Winter Sleep

"I don't want to go, hyung", Sungjin complains, pouting gently and Jinwoo takes in the sight of it because it is rare for Sungjin to act like this: a little clingy, looking at his eyes with all the stars of the universe, holding into him.

"You'll have fun once you get there, you always want to skip and then just have the time of your life,” he replies, chuckling at Sungjin’s tactics, trying to convince his boyfriend to go, rubbing the palm of his always sunny hands (kissed by fire, all of him is warm and clean, like summer days, the smell of the sun and the taste of rain falling over his flesh). "Also, you have to drive Wonpil," he has added, smirking. It is strange behaviour, usually, he wouldn’t complain so much over the annual company meeting but, this year, somehow, it seems to have taken a toll on Sungjin. But Jinwoo knows better, he is aware that Sungjin is just pretending (there is no way he won’t want to go and have fun, eat plenty, have the opportunity to meet up with his college, learn more about his working field).

Sungjin momentarily beams at the mention of Wonpil, who always rides the shotgun and who has become Sungjin’s "personal jukebox.” And Wonpil loves to be the only one allowed (not even Jinwoo has permission to touch Sungjin’s songs and so it makes Wonpil giggle with his obnoxious laugh, all teeth and gums displayed and his eyes half-closed, smashing everything between his range until Younghyun would hold his hands, pulling him into his embrace, his trade-mark smirk all over the place.

"Yeah, but it will be boring without you..." he complains again, his fingers climbing on his back, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, his brown flocks of soft hair tickling against his nose, his faint smell of coffee beans and clovers clouding his mind. Jinwoo kisses the crown of his head, smiling, relishing the moment, one of those rarities that come with Sungjin's personality. He never was one to cuddle, to take the first step, but with Jinwoo he is different from his usual laid-back, reliable self. He is softer around the edges, less sharp, his eyes radiant at the shape of the love of his life, a smile always tugging in his lips, spreading like butterfly’s wings.

"Come on, it's an important meeting," he nuzzles closer, burring himself on his warmness, his hands rubbing his strong shoulders in reassuring patterns, melting his wariness, his resistance.

“Not as important as you," his voice is the colour of chocolate and velvet, so convincing, inviting, tempting, and his nose bumps gently against his, nudging. But it is the annual year-end party and it would be rude not to assist. Also, Sungjin has promised Wonpil to go with him, to stick by his side to shoot the boredom away (since neither Jinwoo nor Younghyun is able to tag along). “Don’t you want me to stay?” he mumbles against his skin, the air hot between his lips, pressing circles down his senses, blowing away his impedance.

Jinwoo wants to give in, to be drowned by Sungjin’s presence, the security he emanates, how assuring his mouth in his is, how his words are melting everything with lukewarm, fluttering fireflies lingering inside his core like fireworks, bonfires that only Sungjin can ignite deep, blurring anything but him with fog and smoke and soft hands resting on his shoulders, travelling down to the small of his back, dancing the way Sungjin does (a bit crazy, totally overwhelming).

“But you have to go,” Jinwoo insists, pushing him out, breaking the mesmerizing stillness, the lovely charm that he has put on him with his voice like a vice, entrancing. “Wonpil is really waiting for you to collect him,” he adds, words stumbling, stuttering, still under the influence of Sungjin’s lips caressing his.

Sungjin sighs, letting go of Jinwoo.

“I wish you could come, though,” he pouts once more, reaching for his hands, holding them as if a treasure, looking at them reaching, folding fingers around his callused ones with love, soothingly, a strong-hold, the bond between them as strong as the tides cradling all the oceans in the world.

“But I can’t and you’ll be late,” Jinwoo points out, checking his watch, smiling tenderly at Sungjin, glancing at him softly. He heaves, hands still pressed with Jinwoo’s, intertwined, dragging him all over the house, making him follow along, a stream of giggles and constant bickering because they can’t agree on what looks better on Sungjin. “You don’t have to impress them,” Jinwoo jokes, admiring how fitting the jeans are on Sungjin’s tights, how wonderful he looks with a simple sweater over a shirt, warm and cosy and he feels butterflies inside of his chest, the urge to snuggle next to him, grabbing his waist and never let his depart. He glances pensively at the reflection on the mirror (and Jinwoo swears that he has never looked this good before, his hair down, flocks covering his sides, his eyes gleaming with stardust and light, his lips furrowed, intently watching, concentrated. “You are beautiful,” Jinwoo mutters, his chin on his shoulder, his words on his little ears, his chuckles reverberating through the room.

“I really hate to have to leave you here, alone, when it’s about to rain,” Sungjin frowns, the keys in his hands, dangling, shimmering.

“It’s about to snow,” Jinwoo corrects him, a special smirk plastered on his pretty face. Sungjin mimics it.

“Oh, well, if the weatherman says so...” and that has Jinwoo giggling for a minute, Sungjin elated with his doing, relishing into the sound of it, pure, clean, beautiful.

“Drive carefully and don’t drink. I’ll be waiting for you,” Jinwoo promises, one last kiss before departing, waving at the distant form walking through the door. Sungjin turns around one last time, sends another glance over Jinwoo before disappearing into the night.

It begins to snow half an hour after Sungjin left the house, just as Jinwoo has predicted. He draws himself closer under the blanket, keeps the warm mug of coffee inside his grab, letting the fog to haze his gaze. It is getting late and the wind blowing outside is lulling him, lids half-closed, shadows dancing in his face. Outside, the snow is blitzing against the window, pit-patting, covering the world in a white quilt, the harsh wind swishing, the sound of an old curse, freezing Jinwoo’s skin to the core. He shakes his head and disperses the treats of slumber, rubs his eyes, staring at the snowflakes swirling on the air, gracefully falling down, covering the streets below with a layer of cream light.

He is startled when the phone buzzes in the distance, jolting at the unexpected sound, at the sudden waking from a dream of Sungjin’s lips in his temples, taking away all the coldness in the air, dwelling in his flesh, bringing back the soft breeze of springtime. Jinwoo rushes to pick it up, voice drowsy, filled with the slur that comes from sleep.

“Yes?” he checks the time: half-past three and Sungjin isn’t home yet, hasn’t arrived, so it must be him, calling in to tell him that he has to stay due to the blizzard. He curls under the blanket, feeling it assuring, familiar (Sungjin’s perfume still lingering, like the memory of a hug, it makes him smile).

“Is this Kim Jinwoo?” an unknown voice asks and Jinwoo blinks, confused, brain coiling with thoughts, with dread, sweat cooling his agitated mind, “are you acquittance with Park Sungjin?” it comes from the other side and, beneath the sound he can make out the colours of the winter, the snow on the road, cars passing, the siren of an ambulance and, on top of that, his heart pounding, beating like a drum, fast, accelerated, agitated with panic, the urgency filling the night, thumbing across the phone-call. Something is wrong and, suddenly, he is shaking, trembling, no amount of blankets able to bring any warm to his core that is sinking in affliction.

“Yes, what happened?” and terror riddles his mind, stormy clouds ready to soak him with affright, his head spinning, images passing by like flashes and his name thundering (Sungjin, Sungjin, Sungjin).

“We need you to come to identified a corpse” Jinwoo has to halt his mind to understand what the voice is saying. It sounds far-away, coming from a nightmare, a revelry from where Jinwoo is pushing to wake up, feeling his head under-water, drowning, waves above him, blanketing the sky, all the lights that belong to Sungjin slowly tilting, blown off, darkness dampening over him, the realization of what is going on. He blinks, haphazardly, lips consumed with bites, fingers fidgeting in distress, unable to stay still, like his heart, running ahead, running to Sungjin. But it is too late.

Younghyun is already there when Jinwoo steps out of the taxi, with the remaining blue bits of metal that once were Sungjin’s pride, his pickup now totally devastated, crashed against the gutter, blood splashing the carcass, twisted and deformed, a nightmare. And there, Sungjin, covered in glittering golden, a patch of light that would never shine again. And, beside him, the body of Wonpil, like a frayed doll, broken and bloody and dead on the floor. Jinwoo stans and stares into the endless night, into the icicles falling down, melting on his cheeks, freezing again under the caress of his numb fingers, cursing at the weather, for there is too much blood painting the pure white of the snow covering the world innocently, as it wasn’t the cause of all his suffering; as if it didn’t make the pickup slide to the ditch, crashing against the darkness, falling down, spiralling, harming, crushing, halting two lives that were just beginning, diminishing the light of their eyes (the light of his heart).

He doesn’t want to look, to face the moment when an unknown hand would remove the blankets protecting Sungjin, because it would make it true, it would stop being just a dream and Jinwoo can’t allow to break down, to fall on the ground (as long as he can look away, it won’t be real, it will be happening to someone else, but not to him, not to Younghyun, whose hands are now holding him, steadily, the only comfort shared between the silence and the snowflakes still falling).

Sungjin’s fingers fit just right between his but his eyes are closed, lids forever still, the world losing its colours, its warm. His tips dances on death meat, feeling the last of pulsing heat lingering on his hands like fireworks, tickling. And tears dress up as rain, draining on his face, Younghyun’s sobs breaking the idle peace, weeping, clinging on his shoulder, watching without seeing the damp ruins of the car, of shattered lives, crumbled down. He cups his cheeks, tracing skin sloppily, tediously known but, under his fingers, it feels alien, muffed, the quotidian mild from Sungjin is slowly fading, replaced by a haze of wanes taking away all of his colours, the constant brownish tint of his flesh, now pale shade. His pretty, boyish face is ragged, scars covering his features, blood dried on the curb of a last grin that will perish just like him. And the world stops spinning with his hands holding Sungjin, pressing him against his body, swaying, clenching into his sweater, giving him the warmth that he is missing, tears watering his dark, messy, disarray of hair that Jinwoo keeps brushing away, sticky with blood and salty drops falling from his own eyes.

Jinwoo feels as if guns were pointing at him, a death sentence watching the ambulance driving away, leaving him behind, leaving him without Sungjin, with stormy eyes and a heart throbbing in his throat, unable to move, to speak, to go, all his love walking over glass, hands touching the fire red of the last tread of life, scarring scarlet, feeling his death on his fingers, tangled still in the memory of a dream, the moment that he had waved Sungjin goodbye. He has shattered lives and dreams and hopes and fights, he has erased their existence, has prevented them from even existing and Younghyun… he has killed him, too, had broken his heart with Wonpil’s last breath. He has shot down all the opportunities, he has stains running down the palms of his hands, all the shared moments, all the stares, all the smiles and the yells, gone to waste, dissolving like snow-covered with salt, water sinking, a pool of nightmares, heavy, hitting his chest, drowning his senses with despair, with hate.

It is briskly even when the storm subsided, even when Jinwoo is bundled up in blankets, the heather at full rage, buried deep inside his bed. It is always cold without Sungjin now, living in a perpetual winter night, a starry sky, no gleam, no joy, just the void and the echo of his voice remembering him that he didn’t want to go, that it was all his fault. And it hits him with all the force of a landslide, enshrouding him with the blame of the lost, all the pain he has caused and that he could have avoided (if only he had given in, surrendered to Sungjin). It hurts but he has lost all his feelings, his emotions damps, numb without Sungjin, his sun and his stars (and days turn into nights and weeks into months and he doesn’t bother, he doesn’t flinch, moving in a sedative state where he doesn’t suffer because he isn’t even breathing, immersed into his grieve, drowning into it without any help, hostage of his own existence, living willingness, aimlessly drifting until collapsing; until time has run out and he will see him again).

Guilt and grievance trap his feelings, restraint them in an iron cage of thorns, freezing all of his emotions, skipping all the joy, suppressing anything but the moment Sungjin turned his back on him, ready to depart, ready to step out of his life forever. And Jinwoo can’t move, enclosed with thorny vines, icing his skin with his felony, his fault shinning high on the stars, a dim memory of the colour of Sungjin’s eyes, the colour of his voice trickling his ears with words of love, with peppering kisses all over his forehead. And his voice is coarse and rough from calling out his name to the night, from all the tears that he has shed (eyes sore and vermilion, filled with grieve and sorrow, eyes dancing with the flashing images of him loitering around the house, a phantom that Jinwoo keeps alive, the only balm to the wounds of his heart, a pain that will never subside, everlasting inside his core where only darkness lingers, the empty hollow that once belonged to him and that now stores nothingness).

He hasn’t changed a thing, hasn’t move Sungjin’s belongings, they are displayed everywhere, exactly as it was when he was with him. Jinwoo is too tired to even bother, to even try and, like this, it feels comfortable, with all the memories, as if Sungjin would come back: as if life is just waiting for him, halt midway, stopped until the door opens and reveals his smile, his soft voice saying his name. He never does but Jinwoo has faith, has a heart full of love, has the sound of Sungjin buried under his bones and, if he closes his eyes, he can feel his hands on him, melting the frost of his chest, his blood running at the same pace as his caresses. And Jinwoo lives through ghostly moments that are unreal but that are the highlight of his day, the reason behind waking up, going out, working without pause, without a truce. He needs to keep going, needs to keep busy so he will have something new to tell him, so his mind will be occupied (and he won’t think about the missing bits, the expanding void of blackness, Sungjin’s body laying on a stretch, covered in golden foil, laying still and cold and motionless).

Younghyun comes in uninvited like he always does. He looks around, at the display of the same old stuff, blinking at them, feeling the familiarity, the oddity of the fact that Jinwoo is trapped here, inside his own home, where everything remains the same as if time has stopped.

“You kept the piano,” Jinwoo bites his tongue but let the bullet shoot. It has been so long and he hasn’t bee able to say his name, hasn’t been able to forget that Younghyun’s lost was his doing, that he was the cause, the one to put the blame in, the one who couldn’t be forgotten because he turned all their time into sand falling through fingers, useless. It sounds bitter and he tastes bile on his tongue, sour.

“That’s the only thing, I got rid of the rest, it was too painful to see,” he explains and Jinwoo knows that he is the cause of all of his distress, that he is putting salt into Younghyun’s injuries (the ache that he is blooming up with his words). Jinwoo swallows his retort and smiles at him gently, ruffling his hair.

“Dinner?” and Younghyun forgives him in an instant, follows him to the kitchen. Small talk is easy with Younghyun and, with him around, it feels comfortable, even in silence, his presence is welcome, blankets the regrets with tittle-tattle, scurries out his loneliness. And, with him around, Sungjin keeps quiet, doesn’t show up (and it buggers, misses Sungjin but appreciates Younghyun’s visit).

With Younghyun, memories float to him like waves liking sand on the beach of his brain, moments together, the four of them, happiness, chit-chatting over the night. Now, though, there is a heaviness planning among the two of them, clouds that fog his mind with a veil of constant sadness, the burden of the crime committed. Laughter doesn't fill the room any more, just a crescent silence soaking them. Younghyun tries his best but it’s not the same and Jinwoo’s heart feels heavy, leaking the truth that he has silence for so long, has kept to himself, watering it at night, head hidden under cushions, the phantoms of the past gloating with his ache. Even if Younghyun is acting normal, Jinwoo can see it in his eyes, in the way they don’t shine, opaque. He knows what he is suffering because his pain is Jinwoo’s doing.

“It was my fault,” he stutters, half-way through dinner. Younghyun’s hand stops in the air, a spoon of stew hanging, fogging his face. He blinks at him. “I killed them,” he adds fuel, coming clean. And it feels like scratching the pain, once he mutters the courage to open up, he can’t contain the sorrow that follows, all the words pooling, swirling, leaving it cage to fly free.

“You didn’t make it snow,” Younghyun’s voice is smooth, sweet, caressing the surface of all his injuries. “It wasn’t your fault, even if you insisted,” he assures and Jinwoo feels lighter, easier. “It was an accident and it would have happened with or without your consent,” he finishes, stretching his hand to cover Jinwoo’s. “Don’t let it burden you, hyung.”

It is the first night he sleeps without nightmares.

Sungjin smiles at him.

“You did well,” he says, ruffling his hair, his fingers rough from the guitar strings (and it has been so long since he has listened to it, to the music of Sungjin’s hands, the rhythm of his guitar blend with his voice).

“Will you be here when I come back home?” Jinwoo wonders, talking to the door. Sungjin nods.

“I’m always with you,” he promises and Jinwoo can discern the meaning layering under it but ignores it to face Sungjin with another gleaming smirk. He kisses the air but feels the warm on his lips, a hand caressing his cheeks, soft, tenderly. “I love you, hyung. Have a good day.”

The house is empty when Jinwoo comes back and the interior feels cold and hollow, dark, but Younghyun pushes him in and laughs his way out and Jinwoo feels company even if it’s not exactly what he wants (Sungjin can wait a little longer, he will be happy to see his friend as well, though he manages to keep it a secret, aware that Younghyun wouldn’t understand him talking to the night, to the vacancy of his heart).

Sungjin appears on his dreams that night but it’s all right, Jinwoo thinks when he opens again his eyes. He doesn’t need to be here all the time, he has other stuff to do, other places to stay (and when he will be back, he will tell Jinwoo, he is sure of that).

Sungjin’s visits become scarce but Younghyun comes over more often and, together, they mourn and they heal. And maybe Jinwoo doesn’t need a ghost when he can be with the livings through a huge part of his core feels the missing of Sungjin. Outside, winter is bowing to spring and flowers are blossoming on the ground. Lilacs bloom from Sungjin’s grave, spreading their sweet perfume and Jinwoo covers his name with care, cleans the marble and leaves behind a bucket of flowers and a prayer. Sungjin looks over him, listening to his words carefully, smiling proudly at Jinwoo’s resilience. He is stronger than he thought, he will make it with time: spring is coming and, with it, better moments.