@vxctrcs -- lost boy drabbles, the past.
their breath comes out in thick clumps when they exhale. creaky-ribbed and with effort. cold has a way of sneaking down a throat and making everything stiff. blood and air and circulation. fingers and toes, too. eunchan shakes the sleeves of the sweatshirt heâs stolen from hyunsu down around his hands. tries to melt that feeling of ice from skin. every so often and eunchan takes a pull from his nicked cigarette. the smog of it mixes and theyâre left in a sea of clouds, left adrift on top of the blocky rooftop. the sort not made for people. theyâd gone and shimmied up the last story of it using a broken pipe as a foothold. last summer and eunchan had sliced his shin open on it. clearly they havenât bothered learning from the experience. âitâs mine, steal your own.â the third time eunchanâs told hyunsu that when heâs felt him shift forward enough, seeking. the kind of seedy resolution that comes from a sixteen year old with an addiction and no ready way to fill it. eunchan laughs, stretches his arm up and away from them both. he hopes, anyway. hynusu and his long ass reach.Â
thereâs no room for them inside. thatâs what it feels like a lot of the time. he likes those quiet moment when everyone in his house is gone for work. when itâs just him, worn-rough furniture, and an empty cabinet. otherwise he just follows hyunsu around. he has for as long as he can remember. there mightâve been a calculation in it once, the biggest kid on the playground makes for a nice sort of threat. but now itâs a lazy sort of comfort. the kind he takes for granted. like heat simmering under the floorboards in the middle of winter. a necessary comfort you donât notice until itâs gone.Â
âfine. here.â exasperated, and eunchan hold his hand up somewhere near his shoulder. feels the sway of his wrist and puff of hot air fan out across his knuckles as hyunsu takes a drag. a hum at the thanks that follows. âyou think weâll ever do anything?â eunchan glares at the skyline when he says it. itâs one of those questions that doesnât really have an answer. Â instead of waiting for hyunsu to try and force one into place, eunchan turns and kisses him before he gets the bright idea to speak. his lips are cold, and chapped from the wind. eunchan takes another drag instead of dwelling on it, leans back into hyunsuâs touch when he feels his fingers flex tighter at his waist.
eunchan has a way of collecting bruises, like a stamp-collector might. just pressed into his skin instead. from picking fights and mouthing off. from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. hyunsu does too, but only sometimes. eunchan thinks itâs different anyways. hyunsu is all firebright. red and wicked and hot. he twists up and unfurls into anger. not with his words, really. just with his body. heavy-knuckled and hard. itâs thanks to hyunsu that eunchan knows what bone against bone sounds like. and that wet pop of a noise when a head hits pavement. hyunsuâs got bruises like badges of honor -- deserved or not. maybe that honorâs a little wayward. so theyâre different sorts. but sometimes it looks like they match. eunchan takes a strange, thrilled sort of pleasure in it. lining their forearms up side by side and tracing make-believe constellations across their skin, using bruises like connect-me-dot guidelines, with the fat-tipped marker of a pen and the sort of smell that left him dizzied from chemicals.Â
âitâs pretty, right?â eunchan asks him, once. mid-orionâs belt. âlike weâre connected.â it might work out a little better if he knew exactly what orionâs belt looked like. heâs going off a half-remembered picture from a textbook heâd seen two weeks ago. maybe itâs stupid. theyâre too old for this now. eunchanâs seventeen, but sentimentality refuses to leave him. it stays, like an overbearing parent. the only thing he had raising him through life. maybe itâs what makes him such a wanting, messy thing. eunchan shifts enough to hold the pen cap between his teeth, though reaches over to etch a smiley face against hyunsuâs cheek before he clicks it back into place. he laughs around the pen before itâs yanked free. hyunsu. and eunchan scrambles and runs before retribution is scrawled across his skin.
the air is a hot swelter, the summer sticky. the thought of high school has left them both. eunchan fingers at a tattoo he got near his bicep. the kind needle-poked painstakingly into skin. wobbly letters heâd winced through on a dilapidated couch. the beer heâd drank down had made it feel better, but itâd thinned out his blood enough that itâd been messier too. both of them had been too unknowledgeable to know it made any difference. itâs mostly healed over, now. but the skinâs raised enough that he can feel it. hyunsuâs hand eventually replaces his own, and eunchan lets him. despite the fan they have propped up on a shaky-legged table, it still feels too hot. the fact that theyâre pressed close together doesnât help. the whir of it sounds pathetic, like itâs on its last breath. struggling to puff more stale air across feverish skin. still, eunchan keeps himself in place. he likes the way he can feel hyunsuâs heart against his ribs. that rhythmic roll-thump of it.Â
the kind of feeling he could fall asleep to.Â
eunchan mouths at the thin skin of hyunsuâs throat. itâs graceless, but filled with sentiment. he knows if he angles himself closer, hips just right hyunsu will start to complain about where they are and if company will show up soon. eunchan knows it because heâs done this very same thing more times than he can count. he feels the way hyunsuâs fingers glide across the small of his back, slicked with sweat. eunchan ignores how borderline-disgusting that is. âwhat if we just-- for a bit.â eunchan digs his fingers in near hyunsuâs bicep, curls him closer so they can kiss.
eunchanâs always heard your twenties are supposed to be filled with potential. but his seem to be filled with mostly nothing. hyunsuâs there, he always is. deadend jobs and a drinking habit eunchan refuses to give up. he likes to pretend, between blackout-dotted memories, that he might not feel for hyunsu quite as much as he does. itâd make things easier. the trouble with that though, is that eunchan wants it. wants hyunsu to want him. the same way he wants validation for near anyone who looks at him long enough. and then hyunsu had gone and said it one day anyway, in that sleepy-husk of a voice. i love you, all fond and like he hadnât realized the gravity of what heâd said. the way it read past platonic and straight into unabated fear. eunchanâs been thinking on that since. most of itâs no good.Â
âdonât.â theyâre at friendâs party, hosted in a bar that looks more cement-basement than anything else. hyunsuâs hand flutters from where it sits on his forearm. back and forth, like a deer tap dancing across the highway. a semi hurdling toward it, a horn-blare between a decision or death. eunchan hates it when hyunsu doesnât listen to him. like now. hand settling back into place. eunchan yanks his own arm away instead. if he werenât waiting for a drink, he mightâve walked away. but he is, so he doesnât. they havenât talked in three days. it feels unfair hyunsuâs making him break his streak now. we should- and eunchan knows heâs going to say talk. like thatâll solve all their problems. solve all his problems. fat fucking chance.
he feels boxed in. digs a nail in at a cuticle and shrugs his shoulders. hyunsu doesnât take the hint, follows after him even after he swipes his drink from the bar. âwhat does it matter?â words hissed out and riding that cheap sense of bravery bottom of the barrel liquor brings. âwe were fine before. why did you have to go and change it?â words that drift like puzzle pieces, that have a tendency of only making sense to eunchan. he manages to lose hyunsu twenty-seven minutes later, only after eunchan had bitten love-marks into his neck in the slivered hallway back near the bathrooms. itâs one of the last time he remembers him, before eunchan had packed up his things. before he ran.