rain » vkook

three

my legs are suddenly getting a workout and i am thrust into the disrespectful public in my search of sky.

the sky itself is always in reach of my eyes, but sky himself is not. and it drives me crazy.

my fridge is suddenly overstocked, my mind is filled with a million movie plots, and my veins are pure coffee.

and sky is nowhere to be found.

underneath the brightly shining sun, i begin to worry.

what if he left? people tend to do that; they think the world is theirs - a flower blooming just for them. they leave.

they get bored. they get unsatisfied. someone they love leaves, they follow suit.

humans are fickle, like the wind. and i hate it. i hate it because we think we are being unpredictable, but the trait in itself is predictable - there's only so much we can do. love someone else, live somewhere else, do something else. that something else isn't as broad as we think.

i like painting because that something else truly becomes as infinite as we build it up to be. whether it's the paint, the way it dries on the canvas, or the image it's creating, there's a million different options. it makes my head spin. it makes my head spin like a child's merry-go-round, it makes my head spin like a buzz from alcohol. not like i can't decide what way is up, or the weightlessness of drowning.

the sun fills my head until i feel so blurred that i am two dimensional; i see myself from outside my own body, and when i turn sideways i disappear.

then finally, the world gets quiet and dark once more. i wake up to a pearly gray sky so close that i try to touch it.

i can practically taste the clouds; a ghost of coffee and wisteria - a hazy peace that i pine after and desire to capture. but my inability to do so is what makes it so sweet, i suppose.

it's a slow day in the studio; a thursday. so i play soft instrumental music mixed with calm electronic beats; a clash of in love with a ghost and ludovico einaudi.

and then, at around noon, the sky opens up once more with that exalting feeling; the rain pours down and the world spins so slowly it nearly stops and i can feel it beneath my feet. they are finally sure; i don't feel like i'm falling when i stand.

and i step outside again and it's deserted again and i feel alive and me again.

i tilt my head back, mouth open in a soundless laugh. i don't know how long i stay like that, the rain pouring over me and melting me into the landscape where i can finally find a niche.

and i see sky again.

or rather, i hear him.

"picasso!" he shouts, and his voice alone directs my gaze to his figure, materializing out of the ghostly gray air.

he draws nearer to me, so close that i begin to think he won't stop until we are one person - but he does stop. if i leaned forward, our noses would touch.

and he looks like even more of a mess than the first time.

his eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and his mouth twists down at the left corner, like he's about to lose everything. and his cheek -

a bruise.

a flowering, heart-stopping purple and black mark spreading across his cheekbone like a quilt of pain. and i can see that pain in his eyes; the bruise is not an accident and it's tearing him apart.

it stirs something in my heart.

the sky shouldn't look like this.

"picasso," he breathes as he takes me in; like i've been the thing keeping him alive, like he's been waiting to see me. like he'd been holding his breath and now he can finally exhale.

"sky," i say back. he cocks his head as the rain sticks his hair to his face.

"why am i the sky?"

"because i addressed it and you answered," i reply simply. for a second, his lips show a semblance of a smile, but it slips from his face. he looks sadder, like he was trying to hold onto sand and he knew it was a lost cause.

"it's not," i blurt.

his eyes don't leave my face, and something about the way he looks at me erases the possibility of embarrassment.

"what's not?"

"it's not a lost cause," i clarify, but that's all i can specify because i don't know about the bruise or the haunted eyes.

those eyes soften at my words and his edges seem to blur, like he's made of something light as air. i want to paint him in gauzy white and pale purple and light, light blue.

(The Sky, Spilling Through the Cracks of Broken Skin—Ethereal.)

ethereal.

he might just become the rain.

"why are you out?" he asks.

"because i love the rain." the simplicity rolls off my tongue and for once, i am satisfied. the way he hangs on my words makes me feel like shakespeare never even existed.

"i do too," he says. his eyes flicker. he reaches a hand up to his bruise.

his fingers are imploring as they trace his injury, as if asking why it was there. no; asking himself how he could let it happen.

"is it your fault?" i ask. not what happened or are you okay.

his eyes widen like he's been caught and i can see pain flaring in his pupils and i hate it.

he hesitates.

just for a moment, but it lasts forever, suspended in air like the dewy raindrops. a breath held, shimmering in the planes of a broken mirror.

"yes," he says. so, so, so quietly, and his voice trembles a little bit as his eyelids flutter. he looks down. away. 

a lie.

it hurts him, but perhaps the truth hurts him even more. i wish he wasn't hurting.

"you don't need to lie," i say gently. his eyes flick back up to mine, an involuntary gesture drawn out by words that he looked as though he had been longing to hear.

but he looks down again.

"i'm not lying."

i stop pushing him. i'm not helping; i'm never helping, and why did i think i could? i'm sorry. i want to say it, want to apologize, but some things are better left alone.

but he isn't better left alone. he just thinks he is. and it's a fragile thought; a bridge of glass between his brain and his heart.

i let the rain surround us once more with its soothing sound. maybe it's better when i'm not talking, anyway.

i'm not ernest hemingway.

we have separated a little bit during the course of our talk; i realize that the awareness of his presence made me feel heavy. i am light now.

"why are you alone?" he asks. and just like that, i feel a pull in my fingertips once more.

there are a million things i wish to say; running about my head so fast that they collide in explosions of color. too fast. i can't catch them.

"i like it" is all i say. 

and he says, "i'm sorry."

he turns around and begins to walk.

"sky!" i shout. the rain's gentle pattering seems to pick up; thundering against the pavement and  the buildings and me and sky's retreating back and everything - "sky! wait!"

he doesn't turn again. he keeps walking, until the gray swallows him up and the rain erases the hint of his presence.

"i'm sorry, too."