CHAPTER TWO

Kim Jongin usually has no problem saying “no” to a certain Oh Sehun—his ideas are usually accompanied by a rash of repercussions that Jongin would rather not deal with the morning after—but tonight, he relents. Tonight, he just wants to forget. 

Lounging from his seat in Sehun’s VIP booth, he looks on dispassionately at the crowd beneath hooded lids, trying to ignore the stench of alcohol and sick which was saturated in the air. If he were being honest, Jongin was too far gone to even be sure where he was. All he knew was that he was at some dance club located somewhere along the ritzy Cheong-dam district strip, he just wasn’t sure which one (not that it mattered anyway).

He can feel the vibrations of heavy bass through the floor while music reverberates through his ears. Jongin had long been separated from Sehun, but he makes no effort to look for him, opting instead to pour himself another shot in favour of drinking himself into a state of oblivion. Tipping the glass into his mouth, he relishes in the slow burn as the vodka slides down his throat, scorching his stomach. 

Jongin was already so inebriated that he couldn’t walk straight, but even then it didn’t feel quite enough. In spite of the assault of his senses from all directions, he was still too aware of his goddamned feelings. While everything around him was a blur, the image of Kyungsoo from this afternoon was brandished in his mind with astounding clarity. Though this room was chockfull with attractive people, who were most likely to be members from high society no less, given the nature of the crowd that this area of town was known to attract, there was no one here he spared a second glance at. 

Even after all these years, Kyungsoo was the only one who took his breath away; but he was not here (and not with him). 

Feeling pointedly more miserable at this thought, he takes two more shots and fails to notice a lady sliding in gracefully next to him in the booth. She says something to him (a greeting, perhaps?) but he doesn’t hear her. Turning in her direction to acknowledge her presence, he tries to make out her face but the flashing technicolor lights, in tandem with the effects of the alcohol kicking in, was making it difficult to focus. She looks somewhat familiar, but he cannot seem to put a name to that face. 

He feels her hot breath on the shell of his ear as she leans in to speak to him. Above the white noise around him, it is difficult to hear but he is picks up the word “dance” and simply nods in response, allowing her to pull up his pliant body and lead him to the dance floor. 

With great familiarity (which would have puzzled Jongin had he been sober), she pressed her back against his hips and grabbed his hand to place on her waist. Too drunk to care, he goes along with it and they quickly slip into a comfortable rhythm, moving to the beat of the music. The sound booming through the speakers is loud enough to drown out his own thoughts and he is grateful because finally, he has gotten some reprieve. 

Adrenaline kicks in and as they gravitate towards the centre of the floor, he spins his companion around in a swift movement and presses their bodies impossibly close. He can feel sweat forming on his forehead and his clothes sticking to his skin, but he continues to move with wild abandon, closing his eyes when he feels her snaking her arms around his neck. 

"Looks like someone finally decided to join in the fun!” Jongin hears someone shout in his ear and turns to the sound of the voice. Greeted with a smirk and a quirk of an eyebrow, Jongin flashes a wide grin of his own before breaking into raucous laughter. 

It appears as if he’s finally found Sehun. 

* * *

He doesn’t remember how it happens, but at dawn he stumbles back into his condo with babbling Sehun in tow. 

Thoroughly spent, they had collapsed onto Jongin’s leather sofa the moment they made it to the living room and were now lounging side-by-side with Sehun’s head on Jongin’s shoulder. 

“Feet off my coffee table.” Jongin chides half-heartedly, sipping a glass of cold water in hope of minimising the effects of the roaring hangover he knew was sure to follow in morning. 

"Ditch the tone, boy.” Sehun waved his hand dismissively. “It was thanks to me that you had a great time tonight!” 

Jongin merely hums in response. 

“By the way, I saw the way that girl moved against you tonight. Damn, Jongin.” He actually wolf-whistles and Jongin cannot resist the urge to roll his eyes. “She totally wanted to tap that of yours.” Sehun says as he sits up and punches his arm with a chuckle. 

Jongin shrugs. “I couldn’t compare to you. You had both men and women falling at your feet, you little vixen.” 

“I can’t help it, everyone wants me!” Sehun quips happily. “If I didn’t have a shoot tomorrow I would have seriously considered taking this one boy home with me… maybe bring a girl along too.”

“You’re disgusting, have I told you that?” 

“Cute. I love you too Jonginnie! More importantly though,” he abruptly turns to face him, expression as serious as he could manage in his drunken stupor. “You really let yourself go tonight. You alright?” 

At this, Jongin laughs humourlessly. Trust that punk to notice, Sehun really wasn’t his best friend for nothing. 

With a long sigh, he threw his arm over his face. “I saw him this afternoon.” 

Upon hearing his reply, Sehun remained quiet for several heartbeats, processing the meaning of Jongin’s words… then it clicked. He explodes with mirth, cackles echoing off the walls in a manner that made Jongin’s ears ring unpleasantly. 

"Yah! So the mysterious ‘love of your life’—” He makes air-quotations with his fingers as he says this and Jongin wants to hit him. “—has finally re-emerged… and so the plot thickens.” 

“I hate you.” 

“Listen boy, you’re been hopelessly in love for so long it’s practically a personality trait.” He reaches over and punches Jongin’s arm again. (Too hard, this time.) “You should do something about it. Or maybe, you should just stop….” Sehun doesn't finish the sentence, but Jongin knows exactly what he means. (But the mere thought of him no longer loving Kyungsoo makes him feel as if he’s been punched in his gut.)  

By the time Jongin washes up and makes it to his bedroom, Sehun was snoring outside and sunlight was beginning to seep through his windows. 

Pulling down the blinds and shrouding the room in a cloak of darkness, he padded towards his bed. Without thinking—he had done it so many times, it was muscle memory by now—he pulled open the top drawer of his bedside table and retrieved a photograph, the only one he kept close with him consistently all these years. 

He held it up to his face and stared at it for a long time, even though the awful lighting from his bedside lamp made it difficult to see it clearly. Not that he needed to, because in actuality, taking the photograph out in itself was just a formality. He didn’t need to look at it because he had long blazoned the image onto his consciousness: the face of a beautiful boy singing; his skin a porcelain white, his eyes wide and shimmering and his lips… If he closed his eyes hard enough, sometimes Jongin could even hear the sound of his voice. 

This was the image that Jongin fell asleep to on most nights, in hopes that where reality had failed him, he would at least have the love of his life with him in his sleep. 

That night, he dreamt about the day the photograph was taken; the day he first felt his dormant heart start beating again — the day he had first met Do Kyungsoo. 

* * *

Jongin had compartmentalised his life into two components: life before Kyungsoo and life after Kyungsoo. 

He decided a long time ago that life before Kyungsoo wasn’t anywhere near as poignant compared to life after Kyungsoo, so he had detached himself from most of his memories. However, even though he had willed himself to forget most of it, he could still reconstruct his childhood like a graphic novel when asked; vivid enough, but always with blanks in-between the scenes. 

Jongin was born in New York City to Kim Jaehee, a promising young ballerina who had just graduated from Julliard, boasting of both dancing prowess and looks that books would take pages to tell. Opting for a simple life, she taught ballet at a dance studio somewhere in Manhattan, ran and opened by one of her closest friends from college. This friend had a son who was the same age as Jongin, and his name was Sehun. Naturally, he became the first friend that Jongin ever made. 

Life was simple. He went to school with Sehun in the day and after class each afternoon, they both would go to the dance studio where Jongin’s mother would teach them ballet. With the passion for dance that his mother had instilled in him, Jongin’s childhood ambition was to become a great ballerino. He adored dancing, almost as much as he adored his mother. 

Happiness was simple and it came easy. Jongin and his mother were all each other had, but he didn’t feel a need to question it. He never felt that he was lacking in anything. Both him and his mother dancing to the rhythm of love was more than enough for him, and together, they filled each other’s days with laughter for the first decade of Jongin’s life. 

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