Chapter Text
“Why don't you kiss me?”
“You look too precious and I’m scared I’ll break you.”
These words whispered by a strange boy the day before wouldn’t stop playing again and again in Hongjoong’s mind, while he was fidgeting on his rings to get rid of the memory of rugged yet delicate hands cupping his face, to dive in his eyes. The continuous jingle of metal ended up getting him a uselessly violent slap on the arm; Mingi never knew how to control his strength.
“Should we just buy you a rattle? Even my little cousin is less noisy in his playpen, and you don’t even have a reason to be stressed this morning, it’s literally the first day, go outside to smoke if it got to that point. And put that coffee down-”
Hongjoong had given up on the idea of shutting his friend up the very moment he had opened his mouth, knowing it was a losing battle; however, he gripped at his steaming paper cup like it was a lifebelt when Mingi held his hand out to take it away.
“I’m not stressed,” he managed to reply after a never-ending torrent of words that had diverted – how, he couldn’t tell – to when he almost bumped into Yunho when he got out of the hairdresser the week before, because his brand-new blue hair blended with the sky and he didn’t have his specs on.
“More like worried, then,” his friend corrected himself with a softer voice.
“That’s probably the right word, yeah...” admitted Hongjoong, digging into his cigarette pack, intending to follow through Mingi’s advice.
“Is it because of what happened at the pool? You forgot to ask for his number? You’re scared he’s hetero? He ended up having a girlfriend? He’s a superhero and now he’s gone to fend off crime, leaving you like a weeping widow?”
“Maybe if you let me talk instead of spouting bullshit-”
Mingi cackled.
“I know you, I’d have to wait at least six months before you’d start speaking. You’ll spit it out only when you’re done with me.”
“You’re in the student union?”
“No, I’m a swimmer in the uni’s team,” the boy next to him smiled, nodding towards Mingi – who was enthusiastically speaking to three other members of the swimming team further away.
Hongjoong continued to look around himself. A few days before classes started, the student union had organized the campus’ new swimming pool’s inauguration – its Olympic size would welcome national tournaments from now on. There wasn’t a lot of people, barely forty students showed up, mostly the college swimmers’ friends. As far as Hongjoong was concerned, the crowd’s size was just enough, and the free buffet a lot more filled. He was roaming close to it, nibbling on the biggest amount of olive cakes he could manage, a beer in his hand, when a stranger had shyly approached him wondering why he was left alone in silence.
“Hongjoong,” he eventually introduced himself, intrigued when the other had yet to do it.
The gesture seemed to call it to his mind, and he reacted by widening his eyes. Hongjoong got the urge to laugh when he noticed him opening, closing, and opening again his mouth like a fish out of water.
“Oh, sorry, I completely forgot. I’m Jongho.”
“It’s okay. He was cute and kind, that’s all. How come you don’t know him, by the way? He told me he’s in the team?”
“Jongho?”
Mingi shrugged.
“Oh, you know, we see him from afar. We’re not really a team, you know, we swim, we train, we don’t really get to get to know each other.”
Hongjoong waited until he had lit his cigarette, inhaling a cloud of white smoke that relieved his turmoil for a bit.
“But you all get along pretty well, in the club. You’re always out with Yunho and Seonghwa.”
“It’s not the same, your boy’s younger, he wasn’t training with us last year. He’s super good, so our uni admitted him in the club this year, but I think his grades are kinda bad, and he’s gonna need better results than us if he wants to stay. His father even got him a personal coach, so he doesn’t really hang out with us.”
Mingi always kept his ears open for the rumors running around each corner of their college. He knew everything, everyone, and always had a solution for each distressed student. Being on the swimming team didn’t allow him to be the student union’s president as well, even though he had already been asked multiple times; and Hongjoong never failed to be amazed to see him following him around everywhere he went. He had never imagined he could be friends with such a social and active person, but he held back from expressing his doubts to this huge swimmer sticking to him like glue. It was likely that Mingi would panic and scream at him that he would protect him until the end of time. Hongjoong would have suspected that Mingi fell in love with him, if it wasn’t for the complicated relationship he had with his teammate Yunho, whom he had been languorously making out with every Saturday night for months now, without ever talking about it the next day. Even if he had never understood the tall and hyperactive young man’s friendliness, Hongjoong was happy to feel surrounded and supported, unused to the feeling. The swimming team quickly made space for him, with two of their friends, Yeosang and San, both loyal supporters from the pool’s rows during practice hours. They spent as much time there as the swimmers in the end, unless you deducted the cigarettes Hongjoong went outside to smoke; and yet, may that be in the old or the newly opened pool, he never dipped at least a toe in the water even once.
“I guess you don’t smoke?”
Jongho negatively shook his head; even so, he didn’t get rid of this fond gaze of his.
“That’s all?” Hongjoong startled after a few silent seconds. “No grand speech about how unhealthy cigarettes are or how thank god for the great athlete you are isn’t addicted to it at the risk of ruining all his performances and his breath, and who knows what else?”
The other widened his eyes even more and burst out in laughter. Hongjoong realized at that moment, when a shiver ran through his spine, that Jongho didn’t look like the smiley kind. While he was giggling, he took the time to scrutinize his small lips and his round face, still boyish with high cheekbones. He was quite short and stocky for a swimmer, unlike the poles Mingi, Seonghwa, and Yunho were. Hongjoong held back a deep sigh when he remembered that he had still stood taller than him when he had followed him outside to smoke.
“Do whatever you want with your lungs. I may swim, but it’s not my place to antagonize anyone. If that makes you feel better, go for it.”
The sky had been getting darker and darker. Hongjoong only had the blazing red ash and the flame of his lighter to allow Jongho to see he was raising a brow, looking straight at him. It might have been the first time someone told him something like that, if people didn’t have criticisms for him, they usually just kept quiet. He tried to ignore the vague warmth invading his chest while he took a drag on his cigarette, weirdly not even wanting to finish it anymore.
“And you don’t swim, I guess?” Jongho opened his mouth again, walking a few meters away, hands in his pockets and looking up – to the shy stars that started appearing in the purples and oranges of the darkening sky.
“Me? Never, the only reason I don’t drown is that I’m so light I float.”
His bitterness barely concealed with a little humor made Jongho laugh again, turning back around to meet Hongjoong’s eyes. The latter couldn’t help but notice the dusk’s reflection in his black irises, barely realizing he was also smiling.
“So this bigass leather jacket in summer, it’s to hide a hang-up?”
“Hey! It was supposed to be subtle!”
“And you like him, then? You spent the whole evening together, I even thought you left.”
“To go where dumbass, I promised to drive you back home!” Hongjoong pouted, offended.
“Nice change of subject, but I’m not stupid!” Amused, Mingi took advantage of their height difference to lock one of his long arms around Hongjoong’s neck – shutting off the, of course, you are that answered him – and yelled in his ears:
“SO YOU HAVE A CRUSH, OL’ MAN!”
“LET ME OUT, YOU BEANPOLE!”
“Hongjoong has a crush?”
San’s gentle voice could have felt soothing to anyone who didn’t know him, but the accused felt cold sweat drip all the way down his spine when he understood there was no chance his encounter with Jongho would remain undisclosed now. Even Mingi suddenly let him go, his eyes full of worry.
“I hope it’s the team’s newbie, he looks big, and it would do you good to get laid.”
Hongjoong choked on the smoke of his cigarette, almost spitting its butt out of his lips.
“How did you even see that- No, actually don’t even answer!”
San tilted his head towards him and gave him an adorable dimpled smile as if he hadn’t just uttered these words everyone had heard. Hongjoong felt a bit reassured to at least see Yunho, Seonghwa, and Yeosang, who came with him, had all tripped over their own two feet, eyes wide, suddenly overtaken by a violent coughing fit.
“Aren’t you going inside?”
“You aren’t either.”
They smiled at each other under the street lamps’ lights near the pool’s entrance. Tired of standing up, they had flopped down on the low wall that separated flowers from the path’s slabs, next to each other.
“You don’t have to stay with me.”
“But I staying because I want to, though.”
Hongjoong looked away, blushing. His eyes fell on their thighs, they were almost touching, Jongho’s hand was so close to his, and he felt his cheeks warming up even more. Jongho smelled good, his perfume now mixed with the night’s odor, and he felt terrible about smelling like cigarettes and old leather.
“Do you want me to leave? I understand if you want to stay alone.”
Jongho’s voice had become shyer.
“No! I mean, well…”
Hongjoong felt that his own eagerness might have been excessive, but before he could rectify, a hand grabbed his, and his words got lost before they could reach past his lips. He returned the gesture by intertwining his fingers with Jongho’s, making sure not to hurt him with his rings. When the boy raised his head, a gentle half-smile playing on his lips in the twilight, his heart skipped.
“Hello to you too,” groaned Mingi, rubbing circles against his temples.
San was a difficult friend to have. With small, almond-shaped eyes that almost closed whenever he smiled, his high eyebrows that gave him an innocent look; everything about him made him think about the plushies that never left San’s side, even during classes. However, damn whoever trusted his appearance because the very moment San opened his mouth, he would make the whole room uncomfortable or would spill intimate and confidential pieces of information, or unsettling truths, and even personal analysis too accurate to be told out loud. Yet he wasn’t someone who couldn’t be trusted, but he needed to be told what consequences a piece of information could have every time you shared it with him, to give him precise rules, and then pray that one day, these rules would not clash with his own morals. That’s how Seonghwa had finally managed to confess to Yeosang, during their senior year of high school: San had spilled the beans mid lunch about how the swimmer liked to loudly jerk it off thinking about his spicy friend. As Seonghwa's face had been minutes away from exploding, Mingi and Yunho had to get the way too honest boy away so the two other boys could talk about what just happened. And fortunately for Seonghwa, Yeosang hadn’t been entirely repulsed by the idea itself.
Thinking about it, Hongjoong figured he could actually understand why Mingi decided to take him under his wings. Like San, isolated and lonely, as asocial as San was unpredictable, they both had difficulties to fit in anywhere they went. Looking closer at their mismatched group of friends, it was apparent it was a patchwork of weird characters, too colorful to be happy outside of a just as strange circle. Seonghwa and his obsession with cleaning and geometric perfection, Yunho and his poor attention span and memory, or Yeosang and his absolute rejection of anything related to sports – miraculously except for his relationship with Seonghwa, a professional swimmer. And of course, Mingi and his inability to speak in any other way wasn’t yelling or to keep himself from jumping all around the place.
As he was prepared to launch himself in a way too long explanation, Hongjoong kept himself from gritting his teeth in frustration when the small boy suddenly pointed behind him:
“Isn’t that him, over there?”
And Hongjoong met this intense gaze that flustered him, unsure about how to act. It was indeed Jongho looking at him after he had overheard San and seen the finger still pointed towards him – Seonghwa sighed and lowered it down for him. He was with a classmate, who was pulling at his arm, visibly annoyed to see him stop midway. As embarrassed as Hongjoong, and apparently as lost, Jongho gave him a knowing smile with a shy handwave, before following his friend in another building.
“Wake up, you look like you just saw a ghost,” told him Yeosang with – little – kindness.
“Did you see? He waved at you,” San smiled, hugging against his chest around Japanese dog plushy, looking very satisfied.
“I saw, I happen to have eyes,” Hongjoong mumbled, his voice less confident than he would have liked, gripping his cigarette that couldn’t calm his heartbeat down anymore.
“Why don't you kiss me?”
“You look too precious and I’m scared I’ll break you.”
Hongjoong shivered. Jongho raised his fingers to his hair, delicately playing with them as he lightly kissed his temple, before running his calloused hand on his cheek. He slightly withdrew his face to take in Hongjoong’s, who, taken aback, didn’t know what to say, settling with staring back at him.
“Just say it if I smell like smoke,” he said eventually, an amused look on his face, hoping to hide his heart's hammering.
Jongho frowned.
“Of course not.”
Hongjoong raised his eyebrows, doubtful.
“I mean,” said Jongho. “You do smell like smoke, but…”
A few seconds went by, during which Jongho looked like he was desperately searching for the right way to say his thoughts out loud, his hand still linked to Hongjoong’s – in the end, he deeply inhaled and kissed him.
If Hongjoong made a surprised noise when he suddenly felt Jongho’s lips against his, the building tension that had been growing between them ever since the beginning of the evening reached its climax, and he stopped thinking to throw an arm around Jongho’s neck to kiss him back.
Hongjoong wanted to tear his hair off thinking back to this long kiss with the young swimmer, that had lasted dozens of minutes before someone came out of the pool complex to go to the parking lot; students were starting to leave the inauguration party. They had continued talking for at least an hour, hands tied, their voices low, only a few centimeters apart, before a vaguely worried Yunho called Hongjoong to ask him to drive a way too drunk Mingi home.
Ever since that night, he had missed Jongho, unable to find him anywhere on social media and having forgotten to ask for his phone number. Handling a growing relationship wasn’t on top of Hongjoong’s priorities, and he felt helpless when he realized the effect a simple smile from twenty meters away had had on him.
He sighed and threw the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray while Seonghwa kindly kept the door open for him to go back inside his building, a sympathetic smile on his lips.
***
Hongjoong had met Mingi on a rainy day. He had taken shelter in the school’s pool complex, still fully clothed, barefoot, and his pants cuffed, but at least he had a towel around his – even thinner at the time – shoulders. He thought the world was too big for him, the sky a stifling lead weight, and the air itself was unbreathable. The piling pressure of classes and his night shifts as a cleaner in a movie theater, the quiet loneliness of his apartment, and the noisy and crowded one of his college; outpouring anxiety so overwhelming he couldn’t breathe anymore. He had gone in the building at the other side of the lawn, only looking for a sheltered place where he didn’t see anyone. He hadn’t even known it was the campus’ pool; and even if he had known, he wouldn’t have changed in his swimming trunks and even less bath in it. Old insecurities and scars were still visible on his translucent skin. He had wanted to burst into tears, from relief, when he had noticed there wasn’t anyone in the pool. Nobody to ask questions, nobody to wonder why he was alone or to watch him like he was an abandoned animal on the side road, nobody to make noise, nobody to notice him. He had settled, ass on the cold tiles, legs extended so only his heels would dip in the chlorinated water, removing his earphones to close his eyes and listen to the calm turquoise water. He had stayed like that for an unknown amount of time until he heard noises in the locker room. He had had just enough time to jump to his feet, legs shaky, and to scamper towards the footbath, that students started slowly getting out the locker room, and nobody had seen him.
Or at least, that one time. Hongjoong had been coming back to the pool, same hour, finding there an unequaled peace; until Mingi found him, and it was over. Hongjoong had been dipping his hand to draw unknown and ephemeral shapes in the water, amusing himself sometimes by flicking a few drops. Engrossed in his childish game, he hadn’t paid attention to the growing hubbub behind the locker room’s walls, so the first swimmer to arrive found him there when he opened the door. A beanpole so tall you’d probably wonder how he still easily went through doors, with crescent eyes, tan skin, and hair similar to a bird’s nest. Hongjoong knew him, everyone knew Song Mingi, who yelled in the hallways and jumped around the whole campus; it was rare, not to say miraculous to see him without hearing him first. But it had been however the case at that moment, the swimmer looked at him with a warranted astonishment and Hongjoong, caught red-handed, hadn’t dared to move, frozen like a praying cat.
Mingi had closed the door behind him with a care that, yet again, few would have suspected from him. He had silently scurried over to the red-haired who, his feet still underwater, was staring at him with wariness, still frozen and unable to get out of the situation. With the same agility he usually displayed, the other dived in the pool, and without getting too close, he had told him to go to the rows:
“Go sit over there, instead, the coaches will scold you if you take their seat.”
Stunned, Hongjoong had obeyed. His mind had forgotten where the exit was, and when he let himself fall on the blue plastic seats, Mingi had given him a blinding smile and a thumb up while his teammates came hurtling to throw themselves in the water much less carefully. His toes bare and shivering, Hongjoong had glanced at the window, where a night sky was starting to replace the late afternoon, excoriating himself for getting trapped, alone in this place now invaded by unknown people. But he couldn’t keep beating himself up for his careless mistake as two voices had startled him:
“Excuse me, but do you mind if we sit next to you? We can’t see that well from higher…”
“Are you the one who leaves everyday thinking no one can see you because you can’t stand being close to other humans?”
“Oh shut the fuck up, San, you’re going to make him even more uncomfortable!”
“I sure hope you don’t kiss your mom with that dirty mouth…”
Then San had sat right next to Hongjoong, his big round dog plushy squeezed against his chest, giving a knowing look to the boy as his friend was rolling his eyes behind his back. And that was how he met San and Yeosang. His tongue had loosened gradually as training had gone by, getting as far as exchanging a few words with the boys, especially San, who kept making comments at him, sometimes explaining some exercises, or asking random questions as if it had been a job interview. They hadn’t seemed at all surprised by Hongjoong’s – at first – unsure voice and succinct answers, and San had naturally asked him to stay next time he would be going to the pool before the swimmers’ training as well. Hongjoong barely could nod that Mingi made him jump with a delightful shout; and never again, Hongjoong had walked alone in his college’s hallways after that. The most surprising was that this new pattern should have annoyed him, displeased him, but that wasn’t the case, and it never became the case. If he had his earphones on, Mingi would just yell louder in his ears when he had something to say, and Yeosang would only quietly sit down near him to ask for one of the earbuds and read a book. If he was still dozing off after almost pulling an all-nighter, Seonghwa would nudge his arm when classes were starting, San would get two vanilla coffees at the vending machine on toughest mornings, while Yunho would speak for him in classes with fewer students if a lecturer tested him on something he hadn't prepared. Without really noticing it, he had started to fit in their group, since everyone acted like they had known him for years like it was only right for him to be here and to do things at his own pace.
But Hongjoong still made sure to have some alone time, just for himself, not too much, just enough, to go hide in the pool for around an hour, twice a week. Between the moment the cleaners would do their job and the moment training would begin, he would stay here, alone with the turquoise water. An hour before his friends’ noisiness and after the stress of classes he was struggling in, an hour where time and space didn’t matter. He felt like submerged in a soothing blue gemstone, its transparency comforting – a scarlet ruby lost in the middle of the aquatic sky's vastness. During the new pool’s opening, he had amused himself by admiring how the water’s blue reflected on his red hair and there laid one of the reasons why he dyed his hair a strawberry red, to intensify the contrast even more.
His astonishment was equal to the one that froze him the day he met Mingi when he arrived in the vast pool’s area and noticed a lone swimmer doing lengths, at a remarkable speed and mysteriously with no splashes. He could make out ashy hair lost in turquoise and golden skin in red and black swimming trunks. Certainty hit him like you’d hit the gong; Jongho was training alone, before practice with the club, during the time there wasn’t anyone, during Hongjoong’s moment.
“His father even got him a personal coach, so he doesn’t really hang out with us.”
Hongjoong frowned, ready to flee if he noticed even a strand of hair of an unknown person, and he scrutinized the big pool’s surrounding. Not seeing anyone, intrigued, he stealthily came closer, as if to avoid breaking Jongho’s focus, his towel wrapped around him like a jacket. The boy eventually stopped swimming, grasping at the pool’s edge, near the glass wall, his back facing Hongjoong; he had yet to notice him. The small ruby kept approaching, moved by an unknown instinct, until his hand grazed the water’s surface, intending to make a sound to warn Jongho of his presence. But he barely had dipped his knuckles in the blue of the water that Jongho turned around. Hongjoong wondered if he was able to feel the water’s vibrations, which – considering the ease he displayed when he was inside it – would not have been surprising, or it might have been that same occult coincidence that had already reunited them before.
Both students stared stonily at each other for a few seconds, but Jongho didn’t wait for more than one or two beats before he started smiling, with this sensual smile of his that shook Hongjoong’s heart ever since he had noticed he didn’t smile at others the same way.
“I almost didn’t recognize you, with your red hair.”
Hongjoong could feel his own eyes sparkling.
“Why are you stealing my hideout?” he sniped back as an answer.
“I thought you don't swim?” retorted Jongho, extending his arms on both sides of the pool’s edge, now facing his visitor.
Giving no answer, enjoying the water’s noise as it was being stirred by the swimmer, Hongjoong slowly rolled his slacks to his knees – the furthest he could roll them. Sitting on the water’s edge, at the opposite of Jongho, the distance between them both quite a substantial one, he dipped his calves in the water's blue, sitting on the tiles, looking tiny wrapped in his huge white towel. He raised his head towards Jongho and eventually smiled back at him, sure that even from that far away, he would see it.
“Can you time me and tell me how much it takes me to reach you?”
Hongjoong enthusiastically nodded, the gentle brush of his hair – softened by the recent dye – relaxing him even more than he already was.
Five seconds. He thought to himself that he didn’t even know Mingi, Seonghwa, or Yunho’s level. He only knew that they were good enough to continue swimming at nationals. From what Mingi had said, Jongho was one of the best among them. He didn’t settle with just the club’s training, two or three times a week, he swam once or twice a day as well. All that without counting in his regular jogging to perfect his stamina, or even bodybuilding to strengthen his muscles. Hongjoong sighed, wondering how it would feel to be the best at something. To feel like he was at the right place, in his element, his spot.
Ten seconds. He hadn’t even let anyone come with him to the pool complex, not even San or Yeosang, who he knew usually arrived early. San automatically playing on his phone. Yeosang holding Seonghwa’s hand until they reached the building’s entrance, where they discretely kissed, talking about nothings in between each touch, in their own love bubble. Nobody had ever asked to go with him either, it was one of his habits they respected, like his naps or his cigarettes.
Fifteen seconds. Weirdly enough, Jongho’s presence didn’t annoy him, as if he was an integral part of the clearer than crystal water. Probably because it was the case, seeing how he moved like he was himself liquid, producing no foam nor reef, splashing no water drops. Hongjoong sighed, wondering what he must look like, him who drowned in oversized jackets, oversized friends, oversized buildings as if nothing fit him well.
Twenty seconds. He then thought back to the feeling of Jongho’s lips against his, and it was just as if his dark thoughts got drowned by the crystal blue water. The swimmer might well have been taller than him, they had stood at the same level that night. His rugged palms proofs of a probably tough lifestyle, like him, even though they were different. His quiet voice naturally fit in his ears, and Hongjoong was sure he would be able to hear him in a crowd without needing him to yell. His small mouth was sincere and inexperienced, and Hongjoong often fell asleep, remembering his touches.
“Twenty-seven seconds, almost twenty-eight, but I can’t count centiseconds, sorry. I’m a monofunctional timer,” softly said Hongjoong when ashy gray emerged from under the surface.
Jongho blew a few bubbles underwater, barely out-of-breath, before pulling a face and crossing his arms on the tiles to keep himself still, resting his chin on them.
“That’s not great.”
“I admit I can't see how.”
“The world's record in a fifty meters pool like this one is around twenty seconds.”
Hongjoong almost choked.
“Are you kidding, you’re incredibly close to it!”
Jongho let a small laugh out, their eyes meeting again; their gaze locked, he shifted his head so his cheeks would rest on his crossed arms, staring up at him from a low-angle.
“It’s not enough. And even if it was, I can’t settle for what I already can do, I have to train to always be better, for as long as I can.”
It was Hongjoong’s turn to look ahead in the distance, through the glass wall.
“And when you can’t do it anymore?”
Jongho didn’t answer right away, and for a moment, there was only the tenuous noise of water’s filtering between them.
“When I can’t do it anymore, I hope I won’t have anything to regret,” he simply ended up saying.
Hongjoong shifted back, to see Jongho hadn’t moved, his eyes riveted to his face, scrutinizing him, showing no coyness but never losing their tenderness.
“A true pirate,” he answered with the same tone. “Wandering all around the seas from day to day, living like each one’s the last. With no regret.”
Jongho burst into laughter, it was a bright laugh, free of the shy awkwardness that had been lingering between them during the inauguration party. A laugh that loudly echoed in the big pool complex, vibrant, and full of life, that crinkled his eyes and raised his cheekbones high.
“Fun fact: I’ve never dipped a toe in seawater. I’ve always been very scared of the sea, ever since I was a little boy.”
Dumbfounded, Hongjoong widened his eyes until they were two perfectly round little balls.
“A swimmer who doesn’t like the sea? Is it some kind of existential paradox?”
Jongho laughed again, a little louder, before playing with the water, the same way Hongjoong had done when he was alone; which he didn’t fail to notice.
“That’s exactly what’s different, though. Here I can see everything, everything’s clear. I know where I am, what I should do. A pool might look big, but it’s a closed space, a small one, sheltered from the outside world. It’s light blue as if we dived in a piece of the sky.”
“Poetic.”
“Right?” Jongho smiled. “The sea is infinite, it’s deep, it’s opaque. No traced lines, no real goal, we don’t know what could jump at us. Did you know scientists know more about the moon’s surface than the abyss? Terrifying.”
It was Hongjoong’s turn to be amused at his actually frightened face. Without even thinking, he stretched his hand to Jongho’s forehead to move a gray lock, wet and lost, aside. He realized what he had done only when he noticed the swimmer’s arm get covered in goosebumps.
“Well it’s funny, I think that’s what makes me feel at ease. Here we can see everything, so much that it’s too much. I don’t like being seen.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed it.”
Hongjoong splashed water to his face, triggering a new burst of laughter.
“There’s no man in the sea, even though we tried to conquer it. If I want to bath my legs in it, nobody will see them. We’re free, everything can happen… this, here, is a box. A pretty box, comforting, protective, but still a box. It’s beautiful to watch, just like crystal, but I don’t fit in it.”
Jongho listened without a word, his posture unchanged.
“Is there really that much stuff you don’t want to show?”
Hongjoong shrugged, lowering his head to meet the swimmer’s eyes once again, his scarlet bangs slightly covering his eyes.
“No, not that much. Just enough to be bothered by it.”
Jongho straightened up, supporting himself on his arms.
“I think I understand.”
He brought his body closer to Hongjoong, who remained still and allowed the gap between them to be decreased until there wasn’t any anymore; the moment Jongho laid his cheek on his thigh, without ever looking away from him, it was his turn to shiver. He raised his left hand, folded into a fist, to his chin, as his legs were nonchalantly swaying underwater. The red-haired boy carefully removed his rings before he ran the tip of his fingers on Jongho’s face the same way he had done to the water’s surface; and the boy closed his eyes for a few seconds. Shut away in their monochromatic bubble, a lonely ruby set in it, none of the two men realized that time continued to flow by; none of them would have complained if it had to stop like that forever.
When Hongjoong dared to brush Jongho’s lips, the latter opened his eyes, to haul half his body above the water, his strong palm flattened against the tiles. He didn’t intend to get out the pool, but only to raise himself to Hongjoong’s lips, where he left a chaste kiss and tried to make it last as long as he could. He was supporting himself with his arms’ strength as the other had slipped his fingers behind his neck, occupying them again by drawing abstract patterns with the tip of his nails. A stolen breath, louder than the other ones, and the locker room’s door opened, shattering their bubble, Jongho falling back in the water with a clamor this time, caught in the middle of the foam.
“Hongjoong, do you have a cigarette for Yeosang? Oh, sorry, I didn’t think-”
A little shaken, the person of interest took a few seconds to react, straightening somehow.
“I’ll meet him outside, hold up.”
See you later, mouthed Hongjoong to Jongho’s eyes, that followed him.
***
Hongjoong hadn’t realized how tired he was until the moment his legs gave out right after he had turned the keys in his door’s keyhole, closing it behind him. He let himself slide against the wall, exhaling deeply, his eyes irritated by cleaning products’ fumes and his throat dry. His back hurt from exhaustion, and his thighs were sore as he already felt how stiff his muscles were, he would have fallen asleep there if his phone hadn’t vigorously buzzed in his pocket, connecting back to the outside world. It was a used and old stuff, a phone with a touch-sensitive screen but no data subscription, that struggled to understand when Hongjoong left the movie theater’s basement where he cleaned at night. It was even likely that the texts he had just received were actually sent a few hours earlier in the evening.
A text from Mingi: “You’re welcome.”
Hongjoong raised a brow, and as if to answer his question, his phone buzzed a second time, and his screen displayed an unknown number.
“Mingi insisted that I save your number, I hope you won't feel uncomfortable. You don't have to text me back if you don't want to. I’m not at the pool on Wednesdays and Thursdays if you need your hideout. Come by whenever you want. Red and blue match well together. -Jongho.”
Hongjoong gaped, rereading the text multiple times without really believing in it, suddenly wholly awake. He had felt guilty the last three days for leaving the pool complex without any further ado, under San’s flabbergasted eyes and Yeosang’s suspicious ones, and especially, once again unable to get in touch with Jongho. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to, there was a ringing in his ears every time he thought about the boy, and yet, against his better judgment, he couldn’t stop thinking about him, his thoughts were attracted to him like magnets.
He had had a lot of relationships, a lot of hookups, a lot of coming and going in his life, but these adventures never lasted more than a few weeks. Liking boys hadn’t helped to build a healthy vision of romantic relationships – it might have been another reason why Mingi had insisted on introducing him to their group of friends as if being surrounded by people like him was a kind of safety net. His family had always been too broke to look after him for too long anyway, it stood to reason for Hongjoong to leave his family’s household the year he had turned sixteen to find a job in the city. He had managed to somehow register to college, two years late, after saving enough from meager salaries. He hadn’t had to live with the fear of a coming out or to be thrown out on the street, unlike some of his past conquests. It was hard to accept being gay, regarding your family, more generally others, and especially regarding yourself. It was why he hadn’t welcomed anyone in his life ever since he lived alone, too busy, too mentally charged to stand the risk, the weight of concerns, having to comfort someone else, and calm their doubts. His college friends were the first people to take care of him without expecting from him to be up to some standards, and a fortiori, he had never met anyone like Jongho.
I hope you won’t feel uncomfortable. Hongjoong slowly straightened up on his buttocks and used the remaining strength in his arms to take off his black top, worn out by moths on his sleeves’ ends. The tiny and round scars from cigarette burns at the bottom of his stomach weren’t too visible in the darkness of his room, but the ones on top of his thighs still pulled at his skin when he had walked a bit too much some days. With only his boxers covering him, he took a few steps forward before flopping down once again on his bed, his apartment small enough that he didn’t need to move too far. His mind boiling with thoughts and memories, he weakly lit a cigarette, dragging with the tip of his fingers the ashtray on his nightstand closer to him. A Pikachu shaped ashtray, a gift from San the first time he had come to his apartment.
You don’t have to text me back. It was odd for Jongho to bother with sending him a text so detailed if he did really expect that Hongjoong could not answer. However, if the latter counted every moment they had shared until now, he had to admit that he hadn’t been the one to take the first steps. Jongho had come to talk to him at the inauguration party, had gone with him outside, had kissed him, had rested his head on his legs, and had kissed him again. Never taking the lead, the scarlet boy had only settled with going along with his advances, without ever taking initiatives. The courage he had mustered to promise Jongho he would be waiting for him at the pool’s exit, intending to ask for his number himself – thanks Mingi – had disappeared the second he had realized there wasn’t a chance they would be alone.
If you need your hideout. It was a weird feeling to have the choice, to have the ball in his court. Even during moments of his life that had made him happy, Hongjoong hadn't really had the leisure of having a choice, except for the one to enroll in a university curriculum, against his mother’s judgment. He had noticed that Jongho had told him clearly when he wouldn’t be at the pool as if his comfort naturally came before his own desire to see him again. A hope that he had expressed in an encrypted way, leaving Hongjoong that way the possibility to figure it out, protecting the delicateness of the moment they had shared.
Red and blue match well together. Something threatened to explode in his chest as he read, again and again, the last sentence of Jongho’s text. He wanted to trust him, he was curious to see if his hugs would be as gentle as his voice, thirsty to know more about the boy, to share with him, to listen to him as he listened to the murmurs of the water’s surface.
If you don't swim on Wednesdays and Thursdays, you can come by to see a movie. I work in the local movie theater every evening during night-times screenings. It’s another way to break the lights down. -Hongjoong.
***