kisoap
in
thekpop100
#010 - thrice swallowed, four times consumed
Title: thrice swallowed, four times consumed
Author: kisoap
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: EXO + Red Velvet, Lay/Irene
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Challenge # & Prompt: #010 - playing with fire
Word Count: 800w
When Yixing comes to, he’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen that’s parked on the shoulder of a highway, window rolled down so the noise of passing traffic pounds through. It’s so loud that he doesn’t realize that the radio’s on until a small hand with nails painted cherry turns it off.
He turns to look at her. Large pair of sunglasses covering most of her face, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, lips stained the same shade of cherry as her nails. A half-finished bottle of cola in her other hand, the one that didn’t turn off the radio. He doesn’t know her name.
She takes a sip. Her lipstick leaves a mark on the bottle’s rim. She swallows. He swallows.
“Drive,” she says, voice soft. Maybe he knew her name, once. Yixing puts the key in the ignition without much of a second thought.
The name’s Joohyun. Bae Joohyun. Or at least that’s what she tells him when he asks, after wetting her lips in deep thought sometime in between late afternoon and dusk. They’ve had this conversation at least two times before, he learns, which explains the itching sensation of déjà vu, if not more. She - Joohyun, Yixing trains himself to remember - doesn’t keep track.
Yixing forgets a lot of things, he’s told. From the innocuous birthdays and old math formulas to the more extreme - names of friends and cities he’s lived in for decades. He forgets the names of cities they pass right after he’s finished reading the sign. He forgets the insistent beating of two hearts in his chest, two spit up, four swallowed. He forgets the way Joohyun pulls matchsticks between her teeth, lighting them with a lighter. And when the flame dances dangerously close to her cherry red lips, she picks the unburnt tip between her fingers and ingests the fire.
There’s a place for people like them somewhere in the desert. That’s where they’re going, and that’s all Yixing knows. When he tries to ask Joohyun for more, she’s either asleep - head resting on her shoulder, lips slightly parted and blue in the midnight, the brief light of the moon and stars holding her cheek - or silent, like he’s a child who’s asked the same question too many times before.
They’re eating fast food in the car when Yixing asks her about it for what he thinks is the first time.
“Can I try?” when she’s got another matchstick between her teeth. The desert air filtering in through her half-open window is sandy and hot.
Joohyun doesn’t reply. Her hands shake as she handles the lighter. Yixing takes it from her and lights the tip for her.
“You’ll only get burned,” she says, voice trembling. The match quivers with her lips. Those deep, cherry red lips. They leave marks on everything.
He considers. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Joohyun looks at him pointedly and he can hear his two hearts going fast in an off-kilter beat. “Hearts and matchsticks aren’t the same.”
One night, he wakes up and forgets who she is.
And then, Yixing smells the earthy scent of smoke, plumes of ivory escaping a small mouth painted cherry red, the way she coughs up wildfires and his hearts go into overdrive, the pale sliver of skin when her shirt rode up and before she pulled it down prudishly for all her fires and flames and burns, and for all the hearts he’d swallowed and beat out of his chest before -
And then he remembers.
(He’s been burned before, with her matchsticks and the fires she starts with her tongue, rolling off like the way she can’t quite say Yixing like his parents did, no matter how many times he repeated it for her to listen to. He was burned the moment she - Joohyun, Joohyun - tangled her tongue with his and forced Soojung and Qian’s hearts out of him, the smoke of her uncontainable brush fires choking him until he reached for hers. Her heart.
He swallowed. She swallowed. Cherry red lips. Cola bottle pressed to said lips. Sliver of skin in flux. Matchsticks between her teeth. Shaky hand - his shaky hand - reaching through the ivory peels of smoke, broken record of i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry playing for someone who didn’t want to listen.
Shoulder of a highway.)
So this time Joohyun lights the match between her teeth, Yixing puts his lips on hers. Catches the stick with his tongue and swallows it down - flame and all - the smoke smothering his lungs.
He coughs, chokes. Breaths in again before coughing some more. Joohyun watches him with what Yixing thinks is a blurry concern.
And just when Yixing thinks he’s going to die, it happens. He presses his open mouth against Joohyun’s and gives her heart back.
Author: kisoap
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: EXO + Red Velvet, Lay/Irene
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Challenge # & Prompt: #010 - playing with fire
Word Count: 800w
When Yixing comes to, he’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen that’s parked on the shoulder of a highway, window rolled down so the noise of passing traffic pounds through. It’s so loud that he doesn’t realize that the radio’s on until a small hand with nails painted cherry turns it off.
He turns to look at her. Large pair of sunglasses covering most of her face, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, lips stained the same shade of cherry as her nails. A half-finished bottle of cola in her other hand, the one that didn’t turn off the radio. He doesn’t know her name.
She takes a sip. Her lipstick leaves a mark on the bottle’s rim. She swallows. He swallows.
“Drive,” she says, voice soft. Maybe he knew her name, once. Yixing puts the key in the ignition without much of a second thought.
The name’s Joohyun. Bae Joohyun. Or at least that’s what she tells him when he asks, after wetting her lips in deep thought sometime in between late afternoon and dusk. They’ve had this conversation at least two times before, he learns, which explains the itching sensation of déjà vu, if not more. She - Joohyun, Yixing trains himself to remember - doesn’t keep track.
Yixing forgets a lot of things, he’s told. From the innocuous birthdays and old math formulas to the more extreme - names of friends and cities he’s lived in for decades. He forgets the names of cities they pass right after he’s finished reading the sign. He forgets the insistent beating of two hearts in his chest, two spit up, four swallowed. He forgets the way Joohyun pulls matchsticks between her teeth, lighting them with a lighter. And when the flame dances dangerously close to her cherry red lips, she picks the unburnt tip between her fingers and ingests the fire.
There’s a place for people like them somewhere in the desert. That’s where they’re going, and that’s all Yixing knows. When he tries to ask Joohyun for more, she’s either asleep - head resting on her shoulder, lips slightly parted and blue in the midnight, the brief light of the moon and stars holding her cheek - or silent, like he’s a child who’s asked the same question too many times before.
They’re eating fast food in the car when Yixing asks her about it for what he thinks is the first time.
“Can I try?” when she’s got another matchstick between her teeth. The desert air filtering in through her half-open window is sandy and hot.
Joohyun doesn’t reply. Her hands shake as she handles the lighter. Yixing takes it from her and lights the tip for her.
“You’ll only get burned,” she says, voice trembling. The match quivers with her lips. Those deep, cherry red lips. They leave marks on everything.
He considers. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Joohyun looks at him pointedly and he can hear his two hearts going fast in an off-kilter beat. “Hearts and matchsticks aren’t the same.”
One night, he wakes up and forgets who she is.
And then, Yixing smells the earthy scent of smoke, plumes of ivory escaping a small mouth painted cherry red, the way she coughs up wildfires and his hearts go into overdrive, the pale sliver of skin when her shirt rode up and before she pulled it down prudishly for all her fires and flames and burns, and for all the hearts he’d swallowed and beat out of his chest before -
And then he remembers.
(He’s been burned before, with her matchsticks and the fires she starts with her tongue, rolling off like the way she can’t quite say Yixing like his parents did, no matter how many times he repeated it for her to listen to. He was burned the moment she - Joohyun, Joohyun - tangled her tongue with his and forced Soojung and Qian’s hearts out of him, the smoke of her uncontainable brush fires choking him until he reached for hers. Her heart.
He swallowed. She swallowed. Cherry red lips. Cola bottle pressed to said lips. Sliver of skin in flux. Matchsticks between her teeth. Shaky hand - his shaky hand - reaching through the ivory peels of smoke, broken record of i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry playing for someone who didn’t want to listen.
Shoulder of a highway.)
So this time Joohyun lights the match between her teeth, Yixing puts his lips on hers. Catches the stick with his tongue and swallows it down - flame and all - the smoke smothering his lungs.
He coughs, chokes. Breaths in again before coughing some more. Joohyun watches him with what Yixing thinks is a blurry concern.
And just when Yixing thinks he’s going to die, it happens. He presses his open mouth against Joohyun’s and gives her heart back.