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The apartment was surprisingly quiet.
The rare occurrence where sasha’s voice didn't permeate through the thin door of your home, where connie’s protests to jean’s choices in music didn't make their way to your ears even as you were climbing the stairs, the surprising lack of marco’s voice trying to mediate the two while the smell of something deliciously preparing in the kitchen, no doubt being observed with careful precision and hawk-eyed vision of the guy. None of that. It almost sent a chill down your spine, the jingle of your keys being the only thing that could be heard on your floor - your neighbors were tired of complaining about you and your friends’ loudness - and you made sure to not make too much noise unlocking the door.
The curtains were drawn, the only sound coming carefully from your own room, a soft yellow hue from under your door. You put your things away, your socked feet still cold despite being covered, fingers frozen and buried deep in your pockets.
You pushed the door to your bedroom open with your foot.
Jean sat in your bed - laid down, really, like it was his own. It might as well be, and his hair was set, absorbing the golden light from your bedside lamp, his phone his his hand. He was dressed in your favorite, almost a knowing, well-kept secret in your mind. How he became aware of it you had no idea, but his deeply forest green sweater flowed gently over him, hugging his arms.
He looked up, his eyes shining, gleaming. “You’re back,” he says, sitting straight up, back no longer supported by the pillow behind him, the cushion only holding an impression of him that you'd like to keep forever. A proof of sorts, but that wouldn't be necessary as long as he was in front of you.
“Hey.” you said, warmly, because that’s what he made you be. You set your bag down at the foot of your bed, and jean gets up with a question on his mouth, his chapped lips spilling out the statement as if he’d been mulling it over for a time longer than himself. “Wanna go see the sunset?” he asked, lips twitching at the corner - another well kept secret in your mind, your favorite passing expression on his face. There were a lot of things you liked about him, in passing, in secret, truth kept hidden between you and your mouth. Kept close, kept quiet.
You hummed as if you even had to think about the answer. Dramatically, you stretched your arms over you, faking a yawn. “I don't know, jean, im pretty tired,”
His shoulder slumped in a way where he thought it wouldn't be noticeable - something you couldn't help but notice - and he said, “oh, okay. Some other day th- oh youre fucking with me. Oh, okay. Fuck you,” he says, a joking scowl on his face as he started to walk out your door, refusing to turn his back on you. You laugh in teasing, a small, conscious sound. “Im never going to ask you, now, and years later when im dead-” “-how many years are we talking?” “twenty thousand. Im going to outlive you. You’re going to regret ever doing this to me-” your laugh becomes just a little louder, a little less conscious, a little more comfortable against the sound of his voice, and he smiles wider knowing youre happy. “I’ll write it in my eulogy, then,” you say, following him to the hallway. “you better.” he leads you to where you kept your shoes, your welcome mat folding as he halted infront of it, removing your coat from the rack along with his. “here lies jean kirstein, died out of spite,” you wear your shoes and he holds out your coat to put your arms in. “youre joking about this but im pretty sure that would be the only reason i’d ever die.” he wears his own coat, and the door opens gently, with your laughter replacing the sound of the empty, dimly lit stairway.
There’s really not much of a sun to be seen set. Maybe it was all just an excuse jean made up to hear your voice that warmed him in the freezing cold, and maybe you already knew that, and hoped his hand would brush against yours to remind you of his grounding heat, walking beside you. Coats on your shoulder, you and jean walked around aimlessly in your neighborhood, treetops barren with the branches cutting through the bluing sky, colouring jean’s stray hairs in their shade. Another well kept secret in your ever-growing list - jean’s hair was like a chameleon. Being light enough to catch the colour of the light shining on him without much protest, and in the mornings when he sat beside you in class, backlit against the closed window with the sun shining painfully through the planes of glass, his hair looked like a crown. A halo, summery and warm but diffusing in his hair like something that was only evidence of holiness, blending into his strands almost seamlessly.
The tip of his nose was red, cheeks and ears taking on the same tint. His breath created a small cloud in the air from his nose, disappearing in a millisecond. You'd keep it there forever, if you could, seeing as his breath warmed your face, every exhale holding a piece of his lungs and the fact that it was so close to you, an evidence of holiness, was more than what you’d asked for in your life. You were sure if you closed your lids you’d see the outline of his face etched in the same light of your bedroom nightlight, lulling you to sleep.
“How was your day?” he asks, his voice soft, turning his head towards you. His eyes reflect your figure and its the only way you'd want to see yourself.
“Alright. Oh! After my last class, i was just talking to some people in my class with the professor-” “-zoe?” “yeah!” your voice lilts upwards, a physical proof. He remembered your schedule for today. “And we were just, yknow, talking, and they started telling us about the one time they got into a barfight.” jean snorts. “Honestly, i wouldn't expect less form them.” “me too. It started out as them and the other guy arguing about some fact and the guy just refused to listen to them so they had to google it and, yknow, they were right, and the guy refused to believe it. Got punched in the face. And then they showed us a scar from the stitches on their chin after they fell down at the curb.” jean laughed. “I wish i still had their class.” he said, and your hands brushed just as predicted and hoped. Your boots crunched the ground below you, your footsteps in sync with his, and jean retracted his hand. “Jesus, you're cold.” he remarked, looking at you, and you shrugged. “What can you do?” you asked. A rhetoric, helpless question.
But jean’s hand enveloped yours, your feet coming to a halt with his, standing face to face with both your hands held by jean's warm fingers, burning like a furnace, set ablaze like your heart, a hearth around your previously frozen closed digits. There was a breeze, somewhere, far away to you, and jean’s eyes looked at yours with gentleness and no secrets. His shoulders relaxed, as if holding your hands like this was something natural and unplanned and comfortable - it was - but it was new, and you’d always assumed that change set your heart racing because it was too much. But then this was change, too, and your heart was normal, only a little bigger, comfortable against your chest that seemed so close to his. Maybe it was only comfortable because of that fact.
He breathed into your hand, his own creating a shell around yours to keep the heat locked in just as you had thought about. A piece of his lungs, disappearing in a moments notice, a moments silence, a moment too long, comfortably stretched out under your well-kept secrets that you weren't sure were so well-kept anymore.
“Pretty today.” he comments, his eyes anywhere but to you now, and you wonder if you heard him right, but his breath lies there, unapologetic, heard, content around you. A piece of his lungs wraps around you, sinking into your layers of clothes and skin until it hits your bones. Somewhere, distant and clouded, the sun sets slowly. “Thank you,” you say, wondering if you should spill your own secret. “I like you in green.” you say. It sounds stupid and embarrassing to admit, and now it’s your turn to avert your eyes and stare and your hands. They're warm now. Jean hasn't stopped holding them.
“I know.” he says. “That's why i wear it so often.” “it makes your eyes look warm.” you say, clearing your throat, “colour theory, i think,” you excuse.
You feel him nodding slowly, and his hands tug on your gently, pulling your body closer to his. Your chin tilts up, just in time to catch his breath, again, so close to yours, disappearing not before mingling with your exhale, piece of your lungs, in the still air. “Colour theory.” he repeats, and its clear that the excuse didn't work on him, not because he's smirking the way he usually is when he spots your poorly concealed truth, but with a pinch between his brows, subtle enough to be almost hidden. You catch it anyway.
“Is there…. any colour theory to… to support why you look so…pretty?” he asks, face scrunching at the end, cringing at his own question. You smile. He shakes his head, a strand of his hair slipping onto his forehead. The wind brushes it away and you allow it to because of your preoccupied hands. “Forget i said that,” “its the blue,” you breathe, providing him with a clearly fake statement, but its not a secret this time. It doesn't hide behind your teeth, freeing into the wind, wrapping around him unapologetically.
His lips twitch, sacred secrets still in your hands but they're in his warm ones now, so you suppose its okay.
“The blue?” he asks, small smile on his slightly cracked, cold lips. Your reflection is in his eyes and you're close enough to see the blue that tints the corner of his pupils - colour theory. Whatever it was. “Yeah. the sky, i think.”
“The sky makes you pretty?” he asks, and you copy his smile despite yourself. “Yeah. maybe.”
He nods again, slowly. Your words soak into his skin, warming his muscles, relaxing his shoulders. “I like blue.”
“I like green,” you say.
You have matching smiles on your faces, and you lean your lips to his hands, placing a small kiss there, a proof of your secrets, the ability of them spilling out one day, the possibility of comfort that jean provided openly, without remorse, to you. The fog his breath was creating came to a halt. You looked back to him, and your nose bumped against his cold, pink one. “I… there’s no sun.” he said, almost desperately, holding himself together by flimsy reasoning, but you broke his resolve without even trying. “Its okay. Its there somewhere. Close your eyes, maybe you can see it.”
His eyes fluttered shut. In the darkness, he could see the outline your shape left under his lids. “Are you seeing it?” you ask, and your lips are so close together now its dizzying, and you would've collapsed if it weren't for the way you held onto each other's hands.
Jean nods. In the darkness, under his lids, he traces every line of your face, a piece of his heart.
“Good. then we’re seeing the same sun.” you say. Jean opens his eyes to see your own closed, hands in his, growing warmer. He didn't remove his hands.
“Yeah. we are.” he agrees, eyes glancing at your lips, waiting for your eyes to open.
When they do, you find a question in his. Warm, complimenting the colour of his sweater, gleaming in the blue of the sky. You inch closer to him with your own answer, your lips pushed slightly apart, waiting for your secrets to be unleashed into his own poorly concealed ones behind his usually clenched jaw.
His lips are chapped. A little cold. So were your hands, but his touch warmed you, and you hoped your own lips warmed his, taking his breath - a piece of his lungs - into yours, and he pushed a little gently into you, chasing your own heart, tasting whatever was closest to the sun.
and then his lips are off of yours and the sun had set, but jean was still warm, a piece of his lungs stuck to your tongue and a piece of the sun stuck between his teeth. he'd keep it there.