Requiem for Tonight

Title: Requiem for Tonight
Genre: Angst/ Romance
Rating: R
Pairings: JunTa
Warnings: Gayness, scenes of a very graphic homosexual nature, swearing, death
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
A/N: Hey this is supposed to be a depressing little one-shot, so if you don't want to be sad... then don't read this. :)


Requiem for Tonight

I would hold him forever if he'd let me. I would keep my arms wrapped around his body, his form pressed to mine in this darkness. But that is never the case. We both know it. All good things must come to an end, as they say.

A sliver of light splays itself across my lover's face. I glance to the window. Sunrise. He has never stayed this long before. I smile, hugging his body as tightly as I can without harming him. I love him. He knows this is true.

The summer heat clings around me, and I know the only reason he has stayed until sunrise - the sun rises earlier and earlier each day. But in two days, the sun will begin to rise later. I wish I could pause this scene before me. I wish I could stop the sun, stop time itself. I love to see my lover in his next-morning state.

The slowly growing light falling across my lover highlights his tousled hair and his long expanse of fine neck. I lean down and let my lips fall briefly onto the soft skin there, tasting salt and sweat, the only thing that remains of our lovemaking.

As I gently pull away, I hear a sound I dread desperately: the ringing of my lover's cell phone wakes him from his light sleep, and he gropes the side table until he finds the small, blue contraption. With practiced movements, he keeps his eyes shut as he flips the metal object open and presses it to his ear. "Hello?"

I do not hear the other side of the conversation, nor do I want to. It's the same thing every time. She calls to make sure he's safe and sound, and he tells her he's sorry, that he fell asleep at a friend's house after drinking, lost track of time at the office, insert dumb excuse here. I never said she was the brightest crayon in the box.

"Sorry, babe," I hear him mutter. "I just fell asleep at my desk. I guess the janitor left before me."

I can just imagine her voice from the other end. "It's okay, sweetie, dearest love... all is forgiven, if you come to me."

That's right. I'm the "other woman". Well, other man, as the case happens to be. I don't know if I really consitiute as "the other man", now that I think about it. For that title to be true, there would have to be a first man, right? I guess I'm just the "other lover", then.

So you know, and so you don't hate me in advance, I didn't know about her until our third night together. I begged him to stay. And he broke down into sobs and tears, telling me how much he loved me, how much he needed me... how much he wished he wasn't already with her. But I suppose you should hate me. That was only the first in 107 nights that I've slept with him since, knowing about her. Frankly, I don't even know her name. I don't want to, though. Knowing her name gives her identification. It makes her real. When he comes to me, I don't want her to be real.

He shuts his cell phone and opens his eyes, turning to me with a somber expression. "Gotta go," he says to me, and somehow I wish he'd at least said something romantic, like, "I know you wish I could stay, but someday... someday I will." Or, "I love you so much... let's just stay like this a few minutes longer before I go."

Not that I have any reason to believe he would be so emotional. The last time he told me he loved me, besides in the throes of passion, was that third night.

He doesn't say another thing to me as he pulls his clothes on in a rush. For a moment, his pants halfway up his legs, he pauses, and I think he may turn around, kiss me, tell me he loves me, something. Anything. He sighs. Then he continues dressing.

I curl under my blanket, knowing this is the best I'll get from him. This will become my existence. I will wait for him, every night I'll wait from eight until ten, hoping he calls me. And on the nights he does, I'll be waiting for him here, waiting for him to come and pleasure himself with me, waiting for him to show me just how much he loves me with touches and kisses and his body pressed tightly to mine until I can't breathe through the pleasure and pain and intensity of the moment. And then I'll lie awake, waiting for him to run to her. I'll always wait for him. Because I love him.

~~~

The barrel of my gun presses to my temple. I feel the cool metal, sending soft shivers down my spine. It abates the heat that builds in my mind, as thoughts of him cloud my senses. I find it strange, that something so destructive can bring me this slight bit of comfort. I turn the gun and scratch my head with the tip, then lay the gun beside me on the coffee table.

The phone rings. I glance toward it. Let the machine pick it up. I know he won't leave a message.

The phone rings again. The sound is so loud it's nearly deafening. Everything else in the apartment is dead. Only the phone breaks the unending silence of my life.

The phone rings for a third time and I grab the reciever, pulling it to my ear. "Hello?" I answer indifferently.

"Hello," his soft voice echoes through my mind.

"Hee Jun," I breathe into the mouthpiece as though I wasn't already positive it would be him.

"Kangta... can I come tonight?"

He knows the answer. I've never turned him down before. Briefly, I entertain the thought of saying no. What would he say to me then? "Sure."

I can hear his smile as he says the three words I love to hear: "Be there soon." He means that, too. Likely, he's three blocks from my house, calling on his cell phone just to let me know he's on his way. I was actually surprised to hear him call me tonight. Normally he waits a few nights. His girlfriend may be dumb, but she's not mentally handicapped. He wouldn't be able to stay with me every night. I put the gun away in the drawer beside my bed after hanging up.

I hear his footsteps approach my door and I open the door for him. He's never knocked on my door before.

He steps inside and walks straight to my bedroom. I follow him silently. He lays on my bed and I climb on top of him, pulling his face to my own to entertain myself with brief kisses that feel like promises from his lips to mine. I tell myself each kiss builds his love for me. I tell myself each kiss brings me one step closer to him leaving her. I tell myself each kiss means that someday we will kiss in the morning, he will hold me tightly as the sun rises around us, keeping me warm through the winter chill.

I tell myself I'm not just pretending to feel our happily ever after drawing ever closer.

He pulls my shirt over my head, momentarily breaking our kiss. His nails run along my back as I press against him, my lips to his, my chest to his, my bulge to his. As I rock against him, laying passionate lips to every piece of him I can reach, he lays his hands flat aginst my back, pulling me agaisnt himself as securely as he can. And I feel something touch my back... something small and cool, like metal. Like the gun to my temple.

It may as well have been.

I pull away slightly and bring his hand around so I can look at it. There, on his right hand, ring finger, is a small, elegant little ring. A marriage ring. I look to his eyes, hoping he'll tell me it's not true. And if hopes were guns I'd shoot myself right now. His eyes are cast down. "I was going to tell you."

"You were going to tell me." My voice is deadpan. "You were going to tell me," I repeat to myself, my voice growing quieter.

"The wedding... it was last week... you've got to believe, I had no choice -"

My own unsteady lips press to his as I stop him talking. I don't care. I don't care about all of that. He's here, he's with me now. Nothing will ruin this for me.

I hear him sniffle and I pull away. Tears run down his cheeks in salted rivulets of liquid pain. I kiss them away softly, remembering his flavour from earlier that morning, cooing to him and asking why he's crying, why he makes me see him in such pain.

"I love you," he whispers, and my heart begins to crack. This love, this love that I have always known was there. He loves me. "I love you," he whispers more loudly, and my heart shatters, spraying from my chest and scattering around us on the bed. As though he heard it, or felt it, break, he pulls me into a bone-crushing hug that pushes my breath out of my lungs, and he cries his warm tears into the crook of my neck.

I coo to him again, "Hee Junnie, no tears now, I love you too." I pull his face to mine and kiss him with every ounce of passion in my body. This man is not mine. "I love you more than life itself."

"I miss you when I'm with her."

My soul begins to tear, and I silence him again with a kiss. "She's not here now. Miss me later. Love me now."

"I love you," he repeats, as though this overdue declaration will somehow mend my heart into a whole organ, but I know it will never be the same. Pieces that small can never be repaired. The tone of his voice steals my soul from my body, leaving me an empty shell of a person.

I undress him slowly. This will be a special night. As his shirt leaves his perfect body, I shower his chest with soft kisses, knowing the pain I feel is just the price I must pay for this perfect creature to love me. Nothing without a price. Next his pants are removed, and mine. I let my hand ghost over his body, barely touching his skin as I take in his form, his every detail, imprinting these things to memory.

Boxers go next. For a moment, I just stare at him, his unabated beauty and perfection, his absolutely amazing self. I will never get enough of this man. Then I straddle him and gently press myself down onto him. He throws his head back and groans into the darkness and silence as I bite my lip and hold back a cry of pain. Slowly I push further down, the burning inside of me white-hot and intense. I don't know if the pain is only physical anymore, or if this stems from other parts of me tonight, the empty hole in my chest, where a few shards of my heart still lay, cutting into my flesh with my every movement, the injured part of me where a soul once stood.

But the pain is nothing to the pleasure I feel as his hand slowly wraps itself around me, moving to my rhythm as I slowly pull myself almost completely off of him, then push back down, up, and back down.

Slowly, I build speed, and his hand moves in an uneven frenzy against me, bringing me closer to the edge. I feel his hand on my hip, his beautiful nails digging half-moons into my flesh. I kiss him as a soft whisper of "Saranghae," escapes my lips, my words travelling lazily toward his ear and making his hand speed up. "I love you," I say again, and he flips us over ungracefully, slipping out of me and having to push his way back in.

"I love you," he tells me in staggered wording, his thrusting throwing off his breath. "Love me forever."

"I do. I will." This I know is true. If nothing this man has done to me has caused me to fall out of love, then nothing ever will. Not after tonight. Not after this.

The heat inside my lower stomach winds itself tightly, and I feel it unravel in a brief explosion as I come over my lover's hand. He pumps me dry, his motions momentarily stilled, and as he begins to regain his rhythm, I feel the same white-hot pain return to me. A few thrusts later and he comes inside me. I briefly wonder if he ever came inside her, if she ever got to feel that bit of him, or if they always used protection. Not that I'll ever know, or really care.

He breathes heavily atop me, and I do not lather him with sweet kisses honeyed by the afterglow, as I had been wont to do on almost every other occasion. He does land one very brief, wet kiss onto my lips as he rolls off of me to curl beside me, always faced toward the wall instead of toward me. He will always do this. He will always be ashamed after, always too ashamed of his transgressions against his wife to turn to look at me.

I wrap my arms around him gently and hold him, not because I love him, though that is part of it, but because he needs it. He needs me to comfort him. I grab the rag waiting on the bedside table and wipe our stomachs of my sticky essence. I whisper "saranghae," in his ear and I hear him return it sleepily. Sleep will take him soon. I will miss him when he sleeps.

His heavy, steady breathing tells me he is asleep. I gently kiss his neck, then his shoulder, lower to his arm, his chest and side. One last imprint on my memory.

I pull the gun from the drawer beside the bed and play with it for a moment, turning it gracefully in my hand like something very expensive and very fragile. Then I glance at the clock. Two a.m. He's never lasted that long before. I press the gun to his temple. I unlock the safety and pull the trigger. The gunblast is ever so satisfying. I watch his chest. No movement.

I lay the gun on the bedside table gently and continue kissing my love. His skin is so warm. I had expected it to begin to cool immediately. Curled with my lover, I kiss his skin, caress him gently, repeating a whispered confession of love again and again as I feel his body beginning to cool.

The few hours I have with him I cherish. And as time passes, I know our time together grows ever shorter. I hold him as tightly as I can, knowing he can't feel the pain I feel.

His phone rings. I glance at the clock. Four thirty-seven. I grab the little machine and contemplate throwing it against the wall. I flip it open. "Hello?"

"Hello? Hee Jun?"

As expected, it's her. People are so predictable. "Sorry, he's dead at the moment. Can I take a message?"

"Excuse me?" I hear her stutter out in confusion and disbelief.

"Well, Ms. Excuse Me, I'll be sure to tell him you called when I die." I hang up and turn the cell phone off.

I pull my love against myself, his cool and still body complying to my every movement. The sun begins to rise. A few notes begin to escape my lips, falling softly into Hee Jun's unhearing ear. I sing to bid farewell to a dead evening. I sing to our last nocturnal tryst. A requiem for tonight. The song has three words, repeated over and again into my lover's ear. "I love you," I singsong to him as I begin to cry.

I grab the gun from beside the bed and hold it against my head, my unoccupied arm wrapped around him. I sing this requiem at the top of my lungs as softly as I can. Entrapped here or free, our spirits will always be together. Has she ever given him so much of herself?

I sing to him. Even as I pull the trigger, I sing soft notes that echo through the otherwise silent bedroom, cut short so suddenly by the deafening sound of a gunblast.

My love, I will be with you soon.


END