Act. 8 | Stray Kids Imagines

[always in this twilight]

If Chan would ask you for the sky and every little star in the infinite cosmos, you would hand them to him in a breath's spell.

Yet, there he was, earnest and sincere as his eyes fluttered once, twice. Hesitant, perhaps. Regretful, like those of a man who had spent a fortune on the most joyous night of gambling.

You wanted to laugh, or cry, or both.

'Your eyes, only.'

He was asking so little of you.

"I'm sorry." Chan slumped to his knees at the foot of your shrine, fingers digging into the dirt as he brought his head low. He was a broken willow tree, and you, his torn moon.

"My love, don't be," a voice that was everywhere and nowhere at once, a declaration for the universe and a murmur only he heard. You reached a phantom hand to lift his chin from his dampened palms.

His shoulders trembled like leaves in a cruel wind, his tears a silent river that wreaked destruction in its path toward you, killing the ever-living essence in your ethereal existence.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," the words that left his lips were a mangled prayer that seemed to be deaf to your speech. There was nothing for him to be sorry for. Hadn't you ripped your beating heart out of your chest for him before?

"Dearest..." you traced his features with the ghost of your fingers, watching his darling eyes flutter shut for the first moment of respite in years. His face—beautiful, broken, human—was one you knew from a thousand centuries past, when you first fell to the mortal realm and found yourself imprisoned upon this holy hill.

Chan was the human king who chased your fallen star, then with his many knights and subjects, erected this grand shrine for you to live in. He was kind, and his golden heart made him precious even to one forsaken such as yourself. You loved him, and by some heavenly jest, he loved you in return.

That was his sin—loving you, who had been banished from heaven, a love greater and mightier than the wildest storms. A love of which your kin deemed you undeserving, for your palms were tainted black with the divine blood of another.

Yet, when the sky hailed with fire and heaven opened its doors to reclaim you, Chan stood in defiance, a sword of earthly steel in his grasp and a cosmic fury in his gaze. In the cage of his mortal flesh, your immortal heart beat, lending him the strength he so brazenly sought.

The war that ensued from his rebellion was one of a thousand centuries. For as long as he lived a human with a god's heart, you were tethered to this realm. And he fought to keep it that way.

When your brethren stole his sword-wielding hands, you gifted him yours, divine so that he may strike with the force of every sun and every moon. When they severed the legs by which he stood before them, resentful, you offered him yours so that he may rise forever unhindered. And when they pierced his chest and he bled crimson rivers, you poured your blood for him, oceans, so that his heart may never grow athirst.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't—"

The words that refused to leave Chan's lips were heard by the heart of yours that beat in tandem with his.

'Forgive me for my selfishness, for I cannot part with you. Forgive me, my love, for I cannot see you anymore.'

You brushed your thumbs over his closed eyes. His lashes were adorned with shimmering tears, strokes of liquid stars across his cheeks. Your most beloved's vision had been taken from him by those seraphic hands, and there was no doubt in your mind as to what you had to do.

You touched the phantom of your forehead against his and closed your eyes, speaking a song of a thousand angels, "Go."

"Wait! No—! Please, don't—"

Chan's eyes snapped open, and he attempted to push you away. Barely, softly, because he could never think to use any real force against you. But it was too late. The vision that he now gazed upon you with was that of a god, vast, boundless, true.

It made him double over, anguished beyond comprehension.

"No, no! Take it back, please! Y/n—!"

'I don't wish to do this to you anymore. You've got nothing left. You'll become nothing—'

You pressed your lips against the heap of his soft curls to silence his rampant mind. In truth, you could only smile, for you found no greater joy than in giving yourself away to him.

"Go and end this war, my love."