violet dream; jonghyun/taemin; pg-13
violet dream
jonghyun/taemin; pg-13; ~2000w
jonghyun only has one wish: to remember his dream, and never forget.
a/n: laughing and crying at this. what am i doing, writing when i'm obviously having a writer's block. idek, blame ttokki and bitter_cakes for this mess i’ve made. LOOK AT THIS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. this doesn’t make any sense and ridiculous and whatever, going to do my mandarin and japanese homework now ;_____;
It starts without a warning, the way it ends.
Jonghyun is a painter, a writer, and he picks his phone to be greeted with his boss’ yell or an angry client’s demand or his friends’ new complains. It irks him, the way they treat him like he is the trashcan, but he simply puts his phone against his ear and listens, closes his eyes and imagining things, colors, things, dance around his mind along with the curse and disjointed words. It’s not new for him to have his phone in his hand and falls asleep, tired and sick and has had enough, a sleep without a dream.
And then there’s wind against his face. He opens his eyes and he is lying on the ground, dirty and crumpled leaves and soils, rocks and sands and everything red, and his vision is covered by the trees, moving swiftly along with the gentle sweep of the air, left and right and left and right and someone is laughing.
It sounds like a bell, that laugh. Sweet and gentle and it caress him the way it shouldn’t, tempting and appealing and he looks around, looking for the source of the sound, enjoying the way it makes him smile and light and he is flying, his feet not touching the ground. He walks and walks, passes trees and trees, the woods feel real against his skin, the air is sweet against his tongue, his throat filled with dirt but not itchy. He doesn’t know where he is going, where his feet are taking him, but he keeps moving forward, following, following, following.
There’s auburn and warmth, and he thinks he has just seen the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, but then it’s dark and his alarm screams the way it always does.
-
The boy is a dream. Jonghyun knows this much, because every time he reaches out to touch his soft skin, glowing hair, perfect figure, the world always becomes a blurry picture, foggy and abstract and the next thing he knows, he is staring at his ceiling. He always wakes up panting, cold sweat and tangled blanket around his calves, and he feels weird because it’s always, always a beautiful dream, gorgeous and magnificent, so he has no idea why he always wakes up as if he is running away from those dreams he has. He can’t remember exactly what the boy looks like, because it’s always sequences after sequences pass through his mind like old pictures, and it feels like he is there, at the edge of his brain, waiting for him to remember.
He never does, and it frustrates him.
He pours it out with a painting, colors on the blank white grayish canvas, red on top of yellow on top of orange and the picture is a burning passion, fire smudged with his desperate want, rough and dirty and raw. He expresses it with his writing, lyrics about chasing for the impossible, trying to find something that doesn’t exist, but is there, lingering around him, waiting for him, anger and anxiousness filling each word and phrase and sentence and line he writes with his pen, scratches against the papers. He tries and tries and tries and tries, but no. He doesn’t, never remembers.
-
The cloud is white, the sky is purple, and Jonghyun thinks it’s ridiculous because the color doesn’t even match each other, and it looks like a funny drawing of a child instead, or an accidental brush with a wrong color. He presses his palms down to the dry leaves under his back, tickling the back of his neck, and he tries to forget his work deadline, his angry costumers, his mad boss, everything. He inhales the sweet air, lets it filling his lung with the freshness of fall, the dusts stays in his throat, but he doesn’t cough because it doesn’t itch.
It doesn’t itch. Jonghyun wakes up in a second, pushing his body up abruptly and feels his blood spinning his head around and around, dizzying him. He hasn’t even focused yet when suddenly, suddenly, there’s a boy at the corner of his eyesight, comes and disappears in a snap, and when he turns around, he can only see trees and falling leaves and purple sky and nothing.
He blinks and stares at his ceiling.
-
Come on, Jonghyun, the boy whispers, his voice velvety, come on.
Jonghyun grips his wrist, harder and harder, and croaks, I can’t.
Try, the boy urges him, louder words next to his ear, try harder.
I can’t, he says again, and he sounds pathetic, he knows.
He doesn’t want this to end, he wants the world to just stop moving now, because this is perfect, even when he can’t ever, ever, ever keep these in his mind, this imagery, this beauty, this memory, and maybe that’s why he refuses to open his eyes, because he knows that this will slip away again. He grips tighter, and tighter, and tick tock tick tock, the boy pulls his hand away. Away, again, and all Jonghyun can do is waiting, waiting. Then we can’t, the boy sounds sorry, disappointed, and Jonghyun knows that when he opens his eyes, he will be alone at his flat, sweating on his bed.
-
Jonghyun stops sleeping, after that. He keeps his eyes wide open, gulps down cups and cups of coffee, accepts more and more clients, does piles and piles of work to keep him from dreaming. He knows it is crazy, knows from the thick black bag under his eyes that he is probably insane, but sometimes, when you are not meant to remember, you choose to forget everything altogether instead. He knows he is giving up, but those voice, the way he tells him to try, try, try, it suffocates him, because he knows that he can’t, ever. His friends are worried, angry, annoyed, but Jonghyun stays awake and stays away from the boy of his dream.
He closes his eyes, and the boy is hugging him from behind. He can smell cinnamon, and coffee, and the phone rings.
-
You are beautiful, Jonghyun says to the boy, closing his eyes. The boy giggles like a little boy, tracing a heart against his palm, and Jonghyun wants to cry and laugh at the same time.
“This is very beautiful,” his client says vaguely, examining the painting of purple sky and orange leaves and pink sun and gray clouds with a satisfied look. The boy touches his face, and Jonghyun wakes up with tears on his eyes.
You never see me, Jonghyun, the boy says softly before disappears. Gone, like he has always done. And Jonghyun thinks, he has had enough. Enough, he is going to end this the way he should a long time ago.
-
Jonghyun is barefoot, the ground tickling the space between his toes, making new scratches and scars on his skin, but he can barely feel anything. He moves around the forest, between big trees and giant trees and tiny trees, just keeps running for what he needs, what he has always wanted, what he has always longing for, and his heart is bursting, almost, inside his ribcage, accompanying the butterflies in his stomach, threatening him to vomit and throws up but he keeps it inside, the giddy feeling that messes up with his brain and heart and mind and his whole, he ignores them all as he pushes the last branch that keeps the sun from him, that blocks his vision, that makes him unable to see-and there he is.
If Jonghyun is a language expert, he is going to invent a new word to describe a beauty beyond all the beauties in this world, to express a perfection so perfect that the word perfection itself is meaningless. If Jonghyun is a music expert, he is going to discover a new melody, a note that will ring longer and louder and prettier above all notes, a melody that will stay and haunt people forever because of its greatness, that will linger there to remind people of itself. If Jonghyun is an artist, he is going to find a new color, a color that expresses all the happiness in this world, a color that can calm even the wildest feeling, a color that makes you unable to use any other color because of its flawlessness.
If Jonghyun is a person, in which he is, he will fall in love, in which he does.
The boy turns around from the pond in front of him (Jonghyun doesn’t even realize the existence of other things, materials, only him and him and him), his white skin glows under the blazing sun, his auburn hair covering half of his face yet makes it even more sharp, more crystal clear, and his nose slides down perfectly, his lips are shaped as if it is meant to be adored, thin and pink and moist and Jonghyun is blinded. Those eyes, black deep shocked eyes when they falls on Jonghyun, he doesn’t regret leaving.
He doesn’t regret coming back, finding what’s needed to be found.
This time, the boy doesn’t disappear, no matter how many times he blinks his eyes. This time, when he reaches out to touch him, all imaginations are correct, how silky smooth his skin is, how soft his strands of hair are, how delicate his bones under his skins are. This time, he knows he doesn’t have to be scared, to back down, that he can slow down and taste this as long as he wants to, because now, he has brought them all the time in the world.
“What’s,” Jonghyun starts, and the boy seems dazed, almost as much as he does--which is triple kinds of impossible, isn’t it?-threading his words carefully because there is so, so much questions running through his head, answers that need not to be asked, but in the end, “What’s your name?”
The boy’s gaze is soft, calm, beautiful, “Taemin,” he says, his voice is the same, same, “I’m Taemin.”
“Taemin,” he tastes, and he wants to cry at how fitting it sounds from his lips, with his voice, “I’m Jonghyun.”
“I know,” Taemin smiles, and Jonghyun smiles, and he thinks it can’t be more, more perfect than this, can’t be. But Taemin touches his face and his cheek and his lips and his jaw, exploring the curves of him, slow, slow, “I know, Jonghyun.”
He wants to ask how, wants to ask why, why him, what has he done that he deserves all this, that he deserves him, him, of all the people in this world, but Taemin cuts him before anything else, “You shouldn’t be here, should you?”
Jonghyun pauses, a second of silent, contemplating, before, “No.”
Taemin laughs, that bell laugh, ringing above the air, above the wind, and he thinks he is imagining things because the boy shines, shines, brighter than anything else in this world, shinier that any stars he has ever looked, found, seen, and he thinks, those questions can always, always wait. Now, tomorrow, forever, and he smiles so wide, so wide, pulls Taemin closer, heart connected to heart. Taemin touches his shoulder, bends down, “We have all the time in the world,” he says, tells, and Jonghyun chuckles because I know, I know, “You will never wake up.”
And he thought he would regret it. He thought everything would come down at him and he would think, oh, this is a mistake, and cry and beg to be let home. He thought he would realize that this is not worth it, that a dream is not worth his life, that he is and idiot, idiot, idiot.
But then he can see Taemin, perfect Taemin, the boy in his dreams, the boy who waits, the boy who stays, the boy who hopes, the boy who he falls for, in a second or three, Taemin, Taemin, Taemin, and he leans in, closes his eyes, because he knows that he will still be there when he opens his eyes, whispers against lips, “I won’t,” and kisses like he actually, he does mean it.
Jonghyun never wakes up, and he is grateful for that.
jonghyun/taemin; pg-13; ~2000w
jonghyun only has one wish: to remember his dream, and never forget.
a/n: laughing and crying at this. what am i doing, writing when i'm obviously having a writer's block. idek, blame ttokki and bitter_cakes for this mess i’ve made. LOOK AT THIS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. this doesn’t make any sense and ridiculous and whatever, going to do my mandarin and japanese homework now ;_____;
It starts without a warning, the way it ends.
Jonghyun is a painter, a writer, and he picks his phone to be greeted with his boss’ yell or an angry client’s demand or his friends’ new complains. It irks him, the way they treat him like he is the trashcan, but he simply puts his phone against his ear and listens, closes his eyes and imagining things, colors, things, dance around his mind along with the curse and disjointed words. It’s not new for him to have his phone in his hand and falls asleep, tired and sick and has had enough, a sleep without a dream.
And then there’s wind against his face. He opens his eyes and he is lying on the ground, dirty and crumpled leaves and soils, rocks and sands and everything red, and his vision is covered by the trees, moving swiftly along with the gentle sweep of the air, left and right and left and right and someone is laughing.
It sounds like a bell, that laugh. Sweet and gentle and it caress him the way it shouldn’t, tempting and appealing and he looks around, looking for the source of the sound, enjoying the way it makes him smile and light and he is flying, his feet not touching the ground. He walks and walks, passes trees and trees, the woods feel real against his skin, the air is sweet against his tongue, his throat filled with dirt but not itchy. He doesn’t know where he is going, where his feet are taking him, but he keeps moving forward, following, following, following.
There’s auburn and warmth, and he thinks he has just seen the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, but then it’s dark and his alarm screams the way it always does.
-
The boy is a dream. Jonghyun knows this much, because every time he reaches out to touch his soft skin, glowing hair, perfect figure, the world always becomes a blurry picture, foggy and abstract and the next thing he knows, he is staring at his ceiling. He always wakes up panting, cold sweat and tangled blanket around his calves, and he feels weird because it’s always, always a beautiful dream, gorgeous and magnificent, so he has no idea why he always wakes up as if he is running away from those dreams he has. He can’t remember exactly what the boy looks like, because it’s always sequences after sequences pass through his mind like old pictures, and it feels like he is there, at the edge of his brain, waiting for him to remember.
He never does, and it frustrates him.
He pours it out with a painting, colors on the blank white grayish canvas, red on top of yellow on top of orange and the picture is a burning passion, fire smudged with his desperate want, rough and dirty and raw. He expresses it with his writing, lyrics about chasing for the impossible, trying to find something that doesn’t exist, but is there, lingering around him, waiting for him, anger and anxiousness filling each word and phrase and sentence and line he writes with his pen, scratches against the papers. He tries and tries and tries and tries, but no. He doesn’t, never remembers.
-
The cloud is white, the sky is purple, and Jonghyun thinks it’s ridiculous because the color doesn’t even match each other, and it looks like a funny drawing of a child instead, or an accidental brush with a wrong color. He presses his palms down to the dry leaves under his back, tickling the back of his neck, and he tries to forget his work deadline, his angry costumers, his mad boss, everything. He inhales the sweet air, lets it filling his lung with the freshness of fall, the dusts stays in his throat, but he doesn’t cough because it doesn’t itch.
It doesn’t itch. Jonghyun wakes up in a second, pushing his body up abruptly and feels his blood spinning his head around and around, dizzying him. He hasn’t even focused yet when suddenly, suddenly, there’s a boy at the corner of his eyesight, comes and disappears in a snap, and when he turns around, he can only see trees and falling leaves and purple sky and nothing.
He blinks and stares at his ceiling.
-
Come on, Jonghyun, the boy whispers, his voice velvety, come on.
Jonghyun grips his wrist, harder and harder, and croaks, I can’t.
Try, the boy urges him, louder words next to his ear, try harder.
I can’t, he says again, and he sounds pathetic, he knows.
He doesn’t want this to end, he wants the world to just stop moving now, because this is perfect, even when he can’t ever, ever, ever keep these in his mind, this imagery, this beauty, this memory, and maybe that’s why he refuses to open his eyes, because he knows that this will slip away again. He grips tighter, and tighter, and tick tock tick tock, the boy pulls his hand away. Away, again, and all Jonghyun can do is waiting, waiting. Then we can’t, the boy sounds sorry, disappointed, and Jonghyun knows that when he opens his eyes, he will be alone at his flat, sweating on his bed.
-
Jonghyun stops sleeping, after that. He keeps his eyes wide open, gulps down cups and cups of coffee, accepts more and more clients, does piles and piles of work to keep him from dreaming. He knows it is crazy, knows from the thick black bag under his eyes that he is probably insane, but sometimes, when you are not meant to remember, you choose to forget everything altogether instead. He knows he is giving up, but those voice, the way he tells him to try, try, try, it suffocates him, because he knows that he can’t, ever. His friends are worried, angry, annoyed, but Jonghyun stays awake and stays away from the boy of his dream.
He closes his eyes, and the boy is hugging him from behind. He can smell cinnamon, and coffee, and the phone rings.
-
You are beautiful, Jonghyun says to the boy, closing his eyes. The boy giggles like a little boy, tracing a heart against his palm, and Jonghyun wants to cry and laugh at the same time.
“This is very beautiful,” his client says vaguely, examining the painting of purple sky and orange leaves and pink sun and gray clouds with a satisfied look. The boy touches his face, and Jonghyun wakes up with tears on his eyes.
You never see me, Jonghyun, the boy says softly before disappears. Gone, like he has always done. And Jonghyun thinks, he has had enough. Enough, he is going to end this the way he should a long time ago.
-
Jonghyun is barefoot, the ground tickling the space between his toes, making new scratches and scars on his skin, but he can barely feel anything. He moves around the forest, between big trees and giant trees and tiny trees, just keeps running for what he needs, what he has always wanted, what he has always longing for, and his heart is bursting, almost, inside his ribcage, accompanying the butterflies in his stomach, threatening him to vomit and throws up but he keeps it inside, the giddy feeling that messes up with his brain and heart and mind and his whole, he ignores them all as he pushes the last branch that keeps the sun from him, that blocks his vision, that makes him unable to see-and there he is.
If Jonghyun is a language expert, he is going to invent a new word to describe a beauty beyond all the beauties in this world, to express a perfection so perfect that the word perfection itself is meaningless. If Jonghyun is a music expert, he is going to discover a new melody, a note that will ring longer and louder and prettier above all notes, a melody that will stay and haunt people forever because of its greatness, that will linger there to remind people of itself. If Jonghyun is an artist, he is going to find a new color, a color that expresses all the happiness in this world, a color that can calm even the wildest feeling, a color that makes you unable to use any other color because of its flawlessness.
If Jonghyun is a person, in which he is, he will fall in love, in which he does.
The boy turns around from the pond in front of him (Jonghyun doesn’t even realize the existence of other things, materials, only him and him and him), his white skin glows under the blazing sun, his auburn hair covering half of his face yet makes it even more sharp, more crystal clear, and his nose slides down perfectly, his lips are shaped as if it is meant to be adored, thin and pink and moist and Jonghyun is blinded. Those eyes, black deep shocked eyes when they falls on Jonghyun, he doesn’t regret leaving.
He doesn’t regret coming back, finding what’s needed to be found.
This time, the boy doesn’t disappear, no matter how many times he blinks his eyes. This time, when he reaches out to touch him, all imaginations are correct, how silky smooth his skin is, how soft his strands of hair are, how delicate his bones under his skins are. This time, he knows he doesn’t have to be scared, to back down, that he can slow down and taste this as long as he wants to, because now, he has brought them all the time in the world.
“What’s,” Jonghyun starts, and the boy seems dazed, almost as much as he does--which is triple kinds of impossible, isn’t it?-threading his words carefully because there is so, so much questions running through his head, answers that need not to be asked, but in the end, “What’s your name?”
The boy’s gaze is soft, calm, beautiful, “Taemin,” he says, his voice is the same, same, “I’m Taemin.”
“Taemin,” he tastes, and he wants to cry at how fitting it sounds from his lips, with his voice, “I’m Jonghyun.”
“I know,” Taemin smiles, and Jonghyun smiles, and he thinks it can’t be more, more perfect than this, can’t be. But Taemin touches his face and his cheek and his lips and his jaw, exploring the curves of him, slow, slow, “I know, Jonghyun.”
He wants to ask how, wants to ask why, why him, what has he done that he deserves all this, that he deserves him, him, of all the people in this world, but Taemin cuts him before anything else, “You shouldn’t be here, should you?”
Jonghyun pauses, a second of silent, contemplating, before, “No.”
Taemin laughs, that bell laugh, ringing above the air, above the wind, and he thinks he is imagining things because the boy shines, shines, brighter than anything else in this world, shinier that any stars he has ever looked, found, seen, and he thinks, those questions can always, always wait. Now, tomorrow, forever, and he smiles so wide, so wide, pulls Taemin closer, heart connected to heart. Taemin touches his shoulder, bends down, “We have all the time in the world,” he says, tells, and Jonghyun chuckles because I know, I know, “You will never wake up.”
And he thought he would regret it. He thought everything would come down at him and he would think, oh, this is a mistake, and cry and beg to be let home. He thought he would realize that this is not worth it, that a dream is not worth his life, that he is and idiot, idiot, idiot.
But then he can see Taemin, perfect Taemin, the boy in his dreams, the boy who waits, the boy who stays, the boy who hopes, the boy who he falls for, in a second or three, Taemin, Taemin, Taemin, and he leans in, closes his eyes, because he knows that he will still be there when he opens his eyes, whispers against lips, “I won’t,” and kisses like he actually, he does mean it.
Jonghyun never wakes up, and he is grateful for that.