[Jinki / Kibum] Villain
Rating: NC-17
Genre: au 'verse
Length: ~8,000
Summary: "All lies, I'm sure."
Jinki had been working on someone’s Nissan when the phone rang. He accidentally bumped his head against the crank shaft in surprise. Hissing at the injury, he slid out from under the car and ran towards the desk, wiping his greasy hands on his work overalls.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Lee Mechanics, how may I help you today?”
“Uh, yeah, could I speak with… Lee Jinki ssi?”
He cleared his throat to make his voice sound deeper, more authoritative. “This is he.”
“Oh, hi! I’m Kibum. Kim Kibum. I believe Taemin-?”
“Oh, that’s right. Hello, Kibum ssi. Yeah, he told me you needed someone as a… a model, was it?”
“Y-yeah. Well, basically, I mentioned to him that I’m trying out something new for an upcoming project. Something along the lines of sculpture… Well, it’s hard to explain over the phone, you’ll have to be shown in person. Anywho, so I was talking with Taemin about it. And he said to speak with you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, you were recommended very highly. He talks a lot about you, actually.”
“Heh, all lies, I’m sure.”
“Well that remains to be seen, of course. I called to ask if you’re free later today? See, I thought we could meet before committing to anything?”
“You want to make sure I meet your standards, is it?”
“Yeah, and you can make sure I meet yours, heh.”
“Hah, no, I’ve seen your work at the gallery. You’re a good artist. The question, though, is about uhm…”
“You can say it. The money.”
“Yes, well, you see… I only agreed to volunteer so this could be a sort of. Side-income. Business is slow in the school vacation, you know? We don’t get as many cars at the shop as we used to…”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Uhm, yeah, like I said. Why don’t we meet? That way this’ll feel less awkward?”
“Yes, I agree. So… where did you say you want to meet?”
“Yeah, take down my address, please. It’s…”
------
“Ah, you’re here,” a man answered the door after three long-spaced knocks. “Sorry, have you been waiting long? I had my headphones on while working,” he bashfully pointed to the side of his head where it was smeared with a little wet plaster. Jinki raised his eyebrows but said nothing, simply bowed and stepped in when he was asked to.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess.” Most people said that before letting someone into their homes the first time, but Jinki didn’t think he’d ever heard it said with so much shame.
And Kibum had a good reason for that. Because there was only so much place for a little child to maneuver through the house. Or whatever was visible of the house under plastic and newspaper spreads. Everywhere he turned was either half-built human and animal busts, or unidentifiable mushes of white goo that had hardened a long time ago.
“I forgive you,” Jinki turned around and joked, catching muffled electro beats from some unseen corner of the room.
They chuckled, a fidgety Kibum showing him to a balcony where they could stand and talk without worry of breaking anything. “I wish we knew who to forgive about the weather,” the sculptor shrugged at the snow, then squared his shoulders. “But let me get to the point…” he held his palms out between them, framing a square of air with his fingers and thumbs meeting at right angles.
“You’re perfect.”
Jinki blinked a few times, rendered clueless by the sudden compliment. “Uh?”
“Yeah,” Kibum nodded frantically as if to reinforce his previous statement. He walked a circle around Jinki, learning him from every possible viewpoint. “I mean, I wasn’t sure from the selca Taemin had on his phone, but now that you’re here… yes. I can see why he suggested you. The jaw, the lips, the ears, the eyes… you look absolutely charming.” The man craned his neck like inspecting an animal meant for the butcher’s knife.
“Yes. Everything is in order. You’re perfect for my project.”
The mechanic scratched his cheek. “Well, you know… I work out,” he joked once more, not knowing what else to say in response. Thank you? or I’m glad? or maybe just a limp OK? It was hard to decide. But the other chortled again, good-naturedly, so he just leaned against the balcony railing and nodded.
“So…” Kibum rubbed his hands together. “What do you say to a hundred and seventy thousand per session?”
Jinki’s elbows slipped off the metal behind him. “Wh-what?!” He started open-mouthed at the other, feeling like his eyes would fall out of his sockets. “I’m… I’m sorry did I hear that right? One hundred and seventy thousand won?!” he barked.
The sculptor nibbled on his bottom lip, eyes darting nervously from side to side. “T-too little? Sorry, I’ve never done this before. I mean, I know I’ll be eating up your precious time but there’s a limit to what I can shell out… OK, no wait what about and extra fifteen percent of the commission I earn from this project, you know, as an added-”
“T-that’s too much!” Jinki exclaimed, shaken to madness by hearing about all that money. He covered his mouth, feeling utterly shell-shocked. Like a man who’d won the lottery with the first ticket he ever bought in his lousy miserable life. “T-that’s more than I make in five months, sir!” he declared. “That’s… really really generous…!”
"Please, call me Kibum," the said man eased into a smile. He shrugged once more, appearing more nonchalant than a few minutes ago. “So… you’ll consider it?"
Jinki scoffed in disbelief. “Are you joking? For that kind of money I’d do whatever you ask of me! I’ll… I’ll give your car free servicing for the rest of your life!” he gushed a sincere promise.
Kibum clapped his hands gleefully. “Let’s start immediately, then~”
------
“So what’s your subject?” Jinki asked while they sipped coffee across from one another. He’d left his shop in the hands of a very nervous and very inexperienced young graduate from some unheard-of college in the south. But it didn’t really bother him; he’d make enough cash just sitting here to decline changing the metal casing of five spark plugs.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Kibum shook his head at an open sketchbook, then motioned to Jinki’s free hand resting palm-down on the table. “But let’s start with this. May I?”
The consent was granted with an amused nod. Immediately, the sculptor began minutely examining the limb-pressing into every joint, tracing over every line, rubbing against every muscle, and feeling along each vein. His skin was roughened, probably from spending all those hours crafting POP into life. But his touch was gentle, like someone handling an ancient artefact. Jinki smirked at the actions between sips of his drink, and giggled every once in a while when he felt tickled. But when the other held their palms against one another as if in comparison, he fell silent.
His reaction received an alarmed look. “S-sorry… that was weird,” Kibum timorously withdrew.
“No… it’s fine. I’ve just…” Jinki pursed his lips in thought, flicking through words in search of appropriate ones to say to ease the situation. He looked at the other with all the seriousness he could muster. “I’ve never seen an artist doing homework before. It’s interesting. To… see what titillating detail they find in regular things.”
Kibum only smiled, tapping the unsharpened end of his pencil against the tablecloth, attention straying back to Jinki’s hand. His fingers circled around each digit with an odd fascination. “I like your hands, he complimented. “They have a very,” he paused, like he was searching for the right word. “Very manly look to them.” The sculptor chuckled before leaning back in his chair and starting to draw.
“My mother used to say I should grow up to be an artist. Since I have feminine hands. I never really paid any attention to that comment until now,” he continued to chatter, sketching elongated ovals and soft-edged squares. “I dated a palmist once, though, haha,” Kibum said while bending over his book. “She never let me off without a heated argument.” A quick series of flicks and drags later he reeled back and studied his work.
Jinki craned in with curiosity. “Wow, nice,” he blandly approved of the rough product, though he wasn’t as impressed as he’d initially expected. The sketch was a fair reproduction of his own hand, but it wasn’t anything special. He’d never say that aloud, of course, it’d literally cost him too much.
“So you’ve had someone model for you before?” he changed the subject instead.
Kibum looked at him then quickly moved his gaze away, but in that infinitesimal moment Jinki caught the hurt in his features. He bit his tongue, wondering if he’d said the worst thing possible by the way the other blinked rapidly from one corner of the café to the other. He considered apologizing and taking the question back, but soon Kibum smiled once more, letting out an audible sigh.
“Yes,” was all he supplied.
No other words were exchanged between them after that. A waitress asked if they wanted their cups refilled and they both declined. The sculptor shut his sketchbook decisively loud and slipped it into his coat pocket. He hastily gulped down his remaining coffee, prompting Jinki to do the same. As they left place, Kibum scribbled Jinki a check, handing it and offering a polite bow before walking away.
Jinki was left standing alone on the sidewalk, feeling very much like that greedy idiot who tore open the goose that lay golden eggs.
------
The hunk of confusing metal and folded concrete sat between a large congregation of cars, towering a mere three storeys high.
No sooner had he stepped indoors than the burn of upmarket stares, the heat of posh sniffs greeted the back of Jinki’s head. Feeling underdressed as hell, he moved through groups of silk and throngs of velvet with his eyes strictly to the floor. Even the crisply uniformed doorman with his polished shoes far outshone Jinki’s bedraggled appearance. He hastily passed through a narrow entrance that shouted LOOP in neon letters.
The building itself was nothing as spectacular as its external façades. Raw concrete and wood melded at corners, unadorned except for a polished glass railing that accompanied a stairwell running all the way to the top floor. Awkward crooks and a ridiculously high ceiling were spotted with colorful exhibits. When he walked along a series of thin partitions, he smiled in amazement at how an entire wall was utilized as multiple screens. Vibrant scenes of art films were projected onto drab grey walls, making for a very odd contrast.
“Sir, would you like a brochure?” a lady politely asked him when he turned a sharp corner.
“Eh? Ah! No thank you, but uhh…” Jinki hesitated, looking around. “I-I’m actually here to see one of the artists. Uhm, do you know where I might find Kim Kibum? He's supposed to be featured in the show tonight? Uh... tall, dark hair, possibly has plaster on the side of his face?”
The woman gave him a once over. “This way, please.”
A short scratchy walkie-talkie conversation later, he was guided in royal VVIP fashion towards one of the elevators. His phone had pinged earlier in the day with Kibum's message and at first he hadn’t believed his eyes. After the gauche way they'd parted at the cafe he didn't think he'd be invited to another session of modeling for the sculptor, much less to visit his art show. But if he was being offered a second chance on a silver platter he figured… who was he to refuse?
Kibum stood at the end of the cantilever, looking down into the atrium of the gallery as he waited. His hair was perfectly gelled in place and his suit missed a shirt. Thick black threads hung from his neck, a wifebeater peeking from inside the classy ensemble. Jinki made to clear his throat for attention but the other whipped around just in time to shoot him a warm smile. “Good! You're right on schedule,” he greeted, handing out a glass of champagne and picking up his own from a tray nearby.
“Mm?”
The man didn't answer. An impish smile played with his features as they strolled together into the centre of the hall. He tapped a fingernail against his glass to call attention to himself. Jinki saw that most visitors were too engrossed in their own conversations to hear the meek sound. “Wait, wait,” he patted Kibum's arm for him to stop clinking his glass and gathered breath in his lungs.
“Yah!” he shouted.
The posh patrons all came to a standstill, some gasping and clutching at their fronts in horror. Kibum giggled in amusement, shooting a wink to his companion. “Ladies and gentlemen, many things to be said and the first: thank you for being here,” the artist smiled graciously. “As those of you who know me, also already know-I am an ambitious fool.” Polite chuckles went around the room at that. “Life is too boring to be left alone, it needs to be prodded. It needs to be troubled and teased, don’t you all agree?” More polite laughter. Jinki joined in until he felt the other’s palm rest on the small of his back.
He tensed, fingers tightened around the glass in his hold.
“With that I think it’s time to unveil my newest project,” Kibum announced. He walked a few steps forward, shoes clacking against the floor. The sound echoed loudly but maybe not as loud as Jinki heard it in his now-self-conscious head. He didn't care much for physical attention, especially not with people he'd only met once before. But something in the way those long fingers had fondled the fabric over his tail bone reminded him of campfires and heavy blankets.
Those same fingers now lifted off a cloth from the top of a stand Jinki only then noticed. He stacked his buzz aside to pay attention but he couldn’t see what had been uncovered. The rest of the audience did, though… and apparently they loved it, if their raucous applause was anything to go by. It was only when the other took a deep bow that he noticed what had been exposed.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. The male form in particular has been done to death by every great sculptor we’ve ever read about. But then again…” Kibum continued with a grin in his voice. “It was precisely what made them great sculptors~”
“You’re well on your way there!” someone complimented and a dozen or so voices murmured agreement. When Jinki walked around to see what everyone was fussing over, he couldn’t help but concur when his sight finally found it-for on a marble pedestal in the middle of the room sat the likeness of his stubby fingers and chubby hands, bunching up a patch of tablecloth in ecstasy.
------
“A little more to the left,” Kibum said, reaching out to adjust Jinki’s face. He turned a tiny degree to the side until he was given an excited approval.
They’d moved on from hands and arms to heads. The tip of a pencil continually scratched over paper; it skittered around creating a solid jaw, a pair of puffy lips, a hooked nose, the wavy shell of an ear, a thick brow. Once or twice it made mistakes and then scratched over them in a rush as if to hide said mistakes. Jinki watched it dance through the corner of his eyes.
He'd woken up to a groggy, rainy morning today hoping to spend it the way he spent every bank holiday: alone, with the TV on mute and a cup of hot chocolate between his thighs. And yet he found himself in the sculptor's posh twenty-third floor apartment again, praises like you have stunning features and your eyes are beautiful peppering the silence. Jinki couldn’t get used to them no matter how long they spent time together. If he were honest with himself, it made him slightly uneasy.
But he didn’t mind as long as there was a check with his name waiting for him at the end of the day.
“It’s just…” the artist suddenly paused, sitting back. The drawing in his book still looked incomplete. “I don’t understand your hair,” he chortled, changing his own position in hopes that it would make a difference. He gave up, laughing exasperatedly. “Uhm, you know, maybe if I could-I mean, is it OK if I rearrange it a little?”
Jinki nodded his permission after a few moments of indecision.
“Sorry, you must think I’m crazy or something,” the other apologized, standing up and carefully parting his subject’s hair with gentle fingers. He pushed a majority of the mass to one side so it cascaded onto Jinki’s left temple. A thumb occasionally swiped across the arch of his forehead before going back to stroke his scalp from root to tip, pausing a second on his ears. “I hope you know I’m extremely grateful for all your help. I realize I’m a difficult person to work with.”
Jinki looked up at Kibum to ease his worry. But when he found the man looking down at him with a misplaced sadness, he flicked his glance away. The feeling remained stained in his mind like a photographic negative. It was too embarrassing to maintain contact with, and it was too painful to ignore at the same time. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “It’s uhh… yeah, no problem.”
“Ah, r-right...” the sculptor said, waking up from his reverie to take a seat. “Why don’t we try the right side now.”
Jinki shifted once more, twiddling his thumbs nervously and wondering how much longer he’d have to sit on this uncomfortable wooden stool. His butt was starting to feel numb. When the other was happy with the angle, he looked up at the opposite wall with a blank face as instructed.
“So, how long have you been in the car industry?” Kibum asked in sugar-coated terms while he sharpened his pencil.
“Since university,” Jinki gave his clipped response.
“W-wait, what,” the other stopped drawing to look up in surprise. “You’re… you’re a college graduate.” The statement was more a shocked utterance of realization. “I mean, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed anything but I thought, you know-”
“You thought a college graduate wouldn’t need to scrape the bottom of the barrel just to make ends meet,” Jinki scoffed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have to do this. I should have a job at a law firm, clocking in so many hours that I end up earning a six figure salary by the time I’m thirty.” He held his posture but his jaw tightened in a twinge of annoyance. “But you forget that we live in times where being chronically unemployed and underpaid is normal. Not everyone can afford a nice painting to hang in their living room… or even a living room, at that,” he side-eyed the other. “Maybe you never felt the crunch.”
To his surprise the sculptor bit his lip in shame. “Yeah…” he said in a remorseful tone. “Maybe I was lucky. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK,” Jinki smiled after a while. “As long as there are people like you, creating something out of nothing, there will always be people like me who fix those somethings. So they don’t go back to being nothing,” he said. “It all works out in the end, doesn’t it?”
------
The room was warmer than usual that day.
Jinki walked in and threw his bag next to the shoe rack, taking off his jacket with a questioning glance in the other’s direction. Usually he didn't mind being summoned like this at the last moment. But just now he had declined serving a customer and his Rolls Royce Phantom in order to be here. To say that he was a little annoyed with the situation would've been an understatement. “Well?” he started. “What’s this emergency you mentioned on the phone?”
Kibum hesitated a little before saying, “How… comfortable are you with taking off your clothes?” He said the words in a rush; like he’d wanted to push them out of the way all day, maybe even all week. “I mean… I totally forgot to ask you when you first started but well-y-you see when I said modeling I also assumed you’d know I dabble in nudes but now I realize that was presumptuous and stupid of me, so I just wanted to-”
“No, I get it,” Jinki raised his palms between them in a calming gesture. “It’s… it’s fine.”
“A-are you sure?”
“You’ve gone as far as heating the place up for me so, of course.”
The sculptor looked like he would’ve launched himself onto the other out of sheer joy. With whatever resolve or self-restraint he had, Kibum settled for a loud clap of his hands and a stuttering jump on the balls of his feet. “Great!” he hissed victoriously. “I mean!” he suddenly sobered up after a moment, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ll only ask you to take off your shirt today. Please be assured… ehehe.” The nervous chuckling somehow sounded childish and totally unprofessional to Jinki but once again, he reminded himself of how much he needed the money.
“Ahm, right, so please…” Kibum politely showed him the way. The other started to unbutton himself out of his clothes when he was made to pause and reconsider. “You can use that bathroom at the end of the hall if you like. I’ll,” the sculptor cleared his throat, suddenly edgy from the way his glance drifted everywhere except to meet that of his subject. “I’ll set things up out here.”
Jinki shrugged and complied.
When he stepped out of the washroom and coughed once for attention, Kibum looked up from his drawings and lurched off of his stool as if caught unawares by a tornado. Tins and scalpels fell to the ground. Pencils and inks splattered out of a stand and onto the table. A thick book toppled and slammed against the floor, newspaper floating and white modeling powder huffing up into tiny clouds from the force. He scrambled to pick them up and hit is head against the corner of his work desk. All his usual detachment vanished. The confident air he’d displayed before had somehow evaporated at merely the sight of a shirtless man.
It should’ve worried Jinki a little bit but he couldn’t help feel amused. “You OK?” he asked through a snort. The amusement grew into a soundless giggle when Kibum shakily nodded and motioned for him to step forward, red in the face.
“M-may I...?” he extended a tentative arm forward. Jinki gave out another muffled laugh before granting his assent. The sculptor took a step forward and blinked at least a thousand times before acting on his objectives.
Lines of heat were dragged over a built torso, fingers probing into the dips of well-defined abs, resting there longer than necessary for a basic anatomical study. They pried at the flesh, willing for its body to open wider to them in submission. Their touch flowed like water, dripping and playing and flowing away-following a directionless trail as they pleased. They rubbed over peaking nipples, they smoothed against tense gooseflesh, they caressed an Adams apple that bobbed against the attention. Jinki would’ve flinched and backed away at the invaded privacy but. But an arm coiled round his waist and held him fast by his back. He was the earth under that wet touch. He absorbed it like soil drinking rain. He gulped and grew more and more drenched each passing minute that they stood in such close proximity. Kibum opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, as if he owed his muse another compliment to add to an already bursting list.
But his searing breath melted the words at his lips, hitting Jinki in the jaw and burning him to a crisp. And for a long suspended moment he felt as if there was no Jinki anymore-only Kibum remained.
“A-are you done?” he asked, breaking the spell.
------
The end result was nothing short of teasing.
Patrons and press gathered around the singular piece announcing the nearing date of Kim Kibum’s exhibit-a headless, limbless abdomen wrung tightly like a spring. As if its owner were reaching out to pluck a fruit from a high branch. There was something the nearly unseen thumbprints in plaster were trying to scream out to the public. Something carnal and raw in the way the lifeless torso seemed anything but lifeless. There was a supple sensuality in the sculpture, a sense of intimacy that made visitors gasp and photographers go into a clicking frenzy.
The new issue of Art and Seoul would definitely have a lot of interesting reviews to offer.
“You’ve outdone yourself again,” an old woman cheerily reached up and patted Kibum’s cheek. He blushed and bowed, thanked everyone who had something nice to say about the display. There were bouquets and bottles of champagne. There were cards and congratulatory phone calls. The artist was whisked around the room in a flurry, going a little wild-eyed with joy that his work was being received as more than just a success.
And when his eyes found Jinki he gave out the sort of smile that exuded friendly gratitude, but still managed to run electrical charges along the other’s spine. The memory of eyes as dark as the night sky, wisps of curly uncombed hair obscuring their sight; of shapely lips that seemed to pout one minute and smile another, teeth sinking and biting into the supple flesh... the memory of Kibum's sharp and pungent sweat which somehow still clung to Jinki's clothes. It was nothing short of maddening. If he stayed there a moment longer, in that neglected niche on the far end of the gallery, he would be allowing Kibum to cut across the distances between them. He would be agreeing to be possessed by nimble fingers that pattered like dancers’ feet. He'd be saying yes where he was meant to say no.
Jinki pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and made to leave.
“Wait,” his employer called out to him. Not minding the drink splashing out of his glass, he yanked a wrinkled cheque from his pant pocket and held it out. “I forgot to pay you. That last time. Uhm…” It may have been the air con but it could also have been Kibum’s anxiety that the slip of paper fluttered lightly. “Will you. I mean-will I see you again? Same time, next week?” There was a light drizzle of expectancy in his voice. The gleam of his eyes said he knew Jinki would never refuse when there was cash to be earned out of it. It made him seem extremely disgusting.
Until he spoke on. “U-unless you feel uncomfortable continuing. I’d understand if… if you felt it was morally incorrect or if you felt used for your bod-”
“Next week, then,” the mechanic nodded and took the offered payment, ready to head back to his island of broken cars.
------
Jinki had never been the shy kind. He’d never had trouble with things that required courage. In fact, he prided himself as the bravest member of his family. As a fairly wild university student, he’d loved to seek out the craziest roller coasters, the scariest and most extreme of sports-he even recalled a week-long trip to the frigid island of Sakhalin, where his feet had nearly caught frostbite and his tongue had accidentally stuck itself to the brim of a steel cup. Jinki liked to rank himself as “above average” when it came to being adventurous.
But that was then.
Now, as he stood in the middle of Kibum’s living room with nothing to cover his dignity except a pair of tight shorts and a sheet of plastic wrinkling under his curling toes… now, he knew he’d never done anything half as mad as being someone’s artistic muse.
The other kept his eyes lowered as if in respect, but there was that occasional peer he attempted to sneak in every few seconds. It would’ve been hard to catch had Jinki not been staring at Kibum like he was trying to drill holes into him with the intensity of his glance. Neither man said a word, other than the intermittent cough to clear their throats. Neither made a move to get on with the session. Neither took that first courageous step forward, they remained steadfastly in their places.
“I-if…” Kibum gulped after a maddeningly long series of minutes. “Uhm. If you’ve changed your mind, that’s OK.”
“No, I’m fine, I just need some time to process this.”
“You’ve. Never…” the sculptor shook his head with a frown. “Never disrobed in front of someone before?”
“There’ve been some women,” Jinki clarified, grunting. “It’s not like, hah. Not like I’m a total novice or anything to uhh. Stripping, you know?" He laughed the situation away. "I just. I haven’t done it in front of. Well.”
“Another man?” Kibum smiled.
“Yeah. That.” Jinki scratched the back of his neck, now finding the wiggle of his toes interesting to watch.
The sculptor thought for a minute. “Would it help if I took my clothes off, too?” he asked, shrugging his shirt away without waiting for an answer.
“No-no-no.” Jinki shook his head rapidly, reaching out to stop the guy. “Th-that’s," he took a step back before they touched. "That’s fine.”
Kibum nodded in understanding and seated himself on the very edge of the sofa. He gestured for his model to be seated too. Which Jinki did in a flurry of actions-shucking off his underwear and bouncing onto the cushions, closing his legs tightly and looking away into the distance. He waited for some form of displeased comment on that but only heard the scribbling and scratching of a pencil against paper.
“I-is…” he ventured. “Is this alright?”
Kibum gave a hum of acknowledgement.
“You’re not even looking, though...”
The sculptor sighed. “Just be,” he hesitated, looking up from his notebook a moment. “Just be natural. Be yourself. Don’t be conscious. No one is going to judge you here.” He paused to see if his words had helped. And when he saw they hadn’t he suggested something else. “Close your eyes and imagine you’re alone,” he tried, the timbre of his voice so soft and gentle. “Imagine I don’t exist. You’re at home, on your own couch, by yourself, naked, with all the time in the world. What do you want do?”
Jinki did as he was told. He took a deep breath and, with residual reluctance, let his head fall back onto the armrest. His body relaxed after many deeper and more forceful inhales that followed, the lock of his thighs loosening and easing open. Eyelids drooping to a sleepy lull, he let his thoughts wander.
And they wandered straight to Kibum.
“Touch yourself,” the sculptor hypnotically whispered.
Jinki stroked himself, trying hard to convince his mind that he was alone. He tried to think back to all the sexual encounters he’d had over the years. He tried to recollect every scene of every porno he’d had the courage to watch on a public computer. He spat into the palm of his hand, hoping it’d make the slide easier and let his imagination flow better. But when he craned his neck to check if it was helping, nothing aroused him like the other’s unmoving eyes on him.
He gave out a gasp, palm falling motionless to the base of his hardness and squeezing tight lest he climaxed from that look alone. “G-go on,” Kibum coaxed from behind a loud nervous gulp as he changed his position to fit between his subject's legs, tone hoarse and gravelly. “Keep… keep going.”
The other shifted around. He shook his head, panicking. “I-I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I…”Jinki scrunched his eyes shut with the effort of keeping himself from bursting. He panted, hoping to cool himself off, to make his blood slow down, to make the heat stop rushing so swiftly over his body. “I just…!” he grit his teeth. “I fucking can’t, alright?”
There was no warning to what happened next. One moment they were trying to arrange Jinki in a decent pose and the next, the room caught on fire. Kibum bent low to take a long elaborate lick at the tip of the other’s cock and the man lost his mind.
“Ffffuu-!” he started to squeal, then lost his voice too when he saw the sculptor blinking up at him.
“Why not?” Kibum asked again before returning to the pulsing organ.
Involuntarily bucking up into the heated mouth, Jinki slid lower on the cushions. He hit his head against a lamp by accident, but didn’t even feel the pain when Kibum closed his lips over the head of his erection and sucked in, deep and long. It was maddening, a little frightening, but mostly it was liberating. Like a million buckles around his torso had been snapped off so he could lift himself up against Kibum’s unresistant tongue.
When his thrusting got too fast and his writhing turned too uncontrolled, slender sculptor fingers stilled him by the hipbones as if reshaping him. He bent up into their hold and stayed there till he was emptied of all his pressing burning thrashing need.
“That was quick…” Kibum licked a stray smear of release from the corner of his lips, a hint of a smirk resting there like an unsaid taunt. “You’ve never done that?”
Jinki shook his head, too out of breath to speak. “Not…” he gulped after a few seconds. “Not with… someone that good.”
------
There were no greetings exchanged the next time they met.
Jinki threw his bag off his shoulders, wasting no time in clicking open buttons and sliding away zippers. Kibum rushed to him like his need to touch the man was more urgent than the need to breathe. His own clothes stayed where they were, neat and creaseless like he was heading for another art function. “You’re early,” he said even as his mouth worked of its own accord, kissing over the stretches of skin gradually exposed.
"You--you're complaining...?! Ah!" Jinki found himself melting and dripping onto the other's tongue, grasping the back of Kibum's head for support as he sledded in and out of mindfulness. His consiousness rose and abated like a flooded river-trying to search for its muddy banks, trying hard to stay within its boundaries and yet overflowing far past its mark.
Kibum sipped him out of his confines, lips forceful, hands persuasive.
Jinki moaned against the pressure. These sensations were familiar but they burned hotter than he was used to. These actions and these affections were common, he’d experienced them before. But the way Kibum looked at him, the way he hummed at the taste of Jinki’s skin, the way his fingers fooled around the model’s body like he was in the process of creating a brand new Jinki was. Reckless. Exhilarating. It made him giddy. “Slow,” he whined. “Slow down, please.”
And then Kibum was too careful, too gentle, too sweet. His hands were warmer, his movements unhurried. He held Jinki just as tight, but looked deeper into his eyes, sighed longer into his mouth. A thousand Hondas and Suzukis and Mazdas could be honking outside the auto shop at that moment. All the vehicles in the world could fall into disrepair then, and the mechanic wouldn’t care. He wouldn't move a millimeter away from Kibum. He’d still want to be here, rolling around a floor covered in plastic and paper and plaster. He’d leave everything and everyone behind just so Kibum could have his way. Just so that series of skilled touches could build him into another person with another life and another heart.
"Better?" he inquired within a smile. Jinki blushed the question away.
The mattress felt like the surface of another planet. They landed into another dimension, limbs tangled and wrestling for control. Kibum didn’t tremble for a second as he yanked off pants and ripped off a shirt. He drew over Jinki's muscles and bones with a dragging tongue, painted him anew with his spit and ardor, molded him into perfect shapes with every pinch and every knead. “You’re a sculpture in yourself,” he gave his biggest compliment so far. And yet it fell out sounding nothing like a complement. They way his voice was so sure, so confident saying it: it was a universal truth, a well-known fact. “You’re the most perfect thing ever made,” he gasped, savoring every inch of Jinki.
"How could I have dreamt of remodeling you?" he stared up at the other in wonder.
Jinki had always thought of himself as exceedingly masculine. Long hours at work had crafted him an enviable body. Female customers would linger around long after the job was done, some going as far as trying to touch his hand or pat his shoulder. Grease lined under his nails. Stress discolored the crescents under his eyes. His forearms were tanned where he’d fold the sleeves of his overalls. With his plaid shirts and his loose-fitting pants, his bottles of beer and his boring conversations he was just an average male. But Jinki was delicate in Kibum’s hold. He was soft and demure and pliable. He could be bent and reshaped in any way the other desired to bend and reshape him in. He was open and full and teeming with a million feelings that were nothing close to average. As fingers probed within him with feather-light touches, he bit his lip raw and groaned deep in his throat and squirmed around with need. The camber of his back rose and fell until Kibum took hold of his ankles and hooked them around his waist.
“May I?” he asked. And just like every other time, Jinki nodded. Angling his thighs as far open as they would go without him earning a cramp, he whimpered a soft yes.
The press in was like entering another dimension of reality. One that Kibum had been secretly been working on away from the eyes of the rest of the world; one he’d been calling out to Jinki from and the other never even heard. And now the sound was deafening. The slide of their bodies was electrifying, like being hit by a thousand lightning bolts over and over again and again. Jinki could hear their hearts competing in loudness, clashing against ribs like cymbals, hammering hard and trying to drill a path outwards so they could meet. His pulse throbbed in his ears like a train speeding along railway tracks. His blood swam with beautiful strains of fervor. His hands shivered as the rose up to claw into Kibum’s shoulders but when they found their purchase, they were unmovable.
“You OK?” a tender whisper queried.
“Deeper,” he rasped, neck stretching up for a pair of lips to dance over his throat. “D-deeper,” he gulped.
Kibum chuckled, his exhales as spear-like as his hardness. He jabbed harder, slow pushes aimed right at the point of unending bliss. Jinki cried out a few times before the motion stilled, a heavy pressure remaining on his prostate and wiping his vision clean. He pronounced Kibum’s name like he’d never uttered a single word before in his whole life. And in return a deep voice stamped his name against his jugular.
“Are you close?” it asked.
He pushed up with an arm and sat onto Kibum’s lap while they still moved. He smiled down at the sculptor, who stared back, completely enthralled, and craned up till their noses rubbed in an odd affectionate gesture. Their breaths rattled in and out with the effort of rolling hips and weaving waists. Jinki sobbed when nails dug into his backside, making the lifts and drops harder. The claps of their thighs were loud. The squelch of their sticky wetness was warm, drooling out between Jinki’s legs and dripping off his skin. His head lolled back, eyes losing all sight except the expanse of approaching white. He cupped Kibum’s face in the last few seconds of their chafing bodies, and kissed him breathless.
They toppled on top of each other in a mess of tiredness.
Right before his consciousness caved in, Jinki watched his racing heart drip out of his chest to make its way into Kibum’s.
------
Needless to say, the exhibit was a success. Reporters went berserk. The media hounded Kibum with a million questions as to his inspirations, his muses, his plans for the future. Foreign press recorded quick minute-long interviews and an old woman who everyone seemed to bow especially low to said she was quite impressed. The moral police were also present, asking for “such offensive pieces” to be removed from public display. Of course, no one paid them any heed. But by Jinki’s personal scale of measurement, anyone who’d been noticed by politically-backed vigilantes was indubitably famous.
Still, the tiny group of masked protesters holding a reel of painted cloth in their hands to one side of the exhibition hall, though silent, were an eyesore. They looked to be positively fuming.
Any why wouldn’t they be? Kibum had recreated the pleasure on Jinki’s face with some brand of hedonism. Each line was crafted with a strange devotion. Each breath seemed to have been immortalized with the swipe of a thumb or a piercing of fingernails. Each bone, each sinew, every single muscle put on display was such that Jinki suspected it had always been present inside the plaster-all Kibum had done was tap the unfinished surface with his chisel a few times to reveal the perfect life-like image. Every statue was a piece of Jinki’s essence, touched intimately by Kibum to take its present form.
He stood in his usual corner, being discreet and waiting for Kibum to grace him with the occasional smile.
The sculptor was in seventh heaven. From his awkward gait, he’d probably already downed a few drinks. Jinki wondered if the man would need a shoulder to lean against when the time came to leave. The prospect of them sharing contact in public stirred Jinki’s nerves to the point of physical pain. For days after that evening in Kibum’s bedroom, he’d craved after the man. The prolonged separation had only aggravated the want, the sheer need, in his gut. It’d gotten so bad that simple zephyrs running through the shop had wafted Kibum’s scent above all the other stenches in the vicinity. It drove Jinki mad. It drove him to dig his nails into a tightly-fisted palm.
He pursed his lips and shook with the effort of staying away from the other man.
"Yo~" the sculptor slurred towards him with a happy grin. He let his front sag onto Jinki's ready hold, coiling his thick arms up around them to make them dance a little in place. The warmth of his body, the light kisses he pressed onto Jinki's blazer-covered arm, the hysterical laughter when he realized what he was doing, the fleeting smile he shot up at the other before closing his eyes and nuzzling into his shoulder with a whine. All of it hurt. As the rest of the visitors to the exhibit loitered around in their respective groups, the two of them stood on their tiny piece of unseen perfection. The remaining contents of Kibum's glass sloshed onto Jinki's blazer. He cringed a little before his smile naturally arrived.
"Having fun?" he mumbled.
Kibum groaned a sleepy yet affirmative sound, following it with a chuckle.
There was more than a physical need behind all this. There was more gratitude than anything. Jinki was thankful he'd found in Kibum, someone who chuckled at all his shitty jokes. Who listened to his possibly nonsensical theories about life and the failing economy. Who held him even through the distance, who touched him with his intense gazes. Who kissed him and let him kiss back. Who protected him from a loneliness that had been growing steadily for the few months before they'd met.
Jinki was, in that short moment, grateful that Kibum existed.
"Take me home?"
------
The morning was groggy, sticky, not the sort of morning one likes to wake up to.
“Hey,” Kibum shook Jinki’s shoulder. The motion was gentle at first, and then it turned insistent. “Hey, wake up.”
He did as he was told, stretching, yawning, taking his time to get his bearing straight despite the harsh light streaming in through parted curtains somewhere. A rustle of plastic reminded him of where he was. He smiled and curled onto his side, hugging the other’s thigh. “Good morni-”
When Kibum moved away, the motion was rapid. Jinki frowned. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up. “What’s up?”
The other dusted an available chair free of plaster dust and seated himself. “We should talk,” he said. “About this.” A finger oscillated to and fro between them. And something in the way Kibum spoke had Jinki’s head clanking loud and urgent alarms. Something in his tone had him putting on his clothes, trying to gather his dignity before he left this place for good. Were he honest with himself, he’d uttered a mental uh oh once or twice in the weeks they’d spent together. Were he truly logical for a single minute in this whole ordeal, he’d have admitted that what he had with Kibum was too good to be true. And were he being realistic, he should never have overstayed his welcome.
“You… aren’t the first time I’ve had a muse,” the sculptor breathed out.
“You said,” Jinki grunted, pulling on his socks.
“It didn’t end well.”
The other looked up, elbows resting on his knees. “Will you tell me what happened?” he asked, though he wasn’t very sure he wanted to know. What he wanted was for Kibum to take him away, wherever he was headed, whatever direction he was walking towards. He wanted for them to forget their pasts, disregard the present and only think about what lay ahead of them. As long as they disappeared, as long as they lost their way back, as long as they had each other’s shoulders to lean against, all Jinki wanted was for them to leave here.
“He left,” Kibum offered his simple explanation.
The other man stood up and walked over, cupping the sculptor’s face. “Are you afraid I will, too?”
Kibum shook his head free of the contact. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt myself again. It’s… it’s my hedgehog syndrome, I guess.” He chuckled despite himself. “I’ve promised myself-ever since Minho, I promised myself to never open myself wide enough that someone will steal what’s inside me. Because when the walk away, I feel empty.”
“I won’t walk away,” Jinki promised.
Another shake of the head gently pushed him away. “That's not something you can promise. You..." he rubbed a hand against his forehead. "You should dress up and leave.”
The grip he hand on the situation was rapidly slipping. And as he saw their now take on the colors of a memory, Jinki turned desperate. His blood boiled when his fingers were no longer on the other’s skin. “Kibum,” he warned.
“What?!” the said man snapped. “What do you want?! What will you get from talking me out of letting you go? You think you can say a few nicely wrapped words to convince me and I’ll let you stay? So I’ll share my bed again? So-so I’ll keep paying you?!” he stormed. “You think you can win this debate like every other debate and I’ll have to accept defeat?! Just so you can secure your steady paycheck, you’re going to have me hurt myself, is that it?!” he yelled before stomping his way to a desk drawer and pulling out his draft book. After a series of furious scribbles he walked up to Jinki and slapped the cheque onto the man’s chest. “Some things can’t be fixed, Jinki,” he ground out.
The mechanic looked at the hand pressing a large sum of money against him. And he realized that no matter what Kibum asked of him, he found he couldn’t say no. He couldn’t resist. He’d run, he’d hide, he’d duck, he’d take the bullet. He’d be a voiceless puppet.
“Some things aren’t meant to be broken, Kibum,” he muttered, walking away. The cheque fluttered to the newspaper-covered ground like a dead leaf.
------
Jinki had been working on someone’s Nissan when the phone rang. He accidentally bumped his head against the crank shaft in surprise. Hissing at the injury, he slid out from under the car and ran towards the desk, wiping his greasy hands on his work overalls.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Lee Mechanics, how may I help you today?”
“Uh, yeah, could I speak with… Lee Jinki ssi?”
He paused when he recognized the voice on the other side. For a moment he considered hanging up. But then like someone who roots for the villain in a superhero story, he spoke on. “This is he.”
“Uhm. So, I understand that usually you must get requests to fix all sorts of things. But... I heard that you had something yourself, that was broken and needed fixing and-”
“And?”
“And I want to help.”
Jinki grit his teeth to keep his pulse from jumping out of his mouth. “Oh?”
“Yeah. A-and... and I assure you, I come highly recommended.”
He bit his lips down before they stretched into a wide smile. “All lies, I’m sure.”
Genre: au 'verse
Length: ~8,000
Summary: "All lies, I'm sure."
Jinki had been working on someone’s Nissan when the phone rang. He accidentally bumped his head against the crank shaft in surprise. Hissing at the injury, he slid out from under the car and ran towards the desk, wiping his greasy hands on his work overalls.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Lee Mechanics, how may I help you today?”
“Uh, yeah, could I speak with… Lee Jinki ssi?”
He cleared his throat to make his voice sound deeper, more authoritative. “This is he.”
“Oh, hi! I’m Kibum. Kim Kibum. I believe Taemin-?”
“Oh, that’s right. Hello, Kibum ssi. Yeah, he told me you needed someone as a… a model, was it?”
“Y-yeah. Well, basically, I mentioned to him that I’m trying out something new for an upcoming project. Something along the lines of sculpture… Well, it’s hard to explain over the phone, you’ll have to be shown in person. Anywho, so I was talking with Taemin about it. And he said to speak with you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, you were recommended very highly. He talks a lot about you, actually.”
“Heh, all lies, I’m sure.”
“Well that remains to be seen, of course. I called to ask if you’re free later today? See, I thought we could meet before committing to anything?”
“You want to make sure I meet your standards, is it?”
“Yeah, and you can make sure I meet yours, heh.”
“Hah, no, I’ve seen your work at the gallery. You’re a good artist. The question, though, is about uhm…”
“You can say it. The money.”
“Yes, well, you see… I only agreed to volunteer so this could be a sort of. Side-income. Business is slow in the school vacation, you know? We don’t get as many cars at the shop as we used to…”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Uhm, yeah, like I said. Why don’t we meet? That way this’ll feel less awkward?”
“Yes, I agree. So… where did you say you want to meet?”
“Yeah, take down my address, please. It’s…”
------
“Ah, you’re here,” a man answered the door after three long-spaced knocks. “Sorry, have you been waiting long? I had my headphones on while working,” he bashfully pointed to the side of his head where it was smeared with a little wet plaster. Jinki raised his eyebrows but said nothing, simply bowed and stepped in when he was asked to.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess.” Most people said that before letting someone into their homes the first time, but Jinki didn’t think he’d ever heard it said with so much shame.
And Kibum had a good reason for that. Because there was only so much place for a little child to maneuver through the house. Or whatever was visible of the house under plastic and newspaper spreads. Everywhere he turned was either half-built human and animal busts, or unidentifiable mushes of white goo that had hardened a long time ago.
“I forgive you,” Jinki turned around and joked, catching muffled electro beats from some unseen corner of the room.
They chuckled, a fidgety Kibum showing him to a balcony where they could stand and talk without worry of breaking anything. “I wish we knew who to forgive about the weather,” the sculptor shrugged at the snow, then squared his shoulders. “But let me get to the point…” he held his palms out between them, framing a square of air with his fingers and thumbs meeting at right angles.
“You’re perfect.”
Jinki blinked a few times, rendered clueless by the sudden compliment. “Uh?”
“Yeah,” Kibum nodded frantically as if to reinforce his previous statement. He walked a circle around Jinki, learning him from every possible viewpoint. “I mean, I wasn’t sure from the selca Taemin had on his phone, but now that you’re here… yes. I can see why he suggested you. The jaw, the lips, the ears, the eyes… you look absolutely charming.” The man craned his neck like inspecting an animal meant for the butcher’s knife.
“Yes. Everything is in order. You’re perfect for my project.”
The mechanic scratched his cheek. “Well, you know… I work out,” he joked once more, not knowing what else to say in response. Thank you? or I’m glad? or maybe just a limp OK? It was hard to decide. But the other chortled again, good-naturedly, so he just leaned against the balcony railing and nodded.
“So…” Kibum rubbed his hands together. “What do you say to a hundred and seventy thousand per session?”
Jinki’s elbows slipped off the metal behind him. “Wh-what?!” He started open-mouthed at the other, feeling like his eyes would fall out of his sockets. “I’m… I’m sorry did I hear that right? One hundred and seventy thousand won?!” he barked.
The sculptor nibbled on his bottom lip, eyes darting nervously from side to side. “T-too little? Sorry, I’ve never done this before. I mean, I know I’ll be eating up your precious time but there’s a limit to what I can shell out… OK, no wait what about and extra fifteen percent of the commission I earn from this project, you know, as an added-”
“T-that’s too much!” Jinki exclaimed, shaken to madness by hearing about all that money. He covered his mouth, feeling utterly shell-shocked. Like a man who’d won the lottery with the first ticket he ever bought in his lousy miserable life. “T-that’s more than I make in five months, sir!” he declared. “That’s… really really generous…!”
"Please, call me Kibum," the said man eased into a smile. He shrugged once more, appearing more nonchalant than a few minutes ago. “So… you’ll consider it?"
Jinki scoffed in disbelief. “Are you joking? For that kind of money I’d do whatever you ask of me! I’ll… I’ll give your car free servicing for the rest of your life!” he gushed a sincere promise.
Kibum clapped his hands gleefully. “Let’s start immediately, then~”
------
“So what’s your subject?” Jinki asked while they sipped coffee across from one another. He’d left his shop in the hands of a very nervous and very inexperienced young graduate from some unheard-of college in the south. But it didn’t really bother him; he’d make enough cash just sitting here to decline changing the metal casing of five spark plugs.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Kibum shook his head at an open sketchbook, then motioned to Jinki’s free hand resting palm-down on the table. “But let’s start with this. May I?”
The consent was granted with an amused nod. Immediately, the sculptor began minutely examining the limb-pressing into every joint, tracing over every line, rubbing against every muscle, and feeling along each vein. His skin was roughened, probably from spending all those hours crafting POP into life. But his touch was gentle, like someone handling an ancient artefact. Jinki smirked at the actions between sips of his drink, and giggled every once in a while when he felt tickled. But when the other held their palms against one another as if in comparison, he fell silent.
His reaction received an alarmed look. “S-sorry… that was weird,” Kibum timorously withdrew.
“No… it’s fine. I’ve just…” Jinki pursed his lips in thought, flicking through words in search of appropriate ones to say to ease the situation. He looked at the other with all the seriousness he could muster. “I’ve never seen an artist doing homework before. It’s interesting. To… see what titillating detail they find in regular things.”
Kibum only smiled, tapping the unsharpened end of his pencil against the tablecloth, attention straying back to Jinki’s hand. His fingers circled around each digit with an odd fascination. “I like your hands, he complimented. “They have a very,” he paused, like he was searching for the right word. “Very manly look to them.” The sculptor chuckled before leaning back in his chair and starting to draw.
“My mother used to say I should grow up to be an artist. Since I have feminine hands. I never really paid any attention to that comment until now,” he continued to chatter, sketching elongated ovals and soft-edged squares. “I dated a palmist once, though, haha,” Kibum said while bending over his book. “She never let me off without a heated argument.” A quick series of flicks and drags later he reeled back and studied his work.
Jinki craned in with curiosity. “Wow, nice,” he blandly approved of the rough product, though he wasn’t as impressed as he’d initially expected. The sketch was a fair reproduction of his own hand, but it wasn’t anything special. He’d never say that aloud, of course, it’d literally cost him too much.
“So you’ve had someone model for you before?” he changed the subject instead.
Kibum looked at him then quickly moved his gaze away, but in that infinitesimal moment Jinki caught the hurt in his features. He bit his tongue, wondering if he’d said the worst thing possible by the way the other blinked rapidly from one corner of the café to the other. He considered apologizing and taking the question back, but soon Kibum smiled once more, letting out an audible sigh.
“Yes,” was all he supplied.
No other words were exchanged between them after that. A waitress asked if they wanted their cups refilled and they both declined. The sculptor shut his sketchbook decisively loud and slipped it into his coat pocket. He hastily gulped down his remaining coffee, prompting Jinki to do the same. As they left place, Kibum scribbled Jinki a check, handing it and offering a polite bow before walking away.
Jinki was left standing alone on the sidewalk, feeling very much like that greedy idiot who tore open the goose that lay golden eggs.
------
The hunk of confusing metal and folded concrete sat between a large congregation of cars, towering a mere three storeys high.
No sooner had he stepped indoors than the burn of upmarket stares, the heat of posh sniffs greeted the back of Jinki’s head. Feeling underdressed as hell, he moved through groups of silk and throngs of velvet with his eyes strictly to the floor. Even the crisply uniformed doorman with his polished shoes far outshone Jinki’s bedraggled appearance. He hastily passed through a narrow entrance that shouted LOOP in neon letters.
The building itself was nothing as spectacular as its external façades. Raw concrete and wood melded at corners, unadorned except for a polished glass railing that accompanied a stairwell running all the way to the top floor. Awkward crooks and a ridiculously high ceiling were spotted with colorful exhibits. When he walked along a series of thin partitions, he smiled in amazement at how an entire wall was utilized as multiple screens. Vibrant scenes of art films were projected onto drab grey walls, making for a very odd contrast.
“Sir, would you like a brochure?” a lady politely asked him when he turned a sharp corner.
“Eh? Ah! No thank you, but uhh…” Jinki hesitated, looking around. “I-I’m actually here to see one of the artists. Uhm, do you know where I might find Kim Kibum? He's supposed to be featured in the show tonight? Uh... tall, dark hair, possibly has plaster on the side of his face?”
The woman gave him a once over. “This way, please.”
A short scratchy walkie-talkie conversation later, he was guided in royal VVIP fashion towards one of the elevators. His phone had pinged earlier in the day with Kibum's message and at first he hadn’t believed his eyes. After the gauche way they'd parted at the cafe he didn't think he'd be invited to another session of modeling for the sculptor, much less to visit his art show. But if he was being offered a second chance on a silver platter he figured… who was he to refuse?
Kibum stood at the end of the cantilever, looking down into the atrium of the gallery as he waited. His hair was perfectly gelled in place and his suit missed a shirt. Thick black threads hung from his neck, a wifebeater peeking from inside the classy ensemble. Jinki made to clear his throat for attention but the other whipped around just in time to shoot him a warm smile. “Good! You're right on schedule,” he greeted, handing out a glass of champagne and picking up his own from a tray nearby.
“Mm?”
The man didn't answer. An impish smile played with his features as they strolled together into the centre of the hall. He tapped a fingernail against his glass to call attention to himself. Jinki saw that most visitors were too engrossed in their own conversations to hear the meek sound. “Wait, wait,” he patted Kibum's arm for him to stop clinking his glass and gathered breath in his lungs.
“Yah!” he shouted.
The posh patrons all came to a standstill, some gasping and clutching at their fronts in horror. Kibum giggled in amusement, shooting a wink to his companion. “Ladies and gentlemen, many things to be said and the first: thank you for being here,” the artist smiled graciously. “As those of you who know me, also already know-I am an ambitious fool.” Polite chuckles went around the room at that. “Life is too boring to be left alone, it needs to be prodded. It needs to be troubled and teased, don’t you all agree?” More polite laughter. Jinki joined in until he felt the other’s palm rest on the small of his back.
He tensed, fingers tightened around the glass in his hold.
“With that I think it’s time to unveil my newest project,” Kibum announced. He walked a few steps forward, shoes clacking against the floor. The sound echoed loudly but maybe not as loud as Jinki heard it in his now-self-conscious head. He didn't care much for physical attention, especially not with people he'd only met once before. But something in the way those long fingers had fondled the fabric over his tail bone reminded him of campfires and heavy blankets.
Those same fingers now lifted off a cloth from the top of a stand Jinki only then noticed. He stacked his buzz aside to pay attention but he couldn’t see what had been uncovered. The rest of the audience did, though… and apparently they loved it, if their raucous applause was anything to go by. It was only when the other took a deep bow that he noticed what had been exposed.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. The male form in particular has been done to death by every great sculptor we’ve ever read about. But then again…” Kibum continued with a grin in his voice. “It was precisely what made them great sculptors~”
“You’re well on your way there!” someone complimented and a dozen or so voices murmured agreement. When Jinki walked around to see what everyone was fussing over, he couldn’t help but concur when his sight finally found it-for on a marble pedestal in the middle of the room sat the likeness of his stubby fingers and chubby hands, bunching up a patch of tablecloth in ecstasy.
------
“A little more to the left,” Kibum said, reaching out to adjust Jinki’s face. He turned a tiny degree to the side until he was given an excited approval.
They’d moved on from hands and arms to heads. The tip of a pencil continually scratched over paper; it skittered around creating a solid jaw, a pair of puffy lips, a hooked nose, the wavy shell of an ear, a thick brow. Once or twice it made mistakes and then scratched over them in a rush as if to hide said mistakes. Jinki watched it dance through the corner of his eyes.
He'd woken up to a groggy, rainy morning today hoping to spend it the way he spent every bank holiday: alone, with the TV on mute and a cup of hot chocolate between his thighs. And yet he found himself in the sculptor's posh twenty-third floor apartment again, praises like you have stunning features and your eyes are beautiful peppering the silence. Jinki couldn’t get used to them no matter how long they spent time together. If he were honest with himself, it made him slightly uneasy.
But he didn’t mind as long as there was a check with his name waiting for him at the end of the day.
“It’s just…” the artist suddenly paused, sitting back. The drawing in his book still looked incomplete. “I don’t understand your hair,” he chortled, changing his own position in hopes that it would make a difference. He gave up, laughing exasperatedly. “Uhm, you know, maybe if I could-I mean, is it OK if I rearrange it a little?”
Jinki nodded his permission after a few moments of indecision.
“Sorry, you must think I’m crazy or something,” the other apologized, standing up and carefully parting his subject’s hair with gentle fingers. He pushed a majority of the mass to one side so it cascaded onto Jinki’s left temple. A thumb occasionally swiped across the arch of his forehead before going back to stroke his scalp from root to tip, pausing a second on his ears. “I hope you know I’m extremely grateful for all your help. I realize I’m a difficult person to work with.”
Jinki looked up at Kibum to ease his worry. But when he found the man looking down at him with a misplaced sadness, he flicked his glance away. The feeling remained stained in his mind like a photographic negative. It was too embarrassing to maintain contact with, and it was too painful to ignore at the same time. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “It’s uhh… yeah, no problem.”
“Ah, r-right...” the sculptor said, waking up from his reverie to take a seat. “Why don’t we try the right side now.”
Jinki shifted once more, twiddling his thumbs nervously and wondering how much longer he’d have to sit on this uncomfortable wooden stool. His butt was starting to feel numb. When the other was happy with the angle, he looked up at the opposite wall with a blank face as instructed.
“So, how long have you been in the car industry?” Kibum asked in sugar-coated terms while he sharpened his pencil.
“Since university,” Jinki gave his clipped response.
“W-wait, what,” the other stopped drawing to look up in surprise. “You’re… you’re a college graduate.” The statement was more a shocked utterance of realization. “I mean, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed anything but I thought, you know-”
“You thought a college graduate wouldn’t need to scrape the bottom of the barrel just to make ends meet,” Jinki scoffed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have to do this. I should have a job at a law firm, clocking in so many hours that I end up earning a six figure salary by the time I’m thirty.” He held his posture but his jaw tightened in a twinge of annoyance. “But you forget that we live in times where being chronically unemployed and underpaid is normal. Not everyone can afford a nice painting to hang in their living room… or even a living room, at that,” he side-eyed the other. “Maybe you never felt the crunch.”
To his surprise the sculptor bit his lip in shame. “Yeah…” he said in a remorseful tone. “Maybe I was lucky. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK,” Jinki smiled after a while. “As long as there are people like you, creating something out of nothing, there will always be people like me who fix those somethings. So they don’t go back to being nothing,” he said. “It all works out in the end, doesn’t it?”
------
The room was warmer than usual that day.
Jinki walked in and threw his bag next to the shoe rack, taking off his jacket with a questioning glance in the other’s direction. Usually he didn't mind being summoned like this at the last moment. But just now he had declined serving a customer and his Rolls Royce Phantom in order to be here. To say that he was a little annoyed with the situation would've been an understatement. “Well?” he started. “What’s this emergency you mentioned on the phone?”
Kibum hesitated a little before saying, “How… comfortable are you with taking off your clothes?” He said the words in a rush; like he’d wanted to push them out of the way all day, maybe even all week. “I mean… I totally forgot to ask you when you first started but well-y-you see when I said modeling I also assumed you’d know I dabble in nudes but now I realize that was presumptuous and stupid of me, so I just wanted to-”
“No, I get it,” Jinki raised his palms between them in a calming gesture. “It’s… it’s fine.”
“A-are you sure?”
“You’ve gone as far as heating the place up for me so, of course.”
The sculptor looked like he would’ve launched himself onto the other out of sheer joy. With whatever resolve or self-restraint he had, Kibum settled for a loud clap of his hands and a stuttering jump on the balls of his feet. “Great!” he hissed victoriously. “I mean!” he suddenly sobered up after a moment, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ll only ask you to take off your shirt today. Please be assured… ehehe.” The nervous chuckling somehow sounded childish and totally unprofessional to Jinki but once again, he reminded himself of how much he needed the money.
“Ahm, right, so please…” Kibum politely showed him the way. The other started to unbutton himself out of his clothes when he was made to pause and reconsider. “You can use that bathroom at the end of the hall if you like. I’ll,” the sculptor cleared his throat, suddenly edgy from the way his glance drifted everywhere except to meet that of his subject. “I’ll set things up out here.”
Jinki shrugged and complied.
When he stepped out of the washroom and coughed once for attention, Kibum looked up from his drawings and lurched off of his stool as if caught unawares by a tornado. Tins and scalpels fell to the ground. Pencils and inks splattered out of a stand and onto the table. A thick book toppled and slammed against the floor, newspaper floating and white modeling powder huffing up into tiny clouds from the force. He scrambled to pick them up and hit is head against the corner of his work desk. All his usual detachment vanished. The confident air he’d displayed before had somehow evaporated at merely the sight of a shirtless man.
It should’ve worried Jinki a little bit but he couldn’t help feel amused. “You OK?” he asked through a snort. The amusement grew into a soundless giggle when Kibum shakily nodded and motioned for him to step forward, red in the face.
“M-may I...?” he extended a tentative arm forward. Jinki gave out another muffled laugh before granting his assent. The sculptor took a step forward and blinked at least a thousand times before acting on his objectives.
Lines of heat were dragged over a built torso, fingers probing into the dips of well-defined abs, resting there longer than necessary for a basic anatomical study. They pried at the flesh, willing for its body to open wider to them in submission. Their touch flowed like water, dripping and playing and flowing away-following a directionless trail as they pleased. They rubbed over peaking nipples, they smoothed against tense gooseflesh, they caressed an Adams apple that bobbed against the attention. Jinki would’ve flinched and backed away at the invaded privacy but. But an arm coiled round his waist and held him fast by his back. He was the earth under that wet touch. He absorbed it like soil drinking rain. He gulped and grew more and more drenched each passing minute that they stood in such close proximity. Kibum opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, as if he owed his muse another compliment to add to an already bursting list.
But his searing breath melted the words at his lips, hitting Jinki in the jaw and burning him to a crisp. And for a long suspended moment he felt as if there was no Jinki anymore-only Kibum remained.
“A-are you done?” he asked, breaking the spell.
------
The end result was nothing short of teasing.
Patrons and press gathered around the singular piece announcing the nearing date of Kim Kibum’s exhibit-a headless, limbless abdomen wrung tightly like a spring. As if its owner were reaching out to pluck a fruit from a high branch. There was something the nearly unseen thumbprints in plaster were trying to scream out to the public. Something carnal and raw in the way the lifeless torso seemed anything but lifeless. There was a supple sensuality in the sculpture, a sense of intimacy that made visitors gasp and photographers go into a clicking frenzy.
The new issue of Art and Seoul would definitely have a lot of interesting reviews to offer.
“You’ve outdone yourself again,” an old woman cheerily reached up and patted Kibum’s cheek. He blushed and bowed, thanked everyone who had something nice to say about the display. There were bouquets and bottles of champagne. There were cards and congratulatory phone calls. The artist was whisked around the room in a flurry, going a little wild-eyed with joy that his work was being received as more than just a success.
And when his eyes found Jinki he gave out the sort of smile that exuded friendly gratitude, but still managed to run electrical charges along the other’s spine. The memory of eyes as dark as the night sky, wisps of curly uncombed hair obscuring their sight; of shapely lips that seemed to pout one minute and smile another, teeth sinking and biting into the supple flesh... the memory of Kibum's sharp and pungent sweat which somehow still clung to Jinki's clothes. It was nothing short of maddening. If he stayed there a moment longer, in that neglected niche on the far end of the gallery, he would be allowing Kibum to cut across the distances between them. He would be agreeing to be possessed by nimble fingers that pattered like dancers’ feet. He'd be saying yes where he was meant to say no.
Jinki pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and made to leave.
“Wait,” his employer called out to him. Not minding the drink splashing out of his glass, he yanked a wrinkled cheque from his pant pocket and held it out. “I forgot to pay you. That last time. Uhm…” It may have been the air con but it could also have been Kibum’s anxiety that the slip of paper fluttered lightly. “Will you. I mean-will I see you again? Same time, next week?” There was a light drizzle of expectancy in his voice. The gleam of his eyes said he knew Jinki would never refuse when there was cash to be earned out of it. It made him seem extremely disgusting.
Until he spoke on. “U-unless you feel uncomfortable continuing. I’d understand if… if you felt it was morally incorrect or if you felt used for your bod-”
“Next week, then,” the mechanic nodded and took the offered payment, ready to head back to his island of broken cars.
------
Jinki had never been the shy kind. He’d never had trouble with things that required courage. In fact, he prided himself as the bravest member of his family. As a fairly wild university student, he’d loved to seek out the craziest roller coasters, the scariest and most extreme of sports-he even recalled a week-long trip to the frigid island of Sakhalin, where his feet had nearly caught frostbite and his tongue had accidentally stuck itself to the brim of a steel cup. Jinki liked to rank himself as “above average” when it came to being adventurous.
But that was then.
Now, as he stood in the middle of Kibum’s living room with nothing to cover his dignity except a pair of tight shorts and a sheet of plastic wrinkling under his curling toes… now, he knew he’d never done anything half as mad as being someone’s artistic muse.
The other kept his eyes lowered as if in respect, but there was that occasional peer he attempted to sneak in every few seconds. It would’ve been hard to catch had Jinki not been staring at Kibum like he was trying to drill holes into him with the intensity of his glance. Neither man said a word, other than the intermittent cough to clear their throats. Neither made a move to get on with the session. Neither took that first courageous step forward, they remained steadfastly in their places.
“I-if…” Kibum gulped after a maddeningly long series of minutes. “Uhm. If you’ve changed your mind, that’s OK.”
“No, I’m fine, I just need some time to process this.”
“You’ve. Never…” the sculptor shook his head with a frown. “Never disrobed in front of someone before?”
“There’ve been some women,” Jinki clarified, grunting. “It’s not like, hah. Not like I’m a total novice or anything to uhh. Stripping, you know?" He laughed the situation away. "I just. I haven’t done it in front of. Well.”
“Another man?” Kibum smiled.
“Yeah. That.” Jinki scratched the back of his neck, now finding the wiggle of his toes interesting to watch.
The sculptor thought for a minute. “Would it help if I took my clothes off, too?” he asked, shrugging his shirt away without waiting for an answer.
“No-no-no.” Jinki shook his head rapidly, reaching out to stop the guy. “Th-that’s," he took a step back before they touched. "That’s fine.”
Kibum nodded in understanding and seated himself on the very edge of the sofa. He gestured for his model to be seated too. Which Jinki did in a flurry of actions-shucking off his underwear and bouncing onto the cushions, closing his legs tightly and looking away into the distance. He waited for some form of displeased comment on that but only heard the scribbling and scratching of a pencil against paper.
“I-is…” he ventured. “Is this alright?”
Kibum gave a hum of acknowledgement.
“You’re not even looking, though...”
The sculptor sighed. “Just be,” he hesitated, looking up from his notebook a moment. “Just be natural. Be yourself. Don’t be conscious. No one is going to judge you here.” He paused to see if his words had helped. And when he saw they hadn’t he suggested something else. “Close your eyes and imagine you’re alone,” he tried, the timbre of his voice so soft and gentle. “Imagine I don’t exist. You’re at home, on your own couch, by yourself, naked, with all the time in the world. What do you want do?”
Jinki did as he was told. He took a deep breath and, with residual reluctance, let his head fall back onto the armrest. His body relaxed after many deeper and more forceful inhales that followed, the lock of his thighs loosening and easing open. Eyelids drooping to a sleepy lull, he let his thoughts wander.
And they wandered straight to Kibum.
“Touch yourself,” the sculptor hypnotically whispered.
Jinki stroked himself, trying hard to convince his mind that he was alone. He tried to think back to all the sexual encounters he’d had over the years. He tried to recollect every scene of every porno he’d had the courage to watch on a public computer. He spat into the palm of his hand, hoping it’d make the slide easier and let his imagination flow better. But when he craned his neck to check if it was helping, nothing aroused him like the other’s unmoving eyes on him.
He gave out a gasp, palm falling motionless to the base of his hardness and squeezing tight lest he climaxed from that look alone. “G-go on,” Kibum coaxed from behind a loud nervous gulp as he changed his position to fit between his subject's legs, tone hoarse and gravelly. “Keep… keep going.”
The other shifted around. He shook his head, panicking. “I-I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I…”Jinki scrunched his eyes shut with the effort of keeping himself from bursting. He panted, hoping to cool himself off, to make his blood slow down, to make the heat stop rushing so swiftly over his body. “I just…!” he grit his teeth. “I fucking can’t, alright?”
There was no warning to what happened next. One moment they were trying to arrange Jinki in a decent pose and the next, the room caught on fire. Kibum bent low to take a long elaborate lick at the tip of the other’s cock and the man lost his mind.
“Ffffuu-!” he started to squeal, then lost his voice too when he saw the sculptor blinking up at him.
“Why not?” Kibum asked again before returning to the pulsing organ.
Involuntarily bucking up into the heated mouth, Jinki slid lower on the cushions. He hit his head against a lamp by accident, but didn’t even feel the pain when Kibum closed his lips over the head of his erection and sucked in, deep and long. It was maddening, a little frightening, but mostly it was liberating. Like a million buckles around his torso had been snapped off so he could lift himself up against Kibum’s unresistant tongue.
When his thrusting got too fast and his writhing turned too uncontrolled, slender sculptor fingers stilled him by the hipbones as if reshaping him. He bent up into their hold and stayed there till he was emptied of all his pressing burning thrashing need.
“That was quick…” Kibum licked a stray smear of release from the corner of his lips, a hint of a smirk resting there like an unsaid taunt. “You’ve never done that?”
Jinki shook his head, too out of breath to speak. “Not…” he gulped after a few seconds. “Not with… someone that good.”
------
There were no greetings exchanged the next time they met.
Jinki threw his bag off his shoulders, wasting no time in clicking open buttons and sliding away zippers. Kibum rushed to him like his need to touch the man was more urgent than the need to breathe. His own clothes stayed where they were, neat and creaseless like he was heading for another art function. “You’re early,” he said even as his mouth worked of its own accord, kissing over the stretches of skin gradually exposed.
"You--you're complaining...?! Ah!" Jinki found himself melting and dripping onto the other's tongue, grasping the back of Kibum's head for support as he sledded in and out of mindfulness. His consiousness rose and abated like a flooded river-trying to search for its muddy banks, trying hard to stay within its boundaries and yet overflowing far past its mark.
Kibum sipped him out of his confines, lips forceful, hands persuasive.
Jinki moaned against the pressure. These sensations were familiar but they burned hotter than he was used to. These actions and these affections were common, he’d experienced them before. But the way Kibum looked at him, the way he hummed at the taste of Jinki’s skin, the way his fingers fooled around the model’s body like he was in the process of creating a brand new Jinki was. Reckless. Exhilarating. It made him giddy. “Slow,” he whined. “Slow down, please.”
And then Kibum was too careful, too gentle, too sweet. His hands were warmer, his movements unhurried. He held Jinki just as tight, but looked deeper into his eyes, sighed longer into his mouth. A thousand Hondas and Suzukis and Mazdas could be honking outside the auto shop at that moment. All the vehicles in the world could fall into disrepair then, and the mechanic wouldn’t care. He wouldn't move a millimeter away from Kibum. He’d still want to be here, rolling around a floor covered in plastic and paper and plaster. He’d leave everything and everyone behind just so Kibum could have his way. Just so that series of skilled touches could build him into another person with another life and another heart.
"Better?" he inquired within a smile. Jinki blushed the question away.
The mattress felt like the surface of another planet. They landed into another dimension, limbs tangled and wrestling for control. Kibum didn’t tremble for a second as he yanked off pants and ripped off a shirt. He drew over Jinki's muscles and bones with a dragging tongue, painted him anew with his spit and ardor, molded him into perfect shapes with every pinch and every knead. “You’re a sculpture in yourself,” he gave his biggest compliment so far. And yet it fell out sounding nothing like a complement. They way his voice was so sure, so confident saying it: it was a universal truth, a well-known fact. “You’re the most perfect thing ever made,” he gasped, savoring every inch of Jinki.
"How could I have dreamt of remodeling you?" he stared up at the other in wonder.
Jinki had always thought of himself as exceedingly masculine. Long hours at work had crafted him an enviable body. Female customers would linger around long after the job was done, some going as far as trying to touch his hand or pat his shoulder. Grease lined under his nails. Stress discolored the crescents under his eyes. His forearms were tanned where he’d fold the sleeves of his overalls. With his plaid shirts and his loose-fitting pants, his bottles of beer and his boring conversations he was just an average male. But Jinki was delicate in Kibum’s hold. He was soft and demure and pliable. He could be bent and reshaped in any way the other desired to bend and reshape him in. He was open and full and teeming with a million feelings that were nothing close to average. As fingers probed within him with feather-light touches, he bit his lip raw and groaned deep in his throat and squirmed around with need. The camber of his back rose and fell until Kibum took hold of his ankles and hooked them around his waist.
“May I?” he asked. And just like every other time, Jinki nodded. Angling his thighs as far open as they would go without him earning a cramp, he whimpered a soft yes.
The press in was like entering another dimension of reality. One that Kibum had been secretly been working on away from the eyes of the rest of the world; one he’d been calling out to Jinki from and the other never even heard. And now the sound was deafening. The slide of their bodies was electrifying, like being hit by a thousand lightning bolts over and over again and again. Jinki could hear their hearts competing in loudness, clashing against ribs like cymbals, hammering hard and trying to drill a path outwards so they could meet. His pulse throbbed in his ears like a train speeding along railway tracks. His blood swam with beautiful strains of fervor. His hands shivered as the rose up to claw into Kibum’s shoulders but when they found their purchase, they were unmovable.
“You OK?” a tender whisper queried.
“Deeper,” he rasped, neck stretching up for a pair of lips to dance over his throat. “D-deeper,” he gulped.
Kibum chuckled, his exhales as spear-like as his hardness. He jabbed harder, slow pushes aimed right at the point of unending bliss. Jinki cried out a few times before the motion stilled, a heavy pressure remaining on his prostate and wiping his vision clean. He pronounced Kibum’s name like he’d never uttered a single word before in his whole life. And in return a deep voice stamped his name against his jugular.
“Are you close?” it asked.
He pushed up with an arm and sat onto Kibum’s lap while they still moved. He smiled down at the sculptor, who stared back, completely enthralled, and craned up till their noses rubbed in an odd affectionate gesture. Their breaths rattled in and out with the effort of rolling hips and weaving waists. Jinki sobbed when nails dug into his backside, making the lifts and drops harder. The claps of their thighs were loud. The squelch of their sticky wetness was warm, drooling out between Jinki’s legs and dripping off his skin. His head lolled back, eyes losing all sight except the expanse of approaching white. He cupped Kibum’s face in the last few seconds of their chafing bodies, and kissed him breathless.
They toppled on top of each other in a mess of tiredness.
Right before his consciousness caved in, Jinki watched his racing heart drip out of his chest to make its way into Kibum’s.
------
Needless to say, the exhibit was a success. Reporters went berserk. The media hounded Kibum with a million questions as to his inspirations, his muses, his plans for the future. Foreign press recorded quick minute-long interviews and an old woman who everyone seemed to bow especially low to said she was quite impressed. The moral police were also present, asking for “such offensive pieces” to be removed from public display. Of course, no one paid them any heed. But by Jinki’s personal scale of measurement, anyone who’d been noticed by politically-backed vigilantes was indubitably famous.
Still, the tiny group of masked protesters holding a reel of painted cloth in their hands to one side of the exhibition hall, though silent, were an eyesore. They looked to be positively fuming.
Any why wouldn’t they be? Kibum had recreated the pleasure on Jinki’s face with some brand of hedonism. Each line was crafted with a strange devotion. Each breath seemed to have been immortalized with the swipe of a thumb or a piercing of fingernails. Each bone, each sinew, every single muscle put on display was such that Jinki suspected it had always been present inside the plaster-all Kibum had done was tap the unfinished surface with his chisel a few times to reveal the perfect life-like image. Every statue was a piece of Jinki’s essence, touched intimately by Kibum to take its present form.
He stood in his usual corner, being discreet and waiting for Kibum to grace him with the occasional smile.
The sculptor was in seventh heaven. From his awkward gait, he’d probably already downed a few drinks. Jinki wondered if the man would need a shoulder to lean against when the time came to leave. The prospect of them sharing contact in public stirred Jinki’s nerves to the point of physical pain. For days after that evening in Kibum’s bedroom, he’d craved after the man. The prolonged separation had only aggravated the want, the sheer need, in his gut. It’d gotten so bad that simple zephyrs running through the shop had wafted Kibum’s scent above all the other stenches in the vicinity. It drove Jinki mad. It drove him to dig his nails into a tightly-fisted palm.
He pursed his lips and shook with the effort of staying away from the other man.
"Yo~" the sculptor slurred towards him with a happy grin. He let his front sag onto Jinki's ready hold, coiling his thick arms up around them to make them dance a little in place. The warmth of his body, the light kisses he pressed onto Jinki's blazer-covered arm, the hysterical laughter when he realized what he was doing, the fleeting smile he shot up at the other before closing his eyes and nuzzling into his shoulder with a whine. All of it hurt. As the rest of the visitors to the exhibit loitered around in their respective groups, the two of them stood on their tiny piece of unseen perfection. The remaining contents of Kibum's glass sloshed onto Jinki's blazer. He cringed a little before his smile naturally arrived.
"Having fun?" he mumbled.
Kibum groaned a sleepy yet affirmative sound, following it with a chuckle.
There was more than a physical need behind all this. There was more gratitude than anything. Jinki was thankful he'd found in Kibum, someone who chuckled at all his shitty jokes. Who listened to his possibly nonsensical theories about life and the failing economy. Who held him even through the distance, who touched him with his intense gazes. Who kissed him and let him kiss back. Who protected him from a loneliness that had been growing steadily for the few months before they'd met.
Jinki was, in that short moment, grateful that Kibum existed.
"Take me home?"
------
The morning was groggy, sticky, not the sort of morning one likes to wake up to.
“Hey,” Kibum shook Jinki’s shoulder. The motion was gentle at first, and then it turned insistent. “Hey, wake up.”
He did as he was told, stretching, yawning, taking his time to get his bearing straight despite the harsh light streaming in through parted curtains somewhere. A rustle of plastic reminded him of where he was. He smiled and curled onto his side, hugging the other’s thigh. “Good morni-”
When Kibum moved away, the motion was rapid. Jinki frowned. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up. “What’s up?”
The other dusted an available chair free of plaster dust and seated himself. “We should talk,” he said. “About this.” A finger oscillated to and fro between them. And something in the way Kibum spoke had Jinki’s head clanking loud and urgent alarms. Something in his tone had him putting on his clothes, trying to gather his dignity before he left this place for good. Were he honest with himself, he’d uttered a mental uh oh once or twice in the weeks they’d spent together. Were he truly logical for a single minute in this whole ordeal, he’d have admitted that what he had with Kibum was too good to be true. And were he being realistic, he should never have overstayed his welcome.
“You… aren’t the first time I’ve had a muse,” the sculptor breathed out.
“You said,” Jinki grunted, pulling on his socks.
“It didn’t end well.”
The other looked up, elbows resting on his knees. “Will you tell me what happened?” he asked, though he wasn’t very sure he wanted to know. What he wanted was for Kibum to take him away, wherever he was headed, whatever direction he was walking towards. He wanted for them to forget their pasts, disregard the present and only think about what lay ahead of them. As long as they disappeared, as long as they lost their way back, as long as they had each other’s shoulders to lean against, all Jinki wanted was for them to leave here.
“He left,” Kibum offered his simple explanation.
The other man stood up and walked over, cupping the sculptor’s face. “Are you afraid I will, too?”
Kibum shook his head free of the contact. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt myself again. It’s… it’s my hedgehog syndrome, I guess.” He chuckled despite himself. “I’ve promised myself-ever since Minho, I promised myself to never open myself wide enough that someone will steal what’s inside me. Because when the walk away, I feel empty.”
“I won’t walk away,” Jinki promised.
Another shake of the head gently pushed him away. “That's not something you can promise. You..." he rubbed a hand against his forehead. "You should dress up and leave.”
The grip he hand on the situation was rapidly slipping. And as he saw their now take on the colors of a memory, Jinki turned desperate. His blood boiled when his fingers were no longer on the other’s skin. “Kibum,” he warned.
“What?!” the said man snapped. “What do you want?! What will you get from talking me out of letting you go? You think you can say a few nicely wrapped words to convince me and I’ll let you stay? So I’ll share my bed again? So-so I’ll keep paying you?!” he stormed. “You think you can win this debate like every other debate and I’ll have to accept defeat?! Just so you can secure your steady paycheck, you’re going to have me hurt myself, is that it?!” he yelled before stomping his way to a desk drawer and pulling out his draft book. After a series of furious scribbles he walked up to Jinki and slapped the cheque onto the man’s chest. “Some things can’t be fixed, Jinki,” he ground out.
The mechanic looked at the hand pressing a large sum of money against him. And he realized that no matter what Kibum asked of him, he found he couldn’t say no. He couldn’t resist. He’d run, he’d hide, he’d duck, he’d take the bullet. He’d be a voiceless puppet.
“Some things aren’t meant to be broken, Kibum,” he muttered, walking away. The cheque fluttered to the newspaper-covered ground like a dead leaf.
------
Jinki had been working on someone’s Nissan when the phone rang. He accidentally bumped his head against the crank shaft in surprise. Hissing at the injury, he slid out from under the car and ran towards the desk, wiping his greasy hands on his work overalls.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Lee Mechanics, how may I help you today?”
“Uh, yeah, could I speak with… Lee Jinki ssi?”
He paused when he recognized the voice on the other side. For a moment he considered hanging up. But then like someone who roots for the villain in a superhero story, he spoke on. “This is he.”
“Uhm. So, I understand that usually you must get requests to fix all sorts of things. But... I heard that you had something yourself, that was broken and needed fixing and-”
“And?”
“And I want to help.”
Jinki grit his teeth to keep his pulse from jumping out of his mouth. “Oh?”
“Yeah. A-and... and I assure you, I come highly recommended.”
He bit his lips down before they stretched into a wide smile. “All lies, I’m sure.”