They walked shoulder to shoulder as the sky bled from copper to ash, twilight stretching its pale fingers across the rooftops, soaking the world in a cold hue that hummed with silence and distant electricity.
With each step, the air shifted, cooler now, tinged with a scent that stirred old instincts: sugar melting into oil, rusted steel warming under floodlights, and something faint but unmistakable underneath, like soil overturned after rain.
The funfair loomed ahead, squatting at the edge of the forgotten industrial lot like some gaudy, many-eyed beast draped in color and light, surrounded by chain-link fencing that sagged under the weight of vines and wind-tattered paper banners.
It blinked and pulsed with erratic joy, music lilting off-kilter through dented speakers as the calliope groaned its eternal lullaby to the ghosts of laughter past.
Taejun said nothing at first, but the moment they passed under the sagging banner marked WELCOME TO NIGHTSTAR CARNIVAL, Hyeonjae turned sharply and shoved a stick of aggressively pink cotton candy into his hands.
"Eat it," he said, his tone so commanding it could've belonged to a general issuing final orders.
Taejun scowled, tugging the fluff away from his mouth. "I'm not a kid anymore, Hyung."
"You could've fooled me. But don't make me pry your mouth open and jam it in there like an exorcist with holy wafers."
"Ugh. That's gross. You probably touched a ghost this morning."
Hyeonjae's grin widened with mock offense. "It's only mildly cursed and barely spectral. A polite haunting, if anything."
Taejun exhaled suddenly. A breath wrapped in something perilously close to laughter. It caught him off guard. That unsettled him more than the ghosts.
They drifted among the shouts and music, weaving through alleys of garish booths manned by bored teenagers and slack-faced carnies whose eyes tracked them with a weight that didn't quite match the cheerful facade.
A looping string of multicolored bulbs buzzed overhead like flies around carrion, illuminating faded signage and spinning prizes in shades too bright to feel entirely safe.
Laughter burst like shrapnel from the crowd, shrill and metallic.
And somewhere, a bell rang, and something heavy thudded.
They tried the ring toss. Taejun's aim was cautious, almost reluctant, as if afraid of drawing too much attention.
The rings bounced pathetically off the bottles. Hyeonjae followed with a flourish, his toss so dramatically off-target it ricocheted into another booth entirely, prompting a carnie to mutter under his breath and flip him off without looking.
"Ah, well," Hyeonjae said, brushing imaginary dust from his hands. "The universe punishes my god-talent. I was simply too magnificent to win."
"Sure, I guess..." Taejun muttered.
They moved on to the shooting gallery, where water pistols hissed weakly and plastic ducks floated by with faded eyes.
Taejun nailed a single target, drawing a pitiful ding.
Hyeonjae hit three in rapid succession, then dramatically fumbled the last shot, sending water harmlessly into the air.
"Hey, you did that on purpose!"
"I'd like to leave the universe with a little hope of something from my heart after they punished me for taking my god-talent."
They wandered farther in, slipping beneath arches of crisscrossed lights, past spinning teacups and rusting thrill rides that groaned like sleeping animals.
The Ferris wheel stood crooked against the sky, its frame creaking in slow, rhythmic protests as it dragged its occupants into the heavens one cautious inch at a time.
The operator barely glanced at them before waving them in with a gloved hand, his eyes hollow behind cracked sunglasses despite the hour.
They sat together in the faded red seat, the bar lowering with a soft, reluctant click.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The wheel turned. The town fell away beneath them like a memory folding into itself. Rooftops blurred into darkness, and trees clustered like old secrets.
The fair stretched beneath them in a glowing patchwork, all motion and color and noise, yet strangely far, like watching someone else's life through glass.
As they reached the apex, the wind shifted, brushing past them like a whisper.
Taejun spoke first.
"…Why are you still here?"
Hyeonjae didn't look at him at once. He seemed to study the stars, as if trying to remember their names. "Here as on Earth? Or here, as in this town?"
"You know what I mean," Taejun said quietly. "You're not my babysitter anymore. That was… a long time ago, wasn't it?"
Hyeonjae's smile came slowly, soft at the edges. "I never stopped being."
Taejun turned to look at him, searching for something in Hyeonjae's face that might spark a memory he'd never been allowed to keep.
"You said you made a deal."
"I did."
"But I don't remember any of it. I don't remember you in my life."
"Ouch, I know."
The silence stretched again, deeper now. And then:
"…Was I a bad kid?" Taejun's voice cracked on the last word, the vulnerability slipping through before he could lock it down.
Hyeonjae blinked, his expression unreadable for a moment.
Then he leaned back against the seat's cold steel, breath slow, grounding himself in the here and now.
"No," he said finally, gently. "You were a good kid. Too good for what I came for. Maybe I didn't deserve such treatment, but I'm glad." Hyeonjae smiled while looking at the ground, holding a cup he had taken from the floor beside him.
"You tried to help someone who didn't belong in your world. You loved too fast. You trusted too easily. And when it mattered, you stayed to protect even if it's someone you might find annoying."
"I left him," Taejun whispered. The wind carried it away, but Hyeonjae heard.
"You were five, Taejun." He dropped the cup slowly onto the ground, where it had stayed.
"I still left him, Hyung."
Hyeonjae looked down at his hands, the ones that had once carried him out of fire and ruin.
"There's a kind of memory," he said, quieter now, "that doesn't live in your mind. It grows in the marrow and sinks into your breath, your posture, your silence. It's not about what you know. It's about what your body refuses to forget."
"Is that why I've felt like…" Taejun couldn't finish. The word was too large in his throat.
"Yes," Hyeonjae said. "That's why."
The Ferris wheel turned again.
Below them, the carnival glowed like a living thing, twisting and pulsing, stretching shadows into golden ribbons, laughter and screams blending into something almost beautiful.
For a moment, the night felt like a place that could be trusted.
When they disembarked, Hyeonjae led him to a booth where a giant stuffed bear rested awkwardly against a wall.
It looked slightly lopsided, as if it had been won under suspicious circumstances.
"Here," he said, holding it out.
Taejun frowned. "I didn't win that."
"No. But you will remember winning it."
Taejun rolled his eyes. "I know what you're trying to do. That's emotional manipulation."
"And yet, it's effective," Hyeonjae smirked.
Taejun took the bear anyway. It was warm from Hyeonjae's arms.
They walked toward the exit, the fair behind them fading like a mirage.
Taejun chewed the inside of his cheek, wrestling with something he didn't want to name, but couldn't silence either.
"…Are you going to disappear again after this night, Hyung?" he asked, barely more than a whisper.
Hyeonjae's step didn't falter, but the smile he gave was crooked and tired.
"Probably."
"Is that part of the deal?"
"No," Hyeonjae said. "That part… would be a choice."
Taejun didn't respond. The road stretched ahead, quiet now, interrupted only by the occasional hum of cicadas and the rustle of trees whispering to one another in the dark.
Overhead, stars blinked like distant eyes, and behind them, obscured by time and leaves, the old house waited with all its secrets still sealed.
But just for tonight, for this one impossible night, Taejun wasn't afraid.
And Hyeonjae didn't vanish.
They walked side by side as twilight deepened, the air growing cooler with each step.
Next came the shooting gallery. Hyeonjae strutted up like a seasoned cowboy, hit three tin ducks in a row, then raised the plastic rifle like a sacred relic. "I shall now miss intentionally," he declared, squinting dramatically. "To give the universe hope once more, since I'm indeed a nice guy."
Taejun rolled his eyes and still couldn't help smiling.
They wandered between stalls and won a cheap whistle, two keychains, and a plush fish missing an eye.
Hyeonjae bought them both slushies so sweet they made Taejun's teeth ache.
They shared a greasy paper boat of curly fries, fingers brushing as they reached for the same one.
Then came the funhouse.
Mirrors warped their reflections into giants, goblins, smoke-thin silhouettes. In one of the mirrors, Taejun caught his face looking too pale, too hollow-eyed, and something flickering behind him that shouldn't have been.
But when he turned, Hyeonjae was there, sipping his drink with both hands like a kid, eyes tracking Taejun in the reflection.
"Are you alright?" he asked casually, but his gaze sharpened just a little.
"Yeah," Taejun said. "I just… felt something."
"Maybe it's the house? Maybe some funhouses do that because they reflect more than light."
Taejun didn't ask what he meant. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
They rode the creaky Ferris wheel last. It groaned beneath them as it rose, lifting them above the lights, above the smell of syrup and smoke, above the weight of memory.
Neither spoke for the first half of the turn, just listening to the crickets and watching the town shrink into miniature, tiny houses, tinier cars, a dark smudge in the trees where the old house waited.
They didn't leave.
Something about the air held them fast, not by force, but by an insistent pressure, an unspoken weight that settled over their shoulders and threaded through their lungs.
The atmosphere had thickened subtly, as though the night itself had drawn closer, the carnival's laughter now strained and hollow, its mirth peeling back like fading wallpaper to reveal something older underneath.
The scent had changed, too; what once was the heady, joyful mixture of caramelized sugar, oil, and engine fumes had now curdled into something stranger, still sweet, but now tainted by a damp, woody undertone, like tree bark after rain, as though the forest that ringed the fairgrounds had inched closer when no one was watching, inch by inch, root by root.
The music hadn't stopped, but it had thinned, distant now, its bright carnival melody muffled as if submerged in a body of water, distorted by a surface that refused to be broken.
Notes drifted through the air like echoes bouncing from somewhere far away, recognizable, but wrong in tone, off by half a beat, like a record warping beneath heat.
Still, the lights burned on, garish and defiant, flickering like fireflies caught in a jar.
The rides moved. The games clattered. Somewhere, voices still laughed, but faintly, barely audible, as though only a few people remained, and even they had begun to forget why they were laughing in the first place.
Taejun didn't protest when Hyeonjae tugged him toward the balloon-popping stall.
Something about the way the boy moved, confident, relaxed, strangely at ease amid the growing unease, made him feel safer, even if logic protested.
The shadows stretched long beneath their feet, but Hyeonjae walked as if they weren't there at all.
He was already gripping a fistful of darts, their rusted tips catching the neon glare, spinning one lazily between his fingers with the casual precision of someone who had either done this a thousand times or didn't care about the outcome.
"You're up first," Hyeonjae said, and his voice, though light, didn't quite carry the same warmth it had before.
There was a strange calmness to it now, a note of detachment, as if he'd already guessed what would happen next.
Taejun took the dart. It was heavier than he expected, or maybe it was just the way his fingers trembled, the weight of the moment pressing into his palm.
He stared at the board, rows of balloons in uneven colors, their surfaces slick with humidity, vibrating faintly as if breathing.
He squared his shoulders, lifted his arm, and threw.
The dart spun awkwardly, struck the edge of the board, and dropped with a pathetic thud to the dirt below.
He sighed under his breath. "...Wow."
"Wow! That's a powerful effort," Hyeonjae replied with mock solemnity, offering a sage nod. "You really showed that plywood who's boss, huh?"
Taejun frowned. "Let's see you do better, ghost Hyung."
Hyeonjae's smirk deepened. He raised a dart, narrowed his eyes, and without pause, he threw three times in quick succession.
Each one found its mark with surgical accuracy, balloons bursting in neat, satisfying pops that echoed louder than they should have, like knuckles cracking in an empty room.
The vendor said nothing. He didn't even blink. He just pointed a crooked finger up toward the shelves above, where prizes gathered dust like forgotten relics, stuffed animals with missing limbs, swords dulled by sun and time, toys that hadn't been made in decades.
"Choose your destiny, my faithful follower," Hyeonjae said.
Taejun's eyes wandered across the shelf, scanning past cheap trinkets and plush figures until they landed on something small and strange, a cracked music box, half-buried behind a garish clown doll.
The paint had once been pink, now faded into a sickly beige, its edges curled and flaking. A porcelain ballerina stood trapped inside, her one remaining arm frozen mid-spin.
Her face had been scratched away by time or fingers. She looked like she was still dancing in a room no one visited anymore.
"That one," Taejun said.
Hyeonjae raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? There's literally a sword up there. You could've looked so cool holding it. Just imagine—"
"I like it," he replied, without understanding why. Something about the music box felt... familiar. Like a dream, he wasn't sure was his.
The vendor reached up slowly, his long fingers curling around the box with unsettling care, like he was afraid it might bite.
He handed it over wordlessly, and for a brief moment, their hands touched.
Taejun wound the little brass key. It turned stiffly, groaning with age, as if protesting.
Then, it clicked, and the box came alive.
The lullaby it played was not quite a lullaby. The tune was fractured, discordant, weaving a melody that almost, but never quite, resolved.
Notes stuttered and bent, like breath caught in a throat. It sounded like something played in another room of a dream, soft, slow, and laced with grief.
The ballerina twitched on her axis, struggling to turn. Her fractured spin sent shadows crawling across the glass, twisting into shapes Taejun couldn't quite recognize.
He clutched the box tighter.
Something shifted behind them.
The laughter was gone now, completely gone.
In the silence, the fairground breathed differently. One of the rides, far off to the right, gave a low mechanical groan, as if it had been holding its breath and finally remembered to exhale.
The whirring of the carousel slowed to a crawl, its lights flickering in tired spasms, casting long, slow-moving silhouettes across the damp gravel.
The horses, chipped and glassy-eyed, seemed to jerk forward in unnatural rhythm, like they were struggling against rusted chains.
A wind stirred, carrying with it the smell of loam and rot.
Taejun's spine stiffened. The music box continued its song, a single note catching and dragging like a fingernail on a string.
Hyeonjae was already walking ahead. He hadn't spoken again, but his posture had changed, no longer teasing, no longer easy.
His shoulders had squared. His head tilted slightly, listening.
He walked toward the far end of the fair, where the lights were dimmer, where the stalls gave way to trees and the booths became fewer, less inviting.
"Come on," he said finally, his voice low, eyes not turning back. "There's a lot more we can enjoy tonight. You feel it too, don't you? Tonight... We fest!"
Taejun nodded without meaning to, his legs already moving, the music box pressed to his chest like a heartbeat he didn't trust.
His father had once told him that sometimes, when the world grows quiet and the wind shifts without cause, it means something is about to be remembered. Something that didn't want to be.
He followed Hyeonjae into the deepening dark.
And the music played on.