little one lie with me, sew your heart to my sleeve

His mind morphs out parallel universes, in which he attempts to weave with reality. Filling threads over and under warp threads, fragments of both a broken world and a perfect world like puzzle pieces fitting together.

There’s just something so beautiful about completeness.

It keeps him from shivering even when it’s painfully cold, as his ribcage flexes to his steady breathing, as his heart beats shallowly against his chest, bones jutting out of dark skin, the slightest hint of a smile plastered across his face.

Jongin carves out a universe in which he’s skeletal, with bony fingers. Shaky thoughts of perfection, being a flawed concept itself, slip through the spaces in his head, but he holds onto his universe, his coping mechanism, where dreams don’t die, where scars bleed forever – stunning crimson slits seemingly hiding a body of flesh but actually cutting into it, into Jongin’s heaving body, into his chest that rises and falls, into walls of flexing muscles. Sometimes, if he thinks hard enough, the scars might even turn bone-deep.

It’s so easy to believe, to put his faith into something but the mirror is excruciatingly truthful and it reflects same old Jongin, same old boy who doesn’t know how to hurt or how to stop when he’s hurting. Same old boy whose eyelashes fan out, hair falling in place over his brows, luscious lips cushioning emotions he doesn’t know how to verbalize. Same old Jongin slipping into infinite masks, and nothing fits exactly the way he wants it to be.

Hunger comes in elusive swirls, painting over Jongin almost as effectively as emptiness does. He thrives with a kind of numbness that eats away at him, dulling the colour in his eyes and threatening to steal his breath away from him. He thinks it’s okay, because he’s nothing underneath all this skin, so he lets himself shrink away, slip away until he’s disappeared, until no one remembers he ever existed.

But then, Jongin’s life decides to magically conjure up a Do Kyungsoo.

Jongin bumps into a boy, one with a small build and huge eyes that take up most of his face. There’s a navy blue name tag pinned onto his sling bag that reads “Do Kyungsoo”.

“Sorry,” they both mutter at the same time.

The second time they meet, Jongin’s already mapped out the contours of Kyungsoo’s face. He can see bones beneath flesh, caving inwards; and he immerses himself in eyes with whites that wash out the blackness of pupils. He comes up with a conclusion that being around Kyungsoo is painful yet comforting at the same time so he smiles at him.

Surprisingly, Kyungsoo smiles back at him.

Translucent white curtains drape themselves over glass windows, rays of sunlight peeking through them. The walls are painted a lovely shade of aqua blue and Jongin has a sudden urge to bleed into them, knowing he'd turn euphoric from the most beautiful kind of invisibility.

But fucking Kyungsoo pulls out a chair for him.

Kyungsoo’s eyes twinkle as they surf through the items in the menu. Jongin sees through its red cover and italicised text, Red Velvet Raspberry Cake, Salted Caramel Cheesecake Bars, Royal Blue Velvet Cake, Cookie Dough Cheesecake. The younger boy blinks as the page flips, Baked Beefballs, Cheese Sticks, Fish Nuggets with Mayonnaise, Spring Rolls, Tempura Vegetables. Page flips again, Ribeye Steak with Baked Potato and Garden Salad, Fish And Chips, Grilled Cajun Chicken.

Kyungsoo orders Fettuccine Alfredo. And hazelnut iced tea. And a deep-fried wanton platter. And a sinful slice of cheesecake coated with caramel-

Jongin sticks to iced water before his head can hurt any harder.

Kyungsoo’s not the kind to ramble, instead the both of them enjoy the comfortable silence. The older boy speaking from time to time between spoonfuls of pasta noodles. Jongin doesn't really listen, barely sips from his glass of water, only watches the former's lips glisten with moisture, opening and closing when he speaks, more luscious than he would have liked them to be.

Teeth sinks into dumpling skin, crushed and splattered across his tongue. Adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallows.

And suddenly Jongin wants to remember what it feels like, to eat like a normal person.

So Kyungsoo cuts a piece of cake with his fork and the crumbs break against Jongin’s tousled lips. It’s faintly sweet, but enough to make Jongin shake his head.

Jongin doesn't see food the way Kyungsoo does. He visualizes the food particles coursing through his blood like poison; and the calories, more than a calculation of energy expenditure, but a measurement of the ways he has failed himself. It's honestly scary to watch Kyungsoo dicing vegetables, scattering salt and sugar into the boiling pot, stirring the liquid, looking revoltingly motherly.

A recipe for disaster.

And he does it so easily, effortlessly cooking up a monster, that grows in stomachs and develops into calories, food that isn't meant to be eaten, but meant to eat souls up.

Soup. With a sheet of oil on its surface. With carrot cubes, and peas and corn swirling around in the liquid. The smell of it already manages to nauseate Jongin and he visualizes the walls of his red, throbbing throat convulsing upon contact with the soup and its contents, spilling past his lips mere seconds after trying it. He imagines himself purging and gagging until he begins to feel as though he's attained control over his body again.

His head begins to hurt like a bitch.

"Try it, Jongin," Kyungsoo gives a smile that comes off as, inviting?

Jongin's still learning how to register emotions.

He clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles turn white. Food makes it hard for him to breathe, and as a gut feeling pools at the pit of his stomach, he decides to let what he deems as anxiety, consume him over, again and again.

"Jongin?" Kyungsoo's smile only turns wider, ends of lips curling upwards, towards inviting and reassuring and non-judgmental.

He figures out that Kyungsoo's smile decorates otherwise disgusting vegetable soup.

“I don’t know,” because Jongin really doesn’t know, what to do, what to say, how to respond.

“But I know,” Kyungsoo puts his arm on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze, “that not knowing shouldn’t stop you from trying.”

Trying. Six letters, one vowel, five consonants, two syllables. It bears the weight of a promise, with the possibility of crumbling any second. Jongin barely remembers what disappointment feels like, since he’s sure he’s stopped trying a while ago, but he definitely doesn’t want to disappoint Kyungsoo.

“What hurts less? If I fail or don’t try at all?”

“If you don’t try,” Kyungsoo’s fingers find their way down Jongin’s shoulder blade, dancing against the fabric of his shirt.

Jongin estimates that vegetable soup is about 250-300 calories or so. He pictures the calories lightening up a sky full of flaws and mistakes, his flaws and mistakes, making them seem even brighter, and they starkly contrast against its pitch blackness.

But Kyungsoo means more than guilt, so Jongin picks up the metal spoon with trembling fingers as the former nuzzles his nose against his back. (encouraging)

Teeth clatters against the metal, a spoonful of soup barely slips past parted lips, slides against the walls of his throat, cold against the muscles of his stomach.

Kyungsoo is there to hold Jongin before he can even fall apart.

There's a tiny slit draped over the curve of Jongin's collar bone, resembling the blade of a crescent moon slicing the sky apart. Kyungsoo breathes into the crook of the younger boy's neck, hovering his lips over the cut, and Jongin shudders at the intimacy, slowly losing pieces of himself to the former. He doesn't know what to make of this, of them, he just knows he can't afford to let it slip away.

And so he builds fences around the world that only he and Kyungsoo belong to.

"Kyungsoo, I -" The shorter boy slowly pulls up the sleeves of Jongin's white flannel shirt, revealing a ladder-scale of even more scars. They look as though they've been embedded into his skin, crimson and faded red and grey and seemingly, fascinatingly pulsating.

Kyungsoo wears the most genuine smile as he feels about at the scars with his fingertips, identifying beauty in pain, in a broken person. There isn't any exact vocabulary with the ability to describe hurt, and sadness sounds almost too cliche on Jongin's tongue. Adjectives don't make the cut, labels like 'depressed' and 'despondent' don't fit, but Kyungsoo, with his fingers and his tongue (swiping over the scars), manages to make him feel more like a human and less like the shell of who he used to be.

“Do you –” Jongin blinks, “do you like me?” Kyungsoo whispers against the scars, “I guess I like you. Or maybe it’s more than that? Maybe I love you?”

“How do you, just, how can you? How can you say it so easily?” (quiet anger)

It’s when Kyungsoo finally presses his lips against the progression of slits that Jongin knows he’s been telling the truth.

Tangled arms and legs, fingernails grazing into skin. Bronze against pearly white, bodies pulsating as a whole. Heaving chest to heaving chest, eyes glazed with an emotion so raw it throws Jongin off the edge. He leans in for the first kiss, and as their lips mesh together, as their tongues intertwine, as their bodies press up against each other, Jongin realises that Kyungsoo fits, that they form completement itself. He doesn't stop wearing Kyungsoo ever since.

Kyungsoo is snug and warm, and it clings onto Jongin's skin. It doesn't even complain, because in Jongin it finds beauty, beauty like a drug. Or maybe Jongin just assumes it does, because it's from the day since he met him, that he starts to diverge towards something that can actually be perceived as perfection, everything that can be seen as beautiful.

Beauty that is brutal, that is unattainable in some sorts. Beauty that kills you before you can even reach out to it. Beauty that is twisted. Beauty that maybe isn't beauty at all.

Jongin is convinced his mind contradicts itself and his understanding of everything fades out. He can't grasp onto concepts, he can't hold on to what feels like human forever. Physical pain wears out, emotional pain wears out, scars fade away.

Kyungsoo just might disappear someday after all.

Jongin's beginning to get convinced to eat, and with one, two, three, four, five spoonfuls of soup, he's sure he tastes Kyungsoo in the liquid, tastes that stupid smile that's always spread across the latter's face.

When skies turn from orange in the mornings, to azure blue in the afternoons and then finally to dark indigo at night, starlight bathes their faces in a pearly glow and Jongin drags his razor across his wrists harder than he's ever did before.

Kyungsoo's there to brush his lips over the cuts, and they swell, stained with blood.

Jongin leans in for his second, third, fourth, fifth kiss, tasting himself on Kyungsoo's lips (metallic), absorbing what he has attempted so painstakingly to get rid of before.

He fluctuates between being himself and wearing Kyungsoo, dealing with guilt and dealing with expectations, deviating towards perfection and deviating towards contentment, hurting and not hurting.

They enjoy running into the monsoon, rain that filters through the atmosphere in sheets, pelting down on their backs and soaking through their shirts, skin glistening. Kyungsoo bubbles with laughter effortlessly while Jongin holds back, as if it's a sin to be happy. His lips are pressed into a tight line and Kyungsoo gifts them with sloppy smooches, sifting fingers through strands of drenched hair.

Sometimes, Jongin lets a few tears seep out of his eyes, mixing with the rainwater. Crying's close to bleeding out poison, made up of sins and flaws and everything that's Jongin, but it makes him feel ashamed.

Kyungsoo envelops him with lanky arms and that only makes him cry harder, but he figures out that maybe it's okay to cry, that sadness has always went beyond what he thought he could contain.

From the top of skyscrapers, they gaze down at umbrellas splayed out across them, dotting dark grey roads with brighter colours. Jongin’s half-naked by now, and Kyungsoo has his sleeves rolled up, the weather still splashing on them, in forms of (alternating from drops to torrents), not that they notice, not that they care because nothing really matters when it’s just him soaking up whatever warmth the older boy’s radiating.

Kyungsoo catches a raindrop for Jongin, letting it settle on the tip of his fingernail first, before placing it gently on Jongin’s collar bone. It’s iridescent even in minimal light, reflecting luminous colours, almost hypnotizing.

Jongin always manages to feel a little better about himself when he dances. He maneuvers Kyungsoo, a familiar warmth that's pinned against him, with bones that suddenly feel a little too hollow, and limbs assembled out of elegant twists and turns which work about at the joints. Simpering, his fingertips against Kyungsoo's, lodging bonds (that feel like electricity) between them. Jongin sifts through the options in his head, a) amplification, b) easing, c) -

The older boy lifts his head up, grazing his chin against Jongin's, you don't have to choose what you want to feel.

But Jongin is clueless, bits and pieces of his heart turned over, capillaries visible through the cracks. Kyungsoo slips his free hand under Jongin's wifebeater, not forgetting to brush his fingertips over the scars, before penetrating it through walls of flesh, the organ pumping furiously against his palm.

"Completeness," Kyungsoo smiles with dark eyes as he attaches the fragments together.

Arching back. Hands gripping onto thighs. Moans slipping freely through lips.

"It's genuine completeness," he says again.

(Completeness not in the form of emptiness, not the emptiness which you have been using against yourself.)

Kyungsoo offers his own heart up to Jongin as well.

Sweeping finger across dark nipples. (electrifying, pleasuring)

Nails digging into skin. (physical pain)

Heart beats faster into palm. (anticipation)

Thread and needle, organ sewn into the underside of Jongin's stained sleeve. (beauty in its highest form)

(Completeness times two.)

Kyungsoo starts off stark naked against the canvas, face toasted by the warm glow of sunlight. When Jongin looks at him, he’s reminded of seas reflecting shimmering city lights. He takes his time squeezing paint out of tubes into the palette, clearly keeping his eyes off the older boy’s wilting cock, lips twitching up in silly amusement.

Green for his fingers, pine green. (for the sense of security he attains whenever Kyungsoo brushes his fingertips over his scars)

Azure blue for his lips. (for the identifiable truth in which when their lips lock)

Tufts blue for the joints that attach his fingers and hands together. (for that calmness achieved only with Kyungsoo's moving hands)

Tangerine for the crook of his neck. (for that comforting warmth)

Shallow breathing. Brush dipped in paint, swiping over skin, colouring a masterpiece, painting emotions over what's left of it, painting with both gratitude and guilt.

Jonquil for his cheeks. (for, something Jongin will never admit to, but the happiness he finds in being with Kyungsoo)

The left side of his chest is left in its original state, not only because his heart has been given to Jongin, but because the absence of colour itself is a representation of perfection.

Jongin hangs Kyungsoo on the wall.

Jongin's a mess of thick eye bags and perspiration and almost, tears. He's afraid to shut his eyes, because the moment he does, his body awaits the darkness engulfing him and he can feel himself at the tip of the edge, about to fall off. Kyungsoo's still pinned onto the canvas, body glistening with colours, his breathing a steady whir. It threateningly lulls Jongin deeper into sleep, blackmailing him with his pores exuding any kind of exhaustion possible.

He considers crawling out of bed and pressing himself onto Kyungsoo, both of them against the canvas and breathing as a whole, as one. But he can't move, and he feels more than spent and really, he should just sleep, even with a fear of lapsing into sleep paralysis consuming him from the inside.

With half-lidded eyes, he yanks Kyungsoo's heart out from the underside of his sleeve, whimpering when he realises its beating much more feebly now. Immersing himself in dark blue veins and crimson arteries protruding out of translucent surface, consciousness seeps away, and suddenly, he can't will himself to hold on anymore.

Jongin has always wondered about the place between the state of being asleep and the state of being awake.

So as he weaves through the maze of darkness, black pools that swallow him whole, joints freezing in place and lips sewn shut, he awaits projections of burning eyes (which his brain believes, belong to ghosts) that stare him down. This time, however, he only sees Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo adorning crisp, white blouse, fresh blood seeping through breast pocket. Kyungsoo sauntering backwards, arms hanging loosely by his sides. Kyungsoo fading out and deciding to turn away from Jongin. Kyungsoo wearing that stupid smile even as he fades out.

And Jongin wants to do something, wants to reach out towards Kyungsoo and pull him back, but he can't even see himself in the fucking blackness -

The only body part that's movable when Jongin has lapsed into sleep paralysis is his right arm and so he pries his eyes open, screams finally slipping through his lips.

Jongin wakes up like a mess of thick eye bags, perspiration and tears freely streaming down his cheeks. (With an amplified fear of losing Kyungsoo)

It’s one of those days where Jongin doesn’t know how to stop hurting so Kyungsoo tries to be there.

"You make things out of nothing, Jongin, and I am so proud of you for that,” it’s scary that they’re having this conversation, that the paint is drying up, that his heart’s beating so slowly. Kyungsoo wraps his legs around Jongin’s torso, grazing his teeth along the latter’s scalp, lost in the smell of vanilla shampoo. Jongin’s face contorts and he sinks backwards into the older boy’s embrace. Kyungsoo laughs and again, the younger's amazed by his ability to be happy. (Or how his ability to be happy is actually, really fucking contagious)

"Is there a point in what I do?" Jongin shrugs, "Because I'm still learning how to see it."

"Maybe you already know."

"Maybe it's you."

He nuzzles his nose into Kyungsoo’s thigh, “Tell me.”

“Mhmm?” the older closes his eyes, drowning in the warmth at the lower part of his body. “Tell me about the world, about labels and society, about perception, about the minority and the majority,” Jongin sounds like he’s choking on non-existent tears.

“I’ll tell you,” palms rubbing arms, “about how temporary standards are constructed based on popularity, how slowly we’re abiding by sets of rules, ending up going against ourselves, being consumed over and over by our own thoughts, by how we’re always trying to be somebody we’re not,

“I’ll tell you about how we end up being victims of ourselves. I’ll tell you about how people try and try all their lives to reach those standards, but standards don’t stay permanent, they keep changing and really, it’s not enough. It’s never enough, it’ll never be enough. I’ll tell you about facades and masks, about how what is deemed as somebody’s character, when exposed to the world, is really just a lie,

“I’ll tell you about how attachment and emotions can be scary things, but sometimes, because there really isn’t any point, we have to let go. I’ll tell you that perfection is unattainable, but the beauty within yourself is. I’ll tell you about running away, from reality, from ourselves because what’s not enough for this world, for this society ends up as what’s not enough for ourselves. We end up setting these rules, we end up wanting to be anybody else but ourselves, we end up losing ourselves amongst all of this,

“Most of all, I’ll tell you that I love you. I love you, Kim Jongin,” the colours in Kyungsoo’s eyes dilute.

“It’s hard for me,” Jongin confesses with a quiet voice, “but I love you too, and I’m so afraid you’ll slip away.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Inside of you,” Kyungsoo circles Jongin’s chest with his fingertip, “....right there.”

“Always have been,” the latter smiles darkly.

Sleep comes easy after that, and hurt learns to wash away.

Pink colours the sky, streaked with golden glow of sunlight. Jongin should wake up, with Kyungsoo’s legs still enveloped around his neck, but he sleeps through identifiable emotions he chooses instead, to ignore. The hours bleed by, and it's all too fast, and his breathing is hitched, and -

"Kyungsoo?" he calls out but the name feels a little too foreign on his tongue. Trembling and not daring to open his eyes, mouth hangs open with a truth he's been running away from. Morning sun grows into the afternoon sun, and its heat contrasts against the coldness of Jongin's body. It's not something he can ever get used to again, not when he's spent the past few months building a world he's already adapted to.

Maybe he can still hear Kyungsoo's heartbeat, amongst the chaos of his thoughts. It keeps ticking off, somewhat like a time bomb and he lets out a cry when it finally drowns out.

It's the art of making a world out of a person. The brain cannot create faces but you can hold onto whatever scraps of reality you can find, lost in cells that store memories. Yet, it's another thing to open your heart fully up to your own creation, it's another thing to display vulnerability. Nothing lasts.

Kyungsoo is the part of Jongin that wants to love himself.

Kyungsoo is the part of Jongin that believes in beauty outside of skeletal terms.

Kyungsoo is the part of Jongin that aspires to be happy.

Kyungsoo is what Jongin secretly wants to be.

Kyungsoo has vanished, yet Jongin has found understanding.

Jongin shapes dreams out of clay, paints colours over blank canvases, colours that seemed to swirl. He carves emotions out of huge ice blocks, folds alternate dimensions out of origami paper, crafts beauty out of wood, weaves something so close to perfection out of threads. He works until his fingers are blistered, until leftover materials are scattered indiscriminately across the floor, until his apron turns into a mess of colours, splashes of faded colours.

A workshop. Art pieces lined neatly on glass shelves. Cuts that are barely visible, still hiding and breathing under skin though. Refrigerator contains salad bowls and cartons of fruit juice. The hint of a smile once plastered across Kim Jongin's face has now developed into something wider, something closer to genuine but never actually there.

He guesses he's finally content.

The glass door flings open, ring of bells hanging over its knob twinkling. Jongin doesn’t look up from fitting lego pieces together, edges interlocking with spaces, completement.

A boy, with a small build and huge eyes that take up most of his face, hobbles enthusiastically into the shop, scanning the art pieces with a strange kind of excitement. He carries a sling bag with a faded blue tag pinned onto it which reads “Do Kyungsoo”, and writing pad and pen with fingers.

The boy copies down notes fervently, and tip of pen scraping noisily against paper. Jongin hisses a little, concentration finally dissolving away and so he lifts his face up -

“Hello! I’m Do Kyungsoo and I want to feature you in our company’s arts magazine! It’s my first work assignment and um, I am, I just, I really love your work and -” his face is coloured by an endearing blotch of crimson, as he shuffles his feet nervously.

Filling threads over and under warp threads.

It’s the second time they meet. This time, Jongin smiles first.

And as planned, Kyungsoo smiles back.