He Will B.O.Y.
✖✖✖
Damir had placed ‘humans’ as the last thing on his priority list. His students called him Designer Doma for kicks, and he’d been showing them the proper way to trim with the proper scissors and the magic of pattern combinations for years. If he could, his studio would be the place where he woke up in the mornings and brewed his essential cup of coffee; but there was no room for his trench coats next to the paint, so an apartment down the street would have to do.
He was the only one that called him Kim. All the students and all the staff knew him solely as Bootleg or Trashcan or Puke Boy, but Damir knew he was Kim Won Jung
Damir had placed ‘humans’ as the last thing on his priority list. Kim wasn’t human.
Maybe that’s why it worked.
✖
Bootleg came to visit, sat on the leather couch and ate biscuits, and Damir pretended
not to notice
when (Kim) excused himself after tea
to barf in the backroom trash.
✖
It’d become so obvious that Kim didn’t even try to blanket the severity of his scrambled brain anymore. His brain was in scrambles, and he didn’t care that every pair of eyes looked and knew and saw and watched; he was too exhausted to fight it. He was too exhausted for almost everything, nowadays.
So, he’d share a smoke with Damir in the evenings in silence — and he’d become great at pretending that all of this was safe and normal and wasn’t dangerous to anyone’s career.
“How are you feeling?” + “Fine.” were partners in crime. Damir was close(r), but never close enough. He could trace cheekbones to where his face was sunken in, or cup that jaw in calloused, paint-stained palms, press his lips right up against the temple and feel as a heart jumped/paused/stuttered/pulsed, but he couldn’t get any further than physical contact. There was no way in but through the skin — into the soul wasn’t possible.
✖
He was the only one that called him Kim. All the students and all the staff knew him solely as Bootleg or Trashcan or Puke Boy, but Damir knew he was Kim Won Jung
Damir had placed ‘humans’ as the last thing on his priority list. Kim wasn’t human.
Maybe that’s why it worked.
✖
Bootleg came to visit, sat on the leather couch and ate biscuits, and Damir pretended
not to notice
when (Kim) excused himself after tea
to barf in the backroom trash.
✖
It’d become so obvious that Kim didn’t even try to blanket the severity of his scrambled brain anymore. His brain was in scrambles, and he didn’t care that every pair of eyes looked and knew and saw and watched; he was too exhausted to fight it. He was too exhausted for almost everything, nowadays.
So, he’d share a smoke with Damir in the evenings in silence — and he’d become great at pretending that all of this was safe and normal and wasn’t dangerous to anyone’s career.
“How are you feeling?” + “Fine.” were partners in crime. Damir was close(r), but never close enough. He could trace cheekbones to where his face was sunken in, or cup that jaw in calloused, paint-stained palms, press his lips right up against the temple and feel as a heart jumped/paused/stuttered/pulsed, but he couldn’t get any further than physical contact. There was no way in but through the skin — into the soul wasn’t possible.
✖