reverberations [one (redux)]
[BEFORE] [MASTERLIST]
- REDUX
Jiho wakes to the van pulling up in front of the dorm, the sound of the doors opening throwing him into wakefulness. Jaehyo stirs on his shoulder, sleepy and his voice heavy with it when he mutters, “Where are we?”
He sounds sweet, and Jiho turns to him just as Jaehyo lifts himself away. The faded lights of their neighborhood glimmer lowly through the tinted windows of the van, staining Jaehyo’s hair in layers of silver. Jiho’s heart jumps to his throat, over-eager, as if he’s woken next to a beautiful stranger.
But he does, he does know him. The unease of the dream still running through him makes his heart stutter like it did when he was younger and trying too hard to sprint like the other boys. And here he is looking at someone he knows and he hasn’t slipped away, not yet; he’s here and Jiho wants him and he can’t let himself forget that, it feels too important. He’s tried too hard to forget this thing in the fear that it will destroy them. But maybe whatever life they’ve built up outside of this, built as it is on a faulty lie, isn’t as important as what’s between them now.
It feels too much, and he’s afraid Jaehyo can read it in his face, the way that Jaehyo’s expression flickers with surprise before shutting down. Jiho’s shoulder is still warm from Jaehyo’s body and everyone else has left the car.
Jiho swallows past the lump in his throat. “Home,” he replies, quiet.
Jiho’s hand is on Jaehyo’s thigh and he wonders when he put it there. Embarrassed, he begins to pull it away but Jaehyo covers it with a hand, his fingers perpetually cool with bad circulation.
Excitement sparks through his skin, as if with Jaehyo they complete an electrical circuit. And he wonders what Jaehyo feels, if it’s that same electricity rocketing through his skin or something else- or, or nothing. It seems impossible that Jaehyo could miss this, be left out, aware as he always is of the other members.
A smile presses into the corners of Jaehyo’s lips, something private that warms the air between them. Possibilities swim around Jiho’s mind, untethered and nevertheless impossible, encouraged by the softness of Jaehyo’s expression. In the moment, a different tension pulls between them, elastic, not yanking Jiho forward but pulling him slowly, inexorably.
He wonders what it would be like to kiss Jaehyo, if he’d know that mouth on his. He wonders if it would make him remember. He wonders if it was always that simple, all along, to quiet the questions that always bother him. Just that simple press of lips.
His gaze flickers down to Jaehyo’s mouth and he can hear Jaehyo’s breath in the close quarters. Just to know-
Kyung yells something from outside of the van, unintelligible, and then there’s Jihoon’s answering cry that snaps the moment. Jaehyo’s fingers squeeze Jiho’s briefly before he peels himself out of the chair and crawls through the door into the night. Jiho doesn’t follow. For a moment, he slumps back against the seat, overaware of his heartbeat and the lingering scent of Jaehyo’s skin, wondering if he imagined it all.
The stain of Jaehyo’s lips taunts him.
Not this life, he reminds himself but the words are weak and, for once, give him no relief.
-
Some things are inexorable.
And some things are missed by moments.
It’s not up to him to choose which it is. He shouldn’t even know this much, or anything at all.
-
Jaehyo watches him after that.
Jiho knows he’s not supposed to notice it: the way Jaehyo’s eyes track him across the room, the way he’ll look up when Jiho speaks and away when Jiho looks over at him. But his eyes track Jaehyo just the same, close and soft and wary, like he’s afraid to be caught and, at the same time, as if he wants to be. Jiho doesn’t know what it’s supposed to mean, this reflection of himself in Jaehyo’s movements. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to do something about it.
Sometimes he just hopes that Jaehyo will do something, will take the decision away from him and kiss him, hold him against a wall and tell him where this is all coming from, set Jiho at ease, but all Jaehyo does is watch him right back, unmoving. And all Jiho feels he can do is wait until it all fades away.
The dreams, though, seem to come with less intensity after that night, though he had never remembered them before. But it’s weeks of waking without that existential sense of unease that he’s come to carry as an extra burden amongst his other duties, the ones he still carries as a leader, a rapper, a friend, a son- and he shouldn’t miss it or feel exposed without it. But it’s like he’s missing something important without knowing what it is, even. The hole it leaves in him drags at what little energy he might have had to spare.
He should be grateful, his sleep heavy but now untroubled, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough to no longer be bothered by what felt like the past and tasted like the present when he woke. It’s not enough to feel like he’s finally all caught up, because now he feels like he’s left on the end of a dangling rope, nowhere left to go.
Is it already the end? he wonders, his fingers tired of the rope and body exhausted with it.
But the end doesn’t satisfy him. He aches for more, though more of? of? more of what, exactly? He’s not sure.
He thinks they’re on the edge of something, him and Jaehyo. They’re just barely at the edge and closing in towards something that promises to be immense. He can almost taste the promise in the kisses they don’t share, that thread that unlocks his dreams from their caches and makes him feel like he’s done this before, and he’s set in this path and it promises-
It promises-
-
But suddenly their debut catapults their lives forward. Whatever schedule they may have been on is cut abruptly short, truncated by company-enforced schedules that take away all of their free time and more. There’s barely time to sleep, eat, practice, perform, attend all the required shows, and no spare time to think. In the ensuing chaos, Jiho barely has energy to think about Jaehyo more than a member of his band.
He’s lost so much of his bodily extremities to exhaustion, Jaehyo exists as a bare reminder of some other life that he can’t reach. And when he stretches out, overreaches in desperation or hunger or want and manages to grasp something else, even then it’s only the few times when he gets the shower with the water still warm.
By that point, he’s always too tired to jerk off-he’s so exhausted he can’t even get aroused. He just leans up against the shower wall and lets the precious warmth run over him, eyes closed to the damp and lips pressed to the wet tile. He breathes in the steam, letting the warmth fill his lungs and shorten his breath just the same- as love, lust, that far-off curl of desire- and tries to focus on Jaehyo’s lips, how they’d feel under his own. It’s been so long, he doesn’t even remember what it is to kiss someone. He can barely imagine Jaehyo walking him to bed and gathering him up amongst the sheets, pulling his compliant limbs into his embrace and holding him until he sleeps.
He’s 19 years old and his most important fantasy doesn’t have any orgasms involved- he doesn’t know who he’s become.
-
Then Jaehyo kisses him.
-
Answers don’t come to his lips. Jaehyo’s mouth is warm and soft and pressing to his, drawing him close and inside and Jiho can feel Jaehyo’s chest rise under his hand, and the light drift of Jaehyo’s breath across his cheek. It’s just human, intimate in its imperfection. A curl of heat shocks through Jiho’s exhaustion to travel down his spine so quick he needs to pull back for breath.
Jaehyo’s smell is pressing in on his skin like a lick of warmth, a promise. But it doesn’t tell him anything more than his want- his single want, now, here, for him. No revelations come to him in suddenness.
Ghosts tremble in the corners of Jiho’s visions, an admonition? Their whispers threaten Jiho’s ears, warnings that he won’t hear nor heed. Ghosts are cold and lost, and Jiho is so warm from Jaehyo’s lips that he leans in and presses his mouth to them again, liking the slickness, the newness of this. He’s wanted it for so long that he can’t pretend he doesn’t, not now.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Jaehyo whispers to him later, the words against his lips close enough Jiho can taste it, the lie.
Jiho has lied so many times, to so many people. He can taste it like camphor, a bitter antiseptic on his tongue. Jaehyo is trying to cleanse this.
Jaehyo’s eyes can’t lie. They’re liquid ink in the half-darkness of Jiho’s bedroom, framed by messy hair that Jiho had just minutes ago touched with abandon, without reserve. And yet here is Jaehyo, his voice gravelly and half-unsure. Jiho can recognize an out when he hears one, so he just leans back, his skin wanting and his heartbeat striking against his veins like a warning- no, no, no, no.
“Okay,” he says, his fingers curling on his own thighs, Jaehyo’s body suddenly off limits. He wants, and Jaehyo is so close, but- no, “If you want.”
Jaehyo looks away, and the lie cuts across his face.
It feels like a mistake.
-
That’s how they start. It’s how it ends, too, though Jiho doesn’t know it at the time.
After that, Jiho doesn’t sleep well, except when Jaehyo comes to him. It happens just once- then twice, five times-then Jiho stops caring about counting. It never seems like the “last time,” no matter what Jaehyo whispers against his skin before slipping away into the dark. Jaehyo is quiet about wanting him, desperate-almost- but Jiho can’t deny he’s much the same. It’s something of what he needs, even if its not everything, and in this industry of half-won battles and intransigent rule makers, he’s left hollow for the things he truly wants.
In the light, still Jaehyo pulls back from his touch, looks away when he speaks. It feels worse than before, like Jaehyo is deliberately trying to hurt him.
They never wake up together. Jiho is getting sick of seeing his sheets empty in the morning light.
Jiho wonders if instead of two planets whose inherent gravity will pull them, crashing, together, they’ve already been pulled as closely as they can and one of them is a comet being spun, flung, back into space.
-
It’s not even that easy.
The scandal cuts it all off earlier than he thought. He isn’t paying attention, distracted by the heat and his tiredness and those thoughts that constantly flicker at the back of his mind, slightly dulled reminders of the taste of Jaehyo’s skin. Jaehyo hasn’t touched him since they arrived in Thailand, and Jiho shouldn’t miss it but the tropical weather ignites the flame of desire low in his belly.
They’re sent home, cut off. Jiho skips out on the dorm and takes refuge at his mom’s place in the city. It’s lonely during the day, quiet without the footsteps of the other members and their various managers, wandering around at all hours. Kyung isn’t there to make ramyun at 2AM, or Minhyuk to stay up late watching trash TV shows with Taeil. He thinks he won’t miss the clutter, the clatter of all the extra people, but the flat seems empty without their voices.
He misses Jaehyo most of all, a pain in his chest that makes him want to curl up on the couch and never leave. It’s a stupid feeling, a deep-seated want turned to hurt, so he works instead.
He thinks he’s got it all covered, weeks passing without word from the others, no guarantee they’ll return to anything but the cancellation of their contracts, but he’s spending every night in the studio, working on new tracks and feeling productive. It’s not doing anything, he’s not being the leader that he needs to be and he knows this, but it feels like enough. It feels like all he can do. His phone is silent, no messages from anyone, so he’s stopped checking it.
It won’t be in this life. Now it feels like a certainty.
He can’t sleep, but it’s not a big miss. Months went by before debut that he hardly slept. It won’t be too hard to do it again. So he stays awake like every hour is a giant fuck you in the face of their growing group of haters, like it’ll prove that they won’t fail in the future because he’s using that time to work. And he stops feeling sick after the first three days, because he doesn’t even want to eat anymore.
Except there’s something to be said for exhaustion, and that’s that it makes you feel drunk. He feels like he’s at the bad end of a soju bottle by the time he texts Jaehyo at 5AM on the fifth night of his giant brigade, something stupid like i miss you, or i can’t believe this bullshit exile, or i used to dream abt u like we met before.
There’s no immediate response. His eyesight wavers in the streetlights, and his throat hurts. It’s not another rejection- it’s 5AM and the dawn is barely beginning to fade the night sky, there’s no way Jaehyo is awake- but it doesn’t matter.
He goes home and falls asleep on his face before he can regret the words. When he wakes up in the early hours of morning his phone is dead and he doesn’t remember having sent them.
-
Unease tracks over his skin all day, like he’s forgotten something. In the studio, he can’t concentrate, and he turns down his friends’ entreaties to go out.
His exhaustion is limned with sleepiness, finally, and he heads home with the intention of sleeping for 14 hours straight. The click of the door echoes through the empty flat and all the lights are off. It’s familiar but not right. Lights from the apartment building across the courtyard glow through the half-drawn curtains, and a sense of beforeness, a deja vu, strikes him.
Stretching his body out, he lies down on the couch. Dreams filter behind his closed eyelids, too early, he’s not asleep yet, they don’t make sense, heavy chaos, before he’s dragged into the darkness of sleep.
-
Jiho wakes slowly, the dream still clinging to the corners of his eyelashes, slow to lift. He’s overly warm, wrapped in a sweatshirt he put on three days ago on the way to the studio. But he’s not on the couch of the studio, halogenic lights burning through his sight, but collapsed against someone in the soft warmth of dawn. Their steady breaths make his head rise and fall as he struggles awake. His heart is heavy in his chest, a foreign feeling made familiar through a long dream that he’s already let go of.
It’s not a surprise to see Jaehyo next to him, arms slung around Jiho’s shoulder, limp in sleep. It’s where he’s’ supposed to be, there, next to Jiho. Always next to Jiho.
Those fine eyelashes spread dark across the slope of his cheekbones, his small mouth a little open as he breathes, a pink stain against his pale face. His sweater, an old one from his mother she bought him before debut, softens his shoulders. Jiho traces the shifting line of his neck, first with his eyes and then with his thumb. He thinks he’s dreaming, an extension of the previous, blending the two into one.
Jaehyo shifts into the touch, waking more quickly than Jiho. He blinks, big, dark eyes confused for a moment before they settle on Jiho’s face. A smile curves the corner of his lips, just above where Jiho’s thumb strokes the jut of his chin. The heat in his chest tightens, pulls at him, and Jiho doesn’t think anymore.
He doesn’t know if he’s awake or still in the clutch of that dream that felt overly real, familiar in a clear way, but it doesn’t matter. He leans in close and brushes his lips against Jaehyo’s, kisses the corner of his mouth.
“Stay with me, this time,” Jiho murmurs, knowing. the words are new on his lips, stutter his heart. His voice is gravelly with sleep and this isn’t how he wanted to say it, but here he is, here they are-
Jaehyo’s breath hitches a little. His scent is heavy with sleep and Jiho wants to fall into it, but Jaehyo’s hand touches his shoulder. Suddenly he feels jerked awake.
Not allowed. Be quiet.
He shoots back, suddenly aware of the present. All the things he’s wanted- they’re not allowed. All the words that have lingered on his tongue and tightened the back of his throat, all these months, they’re not allowed.
Jaehyo is staring at him, eyes huge. Jiho is frightened, suddenly, as if he’s made a mistake. But chances are so rare and no real regret mars his heartbeat. He opens his mouth to apologize but he doesn’t think he can do it, not now.
There’s a subtle shift between them, as if something fundamental has just changed.
Jaehyo reaches out and curls one hand around the nape of Jiho’s neck. The palm is cool somehow, Jiho must be flushed, and the long fingers dig into the muscle for a moment before Jiho realizes. Jaehyo plus him down into his space until he can nuzzle against Jiho. The soft tip of his nose draws a wavering line across his cheek until they’re close enough to kiss.
“I will.”
-
THE END
a/n: my note to myself at the end of this fic was bitcH FINALLY hell yea
hope u like, audrey