itself to you or not. Aaron may have been cleared to debut by his company, but there are things far older and more powerful here than his CEO lurking here.
Wrapped in a big hoodie, bare-faced and with his hair unstyled, not yet an idol, not yet, not until he stands on that stage, the strange magic denies Aaron.
The halls are endless; white walls a contrast of fluorescent lights and night-black corners. Shadows move when they think he’s not looking. Time ticks onward, and Aaron’s breaths come quicker and quicker and quicker. His manager will be angry if he’s late. His new members, too. They’re too kind to say it to his face—the kids, Aaron means, the manager says everything he thinks to Aaron’s face—but Aaron gets that in some ways, he’s dead weight. In the daylight, this doesn’t bother him. But wherever he is now isn’t day.
Aaron’s shoes squeak as he cuts a harsh corner. Near the end of this hall, a figure is propped against the wall, so enshrouded by shadow that Aaron can’t make out its age, its gender. The strength of Aaron’s relief avalanches over the instinctual reaction that this being is something to fear. “Hello?” he calls. “Can you help me?”
Before he can approach his potential savior, the lights begin to flicker. Whispers hiss down the hall, their touch damp against his skin. Slowly, the thing Aaron’s spoken to raises its head. Aaron steps back, shivers dancing down his spine. Whatever this thing is, he never should have spoken to it.
The ghost crosses the distance between them in a heartbeat. It looms above him, its only discernible facial feature a black hole lined with teeth and teeth and teeth. For a moment, all Aaron knows is that mouth. Then the monster leans back. From the nothingness of its face, dead eyes peel open for a better look.
Aaron doesn’t wait for it to judge him. He runs, vaulting himself from the monster, uncaring about the direction he travels. He hurls himself through whatever doors allow him entry, only skidding to a breathless stop when a tile wall blocks him from running further. Mist hovers around him, thick and green-tinged. Aaron spins around and cries out when he sees another face, throwing a hand up to protect himself before he realizes he’s looking at his own reflection.
A drop of water falls from a faucet under the mirror. A toilet flushes.
Aaron’s in a bathroom. He forces himself to take in a great breath. Only a bathroom. The mist clears away.
A stall door opens, and then Aaron's face isn't alone in the mirror any longer. It's not a ghost behind him but a man, his normal mouth filled with normal teeth. One of his eyes glints oddly, reflecting light that it shouldn’t. Something begins to drip from it, which Aaron mistakes for a tear until it continues to stretch down his face. The man’s skin is cracking, tree-root like rivets stretching into his cheek. That eye’s pupil fades and fades until it’s the lightest of blues. Like an afterthought, blood seeps down the shattered porcelain skin.
“Well?” a voice snaps from behind him. Aaron whirls to face the man in the mirror. Seen directly, he’s not only human but recognizable. Truthfully, before this moment Aaron would not have been confident he could recognize a Super Junior member away from his group, but now he can and does. Both of Yesungs’ dark eyes are narrowed. “Aren’t you going to greet me?”
Relieved to face an annoyed senior and not a monster, Aaron does. “Sorry, sunbaenim. I thought I saw—” No, he can’t say that. “I’m lost. I’m worried I’m late.”
Yesung’s smooth, unblemished face softens. “Take a right,” he says, in that husky voice that took him from a boy who liked bugs to the main vocal of an immortal kpop group.
With Yesung’s guidance, Aaron reaches NU’EST’s waiting room in only seconds. He’s not late, though it’s close. The others are pale-faced and trembling but present, deemed worthy to become idols. At the time Aaron doesn’t put it together, but one day he’ll think a lot about what it means that the other four passed this test alone while he needed help.
That day Aaron says nothing about what happened because the nightmares are too close and their day is too busy. Then he finds he doesn’t have the language he needs. By the time he feels ready, it’s become clear that there are some things no one talks about.
And so the first time Aaron tells this story is to his American friends, years later. That day, it’s a ghost story told over a table brimming with soju bottles, empty and full and at all stages in-between.
He’s got the wrong audience: all of them are idols, old and new and has-beens and dreamers. Not one blinks at the ghost’s description. Peniel whistles from between his teeth. “It’s fucked your company never warned you,” he says. “You’re lucky you hadn’t debuted.” Aaron knows this already. Music show ghosts are greedy for fame. If it had recognized Aaron as an idol, it would have eaten him straight out of his body, then slipped on his skin and walked on to NU’EST’s waiting room itself.
Despite the lukewarm receptance of his story, Aaron plows onward. This is the more daring part, after all. They all know Yesung because it’s a fact of life that everyone knows Super Junior. Aaron tells of his shattered skin, his ruined eye. But this, too, lands flat. A story already whispered; already heard.
“Did you think there’s no cost to immortality?” The girl beside him asks, voice bitter and personal.
Only later will Aaron realize he has no idea who she was.
2016
Aaron had been more worried about the ocean inciting homesickness than he should have been. The waves along them create their rhythmic white noise, interrupted by the laughter and screaming of small children who chase the edges of the tide. Their parents trail after them, belonging to a whole other world than Aaron and Minhyun, who are sitting outside this cute, overpriced seaside café. Aaron had offered to pay, even though the money he made from radio has all but run out. He's only in Busan in the first place because he couldn't afford a plane ticket back to LA for Chuseok and so is spending it with Minhyun's family instead.
Technically, the water lapping against the shore here belongs to the same ocean that characterizes his childhood home. But while LA is all warm colors, yellows and reds juxtaposed against the bright blue of the sea, Busan today is cloudy and hazy, cool colors that fade into a grayish ocean. It makes things both easier and harder for Aaron.
He's drinking. They both are, actually, even though it’s uncharacteristic for Minhyun to join him. When Aaron got a drink, Minhyun had echoed his order, chin jutting out like a challenge. One of their other members probably spilled what Aaron’s about to say to Minhyun before they left. He can’t quite summon annoyance over it. This is something he should have said months ago.
When Aaron can no longer bear to watch the ocean, he watches Minhyun instead. He’s always liked puzzling out the mystery of Minhyun and his hometown. Los Angeles wrote itself across Aaron’s heart in ways that don’t go away, but Aaron can never find many pieces of Busan in Minhyun.
“You’re staring,” Minhyun says, sounding for all the world like a visitor from Seoul in his own hometown.
Aaron swallows but doesn’t look away. The ocean view paints Minhyun in a cool wash that turns him ethereal, something of another world. His eyes glitter from across the table as the evening light begins to dim. Of course Aaron's staring. “I have to talk to you about something.”
It still doesn’t feel like the right time to tell Minhyun, but he’s already said it thrice and is prepared to follow that same script. No matter the distracting strangeness of Minhyun here.
Before Aaron can, the screech of a Busan siren splits the air. Aaron flinches, but Minhyun doesn’t. He only eyes the beach as parents scramble to collect their children, some abandoning their things in the sand. On the street, everyone walks faster.
“What is it?” Minhyun asks. It feels like they’re the only two who remain still.
“I’m thinking of going back to America,” he says. The siren’s song worsens, morphing until it’s an accurate replica of Mingi, terrified in a way Aaron’s never heard him. Siren song imitates the person who you’ve got the greatest drive to protect, and knowing it’s fake hardly slows Aaron’s jerking heart. His body vibrates with the need to run.
Minhyun doesn’t move, merely digests Aaron’s words with such ease that it’s obvious someone told him already.
“Don’t,” he says. “Wait a little longer.”
It’s the same thing everyone’s told him. To wait and trust them. Until now, Aaron hasn’t had the heart to say what he really thinks of Produce 101, not when they’re intending to flagellate themselves for it.
But at a café on the shores of the wrong side of the right ocean, with the screaming of a member he intends to leave echoing through his head, the words burst from him. “You all keep saying that, but do you know what’s on the other side of everything? More embarrassment. More people hinting that we need to know when to give up.”
That makes Minhyun flinch. Aaron has more power over him than the wailing siren. He drops his eyes in repentance but doesn’t apologize. There’s little for him to burn for fuel these days. Alcohol catches sometimes, but it always spits hard and quick and then leaves him hollower than before.
“I mean, you’re right,” Minhyun says, and Aaron doesn’t have much experience with winning but knows that it shouldn’t crack something within him. “But I don’t care. We have to go.”
“Why?” Aaron asks desperately. It’s not what he wishes to ask. He wants to know where they find the strength. How they find it, when he can’t. What reserve can they access that doesn’t exist for him?
“I have to go,” Minhyun amends, “because my mom gave me the last shade of brown from her hair, and I took it.”
This time, when Minhyun’s words sink in, Aaron draws back with revulsion. Minhyun smiles bitterly but says nothing. They’ve never used those magics before. No blood. No sacrifice of something meaningful like youth or beauty. Only hard work. Only talent.
Aaron can’t blame Minhyun for turning to something more powerful, because none of what they had got them anywhere. Even the ghosts in music show halls look straight through them now, because they're hardly idols at all and have no fame to steal.
“She offered,” Minhyun says. It makes it better, marginally, but Aaron already hadn’t believed Minhyun would take without permission from his family. “She wants her only son to succeed, and NU’EST is the future I want.”
He says it with such certainty. “Why?”
“Because we have to do well. I have to do well.” After how much they’ve drank, Minhyun’s cheeks should be ruddy, but he’s pale in the rising moonlight. He’s either more than human or less after the magic, but Aaron’s alcohol-soaked brain isn’t sure which. “If I don’t, you’ll leave.”
Before Aaron has time to process these words, Minhyun leans in and brushes their lips together. The alcohol is so strong he can’t taste Minhyun, but it doesn’t matter. Minhyun has him ensnared good and well, a Busan siren that’s escaped the sea. Even after pulling back, he leaves his hand where Aaron’s shoulder meets his neck, thumb rubbing gentle circles.
“So?” Minhyun asks after, voice as gentle as the whispering breeze. He runs his hand down Aaron’s spine in the time it would have taken a siren to eat his tongue. Aaron shivers. He isn’t certain what Minhyun is asking him. He raises a finger to his tingling lips.
“You just—you kissed me.” Even in his current state, he can’t figure out a way to downplay this. Minhyun kissed him. His eyes flicker to Minhyun’s lips because there’s still something absurd about all of this. He hopes Minhyun didn’t mind the taste of alcohol on him. A small part of him wishes the kiss had been longer, so that Aaron could have caught a better taste of Minhyun.
A grin flashes across Minhyun’s face but fades just as quick. “So will you stay?” he presses.
The truth is, Aaron doesn’t really know how to leave. He nods, but then adds, “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll tell you another way, then,” Minhyun murmurs. He reaches out and doesn’t stop until Aaron’s given him both his hands. “Right now, I’m listening to you scream.”
Aaron doesn’t know much of sirens. They don’t have them on his side of the Pacific, but he’s certain he’s heard once that it’s a private thing, the person whose voice they imitate for you. It’s not something you talk about, anymore than anyone asks you to rank those you love.
When Aaron doesn’t speak, Minhyun’s face drops in a way that Aaron finds unforgiveable. He clutches Minhyun’s hands tighter even though Minhyun’s made no move to let go. “I’ll—I’ll stay,” he manages. “Until the end, I’ll stay.”
“Do you want it to end?”
Aaron takes his time looking Minhyun over. Though he’s the same Minhyun as always, Aaron’s certain that this version of him, this one with that cool, ethereal strangeness, has never existed in Seoul. He certainly could never exist in warm, bright California.
“No,” Aaron rasps. He’s strung out and trembling, nerves frayed from the continued screeching and the rawness of this conversation. He can’t manage a minute more of it, he’s certain.
But Minhyun smiles like he’s gotten what he wanted. He leans back. “Do you want to leave now?”
When Aaron manages to look away from him, he finds that the only people still on the streets are the Busan locals, unfazed by the screaming.
2017
The kids try to hide it, but they’re bad liars. At least to Aaron, which is mollifying, after they all read him so easily. Despite this, he’s got no urge to gloat or point out all the ways he was right and they were wrong and the only thing they’ll get from Produce 101 is the souring of an already ugly ending.
Nothing has aired yet, but Aaron can tell from the way they come home. Its written in both their words and their silences, spread homogenously enough across them that Aaron knows it’s not only one of them doing poorly but all of them. Aaron wishes he could ask Minhyun if the magic is doing anything for him, but except for that unreal day by the Busan sea, he’s never had one of his members bring magic up to him. And whenever he looks at Minhyun, he feels the brush of his lips against Aaron’s own. He can’t bring up taboo topics while that sits between them, turning Aaron’s breaths shaky and flipping his stomach over.
He doesn’t know what to say about the kiss, either. Aaron isn’t quite dumb enough to not recognize that the kiss meant something to both of them, but it doesn’t feel like he's gained something new, rather like he’s lost one more thing he could have had.
It's his members’ pain and his inability to forget the surreal Minhyun who kissed him that brings Aaron to the company building. Though his card lets him in without trouble, he feels as though he’s cosplaying an idol with things to learn and classes to attend as he slips through the familiar halls.
The practice room he’s looking for isn’t empty. He doesn’t interrupt the music, instead slumping against the wall outside. A couple trainees run by without noticing him or greeting him, which should sting but only makes Aaron feel even less real. He presses his palm against the wall to ensure he can’t see through his own skin, that he hasn’t become Pledis’ first company building wraith. From what Aaron's heard, there are some companies spilling over with them.
The girls are sweaty when their practice ends, clutching water bottles and breathing hard. They’re far from picture-perfect idols in this moment, only humans after a long day of work.
Kim Nayoung has her dark hair tugged into a messy ponytail. Some of it in the front isn’t long enough and it falls around her eyes. Despite the lack of makeup and practice clothes, something about her glimmers.
Aaron swallows. Yes, she’s the one he needs to talk to.
He moves forward. Her attention catches on him, and her eyes widen. Aaron hardly manages to bury the urge to double check that he’s not a wraith after all, a cautionary tale half forgotten and half feared. But then the girls greet him as a senior, and Aaron’s a real person again, reflected in the hallway mirror. “Can we talk?” he asks. In another world, this may have given the wrong impression, but that world is so far from his that he doesn’t bother looking at it, even when Nayoung’s eyes slide toward the other girls. Maybe he’s scared her.
“Sure, sunbaenim,” she says finally. They step away from the others. Nayoung keeps a careful distance between them. He can’t remember another time they’ve spoken.
They’ve both been here long enough to know the hidden corners. Aaron lets Nayoung pick which one she wants. And then they’re facing each other, alone in a hallway where all the sounds echo and the heater groans and grumbles. There are places to sit, but neither of them do.
“My members,” Aaron says. He can hardly meet her eye. In the shadows, he’s all more aware that something makes her sparkle, and it’s something he doesn’t have. When he’s not on stage, he’s just a guy. Nayoung is still an idol. “What do they need to do to win?”
“Jonghyeon sunbaenim already asked me about this. My advice hasn’t changed.”
“I don’t mean that,” Aaron says. “What did you use?”
Spoken like this it’s an accusation, but Aaron’s certain he’s right. Nayoung’s eyes narrow. If Aaron’s first experience with the glittering, shadowy magic of this world taught him to fear it, his second taught him not to speak of it. Back then, he’d been walking down the hall of a music show with a newly eighteen Kim Jonghyeon, who’d barely been able to see through his hair and clattered with each step due to the heavy metal necklace-thing he had to wear. Aaron had been laughing at his struggles when a scream cut through the hallway. Both of them had frozen; hardly a minute ago a debuting idol, their junior only by months, had passed by.
Aaron had lurched forward but stopped just as quick, too scared to try and help but unable to turn away. He’d only noticed Jonghyeon’s hand on his arm when his grip dug into Aaron’s flesh. Wordlessly, he’d spun on his heel, grim and silent as he dragged Aaron away.
Later, when they passed the girl’s group in the hall, the girls bowed but resolutely avoided their eyes. Aaron tried hard not to stare at the girl who’d screamed. As they turned the corner, the manager’s voice came again, quizzing her on her name and family and hometown. Already, she was getting the answers right.
By now, Aaron knew well enough that nothing could have saved her. But didn’t it say something that no one had even tried?
“It won’t work.” Nayoung’s voice cuts through Aaron’s memories. She tries to push away, but Aaron blocks her. “It's something they’re not willing to give up.”
“You don’t know that.” Minhyun’s bitter smile flashes in Aaron’s mind. These are desperate times.
“Then they’re stupid. To go as far in as they did without it, and only now change their minds.” Though Nayoung’s voice is sharp, it’s also quiet, enough that the far-off laughter of trainees Aaron doesn’t know carries down the hall to them. “Kyulkyung did it on her own. Talk to her.”
Aaron thinks of Kyulkyung, poised and confident and beautiful, then of his sad, downtrodden members. That isn’t a fair comparison, and they both know it. Whatever power Kyulkyung found in herself and used to overcome magic, it isn’t something his members can tap into.
“If it’s stupid, then why did you do it?” While some companies walk hand-in-hand with magic, Pledis doesn’t. It’s why their building lacks wandering ghosts and their contracts don’t require blood. Whatever Nayoung did to give herself a future, she’d done it behind the company’s back.
“Because no offense, sunbaenim, but I’m not here to become you.”
Their conversation stopped being polite the moment Aaron accused her of magic, but this statement is purposefully rude, meant to hurt him and end their conversation in one go. Worse, it works, because what can Aaron say to that? Even the words he’s borrowed from his members, those about one last chance and we’re not done yet stick to his throat.
Nayoung pushes away, twisting so she doesn’t brush against him as she passes, like whatever Aaron’s got could spread with only a touch. This time he lets her.
Yet, despite it being clear she’d never wanted to have this conversation, she hesitates one last time, her back to Aaron. “I’m not using it again,” she says. “None of us are. I'm sorry that this is how it's happened for you, but you shouldn't either."
When she goes, it takes Aaron’s eyes time to adjust to the darkness she leaves him in.
On the night the first episode airs, Minhyun calls Aaron. It’s a surprise, and he fumbles his phone so badly that he needs to call Minhyun back.
Please pick up. Please pick up. He begs the universe silently, his eyes tilted up to the ceiling of his room as though he could see the heavens through it. The specks of drywall are a poor replacement for stars, but they’re what he’s got now, flat on his back on a twin mattress.
The ringing stops. “Hello?” Aaron says, when he hears nothing from the line. “Hello?” He says it a third time, and when he doesn’t get an answer, lobs out a hand to try and grab his phone from where it’s sprawled beside him. An advertisement for skin cream plays on his laptop as he waits for the show to begin.
Right before Aaron hangs up, Minhyun speaks. “Don’t go,” is all he says, and Aaron’s powerless against him. His phone falls back to the bed in his limp hand. Minhyun’s voice. warped by the speaker, does something to him, making his chest twist until it’s hard to breathe.
“I won’t,” he promises. They don’t speak after that. Aaron listens to the episode and to the sound of the background voices on Minhyun's side, boys in the dorm where he's now staying. Aaron's side is silent. It's only him here in this dorm now.
Aaron can’t stop from inhaling sharply the first time his members appear, exhausted and too skinny from the very first shot.
“They use the bad ones here,” Minhyun mumbles. Aaron clenches one of his hands into a fist. It’s in their contract that they won’t be forced to appear on shows that still use the kind of cameras that steal from their subjects, but their company hadn't cared much whether they went on this show or not. He hardly bites down a question about whether the mics are the same, sure he can’t bear knowing that his members are sacrificing their voices for this too. It’s barbaric, because of course it is. The entire point of the show is to consume many kids no one knows and create a few everyone does.
Aaron’s hardly thought about magic since Nayoung shut him down so cleanly, but now the urge to battle fire with fire rises again in him. It's so unfair. Their entire career, they’ve been giving pieces of themselves away. The only difference is they’re not getting anything back for it.
The show gets worse from there. Aaron controls himself better after that first time, only allowing his eyes to flutter shut, lest Minhyun hear his display of grief.
They’re more than this. They have more to show the world than this.
The resolve that comes then hardens his heart to iron. He clenches his fists and grits his teeth as the episode plays on, this damn show that’s so willing to eat everything his members have and offer them nothing in return. There has to be a way to make it work for them. Aaron may not know how to turn everything around, but he can figure it out. Sure, Nayoung insisted it costs too much, but doesn't everything? This show and his member's humiliation? The focus of the cameras? The years they've already wasted? They've paid all that already.
Isn't it time for Aaron to figure out how to pay a price that will actually get them something in return?
“Don’t worry, Minhyun-ah,” he says finally, when all his laptop has to offer him is a blank screen, out of ads to play for him. There is a whisper from Minhyun’s end that isn’t words. Aaron does him the favor of pretending not to hear it. “Things will get better. You’ll see.”
He hasn’t said anything like it in a long while. But he hasn’t had a fire like this burning within him either.
Approaching Nayoung had been a mistake. From the beginning, Aaron had learned that Korean-born idols refused to blatantly acknowledge the magic in the industry. His American friends had been the only ones to talk to him about it. In those conversations, they’d looked at Aaron as someone still innocent, treating him as though his years of hard work and failure hadn’t affected him. Never mind that he’s learned there are other ways to end up tired and cold than overexposure to the brilliant stage lights that burn you out and leave you with less than before.
Did you think immortality comes with no cost? A stranger sitting next to him like one of his closest friends had once asked him. Not for the first time, Aaron pictures the great groups, the ones that lasted, and thinks how do we become that?
But this time he doesn’t think of how those idols appear on screens and the red carpet. He thinks of Yesung’s cracked skin and ruined eye, of bleed seeping down his broken face.
How do I become that?
Once, Aaron would have balked at the cost, prideful and too clever to give his mind and body away to anyone. But he’s worn now, and when he thinks of his future, there’s nothing. Continued life in Korea will be impossible once he’s not an idol unless he finds a job that lets him keep his visa. A new life in America is so vague it’s nonexistent.
Funny that everyone keeps telling him he didn’t pay enough when he’s given everything to this already. Funny that even with his apparent innocence, he’s still run out of things in himself that are worth protecting.
Aaron has no future, his past is hardly worth lingering on, and his present is him sitting alone in a dorm meant for five, not enough to stand beside his members for a final fight for their lives. He’d barely had enough in him to promise his members not to flee before the end.
He may not be an expert on the magics, but he knows they require the sacrifice of things that matter, things people are willing to buy. Mindlessly, he scrolls through pictures of idols known for their colored hair—Daesung; CL; G-Dragon; Hyoyeon—and wonders how many of them rely on dye because they’ve sold all the natural color away.
Aaron bets he could buy some luck for his members with what he still has. And if Aaron makes this sacrifice, he’ll give them the future they deserve and himself a reprieve from the guilt of not standing with them. By doing it alone, he’ll protect them from needing to pay these steep prices. Minhyun may be tainted by magic already, but he’s not a monster. If Aaron becomes one for him, he’ll never need to do worse.
There’s a rightness to this idea, of Aaron sliding from existence in a way that helps his members stand tall and get all the success they should have. Finally, Aaron sees a future he can both imagine and that isn’t terrible. All he needs to figure out is the price and how to pay it.
This time, he knows the person to ask.
Did you think there’s no cost to immortality? She’s so vivid in his mind, voice raspy like she’s given a microphone too much of it, hair shiny in a way Aaron now recognizes doesn’t come from a bottle. He doesn’t know who she is.
Based on her English, the girl is an American. And so Aaron calls the single friend of his who knows every foreign kpop idol. The one who brings them together at her place, who’s introduced Aaron to so many of his friends.
Amber doesn’t have a name to give him either, and she’s wary when they talk of the girl. “I know who you mean,” she says. “But…” Pity leaches into her tone. Aaron digs his nails so deep into his palm it hurts.
“I need to talk to her.” He isn’t looking for advice. The girl’s words burn in his mind. He’s willing to pay any cost, if it will give his members a real chance.
“Aaron…”
He says nothing. He wants NU’EST to be immortal.
“I can’t fucking wait until I get out of this fucking nightmare,” Amber says, and while her voice is sharp, Aaron’s relief is knife-like.
She gives him an address.
When Aaron calls up to the girl’s apartment, he finds it has no name on the label beside it. He presses the button anyway.
“Hello,” he says when she answers. “I’m…”
“I know who you are,” she says. It’s not something Aaron hears often, certainly far less than an idol should. A shiver runs through him. But though his instincts tell him to climb nine flights of stairs rather than enter an elevator with pale fog spilling from its open doors, Aaron gets in anyway. He hasn’t come here to make good decisions.
The girl who opens the door has deep bags beneath her eyes. Her hair hangs limply; her fingers pressed so tight to the door her knuckles whiten. “What do you want?”
“Who are you?” he asks as he comes in.
She scoffs. “How have you been an idol for so long but know so fucking little about this?”
It doesn’t seem like a question he should answer, so Aaron doesn’t. “I want to know the cost of immortality. I want to know how to pay it.”
“You and a million others. What makes you think you deserve it?”
There are a thousand answers to that. They’ve worked hard. They’ve worked for so long. No matter what anyone says about them not understanding sacrifice, Aaron and his members have all given their youth to this industry, and that means something.
But Aaron also recognizes a trick when he sees one. It’s never been a question of who is deserving.
“What do I need to pay for you to answer me,” he says instead. That gets her attention. She faces him with narrowed eyes, a foxlike sharpness to her face. It should not surprise him that she’s pretty, but it does.
The nameless girl approaches him. “You’re that confident in your group? Give me your name,” she says. “Go by your stage name until your company takes it from you.”
From Aaron Kwak to only Aron. Such a thing would leave him fractured, severing so many of the pieces of himself away. With effort, Aaron keeps his voice level and forces his panic down his throat. “I’m not stupid. You’ve got many answers, and I’ve got one name. That’s not a fair trade.”
“Take it or leave it,” the girl counters. “I know many people who want answers.”
She can’t expect him to give her his name so easily. He doesn’t know the quality of her answer, let alone that following through will bring him what he desires. And yet… One corner of Aaron’s mouth rises as he finally understands.
“Is that what you did?” he asks. “Gave up your real name for a stage name, and then lost that too?”
He can tell he’s right before he even finishes saying it. It’s such an easy thing to imagine: a hopeful trainee, desperate to debut. The willingness to put all you had into this one chance. The ultimate failure at its end. It was cruel of her company to not allow her to at least keep her stage name, but unsurprising. Contracts are contracts. Company property, company property. This is how these stories go.
“Before I answer anything for you, I want a lock of your hair and three drops of your blood,” she says.
He knows better than to believe that what she’ll take from him is only hair and blood, but he needs her answers, and this is a far more reasonable request. Whatever she plans to take must be something he has many of, not something of which he only possesses one. “Done,” he says.
She makes him sit down to better cut his hair. His heart jitters. “Careful,” he jokes, hoping to calm himself. “My stylist will want a word with you if you mess it up.”
The girl presses her lips into a thin line. She cuts Aaron’s hair joylessly, and puts the lock into a thin sac along with some cotton fluff. Tying it off, she begins to twist the sac into five segments, which she arranges into a little doll.
This is objectively the creepiest thing she could have done, and Aaron’s spooked enough to draw back when she takes his wrist. Uncaring, she wrenches his arm with unexpected ferocity. He gasps, lurching forward, and by the time he’s recovered, she’s already drawn the blade across his skin. It’s so sharp that it takes seeing the blood fall for the wound to hurt.
Three drops, as promised. They fall onto the makeshift doll, sinking in and leaving no stain. Aaron pulls back, cradling his wrist. The girl’s nails left divots in his skin.
The doll twitches. Images layer atop one another, hurting Aaron's head. Somehow, it's both a featureless brown doll-shaped thing and yet also bears Aaron's face. Another stab of pain shoots through Aaron's temple, and he averts his eyes.
“What is it you need to know?” the girl asks briskly.
“I want to save my group,” he says.
She sighs, but he’s already paid, and that means she’ll answer. “What you’re talking about isn’t immortality, it’s resurrection. It’ll cost more than you’re willing to give.”
Anger flares within Aaron, sharp as a wound. Everyone keeps saying that, as if they know how much he’ll give for success, for his members’ success. Is it so hard to believe that someone like him might have a hill he’s willing to die on? That no matter how he’s been washed about by this industry, he might plant his feet somewhere and order the world to stop?
They don’t understand how it haunts him. They don’t close their eyes to see Minhyun, soft-lipped and pale in the Busan moonlight. Aaron doesn’t want to leave them. He doesn't want to give up on them. If that means becoming a monster, he'll do it.
“But it’s possible,” he presses.
“It’s not a guarantee.” Now her voice is soft. Yet another stranger only willing to offer him pity and a warning. Aaron doesn’t accept it. Not from this pathetic girl who’s lost both her names.
“How do I do it?”
“You sell your soul to a demon.”
A desperate shiver wracks through Aaron, but he can’t deny that he’d known, somewhere deep within him, that this is what it would come to. Immortality. Resurrection. These are things worth far more than a shade of dark hair or a brown iris. Of course it will cost him dearly.
“What will happen to me then?” he asks, forming the words with numb lips.
Her mouth twists. “Don’t waste my time on answers you already know.”
Aaron shuts his eyes, and in the darkness there is the flash of a ghost with too many teeth, an empty shell with only the desire for fame and the willingness to do anything to reach it.
“How do I find a demon?” he asks. The crude doll had taken advantage of his distraction, now sitting up and stretching out an arm as though learning how to use it. From the corner of Aaron’s eye, it’s a passable imitation of him. Aaron clenches his jaw and stares at it more directly, cowing it back into being only fabric.
The Girl With No Name watches the doll as well. “It’s not that easy,” she says. “Most who deal with demons like that sign with their companies. You’re coming in as a stranger, and they don’t like giving favors to those they don’t own already. Whatever they ask of you will be worse than normal.”
How can he offer anything greater than himself? Aaron swallows. “I’ll deal with that when I get there.”
This time, when the nameless girl appraises him, her mouth twitches almost like a smile. “Good,” she says.
Her approval lifts him higher than it should, and only now does he realize he's been desperate for someone to see him as capable of making a stand for NU'EST, for his members, for the boy who kissed him by the white-tipped sea. Only in the sudden brightness can Aaron admit he'd been terrified to learn that he wasn't even good enough to be a sacrifice, that he's never been anything but the boy denied by the industry's magic, destined to fail from the very beginning.
Before he can lean too hard into this success, the girl adds, “maybe if you get what you want, it’ll make a year of Aaron Kwak’s life worth enough to buy me a name.”
A year of his life. That’s what he had given her. The loss hits him then, in a way it hadn’t when she’d cut his hair and taken his blood. A year worth of memories and feelings and growth, all carved straight from his chest. He’s far more hyper-aware of that new empty space than the thin cut on his hand.
But though he’s shaking, it’s not from fear. Exhilaration rockets through him. That strange innocence that made others look down on him is now gone. He’s made a trade that's tainted him in a way that not even four years of being an idol managed to.
It had been so easy. Aaron had come here with a purpose, then he’d given and got. Unlike popularity, which needs luck and circumstance, magic is transactional. All Aaron needs to do is pay its cost, and he receives its benefit. For the first time in very long, he feels powerful. He feels like the Girl with No Name was right to help him, because by the end of everything, a year of his life will be worth something.
Head on, the doll is only twisted, coarse fabric, faceless and featureless and still as any inanimate object. Aaron isn’t fooled. It has only a year to live. Knowing himself, it’ll try and take advantage of that.
Aaron leaves with the name of a demon. "Be selfish," the girl advises him. “If you’re successful, your group is successful. They are going to try and trick you, Aaron Kwak. Don’t let them.”
***
Before Aaron was an idol, before Aaron set foot in Korea, before Aaron had any vision of becoming a singer at all, he’d had an obsession with Los Angeles Firebirds. Unlike phoenixes, firebirds hadn’t created their own flames, but they only nested in burning habitat. To create it, they’d fly hundreds of miles to locate wildfires before carrying burning sticks to other areas and igniting them. Because of their destructive nature, they’d been culled to extinction, immortalized only in the names of sports teams and artist renditions.
Aaron isn’t sure what made him latch onto those birds all those years ago. Phoenixes are flashier, with golden wings that trail sparks behind them. The firebirds had been large and brown, not all that different-looking than Golden Eagles but more destructive by multitudes. No one had loved the firebirds. No one but Aaron, who’d been born over a century after the last one died.
As Aaron enters the lobby of a company that isn’t his and avoids the eyes of a couple lingering ghosts that look straight through him anyway, he prepares to chase immortality not as a phoenix but as a firebird. He’s not universally loved, but he’s able to leave a mark all the same. All he needs to do is carry the right flame to his members.
They’re the ones who can burn forever. Given the chance, they’ll shine brighter than anyone.
What Aaron becomes after he provides that flame… well, will it really be that much less than what he is now?
Because he's come here for his members, Aaron doesn't mind that he steals from them along the way. When he greets the receptionist, he uses Jonghyeon's unerring politeness. He walks with Mingi's confidence and certainty in himself, no matter that Aaron's most likely walking to his own death. He tries to channel how everyone who meets Dongho walks away with a solid impression of him as he enters the CEO's office. The only member he doesn't take anything from is Minhyun, because he's already wearing Minhyun's sweater, and it grounds him.
The CEO looks very much like just a man. His office is a luscious space, with a fine rug on the floor and original paintings on the walls. Aaron tries to stand as though he's used to places like this. He'd been surprised when The Girl With No Name sent him to this demon, as his company has only begun to gain recognition recently. She'd said he'd be more likely to cut a deal with an idol from somewhere else because of that. Owning a Pledis idol will help him gain a foothold in industry corners he hasn't yet accessed, especially with Pledis' policy to not deal with magic. Aaron has weight here, if only because of that.
“Who are you?” the CEO asks.
The Girl with No Name had made it clear that Aaron will enter a deal from the moment he says his name. He powers easily through a final stab of uncertainty. “Aaron Kwak,” he says. The room grows darker, as though the sun outside has been hidden by clouds. With the long shadows, the demon appears taller.
“I heard of you once,” he says. The words strike Aaron, hitting the same as ones that praise Face’s digitals and nothing they’ve done in their careers since. It takes everything Aaron has to not clench his fists.
“You’ll hear of me again,” he says, though the words don’t feel like his own, taken straight from the Girl With No Name. “I want to sign a contract with you.”
The demon smiles with only one side of his mouth. “What do you propose?”
For the first time since entering the building, Aaron ignores the Girl With No Name’s advice. She’d told him to be selfish, to speak here only of his own success. But she’d said that because she wanted to sell that year she’d taken from him for a profit. Aaron isn’t here to make himself immortal. He’s here as a firebird, trying to raise phoenixes. “My being for my group’s success," he says. "NU’EST’s success.”
The next night, Minhyun calls him. This time, he speaks. And though Aaron can't say his tone is happy nor hopeful, Minhyun has a voice.
He tells Aaron he got to pick a group today.
Aaron listens but doesn't say much himself, too busy gritting his teeth against the continuous burning of the brand the demon left on him.
***
The day Aaron attends the Produce 101 finale, he walks with the confidence of a prophet. It’s so easy to see how things will play out, so obvious how all the dominoes in the cosmic universe have lined themselves up.
His members have risen to unfathomable heights, and tonight, they’ll win. For a year and a half, NU’EST will be nothing, while they achieve fame and fortune. And when they return, they’ll go on as a four-member NU’EST for as long as they wish.
Aaron wears Minhyun’s sweater. Though it’s selfish, he thinks he’ll wear it when he returns to the demon too. It feels safer to do something like that than try to collect new memories with Minhyun to clutch against his chest as he walks to his death. This way, they’ve only kissed once. A drunken kiss. A kiss they never really discussed after, no matter how much Aaron’s thought of it since.
When the lights dim and the performances begin, Aaron gives up any guise of paying attention. Instead, he pictures the end, a habit he’s taken to frequently these past couple weeks. The vivid imaginings play over and over in his head, until he’s got the minutia of it all calculated out. Every detail, planned to perfection.
After the finale, they will celebrate. They’ll spend a last night together in the dorms, where Aaron will be able to cling to them to his heart’s content without sparking any suspicion. He’ll tell them he intends to go to America for a while, but that he’ll always support them. They’ll make him promise to come back, and Aaron will carry the sin of that lie to his death.
The next morning, they’ll pack their things and move out. Aaron will wait a short period of time, maybe until they debut. Until they’re busy enough that they don’t immediately notice when he stops replying. His family will think he’s in Korea. His members will think he’s in America. By the time anyone puts together enough to come investigate, it will hopefully be months too late. Though Aaron can’t pretend his death won’t hurt those he cares about, he hopes the wounds won’t be as deep if everyone is headfirst into their new lives without him by the time it all comes to light.
He'll have to leave something for his members to find, so they know what happened to him. Otherwise, he’s afraid they’ll try and figure it out themselves. It’s not too hard to picture them tracking down The Girl with No Name and Aaron doesn’t want them anywhere near her, especially not when they’re desperate for answers and pieces of them are worth an unimaginable amount.
As the final performances of Produce 101 go on, Aaron writes this letter in his head. Some parts come easy, like the way he’ll tell them that they were always meant to shine and that once he found out he could make that happen, of course he’d done exactly that. They’d stood up when he couldn’t, but he’d taken what action he could from the background. He’d done his best. Aaron would ask them to understand that.
He'll say they should drink an extra drink for him on nights they get together but to otherwise look forward. To be Wanna One. To be NU’EST. To hold their dreams in their hands, just as they’ve always longed to. He won’t apologize because he’s done nothing wrong.
The reality of the ranking ceremony slices straight through Aaron's daydreams.
For several horrific hours, he believes that his soul is worth too little to save them, and then NU'EST rises like a phoenix out of ash.
Only now that it happens like this does Aaron allow himself to think that he is so, so glad he’ll at least get to witness this before paying his dues. Their songs on charts, higher than ever before. The outpouring of love. Aaron laughs and cries with the others, as everything they’ve ever wanted falls into their laps.
Truly, what more can Aaron ask for to give him strength when he returns to the demon’s clutches? His members will be safe; they will be loved. No matter that they’ll be without Minhyun for a while, they’ll figure things out, and it’s only 18 months of separation. It’ll work out.
That Sunday, Minhyun prepares to move out. He packs his things, until his existence in their dorm lessens to only packed bags by the doorway, slowly being taken to the sidewalk, where Minhyun’s new manager will meet him.
Minhyun acts off that whole morning, which Aaron doesn’t blame him for. But he’s not prepared for Minhyun to pull him into his empty bedroom even after they've all said their goodbyes. Tears well up in Minhyun’s eyes. Aaron wants to brush them away because he hates how he’s seen Minhyun cry more these past few days than he ever has before, especially since this should be a happy time.
Minhyun spends several precious seconds simply walking about the bare room, as though he can't choose where he wants to be, before sitting on the bare mattress he's leaving behind. "I shouldn't have done it," he says, as the bed squeaks from how forcefully he dropped onto it.
Aaron doesn’t understand. He shakes his head mutely, unable to offer comfort without more details. With effort, he keeps his distance from Minhyun.
“I should have believed in us more. I shouldn’t have—” He waves vaguely, unable to look Aaron in the eye. Aaron’s heart thunks uncomfortably against his ribs. Oh. This is an apology, because Minhyun thinks he won because of magic and now they’ll feel his absence because of it. Aaron must be the only one Minhyun feels able to admit it to. Aaron’s arm burns with phantom pain, even though the demon's mark has dulled from a brand to only a dark bruise.
“You didn’t know,” he says. Minhyun still doesn’t know, but Aaron’s too much of a coward to tell him now. “I’m sorry too, though. I know it’ll be hard for you.”
Minhyun reaches out for him, and though Aaron’s vowed to not make things more difficult for Minhyun, he can't deny him either. Once again, Minhyun takes both of Aaron’s hands. Aaron’s traitorous heart races.
It’s probably good that Minhyun took his hands, though, because otherwise, Aaron would be tempted to touch his face or brush back his hair. Minhyun’s skin is so impossibly smooth, his hair silky. Aaron settles for memorizing it with his eyes.
“You’ve been wearing my clothes a lot,” Minhyun murmurs. Aaron’s got one of his t-shirts on today. He hadn’t spared a thought toward it, too far into the habit he'd picked up while he was living alone. It makes him feel less alone and less scared of what the future holds for him.
“Oh, did you want to take this?” Aaron asks, aware he’s being obtuse.
“No, I like when you do that. Do it while I’m away.” Minhyun stands then, and his grip on Aaron prevents him from moving backward, so they end up dangerously close. Aaron tilts his chin up, sighing as one of Minhyun's hands slides up his arm to his shoulder, then brushes against the small hairs on the back of his neck.
Though Aaron tells himself he should back off before Minhyun gets the wrong idea, he finds himself holding onto Minhyun just as tight. His entire body tingles with the awareness that it would take so little to press himself fully against Minhyun. He struggles to keep his gaze away from Minhyun's lips.
“I’m glad you stayed,” Minhyun murmurs. He brushes over Aaron’s cheek once before tilting Aaron's chin up a bit further.
Aaron’s next breath comes out shaky. “I’m glad too," he says weakly.
Minhyun kisses him like it may be the last time for two years.
Aaron kisses back like he’ll never get to again.