Prompt: “Gravitation”

Pairing: Kris/Tao

Words: ~1500

The building is dark and dusty, it hasn’t been aired out for weeks. There is a simple stairwell by the wall, and Kris places his hand on the railing, dragging his feet up the stairs painfully slowly, one by one. His legs feel almost as heavy as his heart, and he wishes he could fly. Fly away from here, this place where all those painful memories come flooding back.

Memories of Tao, the boy that defied gravity.

Tao was a few years younger than Kris, yet he seemed so much older. His hair was trimmed atop his crown in perfect alignment, his eyes sharp with ferocity behind them. Tao was the type of person that always got unnecessary attention, the type of person that always got into trouble. He couldn’t stay out of it.

Kris had met Tao a year or so ago, when the snow was falling from the sky and the streets of Seoul were dusted with the white powder, people rushing around with shopping bags in their hands as they completed the last of their Christmas shopping at the last minute.

Kris had no one to spend his break with, so he resolved in seeking solace in a small café barely a street away from his place of residence. The rooms of his apartment, though painted in warm yellow, felt lonely, and Kris with his tall stature found the roof too low with waves of claustrophobia.

He purchased a cappuccino and took a seat by the window, looking out at the children jumping through the snow as he sipped at his warm beverage. They all seemed so happy yet he had nothing but feelings of loneliness inside his heart. How could this be? How could he feel so lonely?

The light jingle of bells by the door indicated the arrival of a new customer, and Kris, despite his better judgment, had looked up. This was when he had first met Tao.

“Are you alone?” Tao said, plopping down in the seat beside Kris.

“You look lonely.”

His Korean was basic, with the hint of a Chinese accent. Kris could see the piercings that lined Tao’s earlobes, and the way he held himself in the presence of others. He seemed a vicious animal stalking his prey, and in any other instance, Kris would have quickly removed himself from the seat and out of trouble. But Tao’s eyes had ensnared him in their gaze.

“I… I am alone…” Kris mumbled, replacing his mug on the table.

“Well, I can keep you company,” his partner had said with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m Tao, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Kris.”

Tao had responded with the appropriate bow and a warm smile. His lips cast upwards and his white teeth shone, bedazzling a thoroughly confused Kris. He hadn’t realised such a person was capable of such an expression, but there were many things about Tao that Kris would never understand.

“What do you do as a living?” Tao had asked, his order placed gently on the table by a fearful looking waiter.

“I haven’t seen you around here….”

Kris gave him a small smile.

“I don’t get out much,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.

“I live about a block from here, but I spend most of my time indoors. I’m a web designer, so I do a lot of my work from home.”

“I see,” Tao responded with a nod of his head.

“I suppose that pays well?” he pressed.

“I get by,” Kris agreed.

Conversations like this became commonplace over the next few months. To Kris’ surprise, Tao frequented the little café, and Kris found himself walking down the street almost three times a week in the hope that he would run into the younger Chinese.

“Yes, I’m originally from China,” Tao explained one day.

“I can speak Mandarin fluently, but my Korean is slightly lacking, I’ll have to admit.”

“Why did you decide to move across here?” Kris asked. Tao glanced at the blonde, hesitation clear. Kris gave a simple nod of his head and the raven-haired immediately opened up.

“I have a past that I don’t want to catch up with me. Maybe one day you’ll understand.”

Kris did not press the matter. Perhaps with hindsight, that was the first sign for him that Tao was bad luck, but Kris couldn’t help but feel the need connect with someone; anyone that came his way, and Tao was that one person that broke the monotony of his day. Kris slowly became accustomed to the lingering glances the younger offered him, and the way Tao would always twist his mug twice anti-clockwise before taking a sip.

These nuances are now the things that remind Kris of Tao, the one he fell in love with.

“I have to leave next week,” Tao had announced, taking a sip of his serving of jasmine tea. Tao had never liked the strength of a full-bodied coffee like Kris did. Having grown up in China, his taste buds were not used to the caffeine that lingered on the lips of the drinker long after the beverage had been finished.

“You’re leaving?” Kris repeated slowly.

“I have to go back to China. Personal things need to be sorted out.” Tao responded with a nod.

“So I guess this is goodbye?”

Tao shook his head.

“It doesn’t have to be. But, it probably would be for the best. You’ve been in my life for longer than most, and that’s put you in a dangerous place. I think you should forget about me.”

Try as he might, Kris could not forget the familiar tuft of black hair, and the bags around dark, fierce eyes that he had come to long for secretly. Kris returned to the café at least once a week, in the hope that Tao would come back to him, but still, he would not come. True to his word, Tao had disappeared, and Kris was starting to wonder if he had been a figment of his imagination.

But Tao was as magnificent and omnipotent as the sun. His memory played in Kris’ mind daily, and as such the simple things he would pass in the street reminded him of Tao. It was only when a loud knock came to his door that Kris realised just how deeply Tao was involved in things Kris thought could only be fiction.

“Where is he?”

A gun pressed to his temple.

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb with me! Where is Huang Zitao?” Kris’ eyes widened in realisation.

“You mean Tao?”

A look of exasperation had crossed the man’s eyes, and Kris had slunk back even further into his pale leather couch, shivering at the close proximity of the weapon in question.

“All I know is that he went back to China.”

Kris’ house was searched, his laptop taken and checked over before being returned to him about a month later, the hard drive completely wiped. Almost a year of plans and codes he had worked on so long for work completely thrown out the window. He had lost his livelihood and had spent many a sleepless night with the headlight on, trying to make ground on all that had been erased.

The first time was not the only time he had received unwanted visitors. Local police came to question him constantly, federal agents, CIA dispatched from as far as America. Tao had faded out as fast as he had faded in to Kris’ life, and now Kris was paying the consequences.

But he didn’t mind. Meeting Tao was something he would never wish to turn his back on, even if it meant a month in a prison cell staring blankly at a white wall. Even if it meant escaping and running, running as far as he could, crossing countries, changing passports and identities illegally. Tao was the journey he never expected to have in his droll life.

Kris has been running since, which is why he finds himself in such an abandoned building. It looks like no one has used it for many a decade, it stands by itself on the pier looking out across a busy river filled with barges carrying cargo Kris can’t even imagine.

He has met his dead end.

He hears the click of a safety catch, his eyes glancing over his shoulder. He lets his hands slip to his sides, breath steady. He walks closer and closer to the edge of the building, arms outstretched. He hears a shout from behind but ignores it, taking his final step forward.

Maybe this is as close to flying as he will ever get. He imagines Tao, the innocent looking boy he had once met, the one that defied gravity and stopped time.

Maybe Kris will be able to defy gravity too.