Letter #whatever

I've been writing less and less lately. And not because I've been sinking into some quiet despair. I've had those moments, true, but in these last few weeks it's been the opposite. I am taking part in the concert and I've been preparing for it obsessively, wearing myself to the bone and leaving very little time for sleep, food or seducing strangers. My director has been telling me to slow down a bit, or I'll burn out, but he doesn't understand the way my brain works. The burning is what I live for. The pain in my muscles is what keeps me going. There's nothing worse for me than losing my aim and seeking comfort in 10-hour naps, food and chasing miserable, emotionally unavailable boys who don't know what's good for them. I'm barely sleeping, I'm on the edge, and I'm happy this way – if people like me are indeed allowed to use that word.

This is the last letter I'll be writing. Some things have changed in the structure of my mind, and it just doesn't make sense anymore – trapping the ghost of you in a memory box and keeping it there, where it distorts, and crumbles, and writhes struggling for freedom. That box is much like the one that I kept beneath my bed and serves no other purpose than to be opened from time to time so that its contents would be taken out and used to inflict pain on myself.

Whatever happened to us in those months was confusing, tumultuous and very much like learning to drive in the dark. I spent a lot of time blaming you for everything when, in fact, I'm pretty sure that you didn't know what you were doing any better than I did. I was heartbroken, crushed, but things that matter at one point of time won't necessarily matter at another... Life goes on.

You were what you were, and in my mind you were transformed into something different, delightful and terrible. It's not your fault, and it wasn't something you did or said that made me fall in love with you. Maybe I like to be ed by quiet, insecure people who look at me with lust in their eyes. Maybe I really loved you, and that love is dead.

Goodbye, and thank you.

T.

“It's not him,” Kibum's voice came reaching through the fog. “Keep eating.”

Jinki snapped back into reality: they were having breakfast at an Ediya café. His meal consisted of an iced latte and a big, a bit stale blueberry muffin, a half of which was already gone. The sun was shining bright behind the dusty windows and couples were out walking. He'd been spacing out.

“What?”

“It's not him. The hair and the clothes are similar, but it's someone else,” Kibum explained, his spoon. (He was eating a chocolate cake.)

Jinki frowned.

“Not who?”

“Taemin. You were thinking about him, weren't you?”

A black-haired guy about twenty years of age, who was wearing a deep red jacket and had a few earrings, got his takeout cappuccino and walked past them to the door.

Kibum barely spared him a glance as he waited for Jinki to collect his thoughts.

“Have some cake.”

He offered him a spoonful of his dessert and Jinki opened his mouth obediently. It was a simple formula: food offered for free = mouth open.

“I'm sorry,” he said, chewing.

Kibum raised his eyebrows.

“For what? I thought it was him for a second myself.”

“No, I'm sorry that you paid five thousand for this.”

Kibum ate a spoonful, too, and groaned.

“I'd lecture you on bad manners, but this thing is as close to horse poop as you can get,” he agreed.

“Horse poop mixed with sugar and stored in a fridge for a few days,” Jinki elaborated.

“True. But, I mean, who goes to Ediya for the food?”

“An Ediya-t!” Jinki cried, beaming.

That attracted a few puzzled glances from the customers and waitresses alike.

Kibum honestly didn't mean to laugh, but the contrast between the judgmental looks of the audience and his boyfriend's self-satisfied grin finished him.

“Aigoo, you're so handsome and clever. Have more cake.”

He scooped up a big piece, which Jinki accepted without protest.

“I'm no expert on horse excrement, but there's just something so horsey about this thing,” he confirmed, scrunching his nose.

“I know, right?”

“But, on the other hand, it's still food, so does it really matter?”

“Right! There's no real difference between this chocolate pony cake and your blueberry muffin, then?”

“I guess not.”

“And you wouldn't mind switching?” Kibum murmured, smiling sweetly.

“Go ahead.”

Jinki blinked once and found that the desserts were already swapped and his lover looked a lot happier.

“You're a dream. No wonder your mom loves you so much.”

“I don't know, does she?”

“Well, even though my parents are good, hardworking people,” Kibum began, munching the much better tasting, in spite of its staleness, muffin, “I can't imagine them accepting my uality just like that. According to my dad, the two biggest problems in this world are corruption and sodomy. While I would say that the problem is that there's too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.”

Jinki laughed.

“Yeah, my mom is quite liberal, I guess. Although she did make me wipe the floors at her friend's restaurant for two weeks after she caught me smoking.”

“And it didn't help.”

“Nah.”

“You really should stop smoking, though. It's bad for your health.”

“Really? I didn't know. Gonna give it up today.”

Kibum growled.

“Look. Thank you for trying to make me perfect, but…”

“I take care of my friends.”

“…let a man have his cancer if he wants to.”

To Kibum's frustration, Jinki did stick to some of his weaknesses like his life depended on it.

“Do you really think I'm trying to make you perfect?” Kibum asked when they were outside. He looked a bit worried.

“Well, you're a perfectionist. So, it's normal for you.”

“But it doesn't mean I wanna be a pain in your .”

“Don't worry, that won't happen,” Jinki assured him. “Worry about yours.”

Kibum laughed.

“You dirty boy.”

“I don't want you to go,” Jinki said suddenly.

His boyfriend wrapped his arms around his neck and murmured:

“You were the one who absolutely insisted that I get toy poodles. It's your fault.”

He gave Jinki a discreet kiss that was returned, as both of them had completely forgotten the fact that they were standing in the middle of a busy Seoul street and didn't look drunk enough to pass for a couple of “sentimental friends sharing a manly caress”. Most people pretended they didn't see, some stared in disbelief, and, finally, there was a young woman coming out of a Starbucks with coffee in hand, who stopped, lowered her sunglasses and said in a squeaky, high-pitched voice:

“Freaking gays are everywhere.”

Kibum closed his eyes for a moment, as if asking Mother Mary to give him some patience. Apparently, it didn't help, because he let his somewhat worried boyfriend go and snapped, turning to the mean woman:

“What's your deal, lady? Hm? Is your own heteroual life not interesting enough for you to focus on, eh?”

Jinki bit his lip. The last thing he wanted was to be a part of that scene, or any scene that involved a justifiably angry Kibum and a less-than-benevolent stranger – after all, the last time it had happened he was the one who'd got punched on the face hard enough for his eyes to shoot sparks.

Kibum stuck his hands to his sides, and that never bode well.

“At least I don't have to live in fear of contracting AIDS,” the stranger retorted.

“Well, then be content, because my AIDS is not any of your concern – unless I'm passing it to your boyfriend.”

“Dirty ert,” the woman hissed, taking a step closer.

Kibum did the same.

“Bitter .”

“How dare you go outside and flaunt your disgusting disease like that? There are children around!”

Jinki looked around. There were no children, but enough curious adult passersby on the street, and he sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to get involved.

“Yeah, like the one I'm talking to right now,” Kibum replied, unfazed. “The only disease I have is the eye cancer that I got from looking at your outfit. How come you go outside and flaunt your disgusting synthetic sweater like that?”

“It's angora!” the woman cried indignantly.

“What a waste of a tortured rabbit!”

“Why, would you prefer to marry it? Freak of nature!”

“Are you calling my boyfriend an animal?!?”

Here we go.

Both fighting sides redirected their fiery stares to the reluctant witness of their battle.

The young woman looked Jinki up and down and somehow lost a part of her misplaced rage. He stood there innocently with his fluffy hair, teary-eyed because he hadn't fit his contact lens in properly, and his crushed pastel t-shirt went really well with his jeans and jacket – an angelic nerd with an awkward smile.

“He may be an animal, but only in bed,” Kibum said in a softer voice, taking his hand. “And every time he eats chicken. He eats like he was raised in a barn,” he added with a sentimental smile.

“Only the bony parts,” Jinki argued.

“No, all the parts, bless you,” Kibum insisted, the young man's hand with his thumb. He turned to the woman: “Anyway, if you want a piece of that, be screwed, you jealous -” Whatever name he chose for her, was muffled by the sound of a beeping car that whizzed past them. “Have a nice day.”

He waved her off.

Apparently, Kibum had a point, because the woman opened and then closed it again, perhaps having run out of reasons why somebody else's life was her concern. Or maybe it was her iPhone ringing inside her Givenchy purse that stopped the impending carnage from happening.

She stomped away to her car, defeated.

“Happy hetero morning,” Kibum said with a sigh. “Apparently, not being harassed on the way to work is a privilege.”

“Don't take it to heart. You've experienced it before,” Jinki reminded him.

“Yeah, but somehow the anger doesn't go away. Each time is more annoying than the last.”

Kibum pressed his hands to his cheeks, trying to calm down.

Jinki patted him on the shoulder.

“Still, don't let some basic spoil your first day at work before it even started.”

“True... What are you gonna do now?”

“Maybe go and study somewhere.”

“Like a café?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Even though we just came out of a café?”

Jinki understood. .

“Well, I'll get a chance to compare different muffins to each other.”

“You, dork... Hope the supervisor is nice. Hope I don't do anything terribly wrong or say something rude out of good intentions. Or act arrogant. Or insult the clothes.”

“It's always good to hope, but be realistic,” Jinki said. “Overwhelm them with your charm and don't offer anyone s for money, and you'll be fine.”

Kibum nodded, raising his index finger.

“Yes, good to remember that little thing. See ya in the evening.”

“See ya.”

They bumped into each other, trying to figure out in which direction each of them was going.

After they did separate, Jinki froze in the middle of the street. He didn't want to study. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to sit down and open his phone, because he knew he would start reading the damn manhwa again: the new chapter must have been uploaded the night before.

He, a grown man with things to do, felt lost. So, he walked to the crossing and waited for the lights to change without any objective or plan.

Kibum had spent many days on end doing nothing at home, got tired of it, and at some point, got up and randomly found himself a job. Despite him having declared on a few occasions that people should come looking for him if his skills were needed and never the other way around, he had simply finished his coffee one morning, walked to the Hongdae H&M shop down the street and plainly offered himself as a shop assistant.

That meant that their schedules mismatched now, and Jinki started having those lonely nights when it was just him and his hand against the cold world outside of his bedroom, again. He didn't like it. He couldn't make any real use of the personal space that he very often craved – the time that was somehow free of studying, tutoring and Kibum, was wholly consumed by browsing the Internet, sleeping and torturing himself with the new curse that was Jonghyun's manhwa.

It wasn't even the thing itself, with its ridiculous amount of attention dedicated to the story of Joonki and Taehyun (Why? Why?! Why?!?!). It was the comments of the ‘fans’, too – mainly, sensual young women who wasted their time on gay male a instead of being good students (Jinki constructed beautiful rants against them in his head) as well as the occasional ‘impressionable’ young man, while the male audience (it did exist – some parts were pure , after all) jerked off to Jjong's masterpiece in silence.

Jinki couldn't understand why they focused so much on that storyline, instead of the juicy, almost sacrilegious adventures of its central character – Jongwoo (he did have a few things to ask Jonghyun based on that), and kept flooding the comment section with the expressions of their concern for JoonTae (it was beyond his mental capacity to understand that nonsense). They had hopes. They had guesses. They had freaking theories and reasons why the two of their favorite characters should end up together, each one more infuriating than the other, and Jinki was annoyed, forgetting, perhaps, that it was only fiction, and that was all.

Many readers seemed to hate Joonki. They admitted that he was hot and sometimes ‘cute’ with his cheesy jokes and clumsiness, but most agreed that he was inappropriately insensitive, emotionally stunted and occasionally an ‘annoying smart-’. Meanwhile Taehyun, according to them, was their ‘dysfunctional baby’ and ‘tortured son’, misunderstood by the whole population of the Earth.

Jinki's English was good enough for him to figure out that some Western commenters were complaining about ‘romanticizing of emotional abuse’, and he was wholeheartedly ready to jump on that boat, until he realized that the reason for their complaining was the abuse that Joonki was apparently inflicting on Taehyun by treating him like crap. Abuse aside, they still wanted them to be together.

The world had officially gone crazy.

Kibum flat-out forbade him to read the manhwa. He did feel the need to mention that he really loved Jjong ‘in a mostly non-ual way’ and that ‘the damn thing’ was very well written and drawn, but he couldn't see what good could possibly come out of Jinki reading it and being haunted by his triggered memories. Kibum didn't say it out loud, but he himself felt distressed when he read another chapter. He couldn't understand why ‘the Brat’ had to be in the story at all.

Jinki wasn't going to read the new chapter.

He was going to study at the coffee shop, and do it so well that he wouldn't have any debts anymore (the progress in his love life somehow had hindered his academic one).

He went to the coffee shop, opened his new used laptop, lay out his study materials – and started reading the new chapter.

The story of the Nerd and the Brat was reaching its end as he knew it: Joonki decided he'd had enough and left, they ‘broke up’ over the phone - and Jinki knew for sure that he hadn't been that mean in reality.

He began questioning himself as he read on. Perhaps Kibum was right about it: why was he reading the manhwa at all? Maybe, secretly, he was fascinated by the fact of being able to see his story retold in an art form, for everybody to see – a rather unique opportunity? Maybe he was looking for some sort of validation for the things he had chosen to do and say, or perhaps it was just a really good story, touchy subject or not. Because one thing he couldn't deny: infuriating as it was, it was an entertaining read.

The last point where Jinki and Taemin's... no, Joonki and Taehyun's paths had crossed was left behind now, and from the reluctant hero of the narrative he turned into an ordinary reader, watching the characters through the keyhole that would be covered when the current chapter ended, and forming guesses.

Technically, he could stop reading now. But he sat there, riveted, scrolling page after page, both fuming and simply wanting to know what happened next.

‘The Brat’, heartbroken and disappointed, confined himself in his parents' house, which Jonghyun whimsically pictured as full of antiquities from the West – something like a desolate Rococo doll house, in his room with a huge queen-sized bed and a huge baggage of sadness and gloom. He was contemplating suicide. He was hurting himself.

“I really should end this,” Taehyun mused, sitting by a grand piano.

He went out, took a bus (Jinki was skeptical about that part) to the seashore, and there he sat on the sand, crying his monochrome tears helplessly as his cross-shaped earring fluttered in the breeze.

“I really am completely alone.”

The next picture showed him slipping his hand into his pocket.

A cheap little razor blade glistened in the sun.

“Goodbye, Joonki. Goodbye, mother. I'm walking towards the silence.”

Black blood on white. He cut horizontally – the proper way. Tears in the boy's eyes, frozen in moment.

Seagulls were making rounds in the colorless skies, and a man was walking his dog in the distance – too far away to notice that something was off with the young man lying alone on the sand in his black coat.

Thus, the chapter ended.

Jinki raised his eyes slowly. Someone waved at him from the street, but he wouldn't make the effort to notice. He wasn't there.

He was walking towards the door with cash clutched in his hand. Leaving. It slammed behind him with a loud crash, a dirty, narrow corridor near the staircase took him to the back exit, and in a moment he breathed in the chilly air of the night.

He felt he had forgotten something in the room, something important. But his bag was with him, his phone in his pocket, the money he would put there, too – it was all that mattered. Whatever else had been left behind, he was abandoning it with each step he was taking towards the bus stop.

Jinki didn't even look at the number of the first bus that arrived before hopping on – he was aching to get away. And everywhere he looked, he saw Taemin's face, felt the brush of his lips on his cheek, asking him to wait for him. He didn't care where the bus was going to take him.

He knew that his room would be full of that face and those whispers, too. The only thing he wanted was to destroy his own consciousness, smash it hard enough for the anxiety and the memories to crumble into a million pieces. He didn't remember getting out and walking towards the live music bar where they usually hung out, but did remember the bright idea that he got to fill himself with a disgusting amount of alcohol – not to have fun, but to freeze his brain into the sweet state of cynical slumber, where he could joke and play and brag about how he had figured the world out.

The alcohol burnt his throat and muddled his head, but deceiving himself was harder than usual. He was too alone. Alone and stupid. And mad, because the exact thing he had predicted would happen, had happened just as expected – just as Kibum had warned him the last time they had come to this bar.

“He's just no good,” Kibum kept saying, intoxicated more often than not.

And Jinki knew he meant well when he said it, but just like his own self, Kibum was moody and changeable, and, while he was sincere telling him to abandon the brat, he was also sincere when he had outbursts like the one he'd had earlier that day, ambushing him to tell him to ‘stop playing hard to get’ and, well, proving that he was serious by physically kicking him. He couldn't take much of Kibum's advice seriously, but would never stop listening to it. And, how could he?

When he thought of Kibum, he saw him sitting on a bar stool with crossed legs, like a woman, in the glow of the neon lights, laughing at some dumb joke of his with his head thrown back, as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Then he'd hit Jinki's knee hard and call him an absolute moron, but he'd still be laughing, and he'd look at him with dimples on his cheeks and his pupils wide. He made things so easy and fun. While being impulsive and somewhat overbearing, Kibum was easy-going, nonjudgmental and criminally unselfish. Jinki didn't have to be smart and cool with him: he didn't even have to talk at all.

Kibum was that one “what if” friend of his; when they said goodbye for the night, he'd sometimes feel a tingling at the back of his neck, urging him to turn around and have a glimpse of him going. And wonder: “What if?” And there was an expectation in the air, just like in those moments when their eyes locked randomly in a room full of people, or in that silence that came after the laughter. Sometimes he just wanted to hook up with him on a sober brain.

But Taemin's melancholic shadow would creep in through the cracks and cancel it all with its urgent call, and Jinki would run away chasing it.

And Taemin, too, welcomed him with the same dilated pupils, not a single sharp line in his face, and there was nothing unlikable about him, save for the things that were too complicated for either of them to comprehend.

Maybe he deserved to be adored by a bunch of invisible girls who actually paid for their comics. Not that he'd ever know.

Jinki gulped.

It is what it is. Fiction.

His eyes focused back to reality. His lover was sitting across the table.

“Hi,” Jinki said.

“Hi,” Kibum answered and waited for the questions with his lips pressed together.

Jinki blinked.

“Either I've been here for twelve hours without realizing it or your working day was super short.”

“It was. In fact, it lasted only about thirty-five minutes.”

“And?”

“The supervisor came.”

“And you were so charming they just gave you money and told you to go home?”

Kibum finally smiled.

“Don't forget that they were blinded by my beauty. No. It turned out,” he continued with a sigh, “that the supervisor was an old acquaintance of ours from today morning.”

Jinki's eyes rounded.

“No way!”

Kibum nodded.

“Yes. Basic . Told me that is how animals do it and that I need Jesus, but did admit that I'm a great folder after firing me. I told her that her lip filler needs Jesus, finished folding the shirt and got the out of there.”

Jinki looked at him for a moment, not knowing what to say, and burst into laughter, and Kibum couldn't help joining him.

“In my defense, it was just a really botched lip filler. She should've sued.”

“What are you gonna do, then?”

Kibum shrugged.

“Maybe I'll go to Forever 21 across the street, become a legendary salesman, and force H&M to shut down by stealing all of their clients.”

“Good plan.”

“Yeah. But not today. I've folded twenty pants and seventeen shirts and I'm tired.”

“So, what do you wanna do?”

“Hmm...” Kibum thought a little, tapping his chin with his finger. “We could go to the arcade and you could kick my at the basketball machine.”

Jinki grinned.

“If it involves your , I'm in, you know it.”

“Stop that or I'll blow you right here. What did you order?”

Jinki closed his laptop as Kibum reached for his cup. He stirred the remaining drink with the straw and took a sip.

“Yum, a real nice green tea latte! How come you take me to crappy Ediya and then go to A Twosome Place all by yourself?”

Jinki looked around, brow furrowed.

“Is it Twosome? I didn't know I was here.”

Unfortunately, Kibum knew that it might just be the truth.

He watched Jinki unplug the laptop charger (because he could never charge it in advance) and pack the computer in the bag, put his phone there and then look for said phone again because he forgot he'd just put it away.

“You were really in another world when I came. What were you thinking of?”

They got up and Jinki took care of the cup and the tray.

“This, that...” he answered with a shrug.

“Did you read Jjong's chapter by any chance?”

“Um, I did, yeah.”

Kibum sighed.

“I don't know why he has to be like this.”

“He asked if it's okay if we're in the story, we said ‘yes’. All is fair, I guess.”

“Well, if I'd known beforehand…”

Kibum threw a guilty look at his boyfriend, who was standing over him, ready to go.

“Yeah, but I was only portrayed as a bitter geek with ripped abs and a huge inferiority complex, and you are fine, so what's to complain about?”

He chose not to mention that the story also implied that the Nerd was in a way responsible for the Brat's suicide – surely it hadn't slipped Kibum's attention, too.

“Well, at least other things were also huge,” Kibum tried.

“I'll take that, yeah.”

“Did you think that Kimbab is kind of, I don't know... bossy and awfully clingy?”

“No, not at all,” the Jinki answered, nodding.

The other narrowed his eyes.

He realized his mistake and shook his head horizontally instead.

“I mean, really, no.”

Kibum wasn't thoroughly convinced, but he didn't want to discuss that tired subject anymore.

Jinki destroyed him in the arcade room – at all the games that required physical strength, at least. The basketball one was not among them, however – one of the balls he threw missed the basket and hit the wall so hard it flew back and whacked a guy in the forehead (Jinki himself had dodged it in time). The guy, who was there with a bunch of friends, trying out the kicking machine, was not happy about it, and words of apology did not have any effect. It didn't take the culprit long to estimate the possible outcome of his mistake (since when were freshmen so tall and bulky, and cracked their knuckles so loud?), and in a minute, he and Kibum were running down the street, maneuvering between walkers, old people and an occasional stroller.

“Lee Jinki, you're a disaster!” Kibum shouted from behind.

“That's why you love me!” Jinki replied, taking a sharp turn to a side street where the motel district began.

“Why are we running?

“Because I'm against violence.”

Kibum stopped and bent down, panting. He threw a glance behind his shoulder.

“No one is even chasing us!” he cried, and Jinki, who was about ten feet away, stopped, too.

“I totally knew that,” the other said.

From where he was standing, Kibum could see the drops of sweat covering his boyfriend's face.

He straightened up and crossed his arms on his chest.

“Oh, yeah? Then why were we running like frightened chickens from the cook?”

“For sports.”

Kibum smirked.

“Or maybe you wanted to pop in there and have a quickie?” he nodded to the sign of the motel invitingly called Heaven across the narrow road.

It was a rather ugly, dusty square building, but the pictures that were helpfully stuck to the windows promised big beds in comfortable rooms that weren't too bad on the eye.

“Oh, look, that bathtub is a beast!” Kibum noticed, coming closer. “That would fit three grown men, I'm sure. I wonder how much they take per hour.”

Jinki didn't follow him. He stood, breathing hard, eyes fixed on the plastic curtain, through which the milky blue color of the walls could be seen – as if it was Heaven, indeed.

“Oh, look, it's ‘Heaven’! I wonder if there's still place for us.”

Taemin let go of his arm and walked to the windows to see the previews of the rooms.

“Kind of tacky,” Jinki remarked, joining him.

“Come on, we've seen worse. I like the bed and the bathtub – we could easily get dirty in there.”

“That's what baths are for, after all.”

Taemin laughed.

“I wonder how much it is.”

“Looks expensive to me. We're too close to the big road for the good prices to start.”

“Well, it's my money. Can you go and ask the guy?”

Jinki's eyes flickered.

“Can't you?”

“I hate talking to people, you know that,” Taemin explained.

“So do I.”

Silence.

“Let's do rock-paper-scissors, then.”

Jinki conceded, they played the game, and after a couple of ties, he lost.

“May the Force be with you,” Taemin said, pushing him towards the entrance.

He walked through the plastic curtain, and was greeted by the smell of the automatic air freshener on the wall – the scent of the ocean. It was an ordinary lobby of an ordinary love motel, down to the grouchy-looking ajusshi in the window, who, as soon as Jinki cleared his throat and opened his mouth, silently pointed to the price table, without even raising his eyes from his crossword.

Jinki walked through the plastic curtain again.

“Thirty for one hour, ninety for night.”

Taemin tilted his head to the side.

“Isn't that a bit much?”

“It's Friday night.”

“Hm... How much is it for three hours, then?”

“Ninety, apparently.”

The younger man studied the pictures again, thinking.

“We can find something cheaper,” the other suggested.

“No, I wanna get into that bathtub with you.”

“You said your father was going to take your card away.”

“He doesn't care enough to go through with it.”

“But...” Jinki was hushed by a finger pressed to his lips softly.

“Shhhh.”

Taemin's lips stretched in a mischievous smile as he took his lover by the wrist and led him to ‘Heaven’. Maybe it was the soju they had drunk at the karaoke restaurant earlier, maybe it was the anticipation of the physical pleasure awaiting him behind the curtain, but it did feel like the place was suddenly a new world full of mystery and secrecy, and Taemin was his elusive guide – even though he'd already been to the other side of the gate himself some moments ago.

Maybe it was Taemin that made things special.

They shared a bag of M&Ms while waiting for the bath to fill.

Taemin had said he wanted to get dirty, but when they finally immersed their tired bodies in the hot water, they simply sat side by side, dosing off, surrounded by the thick and fragrant foam.

He was the first to fight against the tide carrying them both away and open his eyes.

“Your glasses have steamed up,” he said, laughing.

Jinki woke up and only saw blurry yellow light.

“It's like my eyes have their own sauna.”

Taemin chuckled and removed his glasses to place them on the edge of the tub. He leaned back again and looked at Jinki, smiling.

“What?”

“You're trying not to fall asleep, it's funny.”

Jinki tossed his head to shake away the warm sleepiness enveloping him.

He rubbed his eyes.

“I woke up early today.”

“Then wake up again. Like I do when I see you.”

He looked at his lover, studied his smooth, clean face, his dark eyes, his feminine plump lips that he so wanted to trust. His eyes weren't lying. It was confusing.

“Why do you say such things?”

“That's the way I feel.”

“Why, though? I mean, I'm not great or anything. I'm just a student. I like alcohol, food and games, and I don't know about Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninsky...”

“Rachmaninov.”

“…or whatever. I'm ordinary.”

Taemin drew Jinki's hair back and his cheek.

“What's not great about that?”

Jinki leaned in, but didn't kiss the other, their eyes conversing in silence. Taemin tilted his head and pulled his lover closer, closing the gap.

“Am I ordinary?” he murmured.

“I think you know the answer.”

Their lips pressed into each other again. Taemin's hand moved from Jinki's neck and rested on his cheek.

“I want to hear it from you. For you, among the people you know – am I ordinary?”

“Nobody's ordinary.”

“Am I?”

Jinki gave up.

“For me, among the people I know, you are special.”

Taemin chuckled.

“You tell me things I want to hear. Aren't you nice?”

I tell you things I choose to say.

Jinki didn't say that out loud. He never would.

So, he kissed Taemin again – that language was the easiest to speak, as its expressions yielded very little.

But it wasn't winter anymore. It was early April, cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom, and Kibum, with his red hair and dimples, Kibum who'd got fired that same day, was lusting after a bathtub at an overpriced motel where his boyfriend had made love with another man.

“Goodbye, Joonki. Goodbye, mother. I'm walking towards the silence.”

Did he? Did he walk?

No.

It's just fiction.

“You can't afford that, Kim Kibum.”

They both turned their heads and saw Jonghyun coming down the hill in their direction.

“How do you know what I'm looking at,” Kibum grumbled.

Jjong turned around and waved at a young, well-dressed guy who did the same before disappearing inside his car.

Their friend had also skipped his usual clothes for a casual, but low-key elegant dark blue suit.

“Someone's back in the trenches,” Kibum observed, looking him up and down.

“You were supposed to be working, no?”

“Fired for being gay and fabulous.”

Jjong put his hand on his shoulder.

“And I got paid for gay and fabulous . Oh, the irony.”

Kibum whined.

“Don't rub it in, please.”

“What were you guys gonna do, anyway?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Well, then, gentlemen…” Jonghyun threw his arms around his two friends. “…I propose to direct our steps to a merry place and get trashed.”

He looked at them, waiting for their reactions.

Jinki and Kibum nodded: they couldn't think of anything better themselves. And so, it was decided.

If Jinki had to think of someone, besides Kibum, with whom he wanted to spend the rest of the day, Jonghyun wouldn't likely be the first person on the list. He was annoyed because of the manhwa, and though he didn't want to talk about it, it was hard to keep his frustration in, and also, sometimes, when the three of them spent time together (willingly, not because they were all waiting for clients), he felt a little bit like a third wheel, or a witness to somebody else's lively friendship – that was his problem, he knew. But that latter circumstance was also the reason why he had to do what his boyfriend wanted: Kibum and Jonghyun didn't like to be apart for long.

Jjong was aware of the effect his latest chapter must have had, and in a wordless exchange of glances between them, he and Jinki seemed to agree to not tread that dangerous territory that day and get drunk side by side like two good friends would.

Jinki woke up in the middle of the night with a dry throat and dim mind – they'd got trashed alright. He sat up, waiting for his eyes to focus in the dark. Kibum was sleeping beside him with his mouth parted, like a baby. The thirst was unbearable.

He threw the blanket off and shuffled to the sink in his single slipper, hitting his knee on a corner on the way. (Kibum muttered something and turned his head to the other side.)

Jinki's head cleared a little as cool water travelled down his body. He was still barely aware of himself being awake, but his thoughts began rushing like a swarm of bees, bumping against each other as the new ones arrived, before he could even register them.

Is that what really happened? Could he really end it all?

He hadn't thought of that, just like he hadn't thought of a lot of things lately, but perhaps there was a time for everything.

“I feel tired. Onew, I can't... I mean, it's just not normal, to be so young and hate every ing second of my life. I'll kill myself and everyone will be better for it.”

Jinki finished one glass and poured himself another right away.

“I can hear what you're saying, but it's worse this time. I'm really this close to doing myself in.”

“Please, come, I don't know what I'm gonna do if I stay alone tonight.”

“I might cut my wrists tonight, for all I know.”

He finished the glass in two gulps, rinsed it and put it back on the rack.

“It's too much.”

“I can't bear it.”

“Please. Come.”

The water had had a good effect on him, but the air in the room was still suffocating him. Or maybe it wasn't the air at all. His head was beginning to ache.

Jinki rubbed his forehead, sincerely regretting that last bottle he had volunteered to finish by himself.

Something startled him.

He raised his head. Gulped.

The room was quiet enough for him to hear the ticking of his wristwatch sitting on the stool that he used as a bedside table, from where he was standing. It was maddeningly quiet.

Jinki walked to the bed and snatched his phone from said stool.

He opened Jonghyun's chapter and looked for something that was stuck in his mind, almost hoping he was wrong.

But it was right there, sticking like a sore thumb – that little, insignificant detail, that couldn't be a mere coincidence, even though he wished it was.

If he went to bed, it wouldn't matter tomorrow. He could end it all by simply letting go.

But after fighting himself for a minute, he messaged Jonghyun that he needed to see him. After all, the ‘getting trashed’ part mainly applied to Jinki and Kibum, as Jonghyun himself didn't drink that much. He was probably up drawing.

“Where are you going?” Kibum mumbled, woken up by the noise of clothes being put on.

“I need some air.”

“Don't get murdered. Morgues are creepy,” he said wisely and drifted off again.

Jjong wasn't sleeping, and he didn't look too surprised when Jinki stepped into his room with his bed hair. After their conversation on the phone, he had known that Jinki would have more questions for him – maybe he hadn't expected them to be that urgent.

“Come, sit down,” he said calmly, letting him in.

He walked over to the couch to put his papers away and make some room for the guest.

Candles were burning in a few places and a quiet jazz was playing – such a jarring contrast to the anxious pounding in Jinki's temples.

He didn't sit down.

“When did you meet Taemin? How?” he asked, his fist clenching on its own.

Jonghyun sighed and turned to look him in the eye.

“I need to get some coffee first, if you don't mind.”