Yesterday (and Forever) [2/2]
Title: Yesterday (and Forever)
Fandom: BAP
Genre: Angst, TimeStop!AU
Rating: R
Warnings: Youngjae dying a lot ._.
Pairing: Daejae
Summary: Until Youngjae comes back, Daehyun’s stuck in the past, because every day becomes yesterday.
1 | 2
The morning air seems bitter this time, stinging and harsh, burning at Daehyun’s face as he bolts down the street, huffing in his coat because shit I’m late Youngjae is going to be angry. Seoul in the morning is dismal and bland, more city smog and bleary-eyed individuals walking on the sidewalks, car doors slamming dully and muffled voices. The lights have stopped blinking and no more streetlamps illuminate gems across the dark pavement.
Youngjae looks up when Daehyun sits down next to him on the bench, panting from his abrupt sprint. “Did I keep you waiting for too long? I accidentally fell asleep again after your call.”
“You look tired,” Youngjae comments, but Youngjae never says anything anything about Daehyun looking tired from his nightmares. Youngjae merely looks at him with something perplexed in his expression, as if he doesn’t know what to say when Daehyun shows up looking like he’s been in a street-alley brawl. Like he’s trying to avoid the bruises and yawns.
Daehyun doesn’t know who’s the one hiding anymore, he or Youngjae. “You don’t ever seem to notice that.”
“You never tell me anything. I didn’t have anything to say.” Youngjae swipes at the lock-screen on his phone and checks the date. It’s the second of March. Something drops in the pit of Daehyun’s stomach, something half hope and half horror. The morning air drops a few degrees in temperature and everything seems a little more gray, a little more winter than spring.
“Why did you call me?”
“It’s the weekend.” Daehyun vaguely recalls the screams of people riding in roller coasters, the snap, crack, smoke of gunshots and blood. “I wanted to go somewhere fun. But you don’t seem too happy this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Daehyun dismisses, and tugs Youngjae’s hand away from pointing at the screen of his phone. “Where do you want to go? I’ll go anywhere but the amusement park. It’s too cold to go on rides.” His voice breaks at the last word and he hopes Youngjae doesn’t hear. “Do you want to go to the market or something?”
“That would be nice.” Youngjae watches him as they start walking down the street, eyes almost probing, more attentive than Daehyun has ever seen him act towards him. He thinks it should be flipped-if his nightmares have told him anything, it’s that he needs to be the one watching Youngjae.
Two nightmares in a row about Youngjae dying on the same day are not accounted for by coincidence.
Daehyun starts to get the chilling feeling that they aren’t nightmares.
-
Relationships are complicated, messy things. And like complicated, messy things, they’re addicting. People can’t learn to function without them. Perhaps that was why Daehyun watched his mother endure ten years of being abused and beaten by his father before she walked out one stormy winter night and was never seen again, leaving Daehyun’s father to drown his anger, and perhaps sorrow, over Daehyun.
So this was love, he learned at an early age, when he asked his mother if it made her sad when his father slapped her across the face and left a bright, livid bruise. She had responded with a quiet I love your father, Daehyunnie. He didn’t think she believed it, but at the same time, she did. Love made everything uglier, like the red marks on his mother’s otherwise beautiful face. Love smelled like the sour taste of alcohol stinking in his father’s breath when he hurled glass bottles at Daehyun and roared in anger, leaving cuts and bruises where no one would notice.
Youngjae watched him grow up under this love. Youngjae would understand, that Daehyun doesn’t care for love because all it does is leave broken traces of people behind, empty shells of the life they used to be.
But still, Youngjae’s lips hesitate with the word lo- before Daehyun cuts him off and pretends he doesn’t hear anything. The wind blows loudly at opportune times, drowning out speech. Ignorance is bliss. Life keeps on revolving in crooked, deformed little circles if you don’t pay attention to what you don’t want to know.
-
The ahjumma behind the fruit stand decides that Daehyun and Youngjae resemble her sons when they were younger so she gives them each a ripe peach for free and sends them on their way, telling them to have fun. Youngjae gives her a smile and thanks her before they walk onto the street, holding the peaches in their hands to eat later. Daehyun waits for them to be out of the sight before pressing a chaste kiss against Youngjae’s cheek, then looking down as he hurriedly takes a bite out of his peach and chews rapidly.
“You don’t have to pretend, you know.” Youngjae tugs at Daehyun’s hand, ignoring the juice that’s starting to run down his fingers, and kisses him back. “Come on. Let’s go have some fun.”
Daehyun grins and finishes eating his peach and wipes his hands before taking Youngjae’s hands and clasping them together securely, tightly, as if Youngjae will vanish in front of him at any moment. Their fingers link together in between the spaces but it’s too cheesy to say they fit perfectly, Daehyun thinks. But they do.
They walk along the stalls in the marketplace, picking aimlessly at little trinkets and seeking out bits and pieces of snacks to eat. Youngjae tries to feed Daehyun with his hands and Daehyun ends up with crumbs all over his lips so Youngjae tries to wipe them off with his thumb, which results in Daehyun trying to kiss him at the same time.
“Ew, gross,” Youngjae laughs when Daehyun’s tongue licks his fingers, jerking his hand back. “You’re not helping.” Somewhere caught between the fine lines of daylight threading faintly at the fringe of Youngjae’s bangs and eyelashes is a hint of quiet longing for something in the horizon like ships at a distance carrying the dreams of people into the stormy unknown.
“Oh, really?” Daehyun jokes, pulling Youngjae towards him. His hands slip and Youngjae loses his balance, clutching at Daehyun’s jacket as he presses against him and laughs. There’s something shaky about being so close to each other, breaths ghosting across his face, eyes staring into his.
“I think I l-” Youngjae begins softly, then stops abruptly, his face paling as he stares wordlessly down. Daehyun follows the direction of his gaze, only to see the stain of crimson blossoming across his shirt, vivid against the cold gray of March. Someone slips away in the corner of his vision, carrying something bloody (thief, murderer) in his hands and Youngjae’s mouth is open in a soundless scream. Daehyun thinks he’s screaming too, but nothing comes out.
-
Daehyun might have had his first kiss on the rooftop at school, when Youngjae had snuck up behind him and they had tumbled over onto the floor and their lips had touched on accident. Neither of them had drawn away when their noses bumped slightly against each other, the heat of their bodies warm when pressed against each other.
“Is this okay?” Youngjae had asked after a while, and Daehyun had laughed and pulled him in closer, because it was more than okay. There was a rush of something in Daehyun’s veins afterwards, a tingling feeling of something fiercer than happiness or joy.
He wondered if this was love, then laughed at himself for being so silly.
-
They catch the culprit in less than half an hour, confiscating Youngjae’s wallet that he stole and the knife he had used to stab Youngjae. Daehyun hears about the news from his cellphone as he stands between the sterile, white hospital walls and stares blankly into the room Youngjae is in. The stench of clean and sick mixed together washes over him, but he doesn’t notice it after a few minutes, because after a while everything is just a numb, dull sensation of fear and of being closed in a wall of time and death.
He had forgotten about his nightmares.
They declare Youngjae dead within minutes of entering the hospital, but Daehyun doesn’t think they’re telling the truth because he never got to hear what Youngjae was going to say to him and isn’t it some sort of rule every fairy tale story or whatever has to follow, that whoever dies has to get out their last words before passing on?
He thinks he’s going to go insane. He can’t go on watching Youngjae die in front of his eyes day after day, stuck in time, reliving this date over and over again. Because Youngjae means so much to him, and maybe he had never realized it, but he’s pretty sure what Youngjae had been about to say, the last whispers ghosting in the air before he died.
“Daehyun?”
He turns around to see Youngjae standing in the doorway, dark blood dripping down his skin, staining the clean, bland hospital floors, eyes empty and lifeless. Bruises ringing his eyes, black and blue. Nightmares come true.
“But you’re dead,” he breathes, and Youngjae merely laughs, taking a stumbling step towards him, hands reaching out, and everything comes rushing back like the crimson paint blossoming against the pale color of Youngjae’s shirt and the snap, crack, smoke of gunshots and the screech of car brakes and broken bodies, broken souls-
Youngjaeyoungjaeyoungjae is the only thought in his mind when he wakes up. The date on the clock displays March 2nd in bright red, flashing neon as Daehyun turns over in his bed and stares at the time.
It’s five in the morning. He feels sick.
-
“You’re stupid,” Youngjae announced rather abruptly, poking his finger into Daehyun’s chest and breathing heavily, eyes ablaze in fury and something Daehyun couldn’t quite identify, fire and flame burning ashes into life. “Stop running away.”
“Running away from what?” Daehyun stepped back and Youngjae made a little sort of half growl of frustration in the back of his throat, blurry and undefined, indistinct noises crowding in. “I’m not running away from anything.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Youngjae threw up his hands and shook his head, but the blaze in his expression and eyes didn’t extinguish into smoke. Youngjae was sparks and heat, not mist and faint wisps of silver threading through the air.
“Understand what?” Everything became undefined after a while if he squinted hard enough. Sharp realities blended into indistinct dreams, harmonies and melodies melded into a chorus. He didn’t want to say it.
“Did our kiss mean nothing to you?” Youngjae demanded, and he took a step forwards towards Daehyun, glaring at him as if daring him to take another step back. This time, Daehyun held his ground. “Was it just an accident to you? Did you not mean it when you kissed me back and your eyes closed against mine? Because I could feel your eyelashes brushing against my cheek and your arms were around me. Did it all mean nothing to you?”
Something caught at Daehyun’s throat, not quite choking but restrictive enough that he couldn’t say anything. Youngjae seemed to deflate but his eyes were still burning.
“I know you, Jung Daehyun. You don’t talk much about feelings. You don’t say much about what you feel. But I’m also not enough of an idiot to think that you don’t feel anything for me. So I’ll say it for you. I. Like. You. And I’m pretty sure you like me to. Is that correct? And maybe this is some stupid, fucking clichéd story about two childhood friends who fall in love or whatever but I’ve known you for years and goddamn it, I like you okay?”
Their faces were mere centimeters away from each other, Youngjae’s chest heaving for breath, his eyes still burning. Daehyun leaned forward and kissed him, and Youngjae almost fell against him-maybe he had been scared he was wrong all along, and didn’t know what Daehyun was thinking. Maybe.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t think it was necessary.
-
“Take a walk with me.”
Daehyun leans against the doorway of Youngjae’s apartment and stuffs his hands into his pockets as he watches the younger man step back in surprise at his appearance, bleary-eyed and yawning. “What are you doing here? It’s six in the morning.”
“I missed you. So come take a walk with me.”
Youngjae throws him a sharp glance. Daehyun fidgets uncomfortably and avoids his gaze. He never says things like I missed you and you mean so much to me. Between the fine, cracked lines of affection fear there has always been the barrier of being too open, too accepting of something he doesn’t understand.
But Daehyun has missed Youngjae, the real Youngjae, the Youngjae who doesn’t die in his nightmares every night, nightmares he doesn’t know if are merely dreams or perhaps realities.
“I’m waiting,” he finally reminds Youngjae, “and it’s cold outside. Hurry up.” He keeps his voice level and Youngjae looks a cross between disappointed and relieved, and Daehyun’s starting to think he knows why Youngjae would be disappointed. It has to do with midnight and scattered drops of gold and silver under lamplights, the city at night. It has to do with Youngjae murmuring I fell too much in love with you.
“Sorry,” the younger mutters, and abruptly disappears out of sight with a call of “Give me a few minutes. Let me get a coat.”
I can never tell the difference between lies and truth. Who are we? What are we? You say we’re together, but you never say anything even close to I like you. Yet you kiss me, hug me, and I don’t know understand anything, Youngjae had said, and as Daehyun waits by the doorway, he’s finally starting to understand.
-
Their first fight had been over something trivial, and Daehyun can’t even remember anymore what it was about to save his life. But he does remember the image of Youngjae trying to break free of his grip, tears staining his face, screaming, do you even love me? Even if you don’t say anything, ever, do you even feel it?
Daehyun remembers not being able to give an answer, stuttering because he didn’t know.
-
Daehyun waits until they’ve walked for a few minutes before speaking. The early March weather stings at their faces and fades into gray mist, smoke and dull horizons of lost dreams. “Do you think actions or words are more powerful?”
Youngjae merely stares at him, lips parted, hesitant, so Daehyun continues before he can venture a response.
“I guess you could say it doesn’t matter, because the truth is what matters the most. You can lie with your actions and your words. But what’s true is what things really are, right?”
“But for some people,” Youngjae adds quietly, nearly inaudible so Daehyun has to strain to hear him, “it’s not true for them unless they can say it in words.” Youngjae watched him grow up, watched him turn away from certain words he couldn’t say because of the shattering bottles striking him and his mother. Youngjae knows.
“Exactly.” And maybe Daehyun’s voice chokes up, cracks, as he turns away and tries to blink away unshed tears that suddenly threaten to flow from his eyes. “In words.”
-
You can’t define love-you have to find it for yourself, his teacher had told him once, but that only made him feel even more lost as he wandered in the maze of the fine lines between people. How was he supposed to know what love was if he didn’t have something to define it with?
-
They spend the day wandering around the city and looking at sights, Daehyun making sure that Youngjae stays with him the entire time and nothing comes up and hurts the younger man. They decide to stay at a hotel that night, and Daehyun definitely knows that sharing one bed will lead to other, less innocent activities, but he leads Youngjae to their room holding hands, because they’ve done this plenty of times.
After they change for bed they sit together on the sheets, leaning against each other, watching the lights on the ceiling for a lack of something better to do. Daehyun blinks rapidly when one of the lights starts to resemble the shape of a gun, and he shivers, because it brings back memories of his nightmares.
“Are you okay?” Youngjae jokes, pushing at Daehyun playfully, causing the hotel bed to creak alarmingly. “Why the long face? It’s not like I’m about to die or anything.”
But flash-Youngjae’s telling him I fell too much in love with you and flash, Daehyun’s watching Youngjae die in front of him multiple times, flash, Daehyun remembers waking up in bed only to see that it’s the second of March, because he’s caught up in some sick circle of life and it’ll never end, but he can’t stand watching Youngjae die again because Youngjae means so much to him, over all the years they’ve been together, and he-
And without warning, the words fall from his lips involuntarily, naturally. “I love you.”
Youngjae pauses in mid shove and stares at Daehyun with wide eyes, disbelief etched in every feature. “What did you say?”
“I love you.” It because so much easier to say when he’s said it once, and the words seem to spread across him, warn and expanding, making Daehyun light-headed. He thinks he’s crying as he clings onto Youngjae and repeats over and over again, I love you, I love you so much.
Youngjae freezes in shock for a few moments, but eventually, he wraps his arms around Daehyun as Daehyun buries his face into his chest and he’s shaking, maybe finally reaching for dreams in his grasp, the horizon that’s not too far away anymore, ships unlost at sea.
“Stay with me tonight. Don’t ever leave me,” he whispers and Youngjae nods, yes, because that’s what two people in love are meant to do.
-
“Do you ever wish you could turn back time?” They never talked before while having sex, but this time, it’s different. This time, it’s them. Together.
“Always.” Their fingers explore their bodies, unzipping jackets, unbuttoning shirts, pulling down belts. “Because then I would have told you it earlier. I would have told you everything instead of hiding it because I was too afraid. I would have realized it earlier.”
“Say it again,” Youngjae murmurs into Daehyun’s ear, so Daehyun does, when he’s sucking off Youngjae and the roar of rushing blood is loud in his ears, when he’s kissing Youngjae so hard it hurts. I love you, over and over again, bringing them into some sort of completeness, some sort of unity, some sort of truth.
They fall asleep, legs tangled together, in the faint dawn alighting something hinting at hope and infinite possibilities.
-
Daehyun wakes up with Youngjae his arms, calm and warm under the covers. He turns over and glances at the clock next to the bed in the hotel room and smiles to himself. Something like the hints of a faint nightmare disappears and everything seems brighter all of a sudden.
It’s the third of March. The sun is shining through the windows.
okay so i wrote this in june and it's october and i'm posting this on lj wow this is embarrassing sorry also yeah idek i have this huge a/n talking about all the symbolism crap i wrote in here but too lazy to write anything so whatev o/ i'm sorry for my fail of a daejae /o\ cannot write woops
Fandom: BAP
Genre: Angst, TimeStop!AU
Rating: R
Warnings: Youngjae dying a lot ._.
Pairing: Daejae
Summary: Until Youngjae comes back, Daehyun’s stuck in the past, because every day becomes yesterday.
1 | 2
The morning air seems bitter this time, stinging and harsh, burning at Daehyun’s face as he bolts down the street, huffing in his coat because shit I’m late Youngjae is going to be angry. Seoul in the morning is dismal and bland, more city smog and bleary-eyed individuals walking on the sidewalks, car doors slamming dully and muffled voices. The lights have stopped blinking and no more streetlamps illuminate gems across the dark pavement.
Youngjae looks up when Daehyun sits down next to him on the bench, panting from his abrupt sprint. “Did I keep you waiting for too long? I accidentally fell asleep again after your call.”
“You look tired,” Youngjae comments, but Youngjae never says anything anything about Daehyun looking tired from his nightmares. Youngjae merely looks at him with something perplexed in his expression, as if he doesn’t know what to say when Daehyun shows up looking like he’s been in a street-alley brawl. Like he’s trying to avoid the bruises and yawns.
Daehyun doesn’t know who’s the one hiding anymore, he or Youngjae. “You don’t ever seem to notice that.”
“You never tell me anything. I didn’t have anything to say.” Youngjae swipes at the lock-screen on his phone and checks the date. It’s the second of March. Something drops in the pit of Daehyun’s stomach, something half hope and half horror. The morning air drops a few degrees in temperature and everything seems a little more gray, a little more winter than spring.
“Why did you call me?”
“It’s the weekend.” Daehyun vaguely recalls the screams of people riding in roller coasters, the snap, crack, smoke of gunshots and blood. “I wanted to go somewhere fun. But you don’t seem too happy this morning.”
“I’m fine,” Daehyun dismisses, and tugs Youngjae’s hand away from pointing at the screen of his phone. “Where do you want to go? I’ll go anywhere but the amusement park. It’s too cold to go on rides.” His voice breaks at the last word and he hopes Youngjae doesn’t hear. “Do you want to go to the market or something?”
“That would be nice.” Youngjae watches him as they start walking down the street, eyes almost probing, more attentive than Daehyun has ever seen him act towards him. He thinks it should be flipped-if his nightmares have told him anything, it’s that he needs to be the one watching Youngjae.
Two nightmares in a row about Youngjae dying on the same day are not accounted for by coincidence.
Daehyun starts to get the chilling feeling that they aren’t nightmares.
-
Relationships are complicated, messy things. And like complicated, messy things, they’re addicting. People can’t learn to function without them. Perhaps that was why Daehyun watched his mother endure ten years of being abused and beaten by his father before she walked out one stormy winter night and was never seen again, leaving Daehyun’s father to drown his anger, and perhaps sorrow, over Daehyun.
So this was love, he learned at an early age, when he asked his mother if it made her sad when his father slapped her across the face and left a bright, livid bruise. She had responded with a quiet I love your father, Daehyunnie. He didn’t think she believed it, but at the same time, she did. Love made everything uglier, like the red marks on his mother’s otherwise beautiful face. Love smelled like the sour taste of alcohol stinking in his father’s breath when he hurled glass bottles at Daehyun and roared in anger, leaving cuts and bruises where no one would notice.
Youngjae watched him grow up under this love. Youngjae would understand, that Daehyun doesn’t care for love because all it does is leave broken traces of people behind, empty shells of the life they used to be.
But still, Youngjae’s lips hesitate with the word lo- before Daehyun cuts him off and pretends he doesn’t hear anything. The wind blows loudly at opportune times, drowning out speech. Ignorance is bliss. Life keeps on revolving in crooked, deformed little circles if you don’t pay attention to what you don’t want to know.
-
The ahjumma behind the fruit stand decides that Daehyun and Youngjae resemble her sons when they were younger so she gives them each a ripe peach for free and sends them on their way, telling them to have fun. Youngjae gives her a smile and thanks her before they walk onto the street, holding the peaches in their hands to eat later. Daehyun waits for them to be out of the sight before pressing a chaste kiss against Youngjae’s cheek, then looking down as he hurriedly takes a bite out of his peach and chews rapidly.
“You don’t have to pretend, you know.” Youngjae tugs at Daehyun’s hand, ignoring the juice that’s starting to run down his fingers, and kisses him back. “Come on. Let’s go have some fun.”
Daehyun grins and finishes eating his peach and wipes his hands before taking Youngjae’s hands and clasping them together securely, tightly, as if Youngjae will vanish in front of him at any moment. Their fingers link together in between the spaces but it’s too cheesy to say they fit perfectly, Daehyun thinks. But they do.
They walk along the stalls in the marketplace, picking aimlessly at little trinkets and seeking out bits and pieces of snacks to eat. Youngjae tries to feed Daehyun with his hands and Daehyun ends up with crumbs all over his lips so Youngjae tries to wipe them off with his thumb, which results in Daehyun trying to kiss him at the same time.
“Ew, gross,” Youngjae laughs when Daehyun’s tongue licks his fingers, jerking his hand back. “You’re not helping.” Somewhere caught between the fine lines of daylight threading faintly at the fringe of Youngjae’s bangs and eyelashes is a hint of quiet longing for something in the horizon like ships at a distance carrying the dreams of people into the stormy unknown.
“Oh, really?” Daehyun jokes, pulling Youngjae towards him. His hands slip and Youngjae loses his balance, clutching at Daehyun’s jacket as he presses against him and laughs. There’s something shaky about being so close to each other, breaths ghosting across his face, eyes staring into his.
“I think I l-” Youngjae begins softly, then stops abruptly, his face paling as he stares wordlessly down. Daehyun follows the direction of his gaze, only to see the stain of crimson blossoming across his shirt, vivid against the cold gray of March. Someone slips away in the corner of his vision, carrying something bloody (thief, murderer) in his hands and Youngjae’s mouth is open in a soundless scream. Daehyun thinks he’s screaming too, but nothing comes out.
-
Daehyun might have had his first kiss on the rooftop at school, when Youngjae had snuck up behind him and they had tumbled over onto the floor and their lips had touched on accident. Neither of them had drawn away when their noses bumped slightly against each other, the heat of their bodies warm when pressed against each other.
“Is this okay?” Youngjae had asked after a while, and Daehyun had laughed and pulled him in closer, because it was more than okay. There was a rush of something in Daehyun’s veins afterwards, a tingling feeling of something fiercer than happiness or joy.
He wondered if this was love, then laughed at himself for being so silly.
-
They catch the culprit in less than half an hour, confiscating Youngjae’s wallet that he stole and the knife he had used to stab Youngjae. Daehyun hears about the news from his cellphone as he stands between the sterile, white hospital walls and stares blankly into the room Youngjae is in. The stench of clean and sick mixed together washes over him, but he doesn’t notice it after a few minutes, because after a while everything is just a numb, dull sensation of fear and of being closed in a wall of time and death.
He had forgotten about his nightmares.
They declare Youngjae dead within minutes of entering the hospital, but Daehyun doesn’t think they’re telling the truth because he never got to hear what Youngjae was going to say to him and isn’t it some sort of rule every fairy tale story or whatever has to follow, that whoever dies has to get out their last words before passing on?
He thinks he’s going to go insane. He can’t go on watching Youngjae die in front of his eyes day after day, stuck in time, reliving this date over and over again. Because Youngjae means so much to him, and maybe he had never realized it, but he’s pretty sure what Youngjae had been about to say, the last whispers ghosting in the air before he died.
“Daehyun?”
He turns around to see Youngjae standing in the doorway, dark blood dripping down his skin, staining the clean, bland hospital floors, eyes empty and lifeless. Bruises ringing his eyes, black and blue. Nightmares come true.
“But you’re dead,” he breathes, and Youngjae merely laughs, taking a stumbling step towards him, hands reaching out, and everything comes rushing back like the crimson paint blossoming against the pale color of Youngjae’s shirt and the snap, crack, smoke of gunshots and the screech of car brakes and broken bodies, broken souls-
Youngjaeyoungjaeyoungjae is the only thought in his mind when he wakes up. The date on the clock displays March 2nd in bright red, flashing neon as Daehyun turns over in his bed and stares at the time.
It’s five in the morning. He feels sick.
-
“You’re stupid,” Youngjae announced rather abruptly, poking his finger into Daehyun’s chest and breathing heavily, eyes ablaze in fury and something Daehyun couldn’t quite identify, fire and flame burning ashes into life. “Stop running away.”
“Running away from what?” Daehyun stepped back and Youngjae made a little sort of half growl of frustration in the back of his throat, blurry and undefined, indistinct noises crowding in. “I’m not running away from anything.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Youngjae threw up his hands and shook his head, but the blaze in his expression and eyes didn’t extinguish into smoke. Youngjae was sparks and heat, not mist and faint wisps of silver threading through the air.
“Understand what?” Everything became undefined after a while if he squinted hard enough. Sharp realities blended into indistinct dreams, harmonies and melodies melded into a chorus. He didn’t want to say it.
“Did our kiss mean nothing to you?” Youngjae demanded, and he took a step forwards towards Daehyun, glaring at him as if daring him to take another step back. This time, Daehyun held his ground. “Was it just an accident to you? Did you not mean it when you kissed me back and your eyes closed against mine? Because I could feel your eyelashes brushing against my cheek and your arms were around me. Did it all mean nothing to you?”
Something caught at Daehyun’s throat, not quite choking but restrictive enough that he couldn’t say anything. Youngjae seemed to deflate but his eyes were still burning.
“I know you, Jung Daehyun. You don’t talk much about feelings. You don’t say much about what you feel. But I’m also not enough of an idiot to think that you don’t feel anything for me. So I’ll say it for you. I. Like. You. And I’m pretty sure you like me to. Is that correct? And maybe this is some stupid, fucking clichéd story about two childhood friends who fall in love or whatever but I’ve known you for years and goddamn it, I like you okay?”
Their faces were mere centimeters away from each other, Youngjae’s chest heaving for breath, his eyes still burning. Daehyun leaned forward and kissed him, and Youngjae almost fell against him-maybe he had been scared he was wrong all along, and didn’t know what Daehyun was thinking. Maybe.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t think it was necessary.
-
“Take a walk with me.”
Daehyun leans against the doorway of Youngjae’s apartment and stuffs his hands into his pockets as he watches the younger man step back in surprise at his appearance, bleary-eyed and yawning. “What are you doing here? It’s six in the morning.”
“I missed you. So come take a walk with me.”
Youngjae throws him a sharp glance. Daehyun fidgets uncomfortably and avoids his gaze. He never says things like I missed you and you mean so much to me. Between the fine, cracked lines of affection fear there has always been the barrier of being too open, too accepting of something he doesn’t understand.
But Daehyun has missed Youngjae, the real Youngjae, the Youngjae who doesn’t die in his nightmares every night, nightmares he doesn’t know if are merely dreams or perhaps realities.
“I’m waiting,” he finally reminds Youngjae, “and it’s cold outside. Hurry up.” He keeps his voice level and Youngjae looks a cross between disappointed and relieved, and Daehyun’s starting to think he knows why Youngjae would be disappointed. It has to do with midnight and scattered drops of gold and silver under lamplights, the city at night. It has to do with Youngjae murmuring I fell too much in love with you.
“Sorry,” the younger mutters, and abruptly disappears out of sight with a call of “Give me a few minutes. Let me get a coat.”
I can never tell the difference between lies and truth. Who are we? What are we? You say we’re together, but you never say anything even close to I like you. Yet you kiss me, hug me, and I don’t know understand anything, Youngjae had said, and as Daehyun waits by the doorway, he’s finally starting to understand.
-
Their first fight had been over something trivial, and Daehyun can’t even remember anymore what it was about to save his life. But he does remember the image of Youngjae trying to break free of his grip, tears staining his face, screaming, do you even love me? Even if you don’t say anything, ever, do you even feel it?
Daehyun remembers not being able to give an answer, stuttering because he didn’t know.
-
Daehyun waits until they’ve walked for a few minutes before speaking. The early March weather stings at their faces and fades into gray mist, smoke and dull horizons of lost dreams. “Do you think actions or words are more powerful?”
Youngjae merely stares at him, lips parted, hesitant, so Daehyun continues before he can venture a response.
“I guess you could say it doesn’t matter, because the truth is what matters the most. You can lie with your actions and your words. But what’s true is what things really are, right?”
“But for some people,” Youngjae adds quietly, nearly inaudible so Daehyun has to strain to hear him, “it’s not true for them unless they can say it in words.” Youngjae watched him grow up, watched him turn away from certain words he couldn’t say because of the shattering bottles striking him and his mother. Youngjae knows.
“Exactly.” And maybe Daehyun’s voice chokes up, cracks, as he turns away and tries to blink away unshed tears that suddenly threaten to flow from his eyes. “In words.”
-
You can’t define love-you have to find it for yourself, his teacher had told him once, but that only made him feel even more lost as he wandered in the maze of the fine lines between people. How was he supposed to know what love was if he didn’t have something to define it with?
-
They spend the day wandering around the city and looking at sights, Daehyun making sure that Youngjae stays with him the entire time and nothing comes up and hurts the younger man. They decide to stay at a hotel that night, and Daehyun definitely knows that sharing one bed will lead to other, less innocent activities, but he leads Youngjae to their room holding hands, because they’ve done this plenty of times.
After they change for bed they sit together on the sheets, leaning against each other, watching the lights on the ceiling for a lack of something better to do. Daehyun blinks rapidly when one of the lights starts to resemble the shape of a gun, and he shivers, because it brings back memories of his nightmares.
“Are you okay?” Youngjae jokes, pushing at Daehyun playfully, causing the hotel bed to creak alarmingly. “Why the long face? It’s not like I’m about to die or anything.”
But flash-Youngjae’s telling him I fell too much in love with you and flash, Daehyun’s watching Youngjae die in front of him multiple times, flash, Daehyun remembers waking up in bed only to see that it’s the second of March, because he’s caught up in some sick circle of life and it’ll never end, but he can’t stand watching Youngjae die again because Youngjae means so much to him, over all the years they’ve been together, and he-
And without warning, the words fall from his lips involuntarily, naturally. “I love you.”
Youngjae pauses in mid shove and stares at Daehyun with wide eyes, disbelief etched in every feature. “What did you say?”
“I love you.” It because so much easier to say when he’s said it once, and the words seem to spread across him, warn and expanding, making Daehyun light-headed. He thinks he’s crying as he clings onto Youngjae and repeats over and over again, I love you, I love you so much.
Youngjae freezes in shock for a few moments, but eventually, he wraps his arms around Daehyun as Daehyun buries his face into his chest and he’s shaking, maybe finally reaching for dreams in his grasp, the horizon that’s not too far away anymore, ships unlost at sea.
“Stay with me tonight. Don’t ever leave me,” he whispers and Youngjae nods, yes, because that’s what two people in love are meant to do.
-
“Do you ever wish you could turn back time?” They never talked before while having sex, but this time, it’s different. This time, it’s them. Together.
“Always.” Their fingers explore their bodies, unzipping jackets, unbuttoning shirts, pulling down belts. “Because then I would have told you it earlier. I would have told you everything instead of hiding it because I was too afraid. I would have realized it earlier.”
“Say it again,” Youngjae murmurs into Daehyun’s ear, so Daehyun does, when he’s sucking off Youngjae and the roar of rushing blood is loud in his ears, when he’s kissing Youngjae so hard it hurts. I love you, over and over again, bringing them into some sort of completeness, some sort of unity, some sort of truth.
They fall asleep, legs tangled together, in the faint dawn alighting something hinting at hope and infinite possibilities.
-
Daehyun wakes up with Youngjae his arms, calm and warm under the covers. He turns over and glances at the clock next to the bed in the hotel room and smiles to himself. Something like the hints of a faint nightmare disappears and everything seems brighter all of a sudden.
It’s the third of March. The sun is shining through the windows.
okay so i wrote this in june and it's october and i'm posting this on lj wow this is embarrassing sorry also yeah idek i have this huge a/n talking about all the symbolism crap i wrote in here but too lazy to write anything so whatev o/ i'm sorry for my fail of a daejae /o\ cannot write woops