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It’s two in the morning and Jongin’s stuck in the backseat of a car, red and shitfaced.
At the rear view mirror he peeks at Sehun’s girlfriend. He knew her name, for certain, but he had somehow forgotten it. Sehun has brought her in one of their night outs weeks ago, but she just slipped out of his mind.
They’re at an empty gas station, save for the guy in uniform who is leaning against the gas pumps, wide awake in the hollow of the morning. It’s been twenty minutes since they left the night club at Itaewon. Jongin thinks the hour is so still that he could poke the air with a finger and create ripples from it.
“He’s probably jerking off in the stall,” Jongin groans. He thought it’s gone long since Sehun hopped off and dashed to the restroom.
A snicker bursts from the driver’s seat. From the rear view mirror he could see her thickly lined eyes, sharp but not seemingly cold. He thought that she was too gentle where Sehun was rough, but then again, he doesn’t sleep with her and it’s none of his business.
“I feel like we’ve met somewhere, before,” he says, slurring through his words. “Like way before Sehun…”
“Think so?” she cuts in, looking straight through the windscreen. Outside, the streets are ruddy and trees softly rustle in the wind.
Jongin laughs. “I’m awful at remembering people, actually.”
At twenty-six, he thought he’d be a different person from when he was sixteen. But as it turns out, there hasn’t much that changed, and anybody who knew him ten years ago wouldn’t mistake him from someone else. He just grew a few inches taller and some existential dread.
This time, she turns around and looks at him. He thinks she’s pretty, but unlike all the other girls Sehun has dated. Not the kind of girl he’d look at twice, if he was being honest, but those hazel pools that stare back deep into his consciousness would make him dream of it for days.
“Is that how you pick up girls?” she says, with a curl of the lips that somehow doesn’t become a grin. “That’s terrible.”
“I’m not hitting on you, just so we’re clear,” Jongin chuckles.
She puts a finger on her chin, her polished nail sparkling against the light, then she smiles. “I didn’t think you’d be someone who’d come across as self-important.”
Jongin snorts, holding his hand over his forehead. He feels a little hot in his sweatshirt despite the cool air in the car. He thinks she’s not wrong, but it’s like he was sucker-punched in the gut and he’d rather lick his shoe than admit it.
“Self-important,” he repeats, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, “I don’t think anybody has ever told me that.”
She just goes back to gazing through the windshield, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, and doesn’t say another word.
Sehun then pries the door open, settles shotgun, and chucks a small box above the dashboard. Jongin squints and thinks that it’s a pack of condoms. Sehun wears the seatbelt, then leans in to kiss his girlfriend on the lips. Jongin feels a bit queasy behind them but he doesn’t look away.
“Okay, let’s drop him off before he passes out,” Sehun suggests.
A week later, Jongin’s on a hard motel bed, on top of someone he will soon forget.
It’s always been the cheapest way to escape: get drunk, hook up, then wake up cold somewhere else. No strings attached. Sometimes he’s tired of spending Friday nights like this, but it’s just something he can’t stop gravitating towards—these blur and haze where he’s not bound to anything, or to anyone.
Her hair glows like fire, and she never moans out his name.
Jongin prefers it that way. He feels a sense of security going deep into somebody who’s a stranger.
When she comes, her red hair’s matted in the sweat of her neck. Jongin pulls out, then his shoulder heaves—his chest rising and falling with each breath. He lies on his back, naked, and stares at the cobweb that festoons a corner of the low ceiling. He won’t touch her anymore after that.
After a cold shower, he sits on the edge of the bed and smokes. The faint amber light from the lamp makes the room look like it’s at the tip of sun’s rays, near twilight. Beyond the grimy windows he could see the top of lofty buildings from the bustling night streets of Seoul.
“Is that your real hair color?” Jongin asks, not pertaining to anyone, but he hopes someone would answer.
“I dyed it red,” a soft voice says. It’s probably the girl he just slept with, or a phantom of his mind. He doesn’t know. “Why, did you like it?”
Jongin nods. He lets out puffs of smoke, tendrils of grey fogging up the air. Answers, “I don’t remember meeting anybody else with that hair.”
“Does that make me special?” she asks with a perky tone.
It’s been long since he came across the thought. He used to believe it’s just someone who’s different among the others, or someone who stands out. But it’s not that simple, really. There are people who move or wear their hair like everyone, yet they’re still special to him. They’re the kind of people who never really leave, he thinks.
“Perhaps,” Jongin mutters, tapping the cigarette against the ashtray.
He begins to feel warm fingertips touch his back, while she purrs, “I think the same. You’re mysterious in a way the other guys aren’t. Beautiful set of eyes that look detached, it’s sort of cold. But I don’t hate it. It’s like making love to an idea.”
Jongin laughs, silently, but his shoulders give him away. It isn’t so ridiculous a thought--he does feel like a vessel sometimes, without much substance.
“That’s the worst way to put it,” he says.
Jongin meets Sehun’s girlfriend again when he drops by his apartment on a Saturday afternoon, hoisting a six-pack and sporting a pompadour.
“Oh,” he mutters in surprise when she comes out wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her body. He immediately blushes, embarrassed like child who walked in on their parents snogging.
“Oops, sorry,” she gasps, wet hair dripping over her shoulders. “I thought Sehun had gone back early.”
“I should’ve called,” Jongin says with an uneasy grin on his lips.
He goes inside the room anyway, and passes by a tall mirror propped against a wall. He could barely recognize himself in his swept-back hair, black leather jacket, and shined loafers. He thought it would be stylish to dress like James Dean for a day, to have a semblance of a personality outside of being a corporate madman in a tailored suit and tight-fit dress shirt; a borrowed personality he can slip into like a costume.
Jongin puts the half dozen cans of beer on the coffee table, and sees her walk out of the bedroom in a tank top that hugs her waist and denim shorts that are so short, he can see the underside of her butt cheeks. He chuckles softly, remembering the pack of condoms Sehun shamelessly threw on the dashboard.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you here,” Jongin says, sitting with his legs spread a bit too wide.
“I don’t stay here often,” she answers as she pads to the shelf where she aligns and drops the tone arm on a record. A song by the Beatles play on the turntable, and Jongin puckers his mouth in distaste. Too bland a music for such a fine day. “Most weekends he comes to me.”
“I know,” he grins, smoothing his hair, “He’s hardly been around since a month ago.”
She ambles toward him, with steps light as a feather, her lips curved into a smile. He notices her legs give an illusion that she’s taller than she really is. She plops by his side and crosses her legs. He shifts, a bit awkwardly, but he thought he’s somewhat a greaser today and he’s supposed to act cool. So, he rests his arm over the backrest of the couch, hovering over her shoulders. They sit close--she comfortably, her elbow nudging his side.
“And you hate it, don't you?” she asks but with a tone like she doesn't need an answer.
“I don't particularly hate anything,” he argues. He has not even thought much about it. Sehun’s usually around anyway: at work, if not at home.
“You don't seem to be interested in anything, either,” she suggests, listlessly rubbing her thigh with a hand back and forth, oblivious to her visitor’s growing discomfort over such remarks. “Sehun told me you haven't been in a steady relationship for six years now.”
“That’s not fair,” he breathes, tilting his head. She is being way too familiar with him, it’s catching him off guard. “I don’t even know your name.”
“That’s because you forgot,” she giggles. Raising a brow, she says, “Introductions mean little now, it seems.”
“Alright, that’s fair,” Jongin sighs, leaning his head back on the sofa.
Her name’s Kang Seulgi, he learns. She’s a therapist, and met Sehun as a client about two months ago. It was about anger management issues, but she didn't let on, telling him it’s confidential. It then began to make sense, with the way she could easily make him speak about things he’d never talk about to other people. Jongin likes that about her. She’s upfront and honest, and tells it as it is. If anything, he appreciates not having to deal with more bullshit from people.
The record then plays All My Loving, which prompts Seulgi to stand up and pull Jongin by his arms. He hesitates at first, but caves in to her whim and stands with her in the middle of the room. Seulgi begins swaying to the music, in small, lithe movements.
“You dance to this shit?” he asks, a laugh coughing up at the back of his throat.
Seulgi holds his hands and twirls. Jongin goes along with her without another protest. It’s been a lifetime ago since he danced, that moving to music feels foreign to him. His limbs and feet find their rhythm anyway, and they start dancing as if they’ve always done it together.
Something within him rises, like a surge of intense delight and excitement. His hand on the curve of her tiny waist, the other twined in her warm, slender hands. They’re swaying to the beat, lost in the moment, and he’s just looking at her without a sense of caution. Seulgi throws her head back in laughter while he whirls her away with an extended arm. When he pulls her back in, the music stops and his arms are wrapped around her waist. He pants, and his nose touches the tip of her forehead.
He presses his lips on her forehead without much thought. He can taste the salt from her sweat.
Seulgi steps back, her cheekbones tinted red, and tucks her hair in her ear. Jongin stares, in a way he hasn’t regarded her before, and he understands now why Sehun fell in love in a short span of time. It’s those eyes, and the shape of her lips that’s now gaping at him. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth at that very moment, but he knew better than to do that.
“Sehun told me you love to dance,” Seulgi utters through her gasps for breath.
“He talks a lot about me for no damn reason,” Jongin sneers, almost finding it ridiculous. He’s starting to think Sehun’s therapy sessions had got to do with him.
Seulgi bites her bottom lip and lowers her eyes. “It’s good to let yourself loose.”
“I do that on Friday nights,” Jongin says as he approaches the table and bends down to rip the packaging and pick a can of beer. He snaps the tab open and swallows. “He knows that.”
“And you know that,” Seulgi repeats, because she doesn’t really know what to say.
Jongin walks past her, without saying another word. He gulps down the beer in one go. The drink was refreshing, acidic, and bitter. He almost forgot what they were talking about, or if it would be alright to tell her to mind her own business. Afraid of the whole thing turning all sour, he takes the empty can with him and reaches for the door.
She does not look back, then hears door unlock with a click.
Jongin was sixteen with a bad haircut, when he’s sat on a swing, zoning out into the tufts of grass underneath his oxfords.
“-you understand what I’m saying?” He hears when he’s out of his trance. It’s a string of words from someone who’s towering over him. He fixes his gaze at the tip of hair that’s brushing the curve of her breast.
Jung Soojung was the first person he was seriously in love with. He knew her since middle school; they were part of the marching band and he thought she was lovely. She was modest, and when she laughed it was tinkling, like wind chimes to his ears. It was at the cusp of spring and summer when he professed his love, his palms clammy and heart in his throat, and Soojung pecked his cheeks under the giant oak tree in school.
But first year into their high school they made love in his bedroom, when his parents were away on a Saturday. She screamed his name in passion, and he moaned hers as well. They were clumsy and sloppy, grappling with the buttons of their shorts and struggling with putting on the condom, but they pulled through. Yet it was this short-lived pleasure that would leave a huge scar in his life.
“I don’t want to keep it,” Soojung muttered through sobs. She was vigorously rubbing the tears off her face but it doesn’t stop flowing. “Say something! Don’t just sit there and mope! Tell me it’s okay!” she shouted, stomping a foot on the ground.
Jongin was struck dumbfounded by the tiding. They were young, and they didn’t know how to deal with what came after. Part of him wanted to run to his parents and tell them the truth, but he knew he had to cape for Soojung before anyone else. And he knew she’d hate that word gets out.
He reaches for her hand and rubs circles on its knuckles. “I’m with you on this.”
Soojung stooped down and hugged him. She bawled on his shoulders, so loud he thought that he had hurt her more than she let on. He was terrified. There was this feeling in the pit of his stomach where a knot forms that he knew he would never be able to unravel. It would stay there for as long as the memory burns in his mind.
“And I don’t really want this anymore,” Soojung had pleaded, wiping the snot off her face. Jongin vividly remembers how beautiful she was that day, when the breeze ruffles her hair, and her mouth is set in a hard line, determined. It pained him to see her so troubled and vulnerable. “I’m afraid.”
Soojung was scared to make the same mistake again, he knew. It was inconvenient for her to be with him. She was thinking of the life ahead of her. He believes that she deserves it. He also believes he can’t put her in the same position again. Once is enough.
“I’ll be around,” he mumbled.
And for so long as he remembers, the kiss she gives him in return is the most bittersweet yet.
The strobe lights are blinding, but it’s nothing to Jongin and Sehun who’ve frequented clubs since they worked at a telecommunications company four years ago. The bass of the loud music from the speakers thumps wildly into their ears and chests. It doesn’t matter, because they hardly chat in the booth anyway, and just drink til they pass out. When Jongin’s lucky he snags a woman and takes her to a motel nearby. Sehun never felt the need to do anything of the sort, mostly because he doesn’t like anything casual, particularly in relationships.
So it baffles Jongin when Sehun whispers into his ear and says, “I can’t go on like this forever.”
“Let’s talk,” Jongin yells while he pulls Sehun up from the booth. With an unsteady gait they head for the back door, and they end up in the back alley where a street light flickers some distance away.
Jongin loosens his tie, his dress shirt drenched in perspiration, then rolls his sleeves to his elbow. Sehun leans against the wall with his other leg bent up, clutching his suit in his arms.
“So you’ve had enough of our night outs,” Jongin goes on, “Like it's ever hard for you, anyway. You don’t even have to go through the trouble of picking up women.”
“You talk like it’s my fault you’re single,” Sehun teases, staring blankly into the tall brick wall surrounding a restaurant.
“Oh, shut up,” Jongin whines. He dips his hand into the pocket of his slacks. “This is about the therapist, isn’t it? You want to settle down.”
Sehun lightly punches him in the arm. He grins silly, “Seulgi’s not a mere therapist. I love her, and I’m so sure of it I can feel it bone-deep.”
They’ve known together since the first week of work, with an entry-level job, getting lumped into the same project where they were mere assistants. They clicked instantly, although they don’t have a lot of things in common. He found Sehun’s meekness a good balance to his easygoing tendencies, which gets him into trouble whenever he overdoes it. Sehun makes him think things through sometimes, although he tolerates most of Jongin's impulsiveness.
“Fuck,” Jongin hisses. “I’m alone now, am I not?”
“It isn’t like that,” Sehun argues, pressing his lips in contemplation. “I just think that if work’s suffocating you so much that you have to resort wasting some of your nights like this, then maybe you should consider a change of pace.”
Jongin sighs, and lifts his chin, to the starless night sky. “So that’s it. You think I’m perpetually stuck and you’re outgrowing this, whatever this is.” He pauses before he proceeds, “But I don’t really have anyone but you, and you’re aware of that.”
Sehun moves away from the wall, and turns to Jongin. He pulls something out of his pocket, which is his thick, black leather wallet and pulls out a paper card from it. He hands it to Jongin.
“Are you telling me…?” Jongin asks while he inspects the business card. It’s printed with Seulgi’s name on it, her contact number, and the address of her clinic. It’s in the heart of Gangnam, he notes.
“Sometimes you just need to let it out, and for someone to listen,” Sehun advices with a genuine glint of concern in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the sessions. It might just stir something in you, I don’t know. I’m not going to leave you like this, Jongin. We’re not getting any younger.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Jongin seethes, crumpling the card in his hand.
Sehun grips Jongin on his shoulders and looks straight at him sternly. “I’m not pushing you away. This… it’s for your own good.” It’s trite and almost meaningless, but this is Sehun, and Jongin knows he believes in the weight of his words and the good that it can do. Sehun cups his jaw, and grazes his thumb along it, “I’m not going away.”
And that’s all Jongin needs to hear, really. He’s so used to being left behind, by people whose faces he could see with his eyes closed and whose names he mutters in his sleep. They’re not with him anymore, but they never truly leave.
Jongin sniffles, hot tears trickling down the sticky skin of his cheeks, “I really hate you, don’t you know?”
Maybe it was a bad idea to have agreed to the meet-up.
This is the thing that’s gnawing at the back of his head while he frets seated alone in a table at a coffee shop downtown. Soojung’s running a bit late, but he doesn’t mind. His nerves are eating him up that he thinks it’s better if she doesn’t arrive.
Despite of the unsatisfactory end of their relationship, Jongin was still caught up with Soojung online through the years, regardless. She hit him up on SNS while he was having lunch at work two days ago, and he didn’t think twice of indulging her invitation.
It’s a little strange, that he’s going to interact with her again after a decade of pretending they never happened. At times he thought it would be easier that if he’s broken in two, half of him could go and take all the bad parts completely so that it doesn’t have to hurt when the other half of him tries to heal. But he’s gone quite numb and he’s ten years better now.
And Soojung shows up, of course, because nothing ever really goes the way he wants to.
Jongin’s wind is knocked out of him once he sees Soojung again. She slips into the chair across him with grace, beautiful like yesterday but with more elegance and maturity. He has never felt comparable to her, and yet she still chose to love him at one point in her life.
“Sorry,” Soojung apologizes, straightening the plunging neckline of her red georgette dress. “I just snuck out of work because they wouldn’t let me go.” It was already past five o’clock in the afternoon, and the world outside is bathed in an orange glow. Summers are too bright and brash in Seoul.
“How are you?” Jongin manages to say in his pinstripe and combed hair.
“I’m terrific,” Soojung beams. Jongin has not expected any less. “I work at an editorial of a fashion magazine, and it’s been really wonderful. I think the job suits me. How about you? You look really… put together.”
It’s funny, he muses. It’s too convenient he gets to pretend to be something else and more behind a crisp Valentino suit.
“I spend most of my days in an office cubicle,” Jongin replies, smugly though not in any way haughty, “Hunched over a desk. Nothing much, really.”
Soojung sips the macchiato that Jongin has already ordered twenty minutes ago. It’s cooled down, sufficiently warm for her tongue. “Are you trying to impress me? We’re not teenagers anymore, Jongin.”
“Oh, is this not what it is?” he jokes with a wide grin he hasn’t worn in so long.
Soojung curls up a corner of her lip, and Jongin knows she does that when she’s about to say something that will catch him off guard. It’s a subtle warning that he will always catch on. And suddenly Jongin notices the ring on her hand that sparkles like it has a pulse on its own. “No, you idiot. I’m here to tell you that I’m engaged and I’m getting married before the month ends.”
So she breaks it to him, just like that.
Jongin doesn’t even let it sink in for a moment and just exclaims, “Congratulations!” And he means it. Or at least he wants to.
Soojung pulls out a folded paper out of her purse and slides it toward him on the tabletop with both hands. Jongin picks it up, unfolds it, feels its thickness, and runs his thumb over the embossed words in gold ink. It’s all there, the things he needed to know. Perhaps.
“This invitation is so like you,” Jongin says. He doesn’t even stutter. “Beautiful, elegant, and straight to the point.”
“Short notice, I know, but I thought hard about it,” Soojung discloses while she grabs his hand and squeezes it. “I want you there.”
Jongin has no reason to deny the invitation.
Instead of heading home, Jongin takes the subway to Gangnam.
There’s a dull ache that’s burgeoning in his chest. He stares at the throng of people inside the packed station, and wonders if they’re weary like him. He feels completely lost and alone.
Sometimes he wishes loneliness were something tangible that he could grip and pull out and throw to the ground. Something he can step on and squash to pieces until it’s no longer recognizable. Until it doesn’t ruin him anymore.
But he stands there, in the middle of the carriage, surrounded by a crowd that’s blind to his pain and fears. He tries not to cry.
“You’re lucky I worked overtime today,” Seulgi says. She’s tidying up her desk and filing some folders in the drawer. Jongin somehow can’t take his eyes off her. She looks gorgeous in her suit and pencil skirt, and her hair is tied up neatly behind her. It’s just up his alley.
It’s a small room, but large enough for two people. The dark carpeting of the floor hushes Jongin’s steps. There are large shelves stacked with magazines and books, backed against the wall perpendicular to the curtained windows that’s overlooking Seulgi’s table. Jongin fiddles with a paperweight, which is a snow globe with a miniature chimneyed house and tiny pine trees.
“Take me home,” Jongin pleads, putting the snow globe down back to its place. “I mean to yours.”
“What, it’s getting spooky in your apartment?” Seulgi quips, but she doesn’t get a laugh out of it.
“It’s better when you don’t try too hard,” Jongin snorts.
Seulgi rolls her eyes, then snickers. “I’m only doing this because you’re Sehun’s best friend. Better tone down that snark.”
They drive to Seulgi’s apartment in her Volvo. Jongin was calm throughout the ride, listening to songs from the dashboard that wasn’t the Beatles. They don’t really talk, because he wants to save it up til they reach her place. He’s just gawking through the window for the most part, the city pulsating in it’s greens, reds, and yellows.
Seulgi prepares kimchi fried rice and tells him she’s tired so she can’t do much. Jongin says, “This is more than enough. Thanks.”
“Don’t be stingy with compliments,” Seulgi simpers, tilting her head while she prods him on.
“I fucking love it,” Jongin blurts out loud, after he chews and gulps a mouthful of food. “It’s the best meal I’ve had in a while. Happy?”
“You bet I am,” laughs Seulgi.
“Anyway, I want to stay for the night,” Jongin then says, sheepishly, averting his eyes to his plate. “I want to sleep beside someone,” he pauses, tousling his hair like he’s conflicted, “Not sleep with… I just think that I can sleep soundly next to you.”
“Alright,” Seulgi agrees with her brows furrowed in confusion.
When the night wears on they huddle in her bed, sitting side by side. Jongin has nothing on but his boxer shorts. His clothes are hung on a rack by the door. Seulgi is fresh from bath, clad in cornflower pajamas.
“Bear with me,” Jongin murmurs. The room’s dark and he’s illuminated by the moonlight falling through the balcony. He’s luminous, pale. “Hear me out like a friend, and not like anything else. Don’t read or diagnose me or anything.”
“Sure,” Seulgi assures him, staring at a painting hung on the wall across them. She curls her toes. She thinks it’s funny he thinks she’ll act like a professional when he’s stripped down to his waist beside her.
“My ex-girlfriend’s getting married,” he starts, crossing his arms on his naked chest. “Soojung is the first person I truly loved and ached for. She called me over after ten years of no communication between us. I knew there was no chance we’d be back together again, but a part of me had hoped, and that maybe first love never dies for real, you know?
But it wasn’t going to happen. It’s been ten years since I impregnated her and she begged for all of it to go away. I gave up on us because I didn’t want to stifle her.”
Seulgi frowns; she may not know what it was like, being young and terrified, but she understands his misery. He doesn’t mention it but she guesses Jongin might have deeply regretted going along with Soojung’s decision.
“I don’t think I was the same after that. I’ve had a few relationships here and there, but it didn’t last long. I’ve never felt satisfied. It wasn’t until I went to college that I fell in love with my roommate. I was twenty, and I thought things had fallen into place.
He didn’t particularly like me. I was annoying. I pulled his leg whenever I catch him dozing off in his bunk bed, drooling on his textbook,” (Jongin doesn’t notice he’s grinning at this memory). “He would pinch me, and I would cry in pain. Then he’ll try to treat me kindly. It was like cat and mouse. Until we got both drunk off our heads one night and I decided to take it a step further, then I told him I liked him.”
Do Kyungsoo didn’t replace Soojung, but he filled a void she had left in Jongin.
”He liked me back, so I wasn’t left hanging. So we dated, fucked til we were sore, and cuddled on cold nights. But not long after, our differences began to wedge between us. Sometimes our arguments would take days. I became someone I hated. Someone he can’t stand anymore. I loved him, but it didn’t work out in the end, and I had to let go. I realized we needed something more than just love to keep us going.”
“I’m… I’m sorry to hear that,” is the only thing Seulgi could utter. She lightly pats his thigh.
“After that I was just sick of it,” Jongin hisses, his voice beginning to break, “I didn’t think I could love anymore. I was so spent. And I hate that I’m like this.” His shoulders tremble, and he’s trying hard to contain it, but he couldn’t. He sobs uncontrollably.
Seulgi puts an arm around him and lets him wail on her chest. She runs her fingers through the soft strands of his thick hair. “You’re going to be alright,” she hums. She knows it can’t do much, but it’s all she could do to make him feel better right then.
“I’m so fucked up,” Jongin snarls, his teeth tearing through the air. “I’m so unhappy, so tired. I feel stuck.”
“Breathe,” Seulgi comforts him, her chin on his head. She caresses the side of his face. “Let it all go.”
“That’s the problem,” Jongin blubbers. “I think those parts of my life just never go away.”
Later, they fall asleep beside each other. Jongin, with tears dried on his face, was snuggled in Seulgi’s arms like a child in the comfort of his mother’s warmth.
Jongin busts his lip a week before Soojung’s wedding.
It goes like this: they’re on the second bottle of soju, and Jongin’s so tipsy he begins to feel funny. Sehun, meanwhile, is slowing it down, even though he has a higher tolerance for alcohol. He bides his time, and before Jongin is put to sleep by the drink, he addresses the elephant in the room: “Seulgi told me you slept beside her three nights ago.”
“Nothing happened,” Jongin argues, scratching his ear. Beyond the balcony of Sehun’s apartment he can see the evening sky, blue and deep on a windy Saturday. “Don’t sweat it.”
“You can’t just barge into her clinic and ask her for those kind of favors,” Sehun insists, the back of his throat burning. “She’s not your girlfriend.”
Jongin breaks into a peal of laughter, like there’s something profoundly hilarious. When he’s drunk he doesn’t mince his words, and so he will look back to this night wishing he were sober. “Well, guess what: I want to fuck your girlfriend.”
“What?” Sehun asks, blinking rapidly. He couldn’t believe those words just rolled out of Jongin’s mouth, and it makes his stomach churn uneasily. He balls his hands into fists.
“I want to know how it feels going deep into her dripping wet cunt, while she screams my name. I want to fuck her blindly til she won’t remember you anym—”
Jongin bites his tongue so hard it bleeds. He’s stumbled over from his chair after Sehun shoved him down the floor, pouncing at him in white hot rage. He winces as his back hits the cold, hard floor, spreading a jolt of pain throughout his body.
Sehun bends over him and grips his collar, so tight he could wring the breath out of Jongin’s chest. He lands a heavy punch against Jongin’s jaw, ripping the skin on the side of his mouth, and twisting his neck to the side.
“Go, punch me some more,” Jongin goads through his red mouth, warm blood dripping from his lips. He thinks he could pass out from the searing pain, but it’s the tears that keeps him conscious. “Isn’t this what you wanted since that night, three months ago?”
“Shut up, Jongin,” Sehun implores, shutting his eyes in exasperation.
“You think you’re the only one who remembers? We made out in the stall in that night club in Itaewon. And you hated it, because you’re trash, just like me,” Jongin rambles on, crying, and wallowing the taste of iron in his tongue. “You think you’re the only one having a hard time dealing with it? I didn’t think of consulting a therapist to sort out my frustrations, or anger, in your case. I just lived with the fact.”
“God, don’t make me do something I’ll regret,” Sehun swears. He then looks Jongin in the eyes, and loosens his grip on the collar.
“You love Seulgi because she’s aware of the deepest and darkest parts of your life, and because she doesn’t beat it tirelessly out of you,” Jongin spits. A red spot marks the polished linoleum floor. “It’s easy that way, right? Instead of settling with someone like me who can’t figure shit out. It’s much more convenient with someone who can bury your shortcomings than someone who keeps reminding you of it.”
Sehun releases Jongin from his grasp. He blinks back his tears, and wipes the sweat off his temple with his stained knuckles. He moves back and stands up away from the floor, where Jongin is lying supine, blood foaming in his mouth.
“Enough,” Sehun says, his voice shaky. “Gurgle some mouthwash or something.”
There’s nothing much to say about the wedding ceremony except that Jongin imagined that the lofty spire is piercing the relentless blue sky, aching, and that the painted cherubs are dancing on the ceiling of the domed church.
He sheds warm and briny tears when he watches Soojung walk down the aisle, adorned with a veil and a cream sheath dress that fits her figure, sheer and glittery with sequins. She doesn’t look his way and saunters past him to the altar, eyes glistening with tears as well. When he was sixteen Jongin had thought he’d see her wed to him, but now at twenty-six he thinks he’s not entirely wrong. It could’ve been worse.
The reception is situated in an open space, a wide yard flanked with hedges on the perimeter, and the ground covered with patches of grass. Jongin would spend his time seated in a table with a bunch of people he doesn’t know, sipping wine and listening to heartfelt speeches. He thinks that if he were given a chance to speak, he’d tell Soojung, “You’ve made the right choices.”
It wasn’t until later in the evening, and when he leasts expects it that Soojung drags him by the arm and sneaks him into the pool behind the venue where everyone’s dancing to disco music and taking photos. Soojung removes her heels, lifts her gown, sits on the gutter, then dips her feet into the cold pool water.
“You’re going to ruin your dress,” Jongin informs her belatedly. “And your feet are tired.”
“I’m only going to wear it once, whatever,” Soojung sasses, drenching the hemline of her gown. The lights under the water are making rippled patterns on their faces. “And I don’t really care if my feet become sore.”
“I keep wondering what it would have been like if we never broke up,” Jongin begins. He crouches over beside her. “I think I would have sealed my fate with you forever.”
Soojung grins in spite of herself. She shrugs then points out, “That’s the thing about you. You’re never sure of yourself. You can’t go on like this—mulling over what-ifs, Jongin. You have to be firm about the things you want. Maybe things would have turned out differently if you fought against the odds.”
Jongin ducks his head and sighs, his arms outstretched over his knees. Soojung was both the best and worst parts of his life, and he just feels defeated, in this balmy July night, hearing her tell it as it is regarding the things that have happened. It was never meant to be, he concludes.
“I hadn’t thought of you anymore after we split. I mean not in the way you’ve been longing for me,” Soojung told him, the skin of her palms sunk against the rough edge of the gutter. “And you should begin doing that, too.”
“Did you… did you really love me?” Jongin forces himself to ask. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.
Soojung raises her head to face him, and with a sincere gaze, answers, “I did, but that love didn’t persist.”
Jongin laughs, caustic and dishonest, because there’s nothing amusing about it. It hurts, but he knew that already so it’s pointless to sulk. Then Soojung rests a pair of fingertips on the side of his mouth that’s purple, and worriedly says, “I didn’t notice you had a gash.”
“I hit it on a corner of a table,” Jongin lies. “I’m still clumsy.”
Soojung leans in much closer, inspecting the bruise. He has never seen Jongin with a scratch before, but this doesn’t look like it came from a mere accident. The mark seems to have been placed there with intent. He starts to look hollow in her eyes.
“Don’t kiss me,” Jongin deadpans, feeling the warmth of her fingertips on his lips. “It’s going to rip me apart.”
Soojung scoffs and splashes him pool water with her hands. Jongin’s light blue tuxedo is dappled with drops of water. They both break into giggly, unrestrained laughter.
Then, silence falls between them.
Jongin stares up at the sky, the lone moon hanging above them unjaded, despite the awful things it has witnessed down below. Soojung stares at her distorted reflection on the pool, pensive. She pokes the water and her reflection scatters on its surface.
“I’m pregnant for two months now,” Soojung confesses, pressing her lips together.
He should’ve seen this coming, and should’ve figured this out. Soojung has never struck him to be the type to rush into marriage this early, but the circumstance now is different from what it was back then. Ten years better, he ponders again.
Jongin chuckles, “I noticed you’ve been a bit plump, but I haven’t seen you for a decade so I wasn’t suspicious.”
But instead of a laugh or a denial, Jongin hears Soojung sniffle. He sees her brush her tears with the back of her hand, smudging and messing up her makeup. He couldn’t really think of a gesture to comfort her, so he thinks it is better to just leave her alone and let her weep.
“I’m very happy for you,” Jongin says, grinning at her widely.
And this time, he really means it. He feels the weight he’s been carrying for ten years lifted off his shoulders.
It’s another Friday night and Jongin should be out there clubbing, but instead he’s at the doorstep of Sehun’s apartment, getting the door slammed to his face. He’s stubborn though, so he presses the doorbell repeatedly until Sehun can do nothing but open it, and push themselves out into the dimly lit hallway.
“I didn’t mean those things I said,” Jongin pleads while grasping into Sehun’s taut arms.
Sehun shrugs his arms from his hold, with firm and resolute defiance that he dusts them off. What a prick, Jongin thought. He immaturely wishes he scratched Sehun’s skin with his nails for the good it can do.
“Save your words for someone else you could fool,” Sehun declares with his nostrils distended. He has not shaken off the infuriation from their scuffle. It clings to him like the reek of cigarette smoke to his shirt, and he’s been kissing Seulgi too hard when they make out that she yelps in the midst of it.
It was a waste of time to try to mend things between them, Jongin knew. Sehun holds grudges, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon. So he goes straight to the point and says, “I’m quitting.”
This breaks the wall Sehun tried so hard to put up between them. He has ignored Jongin at work since that Saturday, scowling at the smiles that were sent his way. His expression resists the shock, but his eyes show a flicker of concern for a friend he has known for four years.
“Where would you go?” Sehun asks, in a contrived nonchalance that Jongin doesn’t buy.
“To where I could dance,” Jongin mutters, lowering his eyes to his loafers that’s flecked with dirt. “If that doesn’t work I’ll figure out what I’ll do along the way, as long as it’s not this whole suit and tie office business.”
A young woman in leopard print passes between them in the middle of their conversation, greeting them along the way. She sashays through the length of the corridor, her heels clacking against the tiled floor, and unlocks the door at the end of it. They wait til she disappears in her apartment.
“It’s great… that you’re finally onto something,” Sehun says, staring at the whitewashed wall behind Jongin. He couldn’t look him in the eyes.
“I’m not here to say goodbye,” Jongin says, staring at Sehun nonetheless. “I don’t know, maybe you’ll never go away like you said. Maybe you will. But I’ll always be here if you want to hangout. I just thought you should know.”
Sehun focuses on a crack in the wall, and utters, “Look, I don’t hate you…” His voice trails for a few seconds, and he tries to proceed but he stops, like he suddenly ran out of words to say.
“That’s good to know,” Jongin nods, pursing his lips.
Sehun spirals into reticence, and he’s just there, breathing deeply, like his thoughts are far away. Jongin hates that, when he’s waiting for something after the silence but it never comes, so he turns on his heel. He waves a hand, his back to Sehun, before he leaves.
Jongin’s whistling in the sidewalk, just moments after he has handed his resignation. The sun is glaringly bright, but he loves basking in its warmth today. He used to overlook the smallest things; but now he notices how invigorating the city surroundings are, and how there’s a handful of pigeons flying low in the air, crapping all over it. He knows where he’s headed this morning.
“What would you do if I told you I love you?” Jongin poses the question once he’s occupied the seat across Seulgi’s desk.
“But you wouldn’t do that,” Seulgi answers, capping her pen and putting it down the table. “Because you’re not that type of person, are you?”
Jongin grins, and most importantly, he feels good about it. He’s zippy and carefree, and he doesn’t doubt that Seulgi can tell from how bouncy he is since he walked in. He touches her hands and rubs her knuckles with his thumbs.
“I don’t think I would have held back if it wasn’t for Sehun,” Jongin admits. He does it smugly that it makes it less serious than it should be.
“Stop fooling arou—”
“I was snobbish at first, true,” Jongin cuts in, thinking hard. “I was afraid of getting to know people deeply, getting attached, only for it to end awry, like those I have loved in the past. I did end up loving you, somewhere along the way, and I thought that maybe I could be a different person. Someone better, because you are. But it hit me that I didn’t need that love to be responded to, and I would be alright.”
Jongin is wistful, almost guilty for spouting those words that could get him in trouble again, but he didn’t want things to be left unsaid. And he trusts Seulgi to do the right thing, and to have the sensible judgment when he can’t.
Seulgi holds his hands tighter. “I was there for you because I had to. Sehun was mad that your friendship was marred because of that incident in Itaewon. He cried in this room because he didn’t think you could both go back to the way it were, but I am glad it did. He did love you, even if he never said that to my face. But he thinks you’ve been too scarred that he didn’t want to end up being one of the people who might hurt you. He didn’t want to be with you, but he wanted to be there for you.”
Jongin pulls his hands away and buries his face in it. He sighs heavily.
“I don’t understand either.” Seulgi feels a lump in her throat. “But I am in love with him, and I took it upon myself to show his love for you when he couldn't.”
Jongin drops his hands to his lap and whispers, “He knew better and chose you” because it didn’t need to be said out loud. “It’s better off that way. It’s much less complicated.”
“I’ll see you around, then?” Seulgi asks a bit later, when their tongues are dry and they have nothing more to say.
“I’ll see you around,” Jongin says, getting off the chair. “Tell Sehun to hit me up when he no longer has a stick up his ass.”
Seulgi laughs, covering her mouth with a hand. “I’ll leave out the last part.”
Jongin steps out of the clinic and shuts the door with a click. Tomorrow, he’s gonna roam the city and audition in studios. Tonight, he’s going to dream, and in his dream he’s a bird out of a cage. He will fly.