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Jisung first sees him in a dream. It’s the kind of dream that feels like an entire lifetime, so real that he doesn’t realize he’s been dreaming until he wakes up, bedsheets fisted in his hands.
He’s sitting in a classroom. It’s all clean white lines and stainless steel desks, the whiteboard spotless—the classroom from his childhood memories, but not quite. He’s not alone. Quiet chatter surrounds him as he sits in the second to last row. His classmates.They’re waiting for the school day to start. He watches the long, dark hair of the girl at the desk ahead of him shine as she laughs with her friends. He’d had a crush on her in middle school, for her pretty hair and her smile like two strings of pearls. Behind him, he hears the grumbling of his kindergarten bully, deep baritone tickling at the edges of Jisung’s consciousness. The cold sunlight of early spring falls through the window to his left, hardly blocked by the still-leafless branches of the tree growing outside. He can feel it against his skin, not quite warm. It feels like a veil of the world’s most delicate fabric, too fragile to be soft.
To his right, there’s nothing. An empty desk. No sound, no classmate. Even the area around it seems darker than the rest of the room. He stares at it for a long moment, certain that he has a memory attached to it, but unable to pull it out of the haze of his mind.
Before he can figure out the empty desk, the teacher walks into the room, taking his attention. Their features are watery, somehow indistinct. There’s something authoritarian and unreal about them. Maybe it’s the impossible black of their suitjacket and its over-padded shoulders, or their loping, long-legged gait.
They stand at the exact middle of the room, arms folded across their waist. It’s only then that Jisung notices the second figure, following the teacher like a shadow. Only—only this small shape, this small person must be anything but a shadow, because all Jisung can see is light. Not literally, of course, but it’s a feeling that reaches deep within Jisung’s chest, past the lines of his ribs and the corded muscle holding his body together, surging all the way down into the core of his being.
“This is Huang Renjun,” the teacher’s voice warbles, sounding so far away. “He’ll be joining our class from now on.”
Renjun steps forward, and of course the seat next to Jisung is his. Now that Jisung’s seen him, it’s obvious that no one else could fill that empty space. Renjun catches his gaze as he sits down, a charming, boyish grin on his lips.
“I guess we’ll have to be friends.” Unlike the teacher, Renjun’s voice is crystal-clear. It reminds Jisung of sandalwood and hot-chocolate dregs. He finds a smile working its way onto his own face in return.
The rest of the school day passes in a daze, the sudden moment of lucidity brought on by Renjun’s arrival passing as soon as the other boy’s head turns towards the front of the room. Jisung’s gaze focuses in on Renjun’s hands as he daydreams. A stuffed animal that reminds him of a marshmallow hangs off the zipper of Renjun’s pencil bag, its bunchy white fur stained dark ever so slightly by graphite and dust.
“Do you want to hang out?” Renjun ducks into his line of sight, and when Jisung’s vision comes back into focus, he realizes that he and Renjun are the only ones left in the room. Classes are over, but Renjun’s school supplies are still scattered across his desk.
“Yes,” Jisung replies, looking down at his own desk. He hadn’t taken any notes, didn’t have a notebook or a pencil—did he even have a backpack with him? It didn’t fill him with as much panic as he felt like it ought to, but that didn’t matter now that Renjun was ready to go. He doesn’t notice that Renjun doesn’t have a backpack, either, but somehow his desk is as clear as it had been before he arrived.
“There’s this park…” Jisung trails off, leading the way out of the classroom, down the hallway and the staircase. He can hear Renjun behind him, his feet bouncing on the linoleum floor.
The sun is just beginning to touch the horizon when they round the corner to the park. Renjun instantly takes to the monkey bars, and Jisung follows him to the top. They talk the whole time—about everything from class to the other students, ghost stories to alien abduction.
Time is fluid around them, conversation meandering and diving and dancing for what feels like minutes and hours all at once around them. Jisung climbs back down the jungle gym, and watches the playground sand sink where his feet land. He doesn’t notice that the sun has never set, that for as long as they’ve been outside the world has been cast in this perfect purple-golden glow.
Renjun swings upside down from a bar of the jungle gym, knees hooked over the metal so he doesn’t fall. Jisung thinks he looks a little funny, with the way gravity is pulling on Renjun’s face, and he thinks it would be pretty bad if Renjun fell head-first like this.
Renjun is holding the charm from his pencil case, that dirty cloud of a thing, and looking at it with a heavy gaze Jisung can’t decipher.
“Do you believe in soulmates?” Renjun asks suddenly, the first thing he’s said since hanging himself by the knees from the jungle gym. It’s not a question Jisung’s prepared for, or even one he thinks he’s considered before. He looks down at Renjun, his reddening face and the smooth skin of his narrow thighs, revealed by gravity and Renjun’s uniform shorts. He looks at Renjun’s scuffed red sneakers and then the sunset, and thinks of the easy conversation that’s been flowing between them.
“Well, I—,” He begins, but cuts himself off when Renjun drops the white charm, the little keychain landing in the sand without noise. Renjun can’t reach it from where he’s dangling, so Jisung picks it up for him.
The moment he does, the whole world seems to melt around him, the sunset and the sand and Renjun’s small body streaking into darkness like a watercolor painting ruined by spilled ink. The only sensation that stays with him is the weightless softness of the white fabric charm in his hand, and the slight grittiness of the sand that’s been trapped in its fur.
It’s dark for a long time, and then Jisung wakes up.
He can feel his heart beating in his throat. His blanket feels too heavy on top of him, and the harsh glare of winter sunshine invades the room through his bedroom window.
He can’t remember the dream, exactly, but he remembers the sunlight—bright and cold, just like this—and a boy whose face he can’t remember but made laughing easier than breathing.
Slowly, he accounts for all his body parts, wriggling his toes and bending his knees, bringing himself back to reality. As he shakes out his arms, he notices that the charm—the charm from the dream, the boy’s charm—is sitting in the palm of his hand, fuzzy and dirty as it had been in his mind. When he picks it up with his other hand to look at it more closely, grains of sand fall onto his bedsheets.
It’s weird. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s weird and Jisung doesn’t know what’s going on, but there must be an explanation. This is probably some little keychain Chenle left in his bed, and then Jisung’s subconscious latched onto it and the dream happened. That’s the only way it makes sense, never mind that Jisung hadn’t felt anything in his bed the night before, or that Chenle prefers keychains in the shape of obnoxiously neon monsters to fluffy white creatures, or that there’s still no explanation for the sand.
Jisung looks closely at the charm once more, brings its little embroidered nose up against his, before sighing and setting it aside on his bedside table.
He forgets about it as he goes through the motions of his day, distracted by his classes and Chenle’s trumpeting laughter. He has a major paper due tomorrow, the history of non-Euclidean geometries, so as soon as his classes are over he holes himself up in a little coffee-shop, quite determined to do his work.
He orders an iced americano—the study aide Jaemin swears by—but for the most part it sits untouched beside his laptop. It sweats onto the table, condensation collecting and dripping onto the laminate. At a loss for how to finish a particular sentence, Jisung leans back in his chair and remembers he has the coffee.
It’s not the drink that captures his attention, but the puddle below it. The cafe lights bounce off the water—something about it mesmerizes him, the way it shimmers and bends the table’s faux granite.
The next thing Jisung knows he’s flat on the side of the road, cheek to tarmac. It’s night and the road is wet, glimmering off the light of one lonely streetlight. His muscles ache, his arms burn as he picks himself up off the ground. There’s little flecks of gravel embedded in his palms, in the soft leather jacket that’s too tight around his shoulders.
He can’t see much, but he’s at a bend of the road. Behind him, he discovers a motorcycle, smoking and crumpled, halfway buried in the wet dirt just off the concrete. He must have crashed, he thinks.
Suddenly light cuts through the mist, two furious beams rounding the bend. A car. It stops in front of Jisung more smoothly than any other vehicle he’s ever seen. Street light shines oil-slick off its black exterior, so dark it makes the road look grey. It’s a beautiful car.
The driver steps out, the click of a shoe the first sound Jisung really hears. They turn around and instantly, Jisung knows: it’s Renjun. He’s not the same as the boy from the schoolyard, but there’s no doubt in Jisung’s mind.
This Renjun is physically the same as the other Renjun in many ways—he’s smaller than Jisung, slender in every meaning of the word—but this Renjun’s hair is as glossy-dark as his car, his clean-cut suit and flat expression lending him an intimidating air. This Renjun is older, darker. Jisung’s tongue in heavy and dry in his mouth.
“Need some help?” Renjun asks, and his voice is different too, in a way that’s more than just his age. He leans on his car, one eyebrow raised.
Jisung looks back at his wreck of a motorcycle and can’t help the sheepish expression that crosses his face. “Y-Yeah, would be nice, I think.”
Renjun smiles. Or almost smiles, really, Jisung’s not sure if that tiny quirk of Renjun’s lip counts.
“You can put the motorcycle in the trunk,” Renjun says, mouth still in that half-smile. Jisung does as he’s told, the motorcycle surprisingly still warm under his hands. Renjun’s trunk is empty or seems to be in the dark, and the scrunched-up body of his bike just barely fits.
“My name’s Renjun,” Renjun tells him, circling back around to the driver’s side. “You are?”
“Jisung,” He slides into the seat and is met with smooth leather and the slightest smell of incense.
The car purrs to life under Renjun’s hands and they begin to drive. “Are you from the city?” Renjun asks. Jisung has no idea which city he’s talking about, but he knows the answer is yes. He nods, slowly, “Yeah.”
“It’s a good thing I like late-night drives, then. Who knows how long you’d have been out here alone otherwise?” Renjun shoots him a real smile this time, and it gives Jisung chills, how easily he can see schoolboy from his dream in this grown man’s face. Jisung nods again, and he notices then that the same fuzzy white charm he’d seen last night is hanging from the rearview mirror.
“I understand it, really,” Renjun says, “Coming out here for practice.” He drives with his eyes half on the road, half on Jisung’s face, but he maneuvers the car so smoothly it would be impossible to tell if Jisung wasn’t looking back.
“Practice?” Jisung asks. He doesn’t remember how he wound up crashed there, in this leather jacket, but he can’t come up with an explanation for what Renjun’s talking about, either.
Renjun’s brow knits, and he really does look away from the road this time. “You’re not a racer?”
Jisung isn’t, knows he isn’t. Does this mean Renjun is? “No, I just ride for fun.”
Renjun pulls a face at that, thoughtful and calculating but making no attempt to hide it. They round the final twist of the road, city lights coming in to view. “I can drop you off at my team’s garage, if you like,” Renjun offers, adjusting his grip on the wheel to something more comfortable now that the road ahead of them is one straight shot into town. “Can’t say what they’ll ask you to pay since you’re not part of the crew, but I guarantee they’ll leave your bike in the best shape it’s ever been. Better than when you rode it off the lot, even.”
There’s a little bit of a smirk in Renjun’s last sentence, an undercurrent of cruelty. It’s obvious to Jisung—both Jisungs, he thinks, the one that can ride a motorcycle and the one that remembers Renjun’s face from last night—that Renjun’s car is not a model that could be purchased just anywhere, and even then it’s had obvious modifications.
“That’s fine with me,” Jisung says, meeting the challenge but not giving in entirely, “I... don’t really have anywhere else to go.” He watches Renjun’s mouth pull tight at that.
“Yeah,” Renjun looks out his window, not making eye contact, “I get it.”
They pull into a nondescript looking garage, a large white ‘V’ painted on the front. “Here, you get your bike, I’ll talk to them.” Renjun slides out of the car, opening the garage with the press of a button.
Another man’s voice rings through the darkness, calm and clear in a way Renjun’s isn’t. He’s speaking a language Jisung doesn’t understand. He’s carrying his wreck of a motorcycle in both hands. Renjun replies, and Jisung takes a look at this stranger—he’s… shockingly handsome, actually, each of his features so distinct he looks more like a Disney prince than a real person, his black hair bedhead-messy in a way that might be intentional but probably isn’t.
“Ah,” Renjun finally looks back at Jisung, who’s feeling more out of place by the second. “This is Hendery, our main mechanic. He’ll take care of that for you.” Hendery smiles and waves at this, goofier than Jisung expected, and as immediately insecure as that face makes him feel, he knows his bike is in good hands.
Hendery takes the bike from Jisung into the garage with ease, leaving him out by the car with Renjun. “He’ll probably be done in just a few hours, give or take,” Renjun says, “Hendery’s a real wizard when it comes to this stuff. Dunno how he does it.” Jisung nods shallowly in reply.
“Uh,” Jisung starts, at the exact same time Renjun continues where he left off, “We could go—”
They make eye contact for the first time since Hendery’s left, and there’s something about their sudden awkwardness, Jisung’s sweaty hands and all that earlier cool out of Renjun’s voice that has them doubling over in laughter. It feels just like the Renjun he knows from last night, without all their pretenses and six-hundred-horsepower defenses.
“You go first,” Jisung says, still chuckling. Renjun gives him this little look, a glint in his eye and a crook of his eyebrow, but speaks anyway.
“I was saying, since Hendery will be done pretty soon, we could just… drive around, a little bit?” Although Renjun’s posture is totally relaxed leaning against the driver’s side door, there’s an earnestness in his words that Jisung is starting to adore.
“That sounds good to me.”
Renjun’s already got his key in the ignition. When Jisung slips into the passenger seat, Renjun says, “I’m surprised I haven’t met you before.”
They pull out of the lot, Jisung looking at Renjun in surprise. “I mean,” Renjun picks up, pulling the smoothest U-turn Jisung’s ever experienced before sending them gliding down the empty road, “There aren’t that many bikers around here.”
Renjun drives over the road like a ballerina moves across a stage—they’re practically floating, the tarmac beneath them turned into something as smooth as silicone. “I,” Jisung doesn’t know how to reply. Renjun turns onto a road leading them out of the city again, and hits the ignition.
“I don’t ride much.” By the time Jisung’s come up with his answer the city lights are already a blur behind them. Then his mouth starts moving before his brain can catch up. “I like—I think I usually go faster than I can handle.”
A wry little smile crosses Renjun’s face as he glances at Jisung. “Yeah, I see that for you. Me, too, though—it feels like—it’s just fun.” Neither of them are particularly poetic, but Jisung knows they’re understanding each other. He casts a look at this Renjun, older and leaner and still just as radiant as the boy in his dream last night. His thin hand slung over the steering wheel, the blip of each streetlight in a star caught in his dark eyes. He doesn’t quite fill out the blue pullover he’s wearing, but the space between the fabric and his flesh is somehow more tantalizing than a well-fitting shirt would be, Jisung thinks.
It’s alarming, how captivating he finds Renjun, no matter where he meets him.
Renjun catches him looking, slows the car to a legal speed. “Is there something on my face?” Renjun asks, play-angry. Jisung averts his gaze instantly, as if Renjun’s a fire and he’s getting smoke in his eyes. “No,” Jisung mumbles, shifting in his seat.
The car comes to a complete stop at the side of the abandoned road, so far from the city it’s just a collection of dim lights. Not that Jisung’s looking—there’s nowhere else he can look but Renjun’s face as the other boy reaches over the shift to touch him. One hand on the supple leather of Jisung’s seat, the other outstretched to cup his cheek.
When Renjun’s hand makes contact, Jisung feels like he’s being set on fire. That look in Renjun’s eyes, the soft, human heat of his hand melting into Jisung’s jaw, the way he can feel the ghost of Renjun’s breath against his lips as they lean closer, closer, closer until their faces are nearly touching.
“How have I never met you before?” Renjun whispers, the swell of his lip brushing against Jisung’s as he pronounces the final syllable.
Jisung cannot answer, because he is on fire—
He is on fire and feels like he’s being dragged backwards by his navel even faster than Renjun was driving, the world and Renjun—and Renjun!—streaking out into intangible bands of light, just the idea of what once was.
“Excuse me! Wake up!”
Someone is yelling, shrill and piercing, not a voice he recognizes. Jisung realizes his eyes are closed, his neck aches. There’s a hand repeatedly smacking at his shoulder.
“Excuuuuse me!”
The voice, again. It takes all of the effort in Jisung’s being to open his eyes, but he manages it. The coffeeshop appears before him shifted ninety degrees—did he fall asleep on the table?
“Excuse me, sir!” Jisung looks up to the voice. A boy in an apron, tan skin and hair dyed red. The nametag on his chest reads ‘Donghyuck’. He must be the barista. “Sir, we’re closed, you need to leave.” He sounds less annoyed now that Jisung’s eyes are open, but he’s still pointing one resolute finger at the door.
He dips his head in a quick apology and scrambles to grab all his things: his laptop, his notebook, the americano with all its ice melted. Jisung makes to leave when Donghyuck’s voice stops him, “Wait!”
“I think you dropped this,” he tells Jisung, a set of car keys in his hand. Jisung cannot drive, he does not own a car, but something about the keys—the color of the leather keychain, its ink-slick sheen—make him ache. They’re pulling at a memory he can’t recall, his mind foggy with the vaguest inklings of a nighttime drive.
“Um, thanks,” Jisung grabs the keys from Donghyuck and holds onto them so tightly the keys must be imprinting themselves into his palm. He’ll just turn them into the police, or something, hope that their rightful owner can find them.
As Jisung leaves the cafe, his lips are tingling.
It takes him the rest of the night to finish the paper, hyperbolas and relative distances swimming in his mind until the sun rises again. He just barely manages to email it to his professor before the eight AM deadline, but once he hits send all the tension leaves his body.
He collapses on his bed, falling into a dreamless sleep.
“Jisungie,” Jaemin’s voice is right in his ear, cooing and saccharine. Already more awake than he wants to be, Jisung swats his hand back to where Jaemin’s face must be. “Leave me ‘lone,” he grumbles, rolling to lay on his other side, “Wanna sleep.”
“You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours already, Jisungie.” Jaemin always sounds like he’s a cartoon character, coy and just a little scolding, but the way he rubs Jisung’s back is gentle. “You’re going to waste your entire weekend if I let you keep going.”
The thing is, Jisung knows he’s right. Not that Jaemin is usually wrong about Jisung—it would be hard not to know your childhood friend-turned-roommate well—but Jisung is exhausted, like he’s been doing more than shuffling from their apartment to class or the library and back again.
Maybe he’s been sleepwalking, or something.
“Fine,” he groans after a few more minutes of Jaemin’s near-parental attention. “I’ll get up.”
While he does give in to Jaemin’s desires and spends the rest of the day awake, he wastes it away lounging around inside. It’s outstandingly normal, and the rest of his week follows suit. He’s just going through the motions—and it’s not bad, but every time he casts a look at his bedside table and sees that white character charm and the keys he never did turn in behind his dirty dishes and phone charger he feels the strangest tug in his chest, a prickling on his skin.
He’s ruminating on that feeling when he’s walking to class one day, taking the stairs down from his and Jaemin’s fourth-floor apartment because he’s been feeling a little too cooped up lately. He’s not looking where he’s going as he takes the last few steps to the second floor, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, trying to figure out why he feels like he’s forgetting something.
Jisung thinks he’s almost remembered it—something from his childhood? The feeling of someone’s hand on his skin?—when he misses the penultimate step, sending him tumbling down. Instinctually, he closes his eyes and braces for impact.
But instead of landing on the hard concrete of the stairwell floor, he finds that he’s just tripped over the threshold of a large door, momentum knocking him into the wheelchair and its occupant in front of him.
“Ah! Sorry!” The words fly out of Jisung’s mouth instinctively, and just as naturally his hands come to rest on the wheelchair’s handles. His messenger bag is no longer slung over his shoulder, and he’s not wearing his old grey hoodie anymore. Instead, he’s in pale blue scrubs, a plain lanyard around his neck.
“It’s okay,” the boy in the wheelchair says, turning his head back slightly to look at Jisung with a smirk. “Hardly felt it.”
Instantly, Jisung remembers—it’s Renjun, again, but he looks smaller than Jisung knows he should be. Frailier, somehow. A small but well-maintained garden courtyard lies ahead through the door, sunlight just barely beginning to peek over the edge of one of the buildings bounding it in.
“Let’s go there,” Renjun suggests, pointing to a bench in one of the growing patches of light. Jisung nods, pushing Renjun forward as gently as he can over the cobblestone sidewalk. He sits on the edge of the bench, and Renjun is beside him, soaking up the sun.
Now that Jisung can see him from the front, he notices exactly how thin Renjun’s limbs are, the skin covering them not much better, how his chest hardly rises when he breathes. It dawns on Jisung too late that Renjun is a patient, and Jisung is his nurse.
Suddenly, he feels sick, a rising nausea at the uncertainty of Renjun’s existence and the realization that he is responsible for it. But he is responsible for it, so he pushes it down and breathes in the garden air, tinged with something more medicinal than just the sprouting herbs.
Neither of them says anything for a long time. Renjun’s gaze is tilted skyward, but Jisung watches Renjun. Quite obviously, really, leaving him to wonder if this is, maybe, normal for this version of the two of them.
Every time this happens, every time he sees Renjun again, he remembers everything: that first dream with their childhood hands, Renjun’s hands, on the steering wheel, on Jisung’s cheek—and more than anything the remarkable fullness he feels every time they make eye contact, like fire and water and pain and soothing all at once, something he’s never felt in his real life.
His real life. Now, Jisung knows that inevitably, somehow, he will be sucked back into forgetting, back into his body which must now be collapsed somewhere in the stairwell. This time, he resolves to do something about it. How, he’s not sure, but the stuffed animal, the car keys, they’ve come with him. Perhaps he can write something on his hand, a note to himself. There’s no way this isn’t real, Jisung thinks, as his gaze traces Renjun’s profile what must be the tenth time.
This Renjun seems younger than the one that kissed him in his car, but has an air of maturity that makes Jisung feel childlike. His brown hair is cut short and rough, not meant to be stylish. The hollows of his cheeks are more pronounced, the skin of his lips chewed up. When Renjun finally looks at him, though, there’s something Jisung can’t help but call contentment in his eyes, a warmth that hadn’t been there before.
Jisung is still trying to understand Renjun, spread across different consciousnesses and timelines, but this Renjun knows Jisung and it’s visible in his eyes.
“I’m so lucky, aren’t I?” Renjun’s voice trills just on this side of dramatic, a spark bringing the body of a puppet to life. “I have the best nurse in the whole hospital spending his precious fifteen minutes of break time with me.” Just as there’s a new warmth in this Renjun, the most delicious affection, there’s bitterness too. He says the words like they’re some dark joke, but Jisung doesn’t get it.
At his blank expression, Renjun shakes his head with a close-lipped smile before breaking his gaze and leaning as close to Jisung as he can. His hands find their way into Jisung’s lap, his cheek onto his shoulder. Renjun’s palms are clammy, but Jisung holds them anyway, plays with his fingers and the bracelets around his wrists.
They’re quiet for a long time again. Somewhere far away, someone’s car alarm goes off.
“I feel like I could tell you anything,” Renjun says, much more softly than before. It’s hardly more than a whisper, the feeling of fresh cotton as a sound. Jisung can feel the heat of Renjun’s face against his shoulder, the movement of his jaw as each word is released into the air. “I think I’ve known you forever, you know. I’m serious.”
Jisung opens his mouth to respond, but he’s not sure what to say. Yes , I have you in every world except my own? I am not your Jisung, but I amJisung, and you’re right? I really hope so, I’ve never felt the way I do with you?
“I—” He finally thinks he’s come up with a response, but suddenly Renjun is doubled over, his small body wracked with violent coughs. All Jisung can hear is the hack hack hack coming from Renjun like an engine failing to start, all he can see is the way his back flinches with every inhale. In an instant both his hands are on Renjun’s chair again and he’s almost running as he pushes Renjun back instead. The wheels are almost flying over the cobblestone, outright panic clouding all of Jisung’s thoughts.
They cross the threshold again, bright indoor lights such an assault on Jisung’s eyes he has to shut them tight, and!
And when he opens them again he’s face-down on the concrete floor. God, his whole body aches, right down to what feels like his heart. The narrow side of his left arm, where he’d caught himself, felt a little wet. “Shit,” Jisung hisses, picking himself up gingerly.
He manages to rise to a sitting position, but his ankle is downright throbbing. It’s all he can focus on for a moment, squinting through the pain. Once he’s taken stock of all his body parts and his belongings—he’s not seriously injured and his laptop is intact, thankfully—he notices something he must have landed on.
It’s a purple bracelet, like the kind handed out at an amusement park, but the clasping mechanism is broken, turning it into little more than a narrow slip of paper. There’s nothing else identifying about it than the white block-letters spelling out ‘DNR’. Jisung doesn’t know what it means, so he figures it’s just some trash someone left after attending a concert, or something.
He still doesn’t feel ready to move, though, so he shoots a text to Chenle asking him to cover notes from today’s lecture and tell Mark why he can’t make it, and decides to ruminate on how he’s going to get back into his apartment.
Just as he’s getting a little anxious about the consequences of just getting up and walking, he hears the telltale swoosh of the stairwell door opening. He looks right into the face of his savior, a handsome, stockily built boy who looks entirely surprised at the sight of Jisung. He must be their cute neighbor Jaemin’s always going on about—the bleach-blond hair and workout clothes certainly match his descriptions.
“Are you... okay?” The boy asks, paused in the doorway.
“Uh,” Jisung looks down at himself, his scraped arm and slowly-swelling ankle, “Not really? I fell down the stairs. Could you, um, try waking up my roommate? Like bang on the door, or something? I tried calling him but—”
The boy shakes his head, makes his way over. “Nonsense, lemme help you up first. I’m Jeno, by the way, nice to meet you.” Jeno is as strong as he looks, picking Jisung up with relative ease. Jeno sets him down gently, but leaves Jisung’s left arm over his shoulder so he can act as a crutch.
“What floor do you live on?” Jeno asks as he shoots Jisung a smile, and okay, he can kind of see where Jaemin was coming from.
“Uh, I’m in 408. Park Jisung, nice to meet you too,” He winces. Testing out his ankle was not a good idea.
Jeno nods, and helps Jisung to the elevator and his apartment door. “There we go!” He says, and Jisung can’t help but meet his grin with a smile of his own. “Thank you so much, dude,” Jisung replies, fishing for his keys in his bag. Jeno shrugs, still smiling, but his eyes flicker to the door number. “No problem, seriously. Can I ask, though? Are you, uh, Na Jaemin’s roommate?”
“I am,” Jisung can’t help it if the smile on his face turns from genuine to a little devilish—Jeno won’t know the difference, anyway. “Want me to put you in touch?”
A faint blush appears on Jeno’s cheeks, and he ducks his head in a way that reminds Jisung of a dog being scolded. “I’ll give you his number, don’t worry,” Jisung says with a chortle.
Jeno looks up through his bangs, and it’s adorable. “Thank you,” he replies in a shy whisper.
When Jisung slams the apartment door behind him, leaning on their furniture to make his way through the room, his first stop is Jaemin’s bedroom.
“You’ll never guess who I just ran into,” he says to Jaemin’s confused face, only just peeking out of the covers. The longer he holds his smirk, though, waiting for Jaemin’s pre-caffeine brain to understand what’s going on, the more he feels like he’s forgetting something.
He knows he felt it before falling on the stairs this morning, except now the feeling is stronger, and it only grows over the following weeks. Jaemin is still working up the confidence to meet the boy from the stairs in person, Chenle is as consistently vivacious as ever, but as time passes Jisung falls into a slump, constantly plagued by an itch under his skin, a desperation in the back of his mind.
It’s driving him crazy, and nothing seems to help. His grades are slipping, he can’t find sleep—even food doesn’t taste as good as it used to—and he can’t figure out why.
“Jisung,” Chenle says, shaking him out of his daze, “you there?”
They’re in one of the music labs at the university, Jisung keeping Chenle company as the older works on his composition project. He’s working on his own homework—or was, at this point.
“Oh, shit, sorry, Chenle—I just, uh, zoned out for a second there. What’s up?” Jisung lets a little apology leak into his voice, even though he feels more disgruntled from being jolted back to the present than anything else.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Chenle tells him, eyes narrowed, “so if anyone comes in and claims it’s their turn to use the room, I need you to tell them to fuck off directly and that it’s booked until seven, got it?”
Jisung nods, just as play-serious as Chenle. “Of course,” he responds. Chenle’s dedication to being so reliably the same is grounding, at least.
“And,” now Chenle pauses, half-risen, all his previous aggression at the rest of the university’s music majors evaporated, “could you listen to the track I was working on? I know you’re gonna say you’re not qualified, or whatever, but just give it a listen and let me know if it’s good? Or, like,” he looks away, hunting for the words, “how it makes you feel, I guess.”
Jisung nods his agreement, and instantly Chenle is out the door. He turns to the computer monitor, too-bright in the dim room even though Chenle’s set the production software to night mode. The play button isn’t hard to find, so Jisung slips Chenle’s professional-grade headphones over his ears and starts the music.
At first it’s just soaring and sweeping strings and synths—Jisung vaguely remembers Chenle geeking out over the “Romantic Period”, which is probably classical music - but a quirky, punchy percussion line sets in quick. It sounds like it could be the opening to a movie: a wide shot of the sea and sky before the camera zooms in on its unlikely protagonist. He’s getting into the beat, able to visualize more and more of Chenle’s soundscape, when the singing starts.
The voice—it’s not Chenle’s, that much he’s sure of. But he knows it. He’s certain of this, because there is no other explanation for the way it makes Jisung feel, the way it seems to enter directly into his mind and banish the weeks of built-up fog.
Like turning on the light in a dark room, almost.
Subconsciously, Jisung finds himself leaning towards the monitor, as if that will bring him closer to the source of the sound.
Renjun.
The name appears in his mind and the realization hits Jisung with more force than a car crash.
The voice is Renjun’s.
His pant leg is getting wet.
Jisung is balancing over a bathtub, one foot on either side of the tub. Renjun is underneath him, half-submerged in the water. This Renjun, too, is different from the ones before. He’s wearing just a white button-up, so saturated with water it’s sticking translucent to his skin, but he has on a full face of makeup. Everything that Jisung had noticed about Renjun before—a vulpine nose, the delicate jut of his shoulder, his lips two raspberries plush and pursed—is amplified. Stupidly, instantly, Jisung wants to topple from his precarious standing to reach out and touch, to run his fingers along the delicate skin under Renjun’s eyes, to feel along his wrists for a pulse.
He almost does, the urge is so strong. But this Renjun is looking up at him with slitted eyes and there’s a hefty, fancy camera in his hand and Jisung knows he’s really not supposed to.
He lifts the viewfinder to his eye, focuses on the light reflecting—emanating—from Renjun. He swears they make eye contact, saves the picture not only on the SD card but in his mind.
This time. This time, he won’t forget.
Renjun shifts in the tub, switches from staring at Jisung’s lens straight on to relax on his side, clearly showing off his distinctive side profile. He snaps a few more pictures of Renjun like that, surprised at the muscle memory in his fingers, before carefully hopping off the bathtub to stand on solid ground again.
It’s only then that he notices the whole setup around them, all the people milling about. Someone directs Jisung to a monitor flicking through the photographs he’s just taken, while another instantly drapes a thin towel over Renjun.
He watches the other boy follow the person who’d brought the towel, notices the lines of his body are stronger, in this reality, but he’s drawn in on himself, missing the easy confidence he hadn’t realized he associated with Renjun until it was gone. The boy himself is about to leave, actually, and Jisung doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he calls across the set, “Renjun!”
Renjun turns around, confused more than anything. He looks up at his accompaniment as if silently asking for permission before walking around the tub, back towards Jisung. “Yes, photographer?” His voice is coolly professional, so far removed from every way Renjun’s spoken to him before—with childish glee, reckless nerve, quiet sincerity—that as much as Jisung is growing to understand their situation, it hurts.
“Do you,” Jisung scrambles for a reason, “Don’t you want to pick your final photos?”
Renjun looks up at him, first in surprise and then into a wry little Renjun expression. There’s a joke here, and Jisung’s not getting it. “Isn’t that your job, or something?”
He does his best to play it casual, shrugs his shoulders with maybe more force than he really needs to, “They’re pictures of you, though.”
Jisung’s logic seems to take Renjun more by surprise than his initial reason for calling him over here. There’s a spark there—he catches it, just barely—of the Renjun he’s come to know through all these dreams. The person, not the cold, beautiful mannequin that’s been in front of him thus far. It’s welcome surprise, not disgust.
“So wouldn’t I be the most likely to get caught up in my own misperceptions of my self-image and end up choosing the worst pictures?” Renjun recovers fast and gets snarky faster, but his eyes have left Jisung’s face to examine the carousel of photographs instead.
While Jisung’s a little more nervous about making the wrong move in front of this version of Renjun, his reply still comes easily, “Maybe to some people… but I think if you think it’s the best picture of you, then it has to be the best. We’re seeing you as you see yourself, so it’s… truer, I guess?”
Renjun’s gaze flits from the blown-up photo of his face underwater to Jisung’s still-open mouth. “Interesting thought, Mister Photographer. Wish they hired people like you more often.” He says the last bit under his breath, words thrown so only Jisung can hear them. It’s not clear who the “they” in this situation is, either—whether Renjun is some kind of other celebrity or just a model has yet to be seen—but already Jisung’s not liking it.
“Call me Jisung, please,” He says instead, nodding along at Renjun’s choice for the final cut. It’s not the one Jisung would have picked, that’s for sure. Renjun looks tougher, just a little, but details like the layers of dark in Renjun’s eyes stand out.
Renjun smirks up at him, cocky but charming, he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Okay, then, Jisung,” he shuffles in closer, until Jisung can feel the cold-damp of the towel around his shoulders, “you can call me Renjun.” He pulls a phone out of the small bag he’s carrying in his hands and offers it to Jisung in the most casual way possible, but his voice hints at a double meaning. “I look forward to working with you again.”
Jisung enters his contact information almost on autopilot; he knows the number he’s typing in here isn’t the same as it is where he shares an apartment with Jaemin, but he also knows that this is the correct number right now. “You too,” Jisung says with a closed-mouth smile, returning the phone to Renjun with both hands.
And then Renjun leaves, rubbing at his head with the towel, as if none of that had happened at all. Someone calls out Jisung’s name—or not quite, because they say, “Photographer Park!” but it gets his attention regardless—and another boy slips into the bathtub, waiting for Jisung to take his photograph.
There are eight of them in total, Jisung learns, in the idol group called WayV. Their logo is a white ‘V’ that Jisung swears he’s seen before, Renjun is the second youngest and one of their vocalists. Jisung also learns that he himself is a bit of a picture-taking prodigy, technically still in art school but the special protege of legendary photographer Johnny Suh. The thought sits uneasily across his mind, but it must be true: when he has the camera in his hands he feels a peace not unlike the mindless zen he finds in fractals and elliptic geometry in his other life. It comes automatically to this body of his, when to snap the shutter and how to angle the lens.
He expects to snap back to that world and lose the touch he has on the camera when the boys of WayV shuffle back through the set altogether to say goodbye and thank everyone for working with them—Renjun gives him this conspiratorial little smile, and he feels badly about how he’ll have to disappoint this brilliant, sharp version of the boy when he returns to his own life as a university student—
But it doesn’t happen. Jisung never feels that tell-tale yank in his gut, the sudden emptiness when he’s about to wake up from one of these dreams again.
WayV, Renjun included, take off, and Jisung is still here—Jisung, the great photographer, not Jisung the struggling math major, not Jisung as he’s supposed to be.
He doesn’t snap back when his body walks itself home. He doesn’t snap back as he absent-mindedly shovels microwaved rice and kimchi out of the fridge into his mouth in an apartment too large and too lonely for one boy alone.
He doesn’t snap back even when, after almost two weeks of posturing as this Jisung he’s not, going to classes he hardly understands and laughing with Donghyuck and Mark, his best friends he knows nothing about, Renjun texts him.
He knows it’s Renjun because he’d saved his number as soon as he’d gotten the text from when they met, but he can’t bring himself to open it. As bizarre and painful as these past few days had been, in this universe he knows Renjun. He can remember him, the shape of his smile, the way the smell of the water had stuck to his skin. If he opens the message, if he is forced to leave, then he loses that memory—he loses Renjun.
Jisung spends nearly thirty minutes staring at that notification in the library, too afraid to make a move in either direction.
It's only when someone else brushes up beside him, a backpack against his shoulder, that he jerks out of his daze. "D'you mind?" They ask, chewing as they speak, already plopping their textbooks down in front of the seat besides Jisung's.
"Ah, no, no, you're fine," Jisung says, shutting his phone off and hurrying to move his own sprawl of photography books out of the way. He looks up, then, and can't help the surprise that takes over his face. It's Chenle, though admittedly a little bit different. This Chenle has neon orange hair and a frown on his face, cookbooks and sculpture manuals in his hands. He has no idea who Jisung is. It makes sense, Jisung figures—he has no clue who Donghyuck and Mark are, and he's a complete stranger to his own best friend.
"Thanks," Chenle says gruffly, dropping the final book in front of his space on the desk before slumping over the pile. He's clearly trying to study by osmosis. "Tough week?" Jisung asks, skimming over the titles of the books Chenle's resting his head on, but the titles are too varied—cinematic lighting to pastries to polymer clay—for him to come to a conclusion. Chenle rolls over, face pressing against the titles, to look back at Jisung.
"You could say so," he drawls, his Korean more accented than Jisung is used to. Things are different here, after all. Seeing his best friend who is not his best friend distracts him, Renjun's text message and his dilemma pushed to the back of his mind.
"What do you study?" Jisung asks, shifting so he's leaned just a little closer to Chenle. The other boy smirks, a little dark and not quite the expression Jisung would have predicted.
"I'm studying sculpture, but specifically making fake food," Chenle says, but that doesn't clear anything up, as far as Jisung is concerned. He figures his face says as much, because not sooner than Chenle has finished speaking does he continue, "Like, designing fake food, for TV shows, movies, things like that. It's not really... something common. I just thought it would be fun to learn about!" As Chenle speaks, his volume increases, before dropping down to a conspiratorial whisper, "but it's not."
Jisung can't help the laugh that breaks out, disturbing the silence of the library more than they already have been. "That's cool, though! I would never have thought something like even exists." Chenle nods, play-cocky.
"What about you?" Chenle asks, "I don't wanna think about anything vaguely related to my homework anymore."
This, Jisung doesn't know how to answer. "I..." he starts. The Jisung he is now is a photographer, that's for sure. A good photographer. Will bringing up his name and what he does change his relationship with Chenle? Or, perhaps it would be better if he acts like he's the same person he is with his own Chenle, the Chenle he's actually friends with.
In the time it's taking for him to think of a response, Chenle has leaned over and started reading Jisung's notes, picked up his camera bag. "You a photography major?" He asks.
"Uh, yeah," Jisung replies. "A second year. My name's Park Jisung, by the way."
"Zhong Chenle, and that's so cool, dude. I bet your Insta is like, the prettiest ever." Chenle's chirping is reassuring. Regardless of whether they're studying math and music or photography and food science, he and Chenle can be friends. Jisung decides, then and there, to stop worrying about the potential differences between what he knows and what might be true in this world, and just do what he wants.
"Nah, it's actually pretty ugly," he admits, reaching for his phone subconsciously, "See—"
He freezes, Renjun's text staring up at him.
"What's wrong?" Chenle asks, gaze unsubtly flickering down to Jisung's phone screen.
"Can I—can I ask you something?" Since he's come to his decision, Jisung reasons with himself, he should just act the way he would with his Chenle, right? The words are already halfway out of his mouth, anyway.
"So there's this... this person, okay, and I think I really like them," He starts talking and then it's like he can't stop, months of these thoughts he's been repressing rising to the surface to meet Chenle's patient, friendly face. "I think I really like them, like, a lot—like, I have dreams about h- about them?" Chenle nods, not saying anything.
"But they... don't really know me, or like, they don't... uh," Jisung scrambles for a way to explain the situation he's in without sounding absolutely insane. 'I think I'm traveling through different worlds in my dreams because I'm meant to meet him,' doesn't exactly sound... sound.
"They don't pay you as much attention as you do them, I got you," Chenle, is, as always, his saviour.
"Right! Right. And I don't want to change things because I'm scared of messing it up and not being able to go back to where I—where we were before, but at the same time I feel like doing something is the only real option I have, I guess," Jisung finishes softly. It's difficult to speak when his mouth seems to have a rapid-fire mind of his own while keeping all the things that might just be dreams or a glitch in the simulation out of it. He's just now found Chenle again—he doesn't want to lose him.
The other boy is quiet for a long moment, one hand on his chin in a pose of exaggerated thought.
"You said," Chenle speaks slowly, like Jisung knows he does when he's serious, "you feel like doing something is your only option."
Jisung nods in time with Chenle's words.
"So do something," Chenle's face screws up, then, because he can't believe Jisung has missed such an obvious conclusion. "Easy-peasy, Park Jisung."
Jisung almost wants to protest, but his gaze just falls to his blacked-out phone screen, where Renjun's unopened text message is lurking just beneath the surface, and he realizes Chenle is right. Even if he—the Jisung who's already friends with Chenle—is forced to forget Renjun, the least he can do is make sure that this Jisung and this Renjun are able to know each other.
Chenle snatches up Jisung's phone and drops it in his lap. "You're taking too long. Text them right now."
Jisung looks up at Chenle through his bangs, but he's only met with Chenle's surefire resolve.
“Okay, okay,” Jisung breathes out, opening his phone and clicking on the notification for Renjun’s texts.
They’re not anything groundbreaking. It just says, ‘hey what’s up’ and ‘you seem cool, i wanna get to know you’. Renjun isn’t the type to beat around the bush, Jisung has figured this out by now, but it doesn’t make it any less intimidating to respond to.
“You’re not typing,” Chenle’s voice comes from somewhere vaguely beside him.
"I know," Jisung hisses, staring down at the brightness of his screen. "I just don't know what to say."
Chenle hums, then grabs the phone out of Jisung's hands. 'i want to get to know you too' Jisung watches him type, 'when are you busy?' and hit send.
"Like I said, Jisung Park," Chenle drops the phone back into his lap with more drama than is really necessary, "Easy-peasy."
Jisung can't help the relieved smile that spreads across his face, partially because he almost feels like he's back as himself hanging out with Chenle as usual, and partially because it's looking like he'll get to see Renjun again.
He checks the time just before he shuts his phone off again, and is shocked to find that it's well into the evening. In this world he has to take the train from his over-large apartment to school, and there's only a few more running this late at night.
"Thank you, Chenle," He says as he's backing up, "I gotta go but let's talk again soon, for real."
Renjun replies when he's got three stops until he's home. The train is almost empty, well-lit and clean, but the sky outside is so dark that Jisung's screen reflects against the window even with the brightness down low.
'what about now?' Renjun has responded, with a little winky emoji. Jisung almost sends a response turning him down—it's so late, after all—but then he remembers that Renjun seems to be the whole reason he's here. And he does really want to see him again.
'where' is all he types back.
Renjun’s reply is instantaneous, just an address. When Jisung clicks on it, it’s thirty minutes away—back towards the city centre—but he can get off at the next stop and just turn around.
‘be there in thirty’ he sends, and hops out of the train to wait for the next one.
On the train back his phone screen lights up with one more message from Renjun: ‘i can’t wait’.
It’s the longest thirty minutes Jisung has ever experienced, even as he watches the city lights grow closer and closer in the window. His hands sweat the whole time, and memories of Renjuns past flit in and out of his mind. The reality is that he doesn't really know this boy, not more than a childhood hangout, a single kiss, and a coughed-up promise could teach him, but at the same time—there's nowhere else in this world Jisung would rather be right now. Being home with Jaemin and Chenle would be nice too, but Jisung knows that if there was a Renjun in his life with them he wouldn't ever want to leave.
It's nearly instinctual, he realizes, the way he wants to be close to Renjun. Maybe it's pheromones or something biological, his chemical soulmate, but Jisung thinks it's more than that. There is no scientific explanation for his current predicament, after all. Being with Renjun is easy. That's it. He makes Jisung nervous in the best way possible. He's never scared of saying the wrong thing, but rather dizzyingly, nauseatingly excited at the possibility of saying the right one.
Their conversation about space travel and aliens on the playground, Renjun's theories even more extreme than Jisung's personal flights of fancy. The smell of leather and the ocean trapped in Renjun's car seats, his ease of accepting Jisung, beaten and battered, off the highway. The soft warmth of Renjun's breath landing on his wrists, of his cheek against Jisung's shoulder, as he spoke to life exactly what he felt, no shame or fear in sight.
The train pulls into his stop. He's the first one out of the car, walks as fast as he can out of the station. The cool night air smooths across Jisung's skin as he emerges from the subway. The park where they're meant to meet is barely in sight, tucked behind an elementary school—locked up for the night—and a luxury car showroom. This isn't a part of town Jisung knows well, too pricy for his college student wallet.
Someone is sitting on the bench in front of the small playground, baseball cap pulled low over their face and an oversized button-up ballooning out around them.
"Renjun?" Jisung whispers as he approaches, for some reason afraid of disturbing the silence of the night.
The person looks up, eyes meeting Jisung's for just a moment. Even through the shadows and behind a facemask pulled high, Jisung would recognize those eyes anywhere. "Hi," Renjun replies, just as quietly. He scoots over on the bench, making room for Jisung to sit beside him. "Let's do this again."
He turns towards Jisung and pulls his mask down to his chin. “I’m Huang Renjun, but you can call me Injun. I’m from China, but I’m Korean. And,” he glances around, making sure they’re alone, “I’m a singer, but… that’s not what we’re talking about right now. Now, your turn.” He opens his hand, gesturing for Jisung to start. Jisung wants to hold it, but he doesn’t.
“Um,” he has to look away from Renjun to gather his words, “I’m Park Jisung, I’m a photography student, I dance for fun, and, uh.” Suddenly the words that fragile Renjun said to him in the hospital courtyard come back to him. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
This Renjun is an idol. This Renjun is probably used to this. Jisung feels his confidence begin to crumble, because if there’s anything his long, long stay in this world is telling him it’s that this Renjun isn’t quite like the rest.
“I was serious, you know,” Renjun says, reaching out just enough that the tips of his fingers ghost against Jisung’s arm, bringing his gaze away from the abandoned playground. Renjun is looking at him, the whites of his eyes shining in the night, at the same time cautious and entirely open. "I do actually want to get to know you—I don't know what it is but..." This time Renjun is the one trailing off and staring into space, but he reigns himself back in, more controlled than Jisung had been, "I think we'll get along."
Jisung nods slowly. It's on the tip of his tongue, the confession of all his dreams and all the places he's been, but this is the one thing he's too scared to bring up.
"Anyway," Renjun keeps talking in Jisung's silence, "I don't have that much free time, now or in general, but I am sick and tired of spending it locked up in my dorm room. You're a local, right?"
Jisung nods again. He does know this city, his world or not.
"Then show me around. I hardly know anything past like five blocks of here," Renjun stands as he speaks, offering a hand to Jisung to help him up. Jisung takes it, and as much as he doesn't want to admit it, there's a large part of him that expects something to happen when their hands touch.
Nothing does, though, just the smooth-soft feeling of skin on skin for a moment before Renjun pulls his hand away.
"Are you hungry?" Jisung asks, trying to figure out what they can do around here. Most of what he knows is across the river, and he'd just be redoing the journey he made to get over here.
"Always," Renjun laughs, swinging his arms as he walks. It's endearing, a little at odds with the cool, witty idol Jisung's become accustomed to. The streets are empty this late at night, the lampposts their only company.
He's thinking of a little hole-in-the-wall snack spot he hasn't been back to since he switched dance studios. It's a long walk from the park they met at, but it's the closest and quietest place he knows in the area.
They walk in silence for a while, Jisung taking stock of Renjun as they move side by side. He's still smaller than Jisung, but he's the tallest he has been. He walks briskly, but hunched over himself, shadowing his face.
Jisung wonders if Renjun is thinking the same things about him.
This Renjun is the most confusing, the most unreadable, and somehow the most entrancing at the same time. Unlike the others, who Jisung could read easily, this Renjun still has secrets in his depths, so much for Jisung to uncover.
"What are you thinking about?" Jisung asks quietly. He's surprised to find how closely he and Renjun are walking when he looks to his side, their shoulders almost brushing.
"Honestly?" Renjun replies, looking back at him.
"Uh, yeah," Jisung can't help the teasing that leaks into his voice, "why not?"
Renjun pouts at him - or Jisung thinks he does, it's hard to tell through his facemask and with the shadow of his cap hanging low on his face. As if reading his mind, Renjun pulls the mask down to his chin again.
"I wasn't really thinking about anything. Just how bad it would be if someone saw me out here tonight, I guess. And that I haven't walked anywhere in a long time," Renjun's words come out faster than Jisung expected, "Not that that's a bad thing."
"Yeah," Jisung hums. What great conversation he's making. "It's nice to walk, sometimes. I—" He's about to start talking about math and how he finally cracked the proof for that neutral geometry assignment on a long walk at night, not unlike this, when he catches himself. Okay, Jisung, he thinks, don't fuck it up for yourself. "When I'm having a hard time coming up with, uh, like,"
He blanks. Renjun smirks, as if he can tell Jisung is lying to his face. "Shoot ideas?" He offers, one eyebrow raised.
"Um, yeah, like ideas for what kind of pictures I want to take," He tries to save himself, but it feels like it's too late, "I like to go on walks at night, like this."
Renjun hums in response, that calculating gaze of his swinging out somewhere over Jisung's shoulder before returning to his face. "What's your favorite shoot you've ever done?"
This he can answer.
“Yours,” he answers immediately. It’s technically true, after all—the photoshoot with WayV and Renjun is the only one he’s ever done.
Renjun scoffs out loud. “No way. You were standing on the edges of a bathtub getting your socks wet the entire time.”
He has a point, Jisung has to admit, but it’s not like he knows what other shoots this Jisung has done in detail. “Maybe you’re just that good of a model,” he replies, just as cheeky.
“Yeah, I know,” Renjun’s laying it on thick now, actually strikes a pose in the middle of the street. Jisung can’t help the laugh that springs up. Renjun’s kept his face entirely serious. “Vogue wishes they could book me,” Renjun says as he changes to an even more dramatic pose.
Jisung nods his head, sarcastic smile pinned to his face, “You’re the best model in the world, easy.”
Renjun breaks his pose then, collapsing into laughter against Jisung’s side.
He can’t help it if he tenses up, then, because Renjun’s breath is warm and damp against his back. “After all that hard work... I need... food,” Jisung can just hear the exaggerated exhaustion in his voice.
“We’re almost there, c’mon,” Jisung replies as he gently pushes Renjun to stand on his own feed. It comes out much softer than he intended, a sigh more than anything else. It makes his actions wooden, a little awkward, especially since Renjun is still resolutely leaning on him.
“Lead the way,” Renjun says. He’s quite comfortable, his head against Jisung’s shoulder, so they walk like that, still touching, until they reach the restaurant.
It’s just as Jisung remembered it, a little dingy—empty, at this time of night—but homey. Renjun perks up once Jisung opens the door, obviously entranced by the smell of cooking.
They settle at a table for two against the wall, Renjun’s back to the door. “I’ve never been here before,” he says as they sit down, “Whatever you recommend is fine.”
He orders them two pancakes and a bottle of makgeolli to split.
“I hope that’s okay?” Jisung asks as he turns back to Renjun, whose eyes are smiling just the tiniest bit. Renjun nods as much as he can with his head resting on his crossed arms.
“I don’t think I planned this out very well,” he says, looking up at Jisung.
“What do you mean?” Jisung busies himself with pouring out cups of makgeolli for the two of them.
“I mean that I called you out here in the middle of the night when we’re both a little sleepy and I don’t even remember how to talk to people, it feels like,” Renjun says, taking his cup of water gratefully, “I haven’t met someone new in a long time.”
“It’s okay,” Jisung replies, “I’ll just be your practice buddy for talking. Hey, maybe you’ll get so charming you can talk our lizard overlords into revealing themselves.”
Renjun snorts. “Good plan, except I don’t think I’m ever gonna get close enough to one of them to pull it off.”
Jisung shrugs, tone just on this side of serious, despite what they’re talking about. “Hey now, you’re a celebrity… actually, you might want to be wary of your groupmates, now that I think about it.” Renjun laughs at that, and Jisung continues, “But I’m serious, if you ever want to talk to a stranger, I’m here.”
They both start giggling at that—it’s not funny at all, really, but it’s late and the world is a little hazy—and they end up sitting in that restaurant for a while longer, pancakes finished and cups drained.
Jisung leaves with a plan to meet up again soon and Renjun’s smile tucked into the back of his mind.
He still doesn’t go back to his world, but instead stays here, as Jisung the photographer, until he’s mastered the art of developing film, made good friends with Chenle again, and started meeting up with Renjun as much as the other boy’s busy schedule allows.
Jaemin, their apartment, and learning about great circle geometry feel almost like a dream now, a movie he watched once as a child. And yet Jisung knows that this world is not his place, as sweet as his life here is. It’s a constant discomfort he’s become accustomed to, like the tag on a poorly-made t-shirt.
But it’s not like he’s figured out how to leave, so he’s stuck here.
Instead, he’s just decided to make the best of it, live life as normally as he can. He’s meeting up with Renjun again, for a night in. It’s become increasingly common between the two of them, because as much as Renjun complains about feeling cooped up by his idol lifestyle, he often doesn’t have the energy or time to do much. Jisung’s come to love it, too, because having Renjun over is one of the few times his massive, empty apartment doesn’t feel like it’s mocking him.
Renjun’s at the door on the dot, baggy sweatshirt and track pants signaling he’s just come from dance practice. “I’m using your shower,” is the first thing he says, slipping past Jisung without bothering with a greeting.
It’s normal between the two of them, now—there’s a residual softness that Jisung isn’t sure is ever going to go away, on his part because Renjun is the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen along with the reason he’s here, and on Renjun’s part ever since he found out Jisung was two years younger than him.
(“Jisung is a baby,” he had said resolutely when he found out, dropping his slice of pizza to smush Jisung’s cheeks with his greasy hand. “I’m not,” Jisung groaned, eyes already hunting for a napkin. Renjun hadn’t accepted that, switching from a single-handed approach to using both. “Nope, Jisung baby.”)
While Renjun cleans off hours worth of sweat in Jisung’s starkly minimalist shower, Jisung gets the TV set up and puts a bag of salted caramel popcorn in the microwave, Renjun’s favorite. By the time Renjun’s come out, dressed in the spare change of clothes he’s started keeping in Jisung’s apartment, Jisung is already settled on the couch under a blanket, legs sprawled to the floor.
“The popcorn’s in the microwave,” He drawls, bobbing his head to the beat of the microwave’s beeping, “you can get it.” Renjun flips him off but walks to the kitchen to grab their snacks anyway and sits on the couch with the giant bowl in his lap.
“The mermaids documentary?” Renjun asks, chunks of popcorn flying out of his mouth to land on Jisung’s floor. It’s cute. Instead of replying, Jisung presses play on the movie in question and scoots closer to Renjun to reach the bowl of popcorn.
They like to watch things like this, about the could-bes of the world. It’s both just a little bit of a joke and more serious than either of them would admit to anyone but each other. “Scary,” Renjun whispers, as one of the CGI mermaids rips into an unsuspecting fish.
It’s at this point that Jisung realizes the position they’ve found themselves in. The empty popcorn bowl has been abandoned on the floor, giving Renjun the room the curl up on himself. Jisung’s wound himself around Renjun, his chin hooked over Renjun’s shoulder, a reversal of the first time they hung out.
Renjun’s hair, recently dyed blond, is just slightly damp against Jisung’s neck. He can smell his own body wash faintly against Renjun’s skin, but his natural smell overpowers it, just a little more herbal and rounded.
He spends a good few moments focused on that, the realization and the smell and Renjun’s heartbeat thump-thumping away against the shell of his ear, but it’s just a little too much so he forces his focus back to the movie until it’s over.
“That was good,” Renjun says with a yawn as it ends, arms stretching over his head. “Yeah,” Jisung replies, avoiding Renjun’s gaze by picking up the empty popcorn bowl and a few spilled kernels, bringing it to the kitchen.
He doesn’t realize Renjun’s following behind him quietly until he turns back around from putting the bowl on the counter. Renjun is right across from him, too close for comfort.
“Were you smelling me earlier?”
And Renjun’s always been one to say what he feels, but that doesn’t mean Jisung is always ready for it.
“Uh,” he replies.
Before he can come up with a more eloquent response, Renjun’s already talking again, and leaning ever closer into Jisung’s space.
“Is it weird to say that I don’t really mind?” He grabs onto Jisung’s hands, interlacing their fingers, but doesn’t stop, “There’s just one thing I’m picky about.”
Jisung nods dumbly, not that he would know what to say if he was being asked a more substantive question. Renjun’s face is so close he thinks he could count his eyelashes, if he had the time.
“The first time you kiss me has to be in the rain, understand?” And then he dives forward and presses a kiss, warm and sudden, against Jisung’s cheek. There’s the biggest, most childlike smile on Renjun’s face when he pulls away.
“What about that?” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it.
Renjun’s smile shifts, just a little, from a bright grin to a sly smirk. “That was me kissing you, duh.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, his fingers still hooked around Jisung and that painfully fond look still in his eyes, “It doesn’t count.”
It’s as soon as Renjun finishes speaking that the feeling he’d almost forgotten returns, that unmistakable tug on his navel, pulling his consciousness out of his body, but what’s happened doesn’t click until he feels someone’s hand pushing against his shoulder.
He’s suddenly hyper-aware of his body, from the hair on his scalp to the calluses on his feet.
“Jisung?” Chenle’s voice. “Are you… crying?”
He realizes he is, warm, quiet tears trailing down his face. He still has the headphones over his ears, Chenle’s song with the beautiful voice on loop. “Shit,” he whispers, bringing his sleeve up to wipe at his face as he hurries to get out of Chenle’s seat.
Jisung has no idea why he’s crying. He feels like he’s been asleep for a thousand years, like a stranger in his own body, a soul vibrating within an empty shell. He’s miserable. “The song is, ugh,” he can’t help the sniffle that interrupts him, “it’s really good, dude. Like, for real.”
“Good enough to make you cry, apparently,” and Jisung doesn’t miss the concern in Chenle’s voice, the furrow in his brow. The way he’s looking at Jisung like he wants to help but he has no idea how to. “Yeah, it is,” Jisung manages, offering up the most genuine smile he can manage even though he’s sure he looks pathetic like this, red-faced and crying.
Chenle’s concern doesn’t fade over the next few days, and Jisung is glad for it. If he was feeling bad before it’s even worse now—he almost feels like he can’t remember how to live his own life. He’s having trouble solving basic euclidean problems, can’t stand all the noise in their cramped apartment, and, secretly, in his own room, found himself crying angrily at the sight of Jaemin’s new camera left on the dining table.
The most frustrating thing is that he has no idea why. Occasionally, when he wakes up in the morning, he can remember glimpses of something, infinitely small moments when he feels whole again, but like most dreams they fade by the time he’s done brushing his teeth. The old hole in the wall restaurant he’d snack at when he still took dance classes downtown, a thick photobook on movie food, a kiss in the rain—some of them manage to stick for longer than the rest, but they’re still not enough for him to understand anything.
Luckily, Jaemin and Chenle almost never leave him alone, dragging him to study sessions and making sure he’s eating three meals a day. It helps, it does, but their concern is frustrating, too. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about what’s eating him alive, it’s that he can’t. He doesn’t have the words, the explanation. All he knows is that it’s happening.
“Jisung!” Jaemin’s voice is entirely too loud for the size of the apartment, but at least it’s hard to miss. “Jisungie!”
He emerges from his room slowly, just to spite his roommate. “Yes, Jaemin?” It comes out as more of a disappointed sigh than he intended, but he still meant it to sound like that to an extent, so it’s alright.
Jaemin is laying on their dirty couch, legs against the back and head hanging off the seat. He looks like a mess. “Jeno is taking me to meet his friends in an hour,” he’s whining. This isn’t good. “And I’m stressed out about it.”
“It’s just his friend,” Jisung says, lamely. He walks over and pushes Jaemin off the couch, forcing the older boy onto his feet. That’s some progress, at least. He finds himself surprised by the sudden surge of jealousy he feels towards Jaemin.
Jaemin, who has someone to meet. Jaemin, who is talking to the boy he’s been mooning over for months. Jaemin, who has Jeno.
It feels entirely out of place in his chest—Jisung has never been the type to care about relationships or romance, that was always Jaemin’s forte - but he can’t stop feeling it.
“Just be your usual charming self,” He has to force the words out, now. “You’ll be fine.”
Jaemin shakes his head, pouting. “No, no, no, Jisungie,” he jumps forward, clinging onto Jisung’s stiff shoulder, “I won’t.” With a final dramatic gasp, he flings himself away from Jisung and back onto the couch.
“Do you need me to walk you, or something? Come on, hyung, get up.” Jaemin does look funny like this, his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest like he’s ready for his coffin. As soon as Jisung speaks, though, he springs up and actually stands on his own two feet.
“You’ll walk me?” Jaemin’s voice sounds like sugar tastes and Jisung wonders if, maybe, he’s made a mistake. He fixes Jaemin with the sternest look he can muster at this point, which really isn’t that intimidating.
“Yes, Jaemin, I’ll support your stupid lanky body when it inevitably collapses at the sight of Jeno.”
Jaemin returns his look with a smile that belongs on a wanted poster, and disappears into his room to get ready.
It isn’t until they’re well on their way that Jisung realizes he should have asked Jaemin how far they were going before they left. Jaemin had said it was close enough to walk, but Jaemin was also the kind of sick human who drinks more coffee than necessary and paces around their apartment like a caged lion for fun.
“We’re almost there,” Jaemin reassures him with a floppy wave of his hand. “See! That coffeeshop, with the big glass windows.”
Jisung does see it. If he squints, he almost thinks he can make out Jeno and another person sitting by the window.
He can’t be sure until they’re much closer and the only things separating he and Jaemin from Jeno and his friend either the glass itself or the rest of the walk around the corner to the cafe’s door.
It is Jeno, that much is sure.
But the person with him, laughing there through the dirty windows—
It’s Renjun, and suddenly Jisung can remember everything. The sandy little creature from the schoolyard, the dark car keys, the hospital bracelet, the voice in Chenle’s song. Renjun, in every universe. Renjun, right in front of him.
The memories hit him with a physical impact, leaving him bent over on the sidewalk, hands on his knees. He’s out of breath.
“Jisung?” Jaemin asks, stopped beside him, “I thought you were supposed to be the one holding me up.” He’s joking, obviously, the concern so thick it his voice it pulls Jisung to his feet instantly.
“Yeah,” he smiles tightly, “I’m fine, just got dizzy for some reason there.” He feels like he’s about to burst, too many emotions warring for control inside of him. Instant and irrevocable joy at seeing Renjun. Guilt for worrying Jaemin. Anger at whatever the hell is causing this. Worry for all the versions of the boy so close yet so far from him that he’s left behind.
He hopes he doesn’t have to leave this life, too.
Jaemin grabs ahold of his hand and helps him down the rest of the street. Distantly, he hears the door chime as it opens, and again when it falls shut behind them.
“Hi, Jeno!” Jaemin’s voice is surprisingly reserved as they approach the little table Jeno and Renjun are sitting at. Jisung still feels weak on his feet, too weak to look at Renjun, but he manages a close-lipped smile at Jeno.
Jaemin sits, but Jisung remains standing. He hadn’t planned to stay—hadn’t planned to come in, even—but now that he’s so close to Renjun in this life, in this life that he hopes is the last, he finds himself hesitating to leave.
He watches Jeno and Jaemin talk quietly to themselves, watches their cautious touches and shy smiles. He still can’t bring himself to look at Renjun—it’s like looking at the sun in the middle of the afternoon, he’s afraid of hurting himself - so he taps Jaemin on the shoulder and turns around to leave.
“Wait!” Renjun calls out suddenly, the first thing he’s said since Jisung and Jaemin came in. “Have I met you before, maybe?” He asks, expression at once quizzical and so, so open, like there’s a secret in his eyes he’s only begging Jisung to find out.
“Maybe,” Jisung replies with a smile and a shrug.
He doesn’t feel like he’s being pulled away. He doesn’t even feel like he’s in a world that isn’t his.
All he feels is the ground, solid beneath his feet, and Renjun’s sudden smile.
He understands.