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Yun-Jin watches the ceiling. Her arm is bent behind her head. She twirls a strand of her hair leisurely. The room is warm, almost stuffy, like a hot shower had been running in the other room. Her skin is heated, and so is Ji-Woon’s; she glances over at him and watches him wipe a thin layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
She watches him for longer. He doesn’t seem to notice. When he’s not looking at anyone, his eyes look empty.
He’s messy. His hair is tousled, strewn across the pillow, and his lipstick is smeared. His lipstick and Yun-Jin’s intertwine in splotches around his lips. He drags another hand across his face and it rubs against a closed eye, smearing dark eyeliner and light eyeshadow down his cheek. He curses, rubs at the makeup on his hand with his thumb; then huffs and drops both hands on the pillow, above his head.
Yun-Jin likes him like this. Messy. Undone. She likes him when he comes off stage and his hair is strewn about and sweat is dripping down his neck and there’s a wild look in his eyes.
She doesn’t see that look very often. When he’s not on stage, it’s this sort of forced pleasantness, usually paired with inattentiveness. Idleness.
It almost made her grateful for what they had just done, because it had allowed her to see that wild look up close. She sat on his hips, one hand in his hair, smoothing her palm up his abs, and she breathed his name and he grinned and his eyes were alive, had their own beating hearts and breathing lungs, and they were shining in a way so hypnotic that Yun-Jin thought she might lose herself to a trance. They looked as if they had been searching and searching forever and they were finally satisfied.
But now they were dead. They were drained of their color, cold and pallid as a corpse. The empty look in his eyes that she was so used to - she had seen it every day since the fire.
That day, something inside him broke. Sometimes, it would just barely mend itself. When she gasped his name, or when the crowd screamed it.
“Ji-Woon,” she says softly. He meets her eyes. He doesn’t bother with the faux cheeriness; not then. She’s glad. “Do you ever want to talk about the fire?”
He watches her for a long time. His eyes become more and more like a black hole, draining and sucking the life out of everything around him. She has to look away. He does too. The room is grey and lifeless. He stared up at the ceiling, just for a moment, but it’s long enough for everything else to fall away.
“It was beautiful,” he says, slowly, softly, curiously, like he’s hardly aware of his own voice. “The fire was beautiful. I wish I could relive that day.” He sits up carefully. The room is like an old black and white movie, jumping and lagging, eerily silent. “I wish I could watch it - feel it - again and again and again. I wish I could strike the match. I wish I could feel the heat of the flames’ closeness.” A spot of color, just barely, on the grey blanket draped over his knees. Spreading. “I wish I could hear their screams.” He closes his eyes. “Oh, their screams. True music. Like you’ve never heard, Yun-Jin.”
His eyes fall open. His legs and the end of the bed have color now. It travels up his waist, up his stomach. “I’ve never been the same since that day. You know it, too.” He speaks to her but doesn’t look at her. He watches the snake of color. His eyes grow brighter. “I have this appetite that I can’t satiate. And I try- I try, but I’m always hungry.” He threads his fingers through his hair. Color is creeping up the walls. “I record their screams so I can listen. Again and again and again. But it’s not enough.” The room is full of color. He stands up. “It’s never enough. Not without watching their eyes; their bright eyes, full of fear, finally being drained of life.” The color is so bright they’re screaming. Ji-Woon’s ears are ringing. He can feel his pulse pounding in his temples.
He finally looks at Yun-Jin. She’s standing on the other side of the bed, arms wrapped tight around herself. She’s staring at him in horror. It’s not just fear in her eyes. It’s betrayal. Disgust. Disappointment.
Excitement and adrenaline had sat perched at the top of his throat, just below his jaw, but now they plunged to the bottom of his stomach and crashed and set fire. Now he burned with rage. She was just like everyone else. And he was alone. Always. Even when he wasn’t, he was.
He blinks. He’s in bed. She’s watching him expectantly.
He looks away. His eyes are dead, and for a moment she thinks he is too. “No. Not really.”