Lies [part three]
A/N: Wow. This chapter was really hard to write. And I actually had half of it done already. As a bit of a guide to the reader, not everything that is said here can be taken at face value.
Thanks to everyone who commented the last time. And a big thanks to jorge_callas. Happy reading. I look forward to your thoughts. 3507 words
“There’s nothing in the universe that I want to be.”
They ride the last train to nowhere in particular.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, though.”
“Fitting.”
“You mean I don’t have the guts to get a move on things?”
“In a way. But I say it with humour. You sound like you’re beyond killing yourself.”
“Why should I want to? I could only be even a little bit dissatisfied if I cared for a future...but none of the options are truly a metamorphosis. I’ll always be a monster. What you are...doesn’t always have a meaning and when you get down to it, that’s quite all right.”
Yunho and Yoochun get off the train when it stops at its final station.
Yoochun walks up to a lighted map of the subway.
“Why...I think we’re lost. I’ve never been to this part of town before.”
“Your fault. At least I don’t have to work tomorrow if I can’t get up. You’re going to cut somebody’s hair wrong again.” Yunho stops a little way behind him and just waits for them to get moving again.
The half-light of the deserted station moves in and out of focus. The air smells like wee hour blues and late night mania.
“No I only do that when I’m...sa-ad.” Yoochun’s last word is stuck between an distant sing-song and a yawn.
“So happy now, huh?”
“Yeah, haven’t been this way in ages.”
Only the back of Yoochun’s head is visible as he’s skipped ahead, curly ponytail bouncing up and down. He’s hard to figure out. There’s something off about his innocence, something corrupt in the old sinless clothes and pure line-drawn face. Yunho could almost forget the elaborate lies Yoochun had made their bed on, playing the beautiful victim to the hilt. Now it seems he’s telling the truth, being matter of fact and steel-strong, real about this strange life he’s struggling to understand. Even this unforced happiness is something transitory, liable to turn false, but all there really is in the present and which is in the moment as real as anything. Perhaps the whole of Yoochun plays on this theme, Yunho isn’t sure.
Whatever it is, he senses that the way of things is far too complicated to ever be held in his own poor hand.
The long hall is striped with shadows and quivering artificial light, filled with the hum of static and the sounds in his head, everything seems slightly unreal. The digital clock hanging above clings to each moment for too too long.
12:50. 12:51.
This night will never end. And Yunho thinks, maybe it is possible to sing in your chains, to rise and change even as you fall.
“Have you ever thought, you might just be gay?”
Walking together under the streetlights, letting cars whizz by them on the dark street, the question slips out easily and without thought. Maybe it’s the beer they had earlier, maybe it’s the icy possibles that hang like airy points when the rest of the world is asleep and you don’t know your own face anymore. Or perhaps Yunho has decided to settle for fleeting moments if he can’t grasp the whole of his life. Just this one time.
“No. But I’ve been with gay men.
“How were they?”
“Okay. It was a compromise. Warmth, touches...that sort of thing.” He pauses, tilting his face to catch the starlight like memories of different skies.
“I’d take them in my arms, let them inside me.”
The roar of the traffic grows soft and distant. Although they are walking at the side of the road, highlighted by the glare of streetlamps, Yunho knows no one sees them. A warm current of air ghosts by Yoochun’s shoulders, lifting his hair away from his face for a brief while.
“Did you like it?” Yunho wonders if Yoochun can hear him breathing.
“Sometimes,” He ducks his head. “It could be nice.”
Their eyes meet.
Yunho watches as Yoochun undresses himself, peeling off the heavy jacket and letting fall the belt onto the carpet with a muffled thump.
He’s slower as he unzips his trousers and strips them off. Then he’s completely still, letting Yunho come up to him to unbutton his shirt and pull it away, presses his body against Yunho’s as he feels hands squeezing his waist before roaming below the waistband of his boxers and tugging them off.
“You’re beautiful.”
He shuts his eyes and tries not breathe too deeply as his back is pushed against the pillows and his head bumps the wall, and in a whisper, requests that the lights be turned out.
The space beyond his eyelids goes black, hot puffs fall against his neck and lips brush over his cheeks, nose, forehead like a moth’s wings. It tickles and fills him up with want. Blood rushes under his skin and the heat is blossoming all around.
His hair’s been loosed as he feels it’s weight drop away and fingers thrumming his skull and pulling at the strands in handfuls.
“I’ll be gentle.” There’s the all too familiar sound of a foil package being ripped open.
He holds his breath, freezes in anticipation until Yunho lays a hand on his chest, and murmurs, “Just relax. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want it.”
“It’s okay.” He opens his eyes just as a car zooms up the street outside, throwing the glow of its headlights over Yunho through the window. All in a flash he sees a smile, shy and uncertain, and arms bent at an awkward angle as if holding back. Then the shadows take him again, leaving only a silhouette.
Yoochun leans into the pillows and sets his ankles on Yunho’s shoulders.
“I want it.”
This is followed by silence and Yunho has gone completely still. Yoochun can feel Yunho shift as his ankles get jolted about. He’s hesitating.
The sheets are cooling when Yunho speaks. “Um...can you show me? I’m not exactly...well-versed.”
Yoochun feels his heart restarting and suppresses an urge to laugh and finds Yunho’s hand after some fumbling in the dark.
“Like this,” and he brings him between his thighs. His own voice lowers at the touch, taking on a velvety purr. “Someone also had to show me once.”
He adjusts the position of his hips and braces himself as Yunho eases a finger in, and then another. The air grows thin, as on a mountain top, and it’s getting hard to breathe. His stomach twists and his nerves start to burn.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
“No.” He swallows. “Just go on.”
So he does, steadying Yoochun’s shoulders with his right hand and letting himself in with the other. At first he’s tentative, nervous because he’s afraid of causing pain, but Yoochun can tell that he’s eager too from the way their hips jostle each other clumsily, so he crosses his ankles around Yunho’s neck and places a hand on his back to pull him closer.
Yunho sinks into his flesh, faster now as his excitement takes him, kisses him and parts his lips with the insistent press of his tongue as if searching him out for a mystery. Yoochun opens to him, kisses back and asks for more with a sharp twist of his waist, pays him back by digging his nails deep into skin. Still, as he hears the shallow, quick breaths interspersed with gasps and moans coming from above, he dreads what will come next.
All the usual sensations, the heat pooling in the bottom of his stomach, the irresistible thrill and the hunger to melt and merge more more build alongside a mounting horror. He pulls away from Yunho even as he claws harder at him, clamps his lips shut, willing himself to be quiet. His thigh muscles tighten automatically and his back curls into itself and already he’s shrinking away as Yunho pushes into his quick, forcing out of him all the feelings that shouldn’t be there. Anathema and yet, and yet.
Then Yunho comes and it’s finished.
They find each other afterward. Yunho is lying with his chin propped up on Yoochun’s ribcage, growing aware of the cool air filling up his lungs again. Yoochun is completely still.
“Did you like it?”
The question comes out small and foolish in the room empty of sound and light. There is no reply.
He waits for a moment, straining his ears for a hint before lifting himself into a kneeling position. He reaches forward to touch Yoochun’s face, feeling the flush gradually dissipate into the early morning frost, guessing at all the soft contours that become apparent under his fingerpads. But he doesn’t respond, so Yunho goes on, trying to coax something, anything, out of him.
Water on skin. That’s what it feels like. Yunho smells brine and iron, tears and blood.
“So, it’s always like this. Isn’t it?”
+
“Oh my God...what are you going to do for the rest of your life?”
“Don’t know.”
It’s well into mid-morning and Yoochun is still hiding under the blanket. His voice sounds like moaning from the bottom of a swimming pool or as if he’s coming off a cold and it just makes Yunho want to tick him off for being childish.
“It happens like that all the time, right? Aren’t you going to fix it?”
“S’not so simple.”
The clock says 9:30 and Yunho just relinquishes the chance to do any work on this day, and settles for sitting up in bed.
“Well, it’s coming to ten and you don’t want to talk. Don’t you have to go cut hair?”
The lump beside him moves a little and he hears it inhale moistly.
“No, not on crappy days. She can’t fire me...I’m the only one who takes her niggard wages.”
The lump turns on its side, evasive. The room grows hot as morning creaks by and the sun outside gathers force.
“So get up! You can’t just lie about in my house all day.”
This is when Yunho turns, and without warning, grabs the blanket with both hands and tugs.
“No!” A startlingly fierce snarl. He’s not relinquishing the covers.
“Then get up.”
“Get out of the room first. I want to get dressed.”
Yoochun stays where he is until he hears a door slam. Then he lets himself move. At first it’s difficult. His joints ache. It’s been a long time. He wonders if Yunho wants him to stay or leave.
He shakes his head when he’s finally on his feet and looks at the clothes on the floor, twisted and tangled up, turned inside out. Wishes he could borrow something, but that’s just assuming too much. So he goes to the bathroom first, sees sticky tear tracks and dried blood ringing his mouth, webs crusted on his eyelashes. Sighs at what happened. Splashes cold water on his face, rubs the grime off with his hands and pulls the tangles out of his hair.
He surveys the silent bedroom while he steps back in. Dirty clothes are strewn all over the scratched wooden floorboards, but it’s at least easy to tell whom each piece belongs to. Yunho’s are faded but still smooth, a lot like what the good kids from the nice school in town wore, a silky-shiny hooded jacket and fitted jeans, he can’t help but smile when he realizes how intently he’s looking, excavating past history. His are grey and bargain-bin quality, so he just picks them up and dumps them on the bed. And, pulling them on, he stares down the remains of last night. It’s really not as messy as it felt. In fact, it’s kind of sedate, the blanket is pushed to the foot of the bed, there are no obvious stains. The only thing to show for all the pleasure and disgust is the used condom left on Yunho’s side of the bed, lifeless and clinging to the sheets. It looks so trivial, like one of those silly obscene party favours and Yoochun just wonders where his problem is.
He calls Auntie Kim’s Salon to say he’s too sick to work today.
Yoochun finds Yunho in the kitchen, chewing on a piece of toast. He’s wearing last night’s shirt pulled over too-short shorts and smells of old sweat and sex. Lamb, wolf. And man.
There’s nothing else for it. So he goes up and touches Yunho lightly on the arm.
“Yunho, I don’t know what you were thinking of last night. But I don’t think it was,” Yoochun stares straight ahead and just stops. It’s so difficult. But he tries again anyway.
“I don’t think it was what I...”
“Intended?” Yunho’s voice is soft, gently prompting him to just go on but also rather afraid of intruding upon the moment.
Yoochun still can’t find it in himself to do more than stand and make tiny noises in his throat, starting, stopping, warming up the engine with really nothing quite decent to say.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Yunho takes his hand and squeezes it. Then adds hastily after stealing a glance up at him, “if it’s too personal, or anything.”
He’s embarrassed. Yoochun can’t help but smile a little defeated smile.
“I think we’ve shared quite a lot already.” He looks Yunho in the eyes and quirks his lips ironically to reassure him.
“It can’t be helped...I’ll think about it at home, then I’ll tell you? I don’t want to scare you away.”
Then he directs his gaze at the ceiling, half hoping against himself that things don’t connect.
“You’re very good. Innocent...and I don’t mean naive. You’re better than the rest of them.” I don’t want you to think you’re at fault or something. We all have our own paths. I love you. I want you even though.
He breathes in and waits some more.
“I’m sorry.” Yunho raises Yoochun’s hand to his lips, kisses it as if he had done it injury. “Stay?”
“Yes. Alright. But there’s really nothing to apologise for.”
+
Yoochun really hopes Yunho won’t ever call back. He slams the door closed, tosses his bag onto the floor and slides his shoes onto the rack next to the XL ballet flats.
Not bothering with lights, he dispenses with jacket and trousers, draping them on the hooks of his own private boxed-in evening that he’s come to know so well. Then he takes a turn through the open doorway and allows himself to collapse onto the narrow bed, finally, alone. Nothing listening nor touching nor feeling. Nothing needing a response in return.
Even so, he can still feel Yunho’s eyes on him. Seeing. A face. Of man or woman, lover or wounded soul. He’s not sure. He only knows he’s loved, for reasons outside of himself.
And so he is forced to be by the inscrutable-other-love and faith that has been given. And can’t be taken back for it is something human, sentient, easily hurt and not to be thrown away. He had forsaken so much before, just for the quiet of this gray room, an amputation, a physic for the pain and wrongs, the struggle for joy and lapses into selfishness and perversion. He expects that he had thought himself a fortress strong enough to trust to, to just be away.
But Yunho’s different. And perhaps not the whole world is a poisoned thing. His insides twist. Yoochun can’t lie to himself about this. Every touch was limned with patience and affection, in every word a wish to understand, and more, much more than even that. The tentative lying months are a blur, but he knows Yunho had been far kinder than all the others, those who had never fallen for it ever, and some who had forced the admission with their rough fingering and demands. And after, had taken it all as a betrayal.
And now.
The moon slips through the window. A bright disc before his eyes, all distances insubstantial now.
Atom by atom, he’s here. A silent figure at the foot of the bed beyond arm’s reach ... so far away. Just breathing and waiting, watching.
“Y-Yunho,” it takes a century to create the syllables.
No answer. Is it just a vision?
As if his body were held down with stones, he cannot move even as he strains and strains no nerves hear. A green mound in spring, deaf stone, her mute granite lip.
Then everything shifts. A brush of moth’s wings-hands. Lightly tracing his nose, eyelids, palming across his face.
I already know.
A weight settles over him, warm and thick like something in the air, rolling against his hips, stomach and thighs. Eyes boring into him. An invisible smile perceived.
“Do it. I want you.” His teeth curving upward.
Let’s see what you really are.
Fingers enclose around him with a vice-like grip, low laughter from somewhere above, he squirms and gasps and it’s not quite clear what his nerves are telling him. There's a struggle within to come apart. Seams splitting open. Agony bliss not any.
“God-please stop. This wasn’t what-wanted.”
It doesn’t stop. Now an unseen thing whispers against his skin and roughly forces its way inside.
A gap closes into view and it’s a long drop down-or up? Big as a crack between the wooden boards, small enough to lose a coin within.
Yoochun cries out and all of a sudden there’s sight again and dark, night, around him as the name leaves his lips and the heat is expelled. A pain in his back. He’s half on the bed, half off. No one is in the room.
+
When Yoochun comes to work past eleven, the ajumma gives him a look but says nothing of yesterday’s absence and today’s lateness. And when the first customers, a grey old man and his granddaughter, come in needing a trim, she just tells Yoochun to give them a rinse before she handles them both herself.
The old man barely makes eye contact with him and just grunts when Yoochun taps him on the shoulder and tells him he’s finished and ready to have his hair done.
On the other hand, the little girl smiles up at him. She’s not more than five years old and so tiny that she has to be lifted onto the chair and tilted back almost horizontal to get her head over the basin. She’s cute and Yoochun can’t help but marvel, how like a small bird the child is, as he grabs her under the arms. And they laugh together when she makes an exaggerated whoop as her feet leave the floor.
Later, when her grandfather is exchanging anecdotes with auntie Kim on the difficulty of raising children, the girl shyly comes up to Yoochun as he sweeps up the fallen strands of black and grey.
Carefully fingering her new bangs, she looks at him with wide eyes.
“Oppa, how long did you take to grow your hair?”
“It’s hard to say,” he stops but decides to go on. “I’ve been growing it for three years now but I cut a bit off now and then.-Why do you ask?”
“I want long hair too, but umma says no.”
“But not like me, right? I bet you’ve never seen a man with long hair.”
“Never.” She seems hold her breath. “But it’s so pretty. And it’s even longer than my auntie’s. I want hair like yours.”
So he puts the broom and dustpan aside and lets her lace her fingers around his ponytail, and tries as hard as he can to not let neither past nor present taint the moment.
Later still though, he’s sitting in the back room past closing time, at the receiving end of another one of ajumma’s lectures. The walls all around them are stained yellow-orange with the factory sunset streaming in from the window. The shafts of sun are perfectly angled to blind the periphery at this time, and her face is painted inhuman. The features are pressed into a flat brightness on the side facing the window and completely black on the other half.
“You can’t continue like this.” Her frustration is worse than her anger. She sighs as if in annoyance at a trivial flaw when actually she's disappointed and tries to rub out a pencil mark from the table.
“I know what’s been going on. You can’t hide this sort of thing. Every time there’s a man you don’t come to work, and this morning you were completely exhausted... look!” She points at his mismatched button down shirt and rumpled trousers, “you’re a mess.”
“Just decide.” She turns away.
“Decide what you’re going to do and go through with it. If you keep on whoring yourself out when you’re not moping around feeling so victimized by life,” She grabs her handbag and rummages through it, huffing, “you’ll be fifty years old, your whole life will be gone and you’ll have done nothing with it!”
A packet of tissue is thrown onto the table and she goes back out to the shop to finish mopping the floor on her own.
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