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The empty bottle sits on the hardwood floor between the two of them, dangerously close to Jisung’s knee and wobbling ever-so-slightly with every shake of the floorboards that comes with his and Chenle’s unruly bouts of laughter. Chenle is a thousand years old, but his flushed face and bright smile emanate a kind of youth that Jisung is sure will last for an eternity.
Jisung’s eye’s flash a little at the sight of the red smudge that’s tucked in the corner of Chenle’s lips. Primal instinct that he’s currently got little control over, despite knowing that's not blood. Chenle catches the change in Jisung’s eye colour and giggles, licking his mouth. He sprawls out on the floor and puts his head on Jisung’s knee. “Jisung-ah…” he slurs happily, patting circles into the curve of Jisung’s ankle. “Am I pretty?”
It’s a little out of the blue, this question is, and it makes Jisung’s cheeks burn redder than they already are. “Are you…” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Jisung-ah…” Chenle persists, whining, ‘it’s been a thousand years since I last saw my reflection. Surely you’ll tell me how I look.” He bats his eyelashes and pouts from his spot on the floor, and who’s Jisung to say no?
“You’re…” he begins, albeit a little awkwardly, “you…” he trails off, then pauses, furrowing his brow. “Chenle, you make an excellent point. What do I look like? I’ve literally forgotten, it’s been so long.” Chenle blinks a few times, then nods.
“No, dude, what do I look like?”
“I thought I asked you first.”
Jisung glares at him with all the false anger his intoxicated little heart can muster up. ‘Fine. You have a face. Next,”
Chenle is a whiny drunk— Jisung knows this better than anyone else, so as per usual, he plants his gaze firmly to anywhere other than his companion’s evil pout and continues.
“Your hair. Do you remember what your hair looks like?”
Chenle shakes his head.
“Well, it’s dark. Dark like…” Jisung’s voice trails off, and he turns to face the twlight sky that lies outside of their house’s tall bay windows. They only ever go into the sun room at night (for obvious reasons) and tonight, with the moon away, the two of them have the company of all the twinkling little suns in galaxies far, far away.
“Dark like...?”
“Dark like the night sky. Like that.” Jisung gestures towards the view with his chin. “It’s pretty.”
Jisung blushes again, then closes his eyes and smiles. When he looks back at Chenle, he finds that he’s smiling at him, too. Wonders if he’s been looking at him all this time…
What a silly thought. He chases it from his mind with a shake of the head.
“Your eyes kind of look like stars as well, which is very nice. They’re very,” he smiles and spreads his hands to emphasise, “very sparkly. Bright. You’re the most youthful thousand-year-old I’ve ever met.”
“And your nose? Kind of round-ish. Like a mushroom. Maybe you were a mushroom in your past life. I think you’d make a great mushroom.”
“Thank you. I think you would make a great mushroom, too.”
They sit in silence acknowledgement, nodding contentedly at their mutual mushroom appreciation. Jisung rubs at his eyes and stares intently at Chenle’s lips. “Red,” he says, holding out his index finger to point at the soft crimson smile. “Like the moon on the night we first met. Do you remember?”
The cheeky grin falls from Chenle’s face, and in its place resides a look that’s much softer, one that Jisung can’t quite put a name on.
Chenle’s voice seems to soften too. “Yeah,” he breathes, a far-of disposition coming over his eyes. “I do.”
“Good. Because that’s all the words I have to describe you. The rest is just…” Jisung waves his arms like wobbly noodles.
“Just?”
“Pure vibes. Your face is good.”
Chenle throws his head back and giggles. “Can’t argue with that.”
Jisung waits expectantly after this, and after a few moments Chenle catches on. “Oh, okay,” he says, sitting up on the floor. “My turn.”
He pulls Jisung up with him, and the sudden movement makes his head feel like it’s a snowglobe being shaken, but the feeling subsides quickly and soon he’s sitting directly across from Chenle, their knees touching gently every now and then.
“I think you’re very pretty, Jisung-ie.” Jisung can tell Chenle’s trying to say this as casually as he can, with the straightest face possible, but who are they kidding? The straightest thing in this room is the doorframe, and even that’s the slightest bit wonky…
Jisung’s bottom lip wobbles, and he holds it down with his fangs to get it to sit still, but nothing can stop the flustered smile from reaching his eyes and ears and arms and legs and oh, he is very flustered right now.
And they stay like this— not quite looking at each other and not quite looking away. Every so often their knees knock again and Jisung swears to whatever god’s up there he feels something.
He’s expecting Chenle to come up with some sort of description in these moments, but nothing comes and Jisung wonders if maybe that was his answer.
Then Chenle moves forward, leaning into his left palm and letting his right rest lightly on Jisung’s knee. His face comes right up close to Jisung’s own, and Jisung catches himself holding onto his breath.
“Well, for starters, your eyes are kind of triangular,” he begins. Jisung can feel the words, warm against his cheek like the friendly tongues of a fire. Chenle, pauses, and then leans in further to leave a pair of cotton-like kisses on his eyelids, which close on instinct.
Can vampires even blush? Jisung sure wishes otherwise.
Shifting backwards a little to get a better look of him, Chenle furrows his brow and tilts his head to the side. Jisung feels like he’s being scrutinized, so he mirrors Chenle’s head-tilt, only to elicit another childish giggle from him. “Not a mushroom,” Chenle proposes, a little solemnly. “Your nose looks more like a tree. But it’s kind of triangular, too.”
“A triangular tree?”
Jisung reckons Chenle probably has nothing witty to say in response to this, and that’s why he leans in to press another kiss into the space between his eyes, and then another down the middle of his nose bridge, and finally, one on the tip of his nose.
Instead of moving back to talk this time, though, Chenle moves his lips down to Jisung’s and speaks to him there instead.
It’s subtly violent, the way Jisung can understand everything Chenle’s saying without him having to speak a single word. The way their fangs touch lightly when they both smile into the kiss, bursting into giggles so persistent that they’re forced to break apart.
“You’re pretty,” Chenle says again, and Jisung decides he’ll just have to take his word for it.
The routine appearance of purple-pink twilight is beginning to make its rounds, and a soft glow is starting to filter into the picture. Still clearly visible are all the stars, twinkling silently for all the world to see.
And under the light of a thousand suns, Jisung still has no idea what he looks like.