C H A P T E R
F I F T Y
(WARNING: M)
There's a couch.
I saw Baba sitting there.
The fireflies on the window were knocking on the glass.
But Baba didn't move a muscle.
It pained me so, to see him alone. It had been months since I last saw him happy. I always wondered what made my Baba so sad, why his eyes always looked watery, why his smile was so forced and empty.
When I cleaned his room, I suddenly remembered why Baba was as gloomy as rain and as fractured as a broken toy. On his working desk, on his bedside table, on the walls of his room, on the pendant he's hiding in his drawer, was a picture of a woman within a frame, my mother.
I haven't exactly shared something memorable with her but I remembered that she was loving and nice. She was away before I could even get to know her more.
"She needed to go," Baba told me once. "But she'll be back, little red. She promised to come back."
And that promise was not fulfilled.
Baba wasn't wearing their wedding ring anymore. He used to treasure that diamond so much, but now he placed it back on its box and left it forgotten on the drawer.
He was sad. And it made me sad too.
A few months later, I caught Baba crying in the table. That table that we used to share a merry meal together was now a shed of dark, cruel loneliness.
"I'm sorry, Sooji," he sobbed. "I'm really sorry that you need to grow up without a mother."
I was nine that time. And I was disheartened.
Mother.
In that moment, I knew what Baba was trying to say.
She's not coming back to us.
I had lost myself a soul. She and I may have not spent enough time together to bond but to not be able to experience a mother's love, it shattered me to pieces.
Selfish thoughts filled my head.
I told myself it's better that she didn't raise me. Because if she did, I would have grown so much attached to her. And her departure would be harder to accept.
However, despite my inducement, I went to sleep crying that night, curled on my bed, and drifting off to sleep with tears in the eyes and stars-spoiled dream of myself and a woman, who I called mother.
_______
Their death was confirmed. Today's marked as a tragedy for the entire of Neo City. The Capital was announced inaccessible for now, as a sign of mourning for its creator.
When we entered the hideout, everyone seemed ignorant of what happened. There was an expectant Chenle who was about to greet us, but I didn't have the heart to return back his brightness. Jeno too, who I regretted bringing with me, just worldlessly went straight to his room. Renjun noticed his friend's depressed action, so he followed him in.
I laid exhausted on the couch, but my eyes were still too stunned to even blink.
"Hey, Sooji, what's wrong?" Mark slowly occupied the space next to me.
I buried my face in my hands, feeling my heart about to break as I softly confessed everything to the youngest boss.
I wasn't able to look at his reaction, because I was such a coward to even form an eye contact with him after I just told him about the murder. But judging by the dead air that passed, Mark was as speechless as I was.
It took me breathing in so much air and clasping my gloved hands together to finally speak up. "Wh-Where's Yuta?"
Mark's eyes widened. "H-He... went somewhere an hour ago."
"Where?!"
"I-I don't know. He told me you'll know if I tell you."
Heavens. The beach? Grandma's house? Where?
Biting my lower lip, I stood up and gave a quick bye to the DRMs. "I'll go fetch him," I told them with wavering lips.
"Be careful!" they said.
And I left.
remember
what I told you
when you were
a little girl?
I palmed the Regulate on my pocket, equipping myself for what's to come.
I am sorry, Grandma, but I'm not a little girl anymore.
Then I tightened my grip on the device.
I can walk the woods alone.
______
The cool relaxing seabreeze crept upon with me ease.
The moon lay fair on the dark sky and reflected at the water's edge, resembling a pearl of quartz and flickers.
Behind me, the footsteps that I left on the fine sand were blur and indistinct, a trail of my deserted journey.
Then in front of me, was my journey's end. If I were a ship, he was where the tides would take me. The gift after shipwrecks and array expeditions. But he was greater than any treasure, and I was just a sailor who had her own bounty on her head. He was looking at the sea, so I could only see his hair and his back but it was fine. I needed to go to him and hold him tight.
The sea seemed to round the shore as I continued my steps, an unsteady rhythm of two limbs moving, rowing and rowing like wooden pedals that were about to break.
Gentle breeze began playing on Yuta's perfect hair and perfect face and perfect clothes and perfect everything. It was dancing with the wind, like a finish flag. This was an expedition, a race, and I was afraid that another ship would get to him first.
And I clashed by then, reaching out for his shirt and possesively wrapping my arms around his waist.
I felt his body slightly jerk in surprise. And he glanced behind him, peeked down to see me, and whispered my name like a siren's sweet alluring call.
"Sooji..."
"Yuta..." I tightened my embrace, pressing my cheek on the small of his back. "Why are you here, hmm?"
The breath of cold season washed away the warmth of my face, and maybe my lips were as blue as a drowned man's.
"I came to watch the sea," he was telling me, relaxing his body on my embrace, and gently stroking my arms that were hugging him tight as a knot. "I can't get enough of looking at it, over and over again," then his hands stopped stroking my arms, until it moved above my hands to cover them. "I think I'm in love with it."
The sea was mirroring my feelings: the waves were weeping like a cry of an unknown seaman.
"Aren't you cold?" I asked softly, still having a dilemma about how to open up about his parents.
"Not really. Are you?" he asked back.
I hummed as a reply.
"Do you want to take shelter?" he said with a concerned tone. "I checked the old woman's house earlier. Unlocked. Unoccupied. Guess she's not home. Do you think she'll be mad if we use it?"
"I think she wouldn't mind," I answered weakly.
Nodding, Yuta carefully removed my arms from his body and faced me. He held my hand - a move that tugged at my heartstrings - as he dragged me towards the house.
_______
The temperature cooperated inside. It was warm enough for color to finally return in my face. We were resting in a couch. My head was resting on Yuta's shoulder, legs folded and eyes shaky.
The night was silent, except for the sound of the waves muffled by the window and the loud, inevitable beating of my heart.
"Look," he suddenly said. I slowly turned my head, "at the window," he continued.
I did.
We saw a green light. A glow of a firefly. It was alone. There was always a swarm of them, lighting the beach like tiny emeralds. But now it was alone.
"Do you think it's flashing a signal so its friends can find it?" I heard Yuta question like a little child.
I hummed. "Maybe."
"When I was a kid, I thought they're not living things. I thought they were hovering Christmas lights in the air, powered by static wind electricity."
"When I was a kid, I thought they were nighttime butterflies. And I thought if I'd eat them, my body would glow like a bulb," I replied, earning a gentle, heavenly laugh from Yuta.
My gloved fingers found their way on his, slowly clasping them together.
"I miss being a kid," I said. "I miss being ignorant and carefree. I miss it..."
Yuta was quiet.
I squeezed his hands, buried my nose on his clothes, and inhaled his salty ocean scent.
Then, softly like a lullaby, he murmured, "I miss my parents."
That.
Hearing that sentence escape his lips was one sharp arrow shot straight to my heart.
The emotion I was feeling right now was unexplainable. But I knew I was filled with pain and self-loathing.
Squeezing his hands even harder, I mumbled like a broken song, "Yuta, there's something you need to know."
He looked at me. There was anticipation in his ocean eyes, a cold endless abyss that seemed like they weren't touched by the rays of the sun for so long.
Lips trembling, hands frozen, I parted my lips, closed them, and opened them back. "Yuta," my breath hitched. "Your parents-" please drown me, drown me until I couldn't breathe for air- "they're gone."
Tremors ran down his body. The image in front of me was a memory I couldn't forget. The image of sadness and spurn and denial. His eyes were a startling shade of blue, a pellucid painting of ache.
"No," he lamented, leaving my eyes and staring far away. "No, no, no, you're lying. They can't... they ... they... they ... "
I held him steady, "Yuta, I'm not lying-" I gaped. "It's - they - w-we found it out earlier. They - they're dead, Yuta. I am so sorry, my love. I am so sorry I wasn't able to save them."
I watched his eyes. I watched the blue ripple like water. I watched them unfold pain and misery. I watched them take away everything bright and radiant from him.
I couldn't breathe.
And I couldn't explain what I felt when he stood up from the couch, anger replacing mourning, clouded with pallid, and I needed to run up to him and hug him again.
I've lied many times. I can lie to him again. To protect him. To lessen the damage. The sea wouldn't rage without the winds telling them to. They wouldn't touch the shore and would stay as is.
"It's the virus!" I gasped. "They can't tell you. They don't have the heart to. They had it, Yuta. And it killed them. Don't be angry to anyone, be angry to me. I am so sorry. Please don't go anywhere. Just stay here, please."
Eyes squeezing shut, teeth biting lip, tears threatening to fall down; I was shuddering and quaking like a turmoil boat.
My self-loathing deepened when he agreed, when he believed my false words, and most especially when he decided to stay.
The first hours of the night went on wordless. I was constraining my emotions. Yuta was back on the couch, not muttering a single word.
"I can't go to their funeral, can I?" he asked me when I locked the door.
I didn't have the heart to say no. But my silence gave himself an answer.
I was watching him from the kitchen as I slowly prepared our dinner. He was a void. A collapsed figure on the couch. Grandma had a lot of edibles stored in her cabinet. I gave Yuta a plate of food for him to eat, went back to the kitchen, and silently washed my own plate.
I went back to him after a few minutes, but he didn't even touch his food.
Every minute that passed was torture to me. His silence. His lethargy. His torpor. His rejection. His disinterest on talking to me, as if I wasn't with him in the first place.
The firefly we saw earlier was now knocking on the window.
Yuta was still on the couch, not moving a muscle.
Nostalgia hit me strongly.
An image from many years ago flashbacked in my mind, a vague cascading memory of myself and our lonely house that was supposed to be of threes, but was, instead, of twos.
I remembered weeping from the loss of one family member. I remembered the pain, the torment, and the misery. And I wasn't even attached, wasn't even as close as what Yuta's relationship to his parents were.
If I felt that way, how much more would he?
I fell to my knees in front of him. He was sitting, head down, eyes on the floor, covered by his coffee brown hair.
"Hey, if you want someone to talk with, I'm always here," I gulped. "W-Would you like a blanket?"
He didn't reply.
"Wait, I'll go get you one."
I went to Grandma's room, chose the most neatly folded blanket that I saw, and returned to Yuta immediately.
He was still on the same position.
Carefully, I laid the blanket beside him.
I returned to the space in front of him and kneeled again. He sensed my presence, but he didn't acknowledge it. I was devastated. I needed to try something, needed to comfort him. This time, not because I'm the Champion, but because I'm his.
It was a bold move.
I reached out for his face and lifted it carefully, until our eyes locked together like tides clashing on their journey to the sea.
A stab of guilt pierced through my chest when I saw the look in his eyes; a tinge of raw pain and mourning, a vibrant blue of solitary and crestfallen orbs, a joyless and melancholic picture of the boy that I love.
My heart was a swarm of forlorn emotions, a combination of fitful and steady chords. I was filled with dire need to stitch his broken soul back, to reattach the threads that came off, to mend him happy and perfect again.
I brought my lips softly to his mouth, a small peck - that's all there really is. This was an experiment of madness. A wishful thinking if I'm someone capable to wash his pain away. Because I was deluded, was desperate to comfort him, in any ways possible.
His mouth didn't respond, but he didn't break the kiss away either. He tasted like winter and ocean and sand, a grievous essence of nature. He had his eyes closed, brows furrowed, lips shut tightly as if it's afraid to return sensual kisses.
I rose from the floor to his lap, held him steadily, trapping him to the couch underneath me, pressing myself achingly close to him until every fragile lines of our body touched.
I kissed him again with a more eager force, molding his mouth together with mine, tasting and breathing everything he could offer.
Kissing Yuta before always felt like you're dancing yourself away from flames, like you just swallowed down an addictive venom, or surrendered yourself to a whirlwind of storm.
But his kisses right now were nothing like that. It was calm and crawling, slow and disarming. And I felt so drowned, so electrified, so dull.
I traced the outline of his jaw, then panicked when he stopped returning my kisses. I backed an inch away to study his face - his eyes were still closed, face pale, and lips slightly parted.
"I want to forget... " he said, an almost inaudible whisper. "I just want to to forget everything."
My chest ached so much more for him, and then I was flooded with the thought to comfort him again, to take him to another world, to replace his pain with mine. I wanted the ache. I wanted to feel it tonight, right now, so that our bodies will be kaleidoscopes of pain and bliss.
Then I'll make you forget everything. For tonight.
I want him to think about nothing but me, but us. I want to be inside his head, and much much more than that. Above all, I want him around me, beside me, in me.
I hovered my mouth above his. Kiss me, I thought, anguished, because he wasn't going to, I knew.
So I began planting roses to his garden, began touching him everywhere I could, his neck, his back, his chest, his shoulders, his stomach and then, finally, I was palming him through his pants.
An intricate science - a mindblowing discovery, with his whole body imprisoned and his breathing a sigh of intoxicated pleasure.
He's a ship in a bottle.
And I was the bottle, ready to cover everything of him with my tempered glass.
I needed to feel all of him more than I needed oxygen to breathe.
Then it was happening.
Piece by piece, our clothes went off and were thrown on the floor. We abandoned our uncertainities and worshipped each other's flaws. Clothed, we looked almost perfect. Naked, we revealed our scars and webs.
He was the one who removed my gloves and, taking a deep breath, I let him.
I let my fingers trace another human's skin for the first time after so, so many years. And it was perfect. He's perfect. It was sensational, the way he's letting my touch linger, and my insecurities were destroyed. These were my hands. Mine. Not my skin, but my hands, my body.
The wound left on his stomach from weeks ago was stitched and a reminder of pain. A flaw like mine. I stroked it with the heel of my hand carefully, telling him to hold steady and let me take care of him.
I felt thousands of emotions when he nodded, blue eyes surrendering. What was once a trickling sea was now a tranquil ocean.
I was barely breathing, barely alive as we fought our resistance. And I did everything, I was in control, and he seemed too lost and too docile as our bodies were molded into one, as close as two persons could be.
I expected the pain when it came. I gasped at its sharpness, holding tight on his chest as I moved above him.
At some point I opened my eyes and saw him watching me, measuring my progress, and he looked a little isolated and wan and ashen.
I'd never done this before. And I will never forget it. I was inventing something, something that words cannot express but only bodies do.
Slowly, the pain became a warmth that grew. My breath became short, and Yuta was panting, watching me in an intense way that makes me want to crumble like sand.
Then we began to ripple on the couch like a wave on the sea.
His eyes searched my soul and read my dreams. They were like two liquid puddles, clear and pure, as if it knew nothing evil. He was always trying to hide his pain and misery from the world through those eyes, but not from me. Not from me...
The night went on wordless, blinkered, a nighttime thing, a dream thing.
And we were sailors, abandoning our journey, abandoning all calamities, and we were just stranded to each other, lost and misplaced. But by tomorrow, we both knew it won't be the same anymore.
Outside, the ocean and the city were waiting for us.
______
A/n:
Quick survey
What time of the day do you usually read my updates?
What time of the day do you prefer to read my updates?
By the way, listen to this song, the vibe really fits the scene for "that" part :)