Work Text:
i.
Lee Jinki is rounded edges and crinkled smiles, paper folded into an accordion, head tilted and teeth shining. He is what the low rumbling of ocean waves sound like, enveloping, crashing, strong, easy to ride. He is the well-loved broken binding of a book where Kibum is new, sharp angles, a different definition of perfect.
Jinki is ever-present. He’s a fixture in Kibum’s life, it’s impossible for him not to be. He can’t imagine for him not to be. Not in his life, not in anyone’s. He never takes up more space than he thinks he should, but he should. He should be the one thing everyone should have. Should want to have. Should they deserve him.
Jinki’s fingers aren’t nearly as long and spindly as Kibum’s, they’re calloused and easy to hold. They’re small and gentle. They’re always warm. They’re always sure in their touch—the palm in the dip of his waist, crooked finger under his chin, thumb gently pressed into the corner of his lips, fingertips tapped one by one on the corner of his neck and shoulder.
That’s where his chin belongs, though. It always has. Jinki’s arms wrapped loosely around his waist, clasped together in front of his belly button, chin stacked nearly in the crook of Kibum’s neck. While he speaks, while he stands, while they sit, Jinki’s leg a rest for Kibum’s arm. They fit together, interlocking stackable blocks, cardboard puzzle pieces, lock and key. Jinki sticks to him.
He seldom takes it from anyone else.
ii.
Kim Kibum is twinkling lights. He is high strung, and brighter than you think he is going to be, longer than you think he is going to be, makes everything around him more beautiful. He is pointed cat eyes and ears, sharp, and quick, and focused. He’s a roaring river, stubborn and strong.
He is a new book, still with the bookstore smell, pages haven’t been bent. Or maybe they’re just ironed down. He is the kind of book you want to iron down. The kind you’re afraid to break in. The kind too beautiful to read, the kind that’s especially rewarding once you get the courage to. The kind everyone should. Jinki holds him in the corner of his thumb and finger, cherishes the feel of him there.
Kibum fits in his corners.
Kibum takes his corners and makes them round. Kibum takes his round edges and fits in those too.
He is delicate, and broad, in his interests, in his tastes, in other people’s expectations. He is a rule that people break, that people are inclined to break, that people see in him and need to break. Kibum is irresistible and everywhere. Impossible to deny. He is the chocolate-dipped strawberry of people.
Jinki tells him-
iii.
Lee Jinki tells him like this: you are the chocolate-dipped strawberry of people. When they sit in the living area of their dorm, tangled like cords, too lazy or exhausted to pry themselves away from each other.
It’s gravitational, their pull. Magnetic. Like the way the words float out from Jinki’s mouth, they’ve been dragged out, because Jinki can’t help himself, and he never can.
Kibum’s not the type to let others get away with things unsaid, anyway. Jinki’s not the type to deny him of anything.
Kibum responds to him like this: I’m the what. And he cranes his neck. Craning, like the bird, delicate and lovely, practiced, perfect. Jinki could come up with a million adjectives. A million metaphors. Kibum is all of them.
Jinki can’t explain to him using words that Kibum is something like this, something that transcends metaphor. Something as graceful as a bird. Sweet as chocolate. Cold as strawberry. Something that makes Jinki’s teeth hurt. Something that everyone wants, something that Jinki knows everyone wants, something that Jinki wants.
Above all things, Jinki wants-
iv.
The first time ever Kibum kisses him, it’s late at night in a dark room, on a night too full for sleep. Under covers too warm. Under pressure too grating. Underwater, almost, pressing them in on themselves, into each other. Kibum heaves breaths big enough to choke on, sheds tears big enough to drown in.
Jinki’s fingertips are feather-light against his cheeks, against his lips, eyes wide like a question, like a request.
And Jinki’s just as enchanting, just as impossible to resist. Kibum is who surges forward, tears sticky on his cheeks, fingers stuck at the neckline of Jinki’s shirt, lips wet and warm and addicting and strong. Mind-numbing. Mind-scrambling. Jinki kisses him back like he’s afraid he’ll forget in the morning if he’s too gentle. Jinki kisses back like Kibum could ever possibly change his mind.
The first time Kibum kisses him, it’s because they’re young, and because they both know they want to. Because they both know that all the times Kibum’s not kissed him have been mistakes, since they’ve met, possibly since they’ve been born. Since all the lifetimes they may have known each other and not been kissing.
Jinki’s mouth is warm because he’d been trying to sleep. Kibum’s: cold. Because he had been unable to. And they fall asleep after flipping the tear-soaked pillow, toes touching, knees touching, hands touching. That’s enough-
v.
It’s not enough, not at first. They have things that get in the way, because of course things get in the way. They have problems to sort through because they’re young and they’re stupid and being in love doesn’t mean what young and stupid people think it means.
Jinki is more than a book broken in by time and care. Kibum is more than a fresh copy with the pages pressed down. They are more than they understand from each other. They grow to be more than they understand about themselves. First love is hard because things change.
Interlocking blocks get lost under couches. Puzzle pieces get stepped on. Locks just break.
It’s not anyone’s fault when they do.
And time passes because it has to, and things return to normal, because they have to. Normal is always new, it’s always going to be new, it’s always going to be new. It’s always going to be new when you have to see them every day. It’s always going to be new when you have to make it new, every time you remember that normal used to be old.
And by that time, it’s not enough that they were young and stupid. It’s not enough that there are things. That Kibum is sparkling print and Jinki is full of annotations. They’ve drawn all over each other. Jinki’s taken notes in Kibum’s margins. Kibum’s pressed down the binding of Jinki’s spine. They’ve realized that Jinki’s never been crinkled pages at all, that Kibum’s never been shining new. That they didn’t have to keep each other the way they were. That they also didn’t have to change each other.
That’s enough.
vi.
They’re an arm’s length apart, for a while. Sometimes just an empty seat, another person, an armrest that neither of them use. Sometimes it’s an ocean, or a bootcamp, or the expanse of a country. It’s never far enough. It’s never close enough. A gap they never even try to bridge.
Jinki still sees him like a book he’s never read. Nostalgic, one you’ve seen the cover of all your life, read the first chapter over and over and worn into the pages with your little-kid greasy fingers and excited pen marks. He doesn’t know what happens after that, lived with this book for most of his life without knowing how to read it.
Kibum still sees him like a book he’s read a thousand times. A book he knows cover to cover. Can’t remember a single detail. All he knows is that he loves it. Homesick for the feeling of reading it for the first time. Hasn’t picked it up in years, afraid it’s going to be a different story.
And they play like this, books in a bookstore, for too long. Too long until the paper mâché dam they built started to collapse. Pointless to keep apart two bodies of water like that.
vii.
The first time Kibum kisses him again, it’s been years since the last time. It starts with the deep cold, in the entryway of his apartment, framing them like a picture.
And Kibum is like a picture: nose cold-bitten red, tips of his ears white, out of breath like he ran all this way, like Jinki’s worth running all this way, because Jinki’s worth running all this way. Wrapped up like he was in pajamas and realized something so suddenly he couldn’t just wait until morning, couldn’t wait until they saw each other in a few hours. Couldn’t wait to put on his boots correctly so his laces have dragged around in the snow.
It’s the same as the very first time, with a few extra steps. Jinki lets him in, gives him some tea. He lets Kibum say all the things he’s wanted to say since their first kiss. Since they met. Since they’ve been born. Since all their lifetimes they’ve spent not talking about how they’ve been feeling.
The first time Kibum kisses him again, it’s just as dark, on a night just as full, vibrating in their skin, into each other’s arms. They spent the last several years vibrating at the same frequency, never much more than four feet from one another, incapable of reaching over.
Jinki raises his hands up to Kibum’s cheeks, peppers his fingers at the corners of Kibum’s mouth, a place he hasn’t touched in years, not on purpose, not like this. Not without a stilted look. Not the look he wants.
But this is it: Kibum’s back against the tall counter, Jinki’s hands on his cold jaw, Kibum surges forward. He’s breathless, cheeks wet and frozen like the first time, and this time Jinki’s crying too. It’s salty, caught between their lips, caught between the decade they’ve known each other, the time they’ve spent pretending they hadn’t memorized each other.
viii.
Kim Kibum is not just one thing. He is lots of things that Jinki wants to understand.
ix.
Lee Jinki is not just one thing. He is lots of things that Kibum wants to understand.
x.
They’re an anthology, one that’s growing. Jinki tells him as much, says, when they’re tangled together again, when they’ve allowed themselves to be lazy (they are never lazy): You are such a big part of me.
Kibum responds to him like this: You are such a big part of me.
Kibum’s still not the type to let others get away with things unsaid, anyway. Jinki’s still not the type to deny him of anything.