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Song Sihyun ([personal profile] hismelody) wrote2021-04-02 04:16 am
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I'm on waves, out being tossed

Eventually, the lack of sleep was always going to catch up to him. Through three sleepless nights, or at least mostly sleepless, S knew it, exhaustion increasing, though easy enough to push past with so much else to focus on. Still, it was only ever a temporary solution at best, nothing that could have lasted much longer than it did. With that being the case, it shouldn't be such a surprise when, after that third night, on their third full day together, he hits a wall, no longer able to keep his eyes open, drifting off while sitting on the couch. He isn't expecting it all the same, though even that, he barely registers, just as he's only half-aware of J ushering him back to bed, too tired to protest or to focus on why he should.

It's different when he wakes up. S grew accustomed a long time ago to sleeping and waking up alone, though it was one of the most difficult things about all that solitude, no longer having a warm body beside him at such times. He and J shared a bed for years, even before their relationship became more than platonic, cuddling together for warmth in the one bed in their small studio when the weather began to change. Of course, he felt it then, the beginning of something more, and it wasn't all that long after that they admitted their feelings for each other, but they spent ages like that. Even when they fought, even when J would barely speak to him, he still had the anchor of J's presence at his side, the distance sometimes easier to breach that way. It was comforting, always, but like so much else, he never thought he would lose it until he did.

He had months, though, after J left, after J died. At some point, following the former, it just became routine, as sad and empty as everything else about his life, J's absence as tangible as it ever was to be with him. It shouldn't, then, have taken only three nights to change that. They've hardly been apart in that time, though, save for brief moments of one going into another room for something or other. He's spent every night holding J as he slept, so overwhelmingly grateful to be able to do so, determined to do anything in his power to keep him safe.

So, when S wakes up distinctly alone, disoriented and unaware even of how long he's been asleep, the first thing he feels is cold, sheer terror.

For moments — sometimes hours, even — at a time, he's managed not to dwell on it. It's always been there, though, never too far from his thoughts, always ready to creep back in, the memory of how J sounded that first day on his couch, what S was so fucking scared he might do, J's promise not to stay, but to try. Even that was more than S could have asked for, and yet he knows it's not a guarantee, either. And while the past couple of days have been good more often than not, there's no telling what might happen with J alone, left to his own thoughts. Believing that a couple of decent days would be enough to override all that darkness would be entirely too naïve, even for S; it isn't as if he ever stood a chance against it before, and things are far worse now than they ever were then, even if, in some ways, they're better, too. He doesn't know how long it's been, he doesn't know what might have happened, and it's too much, his chest so tight that it feels like he can't breathe. Despite still being tired and out of sorts, it takes him only moments to pull himself out of bed, trying not to move quite as frantically as he feels but unable to take his time about it.

Not so very long ago at all, he woke up to find out, not very long after, that J was already gone. Now, as he moves out of the bedroom and down the hall, he silently prays to whatever deities might exist that he won't be too late again. He only just got J back. He isn't at all ready to lose him again.

He's dimly aware of a few things — muffled noise that he can't distinguish, the fact that the bathroom door is still open and the light off, which is something of a relief in its own right, though he doesn't really feel it until he rounds the corner and sees J sitting on the couch, watching TV. Overwhelmed and breathless, trembling with worry, he presses his free hand to his chest, the other resting against the wall for support he's surprised to realize how much he needs. "You're alright," he finally manages to say, though it's more to himself than anything else, his voice so small he's not even sure it will be fully audible over the sound of whatever J is watching. He doesn't care, just taking in the sight of him, mercifully alive and alright, relief mingling with the panic he can't yet shake off.
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-20 12:42 pm (UTC)(link)
J is almost certain his fingers twitch reflexively. Dancing around the subject just makes him wish there was a piano here already, and that feels like all the more reason not to have one. He's aware, too, how much that sounds, even to him, like he's punishing himself, but it's the smart thing to do and, anyway, he ought to be punished somehow. If giving up music is the cost of staying alive and keeping others alive, too, it's a price he'll have to pay.

Still, he can feel it tightening his throat, his gaze lowered but not quite taking in the food, as he scrambles for an answer. He doesn't have one. Or he has exactly one and it's the wrong one.

Eventually he'll have to say it. He can't just erase music from his existence without a word. There is, admittedly, a small part of him that's almost relieved, a bigger part ashamed to feel that way. Even so, it's so intrinsically woven into his being that he doesn't know how to address its absence without starting a conversation that ends with him in tears, and he's already cried enough tonight. They both have.

Even in that tiny studio, they managed to make room.

It feels disingenuous to keep on as if S doesn't know what he isn't saying. He must, and the fact that he hasn't brought up a piano himself says as much. J's skin is crawling with holding it back. He did that a lot before, keeping things just under his tongue, feeling his nerves light up unpleasantly. Though he never stopped feeling uncomfortable about it, he did get used to it. He doesn't want to do so again.

"I have an idea," he admits wryly, his tongue feeling too thick in his mouth, "but not a good one." He really made a mess of everything. That isn't something he wants to say now. It all fell apart so utterly, and that isn't something J wants S to think about right now, when he's already worried about J's wellbeing. "Ah, nice to have a bigger bedroom, though. And a bigger bed. Bigger shower."
beklemmt: (pic#14832622)

[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-22 07:55 am (UTC)(link)
Some part of J is practically begging for S to say something about it so he won't have to be the one to do so, begging himself to give voice to his fears. It feels cruel, though, when S has had such a rough night already. It's cowardice, though, he knows, that really keeps him quiet. Just dodging it hurts, and it's only going to get more difficult, not less, but he doesn't want to break down again tonight and worry S more.

Still, the way S reaches out makes J's heart thump harder for a moment, longing just to let it all spill out of him. The problem is, on top of the rest of it, he doesn't know exactly what it is he'd say. There's too much he isn't ready to discuss — though, if he's honest, he doesn't know how he'll ever be able to talk about the last several months easily — and so much he doesn't know how to put into words.

"Probably not," he agrees, forcing a small smile. "Maybe we just stick to the basics for now." Even that feels a little off to him. Music, after all, is a basic necessity of life for them, even if a piano can hardly be considered such. Even a radio seems like too much to ask for right now, though. He's too scared of himself, too afraid of what he'll do if given the slightest nudge in the wrong direction again. Trying to move forward without any kind of music — even the idea of it leaves him feeling small and lost, and yet he doesn't know what other choice he has, at least to begin with. "Still, it's nice to dream, right? I was already coming up with an entire house."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-24 07:44 am (UTC)(link)
It scares J now, how big he dreams. He knows how that ended before, and he's always wanted so much. Faced with the prospect of outlining another one, even an idle fantasy, he finds himself hesitating a moment, having to remind himself it's alright. Though he's always had grand ambitions, he's also known that part of what prompted him to want so much was knowing that he would likely never get any of it. A house has never seemed like an actual possibility. Maybe, maybe, if he'd fulfilled his dreams as a composer, he might one day have been able to make it happen, but it's always felt like something contingent on so much else having to go right first, and if it doesn't seem possible, if it doesn't feel almost but not quite in reach, then it can't be as dangerous as something he could have if only. There's nothing about a house to kill for.

Why S still looks at him like his dreams are something good about him, he doesn't know. They frighten him now.

But a house, a house might be okay.

"It's nothing fancy," he says, prodding around a piece of bulgogi. "A little one, just on the edge of town, I think, so it's quiet but not far from everything. Just a couple of bedrooms, so we can use one for... whatever we want to do that week." He huffs out a laugh and takes another bite. Though his true passion has never wavered, there are plenty of things he might have liked to try if he'd had the time or the money to indulge in new interests. Maybe now he can. "With a kitchen as big as this one, and a nice bathroom. Maybe... a little garden. I don't think I'd be any good with plants, but it'd be nice to have some flowers. Trees, like I said, to hide behind, and a porch to sit on." He could, he knows, go on. Once he starts spinning dreams, it's easy to get swept up in them, especially when he's sharing them with S, but he wants S to be able to chime in. Also he wants some more tteokbokki, so he picks up a bit, and nods to S. "What else?"
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-25 12:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Even this TV is nicer than anything J has had before; it's a novelty to have one at all, after months in that quiet room on campus with only a radio and his failures for company. He likes the idea of it, though, if only because it's something they could do together, curling up on the couch and watching whatever nonsense comes on.

It's the rest that touches him, though, his smile soft, faintly grateful. In another time, another life, he knows what he would put in a study. In this one, it matters more to him that S put it in these terms than any notion of what he would do in it. "All of that," he agrees. "A tub so big we could just rest in it together without being cramped. And — and it would be good, a room like that, where... if I need to be alone, I can just... close the door." It wouldn't have to be more than that. He doesn't need to be able to lock the door or anything, and he thinks S would feel better if he can't, though maybe that's bringing too much reality into the dream. But if he needed that space, it would be good to have a way to signal as much gently, especially if he doesn't feel like speaking. It isn't like he doesn't want S's company specifically. There are just times when he needs to be entirely on his own, at least for a little while, and he knows S knows that, but still, with how he cruelly he behaved before, it helps to hear S suggest this, gives him hope that he might be able to take those moments in time he needs without S taking it personally. There was a time when he wouldn't have, but J is gradually adjusting to the understanding that he made that difficult.

"Just until I feel like a person again," he says wryly, though sometimes the problem is that he feels far too much of a person. He gives a little gasp as a thought occurs to him which isn't actually dramatic at all. "Yah, you know what else we should have? A washer and dryer in the house." They have it in the basement here, but even that is a luxury to J. He's never once had that kind of thing for his very own. Most of his life, he washed his clothes by hand — or, really, very often his mother did it while he was at school — and they hung it up to dry, or else they walked to a laundromat. But if he gets to build a dream for them, then it's going to be one where they don't have to make their way into town or wherever every time they run out of clean clothes and sheets.
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-26 09:46 am (UTC)(link)
They may never get that. As much as J would love for this to be real, he knows that might not be possible. Houses cost more money than he could ever dream of saving at the kind of work he's done before, and he's suited for even less now. Even if he could still pursue music, that's hardly a career likely to make him rich by any stretch of the imagination. He hasn't finished college and he can't even wrap his head around the idea of ever going back, even if he could attain a scholarship, and he jumps at shadows. Odds are, they'll never have more than an apartment.

But this apartment is more than they had in Seoul. Being here at all, alive and physically well, with the man he loves, he would have made do with a place as small as they had before. He can't pretend, though, that it doesn't help that they have more space here, even as he knows he won't be able to take advantage of that for a while. He's not all that inclined to be away from S for long anyway, and he thinks S needs his presence even more.

"It would be nice," he agrees. "Close enough to town it isn't an ordeal to get groceries, but somewhere quiet and calm." He laughs softly. "Where we can make as much noise as we want without pissing off the neighbors." He arches an eyebrow, giving S a significant glance. Here, at least, without any piano on hand and the pair of them currently not inclined to argue, there's really no other kind of noise they could make. He's thankful as it is that the walls in this apartment seem much sturdier than the ones in Seoul, because he's not particularly interested in or practiced at being quiet, and he doesn't need nosy neighbors making guesses about what they're up to. "Mm, I like this apartment though. I'm happy here."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-27 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
J smiles bright at that, nodding in turn, pleased what he said went over well. He doesn't want S to think otherwise, after all. There have been times when he spun stories of possible futures because he was discontent with his present, they both know that. Dreaming about a house now is just an idle fantasy, a hope for the kind of life they might have. The important thing is that they have one together at all. He doesn't want S to misunderstand and think him unhappy to be here so quickly.

"One day, maybe," he agrees. "And by then, we'll probably have all kinds of things filling this place and no idea how it filled up." In spite of their shifting moods, though, it's been a nice night — a nice day overall — and it feels good to sit here like this and see S looking happy. It wasn't very long ago at all that he was in a panic and J barely knew how to help, and it feels like, somehow, he managed to get it right. It's an unfamiliar feeling these days, the quiet contentment of being useful to someone else, reassuring, providing love and comfort. Getting things right instead of ruining everything.

He glances up from another spoonful of samgyetang and tips his head to the side. "Ah, I think already I would miss this place. It feels important. Where we had a fresh start. But I wouldn't miss sharing walls with neighbors."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-27 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
It's going to be a while, J thinks, before he stops circling back around to that, how lucky they are. There's a lot that he's still scared of, a lot that hurts, and he knows that it's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better. He's pushing too many things back as hard as he can. It isn't sustainable, he knows that, and he isn't going to try to keep it all tamped down forever; sooner or later, he'll need to talk about these things. All things considered, it'll probably be best for both of them to do so. For now, though, his main goal is to do what he has to do to stay alive. Talking about things, working through everything he's done and how he got to this point, none of that is possible if he lets himself get so weighed down he can't keep going. It's a hell of a lot easier said than done, and there's no way to shut it all out, but he can try, at least, to face it just a little at a time. And, in doing so, it's easier to face it with S, to let S be here for him, and to recognize how incredibly fortunate they are to have that chance.

So the apartment may not be anything special at a glance, beyond being notably more spacious than anywhere else he's lived previously, but it means a lot. Their studio gave him a similar feeling — they moved there under such grim circumstances, but it was home, the first place they had that was theirs and no one else's, the place where they fell in love. Or, anyway, where they admitted they had done so, since J is pretty sure he fell in love sometime before that without having put a name to it. It's never been something he could pinpoint with any precision. Figuring out he had fallen in love was a more distinct moment than having done so to begin with.

"Home," he agrees softly. "I'm glad it's home." He really didn't want to leave, but he was so determined to do so if he felt it was necessary. Though he hasn't yet felt nearly as desperate as he did that first day, when he fell apart so utterly he only half-remembers any of it, he knows now he had it backwards. If he's a threat to S in any way, he thinks, he'll figure that out fast; he's hyperaware of the possibility and on close guard. He's much more of a danger to himself, and if he were on his own — he knows how easily he can fall into despair, how utterly without warning. And if S has trouble sleeping now, J can't imagine him sleeping at all, knowing J was by himself in this state. "Things haven't felt like home in so long, and now..."

He shrugs. It's hard to find words for how overwhelmingly good it is to feel this way again. Even after he left S and moved back in with his mother, that brief while before the professor invited him to stay on campus, it didn't feel like home anymore, like he'd somehow grown too big for his childhood spaces, took up too much room, all jagged limbs jammed into awkward corners. He needed this, needed to find a way to feel at all like himself again. Needed, more than anything else, to be with S.
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-28 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hearing S say that makes something ache in J's chest, sympathetic and adoring and regretful. Even if things hadn't ended as they did, they probably never had a chance to put it right. He'd gotten too much far too wrong. Even so, it stings to think he left S alone with that, facing a future by himself. Eventually, J has to believe, he would have found happiness, whether in something or someone else. He can't pretend, though, that he isn't thankful that never had time to happen, however impossible it might be that they're here.

He nods, small, and then, without quite thinking about it, gets to his feet. Walking around the table to S's side, he bends down to kiss him. It's probably ridiculous. The table isn't that big and they probably don't have much longer before they both decide they're done eating anyway. He doesn't care. He just wants to kiss his boyfriend, to touch him, a hand on S's shoulder and the other at his cheek. This time, he's determined, he won't fuck it up. At least, he intends not to fuck up in the same ways, not to take for granted how incredibly fucking lucky he is and what a supportive, loving boyfriend he has. Isolating himself from the rest of the world is one thing, perhaps entirely necessary as he regains his balance, but he won't shut S out again.

"I love you," he murmurs when he draws back, crouching slightly. He isn't just going to run off back to his side of the table, not yet, enjoying the proximity too much. His thumb brushing along S's cheek, he smiles, quietly fond. "I think anywhere we found ourselves now would be strange. We're here. That's enough."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-28 12:22 pm (UTC)(link)
J hardly needs to tell him that he, too, thought nothing would ever be home again. As it is, he's still aware that this here, this quiet peace, is the lull in the storm, because there's a significant part of him that still doesn't believe he deserves to be allowed to come home. Or to be alive at all. They both know that. S is, in fact, painfully aware of how precarious J is. Right now, though, like this, he feels good again, safe in the certainty that he's loved for precisely who he is. S's hand feels good at his neck and it's tempting to draw him forward, to pull him into J's arms and lead him back to the couch.

He settles instead for leaning in for another kiss. "We were always weird anyway," he murmurs, at once wry and affectionate, once he draws back. Straightening up, he presses a kiss to S's hair, making himself move back around the table to take his seat again. "Might as well live in a place that should be impossible." He ducks his head, reaching for his chopsticks again, mostly to keep himself from changing his mind and returning to S's side. "I'm looking forward to seeing more of it later. You can show me around."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-29 09:05 am (UTC)(link)
"Good," J says immediately, "because we're stuck like this." He grins, reaching for a little more tteokbokki. Everything else should heat up fine, but tteokbokki is always a little tougher after it's sat awhile, and it's the thing he was most wanting anyway. "You were weird from the minute I met you. I don't see that changing."

Admittedly, he's pretty sure S did a good job of blending in both before and after that. J saw him now and then, being in the same class, but he didn't really pay him very much attention. He didn't know S was different from the others until S made it clear he was nothing like them, not in the ways that counted. S, he knows, admired his confidence, his bravery, back then, but to J, S is the one that made everything happen, the one who was brave enough to be kind, confident enough to wait for J to trust him.

"I don't want it to," he adds. "I like how weird you are."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-07-30 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
J knows that, of course. They wouldn't be sitting here now if that weren't the case, if S hadn't been curious and kind enough to take interest in him all those years ago, if he hadn't liked all the ways J never quite fit in. But it's been a long, long time, and they were apart for what felt like — what was, really — a lifetime, and it feels good to hear, something warm and sweet curling in his chest.

"Mm, I know," he says, lightly teasing, though he can't hide that he's pleased. "You always had really bad taste." Still, he nudges his foot against S's shin in turn, enjoying the quiet blend of fondness and levity. It's a nice pause after the evening they've had, and it makes it very difficult for him to try and be reasonable. When he wants very much just to cuddle on the couch, taking care of the food they haven't yet eaten feels like a lot of effort. "We should order from this place again sometime."
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[personal profile] beklemmt 2021-08-01 11:01 am (UTC)(link)
"Ah, definitely," J says, shaking his head. "I think I might be done." As tempting as it is to keep stuffing himself, he probably shouldn't. If nothing else, his stomach still isn't quite used to having this much to eat anymore. "And there's still a lot."

The thoughtfulness leaves his expression, though the pout remains, but it turns into a kind of a smile when he glances from the food back to S. "Of course I like that you have bad taste. It means I get to be with you." He suspects that, now that he's not eating — trying, at least, to keep himself from picking at food when he's not even hungry now — S will be done soon, too. But he's not about to get up and start putting things away until they're both sure they're finished. Instead, he's content to lean with an elbow on the table, watching S. It's cozy, just sitting like this together over a meal. They can't yet get through a day without tears, but they can eat dinner happily enough, and he's enjoying how comfortable it feels.

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