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Seungmin tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack, collarbones rattling under the weight. Ahead, the sun is setting like a yellow clock; red hue claws against the blue sky in a mock of how he is running out of time. Always running out of time.
Hundreds of tabs running in his head like an overwhelmed browser, a stack of work he has to get done blaring noisy alarms. An exam by Friday. A literature review due on Tuesday. A video project he must record. A paper he must write due at midnight.
Always, he curses, a rock caught by the edge of his sole sent flying from the force of his running. Always running out of time.
He wants to let out a sigh. Wants to stop running towards home where all the work is waiting and walk slowly to somewhere else. Wants to stop running and crouch on the road, let the cars honk and let the world curse at him for trying to fight against time.
He wants to say “Screw it,” and book a ticket to Nebraska, far away from here. Wants to go far enough to a place where no one could recognize him. To slip a number of little hops between his steps on the sidewalk without worrying someone he might know will see him acting so out of character. To greet someone strange and say a name as equally strange.
Maybe he doesn’t even have to be Seungmin. He can be sky. Or star. Or golden retriever. He can say whatever as his name and still, people will smile and say, “Oh, I see, nice to meet you.”
He doesn’t want to be Kim Seungmin, because Kim Seungmin is always running out of time.
A thunder growls somewhere above, defeating the song from his earphone. The clouds have adopted a darker stain on them as he unconsciously slows down his steps, daydreaming. The shadow of his own cast by the sun on the sidewalk; constantly following him through his way home — is no longer there.
Somehow, it makes him sigh in relief.
A few drops of rain start falling, so he sprints towards the bus stop, shielding his backpack from the rain. He can’t afford to repair his laptop, nor his iPad again. He had just done that last month when he accidentally dropped them on his way home.
At least the pouring rain tints his surroundings in a much more pleasant ambiance. The bench is still warm with the remnants of sunshine, Seungmin finding himself drumming his fingers over the surface.
The damp breeze washes across his skin, sending shivers — but it is not at all unpleasant. It’s cold, but grounding. It feels almost like a gentle caress on his skin, keeping his mind from the blaring tabs.
Seungmin’s eyes slowly flutter close, inhaling the perfume of the undersaturation. Somewhere in the mix of scents he thinks he can faintly catch eucalyptus. Somewhere in the exasperated imagination he thinks he’s somewhere far, by the lake, next to a forest. Wild geese dancing under the rain.
You do not have to be good, he chants, desperately wanting to believe the string of words. It’s planted in his mind, tucked between folds of his brain — gyrus, isn’t that what it’s called? — and still it’s hard to believe it.
He wants to shut down. He thinks he’s already on the brink of shutting down but the world always finds a way to keep him going. It’s funny how something as simple as calmly closing your eyes without thinking of anything becomes such a desperate wish.
What had he become?
“Hey, you there!” A voice calls, snapping him back to reality.
Seungmin frowns at the sight in front of him.
Someone stands across the road, hand waving frantically like a bird trying to hug its lover. Strands of silver hair arranged limply above his eyes, the rain drenched him from head to toe. The collar of his black knitted sweater almost slips off his shoulder.
“You!” he calls again, pointing at his direction.
Seungmin’s frown deepens. He looks around, and, upon realizing there’s no one else but himself, he lifts a hand and points towards his own chest. Me?
The stranger’s eyes squint into a pair of crescents as he hops around to cross the road, his steps light as each of them splash water around him. Seungmin wonders how someone could be so at ease walking under the rain.
“Did you think I was calling for someone else?” The stranger asks, now standing in front of him. He combs his hand through the damp hair, starry doe eyes peeking under the curtain of silver. He rolls his sleeves up and lets water drip down his elbows.
“I,” Seungmin tries, still baffled by the sudden appearance. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
The stranger laughs, the high tone dripping like sunshine. Seungmin notices his lips part into a heart shaped grin when he smiles. Then he looks down and there’s a faint shadow in the shape of a heart on his neck. He zooms out and giggles when he realizes that his face, too, paired with the way his bangs are parted, looks like a heart.
“I may know you, I may not. Who knows?” His answer arrives gently despite its strange implication. “Well, I don’t know you in this lifetime, though, or maybe I have known you but have no memory of it, controversial things aside, what are you doing?”
Seungmin shifts his gaze towards his backpack and the tabs of his awaiting work start blaring its alarms again, making him flinch. “Just waiting for the rain to stop,” he says, pointing at his red Jansport with a sewed patch of smiling sun. “What’s your name?”
“Peter,” the stranger answers without thinking.
Seungmin frowns. “Peter?”
“Mm. You?”
He looks at the patch of smiling sun on his backpack, thinks about a life in Nebraska, and decides he might as well try something crazy. “My name’s Sky.”
“That doesn’t sound like a Korean name,” Peter says. He shakes his head in an attempt to dry his hair, a grin etched on his face.
“Neither do Peter.”
“Why didn’t you ask about it?”
Seungmin stills. Yeah, why? “I thought it was fun,” he answers honestly, reaching out his hand and letting the drops of rain collect in the curve of his skin before falling back to the ground. “Don’t you think it’s fun to say anything as your name and have people believing it?”
Peter hums. “I guess it is. Let’s just be Peter and Sky, then.”
“Agreed.”
Then Peter dips his finger on the rain collected in the spring of Seungmin’s palm, a giggle falling from his lips. He dips it in, then lifts it. Then dips it again; the water ripples around his constant movement. “Do you like rain,” he asks.
“Didn’t use to,” Seungmin answers, suddenly aware his shoulders had sagged with ease. “But I think I like it, now.”
“If I were to jump onto the road and dance, would you join me?”
Seungmin can’t bite back the laughter coloured with disbelief from spilling out of his throat like soda bubbles. Sweet and carbonated. And addicting. “You’re going to what ?”
“Come on,” Peter says, already standing and cracking his neck in preparation. He gazes to the sky with a wide smile; like it’s not a sky he’s staring but some kind of escapism. Like the clouds are curtains slowly opening a way towards the other side.
He reaches out his hand, palm up. “You already look like an abandoned puppy that got rained on, might as well have fun with it.”
Seungmin doesn’t know what makes him think it’s okay to follow a stranger to dance under the rain when he has an exam in two days, but at that moment, Peter’s grin plants a sentence into his mind. You do not have to be good.
So he takes the warm hand and lets it welcome his cold one with a taste of freedom; and maybe a little bit of insanity.
Peter’s fingers close around his wrist with such surety and pull him under the rain. His head ducks in practiced muscle memory, but then he catches the laughter spilling from Peter’s lips like stars illuminating his whole being and tries to imitate it with his own.
He unfurls, like a leaf sprouting out of a branch’s scar, and laughs. Dampness grows around his head, soaks him until he’s wet to the bones. Peter’s hand guides him to walk until they stand under the flickering light of red.
The rain continues to pour around them, the streetlights like lighthouses in the middle of the sea. He thinks he can be pirate. Maybe they both can be pirates.
Peter flashes him another hearty grin of his and circles their intertwined hand, making Seungmin spins. Their eyes lock again, and Seungmin feels breathless. There’s so much air around him, so thin with Peter’s remnant of laughter and easy to breathe in that the greediness inside him wants to inhale and inhale and inhale.
He doesn’t want to exhale, doesn’t want to let go of anything, right now.
And Peter never lets go of his hand.
They jump from one white line to another; pretending they are tiles of an imaginary piano. It’s not accurate, of course, but Seungmin learns nothing matters anymore under the face of freedom. Traffic lights can be colorful stars. Streetlamps can be lighthouses. Two people can be pirates.
He can be someone that is not Kim Seungmin.
Peter spins him again, catching his waist when he slips with a laugh, not a trace of mocking in his tone. A car honks at them as the star changes its color to green, and Seungmin pulls Peter close to him in an almost hug as they laugh when the passing cars splash water over both of them.
In the brink of insanity, as he prepares for another spin, he takes an entirely different course and jumps over Peter’s back, the other catches up on his antic just in time. Elbows lock under his knees, hoisting up on his wide shoulder.
Seungmin laughs next to Peter’s ear in a way that brings him back to his childhood.
“Where do you wanna go?” Peter yells, spinning both of them in place before wobbly running to the other side of the road, Seungmin’s hands hugging his neck.
“Anywhere!” Seungmin exclaims, his tone theatrical. “We should be pirates,” he adds, as they stop next to a streetlight.
Peter giggles fondly at his idea. “Pirates, sure, we can be pirate kings.”
“What happened to your dance under the rain idea?”
“Pirates can still dance!” He defends, spinning around and jumping from one spot to another. He points at the sky and Seungmin follows his direction. “Do you know about constellations?”
“Sure,” he answers, frowning. “What about it?”
“We can be good pirates! You’ll be in charge of direction, and I’ll be the one stirring the wheel!”
Seungmin feels his cheeks ache from the wide smile continuously plastered on his face. “Sounds good,” he agrees, then slips his fingers between Peter’s silver hair and points back to the red star. “Go back to the base so we can dance again.”
“That will be the deck,” Peter corrects, but still he runs towards the zebra cross they have turned into a dance floor. “The base will be the bus station where our stuff is kept safe.”
Seungmin isn’t sure it’ll be safe, but he smiles anyway. “Okay, back to the deck we go!”
Peter puts him back down on top of the dance floor that can be a giant piano and ship’s deck and also a zebra cross, takes his hand and lets their bodies dance to its content again. Sometimes Seungmin would slip, or miss a step, and Peter would giggle.
As if his clumsiness is something worth being fond of.
He’s quick to become breathless again, water clinging on his cheeks and the sky had become corrupted by the hue of forest fire. He feels something inside him burn, like adrenaline, like a leaf finally feeding from the sunshine.
The red star starts to flicker again, and somewhere above them, a colony of birds flies across the sky. The rain stops falling and Seungmin becomes suddenly aware of the way his shirt clings onto him like a second skin.
Then Peter’s hands rest on his waist and pull him close, their heads on each other’s shoulders. “You know,” he whispers, his hushed tone trickling against his eardrums. “My name’s actually Jisung, Han Jisung.”
“Jisung,” Seungmin whispers back, it feels like an exchange of secrets. He repeats his full name again and decides he likes the way his tongue flutters with giddiness. “Han Jisung,” he says, a giggle following the name.
“Mm.” Jisung hums, pulling back to lock their eyes together. There are stars residing in his lenses that Seungmin would love to name a constellation of. There’s a mole on his cheek that looks like it’s smiling. There’s a dent of scar above his eyebrow that Seungmin wants to kiss.
“Seungmin,” he says, for once delivering his name with a smile. “My name is Seungmin, Kim Seungmin.”
Jisung’s lips curl into a wide grin. “Seungmin,” he calls experimentally, his voice an explosion of colors bleeding life into Seungmin’s name. “Kim Seungmin, what a nice name.” He keeps calling his name, over and over again, and Seungmin follows.
They pronounce each other’s names until the star flickers back to green, giggles erupting with overwhelming joy from both of their chests.
“Thank you,” Jisung says, his eyes glimmering under the reddening sky. “Thank you for sharing a dance with me.”
Seungmin hums. He thinks if he does book a flight to Nebraska, he should invite Jisung too. He doesn’t know what kind of person he is, yet, only that he is the very embodiment of a heart, but he thinks it’s okay.
“Thank you for being pirates with me,” he returns the gratitude, a genuine smile tugging itself naturally on his face; spreading sunshine-warmth all over his body. Affection swelling under his skin as his finger twitches in its attempt to reach for Jisung’s hand.
Jisung smiles, warm fingers closing around Seungmin’s wrist, and they walk back to their base, rainwater trailing behind their track. “We really should dance like that again,” Jisung says, looking at the sky. “What should we call it, dance like crazy?”
“Crazy,” Seungmin laughs, already on the brink of insanity. “Sure, we can dance like crazy again one day. Maybe we should prolong it until sunrise.”
“Dance like crazy until the sunrise?” Jisung muses. “Don’t you have things you gotta do?”
Seungmin thinks about it for a while, then he answers. “Nobody has to know,” he decides, surety sinking its claws into his composure. “We can dance, like crazy, from one sunrise to another sunrise, nobody has to know.”
“I like that,” Jisung says, shaking his head around. Water splattering from his silver hair like the moon's tears. “That way you don’t have to look that miserable in the bus stop again.”
“Whatever,” Seungmin rolls his eyes, disappointed as he has to pick up his backpack now, and go back to reality where streetlights are streetlights instead of lighthouses and he is Kim Seungmin instead of pirate.
“I’ll walk you home,” Jisung offers, his hand around Seungmin’s shoulder. “Don’t look so disappointed, Seungmin-ah, we can be pirates and dance like crazy again, anytime you want!”
A smile blooms on his face like flower. “Mm,” he hums. “I like that.”
He can’t wait for the next rain.