Standard disclaimer applies.
AU-ish. OOC-ish. And a panda bear full of love (who shall make no appearances whatsoever in this pseudostory.)
You ever heard of entropy?
It's a Physics concept. The tendency of matter to move from order to disorder as time continues to tick tock tick. Chaos, so to speak. Ice thaws and melts to puddles of water and the threads of your clothes unravel with wear and tear. We die; immortal souls trapped in temporary bodies will bid one last hello to the very earth from which they came from and ultimately will go back to. All things fall apart. That is the unavoidable.
But such unavoidable chaos… no one ever said it was eternal. Water reverts back to ice in the whitest winter, revealing cavities of frozen oxygen inside through its sharp crystalline walls. We live on through the memories of others – fond or not. True, memory deteriorates; ebbs away faster than a river through a broken dam, but memory can be restored by the lingering feeling of searching lips on soft breasts, the nauseous smell of cigarette smoke, the autumn color of hair.
But I digress and I see your eyes laughing. At me. With me. Maybe if we talked Physics more instead of brash promises and grandiose pettiness and superfluous words – I taught you how to conjugate verbs in English: Fuck with me. Fucking with me. Fucked with me. – things would've turned out better. Maybe things would've turned out just fine.
Unfortunately for both of us (or is it now?), we never did appreciate the dull dormancy of "fine". We wanted a storm of Betelgeuse-red flames evaporating the sweat on our hips into fine wispy strands, welcomed the scathingly cold licks of frost inside our trembling fingers, had wanted nothing more than a building chaos to burn through us, to burn us out. By chaos we were made and by chaos we were unmade. Fitting, you have to admit.
You have to agree with me though. Nobody ever said chaos was supposed to be an ugly affair. Sometimes it could be beautiful.
Tell me you agree.
--
You never pretended with me, never kept secret all the broken little pieces comprising your beating heart and I'm thankful for that. Your constant honesty led to the inconsistencies that drove us here. One minute your words were cold like sudden deluges of snow in the middle of high summer and next the blistering heat of barren deserts. Constant inconsistency, due to your inability to lie to your lover, to me.
I never pretended with you either. I never held hostage all my opinions from you. I always spoke with a subdued pride because I knew when I was right and when I was wrong. My constant honesty led to the inconsistencies that made us who we are. One minute my words were sharper than the cutting edge of a sword and next they were softer than the dim street lights that lined your apartment block. Constant inconsistency, due to my inability to say nothing but the truth to my lover, to you.
And we were both oh so stubborn. It's not a surprise that for all our honesty, we never really let each other in. See, we pretended more with ourselves, telling ourselves that we were all that we needed.
But I needed air to breathe and you needed a solid rock to anchor you. Such a shame we never really realized it ourselves. I had contented myself with choking smoke and you had tried to contain formless water within your grasp.
Tell me you understand.
--
You do realize how strange it is for us to meet again despite how the routine fell apart three years ago? I didn't know he was your friend, your bosom buddy if you had bosoms (one lame joke you reiterated through your entire run as the extra piece of skin sliding through my thighs). You didn't know he was my friend. Perhaps when you saw his hand, possessive, on my waist, you didn't want to believe he was my friend too. He didn't know about us, didn't know how grateful we were for his blissful lack of awareness. So you extend a hand, don a neutral face and say Yes, I think we've met before with the light lilt of a liar in your voice. Shouldn't it be: Yes, we've fucked?
I don't believe I'm bitter. In fact, I graciously accept your hand and shake it with genuine happiness because I am happy to see you. Alive. Looking even better than when I first saw you: a tall boy with a face meant for breaking hearts, a cigarette stick between gloved fingers, and eyes that spoke of long nights on the tops of derelict apartments. Here you are older, hair like the crimson licks of a bonfire, a little shorter, a healthier complexion on your once sallow-colored skin. I wonder… have you stopped smoking? I had gotten used to the sooty taste of your mouth. Smoke left me fearing for my life with each kiss and selfishly wanting for more and more and more. Once, it blurred my vision too. Such is the effect of smoke on my myopia. Bitter/sooty kisses spiked with the disastrous taste of brewed coffee, but I in turn never became bitter afterwards. I just saw the distorted collage of your face through the dissipating smoke and felt a loss.
Tell me you feel the same.
--
You remember how much I hated fast food? I still hate it. Greasy strips of chicken skin and the juice of half-cooked burgers dribbling down children's chins. It was a wonder then why I had walked through the golden double arch and found myself ordering a sundae, the only thing edible on the whole menu, but where else could I go? It was a Seoul I had just met, alien stars and foreign wind and I had no idea where to go. The stars had divulged none of their secrets and the wind had done nothing but whisper the echoes of words I never found in the phrasebook. But you came in with polystyrene containers full of bulgogi and kimchee, a flask of soju under one arm.
I remember almost puking on your boots, thanks to the devastating combination of sweet soju and godawfully-spicy kimchee. You had laughed at my weak stomach until people began to leave and kids started wailing. The manager had to kick us out.
And you had asked me, a tug on my loosely-braided hair, a little drunkenly, as we were walking to your apartment with the bustling hum of the city at night floating in and out of our ears, when my birthday was. I didn't know. Too bad. Would've been nice to get you something on your day. Balloons or something. Yellow roses or cock-shaped chocolates… Ow. Christ, you don't have to hit me.
Orphans don't have birthdays, remember heart? Orphans have everything but that because no one is ever there to remember the day they started breathing in the salty dust of the earth.
I wish I could recall exactly the very moment when the ice had melted. Maybe it started with the clear liquor coursing through my blood; gradually losing form as your steady hands grabbed me by the shoulders and chapped lips muffled whatever sounds of protest I had attempted to make. Maybe when you had broken our kiss, with a smile of pleasant surprise curving your mouth and a newfound sharpness in your eyes, and casually said that I looked nice…
"What the hell was that for?"
Sly little fox face. From one orphan to another. I'll buy you a beer.
Maybe there. Yeah, maybe.
--
Should we have lied instead?
Should we have kept our mouths shut until we became silent mimes, all painted with differing hues of blacks and whites and grays?
We were meant to burn each other out anyway. After all, that's all we ever wanted, right?
For heaven's sake, don't tell me I'm wrong again. You always did.
--
You talk the same. Irreverent and fast and startlingly animated, with wide-armed gestures and a booming voice. And he laughs along with you, doubling over with a happy sort of pain each time you finish an anecdote. You do not ignore me. Your eyes always find a way back to mine and I will always be reminded of nights spent fitting myself in between the space of your ribs. I will always remember the constellations I traced on your back as you whispered lullabies and longing into my mouth. I will always remember them, because they will be the first memories to die when 'always' ends.
I don't have to make sense. Especially to you. I don't owe you that much.
And when he left us alone, an impromptu meeting with the manager (shit, he had muttered brusquely, not unlike you entirely), requesting you to kindly escort me back to the hotel despite my reassurances that I can very well make it back on my own, the pomegranate six o' clock sky behind us had suddenly decided it wanted to be the gray of thunder clouds instead.
Fuck. You say as another cab zooms pass us and the clouds begin to pelt us with rain. You make a quick glance at my shivering form before shrugging off your jacket and tossing it to my direction. I mutter my thanks but you don't say anything.
You don't say anything until we finally find ourselves an empty cab and boarded it. You don't say anything until our clothes have partially dried, until we are halfway across the town and five minutes away from the hotel. You place a calloused thumb on my cheek, like sunlight on snow. Like entropy.
Jules…
I close my eyes, waiting for the one lie to make everything better.
Jules… stroking off the raindrops as if wiping my tears away.
I'm not sorry. Your mouth whispers next to mine, a brief exhalation of regret. The contrast cannot be any more painful for you. For me.
"That's good." I say, opening my eyes to see the gap between us widen as you slide to the other side of the seat, never looking at my direction. The cab stops in front of the hotel and you mutter something about paying for it.
We don't say goodbye. We never saw the point because somehow we knew this was all unavoidable. You live through this, you must never look back. But somehow we knew we'd enter that vicious cycle again, despite all our objections; we'd find a way to take each other from wholeness to brokenness to back. Again and again and again, and it shall always be different. We'll start different and end the same: a wreck. Wanting and needing and ever so selfish and 'right' all the time. Heartbroken and burnt and hopeless and hopeful and yearning for one more night. But it's what we had always wanted, remember?
Remember heart?
Tell me I'm wrong. Now. Please.
I never did aim for coherency… so I'm very sorry if it's confusing and ramble-y and just generally awful. Like me after reading Breaking Dawn. Helpful comments shall be welcomed with open arms and a bucket of grape juice.