Anterograde Tomorrow

part three: tomorrow

Sunlight drifts into Kyungsoo's dream, refracts into something cool and salty and maybe involving heels digging into the soft overlap between ocean and beach. He turns and the wet sand transforms into warm linens.

When he opens his eyes the cocktail of seagull wings and shades of blue are replaced by a ceiling, meters too low, a small window at the end of a narrow bedroom, and peeling wood floorboards under worn rugs. It's his room, albeit not exactly the same as it was yesterday, because there are now green and yellow sticky notes pasted over every inch of every wall. Notes that he can't recall having placed: a second skin of colored texts and diagrams, numbers and dates. A breeze lifts the curtains and ruffles them, plays a melody in the tune of drizzled paper applause.

Though Kyungsoo is unsurprised by the state of his room, somehow he is taken aback by the overwhelming number of yellow notes. The confusion, however, fades automatically into a smile when he climbs onto the balcony and notices a figure leaning on the adjacent railings.

"Have you read the yellow ones?" The stranger asks abruptly, glint in his pupils turning mischievous as he notes Kyungsoo's matte stare, "Go back and read them. And open your door when I knock."

So Kyungsoo goes back, reads them, and opens the door when Jongin knocks. Ten minutes later they're bent over the kitchen sink making breakfast while Jongin pokes his stomach, counting the ridges of his ribs, ruining everything the perfect way. Uneasy stops and easy goes, crawling along with arms around waists and chins sunk into shoulders.

Maybe this can repeat forever, Kyungsoo thinks. Maybe one day he'll wake up an old man and Jongin will still poke him in the stomach, breathe incoherent teases into his ear, and make a mess out of everything just like today. They'll eat breakfast over the balcony, wrinkled feet in fluffy slippers and gray hair too thin to hide bright smiles. He would like that.

--

Lovemaking between Kyungsoo and Jongin is summarized by nondescript etches over fraying pages, compiled in a little list that Jongin has titled Things that Turn Do Kyungsoo on. On odd days there are spontaneous combustions at the drop of a pen, even days there is Jongin molding his hands to the texture of Kyungsoo's goosebumps.

Mainly they're made of regular nights at the bar, when everyone else has abandoned them to a glass of untouched Scotch as arbitrator. Kyungsoo finds himself staring stupidly at Jongin's face while he sings, contemplating how it's possible for someone to look so flawless and broken at once. Beautiful as inkworks, happiness spilling over the contours like aged tea, Jongin is like an artifact of lost perfection—though the perfection part bites the dust as soon as he looks up and, catching Kyungsoo's wide-eyed gaze, winks.

There's something about Jongin's wink that makes Kyungsoo almost drop his microphone, and certainly the time signature of the song. It doesn't take long before Kyungsoo crops off entirely, because that is when Jongin has closed the distance between them, pretty lips breathing blues over sleek perspiration. Kyungsoo's heart thuds against his chest with every semi-intentional bump of the wrists and whisper of, "I dare you, really."

The game of dares turns lethal when the lounge door shuts and leaves Jongin crushing Kyungsoo into the wall, "Say that again? You dare me?" Palms and knees skimming up thighs, incoherent mumbles punctuating every whine and whimper. Urgency runs everything over while frustration guides hands down metal zippers. Or maybe not frustration.

Maybe just urgency, because they're always in a rush for the grains of sand vanishing from the creases of their palms. Because as winter folds into spring, lovemaking is less about sharp thrusts and smoldering gazes, and more about humid silences trapped between the sheets in Jongin's apartment. Because as spring comes, the crests disappears and leave only a steady stream of troughs.