Page 109 of Hamartia

Did he hear me say it? Is that terror on his face? I want to go to him. I want him to say it back. But that’s not how it works.

That’s not how love works. Love is fucking terrifying. A jump in the dark. Blind fucking faith.

He’s still looking at me. That wide-eyed stare coupled with quick breaths. He doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything, so I bite the bullet.

“That was Camille,” I tell him though I’m sure he worked that out on his own. “I figured I’d been avoiding her long enough.”

I watch him warily as he keeps staring. He nods once and then turns and scurries off down the hall leaving me sitting there alone.

I push down the anxiety churning in my gut and follow him.

He’s finishing up in the bathroom. Smoothing some expensive face cream over his cheeks and forehead, the tip of his nose, his chin. I brush my teeth as I watch him go through his skincare regimen.

He’s not looked at me. After the cream, there’s a clear liquid, two precise drops onto two fingers and then he’s smoothing that on too, mainly around his eyes. Then he washes his hands. When he’s done that he finally flicks a brief look at me before dipping back out of the bathroom.

I piss and wash my hands and then wander back into his bedroom where he’s lying flat on his back under the striped sheets, staring at the ceiling.

The light is off on his side but not on mine. He tilts his head to watch me walk around the bed and strip out of my sweats before getting in beside him. His skin glows in the dull light and I can smell the faintest trace of the products he’s used, orange peel and baby powder.

He stares back at the ceiling as he says, “You told her you are in love with me.”

He doesn’t sound terrified. Doesn’t look it either, not anymore. Maybe he just needed some time to sit with the idea.

“Does that scare you?” I ask.

He turns onto his side so that he’s facing me.“That you told her or that you are?” he asks, mouth softening into a semblance of a smile.

“The second one.”

“A little, yes,” he says in a really small voice.

“Why?” I’m ready for him to say something like;because I don’t feel the same way you do, or, what if I can’t give you what you want,or possibly even something like, you’re important Raphael, but I can’t ever be with you—not like that.

But instead, he says; “Because everyone who’s ever loved me—who has ever tried to be with me—has always decided that in the end it is too hard. That I am too…difficult.” He shakes his head like that’s not quite what he meant. “That it is too much hard work to be with me. To love me.”

He still looks frustrated. Like he can’t quite verbalize what it is he means. It doesn’t matter though because I get the gist. And it’s pissing me off. Who made him feel like that? His parents? His friends? His bandmates? Ji-hoon?

In any case, loving him isn’t hard. It’s been easy. Quick and easy. I blinked and it was done. I try for light because I can feel him slipping into someplace dark, somewhere I don’t want him to go. Never again if I can help it.

“Then you know a lot of liars because that’s not been my experience.” I smile, reaching out to smooth my hand around his neck.

He trembles beneath my fingers, eyes slipping closed.

“You have not been doing it very long,” he reasons.

“Learning to skateboard was hard. Painful too. I fell offa lot. Broke a lot of bones.” I count them in my head. “Five; the same one twice. But I never gave up until I could do it. Learning to play the guitar was hard too. I was pretty sure I’d been born with my fingers on the wrong hands because I couldn’t get my head around how I was supposed to move them, how to do that quick enough to make it sound good, then do it while strumming too. I practiced until my fingers bled. Until blisters formed over blisters—they never really healed properly.”

I lift my fingers to show him the roughened pearly pads. Old callouses that were part of me now. He takes hold of my hand and stares at them, then brings them to his lips to place feather-soft kisses over them.

“Are you going to break my bones, Jaehyun? Make me bleed?”

It’s not really a question, but he answers it anyway.

“Never.” There’s a quiet ferocity in his eyes.

I slide my hand around his neck to pull him closer. “Then how about neither of us hurt ourselves or each other? Not unless it’s in a kinky-sex way.”

He laughs against my mouth. “A kinky-sex way. You mean like spanking?”