Yukwon: A Place of Warmth
There's This One Thing...
Part Four of (past halfway now) Seven: A place of warmth in cold weather.
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write maudlin romance when it came to Kwon, who looks like a sad child in a Victorian painting. This concerns his girlfriend, whom I know absolutely nothing about other than her name. It is all entirely fictional. If that makes you feel weird then I guess skip this one.
Edit: I just noticed the way the titles get truncated in the side bar: A Place of War.
He's late again. Practise ran over time by half an hour, and by then of course it was rush hour and the buses were packed. He's just glad no one noticed how close he was to slapping Taeil after he fumbled the steps for the twentieth time. Head down, fists clenched in his jacket pocket, Kwon hurries through the bustling street, wondering if he should send a fourth apologetic message to her. He nearly cries when she's not standing in their usual rendevous spot - a small and slightly worn down coffee shop that sells what they both agree are the best pastries in nearly all of Seoul (one day they will find out for certain). Then he spots her through the window.
She stands up, smiling as he approaches; her nose and cheeks are still pink from the cold and she has a little line of cappucino on her top lip. He kisses it away before he does anything else, and she squeezes his arms and shivers.
"I hope you don't mind I got started, it was so cold out there." She nods to the table, still clutching his arm. "I got you your usual."
"Thanks." Scrambling his coat off, wanting to get started now he's finally here, he sits. "I'm sorry I'm so late again."
"I told you before, I understand." She shakes her head and reaches over, a warm palm on his cold cheek.
"I don't know why you put up with me."
"Maybe because I want to," she laughs, pushing his coffee towards him. It's still steaming through the sticky hazlenut swirl on top; she leans her cheek on her hand, observes him tenderly. Somehow it wakes him up, and he pulls himself straighter and warns himself not to spoil the time they do have. He looks properly at her, warming his free hand now with both her own, and smiling becomes easier. It's been so long (a whole tormented twelve days) that he's forgotten how nice it feels. The wind picks up outside; the cafe is private and tucked away. The space around them is warmed by coffee and her slow smiles as she watches the tension melt out of him. "Bad day?"
He leans back in his chair, sighing again but no longer so resentful. "Just busy. Stressful. I'd rather not talk about it. It being made late." It's all the more infuriating when it's not his fault, and the others are shooting him terribly sorry glances as someone's legs get tangled in themselves yet again, and they can see Kwon straining every muscle in his body not to swear because he asked them this ing once to be done on time. Half of him feels like a total for being selfish - he knows they're all a team, they need him there and that they all have their own strengths. The other half of him wants to strangle all of them. They get so little time to themselves anyway, and while he loves them all, it can't make up for these precious, solitary moments with her.
"I don't mind if you want to rant," she says mildly.
"It's okay. Tell me something good that happened to you today." She tells him about her housemate - she has a proper flat, shared with three of her friends; they all have separate bedrooms and it seems like heaven on the rare occasions he's able to visit - who recently got a good casting for a moisturising advert, and a casting she's going to later that evening. Then she tells him about a bird she saw outside her bedroom window and the soup she had for lunch. He finds it all fascinating.
They finish their coffee and cake, and she brushes the crumbs off his jumper and comments once more about how much she likes it on him. He remembers her wearing it one morning, bare legs smooth and golden brown in the sunlight. It's been weeks since they've spent the night together.
"I wish I could come to yours tonight," he says. Of everything about the idol lifestyle, it's the lack of privacy he finds hardest to deal with: not the public eye, or the fan's scrutiny, but that there is barely an hour a day in which he's not surrounded by people, reduced the the few inches between his ears as the only place they can't invade. There's always someone - multiple someones - pushing up next to him on the sofa, chattering while he cooks, snoring in the next bunk, even knocking elbows as they jostle for space at the sink. It's exhausting and hectic and sometimes he curls up in bed in the middle of the day and pretends to be asleep just so they'll leave him alone for a few hours.
"You won't let me come to yours?" she teases.
"Ugh, no. Never. You know what it looks like."
She has seen the visual evidence of the place shared by nine people, seven of whom are under thirty. "I don't fancy having to share a room with five men, either."
"I have the worst dorm mates in the history of the idol industry," he declares, folding his lips with a grin as she shoots him a warning glare. There have been one too many and too graphic recitations of his room mates' poor habits in the past.
"When do you next think-" She doesn't like to ask this question, because the answer is always the same twisted lips and downcast eyes: he doesn't know, not for a while, never soon enough. She pulls him close with an arm around his waist. "It's okay. I understand."
"You're too understanding."
They walk down by the river, despite the cold, and Kwon keeps his hand in hers, and refuses to check his phone - which has already announced three new messages - or the time. She has a casting at eight, and he a performance at nine, but this time belongs to them. While together he can just be her Kwonnie, and dance steps and engagements and fans don't matter. They stand still and watch the river tumble sluggishly away.
"You forget you're not the only one," and she carefully avoids his eyes. That's true; she's been away on jobs for weeks at a time before, but he doesn't think of it the same way. While she's away, she's simply away. It doesn't compare to the frustration of knowing that she's waiting for him, but he can't be there. "Your career comes first Kwonnie, just like mine. I wouldn't ask for anything else."
He hates when she says that; it's a reminder that one day they might not be together any more, and he will only have the trashed dorm, the six boys he knows as well as himself, and the songs they sing night after night - that should be enough, but it isn't. He gets on so well with Minhyuk, after all, because he understands this. "Not having her," he said once, a few weeks after he broke up with his first love and Kwon found him sitting on his own in the living room long after everyone had gone to bed, "Not having her is like not having your own bed. Like not having anywhere to sit down." This kind of utterly concrete metaphor was typical of him, but Kwon understood it, and he appreciates Minhyuk's ability, unique among them, to sit in companionable silence for as long as they can spare, but it still couldn't come close to compensating.
"I wish I could put you first, just once," he mutters into her ear, looping his arms around her from behind.
"I'd rather not see you for days if you were at least happy when I did." He winces.
"I just don't like letting you down."
"Then listen to me when I say you're not. Believe me when I say it's okay. I'm not upset about it and you don't need to be." She squeezes his hands, locked across her stomach, and gives him a sly pinch on the wrist as well. "Really Kwonnie."
He hides his face in her hair again, this time from shame. She is so understanding - too much so, and he knows she can hear the selfishness in his self-reproach. Yes, he hates leaving her waiting, but he hates waiting himself almost equally, perhaps more. He hates spending weeks with the same faces, the same demands, and then being denied a portion of the small time he can be free from that for. He hates capitulating to everyone else's need for his attention when he can't give it to the one person he wants to. Too long without her and he feels like he's slowly cooking in his own skin with the unbearable pressure of not being able to get away. A few hours with her and everything rotten and mouldy inside of him is washed away; he leaves feeling like he's had the most refreshing shower. It isn't only her he wants; it's the sanctuary hidden in her hair, her eyes, her arms.
She twists around in his arms and breathes icy air into his mouth as she kisses him. When she steps back she tugs a lock of his hair, watching the smile grow on his face again. "There's my sunshine." They continue their walk, uninvaded by cameras or annoying friends, and it's a little moment of peace and perfection in their messy and hectic lives. Even when he finally looks at the time and realises he has half an hour left to get back to the dorm, he doesn't flinch: let them be the ones to wait, just this time, he thinks, and concentrates on the soft and spicy taste of her lips and how her hands fit perfectly into the back pocket of his jeans. Of course she's smarter than him, and picks his pocket neatly, looking disapproving when she sees the time on his phone.
"They know they shouldn't text when I'm with you," he says defensively.
"Kwonnie, you have to run."
"They'll wait. You waited."
"I can wait," she says. She pats his cheek, half-slaps it, and with the semi-violence of the often parted they kiss one more time. Then she is gone, far too quickly, a whirl of blown back hair and scarf drawn in against the cold. Kwon watches her until she's disappeared. He walks back to the dorm even though it will make him late. Finally he checks his phone.
One message is from Taeil: im sorry for screwing up and making you late, so's everyone. we'll do better next time kwonnie. The next is from Zico, another apology and a promise that they'll cook for him next time they eat at home to make it up. The third is from Minhyuk; he says not to hurry home, he'll stall them as much as possible. As he reads this last, the message alert goes off for a fourth time. It's from her. You are a place of warmth in cold weather.
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