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“K-hyung”, Taki whispers into the back of his neck as they wait to clear airport security, “Are you feeling okay?”
K twists, reaching up to pinch his cheek and cradle his chin, raising an eyebrow at him.
“I feel fine, why?”
Taki’s eyes narrow slightly and he pouts, soft cheeks filling out in K’s palm. K laughs, bright and open-mouthed.
“What?”
“It’s just…” Taki looks troubled, brow furrowing, and K tilts his head in concern.
“It’s just what? What is it?”
Taki stays pouting, humming slightly, trying to find his words. K is reminded of one of those old American shows he likes to watch, where a dog tries to communicate that some kind of disaster has occurred. What? What is it boy? What’s happened? A child has fallen into a well? K chuckles at his own thoughts, and Taki chuckles in response, a Pavlovian response to K’s laughter, and he leans his face down to press his lips to K’s palm.
“Hey! No kissing”, K chastises, and Taki grins. He opens his mouth to say something, maybe to answer K’s question, but the line starts moving, and Yuma starts whispering in Taki’s ear, and Taki laughs and pushes into Yuma’s shoulder, and whatever Taki wanted to say is left lying softly on the musty carpet of the airport.
Boots off, phone out of pocket, passport in hand. Headphones thrown back in his bag. Face creams removed and checked. Boots back on, phone back in pocket. It’s the same thing every time, and it’s never any less tedious and annoying, but he keeps a peaceful, almost serene expression through the whole process, because he knows cameras are trained on him and photos will be plastered all over Twitter before he even boards the plane. He’s starting to sweat, and gets his sweatshirt over one arm before he grabs his bag again, looking behind him to make sure Taki is managing everything okay. He doesn’t really have to, anymore, but it's a force of habit. He likes having Taki in his line of sight.
They hardly ever sit at the gates, and they keep the same line they had in security as they board. Taki slides into the seat next to him, immediately leaning over the console, entering his space.
“Did you change your perfume?”
K glances at him. Taki looks pensive, eyebrows furrowed. K pokes between his eyes and lightly drags his finger down the bridge of his nose, tapping.
“Stop scowling, I told you. You’ll get wrinkles.” Taki preens under the attention, nose twitching cutely as K taps it.
“I won’t. I’m made of gum.”
“Mm. You do seem chewy.” K pulls the fat ball of his cheek, stretching it out, and Taki squeals and retreats back into his seat, folding himself up, getting comfortable, before he leans forward again to look at K around the shell of the seat.
“But did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you change your perfume?” Taki repeats, head cocked.
“No, I mean, not since the last time you asked. Why?”
“It’s just”, Taki pauses and laughs a little. “You smell different.”
“You strange puppy”, K teases softly, “I didn’t change it.” Taki’s back to his pensive face, like he doesn’t believe him, and K can’t help but reach his arm out to squeeze at Taki’s cheek again, pulling up the corner of his lip. “You’re really something with that nose. I’m sweating like crazy though. This sweatshirt is too thick. It was perfect for LA, but…” K trails off and pries the sweatshirt off all the way, tucking it into his lap, fidgeting with the straps of his gray tank, pulling it down smooth over his chest. He watches Taki adjust his own tank in a subtle, unconscious mimicry, and K ruffles his hair. “Maybe that’s why?”
Taki leans his whole body over the console again, burying his nose in K’s neck and taking a big inhale before he pulls back. K looks at him incredulously.
“You’ve got to stop doing that in public.”
Taki ignores him. “You do smell different. I don’t know. Maybe you’re getting sick.”
“No way”, K scoffs. “You know I never get sick.”
The flight to Singapore is only an hour and a half, but when they land, K’s body feels cramped and sore and achey, and he wants to stretch out and move. Deplaning is another tedious process, and the cabin lights are giving him a headache. Fuma is in front of him in the aisle, and K leans against his shoulder, shutting his eyes for just a second before Fuma’s got his hand up, pressing it gently onto K’s forehead.
“K-hyung, you’re burning up. I think you’ve got a fever.” Fuma presses the back of his palm to K’s cheek and his chin.
“There’s no way”, he mumbles into Fuma’s shoulder. “I don’t get fevers. I just run hot.”
He stands up straight, brushing his hair out of his eyes. His forehead feels clammy.
“K-hyung”, Taki calls, crawling over the seats to get to him, “You look…bad.” K gasps, lunging for him and squeezing him into a headlock, rubbing his fist into Taki’s scalp, and Taki shrieks.
“Say that again! I dare you!”
“You do! You look sick!” Taki reaches an arm up to squeeze at K’s, trying to pry him off. Taki’s skin feels incredibly cool against his, and he shivers.
“Okay”, he murmurs, “Okay. I don’t feel great. But I probably just need a hot shower.”
“You should tell the managers, still”, Taki suggests, twisting out of his arms to brush his hand over K’s forehead. His hand feels cool, and good. K reaches up to hold it there.
~~
Once K lets himself think he might possibly be sick and needs to rest, it’s like his body gives up. He can barely keep himself awake in the car, lolling his head onto Taki’s shoulder. Taki keeps reaching up to softly caress his cheek, pressing his cool palm flat against the side of K’s face.
“You’re so nurturing”, K murmurs. “How’d you get like this? Who raised you so well?”
Taki smiles softly to himself, and says nothing. They both know the answer. Keeping his hand cupped against K’s face, Taki turns to look out the window. The streetlights flicker by, like a line of fireflies in the night. He remembers trying to catch them in a jar as a little boy in his grandma’s garden. He would pretend to be a giant, capturing the fireflies to train them to be a part of his bug army. That was before he started to dance. Before he met K. Before his dreams shifted and expanded into a big, hulking thing he had to chase and conquer. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that little boy. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he used to live with his mother and his father and his sister, it wasn’t just him and a dozen boys like him in loud, musty dorms. And then it wasn’t just him and K and Euijoo and Nicholas fighting against time and the ferocious anxiety of the unknown. It feels like a distant dream. And the present feels good, feels solid. He feels secure in his choices, in his job, in his relationships with his team.
K shivers a little against his shoulder, and Taki frowns, wishing he had a blanket to throw over him. He thinks about K’s soft hand squeezing his cheek, soothing him to sleep, night after night after night in the frightening quiet of undebuted limbo all those years ago. And even though K doesn’t put him to sleep anymore, he still squeezes Taki’s cheeks. All the best parts of his strange, surreal 16 year-old dreams followed him into his everyday reality. K reaches for his hand in his dazed half-sleep, and Taki gives it to him.
K’s pale and clammy when they get to the hotel, still shivering, and their managers rush around getting their room keys, getting fever reducers and seeing about setting up a temporary IV drip. In the other car, it seems plans had been made for the whole group to visit the Merlion and take pictures.
“I want to go”, K whines. “I’ll take some medicine and be fine.”
“K-hyung”, Fuma says gently, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” K pouts and puffs up his cheeks.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Taki laughs, calling out, “You’re such a kid!” and K plays it up, pouting and whining and stomping his feet, running over and draping himself over Taki, squeezing his cheeks between his palms, resting his chin atop Taki’s head. But that simple movement exhausts him, and he slumps heavily around Taki.
“Your skin feels so weird, you know”, Taki murmurs, pulling K’s hands gently off his face. “It’s all dry and gross.”
“Ah! Again! How can you talk this way to a sick person?”
“So you admit you’re a sick person”, Fuma says wryly, and K shuts his lips tight in a thin line. But pressed up against Taki, he makes an admittance into the space between his shoulder blades.
“I need to sleep”, he murmurs. “I can’t be sick for our performance.”
A manager returns with the key cards and they draw names for roommates. Euijoo starts to read off the pairs.
“I should be by myself”, K interjects, “So that no one else gets sick.”
Euijoo nods and silently removes K’s name from the pile, and K slinks over to the lobby couch and curls up, defeated. After they draw cards, Taki walks over, crouching down in front of him.
“Get some rest, okay?”
“I wanted to see the Merlion with you”, K whispers, and his shoulders jump suddenly as he lets out a vicious sneeze, mucus hanging down over his lips in large, yellow strands.
“Gross!” Taki yells, laughing, rooting in his bag for tissues and tossing them into K’s lap.
“Stop calling me gross!” K moans, blowing his nose and groaning, “I’m really sad about this, you know?”
“I know. I’m sorry. Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No.” K closes his eyes, letting his head rest on the couch. “I want you to see the Merlion. You love the Merlion.”
“I do love the Merlion”, Taki agrees. K feels Taki’s hand on his forehead again, as cool and comforting as before. He cracks one eye open and his chest pinches tight at the way Taki is looking at him, eyes so soft. Taki reaches down to get another tissue from the pack and wipes at K’s nose, and K feels lightheaded and achey.
“I do love the Merlion, but…” Taki repeats, trailing off, leaving something unspoken. He reaches up to push K’s hair off his forehead, and K wants to wrap him tight in his arms. K can read him. K can always read the empty space in between the lines of what Taki says.
But I love you more.
~~
The fever is confusing him, giving him anxious, fast-moving thoughts, memories morphed into one another, exploding like fractals, looping. He keeps hearing his name, K-hyung, K-hyung, K-hyung, on an endless repeat. Fuma’s voice, Eujioo’s, Taki’s. Taki’s on repeat, from memories and moments he’d forgotten.
K-hyung’s team! K-hyung’s team! K-hyung’s team! Little 15 year-old Taki dancing for him, hugging him, calling his name. K-hyung, K-hyung, K-hyung. His mind keeps throwing him into different memories, casting him out like bait on a fishing rod, over and over into a cold sea, and he’s dizzy and nauseous with the waves of it.
Get some rest, K-hyung, see you later K-hyung, feel better K-hyung, one at a time everyone had bid him farewell as they piled back into their cars, and K was going to be left alone. He needed to be. He knew it. But he was still angry. Is still angry. For letting himself slip. For not being able to keep himself in the condition he’s so accustomed to. He’s angry that something was proven to be out of his control, that his own body could betray him.
“K-hyung”, Taki had murmured when he was still kneeling down in front of him, still wiping K’s nose with tissues, patting over the top of his head again. “I’ll text you when we’re back. Okay?”
And K had felt so small.
“Don’t worry so much. Go have fun.”
And Taki had smiled, teeth gleaming, and K had squeezed at the balls of his cheeks again before letting him go.
And now he’s half-asleep, insides boiling hot, stuck in a thought-loop of squeezing, pulling, squeezing, pulling. Taki’s cheeks stretching and stretching and stretching in his fingers. He tries to open his eyes, to get out of it. To wake up completely. He knows he’s lying in his hotel bed, and he knows he’s by himself. But the fever is distorting his reality and he can feel them, squishy and gooey, pinched between his fingers. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Pinch pinch pinch. He’s a baker and Taki is his dough. He’s burning up inside an oven. He can’t fully fall asleep, and he can’t get out of it, and he wants Taki there. Taki isn’t there, but K can feel him there. Is he? No, no he’s not. Is he? K groans and rolls over, but the image moves with him, Taki lying beside him, and K squeezing and pulling and squeezing and pulling his cheeks. He slides deeper into the feverish dream state, into the imagined feeling of Taki doughy and soft, into the image of Taki’s cheeks stretching. The skin of them is a smooth goo that K can keep pulling, like he’s making taffy. He can’t stop pulling Taki’s cheeks into long strands of taffy, folding them, Taki cheek ribbons, Taki taffy. Taki taffy, Taki taffy. A repetitive, drumming thought. Over and over. He feels like he’s running. He wants it to stop. Stretchy cheeks, gooey Taki. His brain feels like it’s on fire. He’s pulling Taki’s cheek taffy over his body and over his face, and it covers his nose and he’s trying to breathe through it, taking in big gasps, but the Taki goo is clogging up his nose and his mouth.
He sits up frantically, mouth open, panting, nose too stuffed up with mucus to breathe through. He’s reaching for the box of tissues on the nightstand so he can blow his nose. He blows and blows huge, thick globs of mucus into tissue after tissue, with only minor relief. His sinuses are going to split his face apart. He rolls his sticky eyes over to the clock. It’s 11:30pm, so it’s been 2 and a half hours since he first laid down. His skin feels slimy with sweat, and his head is still throbbing dully with the remnants of his delirious fever dreams, and he shudders at the image of Taki’s face stretching. Breathing heavily out of his mouth, he crawls out of bed, legs still achy and exhausted, and waddles into the bathroom, turning on the shower and grabbing a clean washcloth. He stays under the hot water for a long time with the washcloth over his head, trying to drain his sinuses with the hot steam. Mucus drips steadily from his nose like a faucet as he stands in a daze.
The shower helps a little bit, and he’s no longer both sweating and shivering. He stands wearily at the sink and haphazardly goes through his skincare routine, wincing slightly as the acidic toner makes contact with the sore skin under his nose. He puts on clean pajamas and shakes out 2 more fever-reducing pills from the medicine bottle on the nightstand, uncaps a fresh bottle of water, and drinks the whole thing down before crawling back into bed.
He falls into a syrupy sleep, eased from the manic nightmare of fevered delirium, but still, he dreams, and still, he’s with Taki. It’s a dream of a memory, of them facing each other on stage, of K grasping his hands, of Taki looking into his eyes.
Stay with me from now on, please, Taki asks, and he’s smiling, but his eyes are wet and he’s starting to cry and K pulls him in, mouth wide in a shocked grin. Hey, he’s crying…do you all see this? Why did he do that? Why did he need everyone to bear witness to Taki’s tears, as if they were a bragging rite? See, look. He loves me so much that he cries. And Taki had smiled at him, still. Through his tears and his blush and his embarrassment. The memory shifts and bends, and instead of laughing K is bringing Taki back into his chest and shielding his face and wiping his tears and telling him, I will, I’ll stay with you, I promise. He never said it then, did he? He never answered, too wrapped up in the haughty glee of Taki’s adoration to return his own. I’m sorry, Taki. I’ll stay with you. I promise, I promise.
K wakes, drenched in sweat again, breathing heavily, holding his own hand. His dream tickles through his spine and drips guilt into his gut. Taki was crying. Why did he laugh? Because Taki was cute, sure. It’s undeniably cute, the way Taki is so pure in his affection. The way Taki is so honest. But sometimes K wears Taki’s love like a gaudy, dangly earring to show off. Sometimes K has the sinking feeling he isn’t good enough for everything Taki gives him. And now, sick and achy and stuffed full of mucus, he feels it fully. He checks the clock again. It’s 12:30am. He grabs his phone. The group chat is full of pictures at the Merlion and surrounding food stalls. He has a message from Jo, sent 2 hours ago.
I didn’t go with the guys. I’m in the hotel still. Let me know if you need anything. More medicine, or food.
He has a message from Taki, sent 15 minutes ago.
We’re back, K-hyung. Do you need anything? Food?
Does he need food? He could eat. Something light, like miso soup. Or rice porridge. While he considers, another message comes through. Taki.
I asked the managers to get rice porridge for you. I can bring it up.
He texts Jo back first.
Thanks Jojo. I’m feeling better.
The reply is nearly instantaneous.
Can I bring you anything? Can I help?
Snot is dripping from his nose and touching his top lip. He licks at it before he realizes what he’s doing and almost gags, snatching tissues off the nightstand, blowing big and heavy. He grabs more and plugs up his nostrils, leaving them there. They have to be up and ready to rehearse at 9am. He can’t keep Jo awake. And he shouldn’t keep Taki awake either. He can get the rice porridge and send him off to bed.
To Jo, he replies:
I’m okay. You need to rest. Big day tomorrow. Go to sleep!
He opens Taki’s messages. He could ask a manager to pick up the food from Taki and bring it to him. He could let Taki get ready for bed. He could. But–
I’m coming up.
Okay, he types back, Thanks. He looks in the mirror and pulls the tissues out of his nose, blowing again. It’s endless, like his sinuses are melting inside his skull. He looks as gross as he feels. Why is he making Taki bring him rice porridge at 1 in the morning? Well, he offered. As if that’s a good enough reason. K is supposed to do what’s best for him. That’s his role. He feels like he’s failing at it, lately. What happened to making sure Taki always got a good night’s sleep? What happened to taking care of him, nurturing him? It feels like the positions have reversed, somehow, and somewhere along the way Taki preferred to do his own thing. He doesn’t look to K for as much, not like Jo does. It’s a little lonely, and a little pathetic, clinging to something that maybe Taki has grown out of. He thinks about his dream that was a memory. Taki crying. Taki holding his hands so tight. Stay with me from now on, please.
He had laughed, tickled by Taki’s sincerity. It was years ago, and he’s sure Taki has forgotten, but he feels a lump in his throat, a heaviness filled with everything he should’ve said instead.
I will, I promise.
Don’t cry. I’m here.
You too, Taki. You need to stay with me from now on, too.
He tries to breathe through his nose. Only one nostril is working and he cringes, the feeling awful. He blows more yellow mucus out from each alternating nostril, almost gagging again, and plugs them both up with tissues once more. He really doesn’t want anyone seeing him like this, but it’s probably best that it’s Taki. Because even though he wants to believe that Taki still thinks he’s perfect, K knows deep down that he doesn’t. Taki loves him, but he doesn’t fawn over him like he used to. And sometimes that makes K want to tease him, to make him jealous. Sometimes he waits with bated breath for the me too, K-hyung! Invite me too! when he takes Jo out. It usually doesn’t come, and they make their own separate, special plans, because Taki deserves better than his passive, childish bids for attention.
Another memory floats in. A question he had asked during a television interview. Does it make you jealous, Taki, when I spend a lot of time with Jo? Taki’s honest, earnest yes. Then too, he was giddy with Taki’s unshakable admiration, when he shouldn’t have asked something like that at all. What was he thinking? It’s really a miracle Taki isn’t sick of his pettiness completely. His head feels like a fishbowl, and he yanks the tissues out and grabs new ones so he can blow and try futilely to drain himself out. He feels like shit.
Taki knocks, the same way he always does. It’s 1:15am. Taki needs sleep. K hobbles to the entryway, ready to take the food and send Taki to bed. He opens the door, and Taki is there, staring up at him, eyes as earnest and honest as they were in his dream, holding out a to-go bag, and K clasps his hands over Taki’s and the bag and pulls him in.
“You smell like snot”, Taki murmurs into his neck, and K squeezes him tighter. Taki shuffles the bag so he can get one hand onto K’s lower back, and the press of it feels like a warm cloth. Something soothing and ordinary. Taki shuffles them backwards, and K lets himself be walked, still wrapped around him.
“Did you see the Merlion?” he asks, embarrassed by the nasally whine of his voice.
“I did”, Taki answers excitedly, “It was great. I want to be a Merlion in my next life.”
“Hm…I thought you wanted to be a pig?”
Taki rubs over his back again and gently turns him around so he can crawl back onto the bed.
“I can be a pig in the life after”, Taki muses, setting the bag of food on the nightstand between the scattered dirty tissues, and K looks at his face for a sign of disgust. There’s none. Taki pays them no mind, opening the bag and pulling out a large container and a spoon.
“And what will I be?” K asks. “In my next life? What do you think?”
Taki scrunches up his nose and purses his lips, adorably serious in his consideration.
“I think you would make a beautiful dolphin”, he finally states, and K laughs loud and long.
“Why? Why a dolphin?” he asks, still chuckling. He sniffles, and notices he can breathe a little bit better, and through both nostrils.
Taki wraps the container up like a mummy with paper napkins to keep the heat off his hands, and tucks the spoon in.
“I heated it up again, so it’s super hot. Be careful”, he warns softly as he hands K the bowl. K takes it from him. With the napkin barrier, the warmth of it feels good. K scoots back towards the pillows and Taki crawls onto the bed, settling in front of him on his back, eyes shifting between K and the ceiling.
“Tell me why I’d be a dolphin”, K requests again, mixing the porridge.
“If I’m the Merlion”, Taki muses, “then you also need to be something that lives in the sea.”
Of course. Of course I do.
“That makes sense”, K whispers, in awe of the way Taki always speaks into the hidden corners of the box just the two of them exist in. “Why else?”
“Well. They’re wonderful performers”, Taki continues, “and they’re pretty and smooth.” K laughs again.
“And they’re really loud and want a lot of attention.”
“Hey!” K kicks out his foot and gets Taki in the shoulder, and Taki laughs.
“It’s true”, he says, “And they’re smart, and social. They make friends. They love. And even within their pods, they have favorites. And they get jealous easily, supposedly. I remember hearing a trainer talking about it at the aquarium once. That one of the dolphins would get upset when another trainer got close to her. Isn’t that funny?”
“So I’m a loud, attention-seeking, jealous dolphin.”
“And you’re also pretty and smooth.”
K kicks at Taki again, harder, and he shrieks and rolls onto his stomach, away from K. K gets his foot over Taki’s back and rolls him back in. He keeps his leg over his waist, like a seatbelt, and Taki lays his arms gently across K’s calf, accepting the harness. K takes a few bites of porridge, and Taki stays quiet, watching him. K’s arms start to hurt from holding the bowl up, and he puts it down on the bed, trying to bring the spoon up to his mouth, but it’s awkward and uncomfortable, and his nose starts running again from the sloped angle. He reaches for more tissues, blowing and groaning, and tosses them onto the nightstand. He’s a little ashamed that Taki is watching this entire display.
“Here”, Taki says smoothly, sitting up and pushing K’s leg lower, into his lap. He scoots forward and lifts the bowl from the bed, and brings a spoonful of porridge to K’s mouth.
K leans forward and takes it, watching Taki watch him. It feels like the porridge falls into his chest instead of his stomach, with the way his heart is heavy and hot. Taki gets another spoonful and blows on it twice before he holds it in front of K’s mouth, and K opens again, feeling achy all over, throat tight like he might start to cry.
“I really wanted to see the Merlion with you”, he whines. Taki smiles softly.
“We had a lot of fun. It would’ve been nice if you and Jo-hyung were there. Was he here with you?” K shakes his head no, trying to read something between the lines of his question, but he finds nothing. It’s earnest and honest, just like Taki is. K doesn’t want him jealous. K tried his best to raise Taki well, without any of his own darkness. K tried hard to make sure that everything he gave to Taki was a good and decent part of himself.
“I’m going to stay with you, always”, K whispers.
“I know”, Taki says simply, easily, dipping the spoon into the bowl again, readying another bite, and K takes it, and savors it in his mouth before swallowing it down. His head suddenly feels lighter, emptier, and he takes an inhale. His sinuses are clearing, one again dripping down his face. Taki grabs for a tissue and squeezes K’s nose, wiping.
“You’re going to make a great mother one day”, K murmurs as Taki pulls back, crumpling the dirty tissues. He resists reaching out to pull Taki’s hand back to his face. Taki laughs.
“A mother? Not a father?”
K shakes his head. “A mother. And a housewife. Cooking for your hardworking husband.” Taki laughs harder.
“Oh yea? Hardworking husband who?”
K says nothing, and Taki doesn’t wait for an answer, smiling as he gets more porridge on the spoon and brings it back up to K’s mouth. K’s body is suddenly tired, comfortably heavy with his stomach full, and he wants to sleep while he can still breathe. He shuffles and scoots down, pulling the soft quilt back over his body.
“We need to sleep, Taki”, he whispers, and there is a pause and a wordless question and a wordless answer. Taki lifts off the bed and wraps up the rest of the porridge, tucking it into the mini fridge. He walks to the bathroom. The sink turns on and K listens to the sounds of water running and lightly splashing, trying to keep awake until Taki is walking out barefaced in his underwear and crawling into bed next to him, pressing close.
“Do you want me to put you to sleep?” K asks, sniffling, twisting to face him.
“Yes.” So earnest and honest.
You’re every good part of me.
“Cute”, K murmurs. Why is that always all he can say? He’ll work on it. He’ll work on telling Taki more. On being better. He can always be better for Taki. But his eyes are too heavy now, and he’s melting into the bed. He reaches his hand out to pinch the ball of Taki’s cheek, rolling it gently, squeezing it softly, as he fades into a dreamless sleep.