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The smoke creates hypnotizing patterns as it rises out of the balcony and into the inky navy of the night sky, yet Jinn can barely pay attention to it, thoughts barrelling into each other and leaving him restless.
It’s 3 AM and he hasn’t slept for a single second tonight.
Whatever – he can just skip class tomorrow and lie through his teeth that everything’s perfectly fine.
As If he’s not well practised in the art of dishonesty.
The cigarette doesn’t provide the distraction Jinn desperately craves, not when his mind feels detached from his body, lingering elsewhere.
Not when all he can think of is the fact that in his bedroom, on his bed, is Jerome, sleeping like Jinn isn’t losing his sanity over the proximity, the small beats of silence where they stare at each other as if Jerome’s seconds away from peering straight into his heart, Jinn’s best kept secrets worn out on his sleeve.
From the very first step Jerome took into his dorm, it’s like Jinn’s heart has just been waiting for the moment where it’ll burst out of his chest, spill all over the floor the guts he can only hide now with threadbare cloths, harshly scribbled words and exasperated sighs, insults hurled out loud and in the few quiet spaces when Jerome finally falls into his restless dreaming, Jinn lying awake and not looking at him out of fear of what he might find to fall in love with once more.
These are ideas only his diary knows of, wonderings he hasn’t allowed even his heart to fully figure out. If he thinks of it too much, Jinn’s certain he’ll be entirely lost.
He's too enthralled by wallowing in the misery of having Jerome so close and yet so far, not noticing the bedroom door open and close in the stilted atmosphere, smoke curling around him and not clearing his thoughts like he wished it could.
Jinn does hear the dull thud of Jerome’s sock-clad feet on the wooden floors, attuned in ways he can only hope to one day be freed from to everything about Jerome, even the smallest of sounds he can create.
The cigarette trembles minutely between his fingers as he turns back, catching a glimpse of Jerome as he halts halfway across the living room, a sliver of moonlight filtering in through the window and flickering in the other man’s gaze.
It’s too much for Jinn’s late-night pondering, too strange a sight for it to make sense – Jerome could never be in his room, never belong to the things that are Jinn’s, never exist in a reality where they’re in the same place, same page, same thinking.
Looking off into the distance, Jinn can feel him approaching, can sense the weight of him as Jerome leans over the balcony railing, can imagine their fingers meeting each other over the cold metal and shakes his head to disperse the mere notion that Jerome could reach back for him.
There’s a distance between them that’s uncrossable, unbreakable.
It’s a distance that Jinn needs, like air itself. It’s what allows him to fall asleep at night. It’s what has him smoking at 3 AM instead of lying on his bed, where the distance is too small, feels like it could be mended.
But Jinn feels in ways that Jerome doesn’t, wants things that he can’t have, and uses the smoke as a blockade to himself, a curtain for his feelings that have never disappeared, no matter how much Jerome has unknowingly broken his heart.
If Jinn can only pretend he’s not there, right beside him on the balcony, he can almost convince himself it’s just another one of his fantasies, a very realistic conjuration of his hopeless mind, yet a fantasy, nonetheless.
Like a vision of what could’ve been, if he wasn’t Jinn, if he didn’t love Jerome.
“It’s late,” Jerome tells him, breaking through the façade Jinn tried and failed to build. “You should be asleep.”
The bitter scoff that escapes him comes like second nature, the snarl that curls his lips already a permanent fixture when interacting with Jerome. “I could tell you the same thing."
"I’m not tired,” Jerome claims, betrayed by the yawn that overtakes him.
Fighting against his own urge to smile is familiar to Jinn – the lack of space between them should be as well, when they’ve been at each other’s necks for years.
Why does Jinn always fall prey to how close Jerome seems to be? What part of him still hasn’t gotten the memo that it means nothing?
“Did you have another nightmare?” Jinn asks before his brain has fully computed he’s speaking, traitorous lips moving when he shouldn’t say a thing, shouldn’t show a single point that Jerome can jab into.
What Jerome doesn’t know can’t hurt Jinn.
He can only hope his tone sounds more teasing that worried, though the tiredness doesn’t let him be sure.
Jerome’s looking at him, Jinn knows it without having to turn towards the other, can feel his gaze boring into the side of his face, acutely aware of his presence, now and always.
Even when Jinn doesn’t speak, Jerome seems to already know him inside out.
Steeling himself, Jinn doesn’t look back.
With a deep breath, he brings the cigarette back up to his lips, takes a long drag, lets the smoke slowly seep out, once, twice, the seconds ticking by like a hammering in his skull, a pounding in his chest.
When will Jerome look away? When will he just leave Jinn alone to get over the love that’s burrowed itself inside of him, the love he can’t bear to live with or without?
“Can I have one?” Jerome questions instead, still staring at Jinn. He doesn’t have to say much more for Jinn to know that he means the cigarettes, and he doesn't understand what kind of game Jerome’s trying to play at 3 AM.
Haven’t they fought enough? Haven’t they pressed enough buttons for a lifetime?
“You don’t smoke anymore,” Jinn curtly responds, the flame keeping his cigarette lit not distracting enough.
Nothing’s enough to make him forget that Jerome’s standing right next to him, that it’ll never be how he’s been silently hoping for.
“I could pick it back up,” Jerome shrugs, gaze not once faltering, painfully unaware that Jinn feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin.
“It won’t help you fall asleep,” Jinn advises, knowing it’d be more convincing if he wasn’t literally thinking of lighting a second one right now. “Go back to bed, J.” Jinn knows he sounds close to begging, the lump in his throat as prickly as if a thousand needles were lodged there.
“Maybe…” Jerome starts, trailing off as he slowly blinks, his stare even heavier the longer Jinn proves himself incapable of ignoring him. “Maybe I just want to know what it’s like. Why you do it.” He pauses, then adds, “Maybe I just want to know you.”
The words hit Jinn like a punch to the gut, as harshly as every fight they’ve had in all the time they’ve been in college.
What the fuck is Jerome’s problem, and what has gotten into him since the accident? Hasn’t he had his fill of driving Jinn halfway mad in the past lifetime they’ve known each other?
Jinn can’t speak – hell, he can barely breathe, the open air of the balcony providing no relief when Jerome takes up more space than physically possible, presence larger than himself, looming over all that Jinn does despite his best efforts to nip it all in the bud.
But Jinn knows he could if he wanted to, riding himself of these feelings not the herculean task he’s made it out to be in the back of his mind. It’d take time and it’d take changing, but he could do it, walk away and leave Jerome standing alone in their sparing ring.
Maybe he too just wants to know Jerome. Maybe he just doesn’t know what a life without loving Jerome is like and doesn’t want to find out.
A frustrated sigh echoes in the nighttime next to him, Jerome giving him ample time to think of a sarcastic quip to his whispered words and not satisfied with the silence he gets in its place.
Reaching forward, he tries to snatch the cigarette box out of Jinn’s grasp, stumbling when Jinn pulls back and almost having to use his injured hand to keep himself upright.
Almost, if not for Jinn’s arm wound around his waist, body weight falling onto Jinn’s and pressing him onto the railings, breath falling out of him and fanning over Jinn’s face.
It’s not the first time they’ve found themselves in such a compromising position – one too many brawls on school courts and university parking lots and childhood home front yards have sent them flying into each other, squabbling as they roll on the ground together, Jinn ignoring the racing of his heart from having Jerome so near, chalking it all up to how much he hates Jerome and his stupid smug smile.
It's not the first time Jinn doesn’t know what to do with himself when Jerome’s nose brushes against his own, too close yet not close enough, the distance between them felt even when they’re toe to toe.
“So you can look at me,” Jerome teases, voice shakier than he probably intends it to be. Someone else wouldn’t notice it, someone who isn’t Jinn.
His faint smile doesn’t reach his eyes, gaze filled with something Jinn doesn’t know how to describe. He’s used to sharp words and playful brown irises, the happiest Jerome seems to be when he’s getting under Jinn’s skin.
How many times have they glared at each other? This doesn’t quite seem like a glare, though, lacking the fire that’s so familiar to Jinn, the fire he sees in his own reflection each time he comes home.
A glance, perhaps? A pointed look, or maybe a question? But for what?
Jinn’s mind is filled with its own inquiries, his attempts at keeping whatever maintains him inexplicably tied to Jerome at bay unsuccessful each and every time.
How many times has Jinn felt the urge to kiss him or punch him or just stare at him to his heart’s content?
It doesn’t seem to matter now – he’s never been able to decipher Jerome anyway.
“Fuck off, asshole,” he hisses back, shoving Jerome away. The sliver of space created is both a blessing and a curse, air coming in through his mouth in short bursts, like Jinn’s lungs have forgotten their solitary function. “Just go back to bed.”
“Only if you come with me,” Jerome responds without missing a beat, just like always, pulling Jinn towards him as if pleading, just like never.
It’s too late for Jerome’s little games, Jinn’s heart too out in the open to be toyed with at a quarter to 4 AM, and he feels close to snapping, wound too tight like thread on the verge of falling to pieces.
He can’t yell, but he can let Jerome know he has never hated anyone the way he hates Jerome, and that’s the next best thing he has right now, lighter dropping from his clenched fist as he spits out his words. “I really don’t have the time for your bullshit right now, J.”
“I’m not joking,” and Jinn can tell he means it, the headlights of a passing car illuminating Jerome’s face just enough that Jinn can clearly make out the look in Jerome’s eyes, wild and desperate, like something terrible will happen if Jinn doesn’t come with him.
It sends his mind spinning, the honesty written all over Jerome’s expression, and Jinn’s left even more unsure of where this conversation’s headed, or if he even wants to find out.
When was the last time they weren’t on the edge of a precipice? When did he last allow himself, foolishly, to be truthful?
“I’m not going with you.” Standing his ground, Jinn waits for his next move in their endless game of chess, playing it a routine he knows too well. If he pulls, Jerome will push; if Jerome pulls, he’ll fall deeper into it.
“Then I’m stay–” Jerome’s eyes suddenly screw shut, his body swaying in place, and Jinn steps forward to catch him before he can stop himself, the other’s good hand pressing harshly against his head and the burnt-out cigarette falling to the ground, completely forgotten about.
Jinn’s ears ring as if he’s the one experiencing a sudden burst of headache, puzzlement that spreads from the tips of his fingers as they brush against the skin of Jerome’s arms, warm where Jinn feels frozen cold.
What he doesn’t know is driving him crazy.
Jerome is keeping things from him, the same way Jinn’s kept all he could for years, and they’re closer than ever, as far apart as the distance that keeps widening will allow.
Jerome is keeping things from him, things Jinn perilously wants to have for himself, and maybe he’ll never stop wanting to know Jerome.
Slowly, they slide down to the floor, sitting opposite each other as Jerome fights to catch his breath. With his back pressed to the glass door, Jinn can see the city beyond, yet his eyes remain glued to Jerome’s face, watching any miniscule shift in his expression.
“Are you planning on telling me what’s going on or are you going to keep pretending nothing’s wrong just to save face?” Jinn prods, foot nudging at Jerome’s hip.
He expects a witty reply, a nudge back, something, anything that isn’t Jerome staring at him like this, like he’s willing Jinn to reveal all his deepest feelings.
It’d be so easy to rip it off like a band aid and lose Jerome forever. It’d be so difficult to be the one who gets walked out on.
And it’d be so simple to fall into Jerome’s insistent gaze, to let himself stare back unbidden, to speak what’s on his mind.
He can’t yell until his throat is dry, and he can’t let Jerome know he has never hated anyone the way he can’t hate Jerome at all.
Jerome sighs again, looking down at his hands. “It’s just nightmares, I already told you.”
Does Jerome think he’s an idiot? That he hasn’t noticed how much he’s changed?
Have all the years they’ve known each other taught him nothing?
“Fine,” Jinn snarls, pressing at him with his foot once more. “Keep your secrets.”
Jerome laughs, no mirth in it, head falling back to gaze at the ceiling. For long, torturous seconds, they just sit in the silence, Jerome calming down from his migraine and Jinn trying to chase away the questions gnawing at his brain.
There’s a strange sort of comfort in existing in these in-between moments with Jerome that he doesn’t want to dwell on, no words exchanged yet a sense of understanding that permeates the air, a not yet, not now, but someday.
Someday Jinn will ask and Jerome will answer.
Perhaps then, when his heart unravels itself for the taking, Jinn might have something more concrete to hold onto than broken confessions on a diary. Perhaps then, his feelings won’t be spilling into the chasms between them.
Perhaps then, he might have two heartbeats in his chest, or none at all.
What he knows entirely of Jerome can only set him free.
Jinn finds his lighter, flicking it on and off for something to distract his mind, thoughts broken as Jerome ponders, “What if I didn’t?”
“Huh?” Jinn blinks at him in confusion. Each time Jerome speaks, it’s as if Jinn understands him even less than he did before.
Deep brown eyes focus on him, reflecting the repeatedly disappearing flame of the lighter, unsaid words lingering in the small space that separates them like a guillotine blade about to have the rope that keeps it afloat cut.
Jinn wonders what it’d take to make it come down, to break them apart forever – if there’s any version of a future where he’s not hopelessly in love with Jerome.
“What if I told you everything that’s on my mind,” the other man proposes, eyes never leaving Jinn, “do you think anything would be different?”
Brows furrowing, Jinn takes another cigarette from the box, resting it between his lips as he lights it, the smoke barely obscuring Jerome’s face, just enough that he feels he can breathe a little easier.
“What are you talking about?” he puffs out, definitely not avoiding Jerome’s searching gaze.
Jinn wonders what it’d take to weave Jerome out of him, when he’s found a permanent place to live in his every waking thought.
“Do you think we could…” Voice dying down, something unreadable crosses over Jerome’s face, and he’s once more as far away as if an ocean broke into the balcony. “You know what? Forget about it.”
Faster than Jinn can make sense out of it, Jerome’s on his feet, rushing through the living room and nearly tripping over himself.
“No, no,” Jinn goes after him, uncaring that the cigarette smell will surely cling to his walls afterwards. Jerome pauses on the doorway to the bedroom, not turning around yet not twisting the doorknob, merely standing there like he’d somehow be able to escape the topic if he’s still enough. “Do I think we could what?”
“I’m tired,” he sounds small, running away from a chance to fight Jinn too unlike him. “Goodnight, Jinn.” It’s almost a whisper, almost too much for Jinn to bear, and he crosses the room in only a couple strides, managing to squeeze himself between the other’s body and the door.
“No, you’re not,” Jinn spits back, clutching the cigarette tighter when Jerome doesn’t look at him, simply trying to barrage through Jinn’s blockade. “Jerome!”
Jinn can’t bear to have Jerome’s stare on him and can’t bear to have him look away, stuck in a perpetual cycle of needing to be at the centre of his attention and wanting to never see him ever again.
Whatever Jerome’s thinking of, it causes a million little twists to his expression, settling on something much too soft for the nighttime, too similar to what Jinn can’t have for his poor heart to handle.
“Do you think we could,” he stops, head tilting minutely to the side, before he’s reaching up and stealing Jinn’s cigarette from his lax grasp, “have some tea right now?”
“You–” Jinn indignantly states, aiming for his cigarette and missing by a narrow margin, that glint in Jerome’s eyes that speaks trouble coming back in full force. This Jinn can deal with – this is as familiar to him as himself. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Doing what?” Jerome teases, smiling how Jinn hasn’t seen him do all night, and they’re right back to the beginning, as they tend to always return to.
The beginning is safe. The beginning is all that Jinn can have. He’ll go on pretending he’s satisfied with it.
He’ll act as if Jerome’s smile isn’t laced with a tenderness that speaks of forbidden imaginations only the pages of his diary know of, that his heart doesn’t skip more beats than it should be healthy to do at the sight.
Jinn will convince himself it means nothing that Jerome makes sure to take a step closer, that their chests press together, that the taller man’s eyes drop down.
“You’re trying to pick a fight with me,” Jinn derides as he regains possession of his cigarette, pointing it at Jerome in accusation. “At 4 AM!”
“I have better ways of doing that, don’t you know it by now?” Mocking fingers tussle through his hair, messing it up; gentle fingers set the strands back into place, leaving a burning trail in their wake to linger in Jinn’s afterthoughts.
Jinn hates him so fucking much.
“You’re such a dickhead,” he rolls his eyes, giving Jerome as big a push as he can muster when they’re this close to each other. “Enjoy your tea by yourself, fucker.” Turning on his heels, his opens the door, a single step into his bedroom taken before a hand wraps itself around his wrist.
It surprises him more than Jinn’s willing to admit, yet it has nothing on Jerome’s next words. “Stay with me,” he mutters, far too earnest, and Jinn’s stomach does somersaults inside of him, looking back at the other man against his best judgement.
His eyes don’t know on what they should focus, flitting from the shape Jerome’s hand takes as it curls around his arm to the brown irises glued to his face, downturned lips making Jerome look like a kicked puppy, over and over, as if hypnotized.
Jinn hates himself more for his inability to hate him.
“Please, Jinn,” and his name sounds different as it falls from Jerome’s lips, no undercurrent of fight me in it. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Why would you want me to stay with you?” Jinn finally manages to shake himself free, from the spell he’s been put under and Jerome’s hold alike, the displeased curl of his mouth nowhere near enough to send away the visions of Jerome intertwining their fingers, bringing Jinn’s knuckles to his lips.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jerome responds like he doesn’t have to think twice about it, gesturing towards the kitchen for Jinn to lead the way, living in a reality that can’t possibly be the same one that Jinn resides in.
Melting away, Jinn takes a drag off the cigarette, silently praying that Jerome can’t see the way his hand is trembling. “You just want to have someone’s shins to kick under the table.”
Jerome’s face breaks out into a wide grin, gripping at Jinn’s elbow to tug him to the kitchen counter. “It wouldn’t be the same if it’s not your shins.”
There’s nothing romantic about it, which is precisely what Jinn yells at his own braincells, just so maybe they’ll stop firing up images of them sharing meals, legs woven together under the table.
His mind is solely immersed in his smoking and nothing else, just the smoke and the flame and the way Jerome fits too well amidst his appliances, like he belongs here, heating up water at 4 AM for them to drink mismatched cups of tea.
Jinn wonders what it’d take to have them stay in this single moment in time, where the same place, same page, same thinking doesn’t seem as impossible as when the stark shine of daylight brings about the solid fact that Jerome is elsewhere, in a different book, loving people that aren’t Jinn, could never be Jinn.
He’s taken out of his revelry by a tea box being shaken right in front of his nose, Jerome’s voice hitting his ears from far away.
“What?” he mumbles, blinking himself back to the present. Jinn half expects to get teased for zoning off, a got lost in my eyes? that doesn’t come.
Instead, Jerome seems almost tentative as he speaks up, and Jinn, as it happens more often than not these days, doesn’t know what to make of it. “I asked if you want passionfruit tea. It’s your favourite, isn’t it?”
“How do you know that?” Jinn asks, coming out harsher than he expects, the urge to defend himself flaring up even when there’s nothing to fight about.
Jerome looks at him with a half-smile, offering the piping hot cup with his good hand. “I’ve known you my whole life,” is all the explanation he gives, and Jinn doesn’t prod further.
Placing his cigarette down on the ashtray by the sink, Jinn blows on the tea’s surface, the smoke creating calming patterns as it rises out of the mug. The scent of passionfruit hits him in waves, settling his nerves and letting Jinn relax for once, Jerome’s presence next to him like an extension of himself.
Two sides of the same coin, they are, and Jinn’s not sure if that can ever change.
He could walk away, he could cut Jerome off, he could create a whole world of space between them – but who would he be without a part of himself?
Jerome’s looking at him again, the weight of his gaze heavy on him, ears turning red as he’s peered at.
Taking a long sip of his own tea, Jerome’s voice echoes against the tiles of the silent kitchen, piercing through Jinn’s chest and getting to the secrets he’s been holding close, the ones he knows can’t remain a secret for much longer. “Do you think the future will be good for us?”
“Us?” he sputters, nearly spilling the boiling tea all over his sleeping shirt.
Jerome’s smirk has his heart racing wildly, the depth of his eyes calling for Jinn to let himself fall more, dive headfirst into it. “Well,” he mocks, nose scrunching, “I’m not missing the chance to piss you off for the rest of my life.”
Jinn thinks to himself, and thinks, and thinks some more, for so long that Jerome has to nudge him with his elbow. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” he responds simply, the tea his best excuse to not say anything else.
Yet somehow, they both know what’s on his mind, what’s on Jerome’s too.
It’s the first time Jinn understands him, without questioning if he’s just making it up in his head, the look in his eyes one that Jinn knows far too well.
Hope.
It’s guarded, tinted with the inquiries he hasn’t brought up yet, but it’s there, clear as day, shining bright in his dark kitchen.
Jinn wonders when did the chaos between them change, when did they move onto the same book, moving in opposite directions yet set to meet at some point.
He’s certain of one thing, however.
In the future, in the next five seconds and five hours and five days, they’ll be right here, under each other’s skin, smoke curling out of cigarettes and teacups and words on the verge of being said, swallowed down with passionfruit and night terrors.
But maybe, just maybe, the words will spill out like they can’t be held back anymore, like Jerome has found his way to the place Jinn stands in now. Neither of them walks away, neither of them gives up the fight.
No lies through teeth and half-asked questions, no wonderings hidden on notebook pages, no hiding under the cover of night to say the things that daylight make too real.
In the future, they’ll know each other.