Chapter Text
The truth is
I am a toy that people enjoy 'til all of the tricks don't work anymore
And then they are bored of me
I know that it's exciting running through the night
But every perfect summer's eating me alive
Jisung peels one eye open and lets it adjust to the light in the room. His computer is asleep right where he left it, by his side, over the bed, little light flashing red. He stares at it while, slowly and rather reluctantly, he becomes aware of who he is and where he is. After a few moments, he shifts so he can peel his other eye open. Now he’s under the subtle impression that it’s way past three in the afternoon, but who knows, really; the blinds are down and the outside world still feels very much like a dream at the moment.
School taught him a very simple fact: getting out of bed early in the morning is exhausting. And no, getting more than eight hours of sleep never makes a fucking difference. His mother suggested that he should avoid drinking caffeine in the evenings and being on his phone before bed time. But, when he tried it, it didn’t work either. Whenever his alarm went off, he was never in the mood to get up. And that went on for years, until high school ended and Jisung got to pick his own schedule.
A couple more moments pass. Seconds, perhaps even minutes. Jisung starts analyzing his flow of thoughts like he’s reading the morning paper, which is how he remembers that he fell asleep watching ‘ Keeping Up with the Kardashians ’. He immediately pulls a face. No wonder his brain feels numb. Then again, numb is better than what follows; full-on panic.
It’s today, he realises.
Suddenly, as if there’s an emergency, as if sleeping just became a dangerous thing, Jisung feels his body wake up. His first instinct is to pull the bedcovers over his head and curl into a ball, but he just sighs and sits up, looking around the dark, messy room before slamming his laptop shut and throwing the covers back so he can get out of bed.
He picks up a t-shirt from the pile of t-shirts his mother dumped by his door the other day and pulls it on over his head, before dragging the door of his bedroom open. Now, he buffers. He lazily turns to squint at his bathroom door by his left and considers his bladder. But then his brain beeps him to turn right and go downstairs to get food.
As usual, Mrs. Han is not in her bedroom; she’s splayed like a starfish on the floor of the living room, TV tuned to VH1, wine bottles displayed in a summoning circle. Jisung walks closer and pokes his mother cheek with his toe, and leans down when she doesn’t budge. He picks up the empty bottles and then turns around to take them to the kitchen.
“You should put some pants on,” he mumbles to his mother. His voice gets muffled by the sound of the glass recycling trash can that he drags from under the counter and, then, by the unmerciful crash of bottles crashing against glass bottles. Recycling can be quite painful to the ears. But hey, you’re welcome, Mother Earth.
“You should get a better job,” his mother grumbles from the living room.
“Blablabla, do you want a garlic cheese toast?” Jisung asks as he opens the cupboards to bring out the sliced bread and the butter. His mother grunts something that’s probably a ‘ yes ’, so Jisung quietly gets the rest of the ingredients and tries not to make too much noise with the blender.
While the toasts bake ‘until bubbly and crisp!’, Jisung makes himself a cup of coffee and throws a vitamin fizzy tablet into a glass of water that he places on the coffee table in the living room. His mother, still pantless and barely awake, reaches for the glass and chugs it down in one go. Hmm, practiced, are we?
“Where did you go?” she asks, then, and it takes Jisung a frown and a moment to realise she means ‘this weekend’.
“Nothing much. Went to the cinema on, uhm, Friday and then slept through the entirety of Saturday, I think…” He scratches his arm, a little up the sleeve of his t-shirt, and turns to walk back to the kitchen to get his coffee. “Where did you go? I feel like you’re right where I left you last time we spoke.”
“Don’t really remember,” his mother mumbles, reaching for one of the blankets strewn over the couch and pulling it over her lap.
“Hm. I’m… I’m getting paid next Wednesday.”
“Good, good,” she nods. She still has make up on; black mascara, smudged under her eyes and making her look like a raccoon. “We need… Food. Bread. Milk. Shit like that.”
“Mm’kay,” Jisung says. He takes a sip of his coffee and then opens the oven to peek at their breakfast. Hm, that smells really fucking good. “Can you make me a list?”
“Later,” she says, leaning forward and resting her elbow on the table, hand on her forehead. Jisung glances at her forearm. He can’t see much from this far away but... The mark is entirely gone, now .
“You’ll forget,” he tells her, looking away and reaching for a mitten. He brings the tray out of the oven and places it over the counter. He knows he should know better, but by the time the thought crosses his mind, it’s too late, he’s already reaching for one of the toasts with his bare hand. He shoves it across the kitchen so fast it looks like a miniature paper plane. “Fucking…” Ow!
Thankfully, he made more than two.
What does it feel like to work at night at a gas station? Well, it’s a graveyard shift, for starters, but it’s not bad- bad. Jisung doesn’t really do any hard work. He spends most of his time sitting down, looking through his phone, and only gets the occasional customer. Generally, people just want gas which means they only have to come up to the night-pay-window and slide over the money. However, there’s the occasional lost soul who’ll want to come inside, either to look through whatever is available or to quietly get something they’d rather not talk about. So, for those people, and because Jisung hates walking back and forth to get indecisive people what they want, he leaves the door open even though he’s supposed to leave it closed.
His shift is from 11PM to 7AM. He comes in when the night walkers are on their way to the clubs and then shares the walk of shame with them on the way home. Yes, yes, yes, he knows about the cons; workplace boredom, familial or relationship conflicts, possible negative effects on health, unnatural routine—Honestly, it’s literally a shopping list. Just writing ‘cons of working at night’ on Google lists about all the things people remember to tell him whenever he says he works the graveyard shift at a gas station in the middle of Brooklyn. But hey! He’s happy. He feels a lot more independent, considering he doesn’t have to justify himself whenever he farts in an empty room. He has a lot of free time during the day to do day-time things. There’s a lesser liability towards attending meetings. And wow, the silence. Never underestimate the silence.
Still, gas stations and convenience stores are like a magnet for strange people and even stranger occurrences. Naturally, these strange situations often happen late at night, giving Jisung and whoever covers his shift every Friday and Saturday a VIP ticket to meet all the weirdos Brooklyn has to offer. Especially now that the school year is drawing to a close and there will be a lot more young idiots with nothing to do but make Jisung’s nights a lot more interesting.
Speaking of general education; Jisung used to go to High School with a guy called Adam Schwarts. Adam is your average jock, with more balls than brain cells, who used to call Jisung ‘short-shit’ and shove him into the closest locker if they passed each other in the hallway. Jisung hasn’t thought about Adam Schwarts for two years, considering that’s how long he’s been out of High School ( thank god ) and had absolutely no reason to recall the man. Until now, when he walks into the gas station convenience store with probably the prettiest human being Jisung has seen in real life.
It’s then, as Jisung stands up for no reason whatsoever and shoves his phone into the back pocket of his black jeans, that his eyes drop down to give him a full view of the underside of his forearm and the long-ass row of numbers that have finally reached zero. Oh. Oh fuck, is the first thing that comes to mind. Jisung’s heart is suddenly so tight and he can’t help but recall all the mornings he’s been having for the past couple of months. Not that he doesn’t have the ‘occasional’ panic attack every other month but… It’s never been this consistent. And it all began when he realised his ‘countdown’ was nearly done.
Jisung’s eyes move back up so fast that he has to grab onto the counter. Dizzy… Wait, is he blushing? Probably. Or maybe he’s just really pale right now. He can’t really tell. He peeks at the stranger that’s accompanying Adam in between the shelves and then immediately looks down, pursing his lips together.
Technically, Jisung doesn’t have to care. He doesn’t have to do anything about it. Many people go about their lives without doing anything about it and they’re perfectly fine. Of course they do it as a form of rebellion against the universe, et cetera, but… they’re not unhappy. So, technically, Jisung could just… let it go. The thought makes it somehow easier to breathe. So, he takes advantage of the sudden calm to… Well, yes, stare.
The stranger who’s accompanying Adam Schwarts is wearing a soft-looking pink, short-sleeved button up, tucked into high-waisted black dress pants. He’s Asian, and Jisung thinks he might even be Korean. He’s almost as tall as Adam which means he’s taller than Jisung. His hair is blonde, long-ish, and... For a second, Jisung thinks it’s just the harsh light of gas station convenience stores, but no, there’s definitely glitter on the guy’s face, around his eyes. His lips are red and squishy and… Well, Jisung has no idea how he’s supposed to talk to someone who looks like that. There must have been some mistake. His countdown is broken, it has to be. There’s no way—
There’s a loud sound and Jisung startles, realising the blonde guy he’s been staring at bumped into one of the shelves and sent a couple of things (energy drinks, mostly) crashing to the floor. Wait. Is he drunk?
Jisung glances down for a moment and swallows before looking back up and making his way out from behind the counter. “Are you okay?” he asks the guy, who is already crouched down to pick things up.
“Y—Yeah,” he says, eyes on a few drinks now in his hands like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “Sorry, I was just… walking, I think...”
“Uhm…” Jisung frowns and walks closer. “Right. Just… hand me those, I’ll put them back.”
The guy pouts, eyes moving up to lock onto his. Hm… Jisung sometimes wondered if this would feel different than just looking into any other person’s eyes. And maybe it does, or maybe it’s just… Pretty boys being pretty boys being cute. Is he feeling anything? Other than the alcohol in his system, that is. If he is, he doesn’t say anything, just holds out the drinks for Jisung to take and gives him a slight heart attack when their hands brush. This is fine .
Jisung just gives the guy a small smile and then busies himself with putting everything back, only side-glancing at Adam when he walks closer and then stops to… Stare? Glare? Who knows. But his first instinct is apparently to walk over and yank the blonde guy up by the arm. Which… Fucking rude.
“Jesus, you didn’t break anything, did you?”
“It’s fine,” Jisung immediately says, putting the last can where it belongs and giving Adam a small smile. “Hey, long time no see.”
“I’m sorry,” the blonde guy mumbles just as Adam takes a minute to remember where Jisung knows him from.
Bullies. You might remember them but they always forget you. And it’s really sad because ten years later you’ll be in bed hating them for shit that still eats at you and they won’t care. You’ll be picturing murdering them in a thousand different ways and they don’t even remember your face anymore, if they ever did.
“Oh, shit . Didn’t I push you around in High School?” he laughs, reaching over to give Jisung a hard pat on the shoulder. “So this is where you ended up, huh?”
Jisung gestures around. “I guess you were right all along, huh?” he jokes, turning to walk back behind the counter. Small talk, here we go. I fucking hate this. “Do you still live here or did you move?”
“Living on campus,” Adam says, walking over to the counter and putting down two bottles of water, a bag of jelly babies, a bag of cheese doritos and a box of Oreos. Romantic .
“Cool,” Jisung chirps, quite uninterested. If only his heart wasn’t beating so fast… then, he’d be able to look as uninterested as he wishes he could. My anxiety is getting the best of me right now.
“What do you want?” Adam asks the still unnamed blonde guy, who is swaying slightly by his side. He looks up at that, eyes big and going between Adam and Jisung, before looking past him.
“Oh, er,” the guy thinks, frowning small. “I don’t… care. Whatever you want.”
Adam huffs and reaches for his wallet. “Lube. Nothing flavored, and Trojan, ribbed, large.”
Jisung knows he’s just entered a pause. He’s staring, mouth slightly agape, brain buffering while it speeds up to process the information he was just given. The blonde guy seems to notice, and giggles softly. Then again, the joke is sort of lost on him. Jisung should be the one laughing because, well, of course this was how it was going to happen.
“You got a problem?” Adam asks gruffly.
“Huh?” Jisung blinks. Now he’s throwing back to high school times. “No.” He looks back over his shoulder and reaches for the lube and then scans his eyes through the colourful row of condom packs to find the one Adam asked for. “Here…”
“M’gonna—” the blonde guy says, gesturing vaguely even as he starts walking away. “Wait in the car…”
Jisung catches himself before he makes a stupid sound of protest, following the guy with his eyes until Adam gets in the way and Jisung is forced to look at him instead. Oh, come on! Fuck off!
“Good, huh?” Adam grins, smacking two twenty dollar bills onto the counter.
What? Jisung knows he’s blushing now. He just hopes Adam can’t see it. “Oh, I guess…” Jisung shrugs, taking the bill as he registers the items. “Does… Does he have a name? I’ve never seen him around.”
Adam shrugs. “Everyone has a name, so he probably does, too.”
Jisung huffs a laugh and finger-guns at Adam with one hand without looking at him. “Uh-huh, got me there, aha.” Ribbed… Does that feel good up an ass? Isn’t it like… Too much? Just food for thought. Just food for thought.
“No idea, though,” Adam shrugs again. “I’d ask him but he’s probably too high to remember his own name,” he laughs.
That’s rape, Jisung thinks while he stuffs the plastic bag with everything the guy bought. “You better make him breakfast come morning,” he says when he places a two dollar bill over the counter. “There…”
“ You can make him breakfast when you fuck him,” Adam says, taking the plastic bag.
“Oh, that’s allowed?” Jisung jokes.
Adam shrugs. “Don’t think there’s any guy he hasn’t fucked. You should come to my next party and try for yourself.”
Jisung lets his eyes wander awkwardly, in that way people do when they’re really trying not to be rude or get punched in the face but can’t help looking low-key judgemental. “Hm… Maybe I will,” he says, dropping his gaze to the counter and sitting down. “Is it at your place?”
“Yep,” Adam says. “Just don’t be lame, okay? Call it penance for me being a dick to you in High School or whatever.”
Jisung laughs. Mostly because there’s a really funny joke swimming inside his head, something to do with dicks and being a literal bisexual mess. “Uh-huh… Bye…” Jisung huffs, lifting his hand to wave vaguely at Adam.
Outside, inside a black car, the blonde guy is smiling to himself, forehead against the window and eyes far away. Jisung doesn’t know why his heart aches, suddenly. He’s not in love, no. He doesn’t even know this person. They barely talked and apparently the guy was barely conscious of his surroundings. But… he’s beautiful. And he is the one person in the entire world that Jisung has been waiting to meet since he was born.
When the car is out of view, Jisung looks down to the counter and sighs. He feels… empty. He’s been full with frustration, curiosity, anxiety, always looking, always wondering, sometimes even dreaming, and now it’s done. Now he has met him. Now there’s no more waiting, nothing to look forward to. Maybe that’s why Jisung’s eyes water a little; whiplash.
He just met his soulmate. And it was the most uneventful thing ever.
“I’m home,” Jisung announces softly as he closes the front door behind him. He always says it when he walks inside, hoping deep in his gut somewhere that he’ll hear an answer from someone other than his mother. As usual, though, he’s met with silence. And then a soft gurgle that could very well be a broken pipe but is actually Mrs. Han.
Despite it being morning, the place is as dark as it usually is. Jisung kicks his sneakers into a corner and moves further into the house, peeking into the living room and sighing when he sees his mother passed out over the coffee table. He places his backpack down and walks closer, picking up the blanket over the couch on the way and then moving it over her shoulders.
“Hey,” Jisung tries in a whisper, “Don’t you want me to take you to bed…?”
His mom whimpers softly and nods. She rarely nods. She never nods, so…
So, Jisung tries his best to pick her up. She’s weak so she can’t cling to him, but he holds her up and stumbles around as he tries to get upstairs. He has to pause and lean against the wall at least three times. He isn’t exactly the fittest guy on Earth and, despite his mom’s fragile state, she’s quite heavy, especially when she’s this drunk. But, after what feels like an eternity and was actually just ten minutes, Jisung is pulling the bedcovers over his mother and kissing her ‘goodnight’.
To many people, this might seem like something unnatural, unbalanced. But for eighteen years this woman tried her utmost to raise a child on her own, all the while struggling with a bunch of shit, including a broken heart. Jisung likes to think that, given the circumstances, he turned out quite alright. So, he doesn’t really mind that his mother drinks to forget literally every day. She’s never really been a bad mother. There was always food in the house, there was always warm water and paid-for internet for Jisung to keep busy. And, even in her drunkest moments, she still tried to help Jisung with his homework. Now, those were fun times.
Then again, he can’t really tell her… He can’t tell her why he’s sad today. Because she’ll be sad for him, too. So he just stares at her arm, where the big countdown numbers used to be and wonders if it’ll take just as long for the ones on his arm to disappear, too. They always fade, afterall. But the time it takes for them to fade away can also feel like too long. Especially when it doesn’t turn out for the best.
Jisung wishes he could tell her it was a beautiful young man. Somehow, he always imagined himself settling down with a guy. Someone a little taller, a little artistic but not too much because Jisung has an on-going thunder nobody can steal. Someone who’s fun to be around and who can hold a conversation. Someone who doesn’t mind arguing over stupid shit. Someone who loves him. Someone who loves only him. And, perhaps due to trauma, someone who puts them, together, first.
Not all soulmates turn out to be possible romantic partners. But Jisung has always daydreamed about being able to settle down romantically with a soulmate of his own. Not that it was one of those dreams he knew would come true, but it was always something nice to wonder about. Now, he supposes it will just be something he gets to fantasise about. Which is really fucking lame, considering his soulmate is literally either fucking Adam Schwarts or getting fucked by Adam Schwarts at the moment.
Jisung sighs and looks up at the ceiling of his mother’s bedroom. Then, he looks back to all the zeroes tattooed on the back of his forearm. What is he supposed to do now? All his life has been a countdown to that moment that literally passed him by. So, now what?
At least he can take some comfort in the fact that he’s as much of a loser as his mom is, in a cool way, although she’s obviously way cooler than he will ever be. And the thought makes him smile. Because that’s definitely something he can use as an anchor for now.
Slowly and quietly, Jisung steps out of his jeans and wiggles his way in under the covers, shifting closer to the bubble of warmth that is his mother. She reeks of wine but he can pretend he doesn’t really care, which is true, in a way, for now. She might not be conscious enough to give him a motherly hug, but he can always hug her instead. It works, too.
“You didn’t make that list, did you?” Jisung whispers as he closes his eyes. His mother’s hair still smells like shampoo.
“S’in kitchen,” she mumbles, patting him on the hand.
Jisung smiles and lets himself melt. Whispering, “Good girl,” into his mother’s hair.
‘Blinding Lights’ is playing on the laptop, the window is open so the room airs out a little and Jisung is busy trying to catch xanny pills with his mouth. He tosses them up in the air, one by one, and one by one he drops them over the bed. He’s terrible at this.
It’s ten in the morning and Mrs. Han is busy getting ready for another escort job. She’s walked into Jisung’s bedroom ten times already, always wearing something different and eager to get Jisung’s opinion on how she looks. Not that his opinion counts that much…? She’s going to meet up with a man in his fifties, not a young adult slash kid. The generational gap alone is enough to distance opinions. Jisung likes girls who are about his age, who aren’t afraid to get creative but aren’t too wild either, mostly because he’s an introvert who hates having to keep up with people all the fucking time. The man his mother is going to accompany today likes ‘proper’ Christian women who know their place, so that’s the role she’ll have to play.
“What if he finds out you like to drink yourself to sleep?” Jisung questions out loud, over the music, immediately flinching when a pill lands on his forehead. In that exact moment, his mother walks into the bedroom and snorts at him. At least I have comedic value!
“Men like him is the reason I do,” she chirps, then, doing a little spin. She’s wearing a black dress, with a fluffy looking jacket cut above her waist. “I’ve decided.”
“Oooh, looks good,” Jisung enthuses, “You look like a proper lady who finally gave her life to our lord and saviour Jesus Christ!”
“Good, that was part of the brief,” she laughs, walking over to pick up a pill and hold it above his mouth, dropping it in when he opens up.
“I feel babied,” Jisung says, looking at her the way babies look up at their parents.
“You are my baby,” she coos, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. “You’ll be okay tonight, right..?”
“Yes,” Jisung huffs as he lets himself fall back, head landing right in the middle of his pillow, where it’s softer. “And hey,” he points at his mom. “Don’t forget. If they offer you sex you ask ‘for how much’.”
She smacks his arm but laughs.
“No, seriously, I wanna buy a new phone. Look at that,” Jisung gestures vaguely at his very broken iPhone over the bedside table. “I’m scared to touch it.”
“You sleep with old men, then, I have a mortgage to worry about,” she jokes, but Jisung knows she probably just made a mental note to look for deals and sales on phones.
“Shit, you think I’m old people’s type?”
“Of course, you’re gorgeous .”
“Oh, yeah,” Jisung gestures at his face, “A whole fucking Picasso painting, and people pay billions for those, right? But like, seriously. Aren’t older guys only into twinks?”
“Honey, you are a twink.”
Jisung pauses and then lifts his head to give his entire body a look, doubling in chins until his neck hurts and he has to drop his head back onto the pillow. “Aw… Thanks…?”
“Bye bye, baby,” his mother chuckles with a wave as she leaves his room.
“Byeeeeeee-sexual.”
Jisung wakes up just as he rolls onto his side and collapses onto the floor. It’s a loud thud, but even a louder groan. “M’fine, m’fine,” he tells the empty house. “N’body worry ‘bout me…” he adds as he sits up on the floor, eyelids still glued together.
The room feels a bit cold. Then again, Jisung left the window open all day. Did I really manage to sleep through an entire day with the city literally right there? Damn, xanny. He gets up, stumbles to the window and slams it closed before he makes his way to the bathroom.
Another day, another night, and it’s a work night, at that. Jisung spends about forty five minutes taking a shit and letting it cook in the toilet while he contemplates life, and then takes a quick shower before getting ready to go out.
It’s been three days and three nights since he finally met his soulmate, and his life hasn’t changed one fucking bit. At first, Jisung was a bit sad. After so many years fantasising about what that exact moment would be like, he sort of grew expectations. Now? Well, now he’s just… slowly starting to accept that life isn’t ideal. And that maybe he’s just going to be one of those people who will never get to actually develop any sort of relationship with their soulmate. At this point, he was willing to be just friends, even if he expected something more. But is that even possible?
Meh.
At work, Jisung spends some time on his phone, going through a couple of music videos and the occasional vlog. He delves into Kpop for a cultural sip, watches ‘Black Mamba’ at least five times, and then zones out while watching a kitten eating a sausage ASMR style.
It’s way past midnight when someone finally comes in. Now, Jisung knows for a fact that he should not leave the door open and that if people want something they should just come up to the little window. But! As stated before, Jisung can’t be bothered to walk back and forward, especially not when so many people get weirdly picky about the stupidest shit. So… Yeah. He’s not been asking for it, but he isn’t at all surprised when the customer comes up to the counter and pulls out a .45.
“Empty the register,” he orders.
Jisung’s brain isn’t working fast enough today, obviously, so he sort of just… stares. No, you have to understand; this might be America but Jisung had never seen a gun from up close, really. So, he buffers. And while his brain comes to terms with the fact that, despite everything, dying is really a no-no, Jisung realises that… Well…
“I…” He straightens up a little, putting his phone down and lifting his head from this hand. “I can’t open the register unless I scan something so you… gotta buy something first…”
For a few seconds, the robber and Jisung stare at each other in complete and bewildered silence. After that, the robber huffs something under his breath, Jisung thinks it might have been ‘fuck’, and then turns around and walks away, leaving Jisung to sort his own brain out.
Now, here’s the thing. The robber could have just grabbed an item, scanned it, and Jisung could have emptied the register for him, which would probably get him fired. But… Apparently, said robber had fewer brain cells than Jisung.
Huh...
When his brain finally catches up, his heart speeds up like it wants him to run a marathon. Jisung places a palm against his chest and looks around the shop, completely startled, remembering that it might be a good idea to close that door.
Today, Jisung almost died. Or at least that’s what the voices in his head keep telling him. So, he makes a mental note to do something crazy, next. Because why not, right? Now he’s an adrenaline junkie!—Joking, joking. But still…
Jisung wakes up around two in the afternoon the next Friday with Michael Scott screaming inside his head. ‘Oh my god! Okay, it’s happening! Everybody stay calm!’, the brain cell on the left shouts. ‘What’s the procedure everyone? What’s the procedure?!’, the brain cell on the right shouts back. Meanwhile, Jisung is breathing far too fast and his heart is really loud so he rolls out of bed and curls into a ball on the floor.
It’s around 4PM that he realises he sort of made a pool of tears on the carpet. But hey, it’s water, it will dry. So, he drags himself to the bathroom. Does he feel like shit? Yes, of course he does. Does it matter? No. But showers make him feel better so that’s something. He doesn’t really know how he gets from the bathroom to the kitchen, but he seems to wake up the moment he shoves a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
When he looks at his left hand he sees his phone. Oh, that’s handy. So, he goes on Instagram. He finds Adam Schwarts faster than he’d like to admit, and then goes through his profile and looks at a bunch of familiar faces. Oh, Angela is still alive? Cool. It’s mid checking out Angela’s best friend’s Instagram Stories (Her name is Kim Bora, she’s South Korean, but everybody calls her Kim Possible) that Jisung finally finds who he was subconsciously looking for.
He pauses to slurp some milk off his spoon and then nearly chokes on a lucky charm, making a bunch of milk speed up into the highway of canals inside him and come out through his nose. Fucking hell...
“Don’t die on the kitchen counter,” his mother tells him.
Now, Samuel Hwang, or Hwang Hyunjin, has quite the aesthetically pleasing Instagram page. He seems to be your average well-off young adult, with rich parents and far too much free time on his hands. His Instagram Stories get a little more interesting, though. Yes, he seems to have a busy life, a dog that hates him, and a friend for each hour of the day, but he also takes cool night videos, sometimes of the city, sometimes of him and his friends at clubs or hanging out at somebody’s house.
Jisung’s Instagram page has two pictures; the first is of the Brooklyn Bridge, black and white, framed in between buildings; the second is of himself, a picture Changbin took two years ago on their last day of high school. Changbin… haven’t seen that guy in a while. Still, Jisung bravely hits ‘follow’ on Hwang Hyunjin’s Instagram, even though the guy is clearly a fucking model.
Jisung scrolls down his soulmate’s Instagram, trying not to make a big deal of the fact that he’s liking all his pictures, and then takes a break from that to finish his cereal before it gets soggy. When he goes back to giving his undivided attention to Hwang Hyunjin’s Instagram page, however, there’s a new story. It’s a shot of a leg tangled in bedsheets, with the caption ‘gotta get ready for tonight but hmmmm’ floating by the window.
Tonight…? What’s tonight?
“Uhm, hey, mom…?”
“Yes, honey?” his mother asks absentmindedly, she’s been zapping like a champion ever since Jisung spared her a glance a couple of minutes ago.
“Did you need the car for anything today?”
His mother lifts her head to lean back and look at the alcohol cabinet. “Nope,” she decides on. “Why? Are you going somewhere?”
“Dunno yet,” Jisung admits, turning to look at her before looking down at his phone. He didn’t tell her about the incident from the other night. “But I’ll keep you posted.”
The shitty thing about summer is that Jisung really hates having to cover his arms when the atmosphere is this warm, and that means that his ugly-looking soulmate countdown tattoo is always in full display. No one really cares, honestly, no one really bothers to look. Unless… it’s reached zero. Then, yes, people will let their eyes linger a little longer than usual. It’s on the back of Jisung’s forearm, which means strangers will notice it far more often than Jisung does. He used to go days without looking at the thing. But oh, well.
Turns out there’s a party at Kim’s house. So, a couple of push-ups and sit ups later, after finding out about the gathering, Jisung takes another shower and puts on something a little nicer (as in, a t-shirt that doesn’t have holes in it or doesn’t look at least fifty years old). He parts his hair sideways and styles it up and a little backwards, away from his face, and finds a decent pair of jeans.
The family car is a silly-looking grey Fiat 500. Jisung doesn’t drive often because he’s fucking terrified of cars, but the sky has gathered a couple of clouds and it’s been threatening to rain all afternoon. He tries not to think too much about what he’s doing while he drives around town. Of course he procrastinates showing up at that party, and stops by the closest 7-Eleven to get a slurpy.
He remembers mid slurpy that he really hasn’t eaten anything specific today. So, he goes back into the 7-Eleven to get a sandwich, which he eats outside while he leans against the side of his car and watches the sky change while the colours of the sunset push against the dark clouds.
Once the sky has turned a nice shade of purple, Jisung gets back in the car and tries to find his way to Kim’s house. He wasn’t invited to this party but it’s not like anyone would care, really. Kim Bora was known for her killer gatherings in high school. Now she only organizes these things when she knows summer is around the corner. Jisung supposes it’s a way to keep in touch with most people. The big city can be quite unforgiving when it comes to meeting up with people who have followed a different path, after all. Jisung, for example, hasn’t seen his friends in a while. Hopefully, they’ll be there, too. Unfortunately, they don’t have a habit of posting their entire lives on Instagram, and Jisung was too fucking stupid in the head to bother to text them.
Ah, just by the way, it might be smart to consider that Jisung had a huge crush on Kim back in high school. Just in case she shows up in front of him and he babbles like a fucking idiot. Which might happen, it’s her house he’ll be showing up at, after all.
Jisung parks the car at the beginning of the street, right after the intersection, and then quietly lets his memory guide him. It’s way darker now, every house he passes has the front porch light on. Still, none is as loud as the huge victorian-looking brown house that’s two stories high. Or as sparkly. That’s a lot of fancy lights, Kim.
There are a lot of cars parked outside and Jisung glances over to see if he recognizes any of them. He thinks the one a couple of cars ahead might be Adam’s car, but he’s not quite sure. Outside, on the lawn in front of Kim’s house, are a couple of girls Jisung has never seen before in his life. They peek at him as he passes them by but he doesn’t bother greeting them.
The door is open and ‘Softcore’ is playing louder than the walls of the house seem to be able to withstand. There’s a strange vibration that makes Jisung frown in amusement at a photograph on the wall. Hopefully the thing won’t fall if it gets too crazy. It’s still quite ‘early’ but there’s already a lot of people in Kim’s living room. Most of the furniture has been pushed aside, apart from the couches and the big table full of snacks and plastic cups and plates. The environment, Kim, the environment. Some people are dancing, others are already blowing sticks, and Jisung would be lying if he said the smell didn’t give him a craving.
Still, as loud as the music might be, Kim Bora is louder.
“IF YOU BREAK ANYTHING, I’LL BREAK YOUR NECK!!!”
Jisung immediately turns to walk out of view, but it just makes him walk straight into someone else. The girl blinks at him, before looking him up and down, nodding, and walking away. Thanks?
It’s not like Jisung has a plan. He just came here to… look at his soulmate from afar…? Is that too creepy…? Maybe. What he didn’t expect was to see Seungmin and Jeongin walk in about thirty minutes and two drinks in.
“Wait, no way,” Jeongin laughs when he locks eyes with Jisung from across the living room. “Jisung?! Han Jisung?!” Jisung purses his lips in a smile and lifts the hand holding the plastic cup to give Jeongin a wave. Jeongin, who’s already pacing over to pull him into a hug. “It’s been months!”
“You mean years,” Jisung corrects.
Jeongin pushes him away to smile at him. “There are months in years, though, right?”
“I…” Jisung laughs. “I sincerely hope so?”
“Sorry, man, he’s still just as annoying as he was in High School,” Seungmin laughs when he gets there, pulling Jisung into a hug as well. “Seungmin in the building!”
“Seungmin in the building!” Jisung cheers as he pats his friend’s back. “Damn, college has been treating you well,” he jokes when he manages to get a good look of Seungmin’s face. His hair is purple. “Nice.”
“I know, I got hot,” Seungmin nods, shoving his hands into his pockets and grinning.
“Yeah, practically gone with the baby face, damn,” Jisung jokes, looking between Seungmin and Jeongin. “You two still…?”
Both of them blink but Jeongin is the first to understand what Jisung meant by that. “Oh, nah. It’s all platonic,” he laughs. “Nothing’s changed.”
“I’m aging rapidly,” Seungmin deadpans. “He’s aging me. Every time I hear the word ‘platonic’, five years get deducted from my lifespan.”
Jisung laughs and looks down as he shakes his head. These two… They met in high school. And even though it might not look like it, they’re soulmates. They’ve always had quite the interesting relationship, something Changbin used to call a hate-love soulmate relationship. In a way, it’s nice to know that hasn’t changed. Jisung likes when some things stay the way they are. It gives his life some consistency and makes it easier to deal with people when there’s some base knowledge to begin with.
“Did you know Chris is in town?” Jeongin asks. Jisung actually perks up at that.
“Oh… Well, I guessed he might be… Is he coming tonight?”
“Not sure,” Seungmin says with a shrug. “He’s still the same old workaholic and his laptop might swallow him before he can get his fat ass to this party.”
Jisung raises both eyebrows. Again, something that hasn’t changed. “Hm. It’s like the chairs he sits on are made of penises. Nobody can get him off of them.”
Jeongin makes quite the funny face at that. “Remind me not to sit down on a chair he’s taken before, then…”
“I’m going to get something to drink,” Seungmin chuckles, walking past Jisung but turning around to give them both finger guns. “Want somethin’?”
“Please,” both of them say in unison. Jisung has a drink in his hand but he wouldn’t mind getting another. Again, these things always escalate. At first, everyone seems sober, chill. Three hours later, the music is louder, the people are either drunk or high or both, and things start getting a little more interesting.
Jisung knows he shouldn’t mix his medication with alcohol. Then again, he didn’t take anything today, probably due to his indecisive nature regarding showing up at this party. He might not look like it, but he’s actually a smart guy. According to his mother, Jisung is a well of wasted potential. He’s sort of tired of hearing about it, though. People always act like he’s an ungrateful asshole just because they think he has ‘talents’ others might not possess. But isn’t that unfair? And are people jealous of the fact that he might have these ‘talents’ or are they jealous of the fact that he chose not to let them shape his life for him? Are they jealous of his ‘talents’ or are they jealous of his freedom? Something to think about.
A couple of drinks later, Jeongin comes back from the dancing crowd to hand Jisung Molly, which Seungmin advises against but, hey, fuck it. He’s a medical student, what does he know? Jisung takes it and finishes his drink, and that’s all for tonight.
Something that you have to understand is that for most introverts who dress introverted on the daily and have too many issues, drugs (yes, alcohol is a drug, too, ya numbnut) can be pretty alluring. It gets tiring to watch people from afar, doing things that come so naturally to them but would cost Jisung far too many embarrassing moments and probably a lot of overthinking, plus anxiety. No, drugs aren’t good for you. But neither is McDonalds and people still eat it all the fucking time. It’s nice to feel free from the usual constraints. It’s nice to not feel like death is right around the corner, ready to take him, just from thinking about looking at someone he doesn’t know and lock his eyes with them.
In a couple of minutes, Jisung goes from feeling distant to feeling ultra connected with everything and everybody. He looks up at the ceiling and finds it fascinating; the way there are flashing lights that keep spinning and making him dizzy before they spin the other way and make him dizzy the other way around. It’s like looking up at the sky and seeing the Earth’s rotation with his own eyes. Or… Or like being pulled into a vortex of exploding stars.
His clothes feel like a third person clinging to them, but it’s not an unpleasant feeling. So, he doesn’t take them off. Instead he lets his eyes wander, lets his fingers trail the wood of the table nearby. Seungmin is talking but he isn’t really saying anything. And when Jisung glances over to Jeongin, he seems to have lost himself in the ceiling, too. So, Jisung looks back up and just… stares.
Am I drooling? Jisung questions at some point. Yeah… Yeah, I am...
“Oh, shit ,” a girl’s voice says from next to him, as the couch bounces. “Don’t I know you?”
Couch…?
“Hm?” Jisung glances over, hands flat by his sides as he feels the softness of the couch. Fuck… This is so fucking soft. “You have a really nice couch.”
Kim, in all her bright glory and glowing reddish hair, giggles. “Thanks, my parents bought it.” She leans closer and Jisung leans back in response. “Didn’t you used to stare at me in Math?”
“Uuuuuh…” Jisung swallows. She smells so nice… “Yeah… I think so.”
“Sweet,” she says, leaning back and opening her arms. “Welcome to the party!” she practically screams. A few people actually cheer.
“I’ve been here for a while, I think… But thanks.”
“Doesn’t mean the party started when you got here,” she says, and then frowns. “Yeah, that made sense. ANYWAY—” Has she always been this loud? Probably, yes . “Don’t drool on my couch.”
Jisung shakes his head really fast. “I wasn’t… I think.” Where did Seungmin and Jeongin go…?
“You were— OOOH! ” she reaches over and grabs his arm. “You’ve met your soulmate?! Bro!”
Jisung blinks. Suddenly, he’s panicking. “Have I…?” He drops his eyes to his arm that Kim is busy twisting around. “Oh, yeeeaaah… I have…”
“Sweeeeet,” she goes, dropping his arm to point over into the living room. “Mine is the blonde on the table. Hot, right?”
Jisung’s eyes get lost in the crowd. But when he finally sees the blonde girl dancing over a table he… stares. He doesn’t even know why he’s staring but there’s a flow to the way she’s moving. Like… like water on olive oil. Or olive oil on water. She’s not merging at all with the environment around her, and her neon orange nails are acting like the equivalent of a football fish’s light for Jisung’s dumb small fish brain.
By the time he catches up with his immediate surroundings, Kim is gone. Jisung reaches up to clean the drool off his face and stands up. Passing in between the dancing crowd makes him sigh a little. It’s like passing through an energy field. He doesn’t really know where he’s going now, though, although he thinks he might be looking for something. His shoulders still feel a little tense and so does his jaw so he yawns and shrugs to release the tension, which… Honestly? Feels almost nearly as good as a low-key orgasm.
Once in the corridor, Jisung’s brain debates whether to go left or right. He picks right. And, not even three seconds later, feels the outside air hit his face. That , too, makes him sigh, mostly in relief. Why did he come to this party, anyway? He seems to have forgotten. He also doesn’t know where he’s going to find Seungmin and Jeongin but it’s okay. It doesn’t really matter.
As he looks to the side, though, and spots the small bench on the front porch, he remembers ‘why’. Sitting all by his lonesome in white jeans (who the fuck wears white jeans) and a famous-looking strawberry shirt, is Hwang Hyunjin, Jisung’s fucking soulmate. For some reason, that doesn’t compute the way it should, so Jisung just stares. Blonde hair, glitter tears, glossy lips. Just the way Jisung remembers him, just a lot more sober.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
Jisung looks down to his sneakers and sighs small before slowly making his way to the bench and sitting down. At least two people could fit between him and his soulmate, and that seems to be just about the right distance.
“Hello~”
“Hey…” Jisung greets, eyes on the empty, dark street ahead. He can feel Hyunjin looking at him and it makes his skin erupt in goosebumps, which he hopes Hyunjin will blame on the breeze.
“You have a lot of…” Hyunjin gestures vaguely. “Hair.”
Jisung looks down to his arms. Did he just call me hairy…? Hm. He’s not wrong. What Jisung didn’t realise right away is that it could have looked like he was staring at his crotch for a moment there. Whoops.
“On your head ,” Hyunjin giggles, pulling his legs up onto the bench.
“I once dreamed I went bald and cried…” Jisung admits for no fucking reason.
“I’d cry, too,” Hyunjin nods, hand up to touch at his own long, blonde hair.
Jisung is barely looking at him, and definitely looks away when he says, “Understandable. Your hair is quite pretty.”
“Thank you,” Hyunjin chirps, twirling a strand between his fingers. “Getting a bit bored of it, though…”
Jisung actually looks at him now. “Do you… do you cry glitter or is that just makeup?” Wait. What? What does that have to do with anything?
“Hmm, I’m a fairy that cries glitter~” Hyunjin giggles, swaying a little.
Jisung actually finds himself smiling for a moment. But that nearly gives him a heart attack so he immediately looks away. Fucking hell… “Where are your wings?”
“They withered and fell off years ago, I’m afraid,” Hyunjin says, oddly serious about it, apparently.
“Hm…” Jisung nods vaguely. “That’s okay. Mine never learned to fly and I’m doing just fine.” Am I? Am I, really? Idiot.
Hyunjin turns on the bench, which means he’s obviously looking at Jisung, which is fine . “Can I touch it?”
Come again. “Yeah…?” Jisung says, like he isn’t entirely certain.
“I’ll be gentle,” Hyunjin teases, and Jisung nearly jumps out of his own skin when he feels a hand on his hair. Then again, it doesn’t take long before he melts against the feeling. It’s… quite out of this world, to be honest. But that has to be the Molly speaking. Jisung might be a little touch-deprived but… yeah.
For a moment, Jisung almost says something really stupid. Like; yeah, my head and crotch are in constant hair competition. But he swallows that entire sentence before it turns into actual sounds. Should he tell Hyunjin, his fucking soulmate, that he has a hairy asshole? Not many people are willing to admit to that one. I’m looking at you, ladies. Does Hyunjin even realise Jisung is having a monologue inside his head at the moment? Hm.
“What’s your name?” Hyunjin asks, as he scratches at the back of Jisung’s head before the touch disappears. Jisung almost whines. Almost.
“Jisung…”
“That’s pretty.”
Again, Jisung almost says something really stupid. Like; so are you, my name and your lips should get acquainted. But he doesn’t word any of that out loud.
“You keep opening your mouth, frowning, and then closing your mouth,” Hyunjin giggles. “Are you a fish out of water, Jisungie~?”
Jisung laughs softly, lowering his head, face to hands. “Yeah…?”
“That’s okay. I’m a fairy without wings. We’re meant to be~”
“Gross,” Jisung jokes. He laughs to himself for no reason now. “I don’t think you remember, but I sold you and Adam ribbed condoms the other day.”
“You shouldn’t have, it was awful,” Hyunjin laughs.
“Who the fuck gets ribbed condoms for anal?” Jisung laughs, too.
“Jocks who’ve never fucked a guy and wanna act cool about it,” Hyunjin hums.
Jisung peeks over. “Is your poor asshole okay?”
“It’s had worse.” A pause. “And… bigger. But shhh…” he giggles.
Jisung’s eyebrows climb on his forehead. “Adam Schwarts has a small penis?!”
“Shh!” Hyunjin laughs, reaching over to try and put his hand over Jisung’s mouth.
“Damn. That explains why he kept shoving me against lockers and calling me short-shit.”
“Because he was jealous of your enormous penis?”
Jisung pauses. Licks his lips. Peeks at Hyunjin and then glances away. “No comment.”
Hyunjin grins, leaning back and looking away. “I do remember, though. Kind of… BP, right?”
Jisung nods. “Black and green shirt.”
“Hot,” Hyunjin nods and then giggles, hand up to his mouth to pinch at his lip.
“Yeah, it was a hot night,” Jisung jokes.
“For you, maybe.”
“Now I’m just thinking those ribbed condoms made you bleed from your asshole and you got cold from hypothermia.”
Hyunjin makes a face, even though he looks mildly amused. “Did you really come sit here to talk to me about my asshole?”
“No… You talked to me first.”
“Shit, true…” Hyunjin hums, still pinching his lip. “Rarely do that…”
Jisung glances up at the ceiling. “Yeah… Mood.”
A small group of people walk past, and Hyunjin leans away with a face. Jisung busies himself by poking the palm of his left hand with his pinky and feeling the current that shoots up his arm. It’s amusing. And a couple of seconds pass, until Hyunjin looks at Jisung again and makes a small noise of surprise and points at his arm.
“Your number is up.”
Jisung blinks and looks around. “What…?”
“I’m not—” Hyunjin giggles. “Threatening you. Your soulmate timer, it’s done.”
Jisung’s heart clenches. He turns his arm to look at all the zeros tattooed on it. “Yeah… it’s been like this for a couple of days.”
“That’s recent,” Hyunjin says, eyes all big and curious.
Jisung just shrugs. “Yeah, well. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”
Hyunjin tilts his head as he looks at Jisung for a few moments. “So… I can ask you to come dance with me?”
Jisung nods even as he frowns at his sneakers and says, “I should warn you that I’m a terrible dancer. All I can do is throw shapes.”
Hyunjin barks a laugh. “Throw shapes?!”
Jisung nods and gets up. “Yep. And if you don’t laugh is ‘cause you’re attracted to me. So let’s go.”
“God,” Hyunjin laughs, getting up and reaching for Jisung’s wrist to drag him back into the house.
In the middle of the living room, right where people are dancing the closest to each other. That’s where Hyunjin takes Jisung. ‘Smoke & Ash’ is playing and the purple lights from the ceiling are also reflecting off the glitter on Hyunjin’s face. Some of the glitter flakes are shaped like stars, and if Jisung stares a bit too much, it’s only because it looks like Hyunjin’s pretty eyes are floating in a sea of stars. Jisung has to dab to stop himself from staring too much, which seems to work in making Hyunjin laugh, too.
“You should try circles first!” Hyunjin yells over the music, before giggling as the beat drops and he starts dancing. And while he’s quite good at it, Jisung can’t do much more than bounce and, well, throw shapes. It makes Hyunjin laugh. It makes Hyunjin laugh a lot , which, ouch? But also, yes, worth making myself look like the actual fool that I am.
It’s when ‘Feel Something’ by Jaymes Young starts, that Hyunjin moves closer and puts Jisung’s hands on his hips. Jisung immediately pauses and only looks up at him when he’s sure his eyes will reflect mild curiosity only and not actual panic. Because yes, bye-sexual or not, Jisung has never actually danced with a guy before.
“Move with me.”
“O...Okay…” Jisung agrees, frowning when he looks down and tries to concentrate on moving with him. And maybe it’s the drugs, or just the way Hyunjin moves and guides him with his hands, but while all they really do is… sway to the beat, with Hyunjin resting his forehead on Jisung’s, it feels a little bit magical.
Or maybe that’s just the way Jisung’s libido is pulling at his stomach. No magic there, just pure hormonal discharges. That and Molly. Fucking ‘love drug’ my ass. There’s no love in Jisung’s stomach at the moment, just pure, raw, sexual energy. Rawr.
Songs change, but they stay close, Hyunjin’s hands moving from Jisung’s hips to his waist. Jisung doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at Hyunjin’s glossy lips. But, at some point, when by moving one hand up Jisung’s torso Hyunjin tugs Jisung’s t-shirt up and touches skin with his fingertips, Jisung closes his eyes and licks his lips.
Every fucking cell in his body screams at him to stay put while his fucked up brain suggests he leans in for a kiss. And while he imagines what that would be like pretty vividly inside his head, he forgets what is real and what isn’t. So, when he opens his eyes again he can’t really tell if it happened or if it didn’t. It felt like it did, but something tells him it’s just a lie he felt as reality.
Someone’s gonna wank into oblivion when they get home ~
“If you want to kiss me,” Hyunjin whispers close to his ear. “You should.”
Jisung frowns, eyes on the dancing crowd behind Hyunjin. “But what if the gay police finds me…?”
“Kim has a bat,” Hyunjin giggles, hand scratching lightly at Jisung’s back as Jisung feels the giggle against his ear.
“You’re seducing me…” Jisung mumbles.
“You want me to.”
Do I? Damn. Maybe I do… Then again, while half of Jisung’s brain agrees, the other half is busy commenting on the fact that ‘I can’t believe I’m about to agree to kiss someone who’s had Adam Schwarts dick in their mouth. ’
Jisung leans back, so close his nose brushes against Hyunjin’s cheek. He peeks at Hyunjin’s lips, still glossy with whatever makeup he put on, and then slowly leans in, pausing just for a moment, just a breath away, before finally kissing him. And oh my fucking god, the fucking relief. Hyunjin’s lips are soft, squishy and they taste like strawberries. It’s a whole fucking meal and Jisung can’t help it if he feels a little desperate. He’s full of alcohol and Molly, it’s not really his fault.
Hyunjin’s hands grab at his shirt to hold him closer, before leaning away to break the kiss and look at him, eyes full of… something. Probably also Molly and alcohol. It’s only for a moment, as Jisung feels himself being kissed again, Hyunjin pressing his entire body against him as he licks into his mouth. Jisung can’t help the small whine, but he reaches up to grab at Hyunjin’s hair, tugging him closer as their kiss deepens.
Jisung hasn’t kissed anyone in a while, so maybe that’s one of the reasons why he’s so hungry for this. And because it makes it very difficult for the both of them to be standing up right, Jisung lets Hyunjin push him until they’ve left the dancing crowd behind and Jisung is being pushed against a wall. His face is probably covered in glitter at this point. But it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that Jisung is really horny right now. So he tries to push all of said horniness up instead of down and puts it all into the best kiss of his entire life.
Honestly, if your soulmate is not the best kiss of your entire life, then you’re doing something very wrong.
It seems to work, as Hyunjin whines into his mouth and grips at his hair and shirt like Jisung might disappear into a puff of smoke. Which, honestly, might actually happen. There’s a limit to the amount of horniness a small person can endure and Jisung is reaching his. He doesn’t want to be rude, or be just a number for Hyunjin to add to his list, if he has one. So, he won’t say something stupid like ‘I really want you to suck my dick’ or whatever. But damn! Would that be really nice.
Hyunjin breaks the kiss to breathe and rests his head on Jisung’s shoulder before turning the both of them around to lean against the wall. As he does, he smiles, in a way that makes him look entirely happy. Jisung’s brain is entirely knocked off kilter by that. Because fuck, did Hyunjin have to be so fucking gorgeous...
“I’m hungry,” Jisung blurts out, frowning as his brain catches up to his mouth and agrees with it. Yes, he is hungry, for many things, but apparently also for food.
Hyunjin laughs, reaching up to thumb at the corner of Jisung’s lips. “Yeah, me too,” he giggles, and looks to the side before grabbing Jisung by the wrist once again and dragging him along.
That’s how they end up in the kitchen, going through Kim’s fridge and ending up picking a frozen lasagna that they shove into the microwave and watch spin for about eight to nine minutes. Once it’s done, they sit by the island and eat out of the container with spoons, giggling to themselves whenever those who are drunk enough for it scream like lost souls being pulled into Tartarus.
“Do you go to NYU like most of these idiots?” Jisung asks as he licks the remaining lasagna off his spoon. Best frozen lasagna I’ve ever had, damn.
Hyunjin shakes his head, collecting cheese sauce on his spoon like it’s soup. “Nope. You?”
“No,” Jisung snorts. “Do I really look like someone who goes to college?”
“You asked me first,” Hyunjin laughs.
Jisung gives him a look. “True. Nobody goes to college dressed like that.”
“Julliard, maybe,” Hyunjin smiles, looking down at the lasagna.
“I like it,” Jisung says with a shrug.
“Thanks. It’s armor.”
“What’s it protecting you from?”
Hyunjin takes a breath, eyes lost for a moment. “Complacency? Something like that,” he smiles, moving some lasagna to his mouth.
Jisung frowns, licking his lips and glancing down. “What’s wrong with being complacent?”
“I don’t think my life is the type one should settle into,” Hyunjin smiles, something a little sad. “But hey, this strawberry top is hand-made designer, so who am I to complain?”
Jisung huffs a laugh. “That sounds expensive.”
“Yeah, so don’t throw up on it,” Hyunjin chuckles.
Jisung tongues at the corner of his lips and scoops some more lasagna onto his spoon. “So…” He shoves a spoonful of sauce into his mouth. “Yo’like… rish o’somethin’?”
Hyunjin glances up, lips a little pursed before he looks back down. “Somethin’.”
“Cool.”
Hyunjin silently eats a few spoons of lasagna, looking at nothing in particular. Jisung immediately begins questioning himself. Did he say something wrong? Did he ruin it? Can he make it right? Aaaaaah… Suddenly, Jisung isn’t hungry anymore.
“You can eat the rest,” he tells Hyunjin, holding onto his spoon anyway while he looks around the kitchen. It looks a lot smaller now than it did when he walked in.
Hyunjin eats one more spoon before he huffs a breath and puts it down, leaning back. “I need weed,” he says, eyes still down. “Or something.”
“What have you had already?” Jisung asks, glancing over.
“Whatever they’ve given me,” he mumbles as he stands up. “Molly, I think, I don’t know. Can we just—?” he points at the living room.
Jisung looks down at the bit of lasagna they didn’t eat and sighs. “Yeah,” he agrees, taking the entire thing onto his spoon and messily shoving it all into his mouth. His mother taught him not to waste food, so he’s not wasting food.
Hyunjin, however, hadn’t left yet, and is just smiling at him now. “You look like a squirrel…”
Jisung would protest, but his mouth is too full, so he just rolls his eyes and follows after Hyunjin. Not without reaching for the kitchen roll and snapping a paper towel to clean his mouth, though.
Which is good, because not even five minutes later, Hyunjin has found a joint somewhere , and is dragging Jisung onto a couch to straddle his lap. Which… Hello? Danger land? This is a terrible idea. I’ve had about five boners tonight, I would like to avoid a sixth.
“Let’s smoke this, and I’ll do whatever you want.”
Jisung blinks really fast while he processes the words. “What…” He clears his throat. “What if I just wanna talk…?”
Hyunjin scoffs a small laugh and reaches over to the small table next to the couch to pick up a lighter. “Nobody just talks to me,” he mumbles, putting the joint between his lips and lighting it.
“Fair,” Jisung nods. But then feels the need to add, “But I’m not ‘nobody’.” I’m Han Jisung and you’re going to give a fucking heart attack, pretty boy.
“Mhm,” Hyunjin hums, taking a deep drag from the joint and pulling Jisung closer to slot their lips together. All Jisung does is open his mouth and suddenly, weed . And hey, it’s good weed, none of the cheap shit he got last time.
They kiss for a moment. When Jisung leans back, he mumbles, “That’s citrusy…” Which is quite the odd combination, given that Hyunjin still tastes a bit like lasagna and strawberries. Now they’ve added oranges or lemons to the mix. What a blending session this has been.
“Mhm,” Hyunjin hums yet again, eyes closed as he nuzzles softly with his cheek against Jisung’s head. He stays like that for a minute and it’s a very nice whole minute, but then he leans back for another drag of the joint. He leans even further back, a little dangerously so, but Jisung keeps his arm around his waist as he breathes smoke out into the air. The purple light shines through it and on them, and it all looks a little unreal for a second, like Jisung is living in a picture.
Throughout life Jisung always felt like sometimes things moved a little too fast while his brain moved a little too slow. But in moments like this one, it’s like the world is moving just fast enough for him to be able to admire it, catch it with his eyes and save it as photographs in albums he keeps inside his skull.
Hyunjin giggles as he moves back onto Jisung, looking to the side for another drag that he passes to Jisung in a kiss. And again, and again, until there’s no more joint and Jisung is just tasting it on Hyunjin’s lips. He doesn’t know what music is playing, he doesn't even know how many people are in the room to see them on this couch in the dark, purple light.
Isn’t this why he came here? To ‘connect’ with his soulmate? He feels pretty connected right now. In more ways than one. He even thinks he should probably let Hyunjin know that he’s had some SAD episodes before in his life. Not sad as in sad-sad. SAD as in Separation Anxiety Disorder. It’s not a big deal. It’s not as impairing as social phobia, which is where all these drugs come in handy. But still…
The day Chris told him he was going to go back to Australia, Jisung cried. But not just for a couple of minutes. He spent the whole day crying. And then had three panic attacks in the span of days. His mother had to take him in, and he spent so much time in the hospital he missed Chris’ going away party. By the time he was back on his feet and ready to face reality, Chris had already left.
Deep down, Jisung knows it’s fine. And that if they were to see each other again it would be like Chris never left. But it’s just one of those things… One of those sad things.
Hyunjin leans back out of the kiss, eyes on Jisung’s, before he leans up just a little to kiss Jisung’s forehead. Squishy... “Are you okay..?”
“Yeah,” Jisung huffs, tilting his head over the back of the couch and smiling a little at Hyunjin. And Hyunjin looks back, only… a little lost. “How old are you?” Jisung asks.
Hyunjin frowns small. “Twenty one…”
“Oooh! You’re older than me? Cool…” Jisung grins, bouncing his legs a little and making Hyunjin bounce, too. It makes him smile.
“How old are you, then..?”
“Twenty.”
Hyunjin narrows his eyes a little. “September…?”
That’s actually impressive. “How did you know?”
“Brown,” Hyunjin says and then giggles. “You just look like a Virgo.”
Jisung makes a face. “And what does a Virgo look like?”
“You,” Hyunjin chirps, shifting a little closer and looking over Jisung’s face. He reaches up and pinches lightly at Jisung’s cheek. “Tell me a secret..?”
Jisung blinks. “A secret of mine…?” Hyunjin nods, pinch turning into just soothing at Jisung’s cheek with his thumb. “Hm…” Jisung licks his lips. “I, uh… Almost died the other day…? Dunno if that’s a secret but no one knows, so…”
Hyunjin’s eyes go a little wide. “What happened?”
Jisung shrugs. “Someone flashed me a gun. They… wanted me to empty the register for them.”
“And you didn’t?” Hyunjin smacks him lightly. “Idiot.”
“I told them that they had to buy something for me to open the register because it doesn’t open unless you scan an item and they… I think their brain short circuited ‘cause they just swore at me and then left.”
Hyunjin blinks at him for a moment before just bursting into laughter. “That’s—” he leans forward, head on Jisung’s shoulder. “So American.”
Jisung huffs a laugh and reaches up to touch Hyunjin’s hair and curl some of it behind his ear. “It might surprise you to know I’d never seen a gun that close to my face…”
“I have,” Hyunjin says, so softly Jisung almost misses it. “I was, like, eleven or something.”
“That’s very young,” Jisung mumbles, thumbing softly at Hyunjin’s earlobe. And again, Jisung worries that he said something wrong, did something wrong, because Hyunjin stays quiet for a while.
“People never talk to me this much,” Hyunjin mumbles. “I don’t get it…”
Jisung smiles at nothing in particular. “Told you I wasn’t ‘nobody’.”
“I don’t get it,” Hyunjin repeats softly.
Jisung sighs and moves both arms around Hyunjin as he lets himself melt a little on the couch. “Lemme explain it to you, then. You see, I—” Jisung snorts. “I have issues.”
“And those issues made you kind..?” Hyunjin asks, and it sounds like he’s talking through a pout.
“Define ‘kind’... ‘Cause most of the time people think I’m rude simply because I’m too nervous to say anything at all or look at them straight in the eye.”
“You were like that earlier but I thought you were just trying to be cool,” Hyunjin laughs softly.
“When I’m trying to be cool I act like a fool,” Jisung chuckles. “I always overcompensate for myself. And… I never know what is too much or too little. And then, at some point, people are judging me to my face, sometimes even glaring because I took a joke too far and… Honestly? It makes me wanna cry.”
Hyunjin shifts on his lap until he’s not so much straddling Jisung, as lying in his lap. “You are kind, though,” he mumbles. “I can tell.”
“While I’d very much like to believe that, I did think, for a moment, that it’d be nice if you sucked my dick, but don’t read too much into it and focus on me being kind and talkative and blablabla.”
Hyunjin giggles, resting his hand quite purposefully on Jisung’s stomach. “That’s cute,” he says. “Do you still want me to..?”
Jisung licks his lips and looks up. “Yeah… But why ruin this with penises?”
Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. “You clearly have much to learn about penises.”
“Honestly, I’m just scared I’ll get attached. My penis and my feelings are literally the same thing.”
“Right, penis feelings,” Hyunjin nods, moving a hand up into Jisung’s hair. “So, if this doesn’t end in sex, why did you start it..?”
Jisung turns his head to look at Hyunjin, to let his eyes shift all over his face, memorise every little curve, every dent, that mole under his eye, every star around his eyelids and the places where the glitter has gathered in clusters. “Because for a moment that was all I wanted. And it’s been a while since I’ve wanted anything at all…”
Hyunjin’s eyes turn sad, or just… soft, Jisung can’t really tell. But he leans up to give Jisung a soft, lingering kiss on his lips, before moving his legs off of Jisung and patting softly at his cheek. “You’re too good for someone like me, Jisungie,” he says with a small smile. Maybe it’s just the glitter, but his eyes are shining, too, now. “Far, far too good...”
Jisung looks down at his lap and huffs a laugh. Because the truth is that there’s no such thing as ‘far too good’ for somebody else. Everyone is trying to be good, yes. And whomever isn’t, needs to get punched in the face. But trying and being are two very different things. In the end, life is like a labyrinth where every path has at least two sides the way alternate universes do. And even the best person in the world will have, at some point, taken the wrong path and made a mistake.
“Can I tell you a secret, too?” Hyunjin smiles, pulling his hand back.
Jisung sniffles and nods. “Shoot.”
“You’ve been my favourite,” he says, before taking a breath and standing up. He looks at Jisung like he wants to say something more, but just smiles and turns to walk away, arms wrapped around himself.
When looking back at this moment, Jisung knows he’ll wonder why he didn’t chase after him. But the Jisung from the future will always be a little stronger than the Jisung from the past. And it’s always easier to think clearly about shit when it isn’t happening.
“Drink?” someone asks, and a plastic cup appears floating in front of Jisung’s face.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“There’s some K in that.”
“That’s fine.”