Work Text:
i called out to the shore
but no one heard me
& for a moment i did not exist
Sam Sax, Hydrophobia
Kai doesn’t know where the beginning of his story would be, where he’d start to tell it if asked. He used to believe everything had a clear beginning, he believed you could trace everything back to its start, to the very first pebble, the very first wave. The genesis.
Now he isn’t so sure.
If he had to start this story somewhere, maybe he’d start here:
Kai thinks the void inside him feels particularly heavy today. Which is weird considering it is supposed to be empty.
He goes about his day as he normally would. A perfect rehearsed routine polished by habit and time. He wakes up to his third alarm— never the first —goes to the bathroom, takes a shower. Makes himself some breakfast and leaves for work.
He walks there since it’s not too far— nothing in this town is very far from anything —it’s an institute, they teach a lot of cultural things so as they don’t die out. Dancing, painting, singing and musical instruments. They teach other things too but Kai hasn’t been too bothered to learn the entire curriculum.
He teaches piano, mostly to kids but he has a teenager and some adults he has to teach as well. His predecessor told him most kids quit once they actually develop a personality that isn’t a reflection of their own parents, a reflection of what they wish they had learned. But some kids stay. He’d told him he’d figure out which ones would stay with time.
He doesn’t consider himself a good teacher, perhaps decent. The kids like him enough to pay attention (mostly, when they are on their best behaviour). Grace, the only teen, says he’s too modest but that may just be her innocent crush on him talking. She’s quite endearing and most importantly, talented and diligent in her learning.
Kai probably likes her best.
While it is not what he envisioned himself doing for a living, it covers his bills just fine and he doesn't dislike it. He loves the piano, he just isn’t too convinced about the teaching part. He hopes to grow more into it, figure out his own teaching style. Sometimes he finds himself feeling almost fulfilled, watching the little kids playing Chopin at their recitals without missing a note— some only missing one instead of three.
Today however, that almost sense of fulfillment is not there, the void remains ever present.
And that heavy feeling is still there. Weird.
It doesn’t go away, not even when Grace finally manages to play that particular piece she had been struggling with for weeks perfectly.
He goes back home in the evening after exchanging some words with another professor, a dance professor, apparently she’s stepping down and moving with her sister. Says the new hire is probably even a better dancer than she herself is. Kai assures her she’s quite good and her students love her, it is the truth after all.
Kai has never been a good liar.
Tells her they have yet to see if they are as good at teaching as she is and she only smiles.
It is only when he’s preparing himself to finally sleep, applying cream to his face, that something within him stirs. He hears the distinctive sound of footsteps, then soft arms he recognises wrap around his waist from behind, and he doesn’t flinch.
He sighs in contentment, he feels safe. The void starts to fill, the name of the owner of the arms in the tip of his tongue, he starts to turn when a kiss in the shape of his name, Kai, is delivered to the back of his neck, tender.
But when he turns around the arms are gone, the man is gone, the name melts on his tongue, almost forgotten. The void starts to empty again—
No.
No, this isn’t where he would start.
Let’s do it again.
Kai moved to this town when he was only twenty and trying to get away from everything. The city felt suffocating, deafening with all the people— strangers —in it and somehow, he felt lonelier than ever. Maybe he was looking for something when he left. Maybe something called his name.
Or someone.
Kai has dreamt about him before. Fox-like eyes and full of wonder, a mole right next to it. Long legs tangled with his own on the bed sheets, giggles falling from plump lips and hands tracing nameless shapes on his chest or back.
Other than his laugh, the only other thing the beautiful man would say in his dreams was his name. And it sounded like a prayer every time.
When Kai wakes up, the void is not there this time. (Has there ever been a— wait
Kai turns to his side where he knows the man with fox-like eyes is and looks at him, he’s already awake and looking at him. He’s beautiful. The man smiles so he supposes he has said it out loud, doesn’t matter, the man knows he’s beautiful, he can tell in the way his smile is more endearing than shy.
He knows him but he doesn’t remember him.
And yet he knows that he is in love with him.
The man kisses him and Kai kisses him back. There has never been something so easy and natural in his life before. This is a habit and he knows that pulling on his bottom lip will have him whimpering.
He pulls and then thinks there it is— that whimper that could undo him if followed by a plea.
He kisses him until his name is finally free from the confines of the tip of his tongue—
“Yeonjun.” He whispers against his lips, like a confession. Like a discovery.
He smiles, his eyes almost disappearing and then he kisses Kai again.
Kai could kiss him all day but the sound of his alarm pulls him out of the kiss. He stretches to turn it off and then groans as he drops his head on Yeonjun’s chest.
“You have to get up,” Yeonjun giggles, combing his finger through Kai’s hair.
Kai leaves a kiss on his naked sternum, “I know.”
So he does, but not before kissing Yeonjun again even as he keeps giggling.
Yeonjun doesn’t have to get up yet, his lessons start later in the day so he stays in bed; Kai has morning classes with Grace today and she’s very punctual. Diligent in her learning.
Kai makes breakfast and leaves some in the stove for Yeonjun, who has probably gone back to sleep by now but will wake up probably to his third alarm.
Kai goes on with his day. Arrives at the institute and Grace is already waiting outside the piano room. She’s fifteen minutes early.
They start the lesson and during her break she asks Kai about a piece her friend is practicing on the violin. Kai doesn’t play the violin but he indulges in the conversation nonetheless.
“My friend says this piece reminds her of a honey bee.” She plays the recording for him with wide expectant eyes.
He nods as he listens, he can see why this particular piece would evoke the memory of a bee so he sees why her friend would think that, but he follows up anyway, as he suspects Grace wants him to, eager to tell him something, “Really?”
“Yeah, but it actually reminds me more of a hummingbird. Have you ever seen one?” She smiles then, like she will let him in on a secret. “They say that if a hummingbird flies over your head and circles it ten times, that it will grant you a wish.”
He chuckles in surprise at her comment and her smile only wides proudly.
It is after a couple of hours that he finishes all his lessons for the day; like muscle memory he visits a very specific classroom.
One where he knows Yeonjun is currently teaching at.
Kai watches from the door as Yeonjun dances in front of a group as they try to follow his movements, it’s a beautiful routine. Yeonjun moves in a way that speaks to Kai’s soul. If Yeonjun could no longer speak he would dance, of that Kai is sure.
Minutes flow by and then the students are starting to leave the classroom, Kai watches from the door as Yeonjun slides down a wall until he’s sitting on the floor, he’s still panting a bit. When he spots Kai his eyes crinkle as he smiles and beckons him closer into the room.
“How long have you been watching?”
Kai sits down next to him on the floor, “Only a couple of minutes.”
“Well, what did you think?” Yeonjun is still smiling, love and adoration present on his face.
He ponders for a second, looking for the right words that will actually mean something, Yeonjun doesn’t just want the thoughtless praise, he wants an honest opinion, however cruel. Which is perfect because Kai has never been a good liar.
“I think that while it was beautiful, you put so much energy at the beginning that at the end— your students are almost collapsing.” He giggles as he says the last bit, it is true, Yeonjun may be able to keep up with it but his students are still green.
Yeonjun cackles as well but nods, he’s taking his feedback seriously.
“I will keep that in mind, thank you, good sir.” He even does a little gesture of taking off his imaginary hat and Kai rolls his eyes playfully at him.
They go home together early in the evening. They walk hand in hand.
Once they are home they decide to cook together, something simple, some pasta. Yeonjun mentions they should get some fresh shrimp at the market tomorrow.
Kai talks about what Grace said about the hummingbirds.
It is mostly Yeonjun doing all the work, Kai mostly helps wash the dishes.
Yeonjun is done with the cooking and kisses Kai’s cheek as he tells him he’s going to go to the bathroom real quick and asks him to start setting the table.
He walks out of the kitchen and Kai can see from his periphery the light coming from the door as Yeonjun turns the light on. Moments later he can hear the door being opened and suddenly the light turns off but there’s no distinctive sound of footsteps.
There’s a buzzing sound filling his ears, it gets a little harder to breath as he feels a void—
A void. A void emptying inside of him—
He calls for Yeon–
What was his name again? It’s on the tip of his tongue but he’s frozen on his spot and then—
—pause.
There’s something you need to see first— something you need to understand.
When Kai’s mind seems to break to the whims of God— the whims of Time, he goes to the library.
He’s not exactly a reader but his mother once told him that books can hold more answers than he could ever imagine, he only needed to find the right book.
He goes to the science section and finds a book that catches his eye, Endings and Beginnings.
Kai sits further in the back, hiding from the possibility of someone he knows spotting him and asking him what he’s reading, or even worse, why.
He needs to understand. His heart cannot keep living with this— waking up to a bed lacking a warm body, going home and expecting to be met by familiar arms and memorised kisses and then being met with an empty house.
Because he’s there one second and then he isn’t. He’s there all day and come next morning he isn’t. And Kai has asked around, only to find out he was never there to begin with.
So he reads.
Chapter 14. Time playing God
It is a common belief that time runs its course at a chronological linear pace. Time after all is the indefinite extended momentum of existence and events in the past, present, and future observed in full.
Time, however, likes to play God— God likes to play time. And its desire to play, it becomes cruel to its one capricious chaos and some may get tangled in its wrath.
If you happen to be one of those, don’t test it. You just have to trust it.
Kai felt that was unbearably useless.
So he resorts to another chapter.
And surprisingly enough, he seems to find something useful. Something about the intertwining of the future and the past— So now he understands, Yeonjun isn’t here but he will be. He will be.
It’s not that he doesn’t remember him— in a way he does. Because remembering means bringing forth to his mind and heart something he has already lived. Something from the past. But he won’t find Yeonjun in his past in a linear perception of his life.
It’s not that he doesn’t know him yet. Except he does, the birthmark on his pubic line, the perfect line of his jaw, that tiny scar under his brow and how his lips get all swollen and just the perfect shade of pink when Kai kisses him too much.
The thing is— the thing is, they haven’t met yet.
Right now in the present, they have yet to meet.
So if I were to take this line as a symbolism to their story— and pinpoint the exact moment in their story in which they are, Yeonjun would be a little too much to the right and Kai a little too much too the left and who is to say which one is the past and which one is the future— they just have to meet in the middle.
And now that text is no longer unbearably useless, is it?
You just have to trust it.
—Yeonjun emerges from the bathroom.
Kai lets out a relieved sigh at the sight of him. He doesn’t take his eyes off him, Yeonjun is looking at him amused. As soon as he’s within distance, Kai embraces him.
Yeonjun giggles a little as he hugs him back and they rock back and forth in the embrace. Kai just needs to feel him, needs to know that he’s still here. And it seems that Yeonjun understands that so he doesn’t say anything about Kai not setting the table and lets himself be held.
When they pull apart after a while, they just look at each other for a moment— and this is something Kai has always longed for, to look into someone’s eyes and to see himself reflected in them.
That’s one of the things he loves about Yeonjun, he saw himself in his eyes. The same quiet yet simmering desperation to be complete.
And Kai remembers what Grace said.
They say that if a hummingbird flies over your head and circles it ten times, it will grant you a wish. Kai has never seen a hummingbird but he knows what he would wish for.
Roll credits.
Stop.
Start again.
I will tell you their story.
The first time they met— not the first time they saw each other. The first time they met was on the beach. Kai had woken up in the middle of the night, he had dreamt about Him— Yeonjun —and it had felt so real. His skin under the tip of his fingers, under his palms, and the slight tremble when he got goosebumps.
He could almost smell him. Taste him.
He couldn’t go back to sleep and he swore he heard his name being called from far away and in a moment of impulse, he responded. In a moment, he existed.
Without realising it he found himself in the beach, walking barefoot through the sand, crescent moon high in the sky, the sound of waves the only thing he could hear— he could no longer hear his name being called.
And yet the only thing he cared enough to notice was him.
Yeonjun was sitting alone in the middle of the beach in the sand, with his arm over his knees and his head atop his arm, looking at the never ending dance of the waves against the shore.
Back and forth, never ending.
He stops right there next to him and he sits, Yeonjun doesn’t flinch. Kai doesn’t look at his face yet. He isn’t ready.
Without even looking at him, Yeonjun asks him, “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
There’s a moment of silence, none of them say anything, Yeonjun is still not looking at him but he has ever so slightly leaned a little to get closer to Kai. Just a few millimeters but sometimes. sometimes, a few millimeters is enough distance to start a kiss.
Why wouldn’t it be enough now?
Kai— still not looking. not yet. Soon— asks, “What’s your name?”
“Yeonjun.”
Kai hums and waits for the question but it never comes, “You’re not gonna ask for my name?”
“I know who you are. I’ve been waiting for you, Kai.”
And now Kai looks at him. Yeonjun.
Yeonjun is already looking at him, smirk on his lips and Kai has the sudden impulse of kissing it away. Scandalous, he just met the man. But he knows him. They just had to meet.
Unbeknownst to Kai, a smile spreads across his lips, his soul recognises the soul in front of him even if his mind still refuses to accept it.
Kai leans closer a few millimeters more.
“Where do you know me from? I don’t think we’ve actually met.”
Yeonjun doesn’t answer right away, he moves one of his arms and starts drawing shapeless forms on the sand with his finger. After a minute, he stops and murmurs, “from my dreams.”
That makes Kai chuckle, not because it sounds ridiculous— it does, but that’s not why he chuckles, no, he chuckles because it finally feels like the uncertainty he’s been living is starting to make sense.
He can hear a giggle leave Yeonjun’s mouth as well.
“I think I might be losing it.”
Yeonjun looks at him with soft eyes, “I thought I was losing it too.”
“Was?”
“I think now my anchor has found me”
Kai knows what he’s referring to, but he asks anyway, “What do you mean?”
And with a voice just as soft as his eyes, says, “You finally found me.”
“I didn’t even know I was looking for you.” And it’s not a lie, he didn’t know he was, maybe he didn’t realise he was. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to admit it.
“Doesn’t matter.” Yeonjun finally closes the distance and leaves a short kiss on Kai’s lips, it feels like coming home. “You’re here now.”
Hours later, once the sun is starting to make its habitual appearance on the horizon, when they are both walking barefoot, side by side, their feet sinking in the wet sand and the cold water touching their feet when it gets closer to the land, when it tries to escape the sun, that Yeonjun asks Kai, “Do you believe in endings, Kai?”
Kai ponders it, does he? He used to believe everything had a clear beginning, he believed you could trace everything back to its start, to the very first pebble, the very first wave. The genesis.
How is he supposed to believe in endings if he doesn’t believe in beginnings anymore?
“I’m not even sure I believe in beginnings anymore.” Is what he settles for.
Yeonjun turns to look at him, his hair flying around his face as the wind tries to wrap itself around his body, to make him dance, perhaps.
He comes to a stop and so does Kai.
“This can be our beginning, if you’ll let it.”
Kai thinks he will.
The shortest poem is a name.
Anne Michaels, Infinite Gradation