The Soundtrack (CHANGKI✔️)

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[ track twelve contd ]

Pain cannot be erased. Changkyun knows this all too well, but he also knows that he cannot avoid the head-on collision he'll surely take for the man before him. Nothing about what they have, or what they are, is easy. Not a single word or rhyme, neither smile nor sigh is simple.

Mistakes cannot be undone. Kihyun knows this more than any other should, yet he can't help but to push forth into the hurricane of love that already destroyed his home once before. Nothing about what he wants is a mystery. Not a single kiss, or touch, or glance can be regretted.

"Kihyun?"

Lowering his camera from his face, Kihyun glances over at Changkyun. The younger man, gorgeous under the late summer sun, looks almost asleep spread out along the length of the park bench. Kihyun hums in reply, lifting the camera again and angling the lens towards the sight beside him.

"Do you think that in another life, we loved each other?"

The shutter of the old camera sounds, and Changkyun peeks his eyes open to stare down the bench at where Kihyun sits. Lowering his camera again, slightly embarrassed, Kihyun thinks quietly. He doesn't speak for a long while, and Changkyun thinks he's asked something too forward, but finally Kihyun tilts his head back to watch the trees and mumble a gentle reply.

"I think that when two souls are connected, they're always connected." Lifting a hand, tanned from a summer spent taking photos and writing lyrics in the grass, Kihyun motions around at the trees vaguely. "I think we've never been apart, and we probably met when this park was just a single sapling."

Changkyun relaxes back into the bench's wood, his eyes shutting as his cheeks lift in a soft smile. "I think I probably killed you in another life."

Kihyun's small hand comes down to smack at Changkyun's knee, shocked to hear the words leave his lover's lips. "Why would you say that?"

Propping himself up on his elbows, the dark man stares down his body at Kihyun, a smirk playing on his lips. "Don't even try and tell me you haven't been haunting me since we met this time around. When we were friends, you were all I thought about. When we were together, who were all I needed."

"When we were apart," Kihyun adds quietly, "I couldn't let you rest for even a second."

Lifting a hand to point at the smaller man, Changkyun nods boldly. "Like a damn ghost. You're haunting me, and you won't let me the hell go."

Chuckling under his breath, Kihyun spreads out across Changkyun's lower half. His hair splays out across Changkyun's stomach, his camera aimed upwards towards the sun that shines between green leaves. "I think even if you killed me in another life, you still loved me. More than ever, actually."

Changkyun listens to the breeze as it passes over the tall grass beneath the bench, a quiet calm settled over the pair as they both watch the trees. Changkyun's hand finds its way into Kihyun's hair, playing with the soft strands in a rhythmic motion. "We loved with a love that was more than love."

Kihyun grins, his eyes drifting shut as Changkyun's fingers tug gently at his dark locks. "Are you saying that my untimely murder was an act of love that carried over into this life?"

Kihyun can feel his lover's chuckle, the vibrations bouncing through the dark man's stomach like a soft drum's beat. "I'm saying that whatever we had then, and whatever we have now, isn't something to be put under a single word."

Changkyun recalls an old poem he'd written for the older man, the words playing on his lips before he can stop himself. "Sweeter than chocolate, wrapped in nothing but foil, you've uncovered me and taken half of what I once was. My life, vibrant and silk, paint your lips before the taste can hit as too sweet. Within your hands, I melt and leave behind the heart that once was. The mania of what we are is nothing sweeter than the chocolate you've bitten into."