(no subject)
ces petits riens
hankyung/amber, pg-13, 1485ⓦ
Note: Quote by Jonathan Safran Foer. For Jeny; happy (belated) birthday.
Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.
*
Heechul is like a drug: possessive, demanding, a foreign taste in Han Geng's mouth. He does all the wrong things, he takes and he keeps and he doesn't give back. There is nothing functional about it; Heechul is a car crash waiting to happen. Heechul is a car crash Han Geng wants to happen; spinning out of control has never felt quite so gratifying and it's new, it upsets his entire hemisphere. He takes the fall. It's just after the millennium and people are no longer grateful to be alive past 1999; he's still young and Heechul's a mistake he's willing to make. Nobody ever warns him about how destructive it is, loving Heechul.
Bachelorette number one is everything he's ever said he wants. She's every obligation he's ever had to fill: somewhere between plain and pretty, kind and sweet and pure. She covers her mouth when she laughs and has a little bit of a sweet tooth. She is Goldilocks, every measuring cup just right, but right is no longer right. He has an argument with her after two months about putting things in the refrigerator the wrong way, just to have an excuse to leave.
Bachelorette number two is the exact opposite, and all the same shades of wrong. She's like an uncouth Eva Green: femme fatale, dark hair and a voice slightly husky from smoking cigarettes since she was seventeen. Her lipstick is always too red; all she reads is feminist literature and grocery store paperback romances. She reminds Han Geng of Shanghai, not the people but the place, gritty and in between third-world and first-world, and she leaves him first.
Bachelorette numbers three through five are blind dates. Han Geng calls for the check early every time, and ignores their looks of disappointment (three), anger (four), relief (five).
I could jump, Heechul is saying. Everybody hates you for the jump, but nobody blames you for the fall. It could even look like an accident. I trusted you, does that make me stupid, or-
Don't, Han Geng says. His voice cracks on the word.
Five minutes ago he had known exactly how long it had been; now, he's no longer sure. Seconds, months, years? The phone is warm against his ear; Heechul's voice, alcohol-rough, is so familiar he has to remember to breathe.
Why, Heechul says, and he doesn't even sound angry. He sounds confused, like what Han Geng's saying doesn't make any sense at all.
He could say it. It would probably make Heechul angry. He thinks he could live with angry; he thinks could live with anything but this, Heechul acting like he no longer believes in gravity and still wanting to fall.
You weren't supposed to leave, Heechul says, and hangs up.
Six is the one he never talks about because six is (happiness) Heechul. A non-entity: not a relapse, but far too close for comfort.
Bachelorette number seven happens right afterward, in a blur.
Bachelorette number eight doesn't actually exist, but she's somehow the one he ends up denying on national television, all the time. Paparazzi snap photos of the two of them together, side-by-side in the parking lot of his apartment building. It could almost be real, he thinks when the photos surface online, but he doesn't even recognise her. In the second picture he's turned towards her in a way that's easy to misconstrue as protective; she looks like a good girl, even if a blurry photo isn't much to go by. Whenever someone brings her up, Han Geng just throws his head back and laughs.
It's July, in the middle of a heat wave; living in Beijing, Han Geng should be used to unbearable weather, but he isn't. The next door neighbour is blasting "Happy" and his walls are shaking fit to collapse under the bass. He knocks five times, each time slightly more impatient than the last, before the door finally swings open. He opens his mouth to say, "I'm sorry, but could you turn down the volume?" but no sound comes out.
She gets to it first. "Han Geng?"
"The Rolling Stones is perfect moving music," Amber argues, taking the cup of tea he hands her.
"Maybe not at that volume," he suggests a little weakly. He feels a headache coming on.
She looks at him suddenly, gaze sharp like he's transparent. "Sorry if it gave you a headache or something," she says abruptly, and takes another drink of tea, breaking eye contact.
"No, that's okay," he hears himself say.
She hasn't really changed. For a few years, she had taken the industry by storm; every guy and girl in Korea who swung that way - and then some - had fallen for her coy smiles and little smirks. Still, she's different: hair tangled, chapstick in her pocket, make-up a little clumsier now that she does it on her own (not that she bothers, most of the time).
He ends up helping her move in. It takes weeks, because Amber doesn't seem to be doing any of it while he's away. When he mention this, she just grins.
It's almost impressive, how three-fourths of her kitchen is covered in a thin film of flour and cracker crumbs. He sets the bottle of wine he's holding down on her dining room table instead.
"Pass me the," she says, and stops. "Meat."
There's a package of prosciutto on the counter; he picks it up. There is flour streaked through her hair; she's leaning over a canapé tray, adding cubes of cheese to vol-au-vent cases. He leans in to hand it to her - her hair tickles his nose; she smells faintly of mandarin oranges, soft and sweet and distracting - and then the doorbell rings. "Shit," Amber says, and then: "You're a hallyu star, go entertain." She leaves dusty fingerprints on the back of his shirt when she pushes him out of the kitchen.
Later, he's putting plates back into the top shelf of her kitchen cabinet, stretched out on tiptoe, when there's a muffled noise to his left. Amber's standing beside him on a chair, hands full of wineglasses. She ducks under his arm, and tries to hand them to him. He kisses her instead.
"Why here," he says, Friday night. They're both sitting boneless on the couch, trying to pay attention to the nightly news. The window is open; the air outside is musky and it makes him drowsy. "I mean, why not go back to America?"
She blinks, shifts to look at him. "I don't know," she says, after a moment. "All the moving around kind of fucks you up, like home stops meaning what it used to. No place ever really feels permanent enough. America just felt like the wrong place to be, you know?"
"Yeah," he says. "I know." Outside, a police siren begins to wail, and then it's silent, his hand running from her heel to the inside of her knee, to the back of her thigh.
When he wakes up, he can still see the impression in the sheets where she'd slept. His Vacheron reads thirty-two past nine, and it takes him six minutes to find his shirt, flung into a shaded corner halfway under his bureau.
Amber is in the kitchen, in a plaid overshirt. It's grey and blue and clashes with her hair dye. It's his, has to be because the shoulders are a little broad and she's rolled up the sleeves to the elbow. It makes her look delicate, standing in his kitchen, feet bare, collarbones peeking out of a too-wide collar. She looks like something out of a John Mayer song.
"I made tea," she says, and he realises that he's staring. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, the way he's starting to learn she does when she's self-conscious.
He can't help but think, a few years ago and things would have been different: she would have been in basketball shorts and a T-shirt that read "KISS MY SASS," setting off smoke alarms trying to make eggs sunny-side up. He leans in and kisses her, slow and experimental, and her hands move to his already-crumpled collar. First dance, now this: Han Geng's life is all about the language of kinetics, and Amber doesn't hesitate.
He finds he likes different, likes running fingers down the curve of her spine, mapping the sharp curve of her jaw, her smirk, her elbows and knees, committing to memory the smell of her soap and the static she leaves on his hairbrush in the mornings; her underwear in his drawer, her smaller indent within his own footprint on his slippers, her organic apple cider exfoliants and oatmeal with shea butter moisturisers next to his Calvin Klein cologne. Fingerprints of her, everywhere.
In China, the number nine is auspicious, always painted red. Nine means longevity, eternity. "I don't believe in superstition," Amber says, wrinkling her nose, but Han Geng stops counting anyway.
hankyung/amber, pg-13, 1485ⓦ
Note: Quote by Jonathan Safran Foer. For Jeny; happy (belated) birthday.
Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.
*
Heechul is like a drug: possessive, demanding, a foreign taste in Han Geng's mouth. He does all the wrong things, he takes and he keeps and he doesn't give back. There is nothing functional about it; Heechul is a car crash waiting to happen. Heechul is a car crash Han Geng wants to happen; spinning out of control has never felt quite so gratifying and it's new, it upsets his entire hemisphere. He takes the fall. It's just after the millennium and people are no longer grateful to be alive past 1999; he's still young and Heechul's a mistake he's willing to make. Nobody ever warns him about how destructive it is, loving Heechul.
Bachelorette number one is everything he's ever said he wants. She's every obligation he's ever had to fill: somewhere between plain and pretty, kind and sweet and pure. She covers her mouth when she laughs and has a little bit of a sweet tooth. She is Goldilocks, every measuring cup just right, but right is no longer right. He has an argument with her after two months about putting things in the refrigerator the wrong way, just to have an excuse to leave.
Bachelorette number two is the exact opposite, and all the same shades of wrong. She's like an uncouth Eva Green: femme fatale, dark hair and a voice slightly husky from smoking cigarettes since she was seventeen. Her lipstick is always too red; all she reads is feminist literature and grocery store paperback romances. She reminds Han Geng of Shanghai, not the people but the place, gritty and in between third-world and first-world, and she leaves him first.
Bachelorette numbers three through five are blind dates. Han Geng calls for the check early every time, and ignores their looks of disappointment (three), anger (four), relief (five).
I could jump, Heechul is saying. Everybody hates you for the jump, but nobody blames you for the fall. It could even look like an accident. I trusted you, does that make me stupid, or-
Don't, Han Geng says. His voice cracks on the word.
Five minutes ago he had known exactly how long it had been; now, he's no longer sure. Seconds, months, years? The phone is warm against his ear; Heechul's voice, alcohol-rough, is so familiar he has to remember to breathe.
Why, Heechul says, and he doesn't even sound angry. He sounds confused, like what Han Geng's saying doesn't make any sense at all.
He could say it. It would probably make Heechul angry. He thinks he could live with angry; he thinks could live with anything but this, Heechul acting like he no longer believes in gravity and still wanting to fall.
You weren't supposed to leave, Heechul says, and hangs up.
Six is the one he never talks about because six is (happiness) Heechul. A non-entity: not a relapse, but far too close for comfort.
Bachelorette number seven happens right afterward, in a blur.
Bachelorette number eight doesn't actually exist, but she's somehow the one he ends up denying on national television, all the time. Paparazzi snap photos of the two of them together, side-by-side in the parking lot of his apartment building. It could almost be real, he thinks when the photos surface online, but he doesn't even recognise her. In the second picture he's turned towards her in a way that's easy to misconstrue as protective; she looks like a good girl, even if a blurry photo isn't much to go by. Whenever someone brings her up, Han Geng just throws his head back and laughs.
It's July, in the middle of a heat wave; living in Beijing, Han Geng should be used to unbearable weather, but he isn't. The next door neighbour is blasting "Happy" and his walls are shaking fit to collapse under the bass. He knocks five times, each time slightly more impatient than the last, before the door finally swings open. He opens his mouth to say, "I'm sorry, but could you turn down the volume?" but no sound comes out.
She gets to it first. "Han Geng?"
"The Rolling Stones is perfect moving music," Amber argues, taking the cup of tea he hands her.
"Maybe not at that volume," he suggests a little weakly. He feels a headache coming on.
She looks at him suddenly, gaze sharp like he's transparent. "Sorry if it gave you a headache or something," she says abruptly, and takes another drink of tea, breaking eye contact.
"No, that's okay," he hears himself say.
She hasn't really changed. For a few years, she had taken the industry by storm; every guy and girl in Korea who swung that way - and then some - had fallen for her coy smiles and little smirks. Still, she's different: hair tangled, chapstick in her pocket, make-up a little clumsier now that she does it on her own (not that she bothers, most of the time).
He ends up helping her move in. It takes weeks, because Amber doesn't seem to be doing any of it while he's away. When he mention this, she just grins.
It's almost impressive, how three-fourths of her kitchen is covered in a thin film of flour and cracker crumbs. He sets the bottle of wine he's holding down on her dining room table instead.
"Pass me the," she says, and stops. "Meat."
There's a package of prosciutto on the counter; he picks it up. There is flour streaked through her hair; she's leaning over a canapé tray, adding cubes of cheese to vol-au-vent cases. He leans in to hand it to her - her hair tickles his nose; she smells faintly of mandarin oranges, soft and sweet and distracting - and then the doorbell rings. "Shit," Amber says, and then: "You're a hallyu star, go entertain." She leaves dusty fingerprints on the back of his shirt when she pushes him out of the kitchen.
Later, he's putting plates back into the top shelf of her kitchen cabinet, stretched out on tiptoe, when there's a muffled noise to his left. Amber's standing beside him on a chair, hands full of wineglasses. She ducks under his arm, and tries to hand them to him. He kisses her instead.
"Why here," he says, Friday night. They're both sitting boneless on the couch, trying to pay attention to the nightly news. The window is open; the air outside is musky and it makes him drowsy. "I mean, why not go back to America?"
She blinks, shifts to look at him. "I don't know," she says, after a moment. "All the moving around kind of fucks you up, like home stops meaning what it used to. No place ever really feels permanent enough. America just felt like the wrong place to be, you know?"
"Yeah," he says. "I know." Outside, a police siren begins to wail, and then it's silent, his hand running from her heel to the inside of her knee, to the back of her thigh.
When he wakes up, he can still see the impression in the sheets where she'd slept. His Vacheron reads thirty-two past nine, and it takes him six minutes to find his shirt, flung into a shaded corner halfway under his bureau.
Amber is in the kitchen, in a plaid overshirt. It's grey and blue and clashes with her hair dye. It's his, has to be because the shoulders are a little broad and she's rolled up the sleeves to the elbow. It makes her look delicate, standing in his kitchen, feet bare, collarbones peeking out of a too-wide collar. She looks like something out of a John Mayer song.
"I made tea," she says, and he realises that he's staring. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, the way he's starting to learn she does when she's self-conscious.
He can't help but think, a few years ago and things would have been different: she would have been in basketball shorts and a T-shirt that read "KISS MY SASS," setting off smoke alarms trying to make eggs sunny-side up. He leans in and kisses her, slow and experimental, and her hands move to his already-crumpled collar. First dance, now this: Han Geng's life is all about the language of kinetics, and Amber doesn't hesitate.
He finds he likes different, likes running fingers down the curve of her spine, mapping the sharp curve of her jaw, her smirk, her elbows and knees, committing to memory the smell of her soap and the static she leaves on his hairbrush in the mornings; her underwear in his drawer, her smaller indent within his own footprint on his slippers, her organic apple cider exfoliants and oatmeal with shea butter moisturisers next to his Calvin Klein cologne. Fingerprints of her, everywhere.
In China, the number nine is auspicious, always painted red. Nine means longevity, eternity. "I don't believe in superstition," Amber says, wrinkling her nose, but Han Geng stops counting anyway.