Beyond the light, behind the shadows (2/2)
Chanyeol didn’t come to the bar for a while after that. In fact, Kyungsoo had almost gotten over all the embarrassment and his burning curiosity about Chanyeol’s past had settled down to a low simmer, when a tall, lanky body plopped down on the nearest barstool and Kyungsoo was immediately back to square one with a flash of too many white teeth.
“Hello.” His smile was blinding.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo said coolly. If Chanyeol could act like no crushing rejection had transpired a while ago, so could he, damn it. “What would you like to drink?”
“I’m not staying, actually,” Chanyeol said. Kyungsoo must have looked as surprised as he felt, because he quickly added, “But I really hope you’ll let me come back when you’re closing up. I understand if you don’t want to, but I think you got the wrong idea the other night and I really want to talk to you.”
Kyungsoo stared at him, biting down on his lower lip. He should say no. He should listen to Jongdae, a strange thought, but an accurate one nonetheless, and just stop this whole thing right here.
“Okay,” Kyungsoo said. Well, fuck.
He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Chanyeol’s smile got even wider and it somehow raised goosebumps all over Kyungsoo’s body. “Okay. You look really great tonight, by the way.”
Kyungsoo wanted to say something, anything else, just so Chanyeol didn’t always have the last word, but he felt like he blinked and then Chanyeol was gone.
The rest of the night dragged on, to say the least. He was glad Jongdae had taken the night off. He would be free from outward judgment, even if it didn’t absolve him of his inner guilt. This, talking to Chanyeol, suddenly seemed like such a bad idea, but something inside him had to know, had to hear what he had to say.
“I’m glad you decided to hear me out.”
Kyungsoo looked up from where he was wiping the counter and shrugged. He was not about to reveal how anxious he really was to hear this, but something told him that Chanyeol already knew.
There was nothing graceful about Chanyeol really, his long limbs clumsy, but the slow manner he took on as he drifted closer to the bar from across the room was elegant in a way Kyungsoo would never be.
“It wasn’t a rejection,” Chanyeol said without preamble. “And I meant it every time I said how beautiful you are, and I do want to go out with you. I want to so much. I just…”
He paused and Kyungsoo filled in, “You can’t. I know. That’s what you said.”
Kyungsoo jumped a little when a cold hand covered his own. He hoped it wasn’t obvious what he was doing as he slid his own hand out from under Chanyeol’s and placed it on top instead. He dared to use only a little more pressure as he moved his fingers over Chanyeol’s wrist, and waited, but he felt nothing. No pulse.
Kyungsoo could feel his eyes widening in shock but he couldn’t help it. He slowly tipped his head up to see Chanyeol watching him closely, his eyes still so dark and endless, his skin still so pale and flawless. Looking at Chanyeol now, it was almost easy to believe that he wasn’t human.
“You know, don’t you?” Chanyeol said softly.
Kyungsoo still couldn’t speak. He was staring again and his brain was spinning because this was completely impossible, and yet…
He unashamedly pressed his fingers down harder on Chanyeol’s wrist. Still nothing.
“I’m not mad or anything that Jongdae told you. I don’t think you’ll tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone?” Kyungsoo laughed humorlessly. This conversation couldn’t be happening, but it was. “Who would believe me?”
“Probably no one,” Chanyeol admits, smiling a little. “And you don’t have a whole lot of chance to prove it, keep in mind. I only show myself when I want to.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” said Kyungsoo decidedly. The room was spinning along with his brain even though he had only been spending the last few hours serving alcohol, not drinking it. “I need to sit down.”
He turned the corner and sank down onto the barstool next to Chanyeol’s.
Chanyeol seemed to lack any understanding of Kyungsoo’s inner turmoil over the impossibility of Chanyeol’s existence. He mused, “I understand if you don’t want to…do this, anymore. Whatever ‘this’ is.”
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo said faintly. “That’s my question, too. What is ‘this?’”
Before he could really process what was happening, Chanyeol was standing and tugging on Kyungsoo’s hand with his cold one. Kyungsoo obediently stood up too, their height difference becoming even clearer. One of Chanyeol’s cold hands touched Kyungsoo’s face to tip his chin up, and he lost whatever ability he had left to think. In one moment there was a cool mouth against his and Kyungsoo’s own lips parted to catch one of Chanyeol’s as if he’d been waiting for this all night or even longer.
Only when Chanyeol’s large hands made their way down to Kyungsoo’s hips did it hit him: I’m making out with a ghost.
He pulled back suddenly, breaking the kiss and for the first time, he saw Chanyeol’s huge eyes full of concern. “Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you out of nowhere like that. That was…”
“Really great, actually,” Kyungsoo said.
Chanyeol smiled again, looking down at the floor before he lifted his eyes back up to Kyungsoo’s. Kyungsoo was the one to lean in to kiss Chanyeol first this time. “Making out with a ghost” was still on an infinite loop in his mind, but it was quickly fading into the background as Chanyeol pressed their bodies closer together.
Kyungsoo’s breath caught when Chanyeol slipped a hand inside Kyungsoo’s button-up, smoothing it over his chest. There was no way he couldn’t feel the way his heart was pounding.
He pressed his lips to Kyungsoo’s neck and laughed softly. “If I had a heartbeat, it would be-“
Kyungsoo cringed. “Oh god, don’t you dare even finish that sentence.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Chanyeol shut both of them up, crushing their lips together. His hand was sliding further down Kyungsoo’s body and its coldness was starting to feel good on his heated skin.
The hand slid down until it bumped against Kyungsoo’s belt. He looked up at Chanyeol, who was already asking him permission with his eyes, coal black here in the dark, but he whispered anyway, “Can I…?”
Kyungsoo only managed a nod. A jolt of shock went through him when cold fingers wrapped around him. In his mind it was strange, the way Chanyeol’s skin didn’t warm up with the friction, but Kyungsoo’s body seemed to have no problem adjusting. He didn’t know if that realization should frighten him more than it did.
But then Chanyeol was kissing him again, and Kyungsoo was kissing back, sliding his fingers through thick silver hair. Chanyeol undid the rest of Kyungsoo’s buttons on his shirt with his left hand, stroking him with his right until Kyungsoo was fully hard in his hand, and then he shoved Kyungsoo’s black jeans and underwear down his thighs. Kyungsoo leaned back against the bar to catch his breath, and Chanyeol took the opportunity to kiss him all over his neck and jaw.
Chanyeol’s lips were back on his as he dragged precum slowly down Kyungsoo’s shaft with his thumb and forefinger. “Chanyeol…please…” Kyungsoo panted a little, his voice almost at the point of cracking. Chanyeol went back to stroking him, quicker this time. He rested his head on Chanyeol’s chest, running his hands over his back, his hips, anywhere on Chanyeol’s body he could reach.
“I can feel you trembling,” Chanyeol said after a while, low in Kyungsoo’s ear.
Kyungsoo could only whine in response. Chanyeol’s hand on him was everything in the next moment, he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel except for where their skin touched. “Chanyeol, please,” Kyungsoo found himself begging again. “I’m going to come.”
He sped up his hand and Kyungsoo bit down hard on Chanyeol’s lip as he came, covering Chanyeol’s fingers. He panted against Chanyeol’s shoulder until he tipped Kyungsoo’s chin up with his clean hand and kissed him slow, lazily, pressing him against the bartop.
“It’s late, I should let you get some sleep,” Chanyeol murmured against Kyungsoo’s lips.
“Do you ever sleep?” Kyungsoo found himself needing to ask.
“No,” said Chanyeol, the half of a smirk back on his face as he helped pull Kyungsoo’s jeans back on. “Goodnight,” he said, kissing Kyungsoo one more time on the lips, and then he was gone.
*
Kyungsoo worked his shift the next night in a daze. It felt like hours and simultaneously no time at all had elapsed by the time it was over. Kyungsoo wiped down the counters with his mind spinning, glad Jongdae wasn’t here again to ask him what had happened, and unaware of almost anything in his surroundings, until…
“Boo,” said Chanyeol expressionlessly, obviously holding back a grin.
“God, don’t do that!” Kyungsoo groaned.
“Just having a little fun.” Chanyeol inched closer and jabbed Kyungsoo in the side as he cleaned, startling him all over again to practically fold in on himself.
Kyungsoo glared at him and resumed cleaning. “You’re the worst.”
“That’s not what you said last-“
“Stop, just stop right there.”
“Sorry,” Chanyeol said, actually sounding serious this time.
Kyungsoo bit his lip. “I have a…question,” he said haltingly. “If you don’t mind.”
“Shoot.”
“How did you die?” Kyungsoo blinked up at the ghost (He was sure that would never stop being weird. Chanyeol was a ghost. And him and Kyungsoo had just…never mind), trying to see if he could read his reaction to the question. Chanyeol’s eyes were glazed over; it seemed like the words had taken him a million miles away. Or at least fifty or a hundred years or so away.
“I’ll tell you,” Chanyeol said finally, lowering himself onto one of the barstools, “if you really want to know.”
“That sounds ominous,” said Kyungsoo, putting away his cleaning cloth.
“You just asked me how I died,” Chanyeol said bluntly.
“Right. Sorry. Go on.” Kyungsoo cleared his throat emphatically as if it could somehow diffuse the awkwardness of this whole situation.
“I was 22 when it happened,” Chanyeol said. Kyungsoo resisted the reflex to widen his eyes. Chanyeol’s life had ended when he was younger than Kyungsoo was now, but he’d been here, on earth, for so much longer. He struggled to wrap his head around it.
“I was murdered,” Chanyeol went on, looking down at the shiny countertop instead of at Kyungsoo. “By a woman. Or well, I guess, shedidn’t technically kill me. She hired a guy to do it.”
Kyungsoo could feel that he was staring open-mouthed but he couldn’t seem to school his face into any kind of polite expression of interest while listening to this story.
“We were supposed to be married,” Chanyeol continued. “It had been arranged by our parents practically since before we were born. The wedding was set for the end of that year.”
Chanyeol looked up for the first time since starting the narration. “I told her I didn’t love her. I knew I never would.”
Kyungsoo suddenly felt the need to do something with his hands, wishing he could do something to erase the pain that showed itself in Chanyeol’s eyes. He busied himself pouring them both a glass of scotch.
“The only way to get out of it was if one of us died. So…she killed me.” Chanyeol wrapped his long fingers around one of the glasses, staring at it hard. “If you’re wondering why I’m still here, instead of…in the afterlife, or whatever…I wish I could tell you. But your guess is as good as mine.” He brought the glass to his lips and knocked back half of it in one go.
“Can you taste that?” Kyungsoo wondered out loud.
“No,” Chanyeol answered him, looking slightly amused again the way he so often did.
Kyungsoo put away the bottle and rounded the corner to stand behind Chanyeol. This way, they were almost the same height. He slid his hands over Chanyeol’s broad shoulders, working their way down the lengths of his arms until their fingers were threaded.
Chanyeol broke their hold to swivel the barstool around. Kyungsoo kissed him without thinking. He felt like if he kissed him hard enough, he could take all the words Chanyeol had just said, and all the ones he didn’t say, and crush them between their lips. Make him forget them all, just for a little while, and make him remember what it was like for his heart to race. Chanyeol was beautiful this way, underneath him and undone. Kyungsoo kissed him until the only words were names on their lips.
*
“What is wrong with you?” Jongdae demanded. “It’s Friday night. Move your ass, or I’ll move it for you.”
“I don’t want to know how you plan on doing that,” said Kyungsoo, glasses clanging together as he rushed to get them down from the shelf.
“So don’t find out,” Jongdae said, sipping something form a martini glass that Kyungsoo was pretty sure was not traditionally served in a martini glass. “A group of young’uns just walked in. Charm them, please.”
Kyungsoo plastered on his best bartender smile and thanked the powers that be that the night was almost over. If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t wait to see Chanyeol, and it was getting increasingly difficult to hide from Jongdae what truly had him so distracted.
In all honesty, he was starting to suspect that Jongdae already had an idea, if the way he lingered after closing was any indication. As he was finally poised by the front door about to leave, he glanced back at Kyungsoo once more and gave him a long once-over. “Goodnight, Kyungsoo. Take care,” he said, seeming like he meant to communicate a lot in only those few words. For the first time in a long while, Kyungsoo couldn’t see any hint of playfulness at the corners of Jongdae’s lips.
He nodded back to him as he left. “Goodnight.”
The heaviness of disappointment was starting to settle in Kyungsoo’s chest when everything was as clean as he could make it and Chanyeol had not yet shown himself. It would be the first night in a number of weeks that he hadn’t come to see Kyungsoo. He gnawed his lip, thoughts rushing in like a small avalanche as he wondered if he would ever see Chanyeol again, if he had finally moved on to the afterlife, whatever that might be, if anything like it existed.
“Kyungsoo.”
He looked up at the sound of his name, and Chanyeol was standing there behind the bar, tall and impressive the way he always was.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said. “You’re late. Sort of.”
“Kyungsoo,” he said again, not acknowledging the observation. “Do you remember when you first asked me out?”
Kyungsoo nodded, unsure where he was going with this. “You shot me down pretty hard, how could I not?”
“I never really told you why,” said Chanyeol, his normally loud voice strangely quiet.
“Well…I assumed it was because of the whole…um…ghost…thing,” Kyungsoo stammered out, gesturing meaninglessly. “But I guess we’re sort of past that now.” He tried to chuckle, but it fell flat.
“Except that we’re not.” Chanyeol wasn’t meeting his eyes as he spoke and it was unnerving. “Past it, I mean.”
Kyungsoo said nothing, only waiting for him to continue.
“I said I couldn’t go out with you that night because I literally can’t. I can’t leave this building, Kyungsoo. Since I died, I’ve never been able to. I’m stuck here.”
Kyungsoo stared, and Chanyeol went on, “Presumably forever, and it means I can never take you on a real date, we can never tell anyone about us, and well…I’m dead. You’re not. You’ll get older and you’ll change, your life will change, and I’ll still be here, 22 forever, stuck in this bar, or whatever it becomes in the future. You’ll move on, and forget me. And even if you don’t, I can never give you the real relationship that you deserve. I think I made a big mistake, by pursuing anything with you. Because I really think you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And none of this is fair to you.”
“I don’t care, Chanyeol. I don’t care about any of that. These last months with you have made me the happiest I can ever remember being. I don’t care where we are, how old I get, or who we can and can’t tell. I just want to be with you.” Kyungsoo’s eyes prickled as Chanyeol turned away. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry. It’s better this way.”
*
Kyungsoo dragged himself into work the next night, and the night after that. Jongdae seemed to be eyeing him with something like sympathy, or as close as he could get to it with his permanent little smirk on his lips, but if he knew what had been happening between him and Chanyeol, nothing he said was any indication.
As the night was winding down, Kyungsoo worked up the courage to swallow his pride and talk to him. Jongdae seemed to know the truth about Chanyeol, after all, maybe he would have some advice. People could surprise you, Kyungsoo kept telling himself.
“Excuse me?”
A customer’s voice wrenched Kyungsoo from his thoughts. He blinked himself back to reality and found himself staring at a petite young man with a soft mop of brown hair. “Oh, hi, what can I get you? So sorry about that.”
He ordered a simple drink and shoved a hefty bill across the table. Kyungsoo stared at it for a moment, before the customer said, “You can keep the change, if you tell me why you look so sad.”
Kyungsoo could only blink.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked a personal question without introducing myself. My name’s Baekhyun.” The customer stuck out his hand.
“Kyungsoo,” he responded warily.
“So, now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way,” Baekhyun said, “what’s bothering you? And don’t say nothing, you were staring right at me for almost a full minute and didn’t even see me.”
A quick glance around the room gave Kyungsoo no excuse not to talk to strangers-it was almost the end of the night and there were no other customers who needed help.
“Breakup?” Baekhyun prompted when Kyungsoo still didn’t say anything.
“I guess you could call it that,” Kyungsoo said reluctantly.
“Me too,” Baekhyun said, taking a swig of his drink.
“I’m sorry,” was all Kyungsoo could think of to say.
Baekhyun shrugged. “I’m over it.”
“Is that why you’re all alone at a bar?” Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, then abruptly let it come back down. “Wow. I’m an ass. Sorry.” He cleared his throat.
“No need to apologize,” Baekhyun said, smiling a little. “My old piano teacher told me that everyone you meet in life has something to teach you…when they leave you, it’s because you’ve both learned that something.”
*
Chanyeol showed himself just as Kyungsoo lingered at the doorway, floors and counters clean, belongings gathered up, fishing out his keys to lock the doors.
“Chanyeol. Hi.” Kyungsoo inwardly winced at how clumsily his words came out.
“Hi,” Chanyeol said, daring to come closer. “I was hoping you’d let me say I’m sorry. The way I handled things the other night was…not the best.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Kyungsoo started to fidget as Chanyeol inched ever closer.
“You’ve been…” Chanyeol’s pale Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. “Everything I thought I would never have. I know I’m not exactly…meant for this world anymore, but I gave up the idea I would ever feel like this long before I died, and you showed me that I could.”
“Chanyeol…” Kyungsoo wanted to tell him how much that meant to him, but he couldn’t manage it. There was a strange, small voice in his head telling him he needed to tell him, he needed to at least try, that he would always regret it if he didn’t, but he still said nothing as there was a flicker of light between them.
It was bright, and it dislodged Kyungsoo from his thoughts, until his eyes refocused and he could see the shape of a heavy wooden door. It didn’t seem like it could lead to anywhere, but Chanyeol was staring at it like he’d been waiting for it to appear.
“It’s my door,” Chanyeol said in disbelief. “I never knew they were real.”
Kyungsoo questioned him with his eyes.
“It’s supposed to take me to the afterlife,” said Chanyeol, as if he was only half answering Kyungsoo, and the other part of him was explaining it to himself. “Why now?” he mused, so quietly Kyungsoo almost couldn’t hear.
When their eyes met again, neither of them could speak for a moment. Kyungsoo broke the silence first.
“I want you to stay here…with me…but I know you can’t, I think I’ve always known, and I…” he stopped, realizing he hadn’t planned an end for the sentence.
Chanyeol pulled him in for a hug so suddenly that they almost lost their balance. Kyungsoo clung on, realizing this was really the first time they’d ever hugged like this. It didn’t feel warm like the hugs he was used to, but he had gotten so accustomed to Chanyeol’s cold body that it didn’t seem strange.
“I don’t know what’s behind that door or what’s going to happen when I open it, but you’ll be able to find me someday, when you open your own door, Kyungsoo. I really believe that.”
Chanyeol kissed him once, his cool lips gentle against Kyungsoo’s warm ones. It wasn’t long enough. Even if they had all the time in the world, Kyungsoo didn’t think he’d ever be able to commit the feeling of Chanyeol’s lips on his to memory the way he really wanted to.
“Open it, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo said into the taller man’s ear, taking a shaky breath.
Chanyeol finally pulled away enough so that they weren’t touching anymore. He had one hand on the doorknob. “Someday, okay?” Chanyeol said quietly, his eyes shining in the light as if they brimmed with tears. Kyungsoo wondered fleetingly if Chanyeol could cry. If he had wanted to, in all those years he’d spent here, unable to leave, at the same time unable to stay with someone he might love. If he wanted to cry now, because for the first time in so many years, he wouldn’t be the one left behind.
“Someday,” Kyungsoo repeated. He watched as Chanyeol turned the knob and his tall frame disappeared into the light beyond it. Kyungsoo had to close his eyes against the brightness. When he opened them again, blurry with tears, the door and the ghost were gone.