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By the Rio de la Plata I sat down and wept
Unlit paths like bullet wounds in the blanket of electric lights
The city is a living creature all on its own
And we all push like blood through its veins
So close together. So alone.
***
When Kun wakes up, his heart feels light. Airy, almost, as if it were hovering right outside his ribcage. In fact, his entire body is; Kun tries to let his hands glide over the sheets beneath his fingers, but he can only guess that they’re there. Everything is numb. He opens his eyes and breathes, throat plastered with the familiar taste of strong alcohol, of mint and dope and something bitter he can’t place. Contently, he notices that he is at least lying in his own bed.
The light outside the windows is faint, but Kun fails to distinguish whether the sun is just about to rise or to set. It is the same as always and Kun finds himself caught between the days, drifting without sense and purpose.
He swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Light explodes between his temples and he has to suppress a gag. The bile tastes disgusting but his blurred vision doesn’t allow him to find a bottle of water. Kun struggles to get to his feet, heart suddenly weighing heavy, pulling him down like a rock and he tumbles over piles of clothing as he takes first slow steps. While walking, he kicks his shoes away and pulls off his shirt, loosens his belt and leaves his room.
One of the cleaners is in the modern kitchen, wiping the chrome surfaces and Kun would say hello, but he doesn’t know her name, doesn’t care either, so he wordlessly takes a bottle of water out of the fridge and turns towards the living room. He settles on the coach, kicks his legs up on the glass table in front of it and fumbles for his phone that is squished into the front pocket of his jeans.
Three missed calls. Two are from his mother. One is from Pocho. He presses re-dial.
“What happened to you, man?” he asks straight away and is greeted with a low grumble from the other end. “We got to the docks and you were gone.”
Pocho coughs a few times, probably spits out whatever remnants of the night are still stuck in his throat. It doesn’t sound very appetizing, but Kun isn’t one to complain. “Hooked up with that Blonde from Crobar.”
“Nice. Is she still there?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? She left hours ago.”
Kun hums, has another sip of water. “Good, because I’m starving. I’m coming to yours for food.”
He passes by a clock on his way to the bathroom. It’s four in the afternoon.
People pass him on the streets. Dressed up, well groomed, almost polished. With purpose. Kun can’t see their faces.
Pocho lives in Recoleta. Top floor, maisonette penthouse, view of the river; he’s quite a lucky dick. He doesn’t have it bad either, probably not, but Kun doesn’t have that sense of perspective and he is well aware of that. But that’s what he thinks about, about Pocho and how his view is better than his, about Zaba’s new car and Eze’s customised pool table.
He takes the lift to the top floor, passes a long hallway of mahogany floor and enters without knocking. Pocho never locks his doors, why would he with cameras in every corner, with two security guards at the front desk and with people coming in or out of his flat at every hour. It’s just easier. Eze is already camped out in the living room, sprawled out on the couch with sunglasses on his nose so Kun can’t tell if he’s sleeping. The TV is blasting, showing football.
He kicks Eze who grunts and shuffles to the side and Kun sits down. “What the fuck is with the sunglasses?”
“It’s too bright.”
“Maybe you’re just too dim. Who’s playing?”
Eze lifts his sunglasses off his nose momentarily, eyes bloodshot. “You’re dim. River is playing.”
“Really?” Kun turns his eyes and notices the white and red jersey, the familiar crest and is slightly surprised. “What day is it?”
“It’s Saturday, you loser.”
Pocho strolls in, just wearing a pair of track pants, torso still wet from the shower and Kun sees the familiar lines of tattoos covering his arms and chest. He hasn’t gotten laid in a week and the familiar pull in his belly tells him exactly that, but Kun is done with fucking Pocho. He’s generally done with fucking his friends. Except Javier, because Javier is obnoxiously perfect and Kun guesses he’d let Javier fuck him in the blink of an eye.
“If it’s Saturday, what are we doing tonight?”
Pocho sits down in an armchair, stretches out his legs, rubs over his stubble. “Fuck knows, aren’t you the one who comes up with this stuff?”
“We could go to Palermo,” Eze suggests.
“Palermo bores me,” Kun immediately replies. “It’s always the same.”
“Everything is always the same,” Pocho says, gets up and walks over to a metal pantry. His skin is reflected in the shiny surface as he reaches in and takes out three glasses and a bottle without label. He fills every glass to the brim, amber liquor so strong that Kun can smell it from where he’s sitting and he takes the drink despite his better judgement telling him not to. He hasn’t even properly sobered up yet.
By the time they leave Pocho’s, Kun is already feeling light-headed. They stop for Empañadas by the docks, stop for a spliff and some other re-fills. Soon they head downtown again, run into Zaba and Nicolás and they tag along to wherever they go after that. Pocho is right, Kun thinks. Everything is always the same.
***
Buenos Aires is his city and sometimes he thinks about leaving. But he doesn’t have anywhere to go, so he stays.
***
As a kid, Kun had wanted to be a footballer, like most boys his age. Realizing he lacked the talent and the drive, his focus had shifted to other things. He’d dreamed of becoming an astronaut because he liked looking at the stars; a firemen, a gaucho, a doctor and for the briefest of times even a judge. The older he got, the fewer he dreamed and year by year, his ambition had diminished to a point where he didn’t know what to do with his life.
Kun still doesn’t know.
His parents pester him about it, his father more than his mother. Wants him to see out his degree, to justify all the money they’d pumped into his education, but Kun has no interest in economics. He sees no point in it either. He’s got his inheritance, shares in his family’s companies and a bunch of properties that he doesn’t keep track of. There is simply no need. Perhaps he’s being a burden, or a disgrace, but it’s not like he cares. It’s not like they care much either.
So he sleeps in a flat that is far too big for him - he can’t say live because he really doesn’t – and spends money on things that don’t matter. The only things in his fridge are three water bottles, some energy drinks and three cans of Dutch beer Eze brought back from Europe.
***
“I need to get laid,” Kun tells Eze nonchalantly. They’re camped out at Pocho’s for the day, out on the roof although it’s getting colder by the day. The sun is still pleasant though, just strong enough to warm his skin while he is stretched out on a lounger. The words come out slurred and his mind feels heavy after –
“Don’t you always?”
Kun looks over to Eze who is lying in a chair next to him, glass table with bottles and an ashtray between them. He’s again sporting some sunglasses, his newest accessories obsession; last month it’d been a hat. “It’s been, like, two weeks.”
Eze grins, teeth so white that they’d make any dentist proud. “And you’re still alive? I would’ve bet your dick would just explode after a few days. But you’ve probably wanked thinking of me.”
Kun scrunches up his nose. “You’re disgusting, Eze.”
“Why?” He can only assume that Eze raises his eyebrows. “Nothing wrong with wanting a piece of this,” and he gestures down his body.
“You’re not my type.”
“Since when do you have a type?” Eze takes a long drag of his spliff, so long that it smoulders and sparks. He blows out an almost perfect ring of smoke and the distinct smell fills Kun’s nostrils. He breathes it in, gets high just off the smell. “Is there any common denominator that I’ve overseen?”
Kun wants to tell him to fuck off. Instead he holds out his hand and Eze only hands him the spliff once he’s shortened it another five millimetres. He feels the heat of it get closer to his thumb and index finger with every time he inhales. It fills his head with wadding, stuffs it out and Kun thinks about arguing with Eze, but then can’t, so he just says, “Fuck you.” He pauses, then something comes to his mind. “Why is Pocho taking so long?”
“Meeting some Professor from some big shot University.”
Kun turns his head and it rolls to the side like it’s filled with rocks. “Why?”
Eze snorts. “Fuck, do I look like I know?”
He tries to look up again, but his head is too heavy and feels detached, so he doesn’t move. “Nah, not really.” Blindly, Kun reaches for the table, knocks over a glass that rolls off and breaks on marble tiles. The shards clatter, but he doesn’t flinch. Instead, he grabs the bottle and takes a swig. “What are we doing tonight?”
“Is it that you don’t listen,” Eze slurs. “Or do you have some sort of dementia?” Kun raises his brows and Eze rolls his eyes in return. “Javier is coming back from Italy. There is this thing at the Alvear to welcome him home.”
“Oh,” Kun says. “Oh, right.”
“Yeah. So you better sober up before we go there. I’m not babysitting you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Don’t you?” Eze laughs. “What about when Martín got engaged?”
Kun can’t remember that. He’s just been told what had happened, but he’s pretty certain that everybody has been shamelessly exaggerating, so he doesn’t want to trust that. “Whatever.”
***
Kun doesn’t wear suits. They remind him of funerals and uncomfortable silences, family gatherings and duties. He lies on his bed, facing up, for one hour without movement, burnt out cigarette in the hand dangling off the bedframe. Wads of smoke have gathered just below the ceiling like dark clouds and Kun is half-expecting first cold drops to hit his face. When he closes his eyes, he can feel rain, soothingly drumming on his forehead, invisibly there and it takes away some of his anxiety.
Kun doesn’t want to see half the people attending the party and he is sure they’d rather not see him either. There are going to be question he can’t answer to and looks he can’t stomach and it’s all just very inconvenient and it makes him feel uneasy. He reaches for a tie, but almost instantly throws it to the ground again; he doesn’t want to hang himself with it if things get out of hand.
Eventually he puts on a suit he’s never worn or seen before and leaves the three buttons open, something that his mother would always scold him for. He is already late, but decides to walk anyway, hoping that the air will clear his head and sober him up.
It doesn’t, at least not how Kun hoped it would. When he arrives at the Alvear Palace Hotel, he still feels on edge, maybe even more so after all the flashing lights and people bumping into him on the sidewalks. One of the footboys escorts him to one of the larger dining rooms, where tables have been moved to the side, creating a free space in the middle for people to socialize. The footboy takes his coat, offers him a drink, but Kun walks off without further acknowledging him, because he’s spotted Pipita at the bar.
“Haven’t seen you in while,” he says and bumps his shoulder against Pipita’s. He looks tanned, Kun thinks, more than anyone should with winter approaching.
Pipita remains unusually still and keeps his eyes on the buzzing crowd, all so sleek and polished that it makes Kun feel slightly nauseous. “Mexico, two weeks.”
Kun raises his eyebrows. That explains the tan. “Mexico, huh? What have you been doing in Mexico?”
Pipita fidgets. He’s wearing a tie, but no jacket and his sleeves are rolled up. “Officially?”
That makes him grin. He can guess what Pipita has been doing. Sun, sex, tequila; spliffs and – milk. Kun gestures for the bartender and follows his friend’s glance. “Where’s Javi?”
“Not sure,” Pipita answers. “Probably busy talking to the big guns. Nicolás told me he’s struck some highly lucrative deal with some Milanese business tycoon.”
“Bloody over-achiever,” Kun mutters into his Gin and empties his drink in one go. “I better find him, welcome him home and all that.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Pipita’s sly grin. “You could just suck him off in the bathroom.”
Kun puts his glass down. “Go fuck yourself, Pip,” he calls over his shoulder and makes his way through the crowd.
Javier is everything Kun’s parents want him to be. He is well-spoken, ambitious and so incredible charismatic and charming that he can’t think of a single person who doesn’t absolutely adore him. He looks perfectly stunning as well, Kun observes when he finally picks him out between a handful of people, in his dark suit and pristine white shirt. Nicolás is there and Esteban, Javier’s parents and his own, Kun notices with a frown.
He’s glad that Javier is the first one to spot him.
“Kun,” he exclaims with a dazzling smile, white teeth against bronze skin. Reaching out with his hand, he steps past Esteban and pulls him into a hug. “How have you been?”
Kun breathes in his cologne and thinks, yes; he’d probably suck him off anywhere. He says, “Fine, the usual.” Kun lets go and gives him a lopsided smile. Javier raises his eyebrows slightly and Kun figures he’s probably noticed his diluted pupils. “How was Italy?”
“Productive,” Javier answers. “But it’s good to be back.”
“Good to have you back,” Kun replies and finds it funny that everyone has this image of Javier, this vision of how he is and that he and the others know that Javier does not have a clean sheet at all. It is good to have Javier back in Buenos Aires, because he adds an entirely new level to their little group. He wants to make a run for it, but his mother reaches past Javier and grabs hit shirt.
“Look at you,” she huffs and steps up to him and Kun openly rolls his eyes as she buttons up his shirt. Hair delicately pinned up, pearls around her neck with matching earrings, she fumbles around his collar with manicured fingers, muttering words that Kun has heard so many times that they don’t reach his ears anymore.
Gently, he pushes her away by her shoulders. “Mamá, please. Can you just leave my shirt as it is?”
“Well,” she shrugs, “you never do it right.”
Kun notices Esteban and Nicolás and the stupid grins on their faces and if that weren’t bad enough, there is someone else he doesn’t know who seems equally amused by the display. He feels slightly taken aback, because the boy – or young man, Kun is unable to guess his age – is perfectly at ease with the people who surround him, yet Kun has never seen him before. His mother appears to notice.
“Oh, Sergio, I’m sure you remember Lionel,” she says, gesturing towards the unknown in their midst.
Kun doesn’t.
“You used to play together when you were little,” his mother elaborates. Lionel smiles.
Kun takes his hand, pulls a face. “Sorry, I don’t,” but Lionel shrugs it off.
“Don’t worry, me neither,” he says. His grip is firmer than Kun would have expected.
The night moves on and Kun soon retreats to the terrace. All the talking creates a subtle buzz that fills his ears and makes him feel slightly nauseous. It stresses him and he gets a certain itch in his gut. He steps out into the dark and shuts the French doors behind him, reaches into his pocket to fumble for his lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Kun actually feels like dope, but he’s not stupid, so he left it at home.
So he smokes and it does calm him down a bit and the air is refreshing enough to finally sober him up. The door clicks and he turns, expecting Pipita or Eze, maybe both; it’s neither.
“Lionel, right?”
“Leo,” is the quiet reply as he steps out, holding a glass of – something.
Kun looks at him, because he hadn’t before and usually he’s got with people and faces, but Leo – he can’t place him anywhere and although he does visually fit in, with his dark shirt and smart trousers, there is something that just feels. Off.
“Can I?” Leo holds out his hand and Kun wordlessly hands him his almost smoked out cigarette. “You know,” Leo says after exhaling. “I do remember you. Quite well actually.” The corners of his mouth twitch. “We were six. And you knocked my front tooth out with a football.”
Kun’s eyes widen slightly. “I did?”
Leo smiles brightly now. Teeth immaculate. “Our mothers were in hysterics. I was just happy I could skip school for a week.”
“Hysterical, huh? Sounds like my mother.”
He wants to add something else. Something like sorry or but you do look pretty perfect now, but a loud shrill breaks the silence. Leo’s pocket is buzzing. He takes out a phone and looks at the screen, then glances at Kun apologetically.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this.”
Kun shrugs. “Sure,” he says, drops the cigarette and heads for the doors. “See you around.”
But Leo’s already stepped into the dark, phone to his ears, voice hushed.
***
“What’s the story?”
Pipita looks up from his phone. They’re out for lunch, sitting in the back of some run-down place in La Boca. It’s virtually empty. Outside, rain has been hitting the pavements for hours. Kun knows Pipita has been texting Eze, that they’re probably hooking up again like they always do around this time of year, fuck knows why.
“What story?”
“Leo,” Kun gets to the point, because it’s been bugging him that he just can’t remember a thing about him and Pipita always knows everything. “Who is he? And where is coming from all of a sudden?”
Pipita laughs, almost absentmindedly scratches at the porous wooden surface of the table they’re sitting at. “You make him sound like he’s an alien,” he says. “I can’t believe you don’t remember, though. He’s Cuccitini’s only grandson.”
Kun almost chokes on his coffee. “What? That’s him?”
Pipita laughs even more. Kun really feels like punching him. “You are so dim sometimes. Do you only remember what you want to remember? Because that’s a technique I’d love to learn.”
“Get to the point,” he says, running out of patience.
“Okay, okay, don’t bite me, man,” Pipita replies, raising his hands defensively. “Well, I don’t need to tell you about Cuccitini and I can only tell you what I’ve been told. You remember him from school though, right? Tiny kid with long hair? Never said a word.” Kun thinks that if he never said a word, he’s likely to have just overlooked him. “Anyways,” Pipita continues. “Rumour has it that he was friends with the wrong people, got into big trouble and his grandfather had to bail him out. His family was fed up and sent him to boarding school in Europe to straighten him out. No pun intended.”
Kun stares into his coffee. He thinks he has a faint idea what happened, the rumours sound familiar, although there’s always some sort of scandal being pushed behind the curtain, so he might be getting things mixed up. “What did he do?”
Pipita shrugs. “No idea. Robbery, drugs, killed a man. Ask Javier, I’m sure he knows.”
“Javier?” Kun asks, but then he realizes that Javier knows everything, that Javier’s been to school in Europe and – an odd question springs to his mind. “Are they –” he leaves it open, but he’s sure Pipita gets what he means.
“Don’t know. Would be weird, huh? But I wouldn’t put it past him.”
The waitress brings their food; smiling shyly and Kun watches Pipita scribble a number on a napkin, handing it to the blushing girl with a smile so sweet that he has to look away. He picks at his chips, greasy and shiny with oil.
He walks back to Retiro in the rain, contours of the city blurred by the heavy downpour. Kun stops randomly on the pavement and watches the rain flood filthy gutters.
***
He goes out with Pocho some night and loses him somewhere between clubs. But by that time, Kun is too high to care, buzzing with energy and he knows people anyway, and they know him. He runs into Giannina towards to early morning hours and it’s like it always is between them, weirdly enough considering, so he takes her home and sleeps with her while the rising sun collides with his curtains.
“I slept with Giannina,” he tells Pocho once he’s on his own again.
First, Pocho stays silent, then, “That is seriously fucked up.”
Kun figures he’s probably right.
***
Everything is always the same. And it bores the hell out of Kun.
***
He doesn’t see Leo for another week. Kun thinks about him every day though, trying to figure out where he fits in, where he fits into his life and Buenos Aires. The rain happily platters on outside his flat when he rummages through boxes covered in dust, searching for photo albums and High School yearbooks. Ten years must have passed between then and now, ten years that suddenly feel like an eternity passed in the blink of an eye and Kun is not sure how much of that shows on their faces.
He flips the pages, one by one and eventually stops at a picture taken when he’d been fourteen, perhaps still thirteen. Kun recognizes Pipita’s dopey grin and Eze’s strong jaw, his own dark eyes and awful haircut, looking even stupider in tie and school blazer. One by one, he scans his classmates’ faces and at first, he can’t find Leo, because his present image is too dominant in his mind. Then he remembers what Pipita had said to him; tiny kid with long hair.
There’s only one person fitting that description. Kun gapes. With hair reaching past the shoulders, an incredibly consuming gaze holds the camera’s focus, simultaneously detached and aloof. Kun thinks that he really does look like trouble, and he’s not innocent himself. Maybe he did kill someone.
It’s Saturday when Javier invites them to El Monumental. River Plate is playing Independiente and he has his private box. Kun rarely goes to watch a match live anymore even though he’s had a season ticket and club membership since his birth. For him, it’s not much about the actual football, but about the socializing around it. Plus, there are free drinks, and Kun is always up for that.
He arrives when the game has already kicked off.
“You’re late,” Pocho shouts over his shoulder and immediately turns his attention back on the game. He’s wearing River’s jersey, so are Nicolás and Esteban. Kun sees with relief that at least everyone else is dressed like a normal person – well, as normal as they can be.
He throws a brief look out the window, distractedly watches the coloured spots out on the green and the roaring crowd, sporting banners. His heart almost skips a beat when Kun turns back around. Leo is leaning against the small bar, face motionless. Kun thinks he might be smiling at him for the fracture of a second; but he might be wrong.
“Not interested in the game?” he asks because Leo is obviously not paying attention like the others. He’s in jeans and a black jumper and his hair only reaches past his eyebrows, getting tangled in his lashes when Leo blinks. He looks –
“I don’t watch much football,” Leo answers and Kun walks up to him, stands next to him and they look at each other. Kun is still trying to find something in his eyes, to figure him out and it frustrates him that he can’t. He hasn’t smoked or taken anything all day and he doesn’t know what else could be clouding his judgement.
“Then what else do you do in Europe?” Kun asks because he figures he can’t just ask why he left in the first place. He doesn’t know Leo, not at all and he wouldn’t like it were their positions reversed.
“Many things,” is the vague answer and Leo doesn’t avert his eyes, keeps them focused on Kun’s and it makes him slightly uneasy.
“Why did you come back then?”
Leo shrugs. “I’m not here for long. My grandfather is sick, I came to see him.” Kun guesses that probably means Leo came to watch him die, to wait out until he passes away. “I need to go back to Barcelona in a few weeks.”
Barcelona, Kun thinks, that’s interesting. “Why not stay longer?”
Leo smiles slightly. “Is this some sort of quiz?”
Subconsciously, Kun moves closer, reaches inconveniently around Leo to grab some beer. His arm brushes the fabric of Leo’s jumper. He takes a swig, flashes a grin. “I’m just curious.”
“I can tell. Will you knock out my teeth if I don’t answer?”
“Maybe,” Kun replies. “Shouldn’t take your chances on that one.”
“Better not,” Leo says. “I’ve got University to get back to. And – you know.”
Kun doesn’t know, but he doesn’t press on, because it seems like something Leo wouldn’t tell him about at this stage anyway. Somehow, Leo reminds him of Javier, soft-spoken and seemingly perfect. And just like with Javier, Kun feels this irrepressible urge to scratch at his faultless façade.
He is dying to find out what lies beneath it.
The match ends in a draw. The guys are frustrated; apparently so much that Pipita disappears to the restroom for a few minutes and comes back with pupils like pinheads. Leo rapidly excuses himself after the final whistle, quietly talks to Javier for a minute or so, then disappears. Kun looks after him until Eze steps in his line of view.
“He seems boring.”
Kun raises his brows. If he had a dying grandfather at home he probably wouldn’t be much fun either. But Eze doesn’t know. “You think so?”
Eze drapes an arm around his shoulder and leans on him heavily. “Doesn’t talk much either.”
“He talked to me,” Kun deadpans and can’t help but look smug about it. “Probably just doesn’t like your ugly mug.” He ducks away before Eze can swing at him and heads over to Javier, because people usually try to keep it together around him. Plus, there are a couple of things Kun wants to know.
He rounds Pipita who is standing a bit aimlessly in the middle of the room. Javier sees him and smiles. “Did you enjoy the game?”
He shrugs because honestly, Kun hadn’t paid attention to it for one second. “Was okay,” he says nevertheless and he can tell that Javier sees right through him.
“I saw you talking to Leo,” he says. “Reviving a lost childhood friendship?”
Why everyone but him knows about that is beyond Kun. “Something like that. Can’t remember him much to be honest. Or why he even left.”
“I see what you’re getting at,” Javier says and turns away from Kun. He follows the older one to the bar and watches patiently as he pours himself a glass of whisky. “But what makes you think that I know anything about that?”
That brings Kun to roll his eyes. “Come one, if anybody in this city puts as much as a foot wrong, then you know about it. Or rather, your father does.”
Javier’s gaze is calculating. It’s lost most of its former softness and Kun wonders if he might have taken a step to far. After all, it’s none of his business, perhaps not even Javier’s. “I guess I do know a few details,” Javier admits. “But this isn’t anything to discuss here. In fact, I’d rather not tell you. If you want to know anything, you will have to ask Leo.”
“And how is that supposed to work?” Kun objects. “Tell me all about your shady past?”
Javier sighs. “What do you want me to do? It happened ages ago. It’s not even relevant anymore. I’m sorry, Kun, but I’m not going to spread out his personal life because you’re bored.”
He starts to move away again. Kun takes his arm. His fingers dig into expensive cashmere. “You owe me, Javi.” That makes Javier still and Kun knows when he’s won. He puts on his most innocent smile. “You know, we wouldn’t Paula to get upset, right?”
Javier shakes his head in disbelief. “You can be a devious bastard, you know that?”
Kun shrugs. “Whatever gets me what I want,” he says.
Javier opens his mouth, purses his lips like something is laying on the tip of his tongue and he’s trying hard to suppress it. Eventually though, he swallows it down. “Just come over tomorrow. I’ll tell you then.”
Kun paces around his flat all night, mind racing and conjuring up theories. It’s not until he lights a bong that he calms down again. He lets the smoke fill his room and lies back on his bed, watches the clouds dance, watches distorted faces smile down on him and waits for it to rain.
Javier lives in a house that might as well be standing in one of Paris’s vast avenues. Trees line the road on either side and although it is in the middle of the city, it is so quiet that Kun can hear the gravel crunch beneath his shoes. Not many cars are parked here, because cars get stolen and most people have drivers anyway. He walks up the ornamented staircase to the heavy front door made out of wood. Hundred years of knocking have left their mark and it is slightly dented and faded, but Kun likes it. He doesn’t need to knock though. After a few seconds, a buzzer goes off and he is free to enter.
If the outside is impressive, than the interior of the house is it even more. Black marble floors, grey wallpaper and mirrors up to the ceiling. One of the housekeepers, an old woman Kun still remembers for her homemade empanadas, is polishing a child-sized Ming vase. She smiles at him, wrinkles cutting deep into her olive skin and Kun randomly wonders if he’ll ever look like that; if life will leave marks like that on his face.
He heads straight for the staircase. Javier is usually somewhere on the second floor, because that’s where his office is, so Kun is positive that he’ll find him there. As he ascends the stairs, he can hear the faint patter of dog paws, the squidgy sound of the housekeeper wiping the vase; the rest of the house seems to be in a deep slumber.
Naturally, he finds Javier in his office, leaning against the heavy desk like he’s been waiting for Kun, gazing out of the window and onto the backyard covered in withered leaves. Kun observes his profile for a moment, takes in his chiselled face with high cheekbones and strong jaw until Javier turns to face him.
“Do you want a drink?”
It’s only eleven in the morning, but that has never mattered to Kun before. “Depends on what you’re about to tell me.”
Javier smiles weakly and walks over to an antique pantry and fills two glasses with fernet. The smell is strong and captures the room almost instantly. Kun sits down Indian-style in one of the armchairs by the window and Javier joins him with a frown.
“You know that everything happened eight years ago,” Javier says. “That’s a long time. It’s quite irrelevant to many people now.”
“Then it won’t do any harm if you tell me,” Kun smiles.
Javier studies him for a beat, drinks some of his fernet. Kun’s eyes fall on an impressively filled file on the small table between them. “I’m surprised that none of you remember,” Javier eventually begins. “After all, he was your classmate, not mine.”
“Like you said,” Kun replies. “It’s a long time.”
The ghost of a smile graces Javier’s lips. He finishes his drink and for a second Kun thinks he’s going to get up and get a refill, but Javier just swirls the glass around in small circles.
“I’ll start from the top then.” He takes the file from the table and Kun figures it might be something like a criminal record. Javier’s got friends in high places, so it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to get his hands on it. Kun’s heart beats heavily in his chest. “Well. Vandalism, aged thirteen,” he says and turns a page. “Smashed some car windows. After that, something every month. Got caught shoplifting, skipping school, damaging public property.”
Paper rustles and Kun leans back, breathing in the herby scent of the fernet. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” he comments, it’s nothing that would get anyone sent away to bloody Europe.
Javier doesn’t comment. “Sentenced to do public service after stealing a car.” He mutters down more minor offences as he skims through the file; nothing particularly serious on it own, but the list is long. “Underage drinking, trespassing and – possession and consumption of illegal substances.”
“Okay,” Kun says. “Okay. How old was he then? Fifteen, sixteen?” Javier nods. “And then they just sent him to boarding school or what?”
“Not exactly,” Javier replies, takes out a sheet of paper and hands it to Kun. “This happened.”
It’s a copy of a newspaper article. Kun checks the date; he’d just turned sixteen. His eyes fall onto the boldly printed headline and he feels his blood freeze. “Teenager drowns as result of drug cocktail.”
“Apparently, it happened around the docks,” Javier explains. “There’s close to no information, but my father was one of the consulting lawyers. The kid, Óscar Ustari, fell or jumped in the river, couldn’t keep himself afloat. The autopsy showed that he’d overdosed on practically everything. It’s likely that he wouldn’t have survived the night either way.”
Kun fills his cheeks with air and blows it out slowly, empties his drink in one go and takes another look at the newspaper article. A picture of a boy, he assumes it’s Ustari, is printed in black and white; big eyes, baby-faced. According to the journalist, he’d been from the suburbs, working class background. All Kun can think though is how a kid like that had gotten his hands on enough money to afford overdosing. But then he remembers what they’re actually here about – Leo.
“What’s Leo got to do with that? If it was an accident and all.”
“Because he was there,” Javier answers. “Along with three others. Moreira, Tevez, Souza. Equally high. They tried to get them for non-assistance of a person in danger. All of them had criminal records, so it could’ve put them behind bars. But Cuccitini threw a nice sum into the middle. Not sure what happened to the others, but Leo got away with a fright. His grandfather made sure that his name wasn’t mentioned in a single article.”
“And he just tossed Leo across the Atlantic?”
Javier shrugs. “It was only supposed to be for a year or so. At least that’s what Leo told me. He decided to stay in Barcelona for good.”
Kun doesn’t quite get that. Because – accidents just happen.
***
It’s probably ironic, Kun thinks; that he tries to make sense of Leo and his shady past by getting drunk and high with Pocho and Pipita. He does feel shocked, maybe slightly confused still, but the difference is – Kun isn’t some senseless teenager. He knows full well what he’s doing. He is perfectly aware of any limits he has.
***
It turns into a pastime obsession. As rain mercilessly falls down on Buenos Aires, Kun scans through countless online archives, but Cuccitini’s money has done a thorough job of deleting Leo’s name. However, he does find numerous articles on the actual incident. He prints a few and spreads them out on his living room floor, grabs a bottle of his favourite scotch and a pack of cigarettes. By the end of the day, he knows that Ustari had been a High School dropout from Boedo who had been sixteen when he drowned. The accident had sparked a short-lived discussion amongst local politicians. They had talked and quickly forgotten.
Something tells him that it would’ve been different if Leo had been the dead one.
***
He’s probably still high on MDMA when he comes up with the idea. Kun can just tell; he’s been awake for more than a day and has so much energy that he even contemplates going for a run. But that’s not what he wants. He wants to see Leo, talk to him and find out more – about everything. Kun can’t stop thinking about how dark his eyes were back then and how dark they are now, but different. And he wants to get closer, take a deep look and see the souls hiding behind them.
Kun thinks he wants to kiss him too.
He orders a cab and stops by the bakery around the corner. The address rolls off his tongue like he goes there every day; truth is, Kun probably hasn’t been there in fifteen years and more. It’s near Javier’s and, Kun realizes as the cab pulls up, even more impressive. There are no steps directly leading up to a front door. The property takes up half of the hidden street, a massive iron gate and fence shielding it off. Kun rings a bell and is suddenly painfully aware of where he actually is. He doesn’t know who else lives here, if Leo will even be there or –
A voice comes out of the speakers, but the torrential rain drowns it out and Kun stumbles over his tongue in an attempt to make his intentions known. “This is Kun – Agüero. I’m a… friend of Leo’s and –”
The buzzer interrupts him and Kun fumbles with the icy bars, pushes at the gate that, naturally, opens with a squeal that makes Kun’s skin tingle. There’s a gravel path, partially overgrown and now slightly muddy from soil being washed over it by the rain. It’s more a mansion than a house and when his eyes settle on the door, he feels a strange sense of déjà-vu, gets giddy with silly excitement like a child visiting his playmate on a candy high.
Kun is surprised to see Leo open the door, not a housekeeper. He’s in a t-shirt and track pants that are low on his hips and stained with – ink? Kun can’t be sure, maybe he’s also just hallucinating it. Leo smiles, but simultaneously furrows his brows, most likely in surprise. Kun grins back brightly and jumps up the stairs, holding up the bag from the bakery.
“I thought you’d be bored out of your mind, you know,” he tells Leo. “Alone in a strange city, rain and all. And I brought some alfajores. My mother told me you were obsessed with them.”
There’s a tickle rising up his neck when Leo’s eyes widen in pleasant surprise. “I was,” he says. “Probably still am. I was just working, but – come in.” He steps aside to let Kun brush past him. “Just throw your jacket anywhere.”
Kun lets his wet coat flop onto the black and white tiles and follows Leo along the hallway filled with expensive antiquities. It’s weirdly familiar, although Kun can’t remember being here. But he guesses that most mansions of old oligarchs are frightfully similar. There is something in the air that could easily referred to as the stench of money.
“Sorry about the mess,” Leo calls over his shoulder. “I sent everyone home for the week. My grandfather is in hospital and with just me here, it seems silly.”
The mess Leo is referring to is practically non-existent when they enter a small sitting room – probably only one of many. There are a few empty mugs on a low table surrounded by three sofas and a TV. That and some inkpots. And a rather impressively sized sheet of paper, covered in erratic black lines.
Kun walks past Leo and leans over it. “Is that what you do in Barcelona?” He turns around. Leo is scratching the back of his neck. “Looks pretty neat.”
“Unfortunately, not all the time. It’s just a –”
“Just what? That looks fucking brilliant. What building is that?” He sits down and squints his eyes.
“Just something I saw in the Barri Gòtic,” Leo replies and takes a seat right next to Kun. Their knees touch.
“So let me guess. Art?”
Leo shakes his head. Hair slides into his eyes and he distractedly brushes it off his forehead. Kun wants to do that. “Something like that,” he answers, then he nods towards the TV screen, where Marlon Brando just collapses in between tomato branches. “We can change that if you want.”
“Are you kidding? I fucking love The Godfather.”
It feels strange and not, how easily they move on to different subjects. None of importance, but nevertheless. Hanging out with Leo is nice, because he is so different from Kun’s other friends. He doesn’t tease or talk nonsense like Pipita or Eze and Kun doesn’t feel in any way inferior to him like he does when he’s around Javier or Pocho. They finish watching The Godfather, spend an eternity quoting it and talking about the various sequels and Leo disagrees with Kun on many things, but whereas Pipita might have shoved an elbow into his ribs, Leo listens, argues back but always in that soft voice of his. The only time when it reaches a higher volume is when Kun makes him laugh.
“Why did we ever stop hanging out?” Kun asks randomly when it’s already dark outside. The alfajores have long been consumed, as well as the mate Leo had made them late afternoon. There’s another Al Pacino movie blasting from the TV, but Kun has spent the last thirty minutes just watching Leo and the subtle expressions ghosting over his face.
Leo shrugs. “My mother didn’t want us to play together anymore after you disfigured me. She said you were a bad influence.”
He glances over and Kun can’t help but bark out a laugh. “Well, that turned out well, huh?”
When Leo’s face suddenly turns solemn, Kun realizes what he said. It suddenly goes deadly quiet. Thick drops of rain are attacking the windows, collapsing against the glass, running down in an erratic pattern. Kun bites his lip. His chest feels heavy and so do his eyelids and he thinks he’s come off the MDMA; he’s tired.
Leo remains motionless for a few more beats, then he leans back against the cushions and fixes his attention back on the movie. “I forgot how quickly things spread around here,” he says eventually, quiet even by his standard and Kun feels bad for being nosy, for being indiscreet.
“Look, Leo, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”
“It’s fine,” Leo interrupts, but he still refuses to look at him and Kun wants to frame his face and make him and – “I should have figured.” He smiles. It seems bitter. “You really can’t run away from the past.”
Kun shifts closer and perhaps it’s everything that’s been building up inside him that makes him place his hand in Leo’s neck. His fingertips start to brush the soft skin right behind his ears and he is close; he is so close to just – “Why do you want to run from it anyway?”
Kun just doesn’t get it. So he’s made mistakes, had a bit of a fucked up youth. But like Javier said, it’s not like anyone cares about that anymore.
Finally, Leo looks at him and his eyes are just so dark and full of things Kun wants to know everything about. “I don’t want it to catch up with me.”
They fall asleep on the couch. When Kun wakes up, the sun is just rising. He looks at Leo, who is lying next to him, fitting like he’s always been there.
***
“Where were you yesterday? I tried calling you.” Pocho slides into the empty spot next to Kun, rapidly flashing lights pouring over his shoulders like an electric rainbow.
He tiredly raises his head that feels heavy with thoughts, mostly about Leo, also with fatigue. Kun’s crushed up some pill Pipita gave him a while ago, mixed it in with his drink, but he’s not feeling the desired effect. Pocho is sure to have some MDMA left in his pocket, but that always makes him see dead people, and Kun doesn’t really fancy that right now.
“I went to see Leo,” he says and pours himself more vodka.
Pocho moves closer to understand him properly; the music is so loud that the base echoes in Kun’s belly. “Leo? Why?”
Kun shrugs. He could easily tell Pocho that he’d been high and running out of things to do. Instead he says, “Just to catch up.”
“Catch up?” Pocho leans in and Kun can see sweat glisten on his skin. “Why bother, Javier says he’s going back to Europe anyway.”
He shrugs again and decides to evade the truth. “He seems – interesting.”
It seems like Pocho evaluates for a moment, then he grins from one ear to the other. “Interesting, that’s how you want to call it, eh?” He gives Kun’s shoulder a shove. Whatever it is he’s downed, it’s making him underestimate his strength. “You just want to fuck him.”
Kun frowns and rubs his arm. “Well, what if I do?”
“Just seems like a lot of effort,” Pocho says and takes a swig of Kun’s vodka. Kun forgets to tell him that there’s still some white powder stuck at the bottom of the glass. “If you’re so desperate, just wait until Pipita has moved on to tequila.”
“I don’t want to sleep with Pipita.”
“That would be a safe bet, though,” Pocho argues. Light explodes in the distance and Kun covers his eyes, just wants to go somewhere else. He hates this club, hates the music; it makes his head hurt and his eyesight blurry and the too heavy beat causes him nausea. “How do you know Leo even swings that way? Maybe he’s taken.”
“I don’t care either way,” Kun mutters into his hands. “I want him.”
“Like a kid in a candy store,” Pocho laughs. “I’ll probably regret asking, but: why?”
Yet again, Kun could say many things that would be true. Because he is different; because he makes Kun feel warm when he smiles; because he fits right beside him when they sleep. “I just do,” he ends up saying. Everything else would make him think about things he’s never thought about before.
***
“Do you want to get breakfast?”
“Sorry – what? Kun?” He hears sheets rustle and Kun imagines – “It’s five in the morning.”
“Exactly,” Kun says, almost stumbles over the pavement that suddenly rises above the road. He catches himself by grabbing a lamppost. “Best time to grab breakfast in La Boca. There’s this place that makes the best coffee in Buenos Aires and if you get there really early and show a nice smile, the owner will throw in some flan on the house.”
“Okay,” Leo replies, sounding a little more alert. “Again. It’s five in the morning.”
Kun rounds a corner. There’s hardly any light spilling over the empty street, but the smell in the air is almost intoxicating. “That’s the point. All the people that don’t matter will be asleep. Come on. I’ll be at yours in ten minutes.”
“Kun, I don’t –”
“I won’t take no for an answer,” Kun says. He’s buzzing, pulse racing. “I’ll show you Buenos Aires in a way that will make you wonder why you left it so long to come back.”
Rain keeps falling as murky light slowly crawls over the city. The streets are shimmering mirrors and all faces are distorted.
“You’re insane,” Leo says as he opens the front door and steps outside to meet Kun. His hair is sticking out and there’s a fine line on his forehead where a fabric fold must have been pressed to his face. He looks fucking adorable, Kun thinks, with a jacket so big that he’s practically swimming in it.
He smiles triumphantly. “You’ll thank me later,” he tells Leo as they make their way down the gravel path. “Coffee and flan, there’s no better way to start the day.”
Despite the soft drizzle, Kun decides to walk. He doesn’t want Leo to see his city, their city, through a smudged cab window. It might sound silly, but Leo is one of them and he should know Buenos Aires like they do. Walking downtown this early in the morning is peaceful and as much as it probably makes Leo shake off any leftover fatigue, the cold air gets Kun to sober up slightly and slows down his heartrate again.
Around Puerto Madero, they get onto the Subte because the rain is getting heavier and, Kun realizes, it is actually too far to walk. They get off at Constitucion and step right into the most colourful neighbourhood Buenos Aires has to offer.
It’s not as colourful right now, Kun observes, because it’s still early, because it’s cold and wet and honestly, just a little bit gloomy – but maybe that’s down to whatever it is that’s still stuck in Kun’s blood circuit.
The entire time, Leo is so close to him that their shoulders brush with every step and Kun is equally close to put an arm around him, feel the warmth of his body and smell the rain on his skin. For now though, he is content with just watching him and how Leo’s eyes lighten up with recognition, how he rediscovers what he hasn’t seen for so long but must have once been so familiar with. Kun can’t imagine what it’s like to leave and just not come back for years.
He’d definitely miss that coffee and flan, Kun concludes when they’ve finally sat down in the small deli hidden away in an alley. The pastry is still warm and he looks at Leo almost absentmindedly tearing it to pieces.
“There can’t be anything as good as this in Barcelona,” he says eventually. Leo’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t say anything in return. “I mean, this is heaven. Literal heaven. And I haven’t even brought out the dulce de leche.”
“Oh, is that the secret weapon?” Leo smiles and glances up at him. “Sticky sugarpaste?”
“That and about a hundred other things I will show you today,” Kun replies enthusiastically. “I’m sure there is a lot you don’t remember.”
“I’m sure there is,” Leo agrees and takes a sip of his coffee. Kun is hypnotized by the way his lips mould around the cup. “But I’m not staying.”
“Why?” Kun is fully aware of the fact that it almost sounds like he’s whining. “Buenos Aires is the most beautiful city on earth, why would you ever want to leave again? Do you have anything special waiting in for you Barcelona?”
As soon as he says it and sees the expression in Leo’s eyes, he knows. “I do,” Leo replies quietly. “Someone, actually.”
It works wonders to sober Kun up almost instantly. Leo is staring into his coffee again, hands wrapped tightly around the mug and Kun – Kun takes a moment to realize he’s stopped breathing. He’d later congratulate himself for hiding a gasp for air, as well as his shock over the fact that fucking Pocho was right again.
“Do you?” he says and puts on the best fake smile he’s got in store. This just complicates things for Kun. “Nobody could be worth leaving this for.” He holds up the flan and laughs, but Leo remains silent and Kun bites his tongue to make himself stop.
“He’s not the reason I left,” Leo eventually tells him after a few silent beats, eyes still glued to the probably cooled down liquid in his mug. “And he’s not the only reason why I have to go back to Barcelona.”
He seems distant now, almost frosty, averting his eyes to stare out the window and Kun feels a bit – well, he’s not exactly sure how he feels.
Kun realizes that he has killed the mood. Leo becomes awfully quiet and although the silence between them couldn’t be described as uncomfortable, Kun does prefer it when they talk. When they finish breakfast, it’s only eight o’clock. Nevertheless, they take a cab back to Recoleta as the city starts to buzz with life. For a moment, when Leo gets out of the cab, Kun thinks that this is the last he’ll see of him. But then Leo turns around and smiles and it stays imprinted in his mind until he gets to his flat and falls asleep on the couch.
***
“He has a boyfriend.”
“Since when does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t,” Kun says. “It’ll just make it harder. And – why does he have one anyway? Who could ever –” and he doesn’t finish, doesn’t ask who could ever be good enough for Leo because it sounds silly.
“You sound obsessed,” Pipita comments. “I don’t think he’s that special.”
Kun disagrees. He hums into the phone, finishes his glass of brandy, mind pleasantly fuzzy. Leo is more than special, he’s sure and there is just so much more to him than meets the eye. So much hidden behind his grandfather’s money and in that empty mansion in Recoleta and carefully phrased answers that give nothing away. Perhaps that’s why Kun wants to see Leo writhing beneath him; maybe he just wants to see him fall apart.
He gets hard just thinking about it.
“Want me to come over?”
Pipita’s voice is deep, words slurred and Kun tries to remember the last time he’s seen the other entirely off anything, but it’s up to Pipita and Kun’s jeans are tight and although sleeping with Giannina took the edge off for a while –
“Sure,” he says. “But I won’t bottom.”
Instead of dinner, he has the Dutch beer from his fridge and two cigarettes and when Pipita arrives, Kun fucks him against the front door.
***
He goes to dinner with his parents the following evening although he really doesn’t want to. His father talks about future plans he has for Kun and his mother spreads out the entire gossip of the last month before focusing on Don Cuccitini and his multi-million oil empire and how Leo is going to get it all once his grandfather dies. Kun swallows down the comment that he finds it distasteful, that Cuccitini isn’t really dead just yet and even if – well he’d just rather not talk at all.
***
He drops by Javier’s some afternoon when the rain has stopped for the first time in days. The streets are still wet, fallen leaves soggy and brown, plastered onto the sidewalks. The same old housekeeper who had stuffed his face with pastries when he was young opens the door and lets him in. She leads him to the kitchen and Kun stops in the doorway in surprise, because Leo is sitting at the marble island in the middle of the room, a cup of mate in front of him. He looks tired, Kun observes.
“Hey,” he says.
Leo looks up from a newspaper in front of him. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes soften. “Hey. Javi should be back soon. He’s just gone downtown to his office.”
“Okay.” Kun steps closer to the island. “It’s not important, I can wait. Unless you guys got plans?”
“No, no plans,” Leo replies. “Just stopped by on my way back from hospital.”
“Oh.” Kun pulls one of the stools out from under the island. His eyes fall onto the paper Leo must’ve been reading until he showed up. There’s a big headline concerning Cuccitini’s business but before Kun can read anymore, Leo turns the page and pushes the newspaper to the side. “How’s your grandfather?”
Leo drops his gaze again, flicks his bambilla, his mate straw, against the edge of his cup and watches it slide along the brim. “Don’t know. The doctors are throwing terms around and he’s not really – conscious.”
“Sorry,” Kun mumbles. “Are you okay?”
Leo shrugs, squishes boiled up leaves against the wall of his cup. “I guess. Don’t know. I don’t really – know him.”
Kun thinks that’s what most people growing up like they had would say. All he remembers about his grandparents is a big house that smelled of cigars and cat; and a big cheque he’d gotten for each birthday. He is quite thankful that there hear footsteps from the hall that save him from having to come up with an adequate reply. Javier walks into the kitchen, wearing a suit but no tie, looking as impeccable as ever. He looks surprised to see Kun.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he says straight away.
“Was a spontaneous idea,” Kun says and smiles. “They guys and I are going out tonight, thought you might want to join.”
“Some other time,” Javier replies. “Me and Paula are going to her parents for dinner.”
He lifts his briefcase. “I’m just going to put this upstairs, I’ll be back down in a minute.”
“Take your time,” Kun smiles, then turns around to face Leo again. “You should come.”
“I don’t really like to go out.” Leo reaches for the newspaper again, opens it at a seemingly random page, eyes firmly on the writing.
Not anymore, Kun thinks. “Come on, it’ll be fun, distracting.”
Leo stills, looks up without raising his head, brows furrowed. “I don’t think so.” A beat passes, then he adds, “I’m not an idiot, you know?”
Kun blinks, taken aback. “I never said you were.”
Leo just keeps looking at him and it makes Kun feel slightly uneasy, like instead of him peeling away Leo’s layers, the other is doing the exact same to him without even trying. “Remember the first time you came to visit?” Leo asks, but Kun assumes he doesn’t want him to answer. “Your pupils were the size of coins.” He pauses, lets the words sink in, then he turns his attention back to the newspaper. “Like I said – I’m not an idiot.”
Perhaps Kun should’ve seen it coming. But he needs a few moments to snap back into it. Still, he’s not sure what to say, because who he is, what he does – it’s never really bothered anyone before and it has certainly never stopped him from –
“Okay,” he says, still slightly baffled, but he can work with that. “How about I come over instead, with some food and a Martin Scorcese boxset?” Kun smiles brightly and when Leo raises one eyebrow at him, he quickly adds, “Normal pupils, promise.”
Leo seems sceptical. “Kun, you don’t need to –”
“I know,” Kun interrupts him straight away. “But I want to. You shouldn’t be sitting in that creepy house on your own.”
When a smile tugs at Leo’s lips, Kun feels a fire spread in his belly. It feels strange and unfamiliar, but he wants to keep it going nonetheless. “It’s not that creepy,” Leo says but Kun shakes his head.
“It is. Looks like something from an Alfred Hitcock movie. So – do you say yes?”
“You’ll keep bugging me if I don’t, right?”
Kun smiles. He knows when he’s won. When he leaves just a short while later, he doesn’t miss the look Javier gives him.
***
Kun can’t remember the last time he actually had a night in, on his own terms, without being to hungover and high to move anyway. But he actually grabs a handful of mob-movies, gets some takeaway and heads to Leo’s when the sun is just setting. Leo falls asleep halfway through the second film and his head drops onto Kun’s shoulder. He looks young, and just terribly exhausted from things Kun has never experienced in a similar way. The heat in his belly remains, multiplies and he presses his lips to Leo’s temple. He drifts off slowly and thinks distractedly that Pocho, Pipita and the others are probably just starting their night.
***
When Kun wakes up, Leo is still soundly asleep against his side. He decides not to wake him, figuring that he really needs the rest and carefully peels him off his shoulder and watches for a moment how he sinks back against into the cushions, a fine line from Kun’s shirt seam across his forehead.
The floorboards creak when he gets up and looks around; light murky through heavy curtains. The room is small, like a tiny cave with high ceilings, a safe haven within a gloomy old house. He doesn’t blame Leo for wanting to stay in here most of the time; it’s probably less overwhelming than all the other rooms haunted by his sick grandfather. Fully aware that he is being – once again – a little bit too nosy, Kun steps out into the hallway where a week’s absence of any cleaners have left a thin layer of dust on wooden antiquities and ornamented picture frames.
He continues down the corridor, passes a couple of closed doors that he doesn’t want to open and into the main living area. It’s not as opulent as Kun would have expected, considering, but every piece of furniture looks worth a fortune. Nevertheless, Kun sticks to his opinion that it’s creepy, that there’s something missing, maybe a person actually living in it – although he might be the one to judge that.
He briefly glances into the kitchen, which is equally unlived in except for a few mugs in the sink and finds another door hidden away in a corner, slightly ajar. It’s a study, or an office, on the larger side with French doors leading out into a rather withered garden. The air is thick with dust and Kun feels his throat starting to itch, suppresses a cough.
It’s dusty, but paradoxically more alive. Kun immediately notices a few picture frames on a heavy chest of drawers, standing right behind the cherry-wood desk.
It’s like a shrine for Leo. Pictures spanning over all toddler ages, in all sizes. Leo taking his first steps, with a football, in a River Plate kit, dressed up as an Indian. Sitting by a pool on holiday, at the beach and finally on his grandfather’s lap. There are no pictures of Leo’s parents and weirdly enough, no pictures of him being any older than perhaps ten.
Kun nearly jumps into the air when he hears footsteps right behind him. He spins around, heart beating frantically against his ribs, and almost expects some sort of ghost or zombie to jump right at him.
“Fuck, Leo, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” He still looks sleepy, eyes small, cheeks slightly flushed. “What are you doing?”
Kun realizes he just got caught. “Oh, this, I was just – sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop around.”
Leo smiles weakly, steps up next to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not aware of any corpses hidden in closets.”
He grabs one of the frames, the one of him and his grandfather – and places it back, picture facing down. Kun senses the tension in Leo’s shoulders; that there is something buried. Maybe there aren’t any literal corpses hidden anywhere in this house – but there is something hidden.
“I need a walk,” Leo adds suddenly. “Do you want to come for a walk?”
Kun briefly glances out the window. It looks grey, but it’s not raining. “Sure, why not?”
Leo walks fast and Kun has a hard time keeping up with him. Maybe, Kun thinks, Leo is still trying to run away from the past.
***
Growing up, it had always been about the things he wasn’t allowed to do. It had never been about encouragement or positive reinforcement or anything pleasant for that matter. His parents had instructed his ayas to issue warnings and bans. There were certain areas of the city that had been labelled as off-limit, certain children he hadn’t been allowed to play with and at the time, Kun hadn’t quite understood the reasons for that. Even now, he doesn’t really understand.
All he knows is that turning eighteen had felt like the biggest liberation he could possibly experience. And in a way, Kun thinks he’s still trying to catch up with life. He knows it’s the same for Pipita, for Eze and Pocho.
So it’s difficult for him to grasp Leo and to understand why he’s running and not going back to a life that wasn’t really his in the first place.
***
“He’s adorable when he sleeps.”
Pocho’s laugh only quietly reaches his ears. The club’s loud base has deafened Kun’s ears. “Man, you’re so smitten. It’s disgusting.”
“You’re disgusting,” Kun mumbles into his scarf. He resists the urge to pull it over his head. The sun is rising and all he wants to do is sleep.
“Come on,” Pocho declares and puts an arm around Kun’s shoulders. “Lets get you home.”
A few hours later, Kun can’t remember how he actually got back to his flat.
***
Kun is lying on his back. The ceiling is higher up than he remembers it to be. He stretches out his hand and it moves upwards, twists and spins and turns the walls into a spiral, squeezing all air out of the room. Kun watches how the windows become distorted and he wonders how the glass stays intact, doesn’t break into a million pieces and scatters across the floor.
He tries to move his body, but it’s too heavy, like a rock and he almost breaks a sweat by trying to move a finger. Breathing is hard; like that invisible weight is squishing his lung and chest and Kun wants to open a window, wants some fucking air but those windows don’t seem like they even open anymore. He glances upwards again where the ceiling is still changing shape, still seems far away before it comes crashing down towards him with lightning speed and a scream dies halfway up Kun’s throat when it stops just an inch away from his forehead. He chokes, feels bile climbing up from his stomach, acidic and bitter and burning.
Somebody might be calling his name, but it could just as well be an echo of his mind, his thoughts vibrating between his temples.
It takes a few more attempts before Kun manages to lift his arms again, wanting to push the ceiling away from his face but he only pushes into thin air, right through the concrete and it’s cold, freezing actually and Kun gets goosebumps all over his body, shivers until he can hear his sheets rustle beneath his skin. He puts all his strength into his left arm and digs it into the mattress and he can feel his body shift and roll to the side, finally, almost expecting his shoulder to collide with the ceiling, but it doesn’t. Instead pillows swallow the side of Kun’s face, before, in a matter of milliseconds, he sees the ground getting closer.
The impact is instant and Kun is too slow to react, hits his forehead on the wooden planks and pain explodes behind his eyes. He groans and twists again until he feels his hands pressing against the ground, scrambles to his knees and thinks he’s going to be sick. Kun drags himself forward on all fours. Everything continues to spin and he doesn’t even know if he’s heading the right way to the bathroom.
The ceiling keeps descending and air becomes thin and now Kun is pretty sure that there are people calling him although he doesn’t understand a word, because all voices become one in his head, syllables mixed up that it almost sounds like an entirely different language. They echo and fill his mind and make him dizzy and Kun has to stop in the hallway, leans his back against the wall, breathing heavy. There is a mirror just opposite him, a big antique mirror with a heavy frame, just standing on the floor because he hadn’t bothered hanging it up. Kun sees his own reflection, but it’s not him, he doesn’t look like that and then that person crawls towards the glass, reaches out, wants to break out.
Without second thought, Kun throws his leg out. Tiny shards collapse to the floor with a screaming shrill and Kun watches numbly as the stranger in the mirror is torn into a thousand pieces.
***
“How the hell did you do this?”
Kun winces as Esteban carefully pulls a rather big shard out of his foot. It lands on a small pile on his living room table. The cloth beneath them is already tinged in blood. He bites down on his lip, takes a deep breath through his nose and exchanges a quick glance with Pocho, who is sitting in an armchair across from where Kun is lying on the couch.
“Fuck, I don’t –” and he has to flinch again. “I can’t remember okay? Not exactly at least. Fucking MDMA.”
“MDMA, huh?” Esteban looks up and furrows his brows. “I told you a hundred times to stay away from that. That stuff fucks with your head.”
“No shit,” Kun breathes.
“Isn’t Pocho here keeping an eye on you?”
“I’m not his babysitter,” Pocho throws in. “He should know what he’s doing.”
“I do know what I’m doing,” Kun objects, but Pocho huffs.
“Right. You certainly looked totally in it when I found you with your foot stuck in a mirror this morning.”
“I told you, it was an – Ouch!”
Esteban throws him a lopsided grin. “Sorry. Well, your foot should be fine; it will just hurt like hell and I’d say you should keep it still for as long as you can. We don’t want the cuts to open while you’re walking around.”
Kun sighs heavily and lets his head fall back. “Oh great.”
“Hey, you made your bed,” Pocho throws in. “Now go and lie in it.”
Kun hates it when he’s right.
***
Kun spends the entire day after Pocho and Esteban have come over at home, on the couch, not moving. He spends the day after that at home as well, equally bored with nothing to do, trying to ignore the dull thud in his foot from where the shards have cut through his skin. Esteban has left a box of painkillers for him, but they make him hungry first, then tired, then incredibly groggy and dizzy and he ends up not moving for hours – which was probably what Esteban had intended.
He can only watch how a grey curtain descends on Buenos Aires as winter fully settles in, cold slowly creeping through any cracks and Kun’s skin resembles a featherless chicken until his housekeeper comes over and adjusts the thermostat. For the first time in years, he is forced to stay at home, not because his parents forbid him to go out, which might make it less frustrating, but it doesn’t. Kun is bored, just so incredibly bored and when he rummages through the drawers of his bedside cabinet, he only finds a bag of pot. Pocho must have taken everything else he’s had in there.
River is playing on Sunday and the guys go to El Monumental again, leaving Kun behind in his flat because his foot is painfully throbbing and he is out of painkillers. When the doorbell rings, it takes him about five minutes to drag his body to the front door.
It’s Leo, with takeaway and mate and an entire tub of dulce de leche.
First Kun feels like an idiot, because the pain almost immediately disappears once Leo smiles at him; then he feels slightly unsure and apprehensive, thinking about his messy but impersonal flat, about the fact that he is most likely not the best kind of company right now, yet Leo still made the effort to come and see him instead of going to the stadium.
Stretching his bandaged foot out in front of him, he watches Leo heat up the food and tea, moving around the kitchen like he’s been there a dozen times already – he probably finds his way around it much better than Kun. And it fills Kun with – something. He’s not sure just yet, but it’s a certain kind of domesticity that he’s not familiar with. It’s generally unlike anything he is familiar with, but Kun finds that he likes it; that he likes seeing Leo amongst his things, that he wants it to be that way.
Leo carries everything into the living room, then he comes back into the kitchen and helps him out of the chair and although Kun can walk on his own just fine, Leo keeps an arm around his waist. They settle on the couch, eat milanesas and empanadas gallega and Leo even finds some biscuits in one of the cupboards that they dip into the dulce de leche. On his TV screen, Union de Santa Fe positively hammers River Plate, but neither Kun nor Leo really care about that, they just sit on the couch in silence, comfortable in each other’s company, comfortable enough to just stay in Kun’s living room and not move, even after the sun has set over Buenos Aires and the skyline sparkles like the stars above it.
The TV just blasts random nonsense after that; round-ups of the day’s matches, other stuff, Kun doesn’t pay attention. He just looks at Leo’s profile against the light, watches how he pulls his sleeves and how he chews on his lips and licks the dulce de leche off his thumb. Eventually, Leo falls asleep against the armrest of the coach and Kun scoots closer, lets his hands hover over Leo’s face but not quite yet daring to touch. He still feels content with just looking, he feels warm and calm and – content.
***
It’s only natural for the human mind to long for something different than it already possesses (humanity wouldn’t be where it is now without striving for the new). Kun believes that every excursion into the underworld, into that enigmatic twilight zone between dirty clubs and high ecstasy, is because he wants a share of that life that has always eluded him. And he is self-aware enough to understand that Leo is the personification of that elusion; that he represents everything that Kun’s life is not. Some might say that projecting his yearnings onto Leo is not the healthiest kind of love – but Kun thinks it’s love nonetheless.
***
Kun doesn’t ask Leo out, doesn’t ask him to join him and the guys when they go out because Leo gave him a pretty clear answer the first time and even when his foot is healed and he can walk without flinching, he tries to keep things separate. Again, Kun knows it’s silly, but – he wants to keep Leo to himself. He wants his undivided attention and not share him with Pipita and Eze and Pocho and the others. It is physically painful to imagine that Leo could smile at anyone else how he is smiling at Kun.
But he thinks Javier can see right through him. Kun has never been good at hiding things from Javier. It’s a night out in Palermo, unlike Kun’s usual nights out, because it’s some member’s club with private rooms, highly exclusive and Javier is paying. There’s no eardrum-shattering music, no flashing lights and certainly no MDMA, but Kun is sure he can sneak off to the restroom with Pipita and do a line or two.
He is on his fourth glass of Gin Tonic and his brain is getting fuzzy already. Kun’s tongue becomes looser and the catalyst between it and his brain is not functional anymore, so it’s not long before he finds Javier and presses close.
“Why is he with him?”
Javier’s contours are blurred, but Kun thinks he still looks beautiful. If he weren’t so focused on Leo, he’d probably – “What are you talking about?” Javier sounds much soberer than him.
“Leo,” Kun says, because he’s all Kun can think about, all he can talk about. “Why is he with some guy?”
Javier laughs. “And not with you?” He is mocking Kun and Kun would probably be pissed off – but he’s drunk. “He’s probably not just some guy.”
“Then – who is he? Have you met him?” Kun leans closer, smells Javier’s aftershave and it clouds his head even more. His lips brush Javier’s ear when he continues. “Does he compare to me?”
Javier doesn’t obviously react, but he doesn’t move away either. “I actually have met him. And they’re good together. He’s good for Leo. So you need to back off, Kun.”
The words ring back and forth in his head until they sink in. They make Kun take a step back. “Why? I haven’t done anything. And – we could be good together. I could be good for him.”
“Kun, I –”
He cuts Javier off. Gin always makes him have mood swings. “Fuck, I am good for him! Do you know he doesn’t sleep in that fucking house of his? Because he is so bloody haunted by the entire shit going on. And you know what? He falls asleep when I’m there, when he’s with me – so what does that tell you, Javi? And he’s just like me. If Leo hadn’t left eight years ago, we’d be together now.”
Javier looks at him, his usual calm self. “If Leo hadn’t left eight years ago, he’d be dead. You need to stop romanticizing about that. Leo is not like you, and he’s not like us.”
Kun returns his glance, empties his drink. Then he turns around to find Pipita, because he really needs a line now.
***
Kun believes they’re just the same. He and Leo are two drifters in a city, trying to escape.
***
Kun doesn’t listen to Javier. He’s never really listened to anyone before and this isn’t a time for him to start. After going out in Palermo, Kun feels restless and bored, generally on edge like most days and he doesn’t have anything left but some measly pot, so he is unable to rid himself off his anxiety in his usual way. He thinks that Javier should actually be proud that Kun doesn’t head straight to the docks to stock up, but instead takes a cab to Recoleta, gets dropped off at the end of the road and walk the last couple of metres to Don Cuccitini’s mansion. Kun isn’t surprised that Leo can’t relax in this place, that he finds it impossible to rest and fall asleep. Just approaching it makes his skin crawl and the entire street is as quiet at the famous cemetery just a stone throw away from it. None of the houses seem to be inhabited – maybe their owners are sleeping beneath the earth already. Cuccitini will probably follow soon.
The gate is unlocked and Kun wonders if he should point out to Leo that it might not be the wisest thing to do. But he guesses that the last thing Leo needs to hear right now that people could be out to rob him; Kun doubts he actually cares about anything in that house.
He finds him in the same small living room, TV set to an old silent movie, with a pile of documents on the table in front of him. Leo smiles at him when he notices Kun standing in the doorway.
“Javier gave me contracts to sign,” he explains the paper pile. “I don’t even understand half of it.”
Kun drops down next to him. “Javier is a freak. Why did he give you all these?”
Leo shrugs. “Because my grandfather can’t sign anything and Javier’s family has been taking care of his legal business for years. I don’t know why these things can’t wait until he’s better.”
Because he might not get better, Kun thinks, because you have to get used to that in case he doesn’t. And he can’t help himself, asks, “What if he doesn’t get better? Do you think you’d –” Kun doesn’t finish.
Leo puts the contract aside and runs his hands over his face. “I don’t know,” he says and sighs. “I should feel more than I do, but – I just don’t know him. He’s old and sick and if he doesn’t get better, I know he’ll leave me everything he owns. And I don’t want it, because I’d feel guilty for not even missing him.”
“What about your parents?”
Leo’s head turns to him, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “They’re dead.”
“Oh.” Kun wonders how he didn’t know that. How he hadn’t figured that out by himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to –”
Leo shrugs it off. “Don’t worry. They died almost twelve years ago. Just leaves me to deal with everything.”
Kun’s mind takes a second to catch on. He remembers talking to Javier, talking about Leo’s past and when things had started to go downhill from there. If he still has the details right, then Leo had started his criminal record with thirteen, and considering that they’re roughly the same age it could mean that – “You know,” Kun interrupts his own train of thought. “I’m no Javier, but I don’t mind helping you with that.”
Leo smiles again in response, but the papers remain untouched. “Thanks, but I think I’ll leave it for now. I simply cannot be bothered.” He takes a deep breath, pulls on his jumper and readjusts the hem. It’s too big and dark, like everything Leo wears. “Do you want to go somewhere, get food? I really want to get out.”
“No wonder,” Kun replies. “We could take a walk down Avenida Santa Fe,” he suggests. “It’s supposed to stay dry today and – do you like books?”
Leo raises his brows. “Sure, why?”
It’s a different kind of excitement than what Kun usually feels, but it’s exciting nonetheless when he rises, pulls Leo up to his feet with him. “You’ll see. But it’s going to be good, I promise.”
The streets are healthily buzzing with different kinds of people and Kun finds it easy to blend into the anonymous mass, to cut pathways through the crowd shifting like an army of ants, all mindlessly following each other. Leo stays close to him, like that early morning they’d walked to La Boca, and whenever their fingers brush, Kun’s hand twitches towards Leo and all he wants is to pull him closer.
They grab some empanadas and keep moving while they eat – Kun has noticed that Leo always orders his with carne de caballo – because Kun has an idea, something he is sure Leo will enjoy and will take his mind off things. He hasn’t been there in so long that he is looking forward to it too, not just for Leo’s sake.
“Do you remember this?” he asks when they arrive and watches with a smile how Leo’s eyes widen slightly.
“Not like this. This – that’s the old theatre, isn’t it?”
Kun wants to take his hand. Instead, he puts an arm around Leo’s shoulder. “Well,” he says as he takes the first few steps across the threshold, “it’s not a theatre anymore.”
It’s most certainly not. El Ateneo still looks like a theatre at first glance, but instead of seats there are uncountable rows of shelves, filled with books. The old ranks and balconies still remind of days when its stage had hosted plays and its seats had been filled with the high society of Buenos Aires, richly ornamented with gold and burgundy drapes hanging from the ceiling. The light is warm and so different from the winter outside. It smells of leather and paper and of words printed on it.
“So?” Kun asks Leo with a smirk. “Do you like it?”
He can tell Leo does, although he is probably just glad to be anywhere but that gloomy house of his. They go off in different directions, because Kun thinks that it might be nicer for Leo to just browse on his own and he himself hasn’t looked at books for such a long time that it feels refreshing to wander through the aisles. He picks up a Ché Guevara biography, a book on bird migration and one on the Great Wall of China before he bumps into Leo somewhere on the second floor. He’s sitting on the floor, back against the railing, a large book open in his lap.
“What are you reading?” Kun asks him and as Leo looks up, bangs fall into his eyes and he brushes them aside. He lifts the cover for Kun to see.
“Goya,” he answers, lays it back onto his legs and continues to flick through pages of drawings and paintings.
Kun sits down next to him. “So you want to be an artist?”
Leo looks at him with a soft smirk. “Do you want to become a revolutionary and migrate to China?”
At first Kun doesn’t get it, then he remembers the books he’s holding and has to laugh. “Touché. No, they just looked interesting. Did Goya just look interesting?”
Leo shakes his head. “Not just. He’s one of my favourites. And I do like to paint.”
“Like it enough to make it a profession?”
He claps the book shut and looks at Kun. “Why are you asking?”
“Because you never talk about anything,” Kun shrugs. “I mean, you don’t have to, I completely understand, but I’m interested. You’re interesting.”
“Hardly,” Leo laughs, brushes his hair out of his face again. “But if you really want to know – I’m still studying, looking into a few things, graphics, design. I’m not sure what I’ll pick eventually.” Kun nods, adjusts his position slightly until their bodies are flush from ankle to shoulder. He feels the heat of Leo’s body and can smell his skin and – “Do you mind me asking what you want to do?”
“No,” Kun replies, “but I don’t know. I’m doing this economics course and it bores the hell out of me. I’m not the studying kind.”
“Not everyone is,” Leo says and Kun blinks, because – it’s true. Economics isn’t for him, but that doesn’t mean that he is – “You could always be a trophy husband,” Leo jokes but Kun suddenly doesn’t find it funny anymore. He knows he said that Leo never talks about his life, yet Kun isn’t sharing much of his either. “Stay at home, raise the children. Unless you don’t want any.”
Kun swallows thickly. “I – I have a son.”
He watches as the shock quickly spreads across Leo’s face. “You do?”
Kun does. “Yes, I – well, Giannina and I were never together. And she didn’t really want me involved anyway, so…”
“How old is he?” Leo sounds genuinely interested, which makes it even worse for Kun.
“Not sure,” he confesses. “He should be about four, I think. But – I haven’t seen him in a year or more.” A bitter feeling spreads through his stomach that has never accompanied any talk of his son before.
“That’s sad,” Leo says.
Kun thinks it probably is.
It doesn’t stay dry. On the way back to Leo’s, heaven’s gates open up and the flood once again descends on Buenos Aires. They run almost all the way, clothes sticking to their bodies, cold and wet. Kun is breathing heavily and his throat hurts – his shape is not the best and his lung is punishing him for all the cigarettes and spliffs. But Leo is there, back against the wooden door, ribcage moving, with flushed cheeks and he – he can’t help it. Kun leans forward and places his icy palm on Leo’s jaw. The contact sends his heart fluttering and his breath catches halfway up his throat and Leo isn’t doing anything, he’s not moving towards him, but he’s not moving away either and Kun can almost taste his lips, wonders if his imagination will do reality justice and he is about to find out and so close, just –
At the last second, Leo tilts his head. Kun’s lips brush past his cheek. But he doesn’t move away.
***
“You know what?” Pipita’s breath smells of Tequila as he leans close to Kun’s face. “They say that Don Cuccitini had them killed.”
He takes another sip of his own drink, hides the shock that viciously spreads through his system within a second, like the substances he’s already taken tonight. “Who says that?”
“People,” Pipita says, letting his hand crawl up Kun’s neck. “Rumours.”
Kun isn’t surprised. “They died in a car crash,” he tells Pipita, because by now, he’s informed.
“So? You think the Don couldn’t have paid somebody to snap a wire?” His fingers play with Kun’s hair, the other hand is on his knees, but Kun’s heartbeat stays flat.
“His own daughter? Pip, this isn’t some TV drama.”
“Isn’t it? Well, I can imagine that he was more than upset that his only daughter chose to marry below her social status. Eze thinks that they were going to take their kid and run and that the Don didn’t agree.”
Kun doesn’t comment on that. Eze generally listen to too many voices in- and outside his head. But he thinks in this case, he does actually makes sense.
***
Buenos Aires is a city of the past. Despite what citizens make themselves believe, the streets are drenched with nostalgia and haunted by people who have once walked along them. The new developments along the river reach high into the sky and yet still; Buenos Aires is colonial buildings in Retiro, colourful and shabby huts in La Boca and the grand cemetery in Recoleta. It’s people roaming the streets of Palermo, it’s Boca Juniors against River Plate in eternal rivalry and old accordions playing Tango in every café.
The past lies heavy on the city, like a blanket, slowly smothering it and where Kun comes from, people dwell on it so much that they’ve grown completely unaware of where they’re even heading. Old people, old houses and even older money dictate his every move and it doesn’t matter what he does – it just doesn’t matter.
Kun doesn’t believe that he has lived before and he doesn’t believe that he will live again. In fact, he is fairly certain that he just has this one life. And whereas many might say that he should live it to the fullest – if he just lives once, he might as well not live at all. Kun doesn’t dwell on the past, but it pulls him down and he can’t shake it off and no matter how he eventually ends up leading his life, he won’t leave anything behind.
So what’s the point? Really, Kun just – he just doesn’t see the point.
He goes out and he goes drinking, because the next day, everything will be forgotten again. Kun is just a small and unimportant fraction in an immobile city, drowning it out until it will eventually do the same to him.
***
Lights are flashing, flashing everywhere and just so bright that Kun thinks they’re shining right into his skull, or rather all the way through, illuminating his head like some macabre skeletal light bulb. He moves through the crowd, aimlessly, pressed against hot bodies glistening with sweat, shining in all colours of artificial rainbows. The floor is sticky and his boots stick to it and whatever is in his glass, it sloshes over the brim and wets his hand and it annoys Kun to a point where he just drops it. The shards crunch beneath a dozen solid heels.
He changes direction, thinks he sees Pipita somewhere and he’s right, he’s just snogging Eze’s face off, so Kun just grabs his soaked shirt and drags him towards the restroom, because he’s feeling tired, he’s feeling restless and just down, because ever since he almost kissed Leo, he can’t think of anything else but how close he’d come. How he’d almost tasted him, almost had him right there and he might be getting a hard-on just thinking about what he’d love to do to Leo.
The toilets aren’t very busy. Three stalls are locked and Kun can imagine what’s going on in there. The most important thing is that the sinks are unoccupied. The bog mirrors are smeared and when Kun steps closer, he can see faint traces of white powder on the black tiles. He takes a tissue and wipes the surface clean; because fuck knows what stuff the guys in here have been sniffing. Stretched-out shit that’s going to mess him up even more than MDMA, and Kun really doesn’t fancy that.
He takes a packet out of his back pocket, pours out the content and forms a line, rolls up some paper he usually uses for spliffs and breathes in. It hits Kun’s head instantly, like a blow to neck at first, then heat, just heat everywhere and then more light and he opens his eyes, not being able to recall when he even closed them. Kun looks into the mirror, sees the white shadow below his left nostril, then Pipita and Eze behind him. Pipita steps up to him, lets his hands slowly drag up Kun’s spine before he lowers his head. He tumbles into Kun, wipes his face, then turns to him. Kun just has time to register how Pipita’s pupils first widen and then shrink again, too fast, then he’s leaning in.
He tastes bitter, Kun thinks distractedly before his head falls back against cold tiles. Pipita’s hands seem to be everywhere and gone and then there again and his lips even more and his eyelids flutter, Kun finds it hard to keep focus because there is just so much light and it’s spinning, but he sees Eze drifting closer, floating almost until he’s flush against Pipita’s back, who moans against Kun’s neck. His voice vibrates against Kun’s skin and then they’re moving as one, a door slams and a lock clicks, Kun sinks down on the toilet and watches.
He watches as Eze crowds Pipita against the wall, how their bodies seem to merge and colours swim together and he feels dizzy, so cold and hot and like something is off-balance; maybe the floor. The sounds are obscene, coming from everyone and the solid beat of the music from the club gives everything a rhythm that Kun feels deep in his cut and he feels –
Kun just wants Leo, right here and now and down on that wet and powdered floor, like snow, like icy flakes and he wants to press him against the stall’s door like Eze does to Pipita, have him unzip his jeans and suck him off because – fuck, Kun would do anything. He fumbles with his belt; his fingers slip on the cold metal, and he doesn’t take his eyes off his friends rubbing against each other right in front of him, but tries to image Leo while colours whirl around him.
Kun’s hands are cold but he doesn’t care, just spits into them once, follows the beat, and follows the moans pouring from Pipita’s lips as Eze assaults his neck in a daze. His own grip tightens and he finds it hard to breathe, throat tight and head even tighter, being squashed and whirled and crush beneath invisible weights and then suddenly he can’t think anymore.
It’s something Kun would never be able to fully recall, not in every detail. Because first he’s in a club toilet, jerking off and then he’s in front of the iron gate leading to Leo’s house. Everything in between – he might have imagined half of it or all of it or nothing, but Kun doesn’t waste a second thought on it. All he wants is –
He almost runs up the path and slips on the wet stairs, just catches himself before he can split his knees open on the steps. Kun leans on the doorbell, knocks at the same time without having a single clue what time it is. He’s still in it enough to know that it’s winter and that it’s dark, but that could mean four in the morning or eight and nothing happens, just nothing and he distractedly wonders if there’s a key hidden beneath the doormat, if the door is locked at all or if he could just climb through a window, go through the garden and –
The door is opened and Kun only needs to see a mop of brown hair, dark eyes tiredly blinking at him through black lashes, and he bolts forward, or rather stumbles into Leo who doesn’t even get the time to gasp in surprise. Kun presses him against the wall with his entire body and he feels the heat, so much heat that his hairs stand on end and he traps Leo between his arms, fatigue and sleep still slowing down his reactions, but Kun hopes, hopes so much it’s not just that, because fuck – if he doesn’t love Leo than he’s never loved a thing in his life.
Kun breathes, hovers close, feels Leo’s heartbeat speeding up, takes his chin and leans in and – that’s it. That’s just it for Kun, right there, like he’s arrived somewhere and they’re going places and he doesn’t even care where that it, as long as he can taste Leo and smell him and kiss him like this, in a sea of colours and light and heat and –
Hands push against his chest and push him away and when he tries to lean in again, knuckles hit his chin and his head snaps back. Kun can’t keep his balance and falls back, ungracefully lands on his behind and it’s like that one punch pumps all air out of his body and all life too and all he can do is sink down to the floor, because everything is spinning. He thinks his head is going to explode, along with every organ in his body because it fucking hurts.
He blinks, but his eyelids are heavy and there’s a shadow falling over him, touching his forehead with icy claws. Kun thinks he can hear a voice, words maybe, but he can’t understand, just can’t – can’t – not –
Something cold slaps his cheek, once, twice and his pupils flutter and then it’s almost clear again. Kun can see Leo hovering above him and his heart is painfully pumping, breaking his rib and Kun – fuck, he just wants to die.
“Come on,” Leo’s voice reaches his ears and he grabs Kun’s numb arms, pulls him up into a sitting position. “Lets get you into a bed.”
Kun doesn’t know how he actually gets to his feet. Maybe Leo is stronger than he looks, because he drags Kun up a wound staircase, carpet and chandelier and fucking palace-like and there are doors and windows and rain smashing against glass.
His back hits a soft mattress and Kun lets out a breath, coughs, tastes acid and shit, he thinks he has to throw up but he can’t, like something is stuck in his throat and Leo is gone. Kun blindly reaches out, panics, he thinks, hyperventilates and can’t fucking see.
“Here. Drink that.”
Kun can’t see, but he can hear Leo again, cold glass pressing against his lips and so he swallows, almost chokes and it tastes bloody vile, sour and stale and suddenly, his stomach clenches and he bends forward, Leo’s hand in his neck, shimmering plastic. His insides rear up again and he has to throws up, heaving and coughing and burning. It’s only liquid, but it hurts like fucking hell and his eyes water and Kun thinks he’s going to die, but Leo’s hand is icy and calming in his neck and he’s whispering. Kun doesn’t understand what he’s saying, but Leo’s next to him, close and –
He falls back, exhausted, foul taste in his mouth, but Kun’s head hits the pillow and he’s out like a light.
Kun dreams of Buenos Aires. The city is empty and covered in snow.
When Kun wakes up, Leo is sitting on the edge of the bed. Shamefully, nothing has escaped his memory and all is so vividly there that it makes Kun cringe. He looks to his right, sees a bucket, still tastes the acid in his mouth.
“What,” he croaks, throat stinging. “What was that?”
Leo looks tired, of course. He smiles softly. “Some chemical mixture, sulphates. My aya used to shove that down my throat.” He pauses, gaze calculating. “Didn’t want you to choke on your own vomit in your sleep.”
Kun stares, absentmindedly wonders how many times Leo was made to throw up, how many times he’d stumbled up those stairs into this very room years ago. “That is nasty,” he says, and his head is throbbing with pain, but he does remember and now that everything is out of his system and in the bucket, he feels – “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me, I –”
Leo suddenly bursting out in laughter cuts him off. “Come on, Kun. Coin-sized pupils, remember? We both know what got into you.” He sighs, shakes his head and gives him a lopsided smile. “I’ll get you some water.”
He leaves the room swiftly and Kun angles his head, just sees that he’s wearing a grey t-shirt and some sweatpants. Kun hoists himself up, back of his head hitting the wooden frame of the bed. The room is big, but fairly empty with only the bed, a desk and a big suitcase in it. Kun guesses that the suitcase is Leo’s, that he hasn’t unpacked it, because –
There are traces of life in here, nonetheless, some lighter patches on the dark wallpaper indicating that there used to be posters and pictures covering the walls. A small nightstand is to his right; on it, a plain lamp, an empty glass, an alarm clock – a small notebook.
Kun knows he shouldn’t, but he reaches for the book without second thought. It’s a day planner, less spectacular than Kun would’ve hoped for, with random reminders jotted down in neat and angular handwriting. Only lonely words; assessment, landlord, work. Dinner with Xavi features heavily and Kun wonders if that’s him, already starts to loathe that name before – a few pages later – he comes to the conclusion that Xavi might just be a friend.
It’s there again, dinner with Xavi, but it’s crossed out with a red coloured pen. In a different handwriting, something is written beneath it. ‘Told him to sod off,’ it says, ‘I want you to myself tonight’.
Kun shudders. He quickly snaps the book shut again and throws it on the nightstand as if it were poisoned. First he doesn’t quite understand why the words unsettle him so much, but then he leans back, breathes – and gets it. It had been a fact easily ignored by Kun, simply because Kun had been free to picture whatever he wanted, but this – this feels too real and too personal and just too fucking caring and in-love.
He bends over and spits bile into the bucket.
***
Kun guesses he should be grateful that Leo doesn’t bring this incident up again.
***
“I just – he –”
Pocho groans on the other end before Kun can find any words. “God, Kun, again? Can you please just fuck him and shut up?”
Kun grinds his teeth. “I would,” he says and he doesn’t add that he doesn’t want just that, that he all of Leo and more. “But he’s –”
“He’s what? Not cooperating? Maybe you’re just not that irresistible.”
“Fuck you. You certainly can’t resist me. And neither could Javier. I’m a catch. And I’ll get Leo. Somehow.”
“Somehow, huh?” Pocho sighs. “Just don’t –”
“Don’t what?” Kun asks.
Pocho is silent for a moment, then he clears his throat, says, “Nothing.”
***
Things don’t change between them, as if that night never happened and a part of Kun is really glad. Another small part weirdly enough regrets it. Perhaps because Kun doesn’t want Leo to forget about the kiss, forget that he wants and what he feels. He wants to believe that there is a tiny chance, because Leo hadn’t pushed him back immediately and so they go to El Monumental, watch a ball being kicked around for ninety minutes. Kun stays close to Leo, he leans in, he touches his shoulder, his arms, searches his eyes, but then every once in a while, Leo will take a step aside, will brush Kun’s hand off his body or shrink away from his searching fingers.
***
Kun’s housekeeper brings the newspaper with her every day and he never reads it, usually just looks at the front page and tosses it in the bin. But he wakes up early the day after the game, because he’d shared a cab with Leo and gone straight home and – well, he’s simply sober. Kun can’t remember the last time he has slept through the night and woken up with sunrise. So he finds himself in his kitchen, bored, but with some instant coffee and toast and reaches for Clarín.
He almost chokes on his coffee when he sees one of the headlines. Kun quickly sets his cup down and opens the newspaper to page five that only contains one article.
“The Don’s Last Will,” he reads out aloud and already thinks, he isn’t even dead yet.
Kun lets his eyes fly over the text talking of black gold and oil rinks, politics and influence, a family dynasty resembling the Kennedys in all their glitz and glamour yet even more their tragedies. Don Cuccitini’s brother is mentioned, the death of his wife, the deaths of his daughter and son-in-law. Most of all though, they talk about money. Always money. But it’s probably this money that has erased all trace of Leo, or he keeps an even lower profile than Kun had assumed. His name doesn’t come up, nor does his existence, which is probably what people involved had intended, but Kun still finds it odd.
He mentions the article to his mother over lunch at the Alvear, something he is forced to every couple of weeks, and of course she is well informed. Kun tells her that he finds it ridiculous, that it’s actually nobody’s business and that, for crying out loud, Leo’s grandfather isn’t buried in Recoleta yet.
“Even if he were dead,” Kun says. “I don’t think Leo wants anything but bury him. He doesn’t want the businesses or least of all the money.”
His mother looks at her manicured hands, takes her glass of wine, content reflecting the jewellery gracing her neck and wrists. “He won’t have much of a choice, Sergio,” she replies, takes a sip with pursed, coloured lips and gives him a smile that is so practised that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.
And Kun guesses that she is – sadly – right. Nobody of them ever had a choice – least of all Leo.
***
Kun wants to kiss Leo repeatedly. He wants to lick his skin and run his hands up Leo’s thighs, wants to see him quiver with want and desire. Mark him, claim him, make him his.
***
Family is a complicated matter. It’s a collective of people, bound together by blood, mostly, by feelings and sometimes by habit. It’s a structure that has remained almost unchanged over the course of humanity, with alterations so unmentionable that they are exactly that – unmentionable. It’s a powerful word.
But it’s nothing more than that.
Just because the term is stamped on a group doesn’t mean that they truly are what it insinuates. Family doesn’t equal love, or caring, or affection. It’s just a word.
Kun thinks he’d been already fourteen when he’d walked in on his father and some woman – maybe his secretary, to fulfil all clichés – in his office. Sometimes when he remembers, he wonders if that incident fucked him up in that way. But all things considered, that would probably be the easy way out, a lame excuse, because his family (he will use the term although he doesn’t quite apply) is far from normal and has always been and he doesn’t have enough hands to count the incidents that could’ve permanently damaged his social behaviour.
Kun just always assumed it was normal and if he’s being honest, in their circles, it probably still is considered normal. He is certain that his parents haven’t slept in the same room for a decade now; they don’t kiss, they don’t touch and hell, most of the time they don’t even look at each other. Instead, they look at him with scrutiny, with unresolved feelings and frustration they’ve harboured over the years. Which isn’t really fair, but then again, Kun thinks, life isn’t fair anyway.
He had tried to please them for so long that he’d lost himself along the way, so he blames them for his failures, doesn’t feel sorry because he hasn’t accomplished anything on his own. Nothing had ever been good enough and nothing will ever be good enough and Kun just finds it a waste of time and energy to bother. In fact, he finds it amusing, because it’s the one thing he can use to his advantage, the only aspect that they can’t control and they go mad over it and Kun just wants to laugh in their faces and tell them to suck it.
Maybe that’s why he drinks and smokes and fills his nostrils with coke, his system with chemicals. Why he doesn’t go to his classes, why he stays away from Giannina and his son, why he’s most likely a failure on all levels.
It’s because Kun wants to be a failure. He wants to be their flaw.
He wants to be everything that is wrong with their lives.
***
“You never talk about him.”
They’re having coffee at Plaza Francia, wrapped up in jackets and scarves. There’s hardly anyone out here, mainly because it’s become very cold and drizzly, grey sky. Kun can see Leo’s breath in the air; can see the steam rising from his plastic cup, fusing together.
“Who?”
It’s hard for him to say it out loud, but Kun eventually manages, after another sip of coffee. “Your boyfriend.”
Leo raises his eyebrows at him and Kun can guess what he’s thinking, why he of all people would want to know anything; how he of all people could show the indecency to pry. “Why would I talk about him?”
“Isn’t that what couples do?” Kun asks. He wouldn’t know, he’s never been in a relationship. “Javier always goes on about Paula. And fuck knows Eze and Pipita never shut up, no matter if they’re on or off.”
“Is that so?” Leo stares off into the distance, Kun soaks up his profile. “Well – I don’t. We don’t.”
“Why?”
Leo turns his head, looks at him with that weird kind of calculation, like he’s assessing Kun, weighing up his intentions, then he says, “Because words don’t define our relationship. I don’t need to talk about it.”
And Kun isn’t sure if that’s a good or a bad sign – for him.
***
Don Cuccitini dies on a Wednesday. He leaves behind countless properties all over Argentina, companies and antiquities, gallons of oil, millions and millions – and a grandson he’s never really known. Leo is by his grandfather’s side when he passes and Kun absentmindedly wonders if he feels anything – if he realizes what this truly means.
If Leo understands that it’s not his life to live anymore.
That he doesn’t have a choice.
***
When he opens the door, Javier glance pretty much says What the fuck are you doing here? Well, Kun can’t really say that he’s particularly happy to see Javier here too. In fact, he’d gotten up at this ungodly hour – an hour when he’s usually still out getting drunk off Buenos Aires – to ensure he’d be the only person to visit. To pass his condolences. Or whatever Leo requires.
He gets the feeling Javier might have anticipated that.
Kun raises his eyebrows at him. “Can I come in?” It’s raining, yet again, and he is soaked and freezing his behind off.
Javier remains statuesque, doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. “I don’t think this is the right time.”
“Really, Javi? Are we honestly doing this now?” Kun sighs. “You know, I just came by to be supportive. And I won’t leave until I’ve made sure he’s okay.”
“Well, he’s not,” Javier answers briskly. He folds his arms in front of his chest and Kun tries to catch a brief glance over his shoulder, but Javier is tall – bastard always has been – and he has only opened the front door wide enough for him to block it. “He needs some peace.”
Kun huffs. “Then what gives you the right to be here?”
“I’m his lawyer, idiot,” Javier hisses back at him and Kun can only just catch him from flinching. “You cannot begin to imagine what has been dumped on Leo. I’m here to help him as best as I can to settle things early. Organize the funeral, the Don’s estate.”
That’s probably his cue to step down, give Leo space, and a few weeks ago, Kun probably wouldn’t have cared. Grandparents die all the time, they usually leave mountains of money behind for their families and the Don is only marginally different by the sheer amount he has left for Leo. But Kun does care now, he cares about Leo and how he feels and it kills him that he doesn’t know. Fuck, he’s spent the entire night wide awake in his flat, deliberating whether he should call or not. He decided not to, which is why he’s standing here right now at the bloody brink of dawn. Hell, he hasn’t even had coffee yet.
“I can help, too,” he tells Javier. “Listen, I can, and I want to.”
Javier assesses him, Kun can tell that he does, going through all scenarios in his head. Eventually he sighs and steps aside, leaving enough room for Kun to slide into the dark mansion’s corridor. “Fine,” he whispers. “But for once, show some tact.”
Kun decides not to takes that as an insult – he can’t be the most tactless person Javier’s ever met – and walks towards the living room. He can hear hushed talking, Leo’s voice and when he steps into the big kitchen, he can see that Leo is on the phone, quietly conversing with someone. When Leo sees him, he tries to smile, but fails terribly and takes a few random steps, leans against the kitchen counter, rubs his face. He looks awful, that’s all Kun can say for now. Leo looks like he hasn’t slept in ages, hasn’t eaten or had a single moment to even breathe. Dark rings under his eyes, a big t-shirt and old jeans, no socks. His skin has a slight bluish tinge; he must be cold. Kun wants to rub his bare arms, pull him close – but he waits.
“No, you don’t –” Leo mutters into the phone, voice low. “I know. I know. That’s not it, I just – it’s far and I want to leave as soon as I can anyway and,” he pauses, obviously listening to whatever the person on the other end is saying. His face changes, shifts from tension and fatigue to something like hidden relief, Kun thinks, like Leo doesn’t want to admit it, but he feels it nonetheless. Something in his gut twists. “Friday, hopefully,” he eventually says, sounding defeated. “Listen, David, I really –”
He breaks off again and Kun pricks up his ears. David. David. He wonders if –
“Okay,” Leo says. “But I don’t mind if – okay.” He sighs. “Fine. You win.” A faint smile twitches around his lips. Kun feels like someone has punched him in the face. “No, no, I’m glad, I,” and he lowers his voice even more, turns slightly and Kun can feel Javier shift next to him, seemingly uncomfortable with intruding; Kun finds it fascinating. Maybe he’s a masochist. “I miss you.” The smile is more than a twitch now, voice barely above a whisper. “I love you too.”
Kun swallows thickly. Leo puts his phone down, looks at it for a short moment before focusing his attention on the two other people in the room.
“Hey,” he softly greets Kun.
“Hey. How’re you doing?”
Leo just shrugs, moves to the kitchen island where he reaches for a cup of most likely cold coffee. He spins it around a bit, shrugs again. “I don’t know,” he answers in the end, probably not having the strength to lie about it and put on a brave face. The relationship with his grandfather had been too complicated for Kun to have a grasp of it now and he has no idea how Leo is feeling. “What did you want me to sign, Javi?”
Javier steps around Kun and he notices a rather impressive pile of contracts with differently coloured post-its attached to them. Javier only picks up a few, spreads them out in front of Leo and produces a pen.
“It’s going to be a quick and easy transition,” he explains. “Since you’re the only recipient of his estate, all the accounts should be transferred to your name by the end of the week. This one here will sign everything over and this ensures our handling of all the assets in your best interest.”
“Best interest, huh?” Leo scribbles down his name in angular writing without reading over anything. “How about you sell everything instead?”
Javier raises his eyebrows at him and Leo rolls his eyes. “You don’t mean that,” he says. “Your family built this over generations.”
“And look where that got them.”
Kun resists the urge to pick up a needle and drop it, let it chime, because it’s suddenly deathly quiet, uncomfortably so. Leo and Javier look at each other for a few silent beats before Leo turns.
“Anyway,” he continues. “The funeral is on Friday, right?”
Javier seems taken aback by the change of topic, but he quickly moves to gather the contracts. “Friday, early morning as you wanted. Should I send out –”
“No,” Leo cuts him off. “I don’t want anyone there. No business partners, especially no press. I just want to put him in that bloody crypt and –“ He stills, knuckles protruding white form his hands tightly clawing at the sideboard. Then he abruptly pushes off, rounds a corner and is out of their sight.
Javier gathers his things shortly after and departs by throwing a rather pointed glare at Kun, daring him to put a foot wrong in this situation and Kun can’t guarantee that, this is as unfamiliar to him as it is probably to Leo. He rummages through kitchen cupboards that have apparently been refilled by a housekeeper and tries to think of things his aya used to make for him when he was upset, although he has to come to the conclusion that he’s not skilled enough to pull that off. Instead, he finds a tub of ice cream in the freezer, grabs two spoons and heads into the direction Leo disappeared in.
The living room is dark and empty, but Kun’s eyes immediately fall onto the slightly ajar door leading into the late Don’s office. He figures it makes sense in a weird way for Leo to find his way to that room. Maybe – likely, definitely – Leo has a masochistic vein.
He is sitting on the floor, back against a bookshelf that takes up an entire wall, facing his grandfather’s desk and the many picture frames behind it. His cheeks are wet and Kun feels a stab to his heart. Silently, Kun approaches and lets himself drop down right next to Leo, shoulders barely brushing but close enough to feel the cold that’s taken hold of Leo’s body. Kun sets the ice cream down to his left and turns his head to look at Leo.
“I probably don’t understand how you feel,” Kun says. “But you can talk to me. Regardless. It’s okay to be sad.”
When Leo starts laughing out of the blue, Kun can’t help but flinch and he thinks he almost chokes on his own spit because out of all the reactions in the world, he wasn’t expecting that one.
“I should be said, shouldn’t I?” Leo says and wipes his eyes, paradoxically wet and shimmering and one fine droplet escapes his fingers, runs down and circles his jaw. “I should love my family no matter what, that’s what they say. But – I’m not sad. At first I thought I didn’t feel anything, but then. Then I realised that I was just relieved.” Deep eyes find Kun’s in the dark, pools of liquorice. “How wrong is that? He’s dead and – I feel relief. I shouldn’t and I hate myself for that and I think I can breathe again, but I can’t. I’m relieved, but he’s not gone, is he? He’s going to haunt me forever, he’s made sure of that.”
Leo laughs a bitter smile and lets the tears run down his cheeks and – fuck, maybe he’s already broken and fallen apart, maybe not, but definitely crushed by everything Leo’s tried to get away from and isn’t that ironic, Kun thinks. Someone up there is having a field day, fucking with their lives, with Leo’s and Kun wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Leo’s grandfather who has bought his way into heaven and is now determined to make his grandson suffer for whatever.
Kun grabs the ice cream, puts a spoonful in his mouth. “Well,” he says and some caramel sticks to the back of his throat. “That’s their only source for entertainment, screwing up the kids so we’ll be just as messed up as them. Can’t blame you for feeling relieved. But, don’t feel pressured. You’re lucky. This is all yours now. You can do whatever the fuck you want.”
Leo languidly moves his head to face Kun, takes the offered ice cream and a spoon, doesn’t eat it, just stabs the surface with the blunt end as if he were driving daggers into his ancestor’s body. It could be therapeutic, so Kun doesn’t object.
“Whatever I want? I’m not so sure about that.”
“Who’s stopping you?” Kun asks earnestly. “I don’t know the details, but as of today, you’re one the wealthiest people in the whole of South America. You can sell this haunted house if you want to. They’ve got some neat penthouses by the wharf. You can sell the companies too, keep some shares and live off the interest. Live the life.” When Leo raises his eyebrows at him, Kun elaborates. “Listen, don’t listen to Javi’s bullshit. You’re pulling the strings now. Seriously, who’s stopping you? You think your family is going to come down and re-enact Poltergeist?”
Maybe he’s taken it too far, with Leo’s family being dead and all. Kun can see his hands tremble, constantly shaking whilst holding on to spoon and ice cream as if his life depended on it. White knuckles, blue veins. He does look haunted; like his ghostly grandfather is breathing down his neck, and digging old, wiry hands into his shoulders.
Kun scrambles to his feet. “How about we start now, huh? I’m sure the old man has some otherworldly liquor stored away somewhere. You look like you need a drink.”
Leo smiles faintly, strained, like it’s painful for him. “The pantry behind his desk. Second drawer from the left.”
Kun laughs. “I’m not going to ask how you know that.” He walks across the room, opens the pantry and picks the oldest bottle of scotch he’s ever seen in his entire life. There aren’t any glasses, but – it’s not like they need any.
He hands Leo the bottle and watches with utter fascination how he moves it between his hands, how intently he looks at it as if he’s fighting with something, inner demons of some kind and Kun gets the feelings that he’s missing an important aspect here. He thinks of Javier and his silent threat and maybe he is doing it wrong, not helping Leo the way he needs it or they way a friend is supposed to help a friend, but –
Maybe Kun just wants to take him apart to see if he can put him back together.
Maybe Kun wants to break him so they can be broken together.
He watches – hypnotised – how Leo takes one, two, three gulps, sees him shudder before he passes the bottle on to Kun and he mirrors Leo, has the whisky burn its way down his throat and settle heavily in his empty stomach. It immediately shoots to his head and the room spins one time in front of his eyes before his focus is back on Leo who quickly kills half of the bottle’s content with a kind of practiced ease that makes Kun think Yes, I did miss something here.
His cheeks are flushed, it’s not even nine in the morning yet and Kun hasn’t had his coffee. The air is heavy between them, oh so heavy and it shortens Kun’s breath to a point where he thinks about getting up to open a window, but Leo’s gaze stops him. He just looks, doesn’t do anything and Kun figures he’s rather drunk off that than the actual alcohol. Kun only wants to help and it seems like Leo needs that and so he leans forward without second thought, takes a soft hold of Leo’s chin, thinks Fuck David.
Kun can smell the whisky on Leo’s lips, but he never gets to taste it. Leo lifts a finger and presses it against Kun’s mouth.
“What are you doing?” he asks, all hazy eyes and wet lips and Kun – he can barely breathe.
“I was going to kiss you,” Kun answers, mind too clouded to even lie about it. And why would he? He’s got nothing to lose.
Leo removes the finger and Kun is quick to lean in again, but this time Leo turns, gets up rather ungracefully and the empty bottle of scotch scatters over the parquet floor as he makes his way towards the desk, switches on a light. It casts long shadows over his phase, emphasizes how tired Leo really looks and Kun lets his head drop back against the bookshelf.
“We should get you out of here,” he says after Leo remains still for a couple of minutes, tense and uncomfortable. “Out of this fucking house. Go somewhere.” Kun is treading on thin ice. He can practically hear it crack beneath his feet. “Go out. For drinks. Just us. You – need to clear your head a bit.”
His heart is beating in his throat as he waits for Leo to answer, react in any way and eventually he shrugs, nods, says, “I guess.”
Then he moves his hand and pushes the lamp off the table. The bulb bursts, light swallowed by darkness.
***
The lights mash in a blur of intoxication. It’s alcohol and an afternoon spliff and Leo pressed close to his side.
***
Palermo is always the same. On a Monday night, the crowds gathering in the various clubs are lost creatures floating about, more in trance than in reality. They are moths following artificial light, aimless and without purpose – waiting to be burnt.
Usually, Kun is one of them. But he has purpose now, he feels like there’s now a point to every step he’s taking. They’re in some underground and not largely known shack and it’s not often that he goes there. The crowd is not really theirs, more Buenos Aires’ failures than its elite, but both trying to forget and so it somehow slides together like well-oiled machinery. The drinks are cheap and strong, the music different enough to be pleasant, muffled by heavy curtains used as doorways.
Kun holds Leo’s hand as they move through the mass of people, sticky with sweat and once Pocho and Pipita arrive, they pointedly stare for so long that Kun feels his skin tingle. Pocho leans in, breathes “What the fuck, man?” into his ear, but Kun only shrugs and pushes him aside, pulls Leo closer whose eyes are wandering constantly.
He seems weirdly absent; perhaps not weirdly, because they did kill a lot of alcohol already. Normal Leo is very quiet already. Drunk Leo is practically mute.
Kun’s not sure what to think just yet.
He watches Leo, constantly. He shifts and glances around, tries to make himself small, hiding in every shadow that presents itself. At first Kun believes it’s because Leo doesn’t fit in here; he’s been away for so long, doesn’t go out much anymore, perhaps feels a little lost and left out. He keeps observing him and then, after approximately an hour, he gets it. It’s not that Leo doesn’t fit in – he just doesn’t want to.
It must be awkward to constantly be on the run from something.
He can’t tell how much time has passed when it happens. It might be early morning already, it might just be a second past midnight. Leo’s hand is warm in his, not holding on but not letting go either. They’re on the sixth or seventh vodka on ice, standing close to the overcrowded bar, when a deep and rusty voice calls Leo’s name. They both turn.
“Leo!” A guy, maybe just slightly older than them, tunnels his way through the crowd. “Fucking hell, pulga! What the fuck are you doing here?”
He’s short and stout, quite ugly if Kun’s perfectly honest, resembling a chimpanzee. When he moves closer, Kun can see that half of his jaw and his entire neck are uneven and reddened, a big scar, like he got burnt or dipped in acid. He has to resist the urge to flinch back and looks at Leo out of the corner of his eye. All colour has disappeared from his face and even in the colourful light flashing across the room, he still looks like a ghost. His hand slips out of Kun’s.
“I never thought I’d run into you of all people!” he calls out and without noticing Leo’s tense stance, the guy pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. Leo only tentatively pats his back and a hint of emotion flickers across his features. For some reason Kun has to think of Beauty and the Beast and he mentally slaps himself. “Thought you were in Europe or God knows where. Wait until Ronnie hears you’re back, he –”
“No,” Leo suddenly finds his voice again, making both Kun and the stranger blink in surprise. “No word to Ronnie, Carlos. No fucking word.”
They guy, Carlos, holds up his hands in defence, grins lopsidedly. “Calm your tits, pulga. I won’t say a thing if you don’t want me too. So I guess you finally pulled the plug on your old man, huh?”
Carlos, Ronnie – Kun wonders what else he is going to uncover. It feels strange, that there are obviously other people that connect Leo to Buenos Aires. People like – that. His head is too clouded to properly process everything that’s going on and the two others continue their conversation over his head. Words mingle together and Kun focuses on Leo’s lips. He feels dizzy.
“I didn’t pull any plug,” Leo answers. “Leaving soon, anyway.”
“You just got here, Leo. What did they do to your manners? We need to catch up.”
“Hey,” Kun throws in. “Back off. He’s here with me.”
Two pairs of eyes turn to him. Carlos smirks, looks him up from head to toe and Kun thinks he’s silently mocking him.
“Whatever, rich boy,” he says and looks back at Leo. “Well, you know where to find me. I’ll be around.”
Carlos doesn’t wait for a response, and it only takes a couple of seconds before the hundreds of people filling the small room have swallowed him once again. Leo’s heart is pounding so hard that Kun can see his ribcage vibrating.
Leo doesn’t take his hand again. There is something – different about him after the brief encounter with Carlos and Kun just wants him to smile, to have a good time and just let go. They find a place to sit in one of the rooms on the first floor and Leo buries his face in his hands, fatigue from the numerous drinks overtaking his limbs so Kun leaves him in the booth for a few minutes, gets some energy drinks, spikes them with vodka and crushes up two yellow smiley faces that melt and mingle once he drops the crumbs into the two glasses.
But the smiley faces don’t make Leo smile and Kun sees double for a minute or two and then nothing for a while and when he blinks and feels like he’s there, Leo isn’t. Just gone. Kun tumbles his way around, runs into Pocho on the lower floor.
“Leo, he’s – I can’t,” and he thinks he swallows his tongue, can’t get another word out. His eyelids flutter and Pocho is a ghost.
“Maybe he needed a smoke,” the ghost says and Kun obeys, because that’s what you do, he doesn’t want anyone haunting him, he sees how bad Leo has it; he doesn’t want that.
There’s a small backyard and it’s raining again, cold and icy and clouds hanging deep, steam rising up from the underworld, smelly and mouldy. A dozen people hover in one corner, only two in another. Kun can see Leo and Carlos, standing close, talking in hushed voices, seemingly serious. They’re smoking. Despite everything, Kun knows that he does not smell tobacco, and it’s not the nauseating sweetness of weed. He doesn’t know what the hell it is.
Kun turns in a daze and when he stumbles back inside he thinks he has dreamed it all.
***
Kun is twenty when he smokes crack for the first time. He remembers nothing but the rush, the sheer energy and a deep fall, and Pocho’s fist against his chin, knocking him back into reality.
***
He doesn’t see Leo for the remainder of the night and then morning. Kun goes home without thinking too much about it. Then he sobers up.
After everything that has happened, Kun thinks it is only natural that he is worried. It’s his right to feel slightly anxious when he steps into that empty mansion, now nothing but a hollow memory, haunted by the dead. It’s also perfectly normal that he freaks out beyond comparison when Leo is gone. Kun searches the entire house, calls his name, runs out into the garden and back inside. Panicking, he calls Javier.
“If anything has happened to him,” Javier kindly lets him know. “I will break your fucking neck.”
Kun doesn’t understand why everything is his fault, the others were there as much as him and Leo – he’s a grown-up. Maybe a traumatised one, but an adult nonetheless. He thinks that is what Pocho must feel like being blamed for Kun’s own stupidities.
Javier is at the house within minutes and they look into every room once again, but there is no trace of Leo. His phone is lying on the counter in the kitchen.
He feels nothing short of stupid when Leo wanders into the room as if nothing has happened just an hour later, when he and Javier have already sent the guys to look for him all over Buenos Aires. Kun keeps holding the breath that Javier releases instantly and watches as they embrace, as Javier whispers things to Leo and Leo looks at Kun over Javier’s shoulder.
“I just went for a walk, got some breakfast,” he says and there is indeed a paper bag in his left hand, faintly smelling of pastry.
Kun knows that Javier is relieved. But he doesn’t think that Javier has noticed Leo’s eyes – pupils blown, glazed over.
***
Black clouds are hovering above, ashes falling onto the streets like pulverised rain. With every step that he takes, little clouds burst open around his feet, rising up and obscuring his view, making him see the city through a thick veil. He walks. Behind him, buildings crumble down like sandcastles in a storm and all people that pass him have empty eyes or none at all, unseeing and uncaring.
The Plaza de Mayo looks like a graveyard. In its centre, on a table, is an old gramophone. He hesitates briefly; then places the needle on the black record and a soundless melody starts playing, only sending a subtle beat through his body, making it tremble. The crowd stills and starts dancing to the music he cannot hear and they look at him ceaselessly with their empty eyes, daring him to move as well, to get awkwardly flustered because he doesn’t know the tune.
He looks up at the blackening sky and waits for more rain to fall, for the voices to start speaking to him, telling him what to do and he gets restless because he is met with no response. Fingers tingling, itching almost, a pull in his gut and he wants to – he needs some – it’s all so –
Shit, Kun thinks, I need it.
***
The shrill, impatient ring of his cellphone wakes Kun, unforgiving as it pierces in his ears making his head ache and his heart beat faster. His hands slide over a cold and slick surface and Kun is momentarily disoriented because what the fuck? and he is still half asleep and dizzy and – damn this delayed hangover. He thinks he might throw up for a moment, but then his stomach just growls and Kun identifies it as hunger.
He takes the damned phone buzzing on the kitchen island – Leo’s kitchen island, Kun remembers – and holds it to his ear before checking who is even calling him.
“What?”
“Still alive?” It’s Eze.
“Yes,” Kun answers slightly confused. “Why?”
“Because Pip is a fucking corpse. Still hasn’t woken up, so I thought you’d be in equal shape.”
Kun rubs his face and he won’t deny that he feels pretty shit, but he’s had worse. He’s sobered up. It’s just his system that’s still a little confused. “Nah, I’m alright. Starving though.”
Eze laughs. “No surprise there. All you eat is basically dust, if you think about it.”
“Shut up, Eze,” Kun groans. “Why did you call anyway?”
Kun glances around the kitchen. It’s empty, but there’s sun shyly creeping through the curtains. It can’t be later than noon and he wonders where Leo has disappeared to. If he –
“We’re going to hang out at Pocho’s tonight. Are you in?”
“Depends. I’ll see if Leo feels up to it.” He struggles to get off the stool he’s sitting on, joints stiff and achy, bones cracking as Kun moves across the kitchen. Blinking against the light reflecting off one of the many gold encrusted picture frames, he walks along the corridor, listening out. There are noises coming from somewhere upstairs and Kun hopes it’s Leo and not his grandfather coming back to haunt the mansion. “What’s the plan?”
“The usual,” Eze tells him and Kun raises his eyebrows at that. They haven’t done that in a while. “I think Pocho’s had a stressful week.”
Kun snorts and starts ascending the stairs, needs to stop, breathe, feels dizzy. “Tell me about it. But don’t bring that shit you brought last time. Made me throw up for days.”
“Only because you had half of it and wouldn’t share.”
He’s now on the first floor, tries to distinguish where the noise is coming from. “Yeah, well, whatever. Go and annoy Pipa. I’ll see you tonight.”
Kun hangs up without waiting for a response. The second floor is so dark that he needs a moment to adjust his eyesight. The dust drenching the air is so thick that he can instantly feel how it begins to coat his throat. Windows need to be opened, desperately, Kun thinks, because it smells so much like old people and plain death that he’s not surprised why Leo restricts his movements to the small living room downstairs, the kitchen and his bedroom on the first floor.
Kun has a weird flashback of a Stephen King movie he’d watched a few years ago. He can barely remember the details. What he can recollect is a house that was alive, its inhabitants dead, or killing anyone who trespassed. Briefly, he expects some ungodly creature to jump at him from the shadows to snap his neck, but nothing of that sort happens. Instead, there’s an eardrum-shattering clang, like metal hitting concrete or something of that sort and Kun turns to the left, every step creating a sickening creak from the floorboards.
He has goosebumps. His skin feels cold. Someone’s breathing down his neck.
After unsuccessfully scanning through a couple of empty rooms – a bathroom, two guest bedrooms, another study – Kun eventually finds Leo in a room filled with nothing but linen-covered furniture and boxes. An impressive chandelier is dangling from the ceiling, adorned with spider webs. Kun approaches and almost falls over a box, tipped over, contents spilling out; expensive china, broken, shattered. It screeches almost painfully as his shoes turn the shards into rubble.
Leo is sitting on the floor, Indian-style, sorting through one of the boxes. He picks up objects and puts them back down, a few are sent flying over his shoulder. Kun has to dodge a heavy paperback and an old tennis rack.
“Hey,” he says and flops down next to Leo. The carpet is freezing, like no heat has graced this room in years, decades, which might be true if he regards the thick layer of dust covering practically every surface. “You feeling okay?”
“Sure.” Leo’s answer is immediate, energetic and he turns to face Kun, briefly, flashes a stiff smile. He picks up another book, flicks through it, then tosses it over his shoulder with a huff. His hands appear shaky, but Kun can’t be sure – his own body is still not functioning properly.
“Cool, cool,” he says, looks around, opens a box himself. A few old comics, yellow pages, crinkly covers and some toy cars in bright colours like random traces of life in this archive of memories. Kun skims through the box, then stills and lifts the delicate glass tube. “What’s that?”
Leo’s eyes are almost black when they take in the small object in Kun’s hands. “What does it look like?”
It’s quiet between them and Kun takes a few careful breaths. He shrugs. “A crack pipe.”
Leo continues to look at him, no word leaving his lips, pale, incredibly pale, almost blending in with his skin. Kun’s not sure how to read that. Whether Leo’s expression says well, duh or dares him to do something – anything –
Kun puts the glass pipe down, stares at it for a second and can’t quite process and connect any dots. He looks at it and it softly shimmers in the dim light coming in through the heavy curtains. So…
“Wanna go to Pocho’s tonight?” he asks without thinking, glancing at Leo’s profile, his unusually focused eyes, such a contrast to his beaten down expression from the previous day; back at the pipe. There is something wrong in this entire picture, but Kun fails to name it, so he just – ignores.
“I’ve got plans,” Leo answers unexpectedly, pushes the boy he’s been rummaging through for the past minutes away from his legs. He moves his body slightly so that he’s facing Kun, distractedly playing with the hem of his shirt, pulling on a loose thread, twisting it around his finger, pulling, pulling, twitching. Kun zones out for a moment.
“Plans?” he asks numbly, eyes on Leo’s hands, white and sinewy, fucking shaking and trembling, softly vibrating like he’s had too much coffee. Kun can’t taste any coffee when he leans forward and catches Leo’s lips in a kiss. “What plans?”
Unaffected, like that didn’t just happen – and maybe it hasn’t, Kun tends to hallucinate after pills – and shrugs, says, “Just plans. Meeting someone.”
Kun thinks of Carlos, Ronnie, and his stomach churns, because he doesn’t want Leo to – Carlos had just seemed so – “Come after,” he replies. “People won’t be showing up before ten anyway. And we’ll be there all night.”
“Okay,” Leo says to that, simple as that and stands, brushes dust off his jeans. “Just – let yourself out.”
Kun is too slow to react. Leo is already halfway across the room when he snaps back into it. “Want me to come with?”
Leo seems to consider, briefly. But he shakes his head. “No, I’m – I’ll see you later.” Then he’s gone.
Kun is tempted to stay, to be nosey and empty all the boxes, peak into every room on every floor and see if there are any figurative or literal corpses hidden in closets. He decides against it, because he feels tired and heavy and he figures he’s probably intruded enough for a day.
***
This is how it starts: Kun is just graduating from private school. The last seventeen years of his life, he hasn’t set a foot wrong, not once. He has been a poster boy, at least apparently. Nobody needs to know that on the inside, he’s still as lost as he was ten years ago.
So, he is seventeen, like Pipita and Eze and Fernando and they are all stuck between child- and adulthood, not really dependant but not fully free either and then Pocho is celebrating his twentieth birthday, away from all the parents and this nauseating high-society crap, in some raunchy nightclub. All drinks are paid for and at this point, Kun is still an embarrassing lightweight. It doesn’t take him long to get entirely wasted.
Kun would never consciously point to this night as the changing point in his life. But there is a very clear difference between the before and after.
Before, he goes to school, gets average grades, has football practice some afternoons and spends the holidays at his grandparents’ vineyard in Mendoza. He takes Giannina out on a few dates, because their parents know each other and she’s sweet, so he sleeps with her, isn’t into it and stops again.
When the party happens, Kun is seventeen and there’s no point in denying that for about three years already, he’s had a hopeless crush on Pocho. Kun drinks, is drunk, smokes and then someone hands him his first spliff. It sends his mind through the roof, and his body to the dirty ground and Pocho pulls him up again with a broad smile. “This will wake you up again,” he says and puts a tiny blue pill into Kun’s open palm.
After, Kun graduates, quits football and spends the holidays in the various bars and nightclubs of Palermo. He comes out, moves out, sleeps with Pipita before – finally – Pocho starts to notice him and they might have an odd on-and-off thing for a while before they both move on. Kun goes out, gets drunk, gets high and the voices start talking, filling his otherwise empty head.
This is how it starts. But it’s not how it ends.
Kun doesn’t know that yet.
***
“What, no Leo?” Pocho greets him when Kun walks into his living room.
Kun just rolls his eyes and places the two bottles of scotch on the table, old and expensive, but too good to resist. There’s an array of beverages on the elegant glass that would make any liquor store proud. They haven’t done this in a long time, for sure. “He had something to do,” Kun answers, takes a glass Pocho offers him. “I told him to drop by when he’s done.”
“Done with what? Pipita tells me you got pretty smashed last night.”
Kun doesn’t appreciate the accusatory tone. “Yeah, well. His grandfather’s dead, he might as well live a little. Isn’t that the point of tonight as well?” He takes a sip of his drink, fernet mixed with something, it’s not bad but it’s not very good either. “You wanted to de-stress, Eze tells me. So,” and he steps closer and grins. “Do you want me to blow you?”
“Seeing how horny you are… I think you’d rather blow someone else and he isn’t letting you.” Pocho pecks him on the lips and smiles lopsidedly, throws him a wink. “Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
Kun grabs Pocho’s arm as he brushes past. His friend doesn’t turn, just glances over his shoulder. “I’ll make him fall in love with me,” Kun tells him and expects another taunting reply, expects Pocho to laugh or call him a lovesick puppy, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, Kun lets go and Pocho only lingers another moment, then he joins the others on his balcony.
It’s nice to be with the guys, to just sit outside on Pocho’s roof terrace in the dark, in the cold, with a small electric heater between them, some grog that contains more vodka than anything else, drinking and smoking and talking about nonsense. Fernando and Pocho try to analyse the abstraction that is Eze’s and Pipita’s relationship that is one but not and Kun is happy to just sit back and smoke one cigarette after the other, mind already hopelessly adrift because of the alcohol and the occasional spliff.
Kun looks at Pocho and he can remember the exact moment he’d fallen for him, aged fourteen, at some dinner party. Pocho had laughed, sleeves rolled up to show off his first tattoo and then he and Zaba had snuck out to smoke; every definition of cool that his small minded teenager brain had known. But Kun can’t, for the life of him, remember when that had just stopped, when Pocho became a friend and nothing more.
People fall in and out of love all the time, Kun knows that, he’s witnessed it with his parents first hand, he witnesses it practically every day with Eze and Pipita – so why shouldn’t it be possible for Leo to fall out of love with his boyfriend? David, Kun remembers with a scowl.
“Oi, Kun,” Esteban calls out, startling him. “Lighten up, will you? You look about ready to jump.”
It’s past midnight and Kun can’t help glancing at his phone. No message, no call, and he’s craving, craving.
Gloves, Kun thinks, he should’ve brought gloves. It’s fucking winter and he’s freezing his hands off holding onto the bottle of scotch. He takes another sip and it burns, heats up his insides momentarily before it’s back to cold. Scooting closer to the heater, he lets his head fall back and closes his eyes. Feet are shuffling.
“D’you have anything on you?”
He turns his head, blinks against the light shining through the window front. “Like what?”
Pipita shrugs. Kun doesn’t know why he’d want anything; he already looks like he’s halfway to Nirvana. “Just – anything?”
“Nah,” Kun sighs. “I could do with some muffins though. Do you want muffins?”
“Is that some innuendo I’m not getting? Are you making fun of me?”
He barks out a laugh and it hurts his throat, turns into a cough and a second later he’s downing the whisky until the bottle is empty. “I’m serious, man. Starving. Aren’t you starving?” Kun gets up, sways and grabs hold of the wall, layaways to the door and is hit by a hot wall, by a wall of smoke and weed. Everything is spinning and Kun just wants something deep-fried, something shining with fat or smothered with chocolate.
“Pocho, hey!” he calls into the room. “Do you have food? I need food.”
“Shut up, Kun.”
He startles and stops, because Pocho sounds downright – then he takes the scene in and his heart leaps. Leo is lying on the couch and Pocho is pressing a towel to his face; red stains, bitter smell of metal. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Are you bloody insane? He arrived like that,” Esteban says, returning from the kitchen with ice and more cloths. He crouches down next to Leo and pushes Pocho to the side, swaps the towels. Leo tries to sit up, but a firmly placed hand on his chest keeps his back pressed against the cushions.
Kun tumbles forward, sinks down, leans over. “Leo? Fuck, Leo, look at me. Look at me.”
Eyelids flutter for fractions of seconds, there’s more shuffling and shifting and eventually, Esteban releases Leo, drops the bloody towels and hands him the ice. Leo shifts into a sitting position and presses the ice to his jaw with a groan.
“What happened?”
Leo looks back at him, but there’s something off. He dabs his bloody, busted lip, shrugs, smiles weakly. “It’s okay. Just a disagreement.”
“A disa –“ Kun breaks off and gapes, takes his chin without thinking and Leo winces slightly. There will sure be bruises forming soon, red blotches already gracing the pale skin. “What happened?” he asks more forcefully and Kun’s thinking Carlos, Carlos and he will hunt him down and beat him into a bloody pulp if he did that to Leo. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Pocho and Esteban exchange a glance. Fuck knows where the others are.
“It’s okay,” Leo insists, still spitting blood. He wipes it away with his sleeve – and laughs. Kun almost flinches back. “I really did kill him, didn’t I? I killed him.”
Kun tries to take his shaking hands, but Leo won’t let him. “What are you talking about?”
“It was just a punch,” Leo continues, staring at the ice in his fingers. “So, it’s okay, I’m fine. I’m not dead.”
“No, you’re not.” Thank God, Kun thinks. “But I think you need a drink.”
He takes the ice, takes Leo’s cold hands and pulls him up as steadily as he can. It must be around two or three in the morning already, but he feels his focus returning, even if only slightly and he draws Leo in, manoeuvres them back outside where harsh air slaps his face. Pipita is asleep – or passed out, is there even a difference at this point? – on one of the chairs and Kun sits Leo down on another, hands him a cup of the leftover grog. Leo downs it in one go, doesn’t even flinch and Kun fills the cup to the brim once more. The content is gone just as quickly. Climbing onto the chair behind Leo, Kun pulls him flush against his chest. Leo lets him, doesn’t move away; doesn’t move even when Kun encircles his waist, delicately brushes his hips with the tips of his fingers, finding skin.
“What happened?” Kun asks, for the third time now, lips against Leo’s ear. He feels deliriously and inappropriately content. “Tell me.”
The air is crisp and clear. A few hundred feet below, a handful of cars crawl along the streets like luminescent ants.
“I was just – out with Carlos,” Leo explains with a quiet voice, slightly hoarse, thickened with toxic substances. “Went to Oculta, ran into someone and things just – got a bit messy.”
“Oculta?” Kun repeats, heart dropping a few considerable inches. “Why on earth would you go there? That’s like – scum of the city out there. Slums.”
“I got some paco.”
“You got some –” Oh. Oh. Well, that explains quite a bit, Kun guesses.
The sun usually doesn’t rise before nine these days so when Kun spots the first thin line of light grey on the horizon, he realizes that they’ve been sitting out on the balcony, in the cold, drinking whisky and fernet, for hours. And he didn’t even notice. His entire focus has been on Leo and still is, who is leaning back against Kun’s chest, head resting against his shoulder and Kun feels delirious and just fucking intoxicated, holding onto him and breathing in, tracing the shell of Leo’s ear with his nose, softly kissing the skin behind it.
Leo lets him, or maybe doesn’t pay attention and all that Kun can think, like a mantra, is paco, paco and so everything that’s so obscure about this situation might make sense in that context, or maybe it doesn’t, Kun can’t really – he isn’t – not –
Leo shifts, fumbles for his jacket, dirty and dried mud, torn. He pulls something out and drops it on his left leg, assembles everything with casual ease. Kun perches his head on Leo’s shoulder and watches calmly (in retrospect, he watches too calmly, because when did this become fucking normal for either of them?) as Leo rolls up some dried leaves, some yellowish crumbs that look absolutely vile, but he doesn’t expect anything else when it comes to paco. Fuck knows what sort of rat poison has stretched it out.
The smell when Leo lights it is unlike anything from this world. Kun couldn’t compare it; he just finds it strong, like pulverised acid, punching his senses when he breathes in. Leo hands it to him nonchalantly, looks at him, hypnotising. Gaze intense, pupils like pinpoints.
All his life, Kun has been a drifter. He’s always followed.
It hits his senses like his head hitting concrete, like someone is forcefully pulling his hair away from his skull, peeling skin off right along with it. It sends a shockwave through his body, a pulsing orgasm of sensations, colours and lights.
Leo is right in front of him, painfully beautiful against the dark backdrop of the sky, like some figure out of Kun’s dreams, that one string attaching him to sanity or the other way around – he doesn’t care. Kun can honestly say that he doesn’t give a fuck.
He reaches out, takes Leo’s face and tugs him forward, kisses him open-mouthed. He tastes whisky on his tongue, bitter paco and whatnot and everything multiplies in his head until Kun has to close his eyes, shut out images, because it’s all at once and all too much and – fuck if this is how it feels, then Kun wants to be high and in love for the rest of his life.
“Lets go somewhere,” Leo gasps against his lips, indescribably hot and trembling.
“Where?”
Kun is breathless, brain devoid of oxygen. No time, no space and it just keeps spinning on. Leo exhales into his mouth, sharp acid, burning. Kun groans deeply and lets his head fall into his neck, lets Leo latch onto his jaw with tongue and teeth, setting him on fire so much that his skin hurts and Kun wants to claw it off with his bare hands.
“Anywhere…”
Fuck, Kun thinks, arching up and reaching out. Fuck.
“I –” love you, Kun wants to say, has to say.
Leo leans in and kisses the words right off his lips, swallows them down.
Then it goes silent.
***
Kun would never figure out whether he remembers or if Leo actually tells him. The scene replays in his head many times after it first flashes before his inner eye and he could just ask, but the future would unfold in a way which would make him keep quiet about it. What is it that they say? Let sleeping dogs lie. Kun would just do that.
***
Kun wanders through empty corridors, muffled voices sounding through closed classroom doors. He adjusts his tie – fucking hates the damn thing – and rounds a corner, finds the water dispenser in the corner and leans down for a drinks, to waste time, really. Not like he has to go to the toilet; that’s just what he’d told the teacher who most likely saw right through him. Kun can’t help but feel incredibly smug, because there’s nothing Señor Batista can do about it. Kun’s father has just donated a new science lab worth a fortune and nobody wants to risk upsetting Señor Agüero by dragging his son to the headmaster purely based on suspicion.
Therefore, Kun takes his time, takes a stroll and enjoys the space he doesn’t have when all students flood the halls and elbows and bags are flung at him, no feet stepping on his and no Pipita chewing off his ears. He is not missing anything anyway, they start their term break next week and all the teachers do is revise. Kun can’t concentrate on things he’s already learned – generally can’t concentrate at school for more then a few minutes – and in his mind he is already in Mendoza, on his yaya’s patio, stuffing his face with food his mother won’t let the maids cook for him.
He walks up the vast stairs, so old that centuries of children’s feet have left the stone smoothed and concave, because the toilets on the first floor are always empty, always cleaner, but when he opens the door Kun finds he isn’t the only one with that idea.
The sun is falling through panelled windows, drawing patterns onto shiny white tiles and in the rays of light seeping in, tiny particles are dancing around like microscopic moths. A dark figure, clad in the same uniform Kun is wearing, is sat in the far right corner, between the sinks and paper towel dispenser. Long, matted strands of hair are covering the boy’s face, pale despite it being summer. Kun knows almost instantly who it is, just the uncombed hair giving him away and usually Kun wouldn’t bother – he ignores that Messi kid the same way Messi ignores everyone else – and step right in. Not this time.
He is holding a spoon and a lighter. Now, Kun has never been near anything like that, hasn’t even as much as smoked a cigarette, but he just knows what Messi is calmly cooking away there, in a school bathroom, in the middle of the day, where anyone could just walk in at any given time; like Kun just has.
Messi looks up when he hears the door swing open and for half a beat, Kun assumes he is going to quickly drop everything in his hands – but he doesn’t. He just calmly stares at Kun with hollow eyes; then re-focuses his gaze to what is most definitely heroine liquefied with lemon juice (Kun is no expert, but Eze has been telling him things). Kun thinks his jaw drops down but he feels numb, can’t tell, thoughts and anxieties rushing from his brain through his body and back up his spine as Messi puts the lighter to his side and pulls a delicate syringe out of his pocket.
Kun holds his breath. He can hear his own heart like the engine of a truck, hammering away, choking him. Messi drags the liquid into the syringe, casually flicks the tip of the needle.
Then he jams it into the skin between his index and middle finger.
Kun flinches, feels his heart and stomach leap simultaneously and tastes bile. His hand grabs the doorframe painfully hard. Messi closes his eyes; his head falls back against the tiles. There is a purple vein throbbing on his neck and Kun focuses on that, can’t – just can’t – look down at Messi’s hand where a fucking needle is still buried between his fingers.
He has heard of the rumours. He has called Messi a junkie before. But Kun had no idea how right he was. And everyone.
Messi lets out a breath – Kun is still holding his own – and gathers his things as if they were pens and notebooks, all fluid movements, almost blurred, but that might be because Kun feels fucking dizzy. Fuck. He stands, swings his backpack on, drowns in his big uniform and walks towards Kun, eyes going right through him. Kun still doesn’t breathe. Only when Messi is right in front of him, mere inches away, does his gaze focus, razor-harp and piercing into Kun, looking at him with a hidden challenge.
Daring him – daring the world, all rabid frenzy and blazing revolt.
Kun thinks that’s the moment he (entirely subconscious of course, he doesn’t remember all of this until now) falls for him and the deep maze of emotion glaring at him through dark orbs, so dark that he can’t even see his reflection in them. The moment lasts just a fraction of a second. Then Messi brushes past him.
***
“… -ke a light, huh? Can’t take it.” Words, words, far away. His head feels heavy and stuffed, bruised. He tries to move, to at least blink, then something hits his cheek. “Oi, rich boy. You better not die on us.”
Kun’s head snaps to the side, colliding with something rough and uneven maybe a wall or broken concrete. It’s dark and everything is spinning like mad and Kun feels sick, just awful, fucking awful and he thinks he might die, might actually be dying right now, because –
“Leave him be, Carlos.”
Kun is instantly dragged back into semi-consciousness. Leo. Leo. He shifts, joints breaking as he sits upright, or at least that’s what it feels like. Hell, this is hell, Kun is almost sure of that. The corners of his mind are blackened out and faded like a photograph left out in the sun for years and his eyes still seem to be glued shut. There are hands on his shoulders, voices in the background, low and grumbling and Kun digs his heels into the ground, scrambles up, palms sliding over a cold and rough floor.
Hands on his cheeks again, softer, warmer and Kun blinks, the world slowly taking shape again. It’s a painful one; contours with jagged edges cutting into his subconscious and too bright yet paradoxically muted colours blinding his watering eyes. He sees Leo four times, three, two and then one and –
“Fuck,” he croaks, tongue as dry as sandpaper. “Fuck, what –”
There is a room, incredibly small compared to the sizes Kun is used to. And it’s, for the lack of a better word, an absolute shithole. Plaster is coming off the mouldy walls, remnants of cheap wallpaper still sticking in some corners and the dirty floor is only partially covered with stained carpets. The room itself is bad enough; but then Kun sees the guys sitting in it, in a misshapen circle like some Indians on crack – and maybe they are on crack, certainly by the look of it.
He recognizes Carlos sitting to his left, unmistakeable with the angry scar covering his neck and jaw. The guy next to him looks less intimidating, less like a wrestler, with hair shorn short, thick brows and small eyes, but perhaps he’s just squinting. And then right across; black curls, dark skin and even in a sitting position, much taller than the others. Kun doesn’t know what makes him realize instantly that this can only be him – Ronnie.
Staring right back at him, he oozes something dark and authoritarian, which makes Kun feel like a teenager again; like some idiotic rookie who is still wet behind his ears. Ronnie – assuming that is really him, but Kun will just go along with that for now – raises a rollie to his lips, takes a long drag and leaves his mouth closed for many seconds as Leo moves away from Kun and settles down beside him. He blows out smoke through his nostrils, steady and it makes Kun’s eyes water. The smell is intense and it goes right to his head, lifts up the top of his skull and slams it back down.
Leo takes the spiked spliff and dangles it between his fingers, but Kun keeps his eyes locked on Leo’s lips. He could swear he can still taste him, the whisky, the paco, but he doesn’t know how long ago that happened. Hell, he doesn’t even remember where he is, how he got here.
Carlos kicks him in the shin and the pain doesn’t reach his brain until a few seconds later, but when Kun turns to glare at him to the best of his dazed abilities, Carlos isn’t paying any attention to him.
“Why’d you bring him?”
“Because I wanted to,” Leo answers and Carlos huffs.
“Thought you hated the lot of them.”
Leo shrugs. “Was long ago.”
Carlos takes a clear glass bottle from the middle of the weird circle thing they’re sitting in and only then does Kun notice what’s actually right there in front of him. Liquor bottles and cans and quite a few packets filled with – everything. Shit.
“Whatever, pulga,” Carlos says, takes a swig of vodka, maybe gin and reaches for an old, scratched CD. “He’s still a spoiled brat. Little rich boy.”
He pours some powder onto it, arranges it in two less-than-neat lines and the first one is gone with the blink of an eye. Carlos looks up, pupils dilating and rapidly shrinking – and holds out the CD. Kun swallows, stares. His heart is beating too fast already, just coming down from the high he’s been on since early evening and he’s never done paco before, not before tonight, but –
“What’s wrong, rich boy?” Carlos teases with a smug grin. “Don’t you want to be bad?”
Nothing could ever be boring like this, Kun thinks. Nothing. The room is bursting with life, with colour and the wallpaper in the corners, the fucking >wallpaper – the patterns are dancing and Kun’s never seen anything like that. And God, does he feel light. So light that he could probably float away, if he only pushed his feet off the floor hard enough. But that would be pointless, he’d hit the ceiling and all the dust would rain on them and now, that wouldn’t be nice, Kun doesn’t think the others would like that. Dust would rain down and people hiding in the walls, talking to him, constantly. Kun certainly does not want to see these faceless monsters.
He just wants to see Leo, just him and nothing and nobody else, blend everything out, let the edges fade again, faces too. But Leo is not paying attention to Kun right now. He keeps sitting at Ronnie’s side, casually smoking one after the other, eyes going off into nowhere as Ronnie is resting his hand on Leo’s leg, talking to Carlos in his low and hushed voice. Kun doesn’t understand a word, but he isn’t listening, just notices out of the corner of his eye how Deco – he think that’s what Carlos called him – leaves the room and locks himself in the shabby bathroom across the not minor shabby hall.
Kun drinks more vodka, as been drinking nothing but vodka for what feels like hours, has almost emptied the bottle and he’s sure that cheap stuff is going to repeat on him soon, it just has to, considering –
Ronnie interrupts his conversation with Carlos and suddenly looks at him, black pools full of burning scrutiny, which makes Kun feel like a moth waiting for its wings to be burnt off by snotty children. There’s no burning though as Ronnie leans over to Leo and whispers something into his ear. The spliff is ever glowing between his fingers, eyes cast down, hair falling in front of the and Leo looks tiny, so tiny crouched on the floor before he eventually lifts his gaze to fix it on Kun, so intense and overwhelming that it knocks all air out of Kun’s lungs.
The corner of Leo’s mouth quirks up and he looks dark, sucking in the colours that just a second ago had reflected off smudges windows and mirrors. Kun tightens his grip on the bottle of vodka, all of a sudden doesn’t feel like anymore, but heavy, weighed down by fucking desire growing in his gut and fuck this shit, he’d take Leo right here on the floor if he were able to move at all, but his limbs are stiff and numb and he can’t – he wants to, so badly wants to –
Ronnie still whispers, lips brushing Leo’s ear and Kun – he’d punch him if he weren’t convinced Ronnie would stab him like pig. He has probably killed someone before, looks like it, definitely looks like he could and Kun doesn’t want to test his luck, doesn’t want to see and smell blood, not his own and – fuck, maybe the stains, the fucking stains; what if he’s sitting on hidden intestines and his heart, his heart beats and it’s too fast, too hard, painful.
His back hits the cold wall just as Ronnie moves away, leans back, watches and Leo – Leo is inhaling deeply and moving, crawling towards him slowly, predatory and Kun’s heart, his heart. Leo’s lips are worm and open as he exhales and Kun feels the smoke hitting the back of his throat, spreading rapidly like a wildfire, lifting him out, taking his heart out of his chest before slamming it back in, repeatedly.
But none of that matters.
He pulls Leo closer, doesn’t allow him to twist away again. Faint laughter is reaching his ears, but Kun might just be imagining it. If not, he doesn’t care what they think. He wants Leo, he wants him and he’s fucking tired of making a secret out of it. Javi, Pocho, bloody David – they can go fuck themselves for all he cares. Leo is with him and only him and they’re kissing, surrounded by colours and drifting somewhere between the days, between the lights of day and night and Kun wants it to be like that forever.
Buenos Aires is his city and sometimes Kun thinks about leaving. But now Leo’s here and he makes it home.
Lights, flashing lights in neon, the entire spectrum of a galactic rainbow, shining in Kun’s eyes, glistening on Leo’s skin as bodies moves like a swarm of crickets, chirping away. The beat is heavy in his chest, loud in his ears and the air Kun breathes in is almost liquid, like he’s just swallowing water.
Kun has both arm wrapped tightly around Leo’s waist, terrified he might lose him in the crowd, terrified of him slipping away and finding someone else, finding Ronnie, so he holds on. They move against each other, with each other, slow and languidly. Kun’s heart sets an erratic pace that Kun’s mind can’t keep up with, he just suddenly feels like his skin is too small for his bones and he wants to break out of it. It’s a burning stretch and Leo slides his hands along Kun’s torso; slow, teasingly slow.
He feels delirious, colours and forms fading and flashing. Kun is beyond conscious, so far beyond it that he’s paradoxically aware of the fact and he just – he just loves, loves and wants, so he leans in, mouths at Leo’s neck, right below his jaw, lets his tongue taste him. Every brush of Leo’s fingers sends electric waves over his skin, ghosting around the waistband of his jeans to a point where Kun feels like yanking them down. Instead he bites down, hard, relishes the gasp that sounds in his ears and traces Leo’s spine, vertebra for vertebra until he can press their hips together and show Leo just how much he wants.
Nails scrape over his heated skin when they kiss; open-mouthed, hot and frantically, all the want and lust and – Kun lays it all out there for Leo to feel.
He breaks away, breathes, throat simultaneously wet and dry, pushes closer. “I want you,” he mutters into Leo’s ear, mind reeling, head spinning, the whole fucking world upside down. “Leo. I want you, Leo.”
The reply is lips descending on his once again, biting and shaking hands fumbling at his belt, but in a weird flash of awareness, Kun stills Leo’s arms, then frames his face and – “I want to take you home.”
It would forever remain a mystery to Kun how on earth they manage to get to his flat with no recollection where he’s even been the past twenty-four hours. He only snaps back into it when he pins Leo against the elevator’s wall on the way up to the 12th floor, tugging out his shirt and feeling taut muscles, twitching and trembling with the same pent-up lust that is driving Kun to the border of delirium and farther.
They tumble out of the lift and it doesn’t even occur to Kun to open his front door, to find his keys, not until he feels Leo’s hands in the back pockets of his jeans and he might come right here and now. Kun bites down on his own lip, tastes blood, leans down and licks a red line across Leo’s collarbone, leaves and obscene mark on his pale skin as keys rattle and he almost falls backwards when the door gives way behind him.
The inside of his flat is dark and cold, but Kun can’t remember how to turn on the heating, where all the switches are and he wants to get to the bedroom as quickly as possible, doesn’t want to just fuck Leo against a wall like Pipita. Kun wants to undress Leo and see that lithe body of his that is always hidden beneath layers of clothing. Kun wants to feel his body writhe underneath his, see the muscles of his abdomen tighten as his arousal grows. He wants to kiss and touch Leo, make love to him until he forgets the existence of anything or anyone else. He wants to see him tremble and shiver with lust.
Kun wants to watch him as he comes apart.
They trip over some clothes strewn on the floor and fall over and there is a lot of turning and twisting and crawling and at one point Kun thinks he’s going to throw up on his carpet. But then, somehow, he gets Leo pinned down, sits on his hips and tosses his shirt to the side, eyes locking as Leo does the same. Kun shimmies out of his jeans, stumbles over his own breath and wonders distractedly if he is about to black out or already far gone, dreaming all of this, because Leo’s hand, his hand –
“Fuck! Oh shit,” and Leo tugs once, twice, grinning mischievously and that’s as far as his vocabulary is going to go this night – day? – as Kun can’t stop his eyes from rolling back.
Accumulation of fantasies and shit, how many times has he jerked off thinking of this exact moment, he can’t remember. Kun needs to get Leo out of his clothes. He can already feel the rain on his shoulders, slowly running down his bare back. Whispers, whispers, trying to distract. He needs – focus.
“Hurry up.”
Leo’s voice is choked, breathless and disregarding his words, Kun looks at him, fucking drowns in him and – “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he can’t help but say because Leo is. Leo is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life, ivory skin and flushed cheeks, parted lips and his eyes… God, his eyes, Kun can’t grasp how a person can have eyes like that, so all-consuming that they soak up his reflection, making him unable to see himself in them. “I don’t,” Kun remembers, “I don’t have –”
“I –” Leo cuts him off, tossing the last piece of clothing aside, “I don’t care. Just,” and Kun notices the shiver seizing his body, the little drops of sweat, goosebumps and purple veins. “Fuck me. Now.”
It’s too much. Kun feels delirious. He doesn’t have the physical or emotional capacity to process any of it. It’s all whispers and voices, sliding bodies slick with sweat and the obscene slap that sounds as Kun’s hips meets Leo’s with every thrust. All nerves in his body are standing on end, like an electric minefield and Leo traces burning lines over Kun’s shoulders and his back. More rain falls, muffling sounds and blurring shapes and everything moulds together into one obscure impression that makes Kun see white. An otherworldly rainbow of colours explodes behind his eyes but through it all, he sees Leo, like an anchor keeping him grounded. It shakes him to the core.
A stream of words Kun doesn’t understand escapes him and he forces his eyes open as fast as he can, watches entirely mesmerized how Leo throws his head back in a soundless moan, choking and exposing his throat and he can’t quite believe it. Kun sees how it washes over Leo, how is entire body is shivers and he curls his body up, fisting the sheets, eyes going wide and –
“David.”
The ceiling comes crashing down.
***
When Kun wakes up, he can’t feel his body. If he’s being honest, he can’t really feel anything at all at the moment, but a throbbing ache in his chest, so strong the he’s wondering if he’s having a heart attack. His ribcage feels clenched, his lungs constricted and the first conscious breath he takes is laboured and painful.
But there’s a rustling sound somewhere near his ear and – it all comes back to him. Well, not all of it. But the essential bits. He thinks he can still feel Leo, smell him and taste him, but –
“What’re – what’re you –” He has to cough; vicious bile stuck in his throat, shifts and sit up with a groan. Opening his eyes, Kun has to blink several times before he can make out any sort of shape or form.
“Someone’s at the door.” Leo.
Kun groans again and falls back against the headboard of his bed. His hand lands in something sticky and he distractedly wipes it off with the sheets tangled around his leg. It’s not covering him up whatsoever, but Kun is beyond caring. He looks at Leo’s bare back, watches him bend down to pick up his clothes and – fuck, this isn’t how this was supposed to go.
Only then does Kun notice the knocking. It sounds loud, impatient and after a few more moments, he can hear the lock being turned. Fuck. There are only two other people who have a key to hit flat. He wants neither to walk in on him and Leo.
It only takes what feels like a second before Javier is standing in the doorway.
Fuck.
Within the fraction of a second, Kun is certain, Javier knows everything he needs to know for now. Not that it’s difficult to figure out. He still hasn’t cleaned himself up, hasn’t pulled the sheets to cover the lower half of his body and he can’t be bothered to do it; Javier has seen him in this and similar states anyway. Leo is just doing up his jeans, not paying attention to Javier, but solemnly digging through the pockets of his jacket. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and lights one before grabbing his shirt.
“Have you two lost your bloody mind?”
Kun can tell that Javier is trying hard to hold back. There is a vein pulsating on his neck.
“What’re you doing here, Javi?” Kun slurs, tongue heavy. He doesn’t sound very articulate, but that doesn’t surprise him after all that –
“What am I doing here?” Javier asks incredulously. He shakes his head, then turns to Leo, who is taking his idle time getting dressed, inhaling and exhaling, filling the room with smoke that gathers below the ceiling.
Kun thinks of rain.
“We’re going to Ezeiza,” Javier tells Leo. “Unless you’ve forgotten – David arrives in an hour.”
Leo doesn’t grant him any sort of reaction but Kun thinks he’s catalysing enough shock for the both of them. His jaw snaps shut and he bites down on his tongue, making his eyes water, pain searing through his already achy head. Kun can feel his heart constrict, shaking hands reaching out to pull the sheets around his body, suddenly feeling cold, feeling anxious.
Javier’s gaze is hard, relentless. “You’re unbelievable.” He sounds so disappointed that Kun almost feels guilty. “I’m sending over Pocho, make sure you sober up, come down from whatever it is you’re on. Seriously, Kun, you just –” and he sighs.
“Just what, Javi?” Kun snaps, because who the fuck is Javier to pass any sort of judgement, to tell him what to do. And why the hell is he getting the blame? His eyes search Leo, because – well, fuck, because they’ve slept together and he can’t just run off to his boyfriend as if nothing had happened, as if it didn’t mean anything. Kun feels that treacherous, bitter feeling slowly building up in his gut. He hasn’t felt it in a long time, not like this; that evil feeling of gut-wrenching jealousy.
He feels jealous. And when Leo walks out without another look back, without uttering a single word and Javier follows after – Kun feels alone.
It takes Kun an hour to get out of bed. His heart is racing and burning and his blood pressure feels like it’s through the roof already. He throws up in the kitchen sink, a disgusting mix of green bile and remnants of acidic vodka. When he looks into the mirror, he sees death staring back at him. Death and teeth marks; so prominent that they could be used as Leo’s dental records and it makes Kun laugh joylessly, because isn’t that ironic? Leo’s come is still stuck to his belly and he’s off to welcome his faithful boyfriend with open arms, equally covered in light bruises.
It’s so fucked up and Kun – well, he’s hopeless, clueless, any –less that he could probably be in this situation. He goes through his clothes reeking of smells he does not want to name for the life of him when a small packet fall out of the back pocket of his jeans. It’s weird how familiar those yellow crumbs already look. He stares at the packet in his uncontrollably trembling hands and before he’s made any conscious decision, he’s already sitting on the floor, rolling it up with some weed he keeps in his nightstand.
It goes to his head as soon as he lights it, turning his mind into a blissfully empty space.
Pocho finds him when Kun has already drifted off, vision and senses fuzzy and faded around the edges, blackened out, wrapped up in wadding to dense that nothing reaches him at all. He eyes stare straight ahead, out the large window front, Buenos Aires to his feet. It’s wearing off again, he can tell. It’s cheap; it doesn’t last long. Kun has had two spiked spliffs and he just wants to roll the third one in piece, but Pocho keeps shouting at him. Kun doesn’t mind until Pocho snatches the spliff and the bag of paco out of his hand and stalks out of the room.
Kun falls over his own feet while trying to get up and almost breaks his jaw on the glass table, just misses it and scrambles up again, darts after Pocho and into the bathroom. He gets there in time to witness Pocho flushing the tiny plastic bag down the toilet.
“What the fuck, Pocho! What the hell is wrong with you?” His shoulders are tensing up. Where the hell is he going to –
“What’s wrong with me?” Pocho shouts back at him and quickly bridges the distance between them with long strides. Kun flinches. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind? Have you gone completely insane?” He points to the toilet that has just swallowed down what could’ve lasted Kun days. Fuck knows how much he paid for that. “That’s paco, you idiot! Smoke weed until you throw up, eat pills like candy if you want to, snort enough white powder to bake a cake with it for all I care. But this is serious shit, man. This is dangerous.”
“You don’t get to lecture me,” Kun replies. “Least of all you. You started me on this, remember?”
It’s a disgusting kind of pleasure he gets when Pocho’s expression slips up for a second. “Fuck you,” he says after composing himself again. “Nobody ever forced you, so don’t blame others for your decisions.”
“Not blaming anyone.” Kun turns around and walks back into the living room, grabbing a jumper, because he feels cold, damn he feels cold. “Just – stop lecturing me. Leave me alone, okay?”
Pocho sighs behind him. “I’m not leaving, Kun. Dinner at Javier’s tonight, he wants me to make sure you’re okay. Paula will be there, Esteban, Nicolás, maybe Fernando. Leo and his boyfriend.” Kun huffs. “Yeah, I know. Not the best crowd considering. But you might as well get used to the idea.”
“What idea?”
“That this was a one-off. That you two fools got trashed for two nights, messed around, but that’s all it is. He has a boyfriend, and he is going to go back to Spain with him.”
“He’s not,” Kun starts, but then, “Wait? Two nights? It was just your party, Pocho.”
Pocho blinks. “Just my – Kun, it’s Thursday. You two were gone for more than a day,” he says. “Javier and I were looking for you all day and night.”
It’s Kun’s turn to blink in confusion. He remembers leaving Pocho’s with Leo, waking up in Ronnie’s shabby flat, then they’d somehow ended up in Palermo before coming here. Sure, he has a few blackouts, but –
“You don’t remember, do you?” Pocho asks, understanding before Kun does. “Christ, Kun. Do you have any idea how lucky you are that nothing happened?”
Kun almost laughs at that. “Lucky, huh? The hell I’m lucky. If I were lucky, then –” He trails off, thinks of Leo, feels a treacherous burn in his eyes and quickly turns away, wipes his face.
“Yeah, well,” Pocho sighs. “Not much you can do about that. So come on. Take a shower, you stink. And then we’ll get some food into you, some caffeine too. Lets hope you’re not on it yet; can’t have you turn into a mumbling, shivering mess over Paula’s canelones.”
***
Kun feels sick to his stomach. He feels so sick that he’s sure the paco and whatever else is repeating on him, badly, because surely that can’t just be anxiety. On top of that, somehow his skin has become hypersensitive in the past few minutes. His jumper itches terribly and Pocho throws him an annoyed glance as Kun squirms in front of the door. He nudges him with his elbow just as the door is opened.
Paula. Perfect Paula. All blonde hair and delicate features, bright smile. Kun doubts that she has any flaw at all. Javier’s fiancée kisses both of them on the cheek and ushers them in, orders them to go straight into the lounge while she takes care of the coats and so they do, because Kun has learned that one doesn’t argue with Paula when she is the host.
They’re the last to arrive, which doesn’t give Kun any time to prepare. He’s hit, right up front, like a punch to his gut. They are just there, in the middle of the room, glued together, calm and quiet and – fuck, Kun has to admit that it fits. David is just slightly taller than Leo, equally slim, dark jeans, dark jumper. Kun is angry with himself because he can’t even deny how good-looking he is, oozing confidence. Hell, he’s even pulling off a damn soul-patch.
Pocho pushes him into the room, solid hand at the small of his back and the others turn, most with a smile. Javier introduces them, quickly and without a fuss and David nods, smiles politely but Kun can’t shake off the feeling that he’s eyeing him differently. He wonders if Leo told him about them – about anything. Kun doesn’t know David, so he can’t judge whether he’d that calm if he knew.
They sit down for dinner and the food is amazing, one more thing that’s flawless about Paula. Jesus Christ, everyone’s practically glowing and Kun feels sick. He sits opposite of Leo and David to his dismay, notices that they’re still holding hands, tightly; notices the slight tremor. Kun can’t keep his eyes on them and he pokes around in his food until Pocho elbows him and quietly tells him to get a grip.
When they’re done, David and Pocho politely offer to help Paula and Kun just wants to stay slumped down in his seat, but he sees Javier taking Leo to the side, ushering him out of the room and he jumps up to follow. As he leaves, he can feel a burning gaze in his neck.
He finds Javier and Leo in the corridor.
“Have you told him?”
“What do you think?” Leo answers in a hushed voice. “I tell him everything.”
Kun’s heart drops. Jealousy, guilt, he doesn’t need this on top of all this crap. He’s got enough feelings to deal with.
“How are you doing then?” Javier continues to pry.
“Get off my back, Javi, I can –”
Then they notice him. Kun swallows and steps forward. Javier practically stabs him with his glance, but it’s Leo neutrality that hurts more. “Can I talk to you?” He asks Leo, then looks at Javier. “Alone?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Leo says and Kun gapes at him.
“Nothing? Fuck, Leo, there is, you –”
“I have to bury my grandfather tomorrow.” Leo’s voice is shaking, as is his entire body. Kun knows this isn’t down to anxiety either. “I can’t – don’t make me do this now. Kun, please?”
“I –” Kun starts, but is immediately cut off. He turns around so quickly that his neck aches.
“Leo.” It’s David, standing in the doorway, looking softly, worriedly at his boyfriend before continuing to stare daggers at Kun. “Everything alright?”
Leo lets out a ragged breath, brushes past Kun and throws his arms around David’s neck, presses his face against his shoulder and David hugs him close, eyes never leaving Kun, grip tightening as if to make a point. Kun feels sick.
“Do you want to go?” David asks and Leo nods, untangles himself, looks at David like – Kin doesn’t want to think it. He refuses. They kiss, just briefly, nothing more than a peck, but Kun has to face the other way or he’s going to go mad.
They quickly utter their apologies for going early. Leo’s skin is chalk-like when they leave hand in hand.
It’s freezing outside, grass shimmering white with frost and Kun doesn’t even have his coat, but he can’t stand to face the others right now, not with Javier knowing and Pocho knowing and Esteban and Nicolás at least suspecting something’s going on. His hands are shaking and he tries to still them, can’t control it and eventually ends up sitting on them to calm his nerves. It doesn’t take long for Pocho to join him out in the garden. He sits down, puts a blanket around Kun’s shoulders and wordlessly hands him a cigarette.
Kun clings to it like a drowning man would hold on to a safety ring and he inhales deeply, body craving nicotine and so much more, but he can’t have that now, not with Pocho as his shadow. Kun hopes his friend hasn’t decided to act as his permanent watchdog from now on, because he needs to get out, go to the docks and get something, even if it’s some coke.
“You still look like shit,” Pocho tells him kindly.
Kun blows smoke in his face. “Thanks. That’s what I need to hear now. Another blow to my already shattered soul.”
“Don’t be that dramatic. You’ll be fine. You’ve had a crush before, you’ll get over it.”
He flicks his cigarette, frowns. “It’s not a crush. I know that’s what you think, that’s what Javi keeps saying, but it’s not just that, okay? I love him and – and he can’t leave.”
“Kun.” Pocho puts a solid hand, all warm, to his neck. “He’s been here – what? Two or three weeks; maybe a month? You barely know him. He’s like that shiny new toy at Christmas day that you want to have above anything else and once you played with it, you realize it’s not as exciting as you thought it’d be. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s just attraction. That’s not love.”
Kun slowly turns to face Pocho. He looks at his dark hair and stubble, strong jaw. He gets what he’s saying, but Kun thinks it’s different. Maybe it had just been attraction he’d felt for Pocho; mere attraction he’d felt for Javier once. People he’d looked up to and who still look down on him. Leo is different, Kun has never been as certain of anything in his entire life. They’re equals, they’re the same and they share something special, regardless what anyone else keeps saying.
“It is,” Kun says, reaches for another on Pocho’s cigarettes with trembling fingers and it takes him one, two, three attempts to get the lighter to work. The smoke is soothing, but it’s not enough. Not anymore. Not with that gaping hole in his chest. “I love him and know he has feelings for me too. He’ll stay.”
Pocho is quiet for a moment, then he sighs heavily and moves to the door. “Keep telling yourself that. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Not taking the bullet for that one.”
He leaves Kun out in the dark.
***
“Shit, man. Less than twenty-four hours and you’ve turned your place into a crack den.”
Pipita flops down on an armchair in Kun’s living room, grinning like it’s Christmas, gesturing about without anything to point at, because Kun has managed to turn this room into a hole overnight. He hasn’t tried very hard, he’s just stopped caring, really and he is trying out a lot of things to make him stop feeling.
Pipita leans back, lets the tip of his boot drag through a pool of broken glass.
“I don’t do crack,” Kun tells him.
“Yeah, right,” Pipita snorts. “Because that’s parmesan cheese on the table, huh?”
“Shut up. Like you’re one to talk.” He raises his brows at Pipita who is far too chipper to put it down to a good night’s sleep and some decent coffee.
His friend shrugs. “At least it doesn’t make me suicidal and depressive.”
Kun leans forward, props his elbows up on his knees and drags the living room table close. He unscrews the bottle of gin that has been doing a good job of keeping him company during a long, sleepless night, doesn’t bother with a glass. The sharp taste makes him wince slightly; his tongue feels raw after smoking so much.
“Then what does it make you?”
“Bubbly,” Pipita says and snorts out a laugh.
Kun rolls his eyes. “Obnoxious is more like it. Why’re you here anyway? Thought you’d be glued to Eze.”
That takes the air out of Pipita instantly and Kun feels slightly better. He wishes his friends all the best, but having his own life so immensely fucked up when they’re doing so well is really disheartening. It’s reassuring to see that Pipita’s not bubbly twenty-four seven.
“Fucked off to bloody Portugal for God knows how long,” Pipita replies with a frown, clearly not happy about it.
“Doing what?”
Pipita shrugs. “Don’t care. Finding some cheap hussy to fuck? Whatever.”
“Well,” Kun says, trying to sound reassuring, but – he’s never really gotten their relationship dynamic, if one can even call it that. He thinks they’re so dependent on one another that it might do Pipita good to be on his own for a while. Then again, they’re so dependent on one another that it won’t take long for one of them to find the other. It’s actually quite sick, if Kun really thinks about it. “He’s gonna come back to you like always.”
“Of course he will,” Pipita says with as much confidence as only he can possess in his situation, a kind of been there, done that. “Just thought he’d be here for the funeral.”
Kun shoots him a look. “What funeral?”
“The Don’s,” Pipita answers in a voice that implies a mental duh. “I mean, honestly dude, I know that stuff kills brain cells, but so quickly?”
He ignores the insult. Part of him is thinking that Pipita isn’t one to talk about that either, that he could outsmart him if Kun wanted to, if Kun actually cared about that. The major part of his brain however, is occupied with remembering, with processing and understanding. Leo is burying his grandfather with his faithful boyfriend by his side, with Javier whispering into his ear and Buenos Aires providing a dark and gloomy setting with its ashen sky and constant rainfall. Talk about setting the fucking stage.
“Right,” he says. “You going?”
Without asking, Pipita drags his armchair across the wooden floorboards, the screech loud enough to make Kun’s head hurt. The other studies the remnants of Kun’s midnight trip to the docks that are scattered around the glass table, pokes at the small packet containing treacherous crumbs. Pipita furrows his brows, frowns, then reaches for the bottle of gin that Kun has already almost emptied on his own. He takes a swig, drops it to the ground.
Kun watches numbly as the shards fly around his feet.
“Nah, don’t like funerals. They creep me out,” Pipita answers. “You should go, though.”
“Should I?” Kun is not so sure. “Don’t think anyone would want me there. Javi’d probably bite my head off.”
“Javi needs to stop acting like he’s holier than thou. We all know he’s only marrying Paula because he knocked her up.” Kun stares, but Pipita just shrugs. “’S true. It’s kind of funny how he’s trying so hard not to sleep around anymore, yet he’s giving you a hard time. And Pocho too.”
“Hm. So. What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying,” and Pipita leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs, “that you should do what you want. If you want to go – go. Didn’t think you’d be one to give up like that.”
***
Kun has been to the Cemeterio de la Recoleta more times than he can count. He’s spent entire summers playing hide and seek amongst its many tombstones and crypts, playing gaucho, pretending to be engaged in guerrilla warfare; pretending to be Che Guevara. They’d told each other stories about the buried aristocracy of a bygone era, about stone figures coming to life, about the dead breaking through the old cobblestones to drag children back down into the abyss.
It had been all jokes and ridiculously funny back then. Now, with the sky almost black with rainclouds and with the pathways forming a maze across the cemetery reminiscent of floating streams – these stories are suddenly much more plausible. Kun can feel water standing in his shoes, so cold that it’s numbing his toes. He doesn’t know why he’s even bothered with an umbrella. The rain is bouncing off concrete and up to his hips, wind is throwing it about and it hits about every inch of his suit.
He can see them in the distance, huddled in a small semicircle beneath dark umbrellas, all in the same black coats. A pastor in a tunic and a heavily ornamented golden crucifix, two priests assisting the old man. Kun can make out Paula wearing a black hat, all dramatic with a veil covering her face and Javier next to her, looking stern and serious and like the future patriarch he most definitely will be. Esteban is present to, for whatever reason.
Then he sees Leo. And for the fracture of a moment, his world stops.
Every fibre of his being is thrown forward, feet moving automatically. The soaked cigarette between his lips gives off last, desperate sparks and Kun inhales all he can take from that, lungs screaming silently as icy water splashes up his legs. He feels detached, numb and exhilarated at the same and paradoxically focused. It’s a mix of determination, drive and intoxication and Kun still finds it ironic that he’s still so much in it, that he’s aware and focused and not lying flat on his back with bones like jelly.
It’s even more ironic that Leo has his boyfriend’s arm in a deadlock-like grip in front of a member of the catholic clergy. The old pastor is probably only putting that down to grief and heartbreak over losing the beloved patron of the family. Kun knows, is absolutely sure, that this couldn’t be further away from the truth.
Leo’s face is a white mask of indifference, cruel callousness save for the grave force with which he is biting down on his lower lip. Stepping closer, Kun can make out blue veins stretching over his waxen jaw, square and stiff. He is eyeing the black coffin like he would a run-over rat on the street – with quiet but deep-seeded disgust.
The hand clutching David’s arm (David, who is so perfectly supportive, a calm rock, so fucking loving in his glance and subtle affection) is sinewy and trembling. If Kun’s feelings and state when waking up is anything to go by, and if he’s considering that thanks to said loving boyfriend, Leo most likely hasn’t had a chance to act against it, then his body is painfully detoxifying and trying to drain its system from all toxins that two nights or more have accumulated. A second glance tells Kun that David is holding on just as forcefully. Whether it’s for support or control, Kun is unable to decide; he doesn’t like either.
The gathered group utters a solemn “Amen”, the pastor bestows his last blessing upon the late Don and steps aside to let his two assistant open the marmoreal crypt. Esteban and Javier move to the coffin’s sides, wait for the two priests and together, the four of them disappear into the dark. The old pastor follows, to perform whatever is his duty to perform at any burial; Kun hasn’t been to many, he’s like Pipita in that way, they just creep the shit out of him.
Leo takes a few shaky steps, bends over and places his palms on his slightly bent knees, trying to breathe. David immediately crouches down next to him. His words are muffled out by the steady drum of the rain ricocheting off concrete and tombstones. Ironically – God is having a fucking field say, it seems – it’s Paula who notices his presence first, through her initial reaction is cleverly concealed by the veil covering her face. She walks towards Kun, stops halfway and waits for him to steps closer.
“How lovely of you to come,” she tells him with a soft and practised smile (he knows he’s being harsh, but Kun is biased and he doesn’t feel like changing his attitude just yet). Paula is clearly not in the know with regards to anything, or she wouldn’t have said that. Kun paying a visit is anything but lovely. She leans forward and kisses him on both cheeks, tulle scratching his overly sensitive skin. It feels like she’s taking it off with a potato peeler. Not delightful.
Kun tries to smile, fingers tightly gripping his umbrella, but he finds himself unable to control his facial expressions. Paula seems to understand; of course she understands and takes his hand, leads him back to the crypt, back to the spot where Leo is still choking on air, where David is still brushing back wet strands of hair off his forehead, muttering words not meant for their ears. It’s actually so sweet despite the circumstances that it makes Kun feels sick and so honest-to-God jealous that he almost grinds his teeth in bottled-up frustration.
The crunch of loose gravel beneath their shoes makes David look up and – well, talk about getting figuratively stabbed, Kun thinks. But he must have a previously undiscovered (why is he fooling himself? It’s rather thoroughly explored) masochistic streak, because he finds that he relishes the fact that David loathes him so deeply. It reassures him, it’s an indication that David sees him as a threat, perhaps, and like Pipita uncharacteristically wisely observed earlier – Kun doesn’t give up. He is silently and stubbornly determined.
When Leo lifts his gaze, nothing but a slight widening of his eyes give way to how he really feels about Kun’s presence. His indifference is a slight knock to Kun’s confidence, but he hadn’t really expected much here; it’s a cemetery after all.
Echoing steps take his attention away from Leo momentarily. Javier doesn’t seem happy, but he doesn’t seem surprised to see him. It takes a moment for everyone to awkwardly shuffle before Javier quietly tells Paula to go ahead. As he seizes Kun by the elbow, Kun can see out of the corner of his eyes that Leo throws a look over his shoulder as they leave.
“I’m not going to ask what you’re doing here,” Javier tells him once they’ve rounded a corner. The Virgin Mary is looming over their heads, reminding Kun of morals he’s long abandoned. “I’m not even going to ask you to think. I can barely see your pupils. Pocho was supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“What can I say? I guess he’s as tired as I am of you telling everyone what to do.”
Javier furrows his brows. “You’re being a brat.”
“And you’re being a hypocrite,” Kun replies, folding his arms in defiance. “Double standards are a bitch, aren’t they? People tend to get pissed off with that eventually. You’re forgetting that between the two of us, I am the one holding the cards.”
For a second, Javier is entirely taken aback by his bluntness; Kun can see it in the way his jaw clenches, lips in such a fine line that they seem erased. But then, the irritation so evident in Javier’s features is just gone, in the blink of an eye. He sighs. “This isn’t about me, Kun. I can’t deny it’s partially about you, but – this is about Leo, okay? It’s just him.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Kun replies irritably. “I’m here for him.”
“No, Kun. No you’re not.” Javier shakes his head. “You’re here for yourself. You’re just too fucking high to realise it.”
***
When Kun is six, he breaks his favourite toy. He cries and cries and stomps his feet until his mother manages to buy an exact replica.
Javier returns from studying in Europe when he is twenty and Kun falls hard. He is annoying and clumsy, but very persistent in his pursuit and gets what he wants when Javier fucks him on his office desk.
Kun is drawn to perfection. He is fascinated by the way it shatters between his hands.
***
Kun has been in many tense and awkward situations in his life. Coming out to his mother and have her pointedly ignore it had certainly been one of them. He had believed last night’s dinner to snatch top spot for a long time, but it is entirely faded out by what he is stuck in now, entirely on his own accord and Kun isn’t quite sure if that makes it better or worse. Kun contemplates jamming his mate straw down his throat to choke himself.
The entire awkwardly assembled funeral party is seated around the kitchen island in the mansion that is now Leo’s. They’ve lit all the lights because despite it being only afternoon, the rainclouds outside the window are so dense that not even a single ray of sun finds its way into the room. Paula has dropped the hat and veil and is quietly moving around the kitchen like it’s her own, boiling water, preparing tea and coffee and mate and obviously trying to lift the pressure that has descended upon them even since entering the house.
It’s not working.
Kun thinks he’s starting to understand why Esteban is here, though. He’s a doctor after all and Leo seems just about able to stay seated. Kun is surprised that he hasn’t doubled over yet. If possible, Leo is even whiter than he was straight after the funeral, skin taking on a light blue hue due to spidery veins now visible on his face and hands. He is shaking; shaking so much that the spoon in his coffee clatters against the brim of mug, providing a steady background noise. Still biting down on his lips so hard Kun is surprised not to see blood forming, Leo’s hands are almost raw, deep scratch marks drawing an irate pattern.
Leo doesn’t want to be here. Kun can barely breathe, because this is not what Leo needs, this is not what he wants and if he could just – he wants to grab Leo and run away as far as possible. They just don’t understand.
“More coffee anyone?”
As much as Kun hates to admit it, Paula’s voice is a nice contrast to the uncomfortable silence.
“Not for me,” Esteban replies and Javier shakes his head also.
“No, thank you darling.”
She doesn’t get a reaction from David, who has his eyes trained on Leo’s trembling form. Tentatively, almost as if he’s scared that Leo is going to crumble underneath his touch, he places a hand on his upper arm, slowly moves it up to come to rest on Leo’s shoulder. Kun has to bite down on the inside of his cheek; his blood is rushing in his ears, running out.
“You should lie down for a while,” David says quietly, only intended for Leo, but it’s so quiet that they can all hear him clearly.
Leo, who’s been an immovable statue up until now, slowly pushes the steaming coffee away and puts his elbows on the island, buries his face in his hands and rubs, once, twice. “’M fine,” he croaks. David’s hand travels up to his neck, thumb rubbing small circles.
“You’re not,” David responds.
“You do need rest, Leo,” Esteban joins in, leaning closer from across the table, squinting as if to assess Leo’s current condition from afar. “A lot of water, and maybe I should take your blood pressure to –”
“I am fine,” Leo snaps all of a sudden, interrupting Esteban. “I am not an invalid. So just,” and he waves his hand in dismissal. “Get off my back.”
It sucks all the remaining air out the room. Kun squirms in his seat, feels Javier’s eyes on him, probably waiting for him to do something, but Kun – he’s not running as low as Leo is, not at all, but it’s been a few hours and the sleep he didn’t get all night is catching up on him. He needs some air, a smoke and definitely more –
He flinches when a chair noisily creaks as it’s pushed back over the marble floor. Leo moves quickly, but David is already up, catching his wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“To the fucking bathroom,” Leo replies, pulls away from his boyfriend, tensions rising. Kun can practically feel the electric swell surging through the kitchen, petrifying everyone. “Is that allowed?” He stalks towards the door; David on his heels, tears it open and it hits the wall with a loud clatter. Kun can’t look up from his eyes clutching the edge of the island. “Stop following me!”
“You know I won’t,” David shouts after him and Leo answers even more furiously, words now muffled by the kitchen door being slammed shut. From what Kun can hear, they argue back and forth all the way along the hallway and maybe up the stairs, voices growing quieter by the second. Four more times the impact of a door hitting a wall sends picture frames rattling, then it’s silent.
Paula lets out a shaky breath and Kun looks up, watches as she gathers up mugs with delicate, trembling fingers. Esteban leans back in his chair again, chews on his lips, but Javier – Javier is looking straight at him.
He raises his eyebrows. “Happy now?”
“What? What did I do?” A quick glance past Javier; Esteban and Paula pointedly look the other way. “Wait, no. Don’t tell me. It’s probably my fault that it’s raining too, right? I’m just trying to be a friend unlike you lot. You’re like – hassling him and. Don’t you fucking see that you’re smothering him?” He scrambles to his feet, almost knocks over his chair and he’s getting fucking angry here. Fuck knows what David – “He is suffocating him like some control freak and you’re just drinking your fucking tea and –”
Javier’s fingers dig into Kun’s arm when he grabs it. “Get a grip, Kun. This is utter paranoia. You’re acting like –”
“Like what?” Kun challenges.
“Like you’ve lost your bloody mind.”
Javier determinedly pushes him towards the hallway, without any interception from Esteban, but Kun hadn’t expected that anyway. The door is closed again and Kun absentmindedly notices that it’s gone quite; there is no shouting from upstairs.
“Well, I wonder why,” Kun shoots back, pushing Javier off of him, perhaps a little too hard and sends him tumbling back slightly. It’s getting out of hand; Kun can feel an insufferable amount of adrenaline flowing through his body and his heart, his heart… He just finds it really hard to breathe.
“Because you’re high,” Javier says. “That’s why.”
They’ve been at this point before. They’ve had a similar sort of argument so many times and Kun’s always found a loophole, some way out, any old excuse, but he’s so far from caring. He just does not give a shit about Javier’s opinion. “So what if I am, Javi? Don’t pretend like you give a fuck; don’t pretend like any of you give any bloody fuck as long as it doesn’t bother you. You’re a hypocrite, a lying and cheating hypocrite and I think I fucking hate your guts!” Kun almost chokes on air. He’s talking himself into a frenzy, but it just feels so good to direct his frustration at someone other than that bastard behind the glass, a thousand pieces. “What’re going to do, huh? Ship me across the ocean, throw me into an asylum, because I’m not as fucking polished as the rest of you? Oh no, right, that’s what you’re going to do to Leo, isn’t it?” He inhales again, gets ready to yell his lungs out if he has to, when –
“What’s going on?”
Kun spins around. David is standing on the last step of the ornamented stairs, looked at him through narrowed eyes, arms crossed in front of his chest.
“Where’s Leo?” he asks, voice already hoarse, sounding like he’s smoked a dozen cigarettes in less than ten minutes. Kun doesn’t expect David to answer, so when he does, he almost takes a step back in surprise.
“Upstairs,” David replies monotonously, though not changing his defensive stance. “Resting.”
“Have you locked him in? So that you can ship him off against his will?”
David quickly bridges the distance between him and Kun, dark eyes glistening dangerously as he presses a flat palm against Kun’s sternum, giving a firm push. “Watch what you’re saying.”
“Or what?” Kun grins. He’s treading a fine line here, but he wants David to just lose it, to see that he’s not so fucking perfect after all. “You’re going to punch me, because Leo’s fallen for me?”
And for a moment, he thinks David is really going to do it and hit him square in the face. The other is fuming, physically shaking with suppressed rage and out of the corner of his eye, Kun can see Javier twitch, ready to interfere. When David, however, barks out a laugh, both of them are left gaping; in Kun’s case, it only lasts a second.
“You’re a joke,” David says, suddenly calm and collected. He’s shaking his head to himself. “If you think that Leo actually loves you, than you’re even more deluded than I thought. You think this hasn’t happened before? You think that you’re special? I’ve been with him for almost five years and you think that fucking him when he isn’t even able to remember his own name is love?” He shakes his head again, one corner of his mouth twitches; then he brushes past Kun without a second glance.
His heart. His heart. Kun doesn’t know if he can breathe. A hand on his shoulder, firm and warm, familiar. Javier.
“Perhaps it’d be better for you to go now.”
Kun’s out of it. He just – he needs. Running on edge, for too long, skin stretching tight and constant rain drumming away.
He barely feels the icy drops on his face. Stumbling down the narrow path leading away from the mansion, he nearly slips on the wet ground when –
“Jesus Christ! What –” A cold hand clasps over his mouth, effectively shutting him up and for a second, Kun is convinced that he’s going to get his throat cut. His heart plummets and is propelled up again when he recognises Leo right in front of him. He wants to say his name, but it comes out muffled against Leo’s palm. Kun guesses Leo waits for his breathing to calm down before removing his hand again. “Leo,” he breathes. “What are you – how did you?”
Maybe it’s supposed to be a smile. In the semi-dark, it looks more like a heartless grimace. “I used to climb out of my window every second day,” he explains.
“Why?”
Leo’s hand is still – maybe unintentionally – cupping his jaw. “I just – I can’t do this. Kun, I – I need –” and he breaks off, swallows thickly and just looks and Kun melts away slowly, doesn’t quite know how Leo would finish, but he hopes.
Because Kun needs too. So much.
“Lets go somewhere,” he says, relishes in the light that he sees flickering across Leo’s eyes in remembrance.
“Where?”
Leo’s breath is hitting his face in small puffs. Kun can almost taste the rain on his lips.
“Anywhere…”
It feels so surreal that Kun’s head is swimming and he can’t tell the difference between up and down. The world seems to fade away, to divide itself into things that don’t matter, and Leo. Kun crowds him against the uneven stone wall of a hidden away alley, shielded from the rain, and breathes heavy smoke down Leo’s throat. He feels the smaller body relax beneath his hands, finally and the taste is so fucking intoxicating that wants to hold onto it for as long as possible.
***
“Your mother tells me that you’re struggling.”
“My mother says a lot of things.”
“Is it true through? It is a familiar pattern, something that I see a lot with young people when they lose someone they have been very close to.”
“You think I’m an attention seeker?”
“No. I think you’re finding it hard to come to terms with your own grief. Were you close to your grandmother?”
“Hadn’t seen her in a while. But yeah, I guess, compared to the rest.”
“The rest of your family? You’re not close to your parents?”
“What do you think? They’ve sent me here instead of talking to me themselves.”
“You don’t appear to be on the best terms with them.”
“No shit. I hate them.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
“So what? Listen, I’m not grieving, okay? Not grieving now and I won’t grieve when my parents die. I hate them nonetheless, because even from their graves, they will find a way to make my life hell.”
***
It’s not like that one early morning when they’d gone to La Boca to get breakfast. Not that casual, easy-going atmosphere filled with content and light chatter, laughter and smiles. It has nothing of that domesticity of a daily routine, of familiarity.
This is different.
This is high energy and high-speed, adrenaline and things pumping through Kun’s body to a point where the flashing lights rotate around him. His hands are sticky with sweet drinks instead of dulce de leche, no empanadas to chew on, and only smiley faces to swallow. His vision alters after every sip from a different drink that’s shoved in his direction, rainbow colours the lot of them and sickening, but Kun doesn’t want to say no to anything anymore.
Kun loses sight of Leo a few times. There are so many people filling up every available space in some shabby bar by the docks where Kun’s never been. The music is odd; some kind of alternative stuff without any clear beat, somehow pleasant in its unfamiliarity and much easier to stomach with his mind already on edge. Erratic sounds usually add to his increasing heartbeat.
He reaches for Leo and pulls him back against his chest, presses himself to Leo from feet to shoulders and buries his face in Leo’s neck, taking in his smell, a mixture of sweat and smoke and something distinctly sweet; maybe one of the drinks had been spilled over his shirt. Kun opens his mouth, licks a trail up Leo’s spine, feeling every vertebra underneath his tongue. Leo shivers and Kun can’t help but moan against his skin and let his hands skim around the waistband of Leo’s jeans, tugging at his t-shirt.
They’ve abandoned their jackets, left them somewhere just after getting here and the heat in this crammed room is enough to make skin shiny and sticky. It’s different from that quiet morning it La Boca, but to Kun it seems like just another aspect of what if and what could be.
Kun gets the feeling that this is what life could be like. Life with Leo in it.
Time drifts, Kun floats; in and out, in and out, but always with Leo, so he doesn’t particularly notice at first.
In an odd, obscure moment, Kun sees Pocho across the room. Their eyes widen simultaneously and Kun wonders how the fuck Pocho even knows this place, what he’s doing here and then suddenly, his thought are running away with him. He thinks Javier, Javier and David and fuck, they must be looking, ready to ship Leo off again, take him away, break them apart and Kun doesn’t care if it’s paranoia or love or whatever – he can’t lose Leo.
He turns on his heels, hears his name being called across the room, barely louder than the music and Kun knocks over a few people before he finds Leo, grabs his arm and drags him with him without any sort of explanation. He hopes that Leo gets it, gets that they cannot allow anyone to separate them, that they need each other.
Cold air and icy rain hits his heated skin once Kun tumbles out into the street with Leo right beside him. He pauses to catch his breath, thinks the sweat might be freezing on his skin and looks at Leo, without hesitation, without question, just fully determined and sure of himself and them and what they’re might be about to do.
Kun starts running, a spur of the moment, just going with it and pulls Leo along, quick steps echoing through hollow alleys, water sloshing around their legs, soaking Kun’s jeans and drenching his shoes. They keep a quick pace, bodies high on so much more than adrenaline and the streets widen and eventually open up before them and doesn’t that make for a fucking brilliant metaphor, Kun thinks and laughs out into the night.
The surface of the Rio de la Plata is black and fuzzy, trembling like Leo’s skin when Kun drags his teeth across it. In the near distance, Puerto Madero’s modern towers stand like luminescent waterfalls, coming down from the sky and on any other night, Kun might’ve appreciated the view a bit more.
He eventually comes to a halt when Leo leans heavy into his arm. Out of breath, heart beating so painfully fast Kun is surprised that his ribcage can contain it, he turns around. It’s still raining, Kun wonders if it’s ever going to stop, pounding onto concrete and constantly whispering and Leo is absolutely soaked.
Kun doubts he has ever looked more beautiful.
“Have you ever been to Brazil?”
Leo raises his eyebrows. Kun can see his pulse racing, his chest throbbing. “What?”
“We could go there,” Kun says, throat stinging from exhaustion, but it doesn’t stop him. “São Paulo is nice. Rio is such a cliché, but we could go to São Paulo. Or maybe Bogotá. I hear Bogotá is nice, too.”
Leo gives his arm a tug and manoeuvres them off the street. The canopy of some shop is still heavily draped over the sidewalk, almost bursting with water that’s collected on it and they sit down beneath it, on the wet cobbles. Kun’s legs ache, he notices dully, and his head does too.
“He used to lock me in,” Leo speaks up suddenly, voice still breathless from their sprint. Kun has no idea how far they’ve run or for how long even. “He locked the front door, so I’d go out the back. He locked me into my room at night, so I climbed out the window. Fell once, broke me right arm. Then he locked me into the small study, the one without windows. But then I’d just leave during school hours.” He pauses, but Kun doesn’t know what to say to that. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? That he manages to finally tie me down by dying.”
“You could just,” Kun hears himself reply to that. “Leave. With me. We could just leave all of this behind.”
His head falls back against the concrete and he watches as Leo’s gaze drifts off. Then, “See, I don’t think I can.” His mouth quirks up and he takes Kun’s hand. His heart flutters as Leo leans close and brushes his lips for the fracture of a moment, fleetingly like a drop of that damned rain. “Come on,” Leo says. “Lets – lets go for a swim.”
“For a – what?”
Kun is slow to react, but Leo already pulls him up with force he fully credits the remaining adrenaline with. He hears what Leo is saying, but it doesn’t quite reach him and he can’t process any of it. Leo drags him even more determinedly than Kun had dragged him just a while ago, along the street, along the bank. Kun gazes to the left. He’s never swum in the Rio de la Plata before, but he supposes it could be quite nice. The black water looks like ink and Kun wonders if it’s going to taste like it too. He’d once chewed on a pen and it’d emptied in his mouth, making him swallow a fair share. Kun has always like swimming in the rain too and –
A blinding pain explodes in his chest and he doubles over and – “Fuck!”
Something has stabbed his heart from the inside and the world spins, upside to downside and back again. He sinks down, one hand blindly reaching for the wall, rough stone almost slicing his palm open, while the other tries to find Leo, who’s let go, he’s standing right there, watching the river just a few feet beneath them. He bends down and takes off his shoes.
“Leo?”
His voice sounds far away. Something grabs hold of his stomach and pulls and his entire inside constrict. Kun tastes bile before it comes up his throat and he spits it out, repeatedly, burning like acid. His vision blurs, he feels flat, hands slipping on the wet stones and he has to, he needs to lie down, because it hurts, it hurts and so he does and the rain keeps falling on him. Kun opens his mouth and the drops are cold on his numb tongue. He tries to lift his head, but it’s too heavy. Kun has no idea how he even walks with that thing on his shoulders.
Fuck. Just – fuck.
“Leo?” There are only shadows, faceless and distant. “Leo, wait for me, don’t –” He breathes, coughs, has to bend over sideways and throws up. “Don’t go without me.”
Kun tries to pulls himself up again, but he can’t feel his legs, not at all and he can’t even tell which way he has to move to get up. There’s a soft splash, Leo diving into the water, breaking through the surface without him and he hits the concrete, once, twice and again until his fist hurts more than his chest. Stemming and pushing, but he just can’t move. Cannot, not, and Leo – what.
He falls back down and his head hits the ground hard. Colourful dots explode behind his eyes and Kun breathes, laboured.
Once, twice and –
***
The first thing Kun thinks is concrete. Taste on his lips, feeling rough against his cheek, scraping, hard. Cold. There’s a slight shiver going through the surface, trembling softly, making his head hurt. He tries to roll over, go back to sleep, just sleep, but he can’t move. Something on his chest is weighing him down, possibly breaking his sternum although Kun can’t hear the crack.
Concrete, Kun thinks. Concrete and wet and rain. Water, droplets. Someone whispering. A slap to his jaw. One, two – he feels numb.
His hands push forward, knuckles brushing against something solid and a burning pain sears up his arm. Kun can’t be sure if that’s his scream echoing through the mist. Another slap, harder this time and Kun blinks against the black, sees shimmering light that is faint and yet too bright. He groans; his throat feels like it’s plastered with shattered glass.
Gripping something soft, Kun pulls himself into a sitting position. It’s almost impossible for him to breathe properly and – “Leo?”
Towers in the distance, black and barely illuminated, hovering dark, grotesque spikes against the sky, no stars – no light. Retching, Kun leans forward and tries to breathe through his nose, feels rough, calloused hands tapping his cheeks; hands familiar with hard, physical labour. When he looks up, he can’t see anything or anyone at first. All contours and colours and shapes blur together.
Then, “Kun!” and a thumb across his jaw, too soft. He tries to twist away and lashes out. His fist collides with cold skin and the pain is unbearable, so much that he almost blacks out again. Kun breathes through his teeth, manages to get to his knees. There are holes in his jeans. Tiny pebbles dig into his kneecaps.
“Jus –… sten… me… ere’s…”
He can’t decipher the words. Kun doesn’t want to either. He thinks of Leo as he scrambles to his feet and – Kun isn’t sure, but he feels like he’s missing something. There’s a black hole in his head that sucks in all coherent thoughts he manages to form. They don’t reach his brain, just remain unprocessed and disappear again and weigh him down, make him feel even dizzier.
Kun has to cough, spits on the concrete, but his mouth is so dry that just a couple of drops eventually hit the ground he’s standing on. There’s a tug on his shirt, the thin jersey stretches around his torso as he puts one foot in front of the other. But he stops. There are shoes, soaked and worn-out, on the pavement, alone and abandoned. Kun thinks they might have been a light grey once, comfortable Converse like he used to own a few years ago before he’d inherited a lot of money and started to buy expensive things just because he could. The rain has dyed the torn cotton and now it’s almost black.
Kun stares at the shoes, mind blank until he feels a body next to it, the heat such a sharp contrast to the freezing air and his skin that he tries to move away again, were it not for a solid hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in almost painfully. He turns his head; thinks he might have recognized the person if he had a face. Dropping his gaze, ignoring the mash of incoherent words reaching his ears, Kun looks at the shoes, their laces hastily pulled out, soggy and dirty.
He thinks they might be Leo’s shoes.
The river to his left flows silently, no disturbance visible on the inky surface. It’s impossible to see as far as the other shore, and Kun distractedly wonders if it’s too far to swim there too. He knows that people have swum across the English Channel. But he guesses that the water is a bit too cold at this time of year and that people should keep swimming restricted to the warmer months during spring and summer. Really, he wouldn’t swim in this, he’s cold enough as it is and his chest is still aching. Kun is sure he’s going to just fall back asleep in a second; he would probably already be asleep if it weren’t for that faceless freak shaking him by the shoulder and honestly, what’s wrong with him? Kun isn’t going anywhere, he just wants to find Leo. His shoes are still here. He can’t have gone very far without his shoes. His feet would get cold.
Kun looks at the shoes and back to the wall separating him from the river. There’s a few feet’s drop. And Kun thinks he’s failing to make a connection somewhere.
Hands pulling and voices calling and Kun tries to shove them off, moves away and slips. He falls against the solid stone wall, head dipping back and his surroundings spin one time too many. It hits him just as a flat palm once again collides with his face.
“Come on,” Leo had said. “Lets – lets go for a swim.” The memory of the splash suddenly echoes in his ears, loud and obscene – ominous. For a moment, everything freezes and stills and Kun hears his heart – his heart – pump weakly in his chest, sore and feeble, hardly creating any pulse and subtly burning away until it will eventually be consumed; sooner rather than later. None of that matters now.
“The kid, Óscar Ustari, fell or jumped in the river, couldn’t keep himself afloat.”
Kun remembers Javier and the inside of his office, the copy of that damn article and every word Javier had said to him that day when he’d hardly known Leo at all. It feels like a lifetime has passed between then and now. It feels like before Leo, there’d been nothing. And now he’s somewhere out there and Kun can’t lose him, because he can’t go back; can’t go back to life without Leo and –
No no no no no no is a loop in his head as he kicks his legs, hits away arms and hands and extends his own to push his body up and over.
The fall is deeper than Kun anticipated. It takes two outstretched seconds for him to break through the surface, water so cold that it wrings all air out of his body. It bites his skin and makes his body heavy, pulling down, pulling deep and engulfs his chest with an icy fist. Kun tries to resurface, but he doesn’t know which way to swim, doubts that he can swim. It’s just too cold. It’s making him sleepy but – Leo.
The river tastes foul on his tongue. He lets his arms slice through the water one more time and –
***
There had been a holiday in Mendoza when Kun had escaped his aya’s watchful eyes. He’d wandered off, past his grandparents’ garden, out the gate, gone on his own little adventure, pretending to be Indiana Jones when he’d found an old well. He’d climbed into it and fallen down, breaking his shoulder. His aya had found him after a little more than an hour and taken him to hospital. Kun doesn’t remember much of it. Only the smell of sterile rooms and bleached sheets and empty faces looking down on him.
***
It only feels strange at first; oddly soft and warm – comfortable. Kun has no trouble breathing. His chest… his chest doesn’t hurt, it’s a bit tight, but no stabbing pain to the left of his sternum. He tries to move and his limbs are heavy, but his fingers are twitching slightly, at least in one hand. The other is stiff, unnaturally so and Kun blinks, thinks he’s going to sneeze because his nose is itchy. He lifts his heavy arm, feels a soft tug right at the crook of it and weird sensation circling it. His fingers just scratch plastic.
“Don’t.”
Kun moves his head to the side and blinks against the light. His cheek buries itself in a soft pillow. Kun knows the smell – it smells like hospital.
“Wait a second.” He knows that voice too. Warm fingers touch his face, the back of his neck and slowly, steadily, remove something that’s been firmly placed over his nose and mouth. “Careful now. Try to take deep breaths.”
Kun does try, but the difference between before and after is so drastic that he spends the next minute coughing his lungs out. His chest aches every beat. Tears run down his face, but he doesn’t care as he eventually gains a sense of his surroundings. His left hand is stuck in something, but nevertheless he can feel soft sheets beneath his fingertips. A subtle peeping can be heard in the background, as well as hasty steps somewhere far away. It’s too bright and Kun’s eyes are sore, but he can tell that he’s in a white room, halogen lamps above his head. Pocho is sitting to his right. He tries to stay calm.
“Wh – where am I?” His voice sounds foreign.
Pocho leans forward, resting his tattooed lower arms on his legs. The shirt he’s wearing is dark and crinkled, his face pale; he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Scrubbing a hand across his stubbly chin, he says, “At the Hospital Británico.”
Kun senses his pulse accelerating. “What happened?”
Pocho swallows thickly. He can see his Adam’s apple bounce up and down. “What do you remember?”
“I… I don’t – there was – and then –” Kun breaks off. His head is swimming, there are to many sensations and images and there’s just something missing. He wants a smoke, he really does, he can’t, and his nerves, fluttering, racing and – “Where’s Leo?”
Pocho’s expression slips for no more than the fraction of a second, but Kun notices and it downright terrifies him. He’s known Pocho for so long that he can tell when he’s trying to hide something; when he’s about to lie.
“Kun,” Pocho starts, cautiously raising his hands. “You need to promise me to stay calm, okay? You need to –”
“Pocho,” Kun interrupts him, panic rising, pulse rapidly increasing. The bleeping noises coming from some machine to his left pick up speed. “What happened? Where is he?”
“What happened? Your heart stopped beating, all right? You went into fucking cardiac arrest. So please. Just try to breathe evenly and calm down. You–”
“I don’t care – I don’t care about me! Where the fuck is Leo?”
“Kun, you –”
“Where is he?!”
His chest. There’s something – his heart – what did Pocho say? Kun shakes his head, tries to make sense of his reeling thoughts. There are so many images and he doesn’t know if he just dreamed half of them. The river, Kun thinks. The river. So much water. Too much.
“He’s,” Pocho finally answers and Kun holds his breath. Oh God. “He’s in a coma. They don’t know if he’s going to wake up again.”
No.
“You’re lying.”
“Kun –”
“No,” he repeats, can’t breathe anymore, doesn’t want, just no, everything no. “You’re lying. You’re fucking lying! I saw him, okay? He was fine, he was fucking fine. We were just – just running and he wanted to swim, so we did.”
Pocho frames his face and stills it. His eyes are dark and deep, bloodshot and tired – honest. “Calm down, please. You losing your shit isn’t going to help anyone.”
Kun can barely understand what he’s saying. Blood, heartbeat, all deafening in his ears and that fucking machine just will not shut up. He hits Pocho square in the face with his intact hand without really meaning to, but. But Leo. He moves up the mattress and the pillows fall to the floor soundlessly, pulls his legs to his chest and hugs them close, but he can’t feel them, he can’t feel anything, so he digs his nails into his elbows, deep, and drags them across his forearms until it burns, until he can smell the metallic scent. He thinks he’s going to be sick. Hischest.
Subconsciously, Kun notices that the door to his room is opened and someone – probably a nurse, a doctor – hurries up to him, handles the damn machine, presses buttons and takes his arms, jams a needle into his veins. The corners of his eyesight start to blacken out. Kun thinks Leo Leo Leo Leo Leo on repeat and tries to think of his face, tries to remember how he smells and feels, the sound of his voice, his laugh.
Sliding down again, Kun lets the nurse lift his head, pick up the pillows, adjust whatever.
He turns to his side, curls up and cries until sedatives lure him back to sleep.
***
Kun wishes he would dream of the Plaza de Mayo, of faceless dancers and music he can’t hear. He wishes he’d dream of walking down the streets of Buenos Aires. Instead, his dreams are filled with nothing but darkness and the sound of a faraway voice.
***
When Kun wakes up a second time, Pocho is still sitting by his bed. Kun wonders if he even left. His blood is still spiked with morphine and other things, so he just looks at Pocho and listens while he speaks. Pocho tells him that he’d seen them leave the bar, that he’d been worried and decided to follow them. He’d run into two wharfies just starting an early morning shift and together they had found Kun lying on the street. Kun vaguely remembers that part, remembers waking up without Leo and falling or jumping and the blackness of the river. They had jumped after him, pulled his unconscious self out of the water. Leo had been floating just a few yards away.
“He’d been dead for some minutes,” Pocho says monotonously. “And your heart wouldn’t beat properly. We were extremely lucky that the hospital was close, that the ambulance only took a few minutes, that the two of you could be reanimated.”
“But Leo –”
Pocho sighs. “He’s alive, Kun. But he actually died and it’s a lot to recover from. The doctors simply can’t say if his body will. The coma – it’s a defensive mechanism. He’s trying, you know?”
Kun doesn’t have the strength to nod. He’s been silently crying for the past hour, he thinks, to weak to do anything else. If Leo is not going to wake up then – he wants to just pull a switch, close his eyes. He wishes he would’ve died out there, wishes he would have just drowned so that through some weird sense of sacrifice, Leo would’ve been spared. Kun can’t lose him. He doesn’t think he’d survive it anyway. Kun doesn’t care. He doubts anyone else would care either.
“Do the others,” he says, disconnected thoughts suddenly appearing in his head. “I mean, have they –”
Pocho shakes his head. “They haven’t been to see you yet. Javier was here, briefly, but…” He trails off. Kun can guess why.
“They think it’s my fault, don’t they?”
“No Kun, they –”
“They do,” Kun interrupts him. “They think it’s my fault. And they’re right. It is. If Leo dies… then I’ve killed him.” He gets it now. “But I still – I need to see him, Pocho.”
The walls of his room are thin. Only now does he realize that they’re not actually white, but beige, which does supposedly have a calming effect. It’s either this or the sheer amount of sedatives in his system that keeps Kun from clawing his own skin off in an attempt to cope. Outside, a nurse is calling for a doctor and quick feet in light clogs hurry past his door. Kun wonders why the air smells like cinnamon.
Pocho smoothens the at the moment too prominent lines of his forehead and sighs. “That’s not up to me. And I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be honest here. I’m trying to be on your side here. I know it always takes two. But all of us, we’ve told you so many times and you didn’t listen. Maybe it was bound to happen one way or the other and maybe it was just really bad timing on all fronts, but – you’ve upset a lot of people.” He kneads his fingers; pale knuckles a sharp contrast to his dark jeans. Kun recognizes the bitter sensation in his gut as guilt. “Sorry, but I think if you even go near Leo, David is going to kill you. And I’m not exaggerating.”
Kun can’t speak. He’s high on painkillers, but he doubts that he’s ever felt so sober in his entire life. Eventually, and he can’t say why – but he knows, oh he knows – he manages to croak: “How is – how is he? David, I mean.”
Pocho is surprised to be asked; Kun can tell by the way he blinks at him for a second. “Not well. Javier is keeping an eye on him, and a friend just arrived yesterday, from Barcelona.”
He can only assume that not well doesn’t even come close to describing it. Pocho is being kind for his sake.
“Anyway,” he says then, suddenly, and clears his throat. Kun keeps staring at the ceiling. “I’m going to let everyone know that you’re doing okay, considering the circumstances. And I really need coffee. So – don’t worry, eh? Leo, he’s… he’s going to be fine.”
Kun really hopes he will be. He knows he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if not.
***
Kun spends the next few days doing nothing but lie on his back, thinking. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, doesn’t take anything else and he’d be lying if he were to say that it’s not noticeable. His body isn’t hesitant to let him know just what he’s been doing with it and he gets feverish, has to deal with heat waves and icy shivers and sweat and Kun’s pretty sure he hallucinates every night, because he keeps having conversations with his late grandparents that really can’t be happening because – well, they’re dead.
The nurses and doctors that keep checking up on his don’t mention the very obvious fact that he’s clearly coming off something, that Kun is not just recovering from a premature cardiac arrest but actually detoxifying right in front of their eyes; they’ve been paid not to mention it.
Pocho drops by every day, faintly smelling of cinnamon and on the third day Kun realizes it’s because of the syrup he takes with his coffee; he can’t believe he’s never noticed that before. He doesn’t mention Leo again or David or their friend from Barcelona, most likely because he knows that Kun thinks of nothing and no one but Leo when he’s alone (which is a lot). Pipita shows up once and spends one hour talking about football to distract Kun. He means well, but after a few minutes, Kun just switches off and stares at the ceiling instead, which is quickly becoming his only pastime.
Kun wakes up to his mother sitting in Pocho’s seat on the morning of the fourth day. By now he knows that he’d been out for two days before talking to Pocho for the first time, which brings his hospital stay up to almost a week. A week and Leo still hasn’t woken up. It’s all Kun can think about. His mother, however, looks as polished as always, sickeningly so, Kun finds, with regards to the shit he’s been through, the shit they’ve all been through. She should be looking just as tired and battered as Pocho.
She’s wearing a white pencil skirt and a cream-coloured blouse with matching cardigan. He can’t see her feet, but Kun assumes that she’s wearing a new pair of heels, because – apparently – visiting one’s son in hospital can now be compared to a social outing and one must always look spotless for those. Her skinny frame looks far too frail for the heavy pearl necklaces adorning her neck.
Nevertheless – she’s his mamá and it’s been a decade since she has properly hugged him, but Kun thinks he really needs that now. It’s clear that she doesn’t agree.
“What an unfortunate accident,” she tells him and shakes her head as if she were scolding him for breaking a plate of her expensive china. “I’ve always said to your father that those new-builds in Puerto Madero are nothing but hideous and there are just not enough security measures by the docks. Really, think about what could have happened.”
Kun stares at her blankly for a moment, before he lets out a dry laugh and shakes his head. To hell with it. “It wasn’t an accident, mamá. I was high, okay? I took drugs, a lot of them, for days. It wasn’t unfortunate; it was my own fucking stupidity. So – don’t.”
She stares back, shock written on her motionless face before, like always, she composes herself and smiles weakly. “Oh Sergio, you’re clearly very distressed, still. I’ll leave you to get some rest and I will tell your father that you’re doing much better. He will be so relieved.”
Kun doubts that his father even cares.
Once his mother is gone, Kun is alone again; alone in an empty room. He has so much time on his hands now, time to think, to actually and truthfully think without anything clouding his judgement – and it’s scary. It terrifies him that this is what his life is reduced to now and it’s cruel to admit that there isn’t anyone. He’s got himself to blame for it. Like Pocho said: he should have just listened.
He hates to admit that they were right all along. It’s downright humiliating. But that’s selfish, Kun realizes and it’s perhaps finally time to stop being selfish.
Even if Leo makes it; Kun doubts that he’ll ever want to see him again.
Hours stretch on forever, like days, all beige and white and clinical. Kun grows accustomed to his new electronic heartbeat. He gets used to looking up at the ceiling and he waits for the rain – but it never comes.
***
Kun believes in selected honesty. He believes that it cannot be called lying if he just keeps certain things to himself. Like the broken Ming vase underneath his bed when he’s eight. Like the nightlight in his room when he is fourteen.
Like the slowly building stash of sleeping pills between mattress and pillow.
***
After nine days, Kun still needs a pacemaker. His heart is beating irregularly and he gets the occasional cramp in his chest that is so painful that he almost blacks out from it.
He knows the nurses by name now; Maria, Camila and Soledad. They talk to him although he barely listens, they ask him questions although he never answers. But sometimes they will talk about that poor boy and his two friends who haven’t left his side the entire week. It hurts Kun’s heart more than any drug ever could.
Occasionally, his thoughts wander off and Kun wonders how much better he’d feel if he were allowed to go outside for a cigarette or two. But he isn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself and he knows it wouldn’t stop just there. He’s sure that by now, Pocho has raided his flat, has found all secret stashes and flushed everything down the toilet. It would be so much easier, Kun thinks. He could walk out the front door, return to the docks and drown his sorrow, numb his pain and swallow down a few dozen sleeping pills to make everything go away.
The catheter is itching horribly, as always, and Kun is busying himself plotting another hypothetical escape from the hospital when a soft knock sounds from the door. Assuming it’s Pocho – although he never knocks – Kun doesn’t move or say anything, so the door opens cautiously a few moments later. He keeps his eyes fixed to the ceiling, but the steps echoing off the walls seems too light and tiny to be Pocho’s or Pipita’s or –
His mattress dips a second after and Kun closes his eyes, breathes and then – small hands touch his face, a bit sticky but incredibly soft, careful yet oddly determined and –
Big, dark eyes are staring into his when Kun lifts his lids again. They’re almost black, like little buttons, round and framed by curling lashes, equally black. Lips half parted as if in deep concentration and hair curling into a high and rounded forehead. It’s been months since he’d last seen him, maybe even more than a year, but there’s an instinctive feeling, an underlying knowledge; he’d recognize Benjamin anytime, anywhere.
“Hello, Kun.”
He briefly glances up at Giannina. She looks pretty, even in jeans and a red coat, but Kun has always thought her pretty. She would’ve been perfect in many ways and he guesses she is relatively close to being perfect – just not for him. He wonders what would have happened had they been honest with each other from the beginning.
Kun turns back to Benjamin. His cheeks are damp, his eyes slightly reddened. “Why was he crying?”
Giannina smiles weakly and approaches his bed, hesitantly sits down as if waiting for a permission to do so. She reaches out and brushes her son’s hair out of his face. It’s such a fond gesture that Kun feels warm just observing it. “He doesn’t like hospitals.”
“Smart kid.”
“Yeah, he is,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind me bringing him or… me being here. But Ezequiel called me a week ago, told me what had happened and I just – I really wanted to see you. I would have come earlier, but Ben had a cold and –”
“Nina,” he interrupts her. “Thanks. For coming and – for bringing him.” Kun doesn’t believe that near-death experiences change one’s entire perspective on life, but he can’t help but feel utterly relieved, can’t help but look at Benjamin with a sense of belonging and pride and - mine. “God, they grow like weeks, don’t they.”
“They do,” she smiles. “We took the training wheels off his bike last week.”
Kun sits back, Benjamin spread out on his legs, dozing off, and listens to her voice, listens to her talk of her son – of their son – and her eyes light up like only a mother’s can. They’re mostly irrelevant things considered, but it’s oddly relaxing and comforting to hear about something as banal as kindergarten or a child’s birthday party gone wrong. He can’t be sure if she talks for four hours or four minutes before his thoughts reverse back to where they’ve been all day. Benjamin is now soundly asleep on his hospital bed, weight cutting off the blood flow to Kun’s left leg.
“Giannina?”
She looks at him, patiently waiting while he searches for words.
“Have you… I mean has Pocho… Has he said anything?”
“About what?” Giannina asks and raises her curved eyebrows at him. “About your rather drastic escapades and self-destructive behaviour? He didn’t need to, because I know you and I’ve known you and the guys for so long…” She trails off, waves a hand dismissively. “You’ve been up to some pretty scary stuff the past few years. I’m not one to judge, I mean – I’ve been there too. But I had to grow up,” and Kun doesn’t miss the way she looks at Benjamin. “All of you, you just need to, I don’t know – get over yourself.”
Kun follows her gaze and, for a minute, just stares blankly at Benjamin and his short limbs spread out across his legs. He guesses he must be – maybe four? Four years and he’s seen him not even a handful of times, whereas Giannina really has grown up, has grown to be a mother and he guesses she’s doing a great job, unlike him. Unlike him, she actually looks alive as well with curls reaching past her elbows and a patient smile on her face. She looks a little tired as well, but. Kun thinks under many different circumstances, he might have been very happy with her. With her and Benjamin.
He’s never – he’s never really looked at him before and felt a sense of responsibility or belonging, probably because he didn’t care; because he’d been too high. Yet now. Benjamin has his mother’s curls and her chin and ears. But Kun thinks he’s got his nose and his eyes, the same colour, almost black. Warmth spreads through his chest and for a second Kun panics and assumes it to be a blown artery.
“I think I have to take him home,” Giannina says and gently lifts Benjamin into her arms. He twists and turns and squirms briefly, then he settles against her shoulder. “But… I think it’d be nice for him to see you again. I’m just no good at football.” She takes a few steps, stills, and looks over her shoulder. “Oh, and I just ran into Javi in the entrance hall. Apparently – he’s just woken up.”
Kun doesn’t touch his dinner, doesn’t move. Can’t decide if he’s been hallucinating again.
It’s a private hospital. Rooms cost a fortune. So it shouldn’t be surprising that after midnight, the corridors are deafeningly quiet and so scarcely lit that it reminds Kun of a horror film he’d watched a while ago. He puts on a pair of sweatpants that Pocho brought for him and an old t-shirt, carefully removes the drip from his arm and sneaks out of his room barefooted. The linoleum floors are cold against his toes.
Kun figures he could run away if he wanted to; run away to Palermo or Oculta. Or away from Buenos Aires, away from everything and everyone and start anew. Perhaps they could both do. Yet he doubts he would get very far. Nausea is almost ever-present and it’s pressing down on his chest, his stomach, producing a constant wariness, keeping his mind and body on edge. Most of all though, he’d just get hopelessly lost in the maze that is this hospital.
He has barely reached the end of the corridor when Kun realizes his first mistake: he has no idea where Leo is. Kun has only faint memories of this hospital, but even about that he cannot be certain. He thinks he might’ve been here before, seeing his yaya before she had passed away after a long struggle with cancer, not paying attention to the layout of this place, hoping never to return. But he’s standing here now, with paths leading off into more directions than he can count and Kun doesn’t know where to go, doesn’t have anyone but himself to rely on or trust with the decision.
Eventually turning right, he taps ahead barefooted. Above his head, a lamp flickers tirelessly like a quickened pulse, like Kun’s faulty heart and it makes him feel nervous, increases his nausea. He steadies his body by placing a hand against the walls, all painted in that horrible eggshell tone that his mother keeps going on about. The colour does nothing to calm him. Kun passes an empty reception desk (he concludes that this is the exclusive private wing of the hospital, not the one receiving emergency cases, because it is definitely too quiet) and wonders distractedly if Leo is still in intensive care, if he is in one of the rooms he’s already passed.
He decides to turn on his heels to head back, takes the wrong turn. There’s a corridor filled with paintings and Kun is quite certain that one is an original Matisse; he’d have to ask Pocho about that, Pocho knows more about art than anyone he knows. On tiptoes, he peeks through the little glass window in the door and sees nothing but a dark, empty room. Kun tiptoes on; two more rooms empty, one room hosting an elderly gentleman. When he stands in front of the last door, Kun doesn’t need to look – he suddenly just knows. He feels.
Cautiously opening the door, Kun feels his pulse quicken rapidly and it hurts, God, it hurts. There isn’t a muscle in his chest that doesn’t ache or strain, that he hasn’t tortured and fought with and maybe it’s a good thing if he just has a heart attack now, blacks out, passes out, collapses – dies. Because Kun isn’t prepared for this; all the time in the world, all pondering and thinking about nothing but this could not have made him ready to face this.
Leo is alone in this comparably majestic hospital room (Kun will only in a short while think of David, think about how lucky he is that he isn’t present right this moment, but right now, Kun’s brain capacity only has enough space to accommodate Leo). There’s more beeping machinery surrounding his bed than furniture in the room. A few painting give the otherwise clinical room some colour and make Kun ask himself about doctors’ obsession with impressionists. Perhaps something about brainwaves, Kun doesn’t give a shit. They are as irrelevant as anything could ever be to him right now, because Leo looks so small lying there, hooked to a dozen machines; small and pale and fragile and like he is actually dying, and it’s too much for Kun.
Within a second, he is by Leo’s bedside, then hesitates before lowering himself onto one of the two chairs left there. He tries not to think about who has sat in them before, blocking out reality because he’s become so good at it, because that’s what he and Leo have done and do. And up close he looks even more delicate, even more like he’s going to fade away any second, dissolve right under his gaze, like a utopian angel, too good for this world, for all of them.
But Leo continues to sleep peacefully, a steady peep indicating that he is very much alive and Kun reaches for his hand; he doesn’t expect it to be as warm as it is. Kun laces their fingers together and – it hits him. Kun has known, maybe from the first moment, but he doesn’t think that he has ever been as aware of it as he is now, in this moment. Javier, Pipita, Pocho, they can say whatever they want; he loves Leo. Loves him with every fibre of his tattered and tainted heart.
But perhaps he just doesn’t deserve him.
Kun squeezes his eyes shut and forces the tears back down, swallows thickly and feels the exhaustion from walking, from anxiety and worry. He can’t but lean forward, brush careful fingers across Leo’s forehead before carefully letting his head come to rest on the sheets. For a few moments, Kun stares up at Leo’s motionless face, is warm with feelings and cold with memory. And this is his second mistake: he falls asleep.
***
Kun wakes up when he hears the familiar click of a door opening. He takes a few seconds to come back to his senses, to remember and realize where he is. Then he shoots up. His neck cracks and Kun winces, he turns towards the door. Javier is standing there, looking at Kun like he is the Hold Ghost in human form and Kun stares back. Leo’s hand is still clasped in his, warm and comforting.
For a couple of beats, it is as if everything around them has frozen. Kun is not sure if he can even hear the hustle and bustle of the hospital (it has to be early morning already and his neck is stiff as a brick). Javier stares at him and Kun stares back, clutching Leo’s hand and then –
“Javier, why are you –” David appears in the doorway, freezes on the spot when his eyes land on Kun. All colour, all expressions drain from his face in a heartbeat, being replaced by the most piercing glare Kun has ever felt on him. Not that he blames David for it. David narrows his eyes dangerously; his posture changes and his brows collide with his lashes. He looks murderous. “What the fuck is he doing here?” he hisses and pushes past Javier.
Kun only has time to scramble to his feet before David has reached him. A solid hand pushes against his chest, producing a sharp pain that momentarily makes his see stars. He tumbles backwards and can just catch himself before falling onto the various machines, creating chaos.
“David.”
He follows after Kun, pushes again and Kun tries to catch his wrists, already feels heat creeping up his spine, his breath shortening, heart aching and tight. Then he is down, elbow painfully colliding with the floor as he tries to somehow catch himself and there are shadows hovering above him, hectic voices and it’s probably a minute before the black edges of his vision disappear and Kun can see fairly clearly again. Javier is to his right, helping him up, carefully pulling his arm. David is being held back by someone Kun has never seen before; exactly as tall as Leo, dark eyes, dark hair, strong brows and a faint stubble. Kun briefly wonders if he is part of the hospital staff before he remembers Pocho mentioning a friend from Barcelona. That must be him.
“You okay?” Javier asks, helping him to keep his feet steady. Kun is anything but okay, he thinks he might throw up on the floor between them because his stomach is in knots, his head hurts and that steady pressure on his chest is squeezing his lung tight.
“’M fine,” he says nonetheless, shuts his eyes only to open them again. David is still glaring daggers at him, obviously fuming and shoving at his friend holding him back by his arms.
“Calm down, Guaje,” he tells him.
David gives a final shove, hitting his friend hard at his shoulder. “I don’t want to calm the fuck down, Xavi,” he spits. “I want him to get the hell away from Leo.”
Kun coughs, evening his intake of air. “I just wanted –” he starts, but David cuts him off before he can utter another word.
“I don’t give a shit what you want! All you fucking moron have wanted to do and done has brought Leo here. This damned country almost killed him once before and thanks to you, it nearly happened again. So I don’t give a fuck what you want or what you do, throw yourself in front of a bus for all I care, or off the roof of this bloody hospital, but you stay the fuck away from Leo!” He points a finger at Kun, trembling, eyes burning with emotions Kun has never been confronted with and he finds it increasingly hard to breathe. David’s eyes are wet with tears. “And I swear, if you come near him, if you say you love him one more time, I will fucking kill you with my own hands, you hear me? This drugged up to the eyeballs featherbrain of yours has no idea what it means to love someone. You don’t even know him; you haven’t picked him off the street or dragged him away from some guy who was just as fucked up or sat with him through one of his many detoxes. I have cared for him and loved him for years, so if you come near him ever again, I will make sure that you regret it.”
“Guaje –”
“Xavi, I swear,” David breathes. “If you tell me to calm down one more time, I will punch you in the face.” With that he turns and sinks down in one of the chairs, the chair Kun had previously occupied but has probably been David’s all along. He takes Leo’s hand, who has miraculously slept through the entire thing, lifts it to his face and presses a heated kiss to his knuckles. He brushes his thumb across the back of Leo’s hand and looks at Leo with more adoration and something else than Kun has ever – and he doesn’t – he can’t –
Kun has never had a broken heart before. But it feels a lot like cardiac arrest.
“Come on,” Javier says quietly next to him. “Lets get you back to your room, you’re not recovered either.”
He lets himself be pushed forward, almost falling over his own feet in the process because he can’t quite convince his body to function, when David’s friend – Xavi – steps into his line of view, stopping them. “I’ll take him,” he tells Javier, placing a hand on Kun’s elbow. “Maybe you could get some coffee for all of us? I think Guaje really needs one.”
Kun gapes, wants to ask Xavi if he knows that he’s talking to one of the richest and most powerful men in Buenos Aires and Argentina – but Xavi holds himself with confidence and a certain kind of presence that feels unusual to Kun. And Javier releases him, nods and watches silently as Xavi gently pulls Kun with him. He closes the door to Leo’s room behind him and jockeys Kun to his room with calm and quick steps. Before Kun can even register that his feet have practically moved on their own, he finds himself sitting on his crumpled sheets again and watches Xavi open the blinds to his windows. He might as well just left them shut; the sky over Buenos Aires is gloomy and dark and it’s no surprise to Kun that it’s raining.
Xavi walks across the room, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He’s wearing a dark leather jacket and the long sleeves conceal his arms, but Kun can tell from his neck, from his face, that he’s recently spent a lot of time in the sun – no surprise, it’s summer in the northern hemisphere after all.
“Are you alright?” he asks with such genuine concern that Kun immediately feels guilty, that he finds himself unable to lie.
“No,” he says. “No, I’m not.”
“Thought so,” Xavi says. “Listen, Sergio – ”
“Kun.”
“Okay. Kun. Leo’s told me about you, quite a lot actually,” he continues. “But maybe I should tell you a few things about Leo.”
“But I,” Kun starts.
Xavi shakes his head. “No. David’s right, you don’t know him, at least not as well as you think, or as much as you’d like to. I know that the two of you have spent a lot of time together, that you were there for him in many ways and that you got pretty close,” and Xavi accentuates it by raising his eyebrows. “But there’s a lot that you don’t know about Leo. In fact, most people don’t know these things about him and maybe that’s good or bad, doesn’t matter. However. Fact is, and I won’t sugar-coat it, that he is a former addict, junkie, user, call it what you want. You guys are very easy-going when it comes to drinking and drugs, but Leo was addicted. To the bad stuff. That stuff that actively kills you and that you can never get away from.”
“Paco,” Kun mutters, lowers his eyes. Xavi’s gaze is too intense for him to handle right now.
“Paco,” Xavi repeats. “Crack. Heroine. Along those lines.” He breathes, then Kun feels his mattress dipping slightly. “I met him at boarding school, in Barcelona. He was a bit of a loner, didn’t talk to anyone. Me and some others tried to include him and after a while he opened up a little, we talked; he told me about what had happened in Buenos Aires and why he was there. And that he’d just finished detoxification.”
“He told you about that?”
“Eventually,” Xavi answers. “So I looked out for him, we became close friends – and then I introduced him to David. Well, not with any intentions, but sometimes people just… they just work, you know? But it wasn’t like it is now. And that’s the thing, that’s something you will have to keep in mind too: you will always relapse. It’s the same with any addiction. Eventually, subconsciously and even unintentionally, it will happen. Happened to Leo two times in the first to years, but we supported him. David supported him.” He sighs deeply and Kun finally looks up, watched as Xavi rubs his hands over his eyes; he has to be insanely tired. “It would have happened again, one way or the other. Maybe less severe, more controlled. But when things get difficult, it’s the first thing Leo’s mind goes to: how easy it is. So that’s what you need to know. It would have happened and it’s not all your fault. Okay?”
Kun’s chest constricts. He can’t do this anymore. He just – “But it is,” he says. He can feel it well up in his heart his throat, and his voice breaks. “It is my fault.”
“It’s not, Kun. You –”
“It is!” Kun breaks him off. “All of you, you don’t know, but it is.” It trickles down his cheeks, wetting them. A single tear drops onto his forearm. “I spiked his drink, the night after his grandfather died. He didn’t want to go out, but I convinced him, I basically forced him. And he was so tired and sad and so fucking haunted, so I put something into his drink, I can’t even remember what. But I started it. It is my fault.”
He doesn’t know what to expect from Xavi. Kun is certain Javier would have slapped his ass to Bariloche and back. Pocho too. David will most definitely kill him when he finds out. But Xavi just looks at him for a few moments. Then he sighs, and shrugs.
“And how is that relevant now? Leo is a grown man. He might not look like it, but he’s not innocent, and he’s done enough in his life to know when he’s taken something. It was his choice, alright?” He scoots closer and places a comforting hand on Kun’s arm. It’s the most human contact he’s had since – except for Benjamin. Kun thinks it’s probably embarrassing how quickly he melts into the touch. “He’s going to be okay,” Xavi says insistently. “It might take a little more time, but – he is going to be fine.”
It’s the first time in more than a week that Kun cries not with desperation or self-loathing. But with relief. He falls forward, entirely drained and exhausted. Xavi catches him by the shoulders and holds him until he is able to breathe again.
***
Kun is released from hospital a few days after. He is far from being at 100 %, but he gets painkillers against his aching chest, pills that control his blood vessels and a lengthy instruction manual on how to handle his dysfunctional body. Pocho picks him up and moves into Kun’s flat until further notice. Pocho also finds the hidden sleeping pills. Kun takes them out of his hand and – with little hesitation – flushes them down the toilet.
***
“How is it to have Pocho as your personal nurse?” Pipita asks him over a cup of tea (Pipita had been scandalized and Kun wouldn’t guarantee that he hasn’t slipped a little bit of vodka into it behind his back).
“It’s okay,” Kun answers, when in fact, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done it weren’t for Pocho.
“Does he wear the outfit?” Pipita grins and wriggles his brows.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Kun tries to joke, but it falls flat.
He continues to sip his tea and wonders and misses.
***
At night, Kun lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Outside it’s raining, but his room stays dry. He listens out, and waits. There’s nobody hiding in his mirror. He is alone.
***
Kun doesn’t count the days. He thinks he’d go insane if he did. He just knows it’s been too long. Insomnia is plaguing him and he feels anxious, in need of something, but Pocho won’t even let him have a cigarette. Kun starts to shout at him, starts yelling and cursing when secretly, he is so grateful that Pocho has nerves of steel.
Kun hasn’t realized it until now, but Pocho is the best friend he’s ever had. Only that tiny bit of pride he’s got left prevents him from telling.
He loses track of time and every day is slowly fading into the next with no change in pattern. Kun sits on the couch in his living room and sometimes Pocho will sit with him, and watches as dark rainclouds collide in the sky above Buenos Aires. Sometimes he will hear thunder, followed by lightning and sometimes Kun will briefly think about walking out onto his balcony to swing his legs across the railing. Whenever that happens, Pocho puts a firm hand on his arm and talks about work, keeps him grounded.
Kun never stops thinking about Leo and if he’ll be gone without the chance of ever seeing him again. He drinks tea, always tea, spills it over his hand by accident or not and tries to figure out what hurts more. Pocho bandages his hand and calls him an idiot.
Time moves and moves and Kun starts to drift again. He barely leaves his flat except for the regular check-ups at the hospital and always, after a few steps, he starts to feel that dull throb in his chest and he has to stop, catch his breath that always seems short and laboured these days. It appears to Kun as if his heart is trying to bring him down to his knees, and it’s very close to succeeding. He doubts that it is ever going to be like it was before.
Leo has given his life meaning and without him, Kun doesn’t know what to do with it.
One night when Pocho is fast asleep in the guestroom, Kun leaves his flat and walks the dark, nightly streets of Buenos Aires. He sits down by the Rio de la Plata and cries.
It could have been one week or ten since Kun has been released from hospital. It doesn’t matter, simple as that. Giannina takes Benjamin to see him, but Kun has missed so much that he doesn’t know if it can ever be caught up. He’s not father material, now probably less than ever, but he’s trying and Giannina is helping and they make it through the day without any incidents. But then Pocho wakes him one morning, throws jeans and shirt at him and tells him to get dressed. Kun is too stunned to complain or question, so he gets ready, finds Pocho in the living room and together they take the lift downstairs.
When they get into Pocho’s car (Kun doesn’t know this one, but it smells new so Pocho must’ve bought it recently) he starts to wonder if he’s forgotten about an appointment at the hospital, which wouldn’t be unusual, but then they leave in the other direction and Kun is left asking himself where the hell Pocho is taking him. Pocho stays quiet when Kun questions him.
“For once in your life, Kun,” he says. “Be patient.”
They don’t drive for long and when Pocho turns at a corner, Kun –
“Pocho,” he says urgently. “I know I had those pills, but seriously – I don’t actually want to die.” Then they pull up to Leo’s house. “David’s going to kill me.”
Pocho shakes his head. “He’s not. Do you think he doesn’t know about this? He’s okay with you being here, with you briefly saying goodbye. But if it’s of any comfort to you: David is not here. Some last-minute business with Javier. Because he’s not very eager to run into you either.”
“Wait – what? Saying goodbye?”
Pocho shrugs, looks ahead. His hands are gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Yeah, they’re… They’re flying back tomorrow.”
“To Barcelona?”
“To Barcelona.”
Kun bends forward and keeps his head down between his knees, inhales and exhales slowly, steadily, but his pulse is painfully increasing. “I can’t, Pocho,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I can’t say goodbye to him.”
“You can and you will,” Pocho replies. In the background, raindrops drum against the windscreen. “Many people went far out on a limb for you in this matter. I talked to Javier, Xavi talked to David for hours. The least you can do is show some gratitude.”
“I am grateful,” Kun mutters, keeping his head down, interlacing his fingers behind his neck, pressing down on his spine to relax his muscles. “But I can’t, Pocho. I –”
“Listen. Would you rather see him for a few minutes or not at all? You say you love him and if you really do, you will go in there and wish him all the best and be happy for him despite everything, because that’s what you do when you truly love someone. You don’t think about yourself.”
Kun turns his head. Pocho is clutching the steering wheel, knuckles white, eyes stoically directed at the street. “Pocho, are you –”
“Just – piss off, okay? I’ll pick you up in a bit.”
Kun lingers for a moment, thinks he is failing – once again – to see the bigger picture here, but then he does leave the car and finds himself standing in front of the eerie, yet familiar gate, with that pathway cutting through scrub. He is completely drenched before he has even reached the front door.
“Hey Kun.”
It feels like a punch in the face. Or worse. Definitely worse. It feels like someone is laying him down and stepping onto his chest, jumping down on his heart repeatedly until his ribs have burst and pierced through his body. But perhaps Kun is simply being a little dramatic and all he feels is heartbroken.
“Hey.”
Leo has lost weight. That’s something clearly visible despite the big jumper he is practically swimming in. His skin is white, his hair messy and mat, eyes small and bloodshot. An angry red scratch mark is stretching across his neck and jaw, most likely on his arms as well. Kun has them too, he understands. His skin feels rather tight these days. Leo looks exactly like he’s gone through the things he’s gone through.
But he’s still beautiful. Broken and shattered and fallen to pieces, yet he is still beautiful.
Tentatively, Kun steps closer to where Leo is sitting on one of the couches in that tiny living room they first watch The Godfather and Martin Scorcese films and after a moment’s hesitation, he sits down next to him, keeping his gaze on his shoes. It’s quite for a while until Kun can hear Leo shift in his seat.
“I,” Leo suddenly starts. His voice sounds breathless. Kun doesn’t want to know how badly his body is damaged; or his mind. “I wanted to apologize.”
His head shoots around so quickly that Kun feels a stinging pain in his spine. “What? Why would you…” and he trails off, can only stare at Leo wide-eyed and stunned and –
“Don’t look at me like that,” Leo says. “I’m sorry. I really am. For so many things.” He has to stop, take a few deep breaths through his nose. Kun can see the rise and fall of his chest, wants to feel his pulse with his lips. “I know everyone has been giving you a hard time for what happened, but – a lot of it was me. I should have known better. And I pulled you down with me and –”
He breaks off, shrugs, takes another shaky breath. Kun’s chest aches, feels tight and all he wants to do is reach out and touch and…
“I should have known better,” Leo repeats insistently. “I never told you what happened that night; that night Óscar died.”
Kun numbly shakes his head. “Leo, you don’t –”
“No. I have to. Because all of this, it’s like a twisted déjà-vu. There were so many parallels that I should have noticed at one point, turned around and I didn’t. We’d been out too, Carlos, Deco, Ronnie, Óscar and I. Ronnie had been in a foul mood, so Óscar and I left and we walked and then… He wanted to go for a swim. I didn’t. So I sat by the river and watched him jump into the water. I was up to my eyeballs. I was so damn high that I sat by the river and watched him drown. I saw it, saw him disappear beneath the surface but I simply didn’t get it. And I will never forgive myself for it.” He wipes a lonely tear off his cheek. “I should’ve known better. And this, now. It was my fault, so… So you need to promise me that you won’t blame yourself for it, okay?”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“You have to. Please?”
There are many things Kun will never forgive himself for and this will always top his list, no matter what he tells Leo, but he nods anyway, neck stiff and rigid and perhaps it’s the moment, the flickering lamps in the room, the memory of their first few night on this very couch that makes Kun reach out and take Leo’s hand.
“I love you,” he says, because that’s another thing he wouldn’t forgive himself for. Not making sure that Leo knows. He’s said it before and it should scare him how easily it rolls of his tongue these days. “I really do. So – I know I have no right, but. Please don’t go. Stay here with me. I can’t… I can’t say goodbye to you.”
Leo bites his lip, squeezes Kun’s hand and Kun, he just – God, he can’t do this. “I can’t, Kun. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. I care for you, a lot and I do love you, but. I need to go home. I need to go with David.”
Kun shakes his head. “But this can be your home too. Please, Leo –”
He is pulled forward, suddenly, forcefully. Kun hasn’t forgotten how Leo’s lips taste like, how they feel against his, how their mouths can mould and move together and Jesus Christ how can Kun ever let go of that? But it’s over far too soon. Leo moves back, frames his face and wipes Kun’s cheeks dry with his thumbs.
“I love you,” he says again. “But I love David too. I’ve loved him for a long time. And I need him, I need him more than anything or anyone.” Leo swallows thickly. Their eyes meet. “I am not what you need though. And despite what you think, I’m not – I’m actually really screwed up and broken and I’m not good for you. God knows why David is still with me after everything. I just… Sometimes I expect him to just walk away and I don’t think I would survive that. But that’s exactly the point, you know? We need to become our own person. At the moment, we’re just too much alike.”
“How?” and Kun means so much with that. How can he ever be without Leo, how can he ever accept that they’re not going to be together, how can they love each other and yet not?
“We’ll figure it out,” Leo says and smiles. “We’re very lucky, you know? We’re not as alone as we sometimes want to believe.”
Kun sighs and lets his forehead rest against Leo’s. “I won’t see you again, will I?”
Leo’s breath is warm against his lips, soft and faint, still struggling. It will be a while until both of them have really recovered. Maybe they never will, Kun’s not sure.
“Not for a long time. “
And then they sit together in silence for a long time, nothing touching but their foreheads and their breaths colliding between them.
Kun has done many painful things in his life. He’s broken a couple of bones. He has buried a couple of relatives. He has smoked crack and paco. He has had a heart attack. He almost died.
Nothing is as painful as saying goodbye to Leo.
***
The light breaks itself on the inky surface of the river and shimmers like a rainbow. The air smells fresh and faintly of spring and when he looks up at the sky, he can see a few blue patches peeking through the thick carpet of passing rainclouds. Kun props himself up against the railing and lets his gaze wander across the Rio de la Plata where in the distance he can almost see the other shore. Pocho moves next to him, nudges his shoulder.
“Come on,” he says. “Lets go.”
***
We are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.
The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.
Memory does not stamp his own coin.
However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans.
Jorge Luis Borges
The End.