SAN tells me Seonghwa's apartment was the one on the fourth floor, three doors down when you turn left from the elevators. He doesn't accompany me up, saying that he'll be going back to the party as he was Wooyoung's ride back home. I ask him if he could drive Yeosang back to my place and at least feel my heart a little bit at ease when he's okay with it.
So up the building I go, following San's words and find the flat he was talking about. I wait nervously by the door, knocking with slight hesitance after ringing the bell twice. Yeji still takes up the space in my mind as I stumble on to his floor. The ghost of her fingers still hike my thighs, I can still feel her breathy voice in my ears. I shiver.
I knock on the door of unit number 43, letting my eyes roam along the hall while I wait.
And I guess Seonghwa wasn't expecting me in front of his door, or a guest of that matter, when he opens up the door with a slight scowl on his face. Of course he will, it was New Year's Eve and leading up to midnight, it would be crazy for someone to come knocking at his door. Seonghwa looks as if he'd just rolled out of bed, hair disheveled, droopy eyes and it seemed as if the hoodie he wears were thrown on hastily.
When he does see me though, standing almost awkwardly in front of him, his expression turns more shocked than annoyed.
"Hyeshin!" he speaks, his voice toned with surprise. "I thought you were at the party, what are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" I ask quietly.
Seonghwa hurries to push the door even wider to make space big enough for me to shuffle through. "Of course, of course!" he chirps.
"Sorry for the mess, I had some things due in a short time. I swear it's not like this all the time!" he apologises, leading me in and kicks a random sock out of the way. And shoves a half eaten packet of chips into a cupboard.
"Are you okay?" Seonghwa asks.
"Yeah," I force out, following closely behind him.
But the thing about Seonghwa is that he can read through me, eyes squinting past my hard exterior. He flicks on the living room lights, sighing at the clock. 10:46 pm — it shows me that I hadn't even survived half of the party and it stares down at me almost mockingly.
Lame.
"We both know you're lying," he remarks, gesturing for me to sit on his couch.
I don't reply and suppose he takes my silence as an honest answer.
Instead, I take a look around the room. It's not too wide and it's not too small either — it feels just right for a get-up-and-go-er person like Seonghwa. The lights he switched on glows a soft yellowish hue from the ceiling, giving the atmosphere a sleek and classy highlight. That, also feeling very Seonghwa. In front of his white leather couch is a small flatscreen TV that looks like it hasn't been used for a while judging by the thin layer of dust covering the screen. Despite the few leftover cups scattered on the ground, his apartment is definitely more cleaner than mine in its best appearance possible.
So I sink into the couch, my shoulders relaxing a little. It smells like him. Thoughts of Yeji slowly fades away along with my anxiousness, only the slightest. But I can still feel Seonghwa's gaze, concern burning through my skin.
"Yeah, something went wrong," he mutters, mostly to himself when I curl up in my seat.
The space next to mine dips slightly and Seonghwa scoots a little bit closer. "Tell me?" he asks softly as he caresses my hair gently. I find myself leaning into his touch, busying myself with the warm strokes of his hand when Yeji's figure comes back to me after he shoots his question.
My heart speeds up, there's a clenching around my throat and the sudden urge for me to grip something and cry builds up at the back of my mind. Seonghwa's eyes show alarm so he brings my head to his chest and does nothing but holds me tightly.
"Okay, okay..." I lose myself to the beating of his heart. "Sorry, don't tell me if you don't want to."
"You're here now," he adds in a hushed tone, "forget about it, hmm?"
Bless his soul as he tries everything he could to distract me — even though he doesn't exactly know what he's keeping me distracted from. Honestly, had this been on a completely different day with a completely different scenario, who knows how differently I'll handle the situation.
Seonghwa turns on the TV for us, the sound loud enough for me to block all of Yeji's smooth and breathless voice out of my mind. Together, we heave out all the blankets and pillows we could find and dump them on the living room carpet. We go back to carry Seonghwa's duvet off his bed, the boy cheering out a gleeful "wheeee...!" as he sits atop it and lets me drag him across the floor.
"Feel better?" his voice comes halfway through our Peter Pan movie.
Could it really be any better though? No, not really. Not when a mug of hot chocolate is placed not too far from where I am, the top decorated with misty steam. My eyes never leave the screen as I fish my hand into a bowl of sweet-glazed caramel popcorn resting on my stomach. I lie with my head on Seonghwa's lap, sighing at the blissful feeling when he runs his hand in my hair, twisting them into braids before detangling them all over again.
"Her name is Yeji," I blurt out suddenly, but the chest-tightening feeling now doesn't suffocate as much.
"Yeji?" Seonghwa echoes, a slight curiosity in his voice but doesn't push me further. He meets my eyes, gazing intently.
I inhale a deep breath. "Yeji was a girl in high school... partly the reason why I don't go to parties."
Seonghwa hums.
I sit up, bring the bowl of popcorn to my chest to lean back more comfortably on Seonghwa. He slings an arm around my shoulders, urging me to huddle closer, almost like he knew that the way he's holding me like this gives me a sense of warmth and comfort.
So I end up telling him everything about her, each sentence I say lifting a weight off my shoulders little by little.
Starting from our first meeting at school at the third floor bathroom, how I'd climb down my window at night so we could hang out at a local diner the night before semester finals, how she and Yeosang get along fine and how they act as if they've been friends for a fairly long time.
To our first time squished in a cleaner's closet, tripping over old brooms and mops, giggling silently as we wait for the principal to walk past. We'd crash every senior party, keeping ourselves alone in the corner, sipping on some coke spiked drink and she turned me into someone new I've never known before.
But like I said, I was too caught up in the heat of the moment and once I've realised I couldn't return what she felt and it haunts me.
Seonghwa rubs soothing circles on my arm as I tell him about what happened at the party — every corner had her shadows and when she comes, everything came crashing back.
"She knows you," I say, turning to look at him. "At least, she's heard of you. She knows your name."
"To be honest, if I hadn't seen San then, I don't know what I'd be doing now."
During all this, Seonghwa doesn't say anything but he listens to every single thing I said. Which I appreciate very much, all I needed was to get this out of my chest. It was all shock, but still, it left me too big of an impression to get out of my head.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"For what?" he questions amusingly.
"Listening," and Seonghwa lets a soft laugh, pressing his lips to the crown of my head and I smile.
"I can listen to you for hours."
We go back to enjoying the movie but our popcorn is long gone, the bowl abandoned by our sides. It's closer to midnight now and I feel my eyes drooping slightly, consciousness getting in and out of my headspace. It's silent but the buzzing voices of Peter and Wendy in the background and the quietness was a comfortable one, like we're enjoying each other's presence.
Seonghwa's heartbeat becomes quicker, I notice, when I wrap my arms around his torso and snuggle closer. My legs are across his lap and his hands rub my sides soothingly, chuckling a little when my head drops out of sleepiness. He brings the duvet higher, resting it beneath my chin.
It's nice, and warm, and it makes my cheeks burn out rosy colours. I feel safer.
"Are you staying over?" he asks, once the movie ends. The dark haired stretches his limbs, feet poking out from under the duvet, nose scrunched and eyes closed shut.
"Do you mind if I stay? My keys are with my car keys, those are with San."
He stands up, offering me a hand and snorts. "No, no you're always welcome here."
I take his hand and pull myself up, muttering a grateful thanks as I wrap myself with his duvet.
I shuffle along with him. "There's a guest room in front of mine, you can sleep there," he tells me and I feel great relief. "San crashes there sometimes so don't be surprised if you find some of his stuff there."
"We both know San would curl up at the bottom of your bed anyway," I joke, nudging my elbow at him lightly.
He leads me through a dark hallway, hand enclosed mine. On the walls were pictures and I slow my pace to look at each one by one. There were a lot that had him and San in one frame, one where a significantly younger Seonghwa was wearing a small firefighter suit and a family portrait. It was like a time frame, squished into one long board and I could see Seonghwa grow up beautifully.
Seonghwa notices my slowing steps, looking back at me. I feel his stare burning on the side of my head, the silence not making me want to say anything. The air changes around us and I can almost hear his soft breathing. Especially in this dark hallway that he obviously couldn't bother turning the lights on, when he stops his steps and tightens his hand around mine.
At the end of the corridor was a window overlooking the streets underneath us. Moonlight seeps in through the glass and I could see speckles of dust drifting down to the floor. The moments before midnight was always when it's the most quiet. Cars have stopped passing and it was still, almost, just the darkness, the moon and the faint dots of the brightest of stars.
My feet take me to the window and I stare outside. From here, I could see beam lights of green and yellow from somewhere afar. The city was still very much awake though, I could tell by the small white glow of luminescence dotting across the streets. Music linger in my ears, I can hear the beat from far, far away. Like a shadow of sounds. But they were only in the background.
The glass was opened slightly ajar, and the late December breeze blows gently on my face. It's just so nice up here, I want to sit and watch the world pass from where I stand for a very long time. I feel Seonghwa's presence stepping next to me and we watch the city together, hands intertwined.
"Pretty, huh?" I say mindlessly, admiring the scenery. Seonghwa hums.
Then it begins. Like a fallen star, but it climbs higher and higher into the sky before it bursts, blooming into blossoming sparks of red and orange and yellow and green. The noise still takes me in by surprise, making me jump a little closer to the boy next to me. Fireworks explode in bright chromatic colours, dazzling in my eyes and although I've seen the same thing for over twenty years, it still amazes me how something so big, so thunderous be so majestic and breathtaking.
When I take a glance to the side, Seonghwa's gaze is fixated on the view. Shades of gold illuminate his face and accentuating his already perfect features into a more perfect embodiment of being heavenly unreal. The way his eyes rest softly at the fireworks reflect a storm of rainbows in his orbs made me almost weak in the knees and when it shifts to meet mine, a rush of heat creeps up my neck.
"Happy New Year," he says, so quietly he's almost whispering. As if he's scared to ruin the delicate air around us.
I let out a small gasp when his eyes shift colours, swirling a rich turquoise with his warm brown ones. My other empty had reaches for his, finding myself drowned in the beautiful colours that can pass as a magical sphere.
My heart still shoots high into the sky, nonetheless, when Seonghwa leans close.
And closer.
Closest.
Our foreheads are touching now. Seonghwa lets out a shaky breath, letting his sparkling azure eyes distract me from the soft strokes of his thumb on the back of my hands. A tingling sensation dances on my back, a mix between cold and warm right at the back of my shoulder blades. My toes curl in anticipation.
"Your eyes are blue," he tells me.
"So are yours."
"They're very pretty."
"Shut up," I roll my eyes, forcing myself to bite back a smile when I feel my heart stumble.
He chuckles, before tilting his head and I feel the softest, softest ever nudge on my lips. My hands tighten around his, my heartbeat thumping in my head and I swear he could feel my pulse against his skin. When his lips brushed mine for the faintest of seconds and linger there, ever so near and intimate, it sends a wave of shivers down my spine. It feels so unreal, I feel like I could wake up from this dream any moment.
Seonghwa's hand reaches up to my cheek before guiding it to meet his lips once more, my eyes fluttering close and I lose myself in my own little space of utopia. He kisses me deeply, soft, careful, gentle. I feel his smile, cradling me like I could be gone at any second. Except that I wouldn't disappear. I'd never.
The firework explosions outside are insignificant now that the feeling forms inside me, I don't hear them anymore.
And so the world spins away, just me and Seonghwa, and this little break in time we have to ourselves. Yeji's words, the ghost of her touches are long gone and forgotten as I melt more and more into his. He moves, lightly grazing my top lip with his tongue but never going further and I feel myself falling into a deeper hole. Like a way of saying that he's here and that I'm safe and nothing can hurt me anymore.
Seonghwa was magical and I didn't quite believe it until now. How was anyone supposed to be this breathtaking anyway? In everything that he does. Then again, the mark on my back was magic so I suppose beings like Seonghwa, who was absolutely too ethereal to even exist, do exist.
After what only seems like it was barely a second, when I lose my breath and my face is warm and I feel light on air, my heart is racing so fast I'm not sure it will ever slow down again. And when I see his stunning blue eyes again, I freeze on the spot, processing what had happened.
But of course, Seonghwa being Seonghwa, only smiles fondly. He runs his hand on the side of my face. "It's late," he says, "go to sleep."
So when I finally enter the guest room and almost slam the door behind me, a grin breaks out on my face. That night, following myself flopping down on the bed, I let myself get buried underneath the blankets and recall the sweet taste of Seonghwa dancing on my lips.
My mark glows in the dark and I drift off into one of the best sleep I've had in a while.
+
ddeonghwa hyeshin finally kith owo hehet i felt loneliness creep up my ass writing this and they're just characters skjhfdjskjfdsg. but anyhoooo i hope all of you stay safe and warm and uh, don't forget to wash your hands and don't go out if you don't have to. don't get sick:CC i wov yuu
this one was a pre long one wasnt it:/