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86,400.
It’s the number Soonyoung began to wither bitter upon hearing it, writing it out, and counting down. Growing up, his parents have spelled out thick books upon thick books about their 86400s and the even thicker books of their trying with the wrong people and rejecting all the right ones. To this day, at the bright age of twenty-four, his heart wrings dark and heavy whenever he has to hear that specific number.
Sure, he thinks 86,400 seconds aren’t enough to decide whether or not he would want someone in his life. Sure, he allows the pang of jealousy to simmer in the back of his mind and into the pit of his guts when one of his coworkers or friends talk about their first 86,400 seconds with their significant someone and what they all saw in their possible futures with them.
But what teases the jokes into misery is the fact that a lot of those many first 86,400 seconds of Soonyoung contemplating ended without ever hearing anything about the person again.
He’s sat through flashes of his life with someone who ends up walking away. He’s sat through heartbreak and hospital visits, cheating and white lies that eventually become the foundation of their identities for each other. He’s stopped himself from throwing a punch when someone might have insulted his sister or his parents somehow if he let the person into his life. He’s sat through an enlistment that doesn’t secure a way back home. He’s sat through EKGs controlling time and the standstill of the world when the only sound at the end of that 86,400 seconds is not the reassuring rhythmic beep of life but a single drop that doesn’t end.
He thinks he spectated it all and sat through enough.
Today, he finds himself besides colleagues at his floor and his boss warming everyone up with their first rounds, calling out the newest one on the floor for running late when the time has been half of the talk this entire day. Soonyoung accepts something light for tonight because even if his boss exchanges generous raises of his eyebrows for another drink and gracious dismissals about the bill, they might not be there the next morning. From the corner of the long table, he notices a few people he’s brushed 86400s with--some he offered mere greetings to and others he would never cross paths at the printer. All familiar but not quite. Sounds like the office and words between the same four glass walls of their floor but far away.
He downs a shot when his boss insists him to.
He hates being dragged into these, but he blames himself because Junhui promises to sit next to him every time and he believes it every time. His 86400 with Junhui never told him about these promises whipped off the second they walk into these occasions. But Junhui is a constant in his life, one of the only people he willingly opened up to after that first 86400.
Scanning around the room, he notices how every single person in this room, except for Junhui, scraped superficial 86400s with him. Deciding perhaps, at less than 300, that he won’t let them dive too deep into his life. Almost everyone here is a name and a face he grazed seconds with.
There’s Sooha, who refused to let him stop their 86400 together when there’s a possible memory of them under the stars and his fingertips perching at her chin. It was enough for him to stop it all at once. Daesik, whose first possible memory included a split lip and blood across Soonyoung’s knuckles, black eyes donning into beauty marks on each other’s faces and the stars behind his eyes when he pieces this possible memory together. He remembers, after that moment, not to share too many exchanges with him. Then there’s his boss at the very end of the table, who required him to sign a contract that he will watch every second of their first 86400 and regardless of what the future ties them down with, if he liked Soonyoung in that interview, at that very moment, then he will hire him. There’s also Seungpil, who taught him that he can choose whether or not to watch those 86400s, to stop himself from watching it all, or to let life toy with him. He’s still unsure what Seungpil will mean to him, but he’s grateful to have learned how to do that. There’s Jaeah, one of the only few in here he watched all the way through because their beginning ended with her rubbing his arm and his tracing muted-out words of “It’ll be okay” from her lips.
An hour of swallowing up a single shot of soju in his system as everyone pools into their third bottles, his eyes saunter back around the room. He thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to slip away and head home. Many of them, if not all of them, won’t remember in the morning, anyway, and that’s the only hope he’s clinging onto. When he catches Junhui in passing between the tables, he tells him he’s going home, to not tell anyone he’s leaving early. Junhui, like all the other occasions where he’s dragging into this, agrees with a solid clasp on his shoulder and a bid to get home safely.
Spring this evening is merciful to him, and he’s grateful. With one of those drunk coworkers being his ride there, even when he announced himself as one of their designated drivers, the stop home doesn’t welcome the bus until another thirty minutes. As his eyes drift across the street, he thinks he’s better off spending his time not leaning onto the wall of the bus stop.
He trips around the park at the other side of the street. Months of working after years of university piled on the years since he last grazed his heels in this park. Swings occupied with the shrieks of children higher and higher up into the air, pathways crumbling by the pebbles as parents push along strollers, kites tracing the clouds in green, pink, and blue. Everything around him coupled with the breeze at his cheeks nips the dry at his lips and the vacancy of not worrying so much about his work as he picks up his pace.
The swaying jags of leaves stop his tracks for the bump at his shoulder and the world knocking back down a meter. An ache at his bottom and scrapes at his palms, he winces when a slit of pain needles across his hand again. Grounding himself from the world spinning, he’s about to dust off his palms and run, but knees settle onto the ground at his toes, apologies darting out about bumping into him, succumbing distracted at the kids playing tag.
The man holds out his own slender hands, proffers to dust his palms off for him between each crack of “I’m so sorry.” But as Soonyoung reaches over, lets him dust them off with no question, the proffered hands curl up halfway, veins rising o the back of the man’s palms.
Without their lips moving nor their eyes meeting, a patient voice in his head tells him that the man before him is named Seokmin. But the other voice in his head, his own voice, shoves the idea of learning any more than that.
He coaxes himself that he doesn’t want to know this 86400, doesn’t need another one in his life to reject because of a crime supposedly found with his or his family’s blood or fragments of a broken heart he himself and himself alone is trying to piece back together.
For a moment, he stops this.
He glances up at this Seokmin, expects a barrage of “Why did you stop?” and “Don’t you want to know more?” But what greets him aren’t harsh words or a slap to his face, like Sooha did. Not even a flash of blood in the possibilities, like what Daesik could have cursed him with.
Maybe Seokmin will be another Seungpil in his life. And hopefully, Seokmin won’t mind.
Seokmin’s eyes soften, smiles more than his lips, and his voice touches so gentle at his ears when he assures Soonyoung that “it’s okay that you wanted to stop.”
Seokmin helps him up and after checking for any minuscule rips on his clothes, cuts along his skin, Soonyoung bids him a curt goodbye.
The bus ride home cradles his heart into burdens, probing the air in there for something he never felt before. Not because he left the gathering at the bar early, which is something he always did whenever his boss invited him, anyway. Not because he never reached past the name during this 86400, which became a routine to him a long time ago.
Perhaps it’s the fact that this Seokmin was so accepting that he didn’t want to know anymore. Seokmin didn’t shy away from him nor did he spit out profanities for stopping it all.
He promises that when he arrives home, he’ll think about this some more.
Whenever Soonyoung decides to watch through an 86400, he does so after a shower and before falling between the pillows and under the blankets, in a fit called sleep. He conducts himself quiet, despite being the lonesome soul in his apartment for now. His roommate, Wonwoo, clocks out in another three hours or so. After microwaving leftovers and showering the day away, he finds himself mapping steps all around his bed.
Should I know more? as he bites into the nail on his thumb.
I can just forget about it, as he skips around the idea of sleeping somewhere else for tonight.
At the side of the bed, he sighs and slips right in. He turns the lights off and curls up into himself, fabric bumps of his knuckles close to his lips. When he closes his eyes, he drifts back to the name.
The first possible memory he witnesses is his own sobbing face, tears anew down his cheeks and running with no end, clinging onto his jaw like last breaths and dropping like deadweights on the floor. The sob out his throat scrapes up the insides of his heart from his attempts to form anything coherent words.
In his past 86400s, he would stop here.
But he doesn’t.
Seokmin hurries up to him, toes of his shoes skidding on the pavement and nearly sending him stumbling over. His heart leaps over a beat when Seokmin pulls him close to his chest. They’re mirrors of each other--from the same pink nose and the same streaks of tears down their cheeks, trembling statures from trying to quiet themselves down. Seokmin tries to work the syllables out this time, lips slacking and hanging onto the soundless as Soonyoung nestles his face deeper into his neck. He watches his own fingers digging into Seokmin’s shirt at the back, watches the material stretch with the hopes of never letting go.
Words dissipate at every part of lips and so does the success of deciphering the situation. His mind wanders in more circles when Seokmin chances half a step back, and the two of them muster a smile for each other, uncertain at the corners but trying nonetheless.
In his past 86400s, he would stop here.
But he doesn’t.
Seokmin’s fingertips draw up fragile across his skin after bringing his hands up to his face. Placating the tears dry with each stroke, he sinks his forehead over Soonyoung’s. He’s still unsure what their eyes are speaking to each other, what words they spell out when time stops and it’s just the two of them stopping the world around them.
In his past 86400s, he would have stopped before this.
A blur of the moment, he gasps against his knuckles blanketed when sunsets streak off to monochromes before his periphery wipes own the gray and occasional black, replaces what he sees with something closer to the sun. He chokes at the sight of the kitchen, spans much wider and houses more granite than the one just outside his bedroom door. A conversation brews over the steaming pot and besides the ticking rice cooker, but the only sound his ears pick up is the hiss. The only thing he can focus on is Seokmin retracting his hand back and the ladle dropping onto the floor.
Commotion just to bring Seokmin’s hand under running water, he hugs himself at the possible memory of Seokmin lifting a kiss to his cheek, the smiles diffusing through the grimaces of the singed hand.
In his past 86400s, he would have never stepped this far. In his past 86400s, he would have stopped a long time ago.
But he still doesn’t.
This time, the bedroom savors in paints of midnight, and Soonyoung’s own skin savors in the waking glow of moonlight. His memory can’t strike familiarity of the room, so he guesses it might be Seokmin’s bedroom somewhere else. With Seokmin lying on top of him, sheets covering everything below their bare torsos, quiet sighs carry on the conversation of roaming hands. Seokmin skitters his lips down his neck, doesn’t falter at the trail of red when Soonyoung drags his fingertips down Seokmin’s back and seethes them up his back once more, up to his neck, and stops there.
The first words this 86400 renders him bitter with just how careful Seokmin is from the first time he met him to this possible future, from the serious comfort of “If you ever want to stop, Soonyoung, let me know.”
His breath hitches across the pillow at his own response and the way he brings Seokmin’s face closer, taking his time with his lips against Seokmin’s. “Let me know, too, Seokmin.”
He thinks he should have stopped a long time ago, but he refuses.
The city foreign in its dimmed shops and empty alleyways, he watches Seokmin grab his hand and tug him before spiraling into a sprint through the dead street. Sunshine has yet to breach this part of the world, at this time. Something tells him they might be running away from daylight when Seokmin stops the two of them under the shadow of a lamppost. Their shadows decipherable around the edges transfix into rough black blurs on the ground when Seokmin slips his hand away and slips both of them instead across Soonyoung’s face, thumbs hooked behind his ear before tracing the pads along Soonyoung’s cheeks, along the dotted scar there.
They might be running from the day, from anyone else’s eyes out in the open.
Seokmin cranes his face lower, and the panting of the run collapses into the quiet of their lips.
He thinks he should really stop, but it’s only a thought.
Sunrise still hasn’t climbed down from the horizon and down to the city lines. Marching over rooftop slops and sprouts of skyscraping trees but never reaches for the ground yet. A faint hum, reassuring melody fumes from the clouds and when he glances to his side, Seokmin sways from his seat at the bench, along with the song. Void of anyone else’s ears besides their own, not a single waking soul heard below this rooftop, he smiles at this kind of start to his day. He watches himself reach out and thread their digits together.
Last one, he promises to his heart, nearly discourages his heart for diving too deep.
The entire seat shines white around the back of someone’s head--his or Seokmin’s, he can’t tell yet. When the person turns around, Seokmin smiles at him, eyes curving up like the moon and stardrops from his eyes when he does so. Silvery specks, almost, and it takes him a moment to realize the inevitable tears since the first possible memory.
When Soonyoung comes into view, taps of shoes echoing in the vacant hall, everything hurts behind his eyes from the brightness of the two of them standing together.
When he stops himself from watching more of this 86400, his eyes burn from the tears just as bad as the throbbing at his temple. A sob almost makes its way out his throat, and fibers of his shirt over his chest print onto his fingertips from clutching onto the cloth. When he finally breathes, his voice is hoarse, wallows in the sob punching the night.
He asks himself if he watched so much of this 86400, does that mean he wants something like this?
Outlines of hands at his shoulders, he opens his eyes to Wonwoo’s bedridden eye bags and squinting scanning all over his face, worry lines over his brows and his lips agape with a question his ears jog a block to form. The tension at the seams of his shirt, at the seams of Wonwoo’s palms there relax when he finally looks straight at Wonwoo in the eyes.
“I heard you crying,” he whispers into a defeated sigh.
Soonyoung touches his fingertips to his cheeks, the corners of his eyes. He evens out his breathing when he pulls them back with drops sliding down his skin. When Wonwoo spells out those five digits in a question, Soonyoung’s head hinges into a nod.
Wonwoo brings his hands to his lap as he sits down besides Soonyoung’s knees. “It’s been a while.” Wonwoo plucks a piece of tissue at his bedside and dabs at his face. “What are you going to do now?”
He can push time further and wait until the morning or until the time he first met Seokmin. But if he takes up the latter, will his 86400 have passed? If he chooses the former, will Seokmin know that he wanted to continue knowing more about them, despite the fact that’s not what he wanted when they bumped into each other?
He doesn’t know and when his voice wisps out those words, he feels Wonwoo rub at his shoulder, tells him to get some sleep.
Upon the door at the other end of the apartment closing, he sits up in bed and chases after his keys, phone, and wallet all around his room and into his pockets. He throws on a thicker sweatshirt and stuffs his feet into the first pair of sneakers his blind eyes laid on.
And he runs.
Down the stairs because the elevator might wane too slow for whatever he has left of this 86400. Up the streets because he can’t wait for a midnight taxi and can’t stand the grumbling taxi driver. Down the shops because no one is up and out at this time.
The bus stop from earlier today comes into view and he slows down, feels the gust of his heart coursing his veins when he picks out the swing set at night and the patch of grass that launched the kites to the skies. When he finds himself at the pathway, his lungs singe for every breath he takes.
It’s all gone, though, after two inhales.
He listens to the pebbles crush around his still feet. Wiping the cold lines of tears on his face, he listens more to his heart pounding up his throat and at his temples. He doesn’t quiet out the weak cry this time when midnight contours Seokmin’s countenance in a complete reversal of that last possible memory with him.
Seokmin’s digits thread themselves in a string of anxiety. They both must look foolish together, pathetic maybe--pajamas wrinkled and sneakers barely tied, faces plastered with tears and their hair spiking up from what should have been a peaceful slumber at such an hour.
He wonders if he continued any of his past 86400s, rather than stopping himself from knowing more, would he have ran into Seokmin? If he never picked up on Seokmin’s 86400, would they never cross paths again? He wonders if he should regret rejecting all those 86400s before Seokmin.
Bunching his sweatshirt sleeves over his fingertips, it might be the shadows gracing half of his face, but he just can’t tell if Seokmin wants the same, if he wants Soonyoung in his life the same way he wants Seokmin in his. He’s heart flutters heavy at the thought of wanting someone in his life this way.
Seokmin blinks at him, tears carrying the moonlight down the curves of his cheeks when he does so. He whispers out his name, risks a step closer, and he never knew a sound long overdue, too kind under the stars and holds onto his heart like a promise he won’t hurt it.
A whimper of Seokmin’s name, cracks at two meager syllables, and Seokmin crosses the distance between them. Hands hesitant to reach up, he doesn’t hold himself back from sinking into his hold, blind eyes against Seokmin’s neck and the warmth all over. He feels Seokmin slip his arms around him, new in the sense that he never had such a quiet comfort before but familiar that he’s seen it all happen before, though it passed only into possibilities.
Through deep breaths he tries to take in between the whimpers, cries shuddering against his neck, his heart slows into more bearable beats. Over his skin, from the pulse at his neck, he feels Seokmin’s heart do the follow the same path. He pulls his hands from over his chest between them, inches them around Seokmin’s waist. And when he does, as he anchors his weight against Seokmin, it doesn’t feel like an intrusion, like they shouldn’t be doing this.
Because, for once in so long, he doesn’t feel too scared of letting someone new into his life.