sdf

BAS: yoooooo

BAS: i need help choosing an outfit for this date

BAS: well, no, i don't actually need help

BAS: but i want validation that i look fucking hot

Cheers serenade her from every corner of the room, floating along puffs of smoke and some house beat that’s too loud to even hear properly. A bit of beer sneaks up her nose as she inhales it from the crack in the can, just praying she doesn’t spew it back out all over some poor guy’s expensive shoes. Someone had told her once that law students threw the best parties ; she’d never had the opportunity to test that theory, until now, and, well, she has to agree. It’s a welcome change, the noise, the companionship, even if it is offered from behind drunken smiles and false niceties. Everyone here wears the same mask as her, this she knows.  

With a breathy gasp, she finishes, swipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and belches — how unladylike of her. This only earns a louder chorus of hurrahs and, distantly, she feels strange hands patting her on the back, high-fiving her as she stumbles away from the epicenter of the crowd and collapses onto someone’s grandmother’s couch. “What’s uppppp?” She drawls, waving a sideways peace sign as a form of greeting. “Dunno if I should’ve done that.”

House parties are not normally Mat's scene. At least not for longer than it takes for him to get a few drinks in his system, relieve himself of his product, and tell a student or two to respectfully fuck off when they get in his way. Money is the end goal, but the rest of it is just something that he deals with because he has to, mostly with a degree of irritation that is obvious the entire time he's doing so. Tonight is no different. There's a big part of him that wants to throw back an entire fifth and just not give a fuck, but an even bigger part of him just wants to get out of here before someone pisses him off a little bit too much. Drunk people are annoying, and Mat has an extremely limited amount of patience; generally when that reserve is completely depleted, things can get a little... messy.

“Well that’s a concerning fact. Perhaps you should see a therapist, Ki-jung.” The dim room is spinning a bit, or maybe that’s Kiran’s head, lolling against their shoulders. It’s impossible to tell — reality has warped, drifted into something dream-like. A single moment, steeped in peace and a dizzying unknown. 

Has Kiran been here for minutes or hours? Time has slipped away, heavy beneath its own weight. Swept beneath the rug that canvases Key’s spotless apartment. When was the last time they had more than one drink at the bar? There hasn’t been anyone to drink with, hasn’t been a reason to stay up sharing companionship. It’s warm, this moment, this realization that there is someone worth drinking with. It pools in Kiran’s stomach alongside the gin, settles there comfortably as they shift in the armchair. Their glasses have long since been deposited somewhere on the floor, striped socks tucked up beneath them and collar unbuttoned — they’re sure, too, their hair is haphazard from ruffling and fidgeting. They’re entirely a mess, and how embarassing. 

They read Key like a favourite book, can sense their distress from across the room ; for someone so hard to read, Key transmits turmoil like a radio signal, like an SOS cry for help. It’s been received, is the reason Kiran’s still planted firmly in their seat, waiting for Key to confess — certainly not because they’re content, happy, even, to settle into Key’s chair and make small talk about the city. In the back of their mind they know they’d be content to follow a rivers flow of conversation wherever it might go. They’ve settled into silence now, though, hazy with too many drinks and too many words. Kiran nearly drops their glass, sleep relaxing their grip dangerously as their eyes flutter shut for a moment. Only a moment, though, for they jolt awake just as the glass nears their soft fingertips, sit themselves up straighter and blink into the lamplight. 

Key shifts, rolls onto his back, and with his attention fixed on the ceiling Kiran’s given free reign to stare. Crystal glass presses against a stubbled chin, lips pursed in thought just above the rim. Is it the gin that paints Key in rays of beauty? Harsh angles meet surprising softness, chiseled features glowing against the floor like he’s some sort of angel and Kiran prays. They pray for forgiveness, for happiness, for their heart to slow its beating. Just the sight of Key’s lips, the curve of his jaw has Kiran’s throat dry, their lips aching for some sort of touch. It’s a feeling they’d forgotten, certain they had lost it for good. 

The clink of Key’s finger is an alarm bell ringing, clarifying Kiran’s attention, drawing it to Key as his voice follows to break the silence. They’re expecting an explanation for Key’s dark cloud, so they prepare themself, mirror Key and lean forward to deposit their glass on the coffee table. Elbows come to rest on knees, knuckles clasped in prayer, unprepared for the question that follows. And how silly, to be thirty-four and find your heart pounding in your throat, giddy like some school girl. Kiran meets Key’s gaze steadily ; the sincerity there steals the breath from their lungs. It’s the first time they’ve seen Key so truly, face naked and open with vulnerability, and it shocks Kiran into a moment of silence. They look down at their hands, stare furiously at unkempt fingernails. When they do speak, piercing another heavy silence, their voice is thick, emerges cautiously from the back of their throat. 

“Should is a subjective term,” Cowardly in the face of Key’s vulnerability, they parry with something intellectual, something that means nothing, really, compared to what Key is asking — and what is he asking, actually, Kiran wonders? They’ve been forced to turn down sexual advances before. None would be as painful as this, though, and their chest tightens simply at the thought. “What are you asking, really, Ki-jung?” A sudden bravery propels their gaze upwards to meet Key’s, their own vulnerability screaming into the space between them, begging for something good. 

A sudden humming kicks in, then the creak of the heating through the walls, pipes waking up with little rattles that somehow fill the liminal silences in between the sounds from the television. It plays low in the background of their scene, the ambience that supports the dialogue, and Key finds himself tuning into it on a level that doesn't quite register as 'noticeable', but is enough to wash over him with a keen sense of familiarity. He relaxes into his position despite the way that he stares, longing, at the person across from him. Tense muscles tremble out into some semblance of stillness as he bows his head into his hands, and a wave of emotion washes over him, sudden, but building at the exact same time. When it hits its crescendo, his breath hitches, and he suddenly knows that even if he wanted to speak, he probably couldn't.

The moment does not last long, and Ki-jung would like to allot the majority of its intensity to the amount of alcohol he has consumed, but he knows that would be wrong. He knows that if he did, he would be doing an injustice to everything it is that he's actually feeling, and to the way that he knows he has kept Kiran here with him. Surely they must want to leave by now. Surely, their time is about to come to an end, and no matter how desperately he tries to grasp at it, there isn't any way to keep it from slipping between his fingers like so much water.

Key rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, dropping them away after a few moments, and then finally lifts his gaze to focus in on Kiran again. Where any of this is coming from, he is not sure, but all of it seems to be hitting him at once, and that makes it more overwhelming than he ever could have anticipated this night being. The reason for his hesitation is not because he doesn't know how he wants to answer, but more because he's afraid of how they'll react. Afraid that he is overstepping some invisible boundary that they have erected, that he would be oblivious to up until the moment that he walks face-first into it. Maybe he doesn't know them as well as he thinks he does. Maybe, he really is just some desperate divorcee, latching onto the first person that makes him feel anything real, because nothing his ex did ever could.

God, do I seem pathetic? Is that really what's happening here

Swallowing thickly, Key's eyes look black when he meets them with Kiran's, and he seems to subconsciously scoot to the edge of his cushion towards them. There is a pull between them that he can't ignore when he lets his guard down, and his body reacts, almost of its own accord.

"Honestly?" The word seems to shiver out of him on a breath, a thought, a whisper. It is a question, vulnerable and uncertain, but bold at the same time. "I just don't want to be alone." The second time he speaks, his whisper cracks into something a little sorrowful. A little embarrassed, too, maybe. Like its his fault that he feels that way. To him, it very well might be. There is another moment or two of uncertainty before he is able to carry on, throat feeling dry. "There aren't any expectations, though, if that's what you're asking. I... can understand why you would wonder."

Maybe because of the way that his gaze dips down to the curve of their lips, or how he always seems to be just a small movement away form reaching out to touch them. Maybe because he wants nothing more than to reach out and draw them into his lap, to kiss them and keep them and not let them go, not until the sun crests the horizon. And even then he might draw the curtains closed. Even then.

“I think this is the most comfortable I’ve been in months. Maybe years.” 

Key’s low voice breaks through the quiet background noise of the television, flickering in the half-light of his living room as it is, unnoticed or ignored. This night has lasted forever, and has passed so quickly Ki-jung feels like his breath was taken away with it. The closer it gets to the morning, the more he wonders when it is that Kiran is finally going to have enough and go home to their warm bed. Surely that would be better than being here with him like this, down and having wanted to sink into the ground since he woke up.

It’s difficult to address the feelings that are roiling around inside of him, making him feel like he might vomit them up at any moment in so many tangled words, so he has spent most of their time together avoiding talking about it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, or at least Key doesn’t think that it ever will to anybody else, so what’s the point in saying it out loud? Keeping it in is what he’s done his entire life, and it’s more than likely what he’s going to continue to do. Habits are hard to break --- particularly the bad ones, and Ki-jung has started smoking. Again. Go figure.

Letting out a soft breath, he rolls over onto his back, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from where Kiran sits. He still sees them, though, on the ceiling, like the image of them sitting in his arm chair on the other side of the coffee table is permanently in his head like a polaroid. They are all kinds of beautiful, even after their third gin and tonic, and Key wishes for nothing more than to get that coffee table out from in between them. To eliminate all of the space between them, in fact. There’s an ache somewhere in him, deep enough that it’s hard to discern exactly where, but he feels it resonate through his entire body. Maybe he just needs to hold them. Maybe he just needs them to hold him. Is that weird? He doesn’t know.

An empty glass is clasped in his hands, his whiskey long since drained from it, and he taps his index finger against it, making a soft clink sound. “You know, I think that maybe it’s impossible to fully understand your own feelings, which is why I’m not going to question it when I ask you this.” Drawing in a deep breath, he seems to steel himself somewhat, and he sits up to lean forward and place his glass down. Hands rake through Key’s already slightly disheveled hair, and he clears his throat before he continues. “Should I ask you to stay the night? Would that be... just... a really fucked up, terrible idea?” The vulnerability in his voice begs for honesty. He is sincere in the way that he looks at them, feeling small. A bit exposed, maybe.