Ship/Member: Minghao/Soonyoung, Jeonghan/Joshua Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: Jeonghan is a nurse, aged-up Minghao, ambiguous timeline and setting Permission to remix: Yes
***
“Nooo, not this,” Jeonghan laments, but he is smiling. “Not this again, Hao.”
Minghao laughs soundlessly, leaning back into the cushion of his chair. Jeonghan hands him a thermos of his warm tea. Bony hands wrap around it.
“What, what is it?” Joshua asks, eager, leaning closer towards Minghao in his seat.
“No, I don’t want to hear it again. He’s gonna brag about his fairytale love with some superstar or whatever,” Jeonghan says and even when Joshua isn’t looking, can hear, can detect the eyeroll in his whining.
He pushes his plastic chair close to Minghao and says, “Come on, Mr. Xu. Tell me. I haven’t heard it yet. Jeonghan can go air the bedsheets or something.”
Minghao then smiles, regards Joshua kindly. He sets the thermos down in his lap, but Jeonghan catches it and places it on the table in front of them instead. Near the window. The afternoon expands, like a shallow pool of mud.
“I was nineteen, he was twenty,” Minghao begins.
Jeonghan leans into Joshua. And his voice gently follows Minghao’s, as he knows the words by memory, the story by heart: “and such a constellation was he to me.”
*
“He was a dancer. He was an amazing, talented, incredible dancer. And he’s named after a star. And I was studying stars. I was in Brazil when I met him.”
*
The first time Jeonghan hears this story, Minghao is in Dallas. The next time he tells it, he is in Houston. For a time, for more than one retelling, he stuck with New York. At one point, he is in Whidbey Island. Miyagi. One time, in Seoul. In Anshan.
The minor details shift, depending on his setting for this memory, depending on his mood that week. But the big parts of the biggest love story of his life remain the same: Minghao falls in love. Hoshi is a rising dancer, is a star. Their love is brief, but big in all the ways a love so brief can be so colossal.
*
“I was alone and touring at a planetarium when I met him. It was almost closing then and I was already making my way back to the lobby, very slowly, taking it all in, when I saw him. And when he saw me. And in the sacred light that only an empty cavernous place can give, in a little quiet town outside the center of Brazil, we looked at each other and it felt like, I felt like,” he pauses, looks at Joshua.
“It felt like waking up.”
*
“Hoshi. That’s what I want people call me. It means star in Japanese.”
“Oh, so you’re a star,” I said.
“I am. I can tell you’re mocking, but I really am. I’m a dancer, I’m a rising star! One day, I will dance in a magnificent coliseum and everyone will be there to watch me and just me!”
“I’m not mocking.”
“Oh, really? Well, good,” he huffs, playfully, childishly.
“But aren’t we all?”
“Aren’t we all what?”
“Aren’t we all made of starstuff?”
“Starstuff?”
“Carl Sagan,” I said, enjoying the volleying of words.
“Starstuff. That’s a good stage name. Or a name for a turtle,” he says, glancing up at the dome of the planetarium, as if mentally committing the word to memory, or counting the dots above us.
I am drawn to him. “Tell me your real name.”
*
“Oh, he was magical,” Minghao says. This is the part where he describes seeing Hoshi dance for the first time. This is also the part, Jeonghan notes, that never changes. He talks about it like he only saw it last night and not 29 years ago.
“When I met him, I was living a solitary life,” he pauses, glances at Jeonghan.
Jeonghan feels Joshua turn to look at him too. He gives a small nod, touches Minghao’s shoulder.
“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. And that week in Brazil, I got lucky to get him. My star.” Minghao sighs, smiles to himself.
*
“Did you know I learned ballet when I was in middle school?”
“Of course I don’t, we only met yesterday, love,” says the star.
Really? Doesn’t feel like it. I stand up, showing off my still lithe legs, folding them, twisting with all the grace I could remember from a whole year of forced practice, and it surely looks terrible, standing like this in the middle of my dirty kitchen in ratty, checked pajamas, but the incredulous grin that appears in his face, the way he strides to meet me, touches me, it was well worth it.
We imagined a future there. How he would teach me grace. How I would watch him dance. How we would look at the same sky in different places as all around the world. How we would hold each other’s hands. And hold each other’s hands.
*
“At a time and place where everyone you meet feels either unsafe or temporary,” I said, licking up a stripe from his chest to his neck, I whispered during his last night, I pleaded, I hoped, “remember me.”
“Soonyoung,” he said, just as I shuddered wetly into his mouth. “Kwon Soonyoung. My name.”
*
“Eeeewww, blech,” Jeonghan teases, “not the gooey parts, old man!”
Minghao giggles, and Jeonghan’s eyes widen at the rare sound of it. Joshua watches, entranced. His hand is over Minghao’s, rubbing them together slightly.
“I will spare you the details, because I still remember it, think about it everyday,” Minghao says, and Jeonghan clucks at his tongue, stands up to grab a blanket. It’s already dusk.
“But of course,” he continues, “there is a place meant for a star in the sky. And he had to go to the next stop of their tour.”
Jeonghan gently drapes the blanket over Minghao and Joshua, already huddled together. He softly touches the back of his hand over Minghao’s neck, to check if he’s cold, and then satisfied he’s warm, settles his own body around Joshua’s.
“He just left?” Joshua asks, holding Jeonghan close.
Minghao glances around, until his eyes settle on the framed photo of a man onstage in what looks like a giant stadium. At its bottom left corner is a signature and a doodle of a star.
“No. He arrived.”
*
“I love him, babe, you were right. He’s amazing,” Joshua whispers.
“Whoa, hello, you talking like that to your boyfriend now? Honeymoon phase is over?”
Joshua cackles. And then says again, I love him, bring me to visit him again.
Later, after Jeonghan clocks out from the house and parks to the side of the road to wait for Joshua as he picks up their laundry, he thinks back to his friend, his patient, Hao, and the photo that had been by his bedside for as long as he had been working for him.
Remembering how delighted he sounded sharing his story to Joshua today, how real his smiles were, how he had giggled, Jeonghan shuddered; he realizes now that the loneliness he once thought he saw in Minghao isn’t true. Freshly broken up, kicked out of his own house, and just starting a career he wasn’t sure was for him, Minghao was the first one who accepted him. Trusted him. Joshua came much, much later.
He had always thought it was lonely, whenever Minghao told his story. It’s only now that he comes to the understanding that it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t his, but Jeonghan’s own loneliness reflected in the glassy eyes of the old man. How he’d imagined him lonely, when in fact, Minghao was happy. Grateful and happy.
As he watches Joshua jogging funnily on his way back to the car, Jeonghan laughs, fond and then thinks, right, finally, thank you, longer, forever more please.
Re: "such a constellation was he to me"
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Jeonghan is a nurse, aged-up Minghao, ambiguous timeline and setting
Permission to remix: Yes
***
“Nooo, not this,” Jeonghan laments, but he is smiling. “Not this again, Hao.”
Minghao laughs soundlessly, leaning back into the cushion of his chair. Jeonghan hands him a thermos of his warm tea. Bony hands wrap around it.
“What, what is it?” Joshua asks, eager, leaning closer towards Minghao in his seat.
“No, I don’t want to hear it again. He’s gonna brag about his fairytale love with some superstar or whatever,” Jeonghan says and even when Joshua isn’t looking, can hear, can detect the eyeroll in his whining.
He pushes his plastic chair close to Minghao and says, “Come on, Mr. Xu. Tell me. I haven’t heard it yet. Jeonghan can go air the bedsheets or something.”
Minghao then smiles, regards Joshua kindly. He sets the thermos down in his lap, but Jeonghan catches it and places it on the table in front of them instead. Near the window. The afternoon expands, like a shallow pool of mud.
“I was nineteen, he was twenty,” Minghao begins.
Jeonghan leans into Joshua. And his voice gently follows Minghao’s, as he knows the words by memory, the story by heart: “and such a constellation was he to me.”
*
“He was a dancer. He was an amazing, talented, incredible dancer. And he’s named after a star. And I was studying stars. I was in Brazil when I met him.”
*
The first time Jeonghan hears this story, Minghao is in Dallas. The next time he tells it, he is in Houston. For a time, for more than one retelling, he stuck with New York. At one point, he is in Whidbey Island. Miyagi. One time, in Seoul. In Anshan.
The minor details shift, depending on his setting for this memory, depending on his mood that week. But the big parts of the biggest love story of his life remain the same: Minghao falls in love. Hoshi is a rising dancer, is a star. Their love is brief, but big in all the ways a love so brief can be so colossal.
*
“I was alone and touring at a planetarium when I met him. It was almost closing then and I was already making my way back to the lobby, very slowly, taking it all in, when I saw him. And when he saw me. And in the sacred light that only an empty cavernous place can give, in a little quiet town outside the center of Brazil, we looked at each other and it felt like, I felt like,” he pauses, looks at Joshua.
“It felt like waking up.”
*
“Hoshi. That’s what I want people call me. It means star in Japanese.”
“Oh, so you’re a star,” I said.
“I am. I can tell you’re mocking, but I really am. I’m a dancer, I’m a rising star! One day, I will dance in a magnificent coliseum and everyone will be there to watch me and just me!”
“I’m not mocking.”
“Oh, really? Well, good,” he huffs, playfully, childishly.
“But aren’t we all?”
“Aren’t we all what?”
“Aren’t we all made of starstuff?”
“Starstuff?”
“Carl Sagan,” I said, enjoying the volleying of words.
“Starstuff. That’s a good stage name. Or a name for a turtle,” he says, glancing up at the dome of the planetarium, as if mentally committing the word to memory, or counting the dots above us.
I am drawn to him. “Tell me your real name.”
*
“Oh, he was magical,” Minghao says. This is the part where he describes seeing Hoshi dance for the first time. This is also the part, Jeonghan notes, that never changes. He talks about it like he only saw it last night and not 29 years ago.
“When I met him, I was living a solitary life,” he pauses, glances at Jeonghan.
Jeonghan feels Joshua turn to look at him too. He gives a small nod, touches Minghao’s shoulder.
“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. And that week in Brazil, I got lucky to get him. My star.” Minghao sighs, smiles to himself.
*
“Did you know I learned ballet when I was in middle school?”
“Of course I don’t, we only met yesterday, love,” says the star.
Really? Doesn’t feel like it. I stand up, showing off my still lithe legs, folding them, twisting with all the grace I could remember from a whole year of forced practice, and it surely looks terrible, standing like this in the middle of my dirty kitchen in ratty, checked pajamas, but the incredulous grin that appears in his face, the way he strides to meet me, touches me, it was well worth it.
We imagined a future there. How he would teach me grace. How I would watch him dance. How we would look at the same sky in different places as all around the world. How we would hold each other’s hands. And hold each other’s hands.
*
“At a time and place where everyone you meet feels either unsafe or temporary,” I said, licking up a stripe from his chest to his neck, I whispered during his last night, I pleaded, I hoped, “remember me.”
“Soonyoung,” he said, just as I shuddered wetly into his mouth. “Kwon Soonyoung. My name.”
*
“Eeeewww, blech,” Jeonghan teases, “not the gooey parts, old man!”
Minghao giggles, and Jeonghan’s eyes widen at the rare sound of it. Joshua watches, entranced. His hand is over Minghao’s, rubbing them together slightly.
“I will spare you the details, because I still remember it, think about it everyday,” Minghao says, and Jeonghan clucks at his tongue, stands up to grab a blanket. It’s already dusk.
“But of course,” he continues, “there is a place meant for a star in the sky. And he had to go to the next stop of their tour.”
Jeonghan gently drapes the blanket over Minghao and Joshua, already huddled together. He softly touches the back of his hand over Minghao’s neck, to check if he’s cold, and then satisfied he’s warm, settles his own body around Joshua’s.
“He just left?” Joshua asks, holding Jeonghan close.
Minghao glances around, until his eyes settle on the framed photo of a man onstage in what looks like a giant stadium. At its bottom left corner is a signature and a doodle of a star.
“No. He arrived.”
*
“I love him, babe, you were right. He’s amazing,” Joshua whispers.
“Whoa, hello, you talking like that to your boyfriend now? Honeymoon phase is over?”
Joshua cackles. And then says again, I love him, bring me to visit him again.
Later, after Jeonghan clocks out from the house and parks to the side of the road to wait for Joshua as he picks up their laundry, he thinks back to his friend, his patient, Hao, and the photo that had been by his bedside for as long as he had been working for him.
Remembering how delighted he sounded sharing his story to Joshua today, how real his smiles were, how he had giggled, Jeonghan shuddered; he realizes now that the loneliness he once thought he saw in Minghao isn’t true. Freshly broken up, kicked out of his own house, and just starting a career he wasn’t sure was for him, Minghao was the first one who accepted him. Trusted him. Joshua came much, much later.
He had always thought it was lonely, whenever Minghao told his story. It’s only now that he comes to the understanding that it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t his, but Jeonghan’s own loneliness reflected in the glassy eyes of the old man. How he’d imagined him lonely, when in fact, Minghao was happy. Grateful and happy.
As he watches Joshua jogging funnily on his way back to the car, Jeonghan laughs, fond and then thinks, right, finally, thank you, longer, forever more please.