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"yoongi-ah, when you look at me like a dead dog, it feels like you do not love me at all."
the water is pink pink pink, pink as seokjin's eyes and seokjin's wet swollen lips, and yoongi cannot help but think of the fat lychees that sweetly explode in summer mornings, or in flower-shaped fuchsia stains on the skin that bloom into bruises - purple, green and blue ones, surrounded by dirty yellow dots like a solar system: the closest they could ever get to the eternity of space and the sun, but right here, all over their bodies, crawling their arms and then up and up.
the laundry room is just another cold little room, all white porcelain and beige tiles, the song of running water plays freely on the foreground because seokjin's fingers are gentle ice cubes under the tap, crimson tips spreading between fabric and soap that smells like lavender or is it vanilla, like home and ruined jeans yoongi won't wear anymore. seokjin bents, his back is an arc to the floor, to the tank, he is a semicircle of fabric softener and bitten nails sinking in foam and yoongi finds it's so (so) pretty.
the cold is colder after a bath, it seems, when yoongi sits on the floor and his toes are little aerials pointed to the ceiling. the fake yellow light from the lamp drips from seokjin's bones, his mouth twisted in an ugly smile and all these bubbles and,
like a habit, seokjin rinses their clothes and
rinses
and rinses.
yoongi thinks
"don't you think it's enough?" seokjin says in the front seat, hands digging themselves on the wheel, 60 km/h where the speed limit is 70 km/h mostly because of the kind of person he is. the car hums and slides alone in the road from beach to home on a white rainy 11 a.m., what you call today. "isn't it enough?" he repeats, and yoongi sees his nose fold through the rear mirror when yoongi says no hyung and he laughs and shakes his head, all white teeth and tangled hair.
"not enough", yoongi attaches his nail to the seal of another can of coke on the backseat, opens it. rolls it in his bony fingers, tongue flirting with the aluminium, takes a teasing gulp, then a real one. when yoongi says, over spandau ballet's only famous song, that there's no time to pee pee stop again, he yells that sand is a time of its ooowwwwnnnn and laughs more, louder and bitter. yoongi swallows a smile, gives up, seokjin's lips are cracked earth, the morning is a white panel and seokjin is so tired and so beautiful.
and he is so.
the gears change, they slide faster, 70 km/h when the speed limit is 80 km/h mostly because of the life they live (that's what seokjin says, yoongi doesn't know why). yoongi's fingers barrel the wind that revolves outside the window and he would hate losing this hand, but leaves it there anyway in the part of the music that has a ha-ha-ha-haaaa-ha and seokjin's eyes are brown, his eyelashes are long, the kind that draws shadows on the cheeks, and yoongi is the kind of person that always knows what to say and what to do with the hands.
"you don't get it" seokjin says and the can of coke is half full when yoongi does not want it anymore.
so yoongi says he hates this song, but yoongi is yoongi, he lies a lot and seokjin drives with one hand only, face a mess of dimples and small eyes, all of this split in half. they float on the road, time is water more than it is sand, yoongi says. seokjin exposes his neck when he lowers his head and does not smile anymore ("clepsydras over hourglasses, yoongi?"), and yoongi is so in love with the bumps of the cervical spine under seokjin's skin when he moves like this against the thick clouds.
they are 85 km/h because sometimes seokjin is not himself and that's not the life they live. his new jeans are navy blue, there's ink under yoongi's nails. the wind sizzles and whirls inside the car, yoongi never listens to what seokjin says when his hair dances on top of his head in that way that seems like burning, and sometimes yoongi asks himself why is seokjin always in the front seat (or why is yoongi always in the backseat).
then the dog crosses the road.
when the dog crosses the road, it does not happen in slow motion, it goes faster, instead. it's just that seokjin moves the wheel like he knew the dog would come, bowls a little to the left, manages to throw the car sideways to avoid hitting the dog. hits it anyway, and yoongi only pays attention when he's shaken like that.
the gears are off, they slide no more and, through the mirror, yoongi sees seokjin’s eyes and not what they see, and they are so
so brown.
"don't you think it's enough?" yoongi thinks, the gears change in fits, 110 km/h where the speed limit is 90 km/h mostly because of how things are, seokjin goes faster and yoongi is useless. the dog is
("you really don't get it", seokjin says when yoongi does not move and still says that loves him)
a broken little thing wrapped in a green towel on yoongi's lap, smelling funny, it's still raining. it's soft and limp and makes no sound, a strange pile of black wet fur that tries to remain being what it is and stains yoongi's pants in red. now you, yoongi, yoongi is just flabby arms and low sobs that shush the poor thing when it seems like it won't make it, but everything that leaves his mouth sounds more like a whine.
seokjin says it was inevitable. yoongi did not see it coming.
"isn't it enough?"
there's no need to run that much, yoongi thinks, because all the time it seems like seokjin runs alone. seokjin is dirty, not wearing his seatbelt, and his brown eyes do not slide from one side to the other in the mirror, focused instead, but time runs like water to yoongi and like sand to seokjin - and it should be the same, but is not. it's all a matter of time, yoongi thinks, clepsydras over hourglasses, and seokjin bites the cracks on his lips and says they are out of time. so he almost causes an accident at the gates of the nearest town when yoongi says he doesn't want seokjin to run any more.
on yoongi's lap, the dog tries. seokjin tries too, but
it stretches. sighs. stops, and then yoongi gets it. yoongi's fingers caress the black pointy ears and he is the kind of person that always knows what to say.
“hyung, you should stop now”, but what yoongi says seokjin knew already.
seokjin's eyes are so so red.
yoongi thinks
"jin, it's enough", and water runs freely in the background.
even when yoongi crosses his legs, they feel too long on the tiled floor and he still smells like the shampoo from the orange bottle. if he stretched his hands on the floor, he would be able to reach seokjin's ruined jeans that he still wears, his infinite bones, yoongi draws him with shadows, then abandons him and smiles. but yoongi does not stretches his hands and his face goes warm. yoongi loved, he thinks, and looks at seokjin from his shoulders (it's okay jin) to his waist and down: there's a curve there, seokjin is an arc to the inside and yoongi finds it so so pretty, but just pretty,
seokjin is on the sink right over a pool of water at 4 a.m of a rainy afternoon in the cold laundry room, and sometimes, when seokjin looks at him, he looks like an open flower-shaped bruise: a galaxy of painful purples and greens and blues. yoongi feels somehow relieved when seokjin’s hands move slower and slower inside the foam and all these bubbles try to climb his arms, get entangled in his hair, he smells like soap and vanilla, or is it lavender.
the water is pink pink pink and, like a habit, seokjin rinses their clothes and
rinses
and rinses
stains that won't go away mostly because that's just how things are.
"yoongi-ah, you don't love me at all", seokjin says with an ugly smile, and now yoongi gets it and says he loves him. but yoongi is yoongi, he lies a lot, and that seokjin knows because he is always at the front, so (so) alone.