It's a morbid Sunday morning when Jaebum's caught out in the rain. His situation is less than ideal. He's been victim to the splashback of cars and his jeans are damp, the convenience store didn't have his favourite soup in stock and he has a history of modern filmography essay due soon. Instead he'd been stocking up on his weekly supply of ground coffee, guilty liquor and three-for-one ramyeon. He knows when he returns home he’ll just be staring blankly at his screen for another hour.

He probably looked odd at the moment, with a leather jacket, piercings and not-ripped-when-he-bought-them jeans, a typical someone you might suddenly cross the street for at night. Yet in his hands were local mini mart supplies and a cutesy blue polka-dotted umbrella. It was a necessity courteous of his mother who insisted by shoving it onto him. No point in buying another if he already had one, right?

Jaebum's always been a rather unconventional person. Ever since he was an emotional and angsty teenager, a nasty characteristic of his that had moulded all his bad attitudes and tempers right into adulthood, giving real life nightmares to his parents in his wake, he’d become accustomed to being comparable with hurricanes. Short lived and fierce, here one day and gone the next.

He's proud to say that now he wasn’t as brooding as before and he'd lengthened the live wire to his ticking temper. A construction, a work in progress, ageing wine and cheese. Whatever.

Jaebum sneezes suddenly, scaring a couple walking past him. He feels light-headed for a moment, like a premonition in disguise, and all he can hear is the thunderous pitter-patter of rain drops above his head. A mournful staccato.

Although Jaebum had outgrown his bad taste in hoarse punk music about the brutalities of being different, he still liked to indulge himself in pretentious ideals from time to time. Hopefully in a more poetic fashion than those spews of utopia and totalitarian governments and that was never going happen.

Instead, he subjects himself to the, quote unquote, infinite entropy that is the arts and whatever abstract concept that follows. He allows himself be dragged to late night poetry slams at dingy corner street pubs and clearance sales at collapsing book stores. It's all Jinyoung's doing, this mellowing out of him.

Jinyoung, Jinyoungie to close friends and Jirongie to his noonas, was an easy enigma of sorts. Jaebum wasn't foolish enough to believe people could only live exclusively with a trait, but Jinyoung was clear cut and standing perfectly in the centre of the universe. A hypocentre of destruction, the midpoint of a venn diagram.

Jinyoung was many things: he was lucky, unfairly talented and moody as the tides, with his push-pulls of talking too much and not talking at all, his need for seclusion and his yearning for the warmth of touch, his lovely smile and steel cut tongue.

It was always an experience being with him. Jaebum could feel deeper than the whole of the Marianas trench when he was around, listening to dirt poor philosophers at one in the morning with cheap alcohol melting in his hand, in which an hour later he'd be flat on his back on the floor of Jinyoung's labyrinth of an apartment, laughing at said philosophers' stupid philosophy and feeling higher than the seventh heaven.

Sometimes he meets frequently with him, and sometimes, when he catches on to his clipped words and lazy eye contact, he leaves him alone for days.

He sneezes again. The rain isn’t a drizzle but the wind is the real . The thin spindles of metal of his umbrella threaten to flip inside out and the gale's cries are reminiscent of night hauntings.

There's not another soul on the streets, the world seems vastly empty and for a moment Jaebum envisions himself as non-existent. Any moment and he would disappear, merge with the moving energy of the universe and then he wouldn't have to do his assignment.

It's a short lived daydream when a familiar figure materialises outside the door of a store. Before Jaebum recognises the crescent eyes and pearly skin, his eyes latch onto the shocking apparel that is his saffron windcheater, rustling and flapping in the wind like the sails of a ship let loose in a storm.

Due to some supernatural sixth sense or his motherly intuition, Jinyoung turns around and sees him, piercings and polka-dots and all, and he smiles.

"Hyung," he walks over with quiet steps and the sound of rain slicked pavement, and he bumps his shoulder with his. Jinyoung doesn't look tall until you're right beside him, and it was a genuine worry to Jaebum that he would catch up to their less-than-an-inch difference.

"Small world, isn't it?"

It's a morbid Sunday morning, the rain ticks down onto roughed concrete, puddles overflow down into drain pipes and through to the polluted Pacific, and Jaebum thinks of another side of the world, with saffron yellow flowers and eternal sunshine. Not yet a utopia, but delusional enough to try.

"We live in the same city, Jinyoungie."  

"Small city, isn't it?" There's a cadence to his words, melodious and slipping off the tongue, a metronome of thoughts unarranged enough to get him into misunderstandings and streaks of poetic genius. It's a shame that Jaebum's never tasted them.

A real goddamn shame not to trace those lips and tongue and teeth. He wonders what it'll taste like, the texture of his ideas, his judgements and his snark. Syrupy maybe, thick trails of gold honey too sticky to forget, or perhaps harsh with iron-spiked blood, vital and bitter and wine red. Or maybe, a whole universe.

In classical texts, or the ones that Jaebum's been forced to read that is, the arching movements of weaponry in combat seemed to be fondly described with that of song. The singing of the sword and spear, reverberating amongst bloody fields. A chorus of metal, perhaps.

He doesn't have a sword nor a spear, he's not that outdated, but he does have a scavenged and dingy metal bat at hand. It's cool to the touch, a little grimy, a little war-torn, but it fits nicely in the large of his palm. The black rubber wrapped around its handle is worn and fraying.

Jinyoung stills eyes at it dubiously.

They're someplace outside of the city, walking at a casual pace underneath the shelter of raised train tracks. The rain is deafening, streaking onto the concrete in wild fans and the lush ferns quiver with wind and water. The click of the soles of their shoes echo against the graffiti walls.

At intervals, a train would pass, all the rumble and thunder of a metal beast, bulleting away into the distance, trembling the very foundations.

The weather is phenomenal and it's the kind that Jaebum likes. The storm is intense and the air is chilled and damp, but between the gaps of the looming black mass of clouds, faint light the colour of gold filter in thin streaks onto the open, untamed fields.

"Hey, hyung."

There are two beer bottles sitting next to a decorated wall. There's a caricature of some politician, a stylised and indecipherable name sprayed in hues of fuchsia and electric blue, and countless messy tags in charcoal black marring the artwork. The glass is bottle green.

"Yes, Jinyoung?"

"If you could go to space, would you?"

Jaebum twirls the heavy bat in his hand, bouncing it loftily in his hand before grasping it firmly and in two quick strides and a monumental swing he shatters the bottles. There's a spectacular noise of delicate destruction and for two heartbeats the glass refracts lovely fragmented green onto the walls, glimmering through the air. The shards land melodically and bounce into the rustling ferns.

"Well, would you?" Jinyoung is hardly fazed, and Jaebum doesn't expect him to be.

A bolt of lightning blinks white and the crack of thunder soon follows. The air is electric and alive and Jaebum feels positively impulsive.

"Probably." he says, and he laces his fingers through Jinyoung's, feeling their distance crackle with storm and glass.

"It's nice to think about the stars." Jinyoung's voice is warm with alcohol and it's barely heard above the chatter and off-beat woes of some college student poet, the rhythm and flow of his words, the pitch and hoarseness of his voice is tinnitus to their ears.  

It's only twilight but the place is nearly packed, dimly lit and full of people sheltering from the raging of the weather. The rain taps feverishly at the window and opaque layers of condensation creep across the glass. There’s the occasional trail of red and white as a vehicle rumbles by, kicking up fountains of water along the flooded roads.

Decked in monochrome, Jinyoung wears a well-loved black jacket and boots, the leather still glossy with rain, and his hands are feverishly cold with the drink in his hand. Beads of water trickle down its side and onto his skin.

"Too far to touch but close enough to see," Jinyoung talks like he's in a dream when he's intoxicated. It's sweet and childish, his face as fresh as a flower as he rambles on about something arbitrary. Jaebum's no longer startled when he leans his head onto his shoulder, suddenly laughing. "Kind of like you, hyung."

"You're touching me right now."

Jackson snorts from across the table. Jaebum kicks him in the shin.  

"It's rather poetic, how they name planets and stars after western gods, you know," Jinyoung's hair is soft and chocolate brown in the lighting, tickling the underside of Jaebum's jaw. Jackson laughs for no other reason than being a happy drunk. Unfazed, Jinyoung giggles with him.

The poet in the corner fumbles on, ignoring the twinging feedback of his microphone and the crackle of the old sound system. Their words form into foam, mumbling about the fickleness of the sky and the loom of white suburbia, the toxic green of greed and evolutionary meltdowns. It's they've all heard before, a stanza repeated once or twice, as lyrically genius as the next pop hits of the week. To Jaebum's heady thoughts, it sounds like a lullaby, a school lecture, the lofty thoughts of an average man.  

Throwing back the last of his soju, Jackson his lips pensively, "They name those space craft things after them too, don't they?"

"Not always," Jaebum says. He studies the indigo glow of the neon sign outside, "they've got a couple of shuttles named after ships."

"Space ships." Jackson murmurs, wondered.   

It's an hour later when Jaebum discovers that Jinyoung's too wasted and bubbly to walk on his own feet. The storm's washed down into a drizzle and Jackson leaves Jaebum to his demise, cackling loudly. Take care of our Jinyoungie, he says before he departs down the street in the opposite direction, hands in his pockets and hood over his head as he trots away like the party pony he is, into the dark glow of the city.  

"Come on, Jirongie, don't make this harder than it should be." Jaebum slings his friend's arm around his shoulders and Jinyoung laughs, clear and bright and lovely like the sun. Though he's the same height as Jaebum, he's lighter and thinner like willow in the wind, and with his body pressed to his side, there's a pleasant warmth unfurling in his chest.

They walk slowly through the bitter night. Jinyoung stumbles at times, getting the edges of their jeans splattered with murky water in the process. The city lights and cloudy moon are reflected onto the still puddle surfaces, quivering in kaleidoscopes of cyans and reds and ambers. If the stars were visible, they would be treading the sky.  

Jinyoung starts giggling to himself under his breath, his head sways and he rests it at the crook of Jaebum's neck, his lips ghosting over his skin. Fire blossoms between the points of contact and Jaebum tightens his grip on the man.

"To explore uncharted voids, to venture the heavens where the remnants of the gods lie, to surpass our impossibilities. Isn't that why they name them after antiquated deities?"   

Even when wasted, Jaebum humours his idle concepts and so he hums and urges him to continue. Jinyoung moves his head away and the warmth of his lips is replaced with the cold kiss of the wind.

"It's quite romantic, idealistic, narcissistic. So human and divine. It makes you nostalgic, doesn't it?" Jinyoung breathes in the night air and arches his neck to look up to the empty pool of black shivering above them, "Do you remember what the Greeks named the moon?" 

Jaebum thinks about it, lost in thought for a moment as he watches the moonlit glow bend and morph on Jinyoung's delicate face. "Selene," he says finally after wracking his head around for classical literature, "sister to the sun and the dawn."

Jinyoung nods, a bit too aggressively and he teeters momentarily. "Who shine upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless gods who live in the wide heaven." he recites. 

By the time they reach his building, they're both spent and there's a couple of flights of stairs that seem comparable to mountains. Jinyoung takes three steps up before stopping, and with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks, he takes one long glance up the stairs before turning to stare straight back at Jaebum. There's a strange clarity to his eyes, sharp and alert and sweetly cunning.

"Can you carry me?" he asks, and before Jaebum can retort he adds, "if you say no, I'll just sleep on the stairs tonight."

It's no bluff, Jaebum knows, because he'd walked in on him asleep with his head resting on the railings before. He’d locked himself out and he had a stiff neck for days.  

Jaebum rolls his eyes but he turns so Jinyoung's facing his back and says, exasperated, "Get on."   

Jinyoung chirps in happiness and loops his arms around his neck, fastening tightly. Jaebum grumbles but holds him aloft, glad that he was sober enough not to trip, fall and snap both their necks. It's nice to know they're not as young and immortal as they felt.  

"You're so heavy," He shifts his body and the man hums against the nape of his neck, sending flourishes of colour to his nerves. "You weigh like, the earth."

"Aaw, hyung," Jinyoung's heady words are like butter and lemon, creamy and soft and exciting to hear when he knows these words are meant for him only, "it's nice to know I mean the world to you."

Jaebum chuckles, shoulders quietly shaking.

With the alcohol slowly draining out of Jinyoung's system, he grew less giggly and began to recede into his soft-spoken cocoon. Upon entering his room, he kicked off his shoes and flopped onto his bed, which was really just a mattress on the floor, and pulled Jaebum down with him. Tired, but still fond, Jaebum let him.

Crashing by his side, he decided that Jinyoung didn't really mean the world to him. Instead, he seemed to be everything else, every little peculiarity and triviality and things he had yet to learn the worth of. The hidden stars he missed at night, the flickering daydreams he left behind, the solemn days the sky wasn't crying and the empty spaces connecting constellations.

The man was an easy enigma, but an enigma nonetheless, one that Jaebum pieced together at his own pace, to his own ease.  

"Hey, hyung,"   

It's all shy love and butterfly wings at this point, with Jinyoung all lovely and lavender blue, his lingering touch like whispers. At this point, they're just dancing around the obvious, keeping to the rhythm of their own song and heartbeats.

He was made of stars and the fabric of dreams, this man.

"Yes, Jinyoung?"

"Would you ever consider taking up smoking?"

The question catches him off guard a little, "Do I look like I would?" he thinks he probably does, but he wants to know what Jinyoung sees.

"No, you don't. But would you?" There isn't an ounce of insincerity in his words and it's oddly reassuring to hear.  

"I wouldn't." He's not the type to succumb to self-destruction anymore, wouldn't trade the flesh of his lungs for black tar and slick nonchalance. A few years back maybe he would have, when he was nothing but bravado and trying to camouflage with the shadows of parking lots and alleyways. Jinyoung knows this, but he still asks. Reassurance, maybe, though he's not sure if it's for himself or for the both of them. 

"That's good," his friend mumbles into his pillow, breathless and tired, half of his lips lost from sight in the deep plush. They're not very red, hardly even a bubblegum pink or a light rouge, but they have their own allure by being the lips of Park Jinyoung. "because then I wouldn't want to kiss you."

"Oh no, how will I ever live." Jaebum says and Jinyoung smiles. Now he knows that it's time for him to leave. He plies himself from the mattress and by the time he's out the door, Jinyoung's already asleep.  

The next morning Jinyoung unlocks Jaebum's apartment with a spare key, which was given to him only for emergencies, and stirs his empty apartment awake with the whistling of the kettle and the running tap, the waft of toast and tangerine.   

When Jaebum walks into the kitchen all bleary-eyed, Jinyoung's digging through a tub of yoghurt for the fruit pieces, with the spoon that was kept in the drawers for his use only. Morning light bled into the room with all the glare and ferocity of the sun, bathing them in translucent white.

"Good morning starshine, the earth says hello." Jinyoung greets.

"Still thinking you’re the world, I see." Jaebum pads over awkwardly, the tiles are ice cold and he's barefoot, to the fridge and he peaks inside. All the peach flavoured yoghurt is gone and there's only apricot left. He takes the carton of orange juice instead.  

"Then what are you?" Jinyoung the silver curve of his spoon clean, "Atlas, I suppose."

"Atlas held up the sky not the earth, silly," he takes a sip of his drink and instantly cringes, "ugh, I just brushed me teeth."

"Common knowledge, silly."

With all the peach pieces gone, Jinyoung hands him the now plain yoghurt and Jaebum fishes around for another spoon.

"Hey, Jinyoung," he speaks over the clatter of cutlery and he thinks he really needs to separate his forks and chopsticks, "Did you mean it?”

"Mean what?"

"What you said last night.”

"Im Jaebum, are you for the first time in your whole life not being brutally honest?" Jinyoung says. The spoon is still in his mouth and the metal clinks against his teeth, "What did I say last night?"

The thing about being a good actor is that Jinyoung was also excellent at telling lies, and in Jaebum's foggy state of mind he could no longer tell what was real and what was up.

"You said that if I ever took up smoking, you would never kiss me." The yoghurt tastes a little sweet, a little sour. The surprised widening of Jinyoung's eyes is almost enough to fool him. Almost. Jinyoung already knows this, but he plays along anyway with the sly smile of a cat curved onto his lips.

"Did I? Then tell me, are you perchance craving a cigarette right now?"

"At the moment, no."

"Good." Jinyoung says, and he pulls him closer, a hand cupping the back of his neck, and leans him in for a kiss. His lips are soft and quiet on his, and the room is startlingly bright. Jaebum presses back.

It wasn't honey and wine and iron, he slowly realises, it was saffron and rainstorms and the crescents of the moon, hidden in uncovered memories.  

It tastes like peach.

The kiss is short lived, and when they separate, all that Jaebum can see is the lazy smile on Jinyoung's face and the stunning clarity of the sky outside, burning seas of spotless blue, with not one cloud marring the horizon.

He grins and leans in for another quick kiss.

“About time.” he says.

Jinyoung returns his smile, all charm and spark and easy love, and he takes Jaebum’s hands in his own and entwines their fingers together.