Chapter VI

They were going about their usual evening routine – Kim cooking the meal and Changmin sitting at the table watching him handle all those utensils with much more skill than he could ever hope to have. But this time it was different. This time too heavy thoughts were plaguing them, making both of them revert to silence as they had in the early times of their acquaintance.

No friendly talks, no laughter. Changmin felt uncomfortable sitting in his own kitchen. Hell, he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. His head was buzzing with all kind of thoughts, pieces of conversations, emotions. It felt like a broken radio going on and on where the static mixes with translation and you can hardly hear anything but the parts of conversation. It was annoying. Worse than any itch possible.

It was giving him a headache.

They ate in silence, too weary and too aware of each other’s presence. Kim was picking his food and Changmin didn’t feel hungry either, though he did force himself to swallow down at least a couple of bites. The taller boy washed the dishes afterwards, and Kim cleaned the table. They moved in tandem about the kitchen, as if they had been living together for months.

Sometimes, Changmin thought, it felt even longer.

Settling down to work on his term paper was even harder. Unable to concentrate even on a simple task, his gaze wandered easily settling on a lonely figure curled in a ball on the couch. Everything seemed perfect about him. White skin, dark hair, fathomless orbs, gentle smile. Too perfect to be real, but Changmin knew better.

He just wished he could guess what was going on in Kim’s mind.

Studying proved to be a fruitless. With a sigh the boy switched off his laptop and went to bed. Sliding under the sheets was both satisfying and disturbing. He prayed silently to whatever deity known to him to fall asleep quickly. But the gods seemed to mock him tonight – open-eyed he lay in his bed counting minutes pass.

Sometimes he thought he dozed off, but he could tell really for he seemed to be acutely aware of his surroundings all the time. It was like being high on caffeine, feel adrenaline rush through his veins. His heart turned out to have the mind of its own – no matter how hard Changmin tried to calm it, it beat with feverish strength.

It is know that animals can predict all sorts of natural disasters, alerting human by their restless behavior. And for a second before an avalanche would fall or an earthquake would start even a human unable to sense what animals can would stop and for a brief second would feel something.

That was what Changmin was feeling. He knew what was going to happen, he just didn’t know when and it was making him restless.

Letting his mind drift in and out of slumber Changmin vaguely regretted that he had never picked up a habit of smoking. Or drinking for that matter. Or anything. It might have calmed him now.

But now matter how much prepared he was, he still gave a start when a soft voice called for him in the darkness, “Changmin?”

“Yes?” he managed to crack out.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Changmin tried not to jump when he heard the sofa creak under the bodyweight shifting.

“I can’t,” he cursed when he heard a pathetic tone in his voice.

“I can help.”

With the beating heart Changmin counts the steps:

One… two… three.

Kim stopped right near his bed, near him. And, yes, no matter what those voices had told him he was not prepared to hear himself say, “Yes.”

The mattress dipped under the weight settling on his bed and for a moment he was trapped under the blanket and a warm body. A breath ghosted over his cheek, and Changmin whispered a name too familiar and yet rolling off his tongue with a difficulty of a foreign word, “Jaejoong.”

It wasn’t really a gasp, more a sharp take-in of air, but it held the same meaning nevertheless.

“So you know,” the boy above him whispered, a frantic note of – what? – happiness in his voice. “You know.”

“Yes,” it was getting hard to breath.

“How long… have you known?”

Jaejoong was close enough to kiss, but Changmin still felt trapped – he couldn’t move.

“Not long,” it seemed that this answer was important somehow, but he couldn’t tell how.

“Thank you.”

Finally he managed to move his hand from under the cover and he tangled his fingers in the dark locks, the moment Jaejoong leaned down to kiss him.

The lips soft and firm at the same time, Changmin thought that he had never kissed anyone like that. It felt too good to be able to simply lie like that and kiss and be kissed. But too soon the blanket was moved aside and a warm body was pressing down onto him. And it felt so much better.

His fingers breached the security of his clothes then and he was left defenseless as the kisses trailed down his chest. It was too hard to pretend that it was all familiar, too hard to cling to his dreams and visions and memories that weren’t his. But this - this desire awakening in his body, these pants and gasps of pleasure – this all was his.

He knew it. He believed it. And he grasped for it.

When Jaejoong penetrated him there was a pain he hadn’t really anticipated and he couldn’t help letting out a gasp. Two hands were cradling his face and the lips were grazing his, and when finally the blood stopped roaring in his ears Changmin could hear what the other was telling him.

“Why do I always hurt you?”

A dozen of answers crowded in his head followed by a single question ‘Whom are you asking?’ and the only thing he finally finds strength to utter was, “It’s my fate.”

And those words triggered a movement. Jaejoong moved and Changmin gasped and it was too painful to be true and too good to end soon. But there was nothing he could do, and soon he was blinded and he thought he screamed. And maybe he blacked out as well.

He felt washed out and plaint, ready to follow any flow. The buzz of voices was both quieter and louder at the same time. If he tried hard enough he could tell what Jaejoong who was lying draped over him was thinking. It was like a fucking joke, because he had wished for this just a few hours ago and now it was what he was trying to avoid doing at any costs.

Because he already knew too much.

“Thank you.”

Drifting off to sleep finally Changmin wasn’t sure if it was him or the other who uttered those words.

//

He woke up neither early nor late. Enough time to get ready and go to the classes and not enough time to think of what he had to do.

The side of his bed was empty; the blanket had been carefully tucked in around him. But after last night nothing was going to keep him warm, Changmin thought distractedly.

The sheets still faintly smelled of their lovemaking reassuring him that it hadn’t been a dream. He almost wished it was. Because even lying huddled under the blanket as he was he could see a piece of paper on his night table. And he knew what was going to be written there. As well as he knew that he would find the bed-linen on the couch carefully folded, a coffee-pot full of steaming liquid in the kitchen and most probably a breakfast on the table as well.

Because it was Jaejoong’s way of saying goodbyes.

All Changmin wanted to do now was to cry, but his eyes were painfully dry. He wanted to shut his eyes and sleep, sleep dreamless sleep just like he had this night. But he knew perfectly well that many days would pass till he would be able to do just that.

He let himself grieve for whole five minutes before he scrambled out of his bed.

Waking around his apartment Changmin was tempted to leave things the way they were – as some kind of a temple for what he had briefly had with Jaejoong. But it was foolish, so made his bed, washed off the traces of sex from his body. He drank coffee, but found no strength to either eat or throw away the meticulously prepared breakfast. So he simply stuffed it into the fridge.

He dressed up quickly, quietly walking around the room as if he was afraid to disturb someone – or something – sleeping. He took only keys, leaving his cell phone behind because he didn’t really need it now.

He almost forgot about the note. Almost because he kept thinking about the piece of paper as he was walking about the room. He tried to ignore it. But he knew too well where the note had been left – the knowledge of it was imprinted on his skin by Jaejoong’s kisses.

Finally he made himself approach the night table and take the offending piece of paper. He didn’t need to read it; he knew the text by heart by now. But he was still unprepared to hear something land on the floor with a clink, roll a bit and then stop just half a meter from him.

The thick platinum ring wasn’t something he expected, something he hoped to find. But there it was, lying on the floor, daring him to pick it up. Changmin knew what he had to do, knew it for a long time. He had prepared himself to this. He had thought about this.

It was a turning point.

Everything that would happen from now on was solely depending on his choice. His and nobody else’s. 

He actually thought that it would be much harder than this. But he simply bent and picked up the ring. It felt warm.

A point of no return.

Everything could have happened differently before this. Everything or nothing. Because he had made his choice when he had been lying in Jaejoong’s arms. So now it was simply a trial of his will.

Slipping the ring in the pocket of his jeans alongside with the note, Changmin walked out of his apartment without looking back.

He wasn’t planning to return.

//






to be continued