SH 2014: Electrolytic (2/2) for krishoislove
The days went by in a blur, Joonmyun coming down from his tower
(he felt himself the proverbial superhero watching over the city with narrowed eyes and deep, dark thoughts in his heart, his every attempt at saving the day met only with the disdain and fear of the population he strove to save)
only to meet up with Jongdae, see that little bit of brightness cross his features, take turns buying cold drinks and talking about everything except the fact that people hated them. The more time went by, the touchier they got, the more Joonmyun's feigned friendliness became real, the more he began to look forward to seeing his new friend.
Of course, that came to a screeching halt when there was a three-day pause in their visits. When finally Jongdae came to him, beaten-down both literally and figuratively, terrified, hollows under his eyes from lack of sleep, Joonmyun could swear he felt the rage boiling his blood at the same time he felt that inherent shame and acceptance tugging at the pit of his stomach.
"Are you alright?" It was a stupid question from the beginning, obviously Jongdae wasn't okay, not if he looked the way he did, not if he hadn't even done anything to fend off his attackers the way Joonmyun knew he was able to do.
"They hated me," Jongdae mumbled, practically incoherent due to a split lip still warm with undammed drops of blood, as he stared at a spot on the ground between both their feet. "They told me I didn't belong here."
There was a pause, Joonmyun calculating what it was that they needed to do in order to keep Jongdae safe, and then he was crossing the short distance between the two of them, running fingertips down the younger's spine as he held him close, felt the rack of silent sobs against his frame. "Let's go to my place, we'll take care of you there."
The climb up to the rooftop where he lived took way, way too fucking long. Joonmyun wasn't out of shape, and there wasn't much conversation between them to take the oxygen from his lungs, but all the same he found himself completely breathless by the time they reached his little niche between the air conditioning unit and a garden that he may or may not have installed there a couple years back, when he'd first started feeling the need to sit down instead of run.
He had just... never had friends. Or at least, not near enough in recent memory that it erased the anxiety, which rested across his chest, an ocean's worth of pressure that threatened to crush him like a flimsy aluminum can.
Clearly, Jongdae was expecting some kind of penthouse apartment, walls made of glass and fancy bathrooms and enormous flatscreen televisions, and Joonmyun couldn't find it in himself to blame the kid. Not really, anyhow. He did kind of live in a rich neighbourhood, even though it was full of crime and gangs and cruel people who enjoyed hurting each other just for sport; it would be customary, he supposed, for someone who looked as he did, who lived where he did, who went to the coffee shops he did, to have some kind of plush lifestyle.
Joonmyun didn't even bother to take time and watch Jongdae's reaction to his living situation; instead he dug around in his small collection of things, dug out a first-aid kit, always crucial to the rat living on the street under constant threat of physical harm. He then sat Jongdae down on the edge of the air-conditioning unit, leaned in close and started applying Neosporin to his various cuts, wishing sorely that he had an icepack for the bruises and the split in his lower lip.
"Why are you taking care of me...?" Jongdae wondered aloud, putting a hand on Joonmyun's shoulder to stop him (his touch still crackled and his brows furrowed together in what seemed like frustration; Joonmyun had no idea what it meant, but it was fondly significant to him even still) from toppling over when he lost his balance.
"No one took care of me," Joonmyun responded simply, going about applying bandages wherever he could.
They remained in silence for as long as the both of them could stand the relative quiet of city sounds and birds chirping and the occasional yelling from one apartment building to another. Then, when Jongdae was as patched up as possible by Joonmyun's amateur hand, they sat with their backs pressed to the metal of the unit.
"We probably shouldn't spend so much time together," Jongdae joked softly, using his fingertip and tracing a line into the concrete rooftop beneath them.
"Why's that?" Joonmyun tilted his head, curious more than confused.
"Well...we'll hurt each other, obviously."
"Only if I can't control myself," Joonmyun stated, confident in his abilities, grateful to be the older and more experienced of the two of them. "Which, lucky for us, I can." Except then the words kind of sank in, the idea behind them too, and he flushed, gentle and rosy pink, all the way down the sides of his neck. "I mean... do you not want to hurt me? Is there some way that I can help you...?"
"You could try," Jongdae all but challenged, reaching up and tweaking the end of Joonmyun's nose. "But for now, I have to go."
"I'll call you when I can."
"Sure." He was wearing that damn curly smile of his, and Joonmyun felt this weird flutter right in the core of him, beneath the edges of his ribcage, gentle as a summer drizzle. "Hey, you know... you could come visit me, if you wanted."
Blinking, dazed, Joonmyun studied Jongdae's face, saw the little wrinkle in his browline, the serious set of his mouth, felt uncertainty bristling out from underneath his skin despite his desire to do nothing but agree, and shook his head. "Not yet," he insisted, reaching out and putting his hands on Jongdae's shoulders, steadying him as the other had done for him not but a short time ago. "But soon. I promise."
"Okay. Um... thanks. Thank you for helping me. I... I didn't know I mattered that much to you, I guess."
Joonmyun smiled brightly, nodding. "Anything for you." And the weird part was the tug at the center of his chest, letting him know exactly how much he meant it.
---
Jongdae didn't answer the phone for a few days, and Joonmyun felt the loneliness even stronger than, more than he had before when he'd truly believed himself alone on this useless fucking planet. He just wanted his friend, wanted to be able to talk about the way in which he'd been dealing with this for years, the fact that Jongdae made him feel as if he weren't so burdened by living by himself, that running didn't even seem quite so troublesome so long as he knew he wasn't the only one having to do it.
There were other things he wanted to say, too, but he didn't know how. His vocabulary simply didn't include the right sorts of words in order to say what it was he needed to say.
While Jongdae was gone, Joonmyun felt those feelings welling up inside him again, the ones where he knew he'd end up dreaming of falling, falling, falling forever into the sea, letting the pressure overwhelm him, the salt water fill his lungs, the marine life nibbling at him as his consciousness drifted far away from this wretched earth--
He needed his friend back. Not that he'd say it. He was too strong physically to give in to a little depression, right?
---
Jongdae finally rang him back a solid five days later, when the despair had set, black and cold, in and he had given up hope that he would ever speak with his friend again.
Joonmyun regarded the number on his phone screen with suspicion --he'd deleted Jongdae's number yesterday in a fit of self-loathing, damn near broken his phone in the process, only stopped himself from smashing it at the last second, fought off the tears the way he'd someday be able to fight off physical assault without destroying anyone -- but answered nonetheless. "Hello?"
"It's me," came the voice, and Joonmyun damn near dropped his phone. "Are you doing alright? Can I come by? I have something I need to show you."
In the brief moment of silence between the two of them, Joonmyun wondered if that something was more cuts and bruises and damage. But he refused to say it aloud, instead nodded, and said that he would meet Jongdae downstairs, where it was safe. Maybe they could go for lunch
(and touch, the way that they had the first day, the concerned way, the way that spoke volumes on the degree to which they cared for each other without even knowing one another well)
and Jongdae agreed, albeit with a little hesitation, that it sounded alright, he was hungry anyway.
Joonmyun stood there for a long moment after their call had been disconnected, thinking long and hard before rummaging in his bag of extra things and pulling out a mirror so that he might check his hair. When he was able to say, with confidence, that he didn't look as if he hadn't been sleeping, he tucked the mirror back into his valuables and released a quiet breath he didn't know he had been holding.
Jongdae was still with him. He was still alive. God willing, he was safe. And Joonmyun, he hadn't realised that he cared so much about any human being's survival the way he did about Jongdae's, but he could feel his hands shaking in his pockets, and knew that it would be good to have the chance to reach out and know his friend was there.
It didn't even occur to him to wonder what it was that Jongdae wanted to show him, he wasn't that preoccupied by their conversation, but all that changed completely when he saw the younger for the first time in days and was quick to conclude that he had... shrunken, somehow, shriveled as if hypersaturated with water.
"What's wrong?" Joonmyun found himself asking almost immediately, eyebrows shooting up his forehead even as Jongdae offered him a smile, complete with crinkly eyes.
"I've been trying to control myself," Jongdae told him, simple and plain, gesturing with a back tilt of his head where it was that he'd like for them to eat. "It's warm today, maybe we should go inside. I don't want you overworking yourself, you know?"
His tone was too casual, his suggestion too reminiscent of their recent history; Joonmyun was struck down with anxiety almost immediately, and he took Jongdae by the elbow, fingers carefully digging shallows into his bicep, just under the sleeve of his t-shirt. "That can't be it," he insisted, lower lip jutting out in a silent plea.
"No, that's not it," Jongdae agreed, "but I'd rather be inside and eating before I tell you. Just in case."
So, of course, Joonmyun obliged, dragged his friend into the tiny sandwich shoppe and told Jongdae to go sit down as he ordered for the both of them. When the food situation was secure he went and joined his companion, leaned over the table, balanced on his elbows. "What do you mean, trying to control yourself?"
"Well..." Jongdae drew a deep breath, eyelids fluttering as he did so, his mouth curling into that incredible grin of his. "I was thinking, you know, you're a bit older than me--"
"Hey!" Joonmyun swatted, teasing, at the back of Jongdae's wrist, careful not to hit too hard -- he'd be horrified if he were to hurt his friend, who appeared to be so fragile after what must have been a long and difficult few days apart for the both of them.
Jongdae just laughed, and his eyes crinkled at the corners so charmingly that for a moment Joonmyun fazed out of paying attention
(what would it be like to make him smile that way every day)
but snapped back just as quickly as he'd gone with a brusque jerk of his head. "And your control is better than mine, and I know that, and I'm fine with that. But... it's about time I learned, don't you think? So... I went out into the mountains, where people wouldn't be hurt, and I started playing with what I could do." Then he shuddered, soft and practically undetectable, and Joonmyun immediately became aware of just how rapt his focus on Jongdae was.
Joonmyun bit his lip, confused. "I... I understand." He sat back in his chair, furrowing his brow. "But why were you gone? You could've told me, I would have understood. I was worried, I thought something horrible had happened to you and that's why you didn't call me--"
"I couldn't call you," and then Jongdae's voice was soft, almost... affectionate?
(no kim joonmyun no his smile doesn't belong to you you're fooling yourself he's just your friend you're kindred spirits you just didn't want to be alone again)
"If I had called you, I wouldn't have gone."
(what the hell does that even mean there's no way anyone's that oblivious)
Joonmyun blinked, cocking his head to the left. "What do you--"
(at least they aren't unless it's intentional)
Except at that moment the girl working at the counter called out their number, and Jongdae, eager to escape the situation as neatly as he could, jumped up and ran to get their food -- chicken salad with carrot and raising for Joonmyun, Reuben with extra sauerkraut and three slices of cheese for Jongdae -- for the both of them.
Joonmyun watched after him, suspicious, stroking the curve of his chin with his thumb and forefinger a couple times out of nervousness.
Outside, the rain began to fall; Joonmyun pretended not to notice, but his gaze occasionally flickered away from the form of his friend to watch the drops gather in burgeoning puddles in the sidewalk cracks.
They ate in relative silence, Joonmyun proposing the occasional query in regards to what Jongdae had done while he was in the mountains and Jongdae skillfully evading each and every one. Eventually Joonmyun gave up, figured he'd learn in Jongdae's time instead of his own and asked him things that he hadn't thought to question him on before.
("How are your family with this... thing?" "What was school like for you, friend-wise?" "Do you ever do things in your...wherever you live, by accident?")
Jongdae was more than happy to accommodate Joonmyun's curiosities
("They're alright with it -- nothing like your family, but not exactly the smiling picture of acceptance. They're the reason I get to be as stable as I am right now. Thank God they didn't turn me over to some kind of scientific authority." "I wasn't really popular at all. They had a nickname for me, I don't remember what it was, but I do remember it really upset me a couple times. But...I don't know, I was mostly happy. I wasn't torturing myself for something I couldn't change." At the last one, Jongdae laughed a little too loud, tilting back in his chair with his head angled ceilingward, and Joonmyun took a quick pause so as to admire the way his entire face lit up when he laughed. "My apartment? No, not really. But, you know, it's a hell of a lot easier to accidentally start an electrical fire by accident than fill an entire place with water.")
and things went pretty well after that, all things considered.
They eventually lapsed into silence, Joonmyun with his hands folded, fingers interlaced, on the tabletop and Jongdae with one arm tucked neatly behind him over his head, the picture of relaxation. "You can come to my place," Jongdae murmured as they watched each other over empty plates. "I mean, if you want. It must be hard to live without a roof when it's raining, and-- oh." They both shared a laugh over that one, and Joonmyun was, he realised in a flash, more at ease than he had been in days.
"I don't need to," Joonmyun breathed, when he could, brows crinkled together and a slight frown tugging at his lips, "but if you want me to, I'd like to."
"I didn't ask you over because I was making fun of you, y'know," and Jongdae burst into a brief fit of laughter again, causing Joonmyun to get lost in complete wonderment for what felt like the billionth time during this short period of togetherness. "I asked because I think it would be fun to have you over, and you're my friend, and... and you took care of me, the least I can do is take care of you for a minute or two."
And Joonmyun hated being taken care of, he'd been independent for such a long time that he almost didn't remember what it was like having someone watching over him really and truly, but the thought of just being in Jongdae's space was enough to convince him.
---
His apartment was the picture of what he thought Jongdae would imagine his place to be like, complete with the occasional artistic touch -- hand-painted throw pillows, books on the coffee table, photographs in full colour hanging on the living room walls, fancy dishes sitting in the sink waiting to be washed.
Joonmyun sucked in a deep breath as he watched Jongdae lean against the countertop -- black, polished to look like obsidian and flecked with gold -- with his fingers wrapped around the lip, and realised that the reason he was so affected by it was that, while he felt like a stranger, Jongdae looked at home. Comfortable. Something Joonmyun hadn't felt in so long that he wasn't sure how to act.
"You look like you've never been in someone else's house," Jongdae teased, all joviality and triumphant trumpets in his tone, reaching out to rest his palms on Joonmyun's shoulders. Of course, Joonmyun remained silent, unable to answer without looking like a complete nutjob, so he tilted his head with the tiniest of smiles, eyes curving upwards. "C'mon, do you want me to show you around?" Here he nodded, possibly more cordial than he had been a second ago, unsure as to how familiar this made them.
In spite of Joonmyun's awkwardness, Jongdae appeared to become more and more gracious as the seconds ticked by. He showed Joonmyun the living room, all glass and sunshine and modern art; then the kitchen, open with black granite countertops flecked with bronze, stainless steel appliances and only gourmet ingredients in the cabinets and refrigerator; the hallway lined with personal photos; the computer room, equipped with Italian leather chairs and all modernised save for the rows of seemingly ancient books against the wall; and finally the bedroom, California king bed pressed into the back wall, an enormous flatscreen television lining the opposite, and a couch just under the line of the windowsill.
Joonmyun took it all in with wonder, trying with all his might to ignore the feel of Jongdae's palm pressed against his shoulder. "Your home is so nice," he mumbled, eyebrows raised. "I'm happy that you wanted to share it with me."
"Are you hungry?" Jongdae asked in response, ducking back into the hallway, towards the front of the place. "I mean... I'm not much of a cook -- in fact, the last time I tried, I almost burnt the whole place down -- but we could always order something. I can go pick up some beer and we can just... hang out here."
Except Joonmyun still doesn't know how to accept his friend's kindness, so he gnaws on his already kind of chapped lower lip, frowning deeply, wanting to say yes even though every cell in his body is shouting no, it's a terrible idea. Apparently the conflict showed on his face, because Jongdae crowed with excitement, hands on his hips as he all but dragged Joonmyun towards the couch. "It's okay," he insisted, sitting down beside him, ignoring the little sparkles that sizzle between their knees when they touch by accident. "You're okay, everything's fine. I want you to be here."
Joonmyun has no clue as to how he might explain that he isn't anxious over being here, at least not entirely, but fortunately he didn't have the chance because Jongdae pulled out his phone, dialing the number to some delivery place or another, placing what sounded like a complicated order.
Some people would call the little sparks chemistry, he thought sadly as Jongdae flopped down into his couch, reached for the remote and turned on the television. They spent damn near an hour flipping through channels, arguing amiably about what to watch, and finally settled on what passed for background noise when their food showed up. Jongdae spoke to the delivery boy as if they'd known each other a long while -- they probably had, Joonmyun supposed, watching out of the corner of his eye as Jongdae tipped too much and spoke with the kid even after he'd handed off the money -- and when he came back to Joonmyun curled in on himself he was wearing a soft little smile, curling, always curling, the kind that made Joonmyun feel a little warm under the collar.
"You like chicken, right?" Jongdae inquired with a slight tilt of his head as he set the overlarge bag of food down on the coffee table in front of the couch. "I mean, if you don't, it's not a big deal, I just figured, you know, everyone kind of likes chicken--"
"It's fine," Joonmyun mumbled, grinning a little himself.
So they ate chicken, drank beer, Jongdae making fun of Joonmyun lightheartedly, Joonmyun grinning and laughing along. When he felt the pleasant buzz of alcohol content in his veins, Joonmyun kind of halfway sunk into the couch, enjoying the feel of fabric under his skin, the warmth of air around him, and most of all, the occasional little zaps that Jongdae would give him, accidentally of course, but they rippled through him all the same, giving him unpleasantly enjoyable shivers.
"You're the first friend I've had in so long," Joonmyun mumbled as he felt his eyes get heavy, and Jongdae took that as an invitation to crawl right on top of the older man, causing a pretty serious case of the tremors. Not that it stopped him. Not that it caused Joonmyun to protest.
"I'm glad we're friends," Jongdae agreed, just as quiet, eyes heavy-lidded, close enough that Joonmyun could count each and every one of his river-long eyelashes, should he choose.
"I'm glad you invited me over," Joonmyun continued on, fitting his arms around Jongdae, despite the pain it caused, giving him a gentle sort of squeeze.
And that's when it happened. It appeared to be an accident of sorts, was too soft and sweet to be intentional, Jongdae wasn't the type to halfway do anything if it were up to him. So when Joonmyun felt that damn kitten mouth against his, a brush of lips alive with electricity, he swore he heard the ocean rushing through his ears, threatening to overwhelm him.
When they broke apart, Jongdae pressed his fingertips to the hollows of Joonmyun's collarbones, pushed himself up, sat with his knees at either side of Joonmyun's waist, and grinned the most maniacal grin. "You should warn me next time," he requested, a bit slurred, eyes shut to slits due to his intense glee. "That way I don't have to hurt you."
"You didn't--"
"I did," and just like that Jongdae was all solemn, chin raised, peering down at Joonmyun. "I felt it. But... now I'm better at keeping control of it."
The training. The mountains. The days apart. Joonmyun felt his heart sinking beneath the surface of his relatively calm veneer, and heaved a deep and dramatic sigh. "You've been waiting for this."
"Are you mad...?"
It took a long few minutes of consideration, Jongdae clambering off him so that he might sit up and think in a better position, fingertips pressed to his temples, before Joonmyun could give a good answer. "I'm not mad," he said at long last, "mostly because I'm pretty sure I've wanted to kiss you since the first time we ever met, but that's not how you keep someone from offing himself. ...Mostly. Next time, you don't have to do anything special like get me drunk, you can just...ask."
"I don't want to think too much about it," Jongdae confessed, all breathless and kind of wondrous, pressing his hand to his chest. "I just... I never get this close to anyone."
"That makes sense. But you're too young to be playing games with people."
"Okay. No more games." A pause, mainly so that Jongdae could look mournful, even though they both knew that neither regretted much of anything. "Does that mean we can do it again?"
"You are trouble, Kim Jongdae," Joonmyun stated, reaching out to cup the back of the younger's neck and draw him in again, crushing their mouths together, finally content to be able to learn how such a pretty mouth could know such awful, awful tricks.
---
The world opened up around Joonmyun; for once he wasn't barraged by the sounds of traffic and weather and birds flying overhead but rather the distinct hum of silence, the only thing accompanying his thoughts the fact that his lips still tingled from the night before. His throat was too dry to call out, despite his wishes to the contrary; he wanted to make sure he hadn't been abandoned, that there weren't some sort of hidden cameras and that this wasn't someone else's apartment. He needed the cops called on him like he needed a hole in the head.
He ducked down the hallway, where he knew Jongdae's room was, and watched intently as the young man slept, chest rising and falling evenly, cheeks lucky to be touched by those long eyelashes, arm wrapped around a pillow of which Joonmyun found himself stupidly jealous. "Good morning," Joonmyun mumbled with a bit of a smile tugging at his lips, turning back and deciding that it would be best for them if he made something to eat, in case of hangover.
He got started making pancakes, added water to dry mix, whisked everything together, and very quietly tried to find a frying pan. Only two clangs later he was in business, butter heating up and sliding against teflon. When the moments were quiet and still he could swear he heard movement, but he wasn't sure until he heard the stream of a shower kick on, coursing against tiles and presumably--
Ah, but he wouldn't dream of that, at least not for a while to come.
"We're going out," Jongdae announced when he came out of his bedroom, mostly-dressed with a towel wrapped around his head. He hopped up onto the countertop just beside the stove, careful of the heat radiating from it. His face and voice were all sunshine and rainbows, despite the fact that the weather outside was dreary, grey and unavoidably wet.
"Why?" Joonmyun asked, never looking up from his frying pan, focusing instead on bubbles in pancake batter. "We could just stay here, I wouldn't mind it at all."
"Well, because... I don't know. You don't seem like you get to go out all that often."
"I don't, but there's a reason for that." Joonmyun did look up then, eyebrows raised slightly in confusion. "You know, the whole... people wanting to kill me for accidents thing." He shrugged, feeling his nerves begin to fray around the edges. "It's not like I don't want to be around people and do normal people things, it's just that I don't think it'd be a good idea to be out causing a fuss and making things messier than they already are."
"We won't be messy, then," Jongdae reassured, leaning in and pressing his lips to the curve of Joonmyun's temple. "Of course... if we stayed in, we could be as messy as we liked..."
"Ha, ha," Joonmyun deadpanned, rolling his eyes and downright beaming out of excitement at the mere suggestion. "Aren't we friends? We just decided last night that we were friends, if I remember right."
"Hey, now. If I happen to be friends with a fishman--"
"I'm not a fishman!" Joonmyun flicked an excess drop of pancake batter at the younger; it landed square in the middle of his forehead with a satisfying plop.
"--who happens to be excellent at kissing, then I plan on having a lot to do with both sides of things."
At that moment, Joonmyun turned a faint shade of pink, dropped his gaze back to breakfast, which appeared to be burning. He gasped, all but shoved Jongdae off the counter, and doused the smoking hotcake with water that streamed in jets from his palms.
"You're a bad cook?" Jongdae drawled, amusement in his voice and probably on his face, not that Joonmyun had much time to look considering he was attempting to carry the pan to the sink without accidentally tipping it over and dumping its contents onto the floor.
"Shouldn't have to cook," Joonmyun muttered, carefully setting the pan down in the sink. "I should be able to just go out and get nutrients from the elements or something. Or we should come with some kind of system built-in so that we don't have to bother with this stupid stuff."
Jongdae laughed, long and loud, hunched over with his hands on his knees, stopping only when Joonmyun had opened the sliding glass door to let all the smoke out of the apartment. "You're okay," Jongdae marvelled aloud, stretching upwards like a cat, back popping a bit. "And you saved my kitchen. I'm impressed."
"Don't be, that was nothing." And Joonmyun put on his determined face: jaw set, brows serious, eyes narrowed a bit. "If we're going to go out, then we need to eat first."
---
Their days went on much in this fashion, Jongdae occasionally going to work at some unspecified location, Joonmyun leaving for a couple days at a time to get his precious solitude or go play with the sea or spend time on his rooftop with things that were his, were tangible, had his name written in the fingerprints all over them.
They didn't speak of it, but judging by the looks they gave each other, they were at least sort-of in a relationship. Which meant that Joonmyun was sort-of living there. After all, there was a coffee mug that only he used, a formerly-extra toothbrush that tasted of his mouth, and a responsibility to make them breakfast every morning and decide what they would watch on TV every night. Joonmyun would often retire to the couch when kissing was too much, when he wanted more but didn't know how to ask for it, and would always stave off Jongdae's protests of gentlemanly concern by holding up his hands and going all wide-eyed.
"We're not married yet," he'd always say, brows slowly inching up his forehead, "I'm not sleeping in your bed until I see a ring on this finger." And it was a joke, albeit an awkward sort of joke and not the kind that made Jongdae laugh the way that the unintentional ones he was always chuckling over did, but there was very little truth to it. Really, he was just waiting until it was appropriate to crawl into bed with this man, this wonder, this real-life hero that had saved him from wanting to die.
Jongdae apparently knew that, judging by the way he always sauntered on back to his own room, purring over his shoulder that, were things to get too uncomfortable, Joonmyun knew where to find him.
Eventually, Joonmyun stopped spending so much time watching over his proverbial Gotham and started going to Jongdae's more and more. Within a few weeks he was spending the night, learning the curves of Jongdae's body just as well as he knew his own, tracing lines with fingers, skimming broad planes of flesh with palms and lips, memorising soft sounds that echoed in the darkness and loud ones lit up by the sunshine streaming in from behind windowpanes.
"You're amazing," Jongdae murmured in his ear at the end of the night, curled into him, making himself seem small so that he could be held, something that Joonmyun was all too happy to do.
It was a long process, at least for him seeing as he could hardly stand the passage of one day, but eventually the thoughts of the ocean pressing him down into nothing petered out as well, and he was left with nothing but content.
---
He didn't understand for a long while, but the realisation dawned on him one morning, waking up in his, Jongdae's, their bed and watching his boyfriend
(such an uncomfortable word to use on someone who didn't know they were the subject of it)
sleep peacefully. He had to leave. He wasn't the sort of being that was meant to be comfortable, and yet there he was, thinking about this life with someone that he couldn't have, this existence on this planet that wasn't his. The entire situation was the ocean, pouring in over his head, threatening to drown him, and for once he had absolutely no control over it.
He went to his rooftop, gathering the few things he'd left there -- precious money, clothes, the photographs he'd taken with Jongdae the last time they'd had one of their adventure days and stowed away here in case he lost them -- and shoving them into his backpack. He had no idea as to where he'd go, maybe another city, maybe another continent, but he knew he'd have to travel until he couldn't feel the press of fear on the insides of his ribs, threatening to explode him completely.
It was almost time to go, but -- crap, he'd forgotten something. Pressing his palms to his eyes, he adjusted the bag on his shoulder, knowing that he'd have to go back to Jongdae's apartment one more time.
(oh if only he had eroded away and let the sea take him)
He thought that Jongdae was gone, had left for work, which is why he felt that it was safe enough to enter. That didn't explain away the anxiety that was humming in his bones, singing notes high enough to boil the salt from his blood. "Hello," he called out, praying there wasn't an answer.
Silence rose up to meet him, and he took that as a good sign. His phone was around here somewhere, why he'd left without it he'd never understand but at least once he found it he could leave, abandon what was obviously a false sense of security--
He damn near jumped out of his skin when he felt that familiar static for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
"You can't go," Jongdae whispered, breath hot at Joonmyun's ear, causing the elder to whip around and put hands on the younger's shoulders, hold him steady. "You can't go, I don't want you to go, I'm trying to take care of you and you won't let me, please don't go."
"You weren't supposed to be here," Joonmyun accused, rage muted, drowned out by crashing waves that came down around his ears and settled into his brain. "I really, I just, I need to get out of here," and he wiggled out from under the grasp of his almost lover, chest tight, fingers prickling still with electricity, goosebumps running up and down his arms.
"Why?" And Joonmyun ran for the door, only to find that his path was blocked, that he would have to deal with that damn mouth of Jongdae's, with the despondent crinkle of his brow and the little forks around his eyes. He'd never seen Jongdae cry before just now, not even when he had been taking care of his wounds on that damn rooftop almost an eternity ago, and it was not a sight he'd been anticipating.
Turning away, Joonmyun tried to think of the best possible way out, but he hated feeling trapped, knew that these circumstances (or ones just like these) had led him to kill the people, the friends he had in the past.
He really, really didn't want to kill Jongdae. He probably couldn't even if he tried.
Jongdae pressed his chest to Joonmyun's back, arms wrapping tight around him, lips at his ear. "You don't have to go anywhere," he murmured, fingers drumming up the line of Joonmyun's sternum, crackling with electricity and yeah, it kind of hurt, but Joonmyun was a fucking masochist who enjoyed that kind of thing, even felt that he deserved it, that he could be happy if he were to take a little pain every now and again.
The tension in him melted away, the adrenaline ceased to beat its repetitive drum in his ears, the ships were coming into the harbor. He didn't have to leave.
"Then I won't," he answered just as quietly, trying to keep the thrumming of his heart against his ribcage from splitting him in two, and for the first time in...well, ever, he meant it. He wouldn't run anymore, not if he could avoid it. He was tired of running, anyhow, and couldn't stand the idea of disappearing if Jongdae weren't going to disappear with him. So he reached up, took one of Jongdae's hands in his, laced their fingers together. "I won't."
Their mouths met, soft and tentative, Joonmyun afraid of staying and Jongdae afraid of Joonmyun going, and all that anxiety that had been building in him, threatening to spill over, merely melted away, leaving him at ease in the younger's embrace. Everything would be fine now, he decided, allowing himself to feel safe for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
one | two