Wine of Ages (Part V)
Title: Wine of Ages (Part V)
Pairing: Onew/Key, Onew/Taemin
Genre: Romance, Angst, Supernatural, Horror(ish)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A young innocent boy with rosy cheeks and a beating heart, or a walking corpse with pale -almost ghostly blue, unpulsing flesh? It's up for him to choose.
Prologue | Part I | II | III | IV
The grassy hill seemed unfazed by the mild breezing air, the high grass stood still unmoving, even with the gust of wind occasionally swayed Kibum’s jet black hair, the surrounding kept looking as dead as it should be.
Kibum threw his gaze far into the sky. Strands of hair on either side of his head created a ticklish sensation as they danced, scraping the delicate skin of his ears. His eyelids slowly fluttered close, the sight of the striking deep purple of the endless space above him lined shut by his long black eyelashes. The soil was cold and wet at the touch of his palms, the grasses pulled away from its roots as Kibum’s grasp held its clutch to the ground.
It was always nice, to lie down on his favorite hill all the time and forget about his unending second life. The hill somehow had always provided the comfort that he needed to calm all of his senses and rest his mind to a sensible way of thinking. It always had, but why couldn’t it now?
The wind came again, blowing the stray hair from the jutting position on his forehead and touching the revealed area on the expanse of his skin. It was chilly and refreshing, and there’s nothing else Kibum would wish for than to get the ability to breathe into the cool air once again.
His heart was dead. Yet he was still so stubborn not to stop trying. He inhaled, he inhaled as much as his chest would let him. But the air wasn’t there. His lungs was as hollow as ever, the lifeless feelings he got was still so disturbing, that he had to shut his eyes again to prevent the tears from falling.
How ironic was that? To have your heart stops beating but then find out that it keeps clenching every time those painful memories flooded back into your head. And the forever-lasting tears that stayed alive even after he had breathed out his life off his dead system.
He couldn’t understand. And he didn’t think he ever would. He never wanted to live like this, not completely living yet not literally dead. He didn’t understand as to why he couldn’t simply disappear, instead of having his soul hanging imprecisely between the gates of two different worlds. He could never get why he deserved such fate when he’d already borne so much pain at the end of his day. It was making him crazy -if he wasn’t already- the power that was binding him to the undying state that he was now.
Hatred and malice, the want of revenge and the longing of vengeance, were those what had caused him this kind of punishment? If so, why wasn’t he allowed to normally feel them? Wasn’t he the true victim? Wasn’t he the one who suffered from the hurt? Wasn’t he the right person that has the authority to demand some justice? And to think that the person who had snatched his life away from him was at some other place spending his life showered with his gold, enjoying life like it was the most fairness thing world could do to them.
No, it wasn’t fair. Kibum had given all that he could to keep that love, his first love, alive. How could it be fair when the only thing he got back from his pure feeling was death?
It’s been a decade. It was a painfully short time if he compared it with the other living corpses, but he didn’t think he could stand it any longer.
At some point Kibum had grown tired. Sometimes he couldn’t help but hoped that someday he would just gain his freedom. But those who went through the same experience could tell. The grudge consuming Kibum was too thick and bitter. Everyone in the Land of The Dead knew it would take more than everything to set the murdered ones free.
Except there’s one thing.And it was beyond difficult to do for those who were pained so much.
Kibum was pained so much.
However, it wasn’t the only thing that caused him trapped in his second life all those times.
The strong will to achieve the feelings he had lost, the yearning to feel the love he had never got. They created a powerful bond to his previous life, refusing to untangle the string, and tied him to it, making him dead yet living enough to and not to feel.
All he wanted was just a sincere love. Was it too selfish of him to dream for a second chance?
“How enticing.”
Kibum looked up to his side and saw that man; the man who had given him a spark of hope with his vows, the man who promised him his companion with a ring on his finger. His savior in despair, a bright glow in his nightmare. Jinki, whose name had brought the butterflies in him to life.
“Such a nice view. I wonder why your people call it Morgue Hill. Should’ve picked something better,” Jinki muttered as he crouched down before he then sat next to Kibum.
“What do you want?” Kibum maintained his voice to be as stern and cold as he intended to, his dignity never once failed him by losing to his feelings. Not after that incident that cost his life.
Jinki scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about earlier,” his low and warm voice slowly reached Kibum’s ears, and the latter would be lying if he said it didn’t create a light shiver on his skin. Hell, if only he wasn’t dead, he was sure he’d be having a problem with arrhythmic heartbeat right now.
“I should’ve known better than to cause a commotion like that.”
“Yes, you should have,” Kibum insisted on being difficult, and Jinki only heaved a sigh at that. He really had to give it his all to take this boy out of his fake hard shell if he planned to steal his heart and straighten things up as soon as possible.
For a moment they were huddling up in a temporary silence, the kind of calmness Jinki couldn’t quite describe, every second of it felt so vague that he had to count on the weak beam of the moonlight to keep shining his track. Both minds were focused on the view before them, on how the slightly bigger stream of air had succeeded in persuading the high grasses to swing to its liking, how the pollen was brought to soar into the space, a group of dandelions moving back and forth as if asking for their wings.
“You know…,” Jinki deliberately started. “This whole thing about us… My vows, and the ring you have on your finger…,” as Jinki’s voice faltered overtime, Kibum eventually decided to spare him a glance. Their gaze collided with unsaid hesitation, each one of them holding those prays they wished sky would be kind enough to fulfill, for everything to go according to one’s hope. “Don’t you even have any idea of how wrong it all seems to be?”
“What do you mean?” Kibum’s pride slowly crumbled. He looked at the other with those eyes without the gleam of confidence just like when Jinki witnessed him stuttering back then at the inn. Kibum got up a little from his position and support his body with his elbows. He searched for Jinki’s eyes, voice croaking, face almost pleading, “But we’re married. You’ve proposed to me.”
Jinki’s hand found its way to clutch onto the tuft of his hair, a groan coming out from him as he gritted his teeth together. He wasn’t the most patient guy in the world, he too had some self-indulgence left in him he’d like to take side on from time to time. With several intakes of breath and urges to calm himself he buried his face into his palms before he stared back to Kibum. “Listen. You don’t even know anything about me.”
“I have plenty of time to learn.”
“Kibum,” Jinki called him for the first time, tasting the sugary feeling in it as the name rolled over his tongue. “We can’t do this, we are too different.”
“Does it matter now?” He snapped. “Then what were you thinking back then at the clearing?” Kibum was back lying on his back again, refusing to look at the other.
Silence was back engulfing them, and by the time Kibum had grown curious, he couldn’t help but wanted to see how his companion was doing. But later he regretted his action, as he caught Jinki keeping his stare on his chest, on where that sharp cold metal had cut through his soft flesh, digging deep enough to prick on his heart, pushing rough enough to snatch away his life, before then left an everlasting mark, red and crimson, painful and tragic as a remembrance. He didn’t want him to know, yet he knew that the other had.
Jinki who seemed oblivious, tore his gaze from Kibum’s white suit a second later. He examined the surface behind him, making sure there was no rock on the grassy land, and laid his body just beside Kibum’s. The warmth that was radiating from his body made contact with Kibum’s icy one, giving the latter the feeling of ache, longing, and envy. Kibum used all of his willpower to hold back his cry. He didn’t survive a decade in that condition for nothing. He was trained enough to keep those kind of emotions from flowing, no matter how his inside yearned so much to sense it.
“So,” Jinki cracked the silence once again. “Tell me about yourself.”
Kibum glanced sideway at him and noticed how Jinki’s eyes had once again landed on the blood stain of his suit before he swiftly moved his gaze to stare at his face instead.
“You know, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Someone had told you. If it wasn’t Yoogeun, Minho must’ve been telling stupid stories again.”
Jinki sighed. “It wasn’t stupid.”
“I need no pity.”
“I wasn’t giving you any.”
“Yes you were. It was evident from your voice.”
“So what if I was?!”
“I said I don’t need any! And I thought you were here to apologize!”
There Jinki lost it again, he couldn’t figure out his strange behavior lately. He wasn’t the type to snap a stranger that easy, but then again, perhaps it was the boy’s nature that had pulled that character out of him. He sighed and rubbed his temples while muttering, “I’m sorry.”
The breeze around them was increasing for a few seconds. The bothered dandelions in the end came along with the wind, circling the space, towering over the hill, spreading their fluttery white floret in the air.
“Then tell me something… about this world,” Jinki whispered.
“What do you wanna know?”
Jinki thought for a while, “Will everyone end up here in the end?”
“No. Just some of them who had something with great impact in their lifetime that was left undone. Or something they desired so much but never received. Their yearnings of that certain thing was too strong and it awfully attached in their heart that they unconsciously tied themselves to it. So they became restless, and there’s no way they could be free unless their heart sincerely said so.”
“And how do they exactly do that?”
“Well... Honestly, some of the people here aren’t quite sure themselves of what made them trapped in this world. They stopped figuring out when they’re tired and lacking of answer, and the next thing happened is that they spend their non-living time here maybe until the end of the day. As for some of those who were lucky… they could remember what’s been burdening them before they died. If they’re even luckier, they could reach their aim or fulfill their wish, then release themselves from this world.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Do you know why Minho’s here?”
“Why?”
“He lost to his own brother in a battle that put the family’s next heir in stake. It’s not that he was killed, he was here because he absolutely couldn’t accept his defeat,” despite the grim topic, Kibum chuckled, and Jinki was startled by the heavenly sound of it. His laugh was nothing like Taemin’s, which fathomed virtue and purity. Kibum’s laugh rang out more like liveliness and vivacity, in which its sparkle gave Jinki the challenge to smile as a response.
“But in other case, what if that someone wanted revenge to the murderer? Do they kill the murderer in order to leave this world?”
Kibum smiled before he continued, “We dead people have rules to follow. We can’t lay a hand to hurt the living. Those people who were killed…”
He paused, his hand reaching out above him to catch the floating dandelions, but his fingertips only managed to touch the soft white feathers before they finally disappeared into thousand piece of small dusts as the wind kept ruthlessly sending them away.
“Those who were killed, the only way for them to leave this place is to forgive, forget, and let go. And just like that, the wind would carry them away.”
Jinki turned his head to take in the other’s features. The latter was having his eyes closed, the deep blue drowning orbs hidden behind his pale eyelids. The black and bold lines of his eyelashes fluttered a few seconds after, his arm retreating back to his side. Kibum had sensed the stare Jinki was sending him, but Jinki had already turned his head back to look up to the starless sky again.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s the fun in being a living dead that you refuse to forgive him?”
Kibum looked as if he was a bit irritated with what Jinki said. It’s not like he was having fun and taking it easy in a state he was in, neither was he refusing to leave the place though he met such precious friends like Yoogeun and Minho. It’s just that sometimes everything that was going on was too inevitable that you couldn’t make it according to your plan.
“Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it,” he stated bitterly.
“And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.”
Kibum had no reply to that. Therefore, the statement Jinki uttered hung unanswered between them. They stayed like that, blanketed with each others’ solace, yet at the same time pretending like one’s the only being who was basking under the rainfall of the calming florets.
Some time passed without exchanged words and with the coldness that gently crept to his side, Jinki could feel the other inching closer to him. The freezing ambiance almost felt like nothing as he already grew accustomed to it, but he also knew that it wasn’t right for him to stay composed when it was clear what Kibum was going to do next. However, instead of preventing it, Jinki only turned his head to face the other. Their eyes once again craved for one another, bit by bit consciousness left their triggered minds, and like a jolt of thunder, the tremor inside Jinki shook into serenity when that cold pair of lips grazed his own.
Kibum was quivering, and without himself recognizing, Jinki had placed his forefinger and thumb under the boy’s chin, steadying his light movement and leading their unhurried kisses together. Jinki inhaled into the narrow spaces left between them, and he could take in the scent that was truly common but also unfamiliar to him. Kibum smelt like rain, like lilies and flower garden when drops of dews were still covering the land. It was so faint and distant, so weak and nebulous, that Jinki became scared he’d lose it and he was simply hungry for more.
Jinki was still resting on his back, yet he could still control the slightly demanding Kibum who was currently lying on his side. So when Jinki’s lungs screamed for air, somehow he could easily stop their escapade and pushed Kibum lightly to their previous positions. And while he was breathing heavily, Kibum looking as calm as ever, fixed his eyes on Jinki’s half closed eyelids.
Jinki felt cold fingertips tracing the contour of his jaw, before it then continued to shape his lower lips. Kibum got up and bent a little to kiss him again, only for a moment because after that he could feel the lips parting. “But now I have you,” Kibum muttered against his lips. “I don’t need peace, I can forget about my freedom. I already have what I’ve been longing in my previous life. Someone to spend the rest of my life with.”
Jinki never retorted back. Though in the back of his mind his self-argument was screaming to him not to get distracted and hurrying him to get back on track, he decided it was too much of a trouble to think about as he was too absorbed with the kiss he eagerly responded.
The bright moon was hiding behind the mystical haze. Maybe that’s why.
______________________________________________________________
credit to Marianne Williamson for her quote: “Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.”
Pairing: Onew/Key, Onew/Taemin
Genre: Romance, Angst, Supernatural, Horror(ish)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A young innocent boy with rosy cheeks and a beating heart, or a walking corpse with pale -almost ghostly blue, unpulsing flesh? It's up for him to choose.
Prologue | Part I | II | III | IV
The grassy hill seemed unfazed by the mild breezing air, the high grass stood still unmoving, even with the gust of wind occasionally swayed Kibum’s jet black hair, the surrounding kept looking as dead as it should be.
Kibum threw his gaze far into the sky. Strands of hair on either side of his head created a ticklish sensation as they danced, scraping the delicate skin of his ears. His eyelids slowly fluttered close, the sight of the striking deep purple of the endless space above him lined shut by his long black eyelashes. The soil was cold and wet at the touch of his palms, the grasses pulled away from its roots as Kibum’s grasp held its clutch to the ground.
It was always nice, to lie down on his favorite hill all the time and forget about his unending second life. The hill somehow had always provided the comfort that he needed to calm all of his senses and rest his mind to a sensible way of thinking. It always had, but why couldn’t it now?
The wind came again, blowing the stray hair from the jutting position on his forehead and touching the revealed area on the expanse of his skin. It was chilly and refreshing, and there’s nothing else Kibum would wish for than to get the ability to breathe into the cool air once again.
His heart was dead. Yet he was still so stubborn not to stop trying. He inhaled, he inhaled as much as his chest would let him. But the air wasn’t there. His lungs was as hollow as ever, the lifeless feelings he got was still so disturbing, that he had to shut his eyes again to prevent the tears from falling.
How ironic was that? To have your heart stops beating but then find out that it keeps clenching every time those painful memories flooded back into your head. And the forever-lasting tears that stayed alive even after he had breathed out his life off his dead system.
He couldn’t understand. And he didn’t think he ever would. He never wanted to live like this, not completely living yet not literally dead. He didn’t understand as to why he couldn’t simply disappear, instead of having his soul hanging imprecisely between the gates of two different worlds. He could never get why he deserved such fate when he’d already borne so much pain at the end of his day. It was making him crazy -if he wasn’t already- the power that was binding him to the undying state that he was now.
Hatred and malice, the want of revenge and the longing of vengeance, were those what had caused him this kind of punishment? If so, why wasn’t he allowed to normally feel them? Wasn’t he the true victim? Wasn’t he the one who suffered from the hurt? Wasn’t he the right person that has the authority to demand some justice? And to think that the person who had snatched his life away from him was at some other place spending his life showered with his gold, enjoying life like it was the most fairness thing world could do to them.
No, it wasn’t fair. Kibum had given all that he could to keep that love, his first love, alive. How could it be fair when the only thing he got back from his pure feeling was death?
It’s been a decade. It was a painfully short time if he compared it with the other living corpses, but he didn’t think he could stand it any longer.
At some point Kibum had grown tired. Sometimes he couldn’t help but hoped that someday he would just gain his freedom. But those who went through the same experience could tell. The grudge consuming Kibum was too thick and bitter. Everyone in the Land of The Dead knew it would take more than everything to set the murdered ones free.
Except there’s one thing.And it was beyond difficult to do for those who were pained so much.
Kibum was pained so much.
However, it wasn’t the only thing that caused him trapped in his second life all those times.
The strong will to achieve the feelings he had lost, the yearning to feel the love he had never got. They created a powerful bond to his previous life, refusing to untangle the string, and tied him to it, making him dead yet living enough to and not to feel.
All he wanted was just a sincere love. Was it too selfish of him to dream for a second chance?
“How enticing.”
Kibum looked up to his side and saw that man; the man who had given him a spark of hope with his vows, the man who promised him his companion with a ring on his finger. His savior in despair, a bright glow in his nightmare. Jinki, whose name had brought the butterflies in him to life.
“Such a nice view. I wonder why your people call it Morgue Hill. Should’ve picked something better,” Jinki muttered as he crouched down before he then sat next to Kibum.
“What do you want?” Kibum maintained his voice to be as stern and cold as he intended to, his dignity never once failed him by losing to his feelings. Not after that incident that cost his life.
Jinki scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about earlier,” his low and warm voice slowly reached Kibum’s ears, and the latter would be lying if he said it didn’t create a light shiver on his skin. Hell, if only he wasn’t dead, he was sure he’d be having a problem with arrhythmic heartbeat right now.
“I should’ve known better than to cause a commotion like that.”
“Yes, you should have,” Kibum insisted on being difficult, and Jinki only heaved a sigh at that. He really had to give it his all to take this boy out of his fake hard shell if he planned to steal his heart and straighten things up as soon as possible.
For a moment they were huddling up in a temporary silence, the kind of calmness Jinki couldn’t quite describe, every second of it felt so vague that he had to count on the weak beam of the moonlight to keep shining his track. Both minds were focused on the view before them, on how the slightly bigger stream of air had succeeded in persuading the high grasses to swing to its liking, how the pollen was brought to soar into the space, a group of dandelions moving back and forth as if asking for their wings.
“You know…,” Jinki deliberately started. “This whole thing about us… My vows, and the ring you have on your finger…,” as Jinki’s voice faltered overtime, Kibum eventually decided to spare him a glance. Their gaze collided with unsaid hesitation, each one of them holding those prays they wished sky would be kind enough to fulfill, for everything to go according to one’s hope. “Don’t you even have any idea of how wrong it all seems to be?”
“What do you mean?” Kibum’s pride slowly crumbled. He looked at the other with those eyes without the gleam of confidence just like when Jinki witnessed him stuttering back then at the inn. Kibum got up a little from his position and support his body with his elbows. He searched for Jinki’s eyes, voice croaking, face almost pleading, “But we’re married. You’ve proposed to me.”
Jinki’s hand found its way to clutch onto the tuft of his hair, a groan coming out from him as he gritted his teeth together. He wasn’t the most patient guy in the world, he too had some self-indulgence left in him he’d like to take side on from time to time. With several intakes of breath and urges to calm himself he buried his face into his palms before he stared back to Kibum. “Listen. You don’t even know anything about me.”
“I have plenty of time to learn.”
“Kibum,” Jinki called him for the first time, tasting the sugary feeling in it as the name rolled over his tongue. “We can’t do this, we are too different.”
“Does it matter now?” He snapped. “Then what were you thinking back then at the clearing?” Kibum was back lying on his back again, refusing to look at the other.
Silence was back engulfing them, and by the time Kibum had grown curious, he couldn’t help but wanted to see how his companion was doing. But later he regretted his action, as he caught Jinki keeping his stare on his chest, on where that sharp cold metal had cut through his soft flesh, digging deep enough to prick on his heart, pushing rough enough to snatch away his life, before then left an everlasting mark, red and crimson, painful and tragic as a remembrance. He didn’t want him to know, yet he knew that the other had.
Jinki who seemed oblivious, tore his gaze from Kibum’s white suit a second later. He examined the surface behind him, making sure there was no rock on the grassy land, and laid his body just beside Kibum’s. The warmth that was radiating from his body made contact with Kibum’s icy one, giving the latter the feeling of ache, longing, and envy. Kibum used all of his willpower to hold back his cry. He didn’t survive a decade in that condition for nothing. He was trained enough to keep those kind of emotions from flowing, no matter how his inside yearned so much to sense it.
“So,” Jinki cracked the silence once again. “Tell me about yourself.”
Kibum glanced sideway at him and noticed how Jinki’s eyes had once again landed on the blood stain of his suit before he swiftly moved his gaze to stare at his face instead.
“You know, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Someone had told you. If it wasn’t Yoogeun, Minho must’ve been telling stupid stories again.”
Jinki sighed. “It wasn’t stupid.”
“I need no pity.”
“I wasn’t giving you any.”
“Yes you were. It was evident from your voice.”
“So what if I was?!”
“I said I don’t need any! And I thought you were here to apologize!”
There Jinki lost it again, he couldn’t figure out his strange behavior lately. He wasn’t the type to snap a stranger that easy, but then again, perhaps it was the boy’s nature that had pulled that character out of him. He sighed and rubbed his temples while muttering, “I’m sorry.”
The breeze around them was increasing for a few seconds. The bothered dandelions in the end came along with the wind, circling the space, towering over the hill, spreading their fluttery white floret in the air.
“Then tell me something… about this world,” Jinki whispered.
“What do you wanna know?”
Jinki thought for a while, “Will everyone end up here in the end?”
“No. Just some of them who had something with great impact in their lifetime that was left undone. Or something they desired so much but never received. Their yearnings of that certain thing was too strong and it awfully attached in their heart that they unconsciously tied themselves to it. So they became restless, and there’s no way they could be free unless their heart sincerely said so.”
“And how do they exactly do that?”
“Well... Honestly, some of the people here aren’t quite sure themselves of what made them trapped in this world. They stopped figuring out when they’re tired and lacking of answer, and the next thing happened is that they spend their non-living time here maybe until the end of the day. As for some of those who were lucky… they could remember what’s been burdening them before they died. If they’re even luckier, they could reach their aim or fulfill their wish, then release themselves from this world.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Do you know why Minho’s here?”
“Why?”
“He lost to his own brother in a battle that put the family’s next heir in stake. It’s not that he was killed, he was here because he absolutely couldn’t accept his defeat,” despite the grim topic, Kibum chuckled, and Jinki was startled by the heavenly sound of it. His laugh was nothing like Taemin’s, which fathomed virtue and purity. Kibum’s laugh rang out more like liveliness and vivacity, in which its sparkle gave Jinki the challenge to smile as a response.
“But in other case, what if that someone wanted revenge to the murderer? Do they kill the murderer in order to leave this world?”
Kibum smiled before he continued, “We dead people have rules to follow. We can’t lay a hand to hurt the living. Those people who were killed…”
He paused, his hand reaching out above him to catch the floating dandelions, but his fingertips only managed to touch the soft white feathers before they finally disappeared into thousand piece of small dusts as the wind kept ruthlessly sending them away.
“Those who were killed, the only way for them to leave this place is to forgive, forget, and let go. And just like that, the wind would carry them away.”
Jinki turned his head to take in the other’s features. The latter was having his eyes closed, the deep blue drowning orbs hidden behind his pale eyelids. The black and bold lines of his eyelashes fluttered a few seconds after, his arm retreating back to his side. Kibum had sensed the stare Jinki was sending him, but Jinki had already turned his head back to look up to the starless sky again.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s the fun in being a living dead that you refuse to forgive him?”
Kibum looked as if he was a bit irritated with what Jinki said. It’s not like he was having fun and taking it easy in a state he was in, neither was he refusing to leave the place though he met such precious friends like Yoogeun and Minho. It’s just that sometimes everything that was going on was too inevitable that you couldn’t make it according to your plan.
“Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it,” he stated bitterly.
“And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.”
Kibum had no reply to that. Therefore, the statement Jinki uttered hung unanswered between them. They stayed like that, blanketed with each others’ solace, yet at the same time pretending like one’s the only being who was basking under the rainfall of the calming florets.
Some time passed without exchanged words and with the coldness that gently crept to his side, Jinki could feel the other inching closer to him. The freezing ambiance almost felt like nothing as he already grew accustomed to it, but he also knew that it wasn’t right for him to stay composed when it was clear what Kibum was going to do next. However, instead of preventing it, Jinki only turned his head to face the other. Their eyes once again craved for one another, bit by bit consciousness left their triggered minds, and like a jolt of thunder, the tremor inside Jinki shook into serenity when that cold pair of lips grazed his own.
Kibum was quivering, and without himself recognizing, Jinki had placed his forefinger and thumb under the boy’s chin, steadying his light movement and leading their unhurried kisses together. Jinki inhaled into the narrow spaces left between them, and he could take in the scent that was truly common but also unfamiliar to him. Kibum smelt like rain, like lilies and flower garden when drops of dews were still covering the land. It was so faint and distant, so weak and nebulous, that Jinki became scared he’d lose it and he was simply hungry for more.
Jinki was still resting on his back, yet he could still control the slightly demanding Kibum who was currently lying on his side. So when Jinki’s lungs screamed for air, somehow he could easily stop their escapade and pushed Kibum lightly to their previous positions. And while he was breathing heavily, Kibum looking as calm as ever, fixed his eyes on Jinki’s half closed eyelids.
Jinki felt cold fingertips tracing the contour of his jaw, before it then continued to shape his lower lips. Kibum got up and bent a little to kiss him again, only for a moment because after that he could feel the lips parting. “But now I have you,” Kibum muttered against his lips. “I don’t need peace, I can forget about my freedom. I already have what I’ve been longing in my previous life. Someone to spend the rest of my life with.”
Jinki never retorted back. Though in the back of his mind his self-argument was screaming to him not to get distracted and hurrying him to get back on track, he decided it was too much of a trouble to think about as he was too absorbed with the kiss he eagerly responded.
The bright moon was hiding behind the mystical haze. Maybe that’s why.
______________________________________________________________
credit to Marianne Williamson for her quote: “Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.”