vixx {one for the road, hyuk&ken, (2/2)}
Hakyeon would be pissed at him for this later, Sanghyuk thought dimly as Jaehwan shoved him behind the bar, in a dark alley that screamed shitty murder mystery waiting to happen, and wasted no time in pinning him to the nearest wall, his back hitting the bricks there with a dull thud. He growled low in his throat, trying to push Jaehwan off of him but he pinned his wrists to the wall above him. In the night, he looked more like the Jaehwan that he had known of his youth, a taunt in his mouth and the sharp glint of the night in his eyes.
Jaehwan didn’t kiss him.
He bit at the exposed skin of his neck, dragging his tongue down, his lips skating across his collar bones. “Mine,” Jaehwan hissed against his fever skin.
“I’m not yours,” Sanghyuk retorted with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Jaehwan swallowed it down with his lips, his knee pressing in between Sanghyuk’s thigh. “Should have thought of that before you agreed to this.”
Sanghyuk wasn’t sure what this was but this was not how it started last week in an easy morning in his broken down sanctuary. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it just yet.
-
“Holy shit Sanghyuk, you look like you haven’t slept in at least three years,” Hakyeon said, his hand through his hair comforting as he leaned instinctively into it.
“Jaehwan,” He muttered vaguely.
Hakyeon frowned.
“Seems like he’s doing you more harm than good.”
“Per usual,” Sanghyuk said, meaning it in good humor.
“Why don’t you stop?” Hakyeon did not see things the same way, evidently.
He didn’t have a reason as to why the works stuck in his mouth like toffee on a warm day.
“I…can’t.” He said finally.
-
They went for a ride down empty streets, the Mustang charging through old haunting grounds. He was starting to find that Jaehwan didn’t like the quiet much and would talk to fill it, regaling him with stories of old memories as they passed by one convenience store or another, the house of an old friend.
The clock on Sanghyuk’s dashboard read 2:38 AM when he pulled to a stop in the dead center of a brightly lit tunnel.
That got Jaehwan to stop his absent-minded chattering. “Why here?”
Sanghyuk didn’t know how to tell him that this tunnel was a mosaic of his youth, the destination of late night visits with a bottle of spray paint, either by himself or with his friends. The bright letters and art spanned the entire wall of the tunnel. It had started with a blank canvas freshman year. It was the unconventional tapestry of his life. He was here, he existed, he mattered.
He finally settled for, “Up to no good again, I suppose.”
The car doors shut behind them and Sanghyuk watched as Jaehwan’s eyes took in the sight of the wall before him. It wasn’t perfect, it was a motley collection of street art and inside jokes. His fingers skimmed the colorful walls as if he was trying to recall memories that he was never a part of.
Sanghyuk couldn’t explain why he brought him here, to bear himself to Jaehwan, who didn’t want anything more than his companionship, to fall into his bed at the end of a long day but Jaehwan was treating the wall with reverence. It was an unexpected act of tenderness that made his heart ache in the strangest way.
They found old bottles of spray paint in the back of Sanghyuk’s car and they left their mark on the never-ending tapestry. Jaehwan, as expected, was more sophisticated than Sanghyuk’s friends could ever be, overlaying their crude drawings and simple designs with intricacies that made sense only in the jumble of his mind.
They existed in the colored smoke, illuminated by Sanghyuk’s headlights and as Jaehwan waited in the passenger seat, he couldn’t help but turn around and take in what had been done.
Jaehwan’s contribution lent a cohesive theme to the mess of works left before him. What he added faded into normalcy the longer one looked at it, seemingly becoming a part of the piece from before it was even conceived.
Sanghyuk drove away with a quiet heaviness in his chest that thumped a little at the sight of Jaehwan curled up in the seat next to him, his hair a mess and his breath fogging the window, fast asleep. He didn’t want to regret this mistake.
-
“Why didn’t you kiss me?”
Jaehwan sat at the edge of the bed, the muscles in his back taut and his head bowed. He looked at once vulnerable and prepared for a battle that wouldn’t come.
The silence of the room weighed heavy on both of them.
He sighed then, a heavy and time worn one and Jaehwan stood up, heading to the bathroom and he closed the door behind him with a decisive click.
“Fucking bastard,” He snapped at no one, scowling at the absurdity of how someone who could take him to the top of the world could throw him back down in one moment. It was infuriating, more specifically, he was infuriating.
The more he got to know Jaehwan, the more he realized that he did not know him at all.
-
They lost their topic of conversation somewhere between the warm scent of pot in the air and the vodka spilled on Jaehwan’s shirt. They rested on the old train tracks outside of town, Sanghyuk’s head propped up by his hands folded like a pillow under his head, his side pressed against Jaehwan, casual intimacy.
“You left so soon after graduation, you never gave me that last race you promised.” Sanghyuk said suddenly.
“Might have had something to do with my brother, you know, dying the day of graduation.” Jaehwan said, the sentence clearly intended to startle Sanghyuk into enough awkwardness to let it slide.
He turned on his side, his eyebrows furrowing. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry-“
“Don’t be. We were never super close anyways, I just wanted an excuse to get out of this town at that point, to be honest.”
Translation: He was the world to me. I couldn’t bear to be back.
“And yet you came back here. You’re here now.” Sanghyuk said, his eyes piercing.
Jaehwan closed his eyes.
“It’s for a job. I told you, I’m a hitman. I don’t lie.”
“You’re fluent in lying and deception. You could be considered bilingual if you consider wit and heavy sarcasm a language too.”
Jaehwan laughed, a single note. A short Ha. “I wouldn’t lie about that. My job. I guess I don’t need to because nobody believes me.”
“You haven’t killed anyone since you’ve gotten here.”
Jaehwan considered this. “It’s a difficult target, this time. Unfortunately for me, I don’t fail.”
“Unfortunately?”
“This might be the job that kills me.”
-
It figured that the one day he spent at home, Jaehwan would still find him. This time, it was on the streets on the kind of scorching afternoon with the heat shimmering just above the black asphalt.
His car radio played easy R&B from a Spotify playlist helpfully entitled “Afternoon Chill”, his windows shut with the air conditioning on blast.
The sky blue BMW pulled up beside him. In this particular setting, the sky blue talked of insolence and tackiness. The light turned green. Nobody moved.
He was willing to suffer possible heat stroke for this. He rolled down his passenger side window to get the full blast of Jaehwan’s current collection of shitty electronica from his car’s speakers. “Bet you five dollars and a not half-assed blowjob?” He called.
Jaehwan laughed behind his thousand dollar designer shades and flipped him off. Translation: Yes, but fuck you, that couldn’t even properly be called a blowjob yesterday.
He turned off the air conditioning to buy himself some extra power. In times like these, Jaehwan was half dangerous, half temptation. The light on the opposing street would turn yellow, two seconds to get off the line.
He rolled his windows down, the engine snarled and growled out its frustration. He wasn’t sure if his pulse replaced the engine or if it was vice versa. The smoke from the rear tires curled into the air, lazy tendrils filling the air.
Noses up to the light. This was how he found trouble then and now.
The traffic light above them turned red. Sanghyuk focused his sights ahead. The opposing light was still green. Yellow. Food off the clutch, gearshift knob at the ready.
The light above them turned green.
They burst from the starting gate and he could hear his own laugh of delight, Jaehwan’s insults called in a high boyish voice.
Sanghyuk had learned since his High School days, shift from third to fourth. He darted past Jaehwan, the sky blue car unwilling to let this one go easily was hot on his Mustang’s tail. He charged past the finish line, the next light, half a car ahead, his car horn honking out a victory loud enough to disturb any sleeping residents from their midday nap.
He could see Jaehwan’s grin in his rearview mirror, it looked like how it felt to have his smile pressed against his skin.
He would give the world to keep this sun kissed happiness close to his heart.
-
Jaehwan slid into the diner booth across from Sanghyuk, sinking into the cheap faux leather. It was a morning rare for a summer so idyllic, gray and cool, rain laden clouds blotting out the sun, the deep rumble of thunder echoing through the sky.
Even with their breakfast laid in front of them (An omelette for Sanghyuk and an extravagant setting of French Toast for Jaehwan), something was off. When Sanghyuk realized that Jaehwan wasn’t in the mood for much conversation (“Do you want to do anything today?” “Don’t know, up to you.”), he supposed it was better to pay more attention to his phone and his meal than to acknowledge the awkward silence that fell in between them.
His fork clinked against the white plate. Jaehwan hadn’t given him more than dismissive responses to questions, making absolutely no attempt at conversation. There were times that they had enjoyed each other’s company without saying a word but this was different, charge. Sanghyuk knew they had never been, officially anyways, dating, but he thought they were still friends and he figured it was reasonable to expect some kind of effort if Jaehwan was the one that invited him to breakfast in the first place.
“Did you want me to come here just to watch you sulk and/or brood all morning?” Sanghyuk finally said, breaking the silence.
Jaehwan scowled at him. “I’m not sulking or brooding.”
Sanghyuk stared at him.
Jaehwan went back to only half-brooding, his keychain in his hand, twirling his keys absent-mindedly around his finger. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m just thinking.”
“Haven’t seen you do that in awhile.”
Jaehwan scowled some more.
“I just…” He sighed, and took to staring out the window instead, where the first drops of rain began to softly pitter patter onto the washed out paint of a cracked parking lot. “I suppose I’m simply upset because I don’t like endings.”
“Endings?” Sanghyuk asked, “Just because summer is ending and we have to go back to the real world soon doesn’t mean whatever this is has to end.”
Jaehwan frowned down at the table, tapping on the wood with his key. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“What do you mean, then? Or will you just not tell me?”
Jaehwan didn’t regale him with an answer right away, instead, he took his time, carving his name onto the wood. The imprints of this act stood out in sharp relief, a permanent mark of his existence here.
“I don’t like saying goodbye. Especially when things aren’t on my terms.”
If there was one thing that Sanghyuk knew about Jaehwan it was that he was fiercely independent. Burning through life with no help simply to prove that he could do it by himself, that he could chase his livelihood and conquer any problems with sheer determination alone. Jaehwan would rather die on his own terms than live under someone else’s hand.
The way he saw it, Jaehwan wouldn’t be content even to live under the rule of fate.
-
The cicadas sang outside of Sanghyuk’s bedroom window. That wasn’t the right description. More like banded together into a choir sent straight from hell to perform a cacophony of raucous sounds but still, it was the sound of summer and sleepless nights.
He stared up at his uneven ceiling, his blankets half hanging off of his bed, listening to the whir of the ceiling fan making its quick revolutions and the hiss of the sprinklers sputtering on in a stately green summer garden. It was home.
He had resigned himself to an evening of surfing the internet when his phone buzzed just around the same time he could see the headlights of Jaehwan’s sky blue BMW pull up in his driveway. Inconspicuous.
To avoid any allusions to a certain Shakespeare play, he decided to shoot off an angry text, inquiring after his intentions, to Jaehwan rather than lean out his window to herald his midnight visitor below.
[ To: Jaehwan ] What r u doing
[ To: Sanghyuk ] Come down and you’ll see
He wasn’t sure what compelled him to pull on his favorite navy blue hoodie and sneak past his parent’s open door and out into the heavy summer air but it felt all too much like his High School days and even though his parents couldn’t exactly ground him or take away his phone now, he could still feel the youthful excitement, the adrenaline fueled giddiness of a teenager on the verge of something illicit.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re here to take me away on a late night illegal expedition?”
Jaehwan half-smiled back at him. “Not illegal. Why must you always assume the worst of me?”
“Because you’re always up to no good, what kind of question is that?” Sanghyuk shot back.
“Fair point,” He twirled his key ring around his finger, the jangle of metal disruptively loud in the night. “I just want to be romantic, for once, take you out on an adventure.” Sanghyuk gave him a disbelieving look. “Also, I couldn’t sleep.”
“I suppose that makes for the two of us then.”
In the yawning dark, the distances seemed to go on forever without the familiarity of landmarks in the morning sun, one mile felt more like ten until the car came to a quiet halt on top of an imperfect, overgrown parking lot. Sanghyuk stepped out into the field, the rustle of grass a soft whisper.
The breeze lightly tousled Jaehwan’s hair as he stepped forward, wordlessly gesturing for Sanghyuk to follow him, and he looked so much younger like this, his face bare and his hair down, dressed down in a T-Shirt and jeans. There was something compelling and something that thumped against Sanghyuk’s chest at an unarmored Jaehwan.
They walked the short distance into the field, armed with the light of a full moon and their phone flashlights cutting through the dark.
It would have been a quiet star dappled night between the two of them, a respite in a hectic world clambering for their attention, if it weren’t for Jaehwan’s tense shoulders and short replies, like he was biting back on words he would regret.
“This is ridiculous, why did you drag me out here if you were in such a pissy mood anyways?” Sanghyuk finally huffed.
Jaehwan looked up from his absent-minded task of ripping little tufts of grass out of the ground and stared at Sanghyuk with an odd mixture of incredulousness and surprise, like he didn’t think that Sanghyuk would notice. “I guess I don’t hide my emotions as well as I think I do.”
“For a supposed hit-man you’re pretty shit at not wearing your emotions on your sleeve.”
An uncomfortable and charged silence fell between them as Jaehwan looked determinedly away.
“I’m angry. But not at you. I wish…” He made a frustrated noise. “I wish I could dream this nightmare away is what I’m saying.”
“Those are strangely poetic words for someone who is mostly sober,” Sanghyuk commented. “Why are you upset? I can’t say that there’s nothing wrong between us, with whatever it is that you might be going through but that doesn’t change the fact that I still think this is one of the best summers someone could ask for.”
Jaehwan laughed, the sound humorless. “Don’t you see that that’s the problem?”
Sanghyuk frowned and he turned to Jaehwan, words of generic reassurance on the tip of his tongue but Jaehwan leaned in and kissed him gentler than he ever had. It was the sweetness of a first kiss stolen behind library shelves, the soft mint on his breath sending a quiet thrill through him.
And Jaehwan took his hand, their fingers interlacing together under the dappled sky, and somehow, somehow this was the most intimate thing they had shared all summer.
-
Nights like this were alive. The Fourth of July was a living, writhing being, dormant in the day with peaceful barbecues and dandelions blown across perfectly manicured green lawns, but it was in the night that roused it from its slumber. In Jaehwan’s corner, the Fourth of July meant heavy bass thudding from expensive speakers, the competitive rumble of street racing, headlights bright enough to blind, the high whine and low growl of fireworks exploding, and the heavy scent of alcohol and youth.
Nights like these sharpened Jaehwan’s smile, and they were dangerous.
He stepped onto the scene well after the sun went down, replaced with showers of fire in the sky. A party like this was always the perfect cover for a murder, a freak accident, a slipped substance. He quickly noted the easiest ways to slip under the cover of the night or into the anonymity of a loud and wasted crowd. Try as he might, the job never slept.
He would meet Sanghyuk here at 11:00. 54 minutes from now his life would crash, an extravagant disaster, and Sanghyuk’s would crumble and slip away. 50 minutes from now Jaehwan would goad Sanghyuk into the race of his life and they would both experience the thrilling high of adrenaline singing in their veins, of broken speed limits and a floored gas pedal. 43 minutes from now Jaehwan would beg one last kiss of Sanghyuk. 30 minutes from now Jaehwan would attempt to drink himself into oblivion because in the end, he was still a coward and not much could change that. 15 minutes from now Jaehwan would meet Sanghyuk for the last time.
42 days ago Jaehwan had met his target properly for the first time under an obnoxiously blue sky, with soda pop in a dusty parking lot.
Han Sanghyuk had been marked for death by his own hand and yet, Jaehwan had played himself. He had fallen in love with a worst case scenario. The movies and the books made it seem so easy to walk away from a job, from a lifestyle, living life while chased by death. They promised that he would be happy as long as he was with someone he loved.
Perhaps it had been fate that was stringing him along this entire time. By fate’s hand was it his destiny to be born into a debt that he could never pay, a life that meant playing the listless role of a puppet or a life spent running from his past. Maybe it was to the amusement of some cruel god that this job fell to him, that he fell in love with the one thing that would kill him. All his life was marked by someone else’s terms, mortal or immortal. He was tired.
He had lived by someone else’s terms, he could live with dying by his own.
He knew that he should revel in this last hour by Sanghyuk’s side but he barely registered anything past the fact that Sanghyuk arrived, with his eyes ablaze with the energy of the night. They laughed and talked a little, Jaehwan’s mind producing only lackluster responses that Sanghyuk assumed was because of alcohol muddling his brain. Jaehwan was sober and Sanghyuk must have known that when he pressed him up against the side of a hundred thousand dollar car, kissing him like he was starved for it, there was not a trace of alcohol on his breath.
Jaehwan’s mind was numb but his heart acted of its own volition, speeding out of control at Sanghyuk’s carefree smile and tousled hair and he wished that he had the strength to burn worlds to keep this all in his life.
The town was alive but the streets were empty, everyone that didn’t have a curfew or a bed time was currently intoxicated on one substance or another, the sky a motley combination of smoke and fireworks. It was a constant shower of light, the normally barren fairgrounds alive with the heartbeat of the constant booms. Alive, alive, Jaehwan felt his chest tightening, the people were celebrating and he felt a million miles away he needed, he needed-
“Jaehwan?” Sanghyuk asked, his voice softer than ever, his hand on Jaehwan’s shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Jaehwan said immediately, his fingers rubbing at his temple, “Headache.” He lied.
“I’m starting to think that you don’t really understand the meaning of ‘I’m fine’.” Sanghyuk’s lips quirked into a little smile, “You’ve been a little out of it. Are you sure you don’t want to just go home?”
He shook his head. “No, I want-“ I want this to last. I want to see you smile, unguarded and brilliant. I want to love you without hating myself every step of the way. I want-
“I want to kiss you,” He said finally. “May I?”
Sanghyuk’s expression was one of confusion, it was nothing special between them to beg a kiss of the other but he nodded anyways.
Jaehwan’s fingers met feverish skin as they traveled lightly up his jawline before tangling softly in his hair and he kissed him softly underneath the chaos of the night. In this moment of respite, it was the quiet before the storm, his body pressed flush against Sanghyuk’s, he could feel the heat of his body where his hand rested on his waist, the little skip of his own heart, he was addicted to this, to him, he felt like he was burning, he felt too much all at once and it was too much. He forced himself to pull away, his eyes guarded, his hands clenched involuntarily into fists by his side before he exhaled unsteadily. He fell apart and put himself back together in less than a second, survival instincts engrained into him that he would never be able to let go of.
He tilted his head slightly, slipping back into the familiarity of an easy smirk. “I think tonight would be wasted without a race. For old times sake?”
Of course Sanghyuk couldn’t refuse a challenge. Not when he had a reputation to uphold amongst his old peers, they walked to their cars amidst catcalls and cheers, a crowd gathering quickly, the air blurred with cigarette smoke.
When Jaehwan got into the driver’s seat, it felt like greeting an old friend, the soft leather welcoming him, the ignition humming in greeting. He rolled his window down when Sanghyuk did.
Their eyes met across the gap of asphalt and there was something charged in the stares that held them.
“See you on the streets,” Sanghyuk said finally, his words cutting through the ruckus of the crowd.
Jaehwan swept in the sight of his youthful intensity, the glow of someone that was happy just to be alive. The spirit of someone who the world would never beat down.
“I’ll see you on the other side.”
Sanghyuk gave him a mock salute and disappeared behind tinted glass.
His fingers tapped a nervous and erratic rhythm on the steering wheel. A flag waved then snapped up into the air. And they were off.
They met each other stride for stride, racing down the straightaway as Jaehwan’s nerves melted into the inky black. They charged into the night, away from the lights. This would be the way the world ends, on his own terms or not at all.
They hurtled through pools of black and pools of light, racing from one streetlight to the next. Jaehwan’s grip on his steering wheel tightened. This was his choice, if he couldn’t reclaim life then he would reclaim his death.
He never registered the loud slam of metal on metal as their cars careened out of control. He had milliseconds for his thoughts to run out of control, to think of Sanghyuk’s fear threatening to overwhelm him, to think of the pain that set his nerves on fire, the sound of the universe crashing in around him.
This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.