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“Let me kiss you,” said Jongdae.
He never wore despondence for too long. His gaze clung onto Junmyeon’s mouth, and his low murmur reached into the depths of Junmyeon’s stomach, unbridled impatience.
Junmyeon gave his ramyeon another stir, knowing Jongdae wouldn’t ask again, not tonight, and not the next time they’d meet. Jongdae let out a sigh and drew Junmyeon’s cup across the small table towards himself, pushed his kimbap at Junmyeon.
“Tell me why I bother with you.”
The line of his mouth was bare of frustration, as if Junmyeon had something scarce to say that Jongdae couldn’t think of himself. Instead, he wondered what kind of competition had set their eye on them, had tricked them into an endless tie of stubbornness, had him wondering if one win would make Jongdae withdraw.
They’d fallen into rules: Junmyeon paid, Jongdae walked him home. And rather than being walked home, it was Jongdae's eyes on him like moonlight, in the hesitant dark that sat between them, was Jongdae meandering through conversations for them both, Junmyeon’s mouth silenced by a mountain of thoughts.
“I don’t mind, you know,” Jongdae was saying, “if you’re a slob. The household I grew up in—”
Junmyeon halted even before Jongdae could bite his tongue, could avert his eyes. He was always looking, sometimes staring, with a slate kept carefully, habitually blank. He’d certainly never spoken of the time before they’d met. Junmyeon watched the fine lines on his face trembling with the threat of a laugh, warm and wound tight around rejection, wound dressing raised along with the knife, watched them quieting into contemplation.
“Whatever you hide up there, it can’t possibly be worse,” Jongdae ended on. “Hyung, please.”
Junmyeon’s body reminded him of the thrill of fear earlier, the path it had carved through his stomach when Jongdae had rested his forehead between his shoulders as they stood in line. The sharp craving it had left behind, when the fabric had grown warm against his skin and he’d realised it was the lower half of his face, Jongdae’s mouth resting over his spine.
His gaze shifted to somewhere above. Junmyeon tried to follow, tried to reason. “You said you understood.”
Windows, Junmyeon realised. Only few were lit; he wondered who might be watching from the dark, hoping for a twilight moment in another person, searching for the forbidden to revel in its imposed intimacy.
“Hyung.”
Jongdae had fallen a few paces behind, stood drawn by the promise of a dark corner. Didn’t understand that whoever watched didn’t need to see them disappearing to know what they’d disappeared for. Junmyeon had to stay where light circled and shadows fell, leaves to ground. “The same way you can’t, I can’t either,” Junmyeon settled on.
It took Jongdae by surprise: that there’d be something exempt from his charm, someone with a no as firm as his own. Through the overlong denim sleeves Jongdae’s hands had made a home of Junmyeon watched his hands untensing, curling into themselves again.
Things would stay this way. Secluded either way, Junmyeon would fall asleep to a dream of touching Jongdae’s face where it was for no one else to see, of a world devoid of anyone but them.
Junmyeon slid the window open, and some of his world crawled out into the night. A shiver ran along his arm where it brushed past, had him drawing his fingernails over skin to keep it from settling into the limb.
He turned around, observed the silhouette of his bed, the broken shell of its blanket. Although his disgust had grown a thick skin, some days he still felt something moving beneath it, a pulse of a breath. Junmyeon slid the window shut, cut off with it the impulse of wanting to break out.
He took off his clothes, pulled on pyjamas and fresh socks, shook out the blanket by the window, in a forsaken spot he knew not to walk into. It wouldn’t get rid of the feeling of being shoved up against a wall, gripped by the throat, claws sinking into his skin.
But without this, Junmyeon knew, he wouldn’t amount to anything. The revulsion for himself had long since mellowed into another coat of paint, scuffed and begrimed by the stroke of a thousand touches running along the edges of a light switch that wouldn’t flip.
With a row of alarms set to long before sunrise, he wrapped himself into the blanket, smoothed himself out of his curled-up posture. There was no point in finding relief now; in a few hours, sleep-drunk, his body would have to remember to take up as little space as it could, flatten itself against the wall so he wouldn’t brush against it, to will away the sensation of all points of contact, of bristles brushing along his spine.
“Here,” said Jongdae as he slid a small envelope into Junmyeon’s pocket.
“You shouldn’t have.” Junmyeon knew, when he’d taken root before a painting, that Jongdae wouldn’t wait, would find a postcard of it. Its ghost, the bruised colours of a desolate abundance, of a sinewy force, seemed to leave a relief in the paper.
“Someone has to spend money on you.” Jongdae rose up on his toes, far enough that his fingers touched a branch of the tree Junmyeon had waited for him under, and his face lost the streak of impatience, gave into contentment. Junmyeon couldn’t help it, he found his gaze drawn to the arch of his hips in these grey jeans as his jacket lifted, left them unobstructed, couldn’t help tearing it away with such resolve Jongdae startled for all of a moment. “There’s a nice café nearby. Buy me tiramisu?”
“Buy me three more postcards then,” said Junmyeon.
“Or I could repay you with my love.”
The glint of amusement he’d worn all day had vacated the corners of Jongdae’s mouth. His eyelashes were weighed down, as if the drizzle had found a way beneath the canopy of abating leaves, had turned Jongdae into a planet of its own, standing low enough to empty itself into the sky: he had braced himself for rejection.
But Junmyeon couldn’t. Not when Jongdae shoved his heart at him without relent, and his apologies tasted like sunset, bittered by the approaching end of day. He met Jongdae’s eyes, clung to the soothing darkness of his gaze. He could have this much of Jongdae. “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t deprive myself of beautiful things.”
“Did it have to be on the bed again?” asked Junmyeon.
It twitched at the light coming on, but had long since shed the instinct of running. There was barely enough room for it to crawl out of its old skin, and none for Junmyeon to sit so he lowered into a squat before the bed, rested his wrists near where its body gleamed, pale and soft. He collected some of the silver scales in one palm, sighed as he let them flutter to the floor, apologised when it twitched again. Stood up to peel the dry skin off the few onions he had left, and set out to fill a flat dish. Flour, starch, the onion skins.
He lost too much time, standing by the counter in a weary daze, one fingertip drawing lines of regret into the flour. Junmyeon still recalled that first night, when he’d stumbled into the bathroom, eyes upset by the bright light, an instinct in him lurching at a movement across the tiles, the swift elegance of it. He’d stood, surprised and disoriented, so still that with some difficulty he saw it approaching the curl of a hair that hadn’t been rinsed away, and hadn’t found it in himself to crush a creature that fed on his dross—not even when it soon fed on the others of its own kind, and under Junmyeon’s reluctant care grew beyond what he figured was average, until it had become the size of his hand, entirely too big to crush or speak to anyone about.
The more it had grown, the more Junmyeon’s fondness had diminished; and it had come as a relief that once the size of a cat, it slid past him out of the window at night, and for a few hours, let him pretend it wasn’t there, left behind only a shell of guilt, until it returned safely again in the early hours of the morning, unseen. It sought him out for his warmth soon, and Junmyeon, shame-soaked, guilt-ridden by the fantasies he nursed about it dying and never returning, Junmyeon let it.
The dish he left by the window that would be kept shut tonight, as far from the unfolded mat on the floor as he could position it. Junmyeon went over to the bed for his pillow, and this time couldn’t resist: he laid a palm flat onto the soft gleam of its peeled form. A shudder rippled out from where his warm hand met its body, cool and still soft, doughy to his touch, but it didn’t move away, not even when his other hand joined. Junmyeon swallowed against the disgust. Moved with it when it twitched forwards, further out of the exoskeleton, let go once when it shook itself free of it. It was only then that he noticed the clipped feeler by its tail had grown back with this moult, noticed the yellow stains, and knew he’d have to spend the night with his elbow as his pillow, until its new skin had hardened enough for it to crawl under the bed where it spent the day.
Junmyeon sat down on the mat, his back turned to it as he wiped the velvet of tears off his face. Pressed both hands against his chest, so nothing else would spill from it.
His chanting quieted when Junmyeon spotted someone sitting at the bottom of the stairs—on the floor before it—curled into themselves, lifted the bags high as he passed with careful steps. Tripped, almost, when he found his ankle caught in their grip.
“What are you doing here?”
Jongdae gazed up at him, thinner than ever, his smile, unsteady, now sliced a shadow-filled depression into the hollow of his cheek. “I haven’t seen you in two months. My phone,” he said, and showed Junmyeon the device, shook it like it would speak for itself. “I remember where you live. You can’t take this from me.”
“Are you drunk?” asked Junmyeon.
“Tipsy at best.” Jongdae sighed, and buried his face sideways into the fabric of the hood bunched up on his shoulder. His eyes had gone so soft, Junmyeon feared if he blinked they’d spill out of his face. “You weren’t supposed to see me here. Don’t you have work?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve come here,” realised Junmyeon.
“I like it romantic, did you know? And what’s more romantic than languishing in the entrance of my hyung’s house like a duck forbidden from entering?”
“A duck,” repeated Junmyeon. He couldn’t help but laugh, at how confusion replaced the supple, sweet anguish on Jongdae’s face.
“You make me feel so—” He tried on a gesture only to abort it, instead heaved himself onto the second step. “Isn’t a dog on a chain always on your mind? But with ducks, do you care to know anything about them, before they end up in your stir-fry?”
He tilted forwards, sudden enough to worry Junmyeon, but pulled his knees to his chest, rested one arm on them and his head in the crook, frowned up at Junmyeon. “Isn’t it sad, that I still want you like this? Maybe even more so.” He shook his head, shook a laugh out of his mouth, hid his face into the sleeve again and kept on murmuring to himself.
Junmyeon’s mouth had gone dry with shame and the arrest he found himself in around Jongdae. The sound of steps, of shifting fabric twisted him out of his thoughts. At his alarm, it took barely a moment for Jongdae to haul himself up, pour his posture into something more put-together than Junmyeon could muster on his best days.
Nothing betrayed his prior state as he greeted the neighbour Junmyeon believed lived two doors down from his flat; if anything, Jongdae seemed in ebullient spirits, saw it returned as she took his hands between hers. Cut away like the root off an onion, Junmyeon stood by, watched, spellbound by the lustre of Jongdae’s sweet demeanour as envy rose at the back of his throat, dense and tart. Before he knew it, his hand had found Jongdae’s wrist, gripped it so tight he couldn’t understand why Jongdae’s face showed nothing but a crescent of pleased curiosity.
He’s with me, Junmyeon wished he could claim. “Enough,” he heard himself saying instead, through the thick curtain of a bitterness.
Outside, by the recycling bins, he realised his grip around Jongdae’s wrist was making an attempt at taking root. Jongdae, his ruffled hair now blown about by a light wind, had made no effort to rid himself of it, wore a sour look. “I like your neighbours. They know nothing about me—can’t you let me have something, for once?”
Only then his gaze fell onto where Junmyeon still held on. “This, is it reward or punishment? Do you want me close, or only the thought of me?”
It was like the wind had peeled away that last layer, loosened by alcohol or Junmyeon’s insistence, the insurmountable wall of it that Junmyeon had let him run into, over and over. A layer that had never needed peeling, a shell that kept Jongdae, and Junmyeon, sheltered from anything visceral. Junmyeon let go, of this Kim Jongdae, barely drunk and near gaunt by the recycling bins, who knew he’d be sent away tonight, too.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Junmyeon told him as he lifted both bags into the rubbish bin. By the time he turned back to Jongdae, any stars left had fallen off his face, left it bared, exhausted. He wished he could touch him again, outside of the always watching eyes of neighbours and CCTVs. “Please, take better care of yourself.”
Jongdae stood like he could hear what Junmyeon couldn’t tell him. Let his head tip back, as if it could shake his thoughts into the right place. “Isn’t everything ever so clear, with you? It either is, or isn’t. I was warned about your kind, and I had my own reservations too, but I don’t even think you’re one of them.”
His gaze drifted over Junmyeon, then upwards, along the façade, searching, until it fell into the palms of his hands, until his fingers smeared it all over his hair. “It was my birthday last month, did you know that? Hyung. Don’t make me beg for it.”
All semblance of shamelessness gone, he let Junmyeon stare at the bared heartbeat of his longing. “There’s a hotel,” he said, slowly, beneath the heat of Jongdae’s understanding (that he’d turned this over in his head for months, that he’d picked one out of thousands, that he couldn’t stomach suggesting it, that it wasn’t safe, that it couldn’t, wouldn’t become habit. That he, too, wanted it). “If you ask me there, I’ll go.”
“Really,” said Jongdae, apprehension tainted by relief, and, an arm’s length away, peered into the bin, at the coils of dull silver. “What’s in these, anyway?”
“Dreams and wishes,” joked Junmyeon, before humiliation could wring the truth from him.
Jongdae closed his eyes, for a moment, looked back at Junmyeon with a boundless calm. “All right. Send me back to my pond, then.”
Junmyeon did. Back in his flat, he buried himself in the fantasies, warmed them to his heartbeat, until the fear didn’t feel quite as harsh anymore, grew warm and wistful at the seams, in the hold of his longing.
He found the door unlocked, opening without complaint, and found himself breathless, shoes in his hand, drawn to the arhythmic flicker of light past the ensuite bath.
A bag of chips sat between his bare legs, undisturbed by Jongdae now sitting up. Even in the dim light coming from the screen on the wall, his hands glistened, uneven with salt and dust. “Didn’t think you’d come,” he said.
What followed was the slow ascent of his hand to his mouth, the closing of his lips around finger after finger, the couthiness of his averted gaze, the plummet of Junmyeon’s stomach at how narrow the bed was, how Jongdae was leaving no room other than—
“Make yourself useful,” said Jongdae, kicking the remote towards Junmyeon, licking at his palm. “Thin walls.”
Junmyeon turned away, if only to keep his eyes away from the black of Jongdae’s briefs, the undisturbed white of his socks, watched the volume bar climbing until the laugh track rang in his ears.
“We only have one toothbrush,” Jongdae told him when he turned to him after setting the control down, sombre, then reached again into the bag of chips that had wandered onto the nightstand. The line of his waist elongated and left his stomach bare, left Junmyeon bare with want, his gaze trying to slip beneath fabric to climb up Jongdae’s ribs. “Hyung, sit.”
Junmyeon, with the taste of a dream to come true filling his mouth, sat, at the foot of the bed, stowed away his shoes, endured Jongdae’s laughter falling into line with the laugh track. Then, a hand brushed the straps of his backpack down his shoulders so they sat around his arms, turned into a cage when he reached for Jongdae.
“I really didn’t think you’d come,” repeated Jongdae. His gaze felt heavy where it tried to burrow, where his hand followed the trail of the jacket’s zip across Junmyeon’s front, upwards, until it settled over a collarbone. “Only one toothbrush, and you’re wearing too much.”
Junmyeon followed the call of Jongdae’s touch, knelt between his legs, watched Jongdae watching his own hands where they debarked Junmyeon, until he too was in a t-shirt, his breath shaky, the fabric at his armpits wet, for Jongdae to see. He gripped the fingers tugging at the shirt where it was tucked in. “Not yet.”
Jongdae fell onto his back, and Junmyeon thought he could see his smile reflected on the ceiling, before he comprehended it as a water stain. “Get comfortable,” told him Jongdae and rolled over to pull the bag of chips into his arms again.
With his jeans Junmyeon tried to shed the envy; Jongdae held it, sank his fingers into it almost imploringly, but his gaze flitted over and around Junmyeon. It took his laugh joining the sounds from the TV for Junmyeon to understand he wasn’t, wouldn’t—as much as he’d bothered Junmyeon, as much as he could see the unfamiliar languidity inhabiting the lines of Jongdae’s body like an oil spill—Jongdae, too, was waiting.
He sat down next to him, only bringing his legs up onto the bed when Jongdae reached to pull him in by the thigh. Junmyeon touched his leg in turn, a slow glide of his fingers up his shin, through hair, nothing like Junmyeon’s smooth skin. It was unnerving how laid bare he felt, how now the bed wasn’t narrow enough. They could sleep in it without touching, and he’d come for—his gaze drifted to Jongdae’s face, attention carefully turned onto the TV screen, and wondered if he was aware of the expectant tilt of his eyebrows. He rested his wrist against Jongdae’s knee, let his fingers fall onto the inside of his thigh, enjoyed the brief twitch of skin. Sought Jongdae’s gaze, and found its surface just as disturbed, wanted to throw more stones into it to see it rippling. Jongdae looked back, lids lowered, waiting, waiting, until Junmyeon’s hand arrived at the seam of his briefs.
“Not as much of a romantic as you made me think.” Jongdae’s face crinkled with a smile when Junmyeon withdrew, and he sat up to mirror Junmyeon’s crossed legs. “I still really want to kiss you, and you still look like you’ll run if I so much as move, but.” He reached into the crinkled bag once more, and before Junmyeon knew it pressed chips against his mouth, acid and salt. “Eat, so you won’t run because I taste bad.”
The salt stung on his lips, the vinegar on his tongue, but he asked for another handful, cupping a hand beneath Jongdae’s, closing it around his wrist when it stayed empty. Jongdae’s gaze would not meet his, met his fingertips at the corners of his mouth instead. Junmyeon licked at them, shivered beneath the touch of the clean hand that came to cup his upper arm, its heat bleeding into his skin. He shivered when it turned into fingers running down his side, recoiled when they brushed over his waist in a feathery touch that felt just like—
It returned to his chest, picking at something there. “You have a pet?” asked Jongdae, rolling strands of hair back and forth between his fingers, thick as bristles.
“Must be my neighbour’s dog,” said Junmyeon, heart in his mouth. He was meticulous with his clothes, but he’d absentmindedly set his jacket down on his bed this morning—he moved to kneel, enjoyed Jongdae giving way to lie back beneath him, oil along the curve of a tilted pan, hands settling on his back, tentative, but not his eyes, never his eyes nor his gaze, firm in its desire. With his mouth parting Jongdae looked up at him, and then swallowed. Bewitched by the movement of his throat, Junmyeon could barely hear the laughter coming from the TV, wished it would broadcast Jongdae’s heartbeat instead.
In a sudden motion, Jongdae rose up to pull him into the heat of his body, to seize him, fasten him against himself with his every limb. His mouth came to sit against the gentle movement of Jongdae’s throat, and his heartbeat threatened to spill over.
If this room had eyes, he wouldn’t see. The shower he’d taken at work had washed something off him he’d needed to stay covered, and Jongdae beneath him felt so slight—
“Hyung,” Junmyeon heard from far away, through the thicket of clouds, through the sensation of fingers stroking along the sides of his ribs. He had to remind himself there was fabric between them still, had to turn his face away, into the respite of the pillow behind Jongdae’s head, cheek pressed against his ear, the tickle of hair.
“I can take it,” Jongdae said. “There wasn’t much I could do in a few weeks, but I can take it.”
Junmyeon didn’t know what the sound he made against Jongdae’s ear felt like, but Jongdae’s legs around him tightened, enough to force something else out of him. “I used to be like you,” he said. It ached, cutting himself open for Jongdae, without knowing if he’d respond in kind. “Some days, I still. If it’s—promise you won’t.”
The embrace loosened long enough for Jongdae to run a hand across the back of Junmyeon’s head, as one would with a child, a doll, and yet. And yet.
“I’ll become better for you,” said Jongdae.
Then, his clasp was of firm brass again, Junmyeon too lost in his heat to struggle against it, and when he found himself again, it was beneath Jongdae, beneath the glint of his silver earrings, beneath the moonlight of his gaze, the desire of his mouth. Jongdae let go to stroke a strand of hair out of his eyes, follow its reunion, stroke a thumb along the line of his hair, rest it in his temple—but Junmyeon, under the spell of Jongdae’s mouth, opening to the promise of a kiss, couldn’t find his own hands to draw Jongdae closer. The noise that left his mouth Jongdae smiled at, before delivering them both from the frustration, his mouth warm against the corner of Junmyeon’s, the touch of his tongue hot where it singed a path between his lips. It felt like a tear, a laceration, an answer to months of desire fraying his every thought, a cut that had grown its fever. Junmyeon pushed up onto his elbows, up into Jongdae’s embrace, held with one hand his face, fit the other behind his shoulder, until he had Jongdae in his lap, bent him in his hunger at the breaking point that his hands marked around his waist. He’d forgotten how to be without Jongdae’s mouth on his, Jongdae’s taste on his tongue by the time Jongdae leaned out of his orbit, a breathless, thrilling smile on his face. Junmyeon reached for his nape, watched as Jongdae twisted out of his touch into another kiss, strange and alien still, Jongdae’s hands holding his face as if Junmyeon would turn mirage unless outlined by his touch.
Soon enough, Jongdae’s teeth found Junmyeon’s tongue and lips and cheeks, and Junmyeon found what had seemed like arrowheads concealed by a smile gentle against his skin, while hands climbed beneath fabric, short nails repainting the line of his spine. Junmyeon was no stranger to touch, had, in absence of desire, hands that always sought to hold—but Jongdae’s touch was the kind that had him unravelling, that turned something in him inside out. He felt seasick with it all too soon, was helpless with despair for it regardless, fell into the dark waters of Jongdae’s mouth, breaking, sinking.
A noise pierced through the surface, caught around his neck. Everything came to a halt—Jongdae’s heat receded, and Junmyeon recognised the familiar melody of an old song, slow and heavy, drunk on rejection more than love. Jongdae had risen on his knees, returned Junmyeon’s gaze with his arms thrown over Junmyeon’s shoulders, eyes dark, another kiss falling from his mouth, its dew light with relief. Then, he scrambled off the bed.
“I’ve always wanted to dance with you,” said Jongdae, hair so rumpled when Junmyeon didn’t remember touching it, beckoning him over, with a gesture of his hand so gossamer it made his heart ache. “Come to me, hyung.”
Without question, Junmyeon went, into arms that held him like the sea closed around seagrass, sought to enfold him entirely.
“Kim Junmyeon, sit down. When did you last clean these floors?”
She didn’t have to say anything more. Junmyeon stood—shame boring deep at her expectation to watch her, on her hands and knees—for a moment, until he could tear his gaze away and found it wandering the kitchen where dishes lingered unstacked. He got a bucket to fill with hot water, tossed empty food containers that needed cleaning in to soak, filled the sink, too.
Two sinkfuls of hot water, sore hands and halfway through his mess, he heard his mother muttering.
The laminate shone, a shade lighter. He wiped his wet hands dry on his jeans. “Mamma?” asked Junmyeon when he found her by his bed.
“If only you’d get married,” she said, peering under it. A shiver pierced Junmyeon’s spine, pierced him into place. “Your brother’s wife was right, I didn’t raise you well enough. Today’s men should know how to look after their flats, not just themselves.” She turned her head long enough to give him another appraising glance. Her cheeks briefly rose into the moons Junmyeon knew too well from his own face. “My neighbours still envy me, when you come around. Even with this—” she gestured at his hair, the stubble, the stained shirt, “you’re a very beautiful man. You shouldn’t let your visitors—” and Junmyeon, even with shame and guilt sitting hot at the back of his throat, loved her, for thinking he was seeing women, thinking him incapable of violating them, “see this. Kim Junmyeon, what is under your bed?”
She pulled at something, bulky and dark. Icy sweat ran down his spine as he watched her dragging it into the light. For a moment, he thought it had died, it had never held so still before; then fear’s tails stroked along his throat. It had never hurt him, but—
“What are you keeping this for?” His mother laughed. “Here, help me with this.”
There was just enough room for them to move the bed aside. She said nothing of the thick dust dotted with black pellets, merely asked for a bin bag to sweep them up into, and in disbelief, his heart pounding in his throat, Junmyeon returned to the sink, the container mountain. (He’d sworn himself that he wouldn’t find out whether this landlord pinned up CCTV screenshots in the hallway, with his name typed out below and a stinging reprimand above.)
Space ran out quickly as he worked, scrubbing at dried sauces and corners of leftovers, turning the water red, then dark, and he was grateful when his mother joined, dried and sorted everything into the different bags.
“You’ll always be my Junmyeonie,” she told him when they were done and he’d thanked her profusely. One hand on his shoulder, she stroked his hair behind his ear; in his teeth he felt that she would always love him as her child, never the man he’d become, a reed bent out of form. “I’ll take your friend to the laundromat around the corner. You’re not eating enough, are you? Tell me which restaurant to get takeout from on the way back.”
Junmyeon named one he knew she’d like, and stepped back to watch her pulling on her shoes in the entryway. When she noticed him looking, she smiled at him, pointed to the bathroom with a raised eyebrow, and left his flat, inert creature wound around her neck.
“Nice glasses.”
With the door shut, Junmyeon received the blistering kiss of Jongdae’s hands against his cheeks, as he let the glasses slide back down, before he realised he was being teased. His head felt so tense it would burst at any further touch. He took a few steps back, tried to follow Jongdae’s gaze but lost it soon enough to another throb that almost split his head apart. If only it would, he thought, so whatever wanted out could escape.
The moon stood high and bright, but none of its light fell into the murk of Junmyeon’s flat. Still, Jongdae found his way to the kitchen, where the fridge light singed Junmyeon’s every thought. With his hand shielding his eyes, he listened as Jongdae closed it with a content hum, lifted the grocery bags onto the counter, opened cabinets. “Do you bake? I’ve never seen anyone with this much flour.” He wasn’t speaking to himself as Junmyeon often did, merely took the mercy of not wanting replies on him, shut none of the doors he’d opened. “You weren’t lying when you said you had nothing left to eat.”
Junmyeon felt too nauseous to be embarrassed, to ignore the streak of heat rising inside of him. “I have to lie back down.” He made it to the bed, and even without fear of collapsing felt so miserable he couldn’t piece together Jongdae’s answer. A gust of wind sliced along his back; the window was still open, but as long as Jongdae left within the hour—
“Do you need anything?” Jongdae’s voice was low, so untouched by worry Junmyeon knew he was salting it away. “Tea? Juk? I bought chicken broth and soft tofu, if you’d like a light soup—your shirt’s all wet.”
A water-logged chill pressed into his back, until the points of contact warmed enough to become hands. “I’ll get a sponge,” said Jongdae, without room for agreement.
Junmyeon had closed his eyes long ago, had given into the haze of this headache long ago, let Jongdae’s hands guide him into sitting when he returned. Had just enough vigour in him to ask, “Don’t close the window,” as the shirt was peeled off his skin. Something had upset his creature; it wouldn’t follow their schedule anymore, although he did, although he hoped it could become routine again, worries as clearly outlined as his duties.
“Drink this.” Warmer than the hands guiding his by the wrists was the glass Jongdae made him hold. “You’ll feel better soon.”
Junmyeon winced at the pungent spice of ginger, but emptied the glass, even as everything in his head seemed to pool at the back of his skull when he tipped it back. Jongdae didn’t ask for anything else, and the sponge was pleasantly warm and soft against his skin while the hand on his shoulder that kept him in place seemed to draw all heat in his body. Soon, he shivered, soon, a fresh shirt that billowed, an alien scent was pulled over his arms and head, soon the heat of Jongdae’s hands guided him to lie back down, and something pressed cold against his head. “Move it where you need it.”
Junmyeon’s temple welcomed it. He listened as he returned to the kitchen, and his nausea cleared enough that he could hear the caution in every Jongdae’s movement. He drifted into a hazy sleep, surfaced long enough to know of the bowl of soup on the table that had been drawn close, to watch Jongdae leaning out of the window, closing it, his shadow oddly displaced, Jongdae reaching for where it sat on the wall.
He woke up with the aftertaste of a fever dream in his mouth, to the soup as cool as the winds he thought were still making a home of his flat. But the window was closed, and next to it sat Jongdae’s shadow still, smudged by his dirty glasses. Junmyeon reached for his phone—he’d have to retrieve his shadow, Junmyeon could not leave the house—before it shifted, twitched, all too familiar, a teardrop of silver the size of himself, two antennae, the trident of its tail, and Junmyeon remembered Jongdae’s voice, lower than he’d ever heard it, drawing near this shadow that wasn’t one. Junmyeon threw up into the bucket by the bedside, and hoped, hoped, hoped