2 gone with the wind.
{"stay
i whispered
as you
shut the door behind you"
~ rupi kaur}
*
*
*
In sophomore year he moved on. A new picture-perfect muse appeared in the shape of Kang Sangtae.
Well, not really. He had bumped into Junfei's friend many a time, but the first time he had seen the boy dance to a piece longer than 2 minutes, he felt the inkling of a crush begin to blossom in his lungs, threatening to suffocate him.
Junfei had asked Mingzhou to bring his shoes from the gym lockers because his boots were too clunky to dance in. The dance leader, Sangtae, let him stay for the practice hour and even asked him to record it, for them to monitor.
Mingzhou was drawn to the way Sangtae's feet hit the ground exactly on beat. The way his arms were always taut, to help make the moves look sharper, but loosened when the music drifted into a slow, melancholic tune. His expressions underwent emotions like the ebbing of the waves in the ocean. When the music withdrew, his face looked like he was being pulled into the sea.
Mingzhou accompanied Junfei to practice daily from then on. He took videos for them and occasional pictures of his older Chinese brother (but not really his brother) during his jumps. Jun had wonderful control over his limbs so anytime Mingzhou pointed the camera at him, he would tighten his core and hold the posture for longer, it made his appreciation for Jun increase by tenfold.
He used the kindness that he was handed wordlessly. Kindness that came in the form of modelling for his pictures without protest. Mingzhou clicked away, even when Jun wasn't holding out for him, even if he was low on film.
Practice made perfect. Photography was no joke, not to him.
Sangtae was friendly. He was brotherly off practice but as soon as the music left the speakers, his eyes turned sharp, searching for the person who would become prey to the difficult choreography.
Mingzhou also liked to dance, but this was for a different class and he didn't want to interfere in their performance. He sat back and tried to memorize the melodic way in which Sangtae moved.
This one took longer for Junfei to identify because "Sangtae? My idiotic friend Sangtae, really Mingzhou?"
"He dances so well…" he all but complained. "God, why do I love so easily?!"
Jun's eyes softened. "Hey, it's a good thing. You see so many special things in a person."
He groaned. It was childish. "Wrong. I see one special thing in someone and suddenly I'm crushing on them."
Jun snorted loudly, Mingzhou ignored for his sake how it sounded too throaty to be real, "what's wrong in that? You're such a kid sometimes, for all the nagging I hear from you."
He threw a pillow at Junfei's head.
*
*
*
University started early to acquaint foreign students. Junfei was moving away.
He packed his last box of items from their sparse dorm. The one where they first met. Where they made their first plate of food from home. Where they stayed up all night finishing homework or studying for exams.
Suddenly the world was at a standstill.
There wasn't a Junfei to work as his alarm or chef. There wasn't a Junfei to pose for his pictures. There wasn't a Junfei to annoy him with silly jokes and a weird amount of cat videos. Junfei had left and behind him, Mingzhou was a wreck.
They still texted each other summaries of their days, and uproarious events that happened at school, which was a very rare instance for there to be a scandal big enough to spread to the entire University – yeah, didn't happen all that often. They spoke on the phone once a week too. It never felt the same though.
Mingzhou woke up to the neutral ringing of his alarm. No more was Junfei's sweet, soft voice singing threats as a wake-up call.
*
A book was collecting dust on his bookshelf. When Mingzhou looked closely at the small font on the first page reading Wei Junfei, he wanted to hurl the book out of the window. Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone With The Wind' was mocking him in more ways than one.
{"Tomorrow I'll think of a way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day." ~Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.}
*
*
*
He really did not expect to find a new muse when he began University.
A sports senior. Sungjae.
He admired his body shape. He wasn't as tall as Junfei, but his shoulders were broad. He was swift and agile in a manic way. He wasn't from a martial arts background like Jun and himself, but the guy could rip the field. (Now that he thought about it, Jun really dabbled in a lot of things but not sports.)
Sungjae's muscles clenched when he was awaiting the whistle to call the game to start. Sweat dripped from his hair, making girls swoon. Mingzhou looked around him. The ground was teeming with students, all their eyes were trained on the very particular person Mingzhou had found his muse in.
The older student simply shot a wink or threw finger guns at the gawking admirers. He really didn't make it easy for Mingzhou to walk away. It was like Mingzhou's feet had suddenly grown roots and had planted himself at the bleachers, all against his better judgement and wishes.
He heard Junfei's delighted snort behind his ear shell telling him to make a move before it got too late. But Mingzhou was not going to confess. Especially not after he saw some of Sungjae's friends clap his back and push him towards the library. Mingzhou followed their line of sight and saw a few third-year med students nudge a girl away from their pack, towards the field and he was able to connect the dots. It wasn't like he stood a chance anyway.
*
*
*
But what really made him miss Junfei was that he now had no one to call a friend. He always did the socializing for him. They were a pair, so the older boy's friends were also his. It had been a full year since he last saw his friend for more than 3 hours every month. Of course, Mingzhou understood why - travelling was an expense but the workload at uni was also really heavy.
When he especially missed Junfei, he would open his social media.
Jun posted anything that made him happy. He didn't find the necessity to make it as aesthetic as Mingzhou did. Something about that action always made him wonder how freeing Jun's mind must be, no strict boundaries for qualification; if he liked it, there didn't have to be a reason why.
"Why does everything have to be pretty? Why can't you like things just because?"
Mingzhou didn't have an articulate reply to that. Not three years ago when they made the account, not now when he heard phantom-Junfei's voice over his shoulder in that same curious tone that always laced his questions.
Junfei's socials were more full than it had ever been. There were pictures with more new people than Mingzhou knew in real life. Pictures of uni friends, food, sometimes both in the same photo.
He recognized Sangtae in one of them, who was standing next to Junfei. The latter had his arms thrown around him and another boy. There was a fourth shorter dude standing to the left of the trio rolling his eyes, although his lips were curled up in the corners in an expression that could be labelled as fond.
Mingzhou's curious eyes then wandered to the guy on whose shoulders Junfei's arm weighed. His eyes were turned skyward and his mouth slanted into his cheek - Mingzhou noted that the expression was something of a cross between exasperation and teasing. His hands were pinned to his sides by Jun's body on one side and the short guy on the other. He also noticed how the guy was standing just a tiny bit closer to Jun than the other dude. His body was pressing into Junfei's subtly. He wondered if Junfei noticed.
His eyes flitted back to his best friend.
Junfei was mid-laugh in this picture. His eyes were scrunched in delight, head tossed back baring his long neck and prominent adam's apple. His mouth was wide open, like a black hole that Mingzhou couldn't find an escape from - not that he really wanted to anyway.
It made him miss his best friend in a physically painful way. He could feel something in his stomach clench and coil seeing these other people crowding his account. It made him feel like he was simply a step in his best friend's life. He felt temporary.
He scrolled down to look for their older pictures, their silly selfies and inside jokes ranging from frogs to red snapback hats, but all Mingzhou could see when he scrolled way back to the first post was that it was dated last year; even though he knew that Junfei's first post was a selca from three years ago. It was a picture that some student had taken for them on his graduation day.
That was the only remaining evidence on Junfei's social media that he knew someone called Xie Mingzhou.
