He thinks he misses him; sometimes; always. He doesn’t care, to decide a frequency accurately you have to set a certain amount of period then count how many times the occurrence happened, only then you can differentiate between ‘sometimes’ and ‘always’. The thing is he doesn’t set the time limit, he is still alive and just as constant as his breathing is his time spends with a shadow of a face that stirs something deep within him. And as he stares at the flickering candle in his dim, dark room, he realizes that maybe he always misses him.

He cannot sleep, Kim Jonghyun cannot sleep and it’s been somewhat a public secret, at least for someone who bothers to know who he is. His insomnia is as famous as his talent for writing and composing, and sometimes he doesn’t know if it’s something he should be happy or not. Remembering the amount of candles and well wishes he received, he supposes he should be happy since this gives him the opportunity to know that there are people who cares about him. Speaking from health point of view, however, he should not be happy with his irregular sleeping schedule.

And Jonghyun misses him, again. At three forty three in the morning when the dawn is close to breaking, Roo is curled on the feet of his bed, her fluffy body radiating warmth that Jonghyun often seek when he feels the blood-chilling blanket of weariness falls over him instead of drowsiness. He would have seek for Roo’s comforting heat if not for the near excruciating longing that seems to take over his body with each exhale as if they’re fused together with oxygen particle in the air.

He misses him like a child misses his mother and he starts to wonder when did everything become like this.

Jonghyun groans, burying his face to the pillow as pitch-black as his hair. The flicker of candlelight is still dancing behind his closed lids, overlapping with the image of porcelain face that he craves for so much. It triggers another images; of pale expanse of skin; of bow-shaped lips; of shy smile; and of sharp, feline eyes. He’s signing himself to his doom because the next thing his mind do is backtrack their locus of memory, remember, remember, of things he might have lost forever and things he could have had.

And he needs to stop thinking about him because the more those hear-searing smile painted itself in his crowded mind, the further sleep seems to slither away from the edge of his fingertips.

It’s three thirty forty six in the morning and Jonghyun’s mind is singing, singing of what ifs and affliction, and he misses him he almost reaches out to his phone, lying somewhere on his bedside table. But it’s three thirty six turning three thirty seven, he must be sleeping right now with his pink lips puckered up and long lashes casting shadow over his fair skin. Jonghyun remembers how he used to brush his lips shyly over his cute, button nose and earns an equally cute mumble in return.

Bad move, Jonghyun, his thought tells him. Jonghyun almost cry, he just want to stop thinking and stop missing him and he just want this excruciating moment of yearning to stop. The exquisite pain of longing, when even misery can turn into something this impeccable, Jonghyun knows he is in too deep already.

It’s now three fifty nine and Jonghyun’s cheeks are adorned with gleaming track of tears.

Soon it’s gonna be four, then five, then sun will returns, spreading its glorious golden wings then paints the sky in scarlet, purple hues. It could have been the most beautiful thing in the world but he has taken that crown in Jonghyun’s heart. Soon, he will raise and Jonghyun will fall. If day is Jonghyun’s downfall then it’s his creation. He’s beautiful and like phoenix that rises from the ashes, his beauty is eternal, everlasting, and Jonghyun is held captive by that sheer wonder.

His phone is still lying on the table, motionlessly taunting, mocking him. Pick me, he can almost hear the device calling for him. Jonghyun feels the delirious urge to throw the burning candle for adding salt to his already opened, red and raw wound. But he is too weak and battered to even lift a finger, too exhausted from wishing, and he is not ready to lost the comforting presence of constantly dancing orange flame.

He whimpers. Even the heavy blanket over his body doesn’t help supplying the necessary heat to banish the chilling air that dampens his remaining energy. Lethargy settling his weary mind, yet sleep is thousand miles away, not bothering to turn their merciful attention to him. He wonders if this is some kind of punishment, for yearning, for longing, for wanting, and desiring, and for loving someone he probably is not allowed to love.

His face twists into grimace of pain. Whoever decided that he should not be loving him, Jonghyun wants to know what kind of standard value he uses to stamp Jonghyun’s feeling as ‘unbecoming’. Another part of his mind cruelly supplies that it’s probably logic. Logic, of defined formula and certainty. But feeling and emotion are not feeling and emotion if they’re constructed from number and ratio. His mind ventures to the unjust of the situation, that even feeling is reduced into something that you’re not in total control of regardless of their endless chastising of keeping one’s emotion in check.

Jonghyun loves him but he’s not allowed to, because of numbers and societal values that constitute a colossal-sized rift between him and his beloved. It’s four in the morning now and Jonghyun sets his foot down despite the dangerous spiraling of his head. He exhales when he becomes aware of the small tremor that starts rattling his fingers, it’s okay, he convinces himself.

A while later then when his whole trembling has finally slipped away, drained from his body and returned to earth thru his feet like thunder, Jonghyun regains his footing and makes his way to plop down on the small chair beside his table. He looks at his phone as if the electronic device is holding all answer to world’ greatest mystery. It’s hyperbolic at best but for now, it could be the solution to Jonghyun’s dilemma.

His throat starts to burn. Jonghyun wants to clutch his heart out because there is that spot that spasms feverishly, tormenting him in slow, frenzy cadence of heartache. He wouldn’t be surprised if someone cut his chest open and gouge his throbbing heart out only to find it bleeding from multiple of lacerations left by his coveting. Drawing in as much oxygen as possible, Jonghyun hesitantly reaches out to his phone with quivering hand.

He almost chokes out a relieved sob when he cradles the phone safely in his palm. The square gadget is chilly on his febrile skin, the temperature contrast is probably enough to make something crack, either the phone of Jonghyun. He does crack first, fingers sliding smoothly over the screen after hovering over it shakily. The phone unlocks itself and together is the breath Jonghyun has been holding. His sister’s smiling face that greets him sends wash of comfort around him but his heart constricts painfully when he is reminded that, as much as he loves his sister, it’s not her smile he needs to see at the moment.

Marching through the troops of reluctance, Jonghyun opens up the messaging application, presses on a certain name, then stops his fingers. He stares down at the name and it’s really funny how a mere name can elicit two different emotions at once; gripping misery and tranquilizing joy. For a while, vacillation clouds his mind, it’s as if he is about to breach a forbidden boundary, charting a perilous territory. But it’s four eighteen and his weeping heart is begging for mercy, so Jonghyun does the only thing to alleviate his agony,

Hey

Are you there?

Are you awake?

...probably not

God, I feel silly

….

I just want to say,

I mean

….I’m not sure if I should say this, but

I miss you

A lot.

A pause. Jonghyun feels silly, he is ready to laugh at how pathetic he is. In his climb to thirty yet he is still a foolish, love-sick man who dreams of something that is out of the question. His passion is nefarious for world who seems to grow anything but judgmental. He fears rejection but above all, he fears seeing him rejected with full knowledge of how much it will affect him. Jonghyun is okay if he was the one denied for his iniquitousness but he is too ethereally beautiful for such mistreatment. Even if this world is crippled, he will be there, standing in all his majestic grandeur. Smiling, smiling and killing Jonghyun at the same time at the realization that that smile cannot be his and only his alone.

I’m so pathetic, aren’t I? He types again.

Another pause, then, this is like one of my song you know. Not that surprising since that song was written when I was...yeah, like this.

…..are you awake? It’s, he glances at the white digits at the corner of his phone. Four twenty three, and I miss you a lot. What about you? Are you? When does you miss me?

I’m sorry. I’m so whiny, aren’t I?

I bet that’s why you, yeah. I should shut up. But I just can’t, I can’t because this hurts so much. I miss you, I miss you and it’s,

Driving me crazy, Jonghyun thinks. He carries himself back to his bed, fingers are still typing furiously, pouring his words over and over again. The lovelorn part of him is doing this just to tell his beloved how he feels but the cruel part of him wishes that by knowing how much Jonghyun laments, he will be hurt as well. Such a vengeful heart, but it’s still capable of loving. Jonghyun supposes that unless you can hate so unfeelingly, you wouldn’t be able to love so much. There is no thin line that separates the two - love and hate - they are one from the very beginning, like everything else in this world that comes into pair, the feeling cannot go without one another. Like Adam and Eve but even if Jonghyun is an Adam for someone else out there, he doesn’t want Eve that is not him.

Four twenty seven finds Jonghyun lying on his bed, fingers freezing above his phone screen, eyes unblinking. He has written enough for a song already and he doesn’t think he will appreciate dozens of text flooding his notification. Too much and chances are he wouldn’t even bother reading it at all, so Jonghyun locks his phone back. With the screen turned off, the light goes off, leaving the burning candle as the room’s only mean of illumination. He lets the phone drop from his grip, sliding down his chest to lay down- his bedsheet.

Sighing, he closes his eyes. Writing does help and now his frustration is out from his system, sleep flirts out to him, reaching out with its tender and inviting embrace. And when Jonghyun answers its embrace with his own weary one, clock turns four thirty.

:::

He doesn’t wake up often to cooling fingers laced with his own. So he does the most logical thing to do, open his sleep-bleary eyes to find out the source behind that soothing touch that also sets his whole body on fire. When a sight of black, ebony hair and porcelain-like skin greets him, Jonghyun gasps.

A pair of cinnamon, feline-like eyes are on him; searching, looking, asking with no words but it’s enough for Jonghyun to read the thousands of unspoken feelings hidden in the depth of that suffocative gaze. He wants to say something in place of their silent communication but the only thing he can manage is a choked out sobs, and tears are pooling on his eyes before they make their free fall, wetting Jonghyun’s cheeks with silvery trails.

“Silly you,” he speaks lovingly, drawing Jonghyun to his embrace, so delicate (like Jonghyun’s heart is at the moment) yet so certain at the same time that he has not intention of letting go. Jonghyun returns the embrace, clinging on him like a child, like blood would oxygen. “Do you miss me that much?”

The only answer he can supply in his overwhelmed state is a nod at the crook of his neck. Having his desire right here in his arms feels right, it’s so liberating but captivating at the same time, turning Jonghyun into a chock-full of emotion that threaten to burst at any moment. His body is singing in pleasure and thinking that maybe a simple nod is not enough, Jonghyun’s desirous mind decides he has to give different kind of answer.

He kisses him.

At first, he is still, then the more sure Jonghyun becomes with his move, he starts to answer, returning the kiss with the same fervor. Jonghyun turns them over so he is hovering over his taller yet slimmer body, careful to brace his hand on either sides of his head as not to crush him. The raven climbs his hands on Jonghyun’s shoulders, torn between holding Jonghyun in place or pulling him close because apparently, even for him this proximity is not enough. Humming in bliss, Jonghyun deepens, the kiss, coaxing his mouth open with his tongue and slide them in with no hesitation. He moans beneath him, warm body that sends Jonghyun’s own in blazing delirium.

“Jjong,” he says, voice shaky and breath uneven, when Jonghyun lets go from lack of oxygen. Not that he needs one when he has the man before him, flushed and beautiful.

“Yeah?” Jonghyun’s voice is dripping with want, desire so painstakingly clear but he is not ashamed.

“I don’t think it’s wise to continue, I mean,” his gaze flickers to the door. After a slow exhale, he looks up at Jonghyun apologetically, “your mother and sister are downstairs...”

Jonghyun’s face twists into expression of pain. “But I miss you,” he is aware of how needy he is becoming but to hell with that, he needs this man right here right now. If Jonghyun is an abandoned man at the desert then he is his water and Jonghyun will fight for him.

“Me too. But we don’t want to upset them, do we?” He softly cradles Jonghyun’s face in his palms, soft and electrifying, so dizzying that Jonghyun has to close his eyes as the last of his stubbornness slip away from him. The power this man has over him is terrifying, if he tells Jonghyun to die than Jonghyun will be more than willing to throw his life away for the cause.

“I guess so. Yeah, you are right.” But Jonghyun kisses him again, one long, press of lips on lips before distracting himself from the younger man, only to pull him into his embrace once again. For a while, all Jonghyun can feel is him around him and every cells, every atomic particles that make up his being are bursting with delight. Jonghyun breathe him in until all air that enters his lungs is constituted of his enticing scent of musk and vanilla with a tinge of mint.

“It’s only been two hours since you fell asleep,” he breaks the silence with his melodic voice, snuggling closer as if to absorb all of Jonghyun’s body heat away. Jonghyun doesn’t mind, he can be numb if it’s for him .”Sleep, Jjong. You need it.”

“Will you,” Jonghyun murmurs.

“I will.”

Silence again, then Jonghyun lets out a relaxed sigh.

It’s six thirty in the morning and Jonghyun briefly pictures him knocking on Jonghyun’s door apologetically just when the sky turns purple and orange from the rising sun, still in his silk, burgundy pajamas.

Then it turns six thirty three. Jonghyun is a breath away from sleep when he plants a badly coordinated yet tender kiss on his beloved’s lips, earning a spine-tingling giggle in return. “I miss you. So much.”

“And me,” he faintly hears Kibum’s voice, so close to his heart but far away for his steadily fading away consciousness, “I miss you too, Jonghyun.”

:::

When Jonghyun opens his eyes for the second time in the day, the clock reads two twenty five. Roo is curled on the feet of his bed, her fluffy body raising and falling to her even breathing. And in his arms sleeps the most beautiful man in the world, his end and his beginning,

Kim Kibum.