Airplane Lights redux *oneshot*
Pairing: HimLo
Rated: PG13
Length: 3.2K
S.O.S
So obsessed
Oh, you make me such a mess
---
Eight.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Himchan lost count of the amount of girls the other boy had danced with by the time he hit fourteen. It had been twelve songs now that he forced himself to the sidelines to observe the spell his dancing was putting everyone under. The way his hips slid from side to side with every beat of the bass. His hands that skimmed bare hips and raked through soft hair. Lips that curled dangerously up every time he caught Himchan's glare.
They both knew it was only a matter of time now before this chain tying them together was snapped. The sharp metal ricochet would take off both of their heads if they weren't careful.
Himchan's hands clenched tightly under the table.
He did not want to break first.
---
Zelo talks in riddles but Himchan doesn’t speak his language.
---
The first time the flash of lightening that was Zelo strolled into his life was months ago, Himchan had lost count how many. It could have been six, it could have been ten. It could have been years, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Zelo was a constant now.
He had only wanted to read his book in peace, the quiet privacy of the park bench the only place he could really be alone anymore. His apartment was too quiet, too still.
"It’s too dark to read, you’ll hurt your eyes! What are you reading?" A thick mop of dark hair was suddenly shoved against his lips as a trim body practically sprawled across his lip to read the title. "Shakespeare. Why doesn't that surprise me from a person that looks like you?"
Not only was he feeling violated from the attack on his personal space but now he was also offended.
"And just what does someone like you know about literature?" His voice was haughty as he looked over the baggy jeans and dark blue hoodie with holes in the collar the boy was wearing.
An amused smile quirked up the thick lips that were still jarringly close to his own. "Not much I would guess."
And with that he was gone, a ghost of a memory that Himchan knew would stay lodged in his mind for weeks. Who did that brat think he was anyways? You couldn't just walk up to a complete stranger and invade them like that!
He brushed the invisible dirt off his shoulder and turned his attention back to Hamlet.
Maybe he should start reading in the comfort of his own home from now on.
---
“How old were you when you realized what you wanted out of life?”
“When I was ten. My cousin was killed by a car and I just knew I had to save people.”
“How old were you when you realized that some people don’t want to be saved?”
---
"Hey there Shakespeare."
Himchan groaned when he looked up into the cocky eyes of the new barista at his favorite coffee shop.
"You again."
The smirk he had quickly grown to hate was back, pale skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. "Me again. Let me guess. You want a small plain coffee. Black." His eyebrows furrowed as he blatantly raked his gaze over Himchan's gray suit. "One sugar on the side."
Himchan frowned because that was exactly what he wanted. "How did you know that?" He demanded, an annoyed tone in his voice.
"Boring drink for a boring man." The soft voice deadpanned, handing it across the counter. "Next time step out of your tight little box and order something exciting. Please enjoy and come back!"
It was only when he arrived at his office and took a sip of the coffee did he taste the sugary sweetness already mixed into his beverage along with an aftertaste that felt suspiciously like vanilla on his tongue. He wrinkled his nose but took another sip anyways.
"Pretentious little asshole." Himchan muttered after he had finished the entire cup. He hated it when someone knew better than he did.
---
Himchan was the dry earth, starving after lack of rain. Zelo was the flashes of lightening, sparking him alive with a fire that burned with no end in sight.
---
Tender fingers smoothed along his frown line, easing the furrow back into its natural smooth state. "Don't be upset, Himchan."
He wasn't upset, he was angry, he was worthless, everything was falling down on his head and there was nothing he could do to repair it.
"I just did my job the way I've always done it. I do my work really damn well, what is so wrong with that?" Himchan knew he was near shouting but he couldn't control it, eyes wide with madness. "How can they just demote me like this? I'm one of the best doctor's in that hospital! More of my patients recover than those of that emotional idiot Yongguk."
Zelo sighed and tugged his sleeves down before pulling Himchan's shivering body across the bench towards him, arm wrapping tightly around his waist as if he could hold him to his side forever. After weeks of sitting silently beside each other every night Himchan had finally started speaking to him, voice rolling out like thunder in the quiet of the park.
"Maybe they can see what you can't?" Zelo suggested gently. "A good doctor means nothing if a scared and dying patient can feel the chill blowing out of his pores. They want to feel like they mean something, Himchan."
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Himchan tried to snap it at him, but he was feeling so defeated that it came out as a mere whimper.
"Do you even see your patients?" The whisper was hot against his hair. "Or are they faceless entities, different diagnoses you choose for them out of a hat at will?"
Himchan tried to reply, but he couldn't because the boy was right. Being a doctor was his job and he treated it as such with carefulness and quiet restraint. Treating patients was a technical thing, much like everything in his life. Himchan thrived on control.
"Do you see me?" His attention was drawn back to the present by a sharp tug on his chin. Deep eyes stared straight inside of him. "Do you even see me, Kim Himchan?"
And he felt the first sharp ping of regret. Certainly not the last, no there were a lot of regrets to come, but this was the starting point. Another flash of a memory that he would remember when he woke up tomorrow, hung over and disoriented and still angry. But the image of the beautiful boy would be burned into his eyelids forever.
"What's your name?" He wanted to know it, finally, after so many nights together on this bench. Himchan wanted to see him. This moment was important, they could both see it. It was as real and meaningful as the moon was as she watched their exchange, her children twinkling with laughter as they woke up in the dark sky.
A smile. Enough to make him think that there was a joke somewhere that he didn't understand the punch line to.
"Zelo." Voice breathless, eyes searching. "My name is Zelo."
---
"I want you to lose control just one time."
"You just want to watch me break."
"Is there a difference?"
"Only everything."
---
Hurt glares and wet eyes were the only thing’s Himchan could see in his peripheral view as he chatted happily with his co-worker. Youngjae was his friend, had been his friend since they both started medical school the same semester. They had roomed together, studied together, graduated together and even applied at the same hospitals. Youngjae was the only person alive who knew that Himchan’s favorite treat was French fries dipped in ice cream and that when he was stressed the only thing that could calm him down was to run for miles until it was out of his system.
Youngjae was his best friend.
So when he saw Zelo’s hateful expression Himchan felt guilty for a moment before the guilt turned to incredulousness. It wasn’t like Zelo thought Himchan could ever fall for someone like him, right? Someone who wore long-sleeves even though it was the height of summer. Someone who probably had to rummage through the dumpster for his breakfast every morning.
Himchan rolled his eyes and turned back to his friend as he cheerily described his morning in the pediatric ward. The tsunami of pain hitting his back was absorbed, every wave hitting him like a slam to the chest.
---
Sometimes when he was alone, when Zelo disappeared for days or weeks before coming back gaunter and shivering, and the regret was too much to bear, he closed his eyes and forced the sound of Zelo’s voice out of his hippocampus and into his ears. The humming the unkempt boy made as they sat stone-faced on what Himchan had annoyingly discovered was now their bench, was the only thing that put him to sleep anymore.
---
Himchan hissed between his teeth and palmed the rapidly blossoming bruise. The boy who had walked up to him in the middle of the street and calmly punched him was innocently tiny-eyed and half his size but he packed a deceivingly strong throw.
“Hurt my best friend again and the next one will be with a knife.”
When Himchan made it to his apartment he wasn’t even surprised to see Zelo curled motionlessly against his door, reappearing into his life out of nowhere just like he always did.
“I’d ask how you knew where I lived but I wouldn’t want the answer, would I?”
Zelo’s voice was sleepy as he stretched and jumped to his feet. “Nope.”
When Himchan pushed past him to key his entry code in Zelo grabbed his elbow, concern etching his dark features. “Shit Channie, what happened to you?”
“It’s Himchan.” He corrected, heading straight towards his freezer to grab a bag of frozen corn. “And some shrimp with a wicked right hook made me his punching bag.”
Tender fingers pulled the bag back, a wince marring the boy’s suddenly once again more slender face. “I’m sorry.” Zelo’s voice was mournful as his thumb rubbed across the pink flesh. “That was probably Jongup. He’s not a very big fan of yours.”
Himchan was too tired and in too much pain to question him about why Jongup disliked him, where he had been for the past three weeks, why he was so frail all of a sudden. He had come to realize pretty quickly that Zelo never answered anything straightforwardly. It was like speaking was a game to him. One that he had all the cheats to and Himchan was forever stuck at Go.
“Tell your pals to hit me in less obvious places next time, okay?” Himchan’s head bobbed to the side as the deep ache in his cheek started to kick in now that he was home and the adrenaline was gone. “I don’t want to have to explain to the hospital board every single time you get jealous of one of my friends.”
Zelo’s lips twitched as he held back a snort of laughter. “Next time then.” He promised.
---
“How long are we going to play these games, Zelo?”
“Until you live.”
---
“Aren’t you sweaty?” Himchan side-eyed the green pull-over Zelo was wearing as he laid his head in Himchan’s lap. The bench was too small for both of them to lay side by side on, but Zelo had recently decided the other boy’s thighs made a decent enough pillow. “How can you stand always wearing those thick sweaters?”
Zelo shrugged, not paying attention as he watched the bright lights of the stars mingle with the flickering airplanes overhead. “If you died, would you rather be an airplane light or a star?”
“What kind of question is that?” Himchan tugged playfully on the knot of dark hair below him. “Who would choose to be an airplane over a star?”
“But a star is a fixed point. It never changes no matter what happens around it. Its death is slow and painful and takes millions of years.” His eyes were limitless as he fixed them on Himchan. “An airplane though, it can go everywhere, all over the world. It sees everything. And then one day the light blows and it’s gone, just like that, quickly replaced with another.” Zelo’s voice was wistful as he traced constellations with his finger. “That’s the kind of life I would like to have.”
Andromeda
“But why would you want that?”
Cassiopeia
Orion
“Zelo? Do you think I would let you go so easy?”
Taurus
“What makes you think you could stop me?”
---
Zelo talks in riddles, but sometimes he lets Himchan pass Go.
---
It’s a beach party. He doesn’t understand why Zelo was being so hard-headed over this.
“You can’t show up in a long-sleeved shirt. It’s the middle of summer and everyone will be in swimsuits.”
“Then I won’t go.”
Zelo was stubborn, but he underestimated just how stubborn Himchan was, too.
“You have to go. My friends want to meet you.” He purposely let his voice rise in a whine, knowing it always amused the other boy to see him act childish.
Strong arms, but still weaker than they were a month ago, wrapped around his middle, pulling him against a hard chest. “How can you introduce me to your friends, Channie. You barely know me and you expect them to understand the mystery that is us?”
He groaned at the same cryptic words he got every time he tried to be serious. “Why do you always do this? Can’t you just give me a straight answer for once?”
The hands reaching up to trail over sharp collarbones stilled. Zelo’s voice was pained. “You want something real, Himchan? Something true?”
“Yes.” Himchan breathed out a sigh of relief. He wanted to learn about him, wanted to know him and not this fake version of Zelo that he had been seeing every day.
“Let me tell you a story, Channie.” Zelo breathed softly against his hair, lips trailing over the lobe of his ear, not stopping even though he had to feel the shiver that rocked Himchan’s body. “Maybe it’s actually a fairy tale. One written by God and edited by the devil. Once upon a time there was a little boy. His name was Junhong and he loved his mother and adored his brother. But Junhong’s father hated him. Sometimes he would leave Junhong locked in his bedroom for days, the only food he would get was whatever was small enough for his mother to pass underneath the door.”
Himchan’s stomach started to sink and he opened his mouth to tell him to stop, that this isn’t what he wanted to hear about, but Zelo’s patient shushing stopped him.
“Then one day Junhong decided he had had enough. He wanted to live. Junhong wanted to be an airplane light, Himchan. He wanted to fall from the sky and shatter like glass.”
“What did you do, Zelo?”
Lips curled up against his nape and Himchan shivered again but it wasn’t the good kind that made his toes curl and his belly flop. Fear licked at the base of his spine.
“Junhong was a supernova. He had to die to be reborn. Dr. Kim was his gravity, pulling him back to earth and putting a new light in his system.” Blunt teeth nipped at his flesh. “Do you see him, Himchan? Can you see Junhong? Is he tucked away in your memory like an unused chart you filed away? Someone you reached into a hat for and pulled out whatever you thought fit him. Did you even look him in the eyes before he died?”
Himchan mentally scanned through all of his patients in the last few years. The impact hit him hard and fast in the sternum, the air seeping out of his lungs in handfuls.
“Choi Junhong.” He started to recite by rote, the only way he knew. “Age eighteen. Mass trauma to radial artery, self-inflicted. Cardiac arrest, revived by forty-five seconds of defibrillator.” Choking on his words, Himchan grabbed for Zelo’s arm and shakily lifted the sleeves to reveal the crisscross of pale white scars across his tan skin. “Tendon damage on right wrist. Diagnosed clinical depression.”
“Tendon damage… Is that why I can’t use my thumb anymore?” Zelo laughed without any humor.
It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t something to play off for months like a joke. “Why did you find me?”
His chin was tipped up so that he could meet Zelo’s always intense stare, his breath dangerously close to Himchan’s parted lips. “You recharged my light, Himchan. Let me do the same for you.”
---
Zelo is the first drink of water after starving in the desert. Himchan is the fool who had never even realized he was lost.
---
“Were you jealous, Channie?” Heavy touches and searching tongues matched speed in the dark. “When I danced with those girls? Did it make you ache?”
“They wouldn’t put up with your shit.” The mood was stilled as soft lips pressed against Zelo’s scars, smoothing their way up each non-existent stitch. “They’d drive you back in ten minutes. But too bad because I’d be here with Youngjae.”
A laugh. “You’d never let anyone but me see you like this.” A lamp switched on, showcasing Himchan’s swollen lips and bruised neck, eyes wide with need. “I’m the only person who can break you apart, make you a mess.”
Himchan closed his eyes, succumbing to the feel of Zelo’s palm sliding across his Adam’s Apple and across his shoulder. “As long as you promise to put me back together.”
The touch stuttered, Zelo’s voice strained as he lowered his touch down Himchan’s arm to join their fingers together. “Sometimes airplanes crash.”
---
He gets the call while he’s at work. It’s Jongup in the ambulance and he’s screaming and Himchan can’t understand a word but he knows, he knows.
It was only a matter of time before Zelo’s light dimmed again.
---
The stars above him are so bright that they hurt his eyes. Sometimes he wonders if they’re laughing at him.
Sometimes he wonders if they’re staring down at him with deep brown eyes, cradling him in their shine.
A billion Zelo’s with him wherever he goes.
He tried screaming at the doctor who forced him out of the operating room. Threats didn’t work. Trading his working but now worthless arteries for Zelo’s didn’t work either. Begging God for a miracle gave him nothing but empty hands.
Nothing turned Zelo’s light back on.
“Are you a star now?” He whispered, tracing patterns into the stars.
Gemini
Perseus
“Do you have your own constellation?”
Hydra
“I miss you.”
The moon smiled as her children embraced him.
If he tried hard enough he could feel Zelo’s touch on his fingertips, telling him what each constellation meant as he moved their hands together, one by one over the tiny pinpricks.
“Zelo.” He murmured, making his own new constellation. It didn’t contain the brightest star in the sky, only a small blinking light right in the center. Maybe it was Morse code and it was telling him a joke but he would never understand the punch line.
Maybe he was the punch line.
---
Zelo talks in riddles. Until he doesn’t.
Rated: PG13
Length: 3.2K
S.O.S
So obsessed
Oh, you make me such a mess
---
Eight.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Himchan lost count of the amount of girls the other boy had danced with by the time he hit fourteen. It had been twelve songs now that he forced himself to the sidelines to observe the spell his dancing was putting everyone under. The way his hips slid from side to side with every beat of the bass. His hands that skimmed bare hips and raked through soft hair. Lips that curled dangerously up every time he caught Himchan's glare.
They both knew it was only a matter of time now before this chain tying them together was snapped. The sharp metal ricochet would take off both of their heads if they weren't careful.
Himchan's hands clenched tightly under the table.
He did not want to break first.
---
Zelo talks in riddles but Himchan doesn’t speak his language.
---
The first time the flash of lightening that was Zelo strolled into his life was months ago, Himchan had lost count how many. It could have been six, it could have been ten. It could have been years, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Zelo was a constant now.
He had only wanted to read his book in peace, the quiet privacy of the park bench the only place he could really be alone anymore. His apartment was too quiet, too still.
"It’s too dark to read, you’ll hurt your eyes! What are you reading?" A thick mop of dark hair was suddenly shoved against his lips as a trim body practically sprawled across his lip to read the title. "Shakespeare. Why doesn't that surprise me from a person that looks like you?"
Not only was he feeling violated from the attack on his personal space but now he was also offended.
"And just what does someone like you know about literature?" His voice was haughty as he looked over the baggy jeans and dark blue hoodie with holes in the collar the boy was wearing.
An amused smile quirked up the thick lips that were still jarringly close to his own. "Not much I would guess."
And with that he was gone, a ghost of a memory that Himchan knew would stay lodged in his mind for weeks. Who did that brat think he was anyways? You couldn't just walk up to a complete stranger and invade them like that!
He brushed the invisible dirt off his shoulder and turned his attention back to Hamlet.
Maybe he should start reading in the comfort of his own home from now on.
---
“How old were you when you realized what you wanted out of life?”
“When I was ten. My cousin was killed by a car and I just knew I had to save people.”
“How old were you when you realized that some people don’t want to be saved?”
---
"Hey there Shakespeare."
Himchan groaned when he looked up into the cocky eyes of the new barista at his favorite coffee shop.
"You again."
The smirk he had quickly grown to hate was back, pale skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. "Me again. Let me guess. You want a small plain coffee. Black." His eyebrows furrowed as he blatantly raked his gaze over Himchan's gray suit. "One sugar on the side."
Himchan frowned because that was exactly what he wanted. "How did you know that?" He demanded, an annoyed tone in his voice.
"Boring drink for a boring man." The soft voice deadpanned, handing it across the counter. "Next time step out of your tight little box and order something exciting. Please enjoy and come back!"
It was only when he arrived at his office and took a sip of the coffee did he taste the sugary sweetness already mixed into his beverage along with an aftertaste that felt suspiciously like vanilla on his tongue. He wrinkled his nose but took another sip anyways.
"Pretentious little asshole." Himchan muttered after he had finished the entire cup. He hated it when someone knew better than he did.
---
Himchan was the dry earth, starving after lack of rain. Zelo was the flashes of lightening, sparking him alive with a fire that burned with no end in sight.
---
Tender fingers smoothed along his frown line, easing the furrow back into its natural smooth state. "Don't be upset, Himchan."
He wasn't upset, he was angry, he was worthless, everything was falling down on his head and there was nothing he could do to repair it.
"I just did my job the way I've always done it. I do my work really damn well, what is so wrong with that?" Himchan knew he was near shouting but he couldn't control it, eyes wide with madness. "How can they just demote me like this? I'm one of the best doctor's in that hospital! More of my patients recover than those of that emotional idiot Yongguk."
Zelo sighed and tugged his sleeves down before pulling Himchan's shivering body across the bench towards him, arm wrapping tightly around his waist as if he could hold him to his side forever. After weeks of sitting silently beside each other every night Himchan had finally started speaking to him, voice rolling out like thunder in the quiet of the park.
"Maybe they can see what you can't?" Zelo suggested gently. "A good doctor means nothing if a scared and dying patient can feel the chill blowing out of his pores. They want to feel like they mean something, Himchan."
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Himchan tried to snap it at him, but he was feeling so defeated that it came out as a mere whimper.
"Do you even see your patients?" The whisper was hot against his hair. "Or are they faceless entities, different diagnoses you choose for them out of a hat at will?"
Himchan tried to reply, but he couldn't because the boy was right. Being a doctor was his job and he treated it as such with carefulness and quiet restraint. Treating patients was a technical thing, much like everything in his life. Himchan thrived on control.
"Do you see me?" His attention was drawn back to the present by a sharp tug on his chin. Deep eyes stared straight inside of him. "Do you even see me, Kim Himchan?"
And he felt the first sharp ping of regret. Certainly not the last, no there were a lot of regrets to come, but this was the starting point. Another flash of a memory that he would remember when he woke up tomorrow, hung over and disoriented and still angry. But the image of the beautiful boy would be burned into his eyelids forever.
"What's your name?" He wanted to know it, finally, after so many nights together on this bench. Himchan wanted to see him. This moment was important, they could both see it. It was as real and meaningful as the moon was as she watched their exchange, her children twinkling with laughter as they woke up in the dark sky.
A smile. Enough to make him think that there was a joke somewhere that he didn't understand the punch line to.
"Zelo." Voice breathless, eyes searching. "My name is Zelo."
---
"I want you to lose control just one time."
"You just want to watch me break."
"Is there a difference?"
"Only everything."
---
Hurt glares and wet eyes were the only thing’s Himchan could see in his peripheral view as he chatted happily with his co-worker. Youngjae was his friend, had been his friend since they both started medical school the same semester. They had roomed together, studied together, graduated together and even applied at the same hospitals. Youngjae was the only person alive who knew that Himchan’s favorite treat was French fries dipped in ice cream and that when he was stressed the only thing that could calm him down was to run for miles until it was out of his system.
Youngjae was his best friend.
So when he saw Zelo’s hateful expression Himchan felt guilty for a moment before the guilt turned to incredulousness. It wasn’t like Zelo thought Himchan could ever fall for someone like him, right? Someone who wore long-sleeves even though it was the height of summer. Someone who probably had to rummage through the dumpster for his breakfast every morning.
Himchan rolled his eyes and turned back to his friend as he cheerily described his morning in the pediatric ward. The tsunami of pain hitting his back was absorbed, every wave hitting him like a slam to the chest.
---
Sometimes when he was alone, when Zelo disappeared for days or weeks before coming back gaunter and shivering, and the regret was too much to bear, he closed his eyes and forced the sound of Zelo’s voice out of his hippocampus and into his ears. The humming the unkempt boy made as they sat stone-faced on what Himchan had annoyingly discovered was now their bench, was the only thing that put him to sleep anymore.
---
Himchan hissed between his teeth and palmed the rapidly blossoming bruise. The boy who had walked up to him in the middle of the street and calmly punched him was innocently tiny-eyed and half his size but he packed a deceivingly strong throw.
“Hurt my best friend again and the next one will be with a knife.”
When Himchan made it to his apartment he wasn’t even surprised to see Zelo curled motionlessly against his door, reappearing into his life out of nowhere just like he always did.
“I’d ask how you knew where I lived but I wouldn’t want the answer, would I?”
Zelo’s voice was sleepy as he stretched and jumped to his feet. “Nope.”
When Himchan pushed past him to key his entry code in Zelo grabbed his elbow, concern etching his dark features. “Shit Channie, what happened to you?”
“It’s Himchan.” He corrected, heading straight towards his freezer to grab a bag of frozen corn. “And some shrimp with a wicked right hook made me his punching bag.”
Tender fingers pulled the bag back, a wince marring the boy’s suddenly once again more slender face. “I’m sorry.” Zelo’s voice was mournful as his thumb rubbed across the pink flesh. “That was probably Jongup. He’s not a very big fan of yours.”
Himchan was too tired and in too much pain to question him about why Jongup disliked him, where he had been for the past three weeks, why he was so frail all of a sudden. He had come to realize pretty quickly that Zelo never answered anything straightforwardly. It was like speaking was a game to him. One that he had all the cheats to and Himchan was forever stuck at Go.
“Tell your pals to hit me in less obvious places next time, okay?” Himchan’s head bobbed to the side as the deep ache in his cheek started to kick in now that he was home and the adrenaline was gone. “I don’t want to have to explain to the hospital board every single time you get jealous of one of my friends.”
Zelo’s lips twitched as he held back a snort of laughter. “Next time then.” He promised.
---
“How long are we going to play these games, Zelo?”
“Until you live.”
---
“Aren’t you sweaty?” Himchan side-eyed the green pull-over Zelo was wearing as he laid his head in Himchan’s lap. The bench was too small for both of them to lay side by side on, but Zelo had recently decided the other boy’s thighs made a decent enough pillow. “How can you stand always wearing those thick sweaters?”
Zelo shrugged, not paying attention as he watched the bright lights of the stars mingle with the flickering airplanes overhead. “If you died, would you rather be an airplane light or a star?”
“What kind of question is that?” Himchan tugged playfully on the knot of dark hair below him. “Who would choose to be an airplane over a star?”
“But a star is a fixed point. It never changes no matter what happens around it. Its death is slow and painful and takes millions of years.” His eyes were limitless as he fixed them on Himchan. “An airplane though, it can go everywhere, all over the world. It sees everything. And then one day the light blows and it’s gone, just like that, quickly replaced with another.” Zelo’s voice was wistful as he traced constellations with his finger. “That’s the kind of life I would like to have.”
Andromeda
“But why would you want that?”
Cassiopeia
Orion
“Zelo? Do you think I would let you go so easy?”
Taurus
“What makes you think you could stop me?”
---
Zelo talks in riddles, but sometimes he lets Himchan pass Go.
---
It’s a beach party. He doesn’t understand why Zelo was being so hard-headed over this.
“You can’t show up in a long-sleeved shirt. It’s the middle of summer and everyone will be in swimsuits.”
“Then I won’t go.”
Zelo was stubborn, but he underestimated just how stubborn Himchan was, too.
“You have to go. My friends want to meet you.” He purposely let his voice rise in a whine, knowing it always amused the other boy to see him act childish.
Strong arms, but still weaker than they were a month ago, wrapped around his middle, pulling him against a hard chest. “How can you introduce me to your friends, Channie. You barely know me and you expect them to understand the mystery that is us?”
He groaned at the same cryptic words he got every time he tried to be serious. “Why do you always do this? Can’t you just give me a straight answer for once?”
The hands reaching up to trail over sharp collarbones stilled. Zelo’s voice was pained. “You want something real, Himchan? Something true?”
“Yes.” Himchan breathed out a sigh of relief. He wanted to learn about him, wanted to know him and not this fake version of Zelo that he had been seeing every day.
“Let me tell you a story, Channie.” Zelo breathed softly against his hair, lips trailing over the lobe of his ear, not stopping even though he had to feel the shiver that rocked Himchan’s body. “Maybe it’s actually a fairy tale. One written by God and edited by the devil. Once upon a time there was a little boy. His name was Junhong and he loved his mother and adored his brother. But Junhong’s father hated him. Sometimes he would leave Junhong locked in his bedroom for days, the only food he would get was whatever was small enough for his mother to pass underneath the door.”
Himchan’s stomach started to sink and he opened his mouth to tell him to stop, that this isn’t what he wanted to hear about, but Zelo’s patient shushing stopped him.
“Then one day Junhong decided he had had enough. He wanted to live. Junhong wanted to be an airplane light, Himchan. He wanted to fall from the sky and shatter like glass.”
“What did you do, Zelo?”
Lips curled up against his nape and Himchan shivered again but it wasn’t the good kind that made his toes curl and his belly flop. Fear licked at the base of his spine.
“Junhong was a supernova. He had to die to be reborn. Dr. Kim was his gravity, pulling him back to earth and putting a new light in his system.” Blunt teeth nipped at his flesh. “Do you see him, Himchan? Can you see Junhong? Is he tucked away in your memory like an unused chart you filed away? Someone you reached into a hat for and pulled out whatever you thought fit him. Did you even look him in the eyes before he died?”
Himchan mentally scanned through all of his patients in the last few years. The impact hit him hard and fast in the sternum, the air seeping out of his lungs in handfuls.
“Choi Junhong.” He started to recite by rote, the only way he knew. “Age eighteen. Mass trauma to radial artery, self-inflicted. Cardiac arrest, revived by forty-five seconds of defibrillator.” Choking on his words, Himchan grabbed for Zelo’s arm and shakily lifted the sleeves to reveal the crisscross of pale white scars across his tan skin. “Tendon damage on right wrist. Diagnosed clinical depression.”
“Tendon damage… Is that why I can’t use my thumb anymore?” Zelo laughed without any humor.
It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t something to play off for months like a joke. “Why did you find me?”
His chin was tipped up so that he could meet Zelo’s always intense stare, his breath dangerously close to Himchan’s parted lips. “You recharged my light, Himchan. Let me do the same for you.”
---
Zelo is the first drink of water after starving in the desert. Himchan is the fool who had never even realized he was lost.
---
“Were you jealous, Channie?” Heavy touches and searching tongues matched speed in the dark. “When I danced with those girls? Did it make you ache?”
“They wouldn’t put up with your shit.” The mood was stilled as soft lips pressed against Zelo’s scars, smoothing their way up each non-existent stitch. “They’d drive you back in ten minutes. But too bad because I’d be here with Youngjae.”
A laugh. “You’d never let anyone but me see you like this.” A lamp switched on, showcasing Himchan’s swollen lips and bruised neck, eyes wide with need. “I’m the only person who can break you apart, make you a mess.”
Himchan closed his eyes, succumbing to the feel of Zelo’s palm sliding across his Adam’s Apple and across his shoulder. “As long as you promise to put me back together.”
The touch stuttered, Zelo’s voice strained as he lowered his touch down Himchan’s arm to join their fingers together. “Sometimes airplanes crash.”
---
He gets the call while he’s at work. It’s Jongup in the ambulance and he’s screaming and Himchan can’t understand a word but he knows, he knows.
It was only a matter of time before Zelo’s light dimmed again.
---
The stars above him are so bright that they hurt his eyes. Sometimes he wonders if they’re laughing at him.
Sometimes he wonders if they’re staring down at him with deep brown eyes, cradling him in their shine.
A billion Zelo’s with him wherever he goes.
He tried screaming at the doctor who forced him out of the operating room. Threats didn’t work. Trading his working but now worthless arteries for Zelo’s didn’t work either. Begging God for a miracle gave him nothing but empty hands.
Nothing turned Zelo’s light back on.
“Are you a star now?” He whispered, tracing patterns into the stars.
Gemini
Perseus
“Do you have your own constellation?”
Hydra
“I miss you.”
The moon smiled as her children embraced him.
If he tried hard enough he could feel Zelo’s touch on his fingertips, telling him what each constellation meant as he moved their hands together, one by one over the tiny pinpricks.
“Zelo.” He murmured, making his own new constellation. It didn’t contain the brightest star in the sky, only a small blinking light right in the center. Maybe it was Morse code and it was telling him a joke but he would never understand the punch line.
Maybe he was the punch line.
---
Zelo talks in riddles. Until he doesn’t.