Themes: , semi-angst

He was the boy with the disappearing act.

Lu Han had remarked about how immensely different days and nights were. Jongin only scoffed and said it was a known fact. If he had dug a little deeper, stayed a little longer, or caught more of the words that fell from Lu Han’s mouth, he would have known the other was articulating his pain.

Darling, I thought you were a house at dusk when you welcome me like home; but then you sail away like a ship as the dawn is breaking, leaving me this ache in my bones.

But Jongin only knew to slip under the sheets of Lu Han’s bed at night and disappear in the morning. He knew to construct a passionate wonderland of blankets and writhing bodies, assembling sweet wreckage out of whimpers and moans from the boy with the doe eyes. He knew not about the ticking time bomb he left by Lu Han’s bed the night he said the latter was more beautiful than all the lovers he ever had. In addition, he was oblivious of when he had made a lover out of the other boy, even as he devoured his cracking lips and mapped territories onto his skin and climbed the ladders of his ribs. Not even when he sang the boy’s name like a poignant lullaby, Luhan, baby, you are so fine.

Jongin knew nothing. And saw nothing when Sehun pointed out the cracks in Lu Han’s smile, the way it was becoming more like the moon with its borrowed light, instead of the sun with its own shine.

He proceeded to chip away at Lu Han’s defenses, consume him like a forest fire, all the while painfully ignorant that the latter had long surrendered to the madness of it all. That for all that he was taking, he had already been forgiven. That Lu Han was merely waiting for the explosion, the end he knew will come eventually.

Sweetheart, all I have to lose is myself, and you can take me; there is no one else.

Jongin knew not of the end, because he knew not of the beginning. His focus was on the in-between, when it had become habit to make ing the prelude to Lu Han’s sleep. There was no awareness to be held, no point in hesitating, no guilt to swallow, because this was just . This was only a series of duets the night was hosting—there were other songs being sung elsewhere.

And he was just a dark-skinned boy, feeding on the fantasies of a pale-skinned one, giving himself up too for the other’s taking. There was no need to convince himself this was something else, he knew it was not. Except he was gravely mistaken.

Now… now he knows. The memories replay in his mind with clarity as sharp as a pointed blade. He can now see the sunbeams in Lu Han’s eyes every night when he opened his bedroom door to find Jongin had been the one to come knocking. He can now hear the words that tore at Sehun when Lu Han rejected him, saying, Sorry, I already gave my heart to someone else, and I don’t want to take it back.

Sehun had smiled thinly and replied with I hope he treats you well—

Only to get caught in heartrending confusion when he heard the other murmur, He doesn’t even know I exist.

But Jongin is aware of Lu Han’s existence now. His ignorance starts flaking away just when Lu Han has disappeared, like Jongin used to do every morning—but this time drawing permanence—leaving no note, no goodbye kiss, perhaps taking back his heart and bringing Jongin’s as well. What he now knows is punishing him dreadfully. He wants to ask why Lu Han couldn’t have told him. But Lu Han did tell him, every night when he had smiled and whispered Jongin’s name with reverence like a proper lover should.

Is this the end? Has the bomb exploded? But Jongin is still alive, even as he thinks his heart is already dead. Now he’s lost as to what to do in the meantime, while waiting for his true end—when life has been torn from his body the last time. The days and the nights have no distinction now. And it irks him when he has to straighten the unmade bed, the sheets tangling like when they’d mix with bodies colliding. Reminders are everywhere of the sweet destruction he had executed upon Lu Han, which the latter had always forgiven him for.

But now it’s Jongin who can’t forgive himself.