#vmxhimchan

for someone who does not touch others often of his own free will, a simple embrace is a rather meaningful gesture for mark.

( because a certain sort of vulnerability comes with an embrace–

–and it’s the worst vulnerability of them all because it’s the emotional kind– the affectionate kind– the “i trust my back with the edge of your knife” kind. )

what’s an embrace, anyway? an overrated, overly-romanticized, and all too-human ideal– arms and hands encircling a torso– the house of heart and lung– to secure a body fast to another body; the chin and throat of the shorter participant, tender and open, coming to rest upon the shoulder of the taller.

and if an embrace is genuine, then there’s likely much squeezing. (‘i care for you and i want you to feel just how much’).

mark isn’t a hugger. he’s been made to sell his body to strange hands and strange faces for so long now that he preferentially exists, whenever possible, in a bubble of self-imposed isolation– saying “the shop is closed, fuck off and leave me be” with the unspoken, instinctual tongue of facial expression and body language, and it’s probably because all of the trust and gentleness in him has been mangled irreparably, in the most vital of ways, by the groping palms of those who have purchased him for a night of artificial intimacy– …but who knows, who really knows?

mark isn’t exactly the type to make and keep friends. he exists as a lone island in the stream– a specter who wears his distance like chain-mail, and he likes it like this– likes it like this because he gets enough contact and closeness– enough of them both for a fucking lifetime– whenever he’s saddled with the task of tending to a client who tastes sour, hellishly painful to the mouth, and hurts even more with their hands, their two invasive hands.

but then there’s himchan. himchan, the one figure in mark’s life who has somehow managed to penetrate the chinks in his frigid armor to become so dangerously close to falling well within the category of “friend”.

mark smiles his thin almost-smile. he places a light, greeting touch upon himchan’s right bicep before pulling the wolfsbane escort into an easy, comfortable embrace. he squeezes the girl like he means it. (it’s because he does.)

mark lingers at the entrance of the nightclub. the pulsating, frenetic thrum of very loud music spills through the entryway and out into the street each time the bouncer admits a guest, or clump of guests, into the club’s dark depths. licks of purple and green and hazy, yellow-white light follow the example set by their brethren, the stentorian sound, and also tumble out onto the buzzy, hive-like scene of a midnight seoul. the bouncer, iron-muscled and cruel-looking, eyes him questioningly. mark puts the venom into his pretty face and shoots back a smile that one could sharpen a sword upon.

as usual, his unfriendliness has taken up arms with common sense to declare outright war upon his alliance with the man– but to mark, the woman– for he is the confidant of a great secret and, fortunately for her, mark’s lips are stitched shut when it comes to the secrets of those he cares much about– known as kim himchan. in the game of preservation, one mustn’t go fraternizing with those who would wish you and your people dead– dead, all mysteriously afloat face-down one still, silver morning in the han river– or slivered to bits and shoved bloodily, lovelessly into black garbage bags– all in a heartbeat, all in a damn heartbeat– if one plans on winning said game, the game within the larger, ruthless, and all-encompassing game of gangs.

but that’s exactly what he’s about to do: go party with a member of the cottonmouths’ number one rival group, their prioritized enemy, until he’s blind drunk and has forgotten how mean and miserable he truly is.

mark doesn’t know how long they’ve been meeting up like this, nor does he remember how exactly they first happened to meet. he supposes that, in the end, the specifics truly matter not. on the exterior level, his relationship with himchan is technically a hybrid sort of business partnership/truce– something akin to “i am a cottonmouth escort; you’re a wolfsbane escort. i don’t feel like breaking my hand upon your face and you don’t either, so let’s be civil, as civil as gang brats can be, and swap some nonessential intel over booze and cigarettes”.

nevertheless, it’s all transformed into something much more as time has passed. there are many layers to mark’s relationship with himchan– and at the innermost interior there is nothing but warmth, a genuine gladness to be sharing in each other’s company– a company that is pleasantly casual, unforced, while skirting intimacies into both of their lives and happenings. most of which mark has never dared before confide with someone. anyone.

as a result of both his natural disposition and accrued experience, mark shies away from the word “friendship”. after all, the intelligent dog never fully trusts a human ever again once it has been kicked repeatedly by human feet.

and yet, undeniably, mark knows damn well that what he experiences with himchan is the true, raw stuff– something more along the lines of kinship, rather than comradeship– and although he refuses to admit it, to either his mind or his heart, mark doesn’t give two shits about the possibility of danger and simply enjoys every moment he spends with himchan.

that’s the glue that binds them together, that makes their unlikely rapport possible– they both feel nothing less than complete apathy toward the ceaseless perniciousness forever looming between the wolfsbane and the cottonmouths. (in fact, merely thinking of his fellow serpents as “his people” makes him so nauseous, it feels as if someone were attempting to whip his entrails into scrambled eggs with a fork.) although they stand on opposite sides of a bitter line blurred by the blood smear of countless dead, mark and himchan understand each other in a way few other people ever will. himchan knows precisely what he goes through day in and day out. she knows. her body, too, carries a price tag; she, too, does what must be done to put money in the wallet and food in the fridge.

their shared life experiences brought them together with a magnetic resonance–  himchan, who is his polar opposite with her disposition of shape-shifting suaveness and nearly everything mark is not, managed to miraculously mesh with the unforgiving edge of his permafrost personality because– despite of their obvious differences– the similarities that matter, the similarities contained within their cores, sing the same sad, troubled songs– but it was their atypical attitudes of complete indifference toward the gangs to which their loyalties lie that has kept them together, kept them meeting up at myriad bars and nightclubs, as siblings in soul rather than the blood.

himchan doesn’t mind mark’s reserved stoicism. she doesn’t mind the way he pulls so tightly in upon himself, slow to smile and even slower to warm. she does not seem to mind all of the killing that has been done by his hands, either– or perhaps she simply does not know– but mark wouldn’t be surprised if himchan had managed to scrounge up a file on him from the murky depths of someplace, or someone, sometime along the way. (and if it exists, then surely the file is an awful thing; a file riddled with bullet holes and steeped so thoroughly with blood, thickened blood, that whatever papers, documents, or photos contained within run red with the stuff.) that was himchan’s power, the power of an escort with cunning fingers dipped into the pools of intelligence collection– and mark dares not underestimate her for a moment.

nevertheless, if himchan does somehow know that mark moonlights as a hitman– moonlights in the way himchan herself doubles as an intel gatherer– then she has kept silent about it thus far. for this, mark is grateful.

there is nothing left to be done except to enter the nightclub. ( stop milling around, mark– you want to go and not even the most unfriendly bone in your body shall prevent you from enjoying your time with himchan. your flesh knows it well so shut up, stop lying, because you absolutely know it, too. )

mark goes in. the inky darkness of the club swallows him whole and the shift in atmosphere is immediate. it’s like being devoured down by a hot black mouth– only the blackness is lucid and fluid, with whirling pops of neon light in the distance serving as tell-tale indicators of the edge of some still unseen dance floor, and the air is clouded with pungent, acrid-smelling cigarette smoke rather than whatever stench ‘esophagus lining’ might possibly smell like. (jesus christ, that was such an unpleasant… and bizzare… thought. damn, damn, damn. he needs a fucking drink. asap. maybe two. or a straight row of shots to loosen up his too-taut bowstrings.) the music gets into his skull and decides to live there, pulsing behind his eyes and vibrating within his teeth in a way that’s rather nice, rather exciting. mark feels a little drunk already– drunk off of his sorrows– and his thoughts are muddled but there’s no happy, buzzy high. he wants the real buzz and he wants it now. he wants to get drunk off of liquor– not sorrows– and he wants himchan to be the one holding his hair later when he’s ultimately praying, on hands and knees, to the porcelain god.

he needs this. he needs to unwind with himchan. to confide in himchan. he needs this person. this friend. it frightens him how much he needs her.

the cottonmouth boy is in his own clothes. skinny jeans with rips in the knees; a loose tank-top that does not cling. a bare, unpainted face– overly pale, with tiredness showing under and in the eyes– and it’s the kind of tired that is trying so extremely hard not to be tired, and thus seems all the more exhausted when the charade accidentally slips– but it feels great, unbelievably great, to not have his cheeks and eyes and lips iced all up with sticky creams and cakey powders for once. mark is here as himself. for himself. no missions, no targets. he’s armed only with a small, well-concealed blade and his hellbent desire to get lost in the night with a companion very dear to him.

he scans the sizeable crowd for a head of blond hair to rival his own. this nightclub is still a freshly opened scene– either protected by the red recluse or without affiliation at all– and neither of their faces are likely to be recognized here. in other words, it’s just about as safe a place as they could pick. here, they are (relatively) anonymous. here, they can shed their snakeskin, their poisonous leaves, till all that remains is ‘mark’ and ‘himchan’, and what remains wants to laugh and chat and smoke and dance. mark spots her. he weaves a path through the gyrating clubbers. he’s immediately sorry that he even considered leaving without word or notice.

mark smiles his thin almost-smile. he places a light, greeting touch upon himchan’s right bicep before pulling the wolfsbane escort into an easy, comfortable embrace. he squeezes the girl like he means it. (it’s because he does.)

himchan is as handsome– as beautiful– as she ever is. her looks are of the easy, entrancing sort, the kind that appeals naturally to the onlooking eye. (in comparison, mark thinks his own pretty surely must be a pretty that is sharp; a pretty that terrifies, cutting like jagged glass.) she’s slender but supple, and also very, very tall. mark’s chin is level with her shoulder. still locked in embrasure, he allows himself to hide in it for a moment. androgyny simply suits her– masculinity becoming her just as well as her femininity– and mark admires that, he truly does. no matter what, he feels his own boyishness in the way one senses their shadow following along at their feet. he, too, is of a slender build; but unlike himchan, who wears bits of softness so well, mark’s body broadens at the shoulders and narrows at the waist into unmistakable hard lines and firm edges.

he knows that it hurts her, too– that it scares her, even– and that she’s still unsure of herself in her own skin… but mark knows that himchan is quite wonderful no matter what. quite wonderful. quite lovely. he’s here for himchan. if she needs a secret to be kept– and it is indeed such a tender, fragile secret– then he shall keep it. if she needs him to call her just that– “she”– then mark will gladly do so, as well.

escorts must look out for one another, no matter which side they stand upon.

“channie. it’s been too long.” mark whispers, his cheek resting against himchan’s cheek as he strains, just a tiny bit, up onto the toes of his sneakers in order to gain the height necessary to hover his lips near the shell of the other’s ear. he leans away, soles pressing flat to the floor again, and the fingertips of one of his hands linger upon his friend’s arm– trickling smoothly down bicep, then forearm– until they have closed gently around himchan’s wrist. “god, i was so worried about you after shit hit the fan at the festival! but… you look well. i’m glad. please tell me that you’ve been eating, though. you know how much i hate to hear that you’ve been living off of nothing more than cigarettes and air.”

mark chuckles. his smile is still a mere sliver, but it’s a happy sliver, and it warms the darkness of his black, unblinking eyes. “i want to hear about everything, himchan. all that’s been going on in your life since we last got together. but first…”

the shorter blond turns and tugs himchan along behind him, guiding them both toward the bar. “…i want to get hammered. absolutely fucking wasted.”

mark strides forth like there’s a war to be fought and won tonight. maybe there is. his head is held high. he glances back over his shoulder at himchan, and he’s grinning. it’s a grin abundant with teeth. ( already, already, his armor has come loose– there goes the helm, the mail, the chest plate; the guardian of his heart. )

“so… there’s this guy, channie. and he’s an annoying little fuck. i hate him. i can’t get him off my mind. i want to get totally shit-faced tonight. let’s get totally shit-faced, okay? and we’ll just not give a damn about anything. let’s show these basic motherfuckers how to really dance, okay? can we do that?”

mark sticks out his tongue. teasingly. cheekily.