(for theforgettable) Skin, Memories
For: theforgettable
By: Anonymous until reveals
Title: Skin, Memores
Rating: PG-13
Length: 6315
Notes: Thanks so much to the mods for being so understanding. Thank you to my recipient for the inspirational prompts, I hope this story is something you can enjoy. Thank you to tlist for being there and encouraging me in the midst of heavy deadlines, to my incredible beta A without whom I would not have made it, and to a cute little person who likes sweet things.
The section texts are from Clark's self-titled album. Links to the songs can be found inline. Yixing's appearance was inspired by a tattoo edit found drifting on twitter; I'm sorry but I can't find the source.
Warnings: mentions of minor character death in the past, implied mental exhaustion
Summary: Jongin dances with his fingers. Yixing's skin is a living memorial to his past.
Jongin loved being a mangaka, he really did, but sometimes when the paper was too white, the lines too thick, the shadow of his pencil too dark on the page, he'd put on his paddington coat. "You look like like that children's book bear," Sehun would point at him and laugh, to which Jongin would merely stick out his tongue and keep walking, wrapping a thick wool muffler around his neck, and stopping to look at the hat hanging on the peg by the door - thinking about his mother before mashing it reluctantly on his head. Then he'd trudge outside in sheepskin boots to look at the moon on the snow. He'd dance then, when no one was looking, fleet feet dipping delicately into untouched drifts of snow, painting a midnight story for only the stars to see. During the day, his hands danced across paper, leaving dots of black ink, shaded images, marker lines pirouetting across the lighter possibilities of penciled questions. But at night he danced with his whole body, the way he used to before the stories in his head claimed the stories in his bones.
"Don't you regret giving up dancing?" Sehun asked sometimes, fingers ruffling through his hair as he wiped glistening beads of perspiration off a face glowing with happiness, his skin vibrating with energy. Jongin would always stop to consider the question seriously, like he always did, his brow furrowed in thought before he'd reply with the exact same response.
"I loved dancing and I still do," he would always say, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the wood of the bench they were sitting on, "But when I dance on paper I can reach further and stretch higher and bow to a bigger crowd." He would shrug, Sehun would shrug, and that would be that, until it came up again. But Jongin really didn't regret it; sometimes he'd run the thought inquisitively between his lithe fingers at night, skin tingling with the contact, but it always came down to the same thing: he hadn't given up dancing. He'd just changed the medium.
there's a distance in you
Before he sat down to another session of writing, of drawing, of pencil on paper and thoughts dancing out as his fingers birthed his dreams onto paper, Jongin had other responsibilities. Eating for one - "you might be able to live on paper and ink but your kids can't," Sehun would scold him over skype, the reception fuzzy and face breaking up into frames on a page, bottom left corner to top right, as he danced his way across stages and countries. Jongin would be sitting on the other side of the computer screen and smiling at the grin on his friend's face and the copy of his newest tankobon lying on the table - so Jongin always made sure to rinse out the food bowls, top up the water fountain and dole out the day's portions into porcelain. Monggu, Jjangah and Jjangu never neglected to thank him, tiny cold noses trailing delicate Eskimo kisses across the bare skin of his ankles because he hated being restricted by heavy fabric. Then it was time for a walk before he lost himself, a bridge from his head to the paper below, so it was leashes and excitement and Monggu sitting calmly, while Jjangah and Jjangu danced around his knees, small front paws tapping his pant legs and eyes sparkling.
Monggu would walk sedately beside him, small feet happy in brown boots, while Jjangah and Jjangu danced through the snow, snapping at snowflakes and tangling their leashes dreadfully. Jongin laughed instead of getting frustrated, and Monggu watched patiently as he stopped to carefully make order of the chaos, knees slipping into the snow so that the cold soaked into his skin.
He was on his knees, mittens tucked under one arm, fingers tingling with the cold as he twisted and untwisted lines, when he saw the shop. The House of the Spirits. It was a strange name for what looked to be a bookstore, at least that's what it seemed like from the window. Even though he was at an odd angle, he could see the undersides of shelves, uneven lengths of pages protruding over the wood edges. Just then Monggu nudged his arm as though to say "we're still here, what about our walk?" and the moment was broken. I must come back, though.
But what with the snow, the front door that stuck so he had to put a fist through the window, cleaning up the glass, the kids barking, Sehun calling because of his uncanny sixth sense and the glass on the snow inspiring a new short story for his New Year's collection, somehow the bookstore slipped his mind.
The deadlines started to creep up, the days stretching into nights as he looked longingly at the moon on the snow, feet chained to his chair as his fingers danced ever more slowly across the page - "Are you okay?" Sehun's concern through a grainy skype connection. Jongin nodded, eyelids flickering shut as Monggu licked his hand with a dry tongue to remind him to refill the water fountain. He handed in the manuscript on the dawn of the day he couldn't get out of bed.
When he finally woke up there was a glass of water on the night table and a note.
You're half dead. Take a long break and come back when you're ready. Your sister has the kids and Sehun will check in with you. ~ Jongdae
Cursing his meddling editor, Jongin rolled into a sitting position, feet slipping off the cotton to fall, cold, onto the parquet. He waited, half-asleep still, to hear tiny feet pattering across the floor, warm poodle hair brushing against his ankles and tiny tongues licking the skin until he remembered the note. His eyes opened, head jerking awake at the sudden silence that he felt enfolding around him.
It was strange, not to have a deadline. His hand felt empty without the comforting weight of a pen to ground it; the dance that usually flowed out his fingers now vibrated in his bones and he didn't know what to do. He was so tired and yet - my head is too clear for this.
He looked at the hat hanging by the door on his way out but didn't put it on.
snowbird
It was strange, too, to walk outside during the day without tripping over leashes or stopping to untangle frustrated poodles. He felt too light, too insubstantial. I need to put stones in my pockets, he laughed, but it wasn't really funny.
The sun was too bright, now that he was looking up - the snow too white but stained with footsteps, their shadows casting blue words in a language he couldn't understand. He read the words on the sign instead. "The House of the Spirits"
I remember that name.
Instead of continuing straight on, his destination around the bend and back to the start - a language he'd spoken many times along with the soft morse code of poodle feet tangled up with the binary of traffic and the complex poetry of the weather - Jongin turned and stepped off the path into the shop.
A tiny bell tinkled over his head before silence descended, not the thick dusty weight of neglect but rather a hushed expectation: what will we find today? What worlds will we traverse, what spaces will we jump, where will we lay our weary heads when night falls? Jongin wiped the snowy soles of his leather boots on the thick mat and peered around the wall of the vestibule.
The shop was not dark but rather comfortably dim. Dust spiralled across the beams of sunlight shining through the large windows facing the street that illuminated the first couple of bookshelves before the light dissolved into the thicker shadows at the back of the store - thickened with the words winding through the air, waiting to be read.
A man perched on a stool behind the counter, face underlit by the warm golden light of an antique desk lamp as he gently flipped pages. He seemed to be engrossed in the story, his eyes darting across the page as his eyelashes cast shadows upwards. Jongin's fingers twitched. I need to feel that story.
"Excuse me?" He winced at the sound of his voice, falling heavy with the unnatural gravity of a room of alternate worlds.
His breath caught in his throat as the man looked up, eyes rimmed with kohl. He looked...he looks like a dream. Like a character from one of my stories.
"Can I help you?" The man's voice was soft, shadowy. The silver ring in his lip caught the light, flashing for a brief instant and Jongin blinked.
"Um." He couldn't remember what, if anything, he had been going to say. The man's shoulder shifted and the neck of his black long-sleeved tee slipped, baring a few more centimetres of his chest and revealing the fine black winding lines of a tattoo. Jongin's mouth was suddenly dry.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" the man asked, smiling kindly. You're smiling but your eyes still don't catch the light. Jongin looked around, scattered, his eyes landing on a book tucked into a shelf to the left of the man's head.
"Um, House of Leaves by...um...I forgot the author." Jongin looked away from the man's pleasant gaze, embarrassed. I'm sure my cheeks are red by now. He wanted to leave but he couldn't bear not to stay. He shuffled his feet instead, focusing on the dull scratching as they brushed the wood floor.
"That's lucky." The man smiled, Jongin could hear it in his voice before he looked up to see the man standing, reaching for the white-covered volume, his head turned away from the light. His hair was gathered into a flat knot at the crown of his head, the dark strands twisted into a loose flower. Jongin couldn't help it, he breathed in with a faint gasp, his hands knotting in his jacket. What's wrong with me?
"Is this the book you were looking for?" the man asked, handing it to him. Jongin nodded quickly, hoping that the shopkeeper wouldn't ask what the book was about or anything as he had no idea at all. The book was heavy in his hands, weighing him down. He paid quickly, hands fumbling with his wallet and business cards tumbling out to fan over the wood counter, some watersliding onto the floor. Jongin cursed fate, fingers scrabbling over the polished wood surface to gather up the offending slips of paper. Why do I carry these anyway?
"You're a mangaka?" Jongin hadn't even noticed that the man was helping to gather the cards until the voice in his ear stopped him in surprise. He looked up in surprise to see the man next to him, leaning down to pick up the cards that had slid to the floor.
"Thanks," he mumbled, tongue-tied, nodding and stuffing the cards back into his wallet. He had walked around the corner before he realized that he'd forgotten the book on the counter.
Don't even think about it.
banjo
Jongin spent the next couple days in his pajamas, mostly tucked between warm sheets. He didn't venture out into the cold, pull on a sweater, or dance in the snow. He didn't think about bookstores or tattoos or mysterious people with dark eyes. He bought The House of Leaves from iBooks and slowly lost himself in the cavernous underground of a very strange house. I'm not thinking about fine lines like tendrils of secrets peeking out from your neckline.
He didn't even know the man's name, just that he was maybe five centimentres shorter than Jongin. There was an itching in his fingers, they need to dance over that skin...
He drew instead. Sketches, doodles really, but those kohl-rimmed eyes kept showing up on the faces of the nameless people he outlined, tattoos on the skin of countless story seeds. He was supposed to be resting, but his fingers demanded the stage.
Sehun called him a couple times, the skype video grainy, the dialogue fractured. He smiled, waved, and went back to reading.
When the silence got to be too much - when he'd turned the last digital page, read the last footnote, when he'd filled a sketchbook with eyes and shadows and lines spreading into stories he wasn't supposed to be planning - he stepped out of slippers, pulled on a coat and boots, and walked into the crisp sunshine of winter. The light of on the snow hurt his eyes, white drifts the product of a heavy snowfall that had muffled the world as he'd slept.
He didn't mean to but as he looked around, admiring the hoarfrost, the sparking of ice on the sidewalk and the treacherous slick hidden under deceitful curtains of snow, his feet ended up turning the corner and there he was at The House of the Spirits.
The same bell tinkled delicately overhead as he pushed the door open, inside the hush of a winter night with snow falling thickly on valleys of mirroring worlds, except the snowflakes were words.
The man at the counter looked small today, somehow, hunched on the stool, shadows in his hair. Jongin felt...he felt the need to touch, to comfort, somehow, though he couldn't explain why. The curve of the man's back looked sad. But then he looked up, and Jongin froze, a deer trapped in the headlights of his own confused feelings. Why am I so fascinated?
"Oh!" the man smiled brightly, "it's you."
"Um," Jongin was confused, nodding along, until he saw the book waiting on the counter. He mentally counted up the days on his fingers. Too long. Embarrassed, he was about to apologize when the man interrupted him, a concerned expression on his face.
"You forgot to take it with you," he said, "and I was a little worried, especially since you'd said you were looking for it." Jongin, embarrassed, looked at the shiny wood surface of the counter, affectionately polished, his fingers running smoothly over the soft grain.
"I -" he didn't know what to say. I was startled, because you were so close? He had no reasonable explanation.
"That's okay," the man said, handing him the book, "I'm glad you're okay." He sounded like he really meant it, and the smile was real, his eyes wrinkling in relief.
"I'm Yixing, by the way," he said, offering his hand. Jongin took it, trying not to show how much he wanted to touch. Yixing's skin was warm and slightly dry, the skin smooth to the touch. His fingers curled around his hand and he felt the strangest reluctance when he had to let go. I don't want to let go.
"I'm Jongin," he said, his right hand once again hanging empty at his side. It felt cold somehow, bereft.
"That's a good book, by the way," Yixing said. He gestured towards the story Jongin had tucked under his left arm. "Are you just reading it, or is it somehow involved with your work?" You remember? Jongin couldn't help but smile.
"I'm on stress leave right now," he said, the confession slipping out of his mouth without meaning to, but something about Yixing's face made it okay. He looked like someone who would understand. What's your burden? "I'm not supposed to be doing anything but I saw this book and...?" His voice trailed off but Yixing nodded.
"I hadn't read it before but I was curious," he admitted, his eyes softening. "It was kind of scary, and kind of sad, but I liked it a lot. It made me feel lonely though." And it was true, there was a kind of vulnerability permeating the air around Yixing, not weakness, but the feeling of being alone. Being left behind. Turning the last page of a book and seeing the blank page.
"I think I might use it to make a thing," Jongin somehow decided on the spot, and was rewarded when he saw Yixing's eyes light up.
"That sounds really interesting." Yixing hopped off the bench in a kind of wave - for a moment Jongin's breath caught in his throat. It was a dancer's wave, the body an artform. Yixing looked at him, up at him slightly, since they were both standing, and Jongin straightened his expression.
"I hope so." What are you even talking about by now? But Yixing was already disappearing between two shelves, Jongin left standing awkwardly, book tucked under one arm, until Yixing stepped back to peer at Jongin, bemused. "You can come." Jongin was embarrassed at how quickly he followed.
Yixing held out a book, its spine slightly cracked. The Whalestoe Letters. Jongin took it, the texture of the paper wrinkled under his fingers while he looked at Yixing, waiting.
"You might want this too then," Yixing explained. "It's the letters from the appendices." Oh. Jongin nodded his head rapidly, nervously.
"Thanks." He was halfway out the door, managing to pay this time without losing half the contents of his wallet on the counter, when Yixing spoke.
"Come back any time." There was a smile in the voice, but also a kind of...entreaty. Jongin was nodding before he'd even shaped the words.
"I will."
The bell tinkled overhead as he left.
beacon
Jongin slept, ate breakfast, snuggled on the sofa with his feather blanket, read the hardback copy, the paper smooth under his fingers. He drew, a small world opening up on the page. Letters to a void. An expression of loneliness. His fingers were moving faster than they had in years. And when he needed a break, or the silence was too loud, snow falling silently outside, illuminated by the moon, he slipped on his boots and ventured out into the winter landscape of a cold day to visit the bookshop.
Yixing started to expect him, a couple of interesting books laid out, waiting, on the counter. A glance like a hidden smile as the bell sang overhead, his shoulders dusted with snowflakes.
"Hi Yixing," Jongin would smile.
"Hi Jongin," Yixing would smile back.
They talked about books, Yixing's fingers dancing in the air as he talked about his favourite worlds. They both liked mysteries, but Yixing had a special fondness for children's stories. A.A.Milne. Winnie the Pooh. Jongin was surprised at the depth of the stories, the secrets hidden between the lines. Christopher Robin growing up and leaving his friends forever, crossing that forbidden boundary between play and the real world. He looked at his hands at home, fingers smudged with ink and graphite. Am I still playing?
"Sehun," he asked, his friend's face tired, timezones doing their worst. "Am I childish sometimes?"
Sehun looked at him and grinned. "You're such a baby," he said, but his eyes were wrinkled. Jongin scowled and forgot the question, as they both complained about life, the universe, and everything.
Jongin picked up a paintbrush for the first time in a long time and started trying to shape his feelings into colour. When the feelings formed dark eyes, rimmed with kohl, he was somehow not surprised.
winter linn
"Yixing," Jongin asked, shy, when they were just winding down an excited conversation comparing words to pictures, the landscapes you could paint with poetry as opposed to pastels. Yixing nodded, dexterous fingers arranging books on the shelf.
"Do you...maybe...want to come for supper sometime?" He'd been wanting to ask for a while, the question dancing on the roof of his mouth, tingling in his fingers, shouting across the space between them when he accidentally brushed Yixing's arm. But it never seemed the right time ... Yixing was friendly, happy to see him, eager to talk, but there was a pervading sense of aloneness shrounding him and Jongin didn't know how to bridge the divide.
There was a brief silence; Yixing looking at him. Jongin's fingers hung limp at his sides. He's going to say no.
"Yes."
Jongin stopped at the Turkish grocer's in a panic, suddenly realizing that this meant he would have to cook - what was I thinking? He could also hear Sehun’s voice answering: crackly as the pixels on the screen broke up, "You weren't, obviously." Jongin stuck out his mental tongue and forged ahead.
Yixing was early and Jongin wasn't ready, but as they sautéed the onions, the crisp whiteness fading into transparency, the butter melting into flavour, the cream-cheese-stuffed peppers savoury on the tongue, he discovered the joy of doing things together. I haven't done things together with anyone for a long time.
And everything tasted better when there was someone smiling across the table. Instead of Jongin always going out to the bookstore, Yixing started to come over to his house instead. They would make supper, pans clattering, happy laughter as things fell and didn't work out and tasted good anyway. Yixing still seemed...alone...sometimes, the reflection in his eyes not the snow outside the window but something deeper, darker. Jongin didn't ask.
He asked the canvas instead.
Who are you? What is that sadness in your eyes that nothing seems to erase?
He traced the fine lines peering out of Yixing's neckline and around his wrists with his eyes, and longed to touch.
unfurla
It was a gloomy day, the snow falling thickly and the sky obscured by grey clouds even though the sun had still to set, when Jongin heard the musical cascade of the the entry code being keyed into the door pad. Yixing came over so much now, it had only made sense, and there was a special kind of happy in the sound of someone coming over who was so expected that they didn't even need to knock.
But as soon as the door opened, Jongin heard not the pleasant sigh swinging open to reveal a smiling Yixing, brown paper shopping bag in hand, but rather a slow creaking whisper. Jongin knew that something wasn't right. He dropped the wooden spoon on the counter from where he'd been patiently coaxing the onions along, glassy in olive oil and flecked with the red of pepper flakes, not stopping to pick it up when it bounced onto the floor, landing with a dull thud.
Yixing was standing in the doorway, snowflakes frosting his dark hair, his hands empty. They were bare and red from the cold. His eyes were dark, the silver ring in his lip dull pewter. Jongin didn't know what to do, was he allowed -
He stepped forward slowly, carefully, and wrapped Yixing in his arms, still not sure if it was okay. Yixing was too cold, but Jongin's skin was on fire.
"Are you okay?" he whispered in Yixing's ear. Yixing didn't say anything, but he shook his head, face tucked into Jongin's collarbone. Why can't I keep you safe?
When they got too cold, the door still open, unkind winter wind blowing in to wrap around them with its cold fingers, Jongin unfolded himself enough to push the door shut before gently pulling Yixing towards the kitchen, arm still wrapped around his shoulders. The onions were perfect.
Supper was silent, Jongin wanting to ask but waiting for Yixing to say something. Yixing put the tomato sauce in his mouth and chewed, his face a mask. I don't even think you're tasting anything. He stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on, startled to see Yixing standing in the archway, an arm curled over his stomach. He looked small, somehow. The dancing in his motions was muted.
"Do...you think I can stay?" The words were barely a whisper on Yixing's tongue, but Jongin nodded before he even understood the question. And then he paused, unsure.
He ended up tucking Yixing into the bed in the spare room that he usually only used for his sister, Jongdae on deadline vigils, or Sehun when they were briefly in the same country for more than a couple of hours, before slipping between his own cool sheets. They were strangely empty, even though he'd been sleeping there for years.
Are you lonely, Yixing?
petroleum tinged
Jongin was dreaming, calling out a name he couldn't quite shape in his head, walking endlessly through the dark corridors of a house he didn't understand, looking for -
"Jongin..."
He opened his eyes to the dark; it was his dream again except there was someone standing there, a face for the name he hadn't been able to remember.
"Yixing?" He could tell by the way Yixing was standing, huddled to the side, graceful limbs folded up and somehow crumpled, that it was still not okay.
Somehow, without speaking, it felt right to lift the corner of the comforter and gesture for Yixing to slip into bed with him. He was too cold, shivering, and Jongin only hesitated for a brief moment before wrapping his arms around him, waiting to make sure it was okay, but Yixing only clung, burying his face in Jongin's shirt. His hair smelled like roses.
When a damp patch started to form on his shirt, the choked sobs muffled by the fabric too continuous to ignore, Jongin reached over to turn on the lamp, bathing the room in a warm yellow glow.
"Can I help?" he finally asked. He didn't know if it was the right thing to say, he didn't know anything really, but the sad twisted feeling in his heart at the loneliness in Yixing's eyes was something he needed to fix. If only I could draw you whole again.
Yixing looked at him for a moment, dark eyes peering deep into his own paler brown, before sitting up. And as the white sheet fell away, Jongin couldn't help the catch in his throat. Yixing was in short sleeves, the black fabric resting loosely on his skin, doing nothing to hide the black words engraved into his skin. Jongin's fingers tingled; he folded them into the fabric of the sheets instead.
And then he realized the words were names.
"Everyone leaves me," Yixing said, quietly, and his voice was soft but it still cut into Jongin's heart, cutting out a sympathy so deep it hurt.
"Do you remember that town? The one that got washed into the ocean?" Yixing's voice tried to be neutral but failed, cracking over the arch of the sentence so that the bridge fell flat and collapsed into ruin. And Jongin remembered. A whole town, lost in one night. A mass grave. He didn't know what to say, but Yixing said it for him.
"This is everyone," and he held out his arms. The names were thick on his skin, layers and layers of death. "Everyone I loved."
Jongin still didn't know what to say but his fingers were braver than his tongue as they reached out to bridge the gap, skin dancing over skin as he traced the names, the memories with his fingertips. Yixing shivered and Jongin looked up to make sure it was okay, a sharp sadness cutting through his chest when Yixing pulled away.
But then he pulled the black shirt up over his shoulders, leaving it in a crumpled heap, an insignificant stain on white sheets, and Jongin gasped as Yixing took his hand and pressed it over his heart. The words were thickest here, the skin meshed with sadness.
"I just want someone who won't leave me."
And as Jongin's fingers traced the memories on Yixing's skin, he pressed a promise to the soft skin with his mouth.
the grit in the pearl
They spent the night in the lamplight, Yixing shivering into Jongin's touch as he drank the memories from his skin. Names and names and names, so much sadness that the taste was palpable, a kind of sharpness on his tongue.
And when their mouths finally met, Jongin tried to tell Yixing with every brush of lip, stroke of tongue, than he was going to stay.
They fell asleep finally, the faint redness of dawn creeping tendrils into the darkness of night, the morning star on the horizon.
He hoped that Yixing believed him.
sodium trimmers
There was a message from his sister waiting on his phone when he woke up.
Sehun says you're looking more like yourself so I'm happy. Can you take the dogs back now, at least for a bit? I'm sorry but I have to travel soon.
Jongin sighed. A visit to his sister's house, several hours away, always seemed to stretch into a couple of days, regardless of his best efforts.
"I have to go visit my sister for a bit, okay?" He looked at Yixing anxiously, but he only nodded, a smile on his face. Jongin left, reluctantly, looking back.
Days turned into a week; he was happy to see his sister, happy to be reunited with his kids, Monggu greeting him sedately with a friendly nuzzle and an affectionate lick on the nose while Jjangah and Jjangu ran circles in excitement, their happiness too large to be contained in such small bodies until they tired themselves out and settled in fluffy piles on his lap.
It was good to see his sister again, good to be surrounded by the happy warmth of a bustling family, but there was always something missing, something that hadn't been missing before. Yixing.
"So who's this new person in your life," his sister said over the breakfast table, taking Jongin by surprise so that the pieces of toast he was biting into fell out of his mouth, strawberry jam everywhere. She only laughed as he glared.
"Don't pout, no one gave it away," she teased, poking her nose across the table like she used to when they were smaller and eating breakfast before going to school. "You're so obvious."
Jongin glared at her but his face melted into a smile when he thought about Yixing. I hope you're okay.
"I really need to go home now," he protested when his sister spread the futon out for another night.
"You can leave tomorrow," she would always say, and tuck him under the covers.
Jongin thought about Yixing, isolated in his lonely cage of words and names.
He went home as soon as he could, waking up in the dark and leaving a note on the table.
Sorry I had to leave but I gave you a week so please forgive me.
ship is flooding
At first it was okay. Yixing thought about Jongin, about his warmth about his unspoken promises. He buried himself in the comforting familiarity of books, chatted with the Turkish grocer on his way home, planned menus and smiled when the onions turned out perfect.
But days turned into a week and that old feeling crept back. Emptiness. Loneliness. Despair.
A field full of tombstones.
Yixing knew that Jongin hadn't left him except he didn't know, not really, and the sadness scrawled on his skin once again, sinking into his bones.
Darkness fell, as the sun set.
There were no stars.
silvered iris
Jongin was happy to be back, driving down the familiar streets of his city, his world, the dogs peering out the window and bouncing excitedly in their car seats, knowing the feeling of home. Suddenly, except not suddenly at all, the feeling had sprouted from his chest to wind its way to the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers, so that every motion, every gesture was Yixing; Jongin needed to see him again.
He stopped by the bookstore, The House of the Spirits, the sign shouting out at him now that he knew Yixing's story. He stepped lightly towards the door, fingers full with the feeling of seeing him again.
But the door was locked.
Jongin was surprised, he'd never come across the store closed, especially on a weekday. With a sinking feeling in his heart, he tried to peer in the window, past the display of books and into the dusky recesses of the shop beyond but there was nothing. Merely silence and dust, and the watery reflection of his pale and worried face staring back at him, eyes only filled with questions.
Where are you?
He stumbled back to the car, almost slipping on the ice, and the dogs could tell something was wrong, their worried barks punctuating the silence as he drove home in a cloud of unease.
I guess I'll drop the dogs off at home before I decide what to do.
He opened the car door, unclipping the dogs from their harnesses, first Monggu who waited patiently for Jjangah, and Jjangu who leapt about the yard in excitement, their joy almost visible in the chilly spring air, but then he heard an inquisitive bark and began running because -
there was Yixing, sitting in the garden, only a thin black jacket between him and the cold. There was a dead vine in his hands, by the thorns Jongin could tell it was a rose vine, the brown stark against fingers that were pale with cold. Yixing's eyes were glazed over and he wasn't even shivering; Jongin couldn't begin to tell how long he had been sitting there, in the cold, snowflakes spotting his dark hair.
It wasn't January anymore, but it was still too cold.
Jongin looked at what Yixing was looking at, facing the window; it was his desk. Black lines on white paper. The birth of words.
"Why didn't you go in?" Jongin was cold, standing outside, and the worry was climbing out of his chest and around his throat. "You know the code!"
Yixing only turned his head to look at him slowly; Jongin could almost see the words beginning to shape slowly in his mouth, water dripping slowly from icicles to spot the snowbank below.
"I can't cross this. I can't cross the line between us. You have everything and I don't have anything. You can take the words and let them go but my words are written on my skin." You have a family and I don't.
Jongin could hear them, the words spoken and the words unspoken, and he didn't know what to say, except -
"I won't leave you." Yixing looked up at him, the pain in his eyes too bright for tears.
"How do you know that?"
Jongin didn't have an answer to that, not in words anyway, the tricky black things that were sometimes true and sometimes not; instead he took Yixing by the hand and pulled him gently to his feet and into the house, the dogs following on their heels. He was somehow relieved when Yixing began to shiver, taking the icy fingers into hand hands and rubbing them between his fingers.
It's only March, it could be so much worse.
strength through fragility
While the dogs ran around the house, reacquainting themselves with the sights and smells of an old familiar friend, Jongin ran warm water into the porcelain tub, Yixing sitting on the toilet seat and watching in silence. Faint shivers caused his teeth to chatter and Jongin winced at the sound. When the bath was full, the water just the right temperature, Jongin looked at Yixing who began to take off his clothes, but by then he was shivering so hard, his hands vibrating, that Jongin helped remove his coat, pulled the shirt over his head and undid the button of his pants so that they fell to the floor, taking Yixing's underwear with them. Finally naked, Yixing stepped slowly into the tub.
Jongin looked at Yixing in the water, cold and alone and covered with words, so small in a sea too white and full of water, the names fencing him in. Pulling him down. He could still see him shaking. Without being able to explain why, despite being dressed, Jongin slipped into the tub with him, the water seeping through his pants, soaking his shirt, but it was okay.
He wrapped himself around Yixing, holding him until the shivering diminished into stillness.
"I'll take your words then," an answer to the problem Yixing had poured out in the garden. "Give them to me."
And Jongin slowly, carefully washed all the invisible words of sadness and loss and loneliness off of Yixing's skin, so that only the people he loved were left. A network, not of memories to hold him down, but of love to keep him going.
"I love you," he whispered into the skin with every stroke of the washcloth. "I won't leave you," the water echoed.
everlane
Afterwards, he bundled Yixing up in a bathrobe and slippers, seating him on the sofa as the dogs pattered around his feet, smelling him curiously before jumping up to nestle into his lap where they nuzzled their love into the folds of his robe.
After making sure that Yixing was well wrapped up and not cold at all, Jongin disappeared into the workshop to get the thing that he'd been working on, ever since the first time he'd slipped into the bookstore that cold morning.
Yixing was still sitting there when he got back.
"This is the cover of my new story collection, the one I've been working on since I met you." His pulled the drape cloth away from the canvas to reveal Yixing, in oil colour, only his broad back visible.
The words were flowing out of his skin to form wings.
All of the words, reflected in Yixing's eyes as he reached towards the promise of flight.
Jongin let the drape cloth fall to the floor and went to sit beside Yixing on the sofa, curling into his side and resting his chin on Yixing's shoulder. Yixing gathered Jongin's hands up in his own and wove their fingers together in a wordless promise.
Together they watched as Monggu spread himself out on Yixing's lap, pushing Jjangah and Jjangu off and claiming Yixing as the younger two barked in protest, but finally wandered off to frisk together around the living room, happy barking ringing through the space.
Another language they didn't understand but it meant love all the same.
By: Anonymous until reveals
Title: Skin, Memores
Rating: PG-13
Length: 6315
Notes: Thanks so much to the mods for being so understanding. Thank you to my recipient for the inspirational prompts, I hope this story is something you can enjoy. Thank you to tlist for being there and encouraging me in the midst of heavy deadlines, to my incredible beta A without whom I would not have made it, and to a cute little person who likes sweet things.
The section texts are from Clark's self-titled album. Links to the songs can be found inline. Yixing's appearance was inspired by a tattoo edit found drifting on twitter; I'm sorry but I can't find the source.
Warnings: mentions of minor character death in the past, implied mental exhaustion
Summary: Jongin dances with his fingers. Yixing's skin is a living memorial to his past.
Jongin loved being a mangaka, he really did, but sometimes when the paper was too white, the lines too thick, the shadow of his pencil too dark on the page, he'd put on his paddington coat. "You look like like that children's book bear," Sehun would point at him and laugh, to which Jongin would merely stick out his tongue and keep walking, wrapping a thick wool muffler around his neck, and stopping to look at the hat hanging on the peg by the door - thinking about his mother before mashing it reluctantly on his head. Then he'd trudge outside in sheepskin boots to look at the moon on the snow. He'd dance then, when no one was looking, fleet feet dipping delicately into untouched drifts of snow, painting a midnight story for only the stars to see. During the day, his hands danced across paper, leaving dots of black ink, shaded images, marker lines pirouetting across the lighter possibilities of penciled questions. But at night he danced with his whole body, the way he used to before the stories in his head claimed the stories in his bones.
"Don't you regret giving up dancing?" Sehun asked sometimes, fingers ruffling through his hair as he wiped glistening beads of perspiration off a face glowing with happiness, his skin vibrating with energy. Jongin would always stop to consider the question seriously, like he always did, his brow furrowed in thought before he'd reply with the exact same response.
"I loved dancing and I still do," he would always say, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the wood of the bench they were sitting on, "But when I dance on paper I can reach further and stretch higher and bow to a bigger crowd." He would shrug, Sehun would shrug, and that would be that, until it came up again. But Jongin really didn't regret it; sometimes he'd run the thought inquisitively between his lithe fingers at night, skin tingling with the contact, but it always came down to the same thing: he hadn't given up dancing. He'd just changed the medium.
there's a distance in you
Before he sat down to another session of writing, of drawing, of pencil on paper and thoughts dancing out as his fingers birthed his dreams onto paper, Jongin had other responsibilities. Eating for one - "you might be able to live on paper and ink but your kids can't," Sehun would scold him over skype, the reception fuzzy and face breaking up into frames on a page, bottom left corner to top right, as he danced his way across stages and countries. Jongin would be sitting on the other side of the computer screen and smiling at the grin on his friend's face and the copy of his newest tankobon lying on the table - so Jongin always made sure to rinse out the food bowls, top up the water fountain and dole out the day's portions into porcelain. Monggu, Jjangah and Jjangu never neglected to thank him, tiny cold noses trailing delicate Eskimo kisses across the bare skin of his ankles because he hated being restricted by heavy fabric. Then it was time for a walk before he lost himself, a bridge from his head to the paper below, so it was leashes and excitement and Monggu sitting calmly, while Jjangah and Jjangu danced around his knees, small front paws tapping his pant legs and eyes sparkling.
Monggu would walk sedately beside him, small feet happy in brown boots, while Jjangah and Jjangu danced through the snow, snapping at snowflakes and tangling their leashes dreadfully. Jongin laughed instead of getting frustrated, and Monggu watched patiently as he stopped to carefully make order of the chaos, knees slipping into the snow so that the cold soaked into his skin.
He was on his knees, mittens tucked under one arm, fingers tingling with the cold as he twisted and untwisted lines, when he saw the shop. The House of the Spirits. It was a strange name for what looked to be a bookstore, at least that's what it seemed like from the window. Even though he was at an odd angle, he could see the undersides of shelves, uneven lengths of pages protruding over the wood edges. Just then Monggu nudged his arm as though to say "we're still here, what about our walk?" and the moment was broken. I must come back, though.
But what with the snow, the front door that stuck so he had to put a fist through the window, cleaning up the glass, the kids barking, Sehun calling because of his uncanny sixth sense and the glass on the snow inspiring a new short story for his New Year's collection, somehow the bookstore slipped his mind.
The deadlines started to creep up, the days stretching into nights as he looked longingly at the moon on the snow, feet chained to his chair as his fingers danced ever more slowly across the page - "Are you okay?" Sehun's concern through a grainy skype connection. Jongin nodded, eyelids flickering shut as Monggu licked his hand with a dry tongue to remind him to refill the water fountain. He handed in the manuscript on the dawn of the day he couldn't get out of bed.
When he finally woke up there was a glass of water on the night table and a note.
You're half dead. Take a long break and come back when you're ready. Your sister has the kids and Sehun will check in with you. ~ Jongdae
Cursing his meddling editor, Jongin rolled into a sitting position, feet slipping off the cotton to fall, cold, onto the parquet. He waited, half-asleep still, to hear tiny feet pattering across the floor, warm poodle hair brushing against his ankles and tiny tongues licking the skin until he remembered the note. His eyes opened, head jerking awake at the sudden silence that he felt enfolding around him.
It was strange, not to have a deadline. His hand felt empty without the comforting weight of a pen to ground it; the dance that usually flowed out his fingers now vibrated in his bones and he didn't know what to do. He was so tired and yet - my head is too clear for this.
He looked at the hat hanging by the door on his way out but didn't put it on.
snowbird
It was strange, too, to walk outside during the day without tripping over leashes or stopping to untangle frustrated poodles. He felt too light, too insubstantial. I need to put stones in my pockets, he laughed, but it wasn't really funny.
The sun was too bright, now that he was looking up - the snow too white but stained with footsteps, their shadows casting blue words in a language he couldn't understand. He read the words on the sign instead. "The House of the Spirits"
I remember that name.
Instead of continuing straight on, his destination around the bend and back to the start - a language he'd spoken many times along with the soft morse code of poodle feet tangled up with the binary of traffic and the complex poetry of the weather - Jongin turned and stepped off the path into the shop.
A tiny bell tinkled over his head before silence descended, not the thick dusty weight of neglect but rather a hushed expectation: what will we find today? What worlds will we traverse, what spaces will we jump, where will we lay our weary heads when night falls? Jongin wiped the snowy soles of his leather boots on the thick mat and peered around the wall of the vestibule.
The shop was not dark but rather comfortably dim. Dust spiralled across the beams of sunlight shining through the large windows facing the street that illuminated the first couple of bookshelves before the light dissolved into the thicker shadows at the back of the store - thickened with the words winding through the air, waiting to be read.
A man perched on a stool behind the counter, face underlit by the warm golden light of an antique desk lamp as he gently flipped pages. He seemed to be engrossed in the story, his eyes darting across the page as his eyelashes cast shadows upwards. Jongin's fingers twitched. I need to feel that story.
"Excuse me?" He winced at the sound of his voice, falling heavy with the unnatural gravity of a room of alternate worlds.
His breath caught in his throat as the man looked up, eyes rimmed with kohl. He looked...he looks like a dream. Like a character from one of my stories.
"Can I help you?" The man's voice was soft, shadowy. The silver ring in his lip caught the light, flashing for a brief instant and Jongin blinked.
"Um." He couldn't remember what, if anything, he had been going to say. The man's shoulder shifted and the neck of his black long-sleeved tee slipped, baring a few more centimetres of his chest and revealing the fine black winding lines of a tattoo. Jongin's mouth was suddenly dry.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" the man asked, smiling kindly. You're smiling but your eyes still don't catch the light. Jongin looked around, scattered, his eyes landing on a book tucked into a shelf to the left of the man's head.
"Um, House of Leaves by...um...I forgot the author." Jongin looked away from the man's pleasant gaze, embarrassed. I'm sure my cheeks are red by now. He wanted to leave but he couldn't bear not to stay. He shuffled his feet instead, focusing on the dull scratching as they brushed the wood floor.
"That's lucky." The man smiled, Jongin could hear it in his voice before he looked up to see the man standing, reaching for the white-covered volume, his head turned away from the light. His hair was gathered into a flat knot at the crown of his head, the dark strands twisted into a loose flower. Jongin couldn't help it, he breathed in with a faint gasp, his hands knotting in his jacket. What's wrong with me?
"Is this the book you were looking for?" the man asked, handing it to him. Jongin nodded quickly, hoping that the shopkeeper wouldn't ask what the book was about or anything as he had no idea at all. The book was heavy in his hands, weighing him down. He paid quickly, hands fumbling with his wallet and business cards tumbling out to fan over the wood counter, some watersliding onto the floor. Jongin cursed fate, fingers scrabbling over the polished wood surface to gather up the offending slips of paper. Why do I carry these anyway?
"You're a mangaka?" Jongin hadn't even noticed that the man was helping to gather the cards until the voice in his ear stopped him in surprise. He looked up in surprise to see the man next to him, leaning down to pick up the cards that had slid to the floor.
"Thanks," he mumbled, tongue-tied, nodding and stuffing the cards back into his wallet. He had walked around the corner before he realized that he'd forgotten the book on the counter.
Don't even think about it.
banjo
Jongin spent the next couple days in his pajamas, mostly tucked between warm sheets. He didn't venture out into the cold, pull on a sweater, or dance in the snow. He didn't think about bookstores or tattoos or mysterious people with dark eyes. He bought The House of Leaves from iBooks and slowly lost himself in the cavernous underground of a very strange house. I'm not thinking about fine lines like tendrils of secrets peeking out from your neckline.
He didn't even know the man's name, just that he was maybe five centimentres shorter than Jongin. There was an itching in his fingers, they need to dance over that skin...
He drew instead. Sketches, doodles really, but those kohl-rimmed eyes kept showing up on the faces of the nameless people he outlined, tattoos on the skin of countless story seeds. He was supposed to be resting, but his fingers demanded the stage.
Sehun called him a couple times, the skype video grainy, the dialogue fractured. He smiled, waved, and went back to reading.
When the silence got to be too much - when he'd turned the last digital page, read the last footnote, when he'd filled a sketchbook with eyes and shadows and lines spreading into stories he wasn't supposed to be planning - he stepped out of slippers, pulled on a coat and boots, and walked into the crisp sunshine of winter. The light of on the snow hurt his eyes, white drifts the product of a heavy snowfall that had muffled the world as he'd slept.
He didn't mean to but as he looked around, admiring the hoarfrost, the sparking of ice on the sidewalk and the treacherous slick hidden under deceitful curtains of snow, his feet ended up turning the corner and there he was at The House of the Spirits.
The same bell tinkled delicately overhead as he pushed the door open, inside the hush of a winter night with snow falling thickly on valleys of mirroring worlds, except the snowflakes were words.
The man at the counter looked small today, somehow, hunched on the stool, shadows in his hair. Jongin felt...he felt the need to touch, to comfort, somehow, though he couldn't explain why. The curve of the man's back looked sad. But then he looked up, and Jongin froze, a deer trapped in the headlights of his own confused feelings. Why am I so fascinated?
"Oh!" the man smiled brightly, "it's you."
"Um," Jongin was confused, nodding along, until he saw the book waiting on the counter. He mentally counted up the days on his fingers. Too long. Embarrassed, he was about to apologize when the man interrupted him, a concerned expression on his face.
"You forgot to take it with you," he said, "and I was a little worried, especially since you'd said you were looking for it." Jongin, embarrassed, looked at the shiny wood surface of the counter, affectionately polished, his fingers running smoothly over the soft grain.
"I -" he didn't know what to say. I was startled, because you were so close? He had no reasonable explanation.
"That's okay," the man said, handing him the book, "I'm glad you're okay." He sounded like he really meant it, and the smile was real, his eyes wrinkling in relief.
"I'm Yixing, by the way," he said, offering his hand. Jongin took it, trying not to show how much he wanted to touch. Yixing's skin was warm and slightly dry, the skin smooth to the touch. His fingers curled around his hand and he felt the strangest reluctance when he had to let go. I don't want to let go.
"I'm Jongin," he said, his right hand once again hanging empty at his side. It felt cold somehow, bereft.
"That's a good book, by the way," Yixing said. He gestured towards the story Jongin had tucked under his left arm. "Are you just reading it, or is it somehow involved with your work?" You remember? Jongin couldn't help but smile.
"I'm on stress leave right now," he said, the confession slipping out of his mouth without meaning to, but something about Yixing's face made it okay. He looked like someone who would understand. What's your burden? "I'm not supposed to be doing anything but I saw this book and...?" His voice trailed off but Yixing nodded.
"I hadn't read it before but I was curious," he admitted, his eyes softening. "It was kind of scary, and kind of sad, but I liked it a lot. It made me feel lonely though." And it was true, there was a kind of vulnerability permeating the air around Yixing, not weakness, but the feeling of being alone. Being left behind. Turning the last page of a book and seeing the blank page.
"I think I might use it to make a thing," Jongin somehow decided on the spot, and was rewarded when he saw Yixing's eyes light up.
"That sounds really interesting." Yixing hopped off the bench in a kind of wave - for a moment Jongin's breath caught in his throat. It was a dancer's wave, the body an artform. Yixing looked at him, up at him slightly, since they were both standing, and Jongin straightened his expression.
"I hope so." What are you even talking about by now? But Yixing was already disappearing between two shelves, Jongin left standing awkwardly, book tucked under one arm, until Yixing stepped back to peer at Jongin, bemused. "You can come." Jongin was embarrassed at how quickly he followed.
Yixing held out a book, its spine slightly cracked. The Whalestoe Letters. Jongin took it, the texture of the paper wrinkled under his fingers while he looked at Yixing, waiting.
"You might want this too then," Yixing explained. "It's the letters from the appendices." Oh. Jongin nodded his head rapidly, nervously.
"Thanks." He was halfway out the door, managing to pay this time without losing half the contents of his wallet on the counter, when Yixing spoke.
"Come back any time." There was a smile in the voice, but also a kind of...entreaty. Jongin was nodding before he'd even shaped the words.
"I will."
The bell tinkled overhead as he left.
beacon
Jongin slept, ate breakfast, snuggled on the sofa with his feather blanket, read the hardback copy, the paper smooth under his fingers. He drew, a small world opening up on the page. Letters to a void. An expression of loneliness. His fingers were moving faster than they had in years. And when he needed a break, or the silence was too loud, snow falling silently outside, illuminated by the moon, he slipped on his boots and ventured out into the winter landscape of a cold day to visit the bookshop.
Yixing started to expect him, a couple of interesting books laid out, waiting, on the counter. A glance like a hidden smile as the bell sang overhead, his shoulders dusted with snowflakes.
"Hi Yixing," Jongin would smile.
"Hi Jongin," Yixing would smile back.
They talked about books, Yixing's fingers dancing in the air as he talked about his favourite worlds. They both liked mysteries, but Yixing had a special fondness for children's stories. A.A.Milne. Winnie the Pooh. Jongin was surprised at the depth of the stories, the secrets hidden between the lines. Christopher Robin growing up and leaving his friends forever, crossing that forbidden boundary between play and the real world. He looked at his hands at home, fingers smudged with ink and graphite. Am I still playing?
"Sehun," he asked, his friend's face tired, timezones doing their worst. "Am I childish sometimes?"
Sehun looked at him and grinned. "You're such a baby," he said, but his eyes were wrinkled. Jongin scowled and forgot the question, as they both complained about life, the universe, and everything.
Jongin picked up a paintbrush for the first time in a long time and started trying to shape his feelings into colour. When the feelings formed dark eyes, rimmed with kohl, he was somehow not surprised.
winter linn
"Yixing," Jongin asked, shy, when they were just winding down an excited conversation comparing words to pictures, the landscapes you could paint with poetry as opposed to pastels. Yixing nodded, dexterous fingers arranging books on the shelf.
"Do you...maybe...want to come for supper sometime?" He'd been wanting to ask for a while, the question dancing on the roof of his mouth, tingling in his fingers, shouting across the space between them when he accidentally brushed Yixing's arm. But it never seemed the right time ... Yixing was friendly, happy to see him, eager to talk, but there was a pervading sense of aloneness shrounding him and Jongin didn't know how to bridge the divide.
There was a brief silence; Yixing looking at him. Jongin's fingers hung limp at his sides. He's going to say no.
"Yes."
Jongin stopped at the Turkish grocer's in a panic, suddenly realizing that this meant he would have to cook - what was I thinking? He could also hear Sehun’s voice answering: crackly as the pixels on the screen broke up, "You weren't, obviously." Jongin stuck out his mental tongue and forged ahead.
Yixing was early and Jongin wasn't ready, but as they sautéed the onions, the crisp whiteness fading into transparency, the butter melting into flavour, the cream-cheese-stuffed peppers savoury on the tongue, he discovered the joy of doing things together. I haven't done things together with anyone for a long time.
And everything tasted better when there was someone smiling across the table. Instead of Jongin always going out to the bookstore, Yixing started to come over to his house instead. They would make supper, pans clattering, happy laughter as things fell and didn't work out and tasted good anyway. Yixing still seemed...alone...sometimes, the reflection in his eyes not the snow outside the window but something deeper, darker. Jongin didn't ask.
He asked the canvas instead.
Who are you? What is that sadness in your eyes that nothing seems to erase?
He traced the fine lines peering out of Yixing's neckline and around his wrists with his eyes, and longed to touch.
unfurla
It was a gloomy day, the snow falling thickly and the sky obscured by grey clouds even though the sun had still to set, when Jongin heard the musical cascade of the the entry code being keyed into the door pad. Yixing came over so much now, it had only made sense, and there was a special kind of happy in the sound of someone coming over who was so expected that they didn't even need to knock.
But as soon as the door opened, Jongin heard not the pleasant sigh swinging open to reveal a smiling Yixing, brown paper shopping bag in hand, but rather a slow creaking whisper. Jongin knew that something wasn't right. He dropped the wooden spoon on the counter from where he'd been patiently coaxing the onions along, glassy in olive oil and flecked with the red of pepper flakes, not stopping to pick it up when it bounced onto the floor, landing with a dull thud.
Yixing was standing in the doorway, snowflakes frosting his dark hair, his hands empty. They were bare and red from the cold. His eyes were dark, the silver ring in his lip dull pewter. Jongin didn't know what to do, was he allowed -
He stepped forward slowly, carefully, and wrapped Yixing in his arms, still not sure if it was okay. Yixing was too cold, but Jongin's skin was on fire.
"Are you okay?" he whispered in Yixing's ear. Yixing didn't say anything, but he shook his head, face tucked into Jongin's collarbone. Why can't I keep you safe?
When they got too cold, the door still open, unkind winter wind blowing in to wrap around them with its cold fingers, Jongin unfolded himself enough to push the door shut before gently pulling Yixing towards the kitchen, arm still wrapped around his shoulders. The onions were perfect.
Supper was silent, Jongin wanting to ask but waiting for Yixing to say something. Yixing put the tomato sauce in his mouth and chewed, his face a mask. I don't even think you're tasting anything. He stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on, startled to see Yixing standing in the archway, an arm curled over his stomach. He looked small, somehow. The dancing in his motions was muted.
"Do...you think I can stay?" The words were barely a whisper on Yixing's tongue, but Jongin nodded before he even understood the question. And then he paused, unsure.
He ended up tucking Yixing into the bed in the spare room that he usually only used for his sister, Jongdae on deadline vigils, or Sehun when they were briefly in the same country for more than a couple of hours, before slipping between his own cool sheets. They were strangely empty, even though he'd been sleeping there for years.
Are you lonely, Yixing?
petroleum tinged
Jongin was dreaming, calling out a name he couldn't quite shape in his head, walking endlessly through the dark corridors of a house he didn't understand, looking for -
"Jongin..."
He opened his eyes to the dark; it was his dream again except there was someone standing there, a face for the name he hadn't been able to remember.
"Yixing?" He could tell by the way Yixing was standing, huddled to the side, graceful limbs folded up and somehow crumpled, that it was still not okay.
Somehow, without speaking, it felt right to lift the corner of the comforter and gesture for Yixing to slip into bed with him. He was too cold, shivering, and Jongin only hesitated for a brief moment before wrapping his arms around him, waiting to make sure it was okay, but Yixing only clung, burying his face in Jongin's shirt. His hair smelled like roses.
When a damp patch started to form on his shirt, the choked sobs muffled by the fabric too continuous to ignore, Jongin reached over to turn on the lamp, bathing the room in a warm yellow glow.
"Can I help?" he finally asked. He didn't know if it was the right thing to say, he didn't know anything really, but the sad twisted feeling in his heart at the loneliness in Yixing's eyes was something he needed to fix. If only I could draw you whole again.
Yixing looked at him for a moment, dark eyes peering deep into his own paler brown, before sitting up. And as the white sheet fell away, Jongin couldn't help the catch in his throat. Yixing was in short sleeves, the black fabric resting loosely on his skin, doing nothing to hide the black words engraved into his skin. Jongin's fingers tingled; he folded them into the fabric of the sheets instead.
And then he realized the words were names.
"Everyone leaves me," Yixing said, quietly, and his voice was soft but it still cut into Jongin's heart, cutting out a sympathy so deep it hurt.
"Do you remember that town? The one that got washed into the ocean?" Yixing's voice tried to be neutral but failed, cracking over the arch of the sentence so that the bridge fell flat and collapsed into ruin. And Jongin remembered. A whole town, lost in one night. A mass grave. He didn't know what to say, but Yixing said it for him.
"This is everyone," and he held out his arms. The names were thick on his skin, layers and layers of death. "Everyone I loved."
Jongin still didn't know what to say but his fingers were braver than his tongue as they reached out to bridge the gap, skin dancing over skin as he traced the names, the memories with his fingertips. Yixing shivered and Jongin looked up to make sure it was okay, a sharp sadness cutting through his chest when Yixing pulled away.
But then he pulled the black shirt up over his shoulders, leaving it in a crumpled heap, an insignificant stain on white sheets, and Jongin gasped as Yixing took his hand and pressed it over his heart. The words were thickest here, the skin meshed with sadness.
"I just want someone who won't leave me."
And as Jongin's fingers traced the memories on Yixing's skin, he pressed a promise to the soft skin with his mouth.
the grit in the pearl
They spent the night in the lamplight, Yixing shivering into Jongin's touch as he drank the memories from his skin. Names and names and names, so much sadness that the taste was palpable, a kind of sharpness on his tongue.
And when their mouths finally met, Jongin tried to tell Yixing with every brush of lip, stroke of tongue, than he was going to stay.
They fell asleep finally, the faint redness of dawn creeping tendrils into the darkness of night, the morning star on the horizon.
He hoped that Yixing believed him.
sodium trimmers
There was a message from his sister waiting on his phone when he woke up.
Sehun says you're looking more like yourself so I'm happy. Can you take the dogs back now, at least for a bit? I'm sorry but I have to travel soon.
Jongin sighed. A visit to his sister's house, several hours away, always seemed to stretch into a couple of days, regardless of his best efforts.
"I have to go visit my sister for a bit, okay?" He looked at Yixing anxiously, but he only nodded, a smile on his face. Jongin left, reluctantly, looking back.
Days turned into a week; he was happy to see his sister, happy to be reunited with his kids, Monggu greeting him sedately with a friendly nuzzle and an affectionate lick on the nose while Jjangah and Jjangu ran circles in excitement, their happiness too large to be contained in such small bodies until they tired themselves out and settled in fluffy piles on his lap.
It was good to see his sister again, good to be surrounded by the happy warmth of a bustling family, but there was always something missing, something that hadn't been missing before. Yixing.
"So who's this new person in your life," his sister said over the breakfast table, taking Jongin by surprise so that the pieces of toast he was biting into fell out of his mouth, strawberry jam everywhere. She only laughed as he glared.
"Don't pout, no one gave it away," she teased, poking her nose across the table like she used to when they were smaller and eating breakfast before going to school. "You're so obvious."
Jongin glared at her but his face melted into a smile when he thought about Yixing. I hope you're okay.
"I really need to go home now," he protested when his sister spread the futon out for another night.
"You can leave tomorrow," she would always say, and tuck him under the covers.
Jongin thought about Yixing, isolated in his lonely cage of words and names.
He went home as soon as he could, waking up in the dark and leaving a note on the table.
Sorry I had to leave but I gave you a week so please forgive me.
ship is flooding
At first it was okay. Yixing thought about Jongin, about his warmth about his unspoken promises. He buried himself in the comforting familiarity of books, chatted with the Turkish grocer on his way home, planned menus and smiled when the onions turned out perfect.
But days turned into a week and that old feeling crept back. Emptiness. Loneliness. Despair.
A field full of tombstones.
Yixing knew that Jongin hadn't left him except he didn't know, not really, and the sadness scrawled on his skin once again, sinking into his bones.
Darkness fell, as the sun set.
There were no stars.
silvered iris
Jongin was happy to be back, driving down the familiar streets of his city, his world, the dogs peering out the window and bouncing excitedly in their car seats, knowing the feeling of home. Suddenly, except not suddenly at all, the feeling had sprouted from his chest to wind its way to the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers, so that every motion, every gesture was Yixing; Jongin needed to see him again.
He stopped by the bookstore, The House of the Spirits, the sign shouting out at him now that he knew Yixing's story. He stepped lightly towards the door, fingers full with the feeling of seeing him again.
But the door was locked.
Jongin was surprised, he'd never come across the store closed, especially on a weekday. With a sinking feeling in his heart, he tried to peer in the window, past the display of books and into the dusky recesses of the shop beyond but there was nothing. Merely silence and dust, and the watery reflection of his pale and worried face staring back at him, eyes only filled with questions.
Where are you?
He stumbled back to the car, almost slipping on the ice, and the dogs could tell something was wrong, their worried barks punctuating the silence as he drove home in a cloud of unease.
I guess I'll drop the dogs off at home before I decide what to do.
He opened the car door, unclipping the dogs from their harnesses, first Monggu who waited patiently for Jjangah, and Jjangu who leapt about the yard in excitement, their joy almost visible in the chilly spring air, but then he heard an inquisitive bark and began running because -
there was Yixing, sitting in the garden, only a thin black jacket between him and the cold. There was a dead vine in his hands, by the thorns Jongin could tell it was a rose vine, the brown stark against fingers that were pale with cold. Yixing's eyes were glazed over and he wasn't even shivering; Jongin couldn't begin to tell how long he had been sitting there, in the cold, snowflakes spotting his dark hair.
It wasn't January anymore, but it was still too cold.
Jongin looked at what Yixing was looking at, facing the window; it was his desk. Black lines on white paper. The birth of words.
"Why didn't you go in?" Jongin was cold, standing outside, and the worry was climbing out of his chest and around his throat. "You know the code!"
Yixing only turned his head to look at him slowly; Jongin could almost see the words beginning to shape slowly in his mouth, water dripping slowly from icicles to spot the snowbank below.
"I can't cross this. I can't cross the line between us. You have everything and I don't have anything. You can take the words and let them go but my words are written on my skin." You have a family and I don't.
Jongin could hear them, the words spoken and the words unspoken, and he didn't know what to say, except -
"I won't leave you." Yixing looked up at him, the pain in his eyes too bright for tears.
"How do you know that?"
Jongin didn't have an answer to that, not in words anyway, the tricky black things that were sometimes true and sometimes not; instead he took Yixing by the hand and pulled him gently to his feet and into the house, the dogs following on their heels. He was somehow relieved when Yixing began to shiver, taking the icy fingers into hand hands and rubbing them between his fingers.
It's only March, it could be so much worse.
strength through fragility
While the dogs ran around the house, reacquainting themselves with the sights and smells of an old familiar friend, Jongin ran warm water into the porcelain tub, Yixing sitting on the toilet seat and watching in silence. Faint shivers caused his teeth to chatter and Jongin winced at the sound. When the bath was full, the water just the right temperature, Jongin looked at Yixing who began to take off his clothes, but by then he was shivering so hard, his hands vibrating, that Jongin helped remove his coat, pulled the shirt over his head and undid the button of his pants so that they fell to the floor, taking Yixing's underwear with them. Finally naked, Yixing stepped slowly into the tub.
Jongin looked at Yixing in the water, cold and alone and covered with words, so small in a sea too white and full of water, the names fencing him in. Pulling him down. He could still see him shaking. Without being able to explain why, despite being dressed, Jongin slipped into the tub with him, the water seeping through his pants, soaking his shirt, but it was okay.
He wrapped himself around Yixing, holding him until the shivering diminished into stillness.
"I'll take your words then," an answer to the problem Yixing had poured out in the garden. "Give them to me."
And Jongin slowly, carefully washed all the invisible words of sadness and loss and loneliness off of Yixing's skin, so that only the people he loved were left. A network, not of memories to hold him down, but of love to keep him going.
"I love you," he whispered into the skin with every stroke of the washcloth. "I won't leave you," the water echoed.
everlane
Afterwards, he bundled Yixing up in a bathrobe and slippers, seating him on the sofa as the dogs pattered around his feet, smelling him curiously before jumping up to nestle into his lap where they nuzzled their love into the folds of his robe.
After making sure that Yixing was well wrapped up and not cold at all, Jongin disappeared into the workshop to get the thing that he'd been working on, ever since the first time he'd slipped into the bookstore that cold morning.
Yixing was still sitting there when he got back.
"This is the cover of my new story collection, the one I've been working on since I met you." His pulled the drape cloth away from the canvas to reveal Yixing, in oil colour, only his broad back visible.
The words were flowing out of his skin to form wings.
All of the words, reflected in Yixing's eyes as he reached towards the promise of flight.
Jongin let the drape cloth fall to the floor and went to sit beside Yixing on the sofa, curling into his side and resting his chin on Yixing's shoulder. Yixing gathered Jongin's hands up in his own and wove their fingers together in a wordless promise.
Together they watched as Monggu spread himself out on Yixing's lap, pushing Jjangah and Jjangu off and claiming Yixing as the younger two barked in protest, but finally wandered off to frisk together around the living room, happy barking ringing through the space.
Another language they didn't understand but it meant love all the same.