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Namjoon trades kisses for memories – his booth always modest, the drapes nowhere near as extravagant as some of the others (not like Hoseok, whose booth always shimmers with unknown suns and moons and so many sky-bound scars), but it draws people in all the same, pulls on their souls like stars across a galaxy of darkness.
He trades kisses for a decent price – fragments of eggshells, long-kept buttons, an empty milk bottle so squeaky clean it holds an entire childhood of memories. These are the important things, the things he promises to keep safe for ever, and all of eternity.
He settles himself into his seat, fingers laced neatly across his lap, and waits. His booth is empty, for now at least, and – for now at least – he contents himself to watching the meandering crowds of people, people just like him, and people nothing like him, wandering between the tables and booths, bending over tables full of necklaces that whisper secrets through your lips, and eyeglasses that see only the future and never the present.
Namjoon sits and sits and sits, until, inevitably, a customer comes and peers at him through long lashes.
She is shy, and hides behind her waterfall ink hair – her lips pressing together as she shuffles forward.
“I—I’d like one please,” she says, with a mouthful of regrets.
Namjoon smiles, a simple, kind, open smile, the kind of smile that strangers give other strangers in coffee shops when they order the same drinks, or people who pass each other by in streets with the same secret tucked into their back pockets.
He smiles and gestures for her to sit down.
“What would you like to trade?” he asks her, gently, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of her cheeks, her forehead, her eyes, shadowed beneath thick bangs and a whole lifetime’s worth of being told everything she shouldn’t do.
“Uhm – here.” She holds up an old radio.
Namjoon studies it for a moment before nodding and accepting, taking the radio from her hands and setting it on his table, his once empty table now weighed down with midnight music and songs memorized, by heart and heart and heart.
Namjoon offers her another smile, this time one that promises to keep her secrets safe, one that promises to remember, even if she forgets. She smiles too, and for the first time, he can see her from behind her hair and hesitation – brilliant and beautiful.
He leans forward slow and steady, a hand cupping her cheek, and she lets him.
She tastes orange and blue and purple and like peach soda.
She tastes like winter sunsets.
She thanks him after he pulls away, cheeks glowing, hands shaking.
He bids her farewell and watches her leave, wondering if he’ll ever forget the taste of regrets.
The day grows warm, and Namjoon’s booth is steady with visitors – he swears he works through the rainbow twice back.
Some people taste like red and sparks, some like blue and softness, and still some like spring green and all the childhood dreams yet undreamed.
His table fills with forgotten moments – a feather from a father’s hat, a pendant from a mother’s neck, a photo from a grandmother’s old album, a pair of shoes so wore the souls look like mouths laughing into the next side of forever. All the normal items – and some he’s never seen before.
It is nearly dusk when the crowds stems and Namjoon presses his fingers to his lips, tries to count the number of people he’s kissed.
It’s never quite made sense why so many people are willing to give up memories for kisses – but perhaps they long for just a taste of longing, so they’ll have something slightly more tangible to chase after. Namjoon never asks. No one has ever offered to tell him.
“How much?” someone asks, pointing to a jar full of paper stars.
Namjoon blinks, quirking his head as he looks at the dark haired boy standing on the other side of this table. He is tall and well built, but something about dark of his eyes and the soft of his cheeks still speaks of an innocence not often found in adults.
Not that Namjoon can speak – he can barely consider himself full grown, still a fledgling where magic is considered – even slight, simple magic like this.
“They’re not for sale,” Namjoon explains, patient, because sometimes people do mistake him for a seller of wares.
“Then what are they for?”
“People traded them.”
“For what?” the boy’s eyes are the twin points of stars, sharp and bright, and surrounded by a depthless kind of darkness. Namjoon blinks again, and smiles.
“For kisses.”
“Oh.” A blush creeps up the boy’s cheeks but he rocks on the balls of his feet before the words tumble from him. “How much for one of those then?”
Namjoon waves his hands at the growing collection on the table, “Anything you can pay for one.”
“I can trade anything for a kiss?”
Namjoon chuckles, “A memory – doesn’t matter big or small.”
“A memory…”
He thinks for a moment, and then his face lights up as he digs around in his pocket for something – and when he finally holds it out, Namjoon studies it for a second. It’s a pebble, smooth and flat. He can hear rushing water and the rustle of leaves.
He nods.
So, the boy sets the pebble down and Namjoon sees the creak, the sky so blue it hurts, tastes the wind as fresh as first snow.
The boy sits down across from him, vibrating with nervous excitement.
“First time?” Namjoon asks, before he can quite stop himself.
The boy pouts, cheeks flaring, “N-no! I just – I just didn’t know that something like this was in the market.”
Namjoon laughs, his hands open, palms up, “There’s everything you can and can’t imagine in this market.”
The boy nods, rubbing his palms against his knees, looking expectantly at Namjoon, who lets out an amused sigh before leaning forward, brushing aside a strand of the boy’s hair, streaks of brown like glances of sunlight caught and lost there.
The boy tastes like a mouthful of sunshine – he tastes like milk and cookies, like good stories before bed. He tastes like too many colors Namjoon doesn’t know where to start.
The boy makes a sweet, hiccupping noise in the back of his throat, and leans in, pressing closer.
Namjoon smiles against his lips, letting it rest there for a moment longer before pulling away.
For a moment, he feels the boy chasing his lips, a breath caught between them like a promise yet unbroken.
“Oh – ” the boy breathes, eyes wide, as if he’d just seen something daring and darling and dangerous.
Namjoon laughs.
“Thank you,” he says, and he waits for the boy to stand up but he doesn’t.
The boy stares at him; Namjoon can feel his eyes tracing the lines of his own face, can feel the curiosity slipping against his skin like silk, pressing in close and closer.
“What’s your name?” the boys asks, suddenly. And the question is so unexpected Namjoon forgets how to answer – such a simple thing, a name.
Namjoon’s breath is hitched at the back of his throat, long forgotten, or perhaps stolen by the so many people he’s kissed. And when he finally forces it from his mouth, it tastes foreign on his own tongue – heavy and light at the same time.
“Namjoon.”
“Namjoon…” the boy repeats, as if tasting it on his own tongue. And then, he smiles, and says, “I’m Jungkook.”
“Jungkook,” Namjoon says, and he can taste it – the brilliant yellow, the sharp sting of it like a fall breeze just on the other side of biting.
“Can I come back tomorrow?”
Namjoon considers, weighs the answer he doesn’t know how to give – he’s never had a returning customer before.
“Of course,” he says, finally, after a good bit of contemplation. And Jungkook’s face is bright again, brighter than it was before.
“Okay,” he says as he hops up from his seat, jittering around the table, tossing a wave over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow Namjoon!”
Namjoon waves after him, a bit thrown by the strange warmth curling up his pine, the wideness caught in his chest, the tightness knotting in his stomach.
It takes him a good moment and a half to realize that it’s dark around him, and that most of his fellow vendors were halfway through collecting their things.
“What’s the matter?” Hoseok asks from the booth across, a grin the size of Venus draped across his lips, “something got your tongue?”
Namjoon rolls his eyes and shrugs him off, licking his lips and wondering if he’s ever tasted anything so sweet before.
The next day is slow, the sun hot and the world drowsy.
Namjoon kisses four people all morning, and just as his mind begins to wander, a voice pulls him from his daylit dreams.
“Namjoon – look!”
It’s Jungkook, and just as he promised, he was back, with something cupped in both his hands.
It’s a dandelion.
Jungkook sets it down on the table before Namjoon has a chance to ask and plops down in the seat, eager and shy all at once, but oh so determined.
Namjoon spares the dandelion a glance – wonders how many wishes it holds, before leaning forward.
The answer, it appears, is a lot – because today, Jungkook tastes like all the wishes he’s ever made on stars, on dandelion seeds, on fallen eyelashes and lost coins. Namjoon lets his lips linger until Jungkook presses in, moves his own lips and it’s almost Namjoon’s turn to gasp, because suddenly, he tastes like childhood, like tears and laughter and the smell of crisp pine on a winter morning.
Namjoon doesn’t want to pull back, but a voice in the back of his head tugs on his conscience, and he knows it’s only right.
“Nice, right?” Jungkook asks, grinning toothily at him.
Namjoon regards him for a moment before grinning, “Yeah – nice.”
He frowns a second later as Jungkook moves to get up, “Are you sure it’s alright?” Namjoon asks.
“For what?” Jungkook turns back, head cocking to one side.
“These… aren’t small memories.”
Jungkook laughs, “Isn’t that the point?”
Namjoon’s frown deepens but he can’t find the right words to ask everything he wants to ask.
Jungkook turns to leave again, and this time, it’s Namjoon who asks, “Will you be back tomorrow?”
Jungkook grins, running a finger along the edge of Namjoon’s table, “Of course.”
And so, he does.
The next day, he offers a wooden pencil, and he tastes like imagination gone wild, like painting outside the lines, like drawing on the walls without ever fearing being yelled at. He tastes like raw talent and the knowledge that he can be anything he wants to be.
That day, they break apart with Jungkook’s fingers tangled in Namjoon’s hair and Namjoon little bit more than breathless.
“The market won’t be here tomorrow, you know,” Namjoon says, even as neither of them make a move to pull back. He can still feel Jungkook’s breath on his lips, warm and soft and lovely.
Jungkook nods, sighs, allows himself to bury his head in Namjoon’s neck – and it’s been three days, but a whole lifetime.
“When will you be back?”
Namjoon chuckles, “Next time the moon shines bright and full.”
Jungkook laughs, pulls back just to roll his eyes, “So you mean next month?”
Namjoon laughs too, wishing he could lean forward just to catch a taste of what Jungkook’s laugh might be like against his lips – bright and sure.
“It’s not that long,” Namjoon reasons.
“It’s a world away.” Jungkook sighs again, the picture of melodrama.
There’s a silence as they settle back into their seats. Namjoon refolding his hands, Jungkook ducking his head as if just remembering where they were and who they are –
“Will… you be back?” Jungkook asks.
Namjoon nods, “I’m always here.”
Jungkook nods.
Namjoon takes a breath and almost bites his tongue, “Will you?”
Jungkook looks up, and for a moment, they just stare, eyes into eyes, and souls into souls, and all their secrets laid bare – just for a moment, the ghost of lips touching.
“I’ll always be here,” Jungkook says.
And so, he is.
And so he is, and is, and is.
Month after month, Jungkook returns with memories new and old, large and small, until Namjoon no longer remember what it’s like not to remember the times Jungkook sang in the shower, or gave himself papercuts while sketching, or dreamt too hard and too fast for his body to keep up.
“You know, sooner or later, he’s going to run out of memories to give you,” Hoseok says one day as they fold their table clothes and put away their wares, Hoseok carefully capping his bottles and bottles of sunlight.
Namjoon nods, “I know.”
“When are you going to tell him.”
Namjoon sighs, and chews on his own lips, “Soon.”
The next month, the last day of the market, Namjoon lets Jungkook lace their fingers as the sun sinks below the horizon, as the sky burns and burns and burns till the night shimmers with smoke.
“You’re going to give your whole life away if you keep going like this,” Namjoon says, voice light, as if only poking fun, but he can’t help the way his fingers squeeze over Jungkook’s, can’t help glancing over at Jungkook to catch his expression.
Jungkook only looks at him – and then, he rolls his eyes.
“God… what do you think I’ve been trying to do?”
Jungkook leans in for a kiss, and Namjoon only hesitates for a single second before he closes his eyes.
He tastes like memories of a long lost love, found again beyond the sky.
“I want you to have it, you know,” Jungkook says after they break apart, fingers still laced.
“Why?”
“Because,” Jungkook says, “I want to make room for new memories, with you in them.”
Namjoon just chuckles, “What about me? What am I to do with all your memories?”
Jungkook smirks, “Keep them – like you do with all those other memories. Keep them safe. Who knows, we might need them someday.”
Namjoon blinks, and it is then that his stomach unclenches, his chest settles, his throat relaxes and he understands.
They let the silence simmer, and shimmer.
“Let’s run away,” Namjoon says, voice barely above a whisper.
Jungkook nods, leaning in to press his lips to Namjoon’s cheek.
“Okay.”
“Will you back?” Namjoon asks, because he always does.
And Jungkook says what he always says, “Of course.”
And so, he is.
But when he comes back, he doesn’t find a booth, only Namjoon, waiting for him at the entrance of the market, a nervous smile on his face as he waves at Jungkook.
“What’s this?”
“A present,” Namjoon says, holding out his hand, and on it sits a smooth, flat pebble.
Jungkook’s grin widens, “How much?”
“A kiss,” Namjoon answers, leaning in to press the pebble into Jungkook’s hands.
Jungkook laughs before he lets Namjoon kiss him, soft and sweet and deep – and he tastes like sunlight, but he tastes like moonlight too, like watching the sunsets, fingers laced, like sharing memories and creating them, like finding someone you didn’t know you’d lost.
Like falling in love with a kiss.
“Do you remember?” Namjoon asks as they pull away.
Jungkook grins.
“How could I forget?”