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The heat is scorching, melting skin. Woonhak wishes the night air would cool down, but the summer heat isn’t as forgiving as spring warmth may be.
The bladed fan on the porch buzzed like a swarm of bees. Loud but not quite obnoxious. The wind that blows from it moves the potted plant. Its vase happens to be a plastic cup, faded and dirty. Memories etched into what it once was used for.
Drinking? Decoration? Perhaps both.
Wind chimes hang from the ceiling of the porch. They make music that’s more of a white noise than the fan, ironic in nature but still peaceful.
Woonhak appreciates the moments he gets that have peace stitched into the details. Usually, his days are spent in agony. Chronic pain tends to shake his skin till it stings uncomfortably.
In some ways, falling ill is a blessing in all-consuming disguise. It seems the further he gets into life, the more he realizes that his pain is what keeps him alive. Hotly grounding him like a steaming pot of coffee beans.
The prayers to the man above have fallen on deaf ears for far too long. Knees sore to raw meat and bruised to cool tones from how much he kneels, begs. Whispering words in a repeated mantra, ending the run-on sentences with an “amen.”
Jesus may not love him. He may not hear the weeping words that screech from Woonhak’s sore throat. May not thumb at the tears that pour from his eyes in the plea for mercy.
That’s why God isn’t in the clouds, isn’t holier than thou. God is in a boy with teeth too sharp, and a heart unmoving. God is in the colors of pale pink lips and dark red eyes. God is in the walking corpse of Myung Jaehyun.
Kim woonhak is many things, eternal isn’t one of them.
Life has always been an enemy of Jaehyun's, while death used to be expected. Losing those he cares about one by one, thousand by thousand, has become a second nature.
However, now that Woonhak bears the effects of its kiss, it now instills fear into Jaehyun’s unrhythmic beat.
Jaehyun never believed in destiny. Has never been one to claim the reality of soulmates to be true. In the many lives he’s lived, and he’s lived many, not once has he fisted his sheets with hunger and stretched eye wrinkles into place from laughter.
Even a corpse that walks amongst the living can experience the unexpected turns of life that do not exist inside of it.
Jaehyun's glossed leather shoes click against the white tile. The light reflecting off of them is blinding. He isn’t used to such a beam, only experiencing such light through the one he calls his love.
The hallways are not that busy.
However, that doesn’t mean noise levels are low. Curtain rings still scrape into place as they are shut closed, both even and uneven beeps ring throughout the many rooms.
Jaehyun is used to the overstimulating nature of this place. What he isn’t used to, no matter how many times he sees it, is the sight before him, and perhaps he will never be able to digest it.
The room door is open. A nurse undoes the cuff from Woonhak’s arm. She reassures him that, despite his pulse and temperature being slightly on the lower side, his vitals are semi-good today.
The news doesn’t get the younger man down; instead, he grins. Fist-bumping the nurse with enthusiasm. Leave it to Kim Woonhak to not let shadow cloud his vision, let gloom dip his halo.
She looks up, and realization dawns on her. “Oh, your nightly visitor is here, Mister Kim!” She pats his shoulder before rushing out of the room, closing the door behind her. The urgency to escape doesn’t go unnoticed by either of them.
They don’t react.
Jaehyun's presence tends to elicit chill bumps on mortal skin. It's human nature for the brain to fear beings that cause discomfort. The human man before him has never felt such a way. Only ever greeting Jaehyun with bright giggles and pretty smile lines.
Woonhak ushers him closer with a beckon of his hand. Doing as told, Jaehyun inches closer to the hospital bed only to sit in the recliner before it. Woonhak deflates from a tall posture, frowning.
“Hyung, beside me,” he whines. Patting the spot next to where he sits up. Jaehyun hesitates, eyes the younger with such apprehension; Woonhak melts a bit. The care Jaehyun has for him is similar to rain droplets on petals.
Careful, hard, yet somehow gentle in its absorption.
“I'm not gonna break hyung, please.”
Jaehyun doesn’t like making Woonhak beg for anything other than a playful kiss to his cheek. He would grant Woonhak every wish imaginable. A shooting star couldn’t comprehend the lengths Jaehyun is willing to go for the man before him.
The beam of fire is unable to grasp the bond between angel and monster, life and death.
Jaehyun would burn every city to pieces, every heart known to man to ash, all at the voice of Woonhak’s angelic command.
He sits beside him, inwardly cheesing at the sparkly eyes that Woonhak grants him along with a peck to his cheek in appreciation.
“You came earlier than usual; it’s still about the end of sunset.” Woonhak raises a questioning brow. Jaehyun shrugs.
“Missed you.” It's simple, short. Lifting all the heavy anxieties that were on Woonhak's rounded shoulders.
Sometimes, Woonhak thinks loving him is a hassle. A challenge made to be discarded after the first hard crack. Jaehyun never makes him feel that way, never allows him to revel in anything that isn’t fact.
And the facts are much simpler than Woonhak’s worries.
Woonhak giggles, reclining back to his pillows. Jaehyun made sure to bring the ones from home, not allowing the younger to sleep on the poor excuse of a hospital pillow. Same with the blankets. Before Jaehyun visits, he calls floor six's main desk and asks for two warm blankets to be sent to Woonhak’s room.
He looks to the counter in the corner of the room and notes the stack.
“Lay with me,” Woonhak drags his sentence cutely. Jaehyun can't even try to refuse as Woonhak leans up quickly and pulls Jaehyun down with him.
Woonhak groans in pain, and Jaehyun looks at him, brows creased. “Be careful!” he chides sternly. Woonhak waves him off with a boyish smirk.
“I'm not fragile, Hyung, don’t let this body of mine make you think so,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. Laughing when the older begins to frown.
“You worry too much. Just…indulge me.” Woonhak looks at him through his lashes. Who could deny water to the soil of a blooming flower? Jaehyun may be poisonous, but he isn’t evil.
Inching up by Woonhak's side, he lays his head on his chest. Woonhak hums happily. Rubbing back Jaehyun's hair, beginning from his hairline to the center of his head. A sweet touch that calms them both.
“I've been thinking about it again.” Woonhak starts. Jaehyun doesn’t move. He knows the younger has done nothing but.
“I want to hyung, I want to so bad.” He rushes.
Jaehyun sighs. “I told you it’s not such an easy decision—“
“For me, it is. Hyung, I’m dying. There aren't many decisions left for me to make.” Jaehyun looks up at the sound of Woonhak’s voice cracking.
A glossy reflection meets his ruby eyes. Salt trails begin to ridge their flow down to quivering lips. Jaehyun leans close, thumbing away at them gently.
“Baby…”
“If it’s to die & be that of just a memory or live as the remnants of your poison. I choose the latter, Hyung, I’ll always choose it.” A love letter in the form of wobbled words.
Oh, how sickly twisted God has made ache, has made love.
Jaehyun would do anything for Woonhak.
Woonhak would be anything for Jaehyun.
Nightfall greets them in the form of signed discharge papers, while hand in hand. They walk out the hospital doors, granting them access to a breeze leading them to the oak tree in their front yard.
Jaehyun lays out the white hospital blanket on the ground. Covering the green grass that greets them with a slight dew. Thunder roars somewhere behind the cloudy sky that still peeks the full moon out.
Woonhak can tell Jaehyun is nervous in the way his shoulders rise high and his veiny hands shake at his sides. There is something beautiful about the way Jaehyun isn’t nervous from nerves tingling him to being scared. What rattles his ribs is the act of tainting a temple, adding gasoline to a flame storm.
The care he has for Woonhak’s heart is deeper than the oak roots that stretch under the mud puddles. They may rise, breaking through dirt just as Jaehyun will soon break through skin.
The two soon settle into comfort as rain pours. Silence stretches for just a second before Woonhak decides there’s nothing to worry about when God is before him. A god that bestows peace—denies betrayal. His shoulder blades are ready to sprout wings to create a creature out of him from the effects of Jaehyun’s teeth.
“Death isn’t eternal if you are by my side,” Woonhak whispers, hands cupping the shaking cheek of Jaehyun.
The older man shakes his head. Jaw quivering with anxiety, he never thought he’d feel in this corpse of a body.
“W...what if–”
Woonhak doesn’t let him finish. Moving up from the blanket under them. Its fabric is wet with rain, brown smudges from where the ground eats its edges. The blanket is soggy when it shifts with his movements.
He embraces Jaehyun closely, hands holding his nape as he captures his lips in a kiss that is sweeter than that of life, sweeter than the release of death.
“As my god, I beg for you to devour my flesh, make my heart ash, make my eternal part of your soul,” he pleads against his god's lips; an amen is absent. Instead, a boyish grin takes its place upon his lips.
If Jaehyun’s poison melts the ice Woonhak is frozen in, if his bite can overwrite an unwanted pain with one of their fated destiny, if he, as god, can grant a prayer—then the decision to do so has never been easier.
Jaehyun kisses him, deep, carnally feverish.
Their noses bump as they move in a dance that the moon watches them create. Heated pants puff into the cold mouth of a devoted corpse. Devoted to all that breathes and kills, Kim Woonhak.
Even if that happens to be Myung Jaehyun himself.
Jaehyun pulls back, pressing his forehead to Woonhak’s. Catching his breath as his lungs feel more human than they have in centuries.
“For you to choose me…for you to allow me your voice, I—I will allow you my being until the earth is no more.” Jaehyun declares, forever unmoving.
The smile Woonhak gives him is brighter than moonlight to the night sky, brighter than yellow to black. God is evil for not granting one of his angels the blessing of peace. For that, Jaehyun despises the heavens more than he has the curse of his immortality.
“Take me, Hyung,” Woonhak commands gently. He bares his neck, leaning to the side to show off the pretty veins that run beneath the skin. The unblemished skin that will now be punctured until red rose petals drip out, droplet by droplet.
Jaehyun licks up his throat, dry skin now coated with saliva. Scrapes his teeth slowly up and down. Woonhak sighs in something akin to ecstasy. Jaehyun kisses the rain droplets, planting them into each bit of his neck. Letting it coat his pale lips before he whispers into Woonhak’s ear.
“I love you.”
The bite is painful.
More painful than the ribs that shake with illness, than the eyes that cloud with tears, and the halo that now morphs into something dim.
The bite is painful.
But the kiss of death is beautiful.
The love behind being devoured to a breathless being is the grant of mercy. Any god besides the man before Woonhak couldn’t grant such a sweet grace.
Jaehyun drinks, he drinks, and he drinks, until the gasp of Woonhak’s lungs deflates to a long beeping. Till his eyelids to closure and his heart to silence.
Jaehyun doesn’t stop taking until he’s sure Woonhak’s fire is put out to ash that floats up his lungs to the top of his throat. Coughing something up that tastes of spice, cinnamon.
As a stuffed silence falls around them. The summer crickets don’t sing, the rain doesn’t pelt, and the fan doesn’t spin.
Jaehyun believes he would grant any wish for Woonhak. Even if it meant wood to his blackened heart to suffer for the sin of wrongdoing. If that’s what happens, if that’s what it takes—
Shaky hands pull at Jaehyun’s shaggy, curled ends. Jaehyun's eyes burst open, and he releases the neck coated with fallen rose petals. Moving back to examine the fallen angel whose wings bleed to black, and die of all fragility.
Woonhak’s neck is covered in blood. Pale skin painted as if it were a blank canvas, and only love was left to create.
His voice is powdered with dust, fire embers on the ends of his words. “I graced your tongue with my taste, your lips with the last of my warmth. Hyung, your love…it cures. Heals.”
Jaehyun laughs at the poetry, at the new beginning of a never-ending. Fangs drip with the essence of crimson. “My bite will now mark you for eternity and…my love–“
Jaehyun pulls Woonhak up into his lap. Hugging him so close, veins intertwine into knots and root themselves into the dirt beneath their soaked sheet. The sheet stained in watered-down red, pink now blossoming onto the picture they didn’t know would capture poison as art.
“My love shall shake these bones until our ends,” Jaehyun says. Beginning to tickle his hands up Woonhak's sides. Though not as ticklish when mortal, he still giggles loudly. Ducking his head into where Jaehyun’s neck meets his shoulder, wiggling his hips to inch both away and closer to the playful attack.
God may not grant prayers.
Death may not end all agony.
But perhaps together—none of these obstacles can damn you to anything other than the beautiful poison that is love.