Are you scared you started living too late?
That you should've been making better mistakes?
Are you scared you started living too late?
'Cause some days I wake up full of all this fear
Wishing that I was anywhere but here
I'm craving for the freezing cold of an ocean
To be somewhere lost in a moment
Out there on my own
“Yah! Manager Kim!” Minho drawls, pointing his empty shot glass towards the other. His colleague, Kim Seungmin immediately scrambles to grab the next open bottle of soju to refill Minho’s glass. But the moment Kim Seungmin starts to dip the bottle, Minho yanks away his glass.
“Team Leader-nim!” Kim Seungmin whines in protest, his pronunciation mushy.
Minho only continues to watch as the other almost crashes onto the table, startled by Minho’s rash movement, almost spilling the remains in the bottle while trying to steady himself. Kim Seungmin must have had his fair share of drinks tonight, it seems.
“Say,” Minho prompts. “Aren’t you tired?” He peers into the depth of his glass, twirling around the residue of the last shot he took, mindlessly.
“Of drinkin’? Not yet.” Kim Seungmin looks around for a bit, gaze flitting along the empty seats around them with most of their department already gone. “Is not time to go home yet,” he concludes. “Sunbae, let’s drink some more,” he raises the bottle back up in a new attempt to pour Minho another drink. “Until our worries wash away!”
“NO!” Minho puts a protective hand over his glass, shielding it.
“Why?” Kim Seungmin whines again with his cheeks red. Minho can’t tell if it’s due to anger or the alcohol.
“Aren’t you tired?” Minho repeats the same vague question from earlier. Because he is, so freaking tired of this.
“Of what?”
“Of this all,” Minho gestures around them. “This pointless job. This suffocating city. Reliving the same boring seven days every week. Pretending to be fine when you’re not. Settling for less than happiness.”
Manager Kim sets down the bottle.
“Because I am,” Minho says as he snatches the soju away in front of his colleague immediately.
He fills his glass hastily, to the brim, with a lot of spillage over the edges. He is bursting at his seams too. He knocks back the shot without hesitation, the alcohol at the back of his throat overshadowing the sting in his eyes.
“So fucking tired,” He hisses after, gulping down — the soju tastes especially bitter today.
“Then,” Kim Seungmin says after a long moment of silence as he meets Minho’s eye.
The fluorescent lights of this shabby barbecue place reflect in Kim Seungmin’s eyes. There is a dangerous glint twinkling in them. It’s unlike anything Minho has ever seen in his colleague, always ever so stoic, polite, and composed. It feels like a challenge, something in it makes Minho’s gut tingle in a way that it hasn’t in quite some time — was it anticipation? Excitement?
“What if we run away?”
—
Minho holds onto Seungmin’s hand tightly as he gets dragged towards the waves. The ocean breeze is strong, rustling their hair, leaving a sting in their eyes and on their cheeks, but Minho finds he doesn’t mind the sensation. He welcomes it in fact.
When Seungmin lets go of Minho’s hand to kick off his shoes and rip off his socks, Minho follows suit. He can barely keep up with the speed at which Seungmin rushes into the water. The only thing that overtones the adrenaline rushing through Minho’s ears is Seungmin’s laughter ringing in the air as he keeps splashing around himself, not minding getting them both wet from head to toe in the process.
The water is far from warm and Minho can feel his blood run cold. First in his toes, then his feet, up to his calves, and the wet spots in his clothes that cling to his remaining skin. But Minho doesn’t stop Seungmin, instead, he joins in. It’s childish, how they go at each other like little kids, but there is something cathartic about it — letting go.
After they have exhausted themselves, they crash into the sand, hands tightly clasped together. The sun is beginning to rise on the horizon, colouring the sky in various shades of blue, orange, and pink. The abundance of color tints Seungmin in a magical glow — skin radiant and brimming with life.
Seungmin turns to him then and there is something oddly enchanting about the look in his eyes. Seungmin had never been like that to Minho — attractive. He only ever had been Manager Kim, blending in with the masses, but now being right before him Minho becomes a moth drawn to a flame. And before he knows it, he can feel Seungmin’s burning hot lips against his own.
At first, it’s only a tentative brush, a ghost of a touch. But the contact is enough to set Minho’s whole being aflame. It ignites something deep in him, a feeling that he thought had long been lost and buried with all the other parts of himself that had run right through his fingers, slipping away.
The more Minho clings, grabs, tugs, gives, and takes the more solid the feeling becomes. The strumming of his heart doesn’t feel as suffocating anymore and the air getting sucked out of his lungs, the burn and ache that comes with it, he welcomes the sensation. When they part, work clothes not only wet but now also disheveled, despite being short of breath, Minho feels like he can finally breathe again.
As they face the ocean to watch the sun rise higher and higher Minho takes a moment to think to himself and comes to the conclusion he doesn’t care what will become of them once they sober up and return back to reality. For now, he chooses to live in the moment. This moment with Seungmin next to him. Not the Seungmin that walks into the office with tired eyes and types away on his computer with a blank expression day in and day out. No. But A Seungmin much more reminiscent of the Seungmin that had walked into his job interview with bright eyes and weightless smile all those years ago.
Back then Minho had thought he would be able to preserve it — Seungmin’s radiance, the spark in him, the optimism. But how could he possibly, when he hadn’t even been able to stop his own smile from fading in the mirror?
Ultimately, Minho hadn’t been able to stop Seungmin from walking down the same path as his own. But maybe now, they could travel this road together feeling a little less alone.
Minho peels himself off the ground and faces Seungmin, who is still sitting in the sand, once he’s up and standing. There is a feeling swelling in his chest, something that feels awfully close like hope.
“Time to go, Seungmin-ah,” Minho says wistfully, reaching out his hand for Seungmin to take with a pounding heart.
A moment passes between them with Seungmin staring into wide of the endless ocean. There is nothing here besides the washing of waves and brushing of the breeze. It’s as if time has frozen and Seungmin with it. He isn’t giving any signs that he considers moving soon and it makes Minho ponder for a moment if Seungmin is ready to take it — a leap of faith. But then his head turns, a gentle smile spreading on Seungmin’s face and then — he takes it, Minho’s hand.
And Minho decides then and there that he won’t let go as long as Seungmin lets him hold it.
Liv.e - I Been Livin (Couldn't Wait To Tell You... , 2020)
“i’m as tired as you see
i’ve been walking down a long road and
i’ve been living as long as my souls been in existence
10,000 years later i’m tryna make a way but
i thought i would’ve learned by now
the time do move but it don’t speed
it only took 9 lives to figure it out
I’M not surprised that i made it this far
i wouldn’t rewind
looking back never made
any sense...”
first twitter softened it's interface with circles and ovals and facebook quickly followed suit with a more cushioned mellow vibe -- now google chrome has rounded off it's tabs in an apparent effort toward a melodious, gentler internet experience -- and a suspected belief we can't all be trusted with sharp edges.
