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The world is ending. And it isn't a metaphor this time.
Riki shuts down the television. Mind buzzing with the static noise, still hearing the words of the Japanese caster. Asteroid. Hours away. End of the human race.
He called his parents earlier today. It was too late to go back to Japan. All the airports have shut down. It didn't stop people from coming, however. From flocking the gates wanting to run back to their homes last minute. To places where they belong or might have once belonged.
It's funny. How we try to run away from our childhood only to come running back to it, as if it could shelter us from celestial rocks and cushion the end of things.
Too late.
The words taste bitter in his mouth at the remembrance of his sisters crying on the phone. He's said as much love as one can fit in the radio waves of a telephone. He hopes that it is enough, knowing it isn't. He hopes that if Heaven is real, he'd at least get a second chance to love them right. Love them better.
You did. They said, and Riki could almost believe it if the guilt in his chest wasn't so big. If it didn't make every breath feel like his heart is being pressed so close to his ribs. I love you. I love you the most. To his mom and dad.
He gets up from the couch he's sitting, knees hitting the center table. Empty bottles of soju threaten to roll off before his hands deftly catch them by the neck. He's drunk three bottles since the morning. And would have drunk more. He would've loved to let the world meet its end with him passed out.
He'd rather not feel. He'd rather not be present. But Riki has run away from so many things in his life. Let things seep away from his fingers like grains of sand. At least Death , he consoles, I shall meet with my eyes.
He collects the bottles of soju and puts them away.
The soles of his feet find their way back to his bedroom. He didn't want to sleep. He just needed to do one thing. Maybe two. He picks his phone up from the bedside table, ringing the speed dial.
"Hyung?" He voices into the device. There were faint noises in the background. The click of a door.
"Ni-ki?"
He lets go of a breath he's been holding. "Hyung, I–" love you. Come back to me. Please spend the rest of the day with me. I miss you. "I– I honestly don't know why I called."
Sunoo chuckles on the other end of the line. It was soft and airy. And Riki feels his heart tug at the edges. How can one person still feel so much like a beginning in a world that's ending?
"I'm glad you did." A sigh. "I miss you, Ni-ki."
"I miss you too, hyung."
Images of bright apple cheeks and lovely crescent eyes flash before Riki. The summer before it all went down. He remembered the laughter, and can still feel it bubbling on his throat, as he and Sunoo run down the beach trying to outdo each other with the number of shells they can collect. He can still feel the ghost of the sand on his toes, and he resists the urge to curl them. Still feel the waves and remember what the older felt like in between his teeth.
"Will you... come over?"
There was a pause.
"Do you want me to?"
"I do." I never stopped wanting you to. Riki presses down the words on his throat.
He's pressed down so many words on the back of his throat. It's become a habit now. Like folding the edges of a book to mark where one has left, only to never come back to it. He can't be pressing pages on his last day, right?
So, he says it. Words scratching their way out of his mouth. "I love you."
He hears the in-take of breath, and for a moment, he was scared that Sunoo would run away from him, would drop the phone call down and never come over. Again.
But the charge was broken by the other’s voice. Smaller than he remembered it to be. "I do, too. I love you, Ni-ki."
He feels the sorry that follows the end of the sentence, and so before the other could say anything more, Riki pipes. "Then come over quickly, please."
He was sitting at the kitchen counter watching Sunoo cook. The clock that used to be on top of his refrigerator is gone now. He took it out yesterday. The ticking strangely makes Riki feel as if he's in a survival room, every sound a declaration of doom. He didn't like it. And so, he wasn't sure if it was lunch time when the older one arrived.
It didn't matter. Sunoo was here, in his apartment's little kitchen, making him stew.
"It's better to come out full than empty." The older jokes. And Riki sat watching after having helped chop the vegetables.
"I miss you." He says suddenly.
Sunoo turns around with a small smile on his face, mittens on hand, before putting the stew on the kitchen table.
"Come here." He gestures to him. "Let's eat together."
They sit beside each other.
Sunoo likes to sit across Riki over meals. Riki doesn't comment when the older pulls the chair beside him instead. He liked the warmth of their shoulders brushing.
They ate in silence for the next few minutes. Only the blowing of the hot soup and the clatter of utensils filled the small space.
"Here, have some more." Sunoo ladles soup on his bowl, adding vegetables and tofu.
He stops when he notices Riki looking at him. A small smile breaks on his face. And Riki was so sure something broke inside of him too. His heart pulled at the edges in the mercy of Sunoo's smile.
He hears the bowl being put down. Hears the clatter of the utensils as the older went back to eating. Hears it. "I miss you too. I really do."
"If I go, I go with style!" The older declares, holding up a shiny gold blazer in front of the mirror.
He wears it over his white sleeveless shirt. With his shiny shoes and his corduroy slacks, he looked complete. Riki sat on his bed in admiration. He missed this a lot about Sunoo: how he's always so bright in the middle of darkness. And it was not the kind of brightness that has not seen bleak skies, but the kind that shines after every storm.
His fingers curl inside his pockets, resisting the urge to do something stupid.
"Come here." Sunoo gestures to him.
"What is it?" He gets up from the bed and walks over where the other was.
"Wear this." That's when he sees the Grinch headband on Sunoo's hand. The face of the grumpy character scrunched up and looked perpetually displeased at Riki.
He instinctively moves away. Sunoo tugs on the edge of his shirt to make him stay.
"Hey, come on now."
"That's so ugly, hyung."
"It is not!"
He was met with a pout.
"I will not wear that. I refuse to go out in such a deplorable headband."
"You exaggerate." Sunoo huffs and tries to pull him down to level their heights. "It's cute. It suits you a lot."
Riki rolls his eyes at the chuckling, but bends down nonetheless. He allows Sunoo to put the green thing on his head. Then, the older produces another shiny headband. One with the word "Christmas" written in italic and dusted gold. On the right side of the word was a mini-Christmas tree and on the left, a star. Both were mounted on a spring.
Sunoo wears it over his head. He turns Riki and him to face the mirror.
"Perfect."
Riki snorts.
A scandalized gasp escapes out of Sunoo before the younger receives a slap on the arm.
"It is perfect!" The older insists.
"Have you watched the actual movie, hyung?"
"I have, okay." A pause. "Long ago. But it doesn't matter. I think it's cute."
"The Grinch hates Christmas!"
"Well now he doesn't."
"It's canon that he does!" Riki insists, and Sunoo rolls his eyes before plopping down the bed. The tree and star on his head bounce on their springs.
"I don't care if it is. In my head, it suits us both. The Grinch and Christmas. We'll make it canon that they lived their last day together." He crosses his arms over his chest. "If that sounds hateful to you, I don't know what doesn't."
"Hyung." Riki placates, seeing the frown on the other. He sits beside Sunoo on the bed, who only huffs when Riki tries to uncross his arms over his chest.
"Okay." He sighs defeated. "Okay, you are right. We are the Grinch and Christmas for today if that's what you want."
A wide smile graces Sunoo's face, whisker dimples now on full display.
"I told you, it's cute."
"Yeah, it is. I get it." Riki relents and plops down on the bed. Sunoo follows suit.
Quietness enveloped the room. The wind from the outside blowing the long curtains drawn on the open window. The afternoon sun was peeking through and reflected in little rainbows across Riki's ceiling.
"Why did we stop doing this?" Sunoo asks into the open space. It was more of a statement than a question.
Riki can feel the sequins of the other's blazer pressing through his shoulders, as they laid on the bed side by side. And yet, he moves closer. Wanting to feel more of Sunoo's warmth.
He was trying to go over a couple of responses in his head when the older spoke again.
"I think it's my fault."
The shake of the head comes immediately. "No."
"You should be mad at me, Ni-ki."
"I am not."
"Well, you should be." There was a break in Sunoo's voice and Riki felt his chest constrict at the sound.
"I am tired of being mad, hyung. I've driven enough people away with my anger."
Riki lays down on his side to look properly at Sunoo. The older still has his eyes fixed on the ceiling, watching the tiny rainbows of reflected light fade in and out as the curtains blow through the wind.
"I don't want to drive you away further, hyung. Not anymore."
Sunoo turns to him. For the first time since he arrived in Riki's apartment, a sad smile was drawn on his face. "Isn't that too late for now? Aren't we too late?"
Riki recounts in his head the many pushes and pulls. The fear of breaking a sure-footed friendship for the uncertainty of love. The toeing around the line. The lies and the people they've brought in the middle of them two, just to keep the pretense that there wasn't anything more to what they feel for the other.
They were both foolish. They were both cowards. Maybe that's why they're friends. Maybe that's why they were almost something more. And maybe that's why it stayed at almost .
Riki stands up from the bed, fixes his shirt and his black slacks. He dons the gray tuxedo Sunoo handed him earlier, still sprawled on the mattress. All the while, the older watched.
"Let's dance?" He reaches his hand down to Sunoo, still on the bed.
"You're silly." The older bites.
"You love my silly."
A dimpled smile appears as confirmation, and Sunoo meets Riki's outstretched hand.
"Let's dance then."
"It's never too late for dancing."
It was more hugging than dancing. Sunoo's cheeks pressed on Riki's chest, hands around his waist.
Riki knows the other can hear the erratic thumping of his heart, and he buried himself deeper on Sunoo’s hair, on the side of his face. The letter s of the Christmas headband scratching him.
The music that played on his phone was unfamiliar. He simply clicked a random album from a streaming site and shuffled it. But the voice from the speakers was somber, singing of endings. Riki thought it was fitting. And he swayed with Sunoo in the sunlit room.
"I love you." He whispers in the older's ear.
"I love you." He repeats, a smile lighting up his face when a memory surfaces. "When you bit on my candied strawberries when we were kids, I knew I loved you. Because I would have elbowed anyone who did that. But with you, I even gave the whole thing."
Sunoo's chuckle echoed throughout Riki's chest. And the younger is sure this is what sunlight feels if it was cursing through your veins.
"I love you, Sunoo." He pushes down the snag on his throat. "I knew I loved you when I started loving mint choco too."
"Mint choco is good." Sunoo agrees.
"It is. And it is good because it always makes you feel better. Remember when I punched the guy, who turned out to be your suitor, after he made fun of you?"
"He did not make fun of me! He was teasing me, Riki." There was a pinch on his side and Riki veered away from it. But because he was holding Sunoo, they both swayed off the center. "Good-naturedly!"
"Well, it didn't seem good-natured to me."
"Yeah, so you punched him. He got mad at you, and at me too! He never showed up again after that."
"And you were sad cause you said you liked him."
"I did. Really." He hears the pout in the older's voice. "And you bribed me with mint choco."
"It worked." Riki winced at the slap on his back.
They were still dancing when the song changed. A new one played. It was slower than before, and Riki's hands moved from Sunoo's torso to settle on the waist.
"He was stupid, you know." Riki states. "Giving up so easily like that." He moved Sunoo away a little, before picking the older's hand up and turning him around.
Sunoo chuckles at the silly antics. "It's you who’s stupid."
When Riki pulls him in again, he sighs as he crashes onto the younger. "You're lucky I like my guys a little stupid."
They laugh into each other, bodies held so closely one would have mistaken them as tree roots entangling. They sway around the room, hitting objects and doubling over the mess.
It was the vibration on Riki's phone that stopped the momentary magic. It had been a constant these past few months. The vibrations are emergency messages issued by the government. A warning when pieces of celestial rocks are going to fall close by. It was mandated when the paper first spelled out doomsday.
But rather than the vibration on the device, it was the tremors felt through the ground that halts them both. Sunoo's hands shake in Riki's.
They quickly took cover on the study table in the bedroom, haphazardly pulling out the chair and pushing the boxes underneath it. They watched as the tiny chandelier in the middle of the room swung mildly.
It was mild for now. The bigger the asteroid pieces that fell, the stronger the impact.
Sunoo pulls Riki into him, the younger's head on his shoulder as they both sit cross-legged on the floor.
"I love you." Riki says unto his neck, voice thin and shaky. He intertwines their hands and presses on Sunoo's thumb with his. "I knew I loved you, love you still, when I can only think of beginnings with you despite the world ending."
Sunoo feels a sob rise from his throat. He pushes it down, straining to steady the beating in his ribcage. Riki continues. "I love you, hyung. I can finally say I love you till the end of the world now, can I?"
There were tears instead of laughter. Sunoo feels the hot liquid travel down his cheeks. His own heart trembling.
The could-haves all left into the ruins of the room. The vases tumbling down. The creaking of the door as the ground shook beneath them. His own hands in Riki's, cold. He didn't want to die. Not yet. Not when he hasn't loved enough. Not when he could love more.
He feels Riki's own tears wetting his shoulders, and he turns to face him.
For a moment, the shaking stills.
None of them moved.
Not even when the song played once more on the speakers.
Sunoo looked into fierce eyes that loved him when they were children. The same eyes that love him still, now that they're too old to be kids but too young to say goodbye.
"I love you too, Riki."
"I love you." Sunoo repeats, voice shaky. In that cramped space under the desk. In the temporary silence before the doom. In the eye of the end. "I loved you and love you still. I knew, because despite everything they said about the world ending, I still feel like everything is beginning once more. Here, with you."
"I love you." He can barely see Riki through his own tears. "I love you."
He pulls the younger in.
There was, in Sunoo, a hole carved out from regret. With all of the things he swept under the rug. All of it taking shape and leaving him hollow, like loose change falling out of an open pocket. But with Riki holding him, almost crashing unto him in that tiny space, he felt complete.
As if all along, the hole was in the shape of Nishimura Riki. And all this time, all Sunoo needed was to pull him close.
They built a little nest under the desk. So when the evening drew close, they were both lying under two tables pressed beside each other. A tiny little fort, like the ones they used to make as kids.
Riki even had the silly idea of putting up fairy lights all over it.
They squished the mattress from the bed and a couple of pillows into the space. It was cozy enough, for the end of the world.
The kitchen was a mess when they came over to get supplies. A wine. Some bread. And the second table now serving as flimsy protection over their heads.
Sunoo squishes himself closer to Riki's side, humming the song that played last before the phone's battery ran out. They were both warm from the wine and from their proximity.
When he looks up, he sees Riki smiling down on him. The fairy lights twinkled like little fireflies on Riki's eyes and Sunoo can’t help but lean in, feeling the younger on his lips.
It was warm and soft.
"Good night, love."
He hears a hum, before Riki's arms envelop his body.
This close, Sunoo could almost fool himself into thinking it was just another Sunday. A normal day for the both of them.
"Good night, love." Riki echoes.
And if the world shook harder minutes later, none of that would've mattered.
To Riki, Sunoo's heartbeat under his fingertips feels so much like the Big Bang. The older's hands on his hair and their breaths the only sound he cared to hear. As the world caves in outside of his little room, as the ending of all endings unfold, he feels pieces of his heart begin putting back together.
Sunoo's lips tasted so much like beginnings.