Chapter Text
This time he wakes with his memory intact. It helps with the spiralling – doesn’t prevent it but makes it easier to pull himself together, to reach for his phone and check the time, to haul himself up and feel full force his ocean of regret when he does. For the dam of it to break and the waves to corrode and spit him out; leave him to dry in the sun for the seagulls to pick at.
Kibum is nowhere to be seen. Comme Des and Garcons are gone too, which doesn’t surprise Jonghyun in the slightest – not with the state he’d let Kibum see him in – but the quiet feels especially lonely, like the furniture’s turned hostile and the walls are shooing him away.
He ignores them as he heads to the kitchen, and inside, he finds a note, a hangover jelly and a bottle of water.
7pm the note reads with the expo centre’s address. Clean towels are on the washstand. Breakfast’s in the fridge. Make yourself at home.
Kibum’s handwriting is cute, Jonghyun thinks before he tears his eyes away, disregarding the last sentence for his own sanity. The second-last one, too, when he opens the fridge to a freshly cooked meal instead of pasta leftovers; to a stack of boxes on the bottom shelf with his name on them, individually portioned, that soak him anew in his self-hatred. Never mind that it’s his name in Kibum’s writing and in his fridge. The tucked-together syllables and the bold, upturned strokes. The blue sticky notes. He shuts the door.
He shouldn’t be here. Kibum shouldn’t have humoured him and he shouldn’t have asked. When Kibum welcomed him with food, Jonghyun shouldn’t have latched onto him instead at the first whiff of blood, and Kibum shouldn’t have stayed still, given himself, but he did. He shouldn’t have let Jonghyun drain him and then left him to rest and rise without trial or judgement, but he did. Lucky for him, Jonghyun doesn’t need either – his own guilt’s heavy enough, damning enough, to bring Kibum his justice.
He sets to atoning with the hangover jelly packet between his lips. First, he gathers the sleep-worn sheets and Kibum’s pyjamas. It’s not enough for a full wash but the laundry baskets are easy to find, tucked beneath the washstand and pre-separated, so he tops it up with the light colours; lingers in the dark basket afterwards because it’s full of Kibum’s work clothes, and when he comes back to himself, to familiar fabric clenched between his fists, decides he owes him two loads. It’s not like he’s in a rush, and it’s the least he could do, if Kibum brings it up.
Showering is the logical next step, even though it’s a waste of time. He knows before he’s in that he’ll only come out dirtier.
Kibum’s shower is a treasure trove. Jonghyun stays until the glass is fogged opaque and he’s covered head-to-toe in Kibum, or as close as he can get. He tries to be sparing. Really, he does. He doesn’t want to waste the fancy, expensive products from brands he’s never heard of, but the first bottle he opens smells like him and so does the second, and the third, and the forth, so he doubles and triples and quadruples Kibum on his chest and his arms and his legs and everywhere else. Between his legs too, even with the burn of the soap – not that it dims his pleasure any when Kibum must have known, offering this, what it might do to him.
The thought clings on through the heat and fog when he exits. Dressing in his own clothes seems wrong then, seems abrupt, and since no one’s around to see him – and he won’t get the chance again, says the filthy, wretched part of his brain, to serve Kibum like this – he opts to forego them.
There’s nothing bad about being naked in Kibum’s apartment, he reasons as he hangs the laundry to dry, careful to drape everything neatly. He’s not hurting anyone by indulging himself, he thinks as he shuffles and re-shuffles the items, making room for the second load. Kibum let him stay. Let him clean. Let him, and he goes back to the bathroom, cooler now, for the dark wash; picks up the basket and makes the mistake of looking in the mirror – the same one he’s stood trembling over, clutching the sink and hungering, starving, wishing for Kibum’s hands – and then stops thinking rationally.
The rope, he imagines instead, and how good it’d feel to work in its embrace and wrap himself snug, the way Kibum taught him in the room down the hall. How right it’d look, wearing Kibum’s gift in his home.
He searches high and low for it. After he’s re-loaded the washing machine, he circles back to scour the living room, then the kitchen, then the playroom for good measure, but it’s nowhere in sight.
Undeterred, he moves on to the wardrobe. Kneeling alone on the wooden floor feels a little strange, but with the door slid aside, there’s no judging reflection, just his own hands trying to open without touching. His hands that skirt the sides of shelves and wheel drawers in and out; his shaking hands that grow more urgent by the second and work in secret, in all the wrong ways. Ten minutes of that, or that’s what it feels like, and then he’s standing up to check the top shelf, the bag that’s black like the box he’d held tight onto.
He doesn’t find what he’s looking for when he peers inside. He does find something else, though: another smaller bag in the same design, tissue-filled and weighty when he picks it up to shake it. Not the rope, he tells himself with itching fingers. Not the rope, but his memory nudges him: shows him Kibum crouched the night before, redistributing, trying to distract Jonghyun away from it. Hiding something.
Kibum’s allowed to. If it were Jonghyun’s business, he’d tell him, he thinks. If he needed to know, and he doesn’t need to – wants to but needs Kibum to keep inviting him in, to trust him, and here he is abusing it, taking every liberty he can. So he stops. He puts away the bag and feels the swirling ache; that being pushed away, out of reach and responsibility, and reminds himself he’s not Kibum’s. He’s not.
Kibum’s inconvenience, maybe, when he rises to the wash cycle long ended, still wrapped in all the scents he’d stolen. When there’s not enough room on the drying rack and Kibum’s apartment, clean when he’d left it, grows messy with wet clothes slung on table edges, chairs, streaming furniture that wails at Jonghyun, now, to leave. When Jonghyun retreats into last night’s clothes as the walls sneer on, growling with the pit in his stomach.
Not Kibum’s. He knows. But his greed snaps; gnaws on the small, black bag and Kibum’s handwriting curled around his name and twists his guilt into anger; sets it into why not and hardens it into resolve, into not yet.
The meal Kibum made him tastes delicious, feels disgusting, and he savours it. He scrapes the Tupperware corners clean. He washes them guilt-laden, cursed, to gleaming, and puts them away in neat little stacks of reparation. No trial, no judgement – no atonement, not yet.
He keeps the note. Reads it once more first, 7pm, then pockets it; thinks then—maybe then.
*
Jonghyun’s leaning on a wall across from the expo centre, on the opposite bank, the river below shimmering its floodlights in a lazy, technicolour cycle. The new spring breeze kisses his cheeks and curls around the trees blooming overhead, dusting him pink, and through the petal shower Kibum emerges, a hurried rouge.
“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun says before Kibum can apologise for his lateness, or ask how he is, or find some other way to teeter out of reach. He surges forward the second Kibum opens his mouth. “I fucked up. I know I did. I wasn’t trying to. It’s not an excuse—I shouldn’t have.”
Kibum’s silence is distractingly pretty. He’s rarely speechless long enough for Jonghyun to admire the way his face sets, the astute jut of his lips, the cheekbones that swell beneath shrewd eyes, so he does it greedily, like he does everything with Kibum. The wind blows, ruffling blossoms again and Kibum’s hair, catching it on his forehead like a painting – and then his phone’s ringing, and the strands tumble past its furrows.
“Thank you,” he says with raised voice, mouth still a swollen pout and gaze downcast, distracted. He wiggles his phone out to silence it. “Did you sleep well?”
“…You’re asking me?”
“On my sofa, I mean.”
Like Jonghyun doesn’t know it. Kibum’s skin is especially pale in the moon’s glow, and it’s all his fault. His delicate lids are webbed red with the rest Jonghyun stole from him. The scores in his brow deepen as Jonghyun stares at them, new worry carving its way in, and he itches to buff them out, to clean the slate he’s etched fraught. Kibum deserves respite. He can’t offer much, but he can offer that.
“I slept just fine,” he says and peers instead at the rippling water, at a duck struggling upstream. “I could’ve slept on the floor. Aren’t you angry?”
“At what?”
“At me. For not listening. I did something you told me not to do.” Jonghyun’s mad himself. Kibum’s all tense lines, poised for something beyond his reach, and he wants to get to it first. He wants to fight it bare-handed and wear down with the struggle and suffer its bite alone. Kill it and eat it and be rid of it, then offer wounds for Kibum to lick or rip apart.
“You apologised.”
“I still did it.”
“Are you going to do it again?”
“I could.”
Kibum’s ticking jaw’s a triumph. Jonghyun’s outburst hovers precarious between them over jagged gravel. Another call blares from Kibum’s pocket, threatens a smash, and for some reason, he takes his time in dealing with it.
“I’m not angry.”
Jonghyun doesn’t believe him for a second. The noise distracts him though, pushes him off-balance so he strikes first, hopes to feint Kibum into action: “You gonna take that?”
“I’m talking to you,” and Kibum quiets his phone, fingers clenching around it like a brick. “I didn’t invite you here to fight.”
It’s a shame. It doesn’t need to be one. All Jonghyun needs is Kibum’s indignation. All he needs is his ire, his recoil, his hatred; is proof of the boundary he’s crossed and the hurt he’s done, so he can stop.
“I wanted to ask how you were.”
Not that—and of course Kibum’s only dense when it matters most. “Worry about them,” Jonghyun says and jabs towards the building across the water, the crowds still streaming in and out, Kibum’s months of hard work.
“I can think about more than one thing at a time.”
“How many hours did you sleep?”
“Enough.”
“Three? Four? Listen to me. You should’ve said no. I’ll keep asking. I’m selfish.”
“It’s not selfish to ask.”
“You’re not listening.”
Kibum shutters his face with his hand, uses it to pinch his nose, then turns away completely and moves to the wall with heavy, crunching strides. Jonghyun chases him and is rewarded; copies him leaning on bent elbows and turns to find Kibum iridescent, bathed in swirling colours from chest to crown, as bright as the waves below and twice as mesmerising. “I am. Are you?”
“Yes,” Jonghyun says, and bates his breath to make good on the promise. “So start telling me the truth. I can handle it.”
Kibum’s expression twists, shadows leaping across it. He does, too; towards Jonghyun, and Jonghyun’s stomach flips, excitement mixed with awe mixed with dread. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re right. I am tired. I wanted to be – that’s the truth. You want to talk to me about honesty? All I’ve been to you is honest, so when are you gonna start? When do I get it back? Are you going to tell me what you really want, or only when you’re drunk?”
Shit. Okay, maybe he’d overshot. “That’s not—”
“True? Yeah, like you’d remember.”
“Fair.” He remembers last night. Promising Minho he’d help clean up. Crying into Kibum’s chest. “I do,” and Kibum seems surprised at that; shows it in his hesitation, in the steam he loses and, when he speaks again, in the melancholy that seeps in.
“Then why do you wait? You said you want to feel me but I didn’t know. I want—god, I want to be there. You don’t ask.”
It’s not just that. He daren’t. Whenever Kibum’s there he loses his grip. If Kibum only knew the lengths he’d go to, the things he’d demand of him without filter or reason, he wouldn’t ask. He wouldn’t invite. He’d run and rightly so. And Jonghyun, he’d hunt him down; would sooner cull his need and taste it once than go without. Just once; sweet and hot and so fragile on his tongue, drenching and swelling him to satiation and past it, dripping sticky red and unsightly down his chin, a stain that can’t be scrubbed clean, a bond that can’t be undone, the proof of his Kibum. The only truth – that Jonghyun wouldn’t let him go.
“You call and say you miss me and please don’t come. You say you want to be mine but you don’t want to see me, and then you sober up, and I have to pretend I didn’t hear it. I have to wait until you feel like saying it. But it’s the same me—it’s the same me listening, and I can’t keep pretending.”
Jonghyun’s hearing falters and Kibum’s words reach him scattered. His vision malfunctions, too, fogging under Kibum’s lucent attention. “What?”
Mint lights cede to trilling canary. “When you called me,” comes echoing through the loop he’s trapped in, the dark strip he’s tunnelled into itself, a tormenting circle between lust and limbo. “You don’t remember.”
Twenty-three minutes to topple three seasons of consolidating and leave him sprawled again, on that bench with nowhere to go but Kibum’s driving palm. Two weeks of Kibum flush with his shame and staying put; of Kibum pushing harder into it and watching him writhe and knowing. And watching him. And pushing. And of Jonghyun giving like he’d waited to; everything except what Kibum had stowed away.
Yes: Kibum’s been hiding things, too.
“What did you say?”
Kibum looks to Jonghyun’s arms on the wall and at his hands half-buried, clinging where denim bunches around his elbows. To his open collar and the shoulders he surely knows aren’t hunched in cold. Away again, at the twinkling river.
“Not like this. Not when you don’t talk to me. It won’t work, if it’s like this.”
Jonghyun can’t respond. Kibum’s phone rings and he glances once to him when he sees who’s calling; finds him frozen and apologises and leaves him time to thaw, straightening and berating whoever’s interrupting in his best business voice, or pacifying them, Jonghyun’s not really sure, he’s not listening. The world’s stopped spinning and his heart’s stopped beating and Kibum doesn’t want him. Kibum doesn’t want him.
The water runs and the night sky bleeds scarlet and he steeps in it; feels it in his stomach and behind his eyes when he kneads them; sees it through closed lids when he presses and then it’s lava building, threatening to spill and engulf and turn him to stone. His eyes, protesting what they’ve always seen. His head, rejecting glaring logic. His stomach, singed by his greed.
Kibum doesn’t want him and it’s his fault. Every chance he had, he blew – every shied-away from nudge, every missed invite, every squandered ounce of patience. Did he expect Kibum to wait?
Does he expect him to keep waiting?
He flinches at Kibum’s voice, near again; scrapes knee and elbow with how fast he turns to it.
“I need to go back.”
Jonghyun nods. Swallows. Rolls cotton between his fingertips and scrambles for politeness that stays hidden, and Kibum watches him grasp around inside himself, at all the space that’s empty now. Really watches, and the seconds tick by. Just a few more. Just a little longer.
“Are you okay?”
No, but it’d be the end, if he said that. Kibum would leave, would have to; there’s not enough time. Of course Jonghyun lies.
He does it so easily. Kibum shuttering to it, that returning heaviness and the slow, measured intake of breath, he weathers too, like it’s nothing, and how good he is at tricking himself. How far he could go to make Kibum happy. How much he could give, that he’s learnt to, whether Kibum asked for it or not, and maybe he won’t. Maybe he never will.
“I don’t know” – and take, Jonghyun thinks, he still has room to take; Kibum’s eerie quiet now and his half-shadow, the side that turns away and fades into eigengrau, less tangible than before, and the softening of him – “what you need. I can’t guess forever.”
How arbitrary a distinction for something so obvious; so blinding Jonghyun’s had no choice but to sit under the feeling, to name it, to pray and offer to it, to live and be seared by it. How unfair, asking him to confess twice.
“You—you know.”
Kibum leaves, then. Douses Jonghyun a second time, and Jonghyun weathers it. Rekindles. Like he’s learnt to.
How unfair, he thinks – and how black, how frigid the space is, when he’s alone. How difficult to move.
*
He finishes Kibum’s Tuesday sitting early. Pretends he’s caught a cold. Wednesday, too, and Kibum tells him get well soon and there’s some leftovers and it’s chicken soup on the bottom shelf, this time. The bastard.
The following week he’s busy because he makes sure he is – not his birthday, which comes and goes without fanfare, but the other days packed with enough evening work to tire him out, take away his guilt some. Again, Kibum accepts the excuse, but Minho’s harder to shake off.
Saturday morning, Minho decides Jonghyun’s done enough wallowing and jolts him to his feet with a thunderous, nosy fist.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” he whines through the centimetre crack in his door at god-knows-what hour, much too early. Then, he holds up a shopping bag and sweet vanilla wafts out, and Jonghyun, still sleep-bleary, spies blue and green icing and the back half of a 9; reaches out to grab it but Minho pulls it away last-minute, grinning like it’s booby-trapped and he’s just entombed himself. “Ah, ah,” he taunts.
The floor might as well rumble. The door feels like it widens, and Jonghyun wants to slam it shut and barricade himself away. To shake off Minho and his delicious curse. Or not – he’s got half a mind to throttle him and steal the goods, in need of the pick-me-up.
Minho makes it more tempting; meerkats over his shoulder and his twitching arm to the shadows Jonghyun’s been reacquainting himself with, the ones bouncing between his walls, trapped behind closed windows and shuttered blinds.
“You’re not coming in.”
“Fine by me.”
“I’m serious.”
Minho looks it, too, and it’s only when he pulls back – still holding just as fast as Jonghyun in his doorway, intent on wrenching away his last bastion of peace – that Jonghyun registers his outfit. The waterproof coat. The daypack slung over one shoulder.
“No.”
He does close the door then, for real, but it’s on Minho’s stubborn, huge, boot-armoured foot.
Inwangsan isn’t worth the cake. It’s a wet morning and the path up is soggy and slippy with mulch, decaying petals trodden over and over into dirt, and the chill seeps through Jonghyun’s soles, makes him miserable. Minho strides ahead the entire way, too quick for Jonghyun to do more than clamber after him, head bowed like it’s a school trip. No fun allowed. No time to appreciate the verdant treecover, and god forbid they stop and enjoy the mountain air, the sound of birdsong.
The summit’s predictably quiet. Jonghyun dives for the lowest, flattest rock, needles in his throat, and rejoices in Minho’s crinkle crinkle of descent from the viewpoint.
“You wanna eat?” Minho asks, his first vocalisation in thirty-odd minutes and not too dissimilar to a turtle dove so Jonghyun almost misses it, ignoring it until the bag’s dangling before him. He looks up, then. “I brought paper plates.”
“Not hungry.”
“Don’t be precious.”
He doesn’t budge when Minho sits down heavy, just shoves his shoulder in complaint. Bony, annoying. That’s all Minho’s good for being, he thinks, and then watches him unzip the daypack, and then takes the boricha-filled peace offering, and okay. Maybe he’s being too harsh.
The tea does its best to soften him; tries to comfort away his clinging frost and successfully restores his circulation, the movement in his fingers, his sense of touch and all the rest. Seoul looks better in miniature. Lego-block skyscrapers peek over the horizon, surrounded by lush greenery and hills that spread lazy like the morning fog. Closer, on the mountainside, forsythia shrubs sway golden in the wind, and when the clouds finally part their branches seem to stretch in joy, the flowers tilting dew-glossy faces to the light.
Jonghyun sprawls his legs out and leans back on his hands, inviting in his own share of sun. He lets himself imagine, briefly, that the rays could penetrate him; that they might be able to catch on the gloom and rot inside him and burn it up, leave him cleaner.
“Hey. Grandpa.”
His eye cracks open to Minho’s outstretched arm, the cake box at the end of it that’s missing its lid, held far too close to his face for comfort. Wary, he straightens, and Minho snorts.
“You know I’d’ve done it by now.”
“You think I’m stupid—”
Sudden, sticky cold on his cheek. Jonghyun smooths out his surprise, and the icing moves with his skin.
Minho’s laugh is grating enough that even the sparrows in the nearby trees turn tail and wing at it. “Too easy,” he wheezes, and then licks his finger with a smack so obscene Jonghyun has to actively suppress the urge to throw him off the mountain with the birds. “Mmmmh, ‘s good. Vanilla.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Uh-uh,” said with his tongue half out, “and coconut inside.”
“Revolutionary.”
Jonghyun’s not trying to be a downer but he hears himself, his exhaustion bubbling out, maybe because of the altitude. Minho’s, “Aigoo,” too, and when he sees his friend’s lips downturned he wipes off the mess in a rush; tastes it and hums, overly appreciative; then reaches for the box and moves it into his own lap, cutting two messy slices, and it is nice. It’s nice to be thought about. Minho’s nice in his predictability, always understanding him, buying his favourite cake year after year, knowing when to push and when to let go and in what order.
Still, he slept badly, and he’s pissed about the wet that’s seeping through his track pants, so he waits til Minho’s mouth is full before giving in. “I wasn’t ignoring you. It wasn’t that. Just wasn’t in the mood. Kept it quiet this week, did some meditation. About time I thought. Thanks,” and he nods to his paper plate, “cake for breakfast, gonna rot my teeth.”
The quiet’s a comfort. Only distant chirping and Minho’s plastic fork scraping, the soft sound of his chewing. Only his inside voices champing for release now he’s outside the city walls. So far removed. If he left them here, they’d float away, maybe.
“‘S been a weird time or whatever. No point getting into it. You know.”
He thinks, briefly, it’d be easier if he really did know, because no one’s seen him through more character-building events. No-one’s given more post-rejection pep-talks or hyped up more horrible dye jobs or carried him home incoherent more times. Nothing’s phased Minho. But Jonghyun’s never been quite this disappointed in himself, and he doesn’t need double the judgement, catatonic as he already is.
Just his luck then, that Minho – meddling, oblivious Minho – picks that moment to push. “I thought you hated your job.”
“I did.”
“Then?” He elbows Jonghyun in the arm, the one holding his untouched slice, and Jonghyun picks up his fork, eats. “There must be more to it.” Flattens, pushes around, stalls. Re-loads. Oblivious, oblivious, oblivious. “Is something going on?”
Jonghyun’s heard that before: the same words in the same voice, and they make him just as queasy as the first time. He lies again but it’s bigger now, less convincing with the sun on his slumped shoulders, getting in his eyes.
“So there’s no reason you go all weird and stiff whenever I ask how you are?”
“No I don’t,” Jonghyun says, weird and stiff.
“Or why you shot off last weekend—hold on—after you locked yourself in my bathroom to take a phone call?”
Ah, fuck. He forgot about that. “You creep,” and Minho looks at him evil. Stabs a piece of cake in triumph.
“Didn’t even have to. C’mon, hyung, give me some credit. You always get like this, all,” he waves his loaded fork in the air, “moony, god. And on your birthday too. Fuck her. Seriously. Fresh air’ll do you good, dry you out a bit. You probably needed it. Was she hot at least?”
“It’s not like that.” But Minho stops chewing; gives him this look, exasperated from under his brow, and okay. Okay. And Jonghyun hates it – how Minho’s figured it out and he didn’t even have to say anything. How the sky faired and the flowers unfurled and the birds warble and the whole universe knows, everything and everyone, except the one person who should. “Yeah, she was.”
“Show me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? You’re lying. Yah, don’t lie for her now. Forget about her.” Minho kisses his teeth and shakes his head, looking out at the horizon, and Jonghyun lets himself exhale relief. “On your birthday, shit. You’re right, I don’t wanna know.”
“I’m the one who messed it up.”
“Doesn’t matter, and I told you, you don’t have to lie.”
If only he didn’t. He takes another bite of his favourite cake – the tenth one in as many years, always the same because he’s been. That steady, predictable, precarious life he’d built and ruined for himself. Sitting on a mountain now with a best friend who wouldn’t recognise him. Who’s moving lightyears ahead of him.
“You still like peach?”
Who’s leaning forward now with arm outstretched, taking and offering Jonghyun the thermos without looking, and Jonghyun accepts it, unscrews the lid. He knows Minho does. Four months since he got him the best saeng cream cake of his life. One year and four months since he got him the second best. “This about the girl? Or you trying to let me down easy?”
“No, no. The cake’s good.” Jonghyun peers into his cup and blows steam out of it; feels the condensation warm on his chin and Minho’s smile spearing his cheek, and it forces his mouth open again. “I lied to you. I got fired months ago. I’ve been dog-sitting, she’s a client. Don’t.”
“Didn’t say anything.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
Minho hums. Stays mum otherwise, until he bumps Jonghyun’s shoulder and spills his tea, and then he’s apologising, sorry, genuine as if Jonghyun hadn’t frozen again, and like dragging him here to melt down hadn’t been the whole point.
“Don’t you think so?” Jonghyun presses.
“Moping after your client? Trick question, hyung. Come on now.”
“I mean the job.”
Minho frowns towards his coat. He’s wiping and wiping the spill with his waterproof sleeve, doing nothing but spreading around the mess that’s there and making it bigger. “No,” he starts, quiet, then halts his efforts, shakes out his wet hand. He’s louder when he looks Jonghyun in the eye. “Why would it be? A job’s a job. You like it?”
Jonghyun shrugs, heavy and creaking.
“You good for cash?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. Good, then. ‘S good.”
Something about Minho offering turns Jonghyun inward, sets his teeth on edge. He stiffens like the rock they’re on and draws his shoulders up; keeps them there, even with the sun-warmed wind and even when he tries with all his strength to force them back down, and it feels important, whatever’s stirred and then scurried itself away, so he digs for it. Pick, pick, pick.
It’s not just the money, because he’s telling the truth, there’s enough of it. Rent gets covered and then some now. It’s been slow progress. It’s still not as much as his old salary. There’s still the share coming from Kibum, too; reminder of his weakness and how far he’d sunk, how far’s still to go. The debt he’d tried to settle that’s only piling on, and he’s not sure he’ll ever surface from it.
Now Minho bearing down on him as well, too close but he always was. And it’s how it’s supposed to be – and Jonghyun has to remind himself, clink and shear around the memory til it’s loose enough to pry out, to hold gleaming in both hands – wiping messes that can’t be fixed, only left to dry, but doing it for each other. Pushing and following and taking and asking without fear of consequence. Lifting up and lifting out and leaving alone, sparing with blind eyes and deaf ears but waiting. Knowing someone and giving back the favour and the lightness of it. He’d almost forgotten.
“Feels like I’m too old for this. Like I fucked things up for myself.”
“Listen to yourself.” Minho lets Jonghyun take a sip then reaches out to steady his cup, pouring it fresh with that life-giving tea, not a drop spilled this time. “And look at yourself.” Fingers pinch the lycra sheathing Jonghyun’s arm, gentler than a dove’s beak. “You look good. Fit. All this muscle ‘cause you’ve got the time for it. ‘Cause of the dogs, right?”
“Nothing else to do,” he half-truths.
“Well better the gym than you-know-where. Haven't called me in a while, I noticed.”
“Been trying to cut down.”
“I think you needed the change.”
Not in the way Minho means, or thinks he means. It’s Kibum he’s talking about. Kibum Jonghyun’s working out for and trying not to drunk call. Kibum who’s keeping him late, out of trouble, working with him through what he can’t alone. Kibum who started the change and the reason it stuck.
And now – Kibum nudging him up one last peak and Jonghyun digging his heels in before he’s reached the top. Before he’s seen the view on the other side because he’s scared to look at it, even though it’s true. He is doing better, isn’t he? Exhausted as he is. Hopeless as he’s felt. Ungrateful as he’s been, because it’s a wonder Kibum bothered, with all his kicking and his screaming. It’s a wonder Kibum waited at all.
But he did. And he still is. And Jonghyun has to remind himself.
He rubs his bicep with a teacup-warm palm and tips back the comfort Minho’s offered him. Looks to the clear sky and then down at the city, livelier now, the colours a little brighter.
“Are you free after this?”
“Depends,” Minho says, “on who’s asking,” but changes his tune when Jonghyun scowls at him. “All day. Where to next?”
Minho gives his idiot a pass because it’s mumbled too fondly. The supermarket, though, makes him lament:
“God, hyung, you really are ancient,”
and it’s Jonghyun cackling this time, scaring away the birds.
*
Jonghyun’s eaten far more jjukkumi than he’s cooked, but he knows there’s no better month for it than April. He buys a geun of it, frozen so the meat’s tender, in hopes it wins him Kibum back.
He prepares everything the night before. First, he thaws the octopuses into a sticky pile in his fridge. When they’re limp enough to handle he takes scissors to their eyes, then twists their heads off in succession, poking his fingers into tender flesh to scoop out their tiny, clinging guts. The mouths he does last – hidden, nestled tight between the legs, but unpleasant and distracting if left alone. The dish needs to be perfect; needs to go down smooth and fill Kibum like the clams and the pasta did him, so they can be even.
He takes his time kneading out the impurities. In a bowl, he sprinkles the jjukkumi with flour and sea salt and rubs it between his knuckles, wringing the tentacles, squeezing out murky grey then emptying it; again from the beginning then, and again, and again, until the water’s clear and the bodies move soft and easy in his grip. Only when he’s turned over every inch of them for inspection, made sure every suction cup’s clear of sand, does he let himself move on to the marinade. Extra sweet of course, for Kibum’s palate. Extra gochugaru because he handles heat well and wants to show off, and besides that, he wants to see Kibum sweat.
It seems like a good plan until he’s in Kibum’s kitchen, tap-tap-tapping the counter to his heart’s thudding and checking the clock like it might grow legs and bolt. Any second now, and the fan’s on, whirring loud and sucking in the rice steam greedily. Any second—and Jonghyun swipes his Tupperware box up as soon as he hears the key in the door, tips the octopus pieces into the frying pan, and then the only noise is the sizzling.
“Hey.” And Kibum’s voice, quiet beneath. “You’re cooking?”
Jonghyun mhms but doesn’t turn, too busy stirring and a little desperate; the heat’s too high so he lowers it, but he’s singed the meat some. Not awfully. There’s another box of it. It’s fine, it’s fine, until Kibum’s beside him, distracting in his peripheral.
“Smells delicious.”
At least he doesn’t sound mad that Jonghyun’s using, maybe ruining?, his fancy kitchenware, but he’s far too close after two weeks of forced distance. Right there, and Jonghyun’s spent the time sitting with his thoughts, clearing them out, stringing them together in ways that fit, but Kibum’s sending them all scattering, breathing down his neck like this. Far too close. “Few more minutes.”
“Can I help?”
“The table’s all set.”
“You’re in my kitchen, though.”
Jonghyun bites his tongue and thinks that’s the end of it, until Kibum’s hand’s on his hip, and then he tastes metal; stiffens at the touch and over the pan with the steam billowing in his face, reddening it, surely, and all the time his mouth throbs.
“It’s still too hot,” Kibum says, punctuates it with a squeeze. “Let me,” so Jonghyun tilts his hips back, makes the gap just big enough. Lets him.
Kibum sits after that. Jonghyun plates up licking his teeth, his sharp incisors, curling underneath and pressing along the edges. One portion’s enough he decides; the second box he puts in the fridge for Kibum, in the space on the bottom shelf.
The table’s full of side dishes already – supermarket-bought pickles, radish salad, and blanched spinach and soybeans tossed with Kibum’s stolen seasonings – and Jonghyun sets the stir-fried jjukkumi in the centre, between two bowls of cucumber soup. “Enjoy,” he says when he sits, staring at the spread rather than Kibum, unmoving Kibum. Kibum who’s been in his dreams and left on read on his phone. Kibum, not eating across from him.
Jonghyun picks up his chopsticks with a gentle clink. Did he use the wrong tablewear? Was Kibum expecting an empty apartment? Or maybe he’s not hungry – Jonghyun didn’t even ask.
“Seafood,” he says with a hand around his cold soup, his gaze lowering to it. He crosses his ankles beneath his seat. “You said you liked it.”
Scrape of ceramic, and Jonghyun dares to peek up then, to watch Kibum without the weight of attention reciprocated. He takes in mesh sleeves rolled to the elbows and careful hands pressing bowl snug against mouth, corner to corner; the way Kibum’s lips purse, disappear behind the rim and reappear, part for his tongue to chase residue and then to let words out. “Are you feeling better now?”
“Huh?”
“You were sick.”
“Oh, right. It went away. How is it?” Kibum nods, but doesn’t drink again, so Jonghyun lifts his own bowl. Winces. “Too much salt, sorry.”
“I like it. I missed you, you know.”
“Try the octopus before it gets cold.”
This isn’t how it’s meant to go. Kibum’s not supposed to slump as he’s eating and frown as he chews, and Jonghyun’s not supposed to taste char and apologise for that, too, another thing he’d tried to do but couldn’t, mistake after mistake under the same roof.
Kibum’s not supposed to chastise him, stop saying sorry, but it’s good he does, because it filters through the empty words to the full ones churning his stomach. In thanks, he allows Kibum a few more bites before he speaks them, padding to help his digestion.
“I wasn’t sick,” when he’s sure there’s nothing in Kibum’s mouth. “I lied, I was avoiding you.”
He needn’t have worried. “Ah,” is all Kibum says, and then feeds himself a slice of radish.
“’Ah?’ Is that all?”
“Did you enjoy the chicken soup?”
Another radish. Crunch, crunch. Swallow. “Was it really leftovers?”
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t have.”
“What about this.” Kibum points his chopsticks at the table, waving them in a vague circle. Pokes his tongue in his cheek as he does and Jonghyun watches it til it disappears, and then feels caught, and then remembers what he’s here for. “What about all this? I wanted to make you food.”
“I asked because it’s what I wanted. Seafood, you said, when I asked.”
“You know that wasn’t what I meant.”
Of course he does. They’re getting to it, now, and there’s that knot again, rising from Jonghyun’s guts and sticking in his throat. He coughs around it, speaks despite it, tight and unnatural in sound and feeling. “I’m trying. It’s not so easy.”
“Do you think I’ll judge you?”
“It’s not that.”
Kibum could tell him no. He could get it over with, if Jonghyun spits out what he really wants and what he pictures when he’s alone, but that would hurt the most, he thinks. Being wrong. Getting out and there being no way back in. Losing what he’s starving for.
Imagining the other answer gives him indigestion so he stops eating; listens to Kibum chewing instead and it sharpens his silence, brings him close again to cowering under it. Desperate to escape, he reaches forward, doing with his body what his words can’t, fingers brushing Kibum’s outstretched arm.
“Can I?”
A nod, and Jonghyun hesitates until Kibum flips it sensitive-side up, offering the branching veins, more than Jonghyun had asked for.
“I want the rope back.” He’s gentle tracing them. Kibum barely flinches; keeps eating the charred octopus while Jonghyun maps him for the first time and marvels at the softness of his skin, the warmth of the blue. He goes all the way to the delicate lines at the bottom and skirts them, tapping the fat just below, the beginning of Kibum’s palm, and Kibum stays still. Crunches another radish. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I want to. I’ll do what you say. Let me prove it.”
Kibum doesn’t say anything. Jonghyun thinks he hears his chewing slow, maybe, so he sucks in air, firms his voice.
“Tell me to cook for you. Tell me to clean your clothes. Tell me to send you pictures.”
“You can have the rope.”
Jonghyun bows his head. “Thank you,” he says, and feels a hollowing in his stomach, Kibum’s half-answer burrowing in and not quite filling, until he speaks again.
“What else?”
It’s not the rejection Jonghyun thought it was, but it’s not the other thing. He presses the fleshy part of Kibum’s thumb and watches for movement – a reflex, the bending or straightening of digits – and when nothing happens, he pinches it and leaves marks, crescent-shaped like the supine hand.
“Take something from me.” Harder, he pinches. “Anything. Anything you want. If you ask. If you don’t. I’ll still give you it.”
“Anything,” Kibum echoes him, and curls fingers and nails up against his thin skin as he does, barely there and overstimulating because of it. When Jonghyun tries to withdraw though, Kibum’s faster, reaching forward to pin his wrist. “Try again.”
He stares at Kibum’s pink knuckles. Feels hot, too hot, claustrophobic under his searing palm. Twitches. “I can’t.” Twitches again, jostles the knuckles. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
No sound of chewing. Sucking in breath makes him dizzy, so he focuses on Kibum touching his hand. On the weight of Kibum’s hand on his.
“If you wanted more, I’d give you it.” Kibum’s fingers on his wrist, squeezing. “I want to.”
“More of what?”
Isn’t it obvious Jonghyun bites back because he knows it is. Tests Kibum’s grip with a tentative finger that tries and can’t move so he gives in, pressed against the table with no other way to go than into Kibum’s scorching heat.
“My time. My body.”
Kibum lets go, and Jonghyun stays put.
“I do,” Kibum replies.
The whorls in the table wood twist and spin. Jonghyun does, too, foggy and delirious and all the things he shouldn’t be without a mouthful of spicy jjukkumi or Kibum’s touch. All the things he’s always been with Kibum looking at him, only looking, but under his skin despite it, burrowing in with time stretched desperate. With space and lack and spun jute.
Out of sight, Kibum demands his attention back with a burning press of the knee. “Are you listening? Look at me,” and when Jonghyun does he pushes with intent, and Jonghyun’s legs can only part to let him in. “We want the same thing, don’t we? Ask me nicely.”
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Use me,” Jonghyun grits out like Kibum’s not, pressing two kneecaps now into him, putting him where they both want him, open and easy and it would be easy like this, no words of reassurance to unearth and waste time polishing clear. “Please,” he adds, just desperation so Kibum knows that’s what he is, and it lowers Kibum’s eyes to the wood that covers him.
Kibum doesn’t let him cross his legs. “You want to be my toy,” he says for him, “don’t you? Don’t be shy. Use my body, Kibum-ah. Just ask like that.”
He holds firm when Jonghyun flexes his thighs, and while he squirms in his seat, elated and embarrassed at the same time, until he does ask. With hot cheeks and a mouth like coal, he asks. Dirty and steaming before Kibum makes it worse; drenches him in cold water like he’s good at doing and turns his thoughts to vapour.
“Look what you did to me, Kibum-ah. How I get. Let me show you. Is that what you pictured?”
Just past the flimsy tabletop, Jonghyun pulses. “Kibum-ah.”
“That’s it, tell me how to play with you.”
He’s tried. He has. It won’t come out; not ever. Not now.
Kibum knows this so he swallows his frustration. Jonghyun sees him do it, picking again at the cooled-down plate, the meal that’s hardly eaten – no matter, there’s that box in the fridge, his thank you and his sorry and his please, please – and chewing through one mouthful and then another, and pausing at the third one. Turning his hand, leaning across the table with it. Jonghyun opens his mouth.
“What if,” Kibum says, soothing steel against Jonghyun’s sensitive lips, watching as they close and after tugging the chopstick ends free, “you wrote it all down? Would that be easier?”
He might’ve answered differently. Were Kibum’s spit not sweetening his tongue, or Kibum’s hand not readying a second bite, withholding it, stubbornness to rival his own, he might’ve.
He’s hungry, though. He’s been hungry for a while.
“Yeah,” he says, “maybe,” and grinds apart the clinging tentacles to swallow them; smiles through the fire in his mouth, his throat, kindling in his belly.