Pairing: Lee Heeseung/Sim Jaeyun | Jake
Heeseung-centric | 1,9k+ words | rating: T
Language: English

no Viet-translation provided

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As your arms steal around my waist from behind, the wind nibbling at my nape suddenly loses its bite, transforming into a caress against your warmth. I wonder if you feel the same way–if your hands are burning like blazing fire under the summer night's touch, even though the cold wind is blowing harshly against your skin. It's a beauty so profound, that it feels both unreal and not unreal at once, as if my body remembering the strength in your muscles, the leanness of your chest, the bareness of your legs, and the heat that painted your cheeks with diamond drops.

However, the burning sensation under my skin at this exact moment is different from those sleepless nights. It must have been a thing more concealed, as three layers of clothing act as a flimsy barrier; yet it is also open, and the heat under my hand feels raw and unfiltered. As if no one–at least not me–wants to hide those flooding emotions, unlike the shy old days when we first met. I don't know if you were thinking the same. But I know–or at least hope– that some part of you has opened up more to me, either your hands, your lips, your legs, your blood-red heart that is pounding loudly in your chest, or maybe just the silent thunder of your pulse against my palm.

You're a celestial anomaly, a planet with a hidden face. You are both lush and barren, both dazzling and dull. One day you shine–you are everything: the sun and those brightest stars in the vast cosmos; crackle with energy, a kaleidoscope of emotions swirling in your eyes like nebulae. One day you are quiet and gentle. Like water. Like the moon. Your gaze still, your voice a whisper soft as the tide. Then one day you are nothing but an exhausted being, as if you have given all of your colours to me to the point of drying out yourself. To the point that you are no longer colourful. Yet I knew that it was not because of me. There has always been a desolate land tucked away in that pounding blood-red heart of yours. I discovered it on those endless nights of us, raw and naked, stripped bare of defences. It's a place of grey dust and wind-swept silence, starkly contrasting the vibrant plains I know.

As I get closer to you, I feel like I'm walking on a tightrope. Like I'm gambling. Either I'm about to land on a colourful living planet, or I'm about to teeter on a dead planet. You keep alternating between bright and dry. Even beneath the heat of our intertwined forms, when our hearts (or as you say: yours and mine) are only separated by two layers of hot, bare skin, the map beneath your skin remains uncharted. I wonder which is the real you, and which is just a version of you that you moulded for me to see. Even when our bodies are still busy lying between two streams of hot breath and sweaty air, I am still unable to know. Sometimes you are a burning gasp, sometimes you are a sigh in the night. Sometimes you are full like a berry, sometimes you are shrivelled like a dry branch.

The funny thing is, though I know this celestial body may possess hidden dangers, I, a pretend astronaut, still can't stop the desire to land on that rough surface. I untether, helmet cast aside, drawn to the heart of this cosmic storm, ready to embrace the light and the darkness, to embrace you and kiss the scars the universe has carved deep into the outer shell.

Or I can't help but be with you.

I need you, I whisper to my soul. I want you to be with me, not just on those defenceless nights alone. I crave more than the fiery tang of our kisses, the desperate press of bodies in the sweltering night. I crave the essence of your being, the laughter that dances in your eyes, the secrets etched in the lines of your smile. I want you–in every definition, every aspect, every limit. From the outside in. From the inside out. This yearning is humming in my veins like a siren song. I want to hold your everything in the palm of my hands–your eyes, lips, hands, feet, or even your blood-red heart with a part of greyness.

But you are a boundless cosmos, and my grasp can only cradle stardust.

The city unfurls at night like a crumpled map, a kaleidoscope of neon and shadow against the inky sky. I can't recall the first time you lured me into these midnight odysseys, the engine thrumming a lullaby under our tires. Back then, you craved the helm, leaving me behind bathed in wind and starlight. I did not mind it, as I loved to escape the wind's icy bite. But somewhere along the road, our roles reversed. Now, you sit behind me, a warm presence against my back, hands burrowing into the forgotten warmth of my jacket pockets. Every brush of your fingers against mine, a spark igniting the gasoline of desire in my veins. My hands mirror yours, not just chilled by the biting night, but ablaze with the phantom touch of your fingers. Suddenly, the exhaustion of the ride, and the sting of the wind, all melt away. The plain presence of you in the backseat of my motorbike is enough.

Tonight's call echoes the familiar pattern. Past eleven, the screen blinks awake, your name blazing against the dark. Two words, whispered like a secret: "Come ride?" It didn't sound like a question at all. Perhaps it's the calmness in your voice, devoid of urgency, that makes me think that as if you already knew that I would have agreed to you. Like a child discovering the first blush of romance, every time the person floating in my dream takes the initiative, my gut opens to a kaleidoscope of emotions. A hundred butterflies take flight in my stomach, each one a question mark fluttering about our past, present, and future. About the possible and impossible. Do you feel it too, this yearning of mine? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But you must have felt it, the heat that was burning my hands these days.

My confession: I'm a bit of a coward. My fingers twitch, a phantom touch seeking the warmth of your hands. I picture them tucked under my jacket, only a thin t-shirt away from my bare skin, but the courage to reach remains elusive. We have done this a dozen times, and have done more than this, but perhaps to compensate for our madness along past sleepless nights, staying up for something else but not a ride across the streets, now, I only dare to let you shy behind me. The urge to hold your hands tightly quenches my heart. When wrapped around us are not cotton sheets and hot humid air but the chilly wind, you return to being a younger brother. My younger brother. Young and a little bit silly, my little dreamer with a heart etched in shades of scarlet and ash.

Does your heart burn like mine, this furnace beneath your ribs, threatening to spill its molten truth all over the asphalt?

I tilted my head, risking our safety a little to catch glimpses of the starless city sky. A tiny growl escaped my lips, barely audible over the engine's roar. But your hearing was always supernatural, "something wrong?", you asked. There is nothing wrong at all, except for the tightening wrap I feel around my waist. "Nothing at all", my voice, I knew, was lost in the wind, reaching you in a hoarse whisper. I could picture your face now: furrowed brows, pursed lips, a touch of concern in your eyes. Suddenly, I wanted to laugh, that silly, helpless kind. Perhaps it was because the image of you so vivid in my mind was too adorable, too endearing, so I could never stop myself from smiling.

You were always beautiful, no matter what life painted on your canvas – dazzling laughter or dull tears, red blood or grey dust.

Rushing through the city at one in the morning might not be the wisest choice, but it wasn't the worst either. My head was a blank canvas, and I knew that meant trouble – impulsive actions, clumsy words that could shatter the night. Yet, amidst the blur of scenery and the heat radiating from your presence, the world thinned, leaving only the two of us with the motorbike. My mind turned into a deserted space, only a few things remained. Eyes, lips, hands, feet, white neck. And you.

When that thought filled the empty, white space in my head, turning it into red, blue, grey, and black patches along with the pounding sounds of hooves, bells, and drums, I felt my heart ache more than ever. It was as if someone had thrust their hand straight through my chest, squeezed it, and pounded it down hard on the floor, forcing it to bleed profusely, to die, to sacrifice. But that hand also gently stroked the curves of that suffering heart, rubbed its slightly calloused fingers to make it tremble slightly, forcing it to live, to beat for them. I struggled between hugging holding your hands tightly or leaving it outside my jacket. Tell you to rest your chin on my shoulder or let your rigid neck remain a lonely sentinel against the night. To speak or not to speak. To accept all of your crimson love and charcoal shadows or to pretend that I had never seen them. To step onto the alien solid or to forever drift in the vast cosmos.

Love you or pretend to not love you.

My head already throbbed with a tangled mess of thoughts, and you, like a meteor through the chaos, made it explode into a supernova. It seems like you are saying something, framing words the wind snatched away, leaving behind a phantom echo in my ears. My throat ached with unspoken replies, swallowed whole by the roar of the engine. So, I slowed the motorbike, the asphalt stretching before us like a black velvet ribbon, hoping the silence would finally let me hear you. Never has the air been so still, as if the world itself holds its breath, waiting for what you might say.

"I've thought about this a lot," you said, each word a hammer blow against my ribcage. You paused, the silence stretching like an abyss between us. My fingers clawed at the worn leather of the handlebars, knuckles white with anticipation. "I think... no, I wish," you repeat one more time. I swear that I can feel my heart bleeding, begging for you to say those words more quickly. "I wish I could stay with you forever, Heeseungie. Not just these stolen nights, but for a lifetime, I mean."

The instant my name tumbled from your lips, a supernova ignited in my chest. My body, a furnace stoked by forbidden desire, could no longer contain the inferno. Flames licked at my bones, scorching my flesh, singeing the edges of my sanity. Holding hands or not, speaking or staying silent, loving or pretending not to love - all felt like ashes in the face of this pyre. The biting wind, a cruel jester, whipped at my face, but its icy touch could not extinguish the wildfire raging within.

I think I'm stuck. No matter if you were a living planet or not, if your core is not molten gold but dusty charcoal, I would still land, shed my helmet, and kiss every crater, every fault line, every scar that the universe has carved onto you. And I will continue to kiss that rough surface, until my broken planet blooms anew under my touch, forever becoming my own.

Because, as I said, Jake, I'm stuck with you now.