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To say that Doyoung hasn’t been waiting for a night like this all his life would be, perhaps, an understatement. This he knows, and this he affirms to himself as if his own body hasn’t been doing the talking and the convincing for him in the past three hours. It’s in the way that his palms haven’t ceased sweating, and in the way that his heart has seemingly forgotten all else by how it threatens to jump out of his ribcage; pulse racing like the cadenzas he’d feared facing during his years in music school.
Be still, Doyoung pleads to no one but himself, his own quaking joints betraying the nerves he’s been trying to keep all night, please. Be still.
“Can I have this dance?” a gentle voice asks, and there’s the all-too-familiar spark of recognition that bursts into flames at the back of Doyoung’s far too obscured mind. He tries not to think about it, but if he’s been waiting for a moment like this for as long as he could even remember, then he should be no less than prepared, right?
“Took you long enough, huh?”
Doyoung looks up to meet Jaehyun’s smile with his own, willing his lips to stop trembling and subconsciously praying that he endures the deception from his own limbs as he’s led to the dance floor by the only boy who has ever owned his heart.
It’s when Jaehyun has both hands on Doyoung’s waist that Doyoung recognizes the song that has just begun playing.
"Is it...?“
Jaehyun finishes it for him, in the process affirming his hunches. A soft smile accompanying his next words. “The first song we ever danced to.”
Eric Benét croons over the surround system, amidst the indistinct murmuring between bodies huddled together in a waltz across the dance floor. I’m didn’t think you’d remember, Doyoung wants to say.
“You’re a big softie, you know that?” is what he says instead, to ease the immediate atmosphere. The warmth in Jaehyun’s eyes is enough an alleviation to Doyoung’s faltering sense of balance.
Jaehyun giggles, and pauses in time for the first few lines of the song, which Doyoung sings with him in harmony. The first time I fell in love was long ago.
Their singing comes off quite loudly, so Doyoung removes the arm perched over Jaehyun’s shoulder to bring a finger up to his lips. The younger boy presents him with a knowing smile, though one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Aren’t we too close for comfort?” Doyoung inquires after a while, worrying about their audience.
“Don’t worry about it, silly. We have the rest of forever to pretend that it’s just us.”
Doyoung catches a glimpse of Jaemin and Renjun to his left, dancing at a pace that doesn’t quite match the song that’s currently playing. They certainly have the biggest smiles that Doyoung has seen tonight, and for a moment, he wonders what it feels like to be younger again; to be young and in love in a world that is entirely devoid of almosts. In defiance of the looming silence, Doyoung focuses his gaze back on Jaehyun.
“When did you first fall in love, Jae?”
When Doyoung asks, his voice is hushed and gentle, and only ever audible enough for Jaehyun to hear. Doyoung already knows this story like the back of his hand, already has it memorized like a childhood anecdote, yet he thinks about wanting to hear it from Jaehyun one more time; wonders if he’s still allowed to lose himself in the gentle lilt of Jaehyun’s voice whenever he speaks tells a story that he holds with his heart.
“I was a college freshman. I know, pretty late, right? I remember entering the conservatory asking the universe, ‘please, pretty please, won’t you give me someone I could barrel through this hellhole with?’ and then, it did. This tall, lanky sophomore comes into the practice room that I’d been hiding in, loud mouth and gummy smile and all. He spoke to me with the most boisterous, yet the most incredible voice I’ve ever heard, and I thought, ‘hey, universe? that was really quick.’”
There’s the intentional change of the inflection in Jaehyun’s voice along the last part of his musings, dream-like; for emphasis. There is a shift in the color of the lights that shroud them as he does, almost imperceptible, but enough for Doyoung to observe the intricacies of Jaehyun’s features. He has never seen him this weary; has never seen this brand of languor in his eyes, and Doyoung just wishes he could carry this burden with him.
“Heathen,” Doyoung sneers, feigning indignation. He also makes a mental note of Jaehyun’s choice of words, big and unusual, yet spoken as if he wasn’t capable of finding other words that would best match his intentions. “You never managed to outperform said sophomore in solfeggio, though.”
“I never outperformed said upperclassman in any class, yes, but I did win his heart,” Jaehyun teases in return. “So in a way, I stayed winning.”
Jaehyun playfully twirls Doyoung around and the older boy steps on his foot in the process. He laughs at the look on Doyoung’s face as he finishes his spiel and sings the next lines of the song playing with unintentional serenity. Almost like the loveliest lullaby, slow and full of intent before parting with something. This is the last time I’ll fall in love.
Doyoung attempts to convince himself to put the blame on the alcohol in his system, albeit the amount he consumed being miniscule enough that his thoughts don’t stray. But the part of himself, the small voice of reason he has left whenever Jaehyun is involved, makes him remember how high his tolerance towards hard liquor is. Reminds him how three glasses of whiskey have about the same effect on him as his usual afternoon tea.
Yet his limbs still quiver, and he still blames the alcohol when the question at the tip of his tongue spills into the conversation a beat too early than intended.
“Did you ever believe in that?”
The smile on Jaehyun’s face dwindles to a sad, wistful tug at the corner of his lips. Doyoung begins to think he might have ruined the moment for them, but it’s not always that Doyoung has too much courage and not enough time. For him — for the both of these two sad souls gracing the dance floor at this given instant — it might really be the last time.
“I did,” Jaehyun whispers, and Doyoung can almost hear something snap in the subtle urgency of his voice as the younger boy adds, “and you know I still do.”
A momentary beat. A pin dropping. “Do you?” Jaehyun asks.
“I do,” Doyoung professes, trying to push aside the dull pain of the realization that he will never be able to utter those words in matrimonial context like they had promised each other. “I would have given you all my lasts if you’d let me.”
Doyoung directs his gaze at their shifting feet, a temporary distraction he thinks will counter the brewing emptiness echoing loudly in his chest.
“Promise me, Jaehyun. Promise me you’ll never put the blame on yourself for all the things we’ll never become.”
“How many more promises are you going to have to watch me break, Doyoung? How can I promise you that when you’re the only one I’ve ever really wanted?”
Jaehyun’s voice cracks at the dust of punctuation and Doyoung has to feel the younger boy’s body grow warm as it tremors underneath his touch. “I promised you the rest of my life with every single day that I wake up to, but it seems trivial to the universe how many times it’s uttered or to whom it’s said. It only recognizes it if it’s said in front of the altar.”
Tears graze the sides of both their faces, trickling down onto their pristine white suits. Doyoung doesn’t even have half the mind to think about how this exact scene comes off to the onlookers, because, for what reason might the groom be crying while he’s locked in a slow-dance with his best man?
“Doyoung,” Jaehyun begins, and Doyoung’s heart aches at the mention of the nickname his lover has so endearingly used all these years, “I know I lost the right a long time ago, but can I ask you one last favor?”
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
Jaehyun pulls him closer and Doyoung’s breath hitches, even though the absence of space between the two of them should have been nothing new. “Run away with me,” Jaehyun asks, pleading with the tranquility of a whisper. Doyoung realizes that this is not a question at all, it’s a request. “Please.”
Yes, yes I will, is Doyoung wants to say, no distance will ever be too much as long as it’s with you, come and take me away, please. Doyoung has always been good with words, but only desperation comes out of his mouth when he attempts to open it.
“No, no,” he manages to choke out, surprised that it turns out calm considering the storm whirling past his lungs and what’s left of his might. “Not that. Anything but that.”
“Then, can you say those words to me, one last time?”
The way Jaehyun forces out the words one last time past his lips is enough for Doyoung’s throat to constrict, caging what’s left of his words and pulling his emotions out of him in its place, but he tries his best. For Jaehyun, anyway, he always does.
Doyoung is greeted with flashbacks of memories from seven years ago. He sees the two of them in the middle of Jaehyun’s unbelievably cozy apartment, situated within the busiest part of downtown Seoul, Eric Benét’s voice resonating softly from their little Bluetooth speaker. “Doyoung, I love you,” Jaehyun had whispered, his breath warm against Doyoung’s skin. “You are my first and my last, always. That’s you.”
“I love you too, Jaehyun,” he had whispered back, swaying in consonance with Jaehyun’s body without missing a beat. “I will never know how not to.”
“My first and my last, still,” Jaehyun murmurs. “I’m sorry for all the things we’ll never get to have. For all the slow dances we’ll never get to experience. For the years I promised to spend with you. Doyoung, for everything. I’m sorry.”
Had they both been a little younger, and had the universe been a little less cruel, Doyoung’s instinct would have been to kiss Jaehyun senseless on the spot. He no longer has that luxury, he realizes. He no longer has Jaehyun, either.
“I love you, Jae,” he says, and it takes every sliver of strength left in his body for it to not ring with intended finality, even though they both know that’s all there is to it now. “I will never, ever know how not to. It’s all that I will always know how to do.”
“Please, stay,” Jaehyun pleads, and Doyoung almost changes his mind. “Stay and be my last dance for tonight. Stay, and, I don’t know, whisk me away like you always do. Anything. Please.”
They stay in the solace of each other’s silence for a while before the song comes to an end. It’s when Doyoung has regained his resolve that he says to Jaehyun with a wistful smile, “Jae, there’s someone else more deserving of your last dance than I am." A gaze past Jaehyun's face and upon his bride, mid-laugh and dazzling in the middle of a conversation with old friends. "She’s waiting.”
“Is it wrong to wish it's you who’s waiting for me, instead?”
Doyoung relieves his hands from where they’d been intertwined at the back of Jaehyun’s neck in their last few moments. This is where it ends, he thinks. This is endgame. Jaehyun leads him back to his seat, the younger boy’s hand cold in his grasp.
He wipes the saltwater tears off Jaehyun’s dimpled cheeks, puts the stray strands of his hair back in place. His hands smooth down the inadvertent creases and folds made on Jaehyun’s suit before finding Jaehyun’s hands again like it’s second nature, and they stay there facing each other as the world grows faint around them, like they should. Jaehyun holds him for the last time and presses a tender kiss to his forehead, letting himself linger, until all there’s left is the phantom sensation of Jaehyun’s lips on his skin.
Doyoung watches Jaehyun saunter into the arms of his forever, all lovely and radiant and everything, absolutely everything, that he has loved and lost in this lifetime.