That I Lost
I'm avoiding my studies. For a moment. Or a few hours. Shit.
I promised myself to never spend more than a few days on each of these. There should be five installments to finish this AU arc. I hope this prologue excites and titillates and generally doesn't distract my brain from work anymore T_T
Rating is pretty low for the whole thing, I think. @_@ so;
That I Lost
If asked, Jiyong’s favorite color is pink. He likes the way peoples’ faces contort in confusion, their eyes flicker with realization, and everything is covered in a politeness that masks their inner verdict. He’s gay, gay, gay. The girliest boy in class, the weirdest kid at work, the strangest heir they’ve ever met. He’s nothing really like his father, who is rich and powerful and mean, and nothing like his mother, who is kind and loving and weak. When he was a kid he liked to imagine that he was adopted and his real parents are a bird and a Grecian god. But his parents have pictures to prove his familial connection, those fuckers. And his parents have more money than some of the white people they entertain and people think they’re great but really his dad makes racist comments as soon as people leave. People like them, fear them, they look at Jiyong and his father like they’re gods or dogs. He prefers the latter since dogs actually understand the earth under their feet.
But who the fuck cares what people think? Jiyong likes it this way. He likes looking normal on the outside and then opening his mouth and saying outrageous things. His uni professors find him a pain, his friends think he’s great fun, his admirers suck his cock, and his enemies can’t touch him. So he flies along, this child of a hawk and a Grecian god, and he doesn’t even tumble when he encounters turbulence. He sails right through it with a smile on his handsome, pointed features. It’s one thing his friends will say, that Jiyong is always smiling. Right down to when he’s angry, he’s still smiling because a kid like Jiyong is twisted, twisted, twisted.
…It has to be said, though…that sometimes while he’s fast forwarding along…he feels a little bizarre, maybe lost, maybe troubled, and it’s not until he meets someone, like they all do, before he changes.
It’s strange how they meet since Jiyong’s not like that, if you know what that is, and Kang Daesung is definitely not like Jiyong.
Pause.
That is Kang Daesung.
He’s sitting alone in this terrible party on a beer-stained couch. He looks miserable.
“Yunnie’s friend’s boyfriend’s friend?” one of Jiyong’s friends shouts over the music, “Kid’s from the art program.”
Jiyong shrugs and pretends not to care. But through a throng of dancers and people making out and general chaos…Jiyong can see Daesung’s fingers are tracing a design on his thigh. They tap for three beats and then draw out a flower design. Then three more taps and more petals. He’s miserable, Jiyong realizes, but he’s not even here anymore.
He wants that, Jiyong, and he doesn’t even know what that is or why he wants it.
Daesung welcomes Jiyong into his life with a kind of smile that Jiyong could write poems about. Daesung doesn’t question why the suspicious and incorrigible heir wants to be his friend or anything. No. He just allows it to happen. So Jiyong sets down his lunch and eats next to Daesung.
Neither of them really questions it. They just do-- like snakes that live with mice-- they work. And Jiyong tells Daesung dirty jokes and Daesung learns to laugh and not over think them. And Daesung will invite Jiyong out to a museum and Jiyong will whine but also research featured artists so he can keep up a conversation. Slowly things start moving together a little more, start swirling like acrylic paint, blending like garish pinks and oranges make sunsets.
Jiyong doesn’t imagine for a moment that it’s love. Daesung’s not his type; he’s ugly, lanky, laughs loudly, sings when he’s microwaving their lunches. Jiyong goes for older men, usually his father’s workers, who are tall, dark haired, fair complexioned and with a cynicism around their eyes. Jiyong isn’t attracted Daesung like he’s attracted to them, but he likes Daesung.
Why?
He really doesn’t know.
“I think it’s because you like kids,” Daesung suggests as he clears his charcoals and palettes off the table, “I’m told that I’m childish.”
“I hate kids.”
“I think my childishness makes you want to procreate and finally leave the dark side,” Daesung jokes and Jiyong sticks up his middle finger and licks it slowly from bottom to top. Daesung, inured, just quirks an eyebrow and retrieves the dinner from the counter.
It’s western-dinner night and even though Jiyong’s had the best of every cuisine he doesn’t say anything while Daesung tosses processed spaghetti through parmesan. He considers their arrangement and how much he’s slowed and calmed down since he saw those fingers drawing and he wonders why. Why.
“I don’t know, man,” Jiyong grumbles as he trudges across the small apartment and throws the window open. The screen is up and he leans his head on the windowsill. He doesn’t know, but Daesung’s stopped to look at him. He puts down the chopsticks and heads over to the window, too. The night breeze lifts his dark blond fringe from his eyes and he’s smiling still.
Jiyong murmurs, as if to himself, “I popped it when I was fourteen. With some guy I met outside a bar,” Daesung stares incredulously but Jiyong continues, “Since then I haven’t attempted even one meaningful relationship. My dad said that I’m doomed to vanity and selfishness. That no one will want to drown with me in my own sins.”
“Father of the year.”
“Yeah. But, you know…think he’s right. I think that’s what it is,” he smiles wistfully, “Remember how I told you that I believed I was the son of a god and a hawk? I don’t think so. I never realized that I’m the ocean beneath…the waves and the storms and sea monsters. All of it. I’ve already fallen into the sea, man.”
A police car flares up and its siren bounces off city surfaces. The screaming sounds, of cars and alarms and metal and glass, it’s all he grew up with in Seoul. And Daesung just presses a hand to Jiyong’s back.
“I like the ocean, you know. Let’s go this summer when break starts. Somewhere away from Korea. Maybe Thailand or Singapore. I’ve never been to a beach out of Korea…I wonder if it’s different,” Daesung’s fingers are rubbing circles on Jiyong’s back and Jiyong shrugs.
“It’s not that different,” he grumbles and he crumbles under that feeling.
“Really?” Daesung’s hand jerks away, Jiyong flinches, and he turns to walk away, “That’s good. I collect seashells, you know. It’s just a little hobby of mine. Where did I…” he rummages through the closet and then pulls out a plastic container filled with seashells. Jiyong looks over his shoulder until Daesung brings it over. He watches as Daesung shows him all of the seashells one by one, molluscan bivalves and cephalopods and his glorious white conch like a trumpet. Jiyong smiles after a while and traces the whorls on a shell while Daesung talks to him.
He realizes he’s rambling for the sake of pulling Jiyong away from his own thoughts and pauses. He looks at the shell Jiyong’s tracing and his face lights up again, “I found that one when I was a kid. Turn it over…see this? Look at how it’s brown here. But right here it’s a little lighter,” Daesung touches the seashell in Jiyong’s hand, “It’s just a little pink here, right? It’s my favorite shade of pink…the secret pink of a seashell,” he laughs to himself, “I wonder what the crab was like. Did she have secrets and dreams like us?” he traces its pink smoothness, pressing it into Jiyong’s hand.
Jiyong stares at Daesung and finally understands. That. It was that which drew him over, which told him Daesung would know this color, would understand. He reaches out and touches Daesung’s cheek, runs his fingers across the skin to hold the startled face in his hand.
“My favorite color is pink,” Jiyong says slowly. Daesung’s smile becomes uncertain and not a little uncomfortable. Jiyong pulls away and his heart races like it does when he’s standing at the bow of a speeding boat. He pulls away and he doesn’t want to.
Daesung eases slightly and he leans against the windowpane again, stares out into the cement city. Jiyong never wants to leave his side, doesn’t even know how he ended up here in the first place.
“Pink’s a nice color,” the words are so soft, but they’ll anchor Jiyong to Daesung for ten years.