fic: dreaming in electric blue (leobin) 4/4 - R
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By early morning, Taekwoon is walking through the Tudor's front door with Hongbin close behind him. Wonsik won't be released from hospital until the weekend and though this gives them three days to be alone-pretending, for the last time, that they are the only people on Earth-time is unmistakably fast-moving.
Taekwoon moves heavily, all his limbs weighed down; it surprises him to some degree that though he's exhausted, his eyes refuse to close once in bed. He marvels over the still dark of the bedroom, where the sunlight never gathers; the canopy and its four posters a sight he's grown accustomed to-one he'll certainly have to give up sooner or later. But it's the press of Hongbin's body against his own that turns the weight of Taekwoon's heart sour. He shivers as coldness spreads throughout him, a cruelty he has no word for: he thinks of Hongbin in this bed, clinging to hands that aren't his own.
'Taekwoon?'
He hums.
'Why do you love me?'
Asked abruptly without explanation, Taekwoon struggles-but only for a second. The question brings with it a sense of calm; Taekwoon somewhat tightens his grip around Hongbin's slight frame. He says that at first it had been his smile. When Hongbin asks why, Taekwoon explains it had been the first smile he had seen besides Hakyeon's-how he had spent days beside the large window in a tinny grey room, watching the rain fall.
'Why do you love me now?' he whispers, half asleep. He sighs as Taekwoon kisses his forehead, the bridge of his nose. Growing limp as Taekwoon tries to explain in as few words as he can that it's the scent of Hongbin's hair and the weight of his fingertips, that there is a pulsing inside him so unlike a heartbeat that quickens, rocketing through him each time they kiss. He doesn't know exactly what love is meant to feel like, but he's certain it is the tingles in his palms when Hongbin touches him, the wonderment that surges up inside his throat when Hongbin catches his eye.
When Taekwoon is done speaking, Hongbin is asleep; outside a dove mourns.
/
Autumn blooms in lurid red. Wonsik has been staying at the Tudor home for only a couple weeks when he appears in the den's doorway, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. He asks Taekwoon if they can talk, and though they haven't spent much time together since his return, Taekwoon understands the severity of Wonsik's tone. A sense of exhaust washes over him immediately, filling the empty space within his bones; he is encompassed by apprehension so thick it leers palpable over him.
He follows Wonsik all the same.
In the short time he's been home, Taekwoon has learned many things from the way he takes his tea to how often he wakes in the night to use the bathroom. He lurks more than speaks, slipping out of rooms quietly whenever Hongbin lingers by Taekwoon's side. It's become strenuous leaving the den when Hongbin isn't home, and so most of Taekwoon's time is spent on his knees, beside the bed, searching for oddities the small Mecha could use for its creations. Now, the Mecha hides away weightless in the pocket of Taekwoon's shirt, its coin-flat eyes peering over the rim of his breast pocket; it surveys the house as Taekwoon passes through it, following Wonsik down the stairs and ultimately outside where the winds have picked up, an early winter breeze sweeping in from the north.
Out here, they can be alone.
From the time Wonsik had returned home, he and Taekwoon have had exactly three talks-all of which have taken place in the basement, around the bend, a short walk to the back of the house. It's as if Wonsik fears their words will infect the fragile comfort the three of them have managed to sustain, and Taekwoon can't blame him. Every morning he wakes worried that perhaps it will be the day their quiet foundation is disturbed.
'Did Hongbin talk to you?' Wonsik asks.
Taekwoon has to wrack his memory before something comes to mind: Hongbin, curling up beside him late the night before, whispering to him scapegoat ideas that had left them both discomforted. He mumbles his response, unsure if Wonsik hears him.
Descending a set of man-made stairs of dusty cherry wood, Taekwoon braces himself against the surge of electricity that rushes over him each time they come down here. Like a poltergeist, it's as if the basement holds something living, completely unlike the laser projectors lined against the eastern wall and animatronic limbs left on table tops, dusty with age; half finished synthetics ranging from facial structures to full body nervous systems, made entirely of optic fibre, hang lifeless from single sided steel racks. The first time they had come here, it had taken more than internal convincing to keep Taekwoon firmly in place; had Wonsik not been asking so openly about the extent of Taekwoon and Hongbin's intimate relationship he wouldn't have been able to stay.
Wonsik falls lightly into a worn, cushioned desk chair. The wheels squeal as he scoots closer to where Taekwoon stands. 'Did you... come up with a decision?'
'I don't want to be reprogrammed,' Taekwoon says at once. 'Or re-established.' He doesn't miss the slight twitch of Wonsik's right eye, a flinch if ever he saw one.
'It sounds scarier than it is,' Wonsik promises. He spins partway in his chair, giving Taekwoon a sideways glance as he reaches for the Marlboro pack beside a large holographic monitor. The blue light shines glittery over the flame of Wonsik's cigarette, but he doesn't smoke it. It sits between his fingers, burning on its own.
He tells Taekwoon that reprogramming doesn't mean he'll lose his memory, or the knowledge he's accumulated over the time spent with Hongbin. As he speaks, his voice wavers as if between regret and guilt; partway through his explanation of how re-establishment works, he loses his voice completely, failing to find the words he's looking for.
Taekwoon is almost touched by the gesture. He stares at the ground, digging the toes of his left foot into the tile, as if stomping something out. He feels the Mecha in his pocket wriggle uncomfortably.
'The only difference is I won't love Hongbin anymore,' Taekwoon mutters. 'Right?'
With a sigh, Wonsik nods.
'This is what Hongbin wants?' Once so certain of the answer, Taekwoon squirms beneath the question now; a burning sensation begins at the back of his throat.
'No, 'course not.'
Then why, Taekwoon asks, why does it have to happen at all? Why can't they stay the way they are-how Hongbin wants them to be? But Wonsik's answer doesn't come right away; he allows it to fester, Taekwoon growing unbearably impatient. He shifts his weight from leg to leg, unsure how to control the jittering inside him.
'Because,' Wonsik eventually whispers. An interminable amount of time has passed, Taekwoon's heart weighs heavy inside him. Suddenly, Wonsik perks up, though his voice never rises above a murmur. 'Do you know why man created computers? Operating systems. Mecha. All that technology-do you know?'
Taekwoon frets. He knows, but he won't say.
'The purpose of an OS was to simplify human life. You think faster, more rationally. You aren't burdened by social status, or-or... survival instincts. You don't have those problems, and so in this way, you-' He stops so suddenly Taekwoon startles.
Looking up, Taekwoon waits, but Wonsik merely shakes his head.
'You know what I'm talking about,' he accuses, irritated by something.
'I guess I do.'
'Why aren't you saying anything?'
'I don't know what you want.' Shocked by the annoyance in his own tone, 'What am I supposed to say-?'
'What is your function?'
Taekwoon falters slightly. 'Companion.'
And as if this response alone is enough to answer all of their questions combined, Wonsik nods with a solemn tug at the seams of his mouth. He stubs out the cigarette he had forgotten to smoke, and touches his temples, as if wading off a headache.
'Hongbin needed you,' he begins lightly, 'and you were there for him. But I'm here now. And-' the tremble of his voice is heartrending. 'I want my life back, Taekwoon. Do you understand that? I want my husband back.'
He stands and apologizes, for by now Taekwoon is crying; fat, silent tears that drop steadily from a stolid face. He makes no effort to wipe them away, but instead holds his breath as not to make a sound. They don't seem real; as he stands there taking in the distorted, watered down image of Wonsik's face, nothing seems real. The tears are automatic, a response to the ache in his chest that fades like a dull throb from a fractured bone. Wonsik lays a hand on Taekwoon's shoulder, the small Mecha peeks out from the pocket. He explains that whether Taekwoon undergoes the procedure or not, in 50 years-60, if he's lucky-he will have to do it anyway. 'Because,' he says, 'what are you going to do after Hongbin's dead?'
'I hadn't...' Taekwoon hangs his head. 'I don't know.' He allows Wonsik to touch his face.
'I don't want to be mean,' he says, and Taekwoon believes him. 'It's cruel that you were made this way. Almost like you're too human.' The weight of his hand disappears, and from the foot of the stairs, turned to leave with both hands in his pockets, Wonsik breathes: 'Do you get it?' When Taekwoon nods, he rubs the nape of his neck. 'I think he's home. We should say hi.'
But Taekwoon lingers in the dusty light, eyes trained on the half built mechanisms all along the basement walls. He has to first stop crying before he allows Hongbin to see him.
It's well after dusk by the time he leaves the basement, standing at the top of the stairs, in the mouth of a giant black hole, Taekwoon stifles a cry that works its way up his throat; one last whimper before he's able to control himself. The Mecha stirs inside his pocket, lifting its frail and metallic head to gaze up at him. Taekwoon pulls it from its confinements and lets it sit in the palm of his hand.
'Hakyeon will help,' he says, though he's really wondering aloud, unsure of what he should do. He thinks of Hongbin and the world turns grey, all the light sucked clean from the sky; the hills are silhouetted in black and Taekwoon feels nothing but a trembling sadness lying in wait to emerge and consume him.
/
No more than a couple of days later, Taekwoon is at the edge of his bed with hands drawn tightly together between his knees. He watches a bluish martin dive from the top of a large cypress and swoop back up again, as if drawing characters in the wind. When the bird flies too high to see, Taekwoon blinks drowsily and turns away from the window. He hears the approach of light footsteps and knows before looking that it's Hongbin waiting in the doorway. His arms are crossed loosely, his toes wiggling against the shag carpet; he offers a smile that Taekwoon returns haltingly.
For days he has refused conversation, much like a tired dog squandering its affections; he skulks beneath the cotton white of bed sheets that smell too faintly of Hongbin's body wash, feeling as though time has slipped so utterly from his grasp; he wakes to a burning sky each morning, alone in the drafty cold of a bedroom that doesn't feel personal in the slightest. When asked what's wrong, he doesn't reply, but Hongbin has long since stopped prying. Though, it's obvious, he remains hopeful.
'Wonsik's leaving for a while,' Hongbin says, crawling over the bed. The sheets rustle as he comes to sit beside Taekwoon, mirroring his stance. Whether he means to do this or not is unclear. 'He's going to the university to see if he can enroll in his old classes again. He'll be gone a while.'
Together, they watch the birds encircle the tree tops. A crescendo of miniature bodies so delicately made they appear as blotches of black ink against a clouding sky; like falling stars, long since burned out.
Taekwoon vaguely recalls a time, during their first year together, when he'd stood beside this very window, making a spectacle of the shifting winds; he'd whispered to Hongbin that autumn depressed him. But when asked why, he hadn't an answer. Watching now as the trees bend almost sorrowful, the frantic flutter of the birds' tiny wings, he imagines what it will look like in three weeks, a month: desolately brittle as all the colors of the changing leaves burn brilliantly one last time before they blink out completely. It's all dying, he thinks. Right in front of them.
'We can watch a movie,' Hongbin offers lightly. He rests his head to Taekwoon's shoulder. 'If you want to. It's been a while since we've done that.'
Taekwoon wonders why it is his heart still pulses excitedly at the chance of being near Hongbin when it knows just as well as his head, that everything is limited now. He sighs, but doesn't speak; too afraid to look Hongbin in the eye, certain that he'll find what Taekwoon has so meticulously hidden; he keeps his head bent.
'You're worrying me,' Hongbin says lowly. 'What is it, Taekwoon? What happened.'
'Nothing happened.' He lays a comforting hand on Hongbin's knee, the motion meaning to set him at ease. But suddenly Hongbin's breath hitches, and his hand overlaps Taekwoon's own, trembling terribly.
'You don't love me anymore.'
'...Hongbin.'
'You don't act like you do.'
'I...' It's hard to tell if Hongbin is being serious, but if the watery tone of his voice is anything to go by, Taekwoon thinks he must really believe it's a possibility. Softly, Taekwoon whispers, 'I'll always love you, Bin-ah.' His words bring discomfort even to himself. The sight of Hongbin's dilated eyes, the hollow dip of his cheeks once so full and soft, sets a chain reaction that begins in the palms of Taekwoon's hands and ends in his eyes, where tears prick painfully. He blinks them away.
'You're not telling me something,' Hongbin accuses, though he's right. 'You didn't keep things from me before. Did you? I-'
'No, Hongbin, it's not like that.' His fingers curl around the bone of Hongbin's knee. He feels the twitch of muscle there. 'I'm trying to settle.'
Hongbin's head tilts slightly.
'Things are... they're really different now. It's hard.'
'I'm worried,' Hongbin mutters. 'That's all.'
'You don't have to be.'
Hongbin kisses him then, a chaste press of his mouth to the upturned corner of Taekwoon's own. It's feather light and more effective than either of them anticipate it to be.
Touching the back of Hongbin's neck, Taekwoon brings him closer, kissing him fully on the mouth. His heart feels about to burst, searing white pain blistering all over him as Hongbin's small hands work their way into his hair. It's the first time they've kissed this way since Wonsik's return.
Later, after the sun has set and the sky has turned an inky black, they curl up in the four poster bed that feels so oddly cold and strange against Taekwoon's body. The movie isn't enough to stimulate his interest, but he lies there quietly with his arms wrapped protectively around Hongbin's small, but sturdy frame. It's only after Hongbin urges him between his legs for what is surely the last time, Taekwoon realizes he's been keeping track of the hours they spend together as he had when he'd first been created.
Hakyeon's voice echoes faintly; a flicker of light in a vastly dark tunnel: that's something you felt the need to keep track of yourself-
He feels for the first time a surge of hatred pulse inside him. It's cruel you were made this way-
Only now does Taekwoon fully understand the weight of these words. A dark wind blows, like a rising oracle, so astonishingly vivid Taekwoon sinks beneath its weight. He buries his face into the column of Hongbin's neck, and he knows-as his body shudders, fresh anxiety swooping low in his belly-what he should do. He tells Hongbin he loves him, he loves him so much-you know that, Bin-ah, right? Don't you?-because it hurts more than he can comprehend to think Hongbin won't remember once he's gone.
/
Three days pass, all of which are spent exactly the same. Taekwoon refuses to leave the dense comfort of the den, choosing instead to curl limp and morose beneath bed sheets that no longer bring comfort. He watches one night as the winds tear down a tree limb, scattering it in broken heaps across the hillside; the leaves disperse like marbles, the bark peeled back as if leaving the branch skinned. Standing beside the wide window, spellbound, he feels nothing. But as he lies awake the following night, thinking of nature and nurture and all the tiny pieces that fit in between, a sinking forms in his belly and he is left tiredly wondering: why?
Why-?
He muses over the simplicity of the question, the astounding weight that accompanies it. Unperturbed by morning light, Taekwoon eyes the branch left limp and docile on the hillside. It's been days, and by now small sparrows have picked through the fallen leaves; nightjars make their homes near the hillside, beneath the fallen debris; they scurry back to their nests as morning comes. The light lowers itself over the Tudor home and all the treetops, burning a thick orange that is hard to look at, but Taekwoon gazes intently into the rising sun. His retinas burn uncomfortably, but he knows he won't go blind; the discomfort is something that has been programmed into him. It is mythical as is the pain he feels when pinched, the sensation that sparks across his skin when the shower runs cold. He isn't natural like the pine needles spread across the cobblestones. He is unlike the insects and the wild flowers. He won't be returned to the Earth as humans will-
'Taekwoon-ah?'
-and because of this realization that seems to have always festered, Taekwoon makes his decision.
He turns from the window, smiling weakly as Hongbin comes toward him. He has a tie in one hand, the buttons of his dress shirt undone. He doesn't have to ask, for Taekwoon already knows what is needed of him.
'Why don't you change your mind?' Hongbin presses. Taekwoon pauses briefly. Does Hongbin know what is going to happen? But softly, he says, 'I miss when you'd come to work with me. It's been so long since you've done that.'
'I didn't sleep well, Bin-ah.'
'Again?'
'I'm too tired to go anywhere today.'
Hongbin smiles, but it doesn't give the right affect. What is meant to be warm comes off as forced, worrisome. 'We'll work on that, OK? Tonight I'll stay with you, and maybe you'll be able to sleep better.' Touching Taekwoon's face, Hongbin asks if this is something he'd like.
It's almost enough to change Taekwoon's mind. He loses himself in the small reverie of Hongbin tucked to his side, as he had been for all those beginning years. His slight frame, his beating heart and all the small sounds he makes in his sleep. Taekwoon struggles with the reality of it. The knowledge that though he'd be given one last night with Hongbin, it would serve only to deepen the pain.
He tells Hongbin he might be right. 'Some company would be nice,' but when Hongbin kisses him a moment later, he can feel the guilt trembling within his own mouth.
He wonders, fleetingly, if Hongbin will miss him as much as he wants to think.
Wonsik appears in the doorway then, skeptical with his eyes downcast. Upon noticing them by the window, he offers a smile that is just shy of genuine before disappearing back into the house.
'He's warming up finally,' Hongbin beams. 'I told you he would.'
'You did,' Taekwoon smiles.
'So then you should come with us.'
'Hongbin...'
'We can get lunch together. The three of us. That's something new.' His hands curl in the front of Taekwoon's shirt, a pleading easing its way across his face. 'I... don't feel good today, and I dunno- I don't wanna be away from you.'
It's intuition, Taekwoon realizes. Something he will never experience. He wonders if there is a stone caught in the back of Hongbin's throat, like he feels himself.
'That sounds nice, doesn't it?' Hongbin urges gently. His forehead creases, eyebrows knitting tightly together as Taekwoon kisses his mouth once.
'Next time, OK? Tomorrow, if you want. But not today.'
Hongbin gives a look before pulling away, defeated. 'Alright,' he whispers to nobody but himself. 'But Wonsik will be home early so you won't be alone all day.'
Taekwoon looks past him toward the hallway where Wonsik had once stood, but the doorway is empty. A draft surges up from the cracks in the windowpane; Taekwoon allows his hopes to fall.
Don't worry about me, he says. I'll be fine alone, but this doesn't keep Hongbin from lingering on the front porch. Wonsik, already a speck on the hilltop, awaits their cab.
'You're OK?' Hongbin says.
'Fine.'
'You'll be OK?'
'Why are you so worried?'
He blushes. It's something in the air, he says, touching the collar of Taekwoon's shirt. Nothing to be worried about, but- He shrugs, and tells Taekwoon he loves him. From the porch steps, Taekwoon watches as they disappear over the hillside, streaming blue embers vibrant and surreal against the muddy Earth.
After they're gone, Taekwoon lies awake in the four poster bed, Hongbin's ring in one pocket and the small Mecha tucked safely in the other. He closes his eyes and thinks of the first time he'd felt the plush weight of the pillows beneath his head, and Hongbin's hands against his bare skin.
T H R E E
The cab arrives at a quarter past nine in the morning, minutes after Hongbin has sent a message through the wire. Taekwoon doesn't open it, for fear of it stopping him. He refuses to linger in the doorway, passes swiftly over the cobblestone pathway for what he is sure is the last time-and meeting the cab at the hilltop, where Hongbin had been only hours before, Taekwoon pleads don't be angry, imaging all the while that Hongbin can hear him.
/
A depression so profound stems from within him, brings tingles to his scalp as if an electrical storm looms palpable over his head; Taekwoon steps through the automated entrance of Synthbanks Corporation. He can feel eyes on him, like ice daggers all along his body; knives so deeply embedded it's a wonder he can't see them.
To see the spiral staircase, illuminated by green phosphorescence, is so startling he staggers. Left reeling, wondering what exactly is he doing, Taekwoon searches-
And finds, without meaning to: Hakyeon. He stands poised and proficient, exactly as Taekwoon remembers him to be. But when their eyes meet, moments later, Hakyeon's demeanor is altered drastically. He reels back as if struck, his eyes widened with wonderment.
'What are you doing here?' he says. Then, quickly suddenly, as if it only now occurred to him: 'Where's Hongbin?'
'He isn't with me.'
'You can't be here alone, Taekwoon.'
'I need a favor.'
Hakyeon struggles. It's a long time before he sighs, taking Taekwoon by the arm and leading up to the eleventh floor. The lift is spacious and yet Taekwoon feels as if he is drowning beneath Hakyeon's weighty gaze. The silence grows imminent, until they're alone in the alcove of light that is Hakyeon's office. Burning orbs of steel phosphorescence, the windows large and overpowering. They sit across one another a steel table, this scene so alike the one Taekwoon remembers from years before, only now the leering wait has changed; he frets.
'Tell me everything,' Hakyeon says.
Taekwoon begins the only way he knows how: from the moment he left Synthbanks, allowing the words to flow like a story from the back of his memory; he spares only the barest of details-Hongbin's hands and the cold of his fingertips, how their winters were spent in the orange haze of the fireplace, the movies, the qualms; the time Hongbin had cried when a wounded bird had found its way into the garden. And as the story unfolds, Hakyeon's face softens. His hands tremble slightly in his lap, a crease forming between his eyebrows.
The guilt gives way to a pain so enormous, Taekwoon crumbles beneath it. When his voice shows the first watery signs of wavering, he clears his throat and bows his head. He won't cry-not this time, for his mind has been made up.
'Do you understand?' he asks, when all is said. 'Do you get it? I can't go back there.'
'No, I guess you can't.'
'But you know why, don't you?'
Hakyeon offers a weak smile. 'I think I do.' Leaning forward, as if trying to get a better look, he demands lightly, 'What are you asking of me?'
'I need you to turn me off.'
'Turn you off-?'
'Yes. Shut me down, deactivate me. I don't know the right terms.'
'I can't do that when you belong to someone else, Taekwoon. It's considered stealing. What if Hongbin comes looking for you?'
'He will.'
'And what am I supposed to tell him?'
'I read the Mecha agreement,' Taekwoon begins, defiantly. 'I saw that it said if a person loses their Mecha, they sever their creating license. Right?'
'Yes, but-'
'With his license revoked, he loses all ownership.' He squirms uncomfortably as a sharp burn floods his stomach. 'Not that he would think of me as property.'
Growing panicked, he whimpers. 'I know it's a lot to ask of you and maybe, I don't know- Maybe you're uncomfortable and I'm sorry, but I can't stay with him. You have to understand.'
I do, Hakyeon promises. But he loves you, he says. Doesn't he? And you love him. But that isn't the point, Taekwoon urges.
'I was made for comfort and I, I was supposed to be the perfect companion. But since Wonsik's come back, I've only complicated things.' His eyes threaten to water, but a quick blink clears his vision. 'He's married and he has a companion already, one that's real. I-'
'You're real, Taekwoon. I've told you a hundred times.'
Taekwoon shakes his head, he feels the small Mecha squirm in his pocket. 'I'm supposed to make his life simple, but I can't do that anymore.'
'Don't you love him?' Hakyeon asks. 'Isn't that enough?'
Softly, 'Of course I do. That's why I have to go.'
'You get it now?' Taekwoon asks after Hakyeon has crawled to his feet, leaving the table to instead stand by the window; a habit Taekwoon is familiar with, but one Hakyeon has never displayed before.
'I'm sorry,' Hakyeon says with his back turned, hands pushed deeply into the pockets of his doctor's coat. 'When I made you, I... did something wrong, I guess.'
Taekwoon waits.
'When I made you, I thought'-he sighs and the sound is nostalgic; perhaps he too longs for a simpler time-'all you needed was freedom of thought, a good heart. But,' he turns away from the window. 'That wasn't enough, was it?'
Hakyeon crouches beside Taekwoon's feet. His hands are cold as they fumble for Taekwoon's own. 'You've come such a long way, I don't want to throw you out in a garbage bin.'
'Don't alter me,' Taekwoon says. 'You can't.'
'I wouldn't, Taekwoon. I... wouldn't do that to you. But,' he falters. His sorrow is heady, spread thickly over his small face. 'What do I tell Hongbin when he comes?'
'That I'm gone.'
'And you're positive you want to do this?'
Taekwoon nods, his hands dampening; he imagines Hongbin knows by now that something is wrong. He simply has to.
Cold fingers touch Taekwoon's cheek. He hears Hakyeon's faint apology; it's nothing more than a weak murmuring whisper, but it holds all the pain Taekwoon feels. He wonders why it is no one-not even himself-had foreseen such a terrible outcome.
A pressure rises at the very top of Taekwoon's vertebrae, where Hakyeon's fingers now fiddle against the knobs of his spine. Another pressure swarms to his temples, a burbling of erosion crosses his vision; it's as if all the sensors within his head are ablaze all at once. There isn't pain, only sheer light, and then-
epilogue →