sounds of a whale → junhao

三

minghao had never seen the ocean. jun had been surprised the first time he had come to his house, discovering an encyclopedia, books telling stories about dolphins, or forsaken cetaceans. Jules Verne's books like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick or The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. he had a DVD of Besson's The Big Blue and Yann Arthus-Bertrand's documentaries, without mentioning Finding Nemo. when jun had to
crouch to examine his collection, minghao had shyly made this confession, coming back from the kitchen on his tiptoes, two warm cups of tea in his hands.

"Is this why it fascinates you that much? Because you have never seen it?"

"I guess? I've never been out of the city. To be honest, I have never seen snow either."

"I see..."

"Well, lucky you, because I don't see anything at all" had laughed minghao

and jun had felt his heart tighten without really understanding why. he could feel that there was something there to dig but had never dared to ask why minghao, captivated by the sea, had never organized a day, a week, a moment, to take the train and make his dream come true. maybe he was scared, just like jun was, to be hit by reality. that it might be disappointing and dull.

jun had never been the calm kind. little, he had struggled with nightmares, had an irrational fear of storms, of rain at night, and could only cry himself to sleep. growing up, he had still been afraid of the dark, but sleeping with the city lights filtering through the window gave him night terrors in which dark silhouettes stood out of the cold outside. letting the young man frozen on his bed, his eyes bulging and a silent scream, bursting out when he was finally able to wake up. the crowd terrified him and he was easily overwhelmed by stress at the tiniest pressure. as a teen, he had had to use a traditional tranquillizer, hard to keep as a secret and, minghao had gotten tears in his eyes while discovering the scars on his arms. still resistant, no matter how long it had been since.

jun, who never handle abandonment, had paradoxically never been very surrounded. he had suffered a lot through every departure of his friends at every step of his life, middle school, high school, college. he isolated himself for days when a fight was coming for him and the first crisis that had scared minghao was a day during which he had called to cancel the afternoon they were supposed to spend together, telling him he would still come to see him during the evening. jun's voice had become less and less perceptible and his not-yet-boyfriend had first thought it was due to lack of sleep. until he had discovered him a few hours later, sitting against the wall of his kitchen, staring at a broken piece of tile, marks of salt on his cheeks.

"jun? What happened?"

"..."

"jun, damn, are you okay? Do you want me to call 911? Are you fainting? Look at me!"

"Sorry... I thought... you were not coming back..."

minghao had kept silent and then had sighed.

"It's the first time I meet such an idiot... You're even worse than me."

and he had brought his head against his heart, smiling sadly, before starting to sing the song he had been learning at that time. jun had apologized for hours, and then begged him to stay over that night.

"I'm afraid without you."

minghao had accepted. Stroking the deep of jun's dimple, putting his cheek even more comfortably in the corner of his collar bone. just like a puppy, the latter agreed to the stroking, relaxing little by little, and his breathing becoming smoother.

minghao had not been scared in front of jun's obvious sick possessiveness, he had never raised his voice on him or tried to ran away and stopped their relationship. no matter how hard jun had been crying on the phone when minghao was visiting a friend he did not know about, hitting the walls until he would broke the plaster, waking up in the middle of the night screaming. never minghao had given up on him. in the end, jun had become softer to his contact, like tamed. he had learn to trust, to fall in love in a healthier way than he had never been able to. he had learn to rely on him as much as minghao ended up relying on jun. he had had the feeling to go out of a tempest, a storm that had lasted for years, a hurricane of uncontrollable emotions that had been crushing into ashes jun's mental health. he had had the impression to distinguish a shy rainbow in a still rainy sky and, to spin the metaphor, to glimpse new colours.