what's the story

Daehyun/Youngjae, Daehyun POV

Days like this, the pen runs dry and I'm left with nothing but ink blotched over the side of my palms. All smeared within the indents drawn over my skin, little webs of blackened blue and liquid glue. Days like this, I think of you a lot. You by the window and the broken radio playing some cliched retro song so we think of the eighties where we don't belong. Stuff about glitter guns and shoelaces for promise rings.

It's kind of hard to spit out the words sometimes. I've been sitting here at this coffee shop for eight hours and it's been days since I've gone out with friends because work comes first. Is it work? More like a landfill, maybe. I mean, I've been digging harder and harder in search of treasure with pages of stupid words woven together into the most pretentious sentences ever because the thesaurus makes a writer sound a lot more classy than he actually is. I can't just stop shovelling, right? It's way too big a hole to climb out of. It's either I make it or I die here with how much effort I've been through. This hole I've been digging for gold will be my grave someday if I don't see the light.

We fought yesterday and it's kind of stupid, now that I think of it. Kind of stupid, definitely, because I think a lot of you by the window. The overlay is an overused sepia filter and you're wrapped in a film roll of summer heat and California wind. Dingy apartments and filthy mousetraps. I don't know what makes me think of you so vintage but I guess I wish I met you sooner. Sometimes, I just want to unplug and hold your hand for all the nights to come. It'd be a lot prettier if I wrote straight on paper or a clickety-clack typewriter instead of breathing in this overloaded laptop and the sickening grind of gears. Slouched over like I'm trapped in some nine to give job in a monochrome office and grey cubicles when what I'm doing right now, what I romanticised to be freedom and being in love with how you live, is much worse.

Americanos are so expensive, love. Do you know the feeling of squinting at your sentence and stepping on that backspace every once in a while? I've been debating for a few seconds whether to use the word dissect or scrutinise but I'm thinking if I look harder I might as well just use that instead.

Maybe I should be giving you these words instead. I'm sorry we fought. Sometimes, caffeine doesn't help all that much and I'm afraid I'll get nowhere. I'm afraid I've been writing these thousands of words for nothing and maybe I've lived my life being an utter idiot for a bunch of sympathetic readers tossing me pennies in the form of rehashed compliments and pretty five-star reviews. What the hell; my writing .There's no rhythm and beat and sometimes I stash several fragments of dialogue into one paragraph and fret over how many times I've used the word said. At the back of my head, I know the editors praise pretty much every hipster writer they bring onboard to make their indie publishing company look a little more ostentious. Support local production! Yeah, yeah. Might as well ask me to go beg on the streets next.

Truth is, I started dating you out of obligation and to seem a bit more complete. I've been shutting myself in for months before I met you because somehow one of the dumb books I wrote managed to gain a smithereen of public attention, thanks to a songwriter who'd nearly gotten sued for stealing the poetry in my book and buttered up his public statement with tribute and homage. I was lonely and sometimes I get a bit out of my mind when I spend too much time alone.

You and your damn lilac shoes, those skinny jeans that make me want to screw you over the hood of my car. God knows how much I love being between your legs and having your sienna hair in my clutch. The way you tremble when you hit your and how you whisper for more in that brittle, glass voice. I knew I was in love once I saw the mahagony of the coffee table and I thought of your eyes, how they bubble with this shimmer like someone splattered sugar into your honeyed skin and the acne scars along your chin. 

You're a little too pretty for me, I know. People ask me why we're together and once they hear of our professions they think then it's a perfect fit. Some starry-eyed indie writer and an androgynous model who hides the paint clumped under his fingers. I'm gonna sound like an but I wasn't gay till I met you. I'll be lamabsted by those activists but to this day, I still rake my eyes over the curves of fluttering skirts and high-pitched chimes—but all that glitter gold disperses once I see you. My breath doesn't stop when you walk through the door but I can't stop staring. There's so much familiarity in that faded V-neck you like to wear and the sketch of graphite into your eyelids. The way you slowly bat your eyelashes and how your pinky sticks out when you're slurping on your caramel macchiato. Then, I think of topaz smiles and tiramisu cake, brass windchimes and antique wooden cuckoo clocks. I've never heard someone say their favourite colour's brown.

I love your guitar strums and the little laugh you give whenever you think I'm doing something absolutely stupid. You'd probably chuckle right now, actually, and ask me what the hell I'm going on about since you don't play any instrument, but god, I love every little thing about you. Maybe it's easy to fall in love or maybe I've seen you so much that I've known no one as intimately as you, but you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen. I used to believe love wouldn't last because how can you keep loving someone who pisses you off again and again? No way married couples can live in peace and harmony without arguing about leaving the toilet seat up. That's how I treat my friendships and you know it well—whoever gets me angry drops down the list into oblivion since I can always make a new one. 

Intonation and inflection. Your voice is phenomenal, really. On days like this where I've lost my muse and writing feels like utter , I think of you. A lot. I think of calling you but you're probably asleep, curled up on the couch with your olden day sitcoms still blaring, and I don't want to get a hard-on hearing your soft sleepiness over the speaker. We're too retro for our own good but I love you, anyway.

I'll save the existential crisis for tonight—the usual god, what am I doing with my life and I've got so much to finish. I may hate you a little once these revolting thoughts start to gnaw at my head but you know I'll always love you, Youngjae, whether my empty, overly ambitious head likes it or not. I don't mind the 3AM late nighters to come. I just really want to walk home with a chocolate cake from the bakery and rouse you from sleep with a kiss.

And you a little harder tonight to make up for the lack of productivity.

(When have I ever made sense, Youngjae?)

50 min, 1273 words