"What do you mean you've never been to Akihabara? Or Harajuku? Or anywhere else remotely touristy?"

Beomgyu's being loud. He knows he's being loud because the cashier at the airport Seven Eleven they're currently in is giving them crazy looks, but he doesn't care. They've been in Tokyo all of thirty minutes and Yeonjun's already driving him insane.

"I don't know," Yeonjun says, frowning as he jams in his PIN into the ATM machine. "I just come here, go do whatever is necessary in whichever concrete jungle, and go back."

"Okay. Name one Tokyo neighborhood you've been in."

Yeonjun grabs the wad of cash the machine spits out. "Um...Kuramae?"

"Hyung."

"That was the name of the train station I could see from my hotel."

Beomgyu's horrified. "And how many times have you been in Tokyo?"

"Nine. Counting this entirely unnecessary and terribly vexing joke of a trip- ten."

"Wow. You're the worst, truly. It boggles the mind. It befuddles the brain. Wow."

He's still muttering about Yeonjun's icy disinterest in what is possibly Beomgyu's second favorite city in the world when they walk out of the terminal and towards the airport limo pick-up point. It's unseasonably cold in Tokyo, and Beomgyu's huddled up in a rather useless jacket. The air turns his nose pink and runny in minutes, and his bones still ache from the fever. He feels like shit, but there's also an edge of excitement stirring in him now, both at the prospect of the auction and at...well.

"Hyung," he says, determinedly. "I'm showing you Tokyo."

Yeonjun gawps like a fish. Then he steps a little away from Beomgyu like he might be carrying something contagious. "You're doing no such thing."

"I am. I'm showing you the Tokyo Skytree, and Akihabara, and Harajuku of course-"

"We're here for literally three days."

"You called this a vacation," Beomgyu accuses, beady eyed. "Also, I'm very efficient with the metro system. You'll see."

Yeonjun looks vaguely afraid.

It takes forever to get to where they want, which turns out to be a large glassy hotel close enough to crowded Takeshita street that Beomgyu drags Yeonjun to press his face against the glass while the receptionist figures out their bookings.

"Look," he says, and Yeonjun does so with heavy reluctance, but then Beomgyu hears him draw a little gasp of surprise. Of course the street is crowded as hell: it always is. But it's also a riot of color, and that's visible even through the tinted bubble of the hotel's windows. The fancy gate is all but occluded by swarms of tourists but Beomgyu still spots a guy carrying around a giant cotton candy in a hundred different colors, a bunch of sweet lolitas posing with another bunch of goth lolitas, and a very giant Hello Kitty balloon (sponsored by ICOCA!) bobbing above all these proceedings.

"So many...people," is what Yeonjun says, though, sounding faintly terror-struck. Beomgyu peels him away from the glass, suddenly afraid that the sheer volume of humanity Yeonjun can spot through the glass might render him comatose for the rest of this trip. "What are those girls wearing? Why is one of them wearing a rubber duckie? And that one's wearing plastic-"

"That's just Harajuku fashion. Did you not know about this, hyung?"

Yeonjun looks a bit wide-eyed. "Knowing and experiencing are two different things, Beomgyu-ah."

Beomgyu smirks. "You can wear a skirt and a parasol if you want, hyung. No one judges here."

It's probably only the hotel clerk's appearance that saves Beomgyu from decapitation.

The clerk is apologetic. The auction is happening in the basement and the ballroom, and the hotel's all booked out, which leaves them with exactly one room among the two of them. Beomgyu thinks Yeonjun's going to dig in his heels and pout about this, demand that they find some way to accommodate, and is surprised when Yeonjun just shrugs.

"It's only going to be weird if you make it weird, Beomgyu."

Which-Beomgyu thinks, with a hard swallow-fine. He can be cool about this.

He's very cool about this.

It's still awkward as fuck when they're finally in the room, and Beomgyu's trying to rummage in his suitcase while Yeonjun flicks lazily through channels on the television. There's this silence that feels heavy and awkward, and usually Beomgyu is really good at filling it up. It's how he collects friends the way someone else might collect magnets. Beomgyu's made friends out of strangers in hospitals, in bathrooms, at the back-stages of fashion shows, and once in an alligator's enclosure in a zoo. But then that muddled little knot that has settled in his stomach since Yeonjun decided to accompany him to Tokyo threatens to surge up and choke his throat. So Beomgyu stays silent, and he's admittedly terrible at it.

There are questions-sticky, tricky ones-that swill around his mouth looking for an escape. Does Yeonjun still dislike him, but has learned how to tolerate him? Beomgyu doesn't want to be tolerated. It feels weird and heavy and diminishing-that word-like he's a helpless, misbehaving child that nevertheless has to be accommodated. But if that isn't it, then what is? Why are they doing this-this vacation, this thing-together here in a foreign city?

Why the hell really is Choi Yeonjun asking him if he wants something from room service while sprawled on the (stupidly large) single king-sized bed in Beomgyu's hotel room? What does he even want?

He surreptitiously sends Taehyun a quick text while Yeonjun's pre-occupied with ordering food.

Me: In Tokyo, Yeonjun hyung is with me.

He sneaks a picture of Yeonjun moodily looking through the fully Japanese menu to go with it. It takes a while to go through, and then longer to get a read receipt. But then Taehyun responds immediately.

Taehyunie: ...EXCUSE ME???

Taehyunie: why u sharing rooms???

Taehyunie: what 's he doing there???

Me: right now? ordering room service

Taehyunie: wait WTF

Taehyunie: let me call you

Me: not now!!!

Me: nowhere to escape

Taehyunie: hide in the bathroom moron

Taehyunie: Japanese bathrooms have music buttons

Taehyunie: play the fucking birdsong its the loudest

Turns out, there are three music options on this particular bathroom's commode, and Taehyun is right in that the birdsong is loudest.

"Okay," Taehyun yells, when the call finally goes through. "Tell me EVERYTHING."

Beomgyu takes a deep breath. "You're going to get so mad at me."

"Oh, God. Did you two hate bang?"

"What? Of course we didn't-wait. Why the hell do you sound so delighted?"

"Oh." Taehyun gasps, and Beomgyu can picture him now, wide-eyed and biting his lip, trying not to laugh. "Never mind. But what's he doing with you in Tokyo?"

So Beomgyu tells him the whole story. To Taehyun's credit and his unassailable position as Beomgyu's soul-mate, he doesn't even really get mad at Beomgyu being an idiot and nearly botching this trip. Instead, he asks, "But are you two getting along now? Last I heard from Soobin, Yeonjun hyung was officially on your kill list."

"I don't know," Beomgyu says, pressing another button to change the music to some weird shakuhachi flute melody. "He still thinks I'm annoying. I think."

"But he's willingly staying with you?"

"Looks like it."

"Beommie, are you comfortable with that?"

Beomgyu plucks a bottle of hand-cream from the counter to play with. "I don't know. I guess so? I mean. It's just Yeonjun hyung."

Taehyun sounds incredulous. "It's just Yeonjun hyung? Not one day ago you were convinced the man was the devil himself."

Beomgyu catches sight of his reflection on the mirror. He looks freshly churned out of hell, what with his fever-blotched face and messy hair, eyes huge against the soft purple of dark circles from interrupted sleep. "Yeah. I mean, he's a good person. Nice. When he wants to be."

Taehyun snorts, and his voice comes airy through the phone. "Is this part of your I see no evil bullshit or is he ACTUALLY being nice to you? Which is it, Beommie ?"

Beomgyu frowns. Honestly, Yeonjun snaps and brushes him off, is brusque and commanding at work in the most annoying way, and sometimes acts like a dense asshole. But he's also the kind of dude who'll buy last minute tickets to accompany a sick business acquaintance on an overseas trip. He's also the kind of dude who'll make sure a drunk business acquaintance is safe at home, and then proceed to try and make friends with said business acquaintance's fluffy-yet-often-very-angry dog. Beomgyu's understandably thrown a bit. And also softly pleased.

"I don't know," he says into the bottle of hand-cream. "I have whiplash."

"Are you okay, though?"

And there goes Taehyun, worrying again. Beomgyu's always worrying him with this shit. He leans against the counter and chews on his lip. "I'm fine. I can handle it."

"You always just say that."

"No, really. Please don't worry."

"Well. Don't let him get to you, okay? Focus on the auction. Get better. We'll figure Yeonjun out later."

"Okay."

"Okay. Love you."

He still sounds worried. Beomgyu hates that he sounds worried. "Hey, Taehyun," he says, loudly. "The third option for music on this toilet sounds like the intro to a noir mafia film. So weird."

Taehyun giggles. "You're so weird."

When Beomgyu emerges, phone in hand, Yeonjun's landed on some Japanese variety show where a bunch of people are trying really hard to climb up a slippery, gooey surface.

And of all things Beomgyu thought Yeonjun might be entertained by, this is not it.

He stands there by the bathroom door, completely nonplussed, watching as Yeonjun throws his head back and laughs at whatever's happening on TV. There's this green chute and a bunch of pink plastic flamingos and what looks like orange sludge rolling down the chute like Cheeto-flavored lava. Yeonjun's grin is gummy and bright, shoulders shaking with mirth at the people trying to go up the chute, and he's half curled around one of the giant hotel pillows with his bare feet poking out from under it in a somewhat adorable manner.

Beomgyu's really confused.

Both at the sudden way in which that muddled knot in his chest dissolves into slow warmth, and because of Yeonjun himself.

He opens his mouth to make a wise-crack-something about Yeonjun being tiny and adorable and super cute when he laughs-but then thinks the better of it. This is probably the happiest Beomgyu's ever witnessed him. Anything Beomgyu says now would just shrivel Yeonjun up, bring down the walls, cause him to curl into himself. Beomgyu will only ruin this, can only ruin this, and fuck it, he likes seeing Yeonjun happy.

So he sits on the floor by his open suitcase, in the pretense of figuring out his outfit for the pre-viewing later in the afternoon. He makes sure to make himself as invisible as he can, as quiet as he can, because he doesn't want to interrupt. The floor is stupid cold and Beomgyu already knows exactly what he's wearing but-he thinks, solemnly-he can let Yeonjun have this.

This singular moment of realness. Unmaskedness. Whatever.

Beomgyu can let him have it.

***

Later in the afternoon, they make their way down to the pre-viewing.

Beomgyu's wearing a printed vintage Paul Smith shirt and slacks, and his prescription glasses. Yeonjun, because he seems to enjoy torturing Beomgyu, is wearing the hot librarian outfit again. For whatever weird reason, he's also wearing weirdly spiky leather boots, and the overall effect is Goth-fantasy orc-slaying hot librarian-which is a bit much, Beomgyu thinks, for any purpose other than a sex-dungeon photoshoot.

He tells himself the distinct fluster and the hot, acrobatic leaps his stomach is doing is purely courtesy of an abating fever. It's not like he actually likes Choi Yeonjun. Firstly, the man's arrogant and walled-up and completely unlike Beomgyu's genuinely nice, fun, open self. Secondly, Beomgyu's never thought of Yeonjun that way himself, despite Kai and Taehyun and Soobin et al alluding to some sort of tension of the sexual variety between the two of them. He's never given it any weight-their relationship-because there isn't any to begin with.

Beomgyu's only a business acquaintance, after all, isn't he?

But there's that old, dumb adage: trying not to think of something is precisely the thing that brings a thought to the forefront.

And so, in convincing himself that he's never even given it a passing thought, Beomgyu finds himself passing thoughts.

It's experimental. Purely scientific curiosity. What ifs, so soft and subtle that if he and Yeonjun were a Tumblr ship, they'd be nothing more than a wee little paper boat. What if the brush of Yeonjun's fingers against his as they waited for the elevator turns into holding hands. What if Yeonjun's gaze, right this moment snagged questioningly on Beomgyu's face, slips down to his mouth. What if they were to kiss, soft and chaste, a little peck on the lips the way Taehyun kisses him sometimes when he's feeling very affectionate. What if they were to kiss rough, wild and reckless, hands on hot skin and tangled in hair, lips and tongue and teeth-

"You're being really fucking weird," Yeonjun says, his voice low. "Stop staring."

"I'm not staring."

Yeonjun's gaze narrows. "You are. You're still staring. You're staring right at my face. Stop it."

Beomgyu shrugs and looks away. What if he were to throw Yeonjun off the top of this building...

He steps out of the elevator at the basement first, and is swarmed immediately by people he knows in the business. There are a few who are from Korea, but there's also a couple of proprietors he knows from Taiwan, a socialite's estate agent from Los Angeles, a few museum curators from Europe and some fashion enthusiasts from Japan. There's wine and amuse bouches, just like Yeonjun guessed, and it's not long before Beomgyu loses him in the small crowd of hobnobbers. They're all set on asking him questions about their business and fashion trends and how Taehyun's doing, inquiring about the TV pilot, hugging and patting his back and sighing charmed at his broken, half-nonsensical English. It takes Beomgyu a while to emerge from it because he genuinely tries to answer and ask questions, shakes hands, kisses cheeks. These things are important, he's learned-perhaps more important than the clothes at this auction. He has three new business cards and several contacts stored on his phone (including one of an LA vintage proprietor who dresses the biggest stars) by the time he finds Yeonjun sampling a platter of cheese, a delicate flute of champagne held in one hand.

"Ha," he says, when he spots Beomgyu. "I saved you one of those avocado and hung curd things. Thought it's the kind of hipster food you'd like."

Beomgyu rolls his eyes. "Hyung, fried chicken and jjajangmyeon are my religion. You saw me at the dinner that spell-casting night."

"You're popular," Yeonjun observes, ignoring this. "I didn't know you spoke English."

"Taehyung hyung taught me a bit. I'm not very good. I read it a lot better."

Beomgyu goes to pick up a paper and pencil. Yeonjun follows him, casting his gaze about at the mannequins and the racks full of clothes, looking completely out of his element.

"So...what happens now?"

"Now we look around, find out what we might be interested in, and write down the Lot numbers. Then, tomorrow, we bid for it."

Yeonjun pokes thoughtfully at a mannequin wearing a giant, pouffy falcon hat. "How do you know what you might be interested in?"

"Label, rarity, quality, immortality," Beomgyu recites, pausing in front of a bohemian Giorgio di Sant' Angelo dress. It's patchwork and silk, gold-trimmed, a riot of color. He thinks he might genuinely have heart-eyes, the way Yeonjun's staring at him. "Wow. Like, this one? This designer studied with Picasso. He had editorials that basically defined Vogue in the 60s, and he's styled 60s fashion icons like Veruschka. And just-wow, hyung, look at this- the fabric, the color. It's been half a century since this was made but this is still top runway fashion. Evergreen. It's going to go for insane prices."

Yeonjun's looking at him a bit strangely, as if Beomgyu's suddenly grown two talking heads. Beomgyu glances at him quizzically, but he says nothing, just walks ahead to a mannequin wearing a pleated gold lamé ensemble, all ruffles and high collar, crystals catching chandelier light in its folds like a hundred stars sewn into the material. There's a gentle curiosity in the way he reaches up to feel the fabric.

"And this one?"

"Zandra Rhodes?" Beomgyu guesses, half in a squeak, striding forward. "She's really unconventional, really cool! Wow, I didn't expect this here."

He touches a hand to the gown, hissing soft when it whispers about cold nights and red wine, disappointment, speeding cars and the breaking of an empty dawn.

Yeonjun's watching him carefully. "What?"

Beomgyu shakes his head. The last thing he wants now is for Yeonjun to start scoffing at his little quirk. "Nothing."

"It's something, Beomgyu-ah. You look like you saw a ghost."

"Nah," Beomgyu winks. "Just a gorgeous dress."

Beomgyu finds his first prize discovery in a bunch of late 60s Givenchy evening dresses. He's copying that down when Yeonjun steers him to a (surprisingly very intact) 1883 floral gown. And then to a Chanel dress with silk netting and glass beads. And then to a gorgeous purple Missoni-

He can't help but grin as Yeonjun squints through his glasses at the Missoni dress.

"Is this more fun than you expected from a bunch of musty old clothes, hyung?"

Yeonjun shrugs. "It's art. I like art. Art is my job. Where did all these clothes come from?"

"These ones specifically? From an heiress's estate. Sometimes auction clothes come from closing fashion schools or museums that no longer have space for them, but most often it's from personal collections or estates."

"People have a shit ton of clothes lying around." Yeonjun mumbles. "This heiress had something from the 1880s, what the fuck. That's ancient."

"It's awesome," Beomgyu mumbles, happily. "And the fact that it was kept so intact, so well-cared for..."

"You fucking weirdo. Don't go lusting over a dead woman's clothes preservation techniques," Yeonjun snickers, and then grimaces as he spots something else. "Still don't understand how people before the 80s did not have hips."

He's frowning at a 20s rose-gold flapper dress. It's beautiful, all shiny fabric and soft beading, a somewhat unique chainmail-style fringe. Yeonjun's right in that the cut is so straight, any woman with even a hint of curves is never going to fit in it. A tall, skinny dude, though...

Beomgyu gets closer, uses his note paper to hide his smirk as he says, "Bet I could pull this sexy thing off."

It's pitched to irritate Yeonjun. He's honestly expecting a snort and a roll of the eyes. Or a stinging, derogatory remark. What Beomgyu is definitely not prepared for is for Yeonjun to look at him, dissectingly, eyes traveling Beomgyu's body up and down like he's mentally trying to validate his claim. A whole bunch of what ifs birth in Beomgyu's mind like spider eggs-quick and flurrying. He busies himself with a bunch of vintage kimono swatches and 70s trot costumes, trying to hide his flaming face.

He thinks he hears Yeonjun chuckle, slow and dark, his voice sticky as syrup when he speaks again. "Yeah," he says, gently brushing his fingers along the glittery fabric of the flapper dress. "Yeah, Beommie. I bet you could."

Oh.

Beomgyu tells himself that the sudden palpitation in his chest is purely because he's spotted what could probably be a Galanos orient-inspired little black dress. The jump in his breath is definitely a reaction to the black satin and rhinestone flowers. The mandarin collar. The flared sleeves with the cuffs at the wrists. The wide sash.

Not Choi Yeonjun. Not, not, not Choi Yeonjun.

Focus.

Beomgyu drifts away, drowns himself in inspecting the racks, in jotting down numbers, in taking photos of pieces he is less unsure of so he can run them by Taehyun. He lets the clothes whisper to him-is pretty certain a particular 70s "Ceil Chapman" gown definitely came out of a Moroccan sweatshop last year-and is inspecting jewelry and hats when Yeonjun taps his shoulder.

"Hey. They say the pre-viewing is closing in another forty minutes."

"Oh," Beomgyu says, picking up an evening glove. "All ri-"

It hits him like a jolt. Not a gentle whisper but a screaming; not a flowing cadence of images but a deluge. There's blood-he thinks-some place with a high ceiling and men with bayonets and blood. There's opulence and glitter and gunshots. There's running and running through snow and slush, fire in the horizon, screaming in the distance.

A trickle- a stream- a river of blood-

He tastes it in his mouth. Feels it on his skin, sticky and warm.

(It's not real, though. This has happened before. Beomgyu knows. This has happened before with a singed military jacket that had somehow fallen into Taehyun's possession. A similar thing-Beomgyu had unpacked a suitcase, took out a dress, touched his hand to the jacket beneath, and been lost-)

Beomgyu gasps for air.

(-and again, that one dress that a starlet had been shot in, that had come to them through an online auction. He'd held it in his hands and smelled the tang of sweat and fear, tasted the acrid terror of death, heard the whisper of the gunshot and the blood. And before, even before the shop, there had been-)

Beomgyu feels his knees give.

There's a truck, and more soldiers on it. A hiss and a slam of the butt of a gun against someone's forehead. More blood-

(The trick is knowing that it isn't real. It isn't real. It's just like the whisperings, soft history, woven into fabric. More potent, of course, because of violence. The trick is knowing it isn't real, isn't real, isn't real-)

"Beommie! Beomgyu. What the fuck-"

He blinks the blood dream away, and the room comes to focus for a minute before it dissolves again into snow and guns and fractured light. The ceiling's above him. He thinks he's fallen. Can't be sure, though, because the chandeliers look weird, switching between modern odelisks and opulent crystal.

He can't be sure of anything.

Where the fuck is he?

There's a rustling around him; a bunch of voices. Yeonjun's sounds the sharpest. He sounds...scared, positively terrified, and more than anything, that's what cuts through the murk in Beomgyu's mind.

Because a scared Yeonjun just sounds wrong.

"Hyung," Beomgyu grits out, putting an arm out blindly in search of Yeonjun. "Can we go?"

He feels Yeonjun's long fingers twine through his. He keeps his eyes closed and breathing controlled, taking faint sips of air because any more might trigger the nausea churning his gut. Yeonjun's arm is around his shoulder and the weight is nice, solid: in stark contrast to the violent, airy war-thrum of the vision.

Beomgyu shivers, feeling ill and sick, suddenly out of his depth, like he's spinning out of control. He doesn't open his eyes until they're in the elevator, and even then, it's just to stare listlessly at the floor with his heart beating loud in his ears. He shakes. There's wild panic still, racing through his veins, and it's not even really his. It's ghost panic, stored in a piece of clothing that belongs to the archives of history. Whoever felt this, whoever ran through the snow and the blood, they're all long dead. Beomgyu's just a witness, a conduit.

His mouth tastes like the phantom aftertaste of rust and copper coins. His throat is thick with tears for a ghost.

He thrums, high with anxiety, presses his forehead heavily against the elevator's wall, feels his knees go weak.

"Hyung," he mumbles, one hand curling into Yeonjun's shirt, afraid to let go.

Yeonjun's hand slips from his shoulder to rest on the small of his back. "I've got you," is all Yeonjun says.