"So what changed?"
Gregory closes his eyes. He shouldn't be skipping class right now---shouldn't be falling behind on his work, since he's always prided himself on keeping up to date with any school assignments despite his fucked-up life. But he can't move, can't leave the solidity of Jeong-Soon's chest. His ribs ache and his face burns, but the phantom whisper of Jeong-Soon's mouth on his sends an unfamiliar warmth arcing through his entire body, filling him from his head to his toes. Something lodges in his heart---a feeling he hasn't felt in so long. Too long. He can't even tell what it is anymore.
"I saw you running. The headphones were hard to miss. I knew your fucking dumbass was going to do something stupid, and---" Gregory's mind whirls. Back to the day before, when he'd felt his heart crack in the pouring rain. Back to the morning, when he'd caught Jeong-Soon sneaking concerned glances at him from time to time. Back to twenty minutes ago, when the headphones had tried to hurl Kang Jeong-Soon off the balcony. "I didn't..."
He's suddenly acutely aware of Jeong-Soon's slender fingers threaded in his hair, stroking the ebony locks gently. There's no trace of the angry, vulnerable monster that had screamed at him the day before in his touch. There's only a boy---the boy Gregory had fallen in love with. And he can't help it---he melts, sagging against Jeong-Soon's chest, ignoring the pain that flares in his ribs. They aren't broken, miraculously, but they're bruised, according to the hospital Balloon Tits had rushed him to the moment he'd managed to drag his ass home.
"You didn't what?" Jeong-Soon's voice is soft, calm. Hot chocolate on a winter evening.
"I didn't..." Didn't want you to die. Didn't want the headphones to bother us. Didn't want to fight anymore. Didn't want to see you in the same state you were yesterday. Didn't want to fuck things up even more than I already have. A million words, resting on the tip of his tongue, yearning to roam free. He can't let them go. Not yet. "I hate you."
"So you kiss the boys you hate now?" Laughter escapes Jeong-Soon's mouth, and Gregory can't resist lifting his head, just in time to see a bright grin spreading across Jeong-Soon's face. It makes Gregory's heart subconsciously flutter, knowing that Kang Jeong-Soon is real, alive, and smiling. "Well, you know what they say, there's a fine line---"
"Don't say it." Gregory feels his cheeks heat up. "Don't you dare." He drops his head back down, burrowing his face in Jeong-Soon's t-shirt to prevent the other boy from seeing him turn red.
"Okay. I won't." Jeong-Soon's hand is back in his hair, stroking it gently. Gregory knows he should feel insulted, almost as if he's being petted like a dog, but the unfamiliar affection makes him unconsciously keen into Jeong-Soon's touch.
With Colin, it had been all bite, sharp teeth and clawing hands and jarring kisses in the dark, where they could hide their feelings away from the light for just a little longer. With Jeong-Soon, it's different---soft and euphoric and so, so, warm, adagio in too many ways. So slow, and yet so fast.
Gregory's not used to it.
But he doesn't hate it.
In fact, it's quite nice.
He feels Jeong-Soon exhale, air rushing from the lungs beneath Gregory's bones. "Everything's moving so fast. Just yesterday, we hated each other, and---"
"I never hated you." The words slip from Gregory's lips before he can stop himself, and somehow, he knows they're true. "I...I wanted to." The world shifts, swallowing him whole. Everything around him swells, amplifying every sensation in his head. The drying tear tracks on his cheeks. The fingers threaded through his hair. The heaving chest beneath him. "I wanted to hate you. I wanted you to hate me too. Things would have been so much easier."
"They would have, wouldn't they?" Jeong-Soon says. He's silent for a moment, seconds dragging out into hours in Gregory's mind. "I never really hated you either, Gregory. I tried to, and I knew you wanted me to, but..." He leaves the sentence unfinished, hanging thick in the air.
Silence once more. Nothing but the afternoon sun and the synchronisation of their breathing.
Gregory takes it upon himself to break it. "About yesterday, I'm..." He knows the word, but it evades him---dangles out of his reach and refuses to skip onto his tongue. "I'm...s---fuck."
"It's okay." Jeong-Soon's still stroking his hair, and Gregory senses tears of frustration and humiliation pricking at his eyes, but he blinks them away before Jeong-Soon can see. Why can't I say it?
"I'm...so..." Stupid pride, stupid pride, stupid pride--- "....rry." Gregory feels his face flush at the effort, burning like a thousand suns. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you." He feels Jeong-Soon shift under him. "I'm sorry too, Gregory. I'm so sorry." It's then that Jeong-Soon presses a kiss to the top of Gregory's head, and damn it, he melts like ice cream on a hot summer day. And it's terrifying, how one simple act of affection leaves him breathless, especially when it comes from a boy he's supposed to hate.
A million love letters in the wind. A thousand demons in his mind. A hundred reasons to walk away.
For the first time, he doesn't.
So they stay there, Gregory still resting on Jeong-Soon's chest, until the sun slithers past the roof above the gym and bathes them in golden warmth. Gregory briefly wonders if anyone's going to catch them. He brushes the thought away when he realises he couldn't care less.
"It doesn't make sense, does it?" Jeong-Soon asks. He's stopped stroking Gregory's hair, and Gregory resists the urge to beg him to continue. "Us, I mean. We're so...different. Like a---"
"A paradox," Gregory mumbles. He lifts his face to stare at the surprised expression painted across Jeong-Soon's face. "We're a paradox. We don't make sense. We're not supposed to make sense." A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition--- He pulls himself up, fingers tucked firmly under Jeong-Soon's chin. ---which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true. "But do you really care?" he whispers.
Jeong-Soon shuts his eyes, cheeks turning pink. "I feel like I should," he admits.
Me too. But I don't. "We should probably get back to class," Gregory says instead.
Jeong-Soon drops his head back down on the floor. "I'm lazy."
"How do you even pass your classes?"
"I have a D in pretty much everything except English and am slowly gravitating towards an F in Maths."
Gregory raises a judgemental eyebrow.
Jeong-Soon laughs---a sound so easy and bright it makes Gregory's dead heart lift in its grave. "I just became temporarily homeless, got dumped by my girlfriend, and got kissed by a guy I've been fighting with for the past few weeks. Give me a break."
It's Gregory's turn to flush. "I didn't kiss you."
"Sure."
In response, Gregory rolls off, flopping on the ground with an exasperated huff. He resists the urge to slap himself to curb the burning in his cheeks. Instead, he settles for baring his teeth at Jeong-Soon.
This seems to amuse the other boy. He chuckles, stretching himself out over the floor. Gregory can't help the way his eyes follow every motion. Jeong-Soon is strangely attractive in the sun-soaked expanse of the balcony, lanky body composed of pale limbs and not much else. He moves with a sort of gangly grace, limber and stiff at the same time. There's something soft about his face, despite his sharp nose and chin. It's probably his eyes---big and brown and yearning.
Gregory instinctively stiffens when he feels Jeong-Soon's arm wrap around him, and Jeong-Soon instantly pulls away. "I'm so sorry!" he yelps, going bright red. "Did you---I'm sorry---"
"It's not you. I'm just not used to...this stuff." Gregory shrugs. The floor pressing against his back turns it into a sort of up-down shoulder jerk. "Lovey-dovey couple affection fuck-it-all whatever." Colin comes back to him in fragments, his hand fisted in Gregory's hair, his nails digging into Gregory's skin, his teeth nipping at Gregory's lip.
And he'd enjoyed it---had savoured the agony like a drug because pain had been love, and love had been pleasure.
Jeong-Soon's expression morphs into confusion. "Your ex-boyfriend never hugged you?"
Gregory instantly shoots straight up. "How do you know I had a boyfriend?"
"Um." Jeong-Soon's brow furrows, and he bites his bottom lip. "So. Shit happened."
Gregory doesn't miss the shift in Jeong-Soon's tone---something fearful, almost stalling. "Doesn't it always?" The sunlight's mostly receded from the balcony, but there's still a tiny patch in front of him. He stretches his arm out. The tempting golden warmth taunts his fingertips, just out of his reach. "What kind of shit?"
"Like the shitty kind of shit," Jeong-Soon replies. He's sitting up too now, his side lightly pressed against Gregory's shoulder.
"I thought I was the smartass here."
Jeong-Soon shoots him a quick grin, bright and vibrant and natural, rounding off the angles of his face like the finishing touches on a Renaissance painting. His teeth are the slightest bit crooked, and Gregory can't believe he's only noticing that now. "You're rubbing off on me." Then his smile vanishes, something clouding his eyes---probably the remembrance of the day before. "I, uh, shouldn't have said that, yesterday. It's not like being like you is a bad thing. It's a, um, a good thing. It's just that I'm not you, obviously, and well, you're not me, so that makes sense, and---"
"Shut up. I get what you mean." Being me is a bad thing. It's the worst thing that could ever happen to you. But Gregory doesn't want to voice out his thoughts, not just yet, so he leans over, straightens his back, and crushes his mouth against Jeong-Soon's once more. "Don't talk so much," he mumbles into the kiss.
The eager press of Jeong-Soon's reddened lips on his own is enough of an answer.
٩( ᐛ )و
The moment they enter the small ice cream shop, Gregory's blinded by an explosion of pink. He instantly regrets agreeing to skip class with Jeong-Soon in exchange for a cone at Snow Halation, but he desperately wants answers.
And admittedly, he wants to spend a little more time with Kang Jeong-Soon. Just a little more, though he'll never tell.
Despite all the pink, his eyes zero in on the laser-sharp, bright green stare of the girl manning the counter. With grace only seen in movies, the girl instantly vaults over the counter and heads in their direction. Gregory's eyes take in her rose-pink apron and matching sundress, and briefly wonders how someone dressed like that could be so agile. She's even wearing heels.
Next to him, Jeong-Soon audibly gulps.
The girl storms right up to them, her high heels clicking on the ground impatiently. Up close, she's only an inch or two shorter than Jeong-Soon, tall and gangly. Her dark, coral-streaked hair is twisted back in a high ponytail, and there's a small pink, blue, and white striped pin on her apron. Despite the thin-framed pink glasses perched on her nose, her bright emerald eyes stare daggers into Jeong-Soon's chest. She's smiling, but it's definitely fake---teeth gritted and forced upwards.
"You, my good sir, have a girlfriend. A girlfriend who, by the way, is extremely upset about you cheating on her," Pink Girl accuses, jabbing a long finger at Jeong-Soon's chest. Her voice is low and husky and would be soothing if she weren't using it to chastise Gregory's boyfriend.
Gregory mentally slaps himself. None of us are ready to call ourselves that yet.
Jeong-Soon winces. "I know, I'm sorry. I wasn't cheating on Mia, trust me."
Pink Girl raises a finely-plucked eyebrow, forced smile completely gone from her face now. "Explain yesterday, when the-amazing-girlfriend-you-do-not-deserve ran in here and collapsed into my arms crying about how her boyfriend was cheating on her with some dude who hates everyone." She shoots Gregory a pointed glance, as if taking in his severely bruised face. "I assume this is said dude."
Gregory rolls his eyes in response, electing to keep his mouth shut for once. He'll pressure Jeong-Soon for answers later.
A grimace spreads across Jeong-Soon's features. "I know, I'm sorry," he repeats sheepishly, staring down at his sneakers. "Trust me, Demeter, I didn't cheat on her. It was...circumstantial lying. And..." He flushes. "I settled everything with Mia this morning. She, uh, may or may not have dumped me?"
At that, Gregory notices the way Pink Girl's already startling eyes light up even more. He doesn't miss the way she clears her throat awkwardly, the way a grin tugs at the corners of her lipsticked mouth; and although he has no idea what's going on, he's pretty sure Pink Girl has a moon-sized crush on Jeong-Soon's ex-girlfriend. "I, um, hope you apologised to her."
Jeong-Soon rakes a hand through his brown hair. "Yeah."
"Bit of a dick move to immediately start dating someone five minutes after breaking things off with your ex, but who am I to interfere," Pink Girl says, and Gregory can't help noticing the giddy lilt in her tone. Definitely a crush.
Jeong-Soon nervously chuckles. "So now that that's over---"
"You owe me some answers," Gregory butts in.
Jeong-Soon pinches his nose. "Okay," he relents. "Um---"
"Why don't you take a seat?" Pink Girl persuades, a bubblegum-sweet edge to her words. Gregory resists the urge to gag. No doubt she's all sugar, just like Jeong-Soon's annoying ex-girlfriend. "I'll hop back behind the counter, and...well..." She wrinkles her nose. "What do you want?"
To Gregory's surprise, Jeong-Soon turns to him. It's a stark difference from Colin, who'd always ordered what he'd wanted and the same for him. The gesture touches him. But he won't say that, so he shrugs. "I don't know what they serve."
"Do you want me to---"
"Yeah."
Once they're seated at one of the blindingly pink booths, Gregory rests his elbows on the table and leans forward. "Explanation. Now."
A little laugh escapes Jeong-Soon's mouth---nervous, the bare bones of his usual grin hardly touching his lips. "Pushy, aren't you?"
"Don't stall." In the hazardly pink light of the ice cream shop, Jeong-Soon is transparent, and Gregory can see right through him. He's ridiculously easy to read---like an open book, with scribbled-out words flowing across his soft, snowy pages, a beating heart firmly embedded in his gilded spine.
"Okay, okay, okay." Under the table, Jeong-Soon's knee visibly jiggles up and down. He bites down on his bottom lip so hard Gregory's worried it might bleed. In the untouched bowls in front of them, their cold metal spoons rattle in the uneaten ice cream. "That day...the headphones led me to you."
Gregory groans, burying his head in his hands. "Those stupid fuckers."
"I saw Archer and the rest beating you up, and Archer told me he was going to spread your nudes all over school, and I panicked and---" Jeong-Soon blushes, his pale skin turning crimson. "I told him you were my boyfriend."
"What the fuck."
"And then proceeded to tell him that I was dating both you and Mia at the same time when he tried to call my bluff."
I can't believe it. This is the guy I'm in love with? "You fucking idiot."
Jeong-Soon chuckles apprehensively. "Yeah, I guess I deserve that. And Mia went out to look for me after the headphones literally tried to strangle me---" Damn you, choking kink. "---and saw the whole thing. She confronted me about it this morning and..." Sadness washes over Jeong-Soon's face. "Well, I explained everything, but we still broke up. Apparently Demeter hadn't gotten the memo yet." Then his features clear. "But it's okay. Archer got rid of the pictures. He won't bother you anymore."
Gregory wants to doubt him, he really does, but something about the earnest expression splashed across Jeong-Soon's face makes him hesitate. Something nags at his chest, though, daring him to push further. "There's no way a guy like Archer would have deleted the pictures just because you told him I was your boyfriend."
"You're right." Jeong-Soon runs a hand through his hair again, and Gregory realises just how often he does it---a habit, one not entirely unappealing. In fact, it's an attractive motion on him, the inaudible swoosh of his slender, milky hand as it sweeps his chestnut locks to the side. "I told him something else. And it was the only damn thing that wasn't a lie in that conversation."
"What did you tell him?"
Jeong-Soon leans across the table, and Gregory feels his heart pick up its pace, expressivo against the useless confines of his ribs. It feels like it's going to beat out of his chest, a thousand broken-winged doves in a ivory cage, struggling to find freedom.
Then Jeong-Soon presses their lips together, and it's nothing like the aggressive kisses Gregory had initiated earlier. It's tender and precious and sweet, and the doves in Gregory's chest alight from his body, fluttering into the air where they vanish in bursts of silver dust. Jeong-Soon is warm, solid, human, saccharine on his mouth, and Gregory doesn't know how he's still holding himself together because he's a wreck, every emotion in his body disintegrating into the effusive pull of Jeong-Soon's lips.
The heady whispers of a drug he'd gladly get high on consume him like liquid cocaine, and he falls, stone through water, tar through smoke, glass through sea. It's dangerous, hanging over his head like powdered nicotine, but he doesn't care, because it's so warm, so deliriously warm he could get drunk on the feeling.
"I told him I was in love with you," Jeong-Soon murmurs.
quick psa: if you play Sky: Children of the Light, let me know and i'll DM you a QR code so we can be friends in-game! (note: i'm very active on Sky, so if you wanna talk to me off-wattpad, there's the place!) and if you don't play Sky, download it now :D it's available on PC, IOS, and Android (and Switch??? not so sure about that tho like ik it's coming to Switch but idk whether it's available yet) i think, and it's a really chill game with a great storyline and THE BEST graphics ever!
okay unsponsored advertisement over
no one:
absolutely no one:
not even John Cena:
me: so what if i dropped in the title's relation to the story in CHAPTER SIXTEEN
i'm sorry xD i was going for a more The Fault In Our Stars (one of my favourite books, as y'alls know) ✨ vibe ✨ to the title, and although i always complain how i can't see any immediate relation from the titles to the story in my book reviews, i'm a massive hypocrite. let's gooo
glossary section for today!
adagio - slow
expressivo - expressive
i actually really liked this chapter! almost as much as i liked Chapter 7, and we all know i loved Chapter 7. I KNOW it's not very good, but c'mon, let a guy dream xD (considering how i slammed it out in between papers, i don't think it's AWFUL. bad, yes, but not awful.)
if you see any mistakes, please let me know! i edited this while watching videos on extended response for my English paper (although i don't REALLY need to prep for English, i still prep a lot because i don't wanna lose my spot as top of my English class), so i wasn't really focusing on editing.
and i'm sorry that i won't be able to reply to comments for a while! again, i've still got exams (just a few more days, though!) and, well, yeah. gotta cram and schist. tis a struggle. (WHY DID THEY MAKE OUR EXAMS SO LONG OML WHY ARE THERE THREE PAPERS FOR EACH SCIENCE)
what did you guys think of this chapter? did you like it? did you hate it? do you want to take it and throw it into the dumpster and set the whole dumpster on fire? let me know, because i survive on other people's opinions xD
once again, thank you so much for supporting and loving me! i really really appreciate all your support, it really motivates me to write more, i would have given up long ago if it weren't for you guys :D
我爱你~
xoxo, Alex