| Night | Worshipping His touches were kind and given in the waning glow of a swollen moon. Often, in the wake of physical fusion, Hwoarang found that his breathing became as deep as Jin's was in the clasp of deep slumber. Yet now, minutes away from dawn, sleep would not come to him. In the wake of spiritual fusion, his touches were tender as he reposed on an elbow, gazing down through strands of orange at his dreaming shrine. He ran the calloused pads of his fingers over muscular lines of sternum in reverent worship. He nuzzled with his nose and lips the heated depth of a raised arm, inhaling Jin's sharp, humid scent. Each of his touched offers became more demanding when Jin's breathing grew shallow, deploying the arc of a nail to trace the curve of a brown nipple whose taste Hwoarang could vividly remember, and knuckling against the crook of Jin's neck as his face turned, cushioned by the pillow. As if he doubted that first taste could be matched, Hwoarang's lips descended to kiss again, sample anew. A slow, satisfied smile which he configured against Jin's bicep reprimanded his skepticism. He drew his shrine up against him, the roughness of casted fingers digging into Jin's thigh, the possessive circle of an arm belting his waist. Even if Hwoarang's dreams would tear him from Jin by morning, the fusion would lull him to sleep. Dawn | Breathing Faced with the ramifications of dawn, Hwoarang drew his calm from Jin's soft snoring. The Japanese slept on his stomach, shelled in the sheets and in a position of protection from what Hwoarang read in Jin's brown, wondering eyes sometimes. With affectionate consideration, the Korean settled for the vast scape of his back. The contours, defined in muscle and in strong, resilient shoulderblades, fascinated him. Placing the lukewarm pads of his fingers against Jin's spine, Hwoarang felt a surge of heat, and he leaned over and saw the violent scars on each shoulderblade. They were scars from what Jin protected himself from even in sleep -- healed wounds, two slits lined in faint keloids. In that quiet moment of frightened examination, Hwoarang wanted to lick the heat from Jin's violated skin. But he knew such a move might wake the Japanese, and the ramifications of the dawn, the morning that always followed the night they shared, a morning in which they had to part, would come all the faster. And so the Korean settled for stroking his fingers lightly along Jin's back, and for breathing humid air on the scars. He imagined his loving breath would neutralize the threat they posed. |
| Prologue |