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haunting. if yeonjun were to describe the experience with one word, it would have to be haunting. because every time his eyes flutter shut, the darkness he wishes to embrace morphs itself into a silhouette—one he longs to forget.
winter of his first year at university—also his first year in an unknown city toying with his worst fears—yeonjun had met him. through the crowds of intimidating stares, his eyes had met a warm, hazel pair that silently beckoned him forth. they met underneath the fairy lights strung up on the fourth floor of their dormitory building.
“hey, i’m soobin.”
soobin. the name that’s etched itself onto yeonjun over and over again, digging a wound too deep for yeonjun to recover from. in his dreams, soobin is the name he calls out for. fingers desperately curling into the thin air, nails scratching the leather underneath him.
leather, because yeonjun often falls asleep on his couch nowadays. his heart aches for distractions, otherwise vowing to keep him awake all night from sorrow, and so yeonjun strives to appease it until he passes out from pure exhaustion.
at first, they’re snippets stolen from fond memories. the nerve-wracking experience of asking soobin out the eve of their first valentine’s day together, their first kiss which had been abrupt and unexpected underneath the bleachers, the night soobin had said “i love you” to him when he thought yeonjun was fast asleep. they’re raw and yeonjun has a hard time differentiating his dreams from reality.
those dreams turn into nightmares soon after.
their third year together, soobin had won student council president. yeonjun remembers the pure excitement radiating off his lover—remembers the way soobin’s hands had been shaking from joy and how there had been a light skip to each of his steps throughout the entire day. and he had been happy too. seeing soobin’s dimpled smile and the pride oozing off the taller boy, contrary to the usual cowardice influenced by his insecurities. but the happiness had been short-lived.
“this is beomgyu.”
beomgyu, with sharp features, a boisterous laugh, and an impish personality. soobin has introduced them a few days after he, himself, first met beomgyu. he was a transfer student from daegu and soobin was his assigned guide. yeonjun wasn’t normally the jealous type and soobin had his trust, all of it, but there had been something about beomgyu that made yeonjun queasy.
it takes two weeks for soobin to announce that beomgyu is his “best friend''. they're laying together on yeonjun’s bed, soobin’s head fitting snuggly underneath yeonjun’s chin, when the topic comes up. silence envelopes them for seconds—which feel like hours—until yeonjun hums softly in acknowledgement. it should be okay. he doesn’t own soobin; soobin’s free to befriend whomever he wishes to.
it should be okay, but it isn’t. it isn’t because yeonjun sees the way beomgyu looks at soobin and the way beomgyu tosses him a guilty glance to see if he’s been caught. yeonjun spares him the embarrassment nonetheless because he knows. he knows all too well that you can’t choose who you fall in love with.
in his nightmares, he relives the excruciating pain. he feels the itchy dryness of his throat and the urge to claw at it, feels the lock tightening around his lungs until they’re drained of air, feels the swell of his eyelids from nights and nights of crying.
choi beomgyu, with eyes you could lose yourself in—with eyes soobin lost himself in.
it was the hour after midterms, the day before winter break, the night yeonjun had met soobin three years ago, when it happened. the wind was relentless, biting cherry hues onto the tips of yeonjun’s ears and cheeks. his lips were chapped and his fingers were numb, but what caused him to freeze wasn’t the weather. the forlorn classroom of the physics department, whence hushed whispers came from, piqued yeonjun’s interest. he hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, merely aiming to pass by and pick up his boyfriend from the auditorium, when he heard a voice shout, eerily familiar to that of beomgyu’s. concerned, he approached the room, ignoring the dreadful weight that tried to anchor him down and prevent him from doing so. the radiator rattled, much like yeonjun’s heart, when the scene finally entered his line of sight.
yeonjun doesn’t want to go to sleep anymore if it means being stuck in a painful loop.
summer’s haze weighs down on his eyelids heavily. there lies shadows where fireworks once littered in dilated, honey irises. seconds drag by slowly, each audible tick of the clock reminding him of the rhythmic beating of his heart. it’s long past midnight, but the moon remains shyly tucked behind grey clouds. somehow, he finds that a parallel to himself—how sheathed his thoughts have become, how tight his facade has sealed. maybe if he can beguile the stars, who try so hard to engrave onto him their everlasting glimmer, the abyss will be easier to reside in.
darkness paints the walls of his room, each stroke so much firmer than the last, and brings with it a prickling silence. even though dawn will reintroduce herself in due time, the dullness will remain. it always does. and the sun, shining with all its might, will be nullified by absence; much like the warmth he once called love.
he had loved soobin. loved him as much as he could possibly love someone. and for some time, soobin had loved him back. but love, like everything else, isn’t definite.
he learned that upon seeing soobin’s lithe figure hunched over, large hands that once held his face so gently now doing the same onto someone else. there was a gasp of air when soobin and beomgyu had parted from a kiss that said more words than soobin could ever muster the courage to say—for he hadn’t with him, even after all their years spent together.
“this isn’t fair to yeonjun. you need to tell him.”
beomgyu’s voice was hoarse, worn out as if he’d been keeping this secret for far too long. and soobin, whose voice was once heavenly, sounded like nails on a chalkboard. guilt laced with sadness and fear, but not an ounce of regret.
“how am i supposed to tell him i’m in love with someone else?”
like a broken record, soobin’s words play over and over again in his head. even now, months after they’d gone their separate ways and yeonjun had watched as soobin found in beomgyu what he apparently couldn’t offer, that night is all he can think about. it’s been too long to call it a fresh wound, but why did it still hurt him like it had been just yesterday that the love of his life had tore him into two?
love of his life. that’s what soobin had been. until he began far too close to being dead than alive. boy of his dreams, he would call him. until the dreams had turned into nightmares. but even with the bags under his eyes reminding him of the fragile shell of a person he’d become, he would go back and meet soobin all over again if he could. he didn’t regret meeting him, he couldn’t. he’d been so in love; and maybe, maybe he still was.
that love had been what compelled him to pretend he was blissfully unaware of soobin’s lies. before they went to bed on that fateful night, soobin had left him a chaste kiss more out of habit than desire. void of the passion it once held. that had been the first night of many where he cried himself to sleep. when they had risen the next morning, and evidence of his heartbreak was written across his countenance in the form of red eyes and worried lips, soobin had stared at him for long, long seconds. then, with a feigned smile and another pitiful peck to the forehead, he had left their dorm wordlessly. they both knew.
it’s not until christmas, two weeks after, that soobin comes clean—in the messiest way possible. they were at a christmas party hosted by a couple of graduate students. yeonjun had gotten in, courtesy of taehyung, and soobin was naturally his plus-one. the facade he’d been holding onto had deteriorated over time and yeonjun wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep acting as if everything was fine, as if there weren’t marks blooming on the nape of soobin’s neck, as if soobin wasn’t cancelling all their plans in favor of those he’d made with beomgyu.
he had lost soobin in the midst of collecting his thoughts, so his priority—before drinking himself into numbness—was to find soobin and make sure he was safe. but perhaps it shouldn’t have been.
he finds soobin in the guest room farthest from the living room, toppled over beomgyu with intent. they have the decency to at least look ashamed when yeonjun makes his presence known by accidentally dropping his phone. the first picture he and soobin had taken together is displayed on his screen as the device shatters. the call ends and soobin’s phone stops ringing.
“i’m sorry.”
the last messages they’d exchanged had been on that day. after yeonjun’s frantic flurry of ‘where are you’s came a time stamp and then soobin’s lengthy apology. yeonjun had willed himself not to reply, to allow himself the ignorance that alcohol granted. besides, the venom—the toxicity—that coursed through his veins weren’t from the countless shots of vodka.
days, weeks, months after soobin becomes a closed chapter in his life—with that party as it’s abrupt ending—yeonjun’s fingers still hover over the chat box. maybe, he thinks, just maybe, if he replies to soobin’s message, they can rekindle their lost flame.
but hope is misleading. with the way he sees soobin and beomgyu happily frolic around campus, hand in hand, he knows he’s the only one stuck trying to rewrite the past.
in due time he stops looking for soobin. he stops because every time he closes his eyes, he sees him anyways. it’s hard to force himself to stop winding around the boy’s orbit when that’s the only thing he’s grown to do for so long, but he manages. he lets his pessimism wilt the tiny sapling of wishful thinking embedded in his heart.
a series of self-exploration adventures help yeonjun discover his love for music and infatuate himself with the power dancing has in conveying his unsaid thoughts. the songs cry out to him and he responds just as desperately with his newfound skill. late at night, when the dance studio is unoccupied, is when he soars the most.
one night, after rehearsing one of his more tiring choreographies, a round of applause echos. through the reflection of the mirror, yeonjun makes out a tall figure perched against the door frame. the lights are dim, hindering his vision, and so he tenses; he wishes, for the first time after a long while, for it to not be soobin.
it isn’t. a boy, young with long brunette curls, steps into the room timidly. they exchange awkward glances and yeonjun listens with bewilderment when the stranger asks him for a duet.
“ah, i forgot to introduce myself! my name’s huening kai.”
kai is radiant. he shines brighter than anyone yeonjun has ever came across, soobin included, and yeonjun unwillingly tries to veil that light because he doesn’t understand it. how can someone be so pure, so innocent, so unaware of the dangers that make reality vile?
for every point yeonjun feels his darkness earn, kai’s light scores double, until the balance tips in the boy’s favor and yeonjun spirals helplessly. warmth kisses down his spine, along his arms, over his cheeks, leaving no spot untouched.
autumn leaves blanket over concrete sidewalks. kai enjoys watching them fly aimlessly and yeonjun watches with him, knowing all too well the feeling of free falling. in the soft whistles of the breeze, yeonjun hears soobin’s voice and all his forgotten promises. but it’s fainter now. kai unknowingly drowns out most of it, reciting nursery songs or humming commercial jingles, and yeonjun begins to find beauty in the wind that would once taunt him.
when kai leans onto him half-asleep for the first time, nimble fingers curling carefully around yeonjun’s hip to keep him still, it reminds yeonjun of the intimacy he once sought daily. the duvet is soft underneath his touch but kai is softer. so yeonjun opts to rest his hands on the younger boy’s hair, back, thighs, waist—anything to get him closer so he can drink in the addictive heat. it’s been so long since yeonjun has felt anything, let alone sparks of desire.
the fire that kai ignites within him often has yeonjun comparing him to the sun. with rays that persistently embrace him, even though he’s cast himself into the shadows, kai becomes his sun. however, though kai looks ethereal in the presence of the golden hour, yeonjun quickly learns that it’s underneath the moonlight that kai shines the brightest. he sort of wishes kai’s absentminded touches and calm breaths weren’t so lulling, wanting to spend more time awake to admire the way his pale complexion glows.
and when kai kisses him for the first time, yeonjun knows that the thorny vines protecting his heart have loosened and let yet another person slip through. it’s terrifying, but if feels so, so good—so right. he kisses kai back with just as much fervor, utilizing his strength to his advantage and pinning the boy onto the mattress so he can take what he’s been craving for.
but then soobin’s face appears behind his eyelids again and everything comes crashing down. the happiness he had slowly begun to rebuild, fades in a matter of mere seconds. his lips slacken and kai notices the change in demeanor, but wastes no time in sending yeonjun a reassuring smile.
“your eyes tell.”
kai’s thumb brushes over yeonjun’s cheekbone and yeonjun wants to apologize, but nothing comes out. they sit there, invisible bricks stacking walls between them. when kai leaves, yeonjun feels cold, colder than he’s ever felt before.
the next week, he runs into soobin, as if all life can bring him are sick jokes. yeonjun’s got bleak bags smeared underneath his eyes, signs that he hasn’t been able to sleep again, and he wants to tell soobin: it’s not because of you. but he can’t.
soobin surprisingly harbors the same eyebags, the same swollen lids, the same dusty cheeks and rosy nose. gears turn in yeonjun’s head and a burdensome weight that had kept him captive suddenly disappears.
“i couldn’t make him happy anymore.”
and when soobin seeks shelter in his arms, yeonjun’s lips part in awe. this is what he’s been waiting for, but why does it no longer mean anything to him? it’s not until he refuses soobin’s plea to spend the night together that he realizes. he’d been seeking closure from him, not a new beginning. what had been holding yeonjun back hadn’t been his devotion to love, but fear of it. he no longer loves soobin.
so he runs. faster than he’s ever run before. the clouds above him and the leaves in the wind race alongside him. when he reaches the studio, the lights are on, but there’s no music. just a boy touching his reflection. yeonjun approaches him; like a moth drawn towards light, he’s become dependent on kai to guide him out of the terror-inducing grasps of the shadows.
“i love you.”