Bulletproof Love
Bulletproof Love
"I breathe you in with smoke, in the backyard lights."
Seunghyun still smells the lingering scent of cigarettes and smoke and all that screams out JiyongJiyongJiyong. He sweeps his gaze over the empty apartment (save for furnitures) and wonders.
"We used to laugh until we choked, into the wasted nights."
Jiyong hands a cigarette over and Seunghyun shoots him a look. "You know I don't smoke," he starts. Jiyong laughs "You stopped." He corrects; Seunghyun shrugs, eyebrows arched and a slight grin forming. "Don't you miss it? Don't you get tempted?" Jiyong asks and Seunghyun almost loses his mind staring at Jiyong's big brown eyes staring back, lips parting; cigarette between his fingers. He swears he sees a tiny flick of tongue.
"Why?" Seunghyun asks, word slightly slurred.
"I dunno," Jiyong gazes at the night sky. "I mean, I still smoke--though I try to quit but they are excuses--and you know we kiss and stuff, so you'll taste smoke and..." he trails off, getting embarrassed he brings such silly matters up. He turns a few shades redder because he still feels Seunghyun's eyes on him.
Seunghyun laughs, briefly gets up and walks towards Jiyong, bends down and leans in, painfully slowly, (damn him, Jiyong still feels his heart hammering madly and they've already been together for a year) and presses his lips against the younger's. Seunghyun kisses him gently and slowly, lips brushing, and Jiyong slips his hand entwining with Seunghyun's hair. He pulls away, and looks eye-level with Jiyong (who still feels his heart at his throat) and smiles, "I'm addicted to you. You're my brand of heroin." Jiyong can't help but break into laughter, a calming warm sensation wrapping around him and his stomach all butterflies and .
Seunghyun likes it, he likes hearing Jiyong laugh--a pretty ring to his ears, and he likes seeing him laugh, eyes all crescent and teeth showing; a wide grin splaying. He likes it all too much.
"It was the best time of my life, but now I sleep alone."
Seunghyun rolls over to his side on bed one Sunday morning, lazy and groggy, waking up to a beautiful day, with sunlight streaming in and the cool breeze slipping in but no Jiyong. No--more--Jiyong. Seunghyun swallows and gets irritated as he buries his face into his pillow. He needs to change the damn mattress to Single size, needs to but keeps forgetting so. (doesn't really want to.)
"So darling don't, don't wake me up, because my thrill is gone."
Seunghyun doesn't want to get up, doesn't want to entertain the world. He doesn't have Jiyong by his side anymore, to make it all better. He doesn't have Jiyong to look forward to.
"And you've gone and sewn me onto this bed, the taste of you and me."
Seunghyun's at the furniture shop (clad in all black and carrying a satchel, a brown satchel Jiyong specially bought for him when he went London) and he's finally gotten himself to get a single mattress--or a smaller one--but he isn't listening to the salesman, who's busy blabbering, smiles all strewn onto his face, tailing behind Seunghyun. He voices out sets of different persuading commentaries and Seunghyun still isn't listening. He ends up leaving the store not getting anything.
"I wanna hold your hand so tight I'm gonna break my wrist,"
Seunghyun's sipping coffee and reading the newspaper, glancing at his clock--he still has a good fifteen minutes before he needs to leave for work (in which, too much piled up for him to do). His mind should be anywhere but a particular Kwon Jiyong (it still wanders there, Seunghyun decides to let things be) and this time, his mind decides to be cruel, reminiscing about the first time he held Jiyong's hand.
They are strolling on the streets (after a movie), with Jiyong in front and Seunghyun stares at the swinging of Jiyong's hand,
back and forth, back and forth. He feels like he's being taunted, his temptation to just grab the blonde's hand escalating with every second. He finally lets irrationality take over him and runs towards Jiyong and pulls his hand. Jiyong looks at him, slightly startled but doesn't say anything and looks away, shy grin breaking on his face. "Oh look," Seunghyun remembers himself say, "Our hands are such perfect fit." He interlocks their fingers and Jiyong laughs; laughs because it's cheesy, and laughs because he likes it.
"And now there's nothing to do but scream at the drunken moon."
Seunghyun screams into the night sky, hands grippling the balcony, rage and sadness mashes into one, manifests into something else and lets his voice rip apart the stillness of a Wednesday night. His head tilts down and gaze drops unto the bustling roads of Seoul city, and he wonders briefly if the pain he gets for jumping down (broken arms, broken legs, broken head, ribs--whatnot) measures up to the current pain he's feeling.
Probably not, he decides so.
"This isn't fair, no! Don't you try to blame this on me."
"Why are you being like this, Hyun?"
"Stop it, Hyun,"
"What is wrong with you, Hyun ?"
"Stop being a jealous prick, Hyun."
"You're being ing unreasonable Hyun!"
"No, ing lord, I don't like him Hyun! What is wrong with you Hyun?"
"You're getting out of line, Hyun."
"Why are you being like this?"
"My love for you was bulletproof but you're the one who shot me."
Seunghyun doesn't care about the stares thrown into his direction when he's with Jiyong, he doesn't mind teases his colleagues and friends make (for having a boyfriend) because he isn't actually gay, Jiyong is just the only exception. And he doesn't mind at all if anyone ever pokes fun or doubt their relationship. They're the ones in the relationship, they're the ones in love so he doesn't care about about the rest. But when Jiyong says something, eyes wide, voice jaded, it breaks Seunghyun apart like the worst.
He doesn't care if someone ridicules his love for Jiyong, or vice versa (actually he does, he'd throw a punch), and no one, Choi Seunghyun knows, no one could break them apart or tear them away. No one, but himself or Jiyong.
"Hyun, I think...(inhales and pauses) I think uh, we should rethink us."
It was enough for Seunghyun to collapse on the floor, drop dead and sprawled, soul shattered, heart-broken.
He wonders if his love for Jiyong is too strong, or too weak. (that he's suffering like that)
"You should sing my name, pretend that it's a song cause forever it's yours."
Seunghyun wonders if Jiyong still feels the same way (it's been a year since they broke up--Jiyong broke up with him--) and he just wonders, if he ever crosses Jiyong's mind (like how his does all the ing time). Would that be regret, sadness, or not at all?
"And I'll sing along, but I'm barely hanging on, no I'm barely hanging on."
It's their anniversary--third if they were still strong--and Seunghyun deliberates if he should send him a text, maybe he's scared, just like him, maybe Jiyong doesn't know how to approach Seunghyun either. They can't be lovers--why not be friends? (Painfully cliche, Seunghyun notes) He'll send a text sometime during the day, right now he has work to focus on. Yeah, he'll send one.
At the end of the day he saves all the texts as drafts, and before he knew it, it becomes midnight and the 22nd is over, and so does his courage (which was never really there to begin with).
"And now there's nothing to do, but tear my voice apart, nothing to do and scream at the drunken moon".
Seunghyun's love for Jiyong was bulletproof, but Jiyong was the one who shot him.
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