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It's interesting, the dreams he has, when he's sleep deprived during promotions. On those few days in-between, getting a miraculous six or seven hours -- that's when his subconscious speaks.
Most of the dreams start out innocuous enough. He's about to perform, sometimes, or already performing; sometimes he's making food, or laying in bed, as if waking up to the dream world. Grounded in his life. When he was younger, his dreams would quickly turn fantastical, like flying or swimming deep down in the ocean, but now, they became something close but parallel. His life, but with aspects that were not possible -- not impossibly fantastical, but as if from a different version of his life. One that was decidedly not real.
Like this, for example. He's cooking a meal, which is normal, and it's samgyeopsal, which is a little less normal, but still realistic. The meat is sizzling pink when he turns, and sees Dongyoung at the table, chopsticks held individually, comically in his hands, like a cartoon. An empty plate rests in front of him. It's to him that Taeyong brings the meal: crispy pork belly, rice, and the condiments for a wrap, complete in what seems like moments.
Dongyoung hands him a pair of chopsticks, gliding his plate forward to the center of the table. Taeyong, seated comfortably across from him, reaches over to make a wrap.
This is when the dream shifts over, falling into an alternate normal. When he used to dream about fantasy worlds, this is when he would jump off the mountaintop in freefall. He would spread his arms, wind whistling past him, and catch one such wind current, gliding smoothly over rivers and towns and even clouds from far above. Larger than life, just a speck in the sky. He might curl up and cannonball into the ocean, sinking so far down he shouldn't be able to see; but he can see, the luminous creatures formed in his subconscious, the world beyond his own.
In this dream, the shift is different. His hands move, automatic, to bring the wrap to Dongyoung's lips. Dongyoung, who hasn't even bothered with his chopsticks -- no, his chopsticks are resting in the bare plate, and so are Taeyong's. Dongyoung opens his mouth to eat the wrap, no questions asked, and it feels like they always do this.
His fingertips end up resting on Dongyoung's lips. He doesn't panic or snatch them back, instead resting quietly for one second. Dongyoung, completely calm, chews the wrap slowly, leisurely, mouth and cheeks puffed up like a bunny. The second stretches, elongating to extend the thrill. The motion stutters, hovers, and repeats, as Taeyong pressed his thumb to those gently pursed lips. Dongyoung swallows, and his mouth parts, just slightly, perfectly under his fingers. Taeyong takes in a shuddering breath, and the dream wavers with it; just this moment shakes him to his core. This is the apex, the flying, the diving. This is the fantastical in the mundane.
He starts awake after these dreams with his heart in his throat, like it begs to fly away itself. Fly back into the dream, or -- and Taeyong doesn't let himself think too much about this -- to make that reality out of this one, his real.
It's with some embarrassment, some guilt, and some secret elation that he returns to the same recurring dream.
The Yutnori board wavers into view first, then a table, and across from him, Taeyong. Taeyong, steadily, slowly moving one of his black tokens two steps forward, narrowly missing the station Dongyoung had situated his own white token.
"Don't get comfortable," says Taeyong, leaning back in his chair. His hair is a dusty greyish-white. "I have two more tokens to catch up and knock yours out."
"I have three myself," says Dongyoung. He picks up the four bam yut sticks, shakes them loosely in a wrinkled palm and rolls. All the sticks land face-up. He smiles, the seconds stretching. "That's mo."
He places one of his three unplayed tokens on the board, five places up. This is near the other black token on the board. When Taeyong takes notice of it, he grumbles unintelligibly. Dongyoung feels lighter than air.
He rolls again, and looks to see two sticks face-down. Gae. Just enough to occupy the station housing Taeyong's nearby token, and evict the piece.
"I'll beat you," Taeyong promises, trying to rile him up, collecting the displaced token. Rolling the sticks; it's dwitdo. Taeyong pulls his lone black token back one place, and Dongyoung snickers, feeling victorious...right up until he realized his precious white token -- one he'd patiently moved far ahead on the board -- had just been cast away, Taeyong's token taking its place.
Dongyoung opens his mouth -- to complain, to futilely demand an unnecessary reroll, maybe -- but stops short at the sight of Taeyong.
He looks triumphant. In the dreamlike haze, his grey-white hair floats, looking like just another dye job for a comeback. But the victorious smile on his face is softened by wrinkles; his eyes are framed by lines of their own. This is a face worn by age, weathered by years on Earth, unrelenting in the face of a game of Yut.
This is the face Dongyoung returns to most nights. It is, it seems, a face that will never get old for him.
The next moves in the game are a hazy blur, ones that end in Dongyoung's miraculous resurgence of tokens on the board and subsequent win. At some point they must have introduced the Seoul rule, letting Dongyoung's pieces jump to the center of the board on a lucky roll. Taeyong regrets letting the rule be added, and says so with his gravelly voice.
"We're getting the Go board before the others next time," he declares, and Dongyoung finally looks beyond him. At the other seniors in the game room, smile-lined faces over their own board games. Across the room, he sees the Go board, two slow-moving players on either end, and even spectators watching the quiet strategy.
He turns his head and meets his own eye in the window reflection to his right. A wrinkled face, to match his wrinkled palms. His hair, like Taeyong's, is greyed. Taeyong is in the reflection too, sitting across from him, gazing at his face, and even in his old age he feels himself blush. The window shows him the domesticity in a matching set of competitive spirits. Together and all the days from then, they are a matching set, black and white tokens on the Yutnori board.
The scene shifts like sand, crumbling and resurfacing into something different, but not unfamiliar. The sun is bright, reflects off the dreamy mist and makes it difficult to see. He feels the gauzy heat, the seat beneath him, and a hand in his -- a hand he feels confident, in this dream future, is Taeyong's.
"The weather is so nice today," says Taeyong. He says this every day they go outside; Dongyoung would know, because he's been with him in every instance, hand always, always interlocked with his. They could follow this pattern for the rest of their lives -- they have been for years, in this future, says his blurry recollection -- and Dongyoung wouldn't feel even a shred of want for anything else. The patio might be occupied by other senior residents, but Dongyoung still feels it's their spot. The sun-brightened pavement stones, and his and Taeyong's stiff-backed seats lined up right next to each other, just like the helpers know they like to be. They're steady, going steady.
His dreams return to this spot, hurtling toward this point inevitably, and end here.
It's not uncommon for Taeyong to forget he's even had these dreams, until much later in the day. Their dorm auntie brought in pork belly to make bossam; Taeyong, under what he'd thought was an arbitrary whim, asked for some to make samgyeopsal. Their dorm auntie parted with a portion of the pork belly, and even offered to buy more, to which he declined.
He'd had the meat grilling in the kitchen, its sizzling the only sound, until Dongyoung entered the room.
"What are you making, samgyeopsal?" Dongyoung leans over the counter. "Can I have some?"
Dongyoung hadn't said anything in his dream -- neither of them had -- but the image of the pork belly grilling and Dongyoung nearby brings the memory back to him. He startles a little bit, and Dongyoung frowns in momentary concern, until Taeyong manages a "yeah."
Dongyoung hovers at the counter, watching the meat slowly darken, and Taeyong lets his mind follow through the rest of his dream. He wonders if Dongyoung would let him do what he'd done in the dream, for one lazy second, and feels something in his stomach clench, feels the embarrassment of the real world push that thought away. He opens a few of the nearby drawers, and can't find the tongs, so he resorts to flipping pork belly with cheap chopsticks.
"Hyung," says Dongyoung suddenly.
"What?"
"I was thinking...what you said to me in that recording." Dongyoung bites his lip, like he's debating whether to keep the thought to himself or not. It makes Taeyong's eyes drift down to them, remembering how he'd touched those lips, in another world. "Did you mean it? When you said we'd go to the same nursing home?"
"Of course," says Taeyong.
"Of course," Dongyoung echoes. "Of course, I knew. I was just making sure."
Taeyong just hums, and says, "Get some chopsticks and sit down. This is almost done."
When Taeyong tries to feed him a wrap, Dongyoung feels a flash of -- panic, maybe, but mostly an indiscernable feeling -- and asks, "What are you doing?"
"Feeding you a wrap." The hand that holds the wrap wavers, just slightly.
"Huh," Dongyoung says intelligently. The flash of something is back again, like his heart is tightening just a little bit. Unbidden, he says, "Okay."
So Taeyong feeds him the wrap, and his fingertips touch Dongyoung's lips; only for a second, because he slips them away and works on a wrap for himself. He's looking away, down at the food, but Dongyoung can see the glint in his eyes. He knows Taeyong well enough to recognize it. It's the look of Taeyong from his dreams: satisfaction, elation, triumph.
"Hyung," says Dongyoung, and reaches for his hand. And stays there.