I remember that your hands were soft and warm, like you’d never worked a day in your life. I remember that your smile felt like the sun and your voice tasted like chocolate. I remember that your laugh pulled at the corners of my mouth like magic. I remember that we tangled perfectly on cheap sheets cleaned too many times.

Jongin tilted the worn front of his journal closed, keeping his place with his pen, leaning back in his chair as the server came around with his coffee and scone, running a hand through his hair. It was a beautiful day today and he was sitting outside the shop on the wide sidewalk while the sun still had dew to play with. It was too nice a day to be reminiscing, even if that seemed to be what this coffee shop was built for. 

He closed his small journal and opened his big one, crossing his legs and bringing the big porcelain cup to his lips. It had been long enough, now, that the servers knew exactly what to bring him, and his tips had gotten generous enough they’d eventually told him to hold formation at paying twice the actual price of his coffee. That long and still his memories were as sharp as the morning sunshine. 

He’d hoped he would’ve gotten rid of his small journal by now. Pages full of scribbled I remembers and I still think it’s loves. Poured onto the page like poems. Poems were supposed to be for life happening right now, he knew. Poems lasted forever because they were written about life, not memories.

A couple rounded the corner, arm in arm, and began to stroll down the street, speaking in hushed tones of giddy ardor. His heart sprang towards the small journal, apparitions appearing in his head. I remember your breath on my ear telling me there could never be anyone else. The big journal was only a little bigger, and he opened it.

The man wore a brown leather jacket, a blue t-shirt, and tan trousers, and the girl a pretty rose-printed dress. He thought she probably smelled like roses. He put his pen down on the paper and wrote a page about Rose and her beau, and what they were doing in Paris: they were waiting for life to tell them to do something else, of course.

The street was really more crowded than that; he liked this cafe because there was always foot traffic and he could watch life go by and maybe try to capture a little bit of it with his pen, if not with his heart. Perhaps it was a little unethical, leeching off others’ life like a child smelling a baker baking bread in the morning, but it kept the memories away.

“You never asked my name, you know. Jongin.” 

Jongin, in the middle of putting his change back in his pocket, looked up at the server. It was the same one as always, short and slender, with wide eyes and heart-shaped lips. 

“I’m sorry.” He frowned, running his hand through his hair again. Dropped it awkwardly; he did that too much. The server’s eyes seemed to follow the motion. “Perhaps I should have.”

“It’s Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo’s mouth tugged upwards, and Jongin gave a small smile. He liked the way the name sounded in his head.

“Thank you.” Thank you? Jongin thought, as he moved to his usual seat indoors, at the booth by the window, where he could watch both the street traffic and the clientele in the cafe and try to fill up his big journal and forget his small journal existed. Thank you? Had he forgotten basic social graces in the space of a few months?

Four boys no older than sixteen made their way haphazardly down the street in mismatched flannel and ripped jeans. One had blue hair, one’s hair was to his shoulders. Their voices crowded over each other, but Jongin was fascinated to find that no one voice seemed the leader, nor did one seem to be the odd one out. He penned it: a friendship close to perfect, where everyone seemed to glamour just the same amount. They even argued about which street to turn onto. He wrote a short story about four friends who were lost. But being lost really only happened when you were alone.

Luhan always used to say that. I can’t be lost when I’m with you. And his mouth would quirk up confidently, and he would bring his soft hands to run gently over Jongin’s stubble, and make an offhand comment about needing to shave.

“Nice coat,” Kyungsoo murmured as he placed Jongin’s coffee in front of him. Jongin looked down; he’d worn his winter coat today, his breath misting and his lungs burning slightly on the walk to the cafe. It was long and wool and brown. Serviceable. “Makes your eyes look lighter.”

Jongin replied, “Thank you,” and was pretty sure that was the right thing to say, in that situation.

An old woman with three legs: two that wobbled under her weight, and one made of wood, a cane, on which she leaned her bent frame. An old pink coat draped over her shoulders and her wispy grey hair pulled back into some sort of loose bun. It took her a whole two minutes to get five feet. Was walking painful for her, or just slow? Jongin blew on his coffee; it was hot today. Kyungsoo had made a perfect tree on it with that cream stuff, he though idly. He perfected the tree thingie.

I remember you used to talk about getting old with excitement. You wanted one of those benches that swings on a big front porch that we could sit on and greet the neighbors from. You wanted a milkman, a real life milkman. I told you growing old didn’t mean going back in time.

He wrote about how she sat at home in a big plush sitting chair that fairly enveloped her and watched television in fascination. How sometimes her daughter stopped by to see her and an aide came to make her food but she had to take the recycling out herself. But when her daughter stopped by she was so happy that the chair seemed like a whole new world.

“What do you write in there, every day?” Kyungsoo asked, hesitantly putting his hands into the front pockets of his apron. The radiator by Jongin’s legs was especially warm today, and Kyungsoo had gotten the tree thingie perfect again.

“Stories.” Jongin stopped, then shoved his hair back, looking up at Kyungsoo in earnest, realizing that was a flimsy answer. “I write about people. I steal people. It’s rather, you know, wrong of me.”

“Could I read one?” Kyungsoo asked, his eyes widening like he was bracing for a hit, or some lash of consternation. Jongin smiled a little. One wouldn’t come. Every writer loved people reading what they wrote, and if they said they didn’t they were simply very good liars.

He opened the big journal for Kyungsoo and watched over the top of his coffee cup as Kyungsoo’s eyes travelled over the words. Hoped his handwriting was legible. Felt himself react subtly when Kyungsoo’s mouth popped open a little in concentration and he leaned forward on the table. Took a sip of his coffee like nothing at all was important when Kyungsoo blinked and looked up, finished.

“It’s beautiful,” Kyungsoo said, tone hushed.

“You think? It’s probably identity theft.”

Kyungsoo’s lips dipped downwards and he said, “Not at all. It makes me want to cry.” 

I remember how your second toe was longer than your first toe and how you were ticklish. But I could never tickle you, because whenever I tried, you would tickle me, and I was even more ticklish than you. I remember the way your tongue felt sliding against mine. It made my senses sing.

It was a bad day. The small journal sat open and Jongin’s shoulders were tense from hunching over it. He couldn’t understand how the big journal could make someone want to cry. This was all he needed. This, and to sit back and let Luhan wash over him like a wave of vivacious life, and to coax the wind into resembling his voice.

It was probably a stupid decision to keep being a writer after Luhan left a note for him saying, try writing something happy. or else just go try doing it yourself. i’m so sorry about last night. i never deserved you.

I remember seeing you pressed against the door of the car, your hands in his back pockets, giving him your tongue, your taste, your scent. I remember seeing you pour the beautiful chords of your voice into his ear. You had just dyed your hair pink, and it shone silvery in the moonlight.

“Are you ever going to let me read what’s in the other journal?” Kyungsoo asked him as he watched the heavy snowflakes falling gently to the earth. 

A nervous laugh. “Lord, no. Then you’d really think I was crazy.”

“Ever? It can’t be that bad.” Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes.

“It can. It is. I—“ Jongin cleared his throat, moving the small journal away from Kyungsoo and feeling a pang of shame about it. “Bad breakup. Can’t you tell? I hope I’m brooding hard enough.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve seen better brooding in my day. Brooding doesn’t usually result in beautiful literature that deserves to be published.”

“I think I’ve been insulted.” Jongin pouted.

“I’m serious! Not everybody can do what you do! Here, let me try.” Kyungsoo bit his lip as his eyes scanned the cafe and lit upon a blonde twentysomething girl with red lipstick. “She looks like that girl in those Coke commercials. I bet they pay her in Coke, and that’s all she lives on except when she comes here, and her eyes are wide like that because all that’s pumping through her veins is—“ he leaned forward conspiratorially— “caffeine and sugar.”

Jongin laughed, a deep belly laugh that he immediately tried to quell so he wouldn’t disturb the other customers. Then he uncapped his pen, giggling when Kyungsoo tried to snatch it from him and re-cap it, mumbling something about you can’t actually be about to write that—

You loved having snowball fights. You'd wrap me into so many layers I felt like a molten snowball myself, and then prod me outside into the untouched snow on the roof of our apartment building, using the chimneys as barriers to hide behind. Your nose always got red though. 

He began lingering for longer at the cafe. It was a cold walk to a lonely home, and while his friends invited him out at night, the nighttime ate at him in a way the morning always seemed to wash away with a heart-shaped smile. He bought a new laptop (the old one was smashed in a rare—if singular—fit of rage) and typed up one of his stories. It was about a little girl who had a caterpillar in a pill bottle. She took it home and named it Roger and convinced her blind grandfather she had a real playmate.

The publisher liked it. He didn’t need more money because the book he thought of as Luhan’s Book gave him a steady enough income, but he liked the occasional tweets and he especially liked the letters mailed to his P.O. Box.

“You talented sonofa,” Kyungsoo said mildly, holding the paper close to his face as he read the excited, cramped writing. “Better make sure she doesn’t start stalking you or something. It wouldn’t be very hard, you know. All she needs to know is this cafe, and boom. She’s gotcha.”

“You can have it,” Jongin replied, noticing how Kyungsoo’s skin reflected the paleness of the melting snow outside. There was beggining to be more foot traffic outside the cafe again, a sign that spring was approaching. “You’re the one who told me to publish these in the first place. They were just supposed to—“ He stopped.

“To be a distraction from your other journal,” Kyungsoo finished. “You know, I’d rather that be my reward. Just a peek.” But Jongin was already shaking his head.

“Well, I don’t know what else I can do to make you forget him, Jongin,” insisted Kyungsoo. His eyebrows were drawn together and the paper of the fanletter was buckling under the pressure of his fingers. His rounded, articulate fingers. “Writing about him certainly won’t. I once knew a writer, back in high school. She told me when she was writing a story, she got so into her character’s heads it was like they walked around with her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Jongin’s voice was shaky. Kyungsoo didn’t say anything else, just pressed his lips together so that instead of hearts, they were a line. Luhan would have whined, or just kept on talking.

When Jongin didn’t answer, Kyungsoo sighed, sliding out of the bench beside him to return to the counter. He took the letter with him. 

I remember you had the worst handwriting. It looked like chicken scratch. You always said it made up for my nice handwriting, because you said writers were supposed to have terrible handwriting. 

His small journal was almost full. Kyungsoo smiled at him the next day, and said hi, but that was it. Jongin caught his wrist as he turned to walk away. “Wait.”

Kyungsoo turned. Waited. “It’s all about him. I don’t see why you would want to read it.” Jongin shoved a hand through his hair, then let it dangle out the open window, a breeze kissing his hand. A spring breeze. “Burn it, though. You’re right that it can’t be good for me. Brooding is tiring anyway. I’m a softie and I need, like, carnivals and puppies or something.”

Kyungsoo stared at the journal Jongin was holding out to him. He blinked, then realized he was supposed to take it, and his hands closed around it almost reverently. “Burn it?”

“Well, yeah. Wait, does leather burn? Was that stupid to say?” Jongin touched the back of his ear nervously.

“No, no, not at all. I was just… okay. I… okay.” Kyungsoo looked sheepish, like he’d done something wrong. But he turned and tucked the journal away somewhere for later, avoiding eye contact with Jongin across the cafe. Jongin turned his eyes to the street, and the band of Chinese tourists who in turn eyed him curiously.

I remember… I remember… I remember…

What a stupid routine. He realized he’d always thought of something, some part of Luhan, when he took his first sip of coffee. Like it blooming on his tongue meant Luhan had arrived for the day.

He took a bite of his scone first instead. Ew. Too dry, without the coffee first. Kyungsoo had made a different design in his coffee today and it looked like some kind of rose. A mother and daughter hurried down the sidewalk, looking like they had to get somewhere very quickly. The daughter was young and wearing a lot of makeup. A recital? He opened his journal.

“Did you burn it?” He asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Kyungsoo shrugged. A smile was playing across his lips. 

“You’re not going to tell me?”

Kyungsoo turned around, still smirking, and began to walk towards the counter. Jongin took ahold of his wrist—again—and pulled him back to his table. “Kyungsoo, you have never teased me before I’m—you’ve never done it to me before I’m a rookie teasee. What did you—“

“Do you eat outside of this cafe?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Wha—“ Jongin swallowed. Shoved a hand through his hair. He was aware, now, that Kyungsoo watched his every action as he did so. “Of course?”

“Come out to that place across the street from me.” Kyungsoo pointed. “That italian one. Tonight.”

“What does this have to do with my journal?”

“What journal?”

“Kyungsoo, I’m so confused. Just let me—“ He looked from Kyungsoo, to the restaurant, and back again. Then, slowly, “There is no journal. No journal, no Luhan. Oh, do I get it. I—“ Love you. He cut himself off. Not because he didn’t mean the words, but because suddenly, he wanted to save them, because suddenly, for some reason, he thought that maybe there would come a time when he wanted to say those words and he wanted them to mean something completely different. “Okay.”

Kyungsoo’s face lit up. His eyes widened, his eyebrows migrated upwards a little bit, and his mouth even tipped up. “Really?”

Jongin chuckled nervously. “Really. I like italian.”

They stood there for a second staring at each other, surprised at their sudden date. Then the silence hung one moment too long, and Kyungsoo wiped his hands on his apron, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I should go—you know—“ he gestured vaguely to what looked like a spotless counter and no customers. Jongin just nodded and returned to his table.

Looked up at Kyungsoo. Looked down. Kyungsoo looked up at him as he was looking out the window. They looked at each other and caught each other’s eyes and both looked away and Jongin tried to hide his smile. Kyungsoo, he thought, rolling the name around in his mind. That could be his next bestseller.