chapter six

the things you can't say tomorrow day

Rei would be a fool to not notice how her student Yehwan looks at her. But if she were ever to come forward saying that she knew how attracted the other was to her, he would be surprised. Rei was leaving him to do several Physics questions on his own when he suddenly looked up from his paper and glanced at her. She was marking his other work two seats away from him. ‘How old are you?’ he suddenly asked.

Rei looked up at him. ’27,’ she said with a small smile. Precisely his guess, Yehwan thought. But she looked younger than her age. Maybe it was the youthfulness of her face, or just the way she talked.

‘Are you into younger guys?’ he asked.

Oh, God. Rei kept her thoughts to herself. ‘I’m not into any guys right now,’ she assured him. Yehwan kept quiet. It was no big deal; there were other cute girls in school but there was no harm in trying, right?

Rei was grateful he respected her enough to be decent in his manners. She could not begin to count how many times she had been offered extra bills for her to do something else, sometimes by the students she teaches, once by a father whose wife always returned home late and he would constantly watch her teach his seven-year old daughter. Some would try to hint at her without even offering anything.

The world was one full of infidelity, and the more she explored beyond the boundaries of school, the more it seemed as if love and commitment has lost its meaning. People were getting attracted to one another far too quickly, it was no wonder how she is barely fazed by words of emotion, of affection. That is why she has focused her time and energy into something she could treasure; money and information.

Rei glanced at her watch, and found that her tutoring lesson with Yehwan was over by five minutes. She checked her phone. It was time for her to leave. She stood up and neatly tidied her things. ‘Finish that and snap me your answers. You can do that, right?’

Yehwan nodded shyly.

‘You’re doing great,’ Rei patted his arm softly and gave a light squeeze. ‘I’ll see you Tuesday,’ she said, then picked up her bag, exiting the small study area into the living room where she bid Yehwan’s parents goodnight and walked out into the street.

She spotted a black SUV, then crossed the road.

Rei got into the car, sliding next to Jongin.

‘Hi, honey, how’s work?’ Baekhyun smiled cheekily at Rei, and the car erupted into snickered laughs and mockery. ‘You really do look like a professor,’ he commented on Rei’s disguising outfit of a sweater and fitted black pants, oversized glasses and tight neat ponytail. She lifted her arms and pulled off her sweater, which made Kyungsoo’s eyes widened slightly. She then ed her shirt and revealed a more casual light blue short-sleeved crop top. She caught Kyungsoo staring with a rather baffled look.

‘Sorry,’ she merely said, before neatly folding them so that she could fit them into her bagpack.

Jongin only laughed to himself seeing the look on Kyungsoo’s face.

‘Don’t do that, you’ll scare the poor kid.’ Baekhyun had a rolled piece of flyer he had picked up from the window of Chanyeol’s SUV, and he turned from his seat to hit Rei’s head with it. Rei pursed her lips as she rubbed the top of her head, though it barely hurt.

‘I-‘ Kyungsoo did not mean to. He felt slightly offended at the remark. But he kept to himself.

‘Seatbelt, Baekhyun.’ Chanyeol said.

They arrived at a different club this time, but operated just the same. Kyungsoo kept to the walls, watching them scatter and do what they did best. He was here for another reason. He had brought with him a DSLR camera, hoping he could get beautiful pictures of a scene from the nightlife. Thanks to the fairly dark atmosphere, save for the purple and red lights, it was pretty easy for him to move around and snap photos of strangers without them noticing.

The faces of ecstasy and carefreeness were the main features in his photos, decorated by wisps of grey smoke that floated above their heads. People were laughing and throwing their head backs, daring friends and co-workers to drinking shot after another. This was in the lounge. At the bar, people were calmer, some were alone, either there after heartbreaks or stress from work, Kyungsoo would never know.

Then there were the dancing people. Crowds, music, shameless dancing all were not products of proper choreography and mostly random. They were showered by changing lights, almost as if possessed by the music. It was ghostly somehow, and a dizzying effect that made Kyungsoo move away. ‘Hey,’ he was startled by a hand on his shoulder, but calmed down after seeing that it was just Sehun. ‘You okay?’

Kyungsoo nodded.

‘Come on, I’m done here.’ He invited and Kyungsoo was glad to follow him out. They exited through the back door and headed towards the street where Sehun led him to a 24-hour convenience store. Just what the doctor ordered, Kyungsoo thought as he immediately took himself to the fridge to grab a cold can of Coke. Sehun took a rather long time, using his arms as a basket for several sweet confectioneries, a packet of chips and a bottle of gas drink. It has come rather obvious to Kyungsoo how much of an enthusiastic eater Sehun was. It was hard to take him seriously sometimes seeing him eat again and again.

After paying, they sat near the SUV, Sehun satisfying his nightly hunger most innocently beside Kyungsoo. ‘Did you take lots of pictures?’ he asked.

‘Quite a bit,’

‘Can I take a look?’ Sehun asked and Kyungsoo pulled the band on the camera which he used to hang around his neck and passed them to Sehun. He quietly browsed them, rather impressed by Kyungsoo’s skills. ‘These are damn nice,’ he said. ‘Oh,’ he stopped at one picture. ‘Jongin looks good,’ he smirked. Kyungsoo stiffened. It was only then he remembered that he took a picture of his senior smoking with his customers and laughing.

‘You didn’t take any of Rei?’ Sehun turned to him, asking genuinely with his cool, dark eyes.

‘I didn’t find her,’ he shrugged, blurting out an excuse out of nowhere. It only occurred to him that he did forget about Rei. He had been so distracted by trying to find where Jongin was he forgot she was there too.

‘I’m going to throw these away,’ he gathered all the candy wrappings and plastics and went to find a garbage can. It seemed coincidental then that Jongin was the next one who appeared out of the back door, still smoking.

‘You’re alone?’ he asked as he walked out. Kyungsoo could feel slight anxiety.

‘Sehun too,’ he replied. Jongin nodded and leaned against the car.

‘Listen,’ he pulled his cigarette and breathed out fumes of smoke.

‘You left me in there!’ Soojung’s voice interrupted Jongin, who merely pushed himself off the SUV.

‘I didn’t mean to!’ Baekhyun snapped back at the girl. Rei was walking quietly behind the two, along with Chanyeol. It looked funny seeing the loud pair with each other and the quiet ones follow behind. Then Sehun returned. Kyungsoo kept his gaze on Jongin, wondering what he was about to say, but seeing him discontinue made him assume it was a private matter. Still, his curiosity would not settle.

‘Oh! Can we get ice cream?’ Baekhyun asked Chanyeol.

‘Yes!’ Sehun cheered. Chanyeol only sighed, but fulfilled their requests anyway before they returned back to the school, chattering and laughing like a group of normal, average high school students who had just came back from a normal outing on a normal Friday night.

Kyungsoo was no longer surprised to see Jongin alone walking with him, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun disappeared. ‘What were you going to say?’ Kyungsoo asked.

Jongin was biting down the last of his ice cream cone. ‘At the car?’

‘Yeah,’

Jongin took a moment. ‘I saw your painting,’ he said, not even looking at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo waited, assuring himself he could not have seen the portrait he did of him, but sweating at the same time.

‘Oh,’ they reached in front of Chanyeol and Kyungsoo’s room and Kyungsoo unlocked it, giving way for Jongin to enter first.

‘I feel honoured,’ Jongin smiled at him. Kyungsoo frowned as he closed the door.

‘You mean-‘

‘Yeah, I saw the picture of me,’ he sat down on Chanyeol’s bed. ‘Sleeping,’ he added.

‘I-‘ Kyungsoo stuttered. He was surprised Jongin could interpret such an artwork so precisely when he had made it so severely abstract that even his teacher could not dissect what lied behind the splashes of blue and yellow that harmoniously formed the human face in a different manner than natural. Like the rest of his paintings on canvas, it sat in a gap in between his desk and a slab of wall.

‘It’s okay, you don’t have to explain yourself.’ Jongin assured him. ‘Art stuff,’ he shrugged. ‘I like it,’ he said.

‘T-Thanks,’ Kyungsoo immediately proceeded to grab a towel and head into the bathroom, although it was cold and he did not want to shower, but the embarrassment was seeping up to his face, he was sure he was blushing so obviously. As the hot water from the shower tap hit the surface of his skin he felt a soothing patter of steam against his body, and he drowned in it, though he could not drown out the thoughts of things he did not want to think about.

What was wrong with him? He had not the slightest clue.

But it bugged him, how a face so beautiful and a smile so charming could stick in his head for so long, ceasing to leave him be. That bronzed skin, dark eyes and strong frame that made him stand out so much though no one else ever looked at him as such. It was only Kyungsoo.

As he stood there under the water, not really sure what was he doing, Kyungsoo then tried to reorganize his thoughts. Something is happening, but he had no idea what it is. It was probably safest he ask about it. Right?

He quickly turned off the tap, then grab his towel and wrapped it around his waist before he stumbled out of the bathtub and out of the bathroom. He looked for Jongin, and saw him putting on his coat and walking towards the door. He shot Kyungsoo a glance. ‘Do you not wipe yourself dry after you shower?’ he asked rhetorically finding the way he stood in front of the bathroom door, with his hair still dripping from water as if he was making an entrance, rather awkward.

‘I have a question,’ Kyungsoo voiced out as Jongin was turning the door knob. Jongin waited. Kyungsoo swallowed, not exactly sure how he was going to structure his words. ‘C-can you go from liking girls to guys?’ he blurted out in one go.

Jongin’s eyes were still with surprise. Kyungsoo sounded almost innocent, definitely naïve, and slightly dumb. ‘You mean go from straight to-‘ he nodded his head.

‘Not straight,’ Kyungsoo completed for him.

‘You can always test it out,’ Jongin shrugged. ‘That’s what Chanyeol did,’ he added. ‘He wasn’t always into Baekhyung, or other boys for that matter.’

‘How?’ Kyungsoo sounded more desperate than ever. Jongin carved a smile on his lips.

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you,’ Then he shut the door, and walked over to Kyungsoo, whose knees were beginning to weaken. Jongin walked strong and fast, and before Kyungsoo could figure out what he was about to do, he felt a hand grab onto the side of his jaw and a pair of lips on his.

He felt his heart lurch out of its cage, then begin to pump madly as if it were pumping a gallon of blood and adrenaline to his entire body, from the top of his head to his toes and fingers. He found himself shutting his eyes, then kissing Jongin back. Something about the way Jongin played with his lips made him rise in spirits. He could feel the hairs on his skin stand stiff straight. But it ended even before it felt as if it started. Jongin pulled away before Kyungsoo could do anything else.

‘Like that,’ he pulled his hand, then turn around to the door. Kyungsoo watch him walk out, still in a dream-like stance where he could not speak nor move, then Jongin shut the door, sending him into the space in between the four walls of his dark, empty bedroom, and into the realization that he was now alone.

And that he had just done something he had never done and never dreamed of doing in his life before; kiss a boy on his lips.