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In front of him stands tall; a fountain. Many believe that all your deepest wishes and desires will be granted by just a simple wrist flick and a coin. Minho has that deepest desire, yet— well. He brought no coins.
A joint fills up the emptiness of his hand—he just lit it, the end of it burns and makes for the only light guided by the flash of the moonlight—but even then, nothing will saturate his fingers as Jisung used to. His bones ache for his hand to be held again, for someone to wipe the side of his thumb and play with his fingers.
He brings the joint to his mouth and takes a much-needed drag— he sighs and blows the smoke out. In his lap lies a book he’s never finished. He reads the first 378 pages, then restarts it instead of reading the last 22. He doesn’t know the ending; he doesn’t want to know the ending. What good is living in a world where the end keeps you up at night, isn’t it more efficient to stay where happiness follows— over and over again?
5 years ago, give or take, for the first time in his life he didn’t fill the bench by himself. He met Jisung in the second to last year of high school, and it barely took five minutes for him to change the entire course of Minho’s life. Making homework together, cheek kisses and laughs, cuddling on the couch watching the umpteenth episode of Cupcake Wars— and, Minho had hoped, first kisses, last kisses.
But Jisung took off two years later, studying at a university so far from home— and Jisung took a part of Minho’s heart with him.
It isn’t melancholic— not anymore, at least — it’s a routine. Three years ago the bench would’ve been filled by the both of them almost every day; and now it’ll be filled by Minho, just Minho, every day until the day he forgets about Jisung. He doesn’t reminisce, and he isn’t sad, but it’s their spot, and no fountain money in the world can take that away from him.
He takes another hit off his joint, when a voice behind him urges the words: “You’re never finishing that book, are you?”
A stranger, possibly someone who’s been watching Minho trek to the same bench in the same park bringing the same book. It stills him in his movement, what a scary sentiment. Then the voice sounds again, and now Minho recognises it.
“Turn around, idiot.”
His left shoulder is in his way, but in the faint shimmer of the streetlight above his head, Minho can see he changed.
Jisung’s hair is blue, his nails are painted black and his clothing style changed immensely since the day Minho dropped him off at the airport. But his face is exactly the same. The same round, deep eyes are staring at him, scrunched into crescents because the same smile is reminding Minho of 5 years ago, when that smile made his day— his life.
He changed, but he’s the same. Just as Minho changed, but is the same. Nothing can take this away from Minho— most of all he’d like to jump up, share an embrace with the person he hasn’t touched in years , but he decides to be cool and turn his face back to the front. He takes another drag from the joint he almost forgot he still holds in his hand, and he shuffles to the right side of the bench. “I was waiting for you to finish the book with me.”
Jisung sits down, reaches over and takes Minho’s half-burned joint out of his hand. Their fingers brushed, and Minho’s almost jumped in familiarity. He’s an adult now, it’s been three years since he finished high school, but Jisung brings out the lovesick teenager in him. Even now, even when he’s not sure if he still knows Jisung the way he used to. But something inside him says it’s not going to be that big of a problem.
Jisung takes a hit, and the barely visible smoke blows in Minho’s direction. “I’m sorry, you know— about the book, but other things too.”
“It’s okay.” Minho looks at him and despite the dark, he rediscovers the universe in Jisung’s eyes. He’s found him. “Are you staying?”
“I finished uni, I’m staying.” He smiles, and Minho joins him with a laugh for the first time that week. “I missed you, you know that.”
“I missed you too.”
Jisung looks at the joint in his hand, and turns toward Minho with a mischievous look on his face— oh how Minho missed looking at that face. “Do you remember what we used to do?”
Minho laughs, “I’m not shotgunning with you.”
“Pretty please?”
And who’s to say no to that? So Minho says yes, and before he knows Jisung takes a drag, and then two eyes are staring right at him. In those eyes Minho finds a question, and he answers it with a nod. Jisung takes the back of his neck and pulls him closer.
Minho opens his lips slightly, and accepts the smoke coming from Jisung’s mouth, holding it for a few seconds before breathing out the air into the little space between them. Jisung’s face is troubled for a moment, Minho can’t see him very well because of the smoke, but the second Jisung’s face clears up he notices a sparkle on it. The meaning of this sparkle, is a total gamble.
So, Minho kisses him. A welcome back into his life. And Jisung kisses him back, a promise that he won’t leave again, that his world is now in Minho’s hands and eyes.
They're different people, and they’ll have to learn about each other again, but Minho trusts the familiarity once again. He’s never letting go.
Jisung leans against the armrest of the bench and rests one of his legs on top of Minho’s. “Will you read the rest of your book to me?”
Minho takes the book from beside him and flips to page 378. These next few pages might be the end, but they're the start of something new.