Strangers
Title: Strangers
Pairing/characters: KiMin [Kibum x Sungmin], Henry
Rating: PG-13
Genre: romance
Summary: Breaking up isn’t the end.
Notes: inspired by Vindicated by Dashboard Confessionals and my desire to read KiMin and not finding any.
Also inspired by this picture.
---
Their apartment has large windows because Sungmin likes sunshine. The price is over the range they’d decided upon. They’d only looked at it because the realtor had insisted. The floor-length windows seem gaudy and ostentatious to Kibum. They take up too much of the wall. They leave the living room open, exposed, vulnerable.
Kibum doesn’t like to feel vulnerable.
But Sungmin likes the light and he promises that they’ll put up shades. Shades won’t matter, or curtains, because Sungmin will never close them, but Kibum knows that he’s lost the argument before it’s begun.
The realtor explains the dynamics of the kitchen but Sungmin doesn’t listen. He’s too busy staring out the window at the busy street below.
“We can put in a window seat here.” He says, and Kibum doesn’t answer. He’s already calculating how much money he’s going to need to take out of his bank account for the down payment and canceling looking at the other apartments they’d planned to visit because he knows that Sungmin has made up his mind.
The realtor doesn’t question two grown men buying a one bedroom apartment but Kibum can feel the condescension. They are being judged and it is uncomfortable.
If Sungmin notices he is good at pretending that he hasn’t. He has always been good at smiling through everything, at pretending he is fine when he is not. Kibum wonders how the two ever ended up together because neither expresses their true feelings. Kibum hides behind a stiff mask and Sungmin hides behind a smile.
Kibum’s parents had never accepted his homosexuality. Losing the trust and love or the two people that had mattered the most to him had made it difficult. He’d hated himself for a very long time and, if he wanted to be honest, he’d hated Sungmin too.
He knew Sungmin hadn’t been the reason but he liked to imagine that he was because it gave him something to blame.
He envies the fact that Sungmin’s parents are supportive. It is not fair, he thinks, that his parents hate him. It is because of this that he is uncomfortable with the stares because every look of disgust reminds him that he is unloved and looked down upon.
Kibum is prideful-and sensitive-so it is a difficult thing to accept. Secretly he harbors a little resentment when Sungmin calls his parents and ends the call with, “I love you” when all Kibum can do is leave a message on his father’s answering machine inviting them to the opening night of his debut concert and a “I sent you tickets in the mail. Come if you want. I know you’re busy”. In the end, it is Sungmin’s parents sitting beside Sungmin in the front row and the two empty seats to his right are glaringly obvious and it takes all of Kibum’s will to continue playing.
Sungmin is sure of himself and their relationship and Kibum is full of doubt.
“Your piano can go near the windows too. The ceiling is high so the acoustics will be nice.”
Kibum has already pulled out his checkbook, checking figures as he asks the realtor when they can move in.
---
Kibum likes cool shades, neutral colors. Too much contrast hurts his eyes and despite what Sungmin thinks he isn’t colorblind and therefore he protests the pink sofa with the lime green pillows. Their apartment isn’t a girl’s dorm room after all.
Sungmin doesn’t want gray or black or white. Those colors are too muted, too dull. There is no vitality there and Sungmin wants their apartment to be lively. He wants the apartment to mirror their relationship and he doesn’t want to believe that it is pale, washed out, and stagnant.
They finally agree upon a rose-tinted ivory with decorative cushions in a heady crimson. Kibum finds the splash of color annoying but he doesn’t say so. At least the living room isn’t pink. Kibum figures he can compromise that much.
Sungmin finds it romantic and exotic. Their apartment is their own cabal, hidden from the rest of the world by four stories and a thin wall of glass.
Moving in took longer than they had expected, and Kibum supposes that is partially his fault. Sungmin insists on painting the walls to match the furniture. Kibum doesn’t wish to because painting the walls will make this permanent. Their home. Furniture can be moved, but paint must be covered and will never fully disappear. It can only be hidden.
Commitment is difficult for him, and painting the walls shouldn’t bother him this much but it does.
Sungmin understands-he’s always understood-but that does not change his desire to paint. He needs this in the same way that it makes Kibum uncomfortable. He needs to know this is permanent. There is an awkward tension for a few days as Kibum quietly covers their newly moved in furniture with plastic and Sungmin stirs paint.
The tension is broken two days in when Sungmin spills paint onto their new hardwood floor. The two react instantly, trying to clean up the mess but it only ends in hands entwined in the mess before the two lift up.
Kibum stares at their handprints, even as Sungmin rushes into the kitchen for a washrag.
“Leave it.” Kibum murmurs softly, but Sungmin hears it. He drops the cloth into the sink and gives a hesitant smile.
The paint is permanent, the handprint prominent beneath the windowsill. They place the piano nearby and when Kibum plays he finds himself staring at it from time to time.
They can’t leave the apartment now unless they rip up the floorboards and Sungmin finds himself silently relieved. The paint will keep Kibum tied to his side. It connects them and because of it he sleeps a little better at night, listening to Kibum breath in the silence.
---
Kibum hates himself and Sungmin knows it. It is obvious in the way he disregards everything, in the way he pushes himself to perfection and withdraws from everyone around him. His parents hate him and because of it he doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved.
He has always strived for acceptance and to not get it from the people he respects the most is crippling.
Sungmin tries his hardest to show Kibum that he is loved. When they fell in love it was mutual, but now Sungmin thinks that he stays because he wants to fix him. When he wakes up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and looks out of the loft and sees Kibum sprawled out on the couch with a bottle of vodka and an empty stare he wonders if loving Kibum has become a habit rather than something he enjoys.
He likes fixing things. He wants to make people happy. Kibum had told him so once.
“You’re attracted to lost souls. But people aren’t stray cats or injured birds that you can nurse back to health.”
Sungmin knows this. Sometimes the birds don’t recover or the cats run away. Sungmin hopes that Kibum will leave rather than die, if it comes to that.
---
When they kiss, Sungmin can’t breathe. When they make love, he dies inside. It is a good death, as his heart stops and his mind goes blank and all he is aware of is Kibum. His body is numb but hypersensitive at the same time and each touch is a brand. He is Kibum’s. Kibum is his. They are one person rather than two and they will never part.
Making love to Sungmin is like playing a piano. Depending on where he touches he gets a different sound. Sometimes he makes songs-he wonders if Sungmin is aware-because he has memorized how to produce every sigh, shiver, and moan. He composes them, and he thinks it is his best work.
He tries to produce the same sound alone, but his piano is a lacking imitation. His experiences fail to transfer into music scores and it is frustrating. He wants to immortalize the feeling because he knows that one day Sungmin will leave him and all he will have left are memories.
No one would stay with him forever. He is a pitiful creature, afraid of rejection and commitment. He cannot express himself and relying on Sungmin to read between the lines will only get him so far. He cannot assume that Sungmin will know how he feels but he does. It is easier to let Sungmin make up what he wants to believe but he knows that one day Sungmin will get tired of deciding things on his own.
He will need reassurance and Kibum cannot give that because Kibum can’t understand why anyone would want to stay.
He knows that they are not forever because forever does not exist.
Sungmin cannot stand Kibum’s disregard for himself and for their relationship. It is onesided. He feels like he’s the only one holding them together and that if he were to leave Kibum would not care. He knows that he would-Kibum is sensitive, despite how he acts, and having someone leave him would kill him-but Sungmin thinks he’s allowed to get angry sometimes.
Frustration is an everyday occurrence.
Sungmin realizes that something is terribly wrong when the thought of leaving happens daily.
---
“You’re good with children, you should teach.”
“They make me uncomfortable.” Kibum replies, staring up at the ceiling fan. This conversation is an old one. Sometimes it branches into the topic of Kibum becoming a piano instructor, but Kibum knows what it is that Sungmin wants.
Sungmin wants children.
Children are something that Kibum can’t give him. He doesn’t believe he’ll be a good father. He has always been awkward with children. Sungmin will make a wonderful father someday, Kibum thinks, and then there is the sinking realization that when that day comes it will mean that he is no longer with Kibum.
Kibum turns over on the bed and faces the wall.
He cannot live up to Sungmin’s expectations. He wonders how long it will take for Sungmin to realize this as Sungmin traces patterns on his back and Kibum makes pictures with the shadows on the wall.
Kibum secretly hopes that Sungmin will decide to leave first. He doesn’t want to be the one to ruin this-it is already ruined, there is nothing left to break because whatever they had has decayed by this point-and he unconsciously needs Sungmin to prove to him that no one could possibly love him.
He doesn’t understand the thought process but there is an odd comfort in knowing that he was correct, that he is a lost cause and that maybe it isn’t because he didn’t try hard enough but because it was impossible from the start.
Sungmin wants Kibum to end it first. He doesn’t want to break Kibum and he knows that if he tells him he can’t take this anymore that Kibum will not be fixable. There will be nothing left but tiny little pieces and he understands that no one else will have the patience to try and piece it together. He is the only one who has ever tried and the only one who ever will.
But Sungmin knows that if this continues this way, if neither of them try and change than they won’t survive.
They both fall asleep hoping that the other will be gone in the morning.
---
They’ve never fought, and Sungmin wonders if that’s part of the problem. If there was yelling than at least there would be a starting point, an understanding of what was wrong and perhaps a hint on how to salvage what they have.
But if Sungmin brings something up Kibum stays silent. He nods, agrees, and that is the end of it. He has never told Sungmin that he doesn’t like something. It is as if he is afraid that the moment he disagrees Sungmin will hate him and that angers Sungmin more than anything.
Apathy is destroying them.
They weren’t always this way. When they had first met it had been different, so very different. Kibum used to smile and make Sungmin’s heart melt and Sungmin used to laugh without sounding like broken glass.
They had truly been in love once, but it seemed so long ago now. They were strangers living with one another and it was killing them.
---
It was raining and they only had one umbrella. Kibum had meant to grab a second one before heading out that morning but he’d stopped himself. He wants to remember what it felt like to huddle close to one another and walk down the street without any regard for society’s opinions.
They drink their coffee next to the newspaper stand as Kibum contemplates whether to hail a taxi or take the subway.
He has a concert to prepare for and Sungmin has to go over the monthly issue and re-edit. Kibum looks down at his watch and he is struck with the sudden realization that Sungmin had become an obligation. His hand falls to his side and he swallows, taking a step to his right.
Sungmin turns to him curiously, worriedly.
Spending time as a couple had become a job rather than a choice. Kibum realizes that he enjoys his work more than a coffee date and he feels sick. He is surely a horrible person.
“We should stop.” Because this isn’t working. They are together because they have been for so long. He is ruining any chance Sungmin has of being happy and even if he can’t express it, he desperately wants him to be. There isn’t a reason for a cheerful, happy person like Sungmin to be stuck here.
Sungmin is hurt. He will not lie to himself and say that he didn’t see it coming, but it hurts nonetheless. He also thinks he’s selfish because Kibum has given him an escape route and he can’t pretend that he isn’t thankful.
“The next person who walks out of the subway station. If they’re carrying a red umbrella we’ll break up.” Sungmin whispers. Let’s leave the decision to fate, to chance. This way, neither of us will be to blame. There will be no guilt.
But there will be. Both will blame themselves for not making this work. For not trying hard enough.
But Kibum feels like he’s suffocating Sungmin and Sungmin feels like he’s killing Kibum. Neither wants to watch as the other is destroyed because neither can say what needs to be said. They’d much rather ignore it, push it down, because they’ve drifted so far apart that they’ve lost that intimacy that allows for such things.
Kibum says nothing. He wants to comment that relying upon something like this, to even make the statement at all is childish. He wonders if Sungmin has been waiting for this and knows that he has. Both of them have.
The next person to step out into the rain is a middle-aged woman with a messy bun and an oversized purse. She hurriedly searches within her bag for her umbrella and pulls it out.
It is gray.
Kibum should not feel relieved. He is the one who suggested the breakup in the first place. He wonders if Sungmin feels the same way. Is he happy that the umbrella is not red-
The woman takes off the umbrella cover and Kibum swallows.
“It’s red.” Sungmin’s voice is soft, and there is a weary acceptance there. Perhaps relief. Perhaps even happiness.
Kibum nods and says nothing. Inwardly, he cannot help but feel hurt and a little angry. He had expected Sungmin to protest the breakup. He’d thought their relationship had meant more to him than this. But perhaps he had been as tired as Kibum.
“You can keep the apartment.” Are the last words Sungmin says to him before turning and walking into the rain. As he leaves he drops the umbrella and Kibum doesn’t pick it up.
He stands in the rain and watches Sungmin disappear.
---
He holds his mug of coffee to his lips and listens to the honking of cars and the thrum of a city that never sleeps.
He can hear the soft tinkling of piano keys and a jarring ‘pang’ makes him wince.
“I’m sorry.” Came his student’s reply in halted Korean.
“It’s fine. One more time and then you can leave for the day.” Kibum says softly. He looks over the half-finished music sheets in his lap and wonders if he should repaint the walls before he puts the apartment on the market.
He closes his eyes and listens to Stravisnky’s Petrushka and ah, there it is, that jarring note again. Kibum places his papers and his coffee in the window seat and walks over to the piano and its anxious resident. Kibum leans over from behind and his hands glide over the keys. “Here, don’t let your index finger slide.”
“I really like it.” His student’s eyes go around the apartment, rest on the large open windows and the sunlight filtering through them. “I wish I could live here.”
Kibum hates this place. There is nothing left for him here anymore. “Henry, I’ve set you up with another teacher.” Kibum begins, stepping away from the piano. “I gave the number and address to the orphanage director.”
“Do you have to go back to America?” Henry asks sadly, and the ten-year-old boy looks heartbroken at the thought. “I like you as my teacher. You can speak English.”
“Come on, we’re done for the day.” Kibum reaches out and pats Henry on the head. He’s never been partial to children but Henry is cute. Or perhaps they are kindred souls and he sees himself in the boy. He wonders if he’ll be a good influence or not. No, he’ll only ruin the boy’s chances, so it’s best that he gets away now before any permanent damage is done. “Tomorrow will be our last lesson.”
Henry leaves and Kibum is alone again. He leans against the door and listens to Henry’s retreating footsteps down the hallway before he heads back to the window and waits to make sure that Henry gets safely onto the bus.
The bus drives away but Kibum does not move. He sits down in the window seat and reaches up to brush the hair from his eyes.
The colors of the apartment are the same, and he never puts down the blinds. He’s really kind of pathetic, he thinks, because he’s attached to someone he knows has moved on.
But he was the one who ended their relationship. He should be happy for Sungmin because Sungmin is happy-wherever he is. He is happy because he is not with Kibum.
And that, Kibum thinks, is the worst.
---
He is not happy.
He smiles and he pretends, but Sungmin has never been more miserable in his life.
He works late nights at the editorial company because keeping himself busy helps him forget that he’s lonely. He only goes home because he remembers that he has a cat to feed-Kibum didn’t like kittens but that didn’t matter now. He could have as many cats as he wanted.
With the way things are going, he thinks that he might become that crazy cat lady.
Sungmin has developed some of Kibum’s habits, he notices. It happens when visiting his parents. When he sits at the dinner table and asks for a coffee instead of a glass of orange juice and his mother looks at him oddly and he remembers that he used to hate the bitter taste.
It had always tasted fine on Kibum’s lips…and sometimes when he has a cup he can pretend.
He is quieter. He doesn’t like bright colors anymore. Pale pastels are better-less contrast, more subtle. Things that Kibum would like. He entertains the idea that some of his habits rubbed off on Kibum as well and laughs at the thought of Kibum wearing his fluorescent pink glasses but the laughter dies early and then he’s crying.
Kibum has ruined him, and it is because of his own selfishness. He had been afraid to see Kibum continue to hate himself and their relationship. Them. He couldn’t stand it knowing that he was the cause and so he had agreed to this separation.
He wonders often if letting Kibum go so quickly hadn’t killed what was left of the other man.
He doesn’t watch tv anymore because he is afraid he will see Kibum performing. He cannot stand the sound of a piano.
His mother asks about Kibum sometimes. In the beginning it had been more frequent until she realized the pain it was causing him. She asks if Kibum is doing alright, if Sungmin had gotten a ticket to his next concert because Kibum had sent the two of them a pair. Sungmin hadn’t gotten one, but he didn’t think he would have gone either way.
He lies and says he is busy with work and gave the ticket to someone else.
His parents believe him.
---
Kibum has packed everything neatly in boxes by the next morning. There had only been a bit left to put away. The living room is empty of everything but the piano, a couch, and the coffee table. The moving truck would arrive later that night and then he would leave this place.
Kibum lowers himself onto the piano bench and rests his fingers on the keys. He pulls out his music score for Stravisnky’s Petrushka from among the stack sitting atop the piano and a few sheets slip out and onto the floor.
He crouches on the ground and grabs for them, turning them over slowly. What were they? He cannot recognize the series of notes scrawled hastily with pencil. His brow furrows and he wracks his brain for an answer.
And then he spots it.
The paint on the wooden floor.
It had been hidden in the shadow of the piano, he hadn’t noticed it. Kibum reaches out and brushes his fingertips across the entwined hands and his throat tightens and his chest aches.
Suddenly he remembers what the music sheets were for.
He grabs them, shoving them almost desperately onto the stand and looking them over, entire body shaking, a heady thrumming in his veins as he begins.
Ah, there it is. A sigh, a shiver, a kiss. This song is Sungmin. This song is them. It has been too long since Kibum has heard it and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tears hit the keys and his fingers slip because of the moisture. He’s crying but he’s laughing too as he reaches into his pocket for his cellphone.
“Hello?” The person on the other end begins hesitantly, afraid, as if he had never expected to see this number flash on his call I.D. again.
“The street by the subway entrance. Meet me there in ten minutes.” He hangs up before Sungmin has a chance to protest.
---
Sungmin goes because the sound of Kibum’s voice lingers after the dial-tone. He had barely recognized the number but then it had clicked and he’d been breathless as he’d placed the phone to his ear.
Why did Kibum wish to talk to him?
He doesn’t care. His body moves on its own accord, grabbing an umbrella from the stand and throwing on his jacket.
It is raining, and when he reaches the street corner he is breathless and his socks are ruined. He looks around hurriedly, trying to spot the familiar face that he’s dreamed about for a year and a half. Someone coughs and he turns and almost drops his umbrella.
Kibum is soaked. He is standing in his jeans and a thin long-sleeved shirt that clings to him. He is staring at Sungmin, his eyes locked on him as if they are the only two people in the world.
Sungmin let out a shaky laugh.
Kibum is wearing bright pink glasses.
Kibum gives a hesitant smile at Sungmin’s laugh as the other man walks up to him and places the umbrella over them both. “You’re going to catch a cold.”
“It’s rather useless now.” Kibum responds calmly, motioning down at himself. Sungmin cannot disagree. There is still a tension between them, one that has built up over their absence-perhaps before it, they had been drifting apart long before they’d separated-and so Sungmin’s smile becomes forced and Kibum looks away.
They are like strangers again.
Kibum looks down at his watch and then back at Sungmin. “The next boy who walks out of the subway station.”
Sungmin blinks. “What?”
“The next boy who walks out of the subway station. If he’s carrying a red umbrella, let’s start over.”
Sungmin swallows. There is an odd anxiety and a little pain, because it seems like a very cruel game. Why would Kibum put everything on the line over something like this again? Sungmin glances at the subway station. He wants to say yes because he wants this. He wants the next boy to have a red umbrella.
He thinks he’ll die if it doesn’t happen. He can’t go through this again. “…alright.”
The first person to walk out of the station is a woman. Her umbrella is black. A boy. He said a boy. The next three are men, and their umbrellas are not red.
A little boy of ten runs out into the rain and Sungmin’s heart stops. He does not have an umbrella.
And then the boy looks up and he grins, “Kibum-seonsangnim! I brought it back like you asked!” And he pulled out a red umbrella from his backpack and bounds over to them.
Sungmin is crying now, and laughing at the same time. He can’t stop. But Kibum is holding out his hand to shake and he’s wearing that smile that Sungmin remembers. “My name is Kim Kibum. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Sungmin takes his hand and squeezes. “Kim Kibum, the pleasure is mutual.” His voice shakes, and his grip tightens. “My name is Lee Sungmin and I really want to kiss you.”
Sungmin drops his umbrella and leans forward. Kibum’s lips still taste bitter like coffee. But they are soft and warm and not scalding. Sungmin doesn’t fear getting burned. He is still crying, sobbing into Kibum’s mouth and the other man is smiling like some kind of idiot and it’s an awkward collision of laughter and tears.
“Seonsangnim, what’s going on?”
Sungmin pulls away from Kibum at the sound of the boy’s voice. The boy is holding out the red umbrella, his eyes trained on Sungmin curiously. Kibum reaches out a hand and ruffles the boy’s hair.
“Who is he?” Sungmin manages to get out.
Kibum’s smile widens. “This is Henry. What are your thoughts on adoption?”
Pairing/characters: KiMin [Kibum x Sungmin], Henry
Rating: PG-13
Genre: romance
Summary: Breaking up isn’t the end.
Notes: inspired by Vindicated by Dashboard Confessionals and my desire to read KiMin and not finding any.
Also inspired by this picture.
---
Their apartment has large windows because Sungmin likes sunshine. The price is over the range they’d decided upon. They’d only looked at it because the realtor had insisted. The floor-length windows seem gaudy and ostentatious to Kibum. They take up too much of the wall. They leave the living room open, exposed, vulnerable.
Kibum doesn’t like to feel vulnerable.
But Sungmin likes the light and he promises that they’ll put up shades. Shades won’t matter, or curtains, because Sungmin will never close them, but Kibum knows that he’s lost the argument before it’s begun.
The realtor explains the dynamics of the kitchen but Sungmin doesn’t listen. He’s too busy staring out the window at the busy street below.
“We can put in a window seat here.” He says, and Kibum doesn’t answer. He’s already calculating how much money he’s going to need to take out of his bank account for the down payment and canceling looking at the other apartments they’d planned to visit because he knows that Sungmin has made up his mind.
The realtor doesn’t question two grown men buying a one bedroom apartment but Kibum can feel the condescension. They are being judged and it is uncomfortable.
If Sungmin notices he is good at pretending that he hasn’t. He has always been good at smiling through everything, at pretending he is fine when he is not. Kibum wonders how the two ever ended up together because neither expresses their true feelings. Kibum hides behind a stiff mask and Sungmin hides behind a smile.
Kibum’s parents had never accepted his homosexuality. Losing the trust and love or the two people that had mattered the most to him had made it difficult. He’d hated himself for a very long time and, if he wanted to be honest, he’d hated Sungmin too.
He knew Sungmin hadn’t been the reason but he liked to imagine that he was because it gave him something to blame.
He envies the fact that Sungmin’s parents are supportive. It is not fair, he thinks, that his parents hate him. It is because of this that he is uncomfortable with the stares because every look of disgust reminds him that he is unloved and looked down upon.
Kibum is prideful-and sensitive-so it is a difficult thing to accept. Secretly he harbors a little resentment when Sungmin calls his parents and ends the call with, “I love you” when all Kibum can do is leave a message on his father’s answering machine inviting them to the opening night of his debut concert and a “I sent you tickets in the mail. Come if you want. I know you’re busy”. In the end, it is Sungmin’s parents sitting beside Sungmin in the front row and the two empty seats to his right are glaringly obvious and it takes all of Kibum’s will to continue playing.
Sungmin is sure of himself and their relationship and Kibum is full of doubt.
“Your piano can go near the windows too. The ceiling is high so the acoustics will be nice.”
Kibum has already pulled out his checkbook, checking figures as he asks the realtor when they can move in.
---
Kibum likes cool shades, neutral colors. Too much contrast hurts his eyes and despite what Sungmin thinks he isn’t colorblind and therefore he protests the pink sofa with the lime green pillows. Their apartment isn’t a girl’s dorm room after all.
Sungmin doesn’t want gray or black or white. Those colors are too muted, too dull. There is no vitality there and Sungmin wants their apartment to be lively. He wants the apartment to mirror their relationship and he doesn’t want to believe that it is pale, washed out, and stagnant.
They finally agree upon a rose-tinted ivory with decorative cushions in a heady crimson. Kibum finds the splash of color annoying but he doesn’t say so. At least the living room isn’t pink. Kibum figures he can compromise that much.
Sungmin finds it romantic and exotic. Their apartment is their own cabal, hidden from the rest of the world by four stories and a thin wall of glass.
Moving in took longer than they had expected, and Kibum supposes that is partially his fault. Sungmin insists on painting the walls to match the furniture. Kibum doesn’t wish to because painting the walls will make this permanent. Their home. Furniture can be moved, but paint must be covered and will never fully disappear. It can only be hidden.
Commitment is difficult for him, and painting the walls shouldn’t bother him this much but it does.
Sungmin understands-he’s always understood-but that does not change his desire to paint. He needs this in the same way that it makes Kibum uncomfortable. He needs to know this is permanent. There is an awkward tension for a few days as Kibum quietly covers their newly moved in furniture with plastic and Sungmin stirs paint.
The tension is broken two days in when Sungmin spills paint onto their new hardwood floor. The two react instantly, trying to clean up the mess but it only ends in hands entwined in the mess before the two lift up.
Kibum stares at their handprints, even as Sungmin rushes into the kitchen for a washrag.
“Leave it.” Kibum murmurs softly, but Sungmin hears it. He drops the cloth into the sink and gives a hesitant smile.
The paint is permanent, the handprint prominent beneath the windowsill. They place the piano nearby and when Kibum plays he finds himself staring at it from time to time.
They can’t leave the apartment now unless they rip up the floorboards and Sungmin finds himself silently relieved. The paint will keep Kibum tied to his side. It connects them and because of it he sleeps a little better at night, listening to Kibum breath in the silence.
---
Kibum hates himself and Sungmin knows it. It is obvious in the way he disregards everything, in the way he pushes himself to perfection and withdraws from everyone around him. His parents hate him and because of it he doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved.
He has always strived for acceptance and to not get it from the people he respects the most is crippling.
Sungmin tries his hardest to show Kibum that he is loved. When they fell in love it was mutual, but now Sungmin thinks that he stays because he wants to fix him. When he wakes up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and looks out of the loft and sees Kibum sprawled out on the couch with a bottle of vodka and an empty stare he wonders if loving Kibum has become a habit rather than something he enjoys.
He likes fixing things. He wants to make people happy. Kibum had told him so once.
“You’re attracted to lost souls. But people aren’t stray cats or injured birds that you can nurse back to health.”
Sungmin knows this. Sometimes the birds don’t recover or the cats run away. Sungmin hopes that Kibum will leave rather than die, if it comes to that.
---
When they kiss, Sungmin can’t breathe. When they make love, he dies inside. It is a good death, as his heart stops and his mind goes blank and all he is aware of is Kibum. His body is numb but hypersensitive at the same time and each touch is a brand. He is Kibum’s. Kibum is his. They are one person rather than two and they will never part.
Making love to Sungmin is like playing a piano. Depending on where he touches he gets a different sound. Sometimes he makes songs-he wonders if Sungmin is aware-because he has memorized how to produce every sigh, shiver, and moan. He composes them, and he thinks it is his best work.
He tries to produce the same sound alone, but his piano is a lacking imitation. His experiences fail to transfer into music scores and it is frustrating. He wants to immortalize the feeling because he knows that one day Sungmin will leave him and all he will have left are memories.
No one would stay with him forever. He is a pitiful creature, afraid of rejection and commitment. He cannot express himself and relying on Sungmin to read between the lines will only get him so far. He cannot assume that Sungmin will know how he feels but he does. It is easier to let Sungmin make up what he wants to believe but he knows that one day Sungmin will get tired of deciding things on his own.
He will need reassurance and Kibum cannot give that because Kibum can’t understand why anyone would want to stay.
He knows that they are not forever because forever does not exist.
Sungmin cannot stand Kibum’s disregard for himself and for their relationship. It is onesided. He feels like he’s the only one holding them together and that if he were to leave Kibum would not care. He knows that he would-Kibum is sensitive, despite how he acts, and having someone leave him would kill him-but Sungmin thinks he’s allowed to get angry sometimes.
Frustration is an everyday occurrence.
Sungmin realizes that something is terribly wrong when the thought of leaving happens daily.
---
“You’re good with children, you should teach.”
“They make me uncomfortable.” Kibum replies, staring up at the ceiling fan. This conversation is an old one. Sometimes it branches into the topic of Kibum becoming a piano instructor, but Kibum knows what it is that Sungmin wants.
Sungmin wants children.
Children are something that Kibum can’t give him. He doesn’t believe he’ll be a good father. He has always been awkward with children. Sungmin will make a wonderful father someday, Kibum thinks, and then there is the sinking realization that when that day comes it will mean that he is no longer with Kibum.
Kibum turns over on the bed and faces the wall.
He cannot live up to Sungmin’s expectations. He wonders how long it will take for Sungmin to realize this as Sungmin traces patterns on his back and Kibum makes pictures with the shadows on the wall.
Kibum secretly hopes that Sungmin will decide to leave first. He doesn’t want to be the one to ruin this-it is already ruined, there is nothing left to break because whatever they had has decayed by this point-and he unconsciously needs Sungmin to prove to him that no one could possibly love him.
He doesn’t understand the thought process but there is an odd comfort in knowing that he was correct, that he is a lost cause and that maybe it isn’t because he didn’t try hard enough but because it was impossible from the start.
Sungmin wants Kibum to end it first. He doesn’t want to break Kibum and he knows that if he tells him he can’t take this anymore that Kibum will not be fixable. There will be nothing left but tiny little pieces and he understands that no one else will have the patience to try and piece it together. He is the only one who has ever tried and the only one who ever will.
But Sungmin knows that if this continues this way, if neither of them try and change than they won’t survive.
They both fall asleep hoping that the other will be gone in the morning.
---
They’ve never fought, and Sungmin wonders if that’s part of the problem. If there was yelling than at least there would be a starting point, an understanding of what was wrong and perhaps a hint on how to salvage what they have.
But if Sungmin brings something up Kibum stays silent. He nods, agrees, and that is the end of it. He has never told Sungmin that he doesn’t like something. It is as if he is afraid that the moment he disagrees Sungmin will hate him and that angers Sungmin more than anything.
Apathy is destroying them.
They weren’t always this way. When they had first met it had been different, so very different. Kibum used to smile and make Sungmin’s heart melt and Sungmin used to laugh without sounding like broken glass.
They had truly been in love once, but it seemed so long ago now. They were strangers living with one another and it was killing them.
---
It was raining and they only had one umbrella. Kibum had meant to grab a second one before heading out that morning but he’d stopped himself. He wants to remember what it felt like to huddle close to one another and walk down the street without any regard for society’s opinions.
They drink their coffee next to the newspaper stand as Kibum contemplates whether to hail a taxi or take the subway.
He has a concert to prepare for and Sungmin has to go over the monthly issue and re-edit. Kibum looks down at his watch and he is struck with the sudden realization that Sungmin had become an obligation. His hand falls to his side and he swallows, taking a step to his right.
Sungmin turns to him curiously, worriedly.
Spending time as a couple had become a job rather than a choice. Kibum realizes that he enjoys his work more than a coffee date and he feels sick. He is surely a horrible person.
“We should stop.” Because this isn’t working. They are together because they have been for so long. He is ruining any chance Sungmin has of being happy and even if he can’t express it, he desperately wants him to be. There isn’t a reason for a cheerful, happy person like Sungmin to be stuck here.
Sungmin is hurt. He will not lie to himself and say that he didn’t see it coming, but it hurts nonetheless. He also thinks he’s selfish because Kibum has given him an escape route and he can’t pretend that he isn’t thankful.
“The next person who walks out of the subway station. If they’re carrying a red umbrella we’ll break up.” Sungmin whispers. Let’s leave the decision to fate, to chance. This way, neither of us will be to blame. There will be no guilt.
But there will be. Both will blame themselves for not making this work. For not trying hard enough.
But Kibum feels like he’s suffocating Sungmin and Sungmin feels like he’s killing Kibum. Neither wants to watch as the other is destroyed because neither can say what needs to be said. They’d much rather ignore it, push it down, because they’ve drifted so far apart that they’ve lost that intimacy that allows for such things.
Kibum says nothing. He wants to comment that relying upon something like this, to even make the statement at all is childish. He wonders if Sungmin has been waiting for this and knows that he has. Both of them have.
The next person to step out into the rain is a middle-aged woman with a messy bun and an oversized purse. She hurriedly searches within her bag for her umbrella and pulls it out.
It is gray.
Kibum should not feel relieved. He is the one who suggested the breakup in the first place. He wonders if Sungmin feels the same way. Is he happy that the umbrella is not red-
The woman takes off the umbrella cover and Kibum swallows.
“It’s red.” Sungmin’s voice is soft, and there is a weary acceptance there. Perhaps relief. Perhaps even happiness.
Kibum nods and says nothing. Inwardly, he cannot help but feel hurt and a little angry. He had expected Sungmin to protest the breakup. He’d thought their relationship had meant more to him than this. But perhaps he had been as tired as Kibum.
“You can keep the apartment.” Are the last words Sungmin says to him before turning and walking into the rain. As he leaves he drops the umbrella and Kibum doesn’t pick it up.
He stands in the rain and watches Sungmin disappear.
---
He holds his mug of coffee to his lips and listens to the honking of cars and the thrum of a city that never sleeps.
He can hear the soft tinkling of piano keys and a jarring ‘pang’ makes him wince.
“I’m sorry.” Came his student’s reply in halted Korean.
“It’s fine. One more time and then you can leave for the day.” Kibum says softly. He looks over the half-finished music sheets in his lap and wonders if he should repaint the walls before he puts the apartment on the market.
He closes his eyes and listens to Stravisnky’s Petrushka and ah, there it is, that jarring note again. Kibum places his papers and his coffee in the window seat and walks over to the piano and its anxious resident. Kibum leans over from behind and his hands glide over the keys. “Here, don’t let your index finger slide.”
“I really like it.” His student’s eyes go around the apartment, rest on the large open windows and the sunlight filtering through them. “I wish I could live here.”
Kibum hates this place. There is nothing left for him here anymore. “Henry, I’ve set you up with another teacher.” Kibum begins, stepping away from the piano. “I gave the number and address to the orphanage director.”
“Do you have to go back to America?” Henry asks sadly, and the ten-year-old boy looks heartbroken at the thought. “I like you as my teacher. You can speak English.”
“Come on, we’re done for the day.” Kibum reaches out and pats Henry on the head. He’s never been partial to children but Henry is cute. Or perhaps they are kindred souls and he sees himself in the boy. He wonders if he’ll be a good influence or not. No, he’ll only ruin the boy’s chances, so it’s best that he gets away now before any permanent damage is done. “Tomorrow will be our last lesson.”
Henry leaves and Kibum is alone again. He leans against the door and listens to Henry’s retreating footsteps down the hallway before he heads back to the window and waits to make sure that Henry gets safely onto the bus.
The bus drives away but Kibum does not move. He sits down in the window seat and reaches up to brush the hair from his eyes.
The colors of the apartment are the same, and he never puts down the blinds. He’s really kind of pathetic, he thinks, because he’s attached to someone he knows has moved on.
But he was the one who ended their relationship. He should be happy for Sungmin because Sungmin is happy-wherever he is. He is happy because he is not with Kibum.
And that, Kibum thinks, is the worst.
---
He is not happy.
He smiles and he pretends, but Sungmin has never been more miserable in his life.
He works late nights at the editorial company because keeping himself busy helps him forget that he’s lonely. He only goes home because he remembers that he has a cat to feed-Kibum didn’t like kittens but that didn’t matter now. He could have as many cats as he wanted.
With the way things are going, he thinks that he might become that crazy cat lady.
Sungmin has developed some of Kibum’s habits, he notices. It happens when visiting his parents. When he sits at the dinner table and asks for a coffee instead of a glass of orange juice and his mother looks at him oddly and he remembers that he used to hate the bitter taste.
It had always tasted fine on Kibum’s lips…and sometimes when he has a cup he can pretend.
He is quieter. He doesn’t like bright colors anymore. Pale pastels are better-less contrast, more subtle. Things that Kibum would like. He entertains the idea that some of his habits rubbed off on Kibum as well and laughs at the thought of Kibum wearing his fluorescent pink glasses but the laughter dies early and then he’s crying.
Kibum has ruined him, and it is because of his own selfishness. He had been afraid to see Kibum continue to hate himself and their relationship. Them. He couldn’t stand it knowing that he was the cause and so he had agreed to this separation.
He wonders often if letting Kibum go so quickly hadn’t killed what was left of the other man.
He doesn’t watch tv anymore because he is afraid he will see Kibum performing. He cannot stand the sound of a piano.
His mother asks about Kibum sometimes. In the beginning it had been more frequent until she realized the pain it was causing him. She asks if Kibum is doing alright, if Sungmin had gotten a ticket to his next concert because Kibum had sent the two of them a pair. Sungmin hadn’t gotten one, but he didn’t think he would have gone either way.
He lies and says he is busy with work and gave the ticket to someone else.
His parents believe him.
---
Kibum has packed everything neatly in boxes by the next morning. There had only been a bit left to put away. The living room is empty of everything but the piano, a couch, and the coffee table. The moving truck would arrive later that night and then he would leave this place.
Kibum lowers himself onto the piano bench and rests his fingers on the keys. He pulls out his music score for Stravisnky’s Petrushka from among the stack sitting atop the piano and a few sheets slip out and onto the floor.
He crouches on the ground and grabs for them, turning them over slowly. What were they? He cannot recognize the series of notes scrawled hastily with pencil. His brow furrows and he wracks his brain for an answer.
And then he spots it.
The paint on the wooden floor.
It had been hidden in the shadow of the piano, he hadn’t noticed it. Kibum reaches out and brushes his fingertips across the entwined hands and his throat tightens and his chest aches.
Suddenly he remembers what the music sheets were for.
He grabs them, shoving them almost desperately onto the stand and looking them over, entire body shaking, a heady thrumming in his veins as he begins.
Ah, there it is. A sigh, a shiver, a kiss. This song is Sungmin. This song is them. It has been too long since Kibum has heard it and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tears hit the keys and his fingers slip because of the moisture. He’s crying but he’s laughing too as he reaches into his pocket for his cellphone.
“Hello?” The person on the other end begins hesitantly, afraid, as if he had never expected to see this number flash on his call I.D. again.
“The street by the subway entrance. Meet me there in ten minutes.” He hangs up before Sungmin has a chance to protest.
---
Sungmin goes because the sound of Kibum’s voice lingers after the dial-tone. He had barely recognized the number but then it had clicked and he’d been breathless as he’d placed the phone to his ear.
Why did Kibum wish to talk to him?
He doesn’t care. His body moves on its own accord, grabbing an umbrella from the stand and throwing on his jacket.
It is raining, and when he reaches the street corner he is breathless and his socks are ruined. He looks around hurriedly, trying to spot the familiar face that he’s dreamed about for a year and a half. Someone coughs and he turns and almost drops his umbrella.
Kibum is soaked. He is standing in his jeans and a thin long-sleeved shirt that clings to him. He is staring at Sungmin, his eyes locked on him as if they are the only two people in the world.
Sungmin let out a shaky laugh.
Kibum is wearing bright pink glasses.
Kibum gives a hesitant smile at Sungmin’s laugh as the other man walks up to him and places the umbrella over them both. “You’re going to catch a cold.”
“It’s rather useless now.” Kibum responds calmly, motioning down at himself. Sungmin cannot disagree. There is still a tension between them, one that has built up over their absence-perhaps before it, they had been drifting apart long before they’d separated-and so Sungmin’s smile becomes forced and Kibum looks away.
They are like strangers again.
Kibum looks down at his watch and then back at Sungmin. “The next boy who walks out of the subway station.”
Sungmin blinks. “What?”
“The next boy who walks out of the subway station. If he’s carrying a red umbrella, let’s start over.”
Sungmin swallows. There is an odd anxiety and a little pain, because it seems like a very cruel game. Why would Kibum put everything on the line over something like this again? Sungmin glances at the subway station. He wants to say yes because he wants this. He wants the next boy to have a red umbrella.
He thinks he’ll die if it doesn’t happen. He can’t go through this again. “…alright.”
The first person to walk out of the station is a woman. Her umbrella is black. A boy. He said a boy. The next three are men, and their umbrellas are not red.
A little boy of ten runs out into the rain and Sungmin’s heart stops. He does not have an umbrella.
And then the boy looks up and he grins, “Kibum-seonsangnim! I brought it back like you asked!” And he pulled out a red umbrella from his backpack and bounds over to them.
Sungmin is crying now, and laughing at the same time. He can’t stop. But Kibum is holding out his hand to shake and he’s wearing that smile that Sungmin remembers. “My name is Kim Kibum. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Sungmin takes his hand and squeezes. “Kim Kibum, the pleasure is mutual.” His voice shakes, and his grip tightens. “My name is Lee Sungmin and I really want to kiss you.”
Sungmin drops his umbrella and leans forward. Kibum’s lips still taste bitter like coffee. But they are soft and warm and not scalding. Sungmin doesn’t fear getting burned. He is still crying, sobbing into Kibum’s mouth and the other man is smiling like some kind of idiot and it’s an awkward collision of laughter and tears.
“Seonsangnim, what’s going on?”
Sungmin pulls away from Kibum at the sound of the boy’s voice. The boy is holding out the red umbrella, his eyes trained on Sungmin curiously. Kibum reaches out a hand and ruffles the boy’s hair.
“Who is he?” Sungmin manages to get out.
Kibum’s smile widens. “This is Henry. What are your thoughts on adoption?”