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Jisung Park - contrary to popular belief and his reputation as a romantic - doesn’t believe in soulmates.
He says he doesn’t believe in soulmates because he doesn’t need to - Jisung has always been good at identifying his own feelings, at swimming in love like it's a pool in the summer. Love comes easily to him, and that should mean, by logic, that there isn’t one singular person out there for him.
(He actually doesn’t believe in soulmates because he’s too scared to. If soulmates are real, Chenle is his, and if soulmates are real, he’s not Chenle’s, and if soulmates are real, Jisung is going to be alone forever.)
***
The biggest problem is that Jisung physically can’t hate Mark Lee.
Aside from the fact that Jisung is fundamentally a nice person, the fact that Mark is a fundamentally nice person, and the fact that he’s known Mark for years, Mark does things like:
Pays for the food whenever they eat together.
Remembers his wishlist from two years ago and buys him a bracelet for Christmas when he can afford it.
Invites him to basketball games with Chenle so he doesn’t feel left out.
Makes Chenle happy.
The last one is a little dubious, because Jisung is not sure Chenle is always happy with his feelings for Mark. But Jisung sees the way Chenle listens to Mark’s silliest stories with rapt attention, the way he laughs the loudest, smiles the brightest, follows Mark around without realising he’s doing it. Jisung sees that Chenle looks at Mark like he hung the goddamn moon in the sky, and he wonders if he could ever get Chenle to look at him like that.
***
Jisung meets Chenle on the first day of middle school.
It goes like this:
Jisung is ten and too short for his age.
Their English teacher is much too strict for a group of loud kids, and she rattles off instructions to note down in the first ten minutes of class. The boy sitting behind Jisung lets out a soft groan. He taps Jisung’s shoulder and asks for a pen, looking like it’s causing him tremendous amounts of mental effort.
Jisung offers him his new packet of multicoloured pens.
The boy stares at him for a full minute, chooses purple, and then smiles so bright that Jisung’s ears turn pink.
They play basketball during the lunch break. Jisung is awful at it. The boy, Chenle, laughs at him the entire time, and then walks him home.
Almost a decade later, he still walks Jisung home.
***
Jisung is thirteen and gets cold too easily.
The weather is nearly perfect. Spring is finally here, and he’s shivering in his sweater but he’s grinning at Chenle’s attempts to climb the old oak tree in the park.
“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Jisung calls, waving his arms. He’s finally growing into his limbs, now half a foot taller than he was last summer, taller than Chenle even.
“Fuck you,” Chenle counters, and Jisung sees the flush that cursing painted on his cheeks. “I won’t fall,” he adds, swinging from a branch like a leaf.
Jisung hears rustling, and he watches with fear and awe in his chest as Chenle climbs higher. He’s so brave. He’s always brave. He runs towards things that Jisung runs away from.
Chenle doesn’t fall.
He comes back down the tree and in his palm, something small and pink shines under a dewdrop.
“Cherry blossom,” Jisung says, in wonder. “They’re blooming already?”
“For you,” Chenle grins.
“You climbed the tree for me?”
“Of course I did,” Chenle says it like it’s obvious.
Jisung opens his mouth and closes it. He isn’t shivering anymore.
***
Jisung is fifteen and his heart feels like a car crash.
Chenle has always been brave, and as far as Jisung is concerned, he’s brave now, hiccuping through sobs in the school’s nicest bathroom. His eye makeup is smudged - Jisung had spent an hour perfecting it for him.
On the dance floor, Mark Lee is kissing the prom queen.
Jisung’s chest aches, and his eyes well with tears, and his fingers shake when he rests them in Chenle’s hair.
He lets Chenle cry into his rental suit, and he realises love hurts.
***
Jisung is eighteen and drunk on spiked fruit punch.
Pink lights flash through whoever’s living room this is. Chenle is twerking with Donghyuck, and even from across the room, Jisung can hear Chenle’s laugh. He can feel it in his bones, a steady hum vibrating stronger than the bass.
Renjun squeezes into the space next to him on the couch. He’s watching Donghyuck with stars in his eyes and a rose-pink smile. Jisung is watching Chenle with thorns around his ribs.
Jisung looks at Renjun and wonders about love. He wonders about how love is considered one emotion when it can shift so easily. He wonders about how being loved back feeds love. He wonders about how it can turn so ugly if it’s not returned.
He doesn’t think his love for Chenle is ugly, but he also doesn’t think it shines like Renjun’s does.
“You’re in love,” he observes softly, touching Renjun’s hand.
Renjun’s gaze snaps to Jisung, and he doesn’t deny it. He smiles, and it’s like the pink lights get brighter.
“Does Hyuck know?” Jisung asks.
Renjun nods. “I told him last week. He said it back.” His voice is flower-scented, woven through with petals. He sounds intoxicated, but Jisung doesn’t think it’s the punch.
Of course Donghyuck said it back. It’s different for them, Jisung thinks. They’ve been dating since summer began, and boyfriends are supposed to fall in love.
Friends are not.
“Will you ever tell Chenle?” Renjun asks, and it’s the first time he’s asked it, but he says it with ease. Love doesn’t hurt, for him.
Jisung isn’t surprised by the question. If anyone was going to notice, it may as well be Renjun. Jisung doesn’t mind. His love isn’t ugly, and just because he has to hide it from Chenle, doesn’t mean he has to hide it from his roommate.
He shakes his head. He can’t ever tell Chenle.
Mark isn’t here, at this party, but he’s still here, in the way Chenle looks at couples around the room. He’s still here, in the way Chenle pulls out his phone and stares at it before downing a shot of vodka. He’s still here, in the way Chenle isn’t looking at Jisung right now, in the way Jisung’s chest burns. He’s still here, in the way Renjun makes a soft noise of sympathy and pulls Jisung in for a hug.
The music pulses. The thorns around his ribs tighten. The party goes on.
***
Once, late at night in senior year, Chenle acknowledges that Mark is probably straight.
Donghyuck jokes that there’s no way he isn’t, because they kissed in high school and Mark still didn’t see him that way. Renjun mutters that he should shut up.
Later, Chenle leans his head against Jisung’s shoulder. “I don’t think I know how not to love him,” Chenle whispers, and the words pierce like an arrowhead. It’s fucking ironic, the way Chenle knows how to reach into his heart and pull out the words. Jisung gets it, he really does.
He doesn’t know how not to love Chenle, either.
***
Chenle looks at Jisung like he’s familiar, like he’s home, like he’s his favourite sweater made of soft wool.
Chenle looks at Mark like he’s the brightest star in the sky, like he’s brand-new everyday, like he’s an entire city lit-up like a jewel.
Jisung wonders if he’s gotten love wrong this entire time.
***
Jisung is twelve and he’s Chenle’s best friend, and Jisung is fifteen and he’s Chenle’s best friend, and Jisung is eighteen and he’s Chenle’s best friend, and again and again, he tells himself it’s enough.
***
It is enough, is the thing.
Chenle is the best friend Jisung has ever had, and he’s the best friend Jisung will ever have, and having that feeling reciprocated fills him with a clear spring of joy, pure and drinkable and endless.
In middle school, they skip school dances to play Mario Kart and eat Jisung’s mom’s tacos. They spend weekends getting cheap ice cream and trying to learn skateboarding in the park. Chenle has the skill for it, but Jisung’s limbs are too awkward. He sticks to taking videos for his new Instagram account. Chenle goes on a month-long Europe trip with his parents and calls Jisung from the top of the Eiffel Tower. He comes back with blonde hair and Jisung insists on bleaching his hair too, during a sleepover in the bathroom sink.
In high school, they get drunk off Chenle’s dad’s beer and come out to each other. Jisung has his first kiss with a girl from his dance class, and Chenle has his with a boy at a party.
(He was hurt after, because he realised he wanted it to be Mark. Mark, who was older and cooler and probably straight. Mark, who was closer to Donghyuck and Jeno than them, Mark who was applying to universities so far away.)
(Chenle admitted to liking him after months of tracing Mark’s movements with his eyes, and Jisung processed this with confusion and hurt - not for himself, but for Chenle, because Chenle’s emotions were his own, and he would do anything to make Chenle happy.)
In junior year, Jisung has a dance recital, and Chenle screams loudly from the crowd. Jisung’s ballet teachers give him the evil eye, and Chenle screams louder. He gives Jisung a bouquet of flowers (yellow roses; friendship) and then shoves Jisung’s shoulder to redeem himself from being too sentimental.
They apply to the same universities without explicitly planning it. It’s natural, inevitable, the path of fate twisting and shifting to accommodate the two of them instead of just one.
Chenle’s parents insist he lives at home, and in a great act of rebellion, he spray paints their windows until he’s not just living at home but also grounded. Jisung moves into a tiny apartment, rooming with Renjun across the hall from Jeno and Jaemin. Chenle spends most evenings after class on their couch, head in Jeno’s lap and legs thrown over Jisung’s.
It’s not just good, it’s everything, and Jisung tries every day not to sink deeper into the terror of losing it.
***
On Jisung’s nineteenth birthday, his first thought is that he should’ve gotten over it by now.
Ironically, his comfort comes from the fact that Chenle isn’t over Mark by now, either.
Maybe love is just like that. It persists, returned or not.
Regardless, today is a happy day, so love hurts less.
Chenle is in Jisung’s bed, having refused to abandon the tradition of sleeping over on birthdays despite the inevitable transition into adulthood. Jisung looks at him, allows himself to look in ways he normally can’t. Chenle isn’t asleep, but his eyes are closed against the thin rays of February sun that shimmer off his featherlight black lashes and slanted cheeks. His hand is thrown carelessly across his stomach, where his t-shirt is riding up to show a strip of pale skin, and his legs are tangled with Jisung’s, each point of contact pleasantly burning through Jisung’s cotton pajamas.
His mouth is dry, and it still tastes like the single tequila shot Chenle had poured down his throat at midnight.
“Like what you see?” his voice comes out a murmur, and Jisung tries not to jump into the air.
“No. Just checking if you’re asleep,” Jisung replies, averting his eyes.
Chenle cracks an eye open. “I would never. We have pancakes to make,”
“You have pancakes to make. I’m the birthday boy,” Jisung complains.
“But you’re so much better at mixing the batter,” Chenle pouts.
A blatant lie; Jisung is a notoriously bad cook, and living with Renjun has saved his life more times than he can count.
Still, they’ve done this for as long as he can remember, and he doesn’t know why he bothers to put up a fight when he knows they’ll end up together in the kitchen for an hour, arguing about the amount of milk that goes in despite having tried the recipe a hundred times before, and tossing flour at each other though it's a nightmare to clean. It’s a miracle neither of them set any fires.
The evening finds the six of them crowded in the corner booth of Jisung’s favourite bar.
(Mark sends a cake, and calls in the morning with well wishes and an apology for being unable to fly back from Vancouver. Jisung tells him it’s alright and pushes down the pang of relief in his stomach that is twisting with guilt.)
Donghyuck complains about missing the club, but it’s lighthearted - it’s not worth a fight against five introverts. He gets up to dance at one point anyway, which would be embarrassing if he wasn’t so good at it, holding Renjun’s hand and moving his hips in tandem to the live band’s melody while Jaemin rolls his eyes and Jeno giggles.
Ordering drinks legally is a novelty. Jisung’s blood feels warm, sitting next to the people he loves most. If he cries a little when they give him his presents, he chalks it up to his third long island iced tea.
Chenle is watching Donghyuck and Renjun dance, sipping a bottle of beer. He has an alarming habit of drinking shots and then pausing to drink beer instead of water. Jisung thinks it’s gross, but Chenle looks good like this - flushed under the warm yellow lights, eyes fever-bright from the intoxication, lips pink and chapped when they wrap around the mouth of the bottle. Jisung shudders, and he thinks maybe dancing out his nervous energy is a good thing.
He whispers it to Donghyuck, who predictably yells it to everyone else, so they end up at a gay club where the bouncer gives Jisung and his ID three once-overs.
Jisung loses himself dancing. It makes him feel more drunk than the alcohol - a way to gently silence his brain, focus on his body and nothing else. When he dances, it’s an excuse to jump, to yell, to touch - to do things he can’t when he’s sober, a good son, a university student. He pulls Chenle in by the waist and twirls him around. Renjun detaches himself from Donghyuck to kiss his hair. Jeno grinds against his back while Jaemin watches with an amused smile. Jisung feels drunk on their love, on the exhilarating high of youth, the moment tasting the way only nineteen can, and he thinks he doesn’t even care if the morning never comes.
He dances until his heart is thudding too fast to hear the music, until his legs threaten to give way and lead him towards the door and fresh air.
Outside the club, the breeze is sharp and cold. It’s not enough to make Jisung feel sober, but it does make him aware of his skin, his hair standing on end, the chill working its way through the silver jacket he’d gotten from Jaemin earlier.
Chenle finds him like he’s a beacon.
He hums contentedly despite the sweat gleaming on his face and neck, twirling a little before reaching the wall Jisung is leaning against.
Jisung huffs a laugh. Chenle has always been an endearing drunk - less obnoxious than he is when he is sober, more loose with his body, less restricted with his words. He crowds up in Jisung’s space, causing the chill to evaporate and be replaced with fireplace warmth. He’s drunk, and he’s smiling, and Jisung’s heart is disappearing into vapour.
“What’s our birthday boy doing out here?” Chenle teases, but his fingers are already intertwining with Jisung’s, his eyes are already lit with understanding, with unhidden affection.
“Admiring the sights and sounds,” Jisung sighs, and Chenle snorts. There’s cigarette butts on the street and cars honking and drunk people yelling in the distance. Still, the sky is ink-blue, and the yellow street lights turn Chenle’s blonde hair into a halo. He’d made the effort to put on makeup tonight, twin black lines over his eyes that made him look like a cat. There’s a slight shimmer on his cheeks, picking up the glint of his nose pin and the blue of his jacket. He looks good. Jisung doesn’t have the inhibitions to keep the thought to himself, so he doesn’t.
Chenle laughs, startled, because he’s the flirt of this relationship, but he looks pleased. “Are you kidding? You look gorgeous. Nineteen looks great on you.” He tugs at Jisung’s jacket flirtatiously because he’s Chenle, and Jisung flushes pale pink because he’s Jisung.
This isn’t really new - the bolts of electricity between them. It crackles and mocks at Jisung every time they’re in such close vicinity, when Chenle is wearing tight pants and cruel smiles, when they’re watching a movie from the loveseat Jaemin thrifted, when nighttime falls and brings with it cold and lonely yearning.
Except usually, they’re both sober. Except usually, Mark Lee’s shadow looms in Jisung’s mind and veils Chenle’s line of sight.
But now, Mark is in Vancouver, and they’re both drunk, and when Chenle leans in to peck his cheek, Jisung turns his head. It could stop there - it could stop while still innocent. Except that... Jisung’s never given out a challenge in his life before, and Chenle has never met a challenge he didn’t meet with a smile.
Chenle cocks his head to the side, and Jisung forces himself to keep his gaze. There’s always stars in Chenle’s eyes, but tonight, they’re peeking through clouds. He doesn’t speak, because he doesn’t have to. He leans in, careful and slow. The world seems very far away. No more lamps, no more drunk people, no more club that all their friends are in. Jisung’s mind is a fog, and Chenle’s gaze is the lighthouse signal. He gives Jisung time to walk away, to push him off, to utter a word - or multiple words - of protest. Jisung only watches. It’s his birthday. If this is going to kill him, so be it.
Chenle kisses like he’s got nothing to prove. It makes sense. It speaks to trust, to joy, to the wordless comfort they’ve shared between them all their lives. His lips are soft, and they taste like whiskey. It burns Jisung’s entire body. They’re both breathing heavy, but Jisung’s brain is a television with no signal, cracking static with bursts of colour but no images, wiped clean of thoughts - thoughts of his feelings, of Mark, of literally everything but the way Chenle is lazily taking him apart with his tongue.
There’s only so much making out you can do against the admittedly grimy wall of a nightclub, and Chenle pulls away after an acceptable amount of time, and he smiles bright like this is normal. He calls a cab and then furrows his brow in question. Jisung takes his hand and nods.
***
Jisung picked up the strangest fears from his childhood.
Being raised largely by his grandmother meant that her strange warnings and arbitrary rules clung to his brain, as hard as he attempted to shake them off as an adult - Strangers in the daylight aren’t less dangerous than strangers in the night (did you hear about the Aunty down the road’s sister’s friend’s son getting kidnapped?), turn off the water heater before you shower, or you might die of an electrical shock (water conducts electricity), don’t talk when you’re passing by a lizard on the ceiling (it can fall into your mouth!)
She often used to warn him to lock the door that led to the terrace, and he used to attempt breaking down the logic. If she was afraid of human thieves or murderers who could scale walls and enter through the third-storey terrace, surely they could also break locks on the ground floor. Snakes and other ground pests couldn’t climb that high either. That left the end of the story to Jisung’s imagination, and he would stay up at night, envisioning creatures that had large wings and muscled limbs and sharp teeth that glittered like knives.
Now, that creature from his imagination lives in his chest.
He looks at Chenle passed out next to him for the second morning in a row, and it comes to life with a roar, beating its wings against his cracked ribs.
They hadn’t done anything more than kiss last night, but they’d done enough of it that Jisung’s nerves had knotted and unravelled so many times that they felt frayed.
When they’d first gotten back to the apartment, Jisung had tentatively asked, “Mark…?”
Like he was betraying his friend, somehow. Like Mark wasn’t literally seeing some girl. Somewhere inside, he knew he wasn’t asking to protect Mark, or even Chenle. He was asking to protect himself. To remind himself that he was holding Chenle’s face between his hands, but he wasn’t holding his heart.
Chenle had shrugged. I don’t want to think about Mark right now. I want to kiss my best friend on his birthday.
Now, he lies asleep in his usual spot on Jisung’s bed, his mussed hair and silver piercing and apple-red lips illuminated by the winter sun that streams relentlessly through Jisung’s cheap curtains. The colour matches the light spots that dot his neck and collarbones, and the creature threatens to tear Jisung apart from the inside. He wishes it would.
Jisung averts his gaze and walks to the bathroom, taking his time brushing his teeth, splashing cold water onto his face and neck, and changing into a fresh t-shirt. The sleeves are too short, brushing the tops of his wrists. It must be Renjun’s. He runs wet fingers through his hair and stares at his reflection, unable to comprehend it. The boy staring back at him has lost his usual veneer of calm, the solace and security of experiencing unrequited love from a pointed distance. The entire facade is shattered now, and it’s left him raw, the flesh of his stomach and his chest gnawed open, glistening red heart on display for anyone to see. He wonders if Chenle could see it last night - or at least, if he will now, in the absence and safety of the dark.
By the time he walks back into the bedroom, Chenle is awake. His smile is easy, loving, and Jisung hates himself for wishing that he could lie his way through this, that he could wake up to this everyday - Chenle in his bed, in his heart, regardless of whether he was seen the same way.
When he responds to Chenle’s “good morning,” he’s floating outside his body. Cool, detached.
Terrified.
Jisung sits tentatively on the mattress, and Chenle crawls over, poking his cheek. “Stop freaking out. Are you freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out,” Jisung protests, because he’s not. Not in the way Chenle means it.
“I had fun. Didn’t you have fun?” Chenle says in his easy manner. A boy with so much love to give that he kisses his friends. “We can do it again sometime.”
Jesus. Jisung wants the earth to swallow him up, to reclaim him and give him some fucking peace. “No,” he murmurs, very articulately. He’s bracing himself for what he knows will come next. For better or for worse, he knows Chenle too well. The script already plays in his mind, an advanced echo to the words coming out of Chenle’s mouth.
“Okay, that’s fine, but it doesn’t have to mean anything, Jisungie,” he says, and there it is. The shoe has dropped, and now it's stomping on Jisung’s heart. “Kissing friends is-”
“God, just. Shut up for a second, Chenle.” Jisung squeezes his eyes shut; he doesn’t want to see Chenle’s expression.
He’s not quite sure where his annoyance is coming from, but it’s a rising tide in his chest, drowning and silencing the creature, thrumming in his veins and making his fingers shake. He’s Chenle’s best friend, and it has always come with this - his clever remarks, his sarcastic one-liners, his sharp words that carry no real bite. But Chenle is never hurtful. Especially not to Jisung. Jisung can’t sit here and let him be cruel, even if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. He has enough self-respect for that, at least.
“It does mean something,” Jisung forces out, staring at his lap.
“Oh,” Chenle’s voice is soft. “I mean of course it does, I didn’t mean-”
“No, Chenle. I love you,” Jisung says. He’s miserable. His fingers are still now. Everything is still.
“Well, yeah,” Chenle says, but it's weak. Jisung doesn’t know if he’s having trouble understanding, or processing, or both. “I love you too, you’re my-”
Jisung really can’t hear it.
He raises his eyes to meet Chenle’s. “Chenle,” he cuts him off, and his voice trembles with want. “We can’t do this again. I love you,” he repeats, and this time, Chenle gets it. This time, his face goes blank and his mouth falls open. Jisung feels a sick pang of satisfaction at rendering him speechless. Even if it’s like this. Even if it feels terrible.
Chenle’s first response is, quite aptly, “Fuck.”
Jisung can’t help but snort. “Yeah,” he whispers, and his fingers are knotted so tightly together he doesn’t think they’ll ever untangle.
“Fuck, oh no, I’m an idiot, Jisung-”
“Kind of, yeah.” He wishes that were helpful. He clears his throat, “Look, I know you don’t…”
Chenle doesn’t deny it, but he looks wretched. “Jisung, I… I mean, it’s not like I’ve never thought- I just...” he averts his gaze.
“Mark,” Jisung supplies, and the name slides easily in between them, where it’s always been.
There’s a pause. It stretches on forever, and Jisung dreads its end.
“This doesn’t change the way I-” Chenle starts, and it’s too much. Jisung leaps away from his touch, like the bed is suddenly on fire. He stares at the light blue walls, the worn carpet, the clothes strewn across his chair, the papers on his desk - anywhere but Chenle.
“I know,” Jisung says, the words coming out choked.
Chenle stands up, his eyes full of sadness, and Jisung is getting angrier by the second. He doesn’t know if it's Chenle or himself.
“Do you want me to go?” he asks, quietly.
Jisung doesn’t like it when Chenle reads him. It seems awfully convenient that he can see through him so well now, when he could’ve just read... this and prevented a whole lot of shit, but Jisung knows that’s uncharitable. He’d hidden his feelings deliberately. Still, he doesn’t like that Chenle knows he needs to be left alone, even though a part of him longs to reach for him, to force a laugh and call it a joke, to kiss him like he had last night and forget to speak.
He nods instead, and his anger deflates, quick as a balloon with a pinprick. “I just… Maybe I should get some space. Some time.”
He doesn’t understand physics. He doesn’t understand his own heart.
Chenle nods. He looks hurt. Jisung isn’t selfish enough to think it’s all pity, but some of it is, and he can’t stand its cloying presence.
Chenle pauses at the door. “Happy birthday,” he says, and in another world, it would sound cruel, but in this world, Chenle is incapable of being insincere. In this world, it’s the final straw - the thing that pushes the tears from Jisung’s eyes, sending them sliding down either cheek like twin rivers. He doesn’t bother wiping them off.
***
The worst part of the rejection isn’t even the rejection. It’s not being able to hang out with Chenle.
Space is a good thing, Renjun tells Jisung gently. It means they’ll get breathing time and go back to normal.
Normal.
Jisung has loved Chenle so long that he doesn’t know what normal would look like. If not seeing each other for a few weeks was all it took, couldn’t he have gotten over Chenle a long time ago?
He’s never bothered to confess before because he’s always known that no matter what Renjun says, space wouldn’t fix it. Time wouldn’t fix it. He thinks idly that Renjun is so lucky doesn’t get it. Renjun’s love is so easy that he doesn’t need to worry about it. Donghyuck isn’t on the other side of uncrossable space, he’s here, cooking in Renjun’s kitchen, sleeping in Renjun’s bed. It’s not like that for Jisung.
Years and years ago, Chenle had pressed into him like a leaf into wet cement, and now Jisung is a rock with a love story carved on it, a fossil, defined by one remnant, one thing, an eternal reminder of a life passed. It’s science, it’s history, it’s absolute truth.
Dinosaurs are extinct. The sun rises in the morning. Jisung loves Chenle.
The world keeps turning.
***
In their first year of college, Chenle drags Jisung to the botanical gardens for a nighttime picnic. Jisung protests, because trees whisper at night, and eavesdropping is rude. Chenle says he’s friends with the trees, and they don’t care. Jisung believes him - anyone, or anything, would be friends with Chenle.
Chenle is made for the night in a way Jisung isn’t. He wears black, and he likes vampire novels, and his goth phase in their freshman year of high school was frankly hilarious, but it goes beyond that. He’s made of solid moonlight - moon boy with a moonstone in his nose, with moonlight skin and moonlight hair. It’s almost like he’s painted silver from head to toe, like the metallic-paint-covered performers in Times Square.
There’s a splash in the lake, even though the park is empty. They eat next to it while Jisung shivers and Chenle laughs, clear and ringing.
Later, when they’ve both calmed down, Chenle whispers it to the trees and spirits as much as to Jisung.
You’re my favourite person.
***
In eighth grade, the neighbourhood cat bites Jisung’s hand.
She didn’t mean to be aggressive, she was only nibbling out of love (Jisung spends several fruitless moments emphasising this to his raging mother - No, I do not think I need to stop feeding her.)
Still, she’s a stray, and his mother rattles off statistics about infections and about rabies having no cure, and he’s being whisked unceremoniously to a doctor’s clinic at ten p.m. He feigns enough pain to win a moment of sympathy, and they pick Chenle up on the way.
Jisung sits patiently through the three shots they inject in his biceps, handling it with valiantly attempted emotional maturity and the feigned painlessness of any thirteen-year-old boy, while Chenle offers him a wide grin and watches the needle go in with fascination. When it’s time for the fourth shot - this one in his palm, next to the wound - Jisung lets go of all pride and screams bloody murder. Chenle is there in a flash, gripping his shoulders and whispering encouragement while his mother looks vaguely disgruntled. He’ll deny it later, and he’ll make jokes about how Jisung cried like a baby, but that night Jisung swears tears were shining in Chenle’s eyes too.
A few years later, when they go to the piercing parlour together, Jisung gets it. His own nose stings sharply the moment the needle goes in and Chenle screws his eyes shut, and he understands.
***
Time is too fast and too slow without Chenle. He’s stopped swinging by the apartment, of course, but Jisung has a suspicion he’s parked himself at Jaemin and Jeno’s new place, a few roads down from the university. (There’s a telling gleam in Jeno’s eye when he whispers to Renjun that Chenle seems to be a mess, and he doesn’t know what to do - Jisung pretends he can’t hear him.)
(Guilt and satisfaction curl in his gut.)
They don’t share any classes, but he doesn’t see Chenle around on campus either, which leaves his late afternoons - usually filled with Chenle’s chatter that makes the librarian angry - confusing and empty, sunlight oversaturated and February chill relentless on Jisung’s aching mind.
It’s like Chenle took the request for space and ran with it, unravelling it like a ribbon and tugging it till the ends of the earth, making a trail Jisung is too afraid to follow.
Jisung doesn’t text Chenle. He deletes Instagram off his phone and re reads Percy Jackson. He cries a lot, on and off - in the living room during movies, in Renjun’s lap on the sofa, in the bed where Chenle pushed him into the pillows and kissed him.
It’s two full weeks that go by before there’s a knock on the door on Saturday night, but the moment Jisung looks Chenle in the eye, it feels like no time has passed at all since he’d last seen him, hurt and confused and shaken. No time at all, since they’d leaned against a grimy building and burned each other up like falling stars about to disappear.
(The more he replays the kisses, the more he wonders if Chenle felt like he was burning too. How could he have not?)
Now, Chenle looks like a mess. Just as Jeno said. His hair is tousled, and his nose is red. His lips are peeling - he’s been biting them, a nervous tic.
“Hey,” Jisung says, and it comes out so soft, despite everything. He’s missed Chenle with a violent ache, and it’s soothed now, fucked up circumstances or not.
Chenle seems to relate, because he wordlessly pulls Jisung into his arms, and they stand there for a long moment, Jisung’s face pressed into Chenle’s neck, Chenle’s fingers bunched in Jisung’s jacket. Jisung hears the soft click of Renjun’s bedroom door shutting.
When Chenle pulls away, his fingers shake. He’s feeling awkward, Jisung realises. Jisung has seen Chenle in a hundred different forms, but this one is new. Chenle clears his throat. “I know you wanted space, I’m sorry. But… Can we talk?”
“Chenle…” Jisung is wary. His body feels like it’s being wrung out like laundry. He doesn’t exactly want a follow-up on his heart being broken. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and we don’t have to be awkward, Chenle, I’ll get over it.”
Lies, lies, lies. Jisung used to tell only the truth as a kid. Chenle’s made such a liar out of him.
Chenle makes a noise of frustration, stalking into the living room and throwing his arms up, exuding agitation with his entire body. He doesn’t know how to express things in a half-assed manner. “God, no, that’s the thing. That’s the fucking thing, Jisung. I- I think I do.”
What?
What, what, what. The word vibrates in Jisung’s ribs, his skull, thrumming up and down all two hundred and six of his bones.
The entire world pauses - comes to a still on its very axis, tells the sun to hang on, to wait, to catch a breath.
Chenle opens his mouth again. He runs his fingers through his hair, looking feverish. “I’m an idiot. I’m such an idiot. I’ve spent the last couple weeks - oh my god, like, going insane. I can’t stop fucking thinking about you,”
Somewhere, as if from under water, as if from a great distance, garbled and confused, shattered and rebuilt and euphoric, Jisung says, “But… you’re in love with Mark,”
Chenle laughs, and there’s glee in the sound, mixed with bitter hysteria. “No! No, evidently not.” He takes a step closer to Jisung, his fingers still fluttering like butterflies. He’s not moonlight anymore. He’s a lightning bolt, pausing a breath away from Jisung and then shuddering, backing away and pacing again. Jisung’s eyes can barely track all his movements.
“See, I think I. I got so used to loving Mark. He’s all I saw since I was a teenager, all I focused - well, everything - on. My - realising I was gay, realising sexual feelings, realising I wanted a Prince Charming out of this - honestly, stupid nice - older straight guy, I-” he wrings his hands, suddenly quiet. When he meets Jisung gaze, his eyes burn like twin fires. “You were always my home. You were always where I went to feel safe, or - or escape from how overwhelming the rest of it was. Whenever I felt hurt about it, all I wanted was to be around you.”
Dinosaurs are roaring in the distance.
Chenle walks towards Jisung again. “I didn’t realise, Jisung. I didn’t realise any of that - all of that - was love. I guess I needed you to push me.”
Jisung wonders if he’s gotten love right all this time, after all.
“I’m an idiot,” Chenle repeats.
Jisung’s chest expands, and it’s carrying him upwards like a hot air balloon. He’s floating a million feet in the sky and looking at city lights. They look like Chenle’s eyes. Chenle’s eyes that are now unwaveringly looking at Jisung’s face. His hands are reaching forward, his mouth is whispering words Jisung can’t hear anymore. He doesn’t know who kisses who first, but all he can feel is that feeling again - like he’s a dying star, and the whole damn world is burning with him.
Chenle kisses him like he feels it too. Like it's a goddamn explosion. He breathes into Jisung’s mouth, and Jisung tastes it - the relief. He clutches Chenle tighter, tighter, pushing their faces and chests and hips and close together, the center of a supernova.
The sun is shining at eleven in the night.
“I love you,” Chenle whispers. “I love you, I love you.”
Jisung says it back. It hums in his blood, it sucks the pain out like its snake venom. It ebbs and flows and fills his being.
Chenle loves Jisung.
The world starts turning again.