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It’s a solemn Wednesday night when Jaemin decides that he doesn’t like the quiet so much anymore.
Outside is dark and dreary, the fusion between an ever growing dark evening and the pitch black of night. It had been raining just minutes before, a loud shower that hit hard against the glass windows and the roof of their home, no doubt ruining the little potted plants on the outside windowsill and inevitably cleaning the dirt from their garden gnomes. The streets were filled in a one inch layer of water mixed with mud, and the scent of rain from the outside had wafted in from the open window of their bedroom before Jaemin had half the mind to close it.
Mark was still out, slaving over an evening class that he had lost interest in but needed the credits for. It was a creative writing class, something Jaemin himself would have loved, but a fickle thing Mark Lee had no use for in engineering. How would that even help me? Mark had asked in counter to Jaemin’s own question, brows furrowed and incredulous in fond awe. There’s no place for pretty loop sentences and stories in a field about math and science. Jaemin had disagreed, partly just because he wanted to, really because he believed words had a part in everything.
His class would finish a few minutes from now and Mark would soon text him on his way home, a simple hey and a soft can i help u make dinner when i come back? that made Jaemin’s heart flutter is ways incomparable to anything he’d ever experienced. But here he sat, sinking into the pillowy cushions of the couch as he watched the rain die down and out, leaving the sky a gray void and the earth with nothing left to respond to, again lapsing back into silence.
Everything was still, then. It’s dark out and no one dares to come outside after the fiercity of the rain and how it left the roads, and all the animals and bugs had retreated into their burrows and hidey holes to wait until the ground had finally been restored into the dry place they called home. And Mark was out, so his endless quick humming and clumsy ruckus was elsewhere, and Jaemin was tired of the quiet but too scared to move and ruin it. A predicament within itself, really.
There was no solution, eventually a space would have to bask in dull silence no matter the situation, and Jaemin knew that. He didn’t hate the quiet, it used to be a part of him, still is. But now Jaemin wants to push it away, wants the rain to come back, wants to hear Mark giggle and laugh while they hold hands outside and the rain beats down hard on the material of their jackets. He wants to kiss out loud and have the sound resonate throughout the main hall before he leaves to go to class, wants the whole university to get tired of his shouting because Jaemin is very loudly in love with Mark Lee and can’t handle shutting his mouth about it.
It’s different from before, Jaemin thinks. He’s always loved Mark and that’s why he’s here, in the small livingroom of the cottage-like house they had found and moved into at the edge of the university neighbourhood. It’s the very reason Jaemin has followed him this long at all, through the lies and the secrets and the god forsaken rumors. It’s no sweat off his back though, something Jaemin can slide out of like it was built on a second skin and he has a spare at home, he guesses he does. Or maybe he just has Mark, the only person able to build him back up after everything is knocked down.
This time, right now, Jaemin is still here, but he wants to stay longer. For forever. Wants to sink into the couch because it's his and Mark’s and the older boys scent is permanently on it. Wants to lie down in bed next to Mark and never move because there would be no reason to. It can’t happen like this though, Jaemin knows this. Can’t be behind locked doors and in the safety of dark closets. Can’t be hidden behind walls and trained to be quiet because Jaemin’s love for Mark is so loud he’s surprised it hasn’t sprouted out of him yet like vines. It’s something he’s waiting to happen.
He’s waiting, diligently, but the rain has long stopped and no one goes outside the hours after rain, and Mark is still gone and Jaemin is still so afraid to move. He can’t wait for something he has to make happen.
His phone dings from its place on the countertop, and Jaemin knows it’s a text from Mark. It disrupts the heavy silence coated over him like a blanket of thick syrup, and instead makes him rise quickly to snatch the device in hand. It’s exactly what Jaemin had been expecting and his heart does a weird flutter, like a caged bird after being let free and learning how to use it’s wings again. Mark is a simple man, a simple person, but at the same time he is so complex that a simple text such as this has Jaemin wondering how this ever came to be. How had he even met Mark? How had Mark even fell in love with him? How had he stayed quiet this long?
Jaemin wants to think they are questions with answers buried deep somewhere in the layers of their relationship. Jaemin knows these questions don’t have answers though, because in life things that happen will happen and Jaemin is the last person to have answers for life. He insteads sends an answer back to Mark, a short hi :) that doesn’t show how much Jaemin misses him. How much Jaemin wishes that Mark would drop the stupid class thats not stupid but is because Mark isn’t here right now and it’s quiet and Jaemin, finally, wants the quiet to drown outside in the large puddles left behind by the loud rain.
But most of all, Jaemin wants to yell from the rooftops, wants to shout his lungs out, wants to fully embrace the love he has for Mark Lee that has grown like watered weeds in his grandma's backyard. He wants to sink into every single comfortable surface in their home so he can be ingrained into Mark's presence forever, so he can never miss the moments he missed while the older boy is here and he's out. He wants to find joy in their very home, lit by cheap candles because the rain blew out the power while they laugh over their dinner of ramen until it gets cold and unappetizing, until the candles melt out and the only light comes from the sparkle of fire in Mark's eye. Jaemin just wants to show the world he loves him.
Its okay if it takes time, because Jaemin knows it will. Knows that Mark will have to get used to the looks and stares like Jaemin will have to do with the apologies from some and the scoffs of others. And even after that, it'll take more time, because the world is not yet accustomed for the bursts of utter adoration that's hidden in Jaemin's heart for one boy that makes him feel like the greatest thing in the universe. It'll take time, but ultimately, Jaemin is ready.
He just has to wait for the sound of the splattering rain.