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So Jaemin looks gorgeous tonight.
And it wasn’t like he normally looked like a gremlin or something, but tonight, Jaehyun thinks it’s different. Today he’s finding himself taking it all in —his iced out hair, bangs all tangled and matted after that unexpectedly physical round of Uno a while earlier, his wrinkled shirt showing the thinnest strip of toned torso. The veins on his arm flex as he bites his fork, grinning at something hysterical Renjun just said. Jaehyun came late. Doesn’t know whose birthday it is. Doesn’t know if there even is a birthday. He watches Jaemin set his plate of cake and chips on the speaker and lean against the table, checking his phone. A cool, detached look on his face.
That’s the kind of face you make when you’re watching some nasty shit. That’s what Mark told him last week outside the lecture hall for Advanced Kinesiology. They sat on the bench, comparing notes for the midterm —Mark couldn’t draw for shit and while Jaehyun wasn’t much better, at least his shoulder diagrams were highlighted so they could differentiate muscle from bone. Across from them, Jaemin had sat on the floor over his mustard yellow Jansport knapsack, giant binder, textbook and study guide filled with multi-coloured tabs all open in his lap. Loose papers fanned over his sweats while he scrolled through his phone tipped on one knee, chewing the straw of his nearly empty iced Americano. What do you think he’s watching? Jaehyun hissed back and Mark just cackled, getting granola bits on his jeans. Why don’t you go ask him, Captain Curious?
Right then, Jaemin looks up and catches him staring. He shoots him a somewhat tight grin, fork still in his mouth. Jaehyun just smiles back, raising his cup semi-festively and shrugs. Jaemin goes back to his phone. This time he looks more than a few degrees more interested in that glowing screen. Jaehyun even thinks he sees his hand shaking a little.
He learned his name in the second week of class. Jaemin always sat at the back. When he wasn’t sleeping or making Ninja air-fryer yam tempura next to his laptop, he sat through the whole three hours, chin nestled in his elbows swallowed by the luxurious sleeves of his pale purple tie-dye Oodie. From time to time the professor would call up on him and Jaemin always answered in a soft, laidback drawl, barely raising his head. It wasn’t even that he always got it right —Jaehyun guesses he was probably wrong four times out of six, but it was his wrong answers that actually helped him more. Jaemin managed to mess up on the same topics he struggled with and that always endeared Dr. Kang to go over them again. Jaehyun probably owes two to three hours a week saved from perusing the textbook to Jaemin. Even when he was out with Mark and Jungwoo, sitting on the hood of the latter’s dented Camry, a carton of wings and nuggets open between them, Jaehyun sometimes thought about him. Wondered what he’d be doing on a Thursday night instead.
Now Jaemin’s laughing, leaning his face into Renjun’s shoulder, squeezing his arm. He murmurs something into Renjun’s ear, who glances over at Jaehyun and turns back, flashing his brow. A familiar ache builds in Jaehyun’s chest and it reminds of when he’d overhear his parents whisper about him in another room as a kid, oddly enough. He couldn’t make out any individual words, just their hushed, secretive tones and figured they were probably talking about him. It’s the inner adolescent paranoia he’s never grown out of.
From time to time, Jaehyun can feel Jaemin’s eyes on him, but he can’t look up, just staring into the abyss of his half inch of Pepsi. This feels stupid. He feels stupid.
Actually, this staring game has been going on for almost a month now. Sometimes at the end of class Jaehyun would tell Mark to go on ahead while he went down to ask a couple things on last week’s lecture slides. Mark being the doofus that he was would wiggle his brow and wink as Jaehyun stood in line, a head or two behind Cloud Nikes —the nickname Mark gave him because Jaemin had white-blond hair that got all fluffed up and wispy when he ran his hand through it. Jaehyun’s imagined running his mouth against it, catching all the static. He wore matching Nikes, even the swooshes blinding. He looks really good in white, huh? Mark had the rare talent of making anything sound like a dirty joke and instead of catching bits of Jaemin’s hushed, chuckled exchanges, Jaehyun ended up asking Professor Kang the exact same questions —often making Cloud Nikes look over before he left, giving him a smile that was equally warm and mocking.
He’s on his third cup of Pepsi when he suspects Johnny’s spiked it with something because he’s feeling the bloat in more than just his stomach now. Jaehyun glances towards the pool and sighs when he spots Mark laid out on the fold-out table, nothing but swimming trunks on, five red cups precariously balanced on his chest as three other guys stood at the other end, ping pong balls poised in mid-throw. After three cups get knocked over, Jaehyun squeezes through the sliding door. He heads over, avoiding the pastel mess of flip flops, dropped cake and pool noodles, to bend down and set the cups back on. When he gets to the last cup, Mark grabs his wrist and gestures to his open mouth, just barely tilting his chin so the rest don’t fall.
“You want a refill?”
“Nah, nah, no, I mean like, put it in here,” Mark widens his mouth again. Damp black curls stick to his forehead. “-the cup.”
“You want it like...in your mouth…?”
“Ya, put it in, hurry up,” When Mark realizes what it sounds like he cracks up and the cups scatter to the ground again. Jaehyun rolls his eyes, making Mark wince slightly when he presses the cups back onto his damp chest with some force. “-it’s for a bet.”
“A bet?” Jaehyun hovers the cup’s base over the guy’s face, knocking it lightly at his nose. “What kinda bet?”
“First guy to get this mouthshot, lunch is on me for a month. Everybody gets three tries.”
“Three tries, huh,” He knows Mark has nowhere near enough money to do that so it’d probably end the way it usually did —him and Jungwoo having to throw in a portion of their leftover STEM scholarships to cover the remaining three weeks and the three of them having cup ramen until the month was over. It was a miracle none of them had died yet from eating like this. Mark went through guys like a paper shredder. “You have way too much fun at these things.”
“I hope it’s Guns and Glasses over there,” Mark points with his chin and Jaehyun eyes the tallish middle guy in a soaked grey tank, squarish black Raybans resting crookedly over his nose. He’s got the most chiseled shoulders Jaehyun’s ever seen and he realizes he’s seen him before —usually doing some insane burpee-ropes-box jump combo in the free weights corner of the campus gym. Sometimes Jaehyun saw him waiting outside Mark’s Can Lit class. He was pretty sure the guy had a girlfriend. “Actually we kinda already made out in the pool earlier.”
“You did?” He taps Mark’s cheek with his knuckles, chuckling. “Good luck with that, then. Hopefully, yeah?”
Mark winks with the cup in his mouth, then holds up three fingers for the countdown. A spray of water hits the side of Jaehyun’s jeans and he raises his brow at the wavering shadows below before heading back inside the house.
He tosses his leftover Pepsi in the trash and goes over to the couch after getting another plate of cake and brownies. Jaemin’s gone, but his plate is still there on the speaker. Jaehyun briefly debates tossing it out too, before deciding to leave it. By the door, a tumble of slippers and sneakers lay kicked around by the neatly lined gift bags, tall and glimmering. He recognizes Jaemin’s Nikes by a skinny dark-green bag that probably held alcohol. There’s dirt on the soles and the swooshes seem somewhat yellow. Maybe it was just the lights. Maybe he was having fun without him.
Jaehyun watches the slurred motions of the people around him; some girl giggles as she tugs a guy’s arm, both of them battling the bannister and some guy’s passed out on the floor shirtless while three girls are trying to fingerpaint either the Mona Lisa or Bart Simpson on his stomach with mustard, relish and black olives. In the far corner, a small crowd has gathered, watching Kun shuffle around tarot cards, holding some up and pointing at the little vines and glittery areas. When Jaehyun has to use the bathroom, he heads down to the basement. A bunch of guys blocked the other stairs, drunkenly passing a joint around, laughing. The bathroom by the kitchen was clogged with someone’s clearly sober decision of sardines, sour Twizzlers and cheerios in ketchup.
The basement is pretty quiet. Jaehyun finds the bathroom easily —it’s the only room that’s not locked and the light is on. He takes his time, even wiping off the splatter before flushing. He always felt weird pissing in other people’s houses, especially people he’d probably never talk to anyways. All the better to make it look like he was never here.
He studies his reflection as he washes his hands. Jaehyun leans in and turns his face to the side, frowning at the blot of swollen blood vessels along his left eye. Was it there this morning too? He’d fallen into the habit of going to bed at three or four am nowadays. He’d changed floors last term and his dorm had two bathrooms and four single rooms. Two of his roommates were on exchange leave, so they never had any toilet hogging issues. Jaehyun often stayed in the bathroom for hours after he showered, sitting on the counter, mindlessly following the Youtube algorithm until a migraine set in. When he did resolve to sleep earlier, he just ended up staring at the ceiling or going on his phone in the dark until five or something. He thinks his Youtube ads are making fun of him. He’s gotten three ads for Oodies now and one for white Nikes.
In the far corner of the basement, a wide tank of angelfish glows. It almost resembles the screen of his Dad’s old desktop and Jaehyun almost expects the little stream of icons to appear on the left. He doesn’t know how long he stays there just staring at the thing, but at some point Jaehyun walks into another couch and just stops there, leaning his elbows down and pressing his sweaty forehead into the material. It’s leather and it’s soft and it’s old, but the sharp smell prevents him from dozing off.
Eventually Jaehyun shuffles over to the tank and realizes it’s fake —just a long strip of printed seaweed, coral and spiral-toned rocks. The angelfish are just cut-outs with the light passing through and the rotating motion made it look like they were circling around underwater. He sits down on a footstool next to it and presses the side of his forehead to the glass, falling asleep to the whir of the glow. Sometimes the glow shifts colours behind his lids.
…
Jaehyun wakes up against the cold cement, loose leaves in his hair. Slowly he pulls himself up and winces, picking the crusts out of his eyes. He’s lying in the middle of the road and the ground is lit up from a source he can’t see. Smacking the dirt off his pants, Jaehyun slowly gets up, wringing any remaining sleep off his arms, pressing a palm against a nearby tree for balance. His legs have a strange ache, as if he ran for miles before and he has to lean against the whole trunk for a while before he could stand properly. Even then his legs quickly began hurting again and Jaehyun gave up, sitting down along the hard grass, leaning his heavy head against the tree. He fought to keep his eyes open.
Where the hell was he? The road led straight into darkness, bordered by overgrown weeds and thin, looping branches like fallen razor wire. There weren’t even any broken yellow marks on the road, as though the whole thing was a continuous extension of someone’s driveway. Not a house in sight.
“Ha! Took you long enough to wake up.”
Jaehyun jerks his head around and comes face to face with empty air. Tall choked grass spread out into the night against a sky so strangely flat it looked like a stage set. He reaches a hand up but can’t feel any edge to it; the ceiling must be really high up and looking up he freezes, seeing stage lights just hanging freely in the air, unmoving, their shutters formed in such a way it looked like they were grinning. Grinning. Well, that was just perfect. The stage lights were talking to him. He was going insane.
“No, over here! Up here!”
In the opposite direction, still pretty high up, a familiar looking guy sat along one of the sturdier branches overhead, waving a black, red and gold patterned handkerchief.
“Mark…?”
“You got it, dude!” He leapt off the nearly naked bough in a shudder of leaves and dust and landed somewhat shakily on his feet. Jaehyun grabs his arm just before he falls over. “-whoa.” Mark squeezes his eyes shut, a shiver passing down from head to throat, his irises making a full circle around before he turns to him again. “-maybe I shouldn’t’ve jumped.”
“Maybe,” Jaehyun agrees. He frowns at the other’s shoelessness. He could’ve sworn Mark wore some appalling Velcro sandals to that shit party. “Anyways, where are we...?”
“Beats me,” Mark shrugs, patting his head for any stray debris, then smacking his pants front and back. Then he nudges Jaehyun’s arm, grinning. “Hey, guess what?”
“What?” He flinches, the nudge giving him electric shock.
“I think Guns and Glasses got a thing for me. After that ping-pong, he wanted to know if I was free for the wee—
“-Aww, God, Mark, no—
“-And, and, and he works at Popeyes! Oi, oi, oi, you know what that means,” Mark doesn’t even wait for him to answer, already in his happy food dance that consisted of tiny hops from side to side while he flapped his elbows like a chicken. The patterned handkerchief fluttered along like a third wing. “-free chicken sandwiches for a month, babyyyy—
“-Forget chicken sandwi —how the hell can we get any sandwiches if we can’t even get ho—
“Hey, gimme that,” Someone grabs the handkerchief from between Mark’s elbow and ties it around their head like a bandanna, barely looking at him. It was a very strange looking guy. He wore red pants and several necklaces that hung with long, opaque gems. A single curl of grey-blue hair clung to his forehead like a fish hook. He turns to Jaehyun, shielding his own face from Mark for some reason. “You don’t have a good hang of it yet, do you?”
Jaehyun just stares at him.
“Wh...what…?”
“The ether. It doesn’t obey —it has a mind of its own,” The bandanna guy continues, clearly pointing at Mark with his elbow, still shielding his eyes. “It appears...excited.”
“Uh, actually, I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t refer to him as an “it” —that’s actually my friend you’re pointing at and he has a name,” Jaehyun glares confusedly at Bandanna Guy while enunciating as clearly as he could, which always happened when he needed to reground himself in reality. Sweet Jesus, it was just his luck that he ran into yet another crazy guy this month except this time it wasn’t at the back of the 26 bus or under the sewer grate. “His name is Mark, if you would be so k—
The next moment causes Jaehyun to drop to his knees, the light nearly going out of his eyes. Shooting straight out of Mark’s chest was the hand of Absolutely Definitely Crazy Bandanna Guy, fully intact, fully functional with all the fingers wiggling and strangest of all, Mark appeared completely unscathed. In fact, Mark didn’t seem to notice it at all, just looking at Jaehyun, mildly confused.
“Something wrong, yo? You look like you’re seeing a ghost.”
Maybe I am seeing a ghost.
“Mark...there’s a hand... coming out of your chest.”
He looks down, brows raised.
“Oh. Oh, whoa, you’re right. Heyyy, that’s pretty cool!” Mark looks up, then back down, poking at the hand, but his own finger goes straight through it. “Duuuuude, maybe I got like secret mad powers, yo —oh, oh, oh, it’s like I’m like Wolverine except my whole body’s one claw—
The hand disappears and Bandanna Guy draws back several steps, shaking his fingers. Smoke appeared to hiss from his lightly blackened fingernails. He looks up at Jaehyun again, smiling somewhat sheepishly.
“Looks like I underestimated the intensity —you’re more powerful than I thought. Where did you learn to—
But Jaehyun was too distracted watching Mark dip his head in and out of the solid tree, again, completely unscathed. Soon an unmistakable sizzling noise sang from the trunk and with a sickening crack, it broke in half. The top half of the tree crashed into the grass. Then Mark walked straight through the torn trunk without lifting a leg. He looks back at Jaehyun, just as surprised as he was.
“Yo, I can go through trees!” He walks back and forth through the poor trunk as smooth as a hot knife through butter until the whole thing disintegrated to ash. Then he skips over and shoots a hand right through Jaehyun’s stomach. No blood, no pain, just warmth and light and the strangest lightness of being. “-holyyyy, I can even go through y—
But it was too late. Faster than lightning the ground came up against Jaehyun’s cheek.
He had already fainted.
…
“I told you not to scare him with any of that ether business —he obviously doesn’t know anything about it yet —all I asked was to bring him to us and now look at what you—
“-It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. You should’ve seen it yourself —he pulled a human being-sized thing out of the energy well —and he was talking to it too—
“Did it even look human? What was it like, could… could you see it’s face?”
“It was incredibly bright...and out of control. Leaping around and surging through trees —it shot one tree in half and then it tried to go through him—
The voices hovering over him slowly morph into faces —three, three pale, glittering faces clad in black satin draped in jewels, at first only distinguishable by their hair. Jaehyun recognized Bandanna Guy, this time the bandanna gone, his full head of teal curls glowing ghastly under the violet temple's light. Another face peered down at him with friendly interest, his hair a somewhat shocking shade of neon, glitter clinging to some of his lashes. The third face with white-blonde hair was…
“Jaemin…!” Jaehyun blurted out. He got up on his elbows as the other drew back with a bewildered expression. “-wh-what are you doing here...a-and w-why —hey, wh-what is this—
His hands up to his forearms were bound in a deep purple velvet cloth wound many times over, its edges ending in thick golden fringes. Mark was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, what’s going o—” Jaemin pressed a finger to his mouth, trying to calm him down. He placed his other hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder, his grip light, but firm. Slowly Jaehyun felt the initial fear slipping off of him and pooling at his feet like fine sand.
“I’ll untie your hands. But you have to promise me you won’t freak out. Got it?”
“O...okay…?”
“Good. Don’t freak out,” Jaemin repeated, glaring at some nondescript spot on the floor. “-you’re already giving me a bit of a headache…”
“I told you, the ether level in this one is…” Jaemin glares at the bandannaless Bandanna Guy who only sighs in response. You say ether one more time and I’m blasting this guy back to Earth Central. That must’ve passed telepathically, Jaemin’s mouth hadn’t moved. Shit. Now Jaehyun was hearing voices where there shouldn’t be any. This had to be the strangest dream ever.
“Okay, I’m untying your hands...”
His hands were fine. All fingers and thumbs intact, completely wiggleable, free of any sort of burns or scarring. His forearms likewise. Then Jaehyun looks up and sees Mark sitting cross-legged in the empty air over Jaemin’s head.
Mark, what are you doing…?!
“How would I know?” Mark shot back, looking down and then back up just as scared as he was. “-Hey, hey —g-get me down from h—
And then he dropped out of existence as soon as Jaemin dropped the velvet cloth back over Jaehyun’s hands. Then Jaemin calmly and continuously took the cloth off and on Jaehyun’s hands. Each time the cloth was off, Mark appeared again. Each time it was on, Mark disappeared.
“Wh…”
Jaehyun stared at Jaemin, not wanting to put it into words.
“I...I…” He pointed to himself as Jaemin nodded. “- I d-did thi —wait, does this mean that Mark isn’t rea—
“No, he’s most definitely real,” Jaemin said, pulling the cloth off again and watching Mark do slow-mo somersaults in the air through shielded eyes. “-but that thing up there isn’t him —it’s a projection of him you’ve conjured yourself. The real him can’t survive down here. The fact that you’re even down here means you’re not like him. You’re like us.”
“Like...you…?”
“You got that right,” Neon Hair Guy extends a hand, grinning as he pulls Jaehyun up. “-Xiaojun —it’s great to finally meet you. I’ve heard all about your strange ether-bilities just a while ago, but it’s a whole other thing to see it, er, feel it in person. You’ve got a solid energy. I like it.”
Jaehyun let go of his hand, brow furrowing. Mark had now rolled off past the temple and found a handsome velvet hammock tied off into pure darkness. He shifted onto his side and snuggled into the velvet, soon falling asleep.
As the four of them made their way past a vast floor of wide patterned rugs, Jaemin picked up where Neon Hair left off.
“We all appear to have some level of etherness —that is, the ability to manipulate light —pure light. Yours,” He glances at Jaehyun. “-appears to be particularly concentrated in metacognition —you’ve managed to create an entirely self-thinking entity out of the ether within you —and you’ve decided to name it Mark, if I gather correctly.”
“Yes, but you’ve got the last part wrong,” Jaehyun said, almost tripping over the rug edge. “-I didn’t decide to name him Mark, he named himself. Well, I mean, he was given that name. Actually.”
“Fascinating. Well, we can’t bother with every little detail or it’ll take ages.”
They stopped at what appeared to be a giant glowing chandelier. Jaemin climbs onto the bejeweled platform, which immediately dips and sways from the weight and he grips one of the bars encircling the six panels of light, waving for the rest of them to get on. Jaehyun’s the last to step up and then they gradually rose into the air and began cruising along the deep violet expanse, the chandelier revolving at a controlled pace. Jaehyun pressed his face close to the glowing panels even as he held on with both arms. They were probably at least eighty feet in the air, but the space around them showed no depth or shadow. This was utterly bonkers.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Jaemin turned to him, against the chandelier. The light made thin pale pink rings glow around his pupils. It was hypnotizing. “-but why do you always stare at me in class?”
...
Jaehyun wakes up on the couch upstairs, a heavy quilt over his shoulders. It smells vaguely like gingerbread and crayons. His throat stings and as he shuffles his sock feet out from the other end, a familiar white-blonde head emerges from the kitchen. The couch dips as Jaemin sits down by his legs, a couple mostly empty red cups rolling to the floor. He holds a steaming mug towards him, looped with a plaid cloth sleeve.
“Hey. Made you some coffee. Here, it won’t burn your hands.”
Jaehyun takes the mug and flinches when it touches his lips. Sure, it didn’t burn his hands —nearly burned his mouth off though. He hears Jaemin swear softly, touching the hair behind his ear.
“Do you have some water instead?”
“Yeah, hold on. Sorry, I usually drink it hot, so I didn’t…”
“S’fine. Maybe my heat game’s just weak,” Jaehyun says, which earns him a half-chuckle —something Mark would say, rather —as the other takes the mug back. He watches Jaemin go back into the kitchen, just a plain white tee and pin-striped boxer shorts. The sunlight turns his calves into something celestial. When he returns with a glass, Jaehyun folds his legs in so Jaemin can sit closer. He’s got the most insane bedhead and when Jaehyun picks a piece of dust off his bangs, the other just looks at him, mouth slightly parted.
“So what were you doing in the basement?”
“Oh,” He laughs. “I had to go to the bathroom. The other ones were...occupied, I guess.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Jaemin gives him a pointed smile. He smooths the side of his head, looking down. “Kitchen one was doubly wack. Lucky you weren’t the one cleaning it up.”
“Sorry,” Jaehyun finds himself saying, grinning when it makes the other laugh again. “-no, seriously, I mean it.”
“What are you apologizing for?” Jaemin squints, but he’s still grinning. “Was it you ?”
“No, it wasn’t. But I’m sorry. On behalf of whoever did.”
“Do you know them? Have you had a similar experience?”
That makes him really crack up and it’s pretty painful, making some water spill onto his lap. Jaehyun downs half the glass. His throat feels doubly better.
“So why am I still here?” Jaehyun squints. “I mean, I’m not complaining or anything, but…”
“Some dick neighbor called the cops,” The other shrugs, pulling his legs up too, leaning his head against the couch. He absently traces Jaehyun’s heel with his toe. “-everybody ran off to hide in the woods behind my backyard. They came inside but somehow didn’t find you …passed out by the fish tank.”
“The fake fish tank.” Jaehyun corrects him, grinning when the other rolls his eyes.
“Maybe they thought the passed out guy was fake too. Maybe they mistook you for a pile of cushions.”
“Did you mistake me for that too? S’that why I’m on the couch?”
“I put a blanket over you,” Jaemin scoffs, half-serious. “I don’t put blankets over cushions...”
“Aww…” Jaehyun tugs out a cushion from under the guy’s ass and presses it to his ear, making a concentrated face. “-oh, no. This isn’t good.”
“What?”
“He’s talking shit about you,” He raises the cushion to Jaemin’s face, ignoring his snickers. “-he says it gets really cold in the nighttime and he finds icicles in his stuffing every morning.”
The guy smacks the cushion away, rolling his eyes, kicking his ankle before he heads off to the kitchen again. This time Jaemin comes back with a carton of donuts, set down flap open on the coffee table. He gives Jaehyun a paper plate and a fork. Filling a third of his own with a generous peak of whipped cream, Jaemin picks a powder-dusted donut from the sparse, flaky pile. Jaehyun takes a Boston cream and watches him spoon the white tuft straight into his mouth. Jaemin doesn’t even touch his donut until he’s eaten two more wobbly towers of the stuff.
“Is this your breakfast every day?”
Jaemin almost spits, setting his plate by the carton. The corner of his mouth is stained with jam. He takes another bite of the donut while he shakes his head, getting more jam on his chin.
“Renjun bought them. Actually, everyone brought something. It was my birthday yesterday.”
“Oh. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re celebrating,” Jaehyun scrapes off a glob of jam from Jaemin’s lip with his thumb. He sucks it clean, sinking his teeth into his own donut with an ambiguous look in his eyes. “-with me.”
Jaemin stares at him with his mouth parted again. He laughs, but he’s still looking at him like that. He swallows.
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
Before Jaehyun can wipe the remaining jam off, Jaemin pushes him back gently by the chest, kissing the rest onto his face.
...
“Tilt your head back,” Jaehyun grasps the back of his hair, pressing him against the corner of the bathroom wall, a thigh wedged between his legs. He feels Jaemin sigh shakily, the sound travelling from his neck to the base of his stomach, some of it buzzing against his palm. “-mouth open, okay?”
“Hyung.”
He squeezes the nozzle and tops Jaemin’s tongue with cream until it spills past his lips. Hyung, he mouths again, swallowing what he can and making a throat noise when Jaehyun latches his mouth over the soft clumps sliding down his neck. He doesn’t eat them, just gets him sticky with his tongue, smearing it around the underside of his jaw, feeling goosebumps rise when he reaches the neck of his shirt. When the cream becomes too thin, Jaehyun sprays a swirl over his neck, this time eating it up, but not swallowing, cheeks partially full when he pushes the cream into Jaemin’s mouth.
Jaemin swallows too quickly and chokes, spattering bits onto the other’s chin. Wipes his mouth as Jaehyun laughs. He leans in to lick the excess off Jaemin’s lip.
“So pretty,” Jaehyun murmurs, now lapping up the melted cream inside his mouth. His voice catches in his throat when Jaemin responds by sucking the cream off his teeth, his tongue grazing the roof of his mouth. Jaehyun slips both hands into his hair, a high noise in his nose, it’s even softer than he imagined, the feeling going straight to his groin. Silken under his touch, it makes him kiss Jaemin harder, his fingers buzzing, the press of their mouths together almost painful. The mix of cream and saliva makes their kisses insanely sticky and messy and it only turns Jaehyun on even more. “-taste pretty too.”
“Yeah?” Jaemin gasps, grinding himself against the other’s thigh. He pulls back just so he can lick off the dried chocolate from the edge of Jaehyun’s mouth, his own lips swollen and still stained with diluted cream. He hooks his fingers under Jaehyun’s collar, pressing a trail of kisses down the side of his face. “-how the fuck is your skin so soft?”
“Good genes, I guess,” Jaehyun laughs, the sound turning shaky when the other starts working his belt. The cream has soaked large patches of his shirt, revealing Jaemin’s tight, lean physique. He notices how hard Jaemin’s nipples have gotten.
“Looks even better off of you, though,” Jaemin grits, stripping the jeans down to his knees, guiding him backwards into the bathtub by his waistband, laughing when the other can barely walk. “-bet a lot of things do, actually.”
Jaehyun nearly trips over the plastic shampoo bottles on the floor and then trips for real when his heel hits the tub ledge, crashing down against the tiles. More bottles topple over and Jaemin has to toss off the ones that fell around the other’s legs. He crawls in between Jaehyun’s knees, sending white hot shivers up his thighs and peels off his shirt, the material soaked thinner than wet tissue paper. It lands along the toilet lid and Jaehyun’s shirt joins it moments later. Then Jaemin’s mouth’s back on his, groaning down his throat as Jaehyun’s hands ride up his torso, feeling his rib cage tremble underneath. He feels Jaemin curse when his thumb grazes his nipple, so he presses his nail in, swallowing his whimpers, his heart pounding against his palm. Jaemin’s own hands are gripping his hips, knees digging into the other’s crotch. Jaehyun thinks he’ll pass out from how good he’s feeling and then Jaemin slid his hands up to interlace their fingers together and a sudden burst of shattering light threw them apart.
Jaehyun blinked. Then he was crawling rapidly over thinnish streaks of pulpy water to where Jaemin was hunched against the opposite end of the tub, holding the side of his head, wincing.
“Oh, my God, oh God, are you—” Jaehyun stammered, feeling all over his head and back, wiping the smears of melting cream away, terrified of finding red. It’s hard to see properly, he can’t tell if he’s wiping off blood or if his hands are just red from panic. Jaemin coughs against his soaked lap. “-I, I, I don’t know what happened —I don’t…”
“That’s certainly new,” He wheezed. Blinked tears from his eyes. Looked up at him. “-first time one of us relapsed that early.” Gonna have to ask Taeyong about this later.
Jaehyun blinked again.
“Huh? Who’s Taeyong?”
Jaemin just smiled. “Works here for you too, huh?”
…
After Jaemin reassured him that everything that happened earlier was completely normal, Jaehyun was helping him carry a box of seemingly random sewing items into the backyard. A tarp was pulled over the pool. They stepped into some dirt-stained galoshes left by the ledge. Slightly wet, or just cold. Jaemin directed him to the fold-open table on the patio and tucked the screen door shut with his foot. While the table was clear, the bin by the door was overflowing with trash. It still smelled vaguely of Costco beer and cigarettes the closer you got to the tarp. Jaehyun instinctively tucked his goosebumped arms closer to his sides, sucking in a breath. This early in the morning, it was still pretty chilly. The sun turned the sky pink, retaining all the warmth for itself. Jaemin picked the cushion top off one of the wicker stools and tossed a tawny shawl at Jaehyun’s chest. It’s scratchy against his mouth. He sets the box down on the grainy plastic, the surface wobbling slightly, and wraps the shawl so it doesn’t graze his nape.
“So, I still don’t really get it,” Jaehyun said. He watched Jaemin engrave a series of indecipherable characters onto a strip of deep purple velvet. He dipped the steel pick into the tiny glass pot of gold paint again, making a vague noise of acknowledgement. “-did you always know that I was…?”
“I have a better sense for it than most,” He went over the characters again, this time dipping the edge of his thumb into the gold and pressing the print into both ends of the strip. Blew over it. Glanced up at him. “-oddly enough, I thought you’d read it on me first.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I thought that was why you kept staring at me in class,” Jaemin snorted softly. “My energy’s always a bit harder to reign in when I’m sleepy so I have to wear a lot of layers to keep from giving people the willies or whatever the young people call it nowadays.”
“Normal people feel it too?” He’s recalling the guy always sitting at the back, swathed in that cozy tie-dye Oodie. Now Jaehyun’s wondering about all the other seemingly insignificant things he must’ve missed. Jaemin extends his hand and he stares before placing his own hand wrist up against the table. Jaemin starts to tie the velvet strip around his wrist. “So that means…”
“Yeah, your friend’s also been…”
He trails off as Jaehyun notices movement by the fence and someone talking and when he realizes there’s more than one voice, the gate swings open and Jaehyun rolls his eyes, somehow not all that surprised. Mark’s got his arm around the guy he made out with last night, the Raybans now tucked over the V-neck of an oversized knit sweater he must’ve changed into earlier while Mark had on a cream navy-tipped cardigan that definitely wasn’t his. Both of them were still wearing swim trunks and flipflops because while great minds think alike, fools rarely differ. Mark finally notices them halfway to the table and waves enthusiastically, the cold making his nose and cheeks all blushy.
“Dude! You’re still here!” His palms slammed into the table and almost sent the box of stuff onto the outdoor tiles and Jaemin shot him a glare that made him squeeze closer to Raybans’ protective 6’4 side and Jaehyun just snorted, slapping his hip lightly. Mark then looked back and forth between the two of them at the table, holding in a grin. “Aww, look at you. So you did get—
Jaehyun plugged his ears, the shawl slipping off one shoulder. “No, man, okay, whatever you think it is —it’s not it
“What’s it?” Jaemin frowned, catching the edge of fabric before it hit the ground, then narrowed his eyes at Mark again, faintly grinning. Mark flinched and went all the way behind Raybans, gripping his waist with wiggly arms.
“God, Jae, can you get your beau to tone it down a little?” His voice came out muffled from layers of cashmere. “He’s literally making the shit in my ass boil over, I feel like I’m gonna—
Jaehyun turned to the other who was still grinning. “Okay, it’s a little unfair to do it to both of them.”
Jaemin just raised his brow. “Both of them?”
“Nahhh, I got my own Firebender right here,” Mark ducked his face back out from behind, still clutching the guy’s waist. Looked up at him. “Babe, do the dog thing. They’ll love the dog thing.”
“You guys wanna see the dog thing?” Raybans has the raspiest morning voice Jaehyun’s ever heard and if his tanned, strapping arms weren’t enough to get Mark to go all googly eyes, this was definitely only adding to the package. Jaehyun tied the ends of the shawl over his collarbone like a lameass cape to keep it from falling again and wondered if Mark actually dreamed this guy up just like he’d dreamed Mark up last night and if reality was just jello and they were all gurgling in it. But then Raybans put his fists together and as he slowly pulled them apart a blinding light glob got stretched longer and longer until it became a wavy river of light and then Raybans did something complicated with his hands and got the light folded and twisted into what almost resembled a balloon poodle. He let it go and it began to bob in the air like a little toy boat.
Mark’s eyes lit up, tugging at his elbow. “C-can I touch it this time?”
Raybans began digging through the box on the table. “Do you have the…” Then he pulled out a can of something, grunting mildly in approval and suddenly made wide arcing, spiraling motions with his arm, spraying it all over the glowing poodle. Jaehyun eventually realized it was silly string. Raybans pointed at it.“Okay, only touch the parts that are cov—
Mark just grabbed the whole thing and shouted, the poor poodle bursting into a series of tiny spinning fireworks. Raybans immediately grabbed Mark’s hands, feeling over his fingers, inspecting his skin for any cuts or burns, and then letting out a heavy sigh while squeezing Mark’s face in his hands like an idiot sandwich.
“Don’t ever do that again, booboo,” He hunched over so they were eye level and almost choked when their noses bumped. “If you’re not careful it could explode in your face.”
“Oki.” Then Mark glanced to the side. “Can you make another one?”
“I could do that when I was eight,” Jaemin said, turning back to him. The other two had gone off farther in the yard, Mark batting around the floating light apples, his hands now safely sheathed in extra thick HotPaws. Soon, deranged monkey noises peetered in and out of Jaehyun’s eardrums as Mark unleashed his latest kungfu disaster (definitely plagiarized from the horrid Mortal Kombat live action they rewatched for the fifth time last weekend) on the barrage of glowing fruits rolling his way. Raybans, or Yukhei, as Jaehyun had overheard as Mark dragged the poor guy around like an actual lifesize poodle, at least looked like he was partially enjoying himself. “Meet me in the baseball diamond after sundown and I’ll show you something actually worth simping for.”
A sudden blast erupted from the shed, sending a shudder of ripples all over the grass. A couple tiles cracked. Jaehyun doesn’t realize how tightly he’s gripping Jaemin’s hand until he lets go.
“I’m okay!” Came the anxious reply, a heavily armored head peeking out the shed window. Moments later, the rickety door swung open and a little figure in a full hazmat strode down the yard and plunked a flaming gas stove onto the table, its accompanying pot clattering with steam.
“Taro…” Jaemin sighed as the guy tipped his blackened visor back proudly. Flecks of burnt paint rained down from his helmet, some sticking onto Jaehyun’s sleeve.
“Just thought I’d heat up last night’s hotpot,” He winked. He pulled the lid back and sure enough, the fiery broth was bubbling rapidly over a sea of fried tofu, half-melted wintermelon, chunky crab balls, rolling corn and bloated, overboiled glass noodles that sank in and out of existence every other second. Despite everything, it smelled amazing. Taro turned to Jaehyun, grinning. “I did a pretty good job, didn’t I?”
“How bad is it this time?” Jaemin asked, barely looking at him.
“Well…” The guy tapped his gloved fingers along the helmet he’d just pulled off. “-I may have set the next town back fifty years in terms of electricity.”
Oh, God. Xiaojun was actually gonna have hemorrhoids at this point.
Jaehyun turned to Jaemin. It would take a while to get used to it, but he could see the advantages. “Yours wouldn’t be the power of wifi, now would it?”