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In the old days, when someone had a secret they didn’t want to share, they went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it and whispered the secret into the hole. Then, they covered it with mud and left the secret there forever.
In the Mood for Love (2000), dir. Wong Kar Wai
*
As a child, Kun always had a habit of taking things that weren’t his. Boiled candy from convenience stores. Flowers from stranger’s gardens. Glinting coins dropped into street gutters. Anything that caught his eye, Kun would do whatever he could to have it, even if it was not his to have.
Kun had thought he’d grown out of those childish habits by the age of thirty. He thought he no longer had the eye of a magpie, zeroing in on shiny, pretty things with the intention of making it his own. He thought he had learned his place in this world.
Ten was not a shiny, pretty thing. He was beautiful, of course, but he was also human. A broken, shattered human, just like Kun.
Still, Kun wanted him. He wanted Ten, even though Ten was not his to have. He wanted Ten like he used to want all of the other things he took that did not belong to him.
Kun could have learned to live with it, though. The want without the having. The want without the touching. The want. He could have, but he doubted he ever would, because something told Kun that Ten wanted him too, in that very same way. Maybe it was the way their eyes caught in the shadows of darkened cinemas. Maybe it was the twitch of Ten’s fingers resting on the table as they ate dinner. Maybe it was the secretive smile hiding in the corners of Ten’s mouth when they parted ways in the hall outside their apartment doors.
They wanted each other, just like their spouses had wanted each other. Just like Kun’s wife had wanted Ten’s husband and vice versa. It was a convoluted mess of wanting and taking and having, but never truly deserving any of it. The four of them were caught up in this tangled spool of strangling thread that threatened to take them down, one by one.
Kun didn’t understand why he had to be the first. Every second he spent in Ten’s company felt like the destruction of one more brick in the carefully constructed walls of his life, crumbling like a sandcastle on the verge of collapsing. It wasn’t like Kun to falter, to waver, to crack. He had always been so sure of himself, even when he was young. Even when he shouldn’t have been.
Now that he needed to be sure and certain, Kun had never been less so. He wondered if this was what it felt like to skydive. A general idea, a few expectations, a jump, and then… you fell. There was nothing that could truly prepare you for that fall. Not really.
Kun couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he fell. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment Ten, his neighbour, became Ten. Beautiful, broken Ten.
Oh, how Kun wanted him. It was such a shame that some part of him still wanted his wife too.
*
“Do you think it started like this?” Ten asked at dinner, tucked away in their usual booth at Kun’s favourite Cantonese restaurant. The red leather seat cracked beneath his hands like wrinkled skin, sagging with the weight of the secrets it had overheard.
Kun mulled the idea over like a sip of red wine, before shaking his head. “My wife wouldn’t dine somewhere like this. She likes places with polished cutlery and satin napkins; you know, restaurants with tiny portions and overpriced wine and strict dress codes.”
“Sounds thrilling,” Ten muttered sardonically, poking at his plate of limp noodles with the end of his chopsticks.
A sharp laugh burst from Kun’s lungs, rife with incredulity rather than humour. “Believe me, it’s not.”
His smile didn’t stay around much longer, fading into the silence encasing their table. Ten’s gaze was fixed on his plate whilst he listlessly toyed with his food, his mouth pulled into a glum frown. It was a sight that beckoned Kun’s curiosity, one that made him itch with the need to just ask, to know, to understand.
“My husband would never eat his steak that well-done,” Ten said once the silence grew to be too much to bear. He was smiling, but his voice was not. Kun didn’t know if he was allowed to smile too.
“I have no idea how my wife likes her steak,” Kun confessed. The words didn’t truly say what they meant.
Kun knew far less than that; or didn’t know far more. His wife was a stranger to him in the same way Ten was. In fact, Kun felt that he knew Ten much better than he did his own wife. He knew that Ten liked people like he loved to write, and that he loved to write like he yearned to travel. He knew that Ten hated fruit, but coveted wine. He knew Ten in a way he did not know his wife.
“I have no idea how it started, then,” Ten said, and this time, his voice smiled too.
*
Kun had always been somewhat of a romantic, but as of late, he considered himself a realist too. He knew that he was in love with Ten just as well as he knew that he couldn’t do anything about it. Not here. Not now. Not like this.
Even so, tonight had triggered something within Kun. Something sweet. Something heady. Something that yearned for that which he could not have.
Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was the music. Perhaps it was the gentle flush of Ten’s cheeks, the stained red of his lips, the softness of his dark hair curling around the nape of his neck.
Or perhaps it was all of those things, tossed together like a particularly potent cocktail, strong enough to rid Kun of his inhibitions and make do something he’d surely regret come sunrise.
“I think it started like this,” Kun found himself saying, just loud enough to be heard over the music but no more. He and Ten were far closer than either of them initially thought, so when Ten turned to face Kun, their noses almost brushed and their lips were only an inch or two away from a kiss. If Kun were a worse man, he’d toss all caution to the wind and lean in, press their mouths together like he really wanted--but if he did that, he’d be just as bad as his wife. He’d be a hypocrite.
They sat on Kun’s sofa, in Kun’s apartment, drinking Kun’s wine, and everything was Kun’s. Except for Ten. Ten belonged to himself. Their eyes blinked slowly, their limbs moved like the calm waves of an ocean, and then Kun was standing before Ten with a hand outstretched.
It reminded Kun of the first time he had offered his hand to Ten, months ago, when the wound of their spouses’ betrayal was still fresh and raw. Ten had been bitter back then, and Kun had been sad. Now, they both wore a scar of resentment, one they would probably carry for the rest of their lives.
Ten’s eyes flickered like the flame of a candle between the twisted line of Kun’s fingers and the soft look of determination on Kun’s face. This was all supposed to be a game. It wasn’t supposed to be real. All of this wondering about how it began between the wrong man and the wrong wife--it wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
This, being Ten’s mouth parting with a trembling sigh.
This, being the velvety whine of a saxophone.
This, being the hesitation of twining of fingers.
This, being Ten in Kun’s arms, or Kun in Ten’s arms, or--
It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
It wasn’t supposed to be the same minute repeating itself, over and over and over again.
Nothing changed, yet nothing seemed to stay the way it should have been. One of Kun’s hands rested on Ten’s waist while the other gently clasped Ten’s, swaying them back and forth to the ebb and flow of the music. Their socked feet shuffled across the slippery hardwood floors, careful not to tread on toes, and Ten breathed softly against the side of Kun’s neck. Everything smelled like red wine and vanilla, heady and sweet.
Kun was not allowed to have this, nor would he take it. He would simply allow himself to pretend for a short while, to play their silly little game, and then he would let go.
Because Ten was not a thing to have. Ten was not, and could never be, his.