Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chanyeol is in Soho. The last he’d checked, he was a blue dot on the map, in Soho. His phone is now in his pocket, along with his hand.

It’s raining lazily, a powdery mist, bitter sugar gathering at the top of his head. His bangs are thawing down from their coif. A second later, the drizzle gets heavier, and he quickens his pace, feet slipping slightly on the cubic stone of the walkway.

He looks up, facing the falling drops. The periwinkle of the eventide is deep, the universe beyond coming alive, frothy sky punctured by twinkles. It’s the same everywhere. Or not. Maybe there are more skies. Maybe they are proportional to something – the sins of the people under. It’s not. Most certainly, it’s not, but it’s nice to think about it like that.

Chanyeol looks back down. He’s been walking for so long, he might not be in Soho anymore. He might not be anywhere now.

Beside him, Jongin is burying his nose into the tall collar of his jacket, smiley eyes under his bangs – he loves rain - feet fast beside Chanyeol.

Chanyeol takes his hand, sheltering his cold fingertips in the centre of his palm.

“Break up with me.”

Jongin squeezes back, and doesn’t break up with him.

There are many stories in Chanyeol’s life. But this story began a year ago, today.

This beginning was a prologue.

This beginning was Jongin grabbing his hand.

On the far margin of winter, Jongin had bought himself a new scarf, on discount given they were just going out of season. He was wearing it for the first time, a pattern of little carrots and donuts on distressed cotton. Chanyeol thought it was weird. Carrots and donuts. A vice along with its atonement. Chanyeol just wanted to bring it higher over his nose, for it was still so cold, and it was getting red. A red nose is cute, but not desirable.

When he made to reach for it, Jongin grabbed his hand. He was wearing Chanyeol’s gloves, their gloves, leather, bought many years ago, softened with use.

Jongin turned to him and held his gaze just as tight as he held his hand.  

“I think I love you a little less.”

Chanyeol had nothing to ask. Chanyeol only had an answer to a question he never thought of. Chanyeol only held his hand back, squeezing a little tighter so the warmth didn’t escape.

From that moment on, it came crashing down.

He’s with Jongin at a museum. He likes art. They both do. They’re in one of the biggest museums in the world. And yet they’re only looking at each other. Small glances. Corner glances. Not full on. Not full on anymore.

The pamphlets in their hands. A mismatch of whispered languages around them. Marble and footsteps. He sees paint, and installations. Photography. And some things that cannot settle in any category.

There is a painting with one yellow cord dancing around, twining to make a hexagon, all on black. Chanyeol can’t tell why, but he stays in front of it, and looks, and looks, stolen. And for a few more. For one completely white canvas, for one hyperrealistic portrait, which seems to show more than the raw eye could see.

Jongin isn’t with him anymore. He’s been stolen too, interred within the art.

They didn’t plan for this. They were not supposed to lose each other. Chanyeol panics, a formication over his skin. He’s here. In here. Somewhere. And yet, it’s as though he’s lost him for good. Forever.

Chanyeol turns around and exits the museum. It’s sunnier today. No more rain. Jongin likes the sun too. The sun makes him smile.

He waits. A mild, breezy anxiety pushing him from one foot to the other. He doesn’t remember a single art piece from what he’s seen inside. He looks far ahead, and close to himself. Groups. Milling. People. Tourists like themselves.

Chanyeol waits. He should call him. He should call, who knows where he is. But does his phone even have battery. No, because he wanted to take a shot of a funny-looking pigeon on the way here, and he had to use Chanyeol’s phone for it.

Is he feeling this too? This alterity, this wobble, this unsettlement? Does he feel incomplete without Chanyeol too?

Of course not. Not anymore.

“Ah!” whines Jongin, hugging him from behind, swiftly twirling into hooking his elbow with Chanyeol. “Such a pity they didn’t let us take pictures inside.,” he bemoans, pulling Chanyeol forward, smile gone beyond his teeth. “What did you like the most?” he asks, putting his other hand over the one he has on Chanyeol’s elbow. He peers at Chanyeol, peppy, effulgent, head tilting, waiting for Chanyeol’s reply.

“I only looked at you,” Chanyeol says, at last. There is no way to make that lighter, or to make it seem more like a lie. Even if he saw things, it wasn’t because he looked at them. It was because Jongin wasn’t there to be looked at anymore.

Jongin deflates, for a millisecond, a slip of instinct. Chanyeol still catches it. Then Jongin surges forward. He pecks Chanyeol’s cheek.

“You were my favourite in the whole museum too.” He giggles. Hard, Burrowing himself into himself, a little ball of shyness. “Now let’s get you pinned back against the wall.”

Chanyeol laughs, and follows Jongin.

It almost feels like nothing’s wrong.

Chanyeol had never seen desperation on Jongin before. It was new, and it frightened Chanyeol beyond belief.

And desperation, of that kind, not of ardour, was Jongin pushing himself closer than ever into Chanyeol, melding into him. It was new. And soft

Desperation shouldn’t be soft. Not a weep. Not a hug. Not the way it was.

Not Jongin pushing his face into Chanyeol’s neck, and whispering. “Where is it going where is it going where is it going.”

Where is it going.

It. The love. Where is it going.

Desperation was Jongin tying himself around Chanyeol, twisting and twirling until he was shut closed, so no more of the love could escape. So Jongin was insulated, airtight, lovetight.

“Where is it going.”

And desperation was then a cant, was a grind up against him, face in his hands, eyes unflattering, unwavering, present, so present, as he says, “Chanyeol, Chanyeol, Chanyeol,” the name of his beloved, over and over, saturated with amore.

And then.

“I don’t want to kiss you.”

Chanyeol.

“I don’t want to kiss you.” And he kissed Chanyeol. He kissed Chanyeol until he wanted to kiss him again, and again, and never stop. A kiss that turned them both black and blue, and not on the lips.

Now Chanyeol knows what desperation looks like on Jongin. It hasn’t gone away ever since. It’s not intermittent. It has planes, it has oscillations, but it never went away.  

Jongin is dancing. Because a drunken Jongin, though rare, so rare, is dancey. Sleepy dancey. With his third glass of wine in hand, he’s moving to the tune deploring through the speaker of his phone. Slow and calculated. Socked feet and carpet and just boxers. Jongin, doddering in his tipsiness, his lips a sparkle, his eyes a twilight. Flirty. He’s flirty, a coquettish pull, dimple out and about. Pretty. Pretty. Chanyeol loves him.

If he kneels, will Jongin stay.

“Are you really not going to get up and join me?” he inquires, an eyebrow quirked. He can only quirk the left one. It’s that one brow that seduced Chanyeol when he was naught but a boy.

Chanyeol shakes his head, finishes his flute, and gets up. Jongin opens his arms for him.

So they dance, And it’s as though nothing is happening. As though they aren’t hanging by a string, as though they aren’t falling apart.

Because they cannot fall apart when they’re in each other’s arms.

Jongin cried once. For himself. For Chanyeol. For them.

Jongin’s crying is silent. It’s just tears. There was no snot, no red nose, no bloodshot eyes. Just tears, crystalline, mesmerizing, tumbling one after the other over the plump of his cheeks, as though having fun going down slides in a waterpark.

He cried in Chanyeol’s lap. Forehead to forehead, as he spoke. “Your voice. You know how much I love it. How it could bring me to my knees.”

Chanyeol.

“Now it irks me. Now I find it too constraining. Chanyeol. The beautiful voice of the beautiful you.”

Chanyeol.

“Talk to me. Talk to me. Let me hear you. I despise this so much.”

Chanyeol was numb, but functional. Chanyeol was incapacitated, but could still speak. “We really should take care of the ceiling in the bathroom. The mould has started to spread.”

And so, they talked about that. Jongin broke his own heart, broke Chanyeol’s, broke the both of them, and then they carried on talking about things that they could actually fix. Jongin doesn’t like his voice, and it’s not the only thing.

The silence grew between them. When Chanyeol speaks, when Chanyeol is just here, there, anywhere Jongin is too, he wonders, how much of him Jongin hates now. How unattractive is he to Jongin now. How long until Jongin won’t be able to stand him anymore.

They should eat local, but instead they seek food from home, just to see how it’s done here, a milliard leagues away.

Gamjatang. It doesn’t have the perilla seed powder. The restaurant is pretty busy. It’s lunch time. Not the kind where the shoes have to taken off.

And Jongin is happy when he’s eating. He’s looking at someone fondly. Chanyeol doesn’t turn to look. A woman or a man or a boy or some street game or a fucking TV. Jongin looks at that thing the same way he looks at Chanyeol. He has a special gaze. One just for him. At some point.

It’s gone.

Chanyeol picks at his broth with the tongs. Then he picks at Jongin’s – he’s clumsier with things like these. And they eat. In silence. For today, it’s silence. And eating. And very little pretending.

Half a year into it, Chanyeol said it for the first time.

“Break up with me.”

It stung, like the words had been injected into his tongue, into his mouth, salt and acid and alcohol over it, forcefully put in there, broken his trachea and mandible. A comprehensive ache, facial, skeletal, and psychical. But he said it.

Jongin jumped, a distinguished spasm, and said. “I’ll fix it.” A shake of his head. “I’ll fix me.”

“Jongin,” Chanyeol said, because he loved that too. His name. A liniment to his throes. He almost smiled, only at how dulcet it was to his ears. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“How not?” Jongin asked. And he asked the empty space between them. Not himself. Not Chanyeol. But a third party, the provenance of this, the defendant.

“Something is wrong. And it can’t be with you. You didn’t do anything. Why is this happening, when you didn’t do anything?” Hands on Chanyeol’s nape, caressing so hard he will peel the skin off. “I feel so loved. You love me so much. And yet you’re the one getting hurt the most.” Kiss to Chanyeol’s forehead. A couple of them, dying one after the other. “How is it not wrong? Something is off. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix me.”

And Jongin, to this day, is trying. He has been trying for a long time. Until one day, he will give in, and admit defeat.

“Make love to me,” Jongin asks tonight, because he always defined it, when he wanted something, when they did something. Jongin always called it by what it was, what it meant to him.

Chanyeol has his hands on his waist, and then his ass.

But it’s phony now. “I think it’s just sex.”

“Make love to me,” Jongin stresses, grasping at his shoulders. “I want you.”

They’ve made love in Seoul, in Busan, in Incheon, at the airport, after teasing each other all though the plane ride from Jeju, in Jeju too. But London could been a break from all of this – all this meaningless sex. But Chanyeol tries to fend Jongin off, but what power does he have when Jongin is pleading with him like this. When he says that they should make love in London too.

So he cedes. He succumbs to Jongin. He always does. He waits for Jongin to kiss him, and replies to it, delving deep, deeper, until darkness runs clear. He pulls at his pants, at his lips, at him, just to come closer. Jongin has his face in his hands, always, always, when he’s giving himself wholly into his kiss.

When Chanyeol kneels, he barely goes down. Bones too long protesting against the humility he feels. He cowers, shoulders pulled in, spine tight, lowering, lowering.

He kneels to suck Jongin off. But he kneels for more than that.

They reach the bed. They’re hard and they hump and they tug some more, as to shred each other into little pieces, skin scaled as it chafes. They’re strong, Chanyeol is, Jongin is, it makes intercourse violent rather than kind, while selfless. When Jongin sinks teeth into his shoulder, it’s for Chanyeol, for being inked by Jongin’s desire is gratifying to Chanyeol. When Chanyeol drives in hard, swivels, unkindly, brusquely, it isn’t because of his own impatience, but because Jongin likes this kind of breaching, this kind of connoted insolence, as though Chanyeol couldn’t wait to take his time, to be careful, was that manic, was that ruttish.

The constituent sensations are there. This is love that they’re making. It’s being made more. It’s being produced. This is what they’re making. This brutal slapping, the serrating mewls, the scrapes, the more more more, harder, harder, please. This chase. Jongin narrating through it all, a third person, the person who learned to make love alongside Chanyeol – communication, tell me what you like, tell me what you want, tell me what to do, I’ll do it, I’ll give it to you. This haste and tension and fervidity. This clamour, proximity, wetness and sliminess and slickness.

This is all love.

Chanyeol comes. His cock comes. It’s just there, the postscript of a kiss left to wither in Jongin’s mouth, tongue over his moan as he comes too.

Chanyeol turns and breathes in the scent of his hair. The same one he’s had forever. And Jongin clings onto him. Their obsolescent love squeezed in between, suffocating.

In the meantime, Chanyeol turned ugly. Turned into a victim at the hands of a bacterium. Fallen into a systemic shattering.

Paranoia.

Chanyeol catching himself looking intently when Jongin types in his password. He squints. He gets close. Just to see his password. What for. What does he need Jongin’s passwords for. To see what.

When Jongin came home happy, when the desperation was bigger, when he was in Chanyeol’s lap again, echoing his liturgy of panic, of where is it going, where is it going, when he clawed, when he was finding happiness anywhere else but in Chanyeol.

It was ridiculous. Inanities. Chanyeol, in his mind, starting to tie things that wouldn’t tie. Jongin seeing a puppy and being happy about it. While he can’t bring a puppy into the house whilst living with Chanyeol because of his allergies. Someone else could do it. A change in the way he dresses. Who is it for. The way he talks, extra flirty, maybe, maybe it’s like this with everyone.

It chewed Chanyeol. Paranoia is insanity. Paranoia is a fear like no other.

And it broke out. It tore right through him, and as he entered, saw Jongin at his laptop, pyjamas, spectacles, damp hair, his small cup of warm milk, smiling. Smiling. Chanyeol doesn’t even wanna know what he’s looking at.

And before Jongin even gets to notice that he’s here, Chanyeol asks him. “Are you seeing…someone? Are you…” He swallows. He swallows it all. He swallows himself, or he’s swallowed by the monster within. “Is it because you’re cheating on me?” Triumph, at last. The bitterest triumph of them all, astringent.

Cheating – synonyms: deceit, betrayal, lying, trickery. Chanyeol thinks it’s nothing like this. To him Jongin cheating wouldn’t feel like treachery.

It would just hurt. Pure pain, with no substratum, no feathering interpretations. Just hurt. And Chanyeol just isn’t quite ready for that. He only fears that pain.

It’s easier to fear one thing than the million he would, had he thought about it. Just pain, for now.

“Nyeollie-ah,” Jongin says, mouth agape, lips a bit cracked. Nyeollie-ah. Nyeollie. And Ah. Chanyeol’s name is Chanyeol. Could be Yeol. Could be Chan. Could be Yeollie. But Nyeollie. Nyeollie. That’s not how the syllables go. Nyeollie-ah. Only Jongin calls him that. It was the very first flirtatious construct that cemented between them, nine summers ago, when Jongin couldn’t stop calling him that after Chanyeol told him it makes him feel like a baby.

But you are kind of a baby.

And Chanyeol kind of liked being his baby.

And so it stayed. And so it’s used only when the calling comes from a place of such tenderness and love that Jongin cannot modulate himself otherwise.

And it is. In Jongin’s eyes. There is frenzy, a marbling of hues that almost push him into hysteria. And he says once more. “Nyeollie-ah.”

And Chanyeol realized, this isn’t the alarm of a man being caught cheating, being accused of cheating, and it being true.

It’s just sadness. A sadness strong enough to shove him into hyperexcitability, to save Chanyeol from this. As though Chanyeol is injured, bleeding out, needing immediate, compulsory attention.

Getting up, getting in front of Chanyeol. Chair screeching – which he never does, he doesn’t want to ruin the floor, because that’s just Jongin, never wanting to harm anything – the cup of milk on the table spilling – it only had a few mouthfuls left in it.

And then he’s there, on his tip toes, even though he reaches anyway, and kissing him. Jongin thinks everything can be made better with kisses. The ultimate band aid. The cause and the antibiotic, the antiseptic. All of it, all that one would ever need to mend themselves, glue anything back to the self, it would be a kiss from a loved one.

And that works, because Chanyeol loves Jongin, madly, exhaustively, and the way Jongin kisses him is soft, so soft as if to prove he isn’t more than his love for Chanyeol either.

He pulls back, arms around his neck. “I’d never be unfaithful to you. Ever.”

Chanyeol believes him. Because Chanyeol never suspected him in the first place. Because that was all Chanyeol’s insecurity.

And it’s Chanyeol’s insecurity that he has to kill, not Chanyeol’s doubts about him.

This is all about Chanyeol here.

“I know,” Chanyeol says.

Jongin shakes his head. “Look everywhere, if that brings you peace,” he whispers, so readily offering Chanyeol his privacy to be abused. “I’ll give you all my passwords – mostly they’re your name, if you didn’t know – a smile, biting in the door of this all like a weed breaking through the thick of concrete- unwelcome, misplaced, but a joy – “Chanyeol, if you need to look.”

“I don’t need to look,” Chanyeol denies. “I don’t need to— I trust you. I trust you.”

“I know,” Jongin says. “But you don’t trust yourself. Because of me.”

“I trust you,” Chanyeol repeats.

“You know I’d never disrespect you like that.”

“I know. I trust you.” Chanyeol’s chin touches his chest. He’s sinking into the ground. “I trust you. I trust you, but—” His feet are gone, under the parquet now. His vision, his perception is distorted.

“But?”

“You’re looking at other people, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“How not?”

“I’m not looking for anyone.”

It makes no sense to Chanyeol. If Jongin isn’t into him anymore, this makes him available, impressionable, free. Almost. And then it also sounds reasonable – at least if Jongin has his eyes on someone else, it makes sense that he likes Chanyeol less. And he would prefer a reason, this reason, cheating, Jongin is cheating, over it happening…just because. Over it being just senectitude, drying out until it’s microdust into the wind. Jongin cheating is better.

But that’s not it.

“I know,” he says. He burrows his face into Jongin’s neck. It doesn’t smell like him, it smells of artificial flavours. Cleanness. “I trust you.”

“Look everywhere,” Jongin says into his ear. “Right now, really, look. I’ll show you everything.”

Chanyeol shakes his head. He doesn’t want to see how it’s not even that. “I believe you.”

“But believing me is not enough now, is it? Look.”

And Jongin sat him down, brought his laptop and his phone, and showed Chanyeol everything. All his conversations, all his pictures, emails, browser history, where he’s been, where he’s eaten, with whom. All the people that he knows, with pictures and relationship status, plus some little trivia.

And it’s needless. Utterly needless, because all it does it convince Chanyeol more and more that there’s no rescue to them.

Jongin looks good in autumn. And in spring. And in summer. And in winter. And in the seasons to come, in the years to come, when he won’t be by Chanyeol’s side anymore. When someone else will see him cuddly in autumn, and in winter, and flirty in spring, and loose, relaxed in summer, one with the breeze. He will look good. Jongin always looks good, no matter if the eyes looking love him or not.

He loves autumn Jongin the most. That’s two seasons away.

Right now, he has Jongin in spring. Not that different. Still sweaters and a jacket, but lighter. Jeans, instead of linen pants. A bit of layering, coated in a multichromatic fabric, heart cosy in its nest of wool.

He’s pulling out Chanyeol’s clothes. Jongin’s. Chanyeol’s. The ownership of their wardrobe is briefly determined by who bought it. But they buy for each other. When Jongin gets a jacket, it’s Chanyeol’s too. When Chanyeol gets a new shirt, it’s as much for Jongin as it is for himself.

Their mingling about this always touched him. Being in the constant enamoured state of I’m wearing your clothes. An ownership on each other that is quotidian.

Jongin picks from their suitcase his clothes for today. He picks Chanyeol’s too. “Do you feel like blue?” he asks over his shoulder, hands in the venters of the valise, hunting for a pair of damned socks.

“Do you feel like blue?” Chanyeol asks from the bed. He’s naked atop the sheets, stretching out, his morning airplane-ing, to make all his joints pop. Fireworks for the arthritic.

Jongin gets up, looks over him appreciatively. “I feel like skin too.”

“We’d rather not be accused of public indecency in a foreign place?” Chanyeol inquires through the portal of his yawn. It ends up gibberish, but he doesn’t repeat it.

Jongin laughs, and throws him the blue turtleneck and his black pants – the ones he wore yesterday. It didn’t rain, so they don’t have the splatters at the calves.

“I’m so hungry,” Jongin says, topping the mound of clothes with some underwear too, “Let’s go eat.”

Chanyeol thinks he won’t get to see Jongin looking good this autumn

“What did I do?” Chanyeol asked. He doesn’t remember when. This sort of question didn’t need a context, foreground, background, time and place. It has been everpresent, everlasting, evermaddening, ever—

Because he must have fault in this. So many faults.

The nature of this denaturation deems reasonless, it seems biological, the senescence of amore is as unavoidable as the senescence of everything else.

But it’s premature. Chanyeol feels like they barely just loved. To him, it’s not even past midlife, even if they gave themselves to each other years ago.

So there must be something to it, a trigger, then an accelerator, and now they’re in the midst of it oxidising, going brown and purulent around the edges.

Chanyeol did something. Or it’s the opposite – Chanyeol stopped doing something. Maybe many things. Maybe he’s half of what Jongin fell in love with, the other half an imposter.

“What do you like now, if it’s not me?” he kept on. The wind was blowing, or it was sunny, calm, they were outdoors, indoors, on a terrace, lemonade glasses, or wine, at midnight, bodies entangled on the couch, work clothes on.

“I’ll be that person. I’ll be someone new, if you want someone new.”

Jongin’s hair was ruffled. So long, that it’s always ruffled no matter how much he tries to tame it. Or ruffled because it was late. Because it was early, and he didn’t care for it. Because he spent a while just rubbing it on Chanyeol’s chest, giggling, asking to be tickled.

“What do you like now?” Chanyeol asked again, because Jongin wasn’t answering, and Chanyeol needed to do something. Maybe they could just cut this bad part off – and they’d still survive – good apples, with a worm hole. Just cut the passage of the worm and the worm away. It’s salvageable. It’s still salvageable. “I can change,” he said, quieter, mouth dry, or drunk, or dead.

Jongin smiled. His lips stretching and twisting, deforming until they didn’t look like lips anymore. Something unsightly, unhuman – ground meat.

He took a sip of his lemonade, downed the wineglass, pulled at the lapel of his blazer, tugged at his button shirt, ran his hand through gelled bed hair.

“I don’t know.”

They’re kissing in a tight alley. Just because. Jongin pulled him in, as they were running to catch a bus, missed it, and kept running a bit more, until they wound up in an alley, gasping, smiling, and met in a kiss.

Jongin is wearing his denim jacket, the one with the bear on his pocket. Chanyeol runs his hand over it, to give it a little pat, as it is customary, for Jongin insists all the bears he wears need affection. It travels higher, to palm Jongin’s nape and bring him closer.

And they kiss. Without reason. Without desire.

These kisses were once efflorescent, were kindling, were voracious. They are now fetid, are inattentive, desperate and parched. The modus of it is the same, the choreography of the movement, the meld, in its technicality, nothing changed, but in its sentiment, it’s cadaverous. The rigor of gorgeous, tumid, cerise lips, when it’s naught but collisions, an infringement of one mouth onto the other, an accepted violation.

They were already out of breath, but now even more so, going a little heady, a little purple. Jongin’s hand is on Chanyeol’s waist, fingers on his ribcage. He grins up at Chanyeol – well kissed, too well kissed, way too well kissed, giddy, tired, high and low.

“Let’s go back and catch the other bus,” Chanyeol says.

“Would hate it if we miss our reservation,” Jongin bemoans. The hand drops from his waist. He turns with his back to Chanyeol, starts walking away.

Then he turns around, scoffs fondly, grabs Chanyeol by the wrist, and tugs him forward.

Jongin, truly, doesn’t love him anymore.

The first time this crushed him was one afternoon.

It wasn’t quite real until then. It was there, but not as explicit. It was there, in theory, but not in practice.

Chanyeol cried. He didn’t thus far. Because it wasn’t quite real. Words don’t amount to that much.

Like all the other afternoons. Jongin was washing the dishes after they’d lunched. Chanyeol was still cleaning around, putting the rest of the utensils in the sink.

When he was done, he stayed by Jongin’s side.

And touched his hip. A light palming – he likes reminders that he’s not alone, small and constant.

Jongin flinched.

It wasn’t surprise. It was dislike. It was repulsion.

Chanyeol collapsed into himself. He was crying – a side effect, insignificant, to the deluge of ache developing inside his chest. It was a new kind of pain that hurt so much it nearly didn’t even hurt. Couldn’t be categorized, couldn’t be caught. It spread, until it ran of Chanyeol.

And Jongin gasping, turning around. Hugging. Always. Always hugging. So tight, looking to sieve himself through Chanyeol’s bones. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Ever since, Chanyeol hasn’t touched Jongin without Jongin touching him first.

They have sex daily. They must have sex daily.

It wasn’t like this. Before last spring, it was coincident, spontaneous, divine. Boldness and shyness. Little whines. Laughter. Some farts. Too many kisses. Foreplay for days. Experiments, failure and success. Routine, comfort. The occasional pulled muscle. Getting kneed in the face. Cries of oversensitivity. Begs, pleas, demands, orders. Switching mid-penetration.

It wasn’t because they had to. But because they wanted to. Because the sexual aspect was an extension of their cherishment.

Now they must. It’s all they have left. They can’t be breaking apart when they’re inside each other. There is no disconnect when they’re touching everywhere.

They started having sex weekly. It was awkward – done with different bodies, but the same people. Then the same people, and different bodies. Awkward, but necessary.

After Jongin cried, it was twice a week.

After Chanyeol cried, it was every other day.

Now it’s daily. The day before yesterday, yesterday, today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after that. There is no certainty.

Jongin’s hands are already underneath his shirt. So they might be taking their clothes off this time – that too, is rare now. Sex doesn’t require nudity, and they don’t require nudity.

Jongin pushes him onto the bed, climbing into his lap. Chanyeol cups his face with both hands. He’s gorgeous. In low light, halogen, sun, moon, white, yellow, in all the lights. He’s gorgeous.

“You’re forcing yourself,” Chanyeol whispers, barring Jongin from leaning down to kiss him.

It’s not about now. It’s about ever since I think I love you a little less.

It’s a distinction that has to be emphasized – to Chanyeol, sex is no chore. No matter how bleak, how insipid the act itself is, he adores any kind of intimacy he has with Jongin. Because he loves him – not a little less – but a lot. A whole fucking lot.

But to Jongin— He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t even have to be here. He doesn’t even have to be Chanyeol’s boyfriend.

Jongin shakes his head. His hair is damp, stringy, droopy. It gets into his eyes. Chanyeol brushes it away. “And you’re tired. And you miss me. And you want me.”

This is not about now either.

And he’s right. He’s so right.

When Jongin leans down to kiss him, Chanyeol responds, guides him in.

When they’re naked, when they’re joined, when it feels good, Chanyeol can’t stop from imploring again. “Break up with me,” he says. Jongin moans into it, sweeps it away as though it was never there. “Please.” He kisses under Jongin’s ear. He doesn’t like being kissed there. “Please.” Jongin turns his head, allowing Chanyeol to kiss some more. “Please break up with me.”

It’s getting weaker instead of stronger. A few months ago, he could beg for it at the top of his lungs. But he can’t anymore. It’s the senility. The stress. The devastation. He barely has any voice left to properly ask for it. “Break up with me,” Chanyeol whispers. It’s chewed up into Jongin’s kiss, tongue rubbing over it, smashing it into nothing. He’s not even hearing Chanyeol. He’s grinding down, hips agitated, moaning, too loud, way too loud. He’s not enjoying this. It might feel good, but there is no enjoyment. Just mutual victimization.

Chanyeol thrusts in faster, deeper. Arrhythmic. “Break up with me,” he whispers into Jongin’s hair. And Jongin only moves closer. Closer into his chest. He sighs there. A year ago, this gesture meant a kiss, a nuzzle. Not a sigh, not the rubble of denial.

It doesn’t matter whose chest it is. It doesn’t matter whose cock it is. It doesn’t matter. This is the automation of eros. Unsubstantial, he hears, phony, hollow, horrible. “Break up with me,” Chanyeol says. Moaning, driving in. It feels so good, it feels wrong, erroneous. Like it should singe, it should disembody him. But it feels good, to his skin, into the claws of Jongin’s selflessness, it feels good.

“No.” Jongin shakes his head, crosses his feet around Chanyeol’s ass, and pulls him forward.

“Push me away.”

“No.”

The fact that each word, each smile, each touch of Jongin’s is first candied with remorse, crystalized with his guilt, and served up as a delicacy. Because Jongin chooses to leave him with rotten teeth over a rotten heart, even if at last he will disease Chanyeol whole.

They come. At least. They should’ve stopped so many times, choked themselves out so many times, went soft, the discomfort was too much, the arousal wasn’t there to begin with.

But they kept at it. Because as long as they came, it seemed like they could give each other something. Could take something from each other.

Chanyeol wipes his semen off Jongin’s stomach with a tissue. He’s panting. It wasn’t bad. None of their fucks are. But they’re not good either. Maybe this one was just a bit better.

“Oh god, my legs are trembling,” says Jongin, making to get up. They should shower.

Chanyeol offers his arm. Jongin leans on him, waddles to the bathroom. His legs didn’t tremble yesterday. Or the day before that. Or the month.

“We’re supposed to stay for three weeks,” Jongin says, breath coffee-scented. Sweet, not bitter. He puts the cup on the saucer between them. Chanyeol takes a sip too. It’s bitter.

“I’ll come back as soon as possible. We haven’t gone anywhere in so long. I’ll be back to finish our stay.”

They came here for them. To save themselves. They cannot save themselves if they’re apart. If they have half a world between them.

But what if they can’t save themselves anyway.

Chanyeol picks the teaspoon off the saucer and gathers the little cloud of whipped cream off the top. He feeds it to Jongin. It was the last cloud. Chanyeol didn’t have any for himself.

“You want to come too?” he asks, a bit of cloud stuck to his lip. He licks it off. “I know you hate plane rides, but you hate being alone too.”

No. Chanyeol doesn’t hate being alone. Chanyeol hates being without Jongin.

And he doesn’t hate plane rides nearly as much as he hates being apart from him.

Yet, he doesn’t want to go back yet. He doesn’t want them to be home, enter through the door, enter the same impasse they left from. When they haven’t solved anything. They’re supposed to stay until they’re okay. Until Jongin loves him again.

But Jongin has just been called into work, for an emergency – they lost the suspect for his case, and nothing can move without his presence. Which are a few words and signatures. But he must be there in person.

“I’ll stay,” Chanyeol says. Jongin is skimming off the top of the coffee. There are no clouds, just their tears left behind. Jongin opens his mouth, to urge Chanyeol to open his, and delivers him the coffee. Sweet. Bitter. Sweet. Jongin smiles, pats his lips with a finger – good boy – and dunks the spoon back into the cup. “I’ll try not to go anywhere fun without you.”

Jongin shakes his head. “And stay here bored in the hotel room? Go wherever. Just take some pictures for me. Or if you find a nice place to take me too when I return.”

That doesn’t sound so bad. But he doubts he will. Yet, he nods, and holds the cup for Jongin to finish the coffee. A bit dribbles down the side of his mouth that he immediately demands Chanyeol to lick off.

The next morning, Chanyeol is dressing to go with him to the airport.

“You don’t have to,” Jongin says, toothbrush in his mouth, lips foamy. “You can just sleep in?”

Chanyeol is still sluggish. He hasn’t gotten used to the time difference. It doesn’t matter. He can catch up on sleep later.

Jongin always spoke like this. You don’t need to. You don’t have to come with me, be with me. I’m fine by myself. It’s fine. Whenever he thought it would be a mild inconvenience to Chanyeol, he would just assure him over and over, that it’s fine. Of course Chanyeol persisted – and he persists now too – for there is rarely, if ever, something he would prefer to Jongin’s company.

It’s out of the kindest heart, but now he almost reads it like Jongin doesn’t want him there. As though Jongin wants to break away. Have the little trip to the airport all too himself.

And it hurts. This hurts. Because it might very well be true. Because everything is one sided now.

“You don’t want me to come?” he asks, hands dropping from where he was buttoning his shirt. He’s only done two. It will take two seconds to undo them and not go anymore.

“I want you to come,” Jongin replies, not missing a beat. He never misses any beat when it comes to this kind of reassurance. Because he cannot lie. Because it’s reflex. Which makes it believable.

He rinses his mouth a couple of times. He doesn’t like the aftertaste of toothpaste. “You’re coming.”

Chanyeol keeps doing the buttons.

The journey to the airport is eerie. Like it is not really happening. It shouldn’t happen.

Jongin is on his phone, scrolling through pictures of his nephew and niece that his sister just sent. He’s giggly. He loves them. Uncle Jongin is different from Jongin Jongin. Imbrued with an elation so pure, so elemental that he becomes uncharacteristic, demeanour but a fuzzball.

Chanyeol slides down the subway chair and leans his head on Jongin’s shoulder. Jongin accepts it, accommodates him, hushing his voice, as he speaks. Raeon already ruined his new hat – the one Jongin got him not even a month ago. It’s covered in drawings of what looks like wax pencil.

“What if it’s not ruined, but improved instead?” Chanyeol asks.

Jongin twitters, low. “It does look pretty good. I’d wear that.” Jongin, wearing a hat with a sprout at the top of it, the brim of it covered with unidentifiable scrawls. A few of them look like poop emojis. Or that’s just Chanyeol’s mind.

The next image is of Rahee, wearing the same hat. But scrawl-free. It goes well with her dress, dotted with little flowers.

“I almost prefer it with the poop now,” Jongin says, turning towards him, breath a whisper over Chanyeol’s forehead. So it’s not just in his head. It is poop. Kids.

“Make a deal to buy it from him,” Chanyeol suggests.

“I’ll arrange a business meeting.”

Chanyeol snorts. It almost doesn’t feel like they’re going where they’re going. But it does, once the stop is announced. The final stop. Heathrow. They’ve been on the way for almost an hour.

When he sees Jongin off at the terminal, he gets jittery. He has never seen Jongin off before. It’s not that they haven’t been apart, they have, weeks at a time, for business trips, family issues. But these never needed any of this. Because even if they were apart, he never felt it.

He doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he doesn’t have to say anything at all. He can just board the next plane, follow Jongin right back without any belongings. Or Jongin could wait with him and take the next one, so they could go together.

There is really no need for any of this.

Jongin pouts at him, good natured. Fond, maybe. He hugs Chanyeol. He’s strong. He’s always been strong. His hugs are comfortable, a comfort that is intrinsic, wholesome, that brings Chanyeol such peace. It’s mollifying. But it’s also hard. He brings Chanyeol as into him as he can. So Chanyeol feels the embrace long after it’s ended.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Jongin says, nosing into his neck.

“Hard to believe.” Chanyeol wanted to go away with it, but he couldn’t. Now that he is to step away in a few minutes.

“Find nice places for us. We planned so very little. I want to see more of this city.”

Chanyeol cannot refuse him. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Jongin parrots, stretching out his hand for a pinky promise. As he does with Raeon and Rahee, and with Chanyeol, when he’s being difficult. But cutely difficult.

Jongin hugs him again. His clothes are thin. He only has a small shoulder bag with him. In there is his phone, his charger, his wallet, his lip balm. This is all. He can’t be away for long with only so little on him.

He kisses Chanyeol, on each cheek, on the mouth, on the forehead, and then once more on the mouth.

Then Jongin leaves.

It’s an addictive tedium. Just complying to a prognosis that cannot end anyway but catastrophically. Chanyeol wonders how that will be like, when it will come. Will it be quiet. Will it be loud. Will it be painful. Will it be relieving. Will they part with one last kiss, or a pair of thrown punches. Will they part with no ill feelings, or with a resentment so deep they can no longer lie eye on each other.

Chanyeol tells himself that regardless, he should prepare for this all. For it to be loud and quiet and angry and calm and emotional and vacant. He should just prepare. Just brace.

Somehow. Somehow. He doesn’t know how. But somehow.

He gets off the subway. He looks left to right. His feet don’t want to take him anywhere new. He goes back to the hotel, sleeps. Wakes up, and sleeps again.

He can look around, now, if there’s no Jongin. He’s been here for eight days, and he hasn’t seen anything.

They went to bakeries, to restaurants, but Chanyeol only felt Jongin’s scent. They went to galleries, museums, saw buildings and people. Yet Chanyeol only saw Jongin. Not even an eclipsing, but a complete erasure. The two days when they just stayed inside - Chanyeol didn’t know what the inside of their hotel room looks like. Didn’t know what the sheets feel like. He only knows Jongin’s hair.

Without Jongin by his side, he feels free, but he feels lost, almost embarrassed, as walking around on the streets naked – liberty, but the most cornering of shames.

He looks at the clock. He doesn’t have his phone with him – he lost it. He pats his pockets.

No. He forgot it at the hotel. Charging. With the new charger Chanyeol bought after Jongin took theirs with him.

On his wrist. His watch. Jongin’s. Theirs. They got it on some anniversary – maybe the first, maybe the seventh. They had just so many of them.

Chanyeol doesn’t remember when he even put it on. It’s not even set. It displays Korean time. Six in the morning. Nine in the evening. It’s still dark, even as the day is lengthening.

He puts his hand back in his pocket. He walks. It’s almost silent now, at least compared to a few hours ago. The traffic has dwindled. He doesn’t know what day of the week it is. London is busier on weekends. Or not. And it was just his imagination.

He sees a cluster of people smoking in a designated area next to a door.

He enters. It’s a club.

Club means drinking. He could use a drink. For what. What does he need to get drunk for. What sorrows does he have. None. Jongin called him this morning. Jongin, his boyfriend, called him this morning to ask how he’s faring all by himself. Great, he said. I don’t miss you one bit. Jongin laughed. I miss you too.

Which is why he should drink. Maybe that will bring him some sorrows. He feels like he should be mourning. He should be broken into the talons of dolour. Which he is, if he’s being frank with himself. But not enough.

Whiskey, he orders. That word is hard. It’s easy. It’s definitely easier when he says it a third time.

He doesn’t like doing shots. He prefers weak, flavoured alcohol that is more a luxuriation than a means to an end. But all alcohol is alcohol, which is what he needs. Whiskey. Shots. Four.

He’s in a dance club. Which means music. EDM. The usual catchy nonsense. It all sounds the same. Chanyeol’s ears hurt. He’s drunk. His heart isn’t beating anymore. He gives it an encouraging pat. It still doesn’t move. Chanyeol laughs. More whiskey.

Chanyeol gets up from the bar. People are dancing. People who aren’t Jongin. Which is debilitatingly many people. Chanyeol, briefly, imagines a world full only of Jongins. He smiles – that would be niiiice. Maybe among them he would find one to keep loving him. One who will never ever fall out of love with him.

He dives into the crowd. Or not. The crowd is everywhere. He’s the crowd too.

It’s all a slimy fanfaronade. Chanyeol doesn’t belong here, but that’s okay, because he doesn’t belong anywhere. And Jongin. He doesn’t see any Jongin.

But he can dance. Jongin would dance here – they went clubbing a lot. To destress. A few times a year. Get shitfaced beyond words and rut. Love on alcohol is a hell of an aphrodisiac.

There is no Jongin though. Chanyeol is by himself. In a club. Drunk. So he dances. What else is there to do. The music doesn’t cradle him, doesn’t encourage him. His ears still hurt. It stinks – a scent that he finds very western. He dances. Against the music, with the music, against the people, with the people. Whiskey break. Chanyeol is running out of cash. He doesn’t have enough for one more. But he’s had enough, he thinks. The last few shots have yet to kick in.

Chanyeol dancing. By himself. He doesn’t have legs, he doesn’t have arms, he doesn’t have a neck. He’s just a floating torso with a head hovering atop. There is pressure behind his eyes, into the eyeballs themselves. Like they’re about to pop. Popcorn, popeye. It’s funny.

He’s dancing with someone now. Someone who is a lot of legs. And glitter. Manmade, cosmetic smallpox. He should put some cream on that.

Chanyeol smiles at this person. It must be a person.

“Whoa,” he marvels, as the person puts hands on his shoulders and dances with him.

And from here, he blacks out.

Beds. Chanyeol slept in so many. This is not something to be proud of. Sheets among sheets, the fine, glamorous materials of loneliness, foams and feathers, a surrogate hug. But Chanyeol can sleep. He always can. Sleep just comes so easily, steals him before his mind gets to wander, and cages it within his own unconsciousness.

He’s in the hotel bed. He’s alone now. He gets up. He checks his phone, teeming with notifications – nothing that matters, nothing from Jongin. He thinks about brushing his teeth. Showering. What for.

He looks out the window. A city. Just a city. No Jongin.

Chanyeol doesn’t want to go anywhere. He gets back into bed. Sleeps.

On the fourth day, Chanyeol wakes up, and calls him. “Break up with me.” It’s a good time in Korea now.

Jongin is silent. For a while. He doesn’t hear anything else. He might be home. It’s morning there. He didn’t leave for work yet.

“I hate it when you say that.” His voice is soft, frayed, unfiltered. “And you say it all the time.”

Chanyeol is giving him one more thing to dislike at him. Isn’t that funny. A chip of a laugh makes it past his lips.

“It’s the only thing I can ask of you.” Since I can’t ask you to keep loving me. He said this part too, not aloud, but Jongin heard him.

“Is the way I’m handling us this bad?” he asks. Exasperation smudged in little serifs at the peaks of his words. “I’m just trying to—” A sigh. It’s deep. And it’s long. And it’s lacerating. Chanyeol turns on his side. “If what I’m doing really is that bad, if I’m hurting us both more in doing what I’m doing…”

The pause is long. Too long. Chanyeol feels a touch on his ankle, having sunk under the blanket, grabbing, tugging, throwing him into its abysm.

“You do it,” Jongin finishes. “Chanyeol. Break up with me.”

Oh god.

“Do it. Now. Break up with me.”

Chanyeol doesn’t even know what words to use. How he would say that, how he would put that. And they might end up being built of sound, but not of meaning.

“But I love you,” he whispers. “So much.”

He burrows his face into the pillow. His eyes sting. But not just his eyes. A sting behind them too. A sting everywhere, not a needling, but it seems to be just one – a single, fatal piercing. “I love you.” He says again. It’s all that he knows how to say.

“And because you love me, I can’t do it either.”

Chanyeol hangs up.

He passes by shops. Cake. Clothes. High fashion. Low fashion. Supermarkets. The one that only has frozen food. Semi-prep heaven. He looks at snacks. A deli. He picks a few samples off a tray. Salty, delicious, he doesn’t buy any. A bookstore. New books, old books, more pages lost than found. A music shop. CD-s, vinyls. Instruments. Guitars, violins. A piano.

He knew once, how to play the piano. In some dream. In some vespertine fairy tale of his tender youth when he wasn’t quite himself yet. He knew that. He remembers it, because doesn’t the hero of every good romance knows how to play the piano.

So is this why Chanyeol isn’t the hero of his romance anymore.

No.

There is no reason for that. Because this is not a cause of reason. It’s a cause of no one.

Chanyeol takes a pic of the piano. If only you met me earlier, I could’ve played on this for you.

Jongin doesn’t reply.

Chanyeol enters a jewellery store. Broches - things he would never wear but is uncannily attracted to. He buys one, then somehow loses it on the way back to the hotel. Chanyeol showers, sleeps. Jongin.

Today, Jongin should’ve boarded the plane to come to London.

He didn’t.

His ticket is for three days from now on. He delayed it because the issue at work wasn’t solved yet.

Chanyeol leans his forehead against the window. It’s cold. It pampers his fever.

Jongin is still on the phone with him, after apologizing profusely for the delay.

“Why are you clinging?” Chanyeol inquires, hearing how regretful Jongin is for those three days. As if they even mean anything. Shouldn’t Jongin enjoy being away from him.

“Because—” he swallows. Not emptily. But an actual gulp. He’s having his evening milk, with one droplet of vanilla in it. Chanyeol can smell it. Then another gulp. “Because how do we get over this?” he says. “You won’t love again in fear you’d be left behind, and I won’t love again in fear I’ll hurt them as much as I’m hurting you.”

Chanyeol rubs his forehead on the glass. It’s not cold anymore. He moves his head to find coolness again. It’s the epicentre of a numbness, suffusing slowly through him.

Chanyeol won’t love again after this. He’s right.

“This is….big to me,” Jongin continues. One huge gulp – the rest of his cup all in one go. When it’s not hot anymore, but lukewarm, and he doesn’t like it. “I won’t recover easily.”

“It’s big to me too.”

“We really have…had so much.”

They’ve been together for nine years. Nine. That isn’t a short life. But it seemed to stretch enough to maybe pass into a forever. Nothing should last that long if it intended to give in.

“I love you,” Chanyeol says.

Jongin goes silent.  

Three days later, Jongin is knocking on the door.

Chanyeol opens for him.

Jongin enters. Shoe next to shoe, parallel, unlike Chanyeol’s which always have the tips apart, for that’s how he walks too. Awkward but cute, like a baby something, I don’t knoooow but it’s so cute, Jongin kissed a giggle into his cheek. Jongin is mindful even of his walk, feet in a line. His shoes reflect that.

And these shoes are another beginning.

If it’s the optimism talking. It’s the optimism shouting. This is a beginning.

They should hug. They should kiss. They haven’t seen each other in a week.

They don’t.

Jongin speaks.

“I’m breaking up with you.”

His tone calibrated to be kind, be merciful, but firm and definitive. Chanyeol never heard him speak this way – a sonance that seems to come from another body, another person, another life. Finality is something too harsh for Jongin, who is sinuous, giving, in his character, and in his emotionality.

Not ‘let’s break up’. Not us. Because while it’s something they do together, it’s not something Chanyeol has the capacity or strength to participate in. He will go along, a follower, on his knees, but not be an instigator. Jongin will allow him the luxury of being the victim. Will treat him with the due remorse. Chanyeol doesn’t have to do anything but stand there and be broken up with.

“Did you cheat?” He wonders. Because for the past three days, he couldn’t get in contact with Jongin. At all. Chanyeol went crazy.

“No,” he replies immediate. “Chanyeol. No.” He walks forward. He has new socks on. The socks they bought on their last shopping trip at the mall, all black with red toes. “I was just hiking. I went out. I just couldn’t do anything but move. I needed that.”

He does that. He did that when his father got sick, after he failed a couple of job interviews in a row, after his phone was stolen.

“Then why did you even come here?” he asks. He’s looking at the socks. They’re nice. They suit him. “You could’ve just called. Or you could’ve asked me to come back. There is no point in me being here by myself anyway.” He hasn’t stepped out in days. He couldn’t tell daylight from the glare of the lamp. All that changed was the number on his lock screen. Chanyeol did nothing here.

Jongin is incredulous. “You think I could’ve done that? After all of this, to break up with you through the phone?”

So he boarded a plane and flew a whole world just to break up with him. This is that momentous.

“So it’s better that you came solely to do this,” Chanyeol says, biting, but it’s with fake fangs.

And this is the pause. This is when it hurts.

Because Jongin didn’t come here just to break up with him. He came here to continue their trip. Their poor excuse of a restoration trip.

But somehow, from the moment Chanyeol opened the door, till the words were out of his mouth, he decided this is the end.

What did he see that pushed him. Chanyeol’s greasy hair. His posture. All of him. Incredibly unattractive. Chanyeol’s heart is mad in his chest. Jongin is in front of him, he’s seeing Jongin, whom he hasn’t seen in a week. He missed him. He missed him so much it felt like atrophy, like there was no reason to move at all in his absence.

And for Jongin, seeing him was just the last drop.

It only now hits. It hits. Chanyeol staggers back. He tears up.

Jongin is wearing his favourite sweater. Might be the last he wears it this season. He will see it again next winter. His jeans. The comfy ones. The plane ride ones, weak between the legs, bunched at his knees. And Chanyeol, in the last change of fresh clothes, the most rigid ones, it so happened. Their cerements.

He finally takes his jacket off. He doesn’t know where to put it. He puts it on the arm of the closest recliner. Like a guest. Not like his boyfriend.

He approaches Chanyeol. “I’m not in love with you anymore.”

 As a justifier to his previous statement. So as a whole, it is ‘I’m breaking up with you because I’m not in love with you anymore.’

This is what he wanted to hear.

Why. Why. Why is he so stupid. Why is he so fucking stupid.

If only he could have gauges how much this hurts, he wouldn’t have wished for it.

Chanyeol cries. From nothing to uncontrollable sobbing in no time.

Jongin is in front of him, hands places on his arms. “I’m sorry. I had to try. I had to stay until it was all gone.” His eyes shine. “I couldn’t leave you before that. I’m sorry.” And then a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

Chanyeol is taking steps back. This shouldn’t happen in the hallway. If he went for decorum by coming all the way here just for this, then he can aim for some more.

He’s crying, violently, while it’s also somewhat calm. Placid. Chanyeol just hurts. And pain is simple.

“I love you,” Jongin says, lips shaky. “In a million ways. That won’t go away. Ever.” He licks his lips. They’re still tremulant. “I’m sorry.”

This is the whole breakup. It barely lasted a few minutes, it barely took a few words. Or it took a year, way more words than it should’ve.

I’m sorry. And with this, they’re not together anymore. This is the end.

Chanyeol takes a step back. From his ex-boyfriend.

His eyes are void, just the sockets, and the gore beyond.

“If I come to your house in the middle of the night, don’t open the door,” Chanyeol says. Because he will. They don’t live together. They have separate studio apartments. A twenty-minute walk apart. Five to seven minutes by car. Clothes all over the place, cutlery, memories. They lived together, not in the same house, but their togetherness was preserved between two roofs. Chanyeol knows the code to his door, his address by heart – to order food just before leaving his place, so it would be there just in time when Chanyeol arrived to have dinner together. Because it’s automatic to be there. Third floor. Second door to the right. Where Jongin is. The Jongin Chanyeol will want to see. He already wants to see.

He takes another step back. Jongin follows him. Black socks with red toes. Chanyeol’s socks are Jongin’s. Jongin prefers patterned socks. Plaid, motley. Robots, kittens, typography. These have lettering around the sole. A psalm. Because psalms are in vogue.

“If I text you,” Chanyeol says. He’s crying. Harder. Or more. Something squeezes inside him, his guts pulled together. It’s almost an exotic sensation, novel. “If I call you, don’t answer me.”

Jongin has taken as many steps as Chanyeol has. His hands reach for the sides of his face. He doesn’t wipe Chanyeol’s tears away. They’re too many anyway.

“If I contact you on social—block me,” he says, shaking his head. “Just block me everywhere.” Jongin posts things too. They both do. It’s nice to have their life documented somewhere. Digital journaling. This week, Jongin posted a dramatic boomerang of him forgetting about his ramyeon and the noodles getting so soggy they broke on his chopsticks. A picture of a splatter of paint on the asphalt that looked like a smiley face. The past three days, Chanyeol refreshed, and refreshed, and refreshed his profile page. Nothing. “I’ll wonder about you like mad. I’ll stalk you – I already do— did— done,” his tongue tumbles in his mouth. Jongin’s fingers begin swiping over his cheeks. “Block me everywhere, please.”

Jongin doesn’t say anything.

“Change the passwords too. To your emails. You’re logged in on my laptop.”

He will want to see. Will want to know. What he’s ordering online – his new bathmat arrived during the week. Chanyeol intercepted the delivery.

Jongin still isn’t saying anything. Chanyeol takes steps back. His calves hit the bed. He sits. His body is too long, too wide, too spread out, so he gathers it all up, so he doesn’t lose any piece. Jongin follows him, curves around him, settles like a protective shell.

They end up side by side on the bed. Jongin is still cupping his face. Chanyeol can’t see his eyes though the mist of his own. He slowly grabs Jongin’s shirt.

“Your house code.”

Jongin’s forehead presses to his. Chanyeol moves to cup his face too. He’s crying too. He’s crying too. Why. It should only be Chanyeol. He doesn’t like this. Jongin crying. He hates it. Jongin should never cry.

“I don’t need to do any of this,” he says. His breath smells sweet, artificially sweet, plastic fruits – he’s had gummies. Which he eats when he’s kind of hungry, and picky, and won’t have just anything. A small baggy of fruity gummies to tide him over until he gets to something nice.

Chanyeol feels worse about the fact that Jongin is hungry right now than he feels about himself. He should’ve eaten, then broken up with him. They should’ve gone and dined together, then come back to break up. A break up on a full stomach should be a little easier to handle.

“Don’t trust me,” Chanyeol says. He wraps his arm around Jongin’s waist. He’s so lovely to hold. It brings him calm, embrocating. His presence alone is that powerful. He might be crying, he might be distressed, but he’s also calm, because Jongin is here. And Jongin holds him back, putting a hand around his waist too and bringing him close. “I’ll hurt myself. Just do it. Change the passwords.”

He can already see how much he will wonder. How much he will want to know. But he doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to care anymore.

“Don’t let me see you,” he continues. Looking at Jongin. Seeing Jongin. He’s beautiful, over and over, beautiful anew with each blink. He always had this effect on Chanyeol. Even now, when he is a mess, when his features are besmeared with woe. “I’ll want to see you. I’ll hope to see you.” He brushes his hair away from his face. “But don’t let me.”

Jongin bites his lip.

“If I look for you, pretend I’m not there.” Cold eyes. Necrotized eyes. Chanyeol feels bad for asking this of Jongin, to make him act like this towards him, with such unkindness, when he knows nothing but kindness. But he needs it.

“At least for a while, don’t let me see you. Not that I don’t want to see you.” Because he wants to. Already. When he’s looking into his eyes, he can already imagine how he’ll miss them the moment he’s not looking at them anymore. How he will miss so many pieces of him, how he will miss the whole of him, his bigness, his sprightliness. “I just shouldn’t see you.”

“We can’t be friends?” Jongin asks. He’s whispering. It’s minced, uneven.

“We can,” Chanyeol says. “And we will. Just not now.” Because he cannot comprehend not being close to Jongin for the rest of his life, but right now he can’t bear being around Jongin, in love with him, and not have him.

Jongin nods. In a few months, maybe, if Chanyeol recovers well enough. Or years. Or decades. He doesn’t know. He cannot give Jongin a number.

“Anything else?” Jongin asks. His palm moves up and down in the dale of Chanyeol’s waist.

Chanyeol, now, cannot think of anything else. Cannot think about himself anymore. Jongin seems so afflicted. This is so hard for him. This has been so hard for him. He tried so hard.

“You were a good boyfriend to me. The best. Never think otherwise.”

“Chanyeol.”

And there is a kiss. It tastes of nothing. Prosaic. But hot. Hot and ardent, and the insistence of it, looking to break into the flesh, brand it with pressure. Make it memorable.

“I’ll miss you. I’ve been missing you. I’ll miss you so much more,” he cries. Chanyeol cries. This couldn’t have happened otherwise. There was weeping in everything. There wasn’t a single thing they haven’t spoken to each other without the stress and fray of a snivel.

They don’t speak anymore. Chanyeol falls asleep in Jongin’s embrace. Thieved. A fitting ending perhaps, the quietude, and restfulness of sleep nestled into his hug, instead of being mindful of all contact – it’s the last time I’ll have my head to his chest, it’s the last time I’m kissing him, it’s the last time, it’s the last- it’s better.

When he wakes up, Jongin is gone.