ɪ'ʟʟ ʙᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ➻〚𝙣𝙘𝙩 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙤𝙩7〛

Two Years In: Chenle and Jisung

~

Park Jisung

~

"Babe, are you doing okay?" I whisper tenderly into the love of my life's ear as he leans back onto my chest, completely exhausted as his eyelids flutter shut into slight crescents. Humming quietly, I card through his platinum-dyed locks with my fingers, finally learning the mechanisms and actions that calm him down, years after he figured out how to calm me down in times of despair or distress. He breathes out deeply, soothed by the rhythmic, continual combing of my fingers and the somewhat mellifluous melody escaping my closed lips.

"I'll be fine, Sungie. Thanks for asking me if I'm okay, love, but I'd prefer to talk about it when I'm not so stressed... Right now, I just want to enjoy the two of us, if that's okay," Chenle's beautiful tone rings into my ears. I don't think I could ever become tired of his dulcet voice, whether he's just speaking softly, laughing his signature, adorable dolphin-like laugh, or singing his heart out into an expansive, large crowd. Scrambling around, Chenle sits himself on my lap, facing me, his pretty smile flashing right at me. It's obvious that he's tired by the bags under his eyes, rightfully so, but he's still shining to me, always stunning no matter where or when.

Whenever I feel that--that feeling when you see someone and think they're beautiful no matter what, yet you find new ways to fall in love with them every day--that's when I know I'm in love. And yes, I'm in love with Zhong Chenle.

It's easy to dismiss my feelings as those of a young boy who doesn't understand love, and to some degree, it's true. I don't quite understand the full expanse of love and everything the feeling encapsulates, but I know that whatever I do feel and the out-of-body experience I have whenever I lay eyes on my best friend of fourteen years and lover for two, is love, pure and simple. And if being in love is the experience that pairs with love, I know for sure that I'm experiencing it as well.

Before Mark left, he told me to look right around me, because there was someone ready to love me unlike I had felt before. He was completely right; that person was Chenle, and sometimes it pains me to think about how we had fallen for each other right in front of each other's eyes, but it took so long to recognize and act on our feelings. A few months before Mark graduated school, the "incident" (as Lele and I now dub it) in which we both stole each other's first kisses, awkwardly happened and for a while after that, neither of our naive, self-conscious selves had any idea of how to react.

It was obvious after the fact that both of us had wanted and enjoyed the kiss, and that we hadn't done it to experiment or for some non-serious reasons. Obviously, months before the incident, I had recognized my attraction towards Chenle, especially because he spent so much time with me after Taemin's suicide attempt and we had bonded in a way deeper than I shared with the other boys. Lele had apparently the same story as me and fell for me because of the sheer amount of time we spent with each other during a vulnerable time, but both of us had such consuming uneasiness about how the other felt towards us.

Yet, again, after Mark talked to me the first time outside that convenience store while I was an emotional, sobbing mess, and especially the second time he talked to us, outside the gate as he was getting ready to depart for four years, I recognized I actually had to take action to get what I wanted and show Chenle how deep my love for him ran. I truly owe the blossoming of our love to Mark, and sometimes, I can't even believe that it's already been two years without him.

Though I miss Mark dearly--he was like my older brother and mentor, after all--so much happened after I left, and most of it for the good of my mental health and being. Shortly after he left for Canada, I confessed everything to the love of my life. Lele had come over again for the night, and we found ourselves in another situation similar to the night of the "incident." Our lips were mere inches from touching and the sexual tension was excruciatingly present, but before I could dive towards his lips, Lele stopped me and asked me what our relationship was supposed to be. I looked in his glistening eyes, his irises deep cocoa and his jet black pupils sparking with the depth of the Milky Way, and I knew that I had found the love I was searching for right in his eyes.