#31 Vagabond
Title: Vagabond
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,000
Summary: The night has been very long and Jongin is ready to drift.
Warning/s: none, unbeta'd
Jongin doesn’t like change. He finds warmth in doing the same things in the same pattern over the course of many months. He cherishes the sunrise he witnesses every morning before boarding the bus to go to the dance academy to practice. His life is, has been, always a complete circle that starts and ends at the time as though he lives on the minute hand of a clock, counting down the each and every second as it trickles down the hourglass of his life. It wrings the life out of him like a sopping rag, squeezing out every last bit of energy only to collapse on at the same time each night like clockwork.
This is why Jongin is confused as to how Luhan can possibly exist. Luhan, the pretty exchange student boy from China, whom he’d met that humid (it started to rain later) day in the middle of July. It was their first time meeting each other at auditions for roles in the company’s production of Romeo and Juliet. They eyed each other across the ballroom mirror that extended along the expanse of the stage as they danced around on pointed toes and spun in perfect circles in synchronization under the heat of lamp. His lithe limbs matched Jongin’s muscular ones as they fell in time, in dance, in step with one another, and for a moment it seemed like they had leapt over pages of music and tiny wrinkles in time until it felt like they were the only ones left.
The music stopped. The moment ended. Their chests bloomed and emptied with labored breaths and Jongin caught the devilish grin thrown at him from across the room. Nobody else seemed to be paying attention to the silent exchange that is passed between the two of them. The smell of sweat clings to the air and as Jongin wipes the back of his neck with his fluffy towel, he notices the producer watch Luhan as he furiously scribbles onto his clipboard.
And it wasn’t long until Jongin was pushed up against the door of his dressing room with pink lips pressed insistently against his own, chasing the heat of his mouth, wet tongue dragging over his full lower lip. It came as a surprise, but he welcomed it, mouth moving achingly slow in comparison to his partner, heartbeats steady, he wasn’t in any rush, but Luhan was. The kiss was over as soon as it began and Jongin was left behind in a rumpled shirt and a swollen lip.
He gets the part, actually they both do. Jongin gets the passionate Mercutio whereas Luhan gets the role of fair Romeo. Another girl named Soojung is their Juliet and a sullen boy named Sehun is Tybalt. Their scenes together are few but it seems to make no difference to the foreign boy whose laugh bubbles out of his chest as easy as breathing.
The kisses were as frequent as their meetings and days streamed into another like sunlight peeling past the velvet curtains that he’d usually pull back before dawn, but lately…. Lately it seemed as though his life had shaken up out of schedule.
Luhan shoved himself into his routine, onto his internal clock that he had spent years perfecting to make the most out of every moment. He fought his way to steal seconds and rip raw time out of his bare hands. Time was hard to catch, hard to keep, and once it is lost, it is gone forever. And the time that Jongin had set aside for dance slowly ebbs into fleeting touches behind closed doors or presses against practice room mirrors.
The date of their final performance draws closer and almost all the members of the dance company’s joints are worn out. Jongin finds himself breaking in another pair of shoes at the end of each week after spending hours upon hours practicing. The days wane on and fatigue sets in. He feels as though at any second he’ll snap and his career, everything, it’ll all be over. Fortunately that doesn’t happen, but he still has to deal with the familiar fluttering butterflies in his belly as he stands behind the curtain on their opening night.
Luhan squeezes his hand before he goes out and that is perhaps the only genuinely affectionate thing that the boy has done for him. Good luck, he whispers, even though they both know that they don’t need it. The steps are ingrained in their muscles, in the soles of their feet, in the nerves in the tips of their toes.
Luhan is like the summer breeze, fast, flying, there for a second and gone in the next, leaving behind scratches and faint scents. He is beautiful but not eternal. He comes and goes as he pleases, stopping for no one, refusing to be tied down, feeding Jongin his devilish charm that he so readily eats between soft spoken words. Jongin swallows them with a smile, craving more and more of this addiction to the warmth and sunlight behind his smiles.
And Jongin… Jongin is like the quiet whisper of the winter. He lingers like the thoughts that keep him up at night that cause gooseflesh to dot down his forearms and sticky sweat to trickle down his back. He’s like the itch that doesn’t go away, the devil on your back. He persists until the job is done, until the story is over, until everything is put to rest.
And that is exactly why they will never work. They were contrasting winds with opposing destinations. Star-crossed lovers separated by space and unclear intentions. While the taste of his tongue is engraved in his mind, Jongin can’t be sure that he even crosses the other’s mind. To him, he might be just another nest to settle in and destroy before flying to another, then another in a similar fashion. That’s the conclusion he makes when he doesn’t hear another word from the boy after their last night.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,000
Summary: The night has been very long and Jongin is ready to drift.
Warning/s: none, unbeta'd
Jongin doesn’t like change. He finds warmth in doing the same things in the same pattern over the course of many months. He cherishes the sunrise he witnesses every morning before boarding the bus to go to the dance academy to practice. His life is, has been, always a complete circle that starts and ends at the time as though he lives on the minute hand of a clock, counting down the each and every second as it trickles down the hourglass of his life. It wrings the life out of him like a sopping rag, squeezing out every last bit of energy only to collapse on at the same time each night like clockwork.
This is why Jongin is confused as to how Luhan can possibly exist. Luhan, the pretty exchange student boy from China, whom he’d met that humid (it started to rain later) day in the middle of July. It was their first time meeting each other at auditions for roles in the company’s production of Romeo and Juliet. They eyed each other across the ballroom mirror that extended along the expanse of the stage as they danced around on pointed toes and spun in perfect circles in synchronization under the heat of lamp. His lithe limbs matched Jongin’s muscular ones as they fell in time, in dance, in step with one another, and for a moment it seemed like they had leapt over pages of music and tiny wrinkles in time until it felt like they were the only ones left.
The music stopped. The moment ended. Their chests bloomed and emptied with labored breaths and Jongin caught the devilish grin thrown at him from across the room. Nobody else seemed to be paying attention to the silent exchange that is passed between the two of them. The smell of sweat clings to the air and as Jongin wipes the back of his neck with his fluffy towel, he notices the producer watch Luhan as he furiously scribbles onto his clipboard.
And it wasn’t long until Jongin was pushed up against the door of his dressing room with pink lips pressed insistently against his own, chasing the heat of his mouth, wet tongue dragging over his full lower lip. It came as a surprise, but he welcomed it, mouth moving achingly slow in comparison to his partner, heartbeats steady, he wasn’t in any rush, but Luhan was. The kiss was over as soon as it began and Jongin was left behind in a rumpled shirt and a swollen lip.
He gets the part, actually they both do. Jongin gets the passionate Mercutio whereas Luhan gets the role of fair Romeo. Another girl named Soojung is their Juliet and a sullen boy named Sehun is Tybalt. Their scenes together are few but it seems to make no difference to the foreign boy whose laugh bubbles out of his chest as easy as breathing.
The kisses were as frequent as their meetings and days streamed into another like sunlight peeling past the velvet curtains that he’d usually pull back before dawn, but lately…. Lately it seemed as though his life had shaken up out of schedule.
Luhan shoved himself into his routine, onto his internal clock that he had spent years perfecting to make the most out of every moment. He fought his way to steal seconds and rip raw time out of his bare hands. Time was hard to catch, hard to keep, and once it is lost, it is gone forever. And the time that Jongin had set aside for dance slowly ebbs into fleeting touches behind closed doors or presses against practice room mirrors.
The date of their final performance draws closer and almost all the members of the dance company’s joints are worn out. Jongin finds himself breaking in another pair of shoes at the end of each week after spending hours upon hours practicing. The days wane on and fatigue sets in. He feels as though at any second he’ll snap and his career, everything, it’ll all be over. Fortunately that doesn’t happen, but he still has to deal with the familiar fluttering butterflies in his belly as he stands behind the curtain on their opening night.
Luhan squeezes his hand before he goes out and that is perhaps the only genuinely affectionate thing that the boy has done for him. Good luck, he whispers, even though they both know that they don’t need it. The steps are ingrained in their muscles, in the soles of their feet, in the nerves in the tips of their toes.
Luhan is like the summer breeze, fast, flying, there for a second and gone in the next, leaving behind scratches and faint scents. He is beautiful but not eternal. He comes and goes as he pleases, stopping for no one, refusing to be tied down, feeding Jongin his devilish charm that he so readily eats between soft spoken words. Jongin swallows them with a smile, craving more and more of this addiction to the warmth and sunlight behind his smiles.
And Jongin… Jongin is like the quiet whisper of the winter. He lingers like the thoughts that keep him up at night that cause gooseflesh to dot down his forearms and sticky sweat to trickle down his back. He’s like the itch that doesn’t go away, the devil on your back. He persists until the job is done, until the story is over, until everything is put to rest.
And that is exactly why they will never work. They were contrasting winds with opposing destinations. Star-crossed lovers separated by space and unclear intentions. While the taste of his tongue is engraved in his mind, Jongin can’t be sure that he even crosses the other’s mind. To him, he might be just another nest to settle in and destroy before flying to another, then another in a similar fashion. That’s the conclusion he makes when he doesn’t hear another word from the boy after their last night.