Chapter 7: The Color Crimson

words: 4k+

Kyungsoo

Kris’s Chinese name is Wu Yi Fan. Off and on I spotted his other friends addressed him as Wu Fan, or just Yi Fan, and not once Wu Yi; the Fan component had never disappeared from their calls. He befriended tall people and some short guys including me. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t go to club to end up having a drunken one night stand, that’s how he always kept his life. During weekdays he worked in one hospital in Songpa-Gu, his office on the third floor, psychiatrist, under his western name doctor Kris Wu, leaving the Fan part not seen there.

            I was amongst his patients, had my check up on the first Monday every month. Kris didn’t give me medicine. He didn’t really examine my health, for I was real healthy, he said, except the fact that I constantly dreamt about the same particular man each night. Sometimes I heard him grumbling from his seat. Kris looked ugly when he did that, it turned him into a red angry bird, could shift even angrier than he supposed to be. Several times, we had tried talking more about my relationship with Jongin in all conscience. And while that was, as our conversation rushed out, a fragile argument gradually appeared in between; it seemed to Kris that no matter how many years I’d spent with Jongin, doesn’t mean I would automatically fall in love with him.

            Probably he was right, all along, all this time, but I didn’t need to be reminded.

            Me and him out having a little fight since we were teenyboopers, which made him sixteen, same age as my brother, and me twelve. Anyway, I matured early, from watching Junmyeon’s innocent rented , silently and unbeknown to them because both him and Kris had forgotten to close the door, and didn’t have my thing erect like the others.

            And truth be told, I honestly hated it.

            Not the accident in my childhood. Not their stupidity of playing it in our rundown apartment where the wall was thin and any sound miles away could reach your ears. Not for finding about my ual preference in such a young age either.

            I just hated how Kris was always right.

            “You don’t love Jongin,” he tipped his head at the last second of our previous encounter. Everything in his words is waiting for me to explode.

            I walked past, ready to leave his office. Even sitting, Kris still appeared taller than me, the table practically covered half his body only. I returned my attention to him, not anymore strolling toward the door. Straight eyes, straight gaze, then my mouth opened at, “Stop it, Kris. I know my feelings.”

            “No, you’re one hundred percent mistaken here.”

            “I do love him, Kris. I mean, why wouldn’t I?”

            Kris tossed me a challenging shrug, and I had no choice but to continue. “He treats me good, we’ve been going through more than three years together. I don’t know anything about your perspective, really, but send Chanyeol out from this situation, and you’ll see that—,” I would almost finish my tear-jerking utterance if not for the nectarous potrait of my dream man that suddenly glided into my mind, “I do love him, Kris. I love Jongin.”

            Silence was strangling the both of us.

            “Jongin is—he—he is the best I could ask for.”

            Now, these were lies for me to fondle.

            The next moment I really thought about leaving his office and heading to Silenced Ennui, when I realized my shoes stucked in one point and didn’t start fetching me anywhere. Taemin was still in Yixing’s band back then. Sulli was still his happy go lucky fiancée that I saw every once in a while in the course of lunch time. Jongin woke up by my side each late morning, and Silenced Ennui was what I dubbed as my second home. Then Chanyeol, and Chanyeol—he was, and I wish he would still be, nothing but an illusive man that existed only in my dreams—within my fading memory, I remembered I never had chances to visit Kris ever since Chanyeol became alive and tangible; a month and few days ago, the later details blurred a bit and finally lost within headache remedies I’d taken.

            But that’s the thing about him, that’s the thing about Kris: he was always right and he knew everything. One day I’d stop trying to reel off what’s been happening.

            “As I said before, you’re mistaken here, Kyungsoo—you love the idea of a nice young man going head over heels for you, salvaging wounds from your childhood and all that images from your dreams. That’s that. You don’t love Jongin.”

            “Then it makes me the antagonist in this story, you tell me?”

            “Kyungsoo, sometimes,” he explained in a flat, whispering voice that almost came out as a gust of air, “we’re the antagonist in some peculiar things.”

            I shouted. Stop telling me buls, idiot. And walked out and left my wallet on his desk; my world a spinning, broken carousel.

****

            In Kris face, one might think that he’s a kind of cocky creature, the corners of his mouth formed a sullen look too often till they were inches away from breaking his chin. And it was sort of true, but somewhat wrong at the same time. When the door of his office opened this morning, I thought he was going to ask me if I run into riot on the way. He had that particular stare. But Kris said nothing, and invited me inside, and then he spilled it and told me I look more than just horrible, albeit not whatsoever in a snoopy manner. I waited for him to turn his back and yell, gesturing towards empty couch, since he was known to be pretty impatient. After a while we were seated face to face, and I realized I’d actually visited him the day after Chanyeol’s unwelcome appearance.

            “I’m getting married,” I muttered very slowly, fished in my pocket for a jot of warmth. He didn’t stop me, so I read that as a clue to take up where I left off. “I don’t know, next month, maybe?”

            “Congratulation,” he answered simply, and it was that emptiness again, hitting me hard on this certain place just below my womb; if I had one.

            But I was a man, am, has always been this kind of creature, so the pain started from my throat instead, when I tried to swallow as much as saliva I had and it stucked, it stranded around my Adam’s apple—not moving anywhere.

            I ended up asking for a drink. Kris handed me a glass of leftover water from his table. I hadn’t touched it, relax, you can have it for yourself, he reassured, and it was a lie.

            He got up again to set his radio in softer volume. I watched as he walked back to his seat, hesitated, but then devoured what he served. There wasn’t many patient coming today. And it seemed that there wouldn’t be any of them until lunch time. He trekked all over the mess that was his drawing on the floor, an attempt to sketch a flower that ended up looking like a sad red spider (why it had to be that color), and I just glanced at him, pretending that I’d seen nothing.

            “You’re supposed to yell at me,” I mumbled, again, the last of my words loomed as a ghostly whisper.

            Shadows crossed the room, haltingly, and then on an even keel.

            Kris retorded, “Didn’t you tell me to shut up?”

            You’d look at him and think he must’ve done something immoral with his face crumpled like that. But I knew better. “Chanyeol is—,” I pulled open a stationary box, somehow Kris had placed it on the nearby dresser (must’ve been his important files arranged inside each drawers, paper and another paper), and when I found out there was nothing inside, I tilted my head up, appreciating his scowl. “He is,” the box was frangible in my grip,  “I—he’s having a fling with a new intern. A pretty one.”

            “Good for him, I think? What are—why bringing this up?” All suddenly? His mouth moved one more time. And I read up on that, read up on what he was trying to describe, because all at once there was no sound.

            It took me the whole minute, from 09:33 to 09:34, in the morning, to stared up at Kris; the only time I did this to him was when he got beaten up by his Baba—real tacid at first but later grew evident—since he couldn’t make into the first place of overall school rankings. Then I slumped back on my seat, all the sponge in Kris’s sofa was eating my entire back profile.

            “I want it to end.”

            “Your obsession,” he was asking for a confirmation.

            “More like, all those figments. But yeah. I want it all to...,” a silence. And then a cough. And then a small peck of Chanyeol’s eyes in a blowy night knocked my melancholic wits. “I don’t know, Kris. I’m tired of this, I may say?”

            “By marrying Jongin?”

            “Hmm-hmm.”

            We somehow survived another mute moment. I pressed so hard on my cheeks I almost got my palm purple; and even if Kris had noticed that, he picked silence to be our see-through barrier. His eyebrows were furrowed, but there was a notion of cornflower blue within Kris’s gaze. A piece of sadness made by hand, I couldn’t think of any better parable to say.

            Now it was a minute later. We each had to sit with our eyes avoiding the front view, which he did better than me. By the end, I started tearing off strayed threads from my sweater. Pulled them and splitted them with  my bursting strength, if I was able to. And while I was done, I felt all sore and disgusted inside, like I wanted to throw up. “Don’t cry,” I heard his voice again.

            “I’m not crying.”

            Kris sighed. “You’re really going to get married?”

            “Yeah,” after a fuzzy meantime, having gotten to meet his eyes once again, I added, “next month, maybe. Most likely. Jongin has contacted his mother. She was screaming loud on the phone... I—Kris,” I saw too many images at once, then I closed my own vision, picturing every side of Chanyeol, “I’m a bad person.”

            “You are.”

            “I know.”

****

            When I got to Silenced Ennui just a bit before lunch, Jongin wasted no time.

            His hunger was obeyed. Nothing ever seemed to be more important with our mouth patched like glue, on a blank paper, waiting for your Momma to stick it at your door with words on different side that you don’t want to worry about. He touched my inner thigh, as we made love on that wooden floor; pillow beneath my head and I was his living mattress, mourning for my spasm, for that taboo thing called .

            The windows were shut tight—from behind Jongin’s back, I almost figured no light. It was dark. It was aphotic. There was something about the afternoon that seemed far and so out of my hand, and he kissed me again, this time, longer and breathy.

            Jongin, under nonexistent sunlight, seeking for his release, was calling out my name. Was cupping my face with his hands, those fingers of one guiltless painter, and I wished I had loved him. In all honesty. In all certainty.

            —In all my past.

            But Chanyeol had always been there. All along. Like a set of an early breakfast, that you never ordered.

****

            “That was loud,” Baekhyun obstructed me in the bathroom, his first line upon my arrival, spying my form in the mirror.

            And it happened this way; Baekhyun was eavesdropping on me. On me and Jongin and our little activity that involved tounge, and sweat, and me grabbing a handful of his brown hair, thick running down our shaking thighs. At first I didn’t see how he did it. But Baekhyun’s smug face reported me something was off. He said hello to some people, and even Jongin before my-soon-to-be-husband left the shop—running after his flight; yet another art exhibition—, but when he passed me he only smirked a little, giving me a look he assumed I’d catch the message behind.

            So I wasn’t surprised, when he welcomed me at the male restroom, walking three toilet-doors to the nearest sink and dipped his hands through flushing tap water, eyes never escaping my reflection.

            There were used tissue inside the trashbin, some were stainned of lipstick. Blood-red lipstick. It was always that color everywhere ever since I met Chanyeol. After that, my mind went blank a moment. After that, small rustlings, I turned around to find Baekhyun lighting a cigarette, today Lucky Strike Lights Blue, the tip of its head was a fuming red too. And it didn’t matter if I reminded him about the ‘no smoking’ sign on the upper wall because I was so sure he wouldn’t pay me attention anyway, thus I just stared. I was annoyed, partly, by his sudden smug face, again, right before my sight; I had gone towards the exit, resisting the urge to pee, assuming Baekhyun to remain unmoving, his lips were parched from smoking too much.

            But of course it wasn’t that easy. “When I kiss my lover, and her good on my daily basis, I’d like to close my eyes and imagine only her pretty smile there. Not anyone else’s. But you—I guess you got some problems with that, Boss, or am I right?”

            Then Baekhyun laughed.

            I could smell anger, and nicotine smoke, just barely, and to some degree my fists were clenched into two rigid balls, ready to punch his pretty eye-line anytime.

            “Oh, oh, Jongin,” Baekhyun bit his lips and made suggestive noises. “T-there, Jongin—ah, deeper, Jongin.”

            The first thing I realized was his grip ‘round my wirst.

            Despite all the tension he shared, corners of his lips were twitching upwards, sharper and colder as the clock ticked by. A sickly scorching feeling was tunneling itself towards me, as I stood there unable to slap Baekhyun’s cheeks, my joints ached from his strong clasp, almost surely leaving deep mark there. Another shade of the color crimson, now on my very own skin—I couldn’t stand up yet for losing out to him, so I put a loaded effort and eventually, on our spot, seven inches from the exit door, he let me go. Although the tobacco odor from his breathing was caught in the way, and I exhaled it deep, until I felt dizzy.

            I said loudly to him, that ended up sounding more like a low bark, “Learn some manner, Byun-ssi.”

            “I thought you gritted your teeth when you’re angry,” he replied with half an eye showing no interest. “And actually,” he started again, “I come in peace and wish us to become allies. But first...”

            Byun Baekhyun definitely owned two . One in his pants, and another—I don’t know, it could be anywhere. I imagined him telling his classmates about his Mother’s secret, and the whole time I began feeling sick, that it could be true because, yeah, his entitiy is a .

            He led me, the next thing, to follow his motion. His fingers pointing at my flat nose. And it was stupid, for me to keep my gaze lingered, on him, but he was walking very slowly, practically waltzing across the floor. And it was such a good waltz—flowing that easily, with a nice small stamping every few seconds.

            Flustered, I leaned my back on the bathroom wall, with a mixture of horror and fear, looking paler than ever. Our faces were getting closer and closer. There were my shoulders, too, slightly exposed since I wore loose shirt. White and green strips. Untouched. Unharmed. He hustled over until he reached the place where his arms were long enough to trap me in the middle, tapping his shoes in the way for emphasis. And finally he was satisfied to let his voice rolled out and I heard him teasing, “First... you ought to explain.”

            “I don’t understand it.” I wasn’t lying at all.

            Baekhyun sent me a quick once-over. “Please.”

           “What?”

            “That should be my line.” He should be a little bit nicer.

****

            Block your ears, and the voices will go away.

            This, Dad had told me carefully one evening. We were out, picking Junmyeon from his late cram school, watching our steps eaten by dull lights on every side of those suburban streets. Block your ears, and the voices will go away.

            Block your ears, and all the losers will eventually shut up.

            —But Baekhyun, the moment he talked, he talked like wind. Like storm. The one that appeares every cold season; fast, thundering, and you don’t know how long it takes for this squall to end. You just don’t. You can draw stars and place them on your ceiling, then you turn off the light. You can pretend that you’re somewhere between colliding galaxies, squeezing interstellar dust, and watching massive supernova that actually happened million years ago, but you can’t have too much insight about him. About Baekhyun. You just can’t.

            You just don’t.

            “Why are you always staring so hopelessly at my best friend?” he called me to reality, squinting as if he really wanted to find out. “What’s so funny about him that—that you can take your eyes off of Chanyeol?”

            For the first time, these days, with my palms flatten against my side, I was trembling real hard.

            Baekhyun looked triumphant. Contented, in other words. His golden-brown hair combed neatly, bangs thick enough to cover his entire forehead. I thought to myself, relax, nothing’s gonna happen, and what followed was my daring, albeit shaky, answer. I slamed to his face, “Nothing. There’s nothing funny about him. And I’m not,” I shrugged a no, “I’m not even looking at him. I never do that.”

            “Of course. Sounds like a classic dodge. That’s a good one.”

            Chewing the side of my lip, I blew the smoke rushing from the half-consumed cigarette back to his mouth. “You know, I don’t like making scenes.”

            “You know,” Baekhyun gave me his amused look. “Chanyeol only like girls.”

            He deep, without bothering to spare me his constant sneer, as if it had only occured to him that his cigarette was a source of oxygen and there he lived, by ravaging one pack. To another. We were swimming visibly from having too much tobacco smoke around us. Beneath my nape. On the small bend of Baekhyun’s nose bridge. Between that tiny gap of our touching toe caps. And at that, I kept looking straight into his orbs, silver contact lense causing him to resemble a cheaper version of Romanian vampire now.

            There was so much to hear, from my erratic breathing, to Baekhyun’s last sentence.

            —Chanyeol only like girls.

            My palm landed on his left cheek. “I knew that already.”

****

            So don’t remind me.

****

            “Baekhyun? Baekhyun, are you there? Why are you taking so long to poop, uh? Do you see our Bo—oh. Hey. Boss.”

            Why Chanyeol stood in the corridor, I didn’t know.

            I had a dash of tear on my eyelashes. The hand I had used to slap Baekhyun was still burning. Chanyeol glanced at me, and at the slightly ajar bathroom door, and it didn’t matter to me what he was seeing. It should have, but it didn’t, that moment. As our gaze clashed, the anger in me faded off suddenly. Some in myself believed there was something lodging in his mind. Some in another screamed for me to go away, and asked him and Baekhyun, who was then probably crying in the bathroom, to pack their things and head home in short order because the shop was already closed for the night.

            I chose the latter, though, and backing out the details. “What happens to your cheek?” it wasn’t addressed to me. Baekhyun came out, in spite of all, treading behind me three seconds after. Face flushing red.

            Or so I guessed. I wasn’t sure.

            For I sprinted fast from that place, shoulder bumped with my dream man in the process, leaving the two of them in the hallway. When I looked back for their figures, peeked over to my side to see if they were still there, the image wouldn’t reach my eyesight. Unfortunately. Blocked by the wall. Blocked by the expanding distance. And I was alone, again, about to invade my office entrance as I caught myself in the glass door. Skin that was so pale. Fists that were tired from going through small tremor. And lips. That wouldn’t stop bellowing Chanyeol’s name—two syllabels had never once been mine.

****

            Opaque.

            This office of mine had always been cramped and opaque. Across the empty pavement from outside the window, glittered along with moonlight was billboard ads, a group of young pretty lads eating chicken. Tao was a big fan, while I never learned their names. And their faces. Not many would happily distinguish boys looking so similar, from clothes, and the way they laughed, and their hairstyles. Anyway it was almost twenty before midnight, without I noticed.

            I switched off the lights, raced to lock the door as blackness dominated the night; my feelings swam back to that particular wooden floor, where I’d made love with Jongin three hours before his flight to Gwangju.

            But it turned out I wasn’t really alone. “I’m sorry. For Baekhyun’s ty behaviour.”

            “You heard it all?”

            Chanyeol didn’t answer. His gasp fell hard on my neck. “What did Baekhyun say to you?”

            “Ah, no,” he fidgetted there, drenched with sweat to find the urge to say it to me. “I heard nothing and he didn’t tell me a word, unfortunately?”

            He stared at the glass door for his own reflection, and I did the same for him too, quite easy with my back still facing him like that. “I could tell, though,” a joyful laugh burst from Chanyeol. “You have this stern face on you. Like this.”

            “Alright. Cut it out.”

            Coat in my clutch, I swung to him; Chanyeol whose mouth was folded, just as if he was throwing a tantrum. Chuckling lazily. His ears, wide and extensive, were lovely as the ones owned by leaf fairy, and draped with bobble hat masking the tip.

            For a short while I lived only in the misty feelings that was Chanyeol’s gaze. Chanyeol continued his chuckle wordlessly, car key between his fingers. Then he pushed another lexical morpheme, “Boss—I...”, and left it hanging just like that.

            There was no other noises. I was shortly reminded that my other workers had gone home and, yes, we were just alone. Yes, I nodded eventhough I knew that wasn’t what I wanted, and I gathered my belongings, which was nothing that important. Which were only my phone, an overpriced messenger bag (Marc Jacobs product, but it wasn’t bad) and a silver key that would lead me to one empty apartment in Banpo-dong. “Goodnight,” I murmured. There was a pause before he followed me, shouting in silence, “Where’re you going?”

            “Home.”

            “I’ll drive you,” he offered to me.

            I went inside the main hall, not minding the sight of Chanyeol. “I’ll take the cab. Thanks.”

            “Are you afraid of Jongin?” today he was wearing a plain t-shirt with a Chinese phoenix on the right middle, it wrinkled every now and then and created an illusion of a dancing two dimentional bird because when Chanyeol moved, he moved his entire body. But I had gone too long without saying anything to even bring up that topic. “I mean, I expect him to be the jealous type, but he currently isn’t here anyway. He won’t kill me.”

            “He will kill you for sure, for being disrespectful,” and disturbing my dreams, I shifted to where he could be seen clearer, walking stiffly a step after me. My engagement ring wasn’t definitely the only thing that shone brightly that whole second.

            Chanyeol bloomed like evening primrose, tall and thin. And yellow.

            “But that’s not it. Just,” I shook my head, “go, Chanyeol. It’s almost midnight.”

            “No. Unless you’re coming with me.”

            I was aware, during the whole time, that Chanyeol had just slept with Irene the night before. Or perhaps even this morning, while finishing their breakfast. All the stuff; Chanyeol filling her luscious nectare from behind. I could smell that woman scent everywhere as he drifted closer, negating the slots separating our dissimilar frames until it seemed like we were holding hands, but we weren’t. We weren’t.

            “This is stupid,” I was aware of everything.

            And the grief was twice bigger.

            “For God’s sake, Boss, we’ve been through this twice already.”

            “Then you don’t have to,” suggested me. The funk continued even in darkness.

            Through the flicker from the flower shop sign, the only alive neon light, I had Chanyeol freezing in his spot. “But I want to!” he might hove gotten carried away with his emotion. “Why are you so stubborn?”

            Come on, was his one and only invitation, or rather coercion, before I was settled on his back seat, glaring outside.

            At the very front section was him, hands in charge of steering wheel. And Irene, too, humming to some foreign songs I had never listened before. Her fragrance rubbed all over the furthest corner. Giggling at her own singing. Giggling at Chanyeol. Giggling at myself, also, and the man sitting beside me, spawning noises similar to that produced by a kid who’s imitating kitten voice.

            —I sensed hot, salty water on my vision.

            Baekhyun meshed his fingers with mine the entire ride home.

****

To be continued

A/N:

Happy (belated) New Year!