the way of saint james
WARNING this fic ends abruptly and has no grasp of relative distance/time because i have no grasp of relative distance/time
the way of saint james
minho/jonghyun, pg-13, 1660 words
---
A very long time ago, before they resolved to drive across Europe in t-shirts and jeans and a stolen black Mustang, Jonghyun asked Minho what he would do if he knew the world would end in a month. The Minho who played soccer on weekends and had nightmares about falling through pitless black oceans said "sleep," very simply, and leaned back in his chair. This was a millenia ago. An eon, maybe. School uniforms and chalk boards. Galaxies into the past.
"Ah, did I really say that?"
"Yeah you did." Today Minho's arm is a little better than yesterday and his voice is a little less strained. Jonghyun drives at ninety miles per hour. "Were you trying to trick me into thinking you were cool or something?" He puts on his most offended face, glancing at the metre. They have just enough petrol to make it to Lisbon.
"But I'm kind of cool, you have to admit." Minho grins, his good arm twisting coils in Jonghyun's hair.
He says request denied in drawling monotone and they leave behind laughter and tyre tracks on the road to the edge of the continent.
They stop the car for lunch and as the sun beams down their shoulders cast sharp shadows against the tarmac. Minho grunts, struggles with the cap of a jar.
"What's the next stop?" he asks.
"Astiga... Ass-something... Astorga. I think."
"Give it here you cripple," Jonghyun says, finally.
Since breakfast he had made the decision not to help Minho unless he asked-- because he never asks, just sits there every meal trying to pry open cans of tuna with only one arm like some lone ranger until Jonghyun steps in and does it for him-- but, seeing him, Jonghyun loses his resolve. He's never been good at being strict.
"Oh." Minho looks up and grins. "Thank you hyung."
They had decided to save the best of their supplies for their last meal. Four pints of beer, three cans of soda. Crackers. Nutella. One bottle of whiskey. Two cups of instant noodles. For nostalgia, Minho had said, smiling with his teeth.
If they stayed in Seoul they would have died with their families but instead they had been in a hotel lobby in Munich drinking beer. Two years ago Minho used his savings to come to Germany because he had been curious and Jonghyun had followed him because he had money and nothing else to do. Their trip was never supposed to be two years long; instead two months and a plane back to Korea, university. In the corner of the lobby bar in Munich was a television and through there Jonghyun and Minho watched an earthquake coax down the buildings of their homeland.
Jonghyun misses Seoul.
They are going to Lisbon because Minho doesn't want to die until he sees the Atlantic. This had been something unlike Minho enough for Jonghyun to agree with, but now he misses Seoul.
"There's only rubble," Minho tells him.
Jonghyun sighs. "Yeah, I know."
"Everyone there is gone."
"I know."
"We wouldn't gain anything from going back, hyung."
"Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I know! You think I don't know? I know."
Soon it will be dark. Jonghyun has never seen the Atlantic and wonders what good it could do. He accelerates and watches the wind part Minho's hair and thinks about how a long way away there are streets he knows like the back of his hand.
"The Cathedral of," Minho says, and looks down at the map, nursing every syllable like a newborn child, "San-tia-go de Com-pos-tey-la. You see it hyung?" As he speaks the Cathedral unveils itself from the horizon, stone-faced saviour of an apocalypse.
Jonghyun turns off the engine of the car. "Pretty cool, huh."
"Yeah."
This is an architectural triumph of civilisation, Jonghyun thinks. From the car he can smell the rot of the bodies that had huddled around the altar; their skin will be covered with the welts that had brought down the country, that lurk Jonghyun's arms, Minho's torso. Minho places the map in the glove compartment beside a tissue box and two pistols. Jonghyun doesn't want to go. He looks up to the embroidered doorways and towers and the statue of Saint James and feels nothing.
"This is lame now. Let's keep going." He reaches to restart the engine but Minho, bypassing the door, has already hopped out of the car.
"We came all the way here, hyung. We should at least take a closer look."
"What?" Jonghyun's grip loosens on the driving wheel. "It's just a heap of concrete. I'm not going. You can smell it, right? I'm not going down there. No way. No way."
His petulance does not work today.
"I'll go by myself."
Jonghyun watches him leave. Once Minho is out of sight Jonghyun pushes a CD into the car stereo and turns up the speakers. Heal the world echoes through the streets of Galicia, Spain, and in the afternoon he eats canned beans from the trunk by himself. By the time Minho comes back the sun has begun to set.
Coming from Germany they used to see at least a traveller a day, and through the French Way pilgrims going to Sambre to reach the United Kingdom.
These days the streets are empty. They trace the north of Spain.
Minho's arm is Jonghyun's fault. A drunken brawl coming out of Paris, misguided violence. Jonghyun was only angry because Minho would not fight back.
"Ah, now I remember!" Jonghyun says, one day later. "We need to get water before we reach the border. I remember reading something about some Portuguese cholera epidemic."
Minho is looking away onto the road. "Oh, so you're talking now."
The taps in Spain no longer work. They divert to Fragas do Eume and at the empty receiving station Minho dusts off a tourist's pamphlet, running his finger along the margin. When they reach the river Jonghyun parks in a clearing, trunk facing the water. He fills three two litre bottles from town one by one while Minho waits in the passenger's seat. It is January and the winter of Galacia is not like the winter of Seoul, chilling and violent, but it is cold enough. As a child, before he knew better, he had always wanted to swim in Han River. Jonghyun takes off his shoes and his socks and dips in his toe.
"My balls are gonna freeze off."
"What are you doing?"
"What are you doing all snug in the car? We're living out our last days here, you know?" Jonghyun places his shirt on top of his shoes, pulls off his pants and his briefs. "Shit, my balls are really gonna freeze off."
"--My arm. I can't get my arm wet."
"Fuck! It's cold!" When Minho doesn't reply: "Well, it's not like it's deep. You won't get your cast wet if you're careful."
Once Jonghyun is waist deep he turns around. There are trees and foliage and the trunk of the Mustang, the back of Minho's head. From his vantage point he can see half of Minho's face in the side-view mirror and while he is swimming every so often he will glance back and Minho's gaze will be there as if waiting, staring like something foreign and starved.
"Three-quarters of the world's animal species are extinct but leeches are still alive. Isn't that great, Minho. Isn't that just fucking-- ah, fuck, be careful-- great."
Jonghyun thaws out in front of the fire. To remove the leeches from Jonghyun's back Minho uses a lighter he's carried with him from Korea; on the side Incheon has been embossed and painted in red, and on the bottom a side note. Happy birthday from Minseok.
"This is what you get for swimming butt-naked in the winter."
"Yah, don't talk to me in that tone."
Minho's laughter, hearty and deep. "This is what you get for swimming butt-naked in the winter, hyung."
Every so often he scorches Jonghyun's skin. Once he is done he blows cool air and kisses on bite wounds and in the back of his throat he hums a lullaby from back in time. Jonghyun listens.
They are so close to Lisbon.
"Say something," Jonghyun says, because now it is night and they still haven't spoken.
They had come through to Portugal in the morning; past the decrepit welcome sign Jonghyun had let out a whoop for good measure, but Minho wouldn't look away from the glove compartment.
"I don't know what to talk about."
"Talk about, uh, life in Seoul," he says. Minho stays silent.
The car and the muscles that knit back together in Minho's arm are the only two things that know how to move forward. When they stop to eat and sleep the world is still, an old god kneeling, waiting to die. Jonghyun finds himself looking back more and more.
"When we get to Lisbon I'm going to look for a guitar." Jonghyun stokes the fire. In the east he had a girlfriend with tiny wrists and played with his band every Friday at a bar in Seoul, and Minho had been someone who existed on the very edge of his life. "Then I'll play it and make you fall in love with me; I mean, if that's okay with you."
The fire crackles and Minho replies with breaths deep and slow. He is already asleep.
The road from Porto to Lisbon is longer than any of the roads they've taken before. Minho talks to him less and touches him more, and every so often his gaze will drift down and back again as if it's something he's not supposed to do. Jonghyun sings love songs. They are in Lisbon and there is a guitar in the back seat and two pistols in the glove compartment and in each pistol is a bullet. Half an hour away is a beach that houses the Atlantic. Minho's arm is almost healed.
the way of saint james
minho/jonghyun, pg-13, 1660 words
---
A very long time ago, before they resolved to drive across Europe in t-shirts and jeans and a stolen black Mustang, Jonghyun asked Minho what he would do if he knew the world would end in a month. The Minho who played soccer on weekends and had nightmares about falling through pitless black oceans said "sleep," very simply, and leaned back in his chair. This was a millenia ago. An eon, maybe. School uniforms and chalk boards. Galaxies into the past.
"Ah, did I really say that?"
"Yeah you did." Today Minho's arm is a little better than yesterday and his voice is a little less strained. Jonghyun drives at ninety miles per hour. "Were you trying to trick me into thinking you were cool or something?" He puts on his most offended face, glancing at the metre. They have just enough petrol to make it to Lisbon.
"But I'm kind of cool, you have to admit." Minho grins, his good arm twisting coils in Jonghyun's hair.
He says request denied in drawling monotone and they leave behind laughter and tyre tracks on the road to the edge of the continent.
They stop the car for lunch and as the sun beams down their shoulders cast sharp shadows against the tarmac. Minho grunts, struggles with the cap of a jar.
"What's the next stop?" he asks.
"Astiga... Ass-something... Astorga. I think."
"Give it here you cripple," Jonghyun says, finally.
Since breakfast he had made the decision not to help Minho unless he asked-- because he never asks, just sits there every meal trying to pry open cans of tuna with only one arm like some lone ranger until Jonghyun steps in and does it for him-- but, seeing him, Jonghyun loses his resolve. He's never been good at being strict.
"Oh." Minho looks up and grins. "Thank you hyung."
They had decided to save the best of their supplies for their last meal. Four pints of beer, three cans of soda. Crackers. Nutella. One bottle of whiskey. Two cups of instant noodles. For nostalgia, Minho had said, smiling with his teeth.
If they stayed in Seoul they would have died with their families but instead they had been in a hotel lobby in Munich drinking beer. Two years ago Minho used his savings to come to Germany because he had been curious and Jonghyun had followed him because he had money and nothing else to do. Their trip was never supposed to be two years long; instead two months and a plane back to Korea, university. In the corner of the lobby bar in Munich was a television and through there Jonghyun and Minho watched an earthquake coax down the buildings of their homeland.
Jonghyun misses Seoul.
They are going to Lisbon because Minho doesn't want to die until he sees the Atlantic. This had been something unlike Minho enough for Jonghyun to agree with, but now he misses Seoul.
"There's only rubble," Minho tells him.
Jonghyun sighs. "Yeah, I know."
"Everyone there is gone."
"I know."
"We wouldn't gain anything from going back, hyung."
"Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I know! You think I don't know? I know."
Soon it will be dark. Jonghyun has never seen the Atlantic and wonders what good it could do. He accelerates and watches the wind part Minho's hair and thinks about how a long way away there are streets he knows like the back of his hand.
"The Cathedral of," Minho says, and looks down at the map, nursing every syllable like a newborn child, "San-tia-go de Com-pos-tey-la. You see it hyung?" As he speaks the Cathedral unveils itself from the horizon, stone-faced saviour of an apocalypse.
Jonghyun turns off the engine of the car. "Pretty cool, huh."
"Yeah."
This is an architectural triumph of civilisation, Jonghyun thinks. From the car he can smell the rot of the bodies that had huddled around the altar; their skin will be covered with the welts that had brought down the country, that lurk Jonghyun's arms, Minho's torso. Minho places the map in the glove compartment beside a tissue box and two pistols. Jonghyun doesn't want to go. He looks up to the embroidered doorways and towers and the statue of Saint James and feels nothing.
"This is lame now. Let's keep going." He reaches to restart the engine but Minho, bypassing the door, has already hopped out of the car.
"We came all the way here, hyung. We should at least take a closer look."
"What?" Jonghyun's grip loosens on the driving wheel. "It's just a heap of concrete. I'm not going. You can smell it, right? I'm not going down there. No way. No way."
His petulance does not work today.
"I'll go by myself."
Jonghyun watches him leave. Once Minho is out of sight Jonghyun pushes a CD into the car stereo and turns up the speakers. Heal the world echoes through the streets of Galicia, Spain, and in the afternoon he eats canned beans from the trunk by himself. By the time Minho comes back the sun has begun to set.
Coming from Germany they used to see at least a traveller a day, and through the French Way pilgrims going to Sambre to reach the United Kingdom.
These days the streets are empty. They trace the north of Spain.
Minho's arm is Jonghyun's fault. A drunken brawl coming out of Paris, misguided violence. Jonghyun was only angry because Minho would not fight back.
"Ah, now I remember!" Jonghyun says, one day later. "We need to get water before we reach the border. I remember reading something about some Portuguese cholera epidemic."
Minho is looking away onto the road. "Oh, so you're talking now."
The taps in Spain no longer work. They divert to Fragas do Eume and at the empty receiving station Minho dusts off a tourist's pamphlet, running his finger along the margin. When they reach the river Jonghyun parks in a clearing, trunk facing the water. He fills three two litre bottles from town one by one while Minho waits in the passenger's seat. It is January and the winter of Galacia is not like the winter of Seoul, chilling and violent, but it is cold enough. As a child, before he knew better, he had always wanted to swim in Han River. Jonghyun takes off his shoes and his socks and dips in his toe.
"My balls are gonna freeze off."
"What are you doing?"
"What are you doing all snug in the car? We're living out our last days here, you know?" Jonghyun places his shirt on top of his shoes, pulls off his pants and his briefs. "Shit, my balls are really gonna freeze off."
"--My arm. I can't get my arm wet."
"Fuck! It's cold!" When Minho doesn't reply: "Well, it's not like it's deep. You won't get your cast wet if you're careful."
Once Jonghyun is waist deep he turns around. There are trees and foliage and the trunk of the Mustang, the back of Minho's head. From his vantage point he can see half of Minho's face in the side-view mirror and while he is swimming every so often he will glance back and Minho's gaze will be there as if waiting, staring like something foreign and starved.
"Three-quarters of the world's animal species are extinct but leeches are still alive. Isn't that great, Minho. Isn't that just fucking-- ah, fuck, be careful-- great."
Jonghyun thaws out in front of the fire. To remove the leeches from Jonghyun's back Minho uses a lighter he's carried with him from Korea; on the side Incheon has been embossed and painted in red, and on the bottom a side note. Happy birthday from Minseok.
"This is what you get for swimming butt-naked in the winter."
"Yah, don't talk to me in that tone."
Minho's laughter, hearty and deep. "This is what you get for swimming butt-naked in the winter, hyung."
Every so often he scorches Jonghyun's skin. Once he is done he blows cool air and kisses on bite wounds and in the back of his throat he hums a lullaby from back in time. Jonghyun listens.
They are so close to Lisbon.
"Say something," Jonghyun says, because now it is night and they still haven't spoken.
They had come through to Portugal in the morning; past the decrepit welcome sign Jonghyun had let out a whoop for good measure, but Minho wouldn't look away from the glove compartment.
"I don't know what to talk about."
"Talk about, uh, life in Seoul," he says. Minho stays silent.
The car and the muscles that knit back together in Minho's arm are the only two things that know how to move forward. When they stop to eat and sleep the world is still, an old god kneeling, waiting to die. Jonghyun finds himself looking back more and more.
"When we get to Lisbon I'm going to look for a guitar." Jonghyun stokes the fire. In the east he had a girlfriend with tiny wrists and played with his band every Friday at a bar in Seoul, and Minho had been someone who existed on the very edge of his life. "Then I'll play it and make you fall in love with me; I mean, if that's okay with you."
The fire crackles and Minho replies with breaths deep and slow. He is already asleep.
The road from Porto to Lisbon is longer than any of the roads they've taken before. Minho talks to him less and touches him more, and every so often his gaze will drift down and back again as if it's something he's not supposed to do. Jonghyun sings love songs. They are in Lisbon and there is a guitar in the back seat and two pistols in the glove compartment and in each pistol is a bullet. Half an hour away is a beach that houses the Atlantic. Minho's arm is almost healed.