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biffhofosho · 7 months

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Le Cirque du Fantasme | Part One

Fandom: Monsta X

Genre: Smut, natch

Word Count: 12.2k

Pairing: Jooheon/Changkyun/Minhyuk x OC

Synopsis: Step right up! Step right up! Come one, come all to a celebration of the macabre, the daring, the enticing, and the beautiful. Inside this tent is another world—one that will challenge your senses as much as your soul. Nowhere else on Earth can you experience such an awakening. Just take caution—once you are awake, you’ll find it hard to ever go back to sleep.

The Vibe: Third person (as always), fall fog, small town, lost and found, night circus, inhumans, the seen and the unseen (heh), everything fantastical and provoking, wonderstruck OC, questioning reality, copious amounts of worldbuilding leads to copious amounts of smut, foursome, suspension, light bondage/shibari-adjacent, temperature play like woah, sexual oneupsmanship lol, acrobatic sex yw

A/N: Literally the second the opening bars hit on “Daydream,” I knew I was going to write an October fic to it. Not only that, I knew exactly what it called for.

I had originally intended to publish multiple October fics, same as last year, but since I boned myself over with my earlier writing hiatus, the least I can do is give you a twoshot. This is my love song to my readers who love worldbuilding as much as I do. I didn’t try to rein in the muse this time, so hopefully you disappear into another reality entirely with me. Also—

Since it’s October, when we do get to the smut, I, um, went slightly more deviant than usual ahahaha. .-.

Cvr | 01 | 02 | 03

“Oh, no.”

Mariam is aware that, all things considered, she is under-reacting.

She is lost when there is no reason for her to be lost.

Only minutes ago, she was walking home from her late shift at the diner, and now she is wandering through fog as thick as stuffing and woods where there should be sidewalk. It’s nighttime, but it’s doubtful that even in daylight things would change. Even with the pale moon, she can neither see where she has come from nor where she is headed.

The fog has muffled every sound like a pair of noise-canceling headphones. She can hear only the crunch of dry leaves under her boots. And, yeah, it’s late, but where’s the traffic? She always passes a few cars on the road. She realizes that is exceptionally weird, but there’s nothing to do but move forward. Carmel isn’t very big; she’s bound to wander into one of the old cemeteries any moment, and then she’ll know she’s close to her apartment.

Still, the woods are a little concerning. Town might be tiny, but if she’s somehow wandered into the woods around Ninham Mountain, Mariam could be lost for hours. The state forest is huge and full of lakes, and she is definitely not on any sort of trail at the moment.

Slowly, her usual cavalier attitude wears thin. It’s getting cold. The chill of autumn bites at her through her flannel, and she withdraws her fingers into her sleeves before they can chap. The further she walks into the fog without a guidepost, the more nervous she gets.

“Idiot!” she curses at herself.

Suddenly, it dawns on Mariam to check her phone. She fishes it out of her bag to find she’s been walking for ten minutes, which is her usual walk home, but she can’t see a single building let alone a sidewalk. Foolish as it is, she decides to map her route, but something much more alarming happens.

No signal.

She cannot call. She cannot text. She cannot even access her GPS.

The little marker on the map has her floating in a blob of gray, which is ironic considering she is unmoored in a cottony swab of nothingness.

“Oh, no.”

This time, at least, Mariam is painfully aware that her reaction is right on point.

She keeps her phone in hand now in the hope of catching a wisp of signal. She doesn’t feel like she’s walking up hill—she doesn’t feel like she’s moving at all—but in the hopes that she is, maybe she’ll pick up the cell tower. Realistically, she can’t have gotten that lost in ten minutes.

Her ears perk. She hears something other than her own feet, and she stops to make sure she isn’t hallucinating it.

Nope, that’s music all right. It’s just really, really weird music. Like someone’s playing organ music, but it’s definitely not from the Baptist church. It’s too… whimsical?

Mariam cocks her head. It reminds her of something. She can’t remember what, but something from her childhood, she’s sure.

With no other options, she walks toward it. At least she’ll find one other human out here who can give her some directions.

She turns on her flashlight, but it just rebounds off the fog and blinds her. Mariam stumbles against a tree and waits for the flood of brilliance to wash from behind her eyes. When she opens them again, the fog has miraculously thinned.

She’s definitely in the woods, not one of the little town parks or someone’s backyard but somewhere wild and unmanicured. The trees are spindly but thick, almost claustrophobic. There’s still no sign of a trail, and yet it seems like she’s on one. In fact, she can see it laid out before her, free of brambles and thickets and fallen trees. The fog is thinner there, too, though all along the sides of her, it’s as dense as cinder block.

The only thing that makes sense is following it, so Mariam does, and as she walks, the music gets louder. It also becomes more familiar. Maybe it’s because she’s lost, but something about it is so inviting. If notes can be colorful, these are positively flamboyant. She finds herself smiling in the fog.

The trail-not-trail bends and when she rounds a big boulder, she sees it.

There, in a glade cloistered by a lush canopy of fiery red maples, squats an enormous circus tent replete with a black flag snapping in a breeze that she can’t feel. The tent is striped white and black, high contrast even in the dark. There’s a long entrance tunnel, and at its maw is a ticket window lined with warm white lights. It glows like a lighthouse, and Mariam finds herself drawn into its harbors.

There’s a man in the window. He’s the most intense blend of handsome and cute she has ever seen. If she looks at him from one side, his eyes are thin and sharp, and they cut through her like razors, but if she looks at him from the other, his dimples cup his playful mouth as though they can barely contain his inner vibrance. His hair is darker than the night itself, making his skin look white as starlight by comparison, but the booth lighting frames his head like a halo. He’s an impossible mix of everything all at once, and she has never seen his equal.

Mariam steps to the window with an overwhelming sense of intimidation.

“Welcome, fair lady,” he says. His voice is potent. He says each word with a confidence that she has never felt in her whole life even at her best, and she finds herself captivated in the span of five syllables. His eyes dance as he studies her. “You’re just in time.”

“For what?” she asks.

“Showtime, of course. I was just about to close the ticket window, but lucky for us, I didn’t.”

It’s kind of a weird thing to say, Mariam thinks, but his unswerving confidence makes her reconsider.

“Actually, I was just looking for directions?” she says with more of a question than she intended.

“It seems to me you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Again, his conviction makes her question hers.

“I wasn’t planning on going to a show tonight.” She fishes through her bag and finds the small roll of ones and fives from her shift. Tuesday shifts were notoriously poor payouts, but a traveling outfit this elaborate has to cost a pretty penny considering how exclusive it must be out here in the middle of nowhere. “How much? I don't have much cash on me. You take cards?”

“Those little plastic rectangles?” he replies with a flippant smile. “Pointless.”

Mariam frowns. “Then I don’t think I can afford it.”

He leans across the counter, almost through the window itself, into her personal space. Her hands fly to her chocolate locks and gather them to one side, twisting and twisting it as tightly as she feels her stomach twisting.

“Oh, admission is very reasonable,” he assures. This time when he smiles, it feels like he’s keeping a secret. He presents a golden ticket, the glossy paper winking as it turns between his well-manicured fingers. “Admission is only a dream.”

“A dream?” Mariam says skeptically.

“Just that, miss. In exchange for the best dream you’ve ever had, we will provide you with a new one. Seems like a fair trade, yes?”

“It would be if I knew what you were talking about.”

“I promise you’ll never experience anything else like this.”

Her brow furrows as she glances up at the big top. “I don’t even know what this is.”

The ticket-taker pouts, and his lush lips fatten to sumptuous thickness. “I’m afraid the show must start, miss. Do we have a deal?”

Mariam considers. This isn’t why she came—no, wait, she didn’t intend to come here at all—but she is here now, and this charming ticket monger is next to impossible to resist. What’s the harm in telling him one single dream? He doesn’t need to know about that particular dream.

And, anyway, it’s not like he’s conning her out of any money. In essence, it’s some free, entertaining shelter from a foggy night. She weighs her options and makes her decision.

“Am I supposed to, like, write it down or something?” she asks.

“Just lean in,” he instructs.

Hesitantly, Mariam tips forward over the counter, and for a brief second, his plump lips ghost along hers.

She should jerk back. She should slap him. But she does nothing but let him kiss her like the night mist. She is frozen as a current of muddy feelings spill like water from her lips. The back of her brain tickles a bit, but it’s overruled by the more pleasant tickle of his lips dusting over hers.

When he’s done, he licks his lips, which have curled into a tiger’s grin. His eyes are lively, and he’s panting lightly. He clears his throat and adjusts his hips in his pants somewhere behind the counter.

“How delicious,” he practically purrs. “I may have to keep that one for myself. I almost feel bad for taking it from you, but I promise the replacement will exceed it.”

He presents the golden ticket, and Mariam takes it. She expects it to feel like paper or maybe metal, but instead, it feels gauzy, and she can't stop rubbing her thumb over it.

“Straight through there, fair lady,” he says. “The show is about to start, and a whole new dream awaits you.”

The ticket monger holds open the black curtain, and she enters the tunnel. The moment the curtain shuts behind her, it is blacker than an abyss. The only thing she can see is a thin, shimmering line of light at the far end.

Outside, she hears the snap of the ticket booth closing, and she knows she is alone. The music is louder now, drawing her forward more powerfully than ever, and she realizes why she recognized it in the first place. It rises and falls and scampers and twirls, almost as though she can see the notes surrounding her, teasing and laughing at her. It is the song of childhood, of delight and fantasy.

It is the song of the circus.

There are smells here, too, familiar and unfamiliar. There is the buttery warmth of popcorn and, beneath it, something much more unctuous, a bit like when the cooks at the diner render the lard for the pie crusts. There's a hint of something acrid too, and it reminds her of the smell of her father's rifles.

Mariam follows the tunnel to its end, where she parts the drape only to be assaulted by the brilliant spotlights surrounding a huge red ring. There are seats seven layers high around three sides terminating at a ring entrance shuttered by another heavy curtain, but this one is three times as tall and wide as the entrance she just came through. Just surrounding the ring are four enormous tent poles soaring to the canvas above, where wires zig and zag across the arena and café lights accent each black and white stripe, softening the harsh spotlights.

The ticket-taker is there to greet her as though he has never seen her before. He beams at her, those dimples creasing his plump cheeks. Mariam approaches with her ethereal ticket in hand and starlight in her eyes.

“What’s this? A golden ticket?” says the man with a sharp eyebrow raised. “We have ourselves a VIP tonight it seems. You’re in for a truly mesmerizing experience, miss. Follow me. I will show you to your seat.”

He does not take the ticket from her after all but, instead, leads her across the ring itself toward a pair of empty seats in a box on the floor.

“VIP?” she says as she struggles to keep up with his commanding steps. His thick black boots thunk across the floor and resound under the big top. “But I didn't pay you anything for it!”

“But you did,” he insists. “The most tantalizing dream gets the VIP treatment. After all, we have to work harder to replace what we have taken.”

Mariam tries to remember the dream she’d thought about before she entered, but where her brain searches for the memory, it finds only the lingering taste of his lips, which she savors like berries ripened by the moon until they’re ready to burst. It’s a bit of a silly thought, yet dark, sweet juice coats her mouth and whets her appetite for something even darker.

They stop outside the box seats, and the dimpled man holds open the door with a question on his face. “You want VIP, don’t you?”

“I do,” she finds herself answering.

This broadens the man’s shoulders, and now he smiles so widely that those thin eyes shut under the powerful force of his bright cheeks. “Your private seats then, my fair lady.”

Mariam sits on one of the velvet-padded seats as he closes the door and offers her a sweeping bow like the showman he is. The ticket-monger-turned-usher disappears now behind the backstage curtain, and she has little doubt she will see him in the show, most likely as a clown judging from his over-the-top antics.

As she tries to relax into her seat, Mariam spares some time to look beyond the open stage and see what other lost souls have stumbled into this weird circus. She wonders if she’ll see any of her friends or coworkers in the stands.

She does not. What she finds is far more unnerving.

There are only a dozen or so other spectators in the stands. None of them sit anywhere near each other. They are spread throughout the whole tent, high and low, mostly in shadow because the spotlights are fixed downward in the ring. At first, she thinks they are strays like her, but as they wait for the show to start, Mariam begins to doubt they are even human. If she looks at any one of them head on, they look like normal people, mostly men but a few women, too, but from her periphery, she swears she sees the jaws of a wolf or the skin of a lizard or even a pair of antlers when she turns her head. Most have eyes of glinting gold exactly like those she’s seen along the road when her high beams catch just so.

And there are fangs. Fangs everywhere, some long and thin, some fat or even serrated.

One of them, a thin, hunched man with mottled scales in patches all over his body, is eating from a black and white striped carton which might usually house popcorn, but it definitely isn’t, and he isn’t eating whatever it is with his hand but with quick snaps of a lightning-fast tongue.

Mariam is growing uncomfortable again. She had thought this place might get her back home, but it has taken her somewhere far more foreign, and she’s feeling more alone than ever. She has felt different a lot in her life but never like an actual alien.

She should probably be more scared than anything, but none of these people—creatures—are looking at her. They are all looking toward the ring. Nobody speaks although she swears she hears a snort from one side of the arena that someone echoes on the other side with a series of strange clicks.

She wishes the berry-lipped man would come back and take the seat beside her. She can’t be sure he’s human now either, but she trusts his smile and his dimples, even if she shouldn’t.

Just when Mariam is ready to dart to the exit, music swells anew. It is far more powerful than the spirited diddy that lured her here. Under the big top, the organ booms and the drums thunder, and everything feels like it’s spinning like a carousel.

“Strangers! Friends! Denizens of the dark and light dwellers alike!” comes a voice of unquestionable power from somewhere backstage. As far as Mariam can tell, there is no sound system. It's just the voice of a true entertainer filling the canvas wall-to-wall. “The time has come to revel in the greatest spectacle the night has ever seen. Pretense, common sense, even the very laws of nature itself, have no place under this canopy. What you will experience tonight will challenge your very perception of reality. Nothing you have seen before tonight can prepare you for what you are about to see. At times, you may think you have wandered into a dream, but I assure you, what you are about to witness is so much more. Welcome—”

The backstage curtains sail wide with a snap and a flutter, and a man bursts through, his arms wide and his dimples shining in the spotlights.

“—to Le Cirque du Fantasme!”

The audience applauds, rather lackluster Mariam thinks for the passion of such a lofty introduction, so she tries to clap just a little louder than everyone else. After all, she is getting the VIP treatment, so she should return the favor.

The man rises from a bow that completely folds him in half, and she shakes her head in awe. She had expected—hoped—to see him again, but she is not prepared for the striking figure the former usher cuts in his crimson crushed velvet coat. The tails swish at the back of his knees as he laps the ring. Diamond buttons splinter in the light as does the sweat already beading at his brow.

“I am Jooheon, your ringmaster, but I am also your guide. For every wonder you experience tonight, I will be by your side to remind you that what you are witnessing is indeed real. Together, we will discover there is magic left in the world if you know just where to look.”

He stops in front of the VIP box and tips his head with a smile just for Mariam, and then he is gone.

Back in the center of the ring, Jooheon enumerates the many wonders on their horizon, impossible, tantalizing things that cannot be real, yet the more he promises, the more she believes him. Thanks to this man’s unprecedented versatility, she is also starting to believe this is a one-man circus. Maybe he will perform all of the spectacular acts he’s teasing.

But Jooheon confounds her again. With a dramatic swoop of his hand, he draws the audience’s eyes to the massive curtains at the rear of the tent, and slowly, the heavy fabric parts by unseen hands.

Mariam’s seat trembles. At first, she thinks she’s imagining it, caught up in the ringmaster’s passion, but then it trembles again and again, and she realizes they’re tremors.

No. Footfalls.

The arena is dead silent.

Thwomp. Thwomp. Thwomp.

The face appears first in shadow—a great black snout snuffling so strongly that the curtains puff. Even through the veil of backstage, the eyes are clear and bright, an otherworldly metallic green that flash the same sort of gold that some of the audience members possess.

Another footfall, and the muzzle appears, ornamented with thick black lips fringed by snow white and overhung by two bone-shattering fangs as long as her hand.

Since Mariam sits off to the side, the eyes do not seem to perceive her, yet she tucks her legs up against herself and ducks her head to peer from behind her knees as the rest of the creature emerges to fill the ring.

It’s a wolf—if one can call it that. It’s nearly twice the height of a horse and just as broad. Its fur is white all over save for the silver tips to each hair that make it sparkle in the spotlight. Its chunky claws click on the ring floor as it shuffles into position.

Mariam relaxes now. Maybe it’s because Jooheon is standing there unbothered by its haunches or maybe it’s because its face is rather doglike despite its other ferocious features or maybe it’s the fact that its tail is wagging, but most likely, it’s because a man sits astride its great shoulders, scratching its fluffy ears.

“Friends, behold!” trumpets Jooheon. “Our Amorak and our beastmaster, Shownu! Together, they will take us on a journey through the world of creatures long considered too elusive or vicious to be tamed. Many have been laughed at for believing the campfire tales or legends of our ancestors, but for Shownu, these legends are not legends at all but friends and allies, and now, they will be yours, too.”

The Amorak sits down, and Shownu releases its mane to slide down its back like a child on a playground. The beastmaster lands easily and pats the great wolf’s backside. With a snap of the man’s fingers, the Amorak stands and side-steps as delicately as a pony so that even a man as imposing and broad-chested as the beastmaster stands beneath the animal, the man’s head at its elbow.

From the shadows beneath, Shownu whistles, and the wolf spins so its back legs face the audience. Another whistle, this one like a see-saw, and the creature wags its tail in huge, careful strokes that send its long fur sweeping the faces of the audience members brave enough to sit in the first couple rows. Laughter rings out. Mariam finds she is laughing, too, and perhaps even a little envious.

As if he knows this, Jooheon saunters over to the VIP box and says, “Fair lady, would you please stand?”

“What?” she whispers hoarsely.

“Now is better,” he teases with his dimples.

The Amorak shifts, and now there is no doubt it perceives her. The beastmaster steps out from the belly of the beast and walks toward her. Mariam shoots up from her seat, less out of fear of the creature than out of respect for its master.

Shownu stands opposite Jooheon at the box and centers his attention on the VIP. There is a gentleness in his face that she could never have anticipated considering his ominous moniker, but Shownu smiles at her very differently than Jooheon ever has. His lips do not part but, instead, sit neatly atop each other in a way that raises his cheeks like two little fresh-baked rolls.

“Hold out your hand, palm up,” the beastmaster instructs in a gruff but inviting voice.

Mariam does so hesitantly, and when her arm is fully extended, the Amorak raises its paw, too, and places it light as a feather in hers. It’s so huge that only a portion of a single blazing paw pad fills her palm. Its long feathery fur tickles her skin, and she finds herself giggling. The two men exchange smiles, and the Amorak lowers its head. It snorts once, and her long hair sails behind her. She laughs harder now, and the beast and the beastmaster withdraw to the heart of the ring again, her body vibrating both from the experience and the tremors of footfalls.

Mariam sits back down, cradling her hand to her chest with a slack-jawed smile on her face.

The duo performs a few other stunts—the Amorak stands on his back legs and wobbles in the circle, as does Shownu, which has the audience cackling, and then it howls, nearly blowing the roof off the circus tent, which sends the audience cowering—before the wolf takes a seat and Shownu takes a post at the curtain.

Another man, this one even broader and more muscular than Shownu, comes out just long enough to shepherd in two sweet-faced animals before he disappears into the back. At first, Mariam thinks they are fawns, but then she sees the tawny wings folded at their backs.

Jooheon introduces these as perytons, not that that means anything to her, but the antlered person she’d caught sight of earlier in the stands cheers and stamps so enthusiastically that the ringmaster practically glows with the praise.

Shownu gets the energetic little critters to perform a choregraphed dance, which would be cute enough, but then they take to the sky, and whimsy becomes awe. The perytons glide and weave just like birds though they snort and snuffle like deer. Mariam is so lost in the spectacle that she barely catches Jooheon’s note that their sweet faces conceal true power, and no sooner does he say this then one of the little deer-birds divebombs the spectator with the popcorn container and, with taloned back legs instead of its hooved front ones, grabs a hunk of what looks like entrails and lobs it back like a baseball to its friend. The other peryton snaps it out of mid-air to devour it, and the sight of a sweet little fawn face gobbling intestines is not something Mariam imagines she will ever forget. The Amorak growls, and the two mischievous babies promptly land, bleating like kids laughing at their father.

After that, Shownu spreads his arms out wide and lifts his powerful chest, and the perytons follow suit, their hawk-like wings fanned out, every feather articulated. There’s no denying the stir in Mariam’s belly as she studies the beastmaster commanding his beasts, for they follow his every command unquestioningly.

The perytons perform a few more aerial tricks of agility with a ball and a ribbon, and when they are done, the buff shepherd from earlier fetches them to the back and then returns, this time dropping a trail of meat into the ring.

From the back inches a gigantic pink blob. The front end is nothing but a gaping maw lined with hundreds of wicked teeth, and… that’s it—it’s nothing but pinkness and horrifying teeth. Again, Mariam finds herself tucking her feet up onto her chair as though she’s afraid it will break into the box and mow her clean off at the knees.

Jooheon explains this is a Mongolian Death Worm, eyeless and earless but hardly helpless. The crowd is instructed to keep quiet since it hunts by vibration, but Mariam quickly sees that is only partly true when the worm reaches Shownu, and the beastmaster stoops down to pat the top of its head while two big nostrils open for a long sniff.

The creature is longer than her father's car and the color of exposed muscle. Its segments undulate when it moves as well as when it eats, which is an awful lot like Taz from the Looney Tunes, she thinks. It should be grotesque, but Mariam can't help but find it adorable as the monster looks up at its master and seems to smile even without eyes and lips.

Through a series of stamps and claps of his hands against the floor, Shownu communicates with the beast. It rolls up and lunges on command, jawless mouth snapping. It roars with the power and ferocity of a sandstorm, and her blood curdles. Then, as if to rub its stubby pink nose in the face of its moniker, the worm curls into a ball that Shownu scoops up in his sturdy hands and lobs straight into the air for his Amorak to catch in its mouth. Finally, the big wolf drops it to the ground, and the giant wad of chewed bubble gum unspools and jiggles itself dry to the squeal of the few audience members who sat too close to the action and got sprayed with giant dog saliva.

As the laughter dies down, however, the ringmaster reminds everyone not so subtly that this is a death worm. To prove that point, Shownu brings out a giant rod with a metal ball on the end and taps the top of the worm's head. It growls—a sound that trembles in the bones more than in the ears, a bit like a building earthquake or an oncoming train—and rears up, and when it does, it puffs out almost twice its width. Fantastic crackles of lightning discharge from its head and arc into the ball at the end of the rod. They snap and pop and sizzle in yellow so brilliant, Mariam has to close her eyes most of the way so she doesn’t go blind.

When at last the worm deflates, panting in the ring, the beastmaster touches the tip of the rod to the metal pole supporting the tent, and a sonic boom shivers the canvas on its rails. The residual electricity stands up every hair on Mariam's arms and, unfortunately, most of her head, too, which she is quick to smooth down. Shownu pats the worm on the head again, and the chubby blob slinks off behind the buff shepherd, rather satisfied for a death worm, she thinks.

After a hearty round of applause, the beastmaster and the Amorak both bow to the audience, and Shownu takes the opportunity to leap between the giant wolf’s shoulder blades. When it rises again, the man sits astride with a nod for the crowd and one specifically for Mariam, and he looks as much like a cowboy on a horse as he does a man on a mythological creature.

Jooheon takes center stage again, and she is struck by just how much the man seems to belong in the spotlight. With a toothy grin, he says, “Shownu, everyone! Please let him hear how much you loved his menagerie of talented friends.”

Applause and cheers ring out, and Mariam joins in extra loudly since she’s still feeling electrified by the death worm.

“For our next act, I invite you to feast your eyes on a man with the strength of a beast, the body of a god, and the face of an angel. But it isn’t just strength he brings to the table, no, no, no, but agility. Straight from the realm of the Fair Folk, prepare to delight in the beautiful brute force and precision artistry of our resident fae, Wonho!”

The ringmaster steps to the edge of the ring as the former shepherd returns to center stage, padding out in bare feet unaccompanied. He is massive, with enormous shoulders corded with muscle protruding from his tank top. Mariam wonders how it doesn’t burst at the seams considering how the rest of his chest bulges against the fabric, but maybe that’s just another part of the circus magic or it’s simply painted on. It's not much different with his pants. The way the fabric stretches around his tree trunk thighs is perhaps even more magical, and she knows she should probably look away, but how can she when it seems as though the man was made specifically to ogle.

His white hair has the faintest hint of lilac, and like the Amorak fur, there’s a metallic glint to it, but it’s nothing to the glint in his emerald eyes. Even from ringside, they are piercing, so green that they seem lit by some internal flame, and when they fall to her, Mariam exhales so sharply that she realizes she’s been holding her breath since he strolled in.

He is carrying something in his enormous hands. It looks like a giant crystal cube, and it warps and shatters the light like a disco ball.

Wonho smiles. It’s as dazzling as Jooheon’s, all teeth but no dimples, and it accentuates just how delicate he is despite his big body. His ears stick out like little butterfly wings, but just before she can be spirited away by such cuteness, he shucks the tank top over his head, and it’s not just the intimidating display of muscle that catches her off-guard—it’s the actual set of wings at his back.

They unfurl, thin and translucent as stained glass, framed in by silver rims as fragile as the mint green panes inside. She thinks there's no way that something so ethereal could possibly be functional, but, as if to prove her wrong, Wonho alights before her eyes toward a crow's nest just above the ring. The wings make a rustling sound, like a stack of papers blown apart at an open window. They beat nearly as fast as a bumblebee’s, and when he pivots in the air, the breeze they make ruffles Mariam’s hair.

He lands on the platform there and puts down the block in his hand. He wipes his hands on his pants and then rubs them together before waving at each group of the audience. To Mariam, he adds a bow.

When he's ready, he takes several deep breaths, that gargantuan chest ballooning with every one. He picks up the block and splays his hands on either side of it, and then she hears the cracking. It sounds like ice when she pours soda over it at the diner, pops and crackles and pings.

His biceps strain and his forearms flex, and the cracking gets louder and louder and louder. Huge fissures zigzag across the cube until there's an explosion. The cube is powder now, piles in his hands and at his feet. Before anyone even has a chance to applaud, the strongman pivots and flaps his wings, and now, it's snowing under the tent. Like an oscillating fan, he swivels from side to side, and Mariam feels the kiss of snowflakes on her cheeks and lashes. It melts instantly, but its dewy memory sends a smile of pure marvel to her face.

Instead of flying down from his perch, Wonho leaps and lands on his feet with a thud so fast that the snow is still falling like glitter on his fair skin. He doesn't bother to brush it off but lets it melt to a sparkly finish that turns him into living art.

He spends a few minutes lifting impossibly heavy objects and then taking to the air with them as though they are beach balls and not anvils and boulders and other ridiculous things. With his hands, he twists pipes into shapes like balloon animals and ties a knot—out of rebar—with his feet.

Another man emerges from the back then, this one long and thin like taffy freshly pulled, but when he steps into the ruthless lighting, she sees his fair skin is covered in delicate iridescent scales. He brings a stool, a mirror, a bow and arrow, and a bullseye. The tall man configures everything carefully while Wonho makes faces at his coworker in the mirror, and Mariam realizes the strongman is just as much a clown as anything.

When everything is ready, the tall man steps back. Wonho does a handstand on the stool, his back to the bullseye and his eyes on the mirror opposite it.

There’s something about the way his muscles lengthen as he contorts that has Mariam licking her lips. The twitches in his forearms as he adjusts, the flare of his ribs under that dewy skin, that illicit bulge urging against the constraints of his lycra pants—Wonho is truly an astonishing sight, and there’s a pang in her heart when she realizes how much of the world will never know his beauty and grace.

When he’s balanced just so, muscles trembling and abdominals squeezing with breath and stability, the other man situates the bow with the arrow already nocked between Wonho’s nimble feet.

The strongman shuffles his hands on the stool seat and achingly slowly bends his legs, arching his chest as a counterbalance. When the bow and arrow are lined up with the bullseye, Wonho grips the bowstring and pulls it taut.

Mariam holds her breath.

Wonho holds his.

The arrow flies.

Straight into the red bullseye.

The small crowd breaks out into uproarious applause, and she finds herself standing as she claps. Wonho bows to them all as the tall man clears out the equipment, and just as the strongman finishes his rounds, the Amorak comes bounding back in.

The audience recoils at the sudden thunderous intrusion, especially since the great beast is growling, but Wonho is unbothered, and only then does Mariam realize there’s a humongous rope lodged in its great teeth. The strongman pats the wolf’s head before he snatches the free end of the rope and shakes the Amorak back and forth. The growling turns to snarls.

Wonho takes to the air, yanking and pulling, those fragile wings beating more ferociously than the snarls sound. The Amorak digs in its claws and tries to pull back, but with a cheeky wave to the crowd, the white-haired fae drags the wolf back through the curtain as though the creature ten times his size is nothing but a tiny terrier.

The room is speechless, which Jooheon is only too happy to discover.

The ringmaster slides right back into the spotlight and trumpets, “Don’t forget to let Wonho hear it if you were impressed.”

Of course, the small crowd erupts, Mariam chief among them. She can’t escape the image of those pretty wings contrasting rock-hard muscle, the kiss of ice crystals melting on ivory skin.

It’s impossible. It’s unbelievable. She is shaken to her very core.

“We’re not done yet, folks,” Jooheon promises as he cuts through her existential crisis. “Our next performer is just as sure to wow you as much with his incredible dexterity as his unparalleled visuals. I personally guarantee you have never before seen anything like his act let alone the performer himself. He has come up from the darkest depths of the sea to dazzle and delight you with wonderous abilities only a one-of-a-kind hybrid like himself can conjure.

“During portions of the show, you may feel tempted to enter the ring. For your safety as well as the safety of our performer, I ask that you please use the seatbelts provided at your seat before we begin.”

Mariam looks down and finds that there is indeed a belt dangling from her chair, which seems utterly ridiculous at first, but as she recalls the incredible things she’s just witnessed, she secures it around her waist. Only a moment later, as the click of buckles ding around the tent, Jooheon walks by with a gentle smile, though his eyes are on her secured seatbelt.

He does the same throughout the rest of the crowd while two new men, one with red hair and one with blue, emerge with Wonho from the back and lift a large wooden cover from the center of the ring to reveal a shallow pool of water. They roll the cover off to the side into a metal corral and then linger at the lip of the ring along with Shownu and the man with the scales, who takes up his station closest to Mariam’s booth. Each man turns his back to the stage to watch the crowd instead, and when the man with the scales catches her gaze, the iridescence shimmers to the sweetest pink before it goes white as a sheet.

She has only a moment to reflect on the tall man’s otherworldly elegance before Jooheon clears his throat.

“Introducing: the one, the only, the luminescent Kihyun!”

The lights dim and the gentle circus music that always swells between acts dies entirely. Each of the last two performances had music, but now, it is so quiet, all she can hear is the lapping of the pool.

It is almost pitch black, though there is just enough light to see a figure emerge from behind the curtain.

He is compact and wiry. His bare feet pad across the ring and dip into the pool with the gentlest of splashes. He wades into the center, the water rising no higher than mid-shin, and then he opens his eyes.

Mariam had assumed it was just too dark to see his eyes, but now that they are open, she understands. He’s special.

They shimmer with the same eerie softness of a glow-in-the-dark toy. They don’t have the sharpness of oncoming headlights which force the eyes away, but instead, they draw her in. They beckon. She imagines seeing them looking down at her in the dark of a bedchamber, but she shakes the thoughts away.

He stoops and rifles beneath the water and soon comes up with a handful of rings. One by one, he squeezes them, and suddenly, they glow, too. He drops four chartreuse rings back below the water to glow at his feet but holds on to five others, though each of those are different colors.

Slowly, Mariam realizes it’s not just Kihyun’s eyes or the rings that glow. Pinpricks of light stud his body like a runway, and she can see now that, though he has arms and legs like a man, he is different—he is more. His skin is also unique. Though she can’t be sure of the exact colors, his front is definitely lighter than his back.

He wears a skintight outfit, something streamlined like a full-body swimsuit though its hard to be sure in the wan light, but now, she can clearly see the outline of sharp, articulated fins both on his forearms and his back.

Kihyun divides the rings in his hands and begins to toss them in the air until a rainbow of light streaks through the darkness. He builds speed until it seems that he’s not just juggling rings but bending light all together.

Once he’s captivated the crowd, he begins to sing. It’s not like anything Mariam has ever heard. Her heart slows. Her mind muddles. She forgets things beyond the show of light and the swirl of the melody around her. Kihyun bend a series of “oohs” and “ahs” of varying textures and power and lengths just as he bends the light—masterfully.

He spins. He pivots. He catches behind his back. Through it all, he sings.

Mariam realizes vaguely that her hips hurt where something presses unfairly against her. It’s keeping her from the ring. It’s keeping her from Kihyun. If she could tear her eyes from him, she could figure it out, but she can’t risk a second away from his incandescent frame.

The music stops, and Mariam stops, too, waiting for the next dulcet note. Abruptly, the juggler gathers all but one the rainbow rings in one hand and crouches down to the water.

He rubs the pink ring along the surface in a figure eight, and when he lifts it, it is dripping loudly in the stone silent room. He brings it up to his face, and Mariam can finally see his features clearly—his angular jaw, his strong cheekbones, his sharp eyebrows. Even the bow on his elegant lips is pointed.

He puckers those dangerous lips and blows into the center of the ring. Just like a kid’s wand, a bubble appears, but Kihyun does not easily run out of breath and the bubble stays flexible. By the time he is done, the bubble is almost as tall as he is. With a swift motion, he flicks the ring inside the bubble, and it seals behind it. The surface warbles with the pink light within, and with another gust from his lips, it sails to the ceiling above Jooheon and hangs obediently like a balloon tied off. He repeats the process with the remaining four rings until there is a watery chandelier illuminating the whole room. Mariam catches a glimpse of shimmering aqua on her own skin, hears the burble of the impossibly churning water sphere overhead, but she can't bring herself to look up—only ahead.

Kihyun stoops and scoops a cupful of water, which he then pours into his mouth. At first, she assumes it’s just a necessary part of being whatever it is he is, but then he spits a thin jet of the water into the air, only when he does, it’s colored with the same eerie blue-white light that dots his body. The stream wanes, but he replenishes it with another long draft from the cup, this time arcing the glowing water like a hula hoop as he spins. On the last drink, he blows a trio of bubbles, these ones as small as his fist but infused with the otherworldly luster. He does not pop them but casts them gingerly just above his head where they hang like a halo.

Finally, he fishes back through the water again, and this time, he brings up five already-glowing balls. These, like the rings, are clearly a prop, though half of Mariam wonders if they’re actually shimmering deep sea pearls.

Kihyun starts juggling these the same way he did the rings, establishing a familiar rhythm before picking up speed until he adds a new layer. He closes those firefly eyes and trusts in whatever senses he has left to keep the balls aloft.

Above him, the little bubble crown illuminates his wet black hair, which undulates back from his face as though caught in an unseen current. It is as mesmerizing as the blender-like rhythm the balls seem to be caught in between his dexterous hands.

Sing.

Please sing.

Please.

Mariam thinks she’s said that in her head, but the whispers hit her ear, and she realizes she hasn’t.

The man with the scales encroaches at the edge of her vision, and it’s a crude reminder that there are others in the room beside the luminescent Kihyun.

As though he’s heard her, the juggler opens that exceptional mouth, and more notes pour out, and though there’s no eerie blue light to accompany them, they’re brilliant all the same. Kihyun has a way of singing that sounds as though they’re all underwater.

None of the balls waver even for a second. His unswerving confidence that he will never let them drop is almost as mesmerizing as his unearthly voice.

Again, Mariam feels that pressure across her hips, and it’s becoming more insistent by the second.

She should be in the ring by now. She needs to be. She might go insane if she’s not.

A whistle pierces the air, and Kihyun stops singing. The balls fall together in a discordant splash, and quick as the death worm’s lightning, the juggler raises his arm, forearms out and fins in a full mast. From the tips of those articulations, he shoots something too small to see in the dim light though Mariam hears the little pew-pew-pew-pew-pew as he spins in the pool.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Each massive glowing bubble explodes overhead while the rings inside fall into the hands of his fellow performers and the water rains in a much-needed cold shower over the audience. Mariam lets out a squeal as she is drenched and gulping for air against the wet chill. Goosebumps dimple her from head to toe, and she folds her arms over her chest to generate fresh heat.

The crowd is too stunned to applaud, but Kihyun doesn’t wait for it either. He exits the pool, bows to the stands, and then pads off to the back while the other performers begin the cleanup. Meanwhile, Wonho takes to the sky to buzz over the handful of audience members one by one, spinning around so his wings beat like a fan over them. He reaches Mariam last, and when he blasts her with air, she yelps and shivers, but in short order, she is dry and happy again in her flannel. He tips his impish head to her and buzzes back to help the others with the last of the preparation, and soon the ring is back as it was.

Now dry and sober, the audience remembers itself, and together, they erupt into riotous applause. Mariam tries to stand for an ovation, but then she remembers the seatbelt, and as soon as she unbuckles it, it’s like a weight is off her lap, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem so silly.

“Let him know, let him know!” cheers Jooheon as he takes center stage again. “You’ll never see another one like Kihyun, folks.”

Of that, Mariam is certain. She claps fiercer than ever even as her cheeks color at the memory of his voice.

“I’m sorry to tell you we have but two acts to go,” Jooheon laments, and Mariam laments with him. She feels the dread even before he says it. But he brightens immediately and surges forth in a sweeping circle around the room. “But the good news is they will both delight, confound, and astound you.

“First up, from far across the seas, on an untamed mountain, comes a beautiful and elusive man who both defies your notice but also demands it. Don’t let the sweet face fool you, he is wild and unpredictable and harbors a true hunger for adventure. Prepare to thrill as he risks life and limb to take you to the edge like never before! I present to you… Hyungwon!”

The spotlight centers in the ring, but no one is there and no one emerges from the back either.

“Hyungwon!” Jooheon repeats just as dramatically, but no one appears. Eyes start darting around the room, so, too, do whispers break out. The man in the crimson coat looks back to the entrance. “Hyungwon?”

The ringmaster looks a little nervous, those robust lips pulled tight as he paces the ring edge. He clears his throat.

“My apologies, esteemed guests. Hyungwon is supposed to be nocturnal, but sometimes he drifts off. Just a minute, and we'll get on with the show.”

Mariam sees Wonho darting back behind the curtains while, in the deep shadows at the edge of the ring, she spies the mysterious Kihyun with his arms stacked over his chest as he shakes his head. It's just starting to get uncomfortable, and they're all at the edge of their seats.

“Where is he?” Mariam whispers.

“Boo,” comes a totally different whisper along with a puff of hot breath beside her ear.

Mariam yells and instantly clamps her hand over her mouth as she jukes to the side in time to catch the luminous round face of the man with the scales.

All eyes as well as a spotlight turn to the VIP box to find Hyungwon with this face beside hers, flaunting a toothy grin and cheeks like doorbells begging to be pressed. His laugh is airy and infectious, childlike even, and though he has startled a year of her life from her, Mariam is laughing, too, even as her hand clutches her heart in hopes of slowing it.

How long had he been there without her knowing?

As her pulse slows, she closes her eyes, and when she opens them, he is nowhere to be seen.

Mariam swivels around like a dope, but the new performer has vanished. A few other crowd members laugh, but the patchy lizard man with the long tongue is outright cackling and applauding louder than anyone as though he understands the joke better than the rest of them can.

Jooheon, Wonho, and Kihyun are all laughing, too, so Mariam has to assume this is all part of the man's grand entrance.

And grand it is! Now when the spotlight centers in the ring, Hyungwon strolls into it. He is sporting a pair of leather pants but nothing else, not even shoes, and she can see it's not just his hands and neck and face covered in those scales but his whole body. Like the rest of his features, they are delicate and captivating, almost like glitter sewn directly onto his skin. He throws his arms wide, and she is dazzled by more than just his unique features. He is lean and sinewy with a tiny waist and shoulders as broad as a door.

Colors and shapes dance across his scales in seemingly impossible patterns; even his hair shifts like fiber optics. She recognizes many of the patterns: the tent stripes or the ring floor or the Amorak’s fur; for a moment, he even glows like Kihyun’s strange luminescence. His visual display morphs into a splash of crimson in the exact shape and design of the ringmaster’s coat, which makes Jooheon beam and clap enthusiastically. Hyungwon concludes with the most shocking display of all—he nearly disappears from plain sight by copying the patterns of the backgrounds on all sides.

But then something occurs to Mariam. Hyungwon is almost totally invisible thanks to his camouflage, but the leather cannot follow suit so it looks like a pair of pants floating in the middle of the ring. When he’d been right beside her though, there’d been nothing—not even pants. Shock and more than a little embarrassment grip her body, and she swears the performer knows because he turns to her right then with a very troublesome smile.

Mariam has been so busy being awestruck by their performances that it hasn’t occurred to her to consider how much of them is human when so many parts of them clearly are not. But now the rabbit is out of the hat and she's chasing helplessly after it, wondering what kind of lovers such spectacular beings would be. That's not a thing she should be thinking about looking at a chameleon man, especially because she is a conservative person—she has been her whole life. But sometimes she has thoughts… fantasies. Sometimes she has unusual dreams. There was one in particular she’s often thought of since, in her moments of weakness, but what was it again?

She's so far gone in the illicit thoughts that she nearly falls out of her seat when a motorcycle above her roars. She looks up, and there is Hyungwon at the peak of tent on a platform much higher than the one Wonho had risked. She doesn’t remember the motorcycle there, but it must have been. It sits anchored at the edge of the platform. It has no tires, just rims resting on top of a wire, and though there is a ring securing the machine to the wire, it won’t keep it upright. Beneath it is a perch as a counterbalance, and, of all things, one of the perytons sits on it. Its clawed back feet cling like a bird on a wire.

Hyungwon sits astride the motorcycle, now clad in a black leather vest and a pair of boots. As a whimsical note, some of the scales across his face have blackened into a sunglasses shape. He isn’t tethered to anything, and Mariam can see between his slight twitches and the peryton’s, they are working together to keep themselves upright on the wire.

The engine revs again, and Jooheon raises his hands to incite the crowd. Everyone whoops and cheers, including Mariam, and then Hyungwon zooms ahead.

The bike zips up the slight incline to the other end, where he lets off the gas, and the unlikely pair drifts backwards smooth as a sled riding down a snowy hill. Once they’re back at the bottom, Hyungwon surges ahead again, but he slows when they reach the middle of the line. He cuts the engine, and instead, the room fills with the ping-ping of the wire bobbing under the weight.

Below, the peryton wobbles and tips backwards, clinging to the rail with its claws as it hangs upside down and spreads its wings. Once it’s at full breadth, Hyungwon stands on the footpegs and slowly—tremulously, steps both feet onto the seat before propping one on the handlebars. He, too, spreads his muscled arms, and as the motorcycle glides backward down the slope, little bursts of yellow, like tiny supernovas, fire across his skin. Feathers whisper in the breeze before the crowd roars with the showcase.

Mariam’s heart is in her throat, so big she practically chokes on it. Her skin pebbles with fresh goosebumps because the pair isn’t slowing. In fact, the motorcycle is picking up speed as it glides.

Before they can crash back into the platform, Hyungwon slides back onto the seat and revs the engine again. The peryton swings back upright, and the rider tosses down some dark and messy treat to his passenger.

Mariam assumes it’s over, but then the bike sails even faster up to the peak, and this time when they brake at the top, the peryton rocks side-to-side, and just like that, the motorcycle loops like a propeller around and around the wire.

She screams. So does someone else. Both rider and passenger are completely unbothered.

They whirl backwards down the wire, and it almost makes Mariam sick to watch the spinning. Even worse, as has been happening all night, she thinks again on things she shouldn’t. She thinks on how strong his thighs have to be to hold onto that bike, and she finds herself clenching hers just as hard.

Just as they get to the platform, the peryton startles and takes flight, which immediately flips the motorcycle. Hyungwon plunges from his seat several stories above the floor. Screams ring out all around the canopy.

But not Mariam. She can’t scream. This time, she’s too paralyzed with terror.

This is it. This is going to be the show where something goes horribly, terribly wrong, and as much as she had already been changed by tonight’s performances, this will ruin her.

She feels sick.

Hyungwon’s halfway to his surefire death when the winged creature swoops down casual as can be and grabs his outstretched wrist with its back claw. He drifts like Alice falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland onto yet another motorcycle that Mariam never even saw waiting for him in the ring.

Relief washes through her, and she realizes that over the course of however long she’s been sitting here, she has formed some kind of unnatural bond with the performers. She thinks of them not just as acrobats or athletes but as friends—or, maybe, more disturbingly, something more. Just the notion of them getting hurt tightens every muscle in her body like a winch.

But no one else seems nearly as bothered by the daring risks they’ve just witnessed. As the crowd leaps to its feet, Hyungwon waves and circles the ring on the bike a few times. With a rev of his engine and one final wheelie, he speeds to the back with the peryton in tow.

Jooheon makes his way to ring center as usual, and he’s cheering just as much as the audience. That infectious smile of his stirs the crowd as much as it stirs Mariam’s heart with gratitude.

“How about that, dear guests? I think I can boast with total confidence that that was yet another act such as you have never seen! Another round of applause for Hyungwon and Dyani. Let them hear you.”

The audience doesn’t disappoint. With each act, they’ve gotten more and more comfortable and more and more awestruck. It’s beginning to feel like an impossible ask to ever leave this big top. Yet, Jooheon’s next words send a chill through Mariam’s bones.

“As always, we close our show with the most dynamic performance of all. As you have learned by now, nothing about Le Cirque du Fantasme is traditional, so it must hold true that neither are our clowns. Not only will they take to the skies tonight, but they will take you to new heights with them. Be dazzled as fire and ice harmonize in ways you never thought possible, and, above all, expect the unexpected. Presenting The Flying Fools, Minhyuk and Changkyun!”

The ringmaster steps to the side as the final two performers enter the room.

They move in perfect unison, but that’s where the similarities end. The taller one, with hair like candle flames, presents in vivid detail. His face is shaped like a flame, too, with all the same flickering dimension and undulating contours. His skin is bright and brilliant like his smile only with a sheen to it, and when he spins in the lights, Mariam realizes it’s like a cast of gold dust upon him. She’s not sure if that’s stage makeup or if that’s just part of who he is, but considering his counterpart, it seems like the latter.

The shorter one has hair like snowflake filaments, each strand almost crystalline yet without being actually frozen. Even the cool way he strolls feels like a breeze across damp skin. Though his lines are sharp, borderline cutting, when he steps in the light, Mariam swears she can see through him. He’s sleek when he moves; every line and twitch has a purpose. It’s as though he is untethered and untouchable by everything. It’s almost as though his feet aren’t even touching the floor. She might think he’s a ghost if everyone else weren’t seeing the same thing.

With a pair of synchronized bows, the performers greet their audience silently just as the others did, saving all the talking for their ringmaster. Instead, they start their act with a series of incredible one-upsmanship. The redhead conjures fire in his palm, which the blue-haired man snuffs with a flick of his wrist. In retaliation, he then creates three snowballs of varying sizes into a very sweet but very humble snowman, and the redhead returns the favor by lobbing a fireball under his knee with the unforgiving precision of a meteor. The poor snowman explodes and melts into a puddle while the crowd chuckles.

They make faces at one another as they hurry to build their next assault. One constructs a basketball-sized snowball to the other’s fireball, and with a war cry like two brothers squaring up, they throw at each other. If either is off-target, Mariam will be buried in snow and the other side of the ring will be engulfed in flame, but their aim is true, and the two balls collide with a hiss like punching a hill of sand.

As they mock-squabble, a bar lowers from the ceiling, one side featuring a ring dangling from a chain and the other side featuring willowy baby blue ribbons fluttering as they descend. The two performers continue silently bickering as the redhead climbs into his ring and takes a seat and the blue-haired man winds his foot intricately through one ribbon while he scales the silks.

Once their eyelines are even, the bar raises, and now, the two men soar over center stage a few stories up. Closer to the spotlights, the redhead glitters like a disco ball while, at precisely the right moment, the light pierces the blue-haired man, like sun through a blanket of clouds, and shines down on the ringmaster’s grin.

As the pair reach their pinnacle, they play—not just off of the instruments but each other. It’s organized chaos. The man in the ring rocks like a monkey on a swing, his feet kicking and lifting. At first, it’s art, but then it’s clear his true intent is to toy with his friend. He drops. He swings. He pushes off of his friend’s back like a swimmer off the pool wall.

While the man in the ring flips and threads through his hoop, the man in the straps flies beside him. Thanks to the push, physics draws them back together until they’re rebounding off each other like a Newton’s cradle. Both of them are light and slender, but their sinew flexes with each choreographed move.

Watching them somehow makes Mariam feel strangely feminine, which isn’t something she usually thinks much about. Between work and TV and sleep, she doesn’t spend much time on herself. Carmel is a hamlet, too far removed from the City for the Big Apple to tempt her and too insular to attract outsiders except for the accidental stranger passing through. She doesn’t have to doll herself up because there’s no one in town left to impress, but as the dexterous duo wheels above to a chorus of ruffling silk and clanking chains, she feels soft, pliable even. She wishes she’d had time to change out of her shift clothes or apply some lip gloss. Watching them perform makes her yearn to impress them the way they’ve all impressed her.

Her eyelids droop.

They’re so beautiful. They sail as though the ribbons and chains are merely there for decoration, as though the sky would be their playground with or without them. They might be aiming to make everyone laugh, but Mariam sees beyond that. It’s their artistry she’s swept up in—the way they flick not just their wrists but echo the motion straight through to their fingertips, the way they use every part of their body to sell a complete experience, the way their no doubt countless hours of rehearsal ensures their whimsy looks as effortless as it does unstudied.

The blue-haired man chokes up on one silk as he releases the other and wraps his foot in the chiffon. He spins. He twirls. He sails by his wrist. The ribbon fans like a cape beneath him.

But when he swings too close to his fellow performer, the redhead shoves him playfully out into space to send the blue-haired man arcing over the audience to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahs”. Seeking his revenge, the aerialist slips down the fabric to angle himself like a bullet with an aim for his fellow performer.

At the last moment, the man in the ring latches on to his friend’s wrist, and together, ring and ribbon twine through the air. They circle together before they push apart and rotate like two bodies caught in each other’s orbit. It’s beautiful. It’s hypnotic.

Mariam can’t get them out of her head. Of all the things she’s seen tonight, they ensorcel her every sense. They’re two fools bickering like brothers, but without the bounds of gravity, their playfulness becomes aerial ballet. She wants to be part of the fun.

The redhead climbs on top of his hoop, legs splayed around the supporting chain, and reaches for the chiffon. While he goes high, the blue-haired man goes low, grasping the ring. He looks up at his brother-in-air and pokes his tongue wickedly at the corner of his mouth.

The next thing Mariam knows, the hoop is white with frost, and with a yank, the blue-haired aerialist shatters the ring beneath the redhead’s legs. Frozen metal tinkles to the floor. The redhead grips his chain tighter now, but there’s vengeance in those calculating eyes, and he spins so fast, he looks like a tornado of fire.

His hand lashes out.

He grabs the ribbon supporting his friend’s foot.

Flame marches up and down the chiffon, and the blue-haired man barely has time to unwind his foot and leap to the second silk before the other ribbon is engulfed. It untethers at the loop above and drifts to the floor like a snake made of fire to coil messily beside the shattered hoop.

Both men hang by one hand. The set piece begins to lower, but their rivalry does not slow. Their feet bicycle as they kick each other like toddler brothers, and the room reverberates with laughter. They collide only to push off each other’s thighs, and when they swing back, their arms are outstretched—not for each other but for their opponent’s supports.

The pair stills in the air.

The redhead grips the silk above his friend’s hand, who also has hold of the chain now.

They look each other in the eyes, each confident they have the upper hand.

Chain crackles like a sheet of ice. Fire ignites like a burner.

Their eyes widen. Their cocky grins falter.

They fall.

The pair thunders to the floor, each landing on his own feet thanks to their cleverly choreographed descent. And then they descend into a playground slap fight like the fools they’re promoted to be, which sends Jooheon skittering to center ring to break it up.

The tent is shaking with the crowd’s laughter and applause. Mariam is already on her feet and whooping at the top of her lungs like she’s never done before.

Jooheon raises the redhead’s arm by the wrist and champions, “Minhyuk!”

He does the same to the blue-haired man next as he yells, “Changkyun!”

The crowd somehow gets louder.

“One more time, my friends, for all our distinguished performers!”

Out of the back comes the rest of the circus, including the Amorak and the perytons but thankfully no death worm. Together, everyone fills the ring, the ringmaster front and center. They bow in unison, even the animals, and when they rise, Mariam thinks it’s simultaneously the most ridiculous and most wonderful family she’s ever seen.

The crowd doesn’t seem to take a breath in its cheers. The stands might not be anywhere near packed, but no one would be able to tell because the heartfelt screams—and a couple of animalistic roars, she notes—fill the canvas to the brim.

Jooheon couldn’t look prouder. His dimples have never been deeper. His eyes are little arches. His pearly teeth glimmer. He glows not from the spotlights but from the praise.

“Thank you all for coming! From all of us at Le Cirque du Fantasme, you’ve been a terrific audience, and should our paths chance to meet again someday, we hope you’ll return for another round of unparalleled fantasies. Get home safely, everyone!”

The cheering continues even as the performers head backstage, and once they’re all gone, the guests begin to filter out, each murmuring to the other strangers. It’s clearer now that the lights have come up that the denizens of the big top couldn’t be more different. As far as Mariam can tell, she’s the only obvious human.

She lingers in the VIP box. She’s probably supposed to leave—it’s clear from Jooheon’s well-wishes that they’re all supposed to—and while she’s not afraid of the strange folk after such a show, she just doesn’t want to go.

She’s changed.

She’s not the same Mariam she was when she walked through those striped flaps. How can she go back to her boring, conservative, empty life knowing all that truly surrounds her? It’s like discovering that the world she always thought was flat has a third dimension.

The big top is empty now except for spilled cartons and other litter. Humongous paw prints dapple the dusty ring floor. Motes of dust drift through the beams of light, past the gently swaying extra cache of rings, ropes, and ribbons above.

With a deep, shaking sigh, Mariam resigns herself to her fate. Just as her hand lands on the swinging door to the box seats, the backstage curtains fling open, and the redhead, Minhyuk, and his blue-haired partner, Changkyun, enter.

“Finally!” exclaims Minhyuk in an exuberant voice. “Showtime is always the hardest when you can't open your mouth.”

“I think you’re the only one who suffers on that point,” Changkyun retorts in a much gravellier tone.

The pair take to sweeping up their torched and shattered mess as though they don't even realize they still have an audience, the redhead gabbing away to make up for lost time.

Mariam doesn’t say anything. She’s sure she’s not supposed to be here, and she worries they’ll ban her from ever coming back—not that she’s sure exactly where she is or how she got here. She ducks down a little before she catches herself in her own stupidity. There’s nowhere to hide.

Should she apologize? Hurry out? She could just tell them that their rhythmic aerial battling has stirred things in her that she never thought she’d feel, but that’s probably stupider than trying to hide.

The last act is still emblazoned in her mind when the ringmaster abruptly appears from the back. While the other two men work around the tent, he heads directly toward Mariam as though he never expected her to leave in the first place.

“Well, my dear, what did you think of the show?”

His lips look even fuller and juicier somehow. She’s drunk just on the way they purse and pucker.

“Unbelievable,” she breathes. “I don’t even know what to say about it.”

“And how has VIP been so far?”

Mariam cocks her head to the side. “So far?”

“Did you think your experience ended with the show?”

“Well, yeah.”

Jooheon chuckles. “For the pretty maid in the front row, I offer a truly once-in-a-lifetime upgrade free of charge.”

“What kind of upgrade?”

“Only the most exclusive kind. We’re going to custom build you a dream, my dear.”

Mariam squints. “I thought the circus was the new dream?”

“Well, thank you, but you forget that we took your best dream ever.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says with a blush and a scuff of her boot on the floor. She's getting a strange feeling from his burrowing gaze that she's missing something more important than she’s realized. “But since I don't remember what it is, how do I know you haven't already exceeded it? Tonight was amazing.”

“Trust me, we haven't traded in fair yet. We can do better because… it’s important to me that you remember tonight—and me—forever.” Jooheon smiles at her then, but it’s different than those other flamboyant smiles. This one is gentle and sincere.

“There’s no way I could forget,” she admits shyly.

He looks dubious, but he nods and offers his hand as he opens the VIP box door, too. “Let me see to it then.”

The moment Mariam’s hand slips into his, the ringmaster’s demeanor changes. He’s been the consummate showman all night, but he’s narrowed that influence of his tremendous power to her and her alone. The big top hasn’t changed, but as he leads her to the center of the ring, it’s all much more intimate now.

Jooheon squares up to her and smiles, this time with the faintest hint of a lip bite. His thumbs rub reassuringly over the back of her hands as he takes one step closer.

“We're going to make you the star of our show.”

#monsta x smut #le cirque du fantasme #october vibes #jooheon smut #minhyuk smut #changkyun smut #third person #trilogy

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