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chenpionships2014-09-15 06:57 pm
lordchen) wrote in chenpionships2014-09-15 06:57 pm
#312: to hold a heart
Prompt: #312
Title: to hold a heart
Pairing: chen/tao
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: mentions of self-harm and implied non-exo character death/s
Word count: 10500 words
Summary: if it's for zitao, jongdae wouldn't mind to have his hands go cold.
Jongdae hasn't went home to Bucheon since college nor has he even bothered to visit the ancestral house in Siheung. He doesn't even remember the last time he's seen his parents not built in pixels outside of a screen. The last time they legitimately talked for a long time had been two days after high school graduation with a seventy-six minute video call on Skype where they spent more than half of it asking each other if they're either frozen or choppy than the actual congratulatory greetings. It ended without proper goodbyes because Jongdae's phone battery died before his mother could even finish asking what his program was because she forgot. Jongdae figures it's okay, they're family anyway and he's long accepted it already that it's all he can have coming from his parents.
He doesn’t remember feeling anything as he stepped out of the two-storey house he's spent living in ever since he was born. He left the empty house for a small apartment in Seodaemun district and considered it his home. Sometimes he likes to play house because it seems fitting enough that Joonmyun might as well be his mother and maybe Kyungsoo and Baekhyun can be his brothers. He's never played house as a child so he doesn't know the mechanics. He could've played it with his brother, Jongdeok, if he'd been around in his physical form instead of the distinct coldness no one in his family could shake off. It's even possible, that it may be the reason why his parents moved to California right before his Senior year.
Maybe that's why he doesn't come home at all, because there isn't really anyone to come home to.
He's never been aware of familial love until he's twenty-four and newly employed as the manager of clothing store ELD's second branch in Myeongdong.
"Myeongdong is nice," Joonmyun says, leading the way, because despite having lived in Seoul since college, he's never actually went to this part of the capital save for the few times Baekhyun and Kyungsoo would either ask him out to eat or shop. It's nearing midnight and fortunately, Joonmyun manages to drag Jongdae out of the hole he calls his job. "You should try to explore it some time. I know someone who could take you out."
"Is this your subtle way of setting me up on a date... again?" Joonmyun laughs and taps on his shoulder. Jongdae isn't really looking forward to dating anyone coming from Joonmyun. Frankly speaking, Joonmyun's connections in the business world isn't helping Jongdae's love life at all. He remembers some guy named Lay who threw up on him after riding the cable car to Namsan Park and that Park Chanyeol who flirted with him shamelessly all night and called him at four in the morning to apologize and cry his undying love for boobs out loud.
Needless to say, he isn’t thrilled with this at all.
"I don't think that would be a possibility," says Joonmyun as his laughter dies out out. "And we're also meeting him tonight at hyung’s shop."
Joonmyun’s hyung’s shop is located along the heart of Myeongdong with its exorbitant interior and reasonably priced meals. Its floor to ceiling glass windows occupy the exterior wall— and then there's a knock. Three loud taps on the glass window just a few feet away from them. On the other side of the glass, a little boy whose head is entirely covered by a bright red snapback overlapping with his ears waves at them enthusiastically with both arms.
"Joonmyun-hyung!" The kid shouts, albeit a little muffled but still loud enough to distinguish among the variety of sounds. Joonmyun waves back in comical motion with both arms much like the kid’s; people were starting to shoot them judging looks and Jongdae considers stepping away from the scene before Joonmyun grabs his wrist to pull him inside.
“By the way, he’s your date for tonight.” Joonmyun coos as he pushes the glass double doors of the store.
“You’re setting me up with a kid?”
“You do like younger guys.” Joonmyun remarks. I’m not that desperate, he wants to say. But Joonmyun couldn’t possibly be serious even if he isn’t really the best when it comes to setting up blind dates.
“Hyung!”
“Fengge!”
Joonmyun scoops Fengge up and twirls him around so many times that it almost looks like some sort of ending to a dramatic movie with a dramatic scene in a dramatic reunion. How dramatic. Just when Joonmyun stops spinning did they actually start paying Jongdae some attention.
“Oh, Fengge-yah. I’d like you to meet Jongdae, Jongdae hyung.“ Joonmyun introduces him, and it’s his cue to smile (his signature one) and act cute and all that stuff one does when there’s a kid around just to impress.
Fengge stares at Jongdae with his cat eyes, "Harabeoji." he suddenly says. His smile falters just because—
"Hara...beoji?" he croaks.
“Yes,” he points at Jongdae, “Harabeoji!”
"He considers everyone as family so he calls everyone with familial honorifics." Joonmyun explains seeing the horrified expression on his face.
“But—“
"Yours isn’t the worst. He calls his babysitters, noona and they aren’t even girls.” That shut Jongdae up. But really, it doesn’t make being called a grandfather any better.
“Where’s your baba?” Joonmyun asks Fengge and he points a few feet away to someone walking in their direction. He looks like an oversized version of Fengge, minus the bright red snapback, and more rough than soft on the edges with an apron on, his brother perhaps.
“You let him call you harabeoji.” the guy points out, before turning to Joonmyun. “Can he come here everyday?”
“Well he works a block away from here.” Joonmyun answers. Were they just talking about him? They converse in whispers as if Jongdae isn’t around before the other guy looks at him.
“Feel free to call him little Tao.” he says, “I’m Zitao, his father.”
His father. Fengge’s father. Oh. He looks too young to have a son but Jongdae doesn’t bother to comment. He’s wiping the counter this time although it looks perfectly clean. Joonmyun taps his shoulder.
“I’m Jongdae, I—“
"Harabeoji!" His eye twitches. He isn’t anywhere near harabeoji age. He is only twenty-four (He isn’t even half-fifty, he’s a year short but that doesn’t mean he’s old!), it’s only right to call him hyung.
“It’s hyung!” he whines and it’s futile, but at least he’s trying. Fengge’s attention gets caught by something from behind and he frowns.
“Hide me!” he says, grabbing Jongdae’s dress pants and he almost stumbles.
“Sorry, we’re late,” someone says.
“You’re two hours late,” Zitao says over the counter, “It’s time to go home with Sehun and Jongin-noona, Fengge.” He calls them noona. Must be the babysitters.
“Okay, baba.” he sighs in defeat. His grip on Jongdae’s pants loosens. Before it suddenly tightens that Jongdae looks at him, “Are you gonna come back?” He looks so hopeful, really. And Jongdae’s not good with kids. He isn’t good with attachments either. But he finds himself nodding anyway.
“Give me your pinky!” Fengge says before forcefully pulling Jongdae’s hand. He “Your hands are so dirty, harabeoji. Why is it pink, why is it blue, why is it...”
The guy named Sehun interrupts them just as Fengge’s thumb meets with his, “Give your baba a goodnight kiss, It’s time to go!”
“Alright, alright!” Fengge says, walking over to Sehun before throwing his hands up as if asking to carry him.
“Carry him, Jongin.” Sehun orders. The other guy, Jongin, rolls his eyes before he carries Fengge over to Zitao. Zitao carries him and Fengge kisses him on the cheek as Zitao rambles on. Don’t give your noonas a hard time. Force Sehun-noona to bathe you before you sleep. No snacks on the bed. Don’t forget to— It was so long that he could see Sehun rolling his eyes in boredom and Jongin trying so hard not to laugh from his peripheral vision.
“This happens, every single day.” Joonmyun whispers from the side. And as soon as Zitao says his goodbye, Sehun drags Fengge away from Zitao.
“See you tomorrow, harabeoji!” Fengge screams before the door closes and soon enough, his red snapback quickly camouflages along the palette of Myeongdong’s crowd.
---
Joonmyun treats him to kalguksu and asks Zitao to clock-out early so he could sit with them. They talk about Fengge, mostly. With an overly-eager Zitao showing of his pictures among a thousand from his phone’s photo gallery. Looking at him this way makes Jongdae wonder how much of an influence Fengge is to his father. Joonmyun excuses himself in the middle of their talk.
“You two should go together,” Joonmyun suggests. “Zitao’s apartment is on the way to yours.”
He wonders if this is Joonmyun’s motive in the first place; Zitao answers for him, “I guess we will.”
The both of them leave just an hour after Joonmyun’s left and Zitao’s still talking about Fengge and that time when he first began Primary school and Fengge couldn’t go alone that Zitao sat beside him in class for a week before he relunctantly lets Zitao go and cling unto his new found friend in the form of his seatmate.
“Fengge gets easily attached to people,” Zitao tells him. “It’s my fault, really. I raised him to believe that everyone is family.”
“You better come back tomorrow,” he warns him, Jongdae struggles not to laugh because he seems so serious that he’d probably have Jongdae’s neck if he doesn’t agree.
“I will.” he says, while nodding. Zitao smiles.
“Joonmyun-hyung tells me you’re in need of friends,” he says. Joonmyun is embarassing. But it doesn’t seem like Zitao thinks so. “I wouldn’t mind friends.” he motions for a handshake and Jongdae agrees. He isn’t good with attachments but he supposes it’s okay. They’re family anyway. And it wouldn’t hurt to have new company. Maybe his life won’t be so gray anymore.
---
Pinky promises were hard to break, Jongdae realizes this as soon as he finds himself visiting Dumplings&Noodles almost everyday in between breaks and after work to get played at by a kid who’s almost just a head shorter than him.
“Evening hyung,” Zitao greets as he makes his way to the counter after work.
Regardless of his slightly scary demeanor, it isn't hard to get along with Zitao. With his carefree smiles and innocence that mirrors a child's. He seems like one of those people who’s never had to trouble themselves with the dramatic side of life. Not with the way he dispenses smiles at pretty much anything and everything and laughs at the smallest of things. It’s unfortunate that Jongdae doesn’t actually like those kind of people. It just doesn’t make sense how he can’t bring himself to dislike Zitao even just a little bit.
“Evening, Zitao.”
It’s quite the opposite, actually.
“Harabeoji!” Fengge beams and climbs over to Jongdae’s legs. Shaking it gently, like it isn’t a leg but rather a toy. Jongdae doesn’t mind but it wasn’t long before Fengge stops and says something else, “What are you two doing here?!”
“We’re here to do what we’re being paid to do,” Sehun deadpans.
“But noona, I don’t want to go! Harabeoji just got here!” Sehun pinches the bridge of his nose and says something along the lines of, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“Play time’s over, kid.” Jongin adds, laughing as if he’s enjoying the scene.
“Do something, harabeoji!” he says, shaking the leg that Jongdae considers the possibility of it getting deattached. Really, it’s adorable.
“It’s time to go to bed, Fengge.” Zitao says, and Fengge surrenders by unlatching himself off of Jongdae. A cute pout rests on his lips. Jongdae would rather wipe it away though.
“I’ll come here earlier tomorrow,” Jongdae says, “Is that okay with you?” Fengge nods a little too many times and Jongdae laughs.
---
Zitao’s shift ends exactly two hours and a half after ELD closes. Zitao always tells him it’s fine if he goes without him but Jongdae still waits for Zitao to finish closing-up before they go home together. It’s nice to go home with someone, and he really enjoys the excitement in Zitao’s voice whenever he talks about Fengge. It’s like someone’s telling him what childhood feels like, and it fascinates him.
They get out of the subway station, and just as his foot’s about to take off from the las step, he stops because suddenly, his hand feels warm.
"It's a habit of mine," Zitao explains as he realizes that Jongdae’s stopped walking, fiddling his fingers against his. "You should get used to it." he laughs, and Zitao's laugh is comical that Jongdae can't help but let his heart drop. This is weird, he thinks. His cheeks are tingling.
It must’ve been the breeze of wind. It’s summer. Winds are uncommon. The sensation just feels foreign enough to make him blush. It isn’t because Zitao’s holding his hand. It isn’t.
“Let’s go?” Zitao breathes, pulling Jongdae’s hand along with him.
Their hands were red to the touch.
---
“Were you wanking yourself off? What took you so long to answer the door?” Baekhyun says as he barges in Jongdae’s apartment at three a.m in the morning with cola and a black plastic bag in both of his hands. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt even though the night’s the most humid it has been since summer began. Jongdae doesn’t even bother to cover up his yawn.
“I wasn’t expecting you as a visitor. I was trying to sleep but you wouldn’t actually care about that because you just woke me up.”
“Visitors,” he corrects. “Go fetch Kyungsoo outside, I think he dozed off at the hallway.”
True enough, Kyungsoo’s curled up beside the plastic potted plant a few feet away from the door while cuddling what seems to be... baguettes? Jongdae sits down beside Kyungsoo. He looks tired. He’s still wearing his work clothes (a waiter’s uniform which doubles as his performing clothes whenever he gets a gig).
“Kyungsoo-yah,” he nudges, and Kyungsoo jolts awake, wide eyes rolling everywhere as if inspecting for potential ninja attacks that caused his awakening before his eyes land on Jongdae’s face.
“It’s just you.”
“What do you mean, it’s just me?” Jongdae says, holding his hand out to pull Kyungsoo up. Kyungsoo rejects it and stands up on his own feet. Jongdae scoffs.
“How’s the new job? Haven’t talked to you in a while.”
“It’s fine.”
“Your shirt’s a little dirty,” Kyungsoo observes, “Have you been painting again?”
They enter the living room and Baekhyun’s turned the lamp on already as the only source of light. Baekhyun’s staring at the walls, as he always has whenever he visits Jongdae’s apartment.
“Something’s up.” he states without turning his attention to the both of them. “Your wall looks happy.”
---
Jongdae’s developed an obssession over painting his walls a few years after he first moved in his apartment. It started small with a smear of paint in the wall before it got out of hand and now everything seems to be in chaos when it comes to his walls. Sometimes, he isn’t even so sure if he could use any more colors because he’s probably used them all up already.
He tells other people that there’s no reason. That he just likes painting, or that painting is his hobby even though no one’s really asking. There’s probably a reason why he does what he does. But maybe it’s something Jongdae’s forgotten already, or at least, something he’s trying to forget.
---
Their apartment buildings were only five minutes away by foot from each other. His and Zitao’s, so it’s only customary, as Fengge’s harabeoji, to visit his grandson even after work or during the weekend or when he has time off from work (basically anything that isn’t work is spent with Fengge, and Zitao, of course).
“It isn’t fair how you’ve went to our apartment a couple of times already and yet I haven’t even went to yours.” Zitao suddenly says as they climb up the stairs out of the subway station.
“My apartment’s a little... weird.” Jongdae says, putting it as simple as he can.
“Why?” Zitao nudges him with his elbow, “Are you hiding any dead bodies?”
“Something like that.”
“Hyung!” Zitao pushes his shoulder, slightly and he laughs. “So are we going or are we going?”
Zitao didn’t really give him much of a choice. So he says, “Fine.”
It’s almost ten minutes on the way to his apartment, and Jongdae’s heartbeat is fast as his hand shakes while he’s pressing the passcode for the 3rd time before his door lets them enter.
“It’s so dark in here,” Zitao observes, “Don’t you have any lights?”
“To hide the dead bodies,” Zitao lets out a shriek.
“Stop it!”
Jongdae laughs, “I’ll turn on the lamp.” He locates the lamp just beside the sofa and the room lits up dimly, letting the vibrant strokes filling in most parts of the apartment wall glow to life.
“Woah.”
“It’s weird, I know.”
“I was going to say beautiful.” he says, and it’s probably a lie because the colors were uncoordinated because all Jongdae ever does when he’s painting is mix all the colors together until he runs out of paint. He paints his walls according to his mood. That’s why underneath all those bright colors are dulled gray and black, and under those are—
“I have to go now, Fengge’s probably wondering where I am right now.” Zitao says, after a few minutes of scrutinizing the walls. He feels exposed. He nods and he makes sure they get out as fast as he can before he forgets how to breathe with how long he’s been holding his breathe the moments they’ve stepped inside his apartment.
The air is warm and they walk side by side in silence. There’s never been a silent time when they’re together. He wonders if this means that something’s changed before Zitao breaks it.
“I came here to study at first.” he breathes, before reaching out to hold his hand. His grip is tight. “I was eighteen, I moved with Fengge and my uncle, Yifan before he left a few years back. I couldn’t continue studies anymore when Fengge started schooling. So I stopped and now I just need money to get by.”
He looks at Zitao, somewhere in between amazement and disbelief, because why was Zitao telling this to him, now? And how can he say all that while he was smiling?
“Why are you always smiling?” he asks without even thinking.
“There’s no reason not to smile.” he says and his smile grows even wider. His cheeks are tingling again but the air’s still this time. He waves him goodbye before entering the apartment building and Jongdae hadn’t even noticed they were already in front of it. He spends a minute just standing there staring at where Zitao had been standing just a minute ago before forcing his feet to move on to his way.
He half-expected for things to be a little different after, but Zitao stays the same almost as if opening up doesn’t change anything. He’s pretending, Jongdae could tell. He’s pretending to make everything easy. He smiles like everything’s okay, like it isn’t weird that Jongdae paint his walls unfashionably as if he understands or that there’s a part of him that Jongdae knows unsettles him in ways he tries not to.
But Zitao makes everything easy. That’s just how he is. There hasn’t been a time when anything would be difficult when it comes to Zitao. And it scares Jongdae how easy it had been for him to start feeling the way he does now. He hadn't really intended to. But by the way he finds himself staring at the way Zitao’s eyes scrunches up whenever he laughes at the simplest of things like Jongdae’s dinosaur cheekbones, or the way his heart speeds up when Zitao routinely takes his hand as they walk side by side on their way home.
He knows he's not in love just yet, and he isn't supposed to let it be. Zitao's just warm, like the summer sun in the middle of the day. And it won't be long before that warmth disappears to be replaced with the cold rain. It'll be easy for him, he hopes, to get over whatever he's feeling for Zitao.
He thinks, maybe he'd start feeling a little less for Zitao as each summer day passed. But as fall came, he knows that not even a change in season could change what has already started.
---
“Do you really not consider my sleep,” Jongdae says eyeing Baekhyun who’s holding a small plastic bag in his left hand, “at all?”
“I brought coffee!” he says, ignoring Jongdae’s question. “And Kyungsoo too, he should be outside with snacks!”
(Kyungsoo’s in the same position as he had been the last time, only he’s hugging a black plastic bag now.)
They’re gathered in the kitchen now, sharing ddeokbokki in silence before Baekhyun breaks it.
"So when are you going to introduce your boyfriend to us?" Baekhyun says, sipping on his coffee.
Jongdae furrows his eyebrows, "What are you talking about?"
"Don't act like we haven't noticed."
“Noticed what?”
“Your wall’s been screaming happy for a month now.”
"You know why I don't date." Jongdae says, laughing a little.
"I was the one who got dumped, not you. You shouldn't let other people's heartbreaks get to you." Baekhyun says nonchalantly. And it took everything in Jongdae not to say that it’s already too late because the image of Baekhyun's crooked smile as he inspected the long red lines jagged along the surface is still stuck in his head like fresh wounds that won't heal.
“But I did get dumped, remember?” Jongdae says, and Baekhyun visibly gulps.
The conversation’s about to go in a direction Jongdae knows he isn’t ready to face.
“I’ve got a gig coming up,” Kyungsoo says breaking the forming ice. He lets out a sigh of relief.
---
During Jongdae’s first year of high school, he finds out that he is fascinated with the way the boy’s lips who sat beside him on the fourth row curved up even if it isn’t really the first time that he’s seen it. His first love didn’t come straight and fast through his heart, it came with a turning point, cheeks dusted with red and the sense of familiarity that smile evokes. At the beginning, he shrugged it off as admiration. Months later, however, he invitably finds out the difference between love and admiration (it was love).
It scared Jongdae for a while and he didn’t plan on confessing at all. He was hoping it would pass just like that one time he had a crush on a girl in Primary school before he found out that his neighbor liked her too and they ended up fighting over her with rock-paper-scissors (no one won because they kept on cheating) and then they went home together drinking from the same orange juicebox. It marked the beginning of Baekhyun and his’ friendship.
He hadn’t planned on confessing, but he ended up doing just that when they were both inside the school’s restrooms. It was evening and it wasn’t Jongdae who initiated it but he was the one pulling on his tie as if he feared the kissing would stop if he didn’t. He confessed afterwards in a whim and the only thing that was said is “Can you kiss me again?” And Jongdae did. His lips were still a plump red, and his black hair a mess when he walked side by side with him; the taste of rejection still fresh from his lips. But a kiss was a kiss and Jongdae had been stubborn enough to chase after him in the most unconventional ways. He eventually gave in to Jongdae’s insistence and Jongdae couldn’t have been any happier.
His parents found out six months later, when Joonmyun broke up with him just because he’s scared they’d get caught (That’s why Joonmyun still tries so hard to make it up to him by setting him up with other people who could maybe give Jongdae the happiness he couldn’t give). It hurt him so bad, even his parents noticed. So he told them the truth, that his heart just got broken because of a boy.
His parents didn’t say anything. They just looked at him as if it’s the first time they’ve seen him. It’s probably true. They were blaming themselves. In the night, his parents didn’t know he’s heard them whisper from the room down the hallway when he couldn’t sleep that one time he happened to pass by, they whisper: Did we do anything wrong? Were we not good parents? If Jongdeok had been here, do you think...?
Jongdae's experienced quite a handful of second-hand heartbreaks. He puts them all in a list, unintentionally formatted and ordered chronologically in his mind. He never writes down his own heartbreaks. It isn't heartbreak anyway, when he chooses to ignore it and let time numb the pain until it doesn't feel like his heart's teared and battered at all. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes anyway. That way he doesn't have to be constantly reminded of the aching feeling inside his chest.
---
Zitao’s caught him staring a few times day by day that he could no longer count. It’s not like he could stop it, not looking at Zitao is harder than he thought it would be. He doesn’t even bother to look away when he gets caught. And Zitao doesn’t even bother to catch his stares anymore as the days pass by; that’s why Jongdae wonders if Zitao only stopped because he’s already figured it out.
---
"You like Zitao, don't you?" Joonmyun confronts him after dinner in Zitao's apartment. Zitao's in the bathroom bathing with Fengge. He doesn’t answer.
Joonmyun sighs, for a moment he closes his eyes (almost as if he had expected this to happen, almost), "Just be careful. You might’ve confused his friendliness. He isn't like us."
"You talk as if being gay is so wrong." Jongdae says, and Joonmyun taps on his shoulder.
“Just be careful.”
---
Jongdae spends Chuseok with Zitao and Fengge in Namsan Park. The crowd’s almost as huge as it is in Myeongdong and it’s a tight squeeze for the three of them in the cable car that Jongdae almost forgets how to breathe when his head’s nestles against Zitao’s chest.
“Why aren’t the leaves pink, baba?” Fengge asks, almost in the brink of tears. Zitao doesn’t answer and instead just pats his son’s head. Jongdae squeezed Fengge’s hand tighter and offered to buy ice cream.
On the last day, he visits Jongdeok’s grave and leaves a voice message to his parents wishing them a happy thanksgiving from where they are.
---
The first snow came a week earlier than expected. He was with Zitao at that time, and it was already snowing when they got out of the subway station.
“It’s beautiful.” Zitao says, reaching his hand out to hold Jongdae’s, observing how each drop of snow falls in motion. He looks like a kid, like Fengge.
“Your hands are cold.” he points out before bringing Jongdae’s hands together, dangerously close to his lips. For a moment Jongdae didn’t know what he was up to before he lets out a warm breathe and Jongdae could feel his temperature rise up for a little bit. Zitao’s smiling as he’s doing this, and Jongdae’s just hoping his tinted cheeks aren’t too obvious.
---
It was Zitao who phoned him first at one a.m in the morning when they started talking in hushed whispers just because Fengge’s already asleep and the both of them wouldn’t want him to wake up.
“I can’t sleep, hyung.” Zitao had said at that time. And the next time too, until it starts to become a routine none of them wanted to end. That’s when Jongdae gradually started calling him before Zitao does because he came to realize that Zitao's voice might as well be his lullaby.
---
It starts getting harder for Jongdae to stop whatever he’s feeling for Zitao when he started to get more touchy than just holding his hand.
It was innocent, really, when Zitao would lean his head ever so slightly when they ride the subway home and he'd tap Jongdae's thigh before getting off or when they both have the share an umbrella when they're walking to Zitao's building and the rain would be pouring so hard that Jongdae would pull him in by the shoulder to keep him from getting wet.
It isn't so smart of him though to talk about it with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.
"So you want him to fuck you." Baekhyun states.
"I think it's Jongdae who wants to fuck him." Kyungsoo says, innocently as if Jongdae isn't just in front of him.
"Why am I even friends with you two." It isn't a question when an answer doesn’t exist. Jongdae starts to pity his past lives for having to deal with the two, if there is such a thing as a past life.
---
Sometimes Zitao would whisper stories in his ear while playing with their fingers on Jongdae's couch as innocent as he can unbeknownst of the effect he has on the other.
"Have you ever been in love?" Jongdae asks like it’s an everyday question. Zitao visibly stiffens, and stops. For a moment, Jongdae thought he wasn’t going to answer before he spoke.
"Do you know the story about the rice trees and cherry blossoms?"
"No."
"It's not much of a story anyway. Just a thought,” he laughs, a raspy one. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you love someone because you want to or you choose to love someone because you’d feel bad if you don’t...”
“And sometimes when you choose to love, it’s never perfect. Like cherry blossoms and rice trees. They never bloom at the same time and they never for long. Love dies, love lives. It’s never consistent. There’s never a time for just them.”
"I'm like that Jongdae-yah, I don't have the time and I..." his voice croaks "I don't think I can. I have Fengge, I know I'm not the best and sometimes it doesn't even seem like I'm even trying. But he's my everything, I'd give it all to him if I could."
A tear escapes from Zitao’s left eye. And before Jongdae could even attempt to wipe it away, Zitao moves away to the other side of the couch; as if he’s avoiding Jongdae’s touch. He wipes his own tears away and smiles at Jongdae as if assuring him he’s fine. His heart feels heavy and It feels like rejection. But how could Zitao reject him when he doesn’t even know a thing?
---
Jongdae drops by Zitao’s apartment on Christmas Eve.
“Keep yourself warm,” Jongdae says, wrapping the red scarf over Zitao’s neck and fixing it until it covers his nose.
“Thanks for this,” Zitao says, thumbing the fabric of the wool, and the other one on his hand which is the same scarf, only smaller and for Fengge.
Zitao gives him mittens in which Fengge refuses to let Zitao give to him. (“I’ll let you borrow this,” Jongdae promises before Fengge lets the mittens go.)
He heads out of Zitao’s apartment not even an hour later and he’s wearing the mittens now. It feels warm and he smiles.
---
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Jongdae says, holding a picture of Baekhyun with a caption that says, ‘aren’t i pretty? i’m yours now~’
“You should be honored. I only give myself to those who I love~” Baekhyun singsongs. Jongdae rolls his eyes.
“I gave you gift vouchers, and all I get is this?”
“You’re ELD’s manager. You probably got them for free.”
“Can’t argue with that.” he says, “Thanks for the vitamins though, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae says, Kyungsoo gave him a box filled with vitamins obviously bought on the way from Mini mart with small dinosaur chewables with ‘for that kid’ written on tape.
“No problem.”
“So how’s it going with you and daddy Zitao?” Baekhyun asks.
“Don’t call him that.” he scolds. He doesn’t answer and fortunately Baekhyun doesn’t ask any more further and instead asks another irrelevant one.
“Don’t you think it’s time you actually get a lightbulb? It’s always so dark in here.” Baekhyun states, it’s dark outside and the only source of light they have is the moonlight and the lamp. Jongdae shrugs.
---
Winter ends with Jongdae still stealing looks at Zitao and Zitao being oblivious to this. Zitao looks good with his red scarf on and Fengge steals his mittens once in a while with his red snapback over his bonnet. Every day he goes home to his dark apartment, before waiting for at least an hour before routinely calling Zitao on the phone even if it would just last for a few minutes before goodnight’s are exchanged and Jongdae could finally fall asleep with the promise of seeing Zitao and Fengge tomorrow. His heart grows heavy by the day, that it won’t be long before it would weigh him down and drop with no assurance if Zitao’s even there to catch it.
---
When the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, Zitao takes a week-off from Dumplings&Noodles and disappears from the face of the world. No one calls him after hours anymore and Zitao’s apartment is empty. He panics for a while before the door beside Zitao’s apartment bursts open with a grumpy Sehun.
As it turns out, Fengge’s staying next-door with Sehun and Jongin.
“He’s in China.” Sehun tells him with a finalized tone. “I don’t know what bussiness he has there. But he left little Tao with us.”
Zitao comes back a week later, only with bleached blond hair and a bruised cheek. He doesn’t tell Jongdae why and Jongdae doesn’t bother to ask.
---
"Can you come with me to Namsan?" Zitao asks him one early April night not even a week after coming back to Seoul. And its ridiculous how Jongdae didn’t even need to think before he agrees.
He takes a cab and walks the way to Namsan Park until he sees Zitao’s figure near the entrance holding a bunch of white daisies and a million stars.
“Help me with this,” handing over the million stars to Jongdae. He takes his hand and they enter the park with its ethereal glow. The sky’s violet above the flowers and the sight seems magical enough with Zitao plucking petal after petal and letting them ride with the wind. Jongdae does the same and they don’t talk as they’re doing this.
"I always take this walk alone.” he says, stopping on his tracks. A blossom lands on his hair. “It’s been seven years since Fengge’s mother died.” He’s never mentioned Fengge’s mother before. Jongdae reaches out to hold Zitao’s hand before he squeezes it as if he’s reassuring that everything’s okay.
"I built him a family," he tears, “I don’t feel like he could grow up with just me. So I built him a family.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.” he tells Zitao. And it’s not fair how even with a bruised cheek, and even when he’s crying, he’s still so beautiful. He’s about to wipe away his tears when Zitao kisses him. Underneath a cherry blossom tree with the falling petals and the glowing lights on them, from the moonlight above and the street lamp a few feet away from them. Jongdae responds and holds on Zitao’s cheek, making sure not to hold on too tightly because he might break.
It looks romantic, only it’s not.
They leave Namsan Park when they have no flowers left to scatter. They don’t talk about the kiss. But as soon as they enter Jongdae’s apartment, Zitao pushes him into the wall that Jongdae hasn’t painted for over a month, and crashes his lips into his.
---
Zitao isn’t like the summer sun. He’s the darkness he comes home to every day. And his smiles never reach his eyes no matter how much he does smile. There’s always going to be a part of Zitao that Jongdae knows the other won’t let him see. He might not even get to know why Zitao went home with a bruised cheek. And there’s so much that Jongdae doesn’t know about Zitao because he rarely even talks about himself in the first place. But Jongdae likes to think that he knows him, he knows that he likes to walk while holding hands, and that he’s protective over Fengge all the time— and it’s enough, he supposes.
---
Zitao stops kissing him and it’s too dark for Jongdae to tell why.
"Jongdae-yah," he says, and they’re so close. “Can I tell you something?”
They’re in the fire escape this time and his heart’s beating fast already, not only with nervousness but because Zitao looks genuinely scared. Like he’s done something wrong and he’s about to get punished.
“To feel secure ,” he starts, “It’s not something I can have.” Jongdae’s looking at him and Zitao doesn’t catch it and instead looks away. “I’m always going to be trapped in fear.”
Jongdae wanted to say, “No, you don’t have to be scared. I’m here.” But he doesn’t.
“I know how you feel about... about me. I’m not as clueless as I may look like. Just—“
“Can you not say anything,” Jongdae interrupts. He doesn’t want to hear the next words anymore. “I like you. I admit. But it’s just... just that. It’s really nothing.” he lies. His voice shakes and he hopes it isn’t much of a giveaway.
“I didn’t mean to...”
“It’s nothing, I know. It’s okay. I know how loneliness feels like.”
“It isn’t that it’s nothing, I just can’t.” Zitao says. “It’s Fengge. I wouldn't want him to grow up with a family he wouldn't want to be part of. I don’t want him to grow up knowing I’m gay. I hope you understand.”
“It’s okay,” Jongdae says, although it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself more than Zitao. “I’m okay. There’s no reason not to be.”
“If it’s okay though,” Jongdae asks. And he probably sounds desperate. But he doesn’t care anymore. “I wouldn’t mind it if we kiss again.” It’s the only thing he can have, anyway. So he’ll take what he can get. No matter how bitter reality tastes like.
Zitao doesn’t go home and spends it with Jongdae on the bed because he’s too tired to even move. And as Jongdae holds him in his sleep, he wonders if his heart wishes to beat its way out to wake Zitao up. It isn't fair, he thinks, that his heartbeat would be frantic just at the thought of him while Zitao's wouldn't. Jongdae didn’t get any sleep, he didn’t want to sleep anyway, so he waits for the sun to come up before he wakes Zitao up.
“I’ll take you home. Fengge’s probably waiting for you now.” he whispers to his ear and he feels Zitao nod.
The words, “I’m sorry.” comes out from Zitao’s mouth and Jongdae really wished he hadn’t.
---
The walk to Zitao’s apartment feels shorter than it really is, he figures it’s because it feels like his head is elsewhere that he can’t even feel his steps anymore. He sees Fengge’s outside playing with Sehun and Jongin. He greets Zitao first with a hug before Zitao dismisses him and tells him he’s tired and not to play outside too long because it’s cold.
“Harabeoji?” Fengge says right after Zitao enters the apartment building, “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” he smiles, “there’s no reason not to be, right?”
---
Jongdae calls his house phone in Bucheon the moment he steps back inside his apartment and nobody answers. He opts to dial his father’s roaming number and his father doesn’t pick up.
He enters the laundry room and takes out a three bottles of paint and gloves. He starts coating the walls with blue, grey and black before they all come together that the colors are no longer recognizable. He ends it with messy caligraphy before the door opens; it’s Kyungsoo.
“Learn how to knock.” he says before continuing with his destructive masterpiece.
“Learn how to lock the door.”
“Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asks. Jongdae sighs.
“How can you still sing even when you already gave up on your dream?” he asks.
“Because I love singing.”
“How about you Jongdae-yah,” Kyungsoo says. “Why’d you start painting your walls?”
Jongdae doesn’t answer.
“We didn’t ask before because we know you didn’t want to talk about it. But Jongdae,” Kyungsoo pauses as if waiting for the right words to spill out, “It’s been years.”
Jongdae shrugs, “I don’t see what’s so wrong with it.”
“You’re trying to cover the wrong with paint, quite literally if you ask me.” Jongdae looks at him with an unreadable expression before Kyungsoo puts his hands up in surrender, “I get it. But sometimes you have to stop thinking about other people’s feelings and start thinking about yours, not just for pretend.”
“Okay.” Jongdae says, hoping the conversation would come to an end.
“I have a gig coming up next week, you better come.” Jongdae nods.
“Oh and Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says before closing the door, “Open your eyes. Open your heart.”
---
Zitao visits him in ELD the next afternoon with Fengge and he’s trying to make things easy again with his smiles. It bothers Jongdae for a bit but it’s not like he could tell Zitao to stop.
“Harabeoji,” Fengge says, “Are you sure you’re okay?” There’s no point in hiding things from a kid, he sighs.
“Just a little...”
“Sad?” Fengge asks. “I know how to fix that.” he motions Jongdae to crouch down to his level so Jongdae does.
“What are you doing?” Jongdae asks when Fengge starts to run his little hand, up and down Jongdae’s back.
“Doesn’t your appa do this to you when you feel sad?” Fengge asks the question innocently. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know the effect of his words. Jongdae smiles and his eyes are sparkling.
“My father isn’t around anymore.”
“How about umma? Noona? Hyung? Dongsaeng?”
“No one.” His smile grows, a little bigger, a little bitter. Fengge gasps, cute little hands clasp around his mouth in disbelief before he calms down.
“Well you have me, harabeoji. And baba too.” he says, his words feels so heavy and he doesn’t even know. “So don’t feel sad anymore.”
---
Joonmyun asks him to have lunch in Dumplings&Noodles, he unconciously looks for Zitao when he remembers Zitao doesn’t work in the day.
“Why’d you bring me here the first time?” he asks Joonmyun as they’re eating their bowl of kalguksus. Joonmyung stops and sets his chopsticks aside before looking at Jongdae in the eye.
“I know you like children. Happy ones, they remind you of yourself of the time when...”
“Jongdeok-hyung was alive?” Joonmyun doesn’t answer for a few seconds before he nods.
“I like it when you’re happy.”
“You know you don’t owe me anything,” he says, and he means it. “It’s not your fault I became like this.”
“I didn’t think you’d fall for Zitao,” Joonmyun says, “I’m—“
“Don’t be.” Jongdae smiles, stopping Joonmyun. He looks hurt but Jongdae doesn’t mind that much, because he’s heard enough apologies in his lifetime that he’s grown sick of it.
---
Jongdae comes to Kyungsoo’s gig as promised and he finds himself slightly and drunkenly telling Baekhyun and Kyungsoo about Zitao.
"So you fucked him.” Baekhyun deadpans.
"No. I think it's Jongdae who did the fucking." Kyungsoo says, Baekhyun looks at him incredulously.
"No fucking happened.”
"Oh, so that's why you're extra grumpy today. I should've known.”
He continues with his story as light-hearted as he can making it seem more like a joke and less sad. And it seems to work even though he knows Bekhyun and Kyungsoo are just acting as if he isn’t hurting because they both know that’s just how Jongdae is. Always has, and always will be.
---
They kiss more than often now. Behind the closed doors of Jongdae’s apartment when no one else is around.
He's also noticed how Zitao never holds his hand in front of Fengge the same time he realized that he's never seen Zitao hold another person's hand other than his or Fengge's. He doubts whether or not his habit is applicable to other people other than the two of them. It makes him special in some ways, like how he feels whenever his fingers thumb through Zitao's hair and the way his lips would move against his.
It isn't much of a rejection when Zitao whimpers a little with each touch or smile up at him with beads of sweat lined on his forehead before kissing him without much haste. It isn't acceptance either, when Zitao whispers "I'm sorry." and act as if nothing happened the next day.
They're somewhere in between, maybe.
---
It’s dark and Zitao’s already fallen asleep. He hasn’t turned the lamp off from the bedside drawer. So he’s left with staring at Zitao’s calm face.
"Why can’t you love me?" he whispers, tracing a map along the slope from Zitao's collarbones to his shoulder. The answer comes faster than he expected it to when Zitao opens his eyes and it only took one look from Zitao before the words start to spill inside his mind.
Fengge. White flowers. Cherry blossoms. Namsan. You don't know how long it took me to build him his family. I was seventeen. It was hard. I wouldn't want him to grow up with a family he wouldn't want to be part of. I'd give it all to him if I could. I never thought you would. Stop, I can't. I can't love—I can't love you.
It felt as if Zitao’s speaking to him, when he’s not.
Jongdae retracts his hand from Zitao's skin like he would've if his fingers caught aflame. His hand feels the chill almost instantly, and he should've turned the heater up earlier because the cold only reminds him that he can't have Zitao the way he'd want him to be his.
"I'm sorry," he hears Zitao whisper.
---
There’s a reason why Jongdae’s removed the ceiling lights from his apartment and only has a lamp as a light on. It’s so he doesn’t have to close his eyes for everything to fade into black because it reminds him of high school days back in Bucheon.
"Just close your eyes," Baekhyun had said, holding Jongdae's hand with his left. "And it will be okay."
And he would close his eyes and say, "You're right," Even though with each darkness came the glances his parents casted for months after realizing just how little they know of him. There's Baekhyun and his breakdown that destroyed him into pieces leaving him and Kyungsoo to tape the remains of him back together. And then there's Kyungsoo, poor Kyungsoo and his tears staining the ripped up contract vowing he would never sing again.
It's untrue, really, how closing one's eyes to reality would make everything okay. But still, Jongdae has found comfort in the dark. Only now did he realize that darkness didn’t just provide him comfort, it had been his escape.
And this, this is what he gets for escaping for too long.
---
Jongdae has experienced quite a handful of second-hand heartbreaks.
He doesn't write that time when he's eight and Jongdeok's bed on the other side of the room remains unoccupied or his parents. There are no records written about all the unanswered phone calls and buckets and sprays of paint. The photograph flipped backwards, taped on his wall stay
He writes about Baekhyun's scars, and Kyungsoo’s hopelessness. He writes about Joonmyun who couldn’t accept himself. There won’t be anything written about a certain Huang Zitao who refuses to let anyone hold his heart but himself.
---
Jongdae spends summer night after summer night repainting his walls in shades of artlessness. He goes on a trip to Jeju with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and tries to forget Zitao in the day and before he surrenders and calls him around midnight when he’s the only one awake.
When fall came, Baekhyun calls him more often even though Jongdae knows he's too busy with graduate studies. Kyungsoo would drop by in his apartment every now and then. They don't argue about who fucks who in Jongdae and Zitao's relationship and Jongdae doesn't talk about Zitao anymore. He wonders when loving Zitao became as sad as it is now. He should've seen it coming anyway, there’s no reason for him to say he didn’t mean to fall so hard.
---
"We're drinking.” Baekhyun says holding a plastic bag filled with green bottles. “Kyungsoo’s outside. He’s already drunk.” And he enters the apartment in less than fluid motion. He’s probably drunk too.
He walks out and sees the same Kyungsoo on their third year of high school with his broken dream. After all the years, he’s still the same. He’s hurting too. He wakes Kyungsoo up and they stumble inside the living room. Weaving through the darkness.
Their friendship had came a long way, and here they are now. Gathered in his living room, still in the dark.
“Do you know why I did what I did when I got dumped?” No one answers but Baekhyun continues his story anyway, “I wanted to know if anything would hurt in the outside because I felt like shit on the inside. It wasn’t only because he left me, there are other reasons, that’s why there’s so many. So I started and stopped on the 112th right before it ends on my wrist. I didn’t feel a thing. Then you guys came and it started to sting and...”
“You don’t have to talk about it.” Jongdae says, attempting to take away the bottle from Baekhyun to stop him from drinking.
“But I have to,” he says, tears streaming down his face. “You know you have to do this too. It’s time to wake up.”
---
Jongdae still calls Zitao around midnight because he knows it's the only time he'd let him call.
Sometimes they don't talk at all just because they have nothing left to say. Jongdae likes to listen to Zitao's breath until it evens. As it always have been, it’s still his lullaby. Sometimes when they're alone, Zitao forgets about a lot of things. Sometimes, Jongdae tries hard not to understand why Zitao doesn't like it when he tries to take care of him. Most especially whenever Fengge's around. Sometimes his heart stings. But it isn’t as if there is anything that could still be done about that.
And anyway, Zitao's still sorry. So it’s fine, he presumes.
(But Jongdae would like to pretend he isn't. Sometimes he likes to imagine that Zitao hasn’t told him to stop because he wants him as much as he does too. Not because he pities him, not because it’s all he can give, but because he maybe loves him just the same. They don't do anything more than kissing and touching. But that's okay, Zitao still wears the red scarf he gave him the first Christmas and everything he's given to Zitao except maybe, his heart. Zitao doesn't let his heart out on his sleeve. But sometimes Jongdae thinks that he doesn't have to because whenever he would let his hand linger too long on Zitao's chest and he would feel his heart beating fast. If it means making Zitao’s heartbeat in sync with his, Jongdae wouldn't mind. If Zitao's love came in empty bottles, he'll take what he can get until his heart drowns.)
---
It is the beginning of January and Jongdae has his left hand in his coat's pocket and the other wound tightly around a tiny clothed one. The cold wind bites him and his fingers feel slicked with ice and maybe it wouldn't have if he hadn't given his mittens to Fengge.
In retrospect, the first time had his hands almost go blue and numb with throwing snowballs in the air. On most days, it would be Fengge refusing to wear his small ones preferring the warmth from Jongdae's own. Zitao always tells him to just bring an extra pair whenever they're out and he would have his hands warmed by Zitao's breath before he lets Jongdae slip his hand through his. And every time he looks at their interlaced fingers, Jongdae wonders if Zitao's already figured it out.
"Harabeoji," Fengge says as they pass the crosswalk. "Can I call you appa?"
“Nope,” he pops, “You can call me hyung though, like you’re supposed to.” he looks at Fengge before flashing his signature teeth smile, Fengge looks at him with a blank expression, his face like that makes the resemblance between him and Zitao prominent.
“No thanks. Harabeoji sounds okay.” He tugs Fengge's hand a little too hard that the mitten almost slips off. Jongdae smiles apologetically.
---
It’s time to wake up.
---
Namsan Park isn’t as crowded as it usually is when they visit. That’s when Jongdae decides to begin.
“Can I tell you something?” Jongdae asks, Zitao responds by squeezing there hands tighter.
“My parents they left me,” he starts. “They didn’t mean to the last time but it doesn’t make it any less painful. pretending isn’t new to me, I know it isn’t right to lie to myself but it’s the only way I could cope,” Zitao tightens his hold, their pace slows down although they both don’t notice. “I got people to believe I just matured when I found out so they thought I just grew out of being . It was also around that time when I started obssessing over painting my apartment wall. Jongdeok-hyung liked painting. His side of the room was always painted with colors I couldn’t understand before he passed. I couldn’t understand why he does that, but now, I do.”
“I’ve never told anyone, even myself. I’m only saying this now because I think I’ve closed my eyes from the truth far too long.” he fights the tears but he’s defeated. “It’s time to wake up.”
“They probably love you, you know,” Zitao tells him, for the longest time.
“Maybe. But we’re too distant now, there isn’t a way to tell anymore.”
“There is,” Zitao smiles and looks over to Fengge who was looking up to the cherry blossom trees.
“Baba, why are there no pink leaves? You said the reason why Namsan has trees with pink leaves is because mama makes them pink because she knows I like them? Doesn’t mama love my anymore?”
“Mama’s busy making the pink leaves pretty for you. I’ll bring you next time when mama’s done making them pretty.” Zitao says, and Fengge’s face brightens.
“Really baba?”
“Really!”
Fengge starts dancing alone with the falling cherry blossoms and the sight makes Jongdae feel warm on the inside.
“I thought families were only forced to love each other because it’s so wrong not to, I didn’t believe it was real before I met you and Fengge,” Jongdae confesses eyeing the falling cherry blossoms. There’s a lump on his throat and he couldn’t stop his voice from wavering. “I know how much you love Fengge. I— I understand.”
Zitao doesn’t say anything. He just holds Jongdae’s hand tighter their knuckles turn white.
Love isn’t that hard to find. It’s finding out if someone loves you the same way that you do that makes it difficult. It’s what blinds a person into thinking they aren’t loved when in truth, they are. They just don’t see it. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s not in the way you’d want it to be. A heart needs to be held, and love isn’t supposed to be rejected no matter what form it comes in.
---
The walk to Zitao’s apartment is the same as it always have been since Winter began, with semi-cold hands except he’s carrying Fengge on his back because he’s sleeping. Zitao turns the heater up as soon as they enter the apartment. And Jongdae wordlessly weaves his way to the bedroom.
Fengge flutters his eyes open as Jongdae tucks him in.
“Go back to sleep,” he tells him.
“Harabeoji...” Fengge whispers as sleep starts to take its toll on him, “I really want to call you Appa.”
Jongdae smiles. His eyes are sparkling again.
“You can’t.” he says, voice breaking, because it’s the truth. In a few years, if he’s still around to witness him grow up, he’d think differently. He wouldn’t want to call him appa once he finds out he is pathetically in love with his baba. He could see Zitao watching them by the doorway at the corner of his eye. Head leaning and arms crossed. Jongdae couldn’t read his expression. He turns his back, and Jongdae stays there, observing the way Fengge’s face become solemn with each minute. But then—
There’s a crash. Then another. He leaves and finds shards of glass scattering the floor of the living room and Zitao looks just as broken as the mirror. He’s about to throw the chair again before Jongdae stops him.
“Fengge’s sleeping,” Jongdae says, holding Zitao down from his elbows. “Calm down.” And he snaps.
“What the fuck is this?!” Zitao screams. “Why are you like this? Why are you so nice? Why are you still around? I... I... don’t understand.”
“Zitao...”
“I didn’t think I’d meet anyone who’d love Fengge almost as much as I do,” he laughs, even with all the tears on his face. “It’s weird. I feel like i don’t have to worry about anything when it comes to you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere.” he tells him, before caging him within his arms as if he’s afraid to let go.
Fengge’s sleeping only a few feet away. And there’s so much to risk. But maybe, it’ll be worth it.
---
His apartment walls had grown old with paint. That it’s starting to look like it’s been made a monster. A monster. Is that what he’s turned into these past few months—years?
It’s time to wake up.
“Are you ready?” Zitao asks him. A bottle of paint thinner in his hand.
“A new beginning,” he tells him before taking down the layers of paint of his walls.
“I didn’t know there was something taped backwards here,” Zitao notices, peeling the masking tape off from the wall before looking at it. Jongdae stops thinning the paint and glances over at the picture. It’s a family picture.
“That’s me,” he points, “That’s appa, umma... and Jongdeok-hyung.”
“They love you.” Zitao says.
“I know.”
It’s silent before Zitao hands over the photograph to Jongdae. He heads over to his room and puts it inside the dresser drawer. Maybe he’ll buy a frame for it soon.
“I didn’t know my name’s been painted all over,” Zitao says as Jongdae returns, “I think I was too busy looking at our hands to look elsewhere.”
The paint’s growing thin now, almost back to it’s original form before he started painting over it, “I’ll bring out the white paint.” he tells Zitao.
A new beginning, indeed.
---
Zitao’s wearing the red scarf as the both of them walk along the streets of Myeongdong and he’s singing this time, holding the white flowers in his hand. Zitao needs a new beginning too. People were starting to look in their direction but it only makes Jongdae sing even louder.
“Stop that,” Zitao tells him but he doesn’t stop, his voice louder than everything else. Zitao’s smiling this time and tightens his hold on Jongdae’s hand.
---
“I want to puke,” Baekhyun says, handing the camera back to Jongdae as he enters the apartment at two a.m with Kyungsoo beside him. He turns the lights on before settling himself on Jongdae’s couch. “Never ask me to video tape any of your cheesy shit again.”
“You were great,” Kyungsoo says. “I still sing better than you though. But you were close enough.”
The three of them sit down on the couch, looking above.
“I like it better when it isn’t dark,” Baekhyun says. “Don’t you think so?”
Jongdae smiles in response and closes his eyes. And even when everything’s black it doesn’t feel so dark anymore.
---
Jongdae’s installed the last of the ceiling lights in his bedroom when the night has fallen. And his apartment’s never been this bright. He falls down his back on the bed and Zitao lies beside him, a few inches away.
“Harabeoji,” Zitao whispers as he turns his head to him.
“Stop that.”
“Harabeoji,” he repeats.
“Why are you like this?”
“Harabeoji~”
“What did I do to deserve this?” he laughs, before trapping Zitao into a hug. He kisses his temple, and none of them moves as they find comfort in each other’s arms.
“I’m—“ Zitao says, and just with his tone, Jongdae already knows what the next words would’ve been if he hadn’t stopped.
“Don’t start.”
“I was selfish. I only thought—“
“Let’s just stay like this. Let’s not talk.” He hugs Zitao tighter.
“And my past—“
“I don’t have to know your past. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“It matters.”
“I know. But there’s another time for that.” Zitao doesn’t push anymore further and holds unto Jongdae almost as tight as Jongdae is holding him, it goes on for minutes.
“Fengge’s turning nine soon.” Zitao says. “It matters,” he copies Jongdae. “But there’s another time for that.”
---
“Everyone thinks I’m boring now, you know,” Jongdae says as they walk. “You’re all I ever talk about when i’m with other people. They say I’m too repetive with my stories.”
“I’m all you ever talk about even when you’re with me,” Zitao points out. He isn’t wrong. “You should stop that.”
“Should I really?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to bring your own mittens.” Zitao says, bringing both of Jongdae’s hands, warming them with his breath before letting them slip together with his hands. Maybe he’s already figured it out.
“Fengge-yah, you should hold harabeoji’s hand.”
“I don’t want to. His hands are too cold even with mittens.”
He feels another hand find its way to his free hand. The fabric of the mitten grazing his cold fingertips. Jongdae looks at Fengge.
“I’m only agreeing to this because baba told me to,” Fengge sticks his tongue out. “Can I call you appa now?”
He turns to Zitao and he’s smiling now, in a way he’s never had before.
Jongdae's never been aware of familial love until he's twenty-four and falls in love with the way his hands feel warm with Zitao’s breath and how his cheeks tingle as it turns a light shade of red (and how it’s cold and he knows it isn’t the only reason why his cheeks are red).
Zitao laughs, and ruffles Fengge’s hair, tightening his hold on Jongdae’s hand. And Jongdae knows, as he looks at their intertwined hands, he could get used to this.
Author’s note: this fic is a unfinished in most parts but i do hope it is at least readable i really wish i could write more but i can’t rn and i apologize to dear prompter in advance (i’ll make up for it some other time!) thank you
Please return to our LiveJournal to leave the author a lovely comment! ♡
Title: to hold a heart
Pairing: chen/tao
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: mentions of self-harm and implied non-exo character death/s
Word count: 10500 words
Summary: if it's for zitao, jongdae wouldn't mind to have his hands go cold.
Jongdae hasn't went home to Bucheon since college nor has he even bothered to visit the ancestral house in Siheung. He doesn't even remember the last time he's seen his parents not built in pixels outside of a screen. The last time they legitimately talked for a long time had been two days after high school graduation with a seventy-six minute video call on Skype where they spent more than half of it asking each other if they're either frozen or choppy than the actual congratulatory greetings. It ended without proper goodbyes because Jongdae's phone battery died before his mother could even finish asking what his program was because she forgot. Jongdae figures it's okay, they're family anyway and he's long accepted it already that it's all he can have coming from his parents.
He doesn’t remember feeling anything as he stepped out of the two-storey house he's spent living in ever since he was born. He left the empty house for a small apartment in Seodaemun district and considered it his home. Sometimes he likes to play house because it seems fitting enough that Joonmyun might as well be his mother and maybe Kyungsoo and Baekhyun can be his brothers. He's never played house as a child so he doesn't know the mechanics. He could've played it with his brother, Jongdeok, if he'd been around in his physical form instead of the distinct coldness no one in his family could shake off. It's even possible, that it may be the reason why his parents moved to California right before his Senior year.
Maybe that's why he doesn't come home at all, because there isn't really anyone to come home to.
He's never been aware of familial love until he's twenty-four and newly employed as the manager of clothing store ELD's second branch in Myeongdong.
"Myeongdong is nice," Joonmyun says, leading the way, because despite having lived in Seoul since college, he's never actually went to this part of the capital save for the few times Baekhyun and Kyungsoo would either ask him out to eat or shop. It's nearing midnight and fortunately, Joonmyun manages to drag Jongdae out of the hole he calls his job. "You should try to explore it some time. I know someone who could take you out."
"Is this your subtle way of setting me up on a date... again?" Joonmyun laughs and taps on his shoulder. Jongdae isn't really looking forward to dating anyone coming from Joonmyun. Frankly speaking, Joonmyun's connections in the business world isn't helping Jongdae's love life at all. He remembers some guy named Lay who threw up on him after riding the cable car to Namsan Park and that Park Chanyeol who flirted with him shamelessly all night and called him at four in the morning to apologize and cry his undying love for boobs out loud.
Needless to say, he isn’t thrilled with this at all.
"I don't think that would be a possibility," says Joonmyun as his laughter dies out out. "And we're also meeting him tonight at hyung’s shop."
Joonmyun’s hyung’s shop is located along the heart of Myeongdong with its exorbitant interior and reasonably priced meals. Its floor to ceiling glass windows occupy the exterior wall— and then there's a knock. Three loud taps on the glass window just a few feet away from them. On the other side of the glass, a little boy whose head is entirely covered by a bright red snapback overlapping with his ears waves at them enthusiastically with both arms.
"Joonmyun-hyung!" The kid shouts, albeit a little muffled but still loud enough to distinguish among the variety of sounds. Joonmyun waves back in comical motion with both arms much like the kid’s; people were starting to shoot them judging looks and Jongdae considers stepping away from the scene before Joonmyun grabs his wrist to pull him inside.
“By the way, he’s your date for tonight.” Joonmyun coos as he pushes the glass double doors of the store.
“You’re setting me up with a kid?”
“You do like younger guys.” Joonmyun remarks. I’m not that desperate, he wants to say. But Joonmyun couldn’t possibly be serious even if he isn’t really the best when it comes to setting up blind dates.
“Hyung!”
“Fengge!”
Joonmyun scoops Fengge up and twirls him around so many times that it almost looks like some sort of ending to a dramatic movie with a dramatic scene in a dramatic reunion. How dramatic. Just when Joonmyun stops spinning did they actually start paying Jongdae some attention.
“Oh, Fengge-yah. I’d like you to meet Jongdae, Jongdae hyung.“ Joonmyun introduces him, and it’s his cue to smile (his signature one) and act cute and all that stuff one does when there’s a kid around just to impress.
Fengge stares at Jongdae with his cat eyes, "Harabeoji." he suddenly says. His smile falters just because—
"Hara...beoji?" he croaks.
“Yes,” he points at Jongdae, “Harabeoji!”
"He considers everyone as family so he calls everyone with familial honorifics." Joonmyun explains seeing the horrified expression on his face.
“But—“
"Yours isn’t the worst. He calls his babysitters, noona and they aren’t even girls.” That shut Jongdae up. But really, it doesn’t make being called a grandfather any better.
“Where’s your baba?” Joonmyun asks Fengge and he points a few feet away to someone walking in their direction. He looks like an oversized version of Fengge, minus the bright red snapback, and more rough than soft on the edges with an apron on, his brother perhaps.
“You let him call you harabeoji.” the guy points out, before turning to Joonmyun. “Can he come here everyday?”
“Well he works a block away from here.” Joonmyun answers. Were they just talking about him? They converse in whispers as if Jongdae isn’t around before the other guy looks at him.
“Feel free to call him little Tao.” he says, “I’m Zitao, his father.”
His father. Fengge’s father. Oh. He looks too young to have a son but Jongdae doesn’t bother to comment. He’s wiping the counter this time although it looks perfectly clean. Joonmyun taps his shoulder.
“I’m Jongdae, I—“
"Harabeoji!" His eye twitches. He isn’t anywhere near harabeoji age. He is only twenty-four (He isn’t even half-fifty, he’s a year short but that doesn’t mean he’s old!), it’s only right to call him hyung.
“It’s hyung!” he whines and it’s futile, but at least he’s trying. Fengge’s attention gets caught by something from behind and he frowns.
“Hide me!” he says, grabbing Jongdae’s dress pants and he almost stumbles.
“Sorry, we’re late,” someone says.
“You’re two hours late,” Zitao says over the counter, “It’s time to go home with Sehun and Jongin-noona, Fengge.” He calls them noona. Must be the babysitters.
“Okay, baba.” he sighs in defeat. His grip on Jongdae’s pants loosens. Before it suddenly tightens that Jongdae looks at him, “Are you gonna come back?” He looks so hopeful, really. And Jongdae’s not good with kids. He isn’t good with attachments either. But he finds himself nodding anyway.
“Give me your pinky!” Fengge says before forcefully pulling Jongdae’s hand. He “Your hands are so dirty, harabeoji. Why is it pink, why is it blue, why is it...”
The guy named Sehun interrupts them just as Fengge’s thumb meets with his, “Give your baba a goodnight kiss, It’s time to go!”
“Alright, alright!” Fengge says, walking over to Sehun before throwing his hands up as if asking to carry him.
“Carry him, Jongin.” Sehun orders. The other guy, Jongin, rolls his eyes before he carries Fengge over to Zitao. Zitao carries him and Fengge kisses him on the cheek as Zitao rambles on. Don’t give your noonas a hard time. Force Sehun-noona to bathe you before you sleep. No snacks on the bed. Don’t forget to— It was so long that he could see Sehun rolling his eyes in boredom and Jongin trying so hard not to laugh from his peripheral vision.
“This happens, every single day.” Joonmyun whispers from the side. And as soon as Zitao says his goodbye, Sehun drags Fengge away from Zitao.
“See you tomorrow, harabeoji!” Fengge screams before the door closes and soon enough, his red snapback quickly camouflages along the palette of Myeongdong’s crowd.
---
Joonmyun treats him to kalguksu and asks Zitao to clock-out early so he could sit with them. They talk about Fengge, mostly. With an overly-eager Zitao showing of his pictures among a thousand from his phone’s photo gallery. Looking at him this way makes Jongdae wonder how much of an influence Fengge is to his father. Joonmyun excuses himself in the middle of their talk.
“You two should go together,” Joonmyun suggests. “Zitao’s apartment is on the way to yours.”
He wonders if this is Joonmyun’s motive in the first place; Zitao answers for him, “I guess we will.”
The both of them leave just an hour after Joonmyun’s left and Zitao’s still talking about Fengge and that time when he first began Primary school and Fengge couldn’t go alone that Zitao sat beside him in class for a week before he relunctantly lets Zitao go and cling unto his new found friend in the form of his seatmate.
“Fengge gets easily attached to people,” Zitao tells him. “It’s my fault, really. I raised him to believe that everyone is family.”
“You better come back tomorrow,” he warns him, Jongdae struggles not to laugh because he seems so serious that he’d probably have Jongdae’s neck if he doesn’t agree.
“I will.” he says, while nodding. Zitao smiles.
“Joonmyun-hyung tells me you’re in need of friends,” he says. Joonmyun is embarassing. But it doesn’t seem like Zitao thinks so. “I wouldn’t mind friends.” he motions for a handshake and Jongdae agrees. He isn’t good with attachments but he supposes it’s okay. They’re family anyway. And it wouldn’t hurt to have new company. Maybe his life won’t be so gray anymore.
---
Pinky promises were hard to break, Jongdae realizes this as soon as he finds himself visiting Dumplings&Noodles almost everyday in between breaks and after work to get played at by a kid who’s almost just a head shorter than him.
“Evening hyung,” Zitao greets as he makes his way to the counter after work.
Regardless of his slightly scary demeanor, it isn't hard to get along with Zitao. With his carefree smiles and innocence that mirrors a child's. He seems like one of those people who’s never had to trouble themselves with the dramatic side of life. Not with the way he dispenses smiles at pretty much anything and everything and laughs at the smallest of things. It’s unfortunate that Jongdae doesn’t actually like those kind of people. It just doesn’t make sense how he can’t bring himself to dislike Zitao even just a little bit.
“Evening, Zitao.”
It’s quite the opposite, actually.
“Harabeoji!” Fengge beams and climbs over to Jongdae’s legs. Shaking it gently, like it isn’t a leg but rather a toy. Jongdae doesn’t mind but it wasn’t long before Fengge stops and says something else, “What are you two doing here?!”
“We’re here to do what we’re being paid to do,” Sehun deadpans.
“But noona, I don’t want to go! Harabeoji just got here!” Sehun pinches the bridge of his nose and says something along the lines of, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“Play time’s over, kid.” Jongin adds, laughing as if he’s enjoying the scene.
“Do something, harabeoji!” he says, shaking the leg that Jongdae considers the possibility of it getting deattached. Really, it’s adorable.
“It’s time to go to bed, Fengge.” Zitao says, and Fengge surrenders by unlatching himself off of Jongdae. A cute pout rests on his lips. Jongdae would rather wipe it away though.
“I’ll come here earlier tomorrow,” Jongdae says, “Is that okay with you?” Fengge nods a little too many times and Jongdae laughs.
---
Zitao’s shift ends exactly two hours and a half after ELD closes. Zitao always tells him it’s fine if he goes without him but Jongdae still waits for Zitao to finish closing-up before they go home together. It’s nice to go home with someone, and he really enjoys the excitement in Zitao’s voice whenever he talks about Fengge. It’s like someone’s telling him what childhood feels like, and it fascinates him.
They get out of the subway station, and just as his foot’s about to take off from the las step, he stops because suddenly, his hand feels warm.
"It's a habit of mine," Zitao explains as he realizes that Jongdae’s stopped walking, fiddling his fingers against his. "You should get used to it." he laughs, and Zitao's laugh is comical that Jongdae can't help but let his heart drop. This is weird, he thinks. His cheeks are tingling.
It must’ve been the breeze of wind. It’s summer. Winds are uncommon. The sensation just feels foreign enough to make him blush. It isn’t because Zitao’s holding his hand. It isn’t.
“Let’s go?” Zitao breathes, pulling Jongdae’s hand along with him.
Their hands were red to the touch.
---
“Were you wanking yourself off? What took you so long to answer the door?” Baekhyun says as he barges in Jongdae’s apartment at three a.m in the morning with cola and a black plastic bag in both of his hands. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt even though the night’s the most humid it has been since summer began. Jongdae doesn’t even bother to cover up his yawn.
“I wasn’t expecting you as a visitor. I was trying to sleep but you wouldn’t actually care about that because you just woke me up.”
“Visitors,” he corrects. “Go fetch Kyungsoo outside, I think he dozed off at the hallway.”
True enough, Kyungsoo’s curled up beside the plastic potted plant a few feet away from the door while cuddling what seems to be... baguettes? Jongdae sits down beside Kyungsoo. He looks tired. He’s still wearing his work clothes (a waiter’s uniform which doubles as his performing clothes whenever he gets a gig).
“Kyungsoo-yah,” he nudges, and Kyungsoo jolts awake, wide eyes rolling everywhere as if inspecting for potential ninja attacks that caused his awakening before his eyes land on Jongdae’s face.
“It’s just you.”
“What do you mean, it’s just me?” Jongdae says, holding his hand out to pull Kyungsoo up. Kyungsoo rejects it and stands up on his own feet. Jongdae scoffs.
“How’s the new job? Haven’t talked to you in a while.”
“It’s fine.”
“Your shirt’s a little dirty,” Kyungsoo observes, “Have you been painting again?”
They enter the living room and Baekhyun’s turned the lamp on already as the only source of light. Baekhyun’s staring at the walls, as he always has whenever he visits Jongdae’s apartment.
“Something’s up.” he states without turning his attention to the both of them. “Your wall looks happy.”
---
Jongdae’s developed an obssession over painting his walls a few years after he first moved in his apartment. It started small with a smear of paint in the wall before it got out of hand and now everything seems to be in chaos when it comes to his walls. Sometimes, he isn’t even so sure if he could use any more colors because he’s probably used them all up already.
He tells other people that there’s no reason. That he just likes painting, or that painting is his hobby even though no one’s really asking. There’s probably a reason why he does what he does. But maybe it’s something Jongdae’s forgotten already, or at least, something he’s trying to forget.
---
Their apartment buildings were only five minutes away by foot from each other. His and Zitao’s, so it’s only customary, as Fengge’s harabeoji, to visit his grandson even after work or during the weekend or when he has time off from work (basically anything that isn’t work is spent with Fengge, and Zitao, of course).
“It isn’t fair how you’ve went to our apartment a couple of times already and yet I haven’t even went to yours.” Zitao suddenly says as they climb up the stairs out of the subway station.
“My apartment’s a little... weird.” Jongdae says, putting it as simple as he can.
“Why?” Zitao nudges him with his elbow, “Are you hiding any dead bodies?”
“Something like that.”
“Hyung!” Zitao pushes his shoulder, slightly and he laughs. “So are we going or are we going?”
Zitao didn’t really give him much of a choice. So he says, “Fine.”
It’s almost ten minutes on the way to his apartment, and Jongdae’s heartbeat is fast as his hand shakes while he’s pressing the passcode for the 3rd time before his door lets them enter.
“It’s so dark in here,” Zitao observes, “Don’t you have any lights?”
“To hide the dead bodies,” Zitao lets out a shriek.
“Stop it!”
Jongdae laughs, “I’ll turn on the lamp.” He locates the lamp just beside the sofa and the room lits up dimly, letting the vibrant strokes filling in most parts of the apartment wall glow to life.
“Woah.”
“It’s weird, I know.”
“I was going to say beautiful.” he says, and it’s probably a lie because the colors were uncoordinated because all Jongdae ever does when he’s painting is mix all the colors together until he runs out of paint. He paints his walls according to his mood. That’s why underneath all those bright colors are dulled gray and black, and under those are—
“I have to go now, Fengge’s probably wondering where I am right now.” Zitao says, after a few minutes of scrutinizing the walls. He feels exposed. He nods and he makes sure they get out as fast as he can before he forgets how to breathe with how long he’s been holding his breathe the moments they’ve stepped inside his apartment.
The air is warm and they walk side by side in silence. There’s never been a silent time when they’re together. He wonders if this means that something’s changed before Zitao breaks it.
“I came here to study at first.” he breathes, before reaching out to hold his hand. His grip is tight. “I was eighteen, I moved with Fengge and my uncle, Yifan before he left a few years back. I couldn’t continue studies anymore when Fengge started schooling. So I stopped and now I just need money to get by.”
He looks at Zitao, somewhere in between amazement and disbelief, because why was Zitao telling this to him, now? And how can he say all that while he was smiling?
“Why are you always smiling?” he asks without even thinking.
“There’s no reason not to smile.” he says and his smile grows even wider. His cheeks are tingling again but the air’s still this time. He waves him goodbye before entering the apartment building and Jongdae hadn’t even noticed they were already in front of it. He spends a minute just standing there staring at where Zitao had been standing just a minute ago before forcing his feet to move on to his way.
He half-expected for things to be a little different after, but Zitao stays the same almost as if opening up doesn’t change anything. He’s pretending, Jongdae could tell. He’s pretending to make everything easy. He smiles like everything’s okay, like it isn’t weird that Jongdae paint his walls unfashionably as if he understands or that there’s a part of him that Jongdae knows unsettles him in ways he tries not to.
But Zitao makes everything easy. That’s just how he is. There hasn’t been a time when anything would be difficult when it comes to Zitao. And it scares Jongdae how easy it had been for him to start feeling the way he does now. He hadn't really intended to. But by the way he finds himself staring at the way Zitao’s eyes scrunches up whenever he laughes at the simplest of things like Jongdae’s dinosaur cheekbones, or the way his heart speeds up when Zitao routinely takes his hand as they walk side by side on their way home.
He knows he's not in love just yet, and he isn't supposed to let it be. Zitao's just warm, like the summer sun in the middle of the day. And it won't be long before that warmth disappears to be replaced with the cold rain. It'll be easy for him, he hopes, to get over whatever he's feeling for Zitao.
He thinks, maybe he'd start feeling a little less for Zitao as each summer day passed. But as fall came, he knows that not even a change in season could change what has already started.
---
“Do you really not consider my sleep,” Jongdae says eyeing Baekhyun who’s holding a small plastic bag in his left hand, “at all?”
“I brought coffee!” he says, ignoring Jongdae’s question. “And Kyungsoo too, he should be outside with snacks!”
(Kyungsoo’s in the same position as he had been the last time, only he’s hugging a black plastic bag now.)
They’re gathered in the kitchen now, sharing ddeokbokki in silence before Baekhyun breaks it.
"So when are you going to introduce your boyfriend to us?" Baekhyun says, sipping on his coffee.
Jongdae furrows his eyebrows, "What are you talking about?"
"Don't act like we haven't noticed."
“Noticed what?”
“Your wall’s been screaming happy for a month now.”
"You know why I don't date." Jongdae says, laughing a little.
"I was the one who got dumped, not you. You shouldn't let other people's heartbreaks get to you." Baekhyun says nonchalantly. And it took everything in Jongdae not to say that it’s already too late because the image of Baekhyun's crooked smile as he inspected the long red lines jagged along the surface is still stuck in his head like fresh wounds that won't heal.
“But I did get dumped, remember?” Jongdae says, and Baekhyun visibly gulps.
The conversation’s about to go in a direction Jongdae knows he isn’t ready to face.
“I’ve got a gig coming up,” Kyungsoo says breaking the forming ice. He lets out a sigh of relief.
---
During Jongdae’s first year of high school, he finds out that he is fascinated with the way the boy’s lips who sat beside him on the fourth row curved up even if it isn’t really the first time that he’s seen it. His first love didn’t come straight and fast through his heart, it came with a turning point, cheeks dusted with red and the sense of familiarity that smile evokes. At the beginning, he shrugged it off as admiration. Months later, however, he invitably finds out the difference between love and admiration (it was love).
It scared Jongdae for a while and he didn’t plan on confessing at all. He was hoping it would pass just like that one time he had a crush on a girl in Primary school before he found out that his neighbor liked her too and they ended up fighting over her with rock-paper-scissors (no one won because they kept on cheating) and then they went home together drinking from the same orange juicebox. It marked the beginning of Baekhyun and his’ friendship.
He hadn’t planned on confessing, but he ended up doing just that when they were both inside the school’s restrooms. It was evening and it wasn’t Jongdae who initiated it but he was the one pulling on his tie as if he feared the kissing would stop if he didn’t. He confessed afterwards in a whim and the only thing that was said is “Can you kiss me again?” And Jongdae did. His lips were still a plump red, and his black hair a mess when he walked side by side with him; the taste of rejection still fresh from his lips. But a kiss was a kiss and Jongdae had been stubborn enough to chase after him in the most unconventional ways. He eventually gave in to Jongdae’s insistence and Jongdae couldn’t have been any happier.
His parents found out six months later, when Joonmyun broke up with him just because he’s scared they’d get caught (That’s why Joonmyun still tries so hard to make it up to him by setting him up with other people who could maybe give Jongdae the happiness he couldn’t give). It hurt him so bad, even his parents noticed. So he told them the truth, that his heart just got broken because of a boy.
His parents didn’t say anything. They just looked at him as if it’s the first time they’ve seen him. It’s probably true. They were blaming themselves. In the night, his parents didn’t know he’s heard them whisper from the room down the hallway when he couldn’t sleep that one time he happened to pass by, they whisper: Did we do anything wrong? Were we not good parents? If Jongdeok had been here, do you think...?
Jongdae's experienced quite a handful of second-hand heartbreaks. He puts them all in a list, unintentionally formatted and ordered chronologically in his mind. He never writes down his own heartbreaks. It isn't heartbreak anyway, when he chooses to ignore it and let time numb the pain until it doesn't feel like his heart's teared and battered at all. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes anyway. That way he doesn't have to be constantly reminded of the aching feeling inside his chest.
---
Zitao’s caught him staring a few times day by day that he could no longer count. It’s not like he could stop it, not looking at Zitao is harder than he thought it would be. He doesn’t even bother to look away when he gets caught. And Zitao doesn’t even bother to catch his stares anymore as the days pass by; that’s why Jongdae wonders if Zitao only stopped because he’s already figured it out.
---
"You like Zitao, don't you?" Joonmyun confronts him after dinner in Zitao's apartment. Zitao's in the bathroom bathing with Fengge. He doesn’t answer.
Joonmyun sighs, for a moment he closes his eyes (almost as if he had expected this to happen, almost), "Just be careful. You might’ve confused his friendliness. He isn't like us."
"You talk as if being gay is so wrong." Jongdae says, and Joonmyun taps on his shoulder.
“Just be careful.”
---
Jongdae spends Chuseok with Zitao and Fengge in Namsan Park. The crowd’s almost as huge as it is in Myeongdong and it’s a tight squeeze for the three of them in the cable car that Jongdae almost forgets how to breathe when his head’s nestles against Zitao’s chest.
“Why aren’t the leaves pink, baba?” Fengge asks, almost in the brink of tears. Zitao doesn’t answer and instead just pats his son’s head. Jongdae squeezed Fengge’s hand tighter and offered to buy ice cream.
On the last day, he visits Jongdeok’s grave and leaves a voice message to his parents wishing them a happy thanksgiving from where they are.
---
The first snow came a week earlier than expected. He was with Zitao at that time, and it was already snowing when they got out of the subway station.
“It’s beautiful.” Zitao says, reaching his hand out to hold Jongdae’s, observing how each drop of snow falls in motion. He looks like a kid, like Fengge.
“Your hands are cold.” he points out before bringing Jongdae’s hands together, dangerously close to his lips. For a moment Jongdae didn’t know what he was up to before he lets out a warm breathe and Jongdae could feel his temperature rise up for a little bit. Zitao’s smiling as he’s doing this, and Jongdae’s just hoping his tinted cheeks aren’t too obvious.
---
It was Zitao who phoned him first at one a.m in the morning when they started talking in hushed whispers just because Fengge’s already asleep and the both of them wouldn’t want him to wake up.
“I can’t sleep, hyung.” Zitao had said at that time. And the next time too, until it starts to become a routine none of them wanted to end. That’s when Jongdae gradually started calling him before Zitao does because he came to realize that Zitao's voice might as well be his lullaby.
---
It starts getting harder for Jongdae to stop whatever he’s feeling for Zitao when he started to get more touchy than just holding his hand.
It was innocent, really, when Zitao would lean his head ever so slightly when they ride the subway home and he'd tap Jongdae's thigh before getting off or when they both have the share an umbrella when they're walking to Zitao's building and the rain would be pouring so hard that Jongdae would pull him in by the shoulder to keep him from getting wet.
It isn't so smart of him though to talk about it with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo.
"So you want him to fuck you." Baekhyun states.
"I think it's Jongdae who wants to fuck him." Kyungsoo says, innocently as if Jongdae isn't just in front of him.
"Why am I even friends with you two." It isn't a question when an answer doesn’t exist. Jongdae starts to pity his past lives for having to deal with the two, if there is such a thing as a past life.
---
Sometimes Zitao would whisper stories in his ear while playing with their fingers on Jongdae's couch as innocent as he can unbeknownst of the effect he has on the other.
"Have you ever been in love?" Jongdae asks like it’s an everyday question. Zitao visibly stiffens, and stops. For a moment, Jongdae thought he wasn’t going to answer before he spoke.
"Do you know the story about the rice trees and cherry blossoms?"
"No."
"It's not much of a story anyway. Just a thought,” he laughs, a raspy one. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you love someone because you want to or you choose to love someone because you’d feel bad if you don’t...”
“And sometimes when you choose to love, it’s never perfect. Like cherry blossoms and rice trees. They never bloom at the same time and they never for long. Love dies, love lives. It’s never consistent. There’s never a time for just them.”
"I'm like that Jongdae-yah, I don't have the time and I..." his voice croaks "I don't think I can. I have Fengge, I know I'm not the best and sometimes it doesn't even seem like I'm even trying. But he's my everything, I'd give it all to him if I could."
A tear escapes from Zitao’s left eye. And before Jongdae could even attempt to wipe it away, Zitao moves away to the other side of the couch; as if he’s avoiding Jongdae’s touch. He wipes his own tears away and smiles at Jongdae as if assuring him he’s fine. His heart feels heavy and It feels like rejection. But how could Zitao reject him when he doesn’t even know a thing?
---
Jongdae drops by Zitao’s apartment on Christmas Eve.
“Keep yourself warm,” Jongdae says, wrapping the red scarf over Zitao’s neck and fixing it until it covers his nose.
“Thanks for this,” Zitao says, thumbing the fabric of the wool, and the other one on his hand which is the same scarf, only smaller and for Fengge.
Zitao gives him mittens in which Fengge refuses to let Zitao give to him. (“I’ll let you borrow this,” Jongdae promises before Fengge lets the mittens go.)
He heads out of Zitao’s apartment not even an hour later and he’s wearing the mittens now. It feels warm and he smiles.
---
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Jongdae says, holding a picture of Baekhyun with a caption that says, ‘aren’t i pretty? i’m yours now~’
“You should be honored. I only give myself to those who I love~” Baekhyun singsongs. Jongdae rolls his eyes.
“I gave you gift vouchers, and all I get is this?”
“You’re ELD’s manager. You probably got them for free.”
“Can’t argue with that.” he says, “Thanks for the vitamins though, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae says, Kyungsoo gave him a box filled with vitamins obviously bought on the way from Mini mart with small dinosaur chewables with ‘for that kid’ written on tape.
“No problem.”
“So how’s it going with you and daddy Zitao?” Baekhyun asks.
“Don’t call him that.” he scolds. He doesn’t answer and fortunately Baekhyun doesn’t ask any more further and instead asks another irrelevant one.
“Don’t you think it’s time you actually get a lightbulb? It’s always so dark in here.” Baekhyun states, it’s dark outside and the only source of light they have is the moonlight and the lamp. Jongdae shrugs.
---
Winter ends with Jongdae still stealing looks at Zitao and Zitao being oblivious to this. Zitao looks good with his red scarf on and Fengge steals his mittens once in a while with his red snapback over his bonnet. Every day he goes home to his dark apartment, before waiting for at least an hour before routinely calling Zitao on the phone even if it would just last for a few minutes before goodnight’s are exchanged and Jongdae could finally fall asleep with the promise of seeing Zitao and Fengge tomorrow. His heart grows heavy by the day, that it won’t be long before it would weigh him down and drop with no assurance if Zitao’s even there to catch it.
---
When the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, Zitao takes a week-off from Dumplings&Noodles and disappears from the face of the world. No one calls him after hours anymore and Zitao’s apartment is empty. He panics for a while before the door beside Zitao’s apartment bursts open with a grumpy Sehun.
As it turns out, Fengge’s staying next-door with Sehun and Jongin.
“He’s in China.” Sehun tells him with a finalized tone. “I don’t know what bussiness he has there. But he left little Tao with us.”
Zitao comes back a week later, only with bleached blond hair and a bruised cheek. He doesn’t tell Jongdae why and Jongdae doesn’t bother to ask.
---
"Can you come with me to Namsan?" Zitao asks him one early April night not even a week after coming back to Seoul. And its ridiculous how Jongdae didn’t even need to think before he agrees.
He takes a cab and walks the way to Namsan Park until he sees Zitao’s figure near the entrance holding a bunch of white daisies and a million stars.
“Help me with this,” handing over the million stars to Jongdae. He takes his hand and they enter the park with its ethereal glow. The sky’s violet above the flowers and the sight seems magical enough with Zitao plucking petal after petal and letting them ride with the wind. Jongdae does the same and they don’t talk as they’re doing this.
"I always take this walk alone.” he says, stopping on his tracks. A blossom lands on his hair. “It’s been seven years since Fengge’s mother died.” He’s never mentioned Fengge’s mother before. Jongdae reaches out to hold Zitao’s hand before he squeezes it as if he’s reassuring that everything’s okay.
"I built him a family," he tears, “I don’t feel like he could grow up with just me. So I built him a family.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.” he tells Zitao. And it’s not fair how even with a bruised cheek, and even when he’s crying, he’s still so beautiful. He’s about to wipe away his tears when Zitao kisses him. Underneath a cherry blossom tree with the falling petals and the glowing lights on them, from the moonlight above and the street lamp a few feet away from them. Jongdae responds and holds on Zitao’s cheek, making sure not to hold on too tightly because he might break.
It looks romantic, only it’s not.
They leave Namsan Park when they have no flowers left to scatter. They don’t talk about the kiss. But as soon as they enter Jongdae’s apartment, Zitao pushes him into the wall that Jongdae hasn’t painted for over a month, and crashes his lips into his.
---
Zitao isn’t like the summer sun. He’s the darkness he comes home to every day. And his smiles never reach his eyes no matter how much he does smile. There’s always going to be a part of Zitao that Jongdae knows the other won’t let him see. He might not even get to know why Zitao went home with a bruised cheek. And there’s so much that Jongdae doesn’t know about Zitao because he rarely even talks about himself in the first place. But Jongdae likes to think that he knows him, he knows that he likes to walk while holding hands, and that he’s protective over Fengge all the time— and it’s enough, he supposes.
---
Zitao stops kissing him and it’s too dark for Jongdae to tell why.
"Jongdae-yah," he says, and they’re so close. “Can I tell you something?”
They’re in the fire escape this time and his heart’s beating fast already, not only with nervousness but because Zitao looks genuinely scared. Like he’s done something wrong and he’s about to get punished.
“To feel secure ,” he starts, “It’s not something I can have.” Jongdae’s looking at him and Zitao doesn’t catch it and instead looks away. “I’m always going to be trapped in fear.”
Jongdae wanted to say, “No, you don’t have to be scared. I’m here.” But he doesn’t.
“I know how you feel about... about me. I’m not as clueless as I may look like. Just—“
“Can you not say anything,” Jongdae interrupts. He doesn’t want to hear the next words anymore. “I like you. I admit. But it’s just... just that. It’s really nothing.” he lies. His voice shakes and he hopes it isn’t much of a giveaway.
“I didn’t mean to...”
“It’s nothing, I know. It’s okay. I know how loneliness feels like.”
“It isn’t that it’s nothing, I just can’t.” Zitao says. “It’s Fengge. I wouldn't want him to grow up with a family he wouldn't want to be part of. I don’t want him to grow up knowing I’m gay. I hope you understand.”
“It’s okay,” Jongdae says, although it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself more than Zitao. “I’m okay. There’s no reason not to be.”
“If it’s okay though,” Jongdae asks. And he probably sounds desperate. But he doesn’t care anymore. “I wouldn’t mind it if we kiss again.” It’s the only thing he can have, anyway. So he’ll take what he can get. No matter how bitter reality tastes like.
Zitao doesn’t go home and spends it with Jongdae on the bed because he’s too tired to even move. And as Jongdae holds him in his sleep, he wonders if his heart wishes to beat its way out to wake Zitao up. It isn't fair, he thinks, that his heartbeat would be frantic just at the thought of him while Zitao's wouldn't. Jongdae didn’t get any sleep, he didn’t want to sleep anyway, so he waits for the sun to come up before he wakes Zitao up.
“I’ll take you home. Fengge’s probably waiting for you now.” he whispers to his ear and he feels Zitao nod.
The words, “I’m sorry.” comes out from Zitao’s mouth and Jongdae really wished he hadn’t.
---
The walk to Zitao’s apartment feels shorter than it really is, he figures it’s because it feels like his head is elsewhere that he can’t even feel his steps anymore. He sees Fengge’s outside playing with Sehun and Jongin. He greets Zitao first with a hug before Zitao dismisses him and tells him he’s tired and not to play outside too long because it’s cold.
“Harabeoji?” Fengge says right after Zitao enters the apartment building, “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” he smiles, “there’s no reason not to be, right?”
---
Jongdae calls his house phone in Bucheon the moment he steps back inside his apartment and nobody answers. He opts to dial his father’s roaming number and his father doesn’t pick up.
He enters the laundry room and takes out a three bottles of paint and gloves. He starts coating the walls with blue, grey and black before they all come together that the colors are no longer recognizable. He ends it with messy caligraphy before the door opens; it’s Kyungsoo.
“Learn how to knock.” he says before continuing with his destructive masterpiece.
“Learn how to lock the door.”
“Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asks. Jongdae sighs.
“How can you still sing even when you already gave up on your dream?” he asks.
“Because I love singing.”
“How about you Jongdae-yah,” Kyungsoo says. “Why’d you start painting your walls?”
Jongdae doesn’t answer.
“We didn’t ask before because we know you didn’t want to talk about it. But Jongdae,” Kyungsoo pauses as if waiting for the right words to spill out, “It’s been years.”
Jongdae shrugs, “I don’t see what’s so wrong with it.”
“You’re trying to cover the wrong with paint, quite literally if you ask me.” Jongdae looks at him with an unreadable expression before Kyungsoo puts his hands up in surrender, “I get it. But sometimes you have to stop thinking about other people’s feelings and start thinking about yours, not just for pretend.”
“Okay.” Jongdae says, hoping the conversation would come to an end.
“I have a gig coming up next week, you better come.” Jongdae nods.
“Oh and Jongdae,” Kyungsoo says before closing the door, “Open your eyes. Open your heart.”
---
Zitao visits him in ELD the next afternoon with Fengge and he’s trying to make things easy again with his smiles. It bothers Jongdae for a bit but it’s not like he could tell Zitao to stop.
“Harabeoji,” Fengge says, “Are you sure you’re okay?” There’s no point in hiding things from a kid, he sighs.
“Just a little...”
“Sad?” Fengge asks. “I know how to fix that.” he motions Jongdae to crouch down to his level so Jongdae does.
“What are you doing?” Jongdae asks when Fengge starts to run his little hand, up and down Jongdae’s back.
“Doesn’t your appa do this to you when you feel sad?” Fengge asks the question innocently. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know the effect of his words. Jongdae smiles and his eyes are sparkling.
“My father isn’t around anymore.”
“How about umma? Noona? Hyung? Dongsaeng?”
“No one.” His smile grows, a little bigger, a little bitter. Fengge gasps, cute little hands clasp around his mouth in disbelief before he calms down.
“Well you have me, harabeoji. And baba too.” he says, his words feels so heavy and he doesn’t even know. “So don’t feel sad anymore.”
---
Joonmyun asks him to have lunch in Dumplings&Noodles, he unconciously looks for Zitao when he remembers Zitao doesn’t work in the day.
“Why’d you bring me here the first time?” he asks Joonmyun as they’re eating their bowl of kalguksus. Joonmyung stops and sets his chopsticks aside before looking at Jongdae in the eye.
“I know you like children. Happy ones, they remind you of yourself of the time when...”
“Jongdeok-hyung was alive?” Joonmyun doesn’t answer for a few seconds before he nods.
“I like it when you’re happy.”
“You know you don’t owe me anything,” he says, and he means it. “It’s not your fault I became like this.”
“I didn’t think you’d fall for Zitao,” Joonmyun says, “I’m—“
“Don’t be.” Jongdae smiles, stopping Joonmyun. He looks hurt but Jongdae doesn’t mind that much, because he’s heard enough apologies in his lifetime that he’s grown sick of it.
---
Jongdae comes to Kyungsoo’s gig as promised and he finds himself slightly and drunkenly telling Baekhyun and Kyungsoo about Zitao.
"So you fucked him.” Baekhyun deadpans.
"No. I think it's Jongdae who did the fucking." Kyungsoo says, Baekhyun looks at him incredulously.
"No fucking happened.”
"Oh, so that's why you're extra grumpy today. I should've known.”
He continues with his story as light-hearted as he can making it seem more like a joke and less sad. And it seems to work even though he knows Bekhyun and Kyungsoo are just acting as if he isn’t hurting because they both know that’s just how Jongdae is. Always has, and always will be.
---
They kiss more than often now. Behind the closed doors of Jongdae’s apartment when no one else is around.
He's also noticed how Zitao never holds his hand in front of Fengge the same time he realized that he's never seen Zitao hold another person's hand other than his or Fengge's. He doubts whether or not his habit is applicable to other people other than the two of them. It makes him special in some ways, like how he feels whenever his fingers thumb through Zitao's hair and the way his lips would move against his.
It isn't much of a rejection when Zitao whimpers a little with each touch or smile up at him with beads of sweat lined on his forehead before kissing him without much haste. It isn't acceptance either, when Zitao whispers "I'm sorry." and act as if nothing happened the next day.
They're somewhere in between, maybe.
---
It’s dark and Zitao’s already fallen asleep. He hasn’t turned the lamp off from the bedside drawer. So he’s left with staring at Zitao’s calm face.
"Why can’t you love me?" he whispers, tracing a map along the slope from Zitao's collarbones to his shoulder. The answer comes faster than he expected it to when Zitao opens his eyes and it only took one look from Zitao before the words start to spill inside his mind.
Fengge. White flowers. Cherry blossoms. Namsan. You don't know how long it took me to build him his family. I was seventeen. It was hard. I wouldn't want him to grow up with a family he wouldn't want to be part of. I'd give it all to him if I could. I never thought you would. Stop, I can't. I can't love—I can't love you.
It felt as if Zitao’s speaking to him, when he’s not.
Jongdae retracts his hand from Zitao's skin like he would've if his fingers caught aflame. His hand feels the chill almost instantly, and he should've turned the heater up earlier because the cold only reminds him that he can't have Zitao the way he'd want him to be his.
"I'm sorry," he hears Zitao whisper.
---
There’s a reason why Jongdae’s removed the ceiling lights from his apartment and only has a lamp as a light on. It’s so he doesn’t have to close his eyes for everything to fade into black because it reminds him of high school days back in Bucheon.
"Just close your eyes," Baekhyun had said, holding Jongdae's hand with his left. "And it will be okay."
And he would close his eyes and say, "You're right," Even though with each darkness came the glances his parents casted for months after realizing just how little they know of him. There's Baekhyun and his breakdown that destroyed him into pieces leaving him and Kyungsoo to tape the remains of him back together. And then there's Kyungsoo, poor Kyungsoo and his tears staining the ripped up contract vowing he would never sing again.
It's untrue, really, how closing one's eyes to reality would make everything okay. But still, Jongdae has found comfort in the dark. Only now did he realize that darkness didn’t just provide him comfort, it had been his escape.
And this, this is what he gets for escaping for too long.
---
Jongdae has experienced quite a handful of second-hand heartbreaks.
He doesn't write that time when he's eight and Jongdeok's bed on the other side of the room remains unoccupied or his parents. There are no records written about all the unanswered phone calls and buckets and sprays of paint. The photograph flipped backwards, taped on his wall stay
He writes about Baekhyun's scars, and Kyungsoo’s hopelessness. He writes about Joonmyun who couldn’t accept himself. There won’t be anything written about a certain Huang Zitao who refuses to let anyone hold his heart but himself.
---
Jongdae spends summer night after summer night repainting his walls in shades of artlessness. He goes on a trip to Jeju with Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and tries to forget Zitao in the day and before he surrenders and calls him around midnight when he’s the only one awake.
When fall came, Baekhyun calls him more often even though Jongdae knows he's too busy with graduate studies. Kyungsoo would drop by in his apartment every now and then. They don't argue about who fucks who in Jongdae and Zitao's relationship and Jongdae doesn't talk about Zitao anymore. He wonders when loving Zitao became as sad as it is now. He should've seen it coming anyway, there’s no reason for him to say he didn’t mean to fall so hard.
---
"We're drinking.” Baekhyun says holding a plastic bag filled with green bottles. “Kyungsoo’s outside. He’s already drunk.” And he enters the apartment in less than fluid motion. He’s probably drunk too.
He walks out and sees the same Kyungsoo on their third year of high school with his broken dream. After all the years, he’s still the same. He’s hurting too. He wakes Kyungsoo up and they stumble inside the living room. Weaving through the darkness.
Their friendship had came a long way, and here they are now. Gathered in his living room, still in the dark.
“Do you know why I did what I did when I got dumped?” No one answers but Baekhyun continues his story anyway, “I wanted to know if anything would hurt in the outside because I felt like shit on the inside. It wasn’t only because he left me, there are other reasons, that’s why there’s so many. So I started and stopped on the 112th right before it ends on my wrist. I didn’t feel a thing. Then you guys came and it started to sting and...”
“You don’t have to talk about it.” Jongdae says, attempting to take away the bottle from Baekhyun to stop him from drinking.
“But I have to,” he says, tears streaming down his face. “You know you have to do this too. It’s time to wake up.”
---
Jongdae still calls Zitao around midnight because he knows it's the only time he'd let him call.
Sometimes they don't talk at all just because they have nothing left to say. Jongdae likes to listen to Zitao's breath until it evens. As it always have been, it’s still his lullaby. Sometimes when they're alone, Zitao forgets about a lot of things. Sometimes, Jongdae tries hard not to understand why Zitao doesn't like it when he tries to take care of him. Most especially whenever Fengge's around. Sometimes his heart stings. But it isn’t as if there is anything that could still be done about that.
And anyway, Zitao's still sorry. So it’s fine, he presumes.
(But Jongdae would like to pretend he isn't. Sometimes he likes to imagine that Zitao hasn’t told him to stop because he wants him as much as he does too. Not because he pities him, not because it’s all he can give, but because he maybe loves him just the same. They don't do anything more than kissing and touching. But that's okay, Zitao still wears the red scarf he gave him the first Christmas and everything he's given to Zitao except maybe, his heart. Zitao doesn't let his heart out on his sleeve. But sometimes Jongdae thinks that he doesn't have to because whenever he would let his hand linger too long on Zitao's chest and he would feel his heart beating fast. If it means making Zitao’s heartbeat in sync with his, Jongdae wouldn't mind. If Zitao's love came in empty bottles, he'll take what he can get until his heart drowns.)
---
It is the beginning of January and Jongdae has his left hand in his coat's pocket and the other wound tightly around a tiny clothed one. The cold wind bites him and his fingers feel slicked with ice and maybe it wouldn't have if he hadn't given his mittens to Fengge.
In retrospect, the first time had his hands almost go blue and numb with throwing snowballs in the air. On most days, it would be Fengge refusing to wear his small ones preferring the warmth from Jongdae's own. Zitao always tells him to just bring an extra pair whenever they're out and he would have his hands warmed by Zitao's breath before he lets Jongdae slip his hand through his. And every time he looks at their interlaced fingers, Jongdae wonders if Zitao's already figured it out.
"Harabeoji," Fengge says as they pass the crosswalk. "Can I call you appa?"
“Nope,” he pops, “You can call me hyung though, like you’re supposed to.” he looks at Fengge before flashing his signature teeth smile, Fengge looks at him with a blank expression, his face like that makes the resemblance between him and Zitao prominent.
“No thanks. Harabeoji sounds okay.” He tugs Fengge's hand a little too hard that the mitten almost slips off. Jongdae smiles apologetically.
---
It’s time to wake up.
---
Namsan Park isn’t as crowded as it usually is when they visit. That’s when Jongdae decides to begin.
“Can I tell you something?” Jongdae asks, Zitao responds by squeezing there hands tighter.
“My parents they left me,” he starts. “They didn’t mean to the last time but it doesn’t make it any less painful. pretending isn’t new to me, I know it isn’t right to lie to myself but it’s the only way I could cope,” Zitao tightens his hold, their pace slows down although they both don’t notice. “I got people to believe I just matured when I found out so they thought I just grew out of being . It was also around that time when I started obssessing over painting my apartment wall. Jongdeok-hyung liked painting. His side of the room was always painted with colors I couldn’t understand before he passed. I couldn’t understand why he does that, but now, I do.”
“I’ve never told anyone, even myself. I’m only saying this now because I think I’ve closed my eyes from the truth far too long.” he fights the tears but he’s defeated. “It’s time to wake up.”
“They probably love you, you know,” Zitao tells him, for the longest time.
“Maybe. But we’re too distant now, there isn’t a way to tell anymore.”
“There is,” Zitao smiles and looks over to Fengge who was looking up to the cherry blossom trees.
“Baba, why are there no pink leaves? You said the reason why Namsan has trees with pink leaves is because mama makes them pink because she knows I like them? Doesn’t mama love my anymore?”
“Mama’s busy making the pink leaves pretty for you. I’ll bring you next time when mama’s done making them pretty.” Zitao says, and Fengge’s face brightens.
“Really baba?”
“Really!”
Fengge starts dancing alone with the falling cherry blossoms and the sight makes Jongdae feel warm on the inside.
“I thought families were only forced to love each other because it’s so wrong not to, I didn’t believe it was real before I met you and Fengge,” Jongdae confesses eyeing the falling cherry blossoms. There’s a lump on his throat and he couldn’t stop his voice from wavering. “I know how much you love Fengge. I— I understand.”
Zitao doesn’t say anything. He just holds Jongdae’s hand tighter their knuckles turn white.
Love isn’t that hard to find. It’s finding out if someone loves you the same way that you do that makes it difficult. It’s what blinds a person into thinking they aren’t loved when in truth, they are. They just don’t see it. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s not in the way you’d want it to be. A heart needs to be held, and love isn’t supposed to be rejected no matter what form it comes in.
---
The walk to Zitao’s apartment is the same as it always have been since Winter began, with semi-cold hands except he’s carrying Fengge on his back because he’s sleeping. Zitao turns the heater up as soon as they enter the apartment. And Jongdae wordlessly weaves his way to the bedroom.
Fengge flutters his eyes open as Jongdae tucks him in.
“Go back to sleep,” he tells him.
“Harabeoji...” Fengge whispers as sleep starts to take its toll on him, “I really want to call you Appa.”
Jongdae smiles. His eyes are sparkling again.
“You can’t.” he says, voice breaking, because it’s the truth. In a few years, if he’s still around to witness him grow up, he’d think differently. He wouldn’t want to call him appa once he finds out he is pathetically in love with his baba. He could see Zitao watching them by the doorway at the corner of his eye. Head leaning and arms crossed. Jongdae couldn’t read his expression. He turns his back, and Jongdae stays there, observing the way Fengge’s face become solemn with each minute. But then—
There’s a crash. Then another. He leaves and finds shards of glass scattering the floor of the living room and Zitao looks just as broken as the mirror. He’s about to throw the chair again before Jongdae stops him.
“Fengge’s sleeping,” Jongdae says, holding Zitao down from his elbows. “Calm down.” And he snaps.
“What the fuck is this?!” Zitao screams. “Why are you like this? Why are you so nice? Why are you still around? I... I... don’t understand.”
“Zitao...”
“I didn’t think I’d meet anyone who’d love Fengge almost as much as I do,” he laughs, even with all the tears on his face. “It’s weird. I feel like i don’t have to worry about anything when it comes to you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere.” he tells him, before caging him within his arms as if he’s afraid to let go.
Fengge’s sleeping only a few feet away. And there’s so much to risk. But maybe, it’ll be worth it.
---
His apartment walls had grown old with paint. That it’s starting to look like it’s been made a monster. A monster. Is that what he’s turned into these past few months—years?
It’s time to wake up.
“Are you ready?” Zitao asks him. A bottle of paint thinner in his hand.
“A new beginning,” he tells him before taking down the layers of paint of his walls.
“I didn’t know there was something taped backwards here,” Zitao notices, peeling the masking tape off from the wall before looking at it. Jongdae stops thinning the paint and glances over at the picture. It’s a family picture.
“That’s me,” he points, “That’s appa, umma... and Jongdeok-hyung.”
“They love you.” Zitao says.
“I know.”
It’s silent before Zitao hands over the photograph to Jongdae. He heads over to his room and puts it inside the dresser drawer. Maybe he’ll buy a frame for it soon.
“I didn’t know my name’s been painted all over,” Zitao says as Jongdae returns, “I think I was too busy looking at our hands to look elsewhere.”
The paint’s growing thin now, almost back to it’s original form before he started painting over it, “I’ll bring out the white paint.” he tells Zitao.
A new beginning, indeed.
---
Zitao’s wearing the red scarf as the both of them walk along the streets of Myeongdong and he’s singing this time, holding the white flowers in his hand. Zitao needs a new beginning too. People were starting to look in their direction but it only makes Jongdae sing even louder.
“Stop that,” Zitao tells him but he doesn’t stop, his voice louder than everything else. Zitao’s smiling this time and tightens his hold on Jongdae’s hand.
---
“I want to puke,” Baekhyun says, handing the camera back to Jongdae as he enters the apartment at two a.m with Kyungsoo beside him. He turns the lights on before settling himself on Jongdae’s couch. “Never ask me to video tape any of your cheesy shit again.”
“You were great,” Kyungsoo says. “I still sing better than you though. But you were close enough.”
The three of them sit down on the couch, looking above.
“I like it better when it isn’t dark,” Baekhyun says. “Don’t you think so?”
Jongdae smiles in response and closes his eyes. And even when everything’s black it doesn’t feel so dark anymore.
---
Jongdae’s installed the last of the ceiling lights in his bedroom when the night has fallen. And his apartment’s never been this bright. He falls down his back on the bed and Zitao lies beside him, a few inches away.
“Harabeoji,” Zitao whispers as he turns his head to him.
“Stop that.”
“Harabeoji,” he repeats.
“Why are you like this?”
“Harabeoji~”
“What did I do to deserve this?” he laughs, before trapping Zitao into a hug. He kisses his temple, and none of them moves as they find comfort in each other’s arms.
“I’m—“ Zitao says, and just with his tone, Jongdae already knows what the next words would’ve been if he hadn’t stopped.
“Don’t start.”
“I was selfish. I only thought—“
“Let’s just stay like this. Let’s not talk.” He hugs Zitao tighter.
“And my past—“
“I don’t have to know your past. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“It matters.”
“I know. But there’s another time for that.” Zitao doesn’t push anymore further and holds unto Jongdae almost as tight as Jongdae is holding him, it goes on for minutes.
“Fengge’s turning nine soon.” Zitao says. “It matters,” he copies Jongdae. “But there’s another time for that.”
---
“Everyone thinks I’m boring now, you know,” Jongdae says as they walk. “You’re all I ever talk about when i’m with other people. They say I’m too repetive with my stories.”
“I’m all you ever talk about even when you’re with me,” Zitao points out. He isn’t wrong. “You should stop that.”
“Should I really?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to bring your own mittens.” Zitao says, bringing both of Jongdae’s hands, warming them with his breath before letting them slip together with his hands. Maybe he’s already figured it out.
“Fengge-yah, you should hold harabeoji’s hand.”
“I don’t want to. His hands are too cold even with mittens.”
He feels another hand find its way to his free hand. The fabric of the mitten grazing his cold fingertips. Jongdae looks at Fengge.
“I’m only agreeing to this because baba told me to,” Fengge sticks his tongue out. “Can I call you appa now?”
He turns to Zitao and he’s smiling now, in a way he’s never had before.
Jongdae's never been aware of familial love until he's twenty-four and falls in love with the way his hands feel warm with Zitao’s breath and how his cheeks tingle as it turns a light shade of red (and how it’s cold and he knows it isn’t the only reason why his cheeks are red).
Zitao laughs, and ruffles Fengge’s hair, tightening his hold on Jongdae’s hand. And Jongdae knows, as he looks at their intertwined hands, he could get used to this.
Author’s note: this fic is a unfinished in most parts but i do hope it is at least readable i really wish i could write more but i can’t rn and i apologize to dear prompter in advance (i’ll make up for it some other time!) thank you