Archive of Our Own

Moonbin floats somewhere between Tokyo and Saitama, drifting in and out of consciousness, somewhere between bright city lights and early morning fog. Sanha reads a list out to him, his voice cut down to a whisper, breaking from overuse, struggling to stay steady as sleep begins to fall over him.

"Places where reality seems altered," he says and Moonbin's brow furrows but he does not stop him. Sanha's voice lulls him further towards sleep. The room spins slightly further away, and he recoils further into his half-dreaming head.

"School hallways after hours."

City sounds seep into their hotel room, the hum of hundreds of thousands of motors, generators, human hearts and feet and laughs. Sanha reads his list, just a glimmer of skin behind the light of his phone. Jinwoo snores lightly in the background, and Moonbin is half listening, half letting his mind wander back to the shadows of early evening, to fingers twined in back seats.

"Empty arenas."

Moonbin hums halfheartedly. Sanha's voice flows in and out of focus, pulling Moonbin's head with it.

"Hotel rooms at 3am." It must be close to 4 now, the sky tinged the grayish blue of predawn, but then the sky is always tinged here, distorted by the violent reds and whites of nearby towers, the glaring spotlights and headlights. Moonbin feels Dongmin stir slightly next to him, lets the older boy pull their blanket slightly closer to himself, ignores the way Sanha pauses to complain when cold air hits his side.

"The beach in winter."

Dongmin shifts in his sleep, grazes against Moonbin's skin. Moonbin shivers without feeling cold, feels his mind slip further into the Kantō fog. He feels suspended somewhere between reality and dreams, between the feeling of Dongmin's hand lingering on his waist and the memory of palms grazing over his skin.

"The city in the snow."

Moonbin's head fills with flurries, with white light diffusing through gauzy clouds, with arms around his waist and breathy laughter.

"The mind."

Moonbin's consciousness floats somewhere over them, exhaustion filling his head with static and heaviness. Sanha's voice drifts off mid sentence, the light of his screen fading out. Dongmin breathes quietly into his ear, and suddenly Moonbin feels too hot.

"Your mind when he kisses you." Moonbin tries to shake some of the sleep from his head, tries to let himself jolt awake. Sanha's snores have always rivaled Jinwoo's and now is no exception. Myungjun mumbles in his sleep somewhere to Sanha's left. Moonbin feels the void of voicelessness like a heavy weight on his chest. The emptiness of it rings in his ears, drowning out the sounds of traffic and unsteady sleep.

"Your mind when he holds you."

It feels slightly unreal, this bed and this room in some nameless city. It feels like he's lost somewhere in the void of his mind when Dongmin pushes his sleeping face further into the crook of his neck.

He shifts out of Dongmin's arms, slides out from the bottom of the blanket without waking the others. He makes his way to their open window, lets his head clear itself in cold dawn air and early morning mist. There is a space here, in this city, in these lights, in the centimeters between himself and Dongmin's embrace - a crack in their time-space continuum, a break in reality. There is a void where they exist together, where their lives are not their own.

Moonbin feels a warmth blooming in him when he feels familiar arms wrap around his middle, like sweet incense filling his lungs. Dongmin leans his forehead into the back of his neck, lets his lips linger over the cool skin there as he speaks.

“Can’t sleep?” Moonbin shakes his head in response, leans back into the embrace. Dongmin tightens his hold, lets his nose run along the length of Moonbin’s neck. Moonbin shivers again.

“It feels strange here,” Moonbin says.

“Strange how?”

Moonbin turns to face Dongmin, takes in the way the city lights filtering in through the windows all meld into one stark white sheen against his skin. Dongmin looks like he’s only half there, half lost in fog. Moonbin feels like they could dissolve there, disappear into the rift in time.

“It feels like we could stand here like this forever,” Moonbin replies. “Like you could hold me here forever and no one would notice, and time would just leave us behind. It feels nice…. but like a dream. Like I’m going to wake up from it and I’ll be somewhere else.”

Dongmin smiles, leans forward and softly presses his lips to Moonbin’s temple. “We’re always somewhere else.” Moonbin nods dazedly, letting Dongmin pull him back to their pile of blankets and pillows, laying back down between him and Sanha. “Sleep, Bin,” Dongmin whispers, and Moonbin’s eyes flutter shut, exhaustion hanging heavy on his lids once more. “I’ll still be holding you when you wake up.”

Moonbin dreams in vivid color.