Just Wanna

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“Just Wanna”- Amber Ft. Eric Nam

~*~

It was no secret now; his heart couldn’t take it.

Whenever Jinyoung was around, his heart felt like a stereo system on blast. It would always pound in the roughest ways against his chest and it would ache so, so beautifully. It would ring in his ears, buzz down to his fingertips. It would rattle down and shake his brains until he felt a certain type of way—blank, and in those times, Jinyoung was all he could see and feel.

Mark loved it. He felt high off of just one touch from Jinyoung, and it was a burning addiction.

It melted the ice in his heart and left him feeling warm, bubbly, elicited that kind of feeling after one drinks a warm substance. It felt pretty.

Jinyoung always looked pretty, too. And it was always ridiculously effortless.

Mark had once, not long ago, seen Jinyoung in just a white shirt, dark jeans, and white Vans, and damn it, his hair wasn’t even combed through yet, but there he was, shining like a diamond, putting everybody else’s beauty to shame, just by being who he was.

Maybe he liked him.

Maybe he really liked him.

But Mark wasn’t ready to say it yet. Not today.

Not with him so close, so achingly close, burning him with his own eyes.

Jinyoung smiled at him—something about the way his eyes wrinkled would send yet another arrow through Mark’s heart, and he felt as if he were choking on the blood that had yet to rise. And he didn’t even speak, but whatever that smile had said, Mark had no answer to.

Mark wanted to smile back, but he knew he would look like a complete and utter dork, the definition of waste of space, so he remained silent.

There was a rustling in the distance that combed through its fingers, a wind that tapped on one’s being and Mark watched as this breeze shuffled recklessly past Jinyoung’s hair, and teased at the raven locks, but when it left, there was no destruction to be seen. Jinyoung’s hair still looked beautiful. But his cheeks looked punched. The wind must have hit him harder than Mark thought.

Jinyoung huffed and hugged his cardigan tighter around himself. Mark wished the sleeves were his arms.

Jinyoung his chapped lips and then gave Mark a quick glance, as if to ask him to please stop staring at him, because he had been doing it for quite some time now, and he felt it burning through his layers of clothes.

Mark said nothing to this glance, but he, with some effort, moved his head, and erased Jinyoung out of his sight.

Now, all that he saw was the street. The stores across the street. The people, walking, talking, completely unaware to the shaking in Mark’s veins and the awkward atmosphere he had created. They had already made their own, and they all seemed better than the one he made. Lights grew dim against Jinyoung, paling in contrast to his brightness that was not appalled by the wind, but rather grew stronger in the deep, deep shade of crimson.

Mark his lips, trying to find the words that slipped through the cracks of time and behind his throat. They shied away from his attempts, but he wasn’t letting up. He had to say something. This was his classmate, his secret, he couldn’t just stand there. For ’s sake, he was a jock! He couldn’t possibly be ed over by the class president!

He shuffled in his seat, his jean-clad bottom shifting to a cold, bitter ice slate of ice on the bench, or so it felt as if. Mark winced and then composed himself, sliding his hand out of his jacket. It was immediately bitten by the thin ice of the wind, and stripped of a home. Mark wanted to shove it back into his pocket, but he didn’t. He was waiting for something better.

Mark didn’t know why he did this, if he was thinking at all, but moments passed, and he could barely feel his fingers.

His hand just laid there, on the bench, neglected by Jinyoung’s own.

And he waited again, turning his head to the side as if he were getting impatient on this whole hope thingy. He watched a bus pass by a few stops back, but it wasn’t there. He saw a couple passing by, holding hands. He saw a small boy, with his mother, and she held his glove-coated hand. He saw a lonely guy walk by, but his hands were stuffed into the fur of his jacket, and Mark felt somewhat envious.

The sky turned blacker than before. The previous ash-kissed sky turned malicious, and Mark wondered when eight o’clock would greet them.

He was beginning to wonder that if he moved his hand now, if Jinyoung would finally hold it. Or if he did so, he would run his chances to do so. He wondered if looking at his watch would be at all a good idea, but he couldn’t risk it. Not now. He had already pouted out too much.

Mark’s skin began to prickle, and it wasn’t because of the wind. He was nervous now. What if Jinyoung held his hand? What then?

Would he like it? Would it mean something? Would he regret it? Would he--?

“Yah! Mark-hyung! You’re gonna catch a cold like that!” Jinyoung gave him a pout that looked a lot prettier right now, when the store’s endless glow casted onto Jinyoung’s cream colored flesh. He frowned, an empty threat that mark wished he could just soften with the pink of his lips.

Mark opened his mouth to say something, but Jinyoung pretty, red gloved hand cut him off.

He felt his words catch into the tangled mess of the forgotten words in his throat, and he felt the little air he had managed to swallow in from opening his mouth turn solid. His lungs burned with something, and his heart felt as frozen as the window-sills in the stores.

“Don’t be so reckless, hyung. I don’t want you to get sick.”

Mark forgot he said that, or maybe he didn’t even hear it.

Because his eyes had slid over to Jinyoung’s pretty hand, that was hugging his own.

And he forgot what words were.

“You need to take better care of yourself, Mark…”

Mark watched Jinyoung’s mouth as it kept moving, but he didn’t hear what he said. He was too busy grinning, trying to swallow down the burning coal in his gut. His heart went berserk, and he wondered how pathetic it would be if he, Mark Tuan, died because Park Jinyoung held his hand.

But he was so, so beautiful, and Mark realized it would have probably been the only right thing to do in a moment like this.

“I love you too, Nyougie.” Mark said in the end, sounding nonchalant as his hands gripped tighter onto Jinyoung’s frozen ones. He looked off into the distance, at the lonely man, and now, he pitied him.

Jinyoung hadn’t said that. Mark knew he hadn’t. But his actions did.

“Shut up, you bastard…” Jinyoung mumbled, slinking into his turtle-neck and slouching, but his hand only grew tighter on Mark’s own.

Mark smiled, and held Jinyoung’s hand tighter as a response, tapping his feet as he heard the gentle lullaby of the wind as he waited for their bus.