Kyungsoo only writes once in a while.

It’s a hobby at most.

 

“What the is a murmurmaid?” Jongin is just another kid in his neighborhood. Kyungsoo can’t understand his affinity with bad words and throwing rocks at garbage cans from across the street, but Jongin is always around to keep him company. He usually rides up with his bright red bike and no helmet. Sometimes Jongin’s mom brings them popsicles if it’s sweltering. Some days Kyungsoo’s dad will set up a sprinkler that they can run through if it gets too hot. On days like this, 9-year-old Do Kyungsoo goes outside and sits on the sidewalk with a freshly sharpened pencil and a stack of recycled paper.

Like he’s seen in many movies, he taps the eraser against his lip until inspiration hits him, “It’s a thing, you know, they have tails and swim in the ocean.” He may sit for a few minutes, maybe a few hours, but he’ll sit outside until something is written down.

He writes a few words and crosses them out, writes a few more and thinks about keeping them. His mom always told him that any amount of work done is better than no work at all, “That’s a fish.”

It isn’t that Kyungsoo doesn’t like Jongin; it’s just that Jongin has his own way about things. The younger boy is straightforward and frank; crass and honest. He’s simple and doesn’t seem to think too much outside the obvious.

But that’s okay because Kyungsoo doesn’t think about much outside of the obvious either.

The afternoon sun is warm against his skin. Kyungsoo stretches his arms up, revealing the pastiness of his stomach because this shirt is from last summer and he’s on the verge of a growth spurt. He can feel it in his toes, “It’s not a fish. It’s a murmurmaid.”

 

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo only writes once in a while.

It’s a chore at most.

 

“I very well know that they aren’t real.”

High school is a pain. It’s an exceptionally painful pain when neighborhood-assbutt, Jongin, has rebranded himself as cool-kid ‘Kai’ and rolls into the cafeteria with his cool-kid friends, Sehun and Taemin, and sits at the cool-kids’ table with more cool-kids.

It’s worse when Jongin completely ignores that he’s a cool-kid and talks to Kyungsoo casually because Kyungsoo can feel eyes watching him. Those are the stares that chalk him up, write a value above his head, and compare him to his stunning and charismatic childhood friend. Everyone thinks that he’s just Jongin’s homework mule.

No one assumes that Jongin can do his own homework.

No one thinks that Kyungsoo occasionally picks on the younger.

And everyone seems to glean past that one night when summer was waning where they sat up on Kyungsoo’s balcony and Jongin cried about his parents fighting and admitted that Kyungsoo was the first best friend he’d ever had.

And still has.

“Then why are you still so hooked on them?”

Because Jongin adores Kyungsoo and wants to protect him, he keeps a distance. Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. It’s a nice distance. No one says anything mean about Kyungsoo and Jongin can keep his reputation. Kyungsoo isn’t dragged into talking with the cool-kids and Jongin is all his on the weekend and Wednesdays after school when they go for milkshakes in that old ice cream parlor over by the corner of their neighborhood and complain about new assignments and how their homeroom teacher has bad breath. Kyungsoo keeps his notebook in some drawer in his room, lost under stacks of sticky-notes and graded essays.

“Because they remind me of childhood.”

Jongin doesn’t remember the last time he saw it.

“I miss childhood.”

 

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo only writes once in a while.

It’s a distraction at most.

 

His boss doesn’t like it when he sees a word document open on Kyungsoo’s desktop instead of the account balancing sheets he’s supposed to be doing. Even if he’s submitted the income tax statements he’d been quoted for, he wasn’t allowed to write on the job.

Being an intern .

Especially when cool-kid ‘Kai’ has become marketing-expert Jongin.

He works on the other end of town now, in some big corporate building with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a canteen that makes even the best convenience store shy away in embarrassment.

“How’s that story going?”

He has the audacity to ask after Kyungsoo comes to him after a long day. The story is the least of his worries with college loans creeping up the back of his neck and a twenty-page term paper due tomorrow and the four chapters of accounting methodology that he has to review for the midterm next week and the language and foreign culture books he had to read and the electricity bill that he has to pay that has steadily climbed thanks to the hot weather and the water leak Baekhyun had pointed out in the living room and the draft that has been sneaking under the windowsill in the bathroom and the colony of ants that have found Shangri-La on their kitchen counter-

Kyungsoo doesn’t want to tell Jongin about any of it because Jongin is a precious place, a precious time, and a precious space.

“I’m done.”

“You finished? Can I read it?”

Jongin’s apartment smells like… him.

It smells like the off-brand detergent that he uses for his clothes. It smells like his sweat and like the shampoo in his hair. It smells like cardboard-flavored instant noodles and burned fried rice. It smells warm and more inviting than his own apartment because what it smells like most is Kyungsoo’s home.

“It’s not complete.”

Less often now than it was when they were in high school would the two even be able to meet up. Their schedules are full; school, work, bathing, eating, sleeping. Few of those things were rarely taken to completion regularly. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t take trips across town to meet each other without skipping a part of their agendas.

In desperation, today Kyungsoo has skipped a meal.

“I gave up.”

“Don’t say that.”

Because Jongin adores Kyungsoo and wants to protect him, he closes the distance on occasion. He brings them too close, to the point where Kyungsoo wants to cry because he can’t breathe without feeling his heart wrench for those old summer memories of sitting on the curb with Jongin discussing murmurmaids in hot, orange sunlight, their lungs filled with smog and the scent of the blazing tar road.

“Please don’t say that.”

And it hurts for the first time when Jongin pulls little Kyungsoo into his arms because now, more than ever, it’s apparent that Kyungsoo did not hit the growth spurt he so hoped to have all those summers ago. It hurts Jongin and it only hurts Jongin because Kyungsoo has been aching for so long that ‘hurt’ evolved into ‘I’m okay’.

It’s the same ‘I’m okay’ that he sends through a midday text message from under his desk and the same ‘I’m okay’ that he punches into SMS long after the sun has set when Jongin knows he’s burning midnight oil finishing online assignments and the same ‘I’m okay’ he says over the phone on Friday nights when neither of them are exactly busy, but too tired to move off their couches.

“It was directionless and pointless.”

Kyungsoo can’t bring his arms up to wrap around Jongin’s waist because the fatigue in his bones ties them to his sides. It’s heavy.

“It’s just better off not written.”

“Then why did you start writing it in the first place?”

It’s somehow soothing—the way Jongin’s voice is mumbled into his hair and the way it resonates against his skull. The comfortable distance they created in high school is erased by soft lips moving against his temple. There is no way to measure how far Kyungsoo is from everyone, including Jongin and he’s just so, completely burnt out. Any flame kindled by summers passed have been smothered by the icy reality of being an adult.

Neither of Jongin’s roommates are home. Sehun is spending the weekend at his parents’ house and Chanyeol is going to a concert down south. Kyungsoo’s not used to coming over without the two buzzing around, in and out of the kitchen and their rooms, but this weekend the hallway is barren. It makes the apartment stuffy and quiet.

“It’s stupid.”

His words are barely audible because he whispers it into Jongin’s charcoal gingham tie. It’s hanging loose around his neck; too lazy to remove it after he came home, but too tight to feel free from the workplace.

It wouldn’t really matter if Kyungsoo told Jongin why he wrote because Jongin knows why.

When you grow up with someone, you know about ‘stupid’ things. You know about ‘useless’ things. You know about ‘pointless’ things. And you know that all those things carry more weight than they are given credit for. Kyungsoo writes because he’s desperately grasping at sand that’s trickling out of an all-too-big hourglass into the chamber below. He wants the memories of childhood to remain burned vibrant and deep into his brain. He wants to feel the sting of a frostbitten popsicle claw at his tongue. He writes because he’s trying to explain to Jongin what a murmurmaid is even though Jongin already knows what it is and that he’s been beating a dead horse for the better part of the last decade. But Jongin still wants to read it. He still wants to sneak a peek at that notebook like he’s continuously done for the better part of the last decade. It’s not really cat and mouse. It’s not really baiting or flirting or whatever you want to call it, but it’s something that only Jongin knows the existence of and something that only Kyungsoo does.

And when they meet eyes, he knows that Kyungsoo is thinking the same thing.

“You could at least hug me back.”

And Jongin smirks to himself.

“You could tell me what’s wrong.”

And Kyungsoo turns away, silent.

“And you could stop saying you’re okay.”

And he pulls himself down so that they’re eyelevel.

“And you could stop killing yourself with all this work.”

The breath is hot and ticklish in Kyungsoo’s ear.

“I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Stop murmuring.”

 

 

But this hurts.

It hurts them both.

Unexpectedly so.

It’s not because Kyungsoo told him to stop. It’s not because Jongin did stop.

It’s because this was childhood. This was childhood returning and punching them both in the gut, twisting and crushing butterflies into their stomachs. This was childhood winding around their arteries and pulling tight. This was the too-small white t-shirt that Kyungsoo wore all summer and the lollipops that Jongin led all morning just so he could show Kyungsoo his blue tongue whenever he met him because he thought that made him look cool.

This is Jongin kissing Kyungsoo in the dim light of a ty sunset poking in through akimbo blinds and this is Kyungsoo returning a hug for the first time in a long time.

This is two people finding closure and two people providing closure.

This is stories unfolding and chapters ending; pages turning and words dissolving.

But this evening is not happy and no one smiles because Kyungsoo is throwing things away and Jongin is taking out the trash.

“So, you’ll keep writing.”

“That doesn’t sound like a question.”

 

It’s not.

 

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo only writes once in a while.

It’s a hobby at most.

 

He only writes in cozy cafés, under warm autumn lights at a chipped wooden table on an old laptop with some sticky keys and fading stickers. This is where he meets Kim Jongin, his co-worker, after they leave work from the indie company down the street. Jongin is in charge of marketing. Kyungsoo is in charge of finances. There’s the boss, the secretary, and some other people making copies and burning time, but those people don’t really matter.

This is where he meets Kim Jongin, his best friend, outside of the small printing company that he discovered online several weeks ago. Jongin is in charge of reading. Kyungsoo is in charge of writing. Someone else is in charge of editing, there’s the publisher, the illustrator, and some other people who help bring the stories to some other people, but those people don’t really matter either.

When he comes in through the door, cold air sweeps the floor of the café and Kyungsoo crosses his legs from the chill.

“You look nice today.”

Jongin mumbles into his ear as he passes him to get to his seat and sits down opposite to him in a rickety chair. It creaks a bit with the new weight. The table is small enough so that he can fold his arms and poke at Kyungsoo’s keys at the same time.

“Not so bad yourself.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t look up from his work until Jongin leaves to buy himself a coffee. Indeed, he can almost feel the scoff bubbling in his throat. Stunning as ever.

The feelings are still fleeting which is why he has to watch where he goes, as if his childhood could walk away at any time. It’ll take him some time to adjust to these new difficulties and challenges, but Kyungsoo doesn’t recycle his garbage and Jongin has made a new habit of emptying the trash before it overflows.

Sometimes both of them get too busy.

Sometimes they grow up too fast.

But that’s okay because Jongin will always come back, bitter and sweet macchiato in hand. His eyes will always crinkle when he smiles his toothy smile. He will always watch Kyungsoo type and backspace for hours on end without complaint. He will always be patient and helpful. He will always mutter some off comment about Kyungsoo’s stature and will always be forgiven when Kyungsoo’s reminded how well that stature allows him fit into Jongin’s arms.

“I know it’s been a while, but what the is a murmurmaid again?”

 

He gets a sharp, impatient elbow in the ribs.

 

And a kiss when they leave the café.