He takes a deep drag from his cigarette as he leans forward, slightly hunched as thin wrists rest on the edge of his thighs, bordering his knees. His eyes are closed, plump lips slightly parted as smoke escapes his mouth.

[ The music on the broken down stereo that had been propped up on the mantelpiece is still faintly playing the beginning of Lana del Rey’s Bel Air, and the piano entrance makes him feel like he’s floating. [ It’s a little jumpy and scratchy, but it gives a sort of vintage-y and throwback feel to it. ]

“Jongin.”

His eyes flutter open a little and he looks over his shoulder to see a smaller male looking at him with a blank stare, his shoulder leaning against the wonky sliding doors that Jongin had promised he’d repair on his day off.

[ It’s his day off today. ]

He cracks a smile and goes back to closing his eyes, his broad forehead leaning against the rusty metal of the balcony bars while swinging his legs a little.

[ He honestly likes swinging his legs through the balcony of his apartment while looking down at the world below. Sometimes he does it at night when he comes home after his shift, his muscles sore as he smokes through a pack of coffin nails, his eyes watching the traffic of Seoul whizzing through in a blur of anonymous bright colors.

Right now the world is slowly waking up with the colored sky painting out the vague outlines of life over what had previously been monochrome gloom barely a few minutes ago. ]  

The sun is getting higher in the sky. He knows that it’s coming in through the cracks of Kyungsoo’s faded blue curtains in rivulets of warm light [ their room faces the east ].  His eyes are closed, but he knows it. His eyelids are warming up in red from the sunshine, and if he relaxes a little, he can probably see his own pulsing capillaries.

There’s something very comforting about the way he hears Kyungsoo’s slippered feet shuffling over to where he is. He inches even closer to him then sits down right behind him, legs at the side of Jongin’s, his forehead leaning against Jongin’s nape, and arms loosely wrapped around his slim waist.

There’s something very comforting about the way he hears Kyungsoo inhales a lungful of oxygen, only to exhale out a soft sigh of his name. He can feel Kyungsoo’s heartbeat and he can feel the sharp bones of the smaller male digging into his back, and he grimaces a little at the thought.

[ “Stop, baby, stop, please,” he had begged once, his hands tightly holding one of Kyungsoo’s; it was rather frightening to see how small and frail it looked like when his tan ones encased it. “Stop punishing yourself like this.”

Kyungsoo didn’t even have any reaction but simply continued drinking the iced glass of water in front of him. “I can’t.”

Jongin looked at him with a despairing look before he rested his cheek on the table. His calloused thumb brushed lightly over the thin skin that was pulled taut over the protruding knuckles. Jongin’s voice was barely a whisper as he looked at him while chewing on his lower lip. “You’re killing yourself, baby.”

“We’re all dying, Jongin.” ]

 “Baby,” he murmurs softly as he turns a little to his side to see Kyungsoo’s still-languid peeking eyes up at him.

[ He remembers that one time several years ago when they were still in college, with the older male staring at him emptily that one time they had both sat at the parking lot of the old abandoned theater. He had been crying because he was tired of being heartbroken and he knew Kyungsoo was tired of Jongin being heartbroken.

“It’s just…” he hiccupped as he rubbed the hem of his sleeve against his chafed cheekbones for the umpteenth time. “I’m not his five minute cigarette break. He can’t put me out after lighting me up.”

Kyungsoo ran a tongue over his dried lips and wraps a comforting arm around Jongin. “You don’t have to do this,” he had told his friend, whose broad shoulders shook as his tear ducts ran dry from exhaustion. 

Jongin laughed emptily and it gnawed at Kyungsoo’s mind. “Yeah, okay.” ]

A soft smile spreads across his lips, and Jongin thinks his face looks like sunshine. “Hi,” he mumbles softly, nuzzling into the crook of the taller man’s neck.

They usually spend days thus: curled up against each other in some way or another – be it on a rusty balcony at 5 in the morning, on a bed with nothing on but sweat and shy smiles, or on a street leaning against each other while browsing at a farmer’s market. It doesn’t matter, they’re inseparable to make up the seconds, hours, years, and lifetimes that they had been apart.

[ They had previously been so ing afraid to want each other, but yet there they stood once upon a August, wanting each other anyway. ]

Kyungsoo’s thumbs brush lightly over the trace shape of Jongin’s abdomen; he shivers a little when thick eyelashes brush against the sensitive skin of his neck and Kyungsoo chuckles. “You’re ticklish there too?” he hums softly, nuzzling his nose against the younger’s shoulders, which earns him a half-intended glare.

“Don’t you dare. If you tickle me, I’m going to smother you with a pillow and sit on top of you for three years.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t, although he wants to; he wants to see Jongin come undone in every way possible, from laughter to little gasps. But instead he lightly kisses over the little marks of purple, blue, and grey on Jongin’s tan skin.

[ Skin nebulae is what he had been calling them previously, with the way the clotted blood swirls under the thin stretch of epidermis like clusters of stars in the large canvas of the heavens.

 Your body is the sky, he had murmured earlier as he had pushed Jongin onto the mattress and crawled above him. There were soft gasps and sighs escaping the other’s parted lips while he ran fingers through thick black locks when lips press against his skin and teeth nip playfully here and there. Your body is the sky and these love bites are explosions of nebulae. My love for you is exploding always.

Kyungsoo had always been too much absorbed in science. Jongin let him; it was cute in a way since he never was good at sweet talking.

(He just didn’t bother telling him that the stars had been dead for thousands of years.) ]

Jongin lets out a soft hum around 6 am when the sunlight has finally bathed the sleeping city in a glow of awakening. He can see some men in business suits already stepping out of expensive luxury cars on the other side of the street, only to be picked up by a taxi. They all seem to have cellphones pressed against their ears, like they’re too absorbed in another dimension to notice the world coming alive around them.

When he inhales deeply, he pulls in loads of nicotine, smoke, and the faint scent of Kyungsoo’s eucalyptus that’s growing on the side of their balcony [ it’s getting a bit too big for its pot, and he’d said earlier that he would replant it into the bigger terracotta container he bought half price at one of his favorite hobby stores ].

“You made coffee already?” Jongin asks, turning his head slightly to look at Kyungsoo when he smells the scent of that expensive coffee his husband actually saves up some extra change for. He merely receives a nod in reply and Jongin chuckles, giving him a kiss on the forehead; he knows that his husband is still really tired from taking care of a nursery, even though the hours were quite kind on the employee. Running after little kids for seven hours and cleaning up the chaos afterwards is a back-breaking task.

[ “I’m not ready to have kids just yet,” he mumbled quietly, plucking off the green leaves from his jasmine plant.

Jongin sighed, leaning against the wonky sliding doors he had promised to fix about a week ago. “Is it about the money, Kyungsoo, because we’ve saved up enough for us to actually make a family.” His tone was tired and drawn out, obviously from working hard and from asking this question too often like a broken record, only to be given the same answer once more.

It wouldn’t hurt to continue asking.

“It’s not about the money,” the smaller one sighed out as he tossed the shrubs into a small plastic bag which he would use for fertilizer later. Jongin’s never understood why Kyungsoo always plucked out the bright and healthy leaves, and when his husband would tell him that it was so that the actual plant wouldn’t choke on its own leaves, it would pretty much go out the other ear. “And we’re already a family, Jongin.”

The younger male merely blinked, his fingers lightly balled into a fist before relaxing and nodding.

It wouldn’t hurt to ask again later. ]

Jongin shifts, pulling his legs out from between the bars as he gathers Kyungsoo in his arms before getting up and walking back inside. He leaves the sliding door open to let in the air inside the small apartment, and when he’s reached his twelfth step into their home, Kyungsoo moves around in his arms before climbing down and half running on bare feet towards the coffee maker that’s not even five feet away from them on the kitchen counter.

Letting out a low whistle, Jongin grins at the sight of his husband in nothing but boxers, to which the smaller merely stamps his feet in reply.

[ Kyungsoo had once found it terrifying to think that one day he might trust somebody enough to let them see him . He will undress and remind them that he’s got stretch marks and birth marks and scars from having chicken pox when he was little and scars from all of the other things now. He will blush thousands of shades of red, painting yourself as a rose losing its petals. And that person – that person will take it all in. And he wondered if they will reassure you. But mostly, he wondered if they will even see anything worth reassuring you about.

He hoped they’d see each freckle on his back as if it’s a star and he is the whole universe to them. ]

Jongin’s fingertips brush over the moles on his back, tracing them from spot to spot.

“You have Ursa Major on your shoulder blade,” he chuckles while preparing his husband’s cup of Darjeeling in a mint green teacup.

Kyungsoo simply smiles and turns to face him, holding out a small blue cup of Cuban espresso that probably has a bit too much sugar in it. He trades it in return for a cup of tea that has a teaspoonful too much of creamer and a five-second-squeeze of organic honey into it.

[ But that’s just how they like their drinks, like how they like each other. Overflowing, sweet, and a little sharp at the edges. ]

Jongin leans down as the other sips on his tea, his upper lip tucking out at the rim of his teacup; a chuckle escapes him when a pair of large eyes blink up at him.

Both cups are set on the counter and arms are wrapped around torsos, small feet are pressing above larger feet and going on tippy toes; sweetened lips are melding with each other like cream dissolving in an espresso cup of pure liquid caffeine.

There are little laughs exchanged, tilts of the head as they try to bring each other as close as they can, and fingers tangling in messy locks of dark hair.

And Jongin thinks in the back of his head that he can get used to days off like these.

[ Jongin thinks Kyungsoo's lips taste like home and yet he's so ing homesick. ]