Reign O'er Me
Title: Reign O'er Me
Author: TBA
Genre: Slice of Life
Rating: R
Warnings: internalized homophobia, inexplicit sexual content
Length: ~3,000 words
Summary: Kyungsoo is stifled, timid, and, as a matter of convenience, willfully out of touch with who he is and what he wants. When a handsome stranger appears one stormy summer night, the cloud that's been hanging above Kyungsoo’s life threatens to finally break loose.
There is some concern that the event will be cancelled.
The summer, already hot and unforgiving, has recently taken on the newly unbearable factor of humidity. Members of the town simultaneously dread the storm they know is imminent and grow restless in its delay. They go about their Saturday errands in expectation of a sudden, violent outpour. The men, with one hand anchoring their hats, tipping their heads back to look at the dark gray sky and the women, with their handkerchiefs wrapped tightly around their hair, moving quickly from one shop to the next.
Come on, their actions seem to say. Just do it already.
Nevertheless, it’s decided that the evening will go ahead as planned. Arrangements have already been made, the largest of which was delivered a week ago: an expansive white tent that, in the course of a single afternoon, had gone from a shapeless mass of canvas sitting crumpled in the grass, to a verifiable structure, its four corners anchored by metal stokes in the grass just outside the clubhouse. In the following days, a makeshift stage was set up within it and rugs were laid from one edge to another. Floral centerpieces, two feet high with white and yellow flowers and green foliage don each table. The good Chinaware, trimmed in gold, lies meticulously arranged at each place setting in anticipation of a large, yet controlled crowd. And on the afternoon of the event, chrome instruments are laid out on the stage, drums and guitars, a lone trumpet, all waiting expectantly for skilled hands to take hold. Yes, the evening will most certainly go ahead as planned.
Even without the ominous forecast, Kyungsoo would sooner stay home. One country club dance is the same as the next and he doesn’t want to dress up in his nice suit (his father’s old one which is unfashionably khaki and too long in the arms and made of a thick, unbreathable polyester) and listen to a band play renditions of songs that make his parents nostalgic and make him fantasize about finding a radio somewhere and cranking it up, playing something new and fast, with a rhythm that would make his parents balk. He doesn’t want to make small talk, either with friends of his parents, or the daughters of the friends of his parents. He would rather be out with his own friends, at the drive-in or at the diner with its jukebox and checkered black and white floor. He envisions it clearly, can practically taste the greasy burgers and icy milkshakes. He might even wear the new pair of jeans he’d secretly purchased without his mom’s knowledge.
Just thinking of them gives him a thrill. Sometimes, at night, in his dark bedroom, he takes the jeans from his closet and lays them out on his bed, where they rest like a foreign, torso-less body. He takes a few moments to stare at them in the moonlight before finally allowing himself to slide them on and pad around his room with a confidence that he would never manage outside of it, gesturing to people who aren’t there, the life of the party. He thrills with the feel of the denim on his body in those quiet hours, the fabric tight and thick, but still soft beneath the pads of his fingers.
The same unshakeable determination that urges middle-aged party-goers to hold an event even amidst a brewing storm also urges them to force their children into attendance. Kyungsoo thinks longingly of his jeans as he finds himself on Saturday night, unwillingly present in the club’s large white tent, wearing his typical, fancy pleated pants. He has one elbow leaning on the white tablecloth in front of him, his chin in his hand and his face smushed up into an unflattering landslide of skin. He watches as his parents make another slow, marching round on the dance floor. Despite the frequent, hopeful glances he can feel cast his way, he doesn’t ask any girl to dance, content instead to sit on his own, sighing quietly and tugging miserably at the collar of his shirt.
Part of him knows that he should ask a girl to dance, or, more importantly, that he should want to ask a girl to dance, but he can’t quite summon the enthusiasm that comes so easily to his friends. It’s a hazy, murky part of his mind of which he’s constantly aware, but doesn’t frequently venture into. His dad says he’s a late bloomer, a judgment delivered with a reassuring pat to his shoulder. That sexual maturation will hit him soon enough and he’ll be like any other eighteen-year-old, skirt-chasing and wild-eyed with only one thing on his mind. What Kyungsoo doesn’t understand, what he can’t tell his dad, is that he already does feel that way. He wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes with want burning molten in his stomach and has to lay on his back in the dark, taking deep breaths through his nose until the feeling dissipates.
But when Kyungsoo looks at the girls in the club around him, their hair curled under and their mothers’ coral lipstick staining their lips, his body remains unaffected. What he truthfully feels is a disinterest that nearly borders on sadness.
Over the sound of the band playing, there comes a low rumble of thunder. There’s a moment of pause inside the golden-bathed tent followed by a sprinkle of nervous laughter, more than one person, wine glass in hand, expressing their gratitude for the tent’s cover, should the sky decide to finally release its anger.
Kyungsoo sighs again. Though the tent has canvas walls, they aren’t secured down, and the warm breeze of the night catches them, sending them flapping up in a white flurry, occasionally sending a loud crack through the tent as they whip back on themselves. He turns his attention to the dark night he can see outside, looking for any sign of rain.
Through the curtain, he catches sight of a lean figure and in a moment of instinctual, irrational logic, his mind supplies him with a name: James Dean.
It’s not James Dean. He understands this in the next second, when his rationality returns enough to find fault in the logic that a movie star could be standing twenty feet away from him outside the tent where his parents dance. And yet still, Kyungsoo stares. The man is wearing dark denim; Kyungsoo can tell even from this distance, though he’s bathed in blackness just outside the flurrying walls of the tent. A white t- shirt stretches across his torso; his hair is combed back and slicked into place in the rebellious style that Kyungsoo has always admired, but never had the courage to try.
In fact, looking at the man on the other side of the tent, as he disappears and reappears in flashes of the fluttering curtain, Kyungsoo feels like he’s seeing an alternate version of himself, an incarnation of who he wishes he was, but could never be. He’s so invested in the fantasy that the man patiently surveying the tent is just an apparition, that he feels a bolt of shock run through him when their eyes meet.
They hold each other’s eye, neither seeming to care that it’s too unabashedly and for too long. It’s as though the distinction between then, inside the tent and outside of the tent, reality and the other side of the veil, frees them from social etiquette. In the dark, the man tilts his head just slightly and frowns, like he’s equally suspicious of Kyungsoo’s existence.
Abruptly, the song playing around Kyungsoo ends with a jarring crash of cymbals and his attention is pulled back to his surroundings. He swallows over the dryness in his throat, and with the feeling that he’s committed some kind of transgression, looks around until he finds his parents. They embrace on the dance floor, his mom’s hands resting on his dad’s shoulders as they begin dancing to the next song, music already filling the air around them.
Kyungsoo looks back to the darkness outside the tent and finds it empty.
He leans back in his chair and breathes deeply through his nose. His hands, though not quite shaking, are jumpier than usual as he straightens his discarded napkin, left over from dinner, on the table in front of him. He pulls at his shirt collar again, runs his hands over his suit jacket, and looks back to the spot where the man had been previously. It’s empty.
He’s been hot all evening, owing to the weather and his attire, but it’s now become unbearable. The breeze pulling at the sides of the tent seems like a personal beckoning and before he knows it, he’s standing up and walking toward it, stepping outside into the darkness.
Another rumble of thunder rolls round him, louder as the sides of the tent fall and the band music becomes slightly muted and distorted. He stands still, nearly afraid to breathe in the sudden blackness. It’s unfamiliar territory and he has no idea what move to make next.
From his side, a voice asks, “Got a light?”
The man speaks from one side of his mouth, the other side holding in place a rolled cigarette.
Up close, he’s prettier than Kyungsoo realized from across a tent, though despite the fullness of his mouth and the curl of his lashes, there’s something ragged in the sharp angle of his jaw. As he waits for Kyungsoo’s response, he removes the cigarette from between his lips with his thumb and first finger and Kyungsoo glimpses dirt beneath his nails.
Kyungsoo doesn’t smoke or know anyone who does, at least not anyone his age. The fact that this man does so casually, not even in a furtive behind-the-bleachers way, makes him seem older than he had previously and Kyungsoo feels childish and uncool as he’s forced to answer, “No, I don’t, sorry.”
The man regards Kyungsoo expressionlessly, rolling his cigarette between thumb and middle finger in the hand by his side. After a few seconds pass, he raises the cigarette back to his mouth and fishes in the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a matchbook. Kyungsoo watches with confusion that carries a twinge of guilt, the feeling that he’s already done something wrong even though he hasn’t yet.
He pauses at that thought, watching the man light his cigarette and take in the first quick puff, smoke seeping from his mouth as he shoves the matchbook back into his pocket.
Yet.
The man smokes and Kyungsoo, again, has no idea what to do with himself. He pushes his hands into the sagging pockets of his polyester trousers and leans back on the heels of his feet. He has an instant, nauseating sense of recognition, only realizing in the next minute that the person he’s reminded himself of is his father.
“Enjoying the dance?” the man asks.
“Yes,” Kyungsoo answers immediately, as though this man smelling of smoke, with dirt under his nails and in his clothing, is the grand organizer of the bash and Kyungsoo doesn’t want to insult him. “It’s been great. Real great.”
The man gives a small smile, nodding in a way that’s dismissive, but not unkind.
“Are you an employee?” Kyungsoo asks, wondering in the next second if this is a rude question.
The man frowns. “What, you think I’m not a member of the club?”
“No, I just---well, I wasn’t sure if---“
He’s cut off by laughter and when he chances a glance he sees the man taking a drag from his cigarette.
“Relax. Yeah, I work here.” He gestures beside him to a wheelbarrow filled with what looks to be bricks. On further inspection, Kyungsoo sees that a line of the same bricks has been placed along the bottom edge of the tent, anchoring it into place as the wind blows in gusts around them.
He’s a yard worker, which explains the dirt beneath his fingernails and his informal attire. Wind catches along the edges of Kyungsoo’s jacket, the ground beneath them shakes with another crash of thunder, and the man extends the burning tip of his cigarette to Kyungsoo.
After a second’s hesitation, Kyungsoo takes it. His fingers brush over the man’s and there’s a rush of warmth to his stomach like the kind he feels as he lies in bed at night, sweating in the dark and not giving voice to the truth curling inside of him.
The man watches as Kyungsoo raises the stub to his lips. The paper has a pleasant taste over his tongue, almost sweet, but then he inhales and it’s as though he’s been sucker-punched in the gut. He wheezes, eyes watering, coughing ferociously.
“You should have said you don’t smoke,” the man laughs. His fingers tangle in Kyungsoo’s again and he takes the barely flickering cigarette, tossing it to the ground and grinding it beneath his boot.
“I didn’t know it would be like that,” Kyungsoo coughs. “How do people do that?”
“By doing it repeatedly.” The man regards him for a moment and says, “The first time’s always the hardest.”
Kyungsoo wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, glancing at the man. There’s a brief flash of white light and another clap of thunder shakes the night.
The man tilts his head back, staring up to the sky.
“It’s going to storm,” he observes quietly.
Kyungsoo tilts his head back, too, his eyes closing.
“I wish it would just happen,” he mutters. “I can’t stand all this waiting.”
There’s a pause.
“You don’t like waiting?” the man asks quietly, sounding in its earnestness like the voice in the back of Kyungsoo’s head.
Kyungsoo doesn’t respond. Even when he hears the sound of movement from his side, he doesn’t open his eyes. His desire for rain feels strong enough to propel it into existence, like he’s a reckless, catastrophic god. He can nearly feel the cool drops of water on his face. It would be an end to the hot black pause of this night, this summer, his life. A long breath finally released.
His body thrums with energy. With his eyes closed, everything is heightened: the sounds from inside the tent, the sharp rustle of leaves from the trees above them. There’s body heat at his side.
He feels like a dam about to split wide open.
“Stop waiting,” the man whispers, his voice right beside Kyungsoo’s ear.
Kyungsoo gasps audibly at the first drop of rain, landing on his cheek. There are lips pressing against his and Kyungsoo has to turn away from the sky that’s opening up above him.
Somewhere in the back of Kyungsoo’s mind, his sense of reason, always so bright, goes out like nothing more than the small flame of a match, doused in one drop of water. This man kisses Kyungsoo like Kyungsoo more than he is, a man, a god, not a cowardly teenager afraid of simple sentences like I like boys. He kisses Kyungsoo like Kyungsoo alone is the bringer of salvation and he’s been on his knees for years, praying and waiting. Like Kyungsoo’s lips, the delicate skin on his hip bones, exposed where his shirt has been hastily tugged free from his pants, are responsible for the water that pours down over them. As the rain runs in violent streams down their faces, sloppy between their lips and over their tongues, he consumes Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo feels himself being made anew.
Hands tug at wet clothing, plastered down and sticking to skin, to push it up and away, away, away. The man fumbles with the buttons of Kyungsoo’s shirt before eventually just shoving the entire thing up in a wet clump beneath his arms. He licks over the pale skin of Kyungsoo’s stomach, his hands wrapped around and gripping Kyungsoo’s ass, his upper arms flexing over Kyungsoo’s thighs, bracketing him tight. Kyungsoo rakes his hands through the man’s hair. Its gelled hold has been loosened by the rain and it falls in slivers over the man’s face, cutting across his dark eyes where he looks up at Kyungsoo, his tongue tracing over the dip of his hip bones.
For what might be the first time in a life of fear and apprehension, Kyungsoo’s mind goes entirely silent when the man takes him into his mouth. He gasps and bucks, making no distinction between what his body wants and what his mind allows. The man swallows him down, over and over with a singular kind of devotion, until Kyungsoo’s head falls back and his mouth slips open. Somewhere in the midst of it all, their hands tangle together again.
It’s a hazy affair, the next few minutes. Kyungsoo’s memories of it come to him in still moments like sudden, jarring claps of thunder. He remembers himself, bold and wild, unbuttoning jeans heavy with water and sliding his hands into them. He remembers the shocking feel of someone else in his hands, the power of hearing someone groan into his ear, a sound thrilling for how foreign and adult it is. He remembers a sudden mass of voices moving from the other side of the tent as the rain died down- “Better get to the car before it starts up again! We’ll see you next month at the gala, if not sooner!”- and subsequent panic, clothing rearranged hastily, a sudden re-observance of personal space, and names exchanged like a farewell handshake.
“Kyungsoo,” he’d said when the man had asked. He hadn’t been looking at him as he answered, but down at his father’s old pants where he buttoned them back up, hit with a sudden understanding of what he’d just done.
“Kai,” the man replied and Kyungsoo had met his eye. Reality was all around him in the voices of his parents’ friends streaming out of the other side of the tent and his obligations and his identity up until that point, all telling him that’s enough now, come inside and dry off. And all he’d thought to himself, seeing Kai smile at him, was: not James Dean, but close enough.
The aftermath of the storm breathes glorious summer days. They’re warm, but not suffocating. Cool at night when he slides on his jeans and cracks his bedroom window to climb through it awkwardly, his feet landing in the grass with a muted thump.
It’s a short walk to the country club, one he knows by heart from childhood, but which is now new and illicit and entirely his own. He weaves over dark grass between houses, and as he does, it begins to rain, a gentle, encouraging shower. Before he knows it, he’s running, his feet pounding, his lungs burning, and every cool drop on his skin urging him further and further into the night.