Noir. Nocturne.

 

The edge of nothing and everything bleeding in between her flickering lashes, the mole dancing above her lips tracing constellations in broad daylight. The volume in her eyes and the silence in her words and the want. The something, in her touch. He doesn't want to be breathless.

 

She steps into the room and he doesn't want to automatically notice, the whiff of crashing waves and corroding beaches, peach soju and hazelnut chocolate, cold pressed flower seeds that make him dizzy and wonder if he found a new high besides the icy blunt burning too close to his fingers. He doesn't want to. Kyungsoo, he tells himself, Kyungsoo you don't want this. The blunt burns his fingers, and Kyungsoo doesn't notice.

 

Maybe, he kind of does.

 

Between what if’s and why not’s and not so secret touches, not so obvious confessions, Kyungsoo might just want this. Kyungsoo might just want her, when she spends the night in his apartment, in his shirt, in his arms. When her feet twirl over his floorboards, rambling about something he doesn't care yet really cares about, when she's demanding for physical affection he doesn't know how to ask for, when she fills the silence he never really liked, he wants her.

 

Throwing questions into the air but never catching the answers, holding his breath right when he's about to suffocate. Do Kyungsoo is an idiot. Do Kyungsoo is an absolute idiot, for he is so hopelessly in love with Jung Soojung.

 

He had her somewhere in between whispered secrets and hearty silences, held her down as if she was the slave but never left as if enslaved. He was the waves crashing along the shore, and she simply happened to embrace what he took and what he left. Maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was the one who took. Soojung teetered between his sorrow and smiles like he traces the dips between her collar and her jaw, the lines that draw an image he held so dear behind smokescreen lids.

 

When she stole burning incense off his fingers, inhaling a puff of his breath, smile sweeter than the stain of on his tongue. When she counts stars on his cheeks, when she traces scars on his skin, when she draws, magic on her fingertips- burning across his chest. He wants to throw up, but all he does is stare at how she rambles on about sugar-coated cereal.

 

He isn’t oblivious, though. He sees the way she is eyed. The way she is seized, but never owned. Nothing is like the way Soojung curls up on his lap, feeding off his affection as if she had been starved all along.  Kyungsoo holds her a little tighter, then. Stealing her breath for a little longer, swirling stars in her eyes a little further. Soojung wobbles around his room just the way he wants her to, and she knows, he knows too. Soojung is his.

 

Falling in love is not an option.

 

Falling for Soojung was not an option. It was there, clear as day since the time he stumbled into her grasp in the silence of a warm night, her asking for hugs when he was too close to falling apart. He saw it in her eyes, the little moments they spend too long in the quiet, waiting to speak what thunders in crimson. Desire. Burning embers stoked too close to flames, only to be covered in ash or kisses. Always the kisses. Bright, burning, electric orange and too close to melting his ribs out if he isn’t careful. Be careful, Kyungsoo.

 

For she was a storm, and he was caught in the eye. Be careful, Kyungsoo, he chants, boots scuffling at the endless caresses of the pavement. Today the smoke burned different. Charred, dark. Musky. Real. Falling in love was so real. Falling for Soojung was so real. Past a million what if’s a million more wait to take place, and Kyungsoo is stuck in a place between confusion and apprehension that makes his lungs feel like he’s swallowed a mouthful of the ash he routinely inhales. This time when the burns his fingers, Kyungsoo notices.

 

Days, weeks, then months. Everything passes by a blur, same as the masses that walk past him on the roads every day but never came to his notice. Everything is the same. Soojung is the same. Her smile is the same, her wildflower scent is the same, even her tiptoe across his floorboards are the same. She lands on his lap again even when the couch seats more than him alone, even when the nights are warm enough for him to perspire between heartbeats. Those nights they simply spend closer, the more their skin dampening the more they attempt to dry off. Everything was the exact same.

 

Maybe not saying was better?

 

Maybe it was the security of gray areas. Maybe it was a facade, but at least it didn’t do harm. But it did. Soojung might not have showed it but she wants him to say it, she waits for him to utter anything- breath hitching when his lips part, tongue curling to form anything similar to an ‘L’. Kyungsoo knows. The way her huffs elongate to sighs against his throat. The way she holds on a little longer every time- he can barely see the times where she and he are separate in the same space anymore. Dangerous. Soojung was so dangerous, says the thundering of his heart. But the more breathless he makes her, the closer he draws in. Light-headed. Flutter.

 

Kyungsoo saw a million ways and days Soojung could’ve chosen to leave. Even now, as he turns away from the expectation of trying to say what his heart screams and mind screams against he expects Soojung to quietly pick up her clothes and simply, walk out. Neither of them were up for words unnecessarily thrown around, at least that he can be thankful for. Whirring past all the possibilities of failure he fails to conjure up one where she slides up behind him, arms thin, almost frail around his torso. She presses close, and Kyungsoo can smell the final whiffs of her peach soju escapades, cold against her lips but warm when pressed onto his.

 

He can’t fathom. Kyungsoo doesn’t understand, even when Soojung whispers dainty constellations under his ears, when she keeps returning, waves repeatedly crashing. Over. over, and over. Kyungsoo, he doesn’t understand why Jung Soojung never leaves.

 

He wishes his lips were as articulate as his constantly whizzing mind was, choosing to bury his nose over her heartbeat instead.

 

Some days don’t pass without her quiet cravings for everything sweet. Some days she wants the exact opposite. Some days it was rolled and lit starbursts of colour, some days it was the kaleidoscope of wild dreams. Most days, it was just Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo when he holds her hand, Kyungsoo when he smiles, Kyungsoo when he caresses too softly and holds on too hard. Her bruises bleed sunsets and it’s all Kyungsoo, it’s still Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo talks but he doesn’t speak, he listens but pretends he only hears. Maybe Kyungsoo was all Soojung ever wanted.

 

Petrichor stains under her nail beds, cobalt panes, smoked incense. Kyungsoo was everywhere, yet it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Kyungsoo counted the spaces between her fingertips until they didn’t exist between his, and she wishes he’d never stop smiling. Never straighten the crinkle beside his eyes, the dimple too close to heart stealing lips that won’t fade. Please don’t fade. Everything about their story was so whimsical, drawn on reflections in still waters and black ink, pulled between what dreams are made of and what wishes are whispered with. Soojung can’t help but to wish there was a ripple in the mirror, instead of her mocking reflection.

 

Kyungsoo thought too much. Crashing, rolling, falling over the same cliffside over and over again- secretly meeting death for her enchanting poison tinted kiss. Flickering between the presence of earth beneath her feet and sinking quicksand. Kyungsoo thinks way too much and she wishes not for him to stop but for him to let go, instead. Why not let the thoughts breathe a round of fresh air, spring daisies and die peacefully on his lips? Why ponder and ponder, why replay it over and over, a curse of never-ending never-broken rerun tapes racing a million miles a minute. Soojung wishes she could hear it. The little ticks and whirrs of a copper clock, waiting to chime.

 

Soojung found home in the space between his words and the depth of his gaze, tucked under his throat and over his lap- home. Everything was the same, from the drop in his breath to the tickle of his fingertips exploring her nooks and crannies again, retracing memories etched in words. There were no sweets tonight, though. No smoke stains or fizzing pink, nowhere to hide words besides in each other's heartbeats and lack of confessions. The night was warm, smelling faintly of oncoming rain. Soojung looks up, and there’s question in his eyes, there’s doubt that loosens his grip on her skirt and shallows out his breath. She sits up then, bracing his thighs, his question, bleeding cobalt and indigo as she answers, lesser thinking and more feeling, lesser alcohol and more intoxicated.

 

“Kyungsoo, you idiot. I love you.”