[exo] the distance in between 3/3

[hyperlydian]

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✴

They end up sleeping curled together in the underbrush, to keep Lu Han’s glow from attracting any unwanted visitors more than anything. Chen’s clothed body is like a blanket to Lu Han’s mostly bare one, keeping him from shivering. When Lu Han wakes to daylight, Chen is gone.

Or rather, he’s no longer next to Lu Han in the underbrush. He can hear Chen singing out in the clearing as he splashes around in the puddle for a morning swim.

Lu Han stretches, shaking some pine needles out of his hair, and Chen waves him over, still singing to himself. The forest around them still has a dreary sort of look, even with the sun out. The mist hangs in the dark spaces between the trees and there’s hardly any sounds in the wood around them.

“Just wanted to take a dip while I still could,” Chen says, walking out of the water and onto the grass. He uses his shirt to dry himself, and Lu Han can’t help but stare at the way the sunlight catches each droplet sliding down Chen’s spine as he leans over to rub the water off his hairy legs.

“Um,” Lu Han says, swallowing in the hopes of wetting his suddenly dry mouth. Chen glances over his shoulder at him, and Lu Han blinks. “The food Yifan gave us?”

“Oh yeah,” Chen points to where his pants are lying.

By the time Chen has his pants on again, Lu Han has already dug into the bread and cheese, setting out portions for them both on the cloth Yifan had used as wrapping.

Chen prattles on about his different favorite kinds of cheese while Lu Han listens and doesn’t watch the beads of water slip down Chen’s bare shoulders from his hairline. Over Chen’s shoulder, Lu Han thinks he sees something move just beyond the edge of the trees. His heart leaps into his throat and he drops the piece of bread he’s holding.

Chen must clock his face, because he quickly turns around, just in time to see the something come into the clearing.

At a distance, Lu Han knows from just one look that the man is a fairy. His wings aren’t like Lu Han’s, filmy and golden. They’re like that of a butterfly, bigger, with a brightly colored pattern that’s mirrored on each side.

“I heard singing?” The fairy has a dreamy sort of voice, and he flies toward them, slowly looking around the clearing.

“That was… me?” Chen says haltingly.

The fairy smiles, happy dimples caving in his cheeks. “You voice reminds me of home.” He scans the clearing again, dimples disappearing again. “I seem to be a long way from there, actually. Like the two of you.”

“Yeah, we got sort of,” Lu Han searches for the right word, “transported here.”

The fairy tilts his head. “Through a fuzzy bit of sky?”

“Something like that.”

“Would you like something to eat?” Chen asks. He shuffles to his feet to pull his shirt on, cheeks inexplicably pink.

“Wait,” the fairy says, coming close enough that he can reach out and touch Chen’s back. “This mark, the star on your shoulder: where’d you get it?”

Chen turns his head, trying in vain to look at the mark on his shoulder blade. “My birthmark? I’ve always had it.”

“It’s a star.” Unlike his dreamy look from before, now the fairy’s eyes are bright, and there’s a new quirk to his mouth. He lowers his arm. “How unique.”

Chen clears his throat, tugging his shirt on all the way. “I guess.”

The fairy, Yixing, is somehow exactly like what Lu Han imagined fairies to be, and not like that at all. He has an impressively extensive knowledge of magic and the world, but he also doesn’t hesitate to curl up on the ground next to them, nibbling at a bit of apple that is starting to go brown.

In the clearing, there are a few wildflowers, petals powder blue and yellow, and Yixing sighs when he catches sight of them.

“Oh, to be a flower again,” the fairy says, sounding wistful, “to be so grounded and carefree.”

“You were a flower?” Chen sounds half curious, half disbelieving.

Yixing nods, pointing at the biggest wildflower, a daisy with its face upturned toward the faint sunlight. “Fairies live our first life as a flower, the second on two feet, after we bloom, and the third begins a year later, when we get our wings. After we die, we become stardust, and what’s left of our magic lights the night sky.”

Chen licks his lips. “So you were born…”

“From a flower, yes. All fairies are. Other beings have to earn wings,” the fairy nods at Lu Han as an example as he turns a crumb of bread between his fingers, “but a fairy’s own magic, our life force, is enough to make us fly once we’re old enough. Without our magic, we can’t live.”

Chen’s eyes drift to Lu Han, and he knows they’re both thinking of what Lu Han had confessed the night before, about losing his wings.

Tactfully, Chen changes the subject. “You didn’t happen to see a toad while you were wandering through the forest, did you?”

Yixing blinks. “A toad?”

Together, Chen and Lu Han explain how they ended up in this clearing, the kidnapping and the adventure with the Golden Goose. After they finish, Yixing sits back, picking at the knees of his trousers as he thinks.

“These smudges, the ones that transported us, they’re links between different worlds, different stories,” Yixing says at last. “A long time ago, the Fairy King used some of his magic on the most important items in each of the stories, so that the stories themselves could be alive.”

“The Fairy King?” Chen sits up straighter, intrigued. “He’s from my world, right? My mother used to tell me stories about him and his mushroom-circled court.”

“Yes, and that court is my home.” Yixing smiles at Chen, before his face goes serious again. “But if someone were to collect all the magical items, they would have enough power to challenge the Fairy King. More than that, with the magic gone from the stories, each world would begin to fall apart. It would be a disaster.”

“And you think that’s what the toad is doing?” Lu Han asks, taking it all in. “Trying to collect all these items?”

“I can’t think of another explanation for his actions. What would an ordinary toad want with a magical goose feather?”

“I wonder what he was trying to do with me,” Chen muses, mostly to himself, and Lu Han catches an unexpected look on Yixing’s face, intent and calculating. After a few seconds, it smooths out again, smile dimpling at them both again.

“Thank you for the food and company,” Yixing says, his colorful wings lifting him up from the ground with a few gentle flaps. “I should try to find my way back so I can warn the king.”

Before either Lu Han or Chen can protest that the three of them should travel together, since they’re all trying to get to the same place, Yixing is already disappearing into the trees on the other side of the clearing. In a few more seconds, he’s out of sight.

“So that was…” Lu Han trails off, and Chen nods.

“Illuminating.” He begins packing up what’s left of their food, hands busily tying the bundle up. Lu Han can tell by the downturned corners of his mouth that Chen has something else to say.

“What is it?”

Chen sits back on his heels, combing his mostly-dry hair back from his face. “We’ve got to stop this.”

Lu Han hesitates. He’s gone on adventures with Chanyeol before, but something like this, trying to- to save the world…

“If we don’t, there will be nowhere for us to go back to.” Chen pushes himself to his feet, dusting off his travel-worn pants. “You heard Yixing. Our worlds will have fallen apart.”

Unbidden, the words of the witch come back to Lu Han. ”There’s more wings where these came from.” It’s only been a day, but already the wings feel lighter on his back, like they’re slowly fading away.

Chen offers Lu Han a hand up, and Lu Han takes it, making his decision. “Okay.”

✴

Once they head back into the trees, Lu Han’s uneasiness about the forest returns. The fog clings to the trees even when the sun is high, and the sound of he and Chen treading through the underbrush with their tiny feet is loud in the quiet.

After a few hours of walking, Chen humming to himself occasionally as they tread over a bed of pine needles, the trees appear to thin out in front of them. There’s the crunch of heavier footsteps, and through the trees, Lu Han catches a glimpse of red.

It’s a girl, the hood of her bright red cloak pulled over her head as she makes her way down the forest path. There’s a wicker basket in one of her hands, and when she glances over her shoulder, Lu Han catches sight of her pretty face.

By the time he and Chen make it to the edge of the path, she’s already disappeared into the mist hanging further down the trail on their right, and along the edge of the trees, to their left, he can see there’s something following her.

It turns out to be a wolf, or maybe a boy, darting from tree to tree. He’s only a dark shape in the dimmed light of the forest, but as he comes closer, there are glimpses of a tail and dark ears on his head.

He almost plows right into them as he tries to slip to behind the tree on the other side of where they’re standing. Lu Han releases a burst of sparks as he tries to keep his balance, clutching at Chen’s arm and flapping his wings.

“What the- “ The wolfboy stops abruptly in front of them, the claws on the end of his human fingertips at the ready as he searches for the source of the disturbance. Then he glances down at his feet, where Lu Han and Chen are.

“Huh,” he says, retracting his claws and crouching down to get a better look at them. “You’re really small.”

Chen glares, probably still annoyed at almost being stepped on. “Well, you’re a man-wolf hybrid, which is just as weird.”

The wolfboy considers this, his ears twitching. “Fair enough.”

He’s got yellow eyes, and grayish cast to his skin that makes his irises look even brighter.

“Are you looking for that girl?” Lu Han asks. “The one with the red hood.”

“You saw Taeyeon?” He smiles, sharp teeth digging into his lower lip. “Then I must be close.”

“You know her?”

“Know her? Yeah, I know her delicious-looking skin, her succulent mouth.” His eyes go unfocused. “Her mouthwatering smell.”

“Mouthwatering?” Lu Han repeats.

Chen eyes Baekhyun suspiciously. “You wouldn’t happen to be the kind of wolf that eats people, would you?”

The wolfboy sits back on his haunches, rolling his eyes. “Well these teeth aren’t just to give me a beautiful smile, if you know what I mean.” He runs his tongue over the jagged edges of his smile suggestively.

“But she’s beautiful, you couldn’t possibly eat her!”

The wolfboy sighs, pressing a clawed hand to his chest. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Confused, Lu Han tries to clarify, “Wait, so you like her?”

“Look, pipsqueak,” the wolfboy says, dropping his hand. “I’m a realist. I think Little Red is gorgeous, I really do, but if I tried to woo her, I’d probably eat her. It’s hard to give someone the kiss of true love when you’re distracted by wanting to take a bite out of them.”

Chen crosses his arms, scoffing. “I don’t think you’re really like that. A kiss is a way to show someone how you feel about them. If you really like her, I bet if you were given the chance, you’d do it right.”

The wolfboy clicks one of his claws against the front of his teeth thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

“Well, come on!” Chen says. “Lets go find her! And no creeping through the shadows this time. That’ll only freak her out.”

Chen ends up sitting comfortably in the palm of the wolfboy’s hand as they make their way down the trail, already talking to him as if they’re old friends.

The wolfboy seems intrigued by the way Lu Han glows, and the trail of sparks he leaves as he flies. “I’m Baekhyun,” he says, after Chen introduces them both.

“Barkhyun? Like the sound dogs make?”

“No,” the wolfboy growls at Chen, yellow eyes flashing, “Baekhyun.”

Suddenly visible through the fog they’d been walking through is Taeyeon, standing in the middle of the trail with her hands on her hips.

“There she is!” Chen chirrups happily, the sound making her whirl around.

“That stupid toad stole my cloak!” She stamps a booted foot, hair billowing around her shoulders tempestuously. Taeyeon looks much older without her red hood on, pretty mouth pulled into an angry frown. “I would have crushed him with my bare hands if I could’ve caught him, but the little bastard’s too fast.”

She glances over at Baekhyun, who’s got his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he stares at her. “What do you want?” she snaps.

“Nothing,” Baekhyun says quickly, rolling his tongue back up behind his pointy teeth. “I mean, I’m Baekhyun.”

Taeyeon raises her eyebrows. “You’re that wolf creep that’s always stalking me on my way to Grandma’s.”

Baekhyun looks simultaneously elated that Taeyeon recognizes him and upset that she knows him as “that wolf creep”, and Lu Han quashes the urge to laugh.

“Which direction did he go?” he asks Taeyeon instead.

“The toad? Up into those bushes up there.” She frowns again. “Why- Ugh, get away, you creep!” Eyes closed, Baekhyun has been inching steadily closer to Taeyeon, sniffing the air, and she hits Baekhyun over the head with her basket.

His ears droop apologetically as he takes a step back. “You just smell so good- “

Taeyeon’s eyes narrow dangerously and Chen waves his arms from where he’s still sitting in Baekhyun’s hand. “He means the cookies you’re carrying smell so good- “

“Yes. That’s it. Your cookies. I wanted to try one?”

Taeyeon eyes Baekhyun reluctantly. “If it’ll make you go away. But only one.”

Chen claps his hands together happily and then taps Baekhyun’s wrist to signal that he wants to be put down. “Right,” he says as Lu Han lands next to him, “so Baekhyun, you keep Taeyeon company while we go after the toad, okay?”

Taeyeon and Baekhyun are too busy with their cookie exchange to listen, and Chen and Lu Han take the chance to head toward the clump of bushes Taeyeon had pointed to.

“I feel kind of bad for leaving her with someone who wants to eat her,” Lu Han says, glancing over his shoulder.

“Has anyone told you you’re an excellent baker?” he hears Baekhyun say hopefully as he wipes the crumbs from around his mouth, and Taeyeon hits him over the head with her wicker basket again.

Chen smirks and tugs on Lu Han’s arm, their fingers laced comfortably together as they approach the smudge. “I think she’s got it handled.”

✴

“You know,” Chen says, as they make their way down a cavernous castle corridor, “this is a little harder than I thought it was going to be.”

Lu Han nods, dragging his feet over the thickly piled carpet that’s laid over the stone. He still feels a little shaken from their encounter with the Beast in the tower at the top of the castle, who had been close to eating them both in one bite when it turned out that one of the petals from his magical rose was gone. Luckily, the only other human in the castle, a beautiful woman, had talked him down so that they could explain who the real thief was. The Beast, who the woman called Sehun, had let them go on the condition that they never came back to the castle, and Lu Han had practically dragged Chen out of the room in his haste to get away.

The castle was probably once luxurious, but now it’s dark and gothic, with suits of armor that watch them as they pass.

“I kind of imagined the toad would be easier to catch? But it’s hard when we don’t have any idea where he’s going to be next.”

Lu Han agrees. They’ve already chased the toad through countless stories, missing catching him every time. Before this castle, they’d been in a tower, where a girl named Krystal, with ridiculously long hair, had raged at them about a toad that had stolen a lock of her hair while her paramour, Prince Kai, stroked the remaining locks of it and told them seriously, “Petting her hair reminds me of my dogs.”

Chen cranes his neck, squinting up at the paintings on the walls of the corridor. “Now where did we see that smudge before?”

“It was the painting of the prince,” Lu Han says, pointing to one of the biggest canvases a little further down the wall. It’s large enough that the bottom of the frame is fairly close to the floor, and Lu Han wordlessly boosts Chen up onto the edge of it before pulling himself up the rest of the way.

Lu Han had lost his wings several stories ago, but his back still feels empty, phantom flutters wracking his shoulders sometimes. They’d been in another castle then, trying to deal with a pea that had been stolen right from under a towering stack of mattresses.

“I need that pea!” the suitor, Zitao, had shouted while the princess had looked on, amused. “I need to prove that I have the sensitive bottom of royalty!”

In a stroke of genius, Chen had replaced the pea, which the toad had obviously stolen, with the magic bean they’d been given by Yifan.

“What I want to know,” Chen had told Lu Han as they’d spent another night looking up at the night sky, “is how the toad is carrying all the things he’s stealing. He needs all his toady legs to hop, so what gives?” The constellations in each world were different, and he and Chen liked to lie together, reaching up to trace different pictures in the stars.

Tactfully, he never brought up when Lu Han’s wings had finally disappeared, on his back one minute and gone the next, or how Lu Han’s eyes had welled up with tears he blinked away when he realized what had happened.

“I wonder if this is what Sehun looked like before he went all,” Chen uses his index fingers in imitation of the Beast’s monstrous fangs and snarls as they tip their heads back to get a better look at the face of the painting’s subject. The prince in it is no more than a teenager, with golden hair and a pointed chin.

“Probably,” Lu Han says. “This is his castle.”

“It’s sweet that Boa loves him despite the,” Chen mimes the fangs again. “I wonder how they kiss.”

Lu Han inches along the edge of the frame toward the smudged bit of the prince’s painted foot. “I thought the kiss of true love was supposed to break his curse?”

“Hmm, I guess they haven’t yet, then.”

They’ve seen several true love’s kisses on their journey, but two of them standing out starkly in Lu Han’s mind.

The first was in the forest they had visited after they’d left Baekhyun and Taeyeon. They’d walked in on some kind of wake, the lifeless body of a princess laid out on a slab of rock while a group of dwarves gathered around to mourn, along with one prince. The prince had looked overcome with grief as he knelt beside the princess, clutching her hand tightly in his.

“Sooyoung, you can’t be dead,” he’d said desperately, ugly tears streaming down his cheeks. “I came to tell you that I love you. You just can’t be dead.”

He’d leaned over and pressed his lips to hers for a second before collapsing back onto his knees in despair. It had been hard to watch. Lu Han averted his eyes until he’d heard someone take in a deep breath and dissolve into a coughing fit.

When he looked again, the princess was sitting up, alive and holding a bite of apple in her hand. “Suho?” she had said, looking up at the prince, voice hoarse.

“Did the kiss of true love just bring that girl back to life?” Chen had hissed skeptically, and Lu Han had dragged Chen away from the scene.

The other was next to a palace lily pond, where a frog was hopping around the bank forlornly. Unlike the toad, he didn’t have it out for Lu Han and Chen, and was only upset because his crown had been stolen by the toad.

“I’m a frog prince,” the frog, Minseok, had said, “but without my crown, no princess will ever know, and I’ll never get the kiss of true love that will turn me back into a human.”

While Lu Han personally had thought that the prince made a very cute frog, Minseok looked at his green reflection sadly.

“I’ll kiss you.” A woman had walked out from the doorway of the castle to the pond, her long dress trailing behind her on the grass. “Only an idiot would need a crown to see that you’re a prince.”

And when she had picked up the frog and kissed him- in a blinding flash, he had been replaced by a man with the same naturally smiling eyes. The woman had smiled down at him indulgently. “See,” she said, “I told you.”

The kiss of true love can bring people back from the dead and break even the most powerful magical curses. Lu Han wonders if the kiss Chanyeol and Kyungsoo shared the night he left Never Land was one. He wonders what a kiss feels like when it’s true love.

“Ready?” Chen asks, holding out a hand for Lu Han to take when they end up in front of the smudge in the painting. Lu Han takes it with a smile and they press forward into the crushing pressure, made flat and then whole again, and blinking away dry eyes on the other side of the smudge.

“Whoa.” Both their mouths drop open when they see where they’ve ended up.

Compared to the dreary, gothic castle they’d just left, the room in front of them is startling. It’s obviously the entryway of a large house, with a grand stairway of marble steps curving around one wall and a glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

The room is filled with the sound of someone humming. Near the base of the stairs, there is a person on their knees, scrubbing at the floor. The voice humming is definitely a girl’s, but the person cleaning is dressed in men’s clothes.

“Excuse me,” Chen says, trying to be heard over the humming. If there’s one thing he and Lu Han have learned on their travels, it’s that people react better when you announce yourself first.

The person turns toward Chen, the humming stopping abruptly. “Oh!” It’s a girl, with closely cropped hair and surprised eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, magic kind of… transported us here into your entryway.” It’s not a great explanation, but the longer version tends to be too confusing for people.

“Magic, huh?” The girl sits back, her cleaning brush still in hand, and says, “Normally, I wouldn’t believe you, but last night, my fairy godmother used her magic to send me to the ball at the palace, and I wore this fancy dress and met the prince and danced with him, and he was just so.” She sighs dreamily, her rambling trailing off. ”So great.” Seeming to remember herself, she points her brush at Lu Han and Chen threateningly. “If you tell anyone about that I’ll feed you to my stepmother’s awful cat.”

“Don’t worry,” Chen says. “We don’t have anyone to tell but each other, anyway.”

Lu Han nods earnestly and the girl seems satisfied.

“I know it sounds silly,” she says thoughtfully, “but it’s not the kiss, true love’s kiss that’s important, it’s the intent behind it.” She dips her brush back into the bucket and begins to scrub at the floor again. “It’s a way to say I like you just the way you are or this is what you mean to me. I haven’t had anyone say those kinds of things to me since my father died and when the prince kissed me like that, it was… nice.”

Dropping her brush into the bucket with a splash, she leans forward, like she’s about to tell them a secret.

“The dress and stuff disappeared at the stroke of midnight last night, but,” the girl looks around quickly before pulling a bundle of cloth out of her pants pocket, “I still have this.” With careful fingers, she unwraps the fabric to reveal a piece of clear glass. “I left one at the palace and something tripped me earlier so this one broke. It used to be a shoe, a really beautiful one, but this is all that’s left.”

Lu Han studies the broken shard. There’s something about it, a glimmer of magic as the light of the chandelier hits it, that catches Lu Han’s attention. The toad has already been here.

“Cinderella!” a shrill voice shrieks from up the staircase, and the girl hurriedly wraps the glass up again.

“You’d better hide,” she whispers, pointing toward the chest of drawers along the far wall, where there is just enough space for them to squeeze under. “My stepmother would have a fit if she saw you down here.”

Lu Han and Chen skitter off across the marble floor as the shrill voice calls again, this time from the landing at the top of the stairs. “Cinderella! How many times to I have to scream your name?”

Still kneeling next to her bucket, Cinderella lowers her head but doesn’t respond.

“Are you finished with your chores yet?”

She looks around at how much of the floor she still has left to clean. “Nearly.”

“Once you’re done, I want you to clean the drawing room floor as well. There’s a dirty patch on the far side of the china cabinet that- “

A sharp knock on the front door echoes through the room.

“Well,” says the unpleasantly shrill voice, “aren’t you going to get that?”

Pushing herself up, Cinderella walks over to open the door. She looks even more like a boy standing up, the bagginess of her shirt and pants hiding her body and her hair messy from cleaning, but Lu Han thinks she’s still pretty.

Outside the front door of the house, there’s a very posh-looking footman waiting, who announces, “The Grand Duke and his Royal Highness, the prince, would like to meet with the mistress of the house, miss.”

Cinderella nods, face white as a sheet when she turns to look back at the top of the stairs.

“The prince is here?” The voice sounds less shrill and more sharp, more intimidating now. “Show him into the drawing room at once and prepare some tea.”

The prince is tall, with the golden fringe of his epaulettes swinging from his shoulders and crimson pants. The heels of his shoes click loudly on the marble floors as Cinderella leads him, the duke, and what looks like a palace servant, into the drawing room.

Stealthily, Lu Han and Chen skitter across the entrance hall to peer through the door that’s been left ajar behind them.

The drawing room is filled with sunlight pouring in through the bay windows along the far wall, with elegant blue wallpaper and cream furniture arranged around the room. There’s a set of chairs and table made of glossy dark wood, and a huge fireplace with a mantlepiece that is almost the same height as the prince.

Across the room at the table, Cinderella keeps glancing hopefully at the prince, like she’s waiting for him to recognize her as she lays out the tea, but he is too busy restlessly pacing in front of the fireplace.

“This seems a little excessive, your Highness,” the duke says from his seat next to the window, as he stirs several cubes of sugar into his cup of tea. “You only met this girl once.”

Chen taps Lu Han on the shoulder, pointing to another chest of drawers just in the side the room that they could hide under. Lu Han nods, sprinting inside and under it quickly, Chen at his heels.

“I don’t care if I have to put this shoe on every woman in the kingdom,” The prince is saying once they’re situated to look again. “I’ve got to find her. She was different. Her eyes, and when we kissed…” The prince presses his fingers to his lips, and Cinderella’s face goes red as she clutches a towel to her chest.

She’s in the middle of opening her mouth to say something when the door Lu Han and Chen just came through bursts open. Lu Han can only see shoes at first, three pairs of extravagant heels under swishing skirts, but the shrill-voiced woman, who can only be Cinderella’s stepmother, is there, greeting the prince and introducing the other two as her daughters.

Compared to Cinderella, her stepsister’s aren’t necessarily ugly, tiny noses and lipstick-pink mouths, but there’s a pinched, snobbish look to their faces that makes them wholly unattractive.

The prince obviously thinks so too. He manages to put on a good face as the duke explains that they are here to find the woman who fits the glass slipper- the palace servant that had retreated to the corner steps forward to display a pure glass shoe sitting on a cushion - but when each of the sisters fawns over him in turn, the prince’s mouth tightens into a thin line or irritation.

The slipper, which must be the match of the one Cinderella had broken earlier that day, doesn’t fit either of the stepsisters. No amount of smooth talking from their mother can change that, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.

As she talks, Lu Han watches Cinderella. She’s standing along the wall, the same as the palace servant, but she looks like she’s screwing up the courage for something. Her hand is in her pocket, clutching the bundle of cloth there.

“Thank you for your help, but we really must be going.” The prince starts edging for the door, ignoring the girl’s whiny protests, and Cinderella finally steps forward.

“Don’t go!”

“And who would this be?” The duke holds up his monocle to get a better look at Cinderella as the prince turns back around.

“It’s no one,” the stepmother says hastily, trying to block Cinderella from view with her arms outstretched.

“I’m her stepdaughter,” Cinderella says, ducking her head under one of her stepmother’s arms, “and I was the one who danced with you at the ball last night, your Highness!” The prince still looks skeptical, and Cinderella pulls out the piece of glass, unwrapping it. “Here’s a piece of the other slipper. It broke, but I still have it.” She looks at him beseechingly, and says, “Henry, please.”

“That piece of glass could be from anything, you silly girl,” her stepmother says, trying to rush her out the door.

Lu Han catches the crestfallen look on her face, the prince caught in a moment of indecision, and suddenly finds himself stepping out from their hiding place.

“Wait!” he shouts, loud enough to be heard.

It takes everyone a few moments to figure out where Lu Han’s voice is coming from, various noises of surprise filling the room.

“What is that little thing, a mouse?” the stepmother exclaims hysterically and the grand duke glares at her through his monocle.

“Madam,” he says primly, “I think you had better calm down.”

“It’s okay, they’re my friends,” Cinderella says. She moves out from behind her stepmother, smoothing the wrinkles from her pants.

The prince crouches down curiously, all the irritated tightness gone from his mouth. Like this, he’s rather handsome. “What is it, little sprite?”

Lu Han swallows the lump of nervousness in his throat, and says, “She doesn’t have the other shoe, but she’s still the same person with the same feelings. If you won’t let her try the slipper on, then just kiss her, and you’ll know.”

The prince looks up at Cinderella and Lu Han chances a glance over at Chen. Chen is victoriously pumping his fist in the air, grinning widely. Lu Han’s heart swells at the shine in Chen’s eyes, and he finds himself grinning back.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” the prince says, straightening back up to his full height. Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters loudly yowl their objections, but not before Prince Henry sweeps Cinderella into his arms and kisses her.

✴

“Hey,” Chen says when they fall out of the smudge and onto the ground. “I know where we are.”

There’s tall grass all around them swaying in the wind, and the air smells of salt and fish. Behind them is Chen’s house. The color of the shudders is still cheery, but the flowers in the window box have long since wilted. Just like all the other worlds they’ve visited this one has it’s own feeling, it’s own color palette, and Lu Han sighs at the familiarity

“Home, sweet home,” he says, readjusting his cloth after their fall from the sky.

“At least for me.” Chen stands, clapping Lu Han on the shoulder proudly. “Look at you, talking to groups of large strangers.”

Lu Han ducks his head. Honestly, he’d surprised himself too. “I just didn’t want that girl to be unhappy.”

“You were great!” Chen says, and then turns around in a full circle, taking the meadow in. He furrows his eyebrows. “Does this place look like it’s falling apart to you?”

It’s late afternoon, the sunlight shining sideways through the trees of the forest, but Chen is right. Something is off. There are bits of sky that are white instead of blue and dark spots in the grass.

“I wonder if this is what Yixing meant when he- “ A dark shape bursts through the grass around them, knocking both of them over. Lu Han’s shoulder hits the ground painfully, making him hiss as he tries to get up.

It’s almost like seeing back into the past when Lu Han looks over at Chen and sees him pinned to the ground by the great body of the toad. He shouts and struggles in the dirt as the toad croaks down at him gleefully.

“You’re not getting away this time,” it says, “not when you’re all that stands between me and unimaginable power.”

Lu Han picks up the biggest pebble that will fit in his hand and chucks it at the toad. “Leave him alone!”

“Ah, the pixie,” the toad sneers, wheeling around to look at Lu Han.

From this angle, Lu Han can see the toad has a horrible imitation of a crown on his head. The metal crown itself is probably the one the frog prince Minseok had been missing, only now it has bits of each of the magical items it’s stolen mashed and visible around it’s edges. The gold plume of a feather, the tattered edge of a red piece of fabric, a shard of glass. The slight glimmer of magic Lu Han had seen around the piece of Cinderella’s glass slipper is increased around the crown tenfold, forbiddingly glittering from atop the toads head.

The toad’s bulbous eyes look Lu Han over, throat expanding and contracting as it breathes. “You’re missing your wings, pixie. Even if you had them, it wouldn’t matter. With the crown, you’re no match for me. Not even with your magic dust.”

Behind the toad, Chen is getting back to his feet, looking rumpled, but all right.

“We’ll just see about that,” Lu Han says, preparing to bomb the toad in its face with more sparks, like he had in the swamp. As Lu Han approaches, the toad lifts itself up on its back legs, pointing the top of its head at Lu Han. There’s a raised area on either side of the crown, almost like a wart, that’s oozing something-

Lu Han is close enough to shoot his sparks when the toad leaps forward, running into Lu Han and smearing some of the oozing substance on his hands at the contact.

The searing pain is immediate. Lu Han screams, the burning on his palms making him fall back onto the grass in agony. He curls into himself, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes as he tries to wipe the ooze off his skin and onto the grass.

As he moans in pain, Lu Han can dimly hear Chen and the toad arguing.

“Stop trying to undress me! I’ve said a hundred times that no matter what, I’m not going to marry you!”

“Marry you!” the toad says, halfway between a croak and a burp. “You may be the son of the Fairy King, but what I want isn’t you, it’s your magic.”

“What did you say?” Chen’s voice is muffled, like he’s speaking half into the ground.

“This mark, you don’t know what it is?”

“The star? It’s a birthmark. I’ve always had it.”

If toads could sigh, Lu Han is sure this one would. “All fairies carry a unique mark like this, a place where their life force magic is, and this one, marking you as the long lost son of the Fairy King, is the last magical item I need.”

Chen begins to shout again, the sound more desperate than before. The pain in Lu Han’s hands has lessened enough for him to be able to open his eyes. He sees Chen pressed onto his stomach, the toad with webbed fingers over the mark on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, little prince,” the toad says, its croaky voice almost cooing. “Once I have your magic, I’ll let you go.”

Lu Han shakes his head, trying to clear it from the buzz of hurt coursing through his body. He looks down at his hands. They’re raw and aching where the toad’s ooze touched, but when he flexes his fingers, a few sparks appear.

Chen’s scream splits the air, agony personified, when the toads four spidery fingers are pulling something from his back. As it does, a glittering gold mist comes out of Chen’s birthmark like a wispy string and disappears into the toad’s body.

Chen’s voice cracks as he screams and screams. Then he falls silent, and Lu Han is on his feet before he has time to think. The last of the gold mist dissolves into nothing.

Finished, he toad crawls back onto the grass. The crown pulses on its head, space sucking in along it’s edges, as if it’s absorbing all the energy around it. The ground trembles ominously.

Chen is still lying on the ground, unmoving, and the fear and anger swirling in Lu Han’s gut overpowers the pain from the toad’s poison. He cries out, hands extended as he runs toward the toad, sparks already flooding from his palms.

The toad, busy basking in its success, is caught unawares. It stumbles over its own feet, listing sideways in its pixie dust daze, and the crown slides off its head, landing heavily on the grass.

Lu Han crumples at Chen’s side, panting and frantic. The birthmark star birthmark on Chen’s shoulder flickers and goes out.

With shaking, injured hands, Lu Han turns Chen over so he can see his face. There are tear tracks shining from the corners of his eyes, his lips parted as if to take in a breath, but Chen isn’t breathing.

Lu Han can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, can feel it in his throat. Yixing said that without their magic, fairies died, and if Chen is really the son of the Fairy King then that means right now, Chen is dead in his arms. “If it’s magic you need to live, then take my voice,” Lu Han whispers down at Chen. If he doesn’t look too closely, it’s almost as if Chen is just sleeping. “It’s my magic to give away.” He’d rather never speak again if it means Chen would be able to live.

The toad is still stumbling around in the grass, letting out little bewildered croaks, but Lu Han doesn’t pay it any attention.

His lips are trembling as he cradles Chen’s face in his hands. Lu Han uses his thumbs to wipe the tears from Chen’s cheeks and combs the hair out of his face. “Let’s hope this kiss thing works,” he murmurs, and presses their mouths together.

It’s not the first kiss that Lu Han wanted, Chen’s lips soft but unresponsive under his, and the feeling of something being ripped from his throat, glass scraping the inside of his mouth until he’s sure it must be bloody. A bright, golden light behind his eyelids.

Lu Han’s heart sinks when he pulls back to look at Chen and nothing happens.

Then-

There’s a tingling near his shoulder blades, like something bubbling under his skin, hot and itching. Something explodes from his back, along with a shower of sparks, and Lu Han gasps for breath. In shock, he looks over his shoulder and catches sight of wings.

Next to where he’s kneeling, Chen groans, shifting in the grass. Lu Han scrambles to help him sit up.

“What happened? Did I die?” Chen rasps, his voice probably raw from screaming. He rubs at his face with his hands. “Why do you have wings?”

Lu Han opens his mouth to answer, the words coiling up in his throat, but instead of the voice he’s been using, only bells come out. Sparks plume from Lu Han’s burned palms as he holds them out to Chen wordlessly, trying to explain.

“What,” Chen says, blinking rapidly.

A ways away, the toad lets out a particularly loud croak, starting to come back to his senses, and Chen turns toward the sound. “Later,” he says, standing unsteadily. “You can explain later.”

Lu Han lifts himself up, feeling the strength of his new wings for the first time. They’re larger than his old pair, flapping with unexpected power.

Chen reaches down to pick of the crown that had fallen from the toad’s head turning it over in his hands to look at all the different items that have been added on.

“I think I know what to use this for,” Chen says, as the toad circles around. It must catch sight of the glinting gold of the crown, because it lets out a deafening croak and waddles forward, yellow eyes fixed on Chen.

From his place in the air, Lu Han can tell what Chen is going to do a moment before he does it, raising the crown high over his head, and bringing it down as hard as he can onto the toad’s forehead.

The bright flash that occurs is a lot like the one when Minseok, the frog prince, and turned into a human after being kissed. It’s bright enough to make Lu Han shield his eyes, and when he looks again, in the toad’s place is a round, toad-like man instead.

“Huh?” the man croaks, eyes practically rolling in his head as he tries to look at his new body. He’s not much bigger than Lu Han or Chen, except maybe sideways, and he’s got an unpleasantly bumpy complexion. He zeroes in on Chen again. “You!”

He lunges, new human hands outstretched. Chen shouts swinging the crown at him again and Lu Han dive-bombs, knocking him back to the ground with a furious chime.

“Stop!” There’s a boom, almost like thunder, and through the grasses comes a man with the largest pair of wings Lu Han has ever seen. They’re a bright, iridescent blue that shimmers with the last of the daylight, and on his head is a crown of blue flowers. The Fairy King.

“I see Yixing was right,” he says. “The two of you had this handled.” The king’s voice is like the deep, powerful noise of ocean waves lapping at a beach of sand, or the echoing rumble of a waterfall, and Lu Han wants to sink into it. The king holds out a hand. “I’ll take that crown.”

Chen hands the crown to him, mouth hanging open slightly.

The king’s mouth is like Chen’s so when he looks at Chen, expression softening as he smiles, the corners of his lips curl up. “My son, I’ve found you at last.”

Chen’s mouth opens and closes as he tries to think of something to say, but nothing comes out. The king reaches out with his empty hand, cupping Chen’s cheek with shining eyes. “Your mother will be so happy to see you.”

“Hate to interrupt the family reunion,” the toad cuts in, his nasal, human voice just as grating as his toad one had been, “but that crown is mine.”

The king turns sharp eyes on him, dropping his hand from Chen’s face. “This crown is something you stole, and you would be wise to stay silent until your punishment is decided.”

The toad’s face crumples as he whines, “I just wanted enough power to make people like me!”

“You can’t make people like you,” Chen says, coming out of his shocked reverie. “You can only be who you are and the rest is up to them. People didn’t dislike you because you were a toad, they disliked you because you were mean and stole things from them.”

The toad huffs, and if he were still in his toad body, Lu Han thinks his throat would be swelling angrily. “In that case, I’d rather be a toad again. This walking on two legs thing makes no sense.”

With nimble fingers, the king begins taking apart the the crown, piece by piece. He sets them on the grass, the shred of Taeyeon’s red cloak, the Pea. “You, toad, must fix the mess you’ve made by returning each piece to its rightful story.” Rapunzel’s lock of hair, the Beast’s single rose petal, the core of an apple. “Once this is finished, you’ll become a toad again.” A thimble, the Golden Goose’s feather, and at last, the crown itself. “And maybe, you might even make some friends along the way.”

The toad beings to whine again, and the king draws himself up. His eyes flash and his blue wings flutter at his back. “If it weren’t for his companion, you would have succeeded in murdering my son. You should count yourself lucky that I am letting you go at all. Do not make me regret my clemency.”

The toad shrinks into himself, scooting back into the grasses and grumbling.

“Yixing told me you’re called Chen,” the king says to Chen, letting himself stand on the ground again.

Chen nods so vigorously that his hair bobs. He points at the house. “This is where I live, with my mother. Or. Well, I thought she was my mother.” Chen blushes and the king laughs.

Lu Han watches the scene silently.

He feels… happy. Chen’s heart is beating and the world is no longer in danger of falling apart. He even has his wings back.

But when he swallows, his sore throat is a reminder that if he were to try to speak, only bells would come out. His voice is gone.

The ugly twisting in his chest is back again, the lump of unsaid words clogging the back of his mouth. He wants to go home.

“Lu Han?” Chen says curiously. “Where are you going?”

Lu Han chokes, a single, solitary spark bursting to life between them and going out. If he could have spoken, he would have said, I can’t, but Lu Han has lost his voice. Instead, he flies away.

✴

Never Land is different when Lu Han gets back.

Kyungsoo is gone, and Chanyeol, who forgets people the he doesn’t see for three days, still remembers him and talks about him all the time.

“He said he thought I could grow up, that he really believed I could, and I can’t get it outta my head!” Chanyeol, who had been flying in lazy corkscrews above where Lu Han is lying in the sand, lets himself waft to the ground. “I can’t get anything outta my head these days.” He puffs air against his pouting lower lip to blow the hair out of his eyes as he glances over at Lu Han. “Ya’know what I mean, Tink?”

Lu Han answers Chanyeol with a pop of sparks and a jingle, because he knows exactly what he means.

It was easier to become accustomed to living without his wings than it’s been to get used to being without his voice again. Luckily, Chanyeol doesn’t expect anything different from him, so there’s nothing for Lu Han to explain.

Chanyeol hadn’t forgotten him either, which makes Lu Han happy in so many ways, only not in the one he’d expected. Chanyeol is his best friend, and one of his favorite people, but nothing more than that. The heaviness that used to press on Lu Han’s chest whenever Chanyeol brought up Kyungsoo is gone.

Chanyeol starts making snow angels in the sand of the beach, moving his arms and legs back and forth as he says, thoughtfully, “D’you think if Kyungsoo says I could grow up… maybe I could? I dunno.”

For an island that always stays the same, a lot has changed. Including Lu Han.

On the outside, Lu Han came back the same pixie he’d left as, with a pair of wings and the ring of bells instead of a voice, but inside, he’s so different.

“Wowee! Tink, did’ya see that?” Chanyeol sits up, pointing inland. “A butterfly just popped out of the middle of the sky!”

A butterfly? Lu Han pulls himself up into the air using his new wings. This pair is gold, like his first ones, but they’re bigger and less flimsy-looking. He likes them even though every time he remembers how he earned them, his heart aches.

Lu Han can see what Chanyeol is talking about, a dark shape flying near the center of the island, just below the single low-hanging cloud where the smudge used to be-

Lu Han’s eyes widen.

He ends up leaving Chanyeol behind on the beach in a cloud of sparks in his hurry to get to where the shape is, hardly daring to hope it could be what he thinks it is.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Lu Han hears, once he’s within earshot, Chen’s voice filled with laughter. He catches Lu Han in his arms, both of them drifting back a little from the impact.

Chen smells like his home world, like salt and the grass in the meadow behind his house, and Lu Han buries his head in the curve of Chen’s neck to breathe it in.

“Missed me, huh?” Chen says, patting Lu Han on the back. “You flew off so fast, I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Lu Han draws back, a little embarrassed. Then he gets a good look at Chen’s wings. They’re big, like his father’s, with orange and white shapes on a black background, and Lu Han reaches out with a finger to touch them.

Chen smiles widely. “Like them? I got them when I came of age a few days ago.” He does a few swoops to show off, grinning. “This whole flying thing is pretty great. You definitely undersold it before.”

Lu Han laughs, a cheerful chime of bells.

“Wow,” Chen says, pausing in his swoops. His eyes are a little shiny. “I didn’t realize I missed that sound until just now.”

Down in the Mermaid’s Lagoon, Chanyeol is amusing himself by teasing the mermaids with his hat, holding it just out of their reach as they swim in the water below.

“Is that him? Chanyeol?”

There’s a catch in Chen’s voice that makes Lu Han reach for Chen’s hand. He tries to tell Chen with his eyes that he was wrong before, Chanyeol is just a friend.

Chen nods, pulling his hand away, but only to dig into his pocket for something.

He’s wearing clothing somewhere between what his mother had dressed him in, dark trousers that are rolled up to the ankle, and what the Fairy King had been wearing, a plain white shirt with an open collar and billowing sleeves.

He looks more happier like this, freer.

In his hand, when he holds it out, is a glass bottle.

“This’ll give you your voice back,” Chen says. “I traded that magic bean Yifan gave us for it. Not from the same witch you got yours from, though. She’s the one that stole my flower seed from my parents, so that would have been weird. My mom says hi, by the way. My human mom, I mean. The whole thing is… kind of confusing.” He scratches his head with his empty hand and licks his lips. “Anyway, you don’t have to take it, if you don’t want to. I like you with or without your voice. But I wanted you to be able to make that choice on your own.”

Lu Han looks at the vial in Chen’s hand, the blue tonic easily visible through the glass, and then up at Chen’s face. He looks kind of unsure about Lu Han’s non-reaction.

“Good idea or bad?” he asks, smile fading as he searches Lu Han’s face for the answer.

The words are piling up inside him, but rather than trying to say them, Lu Han throws his arms around Chen’s neck and kisses him instead.

Their lips cling together as Lu Han’s eyes slide shut, and sparks zing up and down his spine, as well as out of his hands.

“I’ll take that as good,” Chen says breathlessly. His mouth looks red and well-kissed, and there’s a halo of Lu Han’s sparks about his head. “Very good.”

Lu Han nods emphatically, bells jingling, and Chen cups the back of Lu Han’s head to kiss him again.

✴