Scared
I'm lying in Taeyoung's bed. I had washed off what I could of my makeup after Taeyoung was done taking care of his business, and this time wore a white t-shirt.
Taeyoung's, of course.
"Man, I'm going to end up losing all of my shirts soon."
"You get so many free clothes from brands you model for, I'm helping you."
"Oh really?" He laughs.
I pull the covers over me, snuggling into his familiar bed. His smell lingers on the sheets, and I bury them over my body. It is addicting; his scent. Who would have thought the smell of another human being could have such an effect on you?
I feel so comfortable here, as if the mattress has an indent of my body in it, waiting for me to fill it up. It feels homier than my own bed back at the dorm. I feel like I actually belong under these covers.
Before Taeyoung crawls in too, I pull the sheets over my head.
"Yah, where'd you go?" He laughs at me, sitting on the bed. My giggles are muffled by the bed sheets. "Where'd my Sohee go?"
He shoves his long legs under the sheets. Now he fills in the indent of his body on the mattress too.
"Oh! What's this?" His hand reaches under the covers to wrap around my waist, pulling me on top of him. My head peeks out from the sheets, face met with his. "Aigoo, what a cutie." He strokes my messy hair.
I lay my head down on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. He continues to stroke my hair mindlessly, humming some tune I don't recognize. We lay like this for quite awhile, until my curiosity grows too strong.
"Taeyoung?"
His humming stops.
"Yes baby?"
My heart beats heavily against my chest. I wonder if he can feel it against his own heart.
"Can I ask about your first relationship?" I say these words carefully, worried that I may have asked too much of him.
His hand ceases to stroke my hair. After a pause, he says, "Of course. It's only fair you know."
"When did you start dating her?"
"I had a huge crush on her in middle school, and that carried into high school. Her name was Yerin." A pause.
"She was the most popular girl amongst the guys. She dated a lot but always broke up with guys after a few months. I should have taken that as a bad sign. But in high school, at that age, we tend to romanticize people, making them seem perfect when in fact no one can ever be."
"I think she was just bored. I wasn't popular in school. I studied hard and stayed quiet. My group of friends weren't the kind to hang around her, so I think she just wanted to try something different. She knew I liked her. Almost everyone knew." He sneers in spite of himself.
"She asked me out, and of course I felt amazing. Shockingly to everyone around, we ended up dating all throughout senior year, and kept dating even after. We went to different colleges though. She's in Seoul too, but we had to plan our meetings. Things were getting serious, at least on my end they were."
I hear the beating of his heart fasten. "One day I wanted to surprise her, so I went to her apartment. I knew her code since we'd been together for so long."
Now his breath is shaky, I can feel the nonrhythmic vibrations move through his lungs. With my head still laying on his chest, I grab his hand, softly squeezing it.
"Apparently she had been seeing guys while she dated me. Not just one, multiple."
I sigh out of displeasure, anger making heat course through my veins. Who could do that to a person that loved them?
"How did you find out?" I hesitantly ask.
The silence seems to cut me like a knife. I stop breathing, holding the air in my lungs for a moment.
"I saw her. When I went to her place. I saw her with some other guy." Disgust drips from his voice.
"I can't even explain what that feels like. To see someone you place on a pedestal, someone you see as being perfect, touching another guy. Laughing, having sex with him as if you never existed."
My body burns with heat. I feel so angry, so broken for him. No wonder he seemed so reluctant to get close to me at first.
"I was so infatuated with her. I learned how dangerous it is to see an ordinary person as something above that. I was blinded by the things I loved about her so much that I completely ignored the bad signs, the annoying habits, the manipulation."
"It messed me up," he continues. "It messed me up a lot. I gave up on school. I ended up missing a full semester of class because I couldn't think about anything else. I was so furious with the world, so angry at the love I was tricked into believing in. I would go to clubs multiple times a week, getting way too drunk, causing fights, finding someone to take home and kick out after just so I could feel what Yerin felt when she used people. I was disgusting. I hate remembering how I was."
"But funnily enough, Max is the one who snapped me out of it."
I look up at his face to see him smiling. "Really?"
"Yeah. He DJs at clubs sometimes. Apparently, he saw me there so much, always such a mess, that he decided to come up to me after his shift. He was so casual, so calm. Just stood beside me, asking how the music was. I didn't say much. He kept going, eventually mentioning that he sees me there a lot. Then he gets into some mojo, giving me advice like 'look, buddy, I can tell you're having a hard time right now but it's just going to get even harder if you don't get yourself together.'"
I chuckle at his impression of Max.
"It was that slap in the face that I needed. I ended up crying in front of him. I was so embarrassed," he laughs, his hand stroking my hair again.
"We became good friends after that. I got back on track, went back to school. Paid more attention to my poor housemates. I do my best to make it up to them now. I was such a shitty friend during that time, and they never complained."
"You have good friends," I say, looking up into his eyes, arms crossed over his chest and chin on top of my hands.
He looks at me, a small smile lighting his face. "I do. And not only that, I have you now too."
I feel myself blush, my eyes moving to look at his neck.
His hands move to hold onto my face, tilting it upwards while his face turns downwards. His nose touches my own.
"I'm glad I listened to Max. Again." He smiles before kissing my lips.
When his lips leave mine I take the moment to observe his facial features. I take in his eyes, the light that shines across his dark irises, the soft point of the tip of his nose, the spot below his left eye, the shape of his full lips.
My hand comes up to caress his cheek. I poke at the spot below his eye and he chuckles. He pecks my lips before turning us so that we lay on our sides, facing each other.
"What are you thinking about?" He softly asks me, dark eyes twinkling as they dance between my own.
I hesitate before responding. "That night you saw me crying, before it rained."
"What about it?" His fingers come up to play with the baby hair that lays between my forehead and the rest of my hair.
"You hugged me, so easily. I don't know, it just—I know hugging isn't really a thing here in Korea, or now I know. And yet you hugged me and comforted me."
"I'd like to play along and pretend that it was no big deal for me but in reality, I was nearly shitting myself." I snort with laughter and he smiles. "My mother told me this story a lot when I was a kid, that hugs are like medicine. She learned that when she was in America for university. One day when she was really homesick, her American roommate walked in on her crying. In Korea, usually friends just sit by you and talk to you about it, but this roommate hugged her right away. My mom was so shocked at first that she said she had stopped breathing for a bit," he chuckles as he re-tells this story.
"But she let it be, embraced it—literally—and afterwards realized how much better she felt because of it. So, she always encourages hugs in my family. My friends always thought I was weird growing up when I'd hug someone I saw crying, so I kinda stopped after a while. I knew you were homesick like my mom was and assumed since you're kinda American that hugging would be normal."
"That's sweet, your mother sounds amazing."
"She is."
"But it wasn't normal for me, because I had never cried in front of anyone but my mom."
Taeyoung's eyes leave their spot on my face to return to my eyes. "Really?"
I nod. "I mean, aside from crying as a little kid from falling or whatever—that doesn't really count—but since being a teenager, I've never actually cried in front of anyone but my mom, not even friends."
"How?" He asks with a raised voice, seemingly genuinely amazed.
"I always hold in my tears until I know I'm away from people's eyes. So I was terrified that of all people to see me cry for the first time, it was you."
"Wow, I'm honoured?" He says with questioning eyes. I softly laugh in response. We fall into silence and he begins to play with my hair once again.
"You know, about hugs being medicine, it's actually proven that physical touch with another human makes you healthier and happy. It like lowers your blood pressure and heart rate and some other stuff."
A little smile forms on his lips. "Really? Then—" His hands suddenly snake around my waist to touch my back, then he pushes me forward so our chests touch. He hugs me into him and snuggles his head down to get between the pillow and my own head. Meanwhile, I just giggle like a little kid from the childish act. "Is your heart rate slowing down? I think mine's going up actually." I giggle more fiercely, caught up in this fluttering feeling of companionship. He pulls away, but still keeps his hold on my waist.
"This is scary," I whisper, letting my honest thoughts come to the surface.
He looks at me curiously.
"I've never felt like this before."
I blush at the cliche words, but they are so honestly true that it almost hurts to say them aloud.
He looks into my eyes, taking them in before reaching up to move hair from off of my face.
"I haven't either."
His words hit me like a gust of cold wind. It is honest, it is pure and vulnerable. He really hasn't felt like this before.
And while this scares me even more, it also gives me an overwhelming sense of serenity.
. . .
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Love,
Sooaura