for destruction ice is also great.
Fire and IceYongguk smoked three times a day and he didn’t know why. He knew it was charring his lungs and was the cause for his sporadic coughing fits, but he pretended he didn’t. He pretended everything was alright even if it wasn’t, even if it wasn’t even close to being alright, even if he knew it was never going to be alright. Because there he was, alone in a cold apartment that made him want to vomit, old coffee heated up in the microwave he never really liked to use, empty spaces on the walls where pictures used to be but now they’re somewhere in a box shoved deep inside the hall closet. He takes showers to try and wash the pain away; closes his eyes and imagines the heartache secreting from his pores and laying like sweat on his skin, flowing down his lanky body with the soap and despair. He cries when he knows nobody is watching besides him maybe, watching with sullen eyes from somewhere Yongguk can’t quite pinpoint. He cries because the tears mix with the water and most of the time - but not all the time, not everyday - he can convince himself he’s not crying. It’s just the water lapping at his protruding cheekbones, away the folds of his forehead and crinkles around his eyes.
He doesn’t go out with their friends anymore because it reminds Yongguk too much of him. When they laugh without him it feels like they all forgot about their friend and it makes Yongguk angry. It makes him angry that they could get over him so easily, but they accept his anger. They know why he doesn’t say yes to any events they go to, they know not to say anything when they go over sometimes and see the bare walls, the way the whole apartment has become so impersonal and distant and nothing like how it used to be, the way they can hear the crack in Yongguk’s usually steady voice whenever he remembers him. He doesn’t go outside most of the time because everything reminds Yongguk of him; the trees that he used to sit against, the wind lifting up strands of stranger’s hair that he used to laugh at, the smell of an early morning in August, the crispness he used to say made everything seem purer and better.
Yongguk especially can’t go to the art museum a few minutes away from the apartment; he can’t even begin to fathom going there, it feels like a rock is dropped into his stomach and he can feel his palms sweating and feels the symptoms when you’re about to cry, the scratchy throat, the lump you can’t swallow away, the sniffles and pressure that push somewhere inside your head. So he never thinks about it, never, instead he likes to ignore it even exists when he’s forced to walk past it, when he goes out on rare occasions because he has to sustain his life. Which his friends say isn’t healthy, that he should start accepting it, but he isn’t mad at them. He isn’t mad because they don’t know, will never know, so he tells them. He tells them that it’s not that easy and he’ll always love him; he’ll never accept it, because he'll always be there in the shadows; somewhere between alive and not.
It was two years ago when they met for the first time, the first time of many. Yongguk was taking his usual stroll through the museum, hat in his right hand because he was already dressed like he shouldn’t be there, but since the owners knew him they let it slide. He was there once a week: Thursdays, five p.m; not the busy hour but not the quite one either, it was somewhere in the middle. There were people inside, there always were, but it wasn’t crowded and wasn’t noisy, which Yongguk thought was rude to the paintings - didn’t do them justice because they should be studied and analyzed and talking just disturbed the process. He was there every Thursday, five p.m. sharp after work at the record shop, still dressed in his jeans and button up, but this time he had a black windbreaker snug against his chest and his hair was frizzed at the top due to the Fall rain that pattered against the windows. Yongguk was straggling at the back of the museum, pushed up against the velvet rope they used to make sure people didn’t get too close(Yongguk never would, he would be crazy to even think about that, because he knew how precious everything on those walls were - are-,) studying the painting hung up on the wall. But it wasn’t just any painting, it was a portrait of a boy. A boy with black hair and oval eyes, ghostly skin and a gaze that Yongguk swore was pointed directly at his heart. The lips were a deep red color, not lipstick red but not natural red either, a color that made it seem like the boy was holding a secret and that the secret was ripping apart his lips, trying to get out. The shoulders were defined under a white shirt, they were sharp at the edges and led down to wispy arms, ending flat on the boys’ lap. Yongguk liked the painting, he really did. It was different than all the other portraits he’d ever seen; it seemed so much more personal, seemed like it had so much more meaning than he could ever know, so he looked down at the description underneath, looking for the artists’ name.
He didn’t find it though, all he found was the description and date it was created: a year ago to the day. He was disappointed because he wanted to see more works by the artist, but just shrugged because he couldn’t do anything about it and if the artist didn’t put his name than he must have not wanted people to know it, and Yongguk understood that. He sometimes wanted people not to know his name either, but Yongguk was popular and liked and happy. Yongguk was a normal guy in everyone else’s’ eyes, but Yongguk didn’t think so. Yongguk had such deeper thoughts than all his other friends, than all the other guys he worked with or met at football games. But he kept it to himself, just forgetting about his deeper side until he was alone - like he was that day two years ago.
He moved on to the next few paintings but couldn’t get the “fire boy”(that’s what its title was, Yongguk found out) portrait out of his head. He found himself comparing every portrait he fell upon to that one, and none could measure up. None came close, at all. That portrait was one in a million, one in a billion, and Yongguk just wanted to know what someone who could paint something like that looked like.
He was lingering back at the front of the museum, eyes scanning the last few paintings he skipped, when he came from somewhere in the crowd beside him. He was just a normal guy Yongguk thought at first, but when he came closer Yongguk saw the paint flecks dried in his hair; red and blue and green that described the simplicity of his work. Saw the pale skin and knobby joints, saw eyes as deep as the Marianas trench, saw the way when he smiled it seemed to be ten times too big for his face, saw the way there was something hidden inside that said the smile wasn’t for his sake.
“Any painting you really like?” He asked, and Yongguk didn’t know what to say. Which was different because Yongguk was always so confident but not outgoing. He was so quick-witted and knew what to say, but all his words got jumbled inside his head and tangled in his vocal cords when he went to say something.
He finally managed to come up with something to say, clearing his throat of the embarrassment he could feel heating up his insides. “It’s called ‘Fire Boy’, have you seen it?”
Yongguk never liked telling people his favorite painting, so when people asked him he always replied with his second or third favorite. Because the first favorite was just for him - his first favorite because of everything that went on inside himself when no one was around to see it and he could relate to it. But he said his real favorite to the guy anyway, biting his fleshy lip as he nodded.
“I like that one too. So much emotion just in that one face.”
Yongguk nodded because he knew exactly what he was talking about.
“I like how you can tell there’s a deeper story behind that only belongs to the artist; that he probably doesn’t want anyone else to see but had to get it out somehow.”
He just nodded, smiling but not like he did in the beginning, telling Yongguk that was exactly what he thought too, then telling him he had to go and it was nice talking with him.
Yongguk went on with life, he probably did too, and Yongguk didn’t think about the portrait anymore. He thought about it sometimes, sure, when he was staring at a picture in a magazine of a little boy who looked so blank compared to the fire boy. He thought about it when he got the mail one day from his P.O box and saw an add for the New York art museum; he thought that the “Fire Boy” painting deserved to be there, right in the front with a display case so nobody could ruin everything the artist was trying to say.
He ended up writing his grocery list on the same add.
()
Yongguk saw him again at the same art gallery in the same spot right at the front. When Yongguk walked in with his khaki’s and black tshirt, there he was, far more appropriately dressed then Yongguk was. He smiled but it was a different type of smile; not the too big one, not the hidden meaning one, but a different one. A smaller one, a grin that hid his teeth behind his lips, a grin that traveled all the way up to his eyes.
“Hello,” Yongguk said, smiling to be polite(but maybe he started falling for him then, maybe that’s when they were both doomed).
“Hi, back again I see,” he chuckled, looking over his shoulder like he was afraid someone was looking, “my name’s Himchan by the way, I don’t think I ever told you.”
Yongguk liked it; Himchan. It rolled off his tongue and sounded surprisingly cold in his ears like when you put eardrops in.
“My name’s Yongguk.”
Himchan had platinum blonde hair; it had to be dyed, without a doubt. His face was so thin and sharp Yongguk thought it could cut through diamonds, his fingers that laid sprawled against his legs were so thin that Yongguk thought if you held them too tight they could snap right off.
“Let’s go admire the artwork together, okay?” It wasn’t really a question, or maybe it was, but the way Himchan said it made Yongguk think it really wasn’t. That Yongguk was going to go see the artwork with him whether he said yes or no, so he didn’t argue.
But he didn’t want to go together, especially not with a stranger he just learned the name of(even though he did tell him his real favorite painting, not his second or third). Yongguk walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Himchan, feeling like a giant when he was pressed close to Himchan’s smaller frame. They walked aimlessly for a while, Himchan pointing out some landscapes and Yongguk saying what he liked about them even if he really didn’t like them. Himchan knew, Yongguk thought(knows), because halfway through he tried to laugh but it ended up being just a small cough, gripping Yongguk’s elbow.
“Show me some of your favorites, because obviously these aren’t them.”
“Sorry, I just don’t find them particularly emotional, if you know what I mean.”
Yongguk looked at Himchan as he led them over to the back section of the museum, Himchan still gripping onto Yongguk like he had to be pulled forward for his feet to start moving.
“No, I understand,” Himchan mumbled and then they were standing right in front of the “Fire Boy” portrait. And it was just what Yongguk expected; still that penetrating glare and hidden secrets. Yongguk nodded toward the boy staring back at them, gaze scanning them over.
“Ah, this is your favorite, I remember.”
Yongguk was surprised he remembered, it’d been a little over two weeks since they had seen each other and Yongguk didn’t remember much about what Himchan said to him, so he felt bad. He thought Himchan saw him as just another casual conversation in an art museum, because at the time that’s all Yongguk saw Himchan as(and maybe he should have only saw him as that, maybe it would have made it easier and saved them all).
“Can you see why?” Yongguk asked quietly, afraid he was the only one who saw the emotional tethers that made the painting so extraordinary.
Himchan’s head titled to the right like he was trying to see it from a different view, and for a second Yongguk was afraid Himchan would say he saw nothing. But then he thought that it wouldn’t matter if Himchan saw nothing, because he did and that’s all that mattered, in the end.
“I do, I really do.” His light words shook Yongguk up; the way his words whistled into his ear like the wind made Himchan seem sad, made it seem like there was a heaviness in his words and heart. But Yongguk didn’t say anything, just shook it off and smiled; teeth and gums on display.
“Wow, your smile is really nice, Yongguk,” Himchan said, eyes still lost in Yongguk’s face, words disconnected like he wasn’t really talking to Yongguk but himself.
“Thanks.”
But then Himchan started laugh-coughing again and Yongguk helped him sit down on a bench near the paintings, leaving to get him a paper cup of water from the cooler a few people away.
He was gone when Yongguk came back. The water tasted stale and salty.
Yongguk wasn’t timid; he was brash and said what he thought, but around Himchan he couldn’t help it. At least not those first few months anyway; it was always Himchan egging him on and engaging him and Yongguk felt sort of like a little kid, which he hated. He hated that nobody knew him; not really. Everyone knew the loud Yongguk, the adequate rapper Yongguk, the charismatic Bang Yongguk, but no one knew the timid Yongguk, the thoughtful Yongguk, the emotional Yongguk. He was stony on the outside, a front he built when he decided he was the only one who needed to know about the real side of him, while Himchan wasn’t, but sort of at the same time. Sometimes when they were pressed shoulder to shoulder and Himchan was staring up at some painting and Yongguk glanced at his face, he saw the Himchan he thought was real. He saw the easily impressed Himchan, the gullible Himchan, the child-like Himchan. But then he’d finish and he’d talk quietly and Yongguk could convince himself he never saw Himchan like that. But he knew what it was like - that not every minute of every day you could keep the façade - so he pretended he didn’t see it.
They met more often after that. Every Thursday Himchan would be somewhere near the front, swaying on his feet like he was waiting for Yongguk. He’d smile that close-lipped smile and grab right onto Yongguk’s elbow like it was his place - like it was made for him and him only. Yongguk didn’t mind though, he’d gotten used to the way Himchan always clung to him, he had gotten used to the way whenever Yongguk touched him back he could feel his bones through the flesh. He also noticed that their viewing time got shorter and shorter each day. He noticed but he wasn’t sure if Himchan did, so he didn’t say anything. He just accepted it(and at first it was alright, he didn’t mind, but at some point he started getting disappointed) and helped Himchan to a bench before he said goodbye.
He tried not to notice the way Himchan started off standing in the front waiting for him, and how as each day passed he shrunk lower and lower, eventually just sitting on the bench outside. And again Yongguk didn’t ask, he’d just say hi and they’d go look at paintings and say goodbye.
That was their routine; they’d never see each other out in the real world, they’d never talk about their life’s or what their hobbies were, it was kept at art taste and nothing more. Not until Himchan asked him to go with him to the bakery next door, at least; saying it was his favorite place and had “cupcakes you can’t live without”(Himchan was always a romanticist, always liked to exaggerate whenever he could). Yongguk didn’t know what to say at first, his mouth was open and the broken sound of a word hung in the air. He didn’t want to keep Himchan waiting, he knew that he didn’t like time to go to waste. Yongguk found out one time when he was taking “too long” to get Himchan water(which became a regular thing; them stopping so Himchan could sit and Yongguk getting him water). But it wasn’t a mad kind of annoyed, it was like the way you pretend to be annoyed at someone for the sake of “flirting.” So Yongguk finally just shook his head and followed Himchan to the quaint shop, thinking that Himchan wasn’t really exaggerating that much about the cupcakes.
()
They went to the bakery a few more times, getting the same two cupcakes without fail, but eventually it turned into not just the bakery but the coffee shop a few blocks away, the park Himchan could spend the rest of his days at, Yongguk’s apartment. He remembers the first time Himchan came - he’ll always remember it. Himchan stepped carefully throughout the rooms, peeking in doors Yongguk meant to keep closed and going right up to pictures frames on the walls and inspecting them like he was looking for flaws. Yongguk was sitting on the couch when Himchan was done, one chipping coffee mug in his hands and the other on a coaster on the coffee table. He didn’t know how Himchan liked his coffee; black like his eyes or with cream and sugar, but Yongguk decided on the cream and sugar because it fit Himchan more. It fit the sweetness that filled Himchan up to the brim - it manifested all of Himchan’s words’ into one color. Himchan sat down, sipped at the coffee(and didn’t complain so Yongguk must have been right), and let out a shaky sigh as he leaned into the couch. Yongguk doesn’t remember what was playing on the TV because his main focus was on the platinum mop of hair that settled itself into his lap. He was focused on breathing evenly and wondering why his heart felt like it was shaking in his chest and not running his hands through his hair. He controlled everything besides the latter, rubbing each strand of hair between his thumb and forefinger, scratching with his fingernails at his scalp and feeling a weight lift off his shoulders when Himchan let out a content whine.
Each visit came with more touching; more nights where Himchan didn’t bother going home. Instead he slept in Yongguk’s oversized shirts and sweatpants from high school, wore Yongguk’s outfits he outgrew, talked all through the morning until Yongguk had to go to work. So one day when Yongguk came home and saw new pillows on the couch, three new pairs of shoes next to his in the entryway, a new picture of himself and Himchan on the coffee table, he wasn’t surprised. He just accepted it because once Himchan started sleeping over more than once a week he knew Himchan would finally just stop going home whatsoever.
They would sit on the couch when Yongguk got home, Himchan’s legs thrown over Yongguk’s lap, Himchan staring at the TV with his permanent pout, Yongguk staring at Himchan. Yongguk would rub at the bones in his feet, eyes wandering until Himchan caught his attention with a cough.
“You okay? Need some water?” Yongguk would ask, concern intertwined in his sentence.
“No, but Yongguk…” He trailed off and bit his lips, bringing his feet back into himself so he could wrap his nimble arms around his knees.
“What?”
“I love you.”
Even though Yongguk was still young and still didn’t know the first thing about love, he knew he loved Kim Himchan; he knew by the quiver in his bones and the endlessness of his soul.
So he smiled and said “I love you too, Channie.”
()
Yongguk remembers they were sitting on the couch again after Yongguk came back from work, Himchan’s head pressed deep into Yongguk’s shoulder, legs wrapped around his waist.
“Yongguk, I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
“ I painted ‘Fire Boy’.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
He wasn’t surprised.
()
What he was surprised by was the night when they kissed for the first time. Months later; months of Himchan sleeping by Yongguk’s side, of Yongguk loving Himchan too much for his own good, of Himchan loving him as much as he could endure. They were in bed, the lights off, Yongguk pinning down Himchan and pressing hungry kisses into his cold lips, letting his tongue explore the hot crevice that nobody got to see but himself. Yongguk grabbed Himchan’s thigh and lifted it around his waist, feeling his rubbing against Himchan’s hip, letting out groans when he detached for air. And he needed this; he needed this so badly that it felt like it was eating him alive, ripping through all his senses at a pace he couldn’t keep up with, all his neurons firing and congealing at one receptor. His hands were already traveling down Himchan’s clothed stomach, tugging teasingly at the buttons and dipping the tip of his finger into the concave of Himchan’s belly button. He finally gripped onto the top of Himchan’s jeans, running his thick tongue down Himchan’s collarbone when he went to pop off the button and zip them down.
But Himchan pushed him away.
He pushed him away and Yongguk didn’t kniow what to do; he didn’t know if Himchan was mad or scared or nervous, so when he looked up and saw the red blush in his face and the pure sadness that discolored his irises, he moved so he could lay down besides Himchan instead.
“Sorry, I don’t want to force you to do anything.”
Yongguk felt the shaking of the bed as Himchan started crying, head shaking as he turned over so his spine was pointing at Yongguk.
“I want to, Gukkie, I do. But I’m sick, okay?”
“Sick? With what? What’s wrong?” Yongguk didn’t want to know, not really, because if it made Himchan break into quite sobs than it would make him break into booming sobs, because everything that hurt Himchan hurt him ten times more.
He scooted closer to Himchan’s back, wrapping his arms around his chest and smelling his hair, telling him it was okay to tell him.
“I have AIDS, Yongguk.”
()
Yongguk eventually accepted it(after nights when Himchan was sleeping on his side of the bed, Yongguk in the darkened living room doing research on everything about AIDS, after weeks of Himchan telling him it was okay, he knew for years that he was going to die sooner or later).
“You’re not going to die, Himchan, you can’t. They’ll find a cure, they have to, right?”
But Himchan knew it was too late; knew that even if they did discover a cure - which he hoped they did - it wouldn’t be able to help him, he’d either already be dead or too close to it to be helped. But he didn’t tell Yongguk this, he already could barely watch him crumble now.
“I’m sorry for being so selfish, Yongguk. For making you love me when I knew how it was going to end.”
“Don’t you ever say that,” Yongguk pulled Himchan into his chest, hugging him like he was cracking his bones and absorbing him into himself, so he could keep a part of him forever. “I love you and don’t regret it.”
()
Even though Himchan had prepared Yongguk, even though Yongguk had prepared himself, he still wasn’t ready for Himchan to be gone. He wasn’t ready for having his lover be there one day and not there the next. He wasn’t ready to come home and drop his jacket wherever it landed on the floor, wasn’t ready to see the half-finished eggs on the table that Himchan was eating, wasn’t ready to see Himchan’s clothes in the closet and start crying again. He wasn’t ready to have to box up everything that reminded him of Himchan, so he didn’t. He kept his shoes out next to his, he kept his clothes hanging like he was still using them, he left his pillows propped up just the way he liked them.
He wasn’t ready for the gaping hole that engulfed everything inside him, he wasn’t ready to feel so sad all the time, he wasn’t ready to shrivel inside himself and become the uglier version of Yongguk. It lasted a year; a full twelve months and the rotation of seasons for Yongguk to manage to wake up in the morning and get dressed properly.
()
It’s his and Himchan’s “would-be” third anniversary, and deep down inside Yongguk doesn’t feel the sadness. He doesn’t feel anything, at most he feels the twinge of longing and nostalgia that pricks at his nerves and chokes up his throat when he looks at the picture of the both of them. He gets dressed and brushes his teeth and walks the few minutes down to their museum. It’s Thursday, five .m., and Yongguk has to take a steady breath to get the courage to walk inside, the bell chiming and the owner smilingly at him like she missed Yongguk(but she doesn’t know why he hasn’t been in in almost a year and he doesn’t tell her). His legs guide him down the path he and Himchan used to walk, past the water cooler and Yongguk can swear he feels the pressure of Himchan’s fingers around his elbow, can see the silhouette of him on the bench. But he stops in front of the painting, eyes watering because now he knows what everything means.
Now he knows what someone who could paint something like that looked like.
Comments