Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seung

Will you read thought this quick? I think I got everything but you need to make sure I got all the important shit.

Victor must be out of his damn mind. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to write your side of the story and me to write mine? I’m not buying this ‘bond strengthening’ bullshit. Victor’s just a sadist…

Love you

Yura

PS: Check for first person. He’s fucking making me change that too.

---

Two days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

“Hey, are you alright?” Georgi’s hands tightened on Seung’s shoulders.

Those silly, simple words made Seung panic. Not that he wasn’t already panicking but, those words pushed him over the edge. He had been running from the thought of a green eye for as long as he could remember and now here it was, so innocently, in Georgi’s drawing. That eye was his first memory and it had been haunting him. No matter how fast he ran, the thing he feared was right behind him, just waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Strike they did, in the form of Georgi, with a simple drawing and three kind words.

It was everything he tried to run from. The deep penetrating stare of an emerald green eye. The lingering harsh voice that filled him with dread and joy in equal parts. The dreams that engulfed him in a world so realistic that he was convinced that he was either living two lives or failing to grasp reality. The strange mark that he kept hidden on his arm.

It took his breath away. This was everything.

Yura.

So, Seung ran away from Georgi’s shop, just as he had been running all his life.

---

Twenty one years before the meeting; Earth; Five years old.

Seung was playing with large wooden blocks. He was trying to build the highest tower he could or, at least higher than his brother’s. He only had three blocks to go when it all came tumbling down.

He was enraged.

His brother was three years older than him, which meant he was better at most things. It didn’t stop Seung from trying to best him at everything. Well, anything really. It never quite worked out and Seung was not good at coping with his feelings.

Hwan was a proper child: Restrained, obedient, and attentive, at least in front of their parents. According to them, he was everything Seung was not. Instead, Seung was prone to temper tantrums full of passion and anger, with his emotions always ready to burst forth and embarrass his parents. He was so different back then.

Seung was born to the wrong parents.

Screaming, in blind rage, Seung kicked over his brother’s tower and started pelting him with blocks. It didn’t end well. Nothing like that ever ended well.

Their mother, Hye-yun, came rushing into the room with Eun in her arms. Seung only needed a look and a click of the tongue to stop fighting. Not that he took this well, he turned red under the pressure and tears covered his face. But at least his anger was contained.

“What happened?” His mother was soft spoken. She acted kind to a fault and was always willing to be trampled, especially if it brought peace to the household. It was mostly her husband that did the stomping. She was stern with her children, always pushing them, so they lived up to their father’s expectations.

“Seung was angry that his blocks fell so he pushed mine over!” Hwan was always combative. He was the eldest and he had no problem taking advantage of it.

Hye-yun smiled and sighed indulgently at her two boys. “Come here, boys, and look into the mirror,” she said.

Seung and Hwan arranged themselves on either side of their mother while she turned Eun so she could face the mirror too. At a year old, Eun liked mirrors so she babbled happily at herself as the others talked.

“Seung, child, what do you see?”

Seung assumed it was a trick question. She could clearly see into the mirror herself. “I see me.”

Hye-yun nodded, “Good,” she pointed at Hwan “And here?”

Seung didn’t see the point but went along with it. “I see Hwan.”

Hwan and Seung looked a lot alike, both taking after their mother. Hwan’s eyes though, were pale grey while Seung's were more like slate.

“Yes, and right here we have Eun. You are you, he is him, and she is her.” She pointed to each child in turn. “She can’t do the same things you can do. Do you know why?”

Seung frowned down at his baby sister. “Because she’s a baby.”

Hye-yun nodded again. “She is younger than you and you are younger than Hwan. You are different people and you will never be exactly the same. Just be your best you.” It was good advice and something Seung should have listened to. Taken to heart even, but he wasn’t listening.

It was right then that he first saw Yuri’s eye.

He didn’t know it was Yuri’s eye. Or even that there was a Yuri. It was just someone else's eye.

It took the place of Seung's own right eye, completely covering it, changing the deep grey to a startling emerald. He closed his eye and opened it, the green was still there. He put his hand over his eye quickly and removed it, the color refused to change back.

This was his first look into the magical world of Gaia.

---

Twenty years before the meeting; Gaia; Six years old.

Seung started to have dreams about Yuri after he first saw Yuri’s eye and he really enjoyed them. They were so easy to sink into and escape from what he didn’t like about his life. Even at six years old, Seung was running.

This dream was about bedtime. Yuri was wrapped in a blanket and his grandfather, Nikolai, was rocking him. He was staring down at Yuri with intense green eyes and a gentle smile. It was such a wonderful feeling, like floating. Nikolai was singing a song to Yuri in a language that Seung didn’t understand.

It was an adorable song about asking a cat to protect a child in exchange for food. Seung didn’t understand it then, but he would eventually.

This was Seung's favorite kind of dream. He felt so protected, so loved. Something that was maybe a little lacking during his waking hours.

Yuri may have still been a baby but he was way better than Eun. All she did was cry and fuss.

Nikolai was a truly kind person, completely opposite of Seung's mother. Hye-yun acted kind when she needed to but Nikolai was selfless. He worked and smiled genuinely all while he took care of Yuri, alone, after his mother dumped him and ran. She hated the very idea of raising a Pillar of Gaia.

When Nikolai spoke to Yuri, Seung listened with all of his heart. He didn’t understand the words yet but his tone was so wonderfully comforting.

---

Eight years before the meeting; Earth; Eighteen years old.

“I think this may be for the best.” Seung tried desperately to focus on what his mother was saying but he couldn’t. He could feel his mother’s pain and loss like it was his own. Seung felt his own pain at running away but this was something more . He could actually feel her emotions, weaving in and over his own, like a weight in his chest. This was a gift he had slowly developed over time and no one else he knew seemed to have this ability.

His gift made every conversation a convoluted mess of layered double meaning.

Seung and Hye-yun were sitting in the park. This place held so many memories, playing here as a child, a dirty little puppy with matted fur, hiding from his family when he was older. This was supposed to be a serious conversation but Seung couldn’t force his thoughts stay still. It was a beautiful summer’s day and that’s what Seung remembered most.

It’s funny how memory works like that.

It was warm but not stiflingly hot out and the sun was shining. Seung and Hye-yun sat on a bench under a tree and the sunlight fell on her face in splotches of overly bright color. She was weeping in public.

This was probably the last time he would see her. He had plans to leave Korea completely and if he ever did come back, he would avoid his family at all costs.

“You and your father never really got along and you will never be happy doing what he wants you to do.” Well, she was certainly right about that.

That’s when Seung saw the woman standing across the street.

It was her hair that first drew his eyes: chestnut brown curls, thick and full, spilling down past her waist. She was tall and elegant, almost willowy. There was something else about her too, like she was slightly out of step with the world around her.

She noticed that Seung was staring at her and winked. He couldn’t stop staring at her, she seemed… wrong.

“You’ve always been so different from us and I don’t know what else to do to make you happy.” Seung looked over at his mother again and sighed. Hye-yun was always a master of understatement.

Hye-yun was still talking and trying to press an envelope into Seung's hands but he couldn’t stop watching the woman across the street. She was slowly walking towards him with a benevolent smile on her face. When she was halfway across the street it seemed like her hair started to grow. It puffed up around her shoulders and stuck out to the sides, almost like wings.

Except, they really were wings, the exact color of her hair. They grew as she walked closer to Seung until they were twice her height and trailing along behind her like she was about to leap into the air.

She was a child of Gaia.

No one else on the street reacted for more than a moment before they continued on with their day. It was written into the spell that created Gaia that the children of Earth who saw children of Gaia instantly forgot. Seung was pretty sure he was born a child of Earth but he never forgot the children of Gaia. He was something else now, something more and it was messing with his head.

Seung was barely holding in his panic. His mother was crying and the child of Gaia looked like she wanted to come and talk to him. He needed to leave.

“I have to go or I’ll miss my bus.” He stood abruptly. This was the best he could think of.

Hye-yun stifled a sob, jumped up from the bench, and drew him into a hug. “Be happy.” She pressed the envelope into Seung's hands again.

“Be happy,” she whispered again.

The child of Gaia must have noticed that Seung was upset and stopped walking. He didn’t spare her another thought as he walked (a little too quickly) down the street.

Seung ended up at the bus station three hours early. When he finally calmed himself he opened the envelope that Hye-yun insisted he take and it was stuffed with a ridiculous amount of money.

He wasn’t sure where he was sleeping two days from then but at least he wouldn’t starve.

---

Fourteen days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

Seung was walking down the street, on his way back to his hotel room when he had an encounter with another child of Gaia.

This time, it was an actual child, a boy of seven with short brown hair and an adorable amount of freckles across his nose. He ran ahead of his parents and tugged on Seung's sleeve to get his attention.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered. He was blushing and it was very cute.

Seung managed to stammer out a thank you. He didn’t feel amazing and had no idea why this boy would ever call him amazing but the innate try for politeness always took over when he was confused. He put on something resembling a smile and looked down at the boy, still trying to figure out why he was amazing and the boy smiled back.

Except this dear boy had no ordinary smile.

His cheeks split from ear to ear, as he smiled, to reveal two rows of pointed, dangerous looking teeth and a tongue that looked much too similar to a serpents. Seung's mouth went dry. The only thing that would ever override his courtesy was his fear of Gaia.

He gave the child a gentle shove and ducked into the first doorway he came to. He got a nasty look from the child’s father but he didn’t care; he needed to get away.

Seung stood and watched out the window until the little family was out of sight. When he finally relaxed, he realized he was in some kind of a shop and the shop was somewhat of a strange place. The walls were wooden and lined with shelves that were full of bottles, trinkets, gemstones, and all manor of things huddled together with no organization.

It took a few moments for Seung to get his bearings and when he did, he noticed there was a counter off to the left with someone standing behind it.

The shopkeeper had dark hair and dark blue eyes. He looked over at Seung and opened his mouth like he was going to say something but decided not to. He kept looking at Seung but now it was more like he was looking through Seung.

Seung did not like it.

It felt like tiny, itchy pin pricks all along his skin and it was one of the most uncomfortable things Seung had ever experienced. The shopkeeper smiled slowly and walked around the counter. “Would you like to order something or are you going through to Gaia?”

He motioned to a quiet looking door in the back of the shop. The door was even more strange than the rest. It was made from the same honey-colored wood that made up the walls and shelves around it but, the door was inlaid with coiled vines wrapped around it and themselves. They were so realistic they almost seemed alive, like the door was breathing but that couldn’t be true; doors don’t breathe.

Doors don’t breathe.

The shopkeeper's words filtered through Seung's mind again. “Through to Gaia” echoed over and over in his head.

Gaia.

Gaia wasn’t a real place. There was no such thing as a magical world which lay parallel to Earth with its own customs and traditions. There was no such thing as magic. Seung kept telling himself that until he was convinced that he made it all up.

That there was no Yuri.

“Gaia’s not a real place.” He said quietly, evenly. Seung figured if he could keep himself calm and ignored things hard enough, all of his problems would go away.

The shopkeeper frowned slightly and shot him a surprised look but then masked his features with polite indifference. His features weren’t the only thing he was masking. Seung tried to read his emotions but when he reached into the shopkeeper's mind, it felt like he hit a wall.

It was like the shopkeeper was forcing the feeling of benign calm over himself and whatever he was thinking. Very few people could do that and it seemed like the shopkeeper was reading Seung right back (only much more successfully). Seung was sure the shopkeeper was a child of Earth but he was also something more .

“I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. My name is Georgi, is there something I can help you with?”

Seung knew Georgi was lying and lied right back. “No, I just came in to look around.”

The benign mask of a smile was back, but they were both lying and courtesy dictated they be polite anyway. “Interesting, we don’t get many people who come in just to look around. Let me know if you need anything.” Georgi leaned forward like he expected Seung to say something else and waited.

Seung's fear decided it was time to leave so he gave the same smile back to Georgi and said: “No, thank you, I’ll just go.”

If he started running as soon as he turned the corner, it was no one’s business but his own.

---

Twenty years before the meeting; Earth; Six years old.

Seung was playing with his blocks again. It was his favorite toy and now that Hwan decided that playing with blocks was for babies, he could build his tower in peace without trying to outdo his brother.

He had learned over the past year that it was best to completely ignore his brother. Hwan really didn’t like it which made it that much more satisfying for Seung. He also started singing the song that Nikoli sang to Yuri. He would sing it at random times but mostly, he used it to comfort himself or as a way to focus on what he was doing.

This habit had become so ingrained in him that he didn’t even realize he was singing the song until his brother asked about it. Of course, his brother couldn’t just ask about it, mostly because Seung was ignoring him so hard, so instead, Hwan shoved Seung into his block tower to get his attention.

Seung was angry when his blocks hit the floor but he didn’t show it. There was something else he learned over the past year: if he acted like he didn’t care about what his brother thought, his brother would get upset and about half the time, Hwan would be the one to get in trouble for acting out.

He answered with a simple, long-suffering: “What do you want?”

“What’s that song?” Hwan was in a mood. He was trying to start a fight with Seung.

Seung smiled lightly. Thinking about Yuri made him happy and even Hwan couldn’t take that from him. “It’s Yuri’s song.”

Hwan thought about this for a minute. There was no one at school called Yuri and he couldn’t think of any tv shows that had someone with that name. It wasn’t even a Korean name.  “Who’s Yuri?” he asked his curiosity for once, outweighing his attitude.

“He’s my friend and his grandfather sings that song to him.”

This confused Hwan even further. He was so sure he didn’t know a Yuri but Hwan didn’t like being confused so he turned to his old standby.  “That song is stupid. It doesn’t even make sense.”

This was when Seung started to get upset. He could mostly ignore Hwan taunting him but saying mean things about Yuri was crossing a line. Seung balled up his tiny fists and went red in the face.

“You take that back right now! Yuri is not stupid and neither is his song.”

“Oh, wow, Yuri must really be stupid.” Hwan sneered. He knew exactly how to push Seung's buttons. “If he needs you to protect him.”

Seung lost his temper and all ability to see reason. He jumped on Hwan, pushed him to the floor, and started kicking and punching every part of his brother he could reach. Seung's screaming and Hwan's crying brought Hye-yun in from the other room.

She sighed and pulled them apart. “Why are you fighting this time?” Hye-yun looked tired. Eun was up all night crying with an ear infection and it put everyone in the house on edge.

“Could you please not do this right now?”

Seung was not going to be distracted from this, even if his mother was begging. “He said Yuri was stupid and Yuri’s not stupid he’s good.”

Of course, the only thing she could think of to say was: “Who’s Yuri?” She didn’t know anyone named Yuri either.

“He’s my friend. He has a kitten on the wall next to his bed and his grandfather sings him songs.” Seung broke into a wide smile and his eyes shined with joy. He could never not be happy when thinking about Yuri.

“And you learned that song from them?”

“Yes.” His smile widened more, urging Hye-yun to accept Yuri.

Hye-yun had heard him singing the song before and just assumed it was gibberish; she didn’t know enough about Russian to recognize the language. With these facts, she naturally assumed that Seung made Yuri up. He was around the right age and creative enough to construct a detailed friend for himself.

“It’s good that you made a friend like Yuri.” And it was good, as long as his belief tapered off appropriately. None of them would find out for another twenty years just how real Yuri was.

Eun chose that moment to start crying again. Hye-yun sighed again and said, “Please, just stop fighting. We can talk about this more, later.”

---

Nine years before the meeting; Gaia; Seventeen years old.

Seung really liked watching Yuri with his friends. They were so different from everyone he knew and he was completely enthralled by the beautiful displays of magic that young people in Gaia seemed to produce at random. There was always so much to look at when Yuri was at school.

He had two friends that he liked above all others and they walked home from school together every day, even though Yuri never acted like he liked either of them.

Otabek was laughing. Well, he never actually laughed; it was just a huff or smirk while humor danced in his dark eyes. It annoyed the hell out of Mila. He would laugh in her general direction and his wind magic would come up behind him and ruffle the long part of his dark undercut. At fifteen he saw this as the height of cool and he used his winds blow out whatever flame Mila was playing with.

It was something he did constantly, just because he could.

Fire was a truly appropriate element for Mila. Her appearance screamed it, from the tips of her scarlet nails to her flaming red hair. Her anger was all fire too. It blazed on her face as she stomped her foot and threw sparks at Otabek.

He just laughed and carried her sparks away again.

Mila screeched and stomped her foot again. “Fine,” she cried, “You aren’t coming over to watch Rune Wars with us today.”

She threw her arm around Yuri and pulled him close to her body. He tried to shy away from the heat of her anger but she refused to let him go, his slight twelve-year-old body was no match for her. “Yuri will come with me and you will go home alone.”

Rune Wars was a popular tv show that aired on one of the Gaia only networks. It was modeled after the show Cupcake Wars from the Earth side.

Yuri had enough of this. It was the same dance every day after school and it stopped being funny long ago. Even if they all made it to the same place to watch the stupid show, Otabek and Mila wouldn’t stop bickering long enough to actually watch said show.

“No,” his words were a bit muffled by Mila’s arm. “I’m going home and watching Painful Potions with my Dedulya. He’s quiet enough to actually watch the show and it’s way better than stupid Runes.”

Painful Potions came from the Gaia side and became Cutthroat Kitchen when adjusted for Earth audiences. Many children of Gaia were disappointed to learn that there was no actual throat cutting involved in production. Despite that, it was one of Yuri’s favorites.

By this point, he was flailing his arms in an attempt to get away. Unfortunately, Mila had a few years and a few pounds on him and he couldn’t get free. “Get off of me, you old hag!” Yuri was shouting and stomping his feet now too.

Otabek laughed again, throwing leaves and bits of dirt up into the air. It was beautiful to watch, in an abstract way. Standing in the center of the vortex they were untouched by the wind that whipped around them.

Mila laughed in joy and released Yuri. She brought her hands up and delightedly added her flames to the swirling column of air. It was staggering when they worked together instead of against each other.

As amazing as it was to watch, Yuri couldn’t help but feel the sharp pain of loss. He didn’t have any flashy powers. No wings, no elements dancing around his hands. Just a stupid mark on his arm that he kept covered and a color changing eye.

He knew that waiting for his magic would pay off eventually but right now, he was getting impatient. At school, his magic was marked as ‘unknown’ and while the other students had classes to practice magic or flying or whatever their specialty would become, Yuri was given extra history and geography lessons.

Mila and Otabek finally finished their display and went back to bickering about whose house they were going to. Yuri decided to ignore them because he already made up his mind to go home and spend time with his grandfather. He didn’t have much time left before he had to leave home.

Yuri would move to the Castle of Pillars to train when he was fourteen. This was basically Victor and Yuuri’s house but it also served as a residence for all the tied pairs and a central library for all of Gaia.

Yuri was going to have a glorious and important future… It just didn’t feel like that right then.

He took solace in his dreams with Seung, escaping into Seung's world whenever he could. The dreams were becoming more vivid and in the last few months, he gained the ability to feel Seung's thoughts and emotions. Yuri wasn’t just an outside viewer anymore; he felt like an active participant.

Yuri did have dreams about another boy, called Leo, but Yuri rarely dreamed about him and when he did, all he remembered was a confusing mix of noise and laughter. There was no emotional connection between the two of them and Yuri preferred Seung's personality over Leo’s. Yuri knew he should be paying equal attention to everyone he dreamed about but he didn’t find Leo interesting enough to care.

Seung's heart felt like it would explode every time Yuri thought about him. Yuri’s thoughts were as clear to Seung as Seung's were to Yuri and now he had confirmation that no matter what else was going on in his life, Yuri cared about him, deeply.

Finally, the little group was in front of Yuri’s house. He turned off the sidewalk and ran up his steps without saying goodbye to his friends, they were still going on about Rune Wars.

“Hey,” Mila shouted from the sidewalk. “I thought you were coming to my house.”

“No, I told you I was going to sit with Dedulya. The two of you can go and pull each other’s hair somewhere else.” Yuri wrinkled his nose and disappeared inside.

---

Fourteen days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

If Seung started running as soon as he turned the corner, it was no one’s business but his own.

He ran for miles and miles because sometimes the only way to quiet his mind was to push his body until he couldn’t move anymore. Seung had so many questions. About Georgi, about that breathing door, about Gaia in general.

He had questions he wanted so desperately to ignore but couldn’t. Not with a real person who Seung was convinced was a child of Earth speaking so openly about Gaia. Georgi made him so uncomfortable. It was like he looked through Seung instead of looking at him. Georgi had to be connected to Gaia.

He had to be.

But Gaia wasn’t real.

Seung had told himself for so many years that Gaia couldn't be real, that he had himself convinced it wasn’t.

He had no real proof that it was real, just his dreams, random sightings of people who weren’t entirely human, and his mysterious ability to read the emotions of others. Well that, and the funny mark on his arm that only one other person was able to see.

The mark had grown out of nowhere when Seung was fifteen and one of his dreams gave a convenient explanation for it. He had the mark because Yuri had the mark, simple as that.

These were all things to think about later because right now, Seung had to get himself calmed down and go back to his hotel room, to his job, to real life.

So, Seung ran for another few blocks and then turned his footsteps to where he was supposed to be.

---

Seven years before the meeting; Earth; Nineteen years old.

It was a few weeks after Seung's nineteenth birthday. He had been traveling around Europe for the better part of a year and he was getting a bit tired of it. Seeing new people all the time was invading his senses and he got overwhelmed easily, especially in large crowds. He had gotten into the (very unhealthy) habit of shutting out the world around him and only focusing on what was right in front of him.

Right now, a croissant, a cup of tea with jam, and a map of Italy was his main focus. He was sitting in a boring cafe that opened into a moderately busy street in Nowheresville Italy. It was pretty enough, but easy for Seung to ignore when he was trying to figure out where to go next and how long he could stay without running out of time on his passport.

Seung didn’t even notice when someone sat down at his table; that was how good he was at ignoring things. But when the woman cleared her throat to get his attention, Seung jumped. It was a painfully hilarious flailing of limbs and spilled tea which would have been much funnier to him if he didn’t have scalding hot liquid all over his lap.

The woman who scared him thought it was funny enough. Her lips curled up into a thin line and she bit off a little snort of laughter.

She waited quietly while Seung tried to soak up the moisture in his lap and cursed to himself.

Seung took some time to glance at the older woman sitting across from him, while he still mopped hopelessly at the front of his soggy jeans. She was mean-looking with her hair pulled back into a severe bun. Her whole body was thin and jagged, born from years of athleticism and spite.

It appeared as though the angry woman was frowning but she wasn’t; it was just her face. This became extremely clear when Seung said some unkind things about the woman’s mother in Russian and she really frowned. Oh, the angry frowning woman spoke Russian, fantastic. Seung needed to find another language to curse in.

“You’re drinking Russian tea.” Her voice was just as angry as the rest of her.

“Yes, sorry. I um, tried it once and I liked it.” Seung wasn’t sorry but his drive to be polite won out over his will to anger this oddly intimidating woman. He bobbed his head a bit and waited.

“I’m Lilia Baranovskaya and I’m here to offer you a job.”

“Me?” Seung had been unsettled by this woman, Lilia, since she had been sitting there and finally he figured out why. Seung could not read her like he could other people. There was a great gaping void in the fabric of the room, exactly where Lilia was sitting.

Now that he was finally paying attention, Seung noticed the same void surrounding two others in the cafe. A great bear of a man with a long ponytail and a square chin sitting with a boy that had dark hair and a smile so wide it had to be fake. No one could be that happy.

Seung was wrong (again), Phichit is just a happy person. Beyond happy. Enthusiastic, full of life, filled with joy. It was a bit creepy really, and it confused Seung. He wasn’t ready for happy, not yet.

“Yes, you. My...associates over there,” Lilia nodded her head to the others. “Think you have something I can use.”

Lilia took his time finding the next words, sliding them around on her tongue before spitting them through her frown. “Something extra .”

That was a delicate way to put it.

Seung stared at Lilia and waited for her to elaborate. At least, that’s how it looked on the outside. Inside he was panicking and it was ugly. No one had ever said anything directly about his uncanny ability to read people. He never really told anyone about what he could do because he was afraid at how they would react. And now, after years of living with it, this group of people show up out of nowhere and point it out like it was as simple as commenting on his shoes.

But to be fair, they were nice shoes. Comfortable and made of leather, they’ll last for years.

The panic must have shown on Seung's face because Lilia went on. “Don’t panic too hard, they're like you. They help me sometimes, when I need them.”

“And what exactly do you do?” Finally, something Seung could grasp ahold of, something logical.

“Interpol, you know, a bit here and a bit there. Your knowledge of language will be useful and I could help you with your little passport problem.” Every one of her words hit Seung solidly in the chest. He spent so much time and effort hiding and she saw right through him.

It wasn’t actually Lilia that was looking through him. She was a good person, as Seung would soon find out, but she was a typical child of Earth. Nothing at all like Seung. It was Celestino and Phichit, they were the ones staring into Seung's soul.

Phichit seemed oddly familiar, like Seung had seen him in a dream and he was not going to think about that right now.

On the other hand, working for Interpol would serve him well. Seung's logic flew around him just as fast as his mind would go. It would solve his passport and money problems. It would give him a place to be, however fleeting.

He was about to ask Lilia more questions, always with the questions, when Phichit’s cackle interrupted him from across the patio. “You have him now, old friend.”

Seung looked over at Phichit. He was sharing a deep belly laugh with Celestino. They were there right in front of him, laughing, until they weren't. They were just gone. The only evidence that they were ever there was a cooling cup of espresso and a dirty plate sitting alone at their table.

It’s a neat trick, called sidestepping but...That’s a story for later. The important thing is that Seung did not like it. He never liked anything that his logic couldn’t explain. He’d grow out of it eventually but for now, it only served to upset him.

Lilia clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. Phichit could be a bit of a showoff and Celestino just followed him, laughing, into the mist.

“Now that they are finished showing off, take my card and think about it. As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, working for me will solve most of your problems.” Lilia scowled again and threw her card down on the table, right in the spilled tea.

Seung stared at Lilia as she walked away. He was left confused, a little angry, and still drenched in tea.

It took him a week to call her. The card burned a tea and strawberry flavored hole in his pocket that couldn’t be ignored.

Several days later he was partnered up with JJ.

---

Fourteen years before the meeting; Gaia; Twelve years old.

Nikoli smiled down at Yuri. They had just finished dinner and it was Yuri’s turn to talk about his day. Every day since Yuri started going to school the year before was like this, Nikoli would talk about his day during dinner and Yuri would talk about his while they had tea afterward.

Seung enjoyed watching these moments. His family was so different from Yuri’s. They put jam in their tea and Yuri was allowed to talk about anything he wanted.

Yuri stretched as far as he could to set the jam jar on the table next to Nikoli’s cup. Yuri was endlessly proud of Nikoli’s cup because it was just perfect for him. It had “#1 Grandpa” printed on the side and it came from a company called Amazon on Earth. Mila’s mom helped him order it and it was the first thing he ever ordered from the Earth side.

Nikoli chuckled and helped guide the jar onto the table because Yuri was a little over excited. It must have been a good day for him at school.

“Well, hop up there and I’ll get the tea ready.” He pointed to Yuri’s chair. Yuri scrambled into his chair and squirmed until Nikoli had the teapot ready to brew. Yuri’s cup was amazing too. It had a picture of a tiger on it and was a gift from Nikoli for his seventh birthday.

When the teapot was all set up, Nikoli rested his finger across the top and instantly heated the water inside. It was a small trick but Yuri loved watching such simple magic in action.

“So, what did you do in school today?” he asked, pouring the tea into Yuri’s cup. Finally, finally , it was time for Yuri to tell Nikoli what happened.

“Well, we learned about tied pairs, how they keep the worlds together so we can live on Gaia.”

Nikoli nodded and said, solemnly: “A very important lesson. What else did you learn about them?”

“As they grow up, they switch eyes with the other person so they can watch and learn about each other in their dreams and when they finally meet they are already ready to be friends.” Yuri radiated happiness because he had something to tell his grandfather.

“That’s right, understanding each other is very important for a tied pair.”

“But,” Yuri frowned and bit his lip. He was about to share his most important thing. “My eye is grey sometimes. I’m a Pillar of Gaia aren’t I?”

Nikoli smiled at Yuri again. He had noticed the switching and it had been happening since Yuri was born. Although, it was a bit unusual for the child to notice the switching before they were ten years old. Nikoli just shrugged it off and figured that Yuri was a bit stronger and more mature than the typical Pillar of Gaia. The Earth Pillar would usually not notice the switching until they were sixteen or seventeen and ready to meet the person they were matched with.

“Don’t tell anyone I told you but when you are ten, Victor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki are going to come here and give you the spell mark.” Nikoli winked at him. “Do you know who they are?”

Yuri huffed and rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows who they are. They are the first tied pair. They are the ones that split the worlds and hold everything together.”

“Good,” Nikoli nodded again, proud that Yuri was learning his lessons so well. “Do you know what the spell mark is for?”

Yuri scrunched up his nose. This one was a bit harder. “It holds the spell and when the pairs are tied and it’s what keeps them together?”

“Yep, that’s right. You’ll learn more about it later, like how it actually works, but you have the right idea.”

Yuri was beyond happy, not only from the praise from Nikoli but because he confirmed all of Yuri’s hopes. He was a Pillar of Gaia and he was seeing into Seung's dreams. Seung was smart and good at languages. He heard Seung practicing Russian and English already.

They were going to be such an amazing pair.

---

Eighteen years before the meeting; Earth; Eight years old.

Seung tried to get a dog once but it ended badly. These things always ended badly.

One sunny afternoon he was playing at the local park with Hwan and Eun. Tragically, Bong-ju, Hwan's evil little friend, was there too. Eun was much more interested in the sandbox and never even tried to keep up with the older boys. This left Seung alone with them and this is what always started the trouble.

They were playing a game that could almost be considered tag, or hide and seek. Maybe it would have been, if there were more people involved. This game was just Hwan and Bong-ju chasing Seung and pushing him into the dirt when they inevitably caught up. At eleven, Hwan's legs were longer and he was much stronger than Seung. Bong-ju was even faster. Still, Seung was getting better at dodging and hiding.

He was hiding, again, in a large storm drain. His breath sounded extremely loud to him as it echoed off the walls of the cement tube. Seung was trying to be quiet and calm but he ran hard to get where he was and his fear made every sound louder than it truly was.

That’s when Seung heard it, little snuffling whimpers that unkindly reminded him of himself. It was a dog, a tiny Siberian Husky pup with matted fur and startling blue eyes. The poor thing looked like it had been abandoned for some time. It was all skin and bones, full of distrust at Seung’s presence.

The tiny puppy stole Seung's heart the moment its tongue licked his outstretched hand. He knew, in a great rush of understanding. He knew he was going to rescue this dog and it was going to love him forever. He would take it home and wash it, feed it, train it. Seung knew that this puppy would be wonderful.

It took several long minutes to coax the dog into his arms. It came tentatively, expecting more pain and heartbreak. Things like that would never come from Seung and the puppy was ready to trust when Hwan came around the corner.

Hwan’s calculating eyes took in the scene and with a sneer, quickly dismissed the dog. Seung tensed and waited for feet and fists to come raining down on him. Instead, he got: “That’s an ugly thing. I’m telling mom and there’s no way she’ll let you keep it.”

Seung looked desperately to the other end of the pipe but Bong-ju was already there, ready to catch him if he made a run for it. “Me or him, either way, we are getting there before you.” Seung curled his shoulders around the puppy as Hwan laughed unkindly.

Biting back tears, Seung gathered himself and held the puppy tighter. By the time he got to his mother, she had a frown on her face. Hwan had already told her about the dog and run off to watch with Bong-ju.

Seung wasn’t even able to open his mouth before Hye-yun started. “You know we can’t keep that puppy. Dogs are such a big responsibility and your father would never allow it.”

“But I could take care of the puppy. I’ll name him Hoe-saek and pet him and feed him every day.” Seung’s voice took on a whiny edge. He was sure his mother was going to say no but he had to try. “He’ll be a good boy. I’ll be a good boy. Please?”

Hye-yun pressed her mouth into a thin line. “You know we can’t.”

“Mom, please?” He wasn’t going to cry. He was determined to not cry.

“No.” The corners of Hey-yun’s mouth turned down.

“You’d let Hwan keep him.”

Hey-yun paused just a little too long in her denial and Seung started crying.

“Yuri’s Dedulya would let him keep the puppy and they don’t even like dogs; they like cats.” Seung held the puppy tighter to his chest and sobbed into its matted fur.

“Really now, aren’t you getting a little old for imaginary friends?” Her tone was scathing and when he dared look up at her, her eyebrows were pinched together in anger. “You are overreacting to something that isn’t real and you need to stop. ”

Seung did not stop.

In fact, Hey-yun’s flippant disbelief of Yuri made things much worse. Seung collapsed on the ground and sheltered the puppy with his body. He was babbling, incoherently, about how he could take care of the puppy if he was only given a chance and how unfair it was that he was not allowed that chance.

Hey-yun looked around in horror at the other parents who were pretending not to watch while silently judging her for how Seung was acting. She turned her face down in shame.

Once Seung got this upset there was nothing she could do but let him cry himself out.

---

Eighteen years before the meeting; Gaia; Eight years old.

Seung knew Nikolai would let Yuri keep the puppy because of a dream he had the week before.

Yuri was sitting on a bench with Nikolai who was holding a kitten on his lap. The kitten was ten weeks old with fluffy fur and an angry looking face. She was purring, despite her face, and butting her head against Yuri’s hand. He was working extra hard at staying still, just like his Dedulya said.

He had to be ‘still’ and ‘careful’ because the kitten was tiny.

“Kit’n, home?” Yuri begged with his eyes because as young as he was, he didn’t have the words to beg outright. He was enchanted by the kitten and wanted so badly to take her home with them. “Please?”

Nikolai chuckled and moved Yuri’s hand closer to the kitten. “Can you stay careful?”

Yuri pressed his lips together and nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

“Well then,” Nikolai frowned but, it was his happy playful frown. “I guess you are going to have to name her.”

Naming an animal was a huge responsibility and Yuri was amazed to be given such a big job. Unfortunately, he was a little over excited and blurted out the first thing he could think of: “Kit’n.”

This earned another chuckle from Nikolai. “We can call her Kitten if that’s what you want.”

Yuri was about to lean in for more wonderful Kitten headbutts when Mila ran over and interrupted. Her parents were friends with Nikolai and they played together often. “Look at what I can do!” Her voice was shrill and it upset Kitten.

When hot, angry sparks shot out of Mila’s hands, Kitten decided she had enough and ran from Nikolai’s lap.

“That’s very good Mila, fire is a good element to control,” Nikolai said gently. He looked over at Yuri, unsure at his reaction. Yuri’s eyes were wide and his face was red. Kitten was missing because Mila scared her and what if Kitten never came back?

In an explosion of anger, Yuri shouted “No. Kit’n’s gone. Mila’s bad.” Then he hit Mila on the arm and broke down into tears. Mila responded with tears of her own.

“Yura!” Nikolai’s voice was sharp. “You will sit in a timeout and then apologize to Mila.”

“She hurt Kitten.” was the defiant reply.

“She did not hurt Kitten. She did something amazing and you should be proud to be her friend.” Mila had stopped crying by that point and stared up at Nikolai in disbelief. “I use fire magic too, it’s a good element. Now, give me just a minute and you can meet Kitten too.”

Mila smiled, tentatively, and sat down to wait for Yuri’s apology. Lucky, Kitten wasn’t far and after Yuri’s apology and Mila’s introduction the conversation moved on to all the things they would need to buy for the new member of their family.

Kitten was the first of many cats they adopted or found homes for. Yuri was very proud at his cat naming abilities as he got older. Some of his favorites were: Thadious the Feline of Doom, Princess Kills Things Viciously, Puma Tiger Scorpion, Lion the Dread Fighter, Gray Death Unicorn, Fire Falcon Lion, Squishy Ugly Face, and Satan

---

Eighteen years before the meeting; Earth; Eight years old.

Seung woke up from a dream where Yuri was brushing Kitten and it was everything Seung wanted. Unfortunately, his real life was never so kind. He was on his way to the kitchen to get some water when he heard his parents talking in the living room. He was going to walk past until he heard his name.

“...and Seung wouldn’t stop crying.” Hye-yun sighed heavily. She was telling Hyeon-suk about the puppy. “He just went on and on, and in public too. He’s old enough to know that things like that aren’t done and if he has to cry it should be in private.”

“Is it still happening at school?” Hyeon-suk’s scowl was judgmental. His child had a problem and it needed to be addressed.

The warm feeling from Seung's dream bled out of him and a weight settled on his shoulders. He knew he was different from the others and his parent’s worry confirmed his fears.

“I heard from the teacher this afternoon. She said he hasn’t had any large outbursts this week but he has cried several times.”

“Is he still insisting on telling everyone about that imaginary friend, Yurbi?” Another scowl from Hyeon-suk.

Hye-yun frowned back just as deeply. “It’s Yuri and yes. I don’t know where he’s getting that from. There’s no one that even remotely matches his description of that boy, he has to have made it all up.”

“He’s eight. He shouldn’t have an imaginary friend and it’s starting to interfere with his schooling. We need to put a stop to it.” Hyeon-suk understood nothing.

Seung’s chest hurt. His parents never believed in Yuri and no one would listen long enough for him to explain. Seung didn’t care much what Hyeon-suk thought but Hey-yun looked so disappointed every time Yuri was mentioned.

If they didn’t want to believe then they didn’t need to know. Seung decided that he would keep Yuri all to himself. It would be like a game of pretend. He would play the part of a good boy just like Hwan did.

Yuri would be his secret forever.

---

Seven years before the meeting; Gaia; Nineteen years old.

Yuri stomped down the hallway and Seung watched him with amusement. Yuri had just come from an ethics lesson and he was appalled. He didn’t understand why anyone would ever even think about putting a baby on train tracks. And his teacher said it with a smile on her face.

He heard glass breaking as he passed by Chris’s office, too much glass. Yuri was going to go in and make sure Chris was alright but something stopped him. As he hovered by the door he realized that Chris was crying. Chris crying wasn’t that unusual, he was already twenty-five and he still hadn't made a connection with his matching Earth Pillar. But, this wasn’t Chris’s typical stress cry. These were heartbreaking, gut wrenching sobs.

They sounded painful.

More glass broke and Yuri was stuck painfully in the doorway. He had opened it, ready to walk in, but what he saw made him stop. Chris wasn’t just crying, he was in a rage. He was standing in the middle of the room and everything within arm’s reach had been destroyed. The windows were broken out by books and the coffee table had a statue sticking up out through the shattered glass top.

Yuri’s feet were glued to the spot. Chris was always even tempered and kind. To see him like this, he was unrecognizable. Yuri’s stomach felt like it was up around his ears. He was scared .

Yuri’s stomach dropped from his ears to the floor below when Victor cleared his throat quietly. He had been so engrossed with watching Chris that he hadn't heard Victor walk up the hallway.

“I can’t stop you from listening but, at least let me through the door.” Victor’s smile was laced with pain and he didn’t close the door behind him.

With Victor in the room, Chris had something to focus his anger on. “It’s not fair. He rejected me.” Chris picked up a stapler and threw it at Victor.

Oh. Yuri balled up his fists and willed this to be untrue. Chris had met Georgi for the first time a few days ago and everything seemed to be going well. Actually, Chris had been insufferably smug with the way things were going. He kept rambling on about how he would take a year off and tour both Earth and Gaia. But now...

“I hate this and I hate you. It’s your fault, your arrogance that caused all this. No one asks to be a pillar. It’s not fucking worth it.” Pens and books followed the stapler, anything that Chris could lay his hands on.

“Fuck you, Victor. Fuck everything.”

Yuri tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry. He couldn’t help but think about Seung. What if Seung rejected him? And suddenly, the only thing he could think of was how much he felt like throwing up.

Chris was out of things to throw so he did the next best thing: he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “It hurts.”

Victor took the opportunity to rush up to Chris and catch him in a hug. Chris didn’t even struggle when Victor rubbed his back and made comforting noises. “I know it hurts and it’s going to hurt but you’ll find your match. It took Celestino until he was forty to find Phichit.”

He was babbling now, trying to calm Chris. “They’ve been together for almost four hundred years and they are so crazy happy together. Celestino will tell you every time that it was worth the pain and waiting. You just have to get through this. It’ll be ok.”

“I can still feel him. He hurts like I do and he doesn’t understand why.” Chris was finished crying but now he seemed empty, like he couldn’t feel anything at all.

“There’s still hope for you.” Victor shushed him again.

Chris’s humorless laugh was almost as bad as his screaming. “Yeah, I can find my match eventually or I could just die alone. I know it doesn’t always work out.”

“No, it doesn’t always work out.” Victor echoed Chris’s laugh and ran his finger over his wedding band. His lying fake wedding band. He realized what he said a moment too late. All the blood drained from Victor’s face as he tried to think of something else to say.

Chris went pale too, as messed up as he was, he couldn’t help but notice the pain in Victor’s voice. Maybe he wouldn’t have if Victor wasn’t such a bad liar. “How long?” Chris looked as sick as Yuri felt.

“It’s been a long time, since before the Purple Spring.” Victor pressed his mouth into a line. He was finally caught in his lie and there was nothing left for him to do but tell the truth.

“That was a thousand years ago.” It was so easy to forget, sometimes, that this cheerful, carefree, silver-haired menace was so old .

“It’s been one thousand and twenty-nine years. I guess we aren’t hiding it well enough anymore.”

Everything was a lie. Yuri’s life, his hopes, Seung. The Children of Gaia were raised on the stories of Victor and Yuuri’s devotion to one another. It was supposed to be a wonderful thing, their love, supporting and nurturing both worlds.

“You’ve been lying to everyone for that long?”

“At least you can die. Do you think I wanted this? I thought I was doing a good thing but the spell didn’t work and now I have to pay for it for all the rest of eternity.” Victor lashed out. “We didn’t realize that the spell was permanent until it was too late and now I’m stuck here, like this.”

Victor deflated. He may as well admit everything now. “We changed the spell when we opened it to others. It finds you compatible matches and you share your thoughts and feelings. Yuuri and I are strangers, stuck together with no escape.”

Yuri covered his mouth with his hand, he really was going to be sick. Lies on lies, covered with more lies, for more than a thousand years. Victor and Yuuri were supposed to be the epitome of love and beauty, the devotion that held two worlds together. If they couldn’t keep it together, what was the point?

Seung lived in Yuri’s mind. He could close his eyes and know that Seung was there with him, breathing with him and there was nothing in either world he would ever do to change that. He could not take the risk of standing in front of someone, bearing his soul, and getting rejected. It would destroy Yuri.

If Yuri could keep ignoring the pull of the bond, he would never be forced to change their situation.

---

Eight years before the meeting; Gaia; Nineteen years old.

Seung thought the Castle of Pillars was exciting. When Yuri was fourteen, he moved from the small house that he shared with his grandfather to Victor and Yuuri’s large mansion complex. His classwork changed a bit too. He now had a greater focus on history, ethics, logistics, and law.

The Castle of Pillars was a large echoing place with empty halls and countless unused rooms. Twice a year the house filled with laughter and parties when all the tied pairs came to visit and conduct yearly business. Those were fun, but the rest of the time it was lonely.

The rest of the time Yuri took classes with a newly tied pair. Yuri didn’t care much for Guang Hong Ji or his earth counterpart, Kenjiro Minami. They were both two years older and Yuri avoided them as much as possible outside of the classroom. They were both boring and squeaky and looked like they were ten years old. The most annoying thing about them was how wrapped up in each other they were. Even after a year of being tied, they couldn't see beyond their relationship. Chris avoided them too.

There were only a few others bouncing about. The tied pair Kanako Odagaki and Linda Tickner served as teachers. Chris was there too, of course. He helped Victor with paperwork for the business. And Victor, Yuri got along with Chris well enough and the teachers were nice but just thinking about Victor made him shudder.

He went out of his way to avoid Victor.

Yuuri was supposed to live there too but he was usually away on what was dubiously called business. He would show up three or four times a year to say ‘hello’ and disappear again in the middle of the night.

Yuri didn’t hate living there but it could have been much better. Seung could have been there. He thought a lot about Seung and used his dreams as a distraction whenever he was stressed or lonely.

Yuri hated history classes and the only thing that got him through them was knowing that Seung was watching and liked learning about Gaia.

This specific lesson was a badly put together video on the Purple Spring. Victor’s bored voice droned on and on while ugly woodcut pictures flashed on the screen. Yuri had to pay attention to this because he had to write an essay about it.

Essays were awful.

Yuri was about to fall asleep a second time when Minami’s piercing laugh cut across the classroom. Minami and Guang Hong were over on the other side of the room giggling and that was worse than the video. Squeaky little bastards.

“You shouldn’t sleep.”

“Odagaki-Sensei is going to make you sit through it again.”

“She’s going to sigh at you again.” Minami and Guang Hong’s words spilled out over each other without pause, one of the more annoying traits of a tied pair.

“Fine then,” Yuri frowned excessively. “If you’re so smart, sum it up for me.”

Guang Hong rolled his eyes. “You know, you could just ask for help.”

“It won’t kill you.”

Yuri made an angry noise deep in his throat. “Fine, help me.” He clenched his jaw over the last word. “Please.”

Both Minami and Guang Hong started giggling. This incessant giggling Needed. To. Stop.

“In 1011 Cateline and Randel the tied pair made friends with Æthelred the Unready of England and helped him expand the empire. Except they had big plans to take over after Æthelred died and Randel even got himself named heir.” Guang Hong paused for breath and Minami picked up the story.

“Being near immortal, they were going to use England to take over and rule all of Earth, until Victor and Yuuri heard about the plan. They hunted down Cateline and Randel and were going to bring them back and lock them up but Randel ended up dying.” Minami looked at Guang Hong to continue.

“Yuuri was just a little too forceful with the sword and then Cateline died shortly after. Anyway, the important lesson here is that we can die. There were some that wanted to before this and afterward, they knew they had the option. I mean, Victor and Yuuri can’t die but we can.”

“So there’s that.” Minami finished with a sigh.

Yuri was furiously taking notes during their speech and stumbled a little when Minami finished. “Wait, that’s it?”

Guang Hong noded “Oh, and they call it the Purple Spring because Cateline refused to wear anything but a purple dress and then she died in the spring.”

“Let me guess,” Yuri frowned again. “Victor named it.”

---

Seven years before the meeting; Earth; Nineteen years old.

Working with JJ took some getting used to. He was loud and said whatever was on his mind whether it was appropriate or not. He reminded Seung of Yuri in that way.

They were partnered up for almost two months and were finally working out how their team would function. JJ was an academy trained detective and knew the ins and outs of true police work. Seung acted as a consultant, giving suggestions to JJ and stepping out of the way when someone needed to be arrested.

Lilia would huff and click her tongue when she asked how they were working together. She made it clear to Seung several times that she did not approve of the way he had not been truthful with JJ so she set several specialized training exercises that they had to work on together.

“So our training today is some kind of lie game. I have to say something and you have to tell me if it’s a lie or not.” JJ scrunched up his face in confusion. “But then it says that we have to sit back to back so you can’t see me. How’s that supposed to work?”

Seung bit his lip. He wasn’t sure how much to tell JJ about being able to read people. Lilia hired him specifically to do this job but he was still afraid of how others would react. “Yeah, it’s a… thing I can do. Lilia said I needed to practice.”

“Wait, how does that work?” JJ’s confusion spread.

“You don’t believe me and you are confused about it.” Seung shrugged and flashed JJ a self-deprecating smile. “That’s how it works. It’s just a thing I can do.”

JJ flipped through several emotions as he thought about this and Seung named each of them as they went across JJ’s mind. JJ finally settled somewhere between surprise and excitement and there was a lot of excitement.

“Why are you so excited? It’s not even that big a deal. I speak a bunch of languages and I can tell when people are lying.” Seung was maybe a little uncomfortable with JJ’s praise. He was so used to thinking that he was strange or unnatural that he couldn't understand JJ’s excitement.

“That’s so cool.” Now JJ was even more excited.

“No, it’s not ‘cool’. I’m a freak of nature and now you are stuck with me.” Poor Seung was so convinced of this he wasn’t listening to JJ.

“What? Dude, this is fucking amazing . You have superpowers!” With the look on JJ’s face and the emotions pouring out of him, Seung had to take what he was saying at face value. “This is my first assignment straight out of the academy and I got partnered with someone with superpowers. ”

“You aren’t lying?” Seung said this slowly. It wasn’t really a question, Seung could clearly feel that JJ was telling him the truth and that’s what confused him. It couldn’t really be that easy, could it?

“No, of course I’m not lying. That’s going to be useful when we have to interrogate people.” JJ still looked like he had been given the keys to a candy shop but it was a good start to a great friendship.

---

Ten days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

Seung was finally ready to tell JJ about what was bothering him.

“I saw something I didn’t like and ducked into a shop. Now, I can’t stop thinking about the shopkeeper.”

“What did you see?”

“It was a child of Gaia.” This was painful for Seung to admit. He hated talking about Gaia and for all he knew, everything about it was made in his own mind. JJ never asked too many questions. He knew that Seung was something special and even without direct evidence of the existence of Gaia, JJ believed.

JJ also knew that Seung would get irrationally upset when he thought he saw something connected with Gaia so, he tried to move the conversation along. “So you went into a shop? What was the shop like?”

“It reminded me of an occult supply shop. It had candles and stones and junk all over it but that wasn’t the problem. It was the shopkeeper. He was… I don’t know what he was but I can’t stop thinking about him.” Seung frowned slightly, a great outpouring of emotion. “It’s like he looked through me. The only other time I’ve felt like that was when I met Lilia.”

JJ couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Oh, he looked through you? I have no idea how that feels.” He rolled his eyes and slumped back in his chair. It had taken a while for JJ to notice what it felt like when Seung read him but once he noticed, he noticed every time, even when Seung was using his powers on someone else.

Seung didn’t feel like figuring out what JJ meant so he opened his mind and let JJ show him. “Oh, that’s what it feels like?” It felt like itching, being naked and having the prickle of an itch crawl across his skin. “Yeah, that is what it felt like. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like it? You do it to me every damn day. I’d like to say I got used to it but that’s not exactly true. It’s better than it was though.”

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to. You’ve saved my ass enough times to make up for it.” Seung opened his mouth to say something else but JJ waved him off. “Does he have a mark on his arm like you do?”

Seung frowned and laid his hand over his wrist. That would be too much to handle. “Not that I saw but that doesn’t mean anything. You couldn't even see mine until you knew me for three years.”

“True… are you going to go back?”

Seung huffed out a small laugh. There was no way in hell he was going back to the shop. It brought things up he didn’t want to think about, things he was running from, things he wanted to forget.

“No, I just thought it was strange. You do always complain that I don’t share things with you. I was sharing.”

JJ smiled again and left the conversation for later. The poor boy really needed to learn how to depend on others.

---

Six years before the meeting; Gaia; Twenty years old.

Yuri was stomping down the hallway again because he was annoyed with Victor. Seung loved watching Yuri when he was in a temper; he was so vivid. Yuri’s anger welled up inside him until it exploded with a great showing of heat and sparks, lashing out in every way possible. Yuri didn’t care who knew he was angry and Seung envied his ability to show exactly what he was feeling.

That evening, Victor annoyed him by insisting on what he called a career counseling meeting. Yuri was fifteen and he needed to start thinking about what he wanted to do in the future. The meeting went much better than any Seung had with Hyeon-suk but it still annoyed the hell out of Yuri.

There was so much to think about and Victor wanted an answer that day.

Tied pairs did hold a rather large amount of power in Gaia and it was up to Victor to ensure they got a proper education before they were given any responsibilities. There was still plenty of time for Yuri to choose his specialty and of course, Seung would help him decide.

Yuri knew he wasn’t interested in being a Guardian of History. As much as Seung liked history, Yuri couldn’t see them teaching for the rest of their lives and Yuri hated the dusty old library with a passion. He didn’t want to guard a gate either, just sitting in some obscure shop and open a door for people. It sounded awful. Besides, that didn’t have to be done by a tied pair; anyone with the right magic could do that, magic that was conveniently granted by Victor, so really, anyone.

Seung hated going to court enough that studying law was off the table completely. The system of law was different in Gaia but it was still just as bad as it was on Earth. Anyone in Gaia was allowed to forgo a trial and have a tied pair mediate their claim and by mediate, they meant: have a tied pair read the minds of everyone involved and then decide who was right. Yuri found it distasteful.

The logistics classes weren’t bad. The organization suited Seung and Yuri liked the idea of traveling. There was always a demand for things like computers and cellphones from the Earth side of the gates and Gaia’s apples brought in quite a bit of money for everyone involved. It wasn’t a bad option at all.

After the meeting with Victor, Yuri was sent to the library to finish his homework. Seung enjoyed these the most because they gave him the tiniest bit of hope that Gaia was real and not something he had made up. Sure, the information given was convenient and it did explain why Seung was the way he was. But was he like this because he was a Pillar of Earth or did he fabricate everything while looking for reasons to be the way he was?

It was much easier to sit back and watch Yuri study.

Starting in the year 500 AD, the people of earth rose up against the children of Gaia and systematically persecuted any instance of magic. War broke out and for one hundred years, the children of Gaia fought for their lives.

In the year 604, the spell to split the worlds was created and cast by Victor Nikiforov and Katsuki Yuuri. Unfortunately, due to the imbalance of magic and non-magic and the rushed nature of the spell, it did not work as intended. Rather than split the worlds evenly to form Earth and Gaia, with each world laying on their own plane of existence, the worlds remained tied to each other with Yuuri on the Earth side and Victor on the Gaia side.

Seriously, it took people on the earth side another four hundred years to pull their heads out of their asses and end the Dark Ages.

Yuri’s eyes swam as he reread the paragraph. This was stupid and it made it sound like it wasn’t all Victor’s fault everything got all fucked up. Yuri slammed the book down and turned to another page.

He was sent to the dusty old library because he had already broken two e-readers.

It wasn’t the poor book's fault but since Victor wasn’t around…

Victor and Yuuri soon learned that they could not shoulder the responsibility of holding the worlds together alone so they modified the spell to include others. These new pairs were created with one person from the Gaia side and one from the Earth side. They were granted the titles of Gaia Pillar and Earth Pillar and when joined are referred to as a tied pair.

Yeah, great idea guys, just drag other people’s children into your problems.

Tied pairs are granted extraordinary gifts when selected by the spell. They will gain an unnaturally long life, aging one year for every hundred of life, powers of the mind, such as extreme empathy and telepathy, and the ability to sidestep.

Ok, so, sidestepping was kinda cool. Tied pairs had the ability to walk between the worlds without using gates like everyone else had to. Well, it would have been much better if they didn’t also have to guard those gates from random travelers and manage the program that oversaw imports and exports between the worlds.

Useful gifts aside, this wasn’t something that Yuri volunteered for. No amount of fun powers were worth the possible pain and heartbreak of being rejected by someone you were trying to tie with. Sure, it was supposed to be the most wonderful thing in the world but he really wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

He remembered what happened to Chris.

And what was with the names anyway? A Pillar? Tied Pairs? Victor really should have chosen better names and it’s a good thing he didn’t have kids.

Seung loved listening to Yuri’s thoughts. Yes, they were acidic but it was so refreshing and he wished he had the freedom that Yuri had to say what he was actually thinking. He was content to watch as Yuri bent back over his book.

---

Seven days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

“Stop,” JJ threw his pen at Seung. “Just stop. I’m not getting any work done because you keep humming.”

The two of them were spending the afternoon working on paperwork. It was very boring but Seung insisted they spend one afternoon a week filling out their reports and forms so they wouldn’t get behind. Other teams would put off their paperwork until the end of the month and spend five days frantically throwing things together while hoping for the best. Seung's end of month paperwork was as easy as handing in a folder.

JJ went along with it because it meant he could take a long weekend every month and spend it with his girlfriend.

That day it just wasn’t working. Seung would write a sentence or two and drift off into his own thoughts. Once he drifted off, it was only a few moments until he started humming Yuri’s lullaby.

It was extremely annoying.

Annoying enough that JJ’s teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. He did not care about that stupid little cat or its stupid little bowl of milk. He wanted to shove Seung off the roof.

Of course it was practically inevitable, when two people spent most of their time together, that they would push each other’s buttons. Especially when one of them was JJ.

“What is bothering you so much?” JJ sighed. He knew Seung well enough to know that he would not get whatever it was out of his mind until he figured it out.

“Oh, nothing.” Thinking about Georgi would make him think about his dreams and thinking about his dreams would make him think about everything else. He refused to go down that path today. It was his sacred paperwork day.

“Nothing my ass. Start talking.” Another pen followed the first.

Seung ignored him.

A third pen was launched in his general direction.

Seung had a thing about pens. He liked to have six or seven around him when he was working, you know, just in case. He had a little cup for them and wherever he went to work on his paperwork that little cup and his pile of pens went with him.

The fourth and fifth pen landed at the same time.

“Alright!” The fifth pen may have stung a bit when it hit his cheek and now JJ was not the only one in the room who was annoyed at the other.

This was a perfect example of how their relationship worked. JJ would annoy Seung to the point where he would do something about it. Their odd mix of friendship and animosity worked surprisingly well, that and JJ was really good at being annoying.

“This is about that shop, isn’t it? You haven’t been the same since you were there.”

Seung tensed up and frowned. An actual frown on his damn stoic face.

“I don’t know what it is about that guy. I could read him but then I couldn’t at the same time.” He fidgeted with one of the pens in his lap. It took a lot to upset Seung to the point of fidgeting and JJ staring at him wasn’t helping much. “It was like he was giving me things to feel. I wasn’t reading him, he was, allowing me to read him? I can’t explain it any better than that. I think he’s like me.”

“So, if he’s like you go and talk to him,” JJ said softly.

“I’ve never actually talked to someone else like me. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m just making this up?” Seung said the last part in a whisper. All of his old fears were coming right back again. Seung had found acceptance with JJ but his fears were never far behind.

---

Five years before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-two years old.

“Pursuing a suspect on foot” was just a fancy way of saying “Running through a city in the pouring rain while some asshole throws garbage in the way.” and “Suspect escaped due to complications in terrain” was a better way of saying “Seung fell on his ass in a mud puddle and JJ was laughing too hard to keep running.”

London was miserable and so was Seung.

He was soaked to the bone, covered in mud, and it was cold, cold enough that he was starting to shiver. JJ was too, now that the heat of their running was being washed away by the incessant rain.

“We should go back to the room and change before we report in, it’s only a few blocks out of the way.”

Seung grunted at him and said, “Fine but you have to tell Lilia why they got away.”

JJ looked at his bedraggled appearance and furrowed brow. “I’ll just make something up then.” He knew there was a temper buried under Seung's constructed indifference and he also knew that right then it was hovering near the surface. JJ learned early in their friendship that it was best not to poke the bear.

As soon as they hit their hotel room door, they both started shucking their clothing. There was no time for modesty when the icy fingers of winter were clutched around their chest. JJ grunted in surprise when Seung pulled off his gloves and long sleeve shirt.

“When did you get a tattoo?”

Seung changed instantly from stewing anger to rigid rejection. There’s no way JJ could have just said that. “Say that again?” His voice was harsh.

“The tattoo on your arm?” JJ strode over to him and grabbed his wrist. “It doesn’t look new but this is the first time I’ve seen it. It’s beautiful.”

The mark was beautiful. The bulk of it sat on the back of his left hand with delicate tendrils that curled up and around his wrist. He was fiercely protective if it, his secret connection to Yuri, his Yura. And now, JJ could see it.

Seung pulled his arm away from JJ and covered the mark with his hand. “But it’s there? You can see it?” His voice was small.

“Yes, of course I can see it, or I wouldn’t be asking you.” JJ kept his voice gentle this time. Seung was a mountain of mysteries with more mysteries piled on top and when he felt like someone was getting too close, he would clam up and evade for all he was worth.

“It just showed up one day when I was fifteen. It was around the same time that I started being able to read people.” Such a small amount of information but JJ took it for the gift it was.

“Do you think the mark has anything to do with how your powers work?”

Seung’s face closed up, that’s all JJ would get that day. He turned back around in search of a dry shirt.

JJ sighed, it was worth a try. “Hey, at least they work. Remember how we used to play that lie game?”

“Yeah, and then you finally learned to not play poker with me.” Seung relaxed and flashed JJ a tiny smile from the corner of his mouth, grateful for the peace offering.

JJ laughed outright at this and turned to finish changing. “But it did come in handy the time we had to go to that card game.” Seung nodded and hummed in agreement. It had been fun to dress up in black tie and pretend they belonged in Beijing’s underbelly.

“Well, let’s go. Lilia’s going to be cranky enough about this without waiting all day.”

---

Two days before the meeting; Earth; Twenty-six years old.

Seung finally decided to go back to the shop. It took a lot for him to get the courage to go and JJ wouldn’t stop bothering him about it.

When he got there, Georgi was sitting behind the counter drawing on a large sheet of paper. “Is there something I can help you with?” He asked with an annoyingly benign smile.

Georgi’s eyes bored into him. It was the same naked itchy feeling that he had before, the same feeling JJ got when Seung read him. Goosebumps broke out along Seung's arms and he rubbed them to try, desperately, to cover his discomfort.

“I thought,” Seung’s voice broke, “you could answer some of my questions.”

Georgi frowned thoughtfully. “I could probably help. What do you want to know?”

“Gaia?”

“Yes, Gaia, what about it?”

“It’s…There?” Seung’s eyes darted nervously over to the creepy breathing door.

Georgi nodded gently. “Yep, right through that door.”

“That’s not true. That can’t possibly be true.”

“Of course it’s true, where the hell do you think your fun little gift came from? Don’t think I can’t feel you trying to use it.”

“I thought...No, I made it all up.”

Georgi’s look slowly changed to horror. He slammed his notebook down on the counter and rushed up to Seung. “Something went wrong.” He grabbed Seung by the shoulder and carefully searched his face.

That’s when Seung saw what Georgi was drawing.

It was a detailed pencil sketch of Georgi looking into a mirror and the only thing that was colored were the eyes. One green and one blue. Seung knew that it was not the same green as Yuri’s eye, it was Chris’s.

“What’s that drawing?” Seung couldn’t breathe and his eyes filled with tears.

Pain ripped through Georgi and in turn, though Seung. This was the first true emotion Seung felt from him since they met.

As loudly as Georgi was screaming on the inside, his face was blank. He laughed tonelessly and said, “That’s the only thing I’ll ever regret.”

Seung rubbed his hand over his eye like he was trying to get rid of a headache or a bad dream. He felt like he was going to pass out.

“Hey, are you alright?” Georgi’s hands tightened on Seung’s shoulders.

---

Eleven years before the meeting; Earth; Fifteen years old.

Seung was working on his math homework, he liked math and it was his second best subject. His best subject was English and he had already passed the English Language Proficiency Test, as well as the equivalent tests for Russian and Spanish. At this point, Seung was well on the way to passing the Italian, French, and Japanese tests too.

Math was almost like learning another language and that made him happy. The problem was his other subjects. His marks for those classes were hovering around ninety percent which would be great for any other student but Hyeon-suk thought he could improve.

That only added a little pressure.

There was another problem on top of all that, Seung thought that he could sometimes feel the feelings of others. He wasn’t sure what was happening at first or if it was even happening at all. He was sitting at school and random emotions would wash over him at inappropriate times. A surge of joy when a classmate got a grade back, the warm feeling that he reserved for Yuri when a boy in his class finally got up the courage to talk to his crush.

Seung finally connected the dots when Hyeon-suk spoke to him about how he was doing in school. He could feel his father’s disappointment dripping off of him like a knife in the chest. It hurt so much he thought he would be sick from it. Seung knew that his father was regularly disappointed in him but feeling it like this was crippling. He withdrew further into himself even as he tried to please Hyeon-suk.

All of this had to be connected to Yuri because it started the same day he woke up with a strange mark on his wrist, the same mark he dreamed that Yuri got from Yuuri. After he got the mark, Seung’s dreams became more and more vivid until it felt like he was walking inside Yuri. Everything was in sharp focus and Yuri’s thoughts and feelings were clear. The dreams felt real.

Seung would have gone into a spiral of self-doubt, debating on how real Yuri was, for at least another hour but he was interrupted by his brother storming through the door. The only thing to describe Hwan in that moment was: over-agitated. His hair was sticking up in all directions, his face was flushed, and he was sweating lightly. Most of all there was a deep set panic in his eyes.

A wall of emotions hit Seung as Hwan walked by. Hwan was scared. He was angry and overjoyed and a little confused, but mostly, he was scared.

“Are you ok?” Seung may not have liked his brother much but there was no way he could let anyone walk away feeling like that.

“It’s fine.” Hwan’s face closed off. “I got my girlfriend pregnant and dad’s going to be angry.”

Without thinking Seung answered. “Why don’t you just marry her? The two of you are a good match and I think you would be happy together. Dad can disapprove all he wants but if you’re married he can’t really do anything about it.”

Hwan’s answer was to try and hit Seung. “How would you even know that? Have you been spying on me? Do you want what I have so badly that you would use anything to make dad happy?” he shouted.

After dodging a second and third swing Seung started shouting back. “What do I care? I’m never going to make dad happy so why try? You’re the one that said it anyway, why did you tell me if you didn’t want me to know?”

“Why the fuck would I tell you?” Hwan’s fist connected with Seung’s stomach.

His pain was secondary to his terrifying realization. “You wouldn’t tell me. You wouldn’t say that out loud at all.”

“Then how do you know?” Hwan tried to swing at Seung again but was stopped by the cold realization of Hyeon-suk’s hand closing around his fist.

“What is this about?’” Hyeon-suk’s voice was calm but it carried the hint of a threat.

Neither Hwan or Seung said anything and their father continued. “This behavior is ridiculous and will be addressed later,” he said to Seung.

Then, Hyeon-suk turned to Hwan and said. “You will go into my office now .”

Hwan was probably about to be disinherited and Seung couldn’t find it within himself to care. He was too distracted by the realization that he heard Hwan’s thoughts. It was so much more than feeling his feelings and things like that shouldn’t be possible in the real world.

Several hours and quite a bit of shouting later, Seung stood quietly in front of Hyeon-suk’s desk, waiting to hear his decision.

“Hwan has acted with dishonor. He knew I did not approve of that girl he took up with and now he has no choice but to marry her but, he has shown that he is not worthy to be my heir. You will take his place.”

Every word landed on Seung like a blow and added more weight until he slumped under the pressure.

“You will do better in school. Your marks in history and the physical sciences leave much to be desired. If you are going to get into a good school, you need to bring those up.” This was a simple code for ‘the college he chose’.

Seung was fighting down a lump in his throat as his father detailed his life. “You will get married before you go to college so when you graduate from business school, you will be ready to work for the company full time.”

“I don’t want to go to college for business. I want to go for linguistics.” Seung had his hands balled up into fists at his sides but he was still remarkably calm under the onslaught.

“Linguistics is useless. What could you possibly do with that?” This was not in Hyeon-suk’s plan so, of course, it seemed useless.

“I speak seven languages, I could get a job anywhere in the world without trying. This is what I’m good at.” Seung’s voice was amazingly calm.

Hyeon-suk smiled condescendingly. “No, you need to think about business school. You need to bring your grades up and you need to focus.”

Seung did not want this. He didn’t want any of this. “I won’t ever be happy,” he whispered before he could stop himself.

“It doesn’t matter if you are happy about this.” Hyeon-suk frowned at Seung. “It’s about the family and the business. You will learn to like it in time.”

Asshole.

---

Eleven years before the meeting; Gaia; Fifteen years old.

“Now tell me, who has grey eyes?”

Yuri slapped his hand over his eye. This was Victor Nikiforov ( The Victor Nikiforov) asking him questions. Yuri was maybe a little too starstruck by what was happening around him to answer the question right away. It was one thing to know you were a Pillar of Gaia but it was quite another to have Yuuri Katsuki ( The Yuuri Katsuki ) touch your arm and have the spell mark bloom under his fingertips.

His spell mark was beautiful . It sat on the back of his right hand and curled up around his wrist in a complete circle. Yuri couldn’t stop looking at it.

Not only was The Victor Nikiforov and The Yuuri Katsuki there with him, so was Seung. Who he liked even more than the two physically in the room with him. Knowing that Seung was there made him happy.

Victor laughed and shot a dazzling smile at Nikoli. “He’s cute.” Then, Victor had the audacity to pat Yuri on the head.

“I am not cute.” Yuri stomped his foot. “I’m fierce!”

Victor laughed again. Asshole. Yuuri rolled his eyes and it made Yuri giggle. They were so different from what Yuri expected.  All the pictures in the history books were stuffy looking with both Victor and Yuuri looking stern as it told about how they saved the worlds. Yuuri was quiet and gentle and Victor was… Victor. He was loud, and rude, and nowhere near as mature as he should have been.

“Sure you are, kid.” Victor patted Yuri’s hair again, just to make sure it was done right and asked: “Do you know anything about the person with grey eyes?”

The urge to talk about Seung won out over the urge to be angry at Victor. “His name is Seung and he has a brother and a sister. He is good at languages and math and I think he’s going to get a puppy, a husky puppy. He thinks about it a lot.” Yuri grew more and more excited as he spoke.

This time, Yuri was able to dodge Victor when he tried to pat Yuri again. “Aw, don’t be like that, you are doing good.” and Victor tried to pat him again.

Yuri kicked him in the shin.

Victor hopped around on one leg protesting loudly that he was dying but Yuri stopped paying attention because Yuuri stepped forward and asked him another question. He was trying very hard to not laugh. “Do you dream about anyone else?” he asked quietly.

“There’s Leo. He has brown hair, brown eyes and a lot of brothers and sisters.” Yuri wrinkled up his nose. “His house is always noisy but he likes music a lot.”

Yuuri smiled at him (and didn’t try to pat his head). “That’s good. Is there anyone else?”

“No. I only see Seung and Leo but I like Seung the best. I don’t need anyone else.”

So much confidence in such a little body. It was inspiring.

---

Eight years before the meeting; Earth; Eighteen years old.

“I set up another date for you and you will show up this time. It’s not as good a match as the first one you rejected but we could do worse. You are lucky that she decided she’d give you another chance.”

This was the third meeting Hyeon-suk had set up in the past month and Seung was getting sick of them. Hyeon-suk was insistent on seeing him married as soon as possible. After that, his father’s plans consisted of going to college for management and then inheriting the family business.

Hyeon-suk would not let this plan go even after Seung had said this wasn’t what he wanted several times. Both of them were very stubborn.

Though, it would have helped if he told his father he had no interest in women. Seung realized in that moment that he never said and then told his father in his wonderfully blunt way: “I’m attracted to men. I will never marry a woman.”

Hyeon-suk pursed his lips. “Well, you could have told me that before I tried to find someone for you to marry.” Hyeon-suk sat and thought about it for a few moments.

“How about Bong-Ju? The two of you got along well enough when you were younger and he’s not taking over his father’s business.” He said.

Hwan's friend? The one that helped terrorize Seung when they were younger? That was an awful choice. There were very few people that Hyeon-suk could suggest that would be a worse choice than Hwan's friend.

“I don’t want to get married at all.”

“Oh, you’ll want to get married eventually. It’s better that we figure it out who now instead of waiting for until you finish college.” Hyeon-suk smiled. “Speaking of, I heard from my friend at Seoul National University all I have to do is make a donation and you’re in.”

“I’m not going to school for business and I’m not going anywhere just because you gave them money. I’ve already passed six language proficiency tests. I could work anywhere in the world without going to college.”

Hyeon-suk kept his face passive. “Yes, you are good at languages but that won’t get you anywhere in life. You need to work on your business degree.”

“Are you even listening?” Seung took a deep breath and balled up his fist. Fighting wouldn’t solve anything now. “Hwan would be so much better at running the business. Even Eun would be a better choice. Not everything goes according to your plan.”

“You will get married, you will go to business school, and you will inherit my business .” Hyeon-suk frowned. He expected his word to be law and seemed confused that Seung wouldn’t accept what he decided.

“No.” Seung bunched up his shoulders, ready for a fight. “That’s not happening. I won’t.”

“If you won’t then you won’t live here.”

Seung relaxed. It really would be that easy, wouldn’t it? There was nothing here for him to leave behind. If he walked away, his path could bring him closer to Yuri.

“I’ll be gone by tomorrow morning.”

---

The Meeting; Earth; Twenty six years old.

It was two days since Seung saw Georgi last and they were bad days. The first was spent fighting an ongoing panic attack and running. He didn’t sleep and was barely able to eat dinner. The second day was much the same.

JJ ordered the greasiest pizza Seung had ever encountered and was trying to choke down a slice when someone knocked at the door. Seung grunted and motioned for JJ to keep eating. The visitor was a good excuse to escape death by cheese.

When Seung opened the door he was confronted with Yuri. He was standing there with an extravagant frown on his face and he was crinkling a bit of paper between his elegant fingers. Seung’s first thought was that Yuri was beautiful . His short blond hair framed his delicate features perfectly and he moved his hands with unconscious grace. On the back of his hand, the mark that he shared with Seung stood out in dark contrast to his pale skin. Despite all of this, his eyes were what captivated Seung. One was a familiar emerald and the other was Seung’s own deep grey.

Seung’s second thought was that he was hallucinating. His chest seized up and his thoughts spiraled out of control. There was no way this was really happening.

His third thought was to slam the door in Yuri’s face.

Yuri immediately started pounding on the door and screaming for Seung to open it again.

“Are you just going to ignore that?” JJ sounded amused. When Seung turned to look at him JJ had one eyebrow raised in question and a small smirk on his face.

Seung took a steadying breath. “I’d really like to.”

“You should probably answer anyway.” Yuri’s screams rose in pitch and he started kicking the door. “I’ll go eat in my bedroom and let you deal with whatever that is.”

There were many things Seung would rather do than open the door just then. He knew that if it really was Yuri, his Yura, on the other side of the door, the screaming would not stop until Seung let him in. Even then, it took him several minutes to find the courage.

“About fucking time.” That’s all Yuri said when Seung finally opened the door. Yuri forced his way into the room, afraid that Seung would lock him out again.

“What’s going on?”

Yuri scoffed. “You know exactly what’s going on. Are you going to come with me or not?”

“Go with you?”

“Yes, come with me. Georgi called Victor and Victor forced me to come here. We can’t put it off any longer so come on, let’s go.” Yuri reached out, grabbed Seung’s wrist, and yanked him forward.

“No.”

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘no’?” Yuri dropped Seung’s arm like he had been burnt and spat his words out through a pained frown.

Seung looked around the room, anywhere but at Yuri. “You’re not real.”

“Not real?” Yuri’s voice was a screech. He looked… wounded. Like Seung had betrayed him.

“I thought I was going crazy but here you are. Why?” Seung finally brought his eyes back up to Yuri’s. He was terrified. After spending twenty years convincing himself that Yuri was a figment of his imagination, Seung was overwhelmed with the proof standing before him. “Everything about Gaia can’t be true. It was just dreams.”

Yuri started pacing. “It’s true and you fucking know it. Everything got all fucked up but you’ve had all the dreams, just like I did. I don’t know how much more denial you could possibly have inside you.” Yuri was full out yelling now, red in the face, with his arms waving frantically around him.

“What more do you really have to logic out about this? I’m right fucking here. You have to come with me.” Yuri collapsed back into a chair and the heat of his anger faded as quickly as it came.

Seung though Yuri’s tirade was finished but he continued in a broken whisper. “Don’t reject me, you can’t.”

The words caught in Seung’s throat as he tried to say something. Anything would have been better than staring at Yuri while his mouth gaped like a fish. He couldn’t stop looking at Yuri’s eyes. Well, one of Yuri’s eyes and one of his own.

Yuri scoffed again. “Of course you don’t have anything to say.” He jumped out of his chair again and stalked to the door. “I’m leaving.”

Seung was holding onto the back of Yuri’s shirt before he realized he was moving. “Don’t go yet,” Seung said quietly through the lump in his throat.

“Oh, so now you’re ready to talk?” Yuri whipped around and glared at him.

“You said that everything was fucked up. What did you mean?” Seung hung his head and waited to see if Yuri would respond. He got his answer when Yuri gave an exaggerated sigh and stomped back over to his chair. A mix of relief and fear washed though Seung as he followed Yuri back to the chairs. He was still having a hard time believing but Yuri was here and willing to talk to him.

“Victor fucked up… again.” Yuri said quietly.

Seung pressed his lips into a thin line and waited for Yuri to continue. It probably wasn’t all Victor’s fault but it was convenient to blame him.

“Well, you weren’t supposed to be aware of me, at least not so early.” Yuri bit his lip and waved his hands helplessly, looking for a way to explain. “You weren’t supposed to remember your dreams until you were much older.”

The implications of that were astounding. Seung could have grown up typical. Without being haunted, without being so very different from others, without the need to hide and deny everything that made him different. But then, he would have grown up without Yuri.

“Then why did I?”

Yuri sighed again but this time it sounded tired. “You know how they need to add more pairs to the spell as the population goes up?” Seung remembered studying that well enough. The amount of ties needed was directly proportional to the population of each world and not related to geographical location. The more people that were born in each world, the more ties needed to keep them together. Yuri continued when Seung nodded.

“Victor underestimated the population growth on Earth and waited too long to add more pairs to the spell. It needed more pairs when I got my spell mark.” Yuri crinkled his eyebrows more out of frustration than anything. “We could have met when I was ten.”

Seung frowned and thought for a few moments. Yuri was bleeding regret and sorrow, at least he felt bad about what happened to them. But, it still didn’t explain everything. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to? I thought it was normal until last night when Victor said it wasn’t.” Yuri scowled again and looked at Seung with anger in his eyes. “Then you. Every time you saw something remotely related to Gaia you had a panic attack and ran. How the hell was I supposed to take that?”

Yuri relaxed and slumped back in his chair for a moment before he sprang up and walked to the door. “I know you have a lot to think about. Talk it over with JJ, take a leap of faith, he does actually give good advice. I’ll be back tomorrow..”

Seung let out a gusty sigh as Yuri closed the door. JJ was not far off, summoned by the noise of Yuri leaving. All Seung could think of to say was: “Just now, there was someone here?”

JJ frowned at him and said, “Yes there was someone with you, why?”

“What did they look like?” Seung was desperate now. It was one thing for him to meet Yuri and it was something completely different to have someone else see him too.

“A guy, bit taller than you, blonde hair, angry face. He had the same tattoo as you but on his right hand.”

It was true. Yuri was a real person and JJ could see him. It hit Seung in the chest and all at once.

It changed everything.

“Can we talk? I need to tell you some things.”

JJ was happy to listen to whatever Seung needed to tell him. He was always like that, ready to make time for Seung. He was a good man (maybe a little annoying but still, a good man).

When they were settled in the living room, each with a cup of tea, JJ stared at Seung expectantly.

Seung was almost ready to start when JJ leaned forward and aggressively stared into Seung's face. “Ooooh, that’s weird, what’s wrong with your eyes?”

Laughter bubbled up out of Seung's throat as he covered his eye with his hand. JJ could see the eye exchange now because he had been around Seung for so long that he had grown sensitive to the magic and he was just close enough to Yuri to sense his magic too.

It wasn’t funny.

“I have to tell you some things. Things I’ve never… admitted to anyone.” Seung searched for his words slowly. Yuri told him to make a leap of faith so that’s what he intended to do.

“I’ve always said that I didn’t know where my abilities came from but I do know and it scares the hell out of me.” Seung rolled up his sleeve to show JJ the mark on his arm and bit his lip. “There’s a man named Yuri, the one you just saw… I first noticed him when I was five. No, actually, this all started when I walked into Geogri’s shop...”

Seung told JJ everything he could remember, from the first time he saw Yuri’s eye to meeting Yuri in person. It was hard going at first, after twenty years of enforced silence, but once he started, he found that he could not stop himself.

He gave JJ everything. Everything he knew about Gaia, every painful disappointment he witnessed. He didn’t only share his life, telling this story he had to share everything about Yuri too.

Seung was in tears by the end of his telling. All the emotions he held back for so many years came spilling forth and he was left ragged during his last confession. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted but what if it’s all a lie?”

He couldn’t handle that. It would crush him, destroy him, unmake him.

“Listen, I can’t pretend to know how you feel about all this but I do know that your powers are real. The mark on your arm is real. I saw Yuri. He was there talking to you, just as real as you are.” JJ shifted in his seat, trying to gather his thoughts. “Talk to him again. I heard him tell you he’d be back tomorrow and I’ll be here if you need me.”

JJ really was a good man.

---

Ten years before the meeting; Gaia; Sixteen years old.

Yuri was brushing his teeth before bed. His hair was already brushed and he was happy. It had been a good day for him. There was a new student that transferred into their class and he had become friends with the boy right off the bat.

His name was Otabek Altin. He had a dark undercut and piercing eyes. Otabek kept a stoic expression on his face most of the time and it reminded Yuri of Seung.

Yuri spat out his toothpaste and looked into the mirror. His face bloomed into a smile that even his eyes couldn’t contain. Well, one of his eyes and one of Seung's eyes. Seung was there with him now, watching him get ready for bed.

Seung could feel the warmth bloom in Yuri’s chest, his own chest feeling the same heat. Yuri was so accepting of Seung, ready to share everything about himself and ready to learn everything he could. They had a future together, an amazing one full of magic and joy.

He may only be eleven years old and Seung may only be sixteen but Yuri knew that when he was older, he and Seung would be brought together. Tears on both sides of the barrier welled up at the emotion of this bright future.

Yuri gently reached out and traced the outline of Seung's eye on the mirror.

“Seung, you are going to be my friend forever.” He whispered to their reflection. “I love you already.”

---

Afterward

So that's it. That's the story. Learn from our mistakes. Keep an eye out for the symptoms and don't fuck it up.

The End