spots to kiss 4, to smooth out a furrow... from kojo!
Spots to Kiss: 4 (Between the brows.)
Still accepting.
Kojo's house is warm, fragrant and bustling with the promise of dinner.
Still, that doesn’t make his own frigid, staunched as it is with Vietnam’s dribbling monsoon months. Nursing his teas, he’d never want or care to shiver, and he'd swaddle in his sofa as he pondered over dreams–or perhaps a stray, runaway thought: ‘had I locked the store's doors?' he'd wonder over his brew. 'Or the ginger. Thyme. Have I laid their trays to dry?' The bitterness clings, dew-like on the purse of his lips, and he’d sit there bereft of company and talk... Walls all barren like the bowels of his cabinets, and the clockface trembling when the rice pot clicks. Ticks. Hello. Dinner’s ready, it calls to the empty.
Yes, Cường’s known it, the vacant wrap of a sun-lit home. Still, he bemoans it never. But it’s familiar, almost, chopping these scallions in Kojo’s kitchen, feeling a swathing warmth beyond that intrepid bleed of summertime. There’s photos littered everywhere, and shoes crowd the doorway, and swelling laughter fills the hallways as it floods unto the crowning.
Tender. Lived-in. Cường welcomes it, chopping away as he eyes that knot working frustratingly at Kojo. It’s puzzling, he thinks decidedly. Doenjang jjigae isn’t troublesome, but his knife works slowly, and it’s enough, whatever it is, to set his jaw at a line. Mother dips, miming a sighed phone call, and Cường, in her absence (and even not) stares shamelessly.
Those eyes are warm as ever. Both siblings can peer to them for a burst of inspiration, and his hands, so embracing, will bear their troubles like upon his back, doubtlessly through piggy back-trips that one lifetime ago. A good man, he is, in a warm home whose laughter he treasures. The sun strokes his collarbones, and his hair burns nutty.
Cường blinks. Overwrought with an aging memory, he takes Kojo’s wrists over the cooking.
Hm. “Set the table for me, won’t you?” he asks, seeing that funny knot twitch a little. Kojo turns to his sway, and his broad shoulder loom. “I’ll impress your mother, and I’ll impress you, too. A good dinner will do for you. So, let me, won’t you?” I know something’s on your mind.
And that’s not exactly fair, no, and yet— Enough. He leans in, and, gosh, mother, don’t turn, now, he presses his mouth against that gnawing worry. It warms blisteringly–abundantly even; has July tumbled uninvited into this room?–doenjang jjigae and sunsets be damned. His mouth sweeps pleasant, and on it bleeds jasmine, and Kojo’s fingers struggle to corral the moment. The pot kicks on the burner now quite stubbornly. “Let me. I want to, so pace yourself,” he whispers quaint. “You invite me in a warm home. Let me make you a warm meal.”
Kojo gawps, and the summer has freckled his skin with a charming blush. He counts freckles like popping daisies, sprouting in a fierce, growing April, and their chests lay near as a heartrate badumps. His? Theirs? Who cares, the churning pot waspishly demands.
The two children by the table pointedly turn to their smartphones. Cường kisses him again. Mother pretends she doesn’t see.
