i don't have a word for love.
things in D minor
(SJ) Donghae, Kibum
They are at a park at 3:00AM in the morning, but Kibum is too tired (too apathetic, really) to complain. Donghae says that it's for the best, that maybe they needed a little time to talk, but what's there to talk about? The older man is snide enough to leave him sitting restlessly on the cold wooden bench to get some convenience store ice cream. Crazy.
Kibum tells Donghae take that 175 centimeter stick out of his ass but he makes peace by forcefully sticking cheap ice cream into Kibum's hand. "You like this, remember?" And there he goes again.
"No, I don't," Kibum protests.
"Yeah, well, clouds shit rainbows."
"What the-?" Donghae silences him by shoving the ice cream cone into his mouth and that's really all it takes. "Would you like a song? A love song? I could sing one for you and your ice cream, if you'd like me to." He snaps his fingers on impulse. "Why don't you sing for you two? It's love, it's love, it's-"
"Strawberry-flavored," the youngest cuts in sourly. "Just who do you think you are?"
Fluttering his eyelashes, Donghae says, "Me? I don't know where you've been for the past three years but my name is Lee Donghae and you are Kim Kibum and you are in love with strawberry-flavored ice cream and therefore you will sing a love song."
Kibum reaches blindly into the night air, looking for Donghae's collar. "You," he declares when he gives up, "are a loser."
"You," Donghae says, smiling brightly, "are made of fail. Ah." He puts up his index finger, signaling a halt, successfully silencing whatever explicit words that would have come out of Kibum's mouth otherwise. "Eat your ice cream or else I will make you pay me back. With interest. And tax. I love taxes. Don't you love taxes? It makes me feel all nationalist-ish, sort of. Well, actually, you know, I could sort of live without having to pay taxes but whatever. I especially love them when someone has to pay me taxes." He smiles again. Kibum can feel the sarcasm in the air.
"How about I eat the ice cream-" Donghae smiles at that "-and then go bulimic-" Donghae raises an eyebrow at that "-and throw it up all over you for tax?" Donghae looks amused at that.
For a while, there is a nice, relaxed silence until Donghae decides to break it by saying, "Not old enough."
"What?"
"I said that you're not old enough."
"Vomiting up ice cream at 3:00AM onto your band mate's newly washed shirt does not need an age. I swear. You are going senile."
He smiles disarmingly again, and says, "If you do, I just might have to kill you to dispose of the evidence. But yeah, do whatever you want. You just can't deny the fact that-"
"I hate strawberry ice cream?"
"- you can't deny the fact that you like it." He frowns, acting like a queen again. "Now I demand you to sing that love song. It's pooling in your heart, isn't it? You just gotta let it out, right?"
Kibum is a good imitator because he is a good actor. This, Donghae knows. Then again, he knows more than he needs to know, so Kibum stares blankly at his senior. He pretends to have that same fair complexion, same dull hair, same nose, same eyes, same lips. It doesn't seem to work out in his mind.
"And there you have it." Donghae sighs quietly, and it goes silent again-Kibum braces himself. "You're not that great, but you're not that bad either. I just think that you don't have… I dunno."
"Courage?" he offers, a small voice against the world. The ice cream is melting onto his hand and he secretly takes a bite, swishing it around his mouth before swallowing.
"Don't be like that. I don't think you can listen to them. Actually, just ignore them and try to do better. It doesn't matter if you're not fantastic by the end of the year; just make an improvement and…" Donghae looks at him again (with that blank stare!) and says, very off-topic, "I'm not stupid, Kibum. Eat your ice cream before I eat it for you."
He reluctantly eats again.
"Just don't give in to them, okay?" His voice becomes softer and softer and gentler and gentler until Kibum can't stand it anymore; Donghae sounds like his mother. "Don't just stand around with your… stupidly brilliant smile. And arms of sex." He chokes on his spit. "In fact," Donghae rambles on, "lose the arms. Of sex. Actually, no, keep them; it's like losing your-"
"Donghae." He laughs. "Donghae. Is that all I'm good for?"
"Arms of sex?"
"Standing around and smiling and… arms of sex. Yeah."
Donghae is quiet, thinking up of an answer. Kibum expects something like "You have your own mind, you know?" or "Start thinking optimistically" or "Don't listen to stupid people and do something impulsive like buying four tubs of strawberry ice cream" but what comes out of Donghae's mouth is, "You are whatever you want to be," and a small smile.
"I love taxes-" Kibum begins to say.
"I'm great," Donghae interrupts with his familiar spaced-out smile, "but I'm not that great. Don't-" he waves his hand at Kibum "-start quoting me all over the place or else people will begin to wonder: who is the genius that says all of these pearls of wisdom? Said genius would be me."
He snorts. "I'm going bulimic," he warns.
"Go ahead. Carpe diem. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." He struggles slightly with the next one. "Bing dong san chi fei yi ri zhi han."
"I did not understand a word," Kibum says.
"Good." Donghae smiles. "Now eat your ice cream."
Carpe diem: "seize the day"
Qu'ils mangent de la brioche: "let them eat pastries"
bing dong san chi fei yi ri zhi han: (冰冻三尺 非一日之寒) "three feet of ice does not result from one day of freezing weather."