A/N: michaeng is sailing again yay! im sorry for grammar mistakes and sorry if this doesnt make sense BCOS IM SO FRUSTRATED RIGHT NOW PPL KEEP  REMINDING ME THE STUFFED TOY AND THE JOURNAL I KNOW THOSE WERE ANGSTY FICS BUT HEY THE END EXISTS TOO AND IT GAVE US THE HAPPY ENDING WE ALL WANT. I KNOW I WROTE ANGST IN THE PAST BCOS I GOT SO EMO BUT IT WAS JUST A PHASE AND NOW IM REPENTING FOR MY SINS SO IM SHOVING THIS TRASHY FLUFF DOWN  YOUR THROATS.

When you try to hold your breath for too long

Love doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

To Chaeyoung, love was a feeling that is raw and so strong, closely similar to the way we are forced to exhale after holding our breath for too long.

She couldn’t particularly name this feeling until she met Mina.

She has never seen a girl that was harsh, beautiful and disorderly. Her face always lingers in Chaeyoung's mind. The deep swirls of black in her eyes. The sweep of her dark brows against her rosy cheeks. The lush fullness of her lips.

Well to Chaeyoung, Mina was notorious for the cacophony of emotions that no matter how hard she tries to block, it always finds a way to assault relentlessly upon her every sense.

Mina’s presence is like a sweet plumes growing exponentially thicker, hungrily closing in around her. It clouds her vision and it surely does smother her senses.

Chaeyoung wonders how Mina could have such power over her.

Chaeyoung did not know. There was no answer to any of it—to the sudden rush of short euphorias or to the crazy painful bliss from suffocation.

Chaeyoung regards the feeling as temporary. Maybe time will dim its fervor and then it will lose its power, like how stars eventually lose their luster, until it would no longer have the effect it once had.

So Chaeyoung waited. 

Chaeyoung had waited with bated breath. Because Chaeyoung thinks as long as her lungs can bear not to die, she can endure living in a world without breathing.

But the waiting had only made it into something more profound.

Because when Mina waltzes towards her with such familiarity and ease, Chaeyoung would still feel the unsolicited sense rising in her chest.

The agonizing contractions begin in her ribs and diaphragm, the oxygen thinning out and the pain blooms in her chest, sprouting like flowers in her lungs.

Mina closes their burning distance and Chaeyoung wanted nothing more than to look away.

Mina pulls her face into her palms, guiding Chaeyoung’s gaze to lock with her own.

Mina’s eyes are searching desperately for something she couldn’t quite fathom and it sets her chest to burst in rolling sheets of fire.

A part of her wants to swim into the surface of an unknown. Away from Mina’s rich and claustrophobic character of her presence.To find a room to breathe.

But another part of her wants to just let Mina’s etherizing plumes into her lungs, let it extinguish the searing pain brought by the flames and drown.

The drumming sound coming within the confines of her ribcage began to fill her ears; her thoughts were spiraling, slowly growing into a howling tempest as Mina moves closer to kiss her.

But Mina halts.

Their lips almost touching, but not quite.

The drumming noise ceases, her firestorm of thoughts dies down.

The world falls deathly silent as Mina whispers the words against her lips.

“I love you Chaeyoung…….”

Chaeyoung feels her lungs nearly resigning. She had almost, almost, let go of her breath.

Mina suddenly pulls away and conjures the ugliest resounding laugh Chaeyoung has ever heard.

It hurts to see Mina try to mask the pain. It breaks Chaeyoung’s heart to hear Mina’s breaking.

Soon Chaeyoung discovers that it hurts to breathe as she watches Mina drift away, never looking back.

……But I know you will never love me back.

The air hits her lungs full force when she gasps. Mina loves her. She loves Chaeyoung. How dumb of her to not realize this.

Mina shared with Chaeyoung her dreams, her fears, and her monsters but Chaeyoung never cared. Mina showed Chaeyoung her cracks but Chaeyoung left it open and never filled. Mina had let Chaeyoung break her heart but Chaeyoung never tried to put the broken pieces back.

For what Chaeyoung could just think of  was herself. And the breath she was holding in.

What Chaeyoung just did was remain there solidified to the spot, quietly staring at Mina’s disappearing figure.

Too late. She blinks. Too late. Mina is gone now.Tears rush into her eyes as regret claws at every last bit of her skin.

She shouldn’t have denied her lungs the air it obviously needed. She shouldn’t have denied her emotions. She shouldn’t have denied Mina.

But instead, she should have reached for Mina’s trembling hands. She should have held Mina tight. She should have told Mina that the pain had become unbearable that she can no longer hold her breath —that Chaeyoung loves her too.

And those ‘should have’s’ and ‘shouldn’t have’s’ consume her thoughts on her waking days.

Chaeyoung expels a deep shuddering sigh as she stares at the bleak white ceiling of her bedroom for a few moments before her gaze slides over the sleeping girl in her arms.

Her breathing pattern is even and in regular rhythm, partly parted, her relaxed lips forming a slight smile.

The girl’s eyes flutter open and she is instantly reminded of a certain pair of deep and dark mesmirizing eyes.

Disappointment settles in Chaeyoung’s stomach when the set of eyes staring back at her couldn’t even come close to those shades.

Still, Chaeyoung smiles at the girl and greets her good morning. The girl smiles back and she kisses Chaeyoung on her lips. The girl nestles her face into the crook of Chaeyoung’s neck, sighing in content.

Chaeyoung pulls the girl closer as she looks back to the ceiling.

“Hey you seem waist-deep in thoughts. Mind sharing what’s exactly going on inside your head?”

Chaeyoung just smiles wistfully as she fits their hands, intertwining their fingers tightly. Too small. Chaeyoung thinks. Her hand is too small.

“Nothing much. I was just thinking of ways to die.”

The girl laughs, “Cliché but I want to know more.”

“I was thinking--” Chaeyoung pauses for a moment, letting her thoughts wander for a bit.

 “--if you can kill yourself by holding your breath.” Her mind conjures an image of Mina. She tries to force the sudden image away but it has been with her for years and will likely remain for more.

“No Chaeyoung, you can’t. It’s always a reflex to exhale.”

Chaeyoung only hums in reply.

I love writing fluff.

ALSO SHOUT OUT TO @chaenmina and @Schild_Twice thank you beshies for helping me in my tagalog struggles lol you are now spared from my knives.

lets be friends on twitter @black_sttarrxx

again, pls call me a fluff author