| Jongin's first major solo role was in a ballet reinterpretation of Carmen. It was written with him in mind by Lee Taemin, one of the older students who had himself been a student at K-ARTS before going off to the KNBC. "Toreador, to dearest" was presented as part of KNBC's young dancers program, along with two other short ballets. It was that performance alone, Lee Soo-Man had said, that put Jongin on the K-ARTS fast track. In "Toreador, to dearest", Jongin appears on stage, shirtless, wearing what looks like a red train, overflowing with ruffles and fabric. His opening steps are like a tango, firm and lacking grace. Eventually he flows into a complicated pattern of glides and twists, the dress opening up behind up, in front of him, at each lift of his arm, like a sea of roses. As the music builds, Jongin tears off the train in pieces, gathering it in his hands, arranging it as he dances so it develops a life of its own, almost human as it sways with Jongin's steps and jumps. He brings it to his face, as if inhaling it, then pushes it away from him. In the end, it falls to his feet, inert and cold, as Jongin, chest heaving, completes a series of fouettés en tournant around it. His hand is held aloft at the end, like a matador calling for applause. But, as if shot, Jongin suddenly collapses, draping himself, a man broken, on the folds of the dress. In every performance, the final image is so unexpected that it takes the audience a full minute to summon up the courage to applaud. After the first performance, Taemin had come to Jongin backstage and pressed his face to Jongin's chest, as if he couldn’t bear to see Jongin's face. How do you know to dance like that, at your age? he'd asked, sounding almost angry. What do you even know about desire? The truth is, even now, Jongin knows nothing about desire. Sex, lust, attraction, he knows those, or at least some form of them. But nothing prepares him for Lu Han, and all the various forms in which Jongin wants him. Lu Han, dappled in sunlight, patches of beige and yellow and white all over, as he throws Jongin's washed clothes to him. Lu Han, head cocked like a cautious animal, examining Jongin with fierce concentration before breaking into a run, meeting Jongin halfway, arms raised, neck flexed, ready for their fish dive. Lu Han, winking at Jongin over Yixing's shoulder, his pinkie finger brushing against Jongin's arm as they part. Lu Han, asleep with his head cushioned against Jongin's side while Jongin puzzles through theory assignments, Kyungsoo's notes crumpled under Lu Han's elbow. With Lu Han, Jongin suddenly feels his age, all puny eighteen years. He wants to learn how to be tender, how to cherish this first thing as if he could compare it to anything he’s lost. He wants to dive into it and know how deep he should go, what parts of Lu Han are inviolate and what parts he can invade. They sleep together for the first time on a weekend, while Yixing is away getting groceries. For all the build-up, the sex itself is easy. They fall into it as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Jongin wonders if he should worry that being dance partners is harder than letting Lu Han slip two fingers in him, working him until he's mere muscle and movement tucked into the creases of Lu Han's sheets. But instead he comes and comes around Lu Han's fingers, lets Lu Han fold him, torque him, bend him until he is satisfied. He is young, he is inexperienced, he is hungry for it, and he tries to give back everything Lu Han feeds him. You're dancing better, Kris tells him at rehearsals, and Lu Han ducks his head to hide a smile. "Do you have any weird kinks?" Jongin asks one day, tracing his hand up and down Lu Han's side, the hips made as if by divine intervention for a perfect turnout, the thin bony shoulders. "Like, I don't know, do you want to watch yourself or have me pee on you or something?" "What?" Lu Han laughs, twisting to look at Jongin. "Do you really put having sex in front of a mirror in the same category as watersports?" "Who taught you how to say this stuff in Korean?" "You're jealous," Lu Han sings out, delighted. "What, are you worried that I'm learning dirty words from someone else?" "I just figure, you know," Jongin mutters. He gestures helplessly to the two of them naked on Lu Han's narrow, well-kept bed. "You must have something." He regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth. It's unspoken, but somehow obvious to both of them, that the most recent person besides Jongin that Lu Han has slept with (and, Jongin thinks, biting his lip, is possibly still sleeping with) is Yixing. It's Yixing's civility that gives him away, the way he only seems to disapprove of Jongin in situations where he's sure to lose and Jongin can fully defend himself. Kris, too, teeters constantly on the verge of saying something to Jongin, and Jongin can sense that it's not words of approval. On his more petulant days, Jongin imagines himself as a mere bed-warmer, someone to pass the time in Seoul. On his better days, Jongin thinks of himself as transient. Lu Han takes a long time to think about it, then shakes his head. "I don't. Really, I—all the people I've ever been with, none of them wanted me to do anything unusual." He tucks himself into Jongin's chest, ungainly but gentle. "Then again, I haven't had that many opportunities." It is perfectly plausible, of course, that Lu Han would have a boring sex life. But to Jongin, it seems impossible. Jongin thinks of afternoons with Peking Opera in the dream levels, the one time they met in a hotel lobby filled with glass pillars and Jongin had fucked him on broken glass, their skin resisting the shredding through sheer force of will. The time Peking Opera had stripped Jongin's senses and sucked him off in the dark, a perfect blindfold as only dreams could provide. The time they'd raced each other to the top of a mountain and fucked in a falling car, crashing into the sea below. Was it all just acting out fantasies? The urge strikes Jongin sometimes, to pin Lu Han down and tell him there are ways to approximate that kind of sex, without the violence. He thinks of dragging Lu Han to EXO, both of them going under without the masks. But the mirage of Peking Opera, pulled over Lu Han like a veil, is something they never talk about. What could you possibly know about desire? Taemin had asked when Jongin was sixteen. Then, Jongin had wanted to ask Taemin why he had written the piece for him, if he didn't think Jongin could understand. But he thinks now that if he could jump back in time, he would have performed "Toreador, to dearest" differently. He had been too dramatic, too brutish with his opening steps. It was a dance about being José and Carmen both, and, younger, before Lu Han, he'd only seen José in the piece. Now, he thinks about the different ways one might present desire, as both the thing wanted and the thing wanting. Now, he thinks about Lu Han gasping for air as he comes, Peking Opera gasping for air as they both emerge from the water, incandescent and untouchable. He thinks about wanting one or the other, and wanting both, and being wanted.
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He races up the steps to the roof, wishing there was an easier way to mow down his opponents—all uniformly dressed in suits and sunglasses, and thus probably a figment of Baekhyun's imagination—besides shooting them in the head, one at a time. It's a dream, so the minute he thinks of it, a machine gun appears in his hands, slightly warm, as if it'd just been spitting bullets for someone else. Within minutes, the stairwell is empty. Jongin wipes his face, smearing dust, blood mist and gunpowder along his cheek. It's not an attractive smell. Besides Peking Opera, the roof of the 63 Building is empty. The sky is an unreal patchwork of green and blue, with clouds tinged slightly pink. Peking Opera is sitting on the rail, kicking his feet. When he hears the sound of the stairwell door open, he raises his head, the lianpu a dirty white in the strange light. "You stopped wearing your mask?" he asks. Jongin shrugs. "Only when I come to see you." Peking Opera grins. Jongin imagines the sound of the mask crinkling at the corners of his eyes, where the smile translates to lines. But at this distance, and with the wind, it's impossible to say. "What do you do on the days when I'm not here, then? Hope?" "You're always here when I need you to be," Jongin tells him. It comes out more tenderly than he means it to, and he wants to add, and you're rarely not here, but he's interrupted by the sound of a gunshot whipping through the air. As if in slow motion, the bullet pierces the mask, drills through the eye, and exits the back of Peking Opera's head, too cleanly, no blood or bone. The mask seems to harden around the bullet, then shatters. Slowly, Peking Opera tips backwards, hands releasing in shock, legs still bent, one foot pointed properly, like a dancer. Jongin is turning his head to look at the shooter—a tiny girl with a gun, wearing, bizarrely, the face of a much older actress as a mask—but his body betrays him and propels him toward the railing, screaming soundlessly. He doesn't make it in time, and Peking Opera's hand slips from his grasp, just as a second gunshot sounds and a small flower of pain opens up in the back of Jongin's head. He pitches forward. They fall soundlessly, parallel, and forever separated. For a second, Jongin feels he is accelerating, but it is only the blood leaving his body, trailing like a twisted umbilical cord behind him. His eyes widen. It is as if everything is very clear, very obvious. Yet it takes Jongin a long time to understand what he sees, descending at a tantalizing distance from him. Staring up at him from the crack in the lianpu is, undoubtedly, Lu Han's eye.
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The hour it takes Jongin to get from EXO to Lu Han and Yixing's apartment gives him plenty of time to think about all the reasons he should have suspected the truth. The first thing Lu Han ever said to him, of course, but also the way he knew Jongin's schedule. The time they kissed in an Insadong alley, as recounted in a dream. The way they moved from wariness to intimacy, to the physicality of touch. Peking Opera's body, lithe athleticism, how he jumped like a dancer from one hit to another. Lu Han's story about Kris comes to him now in sharp, fresh relief: it wasn't a warning, after all, but a poorly rendered confession. He had wanted Jongin to see him for who he really was, both awake and in dreams. He'd been too afraid to hurt Jongin as he did in dreams, wantonly, without consequence. I'm ready, Jongin wants to say. I've always been ready. Lu Han is in the kitchen, boiling water in two small pots. The counters around him are covered in opened instant ramyun packages. "Good timing," he calls out without even turning around when Jongin bursts in, shoes still on. "I was just about to call you. Yixing and I are doing an instant noodle taste test, and we need a third person for a tie-breaker." "How did you get back so quickly?" Jongin blurts out. "Did you take a taxi here or something?" "Taxi?" Lu Han asks. "Back from where?" "From Sinchon. From," Jongin hesitates. He's never said EXO's name out loud, and with Yixing staring at him like he's a lunatic, he compromises. "From the dreamcade," he says instead. "You were just there." There is a long pause while Yixing puts down the tin of tea he was carefully measuring out to brew. Lu Han laughs a little nervously, but, waving his chopsticks at Yixing, as if passing on the responsibility of dealing with Jongin, he goes back to the stove, breaking a square of ramyun noodles and throwing a half into each pot of water. "Jongin, are you feeling okay?" Yixing asks, moving to feel Jongin's forehead. "I'm talking to Lu Han," Jongin says, tearing furiously away from Yixing. "Lu Han, explain to Yixing—" "I've been here all afternoon," Lu Han calls out, his tone light. "Just in this apartment. I had a call from my mother and then I sent Yixing out to buy all the ramyun we haven't tried yet and—" "You were there," Jongin shouts. He crosses the kitchen in three strides, takes Lu Han by the shoulder and squeezes. Surprised, Lu Han drops his cooking chopsticks on the ground, and, as if by instinct, Yixing bends down to pick them up and dust them off. Jongin ignores him, shaking Lu Han by the shoulders. "You were in my dream," Jongin hisses. "Wearing a Peking opera mask. You've been there for ages. I saw you today, clearly, when you got shot." "Jongin," Lu Han says, his voice very small as he glances pleadingly at Yixing, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I've really been here all afternoon." Jongin lets out a loud growl of irritation and pulls up Lu Han's sleeve, exposing a long tract of untouched, unblemished skin. It stares back at him, leering. Jongin's own left arm is pockmarked under the wrist by tiny pinpricks of scar tissue, from where the sedative is injected into his skin before a dream. It's possible, he thinks wildly, that Lu Han could get the injections somewhere else: his waist, his legs, even his neck, where his hair could draw attention away. But when he draws back Lu Han's hair, pulls up his shirt, and examines, closely, Lu Han's exposed ankle, he finds nothing. "Jongin," Lu Han breathes, touching Jongin's face with a trembling hand. "You're hurting me." In the silence, the pots bubble, then overflow. The smell of the chili powder in the soup base is strong and distinct, and the hissing of the water hitting the gas, putting it out one little drop at a time, is like the sound of someone's—Jongin's—heart breaking.
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The first thing that Jongin thinks is, contamination. He isn't sure which he means, the kitchen where Lu Han stared at him, uncomprehending, or Lu Han looking back at him from behind the lianpu, patiently dying. Either seems unthinkable. The sound of the water boiling still bubbles in Jongin's mind, one of those little hooks which memory revolves around. It coalesces, collapses, splinters into others: Lu Han's feet landing against the floor upon which Jongin's head lay, the tinkling of a piano while Jongin's feet slipped against the Penrose stairs. All lines are the same, and Jongin can't draw them. They loop into themselves, churning endless repetitions of Lu Han's kitchen and, tangled, ensnare Jongin in them. He gets on the bus towards Sinchon, then, impatient, gets off and takes a taxi the rest of the way there. In the dark, the gaming complex where EXO is located shines sinisterly. The rest of the entertainment center chimes moodily as Jongin hurries through it, following him with the dry sounds of palms hitting joysticks, old Tekken machines chirping and humming chiptune melodies. It's the setting of a movie, or a movie as recounted in a dream. Jongin's face itches for the motorcycle helmet, to hide away. "You were here earlier," Tao says when Jongin shows up at the reception area. Despite having known him for months, this is the first time Jongin has heard Tao speak directly. So it's the first time he realizes, painfully, that Tao speaks Korean like Lu Han, like Yixing and Kris, rounded and slightly clipped at the ends. "I need to do something," Jongin says in one long exhale, heart racing. Tao pushes aside the magazine he was flipping through and gazes up unhappily at Jongin from under his long black bangs. For someone his size, with his deep voice, Jongin finds that the impression he gives off is more helpless than menacing. "You know the rules," he says slowly, as if still sounding out the syllables. "Please, Tao," Jongin begs. "I don't really even need to go into the arena level, just—I thought I met someone there and now—" "Oh," Tao says and stands up, suddenly brisk. "It's about him." Tao takes them to a room Jongin has never seen before, a small, dentist-like office with two reclining chairs and a small travel-sized PASIV neatly packed up. He motions for them to sit down. Jongin does and, wordlessly, Tao shoots them both up. It feels different from the sedative Jongin normally receives, more subtle, the contrast between aged and new wine. "A different kind of sedative," Tao explains as the edges of the room melt away. "More pure, for more intimate dreams." They are in Tao's dream. Jongin has been in enough of them to know, instantly. But standing next to Tao is Peking Opera, mask whole and untouched. He waves cheerfully at Jongin, then stands there, waiting, while Tao walks around the two of them silently, face expressionless. "I don’t understand," Jongin spits out. "Why would you lie like that to me?" "Rude brat," Peking Opera sneers. "What are you talking about?" Tao stops between the two of them and, like a mother might with an unruly child, tussles Peking Opera's hair—soft, cut unfashionably, clipped at the neck like a dancer. "This one is my projection," Tao says, somewhat apologetically. Peking Opera immediately stills, like a machine turned off. "I don't know what he was like with you." "Take off your mask," Jongin demands. He lurches forward, but Tao puts a large, firm hand at the center of his chest, and pushes back. "I deserve an explanation," Jongin tells both of them. "I want to know." Tao heaves a deep sigh. Something very complicated happens to Jongin's body. Suddenly they are back at the top of the 63 Building, the clouds overcast and green. "Your turn," Tao tells him. "Summon him." "I don't understand." Jongin gestures to the man behind Tao. Tao's hand is still in Peking Opera's hair, oddly protective. There is no expression on either one of their faces, and Jongin inhales sharply, trying not to cry. "He's right there," he pleads. "Let me talk to him." "No, not this one," Tao says again. "Your projection." "I don't—" "The man you fought with," Tao insists. His face twists in frustration. Jongin thinks, painfully, of the way Yixing would sometimes turn to Lu Han for help, and Lu Han would wrinkle his nose, looking for the right Korean words. Tao wrinkles his nose now, and then, relieved, eyes bright, says, "The man you were in dreams to find. The one you see all the time." Suddenly, unmistakably, Lu Han is there, his arms wrapped around Jongin's waist, his chin digging into Jongin's shoulder. He smells of kimchi ramyun, of instant coffee. Jongin feels his cheek, smooth and dry, on the skin of his neck and almost cries out in relief. "Hello," Lu Han murmurs, voice husky. "I heard you were looking for me." Tao narrows his eyes, takes his hand away from Jongin's chest. He hesitates for a moment, then pulls off Peking Opera's mask. Lu Han's face shines underneath, but differently—like a death mask of Lu Han, and Jongin flinches away. He tries to turn to see the Lu Han behind him, but Lu Han tightens his grip, keeping Jongin there. "Your projection is very real," Tao says, nodding appreciatively at the Lu Han behind Jongin. "The strongest one I've seen yet." With a flick of his wrist, Peking Opera disappears, and Tao summons another mimeograph, a Lu Han dressed in a heather grey t-shirt and jeans. "Almost like real," Tao suggests. "What do you mean, almost?" Tao tilts his head, bird-like, wondering. "Baekhyun didn't tell you about projections?" he asks. Lu Han stills around Jongin's body. A sudden thought occurs to Jongin and he looks down at Lu Han's wrists. There, tucked into the crease of his elbow, sit a tiny cluster of needle pricks, like an unfinished tattoo. He touches them with his fingers, wondering. "Projections are what dreaming is made up of," Tao continues. "Stronger. They are what people want." "Like, what? Genies? Fairies?" Tao shakes his head. "Maybe delusions? Ghosts?" Again, the nose wrinkling in frustration, before Tao gestures to Jongin, hand tracing the curve of Lu Han's arm. "Like this one." "He's a shared dreamer," Jongin points out. "No," Tao says quickly. "Like this one, not quite real. You made him. " "Lu Han is real," Jongin snarls. "Yes, Lu Han—" he pronounces the name perfectly, in the lilting tone of Lu Han's native Chinese, "is real. But this man isn't. He's just a projection." "I fought him. I've been fighting him. For the last month. In the brawl—" "There was no fighter," Tao tells him stiffly, as if insulted. "Your imagination." Lu Han breaks into a laugh. Jongin relaxes, convinced an explanation is coming. But instead, Lu Han slips out from behind him and goes to Tao's side. When he turns to face Jongin, there is the same wrongness in his face, like he's a screen with emotions flickering on a two-second delay. "Try asking yourself," he says in Peking Opera's voice, "was it possible Lu Han would have gone to a dreamcade in his first week of being in Seoul? How did he know when you would be there? In an arena as big as the ones for brawling, how did he find you every time?" Lu Han's eyes narrow. For the first time, his face twists into an expression Jongin has never seen—cruel, questioning. He presses his lips, mouth closed, against Jongin's, and leans back. "Why didn't he say a word about EXO the whole time you fucked?" Lu Han whispers, his teeth nipping against Jongin's lips with each consonant he sounds out. "Why didn't he want you to know?" Jongin swallows, mouth dry and stuck with the taste of Lu Han so close. "You were embarrassed," he whispers back. "No," Lu Han murmurs. He presses his mouth to Jongin's ear. Hip to hip, bodies closed in on each other, they sway to a beat no one hears. "Lu Han isn't Peking Opera," he echoes. It is a thought Jongin has never said out loud before. Lu Han says it exactly the way Jongin hears it in his own head, and, instinctively, Jongin counters, "I'm not Black Rider either." Lu Han laughs, quick and silvery. His hands are claws on Jongin's shoulders. Jongin thinks of the way they've ripped him apart, held a gun, pressed a knife to his throat, dropped him down an endless flight of stairs, twisted his neck. He thinks of Lu Han, up top, tender as he closes Jongin's eyes. "And I'm not Lu Han either," this man says. When he backs away, his face is replaced by the red and white lianpu, a covering of face paint this time, not plastic. Then, as if being wiped clean, even that disappears, leaving nothing but blankness, like soft, untouched clay waiting to be formed. Jongin pushes away from him and leans over the railing, heaving. Nothing comes out, because it is a dream. The scenery melts away, Lu Han melts away. They are back in the tiny office, lying on old-fashioned reclining chairs, the edges of the world sharp and dingy and too real. Jongin is still heaving, and this time, he actually does vomit. "In this world, nothing is impossible," Tao says. He folds his hands in his lap, like he is trying to keep himself from reaching out to Jongin. "I don't want impossible things," Jongin whispers. He wipes his mouth on the back of a shaky hand and tastes disappointment in the acid. "I thought he was real. I thought what I wanted was real." "Every dreamer does," Tao tells him. He smiles, sadly. "It's why you come here, after all."
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For the next few days, Jongin lives in his dreams. Baekhyun won't let him come back to EXO, and when Jongin tries to bargain with him, Tao ends an arena game early and comes out to stand behind Baekhyun, an ominous and strangely mournful shadow. "Dreaming's not the solution, Billy Elliot," Baekhyun cajoles. "You're our best customer. I don't want to have to ban you." When Jongin starts to turn away, Baekhyun slumps over the counter, his arms extending past the edge, waving frantically at Jongin as if he could be moved by jazz hands alone. "Come on, forget the whole thing and let hyung buy you dinner. I'll even throw in some soju, if you keep your age a secret." His eyes look like they're begging Jongin to agree, but his mouth is curved in the same wry smile as always. Not for the first time, Jongin wonders how old Baekhyun is, or if he's going to look this way forever: sometimes sixteen, sometimes twenty-seven, sometimes forty. He imagines the parade of losers and dreamers and wrecks that Baekhyun has seen dash themselves against dreams and come away broken. He imagines that after a while, all the stories sound the same. But EXO is not the only dreamcade in Seoul. There are worse ones, ones where the dreams come like nightmares, murky and uncontrollable, ones with sedatives that make Jongin vomit blood when he wakes up. Ones that are therapeutic places for drug addicts, ones that are themselves drugs for addicts. Jongin settles on one called M2, run by a slim young man who goes by the name of Jino and lets Jongin sleep on his couch, even use his shower. "You're in a bad way, man," he tells Jongin, passing him day-old kimbap rolls, and Jongin ignores him for the most part, though he's thankful. Resurrecting an illusion is harder than summoning one for the first time. The first few Lu Hans that Jongin constructs are faded versions of the mimeographed one: voiceless, expressionless, a machine wound up for Jongin's sick pleasure. Eventually he learns that it's easier to summon Peking Opera and not talk. They spar, they wrestle, they fuck. When the illusion is too thin for Jongin to bear, he summons what little he can make of Lu Han, and they dance. "I could stay here forever with you," Lu Han tells him, eyes bright, and Jongin wonders which fantasy he is living, the one where he stays in a dream with Lu Han, or the one in which Lu Han stays in the dream with him.
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He is dancing the black swan pas de deux with Lu Han when his left cheek caves in. The world warps suddenly, pain and shock exploding like fire and eating away at the projected film of Jongin's dreams. Lu Han stands, unmoving, in the center. He is the last thing to disappear, and Jongin's disintegrating fingers touch his eyes, his lips, before fading into fluorescent light. When the glare clears, Kyungsoo is staring him in the face. Behind him, slightly embarrassed, is Baekhyun, who is having a conversation under his breath with one of the M2 technicians. "Shit," Jongin mumbles, rubbing the ghost of the punch from his cheek. "That really hurt." "Good," Kyungsoo says, drawing his lips together tightly. "It was supposed to." "How did you find me?" "Jino is an old friend of mine," Baekhyun chimes in. "So when Kyungsoo asked, I put out some feelers and one thing led to another." "How did Kyungsoo know to ask you?" "I've always known," Kyungsoo snaps. "You were never very good at lying." Jongin is too tired to feel surprise. He hasn't eaten for days, subsisting on energy drinks and Jino's charity. Kyungsoo pulls him up by a rough hand around his waist. It is a thin parody of the night he went clubbing with Lu Han. The memory, one he's never tried to relive, is too painful to think about. He tries to fall back asleep, but Kyungsoo slaps him, softly, just enough to get his attention. "We're all worried sick," Kyungsoo tells him, maneuvering them toward the exit. He has a hard time looking Jongin in the eye and seems to be intensely focused on making sure their feet stay in step. "Kris threatened to call the police. I think Junmyeon lost most of his hair when you didn't show up for practice for the fifth day in a row." "I'm not dancing anymore," Jongin tells him. "Don't be stupid," Kyungsoo hisses. "You just need some rest." The bus rocks under Jongin. He falls asleep, cheek pressed into Kyungsoo's shoulder. In this dream he is a little ship on turbulent water; Kyungsoo is trying to bail water out of his broken hull. I love you, Jongin yells through the storm. The rain washes Kyungsoo's face off, and Jongin is falling through the water, wrecked. The remains of the sedative in his veins make the dream too intense. Jongin wakes up screaming, and Kyungsoo hurries the two of them off the bus, not meeting anyone's curious gaze. The apartment is exactly as he left it a week ago. Kyungsoo sits him down at the table and hands him a bowl of reheated kimchi spaghetti, covered in cheese, the way Jongin likes it. He's too tired and, paradoxically, too hungry to eat. But Kyungsoo is watching him anxiously, his hands twisted on the table, and it hurts to see him so on edge, like he could break at the first sign of refusal. So Jongin forces down a bite. "I thought you weren't going to cook for me anymore," he grumbles, pulling strands of cheese away from his fork to avoid looking at Kyungsoo. "I'm not," Kyungsoo tells him, wiping at his eyes angrily. He isn't crying, as far as Jongin can tell, but his eyes are red. "I'm not, you bastard," he says again. He spastically wrenches the fork from Jongin's hand and, as if suddenly exhausted, leaves it hanging between the two of them, like a broken bridge. "I'm sorry," Jongin whispers. Kyungsoo doesn't look at him, fiddling with the fork and dropping it on the floor. "For making you worry," Jongin adds, bending down to pick it back up. "You're selfish," Kyungsoo fumes. "You're stupid, you don't think about anybody. Director Lee almost expelled you, and I think you deserve it." Then, more quietly, "I wish you had just told me." "I'm sorry," Jongin whispers again. He closes his eyes, thinking about Lu Han. So many Lu Hans, laid out like infinite possibilities before him. Choose me, they are all saying. I'm sorry, he says to each one of them in turn. He is looking for the one that is real, only none of them are real. He wants to explain this to Kyungsoo, but he can't. The smell of the kimchi spaghetti, strong and distinct. The sound of someone's heart breaking. He feels a thousand years old, and empty of all tenderness. Kyungsoo touches his hand, tentatively, fingers cold, and Jongin lets him.
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Even though Jongin has missed all but the last dress rehearsal, Kris and Junmyeon are surprisingly human about his reappearance. "It happens," Kris says, shrugging. Jongin wonders if this is what happened with Chanyeol, if Kris considers himself a martyr to this dance, if he lies awake at night thinking it will haunt him forever. It's a mortifying thought, and Jongin bows his head, ashamed. They run through the dance in full costume, with the orchestra. Jongin fumbles a few steps, but the weeks prior spent memorizing keep his body from failing him. Kris cuts it short before they reach the bravura measures. Junmyeon, like an anxious mother, watches Jongin's face the whole time. "You'll be surprising all of us with the ending at the performance," Junmyeon says, as if this is the silver lining. "It'll be a unique experience." A week of not practicing has rendered his steps stilted, but not rusty. Kyungsoo works through the moves with him. Every hour is dedicated to the dance, to learning Junmyeon's new footwork, to learning from Yixing's clean, polished lines. Each moment spent not dancing is devoted to avoiding Lu Han. Kyungsoo tries, conspicuously, to leave them in a room together, but at the last minute, Jongin finds some excuse. "It's just dancing," Jongin tells Kyungsoo, clenching his teeth. "That's all we need to get along for." "I just want the two of you to make up," Kyungsoo says, biting his lip. "We don't need to make up," Jongin tells him, holding Kyungsoo's elbow tightly. "He didn't do anything wrong." Jongin knows the fault is all his. He suspects that despite that, Lu Han still blames himself. But Jongin still doesn't have the words. He is still too bone-tired, still too afraid, to look Lu Han in the face and not see Peking Opera or the faceless monstrosity Jongin loved for a week in his dreams. He senses that Kyungsoo is waiting for the right time to sit him down and give him a lecture about his actions, or at least what Kyungsoo thinks are his actions, and he does his best every time the conversation turns serious to move on to the insubstantial: food, Pororo, the new Chinese words Kyungsoo learns from Yixing. At night he sinks into dreams, unconnected ones, some featuring Lu Han and some merely snatches of feeling and desire. It's what comes of abusing the sedative cocktail for a week straight, Jongin knows, but it feels like a purgatory he has to break through, like an alcoholic pushing through withdrawal, to get to clarity. The day of the performance, it's Kris who has the most stage fright. He paces the dressing rooms, unable to talk to anyone, merely making strange grunting sounds and offering awkward thumbs up as encouragement. Junmyeon conveys orders from him like a translator, Lu Han and Yixing stay hunched together, as useless as furniture, and Kyungsoo is the one who hurries everyone from place to place, a born manager. Jongin is left relatively alone during the backstage preparations. The isolation is like a glass case, or ice freezing Jongin out of time, suspending him, casting him off. The make-up artists, two theatre majors, are freshmen who have heard too many rumors of Jongin's eccentricity to talk to him. Their touches seem to only ghost along Jongin's face, like caresses through silk, and he stares back at them stonily. "It's just how he deals with stress," Kyungsoo lies, heading Lu Han off by pretending Yixing called for him, but Lu Han keeps his eyes trained on Jongin's face as he's led away. Act I opens with only Jongin on the stage, an echo of Act III, which ends the same way. Jongin stands backstage, waiting for the curtain to rise, when a hand brushes Jongin's back. "Don't turn around," a voice says, so low it is almost mere vibration. "Just—stay there for a moment." Jongin wants to turn around and look. In his mind, it is Lu Han. In his dreams, it is still Lu Han. The memory of the roof of the 63 Building comes back to him, the taste of ashes and bile, the tenderness of delusion. But if he turned to look, if it was someone else, if no one was there, he knows the illusion would break. Now is not the time. He needs the illusion now, more than ever. He tries to school his expression, to not betray any weakness. The touch expands through his body like a frost, covering him, melting around him, a fever sweat breaking. Each breath he takes is pure, almost sacred. He remembers: the first taste of smoke, his ribs breaking under a touch, an arabesque stretched out between heaven and hell. "Don't think about anything," the voice tells him. "Pretend you're still in a dream." The curtain lifts, one breathless inch at a time. The hand disappears. Jongin lowers his head. There is nothing out there that can hurt him, as long as he dances. In the dark, there are endless possibilities. The movements come to him not through the filters of Kris or Junmyeon's words, not from the memorized notation sheets, not from the memory of Lu Han, his arms wrapped around Jongin's waist, drawing him away from the others, but unadulterated. He thinks, this must be the thing that dreams are made of. He thinks, on the stage, nothing is impossible. Now, he is not Black Rider. He is not even Kim Jongin. He dances with a Lu Han that is Lu Han and is not Lu Han. It makes no difference. This moment is his life; he performs it. Lu Han beckons him from the shadows; it is the real Lu Han, the one that is not real. But I don't want impossible things, Jongin prays, hoping for understanding. Lu Han smiles, mysterious, strange, incorporeal, and Jongin, knowing nothing else, goes towards him.
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September in Seoul is not yet cold, but in his costume—loose-fitting pants and nothing else—Jongin is chilly, standing on the roof of the auditorium building. He is suddenly nostalgic for high school, when he had spent a few months indulging in a stupid smoking habit. He doesn't miss the cigarettes at all, but there's something uncool, he supposes, about standing on a roof and musing on life, if you didn't have a smoke. "You missed our encore," Lu Han says, shutting the roof door behind him. "I had to dance with Yixing." "You dance with me all the time," Jongin tells him, not turning around. "For once, Yixing should get some credit." "I dance with Yixing all the time, in Beijing," Lu Han says with a snort. "That's not what we came to Seoul for." In his mind, Jongin had imagined many ways he and Lu Han could start talking again. In tearful breakdowns, or Lu Han getting angry, or Jongin writing a long soul-bearing letter of apology. Which was stupid; he'd never been good with words. Realistically, he should have expected this, for Lu Han to surprise him, calm and so damn reasonable. Jongin resents it, but he knows it makes Lu Han the better person, or at least the more mature one. "How did you find me?" he asks. "Kyungsoo guessed. He said you really have a thing for roofs." Lu Han settles down into a crouch next to Jongin and puts his arms against the railing, leaning hard enough so that the metal leaves a rounded mark across his skin. "I never see the appeal. I'm afraid of heights." "In my dreams—" Jongin stops. He takes a few deep breaths, but the words still don't come. Finally, he pretends to cough and says gruffly, "Actually, I'm not sure I can talk about them." "It's okay," Lu Han says softly. "You don't have to." There are so many things Jongin wants to tell Lu Han. He knows that once Lu Han goes back to Beijing, he'll spend days, weeks, even months reliving the time they'd spent together, trying to separate his delusion from the reality of it, to divine some sense of how it would have gone, in another world, if Jongin hadn't been a dreamer. All dancers are obsessive; Jongin knows that isn't a crime. But he's not ready to say any of the vague, half-formed thoughts: I'm sorry I didn't see you for who you are. I'm sorry you weren't the thing I thought you were. I should have dreamed— I shouldn't have dreamed— you were the one thing— He knows, though, the one thing he has to tell Lu Han before he leaves. "I didn't sleep with you, " Jongin says, each word a struggle, "just because of them." A pause. "The dreams, I mean." It is a long time before either of them move. Then, Lu Han stands up, leans a little over the railing and, lightning-quick, turns around, reclining his back so that he and Jongin face opposite directions. There is a moment where Jongin, absurdly, wishes they were back in Lu Han's kitchen. In dreams, he thinks, he could do that. But they are no longer in a dream, and all that is over. The air smells cool and of leaves, a damp muted scent, entirely unlike kimchi. Jongin moves his weight from one foot to another, uncomfortable. "The last variation," Lu Han says, breaking the silence. "I only got to see it from backstage. What did you decide?" He turns to look at Jongin. "Does the main character choose illusion? Or does he choose reality?" His smile is neither cruel nor gentle. This, Jongin knows, is the Lu Han who makes jokes with Yixing, the Lu Han who teases Kris, the Lu Han who first told Jongin, who wants to deal with a brat like you? Jongin thinks that, in the end, this is still the Lu Han he loved the most. "He doesn't know what he chooses," Jongin says, tearing his eyes away from Lu Han's face. "So he stretches his hands out, beseeching the audience to understand." He reaches over the railing, towards Gangnam, towards Sinchon and EXO. "Both choices are untenable. Both are lies." "Jongin," Lu Han says, voice dropping, "I'm really glad I met you. I want to dance with you again." He pauses, tapping his nails against the railing. They both take a breath, release it in time. Lu Han continues, "But you're going to kill yourself, if you live like you're always on stage." Insadong, in an alley, with a mask over his face. Jongin tries to remember what he had said then, and can't. He's lost in the blood haze, the sound of a dented baseball bat falling to the ground. He gropes in the air, once, twice, then lets his hand drop. "What if," he says, very slowly, "I don't know anything else?" "You don't have to know," Lu Han says. "You just have to make the choice to learn." They fall silent, Jongin contemplating Seoul from their height, Lu Han looking up at a sky Jongin can't see. Eventually, Lu Han pushes himself away from the railing. He trails a hand down Jongin's back, a quick dry touch. Jongin wants to ask him about the moment, backstage, before they were on, if it was all his imagination. He doesn't. Lu Han crosses the roof and opens the door. With his back turned, Jongin can't see him leave. He imagines Lu Han taking the stairs, one at a time, all the way down. Lu Han waiting for Jongin to follow him, waiting, and waiting, and finally giving up. Lu Han finding Kyungsoo, telling Kyungsoo that everything was okay, ignoring the look on Yixing's face, going out into the crowd and shyly bowing to the praise, packing his bags, getting on the plane, leaving Jongin here on the roof, alone. Each image is clear, distinct, inviolable. Packed tight, like a bullet, to travel far from Jongin, and they drain from him now, bloodless. He thinks of that last moment with Peking Opera, the mask shattering to reveal Lu Han's face, serene as only a dreamer—or, perhaps, as only a dream—could be when facing death. I'm afraid of heights, Lu Han’s voice echoes, as Jongin, fearless, leaps up to sit on the railing. But Jongin hadn't known at the time, couldn't have possibly guessed that the real Lu Han would never stage a battle at the top of a building. Looking back now, it was a sign, just like all the others. Red herrings, false starts, truths only Jongin knew about himself. A slightly more sadistic form of therapy, that was all. From this height, the cityscape below looks like a thin, painted cloth, unreal and stretched taut. He wonders if he would fall through if he jumped, or if it would vault him back, back to the roof, back to the stage, back to the very first moment he met Lu Han and back further still, to when he imagined Lu Han into existence. To Jongin, suddenly, reality is such a fragile thing. Lu Han is somewhere down below, waiting. Peking Opera sits on the railing beside him, waiting. If this were a dream, Jongin would be the only one who could see them both. It is not a dream, and, eyes open, he doesn't see either one of them. Dreams feel real when you're in them, Baekhyun had said, but it's not dreaming that confuses Jongin now. He swears that if he closes his eyes, he can reach out and touch Peking Opera, press his face into that blue jacket, and taste the things his dreams are made of: cotton, sweat, gunpowder, Lu Han dappled in the sun. What do you want, to love me or to kill me? Peking Opera asks him now. You can't keep living like you're always on stage, Lu Han tells him now. But these are lines he didn't, and still doesn't, know how to draw. Maybe one day, he will have to face them instead of running. For now, he is tired, muscles aching from the performance, sweat dried against his skin like ill-fitting armor. In his head, he hears Kris' voice, joined with Junmyeon's: Only you know what you mean the ending to be. So, body relaxed, feet pointed, he pushes himself off the railing. For a second, he hangs in the air, weightless. He is a line stretched between two poles, the space between the leg and floor as one teeters out of a développé, the first dancer to ever perform a sissone fermée en arriere, rising slowly, falling slowly, not sure where to land. He does, with his eyes closed, with both feet on the ground. Then, silently, he makes his way down. written by windowright |
