The Story of Us [5/?]
Genre: AU Romance
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: GTOP
Disclaimer: They will never be ours (sigh)
Warnings: Language, fluff, sexual situations
Summary: "There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life." - Federico Fellini.
They say not all who wander are lost, and that no man is an island. This is the story of Jiyong and Seunghyun. Two men brought together by chance. Two men who will change each other's lives forever.
This is the story of us.
I set my plate on the bedside table and flung myself back onto the mattress, trying and failing not glare holes in the ceiling. Dear lord, save me from myself. My rough edges were being smoothed down. I could already sense it happening. Seunghyun's entire existence grated against me, the sandpaper that was making me soft. Pliant. Did I keep fighting it or did I give in? Was I even ready to give in or was that just my dick talking? I was the first person, the first young man, Seunghyun had seen in months. How much was real and how much was instinct? Habit. Whatever. Fuck, I really was thinking too much. Always thinking. I remembered mention of the sketch pad and rose from the bed, taking my plate with me. Drawing would help. It was the only thing that ever did.
Pausing in the kitchen, I washed my plate and filled a cup from the cabinet with water, gulping the entire thing down in one go. Probably would have been better if I'd poured it over my head. A hopeless sigh bled from my lips as I leaned on the counter and looked out the window. Snow obscured the view almost to the top of the glass. Two days, not even. How many more? And would I survive them. The longer I stayed the more involved I would become. In Seunghyun's life and him in mine. Scowling, I rinsed the cup and set it in the drying rack, stalking into the living room and curling up on one end of the couch. Stop it.
Felt like ages ago that I did this. Opening the sketch book, I stared at the blank sheet of white paper in my lap. That first step of putting pencil to page still scared the shit out of me. The first line, the first mistake. I sighed and let my eyelids drift shut, allowing my fingers to start without the hindrance of judgmental eyes. It didn't matter that I couldn't see what I was doing, the lines would shape themselves as they wanted to and I would figure it out later. Several minutes ticked by and I looked down. A cloud of patterns and overlapping shapes. The rest was easy now and I set about filling in the gaps, linking the seemingly unrelated scribbles into something that made sense aesthetically. Expressively. One thing I'd found comforting about art, was that I could control it, to a degree. Unlike everything else in my life.
“Feeling a little better?” Seunghyun poofed into being, smiling gently at me as he sat down on the opposite end of the couch, carving and small knife in hand.
I swear I needed to put a fucking bell on his ankle or something. My heart fluttered, hand moving automatically over the paper.
“A lot better, thanks.” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, mouth curving upward on its own. Forever smiling, fuck my life. “What are you working on?”
“Something I started this summer, but never finished. What are you drawing?” Seunghyun set the knife and the wooden bear down on the end table, leaning over to take a closer look.
I slid over on the couch, tilting the pad in my lap so he could see. It really was nothing special. Just a bunch of abstract designs. I got carried away with line-work all the time because I could never stop myself. It's calming. Mindless. But this particular drawing had become surprisingly intricate.
“That’s... amazing. I’m jealous.” Seunghyun's deep voice floated into my ears and drifted down my spine.
I went pink, lower lip nestled between my teeth to prevent another grin from stretching over my face. My fucking cheeks were going to fall off if this continued. A small part of me was beginning not to care.
“It’s really not worth being jealous over,” I muttered.
“You did see what I ‘drew’, right? Do you ever sketch anything real? I mean, like still-life? I don’t know much about art, sorry.”
Chuckling, I leaned back against the cushions. Seunghyun was so close I could smell him without even trying. I flicked my gaze down at his face and then away again. My skin prickled.
“I have, yeah. It’s been a while though.” I cleared my throat. “Not since I was with Mackenzie, my ex. I used to draw him while he tinkered with his cameras.”
“Oh. You must have been with him for a while, then?” He tugged on one of his shirtsleeves.
Seunghyun always sounded so uncertain of himself whenever he asked me a personal question. Yet helplessly curious at the same time. I found that I wanted to tell him everything even if he didn't ask. Which was terrifying.
“Too long, I think.” I gave him a sad, lop-sided smile.
Here we go.
“Why do you say that?” He blushed and averted his eyes. “Sorry. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”
“No, it’s all right.” I distracted myself by playing with the corner of the sketch paper, bending it back and forth along the same crease. “I was clinging to the idea of what we were, if that makes any sense. Long after what we were had turned to shit. Besides, I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“What do you mean?” Seunghyun appeared confused, but gazed at me like he was hanging on every word.
“Kids,” I laughed at myself, sharp and slightly bitter. “This is what I get for falling in love with a guy who swings both ways.”
“But you live in Washington. Couldn’t you adopt...”
“He didn’t want to. Selfish fucker.” I ran an agitated hand through my hair. “Said it wouldn’t be the same. Wouldn’t be his. I almost punched him in the face for that.”
“Understandable.” Seunghyun shook his head like he couldn't fathom the thought. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, he was a prick. We fought more than anything else. I don’t know why I stayed with him for so long, but...” I shrugged, plastering a self-deprecating smile on my face. “The heart wants what the heart wants, right?”
Sighing, Seunghyun looked off into the fire.
“Right.”
The curve of his shoulders told me more than he was probably aware of. The heavy sigh and the grim tone of his affirmation. There was something there. A story. One I wasn't positive I wanted to hear because I didn't need any further excuses to need more from Seunghyun. To need more of him, so that I could catalogue every piece and file them away. So that I could remember. What had been and what no longer was.
Enough.
I chose to ask anyway, hoping that it wasn't too much to do so. I didn't want to set us back when the familiarity had only just settled.
“Forgive me if I’m reading too much into the delightfully depressing tone of your voice, but I’m going to assume you can relate to the joy of shitty exes?”
Seunghyun turned from the fire and pinned me with an uncertain stare, eyes shifting back and forth as he looked at me. I had given up on getting an answer when his mouth suddenly opened.
“Well, mine tried to kill me. So yeah, I guess you could say that.” He didn't avert his gaze, watching me closely, no doubt to see how I'd react.
My lips parted and my eyes went wide. A sigh of disbelief left my body in a heavy whoosh. I stared back at Seunghyun as I tried to process that being someone's reality. His reality. It's different when you're not detached from the wickedness of life and the malicious acts of other humans. Like watching television or reading a book. Someone Seunghyun loved tried to take his life and that was fucked up on so many levels. Sure, I'd wanted to kill Mackenzie more than a few times in the heat of the moment, but I would never, never, wish that upon anyone. Regardless of the circumstances. The empty spaces between my ribs ached as I fumbled for a response.
“I-” I cut myself off, frowning deeply. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would anyone want to kill you? You’re like a teddy bear,” I said, and promptly wanted to throw myself into the hearth. I was getting sloppy.
Seunghyun responded with a small huff of laughter, lips quirked, undoubtedly, at my beet-red face.
“I suppose being the executor of an estate worth over 300 million dollars is what did it. He couldn’t wait for me to die, so he-” Seunghyun paused, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “He poisoned me. Added a little antifreeze to every drink he made me at our anniversary party. Good thing he didn’t realize ethanol is an antidote for ethylene glycol poisoning, otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now.”
I sat there, stewing in my own silent horror. There were no expletives strong enough for me to properly express myself. No wonder he had removed himself from the rest of the world and taken the risk of being hurt again out of the equation. More than anything, I wanted to curl around Seunghyun and hold him tightly. To soothe. To comfort. He'd done so much of that for me already without knowing a damn thing. And now this. I lifted a hand, letting it hover as I hesitated before relenting. My fingers curled around Seunghyun's shoulder and squeezed gently. Turning his head, I was gifted with a weak, remarkably heartbreaking smile. The thought of Seunghyun not existing made my chest feel empty.
“Without you, neither would I, technically,” I spoke very softly, suddenly rather maudlin. “I owe you my life, really. And I still feel awful for being such a jerk yesterday.”
“You want to repay me?” He pressed himself back against the arm of the couch and folded his arms behind his head. “Draw me like one of your French girls."
For a moment I wondered if I was hallucinating or if Seunghyun actually just made one of the worst jokes I'd ever had the pleasure of hearing. The absurdity of his humor took me by surprise and suddenly I was nearly in tears, laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Weird didn't even begin to cover it, Seunghyun was an anomaly. I gasped, thwacking him on the leg and shaking my head.
“You are so fucking awful,” I choked out through my fading mirth, grinning at him so hard I could feel it in my toes.
A small smirk formed on his face, growing larger as he chuckled and dropped his arms into his lap to stare at his hands. Seunghyun's smile was beautiful. More than that, it was radiant, shining through the cloak of his bashfulness. The thickness of his eyelashes swept in delicate curves over his cheekbones and I absolutely did not envision dusting them with the pads of my fingers. He was so...fuck, I couldn't even think about it anymore. Seunghyun just was. And he triggered things inside of me that had lain dormant for years. Even when I was with Mackenzie. Which sent all manner of warning sirens off in my head but I was gradually tuning them out.
I breathed in, an idea taking hold of me.
“Actually, would it-” I played with the same creased corner of the sketch pad. “Would it be okay if I did draw you? Not necessarily right now but...sometime?”
Seunghyun nodded, impossibly lovely smile still etched clearly on his face and perhaps I'd been too hasty in listening to my impulsive mind.
“Sure. Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Great.” I looked away, a shy sort of mortification motivating me to kick myself.
The heat of Seunghyun's prolonged stare was making me nervous. I refused to acknowledge it. In fact I refused to acknowledge anything other than the pad of paper gripped in my itchy fingers. I sensed more than saw when he got up from the couch with his tools to go sit on the floor, too busy pretending that I was concentrated on the jumble of lines in front of me. But it didn't stick. I was stealing glances as soon as I believed he was saturated enough in his work. We didn't talk at all after that, which was fine. Because it provided ample opportunity for me to be a sneaky fucking imp and draw him anyway. I wanted the diversion. Needed it. Thoughts of Seunghyun's history still whirled in my head and I didn't want to dwell on it. It would make me sad and I didn't want to be sad.
So I made a loose sketch of his laughing, dimpled face. The light in his eyes. The light in his smile. A couple times, when I took fleeting peeks over the edge of my paper for reference, I caught Seunghyun watching me.
The pang in my chest was devastating.
And I decided, finally, that I didn't mind.
*
Dinner rolled around before I knew it and we were in the kitchen again, preparing plates and bowls and warm cups of tea. I marveled at the absence of our old awkwardness. Not that we weren't still. It's just that it was easier now. To sit and talk and apparently behave like mostly normal people. Only the itch in my fingers from earlier hadn't gone away. If anything it had gotten worse. The act of shoveling food into my mouth didn't help either. I wanted to touch Seunghyun. And not necessarily because I also wanted to push him down onto his soft bed and smother him with slow kisses and slower rolls of hip. I wanted the freedom to run my hands through his hair. The freedom to hold him. To snake my arms around his waist from behind and press my face into the dip between his shoulder blades. These were dangerous desires. I was well aware. But I seemed to have misplaced my sanity. Hooked would have been an appropriate description for what I was. Smitten. A prepubescent boy admitting that he has a crush.
Do you like me? Circle Yes or No.
I smirked to myself and didn't bother trying to tame the wild giddiness in my veins. Seunghyun's presence was becoming commonplace. A need instead of a want. And I mused on how much of that was because we'd basically spent the last forty-eight fucking hours together without a break. Was it possible to fall in love in less than two days? People had fallen in less than that.
Infatuation was strange. Because it had the potential to be so much more.
I went to sleep that night riding waves of agonized happiness. I had dismissed the memory of what this felt like and now it was as if I was experiencing it for the first time. Whether it lead me to my death or not, well...that was entirely up to Seunghyun. I could only hope that he wouldn't leave me to rot in my own disgustingly sweet puddle of schoolboy affection.
*
In the middle of the night my slumber was rudely interrupted by the dismayed cry of my impossibly full bladder. Stumbling from the couch to the bathroom, groggy as fuck and beyond bleary-eyed, I opened the door and came very close to pissing my pants right then and there. I rubbed at my eyes to make sure I wasn't lost in some waking dream but nothing changed. Seunghyun was still standing there in the shower. Naked. In the shower. Seunghyun. Without clothes. I clutched the handle in my fingers so tightly I was surprised it didn't snap off.
I should turn around. But I wouldn't. No, really. I should go. But I couldn't. And I didn't. Instead, I slumped against the door frame and just...drowned. My eyes affixed themselves to Seunghyun's feet and migrated north at a snail's pace. Over the perfect curve of toned calves, the supple flesh of lickable thighs, the swell of his absolutely gorgeous ass jesus christ.
Jiyong, you shouldn't be here. And of course I didn't listen.
I swallowed thickly, gaze traveling further along the small of his back and up the notches of his spine to devour the sight of broad shoulders. The way his golden skin slid over muscles I had known were there but had never seen. There was a twisting pull in my gut and I realized that I was growing hard from leering alone. I dreaded the possibility of ever being allowed to actually touch the naked form of Seunghyun's body with my own hands because I would probably explode on contact.
My dick throbbed knowingly and I winced. Getting an erection while having to pee was not my idea of a good time. I clenched my eyes shut. Go away. Please please please go the fuck away. I almost wanted to pass out again rather than leave another hard-on ignored. Breathing deep, I had just gathered the courage to step away when I heard a noise.
A soft moan drifted over from the cubicle of the shower and my stomach dropped out. Oh god. Oh god no. Cracking my eyes open, my suspicions proved to be true when I was greeted with one of the most erotic images I had ever seen in my entire life. I knew I was prone to exaggeration but this was definitely not one of those moments. Seunghyun's forehead was pressed against the tiled wall, dark hair drenched and messy, one arm lifted over his head while the other...heaven fucking help me, stroked his cock. Water cascaded from the shower head and lovingly caressed the hills and valleys of sinewy muscle and soft skin. I envied the droplets as they spilled down his arms. His sides, his stomach, the cleft of his ass. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the moan that wanted very much to be heard.
Another sigh of pleasure met my ears, Seunghyun's movements picking up speed. My eyes were glued to the way his hips were bucking into his hand and I fought the tremble in my legs. Legs that clearly wanted to give out and send me to a tortured heap on the floor. The noises that fell from Seunghyun were verging on wanton and I whined low in my throat. I can't do this. I can't. Not like this.
Before my eyes rolled back in my head, I very carefully took a step in reverse and shut the door. It required a number of seconds for me to remember what walking was. What movement was. At the thought of movement I was immediately reminded of Seunghyun's movement in the shower and how he was still in there about to-
I smacked myself lightly on the cheek.
“Fucking cut it out,” I whispered.
Unable and unwilling to hold the contents of my bladder any longer, I risked going outside in the freezing goddamned cold to relieve myself. I briefly debated throwing my useless, shivering limbs into the snow and waiting to die instead of going back into the house, but once my bladder was empty the icy air convinced me otherwise.
Faint light from the bathroom was still creeping out through the sliver of space at the bottom of the door and I scrambled to the couch without shame. Wrapping myself up in all the blankets, I curled up on my side and stared into the darkness of the living room for what felt like fucking forever. Eventually, I heard Seunghyun return to his bedroom but the damage had been done.
I bit down hard on one of my knuckles and wrestled through the murky waters of sexual frustration until I found sleep again.