Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

With the beep-beep-beep of the sensors, he marked another day off on his device. Another day of being by himself, no response from any of humanity, no response from anyone at all. How long had it been since he'd been on this ship? Was there ever a time when he'd been on Earth? Was Earth a real place that actually existed, or was it something he'd made up to keep himself from going mad while stuck in here? It had to be real for the sake of the only person to remember the planet.

It was admittedly narcissistic of oneself to think that one was the only surviving human with the memories to verify a whole planet's existence, but he had no other choice. His transmission had been blasting off for ages. No one had responded. Did anyone on Earth survive? Did anyone on the other ships survive? He knew no one made it on his own. Maybe that was how all of them met their ends, leaving him alone for the rest of his drudgery of a life on board this hostage situation of a ship.

He was going to die alone on this ship by himself, having lived a life that served no purpose.

 

Could a third time be the charm when the third time happened about three months later? Kai would soon find out. Technically, this was his fourth time meeting Taehyun, well, the ones that Taehyun knew of anyway. He didn't want to count the times he ambushed his workplace at random and left without saying anything. That didn't happen. Even Taehyun had agreed when he'd finally discovered Kai amongst the crowd of people at the park that had been keenly listening to his music.

Let us first get this straight, Kai hadn't tracked the other man down to his busking spot like a stalker or something. The truth might be harder to believe, because what actually happened was intriguing for Kai as well. The dawn of That day when he'd waited for Yeonjun to show up, the two boys had spent many hours sitting in silence, supplemented by comfortable conversation.

Yeonjun had stayed until Kai himself grew sick of the sun over their heads and the noises of the world around him. Yeonjun insisted on breakfast, which Kai begrudgingly accepted. And it was during this meal that he'd heard the familiar voice. It'd almost made him choke on his food. Kai had stealthily turned to his side for a minor second to confirm his guess. It really was Taehyun, standing behind the keyboard with his face close enough for the mic to have boomed across his voice all the way to Kai. He'd immediately whipped his head back when he'd found his assumption to be correct.

"Is your neck okay?" Yeonjun had asked with his mouth full of bread.

Kai hadn't warranted that with a response, only held onto Yeonjun and concentrated on scrambling out of there as quickly as was humanly possible before he could be discovered by the man he'd run away from only the day before. Yeonjun had been confused at Kai's antics, but sleep-deprived enough not to ask any other follow-up questions.

Except this escape plan of his was only effectual for a mere week. Next Wednesday, Kai was back at the same spot in the park, hiding behind the crowd, listening to Taehyun's singing. He wouldn't lie, he'd pretty much gone there hoping to see Taehyun again, and there was a sense of relief in being able to see him, listen to his voice again, without having to actually explain himself.

And one random happenstance eventually gave way to routine. Funny word, routine. He hadn't had one since graduation. And now, after all this time, here he was, every week, logging his attendance in Taehyun's crowd. It was through these weekly sessions that Kai sought out the music that had allured him that first time. Sitting there, Kai wondered if Taehyun had finished the incomplete song from that day yet. It wouldn't be remiss to say he went there hoping the singer would play those notes any day now.

On one such morning, the rain took them all by surprise. The crowd between Kai and Taehyun began to disperse hurriedly. Kai saw people open up their umbrellas, don their raincoats and filter away from the open ground. And Kai, being Kai, forgot to take cover before being discovered by the man in front of him. He stood there like an oddly placed piece in a puzzle, motionless, while drops of rain swept down his face. When his eyes met the confused ones of Taehyun, Kai decided to let go of his instinct to run away again. Instead, he chose to run forward, towards the man.

Taehyun shook his head at him, which couldn't have been a good sign, but it did not faze Kai.

"Help me with all this?" was how their conversation began again.

Kai nodded.

Neither of them had anything to protect them from the unexpected showers, nor from the busking paraphernalia that could easily be seriously damaged if it remained in the rain for too long. Kai tried to help, but he didn't have the faintest clue what to do. The moment he tried to gather the cords attached to the amp, Taehyun had the same idea, and their fingers brushed.

He diverted his attention to the speakers instead and followed Taehyun in his sprint to one of the 24/7 convenience stores. Kai originally thought they were only here to take shelter, but once inside, Taehyun revealed what looked like a key to open a door, then hauled the amplifier in and stepped out with a vest over his shoulders and a tag that read his name.

"You work here too?"

"Yeah," Taehyun replied, heading behind the counter to join the other cashier. Kai saw them make small conversation before the girl left Taehyun by himself to go inside the same door Taehyun had grabbed his vest from.

The rain showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Nor did Kai wish to lose his excuse to stick behind for longer. He stepped closer to the counter to see if he could catch the man's attention. "So, how many jobs do you even have?"

Taehyun placed a cap on his head and shrugged, giving Kai a forced smile, "You sure have a lot to ask about jobs as someone who ran away after telling me his own."

"I just," Kai cleared his throat, "had a bad stomach that day."

Taehyun nodded, then shook his head with his eyes closed. "And what about the day after?"

"Toothache. Particularly, a difficult toothache. I was delirious, and I don't even remember what happened. I—"

"Yeah, for sure," he heard Taehyun say, more callous than he'd expected, and felt himself grow nervous. The interruption showed that his nonsense excuse wasn't going to cut it. Perhaps he should've thought a little further ahead when it came to this story. But then, he'd never considered the possibility of having to explain himself. In fact, that was the very thing he'd been running away from.

Taehyun had looked at his watch, then at Kai, and then out the door. Kai hadn't been able to make sense of what that meant, nor had he possessed the courage to ask whether the man was expecting someone. Taehyun had left Kai standing in front of the counter. Instead of indulging a random man who showed up at not one, but two of your workplaces, Taehyun had chosen to concentrate on finishing his job instead.

Meanwhile, Kai had remained there, biting the skin off his lip, wondering where to go from here, with his gaze focused on the shelves and the man clearing expired food off of them. He'd mulled over why the way someone glided across the floor, crouched down to their knees, and read grocery labels left him engrossed to this level. At that moment, he could suddenly understand old man Wordsworth and his tendency to go on about solitary reapers and their songs of melancholy.

"You're kind of a terrible liar, Kai-ssi," Taehyun had said, eyes on the bottom of the item in his hand, amused nonetheless, breaking the trance he'd created in Kai's head.

He'd looked straight at the man, sighing, "I guess."

Taehyun had continued picking up and restacking items on the shelves, while Kai had spent his time counting the number of tiles on the floor. Surprisingly, not many other customers had come in, except for two students who needed an umbrella and high-fived one another for grabbing the last one, and one old lady who waited for her children to pick her up for about twenty minutes.

Kai and Taehyun hadn't exchanged any words during this period, till he grew frustrated with his own conversational paralysis. Once the lady had left, and the two were once again left alone, the realisation of the implications of a stranger haunting your workplace without saying anything dawned on Kai. He finally decided to (sort of) come clean about his odd behaviour.

"The past couple of weeks have been difficult—it has been…I'm sorry about all of… whatever that was. I'm usually pleasant to meet, especially when you meet me a second time."

"Huh," Taehyun had raised his eyebrows. "I guess I must have had the same toothache. I don't remember you meeting me a second time either."

Kai blinked.

"Nice to meet you again. Today." Taehyun had tilted his head to the side and tsked, offering his hand for what would definitely be an awkward handshake. "Thanks for your help. I hope this won't lead to another body part aching."

Kai had scratched the back of his ear, thinking that this man could give him a run for his money when it came to keeping things unpredictable.

"I'm kidding."

Kai had known that he was, but he had still been wrapped up in his head about how to explain himself better, despite being given the all-clear by Taehyun. In addition to that, he hadn't known what else to say, and if he didn't have anything to say, it'd have been awkward again, and he'd get the urge to leave, and he definitely didn't want to leave again.

Taehyun had turned towards him, making Kai brace himself (for no reason, just as a reflex), except the man had just leaned back against the display rack, crossed his arms, and asked him, "Did you like the music?"

"Yes!" That had come almost instinctively. "Honestly, you should have like multiple albums out by now."

Taehyun had hummed. "You really think that?"

"Yeah." Kai had stopped himself as he saw the expression on Taehyun's face morph into something morose. That felt familiar. "You don't?"

"I don't. Yeah. I feel like this is as far as I should go."

"What do you mean?" Kai had asked, but before he could get an answer, his phone buzzed. A reminder to head out and talk about his feelings. Despite having had a very meaningless experience with these types of so-called mental health professionals previously, he'd decided to try on this therapy thing again with someone else. Partly because he'd realised his need to need someone, and because of Yeonjun's sound logic ("You don't decide all books are bad just because you read one Colleen Hoover, Kai-yah")

 

Warning: Cabin pressure depleting. Hull Integrity Compromised.

The automated voice repeated the commands over and over till the man was jolted awake. Scrambling about amidst all the noise, he somehow floated to the console. The blinking red light around the alerts indicated a decreasing oxygen level inside his ship.

He had to laugh.

After all these days of regretting his survival, death had finally arrived at his doorstep in the form of a malfunctioning coolant pipe. Of all the ways to die, this seemed an agreeable one. A little suffocation would hurt for a mere couple of minutes and then, peace.

There was no reason to prolong this drudgery, which had gone on longer than it deserved. His limbs grew limp and lifeless by each minute, with his brain only registering glimpses of what lay in front of him. Sinking back into the pilot's chair, he closed his eyes and prepared to let his short, insignificant life flash before his eyes.

Between the same blaring warning alerts came an oxymoronic loud whisper right next to his ears, "You're still here? Suit up!"

It sounded like a mother reprimanding her child to get ready for school. The man had no choice but to heed the command. But his mother couldn't be here, couldn't have the same manner of speaking as his engineer. His engineer was long gone, her body floating in outer space as stardust, then who could this be asking him to protect his captain? His captain? But the crew never made it. Was that a dream? If they were here, it must've been a dream. He had been mistaken all this time, hadn't he?

The man foraged for his suit in a daze. Each movement felt as if he'd learnt the existence of his limbs only a few minutes ago. Donning his spacesuit felt like choosing a funeral outfit for himself, with the ship's constant jerks and the oxygen level in his tank abysmal. He had to hurry, but why? Wasn't he just telling himself about the pointlessness of it all? The struggle was always going to be in vain. No effort would be worth anything.

"The captain is waiting for us!" The captain. Yes, he was needed. The ship. It had to be repaired. The crew wouldn't survive if he did not make haste.

"You just need to override the switch, and the pressure will reset."

She made it sound so easy, but the blinking red emergency light, the lack of energy in his knees, and the heaviness in his eyes made it impossible. The valve she wanted him to use was out of his reach. There were miles between him and that thing, and his oxygen was already low. He was going to run out of it on his way; best not to waste it then. Sleep would come easily if he remained here.

"Open your eyes. Go now!" She floated right above him, but that wasn't how the lack of gravity worked. How was she doing that? How was she surviving with the pressure of the cabin without her spacesuit? She should be in her spacesuit too, but her O2 tank hadn't been refilled at all. Why was that? Why had they forgotten about her well-being this way?

"You're not really here, you're dead."

 

"You need to go somewhere again?" Taehyun had asked, tentatively.

"Uh, yeah. I'm sorry. I swear this–"

Taehyun had shut him off by turning toward the stockroom again. Only to come back out with an umbrella in his hand, which he'd then offered to Kai. And when Kai, still not caught up with the fact that this was the man being kind and not doing a 'en garde, prêts, allez' with the umbrella in his hand, had not accepted it instantly, Taehyun had grabbed his arm and wrapped Kai's hand around the umbrella.

"This one's mine, so I hope you can bring it back to me."

"Of course," he'd nodded too enthusiastically, much against the favour of his neck muscles, "I'll see you at the shop. Tomorrow?"

"It's a date."

"I–uh…"

"I'm still joking," he'd said, clearing his throat with more force than necessary. "Go now."

That was how his third, officially third, meeting with Taehyun had been set up. Kai wouldn't be exaggerating if he said it was the most he'd looked forward to something in a long time. He'd even talked about it in his session with the therapist, despite being scared about saying it out loud to anyone.

For the most part, Kai liked talking to his counsellor, even if he still had the mind of a sceptic going into those sessions. She had some interesting truth bombs to drop, to put it lightly, but she didn't do it like the authoritarian parent he'd been hating all his life. She did it gently and even acknowledged that this very parent was responsible for his thinking about his life this way. That was something. To have someone finally witness his constant neglect by his father.

Relieving is what he'd call it.

She'd made him remember how the reason he'd run away from everything he liked in his life was that he'd wanted so badly to impress this man. Music, art, and his writing. Everything. He'd never shown up to that recital he had with his class, despite his sisters asking him to over and over again. That was the last time he played for an audience, till, of course, Taehyun.

His counsellor had asked him what anyone would be curious about. Why Taehyun? Why him? Why now?

And unsurprisingly, even this explanation was elusive to Kai.

He never believed that these sorts of things actually happened to people. Kai was a firm believer that romance was a made-up thing invented to sell books and movies. Beautiful things didn't exist in real life. The reason we created fictional worlds was to fill these gaps and lacks. The real world had parents who didn't love each other. The real world was teaching yourself how to read the conditions you need to meet to be loved. The real world was never letting yourself feel love.

His answer, therefore, couldn't be as cliché as, or just as factually incorrect as, talking about things similar to affection or love. Kai knew that for sure.

Maybe the answer was just music. Broken, incomplete, awaiting the realisation of its potential. Kai was fascinated with the music, and that's why he was fascinated by its creator.

'And that's why you've been going to hear him every week?'

Kai knew this pattern of hers. She'd ask a question, but she didn't really want the answer. She wanted Kai to reflect on himself as he told her the answer. He was well-learned with these tricks now.

Never mind the fact that the tricks did work.

Kai should admit his own resistance. A part of him (that was really small, hidden away in some secluded corner of his brain) knew that, despite the music being a big reason for his constant presence in that crowd, there had to be another reason. Else, why would he want to see the guy again and again this way? Kai just didn't have words for that yet. Nor did he have the privilege of thinking about anyone in any way before he got his shit together.

'You think people can only deserve love when they have "their shit together"?'

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting: the tricks.

Kai had not graced that with a response, but the voice did echo inside him as he walked down the street that led to Taehyun's music shop—well, not exactly his, but he'd already forgotten the name of the guy who owned it. Somewhere between Ma, Mu or Moon it must've been. It was definitely an M.

"Looking for something?" Kai was asked immediately as he stepped inside. It was Mr Ma/Mu/Moon who greeted him. For once, the man was actually inside the shop.

"Someone, actually," he said. "Your part-timer, big eyes, plays the piano really well? Really good voice?"

"He's right behind you."

Kai blinked and turned to reveal a smiling Taehyun, with the same dimples accentuating his glee as Kai remembered.

"Should've let him go on a bit more!" Taehyun told Mr Ma/Mu/Moon. Kai felt his ears go warm, but he tried not to show any change in his demeanour despite being surprised at Taehyun's appearance. "We'll practice a little. You can head out for that date of yours. I'll close up."

With that, Taehyun took him by the arm to the room with the pianos again. Kai didn't know what explanatory look he could give Mr Ma/Mu/Moon, so he instead just bowed a couple of times till he was out of sight.

"Your umbrella…" Kai started, while Taehyun grabbed a bunch of pages from a backpack Kai had seen on him during the busking hours. The man did not pay attention to the object in Kai's hand, and left to sit himself in front of a different piano than the last time. Kai left the umbrella near Taehyun's bag and sat next to him. "We're practising?"

"You don't want to?" he asked, knowing very well that Kai did. He was literally stretching his fingers as they spoke. "I thought you liked my music."

Kai mumbled, "I do."

"Of course, you do," Taehyun said, nudging Kai with his elbow. "Who else shows up that consistently for some guy whose music they don't like?"

Kai broke out in a fit of coughs. He couldn't mean…no. He tried to think back to any occasion when he might've slipped and been discovered among the crowd that usually gathered for Taehyun, but nothing came to mind. Kai was especially careful with his cap and hood. He'd never even let his mask down, even if this choice of attire in the middle of summer was a huge inconvenience.

A lightbulb cracked inside his head. A guy covered head to toe in all black during the hottest months was bound to stick out like a sore thumb.

"Oh, come on. You really thought I wouldn't notice you."

Kai cleared his throat, "I tried not to get noticed."

"Mission failed successfully."

"Is that weird? I'm sorry that must've been really weird." He said, with sweat clamming up his hands and neck.

"Who doesn't like having a fan, you know? I'm flattered, really."

Kai felt his shoulders relax when Taehyun said that. He was quite afraid of being thought of as a creep. Taehyun was better than him. Kai could not be half as understanding as he.

"You were a little rusty last time. Think you can still keep up today? These aren't as beginner-friendly as the ones from last time."

Kai, still in disbelief at the drastic turn of events of the day, could only will himself to focus on the sheets in front of him, unable to think of an appropriate response to Taehyun's question.

The composition in front of him was unfamiliar, as Taehyun had warned him, and yet playing these notes came more naturally than the ones he'd tried at their first meeting, despite having practised them as a kid.

Maybe it was the novelty of the music, or maybe it was just his need to impress Taehyun, or a combination of both, that somehow, contrary to expectations, helped him play without any mistakes. Despite the need not to look even more of a fool in front of Taehyun, there wasn't any hint of the pressure he would feel before while playing, be it from his tutor, the audience, or even from the time he'd played with Taehyun before this.

The gnawing urge inside him to never make any mistakes had long been far removed from his consciousness. You know those visual aptitude tests where they ask you to pick the different-coloured shape amidst the same-coloured ones? Solving those tests was easy when there was just one odd shape. But if you kept adding green shapes to the blue ones, after a certain point, you would end up with equal numbers of green and blue shapes.

Perhaps something could be said about life through this metaphor, maybe that one green shape was what he was so scared of being represented by all his life. With his current shitshow mosaic on his rundown canvas, there was no need to fear more paint being splattered on. This stupid way of thinking was what had got him to this point—where he pretended not to give any shits, and still did, and then hoped the whole 'fake it till you make it' schtick would work.

Except you couldn't just wake up one day and modify your whole personality. It did not work like that. Kai had tried his best to embrace the all-around detachment and apathy that lurked in the corners of his mind daily. The way he'd been living in these last months, he'd almost succeeded at it too. Except the people in his life would always ruin this plan.

 

"You were never here." The man mumbled as the smiling eyes of his crew greeted him.

"Who saved you then?"

The man did not have an answer to that. The ship had since been restored to functioning, but he had not been in favour of its recovery at all. Then why had it restarted its transmission when he'd already given up on receiving a response?

The man had questions aplenty, but he also feared the answers he would find. The man whose voice he heard could not be the captain for whom he shed tears for days on end. The woman who shook him into action could not be his comrade in training, whose high-pitched laugh he could recognise anywhere.

The memories of them laughing, crying, yelling, living—if he didn't carry them, who would? The man had a life of no consequence, but his crew didn't–and they shouldn't share his fate. They deserved to be remembered. They would be remembered.

 

He fucking cared. He cared for everyone who had ever said his name, because that meant he existed somewhere in these people's consciousness, and an absence of the person attached to this name would be felt. Though this stupid guilt was a burden to carry that didn't acknowledge the shit he went through every day, he still couldn't let go of it.

"Kai-yah," Taehyun said. "It's okay if I drop honorifics, right? We seem to be the same age."

Kai could only nod, confused by the interruption but still curious about the pause and what Taehyun had to add. He waited, fighting back against the voices in his head replaying every moment that could have led to this silent awkwardness between them.

"I just—you seemed to be elsewhere."

A queasy feeling inside his stomach made him fist his hands. "I'm–what–I didn't–how do you mean?"

"Stay with the music, don't go roaming about in your head," Taehyun said, bumping his shoulder against Kai's. Kai blinked, once, twice, and then let out a breath when the man unfurled his hand and guided it back on the keys.

He started the section again, but Kai's hands remained still and frozen. He took another look at Taehyun, who, instead of focusing on the sheets in front of them, was eyeing Kai as well, and breathed again, this time deeper, with his eyes closed. Kai audibly sighed with relief, with ease, in the tranquillity of the notes Taehyun played, and let his fingers glide across the piano to join him, heeding the other man's request to stay here, right here.

The two of them continued with their knees touching, fingers brushing, and elbows knocking against each other. Kai hadn't missed a single beat, but he couldn't say the same for his heart. As one song ended, Taehyun placed another collection of sheets in front of him, wound tightly inside a binder, and then another, and then another.

By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, they'd already finished playing all of Taehyun's compositions. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Kai was over the moon by the end of their jamming session. The only slight disappointment that remained was Kai missing that one incomplete song that he'd caught Taehyun playing at their first meeting.

"Uh, if you don't mind me asking," Kai started. "What about that one, from when I came here the first time?"

Taehyun looked at him curiously. Kai tried to recall the notes from memory and played something close to what he'd heard back then.

"Ah, this wretched thing." Taehyun shook his head. "I can't believe you remembered it."

Kai could only shrug. If he said anything about being borderline obsessed with this earworm of a melody to the point of thinking of all the possible continuations to it, as if he knew anything about music beyond the basics he'd learnt as a child, as if he could ever do what a professional in the field was struggling with himself. He couldn't even be competent in his own field, and look at him, being way over his head about someone else's.

Taehyun stood up from the bench and walked towards where he'd left his backpack to pull out another "Have you ever been stuck on something for so long that even the sight of it makes you want to hurl yourself out of any window your eyes can locate?"

"Believe it or not, I absolutely have." That was exactly how he'd describe each day, struggling on his own little demon-non-existent manuscript. He had deleted and recovered chapters from his work-in-progress folders too many times to keep count. Funnily enough, after that first meeting with Taehyun, it was another one of those times he'd taken it out of his trash bin. His mouse had hovered over emptying it first, deleting it once and for all, and leaving absolutely nothing on his laptop to remain as a reminder of his colossal failures.

But then, he'd restored the files instead and snapped the laptop shut.

The next time he'd opened it again was the day he'd met Taehyun (the time that didn't happen) and gone crying to Yeonjun about not being able to be a person. That day, he'd hated what he'd written the most. His narcissistic teenage angst bullshit about the protagonist being the only person who could have saved him seemed so immature. The earlier contempt of his words had been about his inability to find any of it true, because he hardly felt like he'd actually been able to step out of that house.

Would it really matter to him that a ghostly version of him was trying so hard to keep him alive? That death being succeeded by regret could be reason enough to want to survive? Hardly. Each time he tried to build on it, he'd hit a roadblock because Kai himself was unconvinced by the logic. You didn't merely need yourself to pull yourself out of the quicksand. That was impossible to do, no matter how independent you believed yourself to be.

In turn, this epiphany also underlined the fact that he was still struggling in these muddy waters, which wasn't the only reason for his writer's block. It was not his pain and suffering alone that obstructed him from writing and made him feel like a happiness propagandist hack. Simultaneously, it was his resistance to ask for a helping hand out of this pit of despair, the refusal to admit that he couldn't climb out on his own, and the insistence on hiding the pit's existence altogether, and then being angry at people for not noticing the clues.

'People can't read your mind.' A statement that had many iterations in his conversations with Yeonjun, his therapist, his sisters, and even his security guard, who'd raised concerns over Kai's erratic timing for his walks, complemented by his sleepless eyes and sunken face.

Kai had scoffed each time anything like this was said to him. If they couldn't, they should've learned. Isn't that what people are supposed to do? If you care about someone, wouldn't you give half a damn about that someone and catch the signs?

Except each time anyone did, Kai had pushed them away, fearing what unravelling himself this way could mean. It could force him to rely on another person for support, for care, for approval. It could make these people too essential for him, too precious to the point of dreading survival without them. He couldn't entrust his emotions to someone else's hands again. After all, he'd only be left with its jumbled pieces after they'd cause the inevitable combustion.

"I've lost you again, haven't I?" Taehyun said, reminding Kai that he'd said nothing to add to his last statement, leaving the other boy hanging on his word, waiting to hear more as he continued to fall deeper into his own head.

"Sorry, it's become a bad habit. I tend to spend a lot of time on my own, it's a side effect of that."

"You don't say," he said. "Good thing I can read minds."

Kai's head snapped towards him. Did he just–Kai was only one 'guess the number I am currently thinking about' question away from actually believing him. Because of all things he could say, why did Taehyun choose to say that?

Taehyun seemed surprised by his reaction and raised his hands, saying, "I'm joking, I'm joking."

"Right. Yeah. I knew that."

"Sure, you did," Taehyun crinkled his eyes amusedly. He placed his index fingers on his temples and hummed to himself. "Let me try, though, hmm…I see a lot of clutter, and you're lost amongst the mess, and oh, I'm there too. I'm lost too, and oh, it's our mess, that's exactly why we're here right now."

Kai had to laugh. "Sounds about right. Although mine is a bit self-inflicted."

"Mine is too, in a way."

Kai leaned in, turning his head closer towards Taehyun to encourage the boy to go on.

"It's stupid, actually. If I wanted, I could choose to cut down on a lot of things that take up all my time and energy, but I don't, and because I don't, I get frustrated with myself for being unable to pour myself into things I actually like."

"Like this song."

"Like, this stupid song, and then it stays unfinished, mocking me."

"I get what you mean," Kai told him, because who else could understand this frustration better than him? Kai nodded to himself, turning away from the boy next to him. His eyes happened to fall on the binders resting on the table near the piano on Taehyun's right. "Still, these pages can argue against the mockery, don't you think?"

Taehyun gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Those are as far as I go, unfortunately."

"That can't be possible," and before he could stop himself, Kai said, "Maybe you can try sharing where you're stuck, and I could help."

The quiet of the room was loud, making the noises of the traffic outside ring across the walls. Kai regretted it immediately and would rather that Taehyun resolve the lapse in their conversation with a straight, hard 'no' so they could move on to some other uninteresting topic, like the weather. It seemed like it could rain.

"That's sweet, but–"

"It's okay..." He trained his eyes on the ground, bracing himself for rejection.

"No, let me finish. That's really sweet of you, but this stuff is personal, and I don't know if I wanna sound like an idiot in front of some award-winning writer, and besides, I have to close shop soon, it's getting late, and my roommate said he'd leave the keys under the doormat, and the neighbourhood is bad—"

Taehyun spoke so fast that it was really hard for Kai to catch up to everything that he said, but the part that caught his attention nudged him to interject, "I can wait while you close up, and we can–we can figure it out together. Two heads are better than one, right?"

Taehyun considered his proposition for half a minute before eyeing Kai curiously and shaking his head, as if he'd had some odd thought he wanted to be rid of, and finally replied, "Fine, alright fine, but I'm still warning you, it's just one of those songs that's meant to stay stuck forever."

Kai wouldn't believe that for a second. "Let's find out if that's really true."

Taehyun shook his head, beaming at Kai, his dimples on display, demonstrating how the gods had taken special care with his face and all his features. Taehyun gently lowered the piano's fallboard and stood to grab the ring of keys lying atop his backpack. He stuffed the binders and stray papers inside, along with the umbrella that Kai was thankful for, as it was instrumental in getting them together today.

Once Taehyun had locked the cash register and turned off the master switch, he'd cocked his head to the side, looking at Kai, to signal their departure. Kai, of course, had no qualms about being caught staring. Together, they shut the glass door to the shop, and the sensor on the passcode device beeped, providing them the final go-ahead for their plans for the night.

As their two sets of footsteps moved in sync away from the shop, Kai couldn't help but find himself in disbelief over the day's events. Of all the things his brain had come up with while thinking about this meeting with Taehyun, heading to Taehyun's residence to complete the song that had been on his mind for weeks was never a possibility. Yet, here he was.

Taehyun skipped ahead, walking backwards while facing Kai. "On a scale of 1 to definitely, how crazy do you think it is that I'm taking you to my place when we don't even know each other?"

Kai had to smile at that question and at the way the streetlights bounced off Taehyun's messy hair like shooting stars in the galaxy.

"I mean, I kind of know you through the music, but if we are on the topic of crazy, for argument's sake, I could be anyone. Serial killer, organ trafficker, vampire."

"What's the likelihood of us both having the skin of a killer, Bella?" Taehyun said, his eyes crinkling into crescent moons. Kai laughed along with him. Thankfully, Taehyun turned on his feet again to fall in line next to Kai. He was worried the guy would trip on something while walking this way.

"And to be fair, I kind of know you too, through the music, and well…" As Taehyun's voice trailed off, Kai suddenly recalled what the man had said in his hurried verbosity.

"Wait, hold on, back at the shop, you said–" Kai halted right there, tugging the other man back by his arm, "Do you actually, really, know who I am?"

"Guilty," Taehyun said, his hand scratching the back of his head. With his lips downturned and his eyebrows pulled together, an expression that made him look close to a cat asking for treats, Taehyun told him, "I happened to look up your name after you left the second time. Just out of curiosity, and if I should alert any authorities."

Kai pulled his hand back, stepping back on instinct. That familiar sense of embarrassment crept in—the one that'd often show up in meetings where he'd be introduced with descriptors and labels that felt like shoes that were enormous for his piddling feet to walk in. "And, what did you find?"

"I was impressed. Mildly."

Kai looked straight ahead at the road. The noise of the city still droned beside the two of them, while he tried to come up with a response to compensate for the conversational lull brought upon by the other man's intrusion into a part of his life that he was never ready to embody.

"Kind of you to say," something that Kai usually said to people, because it was true. It was generous of people to believe him to be someone who could have the potential to impress. He, himself, had lost that belief. Maybe there was potential once, but not anymore. Maybe it was now a piece of rusted, ancient machinery that would only break down or require tetanus shots for anyone who tampered with it. "But that's not me anymore."

That made Taehyun's features morph into a mixture of concern and confusion. Kai didn't want to spend time on explanations and clarifications. Getting his feet moving came more as an act of self-protection than of reaching their destination. Taehyun moved beside him in another one of their awkward silences. Except, Kai didn't mind it as much. It was not the overbearing kind. It was just a moment that required its intensity to be felt without a comment or consolation.

He had a tendency to run away from this type of emotion, or from any emotion in general. It was why numbness would often make its home in the crevices of his bones. This shared night of strange connection with Taehyun felt different somehow, as though he could say anything and everything on his mind tonight and it wouldn't make him regret the next morning.

It had been that way with Yeonjun. Though by no means was it the older man's fault. Kai just felt like his soul had been pulled out each time he'd be asked to vocalise what had been going on with him. He'd had some practice with his friend, a lot more still with the therapist, a little with his elder sister, but none of it was any easier, even with repeated effort. Till now.

Not that this had no impact on him. He did feel the shame. He felt the need to hide. He wanted to be someone else in front of Taehyun, too, just like he would for everyone else. Except that once the cat was out of the bag, the rest of his inner turmoil followed soon after. Maybe it was the fact that this was a stranger he was not likely to meet again anytime soon, maybe it was that he was an individual of no consequence to Kai, or maybe it was none of that, but Taehyun himself who could soothe Kai's open wounds with his presence alone.

It was too far-fetched to believe something like that, but as they'd established before, stranger things have happened.

As the two of them crossed the curve, the series of unending stairs in front of Kai made him stop his introspection to look at Taehyun, bewildered, "You're not serious, that's where we're headed?"

Taehyun shrugged, "It's good for your health to get some daily workout."

The only exercises Kai had been getting up to in the last months were exhausting mental ones that worked in stark contrast to their physical counterparts, in that they ruined his mental health, while also disrupting his physical well-being. After only a few steps, Kai was already heaving and asking for a break. "Why are there so many steps to your house?"

Taehyun tsked, "You must be from a rich neighbourhood. We, the proletariat, have to sacrifice comfort for affordability, sire."

"I might have to join you soon."

Taehyun dragged Kai by the arm out of his inactivity to keep climbing ahead, nodding along to his ramblings, which Kai would admit were only a distraction from the sheer number of stairs they still seemed to have left.

"I'm sure my sister is going to kick me out within a week of staying with her, 'cause clearly I'm no one's cup of tea, especially not hers, especially the way I've been lately."

Taehyun patted him on the back while letting go of his arm when they reached his apartment. "Well, the view is great here. Even better when we get to where I'm at—the rooftop room. That penthouse is all mine, you see."

Of course, more stairs, Kai thought to himself, but instead of complaints, he found himself beaming at the man with his most serious attempt at flirting since he was twenty years old. "You'd let me leech off of you then."

His most useless attempt, more like.

"Of course, but what can you offer me in return for my kindness?"

Kai put his hand on his chest, pretending to be appalled at the prospect. "Was this your intention all along when you asked me up here?"

"Yes." Taehyun stood on his tippy toes to whisper directly into Kai's ears, "That and your blood."

"Alas, I'm pretty much a zombie, so might not be the best choice for food."

The flights of stairs inside the two-storey apartment were nothing compared to the ones they'd just crossed on the way. Kai had a difficult time wrapping his mind around how Taehyun had the strength to do all of his hundred different jobs with this commute every single day.

Particularly when he considered himself and his own incapacity to even move from his bed to his desk, the journey he'd just undertaken appeared to him an impossible, otherworldly feat for any creature to achieve. Perhaps they were two extremes of the spectrum, him and Taehyun along the same chain of unending tribulations.

"Hey," Taehyun asked, throwing open the doors to the rooftop with a clang against the walls outside. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Apologies for putting it like this, but what's the deal?"

Kai raised his eyebrows as he assisted Taehyun with his clothes on the wires. He didn't know exactly why he'd taken on this task, but mirroring the other man seemed to come naturally to Kai, and Taehyun wasn't complaining.

"That day when we met," he said, gathering the clothes into a bunch, "You left with that destroyed look on your face. Kind of like the one you got a while ago. "

"Destroyed, huh?" Kai mulled over the word, "Maybe, yeah."

"So, what happened? Did you lose all your money to a loan shark, did you invest in cryptocurrency, did your boyfriend leave you?"

A sad smile crossed Kai's face. "None of that."

"Let me see if I can still guess." Kai contemplated if his life was as predictable as the other man made it out to be. He might as well be one of the very cliches that he'd always tried to avoid. Lost, broken boy in search of the dream he'd lost, how original.

Taehyun gestured Kai towards the chair as he threw the clothes on his bed and headed towards the kitchen aisle. "On that day, we were talking about the books you write, and your face sank right now too when I mentioned that again. Let me think, what could be causing a writer to show up and leave unannounced time and again?"

"I said, I tried to write." He emphasised part of his sentence because trying is all he'd been doing for the larger part of his life. "I haven't actually written any books, nor do I believe I'll ever write any. I don't think you can call me a writer anymore."

"You keep saying that, but I don't understand why? Is it that you don't wanna be a writer anymore?"

"I want to, but I just can't." Kai said, wiping his clammy hands on his pants and hoping the shake in his voice was not as apparent to Taehyun as it was to him, "I don't think I can even call myself a writer anymore. The last time I wrote was so long ago. I haven't written anything new in ages."

"That makes no sense." Taehyun interrupted him, slamming the door to the refrigerator with his knee and bringing over the bizarre choice of drinks for Kai: a bottle of beer, a glass of water and a probiotic. Kai considered the options for a second before cracking open the can and taking a big swig.

Taehyun chose the water for himself. Leaning against the table to Kai's left, he continued, "Whether you write anything today, tomorrow, or ten years from now, or never, the fact that you want to matters."

"That's not how it works."

Kai felt cornered all of a sudden. It wasn't that what Taehyun was saying was precisely wrong, but just things he was primed not to listen to because he'd never given any weight to his own wants per se. His primary driving force in life had been the fear of failing people's expectations of him, the fear of disappointment which then turned into resentment for the cage it created around Kai.

Breaking out of it was his aim, but a misguided one, in terms of its implementation. Merely antagonising every single person who tried to come close would achieve nothing, merely pushing everyone's buttons and eventually pushing everyone away so that he could test their love for him were only exaggerated temper tantrums that better suited a teenager and not an adult of his serious age.

"Why not? Think about it, say if I don't play the piano for a while, it doesn't stop being a piano. If the song isn't heard for some time, it doesn't stop being a song."

"That's different."

"Only if you let it be. Why can't we make the rules, or in your case, change your own rules?"

"That's a good question." And, he didn't even say it for the sake of letting the conversation die there. He genuinely meant it. Except, the question was pushing him towards a kind of road that was unfamiliar and fraught with boulders. He knew it was these stringent rules that Taehyun called him out on that held him back from the path ahead, but these were what had defined him for so long. If he couldn't write the most perfect piece of literature that would outsell everything ever produced in the country, then how would he prove to his father that he was worthy, that he was right in his rebellion?

Kai spoke in a muted voice. "I don't think I'm ready for that."

Taehyun gave him a small nod and sipped on his water like it was alcohol. If it weren't for the heaviness in the air, he would've chuckled at the absurdity of it. He offered the bottle to Taehyun and made the switch with his glass. Kai would've offered to buy more had the day's events (and particularly the stairs) not exhausted him.

"I get it," Taehyun said, diverting his attention from the drops of condensation dripping down his fingers that Kai had noticed while staring at him. "Honestly, I talk a big game, but I have my own set of rules that need changing, and I hesitate from stirring things up."

"What do you mean?"

"These songs you heard me play, I can't–I don't want to believe that they could be something more. I had the chance to record them once, to put them out there but–but, oh, well. The way that I'm living right now, the many-many jobs, out of which you've seen only two, keep me afloat. That's all I am. Afloat. "

"And that can't be what you want to be."

"It's really not…even on the best days, it's just barely okay. And on the worst ones, it feels like I could drown. Then, you question what's the point of working so hard, you know?"

Kai did know. He knew that better than anyone. This feeling was as familiar as the skin he wore. The next question Kai asked, he asked more for himself than out of curiosity about Taehyun. "What's stopping you from being more than afloat then?"

"Fear," Taehyun admitted, and Kai offered him a knowing, close-lipped smile. "However effortful this way of living might be, it took a lot of strength to come here, as frustrating as it is... if I try taking a risk now, I could ruin everything that I have right now."

"You want to protect what you have instead of going after what could be."

"Because what could be is uncertain, and I'm tired of uncertainties. I'm okay with where I am. This is cowardice, but yeah, that's me. "

"It's not."

"Kind of you to say," Taehyun took another sip from the bottle before putting it down on the table and advancing toward the opposite side of the room, away from Kai, "but we've lost sight of our mission today. I brought you here for a reason. The song."

Kai wouldn't lie and say the conversation was without his nerves acting up. He held on to each word shared between them. He did not wish to dwell on these similarities for the simple reason that he didn't want their tribulations to be the only thread connecting them.

However, it was intriguing to see how these tribulations took different shapes in their lives. Everything about Kai screamed misery, but you wouldn't guess that at all from a mere glance at Taehyun. He was glad to have gotten more than that glance, even if there was still the veil of guardedness around the other man.

Kai would be the last person to blame anyone for being guarded, being someone who made everyone close to him run through five hundred tests to see if they came back even if he gave them no reason to, asked the right questions at the right time, and then sabotaged any potential of sharing vulnerabilities. Yeah. He really owed some people big apologies.

Taehyun dragged the instrument stand to where he'd been standing before, right in front of Kai, and placed his keyboard on top. He grabbed himself a footstool that looked like its legs had braved through many a storm and were begging for retirement.

"Yes," Kai said to him, placing a hand on the seat as Taehyun settled into it to prevent it from wobbling or giving out from under him.

"Here we go, this is what you heard back then." He said, fingers gliding across the keys to play the familiar melody from before. "And since then I have had trouble finding any words that could move this forward or any notes that can fall in line as perfectly as the ones before."

Kai listened to the incomplete song, then played the verse in his head again a few times. He had never composed music before, so he knew it was stupid of him to have volunteered to help, but words, words were his forte, at least in comparison to a layperson. Words, he could do something with. "What sort of song did you intend for it to become?"

Taehyun shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed. "I don't know!"

"We can think about it together." He gently knocked his elbow with Taehyun's and played the opening notes again from memory. "To me, it sounds like a journey."

"A journey?"

"What does that make you think of?"

Taehyun rested his chin on his hands. The visual was quite endearing, but Kai tried his best not to get preoccupied with it. "Maybe an endless journey, like this song."

Kai laughed to himself while shaking his head. "Sure, if you say so, but it's quite hopeful, this song. I don't know if a journey which never ends is hopeful."

"Why not? It could be. It's only sad if you're walking alone. The road could be long. But not long enough if you've got someone to spend a lifetime with."

"Quite the romantic notion."

Kai played the same notes again and repeated to Taehyun the thoughts that had been running in his head along with this incomplete melody all this time. The day he heard it in the shop for the first time, how it felt so close to the storms of Kai's life, how his journeys had in fact been alone, and his destination: this song. Maybe there was music in people if only one could lend their ears to it.

"Imagine believing you're the only person in the world, playing this song in hopes that someone will listen, and they do."

"A companion, a fellow traveller."

Kai grabbed the pen stuck on the wires of Taehyun's bound notebooks. He hurriedly scribbled out sentences in his bad handwriting that best conveyed what he meant to say about a lonely journey where answers seemed evasive till eventually fate showed mercy and brought you towards your light.

"Aren't we all looking for this?" Kai glanced at Taehyun, handing him what could only be described at a desperate attempt at being useful, "I think your songs could be this for people, so I know you're afraid of what 'more than afloat' could be, but when everyone hears what I hear… I feel like you'll have no reason to think this way."

Taehyun's eyes followed the messily scribed words on paper. It was indeed nerve-wracking for Kai; not only was it the first thing he'd written in a while, and he didn't want to throw it straight into the garbage can, but also it was the first thing written by him that Taehyun would read. No second-third-final revised drafts at all. Just raw feeling which could either make him look like a genius or someone who liked talking right out of his ass.

"If your pen game is as strong as what you've shown me just now, you don't either."

"I—" Kai began, feeling the need to disregard the compliment, but Taehyun interrupted him before he could continue.

"Hey, I didn't argue, you shouldn't either, it's only fair."

Kai didn't say anything, he just remained suspended in this moment with Kang Taehyun—the enigma of an unexpected presence in his life that he could not forsake.

Sitting inside this stranger's rooftop apartment, with the bitter taste of cheap beer on his mouth, Kai had the epiphany—all he had to figure out was how to want for himself, how to live for himself. If that meant not debating against kindness directed towards him, he would not give in to the urge to deny it.

Living was different from what he had been doing all this time. It wasn't that this had only just dawned upon him, but the day that he'd just had made the realisation even more pronounced, and he felt the need to let go of all that had been gnawing at him all this while. If living meant giving up on greatness for the sake of his father's approval, so be it. If it meant letting himself be fixed through the assistance of others, then so be it. If it meant finding new directions or none at all, despite already having made so many missteps in his path, so be it. If it meant ceasing his wishes directed at the dark sky above to swallow him whole, then, really, so be it.

Once Taehyun and Kai had the vague direction they wanted to proceed in, the rest of the verses came easily. Before they knew it, the song was finished. Taehyun joked about wanting to have Kai around for all future songwriting sessions to save on time, and even as a joke, the fantasy of it did make Kai feel warm on the inside.

They grabbed their almost-empty bottle of beer and headed towards the open air of the terrace. The wooden bed near the giant potted plants made a great spot for Kai to lay his head down and catch up with all the revelations that had no doubt left his brain scrambled, along with the alcohol, even if it was only half a bottle.

"I haven't seen the stars in so long." Kai found himself saying to Taehyun, who had chosen to lie right next to him. The proximity and the mood of the atmosphere were not lost on Kai, but he was still keen on not overstepping, lest he'd misinterpreted everything.

"That should never be the case. The lack of stars in a life is a sad, sad thing."

"The person you date would never feel that lack," Kai tried being brave, as unabashedly as he could, hoping the pink in his ears and cheeks could be chalked up to the little alcohol inside his system. "Your eyes have the whole galaxy in them."

"You truly are a writer," Taehyun laughed, the rhythm of the hymn of the wind rustling the leaves, the sound of windchimes, and the droning buzz of cicadas—its musicality fit right in.

"Your standards for writers are pretty darn low," Kai said to him, still facing the stars, even though he could feel the other man's eyes on him.

"Maybe. Or maybe I don't mind cheesiness in exceptional cases. And, also only in exceptional cases, I don't point out how that's an extremely unscientific claim to make."

Kai had another realisation. He could listen to this guy talk his ears off all day. What did that mean? He couldn't say, he didn't have the words, or if he did, they were somewhere dormant inside him. The nagging hesitation filled with anxieties kept them there.

"I don't want this night to end." As though tomorrow would mean all of this would disappear like the dream he was never supposed to remember.

"You don't want to go back to your life."

"That." Kai paused, "And, well. There's the question of you."

"The question of me." He said as though Taehyun understood exactly what Kai meant, when Kai struggled with it himself. Kai had half a mind to ask Taehyun to translate his own indecipherable mind for him.

"I–," Kai started, but paused while gazing at the night sky "–I don't know. I think I've stayed frozen and stuck for so long that I've forgotten what anything is anymore. Words, feelings, emotions. None of it."

"Can I help with that?" Taehyun placed his thumb on Kai's right cheek, willing him to turn and actually look at the universe in the other man's eyes. Kai's breath hitched with the contact, but he couldn't help himself or keep away from leaning in.

Taehyun's breath fanned his face as Kai took a second to take him in. His eyes dropped to Taehyun's lips, and before his worries could get the best of him, Taehyun closed the distance between them.

His lips felt like dew-laden petals. Kai's own were probably chapped and unpleasant to touch, but Taehyun didn't seem to mind. Each movement, each touch from him was delicate and measured, like he didn't want to overwhelm Kai. Except Kai wanted to throw caution to the wind, which was the exact behaviour his mind had been warning him against.

Kai pulled Taehyun closer by his hand on the latter's neck, sliding up to the back of his hair, lightly raking his nails on his scalp. Taehyun gently sucked at his lower lip before breaking apart with a soft giggle, which, in turn, made Kai turn his head away.

"I–uh, thanks," Kai said, his chest heaving and his heart running miles a minute, knowing very well that gratitude was probably not the response anyone expected after a kiss.

Taehyun laughed again, his cheeks and ears pink, just like the colour blooming on his lips. "Sure. You're welcome? I guess."

"No, not like that, sorry," Kai hid behind his hands, "I told you, it's been too long, I'm really awkward."

Taehyun waited for him to go on, but Kai was afraid of what it would mean for this night if he were to tell him that, as much as he wanted to commit to promises beyond the kiss, he knew it would not be right for either of them. It was cruel of destiny to offer him this day and take it away so soon. He knew the minute Kai gave his 'it's not you, it's me' speech, Taehyun would be well within his rights to kick him out, and though the man didn't seem like the kind of person who would do that, it did not mean Kai didn't deserve it.

He began, sitting up, facing Taehyun on his side, his voice struggling to hide the quiver, "I wish I could pause every riot in my brain and just be present in this moment with you, but I'm not there yet."

Taehyun held out his hand, reaching out to Kai, who took a second to grab onto it, similar to the day when he'd offered him his umbrella, and it had taken Kai a while to note Taehyun's kindness. "I know it's kind of insane to say this, but I don't mind waiting."

"That wouldn't be fair. Never mind the fact that I'm leaving for another city in three days."

Taehyun turned his face up towards the sky again, probably considering how to gently ask Kai to fuck off from here. Kai wouldn't hold it against him since all his choices today were pretty much conveying to the guy that this interest was mutual, and that was because it really was, only Kai's fate never offered him these blessings when he was ready to receive them. Always too soon, always when he couldn't be capable of accepting them.

"Three days, huh?"

"Two now, since the sun is about to come up in a few hours."

"There are still a few hours then," Kai heard Taehyun say, tugging on his sleeve to pull him back down and look at the sky with him. At some point, Kai's arm ended up beneath Taehyun's head, and even if it hurt a bit, Kai didn't complain. The sweet, citrusy fragrance of Taehyun's head was worth the pain. Kai closed his eyes and didn't reply. The two men lay there in silence, their breaths in sync and their minds abuzz with thoughts that ran amok.

But there were still a few more hours in the night, and perhaps Kai could survive the coming days with its memory. Maybe he wouldn't have a companion for his journey, but this memory would suffice.

Inevitably, as the sun came up, and as he bid farewell to the comfort of the dark and opened himself up to the shades of amber and gold, Kai found himself eager to ask Taehyun, "You reckon our paths will cross again?"

Taehyun didn't answer him for a while, which made him wonder if the other man was already asleep. Till the man sighed musically, "Another uncertainty, you really know how to keep a guy on edge."

"I'm tired of all the uncertainties in my life too."

Taehyun turned to his side, looking at Kai directly with sleep in his eyes but gumption on his face. He placed his thumb on Kai's cheek, exactly like the way he'd done a few hours ago. "Life hasn't dealt us the nicest of cards, and yeah, everything is a gamble, but that just means that just like we don't know if there are better days ahead, we also don't know if there are worse ones. They can always surprise you—you're a clear example of that."

Kai breathed out in a half-laugh, half-disbelief manner. "You really believe in this glass half full logic?"

"No, but this logic is just math and facts. You can predict both failure and success, but you have to acknowledge the chances of both instead of zeroing in on one."

"Is that why you don't want to record your songs?"

"Touché."

He perhaps took Taehyun by surprise with that question. He knew he had the ability to be a little shit if he wasn't mincing his words. He had stopped doing this for a while because people don't miss those kinds of individuals. And he had believed that he didn't want to be missed, too. Clearly, that was a bunch of nonsense created by the side of his brain that should be retired pronto. But, he'd been trying to be better these days, not give in to the weedy bluntness he'd cultivated within himself, and instead holding back.

The exhaustion must have caught up to him. Or, just this belief of Taehyun's—it seemed hogwash to the cynic inside him, and before he knew it, the words were already out.

He watched Taehyun lower his eyes and whisper in a voice so low that Kai had to inch closer to hear properly, "Maybe let's meet then. The day I've recorded my songs. Then, I'll be able to convince you not to give up. You know where I live anyway, let's meet then."

His breath caught in his throat. Kai hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected that at all. All he could say, all he could promise at this moment to this man lying on his arm with expectation in his eyes that Kai wanted to fulfil, "Sure. Let's meet then."

A single warm frozen hand

The moment we hold each other, everything melts (Down)

You are my orbit

You're my one and only

Fly through the night sky with you

- "Dear Sputnik" by Tomorrow by Together

The days, weeks and months still bled into one another even after he moved away from the loudness of Seoul. The move had been Kai's idea, and despite Yeonjun's worries the older man had helped him pack and accompanied him all the way to his sister's house in the countryside. The man was reluctant to leave even after a week of staying with the siblings. Kai had joked at the time if that was merely out of concern for him or just the fresh air that didn't have all that fine dust.

On the day Yeonjun left, Kai had promised to write to him as much as he could and had apologised for almost costing him his job with torching that wretched manuscript the way he did, for being so difficult, for being himself, for everything, and his friend had refused it all, much to Kai's dismay.

"I don't plan on apologising for the times in the future when I will be difficult and hope that you bear with me through it all, so you better go and do this 12-step routine somewhere else. Because friends love you through all your shit, inconveniences and major crimes and all."

Kai had wanted to laugh, but he could only cry. He cried most on that day. Thereafter, it was mostly in front of his screen while trying to make sense of his life in front of his shrink. She still told him to 'relfect and think' and whatnot, and it was still a major annoyance, because despite trying to avoid 'sitting with' these things called feelings, he'd start mulling over her words, and revisiting stuff from his past with new lenses—the ones that made him see where the cracks had began appearing, how could he try to kintsugi the fuck out of them.

He'd learnt that from his sister and her work in her studio. Kintsugi—the art of mending things that were broken. That was how he spent most of his time, well, that and the freelance gigs Yeonjun would set up for him to be able to not burden his sister with her very adult and capable brother's upkeep. Not that she ever complained.

Lea tried to get him to learn how to make things too, in addition to piecing together wrecked objects. However, Kai had perhaps been right in his initial framing of himself as a person. Kai was not a creator. He was just a middleman in the process of bringing objects to perfection, as incomplete or imperfect they might have started with.

Speaking of creators, Kai hadn't still forgotten about the tiny infinity he'd shared with Taehyun. He wondered about the man on some nights when he'd look up at the sweep of the stars above him and hum those familiar songs to himself. The road was still not easy for either of them, he would think. In the hope of 'someday', he would let these thoughts rest and close his eyes to ensure the memory wouldn't fade.

"What song is that?" Lea asked him, eyes trained on the kiln in front of her. "I think I heard it on the radio?"

"This song? Probably not, you don't know shit about music, Lea."

That got him a swift flick on his forehead.

"Aha, see! It's some rookie soloist, nice voice, your version was horrible."

"Gimme that," he said, wresting the phone from his sister's hands, who gave in without a fight for the sake of her image in front of the students in her pottery class, who were all watching the siblings amusedly. Sure enough, it was him. Kang Taehyun, it read under the title of the song. Kai couldn't help but grin endlessly so much so that he was asked by at least three people in the neighbourhood to cut it out because of how strange the expression seemed on his typically sadboy face.

"Get used to it," Kai said without thinking, hitting repeat on the song again. That night he stayed up listening to the lyrics over and over again. It was the same narrative the two of them had discussed that night all those months ago. He felt a mix of emotions with each replay: pride, affection, joy, awe, excitement. He ended up dreaming about the song too, having played the song all through the night, wiping out his battery clean.

He opened his laptop to write to Yeonjun to rave about the guy he'd already talked his ears off till his mind distractedly landed on an empty document, and before he knew it, words flew out of him. Like a man possessed, Kai wrote from daybreak till sundown, and then picked up again as soon as his sister was done yelling at him for skipping their mealtime.

What Kai wrote then was not a continuation, that ship had sailed as soon as he'd stepped out of Seoul. Instead, the words concocted another ship entirely, a spaceship, for that matter, and the journey of a lone astronaut light-years away from Earth, haunted still, but by memories and hope, and not his own narcissistic need to be the only person he could need to save himself. Just like the song looping on his phone, he didn't write about the terrors of surviving for oneself, by oneself, but the fear of needing and wanting.

A life survived by oneself could only take you so far into a lonelier and lonelier existence. But this nothingness had its sole counter only in all the messy parts of the connection you shared. Each life you touched, and each life that touched yours, was proof that you were here, and not an illusion.

 

"Unknown vessel, this is the transport ship Sputnik 0814. We have your beacon. Do you copy?"

The man sat still. The difference between reality, his own concoctions, and the world's mysteries was now far too great for his mind to process. The voices coming in from the radio transmission could be real, but they also could be another ruse created by the ship, the ship's ghosts, or the ghosts of his own creations for reasons incomprehensible.

"Stay where you are, we're here to take you home."

 

"Hi," Kai said when Kang Taehyun finally stood in front of him. A smile made its way across his face, and Kai was in no hurry to hide it. He wouldn't try to act nonchalant about not having imagined this scenario several times in his head, but seeing the man after years was still surreal. Not to mention the fact that Taehyun was holding Kai's book in his hands. His book. Kang Taehyun. Things Kai never believed could ever be real for him.

"You think you're so cheeky with that acknowledgement, aren't you?"

Kai had ended that section with gratitude, saying, 'For all the people who reminded me to look up at the stars.' At the time, he had simply been trying to stay on theme with the genre of the book, and only late did he realise how their song had seeped through his story. In the end, he'd hoped that Taehyun would stumble upon these words somehow.

"How else were we supposed to have the same orbits then?"

The reference to the song made Taehyun tilt his head to the side. "I hope you don't think that song is about you?"

"Of course it wasn't." Kai nodded to himself, incapable of wiping the grin off of his face. "That's what you came to tell me all the way to this book signing, when you had a concert two days ago."

"Someone's keeping tabs."

"I even tried getting tickets," Kai said, stepping forward and closing the distance between them. "Unfortunately, I'm very slow, and the world is very fast."

Kai lingered in Taehyun's space, intentionally. His fingers gingerly brushed against the other man's free arm before reaching all the way up to his hand and interlacing them together. Taehyun's eyes widened in response, the same stars shining bright with surprise and contentment.

He said to Kai, "I can match your pace. Fancy a walk?"

"Yes," Kai pulled him closer, "but before that–" he pressed his lips softly against Taehyun's. His lips felt as tender as the ones in his memory, except the earnestness in his movements was spurred by the miles and months they had spent apart. Perhaps it was too soon for him to do this; perhaps this could all blow up in Kai's face, but one could gamble away your life for both failures and successes, knowing you had to acknowledge the chances of both. And Kai was ready for the surprises that were promised to him by the man inside his arms for all the mornings to come.

A wind came up out of the sea,

And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,

Ye mariners, the night is gone."….

…It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,

And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

- "Daybreak" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow