Stars and Birthmarks (KaiSoo)

Stars and Birthmarks

"How many birthmarks do you have?" Asked Jongin. Kyung Soo had decided to count all of them to reply.

     Even saying goodbye was painful when he had to do it. No matter the means of doing so, chatting, on the telephone, he was always looking for a way to keep up with the contact. Checking his messages was the first thing he used to do when waking up and the last thing before falling asleep, and if there was a nightmare interrupting his dreams, he also checked in the middle of the night. It was not that they had a lot of interesting things to talk about, but that the things turned out to be interesting once they talked about them. Jongin had become addicted to those conversations and laughed a lot, laughed like crazy because the words, the memories, all about Kyung Soo made him happy...

     The night before he had given him a task: "Count your birthmarks." He dreamed about the answer: "Would he have 2 or 3? ¿15 or 20? How would they be? Where would they be? Would they adorn his back as starts in the sky, or were they in funny places as behind one of the ears or between the fingers?"

     After asking and having received a negative answer, Jongin had to write the last message for the night. Kyung Soo, the city boy with red hair, had said that he could definitely not see him, and Jongin was sorry; he would really ... really do and try everything to see him for a while. He wanted to talk about his feelings in that last message, but how could all this fit in there? He did not know the right words ... he could talk about his heartbeat ... about the trembling of his hands ... the feeling of thousand dragonflies and butterflies tumbling in his stomach, but ... those would only be euphemisms of his emotions. Kyung Soo was a beacon so bright that it was blinding him.

     "Well, goodbye", said Jongin for the farewell, keeping a river of emotions well hidden behind the protection of the short words he used.

     "Goodbye", he answered as a simple hang up.

     Kyung Soo buried himself underneath his sheets and closed his eyes forcefully. "Allow the dolphin swim, the butterfly fly, and the lion run the whole savanna." This had said Jongin, the boy of the ocean, of dark skin, and those were the words which minutes later were pushing him out of the window. He landed without hurting himself and ran barefoot through the dark streets, got behind the trees and ran faster. The breeze of the ocean hit his face with force. The scent of the water, of the salt, and the sand heated by the sun pervaded in his hair and made his skin feel sticky. Kyung Soo could have appeared a fool running in pajamas, barefoot in the middle of the night and, more than that, laughing. Someone could have said that he was a maritime goblin when he finally reached the beach, but at that time of the night nobody was there.

     Jongin had just stopped writing in the sand "How many birthmarks do you have?" In that moment he saw him approaching in a hurry, splashing the water while running along the shore of the ocean. Kyung Soo, with all his red hair uncombed, was approaching laughing as a playing child. Jongin felt the urge to jump; he had said that he would not, but he really came. Kyung Soo had come to him!

     The redhead did not wait until coming closer and took a great impulse to throw himself into his arms. Jongin was thrown to his back without letting him loose, both rolled around a bit in the sand; when they finally managed to look into each other's faces, they started laughing as like mad. Kyung Soo had sand on his cheek and his lips and Jongin all over his hair.

     When they finally seemed to calm themselves down, Jongin once again broke out in laughter pointing at his friend. Finally, Kyung Soo became aware of what clothing he was wearing: a cotton wool pajamas blue and white with an enormous drawing of "Pinky and Brain" on his chest. And although it was too late anyway, he tried to cover himself. He had had the pajamas for a long time, and as he did not grow so much taller; it was still fitting on him. It even had a small hole in the back and close to his armpit. His mother had many times tried to throw the pajamas away, but he had always fussed around keeping her from doing it. In that moment, he was damming himself for what he had done.