Work Text:
NOW PLAYING: SINGLE - TRACK ZERO - BACKSEAT
The air is heavy and thick with tension, sticky like molasses are dripping off of the rear-view mirror and into the centre console and Jinyoung’s having to grip the steering wheel so his knuckles are white to keep his hands from shaking. He feels hollow, empty. Maybe it’s just the road this empty at night, dyed a nicotine yellow by the lamp posts, stretching out endlessly before them or maybe it’s the way Daehwi has angled his body away from him and he feels like there’s hands scooping out his insides because the pain of it, of watching Daehwi turn away from him, is like a punch to the stomach, spreading out everywhere until it’s a dull throb and this is loving in silence if he were to describe it as anything. A dull throb. He feels guilty, inexplicably, like he’s done something he shouldn’t have and when he looks at Daehwi, he knows the other boy feels it too, the tugging. It’s subtle but unrelenting, like someone is constantly just pulling a little on Jinyoung’s conscience, enough for him to feel it, enough for him to have to. He knows it’s to do with their childhood, and the memory rushes back to him all too readily.
He is ten and has a crush, the kind of sweet, lips-to-cheek powdered in sugar kind of relationship that has Jinyoung’s heart beating out of his chest whenever he so much as looks at him and even as a child, he had known that something, somewhere, wasn’t right, that he would pay for something as innocent as this. His name is Kang Daniel and he is a God, all tan skin and sun-bleached hair and broad shoulders and he gives Jinyoung piggyback rides on the way to big school. Jinyoung spends the time trying to match his stuttering breaths with Daniel’s, trying to hide the fact that his whole body is practically vibrating. Daniel knows about it, of course he does, because he’s older than him and wiser and when he finds out his eyes just crinkle up into that bunny smile of his and Jinyoung’s heart does a triple tuckback in his chest. “He’ll grow out of it,” he had said. That isn’t what the boys from his school say, though, three years his seniors with his head held inches above the unnatural blue surface of their school swimming pool and Jinyoung has never been more aware of his own heartbeat. The blonde boy, the one with a fistful of his hair, is trying to kill him, he knows it, they know it. No one really cares - Jinyoung finds that he doesn’t either, not really. He deserves it, because boys aren’t supposed to like boys. He’s going to die, and his ribs are aching from the hard tiles of the swimming pool side and the boy is snarling something into his ear that he’s probably supposed to reply to but, even now, he can’t help but think about Daniel, his skin and that slightly musky smell he always has and the muted pink of his lips.
“You thinking about him now, faggot?” the boy asks him and all of the others titter nervously.
Jinyoung doesn’t reply but he entertains the idea of choking out a ‘yes’. He doesn’t though, because he’s human and he knows that if he did, he’d most definitely die. He wouldn’t care if he did, but it doesn’t mean he wants to. He can’t entertain the thought of a world without his mom or his dad or his friends or Daniel. He can’t imagine being alone forever. His body gets shoved harsher into the tiles, the water moving a couple inches closer to his face. Jinyoung thinks of Daniel’s voice, “He’ll grow out of it,” he had said and even then Jinyoung knows that it’s untrue, that he’s stuck this way forever. He’s a little glad, maybe, that now he won’t have a chance to be.
It’s silent and it has been since they left the party. It’s never been this way for them, ever, they’ve always been the easy-going pair where conversation flows like Daehwi’s compositions, or Jinyoung’s equations and even when Jinyoung first started feeling differently, even when the roots of it in his lungs started growing up his windpipe and making him dizzy, nothing changed. He and Daehwi have always been constant but now they’re stuttering to a hazy stop after a little too much alcohol on Daehwi’s part and a little too much Daehwi on Jinyoung’s and he doesn’t know what to do. They still have maybe half an hour to go and Jinyoung’s breath audibly catches in his throat every single time he tries to start a conversation (which is often) but closes his mouth again. His love is like a physical thing, hanging between them like some kind of dark force, and Jinyoung almost crashes the car thinking about it. Can Daehwi feel it too? The chlorine blue of the pool comes back into view and he feels the same fear he had then, coppery and metallic at the back of his throat, standing on the edge of a precipice, ready to take the leap. Death and love - they’re one of the same, after all. Except The other boy’s wrists twitch when Jinyoung swerves, as if to reach out for him and Jinyoung almost wishes he’d left it a little longer, just to feel Daehwi’s touch burning a ring around his wrist. Daehwi sighs and Jinyoung is so in love with him that he’d recognise him by breath alone, by the way that he smells even without perfume. It’s claustrophobic, now, his love too much for the car to handle (too much for the world to handle) and there’s no longer any point hiding his shaking hands, they’re practically buzzing and he can feel Daehwi’s eyes burning holes through them.
“You sure you can drive?” he asks. The sound of his voice, sweet and flute-like after so long of silence is jolting, and Jinyoung flinches visibly. It only makes the ache worse.
“Well you can’t,” he replies around the roughness of his voice. He’s surprised at how steady his voice sounds compared to how he’s feeling and he can’t look at him, he’s scared of what will happen if he does.
“Pull over, then. You can’t drive like this.”
He seems to have sobered up considerably since the party, where he was lolling all over Jinyoung’s side and making his pulse go haywire and now he just stares at Jinyoung. He weighs it out, stopping the car so he can get some air, so he can get a hold on himself or just carrying on, powering through till he gets home so he can cry in the shower. He sees Daehwi reaching out to touch him from the corner of his eye and he pulls jerkily into the entrance of a field.
His breath is shaky, and when he turns off the engine it’s the only sound that fills the car. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, why only now his love is catching up with him, finally hitting him when he’s alone in the car in the most delicate hours of the morning with the boy he loves. Not a single car has driven by so far. They are completely alone. Daehwi is watching him worriedly but he can’t bring him to look at himself just yet, has to get his lungs used to the flower that has bloomed at the back of his throat.
“What’s wrong?” Daehwi asks lowly as Jinyoung runs a hand unsteadily through his hair.
He doesn’t reply, doesn’t trust himself to but Daehwi pushes on anyway.
“Jinyoung?”
Just the way he says his name, full of weight and meaning, has him shivering. He tries to stop it, he really does.
“Jinyoung, look at me.”
He doesn’t, he can’t. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he does. So Daehwi does it himself. He reaches out, places a steady hand against his jaw and pulls his face round slowly until Jinyoung can look at him. Heat bursts under his skin where Daehwi’s hand is settled against his jaw but looking at him is… it’s strange. He hears Daehwi’s breath catch in his throat, maybe from the strange dilation of his pupils, or the way his eyes are filled with something in between love and desperation. Whatever it is, it makes Daehwi settle his hand better against his jawline, fit his fingers into the hinge.
“What’s wrong?” he asks and it comes out a little breathy. Jinyoung notices the proximity between them, how, at some point, one of them must have leaned closer so that now they’re balanced awkwardly over the centre-console. Jinyoung can’t help it when his eyes flicker down to the pink plumpness of Daehwi’s lips, the coating of pink on his sharp cheekbones. He’s beautiful, he really is and the thought simultaneously makes the pain better and worse. He’s waiting with bated breath for Daehwi to push him away but he doesn’t, at least not now. Jinyoung swears he sees Daehwi’s eyes flicker down to his own mouth and then up again quickly. He watches the boy’s tongue dart out to lick nervously at his lips.
“What’s wrong?” he says again.
“You,” he finally breathes out, “It’s you. It’s always been you.”
That’s all Daehwi needs, apparently, to lean in and close the gap between them and Jinyoung swears he dies because the feeling is simply electric, has him leaning forward and pushing against Daehwi with equal enthusiasm because he needs him to know how he feels before it kills him. They tilt their heads simultaneously and Jinyoung tugs at Daehwi’s waist until he gets the memo and climbs over awkwardly into Jinyoung’s lap whilst their mouths are still connected together. The space between them is non-existent but Jinyoung doesn’t mind it that way, because there’s something right about the way his hands fit into the curve of Daehwi’s back. They pull away, eventually for air, and Daehwi tilts their foreheads together. The way he looks now, hair tousled and mouth bruised is practically holy and if Jinyoung has to go to hell for this then he’s perfectly happy too. Daehwi winds his hands into Jinyoung’s hair and he’s about to go back in for another kiss when Daehwi stops him.
“Wait,” he begins, voice rough from kissing and Jinyoung’s heart sinks at the word. This is what he’s been waiting for.
“What is it?”
“I…I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you. Wait, no, not pretty sure. I am. I am in love with you.”
It’s weird, how everything in the whole entire world stops and waits with bated breath. People stop dying and stop being born and stop falling and riding their bikes and going to work and the angels and the devils and everything else are watching him, watching them and their clumsy love.
“You’re drunk,” is what he manages to breathe out between them even though his breath is completely ragged, running wild with the thought of Daehwi, who he’s been pining after for so long, aching after his smell and the way he sleeps in socks even though it makes his feet gross and the way he always leans against the broad planes of Jinyoung’s shoulder when they’re brushing their teeth, loving him of all people.
“That doesn’t matter,” Daehwi says. They’re close, still, “I’ll say it again in the morning if you want, and everyday for the rest of our lives, too, if it’ll make you happy.”
The ache is sharp now, huge and present in his chest, tearing against muscle and bone until his name is carved directly into his heart.
“B-but you could have anyone, you could get anyone you wanted,” he stutters out and it’s embarrassing how he feels tears pricking in his eyes. Daehwi closes his eyes, as if the thought of it, having someone else, physically pains him.
“I don’t want anyone,” he says with conviction, “I want you.”
Jinyoung practically whimpers, pulling him forward until they’re in the tightest hug Jinyoung’s ever had. The pressure in his chest is a little less, a little more manageable and he feels as light as a feather when he murmurs.
“I love you, too,” into Daehwi’s shoulder.
*
(Daehwi does say it again in the morning - and every day after that, too)