Chapter Text
If asked, Kim Jongin would say it all began with red light, sandalwood incense, and lavender oil.
He poured a dab of cool liquid into the bowl of his palm, shifted it slightly. Sliding his hands together, he coated their tanned backsides until both hands looked as slick as they felt. The oil would be much warmer as he spread it across broad shoulders, enjoyable as his fingers pushed it deep into tense muscle—the stiffness not uncommon for men with office jobs.
He repeated the process—the pouring, the warming, the transition from air to blooming, flushed skin. His touch traveled over shoulder blades and over ridges of spine. Over rib cages and over Venusian dimples. He rubbed until the entire back was primed and ready, skin glistening and golden. Only then did the body unravel itself for him.
Between the sounds of two beings breathing—one struggling to remain tethered to their earthly reality, and he himself, enchanted by his own art—he could hear it, that low, feeble alma deeper within. At first, so silent the ash that was dropped by the burning incense was heard, and then all at once, as loud as the moan that erupted when he targeted that spot— “Ugh, yeah, that spot right there.” —between the shoulder blades with uncanny precision.
Miles underneath the flesh, deep into muscle his fingers dug and dragged and rocked, all contradictory sensations to the knotted bundle of nerves built up there. More moans as he cut, separated, and soothed them out. Shameless calls not meant for his ears—nor ever intended—rang out, wisping itself in with the ghostly sandalwood as to not stand out.
The body was on fire, not the inferno-licked walls of the room which only promised outwardly discrepancy for inwardly transparency. Certainly not his hands, which only coaxed the body into admitting what it had already been denying itself of. It was the body whose nerves lit up like fireworks and colored the sky bold, demanding to be seen. Though, he would argue that it was this touch, his magnificent but cursed touch, that served as the phantom igniter.
In the light of the red fog, he had seen it all, and yet, nothing could be exposed, for only a body that blushed blue would stand out in plum humiliation.
Reassurance dripped in the oil he poured and warmed again, and once more; the body shined. Resistance flared and subsided. He pressed deeper elsewhere, continuing but occasionally echoing back.
Their night…and their journey… was just beginning…
***
Somehow, Jongin had always known with every fiber of his being that he wasn’t like the members of his family and would never grow up to be. As the excuses changed, it became more apparent.
“He’s too young to exhibit anything,”
“He’s a boy; the process is different.”
“When he comes of age, then we’ll know.”
“This is truly unprecedented… he may never—oh, Jongin! How long were you listening…?”
He was different, but not just different—he was worse than that.
He was normal. Average. Plain.
Human.
All synonyms for nobody in his book.
For the first few years of his life, while he was still the youngest, he was content with that. Or at least, it didn’t bother him as much. While sorely unlike his older sisters, he was still sorely loved. It wasn’t often that males were born into his family.
But then, at the halfway mark between the lucky lives of a cat and the double digits of the world, his brother came along and changed that. Suddenly, the fortune of a witch-born son was overshadowed by the fortune of two, and the comparisons, despite their nearly ten-year-difference, had never ceased to end since they began.
His brother was a miracle child, a becomer of greatness, a bringer of change. He was much more like their sisters, much more loved by their parents, and much more a member of their family than Jongin had ever been—or had ever felt.
Jongin was the winning scratch-off used to buy the winning jackpot. He was a conduit for nothing but his brother and his achievements to shine through. With not much to compete against, it was only natural that his brother’s gold medals of promise and trophies of excellence would take over the shelf in which Jongin housed his simple things.
After nearly ten years of making space for gleaming perfection, of—at first shoving, and then once he’d run out of space—stacking his undesired nickels and dimes into—at first, the corner of the room, and then once he’d run out of space again—shoeboxes packed high in the closest and underneath the bed, he had decided that enough was enough.
It was only natural that he would leave. After all, he had spent most of his life packing parts of himself away anyway. There wasn’t much to take with him, and there wasn’t much to leave behind. It made leaving the first chance he got easier. And he never looked back. Never turned back. Never ever wanted to so much as slightly angle himself back towards the direction from which he had come.
And then.
Chanyeol happened.
Park Chanyeol happened and ruined everything.
The foundation Jongin had built for himself, his new home away from the place he had never felt connected to, crumbled before his eyes. And in the choking dust of the aftermath, the only refuge in sight was the one he had forsaken.
But they weren’t quite there yet.
***
It all really began the weekend before Thanksgiving when Jongin’s best friend and roommate announced that he, in fact, wouldn’t be spending the holiday at home because he was, indeed, going camping. Last week, when Jongin had asked, Sehun said mountain hiking wasn’t his thing. Now, he was singing a different tune, and that sucked because for the last two years, Jongin had been spending the holidays with Sehun at Sehun’s stupidly rich family’s lovely home. To have the third year of brief luxury-living interrupted by this sudden change-in-plans felt like a slap to the face—and a slight against his stomach, which thoroughly enjoyed Mrs. and Mr. Oh’s cooking as much as they took pleasure in filling it up.
“Why can’t you take me with you?” Jongin whined. He folded himself over the armrest of the couch and clung onto Sehun’s arm. He had just come back from work and smelled of expensive perfumes and random people, but Sehun was used to it by now. Jongin had been all up and under Sehun so much in the last two and a half years to know that his best friend would never push him away anyway. He was too soft for that.
“Don’t mess me up, Jongin.” Sehun laughed as he pulled away—attempted to, anyhow. His fingers were a blur, mashing buttons on the console controller he held. He was intensely focused on the shooting video game he was playing with their other roommate, Chanyeol, whose big body was taking up most of the space over on the loveseat.
Chanyeol could kick rocks, by the way.
The cold-hearted, socially inept jock had only spared him a reflexive glance when he came in, so Jongin hadn’t bothered acknowledging him in return. Jongin extended this lack of cordiality towards the co-op gaming session he was crashing, too. He couldn’t have cared less if he was distracting Sehun and affecting their overall game play.
Although Jongin had been the one late to the party, so to speak, and thus was the one who was technically interrupting them, sure, order of operations on the best friend scale placed Jongin higher on the priority list. So naturally, it only made sense that he’d collect on what he was inherently entitled to. If anything, Chanyeol should’ve begged Jongin first if he wanted to borrow Jongin’s best friend and limit their time spent together. He was lucky Jongin was a generous person, though. Fortunate that Jongin understood the concept of sharing things. That was why he was fine with Sehun’s split attention. As long as Jongin was the one who received the bigger half, he was good.
Jongin nuzzled his cheek against his friend’s bony arm and Sehun laughed again, conceding to Jongin’s insistence to be at the forefront of any given moment, and returned to the original question posed. “I wish I could, but nobody’s bringing plus ones. Not even Johnny, and you know how attached at the hip to his girlfriend he is.”
Jongin gagged thinking about the infamous couple. He’d never actually met them in person—thank God—but he heard enough horror stories to feel bad for anyone who had. No one deserved to bear witness to their public displays of affection. It should have been outlawed.
“We all decided it’d be a faculty thing, you know? Just a bunch of us Sports Management majors,” Sehun added. “Otherwise, you would have been my first choice.”
“Yeah, well that was a dumb thing to decide,” Jongin mumbled. He understood why he couldn’t tag along—it wasn’t like he was an irrational, emotionally unstable person—but still.
“Sorry, buddy.” Sehun took one of his hands off the controller to toy with the tangle of Jongin’s hair. Jongin nestled into the touch, body relaxing. To any outsider, it probably looked way too intimate, even for best friends’ standards. They’d lost track of all the times they were mistaken as a couple. Whether it was due to Jongin’s shamelessness in being clingy or Sehun’s willingness to openly indulge him, no one could say; but one thing was for sure: it worked for them. Who cared what other people thought when they both saw nothing wrong?
A throat cleared.
Jongin rolled his eyes before dragging them toward the loveseat Chanyeol always hogged. Jongin would never willingly sit with Chanyeol there—there was plenty of space for him and Sehun on the long couch—but still, he couldn’t help the ping of irritation he got at the thought of Chanyeol hogging an entire piece of furniture to himself when they had all paid for it.
Chanyeol was staring. Not at him, particularly, but rather, the general mass of him and Sehun. It wasn’t one of those “Ugh” or “Ew” looks, though. After all, having roomed nearly four months together, Chanyeol had been exposed to their affectionate behavior more than most. Surely, by the end of their first week of co-habitation, he had given up wondering how Jongin always ended with his head in Sehun’s lap, regardless of whether he was half-leaning over the arm of the couch, on the floor seated in front of him, or lounging in his bed when they streamed entire seasons of TV shows in one sitting. It was a truth universally acknowledged that Jongin’s center of gravity was Sehun’s lap—don’t think into that too much. Chanyeol was just looking at them like they were the most uninterested thing in the world. That’s how Chanyeol always looked at them when Jongin was involved, though. Jongin gave him a vacant stare back.
“We’re dying,” Chanyeol said, without much inflection to his deep voice. Sehun apologized with a laugh, and the warmth combing through Jongin’s hair disappeared as his best friend refocused on the game. Jongin suppressed a sigh. Chanyeol was always interrupting his comfort time.
After a minute of stealthy glaring, Jongin’s attempt to break Chanyeol’s focus had its intended affect. Chanyeol’s gaze flickered to his for a moment, a rare act of him perceiving Jongin as actual living, breathing singular human entity, and then — it was gone.
There was nothing there.
Like usual.
Jongin watched the screen explode in a myriad of funky colors that only strained the nerves in his retinas. He didn’t even know what they were shooting at.
***
This was the full dynamic of their relationship:
Jongin and Sehun were best friends.
Sehun and Chanyeol were in the same friend group at school.
Jongin and Chanyeol were… roommates. Just roommates. Sehun’s roommates.
Jongin met Sehun during his time at university. Sehun was the unlucky freshman who somehow got assigned to a sophomore for his roommate. (Or maybe it was the other way around—Jongin was the unlucky sophomore.)
For about a week or so, it was a whole lot of awkward chuckles and forced small before they realized they eventually realized they’d been attached at the hip the entire time. Jongin thought that would always be the case, and then he bombed his midterms and decided he couldn’t do another year of university. Had it not been for Sehun’s constant efforts to stay in contact, Jongin wasn’t sure where he would be in life right now. It was Sehun who had encouraged him to go to a technical college. It was Sehun who had given up his room and board scholarship to room with Jongin in his shabby first apartment so he wouldn’t have to be alone—or worse, move back home.
Their first year living together had been shaky. With Sehun tackling his sophomore year and Jongin attempting a school for massage therapy he wasn’t even sure he was all that interested in, the added pressure of working to sustain themselves took a heavy strain on them both. It was the reason why they both not only agreed to move again, but to also find a third roommate who could help shoulder the costs so that they could also afford better place in a better area of town.
Sehun said he would take care of it, and so, he had.
“Meet the infamous Kim Jongin,” announced Sehun, one sunny afternoon while they were at the park. Jongin, who had been tying his shoe, was caught off guard by the sudden introduction. Inviting Chanyeol to go jogging with them as part of their meet-and-greet had been Sehun’s plan. “To avoid any potential awkwardness,” he said, figuring a body in motion made for less moments of stillness. But as Jongin was forced to squint past the protrusion in Chanyeol’s basketball shorts to make out his sun-eclipsed face, he didn’t think Sehun had been particularly successful in that regard.
“Hey. I’m Chanyeol.” The giant introduced himself looking down on Jongin, who, ignoring his poorly tied laces, hastily stood up and offered his hand.
“Just Jongin is fine,” he said, injecting a disarming smile as Chanyeol’s massive hand swallowed his own. His grip was constricting, and Jongin distinctly remembered the power his arm held before he was released. He could keep up with them, Jongin thought, easily imagining Chanyeol alongside Sehun and him, doing all the same physical activities they liked. Jongin didn’t think he’d have any problem connecting with Chanyeol if that was the case. If his future roommate was as active as his gym-pumped body suggested, then they’d get along great.
“Okay, boys.” Having finished tying his top tuft of hair into a man-bun, Sehun ducked into a squat for one final stretch. “Let’s hit the trails.” When he took off running, leaving the two of them behind, Jongin thought that was Sehun’s way of telling him to make friends with the new guy. Jongin wasn’t a big socializer, but small talk came naturally to him. So, as he fell into an easy rhythm running next to Chanyeol—they were a couple dozen or so strides behind Sehun—he brainstormed some icebreaker topics.
He wanted to get a clear grasp of who Chanyeol was and what made him tick while also giving Chanyeol a positive impression of himself. That was by far number one priority in his mind. If Sehun went out of his way to convince him to be their roommate, then he didn’t want to upset him by not trying hard enough to earn Chanyeol’s approval.
“So…” He began before Chanyeol shot him a dirty look, interrupting his body’s instinctual rhythm, and causing him to stumble. His intended comment or question died on the tip of his tongue; Chanyeol had killed it. His future roommate was already kicking up dust ahead of him before Jongin could catch his bearings and figure out what the heck he’d done wrong in the minute that they’d actually known each other.
Chanyeol joined Sehun on his left. Jongin eventually caught up and stuck to Sehun’s right. For fifty-two chitchat-free minutes, they focused on the steady sounds of their running shoes striking the pavement. They let their endurance do the talking and turned what was supposed to be a light workout into a competition of who was the longest hauler. Naturally, Sports Management major Oh Sehun took the lead on that. Jongin, who’d joined Sehun on some of his marathon training, came in second. Chanyeol’s muscles, Jongin learned, were more for show rather than utility, and Chanyeol joining them at the end of the trail two and a half minutes later, huffing and puffing, was all the conversational filler Jongin had needed to feel pleased.
After that first encounter of theirs proved to be nothing but thick tongues and stiff silences, however, they fell into a pattern of only reacting to each other when Sehun acted as their middleman. Maybe that was why Sehun had thought their shared day together had gone well, despite the apparent sluggishness. After all, not everyone became friends over a hefty workout with a coke and pizza afterwards.
“I don’t know if we’ll get along,” Jongin said, truthfully, during the car ride home.
“What? You’ll be friends in no time,” Sehun was quick to reassure him, one hand on the wheel, the others squeezing Jongin’s shoulder. “Chanyeol’s a great guy. You can’t not like him.”
Jongin smiled and said nothing. Despite the invisible wall between him and Chanyeol, he had been hoping the same. And he had kept on hoping. And hoping. And hoping. And hoping. And eventually, he did himself a favor and stopped pretending.
Sehun was wrong about all those things. Chanyeol and his abrasive personality were most certainly not liked; and Chanyeol and Jongin would never be friends.
They just didn’t click.
And although he would never voice the defeatist sentiment aloud in the company of his best friend, he had a feeling they would never click.
Park Chanyeol and Kim Jongin—they just weren’t compatible.
***
Out of all the styles of massage Jongin studied and practiced, his favorite kind had always been Sehun’s. To an unpracticed eye, the technique he used was sloppy, unskilled fingers overlapping strokes without design, leaving the canvas more blank than covered. To Jongin, it was the negative space that made the art of his massage pop, what wasn’t explicitly said but implied whenever Sehun combed through the neat rows of his scalp in a lazy rhythm. It was a silent song Jongin could listen to forever.
“Jongin, wake up.”
The soothing went away, and Jongin groaned. No, come back. He shifted, belatedly registering that his face was not planted in his pillow. This hard hump was not a pillow. He opened his eyes, and slowly, the dark shapes of the room came into form.
He was on the couch in the living room with his head in Sehun’s lap, apparently. So, nothing new then.
“Jongin. Get up, bud,” encouraged Sehun, his bony fingers drumming along Jongin’s cheek.
Jongin went to move, and a wave of needling pain pricked up his legs. He had left them hanging over the armrest, and hours of elevation and pinched circulation had filled them with lead while he slept. He twisted his body until they thudded to the floor like heavy weights. He slouched against the back of the couch, staring at them, willing his blood and nerves to return.
“Finally,” Sehun yawned beside him, stretching his body long and tall, all cat-like. “You fell asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.” Jongin eyed his thighs and wondered if they were numb, too, noting the red-marked impression left by his heavy head.
“Why’re we—what time is it? How long have I been asleep?”
Sehun pursed his lips and then shrugged. He glanced to the window. Moonlight streamed in through loosely spread curtains, casting a light glow over his smooth features. “A few hours.” He stood up and stretched his long body again.
“And you just… sat here?”
Sehun snorted, arms folding in and dropping. “I fell asleep, too. I think while playing the game, actually.” He chuckled a little as he retrieved a controller from the ground and placed it next to the other one on the coffee table. “Chanyeol’s probably so annoyed. We said we were gonna try to finish it before I left.”
Jongin’s eyes flickered to the empty loveseat before he rolled them, aware that the lack of lighting would conceal his attitude “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s just a game, anyway.”
Sehun hummed. “Maybe. He’s pretty understanding.”
Right.
Sehun clumsily brushed past Jongin, rounded the corner and stumbled in the dark down the hall towards their shared bathroom.
In the strip of the house briefly illuminated by the bathroom light, Sehun’s bags for his camping trip caught Jongin’s eye. The events of that afternoon returned to him, and Jongin frowned. That icky feeling that had settled in his stomach earlier that day when he had seen the bags lined and ready by the door returned once again. He really wished the Sehun’s trip was never organized in the first place.
“Jongin, you alright?” Sehun returned, blocking the view of his bags with his body, and Jongin looked down to his still-numb toes. He wiggled them, envisioning the artificial iciness bleeding away. “Jongin,” pressed Sehun’s voice, louder, though only because he had perched himself over the armrest.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” It took him a while to meet Sehun’s gaze, but once he did, he held it. He held it for as long as he could until his eyes started to water. He rubbed them; they were terribly dry. “Yeah. You leave, when again?”
“Sunday.”
Jongin’s mouth gaped.
“Tomorrow?”
Sehun’s lips thinned. “Tomorrow.”
“And you return… next Sunday?” Jongin asked him with such a scandalized flair that Sehun chuckled briefly.
“Our professor rented the cabin for the entire week. We decided it would be a waste of money if we didn’t get the most out of it,” he explained. “And since, you know, university gets a weeklong break, we thought why not make the most of it?”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jongin said, rationally, “Should be fun, yeah?” Sehun laughed at what they both knew was his most uncharacteristic response yet.
“Jongin,” he mused. You big baby, Jongin imagined him saying. Sehun dropped a hand on Jongin’s head and flicked his bed-stuck hair to the other side. Jongin made a weak effort to push him away. “This week will fly by for you,” Sehun said. “You still have class up until Tuesday and you’ll still be working. You’ll be fine. I bet you’ll hardly notice I’m gone.”
Yes. I will, Jongin thought. “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said, instead. It really wasn’t all that healthy for him to be as needy as he was, and more importantly, he didn’t want Sehun worrying about him during his trip and missing out on fun because of that. So, he took a deep breath and stood up, albeit shakily because of his recovering legs. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, too,” he was saying, as the bathroom started calling his name. “I’m just going to be super bored all by myself, is all.”
When he returned, Sehun was in the kitchen filling two glasses with water. He handed one to Jongin, smiling.
“You won’t be by yourself. Chanyeol will be here, too.”
Jongin choked, and Sehun patted his back through the coughing fit.
“Not the entire time, though—you mean. Right? Like, he’s going back home in a few days and leaving, too?”
Sehun shook his head while he sipped his water. “Nope, he’s not going anywhere this Thanksgiving Break.”
Jongin set his glass down, no longer thirsty. “Why?” He said before he could catch himself. “I mean, doesn’t he have a family to visit over break or something?”
“He usually does. This year, he said he’s not.”
A look of something flashed across Sehun’s face. Was it sympathy? Jongin wanted to ask more but knew it would be too weird. Even if they were roommates, even if Sehun wanted them to be friends when he wasn’t around, the simple truth of the matter was that he and Chanyeol weren’t friends, or anything remotely close. He would be crossing a line and a white picket fence if he inquired anything more from Sehun, especially if it was something seemingly personal. Jongin had enough sense to know that much. Besides, it wasn’t like Jongin actually cared about why Chanyeol wasn’t leaving. What he really had been focused on was how that meant he would be stuck in the house with only Chanyeol to keep him company, of all people. He couldn’t very well tell Sehun that.
Maybe Sehun had been thinking that, too, because the next thing he said was:
“I think this will be great for you guys.” And here we go, Jongin thought, as Sehun launched in his tirade about how they should learn to be friends. Deep down, Jongin always felt annoyed whenever Sehun brought this topic up—about once a month, really, but he didn’t like being short with Sehun, so he kept his face schooled neutral, even if he was already mentally checked out of the conversation. Sure, he could imagine how exhausting it must’ve felt for Sehun to constantly be the glue of a group and household, but Jongin thought it was equally exhausting when Sehun made it seem like he simply hadn’t tried hard enough to build a friendship with Chanyeol—when in all actuality, he had tried the hardest!
“You’ll both be spending Thanksgiving together, essentially, so maybe you guys can go out and do something?”
Jongin quirked a brow. “You know I’m not that ambitious.”
Sehun snorted. “Okay, okay. Fine. Nothing too extravagant. But—just spend some time together, alright? Make an effort. You’d be surprised by how similar you guys are.” Before Jongin could ask what he’d meant by that, Sehun grabbed his shoulder and squeezed.
“Promise me, Jongin, you’ll make an effort; you won’t hide yourself in your room, and tiptoe around him in the kitchen? Promise me?”
There was nothing physically special about Sehun’s eyes. At least, Jongin had never thought so. They were a common dark brown color, an average shape, very ordinary and yet, often times, Jongin found his brain bridled by them. There was a quiet strength to them, an intense sincerity that made it hard to look away from and difficult to ignore a request backed by them. Jongin felt at ease when he looked at Sehun, and because he trusted Sehun so much, he often complied to anything he asked.
So, unaware of what was to come, Jongin foolishly sighed and said, “Yeah… I guess I can try. I will make an effort. I promise.” Whether he believed it himself or not didn’t matter. What he had just done—what he had just committed to—had sealed his fate.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
And it was all Park Chanyeol’s fault.
***