and the story unfolds
Blotches of the GalaxyNamsoon first kissed him the night after he got chosen to be the Jjang. They went directly to Namsoon’s house to celebrate it with a dozen of comic books, handful of gums, a half open cigarette packs and packets of ramyun ready to challenge the night ahead (“The first one who gets to sleep is the slave!”). It wasn’t supposed to be a kiss, really. They were jumping around, happily hugging and laughing and then suddenly Namsoon was leaning in when Heungsoo bend his knees about to ruffle the younger boy’s hair. It was only last for about a split second but both of them were too shocked. Namsoon then stepped back hurriedly saying sorry and bumped his waist on a rotten chair that cut his skin open and Heungsoo chided him for being stupidly careless, that he might get an infection if he didn’t wash the cut like right now and tell him to take off his shirt so Heungsoo can just apply some ointment on it.
That was the first time Heungsoo realized how pale Namsoon’s skin is. It was a beautiful view that even if the blue marks that he got from being jumped off still scattered all over his body, they still shone like blotches of the galaxy. He saw how Namsoon’s backbone structured is bending in a pretty curve and his waist was in a straight line with his scapula and it just fitted perfectly in Heungsoo’s arms.
“They really shouldn’t hit you that hard.” He scowled
Namsoon hissed when the cotton ball pressed to his skin “And you shouldn’t slap them that hard afterwards either, they were just carrying the rule. Why would you hit them?”
“Because they hit you harder than they should. Look at these bruises! What kind of a fighter are you to be so easily bruised like this? I can tell this is just a small poke but the bruise it forms almost the size of Jeju-do!”
Heungsoo got a jab on his stomach right after saying that. He laughed it off though. And after carefully applied the ointment, he went straight to the shower. He really needed a cold one.
The second time Namsoon kissed him, it was a lil bit longer, and sloppier, and hotter. It was in between cheap stolen bottles of soju and peanuts and cigarettes, after Heungsoo scored the winning goal for their team, after a talent scout came and told him that he ought to come to Seoul to make it big. Namsoon kissed him hard and bite his lower lips and laughed at his what-the--is-that-face.
“You deserved that .” He said out flat. Both of them stared at each other for a long time. Heungsoo wiped the trickling blood from his lips. It was salty and rusty, then Namsoon broke into this lunatic laugh that led to a painful sob and Heungsoo just have to take him in to his arm and patted him to sleep.
He felt hurt, his bleeding lips, his thumping heart, his dizzy head, and his wandering fingers. All have been hurt so badly. He spent that night staring at Namsoon’s back.
Don’t leave
The words weren’t said. But how much better will things get if any of them have said it?
Heungsoo never knows.
No matter how hard he bang the glass window (he just want to break it, better the glass than his heart, jumped down two stories like what they always do when skipping classes) begging for Namsoon not to leave him, that bastard doesn’t even spare a fraction of his heart for him to hold on to.
That bastard really had left him behind. Broken. Alone.
Heungsoo spent the next days stared at the window. He saw people pouring in the building, he saw them crying, he saw them holding hands, he saw them on their phones, he saw them walking, he saw them breaking in happy laughter, he saw them carrying their relatives bodies away. He saw life, he saw death and at the end, he had decided that all of it doesn’t matter anymore.
He saw Namsoon leaving him at the dawn of the day. He might as dead as well ever since.
Heungsoo threw up a lot. He vomited when his friends from school came visited him, when there were soccer match out on tv, when Sunhee came and brought him mangas (she’s too nice, he doesn’t even deserve her, he thought as he poured her laps with his not-so-well-digested-breakfast), when his teacher came and talked to his sister about him losing too many classes since he were admitted to the hospital, and -more often- when he saw Namsoon stared back at him under the window every single night.
The doctor said that they still need time to find out the problem with his digestion system. Her sister said that even so, she’ll just take care of him at home. He knew she glanced at the window nervously while she was saying that. He didn’t say anything but shoved his pair of socks to the plastic bag she brought. Besides, he was not the only one who was rooming in the hospital for the entire months; their mother also needed every penny lefts to survive.
“You had to get better, Heungsoo-yah, “ her sister said on their way home, “you have about five months left till the next academic year before you can coming back to school. Better find a job so you can get over… I mean you need to get yourself busy so you won’t think too much of it.”
Heungsoo threw up once again.
That night after her sister left for her second part time job, He took his crunches and started to walk to Namsoon’s house. It was dark, the house. Namsoon hates dark. He remember how that bastard whined about those loyalty bull whenever he sneak to his room when the truth is he knows he hates sleeping alone at his house surrounded by darkness. Loyalty my , Heungsoo sneered at the thoughts.
He entered the house with the key he got from Namsoon and goes directly to his room. He found him there smiling, laughing at his new manga, chuckling and rolling and slurping instant ramyun. And it felt like the world around him had back to be its normal self. The air didn’t seem to be that cold, the night seemed bright, and Heungsoo felt like the burn on his chest had gone. He straightened his legs and lunch forward to enter the room.
That’s when Namsoon disappeared.
Trails left from him were only packs of instant ramyun, chips, green bottles and cigarettes.
Heungsoo’s legs gave up on him and he fell down with a loud thud at the corner of the room and he stayed there all night long, tried to sort things out, where Namsoon would be, what he would do, how would he face the upcoming match without Namsoon being his number one supporter in soccer, ah.. that’s right, there’ll be no soccer for him, no more. Not after…
And the tears started to fall down.
His first part time job was at a convenience store. It just oh so conveniently that it is the very shop Namsoon once broke its window and Heungsoo had to bail him out of it. It reminded him of how easily Namsoon would go around breaking things. This window, his lips, his leg, his heart…
He quit after he fainted on his first day there.
Sunhee kissed him somewhere in between his part time jobs. She was delivering notes saying that it would help if he kept tabs on studying if he intended to go to school. He said it was useless, now that his mum had given up on meds and passed away the week after (Namsoon always said that she’ll wake up one day, lying liar who tells loes, he bitterly thought), he doesn’t have the obligation to do filial duty no more, so the intention to go to school had become too bothersome and making money now seems so easy. She kissed him square on the mouth, complete with tongue and hand sneaked at his neck.
He was stunned. To say that it was arousing is belittling. He never had anyone touch him that intimate aside from Namsoon (that bastard has always been too touchy and never did learn a thing about people’s personal boundaries). So it was kinda off, yet appealing, but awkward, and he didn’t move a thing. Sunhee took it as a yes as she preceded her move to the next level and Heungsoo just let her be.
It was quite fun, a lil bit thrilling, but not yet fulfilling.
And Heungsoo decided that if he can’t find the joy of live without Go Namsoon, he’ll just have to make up for it to survive.
Sunhee dragged him back to school at the new academic year. It was kinda embarrassing though, to see his friends had become seniors, to hear questions about Namsoon’s where about, to come to PE classes to watch his sport teacher tiptoed around soccer’s issues, and to reject girls’ offers to help him like he can’t in stand on his own. It mounted on him when one of the boys asked him during lunch if he had heard anything from Namsoon, (“that bastard still owed me $20!”), he poured his lemon juice to his head and broke his nose after. He threw him the money and left the scene still boiled inside and decided to shuttle it out on some poor benches and desks nearby.
He didn’t need the school’s violence committee decision to come out, he declared quit that very day.
(Namsoon used those twenty bucks to buy him new soccer pants because his old one was torn out. “I don’t want to see you running around with , Stupid !” He said when Heungsoo scolded him for spending money that wasn’t necessarily needed.)
He broke up with Sunhee the day after, and she was angry enough to send some bastard to beat him to pulp. Not like he needed some more, but he had to say that he did well by beat those scum instead of getting beaten by them. Two out of three lost their front teeth, and the last one nearly lost his foot too when he almost smashed that bastard’s leg out of anger but manage to stop himself short. One broken leg is enough. But that didn’t stop him from being reported to the police. He had to stay for four good weeks in jail before her sister managed to compile a few crumpled bills to bail him out. Her hands was wry, full of cuts and wrinkles
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